#maturity and age and a kid evolving early on would be seen as them trying too hard to be mature or something. anyway

[front-facing-pokemon]

[masterthespianduchovny]

The counter argument to people being against Sam/Rebecca for legitimate reasons are claims that Sam is being “infantilized.”

These age gap conversations in general are difficult to have because one side won’t acknowledge that just because two people are adults doesn’t mean they are in the same place emotionally and mentally. And this is a very important thing to note.

Someone being 18, a legal adult in America (I think you can date adults at 16 in the UK), doesn’t mean they are able to date a significantly older person, say 38, without a problem. Because, more times than not, which is an understatement, there’s a lot of fucking problems in an age gap relationship even if the older person isn’t dating the younger for nefarious reasons.

It is not infantilizing Sam or any young adult to say, “hey, this relationship may be detrimental to them because of their age.” That is just…facts.

Many people on tumblr and other SM sites often talk about how they still feel like kids at 22 and are still figuring life at, despite having jobs, kids, and shit. Despite being in full blown relationships, these young adults don’t feel like adults and that’s because you aren’t magically mature just because you’ve reached an arbitrary age to be declared a legal adult.

You just aren’t.

And being mature in one aspect of your life or regarding emotional development doesn’t mean you’re mature in other aspects. At 17, I was mature enough to understand this.

Because maturity isn’t just something you obtain like your degree or license, it’s an ongoing, ever evolving thing.

It’s life experience. As in how you learn and grow from it.

Acknowledging that someone doesn’t have significant life experience isn’t infantilizing them, it’s giving an important perspective to a crowd of who is essentially arguing “age ain’t nothing, but a number.”

If you’re all for an 18 year old dating a 38 year old, why not a 16 year old and a 36 year. It’s only a two year difference, right? And what if that 16 year old is really mature? Most would have an issue with that. People are justifying a significantly older person dating a younger person due to legality and not they are actually mature and on the same level. But there’s not much difference between a 16 and 18 year old or an 18 year old and a 20 year old. But guess what, there is a significant difference between people between the ages of 18-22 dating people a decade or more.

I literally just turned 30 last week and, even when I was 25, after a while I could tell when I was speaking to a teen or someone in their early 20s. Because, whether or not you get along with them, there are just some things that, because they haven’t had enough life experience, they don’t have the nuance or perspective to engage with you a certain way and this is even on a non romantic level.

And, in some cases, the younger person is more “mature” not because they’re actually that mature, but because the older person is that immature.

So before I get into the issues with Sam and Rebecca, let me give you four examples of age gaps relationships:

1. A friend of mine dating an older man when she was 23 and he was 38. She was a manager at a gym and he was a gym member. They would have sex and hang out, but she wanted commitment. Whenever she asked him about it, he’d get weird on her. After finally breaking it off months later, he “loved” her and finally wanted commitment, but she’d moved on. While she dated him, I told her my two cents on the situation and left it alone. Last month, she recalled this conversation as she groaned in displeasure hearing about an age gap relationship. She’s now skeptical of older people dating significantly younger people.

2. A friend of mine was 18 dating a 28 year old. We all worked at a pizzeria. He watched her on the cameras from the back when he became a manager—got mad if she talked to male coworkers. Used to gaslight her, controlled her via manipulation, and other gross toxic shit. After emotionally tormenting her for a year or so and pressuring her to live with him, which her parents allowed due to some issues they didn’t want to exacerbate, he cheated on her. They’re broken up now. She was always stressed out while with him.

3. A girl got into her first and only relationship when she was 19 with a man who was 32. They’re now married 23 and 36. She wants to wait to have kids and on her birthday he gifted her baby clothes. Make of that what you will.

4. A girl, 22, dated her 37 year old professor. At 28, she feels like she’s outgrown him and is disturbed about how and when they got together. And one night she heard him advise his friends to date younger girls so they can mold them. Yeah…

Sure you have marriages that have age gaps that lasted, but even then, very few of those are actually healthy. The younger person is usually taking orders from the older partner, can’t do certain things, doesn’t have any true agency, skills to survive on their own, etc. What typically happens is after that person becomes older, they begin to question their relationship because what seemed okay when they were younger, is unsettling after becoming older.

Like I said, take out the nefarious shit, and there is still a significant life experience gulf between Sam and Rebecca and that is one of the many issues with this pairing. Despite what some romantics and media loves to say, “love does not conquer all.” Most of the marriages that end in divorce isn’t because they couple fell out of love, it’s due to finances. Love couldn’t conquer that. Some marriages end because one of them changed or they could’ve overcome their vast differences.

I’m not saying Sam and Rebecca are on a path for marriage or are even in love, they aren’t, however, they idea that just because they get along and have some things in common means it would be a great relationship is very shortsighted. There isn’t even enough significant interaction to prove this. Getting along on an app isn’t the same as connecting face to face. And none of this can overcome Rebecca’s life experience and, relatively speaking, Sam’s lack thereof.

And I’d argue that, on average, athletes tend to be immature because they live in such a bubble where people constantly kiss their ass. Which makes Sam look more mature than he probably is.

Even then, being with an older person ages you. This younger person misses out on so much, many of which they regret, because they’re trying to be mature enough for their older partner. They don’t want to seen as immature for doing young shit when that’s exactly their age range.

But let’s get into the real consequences for Sam here:

1. Sam has to keep his relationship a secret. The media will tear him up about dating/fucking the owner of the team. And so will fans. People love to mention he’s being infantilized because he’s young and black, how do you think that is going to go if anyone finds out about them? Racism, baby. He won’t suffer from sexism, however, they will question his place on the team and if he deserves to be there. This will taint him and even cause issues with his parents. So secret relationship it is.

2. If his teammates found out, this will fracture his relationship with them. Whether or not it’s true, Sam will be blamed for shit outside of his control. They’ll think he only got more playing time, more pay, or whatever because he’s fucking Rebecca. OR they’ll try to ask him for favors and get upset if he won’t do it. His team will think he’s getting favoritism and believe there is a power imbalance between them and Sam as a result. Don’t believe me, Google dynamics once students realize a classmate is dating their teacher or an employee is dating their boss. It usually doesn’t go over so well.

So even if the relationship is loving and healthy, Sam will suffer from being with Rebecca. Because if it's a secret, it’s going to bother him eventually that they have to sneak around and the anxiety of being caught. If it’s out in the open, he will suffer harassment, alienation, his play will suffer because his teammates probably won’t pass to him, etc.

Which leads to, 3: transferring teams. But how is that fair? Sam is developing well under ted and now that may delay his development and stock just so he can be with Rebecca? We want this young, black man to succeed, but his career will be kneecapped due to his relationship. Sam is serious about football and this would be a major blow to him.

Like I said, take out nefarious shit and this relationship is still detrimental to Sam. And even with a healthy relationship, there will still be a disconnect that will lead to their relationship ending because they are in two vastly different places in their lives.

That is not infantilizing Sam, that’s reality.

And, again, that power imbalance is massive. We saw how easy it was for Rebecca to send Jamie back to Man City. She has so much power, control, and influence over Sam’s career and livelihood. She can dictate how much or how little they offer to pay him during contract negotiations.

And this is the ship people are getting upset at others rightfully taking issue with?

It doesn’t even make sense for Rebecca to go along with this either. She played a part in Keeley breaking up with Jamie, which age, Jamie being younger, played a key part in it. She’s even disgusted by Rupert dating a significantly younger woman. I doubt her opinion centered on maturity. She’s not going to suddenly support this relationship if she found out that Bex is super mature.

Rebecca would stand to lose a lot of she were to get involved with Sam and others found out. She’d get dragged through the mud worse than she did after her divorce. She’s lose them support of her staff. And it would fuck up the relationship she has with her players.

Now some Sam/Rebecca supporters have called bullshit on people who are against this relationship, yet support Ted and Rebecca. They claim it’s the same power imbalance or that one exists.

1. It’s not the same power imbalance.

2. Yes, one does exist, but it’s not nearly as wide as it is with Sam and it wouldn’t destroy her either.

Ted has the authority to hire and fire people. He has the authority to facilitate trades, call up people, and send them down. He has a lot of influence that Sam does not. They aren’t equals, but there also isn’t a massive power disparity either.

Rebecca also can’t completely fuck over Ted like she can Sam if she went all scorned woman. Because, doing so, would entail her own demise. Even if you don’t include that, Ted is only attached to Richmond. He doesn’t care about having a career as a football coach in the ways coaches from non US countries do. He can go back and have a career as an American football coach and still be massively successful. Or, if Rebecca did want to fuck him over, he has that bomb as to why he was hired. Ted doesn’t even have to play that card for it to be played by either Higgins or Keeley.

Because one of them will if they feel it’s necessary.

We have no clue what’s going to happen with this storyline. But the idea that people against Sam and Rebecca being a thing, romantically or sexually, being fueled by racism or sexism is misguided, hypocritical, and flat out wrong. If this entanglement is pursued, it stands to harm Sam from various angles and that’s MY objection.

People think this is all about Ted/Rebecca when, personally, I’d lose (some) respect for Rebecca if she got involved with Sam. That would taint her for me. Because let’s be real, many of us are grossed out by Rupert dating, marrying, and then impregnating Bex. Yet, some are okay with Rebecca and Sam getting together and those who are against it are sexist? And I truly believe the same people supporting this ship are also grossed out by Rupert’s relationship.

How is Rupert’s relationship gross, but we shouldn’t obsess over age with Rebecca and Sam? People say Sam is mature enough to date Rebecca, which implies that Bex isn’t mature enough to be with Rupert and that IS sexist.

Even if the writers confirm tomorrow that Ted/Rebecca will never be a thing, I wouldn’t object any less to Sam/Rebecca. If Sam was Roy’s age and in Roy’s position, I’d have way less of an issue.

But you’re going to have a tough time convincing me that a young man who is 20/21 and employed by a 47 year woman who can heavily influence his career isn’t a massive power imbalance that shouldn’t be explored by fans.

I’m really curious to see how this post ages once the storyline plays out. But this post is about exploring what it means for Sam and Rebecca to get involved and how the accusations of infantilizing Sam doesn’t pass the sniff test.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Scotty Doesn’t Know

I am a man who was born in the Eighties, grew up in the Nineties, and came of age in the Aughts. I have lived a whole ass life and I'm not even forty yet. What i mean by that is i have seen many, many, films; Many of which would be frowned upon by those younger than i. I am speaking about the Raunchy Teen Comedy, specifically. Look, i love these problematic ass movies. Some of my absolute favorites reside in this rather uncouth sub-genre. Superbad, American Pie, Euro Trip, The Girl Next Door, Old School, The New Guy; I f*cking love all of these trashy flicks. Superbad, specifically, holds a very special place in my heart. It feel real. It feels like my high school experience. I had a close best friend. We were trying to hump on everything, all of the time. Beyond that, Superbad has real heart. Teenage shenanigans aside, that story was one of growth and maturation. It was beautiful. Plus, it gave us Emma Stone and she’s a whole ass national treasure.

Now, as dope as Superbad is, that sh*t is tame compared to it’s genre brethren. Take the first American Pie. There is just SO much sh*t in that thing which can be misconstrued as straight up predatory. Stifler is a whole ass menace and the sh*t Jim did to Nadia is downright felonious. Don’t broadcast masturbating girls on the internet without their knowledge, children. That is a crime. Don’t do crime. Questionable narrative choice aside, i unironically love this film. It’s f*cking hilarious. I mean, this movie is why the acronym MILF is even in the vernacular. That’s right, MILF originated in the first American Pie, coined by Spike Spiegel, himself, John Cho. The late Nineties and early Aughts were rife with these types of films, most of them terrible, all of them funny in one way or another. Fast forward to now and i haven’t seen anything even resembling this type of flick in probably a decade. What the f*ck happened?

To be honest, i think these thing are still being made but they’ve evolved. No longer are women used as sexual props. Nailing them as some sort of conquest that needs to be conquered, no longer drives these plots. I read somewhere that Booksmart is part of this sub-genre and it’s nothing like the films from my youth and yet, i would say it’s superior in so many ways. It’s not better than Superbad, that thing is the GOAT and tows the line between heartfelt relationship study and bombastic teenage hormone catastrophe perfectly, but it’s still really f*cking good. I think this growth reflects the reality of the youth nowadays. Back when i was young, it was all about JNCO jeans, raves, and smoking all of the pot. Kids nowadays are about pronouns and identity politics and it makes for different narrative fare. I’m never not going to yearn for an off-the-wall, borderline offensive, female nudity laden, crass ass comedy because my humor is simultaneously, contradictingly, gutter trash and pretentiously highbrow. I love Superbad and i miss those types of films but if we keep getting flicks as earnest and genuine as Booksmart, i am okay with not seeing Nadia double clicking her mouse on the internet.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Kissing Dead Pearls (Part 31)

He doesn’t know her anymore. He doesn’t know her at all. It becomes apparent the longer he is home. The trivial, surface level things are the same; her dark sense of humor and borderline childish banter, their inside jokes, occasional references to the fish game, her interests and hobbies. 

But this is only when he doesn’t dig deep. In flashes he hears a deeper depth to her dark humor, a mature edge to it. Her childish banter has a harsher edge to it as well, intended or not. 

 Her hobbies…

He remembers when she first started surfing. He remembers how she’d cried to him about how dreadful she was at it. He remembers attending her first competition where she was still making beginner’s errors. Sure she’d improved so drastically before he’d gone away. But this? This is different. 

He watches her weave seamlessly in and out of waves, doing tricks and maneuvers that he doesn’t have the surf lingo to name. Her stance is so bold and confident. 

And serious. 

The last time he’d seen her surf, her posture was lax and languid. Now she has a look of determination about her. A look that winning actually matters now. And he thinks that, to her, it does. 

At first things had been going well, he hadn’t even realized that the changes run that deep. He’d beaten the trio home. Kya had let an entire tray of fries, baked clams, burgers, and chicken wings clatter to the floor along with two blue raspberry slushies. And in an instant, probably the same one where the dinner plates clattered to the floor, his bleak mood had brightened. 

He was home, he was with his mother and father and everything was going to be perfectly okay.

“Sokka.” She squeaked. “Oh baby, you’re home. Hakoda, Hakoda! Sokka is home! Our baby came home.” She was crying. Weeping openly but with the brightest smile he had ever seen. One of the brightest...equally as bright as the one he’d woken up to in the hospital. 

She had hugged him so, so tightly that his blisters hadn’t mattered. Discomfort and pain was buried good and well under mounds of love and doting. 

“Well, whaddya know?” His father chuckled. “Our sailor has come home. He knew that he had to make it back on time for the school year.” 

“Dad!” He had laughed. He’d looked up to see Katara in the doorway, her eyes bright and optimistic. 

“You’ll never guess what happened, dad!” Katara grins. “There was a storm and…”

“How about this? Your mom and I are going to close up early, cook the four of you the best dishes La-bster’s will ever serve and you can tell us all about the high seas.” He had turned to Sokka with a mischievous glimmer in his eye. “And I expect the best story from you or you’re grounded.” 

And by all things good and gracious, it had been the greatest meal. He doesn’t think that it was just that it had been his first home cooked meal in ages, but that it truly had been the best meal they’d prepared. And maybe that was because they’d cooked it with that much more attention and, dare he say, love. But he had scarfed it down at a rate his doctors would have killed him over. 

And as he did, Katara talked about her near death experience and about this strange cat lady and then she began talking about how Azula had rode in a helicopter to help rescue him. He didn’t think he had ever seen his girlfriend look so entirely pleased with herself. That was saying something because his girlfriend is a rather smug person overall. 

By that time his meal had been well and finished and it was his turn to share his story. As he relayed it, Hakoda and Kya served dessert that he was much too full for. It was rather nice to be able to say that he was stuffed after who knows how long he’d been starved. It was starting to feel normal again. 

Dinner had gone so well and watching movies in his bedroom with Azula was going to go so well too. 

It should have. 

He wishes it did. 

He should have known that things were going to turn for the worst when Azula inquired, “so what did you think?”

“Of what?” He had asked. 

“The new interior design. Zuzu and I helped your parents and Katara work on it.” 

And then he started to realize that even La-bsters changed. He hadn’t even noticed at first, he wouldn’t have if she would have just kept quiet. 

But she was just waving all of these new developments in his face. The rational side of him, knew that she was just excited to hear his opinion on her work; it was just one more achievement.

But the emotionally worn side of him was agitated. Agitated and provoked. She was waving accomplishment after accomplishment in his face and what could he say that he achieved? She was just trying to rouse him with change after change. He remembers muttering something akin to, “it’s fine.”

He remembers the disheartened look on her face. He remembers how she visibly pushed that aside and smiled at him. He remembers feeling like a total dick for having even thought about being angry with her. 

If only she hadn’t pushed. 

If only she hadn’t offered to help him ‘change up his room a little’.

He watches her step off of her surfboard. He hopes that delivering her a hand cooked meal will make up for having snapped at her. He watches her say her ‘see ya laters’ and observes her look of disappointment when Jet snubs the farewell. Sokka waits until Jet snatches his board and sulks off to say, “hey, I made you something.”

Azula frowns, with a newly removed sling, her crossed arms pack a sturdier punch. 

“I just got back and you’re already mad at me.”

“Don’t play that game with me, Sokka.” She snaps. “You’ve been back for two weeks, your ass pass has expired.” 

“Can I get it renewed?” 

He catches the faintest betrayal of a smile. 

“I can go out and get hit by a jetski or something.” 

Azula sighs and takes the food. “What is it?”

“Taste it and see.”

“Sokka, I am not the sort to take daring risks.”

He quirks a brow. “So jumping out of a helicopter in stormy waters was what exactly?”

