#there were obviously some very cool concepts but with a lot of the deeper themes of the show
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I did not care for nge.
#im so sorry my fellow robot enjoyers#this just Was Not it for me#i have so many thoughts about this show and idk how to really convey them properly#there were obviously some very cool concepts but with a lot of the deeper themes of the show#i just felt like there were Other animes that handled tjose ideas better (rgu and lain for example)#look i know the ending is Infamously weird but like forget abstract#it felt Unsatisfying given how much weâve come to see these characters grow and understand their feelings#weâre just left not really knowing the fates of Every character except for shinji and asuka?????#and good god almighty do Not get me started om the fanservice i dont wanna hear âbut thats how 90s anime was!!!â#rgu was a 1997 anime directly about the sexualization and exploitation of young girls and they NEVER went to fanservice like That#honestly between this and flcl i just. dont think hideaki annoâs works are for me#i really wanted to like both of those animes and i just. could not get behind em#sad đ
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Site Specific: Human Life as a Theatre Performance
A few months ago, I made a series of paintings on some wooden slices based on the concept of Human Life as a Theatre Performance. I've explained in a previous post some of the Whys and What Fors - in particular, the four portraits I painted. I also included in my final piece some quotes from William Shakespeare's plays and made some little quill pens from tiny goose feathers as well as two larger quills from some goose wing feathers. I had a great but slightly frustrating afternoon trying to learn how to cut feathers into pens! I didn't quite get the hang of it but I have plenty of feathers left to figure it out. The ones I did make (the two big ones) held the ink well enough and did work, but I need to refine my cutting - and writing - techniques. Good ol' YouTube came in handy that day again! These are just some of the photos from the installation.
These were painted in acrylic paint. I used various green spaces in and around the area I live in in Glasgow. The idea was to play with the Shakespeare In The Park (or, as we have here in Glasgow - Bard In The Botanics). Bard In The Botanics is an annual thing held in the Botanic Gardens in the West End of Glasgow; an outdoor performance (obviously) of a number of Shakespeare's plays (weather permitting, which is also obvious. We're made of strong stuff in Scotland though. We're used to the rain, although sometimes it does take us by surprise.) And, if you come early enough before a show, you could potentially enjoy Byres Road. Byres Road is very cool and has lots of nice places to stop and eat. Honestly, Byres Road basically has everything you could possibly need on one road! Anyway, when I was thinking about where I wanted to put my art (mostly so I could photograph it), the thought of being in green spaces made me laugh when I thought about the whole Shakespeare In The Park/Bard In The Botanics idea. I'm easily amused... And, lucky for me, there are several green spaces and parks close to where I live.
I didn't use all of the local parks, though I wish I could have. I had to plan and time my outings for installation very carefully due to the weather. I wasn't able to source any outdoor varnish in time for the piece so nothing would have protected the paintings from the rain.
One set of photos was taken in a small green area outside the local library. I wanted to include the library in the photos where possible.
I also took some shots when it was dark. Initially what I wanted to do was include small lights and candles, but for safety reasons, I chose not to at the last minute. And none of my lights actually worked on the day/night I set out to do it. Because of course, they didn't...
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fully explore the theme as deeply as I would have wanted to. As I mentioned previously, I had several issues even getting to this point so I had to work with what I had/could at the time. It's a theme/concept that's still rattling around my brain so I expect I'll go deeper into it and do some more on it at some point. It was a theme that I found particularly enjoyable and thought-provoking and I really enjoyed this project - once it all started coming together, anyway. It was a very steep learning curve but I got a lot out of it.
#art#fine art#traditional art#theatre#christopher marlowe#william shakespeare#acrylic paint#painting#will tnt#jamie bower#human life as theatre#site specific art#art installation#glasgow
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Neverland, the role of ânostalgiaâ in Kiuznaâs narrative, and the 02 quartetâs unusual immunity to it
In general, the 02 quartet (my shorthand for the four human characters introduced in 02 who werenât in Adventure, namely Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) have a position in Kizuna that you can call âshockingly favorableâ in that theyâre kept safely out of the most dangerous parts of the plot in ways the others arenât. This especially sticks out when we get to the Eosmon incident reaching its climax, when Takeru and Hikari are placed in the same situation as their Adventure seniors, despite the movie and its surrounding media generally portraying them closer in line with the others in the 02 group than the Adventure group.
To be a bit blunt about it, the obvious main reason the story is set up this way is meta -- a lot of the climaxâs effectiveness depends on the audience getting sensory impact via recognizing things from the original series (including 02 as well; how convenient it is that all of the international Chosen are in the positions 02 fans would recognize!), and so itâs obvious that said climax would evoke imagery related to the series that was Digimon Adventure, while the 02 quartet would be treated extra-kindly by the narrative due to the need to give them compensatory action screentime given certain real-life events. But just because the originating reason is meta doesnât mean there isnât also a story reason for it, especially considering the relevance of 02â˛s themes in Kizunaâs narrative, and the surrounding circumstances regarding both series.
Before we get into anything else, the first thing that needs to be established is that Menoa and Eosmonâs lure is pretty obviously depicted as working on a subconscious level. This is why everyone else in the narrative agrees that what they did is âkidnappingâ, despite her insistence that sheâs just doing what they wanted. While they canât not admit to having moments of weakness, nevertheless, itâs likely that most if not all of the people Menoa kidnapped consciously knew better and had learned better lessons than this a long time ago; if Menoa had consciously offered Neverland to her victims, most of them would have probably said no! But as Daisuke said back in 02 episode 49 -- when he witnessed his own friends being subjected to something similar at the hands of BelialVamdemon -- thereâs no sin in having feelings of worries or troubles (and, by extension, irrational feelings in general), and Eosmonâs abilities and Neverland happen to be able to directly target them. In fact, we ourselves got to witness this internal conflict when Menoa made her direct offer to Taichi and Yamato to join Neverland; they briefly considered it because of the circumstances, but were snapped out of it quickly with Agumon and Gabumonâs intervention, and were really, really mad at themselves for considering it shortly after.
We saw the process of how Ayaka became one of the kidnapping victims at the beginning of the movie -- it happened right after she complained that she wasnât fond of the idea of becoming an adult at this point. So it does lend some truth to the idea that Menoaâs working off something with these cases, and that Eosmon did specifically target people who had those wishes to some degree. Moreover, note carefully how this kidnapping (and some others in the movie) is portrayed; Eosmon doesnât actually emerge from the device in question (itâs obvious that nobody notices the giant butterfly monster), and the victimâs consciousness and partner are whisked away thanks to being caught by the device camera. In Ayakaâs case, because her phone was sitting on the table, pointed at her. The fact that this is not how the kidnappings are portrayed all the way to the end of the movie is a very significant point.
So letâs talk about Neverland and its construction. The whole thing is based on Menoaâs own very, very warped view of what âhappinessâ is. This means that Neverland is only an âideal worldâ or âutopiaâ in a way that makes sense to her -- and once you learn the full extent of her backstory, it becomes apparent how she came to the mentality she did, and, more pertinently, how she ended up projecting that on everyone else. Hence, how she came to decide that she knew better and should decide for everyone, because she thinks she gets the right to decide on everyoneâs happiness based on her own experiences. (She doesnât.)
The way Neverland is constructed is that everyone has âtheir own placesâ -- their own individual islands that recreate âmemoriesâ of everyone being able to be together with their partner, forever. So in other words, itâs not just that everyoneâs being turned into children; itâs that theyâre being kept in an eternal loop of their best memory and unable to âmove forwardâ.
Here are three very significant parts about this, which will be important to keep in mind as we go deeper into this analysis:
Menoaâs view of this utopia requires people to be separated -- for all she claims this is a utopia where people can play together, she discourages fraternizing and encourages everyone to stay only with their own partners. This is, presumably, to lessen complications with said memories, because what might be one personâs best memory might not be for another, and also because she thinks one person being alone with their partner is happiness enough in itself. As weâll be seeing later, this is very much not the case for everyone.
A lot of these memories in Neverland -- and Menoaâs own mentality, as we eventually find out -- are heavily dependent on the concept of rose-colored nostalgia, or, that is to say, conveniently omitting or forgetting about all of the bad things about oneâs past in order to portray it as such a wonderful thing that nobody should ever move on from. And in the end, that probably applies to real-life childhood in general, too; as much as itâs so often put on a pedestal for being a time when âeverything was simplerâ, you can also easily argue that it wasnât actually all sunshine and roses, itâs just that the process of forgetting things or the grass-is-greener phenomenon makes you conveniently forget all of the bad things and frustration that came with it too.
Because the concept of needing to stay in the past forever is based on the idea that itâs preferable to growing up, these memories thus have a strong premise of âthings you cannot do anymoreâ -- something that, bar going back to the past and never moving from it, you will never get back or be able to sufficiently recreate. Itâs unlikely the islands themselves are one-to-one recreating their specific memories in the way they happened, but rather seemingly presenting them the opportunity to âconstantly do overâ things they want to recreate or do again, as long as those things are associated with a happy thing that isnât as easily accessible anymore.
In the case of the five Adventure group members who were brought into Neverland, these âmemoriesâ that theyâre seen trapped in are, of course, from Digimon Adventure.
It is of course foolhardy to pretend that the main reason for this wasnât meta, since, of course, thereâs a huge point to be made here about the relationship between Adventure and nostalgia, plus the simple fact that this is what weâre most likely to recognize and be nostalgic for, but it also makes sense within the context of the narrative; Menoa has an extreme bias towards the happiness of her childhood revolving almost entirely around her partner, and, of course, Adventure was when these kids first had their most formative meetings with said partners. (This is also probably the in-story explanation for why the other international Chosen from 02 appear at or close to their 02 selves; beyond the meta reason of it being a way to make them recognizable when we only knew them for such a short time, it also approximates when they met their own partners.)
On top of that, Adventure was not all sunshine and roses for its cast! After all, there was a ton of drama and emotional trauma and stress from running away from enemies trying to kill them, or trying to save the universe, and glossing over that is also foolhardy -- but this is also where our concept of ârose-coloredâ comes in. Menoaâs not offering the kids the entire adventure; sheâs offering them a small slice of the moments when they were able to be happy, the moments that made them want to stay in the Digital World for a whole 110 yearsâ worth of time at the end of Adventure -- sheâs basically offering them that very thing they wanted and had ripped away from them at the end of Adventure when the time dilation phenomenon stopped. Take out all of the bad stuff, and suddenly, the events of Adventure seem outright romantic -- itâs the whole school of thought that fueled Adventureâs inspirations of Two Yearsâ Vacation and Stand By Me, in which a lot of stressful stuff happened and yet you still canât help but think there was something magical and romantic about it. (I cannot emphasize enough how much of a cultural impact Stand By Me in particular had in Japan, to the point where itâs considered the epitome example of a âcoming of age storyâ and âsummer adventureâ.)
Letâs take a closer look at whatâs on each of the Adventure kidsâ personal islands:
Hikari is probably the one in the most unusual position among this group, since she didnât join until over the halfway point, and the first arc she got involved in revolved around everyone wanting her and Tailmon dead. Thus, the memory we get to see her involved in is the Numemon factory in Adventure episode 49. Although this was in the middle of the Dark Masters arc (and, uniquely, very close to the end of the series where a lot of stress was involved), due to the limited amount of time she got to be in the Digital World, this was the one time she got to do something really cool and awesome and impressive for herself that had nothing to do with the others (again: see how the requirements for these islands require not fraternizing with friends and being isolated).
One thing that the Adventure kids got to do that wasnât in play in 02 was that there were a lot of âromantic experiencesâ, involving strange adventures and things like phone boxes on the beach, and, very significantly, âDigimon friendsâ -- ones that the kids made a huge note of bonding with over the course of the series. This contributes to a certain sense of whimsy that was involved in this adventure that the 02 quartet ultimately never ended up getting to foster, because the lack of the time dilation phenomenon meant that they spent much less time in the Digital World overall (more on this in a bit), and once the time dilation stopped, it meant that these kinds of âwhimsicalâ experiences were ones the Adventure group was permanently torn away from once that adventure ended. That dropping of the time dilation phenomenon not only cut that initial adventure short, it also prevented any future ones like it from ever happening again.
And, of course, this is an extremely rose-colored memory, because shortly afterwards, the Numemon ended up all sacrificing themselves for Hikari. But hey, when youâre in a space that can eternally loop good memories forever, everythingâs fine as long as we conveniently never get to that part, right?
From this point on, youâll notice that all of the memories that show up on these islands are from before the halfway point of the series, because after that, things started getting increasingly pear-shaped and much more difficult to disentangle the stress, mental breakdowns, and witnessing of deaths from. (Hikariâs probably wouldnât have come from such a late incident if she hadnât joined the party so late.) Although there still were looming threats around the horizon in the beginning of Adventure, they werenât always immediately apparent to the kids at every turn, and in fact, the beginning of the series involved more of a âwell, weâre in this situation and probably need to get home somehowâ aura than it did a âthe world is in danger and all of us might dieâ aura. (Itâs also in direct contrast to the 02 group, who were given the details of the crisis and what they needed to do roughly from the get-go.) So in other words, if you want to have some rose-colored nostalgia about the romanticism of this adventure, these are some of the best episodes to pull from.
Takeruâs is obviously from the Village of Beginnings, corresponding to Adventure episode 12, when he and Patamon got to have a fun romp through the village, play together, meet Elecmon, and learn about how Digimon are born. Itâs also very much something he did without the others, only with Patamon, and had a lot of âfun and happinessâ associated with (later solo episodes with Takeru had a lot more upsetting events more intrinsically tied with it), and, again, itâs extremely rose-colored -- it wasnât even a day later when Angemon died in front of Takeruâs eyes. But hey, thatâs even more reason to pick a moment from before then to stay in forever! Canât have trauma if that trauma never happens, right?
Also, note that Takeru is one of the few here whoâs confirmed to be aware of the partnership dissolution issue at this point, and, unlike Koushirou, isnât confirmed to have accepted a forward-thinking mentality about it yet -- this is a very, very prime time for his fears of being separated from Patamon again to have a nasty relapse.
Mimiâs is the closest to the midpoint of the series, from the affair with the Geckomon and Otamamon castle (from Adventure episode 25; the metal railings here resemble the stage railings from that episode). Itâs from the period of time that was a âlullâ -- when nobody actually knew about the encroaching threat of Vamdemon quite yet, and for all it was worth, there was no longer any danger. So Mimi got to live happily in the comfort of the castle and play around with the Geckomon and Otamamon...which, of course, also conveniently excludes the affair where she went on a power trip, made everyone miserable due to her selfishness, and immediately felt guilt over it.
