#rather than an objective description of the character given by the authors

[seapiglet]

The only way I would've accepted seeing pre-fall Crowley and Aziraphale together is if they were like in the Heaven cafeteria, Crowley complaining to a celestial dinnerlady that the lunch options all look bad ("the food hadn't been that good lately"), while Aziraphale walks by in the other direction, needlessly worrying about something. Neither notices the other. They were this close and yet!

Perhaps Aziraphale and another angel are even discussing some rumour about angels starting to ask questions of The Almighty and expresses concern.

Keep in the "how much trouble can I get into for asking a few questions?" or whatever from Crowley but have it be with the disgruntled dinnerlady or one of Lucifer's crew he was presumably hanging out with. Show one of these soon-to-be-cast-out angels casually mentioning to him that they're thinking of bringing up a few of their concerns to "the boss" and would he be interested? It's worth a shot after all. What harm could it to?

Just anything to make it less fucking needlessly dramatic and serious.

[eternasci]

Anatomy of Writing

This is just an analysis on my writing style, my weaknesses, strengths, and other tidbits I've noticed over the ten years of my tumblr writing journey. I always strive to improve, which means acknowledging my banes and boons, as well as spots where I feel style has taken precedence over rules. I welcome others to do the same.

This is also littered with links (whether to my old blogs, or my current writing advice blog), so feel free to be nosy. I welcome input of any kind!

Epithets. My earliest (tumblr) writing can be found on my first roleplay blog, pintsizedpyro. By no means did I write the way I did now. On first glance, I utilized simplistic epithets heavily (e.g., "the girl", "the Korean", etc). I've strayed from this as a result of advice given (and also, a general dislike for how it cut into my writing). To this day, I believe I still typically avoid them if there is no deeper meaning. Whether this makes parsing my posts difficult is unknown to me; I have no issues when re-reading, though that's an obvious bias. I love ones with meaning; ones that typically coincide with a character's facets (e.g. using a title to demand authority rather than a simple first name, or calling a character, whose personality can be likened to a dog, a "hound"... you know who you are). Repetition. Similarly, I found repetition within my earliest attempts. It couldn't be helped, but I did notice and often attempted to revise statements in which I would experience overlapping of words even then (epithets being a big one; particularly, when paragraphs would condense and I'd see similar phrases stacked on top of each other, I wanted to kill someone). This is an inevitability at times; the dictionary has many words, but switching them around for the sake of prettying up a post can cause confusion. At the most, I would rewrite entire sentences to at least break up the distance between repeating offenders. This still happens today, but I am swift when it comes to recognizing and rewriting it out.

Length. We've all been there. Receiving a long post and wanting to return fire. I have long found this useless, something to be ironed out of me. Unless I have substance to fill the page, I have to simply be complacent with how much I can give back. We've all gotten carried away and had much to say, but as we always politely mention: there is really no need to match. Due to the "method" behind my writing, I can string lengthy, prose-laden sentences together, but I do not expect the Mona Lisa in turn. That's just a stylistic choice. Similarly, I can get a lot out of a little, and won't press myself to add more if I believe the point has crossed over. I think we would all prefer to have something to work with over a bunch of pretty fluff.

Writing Structure. The beast that typically intimidates others from interacting with me. This post inspired the way I create my sentences. I think, in some ways, I've taken it beyond suggestion given (I like my replies to sound lyrical, perhaps due to the way the post describes their "improved" sentence). I don't think I've fully embodied this just yet. I feel as though my sentences still end up particularly long with no abrupt, shorter statements to allow for breathing. It's something I'm conscious of and actively trying to work on. I'm not particularly upset with the way my current writing manifests itself, though, especially when comparing one of the older threads I was proud of on pintsizedpyro to one of my most "memorable" ones on burstbombbitch.

The writing is objectively different. In the time (four years) between these posts, I believe I had adopted a more descriptive method of writing. I know when writing the latter post I was primarily aiming for beauty and scene setting, but body language had evolved to become one of my most prominent focuses. Due to my muse's anatomy at the time (the lack thereof), I felt as though I could emphasize and exaggerate body language, pushing it to its limits. I am also aware I wrote in this way to "match" with the person I was writing with, as their writing entranced me and was something I aspired to become. I have found a middle ground, being the style I now write in. I do feel as though my background/scene setting could use more work, but I know it is not impossible for me to do, having evidence of doing so previously. That, and other wonderful writers really help me with their love of elaborating on plots!

I've also been told that my writing is "difficult to read," but not in a particularly bad light. I think the critique is spot on, but I do need the ability to make it "easy" on the fly for others as well. That being said, I find myself omitting things that I believe should be derived from context, which makes a good segue into this next segment...

Word Choice and Character Voice. This is something I feel I could work on. I have three "main" muses at this time: sinsolucion, lovlorne, and eternasci. I want to believe they all have different "writing styles" when I piece their threads together, that others will read the narrative (not just the dialogue!) with the same "vibe" the character themselves give off. Much of my struggle comes from how lovlorne and eternasci both can be on the "fancier" side of things. I struggle to differentiate the two, which isn't inherently bad (someone can simply like a character archetype, which I most definitely adore both), but I do wonder how successful I am when it comes to isolating what makes these characters them.

Then there's sinsolucion, who I believe would have none of the elegance the former two share. On rereading posts, I think I've managed to nail keeping him "simple," although actions like body language may still invoke my type of "lyrical" writing. This is a post that kind of has me like... "wait, maybe this was written with too much influence from my other blogs?" Objectively, nothing is wrong... but it does feel too fancy for a dude who just... isn't. Funnier still, this character is a writer, but he would absolutely never write the way I do. It creates some dissonance that makes for a challenge, but I do love him for it. It can be drowned out when reading other replies from Lucien or Xiuying, though. It also helps that, unlike these two, Soren doesn't typically undergo the same thought process or even have the same weak points in their characterization, leaving him to fill in voids they don't allow me to write.

It's difficult to divide your "style" for a different "person," but Soren gives me a good challenge, and helps me grow all the same. Also, he's a breath of fresh air when it comes to his very different interactions. Honestly, after going over these, that aforementioned post definitely felt a little fancy for Soren. I might rewrite it just to see what I could've done differently, knowing the sentence that particularly stood out to me as being more "Lucien" vibes (e.g. "mutters he beneath breath, smirk unbending, nigh threatening to wax crescent").

Just all in the fun of dissecting one's own style.

Steps to Writing a Reply. For Lucien and Xiuying, the first sentence is key. Both of their writing styles are particularly lyrical. I utilize a lot of alliteration and rhyme to get that feeling of song, though it can bleed into Soren's replies as well, evident by the post that has become the previous topic. Typically, when I get that first sentence going, the rest all flow along behind it. I usually knock a reply out all in one go, though I will save a draft and return later to reread it and analyze if I've come up with anything better in the midst of that break. It feels fitting to "set the scene" for these two overly dramatic assholes with a leading sentence, bolded and in bigger text to capture someone's primary attention, both of which crave to be in the spotlight literally and figuratively.

I think just about any post is an example of me framing the first sentence, but a good chunk of my favorites come from Lucien, especially when they're on the particularly silly or dramatic side. Xiuying has her moments, but most of them were in her development a few years ago. Her style has become more "pointed" and jarring to align with her new design, though anything that comes before her third phase of development falls back to the eloquence Lucien has now.

things to come back and add to this: my weakness of scene setting/bgs dialogue

This isn't really something to "tag" per say, since it's not reeeally a prompt or meme, but I'd love to see some elaboration on writing styles I'm super curious about (and as we all say, for the love of all that is holy, you DONT need to match)! I've sent out asks already, but if you haven't gotten one, steal this!

so suffer: @bloodxhound, @kagoshou, @fatedprincess @lionfanged, @goldenfists, @vtriol, @passionoathed, @shdwtouch, @stillresolved, @mielmoto, @amorbloom, @wishedby !

[tisiphonewolfe]

Trick or Treat? 🦇

(Event Post)

Trick or treat you say?! Alright, let's do a treat!

I was recently doing some planning work for my new WIP, 'The Looking-Glass Agency', which is going to be a paranormal mystery. I worked up some profiles for the main characters, so I'll share some of Emily's!

Emily Glass

Physical Description: Emily is a trans woman. She is 5’9, with shoulder-length black hair, and blue eyes. She needs glasses to read. She has a low, calm, flat voice. When relaxing, she wears pastel or boho clothing, things that are floaty and fit loosely. When working, she wears more practical outfits, usually a thick jacket (leather, or an anorak), plain t-shirts or flannels, jeans, sturdy boots. She is rarely seen without her camera. Personality: Emily is cold and formal, and often comes across as snippy. She is businesslike. She seeks logical answers to every question, to the point of arrogance when someone suggests something that contradicts her assumptions. Despite this, she is calming and sympathetic when dealing with victims and the families of victims, and has a good social script for these occurrences. She likes her privacy and is slow to open up. When angry or upset she tends to spit venomous insults rather than be aggressive or violent. When in a good mood, and around people she trusts, she can seem more fired-up, determined, and delights in things with the same satisfaction that one gets after solving a difficult puzzle. She dislikes authority figures. She doesn’t entirely trust her own sanity given the ‘hauntings’ she’s experienced. Occupation: Private Detective for her solo practise, ‘The Looking-Glass Agency’ Habits/Mannerisms: She chews her nails. She’ll pull off her glasses and fiddle with them. She avoids buses as much as she can. She often leaves food and drinks unfinished. She finds metallic surfaces and objects irritating and goes out of her way to avoid them - she always wears gloves to handle metallic objects.

[grandhotelabyss]

If you haven't already, I highly recommend Philip's Against Self-Criticism in the LRB. It's one of my favorite essays written in the 21st century. The piece explores Hamlet, Freud, Lacan, etc. (All of which, as you've persuasively argued, emanate from mind of Shakespeare.)

Thanks, just read it, a literally perfect essay, and, re: a previous post, one of the best defense of Freud ever made: the way it begins with Hamlet and ends with Don Quixote to start and finish at the origin of modernity, the way it connects Freud to the tradition of liberal jurisprudence and the thought of Mill, and above all, most movingly to me, the way it defends overinterpretation (metatextually, given Phillips's own close readings):

After interpreting Hamlet’s apparent procrastinations with the new-found authority of the new psychoanalyst, Freud feels the need to add something by way of qualification that is at once a loophole and a limit. ‘But just as all neurotic symptoms,’ he writes, ‘and, for that matter, dreams, are capable of being “over-interpreted”, and indeed need to be, if they are to be fully understood, so all genuinely creative writings are the product of more than a single impulse in the poet’s mind, and are open to more than a single interpretation.’ It is as though Freud’s guilt about his own aggression in asserting his interpretation of what he calls the ‘deepest layers’ in Hamlet – his claim to sovereignty over the text and the character of Hamlet – leads him to open up the play having closed it down. You can only understand anything that matters – dreams, neurotic symptoms, people, literature – by over-interpreting it; by seeing it, from different aspects, as the product of multiple impulses. Over-interpretation, here, means not settling for a single interpretation, however apparently compelling. The implication – which hints at Freud’s ongoing suspicion, i.e. ambivalence, about psychoanalysis – is that the more persuasive, the more authoritative the interpretation the less credible it is, or should be. If one interpretation explained Hamlet we wouldn’t need Hamlet anymore: Hamlet as a play would have been murdered. Over-interpretation means not being stopped in your tracks by what you are most persuaded by; to believe in a single interpretation is radically to misunderstand the object one is interpreting, and interpretation itself. In the normal course of things, tragic heroes are emperors of one idea: they always under-interpret. Hamlet, we could say, is a great over-interpreter of his experience; and it is the sheer range and complexity of his thoughts – his interest in his thought from different aspects – that makes him such an unusual tragic hero. ‘Emerson was distinguished,’ Santayana wrote, ‘not by what he knew but by the number of ways he had of knowing it.’ Freud was beginning to fear, at this moment in The Interpretation of Dreams, and rightly as it turned out, that psychoanalysis could be undistinguished if it had only one way of knowing what it thought it knew. It was dawning on him, prompted by his reading of Hamlet, that psychoanalysis, at its worst, could be a method of under-interpretation. And to take that seriously was to take the limits of psychoanalysis seriously; and indeed the limits of any description of human nature that organises itself around a single metaphor.

