#so i bought those volumes the day they came out. or more like pre ordered them. so it holds a bit of sentimental value to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back.

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from.

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim.

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out.

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs.

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before.

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did.

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh.

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling.

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought.

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still.

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming.

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit.

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that.

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up.

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now.

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast.

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph.

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume.

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it.

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh.

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place. While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles.

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again.

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason.

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends.

We also get this exchange.

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing.

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord.

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time.

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem.

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy.

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona.

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible.

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim.

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling.

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable.

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed.

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it.

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now.

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her.

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you.

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head.

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!”

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love.

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her.

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger.

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall.

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever.

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last.

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high.

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding.

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do.

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes.

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa.

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright.

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad.

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow.

#scott pilgrim #ramona flowers #wallace wells #roxanne richter #knives chau #stephen stills #julie power #mr chau #stacey pilgrim #neil nordgraf #young neil #comics #oni press #scotrospective #lisa miller #kim pine #jospeh

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felassan · 4 years ago

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Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 annotations & additional pages/art compilation

Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 is a hardcover collection of some pre-existing Dragon Age comics that was released in 2014. It comprises of all issues of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. In places, it includes additional annotations/commentaries by the illustrators and authors, as well as a few additional pages with additional art. iirc these additional annotations and pages/art aren’t featured or available anywhere else (in the franchise I mean; other people have probably put them online at some point I’m sure).

From what I can see at least, Library Edition Volume 1 is no longer in print, and as such listings for it on resale sites etc are.. price-inflated & prohibitively expensive (~£100+, which I’m sure we can all agree is just not reasonable or accessible to most people). Due to this, I’ve compiled the additional annotations and pages here in this post. Thank you and credit to @artevalentinapaz, who kindly shared the material with me. This post has been made with their permission. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

These commentaries are in the context of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. If you notice any errors or annotations missing, or need anything clarified, just let me know. I think the annotations are in chronological order. In places I elaborated in square brackets to help explain which part of the comics an annotation is referring to. A note before you proceed further: some of the topics referenced in the annotations/additional pages are heavy or uncomfortable. The quotes here are word-for-word transcriptions of dev/creator commentaries, not my personal opinions or phrasings.

(Also, I do recommend always supporting comic creators by purchasing their comics legitimately. I own each issue of these comics having bought other editions of them all legitimately. The reason I put this post together is because this specific Library Edition volume has been discontinued and the consequently-inflated cost is so high, rendering the additional material inaccessible to most.)

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The Silent Grove annotations

Illustrator Chad Hardin: “I used to be an environmental artist for video games, so I built a 3-D model of Antiva City using the program Silo. Many of the buildings are simple cubes, but a few are more detailed. Overall, I spent the better part of a day building it, but I used it again and again throughout The Silent Grove to maintain continuity in the backgrounds.”

Script Writer Alexander Freed: “Even working with David Gaider, it took me several drafts to find Alistair’s voice. His narrative had to convey his humor and self-doubt from Dragon Age: Origins while suggesting a newfound weariness earned during his years on the throne. For readers familiar with the character, he needed to seem like a changed Alistair - but Alistair nonetheless.”

Chad Hardin: “If you read a lot of comics, you might wonder why the majority of the heroes wear skin-tight suits. Well, I can tell you: they are easy and quick to draw. In video games, you build the model once and then animate it, so details don’t slow you down. In comics, everything has to be rendered by hand. Varric and Alistair’s outfits were quite detailed. It took me a long time to get used to them, and even longer to memorize the designs until drawing them was second nature - Varric’s knee armor in particular! Oy vey!”

David Gaider: “One of my favorite scenes in the entire series [when Varric and Isabela are disarming traps and picking locks together while Alistair looks on]. Isabela and Varric, doing what rogues do. I had a suggestion for how to put it together, but Alex managed to make it fit and did a great job with it.”

Chad Hardin: “I never used to keep any of the artwork I created for comics. I would just hand the pages over to my agent to sell. This page [when Alistair, Varric and Isabela are in a tavern together, with hookah in the foreground] I kept for myself. I love the hookah-smoking elves in the second panel and Isabela’s face in the last panel. I rendered the first four chapters of The Silent Grove in grayscale using ink washes, gouache and Copie markers.”

David Gaider: “For a little while, Varric [in these comic stories] was supposed to be Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, which would have made sense, Zevran being Antivan and all. I know that some fans would have loved to see him, but the dynamics of the group just didn’t work as well. Then a planned cameo later had to be cut for space. Ah well, Zev, another time.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela at her most dangerous [climbing up the side of the cliff]. This scene - featuring a scantily clad, dripping-wet woman who tends to flaunt her sexuality - could easily have come across as exploitative, but Chad did a lovely drop portraying Isabela as purely focused and deadly.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela rising out of the water and scaling the cliff with the knife in her mouth is one of my favorite parts of The Silent Grove. It is one of those moments where the writing really inspired the art. Hats off to Alex and David. This is another page I kept for myself.”

Colorist Michael Atiyeh: “This is one of my favorite Dragon Age pages. Chad is such an amazing artist; I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love that this page [when a guard spots Varric and shouts ‘Intruder!’] made it in uncensored. So many times in comics, I draw something and some stuffy lawyers come out of the woodwork and tell me to tone it down. Dark Horse and BioWare always let me have fun, and this turned out to be one of my favorite pages with Varric and Bianca. Any guesses to which word he is mouthing in the second panel?”

Alexander Freed: “Note the simple decency of Alistair as he gives his cloak, without comment, to Isabela. For all his flaws, he’s genuinely kind at heart - a rare enough trait in Isabela’s world that I think it’s much of what she values in him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love the opening panel to this chapter [the opening panels to Chapter 3, when the team are on a ship at sea]. It’s the image I use on the homepage of my website. This page was a gift to my cousin Wendy, who loves pirates. Seascapes with sailing ships might be clichéd in fine art, but for me it was a first.”

David Gaider: “I wanted to have this story center on the group travelling to a Witch of the Wilds other than Flemeth, and originally I had set it somewhere else - until I remembered a Codex entry from Dragon: Age Origins that offhandedly mentioned a witch in the Tellari Swamps. Brilliant! It’d look like I planned it all along. I didn’t.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love opportunities where I can show a change in the time of day as you move from panel to panel [when the ship heads towards and the team arrive in the Tellari Swamps]. I feel the palette of each panel is very distinct and beautiful.”

Alexander Freed: “Why did Alistair choose two people he barely knows to be his companions on this quest? We never make this explicit, but of course Varric is on the right track. Alistair wants to surround himself with people who don’t know him and won’t judge him, yet it’s Alistair’s idealism that Isabela and Varric work to preserve.”

Chad Hardin: “Another page where the writing inspired the art [when the group suddenly encounter a dragon]. I love the dragon bursting onto the scene and Isabela’s stare. Some writers will try to cram six or seven panels on a page like this and the pacing just doesn’t allow the artist to give each moment the right punch. Can you imagine if the first panel was crammed into a single square inch?”

Chad Hardin: “Yavana was one of the only characters that we did no preliminary sketches for. I don’t know how that happened, but thankfully it worked out.”

David Gaider: “I love how Yavana looks like a cross between Flemeth and Morrigan. Flemmigan? She’s totally Chad’s design, and it’s great. Typical for these witches, she never says things straight. In my mind, this Alistair is the one who did the Dark Ritual in Dragon Age: Origins - and I was half-tempted to have him lose his cool in this first scene [opening panels of Chapter 4] with her. Too early, though.”

Alexander Freed: “Through this whole sequence [the page when Varric aims Bianca at Yavana], Yavana is dropping cryptic hints and Alistair is refusing to play along. He’s met Flemeth and Morrigan - he knows Yavana won’t give him a straight answer, and he won’t give her the satisfaction of asking needlessly.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Sometimes it’s the little things on a page that spark my interest. Here [when the team navigate vines and mud to get to the temple], the sunset panel came out great and the mud looks really thick and gooey. It’s fun to focus on these details and make them stand out.”

Chad Hardin: “I hated drawing this scene [when Isabela gets kicked] where Isabela gets the boot to the face. Call me old fashioned, but I was raised to believe that only a coward would ever hit a woman (even a battle-hardened pirate adventurer). I draw at home, and my girls often watch me work in my studio. This was a page I didn’t want them watching me draw. I do like, though, that Isabela gets up, yanks the arrow out, and then soldiers on (and later extracts brutal revenge).”

Michael Atiyeh: “Poor Isabela. It seems I gave her more bruises and black eyes than any of the other characters. [when Isabela is yanking the arrow out]”

Chad Hardin: “It’s always interesting to go back and look at artwork because it reminds me of what was going on in my life at the time. I inked this page [opening panels of Chapter 5] at a ‘draw night’ session at an anime convention in St. George, Utah. I was one of the special guests, but I missed the first day because I was at my grandfather’s funeral in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seeing this page brought back those memories.”

David Gaider: “‘Bianca says hello.’ [quoting the panels being referenced] I adore Varric. I was tempted to have him narrate the entire series [in reference to these three comics], but then again I liked the idea of having each series center on one of the trio’s viewpoints. This book belongs to Alistair, but that doesn’t stop Varric from getting all the best lines.”

Alexander Freed: “Claudio, of course, is not a terribly sympathetic figure. But I wanted to emphasize that he takes this fight as personally as Isabela - he sincerely loved Luis and blames Isabela for the man’s death. I think it’s important to give every character, even the most loathsome, some dignity. [when Isabela and Claudio are fighting]”

Chad Hardin: “Payback! Here is where Isabela extracts her revenge on Claudio [when Isabela stabs Claudio]. I never enjoyed killing off a character so much. I particularly enjoyed putting the look of shock in his eyes. He had it coming. There is something satisfying about killing a ‘made man’.”

Chad Hardin: “Every now and then when drawing comics, I wish I could animate some panels and watch them as a cartoon. It would be great to see this sequence [when Yavana catches Claudio’s soul] in full motion as Yavana snatches Claudio’s soul, makes it reenter his corpse and then extracts information from him until he bursts into flame. It was a very Hellboy-ish moment. I enjoyed the movie that played in my mind while drawing this scene. Hope everyone liked the result.”

Chad Hardin: “As I mentioned on page 17, I rendered the first four chapters in grayscale, which made the black-and-white art look great, but had a neutralizing effect when it came to colors. By the time I drew chapter 4, I had seen the effect it was having and decided to stop using the grayscale so the colors would pop. When I saw this page [when Alistair says to Yavana ‘And we helped you find it’] in print, it confirmed to me that I made the right decision. I honestly feel this art was the best of The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I practically painted these pages [when Yavana says ‘It is permitted. Tonight and only tonight’] in thumbnails hoping it would help me choose how to render them in ink. It is so hard trying to figure out how to get a full range of value out of just black and white. There are some artists and inkers that make this look easy. Mark Schultz comes to mind. Michael saved my bacon. Colorists really do so much work when it comes to rendering; this page came out awesome because of him.”

David Gaider: “Here we reveal the existence of Great Dragons (as opposed to High Dragons), and also that Yavana was the source of the return of dragons to Thedas after their departure for so many centuries. But why? There’s the rub, and not even Alistair can trust that she’s telling him the truth.”

David Gaider: “Here’s the controversial scene [Alistair killing Yavana]. I think some fans don’t like that Alistair did this, and have said they consider it out of character. I don’t. From his perspective, Flemeth and her daughters have been toying with the world for reasons that can’t be trusted. They dragged Maric away from his family, from him. One might think his judgement foolish, but considering what Alistair was capable of deciding even back in Dragon Age: Origins, it’s certainly not out of character.”

Chad Hardin: “[same scene as above] This was a controversial page, and there were a lot of people who thought it was out of character for Alistair to kill Yavana (I didn’t see it coming - I mean, you just don’t kill a Witch of the Wild), but here is the thing: this page is Alistair acting as a king. Yavana has been manipulating him, trying to play him like a pawn, and he just can’t allow that. There’s too much at stake, for himself and for his subjects.”

Alexander Freed: “The end? An end, at least [the trio walking off into the distance]. The series needed a note of closure while leading into Those Who Speak (which wouldn’t arrive until many months later). David tweaked the ending in the outline several times, and I did my best to balance resolving Alistair’s emotional journey without resolving the quest. It’s not as clean as I’d have liked, but fortunately, now it’s all in one volume...”

Those Who Speak annotations

Alexander Freed: “Capturing Isabela’s narrative voice was much easier for me than capturing Alistair’s - partly because I’d already written The Silent Grove, and partly because of my own writing proclivities. Rereading now, I wonder if I laid on the (mild) profanity a bit too thick. I’ll leave you to judge.”

David Gaider: “I like the additional detail Alex and Chad put in, letting us see more of Qarinus and more of Isabela’s crew. Alex wanted to give her crew more of a presence, and let her first mate have some face time, so they weren’t just parts of the scenery. Good call on his part.”

David Gaider: “I’m really fond of the formal getups Chad made for the party. Isabela’s actually comes from a concept we didn’t use from the cancelled Dragon Age 2 expansion, if I remember right. And Maevaris came from me asking for ‘someone who looks like Mae West’ - with the wonderful outfit all Chad’s doing.

Chad Hardin: “Maevaris. I love Mae. When David and Dragon Age art director Matthew Goldman spoke to me about designing Mae, they wanted her to be fully female with the exception of her biology. They told me to think ‘Mae West’. Well, when I think of Mae West, I think of her... womanly shape. So, drawing Maevaris was always walking a fine line between portraying Mae’s identity and her biology. The process endeared her to me.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Just like in The Silent Grove, we are introduced to another gentleman from Isabela’s past [when the team meet Lord Devon and Isabela threatens him]. As was the case with Claudio, he will meet his fate at her hands.”

Chad Hardin: “When I was drawing Titus, my kids asked me why I was drawing ‘angry Jesus’ or ‘evil Jesus’. I can’t remember which term they used exactly, but it made me chuckle. I was going for a mix of Rapustin and Joe Stalin, but ‘evil Jesus’ would do.”

David Gaider: “I’m not sure it’s apparent here [when Alistair says ‘I’d really rather not’], but Alistair was supposed to be using one of his Templar powers on Titus (that’s why Titus recognizes what he is on the next page) and disrupting his magic.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela is witty and charming enough that it can be easy to forget that she’s not, in fact, a nice person. Even after finishing the outline, David was concerned about making her too unsympathetic - but I loved his approach in this series. The dark deeds Isabela commits - this murder included [Isabela killing Lord Devon] - are what make her guilt tangible and no easy matter to overcome.”

Alexander Freed: “I thought the notions of Isabela’s pride in her captaincy and dedication to her crew were some of the most interesting aspects of her character in David’s story. In scenes here [when Isabela is on her ship saying ‘Keep them focused and keep them sober’] and elsewhere, I did my best to emphasize their place at the core of Isabela’s world.”

Chad Hardin: “Most of the time I draw from imagination, but because of the complexity of this page [Qunari trying to board Isabela’s ship] I decided it would work better if I had photo reference. On this page are my nephews Jared (Varric) and Adam, my niece Melissa, my kids Erica, Tasey Michaela (Isabela) and Chad (Alistair), my friend’s daughter Amy, my wife Joy, and the neighborhood kids as Isabela’s pirate crew. (The crew member mooning the Qunari is out of my ol’ noodle.) I paid their modelling fee in pizza and root beer. Also, I had originally drawn cannons on Isabela’s ship, so if there are parts of it that look slightly wonky, chances are there was a cannon there.”

David Gaider: “Ever since the BioWare artists finally did a concept for female Qunari, I’ve been itching to include one in the game. It’s always slipped through my fingers, so I was going to be damned if I’d have a Qunari plot in a comic - without the same technical limitations - and not have one present.

Chad Hardin: “I had no idea this was the first time anyone outside of BioWare had seen a female Qunari.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I really like the lighting in this sequence [Isabela in her cell thinking ‘I haven’t eaten in days’], especially the strong white light and the characters in shadow.”

David Gaider: “The entire sequence of Rasaan interrogating Isabela was something I plotted out in detail when this series began. Here they discuss names - something treated in a manner peculiar to the Qunari, considering how much importance they apply to what things are called (and not called), because it forms the core of their identity. Isabela brushes it off, but as we find out later it’s also at the core of her identity. I liked that parallel.”

Alexander Freed: “To balance out the relatively static talking pages elsewhere in the issue, I hoped to make the interrogation and flashback sequences beautiful and full of information. I proposed an approach to Chad, and he wisely reshaped it into what you see here [the page with the scene where Isabela says ‘I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes’]. Anything that succeeds on these pages should be credited to him; anything that fails is my fault.”

Chad Hardin: “Probably the most challenging spread I have ever done. My friend Stacie Pitt was the model for Isabela on this page, and my wife Joy was Rasaan. I saved these pages [around the scene when Rasaan says ‘Mistakes can be corrected’] for myself.”