“A calculated risk weighed by pros and cons of success.” 

He doesn’t call her on that she hadn’t recognized him at first. He gets the impression that she knows because she takes her first forkful without peeking under the tinfoil it is wrapped in. “Bacon for dinner?”

“Bacon at all hours.” 

.oOo.

Azula tries to maintain her smile. She is trying to maintain a lot. She is trying to cling to a lot. She is trying to grasp at the novelty of having found Sokka. A novelty that is quite abruptly wearing off. 

Bacon at all hours. He is still that goofy kid that she has always known. And maybe that is a  good thing. Maybe it is she who is in the wrong for letting the world mold and harden her so. For letting it steal away the last remaining threads of childhood innocence. 

He is still Sokka, the same Sokka that she has always known. And she, herself? At her core, she is still her. She retains the frameworks and basics of who she used to be, but those aspects have evolved into something else. 

Something, perhaps, that Sokka can’t accept. 

Something that rifts them. 

She takes another bite of bacon. “Thanks for dinner, Sokka.”

“You’re still angry.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Sokka!” She grabs his hands. “I’m not. I promise. I’m just tired from practice.”

She knows that he knows that, that is bullshit. She is still the same, enough for him to know that much. But she is different enough to wonder if she could have outgrown him. 

She is beginning to think that, perhaps, saving him had been enough. That just knowing that he is alive and well is enough. That she can still have his friendship. 

And then what of Jet? Would he feel more or less used? Would he be thrilled to see she and Sokka grow distant?

She tries to force it out of her mind. They just need to get to know each other again. They just need to fill in the holes and adapted to how they’ve changed. She just fears that Sokka isn’t interested in embracing change. Even if that change is simply embracing who she has become.

Who he has become.

[cxhnow]

Growing Up With Chloe x Halle

The Bailey sisters on why they didn’t switch up overnight — the world just caught up to their speed.

On their 2018 debut album The Kids Are Alright and on Freeform’s Grown-ish, a 19- and 17-year-old Chloe and Halle Bailey sang “Watch out world, I’m grown now.” So you’ll have to forgive them for acting out a little on their new sophomore record — they warned us. While Ungodly Hour might sound like a pivot to the grown ‘n’ sexy side of R&B similar to plenty of their peers, trading TKAA’s colorful doodles for chrome angel wings and skin-tight latex, they’re really just living the same truths they preached up and down TKAA: Own your insecurities, work hard, don’t get distracted by drama. “When we created this album, we said, Okay, we want to show all the different sides and layers of us,” Chloe tells me, sitting side by side with her sister, over Zoom from their family home in Los Angeles. “We don’t just want to show this one side. A lot of people still think we’re teenagers.”

Now 22 and 20, the former child stars are ready to explore the topics they’ve been singing about since they were kids making covers on YouTube, the ones that landed them a record deal with music royalty before they were old enough to vote. The new album calls out former flings, seethes with jealousy, and apologizes when necessary. Lyrics like “It’s four o’clock / you sendin’ me too many pictures of your …” and “No drama, no baby mamas” immediately started dating rumors online, roping in their Grown-ish co-star Diggy Simmons. While most fans are having fun with it, those a little, um, outside of the Baileys’ age demographic are still struggling (try to get through this Breakfast Club questioning without cringing). In case you missed it: They no longer have to change Beyoncé lyrics from “You showed your ass” to “You showed your butt” — on “Do It,” they proudly sing “I’m a bad girl, shake a li’l ass.” Alongside all the perks of growing up, the album makes sure to normalize the struggles, too.

When the coronavirus pandemic sent Halle home to L.A. from The Little Mermaid rehearsals in London, their house (complete with mom, dad, and younger brother, Branson) became their album rollout headquarters. One of the few albums to not be pushed due to the coronavirus, Ungodly Hour was originally planned for June 5, but the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, and far too many others across the country, created a moment that Chloe and Halle felt they couldn’t ignore. They pushed the album one week, to June 12, and continued to use their platform to share petitions, funds, and awareness, while also personally signing petitions and making donations. As both an escape and work, they’ve been focusing their energy on the album, diving into elaborate DIY remote performances and mashing up songs, but making sure to leave Sundays for rest. After a busy weekend tearing up the BET Awards and Global Citizen virtual stages, channeling Aaliyah in one performance and going full rock and roll in the other, they’ll be back on Instagram Live this Thursday for Ungodly Hour Tea Time, where they often chill out in Snuggies, try to remember what day of quarantine it is, and update their supporters on their lives.

How has it been, emotionally, to have to sing and dance while all of this turmoil is happening? Halle Bailey: Emotionally, what’s keeping us afloat is music and feeling better through the art. I think that’s why we love music so much because even though we create it and we sing it, we use it as our healer, too. Everything going on really makes you reflect. But we’re young black women, this hasn’t been anything new to us. Our community has known about this for a very long time, and it’s constantly upsetting. But what I’m appreciating about technology and social media is that our voices can’t be silenced anymore. And the things that they used to try to hide, they can’t any longer. We’re seeing these injustices happen over video, and [so is] the rest of the world who’s usually ignorant to the racism that’s been underlying in this community. They’re seeing it and they’re upset as well. So it’s good because change can only happen when we’re all working towards a common goal. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this.

I feel like every time we have one of these moments where everyone is just mourning so publicly in such a communal way, there’s also music that uplifts us. Talk me through deciding to postpone the album.

HB:  During the height of the George Floyd protests, emotionally, we just were not right to release a project. Our little brother and our father — when we see a video of George Floyd getting killed in the street, we think that could be them tomorrow. And we wanted to shine the light on what needs to be seen. That George Floyd video, Breonna Taylor, all of the other brothers and sisters that we have lost to police brutality — that is what needed to be at the forefront and what still needs to be at the forefront.

And when The Kids Are Alright came out that was right around March for Our Lives, the Women’s March was happening. How does this moment compare for you?

Chloe Bailey: Wow, now that I’m thinking about it, this time, it feels a bit more like change is really going to happen. Around The Kids Are Alright, we went to the March for Our Lives and we were around that incredible energy; it was really positive and uplifting because we were all banding together. But for some reason, this time right now … I feel like we have the entire world’s attention. Actual change is going to come out of what’s been happening. So, it feels the same but different, right?

HB: Yeah, I definitely think this one feels more massive. Feels like, Okay, maybe we’re getting somewhere this time. Maybe it won’t just go away a week after all of this is over, you know?

In the early stages of Ungodly Hour, did you go in wanting it to be something that showcased your maturity? Or did that come out as you were going with it?

HB: We absolutely knew that we wanted it to showcase our growth, the evolution of us into young women. Because I feel like The Kids Are Alright was very much us finding ourselves and that project took three years to make. So with that length, you can kind of go through and see like, Oh, wow, they must have been really shifting through and figuring out what’s wrong and what’s right. So, for this project, it was like, Yes, we are here. We are now grown women. I’m 20. My sister’s about to be 22 this week.

CB: Hey!

HB: So we took that and we were just like, Let’s show who we’ve become. And let’s show the side of us that people don’t see whether it’s the naughtier side of us or the insecure side of us, or the part that picks every single thing apart about ourselves out. We wanted to show all the layers of us as young women, once you kind of know who you are, but also you’re still learning.

You’ll never be a finished product.

CB: Never, constantly evolving. And that’s the goal.

There have always been glimpses at your boss-bitch attitudes, hints of it in your music and on Grown-ish. Do you ever get the sense that you’re waiting for the industry and fans to sort of open their eyes and catch up to where you’re at?

CB: I’m not gonna lie, there are some moments. And I remember when we were even creating this album we were putting a certain pressure on ourselves. Because we were thinking, What do we want the world to hear from us? What do we think the world wants us to sound like? What would make people become more receptive to us? I remember we were creating for, like, one to two months in that mind-set, and we were creating some of the worst music we ever have.

HB: Yeah, it was. It was trash.

CB: It was because we weren’t creating from our hearts. We weren’t being honest with ourselves, and as a musician, you gotta be vulnerable and share that true part of yourself or the music isn’t going to be very good. Once we threw that out the window and said, You know what, let’s create a good body of art, the album continued to write itself. But that main lesson for us was never change yourself; the world will catch up to you when it’s ready. I feel like they’re kinda ready now for this project. It’s older and more mature than The Kids Are Alright because we’re older and more mature than who we were when we created that.

In making a more vulnerable album, were you nervous about expanding your image in that way? Was there anything that you debated not including or things that didn’t make the cut?

HB: Wow, so, I will say that our parents kind of had a hard time … well, not a hard time, but just like opening their eyes to the fact that, Okay, these are the topics that we’ve decided to talk about. This is what’s happening. It was really fun for us to watch them. I completely understand how they feel because, you know, we’ve been just little babies to them and now we’re growing and they’re hearing [about] certain things that we’ve been through, or that we just wrote in the music. They have been like, “Oh, okay, so that’s that.”

Fans tweet collabs at you all the time, but what’s your actual approach to choosing who you work with? (Ungodly Hour features just two major collaborations: Swae Lee on “Catch Up” and the title track with Disclosure.)

CB: Definitely we have to be fans of them, number one. Even though we make music, we are such big music fans and music lovers. Two, we have to feel like the person can sonically fit the song. We don’t want to throw just anyone on a song just because they have a big name, which is really cool too. It’s really great to get big features. But it’s so funny because we have a big wish list of who we hear on which songs and some people bite, some people don’t. It’s always fun to see what the end result will be. And I know we’ll start putting out remixes and stuff soon, which will be fun.

HB: It’s very interesting because it’s hard during the creative process. You kind of have to open yourself up to somebody you do not know when you make music; it’s a part of your heart that you’re sharing. So, it’s a very intimate thing to do with a stranger. Which is why with my sister it’s really easy. But when it comes to us working with new people, we gravitate towards the ones who have very open spirits and souls, nice people.

Chloe, would you ever produce for other artists?

CB: Absolutely, 1,000 percent. That would be so much fun. I would be getting out of my comfort zone, because the only person who I can comfortably produce in front of is my sister and blast it loud over the speakers. Whenever we have other sessions with other producers and we’re collaborating, I’ll put my headphones in, I won’t blast it on the aux with theirs. I have my little computer on my lap because I like using weird sounds and samples and chopping them up in a weird way. Sometimes it’s trial and error, so I don’t want people to hear my mistakes.

HB: She’s amazing and she should just blast it everywhere she goes, okay?

CB: I would definitely love, love, love to do that.

Yes, we want to hear you everywhere! So, when shelter in place started, you guys very flawlessly transitioned to doing these home covers and incredible remote performances. What’s the process of coming up with these concepts, especially the more elaborate ones?

HB: Oh my gosh, it’s really just a bunch of play. When we’re coming up with concepts, our creative director Andrew Makadsi is really amazing at seeing our vision for the songs before we actually perform them live. It’s been really interesting and exciting to have new songs to play with. But as far as the covers, you know, those are easy. We can do those in our sleep; we just love singing other people’s songs.

How long does it take to pull together a remote performance like the Today show one for example?

CB: Our amazing creative director came up with that and it took him a day. He just kept sending us a bunch of references and photo ideas he thought of and we picked the backdrop we wanted. The song arrangement, because we always like to switch it up every time, takes —

HB: Like a day.

CB: It takes us like ten minutes to arrange the songs. But then we took some of the choreography [by Kendra Bracy and Ashanti Ledon] that we learned during the music video shoot, and we added new choreography ourselves for the Today show performance. We were like on the floor and stuff — we did that the night before we filmed it. That took us like 30 minutes because we wanted to make sure the moves weren’t awkward because we’re not choreographers, so we would prop up our iPhone and that would be our little dance-studio mirror.

You guys are really doing it by yourselves in quarantine. So, what’s the tennis court situation? Has that always been there?

HB: Yeah, it has actually, we just haven’t really used it. I mean, we’ve been where we live for about two years now. We never really thought to use it until quarantine happened ‘cause we always go somewhere else to shoot performances. That’s been a beautiful evolution — using what we have. We feel so blessed to just be able to do what we love and also do it somewhere nice.

The tennis court performances have been life-giving.

CB: It’s been so useful, from the at-home photo shoots we have to do and then the performances, like I’m so grateful. We don’t actually know how to play tennis, but there are basketball hoops on each side so our little brother Branson’s usually out there. So, when we do have to do these things, I feel bad because he’s always out there shooting hoops, but he’s like, “Okay, you can have it for two hours …” [x]

[toko-ton]

Kizuna novel ch.3-4 notes

Ch. 3:

- Back in chapter 2, when Yamato asks the 02 group to investigate Menoa, Ken mentions that he's heard of her, and he specifically says that he knows she's a prodigy who skipped grades to get into college early and has a doctorate and some patents. I didn't think of it until I realized that she's actually close in age to the Adventure kids, but the part about skipping grades reminded me of this:

I wonder if maybe Ken first heard about Menoa because people insisted on comparing him to her back when he was the Kaiser?

- Menoa wasn't blocked from entering the Digital World, so presumably anyone with the tech to open a gate can go there, regardless of whether they have a Digimon partner or not. Which means that partner Digimon do cease to exist in both worlds when their bond disappears, because otherwise, she'd be able to reunite with Morphomon.

- I know it's supposed to be a serious scene, but it's almost comedic when Taichi and Yamato brag about having the edge in numbers and experience as Greymon and Garurumon finish off Eosmon, only for Menoa to casually snap her fingers and summon an entire swarm.

- Menoa indirectly explains the origin of Eosmon's name. She spent years trying to bring Morphomon back, but failed trying to bring the data to life. Then on the day the mysterious aurora appeared three months ago, she was suddenly able to create Eosmon, who was presumably named after the aurora. (I'm kind of surprised that the book doesn't point out that Eos and Aurora were equivalent Greek and Roman goddesses. I guess they assumed that people already know that?)

- If Menoa only made Eosmon three months ago, why has Imura been investigating her for years? It's never hinted that she did anything illegal or even unethical before that point, unless people have a problem with her trying to create a Digimon.

- Sora is the only one of the original Adventure kids missing from Menoa's neverland. Even without Koushirou's list, Menoa knows who all of them are, so I guess it must have already been too late by the time Menoa tried to send an Eosmon?

- If Menoa and Eosmon can't reunite people with Digimon partners who have already been lost (or at least illusions of them), then this scene confirms that Meicoomon did come back to life at some point.

- Menoa insists over and over that all the Chosen are there of their own free will, no mental influence involved, but the fact that they all turn silent and emotionless with glowing red eyes makes that a little bit difficult to believe.

Ch. 4:

- Eosmon start popping out of internet-connected devices all over the world and attacking Chosen. Despite Hawkmon warning that it's probably a bad idea, Miyako uses her laptop to try to find information on what's happening in the confusion, and of course, she only ends up letting another one through.

- Yamato must have given them a partial explanation at some point, since Daisuke knows enough to guess that the Digimon they're fighting are Eosmon. Likewise, Iori worries that the chaos means that something has happened to Yamato and the others, but they're too busy fighting off Eosmon to do anything to help.

- The entire 02 team seems to be calling Yamato "Yamato-senpai" now, or at least Daisuke, Ken, and Iori all do. (I don't think Miyako ever says his name, so I'm not sure about her.)

- Taichi and Yamato are hiding, uncertain of what to do. After some encouragement from Gabumon and Agumon (who says he gets the feeling that they'll be with Taichi and Yamato forever), the two of them resolve to fight. Taichi, who had been wearing his old goggles around his neck, finally puts them up on his head and says "We'll show them the bonds we have. Let's do this!"

- The kids with Menoa are back to playing with their Digimon, and still acting extremely creepy: The children gazed at Menoa with eyes filled with adoration. Perhaps she seemed like a goddess or Madonna to them.

- Daisuke and Ken don't evolve Paildramon or Imperialdramon even though the 02 team is having a rough time fending off all the Eosmon. I guess Yamato must have warned them to avoid unnecessary evolutions, even if he didn't say why? They're much too upbeat to have been confronted with the full truth.

- This just occurred to me... The Eosmon aren't invisible, so back in chapter 1, how did one of them steal Ayaka's consciousness in the middle of a restaurant without being seen?

- After Eosmon defeats Omegamon, the other Adventure kids restrain Taichi and Yamato to keep them from running to Agumon and Gabumon (Hikari and Koushirou for Taichi, and Takeru, Mimi, and Jou for Yamato), and then their partners start attacking the two.

- As soon as they come to their senses, Hikari and the others return to their present-day appearances. Koushirou is fascinated by the evolved Eosmon, and Tentomon has to exasperatedly remind him that he really doesn't have time to stand around lost in thought.

- Menoa lost her partner when she got into college... because she wanted to be self-sufficient? It looks like they're trying to portray partner Digimon as existing solely for the kids' personal growth, and that's why they disappear when the kids are sufficiently mature? I'm not a fan of the idea. (Just to be completely clear, the the scenes of the Digimon disappearing strongly gave me this impression, but it isn’t explicitly stated anywhere. So it’s entirely possible that this isn’t what the creators intended.)

- I mean, I don’t think that the sudden and traumatic loss of one of your closest loved ones is a good metaphor for the struggles of becoming an adult.

- I'm also not fond of the way it reduces the Digimon to literal props for the kids, in-universe, even if the original anime never did a particularly good job of treating them as individuals.

- "Menoa! I'll save you!" Taichi yelled. Yamato shouted, "Your choice wasn't a mistake!" "But even if a choice leads to something happening..." "We have to live in the future we chose!" (This dialogue would work better for me if the kids had any meaningful choice in the first place. Menoa was going to lose Morphomon before long, no matter what she did.)