If I have a pedagogical rather than just a literary vocation, it is to teach the art of overinterpretation, an art that testifies to the abundance of the universe. How does this affect me as an artist? Wallace Stevens's second criterion for "Supreme Fiction" is that "It Must Change." I believe that means that the greatest art makes itself maximally available to overinterpretation (while still retaining its discrete form). It therefore presents itself variably to different audiences and epochs.

[dsouzakatherine09]

Explore OSP Article Preparation Guidelines

Review OSP’s article preparation guidelines to learn how to format and submit your research paper for publication.

Creating Articles Before submitting their paper, authors are asked to abide by the guidelines as part of the submission procedure.

Cover Letter A maximum of 500 words should be included in the manuscripts to explain the significance of the research and to include any included figures, tables, or other supplemental data. Manuscript Title: The title of the manuscript should be in title case and should not be more than 160 characters. Author Information Provide a list of all the writers’ complete names and connections. The author’s affiliations should be listed as follows: Department, University/Institute, City, State, and Country. Use superscript numbers to indicate which affiliations are distinct. The accompanying author must include their full name, affiliation, phone number, and email address in order to proceed.

Abstract: 250 words maximum, describing the study’s objectives, methods, results, and conclusion (if it’s a research article). Authors must include a summary of their research. In the abstract, do not include any reference. Even keywords can be added by authors to the abstract. Keywords: Authors are allowed to list a maximum of five keywords; the keyword section should not contain any acronyms. Overview The tone of the article should be established in this section by giving a thorough description of the topic, a summary of pertinent research, and a suggested course of action or solution. The introduction ought to be sufficiently general to draw in readers from a wide spectrum of scientific fields.

Materials and Methods: This section ought to include a thorough rundown of the study’s design. It is necessary to provide thorough explanations of the materials or participants, comparisons, interventions, and analysis kinds.

Outcomes It is not appropriate to repeat findings from the results section in the discussion section. The experiment’s full details should be provided by the results, which should bolster the study’s conclusion. The results section may contain figures and tables.

Discussion: This section can either be included separately or paired with the results (discussion and results) or with the conclusion (discussion and conclusion). A thorough analysis of the data ought to be given in the discussion section rather than the results. Don’t reiterate the information from the introduction.

Let’s read more about us!!!

[timeforabathblog]

9. Here: A Fair Resting-Place

On the 14th of March, an evolving exhibition of artwork by the wood engraver Duncan Montgomery opened in the Peltz Gallery Vitrine at 43 Gordon Square (Birkbeck School of Arts). Alongside several new engravings, there are working drawings, picture postcards, objects and book illustrations, curated by Duncan and myself under the title 'Here: A Fair Resting-Place.' The run has been extended until the 29th of September, and the building is open for free (and wheelchair accessible) Monday to Friday, 9am-10pm.

The show is supported by the Wellcome Foundation and Birkbeck, via Wellcome's Institutional Strategic Support Fund.

The title is a play on some of the opening lines of Benjamin Jowett's translation of Phaedrus (one of Plato's dialogues), where the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates and his friend Phaedrus take a stroll out of their native Athens into the countryside (a rare occurrence for the city-loving Socrates) and find a quiet place to sit and talk. 'By Herè [the goddess Hera],' comments Socrates,

a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents. Here is this lofty and spreading plane-tree, and the agnus castus high and clustering, in the fullest blossom and the greatest fragrance; and the stream which flows beneath the plane-tree is deliciously cold to the feet.

This passage has had a life of its own beyond Plato's dialogue, becoming a classic example of the locus ameonus tradition (literally 'pleasant place'), where an author or artist dwells on and celebrates a naturally beautiful scene.

The passage was explicitly linked to Parson's Pleasure on a number of occasions, for instance in L'Aube Ardente [The Fiery Dawn] (1915), a novel by Abel Hermant, where the protagonist falls asleep reading Phaedrus on his way to Oxford and later recalls Plato's description on entering Parson's Pleasure for the first time.

There's an irony in linking the exhibition to a 'resting-place,' meanwhile, given that it is installed in the entrance to the School of Arts – typically a place of busy movement back and forth rather than resting. More generally we're interested in troubling the locus amoenus tradition, exploring some of the complexities of Parson's Pleasure as well as its character as a place for men to play-act as classical figures.

We're organising two bigger shows for next summer: one in London, another in Oxford. In the meantime, this has been a pleasure to produce and a really fun way of getting to grips with how we want to present this material.

[texshire-books]

How much detail should an author put into a sex scene.

Sex scenes in books.

As an author of lesbian erotic romance, I often see a question on social media, - should love scenes be explicit? If that means describing what happens during lovemaking or even just plain sex then given the right context – yes! I say that with one proviso, it should never be crude. From what I read, much is and the reason is not the subject matter but the often-invented words describing the action.

I’m not sure what is worse, scrimping over the event, fading out of the scene – the door closing. Then a swift move to – afterwards! Everything left to the reader’s imagination, when surely, we wanted to know what happened. Alternatively, a full description but using crude descriptions like “Cunnie” or “love hole” – honestly, why invent words when the anatomical description fits just as well and adds a sense of realism to the scene. My writing is based on two main factors. I write about what I know, I describe what I see. I place myself at the scene or in the scene. That is what I write.

I’d be hopeless at writing fantasy or sci-fi. I can’t place myself there. As a lesbian woman who has been in relationships where I’ve engaged in hot, dirty sex, I find writing about it easy. I’ve been there, I’ve been there, smelt it and tasted it. I have no problems sharing this with my readers. I’ve just finished The Puzzle, where two troubled women meet by ingenious means. Both lesbian, they have had previous relationships and slowly they begin to engage. As in all my books there is a more than a hint of BDSM, certainly more than a mere taste of erotica. It gets very full on.

Gemma, a character in the book, decides her hairy, would-be lover, Rachel, needs to be shaven, this is how I described that event.

‘I’ve never shaved a woman’s vagina before, or even spent time looking around. I’m going to love this and I suspect weekly maintenance?’ I replied.

‘A mutual pleasure, a 69 with razors. Shall we get open cut-throat razors to ramp up the tension, razor sharp blades amongst our most precious possessions?’ She asked.

‘The ultimate in trust, my god that is so erotic, so kinky.’ I replied, picking up spray foam, parting Rachel’s cheeks and squirting soap the length of her hairy crack. I went to work, starting at the most northerly point and working back down. Her hair removed easily and soon the bowl had fluffy surface. I wondered how Rachel planned to dispose of it, I had thought of suggesting drying it and using it later to stuff a pillow, but she seemed genuinely hurt by my earlier comments. I was surprised to see a woman with an such amount of hair, I took that as a reflection of her origins which I suspected were southern European where women seemed swarthier, which was probably due to their darker complexion and hair colour. I’d got halfway and now I was looking at her anus, poking out through the soap. In all the time I’d known Anna who was always smooth and ensured I had been too; I’d never noticed hers. I’d licked it, but I was far too engaged in mutual pleasure to look at something which had a rather, ‘not to be mentioned’ identity. It was there but nothing more. It felt different this time. Some deft strokes of the razor cleared the object of my attention. I touched it, stroked it, I was even tempted to ease my finger inside its tightly closed centre. I resisted such a move then pulling her cheeks apart still further continued until Rachel’s rear end was done. I slapped her arse! ‘Turn over!’

I watched as Rachel squirmed around and lay on her back looking up at me, hands neatly placed behind her head. She had opened her legs obligingly so kneeling next to her on the table I could work on the remaining dark thatch. I’d never looked at a vagina in such detail; I could see lots of pink slippery flesh amongst the undergrowth. I gripped one hairy lip and shaved its outer surface clean of hair which stuck to the razor ready to be rinsed in a bowl now increasingly covered with what had preceded it. That done both sides I wiped her with a towel and before me, transformed was a sight of amazing erotic beauty. I wanted to bury my face into her core, to lick those depths and drink her arousal. She was wet, and it was pouring out of her.

‘Can we get this done; I need you upstairs Gemma. I’m close to exploding and I’m rather keen to do to something to you and from what I can read in your face, you wish to do to me too.’ Those were my thoughts entirely and after another burst of foam covered her pubic bush this was whisked away in an instant and I found myself standing facing a woman with the same thoughts as mine.

Two women, hot for each other. An erotic event described in detail but in my opinion without crudity because no invented words were used. Just those which identified anatomy precisely and with total accuracy. Obviously, it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if the book description is read, there will never be any doubt as to its content.

Another question often asked is whether toilet breaks should be mentioned. Of course, they should, it happens, people need a pee! It’s real life, I often use it as a means to create a ‘time-out’ when a pause in proceedings is needed to break the tension between warring parties. There is no need to describe what takes place inside of course.

Later, the two women vent their sexual frustration. I did it thus.

An hour later we were wrapped tightly around each other, our legs gripped in a surprisingly neat way. We had eaten each other alive - literally. I never imagined my tongue and lips going where mine went and while I was less fresh than Rachel, she seemed to have no problems doing likewise to me. We had kissed, really kissed for the first time and shared our exotic scent and taste in the process. I had climaxed too, not hugely but certainly up there as the biggest I’d had since…. before!

Nothing crude there either but no pretence that oral sex wasn’t a big factor and where!

There may not be agreement on my approach. But it’s an honest approach because I describe what takes place. If I’ve spoilt what you’d have preferred to imagine – oh well, I can’t win them all.

Anietta

[interact-if]

Day 1 of the People With Disabilities Month Featured Author Interviews! Please welcome up....Elena!

Elena, author of Apocalyptic Dream

People With Disabilities Month Featured Author

Apocalyptic Dream is a dual-MC, horror-themed otome game that takes place during a zombie outbreak in the 21st century. Follow Mikuru and Toshiro Aikyo, twins who had the misfortune of knowing what was coming.

Navigate friendships, relationships, and learn who to trust…all while trying to survive.

Can you make it through alive?

Author’s Carrd | Author’s Ko-fi | Preorder | Read more about Apocalyptic Dream [here]

Tags: Apocalypse, 18+, Otome

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!) 

Q1. So, tell us a little bit about the projects you're working on!

Currently, I'm still in early stages of development for my first Visual Novel project, Apocalyptic Dream. It's a post-apocalyptic zombie setting, with otome elements and psychological horror intertwined. It's got no real filters with language used or descriptive gore (though the artwork is pretty reeled-in), so I've rated it a (presumed) M. It has partial voice acting.

The game has two protagonists, twins Mikuru and Toshiro, and the viewpoint switches between them at predetermined intervals. There are some game mechanics that vary depending on which twin you are currently playing as, and I'm very excited for players to discover them. There are 9 love interests as well, but one can be pursued as either twin, as Mikuru and said LI are bisexual, and Mikuru has a couple wlw routes.

