#my life-long obsession has been the progressive era

[goldenstarprincesses]

Honestly, as much as a love the Gilded Age and glitz glamor of the wealth it shows...what has really caught my attention is the plotline unions and mills

I am once again starting my campaign for Hollywood to create a mini series based on the Progressive era

And I want it as dark, gritty, a realistic as possible.

[nutty1005]

Actor of the Year, Xiao Zhan: Interpret Every Role Carefully

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/P–3yUvcmaUjWlTi3mnC8w This article is published by Blogger World 博客天下 Weixin. This is also part of the article published in Blogger World 《博客天下》 2024 1st Issue.

This year, Xiao Zhan switched roles between era dramas, fantasy dramas, and workplace dramas, delicately handling the complexity of the characters, creating a layered sense of these characters, and allowing the audience to see more of him as an actor. He never set limits on his performances, his standard for judging characters is to make him fall in love with them. He relied on emotional resonance, observation and feeling, understanding them and becoming them, which made his work real and vivid. For a long time, he had always adhered to his original intention as an actor, hoping that he could give back to the audience with more and better works, and deliver more positive energy through his own actions.

In 2023, people saw more sides to actor Xiao Zhan.

In “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories”, he was Xiao Chunsheng, a youth from Beijing. He was sincere and brave, firm and kind, and he pursued his dreams steadfastly despite the ups and downs of fate. The 30-year time span in the drama made many viewers realize that Xiao Zhan, who had a strong youthful temperament, was also able to interpret middle adulthood characters with ease.

In “The Longest Promise”, he was the cold and aloof Grand Priest Shi Ying, the top magic user of Yunhuang, but he also had a complicated and heavy past, he had experienced the entanglements of love and hate in the world, had experienced strong greed, anger, obsession and resentment, and eventually cultivated a heart of justice. Through Shi Ying, the audience once again felt Xiao Zhan’s interpretation of the complexity and layering of characters.

In “Sunshine By My Side”, he was Sheng Yang, a newcomer who has just entered the workplace. He was sunny and cheerful, and had a firm love for the advertising industry. Even if he was suppressed by his supervisors, he would grit his teeth and fight on. Xiao Zhan delicately integrated the idealistic enthusiasm and the roughness tempered by life, the result was three-dimensional and moving.

This year, Xiao Zhan had been constantly switching roles between period dramas, fantasy dramas, and workplace dramas, and had been active in the public eye. Watching the different lives he performed on the screen, the audience began to realize that Xiao Zhan, who had been in the industry for 8 years, had unknowingly become a mature actor capable of various types of roles.

Looking back on 2023, Xiao Zhan believed that this was a fulfilling and rewarding year. His goal had always been to let everyone see his progress and changes through each work, so that his performance could be recognized by the audience.

Following the light of his ideal, his steps never stopped moving forward.

01 Becoming Them

On the road to acting, Xiao Zhan had always been trying to find more possibilities.

When he met Xiao Chunsheng, he was at the stage where he wanted to challenge more new roles. After getting the script of “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories”, he was quickly attracted to this drama, which was rooted in the 1970s, and moved by the grand story with a time span of 30 years..

On the one hand, Xiao Chunsheng’s sincerity, passion, and friendship deeply attracted him; on the other hand, Xiao Zhan also grew up in the factory area when he was a child, the life and neighborly feelings Xiao Chunsheng experienced had a strong sense of familiarity to Xiao Zhan, which made him resonate to a great extent with Xiao Chunsheng’s choices in family, love, and career.

But aside to resonance, there were also practical problems facing Xiao Zhan: he grew up in Chongqing, whereas Xiao Chunsheng was an authentic Beijinger. How could he grasp the essence of Beijing dialect and capture Xiao Chunsheng’s spiritual temperament? For this reason, Xiao Zhan hired a line teacher before joining the group and spent a long time learning Beijing dialect. In his free time, he would go to Beijing’s alleys with his script teacher and watch the Beijing elders playing chess, cards, and walking birds. These vivid scenes of life allowed Xiao Zhan and Xiao Chunsheng to become more and more familiar, and he could already fully imagine the traces of Xiao Chunsheng’s life here.

The first scene to be filmed was the scene at the Shichahai Ice Rink. At that time, the crew used straw mats to circle an area of ​​more than 10,000 square meters on the Shichahai Sea, restoring the scene of the old Shichahai Ice Rink 50 years ago. At the moment Xiao Zhan stood on the ice rink, he did not have any extra thoughts, he just felt “I am him.”

In Xiao Zhan’s career as an actor, there were many moments of “becoming him”, which were not realized only through emotional resonance. Before performing a role, he would repeatedly search for the character’s supporting points. At those times, he was like a container, putting the character’s personality traits, living habits, and values ​​into his body bit by bit, and then working out the most suitable and fitting shape.

To a certain extent, Xiao Zhan was the person who understood them best, and hence he could become them.

When filming “The Longest Promise”, Xiao Zhan already had a deep understanding of Shi Ying, although he had appeared in works of a similar style before, in his opinion: “The role of Shi Ying feels new to me is that he is a mortal human being, he had human emotions and desires, which are very vivid.” At the same time, “This character has a sense of contrast, he is restrained yet sharp, cold yet empathetic, his character traits are not singular, these gave me a better fulcrum to understand and interpret the character.”

For Xiao Zhan, among all the characteristics of Shi Ying, “coldness” was the most difficult to interpret. He did not attribute Shi Ying’s aloofness to his identity as a Grand Priest, but tried to find resonance points in Shi Ying that would convince him and the audience. With this idea in mind, he chatted with the director and screenwriter on the set to explore Shi Ying’s growth environment and life attitude, and finally presented Shi Ying’s complex and highly contrasting side.

Sometimes, Xiao Zhan would encounter a character he liked, but was not sure whether he could create him with flesh and blood. For example, when he came into contact with Sheng Yang in “Sunshine By My Side”, Xiao Zhan was quickly impressed by this energetic, “wise but not worldly” newcomer to the workplace. However, he hesitated at the time and did not know if he could still be that innocent and lively Sheng Yang, who was like a little sun. For this, he held three script meetings with the screenwriter, and everyone came together to sort out and adjust the character, and a clear and complete Sheng Yang started to appear in Xiao Zhan’s mind finally.

When it came to roles, Xiao Zhan had no fixed restrictions or a certain preferred type. He only had one criterion: this character must be someone he could fall in love with. Because of this love, mutual trust was established and the work became real and vivid.

02 Living Character

During those days on the set, Xiao Zhan’s background colors would fade away and be replaced by a new personality. Sometimes he was more lively and outspoken than Xiao Zhan, and sometimes he had a heavier past than Xiao Zhan.

These differences could not be filled with a few lines, and it would not film strictly with all the lines as planned while on set, Xiao Zhan frequently needed to react on the spot. For example, when filming “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories”, there were many group scenes, there were many scenes just counting dinner table scenes. In the “Menghai Squad”, Xiao Chunsheng was their eloquent leader, so before filming a group scene, the director would always say “Chunsheng, come and say a few words” to liven up the atmosphere on the scene.

In the days when he became Xiao Chunsheng, Xiao Zhan had adapted to such strong social needs, and he often made impromptu toasts. Even after filming completed, these characteristics will slowly fade away, but in this time and space, they had completely overlapped before.

In every drama, Xiao Zhan woud design some details of the character. When filming “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories”, because the character Xiao Chunsheng had to go through a time span of more than 30 years, Xiao Zhan deliberately made some explicit distinctions in each age group. For example, in his youth, Xiao Chunsheng would often have a “careless” attitude when speaking, with his head tilted to one side, which looked cocky, and his body movements were lighter. In middle adulthood, not only did his hairstyle and clothes change, but his tone also began to become calmer, and his feet would completely land on ground when walking, forming a clear distinction from the unrestrained youth in the previous stage.

Xiao Zhan would write a biography for every character he played. Before filming “The Longest Promise”, Xiao Zhan discovered that there were a few years where Shi Ying’s experience leaving imperial city and entering Jiuyi Mountain was blank, he relied on his own imagination to fill in the life of Shi Ying in those few years, imagining how he grew from a prince to a minor priest, which made the character of Shi Ying’s foundation deeper.

During the filming process, Xiao Zhan would also actively communicate with the director based on the logic of the characters. Because of Shi Ying’s “upright” image, Xiao Zhan rarely sat on the set. He would always stand against the wall or a tree trunk to make himself look more upright. But at the same time, after feeling Shi Ying’s inner softness more and more strongly, Xiao Zhan would take the initiative to discuss with the director whether he could break Shi Ying’s “upright” side in some scenes and show his slightly evil inner self, slightly prideful self, to make this character more vivid.

He once mentioned in an interview a scene in “The Longest Promise” before Shi Ying’s death: “In the original script, Shi Ying comforted Zhu Yan and told her not to be sad. I don’t think this is should be the state of someone truly in love with each other, the state of a someone who truly in love with each other should be: I want you to feel sad for me, when I am dying, I will be very happy when I can see you feeling sad for me from the bottom of your heart.” It can be seen that he had a deep understanding of the character’s inner emotional logic.

When performing, Xiao Zhan would also add his own observations and feelings about life to his interpretation of the character. Song Xiaofei, the director of “Sunshine By My Side”, once expressed that Xiao Zhan made many detailed considerations for the character. For example, at first, people would think that Sheng Yang had too few clothes, but Xiao Zhan believed that a designer who had just started working, with a monthly salary of several thousand yuan, it would be unrealistic if every time he went out like he was attending a fashion exhibition, changing his clothes constantly. “We need to bring him back to the real world and make him feel like a new person in the workplace, his clothes are also designed to be relatively simple.” In and out of the drama, on and off the stage, Xiao Zhan never regarded his characters as pure artistic images, in his eyes, they were all living people. With this understanding, he could be natural when performing and make the audience feel the sincerity in the performance.

03 Unchanging Original Intentions

In 2020, “Blogger World” had a conversation with Xiao Zhan, and when asked about his future career plans, he replied: “I still hope to deepen my career and try more diverse roles and dramas with different themes.” 3 years later, Xiao Zhan’s goals had not changed, but he had higher expectations for himself: “Besides hoping to be recognized by the audience, I also hope that my works and roles can bring more power to the audience.”

Xiao Zhan himself had drawn a lot of strength from the characters he has played, for example, he said: “Xiao Chunsheng is a very lively and infectious character, I am often moved by him. He perseveres and has always stuck to his the bottom line in heart, he will not be easily affected by the people around him or the surrounding environment, and he has the drive to face difficulties head on, and frequently say that ‘a difficult road is an uphill road’.”

This character was actually more extroverted than Xiao Zhan himself. “He is very responsible, always taking care of the friends around him as much as possible, and loves to help everyone solve their problems, his pure and innocent heart also affects me imperceptibly.”

Therefore, during the filming process, Xiao Zhan always maintained a high sense of faith to deeply understand the situations Xiao Chunsheng encountered at different stages, every stage had its slight differences, including military service, retirement, employment, and entrepreneurship. At the same time, relatives and friends around him would slowly come closer or become separated. When performing, Xiao Zhan would put himself into the situation and think about “with Chunsheng’s unyielding spirit, what he would think and do when faced with these situations.”

Sometimes he felt that he was the same as Xiao Chunsheng, whatever he wants, he would strive for it through hard work. As a result, the characters and actors actually formed some kind of interaction, influencing each other, and ultimately moving the audience.

When filming “The Longest Promise”, Xiao Zhan felt from Shi Ying’s life attitude that “man could conquer nature and everything depends on his actions”, and destiny was not fixed but could be shaped by oneself through hard work. “He will firmly do what he thinks is right, and in the end he will also succeded in dedicating everything he has to the righteousness and the country,” Xiao Zhan said.

