#then after i'm going to go in and read the non-western classics

[janiedean]

Heyyo! Hope you're doing great, I'm sorta coming back to Tumblr after a while so this feels like randomly calling on a person's home without warning 😂 but I was speaking to a friend about something and it made me wonder - do you know of some really cool books in Italian (or if you read other languages too) that have never been translated to English? (Friend and I speak different non English languages and realised this is true although both of us read only in English sadly)

hey anon!!! welcome back too and haha please i’ve been terrible at keeping up so it’s two of us 😭 and thanks for the well wishes, i’m… well let’s say I’m in the middle of mental health bullshit so i could be doing better but really thanks for asking in the first place TVT ❤️❤️

aaand concerning your question….. I mean I’m somewhat positive that 90% of current good italian narrative doesn’t get translated much but tbf I read more italian classics than contemporaries and i think most of those got translated but one i really liked recentlyish is named (translating the title) the boar who shot liberty valance and you already guessed WHY i went and picked it up given the reference to my favorite western movie ever in the title 😂 it’s a very good one though! and uuh lemme check no okay both maurizio de giovanni and giancarlo de cataldo aka two mystery writers i generally enjoy got translated, camilleri of course did as well so nope, BUUT i checked smth else and apparently not all of cesare pavese’s work was translated into english and I am extremely disappointed in hearing it because he’s one of the best italian writers in existence nor to mention one of the few people whose poetry i immediately enjoyed from the get go which is not a given for me, they only translated moon and bonfires but like all the others are amazing as well, also Iemme check beppe fenoglio other great post wwii writer only got two of his books translated and post 90s and i doubt his wuthering heights theater adaptation was which truly saddens me, i’m not 100% sure of how much of verga was translated but while answering you i found out lawrence translated one of his novels which i had no idea of and now i kinda want to check it.. anyway ngl probably 90% of what won our most prestigious literary award here did not get translated but I also have stopped paying attention to it since a book I considered an utter piece of trash won so i’m out of the loop 😭 but if i can think of anything else or if any italians want to chime in go off!

[weirdcat1213]

So I started to think about queer media (as you do) and the question hit me like a truck

What is better, a subtle queer story or a explicit queer story? Why the difference?

This is gonna be long so get a snack, sit down and let's go

First off I wanna say this is not talking about queerbaiting. I'm not interested in that atm. When I say explicit vs subtle I mean the topic of queerness beyond romance, I mean stories that go further than "I can't like this person we're from the same sex oh no"

To explain myself better I'm going to touch on different pieces of media that show queerness subtly and explicitly, but those will also be divided between Japanese media and western media (oh God if you have recs on more queer media that isn't from the west nor Japan pls give it to me give it now-)

This post will have as representatives of queer Japanese media: "Our dreams at dusk", "Villain", "Requiem of the Rose King" and "Stars Align" (if applicable the manga spoilers will be kept to a minimum)

And the representatives of western media will be "Felix Ever After", "Heartstopper" and "Our Flag Means Death"

I bet now you can see how some of the media in the western group is similar to the Japanese media. All of the works mentioned are undoubtedly queer, but there's a key difference: a few of them talk about queerness with explicit terms (gay, trans, queer, etc) while others go more on vibes (the queerness is right there but its not named with labels or common terms)

Now I'm not saying the ones that are explicit are better or vice versa, but it made me think about the difference and why a method works for certain stories and not for others.

Let's go to the beginning: I was reading a recent manga called "Villain" by teniwoha and other collaborators. The manga is based in the vocaloid song of the same name. The story and themes within the song are pretty much gender-non conforming and trans people being vilified by society because they are different. But so far I can see the manga is trying to add more layers to the concept of queer people being vilified (I'll make another post about that I promise). The point is that the story explored a trans-masc nb teenager and a gay teenager who has a crush on the other person. The thing with this manga and these characters is that sometimes they're too...on the nose. Not only tries to sneak references to the song evert time it can, but some of the moments seem too classic, like if they googled "how do nb feel about being nb" and they got some testimonials from teenagers.

But that's the thing. those feelings are still valid because they belong/ed to someone. If you personally have not experience something, amplifying voices of people who have is the thing you should be doing.

All of that to say that "Villain" feels pretty explicit in my eyes and they are only in chapter 6. I strongly feel like the manga will get even more explicit because reasons (i will explain in another post i promise).

This moment reminded me to other Japanese media that are pretty explicit with queer terms, moments, etc. "Stars Align" and "Our Dreams at Dusk" present terms, reflections, etc that make queerness explicit. Characters in "Stars Align" reflect on gender identity and the future, while characters in "Our Dreams at Dusk" show the reader all the kinds of genders and sexual orientations that exist. They even touch on how they are perceived in their society.

"This is all fine" I hear you cry "but we already got stuff like that. Media that explicitly shows queerness as a way to teach the audience about it" and you're right! we have media like "Felix Ever After" and "Heartstopper". They both talk about terms, gender identity, labels, etc. Media that talks about queerness in a way that makes it the focus to teach the audience about queerness is not new.

But you need to consider the oh so precious cultural/political context. You see, I'm going to assume, my western reader, you are used to this because western media has dipped its toes on it already. After years of making queer subtext, we have seen explicit queer media in the last 10-5 years? so we are used to it. Hell, some people even prefer media like "Our Flag Means Death" because queerness is alive and present, but it's not as explicit as it could. The words "gay, polycule, lesbians, nb" etc are never said but the characters are loud in their queerness. A lot of people prefer that approach because it voices their feelings without getting...lets call it technical: in both "Our Dreams at Dusk" and "Our Flag Means Death" there are characters with no defined gender identity. they are themselves without any labels.

Japanese media is not new to the subtleness at all. Works like "Requiem of the Rose King" have already proof they have and can do queer media, but for years it has been subtle. No one says "gay, intersex, trans" etc in the manga mentioned and yet readers knew the queer themes explored in the manga. It is just recently that japanese people are being more vocal and have the chance to show queerness in media (I'm aware they have been protesting for years I only mean in media). Media like "Villain", "Our Dreams at Dusk" and "Stars Align" are not explicit because japanese people just got the great idea to talk about it after the west did, it's because being explicit about queerness works in their political and cultural context. From what I've been told, currently most japanese people are accepting but they will ask you to "keep it at home." In a situation like that, no wonder why they are going for more explicit media recently. They don't care western media has been doing so for years now, it is their culture and their fight. There is still subtle japanese queer media (monster 2023 ily) but their creation process does not follow the creative process queer media in the west does.

So back to my questions: What is better, a subtle queer story or a explicit queer story? Why the difference?

The answers are short: both and because they belong to different political and cultural environments. Representation is important, but we need to consider the place it comes from before criticizing it.

What should you choose if you create a queer story? idk, whatever fits you. whatever fits the story you want to tell.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

what do you like so much about jordelia? 😁💕

A few things.

I actually almost never like friends to lovers. But in the case of Herondaisy, I love that they've known each other and been friends all their lives because that underlying romantic tension was always there. I love the way that they've been pining after each other for such a long time - even James was pining a bit when he was under the bracelet's spell. He was giving Cordelia "Quiet Looks" and planning out a life with her despite that curse, which is wonderful when you think about it. They were besties, and "all hell's power couldn't extinguish that love."

I love the genuine love and respect that both characters have for each other, especially James -> Cordelia (because Cordelia is my blorbo and I think she deserves to be treated like a queen). I love how he decorated his entire house with things that he knew she'd like, stuff that represented her Persian heritage and things she just mentioned liking like chess boards. Big fan of the Carstairs crest over the fireplace and of the way that he decorated with solely her in mind, and he left her empty bookshelves for her books?? Gold.

I love how they bond over reading, too. Wessa has always been my Ultimate Bookish Ship, but I'm realizing that Herondaisy does it just as well albeit in a different way. I like how they read out loud to each other and soothe each other that way, and I like their connections over Persian folk tales and poetry. It's cool to see non-Western literature be appreciated in the books as well as British classics.

They just love each other's company so much and it's palpable. I love all of their little domestic moments where they're just sitting in front of the fireplace and reading together. And playing games, talking, laughing. Sign me up.

I also adore all their talk of travel and the plans that they have to go to places like Istanbul and Persia. It's so lovely and I think they're going to have an adventurous life together.

[sciolists-libellum]

Haleth || 22 || tries to handle the tech side of things but Asra is better at it. I do the organising and handling of the admin.

BA || LLB || Undergrad. Send help

If you wanna partake in the shenanigans you can find me @rangerofthesouth

Areas of Interest:

- Right now, a severe obsession with Greek Mythology because of the PJO series and I'm also reading the Iliad after reading Song of Achilles (no, i cannot under any circumstances be normal about him and Patroclus.)

- Classic literature and poetry : I wanna read as many classics as I can because why not and also school didn't allow me to read so I'm making up for lost time. (I'm still trying to finish Pride and Prejudice, but my adhd keeps saying noooo)

- Film : I watch a lot of films, movies and series, sometimes I watch mainstream stuff. Not just to space out, but because i enjoy complex storylines and excellent directing.

(currently watching Gossip Girl and... I have my reservations but..it's actually pretty interesting). I'm a fan of period dramas, fantasy and anything that has to do with magic, sci-fi and psychological thrillers.