I am the writer, casting director, marketer, character designer, merch designer...pretty much everything except voice actor, composer, or artist. I don't have the capacity to make artwork that would make me feel happy with the vision I have for it, so I have two very wonderful artists on board instead, and will add some in the future for custom BGs.

I admit it's ridiculously ambitious for my first project, currently drafted at 70k words and not even 1/5th finished. I am so grateful for everyone who has helped to fund the game and are excited for its release, it's been mindblowing for me.

Q2. What has been your favorite thing about interactive fiction as a medium? What are some of the biggest challenges?

I really enjoy when they provide truly unique branching and you get to have a totally different experience (either without or beyond a common route) depending on your choices. It's so much effort to get those done seamlessly without plot holes (something I'm sweating over a bit myself right now), and I appreciate it greatly. It makes such a wonderful playing experience, and I want to provide that for others.

It's hard sometimes to really reconcile with the protagonist's train of thought if it doesn't align with your own, so I'd consider that a bit of a challenge. I'm someone who really hates playing as very bratty characters, or someone who just trips on thin air all the time and becomes a damsel in distress. However, I see IF more as just playing as someone else rather than being myself, so as long as they aren't an objectively terrible person (lol), I can shake it off when they say or think things that are a bit unsettling.

Q3. What is something you're excited to explore within your work?

I am really excited to be able to detail and follow through with all of the branches, and use them to further my writing experience. It's really amazing how so many IF game developers have kept their characters' base personalities consistent while exploring so many different paths that could affect how they respond to the protagonist, sometimes to very severe degrees.

Given the bleak setting of my game, I'm really looking forward to putting my characters through the wringer (sorry guys!) and seeing how they react to what's thrown their way while still adhering to their own moral and ethical codes. And to see someone bend or even break them after what they've gone through? It's difficult to write that correctly, and I'm excited for the challenge.

Q4. Has your disability influenced your work? Whether it's worldbuilding, the design, the process, and positive or negative--what is your advice in working with your disability and being creative?

Absolutely. It's unfortunate, but it just is what it is. I have chronic illnesses that absolutely sap my energy on any given day (endometriosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, PMDD, major depression, and more), and add ADHD to the mix, and it's nearly impossible to get myself motivated. I spend most of my days making mental notes of the plot progression and script it in my head, without actually getting it down in writing lol. It's very frustrating dealing with executive dysfunction, and spending most of my waking hours in bed.

I also have a small business, Midnight Springs, which is now nearly 7 years old. Juggling the merch design and production for that along with the game has been beyond challenging with how tired and sore I always am, but to lessen some of the load I've been phasing out any new artwork that has no ties to the game and its characters for a while now. I am doing my best to manage all aspects while still chugging along with the scripting and outsourcing direction (art and VA), which is admittedly overwhelming, but everyone in staff and the Kickstarter backers has been really understanding and great about it.

I don't mean to minimize how difficult this is, it's rough. It's often so insurmountable-feeling that I just get stuck for days. But the love for my characters, all of whom I originally penned a decade ago, and the positive (and sometimes very emotional) feedback I have had from my close friends and fiancé proofreading my rough drafts before they are edited has been so incredibly encouraging. It makes me truly excited to keep going, even during the (often very extreme) lows.

Q5. What's an accessibility issue you see glazed over a lot in IF? and what accessibility features would you like to see implemented more in IF?

I think a lot of people don't really understand that reading speed varies between others. This can go both ways, with auto being defaulted at too slow and not being able to adjust it, or too fast. It sucks to have to refer back to a log repeatedly, and I've played some VN apps where the log was actually COMPLETELY borked, and all the scripting for all the branches were just all lumped together out of order, and it was like reading something out of a horror script. I have arthritis and carpal tunnel, and I'm sure a lot of other people have reasons to not want to button-mash their way through a game and would want to avoid repetitive strain injuries. IF should hardly be physically demanding to play through, so this shouldn't be as big of an issue as it is.

Another is definitely quick time events. I am actually a very quick reader, but whenever I am put on the spot I get really anxious, lol. But then take into account that sometimes people aren't able to read through the full set of options before time runs out, and they haven't been able to weigh them in their mind yet to make an educated decision. Thankfully, adjustable quicktime speed has been implemented a lot more recently.

One thing I saw suggested in an accessibility panel in a virtual VN event I was an audience to and hadn't really thought of was a dyslexia-friendly font option, so I will be implementing that as well. Inverted controls are another thing that I only really see offered in RPGs or fighters, but not often in IF.

Q6. What is something you'd love to see in interactive fiction?

I would really appreciate if devs who have no idea how to approach mental health issues would just...not, or consult someone who does. I've quit at least one IF game because the protagonist says some really damaging, narcissistic things to characters suffering from depression or other MI. They may not be real, but the players are, and if any of us have the same conditions we are used to hearing that more than enough already.

I'd also love if more protagonists were voiced (in games that otherwise have voice acting already), instead of being nearly entirely a blank slate. If a character is given a name you choose as the player, and they aren't voiced, and have no face in CGs, then it can be super jarring if they say something you don't like. After all, they're supposed to be a Mary Sue at that point, right? So I'd love to see more devs commit to having their protags just straight up be their own fully fleshed-out people.

Q7. Any advice to give to aspiring devs?

Believe in yourself! This is hard, and sometimes I don't know why I decided to do this. But if it's something you want, reach for it and don't let anyone tell you that you can't. Find a community, big or small, that you can talk to - I've met some really friendly indie devs through discord servers, a couple whose games I'd actually supported on Kickstarter prior!

Also, don't read reviews once it's published (or once the demo is released). Have someone else relay constructive or happy reviews to you, do not do that yourself. Especially if you have anxiety like I do. Reviews are insanely varied and often not even a little bit productive.

Take care of yourself, pace yourself, and don't set definitive deadlines. If you are having an "off" day, do not force yourself. And good luck! (Speaking to myself a bit with these ones.)

[ramurice]

!Spoilers for Flowers from 1970!

I had to do a reading assignment and it could be any book, any kind of book, and genre, etc, etc. I chose Flowers from 1970, you know, that one dreamnotfound story. So if you don't want to read it, but are curious about it here is officially Copy+Paste from my assignment, so read if you want to, I don't care. Major Spoilers to the book, and even if you get all the way through this, I still suggest it.

Introduction/General Book Information

Title: Flowers from 1970

Author: Astronomika on Wattpad

What genre/type of book is it? (Fantasy, humour, science fiction, mystery, biography, non-fiction, etc.)

Flowers from 1970 was a novel made as a gift for two people, Georgenotfound and Dreamwastaken. Though they never had the kind of relationship implied in this novel it is very close to what was shown in streams with their persona's and the two said people don't mind receiving this type of content from fans, simply because they find it funny. It is definitely a fiction novel as one of the most significant objects is an old telephone that connects George and Dream a fifty-year time difference, Dream comes from 1970, while George is from 2020

Main Character

What is the main character’s name?

The main character’s name is George Davidson, a 24-year-old video game coder.

Describe this character (Physical and personality traits):

George Davidson a 24-year-old boy lived in an old house in Florida, as we go along in the story he describes himself as around 5’5(Inference compared to what he says about Clay), he has a long face that is evened out with a sharp jawline, a medium-sized nose, lips full enough that they don’t disappear when he smiles, his hair is a dark brown that is normally cut short but is a little longer at the moment. I did not use the real person for this description, these are pretty close to actual quotes in the book when Clay asks what he looks like. For a Personality he is described as a kind person, due to his job he doesn’t get out much, nor make friends often, When Clay doesn’t call him for a week he starts going out more because he thought that that's what Clay would have wanted him to do.

How can you relate to or identify with the main character?

George in this book has a lot of things that I can somewhat relate to, for George he didn’t have a hard time making friends, rather he doesn’t get out much to meet people. Most of the people he ends up meeting talk to him first. Dream was actually one of his first friendships.

Another Character

Who is another character?

Another character who happens to be another main character is Clay, or Also known as Dream for most of the story(no last name is given).

Describe this character (Physical and personality traits):

Dream is a 21-year-old living in 1970, he works as a baseball coach and lived in the same house as George. George Describes Dream as around 6’0 from a photo sent to him in a time capsule and a green handprint Dream presses into the wall in one of their conversations, The handprint is described as being bigger than Georges by a fair bit so that prompted George into guessing he was tall. Dream has shaggy dirty-blonde hair that sticks out at odd angles, he also has a cat named Patches, though she isn’t described. As stated by both Sapnap and George Dream is cocky and full of himself most of the time, he wants to be nothing like his father who was an abusive alcoholic, though he does get drunk once in the book to deal with his problems to see if his dad's methods actually worked.

Setting

(Where does the story take place? When is the story happening?)

Describe the time and place of the story:

Flowers from 1970 takes place in both 1970 and 2020, the phone connects Dream and George. The house that the story takes place in is located in Florida.

Comments about the setting:

(EX: setting makes story exciting, the setting has an important effect on the main character, the setting is/is not exciting or new, setting increased my knowledge of something):

A quote from the book is a perfect description of the place; “Now you know that once upon a time, in the same room, of the same house, fifty years apart, Clay and George Davidson had loved each other.” The book takes place in the same house at two different times, Dream being the past owner, while George being the future owner. They find out how to communicate with each other by that telephone, and Dream could send George things from the past by affecting small things, like burying a time capsule in the corner of the yard then telling George where it is over the phone, George can unbury it since it’s from the past, the things will be old and musty since it was fifty years since it was buried but it was an efficient way to send things.

Theme

(What did the author want you to experience, feel, or understand through reading this book? A theme can be about specific people and particular situations or about life in general.)

What is or are the topic(s) of the story?

(EX: courage? working hard? doing the right thing? greed? family? The importance of friends? jealousy? love? caring? happiness? sadness?)

The importance of moving on from things. When Dream died He told George that he made sure he couldn’t contact past Dream again, he wanted George to move on from him because no matter how much they loved each other it would never work, Dream cant have his heart in 2020 when it belonged in 1970.

Plot

(The Action/Summary of What Happened in the Story)

Summary of the story:

(In order, list 4 - 6 events that happened in the story. Keep them in order):

Dream tries to call his friend Sapnap about the assassination of the governor of Florida. He ends up contacting George by accident. George tells Dream that he has the wrong number and that the assassination happened 50 years ago and that the next day his right-hand man, Tubbo, was almost killed. They end the call leaving George thinking the guy who called him is an uneducated lunatic.

Dream calls the next day knowing that it's not his friends demanding that George tell him who he knew that Tubbo was almost murdered. George re-explained to him that it happened 50 years prior and everyone knew about it because they learned it in school. Dream finally asked the date, it was June 28, 2020, Dream told George it was June 28, 1970. This is how their friendship started to kick off.

During the second cell phone conversation they realized that the house They were in at the current time was the same one as each other and on the third call Dream wanted to test something to see if he could change current moments, he dipped his hand in line green paint and pressed it against the wall, it showed up on Georges side but it was worn and chipped as the time wore it down, George pressed his hand against it and Dream caught him in the act as a joke.