- "We may not be able to change fate*..." "But we can change our destiny**!" * 宿命 = absolute, unchangeable fate ** 運命 = destiny/fate in general (Why are they so sure that losing their Digimon is the latter and not the former? What makes Taichi and Yamato’s refusal to accept the loss of their partners optimism, while Menoa’s is just denial?)

- Sorry if this has been a little too negative! I do like Kizuna overall, especially for the character interaction. I’m just disappointed in this particular element of the plot.

- I’ve now finished the book, and they never do explain the aurora that allowed Eosmon to come to life. I wonder if it’ll be brought up again if there’s a sequel?

- I can’t think of anything else I want to comment on right now, so just in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen it yet, I’ll link to Onkei’s summary again:

https://pastebin.com/hqVwmAaS

It’s much more comprehensive than my notes here (especially since I tried to focus on things that weren’t already covered there), so if you haven’t already, go read it!

- Also, I’ll be glad to answer any questions about the story (if I can), so if there’s anything you’re curious about, please feel free to ask!

[boredom-reigns]

Ken Amada : Character Introspection

Persona 3 and some P4:AU Spoilers!

Ken Amada is honestly one of my favourite Persona 3 characters. I know the way his character arc was handled was somewhat flawed (like when he basically doesn't matter after the closure of Oct. 4), but I still love him a lot nevertheless.

My main problem is honestly the fact that a lot of people in the fandom hate him so much it can get grating, especially if it's for nonsensical reasons (like him apparently being the cause of Shinjiro's death even though the person who shot the guy was right there).

I mean, not liking characters is fine. I respect other people's opinions. But spreading misinformation based on a misinterpretation of a scene is... yeah.

Note: These are my opinions and interpretations of his character based on P3 and P4:AU. Other opinions and interpretations are welcome!

First off, like most Persona characters, Ken's character is based off an archetype. Ken's archetype, you could say that it's based on the Adorably Precocious Child trope. He's acts too mature for his age, even trying to hide his childishness by denying the fact he watches Featherman and saying that he drinks black coffee.

But this maturity came at a cost. From the little glimpses of childishness that Ken has shown (for example, the movie showing event where he's basically jumping up and down in happiness because the superhero movie was so cool!) along with his reinforcement of the idea that no, he's capable even at 11 years old (one of his battle voice lines is "Don't underestimate me because of my age") makes me believe that he wasn't always like this. He was forced to mature due to circumstances or he forced himself to mature due to circumstances.

What was this circumstance?

Obviously, the death of his mom.

Ken's mom is a huuuggeee part of his life and basically affected him a lot. Her death made him what he was today. First is that he saw her get murdered right in front him. Of course he's going to be traumatised. Not only that, he had something to direct his anger and hatred to (I'll talk about that later).

But when he told people about what he saw, nobody believed him, obviously. But remember this, Ken was a kid. He was 9 at the time. And he was 100% sure that what he saw was real. When he was being basically labeled as a liar because everyone won't believe him and just treated him as some fragile, traumatised kid, he's going to lash out. He knew it was real yet everyone just thinks that he was lying. He didn't think that obviously no one would believe him because he was deep in grief and hatred. He wanted justice. But no one would help him because everyone's saying that it was an accident. And he hated that.

He had a target to hate, yet he was powerless to inflict punishment (his idea of "justice") on that target.

So he wanted to be capable. If no one's going to help him, then so be it. He'll do his own justice. So Ken forced himself to grow up. He forced himself to be more mature, copying the image of capability he believes in.

Another thing that possibly added to Ken forcing himself to mature is the way people treated him afterwards. To outsiders, he was a traumatised kid. Ken says in his conversation with Shinjiro that he just receives pity no matter where he goes and he hates that pity.

I've seen LPs where they're like "huh, but isn't that good?" to that line. Speaking as someone who has lost a loved one and dealed with other people who lost a loved one, expressing pity is a balancing act.

It's hard to express pity because people deal with grief differently and some people despise pity when they're grieving. Some people are of the mentality of "what use is your pity because it's not going to bring them back!". Being treated differently because you lost someone or being treated as some fragile person made of glass who's going to have a breakdown at any time is horrible. Moving on can be so hard when everyone is tiptoeing around you. And I think that's what Ken felt.

What Ken needed during his grieving was someone who would support him. Someone who believed in him. He didn't need someone who just stood along the sidelines and pitied him. He needed someone who actually approached him and bothered to listen. I feel like that was what Ken was looking for: someone to listen to him. Because everyone around him never listens and just calls him off as a liar. He had no support system whatsoever. He was staying alone in the elementary school dorm and from the convenience store bentos in his room that can be seen in P3D, you can infer that he was forced to take care of himself for 2 years. For 2 years, all he got was financial support and never the needed emotional support.

Because of this, he was left to internalise his grief which then evolved into hatred. He didn't have anybody anymore. There was no point in living for him because his mom, his light, was gone. No one else was there to give him a reason to live. No family, no friends, no one who believes in him. Ken felt that it was only him against the world.

So why should he keep on living?

And this is where the idea that he has a target enters in. This target of his hatred became his one and only purpose. Why? Because it was the only thing that was there for him. He had no one and nothing. The only thing he had in life was this target of his extreme hatred. The target for his justice. Giving the rightful punishment to this target became his only purpose in life to the point that after killing Shinjiro, he was going to kill himself. Ken's only reason to live was to kill Shinjiro for revenge.

As for his entire "Mom would've wanted this.", I feel like that's more of him trying to justify his actions. He had a target of his giref: Shinjiro. He wanted to kill Shinjiro because Shinjiro killed his mom. But murder is a very daunting task. Even Ken hesitated. I feel like he just justified himself with "Mom would've wanted this." so he can do it. Because killing Shinjiro is the only thing left in life for him. It's the only thing he can do now. He had no reason for living other than Shinjiro's death. So he tried to justify it so he would be able to get through doing it and to give him more reasons as to why he should really do it and not hesitate.

On October 4, it was an utter disaster especially when Takaya (*cough* Shinjiro's real killer *cough* people who keep insisting that Ken is the killer) arrived. At this part, Ken finds out about Shinjiro's drug deal. He loses his shit because he finds out that Shinjiro's going to die early anyway no matter what he does. Killing Shinjiro at this point felt like knocking someone who was already down. It had no point. And because killing Shinjiro had no point, Ken's entire purpose for living had no point. So... He had no purpose.

And this was why Ken went "I have no reason to live."

Other things we can actually see on October 4 is that Ken does care about SEES. He joined SEES with ulterior motives but in the end, he cares. He pretended that he was the navigator to make sure that Takaya won't find out about Fuuka and that Takaya would target him. The time he spent in SEES was most likely the most emotional support he got (and that's kinda sad because SEES is like the most dysfunctional party out of all the Persona games (except maybe P2:EP?)). He got people who saw the same things he saw, people who understood him. He got people who actually bothered to talk to him and listen. Heck, you can even bring him to the movies which I'm sure is great because who knows how long has that kid haven't seen a movie or had fun. There's people who actually don't treat him with so much pity. That fact that you can bring him to Tartarus, I think he's glad about that because he's not underestimated. Ken was respected in SEES as an equal and he appreciated it.

After the entire Oct. 4 shenanigans, Ken has learned to look into himself. He realized his mistakes, his deep hatred blinding him, but most of all, he found a reason to live. He finally moved on, and decided to live as that was what his mom and Shinjiro would've truly wanted.

Then fast forward to P4:AU we can see that he's indeed living. He's pretty much the most popular guy in school, he's in Student Council, and he's even in the soccer club. But he can't fully live yet.

If you've P3 episode of P4:AU, you'd play the Ken vs Shadow Ken part which actually reveals a lot about post-P3 Ken. If you haven't, watch it here.

Ken can't be 100% content with his current life. He feels fake, being a child again, going to school normally and having friends his age to talk and laugh with. This is because of how much his past has destroyed his childhood. He was forced to mature, forced to see things his age shouldn't see, forced to experience things that he shouldn't experience that age. No one his age could understand. They were too innocent while the ones who could understand him (SEES) were too old.

An interesting thing about his entire image post-P3 is that he was basically the "ideal student". He was handsome, smart, athletic, responsible, etc. It makes me wonder if he got that image because it was what he thought was what living was (which his mom and Shinjiro wanted) or because that was what people expected of him. I can see him trying to be more of a child because people expected him to be lighter as the entire Tartarus-Nyx dilemma was gone. I can also see him forcing himself to be more of a child as he feels the obligation to take back the childhood he lost. But that's it, he forced himself. He's not content because for him, he's fake.

Ken's fake he only wanted to fight and this affects him. I think he wanted to fight because that felt the closest to his true self: who he was when he was with SEES. He wanted to help the Shadow Operatives because it was the only environment he can be 100% honest to himself. No pretending that he had a normal life. It was living as him, with people who knew him. In the end, it circles back to the point that he finds fighting Shadows as a purpose to live.

This chapter also showed that Shinjiro still affects him. He blames himself for what happened on October 4, with his monologues saying that he committed a mistake in relation to Shinjiro's death. Shinjiro is an important person to him and his death was very much impactful.

Then Ken fights his fake, where he says that he's been "conceited" and "didn't understand anything at all". I take this as a point of enlightenment for him. What he didn't understand was "living". He followed a mold that be felt he should follow. He thought that he could only feel true to himself by only fighting supernatural creatures. He realised that he wasn't truly living at this point. He thought he understood that he was living like how his mom and Shinjiro wanted but he wasn't. He was still stuck in the past.

This was why I loved his epilogue. In his epilogue, he decides to quit the Shadow Operatives. He decides that it was time for him to move on from their dark past and continue living, not only for his mom and Shinjiro, but also for himself. He thinks that it was better for him this way. He gets to regain his childhood.

His fangirls notice that he's become less distant and more warm to approach, showing signs that he's beginning to open up to people. Despite the fact that he can never tell people about the whole Shadows and Personas, he can still make new bonds. He doesn't have to be stuck on one bond.

This doesn't mean he's abandoning SEES. He still recognises his string bond with them, one might even say that they're family at this point. But just because he has a bond with them doesn't mean he should only restrict himself to them. He can make new, true bonds that aren't fake.

He finds out how to truly live. He just enjoys the moment and finally lets go, showing his inner child.

Ken's character is all about the purpose of life. Because even if life is so hard it feels like death, there's always a reason to live. Even if you can't find your purpose to live now, you will find it someday.

[theseventhhex]

Gaz Coombes Interview

Gaz Coombes

Photo by Steve Keros

For some, Gaz Coombes is just the mutton-chopped likely lad who peaked with Supergrass mega-single “Alright”. Those people are missing out. The trio were perhaps Britpop’s most underrated band and their talisman’s solo career has continued to burnish a robust and quietly brilliant talent. ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is Coombes’ most confident solo album yet - a satisfying coalition of Here Come the Bombs’ trippy chutzpah and Mercury Prize-nominated Matador’s melodic sure-footedness. This is a carefully layered record to play right through entailing wrestling personal demons, middle-age and digital interruption. All the while, Gaz is moving forward with experimental synths, raw-boned riffs and wistful vocals distributed throughout in a striking manner… The Seventh Hex talks to Gaz about his lyrical perspectives, soundtracking movies and family time…

TSH: With ‘World’s Strongest Man’ you’ve found a pace that not only suited you but also allowed you to better transcribe your ideas into music. How liberated do you feel in the wake of this release?

Gaz: Yeah, it definitely feels good. To be able to find a rhythm following on from ‘Matador’ is so useful and it feels like a seamless continuation for me. There are definitely things that I changed around for this record and I also had different approaches to my writing and my starting points stylistically were varied too. I started this album on a high point after ‘Matador’ and I felt a bit of pressure to make something better than last time. However, I embraced this challenge and everything was smooth all in all.

TSH: During your twenties and thirties you felt part of a bubble being in a band, riding the wave and not looking around much. Now you’re in a better place...

Gaz: Yeah, I think life’s just more colourful now, which isn’t always for the better, but things are more positive overall. I encounter more challenges and more layers to my life than life I did in my mid-20s. Back then my life had a singular direction, and like you said, I was in a band bubble. I guess it’s a good thing to have more colour around you. Maybe it’s the fact that you grow up and mature, therefore you tap into more shit as a writer, which is cool.

TSH: With this latest release you’re opening up about some of the darker viewpoints of life. Did you feel compelled to cover stark issues?

Gaz: I think so. I mean even with the first album I was trying to write lyrics that were direct and kind of uncensored. It’s all about being honest and instinctive really. We did the same with Supergrass too, where we would write together and kind of create the idea together on the same page. With my solo stuff I enjoy being clear and straight to the point. For me, it’s all about getting the tone right, I don’t want to write something that’s overly morose or up your own arse.

TSH: Knowing that it can be difficult to transcribe what’s in your own mind, how do you overcome this block?

Gaz: It can be a challenge but the main core of inspiration in my head comes in the early moments. I have little lines, an odd lyric or a hook that emerges early on. It’s good that there’s something there quite early on that I can keep a hold of. However, it can take quite a while to translate what’s happening in my head in the right way. I guess I like to mix things up... With the lyrics that I come up with I like to have some lines which are direct, clear and dark and then I may go off in the next verse and be more visceral and more abstract - I like to be vague at times. I like lyrics that are a bit more poetic but yet they have a hard hitting hook that’s quite direct - I like that combination of writing and keeping it abstract at times.

TSH: How does the song ‘Oxygen Mask’ involve your two daughters...

Gaz: Part of the idea of that song is that my daughters could hear it maybe when they’re older. It’s like a time capsule and sort of a reference to how I see things at this point in time in 2018. It’s to do with the advances in science and also this giant echo chamber that we all live in online. I guess it’s kind of in relation to just taking a moment and making sure that you’ve got yourself set before you kind of start to judge or comment on other people. Getting one’s own house in order is where the oxygen mask metaphor came from. The opening line ‘What lies out in front of you, I know you'll work it out’ has the message of navigating in the right way, but if all goes weird have a listen to this when you’re older.

TSH: Did you have a direction in mind as you started work on ‘Deep Pockets’?

Gaz: I didn’t have a direction in mind for that song early on actually. It just stated with a drum machine and a bass guitar in my studio. I usually start with this type of method to spark an idea. For this one, I just used bass guitar and a drum machine for ages. The hook really intrigued me, but it took a few weeks before I came up with the chorus and guitars which have a Robert Fripp kind of chaos going on, in addition to the underground kind of drone thing in the chorus. We spent a lot of time on that one and it took quite a few sessions to get right, but I’m really pleased with the end result.

TSH: Are you tampering much with the compositions when you play these songs live?

Gaz: I guess the tracks are very close to the record when we play them live. It’s also worth noting that at the start of the year we spent two months in a room, myself and the band, just working through stuff for this album. Over time the material evolved with my band and there was this really nice instinctive feel coming into play. So now when we play live it’s great to play with a band than can help to rework these songs and put their own personalities into it.

TSH: What was it like to perform on the James Corden show during your US tour?

Gaz: It was great. The US tv shows just know how to look after you. It’s a whole different ball game out there. It’s quite common in the UK to be sat waiting in some big car park. However, the glamour and scale of production in America is just off the scale.

TSH: Being a huge movie fan, have you seen any films lately?

Gaz: I haven’t watched as many as I’d like to in recent times. I actually watched Deadpool 2, which I thought was quite funny, but weirdly sick in places too.

TSH: Does soundtracking movies still fascinate you?

Gaz: Absolutely. We actually did a track with Jonny Greenwood for ‘Inherent Vice’. I’ve always had such a huge fascination with soundtracking for movies. I love how music in a movie changes things - how it can really alter a scene or a moment with the right music behind it - it can totally transform your viewing experience.

TSH: How beneficial is it to form your demos from home and do your work in your own space?

Gaz: It just means I can get ideas out quicker. I guess I’ve always done it, even with Supergrass I’d do demos on a 4 track cassette recorder just to get an idea and get it down for later. Now things are different because I can do the same thing but have something that can end up on a record and not necessarily be badly recorded or unlistenable in ways. It’s great to go down in the morning and bash out ideas and keep them and come back to them months down the line. I love the first takes and performances where I don’t know quite what I’m doing, I like it when the music feels instinctive and not calculated.

TSH: Does being at home with your family give you the high-levels of positivity that you need when you’re off tour?

Gaz: Well, that’s the trick isn’t it? Trying to maintain the positivity. It’s mostly the little things that keep you grounded, just hanging out with the kids, watching a movie with them or having a family lunch in town. Having a bit of family time always levels me out.

TSH: Looking ahead, is the key parameter for you not to repeat yourself whilst moving forward and progressing with fresh ideas?

Gaz: Yeah, that’s one of the elements I strive for and look to improve on. Also, the drive that I need to improve in all factors of my life is all encompassing for me too. Regarding the music, I know that in a couple of months I’ll get that feeling of little ideas or combinations of things emerging in my head for new music. I know stems will emerge from me just thinking about something I’ve not heard and thinking ‘I’d love to do that!’ These kinds of ideas occur and play through in my head and then I’ll go into the studio and try and make things happen.

Gaz Coombes - “Walk The Walk”

World's Strongest Man

[smokeybrand]

Scotty Doesn’t Know

I am a man who was born in the Eighties, grew up in the Nineties, and came of age in the Aughts. I have lived a whole ass life and I'm not even forty yet. What i mean by hat is i have seen many, many, films, a lot of which would be frowned upon by those younger than i. I am speaking about the Raunchy Teen Comedy, specifically. Look, i love these problematic films. Some of my absolute favorites reside in this rather uncouth sub-genre. Superbad, American Pie, Euro Trip, The Girl Next Door, Old School, The New Guy; I f*cking love all of these trashy ass flicks. Superbad, specifically, holds a very special lace in my heart. It feel real. It feels like my high school experience. I had a close best friend. We were trying to hump on everything, all of the time. Beyond that, Superbad has real heart. Teenage shenanigans aside, that story was one of growth and maturation. It was beautiful Plus, it gave us Emma Stone and she’s a whole as national treasure.

