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daekie-gw2 · 9 months ago

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i was putting this in the tags but it got so long that it was basically an entire post anyway so. okay. listen to me. hear me out:

I know Champions was bad. I know Champions was really, really, agonizingly bad, and because they dripfed it to us over months you never got used to it because UGH. GOD. NEW SUPPLY MISSION. every 3 weeks or whatever and it just was not fun. You were always being freshly reminded of how bad Champions was. The character writing is bad (No asura except Taimi has basically anything to say about Primordus, and she's portrayed as basically just being ridiculously hysterical about it?? They've been smoothing her down over time but it was real bad here.), DRMs were fucking miserable, I think DRM CMs are still bugged, and Dragonstorm is Okay but there's only so many times you can watch Jormag puke in their brother's mouth and hear CHAMPION!! HELP ME!! THIS POWER!! IT'S TOO WILD!! before you're just going BenAffleckWithACigarette.png about the whole shebang. IN THE MEANTIME, FIRE ALAR[sniper rifle shot rings out. i crumple bonelessly to the ground]

Here is the thing. Here is the horrible truth I realized when I did Seasons of the Dragons:

The rest of Icebrood Saga was good. (Cut for length. I, uh, I kinda went on about this & about why I think SotO is so bad. Sorry. I have strong thoughts and feelings. When I said 'length', by the way, I meant it,)

Grothmar is a fuckin killer start to the story. It's fun!! It's a great looking map and it has a good story chapter and the Metal Legion part of the meta kicks ass. This release also introduced Strike Missions, aaand admittedly the first one was Shiverpeaks Pass, which is barely a Strike (it's barely anything, you can get gold time on it with eight healers and nothing else), but yknow what? Strikes are good, I stand by that.

After Grothmar we move onto Bjora Marches, which I will freely admit kind of sucks to play. Masteries are bad. The events are repetitive. Storms of Winter also sucks to play if people on the map are incompetent. Light puzzles hate you personally. But even with all of that taken into account, East Bjora is still my favorite map in the game from an atmospheric & story level. The Pact soldiers who wander out into the cold and never come back? The ones who just mutter to themselves near the horrifyingly mauled bodies of their friends? Jormag actively gaslighting everyone involved in the whole situation? The fact it's the only map in the game where events being the exact same every time is actively called out because you are canonically trapped in a loop and you keep forgetting?? Bright Shore's entire little sidequest? The boneskinner jumpscares where you go THAT'S AN NPC I CAN INTERACT WITH TO START AN EVENT -- Check your minimap. There's no emblem there. No it's not :) The scare chords when it just shows up to look at you spookily!! The fraenir cutscene where Jormag talks through his broken body!! I'm not going to say that west Bjora is like, good either, but it's still Fine. These releases also brought us the other 2/3rds of the EZ3 IBS Strikes, Boneskinner (man. how was this in the same release as those two.), and Whisper of Jormag.

I actually don't really have a lot to say about Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire, it's very much a weird stopgap HEY DID YOU GUYS KNOW WE BROUGHT BACK LWS1 FIGHTS AS INSTANCES GO CHECK THEM OUT thing, but my toxic trait is that I am deeply endeared by Forging Steel. Everyone in that warband is so fucking weird and it's fundamentally charming. Ranoah has like two braincells to rub together but she's having a GREAT time. (This release also brought the legendary ring Conflux and the legendary amulet Transcendence to the game!) Oh, yeah, and this was also the episode that had Eye of the North release as a hub, that was good, can't forget that.

AAAND THEN WE GET TO DRIZZLEWOOD. Drizzlewood Coast my fucking beloved I could play this thing for loops on end. I really, really like the gameplay of South Drizzlewood, it's all the stuff I like about WvW. This gave us Waystations! We like waystations. They're good. The 'unlocking missions via documents' is clearly padding but honestly it's fun padding so who give a shit, not me. South Drizzlewood released without voice acting because it was mid-first surge of COVID and it was still incredible. All the Charr ambient dialogue is wonderful! I'm haunted by the fact Ryland is canonically really sexy by Charr standards. "Look around! You're killing your own! You don't want this, I know you don't!" vs Vishen at Wolf's Crossing made me so insane I wrote a fic about it and even now I want to gnaw it like a dog with a chewtoy, as someone with an older Charrmander it fuckin hits. AND THE FACT A BUNCH OF THE CACHE KEEPERS ARE FROM CHARR PERSONAL STORY. ARWARAWRAWRA. Also Cold War was in here but that strike is so fundamentally Whatever honestly. I like it but did you know ONE BY ONE, I'LL RAZE YOUR RANKS (why didn't they give her more generic voice lines.)

North Drizzlewood's story is Fine. Gameplay is a downgrade but still honestly pretty fun, I like the Claw coming back for a last hurrah. This is where they really had to start figuring out 'oh fuck how do we 1. introduce Primordus as active in this plot, 2. kill Primordus, and 3. start working towards the Cantha expansion narratively by the end of next episode' and you can kind of tell: Memories of Otter are Not Good and this also brought Charged Stormcaller weapons which are Not Good.

And Then We Had Champions.

And Champions sucked so bad and was so frustratingly bad that it retroactively made everyone remember the entirety of Icebrood Saga as REALLY TERRIBLE. Which it was not! I'm sorry! It was solid! But we got like three story steps every two months, a few boring-as-hell Dragon Response Missions, the dragonslayer weapons [hissing in disgust] -- the writing was not good (Canach what did they fucking do to you. They flanderized that man. Where is John DiMaggio.) and the entire gameplay loop was just 'farm DRMs. That's it. That's all your new content. They're not even new maps.' At least these added a bunch of basically-free Mastery Points but... cmon, man. (I think Champions also added the Central Tyria exploration mastery points? That was good.)

And then... SotO. Which had so much potential and has completely failed to meet any of it.

tl;dr here are my Takes on SotO because it got so much longer than it should have been, so if you don't want to read a really sloppy essay (some of these I don't even go into in said "essay" for length reasons):

I'm almost completely sure that the writers do not have any sort of world or lore bible, aren't even bothering to check the wiki, and it shows.

Zojja got character assassinated (as did the asura in general) & her narrative role would be much better filled by Caithe or even potentially Logan. There's nothing about her here that means she specifically needs to be Zojja, & in fact there are several points where her being Zojja is detrimental. She's probably 1. here because they wanted a familiar face for players going coregame > SotO for Skyscale and 2. amnesiac because that way she can't reference past expansions, but she really doesn't need to be here.

The Astral Ward are written in a kind of creepy way, which the narrative had some interest with engaging in at release and then decided Nope They're Good Guys And Joining Them Is Good And Has No Downsides.

All the postlaunch content drops feel like they went directly from draft > game with no revisions done in between. There's a lot of roughness that could be a lot smoother if they'd gone through actual drafting.

Why are the Kryptis monsters? They're written completely like normal people. You could have just made them humanoids in Oneiros armor and said 'the ones attacking Tyria have specifically chosen to look that way' but no. Almost complete lack of unique models & even humanoid models, Peitha is pulling a Fantasy Race Sexy Woman (I love her but like. C'mon.)

Why are we Peitha's bff?? Why don't we have a single ounce of doubt in her?? Why is her cause being portrayed as completely good and cool and heroic?? You're better than this, GW2.

The Commander is not a player insert or a mute protagonist. Up until now the GW2 story has given them consistent characterization and writing -- they have a lot to say about things! In SotO, especially postlaunch, they're halfway to being a mute protagonist and they're really, really passive. They're just acting on whatever the Good Heroic NPC tells them to do.

Half the material we're being fed narratively has no actual basis in the map itself or anywhere else. It feels awkward and clunky.

Even mechanically it struggles. Difficulty in SotO isn't based on mechanics or timing, it's just giving monsters more HP and making them do more damage.

As opposed to prior 'bad writing' GW2 content where there was at least enough to work with, if you want to make a coherent story out of this for your Commander you really have to rewrite half the expansion.

Where's the Commander's gaggle of twentysomething-fortysomething disaffected adults!! They need those!!

Skyscale/Griffon flying buffs were good, though, I love the updraft usage & Skyscale being siege now is nice.

I want SotO to be good so, so bad, and I'm deeply frustrated that it isn't. It doesn't feel like GW2 narratively after the core release, and I'm saying this as someone who adores Skywatch and spent hours exploring it launch week and who was really optimistic after finishing the launch content. It just feels bad.

FIRST OFF. Zojja. The current writers' room ever since EoD has fucking hated asura and cannot stop dunking on how backwards they are compared to Cantha technologically (THEY HAVE SATELLITES!! THEY'VE HAD SATELLITES!!). They've also done character assassination on Gorrik and Taimi (Gorrik moreso. That man was Inquest. He got arrested for bioterrorism and he'd do it again. He incubated a beetle under his skin!) and they've, uh -- I wrote an entire section on this and deleted it because it's not SotO relevant but trust me I have Strong Feelings on this front.

Asura society is a meritocracy. They might be a little ableist but Zojja would absolutely not be a pariah post-HoT, everyone'd be banging on her door. Which would be one thing if her journals portrayed it like that and that she was 100% isolating herself, but that's... not really what's in there! There's also the implication that the Commander and none of her friends really bothered checking up on her at all after a bit, which. That sucks. That really really sucks. Especially for Taimi, because Taimi would not have coped well with Zojja disappearing after HoT, that's her parental-slash-mentor figure.

Her character writing in SotO, especially after becoming a Wizard, is... I dunno who that is, man. That's not Zojja. Even if you were an Asura commander, she was not your bestie, she was a bitch! And I loved her for that but the point remains! If you weren't an Asura commander you really did not hang out with her basically ever. Why are you her missing BFF now? They could've excused this if it was written well enough, you can really excuse anything, but It's Not. Her also willingly going through wizardification is rough. You telling me she didn't think about Snaff at all? Again: who is this Asura? Because based on everything we know about Zojja's personality and feelings and behavior, this ain't her. And then they basically just wrote all the wizards out of the story when we went to Nayos anyway so like... why was she here?? Prerelease promotional content was like SHE'S GONE THROUGH SO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OFFSCREEN AND SHE'S SO INTEGRAL TO YOUR STORY HERE. Is she. Did she. What expansion were you playing, it was not the one that came out. (My reigning theory is that they didn't bother actually reading up on her personality/history beyond a two-sentence briefing, because giving her amnesia means that for any players who go basegame>SotO she's 1. a familiar face, since Destiny's Edge is your basegame companion party and 2. can't reference your past adventures, because she's forgotten.) Do we go 'hey, Zojja, I think erasing all your memories both good and bad to become a wizard is probably kind of a rash decision'? No we go 'Zojja I'll support you whatever option you take :)' and treat her doing this like an unambiguously good thing.

You know who would've made for a deeply compelling wizard in that character slot? Caithe. Caithe is isolated from the Sylvari and from just about everyone. She hangs out with the Crystal Bloom, but with Aurene going into hibernation for who knows how long... her job's done. Her daughter's asleep and may not wake up within Caithe's lifetime. The world doesn't need her anymore. She's already established to be prone to making rash decisions that make her look really, really bad to us because we don't get to hear the context -- having her just ghost everyone and become a wizard would work. And if she ascends? She'll still be alive when Aurene wakes up. She's basically been completely irrelevant since LWS4 even with her occasional cameos, the Commander's doing 95% of the 'Champion of Aurene' work. She and Rytlock are the GW2 characters. Logan could also work! Logan went through the same shit as Zojja in HoT and he struggles with his identity and his dedication to the Queen! He's a Guardian, he already uses magic! Logan Thackeray who, apparently.

Smarter people than me have written on the Astral Ward but they're... deeply kind of culty and the game is just not interested in examining this at all after the base content drop. The Astral Ward is Good. Isgarren might be a jerk sometimes but even he is Good. They're The Good Guys. When you join the Ward you can't go home again, except you literally can, we see a bunch of existing NPCs who are apparently leading double lives. They put real people into the fractals as test subjects! There's some interesting writing on that in Skywatch! But after the base drop that's just. Gone.

Mabon dies unceremoniously without even a cutscene after you've known the guy for like three hours. I don't have anything else to say on that but man. He deserved better. I'd say something about his husband friend Lyhr but Lyhr basically just disappears after the first two maps so WHO KNOWS. (Literally what is Lyhr's deal, I don't think they even actually really go into it, he can just. Do that? Split into two? The game feels like it expects you to understand What He's Doing and that it's a Thing He Can Do. Is it??? What is he doing. It's deeply fascinating! Please tell me! I genuinely want to know!)

And then we hit all the post-first release story/content drops, and this is where things get substantially worse, because up to this point SotO has had promise. There's space for it to tell a really fascinating story. It's struggling with character writing & trying to nostalgiabait & feels a little mechanically rushed (I wish the Kryptis had different animations from the rigs they reuse :( ) but, like, it's got potential.

And Then It Doesn't. Suddenly, immediately, we are Fully On Board With Peitha, who's been a voice in our head who told us not to tell people about her. She's our bestie, we would trust her to the end of the world, she is Definitely Good. We go to Nayos! Nayos looks great! The environment artists did so good I'm so proud of them!! And after all the info we've gotten about how kryptis are monstrous and inhuman and how we have been killing them en masse like dogs we go there and it's -- you could swap out all these NPC models with normal humanoids and nothing would change. There's no point to them being weird monsters. It's frustrating!! They're inhuman mist beings who eat emotions!! Oh, right, the writers forgot the 'eat emotions' part already. A couple of Kryptis NPCs talk about how you're so weird and freaky looking but it's kind of played as a joke.)

