#current era has them just use a mix i'm pretty sure

[nenoname]

been seeing too many posts insisting ford should call stan "lee" lately, i'm seconds away from writing the most jarring fic where dipper inexplicably calls mabel "belle" the entire time

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I wanted to ask your ask the lady blog but I can't find it.

Do you think the lady's library is organised at all? There are some parts which you obviously wouldn't be able to reach unless you can fly, and I wonder what kind of books are in a pile if she's the only one reading them. Maybe she has someone or something put her books away or shelve new books, but they don't always do a great job?

OH... MY LADY BLOG... MY POOR LADY BLOG THAT'S SITTING ON A SHELF TAKING DUST...

Alright, so! This is actually a very interesting questions because the answer is a very contraddictory one: kiiiiiinda? There's definitely... a lot pointing to it not being as organized these days...

But, in contrast, I will also say that there seems to be a method to the madness -- as there usually is with the Lady.

The books I pointed out up there are just a few piles of the ones that can be found out of place, and somehow their scattered and overwhelming presence seems to be invoking the exact opposite feeling her bedroom does: whereas her private space feels barren and sombre, the rest of her quarters are full of mayhem in a way that feels almost quietly frenetic. Those books look like they've been taking dust for a while... however, there is a few things of interest to note.

In the part of the Residence with the Book Puzzle, you'll notice that the bookshelf has different kind of eyes depicted at the bottom of each.

(Images are a courtesy of @/dailylittlenightmares, go follow them)

These are meant to match up with the respective books, who also have the same symbols. Their shapes match the ones underneath the three statuettes RK has to retrieve, so I came to assume these books/bookshelves specifically are each tied to one specific predecessor. Maybe some of them were their belongings, books from their era, or this is simply another method to categorize specific topics so that it's easy to not mix them up.

This is of course open to interpretation - especially considering there's no eye with the shape of an exagon (which is under the green statuette), but all other bookshelves in that room have this symbol underneath:

... indicating that the books in them might have miscellaneous subjects.

I'm pretty sure, however, that this method of categorization only counts for this specific room as I was not able to find any other bookshelf that has any of these symbols outside of it.

Considering this is also where you find the book with the Lady's mask on the cover, my current interpretation is that the books in this room are all tied to her magical practices. Now, whether this room in the library was actually made by her or by someone before her, that's up for debate: I'm leaning towards the latter honestly. The entire Residence feels like a joint effort, put together through a few generations -- which is probably why it feels more chaotic as opposed to the Lady's own bedroom... but digressing.

There are items here which suggest that, at one point, she did need furniture in order to reach the higher shelves.

I wonder if she still uses it to this day... admittedly she's rather tall now, and as you pointed out she can fly.

(Imagining a little Lady trying to make her way thru the tall bookshelves :( )

I honestly don't think there's anyone here doing the organizing besides herself. Which is probably why it doesn't look very organized at all. The Lady is very precise, but only when it comes to mantaining the very fragile structure of the chaos she's grown accustomed to. At this point there's no reason in putting the books away as long as she can still use them. It's a controlled mayhem, and when something becomes out of place - like the Runaway Kid - she disposes of it. In a way, it reflects how she rules the Maw, right?

[nhaneh]

@lynxden Okay, so, one of the big challenges with digital graphics is memory - if you want to be able to display a consistent image, you inevitably have to store some kind of representation of what you want displayed in memory somewhere, and as the quality and detail of what you want to display grows, so does the amount of memory required to represent it.

Take a fairly common screen resolution like, say, 1920x1080 pixels - how much memory does it take to represent that? Well, we have roughly about 2 million pixels... and since we likely want full RGB colour, we're likely using four bytes per pixel - one byte for each colour channel of red, green, and blue, and then one extra byte for padding since computers prefer to work with even byte counts... and that gives us roughly 8 megabytes. Now say we're running a game that has a framerate of 60 fps, and suddenly we need to rewrite that screen memory 60 times per second, meaning we need to be able to write roughly 480 megabytes per second to screen memory just to keep the display updated.

This was... not something that computers used to be able to do.

Now, sure, we can reduce the number of bytes we use per pixel, but that comes at a severe limit to how many colours we can represent: if we use only a single byte per pixel, then that gives us only 8 bits total. Say we divide those up like maybe 3/3/2, then that gives us only 8 shades of red and green, and only 4 shades of blue - sure we can mix them however we like, but it's not really going to be able to represent smooth colour gradients.

So what if we take another approach - we still just use a single byte per pixel, but instead of using that to represent an RGB colour... we use it with a look-up table containing 256 different RGB colour values - this means we still have access to the full RGB colour spectrum, albeit with the limitation that we can only display 256 different colours at the same time.

This is an 8-bit indexed palette - each pixel takes up a single byte, which is then used to reference an index in an array of 256 RGB colours. This is how colours were represented both in .gif images, as well as in old VGA graphics mode 13h (320x200 pixels, 256 colours) on DOS era PCs. The SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis used the same technique, though it was limited to only 64 simultaneous colours.

There are advantages to this beyond just needing less memory (and less CPU cycles copying said memory) - since each pixel value represents a palette index rather than a distinct colour, there's a type of animation you can do called Colour Cycling or Palette Animation where instead of changing the pixels themselves, you change the colour values in the palette array - meaning you can change what colour a particular index represents across the entire screen without having to actually modify a single pixel value.

To take an example from wikimedia:

There are other tricks you can do with this too - ever thought about how the Sonic the Hedgehog games for the Mega Drive/Genesis did water stages? The game basically keeps track of which horizontal scanline the console is currently sending the video output and when it reaches the point where the waterline is, it quickly swaps out the palette from the regular to the underwater one, making everything in the lower half of the screen have a different colour from the top half.

Nowadays this kind of approach to representing colour is largely considered obsolete, but it was a common approach for quite some time, since it could give you quite a range of colours without too much of a performance or memory cost - so long as you only ever needed so many at once. Of course, it also means your ability to do colour blending or light and shading can get pretty limited since you can't just mix pixel RGB values together, but there's still quite a bit you can do with it.

Of course, since I'm doing it on a modern PC running in 32-bit full colour, my implementation is basically a 256-index array of uint32_t containing RGB values and I just do a final pass of translating from the 8-bit framebuffer to the 32-bit framebuffer by using the 8-bit values as array indices before doing the final blit from the 32-bit framebuffer to the actual screen.

I used to poke around with this kind of graphics on the actual VGA mode 13h at some point however long ago, so for me it's a pretty nostalgic approach to doing graphics.

[gardenschedule]

i’d love to hear more of your thoughts on perceptions of paul as calculating and john’s paranoia. I mean by the various quotes, it seems john was pretty adamant on distrusting paul, so you would think he’d be done with him completely? yet he still thinks about him all the time and even called him when he found out yoko was pregnant with sean. and the fact that he kept asking everyone and their mothers whether or not he should play with paul again during the lost weekend. i mean, there was definitely mixed signals going on?

Unfortunately I do think the paranoia continued up until the end and was quite present in the househusband era, it just never got bad enough (or John could never convince himself) to fully cut Paul off. It might have gotten the best of him if not for a few mitigating factors:

Paul is a pretty persistent guy and continually tried to repair the friendship for most of the 70s. John needs to be pursued and reassured and Paul didn't mind doing that.

Most of the paranoia seemed to revolve around business issues, and they had the 'no talking about business' rule for their phone calls to prevent screaming matches. They also had the 'stop fighting in the media' rule which probably helped.

John was a mercurial personality, I imagine his feelings about Paul (and whether or not he saw him as a threat) changed a lot depending on his current mood, drug use, how things were going with his career/marriage/songwriting/finances, etc

I think John was self aware about his paranoia and insecurity, he seemed to have worked on it (like in his audio diaries where he talked about wanting to avoid feeling competitive with his peers, including Paul)

I don't think Paul ever actually did anything bad enough to warrant ending the relationship? The big betrayal was the lawsuit, and they got past that. If John & Yoko were on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out that Paul has done something really awful to screw them over, I'm not sure that day ever came.

But ultimately - they were close friends and partners for a very long time. There must have been a solid core of trust, love and respect for them to join their names and share their earnings and plan to work together until they were old. John never completely lost that bit of pride in what he and Paul did together, and pride in himself for choosing Paul.

[alex51324]

OK, so I'm now caught up on Interview With the Vampire (TV). I have some observations:

Wow, was that trial ever a master-class in poor-little-meow-meowification! I was legit getting flashbacks from the (season 1-hiatus) Izzy Trenches, with the whole, "Pointing out that he doesn't have to put up with my behavior, and he wouldn't recommend anyone else do so either, is--due to Meow-Meow's personal circumstances--an act of such exquisite cruelty that it excuses pretty much anything he does while he's upset about it," and "sure, yeah, this thing Meow-Meow did sounds bad to you normies, but because we're pirates vampires it's barely anything; a slight loss of temper for which he should be forgiven completely because the other dude said something mean", thing, plus the side of "Oh, but that threatening to leave is the most brutal form of abuse thing applies only to Meow-Meow, and in only one direction; it's fine for decide to part ways with anyone else at any time for any reason, and nobody else has any right to find that at all upsetting."