David Gaider: “Sten from Dragon Age: Origins becoming the new Arishok of the Qunari was something we'd planned even during Dragon Age 2. This was a great opportunity to show that, and also to show that Sten didn’t acquire horns even despite the makeover the Qunari received in DA2. Hornless Qunari are considered special, and Sten is no exception.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I think that David, Alex and Chad handled Isabela’s flashback [to when she was sold by her mother] in an interesting way, and it created a nice flow to the story.”

David Gaider: “This was a controversial scene [what happened to the slaves Isabela was transporting], the end result of a lot of discussions between me and Isabela’s original writer on the team, and it went through a lot of revisions over that time. It needed to fit with the story Isabela told the player in DA2, but fill in the blanks of what she didn’t tell. We didn’t want Isabela to be someone who became who she is because she was ‘broken’ but instead as a result of her own actions - yet also not be completely beyond redemption.”

Chad Hardin: “These were hard pages [as above] to draw. It was difficult knowing that events such as this are part of human history, such as the Zong massacre in 1781, where the British courts ordered the insurers to reimburse the crew of the Zong for financial losses caused by throwing slaves overboard when faced with a lack of water. Horrifying beyond words.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Here, Isabela visits here crew, and I wanted to play up that she was in the light and they were in a dark cell. The light streaming through the bars gave me the opportunity to highlight Brand, who also had dialogue in the scene.”

Alexander Freed: “I struggled to find a way for Varric to contribute to victory without distracting from Alistair and Sten’s big fight. I’m happy with the solution: a brazen lie seemed appropriate to the character without taking away from the main show.”

David Gaider: “I believe my original plan had Isabela’s and Alistair’s fight scenes happening separately, but I like how Alex intertwined them in the script and I especially like how this ends up highlighting the differences between their characters when their fights are resolved. Isabela is defiant, revealing her name not because Rasaan demands it but because it’s her choice. In both cases, mercy is strength.”

Michael Atiyeh: “The brush I created for the clouds really gave them a nice watercolor effect here [on the deck of the ship, Sten calling Alistair ‘kadan’]. That brush has become a staple in my toolbox.”

Alexander Freed: “With the strong theme of names running through these issues, I liked the notion that Isabela had outgrown being, well, ‘Isabela’. When her name comes up in Until We Sleep, it’s largely played with ambiguity.”

Until We Sleep annotations

Alexander Freed: “The story of ‘Arthur’ is one of my favorite minor sequences [Varric infiltrating and fighting his way into the fortress]. It tells us something about Varric and it delivers plot information - and it’s also a reminder that our heroes kill an awful lot of people during these series and cope with it in their own ways. In general, writing Varric let me skirt the edge of metacommentary, which I greatly enjoyed.”

David Gaider: “Varric, as always, is my ‘voice of the narrator’. Here he’s expressing some of my own amusement at Alistair’s growing list of peculiarities [‘Your majesty is quite the special snowflake’]. To think, back at the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins he was just the player’s goofy sidekick who grew up in a barn.”

Michael Atiyeh: “By the third series, Until We Sleep, I really started to have a complete feel for what I wanted the final art to look like. As an artist, it’s important to continue to evolve and grow. The close-up of Sten’s face [same page as above] is a perfect example of how I wanted the rendering on the characters to look.”

Alexander Freed: “David’s outline called for a short, somber reveal of the Calenhad story by Sten. Fueled by my desire to avoid ‘talking heads’ sequences, I scripted it as a full-on storytelling flashback. David made sure the history worked (at least from the Qunari point of view), and Chad did a beautiful job handling it in a mere two pages.”

David Gaider: “Blood is important in Dragon Age, as a theme. Here we tie in the dragon blood that was mentioned all the way back in The Silent Grove and explain what it means at last. I was a bit hesitant to tarnish the legend of Calenhad the Great in this way, but I comfort myself with the knowledge this tale is but a viewpoint and not necessarily the entire truth.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Titus melting the attacker is a great example of classic comicbook storytelling and exactly what made me fall in love with the medium.”

David Gaider: “I was really happy with how Chad handled the reveal of Mae as transgender [the scene with Mae in the cell]. My worry was that Varric finding her disrobed might be potentially titillating, but I think he handled it nicely. I only wish there was more time to have Mae properly respond to being exposed in this manner, even to a friend.”

Chad Hardin: “I originally drew Mae as female [same scene as above], then changed her anatomy, so the psychological violation and humiliation she felt would be the focus. Hope that came across.”

Chad Hardin: “When in doubt, have Bianca shoot it [Varric shooting the artifact].”

David Gaider: “This scene [Varric and Bianca the dwarf] with Varric was one I wanted to do for a very long time. We’ve hinted that Varric’s crossbow was named after a real person, someone he never wants to talk about. Now I finally had the chance to show why.”

Chad Hardin: “Of all my Dragon Age pages, this scene was hands down my favorite, because Varric is my favorite. It was awesome to get to draw Bianca in her dwarven form. These scenes give you a glimpse of the love Varric and Bianca shared. It doesn’t tell you the whole story, but you can assume plenty from what is shown. You get to see Varric mostly naked (you’re welcome), but most of all you witness Varric’s heartbreak. I felt privileged to draw it. I got so obsessed with drawing this page I did an entire watercolor painting based on the last panel [Varric gets up to leave, ‘This isn’t right’ - ? or perhaps the scene where he opens the door to leave].”

Alexander Freed: “Unreliable narrators are always tricky - done wrong, they can just confuse the reader. But I’m fairly happy with Varric’s lies throughout this series, most of which are used to downplay the emotional cost of events rather than whitewash the events themselves.”

Michael Atiyeh: “This palette worked perfectly [Varric standing in front of the doorway/portal in the Fade proper], but I can’t take all the credit because BioWare provided reference for the Fade. I added the hot orange energy for the doorway, which looks great with the sickly green sky.”

David Gaider: “This scene [Isabela’s Fade nightmare] was actually inspired by a fan named Allegra who did a cosplay as a Qunari version of Isabela. I knew I wanted something like this for Isabela’s Fade section of the comic, but it didn’t really solidify until I saw the cosplay.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela is more affected by her encounter with Rasaan than we were led to believe. A portent of things to come?”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love this shot of Mae in the fourth panel [on the page where Isabela is affected by vines]. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what a great character she is in the series, and Chad captures her beautifully in this shot.”

Alexander Freed: “I saw this issue as a sort of downbeat victory lap. Over the course of the previous series, our protagonists largely came to terms with the inner demons the Fade confronts them with here. The fact they’ve come so far lets them win this last battle... but they still have scars that will never completely disappear.”

David Gaider: “Maric was in the first two novels I wrote for Dragon Age. Seeing Chad’s rendering of him as a regal, grown-up version of Alistair made me incredibly nostalgic. Some characters you just never let go of.”

Alexander Freed: “I feel Varric’s lines (‘tell yourself the stories you need to tell’ but ‘never live your own lies’) are the natural endpoint of all the exchanges he’s had with Alistair, starting from the end of Chapter 1 of The Silent Grove. And of course it plays off the story of ‘Arthur’, as well.’’

Chad Hardin: “I’m happy with the way Titus came off in these pages [Titus attacking and saying ‘The last magisters of Tevinter were so close’]. He looks threatening and powerful when fighting Alistair, Isabela and Varric, but genuinely confused by his inability to defeat Maric. Bye-bye, evil Jesus.”

Alexander Freed: “I can’t help but feel for Titus. He was unthinkably corrupt, but I see him as genuinely motivated by Tevinter’s glory. (The fact Alistair reads zealous ideology as a lust for power says a lot about both characters.)”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love the seamless transition of color from Titus’ magic to the dragon breath and then back into the orange remnants of his magic in the smoke. This was a really fun panel to color [Titus saying ‘Die by what wrought you’].”

David Gaider: “‘You are not the dreamer here. I am.’ I always have a scene or a line that’s in my head when I begin a tale, and this line of Maric’s was one I wanted all the way back when I started working on The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I love this page [Maric and Alistair clasping hands]; Mike’s colors are spot on. We get to see all our heroes in an ideal state for the last time. This is the last Dragon Age page I saved for myself.”

David Gaider: “This scene kills me [Alistair destroying the Magrallen]. I knew it needed to happen; I knew I wanted it to happen even back when I began the story. Alistair lets Maric remain in the Fade rather than dragging him back to a world which has moved on. Alistair’s ready to move on, but forcing him to give up that hope... it makes me feel like a bad person.”

Chad Hardin: “Heartbreak for Alistair as he realizes that once again, as a king, he must kill: this time, his own father (granted, the Magrallen did most of the work). I really like how Maric crumbles away in the end. This was my last page, and the emotions on the page and in my studio were very final. Altogether, this was a year of my life in the making. On my last page, I wrote a thank you to everyone involved, the crew at Dark Horse and the crew at BioWare. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them again. It was a thrill. Finally, a huge thank-you to the Dragon Age fan community, whose support was overwhelmingly awesome.”

Michael Atiyeh: “As the story came to an end, I knew I was going to miss these characters. Writing these annotations reinforces the fact that I hope to work with this great creative team again one day. Many thanks to Dark Horse and BioWare for the opportunity to work on Dragon Age.”

Alexander Freed: “The tension between the art and the narration on this page [the one with Alistair sitting on his throne while nobles argue] is something you can only pull off in comics. Neither tells the full, bittersweet story alone. Similarly, these issues wouldn’t have been possible without everyone on the team; thanks to David, Chad, Michael, and everyone I lack space to list!”

Additional pages / art

Library Edition Volume 1 also came with some additional pages, with additional art and commentary. These are as follows (I’m including them for the sake of completion, click the links to see):

1. Alistair and dragon concepts

2. Rasaan and Maevaris concepts

3. Sten, Titus and Yavana concepts

4. A series of cover pages 1

5. A series of cover pages 2

In case anyone has trouble reading the notes that accompany these images, I’ve transcribed them below:

1. Dragon Age Sketch Book

Alistair Concept

Dragon Age / Dark Horse

Chad Hardin: “The headshot of Alistair is from a finished sketch with a rejected armor design. In order to save time, the redrawing was completed on the computer, where tweaks and changes are quick and easy, if somewhat less glorious.”

[Dragon] Head #1 / Head #2

Chad Hardin: “Everyone liked this dragon sketch so much that Dark Horse printed it for signings at conventions. You can see I did multiple proposals for the dragon’s head. It was more effective than drawing the body over and over.”

2. [arrow pointing to Mae’s sleeve] concealed [I think that’s what it says anyway] daggers / shurikens?

Chad Hardin: “When designing Rasaan and Maevaris, I wasn’t exactly sure how their roles would play out in the series. Maevaris’ outfit was inspired by brothel madams of the Wild West. I thought it would be cool to have some weapons concealed in the formal wear. These never came into play in the series, but they were there in my mind.”

3. Chad Hardin: “Although we only see Titus in his battle garb in one issue, I really liked the design of his armor. The sketch of Yavana was done on the fly and served as both a rough preliminary sketch and as a panel layout. You have to work hard and smart in comics to keep up with the deadlines.”

4. Cover Artist Anthony Palumbo: “This was my first assignment for Dark Horse, and I was both excited and nervous. I drew pencil sketches of the main characters, scanned them and played with different arrangements, poses and color schemes in Photoshop.”

5. Anthony Palumbo: “Fellow illustrator Winona Nelson helped me by sitting for photo reference. I created the mock-jewelry with gold-painted Sculpey. That’s a quick photo of my own gaping maw, to help with the image of Varric.”

#dragon age #bioware #video games #artevalentinapaz #alistair theirin #fav warden #morrigan #queen of my heart #long post #longpost

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natromanxoff · 4 years ago

Text

Queen live at Bingley Hall in Stafford, UK - May 6, 1978 (Part -2)

Photos were taken by Anthony Mallan.

Fan Stories

“As I write this I can't believe it is over 24 years since my first ever Queen gig. I was 15 years old and had looked forward to this day ever since I had first heard Bohemian Rhapsody 3 years earlier. Before that song Queen had just been another pop/rock group but BoRhap was the song which for me would set them apart from all others, the song that began my addiction for this band's music - an addiction which continues to this day. I had an hour long bus ride to Stafford and then had to walk to the Bingley Hall which was about 2 miles out of town. I remember while walking a couple of stretched limos passed I couldn't see inside because the windows were blacked out but I knew that it was the members of Queen in those cars and that added to the excitement. I arrived at the venue and joined the queue to get in. I was quite early but there were still a few hundred people in front of me. I bought a Black T shirt with the News of The World robot on the front and the words Spring Tour '78 and a program, both of which I still have although the T shirt is well worn. I was also treated to a young lady a bit drunk I think, taking her T Shirt off and running around half naked, quite sensational for a 15 year old lad. We were let into the hall at about 7pm and I found myself fairly near the front it was all standing and I was quite small so I was pleased to see the stage was set quite high which meant I would have an excellent view. The stage set for this tour was the famous crown and as I looked in awe at its size. I can remember wondering how they would get it to lift off the stage? I can't remember the time but probably an hour or so after I had got into the hall the lights went out and a mechanical whining noise started this was followed very quickly by white lights from the stage, smoke and then the drum beat of We Will Rock You with the song breaking straight into the chorus. Suddenly on a platform in the middle of the front row of the crowd Brian May appeared playing the "Rock You" guitar riff. I remember the feeling of joy and awe, I am sure I must have pinched myself to make sure this was really happening. After an explosion they burst into the fast version of "Rock You" and I saw Freddie for the first time. He was wearing shiney leather trousers, jacket & cap and running around the stage like a madman. It's far too long ago for me to remember every detail of the show but I do remember Freddie toasting us with champagne and at the end of '39 Roger threw his tamborine into the crowd and I had it for a split second before dropping it, I stood no chance really. The songs which I remember most from this gig were the ones which after this tour they were never to play live again: "White Man" & "Prophets Song" both were played either side of Brian's guitar solo and I can clearly remember Freddie performing vocal gymnastics during the middle section of "Prophets Song". The concert ended with a Rock n Roll medley. I remember right at the end of God Save The Queen we all started singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", then the lights were on and it was over. In a lot of respects it seems so long ago but as I am thinking of it now, parts of it are as clear as yesterday.” - Kevin Ruscoe

“It was fun reading Kevin's story about going to see Queen at Stafford Bingley Hall in 1978. This was the first concert I had ever been to (talk about starting at the top). When the lights went down and Brian started with the dynamic We Will Rock You strumming, I was captured. A couple of years ealier I had purchased Night At The Opera for a girl I fancied at work. I took it to give her and before I could present her with it she showed me that she had just brought the album herself. So much for my Night At The Opera with her! So, I had to go home, take a cold shower, and listen to music. Because it was the only album I had, I played it and played it and I discovered a world I never knew existed. Music up to that point was something that was on the radio. That night seemed to open a new and exciting world me. Not as exciting as I had been planning with her but exciting none the less. My biggest memory of the Stafford concert was when Freddie gets us to sing along with him. Whenever I heard the Live Killers album, it would take me back to that moment at Stafford when I found out what I wanted to do with my life. I write now, plays and musicals, some successful, some not. Thanks Queen for my reason to live.” - Robert

“Memory's a funny thing... and I wish to heck that I had a better one. How come I can remember useless things I don't want to know, like the winner of the first Big Brother programme, but can't remember stuff which would be far more useful... like how to order beer in any language, my bank account number... or the exact setlist of my first ever rock concert, Queen at Stafford's Bingley Hall in May 1978? Sitting down to type up this review I did a quick search on the net but only came up with a partial setlist which ends about two thirds of the way through. Very frustrating. So really this isn't a review, it can't be, but it's more a hazy recollection of just what it felt like to be a 15-year-old boy at his very first rock show. First off I remember getting the ticket. "Harvey Goldsmith presents A Night With Queen" printed in green (tickets for the Sunday night gig were printed in blue) and the price, L3.50 - laughably cheap now. I can't remember how long it was before the gig that I got the ticket but I do know that the waiting for the day of the gig was unbearable. But eventually that day arrived. Another reason it sticks in my mind is that it was the day of the FA Cup final (Arsenal beat Ipswich Town) and it was the first time I'd not sat glued to the TV from 12pm for all the build-up and the big match itself. If it had been my team, Manchester City, it might have been a different story, but I went up to Bingley Hall mid-afternoon, with a friend called Mark Butters, to join the queue and get as good a standing spot as possible. For those of you who don't know, Bingley Hall is a 10,000-plus capacity shed (a giant cowshed, really), at the County Showground just outside Stafford, and owned by the Staffordshire Agricultural Society. Before the NEC and other purpose-built venues came along, gigs at this venue (which on other occasions were filled with agricultural displays or animal pens) were a big deal, on a par with Wembley Arena and the like. Others to have played there include Abba, Black Sabbath, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Saxon, Yes and Rush. I remember my Mum being worried sick about me going to the gig. Worried about the size of the crowd. Worried about the music volume. Worried about drugs. She was particularly worried that I was wearing a Thin Lizzy badge on my denim jacket and might get beaten up by some aggressive Queen fan who took exception to any other band. I had to persuade her that rock fans were not quite so tribal as football fans. I also remember standing fairly close to the glass-fronted doors in the queue and the physical, painful ache of anticipation. What came next is a blur - the doors finally being opened, the crush as we made our way through and our tickets were examined, the further crush by the merchandise stall (I got myself a big, square programme, which I've still got). Then I made my way into the crowd, jockeying for a position as near to the front as possible. The gig was all-standing and as showtime got closer the build-up of pressure was astonishing. I was pretty central, but there was constant swaying from left to right, if you lifted your legs you wouldn't fall, just be carried along with this sea of rock fans. Finally the wait is over (yes, I know I've changed tense, it just suits my recollections better). The lights go down. The roar of the crowd is unbelievably loud. But what comes next is even louder. As we strain to see what's going on the air is filled with a mechanical sound, the giant lighting rig (Queen's famed crown set-up) is lifting into the air in a sea of smoke. We Will Rock You explodes into the air. It's all light and smoke and noise... and suddenly there's Brian May, playing that guitar, just feet away from me. The spotlights fall on John Deacon and Roger Taylor behind his gigantic drumkit. Just one thing left now. Freddie. And he appears out of nowhere, Freddie Mercury, prancing and preening around the stage, soaking up the adulation, singing his guts out, clad in shiny black PVC. Call me innocent or naive, but back then I didn't really know about the whole gay/camp fetish thing... he just looked like the superstar he was. For the next two hours or so I am transported to a whole new place. We get the rockers (Brighton Rock, We Are The Champions, Now I'm Here, a pre-release It's Late, I'm In Love With My Car), the pop-orientated stuff (Killer Queen, Spread Your Wings, Somebody To Love, You're My Best Friend) and a superb acoustic section, featuring Love Of My Life and its amazing crowd singalong and '39, during which a string breaks on Brian May's guitar but he carries on regardless, note perfect to my ears. Oh, and we get Bohemian Rhapsody too. It's still only a couple of years old at this point, and although obviously something incredibly special is still making it's way up the ladder to immortality to stand alongside the likes of Stairway To Heaven. Anyway, it's bloody brilliant. Queen leave the stage for the opera section, enabling them to make another grand entrance in lights, smoke and pyrotechnics for the rock-out - a masterstroke! According to Kevin Ruscoe's review of this gig at the superb www.queenconcerts.com site we also got White Man and The Prophet's Song, but I have no recollection of that at all. Nonetheless it still sticks in my mind as one of the greatest gigs I have even seen over the past 28 years, and as one of the greatest events of my life. Like Kevin, I remember singing You'll Never Walk Alone at the end of God Save The Queen, a football terrace salute to a rock phenomenon. What a night!” - Ian Harvey (April 28, 2006)

Part-1

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

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kbstories · 5 years ago

Note

What are some of your favorite one piece moments and why?