Mimiâs associations with this incident are not entirely negative; she was clearly still having fun singing for them in the end (note how her clothing during that scene involved her regular outfit, which she has on here), and she still had a positive impression of her relationship with the Geckomon and Otamamon as per Adventure episode 47 and 02 episode 6 (and as per 02 episode 15, even though everyoneâs initial encounter with TonosamaGeckomon ended badly, nobody actually has any lingering grudge against him). So if you filter out that whole affair with the power trip and the resulting embarrassment, it was a meeting with a bunch of fun Digimon friends, a romantic little castle, and a fun stage session where Mimi got to sing.
Jouâs refers to the Infinity Mountain incident in Adventure episode 7, and even from the get-go you can already see the level of rose-coloredness in Jouâs gesture -- in the actual incident depicted, Jou went to the mountain out of a sense of obligation and stress, and the initial climbing involved him having a bit of a bickering moment with Gomamon. But once they did get up there, it was actually their first time the two of them got to really âbondâ -- and not only that, their encounter with Unimon had Jou even look on it with fascination, before the Dark Gear had ever come into play.
So in the end, Jou really would have found the incident enjoyable and worthwhile if not for that, and from there you can understand why it would be appealing for him to revisit that setting and finally get to have a bit of calm fun with Gomamon there -- especially since, again, the Neverland islands have a very strong preference for isolating the kids from others, and this was one of the few times Jou got to have a major moment of calm like this alone with Gomamon, with a slight reprieve from the constant feeling of stress and duty.
Koushirouâs most prominently resembles the âsealed roomâ in the factory in Adventure episode 5, and while Koushirou certainly continued to make a large number of exciting discoveries after that, this was the situation where Koushirou, with no one else but Tentomon to worry about in the immediate vicinity, got to have the largest sensation of ânoveltyâ -- where he first came upon the fascinating discovery of data manipulating reality around him, and he actually got to see the world change around him by wiping things off a wall.
And, of course, there were other things going on like Tentomon confronting him with his first existential crisis, and how things quickly went south with Andromon...but we donât have to remember that part for now, right?
An interesting thing about Koushirou: the circumstances of how he was âkidnappedâ in the first place are actually somewhat obscured compared to the other four in this scene, since Menoa presumably needed him conscious in order to get his list out of him, resulting in his kidnapping scene also involving an emerging Eosmon and not having him be instantly taken the way we see Takeru and Hikari (more on this in the section below). Itâs thus unclear whether heâd be in their boat had his position in Menoaâs plan not been unusual -- said memories in Neverland involved âgathering information and learning moreâ, something he still actively involved himself with even after the events of Adventure, and heâs also the first one to reach a forward-thinking mentality about the partnership dissolution phenomenon. Either way, once he was already dragged into Neverland, itâs natural that the place could find a good memory for him in the same way it did for the other kids who were âmanuallyâ dragged in, but the actual method of entry and whether Koushirou's post-Adventure life put him in a mindset similar to that of the 02 quartet (again, see below) is a bit ambiguous.
So hereâs an interesting part about how the 02 quartet gets involved in this story: their own encounters with Eosmon happen during a part where the method of kidnapping has abruptly changed. As many have pointed out, this is also when the degree of the targets Menoa wanted had also suddenly escalated, because while her previous claims had involved the idea of kidnapping like-minded adults (who, indeed, were entertaining thoughts of nostalgia to even some degree), she was now kidnapping actual children, ones who werenât even nearly at the point of the supposed drudgery of adulthood that Menoa claimed they would eventually have, and with her arrogantly deciding she knew better for all of them. The part that becomes particularly intriguing about this is that the exact same thing happens with Miyako -- she is explicitly stated to have connected her laptop to the Internet, resulting in an Eosmon physically emerging and chasing her instead of instantaneously snatching away her consciousness through a camera like her own fellow 02 group members Takeru and Hikari.
So in other words, the 02 quartetâs favorable position in this incident doesnât just have to do with being lucky enough to have gotten Koushirouâs warning about the Eosmon early; they (or at least Miyako) also seem to have a certain degree of outright immunity to it, much like the young children who arenât old enough to have nostalgia yet. (Also, keep in mind that Takeru was caught thanks to a security camera; âexcess caution with electronic devicesâ alone wouldnât necessarily have guaranteed their safety.)
Recalling that, for the most part, Takeru and Hikari are usually treated more like 02 group members in the context of this narrative yet are, in this one case, treated as being potentially nostalgia-prone, it stands to reason that the main difference between the two of them and their fellow members in the 02 group is the fact that Takeru and Hikari went on the adventure in 1999, and the quartet did not. So in other words, the reason the 02 quartet isnât as prone to this is not so much that theyâre fundamentally different-minded people, as much as they have a distinct lack of an experience they can be attached to the way the Adventure group is to their own 1999 adventure. (Remember that Menoaâs kidnappings work heavily on subconscious feelings; you canât blame anyone for having these kinds of feelings no matter how much theyâve consciously learned.)
As I said earlier, itâs foolhardy to pretend that Adventure was all sunshine and roses, and, likewise, itâs also foolhardy to pretend that 02 was nothing but suffering for everyone involved. Both series involved a lot of balancing of funny, silly moments to be treasured as much as they involved stress (which is why people are so attached to both, after all). So the question is not so much how happy they were in their childhoods as much as the nature of what that happiness came from, and what relation it has to their current lives. And when you look at what experiences the 02 quartet had back in 02, you might notice a thread of the fact that it is significantly harder to romanticize the events of 02 than it is Adventure.
Letâs put it this way: Letâs say that the 02 quartet was kidnapped into Neverland and placed onto islands that fit Menoaâs view of happiness. What, exactly, would you pick from 02 itself that would work? What kind of âhappinessâ did they have back then thatâs so romantic, so impossible to replicate now, that theyâd want to go back to because itâs better than their lives now once you disentangle all of the bad stuff?
...Not much. Not much at all, actually. Hanging out in the computer room together? Doesnât seem like they cared that much about the computer room part as much as the fact the others were there bantering with them (which would put a huge nail in Menoaâs islands mandating isolationism). Going out on a picnic together? No reason they canât just go on another picnic again (and if the BD box is to be believed, thatâs exactly what they did, and they even added Ken to it while they were at it). Hanging out with their Digimon in real life and doing silly hijinks? Theyâre...probably still doing that now, actually. Getting to find true happiness at a Christmas party? Thatâs a party from the real world (again, something they most certainly continued to do thereafter), one where the happiness came not from the romanticism of anything that happened to do with some adventure, but just the happiness of being surrounded by true friends, which, again, Ken is still clearly getting to do by the time of Kizuna.
Once you look at the circumstances of what the âadventureâ of 02 was to the 02 group, you may realize that it doesnât really resemble the traditional romantic image of an âadventureâ much at all. Sure, they were blessed with being able to regularly go back and forth between the Digital World from the get-go, but it meant that -- especially without the time dilation in play -- the Digital World became much less of a picturesque area associated with a one-time memorable adventure as much as something they had to squeeze in their after-hours while juggling it with their school. The circumstances they encountered their Digimon and the Digital World in were at a point where it had a certain level of âmundaneâ to them, compared to their seniors; it wasnât a âfantasy adventure in the Digital Worldâ when so much of the story also revolved around real-world events as well, and you canât really find many âmysterious fantasyâ events in 02 that resemble much of those in Adventure. The closest might be...Daisuke seeing Numemon pile out of a vending machine in 02 episode 1? (Not very romantic.) Daisuke getting chased around by a Tortomon in 02 episode 22? (Really not very romantic.) Iori getting to tour the ocean with Submarimon? (Implied to more about relief from how much he was holding himself back than the uniqueness of the experience in itself.) Kenâs long-time-ago flashback from 02 episode 23 about meeting Wormmon for the first time? (Defeating a Gazimon is hardly that impressive; the important part was him bonding with Wormmon, which heâs...uh...still doing now?)
There werenât any lasting relationships with Digimon friends like the ones in Adventure, maybe encountering some civilians once and not seeing them much again after that, especially since the lack of time dilation meant not getting to spend as much time visiting them much at all (think about all of the really fun experiences that the Adventure group probably had that werenât shown in the actual Adventure TV series, just because it probably didnât have enough drama that would make a good TV episode plot). This means that thereâs very little, if at all, of 02 that represents something this group would want so badly to recreate that they canât already do now; everything from back then was either something comparatively mundane, or something they actually would not want back. Unlike with Adventure, where a lot of the kids had irreplaceable moments that only happened to be spoiled a bit later, a lot of the âreally awesome accomplishmentsâ from the first half of 02 were explicitly against Ken, someone whom theyâd probably rather not dwell on fighting again because of how much they love him now; many of those good memories are âretroactively poisonedâ because of that, and itâs much, much more difficult to make a rose-colored version of those memories disentangled from the bad, because of how fundamentally intrinsic that retroactive poisoning becomes.
And, when you think about it, the mandate of âyou have to be alone on your own islandâ would pretty much break these four in particular, especially since the 02 group is portrayed as the type to need mutual support more than anything else, and so many of the events that represent âhappinessâ specifically involved the happiness of each other being present. Itâs not to say that the 02 quartet had no moments of happiness when alone with their partners, but, rather, being with each other provided so much more fulfillment to them that Menoaâs offer of a memory of their past that requires them to be alone probably pales in comparison to anything they could do now in each otherâs presence. Maybe, like with the other kids depicted in these scenes, they could be buttered up with something nice if you successfully got them into Neverland, but itâs not like they have any real wistfulness about anything from back then to the point that theyâd be subconsciously drawn towards it instead of having to be dragged in kicking and screaming -- and especially in the case of Miyako, the same one who managed to evade an Eosmon here, who was offered a similar âchance to be aloneâ back in 02 episode 49 and didnât take very long to decide she hated it because of how much of her happiness comes from getting to be with others.
By the time of the end of Adventure, the Adventure kidsâ ideal situation was to have a romantic and fun 110-year adventure with the sights and fun of the Digital World, with all of the weird fantasy surrealism and less of the world-saving, and thatâs something they never got to have (and that Menoa was inherently offering them). By the time of the end of 02, the 02 quartetâs ideal situation was...to find a way to get back to normal life and hope their friend feels a little better, and that âideal situationâ is still persisting even into the time of Kizuna, so itâs hard to imagine they really want more than that.
And, again, when you extrapolate this into what Kizunaâs trying to say about real life, adulthood, and nostalgia: it is true that Menoaâs projecting a belief that absolutely does not apply to everyone. While itâs true that many people feel that childhood had a certain kind of magic that you canât get back in adulthood, there are possibly just as many people who arenât really all that nostalgic to begin with, either due to trauma or something about their childhoods being miserable, or, even in the lack of such miserable events, simply enjoying the added freedom and expanded range of ability that comes with adulthood to the point they consider it to be more than worth the tradeoff. The 02 group basically represents this crowd -- Kenâs life right now beats out his past in pretty much nearly every respect, and while there are certain concerns about not being able to meet up as often, theyâre finding the same ways to do the same kinds of over-the-top hijinks they did back in 02, with arguably even more range now that they get to exploit Digital Gates to do world travel and act without worrying about their parents. Theyâre basically like the adults who see Menoaâs creed of âchildhood is better because adulthood sucksâ and go âsorry, canât relate.â
That said, remember: this isnât because the 02 quartet is somehow mentally stronger or anything, but rather just a byproduct of what experiences they've had and havenât had. Takeru and Hikariâs position is unique here -- for all intents and purposes their mentalities are portrayed as closer to the 02 groupâs, but they did still have the experience their seniors had and are thus still capable of being close to their position in this one regard. In the end, everyone is different, itâs no sin to have feelings based on those differences, and âbeing able to relateâ to oneâs position is also an important key here; because the 02 groupâs position is so alien to Menoaâs, itâs unlikely they could have tackled her problems nearly as intimately as their seniors could.
What we learn about Menoaâs backstory establishes that she forced her vision of nostalgic happiness on everyone based on her own perception of her past in such a warped, rose-colored manner. She conveniently omitted or forgot about details such as the fact that her life as a âchildâ involved feeling ostracized from everyone and that she herself was guilty of neglecting Morphomon. Not only that, she herself claims that sheâs the only one who knows what this feels like -- that nobody relates to her -- and thus, you can see that she came to her conclusion that her experiences are universal by the power of sheer extrapolation, hence why she thinks everyone inevitably loses their partner upon reaching adulthood despite pretty significant amounts of evidence to the contrary. (For all itâs worth, the fact that she still considers herself as having âbecome an adultâ at 14 just because she got into university at that time is pretty conceited.)
Menoaâs existence as being so starkly in contrast to the 02 quartetâs is very likely because her entire character was built up from the ground that way -- her entire backstory of skipping grades into university is heavily based on 02â˛s initial development premise and Kenâs own backstory, meaning she explicitly represents the path that Ken and the other 02 kids chose not to take, and the timing of certain events in her backstory seems almost deliberately engineered to prevent her from witnessing some of 02â˛s important answers to Kizunaâs conflict, most notably her inability to witness the final battle and the important lessons everyone present learned about following oneâs dreams without restraint, and how that relates to oneâs partner. Menoaâs mindset is basically that level of incompatible with 02â˛s themes of âmoving on from the pastâ and ânot caving to arbitrary societal expectationsâ, to the point her character could only get to this point by going out of the way to exclude her from 02â˛s story and events, because sheâs fundamentally built as a character who started off on a very similar path as them (getting to integrate her Digimon partner into normal life, having a similar backstory to Ken) before veering off on a very different one.
Moreover, about that backstory, and the reason why 02 was conceived as such a criticism of the concept of âskipping grades into universityâ: the concern that someone in this position will be kept from making any friends their age. Menoa puts the moment of âbeing with oneâs partnerâ on such a pedestal and considers herself to be âthe only one who knows what this feels likeâ partially because she has a fundamentally warped view of friendship itself. Even the Adventure group, which may not have had quite the absurdly tight level of bonding the 02 group had, still broke out of the illusion via Taichi and Yamato reaching out to them, and Taichi and Yamato giving each other mutual support helped them make the decisions they did in the movie. The movie is titled âbondsâ, and âbondsâ doesnât just refer to those between human and Digimon partner, but also bonds between each other; Taichi, Yamato, and Sora slowly drifting away from the others at the start of the movie has very strong relevance to their respective existential crises, and the role that Taichi and Yamato play in supporting each other, and Mimiâs in supporting Sora in To Sora and even beyond that, say a lot as to how theyâre already expected to be much better off than Menoa was.
