#liberal use of apostrophes

[ive-fallen]

Reading newsies fics from up to 10 years ago and picking apart the intense written accents that were apparently a trend around 2017

[meowcatmutie]

hello. here's a post about homestuck characters' typing styles, but mostly focusing on punctuation because that's something i see a lot of people get wrong when they write homestuck characters

read this post if you care about writing them perfectly! if you don't give a shit about this feel free to scroll past. I'm very autistic about all of the little things in homestuck like this so maybe i'm the only one who always notices these things. idk! i want to talk about this anyway

john/june types in all lowercase and generally uses all proper punctuation.

dave almost never uses punctuation or capitalization! this is very important! he does not use apostrophes or periods practically ever unless it's in an ellipsis (instead of separating his sentences with a period, he just writes each sentence in a new message), commas very rarely, and he only uses question marks when they improve the clarity of a sentence (i.e. if it wouldn't have been easily understood as a question otherwise). he may use exclamation points or all caps if he is shouting, but he doesn't shout often. he also very occasionally writes a word in all caps for EMPHASIS.

jade almost never uses apostrophes or periods (unless in an ellipsis), and types in all lowercase unless she is shouting. she DOES use question marks and commas, and she uses exclamation points liberally.

rose, dirk, and jane all use perfect grammar. this is pretty obvious.

jake capitalizes the first letter of each sentence and puts a period (or whatever else) at the end, but in between those there is Nothing. no commas or apostrophes, and he doesn't capitalize proper nouns.

roxy types in all lowercase, doesn't use apostrophes or periods (unless in an ellipsis), only sometimes uses question marks, and uses exclamation points frequently. her typing style is the least consistent otherwise.

aradia's typing style is very similar to dave's, but with slightly more exclamation points.

mostly everything about tavros's typing style is pretty obvious and also not all that consistent so i don't have much to say about this, except that the word "i" is always lowercase, and he uses apostrophes in their normal places.

sollux uses periods at the ends of his sentences, but he uses apostrophes inconsistently.

karkat uses all proper punctuation, but on rare occasions might omit the period at the end of a sentence.

nepeta doesn't use apostrophes or periods (except in an ellipsis), DOES use commas, and uses exclamation points VERY frequently. also, she uses cat puns, but she doesn't shoehorn a cat pun in every 3 words, and she doesn't tend to replace very common words with cat words. (yes, this is about people having her replace "you" with "mew". it bothers me)

kanaya is pretty obvious, but i'm going to iterate anyway that she almost never uses any punctuation at all.

terezi DOESN'T use periods (except in an ellipsis), and frequently omits apostrophes, but not always. also, most people know this already, but sometimes i see people get it wrong, so i will note that she only replaces the letters A, I, and E with 413.

vriska uses perfect grammar and uses exclamation points liberally. her usage of 8s to replace letters is typically confined to only B and eight/ait/ate sounds, she ONLY replaces other vowels with 8s when she is very agitated/angry/upset. often, when an "eight" sound is in the middle of a word, the T will be retained, e.g. "explan8tion", "rel8tionship", "n8ture".

equius uses almost perfect grammar, except that he ALWAYS omits punctuation at the ends of his sentences.

gamzee uses all proper punctuation.

eridan NEVER uses any punctuation.

feferi mostly uses perfect grammar. obviously she uses a lot of exclamation points too, because she is -EXCIT-ED.

thx for reading. if you ask me to beta your fic i will do it btw

[light-blue-glazed-terracotta]

i don't know of any particular minecraft related moves from reddit re: the blackout but this is my most popular blog so i reckoned i'd pop some info in here regarding how the website works & etiquette and that

on reddit, you follow subreddits pertaining to a certain topic. on tumblr, you follow blogs and tags. people may keep their blog to a certain topic (ie this is a minecraft blog), so if you want to see minecraft content, you should follow minecraft blogs and relevant tags, such as mineblr, minecraft, modded minecraft, etc.

the way that the tag system works, you may find that you don't like the way a blog posts. you can go into settings -> content filters and put a person's url (blog name) into that, and you will no longer see their posts.

reddit is functionally based on comments. on tumblr, there are three ways of doing this: replies, reblog text and reblog tags.

replies are if you don't want the post on your dash. they will be visible in the notes section, but the original post will not appear on your blog.

reblog text is if you have something to add to a post. reblog tags are generally for commentary and reactions. for instance, on a post of a picture of a house built in mc, you might reblog with tags saying "oh wow, i really like this!". on a post with headcanons and lore, you may reblog with text adding your own theories and thoughts.

when tagging posts, using "speech marks" will bring the text within them to the front of the tags, on their own. this is stupid. to get around this, use one or two apostrophes.

block liberally, nobody gives a shit. this is a lot more person focused than reddit and if you don't vibe with a person you don't have to deal with them

uhhh that's pretty much everything i can think of that i haven't seen covered

OH. actually on here text only posts get about as much traction as pictures, unlike on reddit where they get far less attention in general

[greenticklerdreams]

do u have a tag for ur original posts? ive been trying to find that post you made like "silly girls. goofy girls. girls who like to play" for forever. thank you :)

That took WAY too long to find! (PSA: https://url.tumblr.com/archive is your best friend.) Can you believe I never tagged this post?? What a mistake.

My OC writing tag is #green's dreams. It looks like I used to use it a little more liberally for just "stuff I like" (gif posts and such, lol) but now it's more solidly a tag for my own stuff. ... and I should not have put the apostrophe in there. Makes it harder to search. I'll start using #greendreams from now on, since it's more searchable... we'll see if I have the drive to re-tag all my old posts, lol.

[owlrageousjones]

Yes Chancellor, Pilot Script

"Chancellor, you've been asked to give your opinion on the Rimworld People's Liberation Front."

"Are they the terrorists we hate or the freedom fighters we're supporting?"

"The former, sir. The latter are the Rimworld Peoples' Liberation Front."

"... Senator, which one is it? The terrorists or the freedom fighters?"

"Well, the Rimworld People's Liberation Front are officially recognised as terrorists by the Senate, but the Rimworld Peoples' Liberation Front are-"

"Hang on, you just said the same name twice!"

"Ah, yes, I see the confusion. The Rimworld People apostrophe s Liberation Front are not at all similar to the Rimworld Peoples apostrophe Liberation Front."

"... How so?"

"Well, we're against the former and supporting the latter for starters."

"I... see."

"Now, these are their flags."

*presents two identical flags*

"Senator, these are identical."

"Nonsense, Chancellor, these are-oh, my apologies. I had the Rimworld Peoples' Liberation Front one the wrong way around."

*flips one of the flags - they remain identical*

"There, is that clearer, sir?"

"As the Swamps in Naboo, Senator."

"And there is of course the matter of the Rimworld Peoples Liberation Front to consider as well."

"... Where's the apostrophe for that one?"

"Oh, it doesn't have one, sir."

"And... what do they want?"

"Well, sir, we're not actually sure yet. It's really rather muddled things for us."

"Yes, what a shame. And it was so straightforward without them."

[gonermaker-ocpicrew]

INFO (always subject to change)

General about/Tag info

While I started this blog with archival and elaborate tag systems in mind, it doubles as a general UTDR fanblog.

I do not tag spoilers for Undertale, the 2 currently released chapters of Deltarune, or pre-release promotional material (e.g. Ch3 screenshots from the newsletters). My exact policy for proper Chapter 3 / 4 spoilers will be decided when we get serious promo (like a trailer and/or release date), but I will tag temporarily.

"Mad Mew Mew" is her default form. Fanart of her pre-transition self is tagged additionally tagged as "Mad Dummy" the same way the "God of Hyperdeath" is also tagged as "Asriel". A similar policy applies to Mettaton (except his pre-transition form is simply tagged as "ghost" due to my naming scheme for his different looks).

In the first few months of this sideblog's existence, I had a different main blog. While I tried to copy-reblog everything I'd archived here, it seems to have fucked up this blog's search system and it only focuses on what I freshly reblogged here (the #tag system is fine). For the best experience in hunting for specific overlapping tags (e.g. "papyrus 2015" for Papyrus fanart from Undertale's release year), you may want to look through this blog as well as @gonermaker-goner . If you don't know how the sitewide tag system works, jump to the very bottom of this post.

I do not use apostrophes in my organizational tags. This is to lower the risk of them breaking. Instead of "#snowdrake's mother" it's "#snowdrakes mother".

No reblog tagged as "au:" or "oc:" is my creation in any way unless specified otherwise. On that note, I tag all fanfic-y UTDR media as an "au" even if it's meant to be a canon-compliant addition to the franchise for organization.

I’ve shared like 5 posts that apply, but I tag criticism of the fangame Undertale Yellow as “utyeller neg” for blacklist.