(To be clear, I genuinely liked this in IWTV; it was interesting seeing an audience falling eagerly into this trap, when the audience is also fictional, and the show itself is winking and nodding to us about it.)

(I do wonder if the show is going to grapple with this at all next season--the reunion suggests that Louis had also fallen into this trap. I'm unconvinced by the fan-theories suggesting that Lestat was an unwilling participant in the trial; there might have been some use of vampire mind-powers to keep him on-script during the proceedings, but I think he genuinely didn't realize he gave a shit about Claudia until it was too late.)

2. The aging-up of Claudia's character (she was a little little girl in the books) puts her at right about the same age as The Vampire Currently Known As Armand was when he was originally sex trafficked as a human, and I wonder about that stirring up some long-buried feelings. Does the grotesque parody of innocence inherent in Baby LuLu have some parallel in his experience as a sexually exploited child? What happened to Arun--or to Amadeo, even--if he failed to play his part with a reasonable facsimile of enthusiasm?*

On the one hand, I'm interested in these potential parallels; on the other hand (glancing back up at point 1), it's a tricky needle to thread, to see these parallels as contextualizing Armand's actions, but not excusing them. I do not entirely trust fandom not to turn this into, "Well, she reminded him of His Worst Trauma, so everything he did to her was basically self-harm, and he pretty much had to kill her in order to achieve closure on that period of his life**."

(*Some of this may be addressed in the books? The Vampire Armand came out on the waning edge of my Anne Rice phase; I'm pretty sure I read it, but I don't remember much about it, and I don't have a copy. The parallels with Claudia wouldn't be, though, because in the books she was 5.)

(**Izzy Trenches flashbacks again.)

3. As someone who read the books back in the day, I appreciated the brief mention in S1 that Louis's grandfather had owned a plantation, worked by men who "shared his complexion but not his circumstances." To me, that line opened up the possibility of reimagining Book!Louis as also being Black.

(To be clear, he canonically could not have been; beyond that fact that It Would Have Come Up, in the first few pages--which I just re-read--he is described as being bone-white. Even if he was mixed and white-passing, it doesn't quite work.

However, Anne Rice did write a book, Feast of All Saints, about a mixed-race protagonist, who was the son of a slave owner and a woman he enslaved. I remember almost nothing about it, except that the white father had promised to free him and send him abroad to be educated, but broke that promise. Porting some of that over onto a book-canon-era Black Louis could be very interesting.

I'd have to re-read both books--and probably TVL, too--to be able to even think about writing it, which is...unlikely, but I put that idea out into the universe.)

[ferretrade]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thanks to @merlyn-bane for tagging me! <3

1.) How many works do you have on ao3

Currently 56!

2.) What's your ao3 word count?

183,482

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

At this moment, it's Star Wars all day every day. Specifically into the prequel era and Star Wars Rebels related stuff.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Twenty-Two - an Enjoltaire fic I wrote when I was 20 so let's not talk about that

it's a gift to be truly known - skybridger fic, I'm thrilled to see it this high :')

held like a dream - codywan, interesting it's done better than the others

Lost in the Supermarket - another enjoltaire from the wee age of 20, don't look at me

beholder - codywan, I do really really love this one

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, mostly! I don't always because it gets mixed up with my anxiety and I feel overwhelmed and pressured. So I live by a policy of "respond if I am feeling it, if not nbd."

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I genuinely can't think of anything that has an angsty ending. Angsty middles, sure, but I'm a happy ender. I guess it's like poetry, it rhymes (shatterpoint lineage fic) is a little bittersweet?

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hard to choose? I've written some pretty sappy fluff. I've decided on frame the halves, call them a whole (codywan) because you get a good, way pre-O66 fix it that means no one I like died PLUS force sensitive clones! :)

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

I don't believe I ever have!

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Haha yes. It's generally queer and pretty tame in terms of kink.

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope, never have.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so! My fics are pretty mid-tier at their highest popularity so I don't think anyone really cares to lol

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes and I'm still so, so flattered and thrilled by it. :''') I believe I had one (or even two???) old Les Mis fic translated before, but I don't see it linked on ao3. And then there's this absolute beauty:

Comme de la poésie, ça rime

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not technically, but Haley and I have a draft we lovingly refer to as only fan-akin, doc titled (by Haley, credit where due) "the west wing but if sam married the hooker and became president instead of dropping that storyline and leaving after s3"

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

Maybe probably Billy/Teddy from Young Avengers. They're my boys!!!

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Baby girl, I have WIPs you don't even know. I wish I could write the jedi temple epic I wanted to, but my thoughts and feelings have changed so much the whole concept has collapsed and what I have is too messy to use elsewhere. And then there's the courferre soulmate fic I dearly meant to finish and just never will since the interest dried up.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. That's the easiest part for me to write.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

Uh well first of all, actually getting myself to write is a big fucking challenge of mine. But really, the spacial stuff and descriptions kill me. Please know that if you ever read non-dialogue, non-thought parts that you like, it probably took me like 10 writing passes to get it just right. I live in a state of editing and reediting.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I just don't! I am willing to add in as much as I know or easy words-- like a bonjour or, if we're talking Star Wars, sprinkles of words like vode. But if someone is talking in sentences, I will straight up do "Sabine said something in Mando'a" or "Stop that, Sabine told him in Mando'a." Easier for me that trying to do bad translations.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

Young Avengers!

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

This is ever changing. While I probably go back and read it's a gift to be truly known the most, I love a single slow desire for it being the best, biggest world building I've done. Plus it's f/f and I need more of that in my writing life

I think everyone ever has been tagged already, but if not! Tags for you: @afoundling @happybean17 @tired-bshocked @goddammitjim

[bubblegummintie]

Here’s that masterpost I mentioned in my pinned post. It took awhile to fix some things but I'm going to be dividing stuff to make it clear what's original works, more canon works, and then a mix of both for a server I run. (Still loosely taking applications or well, for small interviews for people to join it. 18+ kind of server and pretty rad. Dm me if you want to ask about it!). 

A lot of the ones posted or planned to be posted/are being planned to eventually write for a small series I'm doing for an au idea for Smile for Me are heavy topics and contain death, trauma, and just might not be good for some people to read. Don't feel shame in skipping them because I do have plans for more wholesome works to post in between the one I just finished and a continuation of that one in prologue/epilogue form (depends on which I write first). Keep yourselves safe and read the tags for things! {Will edit later and work on adding more to the masterlist as time goes on. If I forget, I'll try posting the links until I post the link to this list}

.˚ *꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚. Angst Writings .˚ *꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

✧˚₊‧ Original Character works ✧˚₊‧

𖤐 “Nightmares, Nightmares. When Will They Stop?” - is a small story with my OC, Kouya Rivermasu that deals with a great deal of heavy topics. It was my first time posting something so it might not be the best, but read the tags before actually reading it to make sure it's a good story for you. 

 The link is: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50809402

˚｡⋆୨୧˚ Bloomhaven/AU spin on canon events ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

❦ “Am I Better, Am I the Same, or Just Worse?” - is a two chapter fic that deals with the trauma of childhood, post-Habitat events, and has Boris having a panic attack while in the process of legally adopting my Flower Kid — Aspen. It's set in the current era we live in so these events happen closer to 2 years ago in our time and deals with my seaside, flowery town being mentioned so far. Has a good ending so a lot less trauma, but still deals with canon events.

The link is: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51182377/chapters/129324394

⊹₊｡ꕤ°₊ ⊹ More canon type events ⊹₊｡ꕤ°₊ ⊹

❀˖° "Bad Choices Lead to Dead Ends" - is a two chapter fanfic that will potentially just get it's own section eventually due to it being the second part of a series I'm planning now. It follows the loop au that some people have used where Kamal and Boris are sentient. The twist? One of them is destined to die and the other is meant to stay back to watch the aftermath. The first chapter is Boris' POV and the second is Kamal's POV. I'd suggest reading one after the other to really put into effect the two halves of a picture type style put in. It gets really sad so I'd bring some tissues and skip out on this one if you're sensitive to death and your comfort character dying.

The link is: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51857044/chapters/131115796#workskin

The link to my friend's art for the fic: https://www.tumblr.com/l0nelyappariti0n/735082417599168512/bad-choices-lead-to-dead-ends-chapter-1

˗ˏˋ༻ʚ♡︎ɞ༺ˎˊ˗ Lighthearted/Wholesome Writings ˗ˏˋ༻ʚ♡︎ɞ༺ˎˊ˗

✧˚₊‧ Original Character works ✧˚₊‧

࣪𖤐 [Placeholder]

˚｡⋆୨୧˚Bloomhaven/AU spin on canon events˚｡⋆୨୧˚

❦ [Placeholder]

⊹₊｡ꕤ°₊ ⊹More canon type events⊹₊｡ꕤ°₊ ⊹

❀˖° [placeholder]

More will be added over time so be on the look out and if you lose this post, just know it's in my pinned post as well!