Now, as dope as Superbad is, that sh*t is tame compared to it’s genre brethren. Take the first American Pie. There is just SO much sh*t in that thing which can be misconstrued as straight up predatory. Stifler is a whole ass menace and the sh*t Jim did to Nadia is downright felonious. Don’t broadcast masturbating girls on the internet without their knowledge, children. That is a crime. Don’t do crime. Questionable narrative choice aside, i unironically love this film. It’s f*cking hilarious. I mean, this movie is why the acronym MILF is even in the vernacular. That’s right, MILD originated in the first American Pie, coined by Spike Spiegel, himself, John Cho. The late Nineties and early Aughts were rife with these types of films, most of them terrible, all of them funny in one way or another. Fast forward to ow and i haven’t seen anything even resembling this type of lick in probably a decade. What the f*ck happened?

To be honest, i think these thing are still being made but they’ve evolved. No longer are women used as sexual props, nailing them as some sort of conquest that needs to be conquered, drives these plots. I read somewhere that Booksmart is part of this sub-genre and it’s nothing like the films from my youth and yet, i would say it’s superior in a lot of ways. It’s not better than Superbad, that thing is the goat and tows the line between heartfelt relationship study and bombastic teenage hormone catastrophe perfectly, but it’s still really f*cking good. I think this growth reflects the reality of the youth nowadays. Back when i was young, it was all about JNCO jeans, raves, and smoking all of the pot. Kids nowadays are about pronouns and identity politics and it makes for different narrative fare. I’m never not going to yarn for an off the wall, borderline offensive, female nudity laden, crass ass comedy because my humor is simultaneously, contradicting, gutter trash and pretentiously highbrow. I love Superbad and i miss those types of films but if we keep getting flicks as earnest and genuine as Booksmart, i am okay with not seeing Nadia double clicking her mouse on the internet.

[frederator-studios]

Meet Joel Veitch and David P. Shute, Creators of “Kid Arthur”

From the dawning of 2000 AD - when Adobe Systems first pulled Flash from the Software Stone - British animators Joel Veitch and David Shute have crafted absurd and iconic web comedy for their site, Rather Good. They are bricklayers of our Modern Age of Memes; but beyond builders, they are Wizards of the Web, gracing our desktops with such magic as the Spongmonkeys and Punk Kittens Play ‘Fell in Love With a Girl’ by the White Stripes, memes that thrived even in the dark ether of the pre-YouTube web. Frederator is honored to have aided in their maturity into long-form content, heralded by the release of their GO! Cartoon, “Kid Arthur,” which comes in at a whopping 5 minutes and 40 seconds long. Joel, David and I sat about a round table to discuss out-of-control saxophonists, dial-up modems, and wizard cats of great Magick.

So how did you each find your way into animation?

JV: We were both already in animation when we met, weren’t we David? DS: I was fairly newly graduated at the time. I studied animation at Uni - Southampton University - and was doing adverts for a while before I met Joel. JV: I started off more on the web comedy side, and drifted into animation when I began learning Flash in the early 2000s. I soon realized that my heart lay with that more than anything else. I made a couple of things that did alright and it became possible to do it for a living… so yeah, I kind of fell into animation by accident, but loved it once I’d discovered it.

How did you guys meet?

JV: I had an office, which I was sharing with some people, who were making a video which was never released. It was... all copies were ordered destroyed.(they start laughin’)  They were doing it for a client! Which turned out to be just so... completely insane. DS: It was a stop motion cartoon, and the idea was to parody something, but it was…. they gave… no I won’t say it, I won’t - (Joel is cracking up) They gave us the brief to be as offensive as possible with it. So me and another animator, we just went to town, made it. It was monstrous. It never got released, and that’s a very good thing. JV: I saw it through production and it blew my mind. Of course it never saw the light of day. But I was so completely overwhelmed by what I had witnessed being made that I asked David to come team up with me, and we’ve been a brothership ever since.

What did you guys first work on together?

JV: I still do a bit, but at the time I was doing a lot of comedy music. So we made a load of animated videos for the songs. For our own projects, that was kind of the bread and butter of what we collaborated on.

What did the comedy music entail?

JV: Well the not-full-band stuff we did as Rather Good; often just guitar and singing. But I'm also the singer of a 7 piece ska band called 7 Seconds Of Love, and we did live gigs, which was a lot of fun. We still gig, if the events are big enough—but it’s tougher now that some bandmates have moved from London.

Any legendary comedy music gig stories?

JV: If I had to choose one… it’d be the time Chaynsaw climbed the lighting rig.

We all have band names: I’m Stallion Explosion, The Bearslayer is bassist, Chaynsaw is the saxophonist, and so on. One night we were playing at quite a big venue in London; large stage, gallery seating, and there was a huge lighting rig that went all the way to the ceiling. During the song “Ninja”, Chaynsaw flipped out. He took a running jump and flew over the barriers and into the crowd, disappearing in a pile of flailing bodies. He ran through the crowd to the back and began climbing up the scaffolding of the lighting rig like some kind of crazed sax-wielding gibbon. Up and up all the way to the gods, as the crowd went crazy and we wondered whether we were about to witness his death. When he reached the gods, he climbed over onto the balcony and sprinted out of sight.  The crowd was going wild. They thought the stunt was part of the show but we had no idea what he was playing at. The song approached Chaynsaw's solo, with no sign of him. I assumed he had run off into the night, probably bellowing "CHAYNSAAAAAW!" and wielding his saxophone.  However, just at the exact moment his solo began, he came barrelling out from backstage at full speed, skidded to a halt at the front of the stage and blasted out a storming solo. The crowd went crazy: they thought it was the best bit of showmanship they’d ever seen. But it was a fluke. He'd just run headlong through random passages and stairwells backstage until he’d burst out on to the stage at the exact right moment.  It was a triumph. Nobody need ever know that it was a suicidally dangerous lunatic episode. My lips are sealed.

Yes, clearly. So Rather Good’s animations pre-date YouTube?

JV: Oh, pre-YouTube, yeah. You couldn’t really do video in those days because you didn’t have the bandwidth to do it, which was why Flash was so popular. You had to keep projects down to a couple of megabytes, very small files. Everyone was on dial-up modems.

(Rather Good’s highly educational vid about the history of the world wide web)

Wild. Was your goal to just have fun, or did you have an online audience in mind while making things?

JV: Historically they’ve been a way to entertain ourselves, at least primarily. On the basis that if you’re making something fun, that you enjoy making, then it’s more likely to be interesting and enjoyable out in the world. If you over-analyze it, you end up with something that doesn’t work very well; that’s how bad comedy gets written.

So what was it like, helping to build meme culture from the ground up… rewarding?

JV: Ha, yeah... it’s a fascinating and evolving world, isn’t it? And it’s changing so much and so fast it’s just… it’s almost difficult to put into words, the sheer magnitude of it. DS: You couldn’t really imagine this ecosystem now, 20 years ago. It would sound insane. JV: I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that the big hit was a mini track with a bunch of animated gifs of hamsters. DS: A 4 second loop of a CGI baby dancing... JV: God, and do you remember the crazy frog? DS: Oh God… yeah. JV: (laughing) It’s come a long way, and that’s a good thing. And it’s not just a technological thing is it, there’s really important stuff about the way that it’s opened up… I used to say “democratization of creativity,” which is a slightly overblown way of just saying it’s much easier for people to get stuff out in the world than it used to be. There was a system of gatekeepers in place that was very difficult to get past, until a little before YouTube. That system is bypassed now, it doesn’t really have the power anymore to dictate what makes it onto TV and hence into the popular consciousness. That’s now distributed out into the world. Which is good, although there’s a new dictator now, isn’t there? The algorithms. But that’s a different sort of thing.

(“We Like the Moon,” an ancient and powerful Rather Good meme. So revered that Quiznos used it to sell subs, in a commercial that you may, like me, vaguely remember as a fever dream from your adolescence)

Our strange new reality. Have you guys done much in the traditional kids space in the UK, with CBBC or CITV or others?

JV: We haven’t done much of anything in kids—most of what we’ve done for telly has been in the adult realm. One of our motivations for “Kid Arthur” and some other projects is getting to focus on character and narrative. Because for a long, long time, we’ve done short form - proper short form, often a minute or less long - and that’s fun, but you don’t get the opportunity to really develop character and story in those. It’s just gags. DS: That’s what’s been so fun about “Kid Arthur”: being able to actually build characters with a relationship between them, and have the space to explore that and the outer world.

So how did you guys come up with “Kid Arthur”?

JV: We’ve both always loved the Arthurian legends, fantasy worlds, Tolkien’s writing. It’s been a big part of our... cultural space, if you know what I mean? It feels like it’s been more ‘everywhere’ than ever in the last couple of years, since The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Game of Thrones and everything - everybody’s all about swords and dragons these days, which is fun. We’d talk about King Arthur and he’d pop up in conversation a lot, and we thought it’d be hilarious to put him and Mordred as kids in a modern day school. 

So is the rest of Arthur and Mordred’s world totally normal, and no one notices that these kids are summoning dragons and crazy shiz?

DS: Absolutely, they’re clueless. JV: It’s too out there for people to process. DS: I think they’re aware on some dim level, but their minds are totally unable to process or comprehend it.

(Poor, sweet, unknowing ‘Miss’)

When did you guys decide to pitch to Frederator, and what stage of development was “Kid Arthur” in?

DS: It was still pretty early on when we pitched it. JV: I met Carrie Miller in London a while ago now, at an animation event. And we talked about how we ought to pitch something to you guys. So we’d been thinking about what we could do with Frederator specifically, and “Kid Arthur” felt like the right fit.

Who do you each relate to the most between Mordred or Arthur?

DS: That’s pretty obvious isn’t it? I’m definitely Arthur. (note: David voices Arthur. Meanwhile, Joel is cracking up) JV: But this is the thing though isn’t it, part of the joy of the character, is that Arthur, he’s a kind of all-conquering heroic warrior, but he’s got Dave’s personality here, you know? He’s kinda like “Sighhhh… oh God. He’s trying to destroy me again, isn’t he”. DS: Yeaaah. JV: And I very much relate to Mordred. (Joel voices Mordred)

Oh gosh, really? How so?

JV: Well, he’s an extension of my own character to a certain extent. I’m not painting a very nice picture of myself there, am I? I mean, he’s not totally evil - he’d be gutted if he ever did destroy Arthur. That’s key to it, isn’t it? DS: Oh yeah. He’d be bereft. JV: Utterly bereft.

Have you guys been developing your ideas for a full series?

DS: We’ve talked about it quite a lot. JV: There’s a whole expanded world that we couldn’t really fit into a 5 minute short, and more characters: Guinevere - DS: Merlin - JV: Merlin as a cat! He’s the most powerful wizard in the universe. But he’s also a cat, so he tends to use his awesome power to do stuff like magic up fish heads. DS: He’s not a super intelligent cat, mind you, just a standard cat. With great magic. JV: And there’s all the knights of the round table, the witches, the Lady of the Lake. There’s this pre-existing structure from legend of all of these quests, and it’s all just ripe to be transplanted into a little town, where it exists slightly below the surface, manifesting in, you know, neighborhood parks and ponds. DS: We really love this idea that Arthur and Mordred’s battle is this ageless, epic struggle between good and evil. It’s been going on in some form or another for thousands of years, and will continue until the apocalypse. So the notion that there’s all these artifacts and characters from this enormous mythology in this modern town, largely unnoticed by everyone else—that’s exciting to us.

How has reading about Arthurian legend played a role in development?

DS: The great thing about Arthurian legend is that there are several classical texts, and they all contradict each other. Even the relationship between Arthur and Mordred shifts around quite a lot. So there’s so much within range that we can play with, and select whatever fits our world best. JV: We realized early on, that with other historical characters - say Henry VIII - there’s a very firm history of who they were, a definite character that you can research. But with these guys... you know, whether or not there was a genuine historical figure who was the genesis of these tales, when you really drill into it, it’s mystic. There’s nothing definite in this history to grab hold to - or be beholden to. The variation is part of the fun of the idea.

How do you guys usually divvy up your work?

DS: We write collaboratively; we get together and bash out words. I take the lead on the art side, things like character designs and boards. Joel more on things like sound and foley, and general managing of projects, and you know, talking to people. I’m far more happy when I’m kind of locked away and not having to talk with anyone. JV: He’s happy to not deal with actual humans.

Do you guys always pitch together, or David do you prefer to sit that out?

DS: We normally get together for that kind of thing. But Joel usually says about 20 words for my 1 word, which is fine with me. JV: We’re pretty evenly split today aren’t we David? DS: Yeah, not so bad.

What are your favorite cartoons?

JV: Battle of the Planets! DS: Yeah, we like the 80s cartoons: Ulysses 31 I really loved as a kid. It was absurdly bleak. A guy and his son drifting through deep space, encountering depressing, frightening worlds… the whole thing was a bit hopeless. Which 8 year old me really enjoyed. JV: There was a show called The Trap Door which was fantastic. Claymation show - I presume that it never aired in the states, which is a shame because it’s wonderful, truly wonderful. And Danger Mouse is a favorite, always great. DS: There’s a couple more grown up things, like Venture Bros. - JV: - Adventure Time! DS: Of course, yeah. JV: And there’s some proper adult animation being made at the moment which is lovely. We both love Archer. And Rick and Morty is obviously what it is, it’s incredible.

Any last thoughts to share with the Frederator audience?

JV: I’d just like to say how grateful we are to Frederator for helping us realize our vision for “Kid Arthur,” and exactly as we envisioned it. Working with a lot of studios can feel like you’re smashing through a brick wall with your face; and you come out of it with a product that isn’t really what you wanted to create in the first place. But “Kid Arthur” has been our baby, and we were paired with an incredible team of people to help us bring it to life. Just thinking about how much we learned from Larry (Huber, the director)... it’s incredible. It has been lovely working with Frederator. DS: Throughout the whole process, it’s been really nice. That’s so rare. JV: I wouldn’t even say rare, David! It’s unique. It’s absolutely unique. So we’re thankful.

Thanks for the great chat, Joel and David! I’ll be staying abreast of your Rather Good content - especially since I think a lot of it has been swimming around my subconscious mind for years. Excited to see what you guys do next! 

- Cooper

[wineanddinosaur]

VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”?

You’ve seen the headlines: “The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts Across the Globe” and “Wine-tasting: it’s junk science.” These articles, and many others, address the notion that experienced wine drinkers, be they sommeliers, winemakers, or other professionals, struggle to produce consistent results when blind tasting — particularly when subjected to certain tricks or confounding factors. However, since it is clearly not the case that all wine is interchangeable, how do we determine what makes wine good or bad?

That’s what Adam Teeter, Erica Duecy, and Zach Geballe dive into in this week’s VinePair Podcast, prompted by a listener question: “Can we objectively determine what makes a wine ‘good?’” If so, are blind tastings and wine competitions the best way to go about determining that? We cover all that and more on this week’s episode.

LISTEN ONLINE

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OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: from Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on today? How are we doing? Feeling OK?

E: Yeah. Doing alright. It’s getting cold here, but that’s our weather topic that some people complain about.

A: I didn’t even notice. I thought it was warm, but anyways …

Z: Well, when you never leave your house, the temperature doesn’t change a whole lot.

A: No, but I mean, you guys get into anything cool recently? I know we always talk about at the top now what we’re drinking, but before we get into that, is there anything else on your minds, or do we just want to get right into talking about drinks?

E: Man, it’s been work and drinks and moving. So I don’t have much beyond that.

Z: Yeah. I’ve been grappling with, and Erica I’m curious about your thoughts on this, I’ve been grappling with whether to take my son trick or treating this year. He’s just over 2. So he’s not really old enough to anticipate Halloween.

We did it last year, but he didn’t really know what was going on and it’s not like he could eat candy this year. We would maybe give him a tiny little bit, and I’m sure he would enjoy some of it, but it’s a really shitty year to talk about going to other people’s houses and knocking on the door.

A: Are they allowing it?

E: I don’t know if places are able to forbid it, really. But I think that I’ve seen some advertising for festivals and these things are just going to be packed. And so I think we’re going to skip it this year and we may do a little backyard thing with some friends, but I think it’s just going to be very small. And, I think we’re just going to recycle last year’s Halloween costumes for the kids.

Z: Yeah. I mean, again it’s the privilege of having a kid this age, he doesn’t know what he would be missing out on yet. So if there were a year where we weren’t doing anything, I don’t think he would really care. We had a costume picked out, so we’ll dress him up in that. And I don’t know. Maybe we’ll go for a walk. I think there are people talking about ways to do socially distanced trick or treating. And I think if I had a 7-year-old that might be more of a thing that I felt I needed to do for them. ‘Cause they would probably not appreciate missing a Halloween, but with a 2-year-old, we’ll just start at 3, I guess.

E: Yeah.

A: Yeah. And that’s not my problem, but I am wondering if I’m supposed to have candy at my apartment, but I think our building is forbidding it. So I have no idea. Our buildings, they’ve been very careful. So I don’t think I’m going to see much of that this year. And then all the parties are not going to happen. So that’s a bummer. So I’m just gonna watch scary movies and try to freak myself out.

Z: Do you need any help freaking yourself out in 2020, man? Just turn on the fucking news.