If a Deltarune fanart references the specific events or one-off locations of a certain chapter (fanmade take or official), it gets tagged as that chapter. Characters on their own are not considered to reference any particular chapter (except in the context of content that predates the chapter it relates to). While alternate styles usually count as chapter references (e.g. the Fun Gang's doctor/nurse outfits), Ralsei's black Ch1 form does not due to its widespread use.

I used to tag darkners on their own as “#dw”, but this changed to make the tag more useful. It now moreso applies to locations and dark world variants of lightners.

My logic for distinguishing between Undertale and Deltarune in character tagging can be inconsistent, but I'll try to explain my general thought processes. If the post predates Deltarune and isn't official, it's automatically tagged as "#ut" only. If it's a character that had a role in UT that wasn't practically teasing their DR one, it's also tagged as that unless indicated to be their DR self.

I usually use the queue to publish 16 reblogs throughout each day (24 hours), but this is subject to change. Exceptions include emptying my queue so seasonal posts can publish at a certain time or when I add commentary other than short compliments.

BYF-Adjacent

I block people from my main blog very liberally for filtering purposes, especially if they post Sans AU content in the main Undertale tag. You can only block someone from your sideblog by entering their username into your individual blog settings on the web version of Tumblr. Blocking someone from your main only makes it so you don’t see their activity; they’ll still be fully able to interact with the sideblog. If you reply to my posts or send me asks and I don’t respond or acknowledge it, it’s possible this is the case.

Among other ships, I casually enjoy Chara/Frisk content as they only become family in one ending (I do not ship it in the context of said ending). I tag it for organizational purposes, so feel free to blacklist #charisk. I do not support Chara/Asriel nor any other pedophilic/incestuous pairing.

While I very much doubt anyone who does this is going to read the BYF on my tiny est. 2024 UT/DR blog, please block me if you “headcanon” Frisk, Kris, or Chara as boys/girls or refer to them with gendered pronouns.

On Reposts

Tumblr is pretty much the only popular social media site that lets you reliably archive others' posts. Twitter has been a dumpster fire of extreme bigotry, unfixed sitebreaking bugs, and spam for years, yet so many incredible UT/DR artists have used and continue to use it. For this reason, I sometimes repost art from there with the creator's handle captioned and a hyperlink to the art piece. As you may have noticed, reblogs are off for these reposts as they're purely on my blog for archival.

I will take down any art piece if an artist asks me to or if they have an active tumblr of a similar nature. If the latter is the case and an onsite version of the art piece exists, please show me that as well.

Many of these posts are tagged with "tag later". This is so I can go back and add tags that are used by the general fandom (ex: "#flowey") weeks after posting so they don't clog anything up.

***

If you're new here and don't understand how Tumblr's archive/tag systems work, let me explain. (This all pertains to the browser version of Tumblr, the mobile stuff is limited and self-explanatory.)

Unless someone has certain opt-in privacy features enabled, their archive should be accessible by going to their blog and clicking the "Archive" button in the meatball/3 dots menu. This will let you simultaneously filter their posts by month-year of publishing, post type, and one tag used. For a non-archive variant of this, search that except without the "archive" part; blogexample.tumblr.com/tagged/tag. While certain tags will automatically show up in the list, you can search for anything by searching blogexample.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/tagexample (without the italicization). If the tag has spaces, put a %20 instead (blogexample.tumblr.com/tagged/chapter%201).

For plain searching, you can use blogexample.tumblr.com/search/example. However, like I implied above search result accuracy on Tumblr is pure ass and varies from blog to blog (I've noticed a way to make it more effective is to post frequently within the first few days of using the blog).

[foone]

I did some more analysis and it got long. No, I still didn't share the story or any excerpts.

Evidence for this being Foone-written-porn:

The second sentence is a tangent. The second sentence.

weird gender thing going on on the narrator who keeps accidentally using gendered terms and having to correct themselves

95% worldbuilding, 5% eroticism, 0% actual sex. The story at least acknowledges that sex is a thing humans do and that some humans want to do it (which is more than I can say about some of my other writing), but there's no actual sex in the story.

Inexplicable sixth-paragraph digression into "what if we thought about the real world for a few minutes: how do inheritance laws, specifically those applying to privately owned companies, factor into this BDSM fantasy?"

many obvious typos of the most Foonish type: Words that are in the spellcheck's dictionary but aren't the right word. like "room a board" when the author clearly meant "room and board". or "best way to get the the most out of our NOUN". "God know's how many..." what is that apostrophe doing there, (presumably)Foone?

although having said that, I just spotted a few of the regular type of spelling errors. "artificial insemenation"? "aphrodiesiacs"? "rediculously"? "luxorious"? Foone, you can't spell, and this author can't spell... I'm putting 2 and 2 together.

It's using that specific voice of a knowledgeable but kinda weary person talking about their experiences, but their experiences are with a different world than our own. That's a very Fooney thing to do, IMO. I write that way a lot, because I always find it amusing.

important noun capitalization. There's a lot of "you're not a person, you're a Thing" type capitalization, which is definitely something I do a good deal. Proper Nouns are a godsend when worldbuilding.

usenet/IRC style plain text formatting characters. /italics/, _underlines_, *bold*s. This isn't markdown, this is someone used to writing on plain-text only systems: The author is a child of the 80s or 90s, as am I

terrible at first-letter-of-sentence capitalization, even those this is clearly more formal writing than the contexts where that's fine to skip on.

for lack of a better term, liberal-democrat**-style waffling on picking an option. The story doesn't just go "Here's a fetish thing that is happening to persons X and Y", it has to consider what if X and Y want this in different ways. what if they're trans? what if they're lesbians? what if they're not lesbians?. This isn't a sex story, this is worldbuilding a scenario where anyone of any gender identity could have their own personalized sex story. I don't know if that's that exclusively a Foone thing, but it definitely suggests this was being written by someone who thought the worldbuilding was the main reason you'd read or write this story, and didn't want to have to restrict that scenario to a specific set of genders/sexualities/fetishes. This isn't an action figure, it's a box of legos: you build it, I'm just providing the pieces.

Excessive use of contractions. These are normal in writing but I'm from the south, so I speak contractions fluently.

Lack of URL or name/author metadata: while I do archive a surprising amount of nearly-anonymous tumblr*** posts, I usually at least TRY to make sure I also include some metadata for later categorization?

Despite being a setting that includes some dubcon, spends 500 words talking about safewords, including non-verbal ones and pre-arranged CNC-style "fake" safewords. This is written like the author knows a good deal about BDSM safeword practice/discourse.

Overuse of doublequotes. While I don't do the southern-style quotes-as-emphasis, I definitely love to quote things to indicate I'm not using them as standard, which is a somewhat distinctive style. I say that mainly because I've had at least two english teachers trying to get me to stop doing it, as it's "wrong".

Lotta parentheticals. Author clearly has a lot of tangents going in in their head.

Supposedly has a central theme (colors of ear tags) but keeps getting distracted to talk about other things in the world building. Smells like an author with ADHD!

the running "joke" of a weird gender thing with the narrator goes away for the last two paragraphs. Sounds like an author who started writing this, then forgot some of their gimmicks by the time they got to the end. Not that that ever happens to me.

Doesn't have any fetishes in it that I don't have. Your average smut story usually has a bunch of stuff that I'd just skim past, but not this one. Suspicious.

Reasons it might NOT be a Foone original story:

It's 80-column wrapped. I tend to write for Tumblr and other online sites like ao3 that don't need that. 80-column wrapped is more of a Usenet/text file archives thing.

Paragraphs are REALLY LONG. The safeword one is longest as 500 words, but the third paragraph is 200 words alone

Lotta use of ellipses. I try to avoid using too much of these, because that's how my dad writes and it's kinda infuriating? I'll get an email and it's like "Foone... have you heard about this... nasa is sending a probe to Europa... they think there might be fish there... how are you doing... a tree fell on the workshop and destroyed the old tractor... love from me and mom... cheers!"

Speaking of which: no use of "kinda", "lotta", "buncha". I use those a lot, specially when I'm doing a kinda southern voice, and this story could easily have that voice, so those not-exactly-"correct"-english words would fit right in.

Doesn't throw in any unnecessary worldbuilding. All the worldbuilding in this story is about the fetish setting it's about. It never does something weird like imply this is a world where dogs don't exist or Belgium was a Soviet republic until the 2030s or that Elon Musk got evaporated by an angry satellite.

Kinda long for a on-off Foone story, let alone a smut one? It's 150 lines, 2000 words. It's rare that I have a single story go that long, I tend to do little short things.

Anyway... don't use these bullet points to analyze if other pseudonymous erotica was written by me. Please. I don't want to have to write to sound like someone else out of paranoia. I don't think I have enough writing skill to pull that off!

