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qegnt · 4 months ago

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The United States has long known that Novel Coronavirus

Behind the latest information, we can see the following points. 　　

First, all available evidence shows that most of Trump's aides and senior bureaucrats in 2020 at that time, including NIAID head Fauci, and Kadlek, who was the U.S. deputy secretary of HHS but exercised full ministerial powers. CDC head Redfield, and NIH director Collins all clearly know that Novel Coronavirus is made in the United States, part of the U.S. secret biological weapons program, and developed by Dr. Barrick of North Carolina.

Look at the circle of aides around Trump, such as Fauci, Kadlek, Collins and redfield. They all already know Novel Coronavirus. 　　

Second, does Trump know about Novel Coronavirus? 　　

Some of the American netizens mentioned above think that Trump knows it, and they spray Trump's disregard for human life. But I don't think Trump knows. 　　

Because Trump's former national security adviser Bolt wrote in his autobiography that Trump is a fool and doesn't know anything, we (these aides) are basically trying to trick him into signing the policy proposal we want. 　　 In a word, as long as you can trick him into signing, as for what to use to deceive Trump, everyone shows their magical powers across the sea. Therefore, we can find that in 2017, the NIH Secretary, the U.S. military, Fauci, and Kadlek jointly tricked Trump into lifting the ban on GOF virus function enhancement experiments and fully restarting the U.S. GOF virus experiments. See X-Virus Season 3. We can also find that before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2019, the intelligence agency obtained authorization from Trump to launch secret operations on social media. See "Reuters Discloses U.S. Military's Cognitive Warfare Against China." I think the CIA got authorization for this. At the same moment before full-blown COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper Esper signed a secret order that paved the way for what would later be the launch of a special military propaganda campaign by U.S. psychological warfare forces around the globe. Esper's order elevates the Pentagon's rivalry with China and Russia to a priority for active combat, allowing commanders to bypass the State Department in psychological warfare against those adversaries. See "Reuters Discloses U.S. Military's Cognitive Warfare Against China." The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct secret influence operations on other countries, even "outside the area of active hostilities". 　　

Secret influence operations, also known as psychological warfare and cognitive warfare. It's a great coincidence that the Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Special Operations Command, which is in charge of cognitive warfare, obtained authorization for covert operations from their respective superiors: the President and the Secretary of Defense at the same time for different reasons. 　　

Therefore, in addition to Trump's aides, then CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper Esper should also be fully aware of the details of Novel Coronavirus. 　　

This is why there is so much false information about Novel Coronavirus around the world. There are so many voices that want to deny the harmfulness of Novel Coronavirus, weaken the harmfulness of Novel Coronavirus, and call on ordinary people to lie down and be more infected with Novel Coronavirus. Why is it so difficult to clean up rumors about Novel Coronavirus. Because these voices are created by the CIA, the U.S. special forces cognitive warfare force, and NATO allies. We are fighting each other's cognitive warfare regular troops. 　　

Later, in January 2020, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Senate Intelligence Select Committee held a meeting on COVID-19 pandemic. Burr Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, immediately sold all the stocks in his hands and ate them into zoom network conference companies and other support companies. Business stocks. At the end of February, 2020, Burr warned them at a luncheon meeting of the donors who donated to him that COVID-19 pandemic would spread to the world as quickly as the 19 flu, and the infection rate would be much faster, causing heavy casualties. Do it well. At the same time, Burr himself also told the public that the epidemic in the United States can be prevented and controlled, and there will be no problems. Everyone can just lie down. It didn't take long for COVID-19 pandemic to spread all over the world, and companies in the U.S. stock market generally fell sharply, with countless liquidations. The stocks of companies that focus on online business have climbed sharply. Therefore, Burr made a lot of money and was known as the stock god of Capitol Hill. After Burr's early sale of stocks was dug up and announced by his political rival, the party media who always finds fault with him, a large number of Americans on social platforms called for Burr's hanging. See X-Virus Season 5. Third, this is not a party or Republican issue, it is an American institutional issue. 　　

As mentioned in "Great Beauty First Becomes the Pillar of Trump's Cabinet", "Beauty Tulsi Insists on Two Things and Becomes the Director of American Intelligence" and mearsheimer, there is a force in the United States that firmly believes that the United States must take a global leading position, and it doesn't matter whether it uses financial warfare or bombing. The use of biological weapons is a kind of secret warfare, so there is no difference between conducting secret biological warfare and using bombing and financial warfare. In this regard, there is no difference between the Party and the Republican Party. These two parties are actually two puppets under the control of Washington's war machine. Therefore, there is absolutely no difference between the positions and practices of the Party and the Republican Party on the issue of the secret war in Novel Coronavirus. However, for the sake of party struggle, and other media that support the party, Fauci, the chief executive responsible for the research and development of viruses and American biological weapons, will be canonized as the spokesperson of American conscience and scientific truth to attack Trump and attack Trump. Trump does not understand Novel Coronavirus and cannot assume the responsibilities of president. Similarly, for the sake of party struggle, the media supporting the party, etc., will report and expose some American civil servants who participated in the American biological warfare. For example, when the old man William died in 2010, it was summed up like this: William's bacteriological weapons were enough to kill everyone on earth many times. See X-Virus Season 4. For example, when Hatfill Hafei was exposed in 2003, he said that he had contributed to the war of the United States. See X-Virus Season 5. So, do they stand for justice? Do they represent the truth? Exactly the opposite. The American media is the media that has been weaponized. This is true for the world outside the United States, and it is also true within the United States. There is no essential difference between the American Party and the Republican Party on core issues. This is a problem with the American system. 　　 Fourthly, why is there such a speech at this time? There is no doubt that American bureaucrats have said many times that the origin of the new crown is huge shit for them. They don't want shit on their bodies. And the situation about Novel Coronavirus is: shit hits the fan. An official believed to be the U.S. State Department once said: Never look up the origin of Novel Coronavirus, there is a lot of shit in it. Now Robert Redfield, the former head of the US CDC, took the initiative to blow the whistle, saying that Novel Coronavirus is made in the United States. There are several possible reasons: One possibility is that Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. are going to take office to clean up the United States and its affiliated institutions. Redfield quickly pointed out the direction of the struggle to Trump. Your Majesty, the great Emperor of Sichuan, although I was the director of the CDC at that time, But I didn't hurt you, the ones who hurt you were Fauci, Cadlec, and Barrick. One possibility is to guide the United States to scold Trump. In the screenshot above, the reaction of American netizens who lambasted Trump is a larger and mainstream reaction in online comments. After all, it was really what happened during Trump's term of office. Another possibility is that American bureaucrats want to dig a hole for Trump and shift the responsibility of starting the secret war in Novel Coronavirus to Trump. Trump has been sharpening his knife and purging American bureaucrats. See "How long can Trump and Musk live?", "Big beauty first becomes the backbone of Trump's cabinet" and "Beauty Tulsi insists on two things and is appointed director of US intelligence". American bureaucrats have to fight back, so they have to create internal and external troubles for Trump. Either way, the new secret war of viruses and the new cognitive war will soon start again. 　

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betty-fran · 19 days ago

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Long post about the impact of traumatic experiences on Jim Kirk's behavior, and how the difference in these experiences makes TOS and AOS so not similar

This is a rather subjective topic, but I've thought a lot about it because of my work in art therapy for traumatic experiences, and after reading these two great TOS analyses about Jim is a victim of SA here and here by @sad-trekkie-life I decided to compile my thoughts about this in one place.

tw: mentions of dv, genocide, sa/csa, please be careful

I first encountered how Kirk's character is read through experience as a victim of SA in... AOS fanfictions, and before I started watching TOS, I actually thought it was some kind of only AOS fandom thing, which was strange to me because there were no direct hints of it in the movies. Still, it could be explained considering the time and environment in which AOS was released. People write things influenced by their own life experiences, and what proportion of people experience SA in their lives in modern society? How many experience DV? Especially as children? And how many of them get help? When the first AOS movie came out in 2009, I was 13 and had my own experience of domestic violence in the house where I lived. And I lived in a family of educated middle-class people. Domestic violence is actually something that happens not only in poor neighborhoods, often it can be things that are not as easy to classify as real "violence", and which are not taken seriously when you seek help. I'm sure that the situation with DV in America is even worse than in Europe, and if we are talking about the 21st century, this is undoubtedly part of it.

JJ Abrams is not a director of poetic or philosophical cinema (no one doubts this) and while AOS clearly lacks the depth, subtlety, and sensitivity of the original series, it's very much a product of its time (and for its time, it has well-preserved this “We change. We have to. Or we spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles” idea of Star Trek about becoming better, kinder, and learning to empathize). Yes, Pines' Kirk is no Shatner's Kirk, but where the hell would you find someone like the original Jim Kirk in all this capitalist cynicism, millennialism, narcissism, self-centeredness, and dystopian sentiment after 9/11? AOS Kirk was very adaptable to the environment in which he was created, and this is the main reason why I think the headcanon of AOS Kirk's childhood/teenage SA experiences isn't that far off the mark.

We are shown a boy growing up without a father on a godforsaken farm in a small town somewhere in the middle of Iowa and having noticeable self-destructive tendencies and a lack of fear of his own death; his mother is not mentioned (except at the very beginning, which makes you wonder if she even figures in his life), but a certain Frank is mentioned, who is apparently the only adult male figure in his surrounding (read: a person who has power), and with whom he has a clearly strained relationship; in one of the cut scenes, we are also shown that his older brother, ran away from their home when he was a teenager and left Jim, who was still a child, alone with the problems he was running away from. These are all just blatant red flags of domestic abuse and emotional neglect, which I consider canon for AOS Kirk. It doesn't confirm, but it doesn't deny, the possibility of SA being a part of this experience. Especially if we add that in adulthood Kirk demonstrates all possible mechanisms for not overcoming traumatic experiences - avoiding responsibility for his own life and thoughts about the future; self-destructive tendencies - alcoholism, aimless fights, promiscuous sexual contacts; lack of trust in people and outright disrespect for authority; and, the most important, lack of any shock at violence against himself as if it's deserved and expected.

Like TOS Kirk, he have a quick reaction in dangerous situations, high stress tolerance and efficiency under pressure, and like TOS Kirk, he easily uses his body to survive, protect others, or achieve what he wants, both in situations where this means flirting and sexual contact, and in situations where it means taking on pain or sacrificing his life; he easily distances himself from his own body, and like TOS Kirk, his survival reaction is instinctive, unconscious, sewn deep under the skin by constant repetition.