[quincyhorst]

DRAGON FIVE: Noh Sung-Joon

Or how he used to be known before the wikia name chage, No.

Jokes aside, I love him 😭 Like the rest of the bench he has a simple design but for me its the profile that always spins things up. This one in particular aged like a fine wine.

"Plans to fly all over the world as a Hallyu star in the future."

Learn more below! ☆

First off, about his profile... What it mentions, 'hallyu', refers to the growing fascination of overseas audiences towards korean entretainment, be by k-dramas, movies, music; everything korean. Pretty much what's going on with the web nowadays.

Some profile translation went to be more direct however. The spanish dub turned him into a k-poper for example:

"Le gustaría que la música pop coreana fuera conocida en todo el mundo." "Wishes korean pop music was known worldwide"

...So yes, he's probably the closest we're gonna get to Stan Twitter in Inazuma Eleven (?

As it is notorious however, such music genre hadn't become popular yet during 2010/the FFI era. So for now, all he can do is find ways to share it with others and hope it will blow up in the future. (He's in for a huge surprise)

If he's organizing a party, be it in Korea or overseas, expect him to put K-Pop on the mix.

Although he has set the goal of being a hallyu star in the future, he doesn't have an specific idea of what in particular due to the ambiguity of the term. Currently he'd love to be an actor, but he wouldn't mind becoming a singer either. He keeps his options open.

Though, his singing voice could have some training...

Given his skill 'Ikemen!UP', he's fairly popular, specially with the girls. Though he hasn't gotten into any dating stuff yet.

...Unfortunately, he can be quite annoying at times. He's always finding an opportunity to shine both outside and in a match, liking to gain compliments. He's isn't neccesarily the one to bring others down, but in case he has to do group work he makes sure his voice is the most heard.

Back on Korea, he was acclaimed to be one of the best forwards of the country alongside his buddies, and it was rumored that if an international tournament was to happen, he'd be inmediately on the starting line-up. So this obviously made him excited when the FFI was announced, but then... His spot on the field was taken by three "half-koreans with japanese names"; or at least that's how he calls them. Now benched, he can't help but feel resentful at times; but there isn't much he can't do anyway. At least when he leaves the bench by chance, he'll do his best to perform as he can.

(He mainly doesn't like much the Chaos duo due that they took the spots meant for his friends, buuut his feelings towards Aphrodi are more conflicted; as while he still has some sort of a grudge, he can't help but also find him... Rather pretty. However having these feelings confuses him a lot, and he just doesn't know how to act on them.)

When it comes to the bench group, Sung-Joon warmed up very well to Ji-Nan, as despite his short temper he likes his goalkeeper skills. Plus their shared pettiness make them unite even more, usually training together on their free time.

Sung-Joon tries to get Ji-Nan more into korean pop culture, even believing he could be an interesting actor for a production too. This is also why he likes Hyeon-Dae and his aspiration as a cinema producer. He sees future on this trio!

Being the only 3rd Year of the bench group, he often tries to impose himself as their leader. But sadly there's gonna be disagreements on his proposals, specially from Jung-Won. They don't like each other that much, but... If it wasn't for the "four-eyes", Sung-Joon wouldn't have made his only shot at the FFI. So he's forced to tone his rivarly down.

...And to end. Some time ago, I was searching for TCG pictures in the Inazuma11 wiki, and while stumbling upon Route of Sky's card... LOOK WHO I FOUND!!!

SUNG-JOOOOOOOON ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

It makes 0 sense for he to be here BUT IDK I'M SO GLAD HE'S ON CARD AHHHHHHHHHH

(This also would make him be the only FD bencher with "merch". If we think about it.)

[doveofmourning]

i saw u rbed my post and i'm just so intrigued about the thought process behind your lover tracklist/you're losing me being a lover vault track. pls explain.

Yeah absolutely! I was on a break from Taylor when Lover dropped unfortunately after being a day one fan but feeling really burned by LWYMMD, the way it seemed like she was really going to make a hip hop album just to spite a black man (and I never thought Kanye was in the right but it didn't sit right with me for her to go that far) and the way she just refused to address the growing homophobia in her own fanbase, so unfortunately I wasn't there when it came out and a lot of this has been my own research.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows by now that Lover was finished being recorded, mixed and mastered in February of 2019 but London Boy has been proven to have been made in early June of that year. (If I need to explain this too I can make another post for it.)

We also know that the songs All of the Girls You Loved Before and Need/It's A Need were vault tracks. This was essentially confirmed on March 17 of 2023 when she officially released All of the Girls You Loved Before as a vault track.

So here's my thoughts. First of all, You're Losing Me isn't sonically coherent with Midnights. Not with the main album which MANY more qualified people than I have explained (but suffice it to say that the mastering makes the album sound very samey; I LIKE Midnights but this is undeniably true), not with the 3am tracks which have a very Aaron Dessner sound to them. You're Losing Me doesn't fit with the 70's and 80's inspired synth sounds most prominently heard on Lavender Haze, Karma, The Great War and Labrynth. It has incredibly important drums, but unlike the ONLY two drum forwards midnight tracks (Question...? and Anti-Hero) it does not use a drum machine. It also has its bass line mastered in a different way than midnights that feels more natural and less muddied. While I do think Jaxk Antonoff is an amazing producer, he's gotten into a rut and this is NOT the sound of his current production style.

In addition, Taylor uses a sample from Cornelia Street in the bridge. The piano line isn't just similar, I've put them next to each other and they are the EXACT same sound. This is possible but unlikely to be achievable four years after the production of Cornelia Street because while Taylor COULD be more careful than industry standards, many record companies only save the master files, not the DAW workbench, at least long term. This is something that has been changing recently, but I still think it is at least a point in the favor of You're Losing Me being the original Track 11 of Lover.

In addition, You're Losing Me mentions "mending all of her gashes" as well as other references to other knife wounds; it also mentions "We thought a cure would come through in time, now, I fear it won't". This creates a narrative link between Death by a Thousand Cuts and Soon You'll Get Better that just wasn't present in the official release. In addition, DBATC and YLM end and start, respectively, on the same piano note. Similarly, YLM and SYGB end and start, respectively, on the same chords.

Thematically You're Losing Me also mirrors the dramatic shift in the Lover era from bright pastels and pop songs to all black and singing the greatest breakup songs of all time in lounges. It seems like a predictive song that came true.

There are a LOT of people who believe Joe was a fake relationship, and if so a breakup likely happened here, but even assuming Toe was real we now know that they has NUMEROUS breakups over their 6 year relationship. I think one likely happened in the summer of 2019, and Taylor saw it coming, and this was a song about it. It would also explain why Joe was so offended about its release if it wasn't even from this breakup.

Also "I wouldn't marry me either" sure seems a lot more in line with Ms. "I take this magnetic force of a man" "I think he knows he better lock it down" "I'd marry you with paper rings" than Dr. "She would've made such a lovely bride, what a shame she's fucked in the head" "no deal that 1950's shit that want from me" "he wanted a bride I was making my own name". Like obviously she can have conflicting feelings bit it seems way more likely that this was back when she WANTED to marry him.

Moving on though. False God is Taylor's sexiest song and it feels bizarre to abruptly change to YNTCD. Need is also horny but in more of yearning way, and sonically it tranItions from very sultry at the start to very upbeat and airy by the end. This just makes a lot more sense to me. Personally I'd have preferred, given her lack of meaningful queer activism, her to NOT have profited off of a song explicitly about queerness, but this isn't about what I want, it's about what I think was on the Original Track Listing ™️.

Moving on, I think It's Nice To Have A Friend and Daylight are doing two wildly different thing, and AOTGYLB both bridges them nicely and acts as a good end to the story of a young woman in love but afraid she's going to lose it. "Yes, I've been afraid, especially because I'm afraid I can't measure up, but I can see now that I don't have to measure up and your past shaped you into the person why wants me despite my flaws." It allows Daylight to breath as an author's note, and I genuinely think that's where Daylight shines.

Also, just numerically, it feels unlikely that Taylor Swift would look at a 19 song tracklist (18-1 for London Boy+2 for AOTGYLB and Need) and go "yeah no let's cut nothing and also not add one more track to make it are significant or round number." The woman cut Wonderland from the standard 1989 to me the tracklist 13; I don't buy it.

Ultimately because we ojow the tracklist is different in the initial mix vs the actual release we know SOME changes were made. We can't KNOW which changes are 100% correct unless she tells us (and even then she does like to just lie sometimes), but to me this seems like the closest I'm going to get unless new information arises.

Thanks for the ask, and sorry the explanation was so long/took a bit to type up!