When filming “Sunshine By My Side”, he felt the warmth and rich emotional world in Sheng Yang. In Sheng Yang, there were common workplace dilemmas faced by young people, there were some impulsions when handling with the relationship with his boss, but Xiao Zhan could feel that Sheng Yang must have a pair of parents who loved him very much, his family background might be ordinary, but the emotional condition must be filled.

Every character had a shining point, and as an actor, Xiao Zhan also wanted this light to illuminate more people.

In the past few years, Xiao Zhan had been busy at work and spent most of the year in the drama group. Every time after filming had completed, he would try his best to give himself a vacation and try to return to his daily life, sleeping, working out, and detaching himself from the character. But it would not take too long, “it’s enough to relax for a while, it also takes a while to welcome a new character. You need to read through and become familiar with the script, and sort out the relationships between the characters.” Xiao Zhan told “Blogger World”.

He is a person who listens to outside voices. When talking about the requirements he had for himself at work, Xiao Zhan said: “What I can do is to better fully understand and experience the character, and communicate more with directors, scriptwriters, and the collaborating senior actors, and at the same time, I will also listen to the audience’s well-intentioned and helpful suggestions on performances to improve my shortcomings.”

Xiao Zhan had never deliberately maintained a certain state or image at a certain stage. As an actor, he hoped to prevent the audience from having a fixed concept of his performance or characters. “It would be best if each work could bring a new image that brightens the audiences’ eyes, making everyone forget how Xiao Zhan was like originally,” he said.

“Be down-to-earth, interpret every role carefully, and do my job well.” Driven by this simple original intention, actor Xiao Zhan is walking steadily on his own path.

Conversation of the Year

“Blogger World”: In 2023, you have 3 dramas starring you aired, which have achieved very good results. If you sum up this year, what is your evaluation of yourself, or what do you want to say to yourself?

Xiao Zhan: Fulfilling and rewarding. I hope that I can continue to work hard and give back to the audience with more and better works in the future, and also deliver more positive energy through my own actions.

“Blogger World”: In the era emotional drama “Where Dreams Begin / The Youth Memories”, you play the role of Xiao Chunsheng, a tenacious and upright young man who bravely pursues his dreams. What impact does this character’s character and story have on you? What did you gain from the process of creating this character?

Xiao Zhan: Xiao Chunsheng is a very lively and infectious character, I am often moved by him. He is tenacious and always sticks to the bottom line in his heart, and will not be easily affected by the people around him or the surrounding environment. At the same time, he has the drive to face difficulties. He often says, “A difficult road is an uphill road.”

This character is actually much more extroverted than I am. He also acts as the “leader” among his friends, he is very responsible and always tries his best to take care of the friends around him and help everyone solve problems, his pure and innocent heart also affects me imperceptibly.

“Blogger World”: As an era drama, involving decades of time changes, how do you grasp the characteristics of the characters at each stage? For you, what is the most important element in a person’s growth process, and what needs to be held on to?

Xiao Zhan: I think the first thing is to believe and allow me to put myself in Xiao Chunsheng’s shoes and experience the situations he encountered at different stages. Actually, there are subtle differences in the stages of military service, retirement, employment, entrepreneurship, etc., including the close ones and friends around him, who will also slowly get closer or become separated, so when performing, I need to think about the scenes before and after, and put them into the situation: with Chunsheng’s unyielding spirit, what he would think and do when faced with these situations.

I think for me, it means sticking to what I believe in and doing what I think is right.

“Blogger World”: This time you starred in the fantasy drama “The Longest Promise” and returned to the field of ancient dramas. Do you have any new feelings and surprises?

Xiao Zhan: The new feeling for me about the role of Shi Ying feels new to me is that he is a mortal human being, he had human emotions and desires, which are very vivid. At the same time, The surprising thing is that this character has a sense of contrast, he is restrained yet sharp, cold yet empathetic, his character traits are not singular, these gave me a better fulcrum to understand and interpret the character.

“Blogger World”: Shiying in the play is a lonely and cold person, but his destiny has experienced great twists and turns. What do you think the character’s attitude towards life is?

Xiao Zhan: Shi Ying’s attitude towards life is that man could conquer nature and everything depends on his actions. Therefore he will firmly do what he thinks is right, and in the end he will also succeded in dedicating everything he has to the righteousness and the country.

“Blogger World”: In the urban drama “Sunshine By My Side”, you play the role of designer Sheng Yang. The character has a sunny side of a young man, but at the same time he is very mature inside. Is this the image you want to maintain?

Xiao Zhan: As far as I am concerned, I do not deliberately maintain a certain state or image at a certain stage. In my understanding, Sheng Yang is a person who is wise but not worldly, he has the energy of a young man but is not childish at heart.

As an actor, I hope that everyone will not have a fixed concept of my performance or role. It is best that every work can bring a new image to the audience, making everyone forget who the original Xiao Zhan should look like. (Laughs)

“Blogger World”: Do you imagine what your life would be like now if you had not entered the entertainment industry?

Xiao Zhan: Actually, I have never thought about that, perhaps I might still be in the design industry, I would commute to and from work every day, and might have to work overtime frequently. Or open a bakery, paint when I have nothing to do, or go traveling with family and friends.

“Blogger World”: In recent years, you have participated in a variety of works and diverse characters. What method do you usually use to detach yourself from the emotions of the previous character and adapt to the next one?

Xiao Zhan: Maybe I will just give myself some time off, return to my daily life, sleep, exercise, and relax for a while, that’s about it. It also takes a while to welcome a new role, to read through and become familiar with the script, and to sort out the relationships between the characters.

“Blogger World”: Regarding the profession of actor, do you have any new insights now compared to when you first debuted? Is there any change in mentality?

Xiao Zhan: My idea was relatively simple then, I just wanted to act well and try different roles. My thoughts have not actually changed now, but I will have higher expectations on myself, besides hoping to be recognized by the audience, I also hope to bring some strength to everyone through my roles and works. I think this will be very meaningful and valuable.

“Blogger World”: What is your current ambition on the road of acting? What are the requirements for yourself reflected in your work?

Xiao Zhan: My goal has always been to hope that everyone can see my progress and changes through each work, and also hope that my performance can be affirmed and recognized by the audience.

What I can do is to better fully understand and experience the character, and communicate more with directors, scriptwriters, and the collaborating senior actors, and at the same time, I will also listen to the audience’s well-intentioned and helpful suggestions on performances to improve my shortcomings.

Be down-to-earth, interpret every role carefully, and do my job well.

[stinkigami]

big mamono infodump

^^^obsessed with this panel from ch94

(no pictures, text only below)

(some of this is from my hazy memory bc im lazy to reread, these are reference points for myself or others)

First appearance: some 10 years ago within the kemojiverse, inugami experienced it firsthand when anaguma and mei got infected. At that point, he desctibed it as if the minds of anaguma and mei were acting differently from 'their'(mamono) instincts (which is to destroy/infect any life nearby).

Name: literally 'true life' (beings), apparently named by inari (it's unknown how exactly the name came around), which she sees as existence above humans (at least). Mihai suggested Inari might want to become the mother of all things = mamono.

Now: in 3 years (2016>2019) Inari became the PM of Japan and established mamono as core part of the society in which kemono rule over humans. She sees it as means to increase productivity and evolve humans under her hand.

Thin and Kon/Aya findings: Mamono are made via the virus of the same name, which instictively searches for blood to infect. He compares it to being 'programmed'. Infected (mamonofied) organisms are mostly unstable as they are literally several different DNA/genes stitched into one so their bodies often self-destruct under conflicts within the organism. They have the 'core' which basically helds everything together and needs to be destroyed in order for them to be killed.

Mikage explanation&mamonofication: he is a 2 years old mushroom kemono and the minister of the mamono project who underwent mamonofication himself in order to gain 'consciousness' for which he is very grateful to Inari. Mamonofication is the process of injecting/infecting other lifeforms like human and kemono with the mamono virus and 'fusing' said lifeforms DNA with each other or animals (human+animal; kemono+animal; possibly kemono+kemono, or human+kemono though this hasnt been touched up yet). Basically engineering DNA and playing God, as the virus allows seamlessly to mix anything and everything. Excluding their unstability, it seems like they generally dont live very long.

Uses: generally, there are two types: human + animal instructed by Inari and ape kemono + animal by Kaidou.

Human mamono are used in labour or as food, examples provided by Mikage: adding mice genes to humans boosts their reproductive abilities; adding human genes to a dog will make it talk; mamono humans are bred to have more edible parts. There is progress on brain enlargement as well.

Generally, all humans will undergo mamonofication either in order to be used as workers or as food.

They die easily and the streets are littered with their corpses.

Kaidou's 'kaiju': are ape kemono (shoujou) and other animal fusions which are also pretty unstable. He sees this project as the means for him to be the 'hero' and has also mentioned wanting to become a 'kaiju' himself. He wants Japan to be protected by them. Ume described them to be 'living weapons'

Mikage helps him create these kaiju. They are born on the Hokkaido farm and other ape kemono are looking after them/breed them. Seems like they are categorized and programmed to be violent, aggressive and loyal as that's what Kaidou wants. Each type has specification documents and Kaidou gives names to the specimen he sees as the most promising. They all have '-kong' in their name and look very cool (Kaidou is obsessed with them looking COOL).

Currently known 'promising' kaiju: Jabakong (Japanese Kong/Sea ape) was a fish and ape kemono mamono which served as Japan's sea borders guardian. It died mid-battle because it was unstable. Kabane mentioned it looked like it was in agony.

Gaokong (Roaring Kong/Lion-ape) was a 'new era lifeform' which Kaidou wanted to present as 'the strongest beast'. However, he still needed some 'adjustments' as he wouldn't listen to commands and loud noises could trigger his berserk mode.

Kaidou has brainwashed his entire species to believe that they all shall become such monsters. His goal is to create the perfect mamono (kaiju) that wouldn't self-destruct.

Nemuro City Mamono Park (Hokkaido farm): is the establishment which is both a breeding farm and a park. Kaidou's kaiju are created there and these who are seen as useful are sent to Tokyo. 'Useless' ones (compared to unwanted children born without necessary characteristics by Tsubaki) serve as the park's entertainment as they are meek and the vistors love them.

Currently, Mayu and Yamabuki are tasked by Inari (or Kaidou, it's unknown) to transport any promising mamono back to Tokyo. Ume was tasked by Nobimaru to interfere with Mayu. Akira and Yui joined forces with Ume and Tsubaki as they were asked by Shiki to find any information on mamono (conveniently, they were in Hokkaido).

Tsukuba City Mamono Laboratory (Ibaraki prefecture): is a place mentioned by Raigou alongside with the Hokkaido farm as one of the places to find mamono data. The next arc will mostly likely take place there.

Uratama-chan: is a toadpole infused with uranium mamono which is created and being raised by Mikage as per Kaidou's request of creating a lifeform that would possess 'super energy'. Uranium could destroy its body any moment, but so far, the stabilization process has been progressing smoothly. It was shown briefly with Kaidou's introduction. It's the only mamono which is apparently animal + something else (chemical element).

Vaccine: Thin and Aya are looking to create the vaccine to combat Kaidou's plans. Initially, the vaccine proposed would cause destabilization within mamono, killing them. But Aya wants to create a vaccine that could cure them instead. In order to start the vaccine development in his Kyoto lab, Thin needs as much info/data on mamono as possible.

There's already a vaccine on the Hokkaido farm though, which destroys the virus/mamono cells within a mamono's body. The ape breeder decided to use it on Gaokong as there werent any other options in the situation he found himself in. He hinted that Gaokong would eventually die.

After discussing the vaccine with Yui however, he suggested that the mamono cure/salvation Aya wanted would be 'giving them back their dignity'. Yui thought that the vaccine reverse the mamonofication (return them to what they were initially), but it's impossible. The breeder did say that Gaokong (or other mamono) would get their consciousness back though. So, even though he'd still look like that, Gaokong's mind would revert back to his previous ape kemono self.