Itâs not that adulthood is inherent drudgery; itâs that Menoaâs own circumstances really are that warped to the point where she sees her very unusual experiences as fundamentally synonymous with how life is supposed to work in general. She was so obsessed with âbeing independentâ, âbeing useful to the worldâ, and âbeing on her ownâ that she had no mentality of making friends or connecting to others besides her own partner, and once her partner disappeared, she seemed to make no attempt to rectify that. So of course her life in university following that ended up being not nearly as fulfilling as sheâd hoped, since she was getting no real emotional support from anywhere, and, as 02 itself also drove home, apparent âapproval from societyâ only ever makes you as âhappyâ as a Dark Seed-implanted child if youâre not also being supported by your loved ones in the process. Her adulthood sucked, and she decided that everything about her rose-colored childhood meant that childhood is fundamentally superior in every way, and thus decided that keeping everyone else in it would be âsavingâ them from the terror it involves -- even though (even if theyâre not aware of the specifics of everything) the 02 quartet is not the kind to be able to relate to this at all, and, eventually, Taichi and Yamato, who do understand her position a bit better due to their own experiences, are able to get her to reconsider a little.
#digimon#digimon adventure#digimon adventure 02#digimon adventure last evolution kizuna#kizuna spoilers#shihameta
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I finished watching Loonatics Unleashed and I have Some Thoughts. I guess this is like a part 2 to the other post I made about the show so yeah.
I swear I donât intend for everything I write to be an essay but whatever. Itâs all under the cut. No massive story spoilers, but I will talk about episodes and will warn accordingly. (But who actually cares about being spoiled on the plot of Loonatics Unleashed?)
Alright so I finally figured out why Ace has laser vision. ...Itâs kinda dumb but itâs because rabbits eat carrots(in cartoons). Itâs... a reason at least. Still kinda sucks that itâs his only power when everyone else got 2 and some change. Kickass swords donât count, even if they are magic. Seriously; Transformation. Duplication. Imitation. Tons of other âationâs. They couldâve leaned into his trickster side but no. He eats carrots... so he got laser vision. Also he only ate carrots like three times in the show so wtf...
Okay so the pacing... improved somewhat in season 2. Donât get me wrong there were still problems in some episodes but at least they learned how to build the stakes until the climax. They still sometimes went from zero to eighty after the opening credits, but at least it wasnât zero to a hundred. Much less whiplash was had is what Iâm saying.Â
I donât think I really mentioned the villains before but theyâre uh... generally not very good. Theyâve got cool gimmicks but most of the time theyâre just two stereotypes and a cliche in a trench coat. Season 2 brought back classic anthro characters to be villains a few times, and while they still werenât well written and just referenced old bits half the time... at least they werenât dehumanized humans.Â
I also donât think I mentioned the animation so... itâs fine. Itâs got cut corners but all cartoons do. Sometimes fight scenes look cool, sometimes theyâre stiff. Sometimes the slapstick is well timed, sometimes itâs not. Sometimes the facial expressions match the voice acting, sometimes they donât. Speaking of voice acting, itâs good. Thereâs not really anything stand out to perform in the first place but everyone does a good job with what they have.Â
Okay random note before getting deeper into things... the intro themes were... not good. I swear the first song ended on a note that it wasnât supposed to. The second song fixed that but added people announcing the characters which... is just worse to me. Not much else to say because I skipped them after the first few times.Â
(Very mild spoilers for the general plots of episodes past this point.)
Ace and Lexi improved a little in the second season, but I still find them kinda bland. Ace still just feels like zero calorie Bugs Bunny. His wit is confined to being the leader, snarky comebacks, and some decent sleuthing skills... and thatâs really it. He doesnât really play around with the villains the way Bugs would. Ace was also supposed to have an arc learning to use his magic sword which... didnât really happen. Lexiâs defining trait outside of her powers is still that sheâs âthe girlâ which... sucks... Uh... she upgraded to Gamer Girl in the second season which while neat, amounted to nothing outside that one episode. At the very least she was never kidnapped for more than 5 seconds?(That âhonorâ goes to Zadavia) They also never really brought up their backstories in a meaningful way again, which sucks.Â
I still like the rest of the team. Slam got an episode about wrestling that built on his backstory and was fun to watch. Duck discovered that his egg powers work differently in water which was neat and matched him being a waterfowl.(Lexiâs powers work differently in water too but itâs never brought up again). Rev is still Rev and I still love him. He got an episode about his family and struggle to impress them(specifically his parents) despite his career choice which was also neat, but I will be coming back to this episode later. Tech is also still Tech and I also still love him. But uh, every character and also me wanted to see him get out of the lab more, and then he got like a nibble of an episode to get out of the lab, and then the show was over. Oof.
Speaking of Tech, it might be for the best he hardly ever left the lab because his powers are... possibly way too effective against all the robots and machines the team fights. Now, him being âoverpoweredâ couldâve been used as a fun writing challenge. Robot goons arenât a good option for villains anymore. Fighting against him in a city filled with metal is harder. Villains canât rely on simply killing him thanks to his regeneration. Fight scenes including Tech would have to be handled in a fun and interesting way. But... no. In a team with two tech guys, the one with super speed and flight comes with while the one who can control metal and literally canât die stays behind. Oh well. Doubt they couldâve added him into more fights without accidentally dumbing him down anyway.Â
Oh crap I forgot to talk about Zadavia! Uh... she exists. Sheâs the teamâs boss who sends them out on missions. Uh... I canât talk too much about her without spoiling what little overarching plot this show has, but just know that sheâs neat, but affected by the usual sexism going on in the showâs writing.
(Character and episode spoilers past this point.)
You know, for being The Loonatics the main cast wasnât very loony. You know who were though? Basically all the villains. Yeah I donât wanna go there but oops here I go anyway. Itâs pretty messed up that all the main charactersâ zany traits were dialed down, while the defining feature of practically every villain (besides their stereotypes)is that theyâre insane. I mean, if youâre looking for good mental illness rep in The Looney Tunes youâre gonna be disappointed, but at least in the shorts almost every character was a little unhinged and a bit of an asshole, making none of them stand out for those traits specifically.Â
Also messed up is that a lot of the villains are disfigured and made fun of for it by the main cast. Hot take of the century, but I think making fun of people for having a big head or only one eye is... bad. Oh and if theyâre a woman then theyâre also judged on how hot they are. Actually all women in the show are subjected to sexist writing. I remember like one episode where women were treated with a sliver of respect for a split second and that was in the obligatory âthe cast comes across an island of amazon womenâ episode. However since most of the time was spent painting them as villains until the âactually sexism is badâ ending, there was hardly a moment of reprieve from the bullshit if a woman was on screen.Â
Iâm not the best person to speak on this but uh... itâs fucked up that since literally every notable human is a villain, all the people of color are bad guys, right? Like, obviously itâs not as bad as some of the shit the old shorts pulled, but thatâs like saying getting punched is not as bad as getting stabbed. Itâs true... but Iâm sure most people would prefer neither.Â
And hereâs where I bring up that Rev episode I mentioned earlier. Revâs parents are racist against coyotes (cartoons sure love to make carnivores allegories for black people donât they?) and obviously with Tech E. Coyote being his close friend, that causes trouble. ...Right? Uh, no. They say some racist crap to Tech, and thatâs it. There is not even an attempt to correct their behavior from anyone. Itâs just treated as some unfortunate quirk. In fact the episodeâs conflict actually revolves around Revâs brother, Rip. Honestly, I doubt that they couldâve handled a decent âracism is badâ episode anyway. But they couldâve also... just not brought up racism if they couldnât handle it? Iâm sure having no racism topic at all would be better than having Tech just take the parentsâ racist bull crap lying down and then help Rev impress them with an invention he doesnât get credit for. Also at one point Rev says if Tech wasnât a coyote and a guy heâd kiss him, which has two uncomfortable implications, but this section is already too long.Â
(Spoilers end here.)
Overall... yeah the showâs not very good. Of course it wasnât. It was always going to be a little garbage. And no not because of the darker style or strange setting or any of that superficial crap. Team dynamic shows are popular and with Teen Titans doing so well WB probably thought they might as well shove out a 2 season Looney Tunes version to grab a little more cash, probably minimizing the budget to squeeze out as much profit as possible. If anyone working on the show was passionate about it, I doubt they had the budget or time to act on most their ideas.Â
Still, there were things to like. There are some funny jokes throughout the show, a few of which even managed to come out of Aceâs mouth. Danger Duck was literally just Daffy and heâs always great. Ironically, Rev and Tech were the most fun to listen to, and also to watch interacting in general. Slam didnât do much but was a sweetheart who deserves success. There managed to be some decently twisty twist villains, if only because Disney ruined my brain with their ceaseless and lazy attempts at them, and I wasnât looking out for them in this show. And, while almost nothing was properly developed, at least the concepts and characters are fun to think about?
I canât say Iâd recommend this show to everybody, but uh... if youâre a Furry with low standards and too much free time like me, maybe youâll like it? Just go in with low expectations so when nice things happen youâre decently surprised.Â
#This took me like 5 hours to write what is wrong with me?#Why can't I dedicate this much time to one thing when it comes to finishing my fanfics?#Loonatics Unleashed#Random Thoughts#Now if you excuse me I'm going to obsess over Rev and Tech for who knows how long.
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The Alternative Timeline; A Journey
If you don't know, I have spent the last two years writing a 2012-alternate timeline AU Marvel fanfic. (You can find it here).
It has grown way past anything that I could have ever imagined. In celebration of completing the final chapter of the fourth part, I thought I would make a post detailing this journey for anyone interested, because when I started this in 2019, I definitely did not expect to end up writing an epic of over 500,000 words.
Spoilers under the cut.
First off, I think it is important to note that before I started the first fic in this series, Alternatively, I had published a total of two (2) fics in the mcu universe. My very first Marvel fic Lessons Learned was posted January 2019. My second Marvel fic Never Again was posted March 2019. (Both of which combined have a total word count of 5,716.) And then, on May 4th, 2019, I watched Avengers: Endgame, and lost my mind.
Upon watching Endgame, I was struck immediately by the time-travel scene to 2012. The fact that 2023!Steve told 2012!Steve that Bucky was alive...and that he said 'Hail Hydra' to the STRIKE team in the elevator...never mind the fact that Loki got away with the Tesseract...
There was just so much potential there. I wanted to build an AU where Steve and Tony could be friends, and I was pumped to explore the consequences of 2023!Steve's 'Hail Hydra'. I thought this universe had the potential to right a lot of wrongs, and I just had to try it.
So first I had to start planning. This was right after Endgame was released, so there weren't a lot of posts going around about the alternate timeline. I had to come up with most of my theories and ideas myself.
Also, there were hardly any Youtube videos of the specific scenes I needed from Endgame, and there was no online script yet, because the movie was still in theatres. So I had to resort to shaky illegally filmed videos from people in theatre to get the dialogue I needed from the 2012 time-travel scene. It was a struggle. XD
Writing Alternatively
One big hurdle I had to figure out was how Steve would go undercover in Hydra. I knew I wanted him to, because that would be super interesting, and would allow him to find Bucky and take down Hydra from the inside, but I had to figure out how he convinced Hydra of his loyalty in the first place.
The path I chose (Steve claiming he is disillusioned with the modern world etc.) may seem rather obvious to the outside observer, but it might amuse you to learn I played around with the idea of Steve trying to claim he was secretly partial to Hydra even during the war. I honestly did spend a few days contemplating Steve somehow trying to say he was on Hydra's side even while he was actively fighting them. It makes me laugh to think about it now.
Obviously I went with a more believable lie, and eventually figured out everything I wanted to have happen in the story. At this point, I had no plans to write more than a single story.
Because Endgame had just come out, and I was so excited about this idea, I wanted to write it and get it out as fast as possible. For some reason I was worried that someone else would write the idea before I did. It felt like such an intriguing concept that I thought for sure other people would do it too. As such, I had several WIPs that I put on the back burner while I focused all my attention on writing Alternatively. (These WIPs still haven't been published, my writing has improved immensely over the last two years, so I think I might have to re-write them XD).
One thing that helped me a lot writing this story is I already had a lot of headcanons about the inner lives of the characters, and I was desperate for somewhere to put them. I hadn't had a chance yet to really write about Steve's PTSD, so that became a major theme in the story that helped push it along.
Alternatively was the longest story I had ever written when I first got started. Before writing Alternatively, the longest (published) word count I had was 7,544. And, I had only published one (1) multi-chapter fic, that had three chapters, and 4,621 words.
Looking at that, I doubt anyone could have imagined what I was about to undertake. Not even myself. But I really really wanted to write the story, so I ran with it.
I decided that I was going to write all the chapters first, before I published it. This is what I had been doing with my WIPs anyway (and I'm glad I did, or those things wouldn't have been updated for like, two years). I will admit that once I got to chapter 10 of Alternatively I was really tempted to just start posting it, because I was so excited and really wanted to start sharing it.
I managed to restrain myself though. It took my four months to write all twenty chapters of Alternatively. It was a frustrating process at times, because I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, but I felt like my writing skills were not on par with that ideal. I wanted this fic to be good, and it was hard to get it to where I wanted it. This got easier over time though, because one thing a project like this does is give you writing practice.
At the time, I didn't even have my own laptop, so I was writing on school computers, or my family computer. (I got a laptop once I started The Alternate Handler though, this story is actually part of what pushed me to get a laptop in the first place.)
Finally, I finished the last chapter, and I edited it for the final time, and then, on August 29th, 2019, I published the first chapter.
I was amazed at the response I received. Before this I had only written twelve stories, most of them oneshots. I'm not saying my story went viral or anything, but I got a lot more feedback than I was used to. This was super awesome, and made me even more excited to share what I had written.
Even as I was posting Alternatively, I didn't really expect to write any more in this universe. Except...there was so much about Bucky in this story that the reader didn't get to see. I knew all about it because I had to know what was going on in his head while Steve did his thing, but the readers wouldn't know more than Steve knew.