Dream sent George a time capsule by burying it in the corner of the yard George found (He encounters Wilbur the first time looking at him oddly while writing something in his notepad) it and opened it on Dreams next call, the capsule contained a container of lime green paint(the same Dream used), Pow-Chew(Dream’s favourite Gum), Music cassette, baseball cards, Quartz(Dream sent it to him because it’s his favourite thing and he wanted to give it to his favourite person, finding that it would be wrong to tell that to someone who didn’t even exist yet he told George that he didn’t he’d need it when he was older), and A polaroid of Dream.

George used the line green paint and pressed his own handprint into the wall next to Dream’s.

(THIS IS IMPORTANT!)Dream sent George a packet of Cornelius flower seeds(Georges favourite flowers, since Dream asked), he had gotten jealous of a couple while on the phone with George because unlike them The long-distance relationship between him and George the distance could never be closed.

George plants the flowers after going to the same flower shop that Dream happened to go to, to buy the flowers, he gets help from his neighbour Wilbur(after Wilbur jots down something in a notepad his neighbour helps)and makes a new friend in the process.

Dream asks George what he looks like, since they cant send things from Georges side they draw on the wall, George describes himself and Dream draws if something is wrong George with tell him and Dream will correct it.

(THIS IS IMPORTANT!)Dream forgot to call, Wilbur came over for some company of George with some cider and they had a family meal.

Dream doesn’t call for a week after he realizes he’s in love with George it’s been at least three months since they first started talking, during that week Wilbur’s family has a family emergency doing with the father that came back from London (BEFORE ANY BIG THINGS HAPPEN!) George watches Wilburs son, Tommy.

The night that George is out eating dinner with Wilbur’s family, Dream calls, he plans to tell George how he feels. George needs to take Wilbur’s family to the hospital, The father is getting worse, he seized up.

They get to the hospital. Wilbur's dad wants to see George. “He called you today, you know.” He tells George, he was confused, and it turns out that It was Dream. “You love him don’t you?” George responds with yes. “I just can’t have my heart in 2020, when it belongs in 1970.”

“Take care of those flowers, Wrong Number.” That was the last wish to George before Dream died.

Wilbur visits the next day, he shows Dream’s Journal to George, on the last page there were dates written down, the dates were every time something happened, George unburied time capsule, I forgot to call, etc with every date. In the middle of their visit Dream calls, He confesses, George confesses, they love each other, in the moment of tears, Wilbur Wrestles the phone out of George's hands and cuts the wire. That was what Dream wanted Wilbur to do, he wanted George to move past him.

What did you like about the book? Why? Be specific.

I enjoyed everything about this book, the writing style was amazing, the characters were amazing. George’s description of himself to Dream was honestly believable, something someone would say.

What didn’t you like about the book? Why? Be specific.

The ending was probably the one thing I really disliked, I liked it but it was sad, I was a mess after I read that ending, both George and Dream knew that in Georges time Dream would be in his seventies but why did he have to die?

Was the story believable or was it confusing and/or hard to believe? Explain Why?/How?

Flowers from 1970 is a very believable story, though it was fiction everything was explained as if you were in the story, you could picture everything, you could picture Tommy and his mixed cereals, you could Picture George on his bed waiting for Dream to call him, you could picture Dream smirk as he harassed George for holding handing with the handprint on the wall.

Explain what you thought of the ending …(good, bad, exciting, confusing, frustrating, etc)…and why.

Ending amazing, but so sad, the quote that made my tears fall even more was when Wilbur cut the phone cord; “I saw my friend die twice, both versions of him.” This is from George.

Overall Rating (0 to 10 stars):

10/10 stars

Would you recommend this book to others? Why?

I would recommend it to anyone, even people who aren’t big fans of the Youtubers this book was made for, it has a plot that is followed all the way through, it really goes for readers emotions, and from what I’ve seen everybody who has read this book has shed some tears. I think it would do good if it ever got published to paperback.

Extra quote!: “Right Person, Wrong Time.”

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Rejoice: The Journey Home

Author: Paul Kincaid

Rating: 4/5 stars

One of the central themes of this book is a sense of profound loss and longing, a wish not for something that could never have existed, but for a world it never could have been. "I do not want the past," says one of the characters, "I want to go to the future." Kincaid manages, to some extent, to convey this sense of loss and longing across a vast span of time, even if he isn't always quite successful.

The structure of this book is very loose. It can't be neatly divided into sections with chapter names, and Kincaid frequently goes back and re-addresses an incident at some later date in order to explain it. It's all very stream-of-consciousness, so it can be hard to follow along at a glance. In some ways this is actually a nice change, though, since it encourages the reader to get absorbed in the experience of reading about a wide variety of different characters. (There is little in the way of a reliable narrative arc; when a chronological progression does occur, it's quite short-lived.)

Much of the book, though, is simply a long meditation on the fundamental question "why didn't I come here sooner?" We see multiple versions of that question, across time and various kinds of people, and they all have the same answer: something was keeping them apart. (The book is also largely a meditation on the question "what would it have been like, if everything had gone as it should have?" That kind of speculation never goes far afield, but it's always present.)

At one point I thought I was starting to understand the main character's feelings. Then, halfway through the book, it suddenly becomes clear that this is the exact wrong way to think about the matter. The characters are not "separated" from their futures by some objective obstacle that prevents contact, but rather by the sense that things should be otherwise. The fact that we're here, instead of there, is in a sense "their fault" -- in a very fundamental way, it's not at all what happened.

For a writer of such cosmic scope, it is hard to convey exactly what's meant by this. The world of the novel is so vast that the only way for the characters to come to terms with it is via a succession of individual decisions that become part of a larger narrative, one we can feel as an underlying background of inevitability. "We can't go back because we're going to get lost again," a character says, in a tone that suggests the world's vastness is merely an expression of some underlying, immutable reality. "In the absence of some barrier preventing it," Kincaid notes, "the flow of time has no reason to respect individual choice."

That sense of loss -- of the sense that we are separated from what we want by nothing more than the very laws of nature -- is one of the mainstays of this novel, but it's not one that comes across clearly until the end. The characters sometimes make choices that seem to support the argument, and there's plenty of internal evidence, but we aren't given any way to evaluate them. In the end, you can hardly deny a sense of disappointment, but no one ever makes any of the relevant arguments, even to themselves, and Kincaid never quite justifies his stance. I think this has less to do with not finding the arguments convincing than with a desire to make the book very long by including a large amount of material. I've already read about 500 pages of this book.

(That being said, the book does have some really interesting material, even if it takes a long time to get to it. Kincaid is especially good at describing the various kinds of worlds that exist in the multiverse, and many of the descriptions of them are very vivid and colorful. (There are some interesting ideas about the role of "antique" worlds, which are essentially doomed versions of the present in which everything "went wrong" in predictable ways, but which nevertheless persist long after the originals have been swept away. "The world is not just'real' in any absolute sense; it is a story, always being told.") I'm a fan of these descriptions, even though I have no particular wish to revisit any of them.)

As for Paul Kincaid himself, I am fascinated by the way he is a sort of "literary chameleon," capable of writing about very different genres and styles and types of story in a single text. I have never seen a writer quite like him. His stories have more in common with classic noir than with most other kinds of fiction, but they are all about a central question -- "what if everything had gone differently?" There is something uncanny and inhuman about Kincaid's writing. It is the most extreme kind of existentialist fiction possible -- but its style is extremely modern, and you would never guess that he was a master of the form just by looking at the book. Kincaid's style has the sort of naturalness and immediacy that only comes from working with something that is already written, without any concern for being "original" or "out-of-the-mainstream."

Overall, I don't usually enjoy books that are so very very big, but this book has made me like it much more than I normally do.

[a-duck-with-a-book]

REVIEW // Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1) by Jay Kristoff

★☆☆☆☆

So I’m very late to the party, but I just finished reading Nevernight by Jay Kristoff I had such high hopes for this series based off of what people recommending it had told me and what I read about it before picking up. Dark fantasy? Check. Strong leading lady? I’m here for it. Gays? It’s literally my only personality trait. Sign me up. Unfortunately, this book fell flat in all those categories. It reminded me a lot of Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass, which made me take one point off of to begin with simply for making me think of Maas’s writing. Overall, I just found the book to be too predictable, with bad writing, exposition, and pacing, and too many parts that just made me ~uncomfortable~.

In case you are not familiar with this novel, Nevernight tells the story of Mia Corvere, a girl who lost her family when she was a child after her father was convicted of treason. When the book begins, she is 16 years old and embarking on a journey to join the Red Church, a school for assassins, so that she may one day be able to avenge her father’s death. Along the way she meets a bunch of forgettable characters whose names I can’t be bothered to remember and is taught by the most fearsome killers in the Republic. Here she gains many valuable skills, like how to survive being poisoned, how to fight, and how to get big boobs.

+ Side note: by chapter 3 three I started picturing Mia as the crow guy from RWBY and I could not shake that for the rest of the book

I had many issues with this novel that I will try to summarize in some sort of coherent fashion, but to be honest this book sucked the will to live out of me so I don’t know how much energy I can put into this review.

// image: official cover art by Jason Chan //

FOOTNOTES

The footnotes were probably the most jarring element of the book for me, and, unfortunately, there’s a lot of them. Their function seems to be twofold:

they are the form of most of the world-building, explaining several customs, the history of the institutions and peoples Mia meets, and the mythology followed by the people of the Republic.

they allow for the narrator of our story to interrupt with comical one-liners or cryptic foreshadowing

In my humble opinion, both of these are unnecessary and stupid. The interruptions come off as crass and immature and make the other more textbook, boring exposition come off as a joke, especially when it is dealing with sensitive or serious topics. There is one that explains this brothel called the Seven Flavors, which the footnote explains refer to “Boy, Girl, Man, Woman, Pig, Horse, and, if sufficient notice and coin was given, Corpse.” Now, on its own, this passing mention of pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia could very well contribute to the world building and tone of the novel, but when placed side by side with the childish, joking tone of the “cue the violiiiiiiiins” or, regarding the acoustics of a room, “…they were, as it happens, exceptional. Falalalalalalaaaaaaaa”, come off as way too light-hearted for the topic at hand. Maybe I’m being way too sensitive, but I’m pretty tired of authors using serious topics as off-hand remarks as a lazy way to make their world daker and grittier. Plus, these footnotes were just so incredibly cringy that I would recoil from second-hand embarrassment every time. They resemble the things I wrote when I was 14 and trying (and miserably failing) to be funny. Also… there are way too many of them. While at first I appreciated the attempt to deepen the lore of the story (I’m a sucker for world-building), after a while it became evident that the author was just forcing information down our throats without taking the time to actually weave the lore and background into the story itself. It came off as a very lazy way to force exposition.

OVERLY FLOWERY LANGUAGE

This story is BRIMMING with similes and metaphors, like every other sentence is some overly complicated way to describe something that could have been presented in three words. When you include so many metaphors/similes/etc., they begin to lose power. They should allow the reader to extrapolate more meaning and emotion from a sentence, but if the book is bursting at the seams with them, they become increasingly ordinary, to the point of losing all of their luster. One prime example appears on page 30:

“It was a bucktoothed little shithole, and no mistake. Not the most miserable building in all creation. [here there is a footnote about some other inn/brothel] But if the inn were a man and you stumbled into him in a bar, you’d be forgiven for assuming he had—after agreeing enthusiastically to his wife’s request to bring another woman into their marriage bed—discovered his bride making up a pallet for him in the guest room.”