Akagi: It's not clear if he was already dead or still alive when nobimaru brought him to a mamono lab (as the virus apparently allows to 'ressurect' anyone as long as the brain is in tact > can be connected to a working heart). He was 'ressurected' via mamonofication but seemingly his DNA wasn't mixed with anything else. His 'true' mamono form is very much like what Mei and Anaguma became. It hasn't been explained or shown yet, but seemingly as a mamono he is pretty stable (which would make him like a 'pure' mamono lifeform if he doesnt have anything else mixed in). He's been in this state for 3 years.

info up to the most recent ch (94)

[jakowskis]

@buffetpallascat doing a good ol' days reply because i had enough thoughts on this to warrant some meta, in my typical rambling fashion. hope you don't regret engaging by the time im done dfhkdsf

for starters, you're very welcome, i'm glad you enjoy the post :D

as for your question - i meant moreso that it was typical of the fandom, although it was also very much influenced by societal trends of the time, too. fandom's always had a rocky history with women, especially women who supposedly 'get in the way of "slash" couples', but the way fandom misogyny is performed has changed; i see more willful erasure of female characters these days than flat out blatant misogyny. in tw fan content from the 00s, i've seen gwen hatefully AND casually called some pretty horrible things that i rarely see fictional or real women called nowadays, simply because standards have changed. hell, one of the comms i linked, the twgenre finders one, there was several entries requesting fic where gwen experiences, like, bodily harm? not in a whump-y way, they actually wanted to recreationally read fic about her getting physically injured and suffering, out of some bizarre sense of malice towards her. simply because she 'gets in the way of janto'. and i can't even fathom that existing nowadays. pretty much everyone outside of weird little 12 year olds knows that's not acceptable. not to mention it's just weird.

interestingly i've also noticed a lottttt of change in how the fandom... reacted to and treated janto as a couple back in the day, versus now. people in 2006 were not normal about gay people. we know fandom's history with fetishizing gay men, and it was even worse in 2006 with an exceptionally rare canon gay couple being received by a jarringly hetero-but-'slash'-obsessed fanbase.

i mean, i don't wanna generalize. i saw a poll recently about how fandom is not mainly composed of straight women, contrary to popular belief, at least anymore, and i guess the question is, was it ever? i have seen a lot of the people involved in fandom in the 00s identify themselves as straight, but was that partially because of the culture of that era? have any of those people since come out as some type of queer? maybe, for some of them, that was them exploring their queerness in a safe environment, when the culture around being gay in real life was a lot different.... the same way modern fandom culture continues to be for those of us who aren't in accepting homes. if they were 20smth year olds in the 2010s/2020s, rather than the 2000s, would they still identify as straight?

not sure. but i've made a habit of going on the profiles of old lj accounts, and i'll sometimes wind up going through the journals and the personal posts of authors i respect, etc etc. a significant amount of mid 00s fic writers were straight women in their 30s - 40s, many married, some with kids. very different demographic to modern fandom. very different climate they lived in vs the one we're in.

(although, bonus note, i also once found a thread of bisexuals in 2006 praising torchwood's depiction of bisexuality, and that made me exceptionally happy. but also maybe a little sad, because torchwood's my personal fav bi rep, too, in 2023, and the fact that we've had nothing better in seventeen years is a bit of a bummer. but i digress.)

anyway, this is all to say, i've seen some insanely fetishy shit about jack and ianto that rubbed me exceptionally wrong. that gross dehumanizing, severely homophobic place where it's like... ahh, ok, so you don't see them as people, you see them as sexy dolls you can mash together. but, ofc, that's how i view it as a bisexual person in 2023 who's been on tumblr far too long. they didn't see any problem with it. they might've even seen it as progressive. how can you be homophobic when you're obsessed with the little gay people on ur screen? but it's the opposite end of the 'homophobes reducing gay ppl down to what they do in their beds' trope, and it comes across as dated and icky now.

i mean, i consume a lot of older media, i know how to turn off my 21st century sensibilities and remind myself things used to be different, but it's honestly an impressive difference. there's some fantastic fics from that era of the fandom, in fact most of my favorite fics are from that era, but i often get quite a bit of culture shock reading things. particularly, i'm always impressed by people in the 2000s, an extremely biphobic era, applying their impressive period-typical 'bisexuals aren't real' beliefs to The Bisexual Show. torchwood's rep's not perfect (again, a product of its era), but i've seen a fantastic amount of gay!ianto and straight!owen, because bisexual men don't exist, obviously, and jack's not bisexual, he's the amazing slutty space man, except he's mostly gay because all that matters is janto. and i don't even really see explorations of gwen or tosh's bisexuality at all, because, again, women who?

i found a comm a while back, i didn't include it on my list because it wasn't torchwood-exclusive and didn't have much content in the tw tag, but it was a lgbtfest, and contained fics about the team and their relationships with their bisexuality, and it was really intriguing to me to see queerness as understood by regular people in 2007/2008, y'know, not by gay writers or activists or films. i have no way of knowing if any of them were speaking from any personal place, but it was just interesting, because none of the fics i read in that comm had that same brand of tone-deaf sex-focused homophobia to them, they were progressive for the time, but it was still apparent to me that they were written by people with a mid to late 00s understanding of being gay, and i do think it's interesting, that substantial difference.

got a bit off topic, but now that i mentioned the initial fandom being overwhelmingly composed of women, i can also add that i think internalized misogyny factored hugely into the fandom's disdain for gwen. the 'strong female' trope doesn't just annoy straight men, it also annoys a lot of women (though not consciously) - not because they're opposed to well-written women, but because society tells us certain things that'd be admirable and complex and sympathetic out of a male hero are unacceptable out of a female one. it's the double standard. jack does some awful shit, but i rarely see him criticized. i've straight up seen fans go "jack's kind of a bastard, but it's ok because he's hot", which is fine in jest, i've joked about shit like that with characters, but it's not so cute when those same people turn around and condemn gwen for her actions. hell, or owen. i've literally seen someone say they'd like owen more if he was more conventionally attractive. like, ok, you're clearly just here for the janto eye candy. you haven't brought any substantial critical thinking skills. pls take ur shallow ass and leave. but back to gwen - she was held to a standard none of the other characters are held to. they picked on her for the stupidest shit. and her worse sin, the infidelity, it's bad, sure, but i've seen countless male characters who cheat on their partners who are beloved by their fandoms. it's just fucking gross. i fucking hate hypocrites.

dude, yknow what?? i've even seen fucking tosh bashing. WHO THE FUCK HATES TOSH????

ok im done. sorry for my babbling. but yeah, i think it's a fascinating thing. i love how humans change and develop with the times and how we can map the changes and how they affect media, and it's fun to observe in fandom because it's there, too, but no one's looking so i get to feel like a little scientist fdskjfds. ok i will cease with the excessive babbling now

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Hey Jwb!

Hope you are doing well!

I used to be an Ardent fan of ipkknd and Arshi especially when it used to air on tv (2011-2012), It aired on tv in my childhood era, I was literally obsessed with this show, obsessed with Arshi, And Arnav was my first childhood crush, he used to be my ideal man and at that time i always wanted to experience a love story like Arshi, i even cried alot when ipkknd ended, However recently after 12 years of this show, i've started rewatching ipkknd on hotstar And now after rewatching it, A sudden dislike towards Arnav's character has started, I can't believe that he used to be my ideal man in childhood, after growing up it's hard for me to digest the amount of toxicity and narcissistic behaviour of Arnav, even though he faced a trauma in his life but i feel like the way he showed his extremely emotional and verbal abusive side to Khushi is pathetic and no one can forget it, Iknow he changes later in the show, But it's hard for me to forget the way he used to treat her earlier, that's the reason why i don't find him as an ideal man anymore, If he had that much toxicity due to his trauma then he should've taken therapy, he was already rich enough, he should've seek a professional help, Also, there was no serious redemption track of Arnav in the show, If the makers would've created a long and serious Redemption track then it would've been easy for me to forget his past behaviour with khushi... I'm sorry if im sounding like a hater, but seriously i'm unable to stan Arnav's character now, I loved ipkknd alot, but now i can't admire this show anymore, What are your views on this?

Hello dear Anon :)

Every media needs to be examined and consciously consumed. If something that you enjoyed watching no longer gives you that enjoyments then I would definitely recommend you to explore more options :)

With regards to IPK - I understand that feeling completely. And as a fan I can consume it anyway I want. So the most I can do is share what I did to be able to still enjoy the show.

Realize everything is ultimately fictional and have critical discussions with my friends and fellow fans who recognize the good and bad.

Write fix-it fan fictions where I address the more troubling parts of the show and run a whole blog about it!

Edit the show to enjoy it as per my sensibilities of what is tolerable in a romance (thus I like to imagine the Gupta House track to happen much later, Arnav never 'buys' Khushi's house, etc etc)

And the whole point about fiction is to enjoy it - if you aren't finding enjoyment then what's the point?

I personally still love IPK. Its writing was far more progressive compared to other shows and it set a standard for romance and filmmaking that is still used by other shows in Indian television - especially in filmmaking.

The biggest thing about IPK is that it's a story that's realistically not possible. Arnav is not a good man. IPK never frames Arnav as a hero - in fact he's an antihero. His and Khushi's marriage is traumatic for most parts and it takes him a long time to be able to love her selflessly. Which is why the second marriage was essential because this time he chooses to be a better man than let his trauma take over him.

Trauma is not a choice, but hurting other people is. And with the way he stood up for Khushi, his mother-in-law completed his arc as a character.

Also Arnav was written and portrayed as an anti-hero. He's... not the hero. Never was. Which is why Arnav is almost always dressed in black/dark. It becomes a light joke at the end of it that his closet doesn't have anything bright but the reality is that's the underlying of him being an anti-hero.

And I always like watching the IPKKND rewind Arnav snippets because that feels like a tortured man who went to therapy and healed himself and his relationships.

But the most important part is - you can grow out of loving old things :) Just don't guilt yourself into loving something that's problematic (as long as you don't apply those rules and beliefs in your real world) and keep enjoying life.

For me that's always going to be Miley Jab Hum Tum and Sarabhai V/S Sarabhai - hilarious and poignant!

Best,

Jalebi

[acromandus]

Finally getting around to doing this! Thank you @thelifeinmyshadesofgrey for tagging me ♥♥♥♥♥ I haven't done these in ages so it was fun to feel like we were back in the 'golden era' of tumblr xD

Tag someone you want to know AND/OR some of your besties: I don't wanna pressure anyone to have to do this, so consider this a warm suggestion rather than a I-will-judge-you-if-you-don't kind of situation @heyitszev :) (and if anyone else reading this feels like it, go ahead, the more the merrier lmao)

Favourite colour: This is a tough one because it all just depends on context so much. I'd say typically I veer more towards darker tones in general: really like a nice dark green, or a dark red or crimson. Purple is lovely too :D

Last song: Two Knights and Maidens by Crash Test Dummies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NS2EcHzdYY

Say what you want about the lyrics, but the chord progression in this song is *chefs kiss*

Last movie: 9. A bit of a strange one perhaps, but an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world brought to life in a style that reminds me of Tim Burton a little bit. Basically, the world has been destroyed in a war between humans and machines, and we're introduced to a group of sentient dolls, each with a number on their backs from 1 to 9, who have had to survive in this strange new world while figuring out why they were made in the first place. I don't wanna spoil this for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I'll leave it at that :)

Currently watching: I'm in-between series atm haha. Waiting for season 4 of the Boys, and just finished watching season 2 of 30 Coins. Might just do a rewatch of Andor or the Punisher to fill this void.

Other stuff I watched this year: Err… from what I remember (and yes, since we're only in January, I'm counting 2023 into this as well) I'd say Moon Knight, Andor, 30 coins, a rewatch of Supernatural (up to season 12), and the One Piece live action series. Out of all these Andor was perhaps my favourite, but I enjoyed all of them, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the One Piece adaptation remained loyal to the original works :D they obviously had to adjust some things but it still felt true to form. With Andor, I was hesitant to watch it at first because the last SW series I had watched had been declining in quality (weird writing, etc), however… Andor completely blew me away. The way it builds up to the climax was just so well done, the writing is superb, music fantastic, and it's one of those series I wish I could forget about completely so I could experience it for the first time again.