A: No, I mean yeah. There’s “freak yourself out” in a way that’s fun to be scared, then there’s “freak yourself out” to be really, truly scared. I’m already really, truly scared. I mean, I don’t even want to think about this fucking election anymore.

I just want it to be over, obviously in a positive way. So yes, I’m freaked out in that way already. But I would rather just watch some scary creepy shit and think about that and go back to a time when that was the thing we were scared about. This idea that zombies could roam the Earth. So instead of the one that’s in the White House As we call them: The good old days, the good old days. Yeah. What are you guys drinking, though?

E: I just this week published a piece on VinePair that was about the Pinot Noir revolution in New Zealand. The central Otago Pinot Noirs that were actually the wines that I mentioned in last week’s podcast, really made me fall in love with wine.

So, I was sipping through some of those, and the top contender for me was Rippon, which is this beautiful winery right in Wanaka and it’s on this incredible lake. It’s one of the most photographed vineyards in the world. And the family there has been making wine for many generations.

It’s the Mills family Nick and Jo Mills are the winemakers and it’s incredible. I think if you saw this place online you would be blown away, but the family has been farming vines there for three generations. And it’s biodynamically farmed, it’s without irrigation on its own rooted vines.

I mean this wine that I’m drinking, which is their mature-vine Pinot Noir, is dense and precise. It’s got these incredible layers of flavors that evolve. It’s just this beautiful, beautiful wine. And it’s an example of one of the wines that I talk about that has really been a benchmark in the revolution of Pinot Noirs in Central Otago.

A: Very cool. Zach?

Z: Well, what have I been drinking? I think the thing that I’ve been drinking the most lately has been a lot of California Zinfandel. For some reason, around this time of year, fall into maybe the beginning of winter, is a time when I really start to transition into these more robust red wines, but Zinfandel to me, good Zinfandel has this characteristic where it’s definitely red wine. It’s pretty powerful. Some of them are pretty high in alcohol, but they have this interesting, fresh quality to them. That feels like a fall afternoon to me. And I dig it. And so, I think probably mostly some combination of Ridge, Turley, and Rafanelli ’cause those are the ones I tend to buy. But there are other great producers out there and when I got into studying wine, it was one of the things that you could get on a blind tasting exam and I was always, “Oh, Zinfandel who cares?” and a lot of other things that I thought, when I was younger and maybe more of an asshole, I’ve come back to and been like, what? I really actually like Zinfandel. It has a place and I enjoy drinking it from time to time.

A: Cool. So in the course of the last week, I on two separate occasions at two different bars, wound up ordering the Jungle Bird. And it’s a delicious cocktail and I’ve rediscovered it. I was like wow, how have I not had this more often? And I think it’s one of those cocktails where if you’re trying to understand tiki, it is just one of the easier ones to make.

It’s five ingredients. So it’s, it’s super simple, right? It’s Campari, rum — I mean, specified Jamaican, but whatever – simple syrup, lime juice, and pineapple juice, and it’s just absolutely delicious. And so, yeah, it’s just so funny that that happened to me twice in one week. And I was like well, why haven’t I been drinking this more? So I would encourage everyone else to drink more Jungle Birds. It also made me feel like I wasn’t stuck in New York, worrying about numbers rising. So that was also nice. That was also really nice.

So as we get into today’s topic, Zach, we had a little listener email recently that piqued our interest and made us talk about what we’re going to talk about today. So you wanna give a little summary?

Z: Absolutely. So thanks to Matt, for listening first of all, and then emailing us, which you all can do podcast@VinePair.com. and his question was basically he’s seen these various stories — we’ve all seen these stories from time to time — that pop up on, whether it’s, social media, a publication we frequent, whatever, that essentially make some claim about one of two related things.

One is, “Oh, some study shows that wine professionals can’t tell the difference between good or bad wine in a controlled setting.” Or alternatively, “Oh, people who are rating wines for competitions; if you pour them the same wine twice, they’ll give it two different scores.” Or at least there is no strong correlation that if you have them taste the same wine multiple times, that they will give it the same score over and over again.

And, all of these pieces get at a fundamental argument, I suppose, which is that wine professionals are full of shit. And as to the wine professionals, I’ll be honest: For me personally, there’s a natural instinct to be a little defensive in these settings. And people are taking shots at what I do for a living in one form or another.

But, I think that it does raise a very interesting question that I think we’ll probably get to in a minute, which is, well, how do we decide if wine is good or bad? What is it? What is that about? And so I think maybe we can start by talking a little bit about these questions and these examples, and then we can each talk about what makes a wine good or bad to us. ‘Cause I think there’s room for different interpretations.

A: Yeah. I mean, so first of all, I’m not a professional. I’m an enthusiast or someone who’s interested, and loves wine, but I feel like that’s where a lot of this can get tricky. I think there is a lot about most things when it comes to food and drink that are subjective.

Do I think that it’s very easy to be able to tell something that’s mass-produced or just not well made? Yes, I absolutely do. I was just having this conversation earlier today with another writer, I think being able to pick out when something is definitely unbalanced or just bad when you’re judging a food competition, you’d be like you just didn’t follow a recipe.

You “overcooked the beef”-type thing right? That’s easy. And I think there is something to that. I do think, though, I’ve been in situations where I’ve watched wine competitions and things, judges judge things differently two times. And I think that I’ve been involved in conversations where there’ve been massive arguments between those judges in terms of what constitutes something as being good.

And every time the people never agree. There always seems to be a lot of subjectivity, which I don’t think is bad, which is why we’ve always said at VinePair you need to find a wine merchant you trust or another wine professional you trust. If you’re looking for someone to help you with discovery, follow what they like because it may be very different from what someone else likes.

And that’s OK. Unless you’re at a place where the one person at the top’s palate has been decreed to be the palate everyone is supposed to follow, which, we know was true with Robert Parker at Wine Advocate. We know to some extent it’s pretty true at Wine Spectator with Marvin Shanken’s palate.

But for the most part, it’s very subjective. Even among tasting groups in terms of what people’s palates say and what one person likes over another. So I don’t know. That’s why these studies are always really funny to me because of course people are going to have different opinions.

E: Yeah I’d say from my perspective, I think that you could break it down. So there’s the technical side of wine and winemaking, and that would be having high-quality grapes, but that’s some combination of vintage, the terroir where it’s planted, and probably the vintage conditions.

So, I think I’ve seen a quote somewhere from Mondavi, who said you can never make great wine from mediocre grapes, but you can make mediocre wine from great grapes, or something like that. But the point being that you have to have the good material to create a great wine.

You can’t ever start out with bad material, bad grapes, and end up with a fantastic wine. It’s just not possible. So, you’ve got high- quality grapes, that’s a threshold. And then I think there’s great winemaking, so winemaker’s skill. And when winemakers were focused on making a wine that really expresses a sense of place, I think those wines, to me, stand out.

So those are the tangibles. And then I think the intangibles are this style or this X factor of wine, which is very personal. It’s the reason that some people collect first-growth Bordeaux wines, while others are coveting the grand crus of Burgundy. People just like different styles of wine.

Both of them are super-high-quality wines, some of the best wines in the world. but some people look for opulent wine. Some people look for mineral-driven wines. Some people want wines that are precise and detailed. Other people want power. So these are all qualities in wine that some love and others like.

And in a competition setting, you can really see that come through. So in a lot of the competitions that I’ve judged, you may be trying 60 wines in a day. And there’s no question that there’s some palate fatigue and after a while, things are starting to really, taste alike and then you’re looking for the outlying wines but do those outliers denote quality? I don’t know.

So there’s a lot of questions in that. And I think one successful thing I’ve seen competitions do is to have six or eight tasters tasting through the same flights of wine, and the top and bottom scores are thrown out. And then there’s a discussion with all the other judges about the numbers that remain.

So what number can you get to? Let’s say it’s judged, someone gives it a 90 and someone gives it an 84 and the 84 isn’t budging. So, sometimes you’ll go back and forth. You can go back and forth for a while defending the different attributes of that bottle.

And then sometimes it’ll get taken out of the room and they’ll say OK, you guys are done. This room can’t come to an agreement and it will be taken to a different team of tasters. So I think that’s one successful way that I’ve seen of mitigating that bias. But yeah, I mean there’s a huge amount of subjectivity in wine that is the beauty of wine, frankly.

Z: Yeah. Well, I think Erica, your example of competitions, ’cause I’ve judged a number myself, too, is a really good one and an important thing for our listeners, especially those who maybe don’t have as much personal experience with that to take note of, is blind competitions, in my opinion, are pretty much worthless.

A: I agree. I’ve judged plenty.

Z: And the honest truth of it is, Erica has given a very, very, professional, explanation of how these things are handled. But honestly, a lot of the competitions I’ve been a part of, it’s “Here is your day-long slate. Here are hundreds of wines potentially, or at least a hundred wines.”

A: Yeah when you said 60, Erica I was like, “Whoa, that’s a very good number. I’ve judged 300 in one day.”

E: That’s too much.

A: Way too much. But they don’t want to turn anyone away who wants to pay to submit. So anyways, sorry, Zach?

Z: That’s OK. No, no, you’re bringing up good points. One of them is that many of these are pay-to-play competition in the first part.

And the second part is, as Erica said, as we’ve all said in one way or another on this podcast and previous ones, wine, as with all things drinks-related, is inherently, at least largely, subjective. And I do think, and maybe we’ll come to this in a minute, that there are some objective criteria that can to some extent delineate bad wine from good wine.

But frankly, a lot of those things are hard to distinguish. In the context of a wine competition, the things Erica talked about, the provenance of the grapes, whether wines are made in an organic way or made from organic grapes or, what labor practices the winery uses.

I mean, sadly those things don’t often or always translate into the glass, especially blind. And so, I think informed buyers and consumers, and frankly journalists, should be aware of those things in most settings. But the point of wine competitions or wine judging is to strip all that away and just put the wine in the glass and have you rate them.

And again, I don’t really know what the point of it is, right? Because, and this comes back to something that I came to when I was working as a sommelier, and became a very important thing for me when I talked to and trained servers, and talked to guests frankly, which is: Everyone wants to know, Oh, what’s the best wine?

And I mean that whole concept is to me ridiculous. And you think about it and in many of the other aesthetic pursuits that we take on, I mean, who says, what’s the best painting on the planet? You can say well, such-and-such van Gogh sold for the most money at auction, but I don’t think any of us would say, that’s a criteria that we want to stick to.

There are the most expensive wines on the planet. I don’t think those are inherently the best, we could say. There are the rarest wines on the planet. Again, I’m not sure those are the best. There could be a wine that gets the highest score in a review setting or in a judgment setting.

And again, I don’t think those are particularly inherently good because the beautiful thing about wine is we don’t have to pick just one, right? You can drink lots of different wines in a given day, in a given year, in a given lifetime. And when we get too fixated on, well, is this better than that? To me, you lose the point of the whole thing. Again, it’s just if you only could look at one painting for the rest of your life, it would be a really shitty life. Thank God we’re not stuck with that.

A: At least it might be a painting that you like, right? So maybe it’s the wine you like. I think your painting example is a really good one. So I learned something recently about the gallery world and I never knew this, and I think that it’s really applicable to wine because I find people can understand.

I think a lot of us really understand that we don’t understand art. Right? And that there are some people that claim to in certain ways, whatever. And a lot of people feel intimidated by art. I never realized that there are some painters who are at this point on the market selling, let’s say a million dollars apiece, right, that are not considered to be serious enough to ever be shown in a museum. And that sometimes that’s a career choice that an artist has to make. Right. Make art that is serious enough that museum curators take it seriously, but maybe collectors don’t because it’s not pop-y enough or it’s not, in the style of the day right now.

So they don’t make that kind of work. They make work that shows their sense of place, if you will. But they’re not ever going to sell for millions of dollars, or maybe it’s going to take a long time throughout their career until they get there. Whereas there are certain people that immediately come on the scene, and make millions of dollars.

The market throws them up, up, up, up, up. We know lots of wines that that’s happened to, too. But there’s people that just never think that artist is serious and that artists may, or may never have a major show or if they do it may come only because eventually the market’s just so robust.

And the example for me is Murakami. Right? The market’s just so robust that finally the Brooklyn Museum decides to do a show. Because they feel, well, now we’ve got to bring people in because they’ve all heard about this person. So I think that that can happen as well in wine.

Just because a bunch of people are excited about it, doesn’t mean it’s the best wine. It means that there’s a bunch of people that will tell you about it. There could be other people that aren’t excited about that wine. And one of the things — could also be a podcast we title “What’s Wrong with Wine Competitions?” but, I mean it is interesting, first of all, I’ve never been in a wine competition where one personality doesn’t dominate the table. Usually, it’s the person who is either the MS or whatever, that everyone just defers to. And I don’t mean dominate, they can be “bullyish,” just that people start deferring to them because that’s just what happens, and group-think takes over the table usually most of the time.

And also there’s always disagreement about what was a flaw and now may not be a flaw, right? There’s a lot of people that still very strongly believe that brettanomyces are a flaw. And then if that’s on the wine that the wine should get scored poorly. There’s now other people, because of the explosion of natural wine, that think that that is an acceptable characteristic and that it adds to the complexity of the wine.

And I’ve seen fights breakout. Among people who’ve been like, I don’t agree with you. You’re wrong. The winemaker allowed a flaw to come into the wine, the wine is flawed. The wine should be sometimes thrown out. And then the people who say, no, this is adding complexity. This wine to me is a 95. So I think that just illustrates that it’s very hard.

And when we start saying, this group likes when these things happen, and these scores happen, it can be very difficult. Which is why I think the only way that it works is when it’s one individual critic or one individual person and you’ve come to trust them. Right. So you tend to agree with their palate and you bought other things that they’ve recommended.

And then you’re like, OK, cool. So for example, Keith, our tastings director, I like what Keith likes to drink and everything that I’ve ever had that he’s rated well I thought was absolutely delicious. So I’m going to keep trusting the things that he recommends, but you could find someone else that is a polar opposite of Keith and recommends things that Keith never recommends, and follow that person instead. And I think that’s more of what’s true in terms of when you’re looking at wine scores or wine reviews, than just thinking that one person’s — Keith’s 100 must mean that everyone else would agree that the wine’s at 100.

Z: I also think an important point to remember here, and this question I specifically wanted to ask Erica, is setting and context are hugely important for how we enjoy wine and that, to come back to the question that Matt posed at the beginning, some of these studies, not so much judgings, but either actually scientific or quasi-scientific studies are trying to get at, can people actually distinguish between things? From a sensory perspective, wine, in particular, is something that is so sensitive to the context in which you enjoy it. I mean, Adam, you and I did a podcast a while back about, talking about glassware and whether that shit mattered. And I think we mostly said no, but if you get your wine served to you — and I’ve had this experience and Erica I’m wondering if you’ve had it — if you go to one of these sensory labs where people are learning about wine more academically, you can do these things where you get wine poured to you in a black glass. So you can’t tell the color of it at all. Or you can get wine served to you in a room that they’ve completely purged of any smells. So there’s literally nothing in there. There’s nothing else in there that you could get confused by. Or you can get wines with various extracts added to them that affect that smell or taste. Have either of you ever had that experience?

E: I haven’t tried that in a sensory lab, but I have sipped out of black glasses before just to see what it would be like. And from my perspective, I think it is very reliant. Trying two wines, one in a black glass, and one in a glass where you can see through. I think our brains function in a way of — we’re very predictive. So you look at a glass of red wine, for example, and you’re already thinking of red berries, blackberries. You’re thinking through the different flavors that you’re about to encounter.

And when you’re just sipping from a black glass, you can be smelling it, but then you’re questioning what you’re smelling. So you’re wondering if really those things were there. When you see it in the clear glass you’re pretty sure that it’s there. So then you feel much more confident in making that assertion about what’s in the glass. Because no matter what, if you go with whatever the characteristics of red wines are there is no wrong answer. Everyone tastes a little bit of something different. And if you were to say, no, no, no, this is all red fruit. This is raspberry and currant and whatever. And someone else was oh, no, no, I’m getting plums all the way. It’s not like someone would tell you that you’re wrong.

A: Right.

Z: I agree. And I think also, to that point, this comes back to this whole question of these attempts at disproving wine expertise, no one drinks wine out of a black glass in a dark room for pleasure.

So I mean, this comes back a little bit to a gripe that I have in general, which is: There are some objective things that you can say about wine and maybe some things that I think that most people would say are hallmarks of quality, versus maybe not hallmarks of quality, but so much of this is experiential and driven by everything else around us and our enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of a wine is driven, not just by what’s in the glass, but who we’re with what we’re eating. If we are eating, how hungry or how tired we are, are we angry already? All this other stuff is so important to our experience, not just with wine, of course, with almost anything.

But to say that because you can fool people through whether it’s opaque glassware or misleading scenarios or all that stuff like of course, right? None of us are a sensory machine. We are not designed to be able to consistently respond to the same sensory stimulus the same way. Life would be very boring if we did that. So again, I think that there’s an attempt in these things to discredit the idea of expertise and look, a little bit of taking the piss out of wine professionals is fine, we can be a pompous group in general. So I don’t mind that, but I do think that it’s important to still note that that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any difference between wines. Wines are different things and there are different levels of quality. And some of that quality is objective in some sense. Some of it is maybe aesthetic or even political.

You might consider organic wine to be an important thing to champion because of what it means for the future of agriculture on our planet. And you might be willing to say that an organic wine is inherently better, even if taste-wise it’s indistinguishable. I think I would maybe make that argument, frankly, but again, to come to this idea that because you can trick people it means that there is no such thing as expertise is, I think, silly. Even if many of the applications for that expertise are, I think, also silly.