So first of all what the fuck is that supposed to mean? That whole paragraph is a fever dream. Let’s begin with “bucktoothed little shithole”. Bucktoothed? Really? What does that mean. Please, someone explain to be right now what a bucktoothed building is. Is it uneven? Is it awkward? Is it half-finished? Is one side longer than the other? Did they do a bad paint job that only covers on side? Are the windows askew? Is the door too big for its frame? We already know from the paragraph above that it is “disheveled” as well, so why the need for another weird phrasing of its appearance? We then move on to that whole JOURNEY of a sentence, where the inn is compared to a man being cuckolded. That is the most insane tale-can you imagine running into someone in a bar and that story being the VERY FIRST thing that runs through your mind??? I know I’m focusing way too much on this stupid paragraph, but basically what I am trying to get at is that even though we spend half a page talking about how bucktoothed and disheveled and cuckolded this building is, we get no actual physical description of it. Imagine if Kristoff had just written that it was a run-down, ill-kept building that looked as worse for wear as its owner did. Done, one sentence. Great. Let’s move on. Instead, we spend so long reading these absolutely batshit descriptions that ultimately tell us next to nothing. Flowery language is placed over actual context. You may think that a description this long and complex means that this inn is a significant or recurring setting in the novel. Nope. It’s not. Mia leaves and that’s that. The reason that I’m focusing so much on this objectively irrelevant paragraph is because it is so representative of the biggest issue I have with the writing in this book. There are so many unnecessary comparisons that function only to make the author feel clever rather than add anything to the story at all. It’s very à la 2010s Tumblr.

THE (IN MY OPINION, BAD) WRITING

For the first half of the book, we are constantly being TOLD things rather than being SHOWN things. With the exception of one of the teachers cutting off Mia’s arm, we rarely see the ruthlessness that the assassins are so feared for, but we hear about it in nearly every other sentence Where are the consequences? I think this book would have been way more enjoyable if there were actually consequences to the characters’ actions. The inclusion of the weaver and the weird vampire guy completely remove any tension regarding the fate of the central cast. When Mia had her arm chopped off, I was shocked, and pleasantly surprised. How was she going to overcome this unexpected obstacle in her training? Then a couple pages later, its reattached with absolutely no lasting consequences. All of the initial tension and shock value of the loss of Mia’s arm is entirely removed because of the two incest-y siblings. Their entire purpose for existing is just to undo all damage to the main characters. Then suddenly, out of the blue, Mia is willing to take on a ton of consequences and completely throw away her chance at becoming initiated in order to avenge her family just to save Tric from receiving like one punishment??? Like why?? As an aside, the only moment I truly enjoyed was when Ash fucking stabbed Tric to death. I assume that when the reader’s favorite moment is one of the central characters’ death, it does not bode well for their reception of the book.

THE THEMES

TW: rape-y subjects

The author seemed a little too keen to include rape and sexual assault in his story. Mia withdrew her consent in the sex scene in the very first chapter, and even if you read it as consensual (which I do not), it is described as incredibly unpleasant on her end. Tric is the result of a rape, which is brought up several times throughout the story. Further, Mia is constantly facing harassment from men. I understand that this is frames the idea that the world she lives in is misogynistic and ruthless, but there are other ways to push that idea through other than constantly putting in her in those situations. As in, this didn’t need to be the ONLY way we explored this subject. Beyond the uncomfortable propensity for sexual assault, I also very much disliked the sexualization of the 16-year-old main character. Oh. My. Gosh. Mia is CONSTANTLY sexualized. Every single damn character makes comments about her body, how hot she is, how much sex she potentially has. It is so weird and uncomfortable. I feel the need to reiterate that she is SIXTEEN. There is, however, a focus placed on the power Mia can gain from seducing her targets. Girl power? Not to me, really. The issue I have with this is the idea that a woman has to be overtly sexual in order to be considered powerful. This is something that we can see in many female assassins and supposedly powerful female characters in fiction (like Black Widow) especially those written by men. Now, there is nothing wrong with using one’s sexuality as a weapon, and I’m certainly not saying that a strong female character cannot be sexual, but the idea that a sixteen-year-old girl is shown having her body painfully modified tp be more desirable, and in a graphic sex scene with another character, in order to for the reader to read her as liberated and powerful does not sit well with me. I don’t really feel like this aspect of her training should be relevant to the overall story. I wish the time that Kristoff had dedicated to hammering into our heads that Mia is a femme fatale to developing her Darkin powers instead. The way she is written now feels more like she is a faux strong female character written for a male audience.

Secondly, Mia is fully written as “the plain-girl-who-is-actually-pretty”. This whole trope bothers me IMMENSELY. YA is full of girls who are described as plain, forgettable, or ugly while their physical descriptions are just the dictionary definition of conventionally attractive. It seems like a way to market off of girls’ self-consciousness while still being able to market the main character as a hot heroine in official art. And there is, of course, the issue of Mia’s boob job Readwithcindy (just “withcindy” now!) did a whole video about this so I won’t get into it much just to repeat what she already said, but I agree that the idea of a 30-something year old man including this completely unnecessary detail regarding the sexualization of teenage girl, who we have ALREADY seen in a rape and being sexualized by other men in the story, made me really, really, uncomfortable. I highly recommend you go watch her video, as she touches on this in way more detail. [Cindy's video

RATINGS

Worldbuilding: ★★☆☆☆

A lot of thought obviously went into the world-the mythology, society, and politics are well-thought out. But the way they are introduced is annoying and bland. It seems like the author put a lot of effort into constructing this world but realized a lot of it would be left out of the book, so he crammed it into footnotes instead.

Tone and writing style: ★☆☆☆☆ for first half, ★★★☆☆ for second half

The tone of the first half is all over the place, like it doesn’t know if it should be dark and gritty or comical and immature. Footnotes and character dialogue ranges from lighthearted and crass to seeped with themes of torture and sexual assault. It is jarring, to say the least, and often feels like the author doesn’t take these ideas of rape or violence seriously. There are so many instances where the scene is tense or gritty, and Kristoff is actually writing it pretty well, I’m enthralled and on the edge of my seat, and then Mia or some other character (or the footnotes) throw in some stupid comment or make the same “Mia is such an asshole lol” joke for the billionth time and completely ruin the mood of that scene. The second half of the book moved much faster and was helped with way better writing, but it really did not do enough to make up for the horrendous structure of the first half of the book.

Pacing and structure: ★☆☆☆☆

The first half of the book really drags on. Once we arrive at the school, there are constant jumps in timeline, marked with periods when a thousand things happen all at once and the plot moves forward at a dizzying rate, and others when the characters just seem to be going about their daily lessons.

Concept: ★★★☆☆

I found the overall idea of the books to be very interesting, even though it is certainly not the most original or unique concept for a YA fantasy book. The issue is that the potential is squandered with a poor execution.

Characters: ★☆☆☆☆

I truly did not care about any of the characters. The token mean girl, the bumbling nice-guy-who-is-definitely-the-love-interest. too many of the characters just sat nicely within their tropes, doing nothing much to pique my interests. I think my favorite overall was Mister Kindly.

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 72-75

Chapter 72

We’re in Nor’s POV. She’s moping around in her ruined palace. We find out she ordered the attack on Adhira on a whim after learning Valen was there. Cool.

This entire chapter is about how Nor is doubting herself and how she feels shitty even though this should be a triumph, and Zahn, her boytoy who’s literally described as being “too good” and “too pure” for her, telling that she’s a girlboss. Then they make out and “lust tumbles through her” and the chapter ends on them fucking.

Chapter 73

Last we left her, Andi had angsted herself out of the room after an argument with her dad. She walks the gardens for a bit, thinking about the creation myth of this world. It involves Light Bringers and Night Spirits, and two of them fall in love and from their union a black hole is born, but around it a galaxy forms, and it also creates the Godstars, which are described as “all-knowing beings with the power to give and take, the perfect mixture of darkness and light.”

So with all this wank about light and dark, you bet your ass Andi’s gonna start rambling about how dark and/or light her soul is, which she promptly does.

The creation myth is ... fine? In theory? But something light and something dark falling in love and creating the world is a bit trite, innit? Baby’s first creation myth.

Arcardius was the first planet inhabited by the Ancients hundreds of thousands of years ago, and many believed that the Godstars must have given the settlers this gift to welcome them to their new home. But whatever the reason, Andi was grateful for it. She didn’t want to be in the presence of darkness after everything that had happened. She needed to clear her mind of all that had been clogging it since the beginning of the rescue job.

I think “clogging” is a more apt description than Shinsay realized.

Andi angsts herself to a new place with a floating rock waterfall fountain thing, where Valen is, equipped with his painting gear. We get a description of how hot he is despite having been beaten and starved for two years, because of course.

His brown hair was cropped short and, skinny as he was, it made his strong jaw more pronounced. Everything about his once-soft face was now hard edges. No doubt, with some more meat on his bones, he would be striking.

The boy she remembered from years ago had now become a man.

Damaged as he must be on the inside, at least his physical wounds would heal. The awful things he had experienced at the hands of Xen Ptera would hopefully become a distant memory, as well, and more bearable with time.

The way the “hope he’ll heal emotionally as well, I guess” is tacked on right after “at least he’ll be hot” is wildly hilarious.

Valen asks if he can paint Andi. For some reason he immediately starts putting paint on canvas, because fuck sketching, he’s too fucking good for that. Also what’s the lighting situation like? He’s waxing poetic about the way the light hits Andi’s cheek plates and purple streaks (with red tips that reaches her mid-back), but seemingly doesn’t need any light on his canvas to see what the fuck he’s doing, in the middle of the night? Ok.

Later Valen, with a paint-stained face because Artiste, asks Andi if they can go somewhere else because he needs a break. They go somewhere with a view of the Magical Purple Pinterest Garden, and it’s very breathtaking and shit.

“We’ve been through darkness, Andi,” Valen said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still live in the light.”

He closed his eyes, and Andi was left to ponder how much his words echoed her own thoughts from earlier, about the balance between the light and the dark.

Thank you for pointing out the thematic connection from THREE PAGES AGO IN THE SAME CHAPTER, Shinsay. I couldn’t have figured it out myself if you hadn’t held my hand like the imbecile I am. Seriously, I can’t figure out whether this is supposed to be helpful, or if Shinsay really thought they were geniuses and just had to point it out so we wouldn’t miss how cool and deep their writing is.

Anyway, Valen asks Andi to the obligatory ball portion of the story, saying he’ll have to dance as the future ruler of the planet (???) and he wants to dance with a friend rather than a romantic interest.

A friend.

He said the word as if he really meant it. As if, somehow, despite what they’d been through, the horrors they’d shared, Valen had begun to think of Andi as a friend.

Wow ... When he said friend, he meant friend, as in friend? Amazing. What a shocker.

Also, yeah, they did go through some horrors together. Like that time Dex tossed him down a flight of stairs while Andi was somewhere else. Or that time Valen was tortured for two years and Andi wasn’t.

Truly, a friendship of the ages.

I guess this is supposed to be a misdirect, but given how blatantly unrealistic this is and how easily Andi falls for it, it just makes her look a bit like an idiot, doesn’t it?

Chapter 74

This chapter is just Andi heading back to bed but taking a detour to the library, discovering that Alfie has been destroyed while some servants throw his body in the garbage on the way.

Oh no! Not Alfie, who’s only the most annoying character! Anyone but Alfie!

We get this:

As she turned to leave, a small, shiny object on the floor caught her eye. Quickly, Andi reached down and palmed it while the maid wasn’t looking. She didn’t know much about AIs, but the object in her grasp looked like a memory chip.

[...]

It could be nothing, a useless memento, but her gut told her something different. She’d look into it later.

