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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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Dapper Reviews: Tome of Beasts 3 by Kobold Press

A while ago I mentioned that I might try out reviewing some of the 3rd party books that I come across in my ceaseless quest to acquire as much 5th edition material as possible, promising that I’d report in once some of my then in progress kickstarters came to fruition.

It’s only appropriate then that my first review is targeted at a monster book, as it was just this sort of product and the evocative entries for enemies inside are what got me interested in d&d.

Overall I can’t recommend Kobold press’s monster books (both previous tome of beasts and their creature codex) enough: The art is great, the majority of the monsters are both original and interesting,with special attention paid to giving most monsters a really interesting suite of abilities to use in and out of combat.

The one complaint I DO have is that a few too many monsters are conceptually quite flat, especially if you’re like me and have seen your share of monster books over the years. There’s a few too many monsters which are as basic as “here’s an ooze/elemental/plant” monster that behaves exactly like you’d expect and it attacks people or “ here’s a slight variation on a preexisting fantasy monster presented as is”. This problem mainly pops up in how the monster stat enteries are formated, for which I’ll use a page that’s been freely made available from one of their other books to demonstrate.

See how the space which describe the creature’s lore is directly competing with the area occupied by its stat block? Well since the monsters in TOB3 tend to be more mechanically complex than earlier entries in the series, that space is even more shrunk, leaving less room to actually delve into their concept. Making new monsters is always going to be a balancing act between fluff/crunch, but it’s not helped by the fact that many lore entries just go describing how the creature LOOKS, which seems absolutely needless when there’s a brilliantly illustrated picture less than an inch across the page. What most disappointed me however was that many of these monsters ( even the good ones) lacked a definitive reason other than “ they are aggressive” for them to feature in an adventure or come into conflict with the party. Monsters NEED storyseeds baked into their writeup, from how their behavior brings them into conflict with people to valuable resources that make others hunt them to their relationships with other monsters. As a DM I can make all that stuff up, but being able to use other people’s good ideas is the whole reason to buy monsterbooks in the first place.

I’d gladly have taken an overall reduced monstercount to give some of these creatures double spreads, especially when some monsters are so thin in concept that they’re effectively different versions of eachother....did the brain eating “lobe lemur” and the violent “scarsupial” really need to be two different creatures? Quite a few critters in this book suffer from being a slightly more shallow version of another in the same book/series.

My one last gripe is that there’s quite a few monsters in this book that are just outright lifted from world mythologies without a hint of acknowledgement save for a few “ethic” trappings.... which is... actually one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to monster books. I get all excited about the idea of a swamp-dwelling giant that mercilessly punishes those that try to steal from its magic garden but will offer aid when asked... only to find out its from Burma and is being presented alongside the company’s original IP. That just seems... skeevy to me? It’s fine to be inspired by other cultures (aside appropriating the actively sacred) but doing so with no notification?....eh?

Faults aside, fantastic monsterbook, especially for the price, check it out on the Kobold Press store or your preferred digital retailer.

#review #kobold press #Monster #Bestiary

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etes-secrecy-post · 8 months

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Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

Take a Taste: with Mang Inasal Pork Sisig [Recorded: Jan 10th, 2024]

Hello! It’s time for another “Take a Taste”! The series is about delicious food with my two paper dolls.

Alright, we're back on track with our 1st delicious meal episode for 2024! (The OG 1st episode was exclusively to super secret blog(s)) We're at the Mang Inasal restaurant from a different branch, with our food review is one of their famous meal, the Pork Sisig. Mmmmmmm! 😋🇵🇭🍴🍖🍚 Will this 'Pork Sisig' worth our taste buds, or what? Let's find out, right now!

NOTE: For those from outside of my country, including my secret friends, "Mang Inasal" (means "Mr. Barbecue") is a Philippine-based chain restaurant 🇵🇭🍗🔥, mainly with their signature famous 'Chicken BBQ' known as 'Chicken Inasal', as well as other meats that we're grilled and sizzled, not to mentioned Filipino-based traditional cuisines. For info, please → [CLICK ME!].

BTW: This is the same date as I captured the big hole, hours ago → [CLICK ME!]. 🤳🏙️

IMPORTANT NOTE: No #OnThisDay throwback post for this date.

If you haven’t seen my previous episode, then please click here → [CLICK ME!].

So, without further ado, let’s get started:

1st & 2nd Image(s): ↑

• Here's the picture of the entire set of meal, including our main food to our left. The Pork Sisig! 😋🇵🇭🍴🍖🍚 Although, its not sizzling hot from the stove it is A-Okay to us. Same goes to the warm cooked rice.🙂 However, there's one thing that we can do, so I'll get to that after numerous images. 😉 My paper dolls are excited to taste! 😋

3rd & 4th Image(s): ↑

• Here's a closer look at the Pork Sisig, and... "What's that on the right?" My paper dolls said. That, my friend is their traditional 'Tamarid Soup'. 🇵🇭 🫘 🥣 When we ordered any meal at Mang Inasal, we get a free Tamarid Soup. Its delicious, I would tell ya. But, we have to save it for our huge meal, okay? 😉

5th to 7th Image(s): ↑

• Anyways, here's my paper dolls attempts to squeeze and mixed our pork sisig with tiny citrus fruit, we called it 'Calamansi'. 🇵🇭🍋➡️🇵🇭🍖 Unfortunately, they forgot to remove the seeds once they mixed together, but that's alright. Let me handle it. 🙂

BTW: There's also a chili on our plate if we want our Pork Sisig 'extra spicy', but we decided not putting it. 🌶️❌✋

8th & 9th Image(s): ↑

• And once its done mixing, its time to eat! 😁🇵🇭🍴🍖🍚 Here's my first scoop of pork sisig with rice! *munching* Mmmmm! I'd say, its pretty delicious with a touch of Calamansi fruit juice. Here have some! 😊 "Yummy!" My paper dolls said! Meaty and juicy, huh?

10th & 11th Image(s): ↑

• Now, you've seen our taste test. Let's finish it off before we proceed, ey you two!? 😋🍴 And after we ate the rice, it is done! 😊

• However, we still have our Pork Sisig. "So, what now?" My paper dolls said. 🤔 I don't know, should we takeout our leftover Pork Sisig? Nah! ❌✋ I've got a solution! As I shouted my words said, "Waiter can I get another round of rice, please?" ✋😄

12th & 13th Image(s): ↑

• TADA! 😃 My paper dolls' reactions → "Woah!" 😲 I know right! 😁 This restaurant offers an "Unlimited Rice" upon ordering a meal! If we served a green leaf plate as their color code, that means we can request from a waiter/waitress for some delicious warm rice! 😋🍚🍚 For me, I requested two scoops of rice just for us! Cool, huh? 😄My paper dolls was amazed that concept. Indeed because we Filipinos (like ME) can't eat delicious dishes (whether meaty or vegan) without rice. After all, "Rice is Life", you know. 🍚😉 However, we have to moderate our bodies to prevent immobile. So, we've heard "Drink Responsibly" for alcoholic beverages, but in the food world that's "Eat Responsibly". ☝️😮

• Anyways, let's have a experiment with our glutton rice, shall we!? 😁🍚 I put a half a rice onto my Tamarid soup, while the main plate is mixing with two condiments of Soy Sauce (left) & their famous Chicken Oil (right). Step aside the Tamarid Rice Soup, later. 🙂

14th & 15th Image(s): ↑

• Let's try with the latter! 😋🇵🇭🍴🍖🍚 And uh, did I mentioned, that Pork Sisig has added with mini pork cracklings (known in the Philippines as "Chicaron", as well as other selected latin countries)? Yup, its quite crunchy to our meaty goodness! 😊 Here have some, you two! "Delicious" My paper dolls said! 😋

16th & 17th Image(s): ↑

• Now, what about my 'Tamarid Rice Soup'? 🤔 No problem, we still have Pork Sisig so let's put it in! 😁 *munching* Mmmm, A-Okay. The combination of sour Tamarid soup, and meaty bits from Sisig was an interesting to some. 🙂👌 You want some of this, you two? "Its alright" My paper dolls said. ☺

18th Image: ↑

• *Sigh* Looks like my stomach is full after eating too much rice. 😮‍💨🍴🍚 Hey, do you want to eat the rest of my Sisig, you two? "Yes, please!" My paper dolls response. 😋🇵🇭🍴🍖 They happily to oblige by munching the rest of my meaty Pork Sisig.

19th Image: ↑

• And as I quenched with a refreshing cold water 🧊🥛, our entire meal was gone! With the exception of one raw chili. Hey, you two would ya want to eat raw chili? Their response was passed because they're also full. 🌶️❌✋ Sorry, Chili but we don't want to put it on our mouths and stomachs. Things could be worst if we can't hold ourselves, you know. 😅

Overall & Asking Price:

• It was a satisfying meal for us! From offering free soup after purchasing to munching meaty bits with unli rice! And yes, we can order it with another type of dish, such as their main signature 'Chicken Inasal' or their Filipino style BBQ sticks, etc... Plus, there's also serving 'Java Rice' with 'Unlimited' option of the same gluttony. 😊 For now, our stomachs full means its time for us to burn some calories, once again! 🔥🏃📏

• As for the price (2024 update), I ordered the Solo Pork Sisig variant for ₱99 🇵🇭💵 ($1.77) (while the additional drink of choice for ₱119 🇵🇭💵 ($2.13)), with the additional 'Unli Rice' choice for ₱35 🇵🇭💵 ($0.63). A total of ₱134 ($2.40) 🇵🇭💵 was not only a fair cheap price, but also a worth for your wallet because you can eat unlimited rice on your plate as much as you want, as long as you have a meaty Entree left. 😉 But once again, "Eat Responsibly" because eating rice too much can lead to diabetes. So please, do moderately as much as I am. ☝️😮

Well, that's all for now. 😊

If you haven’t seen my previous episodes, then I’ll provide some links down below.↓😉

Take a Taste:

○ 2021 Food Reviews: ○

• Popeyes U.S. Spicy Chicken Sandwich [Dec 6, 2021]

• Jollibee Chick'nwich & Crisscut Fries [Dec 21, 2021]: Part 1 [CLICK ME! #1], Part 2 [CLICK ME! #2]

○ 2022 Food Reviews: ○

• Mini Stop Chicken Fillet XL Sandwich [Feb 7, 2022]

• Minute Burger Cheese Burger(s) [Mar 1, 2022]

• Pepper Lunch Teriyaki Beef Pepper Rice w/ Egg (& Honey Brown Sauce) [Mar 5, 2022]

• Bacsilog’s Sulit Combo Bacon-Tocino & Samgyup Day’s Pork Herbs [Mar 12, 2022]

• Burger King Whopper w/ Sides & Drink [May 6, 2022]

• Marshmello’s Limited Edition Coca-Cola Zero [Aug 26, 2022]

• Cheesy Burger McDo with Lettuce & Tomatoes Meal [Recorded: Sept 16, 2022]

• Mcdonald’s PH McSpicy & Apple Pie (featuring their World Famous Fries) [Nov 14, 2022]

• Mcdonald’s McCrispy Hamonado Sandwich [Dec 31st, 2022]

○ 2023 Food Reviews: ○

• Foods from Delicious Restaurant & 1919 Grand Cafe [Jan 8th, 2023]

• Homemade Churros by my lil’ bro [Feb 12th, 2023]

• Lugaw Sisig from Mang Boy Alfredo Lugawan Restaurant [Recorded: Feb 18th, 2023]

• La Prato Stakehouse [Recorded: Apr 10th, 2023]

• Salt ‘n Light Snack Shack’s Cheesy Bacon Burger & Fries [Recorded: Apr 14th, 2023] (Published on May 5th, 2023)

• Delicious burger meal at Tokyo Tokyo Restaurant [Recorded: May 6th, 2023]

• Delicious meals at the Valenzuela Food Fiesta Christmas Bazaar 2023 [Recorded: Dec. 10th, 2023]

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tittaproducts · 2 years

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Rayman legends definitive edition

#Rayman legends definitive edition full

#Rayman legends definitive edition plus

#Rayman legends definitive edition series

Deaths are tracked on your profile page, but you’re not penalised for deaths in levels that require a lot of restarts or tricky moments. The game rarely feels unfair, with deaths not being punished beyond a checkpoint restart. Playing through these levels, trying to rescue all the Teensies and collect all the Lums is where the longevity comes from, with most levels not offering a huge challenge, but a select few definitely wanting a few tries to 100%. There’s a threshold for lucky tickets as well, which can be scratched for a variety of prizes, including ported levels from Rayman Origins. Then each level measures Lums gathered, with different thresholds for bronze, silver, and gold. There are 10 Teensies in most levels, with two of them being royal Teensies, which are hidden in their own separate puzzle rooms. But your performance in the level is dictated by two things- captured Teensies to rescue, and Lums, which is the game’s equivalent to coins. There are simply too many gameplay gimmicks for me to list, but thankfully, everything makes sense and is easy to grasp quickly, thanks to a fantastic art style and imaginative cues.Īs you’d expect, you beat the level by just getting to the end. If you’re still on the fence here, I’ll get into how it all works a bit more.Įach level is fairly straightforward, with a different gameplay mechanic taking the spotlight for the level, which can be anything from shrinking Rayman, gliding through a level while ‘shooting’ punches, or navigating through bites taken out of giant blocks of cake. So straight up, if you’re after a good single player game with a very satisfying measured progression, you can probably stop reading and get it. So if you don’t know anything about Rayman Legends, it’s pretty easy to summarise- a very fluid platformer, with a huge amount of levels and activities to play in, each with their own secrets and goals within. So the majority of this review will be from the perspective of somebody only just getting into Rayman Legends now, but if you want to know if it’s worth the double dip on Switch if you’ve already played it, I’ll put my thoughts on that near the end!