Shows I dropped this year/didn’t finish: I haven't watched many series I've not finished since I usually watch them to the end anyway, but looks like that new Percy Jackson series may unfortunately fall into this category?

Currently reading: I've been powering through the Harry Potter books. Started during the Christams holidays and I'm now on book 6. So far so good, though I've had to slow down with holidays being over. Might need to reread the Robert Langdon series as well after this as it's still one of my personal favourites.

Currently listening to: This changes daily but I do find myself drifting back to Riot music very often. So, that's music made for League of Legends, Valorant, etc. Not the soundtracks, but songs like Worlds anthems like "GODS" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3GouGa0noM) and 2021's "Burn It All Down" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z6CHioIn3s). I also absolutely love "Breathe" from the official launch video for Legends of Runeterra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNhKAJwlj04). I also like this vid for it heavily featuring Darius, the only champ I ever played when I attempted to get into LoL before the toxicity got to me and I decided it's not for me :3 (didn't take long, but left me with a bit of a soft spot for him lmao)

I absolutely do not play any of these games but man… the music is on point imo. Something again about chord progression, don't ask what my obsession with that is lmao.

If I'm not listening to these and songs like them, I'm listening to heavy metal (industrial or symphonic), movie or game soundtacks, or oldies belonging to various genres from the 70s and 80s, occasionally 90s as well. Here's a couple examples:

Once You've Tasted Love by Take That

Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp

Evil Woman by Electric Light Orchestra

Misplaced by Sonata Arctica

And I will leave it at that as I've already included too many songs lmao

Currently working on: I'm currently making a backend for a gym app I'm working on. I somehow got the GraphQL elements working, now I need to get it saving to a database of somekind. I could do this locally or learn to save data to the cloud but I haven't yet decided which approach to take lmao. Overall, I'm just upskilling in the hopes of eventually landing a job as a full-stack developer. NO LUCK SO FAR aside a couple freelance frontend opportunities :/

Current obsession: Hmm….. good question. I'd say, despite me not playing it as much as I used to, I am slowly getting back to Elder Scrolls Online? Fire Emblem Fates is another, as well as Bleach.

[taanoir]

Challenge update time!

It's been a long time since I gave an update on where the challenge goals are. Here is Saori being done with Albert Lafoy, while I was testing out that have people stay the weekend feature.

Generation 6: The Industrial Revolution:

This ended up being the longest generation I think I've ever played in a challenge. Five kids is a lot to wrangle and the age gap was a bit brutal (The oldest was an adult long before the youngest was a teen). After the shock of jumping from Rococo/Colonial straight to early Victorian, I tried to show a bit of progression in the wardrobe and surroundings. We ended up covering from Victorian (1840 - 1900) through Edwardian (1901 - 1910) and picking up Gen 7 in the interwar era (1920). I had to rush it a bit and time was wonky because sim life state times are strange to begin with, plus infants were added in the middle of things. Elvira was born in 1839, the twins in 1843, Alex in 1855 and Maggie in 1871.

Maggie was originally planned to be the heir. Unfortunately she hates everything and would just quit doing whatever she was supposed to be doing to go sleep even if she wasn't tired. So, Alex who I kept at home as a "spare" got a promotion. I'm pretty sure he has a hidden child like or family trait because he is obsessed with taking care of kids.

Elvira maxed motor, mental and social as a child and had logic maxed before she graduated High School. She also made all the potions on the potions table. She was the first Varda to actually attend University and earn an in game degree. She maxed lots of skills Research and Debate, Handiness, Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Gardening, Painting, Athletics, Writing and I'm sure I'm missing some.

Luis was supposed to be the villain, hindsight being 20/20 it should have been Clara. Luis was really just too nice for the job. He did max mischief, completed "Chief of Mischief" and won his 10 fights after much prodding.

Once he had completed his tasks I gave him a wife, who he had a giant crush from the time he was a teen and they had a lovely family. He's still one of my favorite sims. Thanks to his career as an athlete and completing the bodybuilder aspiration he'll be in my game for a long while:

All items were upgraded by various family members, Elvira, Luis, Alex and Maggie all maxed handiness. The hardest part was keeping Hana from fixing things before I could assign a household member.

Generation 7: The Roaring 20's:

The game play for the 20''s is way ahead of the posts. For now I will say we have exceeded the "Net worth of $1,000,000", at the time of Bernard's birth the net worth was over $3,000,000.

Also, without spoilers.

I've been fighting with dispatching non-family sims on my home lot. Apparently, to send them to the great plumbob in the sky they have to be added to the family first. Cowplants are nerfed, exhaustion of an elder won't work, and I haven't found a way to make a hot-headed, non-family member mad enough to expire even with hours of insults and mean interactions. If you add them to your family most of those things work. However, they still get the fear of cowplants trait and won't take the 2nd cake. If you have some advice or if something is working (that is not a violence mod) let me know.

[gehenna-calling]

1, 10, 13 for lyssa!

what drives them? what’s their ultimate goal?

one of the most interesting things about lyssa, to me at least, is that she doesn’t really *have* a big overarching goal. her progress through life has been sporadically motivated by obsessions that overtake her, things she wants to, places she wants to visit - she moves from place to place looking for things for her collection, but moves on after a few years. maybe she’s not actively aware of it, but she’s always felt a lack of true purpose, felt slightly disconnected from kindred society and the schemes of others. like, that just doesn’t really matter to her, when she could just get up and go whenever she likes. the thing that *does* drive her, of course, is her curiosity. she loves the world for all the things it has in it, and she wants to see as much of it as she can. however, that’s less a concrete goal, and more the low-level force that keeps her unbound to anything long-term.

10. what inspired this character’s creation?

i can pinpoint lyssa’s precise start to that one old post that goes something along the lines of “a vampire that’s been around for hundreds of years and picked up a mishmash of slang from the ages they’ve lived through.” i got attached to the concept of an eclectic collector and hoarder, mix-and-matching various time periods and eras.

13. what are some motifs you associate with them? did you intentionally bring in those motifs, or did it happen over time?

oo this is an interesting one. i think the only deliberate motifs i’ve associated her with are the surface-level malk ones - broken glass, eyes, being watched. they’re symbols i enjoy a lot regardless, so they’re fun to play with regardless. more abstractly there’s definitely some stuff regarding the parallels between her relationship with her sire and her childe, the memory issues many of my characters end up having, and also the mismatch between appearance and reality, seeing through to the true self of people, etc. oh, and one more thing i forgot - she’s associated with magpies! because she is a collector of shiny things. if i had to connect her to an animal, i’d be more likely to be a bowerbird, as they’re more colourful, but “little magpie” is the nickname her sire gave her and i’m not saying it doesn’t fit.

[skamiikaze]

200 Hour Polish Update

*Caveat: I had been studying Polish since around 2020 using mostly traditional methods. If you look, I’ve been in this server for a while so I, in my infinite stupidity, was lazy and didn’t start doing a lot of immersion until this year (despite being pretty obsessed with learning Polish… ik weird ass logic). Which so far, has been 200 hours. Realistically, I don’t know how many hours my total progress indicates but ehh. Before this year my study has mostly just been reading about grammar and reading from textbooks.

What has my immersion consisted of?

watching videos on YouTube (without subs)

listening to podcasts

How much a day / how do I track?

      200 minutes a day (3.3 hrs). At the start I did 60 minutes (1 hr), and then I moved up to 100 minutes (1.6 hrs)

      I track everything with a pen and small notebook. I think it’s more satisfying (and easier for me) to track this way. It boosted my motivation to see pages fill up. I much prefer physical tracking to digital. Personal preference, this is neither good nor efficient so don’t do this lol.

What I’m glad I did / progress I made.

      I started off this year already with a decent level. I could understand basic conversations but sometimes I would have a hard time catching words I knew just because I hardly did any listening. 200 hrs later, I have no trouble at all with that. I can follow more complex lines of thought and discussions. I will say though, I still struggle with stories. I think if I focus on that type of media that will sort itself out. My main focus was just to get good at the subjects I enjoy. I don’t like TV / Movies / fiction at all, so I mostly avoided it. I started off the year with watching My Life as a Teenage Robot, Hilda, and a little Kid Cosmic (never finished it) but I didn’t really want to continue that since I was getting bored. Once I switched to videos and podcasts about subjects I enjoy (history, religion, politics) I found it much easier to go on for long periods of time.

      I now find it much easier to write / think in Polish. My writing is not that great still, but I feel like I’ve made progress. I plan to focus on output more in the future, but I think that I will focus on improving my writing after I start reading more. I need to see good examples of the written word before making serious attempts to replicate it.

      I did no look ups (with some exceptions but for the most part it was exceedingly rare, and when I did it was monolingual). I’m glad I made that choice. Before one of my main barriers to immersion was all of the Anki fiddling and sentence mining / look ups. I am someone who has a hard time getting in the habit of doing things, and a lot of that was a huge barrier to entry for me. I said screw it, and just sat down and watched stuff. Nothing more, nothing less. I think this is one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Besides the executive function matter, I think overall this was more beneficial than If I had managed to do Anki and look ups. I know myself, I would’ve poured over the nuances of a certain word out of context in a dictionary entry. Which in the grand scheme of things, is a massive waste of time. That time is much better spent engaging with content. The word’s I’m „ready to learn” will come to me so to speak. I strongly recommend this strategy. It’s a little uncomfortable at first, but in the long run it’s worth it.

What do I regret?

      Not starting sooner (duh). Seriously though, the main lesson I Learned was to not be so slow to change. I am a very change resistant person, I really struggle to change my routine / try something different. This really has shown me that just getting started is very very worth it. Even if the first few days suck.

      Trying to read books too early. I don’t know why I tried to do this. I don’t particularly enjoy reading in English, so I’m not sure why I tried to force myself to read in Polish, which is obviously harder. My reading era in Polish shall come someday, but I’m not going to try it until I can get into it in English first. If It’s a chore to do I won’t bother with it right now. One of my goals is to read Sienkiewicz but that’s a far off goal. I will let you all know when I get there.

Previous and current level (self assessed, take with a grain of salt)

2C/3 in refold terms (current)

Level of Understanding (before) A2-B1

Level of Output (before) terrible, I shudder at the thought

Level of Understanding (current) B2

Level of Output (current) B1, needs work of course…

Statistics

Start: Sat. Jan 7th

End: Tue. Apr 11th

Jan: 2061 min / 34.4 hrs Feb: 2149 min / 35.9 hrs Mar: 5220 min / 87 hrs Apr: 2459 min / 41 hrs

What now?

      I am going to take a temporary break from Polish to focus on Czech. I will be moving to Prague in the fall so I want to get a bit of a head start (even though I will be learning Czech there anyway as part of my degree program but I plan to use English as little as possible when I get there.) I want to do about 100 hours in Czech and then return to Polish (rather, incorporate both into my routine). Partly because I want to get through the beginner stages of Czech as quickly as possible (with minimal Polish interference) and partly because I want to see how my Polish will fair after a break. Will it improve? Get worse? Stay the same? Remains to be seen. I will provide an update after I do said 100 hours in Czech. The nature of that update again, remains to be seen.

A few words of likely generic advice...

      Don’t be hard on yourself. I know this is almost a cliché at this point, but being overly critical of myself stunted my progress. I was afraid to challenge myself out of fear that I was not ready / I wasn’t good enough.

      Don’t try to optimize everything. It’s impossible. You wont be able to keep perfect records of everything, you wont be able to track every second, you won’t be able to exactly know where you’re at level wise. It doesn’t matter where you are right now, just keep moving forward. Even if you aren’t that far now, if you keep moving you’ll be a lot further along than if you hadn’t moved at all.