WHOO BOY thanks for asking and buckle up ‘cause this is gonna be a long one

(A note before I start: I read OP up to volume 63 in German and the rest in English, so I apologize if I get some pre-ts names wrong! Also these are in somewhat of a chronological order and based solely on the manga.)

Luffy giving the dog (Shushu?) the last box of food: This is the moment that made me love Luffy, it’s such a simple but effective way of showing his core philosophy that people’s treasures and dreams have inherent value and that everyone deserves to have someone by their side who will fight for them when they can’t do it themselves.

Bellmere: Just. Everything about her and that flashback. “They are my kids”, just... It made me emo back then, still makes me emo today. Love it, love her, love her design and what she’s all about. Yes.

Luffy going “I’m nothing without my crew!” in Arlong Park: Bear with me here ‘cause I was like 12 when I read this arc the first time, and back then I didn’t get why Nami wouldn’t just ask for help (so the “Help me!” moment only became a tear-jerker during my many, many re-reads). Something that did make immediate sense to me was Luffy straight-up admitting his skillset is limited to punching things very good, and I was like hell yeah go Luffy because I was 12. (I also love that this sentiment was echoed by Luffy going “I can’t be Pirate King without you” in Whole Cake Island two years later, so that’s another favorite right there.)

Skipping ahead otherwise we’ll be here all day but Luffy carrying Sanji and Nami in Drumm. Seeing him climb up that mountain with his bare hands and feet fucked me up even as a kid, the way Oda paced it really made you feel what an absolutely harrowing experience that must’ve been and I still think about it a lot.

Zoro fighting Mr. 1 in Alabasta: That fight was just mindblowingly cool and I love Zoro. That panel of him kneeling in his own blood after winning the fight hrgghhgh and oh hey THE STRAWHATS SHOWING THE X ON THEIR ARMS FOR VIVI 🥺🥺🥺 how are those not permanent tattoos Oda FIGHT ME

The entirety of Noland & Kargara, how they died without seeing each other and fully mending the argument they had and how Luffy ringing the bell hundreds of years later redeemed it all. Oda went incredibly hard on Skypia’s backstory and I’m not entirely sure what possessed him to tell a story that tragic but I, for one, am grateful. (Fun fact I was extremely late to this whole shipping thing and thus One Piece is very much about the platonic nakamaship of it all for me but even as a clueless baby fan I shipped THE FUCK out of Noland & Kargara oh my)

“I want to live!” + Sogeking shooting the WG flag + Usopp’s speech to Luffy + Luffy almost fighting to the death to keep his crew safe + MERRY’S GOODBYE: I bawl my eyes out every time I read Water 7, it’s my favorite arc to this very day because it’s just so complex and nuanced and the crew’s limits being tested in every way is just a very rewarding (if incredibly emotional) thing to witness. It put both Robin and Usopp on the map as two of my absolute favs and I’m so grateful for that.

The Strawhats teaming up against Oz (?) was something I didn’t know I needed until I saw it and I’ve been gunning for another Strawhat group fight ever since. The team work, the absolute trust, just everything about it was a delight and made all the stuff that followed (Zoro & Sanji laying down their lives for their captain, the entirety of Sabaody) so much more painful. Also Bink’s Sake because Brook deserves to have friends to sing it with him every single day of his life!!!

Luffy refusing to ask if the One Piece is real or not on Sabaody: I just adore that moment. Rayleigh was so soft and indulgent with these baby pirates carrying along the legacy of Roger’s old hat... My heart...

Mr. 2/Bon Curry (?) in Impel Down. ‘Nuff said.

Ace saying “Thank you” after you-know-what but let’s not linger on that because I was reading One Piece weekly back then and it traumatized me to the point I didn’t keep up with it for 10 years haha!

The post-timeskip era is a bit of a blur to me because I binged it all just a few months ago and my memory is McFreaking Terrible but I’ll start with Law being warned on two separate occasions that he might not like an alliance with Luffy, making the alliance anyways and proceeding to burn in “Strawhat-ya is a fucking moron” purgatory ever since. I don’t care if it’s overdone, every year Law loses to Luffy’s idiocy is one added to my lifespan. Godspeed, king of emo pirates. You dug your grave now lie in it.

Sabo coming back: I know there’s discourse about that doing bad things to the plot and the stakes of character deaths in One Piece, bla bla bla, I truly do not care. Luffy getting one (1) big brother back and Sabo stepping up to Ace’s legacy was so monumental when it happened that it briefly brought me back from my One Piece hiatus and I immediately bought volume 75 when it came out in German. (Now if Oda will only let him live and let Luffy actually hang out with his brother I would very much appreciate that, huff huff.)

USOPP UNLOCKING OBSERVATION HAKI AND SAVING LUFFY AAAAAAAAAA

Corazon holding onto life until Law was safe + Corazon’s smile: Corazon in general, actually. Law harboring that little bit of kindness he was shown as a kid and plastering it all over his ship and his crew and his own fucking skin. Mmmm love me a big sip from that good ol’ heartbreak.

Still in Dressrosa, Zoro going “I wonder what he’s dreaming about” when Luffy smiles in his sleep. It’s this little line and kinda insignificant because they’re talking to Sabo in that moment (and that’s clearly like woah), but it’s so fucking soft and it made my heart grow three sizes so there.

Jack getting one-shotted by Zunesha: Get rekt you insufferable asshole oh my god

Whole Cake Island is practically 78 chapters of favorite moments but Nami saying goodbye to Sanji + Luffy almost ripping his arms out to warn Sanji about Pudding + Sanji making a Strawhat lunchbox by accident + “That’s just how you are” + Luffy muffling his pain in front of the mirror so his crew doesn’t worry (Oda turn on your location I just want to talk) + Sanji carrying Luffy back to the ship + “I’m your captain now! Don’t die even if it kills you!” so yeah, the entire thing. Also Katakuri??? What a loser I love him

[Spoilers for Wano]

And if I went into all the things I like about Wano we’d truly be here all day. Gun to my head I’d probably pick Zoro & Luffy reuniting, Kidd & Killer in Udon (of course) and “At sea you fight pirates!” as my favorite moments so far. Also Jinbei joining the crew after a million years holy shit FINALLY and Luffy getting angry over spilled bean soup and KIDD BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF APOO FUCK YES and don’t get me started on the new characters especially Kiku and Yamato and---

[End of Wano spoilers]

Anyhow. My answer to “What’s your favorite One Piece moment?” is basically “YES” to all of it, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#ask #anon #long post #one piece spoilers #i decided to leave the german names just to make y'all suffer #i will have you know that the two giants on little garden are called Boogey and Woogey in the German version #and Chopper's dad is called Doc Bader instead of Hiluluk (??)#navigating OP in three different languages is an interesting experience to say the least #one piece

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thornescratch · 5 years ago

Link

(Okay I usually don’t repost stuff that’s behind a paywall too often, but this is too good not to share. Tarik has done a stellar job taking over at the Athletic; I highly recommend him; he’s worth the subscription.)

From wearing an American flag patterned Speedo on South Beach to scoring four goals with a couple dozen stitches in his leg to subjecting teammates to techno blasted at ear-splitting volume levels in his car, the tales from Alex Ovechkin’s first few seasons in NHL are the stuff of legend inside the Capitals’ headquarters.

In recent days, as Ovechkin authored the hottest goal-scoring stretch of his career in chasing another historic milestone – he is two goals shy of 700 for his career – The Athletic talked to more than a dozen of his teammates throughout the years, as well as members of the Capitals’ staff. The question was a simple one: Tell us your favorite early(ish) Ovi story.

Some had to think long and hard. Others began answering before the question was posed. A few refused to share because, well, it was a little too juicy for public consumption.

But more than enough did tell their Ovi story. And they’re a hoot.

Former Capitals forward Brian Willsie, Ovechkin’s first NHL roommate on the road: One thing we’d often do is we’d dine together or with the group, and we’d come back to the room and we’d order room service dessert. At the start, Alex’s English was coming but it was coming slowly. So I would do the ordering, whether it was fruit, ice cream or something of the sort. But I was telling him the whole time, “You’ve got to start doing this. I’m not going to be your roommate forever.” So finally, one of the nights we got back and he really wanted ice cream. I said, “Nope, I’m not ordering. You got to do it.” It was almost like a father-son thing. I said, “It’s your time, you got to do it.” He was so mad. We just sat there watching TV. He had his arms crossed. It was a staring contest. I told him again, “If you want ice cream, you have to do it.” He was so angry. Eventually, he just jumped out of bed and said, “OK, I do it. What do I say?” So he went over to the desk and ordered ice cream with chocolate sauce. I said, “Order two. Don’t leave me out.” He was super nervous. But he got it all out. He wasn’t confident in his English, but it was better than he thought it was.

Former Capitals defenseman Brian Pothier: We landed in Fort Lauderdale. We hadn’t been south in a while and it was wintertime. Ovi and (Alexander) Semin were like, “Let’s do it. Let’s get in the water.” They changed, ran down to the beach and did this like wild sprint into the water. It was reckless, and it was pretty cold. Then all of a sudden they come flying out of the water screaming because they were getting stung by jellyfish. That was probably 2006 or 2007, so his second or third year. They were fine. They were little jellyfish, but there were a lot of them. They had little marks on them. It wasn’t like they were mutilated, but they had little stings on them. It was pretty funny.

Former Capitals forward Matt Bradley: The people at the hotel were like, “Hey, you can’t go in the water, there’s jellyfish.” We didn’t have swimsuits. I’m pretty sure they went in their underwear. They were excited. It was like they had never seen the ocean. It wasn’t even warm. They just wanted to go in the ocean. I’m 90-percent sure they just had their underwear on.

Former Capitals captain and linemate Chris Clark: He came in the next day and had that big welt. It was all red. The welt is how we found out. I think he ran right through the jellyfish warning signs that were everywhere. I don’t know if he didn’t believe the signs or if he didn’t read them. The fact that there wasn’t anyone in the water should have been a warning to them, too.

Former Capitals forward Brooks Laich: I think he was named captain mid-year one year. Anyway, the first day of training camp the next year we kept saying, “We can’t wait for captain’s dinner this year because Ovi is buying.” Captain’s dinner is at the start of every year; the captain and the two assistants take the entire team out for dinner before the first road game. The captains take everyone out and pay for the entire meal. It’s a gesture to the guys from the leadership group. “We’re like, oh, we can’t wait! Ovi, you’re going to be buying captains’ dinner and we’re already starting to plan it.” He’s like, “Captain’s meal, what’s that?” We couldn’t believe that he didn’t know from the previous three years that he’d been bought dinner by the captains. We’re like, “You gotta take the whole team out for dinner.” And he’s like, “Okay. Sushi Rock, right after practice.” And we’re like, “Whaaaat?” He’s like, “Yeah, we do it today.” Okay. This was Day One of training camp. We tell everyone on the training camp roster that Ovi is buying lunch at Sushi Rock. So 63 guys go to the Sushi Rock for lunch on Day One of training camp – all on Ovi’s credit card. Then we make him buy captain’s dinner again once the team is settled a couple of weeks later. I think he got pissed when we told him he had to do it again. He was like, “I already did it.” We were like, “No, no. This is for the team now.”

Sushi for 63 guys? That’s like at least five, six grand. I love that story because it just encompasses Al. What a fantastic teammate. He’s just like, “Okay, let’s do it today.” And then buys lunch for everybody.

Brooks Laich: It was early on in our career. It might have been our first year, in fact. He was around like the 35, 40 goal mark. He’s established. It’s the second half of the season, and he’s cruising. We get home from a trip. We just got shit-kicked in Florida. We got beat up by Tampa. This is when we flew out of BWI and we had to get on the bus to get shuttled over to our cars. We get to that bus and Ovi gets on the phone with one of our trainers or one of the (equipment vendors). And he’s yelling. The whole bus is quiet. It’s dark. It’s like 1:30 in the morning. And he’s yelling, “These fucking sticks are shit! Call the fucking fabric and tell them to make better sticks!” He called the factory “the fabric.” He thought the word for factory was fabric. Everybody on the bus is just dying.

Former Capitals head athletic trainer Greg Smith: We were down in Miami on our day off. The kid decides to go out on the beach. So he goes out and buys like a European bathing suit, like a bikini, a Speedo. It was an American flag. It was hilarious. It was a Speedo! We’re like, “Ovi, you can’t wear that.” He’s like, “Why? Because of American flag?” We’re like, “No, because it’s a fucking Speedo and your junk is hanging out.” But he thought it was because of the American flag. I have a picture on my phone, of Ovi, in an American flag Speedo, on South Beach. So, of course, we posted it up all over the locker room.

Chris Clark: Half the time it was just the stuff that he wore. He’d come in and I’d be like, “What are you wearing?” He’d say, “What? It’s Dolce.” I’d say, “I don’t care how much it costs or who makes it. It might be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.” He had this one pair of pants, that were like jeans on the top but sweatpants in the legs. He was so proud of them. He thought they were the best thing ever.

Former Capitals forward and linemate Mike Knuble: Well, he used to wear these pants that were basically Daisy Dukes with cotton sweatpants attached for legs. We would always point and scratch our heads. One day someone says to Ovi, “Those pants are terrible. What the hell are they? Do you go to the club or go to work out? You have both covered, and we know you don’t work out!” He turns and smiles and says, “Dolce and Gabbana” and just keeps strutting away. We yell back, “They’re ugly as hell.” Now we are interested and decide to look them up. They were like $800 or something like that. Needless to say, we were shocked. We then coined the term “hobo-chic” to describe his really expensive clothes that look like they were from a dumpster. But we loved to give it to him about his attire.

We are eating pregame one day at (then Kettler Capitals Iceplex) and he pops into the room in a freebie NHL entry draft t-shirt from Carolina. It had sort of a Hurricanes logo on it. This is 5-6 years after he was drafted and has been making $9.5 million (a season) for three years. They probably gave him a pre-draft goody bag with a bunch of free crap. He still had the t-shirt from the bag! He didn’t hear the end of that one for a while. Needless to say, he didn’t wear that T-shirt again. I would really love to have a look in his closet one day.

Former Capitals defenseman Steve Eminger: He used to wear these jean shorts that looked like women’s shorts his rookie season. They were so tight, so high. We got a hold of them, cut them up and threw them out. And that was that. He had to go home from the rink in some Capitals gym shorts. That was the last we saw of those shorts. I don’t think he had a lot of clothes at that time. (Jeff Halpern) might have been the aggressor on that one. We were like, “Ovi, that’s it. You can’t ever wear anything like that again.” They were acid-washed!

Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom: In the beginning when we got here, he was driving me everywhere. The first thing I noticed is, well, you never talk when you go in the car with him because he plays the stereo full blast. Techno, everything. It’s just really fucking loud. There’s no way to talk. If he’s about to say something, he’ll reach over and turn it down, and he’ll ask you a question. And then put it back on full blast.

Another thing with his driving, especially when he was younger, was he loved to go a little faster. He’d always push the pedal and then hit the brakes. So you’re sitting like this (Backstrom pushes himself back in his locker stall and then snaps his head forward). That was a fun thing he always did when we drove together to the airport. He’d go full speed and then hit the brakes. But he would only go full speed for like 200 feet. Then he’d go, “Oh fuck, I’m so scared in case the cops are coming.” That was when he first got that white Mercedes (AMG S63). I think he’s got that back in Russia now.

Capitals defenseman John Carlson: It was maybe my third year, and my aunt made dinner for the whole team (prior to a game in New Jersey). It was a traditional Italian dinner. My cousin owns a deli, so he brought the appetizers and all that. We were all there. And after a couple of rounds of appetizers and soup and whatever else we were having, the pasta and meatballs came out. And Ovi goes up to one of my aunts and asked for, uh, ketchup. That’s a deadly sin. I would say in most cases that gets a slap in the face. But they’re not like that. But it was certainly a shock to them. They couldn’t fathom or understand that anyone would ever want to put ketchup on pasta or meatballs. But they went and got the ketchup because they were good hosts.

Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov: Like four or five years ago, we tried to make a reservation for sushi restaurant in Vancouver. We called ahead and tried to get a reservation. So, I remember, we say my last name and (Evgeny) Kuznetsov. And they said, no. They don’t have any space, available rooms, tables, whatever. And we said, what about if we bring Alex Ovechkin? They said, hold on one second. I think the guy talked to the manager or whatever. They give us a table. It was pretty funny because it was all of us – Stan Galiev, me, Kuzy and Ovi. We all were in the hotel room. It was on speaker so all four of us could hear it. It was so funny. Alex just started laughing. At first they had nothing, then right away it was, “Oh yeah, yeah, you guys can come.”

Former Capitals defenseman Brendan Witt: His rack (at Piney Orchard Ice Arena) was always full with like 50 sticks. One day I sawed a bunch of them. He’d wind up, take a shot and he’d go, “What the fuck?” Then the next one would snap. “What the fuck!” You have to think of Ovi yelling, “Fuuuucccckkkk!” You know Ovi taking those big slappers. Just imagine broken blades on one-timers. It was awesome. Usually, when I cut someone’s stick, it was always in the blade and then I would re-tape it properly. I would take off the tape and then hide the cut behind the tape because then you never know. If you do the shaft, then you would see a cut in the graphite. I’d always cut it in the blade, underneath the blade, different angles of the blade. So it breaks differently each time. I swear he went in and got a new stick each time. I don’t think he ever figured out it was me.

Former Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau: I remember telling (then-general manager) George (McPhee) after we traded Chris Clark, “It’s Ovi’s team now, and we got to make him captain, even if he’s not completely ready for it. He’s the captain and the leader of this team and he will be for many years.” So I asked him if he wanted to be captain and he said, “YESSS!” It was really emphatic. “Yes, I want to be captain. I really want it.” He wasn’t like, “Yeah, I don’t know if I’m ready.” None of that. It was, “Yes!” Adamantly. He wanted to be the captain. I said, “You’ve earned it and you deserve it and you’re our leader and we’re going to follow you.”

Greg Smith: Early in his rookie season, he turns to me on the bench and says, “Do you have a wodka?” I said, “A what?” He said, “You know, a wodka?” He does the drinking motion. I said, “Oh, vodka.” I said, “No, I don’t have any vodka. It’s the middle of a game.” I’m thinking what’s wrong with this guy? Then he shows me — and honest to god — it’s a little paper cut on his finger. He’s like, “You know, wodka? It kills germs.” I’m like, “No, no, we have peroxide for that. But don’t drink it.” He pours it on his cut. And then he says, “I need a plaster.” I said, “What is a plaster?” You know how he gets. I have a fanny pack on. He grabs my waist and starts digging around in my fanny pack and pulls out a band-aid and says, “See? Plaster.”

Bruce Boudreau: My go-to stories about Ovi are about how he’s able to be as physical as he is and not get hurt. I remember him going knee on knee with Tim Gleason, who is a big 225-pound guy. Alex went to the room. I went in and he was like, “I’m fine.” It was like nothing happened. I also remember him going knee-on-knee in the playoffs with Sergei Gonchar. Nothing happened to Alex and that guy misses the rest of the playoffs. Those physical things are what I remember most of all. One time, we played Pittsburgh and he got a big cut on his leg. It was about eight inches long and he needed about 25 stitches. He couldn’t even walk. Two days later we were in Ottawa and he played, even though I was amazed at the scar on the inside of his leg. And he scored four goals that night. He’s done that kinda stuff every year of his career. The toughness of him is overlooked sometimes.

NBC Sports Washington play-by-play announcer Joe Beninati: You know he loves cars. It’s his rookie year. He’s a puppy. But he’s Alex. He’s a star and he’s got the big car – a BMW M6. A white M6. He sends it off to get all this aftermarket work done, air dams, ground effects, brakes, rims. One night, we come out of the garage and we’re stopped at a light. We were going to the airport after a game. He’s got his car, he’s all happy, he’s all proud. And here’s this schlub TV announcer pulling up next to him in an M6. He looks at me. I look him and I wave. And he just drops his head. I look back at him and I go, “What, I can’t have one, too?”

Former Capitals senior director of communications Kurt Kehl: We were at a Ravens preseason game, and we had gone down to the sideline. Now we were walking back up to the suite and he sees this stand for Dippin’ Dots. So he buys a little carton of Dippin’ Dots. We take a few steps as he’s eating them. He looooveeees them! He goes back and buys two more. So now he’s got three things of Dippin’ Dots. We’re up in (former Ravens executive) Dennis Mannion’s suite. I’m sitting next to Ovi and he’s got these three things of Dippin’ Dots in front of him. I see George (McPhee), who was big on nutrition, walking into the suite. So I remember sliding the Dippin’ Dots away from Ovechkin and in front of whoever was sitting next to him. Ovi looked at me all confused. I said, “Just wait until George leaves and then slide them back over.”

Joe Beninati: Rookie year, again. Shy, not really good with the language. Whenever we put him on camera, he would be very self-conscious. It’s just about time for Russia to announce the Olympic team. Our producer/director, Bill Bell, is like, “Just get him on camera for a soundbite and ask him what would it mean to you to get selected for the team? Pavel Bure is the GM.” He comes in our studio and he sits down and he gives me an answer, and it’s good. He walks out of our studio where he’s shy and intimidated and not sure about the sound of his own voice. He walks into a scrum of other media. Someone asks him, “What would it mean to you if you make Team Russia?” He answers, “You tell Pavel Bure that I’ll play goalie! I’ll do anything to make the team!” And I’m like, “Ack! Why couldn’t you give that to me just two seconds ago?”

Kurt Kehl: When he first got here, Nate (Ewell, the Capitals’ former director of media relations) and I took him somewhere to do a media interview. We’re coming back and parking at the arena. And on the way back, he’s like, “I’ll take you to lunch. I’ll take you to lunch.” We’re like, “No, it’s okay, Alex. This is part of the job; it’s what we do. You don’t have to reward us for doing our job.” But he was really badgering us. “I’ll take you to lunch. I’ll take you to lunch.” So finally, Nate and I said, “Sure, we’ll go.” He took us to McDonald’s. Because he wanted a burger. I was like, “Wait a minute. I put up this big fight because I thought he was going to take us to Capital Grille. If I knew it was going to be a Big Mac, I wouldn’t have made such a fuss.”

Longtime Capitals equipment manager Craig “Woody” Leydig: It was probably Ovi’s second year and we’re in the equipment room at – I guess it was called MCI Center back then – and anyway I’m sitting there doing some work and he was lacing. He had laced a couple of eyelets. And then there was an impromptu meeting called. He said, “Woodman, would you finish it for me?” And I did. Then he went out that night and had a multiple-point game. And from there, it just became habitual. He’s a creature of habit, like a lot of guys.

Kurt Kehl: When he first got here, he lived with McPhee. I remember telling George at one point, “Hey, if he totally gets in your hair, let me know if I can do anything.” One day George says to me, “Can you take Ovi to Laurel to skate with a couple of guys?” We get up to Laurel in that back rink. (Olie) Kolzig was there. (Jeff) Halpern was there. (Trent) Whitfield was there. I had never seen Ovi skate. And he comes on and starts skating on that back rink. You know how it echoes in there. Hearing him skate. He isn’t a graceful skater. It wasn’t like (Mario) Lemieux or (Alexei) Kovalev skating. It was just pure power. You could hear it in that rink. I had never seen or heard anything like that. And then he let a couple of shots go. And I remember Halpern looking up at me in the stands … and Halpy was almost like, “What the fuck is that?”

Former Capitals director of media relations Nate Ewell: I don’t remember the exact date, but we had played in either Philly or New York because we took the train back. Then the whole team had to take the Metro back from Union Station to Verizon Center. Which in and of itself is kinda absurd if you think about it – all the Caps getting on the Metro. I was standing there with him on the platform and we were talking about world juniors for some reason. I said, “Man, I HATED you!” He just laughed and said, “Why? Why did you hate me?” I was like, “You were always taunting the crowd. You had the tinted visor. I thought you were cocky and brash.” He was like, “I was just having fun.” It’s exactly how people’s perception of him has changed. They all thought here’s this guy that celebrates too much. But once you get to know him, you realize it was just him having fun.

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rigelmejo · 5 years ago

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how to learn the characters - study materials

all these courses on ‘how to learn characters’ and then its like $39 just to tell u the basic building blocks/how the system works, then leave u to ur own devices to actually study and follow a plan u make urself. u can buy books at this point, for japanese kanji or chinese hanzi, that literally will go through 2000+ characters with pronunciation/meaning/examples and nmemonics (and occasionally history notes) to study from. the books are like $20 dollars or less. And they’re always everything in those freaking ‘how to’ guides PLUS the actual study plan - read the book. Reading the book IS the study plan! If you read the book, there u go. You’ve done it. Then you just reinforce it, and if there’s some more characters you need to learn, they’re going to be less common and more like learning any new word at that point.

i got lost in a rabbit hole today looking up if there’s a more speedy way for me to brute force through studying the most frequent hanzi and. there does not seem to be. in the end, it really is ‘write. mnemonics. example words. flashcards if u can stand them’ repeat.

i found a guide for $39 dollars that was literally only about how there’s 214 radicals, how the hanzi are composed (sides, top/bottom, enclosed configurations), how usually hanzi have one radical as a sound component to hint at the pronunciation. And an explanation of HOW to come up with mnemonics. But that’s it. That’s it. The whole ‘system to learn 3000 hanzi in a month’ and it’s just that...

ohhhh. meanwhile i have a book in my bedroom with 2,500+ hanzi, and all the words in hsk in it, that’s got pronunciation/mnemonics/ordered by frequency/example words and hsk words/organized by a mix of frequency and common radical. the book cost me $12. Realistically... its the only book i need, cause when i’m done with it, I’ll be mostly picking up words from reading at that point (since reading the actual language i’m studying is my preferred way to study - i just need to boost my reading skill in chinese until that’s feasible). So that whole guide came down to... a waste of money. A rip off if you’ve already researched character composition a bit, and definitely not ALL YOU NEED to study the characters. Its basically leaving the Entire study plan up to You.

I literally got the two books i did, because i wanted a pre-made study material i could just read and review (because i prefer reading/reviewing over flashcards, otherwise there are FREE anki and memrise decks which are perfectly useable as a study plan). My books literally allow me to do that. I can’t believe... a $39 dollar guide wouldn’t also have a built in actual study material of the actual hanzi, if it’s going to cost that much. This is the guide I’m talking about, in case anyone would like to know.

As a note, if anyone would like to know the study materials I’m talking about:

The hanzi books I’ve found, that are both basically everything you need to just read and chug through/review (if you don’t like flash cards, or have trouble making up ur own mnemonics):

Tuttle - Learning Chinese Characters (800) - This one is 800 high frequency characters, beginner HSK levels. It doesn’t cover all characters you’d want to know to be able to read, but it’s a good start. And I do think the way it structures it’s mnemonics make it incredibly easy to remember meanings and sounds and tones. It’s pretty well made. I’m currently working through this, because I like how it handles remembering the tone for each character. For a beginner, I imagine following the book’s advice and doing 10 characters a day, or a chapter a day, and reviewing over time, would be very effective. I am a bad studier, so I’ve been reading a lot - then reviewing - then reading a lot. I’ve worked through 400 characters so far, and found it very useful. (This book shows traditional variants of characters in a small box to the side of the simplified characters.)

Reading and Writing Chinese (2,500) - This book comes in a version for simplified and for traditional characters, so make sure you get the version you need. Right now it’s literally less than 10 dollars, and it covers what I imagine would be a large enough number of characters - that after working though this, you’d have a solid enough foundation to pick up any new characters after this yourself. I’ve found it to be a super helpful reference. I’ve read through various chunks of it, and I plan to focus on it more in depth once I’ve worked through the other 800 character reference book I have. I do think this one, on its own, could serve as an all around character reference study book - but as you may imagine, reading Any reference book is DENSE. Because this book’s aim is to cover 2,500 characters... some characters I read a lot don’t get covered until later, and some rarer ones pop up earlier. I would recommend actually looking at the simplified version versus traditional character version, and seeing which book suits your long term needs more. I have the simplified version, and the traditional forms are shown in small boxes to the side.

There are also, I imagine, a plethora of free anki and memrise decks for chinese words and characters. I just... suck at coming up with my own mnemonics (and generally HATE flash cards) so I got books instead.

The japanese books I’ve found, for the same purpose:

https://kanji.koohii.com/ - a website. LITERALLY all you need though, and free. IT provides kanji, pronunicaition, and user submitted mnemonics (and lots so you can find one to make it stick), it also IS a flashcard site so you can review the kanji you go through! It’s wonderful! Even if you use something else, using this free site too is immensely helpful. When studying japanese, I generally rely on this site the most for kanji, and then memrise word-frequency decks for vocabulary.

Learn to Read Japanese (1208 characters in the two volumes together, by the japaneseaudiolessons site) - I own their first volume, and when I get to it, I may get their second one. From the website itself, it says “ Students who use this book will learn to read 608 basic kanji, plus hiragana and katakana. It includes more than 4,200 authentic Japanese sentences and phrases for reading practice.” It includes mnemonics for kanji pronunciations, and meanings, and example sentences to practice reading. It is dense, cause it’s in a way a reference book, but it does exactly what it says. This way is exactly the way I prefer to study characters, so I’ve found it very helpful. They come in pdf form or physical copy, and i like studying physical copies so I bought that version. This book series is nice in that, it provides reading examples, if reading context helps you remember things. (A free alternative would be the app clozemaster for reading sentences examples - but the translations are not always correct in clozemaster, so it’s not great for beginners).

Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course (2300 characters) - this is the god tier one for japanese. If I only got one, it’d be this one. I ended up studying primarily from this, and the free kanji koohii site for additional mnemonics. This is the one where if you wanted, you could chug through it, review, chug, and eventually cover all the characters you’d need to learn the rest in a regular reading context. It’s great. Hands down, its the best kanji book I’ve found. I ended up using this, koohii website, tae kim’s grammar guide, and a memrise set of decks for japanese literary, and worked through them. This book was what I relied on most for my kanji study.

Nukemarine on memrise made a set of courses they used to call Suggested Guide for Japanese Literacy (which now seem to be called LLJ), and these are the decks on memrise i pretty much exclusively studied from since they covered vocab/kanji/grammar points, and I found the series incredibly useful.

So... all of these resources I’ve linked boil down to... free or less than $20 dollars. The books are the only ones that cost money, since you’re buying a physical book - and you should check if your library/college has them for free as online e-book links you can read (or check out physically). For me, all of the kanji books are free as an e-book from my library. I only bought them because I wanted to have the reference books to keep, eventually. For all of these books, except for Learn to Read Japanese, I’ve found pdfs online around and about.

#chinese #japanese #study #characters #study characters #kanji #hanzi

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flapperfromthefuture · 5 years ago

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I’ve been experimenting with a couple of new ways to beat the winter blues—baking with such frenzy that I have to buy the 18 egg cartons and the person at the register asks me, “Big weekend plans?” every. single. time, and expanding my horizons with such gusto that I nearly got dropkicked by a jazz enthusiast.

Let me explain.

After watching a beautiful tombstone-grey sunset at 3:30 one October afternoon, I had the urge to bake because “You can’t stick your head in the oven if there’s other stuff in there.”

So I have been baking. Like, obsessively.

I’ve even gotten fancy. I made a povitica, the Aaron Burr of breads, with raspberry and then apricot jam (very sticky, but tasty). Then I wanted to try a savory challah, so I experimented with adding different amounts of cardamom and THEN za’atar.