- The Old Guard and books by Neil Gaiman : recently graphic novels have become something I'm completely obsessed with... I can't explain how much i love graphic novels and comics right now!!!! Just *high pitched scream*

- Also non-western literature:

I'm a firm believer in knowing where you came from in order to know where you're going.

gimme poetry about the indentured Indians, gimme stories about the poc who have had to fight to be seen, gimme gimme oral tales from ethic tribes, let me see the diaspora of your people around the globe

i wanna hear about everyone's history. Where you came from, why they chose to step onto the ship, whether they had a choice. Tell me about your aunty's recipe for a certain dish, i bet you there's a story behind it.

- I'm really into fashion rn after spending my entire adolescence wearing the same tshirt and jeans. will i be normal about it? Absolutely not.

- queer theory and history and law even if i don't wanna admit that out loud. But wow, is the law actually interesting...

What else am i interested in??

- Food. Especially Asian foods and the absolute wonderful variety every culture has to offer. So far I've had a good intro to Korean foods such as gimpap and baobuns, I've tried Chinese oudon noodles which i would happily die for oh and i tried ramen too.. But i needa know more so please gimmmmme gimme your favourite Asian dishes, especially if they're spicy.

- Music : i play the guitar and piano and cannot be normal about jazz, blues or classics. Yes, Asra is right, Pop music is my area of expertise until you ask me about relevant songs. ( BUT classical music is Asra's area of utter and complete expertise. Seriously any questions on classical music and composition send it to Asra)

-Art: i freaking love art ( Van Gogh my love, Fauvism my detested, animation because of Abu (a friend not the monkey from Aladdin.) my painting skills are something to be worked on but i can draw!

- I'm very normal about Cate Blanchett in any of her films.

- i enjoy reading and listening to explanations on different beliefs, cultures and psychology, i really like understanding how the world works.

-physics even though I failed math and never did physics but wooow do i love applying it to Formula One.

- Oh yeah, formula one 🏎️

- i love animals, i will befriend your pets.

-Travel : honestly i wanna see every inch of the world and eat alllll kinds of foods and leave a footprint in a German forest. The ocean beckons, the sky will carry me gently, the mountains sing for me to join them.

My areas of Interest will change as i grow and my brain decides what my next hyperfixation will be. There's a good chance imma inflict it upon everyone here😗

beautiful paragraph dividers are the works of @saradika

[secret-third-thing]

Thank you for the tag @fieldofdaisiies <3

🍓 how did you get into writing fanfiction?

I wrote fanfiction before I knew it was called fanfiction. If you look at my diaries from when I was about 8 years old, I had much to say about Prince Zuko. What's really interesting, however, is that I wasn't writing romances. I wrote a lot about Prince Zuko in interesting situations, and putting X in weird, non-romantic situations continues to be my favorite thing to do. Fast-forward decades, and I got back into fanfic because I picked up writing as something I wanted to pursue seriously. I got great advice to practice doing my weird stuff in fanfiction to bolster my skills and keep the dopamine coming while I tackled longer work that wouldn't see the light of day for years, if at all.

🍇How many fandoms have you written in?

Technically four: Avatar the Last Airbender, Naruto (sue me), Dragon Age, and Now Acotar. ATLA is almost entirely handwritten or in a notes document since I wasn't allowed to use the internet as a kid. Naruto and DA are on pseuds that no one will ever know or find out about :)

🍈 How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

If you count everything that wasn't online then...five? six? years? I don't really keep track and I went through phases of writing and not writing when I was younger.

🍎 Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I write more in the Acotar fandom. I read more in the DA fandom, and that's largely because the kinds of stuff I like to read about are not as prevalent in Acotar fanfic. It's been fascinating to see how those communities differ from one another.

🍌 What is one way you've improved as a writer?

I'm guessing this means: what is one way fanfic helped me improve my writing? Western story structure. I knew it from my workshops, and you'll learn it in every class and see it everywhere on writing blogs, but I believe you truly don't really get story structure until you've consciously made an effort to engage with it. I've actually taken very popular fanfic and mapped them to Save the Cat / Three Act Structure, etc, to understand how fanfic, in particular, utilizes or fails to utilize these structures. It was also fun to see how my past writing naturally followed some of these more specific structures. Now I understand why certain ideas worked versus others.

🍑 Do you have any bad habits as a writer?

I will tinker with things forever, sometimes to the point of making my writing worse. It's taken a while to let go and accept imperfection. This is fanfic, after all. I save my intensity for original fiction.

🍋What is something you've been too nervous/ intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

A classic mystery. Or a caper/heist. Really good ones take a LOT of planning, research, and time to execute properly. If I'm going to write something like this, I don't want it to be half-assed.

🍇What made you choose your username?

Purely so I could be obnoxious and chime in whenever said "or a secret third thing."

No pressure... I'm tagging: @readychilledwine @hieragalbatorixdottir, @elliemarchetti, and @leylses

Answer the questions and tag five fanfiction authors you know!

Thank you @metalbvcky. NPT for @mrs-illyrian-baby @doasyoudesireandlive @km-ffluv @labella420

🍓 How did you get into writing fanfiction?

As a teen I was a voracious reader and tried to write my own stuff based on other books I'd read. I also loved ST:TNG and wanted dearly to be in an episode and had lots of the books. I wrote my own ST stories with OC's (gratuitous self inserts), but they never went anywhere. In my late teens I read some Xena fanfic on the internet. But that was it for a great number of years.

At the beginning of 2021 I sat and watched the entirety of the MCU films in chronological order (I'd seen most of them before and was mainly a Thor gal.) I fell down the Stucky rabbithole. Deep. I decided to look up fanfic. AO3 was now a thing! I wrote (a very poor) Stucky fic and here we are, almost 3 years later

🍇How many fandoms have you written in?

As my ST stuff never made it further than my parent's old PC in the days of dial-up, I won't count it.

I've written for MCU, various Chris Evans and Seb Stan Characters and one fic for RWRB. I've been toying with writing a one-off Criminal Minds fic as a gift for a friend.

🍈How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Three in July since I first published anything on AO3.

🍎Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I try to balance it out. If I have a period of hyperfocus writing I try to then go through a period of reading. I read on both Tumblr and AO3, so try to keep that even as well.

🍌What is one way you've improved as a writer?

Getting betas to pick me up on tense changes, overuse of words and rogue commas. Reading more. Practising. Writing outlines for longer stories so I don't go off-piste.

🍑Do you have any bad habits as a writer?

Getting bored half-way through a long fic, especially if the first few parts haven't had a lot of interaction. Which is why I try to write the whole thing before I start posting.

🍍 What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Engineering courses at MIT and, for a separate fic, Violet wands, including the ways to use them and the differnt types of accessories you can use with them. I even watched a Youtube video.

🍉What's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

Any comment! Anything that gives me the validation I need!

🍐What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

I wrote a transformation into Tsum-tsum fic that was both cracky and smutty. That's pretty niche.

🥭What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

Action scenes. I loathe them. I'm constantly wondering if they are long enough, and make sense.

🍏What is the easiest type?

Short things that are either PWP or fluffy slices of life.

🍑Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

Mainly on my elderly laptop on G-Docs, and in every moment I can - normally afterwork before dinner and on Mondays when I don't have work.

🍋What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

There are a few characters and ships I haven't written that I'd like to. And I suppose I'd like to write a proper long, over 100k fic at some point.

🍇 what made you choose your username?

When I made my AO3 account I felt as though that at 40, and only really starting in Fandom in this way, I was late to the party, so that is who I became.

[orossii]

I'm sorry if you're weirded out by my outslaught of likes, lmao. It's because I really, really am in awe and curious about how you developed such a critical and honest worldview. What was your journey like? And what kind of books + media did you consume? I consider myself a Marxist, but I'm horribly uninformed and I want to be better. I want to exercise my critical thinking skills. I don't want to be bogged down by social media cynicism anymore. I want to have hope

@claim-staker no no, not at all, i find it flattering! thank you :)

and man there's no quick way to answer this question and i'll try not to get too long-winded with it, but i am gonna put it under a cut to give myself a little more room to be thorough lol. i’m going to mostly reference modern marxist thinkers here because they require a little more digging to find, but for classic marxist theory i encourage you to work through a good marxist-leninist reading list, such as @inqilabi’s here. i have a list of largely non-theory documentaries, youtube channels, books, and podcasts that i found personally helpful here and keep a youtube playlist of things i find interesting here. hopefully this answers your question!