Dziękuję serdecznie za uwagę! Czołem ;-)

[percreates]

Here's my intro post thingy-

My name is Percival, but I'm cool with Percy or whatever nickname, they/he, 20

Fandoms and things I draw/plan to draw

Random things from my life and little sketches

The Doomsday Heroes (working title) - a NaNoWriMo story I did when I was 13 that I'm entirely reworking to make a comic (I might make a post with some early concept art soon!)

Star Wars (I like the prequels/clone wars era best, but am not opposed to some original trilogy love)

Original Leverage (I only watched a lil redemption and didn't care for it all that much, but og Leverage has been my favorite show for over half my life now, expect ot3 art)

Spider-Man and Spiderverse, I have a spidersona that I'll be posting eventually

X-Files (I've taken a truly unhinged number of reference screenshots)

Star Trek TNG (a hyperfixation I'd like to return to, I'm obsessed with Data and Geordi)

Minecraft (funny/neat moments and adventures of my oc and others on an smp I'm part of)

X-Men (once I've read more of the comics)

Potentially other marvel superheroes (but again, not until I've read more of their comics, it's a Thing with me, but I did love the goofy found family avengers tower fandom stuff before the mcu got so dark and depressing)

MCR

Doctor Who (I'm not caught up on the latest few seasons and it's been a long time since I watched past the 10th doctor cause he and 9 are my faves, but I'm sure I'll draw early new who art sometime)

Jackass (MAYBE.)

Apothecaria (if I get back to it, which would be fun! I kinda forgot it existed until rereading this but I did have some cool ideas planned 👀)

Potentially other fandoms I'm forgetting I'm in, or didn't add to the list, just whatever I'm into lately

Random non-fandom related references, I've drawn a reasonable number of random people on pinterest afsgsgsg

(my references and tips board has 27 nicely organized sections and a total of over 1600 pins, feel free to dm me if you want the link!) (Probably more, I haven't checked in a while tbh)

Pretty much any scene/shot from a movie or show I watch that makes me go "ooh I wanna draw that" and take a screenshot, it's a problem (I got a lovely one earlier though of Eliot Spencer with a bunny)

I'm learning to draw cause I want to start creating comics! I drew a lot in middle school and am finally getting back into it. I was never that good back then, but I'm super happy with the progress I'm making since coming back to it >:D

I think entirely in words rather than pictures (I believe that's called aphantasia?), so until I've got A Lot more experience and have built up a better mental library and muscle memory, most things I draw will be with reference, but I'm slowly getting better at drawing from imagination!!

Tagging system-

#my art (self explanatory, I'll also have #my comics sometime down the line and #my me for self portraits), #perc rambles (anything I post that's not art, I've potentially missed a few of these), #cool art (any art I reblog that's not mine), #comics (as in comics people have made, not like, comics fandom stuff), #spidersona (other people's sonas, I'll be tagging my own separately, probably as #spiderskate but I haven't decided), #tips and tricks, #pose reference, #resources, and if I draw for a fandom I'll tag said fandom. I'll have tags for various ocs I post, currently my only one is #benni enderman.

I think that's everything! Thanks for checking out my blog, enjoy your time here :D

[casualtydept]

experiencing a particular sense of derangement today so how about an annotated walkthrough of my zeroskull playlist

there's a sort of progression to this that i intended to span their relationship as i portray it so keep that in mind. i hope you like 80s music.

this charming man - the smiths

this man said "it's gruesome, that someone so handsome should care"

my very first zeroskull fic has zero call him handsome and i shamelessly stole the idea from here. oh the romanticism of somehow finding yourself involved with an older english man who knows so much about these things...

2. unloveable - the smiths

i don't have much in my life, but take it - it's yours

sorry for all the morrissey it's not my fault he's also depressed and sexually complicated. i haven't written late 50s skull face in a while and this makes me miss him. oh you poor messed up thing.

3. love my way - the psychedelic furs

a kiss in not enough in love my way, it's a new road i follow where my mind goes

would you look at that another song about being gay. a comfy dreamy sort of feeling of falling for that older man that encourages him just to give in to all these terribly complicated feelings

4. later tonight - pet shop boys

and you wait 'til later, 'til later tonight 'cause tonight always comes

"the most gay song we've ever written" says neil tennant. i'll leave it at that

5. jack the ripper - morrissey

your face is as mean as your life has been crash into my arms, i want you you don't agree, but you don't refuse i know you

oh fuck he's back. anyway haha hope you enjoyed the sweet stuff here's one in which i compare zero to a serial killer. the "nobody knows me" lyric at the end fills my head with many thoughts. it's not zero if it isn't at least a little bit fucked up and morally questionable.

6. shake the disease - depeche mode

here is a plea from my heart to you nobody knows me as well as you do

hope you like this band as much as me or you'll be sick of them by the end of this. oh the desperation. ow oof the mortifying ordeal of being known.

7. in your room - depeche mode

i'm hanging on your words living on your breath feeling with your skin will i always be here?

be thankful i only quoted the chorus here. zero is a powerful man.

8. vampires - pet shop boys

say what you like i'll do what you want me to do you're a vampire, i'm a vampire too

the inherent romanticism of becoming strange and offputtingly wicked men who operate largely at night together

9. master and servant - depeche mode

domination's the name of the game in bed or in life, they're both just the same except in one you're fulfilled at the end of the day

i could have just quoted the whole song here. it's a lot like life!

10. stories of old - depeche mode

but we won't sacrifice anything at all to love

tfw you're totally in love but not enough to make you stop caring about controlling the global population/destroying the english language [delete as appropriate]

11. lovesong - the cure

whenever i'm alone with you you make me feel like i am whole again

i love pain and suffering.

12. love will tear us apart - joy division

love, love will tear us apart again

from the mgsv soundtrack itself. oh the misery.

13. wicked game - chris isaak

the world was on fire and no one could save me but you

[chanting] DIVORCE ERA DIVORCE ERA DIVORCE ERA. the bitterness... the longing.... the knowledge that the guy you essentially spent the last decade or more giving your life to is obsessed with some other guy and has ambitions that directly conflict with yours/make you want to murder him

14. diamonds and rust - joan baez

it's all come back too clearly yes, i loved you dearly and if you're offering me diamonds and rust i've already paid

[skull face voice] oh joan baez we're really in it now. music to drink heavily to after making a certain phone call, thumb running over the scratched metal of an authentic pin badge...

15. no children - the mountain goats

i am drowning there is no sign of land you are coming down with me hand in unlovable hand and i hope you die i hope we both die

oh you know i had to.

anyway hope you enjoyed this glimpse at what drives my insanity, i might do this for my (multiple) skull face playlists sometime but one is full of edgy bullshit + hungarian metalcore and half of my other one is just ennio morricone's dollars trilogy soundtracks lol.

[sapphireskies15]

Warrior Cats Original Character | Eclipse

Hello!! I wanted to come on here and share my progress in my art style over the years. Now I haven’t been on here that long, nor have I honestly shared any art on here up until sometime this year, but I really wanted to share my progress as an artist to really show how far I have come.

I’ve been into the Warriors fandom for a little over 8 to 9 years now, I have created many many characters of my own because I had loved this series so much and cats are also one of my top favorite animals. I believe from elementary to middle school, cats were what I primarily drew. I had sketchbook full of Warriors fan art. I was constantly playing Roblox, any cat game that I could find on there I would find others who also enjoyed these books and would play out these wild stories as if we were in these books. Using our own characters and choosing what clan we were in. This was honestly the peak of my art.

I’m not too sure when the beta for Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition came out, but around the time it did I was on there constantly, every second of the day I was just glued to this cat game. And since you could customize the model to look like your very own character, I had decided I wanted to make a tortoiseshell because they are honestly so pretty. This character had been my first ever OC to actually get a character sheet. But he’s the only character I have drawn over and over again and he is the only one I have that really shows my progression in a characters design.

Eclipse’s Design

His first deign was either in 2019 or 2020, I’m not too sure when WCUE beta came out or when I started playing, but his design was overall just a copy of what his model looked like since I didn’t originally have any drawings of him up until the game.

Around this time I was obsessed with artwork of MapleShade and Sol, his inspiration had come from any fan art I had seen and loved.

His second design was more of an attempt at a “turn around sheet.” I didn’t really grasp how to make one so I just slapped down whatever I thought makes sense.

Sometime in 2021, I decided I wanted to play around with art styles since I hated how I was drawing before. Semi-realism was my choice! Now I wasn’t smart when drawing at all! I had never once in my life studied how to draw in certain styles, I hadn’t taken the time to really learn. I usually just stared at a picture and tried to replicate what it looked like. That was a hot mess. Not my best era.

His last and final design is more of a “Disney” inspired look. Recently I have been experimenting with styles, studying how to replicate them, experimenting and expanding my skill. Disney has been a huge part of my childhood as I’m sure it has been for many others! I’ve always been in love with the way things were drawn, and I had decided that this was the style I would use.

I’m generally really comfortable with this style and I am really proud with how far I have come.

[katyobsesses]

WIP Wednesday

last week i was hit with the writing bug, i stayed up until 4am two nights in row just writing, i went to watch a musical and the whole day, except watching the show itself, all i could think about was writing, i watched eras tour livestreams at 3am and related each surprise song to the ship i as writing. i was obsessed.

I now have 18k words of a Benedict/Sophie fic for my Modern Bridgerton AU series, (and a few thousand words of Polin content too) and while the progress has slowed in the last few days i am optimistic that i'll finish this story, optimistic that I'll catch the writing bug again, especially since i have most of it mapped out - I've decided to actual plan shit for once, not just have a vague outline, and it's made it much easier to write.

anyway, here's ~500 of the 18k words <3

Masked Truths (working title) snippet

“If it weren’t raining,” She said, “It wouldn’t be England.” Benedict hummed. “You know, whenever I’m away, on a holiday or what not, I do often find myself missing the rain.” Sophie chuckled, shaking her head. Her long hair fluttered around her shoulders at the movement and she smiled as she tucked a strand back behind her ear. “I feel like I spend half my life staring out the window and wishing the rain away.” “You’d miss it, if it were gone,” Benedict found himself saying, and, apparently, it had been the wrong thing. Or, at least, it had sent her into a pensive silence. He watched as a myriad of thoughts flittered across her face, and found his hand twitching once again for a pencil, a paint brush, a fucking biro and post-it note. There was something about the way she continued to absentmindedly hold her hand tucked behind her ear, her elbow resting against her other arm as it crossed over her chest. The way her mask sat against her nose, held on her face by a silver ribbon that tied around her head disappearing under her long inky black hair. The far off look she had in her eyes. “You’re very quiet,” He said softly, after several long seconds of committing the sight of her to his memory. He was glad she’d found her before he’d had more than a glass of Champagne, glad his memories of tonight were unlikely to be fuzzy around the edges from anything other than the intoxication he felt simply by being in her presence. “I was just thinking,” She said, dropping her hand and turning her face to him, then her whole body, her shoulder now leaning against the wall instead of her back. Benedict instinctively mirrored her. “About?” “About what I’d miss - and what I wouldn’t - should my life drastically change.” So she had been in rather deep thought then. Benedict forced his own to not follow a similar path. “And do you expect it to drastically change?” He asked. She sighed, smile turning wistful and ever so slightly sad. “No.” “But you wish it to,” He guessed. “Yes,” She breathed out seemingly unable to stop herself. It was a word full of hope, of sadness, of desire, of longing. Benedict took her hands, bringing them to his lips and kissing them in turn. “Then we shall begin right now,” He told her, “And tomorrow you shall be transformed.” She gave him an ironic smile that wrinkled her nose. “Tonight I am transformed,” She told him softly, “And tomorrow… the woman in front of you will disappear.” Benedict felt his heart clench in his chest at the pure sadness that filled her voice - in exact opposition to the joy of earlier in the night. He drew her into his chest and she fell into him willingly, he placed a fleeting kiss against her forehead. “Then we will pack a lifetime into a night,” He told her.