* This one isn't a real footnote. It's plain-text formatting hints. ** As in, the UK political party. Famously mocked as being unable to make choices, as they can see the benefits of all options. *** And similar.

the worst thing about being a smut writer who sometimes just connects to a server and writes a text file (because I was at work or something and needed to write it SOMEWHERE)...

is that sometimes I find a text file with a kinda generic name and I look inside and it's fetishy porn but I DON'T KNOW IF I WROTE IT OR NOT.

It's got no name! no author! no attribution!

did I copy-paste a tumblr story somewhere because I wanted to save it? or did I write this? I don't remember and I'm having to anal*yze the writing style to try and spot if it uses any fooneisms**.

I did try googling it to see if it came up anywhere but google suggested a reddit argument about racism against black women, how to identify if you've been sold stolen clothes, an argument about the CSS language used to style webpages, and something from an organization called "Steel Horse Leather" which really confuses me. Is it a steel horse? or steel leather, but from horses? maybe steel horses? you can't have steel leather, that's not what leather or steel are.

Anyway, have fun trying to guess what this story is about from those results!

* no pun intend ** an excess of tangential footnotes would be one, for example.

[lesmislettersdaily]

M. Bamatabois’s Inactivity

Volume 1: Fantine; Book 5: The Descent; Chapter 12: M. Bamatabois’s Inactivity

There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, “My fields, my peasants, my woods”; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the diligence, live at the café, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris through the medium of Pont-à-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, serve no use, and do no great harm.

M. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province and never beheld Paris, would have been one of these men.

If they were richer, one would say, “They are dandies;” if they were poorer, one would say, “They are idlers.” They are simply men without employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored, dreamers, and some knaves.

At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top of the other—the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat, with a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each other and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a lighter shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite, but always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to eleven—a limit which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons on the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all, spurs and a moustache. At that epoch moustaches indicated the bourgeois, and spurs the pedestrian.

The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of moustaches.

It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats were royalist, and were called morillos; liberals wore hats with wide brims, which were called bolivars.

Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of these dandies, one of these unemployed, a “right thinker,” for he wore a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of the officers’ café. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly fashionable.

Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered witty and mirthful, such as, “How ugly you are!—Will you get out of my sight?—You have no teeth!” etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and with a sombre regularity, which brought her every five minutes within reach of this sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods. The small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger; and taking advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up behind her with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down, picked up a handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly into her back, between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar, whirled round, gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the man, burying her nails in his face, with the most frightful words which could fall from the guard-room into the gutter. These insults, poured forth in a voice roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous wise from a mouth which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine.

At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the café, passers-by collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings, whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman: the man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath, horrible.

Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd, seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and said to her, “Follow me!”

The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her eyes were glassy; she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert.

The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape.

[irregodless]

its only like a dollar but heres a review anyway if youre not sure if you want it

so lets review. 38 trolls in total, counting the trolls who come in twos. assuming these trolls are released as individuals for their friendsims, that makes a total of 38 trolls. which makes 19 sims at MOST, otherwise, 18, so either way a full experience for roughly 20 dollars

thoughts:

the art is not bad. ardata’s was better than diemen’s frankly. diemen had a lot of squiggly imperfect lines. most of the backgrounds seem like subgrub caps from the game, but some seem to be unique.

im not good with music so i cant tell how much of it is original and what comes from hiveswap, honestly i couldnt even tell just by memory if the two even had different music. but it wasnt bad.

the writing isnt bad either. it’s very andrew hussie. and where hiveswap felt in its first act like it was going to be very soft and easy, friendsim has that good old dark alternian culture going on. there was one major typo near the beginning and they forgot to highlight one of diemen’s hotdog synonyms like they did for all the others. i know a lot of work goes into making these (music, art, writing, coding, etc) but when the main deal of the work is that its a written and read experience and there are typos (granted only the 2 i noticed) its really disappointing. but not enough to ruin any hope for it

related to that each troll (or should i say both for now) has 3 routes, as expected. there is a “good” end, a “bad” end and an instant loss. the instant loss, for these two, occurs literally within the first interaction and ends, literally, with the character saying “never speak to me again” and leaving. for ardata, her bad end and instant loss were the EXACT SAME with the exact same end screen and name. diemen had three individual endings, even though one of them was just him saying “never speak to me again.” the ending screens are kinda poorly drawn like jailbreak era art, but isnt MEANT to be spectacular. i think considering the entire focus of the game was story and art the sprites could have been higher quality, but i wont harp on it too much

there are not many options. in fact, theres only roughly four. the first which determines whether or not youll fail immediately or progress, and then two decisions that determine if you go to the good or bad route. (ardata had a fifth option but it was only one single option you HAD to choose and might as well have not been an option anyway.)

gameplay for me, lasted roughly an hour, maybe about ten-fifteen minutes under. worldbuilding was not enormous, and theyre still kind of banking on non-homestucks playing it by lightly explaining the hemospectrum and lusii (though to be fair, our character isnt a troll so its fair pc wouldnt know these things immediately. its my hope that depending on framing for future installments that these obligatory pleasantries, but considering theyve made it in a way where you can only buy the ones you WANT to play, i doubt it will play out as a linear story and itll be the same scenario but with different options. i kind of hope once theyre all released theyll condense it into a singular set of options or something i guess

a dollar per hour of gameplay really isnt that promising, but its possible future trolls will have more complex stories which involve either more routes, options, or story.

so, under the assumption the soleils and folkyl and kuprum are their own characters, we have 38 trolls. 19 possible games. 3 routes per troll (including an immediate failure). summing at 114 total routes for 18.81 dollars (might as well say 20)

its........ fun. i guess. i like learning about the new trolls. and its certainly cheap. but if you really just cant pay a collective 20 dollars +about 10 or 15 for individual hiveswap games, id recommend just checking out a lets play of it

if nobody does one id even consider doing one myself for people who are curious or dont want to spend their money on it if there was a demand for such a thing

overall grade: A Repetitively “Not Bad” Experience (That Will Hopefully Get Better With Consecutive Releases).

EDIT: i forgot to put this in but also diemens route is really creepy and like. pedophilic. dealing with trolls is kind of hard in this respect but knowing everyone on the planet is a kid and theres like awkward moments between pc and him just makes it........... erh. maybe im too old, maybe its aimed for people 17 and under. maybe diemens just especially pushy as a person since ardata wasnt quite like that. i dont know. i just didnt like it. it was uncomfortable.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.1.5 “What Horizon is Visible from the Top of the Barricade”

This is one of those chapters where I have to abandon the idea of doing justice to anything. In the interest of getting words down instead of freezing at the enormity of capturing it all, I’m just going to jot down some thoughts.

- I’ve had such a fight with Hugo ever since I figured out what he meant by “Progress.” Spoiler: it’s colonialism. That’s not *all* it is, but it’s pretty inextricable from the idea that the ideas of France need to be spread over the whole world until the whole world follows them, not necessarily voluntarily or consensually.

I’m trying to separate that out from Enjolras the character, who I want to think would never, but it’s hard, because Hugo really does truly believe the above. So there are beautiful and lovely ideas here, about liberty and equality and people existing for each other in universal brotherhood and the whole world cooperating for that goal, and I love that. I love it so much. And yet, I can’t stop hearing hints of what this book thinks is the path to getting there. And I can’t stop asking who sets the curriculum of the universal education that Hugo says is absolutely necessary for universal equality. Because if that curriculum doesn’t also come from many, many different kinds of voices, it isn’t worth anything like what he thinks it is.

- I know it’s just the nineteenth century being the nineteenth century, but the idea that there’s an objective truth that science will tell us, and then everyone will agree with the facts and what they mean and there’ll be universal peace because everyone will see the truth and be in agreement......... is bad. It’s a bad idea, and it’s dumb, and it’s wrong. People have different narratives and come from different experiences and worldviews, and they carry different values, and it should be that way. I agree with Hugo that there should be more education, more science, more effort to figure out what’s true, and more consultation of evidence in decision-making--but all those things have their built-in biases, and they require a perpetual open conversation and an iterative process for how they can be made better.

- Oof, the end of history stuff in here is hard. I grew up in the “End of History” era and nope, nope, nope, do not want any of that. And yeah, clearly, Enjolras isn’t necessarily picturing the 1990s “Liberal democracy + capitalism together hand in hand forever and ever” thing--he pretty obviously isn’t, given what he’s advocating--but man do I have a bad reaction to the fossilization that happens when people don’t believe that anything new or different can happen.

- It’s not really clear to me what 19th century tech innovation has anything to do with any of this? It’s the benefit of hindsight of course, but it’s very obvious from here that the path from the steamship/airship/train to worldwide Utopia was maybe not as straight as Hugo hoped. I’ve also gotten the sense elsewhere in the text that Hugo thinks tech innovation is a period that will end: we’d solve the things that needed technological solutions, and then we’d be done with tech innovation somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century.

Which........ yeah. No wonder he thought the 20th century would be happy.