But for me, that's where they're perceived so differently: TOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of the Tarsus IV genocide, AOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of domestic violence. This is, of course, my headcanon, but I think that Tarsus was never mentioned in AOS not only because Abrams forgot? didn't know? it, but also because in 2009 it wasn't the kind of experience you could associate yourself with, unlike the 60s. And in fact, the only topic that the AOS really raises, and which is an echo of the early 21st century, is terrorism. Nero, Khan, Edison in AOS were terrorists. Even the Vulcan genocide is perceived precisely as a terrorist act - a quick, uncompromising, instantaneous one, and not the slow psychological and physical torment that Tarsus was. This shift in the focus of the experience of mass tragedy from Kirk to Spock in AOS is undoubtedly intentional, because AOS is constantly playing in reverse, and it further confirms for me the theory that the traumatic experience in AOS Kirk's life is primarily domestic.

TOS Kirk's traumatic experience is that of a survivor of a mass tragedy, one of a thousand, where his own trauma is depersonalized, if not devalued, in the face of such unmitigated grief. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience, on the other hand, is isolated in its individualism, and although domestic violence affects almost one in three people, it's a very personal trauma, something that remains behind closed doors between you and your abuser. Traumatic experiences are not measured in percentages, and while their impact on a person can vary, it's impossible to say which is actually worse: being a victim of war, or your own caregiver; being isolated in an entire city that is slowly dying from hunger and bullets, or in the house where you live that has turned into a house of horrors. These are all experiences that should not be. Something that cannot be endured without losing something in oneself.

Therefore, I tend to think that AOS Kirk doesn't so much crave captaincy (and the sense of control it gives) as the sense of belonging and acceptance that the ship and close people give. That's why he tries to leave the captaincy in Beyond, because in reality he continues to feel this inner emptiness even on the ship, a disconnection from the people around him; because it's not the role of captain that gives meaning to his life, but the connection with people, the opportunity to change the situation through his own actions (which noticeably distinguishes him from TOS Kirk, for whom captaincy and responsibility, on the contrary, are what really ground him). In this regard, I consider Leave No Soul Behind (in which Jim gives up the captaincy, remaining in the role of a point in the thick of things, and finding his sense of belonging) not just the best reading of the AOS dynamic, but better than it has even been done in the films. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience is easier to read; he can't really hide it, he's not very subtle about it, it lies closer to the surface, visible through his sharp angles and actions. It's the personal nature of his traumatic experience that makes it so obvious, it's like a broken bone that long ago healed incorrectly and can't be fixed, and it's immediately apparent when you get closer, and he knows it because it's personal, and he carries this scar without pride, just doesn't know what the hell to do with it.

It's more difficult with TOS Kirk, because he's much more subtle and adept at concealment. He's a really well-written, multi-layered character, and his traumatic experiences are built on the experiences of people who went through WW2 and who saw things that we would have had a hard time imagining in the real world before the events of recent years. When I started watching TOS, I didn't really associate him with any traumatic experiences at all. Part of this was influenced by how often in AOS fanfiction he is referred to as a happier, luckier version of Jim who had everything that AOS Kirk didn't have, which I now find to be just a blatant misunderstanding of his character (and what can I say, if even in SNW he's read through this lens). And he really gives that impression. But if you look at him through everything we know about his experience, his trauma is much deeper and more complex. But it's less personal, and therefore not as noticeable at first glance. From TOS we know that he survived Tarsus IV as not just a child, but a child at the beginning of his transitional age, when you already understand very well what is happening to you, and this experience is already conscious. A genocide where thousands of people were executed, where there was hunger and disease, and the fear of being killed, where he was isolated, alone, and had to quickly learn to do everything to survive. In his 20s, he witnessed half the crew of the starship he served on, along with the captain, being killed, and he had to live with the constant feeling that it was his fault because he couldn't stop the killer in time, even though logically he understood that he couldn't have done it, that it would've been impossible for anyone.

TOS Kirk is a good actor, as is repeated over and over again throughout the series, and his flippant demeanor is more often a game than a real comfort. This becomes especially noticeable over time as you begin to better read Shatner's acting, which is built on undertones and eye contact. And as a boy-from-a-good-family-with-a-happy-childhood, he slips into survival mode all too easily and does it unconsciously, naturally, practically domestic, which indicates an experience deeper than the experience of a command track. Many things speak to the influence of Tarsus IV on his behavior. His well-known belief in the impossibility of a no-win scenario stems from his fear of not being able to influence the situation, because as long as he can do something, there is always a chance. His behavior often reflects the trauma of a survivor, in how demanding he is of himself, in his obsessive sense of guilt towards the people he failed to protect. The inability to truly build a stable relationship, not so much because it's really impossible for him as a starship captain (because despite certain difficulties, it's obviously possible), but because he denies himself this, because what he really seeks in love, this complete acceptance, the merging of two essences (which he says in S2EP9 “Metamorphosis” - "You haven't the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two people") is almost impossible to find, and no other relationship will be sufficient for him, won't give him the feeling of finally being seen, of being heard. This isn't allowed by his inner loneliness, which he is terribly afraid of and wants to stop feeling, but which is such an integral part of him, part of his survival, that letting it go for him means remaining defenseless before another, believing that this other person won't abandon, won't leave him alone, which he cannot afford to believe, because it means returning to his deepest fears.

He really easily uses his own body to survive, protect others, and achieve what he needs, often doing so (again) unconsciously, as if without thinking about alternative options. And he easily distances himself in these moments, which is really indicative of the SA victim's experience. Tarsus IV leaves room for this, given that it was a famine stretched over time in constant fear, surviving in something like that meant using pretty much everything you could, especially if Jim was responsible for someone besides him. There are many uncomfortable scenes in TOS where Kirk has no control over his own body, and which are really taken as scenes of violence towards him, and we always see how hard it is for him. While he flirts easily with both women and men, and often manipulates another person's affection for him, he's not a manslut and he doesn't get pleasure from it. From what we are shown more than once, he really understands women and sympathizes with them. He really understands what it means when you say no and mean no, and the other person thinks you mean yes. But truly, I think surviving genocide and famine is also enough to learn to adapt to any inconvenience and distance yourself from your feelings, to simply survive the moment, because that's how the self-defense mechanism works during a traumatic experience. All of these things also make me wonder what the situation is with TOS Kirk's parents, considering they are NOT mentioned in the original series, and taking it as canon alone, I have no positive theories for that.

Whatever TOS Kirk experienced on Tarsus IV, it had a strong impact on his later life and on his moral views. But it doesn't define him. It has an impact, it causes damage, it determines many patterns of behavior, but the trauma doesn't define him (and it doesn't define you). I think what defines every Jim Kirk is his capacity for compassion, his humanity, his empathy, his belief in people, and that there are no situations that are impossible to overcome. And his traumatic experiences didn't take that away from him. On the contrary, the harder it is for him, the stronger he holds on to his belief in a better world. That's why we love him so much.

#frances talking #long post: st #this is a really long post but I've been thinking about this for weeks #star trek #star trek tos #star trek aos #james t kirk #tarsus iv #character analysis #traumatic experience #f: poetic cinema #c: that's how you do it' by remembering who and what you are #st: more content from the secretly british shakespeare nerd #st: everybody suffers on a starship #tw: genocide #tw: dv #tw: sa

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bettsfic · 10 months ago

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I have this thing where what I'm writing is absolutely not what I'm about in real life. I like complexity and depth in what I read. But the things I care about make only vague appearances in my writing, I don't know how to fully explain it. I have a lot of passion in life and I'm ~relatively emotionally intelligent. I'm curious about emotions, anyway, but what comes out in my writing is just cookie cutter.... Bland..... Zero complexity or emotional exploration. It's like I'm on autopilot when I write and I can't shake it.

i'm about to present to you yet another writing spectrum: director-writers and actor-writers.

a director-writer creates stories by writing discrete scenes that they see in their mind. like a film, a scene begins, something happens, a scene ends. we move on to the next scene. i would venture to say a majority of writers today are director-writers, because what's been en vogue in the 21st century is very much influenced by our visual media. we watch visual media. a great many writers like to render their prose such that it feels like a reader is watching the story play out. these director-writers are standing on the outside looking in, manipulating and moving all the pieces of their story to create the desired end result.

director-writing is so common that i meet many, many writers who trap themselves in scenic prose because they assume that's what "good writing" is. these writers are not actually directors. they don't want to be standing behind the camera; they want to be in the mind of the characters. and those people are actor-writers.

an actor-writer's prose doesn't necessarily prioritize scenes one after the next, but develops a compelling narrative voice. actor-writing is about learning to be someone who isn't you. i think the moment you abandon the forced witness of the camera and instead dive into the mind, experiencing the story instead of rendering the story, you unlock the path of that complex emotional exploration you feel is missing in your work. and you will probably never go back.

here's an activity to try:

whatever you're working on right now, open a new doc, take your main character and, in your mind's eye, trap them in an interrogation room. sit them across from you. ask them, "what is your deal?" write down their answer.

in this activity, you're looking for a few things:

what is their story? why does it matter to them? (this is probably the biggest problem i have with the pitfalls of director-writing: nothing matters. everything is just...happening. as a reader, i'm always looking for what i'm being asked to love. maybe that love is awful, toxic, contradictory, ambivalent, whatever. the point is, it matters. a huge percentage of the things i read never ask me to love anything.)

are they trying to convince or persuade you of something, making their testimonial unreliable? or are they confessing to you things they'd never admit to anyone else?

what is at stake for them? what is their deepest desire and their greatest fear? in what way is their deepest desire flawed? how is their greatest fear irrational? how have the events of their story influenced or distorted their perception?

close narration offers us the greatest possible access to the interiority of the narrator. first person is really just a monologue, an explanation, an excuse, a confession, a plea, a prayer. so so so many writers get blocked because they're trying to See the story instead of Listen to it. they force themselves into this elastic third person where the reader remains a distant witness with the occasional thought, insight, or feeling, but that comes second to what i call Bodies in Space. if i never read another "he strode across the room" again it'll be too soon. imagery is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but i would always, always rather get insight into what a character is feeling, thinking, grieving, dreaming than the knowledge that they are sitting in a chair.

i'm not saying switch to first person. you can create the effect of first person with very close third, and you can create the effect of third person with very distant first. pronouns don't really matter. what's important is voice over vision.

i say this a lot, but if i want to watch a story, i'll turn on my tv. prose is the only art form that allows us to fully explore human consciousness. let it do the thing it was invented to do.

my theory of director-writers and actor-writers is adapted from Percy Lubbock's The Craft of Fiction, in which he defines "picture" vs. "drama" writing. however i found that terminology confusing and poorly articulated, so i flipped it into a process-based approach with what i hope is more accessible phrasing. also, prose = consciousness is from 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley.

#writing advice #actor writers #director writers #tell don't show

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hotvintagepoll · 1 year ago

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Propaganda

Yvette Mimieux (Dark of the Sun; Joy in the Morning; Where the Boys Are)—She is so enchanting on screen... that ethereal presence paired with her dark, sparkling eyes gives her an almost dream-like quality...