A: So I agree with you, but I think we have to also wonder why is there this obsession amongst other publications – usually not publications that write about spirits, wine, spirits, et cetera, but among the Buzzfeeds of the world, et cetera, to publish these articles about how so-and-so got tricked.

And I think what it comes down to is that there is this lack of — something we can all learn — there’s this lack of willingness amongst professionals in a lot of areas to admit when they are wrong or just aren’t really sure. Or, maybe could see someone else’s preference compared to theirs.

And because that doesn’t happen that often in a lot of industries where someone is paid to be an “expert,” people want to go after them. So that’s why it happens so often. I mean, I think about, I think we’ve talked on the podcast, Zach, about that one sommelier on Instagram a few years ago, who had posted a bottle, a very famous bottle of wine. And someone said they were pretty positive that it was a counterfeit. And the somm responded, “Don’t tell me, I’ve drunk so many of these wines” and it was DRC. You know what I mean? They could have just written back, “Hey, that’s a really interesting point, I’ll have to look into it.” or “Not sure, it definitely tasted like it to me, but you could have a point.” It turns out, actually, that later on someone realized that they saw the markings, and it was one of the counterfeit ones. But it’s just that unwillingness to just say, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong,” or “I totally see what your opinion is,” as opposed to saying, “Oh, I can’t understand why you like that. This is just not good.” I think that that is why other publications and other people want to see some of those personalities taken to task. ‘Cause it’s a fun environment to say so you don’t know everything. So stop making me feel shit about it.

E: Right. And I think the key thing for our listeners to know is that good wine is wine that you like. And as a professional, I find a special joy in finding the best value wines. So when I find Carignan wine from Broc Cellars in Berkeley, Calif., or something made from somewhere on the coast that delivers for under $20, I’m way more excited about sharing that with people and getting people excited about that wine, then I am about a $100 Barolo. It’s just a more exciting find for me to be like, “Here’s an amazing value. I love it. I hope you’ll love it.” And that’s, I think that’s where the joy of wine comes for me that maybe doesn’t come for other people. Because I dunno, I’m just not a trophy-hunter type of wine drinker. I do love to try good wines, but I just don’t think that, as a writer, as an editor, I get as much joy out of recommending expensive bottles. I just don’t.

Z: Yeah, and I think this is actually one last good point to come back to why there’s always such interest in terms of upturning the apple cart in wine. And it’s that we already have done that. The hierarchies that existed in the world of wine 40, 50, 60 years ago have largely been overturned. I mean, not necessarily price-wise because as Erica mentioned earlier, first-growth Bordeaux, grand cru Burgundy, those wines still sell for more money than basically anything else out there, maybe some Napa Cab, et cetera.

But from the consumption side and from where most people are oriented, which is not the collection market, the world of wine is much bigger than it used to be. The established hierarchies are much less meaningful in a lot of ways. And someone like Erica can legitimately reference and recommend a pretty obscure southern French variety — or actually maybe technically Spanish variety, from a place in California that most people have never heard of. And consider it to be on par with or better than a very famous wine region in Italy. And I don’t disagree with Erica at all. I think the point, though, is that when you have this world of, or lack of an established hierarchy, you have a lot of people who want to step in and say, “Ah, allow me to be the expert. Let me be the one who will reimpose hierarchy.” And a lot of people recoil against that. They don’t want to be told by someone who they don’t know and don’t trust that they’re wrong, and they want to continue to enjoy what they enjoy.

And that makes wine professionals, obviously, an area where people are already sensitive to the idea that they don’t know what they’re doing, because that’s something we all hear more than anything else from wine drinkers, it’s that they’re concerned they don’t know what they’re doing. So anything that helps level that playing field for them, I think is going to get clicks. It’s going to get us to talk about it. Does that make sense? And I get it, but I also agree with what Erica said, which is in the end, you as a wine drinker out there need to decide what you’re in this for.

And if you’re in this for enjoyment, then take everyone’s recommendations with a grain of salt. Or like Adam said, find a reviewer or a professional whose palate you seem to align with and try multiple people’s suggestions. Maybe you don’t like Carignan and you don’t like Erica’s recommendations, and maybe you prefer someone else’s. That’s cool, too. But I think what it comes down to is just, there’s so little point in just blindly following someone’s lead without fact-checking. But you can fact-check, or you can address these questions critically without dismissing the whole idea that anyone knows anything.

A: Exactly. It’s OK if you’ve been told that everyone loves Riesling that’s in the wine community and you don’t. That’s OK. And you shouldn’t be made to feel bad if that’s the case. That’s your preference. I feel we should be encouraged to like the things we like and get to explore those things in wine more, because that’s what’s going to make for a better wine community. As opposed to everyone being told that we have to gravitate to these core wineries or these core regions or whatever. And that that’s just the way, because that’s just going to continue to leave people out.

Z: Definitely. Absolutely.

A: All right guys. Well, this has been another very great conversation. I can’t wait to talk again next week. And for everyone out there, like Zach said, we love getting these emails. They’re great conversation starters for us. And oftentimes, they do turn into the topic of focus on a podcast. So please email us at podcast@VinePair.com and let us know what you want to hear about. And Zach, Erica, I’ll see you here next week.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me, Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my co-founder, Josh Malin, and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/what-makes-wine-good/

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Creating a Character Arc for D&D

So I saw someone ask a question that I myself have asked before. I have seen the problem take place all the time with no one really knowing what the problem is and whether or how to fix it. That question was:

How do I make a character that I won't get bored with?

I have often seen people make characters that seem really cool and badass and have plenty of backstory and are incomparably unique. Yet, they will get bored of it after a session or two and want to kill off their special character to make a new one. This will go on with people making new characters and never getting attached to one. The solution to the problem is complex with many intricacies, but the main focus of the problem for many people, I think, is that their character has no story.

Creating a Character with a Story

A story, when referring to a character, is how that character changes over time; their character arc. D&D 5e tries to solve this by forcing players to choose aspects of their character background including their character's traits, flaws, ideals, and bonds. This is all well and dandy, but this alone won't define a character arc. To create a character arc, figure out how you want your character's story to begin and how it should end using those four background characteristics.

Traits: A character's traits could change over time. They don't have to, but it can create an interesting character. Traits make a character who they are, and in an RPG it is often a reflection of the player. So while traits can change, I would probably suggest to change a flaw, ideal, or bond before a trait.

A trait could become more specific, like from "angry" to "vengeful" once they understand why they are angry. Think of the trait as evolving.

A trait could disappear or be replaced after some moral turning point, like a callous character becoming guilt-ridden or even benevolent after they see the sort of pain they have caused firsthand.

A trait can become reinforced or strengthened based on their decisions. An antihero's traits would likely follow this route. "Do you see what happens when you trust people? They betray you!"

Flaws: A flawed character is a great character, but a character arc involves a person being confronted by their flaws. Their flaws directly oppose their goal. When faced by their flaws, they either choose to suffer their flaw or overcome it. This is why sequels are usually terrible. A character that heroically overcame its flaw in the first movie is now un-flawed. Be aware of this in an RPG. The character should always have a flaw, even after overcoming a flaw. The only time they should ever NOT be flawed is at the very end of a campaign, facing off against the main antagonist, using all they have learned on their heroic journey.

A flaw could be worsened. Usually a good early option in a character's arc, as things seem bleaker and bleaker for your character until they manage to overcome the flaw later in the game's story.

A flaw could evolve or become more specific, much like a trait.

A flaw can disappear or be replaced, especially later in the story once it has been challenged by the game's story.

Ideals: A character's ideal is what they believe in. Maybe it's a religion, moral code, or instinct. A character's ideal is a great concept that can change in a game. This is where you see tragic falls from hero to villain or redemption arcs from villain to hero. In an RPG, a good player will have strong ideals and a good GM will recognize those ideals and challenge them. This is the moral quandary, and it's the player's job to identify it and make a choice that will affect their character forever. Changing an ideal should always be some sort of turning point in a story.

Bonds: A character's bonds in D&D 5e are their ties to the in-game world. It's a fabulous definition because it's sort of like asking "why are you playing this character?" right to your face. If your character has a family, then your character probably cares for them. Or not. If your character had a mentor, you are probably on a sort of hero's journey from nobody to somebody. If you have no ties to any person in the game world then you are (or should be) finding a reason to belong, maybe a team of other heroes, perhaps? Your bond can affect how your ideals, flaws, and traits change, and they can change your bonds, in turn. Your character makes new memories, meets new people, and experiences new things all the time.

Update all of these things at the end of every session. Whether or not they ended up changing that day, making a habit of checking each session will keep you invested in your character and help to create a character arc. In addition, know where your character begins their arc and how it will end. Talk with the DM about your plans, and they should add some moral and character quandaries to test your character's... character!

Examples of Character Arcs

Coming of Age: The character begins the game morally or psychologically immature or inexperienced. They grow into a more mature and experienced character by the end of the campaign. A ridiculously blunt way to put it is going from an angsty teen to a true hero. Such an angsty teen could be either a rebellious murder hobo or a distant brooding loner that when a turning point happens, they grow a moral backbone and answer the call to action. Look at Spirited Away, Dead Poets Society, or The Karate Kid.

Redemption: The character begins as a legit villain with evil intentions but finds a reason to change their ways after a turning point. Maybe they find a moral line they won’t cross and then start to wonder if what they have been doing all along is right. The character is not truly redeemed until other players and other people see them as a changed person, which should finally happen at the end of the campaign. Look at Wikus in District 9, Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List, or Prince Zuko from Avatar, the Last Airbender.

Disillusionment: The character believes in one thing at the beginning of the campaign but slowly discovers that what they believe in is morally wrong, utterly pointless, or a flat-out lie. They may go back and forth between believes a few times before making a transition, or they might be in denial. But by the end of the campaign they have realized the true path. Look at movies like Office Space, The Truman Show, Conspiracy Theory, or Fight Club.

Tragic Fall: The character follows the hero’s journey only to make the wrong choice at every turning point. Their morality comes into question, and they just don’t have it in them to change or become a hero, usually thanks to a “fatal flaw.” At the end of the campaign, this character should either retire, die, or be killed by their flaw to be a true tragedy. Look at Hamlet, Tom Powers in The Public Enemy, and McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Corruption: Unlike the tragic fall, this character is not destined to die. They are destined to become a villain. Rather than refuse a call to action, they have moral quandaries which they make the right choice at first, but then they start to question their choices. They start to think evil is easier or better than good. Then they start making the wrong choices and eventually join or become the villain they were trying to stop in the first place. Look at Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars, Michael Corleone in The Godfather, or Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight.

Cynic to Participant: This character is a loner and cynic and is miserable because of it. They eventually realize that they cannot accomplish what they set out to do without help. They become less selfish and more cooperative with the rest of the adventuring party. Look at The Incredibles, every buddy cop movie where the buddies don’t get along, and every Batman team-up ever.

These are the more common character arcs, but there are plenty of different changes that your character can go through to grow, change, or fall over the course of a D&D campaign. Again, talk with your DM about where you are starting and where you want to end up. That way they can insert those pivotal turning points and put pressure on your flaws and ideals!

[offoxesandotherstrangeanimals]

OC questionnaire, part 2

@hautecreep (you asked for it)

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?

Yes. That’s still Devon. My post-apocalyptic genius dictator with the puppy eyes and otherworldly streak. He’s the most detailed and complex OC I’ve ever made and I miss playing him very much. Jacob here on this blog is a close second, though. Followed probably by Sasha.

I dreamt Devon. My friend at that time felt left out by some RPers in a group, so I suggested we should make our own RP. During all that brainstorming, one night, I had a dream where I saw a dark-haired young man in what appeared to be a hotel room high above the city, and outside, behind the windows, the world was burning.

That’s how Devon was born. He’s dear to me. I miss him.

I used to do a huge 30 day challenge for him, with graphics and all, so I will not spare you with details about my darling psycho prince ;)

Here are some of the questions to describe Devon (although I’m pretty sure nobody really wants to read this XD )

Age? 42 by the time of his death. Date of Birth? December 24th,  year 9 Hair color? Dark brown. Eye color? Dark green. Skin color/nationality? Caucasian / born in the territory of the former USA Accent (if any)? Devon considers strong accents as a lack of education, so he always pays attention to his pronunciation. Although he doesn’t talk much, anyway. Height? 170cm Weight? Weight can change over the years. Let’s go with body type. Skinny. Tattoos? He despises tattoos. However, in 42, he gets one by William personally, located on his left forearm. It says “Follow who will follow you”. Piercings? He got his ears pierced as a dare in 22, trying to connect with the older students at the University. Needless to say it didn’t work and they just made fun of him. Shortly after, he became employed at one of the virus-research-laboratories where he found the vaccine for the stage 2-virus. Birthmarks? No significant ones. Disfigurements? None. Scars? Several lighter scars on his forearms and chest.

What is their family history like? How does it affect them? How do they feel about their family? How does their family feel about them?

Devon’s parents were both academics.

Two years before Devon’s birth, his father Henry James Devon, a young and promising biologist, got a travel authorization to teach at Oxford University in England, where he met and fell deeply in love with Elizabeth Derwen Lloyd, a Welsh grad student working on her doctorate, a beautiful and warm-hearted woman.

An intense and passionate relationship evolved quickly; and when Elizabeth got pregnant, it caused a massive scandal that forced Henry to move back to the US. He could, however, take the pregnant Elizabeth with him after a short and unglamorous wedding. Her family never forgave her that she left them for her professor who had gotten her pregnant; they broke with her completely, but the love to Henry was too strong and intense for her to let him move back alone. This is why Devon never met or talked to anyone of his mother’s family and grew up isolated from them.

Elizabeth was already diagnosed schizophrenic, but the disease was treated and well medicated and generally under control until she gave birth to the boy Charles (named after Charles Darwin by his father) only a few months after she had moved to the US with Henry.

The lucky days of the little family ended very soon; Elizabeth developed a severe postpartum psychosis and killed herself only a few days after Devon’s birth. His father never recovered from her death and the loss of his love, and blamed Devon for her death for the rest of his life, turning into a bitter and cold tyrant who was almost never seen smiling again.

Although Devon never experienced physical violence and abuse in his childhood, the cold and distant attitude of his father had a strong impact on the young Charles and caused an early and severe personality disorder. His father, although at first fascinated and proud of his prodigy son, blamed Devon for the death of his mother and treated the boy coldly and in a hard and strict manner right from the start, forbidding all social contact to children of his own age, forcing a strict schedule and diet on the child (he didn’t know about chocolate and ice cream until he meets William). After he lost his wife, the love of his life, no holidays or birthdays were ever celebrated in the house of Devon again.

Henry Devon remained the only attachment figure in young Charles life and resumed being a disappointment. His only interest in his son was of academic, scientific nature. He never appreciated or encouraged him as a person and showed his anger and hostility openly; he never hid that he was blaming Devon for his mother’s death and never hugged or comforted his son or showed other signs of affection, which also lead to the severe antisocial, sociopathic tendencies and the social awkwardness Devon would show for the rest of his life.

Due to this emotional abuse, Devon started to hate his father early, which – combined with his sociopathic tendencies, his lack of morals and empathy – culminated in murdering Henry Devon by exposing him to the virus in the year 23.

What were they like as a child? What was their favorite toy? Favorite game? Playmates? It’s not surprising that, as a child, Devon was quiet and introvert, always a bit strange and very different from other kids. He was an outsider, a little sensation, a freak. Being gifted with unique intellectual abilities and having other interests, Devon was never among kids of his own age. Therefore, he didn’t have any playmates. His father didn’t encourage the boy to make friends, either. On the contrary, the strict schedule he set up for his son as well as keeping him away from normal activities, even prevented Devon from meeting other kids.

With his mother completely missing in his life from the earliest days, and his father being cold and distant, his behaviour towards his son nothing but emotional neglect, the lack of other family members or friends that could have been an influence, Devon could never develop a sense of basic trust or even the most basic social skills.

Devon’s father got rid of everything that could remind him of his wife, including photographs and toys she had chosen before Devon’s birth. Therefore, all of Devon’s early toys were chosen by his father, the educational value the only selection criterion. Devon soon found Rubik’s cube and similar toys boring and too easy and spent the rest of his childhood mostly in libraries, lecture rooms and laboratories.

Devon’s father (and Devon should share this opinion later) considered games and toys a waste of time. However, he did enjoy drawing anatomical and scientific sketches to a certain degree, when he started his studies in biology, which – as strange as it seems – would probably be the most child-like behaviour he showed.

Where (and when) did they grow up? How did they view it as a child, and did that change as they matured? How do they feel about the place now? Devon wasn’t born in EQ 1. He moved there in 21 with his father, enticed away to work at the Viral Research Center after the second outbreak of the virus, when people started to panic and scientists weren’t able to find a vaccine or cure.

Devon was born in EQ 2 and spent his first years there, growing up in his father’s apartment in close vicinity to the campus of the university the professor worked at and where the young Devon soon studied himself.

He didn’t like it at home. Although it was a rather large and comfortable apartment in a well-situated area of the quarantine, it was a cheerless, quiet place – and not a home. Devon’s favourite spot was his father’s library where he would spend many hours without talking at all, lost in his books and escaping from the cold atmosphere in the apartment and the coldness of his father.

Later, Devon tends to block out the unpleasant memories of his early years that were characterized by his father’s coldness, loneliness and the constant feeling of being an outsider and not belonging anywhere. He never returns to this place and tries not to think of it, at all.

