#love her a lot conceptually but the execution was just not there for me. severe case of tell and not show

[dreampearls]

finisheddd furinas story quest 🫡

[neon-z]

I really hate everything about Teppei in Higurashi Gou/Sotsu

I usually don’t use tumblr to blog, but I just needed to vent somewhere since Teppei has come up in conversations a lot due to the recent Meguri version of Tatariakashi.

Anyway, like I said, I’m mostly venting, but I really despise everything about his character and role, not only execution, but even on a conceptual level. This abuser who treated Satoko as nothing but an object and generally led a trash life, causing problems, not only to Satoko herself but even to completely unrelated people (like Rena) is now somehow cosmically connected to Satoko. Because they’re “family”? Even though they had no actual family relationship or blood bonds. So, from where does this “family” comes from? Because he is called “Uncle”? Really?

Anyway, this allows him to see his own death in several worlds and makes him change to avoid that. And somehow this instantly turns him into a completely different person, never falling to old habits or being presented in a negative way again. That’s just not how people work. There is a reason many abusive relationships go through cycles of reconciliation and abuse. People just don’t work like that. But he gets to be magically transformed into his ideal self... and then, that ideal self, is the only one who manages to touch Satoko’s heart and make her hesitate even if only for a few moments. While she laughs while making the girl who protected her in spite of her own family go insane and then killing her.

Yet again, I really hate everything about this situation. The group that was around her for years suddenly doesn’t matter at all and their actions are all hollow. Even when interacting in new unexpected ways (like Satoko asking Mion to train her with guns), there’s no emotional connection at all. Even though returning to 83 by itself should produce some reaction in her, even separate from Rika, considering her attitude with the club changing. But there’s nothing. And yet, her original abuser being generically “nice” somehow is this big unforeseen hit that keeps making her crack. It’s such a forced and senseless reversion that just makes me despise the whole scenario, especially when the show tries to be “realistic” in other points. And, actually, that’s one of the main reasons this turn bothers me.

If we are doing this fantasy scenario, where even Teppei gets a good ending he should never have gotten, without any real effort, then that will go for everyone, right? But, nope. We get Rika and Satoko in the end unable to reconcile and going their own ways, with Rika still seemingly wishing to leave Hinamizawa and leave everyone behind due to her loops. In spite of how much she seemed to love it and her friends and just wanted that life to continue in the VN (even dismissing the idea of running away alone from Hinamizawa in order to attempt to escape her death because it’d be pointless if she were away from everything she loves). The evil abuser gets magic basically giving him the best future possible at that point, past character be damned, while Rika has to “face reality” or whatever (even though that’s not even the original world from when the loops started, which is why she’s still just going for her first year of St.Lucia again, rather than being halfway through her 2nd year). Everything about that scenario just makes me sick. It’s something that still bothers me when people talk about Sotsu now. It couldn’t pick a lane, and someone decided that an evil man should be gifted while Rika just needed more suffering. And that’s her resolution, while the series plays a happy song and tries to show everyone smiling. Besides Rika, because it’d obviously feel odd if those smiling St.Lucia scenes which were previously portrayed negatively in the anime were thrown again right in the middle of that hollow happy ending montage.

The recent Meguri chapters, where Teppei’s role was minimized and rushed through, with his actions being unable to touch Satoko’s heart, brought back the conversation about that entire situation with many people lamenting the manga cut Satoko’s heart being affected by him... and, well, reading all that just made me think about that entire scenario that still bothers me to no end. The perfect take would be just ignoring his change completely, but if it was going to be there, since Ryukishi07 has pushed it so much, I’m fine with it being reduced to a footnote. Well, actually, showing him attempting to change, just to have him fall back to his true self would be the best and most satisfying and complete take on the character, although that would also need even more focus than what he had. But unfortunately, no official take on the character pushed that direction.

Of course, it’s still possible Meguri’s ending will annoy me just as much as Sotsu’s, depending on how it turns out regarding Teppei, Rika and its overall tone, in spite of the promise of a new final arc and ending.

[vyvesvi]

2022 music recap! (1/3?)

soloists:

after a tough battle, i finally settled on my top three soloists of 2022! this was such a great year for female solo artists in all markets. lexie liu and bibi undoubtedly played a huge role in my year, gaining 255 scrobbles and 287 scrobbles from me, respectively. what pushed lexie liu over the edge to claim the #1 spot is the uniqueness of her third studio album "the happy star," which just released this month! fun fact: lexie liu is the only artist to maintain a song in my top 10 for the past four years! it was time to admit that she's one of my favorite artists overall. i highly recommend most of the happy star (i don't personally care for gaia or shanti) but especially magician, fortuna, 3.14159, and ganma.

bibi is an interesting case- the songs of hers i listened to most, pado and eat my love (2021), are not her most popular (or even her core style). but there's something about them that scream 4.5 gen. if they were released by any rookie gg right now i'm sure they'd be hits. bibi also released an album this year, which i really liked overall! i would recommend the intro (yes, the intro), witch hunt, and motospeed 24. i have to admit that i'm not really a stan, but bibi really impressed me this year!

i have less to say about youha's satellite (currently my 9th most listened song with 48 scrobbles), despite loving it a lot. i just want a girl group to do this style. i want youha to make this her main style. it's just too good- good enough to elevate her to 3rd on my soloists list. "love you more," is her first mini and she killed it, so i'm looking forward to a bright 2023 :)

note: honorable mentions are not in any particular order, i love them all but i need to move on to the other categories lmfao

male releases:

it was a tough year for male artists in my opinion. my only bright spot was my top 3.

xiso/senji and alpha are new discoveries for me! i don't have much to say about them somehow but i would highly recommend you give them a listen! seni oilai (my 4th most listened song with 54 scrobbles) is the first song in kazakh that i've ever heard! the bass is everything to me- it's like this song was designed to take over my brain lmfao. xiso & senji are what i would call part of the onlyoneof extended cinematic universe. they work together a lot, along with haeil (and iiso iirc) and are doing some really cool stuff right on the edge of kpop and krnb.

kb actually held the #1 artist slot in my library with 219 streams for several months before being overtaken by bibi and lexie liu. he still, however, holds the #1 song spot with be free. oddly enough, i don't even think be free is necessarily "the best" of onlyoneof's solo project (that honor goes to junji's be mine) or the best conceptual execution (that would be yoojung's begin). but it is the one that scratched my brain just right. this project is so good y'all TT

gg releases:

i didn't call this one female releases because the soloists would overwhelm the list lmfao. that said, 2022 was definitely a gg year in kpop! oddly enough, despite primarily being a gg stan i actually don't stan any of the monster rookies that debuted this cycle? and i would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite honestly (i might write a whole post about 4th gen later, we'll see). that said, love dive was undoubtedly my gg soty. i don't have scrobble info for it as i primarily listened to it a ton before i got a tracking app, but according to apply music it was my number one song this year. i'd guess that the real rank is probably between 6 and 13.

lesserafim's the great mermaid isn't for everyone but it was certainly for me! another one that i listened to earlier in the year, so apple music has it at #14. i just think it's really unique and i would lovee to see a performance of it. lsf has a bright future and i'm excited to see where they go from here. (i'm also proud of them for not releasing singles lmfao!)

tripleS...i have so much to say about them that i've circled back around to having nothing to say. their first temporary subunit's mini album, access, was really solid in my opinion, but i know it's not for everyone. regardless, i think that the positive reaction to generation was 100% warranted. it's so fun!! i'll have more to say about them in a later post but yeah. my girls. i'm so excited for ot10 debut early next year!

with how much i loved purplekiss' pretty psycho, it's a bit evil for it to now not be in my top 3. i still think it's a great song (my #7 on apple music) but it's aged a lot more than the other songs on the list, including others on the same album. it's still great though, i just wish it had better choreo and was a title.

up next: concepts/albums/throwbacks/debuts

[chirpovs]

so I’m rewatching the hobbit trilogy for what feels like the first time in 10 years and boy do I have some thoughts

The Good

- the soundtrack absolutely slaps, another win for Howard Shore

- the riddles in the dark scene was in fact genuinely good

- character-wise I generally don’t have many complaints. like generally good acting, everyone fits their roles pretty suitably, I’m never really taken out of a scene or anything

- I have literally nothing bad to say about Thranduil, no notes, possibly the one thing the movies did Right

- conceptually and stylistically, I think Mirkwood and was well done. very less wise and more dangerous vibes + Thranduil being a bitchy king + Legolas being young and angry Legolas fits into my idea of what Mirkwood should be very easily

- big fan of Bard and his bardlings <3

- I don’t know why I’m noting this specifically but I think the visuals of Smaug’s defeat were actually very good?

The Bad

- the CGI really puts me off. like I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it makes everything look like a video game or a animated Disney film half the time

- I believe that 16 year old me would have cried sacrilege, but I actually think Legolas should only ever have been a cameo and not a full role

- it’s not terrible but I think the Azog plot is very unnecessary for the story, like we really don’t need to have an extra villain that’s just after Thorin

- so I really like the Dol Guldur plotline in principal but in practice I really don’t think it works at all and it really just gives vibes of trying to make this story bigger than it is. this plot should really have only ever been alluded to imo

- this could literally just be me, but why are Legolas' eyes like that? like i dunno if it's the contacts or if they're CGI'd but they're really weird??

- also might just be me I guess, but Galadriel and Gandalf’s interactions are super weird and it implies that Gandalf is in love with her and I’m not here for that

- man the Ravenhill scenes with Legolas are silly. like I know the standard set by the lotr films of Legolas just being Extra, but this was too much

- I mean it’s not too bad but the dwarves really were not given distinct characters (outside of Thorin, Fili, and Kili) and where they were it was mainly just stereotypes

- there are several unfulfilled plot threads I feel like? what springs to mind the most is like Thranduil’s burns which appear in literally one scene and are kinda never addressed ever again? like that scene could have been cut and no effect would have been made on the rest of the story imo

- I think there are some cuts don’t make a whole lot of sense? for example, at the end of battle of the five armies Thranduil shows up on Ravenhill which is a bit odd considering his last scene was that he wasn’t gonna get involved at all. obviously I’m aware there’s a deleted scene where it makes it make sense, but with the deleted scene it’s a little why the fuck are you here?

The Ugly

- this should never have been three films

- the juvenileness. I think that an unexpected journey is the worst offender but they all do this. like yes, the hobbit is a children’s book but not in the way of basically descending into fart jokes. I also think that this is also in part the fault of splitting the movies into 3 because a lot of the more cringey childish scenes felt very much like padding (pls see Alfrid’s existence)

- I said it before and I’ll say it again, they fully ruined a perfectly good character with Tauriel. the romance with Kili was stupid and the love triangle was even stupider. like I know it was due to executive meddling but genuinely her scenes that weren’t executive meddling were good and they really wasted what could have been good

- we did not need a movie that was effectively a 2 hour battle scene, they should have made max two films and not stretched it into three

- certain parts of the actual battle in battle of the five armies felt very..... video game. so specifically I’m thinking of the scene where the dwarves are trying to get to ravenhill and like first the trolls appear and then the wargs appear and it just felt like a level of a video game y’know?

Other thoughts:

- I didn’t want to specifically put this in a category, but I think it’s true nonetheless: these films lack heart in an odd way I can’t really describe and I think that it very well may be because they tried to make the films bigger than they are

- I don’t think the extended versions really added to the films much in the way they did for lotr. Like I can tell when I’m watching lotr when I’m watching the extended edition or not but I could not tell for the hobbit

- I don’t know what this means, but I can’t think of a single iconic moment or line from these films and that doesn’t feel like a good thing

[fragiledewdrop]

You know what? You are right, up to a point.

These are all things I have been thinking about for years, and yes, we do tend to romanticize a lot of historical figures a little too much sometimes. But I think as human beings we build myths, and part of the foundation of myth is turning people and things into symbols and archetypes.

Why DO people care about royals so much, for example?

Because

a) ever since the middle ages, aristocracy has become short-hand for a certain type of courtly love, a certain imagery, a certain moral code. Kings and knights stand for oyalty, stand for devotion, stand for honour (or the subversion of those themes, like Galavant);

b) when people stand for entire countries, personal problems and decisions are amplified, dramatized to the maximum. You want to talk about betrayal? Here it leads to a war or an execution. About loving someone against the rules? You stand to loose a kingdom if you do it.

I enjoy the Arthurian cycle, and yet I think monarchy is a blight upon the earth. I like Hamlet and Macbeth, even though in real life I'd join the mob that kills them. I routinely listen to an album about Anne Boleyn, but the way she helped plunge her country into war doesn't sit right with me at all. I abhor the crusades with all of my being, I have argued with several people about them until we almost came to literal blows l, and yet I love Nicolò in "The Old Guard" . I will mantain that the Iliad is one of the best things ever written. I cry when I read it. Does it mean I think that slavery and body desacration are cool?

There is a difference between what an historical character actually did and were, and what they represent in a story.

Pirates are also an archetype, a narrative short-hand. They represnt freedom, and they represent outcasts that go against the status quo. "Black Sails" is a perfect example of this,and it does deal with racism and imperialism and misoginia and homophobia like few other shows do- yet the characters, which the audience comes to love, are pirates. Their namesakes have sometimes done terrible things, but there's the rub: this is not an historical series, Nor a documentary. In that case, I would take issue with a glorification of some of these man; in Black Sail's case, they stop being real people and become narrative foils for all outcasts. They become tragic and epic heroes.