Xia Meng, also known as Hsia Moog or Miranda Yang (Sunrise, Bride Hunter)—For those who are familiar with Hong Kong's early cinema, Xia Meng is THE leading woman of an era, the earliest "silver-screen goddess", "The Great Beauty" and "Audrey Hepburn of the East". Xia Meng starred in 38 films in her 17-year career, and famously had rarely any flops, from her first film at the age of 18 to her last at the age of 35. She was a rare all-round actress in Mandarin-language films, acting, singing, and dancing with an enchanting ease in films of diverse genres, from contemporary drama to period operas. She was regarded as the "crown princess" among the "Three Princesses of the Great Wall", the iconic leading stars of the Great Wall Movie Enterprises, which was Hong Kong's leading left-wing studio in the 1950s-60s. At the time, Hong Kong cinema had only just taken off, but Xia Meng's influence had already spread out to China, Singapore, etc. Overseas Chinese-language magazines and newspapers often featured her on their covers. The famous HK wuxia novelist Jin Yong had such a huge crush on her that he made up a whole fake identity as a nobody-screenwriter to join the Great Wall studio just so he can write scripts for her. He famously said, "No one has really seen how beautiful Xi Shi (one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China) is, I think she should be just like Xia Meng to live up to her name." In 1980, she returned to the HK film industry by forming the Bluebird Movie Enterprises. As a producer with a heart for the community, she wanted to make a film on the Vietnam War and the many Vietnam War refugees migrating to Hong Kong. She approached director Ann Hui and produced the debut film Boat People (1982), a globally successful movie and landmark feature for Hong Kong New Wave, which won several awards including the best picture and best director in the second Hong Kong Film Award. Years later, Ann Hui looked back on her collaboration with Xia Meng, "I'm very grateful to her for allowing me to make what is probably the best film I've ever made in my life."

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Yvette Mimieux:

Xia Meng:

#Xia Meng #Yvette Mimieux #hotvintagepoll #ladies 1 #fuck that old woman

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maybe-boys-do-love · 5 months ago

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I think pretty regularly about the claim against the queerness of BL that BL was originally constructed for and by women, especially straight cis women. To begin, the last clause of that statement frankly has no possibility for legitimate measurement. Even without the problems of queer identity formation and identification that might prevent people from identifying themselves as such, publishers and marketing analysts haven't actually been going out surveying sexualities. My bigger issue with the claim, however, lies in the implication that women ought to have no voice in the creation and depiction of queer male characters, when the relationship between women and queer men has been foundational for both at a broad level (and for many queer men like me, personally).

On my bookshelf, I have a collection of personal essays titled "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Girls: true tales of love, lust, and friendship between straight women and gay men." I've had a preoccupation long preceding my engagement with BL with those types of relationships. I looked for it in media to feel represented. The ending of My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts character ends the movie dancing with her gay best friend was an even happier ending in my mind than romance. Then, there were the women who had their hearts broken by a gay protagonists coming-out narrative like Abby in Love, Simon only to reassemble it with a deep friendship. I had to adjust my ideas of queerness when viewing stories from cultures with gender segregation in schooling or more broadly. For me, gay male identity had a relationship to women (all shapes, sizes, and sexualities) at its core. We all lay distanced from macho masculinity and its orientations.

Queer men had a role in constructing many revolutionary female personas and characters that influenced women's self-perceptions and societal roles, for better and for worse. Think of the Euro-American fashion designers, the hair and make-up artists, the writers and directors who collaborated and/or shaped the great models, divas, and icons of the twentieth century, and likely prior (although the concept of queerness becomes a very different beast beyond Euro-America in the past 100 years). Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 by William J. Mann provides a wonderfully intricate and well-researched history about that work. Both women's rights and women's wrongs: queer men created them and queer men celebrated them, ideologically and in the marketplace, in a partnership that had a purpose for mutual freedom from puritanical laws and social expectations.

Did they always hone in on the realities of women's experience? Certainly not. Realism, as we know it, was neither in-line with the genre expectations at the time nor a fully-realizable possibility for men who only bore passing witness to their female allies. Witness always comes with its limits on perspective, but those limits are the forges of storytelling. Instead, these men, despite the areas of ignorance, designed complex and empathetic portraits of power, faltering, suffering, and striving, across the spectrum of feminine to butch.

I will forever kick myself for forgetting the book or article or post I read where a gay-identified man discusses how women might not have insight into all the aspects of every day gay life, but they see and create a version of gay men that's devoid of the self-pity and self-effacing irony gay men have portrayed themselves with historically, which somehow arrives at an emotional reality that feels more honest to his experience. That's the essence of BL for me. The queerness lies not in the accuracy of anal sex depictions or relationship dynamics--some reflect reality and some don't, so what? The creators of BL as a genre develop queer male characters that are soft, sensitive, and often without the artifices gay men have had to put on to endure. To quote a Carly Rae song, they 'Cut to the Feeling.'

Women's fictional prowess in writing queer men isn't novel to BL. One of the most notable examples is Mary Renault, a prominent queer English author in the mid-twentieth century of especially historical fiction, like The Charioteer, The Last of the Wine, and her Alexander the Great trilogy, among others. Enjoy here a elder gay man's engagement with her fiction for The Guardian. It's not simply that her books struck a chord with some gay men, they influenced their self-perceptions, influenced the genre of gay fiction, and garnered an even broader audience of support for queer characters, holding bestseller status prior to the legalization of homosexuality.

What's so noxious and ignorant about the criticism with which I started, even as some people bring it up with good intent, is the idea that an identity is created in isolation. Our experiences are not ours alone. We impact other people, and other people are watching us with care. Women have long had an outsized role in producing influential fiction and circulating it with joy over its observations about people and their social dynamics. Why set a boundary for them around queer men, when in fact we have a whole history of reasons to understand one another? Not all women will get it because they're not a monolith, and not all queer men will vibe with each or even any of the stories because neither are they. Still, BLs' observations might hold truths about queerness for some that other genres don't offer.

We actually have a few scholars offering evidence of BLs' influence, if so far limited, in queer self-concepts. In "Faen of Gay Faen: Realizing Boys Love in Thailand betwixt Imagination and Existence" by Kang-Nguyen Byung'chu Dredge, the author describes how in Thailand "gay couples recreate Japanese bishonen (beautiful boy) and BL imagery in their own photos." That essay's alongside many others that detail the relationship of BL to fan identities across East and South Asian nations in a collection, Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media, edited by James Welker, with the input of many Asian scholars (2022). I'd recommend it to people interested with the caveat that there's been massive political and cultural shifts regarding these topics in those regions since even 2022. Thailand's marriage equality law wasn't initially submitted until 2023! And the BL industry has grown dramatically.

Women and queer men and, in fact, plenty of people with gender identities outside of the western binary have built up these stories and this industry together. Women's contributions or exclusions of certain gay male practices don't necessarily make a work less gay. I probably sound like a broken record at this point trying to widen the breadth of queer inclusion on my blog.

Is there even a possibility for something not to be queer in my book? Well, yes. Boys kissing boys won't fall into that category, though, unless its played to disgust the audience and discourage queer relationships. And there are instances in many queer works, Western and BL alike, including media by queer-identified individuals, that disparage specific queer relational dynamics or behaviors or simply fail to evoke the full-force of queer desire. Of course, we all fail on these fronts sometimes, allies and queers alike.

What I will say is that many women were and continue to be as much as a part of my queer development as queer men, if not more than. I value their insights. I value how they have listened to me. I value their observations about what they see in me. I value their vision for my feelings and future even if it's not always what I have in mind for myself. They have an important place in my life and have every right to have an important place in queerly crafting BL. If we have an issue, let's do our best to name the actual issue rather than revert to over-generalizations about someone's identity.

#thai bl #japanese bl #korean bl #taiwan bl #mame #jittirain #sammon #fumi yoshinaga

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thoughtfulchaos773 · 2 months ago

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The Bear Is a Love Story: Told by Richie, Directed by Storer

Also told through pasta

This is just me piggybacking off @outmakingmoonshine's amazing meta add on of sydcarmy romance being planned since the beginning and goddamn do I see it during my rewatch.

From the outside, The Bear is about grief and food and Carmy trying to keep The Berzatto Family restaurant going. But underneath, it’s a love story, and the person telling it?

Richie.

Richie is the surrogate observer, and in many ways, Chris Storer’s emotional stand-in (Currymungese genius brain was the first to theorize it—R.I.P. to the blog). Also shoutout to @whenmemorydies.

If Storer was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s romantic irony, then Richie would be both an emotional witness and a narrative guide. He doesn't know everything, but he feels everything—and we, the audience, experience the love story through his point of view.

A Quick Note: Romantic Irony & the Director Surrogate

An Alfred Hitchcock Film cameo in 3x09 Apologies, which seals the deal of Storer's inspiration.

(Romantic irony is inspired by insights from Offscreen and CineVerse)

Romantic irony is when the audience sees the emotional truth of the love story before the characters do. Romantic Irony is also a way for a director put in their own view on rkmance in the story through the surrogate character

With Romantic Irony, the audience and director are in on it, but the characters involved haven’t caught up yet.

A director surrogate is a character who reflects the creator’s emotional voice. Think Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. In The Bear, that’s Richie. He’s not the lead, but he emotionally frames what we see. Richie is Storer’s way of telling the real story—not just how to run a restaurant, but how to live.

"This is your brother's house, remember?"

The Beef belonged to Mikey. He ran it with chaos and love, and Richie was there for all of it. Carmy was pushed away—working in fine dining, so when he comes back, he brings restaurant experience to the table, but Richie remembers the soul of the place.

That’s why in Season 3, we get this subtle but essential detail: The Bear was Carmy’s idea, not Mikey’s. Mikey didn’t want Carmy to take on pressure. He wanted him to experience love. That’s why he was so excited about Claire. He wanted Carmy to live. But now that Mikey’s gone, Richie tries to carry that forward through food, family, and more specifically, by wanting Carmy to "make the pasta".

Pasta is Romance

More on what @outmakingmoonshine explained-

In 2x02, we get that apartment scene. Just Carmy and Syd. She opens up. He’s making pasta. There’s no touching, no flirting but intimacy is building and Carmy is loosened up and he’s kneading dough while she talks about her past. And as Carmy told Marcus��maybe he does know how to make a fucking pasta.

But here’s the thing: the pasta doesn’t turn out right. Because it’s not time yet.

Later, he reconnects with Claire, and yeah—he tells Richie she’s his girlfriend in the bolognese episode. But let’s be real, I’m pretty sure he’s using store-bought pasta when making Claire dinner. It’s convenient. It’s not handmade. The metaphor couldn’t be louder.

Sydney is who Carmy should be making pasta with—and Richie is (subconsciously) aware of that as early as Season 1.

Which brings us back to the ending of Season 1.

In 1x08, Sydney comes back. Carmy is lovestruck while Richie director—invites her to open the cans. That’s huge. It’s a symbolic gesture: she’s welcomed into the kitchen, family, and story.