Things didn’t get much better at home at first, after he moved to EQ 1 to start his work at the Viral Research Center. The tension between him and his father increased, since Henry Devon had to give up his renowned job at the university to now live in his son’s shadow. Outside their apartment, Devon first experienced respect and admiration for his successful work. It was the first place he’d been treated not only as a curiosity and abomination, but as a scientist and a great with hope. He was needed and publically adored after he had found the vaccine for the virus’ second form. This, of course, started Devon’s deep craving for control and power and adoration, but it also lead to Devon’s strong attachment to “his” Quarantine, and his massive efforts to make EQ 1 the biggest and most powerful quarantine on Earth.

Where did they learn their abilities? Devon’s extraordinary intellect and genius mind show early in his life and his father, a biology professor himself, nurtures his son’s talent as best and early as possible until he realizes that Devon surpasses him. Devon attends university at the age of seven, studying chemistry and biology at first, doing his first doctorate in organic chemistry when he is nine, his second doctorate in molecular biology and genetics when he’s ten. The prodigy is then allowed to study medicine as well, graduating as a Medical Doctor in an exceptional case at the age of 13.

If they have an income, where does it come from?  Devon starts working in the government’s viral research centre when he is 12, at first under strict control and restrictions. After he creates the vaccine for the mutated virus, he is given his own department and laboratory in the research centre. Devon becomes Director of the Department of Health and Science in 26 and one year later, in 27, Director of the Quarantine and holds this position until his death.

Do they have a job? Do they like it? How do they feel about their co-workers? During his whole life, he is a passionate and obsessive scientist, spending most of his time in laboratories, first in the viral research laboratories, later in his own lab. There is no clear barrier that would separate his professional from his private life. He enjoys spending time in his laboratory and with his research and experiments on genetics (cloning and creating artificial organs and manipulating DNA).

However, he hates people. He hates his co-workers when he works at the viral research centre and due to his young and tender age and his lack of social skills, he’s avoided and frowned upon, laughed at and even feared by the other scientists and co-workers. Later, he avoids working together with other people, having only one lab assistant at a time to support him after he becomes Director of Health and Science. He makes sure they’re not too bright and smart but still helpful and qualified enough, looking for weak and dependant personalities that can be easily controlled and influenced. Over many years, Eric is his lab assistant until he dies in the year 40. Devon goes along as well as possible with him since Eric usually doesn’t question his Director who he adores, being obedient and submissive enough to be controlled by Devon and William.

Why do they have their resources? How long have they had them, and how have they served the character over time? (Ex. Contacts, money, political power, fame, etc.)

Devon created the vaccine for the mutated, second form of the virus in 22. This made the young prodigy acknowledged and famous over night. Although he’d already been well-known in the scientific community this results in enormous popularity all over the world and people start calling him their “Saviour” – a feeling that Devon soon starts to like.

As a consequence, he starts manipulating the virus on his own, creating another mutation, the third and deadliest form which he sets free on purpose in 23 - of course after he created a reliable vaccine. After his scientific and political opponents and rivals are eliminated, he introduces the new vaccine to the public. He is the only person who knows the formula and keeps it secret. Devon manipulated it in a way that the serum is only potent for one year, which guarantees him full power and control over basically every living being on this planet (except those who are immune). He uses this not only to become Director of Health and Science and later Director of the Quarantine itself, but also to control the whole population of his Quarantine.

Devon provides the vaccine only to people who proof themselves worthy, useful and loyal – the most effective way to control the whole population and eliminate his enemies. He scotches every other research on the virus or the vaccine he created to ensure he is the only one who can produce and provide it.

He also makes a fortune by selling the serum to other rich Quarantines or private persons all over the world. Often enough, however, those deliveries fail – not only because of unsafe and dangerous transport routes – but also because Devon ensures the vaccine never arrives.

By creating and holding back the serum Devon becomes not only incredibly wealthy but soon the most powerful, most famous and influential man in the world, Director of the only Quarantine that is producing the vaccine. However, although he loves the worship and adoration and dependency of the inhabitants, he is publicity shy and avoids meetings and large crowds of people and becomes some sort of recluse.

Do they, or have they in the past, had a mentor? What was their relationship with this person, and how has it changed since then? Devon’s mentor was actually his father, nurturing his son’s talents and his intellect, paving the way for Devon to get the best education possible. First, this is because of pride, because he can show off his prodigy son, and because he can bathe and shine in Devon’s light as well; later, after the pride has turned into pure envy and hostility, it is only because of his sense of duty.

Devon never feels the slightest spark of gratitude, the feelings of disappointment and inadequacy outweighing the thankfulness. Devon suffers from his father’s coldness and emotional rejection and the blame Henry Devon is laying on his son for the death of his wife. In his early years, the boy constantly tries to impress his father, tries to gain his attention and approval and love. But after failing again and again, after getting nothing in return but hostility and jealousy, he gives up, his own feelings towards his father alternating between sadness, disappointment, disgust and hate. Devon finally kills his own father by exposing him to the virus. What sort of education have they had? Do they want more? Devon’s father took his son’s education in his own hands, as soon as he noticed the unique abilities of the child. After teaching the boy himself for a few years (especially in biology, chemistry, math, Latin and Ancient Greek; he almost completely neglected social sciences and humanities), he arranged that Devon could officially attend the University at the age of 7, after he realized that there was now nothing more he could teach Devon.

Devon achieved his first doctor’s degree in organic chemistry when he was 9, his second in molecular biology and genetics at the age of 10, his third as a Medical Doctor when he was 13. After this third doctorate, he completely dedicates himself to his own research.

In this respect, Devon got the best possible education on his field; and thus, he never wants more (as other subjects don’t interest him in the slightest).

The whole challenge is here: x

[terryblount]

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – PC Review

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a remake of the three original fun-loving, cartoon-like Spyro games, originally created by Insomniac Games in 1998, 1999, and 2000 for the PlayStation. However, before discussing this modern ‘reignited’ collection, I need to go back to the late 1990s and share with you my personal history with Spyro.

Back in the Nintendo 64 Days

For his 7th birthday my brother received a Nintendo 64 from our grandparents. This was our first home console, and with this gift we now we had the ability to play so many yearned-for games which, until that moment, could only be played in our most improbable dreams. Indeed, now the two of us no longer were limited to my GameBoy and an old PC, and seeing games in full 3D (limited as it was back then) was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a unique moment in my gaming life.

Spyro the Dragon flying majestically in astounding 3D graphics!

Thinking about that moment, now, makes me almost cry. I had never seen something like that before, and what was even more amazing was that I could also explore such huge, colorful, and incredible worlds thanks to the invention of the analogue stick. I ate up so many games. Super Mario 64 was unprecedented, Mario Kart 64 was so fun, and Banjo-Kazooie was difficult. Through all these games, I felt like my only limit was the time per day I had to explore them because there was always a new corner to discovery and enjoy.

The freedom of flying, with modern graphics, recreated from the original 1998 gameplay.

Besides feeling like the cool kid with my Nintendo 64, I also remember thinking that only Nintendo could possibly provide me with such vibrant worlds. But I realized how wrong I was when, a few years later, I went to a friend’s house and become initiated in the ways of the original PlayStation.

Enter the PlayStation Glory Years

When visiting my friend (thanks to our mothers being busy socializing), my friend and I could play all night long, and we could choose from his wide collection of games since he was one of those friends who had all the games you can’t ever afford. (For the record, my personal PS1 was bought some months after launch, but I just got a few games and lots of demo discs.)

It’s a dinosaur or something who talks and says things!

I remember one night in particular in which my friend (named Matteo, in case you were wondering) decided that evening that we should play a new game he received (probably from his grandparents), which according to him was the real Super Mario 64 competitor on Sony’s console. You guessed it… that game was Spyro the Dragon.

Prior to this night, I had only gotten a chance to see a few screenshots of the game on some of the earliest videogame websites and in some Italian magazines, so I didn’t know much about it. What I did know was that there were no other free-roaming 3D platformers available around that time on any other home consoles, apart from the N64 with the aforementioned Super Mario 64.

There were some other games that tried to be open in their world design. I had the chance to try a PC demo for a game called Croc (which was great!), but it wasn’t very open like Mario. Crash Bandicoot (on the PlayStation) was obviously a great game, but it was built to be “on-rails”. The Tomb Raider series was certainly a thing, but those games were still limited to the confines of the caverns and hallways you were in.

Spyro lets you enjoy the freedom of open 3D platforming like never seen before (in 1998).

Introducing Spyro: A Decent Mario Competitor

With all these things in mind, we now come to my history with Spyro the Dragon, itself (himself?). Sure, Mario was (and likely always will be) the real platformer king, but back in the late 1990s I really wanted to find a decent competitor in order to widen my choice of games to play. And Spyro delivered.

I recall booting up the game. Spyro magically started to live when the disc was inserted into the PlayStation, and it was love at first sight, sound, and play. From the start the humor was there that really made me laugh. The bright, vivid colors popped out at me, and the game was one of the best looking at that time. (Keep in mind that many of the ‘hot’ PS1 games were ‘mature’ with dark colors and themes.)

Spyro’s full of colorful characters who sometimes carry around creamy cakes!

Last, but not least, for us Italians, it was one of the first times where the whole game was completely dubbed with Italian voices, thanks to Italian voice actors. If I wasn’t already smitten with the game before, this last selling point was all it took to totally fall in love with Spyro, the pretty-friendly Dragon!

Thanks to all of Spyro’s charms and much more, the developers, Insomniac (who recently, in 2018, put out the universally acclaimed smash hit Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4), strongly entered the videogames industry, and Universal (the publisher) made lots of money.

The new graphics are just as impressively beautiful and vivid as they were back in the day.

Much more importantly than fame or money, many players finally got to enjoy a real open-world 3D platformer on a console other than Nintendo, and there clearly was an appetite for this style of game. Consequently, Spyro, in his cool purple dragon style, sauntered himself through two additional Insomniac-developed chapters also on the PS1.

Hard Times for Old Heroes

Unfortunately, Spyro soon declined in popularity as game design evolved past the joys of simple 3D platformers. A couple PlayStation 2 titles (2002 and 2004) were developed and were moderately memorable. Other spin-off titles were also made to milk the franchise.

Then there was an attempt to revive Spyro in the 128-bit era by Activision (who bought the rights and owns them to this very day). This led to the creation of less interesting and semi-forgettable titles, including a dubious 2006-2008 rebooted trilogy with big-name voice actors and a planned movie tie-in (yuck).

Given Spyro’s rocky years, Activision shifted gears and directed one of their wholly-owned studios, Toys for Bob, to create a new type of game that mixed real-life collectible toy figures with videogames. This new vision would become the insanely successful Skylanders series. So in 2011 Spyro found himself becoming a ‘collectible toy’ video game designed to be inoffensive and accessible with RPG ‘hooks’ to keep the player engaged (and buying toys).

It’s ironic, then, that Skylanders began as a spin-off of Spyro but soon came to completely eclipse the Spyro brand. Soon enough, Spyro was mostly forgotten about as Skylanders went on to create an entire genre full of collectible toy creatures and mildly interesting ‘children’s’ videogames over the 2011 to 2016 period. Quite a fall for Spyro from being the up-and-coming threat to dethrone platforming-king Mario back in the early 3D days.

Finally, Spyro Returns, Reignited!

Having been dormant for some years now, and thanks to the trend in remaking old 3D classic games, Activision has finally brought back the original Spyro in this modern remake of the three very original games, much like how Activision remade the Crash Bandicoot saga in the ‘N. Sane Trilogy‘ in 2017. To accomplish this remake, Toys for Bob was called back to the action, which is fitting since they’ve had years of experience with Spyro-inspired games since 2011’s Skylanders series began.

Spyro can smile again, having been returned to his glory days in this modern remake!

First released in 2018 on PS4 and Xbox One, this remake has been a huge success from both critics and players, in part because it has allowed so many of us to relive old childhood memories in modern accommodations while retaining the appreciated ’90s gameplay mechanics. Accordingly, sales were huge, and Activision has successfully ridden the wave of instant nostalgia and given fans a real blast-from-the-past treat.

How Faithful is the ‘Reignited’ Remake? Very!

As far as the faithfulness of the remake goes, Toys for Bob have created a very faithful product, with the same story, worlds, and enemies of the originals. This is very much a 1:1 remake, much like its reboot-cousin, Crash’s ‘N. Sane Trilogy.’ With this reboot, from the first moment when you boot the game, it’s like traveling through time with some magic trickery.

Happiness and sunshine is what Spyro feels now having been given a quality remake.

Everything is there, in the same place I remember it, with all the same gems and chests right where I left them some 20 years ago. Even all the enemies are in the right places, with the same movements and noises. Indeed, all the gameplay and mechanics are basically identical to the original games. Even the beloved dragonfly character Sparx is faithfully recreated, who shows how much health is still available before collapsing and losing a life (you’ll understand when you play the game).

The only big difference in this remake is the technical, not structural, changes. Under the hood, the game hums along with excellent performance thanks to the Unreal Engine 4 engine, and all the modern effects create a visually pleasing, if still simplistic, style. The game engine also provides lots of configuration options to fit the power of various PCs, and the semi-cartoon visuals mean the game looks good even on lower settings.

Overall, this remake is ultra-faithful gameplay-wise but also has excellent additional details to make these original games come alive in ways never before seen. All the new aesthetic details are a treat to behold, even if they don’t change the underlying gameplay, and the few minor gameplay tweaks are welcome.

Very strong art and graphics create a new view of these old treasured games.

The Same Gameplay: Both Good and Bad

Delving into the actual gameplay, it should be noted that it’s both good and bad that this remake is so faithful to the originals. There’s no denying that these games are dated in design with gameplay that has aged a bit badly, but as long as you know what you’re expecting, you’ll likely find lots to appreciate.

As far as the structure, all three games maintain the world hub and its respective world zones scattered around it. Just like before, the player needs to collect all the gems, free all the dragons, and find all the stolen eggs using Spyro’s powers.

There’s just a few new additions here and there: for example, Spyro now has a new way of moving, inspired by feline movements, which make him smoother than before. The same treatment was used for every 3D model, allowing cleaner movements, making the game easier to appreciate in our time.

Out exploring, enjoying the smooth movement (but the gameplay is a bit stiff).

An Italian Aside

For the readers out there from Italy, let me once again say that we yet again have a completely localized game with redone (and superior) voice acting. Gone are the questionable accents of the original games, so the localization efforts deserve praise.

Game Difficulty: Not Hard

Let’s bring up Crash Bandicoot again. That series was cruel and difficult despite its happy cartoon-like design, and both the originals and remake were obviously aimed at experienced players. Spyro, on the other hand, was always aimed at younger players, and both the originals and remake have much easier controls and laid-back design.

Mind you, Spyro can still be a tough game at times, but it’s only ever difficult, not nightmarish, and most of the game is easy to explore and enjoy. Basically, Spyro is the type of game everyone (including kids) can play through and reach the end, feeling satisfied at the result.

It would have been nice to have some way to select or unlock more difficulty options in this remake, but whether you’re young or old there still is enough challenge to keep most players focused. Still, you can decide for yourself if the lesser challenge is a plus or minus for you, personally.

Concluding the Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Now I’ve taken you on my person journey through Spyro, leading up to this recent remake. I’ve enjoyed my time with this modern Spyro, and it’s been like a homecoming for me, reliving my old cherished memories. However, even if you’re never played Spyro before, there’s much to enjoy. The game is colorful, smooth, and interesting with a cartoon-like story and charming characters.

There’s much to love in this charming game world, if you don’t mind old game mechanics.

Make no mistake, this Reignited Trilogy is nothing more or less than a totally faithful, high-fidelity remake of the first three games (some would say the only legitimate Spyro titles). New players might not be willing to endure the old-school mechanics and simple challenge, but with the right mindset it’s really enjoyable to play.

At the very least, it’s nice to have Spyro back in a nice modern three-in-one package, reliving his 3D platforming glory days.

Faithful to the original trilogy

Remastered graphics

Easily customizable

3 games for the cost of 1!

Suitable for all ages

Probably too easy for some

No additional levels

No original graphics mode

No bonuses or extras

  Playtime: 12 hours total (and counting). Mathieu has not completed the game, but he’s still playing it to collect all the gems!

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit laptop computer, with 16GB of Ram, Nvidia 1050Ti.

The post Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – PC Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

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[ravenfan1242]

SyFywire

THE COMPLICATED HISTORY OF RAVEN

Sara Century

@saracentury

Jun 27, 2019

Trigger warning: Raven’s backstory includes depictions of torture that will be discussed in this article.

Appearing as a central character not only in Teen Titans Go! but also in the live action TV series for DC Universe, Raven is a character with a lot of recent attention but a great deal of unknown history as well. Her origin is far from a simple and takes a lot more explaining than your standard DC comics backstory.

While it’s great that Raven is a complicated character with a lot of background, there’s a significant amount of uncharted territory in her story. That, combined with a lot of weird creative choices, lack of consistency in writing, and more retcons than you can shake a stick at, and you have one of DC’s most versatile concepts, as well as one of its most convoluted histories.

New Teen Titans #1, written by Marv Wolfman, art by George Perez, Romeo Tanghal, and Adrienne Roy, lettering by Ben Oda

The first appearance of Raven was in DC Comics Presents #26, alongside other new characters like Cyborg and Starfire, with Beast Boy (then going by Changeling), Robin leading the team, and Kid Flash along for the ride. She was attempting to build an army to defend Earth against her demon father Trigon, although she didn’t mention that to the team she assembled. Initially, she went to the Justice League for help, but Zatanna sensed her demonic heritage and advised the JLA against trusting her. Raven instead brought the Titans together ostensibly to battle against an amorphous space creature. They become a team without questioning her too much, which in the long run turns out to be a mistake. Specifically, Kid Flash is obsessed with her, although later we learn that she was likely manipulating his emotions to ensure he would protect her from her father. This is not the only time Raven would struggle with the concept of consent. While it makes sense considering how and where she was raised, her treatment of the Titans is not always great.