I mean, take Juslius Caesar as a similar example. He was a dictator, a megalomaniac, a ruthless, cruel conqueror who wrote his own propaganda. Should we stop reading Shakespeare 's "Julius Caesar"? "Anthony and Cleopatra"?

The case of "Our Flag Means Death" is a little different, because it leans heavily into commedy and into the "oh they are just poor little meow meows" of it all, and I have to admit that although I enjoyed immensly I personally do have issues with the way they handled historical facts. I have to aknowledge, however, that they were very very clearly going for a "pirates as outcasts"/"piracy as queerness" symbolism that is a direct consequence of the way pirates have been conceptualized by the popular conscience for centuries.

So yeah, people do in fact remove concepts from their historical context and make them into symbols. They have ever since the beginning of time. We have made some people into gods, others into heroes, others into villains. We can love what they stand for in the collective immagination of our cultures, and then turn around and criticize the historical reality of them. It's possible, and it's not a contraddiction, nor is it strange or a new phenomenon.

It seems that we do not do it (much) with RECENT historical figures and movements, but that's what the filter of time does: it removes context, and leaves the outline. It is the work of the historians, and of us who live in history, to figure out what that context was and discuss it. It is the work of the artist and the reader/viewer to figure out what the outline can stand for in the metaphorical story of humankind. There is a time and place for both.

Those are my two cents anyway.

also like pirates in general and piracy as a practice throughout all of history are inextricably intertwined with human trafficking, especially slavery, and if youre not willing to have a discussion or even acknowledge that in your story.... dont write about pirates?

[takerfoxx]

I felt the same way about Made in Abyss. Should have loved it, wound up kind of bored.

I can sort of see that. For the first few episodes I had sort of a similar reaction, as I had been expecting more of a psychological horror like PMMM but instead it was more of a survival horror. And there was nothing wrong with that, it just wasn't what I was expecting. However, once Nanachi and Mitty were introduced, and things transitioned into the movie, I was like, "Oh, this is the good shit!" Still haven't gotten around to season 2 though, but I do plan to once I have the time.

As for Lycoris Recoil, I've been thinking for a while to figure out why it struck such an odd chord with me, and I think I have something of an idea.

But first, a few disclaimers. I know this is a very popular show that has garnered immense critical acclaim. And I agree: it is an excellent show, one fully deserving of the praise and following that it's garnered, and on a conceptual level it is right up my alley. However, while a lot of the reason that I personally had such a strangely ambivalent reaction to it does come down to personal tastes and pet peeves, I can't help but feel that it is missing a very subtle but also very important something that would elevate it from being really good to outright great.

And that is, for as good as it is, and for as well-executed so many of its elements are, I don't feel that Lycoris Recoil really gets it. Like, it comes really, really close to getting it, so tantalizingly close to elevating itself to that next level, but it stops just short while taking things to the next gear in virtually every other aspect, leaving this one area of missed opportunity frustratingly unfulfilled.

Let me explain. Warning: there will be spoilers not only for Lycoris Recoil under the cut, but also for shows such as Demon Slayer and SSSS Gridman under the cut.

I first noticed that something wasn't hitting right for me during the subway fight, where (I think?) we first meet Majima, as he and his men riddle a subway car with bullets, only for it to turn out to be a trap as the car is full of Lycoris, who immediately mow his men down. But that trap also turns out to be a trap, as Majima sets off several embedded explosives to destroy the station, catching the girls in the detonation.

A bit of a dark way to end the episode. And what I found very strange is, we never find out what happened to those girls! Did they die? Were they just injured? We're literally never told, and aside from a couple mentions to the subway incident being covered up, it doesn't really come up again, with the bulk of the following episode being about Takina and Chisato basically going on a fun date together. It's presumed that they survived the explosion, as Majima's later atrocities and their casulties are at least discussed, so it's presumed that there aren't fatalities, but it's a really strange thing to just show and then just sort of drop.

The next episode (or maybe the one after; I can't really remember off the top of my head), things end with a single Lycoris agent being ambushed, literally ran down by Majima as he smashes her with his car, and as she's lying on the ground, writhing in pain, followed by Majima's men closing in and riddling her with bullets as he dispassionately watches on. It's a deeply disturbing scene, probably the darkest in the show.

And it's barely mentioned for the rest of the show.

The most we get is when the cafe is informed of the "Lycoris Murders," as apparently Majima does the same to three other agents off-screen, and they discuss who might be ambushing Lycoris. We have Majima raging at Robota about the "brats' phones" being useless (also a disturbing visual), Mika mentioning that using Lycoris as bait was stupid of the DA, a stray mention here and there of the murders, but that's basically it.

That's when that weird disconnect, that tonal dissonance started to stick out to me. And while there weren't many moments like that since (save for when that one Lycoris and that civilian shot each other, but that at least made sense for the scene), I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, that for as good as the show was, there was something very important missing. And I think I've figured out what it is.

Take a look back at the classic Kids Caught Up in a Horrible Exploitive System that Wants to Destroy Them (how's that for an acronym?) anime, the true game-changers that ended up being remembered. Evangelion. Madoka Magica. Higurashi. The Promised Neverland (well, the manga and season one, anyway). Gunslinger Girl is probably the most obvious point of comparison. And even the aforementioned Made in Abyss to a degree. These are all shows that subjected horrible things upon their young casts, but they worked because while you weren't guaranteed a happy ending, they never felt like darkness for darkness's sake, and they never forgot the tragedy of what was happening. And while those shows differed in how much they pushed the systemic exploitation of minors metaphor to make a critique on society, they were all still critical of the systems portrayed.

Lycoris Recoil doesn't seem to do that, at least not to any warranted degree. I mean, let's face it: DA and LilyBell are horribly abusive systems, one that groom and brainwash orphan children, turning them into assassins in order to enforce a police state. Chisato was said to be seven during the radio tower incident, for God's sake.

And yet the show doesn't really seem to realize that. I mean, all of the pieces are set to really take things to their logical conclusion, but it never really comes together. At worst, DA is sort of just seen as a necessary evil, one that could probably stand to have a nicer director, but even so, at the end it leaves things with everything returning to the status quo, in kind of "All's well that ends well" sort of sense.

And okay, critique is not not there, but it's weirdly half-assed. Sure, Chisato and Takina are outcasts because they won't play by DA's rules, but it sort of feels like they're just deciding that the DA life ain't for them. And what's weird is that both of them are portrayed as exactly the sort of people that would, you know, take issue with the DA! Chisato's whole thing is her refusal to take human life! Time and time again we even see her going out of her way to save the lives of her TERRORIST opponents, even lingering behind to give them medical aid! There's a lot of her humanizing the mooks, which I'm all for! And Takina got straight up kicked out for prioritizing the life of one of her allies to the point where she endangered the mission! But even then, they seem fine with the DA doing their thing and just their personal choices seem more just lifestyle disagreements with the other Lycoris. The only person to really call the DA out was Majima, and he's the villain! And his point was that the DA's police state made them the bullies who put things out of balance. Which, okay, fair, but he also seemed to blame the Lycoris themselves even though they're also victims in all of this instead of the system itself.

The show continuously sets things up to really put the DA's abuse in the spotlight but always pulls back. And the final product weirdly feels like it approves of the DA, it just could stand to be a little nicer to our heroes or something, but the narrative also seems reluctant to really get into the tragedy of it's existence. Like, oh well, better than chaos, we guess. But in the end, it ends up humanizing the mooks more than it does the Lycoris, the MOOKS! And again, I'm all for that, but even so! It got to the point where when the roomba bombs went off followed by Chisato making her quips and going out of her way to not seriously hurt any of Majima's men, I was like, "Great, the kids get bombed, and the terrorists get spared while making funny noises, because I guess they matter more!" And yes, I was very relieved when we learned that they Lycoris were still alive, just injured (because apparently Majima's bombs SUCK at actually killing people), and things ended on a big rescue mission, the whole status quo thing at the end brought that feeling right back.

And sure, there is something in doing the reverse of what those other shows I mentioned did. Those shows (mostly) started off happy and cheerful but introduced the dark stuff after to make use of the contrast, many of them to deconstruct their own genre. Lycoris Recoil does things in reverse, giving us the kids being made to perform violence up front, but then introducing Chisato, who disrupts all of that with her mere presence, leading to wacky cafe shenanigans and oodles of lesbian undertones. And I get that the contrast was intentional, but it just didn't mix well for me.

So, what would I have done? Well, that's easy: humanize the other Lycoris right out of the gate. It wouldn't even have taken much at all. Just show like the partners of the murdered Lycoris and briefly give us their reaction. Maybe if they're brainwashed to just accepting casulties, maybe just quickly show a horrified DA employee or something. Have Mika show a stronger reaction to Kusonoki using Lycoris as bait. Maybe have Chisato and Takina also have a stronger reaction to the murders, because, you know, them having more respect for life than the others is kind of their thing! And while we're at it, we've already established Mika as being something of a maverick. Take that to its logical conclusion and have him be the one who's grown to be disgusted with how the DA treats its "assets," since his time raising Chisato has given him new perspective. Majima can be the one to voice opposition to the police state thing. Just give us something!

As for examples where I feel similar themes were handled well in other shows, ones that treated victims as people without having to do much?

Okay, let's start with Demon Slayer. Now, I have my own other critiques of this show, but that has mainly to do with finding one of the leads really obnoxious, and there was a lot that I liked. And in one early arc, our heroes are sent to investigate the disappearance of several young girls in a village. Come to find out that a trio of swamp demons have been pulling the girls into their, well, swamp and eating them, keeping their hair decorations as trophies. We have the hero's brief horrified reaction to the realization, and after he's killed the demons he gives one of the hair decorations to the girl's poor, traumatized fiance, because that's all he can do for the poor guy. Boom. Perfect. Very small gestures, but also very significant.

Another example, one in which I was also worried that they were going to make the same mistake but ended up bringing it together at the end. In SSSS Gridman, the show takes place in a digital city where everyone is a computer program, but still very much sentient and unaware that they're programs. And the one real person is basically living a VR fantasy, playing as god and using monsters to kill anyone that annoys her and rebooting the city overnight to make it so her victims had been dead for a while so no one would notice that they're missing. But when it looked like the show wanted to redeem her, I was concerned, as her victims may have been computer programs, but they were still very much alive! But then we get to the final episode where she's experiencing a massive guilt-induced breakdown in which she's haunted by the faces of all her victims, and after the main baddie is defeated, she reboots the city one last time, bringing everyone back and logging out permanently so she's not tempted to hurt anyone again. Boom.

I'm not asking for much, only that if you're going to Go There, know where you're going and how to deal with it, because otherwise you end up with weird bits of narrative callousness that distract from everything else.

So, that's why, despite (AGAIN!) agreeing that Lycoris Recoil was a really good show, this show hit a weird note for me, as in trying to execute a cool idea, it missed the mark in one small but important area, one that would have been really easy to fix, would have made perfect narrative sense to address, and would have made the show even better than it is had they thought to address it.

As for season 2? I'll probably still watch it, and hope that they do address those weaknesses I've pointed out. Though I swear to God, if they try to redeem Majima because he's a charismatic villain with a good point just because he's fun to have around, I'm gonna-

[fishoutofcamelot]

I'd like to preface this by saying that I love your blog and all the analysis that you've done on various characters, scenes and ships. You are one of my online heroes. I'm not sure if you're still doing the ship asks, but if you are, what are your thoughts on frelin?

Dude tysm! I’m not sure ‘online hero’ is a great way to describe someone who once made a post comparing dragonlords to furries, but I’ll take the compliment nonetheless!! Your kind words have given me enough dopamine to last until my next paycheck <3

Freylin is a decent ship - conceptually. They're two kindred spirits who found solace and intimacy with each other, drawn together by their mutual sense of otherness (possessing magic). However, I think Freylin does fall into some obvious trappings of Insta-Love, Heteronormativity, and Not Giving Female Love Interests Any Discernible Personality Traits.

For some people, that's not a problem. They like watching Merlin and Freya be cute and sappy with each other, and I'll agree that it was a treat to see such a fun side of Merlin. If that's the kinda ship you like, then great! Ship away. But personally, Freylin makes me feel bad for Freya. 

Not because of the death thing - lord knows I've done far worse to beloved characters without even a hint of remorse. But I feel bad for her because of her role in the ship. As mentioned above, her main purpose in the narrative and in Merlin's life is to give him some angst, then come back later in season 3 to give him some helpful advice as a sort of Freya Ex Machina. Her personality has no depth beyond what was necessary for the story. And even in fanon interpretations of her, she's essentially just a more shy/introverted carbon-copy of Gwen. 

And, okay, as a writer I can admit that there are some characters who don't need a lot of depth. Some characters are plot devices, and that's okay. Freya only appears in like two episodes, so under normal circumstances I'd begrudge that level of shallow characterization. But the rules are different for characters who have a close emotional connection with the MC, especially love interests - even episodic dalliances like Freya! 

Take Balinor, Will, and Daegal, for example. They were all important to Merlin, and all had distinct personalities. Balinor is cantankerous and reclusive. Will is pragmatic and confrontational. Daegal is earnest and youthfully naive. And we as the audience liked them too, because they felt like actual people, even though their main purpose in the story is mainly to serve Merlin's arc. They are, fundamentally, plot devices, but they don’t feel like plot devices because of how organically they’ve been written. 