[tianshiisdead]

Hello! I have been designing some characters for a comic/story that I'm working and would like it incorporate Chinese culture into some of them and have some of them wear Hanfu. Being pretty much as white as you get I really want to go about this respectfully but a lot of my style is mixing different styles of clothing for example I was thinking of mixing Edwardian and Hanfu with a bit of a modern twist. I was wondering if this ok for me to do or if I should just back away from the idea? thanks

Hi! So, first of all, I'd recommend doing your own research because I can't give you permission to do anything. Like I can give a general opinion but that's one opinion from one person out of a huge and diverse society of diaspora and Chinese people so, nothing I say is indicative of much and my opinion can't and shouldn't be used as a go-ahead. No matter what I say here, my words are not permission, and I ask you to not use them to argue with or silence other Chinese people. I can't give permission, but I can give you a few questions to consider if you choose to go ahead with it after doing research.

1. First of all, I'd question why you want to incorporate Chinese culture? What is Chinese culture going to add to it that Edwardian doesn't have, outside of aesthetic? Also, is it going to start and stop with hanfu? I don't think it's inherently bad to have cultural mixes, but a big part of orientalism (and the chinoiserie legacy) is treating Chinese culture and aesthetics as something to be slapped on for fun or exoticness, decorations to be played with. Chinese culture can be a sensitive topic as it is the culture of a marginalized group over in the west, as well as one that's been historically fetishized and used for empty exotic effects, so it's important to be aware of that. If you're going to use Chinese aesthetics, I'd say it shouldn't be surface level for the sake of it. How is Chinese culture relevant and why are you using it?

2. A lot of research should be done into what styles you're using. Hanfu is not a monolith, it's just a general description of the clothing han people wore through history and it's evolved with fashion trends just like any other garment has. This ties back to why you're using hanfu - is it just an aesthetic thing? Are you going for a certain specific period? It's a mistake to blend all of Chinese history (and fashion history) into one big ancient blob. The clothing of the periods also is affected by neighboring cultures and cultural exchange and current state affairs etc. etc. etc. so it's important to take that into account as well, no culture (or clothing) exists in a vacuum, so make sure you're aware the situation of whatever era you're looking at. For example, robes in the Yuan dynasty (and a lot of the stuff you might find on google) has influences from Mongolian clothing because it was a Mongolian led dynasty, and what elements those are would be important to know if you're going to be picking and choosing what elements of hanfu to use.

3. Please do historical research. On Chinese history that you're using yeah, but also on Edwardian history. The specific era of Edwardian gave me pause because afaik that's 1901-1914, when Britain was imperializing and colonizing China. There were racial tensions then, and British-controlled places like Hong Kong and Shanghai had racial hierarchies where Chinese people were uh. Not at the top. And the legacy of British imperialism certainly remains in many areas of China today. China and Britain have a messy relatively recent history (please read into the opium wars and 8 nations alliance/boxer rebellion/unequal treaties) and like with all countries with messy histories, if you're going to blend their cultures and aesthetics, especially during a sensitive period like the Edwardian era, a lot of research needs to be done. Also, I'd advise you to look into chinoiserie and European/British use of Chinese clothing, culture, and aesthetics as 'exotic' artifacts. There are good articles out there on this topic, British colonial nostalgia and power dynamics in the usage of Chinese aesthetics in their fashion and art, the commodification of 'exotic Chinese artifacts' and how it enables British women to participate in imperialism, and its very relevant in your case I think.

4. If you're seeking to publish in any sense, I'd recommend looking into a professional you can consult on culture and such. Your content is going to reach a lot more people and be under a lot more scrutiny, and it's gonna take someone who actually knows and studies the topic to be respectful. If these are just OCs for fun then I'd recommend doing research and going through existing discussions on culture and fashion history and appropriation, I usually start with googling and searching for fashion/history blogs and articles (or like places like JSTOR if you have a uni account), especially if I'm going to be posting anything.

One last thing, this might seem like a lot of work for incorporating a simple aesthetic, but I do want to warn against using culture as an aesthetic. Like mentioned at the beginning, why are you using hanfu? How does it tie in and will you be incorporating this into the history and society as well? Why is this important you use Chinese culture like this? Especially during this time period, with hate crime rates against asians climbing and racism getting even more blatant than before. This isn't yes or no, it's complicated and sensitive and deserving of thought and effort.

[growingstronglikeahighgardenrose]

Sanditon Season 2: all the news & my thoughts

So, we're getting not one but two new seasons of Sanditon! After a year of tremendous effort on behalf of the Sanditon sisterhood who kept the fandom alive, we'll be looking at a new season. Although I think the biggest thank you probably goes out to Bridgerton, which showed that romance, regency, a diverse cast and butts are a perfect mix to lure audiences.

I want to take this moment to reflect on what I think we'll win, what we'll lose and what we can expect in the future.

1. No Sidlotte HEA

This is probably the most heartbreaking salty news we could get. But I know Theo James, he likes new projects. And after divergent's disaster, I can't blame the boy for not wanting to hang onto another franchise. As a fanfic writer, although mainly an Esther/Babington one, I broke my head for over a year on how to get Sidlotte together. I had to imagine the grandest schemes to get them together. Tom needed 10 000 pounds in less than a month. Even Babington was probably not worth that much. That's over 6 million in today's money if adjusted to inflation. Regency era's England's top 1-2% made that in a full a year, and most of that is probably in assets and investments. And they don't just get to keep that money, most used a good chunk of it to keep their estates running and to pay their staff. Anyone know someone who has a casual 6 million lying around?

There's only two realistic solutions: either have Eliza die: which would be cruel and take years (unless you kill her in childbirth 9 months in), or create a grand scheme that would take months and see Sidney, Crowe and Babington actively work hard on their 'business' while in the meantime Charlotte, Lady Denham and Lady Susan get everyone including the prince regent to come to Sanditon. I kind of accepted they would have a hard time getting out of that plot twist. It was likely that Sidlotte could not be endgame.

Personally, I never felt a strong connection to Sidlotte, and had hoped that Charlotte, like Jane Bennet, would go to London with Lady Susan to recover from her heartbreak, and I kind of hoped James Stringer would eventually go down there for his apprenticeship, where a sort of Captain Wentworth-like situation would come to exist where he is a young man trying to make something of himself. I know Charlotte didn't love him. But I also knew that Charlotte wanted adventure and perhaps needed to grow as a person. But in the new season she'll probably be a bit jaded, closed off, and depressed. And will probably need a softer more available man. Growing up goes with swinging to extremes. She was an open optimist at the beginning, and eventually turned to the opposite, not letting her emotions shine through and being very guarded (@miss-holly-goes-lightly did a wonderful post on this). Adulthood is finding a good balance again.

So while I am saddened, because this brings along a long set of questions like: "Does Sanditon still take place in Sanditon then?" "Where will Sidney live, will he then live in London with his wife?" "Why doesn't he come help his brother the next season or visit his family, as we know Tom will make a mess of things" The show will have to answer these questions in a believable manner.

2. No Beaufort twins

Mollie Holder said on her instagram that the Beauforts wouldn't be returning. This leads to quite a few questions like: where will Georgiana stay then? What will be happening to Mrs. Griffiths? Will Georgiana be her sole ward while the Beaufort's absence is explained as them having married or having become governesses?

3. Who remains aboard

Rose Williams is definitely on board. It's also pretty certain Tom will be there again. Lady Denham is also likely to return. The child actors and their parents were willing, but worried about their increasing age a few months back. Old Stringer said he'd have loved to be part of Sanditon again and to see it continue, but he's well... dead on the show so he won't return. So who will join Charlotte?

Leo Sutter might not return. He plays an important role in the next spin-off of vikings. Vikings has a new season each year. On top of that he's currently busy recording Gateway 6. We don't know how long that might take. And perhaps by the time filming ends he's required for the next season of the Walhalla series. Leo Sutter is a rising star, he might not even have the time to return. Especially for two seasons. At his age and point in his career, he needs to cement his name, or he'll remain b-list while he has a-list potential. So he might have to give up Sanditon for his career. It's sad, I'd love a Stringer/Charlotte future where they both grow to being suitable for each other while becoming people confident in their own abilities. But in the end, I would be alright with it, as Charlotte didn't express immediate interest in him. Writing him out would also be fairly easy, they could just write that despite thinking he had to stay home after his father's death, he went to London in the end under Charlotte's encouragement. Perhaps he could then come back for a guest appearance.

Crystal Clarke will reprise her role as Georgiana. Clarke has, since Sanditon, spoken out about the sometimes tone-deaf director and scriptwriters. She had to step in a few times to make sure Georgiana was done justice. She also said she hoped Georgiana, if the show was continued, would get the space to breathe and be independent, instead of playing a minor role as token black friend of Charlotte while under the control of Sidney. It will be complex to have her return without involving Sidney, as his character will have to be written out. I imagine this can be done with a timejump, but the timejump would have to be 4 years to make Georgiana 'of age' as she is 17 in the show. They'll probably place her under someone's care while saying Sidney is "still her guardian, but away". Georgiana is, in my opinion, an essential part of Sanditon. Bridgerton showed the world wanted to see diverse faces. Austen wrote a black character as a wealthy and desirable woman. They simply have to do more with her in the future. Clarke will reprise her role, this time with black writers to do justice to her character. I'm excited to see what will be done.