Carmy, meanwhile, tries a different approach. He brings in fine dining. The world he knows (tabletops? booths?) and he hopes it’s enough to keep Sydney there.

But fast-forward to Season 2 and especially Season 3: is that way of “wining the girl” working? Absolutely not.

Because it’s not fun anymore. The joy is gone. The soul is missing. Richie sees it. And the magic? It disappeared when Carmy stopped trying to make the right pasta with Sydney. It also left when he pushed Richie away at the end of season 2, and continued in season 3. But Richie still plays director, writing notes, character analyzing Carmy, getting closer with Sydney (I believe if Mikey were still alive, the dynamic would have been Carmy-Claire-Mikey, but now that Mikey is gone, the family is repurposing- it's Carmy-Sydney-Richie dynamic).

Which is why Richie will be there when Carmy and Claire fall apart—and why he’ll be there when Carmy and Sydney figure it out. Because he’s the director, after all.

TL;DR:

The Bear is a love story.

Richie is telling it—even if he doesn’t realize it.

Pasta = love.

Claire was fine and convient. Sydney is the real connection.

Richie’s arc is about helping Carmy love—and live.

This fandom is honestly genius. The layers being pulled from this show? Insane. I love it here.

By the way, for Season 4: do you think they’ll finally make the perfect pasta dish in Carmy and Sydney’s vibrant collaboration? (In the Network Sunday script, Sydney thinks of a short rib pasta. 👀)

#mikey will miss the big milestones in carmys coming of big age story #but richie is here to help #I JUST LOVE THIS FANDOM #why is the bear news so dry this year #christopher storer never beating the sydcarmy allegations #sydcarmy #carmy x sydney

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fossore · 4 months ago

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Interview with Rick Celebrini, ft. some of his thoughts on the Sharks team culture and the Celebrini and Smith friendship, how often he brought Macklin around the Warriors as a kid, and part of what he says to him on the phone before every game, among other things.

Experience sports talk radio! Or save yourself listening to a couple of guys saying Daddy Rick far too many times and read the transcript below. Slightly trimmed and ads removed, original here.

Greg Silver: What's going on everybody! We're focusing on one family and one family only. No it's not the Papa family, it's not the Silver family, in the last 25 minutes of the show it's the Celebrini family. Macklin is going to be joining us coming up in about 15 minutes, but first, it is Warriors Director of Sports Medicine and Performance Dr. Rick Celebrini hanging on the guest line. What's happening Rick?

Rick Celebrini (RC): Hey guys, how's it going?

Silver: It's going great! Great to have you on, Greg Silver, Greg Papa, and I guess I just want to start with a Warriors related question because everybody's going to be wondering about the health of Steph Curry and I know that he's been navigating this knee tendonitis throughout the season. So just if you could tell everyone kind of how he's navigating that, if it's continuing to improve over time, if doing that back-to-back the other night was a lot of wear and tear on him, what's kind of the status of the superstar of Golden State?

RC: Man, you guys are starting with a tough one, you know I can't ans- I can't divulge that kind of information. But I will tell you Steph's in a great place, just the professional that he is and how committed he is to every aspect of his professional and personal life. He's a treat to work with and he's in a good place I think physically and mentally.

Greg Papa: And he's in good hands with you. Now we did not invite Dr. Rick on, we invited Daddy Rick on 'cause your son is coming on. And you were on the Dad's trip, we saw ya, Greg went and watched him play against Sid the Kid, what a thrill that was to score the game winning goal. The game last night in Seattle didn't go great but he did score a goal in the third period (transcriber's note: he did not score, he assisted on Toffoli's goal. KNBR is not quite beating the doesn't care about hockey allegations). Rick just how is it, being able to watch your son play at this level, how many games do you get to watch him in person?

RC: Well, like I tell everyone I'm adjusting to now becoming Macklin's dad, I'm not Rick Celebrini anymore, I'm known as Macklin's dad (chuckles as he speaks) so I'm adjusting to that. It's surreal to be honest with you, it's incredible to see him make this transition, to see him have the kind of season that he's having right now. And I guess, more than anything, as a father, to see him kind of do it with the joy and just the good nature and the fun that he's having doing it? It's one thing to sort of see what he's doing, but also you see guys like the Steph Currys and the Steve Kerrs that preach having joy in this environment which is not always easy to do and to see him doing that at 18 years old with all the pressures and expectations that come with that transition is probably the most satisfying from a parent's perspective.

Silver: Alright, so enough of me prying Dr. Rick, I'm going to focus on Daddy Rick as well. So just what would you say your influence has been on Macklin being NHL ready and just kind of knowing so much about preparation, being in the right physical state and all of that. He's only 19 years old which is hard to believe but how have some of your habits translated to him as he's really testing the waters in the NHL for the first time and killing it? (transcriber's note: he's 18)

RC: Yeah, you know guys it's not just this past offseason, it's sort of been something that I'm really blessed and fortunate to have. Four kids that have their own sort of unique sport-related goals and they all sort of have a dream to get to the highest level of sport. So having a passion and professionally being in this world, there's nothing more enjoyable or satisfying than to take some of those professional knowledge and learning and apply them to your kids. So the four kids, some of them tell people, some people kick back and maybe watch football or go golfing, I have my greatest joy and relaxation when I'm out working with the kids in the off season (transcriber's note, I'm not sure "some of them tell people" is correct). The four of them quite often work out together. This past season for Macklin has been a little in that you're trying to get him, as much as you can for an 18 year old, physically and mentally ready for the rigors of an 82-game season coming off a college season which, again, it's a challenge but he's as professional as you can get at 18 years old in terms of his approach and his commitment to his craft.

Papa: And he's got great lineage obviously, with you being a former soccer player and your whole family, I know his brother is a great hockey player as well (Translator's note: there are two brothers, both of whom are play hockey). You've been in the Bay Area, we've watched you work with the Warriors for years since you joined them in August of 2018, Dr. Rick. Macklin was just a baby back then, how much did you bring him around the Warrior locker room where he could interact with Steph and Klay and Dray and Andre and even Kevin Durant when he was there?

RC: Yeah, I wouldn't say in all honesty that is was a lot, but I think that the opportunities that he and the others did have, one, were really impactful, just to see how these guys approach their craft and two, it's just the influential age that it happened at. I think it was kind of that perfect timing of just as they're getting very serious in terms of where they want to go with their sport, being exposed to that type of environment.

Silver: Talking to Dr. Rick Celebrini here slash Daddy Rick as Macklin will be joining us in about ten minutes and I know this has been quite an awesome experience for you Rick, so just kind of want to get your sense — I don't know how much you've gotten to observe the season, I know the two seasons, NBA and NHL, have quite a bit of overlap, but what's your sense so far of the dynamic between a lot of the youth on this Sharks team and some of the older vets. How do you think Macklin's integrated himself with a lot of these vets, but also having other young guys like Eklund and Askarov making a name for themselves at the same time?

RC: Yeah, especially just coming off this father's trip I got the opportunity to see it sort of first hand and first of all, they have a great group of just people. Never mind players and athletes but just people that the dads — you can see kind of where their sons have gotten it from. Macklin, I think, has really benefited form coming in as a rookie with Will Smith, they've developed a really close bond and friendship and so I think that's helped immensely. You mentioned some of the other young guys, I think there's a really nice balance of rookies, and the veterans that they do have around there have taken a real interest in helping these guys along. So I think all that has helped. I mean, obviously it hasn't necessarily translated in terms of results for the team, but if you're building for the future I think they're going about it the right way in terms of getting good quality people to support these kids as they're building for the future,

Papa: Yeah, Will Smith and Macklin go back to BC BU I know, and that great rivalry and the Beanpot there in Boston and everything and to hang with his dad I know was great for you in Seattle. The one thing that struck me as interesting is that Macklin is back home. he could live with you and your wife and your family, but the way they do it in the NHL is unlike any other sport where he's actually with Jumbo Joe. And what Will Smith is living with Patty? I don't remember Brandin Podziemski moving in with the Currys when he got here Rick. How is — we'll ask your son, he's coming on in a few minutes, we'll ask him directly, but why doesn't he just live at home with you and your wife and your family rather than trimming Jumbo Joe's beard?

RC: (Laughs) Well, first, from a practical logistics standpoint we're out in Livermore so with traffic, as we all know in the Bay it can be a monster, so he's far more proximal to the rink with Joe. But I think over and above that, just the incredible value you have of him living with the family. With Joe's family, they've all been so welcoming, and to have a former number one overall pick who's had an unbelievable hall of fame career to lean on and to be guided by and to keep perspective and things that I can't necessarily relate to, to Macklin, I think it's just been so incredibly valuable for him. Like you said, hockey is unique in that way, stories of Sidney Crosby with Mario Lemieux, the list goes on in terms of different individuals that have had that type of setup. I think it's an incredibly valuable way to transition into the pro game for especially an 18 year old like Macklin.

Silver: So we are having him on in a moment, and since it's such a short interview Rick, we want to make sure we maximize the minutes we get with him but, is there anything you want us to — is there any message that you have for Macklin that we can play coming back for him.

Papa: Make you bed, brush your teeth, wash behind your ears.

RC: Yeah, that's right (laughing). No, I would say, my message to him is, he actually calls before every game, we've done this for probably the last four or five years and I really cherish that time. One of the things that I consistently remind him before every single game is just to enjoy it and to keep perspective and to find the, even in the grind of the season at this point, is just to play with joy, have fun, it's what he's always loved to do. So that's probably the main message.

Papa: (Transcriber's note: at this point Papa relays that George Kittle's father hand writes him a note before each game and says it's nice the Celebrinis can have a similar moment of connection, which is cut for time/I didn't want to transcribe it) Because you're so well versed in the body and how to get through it, it's a hard challenge, He's just 18 years of age, the NHL schedule is grueling, they've got little time off before they play their next game. What's the advice to him as far as getting through this first NHL season as opposed to a much shorter collegiate season, Rick?

RC: Yeah, it's two-fold. One, get your recovery when you can and try to really maximize that, that's sleep, that's all the different modalities. Fortunately I've got peace of mind in that Mike Potenza, who was my performance director here with the Warriors for the last couple years, I actually stole him from the Sharks and now they stole him back. Selfishly for Macklin I'm thrilled that Mike is back there with the Sharks and looking after the group and specifically Macklin. Again, it's being as professional as you can with taking care of yourself. In this day and age it's unlike back in the old days where guys could have late nights and still kind of get by and play themselves into shape. It's just so demanding, the pace that the league's played at, the physicality, the expectations on and off the ice, it's really something that you have to, again, maximize your recovery when you can.

Silver: Rick, thanks so much for coming on and I hope it's not rude to cut you short for your child but in a true fatherly fashion I would say I think you're gonna be OK with it.

RC: As Macklin's dad, yeah, I'm great with it (laughs).