sooo around spring of 2020 i got so fucked up mentally during the height of the pandemic hysteria that i started doing some very surface level reading into some buddhist meditation concepts. it clicked with me in a very intense way, and started a radical reorientation in how i think. it was like becoming a new person in a very short period of time. i had been locked into an anxious, self-absorbed worldview for all of my life and suddenly started understanding the world and human society as a coherent interlocking system that i was a natural consequence of. i found out that reality is the result of contradictions between opposing material forces leading to growth, decay, and then transformation into something new, and that concept can be applied to all scientific disciplines as well as to human psychology

from there i was like 'wow i need to get into politics for real' sometime in like, late 2020. way back in 2015 i went from gender ideology to radical feminism and remembered how exhilarating that learning process was, but also how demoralizing and alienating it could sometimes be. that experience i think gave me the sense that sometimes while learning, i'd be in a position where pursuing reality without judgment or dogma would put me at odds with other people, and i couldn't be afraid of that if i wanted to really learn

after dicking around with ‘progressive alt media’ trash like the young turks, i started learning about noam chomsky's media model of propaganda and had another awakening of sorts. i realized that the way information was presented to us under western capitalism was being used to manufacture consent for military aggression against the third world, and that the US economy basically ran on this subjugation. i became very interested in the iraq and vietnam wars and how the media was used to promote it. getting really interested in that subject caused my faith in western media to bottom out completely, and i became more receptive to the marxist ideas i was seeing presented alongside noam chomsky's work

i started listening to a podcast called 'revolutionary leftist radio' that in the present day i find grating for various reasons lol, but the host had some excellent interviews with a variety of activists, and i found myself most drawn to the marxist-leninist position. i was exhilarated by descriptions of the dialectical materialist process, which fell directly in line with what i'd learned from reading about buddhist philosophy except applied to the study of human society. basically, marx said that society is propelled forward by contradictions that arise due to the unequal distribution of resources within a class society, and that it's possible to predict certain outcomes based on analysis of those economic contradictions. mao's "on contradiction" and stalin's "dialectical and historical materialism" explain this in more detail and in plain language

from there i found outlets like the grayzone, mint press news, and breakthrough news, that outlined the ways in which the US and its western allies were plundering and degrading the global south via a highly aggressive and extractive finance economic strategy called imperialism. i read imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism and the state and revolution, both by vladimir lenin. i got really into the work of modern day marxist economists and political theorists like richard wolff, michael hudson, vijay prashad, utsa and prabhat patnaiak. more recently i'm really enjoying the work of jay tharappel

having that economic understanding of imperialism gave me the tools to analyze existing socialist states in terms of what their needs were as well as what they were up against re: being forced to co-exist with a militarily aggressive sole superpower that necessitates the subjugation of the rest of the world to function. i started systematically going through mainstream articles condemning these enemies of the US state and checking sources, seeing how long it took me to come to a conclusion entirely divorced from the local economic and political context at best or coming from "unnamed US intelligence officials" or paid off ex-pats at best. people like brian berletic on youtube are great at outlining how this process is executed by the western media and NGO- and military-industrial complexes. i developed a strong value for national sovereignty as an essential foundation for the development of a truly democratic and healthy society, which made me sympathetic not just to existing socialist states, but to non-socialist states that were targets of US regime change for the crime of not handing their resources and human labor over to the empire

i was in a supposedly marxist-leninist communist party for about 8 months before their dogmatic liberal leftism got the better of me and i stepped down. after the overturn of roe v wade i was disgusted by their complicity in the alienation of women, and it made me start to notice the ways what we in the US understand to be 'leftism' promotes dogmatic, anti-marxist thinking and contempt for the working class. i see the job of marxists to be firmly rooted in material reality at all times, and that means learning to find a synthesis between tradition and progress that comes from the will of the people and not from the top down. we can have our own personal beliefs, but when they're used to push the uninitiated away from the revolution the masses are supposed to be at the helm of that becomes unacceptable to me. if our position is truly materialist we should be prepared to defend it in such a way that bridges gaps, not entrenches them

we also have to reject cultural liberalism and recognize the ways much of what we understand about 'progressivism' to be an imperial export used to justify US imperialism in the modern age now that the patriotic marketing campaign used during the bush era is no longer viable. this article outlines what i mean well. there's a grain of truth to much of it in that racism and patriarchy are absolutely massive social problems in need of serious consideration, but the conclusions reached by this milieu are often individualistic, aggressively dogmatic, self-perpetuating, and rooted in the creation of new markets (cosmetic surgeries, drugs, diversity and inclusion consultancy programs, book sales, etc etc) as opposed to dedicated to the destruction of the economic systems that perpetuate inequality. racism and patriarchy can't be fought solely in the domain of people's minds, nor can their solutions be foisted upon a society that hasn’t been given the space to wrestle with them from the bottom up. hassan ali on substack has some good articles on this, and his wife brigid o'coileain hosts a fantastic gender critical and anti-porn marxist feminist podcast called ‘probably cancelled’ that hits on a lot of topics relating to patriarchy as well as the cultural domestication of the western left

the absolute best starting point for anyone interested in the anti-imperialist position is michael parenti. he’s been the gateway for thousands of english-speakers looking to learn more about scientific socialism, he’s a genius public speaker and very accessible. i also really love garland nixon’s videos on youtube for current day geopolitical analysis. i’ve yet to hear him describe himself as a marxist, but he’s a fantastic materialist thinker regardless

if you find yourself clicking with any of the people i mentioned above be sure to check their references for further reading!

thank you for this nice message and feel free to message me any time if you have questions. i’m honestly still very much just getting my feet wet with this, but would love the opportunity to talk things out with someone else who’s also interested in learning about imperialism!

[symeona]

i was wondering if you knew a way to respectfully learn about greek mythology or greek history? greek mythology(and to a degree most non western mythology) is my special interest, but as a black person i do know that the colonizer's stories becoming the only stories told can really suck and if i can try to limit my intake of the colonizer's stories i'll try my best. (Also sorry if this is weird i'm using a very different Dialect then my usual one so my wording and grammar may be slightly off)

YES! Yep! I got you, I can help, let's go

This applies to any civilization that you'd like to do research on. And especially when it comes to myths, think of them as pokemon because they have A LOT of regional variants.

So,

Pick a time period before anything else. And if you'd like to make your life even easier, pick a region as well. Because places like Greece have a history of different tribes with significant social differences, so, as an example, speaking about the Classical period and its myths wouldn't be enough, because Sparta and Athens had two completely different ways of interpretating the religion.

(side note: this timeline is missing the Cycladic civilization that came before the Minoan)

Google it. Find different articles on the subject and try to get a general sense of what's common knowledge. Look for reenactments and photos of exhibitions, etc.

After a while you'll start noticing that some sources and names are mentioned more than others. So try to find the archeologists that were considered as the hardcore nerds on the subject and read their books.

ALWAYS double check that what you're reading is mentioning the time period you chose! Check for footnotes and evidence, if somebody talks too long without those then that's probably their opinion. And even an informed opinion isn't fact. Always check the sources!

And finally, if you'd like to take it a step further, look for trade routes and relationships with other civilizations. Apparently, sources confirm, people have always liked other people. And they would travel great distances just to have a conversation. That's how some myths/ideas/movements started, so it helps to look for that. Always try to date mythology as far back as you possibly can.

I hope this helps? If you have questions about a specific myth or period I'm always here

(90% of all Olympian gods and myths date back to the Mycenean period if that helps)

[polandspringz]

I read your essay, but I was more concerned by how Diavolo and Simeon acted in the event than whether the devs were wrong for making it. Simeon obviously for his sneaky behavior and Diavolo for basically saying he wishes his alleged best friend had fallen under the same non consensual mind control spell as his brothers because it would be fun to see a new side of him, even though Lucifer clearly hates to lose control of himself. I know he would not enjoy that as much as Diavolo would, and I can't help but wonder if he actually cares about Lucifer. In events Diavolo is often messing around with the brothers, kinda using them for his own amusement, but this event really brought that into focus. It might not be as big of a deal as it feels to me because I'm kinda sensitive about stuff like mind manipulation for some reason, I can't help but be mad at him for basically not caring at all, which is disappointing since they just released all that stuff for the side characters... What are your thoughts on this?

I want to preface this by saying technically I am have not started lessons 21-40. I am aware of the events that happened in them, but have not played through them for myself, so I can’t necessarily comment on a lot of Diavolo’s character development in the recent lessons.

I think it’s fine to be uncomfortable with how the characters acted. Writing should evoke emotion, both good and bad. My post ended up going more into people being mad at the creators because I’ve been seeing that build up for months now, and just thought that now was a particularly trivial reason (and I didn’t want people to start attacking the devs for something that I think was just being misunderstood). Like you though, I did not like Diavolo and Simeon’s actions in this event either.

When I first read what the bangles did, my thought was that the characters were actually going to the Celestial Realm for a party, and that the bangles would just keep them from acting out while there and corrupting other angels or causing a scene. Simeon’s characters I think has just been always a bit more complicated than the pure angel that much of the fandom reduces him too (when I saw a screenshot of him saying “Did he just discover a new kink?” from a previous event, I was shocked.) We know about the Celestial Realm from the brothers’ talking about Lilith that the angels were aware of the human realm and it’s culture (although some of it is anachronistic in terms of them knowing about manga back when the War happened thousands of years ago), and so it seems that the story’s version of angels are not the way we normally see angels portrayed in media (100% good, never faltering), but instead are just like humans that are usually very good and selfless but capable of doing bad things. I think this brings up a good point with Simeon’s character about how hypocritical he acted during this event, forcing the characters to act good when he himself has committed what in, at least Christian interpretations, could be viewed as wrong (not necessarily a sin) but more of a bystander issue. During the main story even, he often is just standing back while the rest of the characters are having trouble, he’ll often just find amusement in what’s going on rather than step in to help. I think this brings to mind that theme again of questioning what is good and evil in the lens of this type of story. Lastly, I forget where I read it, but in the past I did extensive research on angels for my own writing, and I remember a detail in one interpretation of them that “angels often got into disagreements with one another” and that God had to step in to help resolve them. I think this is an interesting thing to point out that angels themselves are not 100% pure or perfect, and are just of capable of committing sins like the demons, (as that is what leads to them becoming demons to begin with). In the frame of this story, I think the way Simeon acted in this event and how he normally takes amusement in seeing the brothers’ struggle may be indicative of future story lines that may highlight through our perspective with the demons, that the Celesital Realm is not good and that we may actually see a character fall. I know the popular fan interpretation is Simeon, but I actually see Luke as the one who could stay behind in Devildom.