I tried making challah with harissa because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was super messy working the harissa into the dough and then braiding it before the whole loaf could fall apart, but the end result was delicious and made my kitchen smell like a spice market in the midst of somewhere warm that is not Michigan.

I made two Bienenstich, or bee sting cakes, which I hadn’t attempted since my brioche class. I managed not to overdo the topping this time! No almond-induced structural collapses here.

Then I made this gigantic cinnamon roll, which the recipe claimed was an Estonian Kringla, and since the best cinnamon roll I’ve ever had was in Estonia, I tried it out. And it was pretty good, but didn’t quite get me to pre-winter euphoria levels, aka enough energy to stay awake past mid-afternoon because it’s so dark outside.

My sister really wanted to make Halloween desserts together, which translated into me buying all the supplies and then baking everything myself while she lay on the floor.

She had just run a half-marathon . . . five days earlier.

I don’t like making Rice Krispie treats as they are a tactile nightmare. Everything you touch sticks to you forever and then continues to stick to you even after you die. I also gravely miscalculated how many marshmallows to buy (because weight and volume are different, apparently? School never covered that) and my mom will not let me live it down—anyone who stops by the house is asked, “Do you want something to drink? Or maybe some marshmallows? Elizabeth bought a thousand.”

Stella likes to say, “God knew you’d be too powerful if you were good at math.”

I don’t enjoy cooking as much as baking, but I made my yearly stab at sides for Thanksgiving. These harissa sweet potatoes looked beautiful but were a little too spicy for my weak-ass family.

(I also may have put in too much harissa. But it’s expensive and I wanted to use it all!).

A and I are officially in the throes of cabin fever, and when our beloved Midnight Madness rolled around, she decided that we needed to mix things up and elected to check out a jazz club downtown that we had never visited. Our friend Julia was with us and her mom was in town from the East Coast, so A thought we’d show them a sophisticated time . . . after visiting the holiday petting zoo, of course, and making a quick stop in the Himalayan Bazaar to see if the Yeti was around—he was not, because he never is, BUT I WILL SEE HIM NEXT YEAR SO HELP ME.

Stella did not join us for Midnight Madness, electing instead to stay in and watch The Crown, which in hindsight, was too much of a gamble to take without supervision.

We swept into the jazz club with our heavy coats and dorky beanies and I immediately felt way too square to chill with the jazz cats. Everyone had sleek scarves and trendy eyewear and even the gorgeous modern light fixtures seemed to judge us as we sat at our table.

There was a lady wearing sunglasses inside. At night. In winter.

It was below freezing out. I thought, “Is this an awards show?”

I had only eaten roasted almonds and hot chocolate for dinner so I needed something revitalizing . . . or barring that, mozzarella sticks.

This jazz club did not have mozzarella sticks. Mozzarella sticks aren’t cool. They had charcuterie plates, pate, foie gras PB&J (why?), and charred baby octopus (WHY?), and everything was super expensive, but there was a jazz quintet onstage that seemed really legit, so I was excited to get some culture, even at the expense of mozzarella sticks.

A stared down at the menu like she could intimidate it into submission. She will eat anything, but draws the line at baby animals that have been set on fire.

“I don’t know what to get,” she said. “This never happens to me.”

“What are you guys ordering?” I asked Julia and her mom.

And then, out of nowhere, SLAM, a hand smacked our table loud enough to make me jump. An older man glared at me and said, “I’m not paying to hear you talk.”

He looked a lot like Santa, which made it even more distressing. I don’t want to get in trouble with Santa!

A is from Chicago and doesn’t take anyone’s shit (which is good for me, because to quote John Mulaney, “You could pour soup into my lap and I’d apologize to you“), so she looked Santa right in the eye and said, very calmly, “You don’t need to take that tone. We’ve never been here before and we’re trying to figure out what to order.”

Santa scowled and said, “Just be quiet.” Like we were children, which we are not. We patronize jazz clubs!

Just so we’re clear, A was the most well-behaved child who ever childed and practically showed up to preschool with a briefcase. No one has ever told her, “Just be quiet.” And I was so hyperfocused on craft kits and Legos that no one ever told me that either. In fact, adults scolded me to be less quiet because “You’re like a little ninja.”

“That wasn’t very Midwestern,” said Julia. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Mom. People in Ann Arbor are usually very chill.”

“He’s probably a boomer,” said Julia’s mom, who is a boomer herself, and incredibly cool.

We ordered our drinks and tried to enjoy the jazz.

Here’s the thing about jazz. People think they enjoy it, because music, right? Who doesn’t like music? Everyone loved La La Land, and there was jazz in that, right?

But what you don’t know about jazz, until you’re trapped in a jazz club with incinerated child octopi and furious boomers, is that the average jazz song is about fifteen minutes long. There’s the normal part, that sounds like a song and tells a story you can follow and enjoy, and then the improv starts. Every musician starts playing scales or hitting the drums in a way that should be exciting but really isn’t, and should build to something musically but really doesn’t, and then when they’re done the audience claps and the next person does the same thing, but it’s like listening to several minutes of joke set-ups with no punchlines. Over and over, until they just stop and then the next song starts.

“Are they going to do this for every song?” I thought about saying, but then did not, because I didn’t want to anger the man.

Instead, I checked my phone for a quick primer on jazz appreciation.

I still hadn’t eaten anything and A had declared that we wouldn’t be ordering any food so we could leave sooner . . . but not soon enough.

Other people were chatting and eating and enjoying the music, but I wasn’t doing any of those things.

A was glaring daggers into the back of Santa’s head.

Julia and her mom weren’t super into it either, to the point that Julia claimed that if she rushed the stage and pretended to be the next act by riffing on a triangle, no one would question it. Her mom was supportive of this, so it was time to go.

We said good-bye outside, relieved at finally being allowed to speak freely.

“That drum solo went on FOREVER,” said Julia.

“I thought the cymbal crash meant it was over but it just kept going!” said A.

“I really liked La La Land an hour ago and now I hate it,” I said.

So my journey to find something that will beat seasonal affective disorder back to whence it came continues. Will I go complicated and attempt to make my first panettone, which can take 24 HOURS to bake?

Or keep it simple and just get some mozzarella sticks?

Baking vs. Jazz: Holiday Showdown I’ve been experimenting with a couple of new ways to beat the winter blues—baking with such frenzy that I have to buy the 18 egg cartons and the person at the register asks me, "Big weekend plans?" every.

#ann arbor #baking #food #music

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sohmariku · 6 years ago

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RIKU’S RANDOM LIFE: JAPAN HAUL

As the year comes to an end, I think it’s the perfect moment to have a look at the amount of merchandise I managed to gather in the last month of this year. (And give you an incomplete report of my trip to Japan.)

First of all, met Xiang Xiang, the little baby panda that’s turning Ueno’s zoo in a amusement park. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you need to line up to get a glimpse of this cutie-pie. Well, obviously, for the real thing, not to see the plushie. Anyway, long story short, I love cute plushies, so... boyfriend bought me the panda plushie.

All right, let’s move on!

The manga/novel haul! Touken Ranbu -Hanamaru- vol.1-4, Rengoku ni warau vol.7-8, Kuroshitsuji vol.22-28, Birdmen vol.7+ 10-13 and the novelizations of Touken Ranbu’s stage plays. Half of these I had meant to buy last year (in 2017), but on both trips my suitcases had been too full and I had to give up on bringing the volumes. This time I had weight to spare, so I just went for it! Most of these volumes were bought on the last day of my trip. xD In the end, I did buy a volume I apparently already owned. I was pretty sure I owned up to volume 6 of Rengoku ni warau, but... appears I owned up to volume 7. ^^;; Oops, got that one double now.

SRS2018 haul! These are actually the very first things I got in Japan. Well, granted, most of these things I bought for @blackfireswallow. I’m only keeping on of the happi coats and the stickers. The sticker sheet was a free bonus for the musical website’s premium members.

Akiba haul! Well, about this assortment of merch... If you’ve been to Akihabara, you’ve probably seen these blind bags aimed at tourists. Just from the look of it, you can tell it’s pretty much a scam, but for shits and giggles my boyfriend and I both decided to try it out. This was the content of my Touken Ranbu bag. I paid 5000 yen for it. The Dodanuki noodle stopper figure appears to be sold anywhere between 2500-3000 yen at this moment. The large buttons were probably around 300 yen each. The little Akashi egg is also 300/400 yen.The clear file’s original price is 200 yen. And then you have some assorted stuff that was originally free. All in all, I guess you just about make it to 5000 yen, but it certainly isn’t as good a deal as they try to make it sound. (Oh, and one of the tiny buttons is actually Ensemble Stars...) xD In short, I don’t recommend anyone buy these tourist bags. Although I am happy with the figure, it’s gorgeous!

Nakano haul! It’s not much of a haul really, but... Since I got Dodanuki, and I already own Kashu, I kinda felled compelled to bring Hasebe when I found him for a more than decent price. After that, I also found a bunch of these really cute tiny figures for next to no money. (Hachisuka and Horikawa I actually got in Akihabakara some days earlier from the gacha machine...) At the very least, it means I’m closer to gathering all those sweet figures!

Shibuya/Ikebukuro haul! After meeting up with @lukanene in the early morning, I ran around Shibuya and Ikebukuro to kill the time before it was time to join the Christmas “party” at my brother’s place. In Shibuya, I was really only looking for one specific Touken Ranbu figure, but while I couldn’t find it, something else caught my eye at the Mandarake. The Akatsuki no Dokuganryu T-shirt! When these shirts were originally sold, I had no way to get it, but... having a chance to buy it now, I couldn’t resist it. (Btw. the back of the shirt is amazingly beautiful!) I also came across the cutest figure of sleeping Ritsu... so I had to get that too. (Even though I’m not even into Ensemble Stars. I simply like Ritsu, he’s my spirit animal!) And that’s when I ran out of money. xD I had to find an ATM first, before I could hop on a train to Ikebukuro. I mostly returned to Ikebukuro (I had been there before some days earlier, but shopping around “fujoshi” stores is hard when your boyfriend is a few steps behind), since I still had to check out K-book’s “musical” department, but on the way I also grabbed a sweet Tonbokiri mochi. Then I got some Fudo stuff from myself and some Mikazuki/Mario for @blackfireswallow The keychains came from Lashinbang btw. I remember those were like 1500 yen last year at K-books, now only 100-200 yen at Lashinbang. What a year does to prices of certain items...

Nendoroids! I can’t help it, I need more of these! Nikkari is actually part of my Akihaba haul. He wasn’t in the tourist bag, I bought him separately at one of the shops. Hasebe and Tsurumaru were secondhand purchases I got at Ikebukuro’s Mandarake. When I was shopping with my boyfriend, he told me I couldn’t get them. So, when I returned another day, I bought them using my own money. xD They were just too cheap! I think it was 3200 yen for Tsurumaru and 3500 yen for Hasebe. For that kind of price, don’t tell me to leave them behind! They’ll have to stay in their box thought till I’m officially moved. It’s no use unpacking them now.

All sort of stuff! Yes, some other things I grabbed while there. Kashu’s 2017 solo BD wasn’t on the list of expected purchases, but when I came across it in a secondhand store and it was only 4000 yen for the BD, I couldn’t resist. I mean, it was still unopened! So, it’s basically a brand new copy. The Touken Ranbu stage play documentary BD was an amazon pre-order I had delivered to my brother’s place and thus totally planned. Then I also got a Sayo figure from a blind box and also the little Sada. I didn’t know the new series of little figures would be released this year (I thought they were scheduled for January), so when I came across the gacha machine on my last day in Japan I was already out of 100 yen coins and my boyfriend didn’t want to provide me with coins for more than one try. >_< Otherwise I would’ve tried to get a couple more. Anyway, he did buy me the stage play soundtrack right after, so I guess I’m not allowed to complain. ^^;; We also got this little snow globe thing at Saitama’s Railway museum. And the bookmark was a little present I got with the Data SIM we bought.

And I think that concludes the list. At least, when it comes to merch. I also bought some food and candy...

The interesting thing is, I returned with all kinds of stuff I hadn’t planned to buy. The things I had planned on buying, I haven’t really bought... xD Guess I’ll have to place some online orders next year, I really want my Touken Ranbu musical collection to be complete. ^o^

#Riku's random life #Japan

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payment-providers · 4 years ago

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UPDATED PEAK 2020 Mapping the course of lockdown Black Friday

InternetRetailing rounds up the latest news, insights and trends on how retailers and customers are responding to peak trading this year. In recent years pre-Christmas shopping has been at its highest over the Cyber Weekend of Black Friday to Cyber Monday, but the shape of this year’s shopping is likely to be different, since English non-essential shops are now closed until December 2 under a second Covid-19 lockdown, while in Scotland non-essential shops are closed in 11 Tier 4 areas including Glasgow, and Northern Ireland’s non-essential shops are closing for two weeks from today.

Non-essential shops are currently open in Wales.

This piece will be updated through the day, so do check back for more detail. The latest news will be at the top.

Black Friday big online – but across channels?

Barclaycard Payments says that across channels Black Friday payments were 16.7% down, by volume, compared to the same day last year. But it also suggests that the extent to which businesses adopted ecommerce during the first lockdown means the industry was better placed in the second.

Rob Cameron, chief executive of of Barclaycard Payments, says: “We’re now able to look at a full day’s worth of Black Friday sales, and as expected the number of transactions is down compared to last year. It’s important to note that transactions are still up considerably compared to the rest of lockdown, but the real focus now will be on Wednesday December 2– the end of the national lockdown in England – when we predict that shoppers heading back to the high street will bring about a ‘Black Wednesday’, with transactions likely surpassing what we’ve seen today.

“In what has been a difficult year for UK retail, I would like to congratulate businesses for the resilience and determination they have shown. Thanks to the lessons learned in the first lockdown, we have never had more businesses set up to take payments online, offsetting much of the drop in in-store sales over the past month. In fact, if businesses hadn’t taken those lessons on board and embraced ecommerce to the same degree, we believe that the overall drop in transactions could have been up to twice as large.”

• Visitor numbers to the UK’s shops fell by 77%, year-on-year, according to ShopperTrak footfall data from Sensormatic Solutions. Footfall was down by 98% in England alone, where non-essential shops were closed, but even in Wales, where shops were able to trade as usual, sales were 40% down on last year as shoppers bought online instead.

Andy Sumpter, Sensormatic Solutions’ retail consultant for EMEA, says: “Black Friday’s footfall wipe-out won’t come as a surprise, as England remains in the grip of a second national lockdown and shops remain closed. The real test for retailers comes as its non-essential stores reopen next week.”

He adds: ““We expect twice as many shoppers to hit the High Street in December as pent-up demand combined with a compressed Christmas shopping period will drive customers into store,” Sumpter continued. “More than ever before, the shopping public will rely on bricks-and-mortar retail to save the day for their last-minute shopping needs. The challenge of managing a condensed three-week festive shopping window, whilst keeping shoppers and colleagues safe, will be hard work, and may require some fun and festive spirit from all involved.”

• Shopify has some insights into the shape of online shopping. It says that 74% of sales in the UK were on mobile during the course of Black Friday – with 26% via laptop or desktop. Shoppers who bought from websites powered by Shopify spent an average of £60.85, with 20% of sales being made cross-border. The UK, says Shopify, was the third biggest selling country around the world, with the US and Australia coming in ahead.

Customers in London, Manchester, Bolton and Wigan led the way for buying, with the most-shopped categories led by clothing and accessories, health and beauty, home and garden, electronics and food and drinks. London also came second in the scale of city spending, passed only by Venon, California.

Retailers report busiest Black Friday ever – online

John Lewis says its online Black Friday sales are set to be 35% ahead of its busiest day in last year’s peak trading. It says it’s seeing shoppers buy earlier than usual, making 37% more searches than last year – dominated by new game consoles. The figures on based on data at 9am today.

Pippa Wicks, executive director for John Lewis says: “This Black Friday period has been like no other with just three of our shops open, but we’ve worked incredibly hard to meet the significant online demand we’ve seen this past week and to provide our customers with a wide choice of brilliant offers on the products they love.

“We are still offering hundreds of Black Friday deals this weekend and continue to monitor the prices of our high street competitors meaning that our customers can be sure we offer the best value on the high street throughout the Black Friday period and in the run up to Christmas. Preparations are well underway to reopen all of our shops in England next week and we look forward to welcoming our customers to help them make this Christmas extra special.”

The retailer says that since its Black Friday offers began on November 20 it has shipped more than 2.5m items – 67% up on the same time last year. The busiest hour on average has been 8pm to 9pm as people shopped earlier than in previous years with an average of 192 orders per minute. The busiest hour so far was 10am to 11am on the very first day of its Black Friday period (November 20) with an average of 258 orders per minute.

Total one-man deliveries were up 30% this year with standard home delivery up 72% and next and named day deliveries up 114%. There have been more than 18.7m product searches this year, 37% more than last year.

Shoppers started buying early at eBay UK, with two items from its Black Friday hub sold every second between 7am ad 12 noon. Sales, it says, spiked at 9am, with popular products including Lego Harry Potter, the Nintendo Switch and Dyson vacuum cleaners.