And so, as I posted Alternatively, a very determined plot-bunny began to work away at my brain. I actually gave into it at one point and wrote a little bit of what would become The Alternate Handler, but I stopped after the first four chapters for a while.
Fun fact: The first four chapters I wrote are actually the first two chapters of The Alternate Handler. Each chapter was only about 2,000 words long, so when I started writing the story in earnest, I combined the first four chapters into two.
I don't remember what exactly was the trigger that made me really want to write Bucky's side of things, but around the time that I posted chapter 10 of Alternatively, I started getting the same insane urge that had pushed me to write Alternatively in the first place, and I decided to go for a sequel.
Writing The Alternate Handler
I started posting this story Jan 2020.
I was excited to write this story, because of how interesting Bucky's thoughts were, but part of me was a little nervous that people would not be interested in reading the same fic from another pov. I knew it would be interesting, but I wasn't sure if people would give it a shot.
I decided to go for it anyways. I was pretty amazed at myself because I had just written something that was 100,000 words long, and people seemed to be liking it. (Of course, I never could have imagined that The Alternate Handler would double that. I definitely expected it to be about 20 chapters long like the first one.)
I decided that I wanted to get as much of The Alternate Handler finished before I finished posted Alternatively as I could, so that I could started posting The Alternate Handler right away. I felt that the best way to keep a steady readership was to make sure they could follow the next story right away.
That meant that I had only about 10 weeks to write as many chapters as I could. For all my stories, I had an outline of basic plot points, so I could keep track of everything I wanted to have happen. It was helpful, but also did not anticipate the scope of what would happen.
I had a general idea of what would happen, and I had vague ideas of scenes I wanted, but none of it was nailed down. As I wrote it felt like I was walking forward a few steps to illuminate the path I needed, and then snagging the right plot points out of the air.
Bucky's mindset also took some work to figure out. How do you write from the pov of someone who barely remembers anything? Does he know how to use metaphors? Does he know what a microwave is? How dependent is he? The first few chapters where Bucky is deep in his Winter Soldier programming took a lot of thought.
One of the fun things about writing this story was that I got to dive deeper into my headcanons of exactly how Hydra brainwashed Bucky. Before this I had some vague scenes and ideas, but this story really forced me to come up with a coherent timeline for Bucky's experience under Hydra, which is pretty cool. Once I had that, I could decide how and when I would reveal the pieces throughout the story.
Anyway, I managed to write 12 chapters of The Alternate Handler before I finished posting Alternatively. (Which is super impressive.) And somehow I managed to keep ahead of my posting schedule for twenty-eight more chapters.
I honestly can't believe it sometimes. I actually wrote a 40 chapter fic, and posted once a week for forty weeks, with only a head-start of 12 chapters. (And at the same time, I was like, finishing university and working. So no, I don't know how I survived.)
Reader influences: Unlike Alternatively, where I had everything written ahead of time, this story was still being written as I was posting, so the readership did have some influence on what I put out, which you may find interesting.
Bucky's arm: When I first started writing, I didn't have a concrete plan to replace Bucky's metal arm with something better. That may be a shocker, but that arc starts happening way later on into the story (around chap 32). Because of how long and intricate the plot and story is, there is simply no way I could plan every detail when I first got started. I didn't start offcially planning to have an arc around his arm until a reader mentioned in a comment that they hoped it would happen. (And I was like, 'oh yeah, that should definitely happen...eventually.' And made a note to work it in when it became appropriate.) The comment happened pretty early on in the story, so it was easy for me to start laying down the foundation for that arc.
Bucky's arm part two: Another thing a reader had a direct influence is the blue star Bucky has on his new arm. Originally I wasn't planning to have a star at all. I was going to have Bucky decide he didn't want one. But then I had a reader request that I keep the star, and I decided that keeping it would not upset any character development. I had already set up blue as an important colour in the story, so I decided to change Bucky's decision and have him request a blue star. I like it. It is a clear symbol of this Bucky, versus any other Bucky.
Surprises
One thing that surprised me while writing and posting this story, is the readership prediction for Bucky's choice of whether or not to fight. I posted a chapter that focused on Bucky watching himself react to being drafted, and then remembering himself choosing to follow Steve, and then cliffhangered on him having to decide if he wanted to join the Avengers.
I asked something in the author's notes about 'what do you think he will do?', and a surprising amount of people (to me anyways) thought that he would chose to fight. I had always planned to have Bucky retire from fighting, so I was a little shocked. I thought with a whole chapter about Bucky learning he never really wanted to fight at all, that people would think he would want to take a break.
I think the consensus came from the desire to see Bucky and Steve fight together like old times. I think Bucky joining Steve on missions is a common indication of him overcoming his past and avenging/revenging on Hydra, so in the end I am not surprised that a lot of people might expect that to happen.
Because of that response I was a little nervous people wouldn't be happy with Bucky's choice, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bucky's arc and choosing not to fight is really important, and I think everyone is happy with how it went.
It took ten months to post all of The Alternate Handler. As I was writing, I was not planning to write anymore. I was mostly focused on finishing the story, and didn't expect to write a third part...
But, my traitorous mind whispered, this universe could fix everything. We can make Civil War less painful. We can keep them from fighting. We can do it properly.
To be honest, it didn't take a lot of convincing for me to give in and start planning An Alternate Approach.
Writing An Alternate Approach
I started posting this story Oct. 2020.
I started planning this with a lot of time to spare. I still had most of The Alternate Handler to write and finish posting when I decided to go for this fic too.
Some challenges were that I wanted to show the Avengers going through the same things as the original Avengers, but doing it better. I had already gotten rid of the Winter Soldier problem, and Tony knew about his parents, so we didn't have to deal with any of that, but I still wanted to do the UN bombing and that drama, because T'Chaka's death is very important to T'Challa's and Wakanda's development, so I felt it still needed to happen.
Of course...I had nipped Ultron in the bud, meaning Sokovia wasn't destroyed, and Zemo had no reason to go after Bucky.
Thankfully, I came up with the idea of having Rumlow do it in time to foreshadow it a little in The Alternate Handler (the fact that they never find him, even though they know he is out there etc.)
Like last time, I wanted to post The Alternate Approach as soon as I finished The Alternate Handler. It was a bit of a crunch time for me, but I managed to get all eight chapters finished in time. I basically finished writing The Alternate Handler and immediately started writing An Alternate Approach. I finished The Alternate Handler August 1st, and finished the last chapter of The Alternate Approach September 10th.
Originally I was expecting An Alternate Approach to be a bit longer, but things happened quicker than I thought they would.
A challenge for this story is that most of it happens during a movie. There was a lot of original stuff happening and interesting inner thoughts, but I was restricted in what I could do because of the script I still had to refer to. Also because this story was only eight chapters long, I didn't have as much space to work through character development.
Reader influences: Like with Alternatively, I managed to finish the story before I posted it, but the readers did have a little influence on the content.
Mostly it had to do with their reaction to Everette Ross. I think a challenge with this story is there is Everette Ross, and there is Thaddeus Ross. Thaddeus Ross is much worse than Everette Ross, but I think the readers mixed the two up sometimes because they share the same last name.
To top it off, I wanted to show Everette Ross' character arc a little, because he obviously changes from Civil War to Black Panther. There wasn't a lot of space to show the glimpse of his character and how he could be better than he seems. The readership really hated him at times, so I did edit his lines and facial expressions a little to try to make it clear that he thinks differently than Thaddeus Ross.
Actually, in chapter five, Steve has a nightmare about Hydra trying to wipe Bucky and trapping Steve in the SSR capsule he got the serum in. Originally, I was going to have the main villain in the dream be Thaddeus Ross, to symbolise how Steve was uneasy around him, and how Ross thought of Bucky. But the readership was already literally out for Ross' blood, and suspected him to be Hydra (which was not canon in the story). They really wanted something bad to happen to Ross, but I knew that wouldn't happen, so I decided to change Ross to Rumlow in the dream. This helped foreshadow Rumlow's later involvement, and it also didn't give the reader any more reasons to hate or suspect Ross.
If I were to write this again, I think I would try to make it more clear which Ross it which, since I think the same last names really didn't help the situation.
Writing The Alternate End
I started posting this story Nov 2020.
For a long time, I never intended to write The Alternate End. I had The Alternate Approach all planned out, but I was adamant that this time, I was 100% not going to write any more.
This not because I didn't like the series. I loved it, and my readers loved it too. But at the time, I hadn't finished The Alternate Handler yet, and I hadn't even started The Alternate Approach.
The thought of trying to write an Endgame fic felt a little overwhelming. I was worried I would run out of momentum at some point, and I would leave my readers hanging. I had been writing and posting a chapter a week for over a year at that point, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it up for as long as I needed.
While I was trying to dodge plot-bunnies, I tried to convince myself that an Endgame fic wouldn't be interesting. I figured it would be just the same as any other Endgame fix-it fic. I was truly convinced that the readers would be satisfied by me bringing them all the way to Civil War, and then just, ending it there.
It makes me laugh to think about it now. I really thought I could just be like "The End! I'm sure you can imagine the rest" XD.
And then I was at work one day, thinking about the next chapter of The Alternate Handler, and thinking of how much I still had to write, including The Alternate Approach...and thinking pointedly that I was not going to write an Endgame fic...and then my traitorous brain decided to speak up again.
I had exactly two (2) thoughts that were my downfall. First my brain was like: What if we wrote it from Tony's pov? We've never written it from Tony's pov before.
And plot-bunny-brain was like "ooooh". But I was like, "No! It will still be a normal Endgame fix-it fic. People can read other fix-it fics if they want to know what happens."
And then my brain was like, What about the fact that they know about the time-travellers? What if they decide to leave a message about Thanos when they time-travel?
It makes me laugh to think that the simple warning message that Tony gives his alternate-self is the spark that got this story going. Once I started writing it, that scene was not what I looked forward to the most. But at the time, knowing about the time-travellers, and leaving a message behind was something completely unique to my AU, and so that is what I needed to jumpstart my desire to write this story.
As soon as I had those two thoughts, I knew I was done for. I actually stopped dead at work and stared ahead in betrayal and amusement. I was like, 'I really am going to write this, aren't I? I haven't even finished The Alternate Handler, but I'm going to plan out two whole stories to write after this, aren't I?'
And I did. I finished The Alternate Handler in the summer. Because I was already planning to write two more parts, I was able to set up some of what I needed for those parts in The Alternate Handler. (Such as Clint's family and Scott's introduction.)
I started writing The Alternate Approach as quickly as I could. I knew I only had a short window before school started again, and I wanted to get to The Alternate End as soon as possible so that I could get ahead on that.
Once I started posting The Alternate Approach, I had about eight weeks to write as many chapters of The Alternate End as I could. In the end, I managed to write ten chapters ahead of time, and I somehow managed to keep that lead for the rest of the twenty or so chapters.
I was a bit nervous about this fic, because it followed the movies for a while. I tried to keep at least one original scene in each chapter, and I thought Tony's pov was interesting, but I knew I wanted the Snap to happen. I also knew we had to start at the beginning of Infinity War, because we needed those scenes to establish character development and such.
Writing Tony was also its own challenge. Tony had already had a lot of character development, but we didn't see his side of it. He was in a better place than mcu!Tony, but I still needed him to be able to improve. It was a tricky balance trying to show the results of the character development he'd been having for three stories, while also making room for more.
Another thing about writing Tony is he has a lot more relationship dynamics to work with. In Steve's stories, his relationship dynamics are mostly between Bucky and Tony, and in Bucky's story the dynamics are mostly between him and Steve, and then eventually him and Tony, with a few snapshots of the other Avengers and his sister.
Tony has dynamics with Steve and Bucky, Rhodey, Pepper, and Peter. Plus any other Avengers who happen to be there. And then, Nebula and his relationship became unexpectedly important. It was a challenge to balance the relationships. I wanted to show Steve and Tony, because we had been watching it grow for ages now, but I also wanted to establish his relationship with Pepper, something we had only barely caught a glimpse of before.
On a different note, one thing I cursed Endgame for all the time was the sheer number of characters it has. In scenes with the whole cast I could be juggling 15-20 characters! It was a lot!
It took a lot of work, but I managed to finish The Alternate End three chapters ahead of time. It was a relief to finish, and I was excited for the approaching time I could start posting the oneshots I had planned for this universe.
Writing Alternative Options
I started posting this story May 2021.
I'm not sure exactly when I first got the idea to write oneshots within this universe. I think I had some readers suggest oneshots of different character's povs, and at that point I didn't even try to resist the plot-bunnies. I was just like, "why not?"
I had one reader request an alternate scene to chapter 10 of Alternatively waaaay back at the beginning of this adventure. It intrigued me, so I wrote it and shared it with them privately. I also had a scene I had to take out chapter 35 of The Alternate Handler, so since I already had those two documents sitting on my computer, it was nice to come up with somewhere to share them with everyone.
Also, like Bucky's pov in The Alternate Handler, I had a lot of extra content in my head of other character's motivations and povs that don't get spotlighted in the other stories. It's all in my head anyways, I might as well share it somewhere.
I wrote the first eight or so oneshots of Alternative Options whenever I felt particularly inspired. I wrote the very first chapter back in February 2021, but I actually wrote the second chapter way back in August 2020 (same with the onshot A Change in Protocol.) I rearranged the first eight chapters into what I thought would flow best.
Writing the oneshots was sometimes a nice break from my main project. I think the oneshots are a nice way to end off too, because there is less pressure on them. The story is done now, I can write and post the oneshots whenever I feel like it, but readers will always have a complete story to go back to.
Unexpected Things
Everything about this series was unexpected (even if most of the plot was pretty scripted), but some things still amuse me. As I got deeper into this universe, I was surprised at the amount of people who were concerned I would kill characters or end things angstily.
I remember when I announced I would be writing a Civil War inspired fic, many people were concerned that Steve and Tony would fight like they did in the movie. It didn't even occur to me to reassure people that this wouldn't happen, because it seemed so impossible to me.
To me it was obvious that I had fixed so many things already in this universe. It seemed so straightforward to me that certain things simply could not happen. (Of course, it would always seem obvious to the author.)
I think people were a lot more nervous for my Civil War story than I intended them to be.
And then, when we got to Endgame, people surprised me by hoping I wouldn't do the Snap at all. It had not occurred to me that people would hope that. I felt the Snap needed to happen. If it didn't happen, then we couldn't see any of the other painful things be fixed.