Now, in terms of Diavolo- I think he has always been a manipulator too. Although he enjoys spending time with Lucifer, we know from the story in Lessons 1-20 that in exchange for Lilith being saved, Lucifer had to swear himself to him. Diavolo and Lucifer cannot ever have a true friendship because of this, and although we are viewing the story through a lens that makes us more partial and sympathetic towards the demons, that doesn’t meant that all the demons are in that view. Diavolo from the start seems/acts like a nicer ruler than the one the Celestial Realm has purely because he gave the brothers refuge when they fell. He lets them be their true selves rather than hold them to strict, righteous standards (standards that this event showed are not even what the angels themselves are held to, thus making Simeon’s actions hypocritical). However, as much as he may seem to be friends with Lucifer, we have to remember that Lucifer and his agreement was not one of friendship, and their perceived friendship is much more one that has just been forged by happenstance of them being around each other for so long. I’ve incorporated this discussion on Lucifer and Diavolo’s relationship into a few of my fanfictions for this series, and I truly think that Diavolo wanting to see Lucifer act under a mind controlled spell is completely within his character. After all, he already has control over Lucifer in some ways, he already has power over him. Why would forcing Lucifer to act a certain way be any different of him?

I can understand why this still makes people uncomfortable. I think at a certain point in stories and through fandom culture, when we consume stories in small pieces and then discuss them at large, it allows for many more views and interpretations. (Like a big book club!) However, I think a problem can occur if the largely vocal aspects of that discussion circle are overtly negative or angered about something within the media, as it normally does not fuel a positive discussion about the work (as in, constructive discussion, not positive as in considering the work perfect with no flaws) but instead can quickly spiral into a hate circle. Works can cause you to experience emotion and feel conflicted about things, which is a good thing. However, when you then discuss those things with others, I wish I saw more people not being so strong with their language in discussions of “I hate all these things” without talking about why or examining it. I probably sound very pretentious with all this, but like I said in my previous post, I think this is just one example of a greater problem in all fandom culture. I guess a more clearer example of this would be that the fact that the “book club” has people from so many different ages and backgrounds, but no one to moderate like in socratic seminar or no one who knows the ultimate, true answer (even though there never is one to writing, but with classics and established books we tend to all agree on main themes, symbols, and points that we find more valuable or more central to discuss) and what can often happen is members of the circle with less maturity or less experience in consuming media become the more vocal groups and refuse to hear other sides, thus spawning more negativity and preventing more discussion.

I promise that last bit wasn’t directed at you at all! I just thought of it was a good way to sum up my whole thoughts at the end. I’m glad you messaged me asking for my thoughts on Diavolo, and just to end off, I think we cannot mistake that there might be a culture difference in Japanese creators making a romance story. Like how Belphegor is categorized as the “yandere” character, some Japanese players may prefer Diavolo fitting some trope that has more negative, darker connotations. (Although it’s only hitting Japan now, the game itself is Japanese. I still don’t know why it was released to the western market first, but usually Japan is the predominant market). Anyway, that’s all the thoughts I have more now. If you have any more questions, I would be happy to follow up on anything I said here!

[arabellaflynn]

I now know two of the dancers in this sequence, not that you can pick either of them out in the background of the potato-quality YouTube video. (You can spot one of them in the B-roll/outtakes if you're quick.) One of them was the choreographer, who happened to be a part of one of the collaborations in the most recent show I've worked. He is a very nice man. He has decided we are going to be friends! I begin to wonder if all of the ballroom dancers are secretly Labrador retrievers. This is becoming something of a pattern. I'm not displeased, just bewildered. I have no idea why people with arts grants and IMDb credits continually talk to me like I'm a part of their community in any but the most hopeful amateur capacity, but they are clearly going to keep doing it. I make it a policy, when I work front of house for performances, to not bother the dancers. Everyone in the performing arts has their own personal rituals to prepare for going out on stage, and it's considered rude bordering on sabotage to interrupt them. Working crew is a lot like being a butler: If you do it right, nobody knows you're there until you hand them something they need, and then you vanish again. I do my best to be not there while they're trying to concentrate, and I think I do a pretty good job. This group of dancers did not want to be left alone. If they even noticed I was trying to stay out of their way, they gave no sign. So I seem to have made some new friends in spite of myself. One of them is a jazz vocalist-tap dancer, one is a Bollywood-classical Indian-modern dancer, and one of them is a ballroom-and-other-random-things dancer. They were collaborating on a piece involving doggerel and tea. It did not make what I would call "more sense" in context, but it was nonetheless enjoyable to watch. The ballroom dancer grew up in Israel, which I know now because he is chatty. I've not seen him drink, but I'm pretty sure that after a few beers you could get him telling anecdotes to the potted plants. He'd know he was talking to foliage, he just wouldn't care. Telling the story is fun enough. I read subtitles on people a lot. I talk back that way, too. The tap dancer is American, so that one's easy; the Indian lady is pretty well Westernized, at least when she's interacting with Western people, so that's easy, too. I know how to say 'hey, you guys seem cool' in my own home dialect. The Israeli fellow, though, I had to keep an eye on -- watch how much space he actually wanted in crowded lobbies and narrow corridors, when he wasn't thinking about it too hard. It's less than he might. It's not as prominent as the Italian kid I knew in college, who wanted to stand on my shoes all the time, but it's noticeable. His English says he's been here a good long time, but some part of his voluble little heart is still in the Middle East. I don't think I can explain why I care so much about this without making it sound like five different kinds of melodrama. It's not; most humans watch non-verbal feedback and mirror it as a way to signal friendliness, they just don't think about it very much. Hence the endless books about the art of negotiation and magazine articles about "5 Ways To Tell If She's Into You". I've always thought about it a lot, mainly because I was forced to. When I was a kid and I complained that nobody liked me, I was always told I had to adapt to their way of communicating, rather than anyone bothering to care how I worked, because I was the smart one and it was easier for me. The observation was correct, but the conclusion was completely unreasonable. I learn non-verbal dialects the same way I learn verbal ones, but I'll be damned if I'll do it on demand. I refused for the longest time. It was a lot of effort just to get people to go from 'cruel' to 'indifferent', and I resented being the only one who was ever expected to make it. It was not until I got out of there and into an environment where I had some level of choice in who I interacted with that I realized that piece of advice was actually pretty good, just intended for a completely different context. No amount of change was ever going to make the people I grew up with like me. They weren't interested in liking me. They were interested in not having to pay attention to me. When I did strange things, they had to think about it and decide they didn't like it. This annoyed them a great deal, as it took time out of their busy day of whatever it is normal people do with their lives. If I would just learn how to do conventionally annoying things instead, they could dismiss me immediately without spending any energy on it. I could go to any lengths I wanted, and the best I would ever get would be to make myself tolerable enough to be ignored instead of actively driven away. Whenever I run into anyone who has obviously had to learn a different dialect of movement and space just to get along here, I remember that. It's exhausting to edit yourself constantly. If I'm interested in being friends, you are not required to anxious-babble or stand an extra four feet away or whatever it is you're doing to try and be comfortingly 'normal' around me. I'd really prefer you didn't. I'm not 'normal' for the culture I live in, I don't care if you're not, either. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. People who are being politely normal at me just because I'm there usually try harder if I imply they don't have to keep it up. They take it as a sign that they're not performing hard enough, since the object is usually to keep others from noticing that anything's 'off', and I've just pointed out that it didn't work on me. People who are doing it specifically for my benefit will keep going until they get it, and then it flips off like a switch. I have no idea if it's a relief to other people like it would be for me; I can only recall one person ever saying explicitly that he appreciated me not making him translate things into words all the time. Others' reactions have suggested it, but no one ever really comments. I justify doing all of this largely for my own peace of mind. I have a hard time figuring out whether people are talking to me because I'm me or because I'm there. When I try it and it works, I feel like I've successfully communicated that, whether or not they were talking specifically to me, I am talking specifically to them. I tell myself very firmly that this is information, and they can do whatever they want with it. I really only do it if I'm trying to build bridges, but at a certain point it's kind of out of my hands. A good 90% of the interesting people I meet take my card and then wander off, never to be seen again. I figured if I wanted to be nice to this lot, I ought to do it right then, before they vanished on me. Boisterous as they were, they only managed to break one of their fragile bone china tea cups in a six-show run, and they cleaned it up themselves; I thought that warranted flowers, so I brought them some on closing night. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2EcPlLf via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[conspiracieys-archive]

I know you haven't done a Dusan Nemec thing in awhile (and you don't have to answer if you don't want too) but how do you think he would act in a realationship or to a regular, I know you've briefly mentioned it but how would he treat them? What kind of dates would he take them on? How would they sleep together? Anything else you can think of I'm curious ☺ also what kind of music and movies do you think he likes??? (I asked this a while ago just didn't know if you got it sorry)

YES HELLO i honestly don’t know if i got it i am so sorry. idk if tumblr ate it or if i just forgot (both are super possible) but i am still so sorry. i am Ready To Do This. im always down to talk abt Dusan cause Lordt knows this man needs more love. he’s a fucking disaster and he’s kind of a shitty person. i love it. let’s Do This.