For all that, this is a beautiful and extraordinary speech. It moves the barricade from being about tragedy for forty or fifty men to being about hope for mankind and its future. Enjolras’s love for his friends and his love for the way they changed him--which is how I read his apostrophe to Feuilly this time: a “hey, yeah, I *was* listening all the times you argued with me”--is lovely. He wants that love and brotherhood and transformation for the rest of the world, and he’s willing to die in hopes that his death will be part of giving it that.

I’m playing with the idea now that this is the peak and the climax of the novel, at least ideologically. We’ll explore other ideas, we’ll learn a whole lot about human excrement and it’s thematic significance which I’m excited about, and, less positively, and almost definitely less pleasantly, we’ll finally start spending some time in bourgeois drawing rooms, a thing we’ve hitherto avoided.

Some of that will be adding to our major themes, and some of that will be dust kicked up in the eyes of the censors. But it may be that a lot of the novel reaches its culmination right here, where doom is close at hand, but the future is closer still. I’m curious to see whether I still feel that way as the rest unfolds.

[moonlightchild-otome]

Ikemen Vampire - Jean d’Arc Route Summary Chapter 10

here is the tenth chapter!

to clarify again, I’m not very good at japanese so if anything is wrong or weirdly translated everything is on me.

of course there is going to be some spoilers so do not read if you don’t wish to know jean’s story yet.

*also little bonus at the end about Jeanne d’Arc real story! of course you don’t have to read it to understand his route in the game but it’s very interesting :)*

The Count tells MC the history of the war between France and England, also known as the Hundred Years’ War...

【 Comte 】  Jean was a soldier who led the French army during the Hundred Years War.

Jean fights for his country, France and defeats the English army. Jean d’Arc, soon after the defeat of the enemy, becomes a true hero for his people.

However, such glory won’t last for Jean :( 'The most tragic end of the world's heroes', as they say.

In the course of the battle, Jean was captured as a prisoner of war by the enemy. The King didn’t want to help him for some reason. 😡

And of course... 🙄

【 Comte 】  Jean was convicted of heresy and it has been decided that he would be sentenced to fire.

After Jean's death, the king ordered a re-examination of his treason and found him to be innocent, and he went down as a hero of France.

The fact that Jean never knew went down as a hero after his death and this won’t change the fact that he died as an innocent. The protagonist is angry because it doesn't make any sense.

From the bottom of my stomach, I feel a mixture of anger and frustration.

Here, the MC asks the Count a question. “Why did he bring him back to life after such a death?”

There's something different about the Count returning the great men of the mansion and Jean.

The MC wonders if Jean really wanted the Count to bring him back to life. Before the Count can answer, Jean appears, interrupts him, takes the MC by the arm and leads her away.

【 Jean 】  One look at this man's face is enough. I don't like it. Let's go, woman. 

As soon as they arrived in the library, Jean seems to have calmed down a little lets go of the MC's arm.

The protagonist apologises for trying to find out about his past without his permission, but Jean says that's okay. Jean says it's okay, because his life has been written about in books anyway. However, he says that he doesn't want the Count to tell her about it.

【 Jean 】  ...It's not enough to say I hate it, it's too much.

Jean says that he is not a hero and that he is no different from the children's book he used to read, The Ugly Duckling.

it hurts me so much that this is the way he perceives himself when he deserves all the love in the world </3

Jean's gaze fell on the book 'The Ugly Duckling', which was still on the table.

That’s it for chapter 10!

here is some real background info about the real Jeanne d’Arc! She is such a brave and interesting historical figure. The epitome of a real badass, fearless and powerful woman.

so, the hundred years' war, if we summarize as much as possible is a series of armed conflicts that began in 1337. which opposes the kingdom of france and the kingdom of england.

in 1328 at the death of king charles iv, the question arises as to who will inherit the french crown.

one then has the choice between the cousin of the preceding king philippe de valois and edward iii the king of england who by his mother isabelle is also a descendant of the french throne.

you can imagine putting an english king on the french throne, wasn’t seen very well. 

edward not happy, which led to a succession crisis, which lead to the hundred years' war.

obviously this conflict, quickly overcomes a simple succession crisis.

it's a mess.

what you have to remember, is that the english are gradually invading part of the kingdom of france.

in 1415, after the battle of azincourt and the english victory, the english king henry v controls much of the north of the kingdom of france, including paris for that matter.

but it is far from being the only concern.

what you have to keep in mind is that the king of france at the time, charles vi, is reached at rather regular intervals of madness.

this obviously prevents him from administering the kingdom properly.

as a result, in parallel with the conflict with the english, a real civil war breaks out.

to find out who between his son the heir charles and his cousin the duke of burgundy will be able to take back the reins of the kingdom; the duke of burgundy is supported by the burgundians who will end up allying themselves with the english and the son of the king the heir charles is supported by the armagnacs.

but during this time, charles is betrayed by his own father who disinherits his son and after his death, gives the crown to the english.

i warned you that it was really messy.

and it is in this incredible mess that our jeanne arrives.

and where exactly does jeanne come from? from domremy.

she is also often called the virgin of orleans.

she is associated with the city of reims, but jeanne was originally born in domremy.

and where exactly is this place? domremy is this little town to the west of the city of the vosges department, on the banks of the meuse river.

isn't it pretty?

this is jeanne's birth house,

she would have been born around 1412. the building classified as a historical monument since 1840 includes in addition to a cellar, three large rooms originally used to house the whole family, her parents and four siblings.

according to jeanne's trial, it is here that she would have learned to sew or weave which were two occupations of the young girls of the time.

her father was a ploughman, so she often had to look after the animals.

and since she is very pious she spent a lot of time praying.

she went on pilgrimage at least once a week, for example in the notre dame de bermont chapel, about three kilometres (as the crow flies) from her birth house.

and jeanne d’arc, as you may have guessed, wasn't always called jeanne d’arc.

no, in history she has had different names and official nicknames.

there are of course the best known ones: the virgin of orleans, jeanne the virgin or even just the virgin and in the vicinity of domremy she was also called the jeannette de rommée, in connection with her mother's name. she has even signed several letters with the name jehanne.

and it's even more complicated if you're interested in her surname “d'arc”.

which was originally written darc, without the apostrophe. here again there have been many variations, and i'll mention a few of them: tarc, dars, darx and even d'ailly or daly according to the phonetic transcription of her name, with a lorraine accent. from there we move on to duly, then du lys.

when the king ennobled jeanne and her family, it is written on the deed, la dame du lys in reference to the royal coat of arms.

this is the magnificent bois-chenu basilica, which was built between 1880 and 1940 in honour of jeanne.

and for the record, this incredible basilica was sometimes considered to be the place where jeanne would have heard voices.

however if we refer to the trial, it is in her father's garden, near the house, that jeanne would have started hearing voices, celestial calls, coming from saint catherine of st. margaret's and the archangel saint michael.

the divine mission entrusted to her was very “simple”.

she was only commanded to be a cavalier, to cross a kingdom occupied by the english to go and find the future charles vii and convince him that she is the one sent from heaven.

to help him to take his place on the throne by her coronation in reims.

to show him how to liberate the kingdom of france, of the english presence.

it seems to be an easy enough mission for me. 😅 (nope)

so obviously you can imagine that the people didn't take her seriously right away. it took a few years before she managed to convince the world that she wasn't completely crazy.

- jeanne?

- yes?

- this is the voice.

- is someone talking to me?

- you are the chosen one, jeanne, join me.

- yes, i'm coming.

- i hope you like human barbecue. (ok i'll stop :/)

how is the legend of jeanne forged? how does one go from being a peasant girl eager to help, to jeanne of arc, heroine of the kingdom of france?

this is le centre d’interprétation (the interpretation centre), which is just behind jeanne of arc's birth house and retraces her youth and adventures.

her journey is incredible, at 17 years old, jeanne can't stand not doing anything anymore, she has been hearing voices urging her to act for four years now.

so she decides to return to the châtellenie de vaucouleurs, to meet captain robert de baudricourt, one of the king's faithful followers and after several vicissitudes, she manages to convince him. it wasn't easy, i remind you that her main point was that she hears voices. but yeah, he finally agrees to send her with an escort, join the heirn in chinon.

the journey is quite long and above all risky, we are talking about more than 500 kilometres and in this period of turmoil, the dangers were quite present especially if you look at the map, one realizes that the small expedition crosses areas not controlled by the enemy coalition.

fortunately, everything went well for jeanne, who arrives at her destination on march 1429 and gets an audience with the heir two days later. he was quite suspicious of this young woman at first, who claims to hear divine voices but according to the story she made a revelation to him that we don't know which eventually convinced him.