One of the most interesting things about Raven is that she comes from a pacifist society and has no interest in fights. She very much avoids them whenever possible, although in some issues her aggression shows through. In New Teen Titans #30, the villainous Brotherhood corners her in a church, and she immediately assures them she’s ready to fight to the death and prepares to attack. They, particularly the member Phobia who can control fears by inducing nightmarish hallucinations, respond with some surprise, used to a much more passive character. Phobia insists that they fight outside instead, and they end up capturing Raven. In #31, she is tormented by Phobia and sent into a deep dream in which she’s being pulled apart by hands. By the end of the story, she very nearly kills herself to avoid losing control over herself but is barely saved by the Titans.

New Teen Titans #31, written by Marv Wolfman, art by George Perez, Romeo Tanghal, and Adrienne Roy, lettering by Bob Oda

Raven continually drops hints about her origin but takes a long time to fully reveal her story. Her mother, Arella, had been part of a small cult that worshipped a demon named Trigon, although Arella was in way over her head and didn’t understand that they planned to sacrifice her to him. The demon took her by force, and a traumatized Arella eventually gave birth to Raven. Raven was then raised by a person named Azar in the dimension Azarath. Azar taught her to be in control of her powers and emotions at all times, lest her empathy be weaponized against her and indeed everyone around her. In her late teens, Raven discovered that Trigon planned to destroy Earth and that he intended to use her to do it. By the Titans realize this, Raven had become fully possessed by her father.

Raven was presumed dead or at least missing for a time, then reemerged enthralled to Brother Blood. At this time, Raven took to wearing all white rather than the bluish-grey costume she had made her first appearance in, and she made some efforts to regain her innocence while also trying to assimilate to society for the first time in her life. She became friends with Jericho, another troubled soul who would later deal with his own father issues and die while possessed. They kind of had a lot in common, and while we don't see them interact much at this point, their friendship was always a deeply felt one.

For a long time, Raven went evil, died, and came back from the dead more often than even Jean Grey. Through several retcons and reboots, we repeated her possession by her father and her enthrallment to Brother Blood, but some positive changes in her character began to slowly emerge. She began dating Beast Boy, who was never a great match for her emotionally but did what he could to care for and protect her. Most importantly, his concern for her came from a genuine place and wasn’t something she had to manipulate him into. She took on the civilian identity Rachel Roth and attempted to attend high school. She allowed herself to look away from her troubled interior life and actually interact with people. In short, although it was a long time coming, Raven has slowly begun to humanize and socialize herself, and over several years it has led to an actual positive change in her life and in her outlook.

Everything about Raven’s responses makes her read as someone with a long history of trauma. Her highly specific fear of her father is fascinating, and relatable for a lot of people that grew up with bad dads. In her early days, Raven fully acknowledged that her best case scenario was to die defending the world rather than become the monster that helped bring about its destruction. When she died (repeatedly) in a battle against her father, she was fulfilling the prophecy everyone around her had been telling her since her early childhood. As a character without a future, Raven’s ability to make connections or have stability in her life suffered and helped to cause her ultimate collapse. Again, for people that have been in some way forced to constantly choose between their fight or flight response and their desire to make real connections in life, Raven is a beacon.

Titans #5, written by Judd Winick, art by Julian Lopez, Rodney Ramos, and Edgar Delgado, lettering by Rob Clark JR

Raven was born from an act of violence. Like so many children of abuse, she was raised with a great deal of emotional baggage from day one. Her mother feared her and feared for her, so she gave her away to be raised by Azar, a spiritual leader that offered little emotional warmth. She never truly had a mother figure, save for the person that advised and trained her not to show affection or emotion lest the world collapse around her. Raven was born into trauma, and her bizarre antisocial behavior and thorny vulnerability indicated that from the start. The constant state of fear that she exists in, terrified of becoming her father, is almost impossible to even fully imagine... unless you've gone through something similar yourself.

On the other hand, Raven remains a strange type of role model in the valiant way she denies what others perceive to be her inescapable fate. Despite existing in a constant state of anxiety and being broken down by various villains, again and again, she always seems to put herself back together, and her past self only exists as a piece of a puzzle that she’s still trying to form. Children that suffer trauma at early ages often have great difficulty forming friendships and assimilating to society as they come of age. Raven is an interesting character because we get to watch her as she makes those efforts, and as such, she can serve as a beacon to people that are suffering and likewise flailing towards some sense of wholeness they have yet to possess.

Teen Titans Go! crossing over with old school Teen Titans series for mystery project

Oct 25, 2018

Tara Strong on how Teen Titans Go! is a 'spiritual continuation' of the original series

Jul 26, 2018

More recently, in Teen Titans Go!, we’ve seen a Raven who is dark and weird but genuine, optimistic, and funny, which indicates a great deal of character growth from the nervous, unbearably shy character we’ve been seeing in comics for decades now. Wherever Raven goes as a character, it’s important to remember her willpower and her slowly developed and dry sense of humor as being as tantamount to her character as her trauma could ever be. It is most important for readers that have experienced massive amounts of suffering at young ages to be able to portray her trauma without obsessively retreading her deepest pain issue after issue. Above all, Raven has grown from who she once was, and it is that evolving maturity that makes her such an important character to the Titans.

Teen Titans Go! via Time/Warner

Fangrrls

TV

Comics

Raven

Titans

New Teen Titans

Teen Titans Go!

DC Comics

[prosperopedia]

One for the Money, Guide to Family Finance

If you want to be successful raising a family, one of the most important skills you can develop is managing your finances. In the 21st Century, being a parent is more expensive than ever. A USDA report released in 2017 estimated that it will cost parents $233,610 to raise a child born in 2015. In a time where a strong marriage is becoming increasingly difficult to find, in large part because of financial problems among married partners, it is even more important to draw upon time-tested principles for staying ahead (or catching up if that’s your current situation) of your money concerns.

When I was newly married, I read a pamphlet produced by my church entitled, One for the Money, Guide to Family Finance, written by Marvin J. Ashton, a devout religious leader and businessman who spent lots of time counseling young couples. The twelve principles outlined here were first introduced during a speech Ashton gave in 1975, but their application is as useful today, if not more so, than when it was given.

I will discuss the twelve principles included in Ashton’s One for the Money speech (which was subsequently made into a PDF pamphlet) below, including sharing my own experiences in trying to abide by these principles.

Because it was presented by a religious leader, this advice is faith-based. My strong personal opinion and experience tells me that strong faith is required to be the most successful and prosperous. However, most of these principles can also be used in strictly secular circumstances as well.

1: Pay an Honest Tithing

It is no coincidence that this principle is first on the list. Those who are not inclined towards religion will naturally be skeptical about giving charitable contributions away from your earnings as a way to become more financially stable, but there is more to this principle than just the math that would involve mere subtraction of funds.

Paying an honest tithing means to contribute 10% (the word tithe means 10%) of your income to God. In my church, we pay 10% of what we personally consider to be our “increase” to the church. That money is used to build new church buildings and to fund the operations of a globally expanding church along with its mission of sharing the gospel.

Those who don’t belong to a church might consider this principle to be an opportunity to open their hearts and be generous to a cause they support as a way of showing gratitude to a higher power. That sense of gratefulness itself opens doors and provides opportunities that wouldn’t be available otherwise.

I have personally seen enough miracles and heard stories of others such that I consider paying a tithe to be a sort of divine insurance program. My payment of one-tenth of my income is the way that I give thanks to God for what has been given to me, thus allowing the “windows of heaven” to be opened and blessings contingent upon my faithfully paying tithing to be poured out upon me and my family.

If you’re intent on getting ahead financially, don’t skip over this principle!

2: Learn to Manage Money Before It Manages You

When a couple is married, into that marriage is brought two often very different backgrounds with respect to managing money. In a worst case scenario, neither of the spouses has experience or is good at managing money. More often, the varying priorities regarding what’s important have to be reconciled in a new marriage relationship. Making that happen and establishing a plan for managing the money of the new entity normally takes work, assertiveness, and discipline.

As a family grows and evolves, habits regarding money also have to mature. As a father of six (with one more on the way), I’ve found that every child added to the mix places an increased financial burden (one I’m happy to shoulder) that requires increased discipline and teamwork to absorb into the family unit.

When my wife and I were newly married, we had no money, and we had a little bit of debt from some small financial misfortunes that had happened just before we were married and right afterward. Each of us came from backgrounds that were meager. Before our wedding and in the months afterward, we sat down and made a plan to take control of our finances. More than 15 years later, we are very glad we took that approach early on in our marriage.

3: Learn Self-Discipline and Self-Restraint in Money Matters

One of the most common problems afflicting modern society is an unrestrained addiction to materialism. Commercials from car dealers, furniture stores, and so many other consumer items constantly tell us that six months financing is the same as cash, that anyone with a job is approved for credit, and convince us that wants should be classified as needs. In church leadership positions I’ve held, I’ve seen people who were asking for church financial assistance classify everything from premium cell phone plans to pet grooming as “needs”. Our society (and marriages collaterally) is paying dearly for this mentality. Household debt is at a record $13.2 trillion as of the first quarter of 2018, with consumer debt (debt for things that are consumed or that don’t appreciate) in the neighborhood of $4 trillion.

A lack of self-discipline and self-restraint is certainly the cause of too many divorces, in addition to the anxiety stress, and sense of bondage it creates for those whose marriages don’t end up failing.

A big part of the challenge of this life is to learn to deny ourselves things that we want naturally, because we can see how indulging in those things will affect us negatively in the long term. In matters of financial management, this principle is paramount.

In his commentary on learning self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters, Ashton suggests that couples demonstrate “genuine maturity” and the unselfishness required for a happy marriage when they prioritize the needs of the family unit over their own natural spending impulses.

4: Use a Budget

Budgeting tends to be a chore for most people. My wife and I have struggled with being consistent budgeters, especially as we’ve increased in wealth and haven’t felt such an urgent need as when we were newlyweds. However, when we are out of the habit of budgeting, we always find ourselves feeling a bit lost, unsure of how much we’re spending and how much we’re saving. Even for those who have already done well financially, maintaining a regular habit of tracking expenses and planning income against expenditures opens communication channels in a marriage relationship and gives empowerment to a couple and their children.

In our technology driven world with millions of applications that do almost everything, there are plenty of computer and mobile apps that can be used to make budgeting easier. In my family, we use the EveryDollar application produced by Dave Ramsey’s organization. It’s free, easy to use, and it’s built with the foundational approach used for Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps program.

If you aren’t using a budget, make a plan to start right away. You need to know how much money you’re spending on what things and be able to compare that with what income you’re receiving each month if you want to have greater power over your financial future.

5: Teach Family Members Early the Importance of Working and Earning

Kids can learn from an early age the concepts of working for something and being rewarded for their efforts. I’ve seen my kids beginning at younger than two years old regularly acknowledge and appreciate the ability to provide value and contribute to the family.

The term “millenial” (identifying those born between 1982 and 2004) has become somewhat of a pejorative, referencing adults who constantly want things to be given to them instead of earning what they receive. It’s easy to see that many of this latest generation have lost the sense of accountability, which naturally influences too many of them to feel lost and lacking in value. An entitlement demeanor most often comes from kids being spoiled, which teaches them to be takers rather than givers. That mentality is not easily fixed, and often leads to financial destruction.

Kids can and should be taught beginning in their toddler stage and continuing through adulthood that working, contributing, and being rewarded based upon merits are healthy for them. Their parents should be examples to them of loving and enjoying work.

In teaching children to work, it’s important that they learn to appreciate both physical and mental exertion. Earning an allowance can be done by either doing things like chores in the home or completing homework or achieving educational goals. As kids get into their teenage years, it’s helpful for kids to take on summer jobs and/or part-time work during the school year to give them the opportunity to experience what it will be like when they eventually have the responsibility of providing for their own families.

6: Teach Children to Make Money Decisions in Keeping with Their Capacities to Comprehend

I’ve often experienced having one of my little children come to me with some coins he has collected and asking if he can buy a bike or some other object that is much more expensive than what his young mind comprehends. At an early age, kids start to try to piece together the need to have money to pay for things, and they can be given perspective on a small scale starting at a young age.

The One For the Money guide recommends giving kids opportunities to save money for specific purposes that make sense for their stage in life. Saving for a new toy, to contribute to a family trip, and for other purposes helps them connect work hours an effort with the potential rewards that come from it. It also helps them get a sense of how skills and effort factor into a wider economy.

7: Teach Each Family Member to Contribute to the Total Family Welfare

In many family settings, kids are insulated from what it takes to manage the household. While younger kids should certainly not take on the stresses and challenges the parents face with providing for the household, they should understand that there is effort required by their father and mother to provide a comfortable home for them. If a child reaches adulthood thinking that free room and board is a human right, he will be in for a shock when it comes time to fully cut the apron strings. In fact, the trend over the past several decades has led to more adults (people ages 18-34) living at home with their parents than there have been since the 1940s. Some of this trend is attributable to young adults’ lack of ability to earn a living that would allow them to move out on their own.

Children should be taught to contribute money they’ve earned towards a shared family benefit, such as a trip. Ways to help children understand their obligations to their own household and learn how to become givers should be discussed during family council meetings.

8: Make Education a Continuing Process

The One for the Money guide suggests getting as much formal education as possible. Learning, increased income, and better management of money are highly interconnected. In the process of getting education, it is important to consider how to match natural skills and propensities with income earning opportunities in the current and future economy. For instance, the majority of high earning jobs in the modern age involve the use of a computer. Kids and adults should spend time understanding how computers and technology work so that they don’t find themselves left out on earning opportunities they could otherwise have.

One word of caution regarding continuing education involves how to finance it. The higher education system in the United States has become nearly unaffordable for the majority of those who are candidates for obtaining college degrees.

A recent Forbes article that evaluates the cost of obtaining a college degree compared with the benefits it provides explained that wage increases from attending college are losing value because of the dramatically rising cost of a college degree.

There are also many alternatives to college available in the modern era that make it possible to get both informal and formal education without having to spend time on an expensive college campus.

9: Work Toward Home Ownership

Home ownership has long been considered a major part of the American Dream. Although there have been uncertainties in the housing market (the housing bubble of 2008), home ownership is still considered to be an investment as opposed to a consumption expense.

Purchasing a home has become easier as lending institutions have become creative (in many cases irresponsible) about lending to more people, many of whom are in reality unqualified. Becoming a homeowner and paying off your home is a worthy objective. Just make sure you don’t jump the gun and become “house poor” by buying too much too soon.

10: Appropriately Involve Yourself in an Insurance Program

Insurance protects against unexpected losses. Your financial stability can take a beating if you are not adequately insured. Typical insurance concerns that you should address include:

Medical/Health Insurance

Automobile Insurance

Homeowners Insurance

Life Insurance

Shopping for insurance can be complicated, so it’s a good idea to find an agent you can trust and lean on him or her for advice based on your specific family situation, including as it changes from month to month and year to year. Spending the time and making the effort to find the correct balance between being adequately insured and being over-insured (which happens more often that it should) will allow you to protect your financial standing.

11: Understand the Influence of External Forces on Family Finances and Investments

This principle deals with making sure that you are aware of your financial surroundings and make the best use of your income and investment options that are available. Being wise about concepts like inflation, investment options, interest rates and other aspects of a dynamic economy will help you to make better financial decisions.

I will share with you an example of how this principle has benefitted me.  When my wife and I bought our first home together just after finishing college in 2006, it was clear to us that the housing market was unhealthy. We had observed and tracked the speedily increasing prices of homes in our area. We also heard from friends and read about in the news and in advertisements about interest only loans and other practices that we knew were not sustainable. Instead of buying a home for the amount we were pre-approved for (over $400,000 on a $70,000 income), we found a modest home in an area 20 minutes outside of where we really had wanted to live. Four years later, after we’d witnessed the largest housing collapse in history, we bought a larger home for just over half the price it was originally sold for four years before we bought it.

By paying attention to the external forces that could affect us, we were greatly benefitted.

12: Appropriately Involve Yourself in a Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness Program

This principle is another kind of insurance for your family. There is always a possibility that emergencies could arise for your family specifically or in widespread cases throughout your community.

The story of Joseph in Egypt is illustrative. During seven years of plenty, his advice to store food and be prepared was heeded by the Pharaoh, and it ended up saving a nation from starvation.

Experts recommend keeping at least three months worth of food at home, along with a supply of water to last for 14 days. Comprehensive strategies for long-term storage are available online, including this one from the BYU Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Science department.

Being prepared for emergencies has as many aspects to it as there are chances of danger to you or other members of your family, whether from natural disasters, political or economic instability, or any of the other thousands of things that could pose a threat.

A family I met recently moved to the United States two years ago from Venezuela as living conditions began to quickly deteriorate there. Inflation and food shortages, leading to lines that took days to buy even small necessities, made it impractical for them to obtain food. They told me of how grateful they were that they had planned ahead and could rely upon their food storage to see them through until they were able to leave the country.

There are lots of education resources for emergency preparedness topics. The ones I recommend the most are the LDS Church’s emergency preparedness guide and Ready.gov.

Establishing a Financially Sound Family

Following these twelve principles should put your family on a solid foundation financially, which will provide stability for your marriage and a rearing environment for your children that simply cannot be obtained in households that struggle financially because the parents have not been responsible.

If you have experiences regarding these principles, suggestions you’d like to share, or feedback on financial principles for families, feel free to share them with us by commenting here or by interacting with Prosperopedia on one of our social media accounts.

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