Murray Lambell, general manager of eBay UK, says: “The events of this year have driven an unprecedented shift to online, and this trend has continued into the Black Friday period as consumers look to capitalise on the best value deals. Already, the Nintendo Switch has proven to be one of the most popular products for the festive season, selling out in record time, and at peak, selling 1 every 4 seconds.

“We’ve seen a sustained surge in demand with consumers preparing for Christmas earlier than ever, and this morning we’ve seen a distinct shift in shopping patterns. With people largely working from home, we saw the first sales traffic peak on eBay UK at 9am, whereas last year we saw traffic hit much earlier, with commuters browsing deals on their phones on the way to work.”

Black Friday appears on track to break records

This Black Friday is set to be a record-breaking one, says Tony Preedy, managing director of the International Fruugo online marketplace. He says shoes, clothes and jewellery are among the top sellers around the world.

Halway through Black Friday in the UK, Fruugo says a handful of categories are overperforming as shoppers opt to buy during the day and are this year buying online.

Tony Preedy, managing director of Fruugo says: “With Black Friday not even done yet we can already say with confidence that it’s a record-setting event for us, and surely for many other online retailers as well. Our performance is a testament to consumers becoming increasingly accustomed to using marketplaces for online shopping, as it directs you to a wide range of products not easily found elsewhere all in one place – a benefit for shoppers looking for more unique or unusual products.

“As a marketplace focused on cross border sales we can also vouch for this being a truly global event, with demand for many of our top selling products coming from markets like Germany and the Netherlands. This is pushing retailers to start trading more across borders as they see the potential for growth by doing so.”

Meanwhile, affiliate network Awin says UK shoppers have bought strongly in the week leading up to Black Friday in categories including entertainment (+121% increase on the previous week), music and DVDs, photos and print services (+101%) and PC and video games (+99%).

The categories that sold most when analysed by volume including womenswear (+47%), clothing (+36%), health and beauty (+57%) and department stores (+11%).

Sales were up by 37% this week compared to the previous week – although in previous years, the coming Saturday and Sunday have been still bigger-selling days.

Joelle Hillman, retail client partner at Awin said: “It’s been a particularly unusual year for retailers, with some having to shut their physical doors for a long period of time and losing out on lots of sales, and others in the digital realm experiencing a huge increase in sales, putting them ahead of their sales forecast for the year.

“There’s never been a better time to have an ecommerce offering and this data backs that up. There have been over 90,000 online sales made through our partner department stores for Black Friday events alone.’

She added: “The event has become much more than just one day and we wouldn’t be surprised if this weekend will once again see a bigger sales growth – and even more discounts on offer for UK consumers to take advantage of.”

Clothing retailers discounting to sell stock

Clothing retailers have been particularly badly affected by this year’s Covid-19 lockdowns. Last week’s ONS Retail Sales report for October showed that clothing was one of only two categories – along with automotive fuel – where sales had still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. But IMRG tracking of the category has shown sales in the sector have started to recover in the run up to Back Friday (see below).

That’s partly because their shops have been closed during both main lockdowns and social distancing measures mean that many do not give shoppers the chance to try clothes on. But it’s also because shoppers are now more likely to be working from home and do not see the need for formal workwear in the way they did previously.

That context is likely reflected in the level of today’s discounts. Asos is offering up to 70% off everything, in what it says is its biggest Black Friday deal ever, while Boohoo has gone several steps further with a dramatic up to 90% off everything. Its stablemates Karen Millen and Oasis are both offering up to 70% off everything.

Fashion brand Jigsaw, which has in previous years eschewed Black Friday, is this year offering 30% off many full-price clothing items in a Black Friday sale that ends on Monday. Among other clothing retailers, Gap is offering 50% off everything, while Zara is offering 40% off. Hush, by contrast, is not offering Black Friday deals today but is donating 20% of all the sales it makes today to Crisis.

Meanwhile, Top Shop and Topman, part of the Arcadia group that is today reported by Sky News to be close to administration, are both offering 25% off everything, while stablemate Burton is offering up to 60% off everything.

Assessing demand

Boots appears to have more demand than it can easily handle today, since it’s operating a queue system last seen during the first Covid-19 lockdown. That said, reaching the front of the queue took more than five minutes when InternetRetailing visited – much less than lockdown queues of an hour or more. Its message for those waiting reads: “Demand is high but stay where you are to avoid missing out. Thanks for your patience. We promise it will be worth the wait!” Once arrived, the retailer is offering 20% off beauty and fragrance and 25% off Mothercare clothing, among other offers.

The experience is in contrast to visits to clothing and department store retailers this morning. Whether that’s because demand is lower in those categories or because their website capacity is greater is not yet clear.

How are RXUK Top500 Elite retailers responding to Black Friday?

Amazon was one of the pioneers of Black Friday, back in 2010, when it and Asda both tested the water for an event that previously mostly took place in the US, where it falls straight after Thanksgiving.

Today the retailer is offering new deals as often as every five minutes, giving its customers a reason to keep coming back. It’s also emphasising its delivery capacity and its entertainment offer, offering free trials of Amazon Prime, Music and Video. Innovations include a small business gift finder, that shoppers can use to find present ideas from the small businesses that sell via Amazon Marketplace. It’s also running Black Friday Live entertainment from 6pm tonight, starting with a DJ set from Marvin Humes, followed by streamed events on each day over the weekend.

Black Friday dominates the home page at Argos. It is leading with offers on tech, appliances and Lego, with discounts of up to a third off. It’s emphasising its click and collect service alongside its customer loyalty scheme – shoppers can earn Nectar points – and flagging up add-ons including finance and warranties.

Dunelm is eschewing Black Friday as an event – although the concept does dominate its front page. It takes a witty approach, offering “Friday available in lots of colours” with the suggestion that since it offers “the same great value every day” there’s “no need to wait for a Friday in November”. It highlights its delivery and three-hour contact-free click and collect promises on its front page.

John Lewis is very much taking part in Black Friday, flagging up offers on home, fashion, electricals and gifts, and making it clear that click and collect is available. Offers are by fashion brand and by technology product, with up to 50% off Mulberry and between 20% and 25% off other fashion brands.

At Marks & Spencer, the focus is on festivities, with a ‘Here comes Christmas’ home page but there is no specific mention of Black Friday. There are discounts to be had, but these are rather ‘deals of the week’, including 40% off on some homewares, 30% off on some womenswear, and 20% off some beauty brands. Delivery and collection promises are flagged up clearly. M&S also has the advantage as an essential retailer that its shops are open and a banner tells shoppers they can buy with confidence in-store – although the detail shows that clothing floors are closed except where they provide access.

The emphasis on Next’s home page is on Christmas. Its Black Friday sale takes up only part of its home page – and that consists of a 30% off designer kidswear offer on its sister site, childsplay.co.uk. The retailer is flagging up unlimited deliveries and says it is open as normal – since click and collect is available in its stores.

Beyond the Elite, Currys PC World is hosting ’Black Fri-yay’, adding more deals to an event that has been underway for some time. As with other multichannel retailers, it’s flagging up the fact that shoppers can collect in store as well as ordering for home delivery. Unlike many others, it is also offering the chance for shoppers to talk to a member of store staff via video through its Shop Live service. Debenhams also has what it says is its biggest Black Friday half price sale yet, including deals on fragrances.

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dlamp-dictator · 7 years ago

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Allen Rambles about Tokyo Ghoul

Okay, finished up volume 10 of Tokyo Ghoul, I’ll probably wrap up the series by tonight if writing fanfiction, original stories, and drawing don’t distract me and give my full thoughts then, but for now... I have several issues. I’ll try not to Ramble, but... no promises.

Allen, as of editing this post: TOO LATE, I RAMBLED SO I’M JUST GOING ALL IN NOW. GLAD I DIDN’T PROMISE ANYTHING.

Alright, so Tokyo Ghoul. I got into this series when the anime came out. For those unfamiliar Tokyo Ghoul explores on the ideas of the traditional ghoul, humanoid creatures that survive by eating human flesh. Basically, zombie vampires-type creatures. This story focuses on Ken Kaneki, a young college student that was turned into a ghoul after an encounter with a Rize Kamishiro, a powerful Ghoul that would had devoured him had she not died in an accident they were both involved with. From there, the story follows Kaneki as he learns about Ghoul society, both the good and the bad.

I found the concept worth looking into, and the first few episodes of the anime was very impactful with how Kaneki was forced to adjust to his bad situation, learning he had to eat human flesh in order to survive and not starve, learning how Ghouls live in human society under the radar. I remember the anime being a little lackluster with it ending season 1 on a cliffhanger and season 2 practically plowing through the second half of the manga series, but since then I’ve bought the entire manga series... pre-:Re anyway. I wanted to take another look at this series and see if the anime fixed any of the issues I had with out. Sadly... it doesn’t, at least not yet. Like I said, I wrapped up volume 10 and I have 4 more books to go, but... I don’t think I’m going to be happy with how this story ends if certain questions don’t get answered.

With that all said, I wanted to cover some of the issues I had with the series so far, mostly to get them off my chest before going into what I’m assuming to be the climax of the series.

Kaneki forming his own faction

I don’t believe the anime answered this, but the manga indefinitely doesn’t tell me why Kaneki decides to not rejoin Anteiku and form his own faction of Ghouls instead. And it’s a really big deal that he does this too, so I was hoping I’d hear directly from his mouth why he did this. By not going back to Anteiku and making his own group, Kaneki has added a fourth major faction between his new group, Aogiri, Anteiku, and the CCG. Granted, Anteiku is less a faction as it is a coalition (yes, there is a differences), but the point remains that we have yet another group to keep track of with new goals. In a way... from a writing perspective, I understand why this was done. The Aogiri’s goals and aims are still mostly unknown, the CCG, while established, were slowly falling to the sidelines while Aogiri were being the antagonists, and Anteiku, again, was more a group of like-minded Ghouls rather than a faction making moves and getting involved with the politics of the story. For Kaneki to remain a central character, he had to do something big like this. It’s just... I’m not too comfortable with how it was done.

My issue of why Kaneki does this in the first place. Like... I can infer to why he’d want to branch away from Anteiku, but I don’t know. Just to catch some of you guys up to where I’m at, Kaneki had busted himself out of his Aogiri prison/torture and had beaten his captor to the point of near death. Before that, he was physically and mentally tortured for what I’m assuming was days or weeks to the point of nearly breaking. To break out, he had to accept the Ghoul side of him that he was repressing for about 6 volumes into order to summon his kagune and fight properly. This was also to finish his character arc and move him from being a shy, reserved bookworm to a capable and strong Ghoul able to protect himself and his friends. After this, he saves female lead and this series’s Best Girl, Touka Kirishima from being brutalized by her brother and then rejecting her offer to return to Anteiku, the coffee shop who’s workers consist of mostly peaceful Ghouls, to form his own faction instead because, and I quote:

“There’s something I want to do. I need to prepare for it. I need to get stronger. There’s a lot I need to find out too. I don’t have time.” (Kaneki)

So... what exactly does that mean. I mean really, what does that explain? That sounds like something a generic shounen protagonist would say, and I would accept that if Kaneki was a 13-year-old spunky kid self-reflect, but Kaneki isn’t Gon Freecss, he’s a college kid reaching his early 20s, I’m gonna’ need more of reason than that. Kaneki was 13, this would be understandable, but he’s nearing 20 so this is esoteric at best, and childish at worse. I get that he was tortured and to the point of mentally breaking, but I’d rather him just leave and muse about his reasoning to himself then saying... that.

Later on, around volume 9 I can slowly piece this line together. Kaneki wants to find out more about Rize’s existence, Dr. Kano, and the reason he was made into a ghoul in the first place. To do that, he needs more strength than what Anteiku can provide since they are mostly peaceful ghouls that are either unfamiliar, unwilling, or unable to delve into the underbelly of Ghoul society where the information he seeks lies. And he doesn’t have time to train himself in the traditional sense at Anteiku to get the strength he needs to learn these things, as what little traces of Kano and Rize could vanish due to the lack of information about their existence in general. This line makes sense now, but it was infuriating to deal with until then. It felt like Kaneki just left everyone hanging and everyone was... cool with it. Touka wasn’t, understandably, but still. I understand hiding things from the characters to keep them guessing, but I personally don’t like being left in the dark with things like this.

The Abundance of Characters and Perspectives

As of volume 10 there are about 23-26 characters of importance in the manga, and roughly 4 major factions that are actively involved in the plot of the story. That’s... a lot to cover in a series that has only four more volumes before the jump to :Re. The cast feels a tad bloated with it trying to keep all these characters in our minds. Personally, I’d rather just focus on Kaneki, Touka, and Hide as the main trio of perspectives, then occasionally move into the CCG with Amon and Akira with Juza and Shinohara as prevalent side characters, then (probably) to Ayato’s perspective when we need to see what our villains are doing.

Last time I talked about Tokyo Ghoul I said I liked how when we see the CCG’s perspective we get to see them work with the information they have and truly speculate on the situation and... well, investigate. Most of the investigators assumptions are usually in the ballpark of what we, the audience, know, but just missing enough pieces that it feels like it’s a true investigation is going on. However... now it’s getting a little tiring to read that. I’ll talk a little bit more about a pacing in a bit, but seeing their perspective and investigation process really makes things slow down and feels unneeded when gang wars and whatnot are happening in the background of Ghoul society. I care about Amon, Akira, and Hide’s situation, but... not enough that I need to view it with a fine-tooth comb as they chat about it over dinner.

Again, I feel like the main trio should have more focus, but... I digress.

Another thing this large cast does is take away focus from what I would consider the other perspectives we need to see. I said that I think the main trio in this story would be Kaneki, Touka, and Hide. Kaneki being the Ghoul slowly adjusting to Ghoul life and having the world-building explained to him as a surrogate audience member. Touka being a “typical Ghoul” that understand what the life of a Ghoul is like and a general badass for us to root for when the action happens. And Hide being a human perspective that reminds us that humans do exist and interact with Ghouls, as well as an outsider’s look into the CCG as of volumes 9 and 10. I think that would had worked well, but... this main focuses on Kaneki with some peeks at Amon and Juzu, which I think is a crying shame because Touka and Hide really need more screentime, Hide especially as I feel like the manga really wants me to like him, but hasn’t given me much reason outside of his friendly personality. Don’t get me wrong, I like that Hide is probably the only character that is a genuine nice guy, but since he’s rarely around or has little major relevance in the overall plot I... can’t like him as much as I think I should.

Ah, but moving on. Since I mentioned it before, let me just going into...

Pacing and World Building

I won’t say Tokyo Ghoul’s pacing is bad, but it does feel like it takes quite a long time to read as of these recent volumes. It’s mostly due to reading from multiple factions and perspective that I personally don’t care for when other things are going on that I’m interested in, but the world building plays a part in it too.

I think Tokyo Ghoul has good world building, I think it has great world building. Everything that I want explained about the world is explained. I understand how and why Kagunes are a thing, I understand how and why Qinques are a thing, I know the importance of RC cells, I know the advantages and disadvantages of Kagunes and Qinques by their type, I know how CCG members are trained up. I think if I really wanted to, I could make a pretty decent Ghoul or CCG OC. And if people can make a decent OC that you actually see in the world of a show or series without breaking lore or canon, then that’s some damn good world building. My Hero Academia, RWBY, and One Piece do this well too.

However... that world building can drag the pace of the manga to a crawl this late into the game. We really shouldn’t have anymore text dumps about lore and world anymore. The extra information about wards that haven’t be explored yet are... unneeded to me until our main characters actually go there. It makes some volumes and moments feel like longer reads than they should.

But moving on to my other issue.

Kano’s Motives

Doctor Kano’s reasoning behind turning Kaneki into a Ghoul are about as vague as Kaneki’s reasons for leaving Anteiku, and unlike Kaneki, I can’t piece together his reasoning yet. I still have about 4 volumes to go until I complete the series before :Re, but I doubt I’ll get a satisfying answer in that time.

But let me quote the man himself before I go any further:

“Why do you think a caged bird can’t fly freely? It’s because the cage doesn’t belong to them. Who created this birdcage we call the world? That is the question. I realized a warped cage entangles our world. I want to destroy that To do so, I need the most powerful means. In other words, ghouls.” (Kano)

Much like with Kaneki’s spiel, I feel like this is just... esoteric at best. Within the context of the manga, I don’t understand what Kano means by seeing the world as a cage. I can see the Ghouls thinking that way, as movement and general freedom on their end is practically nonexistent, but Kano... Kano is a human that has way more freedom to do as he pleases than Ghouls do.

Much like with Kaneki I have my inferences about the meaning behind Kano’s words. Maybe he means that after working with the CCG he realizes the pointlessness of the system and how trapped both CCG and Ghouls are in the current state of things, and went to less savory means break the system. Maybe he’s forced to remain in Tokyo due to his work with the CCG and is making artificial Ghouls to cause enough chaos so he slip out in the confusion. Maybe Toyko is actually on some martial law lockdown and everyone really is caged in the literal sense, so be making artificial Ghouls he can scare the officials into canceling the lockdown.