[nullset2]

Earthbound: an In-depth Critique and Review

Note: this review has been amended.

Many things have been already said about the Mother series, but with these series of essays, reviewing the series front to back, I attempt to humbly provide a different perspective on it. Earthbound has been discussed to hell and back (oops, "heck", I should say perhaps, if I am to convey my 90's North American Nintendo localization spirit –the games couldn’t have religious or adult, specially alcohol-related, references of any kind back then): the Mother fandom is one of the most hyper-focused and productive communities out there after all, its dedication to the franchise bordering on insanity with a healthy helping of cringe at worst.

I recall that Itoi once said about the Mother series: "I recommend playing the games in order because I think that's how they make the most sense... or at least I think they do to me, since I wrote them in that order. Maybe they reflect my different sensitivities over time, as I got older, and maybe it will resonate in that same manner with you too." I want to try to go against that: maybe there's something more to understand about the Mother series if we go backwards instead. Or maybe it's just poor foresight and whim on my end, I don't know.

We can start with a few little questions: why does a simple 1995 SNES RPG by famed Copywriter/Essayist Shigesato Itoi, "Earthbound", elicit so much attention? Why precisely this game? SNES RPGs are legion, what is it about this one that makes people enter a trance when they talk about it? Why are some people irremediably obsessed with it so much, that they get to marry and form families and multi-million dollar enterprises out of it? (Fangamer... I'm looking at you... thank you; side note: watch the "Earthbound, USA" documentary to understand what I'm talking about).

Have you ever felt as if an evil force controlled your life? As if the people around you weren't really human, and instead were some weird kind of organic automaton, a puppet which seemed to be guided by some perverse, perverted hivemind into behaving in progressively erratic, lunatic ways? Has that feeling become more pervasive lately?

Have you ever felt as if you had psychic powers? As if you shared a mystical connection to someone, as if both your minds were as one? As if you could manifest things in the real, physical world just out of sheer will? As if you were born in the wrong era, family, town or country? As if you had telepathy?

Do you like Charles Schultz’ Peanuts, The Beatles, and aliens? Well, Earthbound is just the thing for you.

Itoi is a "Copywriter" (this interesting job role in Japan, where a writer specializes in writing "Catch Copies", a sort of longer form slogan that is used in marketing for a product in Japan) who's rather famous in the Japanese mainstream, appearing in variety shows and publications everywhere. He has a passion for the Dragon Quest series of JRPGs. He recalls video games being his only companion through asthma attacks at night, because he had to pass them sitting up (this explains Ninten's proclivity to asthma attacks in the first game). He would then play long winded sessions of Dragon Quest to pass the time, which gave him a love for the genre. When he came to fame, he eventually got the role to work on the Mother series as the scenario writer from Nintendo's Yamauchi. Imagine that: it's as if, I don't know, Stephen King was given the chance to make an RPG by Bill Gates from Microsoft by mere coincidence, and they go like "oh yeah, that's pretty dope dude, yeah we’re bros, let's do this". Quite the ripple effect, right?

Attention is deserved to the fact that this game explicitly decides to try something new, so it produces a quirky, romantic marriage of what a Japanese person from the 90s thinks America is and a Dragon-Quest style RPG. Gone are the legendary heroes and the cloaks and swords and magic spells: instead of a shounen hero type, you have a simple everyday kid called "Ness" (arguably an anagram of "SNES" just as how Ninten is a truncation of "Nintendo") and his gang of misfit kids. Instead of swords and shields and armor, you have baseball bats, yo-yos and baseball caps. Instead of casting Magic spells with Mana, you cast PSI attacks with "Psychic Points'', one of which is named after your “most favorite thing”. Instead of drinking potions and elixirs you find in treasure chests, you eat hamburgers out of the trash and find presents in the game world. Instead of Orcs, Knights and Princesses, you fight New Age Retro Hippies and rescue the girl next door. You save the game by calling your dad and one of the worst status ailments in the game is "homesickness", which you cure through a carefully crafted interaction in the game where you call your Mom (who's always got a healthy serving of %FAVORITEFOOD% and a free place to stay in and recover your HP if you need the support).

Even back in its own day, Earthbound already looked dated, old timey Dragon Quest battle system and all, paling against the brave new worlds of Chrono Trigger and the like, and the fancy pre-rendered graphics, FX chip 3D graphics and Mode 7 Sprite Scaling shenanigans of the era. So I insist, why? Why does this game arise incite such all-absorbment in some people? Well, maybe it just was there at a special place and time in North American teens' lives. Coming in a big, flashy, special edition box by default, strategy guide and scratch-n-sniff stickers included, there was a genuine push from Nintendo to promote it. The Mother series is massively revered in Japan, so, perhaps, they were looking to catch lightning in a bottle a second time in America. Yet, due to many different factors, the game massively flopped and gained a cult following from ROM site pirates and IRC urchins in the Internet of yore, and got relegated to appear in "Top Ten JRPGs" and "Best Super Nintendo games" internet message board posts and geocities websites.

Enter Ness. A young kid living in 199X in the town of Onett in the fictitious country of Eagleland. One day, he's awakened in the middle of the night by a meteorite crash close to his house, and he decides to investigate it, not without tagging along with his trusty dog King and his friends Picky and Pokey Minch (Porky in the Japanese version, perhaps renamed not to infringe on copyright or to avoid conflation with "Waito Piggu"; his envious, slovenly, fat neighbor, son of the "that family" of Ness' neighborhood, with his disgruntled, unsophisticated parents Aloysus and Lardna). From the meteorite, a mystical fly who says "A bee I am... not..." named Buzz-Buzz emerges, and he delivers an ominous message from the future: "Kid, you're the chosen one, and three boys and a girl, a group of which you're a part, need to embark on an adventure to defeat Giygas (Giegue in the Japanese version), the all-destroyer". He warns you: Giygas is corrupting the people and animals in the world as part of his invasion; your tool against him will be a magical melody which you will find by visiting seven points in the world, your "your Sanctuaries" and which you can record with the "Sound Stone", the last artifact he gives to you. The power unleashed by this melody will be vital in the fight against Giygas.

So far we have the usual "an ancient evil awakens" and "chosen one" kind of story: get ready, say goodbye to Mom, and embark on adventure towards the first Sanctuary. Pokey, forever resentful of Ness' coolness, just won't have you become the Chosen One, though, so he embarks on an adventure of his own. After embarking, you meet your neighbor Liar X. Aggerate, who claims to have found some weird kind of artifact while digging, some kind of glowing statue that mysteriously looks like a Moloch effigy that draws people in, and is revealed throughout the game to have some strange kind of mystical power that corrupts whoever possesses it, making people obsessed with it. This artifact is called the Mani-Mani (Money-Money?) statue, and it will emerge at pivotal points in the storyline...

And then the fauna, flora and locals seem to have gotten out of control all over the world. These are the random encounters you'll face --you'll meet roaches, flying saucers, spiteful crows, drunks and ugly women with shopping bags, weirdos, wild dogs, snakes, sentient cars, walking mushrooms, dali's clocks, the characteristic Starmen (perhaps a David Bowie reference) aliens, and much other weirdness. Beat them until they become "tame": Earthbound's death toll is literally zero throughout the game, much like One Piece’s (or perhaps one, depending on how you interpret the final boss).

A little parenthesis about the battle system is that, even though it's as simplistic as a Dragon Quest, it brings a lot of weirdness to the table which I really enjoy, and which really contributes to the tone of the game. Let me state that I am not a fan of turn-based battles at all --but I love them if they have some sort of action element to them; even something as simple as timed hits or Mother 3's rhythm-based system makes all the difference to me. Every battle will play against a 60's-style trippy backdrop, known internally in the code as the "Visual Drug" visualizations (whatever that means, which makes me wonder what kind of weird stuff Shigesato Itoi is exactly into, over there in Japan...). The game also uses a very clever Rolling counter system, where HP and MP decrease on a fixed timer, simulating an analogue alarm-clock roller counter display, which gives you a few seconds of slack to cast recovery spells if you are mortally wounded to continue the fight, a mechanic which I find to be very cool.

The sanctuary expedition will then take you through many places in the world of Earthbound, and this is the game's biggest triumph. A quirky parody of America that tries to look like a Cartoon, the adventure is full of adult references, like how you visit Giant Step (Coltrane much?) in Onett, a mysterious footprint in the ground, or how you must fight the Diamond Dog in Magnet Hill. Go play slots with Pancho, Pincho and Thomas Jefferson in a Hispanic-looking desert where a song with "Grupero" rhythms plays. Fight the totally radical local ruffians, the Sharks! Their leader Franky will pummel you with the Frankystein mark II at the arcade, to the tune of a Johnny B. Goode style guitar riff. These and many more references abound.

You're then told that you should go to Twoson to meet Paula, a mystical girl whose family runs the Polaris preschool, who has been calling out to you in your dreams through psychic powers, because she's vital to defeating the evil power of Giygas. In Twoson, you learn from Paula's parents that she has been Kidnapped by the Happy Happy cult, a parody of the Ku Klux Klan, a group of blue supremacists that want to paint everything blue in the world. Here, you'll also find the second sanctuary, Lilliput steps.

In Twoson you also meet Orange Kid and Apple Kid. Orange Kid, a preppy genius kid who seems to be getting all the fame and prestige, charges you for inventions which are completely useless and break down after one use --compared to Apple kid, who seems to be a slob good for nothing geek that doesn't really know anything. Interestingly, in time, the events will turn to the favor of Apple Kid, who invents seemingly-useless inventions that actually turn out to be incredibly useful, such as the "Pencil Eraser", a machine which will erase every single pencil in the vicinity, including a coincidentally pencil-shaped statue blocking the passage.

You also meet the Runaway Five, a happy-go-lucky band of six bohemes, a reference to the Blues Brothers, who help Ness and the party overcome various trials, with the power of funk and soul. Also, beautiful singer Venus, the charm of the town. Earthbound has this cute thing where certain musical numbers are performed in-game through simple movements of sprites, again reminiscent of other operas in JRPGs, but there's a certain unique flavor in Earthbound's that's hard to describe.

Once you rescue Paula it's time to move on to the next sanctuary, on to the haunted town of Threed to fight zombies and pests, with the aid of the Runaway Five, whose funky, groovy bus scares the ghouls that were blocking your path prior. There, Ness and Paula are abducted by zombies, so they call for the help of your British boarding school friend Jeff and his queer-coded friend Tony, who embarks on adventure from the very Bri'ish town of Winters to come to their rescue, rides Nessie with the help of a bubblegum chewing monkey monkey to cross a lake to his father's (a fact which only will be revealed until later in the game), Dr. Andonuts', laboratory, next to the game's version of Stonehenge. Andonuts has created the Sky Runner, a flying machine which can take People across the ocean. Jeff is a genius boy, expert in engineering and rocketry, and his clever inventions are his main form of attack once he joins your party. Ready to fight a possessed circus tent?

You head to Saturn Valley, where you meet a weird species of creature called Mr. Saturn who inhabit the place, a strange, bipedal, armless species with superhuman genius that communicates in nonsensical phrases written in a weird font inspired by Shigesato Itoi's daughter's handwriting in the Japanese version; the Mr. Saturn are all named Mr. Saturn and look exactly alike, sporting a tiny ribbon and a huge nose with cat-like whiskers. Saturn Valley hosts the third sanctuary, the Milky Well, but first you must help them by combating master Belch, a horrid pile of puke who speaks in a sampling of a burp recorded by one of the developers of the game, who has kidnapped the Mr. Saturns. You access Master Barf's hideout by standing under a waterfall... literally standing, immovable, for three minutes.

Pretty meta, right? How about an Onsen dip now?

The first "coffee break" segment... I really love these, because this is where you begin to see that this game is actually really, really cool, and that it attempts to do things that other RPGs don't. At certain points in the game, you will be offered to sit down and relax, and the game will play a little cutscene with a beautiful animated background and song accompanied with some scrolling text will deliver a "the story so far" summary about the game, together with a few musings related to Ness' and the party's personal growth. It is implied that these sections are actually the voice of Itoi talking to you through the screen. Once you do this, you will access the Milky Well, the next sanctuary.