Freya is a harder sell, because she doesn't have as much of a personality with which to endear us. I'm not saying we need to know Freya's favourite colour and her fondest childhood memory, nor do we need to witness her go through a seasons-long character arc. Not every background character needs their personality painstakingly detailed, least of all background characters. If well-written main characters are chicago deep-dish pizzas, then well-written background characters are hot pockets - easy to make, easy to love, easy to remember. Characters like Gilli and Elena and the love of my life Sophia are good hot pockets. But Freya as she currently is, she's not even that. She's like if we were told there was a hot pocket in the microwave, only to open it up and find it's just a lump of half-melted cheese. 

And it's sad, because Freya had the potential to be interesting. She could've had a distinct personality that made us fall in love with her right alongside Merlin - which would have made her death even more painful for both the characters and the audience alike. But even if you don't give her a personality, at the very least let her fulfill her purpose of furthering Merlin's character arc instead of just making him sad for a few minutes. 

While I'm by no means an expert writer, here's how I would've taken a crack at having Freya’s impact on Merlin's arc. 

So Merlin sees Freya again, but she's not some helpful water spirit. She's emotional and volatile and vengeful and deeply, profoundly traumatized by the nature of her death. And maybe it's his job to finally lay her soul to rest once and for all.

She gets upset at Merlin. She cries and shouts and weeps about her death, about the pain and injustice of it. How could he continue protecting her killer? How could he befriend the man who literally murdered her? Freya didn't want to die, she didn't want to be a monster, she didn't want to be alone (cue implications that she has been trapped inside the lake all this time, maddened by isolation). She just wanted to be left in peace. To be loved. Merlin naturally defends Arthur, saying that he is destined to be a good king, destined to free magic and bring about the golden age of Albion. But she insists that destiny must be wrong, because what has Arthur done for the magic community besides perpetuate his father's company line? He killed her, killed several others like her, and even to this day he condones the oppression of their people - what makes him think a man like that could ever change, could ever set them free? And even if he does, why should any of them be expected to forgive him for his war crimes? 

She tells him that deep down, Merlin knows this. Deep down, Merlin fears Arthur just as much as the rest of them. If he truly believed in Arthur's inherent goodness, in his destiny, then Merlin would not have kept his magic hidden for so long. 

Thus sparks a seed of doubt in Merlin's mind, and scenes like Morgana's speech in Tears Of Uther Pendragon Part 2, Arthur's drive to destroy the dragon egg in Aithusa, Kara's execution in Drawing in the Dark, and the confession in Herald of a New Age would only cause that seed to grow. 

Not only is this a natural and logical progression of his character, but it would also be compelling to see Merlin's unwavering loyalty to Arthur do exactly that - waver. It grants depth to his character, empathizes us to his cause and the cause of his people, and lets us see Merlin in a unique perspective. It also puts a new light on Arthur's actions, foreshadowing an eventual moment of reckoning where Arthur will have to face the consequences of his harmful rhetoric - thereby creating a subtle layer of tension as we wait for that moment to finally arrive. And there's yet another layer of tension that arises from Merlin's repressed yet growing doubts: will he finally admit that Arthur isn't the shining saviour Kilgharrah had promised he'd be? Will he snap like Freya did? Will he and Arthur drift apart? And if they do, what will bring them back together, if such a thing is even possible? How will they make amends? How will Arthur learn from his mistakes and earn back Merlin’s trust?

I could go on and on about how this would impact the story as a whole, but I'm not here to talk about my rewrite ideas. I'm here to talk about Freylin.

At the end of the day, while it's a good ship, Freya doesn't have much personality, which affects their overall chemistry, and I don't think they have enough going on between them to be an endgame pairing. My personal opinion is that Freya has less narrative potential as a romantic partner, and more narrative potential as a supplementary background character whose closeness to Merlin combined with her own trauma forces him to develop and grow in certain ways. She's less of a Gwen (long-standing love interest), and more of a Balinor (one-off character with emotional importance), and that's perfectly fine. But because of her lack of personality and overall narrative relevance, I have a hard time believing or shipping Freylin beyond the scope of her debut episode.

Thanks for the ask! <3

[razorblade180]

Overall, what would you rate rwby as a series? Comparing it to thinks like trollhunters, carmen sandiego or new she ra? Like, out of 10.

Excluding troll hunters, because I haven’t seen that. Carmen Sandiego and She-Ra make RWBY look like a house cat staring at mountain lions; it’ll hiss and scratch but rest assured, nothing much will happen. I enjoy RWBY a lot, but I could only give it a 6.5-7. If it was a letter grade then it is a C.

People will say it’s not fair to compare RT to the other companies making those shows and from a manpower standpoint, they’re correct. Animation errors and little things like that don’t even matter to me much. I can overlook that. RWBY’s main problem is that it’s conceptually immaculate, but is executed poorly because there’s writing decisions that are objectively bad. That’s not me punching down on the show. I can think of several examples where things in RWBY just did a bad thing shows shouldn’t do.

Explaining your main antagonist’s evil plan in a companion book not everyone knows about, instead of the show.

We’ve known Cinder since 2013, why is she evil?

Explaining Cinder’s semblance in a book not everyone knows about instead of the show so people can know when she’s doing fire magic, or her semblance. They don’t always make her eyes glow with magic but there’s definitely times they should be.

Painting your main heroes in a light where they can only do right and everyone else is wrong.

Creating semblances without any visual or sound indicators is a bad idea. How are Viewers supposed to know when they’re being used? It also potentially ruins prior scenes when that information is learned. Ironwood using his semblance to yank his arm free is arguably less cool him doing because he just wants to beat a twink.

Not explaining how a luck semblance work. Is it a consistent aoe around them? Zones that constantly shift and expand in unpredictable ways? Perhaps they’re only used as a dues ex so the writers can make anything they need to happen? Does this bother me? A little.

Not making Adam a consistent type of anything, causing inconsistencies in what Blake says and does that revolve around him.

Constantly changing how aura works and having some semblances work after aura is broken. Qrow has done it, Yang, and also Ironwood, to name a few.

It’s things like that in my opinion that hurt the RWBY experience for me. I like these characters. I like this world. Please let the characters and world make since while adding varying levels of depth. Yes, some of that requires budget/time, but most of it boils down to “make another draft.” I love RWBY. That’s why I pick at it.

[hopevalley]

I've actually enjoyed watching new episodes of the show for the first time in a LONG time! I thought Lucas being frustrated w/ Elizabeth was contrived and misplaced. Was his mom like "me & your father are separated btw i told elizabeth before you?" The bit felt off. But hey, these past three episodes have been fun & much-better written than anything last season. How much of this season's improvement over recent prior ones do you think is due to the season having a new showrunner?

As to Lucas and Elizabeth, I feel this is an issue with shows in general of this runtime and episode length. I like to compare WCtH with Road to Avonlea because both shows had short seasons and 40ish minute long episodes, were family shows, and featured ensemble casts. Avonlea had a similar issue with pacing in the occasional episode. I know I like to nitpick WCtH a lot about its writing, and I never shy from honest critique, but I really do think the hiccup with Lucas and Elizabeth in Ep3 was just a product of needing a few more minutes of screentime—preferably the start of Helen telling Lucas about the situation with his father, since it did feel like him knowing everything came out of almost nowhere. We knew Helen would have to talk to him, but we never really saw her resolve to do so, and I think we earned the emotional payoff of the truth coming out. (As an aside, Helen should have apologized for telling Lucas that Elizabeth knew as well as putting her in a position where she had to keep a secret from someone she cared about. Elizabeth being put in a bad position was awful enough, but then she went and told Lucas that Elizabeth was aware the whole time? Yiiiikesssss...)

I’m pretty confident that Helen told Lucas something like: “I have to tell you something important... Your father...left me...a few weeks ago. I need to apologize for keeping it from you but I didn’t know how to bring it up...” and then probably responded to something Lucas said with a comment about how she’d talked to Elizabeth about it, or Elizabeth suggested she be honest about the situation because Lucas would find out eventually and it would be better if it came directly from her. I could definitely see Helen accidentally being too honest in a situation where she’s nervous about admitting the truth to her own son. She’s probably extremely embarrassed and ashamed, and the episode doesn’t really go into how Helen feels about it. They just jump into talk about love and how it needs to be nurtured and nobody ever asks Helen if she actually loved/loves her husband, let alone if he was a good man/husband to her. 

Not getting a scene where Helen confesses the truth weakens the entire plotline. I’m hoping they’ll just keep improving on this specific aspect of the show, and consider getting rid of unnecessary scenes or entire unnecessary storylines in favor of stronger, more complete stories.

I know their hesitation is based on the idea that not everyone cares about (for example) Lucas, so focusing really hard on Lucas’s relationship with his mother might feel Bad, but the entire “chair” plotline with Rosemary and Lee was unnecessary, as were the longer Florence and Ned scenes. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed them! But if they cut those out, or mostly cut them, then there would have been enough screentime for a full scene showing Helen telling Lucas about the truth.

And Chris McNally is clearly an actor who can handle an emotional scene like that, so it would have turned out well, and been well-received by the fans...even the ones who aren’t rooting for Lucas. Because what people who watch this show want to see is...depth, I think. So many relationships feel tacked on or fake. I’ve seen improvement this season, but they could definitely do more to bolster the “community” feel of the show.

--

As to the quality of the season so far...

@trash-god​ and I were chatting earlier this week about how wild it is that we’re both, like, actively looking forward to the next episode regularly. Sure, it’s still pretty early in the season, but we’re 25% of the way through. If the writing stays this consistently decent I think we’ll have the best season in a long time on our hands!

It’s funny because if you lurk on the WCTH subreddit, you’ll see most of the fans there are bored of this season, but I disagree with them in a bit way; this season is DEFINITELY better-written and smoother. As to where to place the credit, I think it’s worth considering the last few seasons and what the writers/writing teams have struggled with.

Season 4: They knew something was going to happen with their lead man so they tried introducing other things and in many ways had success. There were some REALLY GOOD scenes in S4, but there were also scenes or arcs that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. For example, they had that plot where Frank and Abigail got annoyed with each other over the fact that he’s kind of still living (mentally) as a carefree bachelor, and even though it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, it was a pretty good and realistic storyline. But then later in the season, they introduced Carson, and Frank is suspicious of him for almost no reason (or at least, no solid reason), and then actively is...like a BAD PERSON for NO REASON. Two completely different plots, one was good and felt natural, and the other was awful and cringey. We also have the AJ plotline in S4. It started out super good because it was one of those plots that was genuinely built up to over the course of several episodes. We find out the accountant that was going to testify has withdrawn their statement, then we find out they’ve disappeared and we have a name. Bill discusses it with Abigail and Frank both, multiple times. He thinks it’s a payoff and he’s determined to prove it so he starts poking around. Eventually he gets a lead and follows it, and it’s revealed that AJ is a woman. Bill is annoying. AJ is a liar. I think conceptually this is one of the more interesting plots they’ve cobbled together, but in execution it was lacking toward the end of the story. Bill spent two episodes fighting AJ’s attitude and in the end he just lets her go with a smile? That isn’t like Bill at all. There’s a scene or two missing to make that reaction make sense. They don’t interact enough to give us the idea that Bill *understands* her, let alone would be okay with her literally breaking out of his jail ON HIS WATCH.

Season 5: They had to write Jack out of the story and had to rush a wedding in to “appease” the fans. They also had to write Shane, Philip, Frank, and Dottie off the show in this season (Dottie because the actress deals with a chronic illness and can no longer do acting work—I want to say she has Lyme’s). So they cobble this like, awkward storyline to write Frank out that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. They put this dramatic story together for Philip (when him just moving away would have been better/more interesting), and they try to bring AJ back for another 2-part episode, which sounded fun until we actually had to watch the episodes. It was at this point that I thought, “The people writing this show...think they’re writing a movie script.” It’s not that I think AJ isn’t pushy or emotionally blunt, but it definitely came across in those episodes that they wrote her that way specifically because the plot wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t. She does unreasonable things. For some reason Bill still has feelings even though she’s done nothing to earn them. (And vice-versa; he’s just so mean to her...why would she be interested?) Everyone was like :O when the AJ episodes weren’t very well-received. But like, I didn’t want AJ to come back for a huge dramatic rattlesnake bite scene. I wanted her back to see her emotional struggle with facing prison. I wanted to really see where they’d go with her seeing Henry Gowen. She says she wants to start over in Hope Valley after prison, but like...WHY? The only people who are nice to her are Dottie and Abigail! And then after this super dramatic poorly written set of scenes that pretty much ensured AJ would never be seen on the show again (because her presence was actively mocked by a lot of fans) they actually kill off Jack and try to have a deeply emotional and thoughtful episode.

The worst part is that...the post-death episode was good. The actors were great. Then you look back at the dramatic rattlesnake stuff and you’re just like, “What went wrong here?”

Season 6: They decided they were going to introduce a love triangle, so they start doing that, but then Abigail’s character AS WELL AS CODY’S CHARACTER has to be cut from the show, so they edit those out. I still think doing this was the right thing—Abigail as a character was literally UNBEARABLE throughout most of S5—but I also can’t deny that it probably brought the cohesiveness and overall quality of the season down by a bit, particularly with Abigail acting as a buffer between Nathan/Lucas and Elizabeth. I have no way of knowing if they edited other characters into those roles (it’s possible Bill became a buffer between Nathan and Elizabeth, for example), but the editing still gave us some scenes that just didn’t...quite work, like the one where Elizabeth comforts Henry, or when Lee becomes Bill’s confidant regarding the position of judge being offered to him.