Ignaxious doesn't even have a unique model. We get introduced to a couple of also no unique model Kryptis, some of who are then sacrificed onscreen and we're... supposed to feel sorry for them? We don't know these people. It's nothing. This is all so fundamentally nothing. Eparch's wife (I literally had to wiki her name. Labris.) has a unique model! Sure, she's wearing mostly Oneiros armor, but it's something! And she shows up for two and a half instances and kills herself and it's supposed to be a Big Dramatic Moment and it's just Nothing.

They could've made Nayos 1 a Drizzlewood type thing, where you're taking back Kryptis settlements from Eparch's enforcers and slowly winning the trust of the people and made it implied to take weeks. They didn't. It's sooooo nothing. It's just nothing.

(Also this frankly is not even a really SotO-specific crime, but what are they DOING with fractal lore. Cmon. You could at least do more with Fractals and the Mists! WvW is canon!! It's the Mist War!! Where is Arkk I know he's fucking out there -- what am I saying, nobody on the writing team RN knows who he is.)

And like I've said this a lot but I emphasize: I want SotO to be good. I was deeply optimistic after it initially released and I played through the first ten chapters and I was still deeply optimistic, and that optimism has just... been shattered. I don't think the devs are getting nearly enough time as they need to make the releases even passable, and I think there's probably been so much turnover in the writing team that nobody in it really plays the game, or at least it feels like that. I think they need time to find their footing, because the base SotO writing is. Fine. Not great but workable. But besides that, everything since Gyala 2 has been deeply rough.

I see a SotO story drop update and I don't run to my game and update it and get excited, I just feel like the game's going COMMANDER, IT'S CONTENT DROP TIME, TIME FOR YOUR DICK FLATTENING and I'm just standing there going yes honey :( in a dead voice. Prev said it doesn't feel like ANet is even trying anymore and... yeah! It doesn't! This is slop! They're not even trying to dress it up as fancy slop it's just Slop.

GW2! Love that game! Wish it was good

Alright, I’ve personally been wondering what other people’s opinions on this would be, so

*I know IBS isn’t a true expansion but it’s got its own mastery line so I’m counting it

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babymetaldoll · 4 years ago

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Character development (Matthew Gray Gubler / Reader)

Not my gif

A/N: I don't know if any of you haven't seen or doesn't know what happens with Spencer in Season 8, but anyway: HUGE SPOILERS ALERT OF SEASON 8 of CRIMINAL MINDS.

Requested: Yes. "Hi! I was wondering if you could do a Matthew/reader one where the reader is watching criminal minds, and Maeve just died, and the reader is sad and finds out Matthew suggested that Maeve's character got killed off, and Matthew makes it up to her."

Summary: Gubler reaches home and finds a very depressed girlfriend waiting for him to talk about the bad things that had just happened to Spencer in that week's episode of Criminal Minds.

Category: Fluff

Warnings: Well, spoilers of season 8 of CM, I think a curse or two, and that's it.

Wordcount: 1,6 K

Masterlist

The whole house was in silence when Matthew walked in. That was weird. Since he and his girlfriend (Y/N) moved in together, he was greeted with laughter, music, hugs, and kisses every time he got home.

But not that day. Silence and darkness in the whole house were all that welcomed Matthew.

- "Bunny?"- he asked, frowning confused- "Are you home?"

But nothing. Only silence.

Matthew walked around the house. It was so quiet it was creepy.

- "(Y/N)?"

- "In here"- her voice was small, and it took Matthew a minute to find her, curled up on a couch. The tv screen was the only light in the whole room.

- "Hey, Bunny"- Gubler sat next to her and kissed her lips sweetly- "Are you ok?"

- "Yeah,"- she whispered and cut him the worst smile ever- "Did you have fun with your friends today?"

- "Yeah, we had dinner, watched a movie. It was fun. What did you do?"- Gubler knew there was something wrong with his girlfriend, and he wasn't going to let it pass.

- "Nothing. I just watched tv."

- "And did something happen today at work?"- but (Y/N) shook her head- "Then why are you so sad? Your eyes are puffy, Bunny. What is it?"

- "It's honestly nothing. I just..."- (Y/N) turned off the tv and sighed- "I watched today's episode of Criminal Minds."

- "Oh..."- Matthew thought about it for a second until it finally hit him.

That week's episode was "Zugzwang," and he knew it would be a rough one for everybody. It had actually been hard to film. Reid's girlfriend would die right in front of him, and Matthew knew (Y/N) wasn't going to take that episode very well. Ok, no one would, but she really wanted Spencer to have a girlfriend, finally.

- "Oh... so, what did you think?"- (Y/N) looked at him and almost rolled her eyes.

- "Look at me, I've been crying for an hour,"- Gubler chuckled and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, cuddling her.

- "Come on, Bunny. It's just a tv show."

- "I know, but can you explain why Maeve had to die? why can't Spencie be happy?"

- "Why do you call him Spencie?"- Gubler frowned and looked at her confused, but she dismissed his question and pouted instead.

- "Honey, why did they decide to kill Maeve? Why didn't you argue against that stupid decision? Reid needs a girlfriend."

Matthew opened his mouth and was about to answer when he thought that might not be a real good idea. You see, it had been Matthew who suggested Maeve had to die in the most tragic way possible to make the storyline work.

At the time, it made sense for Gubler, but now, watching how his girlfriend had cried watching the episode, he wondered if they had maybe done it a little too sad.

- "Bunny, it's just a tv show. You know that right?"- he whispered and kissed her hands. (Y/N) nodded in silence and just stared at the empty space for a moment.

She knew it was just a tv show, and she understood it was stupid to be so profoundly affected by it. Still, at the same time, it was impossible not to feel moved by it, especially after watching Matthew impersonating Spencer crying with such sadness. It broke her soul. Literally, she felt something inside of her shattering as she watched him on the screen, sobbing. That was when she started crying along with Spencer.

- "I know it's silly but, though I know it's a tv show, and I know none of that is real, it still kind of hurt"- (Y/N) tried to explain- "Imagine any of that happened to us..."

- "Bunny, that won't happen to us. No one is going to kidnap us or hurt us, ok?"- Matthew smiled and kissed her hands one more time. (Y/N) nodded and sighed.

- "I'm sorry, I know it's silly being this upset over something that ain't even real."

- "No, Bunny. I think it's cute"- Matthew was sincere, but (Y/N) felt pretty silly. She had spent the last hour and a half of her life crying over the death of a fictional character.

- "Just let's make sure I get over this impasse before I visit you on the set, 'cos I don't think I will be able to be cool around the writers of the show after this episode."

- "About that,"- Matthew bit his lips and decided to face the truth once for all- "Maeve's death might have been..."- but (Y/N)'s wide-opened eyes didn't let him finish talking. He just stared at her and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear carefully.

- "Might have been what?"

- "My... idea."- Gubler murmured and looked at her, trying to read her reaction.

- "I'm sorry, what?!"- (Y/N) didn't move. She just stayed still, staring at Gubler, trying to understand what he had just said.

- "Ok, so don't get mad at me, but I only agreed to get on board on Spencer having a girlfriend if she died the most tragic way possible."

There was a deep and long silence between them after Gubler said those words. It was like (Y/N) couldn't believe what she had just heard, and Matthew tried to smile in a useless effort to ease the mood.

- "Why did you do that?"- (Y/N) finally whispered and tried to understand what her boyfriend was talking about.

- "Well, it was for character development. Reid's story is overall tragic, and his relationship with his girlfriend wasn't what we could call normal, right?"

(Y/N) stared at him, speechless. Reid was a fictional character portrayed by her boyfriend, but somehow he had become a beloved imaginary being they actually talked about.

- "What did Reid ever do to you? Why did he deserve this?"- (Y/N)'s voice was a whisper, and Gubler just stared at her. He wanted to kiss her cheeks and tickle her, to make her smile, 'cos he thought it was adorable how she reacted to the episode.

- "It just makes sense for the story"- Matthew leaned in and gave her a peck on the tip of the nose- "I'm sorry you got so sad. Was it my incredible acting that made it all so believable?"- he joked and kissed her cheek several times.

- "You looked miserable, Gub"- she whispered, still upset- "You were so convincing I cried along with you at the end."

- "I'm glad"- he stopped kissing her and looked t her, narrowing his eyes- "Not glad that you cried, I'm just glad you were convinced... I think"

- "It was a good episode, Gubler."

(Y/N) sighed and looked at him, still pouting. Matthew kissed her slowly, rubbing his lips against her and moving his tongue carefully, tasting her. He felt how her body relaxed at his touch and held her closer to him. When the kiss was over, and she had sighed, resting her forehead against his, Matthew whispered.

- "It's only a good episode for me if you like it, Bunny."

- "Yeah, well, I have the feeling you are gonna have to make it up to me for making me cry"- the way (Y/N) spoke made her sound like a spoiled kid, which she actually was around Gubler. He would always coddle her in every way possible.

- "Make it up to you how, Bunny?"- Matthew murmured in a lower voice, still holding her so close in his arms, she was now sitting on his lap.

- "I don't know... you can do stuff."

- "Stuff?"- Gubler repeated and kissed her again- "Stuff like what? I need more info"- (Y/N) giggled and hid her face on the crook of Matthew's neck, inhaling deeply.

- "I haven't had dinner yet."

- "What does my Bunny want to eat?"- Gubler replied in a second, running his hand up and down her back- "Pizza? Chinese? Thai? you love Thai food."

- "Gubler. I wanna eat Gubler,"- she whispered, biting his shoulder playfully, making him laugh.

- "You can't eat Gubler!"

- "Why not?! He's delicious!"- (Y/N) kissed Matthew's neck and licked it until a soft groan left his lips.

- "Don't start things you won't finish, Bunny"- she heard him saying, as his lips crushed against hers with lust.

Sometimes Matthew could manage to step from sweet, cute boyfriend to hungry, dominant animal in a second. (Y/N) never told him, but it was one of the many things she loved about him.

Matthew's hand roamed from her back to underneath her shirt in a second, unclasping her bra in a blink. (Y/N) could feel how he was getting hard underneath her legs and the urge in his lips. And it was just what she wanted.

- "Maybe you are right"- she whispered and ended their kiss- "Pizza would be better."

- "Really?"- Matthew looked at her with widened eyes, and (Y/N) couldn't help but giggle- "Why are you teasing me like this?"

- "It just makes sense for the story. It's for character development"- she answered, mocking his earlier answer about Criminal Minds. Gubler groaned, letting her go, just to look at her pleased smile.

- "You are really gonna make me pay for what happened to Maeve and Spencer, aren't you?"- and (Y/N) just nodded- "If it makes you feel better, I really felt miserable the day we shoot that scene."

- "I'm sure you did. And I felt miserable watching you being miserable."

- "It's the circle of life, Bunny"- Matthew leaned in and kissed her- "We should do something to feel better now."

Gubler winked at (Y/N), and she giggled. His hands reached for her hips and moved underneath her shirt again, playing with her skin.

- "You may be right about that, but dinner first."

- "Are you gonna eat Gubler?"- he asked her, biting his lips, looking incredibly hot.

- "Pizza for dinner"- she teased and kissed him for a second- "Gubler for dessert."

****

Taglist:

@all-tings-diego

#spencer reid #mgg #matthew gray gubler #criminal minds #mgg x reader #spencer reid x reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #babymetaldoll writes

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jmflowers · 2 years ago

Note

30, 31, 36 :)

30. favourite tv show(s)

Impossible to answer. But the top few I've been obsessed with through the years are...

Ghost Whisperer (started watching when I was in middle school and was a hardcore fan the entire time it was on air - the first show I ever wrote fanfic for when I was about 12)

Alias (found it towards the end of its run, but watched and rewatched religiously for many, many years - I can still recite the season 1 opening monologue)

Grey's Anatomy (there's a huge gap of time between my obsessions here, as I binged through various genres of shows for a few years before being forced into Greys at 17 - my first ever episode was Song Beneath the Song and then I inhaled all of it in its entirety a couple of times... this was the first show I was involved in the fanfic corner of fandom for and began posting my own work online)

Orphan Black (this is just really, really solid Canadian-made sci-fi, but it ended a few years ago and I still haven't been able to watch the last two episodes which is embarrassing... can't get over that one death)

Gilmore Girls (who doesn't watch this show on loop every once in a while? fell into it in 2017 and found the best companion fanfic ever written that I've never been able to locate again... a truly iconic time in my life)

The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor/literally anything Mike Flanagan touches (I'm a sucker for good horror, especially if there are queer women involved... I've watched most of Mike Flanagan's work a few times and Bly makes me cry every time)

Covert Affairs (I loved this one when it was on air, but I binged it again at the start of COVID lockdowns and was reminded how comforting I find a spy drama, especially when all the locations they shot at are within driving distance of where I live)

Station 19 (if I hover in that happy space of season 4 Maya x Carina moments, this is the best place to exist... struggling greatly with over-analyzing it because of what I'm studying in school, though, so I'm like a season and a half behind on episodes)

And then, of course, there is a vast collection of shows I enjoyed greatly during the period of my life where I binged everything I possibly could from specific genres to "study the story arcs and writing development". There are too many to name, but if it was on TV before 2010, I've probably seen it.

31. 3 random facts

I have a "rare" disease/condition called Chiari Malformation that basically means part of my cerebellum doesn't fit inside my skull and is instead in my neck. When I was first diagnosed, my doctor pulled Gray's Anatomy off her bookshelf and read the section on CM to me, as she'd never heard of it before.