Or maybe he’s just fucking crazy and that esoteric spiel was just that because he’s fucking crazy... if that’s the answer I’m honestly going to scream.

I’m not sure, but the point is, this feels... contrived.

Other Issues I Have

I have a few more things to talk about, but I can’t talk about them as in length as the previous points, so I’ll just jot down my notes here.

I said it already, but it worth saying again, as of these later volumes past 8 I find myself caring less and less about the CCG side of things. That’s mostly my own personal investment (or lack thereof) in them, but still.

An issue I have with 90% of manga, but one stating nonetheless, female characters don’t really get much of a spotlight. Touka especially, who's starting to feel like a side character now that big moves and power plays are being made outside of Anteiku’s control. This is a crime as far as I’m concern since she just checks off so many things I like seeing in female characters. But most females don’t really get much development compared to the male ones. Again, this is an issue I have with most manga and anime in general, but Tokyo Ghoul is kind of proving my point.

Something I should had mentioned in the first part, but... Hinami staying with Kaneki bugs me quite a bit. I get why Hinami is with Kaneki, but I still don’t like the fact Kaneki didn’t kick her out for her own safety, especially with all his talk of wanting to protect people he cares about. He should know the dangerous of having a child in a faction of people combating Aogiri, the CCG, and sniffing around the underbelly of Ghoul society. From a moral view, Kaneki should had sent Hinami to be with Touka for safe keeping, whether she wanted to keep him company or not.

Kaneki in general feels... off at times, and I don’t mean as a character, but how he’s written. I feel like the writer is trying to keep this balance of innocence and viciousness with Kaneki’s character, but... I’m having a hard time buying it. Characters with that dual nature are balls hard to pull off well, and I think Kaneki shows why. For examples of characters I think do have this balance looks at Gon Freecss from Hunter X Hunter and Durarara’s Mikado Ryugamine.

That Ghoul jailbreak that was mentioned around volume 8... ish. I don’t remember ever seeing it happen. I know it happened in the anime, but I don’t remember seeing it happen and the manga, which makes Shachi just... come out of nowhere, and that’s kind of bad when he becomes a major antagonist as of volume 10.

Good Points of Tokyo Ghoul

Like with Juni Taisen, I have stuck with this manga for so long for a reason. Hell, I brought all of the manga pre-:Re because I do like this series despite my gripes and issues with it. So just to prove I’m not ragging on something for the sake of ragging on it, let me just go over some of the good things I like about it real quick.

The artwork looks great, the character designs in general are fantastic to look at. If anything, I’d love to see some more of Sui Ishida’s designs once he finishes Tokyo Ghoul. This man would make one hell of a character designer if he got into video games. I hate Tsukiyama with a passion, but goddamn do I want half his suits.

As bloated as the cast feels, everyone stands out and make an instant first impression from their designs and intros alone. Kaneki is an anti-social nerd, Touka is a tomboyish hard worker, Hide his an excitable bundle of energy that’s clearly hiding his intelligence, Tsukiyama is... Tsukiyama, Banjo is an idiot, the list goes on, but every makes an impression. One glance at their design, a few bits of dialogue, and I already get what the character is about... most of the time.

The action is just great. Shachi’s martial arts stuff just looks really good, as out of nowhere as I feel he is. I honestly feel like Sui Ishida probably read all the martial arts books Kaneki was in help him draw some of those scenes. It makes me wish Tokyo Ghoul was a little more action-focused... but then again, when don’t I wish for more action in a series.

As little screentime as she’s getting now, I really do like Touka a lot. She’s tough, she’s cool, but she’s got enough flaws in her character to make her feel human. And every panel I see her in she looks great.

As forced as it’s starting to feel now, the world-building is done well. Again, I think everything that needs to be explained is explained. Hell, I’m tempted to make a Tokyo Ghoul OC with all the information I know about it.

This is more about the character design, but I really like how unique every ghoul’s mask is. My favorite designs are Kuro and Shiro, they really complement each other well.

Phew, this essay took awhile to finish, but at least it didn’t take 3 days like the Juni Taisen one. For all my issues, I really like this series a lot. I don’t know if I like it enough to continue to :Re, but that all depends on how the series ends Part 1 I suppose.

But... what about you all? I’m tagging the fandom after all. What’s the general thoughts on the Tokyo Ghoul manga? And... is there a budding Tokyo Ghoul OC community like My Hero Academia? I’m gonna’ probably work on a Tokyo Ghoul OC after posting this, so... look out for that.

And as always when I finish these essays about shows and anime, Allen’s Best Girl for Tokyo Ghoul is definitely Miss Touka Kirishima. I could honestly Ramble about why I like her so much, but... I think this’ll suffice for now. I’m a little tired after working on this essay, so a cute picture of her should do fine.

#your dictator is speaking #tokyo ghoul

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opticien2-0 · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus round-up: how shoppers are changing the way they buy, in updates from Emarsys, Melody, Forter, IRI, Bloomreach and a new Edinburgh farmers’ market

We’re reporting on the effect of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic on the way UK shoppers buy – and on how retailers are responding to that changing behaviour. This update comes when, as of 9am on April 26, 152,840 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 20,732 people have died of it in hospital. Over the previous day, 4,463 people tested positive and 413 people died.

John Lewis making plans for store reopening as early as next month

John Lewis says it’s making plans to reopen its stores – and could be ready to open the first in mid-May. We also report as the retailer reopens its Lancashire textiles factory in order to sew scrubs for the NHS. Read the full story here.

New customers make up almost half of retailers’ ecommerce sales in March

New customers accounted for nearly half of retailers’ online sales in March, figures suggest.

Data from Covid-19 Commerce Insight, run jointly by customer engagement specialist Emarsys and analytics provider GoodData, suggests that retailers saw 43% of ecommerce transactions coming from customers who were new to them, and 23% from active repeat customers. Smaller numbers were from second-time buyers (5%), defecting customers (14%) and inactive customers (8%).

Alex Timlin, senior vice president of verticals at Emarsys, said: “Our own customers — especially supermarkets — have told us over the past month that they’re dealing with not just more customers but more types of customers than they know how to deal with. “It’s now more important than ever to be able to quickly distinguish new customers from loyal ones, so you can target them with campaigns in the right way and do so quickly. Artificial intelligence is a huge asset to marketers here because it can analyse your entire customer base quickly to determine who’s new and who’s loyal. Then you can set up separate automated digital campaigns for each type of customer.”

UK shopping behaviour changing – 60% say for good: study

Most UK shoppers have changed the way they buy as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new study suggests.

Ecommerce agency Melody questioned more than 2,000 UK shoppers – and 92% said they were shopping differently as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Thirteen per cent of respondents said they were doing more online shopping during working hours than they did before. A quarter (25%) said they were buying goods online they previously bought in shops – and 19% are turning to Amazon to do that shopping.

Six in 10 (60%) say they’ll continue to buy the way they are now, with 12% saying they are likely to carry on buying items they previously bought on the high street online. However,15% believe they will do less shopping. A third of all UK shoppers (33%) say they now do less shopping of any type, rising to 40% of women. Female shoppers are also now more likely to shop online instead of in stores – and much more likely than men (29% vs. 18%) to no longer shop on high streets at all.

Men, found the study, visit ecommerce sites more often than women to browse because of the lockdown (13% of men, 8% of women) – and 17% of men say they now do more online shopping during working hours, compared to only 9% of women.

Mark Burgess, business director at Melody, said: “Clearly we’re living through unprecedented times and it’s hard to separate anticipated consumer intent from actual behaviour, but the lockdown has significantly impacted the UK’s retail landscape and our shopping habits.

“According to our research, the shift to online retail looks here to stay. More people are trialling e-commerce channels at more numerous points on their shopper journey and as ecommerce absorbs the role played by the physical environment.

“It’s no surprise that companies that have never previously considered offering an e-commerce solution, or indeed needed to, are now trying to adapt their business model – or at the very least, enhance their current content and media solutions across etail.”

How chargebacks have evolved

Credit card chargebacks are now more likely to be from service failures than from fraud, Forter analysis suggests. The data finds that while service chargebacks use to be 60% lower than fraud chargebacks, service chargebacks are now 50% higher than those for fraud. Most chargebacks between early February and mid-March came as flights were cancelled, but after that there was an additional rise related to the food and drink industry as well as from grocery and delivery services.

The analysis is from the Forter Global Merchant Network, which includes more than 100 customers around the world, turning over more than $150bn in commerce transactions a year. It shows that the rise in service chargebacks comes as up to 75% of customers are now new customers – as as their expectations do not meet the reality of the service they are receiving.

Retailers who are benefitting form an upturn in business – according to Forter data – include those selling home and garden products (+369% transaction volumes), including mattresses and bedding (+575%), groceries and grocery delivery (+243%), alcohol (+327%), beauty products (+216%), clothing and accessories (+106%) and marketplaces (+92%). Sales of virtual coins (+61%) and computers (+49%) are both up. Those suffering include those selling jewellery (-25%) and travel, with transaction volumes down for those selling hotel rooms (-87%), flights (-95%), ride sharing (-89%) and suitcases (-84%).

Online shopping grows around Europe

People locked down at home in Italy, France and Spain are doing more of their shopping online, according to data from the IRI Consumer Spending Tracker, for the week to April 12.

Most online shopping now via mobile

Shoppers are doing most of their online shopping via their mobile phones and devices during the coronavirus pandemic, data from Bloomreach suggests. Bloomreach figures for the period between April 12 and 18 saw 61% of online purchases take place on mobile devices, while 39% were on desktop.

Search traffic, total traffic and conversions came consistently from mobile devices, peaking at night. Desktop traffic was highest during lunch hours – at 24% of conversions, while 19% of conversions at that time came via mobile. At night, 18% of conversions were via mobile, while 13% were on desktop.

New click and collect farmers’ market launches in Edinburgh

Edinburgh food producer Sonia Nicolas-Garcia has launched Edinburgh’s first click and collect farmer’s market to support local producers during the coronavirus crisis.

Customers can buy goods from a wide range of local food and drink producers all in one place and then collect purchases from a local restaurant being used as a collection point once a week.

The virtual farmer’s market for Edinburgh West has launched with the help of The Great British Food Hub, a platform that Gillian Mackay, a pig farmer from Strathblane, founded two years ago.

Mackay said: “Food Hubs are a fantastic way for producers to sell direct to local communities, food miles are low and there is no wastage as all items are pre-ordered. They have become something of a lifeline to many small, local food and drink producers who saw their commercial customers close their doors overnight, hugely impacting on their ability to continue trading. We’re seeing a 500% increase in sales across our Food Hubs. If anything good were to come out of Covid-19 maybe it will be more of an awareness of food security and the benefits of supporting businesses producing food and drink right here on our doorstep rather than relying on supermarkets who have been letting us all down in recent weeks.”

Nicolas-Garcia said: “I’ve been selling my produce as a food producer since The Great British Food Hub launched and have been desperate to set up my own hub. It’s so easy, customers can order online each week until midnight on Monday from our super-secure market then come along to our venue, The Black Hoof restaurant on Dalry Road on Wednesdays where we will be operating a contactless collection at the door ensuring that all social distancing measures are met. As a producer it’s great, I know exactly what to cook or bake each week for the Food Hub customers so there’s never any wastage and I get a much better return than selling through conventional farmer’s markets. ”

So far 10 producers including Alba Seafood, Woodmill Game, Ardunan Farm, Heather Hills Farm, The Wee Honey Bee, Isle of Skye Sea Salt and Bon Accord Soft Drinks have signed up and you can order from them now! More producers are joining daily.

New customers can simply register, verify their email address via the website or on the app then login to shop.

Image: Fotolia

from InternetRetailing https://ift.tt/3cJJ4HU via IFTTT

#Retail 2.0

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cardcaptorcoconut · 8 years ago

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Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc Chapter 11 Translation

I went to the bookstore at lunch today and was happy to find that Nakayoshi is out a day early. Here is the full version of the chapter 11 translation. Going through it a second/third time, I noticed some errors I made in the preview versions and have corrected them (just nuances and typos; nothing plot significant). Sorry about the changes!

Also, I bought some extra goods yesterday at Sakura Fest and will be updating my CCS goods sale post soon. If you’re interested in an item, please PM me. Right now things are quite busy for me at work, but I will try to respond as quickly as I can. :)

☆★Translation Notes Reminder★☆

Disclaimer: These are just fan translations. Please support the official release.

Chapter 11

Splash Page with Anime Preview Art: “I believed that we would meet again!”

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc Volume 3 on sale Wednesday, September 13th. The special edition version of Volume 3 will include an OVA animation DVD with the story “Sakura & the Two Bears” - sold together with volume 3, pre-order start!!

[Note: This story will be an anime adaptation of both Syaoran’s original confession from the manga, and Sakura’s confession to him before he leaves for Hong Kong]

Deadline for applying: Friday, July 14th, 2017 On sale date Wednesday, September 13th Price: 3,480 Yen

Cover Page:

“Could you be friends with me?”

P1 Yue: Another new card…? Sakura: Yeah… At Tomoyo-chan’s house. Yue: What kind of card is it? Sakura: This is it. Kero: "Record"… Yue: You don’t have to get close to the screen. I should just look at what our mistress has in her hand. Kero: True, but there’s such a thing as having a presence, you know. Yue: What can it do?

P2 Sakura: I haven’t tried it out yet. But I think it can record things somehow. Kero: Try it out right now! Sakura: Okay! "Record!“ <Sakura activates the card>

P3 Kero: It’s not moving, right? Sakura: Y-yeah. Kero: I guess it won’t work unless you give it a proper command? Sakura: Take a recording around me now! Kero: This (card)… did it record? Sakura: How are we supposed to watch (what it recorded)?

P4 Sakura: Project what you’ve recorded! Kero: Ooooh! Sakura: It’s like I’m really standing right here! Kero: I see. So this is how it’s used! Kero: Record Yue next time too. Yue: No thanks.

P5 Yue: Well for now, it looks as though you’re unharmed. Kero: That’s right. Sakura: But this might be useful. I can use this whenever there’s something I want to save. Sakura: I’d just been thinking how it would be nice if I could do that… Sakura: Ah! Sakura: I need to leave about now! I’ll talk to you later, Yue-san! Yue: Be careful on your way. Sakura: I will!

P6 Sakura: I’m heading out! <Kero dives into Sakura’s bag. A moment later, Sakura sees Akiho> Sakura: Akiho-chan! Akiho: Good morning. Sakura: Good morning. Good morning to you too, Momo-chan!

P7 Akiho: Good morning to your friend too. <Sakura pulls Kero out of the bag. Caption reads: “Pretending to be a stuffed animal”> Sakura: Yeah! Sakura: Kero-chan came along with me! Akiho: Good morning, Kero-san. Kero: <thinking> Strangled! I’m being strangled!! <Sakura shoves him back into her bag> Sakura: That reminds me, whereabouts do you live Akiho-chan?

[Lit: …where is your house?]

P8 Akiho: It’s (a bit of) an isolated house that’s a close enough distance to walk to. I heard that a boy from England who was about my age used to live there before. Sakura: Eh!? Sakura: Do you happen to have a picture of your house? Akiho: Y-yes.

P9 Sakura: It’s Eriol-kun’s house! Akiho: Eh!? <Later at school> Kero: I was strangled… At that rate, I thought I was gunna (die).

[Note: The Japanese was あのまま落ちるかと思たで – The word kero uses is 落ちる which has several meanings (e.g. “to fall”, “to drop”, “to fail”, “to give up”, “to die”). I thought of these he was probably being extra dramatic, but he could have just meant that he was about to drop the stuffed animal façade.]

Sakura: I-I’m sorry. Kero: Next time be more careful about how you treat me. Kero: So, about this morning’s conversation… Sakura: That’s right. It’s about Akiho-chan’s house. Syaoran: So it was Hiiragizawa’s house...

P10 Sakura: I was surprised. But Akiho-chan was surprised too when I said it was where our friend used to live. <Text around Eriol says “Former Home Owner”> Sakura: And so, she invited us over to visit this Sunday. Syaoran: To Shinomoto’s house? Sakura: Akiho-chan has been to many countries and she said she’d show us the books she’s collected from (her travels).

[Lit: …she said she’d show us the books she’s collected from those times.]

Sakura: I’m sure I won’t be able to read foreign books, but she said she has books with lovely pictures and photos. Syaoran: I’m sorry. I have something to do on Sunday… Sakura: I see… That’s a shame. Well, Tomoyo-chan and I will go then. Syaoran: Can you apologize to Shinomoto for me? Sakura: Sure! Sakura: U-um so… Are you free the next Sunday?

P11 Sakura: U-um, I’m working really hard on the tamagoyaki [Lit: rolled egg]. It’s warm out and if the weather’s nice, um, we can go out together… Syaoran: If you’re okay going with me. Sakura: Th-that goes for me too. If you’re okay going with me! Kero: Hey, I’m here too! It’s not just your own world, you two!

P12 Kero: Tomoyo, why do you have to have classroom duty today? (I’m the third wheel…)

[Lit: “I’m lonely…” but it’s basically what he means]

<Later, Sakura and Tomoyo go to Eriol’s/Akiho’s house> Sakura: So it really is Eriol-kun’s house. Tomoyo: It looks that way. <Sakura rings the bell> Akiho: Yes?