Read More cause long

with a regular, there’s not... Too much emotional depth. like they are both aware that it’s mostly about the sex, but Dusan respects or is interested in them just enough to keep them around instead of tossing them aside like a one night stand. that said, he doesn’t kick out his regulars right away. sometimes they leave of their own accord, and sometimes he has shit to do so they gotta go, but sometimes they stay the night in Dusan’s big ass bed. and they can actually talk in the morning. it’s not ... as awkward as it would be with a o/n/s cause Dusan and his regulars do this a lot.

but at the end of the day, with a Regular, Dusan’s just not in it that deep. they have something he’s interested in (dick, vag, information, something) and he keeps them around. i did write about Dusan and comfort here, and i think that kinda applies to them, too. like it’s important to note that a regular sex partner is not an emotional connection. Dusan just wants to bang someone who knows him and knows his body and who he knows relatively well.

he doesn’t take regulars on any sort of dates cause it’s purely physical. he will invite them over, or have them meet him at Blume HQ for that Locked Personal Office sex, but since there’s no emotion behind it, theres no wine and dine going on.

AS FOR how they sleep together, like at night, Dusan takes up most of the bed. he doesn’t exactly starfish but he lays on his back with an arm out so his Regular can snuggle if they WANT to, but it’s fairly obvious that he doesnt care. he just wants to sleep after a night of Good Sex.

VS a relationship, i mean. when Dusan commits, he commits. the line between Regular and Relationship isn’t exactly thin but it’s also not the thickest line either. and in this context, a Regular has the huge potential of bleeding into a relationship.

if he’s in a relationship, depending on the type, that’s the only person he sees. (i mean, open relationships or poly relationships exist and Dusan is down for any of them ig. just depends on the Partner in question) he does like the... consistency of being in a romantic relationship. like no new partner every night, no switching around to not get attached (unless the s/o in question was a Regular sdfjkhlkjdsf then that Failed Hard). just... Dusan, and this person he cares about a lot.

(if the relationship hits the 8 months mark, Dusan sits them down and they have that Deep Talk about what they want from a relationship. the one that lasts a couple days and they both have to walk away and think about the questions they each asked type of talk)

and while he’s not.... big on dates, he likes to go all out for dates. whether it’s at a Super Fancy Uptown Restaurant™ or a Roof Top Bistro™ or a deeply intimate picnic at a park, Dusan puts his all into it. Man he cares about his S/O!!!! he wants to spoil them. and this dude is rich as FUCK he makes fuckin BANK!!!!!! he can and will senselessly spoil his partner with grand dates. fancy food. he reserved the whole park, hired a bunch of body guards to keep people out so him and his S/O could enjoy the evening without anyone else around. (buying out the park helps if things get heated so it’s less awkward when they try and get it together to go home.)

he has also been known to take a S/O to the movies, or literally fly them across the country for an impromptu night watching the Latest Broadway show. he might even go above and beyond and plan a romantic weekend in Venice (and if it coincides with some Dirty Dealings he has to do... its ok........ no one rly needs to know............................. HEY! what did you expect? he’s Dusan Nemec. he’s still pretty dirty when it comes to Blume and ctOS stuff! love doesn’t mean that stops! it just becomes less obvious to the public and to DedSec because he cares so deeply for someone other than himself)

with a romantic partner, Dusan is more inclined to cuddle and share his space. he doesn’t starfish, doesn’t stretch out to make a point. he lays on his side, 100% ready to Spoon (he does Not jetpack. he likes to be on the outside of snuggling. he’s so paranoid, trying to spoon him will not go well)

the sleepier he gets, the more affectionate he is and he often falls asleep murmuring incoherent sweet nothings against his partner’s neck, tracing nonsensical shapes into their skin as he cuddles them. god i wish that were me. also Dusan will initiate cuddles with a romantic partner. he’s like... get over here........ right up against me... awful.... i love him......

aaaand to wrap it up: music and MOVIES!!!

music wise, he’s pretty open minded, although he is NOT a huge fan of pop music. boybands? gross. he loves Zayn Malik's music now that Zayn’s gone solo but. i think he prefers classical music. soft, dramatic, no lyrics, nothing rly too overwhelming. something to work to or cook to or read to.

catch this man getting rly emotional over classical music. one day he’s just laying on his back on the kitchen floor, staring unseeingly at the ceiling because its So Beautiful. (this happens like once a month)

MOVIES.... he likes classic films i guess??? classic, oldies, cheesy. he loves super old westerns im sorry but I Do Make The Rules and Dusan Loves Cowboys. he’s also big on foreign films. catch him watching French films and his eyes get all glassy cause he just... loves. also Chinese films, too.

he hates Fight Club i just wanna put that out there. he wont watch horror because he doesnt have time to be jump scared every 5 seconds. if theres like a non-jump scare-y horror movie, he’ll probably watch it but he thinks jump scares r Weak. he’s way more powerful than me, i cant watch horror movies of ANY kind.

he hated Inception btw. (i loved Inception) he just... hated it. the only Batman movie he liked was the 1st Batman with Michael Keaton. he’s not a big fan of the rest of them.

he loves Indiana Jones tho jot that the fuck down.

he’s neutral on Star Wars. he just hasnt watched the franchise with someone incredibly passionate about it. if he watches it with me, he’ll Love it. he HAS seen it though he saw the original trilogy and the prequels. “Cassian whom? who is Finn. what is happening. where is Luke?” - Dusan when someone asks him what he thought of TFA and Rogue One.

the only Star Trek he likes is the original series. by that i mean, it’s the only one he’s ever watched all the way thru. someone make this man watch the other series !!!

the first dude Dusan ever popped a boner for was The Rock jussayin.

THATS ENOUGH FROM ME

i hOPE this is what you wanted??? if not pls send another ask and i will add on/clarify whatever??? i love Dusan and i love rambling about this jackass.

[faint-waves-music]

Discussing Far East Winter.

My new EP, Far East Winter has been a very interesting EP to make and because of that, I wanted to write something of an article in regards to it. So, here we are! I'm going to discuss the background of this EP, my influences, inspirations, some of the ideas I had with this record, a short run through of each track, and a few things I learned along the way. Hopefully this is an informative and interesting read and hopefully you enjoy the record, too.

I had contemplated doing an EP of this nature for some time, in fact, you can hear my earliest inclinations toward this idea on my "Cherry Blossom" single from 2017. I've always been a lover and admirer of sounds from all over the world, but music and sounds from the East and the far East have always really caught my ear. I think so many of the instruments and the scales/notation they tend to use are absolutely beautiful. The only reason I hadn't done this sooner, is because I didn't want to do this just to do it and because I'm not sure I was totally ready to. If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it some semblance of justice. If "Cherry Blossom" was me seeing if I could pull it off at all, "Far East Winter" is the more refined, realized vision of incorporating these elements into my music.

As far as who/what inspired and influenced this record, I'd say it was a good mixture of eastern and non-eastern artists. Many of my ideas were informed by Roxy Music, Prefab Sprout, Tears For Fears, Vangelis, Hiroshima, Kitaro, Hiromitsu Agatsuma, and Himekami, just to name a few. I was in a creative space where I also wanted to kind of continue the easy listening/downtempo/adult contemporary-inspired direction I've been taking Faint Waves since 2017, but I had to do something interesting to really change the pace a bit and since I wanted to do a winter release, I knew the sound couldn't just be sunshine and ocean waves. The result is a more winter-into-spring sounding EP, not necessarily dark or discordant sounding, but a bit more bittersweet and melancholy in places. That's not to say there aren't hopeful moments, as the first and final tracks on the EP are a bit more optimistic than the rest, indicating glimmers of hope amongst the moodier parts of the record.

Much of the record I think has a very soft rock and sophistipop vibe, but there are few moments that are a bit more downtempo, new age, or experimental. I also made some stylistic choices on this EP that kind of set it apart from other things I've done, namely with the drums and bass. I've often relied on a fretless bass emulation for many (the vast majority, actually) of my songs, it's been a tried and true element and staple in the music I've made. However, I felt this record warranted something different, so I've switched things up and used a finger style bass emulation. It has a much deeper sound and I think has given the record a bit more of a soft rock or vintage R&B vibe. As for the drums, I made a similar stylistic decision to go after more of an organic feel. So, rather than using solely Roland and Linn samples as I have in the past, I opted to use more live sounds. That doesn't mean I haven't used those Roland and Linn samples at all, as they're still in the mix. Many of the songs feature a live kick drum layered with a Linn kick and on "Lovers In The Cold", you can very clearly hear the use of a CR-78 hat sample alongside the rest of the drums. Small changes in the grand scheme of things but I think they've made a big difference in the overall feel of the EP.