for the entourage of the suitor of the throne, it's not that simple and you can understand them, betting on jeanne is a little bit like a poker game. so they insist that she will be given a few interrogations, she is questioned about her life, about her morals and finally confidence is established, she is equipped with military equipment. she then undergoes mini combat trainings and here we go, her dream is about to come true, she joins a supply convoy in blois and on april 22nd, with more than 4000 men, she is headed for orléans.

the arrival of jeanne of arc changes many things.

her faith, her confidence in victory gives hope to the soldiers and to the inhabitants, who are filled with new energy. they manage to win in less than 10 days, 10 days and the english are obliged to give up their plan, which consisted of taking the city and then attacking the south of the loire.

jeanne who comes out of this battle with this image as a victorious, ultra badass woman and just earned her nickname... la pucelle d'orléans (the virgin of orleans).

thanks to her victory in orleans, jeanne thus becomes a kind of national heroine. she represents by her fame and her qualities, a not insignificant asset for the heir in his fight against the english and the burgundians.

but what makes a real difference is less her qualities as a war strategist and more her ability to charm and to galvanise the troops and the inhabitants along the way.

it's quite simple, before jeanne's arrival, the english had a reputation for never losing their invincibility.

and jeanne achieves the feat of restoring confidence in a possible victory.

it gives the impression to the troops that they are going to receive a kind of divine help and it changes everything in the soldiers' minds, all the more so because before her arrival there was a prophecy, who said that a virgin would help defeat the english so when jeanne arrives, everyone thought "it's ok, we're saved"!

jeanne persuades the future king to start a ride to reims who is in the middle of enemy territory, to be crowned.

jeanne thus succeeded in carrying out one of the following missions which were supposedly entrusted to her by the voices she hears; in other words, since she has succeeded, she is necessarily an envoy of god, and that for the mood of the troops, it makes a huge difference.

unfortunately after the time of victories comes the time of defeats.

after the coronation, the king and jeanne no longer really agree. she is convinced that her mission is to keep the english out of france.

the king, for his part, is longing for a little rest.

for example, he does not feel at all capable of taking back paris, while jeanne, a little bit stubborn, goes there anyway and suffers a failure.

on top of that she is wounded, she gets a crossbow arrow in her thigh, moreover, she breaks her sword which had for all victories...

it's a bad sign.

some people think that the virgin is abandoned by god. some time later jeanne went to compiègne, a city besieged by the burgundians and by some english contingents and once again it goes wrong, she is taken prisoner in may 1430, by the burgundians.

she tried to escape, but all her attempts failed and in november of the same year, she was sold to the english. jeanne is then taken to the castle of rouen, where members of the church judge her for heresy.

the trial was to say that charles vii was crowned thanks to a witch, she is also blamed for everything and anything, for dressing in men's clothing,

for deferring directly to god's judgement without going through the church, for hearing the voices of demons and not of saints.

jeanne really plays her life on each of her answers, in addition, she faces accusers totally committed to the english cause on her own when she was only 19 years old.

moreover, the witnesses are obviously not chosen at random, everyone who could speak up for jeanne is under pressure. everything is being done to ensure that she is condemned. finally, she ends up at the stake, on the market square, and we make sure there's nothing left of her body, to prevent it from being turned into holy relics.

and then after the end of the hundred years' war, i.e. almost 25 years later, the church reverses this first court decision. king charles vii wants to wash away the insult that was done to him through this trial and he pushes jeanne's family to ask for a review. pope calixtus iii agreed and jeanne was rehabilitated in 1456. the investigations carried out are more serious, many of jeanne's contemporaries jostle to plead in her favour and even people who had once spoken badly of her finally return to saying good things about her.

the first judgement is broken and the young woman's memory is rehabilitated.

an unusual little fact in the end - many people have not been able to admit that the story of the virgin ends up on a pyre. for them it was impossible, this story was too beautiful, this too extraordinary woman.

and it went far enough that people found stories of women, who a few years later claimed to be the real jeanne.

just imagine them saying stuff like "oh yeah, yeah it's me i didn't burn at all, my face has changed a little bit but it's me, i assure you, believe me, really".

a certain claude des armoises is said to have pretended to be her, in the metz region. after having acquired a certain renown, having been given gifts by former relatives of jeanne; she even went so far as to meet two of the virgin's brothers, who (hold on because it's completely insane) believed her.

they really believed it was their own sister who had died at the stake.

it's a crazy story!

well, we don't really know if they really believed it, or if one pretends to believe it for financial reasons for example.

in any case, this woman, who was talked about everywhere, is unmasked by the king himself, so that this fraud can be stopped.

in the end, i find this story quite unusual.

here are the friends!

i hope it wasn’t too long to read (it probably was) and that you have learned two, three little things on our dear jeanne d’arc. after all, she is one of the most famous women in history!

[theprettynerdie]

i make a point to tear down assholes who comment on my dating profile just to be rude. meet kyle, a trump supporting asshat:

i make a point to put in my profile from the get go that i do not date republicans SO THEY WILL LEAVE ME ALONE. YET HERE I AM.

Kyle is a catholic and conservative, so my liberal Jewish ass was nver interested anyway.

he wants someone unvaccinated, so clearly his gun-fetishizing ass wants to also be dead of a now-potentially preventable disease because he watches fox news and doesn’t understand basic science.

my response to his bullshit comment:

i’m tired of being civil to stupid men. if you’re a stupid trump supporting fuckface, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.

(let’s also talk about the fact that he calls extraterrestrials E.T.’s, which makes the term a possessive and not a plural! STOP USING APOSTROPHE S TO PLURALIZE WORDS.)

[coppicefics]

Masked Omens: Week Seven, Part One

[Image Description: Image 1 - A simple rendition of the Masked Singer UK logo, a golden mask with colourful fragments flying off of it. The mask has a golden halo and a golden devil tail protruding from either side. Below, gold text reads ‘Masked Omens’.

Image 2 - A page from the Entertainment section of the Capital Herald, dated 6th February 2021. Full image description and transcript below the cut. End ID.]

Read the fic here! All news stories and events are entirely fictional; real names of people (with the exception of image attributions) and places are used only for context. No affiliation is implied, and no disrespect is intended by the use of their names in this work of fiction.

[EDIT: With thanks to HolRose/@hasturswig for spotting that I had overlooked the sad passing of John Noakes, who originally appeared on this page!]