For much of my childhood, the mere sight of a giraffe would make me cry (out of pure excitement). Everyone took this to mean I needed to be gifted anything and everything giraffe-related for the rest of my life.

I often wake up with songs stuck in my head. Occasionally, they are songs that I haven't heard in my waking-life for several years. I think I must dream about music.

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill

Oh, man... It feels like there is so much, but most of my genuine wishes are relatively small and simple.

I'd love to see The Script perform in Dublin, Ireland. (There's something about the recordings of their hometown shows that just get me choked up every single time.)

I'd like to climb a mountain at least once in my life. Standing on a peak is incredible and I can only imagine how amazing it must feel to reach one as the result of your own physical determination. (There's a group called 29029 that does an event where you scale a mountain over and over again a certain number of times in 36 hours until you achieve the altitude of Everest and... that. I wanna do that one day.)

I'd like to pack up and separate myself completely from all the familiar securities I've always known, just to see what I'm really capable of. I think it'd be a perfect opportunity to travel and experience the world without the blinders of my life thus far.

question game

#thank you!#I always love answering these things... if you can't tell by the novels I write in response #mayasdeluca #question game #janelle's asks

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jalebi-likes · 2 years ago

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Channa Mereya Liveblog | E4: Does Nobody Have a Clue That Ambar is an A**

Dedicated to the liveblog queen @tellywoodtrash and this show’s PR queen @aye-masakalii

Unfortunately I won’t be able to give many pictures cause I want to go through these episodes as quickly as I can to watch the show live! It’s historic in my tv watching history btw!

Episode 4: Does Nobody Have a Clue That Ambar is an A**

Adi and Ambar playing bitter baap beta. Oh what a fun family breakfast time.

Daarji I still have a question that how did you not know you’re raising an arse for a son.

Clearly, Daarji trying to be the glue for the household but that’s impossible considering the abusive son you have and the traumatized grandson you have.

Lol, dono baap bete ko ek hi paratha chahiye. I feel I would sneak in and grab the paratha myself - let them fight :)

Also Adi, did you not put any filling in that paratha?

Ok I’m laughing at Daarji saying for as long as I’m alive Adi isn’t going anywhere - cause Ambar had the look of “I’m gonna kill you now Dad”

Ooh Daarji has something up his sleeve - a party for Adi winning the truck competition.

Daarji, how did you still not understand your son is a piece of shit.

Ambar has a death wish - HOW DARE HE DESTROY THE FOOD AND THE LASSI AND CHAAS C’MON THERE ARE HUNGRY PEOPLE… AMBAR I WANT TO KILL YOU.

Also, Adi - that was a fake wall - I can’t take your wall punch seriously.

Also, Armaan thanks for being a good friend and try to de-escalate the situation. And did Adi just pour some alcohol over his wound? I need medical advice here - how ok is that?

Woah… Adi in… self harm mode? Cause boy has really bad scars over his back!

Finally Tayaji realizes he needed to guide his brother and ask important questions. Ok… every man in this house tends to be sane. Bro did you not have any idea your younger brother is an abusive piece of shit.

Ooh… seriously Ambar has some issues with his own son. Also it is interesting how his older brother never answers the question if he killed Gurkirat or not.

Ok I love the older brother going that Ambar is problematic.

Ok… apart from Ginni clothes, location of her house, I want her hair too? *unlocking Arnav Asad Singh Rathore Khurana Khan*

Is Adi blind? Can he not see the vehicle is stuck! Exactly Ginni - can’t Adi see she is in need of help.

Adi in a white shirt in rain, I approve.

Ooooohhhh the hair falls on his face! I love they’re both a bit confused.

I like the banter - there’s a tone of level headedness despite the bitter talk.

Ooooohhhhhhhh they both recognized the tea was too sweet. And they recognized CINAMMON! Interesting how food is important for both of them, the awkwardness of finding that is the common factor between them.

It’s like me realizing the guy I kinda don’t like also loves Hindi films and tv and especially Iss Pyaar Ko... like... kya bolu ab? Also the hair on Adi’s face threw me back to Khushi’s hair on Arnav’s face and boy was he turned on MAX with that.

Ok... back to CM.

ALSO YES A MAN GOING SORRY I DIDN’T SAY I DON’T TAKE SUGAR SO PLEASE MAKE ANOTHER TEA TO THE CHAI WALLA. YES THANK YOU FOR CREATING A NORMAL PERSON?

Lol Ginni’s side comment of Adi being bitter due to lack of sugar is hilarious - in the sense of how she just snidely commented it, haha.

Hahahahahah Ginni going on a rant as to how a person from their area leave a show midway - I feel it if you were rooting for your town boy.

ALSO YES GINNI HAS A QR CODE TO TRANSFER MONEY. EXACTLY! OUR GIRL IS EDUCATED! SHE UNDERSTANDS TECHNOLOGY AND THE WORLD! CAUSE SHE HANDLES FINANCE AND PAYMENTS! YES YES YES AND HER GIVING HIM THE ADVICE TO HELP A PERSON IF THEY’RE STUCK INSTEAD OF JUST SENDING TAANA.

I’m wondering how deprived I am of normal people represented in TV that I’m happy with a hero showing basic etiquettes and a heroine having a working knowledge of tech.

I don’t get the “Tere rukh seeeee” channa mereya streaming through as Adi does help the vehicle out of the pothole on his way out.

OH SHIT… he accidentally spilt mud on her face!!! (Accidentally)

Ugh, tayiji excited to make a financial arrangement out of her daughter’s marriage is hilarious.

Omg tayiji asking others to ask Ambar about Adi is hilarious.

Poor Adi attending the party only for Daarji sake.

Ugh, Ambar praising Adi’s best friend to the public to insult Aditya is disgusting. Also, Armaan is a brilliant friend to Adi.

Ugh, Ambar reminds me of Ram Kapoor from SOTY where he praised Sid ka character in front of Varun.

Ok I love the maturity of Adi to see the pettiness and immaturity in his father.

Lol, Daarji took the party in his own hands and gave Adi a grand welcome. OMG DID DAARJI JUST HAND THE REIGNS OF THE HOTEL EMPIRE TO ADI??? YAY.

Omg did Ambar just place Adi as an intern in the hotel - good job Daarji insinuated that Adi will be LEADING the enterprise.

Haha chess match going on between the three generations. Meanwhile poor Tayiji, her hubby and she ain’t getting any reign of the property. Lolz.

Thoughts: WHEN EVERY PERSON IN THIS FAMILY IS SANE EXCEPT AMBAR... HOW DID YOU PEEPS NOT FIGURE IT OUT? Not putting the onus of an abusive person to their family - but like... yaar yeh aise kaise nikla? I like the level headedness of the show. I think that’s what the USP is. They just know when to pullback and give a touch of gravity to the characters.

The end :)

- Jalebi

#cm #channa mereya #channa mereya liveblog #cm episode 4 #jalebi liveblogs

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road2nf · 2 years ago

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I felt like Gus

(CW: death, illness, abuse, depression, parasite sickness, suicide)

The Vlogbrothers are like my weird internet family and I really like that feeling that they (and Nerdfighteria) bring, like someone’s looking out for me and cares if something bad is happening. Nerdfighteria gives me something to belong to.

The rest of this will be addressed in letter form to Hank and John because it’s easier to write with an audience. I know I write this story every time I get the chance, just hoping you’ll read it, so stop if you’ve heard this one.

When I was 16, I was in a really bad manipulative, abusive relationship and I became very depressed because I thought no one really cared about me anymore.

I was in the IB program at the time and in Bio I saw the SciShow video on population growth.

I thought Hank was really cool and funny, so I binge watched every episode.

Around this same time my friend posted the “To Be Anything At All” thoughts from places.

I was totally hooked on that too. Only after ages did I realize you were the John Green who wrote Katherines, which had been one of my favorite books for years.

I had just never thought you wrote anything else.

I had been really depressed.

I didn’t go to school.

I didn’t eat.

I mostly just stayed at home learning about science and the political situation in Nepal circa 2007. It was something to hold on to and I really needed that.

So that’s ‘thank you number 1’. From your channel, I then found Charlie and Alex and Carrie and Bryarly, and you all became like this weird internet family for me.

Honestly, with everything that’s happened with Alex, I feel almost personally betrayed, which is weird because I met him once for about three minutes.

He was one of the main ways I got through this bad abusive, manipulative relationship and it turns out he was just the same.

But because of Vlogbrothers, I got less depressed and more excited about your work. I bought all of Hank’s music and got Alaska and TFiOS from the library.

I read Alaska and really liked it, but I guess in a quieter way then I felt about a lot of books. Around this time I was starting to feel really tired and sick and going to school got hard again.

I was in and out of hospital for months with no diagnosis.

They thought I might have UC, so Hank talking about that so openly and honestly really helped. It turns out I only had a parasite that was causing me problems and making me anemic, etc. Anyway I thought I was okay because I was getting better on the meds I needed.

I started reading TFiOS right about now, for chronology’s sake. So my mom gets a call about the results of a CT scan I’d had.

Apparently, as well as this parasite, I also had a 21 cm hemangioma in my liver.

This is a swelling in the blood vessel making it very easy for any pressure or trauma to burst it. With a 21 cm hemangioma it was likely that if I fell the wrong way I would bleed out into my abdomen before I had the chance to stand up again, let alone get to the hospital.

So onto a donor list I went and things got kind of grim for a while.

I didn’t want to put my sickness on other people because it wasn’t fair that they would have to worry too.

Instead I read and read and reread TFiOS and rewatched every Vlogbrothers related video the internet had to offer.

It came out eventually, as these things do, that I was so sick. People were there for me which was really crazy.

I’d never had to think about death or dying, even related to other people really, so TFiOS really helped me figure some stuff out because with my diagnosis my odds weren’t good. I felt like Gus. I wanted to be able to die valiantly if I was to die, but I was angry too because I wouldn’t even get a fight.

I wanted to be able to fight for myself.

I had many more tests and several months later they came to the conclusion that either my hemangioma had subsided or I had been misdiagnosed to start with.

I’m still in slight danger, but my odds are so much better because I would bleed out much slower now, if I had an accident.

So yeah, I was okay again.

I was happy and active again, both in real life and on the internet.

I obviously still had a lot of problems I wasn’t addressing, but it felt so good to be healthy and it felt like you got me through it.

So I was great for about two months and it felt like I had really earned it by trying to be a part of something so good. Then, almost a year ago today, one of my closest friends committed suicide. I was so sad and angry and I didn’t know what I needed to do, or who I needed to be to help him, and my family, and everyone.

So I read TFiOS again, looking for some advice or some new understanding of death.

It didn’t make it better, and it didn’t bring him back, but it helped somehow.

I had the worst year anyone could ask for, but I fought for it because I felt like I would be letting you and Nerdfighteria down if I gave up.

You made me feel like there was something to fight for and hope for and want out of the world still. People like you are the reason the good outweighs the bad most days.

And now here I am, almost a year clear of the last disaster. I’m heading to college in the fall, at my dream school, in my dream city and the world looks pretty rosy from where I’m standing.

And to be honest, without the Vlogbrothers I don’t know if I’d even be here to see the world looking so much brighter.

I guess this was sappy and disorganized and long but I figured I’d just write it all down, in case any of it is nice or helpful to hear.

It probably sounds like the ravings of a lunatic or something, but I just wanted to say thanks.

- Amy Bradshaw

#nfstories #nerdfighteria #nerdfighters #vlogbrothers #depression #thoughts from places #TFiOS #illness #hemangioma #hope #fight #death

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spencer-reids-adventures · 3 years ago

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hello!! so i’m on season 7 episode 7 of criminal minds and if i’m being really honest right now ……. i’m getting a bit bored of it like i simply don’t have the urge to watch it at the moment :/ however i really really wanna finish it i know about spencer prison etc etc i want to get to that plot line but i can’t just skip to it yknow 😭 any words to encourage me to continue watching lol i adore your writing by the way and when i was looking for cm fics i was so very happy when i recognised ur ao3 when from when i used to read your community fics okay your the best

hi! i totally understand that feeling... 15 seasons is a lot and i think it would be almost impossible for it to stay, like, consistently interesting for that long, haha.

the thing that helped me most was that i read spoilers for the entire show before/during my watch, which gave me an idea of things to look forward to, and then i could just kind of zone out a little during the less interesting plotlines. i don't expect everyone to do that, though - i just like to be prepared for distressing things and cm happens to have a ton of them!

also i would look up which episodes were more centered around reid or even just had good little moments with him because those were the ones i was most interested in, and that also helped me know which ones to look forward to and which ones i didn't need to give my full attention to (or could even skip entirely, although i personally have a thing about having to watch every episode).

there are a few lists like that floating around online i think but they are incomplete. i could definitely put one together for you, either of reid episodes if that's your thing, or whatever kinds of plots/characters you find most interesting. i've watched every episode fairly recently (because i binged all 15 seasons in kind of a short period of time) and i've re-watched at least parts of so many of them for research for fics and photosets that i don' think it would be too difficult.

so let me know if something like that would be helpful and i'd be happy to do that for you!

also thank you so much, i'm really happy to know you like my fics, and my community ones too!! <3 <3 <3

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blackbird-brewster · 2 years ago

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Thoughts About Tara Lewis (CM Evolution Spoilers)

Tara Lewis is Queer.