The first song I had completed and the one that really solidified the fact that I was doing this, was "Lovers In The Cold", which ironically became the last track on the EP. "Lovers In The Cold" is a bit of a sophistipop track with both western and eastern instrumentation, including a Xylophone, Sax, an Erhu (a violin-like instrument of Chinese origin), and a brilliant emulation of the Ruan (a plucked instrument of Chinese origin). I'd say the sound and structure were most influenced by acts like Hiroshima and Roxy Music, while the blocky pad chords remind me more of Prefab Sprout. It's definitely a pretty layered track for me, lots of moving parts. The way I've always seen the song, structurally, is as an argument between two lovers. Xylophone is one party, while the Erhu is another. The Xylophone is very quick moving and aggressive but the Erhu is more relaxed and to the point. They have this back and forth, but every other time the Erhu comes in, there's one extra note that wasn't played the previous time. So, it's almost like someone is getting the last word in there. Then, you have this kind of breakdown in the song where everything slows down a bit and rather than them playing separately, you have the Xylophone and the Erhu playing simultaneously. Going along with the two lovers metaphor, that part of the song could be them reconciling, working together to make things work before everything falls apart again.

There were a lot of demos with this EP, more than maybe any other EP I've ever made. A lot of stuff didn't make the cut or just plain didn't get finished. The next track that saw completion after "Lovers In The Cold" was probably the fourth song I had made overall and it's a tracked called "Only Tonight", which was loosely inspired by "Advice For The Young At Heart" by Tears For Fears. This track was one that definitely went through a lot of changes before it became what it was. It started out very synthpop, with these big electronic strings, before I transitioned to a more organ-centric sound. It took quite a few demos for it to start to take shape as it is now, a piano ballad. I think after the organ became integral to the song, the drums were what really started to make it take shape. Those drums, at least where they start initially, have a very Burt Bacharach feel. That shaker-sidestick combo he's so fond of. It starts in that kind of Bacharach-like place but as the track goes on, the drums get a little more aggressive and eventually the sidestick is replaced with a snare. For the piano, I didn't want a big sound because the organ/bass combo was already doing that for me, so it's pretty much this continuous riff of single notes. Then the piano is accompanied by a Shamisen (a stringed instrument of Japanese origin) and later on, a sax. The track also features a Vibraphone and a Gong sample. The Vibraphone is this kind of arpeggiated-sounding series of a few notes, it really gives the track an underlying sense of movement and urgency. "Only Tonight" is an interesting one because I feel like it became what it is very naturally, but it did take some time to get there. Glad I didn't give up on it though, as it's a favorite of mine.

After that, I think came "Snow Summit", which also went through a lot of changes as it went on. It's kind of a weird one. It doesn't sound like it at all, but it was pretty Vangelis inspired. Vangelis, Yello, and Kitaro are the big inspirations for that one. It went through a lot of changes and I don't think I was ever really sure the track "worked", so to speak. Once I laid down the bass for it, I feel like it all clicked a bit better, but it's still by far one of the most oddball tracks I've ever produced. It was inspired by a Yello song called "Homer Hossa", which if you aren't familiar with, is basically just a lot of sound effects, percussion, and little actual melody. "Snow Summit" is kind of that way, except it basically has this big brass backing track accompanying all these weird sounds. I think my intention with it, is that I wanted it to be as foreboding and endless feeling as the summit of a mountain would be. You're cold, the wind is blowing, there's snow everywhere, and you can see for literally miles. That kind of thing is intimidating and I think I wanted to convey that with this noisy, aimless kind of a track. It's probably the most "experimental" thing I've done. Huge brass, eastern percussion, simulated wind, white noise stabs, and huge bass drops. That's "Snow Summit" in a nutshell.

After that, came "Hatsukoi". Hatsukoi translates to first love, if you're curious. I knew I wanted a beautiful opening song for the EP and after drawing a blank for a long time, this is what materialized. Inspired by Kitaro and to a lesser extent Himekami, "Hatsukoi" is a bit of a new age jaunt. It's basically comprised of strings, a few different kinds of percussion (both eastern and western), a Celeste, a Pipa (a four stringed instrument of Chinese origin), a Xylophone, wave sfx, and bird sfx. This track doesn't really develop beyond the first couple minutes, but I found it very lovely and relaxing and didn't feel the need to add to it. I had a few demos where a flute came in the second half but it was just overkill in my opinion. It's a bit more hopeful and warm than everything else on the EP. It's very much in line with some of the more atmospheric, new age inspired things I've done. It's very much Kitaro by way of Faint Waves, in my opinion. I'd love to explore that kind of sound more in the future, to the degree of acts like Kitaro or Himekami. That kind of Electronica-meets-New Age-and-Classical sound is always brilliant. Exploring that sort of thing could be an EP or album in it's own right, but for this release, I wanted a balance of downtempo/chilled vignettes with more deliberate/aggressive songs.

The next song that came to be was actually an older, unfinished demo that I had lying around. "Tao Of Knowing" originally started as "Charm", a new wave/sophistipop song inspired by Johnny Hates Jazz and Tango In The Night-era Fleetwood Mac. "Charm" was originally much more electronic and instead of a Koto (a stringed instrument of Japanese origin) carrying the song, it was a piano. I revisited this song during my time producing Far East Winter and I found, with a few changes, that it would fit the record. I changed quite a few things; the key changed, the chiffer lead at the beginning of the song became a Shakuhachi (a flute-like instrument of Japanese origin, derived from the Chinese bamboo flute), the main piano riff became a Koto, the poppy drum samples were replaced with the ones I was using for this EP, and I wound up writing a new pad for it as well. Once I had made those changes, the song still went through a few more permutations before it became the song you hear on Far East Winter. The song has a very mystical feel and I think that sets it apart on the EP, in a good way. The original demo had a very new wave feel to it and I think a little bit of that is still intact, particularly in the drums. This one may also be one of the more aggressive sounding songs in the Faint Waves canon, too. Very in your face at times.

The last song to be completed was "City Street". I knew from the beginning that "City Street" was going to be a short interlude kind of a song. My general vision for it from the get go was very similar to how it came to be, I knew I wanted to be very ambient and atmospheric, and to feature a Rhodes. That's exactly how it turned out but I just couldn't seem to get it to materialize. At first, I tried to make the song quicker and more urban sounding, to coincide with the name. It just wasn't working, so I scrapped almost everything except the percussion I had. The percussion I did have, I wound up changing quite a bit, leaving pretty much the bare minimum. Once I was happy with the percussion, I layered a few different sound effects. One was of nighttime ambience (crickets/frogs/etc.), another was just general city noise, and the final was of a little bit of traffic. After that came the Rhodes, which I pretty much treated almost as a pad as I wrote and produced it. I applied a lot of effects to it, reverb and delay mostly, so it would kind of linger well beyond the length of the notes would allow. On top of that, I used a Pipa again, I actually recycled a melody from another song of mine ("Congo") for that and adjusted the notes accordingly. The end result is a very soundscapey interlude that's heavy on ambiance, maybe slightly reminiscent of Kenji Kawai. Good for falling asleep to maybe, as much of my catalogue is.

In conclusion, I learned a lot going into this EP and coming out of it. I did a lot of reading and listening, trying to understand what they were doing as far as Eastern instrumentation and notation were concerned. Reading and learning about scales like the Japanese In Sen scale, as well as putting them to use, was incredibly challenging and fun. I made more songs for this one EP, than I have any release before, and it's because of what I was working with. There's a real beauty and true uniqueness to the music and culture on that side of the world that we don't often see. They do things in music that the West never has and likely, never will. I think my research and desire to understand, is what made this EP so special to me, as well as what has made the EP sound so unique in comparison to the rest of my material. I might have done some familiar things but I don't think I've ever made anything similar to what I've made here. In many ways, I feel like I needed to do a project like this, just to stretch my legs a bit and get out of my comfort zone. This record is a sign of things to come, not in the sense that I'll necessarily be making another record like this, but in the sense that my next record will be just as different. So, stay on your toes and enjoy.

- Faint Waves.

[duhragonball]

The thing about part 5 is (granted I'm a anime-only with some manga knowledge) it's Araki's experimentation phase. He tries to explore the boundaries of what he can do with stands. Also David Productions loves part 5. The eastern fandom love part 3 and 5 while the western prefers 2,4,6 and 7 in general.