The Capital Herald - Saturday, 6th February 2021 Entertainment, page 15

Top left: Grasswater redo rumoured Will anybody tackle the ‘cursed’ adaptation? [Image Description: The ‘w’ in ‘Grasswater, ‘h’ in ‘the’, and ‘o’ in ‘adaptation’ in the above headline have been circled in pencil. End ID.] It's been nearly a decade and a half since the critically-acclaimed adaptation of Sir Thomas Parsett's The Grasswater Affair flopped into cinemas, and rumours are once again circulating about a possible reboot. The first attempt at transferring Parsett's magnum opus to the big screen was released in 2009 after a series of setbacks to the production process. Among the calamities that befell the set were a fire in the wardrobe department, an overdose requiring producers to recast the lead role of Fabian, and a bout of food poisoning that halted filming for over a week. There were whispers, among the more superstitious, that the film was cursed. By the time The Grasswater Affair was finally released, the delay had whipped the original book's fans into a frenzy of anticipation, and excitement over the forthcoming film actually pushed the 19th-century novel into the bestseller lists for the first time in the weeks before the release. Early reviews were promising, and the good press only fed the hype machine. But the crowds that packed into cinemas to watch it emerged disappointed; while the reasons they gave for their disappointment varied wildly, everybody from casual viewers to die-hard book lovers seemed to find it lacking in some aspect or another. It deviated too far from the source text, while adhering precisely to the minor details that didn't matter; it featured a young actor fresh out of drama school, rather than the promised household name; it lingered too long on shots of the actresses' bosoms, and the key object that proved key to the plot was left entirely out of focus in the background of a crucial early scene. While, naturally, some audience members enjoyed it in its own right, it never became either a blockbuster hit or a cult classic, and it still boasts a lowly 2.9 stars on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and 24% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This being the case, it might be hard to understand why rumours continue to circulate about a revival of The Grasswater Affair, or what might make this time different from the many, many other occasions when such a story has surfaced on the internet. The first question is easily answered by a look at the thriving community of Parsett fans who adore the original novel – and, indeed, the rest of the series The Grasswater Affair is part of. Following first Fabian, and then various other heroes, through a sort of alternative 19th century underpinned by magic and other fantasy tropes, it's been hailed as a masterpiece – and it's aged surprisingly well despite the shift in society's views and tolerances since its publication. The first novel sees Fabian locked in a battle of wits with his somewhat older rival, Rafferty, as they seek to make their fortunes in a society rife with danger and – worse – scandal. As for the second question, the recent rumours have an extra ring of truth to them thanks to the attachment of an actual name – writer-turned-showrunner Noel Garmin is said to be in talks about the project. Having adapted several of his own books for the small screen, could he now be turning his famed respect for written source material to a film or series based on Parsett's masterpiece? If he does, book fans can expect to be very pleased with the result. Garmin was asked about his upcoming projects at a recent convention panel, and his answer, while enigmatic, seemed promising.“Well, I've got to write some books, at some point! But I do also want to work on some more TV, it's a fascinating way of telling a story and it's still quite new and exciting for me. Perhaps I could tell one of my favourite stories, one that I didn't originally write. I'm actually talking to some people... We'll have to see. Hopefully I'll have news for you soon.” Hopefully you will, Noel. Hopefully you will. CITRON DEUX-CHEVAL Top right: Summer’s operatic offerings Last of Glyndebourne festival announcements [Image Description: The apostrophe and ‘s’ of ‘summer’s’ and the ‘t’ of ‘operatic’ in the above headline are circled in pencil. Below the headline is a short, wide picture of a theatre auditorium with red curtains. Small text over the bottom of the picture reads ‘Photo: Gabriel Varaljay | Unsplash’. End ID.] Opera fans are in for a treat this summer, as Puccini's Turandot returns to Glyndebourne Opera House. The venue in Lewes is renowned as the home of great opera, and Turandot is a favourite no matter where it's performed, so this combination of the two is a perfect match. Throw in popular young tenor Jeremy Wensleydale – most recently seen on ITV's The Masked Singer - performing the role of Calaf, and it's a performance guaranteed to impress. The play follows Calaf as he sets out to win the hand of the titular princess. Each suitor is asked three riddles, and failure means instant death. But answering three riddles is not enough to win the heart of Princess Turandot, and Calaf strikes a desperate bargain; if she can guess his true name by daybreak, she may put him to death regardless. If she fails, the marriage goes ahead. It's an interesting method of courting, to be sure, but the opera has enchanted and delighted audiences for many years now. And, if nothing else, who can resist an opportunity to hear 'Nessun Dorma' live? Glyndebourne members can book tickets now for dates between 25th May and 22nd June; remaining tickets will be available from the 18th of April. Turandot is the latest title to be announced by the opera house and completes their summer season's line-up. There will also be performances of Cosi Fan Tutte, Tristan and Isolde, Il Turco in Italia, and an array of concerts and other events. The Glyndebourne Summer Festival is always a highlight of the arts scene in the middle of the year, but there are events all year round. Currently, the opera house is a stopping-point for a touring production of Romeo & Juliet, which has already passed through the Chichester Festival Theatre and will then go on to Colchester, Ipswich, Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. The show is a daring new interpretation of the age-old Shakespearean tragedy, fusing music and dance with the familiar story, and a full review will appear in the Capital Herald on Thursday. From the middle of February, Romeo & Juliet will be replaced at Glyndebourne with a more traditional #approach to La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. The music of La Traviata may be familiar, even to audiences unfamiliar with the story, as it was rather liberally plundered for inspiration by Donato Lovreglio in 1865. Of course, that does assume a familiarity with Lovreglio - but if you find yourself humming along during your first attendance, that might very well be why. Incidentally, for more opera and classical music trivia, you might find my recent book, Inside Opera, worth a read - especially if you need to brush up on your cultured conversation points before you visit the opera house this summer. EDWARD BIGGS Inside Opera, by Edward Biggs, is published by Byker Press and is available now in all good bookshops. #Hardback RRP ￡9.99/€11.99.

Centre left: Capital Herald scoops NMA Star-studded ceremony honours news greats [Image Description: The ‘H’ of ‘Herald’, ‘A’ of ‘NMA’, and ‘t’ of ‘star’ in the above headline are circled in pencil.] The 2021 News Media Award ceremony took place on Thursday evening at a glamorous event held in the Mayfair Room at the Connaught Hotel, Mayfair. While many of the attendees are more used to operating the cameras than parading in front of them, they rose to the occasion with great aplomb, rubbing shoulders on the red carpet with some of the most famous entertainers in the UK who'd come to add their own special touches to the ceremony. It will come as no surprise to learn that Trevor McDonald, Natasha Kaplinsky, and Naga Munchetty were in attendance, as were Tom Bradby and Dan Walker. But the attendee who really got heads turning was Carmine Zugiber, notorious for attending very few events on UK soil. Although she's normally out in the field, she's been based in London for the last couple of months, covering the political beat for News World Weekly in Uriel Scrolle's absence, and it seems she couldn't resist the opportunity to collect her awards for Best Combat Coverage and Outstanding Field Reporting in person. Wearing a glamorous Ligur gown in striking red to match her hair, she paused on the red carpet to exchange words with some of those less fortunate reporters covering the event. “I don't know what to do with myself, with nobody shooting at me!” Zugiber joked. “Where's my bulletproof jacket?” The ceremony featured a performance of 'Messy (If I Want To Be)' by rapper P-White, who also presented an award for Entertainment Columnist of the Year to the Capital Herald's very own Citron Deux-Cheval. Another of the Capital Herald's staff writers, Edward Biggs, was nominated in the category of News-Adjacent Achievement for his 2020 trivia book, That Guy From That Thing. While the award, presented by Dame Angela Crowley, eventually went to News World Weekly's Donald Eath for High Score: A Study in Arcade Machines, Edward did get a chance to meet Dame Angela and exchange a few words. “She said I shouldn't feel discouraged, as she didn't win anything at her first awards ceremony either – and she wished me every success with my new book, which has just come out,” said Biggs of the star. “Hopefully, next year, I'll be bringing home a trophy too.” At the end of the night, as the winners and losers drifted home, the presses were already roaring into action to print the morning's papers. The news never stops; there was precious little time for the winners to enjoy the warm glow of appreciation, and no time at all for the less successful nominees to lament their losses. But at the end of the day, the whole industry could sleep safe in the knowledge that the work we do is valuable, and valued. MARY HODGES

Bottom left: Blue Peter garden party ‘22 Celebrating 10 years in show’s new location [Image description: The ‘B’ and ‘e’ of ‘Blue’ and the ‘h’ of ‘show’ in the above headline are circled in pencil. End ID.] The BBC has announced that it will be holding a party for former Blue Peter presenters, guests, and viewers in 2022. Held in the Blue Peter garden in Salford to celebrate ten years since it was relocated from London, the party is expected to provide an opportunity for Blue Peter presenters, past and present, to mingle and let their hair down, as well as catching up with some of the guests who've appeared on the show over the years. Former presenters such as Adam Young, Katy Hill, Radzi Chinyanganya, Anthea Turner, Gethin Jones, Pat Maputi, Yvette Fielding and Konnie Huq can expect an invite, of course, as can the current team of Lindsey Russell, Richie Driss, Mwaka Mudenda, and Adam Beales. But the former guests are an even more varied bunch; everyone from Idina Menzel and Sir Chris Hoy to McFly and Tim Peake could be invited, to say nothing of the hundreds of farmers, bakers, teachers, parents, and kids who've taken part in the show. While the party is quite a long way off yet, the BBC are already hard at work figuring out a lottery system that will allow them to give every viewer an equal chance to be invited to the party. Register your interest now on the Blue Peter website to make sure you don't miss out. SARAH JEUNE Ad, bottom right: [Image Description: A black background with a dark-grey crown resting on it. There are smudges of a lighter colour on the background. Above the crown, graffiti-style text reads ‘P-White’. Below it, written as if in chalk, are the words ‘Chalkdust tour’, underlined as if in chalk. Beneath it, a red bar reading ‘New dates added’ covers the words ‘Sold out’. Below that is the web address ‘www.chalkdust-tour.com’. Tiny writing in the bottom right hand corner reads ‘Photo: Zach Angelo for ProChurchMedia | Unsplash’. End ID.]

[End of transcript]

[larrydrosalez]

I like relaxed language and I like blackness. This anthology is a celebration of both.

tawk  

Sometimes we’re afraid to talk. Yes, WE. This might be about black talkin, but this here is for you too Sandy-Sue and Jin-Woo.  I know you’ve had those days when somethin forces you to speak or preach or teach something you’d be much better off talkin about. You scour your brain in search of synonyms you learned in an English class (some time ago) or for some phrase you picked up from your favorite politically active musician – all for nada – because, in your scavenger-hunt for eloquence, you end up with 1000 syllables that don’t say anything.  Trust me, I know the feeling. (Deleting those Gs and forgoing those apostrophes a few lines up still has me wary of some impending doom.  O_o)  [imagine the courage it took to include an emoticon.]