I woke up this morning and the SECOND I was conscious, I turned to my partner and said 'Tara Lewis is Queer'. I woke them up two times last night to tell them the same thing. I have echoed this thought back and forth to friends for hours.

It almost feels like if I don't constantly remind myself that Tara is now canonically queer, then maybe it isn't real. Maybe it was a dream. OR maybe it will be taken from us.

The thing about being in this fandom since 2005 is that I've lived a WHOLE lot of life in that time. I have been through relationships and divorces and insurmountable loss. I can't even count how many times I've moved in that time. I have struggled, I have flourished. All the while, Criminal Minds was a constant for me.

If you're newer to this fandom (Welcome!) then you might not FULLY grasp how wildly improbable it is to be able to say: Tara Lewis, a main character on Criminal Minds, is canonically queer.

When the show first aired I was in college, I had graduated HS an entire year early because the homophobia I faced was suffocating and genuinely dangerous. I was threatened all the time in my school. I came out when I was 15, in a small rural religious town. It was horrific.

I graduated HS and started college by age 17. Criminal Minds started around then and I loved it, because I was already a huge fan of crime dramas (SVU, TXF, Bones). It became a comfort show to me.

It continued to be a comfort show to be for nearly the past two decades. I remember waiting week to week to find out what happened next. Or waiting all summer to find out what happened after a cliffhanger. Or waiting each year for news on whether it was getting renewed or not, especially through the 2007 writer's strike when the fate of many TV shows felt so volatile and unsure. I remember watching the Valhalla arc and Emily's 'death' live. As each season came out on DVD box set, I would buy them and re-watch them (This was when Netflix was only dvd rentals and not streaming. Streaming wasn't even a concept then. We all just bough 8-disc DVD box sets and had to change the DVD every 3 episodes to binge a show)

I remember when the interview came out about how Emily was originally supposed to wake up in bed with a woman. I remember how devastating that was to me. Emily was my fave character back then (now she ties with Tara) and she had always felt gay to me and to find out she COULD have been canonically confirmed as gay but they killed that idea, was really hard. We didn't have a lot of wlw rep in media back then. The L Word was a trailblazing show but it's representations of wlw ultimately did WAY more harm than good (imo. I could write an entire thesis about how tLw really fucked up my entire understanding of what it means to be gay, but I digress)

I remember watching the way CBS treated AJ, Paget and Kirsten. I remember following articles talking about why the women were forced to leave the show while the men were celebrated and doted upon. (Reasons why I hate certain characters that are popular here iykyk)

The very first scene with Tara Lewis in S11 made my heart skip a beat. My soul was screaming 'SHES QUEER!!!! SHE HAS GOT TO BE QUEER!' even though I never once held my breath that would ever become CANON.

Here I am, still in this fandom, seventeen years later, and I get to say 'Tara Lewis is canonically queer' on a show that has gotten me through some of the hardest times in my life. On a show I turned to for comfort when everything felt like Too Much.

Because there is something so incredibly magical about seeing my favourite character and saying: Tara Lewis is Queer...and So Am I.

I know people are already like 'Emily was right there!?' or 'Why not make Emily queer!?' to those people I have one thing to say:

Please stop. Please stop and understand HOW important it is for TARA to be queer.

We have A CANONICALLY QUEER BLACK WOMAN IN HER 50s played by a sapphic actor. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IMMINESLY RARE AND SPECIAL THAT IS?!?!? Do you have ANY idea of how IMPORTANT that is for representation?????

Emily Prentiss will never be confirmed queer in canon for many reasons. I have a LOT of thoughts about this, but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about celebrating one, extremely special fact.

And I couldn't be happier.

#criminal minds #tara lewis #cm evolution #cm spoilers #cm meta #queerminal minds #my writing #Aisha Tyler would have 100% been the one to push for this for Tara #We owe her a great amount of respect and debt #I hope Aisha has a very beautiful and queer day #tara lewis is queer #cm commentary

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rocknvaughn · 4 years ago

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New Colin Morgan Interview with Edge Media Network about Benjamin - UPDATED

I am reblogging this because, after the author was made aware of an error in the posting of his article (if anyone clicked through to read it on the site, there was a whole question and answer that was repeated), the error was corrected and another three questions and answers were added! I am correcting it here, but they were very interesting, so I suggest you read the full article again!

I shall post the link at the bottom, but I wanted to type it out so that non-English speakers could more easily translate it. (This article was listed in their “Gay News” section of the site, hence the focus on the gay roles.)

British Actor Colin Morgan: How the Queerly Idiosyncratic ‘Benjamin’ Spoke to Him

by Frank J. Avelia

In writer-director Simon Amstell’s sweet, idiosyncratic, semi-autobiographical comedy, “Benjamin,” Colin Morgan plays the titular character, an insecure filmmaker trying to resuscitate his waning career (at least it’s waning in his mind) after one major cine-indie success. Benjamin is also doing his best to navigate a new relationship with a young French musician (Phenix Brossard of “Departures”).

Thanks to the truly endearing, multifaceted talents of Morgan, Benjamin feels like an authentic creation--one that most audiences can empathize with. Sure, he’s peculiar, has a legion of self-esteem issues and an almost exasperating need for acceptance as well as an inconvenient talent to self-sabotage the good in his life. But who can’t relate to some or all of that?

“Benjamin” is one of the better queer-themed films to come out in recent years, in large part because it eschews emphasis on the queer nature of the story. Instead, the film is a fascinating character study with Morgan slowly revealing layers and unpacking Benjamin’s emotional baggage.

Morgan is a major talent who has been appearing across mediums in Britain for many years. His London theatre debut was in DBC Pierre’s satire, “Vernon God Little” (2007), followed by the stage adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s “All About My Mother” (2007), opposite Diana Rigg. Numerous and eclectic stage work followed (right up until the Corona shutdown) including Pedro Miguel Rozo’s “Our Private Life” (2011), where he played a bipolar gay, Jez Butterworth’s dark comedy, “Mojo” (2013), Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” opposite Sally Field (2019), and Caryl Churchill’s “A Number” (2020), to name a few.

His TV work includes, “Merlin” (playing the wizard himself), “Humans” and most recently, in a very memorable episode of “The Crown”. Onscreen he can be seen in “Testament of Youth”, “Legend” with Tom Hardy, “Snow White and the Huntsman” and Rupert Everett’s take on Oscar Wilde, “The Happy Prince.”

He’s played a host of gay roles in the past on stage, screen and TV.

EDGE recently interviewed the star of “Benjamin” about the new film and his career.

Why Benjamin?

EDGE: What drew you to this project and were you part of its development?

Colin Morgan: It’s always the strength of the script for me on any project and Simon’s script was just so well observed, he managed to combine humor and poignancy in delicate measure and when I first read it I found myself being both tickled and touched. Then reading it again and from “the actor” POV... I knew it would be a real challenge and uncharted territory for me to explore. I auditioned for Simon and we tried it in different ways and then when I was lucky enough for Simon to want me on board, we began to work through the script together, because it was clear that this was going to be a very close working relationship... it was important for the level of trust to be high.

EDGE: I appreciated that this was a queer love story where the character’s queerness wasn’t the main focus. Was that also part of the allure of the project?

CM: I think Benjamin’s sexuality is just quite naturally who he is and therefore that’s a given, we’re on his journey to find meaning and love and there’s certainly a freshness to what Simon has written in not making sexuality the main focus.

Great chemistry

EDGE: Can you speak a but about the process involved in working with Amstell on the character and his journey?

CM: Simon and me worked very closely over a period of weeks, at that time prior to shooting I was doing a theatre project not far from where he lived so I would go to him and rehearse and discuss through the whole script all afternoon before going to do the show that night, so that worked out well. It’s so personal to Simon, and to have had him as my guide and source throughout was fantastic because I could ask him all the questions and he could be the best barometer for the truth of the character; a rare opportunity for an actor and one that was so essential for building Benjamin. But ultimately Simon wanted Benjamin to emerge from somewhere inside me and he gave me so much freedom to do that also.

EDGE: You had great chemistry with Phenix Brossard. Did you get to rehearse?

CM: Phenix is fantastic, Simon and me did chemistry reads with a few different actors who were all very good but Phenix just had an extra something we felt Benjamin would be drawn to. We did a little bit of rehearsal together but because it was a relationship that was trying to find itself there was a lot of room for spontaneity and uncertainty between us, which is what the allure of a new relationship is all about, the excitement and fear.

Liberating process

EDGE: Did your process meld with Amstell’s?

CM: I’ve said this a lot before and it’s true, Simon is one of the best directors I’ve worked with. Everything he created before shooting and then maintained on set was special. We always did improvised versions of most scenes and always the scripted version too. It was such a creative and liberating process. That is exactly the way I love to work. And for a director to maintain that level of bravery, trust and experimental play throughout the whole shoot stands as one of the most rewarding shooting experiences I’ve had.

EDGE: When I spoke with Rupert Everett about “The Happy Prince,” he very proudly boasted about his ensemble. Can you speak about working with Rupert as he balanced wearing a number of creative hats?

CM: Again, this was an extremely rewarding project to work on and quite a similar relationship as with Simon in the respect that Rupert was the writer/director and Oscar Wilde is so personal to him. And then we also had many scenes together in front of the camera, so Rupert and me had a real 3D experience together. It was a long time in the making. I was on board, I think, two years before we actually got shooting so I had a lot of time to work with Rupert and rehearse. He really inspired me, watching him wear all the different creative hats, such a challenging and difficult job/jobs to achieve and he really excelled--plus we just got on very well.

Playing queer roles

EDGE: You haven’t shied away from playing queer roles. Do you think we’re moving closer to a time when a person’s sexual orientation is of little consequence to the stories being told, or should it always matter? Or perhaps we need to continue to evolve as a culture for it to matter less or not at all...

CM: That’s a hard question to answer, I think certainly the shift in people’s attitudes has changed considerably for the better compared to 40 years ago, but there will always be resistance to change and acceptance from individuals and groups whether it be sexuality, religion, race, gender--we’re seeing it every day.

Evolution is, of course, inevitable, but if we can learn from the past as we evolve that would be the ideal. Unfortunately, we rarely do learn, and history repeats itself.

EDGE: You were featured prominently in one of my favorite episodes of the “The Crown” (”Bubbikins”) as the fictional journo John Armstrong. Can you speak a bit about working on the show and with the great Jane Lapotaire?

CM: I had an exceptionally good time working on “The Crown.” Director Benjamin Caron, especially, was so prepared and creative, and made the whole experience so welcoming and inclusive. It was an incredibly happy set, with extremely talented people in every department, and I admired the ethos of the whole production and have no doubt that’s a huge ingredient to its success, along with Peter Morgan’s incredible writing.

I was also a fan of the show, and it was an honor to be part of the third season. And I can’t say enough amazing things about Jane Lapotaire. We talked a lot in between filming, and I relished every moment of that.

EDGE: You’ve done a ton of stage work. Do you have a favorite role you’ve played onstage?

CM: I’ve been so lucky with the theatre work I’ve done, to work with such special directors and work in wonderful theatres in London. I’ve worked at the Old Vic and The Young Vic twice each, and they’re always special to me. Ian Rickson is a liberating director, who I love. It’s hard to pick a favorite, because the roles have all been so different and presented different challenges, but, most recently, doing “A Number,” playing three different characters alongside Roger Allam and directed by Polly Findlay, was a really treasured experience, and I never tired of doing that show, every performance was challenging as it was.

Miss the rehearsal room

EDGE: You were doing “A Number” earlier this year. Did you finish your run before the lockdown/shutdown?

CM: Just about! We had our final performance, and then lockdown happened days later. I feel very sorry for the productions that didn’t get the sense of completion of finishing a run. I mean, finishing a full run leaves you in a kind of post-show void anyway, even though you know it’s coming, so to not know it’s coming and have it severed must be even more of a void.

Memories of performing just months ago seem like such an unattainable thing in this COVID world right now. I can’t tell you how much I’m hoping we get back to some semblance of live performance.

EDGE: What was it like to appear onstage opposite Dame Diana Rigg in “All About My Mother?”

CM: Well, I think “iconic” is an apt word for both the experience of working with Diana and the lady herself. In between scenes backstage we used to talk a lot and we got told off for talking too loudly, so Diana began to teach me sign language and we would spell out words to each other, maybe only getting a couple of sentences to each other before she was due on stage and I had to get into position for my next entrance-- we did a radio play together two years ago and she remembered, she said, “Do you remember A-E-I-O-U?” signing out the letters with her hands.

EDGE: None of us knows the future in terms of the pandemic and when we might return to making theatre. I’m a playwright myself and find it all supremely frustrating but I’m trying to remain hopeful! Where are you right now in terms of the standstill we are in and what the future might hold?

CM: Yes, I’m so worried for theatre. It’s a devastating blow. I’m sure as a playwright, you know that the creative spirit in individuals hasn’t been diminished by this virus. People are creating important art in this crisis but we need the platforms to present it and bring people to some light again out of this really scary period, but it needs to be safe and it’s a worrying time. The virtual theatre approach must be looked at I think. We need to experiment and find new paths at least for the time being. I’m involved in developing some things right now and how we can work on things in both an isolated and collaborative way. It’s entirely counterintuitive to what the family-feel and close bond of a group in a rehearsal room is like-- I miss the rehearsal room so much!-- but we can’t sit still, we must create and we must act.

What’s in a role?

EDGE: Looking back on the great success of “Merlin,” what are your takeaways from that experience?