Then, people surprised me again because they were very worried that I would kill Tony and Natasha. I had basically spent the last two years writing a 500,000 word mcu fix-it series. I wasn't about to kill Tony and Natasha at the end.
Still, I am very good at pulling on angsty heartstrings, so I can see why people were concerned.
(That is another thing I did not expect, the amount of people who told my I made them cry with my writing. It touches me every time it happens.)
Take Away
If you made it to the end of this long post, congratulations!
What will I take away from this amazing experience? Well, first off, not to be intimidated by long story ideas. I probably wouldn't have written this if I had conceived how long it would be. Lucky for us, I dived head-first into this, and just kept swimming.
Another thing that I think is important, is you don't have to be a super experienced writer to write big things. I had written nothing even close to this when I started. And my writing improved a lot during this journey.
I think looking at the finished product it is easy to think that I am just naturally an awesome author, but two years ago that wouldn't have been the case. Don't be intimidated by the finished products of authors. That is the culmination of hours of work, and it does not mean you can't do the same thing if you feel a similarly insistent plot-bunny.
Finally, I would like to thank all my readers! If you've been around since I first started posting, then that is 94 weeks (plus whatever Alternative Options turns out to be) of reading a chapter a week from me! That is amazing!
If you joined later along the ride, that is just as awesome! Thank you for plunging into such a long series!
If you have any questions or want to chat with me about plot choices I made, or my thoughts behind certain scenesâor anything reallyâfeel free!
I hope you enjoyed! :D
Tl;dr:
I never planned to write any of the stories after Alternatively, until about halfway through posting the preceding stories. Plot bunnies are really insistent, and I had stuff planned in the background anyways, so I had to share it. By the time I was about halfway through The Alternate Handler I had accepted that I was going to write two more stories in the universe.
It was a lot of work, and I had never written anything anywhere close to this giant project. It was a lot of fun though, and I'm glad I did it.
#fanfic#fanfiction#the alternative timeline#the alternate timeline#Alternatively#the alternate handler#an alternate approach#the alternate end#writing#writer#writers#long post#alternative options
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Musical Car!
      Whatâs interesting is that the musical has a sign advertising Jesseâs name; Did he stop by the Musical Car at some point and inspire the denizens there with a speech about empathy, and how differences are okay? We know that had to have taken place prior to him, Lake, and Alan Dracula entering the Carnival Car, meeting The Cat, etc. Either way, Iâm not at all surprised that someone as open and friendly as him would say such things, especially with an unconventional friend like Lake; And obviously he stuck by his words in the end, didnât he?
      Lemme tell you though⌠I was legit disturbed by that raid, as well as seeing those poor denizens get legitimately hurt and injured for no reason at all, and that ONE decapitated dude almost getting wheeled, only to be converted into Simonâs thing; Like, screw you Apex. Thatâs what makes Simon and Grace interesting; Iâve always imagined the concept of more problematic protagonists for this series, so itâs not much of a surprise to see Book 3 dive into this! Given how much more, well⌠WORSE Simon and Grace are, pehaps itâs not all-too surprise that their arc was confined to HBO Max, given the even more mature tone set by them and their actions!
      Honestly, those two rapidly switch and range from terrible, nasty jerks I want to punch, to misfits with banter and chemistry, and plenty of comradery; Especially for people they DO care about! It really drives the point home that not every bad person is PURE evil, like they donât spend every waking moment plotting how terrible they can be, and most donât even consider themselves as bad! Itâs disconcerting, but a good look into their mindset; With Grace genuinely trying to be nice and caring to the kids and not hurting their feelings, but also repeating Ameliaâs lies about the train denizens being there for the passengersâ benefit, and⌠More on that later.
      Also- Glad to see Grace make fun of Simonâs fashion sense and acknowledge it, but at the same time⌠Either he was ten when he began to wear socks with sandals, AND/OR he was ten when he first met Grace; Presumably on the Infinity Train, although the idea of two individuals knowing one another PRIOR to boarding it is also fascinating! Especially given how Book 2 discussed the idea of fate and pre-determination in oneâs paths and allâŚ
      Itâs interesting to see that not all Apex kids are against the denizens, like some DO want to make friends with them (albeit in a very invasive manner), but Grace and Simon just shut them down. I have to wonder if they themselves also had a similar moment with Amelia, only to be brutally shut down; And Amelia is objectively worse than those two considering how much higher her number is, and how SHE was the one who started this dumb ideology in the first place (instead of just being taught it at a vulnerable moment in her life like everybody else)!
      Whatâs worth noting is that Simon has a device that can detect the presence of other passengers, which is both VERY cool and VERY useful; I have to wonder if itâll detect Hazel in the Jungle Car however. Given the speculation of her being a train denizen, itâd serve as neat, subtle foreshadowing as to her true nature, and I can see the show touching upon this! Also, the aesthetics of that device reminds me of what The Cat would own; Given how sheâll make a return this Book and has had a run-in with at least Grace in the past, I can easily see it being something sheâd own. She IS a collector of useful things, after all⌠And I have to wonder if maybe The Cat was even a companion of Simon or Grace; Or maybe even Amelia! Perhaps the Passenger-Detector was a âgiftâ from AmeliaâŚ
      (I mean, they HAVE to bring her back in Book 3, given how her ideology and actions are a direct consequence of everything that happens, and would fit nicely into her eventual redemption arc. Not to mention itâd give a fascinating insight as to what was going on in her mind when she indoctrinated the Apex.)
      Neat detail seeing the Unfinished Car with those corgi diplomats, and nice joke with that one turtle talking to whatâs later revealed to be a phone with a line thatâs already cut anyway! Grace breaking her Harpoon Pack makes sense; She wasnât seen with one in the trailer and posters, and I guess itâd help âbalanceâ things if only one protagonist had a Harpoon Pack; So they canât just skip over cars on their way back!
      Speaking of a way back; We have a set number of cars leading back to the Mall Car, so in other words we have a way of keeping track of the journeyâs progress! It IS worth noting that the cars could always rearrange⌠Itâs interesting to learn that cars apparently donât move when passengers are inside; I always assumed that sometimes they mightâve and a passenger wouldnât notice because all the cars look identical from the outside, and also being inside a pocket-dimension kind of skews around with the sensation of whatâs going on outside. Itâs possible that Simon and Grace actually felt the movement because of the Unfinished Carâs unusual natureâŚ
      Regardless, after that disturbing opening scene it makes sense that One-One is stepping in! Given how he values the passengers more than the denizens (as seen with his second and final interaction with Lake), it makes me wonder how much he actually CARES; Or if he canât afford to have people âbreaking equipmentâ, and/or is mostly doing this to lean the Apex towards becoming better people by confronting them over their actions! At this point, they may end up pushing One-One too much and heâll have to send in his StewardâŚ
      Getting onto some existential crisis, the cruel thing about Simon and Grace saying that the denizens are made for them is⌠Theyâre actually kind of right? NOT that this justifies at all their wanton, senseless cruelty towards the train denizens⌠But it ties back to Lakeâs existential crisis in Book 2, the realization and likelihood that she (and maybe even the Mirror World) was made purely for the character development of people like Tulip and Jesse! One-One himself outright says in the Book 2 Finale that, YEAH; Train Denizens are supposed to stay on the train because their entire purpose, their entire means of creation was just to fulfill what the passengers need!
      âŚObviously, using them for raids ISNâT what One-One (and/or whoever made the Infinity Train/the Infinity Train itself) intended⌠But the disturbing realization still stands that the denizensâ purpose and creation in life is for the betterment of passengers, to accompany them, aid them⌠In the past, Iâve speculated how some Cars and their inhabitants donât seem to have much of a personality beyond being a basic caricature to fulfill the âthemeâ of a car, as well as aiding in passengersâ journeys! And obviously theyâre all PEOPLE, but again this ties back into just how real the pasts and worlds of denizens were, as discussed by Mace; The idea that entire histories and cultures have been fabricated, and pre-programmed into the memories of denizens.
      Needless to say, itâs very disturbing⌠And if Simon and Grace ever change their stance on denizens and even start vouching for them, itâd be a brilliant reversal of their beginning attitudes to have them call out One-One for making sapient people for the sole purpose of serving others; Which could be a dilemma for him given how HE may have been made for the purpose of others! Given how Amelia taught the Apex her ideals, and she was Conductor for a time and thus had rather intimate knowledge of the Infinity Train⌠perhaps what she says about the denizens being just âtoysâ, made for the passengers, isnât too far a stretch from the truth; Obviously a dark, twisted, and selfish distortion. But itâs emblematic, reflecting a deeper, underlying issue that could lie with the Infinity Train itself.
      (Especially since Owen Dennis said that One-One and the Infinity Train can be wrongâŚ)
      Given how Amelia made cars with denizens that only âturned onâ once a car was considered âcompleteâ (or close to it), it suggests that she knows all about the artificial, pre-programmed nature of denizens because sheâs made a few ones; Which when coupled with how she probably tried to make a Fake Alrick, and ultimately realized that a replica would never be the same⌠Eerily, it lends to the idea that part of what made Amelia realize this at the end of Book 1, was her mindset that denizens are just follow, fake copies of pre-existing things and arenât even real to begin with.
      THAT is a cruel twist; That the very ideas that founded the Apex and caused our issues in Book 3, were low-key what helped Amelia wake up from her fantasy and realize that she needed to confront her issues! Given how high her number is, it only makes sense that while sheâs making progress, she STILL has some more fundamental problems to tackle; Specifically the idea that while denizens arenât the same or ârealâ as the original, theyâre still people and whatnot!
      All in all, a VERY fascinating watch! Just eleven minutes, but Iâm hooked in; Sure this does tie a lot back to previously-established concepts, but what story-driven show doesnât? It really recontextualizes and makes you think back about what WAS discussed already and how it changes with the more we learn and explore!
#infinity train#infinity train book 3#infinity train cult of the conductor#infinity train season 3#infinity train spoilers#infinity train season 3 spoilers#infinity train grace#infinity train simon#infinity train amelia#analysis#spoilers#it spoilers
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Elatsoe Review
5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: magic, urban fantasy, ghosts, #OwnVoices, regional gothic, mysteries, Indigenous legends I absolutely loved this book, from the casual magic to the stories of six-great-grandmother to the ghosts to the creepiness of Willowbee. I'm such a sucker for those Tumblr posts about regional American gothic, and so much of the little details of this book felt like those but woven into a complete world. I liked reading about the little alterations made to our world to make it the one in the book, as well as some of the ways magic might be dealt with considering the way we deal with non-magical things. I thought the worldbuilding was really good, obviously, and I thought things were introduced in a well-paced manner. The mix of exposition and reveals were also good, and Little Badger did a good job of making the exposition not actually feel like exposition. I especially liked the way Little Badger brought some new aspects to some of the lore in the book, like how vampires technically needing to be welcomed onto Indigenous land or fairies being interdimensional beings. I thought the discussion of how magic interacts with the world was interesting, and I liked the added 'realness' of having two characters discuss the carbon footprint of certain magic uses much like the way we'd debate plane vs. train carbon emissions. Since this is kind of worldbuilding, I'll mention here that I very much enjoyed the creepiness of Willowbee. It's mostly a normal town from the outside, except for the fact that the occupants will stare down strangers the entire time they're in town. And the fact that there's a mansion on the outskirts and there are several misaligned parts of the town's history. The deeper into Willowbee and its history the characters go, the creepier the town gets. It's a really good mix of creepy without being over the top, and honestly it might be more of a situation where you go 'well that's...weird and unsettling' more so than it can be considered creepy, but still. The stories of six-great-grandmother were also a really enjoyable piece of the book and I liked hearing about her adventures. She seems like a really cool person and just absolutely gives zero fucks what other people think of her (though at least most people she comes across in the stories seem to respect her). The stories were definitely a good way to do some worldbuilding as well as give life lessons to Ellie and allowed for those things to be included in a non-intrusive, natural feeling way. I think it would be cool at some point to see some more stories about six-great at some point, maybe in a smaller bind-up or ebook. As for the characters, Ellie is the 3rd person narrator for the entire book except for one chapter 3rd person narrated by Vivian, her mother. Ellie's goal is to figure out what happened to her cousin while also keeping her family safe and preventing it from happening to anyone else. This book is a nice change from most YA books with a similar theme in that Ellie's parents are present and supportive of her and help her along the way to reach her goals, never once doubting her word. Family is a really big part of things and you can tell how much it means to Ellie. She's devoted to her family members and the traditions and secrets of her family. She's a good detective, willing to do the dirty work, and is smart enough to realize that live streaming some of her adventures is a good way to avoid being disappeared. I enjoyed reading about her relationship with her dog, Kirby, as well, who has been a ghost for 5 years but is still a wonderful companion despite his incorporeality. Kirby serves as both a pet, a warning signal, and a good way to explain some of the ways of the world and about ghosts. All the ghosts were very cool and I liked learning about the family's history with them and some of the family secrets about ghosts. Ellie's grandmother seems like a serious badass for having a mammoth as her ghostly companion, and I think she would be another good one to have a book about. Below is also an interesting concept and I like Ellie's realization that it isn't necessarily one point in time, but it can be multiple stacked on top of one another, like all the oceans or deserts that were in one place across the billions of years that place has existed. Vivian also added some interesting complexity to the family's use of ghosts, since like all eldest girls in the family she has the ability but doesn't use it as much as her relatives seem to. In her narrative chapter we get hints as to why that is and a time when it was different, which I thought added some nice layers to her character and the story and use of ghosts as a whole. Jay, Ellie's best friend, also features prominently in the book as someone who helps with her investigation. He's a rather optimistic character and acts as a good support during the investigation, pulling out some pretty good resources as well. Jay himself is a fairy and aside from the obvious mentioning of it in the beginning of the novel, there are some more subtle bits dropped throughout the book that make it realistic, such as the pointed ears he hides under his hair or the part(s) where he uses a will-o-the-wisp as a flashlight. I thought his interactions with Al were amusing, considering he's fine with the other guy until it turns out how serious Al is about his sister, though I think he's more grumbly about it than genuinely upset. Despite being what Ellie calls a "Celtic-and-Nordic American," Jay respects Ellie's culture and traditions and is respectful when inquiring about things he doesn't know. I enjoyed the interactions between Ellie and Jay and it's obvious how close the two of them are. While the book ends with all the loose threads tied and I think it'll be a standalone, if Little Badger were ever to write about Ellie again I could see the two of them being partners-in-investigation in/after college. Something I did find off about their relationship, though, was the fact that they've supposedly been best friends since babyhood, yet don't know some pretty basic things about one another. In one scene, Ellie mentions that she didn't think he was actually related to Oberon and in another Jay is surprised to hear Ellie's full name is Elatsoe, both of which seem like things you would know about your best friend. I mean, the first name one is something you would probably know about your regular friends too, so it seemed kind of weird that he never would've heard her full name before. There are other times where it seems like they're more 'newly best friends' than 'lifelong best friends,' but overall I enjoyed their interactions and their friendship. Most of the characters in this book were awesome in different ways, though there's not enough room to go over them all. Ellie's parents were both supportive and trusting of her, though they did still worry and caution her like parents do. Pat, her dad, comes across as a warm person and I liked the little quirk of his that's revealed at the beginning re: gas and survival stories. He's a vet, so it only seems natural that he's married into a family where the women raise ghost animals. Vivian is a teacher and seems to be the more protective of the two, though she's not stifling about it. She's the parent who's mostly with Ellie during the book, since the dad has to work and is only really in the beginning, and we get to see a lot of how her and Ellie interact and the advice she gives El. Another family member is the cousin-in-law, Lenore. Poor Lenore has just lost her husband and has a still-young baby. I sympathize with that and with her sense of grief and pain. What I do not sympathize with is the way she handles some things. For one, she seems entirely too dismissive of the family's culture. In one part of the book Ellie is reminiscing on a time she visited with her cousin and that even then she knew there was tension between Trevor and Lenore re: cultural traditions. Well, in present-tense Lenore seems to almost completely ignore some pretty major parts of their culture, such as burying those who've passed with personal items and not using their name to refer to them for a certain period of time. Likewise, she knows the dangers of human ghosts, yet she still seems to want Trevor to come back as a ghost *SPOILER*Â and 1) even attempts to disturb his grave to get that to happen and 2) is said to seem very happy when news he did come back as a human ghost breaks *SPOILER END*. Al is, as mentioned, dating Jay's sister, Ronnie, and is a vampire/cursed man. The lore behind vampires was interesting, and I liked how Little Badger used a version of them that sees vampirism as an illness, since it adds a layer of complexity to the world and reveals some of how discrimination that is applied in situations in our world is applied in the world of Elatsoe. Al seems like a pretty laid back guy and he clearly cares about Ronnie and Jay. He's more than willing to help with the investigation, even when it gets him into some pretty serious trouble, and he takes most things that occur in the book with a pretty chill attitude. Ronnie, Jay's sister, appears toward the end of the book with some friends and is 100% willing to kick some ass in Willowbee. With only being in the book for a short time, she seems like a cool character and seems decently close to Ellie and her family as well. One thing I felt a little weird about was the one scene where she and Ellie are on the phone and Ronnie says "I get that you're asexual, so, like, it can be a friend or zucchini or..." (201), which felt a little along the lines of 'I don't care if someone's white, black, or purple.' I really enjoyed Elatsoe and thought the characters, worldbuilding, and plot were all excellent. I definitely recommend it for fantasy lovers, and I'll definitely be reading A Snake Falls to Earth when it comes out.