Season 7: In their attempt to make Lucas seem “mysterious” they accidentally made him come off almost creepy. More than once. They had some good ideas in this season, but the writing felt a bit choppy and isolated from episode to episode. Of course Nathan’s father was innocent. Of course it was resolved in five minutes. You could see they were trying REALLY hard for cohesiveness at certain points (Elizabeth tried talking to Henry about his attitude; Jesse mentioned Frank; Dottie was mentioned), but each episode felt very isolated from the others, almost as if most of them were written completely separately from the rest.

And you’ll notice in S4, 5, and 6, we kind of have a similar problem, where some plots feel like they were written or inserted into the story independent of the other plotlines. Frank breaking into Carson’s room at the saloon to snoop through his stuff was one of the worst things in the season (literally cringey—and not in that “character is doing something in character that is hard to watch” way, but rather, “this character would literally never do that” way). The AJ storyline in S5 felt like the person who wrote it watched AJ & Bill’s interactions in S4 and absorbed ONLY the fact that they bickered a bit (and then didn’t know how to write that dynamic in a pleasing way). Writing Abigail out of the show was for the best, but it forced cracks in the plotlines that weren’t necessarily filled, as well as gave us interactions that didn’t feel quite right.

And I think S7 was trying to get on the right track, but wrote episodes in a very disjointed, haphazard kind of manner. There were good things about it, yes, but there were also some very...bad things. 

And overall the problem almost universally was that it felt like some of the episodes/interactions were written as if they were part of a movie, as part of a one time deal, instead of something that would need to be carried forward. If you go back and look over some plotlines you can start to see where the writers...didn’t know how to write fanfiction. S5 AJ is not the same character as S4 AJ. She doesn’t feel the same. She’s not written with S4 AJ in mind. She’s not a natural version of the character that exists a year later in the storyline...and then she was given a storyline that they had to force the character to fit, instead of tailoring a storyline to match the character. And they continued this trend...over...and over...and over...and over.

And now, finally, it feels that they may actually have a head writer who knows how to write television, who knows that in order to write a successful television series, you have to go back and watch the early episodes. You have to see how the characters have evolved. You have to consider how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they will LOGICALLY go from here based on things that happen to or around them.

I don’t want to state this as Fact too early, but I definitely think it’s a factor. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but I hope the quality continues to be as good as it is.

[fnafslinky]

Fazbear Frights 1-9 review.

Into The Pit:

Slow and meandering during the first half but picks up speed after Spring Bonnie shows up. Good message and good idea, but the execution could be better. 6/10

To Be Beautiful:

This story is so full of fluff, you can cut out like 60% of it and lose nothing. I know it's going for a fairy tale thing with the repetition and all, but fairy tales do that because it's made for children. Repetition is to train a child's brain to remember better. These books are aimed at teenagers, so this narrative device is not needed. On top of that, it has unfortunate implications of "Not like other girls" memes that we don't need to revisit. Only saved by its creepy af ending. 3/10

Count The Ways:

Legitimately my favorite story out of FNAF and one of my favorites of all time. It fixed the previous story's Not Like Other Girls problems by having the goth main character hate the pretty blonde and being called out for not even knowing her and being shallow. It is actually surprising to have these two stories be back to back.

The narrative device of switching back and forth between the MC facing her death and how she got up to that point means it keeps your interest throughout that the previous two stories had problems with. It makes for great drama and tension.

The main reason I love this story in particular is because of this exchange near the end:

“Silly Millie, for someone who doesn’t want to die you sure spent a lot of time talking about it,” the voice surrounding her said. “But that’s the way of things, isn’t it? Talk is always easier than action.”

“I think,” Millie said, sniffling, “that when I said I wanted to die, what I really wanted was to escape. I didn’t want death. I just wanted my life to be different.”

“Oh, but that really takes action, doesn’t it?”

And, if I can be real for a minute: I feel like that kinda changed my life. Or very least, my point of view.

As someone who has made attempts on his life before and frequently battles depression- It made my problems so much less overwhelming. Of course I didn't want to die. I wanted my life my life to improve. And now whenever the thought of suicide passes through my head, I just remember this phrase and it helps me keep it together and calm down.

And also F.Freddy's follow up with having to work for happiness is spot on too. Misery is comfortable, that's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort. 10/10

Fetch:

I'm in the minority for not caring for this one. I felt like there wasn't any direction or character arc, I didn't find Fetch particularly scary or interesting, and the MC makes a lot of dumb decisions in it.

That being said, I love how it jumps right into the action instead of taking awhile to get to it like the other stories did. The stories tend to play out like a different book and then FNAF characters are slapped in at the end. This one gets right to it and makes it integral to its plot. 6/10

Lonely Freddy:

Another one I really love. The Frights series has a good traction with its tragedies and this one is no exception. I really connected with the feeling of being pitted against your siblings, usually by accident and circumstance with your parents. Particularly this line:

“Maybe you’ve made them what they are,” Aunt Gigi said, pausing for a moment before adding: “Hazel’s the easy one. Alec is the hard one. It’s like you put them on their own little islands.”

I wasn't Alec, but Hazel in this situation. And it made me realize what my sibling went through because of it.

And this is another story where Freddy's is more integral to the plot too, and one of the few times it's not already abandoned.

I really like how well done Alec's back and forth he had with himself whether to befriend his sister or not. It's a believable character arc when he realizes his mistake at the end unlike another story that we'll get to.

And the fact they made a God damn teddy bear legitimately creepy is a mastery of horror writing that I can only ever hope to strive for. Definitely the scariest in Frights 2. 9/10

Out Of Stock:

I agree with Dawko that this one feels best to make a 30 minute special out of. It feels like a Halloween special or creepypasta you would watch/read as a preteen. Old enough to want to explore more mature stuff, but young enough to still have more cartoony stuff be familiar. And I mean that as 100% a positive.

I also like how this one is a bit more comedy based. Like the scene where the MC gets thrown across the room after electrocuting himself and his friends dont even notice. I can picture that bit so clearly.

The climax is the best part of having a dire game of Red Light, Green Light with the Plushtrap Chaser. It's very energized and exciting that the other stories don't have as often because the subject matter doesn't lend itself to it.

The trend in these stories of kids learning to appreciate their parents, and they're parents realizing they have to sacrifice some stuff to make their child happy is very sweet. And it's no different here. 8/10

1:35 AM

What I like about this series is that you never know where its gonna go from story to story. I though for certain this story was about how the doll was gonna have an evil spirit possessing it.

But no, what actually happened is that it's never made clear if the MC is losing her mind, being haunted, or just seeing stuff because she's sleep deprived. That ambiguity makes the book a lot creepier and sadder because you don't know how this poor woman should be helped. And it ends without any clarification. That's great and a perfect idea for horror story.

That being said, Scott's writing quirks (and it's definitely Scott doing it, I can tell) of front loading info, constantly stopping the flow to have backstory and over explaining things that don't need makes it frustrating to read after several books of it. And we're not done with that either. 9/10

Room For One More:

I skipped over all the dream sequences because it adds nothing to the story. Its great you remember Sister Location, but it feels like you don't trust your audience to read a FNAF story if there isn't animatronics every couple pages. And honestly? Understandable.

I do know based on my own FNAF comic, pages featuring humans is a lot less popular than the ones featuring animatronics. And I get it, you're a bunch of furries it's more interesting to visualize. And you can go in the opposite direction and have very little FNAF stuff when they're needs to be more. The New Kid doesn't even bring it up til the last third.

But I digress. The strongest qualities in Room For One More is three points.

The location is very vividly described. The underground security office with steel walls, the radiation disposals, the musky scent. It paints a clear and unique picture.

The main character's fallen arc of self care and distrust of others is a well done cautionary tale. It goes hand in hand with the speech before of having to work for happiness, and the difficulties there are from even trying. But you still need to do it.

The body horror is not as visually disgusting as it could've been, and more conceptually horrifying. But if you have a fear of bugs in your skin or crawling in your mouth, prepare for something so much worse! And no, that's not a spoiler, it's pretty obvious where its going from the beginning. 7/10

The New Kid:

This one was disappointing. This is not the way to do a tragedy, because I don't care about the MC.

Throughout the entire story, the main character has literal sociopath tendencies. He is controlling of other people, he doesn't have any empathy, he sees other people as tools to use, he kills a bird and doesn't care- So at the end when he accidentally kills someone, I don't believe him feeling bad about it. And I sure as shit don't care about his death after him leaving his victim to die, while he was still breathing, and not coming back for a week.

Also the twist at the end makes no God damn sense and I'm not even gonna dignify it.

A better tragedy would've been his friend, Mick, getting into trouble for the murder after refusing to ever stand up to the MC. Or even the MC being betrayed by him last minute for him to learn how his shit behavior really screwed him over. But the end result ended up being an unsatisfying mess. 2/10

I'll review the 4th's books with 5 and 6, since I'm sticking with a three at a time theme and because I haven't read 4 yet.

[inventors-fair]

Let’s Talk Flavor: Commentary

I would say overall that most of these cards were fantastic and a great number of the story ideas were good. There will be parts where I suggest edits, and the thing about story edits is, well, it doesn’t impact game design. That’s the thing about the Fair and the thing about Magic in general: the whole thing could be replicated with number systems and program lines and it would be the exact same. It’s the fact that a creature has Flying, or that a spell is made of Lightning that makes the game exciting. This was an interesting experiment. 

Let’s talk about cards!

@ace-hobo​ — Captain’s Wrench

This is a perfectly fine card. I like the “fixed” Voltaic Key style, the moderate power level. It’s a card that someone would probably be middling in artifact decks but fine in budget builds. I’m sort of feeling an Ixalan vibe, maybe with a little steampunkishness. I get that the wrench belongs to De, but it’s a little confusing regarding why they have the wrench. If they’re the captain and they’re not in the engine room, why is the card depicting a tool that would suit them better if they never left the engine room? Maybe the story should be about how DESPITE their captain status, they spend time in the engine room. It’s an easy enough tweak.

@cas-420 — Boiling Blood

The card is pretty good. It’s very aggressive and has synergistic potential. I really don’t see where the flavor is tying into it. I am favorably inclined towards your text, in concept. I can see where you were making the pun on “execution.” The wording is clunky with the repeated syntax, and could have just used the execution line. But what does that have to do with the card? The flavor evokes dissent, protest, retaliation. The flavor of the card evokes speed, purpose, initiative. It’s not a perfect tonal match. I would save the text for a different card with a clearer purpose

@dabudder​ — Wisdom of the Tides

In terms of card wording, I believe you’d be looking for something like Mysteries of the Deep, where you have an “instead” wording — unless you’re supposed to draw an additional card after? It’s a little confusing how you have it now. Still, Flourish is a fine mechanic, executed well. This was pretty close to being a runner-up. I like the nod towards crabs. We’ve been having a crab mood lately. Overall, not bad. Might need to be four mana, but that’s me being cautious.

@deafeningsandwichpeach​ — Jyska, Artificer Overlord

The name is probably the best thing about this card, and it’s fair enough for a legendary creature. Considering that this is essentially the Nim ability from original Mirrodin and that it’s a vanilla creature otherwise, I would contest that you’re severely overestimating the power level of this card. It’s not as strong as it seems. In terms of flavor text, this is basically exposition. I won’t dissuade you from story-rich cards, but there’s too much information presented in a manner that overloads the reader. Simplify, punch, beat, punctuate. In terms of presentation, the whole block should be in quotes, and you don’t need to attribute the quote if the character’s on the card itself.

@demimonde-semigoddess​ — Thaw

Great name, great snow flavor. I can see this in the tundra wastes, something emerging from the snow, bursting out. I had to do some digging. As it turns out, “gelid” is a real English word I had no idea about! I thought from the shackles and your flavor text that it was some Coldsnap lore. In terms of the text itself, it’s not bad. It’s just that the two statements are somewhat disconnected. They work both on their own, but together, they don’t gel well. Still, bonus points to mechanical flavor for an anti-ice feel.

@dimestoretajic​ — Phytotemple

The card is pretty funky for an uncommon, pushed but not busted. I’d call it a pain in the butt but no more than Wayfaring Temple. Ah, I see, the wayfarers, an homage. But there’s a lot I don’t understand. Who lost the wayfarers? Who’s saying this quote? Why did the phytotemples start appearing in general? Did the original wayfaring temples break into them? What does Selesnya have to do with construction crews? How is that related to the phytotemple’s physiology and motivation? Most importantly, why is there a street named after a Selesnya dissident? I think you should have focused on one specific area of the card’s backstory.

@emmypupcake — Bloom Nurturer

I was really surprised that there wasn’t a card already named this. In terms of card wording, look at High Tide or Bubbling Muck; I think it would read “Until end of turn, whenever you tap a Forest for mana, add an additional G.” The quote doesn’t light my world on fire, but it fits well and reads well. Just remember to indent the attribution with shift+enter. Overall? Good enough.

@fractured-infinity​ — Shara, Skalla Vengeant

I had to do a little digging, but I like how you incorporated Vivien’s lore in here. That said, Skalla is also, well, destroyed, presumably forever. Where did the spirit come from? Is it wandering around Skalla? In that case, did Vivien go back? Why? That raises a couple questions. In terms of this card, it’s broken. In anything but the most pushed Commander formats, it’s three mana to deal seven damage to any creature you want with minimal repercussions. Any prevention makes her impossible to deal with. In limited, she would sweep unfairly.

@ghost31415926535 — Man-Eater Wurm

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the flavor bar being in the middle of the line. That’s my bad. Let’s talk about the rest of the card. In concept, it shouldn’t be too overpowered. But deathtouch and trample together create complex rules baggage that many casual players simply don’t understand. Nine times out of ten, they’ll never be printed together. Seeing that this is exactly how you submitted it, consider for next time: Only the first keyword needs to be capitalized in a string. Something like Unearth needs its own line. The flavor text is standard enough. Just remember that quote attribution also needs its own line.