CM: Some of the most treasured memories of my life will forever be connected to “Merlin,” the cast, crew, production, everyone! The invaluable training of being in front of a camera every day! The chance to inhabit a character and live with him for five seasons! There’s too much to list and words probably won’t do justice anyway, but I’m truly grateful for everything the show gave me.

EDGE: How do you select the roles you play?

CM: I guess they select me in a way. I can’t play a role unless it speaks to me and provokes me in some way, but ultimately it’s the characters that I have a fear about playing, not knowing how I’m going to enter into the process of living them, when I don’t have all the answers it’s a good indicator of a character I must play. If I have all the answers, there’s less scope for exploration and discovery which isn’t as interesting for me.

Link here

#colin morgan #interview #14 july 2020 #edgemedianetwork #benjamin #transcription

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curestardust · 4 years ago

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if you want: hobby focused: fashion design and modelling / good balance between the subject matter and story development / interesting cast

"Runway de Waratte” isn’t something that’d particularly stand out from a seasonal line-up but is definitely worth giving it a chance.

This is a mix of a hobby anime and actual story with drama. The “hobby” is fashion design and modelling, through two of our main characters; one is Chiyuki, who’s the daughter of a high fashion brand’s creator and has been dreaming of becoming a model her whole life but stops growing at 156 cms when the average height of a female model is around 170-180. No matter how many times she is told that she won’t make it in this industry, especially on the runway, she refuses to give her dream up. On the other hand, we’ve Ikuto, the only son of a quite poor family who’s in love with making clothes. He barely considers his dream of going to university to study fashion design due to his family’s situation. Being classmates, Chiyuki realizes Ikuto’s true dream and after some self-reflection, urges him to follow what he wants to do. There becomes the push-and-pull between them, the other always appearing in front of them when they’re at their breaking point.

The first episode almost solely focuses on Chiyuki but after that, Ikuto takes up the actual main role of the story. We see his journey into the real world of fashion design and the behind-the-scenes of runway shows.

About halfway into the story, we start meeting new characters and the drama and plot they bring forth with them, be it good or bad.

The “hobby” part of “Runway de Waratte” isn’t forced or explained too deeply. Sure, we see characters working on fashion design/modelling but their work is either just shown or being commentated on by observing characters so the viewer knows what the hell is going on. The plot and drama also manages to somehow balance itself out. There are big highs and big lows and at certain points the anime was really dancing on the line of the events almost becoming comically dramatic but it managed to bring itself back up every time.

My only complaint would be the ending. I won’t spoil it but it didn’t feel like natural development but more forced. We were also kind of cheated out of a “collaboration” which would’ve served as a great climax to the show. So yeah, I wasn’t the biggest fan of how the whole final arc went but besides that I quite enjoyed watching this.

[8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

#dusty reviews #Runway de Waratte #Smile Down the Runway

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bau-rookie · 4 years ago

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a close examination of Hotch and Foyet

in which Hotch’s greatest strength becomes his fatal flaw.

(a/n: super long essay, because i don’t know how else to consume media apparently lol. i’ve been sitting on this since “100″ because it is really sad and I just wanted to make sure I get all my thoughts in order. It is, to my discovery, Aaron Hotchner’s birthday today, so what better way to celebrate than by explaining all the ways the Foyet arc reads like a Greek tragedy and how Hotch is an amazingly well-written character. Sorry the only way I can think about paying tribute is by making myself sad. Oh there’s GIFs too! I made them and that’s neat :D)

I. Ingredients for a Greek tragedy.

Greek tragedies stem from classical plays, usually about the nobility, and is centered around their struggle against the Gods/Fate. The noble character has a hamartia, or a fatal flaw, usually their own arrogance, that brings upon their own downfall.

Technically, Criminal Minds would fall under the category of modern tragedy which focuses more on common people and everyday problems. (Though you could argue that being a BAU profiler isn’t your typical career, which makes our characters noble not by blood, but in spirit.)

In modern tragedy, there is less of an emphasis on the involvement of a higher power or Fate. Every bad thing that happens is of mankind’s own making, and this is something that CM discusses often, that evil isn’t necessarily brought upon by a higher power. It’s brought upon by ordinary people choosing to do terrible things.

And Foyet is no different. He chose to kill all these people because he wanted to, but his fascination with Hotch and how his plans for him play out, entrap Hotch in a tragedy more Greek in nature.

What Foyet ultimately does is take Hotch’s greatest strength—his stoic resolve to serve justice—and uses it to hold him personally responsible for the death of his ex-wife, all while bending the hand of Fate to his will.

II. Hotch as a noble character.

In “Omnivore” we are introduced to the Reaper and the many ways he tries to exert control and power over his victims. After killing so many times loses its appeal, the Reaper decides to toy with detective Tom Shaunessey by offering him a deal—if you stop hunting me, I will stop hunting them.

While we sympathize with Shaunessey simply trying to save lives, he does so with the knowledge that he is deliberately letting a serial killer go free. The fear and the guilt eats away at him until his death.

Hotch, on the other hand, quickly establishes himself to be a resolute pursuer of justice. We don’t get to make those decisions. We don’t let them get away with it. He holds onto the idea that they have no right to decide who lives or dies and that the victims that unsubs like the Reaper takes, are not something he, or anyone in his line of work, should feel responsible for. Their sole responsibility is to stop them.

This isn’t to say that Hotch is unaffected by the increasing number of bodies. When he turns down the deal and the Reaper attacks the bus full of people, he is visibly shaken by this, so much so that we see Hotch cry for the first time. It takes Rossi delivering some tough love to remind him of what’s important.

Look, if you want to end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head—it’s not your conscience. It’s your ego. This isn’t about us, Aaron. It’s about the bad guys. That why we profile them. It’s their fault. We’re just guys doing a job. And when we stop doing it someone else will.

Hotch and the team in general, are faced with constant reminders that they are only human. They are fallible and cannot control every outcome.

Not everyone can handle the stresses of being a profiler. Despite the horrors, the chance of failing, Hotch’s greatest strength is his stoic resolve. He’s become our beloved Unit Chief, the person on the team who takes on the most pressure, takes it upon himself to, at times, shield the rest of the team from the greater burdens. Personally, he’s arguably also the one who sacrificed the most to have this job, having lost his marriage.

Yet despite the horrors, despite the toll, Hotch shows up for the job anyway. Because he can’t imagine letting the bad guys get away with it.

III. Foyet as a representation of Fate

“The Eye of Providence. A symbol adopted by the U.S. Government with the words: Annuit Coeptis. Latin for “Providence or fate has favored our undertakings.” The Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of Fate.” — Dr. Spencer Reid, “Omnivore”

From the beginning Foyet is shown to have a flair for theatrics. He leaves markings of the Eye of Providence, writes Fate in blood, calls himself the The Reaper. He has delusions of grandeur and posits himself as a higher power, one who gets to decide the course of other people’s lives. Everyone who has the misfortune of coming into contact with the Reaper, becomes another chess piece in his twisted game of Fate.

In another life, Hotch would never cross paths with Foyet. But because he did, Foyet acts as Fate, bringing down divine intervention in the form of driving Hotch into a tragedy of his own making.

Foyet acting as Fate is, paradoxically, also an argument against the actual existence of Fate. Everything that happens is a result of Foyet’s choices. It is him, a man, and not Fate who is choosing to kill, maim and be cruel.

When it came to Shaunessy, Foyet also emphasized pinning the blame of the death of innocent lives on the failure of law enforcement. It isn’t Fate when there’s something you could do to stop it. Shaunessy took the deal because he felt personally responsible for the possible loss of lives, an outcome that Foyet pretty much predicted, but one that doesn’t really affect him. Shaunessy agrees, he gets off on controlling the police. If he doesn’t, well, he can just keep on killing.

Foyet repeats the deal with Hotch. Offers him the deal, which Hotch refuses then immediately murders 7 people on the bus, setting a chain of cause and effect that makes it seems like Hotch’s actions led to this gruesome outcome. Again, placing the blame personally, on Hotch. And Hotch does blame himself, if momentarily.

Later, once Foyet escapes and corners Hotch in his own apartment, he makes it clear, you should have made a deal. Foyet acts as a vessel for Fate, a vehicle through which the consequences of Hotch’s actions are served.

Foyet takes it a step further, when he puts Haley and Jack in witness protection. Left all the usual clues, to simply say your wife and child are in danger because you never took the deal. I hold all the cards here, your fate will come for you eventually.

Then Foyet disappears, and waits. Leaving Hotch filled with guilt over endangering his ex-wife and child, at the mercy of Foyet’s arbitration of Fate.

IV. Dominoes and fatal flaws

By the time “100″ rolls around, you’re so captivated by the action happening on screen that it’s easy to overlook how we got there. When I first watched this season, I had assumed that Foyet would be put on the back burner until the end of the season. His quicker-than-expected return seems to be happenstance, the writers behind-the-scenes doing some plot magic, but if you reexamine the events that lead up to “100″ we see Foyet’s greater machinations at play.

On the surface, the preceding episode “Outfoxed” seems to be a straight forward throwback to an earlier case. Faced with a family annihilator, Hotch and Emily visit the original Fox in prison, believing the current unsub might be a copycat. The episode seems to be about the mental toll being a profiler brings, with Emily contending with a sense of disgust at having to get intimate with a serial killer (post-”Lauren” this reads very differently, but I digress). Until right at the end, when they reveal the admirer letters were actually from Foyet, and the one being outfoxed is Hotch.

When the events of “100″ go down, we hear Foyet repeatedly blame Hotch for what happens with Haley, calls out what we see as a noble resolve to instead be Hotch’s fatal flaw. It was the same thing that led Haley to leave him, a failing borne from Hotch’s own ego, the part of him that insists that it be him who catches the bad guys, that it be him who risks it all. And Foyet uses that to his advantage, uses Hotch’s resolve to trick him into thinking that maybe he did cause all of this tragedy to happen.

One small detail that caught my attention, and set me on this Greek tragedy path, is when they try to track down Foyet in “100″, Garcia notes that he had set an internet search alert for the name “Peter Rhea.”

At this point, Foyet was ready to go after Haley and Jack. He already had pictures and surveillance of the U.S. Marshall in charge of them. He could’ve gone and killed them anytime, but that’s not how Foyet operates. He needs Hotch to feel personally responsible for things ending badly. He set the bait with the letters and simply had to wait for Hotch and the team to get close enough, to find Peter Rhea. This is, of course, incredibly risky. The team could catch him before Foyet gets anywhere close to Haley and Jack, but Foyet is sure of himself and is an extensive planner. He made sure he was always two steps ahead.

The irony is that Foyet would never have gone after Haley and Jack if Hotch and the team didn’t get close to tracking him down. There’s an added layer of Spencer figuring out Foyet’s alias using his genius anagram deciphering brain and Garcia’s expert tech analyst skills. Foyet managed to hurt Hotch because this specific BAU team are just too damn good at their jobs.

Foyet set up dominoes that only Aaron Hotchner could tip to fall. He does it so well it almost feels like Fate.

V. The inevitability of fate

“Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster called destiny.” — John Hobbes, “Omnivore” closing quote.

A key aspect of Greek tragedy, is that Fate is often the result of divine intervention. They cause certain events to happen in certain ways so as to result in the most tragic outcome, usually death. It’s designed so that the audience is aware of what’s to come, and can see no other way for the story to end. The tragedy is supposed to feel inevitable.

One could argue, that there is no such thing as Fate. Life is simply a sequence of random happenstance, but our need to prescribe meaning to the chaos cobbles up stories of predetermined destinies. Especially when the idea of owning up to our mistakes and their consequences is too much.

All of this was the result of one sick man, George Foyet, choosing to be so cruel. And Hotch was simply a victim of circumstance because if Foyet wasn’t going after Hotch, he’d be going after someone else.

But what are the odds that Hotch’s first case as lead profiler happens to be The Boston Reaper? It was from that moment that Hotch’s fate was really sealed, he and Foyet would be forever intertwined.

Hotch, being who he is, had inadvertently, made the Reaper personal. Even when his BAU team was sent away, his resolve wouldn’t let the Reaper simply disappear. It led him to build his profile, alone and over many years. Any other person might’ve just let the case go, but not Hotch.

So when Shaunessy died and the Reaper resurfaced, the only person in the world who knows enough about the Reaper to track him down, is Hotch. It’s what leads him to George Foyet, a victim at first glance, and Hotch comes to him unaware that he is promising The Reaper a new, worthy adversary, one a decade in the making. And everything, from his prison escape, to his attack on Hotch in his apartment, plays out exactly as Foyet expects it to, because as much as Hotch can read him, Foyet can read his behavior too.

At the end of 5x03, “Reckoner”, Rossi talks about what could have been when it comes to his childhood sweetheart to Hotch. About how he was too obsessed with his job, with the hunt that he gave up his chance of having a family. Rossi warns Hotch, don’t make my mistakes, kid.

You have a family. When all this is over, what are you gonna do to make sure you’re not a lonely guy wondering why you let the purest thing in your life get away?

My initial reaction was that they were setting up for Hotch to leave the BAU for good. The man who hung on to the job so much that it cost him his marriage, for the first time, actually considers leaving it all behind him. Because what Rossi says to him, driven by the circumstances that Foyet has created, is too profound for him to ignore. Foyet is too big of a thing to just move on from once its over.