#book#books#book review#book recommendations#darcie little badger#elatsoe#indigenous voices#ownvoices#myth#legend#fantasy#urban fantasy#ya fantasy#ya book#asexual representation#ghosts#mystery
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loved your recent posts about structuring classes, however as a fairly new fencer with no teaching experience im having trouble applying the same concepts to my solo practice. would you have any advice for solo drills, especially to someone who has never self taught? im guessing this is a common trouble in these times, with the quarantine and all.. thank you for all your posts!
First of all Iâd be delighted to help but do consider I will be able to give out only fairly general advice here if I donât know your specific focus in terms of weapons and systems you study. Feel free to message me unanonymously if that feels ok to you, or here again with such details and I can send you a follow up thatâs more specific if this post doesnât cover your questions well enough. Second of all thereâs a fair bunch of footwork drilling that can be done solo thatâs highly useful to beginners and advanced fencers alike. It may require more or less space and conditions to train in but realistically you donât need an entire hall to train footwork solo, a semi-small room with a bit of space to move forwards and backwards can do the trick in a pinch.
And while different systems emphasize different types of footwork even if you were to only do solo training that focused on olympic fencing or boxing like footwork you could still apply a fair bit to historical fencing generally. That being said if you do have a specific source or weapon youâre studying do try and find the bits in the manuscripts or manuals youâre focusing on that mention footwork or general movement and try and apply that. It can be via set drills that do specific things, it may talk about principles you can try to apply with a number of different attacks or defenses you can drill with a sword, it may be good to do a sort of âshadowboxingâ footwork where you imagine an opponent and keeping distance. Hell if you have a wii or a VR of some sort you may even try and apply purely distance management with super basic footwork to games(bonus points if you try to use only that and not any actual combat mechanics to try and survive longer within a game). If thatâs still too confusing try picking a few footwork movements that are the most basic(step forward/backwards,lunge,passing step for example) and try doing them only, without a sword or anything. At most just extend your arm before you as if you were holding a sword when lunging/doing a passing step but donât focus on the arms technique. Then try doing them+a few movements that are related to or special versions of those movements alongside them. Then try doing the same at different stance levels,with your knees bent more or less-a deeper stance is harder on your legs but can be more stable and once your muscles adapt also a bit more explosive, tends to work better for linear movement, while a shallower stance allows some more options for direction changing and is easier on the legs but youâre less stable and generally a bit less explosive. Ideally you want to be able to use both. Which brings me to my next point - you can then try doing all those movements and every now and then switching the depth of your stance. Then you may try adding on forward/backward weighted stances(often called âoffensiveâ vs âdefensiveâ but they may also map more specifically to particular stances of a specific system you study) and doing the footwork moves in one, then in the other, and then switching from one to the other.
After that try switching your stance both up and down, forwards and backwards, first in place, then while moving trying to stay fluid. Then repeat the entire process while holding a sword. Try to go through it all with both a left leg forward as well as a right leg forward stance. You may go through it all with all the guards that exist in the system you study. First do it while standing in that one guard thatâs easiest for you to hold or the most âbasicâ one, then go through the entire set of movements within another guard, and then another etc. Then try switching between two or three guards while going through all the movements. Then try switching between all the guards while going through all the movements.
If the system you study has a lot of guards merely moving from one to another while standing in place first may also be a good idea. Doing it fairly slow at first, focusing on just moving and getting the grasp of the mechanics of it, keeping good form is good. Then slowly from session to session start always slow but during the session amp up the speed bit by bit. Basically what youâre doing in this example youâre taking a super basic set of moves and then building on from there with related concepts. You can do this within one session or you may spread it out over several training sessions if you feel a part of this feels too off. Donât be afraid to go through it all unless you have some specific injuries that would prevent you from doing so.
The idea is basic step-step variants-stance variants-combining it all. You can apply this to cuts, thrusts, winding, etc. You may want to go basic-a bit less basic-a bit less basic-complex etc. You may want to go basic-more basic options-a bit less basic-a few more a bit less basic options etc. You may want to combine the two approaches after a bit. You may want to focus on a set of cuts, thrusts and windings that may use similar mechanics within a set of drills, working on one then the other etc. and then giving yourself options to pick between them. Or you may want to do the same with things that may be different mechanically but same or similar tactically. Important bits to keep in mind are not trying to do big jumps in complexity of movement, or duration of exercise, or intensity of doing so. Generally speaking you want to slowly increase it, one by one. Sometimes the sources give us exactly this approach, sometimes they donât. If you can use at least bits from the manuals and manuscripts we study to apply to the specific workout session youâre planning thatâs awesome, if not thatâs ok. It may have to do with the principles of the systems you study being trained through the exercises you picked, it can be about the specific motions and tactics described in the text, it can be about a specific detail of a movement youâre trying to get down. Many flourishes  do focus on basically giving you that option.
Thereâs more ways to do it obviously but thatâs one of the ways Iâve found easiest. Another thing thatâs easy to forget or that can feel weird when weâre on our own is time management. You donât have to have a preset amount of time you train for but if you have the energy to plan stuff out I suggest you do so. Carving out a general idea of how much time you want to spend on what as well as the breaks to catch your breath in between can be very useful. Personally I like doing several minutes of training then a small break of a couple of minutes and so on for an hour or two. If youâre just starting out that sort of time table may not work for you and you may want to work just a couple of minutes, rest for a minute etc. and go on like that for half an hour. Thereâs no one absolute rule there but try to find a rhythm that works for you where whenever youâre training youâre actually training your fencing skillset, you are able to primarily(if not exclusively, these are hard times after all) focus on your goal, where youâre not primarily training endurance or some other form of physical capability( you can cross train and physical exercise generally is great but trying to mix it all into one thing can be counterproductive), and give yourself good rest times that donât take too long either so that your body doesnt cool off and your mind stays on track without being overworked.
Always factor in some time for a warm up before working out - it can help put you in the right mindset and help relax and is good for injury prevention. And similarly itâs useful to consider a cool down period afterwords, a useful way to do so is to stretch. Do keep in mind that static stretching before active exercise is not good for you and may potentially be bad for you That being said a warm up comprised of mobility routines and the like can be great, and using stretching after a work out can help sort of âfinalizeâ the session and help our body cool off slowly. It can also be a useful time to work on flexibility as well. Folks may worry about flexibility a bit too often compared to how useful it is in practice but itâs not irrelevant in martial arts and combat sports generally and the same applies to historical fencing. One can achieve the necessary flexibility through purely drilling fencing movements of various sorts however at such times we want to focus on doing the moves right and at the right time etc. so focusing on flexibility simoultaniously can be a bother. Working that bit out separately can help us in our regular practice that way. Also aside from getting books/pdfs of whatever system you study something that can be quite useful is Understanding Fencing by Czajkowski that focuses on olympic/sport fencing but gives you a framework that you can apply to create all sorts of drills(primarily but not only partnered ones) for basically any fencing system out there even though you may have to adapts parts of it. Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym
Also hereâs a few pride-themed things to check out getting as well as a few related topics
And stay safe
And if you can consider donating to any of these causes.
Consider getting this rashguard or this one or something from here
We need change and justice for all.
This may be a useful link as well.
For anyone unclear on this Black Lives Matter.
Good luck everyone.
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Focusing on Native American Lore in Story; what are the issues?
When dealing with âNative loreâ, there are a lot of pitfalls when it comes to respect. Because Native American cultures have been so badly appropriated, repackaged, and turned consumable for Christian society, there is a lot of material involved that just... isnât us. But itâs being sold as us, which makes people think they know more than they already do.
This is a guide for how to respectfully use Native religions, plural, and the steps you need to take as an outsider to help stop treating us as consumables.Â
1- Fetishization of the âNatives as savageâ variety
Everyone Native I know is deeply uncomfortable with the white personâs focus on our monsters. Iâve addressed this a dozen times. Iâve spelled out how to be respectful in Using Native American Folklore.
When it comes to people who want to write Native monsters, I pose a few simple questions: why do you want to tie Indigenous identity to âmonsterâ so strongly? Why are we tied so obviously to monsters? What about Native identity makes this such an easy connection? Why just the monsters and none of our defeating or healing from them?
If you want to write stories of boogiemen: this is not respect. This is exploitation.
You absolutely must write about our heroes along with our villains. Do not insert your own ideas of what our heroes should be, because these will be colonized. You have to take all of the folklore, not just the monsters.
1.5- Fetishization in general
Be careful youâre not attracted to your ideas about us instead of what we are actually like. Because a lot of pop culture is dedicated to peopleâs ideas about what Native life was like, and very little of it actually reflects us. So if youâve read a few things and think Native lore is just the coolest thing ever and wonderful⌠youâre probably fetishizing. Or if you want to show how cool and awesome and brilliant this lore is⌠youâre probably playing saviour.
Read So You Want to Save the World from Bad Representation for more on that.
Because so much of the stories âabout Nativesâ are from a fetishized perspective, you should assume you have some degree of it. This is okay! It is not morally impure to start off with a bit of fetishization. The trick is to catch yourself and to dig deep into who we actually are, to the point the idea the appropriated version feels off.
2- Flattening of our cultures
Thereâs an unfortunate part of appropriation: there are hundreds of resources about âNative American cultureâ as if weâre a singular unified thing. Weâre not. There are some similarities across the continent, but those boil down to âsustainability focus.â
We donât have a singular culture, and while our folklore can perhaps be of similar themes, approaching it with the idea that weâll all match something already in your head thatâs been created by white people, for white people.
Not all cultures have the same concepts. We arenât interchangeable. You need to research each nation you want to use in detail to see about cultural diffusion, cultural exchange, and our own cultural concepts first.
3- Involving us
Asking for resources is good, but itâs very important to let go of the concept of sole authorship with the stories you want to write; if youâre too focused on your own exploration of a culture, your own compiling of probably cherry-picked legends, your own interpretations based on our lore (likely filtered through a culturally-Christian lens), etcâŚ
If you focus too much on you, youâve created a situation where our religious concepts are being shared around without our nations attached to them, which is the definition of cultural appropriation. Youâre put your own ego in front of letting us have authorship.
You need to form a deep connection with basically every nation you wanted to pull from. They need to trust you enough to know you wonât appropriate what they tell you, and you need to find the correct people to teach you since not all stories can be shared by others.
You need to establish parameters for distribution (not all of our stories or aspects of the religion can be written down, for example), learn the cultural context of the monsters to decolonize your thinking and adapt them to the value systems of the nations in question, run the stories by sensitivity readers from the nation, edit accordinglyâŚ
And this would have to be done for each nation.
Is it possible to write about Indigenous folklore in a new way when you yourself arenât Native? Yes! So long as you work with the tribes in question. Local folklore isnât a free for all that you can pull from at will. You have to respect the original owners of the religion, because itâs a marginalized religion full of bad advice, appropriated stories, and stereotypes that further the colonizersâ agenda.
This is why I say you must let go of sole authorship. Native people are still too marginalized for anyone but us to have an involvement in the story.
4- Decolonizing your thinking
Because this is a big one.
Colonizers have certain attitudes about what they are entitled to, how the stories should be told, what Native American value systems are, and a whole host of other things.
This thinking devalues us, which is why I am so adamant that you have to talk to the nation in question to get it right.