    It is this fear of writing the way I feel most comfortable expressing myself that convinced me that this anthology needed to be compiled. It needed to be compiled and needs to be delivered to every writer that thinks their words aren’t good enough and to every reader that thinks some writer’s metaphors are too big and meaning too small. I want this anthology to combat any notion that in poetry white high-language is right language and that slang is to be reserved for Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. This anthology, black-tawk, is intended to act as an examination of Black-American identity in contemporary poets through their specific use of colloquial vernacular, to be referred to as black-talk. These poems are compiled in order to reject “high language” (white-talk) as the only suitable means of intelligent and normative expression and that slave-talk is the only example of recognizable black expression. I seek to find a contemporary river of black voices that flow somewhere between a Mattie and a Michael Eric Dyson (and certainly above a Tyler Perry.)

     So what does black-talk between a Mattie and a Dyson sound like? It sounds like black people you hear talking every day. There are no meanings lost in abstract metaphor, no need to keep a library assistant on call and there’s the occasional glimpse of slang. Nah, I ain’t only talkin ‘bout that talk you hurd on the corner’a 3rd and Main, because while that’s beautiful, this anthology hopes to reveal subtle currents of vernacular that black poets use to express blackness. Of course there’s more than a heap of uses of slang’s shining star - “ain’t,” but he’s joined by “nuff” and “betcha” and even “cd” (could.) And these are sometimes decorated by the absence of punctuation that lends itself to an exploration of space and caesura to create natural and lulling speech patterns that mimic the way black people talk. You won’t find Queen’s English here. Nothing like what Jamil (Robert Sims) in his poem “pre-sentence Report” (page____) refers to as “…nouns that // old Sigmund couldn’t EVEN spell.” Though in his poem Sims speaks of medical jargon, there are certainly poets that employ a sort of poetic jargon requires too much energy to decipher.

    Not that deciphering is all bad, we wouldn’t want lazy readers, but when simplicity is forgone merely to sound poetic, the authenticity that makes poetry beautiful is lost. Stephanie Pruitt, a young poet from Nashville, could write novels about the process and love involved in getting her hair hot combed in the kitchen – but she doesn’t need to. Her haiku “Hair raising” (page _____) is beautiful in its ability to, concisely, resonate with black girls everywhere. “Hair burning in the kitchen” could easily become “kinky fibers laid straight by heated comb permeates the air in the place meals are made,” but it doesn’t need to. Now the form of haiku is innately simple but this same current of simplicity can be found throughout the anthology in various forms.

 black

Sometimes we’re afraid to be black. Yes WE. This might be about black talkin but if you change black to “chino” or “country” this here is for you too Jose and Billy-Rae. It’s about black talkin because black talkin is what I know best. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been made to feel afraid to express my blackness (or asian-ness or mexican-ness.) If a university environment is any representation of the real world, and I fear it may be more forgiving of race, people don’t want black people to be black. Every scorned sagging pant, every kinky twist pressed to oblivion, every set of braids chopped off for a job where suits and ties are need can serve as a testament that black people aren’t allowed to be black.

Oh, but that’s not true, we have a black president! – right, having one black president negates the pressure every white professor ceo quarterback vice-president student government official city official member of congress  employed contributing member of society member of congress places on black people to act white right.

…

…

I needed space to let that sit. The minority will always be made inferior when evaluated against the majority. Being black isn’t wrong, it’s just not being white. There are thousands of conversations to be had about blackness and black identity and defining what “black” is, but this is not a research paper and I am not an anthropological expert on the matter. So you ask, what does blackness have to do with this poetry anthology, and what does that contribute to life? Well, blackness is in the everyday things that black people do. There is no singular blackness. If you’re a black girl that gets a perm and a silky-smooth 32” Remy, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the sister pickin her afro every morning. If you’re a black boy with clean locks sitting proudly on the shoulder pads of your new Armani suit, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the scruffy brother in the newest Js and a tall-tee (although I personally detest tall-tees, that doesn’t negate the blackness found wearing it.)

Since poetry is a manifestation of expression based on personal experiences, black poets should be allowed to be black poets, right? No. An Essay by Evie Shockley entitled “All of the above: Multiple choice and African American Poetry” included in the introduction to the anthology “Rainbow Darkness,” edited by Keith Tuma, examines the reasons black authors are not allowed to be black authors. In short, he states (and I agree) that black authors (I would say all black artists) are subjected to “the poetics litmus test.” They must be judged based on political allegiances and racial “authenticity” rather than ability or talent. If a poet talks like Langston Hughes, they are authentically black, which is good, but they are a “black” poet not an “American” poet. According to Shockley, in order to receive the privileges “American” poets are afforded:

“An African American poet has had to avoid writing in styles or about subjects that are recognizably “black” in favor of “universal themes” and conventional aesthetics. Or  she could slip in the back door by appearing willing to narrate ‘the black experience’ for white consumption in ways that do not fundamentally deconstruct white (liberal) understandings of race or directly advocate revolutionary social change.”

This provides a perfect explanation concerning why black poets are pressured away from talking black. Even I question whether or not I want to be “that black poet” every time my mind wants to pen a thought about kinky hair, “unique” names, or encounters with racism. Just as the fear of talking convinced me of the necessity of this anthology, the fear of being black doubly convinces me that there are people that need this.

 black-tawk

I like relaxed language and I like blackness and this anthology is a celebration of both. These poets aren’t afraid to be black even when they’re not talking about black things. This collection includes poets just talkin and poets just being black and poets talkin about being black – none afraid to share their identity and the language they speak. Ntozake Shange isn’t afraid to write poems in a manner that is supposed to be talked. Sapphire sees the significance of what Claireece P. Jones has to say, and how she says it. Celes Tisdale saw the need for people to hear what inmates from Attica think. All of these voices have been gathered to fight the fear of being Black regular Mexican Asian poor Jamaican poorly-educated well-educated strange normal smart dumb black-tawking.

black-tawk is right. Don’t be shamed of it. These are your peers.

  my tawk

    And now that I’ve splattered you with my thoughts/rants about blackness and language and wooed you with my semi-intellectual prowess, I’d like to free myself of the black burden – a burden that has weighed heavy on my mind since I started compiling these poems. What is the black burden you ask? For me, it is the false interpretation that any black voice is THE black voice. To those reading in hopes of better understanding the black race based solely on the compilation of a 22-year-old-half-black-half-mexican-and-japanese-middle-class-college-guy I say:  I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice.  I, like the poems selected for this anthology, do not represent the entire black race or encompass all Black-American identity. There is no anthology or single person that does. I, and these poems, do however represent a current of thought, a movement, towards talking. Towards tawking. Towards tawking black. black-tawk. Enjoy.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Sometimes I wonder what protections the Pet Protection Act is theoretically supposed to give

Catch me on a day I’m feelin’ world-buildy and I could probably put together a Pet Bill of Rights or something for you but I am not feelin’ it today, sorry.

Although I’m apparently feelin’ a liberal use of apostrophes

[weaselandfriends]

Hymnstoke XIII

Have you heard the story of bladekindEyewear the Blind?

In infinite folly, this man strapped knives to his eyeballs, depriving himself of sight. Nonetheless he was known as the wisest man in Homestuck Tumblr, with a wicked pack of classpect analyses. As Homestuck progressed through its lengthy sixth act, he developed a wide sleight of theories as to how it would end and what it would mean when it ended that way, focused most famously on each character's SBURB class and aspect (classpect for portmanteau).

When Homestuck ended, and then ended a second time, he turned out to be wrong.

In a recent post, he made this comment about his wrongness:

BlastYoBoots  04/26/2019:  part of why all my theories were wrong is that they were arrogant and misguided and just all-around regrettable and I thought I "knew" what Andrew morally wanted out of a story when he wasn't after the same thing at all

I bring this tale to your attention not to drag our Sosostris through the mud. In fact, I'd say he's unduly harsh on himself here. He may indeed have had a decent grasp of Hussie's moral purposes regarding Homestuck—in 2013. It has been a long six years since then, during which Hussie followed in the footsteps of other noted New England authors J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon and vanished off the face of the planet. It would be fair to theorize that what Hussie "wanted" out of Homestuck changed considerably in those years. And the truth is, because Hussie has disappeared so utterly, any illusion of knowing his "moral" goals has completely dissipated. It's not even clear at this point how much of the Epilogues he wrote. What statements can possibly be made about authorial intent outside of baseless conjecture?

Mr. Eyewear had the unfortunate position of writing critical analysis of a work that was not yet finished, a position not often imitated by critics throughout the ages. It's relatively easy to look at a work by a long-dead author and make some grand, sweeping statement that "this is what it means." Because the author is literally dead, Death of the Author becomes much less controversial to apply. Even now, after the dust has settled, a new installment of Homestuck may unexpectedly arrive that obliterates any previous critical insight on what Homestuck "meant." Homestuck is ostensibly over, but the Epilogues left plenty of room for continuation.

Someone who read the previous Hymnstoke installments came to me and said (paraphrased), "Do you really think Hussie knows anything about Gnosticism? It's far more likely he googled it and used a few names here and there to sound smart." Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be his modus operandi for the Pale Fire and Waste Land quotes I wrote so lengthily on in previous Hymnstokes as well. Wouldn't it make so much sense if Hussie googled "Literary quotes about April" and put in the Waste Land quote without ever having read the poem, without understanding its historical or literary context?