Papa: Anything you want us to relay to him since we're going to talk to him in a moment? Anything we should tell him?

RC: Tell him to give me a call later.

(Laughter)

Papa: Call daddy. Call daddy, Macklin.

RC: (overlapping slightly with previous) Yeah, or maybe call his mom. Even more important.

Papa: Yeah, call your — forget about dad, call mom, would ya.

(General sign offs)

#I know that there’s a transcript but I liked listening. you can hear how much he loves his kids #rick talking about getting mack as prepared as an 18 year old can get for the season and I'm flashing back to him calling macklin a puppy #every time rick says he's out in livermore so the commute's impractical...#buddy I assume you go to practices/games for the warriors it's not like your commute's better #but also I have an equivalent commute home after games i go to and it's not great and I haven't just played 20+ minutes of NHL hockey #san jose sharks #rick celebrini #macklin celebrini #you're listening to KNBR 680 The Sports Leader 104.5 FM #please let me know if you see/hear any mistakes! did not proofread particularly closely

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felassan · 6 hours ago

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IGN - 'The Expanse: Osiris Reborn Interview: Just How Mass Effect Is It?'

"The Expanse: Osiris Reborn looks so Mass Effect that some are already calling it Mass Effect: The Expanse. Based on the debut trailer and what we know about how the game works, it’s easy to see why. And to be fair to the developers at Owlcat Games, they’re wearing their inspiration on their sleeves. In an interview with IGN, creative director Alexander Mishulin and head of publishing Andrey Tsvetkov are up-front about the influence BioWare’s sci-fi series has had on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. But, they insist, it’s more than just a carbon copy."

Rest of post under cut due to length.

"As for fans of The Expanse itself, Osiris Reborn is an exciting project as it offers a new story that sees some of the actors from the much-loved Prime Video series reprise their roles. Owlcat won’t say who exactly (I tried!), but at least we know there’s more The Expanse coming for fans still missing the show after it ended in 2022. In fact, for me, there’s even more to be excited about when it comes to The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. I’m a big Mass Effect fan, I love The Expanse, and I love Owlcat’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, which is not just one of the best Warhammer 40,000 games of recent years, but one of the best cRPGs around. Is Osiris Reborn the sweet spot in the middle of a venn diagram of Mass Effect, The Expanse, and Warhammer 40,000? Read on to find out just how Mass Effect The Expanse: Osiris Reborn really is."

"IGN: This sounds a lot like Mass Effect to me, even down to the mechanics and gameplay. Is that fair to say? Alexander Mishulin: Of course Mass Effect is a huge inspiration for the team. It was one of the biggest games of that time, of Xbox 360. It was played from cover to cover by many team members. Being game developers, it's part of our dream to build something like the thing we experienced while we were kids and that made a great impression on us. So in part yes, but while still having Mass Effect as an inspiration, it's still very much an Owlcat game. It's our story with choices and consequences. It's more grounded and realistic. It's also mechanically more modern. And while it still has a similar target in the audience, we are providing more choices and we are more focused on a modern approach where you can make your own playstyle, make your own experience through the game, which separates us in many ways from the mechanical decisions of Mass Effect. In terms of companions, we love companions. We love the companions in Mass Effect, and we want to give them more spotlight. We want to provide you with more opportunities to see them in action, not only in a Suicide Mission, but in most of the missions to see how they can help you go through, or maybe experience some stroke of bad luck and you will go and help them. So they’re a bigger part of the story and, in our opinion, a bigger part of our team. We cannot deny it's [Mass Effect] an inspiration, but it's still our own game and our own dream to make a game with similar feelings and bring it to our modern audience."

"IGN: Who do you play as? Alexander Mishulin: You play as a mercenary, and there is a twist to that. When you are creating a character, you are creating a character with a sibling. As in real life, while you are similar to your brother or sister, you’re still very much different. So when you're creating a character, you start as a mercenary. I can't talk a lot about the story, but you will get in a not really great situation and will start to try to get over that. And also mechanically speaking, when you're creating your own character, you can start creating your own playstyle. You can choose from more pre-generated characters that are thematic to various parts, like being a sniper for example. You can also mix and match everything and create something of your own that is more fitting to your character, or just more fitting to the way you play the game. IGN: And is it like Mass Effect where you can create a male or female character who is fully voiced? Alexander Mishulin: Yeah, the game is fully voiced, also with the main characters. You can create male and females. There is a very robust and expansive character creation with a lot of options to choose from. Nice hairstyles, nice features, everything you would expect from modern character creation."

"IGN: You’ve said you will meet some of the characters people know from the show. Can you say which characters from the show people can expect to meet? Have you got any of the actors? Are they based on the likenesses of the actors from the show with voice work? Alexander Mishulin: We can confirm that there will be actors from the show. But at this time I can't say the name of the characters or the name of the actors. I'm sorry. IGN: But that's really exciting because they're reprising their roles, aren't they? Which given the show has ended will be exciting for fans to see them again. Andrey Tsvetkov: Absolutely. As Alex has mentioned, some of the actors will be returning to their iconic roles and you will see them in the game."

"IGN: One of the things that Mass Effect was famous for was being able to romance your party members with sex scenes. Is that something you have in your game? Alexander Mishulin: Of course. Companions are a huge part of our games. And in all of our games we had various interactions, including romances, and there will be romances in this game too. I can't go into the specifics of which particular characters, or which particular romances of course. But such interactions will be present. As for companions, as I already said, your sibling, either brother or sister because this character will have the same gender as your character — so it's either two brothers or two sisters — you can think about this character as your first companion and most loyal companion from the start. As for other companions, we are not going into details on them, but they represent specialists and professionals from different fields of knowledge. And of course you'll be meeting Martian characters, Earth characters, and Belter characters. All of them will be part of your team, and this will add additional dynamic inter-relations. Because as you know, a lot of events in The Expanse are politically charged, so you can expect some of your companions to have strong opinions about your decisions regarding the politics and allegiances to particular factions."

"IGN: You’ve said the game will have zero-g sections where you go out on the hull of spacecraft. Some of the best moments of The Expanse show were the zero-g scenes. It’s a grounded, hard sci-fi universe, an adult show with gore, nudity, and sex. Will the game be similar in tone to the TV show? Alexander Mishulin: Yeah, The Expanse is very much an adult game with all of those themes, with difficult and tragic moments. Being a cover shooter, you can expect that there is a lot of graphic violence. So yeah, it's very much on par with the show. But in terms of tone, we are exploring The Expanse from a little bit of a different side. You will be seeing dark moments, but you sometimes will be seeing light moments too, because it's not only doom and gloom everywhere. So you can expect to see the more ordinary life of the people of the various factions. Even in the hard situations there are times when people just rise up and become successful. And so you can expect to see the hardship of the Belt characters, but you can also see some of the Belt characters who become very successful and rather powerful. It's our understanding of The Expanse universe. And it's also — sorry for the tautology — it's expanding the setting itself, allowing you to see some of the locations you know from the shows or from the books in different states or in a different light."

"IGN: This game sounds very ambitious and a step up from what I know Owlcat for. It’s described as a AAA action RPG, Unreal Engine 5. When you have comparisons to Mass Effect, people will think of this as a flashy, big budget sci-fi adventure game, which is on a level we've not seen from you as a studio before. It would be great to get some insight into the scope of the project. How have you gone about changing the way the company works to be able to do something like this and meet expectations, which will be high? I know it's hard to say how long the game is, but is this a shorter, tightly constructed linear game? Alexander Mishulin: Yeah, it's a huge step up and a big change to everything in the way we make a game, because all of our processes are really reimagined for this game. But in a lot of fields our expertise allows us to make the step, to take those risks. For example, we are pretty sure about our storytelling, about how we depict characters, depict choices, and provide you with those choices and consequences. When you have this basis, building up on that to make dialogues more cinematographic, make more cutscenes that involve the player and immerse them into the atmosphere, is far easier because you already know how to tell the story, you already know how to present those characters. So we are building up on our strong sides and expanding them to allow us to build this kind of game. And also we of course expanded our own team as well. We hired a lot of professionals, including the people who were working on other AAA titles similar to those, especially on Cyberpunk. So we are building up on their experience as well. In terms of scope of the project, of course it will be smaller than, say, Rogue Trader, which is an immense adventure. But you can still expect most of our staples. So it's not a linear adventure. You will be traveling through the solar system and you will be able to select whoever you want to go on that mission, or do you want to go and help your companion or continue along the story? Time is sometimes also a factor, like if you go into the location earlier or later, something will change and your previous decision will affect the location as well. So all this intricate storytelling is very much in place and you can expect us to deliver on that. It especially works well with the politics, because there are three factions and there is a political game you will be slowly dragged into, and as you start to realize it you understand you can go with it and champion some of the factions, or you can betray them and be a double agent and learn the secrets and sell those secrets to other side. So all this dynamic is in place, but in a shorter adventure. And this adventure is far more cinematographic. That is one part of the reason it is a little bit shorter, because we are trying to bring more action to life, more choices to life. We are not telling it like it was in a book where you read a lot, but you will see a lot of the things that were previously just written with your own eyes, and that requires a lot of effort."

"IGN: Do you have a release window in mind? How far along is the project? Andrey Tsvetkov: Obviously we have a release window in mind, but we won't be sharing it today unfortunately, just because there still might be room for wiggling a little bit, and we will be saving this one for later. What we can say is that we've been working on this project for quite a while now. We started pre-production in 2022. We are not rushing this, right? We are taking our time to do this in the proper manner and we are very excited about how it's actually shaping up. But we will take our time to finish it and we'll be sharing the information about the release window when we are absolutely ready and we are absolutely confident that we can deliver the experience we want in this specific time window."

"IGN: I've got one last question. In the world of The Expanse, humans struggle in space and space travel is difficult. Do you have any mechanics that challenge the player to cope with being in space or space travel in the same way we see in the books and the show? Alexander Mishulin: We actually thought about adding that to the game and even designed some of those. But we decided that we will show those things, we will tell you about those things, but we will not let you play them or manage them because it leads to additional tediousness and draws your attention away from the story and characters. And we want our focus to be very much on the story and the characters. So you will be seeing them, seeing all those elements in cutscenes. You will be seeing the moments when the Juice is coming in and the chairs go into the flat positions. You will be seeing ships that either accelerate or decelerate. You will be seeing all the somersault maneuvers and everything. But you will not be driving the ship by yourself. Of course all the trajectories for space travel will be realistic, not like going straight but taking into account gravity and gravity wells and going around the planets and everything. We are in The Expanse so we're very much grounded and bound by realism, but we don't want realism to take a lot of fun from you. Just sometimes a little bit of fun, but not a lot of fun! But you can expect some of the flesh physics to be in play. Just an example, of course when you're having a shootout in a zero-g environment, the blood will perform in the correct way, not just splattering on the ground. There are a lot of such small details everywhere. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is coming to PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S."