I-is this supposed to be foreshadowing? You literally already told us what it was, why would Andi’s “gut” be telling her something she already suspects according to her narration?

Henlo? Editors? Anyone? Hello?

Hewwo? Mistew Pwesident?

Chapter 75

Dex has been following Andi around like a whole creep and watches her enter the library. He follows her inside and then we get the obligatory “shitty writer praises the magic of literature” bit.

“The general scoured the galaxy for this collection,” Andi said suddenly.

Dex turned. She stood near him in the dark room, softly lit by a beam of moonlight. The sadness in her eyes could almost be felt, like a tangible thing.

“You said Kalee was a reader,” Dex said. He laughed softly. “I didn’t know she was this much of a reader.”

“She loved exploring,” Andi said. “The general loved keeping her close. And so she turned to books for her adventures.”

“The sadness in her eyes was almost tangible.” There, I fixed it. Now shut the fuck up.

“What is it about memories,” Andi said suddenly, walking back toward him, “that gives them the ability to hurt us so badly?”

Dex shook his head. “The past is powerful. I think you and I both know that.”

She finally looked into his eyes. “I’m tired of letting the past control me, Dextro,” she whispered. “Aren’t you?”

I’m tired of letting this book control me, that’s for sure. What is this fucking dialogue? They keep talking in clichés without really saying anything, wasting our goddamn time instead of having an actual conversation.

Anyway, they finally get everything over with, apologize to each other, then make out but decide that uwu they can’t be together because they’re so hurt and damaged and whatnot. And honestly this wouldn’t be so cringeworthy if we didn’t know it’s all just a fucking ploy to drag out the will-they-won’t they subplot that I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats over.

The main reason this doesn’t work is that we don’t really get any sense of why this can’t work out? They just mutually agree, after having a hot makeout sesh, that they’re not meant to be for ... reasons? Even though they’re clearly attracted to each other, have no other attachments, romantic or otherwise, and have forgiven one another. Dex thinks they both “ruined” their future together in their own ways, but we don’t get any explanation for why they can’t just ... try to build a new one. Not even a “the memories hurt too much” or “I can’t afford the mental and emotional effort right now” or “there’s no time for it with the galaxy in chaos” or even a simple “I don’t want to.”

Instead it’s “I know we’re not meant to be because we both screwed the pooch last time we tried” and you’re just there like yes and? What’s stopping you from trying again? Give me a reason. IRL that would’ve been fine, but here it just feels like the authors are trying to convince US that they won’t get together, trust me, I promise, don’t even think about it and let it blow you away when they do.

I think, weirdly enough, the reason this doesn’t work for me is the perspective. Andi has actual valid reasons for rejecting Dex and seems like she’s still conflicted about her feelings for him, which would give her plenty of justification to not jump back into the relationship. But instead, we’re stuck with Dex, who’s been desperate to talk to Andi, be around Andi, who thinks about Andi constantly, but now, when a new beginning is within his reach, he decides without reason to not go for it because what, he feels like it’s not right and assumes it’s mutual? It doesn’t track with his previous behavior, which has been constantly focused on Andi up until this point. His sudden and inexplicable decision to not pursue this anymore goes against his behavior and motivations so far, which is why it strikes me as hollow and manipulative writing.

Had he maybe wanted to offer a new start but then Andi said something or he saw how unsure and hurt she still was and decided against it, then it would’ve made sense. Had we been in Andi’s POV and she just straight up rejected him, it would’ve made sense. But here, we get:

“We can’t... This won’t ever...”

“I know,” he said.

And in his heart, he knew that it was true. Their two worlds were never meant to become one. That even through the forgiveness, even with the unavoidable feelings that echoed between them, they could never share a future. They had already had their chance, long ago. They’d both ruined it in their own ways.

Andi doesn’t even give him a proper reason, he just assumes what she’s saying because apparently he’s been thinking the same thing? His “heart” just tells him it won’t work, when all this time, he’s seemingly done everything in his power to fix what he always knew wasn’t fixable? Huh???

I’m not saying this to say that Dex should’ve pestered Andi, he can very well accept her rejection but still pine for her silently. What I am saying is that this doesn’t track with his previous behavior, and just shows the authors’ hands in this as being a cop-out for the sake of melodrama and to keep the romance subplot going through cheap conflict.

Anyway, Dex asks Andi to the ball and she’s like “lmao too late” and then the chapter ends on this note:

When they parted ways, Dex couldn’t help but feel as if he were seeing Androma Racella for the very last time.

God, I wish that were me.

[cyberramblings]

The Top Six SCP’s

So, today I want to summarize some of the top SCP’s in a non-scary way. SCP stands for Secure, Contain, Protect. It is a collaborative fiction website that allows anyone to contribute. The gist of SCP is for contributors to write fictional but realistic scientific logs about supernatural entities and artifacts. Classic internet Creepypasta definitely inspires and overlaps with SCP, but not all entries are scary or short.

The word SCP describes...

The whole concept of this fiction - “Have you ever heard of SCP?”

the fictional organization - “The SCP foundation sometimes has some pretty questionable ethics when trying to contain these monsters:

Individual entries - “My favorite SCP is the magic toilet that’s a portal to hell!”

For me, the appeal is in the little intricacies. Specifying the dimensions of the creature, the scientific process used to test its abilities, secondhand evidence of what it can do without just outright showing. I enjoy that typically there is no attempt made to explain the origin of the object or creature’s power, only the limits. For example...

SCP-173 is the original one, as far as I can tell. Originally, it was an image of a creepy statue just posted on 4chan with a description of how it can move and kill you when you aren’t looking, but then people started copying that style and making their own entries until it became a thing.

SCP gets much bigger than individual entries: there are fan games, fan art, whole organizations and recurring characters, but I prefer the Lovecraftian, almost Twilight Zone-esque single entries. Maybe if I really get into an SCP phase this time, I’ll check out the bigger stuff, but for now I just wanna describe some of the singular entries in a way that isn’t too spooky. Also I wanted to do this by starting at the highest rated SCP of all time and then working downward, with the highest being SCP-173 as the progenitor. Now, keep in mind that SCP is unified and collaborative, so each of these entries is written by a different author. That is part of why I have little interest in the larger story lines when they are not bound by one canon.

●●|●●●●●|●●|● is the second highest rated SCP, and for good reason. It shows a creepy image of a shadowy monster, then a series of wordless IKEA-esque instructions that describe the creature. For example, a little cute graphic explains that writing down the creature’s name will summon him and cause him to steal the paper his name was written on. On the other hand, speaking his name will cause him to whisk away the human who spoke his name. This one is particularly clever and eye catching, as you are wondering right off the bat why the name is so unusual and why there are no words. This is my favorite kind of SCP: one that makes the reader do some of the legwork to make it satisfying when you figure out what the deal is with this SCP.

SCP-____-J is the third highest rated and not remotely scary! It is the shortest SCP entry I have ever seen and is simply described as a rock that makes you procrastinate, hence the shortness of the entry and even lack of real number. This is what I mean when i say indirect: you are shown proof that the rock does in fact make the assign researcher procrastinate, rather then a description of how his life has fallen into shambles because of procrastination. It’s not high art, but I really appreciate cleverness.

SCP-049 is the fourth highest rated and the first one of these that I would describe as an archetypal entry. 049 looks like a plague doctor, but seems to be able to instantly kill living things but also reanimate corpses. The entry describes several interviews with the doctor, where he keeps talking about curing the “Pestilence” when asked why he kills and then reanimates living things he comes into contact with. This one is a lot of fun because it is mildly creepy, but not scary by any means. Most of the entry is describing his actions and interviews while in captivity and being tested. He talks to the researchers as fellow men of science and is honestly surprised when they don’t appreciate his “cure”. It’s a little cheesy, especially the dialogue, but this one is fun.

SCP-087 is the fifth highest rated and great classic example that isn’t an object or an entity, per se. This one is simply a dark staircase that extends infinitely and perpetually has the cry of a child just out of sight. Furthermore, all people who enter the staircase report the sight of a sudden appearance of a featureless face. Finally, there was a 2 week period of knocking coming from the door that leads into the staircase. I love this because it is a little freaky and leaves a lot to the imagination. Is it a ghost? Is this whole thing just a singularly entity trying to trap visitors? No explanation is given, and that is what I love about SCP in general. Three logs are provided that detail specific incursions into the staircase, but that goes beyond my interest in the simplicity of the concept.

SCP-055 is the sixth highest rated and another great example of a “memetic hazard”. This is a common type of SCP, and the “he who must not be named” and “procrastinating rock” entries above are also examples. “Memetic hazard” means that the object or entity can influence people just by being thought about, in a nutshell. The actual SCP puts a fine point on the difference between cognito, memetic, and info hazards, but I am summarizing here. What I am trying to say is that a lot of these entries are about creatures whose powers affect the way they can be written about, and SCP-055 is the ultimate example. The entry simply describes all the ways that nobody knows anything about it. No one at the foundation knows where it came from, what it looks like, what it can do. Researchers that look at it suddenly can’t remember as soon as they look away. Writing down what it looks like will let you remember as long as you look at the paper, then forget as soon as you look away from the paper. Even looking away from the thing itself will cause you to forget that it ever existed in the first place. Again, this isn’t outright terrifying, but it is a neat read to see all the little tests they performed to find the limit of this thing’s “unknowability”.

That’s all I have time for today! If I continue this, I might just pick back up at number seven (simply a big, deadly, invincible reptile) or I might focus on some of the more famous SCP’s (infinite IKEA) or some of my favorite lesser known ones (the DVR basketball game where the people in the game slowly start to become aware of the time loop).

[lamortexiii]

Cryptic Mystic: The Imaginarium of Barnum

Have you ever heard of the Barnum Effect? It is also known as the Forer effect or the Barnum–Forer effect. This phenomenon is said to occur when someone believes in the accuracy of vague generalities about their personality (e.g., believing in fortune-tellers, astrological signs, fortune cookies, etc.). For example: let's say you go to a restaurant and you are given a fortune cookie. Within the cookie, the slip of paper reads, “stay strong in your beliefs and good will come to you.” Now, this can mean many things depending on the person reading it. Vague general statements can all be taken in different ways by different people. One person may view this statement as meaning that they need to stay strong in their religion and that their deity will bless them. Someone else may view this statement as applying to the struggles they have been facing with being their true self, as they have been pretending to be someone they weren’t to impress others. Vague general statements are objective, open for interpretation, and thus are typically considered as carrying a personal meaning.

Now, it is important to note that the power of chance is at play here. Fortune cookies, tarot readings, your astrological sign based on the time and place you were born - all of these are in fact determined by chance. But what creates chance? How much of chance is actually chance at all? What if someone or something is in control of coincidences, outcomes, and happenstance encounters. Or what if we are in control of these instances somehow, but just don’t realize it. Maybe it’s a combination of these things, or maybe it’s something else entirely…

The term "Barnum effect" was coined in 1956 by psychologist Paul Meehl in his essay “Wanted – A Good Cookbook,” because he relates the vague personality descriptions used in certain "pseudo-successful" psychological tests to those given by showman P. T. Barnum. The Barnum effect is manifested in response to statements that are called "Barnum statements", meaning general characteristics attributed to an individual are perceived to be true of them, even though the statements are such generalizations, they could apply to almost anyone. Such techniques are used by fortune tellers, astrologers, and other practitioners to convince paying customers that they, the practitioners, are in fact endowed with a paranormal gift. The effect is a specific example of the so-called "acceptance phenomenon", which describes the general tendency of humans to accept almost any bogus personality feedback. A related and more general phenomenon is that of subjective validation. Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectation, or hypothesis demands a relationship. For example, while reading a horoscope, people actively seek a correspondence between its contents and their perception of their personality.