Sorry this took so long to answer, but I was waiting until I was done with Part 5 so I could respond to this properly.The problem I have with that idea is that experiments are supposed to be well-documented. Like the man said, the difference between science and screwing around is *writing things down.*To me, the actual hook of Part 5 was the mafia theme, the idea of a morally ambiguous JoJo isolated from the rest of the JoJo World embroiled in a power struggle rather than a quest to save the world. But a lot of that got lost along the way, mainly because the villain ended up being so powerful that defeating him became tantamount to a quest to save the world. Giorno fancies himself a crook with a sense of honor, but the only real crime he commits in the story is stealing Koichi's stuff. I'm supposed to be suspicious of his motives because he's Dio's son, but that relationship is overlooked in favor of playing up his resemblance to the other JoJos.This isn't to say that Part 5 is *bad*; I enjoyed it a lot. The problem is that it really didn't utilize the gangster theme as much as I would have liked. A lot of Part 5 feels like a retread of Parts 3 and 4. The Boss feels a lot like a combination of Dio and Kira, the good guys' travels remind me a lot of the Stardust Crusaders' journey to Egypt, and a lot of the characters seemed to echo the quirky personalities in Morioh.The main difference is that the Stands are more complicated in Part 5, probably because Araki realized he was entering his third arc of Stand Users and he didn't want to get complacent. After all, he introduced Stands in Part 3 to shake things up. The big thing I picked up on early in VA was that Giorno's Gold Experience breaks the mold. Star Platinum is a big blue muscleman who can kick your ass. Crazy Diamond is a big *pink* muscleman who can kick your ass *and* put it back together again. Both are very simple, easy-to-understand power sets. They work, but a third one of these would probably get tiresome. I feel like Araki wanted to make Gold Experience a little more diversified, something physically weaker but with a broader range of abilities.But if you're going to do that, then you have to define those abilities very carefully. More importantly, you have to communicate them to the reader. There's a reason Superman is such a popular character. He's extremely powerful, but those powers are very simple and easily digestible. He can fly. He's super strong. Super speed and super breath are mostly just outgrowths of his strength. Actually so is flight, since the original version of Superman could only jump really high, and this eventually evolved until he could stay airborne. X-ray vision was probably the biggest curve ball they ever threw at the guy. Once upon a time, he could just see really well in the dark, and then someone decided he could see through things too. Then someone got the science confused and decided he has to shoot X-rays out of his eyes in order to do that, and this morphed into a separate power: heat vision. But all of this developed very slowly across a decade, and then stayed stable ever since. In 1997, DC Comics tried to experiment with the concept by changing Superman's powers into something completely unrecognizable. In essence, he became an energy being with energy manipulation powers. So instead of flying he could zap himself to another location as a bolt of lightning. Instead of super strength he could move heavy things with EM fields. The idea was to make Superman's life difficult by forcing him to do the same work with unfamiliar abilities. Readers hated this storyline for two major reasons.First, DC never clearly defined what the new powers were or how they worked. This was probably because none of the characters really knew either, so there was never a chance to have one of them tell the audience what the deal was. Superman was supposed to figure it out for himself, except he kind of half-assed it. Once he figured out how to use his new powers to replicate his old abilities, he stopped worrying about it. So you'd see all these comics with "New" Superman flying and punching things just like the "Classic" Superman used to do, only now he was using magnetism to do it all.Second, DC never bothered to explain why his powers changed or how they changed back. He just turned into pure electricity one day, and then a year later he nearly got himself killed saving the world, only to wind up back to his old self, no explanation given. The whole thing was a non-story, because the mystery of the power change was never investigated. Superman just shrugged and kept doing what he always did in spite of the mild inconvenience.I feel the same way about Giorno's Gold Experience as it compares to Star Platinum and Crazy Diamond. Giorno has a broad range of abilities, and he develops new ones as the story progresses, but there's never any explanation for *how* he learns these new applications for his powers. Also, he seems to forget abilities he used earlier in the story. His living constructs reflect any attack back upon the attacker, so why didn't he use that against Notorious B.I.G. instead of cutting off his own arms? I know I'm nitpicking, but the problem is that I can't tell if Araki forgot about this or if he has a good explanation and I just missed it. And this is where people will tell me that I read the "Bad" translation of Part 5, but there's been a "Good" translation out for a long time, and people *still* can't make sense of King Crimson's ability. He can erase up to ten seconds of time, but how did he get all of his stuff out of his hotel room before the maid came in? There's no way he did all that in ten seconds. This leads me to believe there's simply a communication gap baked into the original script. No translation is going to fix it.The point here is that Star Platinum and Crazy Diamond and their ilk never gave me this kind of difficulty. I'm pretty sure I could read a lousy scanlation of Part 3 in broken English and still figure out that The World stops time. Now, to be fair, I do find a certain charm in Part 5's inexplicable powers, because in the end it's all just metaphor anyway. Giorno's the hero, and somehow he finds a way to beat a seemingly invincible bad guy through perseverance, sacrifice, and teamwork, just like all the other JoJos before him. *How* he does it is less important than *why* he's doing it, and that message stands out more when you can't tell what the hell is going on, which is kind of an anime tradition, I guess...

[club-tropicana]

Thanks, can you copy and paste some things from the link? Sorry for asking in advance btw, sometimes an security certificate warning pops up on my tablet and scares me away, I once went to a site multiple times despite this and my tablet froze on the Internet and I had to refresh the app and close out the site. so I'm kinda vigilant about going on certain websites, apologies again in advance. x ~ Jacqi

It’s alright! I can paste all of them here, but I’ll put it under a read more because it’s long.

1.His full name was Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.

2. He was born on June 25, 1963.

3. George Michael was born in East Finchley, London.  His father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, moved to England in the 1950s and changed his name to Jack Panos. Michael’s mother, Lesley Angold (née Harrison; 1937–1997), was an English dancer; his maternal grandmother was Jewish.

4. Michael spent the majority of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Kingsbury High School.

5. While in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett, Hertfordshire. There, Michael attended Bushey Meads School in the neighbouring town of Bushey, where he befriended his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley.

6. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians.[10] Michael would busk on the London Underground, performing songs such as “’39” by Queen.

7. His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called the Executive, with Ridgeley, Ridgeley’s brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin

8. George Michael formed the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The band’s first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including “Young Guns”, “Wham Rap!” and “Club Tropicana”.

9. Their second album, Make It Big, reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (No. 1 in the UK and US), “Freedom”, “Everything She Wants”, and “Careless Whisper” which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, and was Michael’s first solo effort as a single.

10. George Michael sang on the original Band Aid recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (which became the UK Christmas number one) and donated the profits from “Last Christmas/Everything She Wants” to charity.

11. He also contributed background vocals to David Cassidy’s 1985 hit “The Last Kiss”, as well as Elton John’s 1985 successes “Nikita” and “Wrap Her Up”.

12. Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield’s Ritz Newspaper.

13. Wham!’s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael.

14. Before Wham!’s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The audience included members of the Chinese government, and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun.  The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China.

15, With the success of Michael’s solo singles, “Careless Whisper” (1984) and “A Different Corner” (1986), rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified.

16. The duo officially separated in 1986, after releasing a farewell single, “The Edge of Heaven” and a singles compilation, The Final, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film.

17. The Wham! partnership ended officially with the commercially successful single “The Edge of Heaven”, which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in June 1986.

18. The beginning of his solo career, during early 1987, was a duet with Aretha Franklin. “I Knew You Were Waiting” was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists, and it scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release

19. For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984’s “Careless Whisper” (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986’s “A Different Corner”.

20. The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself.

21. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time, although he would have success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Aretha Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song

22. In late 1987, Michael released his debut solo album, Faith. In addition to playing a large number of instruments on the album, he wrote and produced every track on the recording, except for one, which he co-wrote.

23. The first single released from the album was “I Want Your Sex”, in mid-1987. The song was banned by many radio stations in the UK and US, due to its sexually suggestive lyrics.

25. MTV broadcast the video, featuring celebrity make-up artist Kathy Jeung in a basque and suspenders, only during the late night hours.

26. Some radio stations played a toned-down version of the song, “I Want Your Love”, with the word “love” replacing “sex”.

27. When “I Want Your Sex” reached the US charts, American Top 40 host Casey Kasem refused to say the song’s title, referring to it only as “the new single by George Michael.” In the US, the song was also sometimes listed as “I Want Your Sex (from Beverly Hills Cop II)”, since the song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie.  Despite censorship and radio play problems, “I Want Your Sex” reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK.

28. The second single, “Faith”, was released in October 1987, a few weeks before the album. “Faith” became one of his most popular songs. The song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and maintained that position for four consecutive weeks.

29. It also reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart.[13] The video provided some definitive images of the 1980s music industry in the process—Michael in shades, leather jacket, cowboy boots, and Levi’s jeans, playing a guitar near a classic-design jukebox.

30. On 30 October, Faith was released in the UK and in several markets worldwide. In the United States, the album had 51 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10 of Billboard 200, including 12 weeks at No. 1. Faith had many successes, with four singles (“Faith”, “Father Figure”, “One More Try”, and “Monkey”) reaching No. 1 in the US.

31. In 1988, Michael embarked on a world tour. In Los Angeles, Michael was joined on stage by Aretha Franklin for “I Knew You Were Waiting”. It was the second highest grossing event of 1988, earning $17.7 million.

32. In February 1989, Faith won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards. At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards on 6 September in Los Angeles, Michael received the Video Vanguard Award.

33. According to Michael in his film, A Different Story, success did not make him happy and he started to think there was something wrong in being an idol for millions of teenage girls. The whole Faith process (promotion, videos, tour, awards) left him exhausted, lonely and frustrated, and far from his friends and family.