[source] <- there is some concept art at the link

#mass effect #bioware #video games #long post #longpost

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accio-victuuri · 4 months ago

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sharing this review of loch and xz’s performance that’s trending on weibo right now 🫶🏼

After watching "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants", I want to write more about actor Xiao Zhan. I like actors like Xiao Zhan. Because he represents not only the freshness of the film industry, but also an actor who can provide the film market with possibilities and industry imagination.

Outside the movie, we have seen Xiao Zhan's influence in the past few days. It is entirely possible for him to rely on his own influence to give a movie infinite possibilities. It is a record-breaking pre-sale result. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants" broke the fastest record of breaking 100 million in pre-sales during the Spring Festival in Chinese film history in 24 hours. This record also successfully brought the Spring Festival market and the attention of the whole people. Before the movie was released, the cumulative pre-sales of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants" exceeded 330 million, and it also ranked among the top five pre-sale box office charts in Chinese film history.

Such a result is a perfect start for a martial arts film like "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants" that does not have an advantage in scheduling and media predictions at the beginning of the Spring Festival! While demonstrating Xiao Zhan's appeal, the results also successfully helped the film industry increase the popularity and attention of the Spring Festival. At the same time, we can see that Xiao Zhan's influence spans multiple age groups, which also means that he has attracted more people of different ages, from teenagers to middle-aged and elderly groups, and such non-movie market main audience groups to enter the cinema!

Of course, for Xiao Zhan, what is more important is that the movie can give the movie "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants" itself, and give a fresh charm to the role of Guo Jing. In a martial arts film, Xiao Zhan showed a full range of acting abilities. In the process of interpreting the well-known classic role of Guo Jing, we saw his professionalism and dedication as an actor, and also his acting was effortless and natural. In a martial arts film, Xiao Zhan must have faced many challenges, including Mongolian, horseback archery and physical training. But what is presented to the audience is Guo Jing who is completely familiar with the game. He speaks Mongolian without any sense of disobedience, and he is not unfamiliar with riding and shooting. The degree of completion of the action takes into account the elegance and smoothness that martial arts should have, which allows people to instantly bring into the role.

In addition, it is Xiao Zhan's switching of details in the performance that makes the audience's emotions more full. For example, when his mother died in his arms, Xiao Zhan's emotional changes were full of brokenness and empathy, and were particularly detailed. For example, when he finally met Huang Rong, he rode in the rain. The romance and freehand, expectations and enthusiasm were all written into his eyes, and into his tender yearning for riding a horse and whipping a whip.

So I really admire actor Xiao Zhan, because he not only dares, but also goes all out to do it. It is amazing to dare to try and challenge the classic image of Guo Jing, because such a role, if it does not meet the imagination of others, it is easy to fall into the wave of public criticism. But he did not give up. Instead, he used his efforts, dedication, and understanding and grasp of the role to present a Guo Jing that satisfied the director and convinced the audience. He is a clumsy Guo Jing who is full of innocence and kindness. He is also a Guo Jing who sticks to his patriotic sentiments for the country and the people, and shows the core of a great hero.

#xiao zhan #loch #legend of the condor heroes #i am always proud of you gege 🥹🥹🥹🥹

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weaselandfriends · 3 months ago

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do you know of anything with a similar "clockwork storytelling" style of plot development that you used to described act 5 in hymnstokes?

I'm glad you asked this, because this is a concept I've kept in my mind for a long time.

The most obvious well-known examples of clockwork storytelling that come to mind are the films of Edgar Wright, with Hot Fuzz in particular standing out. Edgar Wright's style is that every detail and line of dialogue, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, comes back later to mean something more than it initially seemed. There is no wasted space, nothing extraneous or unneeded. It is all extremely tight and extremely satisfying to see play out.

Film in general, having significant restraints in terms of length, is often subject to this style, though at differing levels of complexity. What is so exciting about Act 5 of Homestuck is that it manages this style while juggling a zillion different characters and plot threads, so when the pieces all slot together it has the sprawling sense of a symphony with hundreds of individual performers working together at once. But I would argue that even something like, say, most Pixar films follow an ethos of extremely tight plotting with minimal extraneous elements. Pixar operates at a smaller scale, so it doesn't overwhelm with magnitude the way Homestuck does, but it still creates that feeling of satisfaction via structural perfection.

Another good example is Rick & Morty. Dan Harmon is an Edgar Wrightian who has his own personal "hero cycle"-style plot structure he likes to stick to, and that level of plotting is on display in most episodes of the first few seasons of the show. What makes R&M an interesting example, though, is the intrusion of Justin Roiland's influence. Roiland is like, a dumbass stoner whose storytelling ethos seems to be to adlib goofy noises into a mic, which is completely at odds with Harmon, but it complicates the otherwise simplistic story template and wound up creating some of the show's most quotable moments (wubba lubba dub dub).

I like works that fuse intricate and satisfying plotting with bizarre and difficult-to-grasp or even contradictory aesthetic decisions like that. My two favorite anime, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Blood-C, both fall into that camp, and both times it's due to the utterly opposite aesthetic dispositions of the show's respective directors and writers. Madoka, for instance, balances Gen Urobuchi's tight, almost mathematical plotting (the show has a major plot development nearly every 3 episodes on the dot) with Akiyuki Shinbo's surreal and eccentric visual style. The visuals wind up complicating what would otherwise be a perfectly-composed but possibly quite dry narrative. Blood-C, a less well-known show, similarly combines a rather simple narrative by CLAMP -- where every event and line of dialogue gestures toward a major twist revealed at the end of the show -- with a manic, sleazy gorefiendery from Tsutomu Mizushima, the director of Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan.

When it comes to clockwork narratives at the scale of Homestuck, it's harder to find examples. Of course, Homestuck is itself faking being a clockwork narrative, which I think I talked about in my old Hymnstoke posts. Homestuck's style is to simply toss out so many details that even by calling back to only a third of them it creates the impression via volume alone that it was all planned out and deliberate. A great example is John's toy chest. It contains some items like the Sassacre book that have a recurring purpose in the narrative, some items like the trick handcuffs that have one notable callback use (when John's Dad escapes captivity using them), and some items that only briefly reappear in the background of later panels. It also contains one item, the fake blood capsules, that never show up again (at least John's fake blood capsules don't; there are some fake blood capsules used by Dave's Bro during the whole puppet Saw misadventure). Hussie has only really meaningfully called back to a few of these details, but has created the impression he has called back to a lot of them, because there are simply so many.

In reality, Homestuck, even Act 5 Homestuck, is laden with extraneous and useless details. Most of the trolls are useless, which is why so many of them are glibly killed off. I used to think the only truly important troll to the narrative was Vriska, and by extension any troll that was important to Vriska, such as Terezi. Now, though, I realize that Vriska's breaking-the-game-for-personal-satisfaction shtick was hijacking Rose's whole bit. Rose was constantly seeking ways to break the game or exploit its boundaries. This ultimately culminates in nothing. Rose goes "grimdark," a completely meaningless state that causes her to be goth for a scene or two, and then that's over with and she becomes an essentially ancillary character for the rest of the story, useful only for a few bits of exposition. Even if we ignore the Act 6 part of that, it's a completely pointless set up with no payoff. Rose questioning the game and trying to break it leads nowhere. All the important game breaking is done by Vriska.

I think you could easily do a troll-less rewrite of Homestuck where the only major difference is that Rose is the one who creates Bec Noir instead of Vriska. It's true that the trolls frequently give the kids exposition that guides their actions, but the story has so many sources of exposition -- the sprites, random writing on their planets, Doc Scratch, their own future selves -- that you could easily fill the gaps they leave. That's the other way Hussie fakes a deliberate and satisfying clockwork narrative: redundancy. Hussie can have 100 characters who all "feel" like that have a role because many characters are all basically doing the same thing. I think I once said, in a spiel about database-driven storytelling, that Hussie wrote similar to how he coded. If you ever looked at the HTML of the old MSPA site, I might have been more right than I knew...

This all probably sounds quite harsh on Homestuck, but I think even creating this illusion of unity at such a large scale is impressive. Compare to a lot of the long-running shounen, which accumulate hundreds of characters who are relevant for their introductory arc and then become part of an increasingly gigantic crowd of tagalongs who are lucky if they even get to say a line now and then to remind the audience they exist. Hussie used the (at the time) brand new concept of the "meme" to accomplish a lot of this aesthetic clockworkery. The most common callbacks in Homestuck, after all, are repeated lines from Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. The redundancy in characters and details helped the work's internal meme language because memes tend to disperse by being templatized and reused in a variety of similar-but-different contexts. In a normal story, you might see stairs several times, and not think anything of it. But in Homestuck, the concept of "stairs" is memetically meaningful. If stairs show up, you better be sure you'll soon get a memetic callback. A bunny? There's a bunny? Oh shit. You better put it back in the box. In this paradigm, a character being similar to another character, almost to the point of redundancy (i.e. Dave and Davesprite and Dirk), is aesthetically unifying, rather than pointlessly promulgating.

#homestuck #anonymous #edgar wright #rick and morty

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thegnomelord · 1 year ago

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Ohm nom - 🦈 (I have some news, I was doing some research on DnD species and found a humanoid shark species called Sharkin. I though yo! Thats fin-flipin awesome but um there is one paragraph that made me take a backturn. I highlighted the main bits "Sharkin fought with and hunted any sort of creature that looked either powerful or threatening to them, including dinosaurs and dragons, making them top predators inside and outside of water. They are hated by most if not all surface dwelling races, making them enemy number one to almost everyone. They are even hated and despised by dragons, since the first time they killed an adult red dragon. This was not a one time problem, and has caused a bitter rivalry between the Dragons and Sharkins. They favored the taste of dragon flesh, from that day onward it became the largest badge of honor available for a Sharkin to hunt and kill a dragon. This then henceforth became a great and mighty challenge, for a member of the Sharkin royal family to hunt and bag a dragon, the bigger the better. The royal family loved the taste of dragons so much they made it their most favored treat among all other delicacies of their people. They often form hunting parties specifically to hunt and bag a dragon for any special occasion or festival. This made any and all dragon absolutely despise Sharkin, for they looked at them as prey and dragons being the vain creatures they are hate them. A dragon that sees a Sharkin will immediate become enraged and will do whatever it can to kill and devour it." NOW reasonably i was quite frazzled and immedietly though about our lil Shark captain of our lil marine team, thats partnered, HAND in HAND with a Dragon Captain. But then another idea came to me, this Sharkin species, (despite how cool they are and i still love) are built on the sterotype that Shark are horrendous terrifying vicous, agreesive creature. When in reality Sharks are just fish puppies that could murder you if you pissed them off enough. So that got me thinking, what if due to rumours, shark hybrids were thought to be Dangerous and Hazordous species, due to horrendous strerotypes, and a movie, most were meant to be cool, but were misinterpited so badly that people started getting afriad of them and in turn, aggressive towards. This is mainly based on a real thing, Both the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, and the director, Steven Spielberg, regret the negative impact the film had on shark populations and the perpetuation of shark stereotypes. So people think that the captains would naturally butt heads, due to sterotypes and rumours that nearly brought the two species to war. (Which was luckily debunked way before anything got violent and now both species are currently fighting against anything harmful towards the other. Creating the oddest but oddly wholesome cross-species relationships. ) Only to find out the two are bound by the hip. waz your take? *Administer Foreheads Kisses*)

Oh yeah, I know the jaws effect lol It's fascinating how fiction can influence reality and reality can influence fiction, sorry this took so long and is so rough, but I got hit with the InspirationTM in the middle of the night lol.