In 1947, a psychologist named Ross Stagner asked a number of personnel managers to take a personality test. After they had taken the test, Stagner, instead of responding with feedback based on their actual individual answers, presented each of them with generalized feedback that had no relation to their test answers but that was, instead, based on horoscopes, graphological analysis, and the like. Each of the managers was then asked how accurate the assessment of him or her was. More than half described the assessment as accurate, and almost none described it as wrong.

In 1948, in what has been described as a "classic experiment", psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave a psychology test – his so-called "Diagnostic Interest Blank" – to 39 of his psychology students, who were told that they would each receive a brief personality vignette or sketch based on their test results. One week later Forer gave each student a purportedly individualized sketch and asked each of them to rate it on how well it applied. In reality, each student received the same sketch, consisting of the following items:

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.

Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.

Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.

You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.

At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.

Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

Security is one of your major goals in life.

On average, the students rated its accuracy as 4.30 on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). Only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received an identical sketch assembled by Forer from a newsstand astrology book. The sketch contains statements that are vague and general enough to apply to most people. Forer attributed the effect to gullibility. The effect has been said to confirm the so-called "Pollyanna principle", which states that individuals tend "to use or accept positive words of feedback more frequently than negative words of feedback."

Two factors are important in producing the Forer effect, according to the findings of replication studies. The content of the description offered is important, with specific emphasis on the ratio of positive to negative trait assessments. The other important factor is that the subject trusts the honesty of the person providing feedback. The study was repeated again in 2011 with the statements altered so that they applied to organizations rather than individuals. The results were similar, suggesting that people anthropomorphize organizations and are gullible when interpreting their characters.

The effect is consistently found when the assessment statements are vague. People are able to read their own meaning into the statements they receive, and thus the statement becomes "personal" to them. The most effective statements include the phrase "at times", such as "At times you feel very sure of yourself, while at other times you are not as confident." This phrase can apply to almost anyone, and thus each person can read a "personal" meaning into it. Keeping statements vague in this manner ensures observing the Forer effect in replication studies. Individuals are more likely to accept negative assessments of themselves if they perceive the persons presenting them with those assessments as high-status professionals. Evidence also suggests that people with authoritarian or neurotic personalities or who have a greater than usual need for approval are more likely to manifest the Barnum effect.

Studies suggest that the Forer effect is universal – it has been observed in people from many cultures and locations. In 2009, psychologists Paul Rogers and Janice Soule conducted a study that compared the tendencies of Westerners to accept Barnum’s personality profiles to the tendencies of Chinese people. They were unable to find any significant differences. Later studies have found that subjects give higher accuracy ratings if the following are true:

The subject believes that the analysis applies only to him or her, and thus applies his or her own meaning to the statements.

The subject believes in the authority of the evaluator.

The analysis lists mainly positive traits.

The method in which the Barnum personality profiles are presented can affect the extent to which people accept them as their own. For instance, Barnum profiles that are more personalized – perhaps containing a specific person's name – are more likely to yield higher acceptability ratings than those that could be applied to anyone.

Subjects who, for example, believe in the accuracy of horoscopes have a greater tendency to believe that the vague generalities of the response apply specifically to them. Studies on the relationship between mild symptoms of schizophrenia and susceptibility to the Forer effect have shown high amounts of correlation. However, Rogers and Soule's 2009 study also tested subjects' astrological beliefs. Both the Chinese and Western skeptics were more likely to identify the ambiguity in the Barnum profiles.

Self-serving bias has been shown to cancel the Forer effect. According to the self-serving bias, subjects accept positive attributes about themselves while rejecting negative ones. In one study, subjects were given one of three personality reports: one consisting of Barnum profiles containing socially desirable personality traits, one containing a mixture of positive and negative traits, and the last containing profiles full of negative traits (also called "common faults"). Subjects who received the socially desirable and mixed reports were far more likely to agree with the personality assessments than the subjects who received negative reports, although there was not a significant difference between the first two groups.

In another study, subjects were given a list of traits instead of the usual "fake" personality assessment. The subjects were asked to rate how much they felt these traits applied to them. In line with the self-serving bias, the majority of subjects agreed with positive traits about themselves and disagreed with negative ones. The study concluded that the self-serving bias is powerful enough to cancel out the usual Forer effect.

In a 1971 experiment by Bernie I. Silverman, subjects were presented with twelve personality sketches drawn from a set of horoscopes and asked to choose the four that best described them. When the descriptions were not identified by astrological sun sign, subjects were not particularly likely to pick the horoscope for their own sun sign. When the descriptions were labeled by sign, subjects were more likely to pick the horoscope for their sun sign.

C. R. Snyder and R. J. Shenkel carried out a study in which they asked their students to prepare uniform Barnum descriptions for a group of subjects; these descriptions were then presented to study participants under the guise of being individualized horoscopes. Subjects in one group were not asked for personal information; those in a second group were asked to provide their month of birth; those in a third group were asked for the exact date of their birth. Those in the third group were most likely to say that their "horoscopes" applied to them; those in the first group were least likely to do so.

In 1977, Ray Hyman wrote about the way in which hucksters exploit the Forer effect to take advantage of victims (or "marks"). He provided a list of factors that help these tricksters to dupe their prey. For example, hucksters are more likely to be successful if they exude an air of confidence ("If you look and act as if you believe in what you are doing, you will be able to sell even a bad reading to most of your subjects") if they "make creative use of the latest statistical abstracts, polls, and surveys" showing "what various subclasses of our society believe, do, want, worry about, and so on", if they employ "a gimmick, such as a crystal ball, tarot cards, or palm reading", if they are alert to the clues provided about their clients by such details as their "clothing, jewelry, mannerisms and speech", if they are not afraid of "hamming it up", and if they use flattery.

Michael Birnbaum, a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton, has noted that the Forer effect is used by magicians and psychics when they give so-called "cold readings", as well as by certain TV personalities who claim psychoanalytical expertise and profess to be able to diagnose a guest's psychological problems in a few minutes. "Real psychologists are horrified by this practice", states Birnbaum, but they fail to criticize it vigorously enough in public, and so it continues to be treated with a respect it doesn't deserve. "It is regrettable that academic psychology has not paid more attention to the cold reading technique", Denis Dutton wrote in 1988, "inasmuch as the widespread practice of successful cold reading forms the basis for much of the belief in paranormal powers to be found in society today." While academic psychologists had focused in their studies on students, Dutton called for "analysis of the actual techniques and methods used by proficient cold readers." In a 2016 article, editors explained to marketers how to use the Forer effect to win customers. The main piece of advice was to employ flattery.

I’ll leave you with the wise words of Birnbaum regarding the moral of the Barnum Demonstration: "self-validation is no validation. Do not be fooled by a psychic, quack psychotherapist, or a phony faith healer who uses this trick on you! Be skeptical and ask for proof. Keep your money in your wallet, your wallet in your pocket, and your hand on your wallet." 

You may think this is rubbish, or you may be intrigued. Maybe you learned something new after reading this month’s blog. As I always say, you choose what you believe.

Cryptic Mystic Blog by PsychVVitch

www.LaMorteXiii.com

[stupid-damn-harp]

Notes for “Rural Boys Watch the Apocalypse”

“Your hand’s in mine”

This poem doesn’t explicitly state the relationship between the two boys, and this adds to it. The two characters could be in a romantic relationship, and this choice comes with a variety of implications given the traditional christian liturgy that’s repeated throughout the poem. If this is the end of the world, where will these two gay boys end up? Are they thinking about their afterlife? Are they wondering if they can stay together? Whether they’ll be with their family? There’s so many questions that these boys might be thinking of if they’re in this sort of relationship. They could also just be very close neighbors. Later in the poem he specifies his “doomsday neighbors,” which might be a sign that the other boy and his family might be the other neighbors, or it might have just been explaining the neighbor’s behavior. Another option could be that they’re best friends that are so comfortable with each other that holding hands feels comforting, but not completely natural because the narrator thought it was important to point it out. 

“waters turnin' to blood”

The two boys obviously share the same or similar religious views, and are probably at least somewhat learned or devout in their faith. I grew up reading the scriptures and I can’t say off the top of my head what a biblical apocalypse looks like - but this boy can, and relates it to the other boy, expecting him to also understand.

“But there are only the fallin’ stars”

I’m struck that the “only” thing is the falling stars. It’s almost as if he’s saying that the rest of the world has already ended, already vanished from his view and his mind. All he can see is the stars falling, and it doesn’t matter anymore if the rest of the world or the people around him still exist. He’s somehow writing himself and the other boy off as unimportant in the face of this global catastrophe. This line also stands outside of any stanza, forcing us to pay attention to the entire phrase and inviting a degree of separation from the stanzas before and after. There are only the falling stars, and that’s important. More important than what this boy thought would happen, more important than telling where the initial warning came from. The present events hold more weight.

"'Least the weather channel warned us about it,"

I wonder why the weather channel is the one that predicted this apocalypse? He mentions falling stars, which might be under their jurisdiction, but I feel like higher-up governmental agencies would be in charge of announcing and predicting the literal end of the world. 

“are loadin' the back”

If the stars are falling, and this is the end of the world, where do these neighbors think they’re going? Where do they think that they’ll be safe?

“under large whitewashed crosses”

This line is especially striking given the religious imagery throughout the entire poem. Jesus was a middle eastern Jewish man, and that’s something that many Christians in America conveniently forget. Many people in this religion spread around views that those with darker skin are children of ham (as we see in the Poisonwood Bible) or suggest that the native american people are really the descendants of the Lamanites, so their darker skin was a curse from God. These crosses that the neighbors are taking with them embody all of these harmful beliefs. The religion itself is whitewashed. The crosses are described as large, and I’m having trouble modulating that size within my own thoughts. On one hand, they have to be small enough to fit within the back of a pickup truck. But, are these crosses large as in “human sized and could be used for their original purpose”? Large as in “larger than handheld so they seem giant, but they’re best suited for yard decorations”? Either way, I’m taking it as a symbol of how contemporary christians take up the most space in religious discussions in America and quite often interpret anything different from their blatantly obvious beliefs as an attack on their faith. Think Boomers yelling about the “war on christmas” type. These crosses are not only whitewashed but they’re large too, visibly screaming to anyone looking in their direction that the drivers of the truck belong to the Christian faith and that they’re going to be confrontational about it. Everything else is stacked under the crosses, giving them the most significance and the most visibility.

“I wanna see ‘em”

Honestly, this line slightly confused me. These women seem quite knowledgeable about the events foretold in the bible. But it’s also stated in the bible that human beings never see angels or God’s true form because we wouldn’t be able to handle it. Surely they must know that? Do they think that these rules will be lifted simply because the world is ending? Are they hoping to see these wonders even though it would have untold consequences on her own mortal form? Don’t get me wrong, I would also love to see an angel in their full and confusing glory, but I don’t have enough of a death wish to actually follow through with that.