Of course, my hopes of Hotch riding off into sunset to live a quieter life and watch his son grow up were optimistic at best. It’s a fantasy that purposely ignores the reality of who Hotch is, simply because I want the alternative to be possible. By the time Haley is buried, and Strauss offers Hotch retirement, we already know what his answer is going to be. Because everything we know about this man can only lead us to one conclusion.

Aaron Hotchner is the man who goes after the bad guys, the man who doesn’t let them get away with it. No matter how much I yell at my screen about how Hotch should just retire and spend all his time with Jack, deep down I knew that was never going to happen. Him losing Haley and still going back to work, seems like the only logical outcome. It’s almost feels inevitable.

VI. Catharsis

The point of tragedy is, according to Aristotle, to achieve catharsis. The purging of emotion through the telling of another person’s suffering. And that’s what “100″ does (unless your heart is made of stone and you somehow did not tear up even once).

Others would say that tragedy is meant to teach us a lesson. Meant to teach us the limits of our mortal abilities, to warn against hubris and arrogance; to remind us that they are higher powers and unseen forces beyond our understanding or control.

Criminal Minds doesn’t try to give us that lesson. Like in so many previous cases, the premise of a crime procedural is really a way of examining human nature. Why do people do bad things? More often than not, though our profilers can figure out how an unsub goes from doing thing A to thing B, they don’t have a satisfying answer for why.

In Foyet’s case, he does all of this to Hotch because he can, because he enjoys making him suffer. It is evil, unnecessarily cruel. There is no sense to be found in what happened.

But “100″ does not deliver pure tragedy. It ended in the death of Haley but it also provided hope in the survival of Jack. Hotch finally rids the world of Foyet, though the way it went down, you can’t help but wonder about the price of justice, if the cost is too much for this one man to pay. But then the show reminds the audience, that this one man isn’t bearing that cost alone.

Aaron Hotchner has his team, his family, and with their support, a chance to recover from the tragedy that Foyet wrought.

I used to think that, despite being dead, George Foyet still won. He set out to hurt Hotch, and that’s exactly what he did. We’ve only seen Hotch openly cry twice at this point, and they both were directly caused by Foyet. And I suppose that’s still partly true. It’s hard to really tell with our stone-faced unit chief, but it’s hard to see how Foyet wouldn’t linger.

But that victory isn’t absolute. Foyet is gone, and he loses every time Jack gets to spend another day happy and alive. Foyet loses, every time Hotch shows up for the job and doesn’t let another unsub like him get away with it.

And maybe that’s the lesson. That though good doesn’t always triumph over evil, there is a way to move past tragedy. And that path lies not in solitude, in carrying the burden alone, but in the solace of our friends and family who can bear witness to all that we must face.

For all all my waxing poetic about how Hotch is a noble hero, this entire ordeal just shows how human he is. Yet despite his flaws and the tragedy, the core unassailable truth of who he is, the values he represents, remain unchanged.

He is Aaron Hotchner. The guy who hunts down guys like Foyet. The guy who doesn’t let the bad guys get away with it. The guy who, despite everything, managed to save his son. The guy who will keep his promise to the woman he was once married to, to teach their son that love is the most important thing. The guy who makes sure that his son knows that good people do exist.

Aaron Hotchner is the guy who, despite all the hurt, the pain and the loss, chooses to be the hero. And that’s the farthest thing from tragic.

#did i spend all day thinking too much about a fictional character?#hell yes #i don't know how else to be #i just think aaron hotchner is neat ok #and he deserves the happiest of birthdays #maybe i'll write a fic about it tomorrow #but for now i rest #criminal minds #charlie watches criminal minds #aaron hotchner #david rossi #george foyet #mine: gifs #criminal minds gifs

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shipmistress9 · 4 years ago

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2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 21, 23, 48, 57, 65, 68, 87, 88 for random asks 😎😜

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

Hmm… I’m actually not much of a chocolate person. I like the taste, cacao in my coffee, for example. But I can’t eat large amounts of pure chocolate, it just makes my mouth feel so dry and weird. But I don’t eat lollipops, either. They take too long, I rarely have that much time to indulge in sweets. What I really like are gummies. 😁

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

Bubblegum for sure.

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

I wondered about this question. Do people like… get such evaluations in elementary school? Do teachers tell what they think of the pupils? Because, here, they don’t.

All I can do is guess. So I assume that they would have described me as… Quiet? Shy? Withdrawn? Smart? Diligent? Helpful?

But honestly, I have no idea...

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

Vocabulary confusion… Soda being sparkly water or lemonade? I don’t really drink water at all. I know that it’s probably entirely psychological, but every time I drink pure water (sparkly or not), my stomach starts protesting. Either way, the answer would be glass cups. Unless it’s coffee or a hot chocolate, for which I have my mugs, I always use glass cups.

7. earbuds or headphones?

Earbuds.

8. movies or tv shows?

TV shows, mostly. I like how there’s more room to develop character and story arcs, and how the episodes are shorter so I can stop whenever I need to.

21. obsession from childhood?

Huh… I had many. But overall, the fantastical. Supernatural creatures, mostly dragons. Fantasy stories, stories that pull me out of reality and let me dream of something else. The idea that there’s more to the world, things we can’t see or understand (yet).

23. strange habits?

Just being me counts as strange, if you ask my kids. 🤣

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

… What kind of questions are these? 🤣🤣🤣 Erm… Okay, I actually just did THREE tests like “What kind of fruit are you?”. One said raspberry, one cherry, and the third said grape. I don’t feel like either of these options fits, though. A kiwi, maybe? I don’t look like much from the outside, not appealing but rather a little repellent. Once you got past that outer layer, though? I can be all kinds of things. Sweet, sour, juicy, fun, interesting.

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

My insecurities as a child. Early school life was no fun for me. But at one point, and I remember the exact moment until this day, I decided that I don’t care about how others see me anymore. I do what I enjoy and like and stop trying to fit in. Life became so much better after that.

The same but in a different situation. I stopped trying to do what my ‘friend’ wanted and took hold of my own happiness. She never cared about my wishes or what made me happy and only treated me like her pet, something only there for her own amusement but only when she wanted it. Letting go of that friendship was hard, but necessary.

The need to be perfect. I won’t ever be the perfect housewife, won’t ever have a spotless and flawless home, with everything always clinically clean and orderly. I won’t ever be a perfect cook, with new, interesting, nutritious, inexpensive, tasty meals every day. I can’t be ONLY a mother 24/7, but need breaks in-between to be myself. All these expectations before were unrealistic anyway, build by advertisements and movies and society. But it took me a while to learn and accept that. That being myself is good enough.

65. any permanent scars?

Haha, yes. Stretchmarks from pregnancies and a scar from a c-section. But the funniest is on my arm. It’s just a small white line, 1,5 cm long.

When I was a teenager, we had a rabbit as pet. He was a little crazy sometimes. One day, he freely hobbled around in our flat. I was lying on the floor and watching TV with the rest of my family. Then, from one second to the other, the rabbit began to roar. Have you ever heard a rabbit ‘roar’? It sounds like… like my stomach when I’m hungry, only less threatening. 🤣 Then he proceeded to charge at me. And bit me in the arm. But because we had a wooden floor at that spot, he lost purchase and slid away, his teeth cutting that line into my arm. It didn’t even hurt or bleed much. It was just so damn funny! Until this day, we have no idea what set him off, before and after, he was absolutely peaceful.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

Uhm… does marzipan count? To me, that taste is disgusting. *shudders*

87. your greatest fear?

That something happens to my children.

Aside from that, I hate deep water. I can’t even watch sea life documentaries.

88. your greatest wish?

Just to live my life without regrets and big drama, to be honest. 😅

Thank you 😊💜

#ask #drakaina-amore64 #weird asks that say a lot #ask meme #ask game #that was fun! ^^

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draechaeli · 4 years ago

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Weather, Mountains, and Distance in China as Applied to the Módào Zǔshī Universe

I am a Foreign Teacher living in China and have been doing so for the last eight school years. For five and a half years I lived in Shandong Province, the same province as LanlingJin and I was a three and a half hour drive north of LanlingJin; a two to three-hour drive east and a bit south of LaolingQin; and a five to six-hour drive east and a bit north of QingheNie. For the last two and a half years I have lived in Jiangsu Province (barely) just two and a bit hours southwest of LanlingJin. But Jiangsu is the province of GusuLan and I am six hours north and a bit west of them; and not that anyone cares about MolingSu, but I’m four hours north and bit west of them. I have also travelled to every province, region, and territory that China says is China and most of those in January and February during Spring Festival Holiday. So from this experience I am going to discuss Chinese weather and a few other things that relate to the MDZS universe.

This ended up being way longer than I thought it was going to be. It was written to be read straight through. But as I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that cares and it goes through my thought process on the topic I have labelled each section so you can scroll down until you see the subheading you are interested in.

My Introduction to MDZS

My friend, told me about MDZS and the Untamed like 1 November 2019. I was at first skeptical as I have seen lots of Chinese shows playing in bars, at restaurants, or on long bus trips (the latter being where I’ve sort of had to see entire episodes and films) and generally Chinese TV shows are low on plot and have the same set character archetypes (not the point of this post so feel free to disagree, but I’m not here to argue). So honestly I was skeptical, but November is National Novel Writing Month, so even if I wanted to I hadn’t had the time. I also knew that I was going to be seeing said friend in Cambodia during Spring Festival Holiday and we would watch it then. Prior to going to Cambodia, I travelled with my Chinese friend Dean for eight days, but then he had to return home to spend Spring Festival with his family and I continued in my travelling.

I told Dean about how my friend was going to make me watch the Untamed and how it was based on a book and how it despite restrictions is still pretty gay. Dean didn’t believe me, but a couple days at home with nothing to do and plenty of wifi, and he had watched the Untamed before I could even meet up with my other friend!

Cloud Recesses in the Untamed - Mountains and Canal Cities

So that first scene where you see Cloud Recesses, I was like: oh I know those mountains! And my friend said that most of the places were really in China and sent me this map. As I continued watching well I was mostly caught up in the story but the snow kept bothering me, but there was never snow that stayed on the ground in the Untamed so I forgot it quickly. At a later rewatch I thought the Cloud Recesses mountains looked a lot like the mountains at ZhangJiaJie (the floating mountains that were the model for Avatar) in Hunan further west of where GusuLan is situated. According to the Untamed Wikipedia page the filming was done in Hengdian World Studios and Guizhou (also pretty far west). I am however a fan of climbing mountains and have climbed a lot of mountains in China, so I could be remembering mountains wrong.

Where the questions came up was fanfiction. And I have never stopped reading a fic because they talked about a lot more snow then I had ever seen in the particular area of China. And Cloud Recesses having towering mountains as they depict from afar in both the live action and the donghua. When I’m watching the mountain is a back drop, but often fics make the mountains or snow part of the plot and it’s too late because I already think of Gusu being Suzhou a very famous canal city south of me and we get like once a year two cm of snow that lasts maybe two hours. And the translator’s note at the end of Refinement Part 1 says that Cloud Recesses got its name from a phrase of Jia Dao’s poem, not the height of the mountains.

In general, I know that a lot of English fic writers just didn’t know the weather in China or perhaps hadn’t seen the map that showed you where everything in China was situated. And were using context clues like the disciples of YunmengJiang laying topless on floorboards in the summer heat in the extras from the book or the snow seen in both the Untamed and MDZS the donghua. And I had brushed it off as artistic license the height of the mountain of Cloud Recesses bugged me and made me do research for my own personal piece of mind.

I will admit I have not been to Suzhou, I skipped it when I was being a tourist in Jiangsu Province as the internet said it was a big tourist spot and could be very crowded, so I chose to go to a different canal town. Then I moved to Xuzhou in Jiangsu. And in Chinese the biggest thing is said first so I would have to say in Chinese when asked where I was moving to or later where I lived: Jiangsu, Xuzhou. The other thing I didn’t know despite having studied Chinese in college, that I learned from Dean when I complained about this problem is that all Yu (Yu, Yue, Yun, Yuan) and Xu (Xu, Xue, Xun, Xuan) no matter the tone are pronounced with a umlaut on the u so: Yü, Yüe, Yün, Yüan, Xü, Xüe, Xün, and Xüan. So, despite the fact that I pronouncing (disregarding tone for the following examples, and written by use of correlating English words and names) Xuzhou as Shoe-joe every Chinese person thought I said Suzhou (which I would say as Sue-joe). So, I heard a lot of: “Suzhou?! It’s so beautiful! And with all the water!” never anything about mountains.

Now, Guilin, Guangxi is a city that is absolutely gorgeous and has a lot of mountains, there is one called the Solitary Beauty Peak (152m), which is literally a vaguely rectangular mountain, with very sheer faces (and steep stairs carved in to get to the top), in the middle of a very flat expanse (behind the yellow building in the picture - January 2014).

Which means that similar mountains could be in Suzhou. And Gusu was named after Gusu Mountain so I did an exhaustive search with multiple map apps, google, and baidu to find the mountains in Suzhou and their heights. In the end the mountains in Suzhou are not very tall.

Practical Experience with Snowfall in China

My first year in China my city got snow in December, maybe about 10 cms, but it was cold enough that it didn’t melt; and so we had snow for pretty much the whole winter with a sprinkling of a couple more cms added here and there. That year, I went to the Great Wall in the winter and signed up to go to Mutianyu a section of the wall pretty far from Beijing (north of all places in MDZS), but we couldn’t get to it due to snow, so we went to another section, Juyongguan, which wasn’t snowed out and it didn’t have too much snow on it maybe just a couple cms of snow built up in corners of steps and the like. That was the last time we really got snow that stayed. A few years later we got maybe a few cms but not a lot of snow. When I went to Sichuan (in 2014; where MeishanYu is) I remember leaving the Chengdu airport in a car and looking out the window to see snow dusted palm trees, something I had thought I really wouldn’t have ever seen, but that was probably the most snow that I had seen for that trip. The 12th edition of the China Lonely Planet book does state that the canals of Suzhou are very beautiful covered in snow in December. But based on how I’ve seen less snow further north than Suzhou makes me wonder how consistent it is.