I would suggest to read books you find on websites such as Inhabit Media and Strong Nations before writing your own stories, because then you can learn how we (or people very close to us who run it by us first) write our stories.
This involves also reading non fiction as well as fiction.
Part of decolonization is realizing how unfairly we are treated. What was imposed on us instead of what we do when left to our own devices. Iâve written about it extensively in the Native tag, all of these little colonizer things that people donât realize are colonizer things because they havenât read enough to know how much colonialism imposed.
5- Recognizing your Outsider status
The reason thereâs a double status when it comes to âplaying withâ Christian concepts vs âplaying withâ marginalized religions is how widespread a respectful representation is, to a large group of people.
Most people in the West are whatâs known as culturally Christian. They grew up celebrating Christian holidays, hearing about heaven and hell, the concept of sin, what makes a virtuous person, what a wedding looks like (did you know not all religions require witnesses?), and, in general, you are steeped in Christian ideology even if atheist.
Native religions are not Christian. They donât have anything to do with Christianity. Our important heroic figures arenât messiahs, our concept of greed doesnât look like the Christian concept of greed, our concept of helping others doesnât look like the Christian concept of donating, and, in general, there just needs to be a big reminder that Natives are not Western. Colonizers brought Western ideals to us. We did not have them before you got here.
This means you cannot play with them because you donât have a right to them the way you do Christianity.
Christianity is yours to play with. You grew up with it, you subconsciously learned it inside and out, your paganism is filtered through the Christian lens (neo-druidism, wicca, and most European neo-pagan religions were created by Christians), and thatâs all well and good.
Most of you did not grow up with Native religions*, no matter how many folk stories in your area you have borrowed from us. As a result, you donât have ownership over our stories.Â
*exception: you actually did grow up with a bunch of Natives around you who accepted you into the tribe, even though youâre non-Native.
Remember how I said you have to give up the concept of sole authorship in the purest sense? Yeah. There are probably going to be thousands of things you donât realize are Christian, and that we do differently.Â
Itâs okay you donât have ownership over it. You donât need it to work with us to tell stories that incorporate our cultural practices. You can use your privilege to amplify what we have told you, in a way that will be more respected because of your non-Native status.
But no matter what, you will be an outsider.
Learn to get comfortable with it.Â
Tl;dr:
Youâre going to fetishize Native religions at first. Keep learning until you realize weâre all individual things and no part of us is better/worse than other parts, or Western society
If you find sources that talk about âNative Americansâ too generally, itâs probably flattening our cultures and you need to dig deeper
You need to involve us and give up the concept of sole authorship of any stories you tell that involve our religions
You need to learn what colonialism has done to us, which means learning about how colonialism works and how itâs still being perpetuated in modern day
You need to be comfortable that you will never have ownership of Native stories the way you do Christian ones
~ Mod Lesya
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Wings Talks Manga: A Year in Review, Part 1 (Completed stories)
Last year, I told myself I was going to actually really more manga and watch more anime, because despite it being my main style I hadnât actually read much in awhile. And I actually managed to get a lot done for one year. So below is a list of stories I read/watched and a few quick thoughts on them. Despite having my list open, Iâm still probably not going to get to all of them, but I can try.
Be warned for spoilers.
T.egami Bachi (manga)
I love. Anyone following this tag of mine knows this has been a long journey and that I loved every minute of it. The world is beautiful, the characters are great, the emotions run high...itâs incredibly cathartic and engaging. I will never stop lauding it.
Jiu Jiu (manga)
A short series I picked up from the library that I never really covered, but that I enjoyed. Sometimes it felt a little slow to work through, but it was cute and I got really attached to the characters over five volumes. Like the mangaka, I wish there had been more opportunity to delve deeper into some of the story elements, because especially near the end it got confusing. Also Iâm assuming it ended in a poly relationship? The protag grows up and has babies but you canât really tell which love interest is the father, if either are. Theyâre all together in the final picture and I support it but it also bugs me bc I am confused.
Dreaminâ Sun (manga)
Mixed feelings on this one. I honestly expected a modern fantasy involving a baku going into this based on the back cover. I was wrong. I was really cute, if not overwhelmingly emotionally frustrating/full of secondhand embarassment at some points. The characters are super well-developed and continue to evolve and grow through the series. I will forever complain about the protag falling in love and centering her life around an adult man, but there were also some very touching elements that I canât help but remember fondly.
The Wize Wize Beasts of the the Wizarding Wizdoms (manga)
The first of a lot of BL I read this year, which is honestly very new to me. My introduction to Nagabe. Iâve mentioned thereâs one story Iâm not too fond of, but it could be my interpretation of it. Overall very much loved it and especially love the art style.
K.amisama Kiss (manga)
I series I kind of picked up on a whim and absolutely fell in love with. Cute, funny, touching, well-thought out. There were some elements I didnât understand (like the end), but my enjoyment overall made up for it. The one thing I wish for was a little more development for some of the minor characters. Also I love Mizuki and his development throughout the series. He makes me emotional.
Our Dining Table (manga)
Another cute, simple love story about two guys making food. I donât have a whole lot to say about this other than itâs cute and you should read it. Although I obviously have no issues with teenage protags, it was refreshing to have a love story about two working adults that didnât have to involve sex. Also can totally understand one guyâs aversion to eating with others, even if my own isnât as severe.
Love on the Other Side (manga)
More Nagabe. Really, really cute. I love the story with the bird (of course). The softness of the stories and Nagabeâs art style really have stolen my heart.
B.lack Butler: Book of Circus (anime)
We all know why I watched this. Sadly the ending is as gruesome as the manga, and the one or two scenes they added didnât play well on the DVD. But still a delight (up until the end).
The Devil is a Part-Timer (anime)
Interesting. Funny. A good world base, but I feel they could have developed it a little more, and the last episode kind of soured it a little for me because there was no really wrap-up. But I liked the characters and had a lot of fun watching it while crocheting. Wish there was a season two.
The Bride was a Boy (manga)
A brief autobiographical manga about a trans woman, filled with lots of tidbits about transgender individuals and things like HRT. Short, sweet, cute, and full of love and joy. Again, not much to say other than I recommend it.
Fractale (anime)
A lot to process. I think I would need to watch it again to fully wrap my head around it, if not more than once. An interesting world, great character, engaging story, and beautiful animation. Plus just...kinda relevant in a way thatâs hard to describe. Think ease of technology verses governmental control via tech. I really loved the episode about the mysterious photographer. Plus I just fell in love with the ending song.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (anime)
Yes, Iâd never watched this before. Gonna say, not my favorite Miazaki, but as usual an excellent story with a lot of background and development. And of course I loved the creature design. Glad to finally have it watched, after all these years, but I also canât help but wonder what the original English release was like, knowing they cut/edited a lot. Because a lot of that violence and death was...kinda necessary to understanding character motives.
H.aibane Renmei (anime)
Again, another series thatâs been at the top of my list for forever. I didnât even have an excuse not to watch is as I own the DVDs. Excellent, and touching, if not cutting a little too close to home at times (like self-harm/BFRB). Really my introduction to ABe, and I have to say I never saw the ending coming. But would definitely watch again and again. Kinda wish I could do a cosplay for this series (Iâd probably be Nemu, or one of the masked characters), but I feel like you need a group for it.
G.osick (anime)
I didnât complete this one, Iâm sorry. I think the art is great, and the arcs in concept are amazing...but it falls through in the delivery. The characters donât really feel like they have driving motives behind their actions, and sometimes the evidence and stuff are things you canât discern from watching (âI can tell you arenât the daughter of a coal baron because you walk short distances before turning sharply and walking the other way, like youâre pacing in a small psych ward cellâ-yes, thatâs a real example). Lots of potential, but not great. Sorry.
Wolf Children (anime)
Very cute. Beautiful anime. I donât think I can say much about this that hasnât already been said. My favorite part is the ending where sheâs saying goodbye just because of how both painfully and empoweringly emotional it is.
5 Centimeters Per Second (anime)
Not bad, but probably not my favorite. It didnât help that the version I was watching didnât translate all of the writing, so I feel like I missed a lot of elements. While the story is definitely a sentiment I can get behind, it was also a little bit unsatisfying for me, especially at the end. But idk, maybe I just donât like the idea of moving on when thereâs the opportunity to not.
Colorful (anime)
It was...a film. About a suicide. Looking back I donât particularly feel strongly either way about it. I think the ending was good, and giving the protag some sort of motivation, but it took forever to really get to a point where I cared about him (or he seemed to really care about the body he was inhabiting and the person he was trying to be). Some of the stuff was just...uncomfortable. Itâs probably worth watching, but overall I wasnât wowed by it.
Ibistu (manga)
My first shrink-wrapped manga. It ties together very well in the end, and the horror and violence elements did elicit some very visceral reactions in me (particularly the threat of the iron and, later, the staples). The short stories were also good, particularly the doll factory one, but I wasnât the most fond of the one about the mangaka. Just know thereâs a reason itâs shrink-wrapped and itâs not a âpositiveâ one.
A Silent Voice (anime)
Probably one of my favorite films. While I didnât always understand the motivations behind some of the characters or their actions, it wasnât in a way that made me uncomfortable like some of the things in Colorful did. It felt more natural for them to be irrational. Again, there is suicide, so be warned if you donât want to deal with that. But the story is sweet and the characters are amazing. But I also have a weakness for things involving sign language and communication.
Children Who Chase Lost Voices (anime)
Very cool. Beautiful landscapes. Gave me very strong Princess Mononoke vibes at some points, but it also stood as its own story with interesting characters there are elements I wish we could have delved deeper into, though. Also...what war did the teacher fight in? It didnât look very modern. Also also I will forever wince at the pronunciation of âQuetzalcoatlâ. Death is a strong theme in it, so be prepared if you watch it.
The Boy and the Beast (anime)
Excellent character design. Excellent story. Excellent animation. My one complaint would be that the climax felt kind of thrown together, even though it tied back to the beginning in a good way. But overall a beautiful world with some great humor and intense elements.
The Garden of Words (anime)
Spoiler: again a story about a kid falling in love with an adult. From a platonic standpoint, the story still feels a little weird, particularly in terms of the womanâs motivations, but looking back her not getting too involved in him missing school...kinda feels like what I would do to, especially in her situation. Itâs sweet, though. Maybe itâs just me and my preferences, but some elements feel a bit incomplete, and I wish had been explored/wrapped up.
Summer Wars (anime)
Probably a favorite on the films list. Again, beautiful animation. Iâm not going to get over this style. But I especially liked the design of OZ and the excess of blank space in it. Characters were many but great (although I didnât get the one baseball player was part of the family until almost the end, but that says more about me and paying attention). Even Mom got really engaged in it when I had her watch it with me (I also had her watch Wolf Children, which I thought she would like more, but apparently not). There is a character death, but if you donât mind that itâs definitely a watch.
Beauty and the Beast Girl (manga)
A cute little story about a blind girl and a dragon girl falling in love-what more could you want? Their histories actually tie together in a really neat way. Honestly my one complaint would be that the ending feels a little too ideal and easily wrapped-up. But sometimes we need things to be that perfect, you know?
P.andora Heart (manga)
The other big story I tackled this year. There were points that were a bit slow/disengaging to me, but overall once I got hooked I really loved it. I think I need a second read to really fully understand it (if thatâs possible), but equal parts cute, intense, and bittersweet. Elliotâs whole development was probably my favorite bit.
The God and the Flightless Messenger (manga)
My last story of 2020, and a very cute one at that. Another short story, with beautiful art. I donât...really know what to say about it. Itâs cute, and the love story feels both very natural and almost...secondary? Idk how to describe that. The relationship between the two of them is obviously key, but itâs the type of story where âI love youâ isnât needed. Itâs already there.
So yeah, thereâs the list. Itâs a long list. I probably still missed some. I might try to make a second list with âin progressâ series but Iâll be playing that by ear. Iâd love to hear some of you allâs thoughts on these stories (if youâve read/watched them), or which you now want to read/watch!
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Top 3 Favorite Betas from Pokemon Gold/Silver Spaceworld Demo
Hey, everyone. Back with more favorites lists. Considering the jaw-droppingly huge list of beta pokemon that were recently discovered for Pokemon Gold/Silver, though, weâre going to cheat a little. Weâll be doing top 3 lists within some broad categories, so we can ramble a bit longer then normal about some of these beauties.
Beta Babies
So, as weâve seen, Gold/Silverâs beta was absolutely crammed full of baby pokemon, the vast majority of which were scrapped. It raises some interesting questions about the original direction of the game and the concept of baby pokemon in general. What exactly was the purpose of baby pokemon? Were they originally intended to have such low stats and to be so difficult to evolve (via happiness)? Were they really just for the âawâ factor?
If so, it might be easy to see why Gold/Silver cut so many of them; while the game would have certainly been a very cute place, it would have been difficult in terms of actual battle. Still, itâs a genuine shame to see some of these squishy blobs go. Three of my favorites:
Paraâ because Paras/Parasect is my favorite pokemon line, and I was absolutely thrilled and amazed to see a baby originally planned. The design is damn adorable, although it admittedly makes little sense. The parasitic fungus that slowly takes over the insect portion is what grows inside and consumes paras/parasect, so why should a baby para burst forth from a mushroom?
Chiksâ because it is literally a fluffy ball of shouty heads and I love birds. (although, again, the design raises a question; where did that third head go when chiks evolves into duduo?)
Meowsyâ I mean câmon who isnât going to love this
New Evolutions
Another shocking thing in the list of beta pokes is finding new evolutions to old friends.
Madameâ an evolution for Dux. This thing looks fantastic as heck. Iâve always loved Dux and quite honestly it deserves an evolution. I canât imagine why it would be cut, especially considering how fabulous it is. Iâm curious what the âcaneâ Madame is holding is, and whether itâs still something made of vegetation. Seriously, though, this duck-evolves-to-swan idea is far superior to the later Ducklett/Swanna that came about.
Animonâ the evolution we never knew we needed. In all seriousness, it seems utterly pointless for Ditto to evolve (it still only knows the move Transform and nothing else) from a smiley blob to a screamy blob with a spike on its head, but thatâs part of what makes it hilarious and charming. It doesnât make sense for Ditto to even evolve (which is maybe why they scrapped it). It also doesnât make sense that it evolves with Metal Coat. (were they considering adding a steel typing?) Nothing about Animon makes any sense. But damn, itâs still fantastic.