#Rayman legends definitive edition plus

And Rayman Legends Definitive Edition has everything the original had, plus a few bonuses, making this version the best way to play Rayman Legends, either at home on the TV, or out and about. That much has been true since the original release in 2013. The gang must run, jump and fight their way through each world to save the day and discover the secrets of every legendary painting.Rayman Legends is a really well made, gorgeous and incredibly fun game. While focusing on a painting that shows a medieval land, they are suddenly sucked into the painting, entering the world, and the adventure begins. As they look more closely, they notice each painting seems to tell the story of a mythical world.

#Rayman legends definitive edition series

Rayman, Globox, and the Teensies are off wandering through an enchanted forest when they discover a mysterious tent filled with a series of captivating paintings.

#Rayman legends definitive edition full

It will make full use of the power of the Switch and its new controllers. Michel Ancel, celebrated creator of Raymane, Beyond Good and Evil and the Raving Rabbids0 is bringing his innovative creativity to this new and exciting platform. This edition contains the acclaimed game Rayman Legends - 92 metacritic on Wii U - as well as new exclusive content. Rayman, named platformer of the year and winner of multiple artistic and musical achievements, is coming to the Nintendo Switch with Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition. Check the leaderboards to see where you rank around the world Jump to the beat of a drum, punch to the bass line, even zip-line during a guitar sustain

Connect with your friends through a variety of challenges that will test your skill and speed.

The Nintendo Switch allows you to keep playing the game when you want solo or multiplayer.

Play Everywhere, Anywhere: Thanks to the Switch and its new controller play with your friends at any time!.

Undock your Switch device and use the touch screen to take out enemies, manipulate platforms, cut ropes to clear a path and much more.

Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition will bring new features for Kung Foot Touch Gameplay: Rayman Legends takes full advantage of the Switch and its new controllers' capabilities.

#Rayman legends definitive edition

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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An anti dressed up as a shipper, an idiot, and a terf all walk into the same bar.

It’s the same picture person.

A lesson.

Warning: if the title doesn’t give it away, queerphobic content comes up in this from the other party being documented.

So, some of you may have watched a twitter exercise yesterday.

It started simple: concern trolling white knight “for the writers” comes in to angrily declare fans doing something tagged in support of them about Destiel was “out of line.” She claimed things like “Misha was gaslit into supporting Destiel”, and pulled all kinds of stunts.

She immediately got on a soap box yelling “I HAVE A LIT CRIT DEGREE, I KNOW AUTHOR INTENT” of course implying she knew better than EVERYONE around her how to read text. She then pulled, of all things, @chill-legilimens ‘ article about the network gods gutting the show out of the internet, and somehow misread it SO FUCKING BADLY -- SO FUCKING BADLY -- she thought it aligned with HER. She argued that fans influenced the writers, essentially, and basically pulled the exact opposite of the very clearly delivered message there out. When it was pointed out we know this author and even sometimes help edit their pieces, and she was, flat out misreading it while bragging about how good she is at deciphering text, it turned into a SHITSHOW.

I had watched her give a large group of queer people 2 days of runaround, while they tried to be polite, and similarly tried to prove everything while she proved nothing. Just preached. After 2 days of them exhausting themselves on her, I came in doing my blunt & savage thing, because fuck civility culture when it’s used by oppressors. Of course, she immediately started tone policing, while herself being an arrogant shitbrick the whole way.

She continued to preach author intent and talk down about “headcanons.” You see, she knew the authors very well. Berens’ name was mentioned in passing, and she came back with. “Who’s Berens? Is that the author of the article?” after Deirdre’s name had been directly cited in associated with it about 15 times.

(credit: @judgehangman )

But it gets better. She started pulling the “authors have said Dean is straight.” line. Now, at this point, we had already sourced her at least four pieces of information (quite formally too: SPN Official DVD Collection Season 8 episode 13 creative commentary, Edlund and Sgriccia; Dissent Magazine The Attack Queers Bob Berens review; the books in the office with screenshots, and more.) So we issued one simple request: Okay. Source.

For the next-- I shit you not-- 10 hours she bricked the thread to death, finding any and EVERY rabbit hole she could try to venture down. For the first hour or two a few of us tried to actually debate her newly raised points, but still gave reminder that we were waiting for her source. Every tweet was an opportunity for her to drop a 15 tweet thread trying to derail onto a new topic, and often clarifying she had no idea about any of it (Edlund, Sgriccia, Berens, Dabb--who she couldn’t spell the name of--and Deirdre all became an amorpheous blob in her retelling that she swore she looked at sources and wasn’t convinced, while she crossed all the data and comments about the sources). She tried to challenge that anyone could know all the writers and episodes just because she proved she couldn’t, even when multiple people expressed it to her extremely rapidly with not just author and director listings, but cross references on when they overlapped and major elements (like the 15.20 shot 19 tree being the Kim Manners memorial tree). She randomly babbled about Kripke once. Lied her way through and claimed those sources were vague. Etc.

But at some point, I decided, we’re not playing this distraction game. You wanted a debate, you claim you have a lit crit degree, and thus know the entire art is Argumentation. A source, if you’re declaring knowing author intent. One source. Any time she dropped a distraction tweet, I replied to her thread with things like a list of our sources vs her lack of any and a reminder. I installed a counter ticker. How many times had she been asked to either recant her point or give a single source?

Someone made a list of the logical fallacies she used in the argument. It was two tweets long and still missed several obvious ones. That didn’t stop her. Neither did the dozens of requests for a source or a recant. Onwards, she marched, derailing time and again. She brought in a buddy to try to distract, but he fell out real quick when he realized “the burden of proof lies on the arguer” shot him and her both in the feet in record time and he ducked out.

Other greatest hits came out like “Dubs (Dabb’s) fanfic books”, and calling the ability to list authors and episodes “headcanons.”

Over time, the dialogue shifted: see, she came in trying the snide “enjoy your headcanons” downtalk, but as time and time again she was pulverized on every point about the show, or the authors, or anything else while STILL never even giving a single source to even her FIRST POINT and running distractions, it became a reality-- she was told, “We’ll enjoy our canon and author intent. You can enjoy your headcanon of... Dabb’s fanfic books and Lord Barons and the writers being collective hallucinations and whatever else in your hot takes about the show content itself” and she FLIPPED SHIT.

As the ticker for sources approached 100, she started becoming flustered. Before that, even, she started repetitively misgendering Ezra (no tumblr to link in), and Ezra screenshot their bio of they/them and asked them to adjust. Ignored. Ezra linked this request and asked it to be addressed again, and again, and again. 13 times. Ezra linked it 13 times. She even replied to several of them. No avail. No change. Not until literally any and every tweet in her vicinity either had “source?” or “address gender?” for her to reply to did she flee there, and write some giant write-around of “oh, I didn’t see this, sorry” but still refused to actually use it. Or “I’ll use the right one now.” No, just completely strickened pronouns from her vocabulary with Ezra moving forward, after not one mistake, not two, not five, but 13 answers.

At this point, I notice a trend: throughout the entire conversation, she had flip flopped on my pronouns, clearly confused as to what to call me. As I generally don’t care (honestly I prefer he but meh), it didn’t ping me as something to react to while she switched religiously between “he” and “she”. But I realized now, despite all of that confusion: she never once thought to use “they.” Also earlier we found tweets of hers that, while now declaring herself bisexual, she used troublesome wording in the past to blur the line on if she was an ally or, as she phrased it “maybe less than 100% straight in the bell curve” in other conversations.

I mutter about this on the side to Ezra and some friends, but continue on towards the 100 ticker that was the goal to show people in this digital terrarium how disingenuous most people you argue with are -- an exhibit for the class. They know they’re lying and have been caught, but will not cede to admit “oops, I guess I was wrong.” but rather stick, unironically, to their own headcanons about things. After all, they vaguely sorta apologized even if suddenly just refusing to use any pronouns at all on Ezra after that. And she’s so quick to disappear into 15 tweet bombs of distraction trying to play victim for being held accountable at this point, we just didn’t jump to a conclusion on that, alarming as it is.

So. You know. Source.

At this point, she RANDOMLY starts evoking the fact that like, How Dare, She Watched Gay Men Die To AIDS, She Is A Great Philanthropist How Dare How Dare.

I’m sorry, did you just evoke the blood of our dead to run away from the most basic scrap of accountability in what is literally the first wave of a lit debate because for the last 10 hours you have refused to take the necessary steps to move on to the next point? Did you... just... evoke the ghosts of gay men that were genocided to, essentially, pull up a smokescreen and run away from being party to queer erasure? Or even just? Giving a source? or admitting you were wrong on one point in a debate? Wow, you really just did that.

Naturally, people involved got pissed. Her Sources ticker hit 100, but at this point, all that haunted her was how completely fucking vile and inappropriate that was in this discussion.

She got blocked. She then tried to glom onto anyone that hadn’t blocked or muted her and run the same argumentation points she had earlier been decimated in the argument with, while yelling “I ship Destiel too! I wanted them to have sex too! Why does this make me the bad guy?” around the block and hoping nobody actually read the thread. She tried to pitch the “headcanons” point of view again, hoping a new audience would lick her boots. She was, largely, ignored; given a few more comments about her leaving the conversation losing all points and only covered in the blood of our dead she was so proud of; blocked by a few more. (unsurprisingly, if you check her actual tweet history, she seems more invested in Megstiel but)

This is when CommaSameleon -- a professor with two lit degrees and a primary focus in teaching the art of Argumentation -- literally -- stepped in. She initially tried to engage the fact that, well, this woman not only can’t argue out of a paper sack but wasn’t even arguing, she was just running in circles and distracting from all the points and hadn’t addressed a single lit point directly while preaching down at people. But Sam, also, noticed something. This woman kept changing things like “queerphobia” to “homophobia.” Sam mentioned this kinda puts off TERF vibes (I think Sam picked up on the gendering thing herself too.)

Her response? Which she deleted since? But Discord’s embed helpfully saved?

Her inacted non-apologies remain weak, especially in any form of debate be it lit or now queer topics.

Oh I’m sorry, let’s recap her viewpoints: TERF is a slur. “They” is made up and should be avoided at all costs. The blood of dead gay men are a token to use in a lit debate you’re avoiding responsibility in. After this, “authors are headcanons” is suddenly not your worst take, but fascinating that you 13 times didn’t even read the blatant ass screenshot. And I mean, these weren’t subtle or easy to miss these 13 times.

100. She had 100 chances, literally, on a timer, to give a source or shut up with her platforming until she had one. Instead, she chose every rabbit hole she could manifest to disappear into, only to be met by another request for a source, and not moving on until we address the first points. We’ve given ours, now you give yours. Instead, you choose this. This is the hill you choose to die on, rather than admitting, “Sorry, I guess I was wrong” or “I guess I heard that somewhere, my bad.” 100 chances. 13 direct QT requests to address gender which she replied to but didn’t reply to until cornered (and still didn’t, truly, reply to), and “TERF is a slur.” Oh, and after waving around the dead men’s blood she also suddenly Can’t Be A Terf Because She Adopted Two Trans Kids. Lord help those children. Or, you know, the more realistic thing is she’s just manifesting all kinds of bullshit at this point to save face, which is probably why she deleted all the related tweets that show she’s a giant-ass TERF.

So anyway, this is very much a lesson on:

Paying attention to how people manipulate conversation to erase genuine discussion and debate.

Paying attention to WHY they do it. Motivation on methods and tactics will clear up a lot.

Figuring out HOW they try to sound woke about shit and when it’s entirely fucking vile and inappropriate to pull

And by all above points, figuring out that these people are among us, and how NOT to let them influence your conversations.

I don’t care if it’s about a discussion on a ship or show or anything else. People do this. A lot. Extremely dedicatedly, if the 100 asks doesn’t make that clear.

Stop letting people railroad your conversations with disingenuous bullshit.

So anyway in honor of this I made everyone a gif

Use at will. It’s tagged anti-terf if you want to use the search feature on it.

UPDATE:

Just went and checked. She went and deleted literally her entire side of the conversation, hundreds if not thousands of tweets. Luckily, Ezra mentioned repeatedly -- and I do trust them inherently -- that they were saving the entire conversation, so that zip file exists somewhere. How fascinating, after she accused us that we would want to delete tweets. Someone realized they had a bad look and giant failure all around.

Also, a related anon that links to an earlier part of this conversation I didn’t even document where she was crying about “cis erasure” [x] This shit went on so long I legit forgot about that.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #anti-terf #debate

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swanlake1998 · 3 years

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Article: Five Pioneering Black Ballerinas: ‘We Have to Have a Voice’

Date: June 17, 2021

By: Karen Valby

These early Dance Theater of Harlem stars met weekly on Zoom — to survive the isolation of the pandemic and to reclaim their role in dance history.

Last May, adrift in a suddenly untethered world, five former ballerinas came together to form the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy. Every Tuesday afternoon, they logged onto Zoom from around the country to remember their time together performing with Dance Theater of Harlem, feeling that magical turn in early audiences from skepticism to awe.

Life as a pioneer, life in a pandemic: They have been friends for over half a century, and have held each other up through far harder times than this last disorienting year. When people reached for all manners of comfort, something to give purpose or a shape to the days, these five women turned to their shared past.

In their cozy, rambling weekly Zoom meetings, punctuated by peals of laughter and occasional tears, they revisited the fabulousness of their former lives. With the background of George Floyd’s murder and a pandemic disproportionately affecting the Black community, the women set their sights on tackling another injustice. They wanted to reinscribe the struggles and feats of those early years at Dance Theater of Harlem into a cultural narrative that seems so often to cast Black excellence aside.