@gollumni​ — Gives You Hell

I love the name here. I got that All-American Rejects song stuck in my head now. Remember that one? Anyway. Firstly, you don’t need to put “target” there; “Enchant creature” implies it. Secondly, and least importantly, don’t forget you can add watermarks in MSE! Thirdly, the flavor text. I get it, but it doesn’t flow great. If there was some wordplay to be done on fire-spitting and whatever turn of phrase you used, like, “spitting poison” in the literal sense — I don’t know, I just expect something a little more concise. It’s a great concept and has the potential to be very funny, so points there. Also, the card itself? Fantastic.

@greensunzenith​ — Decorated Demon

Liking the name. I don’t like how this card has to be a rare. It’s more of an annoyance than anything. It feels like a card that prevents decisions. It’s not aggressive, nor is it particularly interactive. Conceptually it works, but I’m not in favor. The flavor text is a bit of a head-scratcher. The real question is: who is giving demons sigils? How do they become redeemed? On what world CAN demons become redeemed? This isn’t a Bant thing, is it? I’m a little lost as to the specifics, since it doesn’t play into any tropes and doesn’t inform the world in a recognizable way.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ — Goblin Decorator

If the flavor text had simply been, in quotes, “Earwigs would go so well with that wallpaper!”, then this card could have been a runner-up. Also, this should definitely be an uncommon. The effect is awesome and powerful and annoying and plays into a variety of strategies. Still, the flavor text is just...too much. It’s a lot of text that tells a story that doesn’t really need to be told. We get enough from the name and that last sentence, combined with a fun ability that matches the card. That’s all we need! Gotta simplify.

@ignorantturtlegaming​ — Dust, Revenant Force

For future cards, I would highly recommend reading up on design philosophy, what Magic’s colors are about, and how cards come into being. There are a lot of questions that this card raises, and a lot of things that need to be edited.

Green doesn’t get first strike, certainly not mono-green.

Why does this card cost five green mana? What does it provide for the limited/constructed environment?

It should be “Fox Warrior.”

The first thing about the flavor text is that there is far too much of it. It’s exposition for exposition’s sake. Fine in a high fantasy short story, but not on a Magic card.

The second thing about the flavor text is that Dust appears to be a white-aligned character through their actions and themes. I don’t feel anything green about them.

@juggernaut-is-a-metalhead — Devil’s Payment

I’m going easy on card art attribution since, well, it’s Disney and they are indeed evil, but in the future, please attribute it to the show itself and/or the director/copyright holder. So, the card itself. Is it supposed to be a common? Is it an homage to Cruel Bargain and Infernal Contract? This certainly isn’t a common effect, and for one mana, well, I don’t know what to say about this card. In terms of the flavor text, why is everything separated in lines like a poem? It’s way too long to fit into a card with three lines of rules text already. I don’t really understand what it’s even trying to say. The devil asked for the MAN’S youth. What does that has to do with his own? And why is it only sometimes capitalized? I don’t really understand this at all.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Hidden Bombardier

Great name. For the card text, it’s powerful, arguably fine in the right format, but very strong regardless. It also needs to say “It deals 3 damage” instead of just “Deal.” Gotta get past the 90′s, erryone. So now, the flavor text... I kinda get it? I just don’t understand what makes this card a shapeshifter. I don’t understand the world in which shapeshifters exist. This card feels like a Goblin. It’s an interesting kamikaze take, if a little too flowery and on-the-nose. It doesn’t exactly inform me, and it doesn’t exactly excite me.

@mardu-lesbian​ — Ballynock Adoptee

I had to look up to make sure that there were dwarfs on Lorwyn, and by golly, you’re right, there are! In RW hybrid in Eventide, anyway. And that brings up to a major story problem. By the introduction of dwarfs, the world has already plunged into Shadowmoor, and the thoughtweft has already been replaced with the mindweft. I’m stealing this from the wiki, so berate me if I’m wrong, but I always got the sense that the kithkin were highly xenophobic regardless of where the Great Aurora was. The jarring question that remains is: how does a non-kithkin creature become part of the thoughtweft/mindweft? It goes against what we know about the Kithkin and the world in general. If there’s a good explanation, I’m all ears, but I’m not convinced at this point in time.

@mistershinyobject​ — Phenax’s Messenger

Bonus judge trivia time: I studied Latin in high school and a little in college. From what I can tell about The Callapheia from other cards bearing it’s flavor text, it is meant to evoke classical poetry from Greek and Latin epics. The lines are written four at a time, indented carefully. HERE is a link to all cards with “Callapheia” in the flavor text. The gist is, this card does NOT evoke that. There’s a lot of text, a lot of quotes, a lot of forced story that could have been way punchier if you just had stuff about a snake eating a prophet. I love the card as a limited filler. But yeah, gotta do more research into what it means to have certain aspects on your cards.

@nicolbolas96​ — Unpredictable Betrayal

You know, it’s hard to evoke Nicol Bolas well in flavor text. He’s one of Magic’s major villains, a huge face of many sets, with years behind him. And honestly? You didn’t do a half-bad job in this flavor text. Props! That said, this card is way busted. For one, double strike doesn’t affect fighting at all, so that’s...something. For two, it would need to be three sentences; you did a run-on for that last one. For three, mechanically? This is a two-mana spell that eight times out of ten will absolutely destroy two creatures you don’t control. In limited, that’s insanely powerful. In any format that plays creatures, that’s usually amazingly good. There’s a reason spells like Blood Feud and Clash of Titans cost what they cost. Getting two creatures you don’t control to fight is powerful.

@nine-effing-hells​ — Cairn to Athusis

Actually, this card was one of my favorites from the contest. I’m a heavy Gruul player when I’m not playing cruel control, and I think the gist of this card is super interesting. You made it an enchantment artifact AND a shrine, giving flavor there as well to your new world. The only thing I would have changed is erasing that first sentence from your flavor text entirely. The second is so powerful that it stands on its own. It’s poetic without being overwrought, specific to the world and building off of known tropes. Also, it tells us that “orcs are RG in this world” which is a great mechanical touch. Just needed that little bit of trimming.

@real-aspen-hours​ — Deflect Consequences

Now this is an interesting card!... What practical use does it have? I’m curious what this has on something like Harmless Offering. I don’t believe that cast triggers will be affected. Maybe it would specifically go against things like “counter target spell you don’t control” or something, but if control changes... I’m uncertain of this card’s applications past the gimmick point. That said, it would be fun to cast a Leveler and have it enter the battlefield under an opponent’s control. I’m not in love with the flavor text. It’s fine. Doesn’t light my world on fire. A touch wordy. But it’s fine. Fits the name and the ability well, so that’s nice.

@reaperfromtheabyss​ — Inconquerable Alseid

Besides the fact that “Hope” should be lowercase and separated by a colon, the flavor text is really cool! I don’t like this card much. It’s honestly fine, and it’s an interesting commander card that could lead to some cool consequences, but there’s a reason Undaunted has reminder text. It doesn’t look good floating there by itself. There are some abilities that just need reminder text all the time, and Undaunted is on so few cards that it significantly needs this. I think I was a little too harsh on this card on my first go-around, but I haven’t warmed up to it yet. I think the great flavor could have been used on a simpler, more protective card.

@scavenger98​ — Kadalla the Scornful

I’m 99% sure it should go “First strike, deathtouch, haste.” Order of keywords is weird sometimes. So are creature types. I don’t really understand the world on which an Elf can be Mardu colors. It’s a stretch of the imagination to say the least. The card itself is...fine? I’d honestly make her an uncommon in today’s world. Yeah, she’s powerful, but she’s a 2/1 for three with all different mana symbols. Regarding the flavor, it’s well-worded, but it’s lengthy and doesn’t actually tell us anything about the character or the world. It doesn’t inform the card, and that’s its major misstep. Again, though, good writing.

@shandylamb​ — Multani’s Offspring

A fine card, a funny flavor. Just so you know, though, “Saproling” is pretty much only relegated to the token, and this card would probably see print as a plant or fungus. And additionally, as nice as the pun is... What’s this card even trying to say in the story? Multani’s only known child is Muldrotha, and that’s deep lore as-is. As funny as this card might be, it really doesn’t mesh with a Magic feel.

@starch255​ — Unscrupulous Horpske 

There are only two things I’m concerned about. Firstly: what about this creature makes it “unscrupulous?” What scruples does it have normally in its species? Secondly, this card is trying to make potato salad canon in the multiverse, and I don’t know if such a travesty would be allowed to happen. Potato salad is an affront to taste, no offense to the horpske.

Literally everything else about this card is a 10/10. I would also encourage you to work on a set symbol. Everyone should!

@teaxch​ — Hidden Seers

Interesting. So what timeline is this? Is this supposed to be, like, a return to Tarkir? Cool concept, I think, although I’m not entirely sold. After hearing the shaman’s whispers, why is Surrak’s first instinct to assume that without dragons a human would lead the clan? Wouldn’t the thought of a world without dragons evoke other thoughts and fears first? That’s my main hand-iffy-motion reason. This is also a supremely petty nitpick, probably the pettiest thing I’ve ever said about a card, but if this is the Dragon timeline then wouldn’t the watermark be the Atarka one instead of the Temur one?

@tmstage​ — Apostasy

Everything about this card is good...individually. Great name, but what does that have to do with the ability? What is it trying to depict? What does shuffling your library have to do with religious dogma? And the flavor text feels overbearing. Nykita as a character is someone I’d like to know more about, but this card doesn’t tell me much about her. It’s mostly that the mechanics and the flavor don’t mesh in the least, and, well, it’s not a good mechanic. Shuffling is time-consuming, game-prolonging, and has no discernible benefit to the game outside of incredibly niche cards that mostly don’t affect you as the player. And the more I read the flavor text, the less it makes sense. “Allow the world to deform your flawed notions?” It sounds awesome, but what does it mean?

~

Thank you all for your submissions. New contest tomorrow. 

[aion-rsa]

Community: Britta Perry Is the Worst, Which Makes Her the Best

https://ift.tt/3kixlnw

Sitcom characters very rarely come off of the page fully formed. Many classic (and not-so-classic) network sitcoms rely on time as an ally. Time spent with characters allows for not only an audience to get a better sense of them but also for the writers and actors to do so as well. 

Community was no exception. Each of the ensemble cast’s seven main characters (and tertiary characters like Ben Chang and Dean Craig Pelton) arrived in the pilot fundamentally unfinished. And each of them evolved over time, in some cases sharpening creator Dan Harmon and the writing staff’s original assumptions or defying them. No character, however, changed more from conception to execution over time than Britta Perry as played by Gillian Jacobs. 

Originally, Harmon designed Britta Perry simply as a romantic foil to series lead Jeff Winger. When Community first premiered in 2009, The Office was entering its sixth season and at the height of its popular appeal. In that context, perhaps bringing a sitcom to NBC without a “Jim and Pam” firmly in place felt unwise. The problem was that the “Jim” portion of that romantic duo, Jeff Winger, was richly realized (having been based on Harmon’s own experiences in community college and played by relentless charm factory Joel McHale), and the “Pam” portion, Britta Perry, was simply a Pam stand-in. 

In the first half of Community’s first season, several attempts are made to humanize Britta. In one episode, the pressure she feels as an older student in community college leads her to cheat on an exam. In another, she begins to establish her feminist profile and interest in psychology by (perhaps accurately) observing that her male friends desire to fight class bullies comes from a place of pent-up homoerotic energy. For the most part, however, Britta and her storylines exist only to complement Jeff’s. By episode seven, Britta is suddenly a part of a Jeff Winger-Michelle Slater love triangle whether she realizes it or not. 

Britta’s failure to properly evolve as a character in Community’s early episodes was significant enough that other characters on the show started to realize how…well, odd she was. In episode six, “Football, Feminism, and You,” Britta has a hard time connecting with her fellow female classmates, Annie (Allison Brie) and Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown), because she views the time-honored tradition of visiting the bathroom as a group to be a sinister patriarchal conspiracy. 

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Earlier this year, Harmon revealed in an interview with EW that that plotline came directly from another writer on the show’s observation about just how much Britta sucked. 

“When I said, ‘What about Britta,’ [writer-producer] Hilary Winston said, ‘I don’t like her,’” Harmon said. “Listening to Hilary talk about Britta, which started with like, ‘I wouldn’t trust her if I was a woman. I understand that she means well and that she’s saying the kinds of things that you’re supposed to say as a woman, but that’s what makes me not trust her. I need a confidante behind the scenes, because the truth is, I do want to talk about shoes sometimes and I feel like she might sell me out if I did that — and I wouldn’t go pee with her.’ Stuff like that starts to dimensionalize Britta right away.”

By this point the show’s characters, writing staff, and audience had realized that there was something unlikeable about Britta. This was due to the show’s thin conceptualization of her as a character to begin with. But as we said above, time is usually on a sitcom’s side. Community had many more episodes of its first season order to tackle the issue. What’s interesting about how Community figured Britta out is not how it “fixed her” but rather how it leaned into her existing flaws.

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That anecdote about Hilary Winston not trusting Britta turned out to be a feature, not a bug for the character. A lot of Britta’s early traits – her political ideals, defiant attitude, and quick wit – were likely designed to make her appealing to both Jeff and the audience. In reality, they had the opposite effect. So the show just began to lean into those qualities as comedic fodder. Britta retained her same liberal political leanings but the show now highlighted how she had neither the courage or energy to follow through on them. She also quickly became known for accidentally ruining everything around her and snuffing out the joy from her friends’ lives.