The actor who plays Arthur, Turlough Convery, is a good actor and mostly in period pieces. However he's never overly in demand, and usually stays with shows for multiple seasons. I think he's quite willing to come back and it means Georgiana would have a friend. I also hope they delve into his character, especially after his "I don't think i'll ever get married".

Matthew Needham and Mark Stanley, Crowe and Babington, are Sidney's best friends. It will be hard to have them come back without them explaining why Sidney is never with them. But I believe they would work well as a duo: the drunk and the one braincell are a fun dynamic. Both are not much in demand, despite that I quite like them as actors. So we might see them returning. Their return would also be vital for the return of a few other characters:

Their return would also be vital for the return of a few other characters:

Charlotte Spencer's Esther Denham is married to Babington. Without Babington returning, how can Esther? And vice versa. Their storyline was also the main romance for me and a big part of the last few episodes. They kinda need to return. Babington is also Sanditon's access point to high society. To cash in on Bridgerton's success they should search that royal connection. Babington is friends with the Prince Regent. On top of that he has the most money. If he hosts a party and Charlotte is invited, this is where they get those grand-bridgertonesque scenes.

Lily Sacofsky's Clara had a romantic subplot with Crowe. In their final unaired scene they went to London together. She could return. However, the chances are quite slim. Clara is in London, and Sanditon takes place in Sanditon. Unless Lady Susan takes Charlotte to London for a while and she meets Clara and Edward there, cooking up a plan to get back at Esther and Lady Denham.

4. Predictions

There's no words to describe the popularity of Bridgerton, so this WILL influence Sanditon. I predict: more sex, more scandal, and even more ahistorically modern ideas and characters, multiple female characters and multiple male characters that each get screentime and their separate storylines and developments like in bridgerton, instead of just Charlotte's pov we follow. Glamorous scenes. And more POC.

The season will start with a timejump in all likeliness (as it is easier so they don't have to focus too much on her grieving). Charlotte will catch us up with what has happened while perhaps narrating over some letters she's written to georgiana and lady susan. She'll return to Sanditon during a summer. Sanditon will have been partially rebuilt with Eliza's money, and many activities will be planned. Sanditon will be in some kind of trouble. Charlotte will still be a planner. Her being very actively involved in things and having a vision was one of the most alluring parts of her character. In the books there was a rival town Tom hated. That might be a bit tricky to adapt so they could introduce some local competition for attention around Sanditon. A local duke hosting parties could overshadow tom's events. Or the social season in London could lure everyone there instead of to Sanditon. Charlotte will try to help Tom with this while getting reacquainted with everyone still in Sanditon, and hearing about the reasons why Sidney/Esther/Stringer/The Beauforts (to be seen) aren't in the show anymore. She'll also rebuild her relationship with Georgiana.

Then one day for an event Charlotte will invite Lady Susan, who will invite her to the London season to get over her heartache à la Jane Bennet. Charlotte will join Lady Susan to lure a crowd to Sanditon. There, she'll be confronted with some of her demons of the past season. Perhaps a pregnant Eliza Campion makes an appearance to rub it in Charlotte's face. In Sense & Sensibility Margaret discovered Willoughby's relationship in a most shocking manner in an almost public setting. Sanditon likes to nod at all Austen books so this could be a nod at that book when Charlotte discovers unpleasant news in a public manner. Charlotte will congratulate her and wish them happiness, and afterwards either a girlpower moment could happen with Lady Susan or Georgiana supporting her, or a love moment. Mrs Campion has tried to talk Charlotte down in front of people in the past, if she did it again, a new love interest could step in at that time to compliment her and then take her off for a dance. That could be an emotional moment for her, as she realized her feelings for Sidney in London during a dance the last time around as well. And she could have her cinderella moment by excusing herself and running off after the dance, uncertain of her feelings. She'll have some grand balls, might be harrassed by a man and risk a scandal, or try and prevent Georgiana from ruin during a scandal.

At the last moment she'll succeed in her goal and lure a crowd to Sanditon's events that will put Sanditon on the map. Either the local competitive duke, or someone from London will be impressed with her, but she won't be ready to marry yet. I trust that by the end of the second season, she'll finally have a realisation that she's quite happy with how she's living her life and how good her work is, and that she has finally stopped feeling sad. So the second season will stop with her atop a cliff, letting go of the traumatic loss she suffered on that same cliff a season before. By the end of the season, one or two love interests will be set up for the last season.

So the nudity and big romance will have to come from elsewhere. Georgiana will get more agency and action in the next seasons. She could be trying to tempt Charlotte in joining her adventures as a single wealthy independent woman. She might even leave to find her place in the world via boat, returning to where she was last truly happy: Antigua. The second season could maybe end with Charlotte overlooking Georgiana's boat leaving from the previously mentioned clifftop. Another option is Georgiana falling in love with a local man and taken an interest in the town. Financially speaking, Georgiana could be the only one able to save Sanditon. But I don't think she owes the town anything. Another option is the writers focus on Georgiana navigating her relationship with Otis, who might be back home for a holiday after navy duty. We could also see some political debates à la Poldark S5 about freedom, servitude, independence and so on. The first plan for Georgiana doesn't even have to exclude the second, she could decide to sail away with Otis to find their place in the world. In any case: race shall not be brushed under the carpet and Georgiana will kick some shins on her way to her happy ending. In Jane Austen, we have rarely seen a woman who tried to elope, or escape her guardian, get a happy ending. Georgiana Darcy, Eliza Williams, Eliza's mother, ... they're all tragic tales of women falling for bad guys who try to steal their virtue or take their money. And in the end they always become dependent on men again. I hope in Sanditon Georgiana will learn and grow herself, instead of being coddled by men. A lot could be done.

Esther and Babington could be a very cool insert if the actors join. They can really connect the high society to Sanditon. They could host balls, invest in Sanditon or drive the London plot. But they can also be an emotional backbone to the show. Esther married Babington, but she wasn't in love yet. I'm not a fan of the edward/Esther angle. After all he did, I rather she hated him with burning passion and never spoke to him again. But he could try to blackmail her and ruin her reputation in London. Perhaps become some kind of Lord Whistledown. With Charlotte coming to Esther's aid. Esther's plotline could be about learning to trust people and open her heart again. Perhaps she could have a conflict with Babington about him wanting a family and she still being uneasy with marriage, let alone children. Maybe they could have a fight, with one of them going to London. In their separation they might realize they love each other. And then the other comes back home from London with Charlotte and they fix everything. Another route is them having a fight, Esther going to confront Edward or Clara about their blackmailing or maneouvring. Babington thinks it's because she doesn't love him, but actually it's because she loves Babington and wants to be rid of her past. But she gets into an accident and Babington only realizes the truth later on, leading to a happy ending.

Other things I'd love to see: Mary finally growing a backbone and telling Tom to either be open about his affairs and finances or be gone. Arthur and Diana growing a backbone and telling their brother he's a fuck up. Charlotte realizing Tom is stupid. Lady Denham appointing Charlotte or Arthur to head of Sanditon after showing their worth an entire season. Tom being repentant. Diana getting over her fears. Arthur getting a love interest. Crowe being in Sanditon, I just love him. Kisses. Healthy love interests that aren't broody and traumatized and in need of fixing by women. Jane Austen's men need to do their growing ON THEIR OWN. And then they earn their brides.

5. What we'll lose

- A Sidlotte ending: once the new season comes out, Sidlotte is no longer headcanon.

- A happy Esther/Babington ending: they married and looked happy, despite Esther's rushed turn around. If they're in the new season, their marriage won't be perfect. They'll have conflicts, just for plot. Whatever headcanons we had for them will probably be falsified. We might come to dislike them or their relationship. I've seen almost all my ships crumble to dust on the rocks of multiple seasons dragging out relationships and piling on conflict just to keep it interesting.

- A part of what made Sanditon Sanditon: we'll lose many faces we've come to love. And the dynamics and relationships will therefore change a lot.

- Fanfics become dated: I know it is the problem of every fandom, but it's one I regret all the same. Part of why I love Austen fandoms is the fact that the books are written. The characters and relationships won't change. With 2 new seasons coming, all fanfics out there will become dated. The millions of hours authors put into Sidlotte fics will perhaps become barely read when Charlotte gets new love interests. All the headcanons I and many others wrote down for Sidlotte, Esther/Babington, Charlotte/Stringer, will officially become silly fantheories. I've been there a couple of times before that shows changed the entire course and personality of certain characters and then you can't help but feel exhausted and sometimes annoyed because these are your babies and you had dreams for them, and the writers took them in directions that sometimes don't do them justice. But it's canon so you gotta accept it. Sometimes fantasy is nicer than a writer toying around with storylines and characters just to create drama. And I'll have to write my characters in a new way that fits the characters based on the info from the new seasons. I might fall out of love with them. Ah, the burden of being a shipper weighs heavy.