34. “Freedom ’90” was the second of only two of its singles to be supported by a music video (the other being the Michael-less “Praying for Time”). The song alludes to his struggles with his artistic identity, and prophesied his efforts shortly thereafter to end his recording contract with Sony Music

35. As if to prove the song’s sentiment, Michael refused to appear in the video (directed by David Fincher), and instead recruited supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, and Cindy Crawford to appear in and lip sync in his stead. It also featured the reduction of his sex symbol status.

36. At the 1991 Brit Awards, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 won the award for Best British Album.

37. George Michael performed at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on 20 April 1992 at London’s Wembley Stadium.  The concert was a tribute to the life of the late Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury, with the proceeds going to AIDS research.

38. In his last ever radio interview Mercury had praised Michael adding that he loved his track “Faith”.

39. At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley and close friends that he was bisexual. Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised by friends not to tell his parents about his sexuality.

40. In a 1999 interview with The Advocate, Michael told the Editor in Chief, Judy Wieder, that it was “falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality”. “I never had a moral problem with being gay”, Michael told Wieder. “I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realized that none of those things had been love.”

41. In 2007, Michael said he had hidden the fact he was gay because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother.

42. George Michael established a relationship with Anselmo Feleppa, a Brazilian dress designer, whom he had met at the 1991 concert Rock in Rio.

42. Six months into their relationship, Feleppa discovered that he had HIV. Michael later said: “It was terrifying news. I thought I could have the disease too. I couldn’t go through it with my family because I didn’t know how to share it with them – they didn’t even know I was gay.”

42. In 1993, Feleppa died of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage.

43. George Michael’s single “Jesus to a Child” is a tribute to Feleppa (he consistently dedicated it to him before performing it live), as is his 1996 album Older.

44. In 1996, George Michael entered into a long-term relationship with Kenny Goss, a former flight attendant, cheerleader coach and sportswear executive from Dallas. They had homes in Dallas and an £8 million mansion in Highgate, North London.

45. In late November 2005, it was reported that Michael and Goss would register their relationship as a civil partnership in the UK,  but because of negative publicity and his upcoming tour, they postponed it to a later date.

46. On 22 August 2011, the opening night of his Symphonica world tour, George Michael announced that he and Goss had split two years earlier. Goss was present at Michael’s British sentencing for driving under the influence of cannabis on 14 September 2010.

47. Questions of Michael’s sexual orientation persisted in public until 7 April 1998, when he was arrested for “engaging in a lewd act” in a public restroom of the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, California.

48. On 26 February 2006, Michael was arrested for possession of Class C drugs, an incident that he described as “my own stupid fault, as usual.” He was cautioned by the police and released.

49. During September 2007, on Desert Island Discs, he said that his cannabis use was a problem; he wished he could smoke less of it and was constantly trying to do so.

50. On 5 December 2009, in an interview with The Guardian, Michael explained he had cut back on cannabis and now smoked only ‘seven or eight’ spliffs per day instead of the 25 he used to smoke.

51. In the early hours of Sunday 4 July 2010 Michael was returning from the Gay Pride parade. The singer was spotted on CCTV driving into the front of a Snappy Snaps store in Hampstead, North London and was arrested on suspicion of being unfit to drive.

52. During the time of Margaret Thatcher as the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom throughout the 1980s, Michael voted Labour.

53. Michael wrote “Shoot the Dog”, a song critical about the friendly relationship between the British and American governments, in particular Tony Blair and George W. Bush, with their involvement in the Iraq War.

54. During 2000, Michael joined Melissa Etheridge, Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, the Pet Shop Boys, and k.d. lang, to perform in Washington, D.C. as part of ‘Equality Rocks’ – a concert to benefit the Human Rights Campaign.

55. He devoted his 2007 concert in Sofia, Bulgaria, from his “Twenty Five Tour” to the Bulgarian nurses prosecuted in the HIV trial in Libya.

56. On 17 June 2008, Michael said he was thrilled by California’s legalisation of same-sex marriage, calling the move “way overdue”

57. On 1 December 2011, doctors at the hospital in which George Michael had stayed announced that the singer was “steadily improving” and that he had moved out of the intensive care ward. On 21 December 2011, the hospital discharged Michael.

58. On 23 December 2011, Michael made a public speech outside his house in Highgate, London, in which he stated that the staff at the Vienna General Hospital had saved his life and that he would perform a free concert specifically for those staff. While making the speech, he became emotional and breathless.

59. During the speech, he also mentioned that he had undergone a tracheotomy.  He also said that, after waking from the coma, he had a temporary West Country accent.

60. On 25 December 2016, Michael died in his sleep at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, aged 53. No cause of death was immediately determined. His manager has stated that heart failure is the probable cause of death.

[fuhrmana]

honestly i want to ask you all the book questions, but i'm gonna refrain and only ask for 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 25, 26, 30 (but like, maybe top 3), 39, 40, 42, 43. (obvi you should pick and chose if some of them don't inspire you)

Hoooo boy. Well, that’s quite a few so answers after the cut:

1: What book did you last finish? When was that?

a few days ago I reread Dragonseye by Anne McCaffrey because I’m a Huge Nerd. Honestly, I’ve been rereading a lot of comfort books lately.

2: What are you currently reading?

The CCENT/CCNA official cert guide, High Performance Browser Networking and I’m like ten pages into Phoenix and Ashes

3: What book are you planning to read next?

I think I’m going to read a micro-history (The Black Count, Salt, or Cod are all examples of that genre), maybe on the eastern world? I’m not sure. I might also get sad because of Tech Reading and end up reading something stupid like my coffee table books on the NHL.

6: Which book was the last one you really, really loved?

Like I said, I’ve been rereading books lately, so I have to say The Black Count. It’s just a really good example of what a history/biography can be, and it’s such an interesting subject. I think I liked it even better this time, and it’s my third time reading it.

10: Sci-Fi or fantasy? Why?

I love the concept of sci-fi way more, but I read a lot more fantasy. A lot of writers don’t do anything interesting with the future: racism’s the same, sexism’s the same, but with bonus xenophobia, and lots of military!

When you come across a good series (like say, Sector General), it’s fantastic! Unfortunately, a lot of the time I’m done with the book ten pages in with Sci-Fi.

15: What book changed your life?

There have been a lot. Ghost in the Third Row was the first book I ever finished on my own! I Left My Sneakers In Dimension X is the reason I have panic attacks about the concept of infinity.

But I’d say the book that changed my life the most was Parasite Rex. Without that book, I don’t fall in love with science, I don’t learn to appreciate non-fiction, I probably never find math interesting, and that version of myself would have never gone into computer tech, and probably would have never gotten into hockey or had the money to have internet friends come visit me.

16: If you could bring three books to a deserted island which would you bring and why?

One book of wilderness medicine, one book on identifying plants and then God’s Bankers because that’s the only way I’m ever finishing that book, even though it looks REALLY GOOD. (it’s overly long, and very dense and I don’t have time in the way that I used to). 

17: If you owned a bookshop what would you call it?

This is honestly a super real question, and the honest answer is: it depends on where the bookstore is, and whether or not it’d be easy to modify the building it was in. Right now, with the concept of a bookstore in the quonset hut on my parent’s property, I’d call it “Hideaway Books”, and there would be little booknooks and camo on the windows.

18: Which character from a book is the most like you?

Ivy Hisselpenny from The Parasol Protectorate. I’m also a flighty, very good friend who has a tendency towards melodrama, loud clothing and falling in love with people who have Too Much Soul.

25: If you could be a character from a book for just one day who would you be and why? (Bonus: any specific day in the story?)

See the problem with this is a lot of the things I would love to experience would be CRUSHING to have for only one day, so I have to pick something that’s good, but not Tooooo Good. 

You know what: Alice in Wonderland. Alls well that ends well, and I wouldn’t miss it when it was over (also, specifically Wonderland, not Through The Looking Glass)

26: If you could be a character from a book for their entire life who would you be and why?

Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern. She has a really great life, up until the end. She dies in what is probably a painless way after saving the world. Solid life, good effort, meaningful work. I’m into it. 

30: Who’s your favorite author? (top three)

TBH, three ALSO isn’t enough. And favorite author is TOO BROAD OKAY. Ugh, this is literally making me anxious ummm. Scott Westerfield, because he makes good books and he’s a good person. Ummm, Karl Zimmer because Parasite Rex and Microcosm. Anne McCaffrey for creating one of my favorite fandoms, and the happy place I visit when I’m sad. 

39: Name one of your favorite childhood books

Hmmm. Well I’ve already talked about McCaffrey, and I’ve already talked about Bruce Coville, so let’s talk about horse books: The Jinny Series were books I read over and over and over again when I was in elementary school. Except for the book where she is an idiot and lets a Trust Fund Baby kill off some endangered species. I only read that one once. 

40: Name one of your favorite books from your teenage years

I’m picking three, and two of then are series. I was reading Robert Jordan’s classic series (before the ghostwriter ruined it): The Wheel Of Time, I had started my collection of Mercedes Lackey books (mostly the Valdemar books, but I read everything she wrote), and I was pretty enamored with Heinlein: specifically Starship Troopers  

42: Which was the best book you had to read in school?

All my microbiology textbooks, The Barbary Plague and All Quiet On The Western Front.

43: Are you the kind of person who reads several books at once or the kind of person who can only read one book at a time?

I straight up have to read multiple books at once. I get bored really easily.