In the season one episode “Physical Education,” Community finally provided the terminology for what would become the character’s recurring meme through six seasons of the show (and hopefully a movie). Britta is, quite simply: the worst. After discovering that Britta pronounces “bagels” as “baggels,” Ben Chang reflexively responds with “ugh, you’re the worst.” It’s a small moment to be sure, but one whose spirit Community would continue to capture with Britta time and time again.

Britta is the worst because she calls “bagels” “baggels.” She’s the worst because she ruins the reputations of all the guys she dates for Abed (Danny Pudi) and Troy (Donald Glover). She’s the worst because she insists on being nice to Troy’s awful grandma and gets the switch for her troubles. She’s the worst because engages with the least amount of civil disobedience allowed by Greendale policy. She’s the worst because she won’t buy her one-eyed cat a monocle as “that’s pretentious.” She’s the worst because she supports a lesbian student so enthusastically that she accidentally enters into a romantic relationship with her despite neither the student nor Britta being a lesbian. 

Britta is just the worst. And that makes her one of Community’s best creations. There are few examples of TV shows taking lemons and turning them into lemonade more apt or admirable than Community’s treatment of Britta. The show deserves an enormous amount of credit for realizing that it was underutilizing a comedic concept in Britta and a comedic talent in Jacobs and reversing course by leaning in to that same course.

And let’s be clear here, Gillian Jacobs deserves an immense amount of credit for taking that opportunity and running with it. Though Jacobs may be one of the lesser-heralded talents to come out of Community, thanks mostly to the Russo Brothers ascent to Valhalla and Donald Glover’s ascent to the top of the universe, she is just as valuable as anyone else involved. Near the beginning of season 3, it becomes clear just how much Jacobs relishes Britta getting to be the worst. From episode three “Remedial Chaos Theory” through episode 15 “Origins of Vampire Mythology,” Britta and Jacobs are on absolute insufferable fire. 

It’s in this stretch of episodes that Britta’s terribleness actually saves the day. The plot of “Regional Holiday Music” involves the evil Glee club director (played by Taran Killam) slowly brainwashing the study group into becoming Body Snatcher-esque glee club pod people. Britta succumbs in the end but when Abed encourages her to take the stage and sing what’s in her heart, the transcendent awfulness of her performance immediately snaps everyone out of their trance. That also leads to the classic line of Dean Pelton seeing the show’s program for the first time and whining “ah, Britta’s in this?”

In a way, “Regional Holiday Music” is a microcosm of Britta’s role on the show. Every character on Community has a part to play. Jeff is narcissistic, Annie is innocent, Shirley is devout, Troy and Abed are goobers, Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) and Ben Chang (Ken Jeong) are insane, and Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase) is old. But the glue that ties together all of those disparate characters together is Britta Perry and her special ability to be the worst. 

She truly is the AT&T of people. And God bless her for it. 

The post Community: Britta Perry Is the Worst, Which Makes Her the Best appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[the-light-followed]

MORT (1987) [DISC. #4; DEATH #1]

“‘Why did you have to save me?’  The answer worried him.  He thought about it as he squelched all the way home.  …As he lay shivering in bed it settled in his dreams like an iceberg. In the midst of his fever he muttered, ‘What did he mean, FOR LATER?’”

Rating: 6/10

Standalone Okay: Yes

Read First: Sure, why not!

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

I’m just going to get it out of the way right off the bat: as much as I hate to admit it, the Death books are my least favorite of the Discworld sub-series.  (I mean, I still love them, a lot, but I don’t love them as much.)  And I know, I know—Death is an excellent character, and I love all of his cameos in the other Discworld books.  I love Susan Sto Helit, because I’m a sensible human lady with eyes and I recognize a brilliant, beautiful powerhouse of a woman when I read about her.  But the Death books just…aren’t my favorite.

And it’s doubly strange that I still think that’s true, even though Reaper Man might be my favorite Discworld book, depending on the day.  It’s definitely top three.

Mort, though, is—kind of boring.  Actually, no.  Let me rephrase that, without the italics this time: Mort is kind of boring.  The story itself is unique, and the concept is fantastically interesting, and I’m almost sad about that.  Because Mort, the character, is unimpressive.  I spend half the time reading this book wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him.  It might just be that he’s a teenage idiot—I do sort of have the same feeling with him (and especially all his interactions with Princess Keli) that I do any time I’m forced to read Romeo and Juliet. It’s a sort of constant, high-pitched, internal shriek of rage and distress.

Stop that!  Stop what you’re doing right now!  Grow some common goddamn sense!!

But he never does.  I am continually disappointed.

Even beyond his regrettable life choices, the kid is just dull.  Some early text flavor we get for Mort includes gems such as: “Mort was interested in lots of things.  Why people’s teeth fitted together so neatly, for example.  He’d given that one a lot of thought.  Then there was the puzzle of why the sun came out during the day, instead of at night when the light would come in useful.  He knew the standard explanation, which somehow didn’t seem satisfying.”

Yikes, buddy.  Yikes. Might as well be interested in watching paint dry.

It’s wild to me that of everyone and everything involved in Mort, Pratchett picked—well, Mort—to be his main character.  Mort, who complains that he’s not an ordinary human being living an ordinary human life.  He’s got a super awesome thing going for him, given that he’s Death’s actual apprentice, and he wants to be normal and boring?  By the time he makes this complaint, he’s already messed up reality and, frankly, a very easy job by being a lovestruck twit over a girl whose eyes he met exactly once across a crowded room—just before her father was brutally murdered.  He’s clearly already the king of bad decision-making.  It’s baffling that he wants to be even more boring, too.

We’ve got so many cool and interesting characters that we could have focused on instead!  Actual, literal Death!  Ysabell, his immortally teenage daughter, who’s been sixteen for thirty-five years!  We’ve even got Albert, a formerly great and terrible wizard so terrified of death (and Death) that he chose to become Death’s eternal servant rather than die!  Any one of those would make a cool as hell main character.  We could have had it all, but instead we focus on a dunderheaded teenager, distracted by hormones and totally lacking in common sense.

I get that Mort is acting as a sort of audience surrogate, coming from a vanilla human background, learning as he goes, and only just beginning to move in the occult and magical circles.  But I would be about one hundred million times more interested in following Ysabell’s journey from normal human orphan to the never-aging daughter of Death, both rescued and trapped by her father in his land outside of reality, where time never moves and there’s no one to interact with except the stories of the outside world as they write themselves in the library.

She’s a cool goth romantic trapped in the body of a sixteen-year-old for decades.  Her favorite thing to do is read real, historical accounts of love stories where everyone dies horribly.  Death is her dad and why is this book not about her?

Mort, I’d argue, doesn’t really get interesting himself until he and Death start picking up some of each other’s traits.  And even then, if Mort-going-inhuman is cool, it’s overshadowed entirely by Death becoming a person rather than simply an anthropomorphic personification.  It’s, just, damn.  Death’s arc is beautiful and poignant and has lasting implications for the Discworld. Meanwhile, Mort’s whole…thing…will soon be fridged so that his daughter, Susan Sto Helit, can begin her reign as unstoppable badass and also queen of my heart.

Susan is great.  On second thought, I wish this book was about Susan.

Conceptually, everything about this story is wonderful.  I love the plot elements, the concept itself is so unique and executed well, and Mort does an amazing job of setting up the rest of the Death series within the Discworld.  It’s impossible to read Mort and not think about what it means to be a person—recognizing that everyone must and will die, that there’s no rhyme or reason to it, but also knowing that fighting back against that inevitability is built into us on a fundamental level.

Not yet.  Not today. Fairness might not matter; justice might not matter.  But part of what makes us human is that we think they should.  We want them to.  

And, by the end of Mort, Death agrees.

Part of the reason I keep coming back to Mort is that I do like seeing the seeds of what Death will become in later Discworld books. Mort, Ysabell, and Albert—and eventually Susan as well—all give Death the experience and the space to become more than what he was meant to be.  Rather than just an anthropomorphic personification, just a thing, Death becomes a person.  He has wants and desires and needs, and he acts on them, sometimes despite the fact that it causes problems with The Duty—his literal, actual reason to exist.  He grows and changes.  He cares.

Compared to the Death we see in The Colour of Magic, who seems relentlessly antagonistic to poor Rincewind—who implies, several times over, that he is actually, actively, trying to kill people himself—the Death we meet at the beginning of Mort is already a relief. He’s perfectly neutral, not threatening at all.  He’s an entity who performs a necessary service without any sort of emotion at all.  But by the end of Mort, the Death we see is—well, I find him flat-out comforting.

It’s the little things.  He goes fishing.  He makes jokes, even if they’re creepy and morbid and so specific to his field that most people don’t understand them at all.  He likes cats.  He’s a good cook.

[Death’s Glory, by Paul Kidby, off his website. Shit, I love his official Discworld art. This, I think, shows his attempt at making a fishing lure that Pratchett describes in a way that seems—nightmarish at best.]

And it’s the big things, too.  Death makes mistakes.  He plays hooky from his work, which is a bit more impressive when you remember that it’s the literal reason for his existence.  He knows right from wrong, and when it comes down to it, I think it’s less important that he chooses to do what’s right over the letter of the law (though I also appreciate that he does), and more important that he can choose at all.

“THERE IS NO JUSTICE,” Death likes to say, “JUST ME.” But when Death is a person, and on top of that, a good person, it almost feels like the same thing.

You have to love the see-saw of Mort and Death going wrong in equal but opposite ways, both of them fascinating (and horrifying). Mort starts losing his humanity as he picks up aspects of Death, leaving him with more and more of the power and knowledge, but none of the steadiness and impartiality that Death has shown so far. And as Death gains humanity, gains personhood, he starts to feel and to understand those feelings.  

It’s beautiful to see, but it’s also desperately sad.  I think it’s almost cruel to give an emotional range to an undying being who must be there for the end of every life, who must be alone for most of time.

But he gets the good things out of existence, too. Over the course of the Death books, he seems to think it’s worth it more often than it’s not.  So it’s a good thing that even after everything’s sorted out and the humans have been given back their normal lives, Death keeps what he has taken.

One of my favorite quotes:

“WHAT IS IT CALLED WHEN YOU FEEL WARM AND CONTENT AND WISH THINGS WOULD STAY THAT WAY?  ‘I guess you’d call it happiness,’ said Harga.  Inside the tiny, cramped kitchen, strata’d with the grease of decades, Death spun and whirled, chopping, slicing and flying.  His skillet flashed through the fetid steam.  He’d opened the door to the cold night air, and a dozen neighborhood cats had strolled in, attracted by the bowls of milk and meat—some of Harga’s best, if he’d known—that had been strategically placed around the floor. Occasionally Death would pause in his work and scratch one of them behind the ears.  ‘Happiness,’ he said, and puzzled at the sound of his own voice.”

While Death moves more and more towards being a person, Mort goes the opposite way, and I, reluctantly, have to agree he’s right to give it all up and go back to being purely human.  As conceptually cool and interesting as it is to be apprenticed to Death, to be more powerful and more real than any other living person, people aren’t meant to live like that, and certainly not meant to live forever.  Mort understands that.

As Death says, “YOU COULD HAVE HAD ETERNITY.”  

And in reply: “‘I know,’ said Mort.  ‘I’ve been very lucky.’”

Honestly, in the course of writing this all out, I’ve almost talked myself back around to really loving this book.  It’s got everything we all want from a Discworld novel: exquisitely crafted and delivered puns, punchy and memorable quotes, unique and well-written characters in a unique and well-crafted setting, a perfect blend of humorous absurdity and heart-wrenching sincerity.  And unlike the first few Discworld books (especially The Colour of Magic, but I’d include all of the previous three novels), Pratchett is clinging less to established High Fantasy tropes and relying more on Discworld-specific flavor. Ankh-Morpork feels more and more like a real place with every visit, and even the other regions of the Disc come across less as never-explored, baffling and bizarre foreign lands (Here There Be Dragons!) and more as places that really do exist, even if we haven’t seen them personally just yet.

And, if nothing else, Mort is so, so important to the rest of the Discworld books from this point on because it establishes exactly what and who Death is on the Discworld.  He’s a person.  He is, at his core, good.  And maybe, as Death says, “THERE IS NO JUSTICE, JUST ME,” but I think it’s incredibly reassuring while reading the series to know that no matter how badly things go wrong, no matter how much danger our Discworld heroes are in or how nerve-wracking things get, the absolute worst thing that could happen is that they end up in Death’s hands.  And Death will treat them as they deserve.

I will always appreciate Mort for that peace of mind.  (And I can appreciate Mort for it, too, even if I still want to grab that ding-dong dumbass by the shoulders and just shake—ahem.  Sorry.)

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

I need everyone to read this quote about a party at the Patrician’s palace and join me in my confusion: “In fact some two hundred of the Patrician’s guests were now staggering and kicking their way through the Serpent Dance, a quaint Morporkian folkway which consisted of getting rather drunk, holding the waist of the person in front, and then wobbling and giggling uproariously in a long crocodile that wound through as many rooms as possible, preferably ones with breakables in, while kicking one leg vaguely in time with the beat, or at least in time with some other beat.”