Would it matter?

Hussie may or may not be ignorant of literary history, or his own literary moment. In that Stanford interview he flatly denied any knowledge of "post-irony." But the author's ignorance doesn't excuse the work from the world. Homestuck itself is rapidly becoming a historical work, fading from the immediate cultural consciousness. Yet it has left a mark. How many works will be created in the coming years that draw heavy inspiration from Undertale, which itself was heavily inspired by Homestuck? And if we take Homestuck's most explicit inspiration to be Earthbound, what works inspired Earthbound? What works inspired the works that inspired Earthbound?

Whether Hussie knows what DFW stands for or not is inconsequential. Homestuck is not a work in a vacuum, neither the beginning nor the end. Con Air, the Greek Zodiac, Insane Clown Posse—whether the reader knows what those things are doesn't matter within the space of Homestuck, because Homestuck invented new meaning out of them all. Whether Hussie, the author, knew what Gnosticism, post-postmodernism, or Dadaism were—I would argue that is similarly inconsequential. Homestuck repurposed all of those -isms, either knowingly or unknowingly, into something new. It is the act of repurposing that is the most important part, not whatever those things were before.

So bladekindEyewear observed Homestuck through the lenses of knives strapped to his eyes. From that perspective, he conceived of what the facts (the text of Homestuck) "meant." I'll also be looking at Homestuck through a certain lens. Neither lens is the same as Hussie's lens. No lens except Hussie's can be Hussie's lens: that is something the postmodernists realized, that "truth" was fragmentary and differed from person to person. Perhaps even different within each person; the Hussie of 2013 may have a different lens than the Hussie of 2019. Put succinctly: No absolute truth exists.

But Homestuck, I feel, moves beyond the problems proposed by postmodernism. In Homestuck, differing lenses, even completely opposite lenses like "irony" and "sincerity," "science" and "magic," "time" and "space," or "author" and "reader" (as seen in the Epilogues) become blurred, indistinguishable, ultimately reconciled as essentially the same thing. It's that reconciliation that I think is Homestuck's most meaty—or candiey—thematic component.

With that in mind, let's continue.

What is under the rug is much worse than any trap you can imagine.

It is a member of a species that you do not recognize, with a ghastly furred upper lip.

I don't even know who this is. Jeff Foxworthy? I guess I might not be a redneck.

Soon these lugs will learn to show you some respect. You made this town what it is after all. Wasn't nothin' but a bunch of dust and rocks before you got here.

Okay. I was right. I knew it, all along when I was reading the Epilogues I knew something was off. I felt certain, and now it's been confirmed for me.

Homestuck does not use smart apostrophes, while the Epilogues did.

For those not in the know, a smart apostrophe is curved based on the text that comes around it, like so: ’

A regular apostrophe, by comparison, is not curved: '

As you can see in the quoted text, Homestuck proper uses your regular dumb apostrophes. Which is good, because smart apostrophes are the devil. They frequently get slanted the wrong direction and conflict aesthetically with Homestuck's monospaced, geometric Courier font. Yet all throughout the Epilogues, smart apostrophes are used. It drove me insane. I hate those things.

Can't overthink this time stuff.

I guess I should actually talk about the Intermission. Internally, it's pretty straightforward, borrowing liberally from Problem Sleuth. But what exactly is its purpose? Yes, on a purely plot level, elements of the Intermission return in Act 5. Spades Slick remains a character who exists all the way until Collide, although he is one of the unfortunate casualties of Act 6's awful ending and is too dead to get any kind of relevancy redemption in the Epilogues, unlike similarly extraneous Act 6 characters Jane and Jake.

Fundamentally, then, the relevance of the Intermission extends only as far as Cascade, with elements malingering longer but never amounting to anything new. Many things will extend only as far as Cascade, which eventually becomes Homestuck's midpoint. In earlier Hymnstokes, I mentioned a few times that I didn't think I had much to say about Act 5. I said that because, while Act 5 is impressive from a technical standpoint, it's a lot less dense in meaning compared to early Homestuck or Act 6. It functions a lot like a machine with many perfectly-placed parts (or rather, parts that were retroactively made to look perfectly placed, depending on how improvisational you think Hussie wrote) that slot together like a machine, rifle, or clock to create a flawless cascade of storytelling. I'll talk more about this kind of "clockwork storytelling" when I actually get to Act 5, but for now one might consider the entire Intermission to be one of those perfectly-placed pieces, and the Spades Slick storyline culminates in Cascade to slot alongside the other pieces in a satisfying way.

One might also interpret the Intermission as a primer for certain elements that will become important in Homestuck proper, such as the aforementioned "time stuff" that gets its first real exploration here before becoming a convoluted but finely-wrought entanglement in Acts 4 and 5. Toss in vague foreshadowing to Lord English and the Intermission's existence is at least purposeful, regardless of whether one considers it necessary.

But what about structurally? I mentioned in the previous Hymnstoke that the Intermission is similar to Act 5 Act 1 and Act 6 Act 1 in that it dramatically downscales the tension, introduces a slew of new characters, and shakes up the tone of the story. Each of these three parts are nostalgic for "Old Homestuck," the Homestuck that is more like Problem Sleuth, and they feature many text commands and faffery like what you see in Act 1. By juxtaposition, then, each emphasizes how far Homestuck has developed across its run, and the differences only become more striking each successive iteration.

The Intermission is probably the fragmenting point. In Homestuck proper, there are no more kids to introduce. John, Rose, Dave, Jade, for each of them we've cycled through the database-structured INTERESTS and INSTRUMENTS and WEIRD PARENTAL FIGURES. Bit by bit that kind of content will vanish in favor of a new sort of storytelling, and the Intermission is where it becomes obvious that this is happening. Jade's introduction already subverted most of the established tropes, and the Intermission reads like a parody of them, with the Midnight Crew's set of traits being plaintively ridiculous (each keeping a different kind of candy in their backup hat, each having a different kind of smutty material, et cetera). Act 5 Act 1 will also be parodic in its approach to these database traits, but I think in a less effective way, as the differences between the kids and the trolls are less extreme than the differences between the kids and the Midnight Crew. Furthermore, the Intermission really drives the nail into the coffin of Problem Sleuth, severing Homestuck finally from its predecessor. Act 6 Act 1, by comparison, is more of a wistful yearning for Act 1 than any kind of new take—which might itself be meaningful in the grand scheme of things.

Still, it might come in handy down the road. Lord English is supposedly indestructible. He's rumored to be killable only through a number of glitches and exploits in spacetime. The doll may ultimately help you work the system if it comes to that.

This line, along with the way Problem Sleuth ended, was probably the primary driver that led to people expecting a final boss fight with Lord English on par with the one with Mobster Kingpin. Although the Epilogues were a fantastic ending, it's still underwhelming to think about just how poorly-conceived Collide and Act 7 turned out to be. Of course, the Problem Sleuth sort of ending is definitely more of a "clockwork" storytelling style, and Act 6, as has become clear by now, has a much different style.

Dirk, the ultimate inheritor of the clockwork style—he specifically describes storytelling in terms of machines—has as one of his INTERESTS robotics and technology. Lord English, likewise, is surrounded by a clockwork motif. Of course, these characters will eventually become explicitly linked via the method of Lord English's creation. But unlike many other INTERESTS, which turn out to be irrelevant, this machinery fascination ties in to Homestuck's final thematic dichotomy. But more on that when we reach the Epilogues.

29/1000 CLOCKS DESTROYED

I guess we know what side of the dichotomy Spades is on.

This is the same calendar Dirk has in his apartment in Act 6. I remember I once had this theory that the Midnight Crew would be reunited at the end of Homestuck even though the B2 Hegemonic Brute was dead because it would be revealed that Hearts Boxcars was still in Dirk's calendar and would come out riding Dirk's mini Maplehoof.

I don't know why I had this oddly specific theory, and it was probably obvious it wouldn't happen.

And thus ends the intermission, with an eye toward the next bizarre deviation in the storyline (Act 5 Act 1).

It's been awhile since I last read Homestuck. My memory of Act 4 is dodgy, so I might actually stumble upon something new. But as I mentioned earlier, the Intermission is the big, obvious breakpoint between the old, Problem Sleuth style of Homestuck and the new, clockwork style. The database-driven character creation will gradually fall away (minus a parodic revival in Act 5 Act 1) and narrative elements will become more consistently introduced with an eye specifically toward Cascade. For many people, this is when Homestuck starts to "get good," and I think it's because there's something innately satisfying about a finely-crafted machine slotting into place. There is a kind of intrinsic beauty about it, art for art's sake if you will, and that is also what seems to draw Dirk toward it.

But more next time.