“There’s been so much of African American history that’s been denied or pushed to the back,” said Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, 64, who first brought the idea of a legacy council to the other women. “We have to have a voice.”

They knew as young ballet students that they’d never be chosen for roles like Clara in “The Nutcracker” or Odette/Odile in “Swan Lake.” They were told by their teachers to switch to modern dance or to aim for the Alvin Ailey company if they wanted to dance professionally, regardless of whether they felt most alive en pointe.

Arthur Mitchell was like a lighthouse to the women. Mitchell, the first Black principal dancer at the New York City Ballet and a protégé of the choreographer George Balanchine, had a mission: to create a home for Black dancers to achieve heights of excellence unencumbered by ignorance or tradition. Ignited by the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he founded Dance Theater of Harlem in 1969 with Karel Shook.

Lydia Abarca-Mitchell, Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan were founding dancers of his new company with McKinney-Griffith, 71, soon taking on the role of its first ballet mistress. Within the decade, Shelton-Benjamin and Marcia Sells joined as first generation dancers.

Abarca-Mitchell, 70, spent her childhood in joyless ballet classes but never saw an actual performance until she was 17 at the invitation of Mitchell, her new teacher. “I’ll never forget what Arthur did onstage” she said of his Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at New York City Ballet during a Tuesday session in January. “He made the ballet so natural. Suddenly it wasn’t just this ethereal thing anymore. I felt it in my bones.”

Marcia Sells, 61, remembered being 9 and watching with mouth agape when Abarca-Mitchell, McKinney-Griffith and Rohan performed with Dance Theater in her hometown, Cincinnati. “There in front of me were Black ballerinas,” Sells said during a video call in April. “That moment was the difference in my life. Otherwise I don’t think it would’ve been possible for me to think of a career in ballet.”

Shelton-Benjamin left her Denver ballet company, where she was the only Black dancer, turning down invitations from the Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theater, after reading a story about Dance Theater of Harlem in Dance magazine. Abarca-Mitchell was on that issue’s cover — the first Black woman to have that honor. At her Harlem audition, Shelton-Benjamin witnessed company members hand-dying their shoes and ribbons and tights to match the hues of their skin. Here, no traditional ballet pink would interrupt the beauty of their lines. “I had never seen a Black ballerina before, let alone a whole company,” Shelton-Benjamin, 64, said during a February Zoom meeting. “All I could think was, ‘Where have you guys been?’”

Finding one another back then, at the height of the civil rights movement, allowed them to have careers while challenging a ballet culture that had been claimed by white people. “We were suddenly ambassadors,” Abarca-Mitchell said. “And we were all in it together.”

They traveled to American cities that presented such a hostile environment that Mitchell would cancel the performance the night of, lest his company feel disrespected. But they also danced for kings and queens and presidents. In 1979, a review in The Washington Post declared their dancing to be a “purer realization of the Balanchinean ideal than anyone else’s.” Their adventures offstage were similarly electric, like the night in Manchester when Mick Jagger invited them out on the town. “We walked into the club with him and everybody just moved out of the way,” Shelton-Benjamin said.

Cultural memory can be spurious and shortsighted. Abarca-Mitchell was the first Black prima ballerina for a major company, performing works like Balanchine’s “Agon” and “Bugaku” and William Dollar’s “Le Combat” to raves. In an April Zoom session she said she first realized how left out of history she was when her daughter went online to prove to a friend that her mother was the first Black prima ballerina. But all she found was the name Misty Copeland, hailed as the first. “And my daughter was so mad. She said: ‘Where’s your name? Where’s your name?’ It was a wake-up call.”

While Abarca-Mitchell paused to wipe her eyes, Shelton-Banjamin stepped in: “I want to echo what Lydia said. There was a point where I asked the women, ‘Did it all really happen? Was I really a principal dancer?’ And Lydia told me: ‘Don’t do that! Yes, you were. We’re here to tell you, you were.”

Sells went on to a career that included serving as the dean of Harvard Law School, until she left this year to become the Metropolitan Opera’s first chief diversity officer. Shelton-Benjamin is now a jeweler who recently became certified in diamond grading. She, along with Abarca-Mitchell, McKinney-Griffith and Rohan, continue to coach and teach dance. They all have families, including another grandchild on the way for McKinney-Griffith, who announced the happy news to whoops on a recent call.

But they are done swallowing a mythology of firstness that excludes them, along with fellow pioneers like Katherine Dunham, Debra Austin, Raven Wilkinson, Lauren Anderson and Aesha Ash. It’s true that Misty Copeland is American Ballet Theater’s first Black female principal. It is also true that she stands on the shoulders of the founding and first generation dancers at Dance Theater. A narrative that suggests otherwise, Sells said, “Simply makes ballet history weak and small.”

Worse, it perpetuates the belief that Blackness in ballet is a one-off rather than a continuing fact. And it suggests a lonely existence for dancers like Copeland, a world absent of peers. “We could’ve been Misty’s aunties,” Abarca-Mitchell said. “I wish she was part of our sisterhood, that’s all.”

Dance Theater saved them from being the only one in a room. The work was so hard, the expectations so high, the mission so urgent, that those early days demanded a familial support system among the dancers. “Someone would take you under their wing and say, ‘You’re my daughter or sister or brother,’” McKinney-Griffith said. “The men did it also. Karlya was my little sister, and we kept that through the years.”

Like in any family, the relationships are complicated. The women speak of feeling shut out of today’s Dance Theater of Harlem. They are rarely brought in for workshops or consultations on the ballets they were taught by Mitchell. At his memorial service in 2018, they wept in the pews unacknowledged. “We’re like orphans,” Rohan said with a laugh in a Zoom session. “If the outside world neglects us, it seems all the more reason that Dance Theater of Harlem should embrace us.”

Virginia Johnson, a fellow founding member, is now the company’s artistic director. She assumed the helm in 2013 when Dance Theater returned after an eight-year hiatus caused by financial instability. “It makes me sad to think that they feel excluded,” Johnson said in a phone interview. “And it’s not because I don’t want them. It’s just because I can’t manage. I’ve probably missed some chances but it’s not like I haven’t thought about the value of what they bring to the company. They are the bodies, the soul, the spirit of Dance Theater of Harlem.”

“We all think about and love and respect what Arthur Mitchell did,” she added, “but these are the people he worked with to make this company.”

By the end of May, the five members of the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy were fully vaccinated. They traveled from Denver, Atlanta, Connecticut, South Jersey and, in Sells’s case, five blocks north of Dance Theater of Harlem for a joyful reunion. So much is different now at the building on 152nd Street. The old fire escape in Studio 3 where they’d catch their breath or wipe tears of frustration is gone. So are the big industrial fans in the corners of the room, replaced by central air conditioning. But they can still feel their leader all around them in the room. Crying, Abarca-Mitchell told McKinney-Griffith, “I miss Arthur.” (Though they all laugh when imagining his response to their legacy council. “I do believe he would try to control us,” Rohan said. “’What are you doing now? Why are you doing that? Let me suggest that. …’”)

The body remembers. In Studio 3, all Shelton-Benjamin had to do was hum a few notes of Balanchine’s “Serenade” and say “and” for the women to grandly sweep their right arms up. “These women help validate my worth,” Abarca-Mitchell said afterward. “I don’t want to take it for granted that people should recognize Lydia Abarca. But when I’m with them I feel like I felt back then. Important.”

Even as the world reopens and they grow busy again, they’ll carry on with their Tuesday afternoons. They want to amplify more alumni voices. They dream of launching a scholarship program for young dancers of color. This fall, they’ll host a webinar in honor of the director and choreographer Billy Wilson, whose daughter Alexis was also part of Dance Theater.

“What we have is a spiritual connection,” said Rohan, who turns 80 this year. She was 27 when she joined the company, already married and hiding from Mitchell that she was a mother of three young children for fear it get her kicked out. When she eventually confessed a year later, he got mad, insisting he would have increased her salary if he’d known she had mouths to feed.

“Arthur planted a seed in me, and all these beautiful women helped it grow,” she said. “Coming from Staten Island, I was just a country girl from the projects. My first time on a plane was to go to Europe to dance on those stages. I thanked God every day for the experience. This year, coming together again, I remembered how much it all meant to me. I didn’t have to be a star ballerina. It was enough that I was there. I was there. I was there.”

#article #ballet #the ny times #marcia sells #sheila rohan #gayle mckinney griffith #karlya shelton-benjamin #lydia abarca #virginia johnson

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meandmyechoes · 3 years

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The more I think about Dark Disciple, the more I find something odd.

[28th March 17:46]

I keep referring to it as a ‘favourable experience’, and there is no question the writing is what made me fall totally head over heels about quintress, but I also just, can’t?

I mean, yes. It’s very passionate, dramatic, scenes and gestures I can only dream of. But I also, don’t really see it in that ’omg they totally belong together here are my sixty headcanons of them’ sense?

I am very involved in the pairing, but also don’t really, actively ‘ship’ it — like the way it was an open book with Rhayme or Latts Razzi (since it’s the same author that indoctrinated me to Captain Rhayme). I could imagine them being happily ever after and silly shenanigans and slow-burn. But the concept of a quintress fairytale ending is so wild. I can only ask how much it is tainted with my personal view on relationships.

I know the plot leaves little room for “the future” and fed us well on all tropes possible. But, it just never occurred to me to put them in any other clichés or invent a missing scene.

Winding up, I don’t think their relationship is "weak", but it’s very motivated by circumstances and once you take that out of them, you are a little bit lost. For example even during the illicit affairs month, I… can’t really propose one date that does not seem tonally insensitive. (I can think of them being cloak dorks and Vos bringing her to ice-cream, that’s it, after a long hard moment) Really, all I possibly want is that sweet, sweet angst and canon is already there so I have no complaint.

It’s just… I don’t really get why it has to be the two of them that fall for each other. I understand why they did, and I believe it— Perhaps it’s much more a physical attraction thing that I don’t really have personal experience with.

I don’t know if quintress classify as slow-burn because 10 chapters still seem a little quick in the grand scheme of things. (aside: I’m quite disappointed Ventress wasn’t doing much in the last quarter of the book.) My point is, they do feel a little bit puppet to tropes, and while it’s deliciously written, there’s not much potential outside of canon. And that lack of inspiration makes me grimace a little.

[3rd April, 01:39]

I’ve scrolled through the dd tag and let the book sank a little. I am better articulated to talk about the sexist criticism now.

It’s a romance story, and when I judge it by that (lower) standard, it ticks the boxes. However, it might be a weakness as well, due to the projectability of the heroes. And yes, the whole assassination is dumb. Yet, tcw has been consistently this dumb at us. The last two times when she’s more rooted in the dark she failed, sent Savage and failed, so she’s gonna do it again with Vos… after she put down her desire for revenge. right. and surprise! Our “assassination” plan is to find Dooku and duel him directly. right…

I’ve read a review that says the romance takes away from the plot. However, the romance IS the plot. The book IS supposed to revolve around the two of them. I do agree them becoming begrudging allies then partners is a more unique approach, more rewarding as foils as well. but I guess a romance is easier for the conventional to process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

With the “Ventress lose agency in falling for Vos”. Now, I can’t dictate how each of us buy into their physical attraction and chemistry (or lack thereof), and there’s no denial that a conscious human being is making that choice for the fictional character, I think the stance on this topic varied person to person from the above two factors, which are very different starting points.

I kept Katie Lucas’s foreword vividly in mind while reading. She said this is a story about people seizing chances to rebuild. That there’s always a choice. Cliché as it is, I believe ~the power of love~. I believe there exists someone you’re willing to sacrifice everything for, to overlook everything for, to forgive - to love them, warts and all. So, yes whether you think Ventress loses her agency to the romance, or if that’s a conscious choice on her behalf, is swayed heavily by how much you buy that they are the one.

[10th April, 10:30]

Yesterday I’ve been thinking a bit more about this. I do love this ship, I just don’t believe they’d be two people who find each other again and again in every life time, in every universe. That’s why, as magnificent as fireworks, it also won’t last.

To explore this, it’s not entire impossible for quintress to separate peacefully after this incident, but would that cheapen the build before? The entire motivation of dark!Quinlan hinges on his vision of their future. And say, Ventress did saved him and survived. How would he balance being a Jedi and his feelings - that’s publicly exposed to the Council? (sidenote: i really don’t like Ch. 27 where a bunch of old men are questioning their love life, but uhhh yes, I’m a sensible person!) For now, I’m seeing another Obi-Satine situation. And honestly how bad that an outcome is. It’s not like Ventress died for her war crimes! The show gave her a full pardon! So Idk man. Why can’t she leave him because she loves him and she exiled herself and they never see each other again WHY NOT FILONI WHY NOT.