- Perhaps we still lose a HEA: Season one ended with a happy babington/Esther and an unhappy Charlotte who learned a lot, and a Sanditon that was saved. Although Sanditon has been extended for two seasons it's possible that if the ratings for S2 aren't good they may still cancel the third season. If they don't learn from their mistakes and end season 2 on another cliffhanger even Esther's relationship and sanditon may be at stake. If they're getting 2 seasons they will also not marry or engage charlotte in the second, meaning Charlotte will still be single by the end of the series if they cancel season 3. The whole reason we wanted more seasons was for charlotte to have a HEA. So I'm really fearful that she'll be put in another hard spot. They at least need to get her happy by the end of S2.

6. What we'll gain

- More sanditon content

- More regency era content and images and music which is always lovely

- Seeing our favourites again

- Hopefully we get to see new challenges and romance and humor and tense moments and scandal and drama that will be fun to watch

- A Georgiana story arc: a black woman in a realistic historical setting living her life, being wealthy, and England just having to Deal With It. And as cherry on top she'll be written by black writers.

- Happy endings (hopefully)

- New hot men! This is a guarantee

- Perhaps LGBTQ+ representation with Arthur

- Frustration at Tom's antics (guaranteed)

- Maybe some interactions with Charlotte's siblings

- Esther Babington content

- New material to write fanfics and metas about

- Over 8 hours of viewing pleasure

[markcampbells]

30, 50, 51 !

30. What inspires you to write?

Sometimes it's irritation and sometimes it's just plain creative joy, and there is no determining which 😂 Currently, with Star Trek, it's a little bit of a mix. I love these characters, I love these performers, but the canon of the new movies can be really underwritten (emotionally and plotwise) and as much joy as I find in the character dynamics as they stand, there can always be more. When I wrote for Doctor Who tenish years ago (eesh...), it leaned more heavily to the frustration side, because I really disliked the way the main writer was handling the show, and a common criticism of his writing was how badly his writing handled things like grief and loss. Sometimes I just want to spend more time with certain characters and... sometimes I've just spent hours mentally screaming at a thing and writing it myself helps me scream... less.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

When I was young, young, young, like nine years old and up, I wrote horrible self-insert stories based on video games I liked (like Spyro or Kingdom Hearts) or stories that used characters and ideas from books I liked as a springboard. (I read a lot of unicorn books, so... unicorn stories. My stepfather still has the ones I gave him. One day I will burn them.) I can't quite remember what the first thing was that drove me to FFN as a reader.

When I was a teenager I was a lot less picky about what I wrote--if I liked it, I was willing to give writing a fic a try. I wrote a story each for Pride and Prejudice and Little Women, a few for Grey's Anatomy, and more enduringly, a multichapter fic for Rent that I will not ever read back through but that people somehow still read and review sometimes! (Including a really sweet DM from a reader a few years ago about how much the story helped them through a rough time that straight up made me cry.)

When I got older I became pickier about what I wrote for, and I'm not always proud of the stuff I wrote even back in college; I tried a few things where my ambition outstripped my ability to actually execute the piece. But I also found that fanfiction is a really nice way to connect with other people who love the characters as much as you do. I made great friends in the Doctor/Rose corner of Doctor Who fandom and these days my life has been enriched by the USS McKirk folks. Something I like best about making friends in the same fandom is that people can view the same characters or ship multiple ways and every single one of them can be valid, and talking through that kind of thing is fascinating.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

I love when fandoms and particular ships have tropes that get returned to over and over. Are the stories kind of the same? Sure. But it's so interesting to see what the writer does with them. There's like a million Pride and Prejudice forced marriage scenarios. I will want to see how Elizabeth and Darcy fall in love every time. There are a million McKirk academy era slow burn fics and I will read pretty much any one of them. In my Doctor/Rose days I used to love seeing how different writers would take on things like dimension-hopping Rose or putting characters who'd never met together and exploring how they might interact. I really like how there's room for everyone's different visions of pretty much the same tropes or events, characters, pairings, and so on!

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2021

#83 - Shadowmarch, by Tad Williams

Mount TBR: 69/100

Beat the Backlist Bingo: Cover features your favorite color prominently

Rating: 1/5 stars

Well, that was a slog.

So I have a history with this piece of intellectual property. I was introduced to Williams as an author in college (1998) because several of the friends I made my first year were big fantasy nerds--no surprise there--and I was perfectly ready to move on from my high-school-era love of less sophisticated fantasy authors. I borrowed The Dragonbone Chair from one of those friends and off I went.

So in 2001 when news about Williams writing an online serial went around, and I saw the $15 price tag...well, I was a perpetually almost-broke college student still, and sure I spent money on books, but that was a high gateway, because a) I didn't own my own computer yet, I was borrowing friends' or using the computer lab to write papers and such; and b) sure, a chunky fantasy novel might be $7 or $8 in paperback, but it was portable, easy to reread whenever, and nobody had tablets or smartphones or e-readers yet, so an online serial publication was definitely not portable. Even fifteen dollars seemed like too much for the inconvenience of a book I could only read sitting at a computer, and couldn't read all of at once.

I was genuinely angry about this shift away from the paradigm, and much like Williams vowing this serial was online only and would never be published traditionally (which I distinctly remember but don't actually have a source for) I too vowed that I would never read it.

I held out much longer than he did, if my memory of that claim is even true. But I'm wishing now that I hadn't bothered.

This is bad. Not even close to the level of quality I expect from Williams, based on the earlier Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, as well as War of the Flowers--which was weird but I enjoyed it--and the Otherland series, which was even weirder and not always good, but yeah, I still enjoyed that too, for the most part.

Who am I supposed to care about in this book? I'm no stranger to multiple protagonists, but there are simply too many here, meaning none of them get the development time they would need to be interesting. I'm trying to wean myself from the complaint that protagonists need to be "likable," because a character can be a jerk and still be interesting, but few of these protagonists are particularly likable either!

1. Barrick is a whiny jerk who folds under pressure and abdicates responsibility to his sister, and then makes a spectacularly bad decision for no reason other than to set up some tension at the end, and his future arc. If it's because he's "mad," bad plot reason, and if it's because he's affected by the more general shadow-madness, well, I guess he could be vulnerable to it like anyone else, but that's pretty flimsy too. 2. Briony is a fairly standard "if only I weren't a woman, people would take me seriously" princess who doesn't fold as much under pressure but is dealt a really raw deal. I'll give her credit, she does legitimately try her best to rule her lands, but she's also kind of a whiny jerk like her brother, too. 3. Quinnitan is...pointless. Sure, I see how the end of her arc in this book echoes those of the Eddon twins, but there is no direct connection between her plot and anyone else's. And I mean that literally, if there's anything that ties her story to any other single part of the book, I simply do not see it, it's buried in lore or foreshadowing that was lost on me amid the sheer weight of nearly 800 pages of plodding narrative. I read all of her scenes constantly wondering why I should care, and the fact that her arc is a very basic harem plot, "I don't want to be a token wife but really what choice do I have?" sort of thing, doesn't help, because on its own it's incredibly unoriginal. 4. Chert is marginally likable, because he's arguably got the most defined personality and most personal growth in the book, as a person of a "little" race who is distinctly not human--I get a mix of gnome and dwarf, with a faint whiff of Podling from The Dark Crystal--and who deals with an unexpected foundling by taking him into his family and trying to make it work, even when that foundling is really a big blank space in the story who still manages to get into trouble. 5. Captain Vansen gets points from me for being the guardsman deep in unrequited love, which is a trope I would absolutely eat up with a spoon. The problem is, the object of that love is a protagonist I don't care for (Briony,) leading me to question what the eff he's thinking that he can even admire her from a distance, let alone be in infatuation/love. And his plot arc is mostly "something goes wrong that's not really has fault but everyone blames him anyway." Which got dull.

Chert and Vansen are most of the reason this book gets a second star*, honestly. Chert's scenes with the Rooftoppers are generally pretty excellent, even if they're mostly tied to a plot arc that I don't care for.

The other thing that's getting me about this is that it feels like a deliberately grim-dark retread of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. You've got a castle that's the seat of current government but used to belong to the enemy--the enemy that no one is sure even exists anymore, that lives in a land far enough away to feel distant but also somehow close enough to be threatening, once people believe in them again. That castle is perched upon magically important ruins/caverns, and that enemy has forms of magic/communication that affect humans and can cause or appear symptomatic of madness. There's a race of small likable people who aren't quite dwarves or any other "standard" fantasy race, but are still somehow cute/appealing. There's a crippled prince who's not really well-liked. One of the primary female protagonists is a young woman who laments the limitations of her womanhood under the patriarchal feudal system of the world.