“their calloused hands”

Interesting imagery here. Typically angels are described using delicate and ethereal words, or sometimes words that just remind us that angels are spirits and don’t have physical bodies. But the word “calloused.” Calluses imply hard work. Calluses mean rough hands, dirty feet, and tough love. Calluses mean a physical body that is growing stronger. There’s nothing delicate about calluses. There’s nothing inherently holy about calluses. The working class has calluses, and the so-called “perfect” bodies of models and influencersnever have calluses. But here these heavenly beings are, rough hands and all. Perhaps he’s envisioning someone he knows as an angel, and thus opted for the more human-feeling approach. Perhaps he’s hoping that the people of earth are fighting to stay here, fighting to continue living, and the mere act of carrying these writhing and fiery people causes so much work for the angels that they develop these human characteristics of calluses. Perhaps he’s hoping that he’ll become an angel over some darker fate. I’m not sure what implications were intended with this line, but it feels beautiful and wholly human to me, and I love it for that.

“stupid damn harp”

This is the first of two instances where the narrator uses the phrase “stupid dumb” to describe something of the archangel Gabriel’s. Both times he isn’t describing Gabriel himself, just things that he possesses in traditional stories. This could be a nervous boy making jokes in an unsure time as a coping mechanism, but it also could be the author showing his own disillusionment with the traditional christian stories and traditions. 

Additionally, the combination of “stupid” and “damn” here is pretty interesting. In Christian mythology, any deity in heaven (e.g. God, angels, Jesus, etc) possesses all the knowledge in the universe. This boy referring to the archangel’s belongings as “stupid” doesn’t reflect this. It almost feels like he wants to criticize the angel himself but he knows there might be consequences, so he settles for calling his iconic harp and tunic the words he wants to call the angel himself. He’s also using the word “damn,” which in biblical contexts typically has hellish connotations. If someone is damned, then they’ve been condemned to hell. The archangel Gabriel is the literal antithesis of that idea, so it’s interesting to see this word applied to anything involving him at all. 

“moanin’ like a sinner in hell”

This comparison continues the interesting dichotomy between heaven/hell that we find throughout the poem. The doomsday neighbors’ truck not only holds large whitewashed crosses, but also sounds like someone suffering in hell. Weirdly enough, it seems to give us a view at the sort of Christians that think they’re doing God’s work (holding the whitewashed crosses), but once they get started towards their destination, it becomes more and more obvious that they’re not being entirely truthful (sounding like a sinner in hell). 

I’m also struck by the mildness and neutrality in this sentence. Usually when someone’s talking about those in hell, the verb used is “screaming,” not “moaning.” Is this wishful thinking on the narrator’s part, or just a description of the truck’s engine using terminology he already knows? The narrator doesn’t seem to be passing judgement with this comparison either, it comes across as an observation rather than a condemnation of the neighbors’ actions. His family chose not to leave, their family is leaving right now, and those two actions aren’t compared or judged here.

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This poem was chosen for the anthology because of the twisted biblical themes tempered by a slight homoerotic vibe. From the beginning of the Abrahamic religions to today, LGBt+ individuals have been left out of religious contexts at best and damned to hell at worst. Given the author’s experience as a gay trans man, I’m reading the narrator and the other “rural boy” as lovers. The poem contains many instances where the narrator invokes sacred and profane imagery in reference to the same objects or beings, and gives a new sort of “hot take’ on the biblical apocalypse - contributing perfectly to the theme of altered religion.

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Bibliographical Information:

This poem was posted on Tumblr, and the original source is reblogged below. 

[gayregis]

how do i ignore all the misogyny in the witcher books? they're much better than the netflix show storywise but there is so much gross stuff compared to what i usually read/watch

hi!! thank you for the ask, this is a very important topic to address, though i believe you are asking the wrong question. the matter is not how to ignore the misogyny in the witcher and other pieces of media, but rather how to confront it and face it head-on.

i don’t believe in making excuses for the media i consume when it has “problematic elements” to it. this isn’t meant to be taken as an excuse to “consume anything you like,” because i would not engage with something insidious in its nature (such as media that revolves around and is based upon harmful stereotypes or insensitive jokes and cannot exist without this, some examples of this are infamous things that i’ve seen discussed on this site like captive prince, cmbyn, and hazbin hotel). instead this is about when a piece of media is good overall in nature (the witcher has many anti-war, anti-violence, anti-imperialist themes and messages relating to family, childhood, friendship, and love) but has elements that are the results of the author’s personal biases.

i think before i address how to deal with the misogyny, i’ll actually define what misogyny exists within the witcher books, to be more specific about what we are talking about, and also to do the work of addressing the misogyny in the books:

how the women in the witcher are treated as characters and how they are depicted by the author.

there are a few good points in this subject. characters such as yennefer and ciri are very strong characters who receive a lot of development over the course of the series, and are main characters that are integral to the plot. they demonstrate both strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices. they have depth and are not one-dimensional characters, especially as they become more and more complex over the course of the series.

blatant sexualization of women when it’s inappropriate or irrelevant, descriptions of female characters’ looks or bodies that male characters would not have received.

bizzare standards for what is beautiful for a woman, including body descriptions (“triss’s waist measured 22”) and extreme focus on youth and the age cusp of around 15 to 18 as being the most attractive for a woman (stated in-universe, even though this could be excused as being what is normal in the 1200s, keep in mind that this is the author’s decision to impliment this standard into their society). 

descriptions and scenarios of extreme violence towards woman that are gratuitous in nature and do not add to the story or have any relevance. (geralt being paralyzed with his knee during the stampede at the refugee camp in bof is NOT on the same level as yennefer being extremely tortured at stygga or ciri meeting “forest gramps” in lotl). some of this violence towards women is related to the male antagonists being misogynistic (such as leo bonhart) but a lot of it is just pure filler and is not necessary for the story.

majority of female characters do not get the depth they deserve, and some are pretty one-dimensional. the sorceresses are a good example of this, as the majority of them are shallow and manipulative. female characters are also just generally not given as much “page time” as male characters, for example compare how much depth and backstory regis and cahir receive to how much milva and angouleme receive. regis’ backstory is entirely irrelevant to the main plot but it’s extremely long, and angouleme’s backstory is more relevant to the main plot (she was born of cintrian nobility) yet it is extremely short. (one could make the argument that this is an effect of their characters because regis talks a lot and angouleme is still processing her trauma, but more could have been given to angouleme even if she is not extremely talkative).

the only canon lesbians in the witcher are not good people and are manipulative in nature, and the only canon f/f relationship (ciri/mistle) is representative of a turmultous, vicious time of violence, and is based upon sexual assault.

the gender non-conforming female characters who ARE good people,never have their gnc-ness treated with any depth, and it is insinuated that they are heterosexual.

male protagonists such as geralt and dandelion are both misogynistic at various times in the books, especially in the short stories. this is unlike when male antagonists are misogynistic, because it is represented as something wrong and is intended to characterize them as vile people. instead, geralt and dandelion say or do misogynistic things and it is treated like a joke or something normal, and not a flaw or something repulsive.

how to confront all of this?

the first step is to address it, just as the above list does, and discuss things that stood out to you and are definitively wrong, that the author should not have put in the story because it is useless and only serves to further misogyny in the real world. it would be a grave mistake to think of these things as “fine” and continue to view the witcher books as some kinds of perfect scripture. so many people feel that just because they enjoy something, they are not allowed to critique it and discuss parts of it that are uncomfortable or plain wrong. 

to continue with this point, i think it is important to put the witcher into context as a fantasy series written in the 1990s by a white man who did not (to my knowledge) intend this series for such a broad audience and franchise that it has become. this is not an excuse for sapkowski at all, but rather i think it’s important to understand the origins of the witcher and how it came to be in the first place. this wasn’t a series made to be inclusive and diverse, it wasn’t intended to be “for us” in the first place. 

i do not believe that there is MEANT to be any “positive representation” in the witcher because i don’t believe it is something that sapkowski was actively considering when he wrote the books. just because there isn’t good representation in the books does not mean they and everything related to them are not worth your time, but if you are someone desperately searching for good positive representation or someone who NEEDS to see representation of someone like them in every piece of media they consume, i don’t think the witcher books are necessarily a good place to start. this isn’t meant to deter you from reading or interacting with the books/book canon, but rather a fair warning about what the intentions of the books are. 

i don’t think the books are a groundshaking work of art that are meant to inspire concepts such as diversity, rather it is a very specific work that in its true nature is an argument of a critique of popular fantasy tropes with additional commentary on themes of violence and family. so this is basically meant to say ‘understand what you are getting into.’

how to move on?

the main question which i answer is “is the root of this thing (a piece of media/a character/etc) something that revolves around the bad part, or was the bad part just thrown in there and is incongruent with the rest of the thing?”

the biggest example i think of tackling the misogyny in the witcher and still managing to enjoy it is with dandelion (lol). i think it’s every day that i have to reconcile with the fact that i genuinely enjoy dandelion as a character and hold a conversation with myself about which parts from canon i enjoy and which parts i don’t. his character at its core is not a bad person, he is meant to be an inversion of the trope of the slovenly and lecherous comic relief, and sapkowski succeeds in turning the trope on its head. dandelion is very loyal and committed, he demonstrates his worth in the narrative and doesn’t act with pure selfishness and greed. he is an inversion of all of the negative traits of his trope, but sapkowski also wrote in, like, a literal rape joke for him to say in the bounds of reason. how do you get over that? personally, i just go back to “is this congruent with the rest of the character or not,” and my answer at least for dandelion is no. the rape joke in the bounds of reason seemed entirely out of place to me, it doesn’t fit in with the rest of his character.

similarly, why does geralt sleep with girls who are barely 18 within the events of the witcher? how do you get over that? well, i don’t believe that’s congruent to the rest of his character, the POINT of his character, which is to protect young girls. 

so i go back on my word of what i begun this answer with, and i tell you that i indeed DO ignore some parts about the witcher. but it is not a blind ignorance, an ignorance in which i do not consider the effects and i pretend like they do not exist at all. it’s a choice which i make and a process of logical steps that i follow, an understanding and an agreement i come to with myself and the media i interact with. i acknowledge the context surrounding the creation of the media, i acknowledge the effects that these elements had on their readers and how they relate to the real world, and how i know that these things are objectively wrong. i understand why they exist in the canon, and why i feel justified for choosing to take them out of what i regard as part of my experience.

it’s tempting to proclaim “canon is dead and we have killed the author,” but understand how the author’s personal experiences and biases have influenced the media that they created and which you now consume. you can’t take the personal biases completely out of the writing of the witcher and you have to acknowledge that they still exist in the text. even if you make up your own headcanons, it is still imperative to consider the issues that originate in canon.

what does this look like?

complaining to your friends who also like the witcher / on social media that you hate these parts of the books and explain why you hate them and why they are unnecessary

thinking about why these parts were written in and the context surrounding them

making your own rewrites / headcanons around these parts (ex: my idea for the rewrite of a little sacrifice)

making your own headcanons to establish what was not (ex: my headcanons for angouleme’s trauma and how it affects her in the present, headcanons about how the hansa becomes a family)

tldr: acknowledge why these elements exist in canon. choose to follow a process that will allow you to salvage the parts which speak to you while still understanding that these elements exist in canon and will never disappear. continue to like the canon without the parts that you understand are rotten.

edit: also the netflix show has some pretty misogynistic parts to it as well, yennefer and ciri have way less agency as characters than they do in the books. geralt literally coerces yennefer into sex in twn and treats her with absolutely no respect, and ran from fathering ciri solely because he was a dick. obviously this isn’t the point of the ask, but i think it’s important to acknowledge that twn has misogynistic elements as well and not pretend like just because twn was led in 2020 by a wealthy white woman that it’s progressive in any way.