Now I’m lamenting more what could’ve been with the two arcs. In Filoni’s original sketch, Aayla and Maul were involved. Man, that could’ve been the dream.

~~~

Part 2: [26th April, 15:15]

It has been… a month, since I finished Dark Disciple and I feel like it’s time to conclude all the thinking this book has made me do.

On the wider reflection about attachment and the Jedi Order, I still have to do more reading on it from other sources to form a concrete opinion. This theme won’t be touched on in this post yet, but I cannot shake how intriguing it is to compare “falling” in love to falling to the dark side. The temptation, and the submission to their emotions, the irrationality, the newfound curiosity, it all incites. Very curiously, it was Anakin Skywalker who commented that one is “blinded by love”

Okay, so what I’ve been scratching my head off the past two weeks is how I look at the romance between Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. How would I define it?

Now this is as much as an exploration of how I view romantic relationships. Well, I’ve decided it wasn’t “love”, it was an “affair”. It was an affair because it’s a rush of passion, it’s a secret, it won’t last. Before I chop my own head off for bluntness, I mean it in, of course they are hopelessly in love with each other, that’s the exact premise of why it moved me so. But it wasn’t a complete relationship, wasn’t a healthy, sustainable one by any objective standards. Then, that’s the exact contradiction. Oh to throw caution in the wind with you, or to build a future with you?

Both are things I want a lot, and the ideal is of course one after the other. What quintress had (in the end) is definitely not something I’d want for myself, but it’s so fantastical, it’s alluring, just like the concept of falling in love - opening up yourself and trusting another person, is - it’s risky. That’s why it’s a sweet, sweet drug.

I’ve been so angry at all the red flags in this relationship. Reading this book, getting into both of their shoes, yelling NO like their best friends. But ultimately, what they had is unique to them and I can’t influence it in any way. Re-reading, I find myself holding myself back at all the places I was furious about going ‘You are smarter than this!’. Because it’s a tragedy, and the beautiful (I guess) thing is they chose each other.

The other day something on the dash inspired me to really think about ship dynamics. I, unashamedly admit, I’m VERY into Obi/Quin/Ventress in any and all combinations. *cough* I will not explain further.

I do accept the premise and I did discover they share quite a bunch of traits, but it confused me a while what made them cross the boundary, and it was, physical attraction (that the book was selling so hard I was blushing hot). I love them both a lot, and I would like to date them both, and I can see myself in either of them. Again comes the contradiction, is it a good thing to have characters so easily projectable, or do I want to see myself in more complex characters like them?

I probably lost quite a few cars stalling this train of thought. And I've been a canon apologist since forever. This book brought me a lot of emotional upheavals and a lot of food for thought. It brought me down to reflect on my romantic worldview and sexuality because I have nothing better to do. It totally challenged me as a writer and it’s just a really good novel by its right, regardless of the absurdity that is The Clone Wars. It’s a lot of firsts for me. And I really should find something better to do.

[26th April 16:00]

I must address that I got spoiled of the ending and the first and second half of the book probably went through some big changes.

If I cried for this book, it’s score would be even higher. And I’ve been so obsessed with discussing the relationship, without shedding light on the characterization, which is definitely an unfortunate side effect. Then it occurs that quite possibly the second half (26-42) deviated even further from the script than the first? It doesn’t have concept art or blocking, plus possibly (heavily) edited to omit correlation to other arcs. My major complaint for the second half is Ventress doesn’t do much and we know NOTHING about Vos, even though he is given screen time in the book. my, I just wish Ventress punch him harder and drag his idiotic mess back to the light sooner.

And to criticism about it being their ‘toxic’ relationship being portrayed as ‘true love’, well, it really depends on how thoughtful the reader is, right? I think if the reader is able to notice all these red flags and gave their own interpretation of the relationship and its outcome, it’d’ve been an educating experience. There’s what for the reader and what for the characters. They don’t know this ‘love’ is destroying them, and what kind of message is it sending? What ‘love’ depicted in the book is true then? I have my answers, and I hope every reader comes to their own as well.

#dark disciple #sw reading #clean version #i yell 'EXCEPT THE FLIRTY PART' every three scenes

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: I love your book reviews under the banner ‘Treat Your S(h)elf’ - nice play on words. You have such a wide and cultured range of interests that I really learn something new. Do you read poetry? What are your favourite poets? What are you currently reading?

I love reading poetry because as the poet Robert Frost put it succinctly, “Poetry is when emotion has found its thought, and thought has found words”.

Poets are before anything else in the words of W.H. Auden, “a person who is madly in love with language” and language is the bedrock of any culture and society and ultimately civilisation. When you truly think about it, poetry is meaningless when it has been left to gather dust on a piece of paper. It is simply a memory of an idea conjured up by a writer with something to say. Poetry must be read, it needs to be experienced because it keeps these ideas burning. These meaningful concepts about the nature of life, death and everything. Every time a person reads a poem, a new bright spark emerges in that person’s head. A new way of thinking, a new way of understanding. That is exactly why poetry must be read because it is the essence of our language.

The reasons I personally read poetry, you ask? Here are some reasons I can think of from the top of my head others are too personal to reveal:

I read poetry because poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn. And I read poetry because it is what happens when my mind stops working , and for a moment, all I do is feel. This is good therapy for me as I’m not the most openly emotional or prone to displays of emotion in public. It’s just not how I was built. Poetry helps one to feel. So some poems remain so close to my heart.

I remember when I was about to go on my first tour to Afghanistan I was quite calm and cold blooded because that was and is my nature. My father - who served with distinction in uniform like his father and grand father, and great-grandfather before him - was always proud and supportive of me being the black sheep of the family as the only girl in our family going through Sandhurst and now I was off to the last embers of a war in Afghanistan that everyone had forgotten about. He was concerned - like the rest of my family - like any loving parent about what might happen. But he didn’t question my professionalism or my abilities so he didn’t give me that lecture instead he thrust in my hand both classical literature (Thucydides and Homer in particular) and the works of selected poets. He told me poetry will save your life. He wasn’t anxious about my physical safety he was thinking about my soul. For what happens during war and what comes after if and when I come home. Long story short: poetry saved my life.

By nature I am restless to an incredible annoying degree. I fear being bored. I find it hard to sit and be idle. Poetry is my balm for boredom.

I am incredibly busy and I work punishing long hours. Time is premium. People make demands on me and my time. Poems are like super-condensed stories, and are therefore usually short enough to be read over your morning tea/coffee. In this fast-paced world we live in, sometimes poems are a better alternative to reading fully-fledged novels, or even short stories and poetry gives you the chance to continue to expand your literary horizons even during the busiest times in your life. And becoming more widely read is an incredible way to ensure you are continuously growing, and learning, while becoming a more cultured individual at the same time. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you and when I read some of those beautiful pieces of poetry by my favourite poets it's like the paper is filled with the breathings of my heart.

The most frightening thing is people I know stop growing culturally after they leave university and get on with the business of life i.e. careers, marriage and family. Once on that treadmill they don’t or can’t stop. They are unable to step off and take a breath. Poetry gives you a breather and helps you to re-centre your priorities. The more you read poetry, the greater your quest for knowledge awakens. Doorways will open inside your mind and unlock your hidden potential for a greater understanding of life. Anyone who reads poetry often can connect with this conclusive sentence formation that defines your very questionable outlook on life.

I also believe poetry allows us to be less rigid in our thinking with an authentic, personal touch. When I read poems, nothing is often straightforward. Every poem has a meaning hiding under it, but it is blocked by a myriad of literary devices such as metaphors and symbolism. It is important to be able to think more figuratively because it allows you to understand ideas and perspectives in a more abstract and possibly more meaningful way. Sometimes I find that having a single page of beautifully crafted words can be enough of a distraction to spark a sudden creative leap in my brain. There have been many times where I've miraculously thought of ways to solve a problem (big or small) purely because reading poetry forced me to think differently from the usual day-to-day thoughts required for general life.

Poetry is best read when you’re hidden from the outside world, in a quiet little spot, somewhere away from all the hustle and bustle. It is increasingly hard to do just that. I have so many demands on my time and limited space but I force myself to carve out the time and space to do this - one must try. As a rule I switch off all social media (not that I have many to begin with but most definitely my phone). The best time for me to carve out time is when I’m traveling as I’m able to shut out everything around me. Usually when I’m waiting for a flight in the business class departure lounge it’s quiet and not too many people to distract me and there is usually a delay to the flight. When I check into a hotel I feel a disconnect to the world around me. I feel like an alien. Poetry helps me to connect again. Poetry calms and focuses the mind. With poetry I can almost reset my day because it’s not just a time zone I have to get used to but also a state of mind - and especially if I find myself being unproductive too!

I often escape Paris and go into the countryside. I love going on walks, hikes, mountaineering, and other outdoor pursuits. It allows me the space and time to read poetry and reflect in peace. And of course I snatch time before I go to sleep to read a poem if I am not too tired.

The point is that I need the head space to absorb the poem and take some time to work out the meaning of the full entity. I try not swallow a whole book in one sitting, instead I read a few poems and leave the book until the next day or a few days depending on my schedule. Sometimes, you can read a poem again and you will find other meanings or pick up on information that you couldn’t see before. That’s poetry, you create the film, journey or picture inside your mind from reading the words on the page.

As for my favourite poets this is of course is a very personal choice. I didn’t read English at university but rather my academic interests were Classics and History, so I profess a very paltry poetic palate. Still, I’m grateful to those friends more versed than I to point me to other poets. So I do my best to keep an open mind and try and read poetry recommended by others or some thing that captures my eye when I browse through book stores or read it as a passing reference in a book I am reading.

Different poets and poems are discovered at one stage of life and where I happened to live in the world and only take on another meaning when re-read them at another stage. So I tend to re-visit poets I used to read as a teen and then see how it resonates now.

The majority of my poetic readings are in my native English and Norwegian languages but because I have varying degrees of fluency in other languages (because I grew up there for instance) I love widening my poetic palate. One of my regrets is not knowing Japanese and Chinese to a sufficient degree to really read poetry in those languages even if I have basic fluency in literature and everyday conversation. So reading Ezra Pound is one way in English to appreciate these Eastern poetic influences. I’m also ashamed to admit that I only know a woeful smattering of words in Scotiish Gaelic - my Anglo-Scots father knows it fairly well but even he struggles - and really I must find time in the future to learn more of it because it’s such a fascinating language (not least because it’s also dying out and that is tragic).

So below is an eclectic and random list from the top of my head and in no real order of preference:

• Homer (Greek) • Sappho (Greek) • Rumi (Farsi) • Mirza Ghalib (Urdu and Farsi) • John Milton • John Donne • William Shakespeare • Dante (Italian) • Robert Burns • William Wordsworth • Samuel Taylor Coleridge • William Blake • John Keats • Emily Dickinson • Christina Rosetti • Gerald Manley Hopkins • Walt Whitman • Oscar Wilde • W.B. Yeats • Rudyard Kipling • Wilfred Owen • Alfred Tennyson • Rainer Maria Rilke (German) • Cavafy (Greek) • T.S. Eliot • Hilda Doolittle • Marianne Moore • Sylvia Plath • W. H. Auden • Olaf H. Hauge (Norwegian) • Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (Norwegian) • Aslaug Vaa (Norwegian) • Rolf Jacobsen (Norwegian) • Sarojini Naidu (Hindi) • Gulzar (Hindi)

Living in Paris I tend to read more French poetry these days. By osmosis it helps me appreciate the French language and French culture even more.

• Charles Baudelaire. • Paul Verlaine • Jacques Prévert • Arthur Rimbaud • Alphonse de Lamartine • Alfred de Musset • Paul Valéry • Paul Eluard • Jean Genet • Françoise Villon

Poetry is an art that combines the essence of life through the fabrication of reality. Poets challenge and nourish me with their wisdom, philosophy, love and journeys beyond what used to be the limits of my own creative imagination. They push my boundaries ever so more. In doing so they grow my mind for understanding, my heart for empathy, and my soul for wisdom. It would hard to disagree with Robert Frost who sums up what poetry means to me, “a poem begins in delight, and ends in Wisdom”.

Thanks for your question

#ask #question #books #treat your s(h)elf #review #poems #poetry #personal #bio

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celticheartedfangirl · 5 years

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My OUAT Rewatch -- S5E14 -- Devil’s Due

Link to Rewatch Review and Ranking archive

Everyone stand back, it’s time to honor the MOM OF THE YEAR!

Yeah, if you’re a Milah fan, you may want to back away now. In fact, you may want to back away PERMANENTLY from my blog because I have no love or empathy or sympathy or ANYTHING for this fucking bitch except cheering for the fact that not only is she dead, she’s DOUBLE DEAD.

Yeah you heard me. Not even sorry.

So I went back to look at March 2016 me to see what some of my thoughts were on this one. I had LOTS to say but I want to focus in on a few key things:

1. I loathe Milah. She’s a bitch, an abusive spouse, and just a piece of shit in general, and probably one of THE worst parents on the show, and that’s saying something given this show. I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy or sorry for her. Not ONE. Not even half of a half of a half of a half of one.

And I had about HAD IT with the Milah apologists in this fandom, and I’m not just talking about the OUAT fandom in general, I’m talking about the RUMBELLE fandom. Yes, there are Milah apologists in the RUMBELLE fandom. I’d wave hi to them, but I’m pretty sure they all have me blocked. Or vice versa. Or we are mutually blocked.

GOOD.

Anyhow, I wrote this very lengthy, pointed post after this episode on why the character of Milah disturbs me so much, so here it is:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141406210392/seeing-pro-milah-stuff-on-my-dash-is-so-upsetting

I blocked A LOT of people after this episode initially aired. Not even sorry.

There is also this excellent post laying out exactly how Milah is abusive for all the idiots who claim that “Milah never abused Rumple”:

https://violetfaust.tumblr.com/post/133300598121/milah-never-abused-rumple

I know I’m being blunt here but this character triggers me more than any other character on the show. She is TERRIBLE. Just in this episode, let’s look at what mommie dearest did in the flashback ALONE:

1. She yells at Rumple for PLAYING WITH HIS CHILD. Seriously.

2. As soon as Bae gets bitten by the snake, they go to a healer and her immediate -- IMMEDIATE idea is “Hey, let’s KILL HIM!” I mean, sure, her kid is dying, I’m sure any parent would do anything to save their child, but I honestly think most would stop short of “Hey, let’s do murder!” unless the way of saving their child was stopping an actual murderer who was trying to murder their child. But nope, Milah goes right for bloodlust. But of course SHE can’t do the killing, let’s make her husband do that, then get mad at him when he can’t muster up the same level of glee for murder that she can.

3. After Bae is healed, she goes STRAIGHT TO THE BAR. Doesn’t stay to comfort her son that almost died. Nope -- goes off to drink and look for the pirate that flirted with her earlier. You stay classy, Milah.

Which brings me to the issue that caused all kinds of debate when this episode aired -- “Ermagod Rumple took Milah’s agency with that deal he made!”

Oh, please.

Who thinks that Rumple and Milah had anything that remotely resembled sex since he came back from the ogre wars?

PLEASE. That was a DEAD BEDROOM. They weren’t planning on more kids.

And hey, if mom of the year Milah wanted more kids, why weren’t there a bunch of baby Killybunnies running around on the Jolly Roger given that she was off with him for at least EIGHT YEARS.

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141199068997/violetfaust-chanceofserendipity-rebelside

Rumple’s choices are always -- ALWAYS -- shit, shittier, and shittiest. He NEVER has a good option. His choices were

a) Bae dies

b) he commits MURDER

c) he give up a hypothetical second child that he literally has NO REASON to think will ever exist

Which one would YOU pick, oh great and wonderful Milah defenders? Tell me your brilliant plans if YOU were in that situation.

“Oh he should have talked to Milah” HELLO have you ever seen this abusive cow be reasonable to him? NO. You can’t reason with an ABUSER. So don’t even give me that bullshit answer, sit down.

Just look at this bitch:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141713831697/emospritelet-thatravenclawbitch-woodelf68

Using sex as a weapon on her abused, desperate spouse. Yes, I know we love squishy woobie!Rumple but this is ABUSE. Using sex as a weapon is ABUSE.

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141212899672/milah-never-abused-rumple-we-only-saw-a-little-bit

And in the underworld, Rumple is AGAIN faced with a no-win, no good solution situation.

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141427043007/you-used-to-say-belle-not-having-a-reaction-when

Honestly, if the genders were reversed and Rumple were a woman and Milah were a man, the whole fandom would be like:

I’m done with Milah, just talking about her makes me stabby. So onto Emma . . . . here’s March 2016 me:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141400138912/so-hold-up-emma-tells-milah-about-neal

Someone slap her for me.

Also the “Poor Hook” bullshit:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141200226257/what-pisses-me-off-the-most-about-the-whole-save

And Adam running away from fans who ask him valid questions that he has zero answers for:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141895654207/audreyslovegrows-queen-of-the-merry-men

But Belle is pregnant so . . . . . yay? I remember thinking back then, “Gee I wonder how they’ll fuck THIS up.”

Here, have some hilarious fan art from the really good scene we all love:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/141429781082

BTW, despite all the bitching, MAJOR KUDOS to Robert Carlyle for knocking it out of the park on this one! Well done, sir!

This show doesn’t deserve you.

Points tally:

40 points to start

15 points for Rumple centric (was the last one SERIOUSLY Season 3? I think it was, JFC, this show . . . . )

10 points for Papafire

5 points for Swan Queen

5 points for in character Rumple

5 points deducted for Hook

Despite my bitching, which is mainly about the CHARACTER Milah, I didn’t dislike this episode. Full 25 bonus, no deductions.

Total points: 95

Follow #celtichearted OUAT ranking tag for more to come!

#celtichearted ouat ranking #devil's due #anti milah #anti emma swan #tw: abuse #pro rumple

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nomimits7 · 5 years

Text

Undecided Chapter 5

Title: Undecided Pt 5

Genre: Investigation, murder, masked behavior.

Warnings: murder, psychotic behavior, might be triggering.

Members: detective OT7 x Forensic scientist Reader

Note: Phrases are just add-ins to help with the storyline… If they confuse you, feel free to ask!

Summary: Moving overseas for a once in a lifetime job offer was one of the scariest things Y/N ever did. That was until she got stuck in a twisted investigation of random murders, all with one link but no leads. Closing in on the culprit(s) Y/N doesn’t realize the danger she’s getting into. With no family or friends, can Y/N dare to trust those seven closest to her with her life?

A/N; I am so sorry this took so long. I’m stuck on a scene in chpt 7 that has reference to this chapter and the next! I hope you enjoy

Undecided Character intro update

•♡•

Dream: Indulge in daydreams or fantasies about something greatly desired.

•♡•

Maybe your dream was telling you that it’s okay to stay.

Well, ‘Mission getting all the boys to trust you’ were… successful? Can you truly call it successful? After all, you didn’t actually do anything. They did the testing, they set you up, they tested you, on the third day you were in South Korea to be exact. You were ecstatic that they finally trusted you, but on the other hand, you were… disappointed? You wanted to prove yourself in your own way. Not that you weren’t thankful but now what? Do you continue as normal? Do you become more intimate in your duties at the office? Questions, so many unanswered questions.

Speaking about the office, your first question of many would be exactly that… “Uh, where are we? This doesn’t look like the office”

“Oh! Ha-ha no this isn’t the office. You’re at our apartment Y/N. Remember I told you we lived in the same hotel the office is in?” Jimin said, tilting his head as he observed you.

Of course, how could you forget that? He did mention them living in the same hotel as the one where the office is located. Why that thought didn’t occur to you first, you do not know. Idiot.

“So, you all live in a shared apartment?” You asked as you glanced around the very spacious living room.

“Yes, we do. I know it's weird but being part of a traveling agency its easier. One place to worry about is better than seven different apartments in one city, don’t you think? Besides, It not just one apartment. We own the whole floor so there’s more than enough room.” Hoseok said matter of factly. As if it was the most obvious conclusion to the scenario, which it wasn’t.

Well, come to think of it, it did make more sense. When they’re all together they never have the stress of being late for work, neither were they alone at night unlike you. Wow, you kind of wished you were living with them, just to NOT be alone at night.

Wait… they live in the same building as their office. That means all of them drive all the way to your place to pick you up just to return to the same building. Where does that make sense?

“But, if you all live here, basically at the office. Why do you drive all the way to my place to pick me up just to come back here? I could always take a cab or something. There’s really no need for you guys to fetch me at all.” You curiously asked

This seemed to get a reaction from all the boys. You could physically feel Jungkook tense and relax under you as you wait for an answer. Come to think of it, why are you still in his arms? Not that you were complaining. Turns out they are very comfortable to be in.

“Well, we actually discussed that when we reviewed your resume. And we all concluded that it would be safest to fetch you ourselves than risk you, a foreigner, to navigate your way to work each day. Even though the streets are relatively safe, there still are a few individuals that prey on the innocent and foreign, like yourself. We even thought of having you live at the hotel as well, but all the rooms were booked, and it would have been awkward for all of us if you moved into our apartment from the word go. Besides, even if it doesn’t look like it at first, we tend to get jealous when one of us gets to do something the others can’t partake in, little dove.” Namjoon successfully answered. There’s a reason he has such a high IQ.

“Oh, that makes sense I suppose”. You said as a blush crept on to your cheeks. You swore he used those nicknames just to see you blush and judging by his smirk, you were 100% sure he indeed was. It’s just a matter of time before the rest of the boys pick this up. Whether they’ll use it like Mr dimples over there, you don’t know.

“Y/N? Why did your face turn pink just now? Was it the nickname Namjoonie gave you?” Yoongi asked raising one of his eyebrows. A smirk made its way onto his face as this new information manifested into his brain. Why does he have to be so fucking observant? No, the real question is… why did he have to say it out loud?

“Oh? She can blush? Well, well well… this is going to be fun” Hoseok said. His voice taking on a playful tone. Playful bordering dangerous. Maybe even with a hint of challenged laced between the lines if you squint.

This was not good. You were in trouble and you had absolutely no way of escaping. And the fact that you blush at almost everything that made your stomach to a flip, was not going to help you.

Before you could even think up an escape plan, Taehyungs dreaded phone rang again. This time though no one tensed. A ringing phone wasn’t something to be afraid of, it happens all the time.

“Kim…” Taehyungs deep voice carried across the room as the boys each continued teasing you. It wasn’t until Taehyung let out a, very loud ‘what’ that everyone fell silent.

“Where?... How long ago?... 5 minutes? And you never thought of calling us? You’re an idiot! We’re running against time here… give us 5 minutes” Taehyung concluded sarcastically. Turning around and facing you, his next words made you visibly freeze on the spot.

“So, Y/N? Have you ever seen a fresh murdered victim? Guess today's your lucky day…”

•♡•

~Follow the sound of the pipe, follow this song. It’s a bit dangerous but I’m so sweet. I’m here to save you, I’m here to ruin you. You called me, see? I’m so sweet. Follow the sound of the pipe. I’m taking over you. I’m taking over you~

The song continues to haunt you at the back of your mind as you try and focus on the scene. Although, if this can even be called a scene. Silently you cursed Jungkook for playing the song during your drive to the scene, but a small part of you was even thankful for it, it gave you a distraction.

Nothing was out of place. Nothing except the lifeless body draped over one of the corner chairs. Again, dressed in black and wearing red shoes. You patiently waited for Seokjin and the medics to clear the scene so you could map out the floor.

In the art of investigations and so, the forensic scientists are the ones that map out the floor. They mark specific areas where everyone can walk. All other areas are off-limits. This helps with the preservation of evidence and it’s just protocol. Doing this and drawing the scene as found are crucial steps in any investigation.

Once you gave the go-ahead the rest of the boys all filtered into the scene. Each carefully moving within your set boundaries as they all set to work collecting what they could. Even though this is not wise, it’s faster. They’re all trained and educated investigators, they know how to handle evidence. They have been collecting them long before you were part of the equation.

Once everything was collected and the whole scene has been thoroughly searched, twice, you all head back to the office to start your individual tasks on sorting the evidence and analyzing everything.

After many hours of sorting and analyzing, Taehyung called everyone to the briefing room for any updates.

“Right, Seokjin. Let’s start with you” Taehyung said as everyone found their seats.

“Right, Victim was female. She was shot executioner style, but this time the wound wasn’t fatal. She was, however, tortured before death. Unfortunately, I can’t say whether the torturing happened before, or after she was shot. I can, however, conclude she died at approximately midnight yesterday evening. The cause of death was major blood loss, internally as well as from the wound in her skull. She was beaten, mutilated with a blade or sharp object and forced to drink acid. This crime is much more brutal than any of the others.” Seokjin concluded with a sigh as he slaked in his seat. Visibly drained.

“Namjoon? Anything on who the victim was?” Taehyung asked.

“Victims' name was Mary-lee. She was a 24-year-old businesswoman. She was last seen leaving a popular night club only two blocks from where she was found nearly 7 hours later. She was alone at the club. Came alone and left alone. She had only one beer, meaning she wasn’t drunk. The bartender even said she came by regularly, usually only having one beer before she would leave.”

“Jimin? Do you have the results of her toxin scene?” Taehyung reluctantly asked.

“I do, With the little blood found in her liver, I found no trace of any drugs or alcohol in her system. She was completely sober during the time of her death, it’s as if the killer made sure she felt everything that happened to her. This means that these killings aren’t linked by drugs.” Jimin said.

“Great, that’s good. Were getting somewhere. Y/N?” Taehyung said sarcastically as he turned to you.

“Mary-lee was shot with a round nose bullet. That’s why it went right through. These bullets are usually found within law enforcement, unfortunately, this bullet was custom made. I also came to the same conclusion as Jimin, I just found the link in another form. The victim was once again totally cleaned and drained of blood. She was wearing black clothes and red shoes, had no trace evidence just like the previous victims even if no drugs were used on her. This means the killer is getting creative. He tortured her, something he never did with any of the other victims. She was found in pub- ” You said as your eyes went wide when they made contact with Taehyung who failed to notice.

“Right, I think this settles it. We are officially looking for a serial killer. One that feels safe enough to take risks. One that’s playing with us. One that finds joy in his killings. Yoongi, inform the press. We need to catch this mad man before he kills again.” Taehyung concluded as he stood only to be stopped by your voice.

“Wait, somethings off. Linda was killed last week in a similar fashion than Mary-lee, but they weren’t killed in the same week as the first four victims. Why would the killer change his style so drastically? Unless we missed something big. But what?” all eyes were on you as you bit your lower lip in concentration.

“Y/N, if there’s someone who can figure this out… it’s you. We’ll all help and look for the link or the reason this guy changed, but don’t ponder on it too hard, the answer will come” Hoseok said as he gave you a pat on the back.

Slowly everyone filtered out of the briefing room. Exhaustion being a common trait everyone shared at this stage, yet you all went back to work.

You can rest when you're dead...

•♡•

The news of a serial killer on the hunt for his next victim, literally send a tsunami of panic through the city. Stores started closing earlier, children were kept out of school, neighbors even started suspecting each other as the case grew more and more complicated. Lead after lead was reported daily, all leading to more dead ends than in the entire continent. This just made things even harder for everyone at the office.

You were on the verge of burning out. Tonight would be your third all-nighter and you felt it. Your eyes were lifeless, your muscles ached and begged for rest. The case had come to a complete standstill. No one could find anything to boost your chances of catching this inhuman psycho. It’s as if he was untouchable.

Staring at the same report for the hundredth time your mind went blank once again as you tried to see the connection.

Yoongi found something else at the crime scene. Something missing from the first five. A single strand of hair, female but not from the victim nor any other victim. The DNA extracted also didn’t match anyone registered on the system. This meant that either the killer was female, or the killer was near another female before he killed Mary-lee.

But there were other possibilities as well. It could have been one of Mary’s client’s hair or other worker's hair… yet everyone at the office was registered on the site used by investigators. A security measure the company uses to make sure its employees weren’t previous offenders.