And to someone who's never read either of these series, that list of similarities could mostly read like fairly common fantasy tropes, and I forgive anyone who reads this review and thinks that. But I've read MSaT probably ten times all the way through in the twenty-plus years since I was introduced to it, and I feel like I've just been handed the same story again, with a thick coat of gray paint slathered on it and a few details changed--and those changes are basically always for the worse. No one in this story can be said to be a direct equivalent to Simon, who gets a very clear hero's journey, but if I'm supposed to slot Barrick in as a Simon/Josua mashup (that crippled prince problem) then it takes the entire book to get Barrick out of his comfort zone and on his journey, where Simon got booted from the castle at the end of the first act of the first book.

And that gets at the underlying problem that is at least partially fueling all other problems--this book is clearly just the first act of the larger story, and yes i know! that is what first books do! but this also doesn't have a lot of forward motion on its own, and it doesn't resolve anything aside from the mystery of a single murder at that happens near the beginning. Seriously, all other plot threads get kicked down the road with the "and now they're exiles" theme that the ending has assigned to most of the protagonists. Chert doesn't suffer that fate, but the ending of his story line--also the end of the book itself--is the foundling reasserting that he doesn't know who he is, which is not new information. We've literally not known who he is the whole time, except that we do find out who his mother is, but don't find out how he was taken or why he apparently hasn't aged as much as he should have or what the Qar intended by sending him back "home." The identity of his mother is basically the least important question surrounding him.

I truly feel like I just read a 750-page prologue, and that is not a good feeling.

*Yeah, I told myself this was a two-star book, but by the time I wrote the whole review, it's not and I can't pretend I still believe that. This is a one-star book. This is so bad I don't want to go on with the series, even though it almost has to get better, now that most of our protagonists are out on their journeys. And because it could hardly get worse, right? But this already took up so much of my time (I had to take a week-long break in the middle to binge some romances, as a relief from all this grimdark toil) and even though I've managed to collect secondhand copies of the rest of the series, and they've been sitting on my shelves for a few years waiting for me to invest my energy into them...I'm giving up. Not worth it.

[spongebob-connoisseur]

i think people need to realize that hillenburg meant he didn’t see spin offs happening anytime soon during the time of that quote while hillenburg knew of kamp koral i have this itching feeling that he appointed waller to help out with spin offs because he knew no matter what nick would still try to milk out the series after his death and wanted to appoint someone he trusted while this could be false as we don’t know the whole story and i say it’s too soon to say the spin off will be bad or good or just mixed we need to be respectful of the cast and crew as they could still love this even if may not turn out great i just wish nick would stop killing off or not greenlighting potentially good shows

the future of spongebob is really filled with uncertainty i can see it lasting for many more years or just being announced to end next year

spongebob like you said in a previous post is not the same as it started and i agree, i love all the seasons in spongebob even the middle era seasons, they are flawed, but a guilty pleasure for me as i grew up with them as a kid, but idk the newest season just doesn’t hit the same anymore? i know i grew up but i still liked 9 to 11 but 12 just seems eh to me now? but that’s my opinion

i know am a sourpuss in this situation compared to the other spongebob fans being more optimistic, but if people are generally happy and excited about the current state of the series good for them enjoying something 😄 i am in no postition to judge others what they like

I wanted to reply to this sooner but couldn't get to it. Sorry this is so late!!!

But I really agree with you. I get tired running into videos and posts on literally every social media platform about kamp koral. The constant spread of misinformation and even if you have the facts to say "hey that's not true" it's like talking to a brick wall. They all think it's fake. I was pretty skeptical and against kamp koral initially but things change ya kno?

Tbh I do agree that it sounds like Hillenburg put Waller in charge of the show so when Nick has any future plans with the show, he'd be able to steer it into the right direction at least. If Hillenburg trusts him with the series then I can't really complain about if he'd really approve of it or not. I'm not sure about it and I feel a little weird about talking about what Hillenburg would have wanted and wouldn't have wanted.

It feels like a weird line about someone's personal thoughts and opinions and there's no proper way to verify hence why I'm tired about talking about Kamp koral and spin offs and whatever. It feels a little too personal. And I don't know a thing about him. None of us do. We never met him. He's his own person separate from his creation and so are the people who work on spongebob.

But we should be respectful of the people who work on the show since they're just trying to get by.

Don't worry! I get what you mean. A lot of people like the middle era. There are good episodes and I feel like it got judged waaay too harshly. Even though I'm not much of a fan of it. There's a lot of gems and people really liked to over hate it for nothing. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

And I get what you mean by the new episodes. Its a fairly common criticism about it and even I can admit it's can be a little extreme at times. I don't think you're a sourpuss for feeling that way! Everyone has a different opinion and yours is valid and I appreciate hearing it. What matters is being respectful and you are very respectful and nice! I enjoyed reading this and sorry I replied so late!

[evilelitest2]

Are you familiar with the extensive history of the African continent? I'm asking because a surprising number of people seem to lack knowledge about the pre-colonial history of the Continent. It doesn't help that some of them go of on the popular stereotype of African history just being about tribes and mudhuts.

 I have some knowledge of Africa but not of the whole Continent, Africa is huge and has the oldest history of humanity in the world, so I would not say I have extensive knowledge of the whole continent, rather I know a few periods of some parts of Africa.  I”m pretty good at North African History and certain parts of Colonial Africa (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, the Belgian Congo) so compared to most white Americans i probably now more than most its still pretty shallow honestly, and there are whole sections of the continent where I don’t know any history prior to decolonization.   I’ve only taken 1 Grad school class on Africna history and a sub unit of an Undergraduate class in terms of the history rather than just contemporary politics.  

African history is really complicated and horrifically neglected (Outside of Egypt), and there are a few reasons for that 

1) Racism.  For the last 500 years, European Culture has been built upon the lie that African culture is not valuable, and that anything made by black people is just worthless.  So Africa is usually dismissed as just primitive or savage, but even among people who aren’t consciously racist, there is this notion that African history isn’t important.  If you make any effort to lean history, a lot of civilizations will jump out as “OMG SO IMPORTANT” like China or Mongolia or Persia, but SubSaharian Africa is usually just seen as “They fucked around until Colonialism happened (Ethiopia being the one exception).  And that racism is self perpetuating, the more worthless a region is seen, the less people go in to study it, which makes it more neglected, which means less people go to study it ect   

2) A limited notion of what is worth studying.  One of the most constant rules of history is that centralized states which build giant monuments and have standing armies tend to only respect other centralized states with giant monuments and standing armies.  So Rome respected Egypt because “Hey, they also built giant monolithic structures just like we do, and they have a capital city, and a standing army and a central administrative bureaucracy and a writing system and a legal code, and a ruler who commands it, sweet we get that.  Sure they are inferior to us, the Greatest Empire in the history of the world, but still they are in the club.  So civilizations that don’t have those features, which are decentralized or never invented a writing system or didn’t build huge structures often are just dismissed as...not worth studying.  And since this includes a lot (but to be clear, no where near all) of pre Colonial African civilizations, there is this notion that “Nothing important happened in Africa until whitey showed up” 

3) Deliberate cultural erasure.  Of course we know that many parts of sub saharan Africa did have centralized states, and big buildings, and standing armies and writing systems, all that good stuff.  However when Colonialism happened, alot of the records of that were deliberately or accidentally destroyed by the Europeans, meaning that future historians can’t study them.  This is espicically true in regions where there were major colonial wars...and also the Belgium Congo.  Fuck you Leopold II.  There has also been some similar cultural erasure done by the post Colonial governments, though no where near as extensive.  

Ok so now unto the less malicious reasons Sub Saharian Africa gets neglected (though racism plays a role).  Note that North Africa isn’t included, it gets a lot of love actually. 

4) Lack of primary sources.  Historians are defined by the sources they study and unfortunately for many (but not all) parts of Africa...there aren’t as many.  Many parts of pre Colonial Africa (but I can’t empathizes this enough, not all) didn’t develop a writing system, which means we have to rely on Oral history.  and with several centuries of cultural erasure and genocide that makes it more difficult.  Now Oral history is often looked down upon by Historians which isn’t fair it has a lot of value, but it is a lot less...precise than written.  With a document we can say “this was written in 400 BCE” while with a story we can say “it looks like certain elements were added but where...who knows”.  its possible but it is a lot more difficult.  Now many parts of Africa did have written sources and we tend to know more about them (Mali, Ethiopia, Ghana) but a lot of those records were destroyed during colonialism or the civil wars that followed, or just the usual difficulties in preserving records every culture faces.  Also many (but not all) parts of Africa didn’t have paper, but substances that didn’t last as long (Palm leaves for example) and so the records are lost or more damaged. 

You can rely on Archaeological evidence but that is more expensive.  