The game is very creative in its breaking of the fourth wall. From a dog named Ruffini in Onett who is possessed by "the spirit of the game's creator", to the game asking the actual IRL player for their name to be used throughout, to Ness' dad actually calling you by your name and asking you to "please take care of their child", the game's interactions display a ton of nuance and care, and massive amounts of content can go unseen by the player given the ridiculous edge cases to which they apply, in a way that I've only ever seen Undertale attempt to recreate to partial success.

Proceed onto the big city of Fourside, an impressive megalopolis dominated by Mr. Monotoli, who has now taken an up-and-coming Pokey under his wing as an apprentice. But Paula is kidnapped by Mysterious aliens at the mall, and the effort to recover her leads you to investigate different leads; enter Moonside: a psychedelic inverted version of Fourside where "Yes" means "No" and "No" means "Yes", and where people speak in incoherent slurrying of words, an illusion created by the Mani-Mani in the storage room of a Bar (localized as a "Cafe"). Once you defeat it in the illusion, you are informed that Monotoli has Paula and it's up to you to climb his tower to rescue her. A vicious fight against Monotoli's defenses is heroically saved here by the Runaway Five in the crux of battle, when everything seemed lost, to reveal he has possession of the Mani-Mani.

Then you will be able to fight many moles in a bubblegum monkey labyrinth, all of whom claim to be No. 3 in their ranks. You will also be notified that Apple Kid has met with Mr. Saturn, and is now developing a machine called the Phase Distorter, which will come in handy.

The game progressively unlocks PSI abilities through its story; a very interesting one is PSI Teleport, which unlocks around this point and you learn from a Monkey, allowing you to fast travel back to visited locations if you can survive a short sprint without collision. This allows you to travel to Winters to visit the Rainy Circle, the next sanctuary.

From here, once you're reunited with Doctor Andonuts, you find out that the location of the next sanctuary is in Summers: a relaxed, weird port town where people gather at Club Stoic to drink water, stare at rocks and discuss the "impending collapse of Capitalism" among other pretentious stuff. Don't miss the chance to take a picture with the Photo Man! A funny guy who drops from the skies, he will take your picture at random points in the game to the sound of "Fuzzy Pickles!". But first have some Brownies, ahem, I mean "Magic Cake", from a lady at club stoic to dream of Dalaam, a far eastern country which hosts the final party member, Poo, a magical prince who has been compelled by psychic energy to travel to your aid, who gains abilities through vicious training to achieve Mu (the place of nothingness) through a mysterious presence that takes away all his limbs and senses one by one. From this he achieves teleport, and travels to meet Ness and the party: his aid will be invaluable to point out the location of the next sanctuary from mysterious runes in an artifact in the Fourside museum, to be accessed only if you please somebody at the door with an autograph of Venus on a banana. You will find with this your next Sanctuary, Magnet Hill, and then travel to Dalaam to tie loose ends and visit Pink Cloud, your next sanctuary.

Your adventures will now take you through the Ocean to head to the town of Scaraba, which hosts another sanctuary: fight the Kraken of the Sea and its incredible background music. Solve mysterious riddles and travel to Tenda Village, a town inhabited by a race of tiny frog-like beings that will not talk to you due to extreme shyness unless you give them a copy of "Overcoming shyness", borrowed from the Onett library, so you find mysterious Lumine Hall, a room where your thoughts manifest as writing on the wall. Then finally, travel to the lost underworld in a hilarious change of presentation for the game where everything turns microscopic, so you can find the last sanctuary, Fire Spring.

Through pain, sweat, blood and tears you have finally collected all the 8 melodies in your Sound Stone, which puts Ness in a trance: he has visions of himself as a baby, being taken care of by his Mother, in a beautiful, monochrome scripted sequence, and then he has a trip, traveling solo to Magicant, naked in the Japanese version and in his Pajamas in the USA version of the game. Magicant is a product of the psyche of psychic children in the Mother series, a safe haven where you can discover weird things about yourself and unearth deep memories hidden in your subconscious. Use the help of the series recurring Fighting Men in magicant to power through your subconscious and discover an inner Mani-Mani deep inside your soul, which will put up a vicious fight. When you defeat it though, a massive level-up will occur for Ness, preparing you for the final battle.

Once you return to reality, you will be notified by Apple Kid that he, Dr. Andonuts and Mr. Saturn have prepared the Phase distorter for your usage to finally defeat the mysterious, all-encompassing evil force of Giygas. See, Giygas is an alien, known as Giegue in the first game; after the events of that game, he defects to space, regards all humans as evil and vicious, and turns into Giygas out of sheer insanity, which corrupts everything. He begins to abduct people away into his lab to use them as experiments.

But the problem is that Giygas is too strong to be defeated in the present. Apple Kid tells you that it is necessary to time travel to the past, so you can defeat Giygas for good, with one, ehrm, tiny reservation: organic matter cannot survive time travel to the past in the Phase distorter. So, for this, four robotic bodies are created by Apple Kid and his cohorts, to implant Ness' and the parties' souls into.

Now this is the part where I get schizo (you could argue that that's my default state but I'll leave that discussion for another time). The game takes a really dark turn here for some reason, and gets incredibly grotesque, and pits you against incredibly strong enemies for the final run: you are commanded to enter a cave that's fully made of organic matter, to find a weird organic entity created by pure evil, Giygas, which, shockingly, has been co-opted by none other than Pokey for his selfish gain. Pokey has decided to take the path of corruption at this point and you will fight him alongside Giygas, who, in battle, has a huge image of yourself on its putrid mass.

A lot of people theorize that this is an abortion allegory, that you’re aborting Giygas in the past so he was never born, which is plausible, given that you enter an organic cave to arrive at a womb-like structure that you find Giygas implanted in, and the fact that when the battle escalates and Giygas becomes aethereal, the background design in this battle seems to have been created through digital manipulation of a picture of a faetus in an ultrasound, but this has never been confirmed and is pure speculation, even if the allusion is very much there, not to mention how shocking this theme is for a 90s totally radicool game about little children prancing around.

The creature that Giygas has turned into, and that you must fight against at this point is so inexplicable, powerful and omnipresent that the party finds itself at a loss and succumbs to madness. Yet, in the final throes of pain, Paula, who has the in-game ability to Pray, does so out of pure desperation. People on planet Earth then, feeling that something is incredibly wrong, pray for the safety of Ness and the party; cutscenes to illustrate this are emotively displayed one by one, and then, suddenly, somebody who you would had never expected prays for the party:

Yourself.

Several tens of hours ago, the player was instructed to input their name just as a little funny thing by the spirit of the game creator, and most players will happily oblige. By this point, however, most players will surely have forgotten that they did so; to show that the game not only remembered it all along, but also used it to such impactful effect, produces a massive feeling of catharsis. The game shows that the player behind the screen also joined everyone in prayer, which gives Giygas the final blow.

Itoi writes that he took inspiration for the final battle in Earthbound from a traumatic childhood experience: you see, back in the day (even up to this day), some actual, real Movie theaters in Japan have a porn theater in the basement for some God-forsaken reason. The upper floors actually display normal, newly-released movies, but the basement will host a seedy projection room for smut where people go to hook up. Itoi recalls that, as a child, he walked into the basement of a movie theater and saw perversion on screen, which is reflected in some of the nonsensical moans of Giygas in the final battle. This scarred him forever, and thus, this is one of the many things which I so deeply adore about this game: it's a quirky, coming-of-age adventure of whimsy and joy, with psychic children going around a cute parody of America, yet, the author is not scared to turn it into an allegory for the loss of innocence, and to take it into a genuinely unsettling, morbid and perverted place by the end, in a manner that is incredibly off-brand, even for companies other than Nintendo, who usually keeps a very PG-13, and is ultra-conservative and family friendly to an extreme.

A defeated Pokey and Giygas then collapse. Pokey uses his evil powers to defect to a parallel Universe (no kidding, this is literally what he does, and which sets off the events of Mother 3), and Giygas becomes so mind-bendingly impossible to understand that he crashes the game (or, at least, the game simulates to crash, cleverly using the same CRT static fuzz effect that you see when you turn on the game for the very first time. This is a very good callback and is actually something incredibly avant-garde for the time: many players on console probably thought that their games were fried the first time they saw the final boss). This destroys the robot bodies that Ness and the party inhabited, but by sheer miracle, their souls return to their corporeal bodies and they come back to life.

Giygas is now defeated and peace is restored to the land.

Yet another thing that I incredibly love about this game, is that at this point the Game world will allow you to roam around freely to catch up with people. Everyone will now have different lines, expressing how things have now changed after the defeat of Giygas, and some people will say their goodbyes to you or give you their thanks; some others will have funny quips or jokes, or even provide more backstory about them. Enemies no longer attack you, and all music themes have been replaced with "Because I Love You", an exquisite piece of the soundtrack.

Attention should be given to the music, an aspect that admittedly I've been glossing over previously in these reviews. Composed by Nintendo all-time great and grandioso Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka and Keiichi Suzuki, the music in Earthbound is one of a kind. Seriously --if you've never listened to the soundtrack actually running on-console from an original cart, you're missing out; no matter how good emulation ever gets, there is something special about the care and quality with which the tracks were crafted for the original Super Famicom. The SNES is great for sound, and introduced a sampling system: unlike the Famicom, where sounds have to be created with primitive sound waves computed by a primitive chip, the SPC chip in the Super Famicom allows for professional-quality samples to be imported into the game's ROM and used in arrangements, which produces almost CD-quality audio (the small memory size of an SNES ROM meant that the samples used in music had to be heavily compressed --the next revolution in game audio was to come with the SNES CD addon, later materialized in the Playstation genus). I would like to give a shout out to the Maternalbound project: a project which aims to "deluxe"-ify Earthbound by adding custom uncompressed samples and reversing the Nintendo of America 90s censorship, resulting in an even more compelling interpretation of the soundtrack.

The game's usage of the Leitmotif as an expressive element is stellar; spoiler alert, a lot of movies, games and productions out there use the leitmotif extensively. Once you notice it for the first time you will never stop noticing it everywhere: the leitmotif is a resource which uses small melodies to create psychological association in the story with a certain character, theme or feeling. These melodies are remixed creatively throughout the game and reused at critical times to create a sense of callback and continuity, with changing moods.

You know what else does Earthbound use heavily? Sampling. The eclectic musicians which produced Mother 2's soundtrack added yet another layer of quirkiness through intelligent usage of sampling: Dungeon Man’s theme is from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band reprise. The intro song uses a Monty Python sample. Jackie's cafe uses another sample, etcetera...

The problem is that this puts the game in a complicated legal situation. See, as far as I know (with some caveats), sampling is perfectly legal and falls under fair use; but it turns out that Japan is actually pretty lax about copyright and they blatantly use copyrighted content everywhere without permission. I understand that you need to obtain authorization to sample in America before publishing your work --for a very long time it was believed that things like these, along others, represented legal hurdles which held Earthbound from a re-release, but fortunately this was proven wrong with 2014's re-release of Earthbound on the Wii U virtual console, which transpired to the Switch in time.

Itoi's close, personal relationship to then Nintendo developer Satoru Iwata is important. It is famously known that Mother 2 went into development hell because the team was unfamiliar with Super Famicom tech, producing an as-of-now unknown version of the game that was full of glitches, bugs and missing features close to the game's original intended release. It is famously known that Iwata's involvement with the Mother series, into which he was pulled in as an emergency, saved the project. "We either throw away all our work and start anew and be done in six months, or we keep what we currently have to be done in one year". His important contributions, "being very good at producing tools that other people could use to speed up their work, and dividing work equitatively among the team so things could be done in parallel", according to Itoi, were Iwata's best abilities.