There was another option, one that made your heart speed-up. The possibility that the hair sample found belonged to that of a foreigner. You were a foreigner. The color-matched your hair color, you were female, yet you never met Mary-lee.

There’s only one option left to ease your anxiety. You needed to provide a sample and clear your name, just in case, even if you knew it was nearly impossible for your hair to be a match. But something deep down felt off. This killer wasn’t that careless. He wanted this sample to be found. If its to send a message you were determined to find out what he wanted to say.

•♡•

You know that it’s already begun. The moment you hear that sound, maybe I’m a bit dangerous. Like the pied piper, I’m testing you. Like the fruit from the tree of good and evil.

Time came to complete standstill as everyone in the briefing room was staring at your, now very pale face. A mix of confusion and shock written on everyone’s face as Jimin lowered the lab results. It was a match. Your hair was found at a crime scene you’ve never been to.

No word could describe how helpless you felt at that very moment. All your hard work on building their trust, redeeming your past mistakes was now on the brink of extinction. You wanted to prove yourself and you have, now this happened. They’ll never trust you again.

“Y/N, that figure you saw at your home the second night you were in that house. You can’t recall if he/she was in your home?” Taehyungs cold voice sliced through the air, successfully scaring the living shit out of you.

“N-no, I-I don’t think s-so” You weakly replied. You felt your body losing all energy as more blood left your face. Once again you felt strong arms on your shoulders, a glass of water appearing in front of your face. Your eyes were glossy as you just sat there, making no attempt to take the offered water.

“Y/N, hey stay with me, sweetheart. Come on, drink this. No no, come back to us Y/N” Yoongi’s voice rang out as another pair of hands took your face in theirs, lightly tapping it.

“Hey, we’re not mad at you. We know for a fact you have never been to that office. There’s absolutely nothing connecting you to this case. That’s why Taehyung-ie asked if you know if that individual was in your home. That hair was planted, and we all know it!” Hoseok said from behind you. His arms tightening their grip on you as he spoke.

“Y/N, I firmly believe everyone in this room would agree with me when I say that this psycho’s targeting you. You aren’t safe in that home, not anymore.” Jungkook said from his seat, visibly vibrating with anger.

“I agree and don’t let Tae’s cold voice get to you. We all need a break from this case before we all go completely insane.” Seokjin said with tired soft eyes.

The room went quiet as your color slowly returned to your face. The newfound information slowly sinking in as you furrowed your eyebrows. The implication they were referring to had chills running down your body. Why would this killer target you? You were a nobody. A foreigner-only trying to make a living. For heaven's sake! You didn’t even know anyone here! Except for the boys.

“Why me…?” You whispered. A lost memory threatening to expose itself as the reason.

“We don’t know, but I promise you we’ll find out. No one fucks with our family and your family now!” Jimin said, surprising you with the harshness of his words.

With affirmative nods from all the boys, you felt a sense of calmness fold around you. You're going to be okay.

“Y/N” Taehyungs voice made you turn to him. His voice was somewhat softer than before.

“I think it would be best if you relocate. As Jungkook said, it’s not safe for you to be in that house. Not just that but being alone in general. I do believe the rest will agree to the fact that this madman has his eyes set on you. Don’t worry Y/N, you’re safe with us even if it’s our fault there’s a target on your back. So, how about it boys?” Taehyungs voice carried through the room.

His words made you smile, that familiar warmth returning as the implication of his words truly hit you. They care for you. You’re important to them. You’re safe with them.

“Why don’t we just let her join us at our apartment? There’s plenty of space! She can take the biggest guest room at the end of the hall. That way we’ll always be close to her. No one would be able to get to her.” Namjoon’s voice suddenly rang out from the back of the room.

M-move in with them? Wouldn’t that be… weird?

Seeing your worried eyes, Seokjin quickly stepped in. taking your hands in his, his eyes locking yours in place as his thumb rubbed reassuringly over your knuckles.

“Y/N, this way we’ll be able to keep you safe.” Taking a deep breath, he continued with a pleading tone.

“Please move in with us doll, let us keep you safe”

Taglist: @lexisthegreatest @wearelivingthoughts @chim-possible @mojo6 @allme4ever @autumnboo126 @backinblack1967 @anamarieswift2194 @inkouowo @loisje123 @alomarce @xxgothickxx @crazy-fangirl-10 @holyblazinghell @speakyourselfloveyourself @cyphyia-lea @sftwgguk @mindhoney23 @moonlightnightingalesworld @barbyisafangirl @queenofkats02 @honeydewseoks @hani-bun @stargazingmoonchild @catherinekowalski @sexiquid @imfor-everdrivinginpuddles @anthoblanchette-blog @ohmyspook69 @sweatypersonaalienopera @alomarce @thatgirlwithmanyobsessions @tired-mochi

Things are heating up!!

Chapter 6

#undecided #bts x reader #ot7 x reader #investigation au #z investigators #nomimits7 #i almost screamed at tumblr #but we are okay #everythings just peachy

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brynwrites · 5 years

Link

Last week I posted about @byjillianmaria’s new book, The Songbird’s Refrain.

Click the link or read below!

Last Tuesday was the book birthday of Jillian Maria’s debut, the stunning supernatural suspense The Songbird’s Refrain!

I had the privilege of reading this story while it was still in its earlier beta stages, and it’s been a joy to watch it grow from a not-so-shitty rough draft to an absolute piece of art.

So if you’re looking for an awesome, creepy YA with some good old fashion gal pals growing magical life-stealing feathers, you’re in for a treat!

PURCHASE THE SONGBIRD’S REFRAIN

ADD THE SONGBIRD’S REFRAIN ON GOODREADS

ABOUT THE BOOK

When a mysterious show arrives in town, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Brighton is both intrigued and unsettled. But none of the acts capture her attention quite like the blue-eyed woman. Locked in a birdcage and covered in feathers, the anguish in her voice sounds just a little too real to be an act—because it isn’t. The show’s owner, a sadistic witch known only as the Mistress, is holding her captive.

And she’s chosen Elizabeth as her next victim.

After watching the blue-eyed woman die, Elizabeth is placed under the same curse. She clings to what little hope she can find in the words of a fortune teller and in her own strange dreams. The more she learns, the more she suspects that the Mistress isn’t as invulnerable as she appears. But time is against her, and every feather that sprouts brings her closer to meeting the blue-eyed woman’s fate. Can Elizabeth unlock the secret to flying free, or will the Mistress’s curse kill her and cage its next victim?

MY PERSONAL REVIEW

This book is a blast, with a hint of creepy, a dose of suspense, and a nice dollop of fluffy wlw.

Despite nearly the entire story taking place in the same basic location, the plot never feels slow or aimless. The mystery is engaging, constantly pulling the reader forward with new hints. The MC goes through a wonderful character arc and is very easy to root for, the villain is just as easy to love to hate, and all the side characters have interesting personalities and impact the plot. The prose is generally simplistic, with some minor disruptions like repeated words, but holds great, impactful lines as well.

Overall, a wonderful fall read, with a heavy focus on healthy relationships, believing in one’s self, and choosing love.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Jillian was awesome enough to answer a few questions for me…

Where did you first get the idea or inspiration for this novel?

The earliest version of this novel was actually a fanfiction! But it’s changed a lot since then–the entire bird/feather motif didn’t exist, there were a lot more characters who didn’t really contribute anything, the love stories were less fleshed out. I think the biggest changes happened from around the 70% mark onward, but everything’s changed a little bit.

Where and when do you typically write? Do you have any pre-writing exercises or habits that help you get into the mood?

I tend to write after dinner, but lately I’ve been sneaking in more writing on my lunch break, too. I don’t really have any habits or exercises, but I do tend to schedule my day in advance, so I always know exactly when I’m writing. Generally I dedicate the 7:30-8:30 block to writing, although sometimes it gets moved around. And on weekends, I’ll schedule more writing time.

Who was your favorite side character to write in The Songbird’s Refrain?

It’s really hard to pick a favorite! They were all super fun in their own way. Maybe Violet, though. She probably had the easiest voice out all of them to write, and required very little editing. Just deleting an f-word here and there when she decided she needed to use three in one sentence.

If you had to set The Songbird’s Refrain in a popular alternate universe (like the world of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Hunger Games, etc), which would you choose and how would your characters fit in there?

Oh, gosh, what a great question! I definitely know my character’s Hogwarts Houses, so… let’s go with that. Elizabeth is a tiny shy hufflepuff with a crush on the cute Ravenclaw girl who is always reading romance novels and doting on her cat, but doesn’t get the courage to talk to her until a mysterious threat arrives, wearing a dark mark and a red dress… I don’t know, something like that!

What’s something (or multiple somethings) you wish you’d known about writing before you’d started The Songbird’s Refrain?

You’re going to wind up changing lots of things during the drafting process, so don’t worry so much about sentence structure until you’re relatively certain you’re going to keep that chapter the way that it is! Seriously, I could have saved so much time..

Do you have a new project you’re working on now that The Songbird’s Refrain is approaching publication?

There is, but I’m not sure if I’m going to publish it under the Jillian Maria name, so I’m keeping it a secret 😉 But my next big Jillian Maria project is going to be another f/f YA novel about two girls hunting treasure in a small town forest! Technically this is a second draft, but I’m changing some pretty major plot elements and it’s got me really excited. I’ve got it outlined and about one-and-a-half chapters properly drafted right now, and am hoping it’ll be ready for its first round of beta readers after that!

What are you most proud of in regards to The Songbird’s Refrain, whether that be a skill you picked up while writing it or a scene you didn’t think you could conquer, etc?

I think that the themes of the book are really solid. I’m really proud of how everything sort of ties together in the end, because that’s something I really admire in other writers but always have a hard time replicating. It took several drafts, but I think it got there! Also, Chapter 28 always makes me cry. I think that’s a pretty big accomplishment.

While The Songbird’s Refrain is an amazing book, there’s always more to be learned as a writer! Is there something you’re working on improving in your writing right now?

Pacing is always a struggle of mine, so that’s something I think I’ll be working on indefinitely, from now until the end of time. I’d also like to make my writing process a little shorter–it took many, many drafts to get The Songbird’s Refrain to where it is now, and I’d like to improve as a writer so that I can get more polished drafts on the first or second try.

Can we get a picture of you and your writing buddy Sadie? 🙂

Of course! As you can see, she is very helpful.

Jillian Maria enjoys tea, pretty dresses, and ripping out pieces of herself to put in her novels. She writes the books she wants to read, prominently featuring women who are like her in some way or another. A great lover of horror, thriller and mystery novels, most of her stories have some of her own fears lurking in the margins. When she isn’t willing imaginary people into existence, she’s pursuing a career in public relations and content marketing. A Michigan native, Jillian spends what little free time she has hanging out with her friends, reading too much, singing along to musical numbers, and doting on her cat.

You can find her on goodreads and her website.

#the songbird's refrain #new books #ya fantasy #Book Recommendations #author interview #book review

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thatyanderecritic · 5 years

Text

Inu X Boku SS

Title: Inu X Boku SS

Media: Manga, Written by Cocoa Fujiwara

Yandere(s): Soushi Miketsukami

Yandere Scale: 5/5

Criticism written by: Kai

Editor: Julie

The Review:

Hey there everyone! Kai here with a review that I’m sure everyone was waiting for. Sorry for taking so long. I really tried finishing the story but… god damn was it boring and convoluted. I ended up calling it after reaching chapter 31(?) out of 45. Reading the wiki was a million times easier than the actual story lmao. But I’ll get into this whole nonsense in the review. Let’s begin.

To summarize Inu X Boku in a nutshell… well, uh… that’s kinda hard to do since it’s kinda wild. But to break it down, Ririchiyo (our protagonist) one day decided to live on her own and moved into an apartment complex. This apartment complex is known to only house the rich and each resident is assigned a bodyguard. But!!! The apartment complex and all the residents aren’t normal people but half yokai!!! OooOoOoO~

But anyways, Ririchiyo’s bodyguard is Mr. Yandere here, Soushi. Since Ririchiyo moved to this building to be independent, she wasn’t cool with having a bodyguard. But after some shoujo bullshit, Ririchiyo warmed up to the idea of having a bodyguard and they hook up. Bunch of dicking around from the characters but then suddenly DRAMA~!!! A bad guy comes around to turn the half yokai into full yokais or whatever and kills the heroes!!! Oh no!!! 23 years passed, and everyone reincarnated because that’s the logic of the world. Don’t question it. Anyways, history repeats itself and so the gang decides to prevent it by sending a time capsule backwards in time (don’t you dare question story logic!!!) to warn their previous lives of the bad guy. It worked. They killed the bad guy but wait! The bad guy was just a deeply flawed person who went down the wrong path :’( And everyone had a happy ending, the end :)

As you can see, the story is wack. But before I get into my rant, let me talk about Soushi here, since that’s what everyone wants (not my amazing opinion on writing :( ). What can I say about Soushi besides being a hot piece of ass… like hot damn, the man is hot. And as a yandere, he’s even hotter. Lots of creeper actions like preserving Ririchiyo’s gifts for him, having a room full of her pictures, literally loyal to her like a dog, and doesn’t take Ririchiyo’s no’s seriously. Soushi whole life purpose is to protect Ririchiyo and he has a solid background on why he loves her. Soushi is much more of a sweet type of yandere and the best term to call him is a “good yandere” since he doesn’t really do anything bad towards Ririchiyo or any “love rivals”. Soushi is just a chill yandere overall and a well developed character! I wish more yanderes are like him tbh. I should mention that there is a case of alternate timelines and what have you. I’m sure some smart ass would point out how Julie and I gripe about alternate universes and multiple endings. Yes, this is usually detrimental to the yandere sometimes but that’s only if they aren’t consistent with their yandere character. It doesn’t even knock them out of the running either if they fail that point. But here, Soushi was consistent in all timelines. He loves Ririchiyo and was a yandere for her in each timeline. See, is that so hard to ask when tossing in an alternate universe? Anyways, is Soushi enough incentive to read this god-awful story? Well, let me make a list here on what I thought of the manga.

Pros:

All the characters are fantastic. They’re all well developed and they’re all likeable. You’ll most likely like all the characters, if not, at least one. Just… the characters are so well written. What the fuck happened with the story?

Great art. The manga art is pretty good. What else to say?

Cons:

Oh boy… lots of cons. The first one to point out is obviously the story. It’s so wild and convoluted. I can really sense the writer's scattered thoughts throughout the story. The best way to describe the plot is: “A whole lot of ‘something’ when there’s literally nothing.” Reading the story, you know for a fact that there’s a major conflict going on within the story but there was no real sense of urgency since the characters were dicking around so much. I can really tell the writer just wanted to do… ‘everything’ with their story. They want a complex plot yet slice of life. They wanted to do a 4koma comedy, yet they want to have a telenovela. They wanted the characters to be ‘human’ with human problems yet they’re also half monsters because that’s #cool. The writer was just all over the place and had no focus. There are just parts where you feel like the writer just went “Oh shit!!! This is supposed to be a fantasy action story!!!” It’s just… bad. The first arc was the only good part of the entire manga. It focused only on the main characters and side characters with no fantasy bs nonsense. And it was rather disappointing once Ririchiyo and Soushi got together since it was rather rushed for the #plot. Really, what the writer should have done was A) just kept the manga a slice of life, shoujo story. No need for the stupid half yokai and bad guy bullshit. Literally the writer forgets that shit half the time except for gags. There’s really no point and you can just fix the rich half yokai background with just rich people problems. The fuck. B) just focus on character relationships and expand on it. Take that first arc and just… stretch it out bro. Let Ririchiyo and Soushi interact more and grow together before dumping their tragic backstory. C) stop with those chapters dedicated to 4koma comedy strips. Yes, they’re fun and it’s cute to play with your characters like that. But it’s defeats the purpose of a “serious” story if there these comedy chapters… BETWEEN EACH PLOT IMPORTANT CHAPTER. WHY??? SAVE THAT FOR THE END OF THE MANGA OR MAKE A MINI SPIN OFF MANGAS FOR THEM. DON’T TOSS THEM IN THE MANGA AT RANDOM?!?!?!

Next on the chopping block is the weird fucking loli thing going on here. Is no one weirded out that Ririchiyo and this other side character are straight up lolis and are sexualized??? It’s really really disturbing. Why does Ririchiyo sleep nearly nude? Why is there a female pervert character who leers on these two child looking characters and want to put her hand between their thighs? Is the fact that the female pervert is a female supposed to make it better? How old is Ririchiyo??? She doesn’t look like a high school student even though everyone claim she is. It’s fucked to see Ririchiyo standing next to Soushi… especially once they’re dating. She looks like an actual child next to Soushi… either Soushi is freakishly tall or Ririchiyo is freakishly short (which I’m sure that’s the case). Just… why the lolis????????

Story logic = fucked

Pointless bad guy. Literally, the second and third arc are so bad and boring. What’s the point in having him around.

Repeat: the story is just… so boring. I can’t get this off my chest any other way.

Now back to my original point: is reading Inu X Boku SS worth it just for the yandere? My personal opinion: No. It really isn’t. Just read the first arc then from there read fanfics or doujinshi (there’s so many). Far better reward and you can focus on the characters. But if you can sit this manga through, more power to you.

Overall Score: 6/10

Now please enjoy this collage of pictures of Soushi while I read some Soushi X Reader fanfics. The man is hot and I think he’s my confirmed favorite yandere <3

#yandere #male yandere #inu x boku secret service #anime #manga #youko x boku #Soushi Miketsukami

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medea10 · 5 years

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My Review of One Punch Man 2

#one punch man #one punch man 2 #Saitama #genos #garou #fubuki #bang #king

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baphomet-media · 5 years

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Beats and Blocks and Beats and Blocks and Beats and Blocks and - A Lumines: Electronic Symphony Review

Genre: Puzzle Subgenre: Rhythm Puzzle Developer: Q Entertainment Publisher: Ubisoft Platform(s): Vita Release Date: February 15th, 2012

Lumines (pronounced like “luminous”) is a series that holds a lot of fascination for me. I played the original game on my dad’s PSP as a kid, and while I was terrible at it, I was fascinated by the game’s mix of funky electronic music and block-busting puzzle gameplay. Many years later, I ended up picking up Lumines Remastered on Switch and loved it. Now that I have a Vita, I found out that a Lumines game was published exclusively for Sony’s doomed handheld, so naturally I had to give it a try. Does Electronic Symphony live up to the series reputation?

Story

The Lumines series is mostly a pure rhythm/puzzle game, and as such has no plot or characters, however it does have a progression system. In the original game, the player could play through the game’s main mode (called “Voyage” in Electronic Symphony) to unlock new levels (called “Skins”), each with their own visual style and music track. This has returned in ES, but the game also has an XP system that rewards you for playing each mode by giving you progress towards new avatars.

Gameplay

Lumines is very much like Tetris in that the player has an empty grid into which colored blocks fall, and must manage their blocks wisely to clear them out and prevent any column from reaching the top. Aside from that, Lumines is very much its own beast. Each block you drop is a 2x2 square comprised of different arrangements of two colors. You can clear blocks by creating squares of 2x2 or larger of the same color, however matches are not instantly cleared. Instead, a vertical Timeline gradually makes its way across the grid from left to right. As the Timeline passes over matches, it registers them, then once the Timeline reaches the right side of the screen, all registered matches are cleared and the Timeline starts over from the left side. This creates an interesting dynamic where the player has to be conscious of the Timeline’s position when making matches, as making matches after the timeline has already passed that location means that match won’t be cleared until the next pass. This could also have a cascading effect, since blocks fall when matches below them are cleared, which could potentially disrupt matches placed after the Timeline has passed. Furthermore, the speed of the game generally increases as you progress through levels, making a slow and relaxed pace get more and more tense as you go along. Each skin has its own tempo, though, which affects the speed of block falling as well as the speed of the Timeline. As you progress through the main Marathon mode (called “Voyage”), you will find that the speed of each successive skin doesn’t increase linearly, and can jump around a bit to give you periods of intensity and relief.

To help you out with clutter are two special block pieces that can generate, the link piece and the shuffle piece. When a link piece is dropped, it can link with all other adjacent pieces of the same color, and cascades the effect through each linked piece, allowing those pieces to be cleared by the Timeline. This can drastically reduce clutter if used well, and can set you up for big combos by removing most of one of the only two colors on the field. The shuffle block has a similar effect, except when a shuffle piece is dropped, all cascading adjacent pieces are randomly shuffled between colors. While I found the link pieces to be immensely helpful, I mostly found the shuffle piece to be disruptive to my strategies, as there was no way to tell what it would change a large chunk of pieces into. Still, in a pinch, it can create some matches in large piles that haven’t been managed well, so it can sometimes be a lifesaver.

The game has plenty of other modes, though sadly ES has fewer than before. The modes include:

Voyage - The game’s Marathon mode where you play your way through each of the game’s skins, and unlock each skin for other modes as you reach them. If you lose, you have to start over. This is the game’s main mode, and what players will get the most use out of. I really like it, but one complaint is that runs can be fairly long. It’s difficult to just jump into, as a single run can take you around an hour or so if you’re decent at it, and a few mistakes late in the game can wreck your whole run.

Playlist - A sort of free-play mode where you can pick and choose from unlocked skins to create your own playlist. You can save and load playlists, as well. I didn’t really use this mode much, but it can be nice if you only want to play a few different songs.

Stopwatch - The game’s Time Attack mode. Select a time limit and see how many blocks you can clear within the time limit. It’s fun enough to attempt for the associated trophy, but not really interesting enough to come back to.

Master - A challenge mode of sorts, you play through five levels, trying to clear a set number of blocks in each level. Unlike Voyage, the skin is the same throughout, and the game speed drastically increases between each level. I found this mode to be the best challenge in the game, especially since you can start at any level you’ve previously beaten, but again is a bit too simple to really hold interest very long.

Versus - The game’s multiplayer versus mode. Unfortunately, the VS CPU mode from the original game is removed, so this mode is multiplayer-only. Good luck finding someone else who not only owns a Vita, but also owns this game and wants to play with you. Definitely a missed opportunity here.

The game also has a “world block” feature, which basically amounts to a number of blocks that have to be cleared in total by everyone playing around the world every 24 hours. This is an interesting feature, but eight years after the game’s launch, there’s barely anyone still playing, so the chances of anything happening with this feature are slim.

Presentation

The Lumines series as a whole is known for its quirky electronic music and flashy visuals, and ES is no exception. The vast majority of this comes from the game’s collection of skins, and ES has plenty of unique skins to go around. This time around, the collection of skins is decent, with fewer skins that I actively disliked, but unfortunately fewer that I actively liked, leaving the mix with kind of an okay middle ground. New in this game are some skins that apply a 3D art style to the blocks. While these look interesting, I found that the 3D skins are more distracting than the 2D skins, making it harder to get a feel for the state of the board at a glance.

Conclusion

Lumines: Electronic Symphony is a decent successor to the original Lumines with a solid lineup of tracks, but unfortunately has less to offer than the original, and does little to advance the series. It’s definitely a good game, and I recommend it to anyone’s Vita collection. I just feel that if Lumines Remastered didn’t exist, Electronic Symphony would have scored a lot higher. As it stands, I find it hard to recommend ES above Remastered in 2020.

Score: 7 / 10

#review #gaming #lumines electronic symphony #q entertainment #ubisoft #article

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alexsmitposts · 5 years

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World Teetering on the Brink says Federal Reserve and EU Commission “Don’t worry about the mule, just load the wagon.” – an old Southern American saying We had an unusual double header last week with the Federal Reserve and the EU commission making two apparently uncoordinated statements, but that could not have come at a better time. I will start with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifying before the House Financial Services Committee. He sent a signal that indicated the first interest rate cut was just around the corner in the longest expansion that the US has ever had before a major correction. The most important line of his testimony for me was: “The bottom line for me is that the uncertainties around global growth and trade continue to weigh on the outlook… additionally, inflation continues to be muted.” The stock market hiccupped up a few points, hardly worth a mention, but interest rates moved up quickly on the news. On the other side of the pond, the EU Commission was giving its economic tale of uncertainty. The annual growth forecast was dropping from 1.9% in 2018 to 1.4% in 2019, and “firming” up in 2020 at 1.6%. But left out of that uptick projection was the elephant in the living room, BREXIT. Everyone knows that a hard Brexit will have a much bigger negative impact on the EU and Britain as opposed to a soft Brexit; and no one, including the Brits, know what Britain is going to do. It has its own Deep State that likes to make those decisions. That was one of the “uncertainties” that Fed Chairman Powell had been referencing, as there are many. Are we nearing a tipping point where one bad misstep could bring the house of cards all tumbling down? My ancestors on my mother’s side were Southerners, a people with a large inventory of colorful expressions which I learned as a child. One of my favorites as a young boy was “don’t worry about the mule, just load the wagon”. It was a saying created to tease Southerners about their laid back attitude, and what some considered their lack of concern about worrying about tomorrow. Trump had been savaging Fed Chairman Powell for his rate increases, for fear they would trigger the stock market correction that everyone knows has to come at some point. Trump would prefer it happen after his reelection, or course. But that represents the short term focus that politicians can have that does not serve the long term interests of the country – the people’s country, not the Deep State country. The EU Commission must have been channeling Chairman Powell, as the key line in their forecast statement was: “The outlook for trade and investment continues to be clouded by protectionism and uncertainty”. I would certainly agree to that, and take it much further. The success of the EU integration itself is clouded in uncertainty. I am not picking on the EU here, nor taking a cheap shot at the 2nd largest economy in the world after the US. Last summer, Columbia University historian Adam Tooze published his tome on the big financial crash in the US that sent a tidal wave around the world. Noah Smith reviewed the book in April of this year, just raving about how it was a one-book read of everything you needed to know about the disaster that touched so many lives. Smith says, “…the victory of the referendum to leave the EU, which now threatens to inflict permanent harm on the U.K., was precipitated in part by the failure of EU institutions to deal with the sovereign-debt crisis in the early 2010s… European integration had been a fragile project from the beginning. Unlike the U.S., the EU was linguistically fragmented, with many centuries of history of political conflict.” All of this chaos weaves into my view that the mentality of “don’t worry about the mule, just load the wagon” is alive and well on the international scale now. We have a similar don’t worry attitude like we had before the big crash with the added caveat of a major war in the Mideast adding to the chaos. While climate change is heating up the world, a growing number of species are under stress and disappearing. Similarly, the international economic community can only handle so many simmering and small scale wars, political and sanctions chaos, along with endless threats emanating from the White House reality tv show star, before the economic outlook can turn very bad for everybody with one major mis-step. The conflict list is long and growing. The Palestinians were offered banishment to the Egyptian desert as “The Deal of the Century”. The people of Afghanistan are looking at 20 years of US invasion conflict in that country; and the Taliban “seeks peace”, shows up for negotiations, but still insists on attacking military, civilian and even election installations during the talks. The US-NATO Ukrainian coup blew up in the Deep State’s face, and the perpetrators did not snatch Russia’s critical Black Sea base as one of the prizes. The sanctions on Russia did not pave the path for the US-backed Russian opposition to take over, as the Russian people do not want US election interference in their country. The US and Trump roam the planet like a raging bull, with Twitter as its lash and a rider who repeats himself endlessly while attempting to speak without saying much, and then changes his mind the next day. Deals are made, and then broken; treaties are canceled; and the good ship America fires cannon volleys of sanctions at both allies and Cold War opponents, while the US national debt continues to rise with no end in sight. The UN is treated like a doormat, a bad joke, an organization that could not even pressure a desert tribal clan-run country to end its war crime conflict in Yemen. The military forces of Western countries are deployed not to defend western interests, but to enforce them at the barrel of a gun, as we saw with the British hijacking of the Iranian leased oil tanker at Gibraltar. Secretary of State Pompeo was caught on video telling a crowd that “when I was at the CIA, we lied, cheated and stole, and had training classes on how to do it,” and the audience laughed. And mind you, this is during peace time. False flag attacks have become a major intelligence agency art form, with little Israel running with the big boys in terms of what it can pull off and get away with. We find ourselves with the US wanting to push permanent coalition deployment war ship to protect international shipping, thinking it can block all of Iran’s oil exports to bring it to its knees and to the negotiating table and force it to accept a “bad deal”. But this is not a defensive move at all, but an offensive one to blockade Iran’s ports, forcing it to respond, and getting the regime change war the US and Israel have always wanted in Iran. Iran has promised, rightfully so, that if its oil exports are blocked, then so will those of every other country in the Persian Gulf, sending oil prices through the roof and triggering a financial crash. I will close with a quote from an NEO – Joseph Thomas wonderful article on July 7th, US vs China: Smartphone Wars. “Whether it is attempts by the US to undermine confidence in a nation’s economy, smear a nation’s tourism industry, attempts to reverse the global success of companies like Huawei or even sabotage energy deals made by the US’ own allies with nations Washington considers adversaries, what amounts to highly dangerous American-led economic warfare remains a critical threat to global peace and stability.” On a brighter note, the Brits seem to be over their LSD-type trip where they seized the Iranian oil tanker, and are looking for a face-saving way out of the mess. Some sanity still survives in London.