5) Poverty and war.  Now we need to be super careful about generalizing Africa as a war torn improvised Continent because again..its a fucking continent, its huge and super diverse.  A lot of parts of Africa have had problems with war and poverty and unfortunately, those are not circumstances that create historians.  Places that have a degree of stability, wealth, and established education systems produce historians.  And since a mix of Colonialism, Post colonialism,, Neo Colonialism, and Nationalism can create consistent wealth issues for many parts of Africa, it means you have less historians.  There are still thousands of historians from Africa so I don’t want to over state this.  

6) Difficulty studying places.  The parts of Africa which are currently in a state of war, climate disaster, extreme poverty or just general instability are less likely to get historians to go there to study.  Like studying French history unusually means that you go to France, which isn’t so bad.  It still does happen though, I don’t want to over state it there are thousands of Africans of every region.  

7) Funding.  A lot of African countries have their own historical traditions, but many (not all) of those governments tend to encourage historians to study the stuff that gets more funding, which is usually the Colonial/Post Colonial period. Or to even go into Europeon history.  There is a lot more money and attention studying Apartheid or the Zulu Empire than South Africa in 1000 CE.  This is to say nothing of when regimes are actively nationalistic and limit what historians can study or try to force them to work within specific narratives.   This is even more true when it comes to European historical societies which have research grants and they want to give it to place that they already know about, which means that like 90% of African historians focus on the colonial era (which to be fair, is super important to study.

8) Incompetence.  A lot of early historian of Africa were Europeans who were...well they were bad.  And their mistakes have made it more difficult for everybody else following in their example.  

9) The Language thing: Finally, it is important to note that despite all of the above mention factors...there are millions of books written on African history.  There are tons of African historians who talk to each other and write works on every element of African history.  But here is the thing...not all of it is in English.  A ton of it is written in various native African language, or in the other major non African languages (French, Dutch, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese).  There is a lot written in English don’t get me wrong, but Africa has several million languages and so a ton of the material out there can’t be easily translated, which means that much of the info is inaccessible to other Historians.  Like if I wanted to study African history in serious depth, I would have to first improve my French and then learn a bunch of African languages, none of which are part of the English Language family.  So that would take years of study before i could even make a serious start.  Which limits it all.

Now again, even with all of those factors, there is a lot of African history out there, and a lot of it in English.  But most of it is high level academic history that you read at Grad schools or historical journals, not much of it has trickled down into “popular history” for the lay person.  Like a history enthusiast can get a pretty good understanding of the Byzantine Empire without ever going to college for it if they read the right popular histories of the period.  Most of Africa doesn’t have that, its basically starts (in the US at least) with the high level stuff.  

Also remember many of these African countries are quite young, so presumably they will produce more historical traditions given time.  

[justapayneaway]

Okay so the video had some shit that I could potentially understand from an outsider's point of view but hell this is just plain stupid. The Harry situation was clearly a joke. Yeah I guess how he said it might have stung and made people question his thought but he was clearly joking. (1/?) (This is about that video with the hateful remarks of Liam, I thought maybe I should rant about it. Pay in mind it was late and I already had a crap mood so I'm pretty not okay during this rant)

The girlfriend situation, don't even start with it. Yeah she's 18, that girl ain't 19 and even if she was, internet really did her wrong by finding ways to show she aint. That situation fucked up Liam even more and idc if he loves her or whatever but it clearly didnt do him justice and I wish they never made it public, even if it's a stunt or a "real" couple. Like that made people hate him more. (2/?)

The merch is people's choice. I hate the hoodie but I like the t-shirt. He has the rights to sell whatever he wants. His album might be expensive online but its cheap af in stores. It costs 15$ cad here which is nothing compared to the others's album (Louis doesn't count). (3/?)

Mr. Boring" was given by hateful people because he looks like that jock guy that wants to fuck you and leave you like a rag but we dont even know him. Nobody knows any of the boys so this is just a wrong thing. This could be his persona or the real him but what does that do you? Y'all really love to make him look bad with any ounce of being you have. This boy is much more than Mr. Boring but all of you fuck him up constantly so of course he comes of different. (4/?)

I wouldn't blame him, if people always told me I was the worst or boring, you will try not to be or shut everyone out. Cringeworthy lyrics? OH GOD YES! But some of his tracks on Lp1 aren't as much. Stack it Up sucked balls and I wish its death because it was horrible. Strip that down is that generic song you find in clubs which is fine. All his songs lack something for sure but they are still very good. (5/?)

Lyrics wise he said he didnt have inspiration to write which honestly I don't blame him, maybe he ain't a wordy person to open up and ask people to write shit for him and I dont blame him. He gave what he could and I'm proud of him. Yeah some lyrics are problematic af and I wish they worded it better or made it look less crappy but what can we do? (6/?)

A lot of artists write like that but no! LIAM JAMES PAYNE has to be hated on it as if he is the only one who does those kind of lyrics. Some artists have the same intentions but some aren't as straightforward but still, it's all the same. Plus, Rude Hours and Both Ways are like 2 songs and he gets dragged on repeat for it when there are good songs on the album. (7/?)

I hate his team for making 3 different albums with the target one with 2 bonus and the Japanese one with 3 extra bonuses and that sucks. His features should've been out of the album and have those 5 beautiful bonus songs in instead. The Christmas one should have been off the album. Stack it up was a failure from the start. (8/?)

I just wish people would stop hating on him and always drag him down. He is much more but I see what those people see because Liam ain't himself and he didnt give his 100% but he seems okay enough to have this album out and seems pretty proud so just give him some rest. This album ain't as bad people make it to be. People hate those 2 problematic songs and wont even listen to the other songs. (9/?)

And not everyone has the same music taste. I like "sexual" pop music and rock. His music are those generic sex songs and that isnt a bad thing. If he likes doing it, who is to tell him to not do that? Y'all really compare him to 1D Eras and the bandmates but they are different. Liam maybe likes these 'popular' shit and what does that do you? Liam is human. Liam is Liam. We cant do shit and he lives his life. Give him a break jeez.. (10/10) [sorry for this rant, you can hate me if you want to]

__________________

Okay anon I don’t hate you at all! This is well thought and I do agree with a lot of point you made here. I’ll try making a few comments by ask since this is big lmao

BTW SUPER IMPORTANT: don’t watch that video and don’t spread it! Report it if you feel like doing something about it. 

1. But what even is the Harry situation? Him saying that they aren’t best friends? Or that they have much in common? Because that’s understandable. Or is it the “harry’s clothes” comment of 2017 that harries keep bringing up when you can clearly see that Liam was just joking?

2. I do agree with you! The situation with the teenager just made things way worse for him. It added a lot of hate and it was completely unnecessary, especially how they keep bringing her up every single time and how she is always there!

3. I actually like his merch. I think it’s simple, but the white t-shirt is amazing. Sure the hoodies could have been more elaborated, but they’re super cozy! The thing I appreciate most about his merch is that it’s actually affordable. Btw I agree that it’s personal taste. His album is kind of cheap compared to other albums I've bought. 

4. But the thing for me is that Liam was never boring. He is smart and has a brilliant dark sense of humor. I think that some old 1d fans didn't like him much because he was always the spokesperson and had to say the shit nobody wanted to be said. People don’t seem to want to get past that to be honest with you! 

5. I agree with you! I really prefer Liam to shut up these fucking people with his success and what he wants to do that being an underwear campaign. Sure, some of the lyrics aren’t poetic shit, but there are others that are really deep and have some dark themes behind them. The songs aren’t bad at all in my opinion. SIU should have never been released, but I think we can all agree with that one!

6. I do think that Liam wasn’t 100% inspired, but I also feel like these are the songs we were supposed to get last year. They aren’t current if that makes sense, so of course some lyrics aren’t worded okay. 

7. I never thought it was a bad thing to use lyrics written by other people. That’s literally why songwriters exist! And a lot of people don’t write their own lyrics, but apparently it’s only bad for Liam to do it. I do agree! He is getting dragged for two songs. 

8. I don’t understand why they made three different albums. I understand wanting to keep the old songs because in terms of certifications/streams it gives him an advantage, but the extra songs are so damn good! They deserved more than this and he actually wrote on them. With the whole thing of the album I really don’t understand why AIWFC was added! 

9. I think you say it all with this part “This album ain’t as bad as people make it to be”. That’s the truth! I like the album and sure I'd do thing differently, probably. But I think people are judging the album based on BW and they are just going along with the hate. This album is exactly what Liam said it was going to be! A mix of songs that felt like a playlist with different genres.

10. It’s a personal taste thing again! I consume all kinds of music, I’m eclectic. I’ve been like that since I was a kid and learnt to play music. It isn’t bad that Liam is showing what kind of music he did and experimenting with different genres. For me it makes him a more complete artist to be honest with you! I really hate that they keep comparing them. Just let them all be whatever the fuck they want!!

In conclusion, I don’t understand the hate and I wish it would end.  

(Hope this answers you and don’t feel bad about ranting! It’s good to let it out.)