"For children, adults, and even young ladies" was the Catch Copy for this game when it was originally released in Japan. Games are a medium which skews in popularity towards teenage boys, both in America and Japan. This is covered under the umbrella term "Hardcore Gaming", a term which I somewhat despise. Over time, attempts have been made to turn this Hardcore, Red Ocean market into a Blue Ocean; however, most of these feel disingenuous, half-hearted or politicized and plagued of empty Diversity gestures: sure, everyone's grandma played the heck out of Wii Sports that one Christmas, but that was it. What I mean by this is that games that put accessibility before all are usually more marketed as products or consumables rather than as pieces of art that want to draw people in so they graduate into bigger, better, more complex games. Your grandmother is never going to discuss Materia in FFVII or going to play Tears of the Kingdom to make cool machines, nor is your Mother going to stick around to learn how far games have come since Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo or to chug jug with you. However, and for some reason, Mother 2 --Earthbound-- successfully achieves this. I have an older sister who doesn't really like games, but I remember that she picked it up and loved it. She wasn't really proficient at English back then, nor she actually really cared about Japanese RPGs, but she went through it.

In a very recent interview, Shigesato Itoi said that Mother 2 "is a game that turns adults into children, and children into adults", and I honestly believe that. It's a game the likes of which will never materialize again in our world and in our iffy political and cultural climate. Most people have forgotten about it by now, but its soul carries on in a small, ultra-dedicated fanbase, which is still active to this very day, and will continue to be, and maybe, one day, we'll sit down together and have our Mom serve us Pizza while we play PSI Rockin. Let us pray.

[wolfwrenbrainrot]

Woah, this person expressed it so well, much better than I did tbh. I a hundred percent agree that being in a fandom should be about having fun, not jumping at each others throaths. Obviously, I’ve been a Star Wars fan for a long time, ever since I was a little girl, and toxicity has always been a part of it, unfortunately. I’d like to point out that if I was mean at the end, it was only directed at sabezras who have been acting all morally superior and hating on wolfwren, not their shippers as a whole.

I feel it’s important to clarify that because, yes, I see their dynamic as platonic, very sibling-like (I’m not calling it an “incestuous” ship, though, ‘cause it isn’t, not really). When I first watched Rebels, at the beggining I did think they would become a couple since Ezra had a crush on Sabine. However, as the show went on and they grew closer, to me it went away and, judging by what we’ve seen so far, I believe Filoni is going in this direction as well. My point is, if I’m right about this, it won’t be because of Wolfwren. It will be because the writers decided it made more sense for the characters. Wolfwren is not a “menace” to Sabezra and if y’all think it is, you need a reality check. There’s no way a sapphic ship will be prioritized over a straight one. That’s just not how Disney+ works. Especially not when the showrunner, as progressive as Dave must be in some areas, is neither a woman or sapphic. 

Wolfwren is the first ship that I’ve gotten a bit more invested than usual in the last few years and I’m excited to see all the great fan work being made. As a college student in my early twenties who’s been dealing with the good and the bad aspects of being independent for the first time in life, Star Wars as a whole is a escape from reality. This franchise is where I find comfort and I’m sure this is true for people of all ages in this fandom. So, I hope all of my wolfwren girlies can enjoy being in our delulu era without letting it be ruined by negativity. That being said, I hope saberzas do the same. 

As for wolfwren being toxic… yeah, no kidding lmao. I, too, had my phase of being outraged that people shipped something that wasn’t the best example of what a relationship should be like. In the sequels era, I was ferousciouly anti Reylo. I was a hypocrite then, ‘cause at the same time I was obsessed with Catradora (if you know, you know), but I do understand it feeling like it is “dangerous” to encourage a ship that envolves physicall violence, fighting and trying to kill each other. I won’t deny fiction do have an impact in how we perceive ourselves and our lives (especially when we’re younger), but I believe it applies more to scenarios closer to the real world, not so much to a non-canon ship consisting of two pretty women in opposite sides of a war who I happen to think stare at each other in a gay way while dueling with lightsabers. Star Wars have a lot of deep stuff, but it shoudn’t be taken as moral guide. In this universe, Anakin Skywalker can commit genocide, and still be a beloved character by most of the fandom (me included). In this universe, Kallus and Zeb ended up being good friends (and, depending on who you ask, lovers). So, honestly, I think it’s unfair to act like shipping wolfwren is some kind of sin. It’s just a bunch of sapphics having fun, enjoying their tension and dynamic. Besides, as I stated previously, I’m not even sure I want them to be canon, because an enemies to lovers ship needes development, execution. It’s all about the journey, tha change. And I don’t know if I want Shin to be redeemed. I don’t her backstory yet and, as we’ve seen with Maul, a sad life trajectory doesn’t necessarily mean redemption or getting a happy ending. I’m here for the ride. Maybe she’ll end up being the evilest evil bitch out there and I’ll love every second of it, just like I love seeing Vader, Thrawn, Maul and many others on screen. But maybe, she’ll have a proper redemption arc and after that, wolfwren will become an actual possibility. ‘Cause in fanfiction I can read the most deranged dynamic ever, but I don’t necessarily want that for Sabine in canon because it would require her to go against what she believes and become a villain or a morally dubious character and I don’t it for her. Either way, it won’t happen this season. It’s harmless fun, and if I want pretend that those two chaotic padawans are making out in that damn ship you can bet I will 'cause it makes me happy. That's all I have left to say about it.

this whole argument is pointless 'cause most wolfwrens i see are aware that shin and sabine won't REALLY get together by the end of this season (and, dare i say, ever). and speaking solely for myself, I don't even WANT them to. I'd be happy if they pulled a kalluzeb (enemies to reluctant allies to friends), but I'm not getting my hopes up for that either. I know this franchise, I've been a fan of it since I was a little kid, and now I'm an adult who knows Lucasfilm won't give us sapphics anything better than valcinta on andor (and don't get me wrong, I loved them, but they aren't the protagonists of that story, while sabine is one of the main characters of this one). still, we'll keep consuming and producing content where shin and sabine are a physically/romantically involved.

oh, and for the sabezras out there who want to be assholes, I can be wrong, but I'm almost sure your "precious, healthy and pure" ship won't happen either. and it won't be because a bunch of sapphics online decided to ship sabine with shin hati.

[dicerollsix]

Aja by Steely Dan

Released September 23, 1977

Superlatives are a dangerous thing to tack on to music, or any broad subject for that matter, but Steely Dan’s Aja is perhaps one of the closest things to perfection that the industry has ever seen. Of course this isn’t exactly a new or surprising opinion to hold as many (if not most) Steely fans are in agreeance with it, but since this album holds a good amount of significance in not only the history of music but also my own life, I feel as if it’s a very valid one – though my judgment may be a bit biased on the personal end.

As I discovered the Dan for myself at 16 years old and fell deeply in love with their discography – most notably with Aja and 1975’s Katy Lied at that time – I had formulated a belief that I still keep and occasionally repeat in conversation to this day. If one were to look at the development of Steely Dan’s musical style through the years, and I mean really look at it – it’s no wonder that Aja came to fruition. Every album before it was a catalyst for the next, making moves toward something so desirable and so cognac-smooth until reaching the final destination of their long sonic journey with 1980’s Gaucho, as founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker called a hiatus in June of the next year. 

The aforementioned journey would most clearly be seen if you were to place Katy Lied through Gaucho in particular under a microscope. Katy Lied, with its polished and cynical Fagen/Becker songwriting plus increasingly interesting rhythm-driven tracks could most definitely transform itself into 1976’s The Royal Scam. Then The Royal Scam took part in scattering traces of Aja everywhere with the greater presence of horns, more cynicism, a Fender Rhodes piano, and Bernard Purdie emerging through the forefront. The pieces were scooped up and put together in a way that was less rough around the edges, produced and engineered to the nines, and sent off proudly boasting a large roster of musicians – with many more never making the cut.

As soon as you start to believe that the group couldn’t advance further, Gaucho bursts on the scene with new technology and songs that were put together even more meticulously than its predecessor, with the créme de la créme of meticulousness being the introduction of Wendel the drum machine after Fagen and Becker were repeatedly unsatisfied with the human drummers that tried their hand at what the two had given them. Gaucho amped up the cocaine-era sleaze by 10 and was a culmination of everything that the Dan had been leading up to, perhaps making Fagen and Becker masters of slow-burn foreshadowing.

But at 16, my biggest focus was Aja. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before, and upon first listen I was captivated from the beginning groove of Black Cow to the fade-out of Josie. I listened to the album obsessively from that point on, gaining a top favorite Steely Dan song with Deacon Blues, feeling an emotion I still can’t fully place during the entirety of Aja (the title track), and losing myself in the velvet scenes of Home At Last. To this very day I still find myself with the same pit in my stomach as I indulge myself in the world of Aja, overwhelmed with its greatness and feeling every last bit of its swirling atmosphere and imagery as if it was my first listen all over again.

As an opening track, Black Cow is as fitting as you could get. Oftentimes the power of the first track on an album goes overlooked, but in reality it sets the tone for the listener, depending on their reaction to it. The overall crisp sound coupled with extremely pleasing chord progressions, backing vocals, and a well-placed solo on the keys are nothing short of impressive. Impressiveness, in fact, carries over through the entirety of the first side – the sophisticated Aja spotlighting Steve Gadd and his masterful drum solo and the gloomy tale of a washed-up musician intertwined with the seamless musicianship in Deacon Blues leave nothing and everything to the imagination. The tracks lay everything out for you to consume while keeping a simultaneous open air of interpretation within its lyrics. 

Peg, a radio and live staple, begins the second side to continue the tradition of impressiveness. Its acclaim doesn’t come for no reason – featuring none other than Michael McDonald on backing vocals and a guitar solo by Jay Graydon, a solo that has now become known for being the product of long labor after Fagen and Becker were unhappy with seven different guitarists’ take on said solo. The silky chords through the keys and peppy rhythm section are other notable points, most of all, the bassline – having the story of Chuck Rainey and the duo’s rule for “no slapping”, which Rainey broke, ultimately creating one of the catchiest basslines of all time.

The Purdie shuffle and perfectly mixed layers of horns accent every corner of Home At Last. The nautical themes of the chorus had always stuck with me, with vivid images of rough seas being spread across my mind. To me this is perhaps the most underappreciated track on the album – it bursts with life and could easily become a jazz rock standard. I Got The News could be seen as a masterclass of its own in every instrument that is featured on it. There’s phases of slight sparseness within its sound where the drums, bass, and piano could only be heard, until horns and guitar swell through like billowing smoke, keeping the listener swaying and on their toes simultaneously.

Finally we end with Josie, being thick yet not overwhelming in the slightest in terms of sound. Josie’s lyrics are amongst some of my favorite in Steely Dan’s entire catalogue, and the extremely unique opening riff that carries you away into the 4 and a half minute escapade makes Josie equal yet opposite to Black Cow in that in terms of a closing song, Josie is as fitting as you could get, leaving you grasping for more as the needle reaches the end of the album, the sound fading away almost exactly how it started, with the pointed slightly disco-esque guitar that becomes a mainstay of the track. 

In short, only a handful of albums are crafted as finely as Aja, and very few make me feel the same way that it does. It has been part of the core soundtrack of my life since I was 16. I always come back for more, wanting to experience the scene at Rudy’s that was described in Black Cow, to witness the double helix in the sky in Aja myself, to break out the hats and hooters with Josie. The closest taste I could have to such a thing is through listening to the portraits that Steely Dan have painted, and with their clever expertise I never find myself feeling left out.

The word “timeless” is often placed upon works of art just as superlatives are, but with this album it’s more accurate than ever, along with “perfection” and “best”. Aja is an album where I could comfortably make an exception to the anti-superlative rule. Aja is a seismic wave, a tsunami of feel and proficiency, and its aftershock is still being felt in the wake of its 45th mighty year of reign amongst the greatest and most acclaimed collections of music of all time.

DR6