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bizarre-dollhouse · 7 years

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Animation Direction and Aesthetic Appeal: Why I Didn’t Like Book of the Atlantic

For the record, if you really loved Book of the Atlantic and thought it looked great and/or are sick of people bitching about it, you probably won’t want to read this post.

If you didn’t like the movie, thought the movie looked terrible, are curious about how and why people don’t like it, or, most importantly, want to read about aesthetic techniques and how they relate to anime in general, please continue.

I want to really talk about animation, visual direction, and adaption techniques, and I want to use Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic as a negative example, because I soooo wanted to love this movie and ended up really disliking it.

For the most part, this post is just me getting something off of my chest, because I feel like there’s this grand misunderstanding held by people who didn’t like the movie about why the movie looked bad.

I just disagree with the consensus so strongly that I...I have to make a post about it. Because every review I’ve seen of this movie mentions how just the cgi is bad, or it just looks like they didn’t have enough money amiright?

I just think it is so much more interesting complicated than that.

Lots of text under the cut.

I’ll just get the basics out of the way: the cgi does not look well integrated and some of the background faces are derpy.

Moving on.

Part 1: Something to keep in mind:

Anime movies tend to look better than weekly anime tv shows because they are given both more time and a higher budget. This is why so many people thought it was unfair that A Silent Voice was up for Best Animation in the Crunchy Roll awards.

This is kind of unimportant but I would like you to keep it in mind while reading the rest of this post.

Part 2: What does good animation even mean?

I’ve heard a defence for the movie’s lacklustre animation is that it looks like all of the money went towards the fight scenes, or that the fight scenes make up for everything.

I’ve seen the fight scene between Sebastian, the reapers, and Undertaker a few times and I’ll admit, there are a few nice cuts early on with some very dynamic dodges and attacks, but after that it’s a lot of easier techniques, like held poses, slow motion falls, cut aways, frame movement, etc. The fight scene as a whole I would (personally) consider to be pretty “meh.”

This might sound kind of harsh, but even if you totally disagree with me and think the fight scene looked great, that just means it looks nice.

That fight scene is not especially well animated.

What takes up the most time and money in animation is the amount and detail of movement (key animation). Look at any important fight scene from FMAB, or BNHA, or the early episodes of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Those big fight scenes have a lot of key frames and details, and they all have wwwaaaay more key animation than the big fight in BotA despite being weekly tv shows.

One Punch Man is a great example because the animation in that show is fucking stellar and the director straight up said that the budget for One Punch Man is not much higher than a typical tv anime budget. Time and skill are the more important factors.

So, not speaking from the perspective of visual appeal, but from the perspective of animation quality, the big reaper fight scene in BotA isn’t that good.

Even the scene everyone raves about, where Lizzy fight all of the zombies: there’s a nice cut of her steps and a cool shot where she stabs one of the zombies in the head from above, but her sword then turns into a flash and we don’t see many details involving aim or choreography. Her stabbing them through the hallway also doesn’t have any real choreography other than her running and spinning once. After she stops to talk to Ciel, the scene gets a little more dynamic with more complicated moves, but it’s shot from far away and still has few key frames. I’ll admit I think it still looks kind of cool and maybe better than how it looked in the manga, but I don’t even think it’s close to the level of quality that’s in a lot of Bones shows.

Anyways, even if you’re in the majority camp and think these scenes look good, compare them to any of the shows mentioned above and you’ll see that even if they look good, they wouldn’t be especially difficult or expensive to animate, and aren’t impressive from a technical standpoint.

Part 3: Make a collage with those cut corners

Shifting focus a little bit, let’s talk about Higurashi.

Higurashi is one of my top 10 favourite shows (I highly recommend it if you’re not too squeamish). This show also looks awful. Like, really awful. There’s barely any movement, the characters are off model almost 100% of the time, and it has a very simplistic art style.

Despite being outright ugly, Higurashi still visually impresses me more than BotA because of one very simple, yet very very important fact:

The director and animators are trying their best.

Check out the scene in this gif set (gore warning). There’s a shadow silhouette, repetitive movement, and not much detail in the eyes, so it’s not technically impressive in terms of animation, but the way that the screen shakes when the bat lands, the lower angle used to put Keiichi in a dominating position of the frame, and the colour blur expressing the fact that this is both very emotionally intense and set at a different time make my brain say “ah yes, thought was put into making this scene look good with limited resources.”

Simpler yet is this scene, where it’s just two characters standing and talking while being atrociously off model. But the way they’re placed on the screen (ie parallel but opposing) is both cool visually and thematically relevant. It’s got a nice colour pallet, too.

Higurashi likes to play around with visual perspectives. This scene (violence warning) has no animation in the first gif and repetitive, fast movements in the second, but it takes the perspective of a man about to be beat to death with a baseball bat, which still makes it feel tense.

There’s another top fucking notch scene where someone is digging their own throat out with their finger nails, and instead of showing what would be a difficult scene to animate, they have a zoom in on the character’s back from the perspective of an impending threat that may or may not exist closing in on him and it’s terrifying despite the fact that nothing is animated.

Directing choices like these are extremely common in Higurashi.

Another slightly less obvious example would be Princess Tutu (which is one of my top 5 favourite shows that I recommend to everyone). Princess Tutu has very very few moments of sakuga and lots of repeated animation and kind of inconsistent movement in some scenes.

It looks cheaply made and is not well animated, but literally no one gives a fuck because that show has beautiful character designs, beautiful colour design, and interesting/creative set pieces.

The point is it’s 100% possible to make a cheap as fuck, poorly animated show and not have it look terrible.

I guess this is just my opinion, but when I compare the visual direction in Higurashi and the art of Princess Tutu to the flat, poorly blocked, and underwhelming visuals that make up a lot of BotA, I grow significantly less impressed with it.

The production team stuck pretty damn close to the manga, but the manga looks good because the panels are highly detailed illustrations that are specifically designed to look good when they are standing still and in black and white. They are also placed on a page which controls the visual pacing and lets you fill in movement with your imagination.

Translating this directly into animation but taking out the detail and shading in the illustrations and having the movements look worse than they did in my imagination does...not...look as good.

Part 4: Adapt

Let’s say, hypothetically, that BotA had fewer resources than most anime movies for some reason (money, time, staff, etc.). Sure, I don’t know the behind the scenes details. I doubt this was the case, but it very well might be.

.......Then why did they adapt the source material the way they did?

The manga for Kuroshitusji is fucking gorgeous and has some really iconic panels. For example, check out this post comparing a beautiful panel with the same scene from BotA.

...Why? Why would you make it that way?

Is it because you think it’ll please the fans to keep it the same? Because you wanted to cut a corner and use the manga as a storyboard?

Because it sure as fuck wasn’t because it would look good in the anime adaptation.

If the director and/or animators wanted to do the same scene but with limited resources, they could have maybe cropped it so it focused just on the undertaker’s face and the girl’s face, and then focus on making that look pretty and/or detailed. They wouldn’t have to put extra time and effort into drawing a nice full body shot, but they could still have it look good.

I came up with that time and money saving idea in less than 10 seconds and I’m not even a god damned animation director.

This goes back to my previous point, where it can be possible to make a passible looking show with limited resources, but this movie opted for sticking to the source material even though they really couldn’t do it justice.

Which is fine!!!! Embrace stylism!!! Kill la Kill has some goofy looking fight scenes with cut outs and cheeky techniques, but it does it in a way that builds the environment of the show and works within that universe because it’s clearly a part of the style.

Heck, studio Shaft practically gets away with murder by embracing weird styles with some of their older, cheaper shows.

Those particular styles almost definitely wouldn’t work with BotA, but find your own! Adapting the source material means exactly that: adapt it. Change it in a way that makes it just as good, if not better, than the original product in this new format.

In fact, I remember 2 scenes I thought looked pretty cool in this movie: one where it’s showing how the bizarre dolls work and the animation goes all Madoka Magica, and one where it shows this shadowy version of Sebastian before he makes his contract.

Both of those scenes have a style that is unique to animation and were not in the original manga.

I mean I guess it’s somewhat admirable that they were trying to stick to the source material, but they just...didn’t do it well.

Part 5: Does anyone here know CPR?! Because we need to breathe some life into this movie!

LITERALLY ALL OF MY PROBLEMS WITH BOOK OF THE ATLANTIC CAN BE EXPLAINED IN ONE SCENE.

IT’S KIND OF INCREDIBLE HOW MUCH THIS SUMS IT UP.

So there’s this scene in the manga where Ciel thinks he’s about to watch Lizzy get eaten by zombies and is, understandably, pretty torn up about it, as seen here:

This is a really great panel: Ciel’s face is expressive, the sea water makes it ambiguous whether or not he’s crying or sweating, and it’s from a unique angle that ensures his face and desperately reaching arm are both in the foreground.

Here’s the same scene in the movie:

Ciel’s face is less expressive, the angle is a lot simpler, and minute visual details are straight up omitted.

It’s like “yeah, we’re practically using the manga as storyboards*”

*unless the panel is like, hard to draw or expressive to the point where it might look off model.

I feel like the studio was deeply afraid of using animation that was too off model for reasons I don’t understand. Maybe it’s because they were afraid that the characters would look too unattractive but like...

it’s okay to have a character look a little fucked up if they feel a little fucked up.

Returning to Higurashi: that horror series has become famous for its highly emotive facial expressions.

Check out Rena’s furious face in the fourth gif of this set.

Or Rika’s super fucked up expression when suffering intense harm.

Or the sheer intense terror in Keiichi’s eyes in this gif and this gif set.

Like sure, the show looks like garbage and has lots of other derpy, off model faces, but they clearly had an idea of what they were going for and how to use animation as acting.

I feel that maaaybe the production team for BotA confused looking ugly (having faces distorted by emotion) for looking bad, but that’s 100% speculation.

Part of my reasoning for that speculation is in the following scene:

So, in the manga/BotA, Sebastian and Ciel run into Druitt, and the scene plays out like a well timed joke when Druitt asks them how they know him and they go like this

and it’s funny.

The exact same punchline is in the movie but it looks like this

like, the idea of the joke still comes across, but the expressions aren’t as humorously exaggerated and the joke isn’t as funny as a result.

This is also a scene where I don’t want to hear any “this scene looks bad because of money” arguments because drawing the simplistic expression from the manga would have been easier and less time consuming.

Again, let’s look at the comedic scenes from Higurashi:

This particular style probably wouldn’t look good in a Kuro adaption but the idea is that you can deform facial expressions for the sake of joke and sometimes it will make the joke funnier.

The point is also that Higurashi is a really well directed show despite being poorly animated. Can you tell I’m pushing Higurashi?

Please do not misunderstand this point: BotA for the most part has fine facial expressions that communicate the desired emotion. It’s fine. My point is that they probably should have been more daring with their creative choices to make certain scenes more emotionally/comedically effective.

In fact, part of the appeal of animation as a medium is the ability to play with reality through drawings.

Or just, you know, just draw a kid looking sad from a nice angle.

Conclusions:

Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic is obviously not the worst movie ever. In fact, there are quite a few scenes with good animation, good framing and competent direction.

(Ooh, I should have mentioned this earlier, but there is a legitimately good cut where Sebastian and Ciel are reaching for each other and it shows blood appearing before you see Seb get stabbed. This was a good choice and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was not in the manga.)

I can totally see someone saying this movie looks good, and that’s a perfectly justified opinion, I just strongly disagree when looking at the overall product and how it compares to the manga and pretty much every other decently made show/movie.

I’m just upset because this arc in the manga is amazing and the most cinematic, and it clearly was not adapted to its full potential. And now it probably never will be.

Please let the impossible happen and let Bones or Madhouse get the rights for the Green Witch arc and make an amazing adaption. Pleeeaaaassseee.

When I die I want A-1 Pictures to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time.

That being said, if you have not seen this movie and (for whatever reason) are dead set against ever reading the manga; give this movie a watch. The story’s utterly fantastic and it’s a...watchable...movie.

But here’s the moral of this whole post:

Book of the Atlantic does not look bad just because it looks cheap. .

Book of the Atlantic looks bad because it looks bad.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Tal-- *passes out*

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #book of the atlantic #higurashi no naku koro ni #text

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