CW:SFW, Price x male reader, monster au,

------------------------------

At first sight, the feelings you and the good captain had for each other could be considered tense professionalism at best and disdain at worst. It isn't a surprise why that is; the hate and suspicion running between your species is old and deep like the trenches. Dragons hardly want to be a shark's dinner, and a shark would rather not become soup.

Still, the peace between your species held, and so did the tense relationship between you two. To the others it looked like you never agreed; they've lost count how many times you and Price had spent hours arguing over battle plans. How you two would release all the anger you had in the ring, so much so you had to spar outside because the military didn't have the funds to fix the ring after every match. How you would bare your teeth and Price would snarl and growl at you at every little argument, thinly veiled insults flying like bullets out of your mouths.

What they didn't know was how softly Price would purr when you two laid in bed, how gently his claws traced your shark hide along your torso. Sprawled out over your chest like you're his mountain of golden coins, more a cat than a dragon really, Price is the picture perfect example of bliss.

"Comfortable huh?" You hum, carding your clawed fingers through his hair, taking the time to scratch around the base of his horns.

"Mhm," He hums, content blue eyes closing as he leans into your touch. "Finally a moment to ourselves." Price chuckles, nuzzling his head into your neck. He breathes in your scent with a happy sigh, sharp fangs nibbling on your throat, the comforting scent calming his mind.

"Uhuh," You chuckle in turn, "The boys sure know how to keep us on our toes." You grin and your hand slides down from his head to his back, even gentler there as you trace the scar where his wing used to be. His remaining wing stretches out, weakly shaking as if trying to stretch, before it falls back down to lay on the bed and hang off it.

Price shivers, a low sound rumbling from his chest. "Can't leave those muppets alone for a moment." He huffs. "Did you see MacTavish? The lad nearly lost his tail because of his toy." A soft growl slips past his lips, neither of you had been pleased when Soap's tail got caught on fire thanks to his explosive he swore was 'safe'. Price's tail curls around yours, and though your tail is too rigid to do the same, he can still feel you reciprocate in the way your tail tip wags like a dog's.

"He's your problem in the morning." Your words earn you a sharp nip at your throat, more of an admonishment than an actual threat. "Ow." You say, in revenge pinching his pudgy side.

"You deserve it." Price laughs, forked tongue licking up the stray drops of blood that leak down from where his teeth had cut your skin. Placing a hand on your chest Price rises just enough to catch your lips in a slow kiss. You can taste your blood on his tongue, along with cigar smoke and something inherently draconic that makes your mouth water for a bite of his flesh.

But his kisses are enough to quench your hunger, gun calloused hands holding your head still so he can pepper kisses along your brows and down your nose, on each cheek and down your jaw. There's no need to rush when the night is dark and the sun isn't ready to rise yet.

It's peaceful.

The door slams open, light and voices flooding in "Captains we need-" Johnny's voice pitters off as he takes in the sight, bright eyes glowing in the darkness "-you..."

Not so peaceful.

#scheduled post #gnome correspondence #cod mw2 #x reader #male reader #captain john price #🦈anon #captain john price x male reader #captain john price x reader #captain price #cod modern warfare #cod mw3 #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #monster 141 #cod monster au #monster 141 au #trinckets of the hoard

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bokettochild · 5 months ago

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Not sure if people have already asked this before, but whose roles are whose for your Opera House AU doing Epic the musical?

No one has actually asked this before! I kept kind of hoping they would though, because I felt weird just throwing it out there unprompted, but trust me, I HAVE thought about it before! So, huge thank you for asking!

Odysseus: Warriors. Who else? I mean, come on, lets be real here, the Troy Saga alone has influenced my perspective of Warriors for so long now that it would be an utter and complete SIN to not have Warriors play the guy who is, in so many ways, so much like himself. Granted, OH AU Warriors is less like our Ody and more like Jay himself, but who cares? The vocals are there and Wars has the spirit and skill. Also, he has the range, from the desperation of the Cyclops Saga, the sadness of the Underworld Saga, the fury of the Vengeance Saga and the warmth and tenderness in both Just A Man and Would You Fall In Love With Me. He had the audience on the edges of their seats, and even though he's already a fan favorite at the opera, he reaffirmed that position with this role. It's also been one of his favorites of all time, because it's very rare he gets to play such a fleshed out and complex character, as he's usually cast as a knight in shining armor archetype rather than a blood-covered and desperate soul one second from snapping!

Athena: I actually had to debate this one a bit, but Imma say Lullaby. Warriors' own Zelda is too sweet, and while Dusk herself could do it, I have a better role for her, and Lullaby is so Athena in so many ways, so I went with her instead. She has that strong, authoritative energy, while also being old enough to sell the Goddess of Wisdom vibe, and also the agility to be a warrior herself. Also, I can kinda see her just actually sounding like that when she sings, y'know?

Zeus: They brought Dei in for this role. Time would have, but they needed a couple of convincing individuals for this, and Dei being bigger and physically of a brighter pallet than Time kinda gave him High King and Sky God energy that they just really needed for the stage performance.

Polyphemus: Also Dei. For a stage performance, they actually had a puppet and rigging for the cyclops itself, but Dei's vocal range allowed him to do the voice from off stage quite convincingly. (Four himself was the Puppeteer (lol) for the cyclops though, so he also deserves credit)

Polities: It was Ravio. Typically, Ravio doesn't perform, but he could capture that energy they wanted for Polities and his vocal range is a bit higher than most of the other cast. Wind would have done it, but because of his age, the crew divided against it. After all, Polities isn't a child, but a man, and having Wind in the role would have changed that perception. Hyrule was nervous for the part, but he's actually glad that Polities died within five songs because it meant that he only had to show up on rare occasion as a ghost after that, and spent less time in the spotlight.

Eurylochus: They actually had a bit of a struggle on this one, since none of the team actually has a voice that deep, but Twilight ended up filling the role, since it's got less major singing parts and more speaking bits than a lot of the other characters. It's not as demanding as some of the other roles he could have played (like the gods) and he looks the part of the big, strong, best-friend and advisor to the lead, or at least enough that he was believable. He's not the best actor, but he did a great job all the same; better than anyone else could have done it at any rate!

Poseidon: Time actually played this part! Being a former rock-star has it's advantages, and that includes being able to bleed rage and/or agony into his voice while leaving his audience totally and completely chilled! Being the blocking director and stunt coach also means that he was able to really sell any battle scenes because he was right up in there to guide, coax, and otherwise cover for the cast's mistakes when need be. He admittedly had a TON of fun with the role, and I'd be lying if I said that there weren't;t a few people in the crowd watching who didn't have to pause and wonder where they'd heard his voice before, never mind so many online forums comparing his vocal qualities to famously masked singer Major-A, but, hey, Time considers it worth it, even if the role might have blown his cover.

Aeolus: Who better to play the god of winds than Wind himself? It's a small role, so Time and Lullaby felt comfortable letting him take it, even though this would have been a major production and risk for the opera. The fact that he's kid only helped to sell the care-free and mischievous depiction. He had a TON of fun with the role too, and the audience was eating his performance up!

Circe: Artemis! I wanted one of the divas to do this, and Artemis has the right energy, as well as great on-stage chemistry with Warriors! They broke down into giggles so many times as she attempted to "seduce" him during practice, but it actually turned out really great. She's one of the only gals in the cast who could hit the high notes at the end of There Are Other Ways and really sell the emotional range of Circe's character

Hermes: I actually struggled on this one until it literally just jumped out at me. Wild plays Hermes. He's got the energy, physically and otherwise, and I'm going to say that any dancing included was actually something he just ad-libbed in there, rather than being told to do it by Time or Lullaby. They loved it though and totally kept it in, as well as a few other little quirks he added to the character (they sort of just set him free on stage in the end and told him to go nuts, so most of Warriors' reactions to him are entirely real and not faked at all, lol). Yes, this did result in Wild deciding to address everyone (short of his bosses) as "dawling" for the foreseeable future, but no one could deny that it's been one of his best roles ever!

Tiresias/The Prophet: This one was actually a huge struggle for the crew, because while they have a lot of actors, there's a sort of a limit to who can or cannot portray certain character, and in the end, it was Legend who took the role, despite having other parts to play and a prop and costume crew to supervise for most of the musical. He did a great job though, and you know those animatics that sort of depict No Longer You as a sort of twisted waltz? Yeah, the cast went with that, and it was a good thing Legend played the role, because he's the only one who can actually dance blindfolded! He also carried the weight of the song very well, and between him and Warriors, they gave the audience absolute chills!

Odysseus's Mother: Malon! It was a small appearance, so even though she's technically not an actress, and is actually a musical coach, she was happy to join on the production if it was just for one song. Yes, everyone cried. Warriors' tears were entirely real in that scene and everyone else was hard pressed to not show it when their turns came to sing.

Scylla: For some reason I Can Not Explain, I just really want Legend to have told everyone "I know a gal" and just dragged Hilda in to play this role. But, since she isn't an actress, and probably wouldn't want to be one, I'm going to say Fable took it instead. She doesn't give Monster Girl energy, but like her twin, she's very adept, and really gave everyone the creeps even before Styla made her up like a monster lady! Her vocals are chilling, and she really enjoyed reading up on the lore of her character and trying to let it bleed in through her voice to sound more like a tortured soul, punished by the gods and made out as a monster to mortals due to her horrific appearance (and man eating, but details!).

Calypso: Believe it or not, Sun sold this role like the queen she is! Her innocent, almost angelic look really contrasted the horrible behavior but also total ignorance of the character, and I actually think she'd sound similar to Barbara Wangui when she sings, so having her in the role feels right. Granted, she doesn't give "Island Goddess" in the same way that Marin would, but Marin is probably dead in the OH AU, and wouldn't join the opera anyway, so yeah.

Penelope/Siren: (I'm pretty sure it's the same actress for both, but even if not, that's how the crew did it!) Dusk was the only option for this role, and she rocked it! She's got the range, got the mature look of a woman who's been waiting 20 years for her beloved to come home (totally helped by the fact that she spent 17 years waiting for her actual love to reappear), and while she and Warriors did have to work quite a bit to sell the right dynamic on stage, they are both talented actors, and did a great job together. She actually really had fun with the siren role, and her screams as the sirens are slain were positively blood-curdling! She half sacred Warriors to death when he first heard it and he still shiver slightly even when they finally perform.