Temperatures on Mountain Tops in China

I went to Ürümqi, Xinjiang the very tail end of June in 2019. July is the hottest time in Xinjiang and the temperature while I was there was generally about 30-45°C. One day I went to Tian Chi a lake in the Heavens Mountain (Tianshan) range, the lake is below the Peak of God (Bogeda Feng) that according to my Lonely Planet is a 5445m peak. Which now that I’m looking at the book, I know I hadn’t before going to Ürümqi, because the book says to bring warm clothing and I hadn’t. I took a tour bus up to the lake (I think that is the most common option. And around the lake it didn’t feel as hot as it was down in Ürümqi and when I went to take the cable car most of the way up Bogeda Feng, I remember seeing winter jackets for rent. At that moment I thought it was strange and pointless in the warmest time for the area despite that it was definitely getting chilly enough that I put on the light jacket (that prior to that point was mainly for sun protection) on. When I got out of the cable car near the top it was definitely cold. Many of the other hikers were in winter jackets and as you climbed up to the peak your breath definitely misted like it was winter! But that is the only time that has happened to me climbing mountains in China. I climbed Huangshan a mountain in Anhui, west and a bit south of Gusu. It has an elevation of 1873m and I climbed it in May, and there was no discernible temperature difference between the top and the bottom of the mountain.

The Yangtze River – divider of whether your home is heated or not

The Yangtze River is what China uses as a divider of north and south China. In the present day this is seen as whether or not your home gets central heating in the winter. When I lived in Shandong province (north of the Yangtze), the central heating was turned on 1 November and turned off the 1 March (I think, I’m remembering that correctly). Each province decides how cold it is and for how long and has different rules for central heating. No matter what you don’t have control over the temperature of the central heating, and everyone has to survive with an AC/Heating mounted wall unit, and/or portable heaters.

Jiangsu is a province that the Yangtze cuts through, which means you might get central heating. I moved to Xuzhou, which is spitting distance to Shandong province, in May (I got transferred to cover a sick teacher). So I was put up in the teacher’s housing on the college campus, and it did have central heating, the flat also had screened in windows above the doors that didn’t have glass and therefore would be open year-round. When I said I wanted to stay in the city and teach for the next year I got an off-campus flat in a community maybe 1.5 kms down the road—no central heating. Fall 2019 my community was offered central heating, we would have had to pay to get it installed, and it would only be installed if enough people said yes because it would be done for the whole community at that point. If we got the central heating it would have only been turned on December-February, and as the Spring Festival break at the school was an entire month it wasn’t worth it. And that time I went to Sichuan (everyone says south, but I think it has a bit of the Yangtze in it) all the restaurants were open fronted with no solid doors at all. Though the AC/Heating mounted wall unit in my hotel room (a small hotel outside of the city proper with a squat toilet in the bathroom (I’ve only seen squat toilets in two Chinese hotels)) was the best heater ever. My hotel room was so much warmer than any flat I’ve had in China, because even if it was a cheap hotel the AC/Heating mounted wall units needed to work well in Sichuan because it was the only source of heat.

MDZS Cities on the Yangtze and Old Names for the River

So west to east the cities that are close/on the Yangtze are: Meishan - north, Kuizhou - north bank, Yiling - north bank, Baling - south bank, Yunmeng - north, Moling south (the Yangtze goes through Nanjing so maybe it has bank space), and Gusu - south (possibly in the delta).

According to the Yangtze Wikipedia Page, which I have kept open in a tab in Firefox for reference since I started writing fic—People in Ancient China didn’t realise that the river was a single river and therefore each section of the river, had its own name and was thought to be its own river (the following is mostly just copied from Wikipedia).

For Meishan, Kuizhou, and Yiling, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality was known as the Chuan Jiang (川江; Chuān Jiāng) or "Sichuan River." The Wikipedia page specifically states that Yichang modern day Yiling as the last/most eastern city to call the Yangtze thus.

In Hubei, this would be Yunmeng and Yiling, but Yiling followed the pattern of the places further west. And I’m going to assume Baling despite being in Hunan; the river is also called the Jing Jiang (荆江; Jīngjiāng) or the "Jing River" after Jingzhou.

In Anhui (which has no sects), the river takes on the local name Wan Jiang after the shorthand name for Anhui, wǎn (皖).

For Gusu and Moling, it was the Yangzi Jiang (揚子江; 扬子江; Yángzǐjiāng) or the "Yangzi River," from which the English name Yangtze is derived, is the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou. The name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yangzi or Yangzijin (揚子 / 揚子津; Yángzǐ / Yángzǐjīn). Europeans who arrived in the Yangtze River Delta region applied this local name to the whole river.

The dividing site between upstream and midstream is considered to be at Yichang (Yiling) and that between midstream and downstream at Hukou (Jiujiang).

Winter Weather in Terms of Whether or Not Long Underwear Should be Worn in Various MDZS Cities

Another way to think of it is in terms of long underwear. I wore long underwear in my city in Shandong province, the pants, and a long undershirt. Typically, three layers on top when indoors, maybe with a fourth sweater when the room I was in wasn’t heated and thick socks over regular ones. In Xuzhou I wore maybe the long underwear bottoms but not the top because my classroom actually has a heater in it, but I usually wore a sweater. When I visited Xi’an, Shaanxi (YueyangChang and 2hrs west of QishanWen), Nanjing, Jiangsu (MolingSu), and when I went to Chengdu, Sichuan (1.5 hours north of Meishan) I wore long underwear (though it was particularly cold that year in Chengdu). When I went to Hangzhou, Zhejiang (south of TingshanHe; Tingshan is hard to pinpoint), Changsha, Hunan (2 hours south of BalingOuyang), and Wuhan, Hubei (3 hrs north of BalingOuyang and 1.25 hours south of YunmengJiang) I had long underwear with me but didn’t necessarily wear it. I do remember in Wuhan this tree that had little pink blooms on it at the end of January. I didn’t have long underwear with me when I went to Chongqing, I could have sworn I actually went to Kuizhou Ancient City (or another Ancient City/Street) but I can’t find pictures from it. The city I visited before Chongqing, I visited an ancient city so I could be mixing these up. But I remember it being Chongqing and getting a foot massage in an open-air shop in an ancient street and being covered in blankets because it was pretty chilly.

Comparative Temperatures based on their North Parallels

I live in Maine in the US, so a place with lots of snow. When I first came to China my family and I were looking at the map and thought that Maine and my city in Shandong looked to be in a line so the weather would be similar—it wasn’t, but it is a good theory; and something I spent a lot of time thinking might be sound as Maine and Shandong province aren’t on the same parallels so I thought there was still a chance that it would correlate elsewhere. The two most northern sects QingheNie at 37°04’ and LaolingQin 37°26’, according to Wikipedia, which continues to tell me that other notable places on the 37th parallel. The 37th parallel separates out Utah, Colorado, and Kansas on the north side from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma on the South. It also passes through the Mediterranean Sea; the Aegean Sea; the Caspian Sea; the Sea of Japan; the Yellow Sea; just south of Antequera, Spain; the island of Sicily, Italy; the island of Honshū, Japan; Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan/India; and through Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and South Korea.

I just moved to Zhengzhou, Henan (34°45′50″N), when I asked about the weather I was told it was comparable to Washington DC (38°54′17″N). I keep getting told that Zhengzhou is the centre of China and it is kind of the centre of where all the sects are: north 1.5 hours from YingchuanWang and 5.5 hours from YunmengJiang; south 3.5 hours from QingheNie; and east 6 hours from YueyangChan.

Conclusion for Winter Weather in Gusu and Summary of Chinese Summers

So, based on my experiences, any of the mountains in Suzhou just wouldn’t have a discernible temperature difference from the top of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain. And despite “Snow-covered views of the pretty canal towns of Suzhou in winter” I would assume that it doesn’t actually get that much snow.

So enough about how cold and snowy China is, summer-wise it is generally too, too hot. For the level of cold in the winter, I would have assumed there would be milder summers but where I have lived and visited that has not been the case. When I asked the teacher I was replacing in Shandong about the weather of the city I was told that it went from ‘freezing your pants off to fucking hot’ and it was true one day you’d be wearing a jacket and maybe for a week you’d be in jeans and a tee and then you’d be sweating while wearing the least amount of clothing possible. I’ve definitely seen 30°C days in May.

Rundown of the Climate, Average Temperatures, Rainfall, and Humidity for all MDZS Cities

So you don’t have to here is what Wikipedia says about the climate of the cities of the different areas so you don’t have to look it up yourselves (pretty much copy and pasted):

Baling – (is present day Yueyang different characters and city from the YueyangChang Sect seat). The average high for the year is 21°C/69.7°F and the low 14.9°C/58.8°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 2.7°C/36.7°F and an average high of 8.1°C/46.6°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 26.6°C/79.9°F and an average high of 32.2°C/90°F. Average humidity ranges from 73% in December to 79% in June (with a yearly average of 77%). The most average rainfall is in June, the rain heavy months being April-July, compared to the remaining months March and August also have a lot of rain.

Gusu - has a four-season humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers and cool, cloudy, damp winters with occasional snowfall (Köppen climate classification Cfa). North-westerly winds blowing from Siberia during winter can cause temperatures to fall below freezing at night, while southerly or south-westerly winds during the summer can push temperatures above 35 °C (95 °F). The average high for the year is 19.9°C/67.8°F and the low 12.5°C/54.5°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 0.5°C/32.9°F and an average high of 7.7°C/45.9°F. July is the hottest month (by 0.1°C over August) with an average low of 24.8°C/76.6°F and an average high of 31.6°C/88.9°F. Average humidity ranges from 65% in November to 77% in July (with a yearly average of 71%). The most average rainfall is in September, the rain heavy months being June-September, April (102.3 mm) and May (114.5) are petty rainy too, May is still 14mm less rain then July (the lowest of the high rain months).

Kuizhou - has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), bordering on a monsoonal humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa) and for most of the year experiences very high relative humidity, with all months above 75%. Known as one of the "Three Furnaces" of the Yangtze river, its summers are long and among the hottest and most humid in China, with highs of 33 to 34 °C (91 to 93 °F) in July and August in the urban area.Winters are short and somewhat mild, but damp and overcast. The city's location in the Sichuan Basin causes it to have one of the lowest annual sunshine totals nationally. With over 100 days of fog per year, is known as the "Fog City" The average high for the year is 22.1°C/71.8°F and the low 15.8°C/60.4°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 6.2°C/43.2°F and an average high of 10.3°C/50.5°F. August is the hottest month (by 0.2°C over July) with an average low of 24.7°C/76.5°F and an average high of 33.2°C/91.8°F. The most average rainfall is in June, the rain heavy months being June and July, but May and August are petty rainy too.

Lanling - has a monsoon-influenced climate with generous summer precipitation, cold, dry winters, and hot, humid summers. Under the Köppen climate classification, it is in the transition from the humid subtropical zone (Cwa) to the humid continental zone (Dwa), though favouring the former. More than half of the annual precipitation of 833 mm (32.8 in) falls in July and August alone, and the frost-free period is above 200 days. The average high for the year is 19.1°C/66.3°F and the low 9.5°C/49.1°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -4.3°C/24.3°F and an average high of 4.4°C/39.9°F. July is the hottest month (by 0.7°C over August) with an average low of 23°C/73.4°F and an average high of 30.7°C/87.3°F

Laoling - The average high for the year is 19.3°C/66.7°F and the low 9.4°C/48.9°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -5.6°C/21.9°F and an average high of 3.4°C/38.1°F. June is the hottest month with an average low of 20.2°C/68.4°F and an average high of 32.1°C/89.8°F. Average humidity ranges from 52% in March to 78% in August (with a yearly average of 63%). The most average rainfall is in July, the rain heavy months being July and August by quite a margin. July has on average 90 mm more rain then June (the month with the third highest rainfall).

Meishan - The average high for the year is 21.3°C/70.3°F and the low 14.3°C/57.7°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 4.1°C/39.4°F and an average high of 10.1°C/50.2°F. July is the hottest month (though the record high temperature was in August) with an average low of 22.9°C/73.2°F and an average high of 30.7°C/86.5°F. Average humidity ranges from 74% in May to 84% in January, August, October, and December (with a yearly average of 81%). The most average rainfall is in August, the rain heavy months being July and August, June (144 mm) and September (130.4) are petty rainy too, June is still 87mm less rainy then July (the lowest of the high rain months) and September gets 42.5mm more rain than the 5th rainiest month—May.