Vetinari let them do WHAT

Sure, he’s not technically Vetinari yet, he’s never been named at all, but that’s still proto-Vetinari’s guests at proto-Vetinari’s house and he’s letting them do WHAT

Rincewind pops up briefly in this book, serving as an assistant to the Librarian.  Is this an important cameo?  No, probably not.  Does it make me smile down at my book like I’m seeing a long-absent friend, even if there’s only been one book so far in the series that does not include him? Absolutely, yes.  Hi, Rincewind!  Missed you, buddy!  See you in a minute, Sourcery is coming up next!

Ysabell and Mort have such a strange love story.

“‘I don’t want to get married to anyone yet,’ he added, suppressing a fleeting mental picture of the princess.  ‘And certainly not to you, no offense meant.’  ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on the Disc,’ she said sweetly.”

“‘Obviously we shouldn’t get married, if only for the sake of the children.’  Mort nodded.”

“DAUGHTER, EXPLAIN YOURSELF.  WHY DID YOU AID THIS FOOL?  Ysabell curtsied nervously.  ‘I—love him, Father.  I think.’ ‘You do?’ said Mort, astonished.  ‘You never said!’  ‘There didn’t seem to be time,’ said Ysabell.”

Teenagers. Honestly.

We get a lot more discussion about belief and reality in this one—Mort himself kind of embodies the point as he becomes “more real” and begins to stroll through walls, or doors, or arrows.  Nobody can see Death wandering around the mundane world (with the exception of cats and the magical community) because nobody expects to see him; they don’t believe he’ll be there, and so they don’t see him.  Princess Keli died, according to history, so even though Mort “saved” her, history (and the population of her kingdom) start to write her out.  Belief = reality.  We change the world with the force of that belief.

Favorite Quotes:

“I?  KILL? said Death, obviously offended. CERTAINLY NOT.  PEOPLE GET KILLED, BUT THAT’S THEIR BUSINESS.  I JUST TAKE OVER FROM THEN ON.  AFTER ALL, IT’D BE A BLOODY STUPID WORLD IF PEOPLE GOT KILLED WITHOUT DYING, WOULDN’T IT?”

“Let’s just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colorful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.”

“‘How do you get all those coins?’ asked Mort.  IN PAIRS.”

“‘Are you going to send me home?’ he said.  Death reached down and swung him up behind the saddle.  BECAUSE YOU SHOWED COMPASSION?  NO.  I MIGHT HAVE DONE IF YOU HAD SHOWN PLEASURE.  BUT YOU MUST LEARN THE COMPASSION PROPER TO YOUR TRADE.  ‘What’s that?’  A SHARP EDGE.”

“They’re always telling people how much better it’s going to be when they’re dead.  We tell them it could be pretty good right here if only they’d put their minds to it.”

“It had been a long afternoon.  The mountaineer had held on to his icy handhold until the last moment and the execute had called Mort a lackey of the monarchist state.  Only the old lady of 103, who had gone to her reward surrounded by her sorrowing relatives, had smiled at him and said he was looking a little pale.”

“Logic would have told Mort that here was his salvation…Logic would have told him that interfering with the process a second time around would only make things worse. Logic would have said all that, if only Logic hadn’t taken the night off too.”

“‘Why did you have to save me?’  The answer worried him.  He thought about it as he squelched all the way home.  …As he lay shivering in bed it settled in his dreams like an iceberg. In the midst of his fever he muttered, ‘What did he mean, FOR LATER?’”

“‘I mean, friend or foe?’ he stuttered, trying to avoid Mort’s gaze.  ‘Which would you prefer?’ he grinned.  It wasn’t quite the grin of his master, but it was a pretty effective grin and didn’t have a trace of humor in it.  The guard sagged with relief, and stood aside.  ‘Pass, friend,’ he said.”

“The sword burned icy cold in his hand, dragging him on in a dance that would not end until there was nothing left alive.  And that time came, and Mort stood alone except for Death, who said, ‘A fine job, boy.’ And Mort said, MORT.”

“‘I think there’s something you ought to know,’ said the princess.  THERE IS? said Death.  (That was a cinematic trick adapted for print.  Death wasn’t talking to the princess.  He was actually in his study, talking to Mort.  But it was quite effective, wasn’t it?  It’s probably called a fast dissolve, or a crosscut/zoom. Or something.  An industry where a senior technician is called a Best Boy might call it anything.)”

[thewritingcaptain]

Writeblr Intro

This is a copied/edited post from @capshorty since I’ve decided to do a separate writeblr blog due to the amount of interest it has garnered from people. So yeah! Follow me here for writing stuff from now on! I’m going to repost everything of my stuff I had there on here to make it easiest and continue to post it here from now on. 

Click below for full intro!

So... Hi! I go by Cap, Smidget, or Authoress depending on where you find me on the internet. Any of those are okay. As of starting this account, I’m 18, soon to start first year of college, and I love everything to do with words: reading, writing, singing, everything I can get my hands on. 

I write both fanfiction and original content! My AO3/FF names are Smidget and CaptainS10 respectively. I mainly write fanfiction for Marvel (specifically, Irondad and Spiderson content, and Pepperony) these days, though I used to write mostly Artemis Fowl, which I will repost on here if there ever becomes a demand for it. I dabble in various fandoms as well, though a lot of them never make it to posting, like the Legend of Zelda, or Throne of Glass (though I still hope to post my TOG stuff eventually). If it’s a popular books series, chances are I’ve read it or am open to reading it, so feel free to drop asks/recommendations about it! I am also an active roleplayer, so feel free to drop me a message for a fandom or original roleplay if anyone is interested! 

I have four main original WIPs - none of which have had as much work as there should be done on them due to school, but I’m trying to remedy that. I’ll be doing intro posts separately for each of my original WIPs later, but here’s a brief overlook of them now:

Exile: This story is historical, adventure, and drama mainly, with some romantic subplots. The plot follows a man who was exiled from his home kingdom several years back for a murder of a high-ranking individual that he didn’t commit. In present time, the kingdom he lives in now has been seized by an evil usurper, the royals in previously charge either executed or exiled. When the usurper’s estranged daughter falls ill with a rare but deadly sickness, he is forced to go on a trip to get the one plant that can cure her. The catch: the only way for him to get to where the plant can be found and get back on time is to go through his former home, and he finds himself mixed up in a lot more than he bargained for along the way.

Little Red: This one is modern day, drama, young adult, with high school age kids, but not set IN high school. The main character has it all: happy home life, good girlfriend, about to graduate high school and most of his college covered by academic and athletic scholarships; then one day everything changes. A girl moves in next door to his girlfriend. His girlfriend takes an interest in her, and suddenly his whole world is morphed. The girl is little and meek, but clearly is hiding some sort of secret. As he tries to figure out what it is, he suddenly sees deeper and finds something he would never have imagined…

Untitled Time Travel Story: This story, obviously, I haven’t come up with a name for yet. It’s sci-if, fantasy, drama, with some crime and romance elements. The main character is a young woman who is on the run. When she was little, her father murdered her mother and tried to kill her in cold blood. A man helped her escape, but just barely, sacrificing himself in the process. The catch: her father was a scientist developing secret time travel technology. All she escaped from her home with was the clothes on her back and a prototype of his time travel watch, which she has used since then to move back and forth through time, trying to stay hidden from the man who still hunts her and trying to figure out the truth of what really happened that day.

Undercover Disaster: This story is a conceptual rewrite of a fanfic I wrote turned original. It’s crime, romance, drama, and modern-set. A cadet comes home for the holidays to see her family only to find her father, a cop, going crazy with work trying to hunt down some infamous criminal that has been on the rise and is now believed to be in their country. A company Christmas party turns her break on its head when she gets roped into a crazy plot to try to infiltrate the criminal’s company and find desperately needed information to lead to his arrest. But what they don’t know is that this criminal is deadly and smart - and yet not even the one they’re truly searching for. And when they try to send her undercover into his company… well, it’s just one big disaster.

So! Yeah! If you read through all this, thanks! And if anyone is interested in hearing anymore about any of these, just let me know! I am completely open to DMs, asks, games, whatever! I will do more detailed posts for each of these later, if anyone is interested in them; I just didn’t want to make this too massively long. Thanks for reading! And feel free to like/repost this so I can follow everyone back!

[larriefails]

First off, I’m not a rad nor a larrie, I’m a louie who hates both. I was just commenting on that because I’ve been in the fandom since 2013 and the de facto leader comment not only came from the boys but also during a billboard interview. In the billboard interview, they highlighted how Louis was the one taking the business calls and talking to their team about certain things. Also it’s not completely impossible to believe that once the 1d train ran out the big producers/names didn’t care to +

Work with him, because he was no “harry styles” liam is the same he even said that Simon didn’t want him on his label as a solo artist despite him having a great rapport with him. But there were other times louis’ business contacts were brought to light such as when he went to the Brits in 2016 and a reporter commented on how he was constantly on his feet to greet big name record executives and businessmen. He has the connects in the business that’s all I was trying to state.

Look, 99% of the time when I reply to an anon “you sound like a conspiracy theorist” it’s not because I think they believe in Larrie or because they’re rads, it’s because they fucking reason like conspiracy theorists

And your reasoning here is just… conspiracy theory mess. I don’t care which parts of it you believe or not, I don’t care what your personal feelings on these specific sets of conspiracy theories are. It doesn’t matter, the point is that you’re reasoning like a conspiracy theorist

I was gonna put this in a separate post, but I think it fits here very well (I might still make a separate post about it who knows)

A few days ago, I saw this video on twitter of a woman talking about her own death like it was nothing in a very matter of factly way, wearing a wig and using a very funny tone. Someone in the replies linked to her IG page so I went to look at it, and when I saw comments telling her “thank you for accepting my follow request” I realized she was usually on private and I’d just been very lucky to find her profile to be open, so I followed her just in case with the intention of watching her funny videos later

Since she was a new follow she continuously appeared on my recent IG feed and I soon realized how relevant what she was saying was to my interests

This is the woman

One day she posted this, and my alarms went off

Let me clarify that I don’t care if she’s a professor or a therapist or not, I followed her because I thought she was funny and that she’d go on private soon, this was all a complete surprise to me. The DM rang close to home to me, seeing as I’ve read Larries for a while now, it was all too familiar, her reply was too

Then she posted this

Once again, I said it before and you can read it here X it doesn’t matter if she’s a professor or not, if their suspicions are real or not, if she’s lying or not, because going through UCLA’s professor roll call is a step too far, and confronting her about it, even more so. And the way she presents it.. she’s right. She just linked the website, she never claimed to work there. If you go to her page, she’s very careful with the information she provides, so the people that want to prove she’s lying have very limited resources. They go with the preconception that she’s lying so they try to find ways to prove their preconception

You have the preconception that Louis was the de facto leader of 1D, so you’re working your way backwards to prove it. You’re looking at bits and pieces of interviews that will prove your theory right, but that’s just not what reality is

“The de facto leader comment not only came from the boys” .. no it didn’t, though? They didn’t say this. Do you know where the “the boys say Louis is the leader” comments come from? Stuff like this

Context for that interview? The Hot Desk, August 2011 X

One Direction had exactly ZERO songs out, this interview was recorded before they even released WMYB. All 5 of them had written on 3 songs of their first album that would come out in November. Savan Kotecha was still running the show. Louis was still 19 and he hadn’t been in show business for a year. How much of a leader that conducted business meetings do you think he was? I’m not gonna watch the entire interview to see the context, but this is not Zayn saying Louis was the de facto leader, this is Zayn kidding

What to even say about this, which is from the video diaries in X Factor?

Or this?

What? No, no they’re not, like, they’re just not, they’re standing in a circle and looking forward

This is just ridiculous

Does the person that created this gif set not realize that this is the performance where Louis doesn’t sing at all? It’s Torn at judges’ houses. It’s infamous for the fact that only Liam Harry and Zayn sang. This is all for dramatic effect because X Factor was a reality show

Louis liking motivation chants means he’s the leader? That he goes to business meetings? I’m so confused

That’s not because “he’s the leader” that’s because he’s the class clown

If accepting an award means he’s the leader then I guess this meme fits 1D very well

They all accepted awards, Christ

Anyway….

And that’s an entire gif set that was solely engineered to show that Louis was the leader and that “the boys said so”…. but they actually didn’t? The only two times it comes up they answer jokingly and it’s before Louis could do anything remotely leader like. But that gif set is so popular, created by a Larrie but that spilled out to the general fandom enough that I saw it on my dash reblogged by non CT blogs X

And it created this notion among some people, especially those who have Louis as their fave, that the other members of 1D had in fact said that Louis was the de facto leader, when they didn’t. It’s conspiracy talk, scouring through hundreds of MILLIONS of milliseconds of footage to pick 9 of them and put them in a gif set to prove a point they’d already decided on

There are also three news articles linked (copying and pasting directly from the source, sorry for the weird formatting idk how to take it off)

1: That’s the number of hotel rooms in Mexico City used for dance rehearsals. The guys locked down a room for three hours. Louis took control of the rehearsals and even helped conceptualize some of the routine.

That’sabout 1D learning the choreography for Best Song Ever

How exactly does it prove that Louis is the de facto leader for him to take over 1 dance rehearsal when everyone in 1D had confessed they couldn’t dance a million times at that point? Louis had some musical theater experience, so that’s that..

Harry: Louis is still loud and mischievous - he likes to test the boundaries. He’s quite outspoken. You need someone like that, because he’s great at standing up for us as a band.