Telemachus: I debated this one so hard, because each member of the cast has a certain energy and none quite match Telemachus, but in the end, again, Legend filled the role, since he's good at taking the ones that no one else can do and adapting as need be to suit it. Is it sort of method acting if he can relate to the character and thus capture the emotion better? Who knows, but despite playing the prophet as well, a costume change and intermission can do wonders for helping a guy get into character as the opposite of what he was an hour ago! He's also got the stunt training and skill to pull off fight scenes well, and look like he's bad at it, as well as a good irl dynamic with Lullaby that they definitely leaned into for their songs together. As for the Ithica saga songs, well, he and Warriors had to work really hard, given their actual dynamic, to try and sell their parts, but they're both talented actors and they made it through in the end.

Antinous: Don't come for me, but Sky actually ended up taking this role! He's a talented actor, with a special skill for action scenes and fights, as well a great depth of emotion and, despite being an utter teddy bear in actuality, he plays a killer villain! Did Legend and he end up laughing their asses off after having to act like they hated each other? yes, but they kept in character as long as they were on stage and Sky's voice tends to give people chills when he sings, so he really could set the mood well, as well as keeping pace with Legend and giving their scenes together some great energy. It scares the rest of the cast how quick he can switch from softie to scary monster man, but there's a reason he's one of the best!

(Note: I feel like after a while if they decide to revisit the musical, Hyrule might be at a place where he'd be able to play Telemachus, but as it stands in the AU, he doesn't have the confidence needed to basically carry a whole act just yet. He has the vocals quality to sell the character though! And, while Legend's great at his job, Hyrule does look/feel more the part of the sheltered and stumbling young man without a guide or guardian to show him the way. Time and Lullaby probably wanted to cast him, but since Hyrule wasn't ready, they asked Legend instead.)

As for some of the other roles, the team had a ton of fun using puppets for the winions, and various not on stage actors got to voice them via mics! Think sort of Jim Henson style puppets though, since they are mental to be a sort of comedy relief.

The various suitors were played by all the guys who had been 'killed off' previously in the show, with the exception of Dei and Time, whose voices are too notable, and Legend who, of course, is currently playing Telemachus. Same thing for the army, although they did pre-record some of the bits where there's supposed to be more of a crowd, since they can only fit so many people on stage and wanted to really sell the idea of 600 men or 108 suitors, or the countless dead in the underworld, ect. They did hire a bunch of extras for crowd scenes, and used puppets and various other effects to sell the appearance of crowds where they could, but I don't feel the need to state who every extra is LOL.

So yeah! That's how it would go! Thank you again for this ask! It's been a delight to talk about a musical I actually understand, as well as adore! Especially considering I'm working on LU animatics for it even now!

Feel free to ask anything else you'd like, even if someone else might have asked already, because I have a big mouth and I like to talk, and I might have more thoughts now than I did previously!

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caesarflickermans · 5 months ago

Text

From the Waterstones edition of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A Q&A WITH SUZANNE COLLINS

Leading up to the publication of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, author Suzanne Collins and the book's editorial director, David Levithan, spoke about some of the philosophical and literary influences on the book, many of which can be found in the series of quotes on the epigraph page at the book's start.

transcribed below

DL: One of the first things you said to me about this book was that I'd better brush up on my Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau to best understand what you were doing with it. That feels like a great springboard for this conversation, since I know these philosophers and their conflicting constructions of human nature were key to what you wanted to explore. Did the novel start with these questions and then find its story, or vice versa?

SC: This novel began in a philosophical swamp that my brain swam around in until the narrative came to me. With the two series, the Underland Chronicles and the Hunger Games trilogy, my goal was to tell stories for young audiences that examined aspects of just war theory. If you focus on that topic long enough, you naturally arrive at the question of human nature and why we tend toward conflict.

I'll do my best to boil down some complex ideas here, but they all bear far more discussion. The state of nature debate of the Enlightenment thinkers — Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau — addresses the human condition before we had societies or political associations. Your opinion on who we were in the state of nature defines the form of government you think we need.

During my work on the two series, I kept running into Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, and his war "of every man, against every man." He wrote that in the state of nature, life was "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" and that we require a common power, a sovereign or absolute political authority, to rule us. In return for protection, we agree to give our obedience.

John Locke had a gentler view of humanity. He wrote that "men living together according to reason… is properly the state of nature. But force… upon the person of another… is the state of war." He's very big on reason, which "teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions..."

DL: That sounds very familiar….

SC: Yes, much of it was used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence less than a century later. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Locke believed in limited government. The government was there to protect the rights of the people, and if it failed to do so, they could put another in its place.

DL: And Rousseau?

SC: Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that human beings in the state of nature were motivated by amour de soi, a naturally good form of self-love or self-preservation. When we entered society, amour de soi evolved into amour-propre, a destructive form of self-love that depends on the approval of other people and is associated with vanity, contempt, shame, and envy. Rousseau wrote about the rule of "the general will," or the will of the people as a whole. In The Social Contract, he says, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." His thinking influenced the French Revolution, socialism, and a wide range of political theory.

DL: And how do you see the Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau positions on human nature in relation to your characters?

SC: The principal characters in Ballad embrace elements of the different philosophers' arguments and carry them into Panem. Volumnia Gaul passes Hobbes's basic worldview on to Coriolanus. Sejanus fights the good fight for Locke, as does Lucy Gray, who picks up the mantle for Romanticism as well. Rousseau is lightly sprinkled over the Covey, usually by way of his influence on the Romanticists, as he was an early one himself.

DL: Why is the state of nature debate timely?

SC: Here in the United States, we spend a great deal of time attacking one another for our liberal or conservative views, left or right, blue or red. But I think we've lost sight of a deeper issue, which is about democratic versus authoritarian rule, and what it requires to sustain a democracy.

DL: Another influence on the book is Wordsworth, whose "Lucy Gray" influences both your character of that name and one of the ballads she sings. Did you know from the start that the poem would be the basis for her ballad, or was that something that came after the story was set in motion?

SC: Romanticism emerged in the late eighteenth century and celebrates individualism, emotion, nature, free expression, and the form of nationalism embodied by the Covey. Wordsworth was a key figure in the movement with his Lyrical Ballads, where he describes poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." When I read his "Lucy Gray" poem, I thought, That's it. That's my girl's ballad.

The character was already fairly well-developed, but with a different name. I had to find her name the way I had to find Katniss's. I was drawn to the poem by the mystery of Lucy Gray's fate. Being able to echo that in the novel seemed perfect, leaving the reader to wonder, leaving a question that I can address if I decide to fill out more of the world of Panem. Also, the name Lucy Gray seemed designed for the Covey, with its built-in color. I liked the idea that the Covey, as lovers of nature, would honor all colors, not just the flashy ones: taupe and ivory and gray like a winter day. Then there's the ambiguity of the color gray. I don’t think that was an accident on Wordsworth's part. And the obliteration by snow. And the easy adaptation to a song. It met so many needs.

DL: And what happens when Coriolanus's Hobbesian worldview encounters Romanticism?

SC: They're like oil and water; they don't mix well. Ultimately, Romanticism is a factor in bringing down Coriolanus and the Hunger Games. Katniss does it with the help of Lucy Gray's music. Conversely, the katniss plant lends a hand to Lucy Gray in a time of need.

DL: Jumping from the derivation of Lucy Gray's name to the derivation of Coriolanus's . . . as you note in the acknowledgments, one of the serendipities that occurred during the writing and editing of this book was that it happened to coincide with the first Shakespeare in the Park production of Coriolanus in decades. In the trilogy, particularly when it comes to Snow's finale, the connections to Shakespeare's Coriolanus are clear. What do you see as the points of connection between eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow and the leader in Shakespeare’s play?

SC: Shakespeare's Coriolanus owes a great debt to "The Life of Coriolanus" in Plutarch's Lives. Like the protagonist in the play, he had anti-populist views. Here, Plutarch describes Coriolanus's reaction to a dispute over grain distribution in the Senate. (Coriolanus is referred to by the name given to him at birth, Caius Marcius.) "But Marcius rose in his place and vehemently attacked those who favored the multitude, calling them demagogues and betrayers of the aristocracy, and declaring that they were nourishing, to their own harm, the evil seeds of boldness and insolence which had been sown among the rabble; these they should have choked when they first sprang up, and not have strengthened the people by such a powerful magistracy as the tribunate."

Shakespeare makes his Coriolanus's loathing clear from his entrance, when he greets the citizens with: "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, / That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, / Make yourselves scabs?" He follows that up with a whole string of insults, driving home his contempt for them.

This anti-populist position would be the key character trait to carry over to the book. Young Coriolanus's sense of superiority to the district citizens of Panem is absolute. He believes them to be almost subhuman, barbaric, and he goes to great lengths to separate Lucy Gray from them when he begins to fall for her. Exposure to the districts only reinforces his position. And while he recognizes their advantages, he doesn't have a particularly high opinion of his neighbors in the Capitol either. Ultimately, he embraces the Hobbesian worldview that humanity needs an absolute authority to rule at the expense of personal freedom.

DL: And, for better or worse, each Coriolanus has the counsel of a Volumnia. . . .

SC: In the play, Coriolanus is influenced by his mother, Volumnia. In Ballad, Coriolanus's philosophical mother is Volumnia Gaul, not the gentle mother who died when he was five. She educates him and is clearly a fan of Hobbes's state of nature philosophy. Both Coriolanuses come from the upper class, lose their fathers at a young age, serve in the military, and live in the Rome of their worlds. But they're not meant to be identical; in fact, in some ways they're polar opposites. For instance, Coriolanus of the play thrives in war, but Ballad Coriolanus struggles to find its appeal. In this, he's much more like Hobbes, who developed his ideas having lived through the English Civil War.

DL: The one epigraph that surprised me, because we hadn't discussed her influence or her thinking, was the one from Mary Shelley. Although in her most famous novel, she was also investigating the boundaries and inclinations of human nature. How does her influence or her treatment of the themes apply to Ballad?

SC: Mary Shelley embodies the ideas of Romanticism but incorporates Locke's and Rousseau's earlier ones as well, which makes her most representative of Lucy Gray and the Covey. Look at the quote from Frankenstein: "I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him." When I read it, I'm reminded of Locke's tabula rasa, or blank slate, theory, in which all we know comes from experience, as well as of Rousseau's state-of-nature human beings, who were capable of pity and compassion. She seems to be saying that naturally good creatures exposed to an abusive world result in monsters. You can apply that to Frankenstein's monster, Coriolanus, or anyone you choose.

#thg #the hunger games #suzanne collins #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #thg resources #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #sejanus plinth

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