P13 Sakura: U-um, it’s Kinomoto. Tomoyo: (And) Daidouji. Akiho: I’ll open it now. Sakura: Wow! Akiho: Please come in. Sakura: Y-yes! Kero: You’re moving really suspiciously. Tomoyo: Thank you for inviting us. Sakura: …(f-for inviting us). Akiho: I’m so happy that you came!

P14 Yuna: Hello. Yuna: Thank you for coming all this way today. Akiho: Ever since I was little, I’ve always caused Kaito-san a lot of trouble. Yuna: I am Yuna D. Kaito. I watch over Akiho-san. It’s very nice to meet you.

[Note: Yuna speaks very politely and uses honorifics much like Tomoyo does.]

P15 Yuna: And you haven’t caused me trouble even once, Akiho-san. Yuna: Please come inside. Sakura: Wow!

P16 Sakura: It’s really different from when Eriol-kun lived here. Tomoyo: That’s true. Sakura: What a cute room. <Yuna brings tea into the room> Akiho: That’s a nice aroma. Yuna: I prepared the cherry blossom flavored tea souvenir you gave us. Akiho: <to Sakura and Tomoyo> Thank you very much. Sakura: Tomoyo-chan and I picked it put. Yuna: Here you are.

P17 Sakura, Tomoyo, & Akiho: Thank you so much! Sakura & Akiho: It’s delicious! Yuna: Thank you very much. Please have some of this too. Sakura, Tomoyo, & Akiho: I’ll have some! Sakura: Hanya~n! <Sakura is suddenly embarrassed>

P18 Sakura: I-it’s nothing! Tomoyo: What’s the matter? Sakura: I accidentally said “Hanya~n” Tomoyo: But it’s so cute… Sakura: I’m a middle school student now and it’s a little embarrassing, so I’m trying not to say it as much as I can. Sakura: It’s very delicious! Tomoyo: Which cake shop is this from? Yuna: It’s from here. Tomoyo: Oh wow, this is homemade?

P19 Akiho: He always makes homemade sweets, meals, and bentos for me. Sakura: That’s amazing! Yuna: Not at all. Yuna: It’s because this is my job. Sakura: Akiho-chan…

P20 Akiho: After we finish the cake, there’s a place I definitely want to show you. <Akiho takes Sakura & Tomoyo to her library> Sakura: Wow!!

P21 Sakura: Are these all your books? Akiho: Rather than belonging to me, these were collected by my relatives. Tomoyo: Your family must be avid readers. Akiho: Yes, they all love books. They collect them whenever they travel around various countries. This is just a small part (of the collection). Sakura: Hoeee, this is… Akiho: I love books too… There’s a book I want at any cost that I came to Japan to get. Sakura: (You came to Japan) for a book?

P22 Akiho: For that, and also… <Sakura feels a presence> Sakura: <thinking> Huh…? Akiho: What’s the matter? Tomoyo: ……

P23 Sakura: I-it’s nothing. Sakura: Ah! Akiho-chan, you said you have a favorite book, didn’t you? Akiho: Yes. Sakura: I was just thinking I’d love to see it if that’s okay with you. Akiho: Of course! Akiho: It’s in my room, so I’ll go and get it.

P24 Tomoyo: Could it be that…? Sakura: Yeah… It might be a card. Tomoyo: Did something happen? Sakura: No, (I only felt) a presence. It seemed like it was over here. Sakura: Huh? Sakura: This is the only place that doesn’t have books? Tomoyo: You’re right.

P25 Tomoyo: Volumes 1 through 9 are all here. Then there’s a gap (until) Volume 18 onwards. Sakura: I wonder if someone is reading them. Sakura: Eh!? Tomoyo: What happened? Sakura: This…! Narration: The books that mysterious disappeared. Just what does this mean? The highly praised Volume 2 is now on sale ☆

#cardcaptor sakura #card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura clear card arc #card captor sakura clear card arc #clear card arc #translations: clear card arc #ccs

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noisyunknownturtle · 5 years ago

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3 Reasons Last Week’s Epic Bitcoin Price Crash Has a Silver Lining

Bitcoin (BTC) hodlers deserve a pat on the back for making it through this last week, as BTC witnessed its largest sell-off in history, in terms of USD value, causing the leading digital asset to shed $70bn of its market cap in a single 24-hour period.

I shudder to think about the fortunes that were lost, but as we are left reeling in the aftermath of this selloff, a question remains. Could anyone have seen this coming? And has the outlook for Bitcoin now changed?

These are two questions I will attempt to address in today’s analysis.

Daily crypto market performance. Source: Coin360.com

Sorry, not sorry… I called it in January

In my analysis that was published on Jan. 12, I put forward the case that Bitcoin could fall to $3,800 by April 2020.

BTC USD monthly chart. Source: TradingView

I came to this conclusion when I realized that the monthly volume had been in a steady decline for several years and that the moving average of the Bollinger Bands on the monthly chart has been broken every month in the last quarter of 2019.

I also saw similar patterns on the monthly and weekly Moving Average Divergence Convergence (MACD) indicator that we had seen back in July 2018, which resulted in BTC price falling from $8,500 to sub $4,000 in a matter of months.

When I mashed these things together it made something abundantly clear, there isn’t enough buying interest in Bitcoin for us to reach new all-time highs.

Oh and I called it again last Sunday

I can already hear the tapping of the angry keyboard warriors hammering down on their Macbooks that I didn’t call anything, and that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

BTC USD 4-hour Source: TradingView

Perhaps, I would draw the same conclusion if I was a small-minded neanderthal that honestly believes my one to three-word comment on Twitter is a valid contribution to an open Bitcoin price discussion.

A discussion that I start every Sunday when I give up valuable time with my wife and three kids in order to deliver my impartial interpretation of the charts. I didn’t mention the $4,000 scenario again because just three days after my analysis on Jan. 15, Bitcoin broke out of the 7-month downtrend channel it had been bouncing around in since the June 2019-Libra FOMO pump.

However, I did mention it again in my analysis last Sunday, since we had fallen into a steep descending channel that was about to break into the previous 7-month downward trend again. In other words, if $7,500 failed to hold there was no support all the way to $4,000

Someone else called it too

Resident gold-bug and renowned Bitcoin-hater Peter Schiff was quick to tweet out something many of us should have taken more seriously.

BTC USD 1 hour Source: TradingView

Just 32 minutes after the trendline on the hourly time frame was broken, the same trendline I was looking at on the 4-hour chart just a few days prior, Schiff tweeted the following:

“If any institutional money ever actually went into #Bitcoin it’s about to come out, never to return. Bitcoin has finally proven conclusively that it’s neither a store of value, a safe haven, nor a non-correlated asset. The Bitcoin chain letter has finally run out of links!”

It’s important to understand why Schiff may watch Bitcoin so closely and why he may be so intent on dissuading people from investing in it. Notably, here’s something I haven’t seen anyone mention before.

His bank, Euro Pacific Bank, has a target customer base of high-net-worth individuals looking for offshore tax structures. For a long time, Bitcoin has been seen by some as an alternative place to park your wealth as opposed to exploiting questionable tax loopholes, so it’s clearly in Schiff’s interest to see Bitcoin fail as it directly attacks his business model.

But while I doubt that institutional money is leaving Bitcoin for good, I believe that Peter Schiff’s comment makes sense and that institutions that bought the last 4-month dip where Bitcoin traded between $3,000 and $4,000 knew it was time to exit the market.

If this is the case, it could end one of the popular theories being pushed right now about stocks and Bitcoin being correlated.

Did equity margin calls spark the Bitcoin sell-off?

If it’s true that institutional investors just withdrew from Bitcoin, then this bounce from $3,850 might signify that we have not only bottomed, but we might be about to decouple from any possible correlation with the stock market.’

BTC USD/ S&P 500 Daily Source: TradingView

The math is quite simple, the S&P market cap is around $25 trillion versus Bitcoin’s pre-dump market cap of $150 billion. Simply put, institutions stood to lose more from the S&P crashing than from their Bitcoin holdings.

So in the likely event of stock market margin calls as prices began tumbling amidst the coronavirus global panic, what was the fastest liquid asset they could realize?

The answer was most likely Bitcoin. And by all exiting at the same time (because they all had the same reason to exit) you end up with exactly the same situation you get when an ICO gets their team tokens unlocked, i.e. large holders crash the price leaving smaller holders left holding their depleted bags.

Bitcoin’s epic crash gives a few reasons to be optimistic

BTC USD Daily Source: TradingView

Despite all this blood, there is some light on the horizon. The wick on the bounce from $3,850 has left the support line intact on the daily. This means that the support is currently around $4,400 and will slide to around $4,000 by April 1.

True holders are unfazed

However, the resistance to break out of this channel once and for all is currently around $7,400 and will fall to around $7,100 by April 1. So if it’s true that institutional money really has left, then this range will theoretically hold despite any further selloffs in the stock market.

Newcomers can now enter at lower prices

This, in turn, should bring confidence back to Bitcoin and create the opportunity for people, who previously thought they were too late to the party, to step in and start buying at fire-sale prices.

Future selloffs won’t be as extreme

The reason this is not only good but, in my opinion, great for Bitcoin is that by having Bitcoin held by a large number of small holders as opposed to a small number of large holders, means that it is less likely for a catastrophic sell-off to occur in the future. This will also enable the digital asset to build on its new support level.

Don’t expect these prices to last for months

BTC mining difficulty. Source: BTC.com

The mining difficulty is still increasing whilst the price is falling and the halving is only 57 days away. This means that soon any Bitcoins entering the market will be doing so at a much higher rate than the current price as they will have a higher production cost.

It may not happen overnight but when it does, it’s likely to trigger one of the most impressive bull runs that we have ever witnessed, and whilst I don’t personally expect this to happen for at least another 6 months, I also don’t expect these prices to last for long or go much lower.

Bearish scenario

It’s still a very turbulent time for the crypto-sphere as a whole. Should the support of $4,400 ($4,200 by next weekend) fail to hold, then the charts point to $2,450 as the next level of support.

Prices this low would either spark a huge FOMO rally or a further lack of confidence. However, if people have “hodled” through the pain of this past week, I can’t see them selling should $2,450 hit either as this would be capitulating at an obvious bottom.

Bullish scenario

On the bullish side, there is still the CME gap at $9,165, but now that institutions are supposed to have exited the market, it’s unlikely we will see these fills as regularly as we used to. Moreover, it may even lead to a reduction of traders on leverage platforms and a return to spot exchanges. In other words, an early “alt season” may then become a possibility as people attempt to regain their losses by speculating on altcoins again.

The resistance levels to break now are $7,400 and then $8,000 before opening up $11,250 as the next target that would put Bitcoin on the same upward path it broke into on January 15.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of @officiallykeith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

The post 3 Reasons Last Week’s Epic Bitcoin Price Crash Has a Silver Lining appeared first on For Crypto.

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topicprinter · 5 years ago

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Last year I started working on an AI Art Generator app. This is the story of how I came up with the idea, decided it was worth working on, and validated the concept. All without building an actual app.Note: the original article is on Medium. I've stripped all the self-promotional links and references to comply with this subreddit's rules.Mid last year, my girlfriend and I had a house guest who commented that our walls looked a bit bare. It’s not something we’d really noticed before, but once it was mentioned, we realised they were right — we needed some art. I thought finding some interesting art online would be a pretty quick, easy process, but I soon found that the sheer volume of available art turned me into a critic and I couldn’t find a piece that had meaning to me.I wanted art that reflected something about me — even if that just meant a landmark from my city, or a subject based on one of my hobbies or interests. After scrolling through hundreds of pages of artworks on every wall-art store I could find, I was still left unsatisfied.Then I had an idea — one of my interests is technology, and in particular AI. What if I could buy some AI-generated art? Wouldn’t that be a conversation starter! Even better, what if I could create some AI generated art myself? It could be ultra personalised — based on a photo from one of my holidays, or a picture of my dog, or a landmark from my city. Why didn’t I think of this sooner!? AI generated art has been around for years now, there must be plenty of places I can generate and buy AI art.So I Google “Buy AI Generated Art”. Hmm, I get one shop with a handful of pre-generated pieces, a heap of articles about AI and art in general, the guys who sold that AI generated portrait for $432k (a bit out of my price range), and Deepart.io — which is the closest thing to what I was imagining, but buying prints seems like an afterthought. Further searches didn’t reveal any better options (although there are other art generators out there, none offer much in the way of buying your artwork as a poster or canvas print).To this point I hadn’t been considering building my own AI Art app. I thought for sure it must already exist. But when my continued Googling didn’t yield what I was looking for, the wheels started turning. I jumped on Slack and messaged some friends who are also into startups and side projects. The idea started to excite me.I’ve been working on side projects and startups my entire career, so I knew the first step wasn’t to build the app (a mistake I’ve made before — more than once), I first had to validate the concept. Would other people want to decorate their walls with AI-generated art, or was it just me? Would they pay? How much? These questions all needed answers, ideally before writing a single line of code. So I started thinking about how I could answer these questions as quickly and confidently as possible.What I came up with was simple! All I had to do was find an open-source Neural Style Transfer algorithm on Github, generate some interesting art with it, throw it up on a Shopify store and point some Facebook ads at it. If people buy AI art that they didn’t even create themselves, surely they’d buy their own personalised creations.I was too busy to do it right then, so I decided to sit on it for a while. I had to finish a contract job, then I had a holiday booked where I planned to propose to my girlfriend. I figured if I was still excited about the idea after all that, I’d throw the MVP together to validate the idea. If it showed some promise (I.e. if people actually bought some art), I’d think about building out my vision — an AI art generator focused on creating personalised art to decorate your house with.A few months went by. I finished my contract, got engaged (!!), added some features to another project, and suddenly I had some free time again. I hadn’t forgotten about AI Art. I decided to go for it.I found some Neural Style Transfer libraries on Github and tried to get them running. I don’t really know Python, so it was a bit of a challenge, but I eventually managed to run one on my Macbook. It took about 50 minutes to run and the result didn’t look that great. I needed to be able to run them much faster to be productive. A bit of Googling led me to Google Colab — a Jupyter Notebook in the cloud that runs on GPUs. The library I’d chosen was written for use from the command line, so I needed to do some refactoring to get it running in Google Colab. Thankfully Python’s syntax is pretty easy to learn, so I managed to get it working pretty quickly. On Google Colab it ran in 5–7 minutes, which was still pretty annoying, so I built a queue system where I could drop the inputs and styles in Google Drive, and define the jobs as rows in Google Sheets. That let me queue as many jobs as I wanted and leave them to run. It might sound impressive, but Google Colab made it really easy. With this system I quickly got a feel for what would work well and what wouldn’t, and was able to make some interesting artworks that I thought had a good chance of selling.Now that I had some artworks to sell, I needed two things: a shop to sell them in, and a printer to print them. I found a printer that would suit, ordered some samples and was happy with the results, so the next step was to build a store. I knew from the start I was just going to use Shopify. I threw the products up on the default Shopify theme, added a few essential plugins, spent about an hour coming up with a business name that had a domain name available, and I was ready to sell.Because I’d visited every poster and canvas art store on the internet, Facebook had been serving me ads for artworks for months. I’d picked up on some of the tactics they used and noticed that I’d been flicking through a lot of the carousel ads to see if there was anything good, so I decided to make a carousel ad on Facebook to bring some traffic to the site and hopefully make some sales. I had to learn the Facebook ads manager and read about how to make good ads, but it didn’t take long before I was serving carousel ads to people who were interested in art and artificial intelligence.It took almost a week — and a few hundred dollars of ad budget — to make the first sale. The sale didn’t come close to paying for the ads, but it proved that people (well, at least one person) were willing to pay for AI generated art. Optimisation could come later.I spent about a month trying to optimise the website and Facebook ads. The most important update I made to the website was an exit-intent popup (those annoying popups that come up when you move your mouse towards the close-tab button) that surveyed the user about why they were leaving without buying anything. I usually hate those things, but they have their place, and I learned a lot about what people wanted through that survey.I also quickly learned that I was doing Facebook ads totally wrong — I should have made 20 ads and given them a budget of $5/day each, then kill the ones that didn’t perform and slowly ramp up the ones that did. What I had been doing was running one ad with my entire budget. I started again from scratch and had a bit more success, making about 20 sales over the next two months. The Facebook ads still cost a lot more than the sales I made from them, but by this time I was convinced that there was a market for my vision — an AI Art generator oriented around creating art for your home.In the past I would have leapt into building something like this before doing any kind of idea validation. I’ve always known you need to validate your ideas before diving in, but it’s so easy to make excuses, or trick yourself into thinking you’ve done enough validation because you just want to start building. It’s taken a lot of side projects — and many failures — to really learn the importance of validating an idea before committing to building a product that no-one really wants. I’m happy with the process I followed this time. I’ve proven that people are willing to buy, which means the challenge now is to build a great product, and get it in front of the right people.I've since built the actual product, but that's a post for another day. Hope you guys found some value in reading about my process!

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