That’s perhaps the most “leader like” comment any of them have ever made about Louis, and it’s not really about him being a leader once you put it by itself instead of surrounding it by “look at all the times they said he was the leader,” right? It’s just more of a testament about the fact that Louis was louder than the rest, which we already knew. If someone had asked me six months into my journey in the fandom who I thought was the loudest in band meetings I would’ve said Louis. That doesn’t mean he’s the leader. A leader has SO many more characteristics than being loud and outspoken. In fact, a lot of leaders aren’t loud or outspoken at all

The last link they put is once again, what How I Met Your Mother explained as the cheerleader effect X which taken away from the time period sounds quite misogynistic but let’s not dwell on that. Basically, it’s when a group of women appear hot when they’re all together but not individually. When you have the gif set all together, it looks like “wow, these are hot arguments as to why EVERYONE thought Louis was the leader,” but look at them individually, see their context and they’re not as hot now, are they? Especially when you realize, once again, that these are very very small morsels of time taken from very very large portions. That’s how Larries operate

Several people in your management and inner circle have described you to me as the unofficial businessman or leader of the group. Is that a fair assessment? I’ve sometimes felt like that, but to be honest most of the time I’m the immature one who needs to be told to get focused. I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I have to be kind of be on board with every minor detail and [I’m] quite opinionated.

And that last link is also the Billboard interview you mention in your ask. Do you know when it’s from? December 2012. One Direction had just released Take Me Home, their second album, which according to the interview that Larries love the most to base their sabotage conspiracies, didn’t very much involve 1D’s input at all

Savan Kotecha: I think by album 3 (Midnight Memories), yeah, not all of them, there was definitely one or two-one especially-that was like, kind of bitter about the fact, that, you know

Ross Golan: They were a boyband?

Savan Kotcha: And he was not the talented one. He wasn’t the singer, and he wasn’t the star. And you know which one I’m talking about…

Ross Golan: Of course.

Savan Kotecha: And he then started having something against me and against that process, I think. And, you know, maybe we could have been more inviting in the creative process during album 2 (Take Me Home) and not been so…authoritative.

At that point, Louis STILL wasn’t in a position where he could really be the leader. None of them were because the creative process wasn’t inviting still. It wouldn’t be until the third album

The conclusion here isn’t that Louis isn’t outspoken, or that he didn’t care about business or that he didn’t defend the band, or that he didn’t want to write more, or that he didn’t want to make connections. No one here is arguing that he didn’t care at all or not giving him credit for anything. The point I‘ve been making for days now and that people don’t seem to get (one way or another, because I’ve gotten very unpleasant messages about how he’s not equipped to be a businessman and shit like that that I’ve just decided not to publish at all), is that things don’t have to be black and white

I don’t think ANYONE was the leader of 1D. I think that Louis’ personality made him stand out more in certain aspects (such as meetings with their team), and because people need to label everything all the time, instead of describing it as it was, it took the position of “de facto leader”

The problem here isn’t even that people believe he’s the de facto leader, that wouldn’t concern me at all in and of itself because who cares? It’s not hurting anyone… The problem is that it puts an excessive amount of weight on Louis’ shoulders, I also explained this. It’s this dichotomy of a person who basically carried the whole band during its five years but that also is completely defenseless and at the mercy of binding contracts to even choose the socks he wears

These sort of preconceptions aren’t harmful by themselves, they wouldn’t be harmful in a normal band. I wouldn’t have a problem with this preconception if Louis was Calum Hood and this was 5SOS, my problem is that this is One Direction and preconceptions and conspiracies have tormented these guys for YEARS. No conspiracy and no preconception is innocent, they all have to be dismantled, we have to examine EVERYTHING that leads to absolutes if we want a chance at healing the fandom, and I don’t mean the 1D fandom because that’s gone now, it’s never gonna heal, I mean Louis’ specifically

If we want a chance at him being left alone from Larries these things have to go. Stop seeing him as this commodity that you can just paint over and start seeing him as a person, not a caricature

That interview also doesn’t say anything about him taking any calls business or otherwise. I don’t think anyone has ever said it and I have no idea where it came from because I’ve found zero sources. The interview doesn’t mention him “talking about certain things“ either, it’s just what I pasted here. That’s all of it. Everything else comes from years and years of stretching this one question out of this one interview done when Louis was still 20 and 1D had less than 2 years in the music industry. It’s no exactly the smoking gun y’all think it is, guys. Same with the Savan Kotecha podcast

Then the rest of what you say is just noise, man. IDK what to tell you. It’s just noise. If Louis had ran the show BTS for five years, then he’d have access to the best producers and writers on speed dial, why would he not being Harry Styles hinder how he’s perceived by the people that work backstage? They’d recognize the person that was “the backbone of 1D” for who he is because those things spread in the business. If LOUIS said that wasn’t happening, then it’s because your preconception was wrong and you took a bunch of things out of context to create a “narrative” that simply wasn’t real. Louis was dedicated to the band and wanted to write for it and involve himself in the creative side and he GENUINELY WAS IMPORTANT for the band, but he wasn’t its backbone or its de facto leader

Simon didn’t wantt Liam on his label probably because he couldn’t afford him, btw. He decided to stick with Louis because they’ve been thick as thieves since 2014 and those contracts cost money and Syco is a very small label with very limited resources, so they couldn’t offer anything to more than one member. I’m  aware that I’m making assumptions here, but they very much align with reality, especially now that Syco lost so many other acts and now that Fifth Harmony disbanded and Syco landed only Lauren (Camila being like Zayn) and having to leave Ally, Dinah, and Normani go to other labels. That doesn’t mean they saw no value in them (in fact, I think Lauren is the one faring the worst), it’s just that they can only afford so much

And how much can you grin on one report written by the HUFFINGTON POST in 2016?X I’m talking about the “Louis hugged industry people that one time” comment you made. Once again, I’m not saying he doesn’t know anyone. I’m saying I BELIEVE WHAT HE SAYS. If he says he can’t easily get the producers and writers he wants, then I’m going to believe him. And that one report doesn’t really change anything for me. It’s, once again, very conspiracy theorist behavior to put more weight on an isolated report from an untrustworthy source three years ago than on Louis’ own words. If he really had enough reach to be friendly with everyone in the industry, then he’d be able to get any producer he wants

You can’t have this dichotomy that you present in this very ask of “they’re not picking up the phone because he’s Harry Styles” but he was the de facto leader of the biggest band on the planet for five years and everyone in the music industry knows him. It just doesn’t mesh together. You’re placing him in the same impossible position Larries are placing him and that’s harmful. He needs fans that see him as a person and you, I’m sorry to tell you, do not. You see him as a caricaturesque figure that can both be incredibly important and incredibly subjugated

“He has the connects in the business is all I was trying o state” 1. no that’s not all you were trying to state. 2. According to himself, he doesn’t have all the connects. He’s clearly close enough to be friendly with Rob Stringer, but that doesn’t mean that Rob Stringer will lift a finger for him and according to Louis, he’s not.. But that doesn’t mean that Louis can’t get ANYONE or that he’s being sabotaged. As always, truth lies somewhere in the middle. The only reason it’s harder to spot in this case is that people stretch it on every possible side so much

I know this is long as fuck and I probably lost any person that was willing to read my drivel in the first place, but I just really think it’s important that you start taking what LOUIS SAYS ABOUT LOUIS as fact, instead of twisting it around to present alternative facts that would present a reality that will please you more. It starts at “Louis was the de facto leader” and it ends as “he’s been faking fatherhood for three years and lied about his mother’s last few days” Sick..

[herphdjourney-blog]

What is “Inclusion”?

That question was the focus of this year’s Gender and Diversity in Organizations (GDO) Plenary at the Academy of Management (AoM).

Modupe Akinola, PhD, an Associate Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, said inclusion is: “Feeling like I can be myself and people are curious about my story.” Further, that “inclusion” is when people are not just curious about her identity but also about WHO she is and WHAT makes her who she is.

Derek R. Avery, PhD, the David C. Darnell Presidential Chair in Principled Leadership at Wake Forest University, said that inclusion is “when you can be exactly who you are and it’s OK.”

Other scholars shared insights on inclusion that I’ll touch on in future posts. I recorded the session so that I could cite them in my future work!

But first...under Modupe and Derek’s conceptualization of “inclusion,” let me introduce myself:

My identity:

I am an Afro-Latina, PhD student in organizational behavior, executive/life coach, entrepreneur, dancer, licensed Zumba instructor, traveler, and survivor. I’m from NYC and the daughter of 2 Central American immigrants.

WHO am I?

Hi! My name is Samantha and I am proudly multidimensional.

WHAT makes me who I am?

All of my life experiences these past 43 years.

Yes, I’m 43.

I started my PhD Journey at the age of 41 after 20 years of progressively advancing in nonprofit organizations doing fundraising and communications work on behalf of causes that I care about.

...after 10 years of teaching and performing Latin dance on stages around the world.

...after 2 bachelors degrees and 2 masters degrees.

...after several heartbreaks.

...after 2 near-death experiences.

...and after lots of world travel, including many visits to Costa Rica, where my mother is from, and Panama, where my father was from. He passed away but he was pretty awful during his lifetime (that’s a story for another post). My father’s awfulness & other grown men’s awfulness during my childhood led me to pursue the academic and professional experiences that shaped who I am today.

MY EDUCATION:

My undergraduate degrees are in Psychology and Women’s Studies. My 1st master's degree—was in Women’s History, which I earned in 2 years while working full-time. My 2nd master's degree was in Nonprofit Management. I earned that in 2.5 years while working full-time in an extremely demanding role. Toxic work environments led me to pursue training and certification in life/executive coaching. Now, I am pursuing a PhD in Organizational Behavior.

MY WORK:

I started working at nonprofit organizations during my undergraduate years. Besides the Help Center on my campus, where I volunteered for 3 years, my first off-campus job was an internship at a domestic violence shelter. 

Immediately after college, I worked at a civil rights organization, a homeless shelter for women, and a reproductive health clinic. 

I worked at feminist organizations for a while but although they espoused diversity values, their lack of a racial analysis or an intersectionality framework in practice is what led me to move on to racial/social/reproductive justice organizations. 

My experiences advancing in those organizations is what led me to explore what “leadership” looked and felt like via additional education, workshops, books, blogs, conferences, etc.

Now--I am specifically interested in how people can thrive, not only survive, and I’m both fascinated and saddened by toxic workplaces...as well as by Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book, Dying For a Paycheck.

I study whiteness--not as a skin color but as a phenomenon of power and dominance. I also study thriving/flourishing, allyship, women’s leadership, courage/fragility, rage, love, intersectionality, CEOs, nonprofits, and philanthropy.

MY PASSION:

I have been dancing all of my life. As a kid, I also did gymnastics and cheerleading.

After graduating from undergrad, I also started dancing, teaching, and performing Latin dance around the world. I did that for 10 years until injuries and my intellectual curiosities channeled my attention back to nonprofit organizations and to my first master's degree.

MY DEFINING MOMENTS:

I had my 1st health scare in 2012: blood clots had traveled to both of my lungs from my left leg (a “pulmonary embolism”) but I had NO CLUE that was happening. All I knew was that it felt as though I was having a heart attack. I was hospitalized for a week but then put on blood thinners + watched over by doctors (and my guardian angels) for several years.

That was my 1st wake-up call.

I had been dancing all of my life but stopped and let the “work grind” take over my life. I had been relatively healthy all of my life, so I took my health/wellness/life/blood circulation for granted. My spirit and all of the cells in my body rebelled against me.

After that experience, I was so freaked out that I might die at any moment that I decided to pursue things on my bucket list, including more education and world travels...especially solo world travels, which freaked my doctors AND my Madrina (“godmother” in Spanish) out.

I had my 2nd health scare last year during the 1st year of my PhD Journey...a 2nd pulmonary embolism. You would have thought I had learned my lesson about the pitfalls of sedentary work life the 1st time around, right? 🤦🏽‍♀️ Now I am on blood thinners in perpetuity and more concerned about LIVING (literally staying alive) than I am meeting others’ conceptualizations of “success” in this “publish or perish” academic culture.

I bring all of the above into my PhD Journey, which is why so many of my social media posts are about wellness, self-care, and a #FitPhDJourney.

It’s not that I don’t “grind.” Folks only see the moments when I take a break to capture my life. Not when I’m interviewing research participants for my qualifying paper, analyzing data for my research fellowship, writing papers under huge looming deadlines, coaching clients, working on consulting projects, or laying on my couch depressed and unable to leave my apartment for entire weekends (yes, even coaches are HUMAN).

How do I deal with the stress of this PhD journey?

I try to find moments of peace, joy, and community. Those moments look different for all of us but for me, dance, travel, and adventures have always been my go-to stress relievers. And, since I recently decided to become a licensed Zumba instructor as an act of survival, I also post a lot about Zumba. 💃🏽 I’m aware that my mere existence in this world is resistance to what Max Weber described as the “iron cage” and what Barker & Thompkins described as “concertive control.”

So, circling back to the question of “What is Inclusion?” as I wrap up this very long post...

If we agree with Modupe and Derek’s definition of inclusion (and we should...BUT I will also share other scholars’ insights on other elements of “inclusion” in future posts, which may resonate in other ways with you), then I have questions for you:

Taking intersectionality into account when understanding the multidimensional nature of oppression, what are the implications for mentoring [PhD] students who have various racial, ethnic, gender, family, nationality, professional, academic, and life experiences?

How do we support [PhD] students in their various journeys in ways that challenge them and prepare them for the future THEY want without putting them in the aforementioned “iron cage” of “concertive control”?

If culture and socialization work as unconscious filters shaping our perceptions, how do you engage in reflexivity and mentor people who may or may not look like you...and may or may not want to BE like you “when they grow up” even though you’re amazing?

More to come on “inclusion” in future posts…

xoxo, Samantha