Moling - has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) and is influenced by the East Asian monsoon. The four seasons are distinct, with damp conditions seen throughout the year, very hot and muggy summers, cold, damp winters, and in between, spring and autumn are of reasonable length. Known as one of the "Three Furnaces" along the Yangtze River for the perennially high temperatures in the summertime. However, the time from mid-June to the end of July is the plum blossom blooming season in which the meiyu (rainy season of East Asia; literally "plum rain") occurs, during which the city experiences a period of mild rain as well as dampness. Typhoons are uncommon but possible in the late stages of summer and early part of autumn. The annual mean temperature is around 15.91 °C (60.6 °F), with the monthly 24-hour average temperature ranging from 2.7 °C (36.9 °F) in January to 28.1 °C (82.6 °F) in July. Extremes since 1951 have ranged from −14.0 °C (7 °F) on 6 January 1955 to 40.7 °C (105 °F) on 22 August 1959. The average high for the year is 20.6°C/69.1°F and the low 12.1°C/53.8°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -0.7°C/30.7°F and an average high of 7.2°C/45°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 24.9°C/76.8°F and an average high of 32.2°C/90°F. On average precipitation falls 115 days out of the year, and the average annual rainfall is 1,090 mm (43 in). The most average rainfall is in July, the rain heavy months being June through August. August (143.5mm) is the least rainy of the three and still gets on average 52.8 mm more rain then May the 4th rainiest month. July has the most days of rain (12.3), but both March (only 80.4mm) and August have the second most days of rain (11.8).With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 37 percent in March to 52 percent in August, the city receives 1,926 hours of bright sunshine annually. Average humidity ranges from 71% in April and May to 80% in July and August (with a yearly average of 75%).

Qinghe - has a continental, monsoon-influenced semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk), characterised by hot, humid summers due to the East Asian monsoon, and generally cold, windy, very dry winters that reflect the influence of the vast Siberian anticyclone. Spring can bear witness to sandstorms blowing in from the Mongolian steppe, accompanied by rapidly warming, but generally dry, conditions. Autumn is similar to spring in temperature and lack of rainfall. The annual rainfall, more than half of which falls in July and August alone, is highly variable and not reliable. The average high for the year is 19.6°C/67.2°F and the low 8.8°C/47.9°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -6.1°C/21°F and an average high of 3.9°C/39°F. June is the hottest month with an average low of 20.2°C/68.4°F and an average high of 32.1°C/89.8°F

Qishan - The average high for the year is 18.5°C/65.3°F and the low 9°C/48.1°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -3.5°C/25.7°F and an average high of 5.1°C/41.2°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 21.1°C/70°F and an average high of 30.9°C/87.6°F. The record high temperature from (1971-2000) in January was 20.7°C/69.3°F which is the lowest of the record highs. The highest was in August at 41.6°C/106.9°F. The most average rainfall is in August but had the most days of rain in September (the rain heavy months being June-September).

Tingshan - The average high for the year is 20.5°C/68.9 °F and the low 13.1°C/55.6°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 0.9°C/33.6°F and an average high of 7.5°C/45.5°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 25.3°C/77.5°F and an average high of 32.6°C/90.7°F. Average humidity ranges from 75% in April and May to 82% in September (with a yearly average of 78%). The most average rainfall is in June, the rain heavy months being June-August, March (121.2 mm), May (113.4mm), and September ( 109mm) are petty rainy too, March still has 34.2 mm less rain then August (the lowest of the high rain months). March also has the most days of rain (15.2), followed by June (14.8), then April and July (13.7).

Yiling - has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), with cool, damp and generally overcast winters, and hot, humid summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 5.0 °C (41.0 °F) in January to 27.7 °C (81.9 °F) in July, while the annual mean is 17.08 °C (62.7 °F). The average high for the year is 21.6°C/70.9°F and the low 13.7°C/56.6°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 2.2°C/36°F and an average high of 8.8°C/47.8°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 24.3°C/75.7.°F and an average high of 32.3°C/90.1°F. Close to 70% of the annual precipitation of 1,160 mm (46 in) occurs from May to September. The most average rainfall is in July, the rain heavy months being June-August; May (124.4mm), and September (115.3mm) are petty rainy too, May still has17.8 mm less rain then June (the lowest of the high rain months). July has the most days of rain (15.1), followed by June (14.1), then May (13.5).With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 24% in January to 49% in August, the city receives 1,568 hours of bright sunshine annually, and summer is the sunniest season. Average humidity ranges from 73% in February, March, April and December to 80% in July (with a yearly average of 75%).

Yingchuan - has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), with four distinct seasons. Winters are cool and dry, summers hot and humid, spring begins early and is warm, and autumn is mild and provides a reasonable transition. Rain mainly falls from May to September, as more than 70% of the annual precipitation occurs then. The city has an annual mean temperature of at 14.5 °C (58.1 °F), and its highest average monthly temperature is 27.1 °C (80.8 °F) in July and the lowest is 0.7 °C (33.3 °F) in January. Just over 700 millimetres (28 in) of precipitation falls each year, and there is on average 217 frost-free days and 2280 hours of sunshine per year. The average high for the year is 20.2°C/68.4°F and the low 9.7°C/49.5°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -3.6°C/25.5°F and an average high of 6.1°C/43°F. July is the hottest month (by 0.2°C over June) with an average low of 23.1°C/73.6°F and an average high of 32°C/89.6°F. The most average rainfall is in July, the rain heavy months being July and August; June (83.5mm) is petty rainy too, but June still has 38.2mm less rain then August (the lowest of the high rain months). July has the most days of rain (11.7), followed by August (10.6), then June (8.4).

Yueyang - has a temperate climate that is influenced by the East Asian monsoon, classified under the Köppen climate classification as situated on the borderline between a semi-arid climate (BSk) and humid subtropical climate (Cwa). The Wei River valley is characterised by hot, humid summers, cold, dry winters, and dry springs and autumns. Most of the annual precipitation is delivered from July (on average has the most rain) to late October with September having the most days of rain. Snow occasionally falls in winter but rarely settles for long. Dust storms often occur during March and April as the city rapidly warms up. Summer months also experience frequent but short thunderstorms. The average high for the year is 19.5°C/67.1°F and the low 9.7°C/49.5°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of -3.3°C/26.1°F and an average high of 5.1°C/41.2°F. July is the hottest month with an average low of 22.3°C/72.1°F and an average high of 32.4°C/90.3°F. Average humidity ranges from 61% in June to 77% in September (with a yearly average of 68%)

Yunmeng - The average high for the year is 21.1°C/70°F and the low 12.8°C/55.1°F. January being the coldest month with an average low of 0.2°C/32.4°F and an average high of 3.9°C/39°F. July is the hottest month (by 0.2°C over August) with an average low of 25.2°C/77.4°F and an average high of 32.2°C/90°F. Average humidity ranges from 75% in December to 83% in July (with a yearly average of 79%)

Dafan Mountain and Phoenix Mountian

That being said, I was trying to find Dafan Mountain on a map for a fanfic I was writing. I have a Chinese copy of MDZS and I was originally having trouble finding the characters used for Dafan Mountain. When I did, Baidu was not at all helpful every webpage was for MDZS and/or CQL. So I asked Dean who replied that he didn’t know, as the places in the book are all made up, at which time I sent him a copy of the map that my other friend had shown me with the actual names of the present day cities for the five main sects. And I did a search for “where is Dafan mountain” which worked for things like: “where is Moling”, for the Dafan search the results were things like which chapter/episode is Dafan or ‘where was Wen Ning before Dafan?’ My confusion came from the fact that the town below Dafan is called Buddha’s Feet—and I have been there. In Chongqing there is a district called Dazu (大足), Buddha’s Feet which had Buddhist cave paintings so there are also mountains. Edit: I went back and looked for pictures, it’s not actually very mountain-y and is named for some giant footprints.

It took longer to find, because as I had learned there is just too many ways that you could write Buddha’s Feet in Chinese and have it interpreted as Buddha’s Feet. In the book it is called 佛脚镇 (Fójiǎo Zhèn) or Buddha’s Foot town, which isn’t a real place in China according to Baidu. So for my own fic purposes I decided that it was going to be in Chongqing. And then later, when I was actually putting together a map on Google I double checked for places like Dafan and found one. 大梵山 Dafan Shan (same characters and everything) is a 207m mountain in South Korea called Keun Beom San (?) 큰범산.

Phoenix Mountain was another one that I had a hard time looking for in the book as there are multiple ways to say Phoenix in Chinese and it is generally a compound word including Feng (风) which usually means wind and the name of the mountain in Chinese is 百风山 (Bǎifèng shān) and could also be translated as the Hundred Wind Mountain. And all though it sounds like a very good mountain name ‘phoenix’ or ‘wind’-wise there is no such mountain that I could find.

My Own Map Making Explained

Before I made my own map I looked for other maps online, ones that talked about the smaller sects. For the purposes of my fic I needed to know where the YueyangChang clan was situated, and where Xue Yang would be, or coming from, or going to. I found this map online. It is a very good map but it uses the present day name instead of the book names so I got super confused. For example that map has a Liyang, Leling, and Yueling, none of which I could find on the MDZS wiki as being connected to a sect.

What I ended up doing is writing the names of the cities into Pleco, a Chinese-English dictionary app, so if I type in yueyang the first three are: Yuèyáng (岳阳) a prefecture-level city in Hunan; yuèyáng (越洋) a verb meaning cross the ocean; and yuè yáng (栎阳) a place in Shaanxi Province. I took the place names and searched for them in my Chinese copy of the book and hit on 栎阳. Then I put it in Baidu, Baidu Maps, and Apple Maps to see where it would turn up—it turned up in Xi’an. Well, Liyang from that second map is also 栎阳. And when I look at the map apps with pinyin the section of Xi’an in question is also labelled as Liyang.

Leling was harder—or easier I guess it depends on how you look at it. I ended up looking it up straight from the second map Pleco suggested 乐陵 the county level city in Dezhou, which I found in the book 乐陵秦—LaolingQin. This I don’t understand at all 乐 is lè or yuè and yet we call them LaolingQin. So there you have it. Edit: while writing the weather section (which I did after this though it comes first in the post) I A. realised I’d been writing Yaoling instead of Laoling and B. that the Laoling County-level City Wikipedia page said that Laoling often gets mispronounced as Leling because the character 乐 is only ever elsewhere lè or yuè.

Tingshan was the last one that gave me problems. It is written 亭山 and there are actually a couple mountains called Tingshan, with the same characters one near Qufu in Shandong province, and two in Zhejiang province one north of Hangzhou and the other sort of south of Hangzhou, in Shaoxing (the one that comes up the most often in Baidu searches). Then I found a Chinese site discussing the ancient city of Tingshan City which is “In today's Zhejiang Deqing County East 24 Li (1 Li = 0.5 km)” so I put Deqing county on my map and then realised that the same site says that Tingshan is also 200 paces southwest of the county and then mentions a Wuxing ji (吴兴记) but I could find a Wuxing District (吴兴区) of Huzhou City the same city as Deqing county. Wuxing was north east of Deqing and that was when I realised that the two possible dots of Tingshan on my map were close to the dot of Yueling on the second map I had found. And I found a Yueling (越岭) in Huzhou and it was southwest of Wuxing (not sure about 200 paces or not), so I differed to the wisdom of that second map.

I have made my own map with the labels of all places I could find on a map. I labelled them with the sect names or if they had no sect associated with them just the city name. Sadly Baixue Temple, Phoenix Mountain, Dust Creek Mountain, Mo Village, and Dafan Mountain/Buddha’s Feet (though my map does include Dazu in Chongqing, as a point of interest) could not be found and added to the map. And of course we have no clue where Sect leader Yao came from and I kind of wish we could send him back off into the nothing, but he is there to add strife I suppose.

River Travel- Lotus Pier wasn’t the closest Sect to Yiling

I got to a part in my own fic where I needed them to take a bout between Yiling and Yunmeng and realised that while Yiling is on the Yangtze, Yunmeng is not and instead is on a tributary of the Yangtze. I did a cursory search for ancient river boat speeds and found an archaeological paper that tested seven ancient boats one of which was a Singapore Sampan it wasn’t very fast. So I just decided to write it off as cultivating boats get people there faster.

Even though I had already wrote the boat scene of my fic when I was looking at my map I noticed Google’s measuring tool. So for fun, I used the Google Maps measuring tool to measure river distance between Yiling and Yunmeng after I put all the city markers on. Yiling is on the Yangtze and Yunmeng has a couple Yangtze tributaries that run through it that meet up in the Wuhan area. The Yangtze dips south after Yiling and then goes back up to Wuhan. Yiling to Yunmeng is 444 km by river if you leave the Yangtze by Jingzhou and travel through Chang Lake (I cheated and connected to Hanshui River with what looks like a manmade river, maybe, it is very straight and appears to cut through the lake) then it is a lot of small rivers to get to Yunmeng. I thought maybe even though the Yangtze goes further south and Wuhan is further east than Yunmeng since it is a bigger river it might still be shorter. However, 397 km east of Yiling following the Yangtze in Baling! I remember in CQL Sect Leader Yao suggests Lotus Pier after the second siege of the Burial Mounds (I might be remembering wrong), but well he appears friendly with Ouyang, and they are a smaller sect.

Conclusion

So, while the sects live in actual places, today they are generally just districts in larger cities, because the urbanisation of China has resulted in many villages becoming districts of bigger cities. And while some of the places in the book are made up (Yunping City being another one that I cannot find anywhere) they are reasonably named that they are not far outside of the realm of possibility. Also China is a large country that discourages people from moving around, as you always have to return to the place of your birth (or your parents’ birth) to get paperwork and the like for visas, etc. Therefore, I believe perhaps inside China the knowledge of where these places are or the height of their mountains or their amount of snow is not something that is thought about by people as much as I think of these things.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #china #weather #maps #mountains #yangtze river #mo dao zu shi #cloud recesses #geography

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