Twinsâ At first glance, one could easily assume this is a ghost type, maybe even a nifty beta concept for Ghastly. But this is a Dark/Normal type and a pre-evo for Girafarig. Maybe more then any beta, I feel like this has a backstory behind it I wish we understood. It seems the concept behind Girafarig was much deeper, originally; spirits that were conjoined twins, one dark and evil, one not? Itâs quite a twist.
Betas With Major Changes
A lot of pokes in the Spaceworld demo were recognizable but their beta forms often had some pretty significant design differences that were later tweaked. In some cases those tweaks were clear improvements or just adding some polish, but in other cases I honestly prefer the original direction the beta designs were headed.
Girafarigâ weâve known about the beta design of Girafarig for a while now, about its palindrome motif and probably being based on a pushmi-pullyu. Itâs only with this beta that we get a really good look at the wonderfully sinister face with Girafarigâs backsprite, though. Ever since I saw Girafarig, I thought its typing ought to be Normal/Dark, and itâs deeply gratifying to see that typing reflected in the beta version. It makes so much more sense and shows the split, dual nature of Girafarig. The entire original design makes so much more sense and itâs strange and confusing that they would ruin that.
Rayleep (beta Mantine)â holy crud you guys, beta Mantine was actually COOL. Playing again on the dual-nature theme, it seems to have an angel-devil motif with the bottomside looking feathery and angelic and sweet and the topside (and backsprite) sporting dark markings and a sinister face. Itâs adorable, itâs cool, itâs a fun and neat design, and itâs a thousand times better then the Mantine we ultimately ended up with ⌠which is an incredibly bland, dull ray indeed. Whatâs more, Mantineâs Flying typing feels far more justified in its beta design, with its cool feathery wings and tail.
Tael (beta Aipom)â I hate Aipom. I always have. Really ugly pokemon and really annoying movepool. Makes me feel itchy and gross just to look at. Tael, on the other hand(s), is a cat with far too many humanlike hands. Itâs cute at first and then kinda creepy the more you stare at it, to be honest. But hey, it looks better then that irritating monkey did. Thatâs all. I donât have a deeper reason then that, haha. Some people have remarked Gold/Silverâs beta was clearly the Cat generation; cats everywhere, as far as the eye can see. I am OK with this.
Other beta differences I really dig include Murkrowâs more obviously witchy hat, the Hoppip lineâs cat theme, and Tangrowthâs very different and snazzy look.
Completely New Betas
Then there are these guys, ones without any ties to any pre-existing pokemon whatsoever.
Wolfman/Warwolfâ Excuse me? These fuzzy little things are amazing. It seems to be a small, stout, dark-colored critter wearing yeti pelts, their glowing, beady eyes peering out from the mouth of the pelt. They have a very unique and fascinating desgin and a lot of intrigue to them. I absolutely love them. Theyâre pure Ice types and seem to have been replaced in Gold/Silver with the Swinub line, which is an even bigger shame, because I donât like that lineâs design one bit. You can keep your pig mammoths, Iâll take the clan of mysterious snow gremlins, please, thanks.
Kurstraw/Pangshiâ these two would have been incredible ghost-type additions to the game. A panda voodoo doll and then a panda based off a Jiangshi? Heck yeah. Their sprites both look great and theyâre well-designed and obviously a lot of thought went into it. The concept is perfect. So why cut them? Who knows. Some folks have speculated that back then, they may have worried these pokemon were too morbid for a kidâs game, so I suppose thatâs possible. They may have also worried about controversey from parents or whatnot. In any case, itâs a huge shame to see them cut from the roster.
Something thatâs particularly interesting is that Kurstraw evolves at level 1. It also seems very likely that Curse would have been its signature move.
Rinring/Bellboyantâ these two pokes have a clear and appealing design theme behind them. And theyâre Dark type. And theyâre cats.
How could they throw these two away?!
Other amazing pokemon include a line of Water/Steel types that are based on a shark with an anchor and a gulper eel, a seal thatâs a Water/Fire type (!!), Slowbro/Slowkingâs shell as a stand-alone pokemon, and a water starter line that looks way cooler then the totodile line.
Anyway, itâs some pretty exciting stuff. This group of beta designs that were dumped on us was so huge that I think weâre all still struggling to mentally process the information. In a way it gives that old pokemon feeling ⌠the thrill of discovering some new neat critter everywhere you look.
This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jun 7, 2018.
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Are You A Bible Basher?
~By Billy Goate~
Art by J. Hannan-Briggs
Words from the Bible,
           ...riffs from Hell.
This is BIBLE BASHER, a lumbering, sludgey beast of a death-doom band, drawing its fellows from Kurokuma, Archelon, Spaztik Munkey, and a band whose name alone intrigues me enough to spirit them out: Temple of Coke. The debut recording before us is 'Loud Wailing' (2020), just released last month on the Sludgelord Records Label and it's good stuff.
Chances are good that if you're unfamiliar with the band, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop: what's the agenda here? It bears mentioning that "Bible Basher" is an almost uniquely UK term. In the States, we tend to use the more politically acceptable (though still insulting) "Bible Thumper." Getting to the point: a Bible Basher is not someone who subjects the big black book and the pages there to beating, maiming, or otherwise spilling syrup on its Holy Writ nor turning its sacred pages into roll paper for a cheap high.
No, a Bible Basher is someone single-mindedly determined to bash you with their beliefs, clean across the head. You gotta get you on board with the whole worldview, the Last Days manifesto, the 3 steps to this place, the 5 steps to somewhere else, and however many more steps to the sanctuary doors. Usually, this evangelism has all the clumsy subtlety of a Jack Chick tract left on the Gas Station john. Sometimes it gets a bit more intrusive, like a manic street preacher with a megaphone or, more annoying still, a brainwashed politician determined to fence you into their highly selective idea of "God's Will."
All culture warring aside, it might surprise you to learn that I hold a great deal of respect for the Bible and believe it has an important role in developing our understanding of what makes human beings so fundamentally religious. The Bible is just one expression of people's religious and spiritual identity, of course. There have been many volumes written, by the gods it was said, attempting to reconcile the real and the ideal, time and eternity, the drab and the divine.
All fancy preambling aside, I wonder why more bands haven't gotten into the Bible and other sacred/profane lit, you know kinda breathing new life into old words? You have to admit, the concept is fascinating and the medium of expression surprisingly fits the unsparing nature of the content.
Perhaps afraid of appearing sacrilegious or being denounced as a Deicide wannabe, bands have just decided to walk away slowly. That or they don't even know how truly bizarre and sometimes brilliant the Bible can be. True, there are bands like Trouble/The Skull who have adapted Scripture into music, even succeeded in crossing over to a non-religious audience. Hell, The Byrds practically immortalized the words of The Preacher in Ecclesiastes back in '65 with that folk rock classic, 'Turn, Turn, Turn." Bible Basher are definitely onto a thing here.
Regardless of where you find a band called Bible Bash on the meter between "disgusting" and "fucking awesome, dude," they really aren't here to mock Scripture or Christians, not even to pronounce a value judgement. This is an artful attempt at retelling the stories of old, allowing us to gaze upon their vision.
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So Samson Sang
Loud Wailing by Bible Basher
Out of all books, The Bible is perhaps most prized for its collection of ancient stories, many of which become embedded in our collective consciousness over time (if not the unconscious mind itself). The tale of Samson, for instance, is practically universal (Hercules, anyone?). Bible Basher invoke its powerful imagery for this Rage against the Philistines opener. The bulldog gruff of "So Samson Sang" suits the song unexpectedly well. Perhaps the impact is greater because we feel the punch of each word, measured and metered, calculated to leave the most indelible impact.
Simson verslaat de Filistijnen met een ezelskaak (1562) by Cornelis Massijs
Plagued
Loud Wailing by Bible Basher
You'll never hear the anguish of Job expressed with as much weight as you will in "Burning and Blackened," for example. And the death-mongers among us, you'll enjoy the swirling storm of blast beats that "Plagued" stirs up and whips around Egypt, 10 plagues in all it is said. As this topsy-turvy number swarms along, the song feels like it's burrowing itself deeper and deeper into the ground in a crazed hypnotic dirge, as if seeking some relief from this madness of rivers turned to blood and a head full of lice.
Seventh Plague of Egypt (1823) by Martin John
Burning and Blackened
Loud Wailing by Bible Basher
I'm really digging the Middle Eastern vibe of "Burning and Blackened," on the tape's flip side. I could all but feel the cool of dawn and that first burning lick of the sun's rise. As a die-hard doomer, it won't surprise you that I marked this my favorite song of the experience. The way this grand skeleton of chords suffles about had me thinking of Iowa City's Aseethe (I hereby wish an Aseethe-Bible Basher tour upon the world come 2021).
Job and his Friends (1885) by Gustave Dore
Sodom & Gomorrah
Loud Wailing by Bible Basher
By the time we reach "Sodom & Gomorrah," we're battered, basted, and baked, ready for a fine finish to this four-course nosh. The vocals seem harsher than usual this time, but you have to understand that's the prophet divining judgement upon the most infamous twin cities of history (we find out in the interview to follow that there are multiple vocalists).
The whole song's got a nice, chewy groove to it. Plenty of meat on them bones. The lyrics consist of nothing more than the Bible's words, adding as much expressive liberty as death vocals will allow. The thick, smoky atmosphere of this whole song gave me flashbacks to 71TONMAN's "Phobia" and Old Man Gloom's "Procession of the Wounded."
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Jules-Joseph-Augustin Laurens
If I've any gripe with Loud Wailing, it's the runtime. Okay, yeah, sure, it's appropriate for an EP, but I can't shake the feeling that this is actually more of a teaser for something even grander in scope. Perhaps this is a toe in the water for the band, to see how people respond? Well, it's enough to reassure us that this sound and subject matter is poised to make some mighty big footprints.
Heck, I'd do the whole Bible book by book, if I was in their shoes. 66 in all, right? No problem. Okay, 73 if you're Catholic, 78 if you're Eastern Orthodox. Whatever, bonus editions. Works either way, 'cause you've got a guaranteed record deal and freaks like me to follow you wherever this piper lures. The band can break up from the repetitive bore of the long-ass genealogies in Leviticus and Numbers, but then reunite again to take on Deuteronomy.
All kidding aside, the dramatic potential of this collaboration is unreal. Bible Basher's debut is a promising record that presents tantalizing artistic possibilities (perhaps even with a roving collective of performers). The EP wears well on its own terms with repeated listens and I never found myself disinterested, even for a moment. Loud Wailing is the brutal dawning of a New Age in dirty grunts and dank riffs.
Give ear...
Loud Wailing by Bible Basher
An Interview with Bible Basher
By Billy Goate
Intrigued by this hulking beast shrieking out in my backyard, I had to move in for a closer look. Following is my conversation with band member Joe E. Allen, who most of us know from Kurokuma and gives us insight as to who Bible Basher is and what the band is up to.
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Would you be so kind as to give me some background on the band, how you guys ended up coming together, basically the whole history?
Tich has recorded and helped produce most of the Kurokuma releases up till now, most of which you've heard or written about. Tich mostly makes electronic music and is pretty well known for it, but he was also in a band called Temple of Coke back in the day. Daft music with two guitarists and no bassist. Some big riffs in there.
They stopped doing much after one of the guitarists left Sheffield, but Tich still had a lot of riffs lying around. Obviously, he used to come to a lot of Kurokuma gigs in Sheffield -- and even saw us in Japan -- so he felt like getting back on writing some big guitar stuff and asked me if I'd give him some input. Over the course of a year or so we just reshaped those old riffs and added plenty of new ones and as we progressed it just kept getting bigger and heavier.
What's up with the name? You've got pretty distinct religious themes (love the motto). I come from a strict religious background myself (preacher's kid). What are your own backgrounds relative to the themes you explore?
I've always thought that some of the stories from the Bible, especially the Old Testament would make for perfect concepts in heavy metal. Unrelatedly, one day we were sitting around and Tich said let's call this Bible Basher -- it just came out of nowhere. I agreed, it just seemed to make sense. Here in the UK it's what you get called if you go to church, it's an insult. I had a really Christian upbringing with my dad being a vicar, as well, so was very into all that when I was younger.
Plus I went to a religious school, so I've definitely been called a bible basher quite a bit. It's actually taken me a while to remove that whole paradigm from the way I see reality, but that's another story. Tich wasn't like me in that aspect, but he did go to a religious school, as well. At this point, I think we're both not massive fans of organised religion, but that doesn't mean we're not into philosophy and more celestial concepts. We've both read quite a bit of things like Manly P. Hall and The Kybalion. We didn't wanna make a "statement" on anything with this, though. Just wanted to present it "as is."
I'm sure we'd all love to know how the individual tracks came together. The single on this one was "So Samson Sang," which met with some pretty positive reception.
I know the Bible pretty well and it wasn't too difficult to find concepts for the tracks. "So Samson Sang" was the first one we did. The lyrics are: "With a donkey's jawbone, I made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone, killed a thousand men." And then "I have slain, heaps on heaps." They were from the book of Judges, when Samson slaughtered loads of Philistines, pretty much taken straight off the page. It was that easy. We got George in to do the vocals, for obvious reasons. We sat on the track for a bit and sent it round a few mates and everyone was like, "This is sick," which made us want to finish up the other tracks, which already were mostly done.
The other three tracks all came together in one night. We basically asked three mates from other bands to come over and figured out concepts for each of them. It was good to get their input and it was pretty collaborative. I think they all enjoyed being given a bit of a brief to work within and we were buzzing to end up with four different vocal styles for each track. So on track 1 you have George from Kurokuma, then on track 2 you have Bing who used to be in a thrash band called Psython and can obviously do the really fast/rhythmic thing and his death growls were just spot on. That track ended up sounding like Pig Destroyer or something to me. Obviously, it's about the ten plagues of Egypt and the fast/swirling nature of the riffs just seemed to fit.
On track three, we have Craig from Archelon and Holy Spider, so I know him pretty well. He did more of a Neurosis style on the track about Job. That one starts off with a zurna, which is a pipe from the Middle East area. There's a spoken word section in the middle, a conversation between God and Satan. I actually only realised what this was when we were going through the Bible for the lyrics.
God calls all his angels together, Satan being one of them, and they get into this conversation where God is saying he likes Job and Satan is saying if his life went to shit, I wonder if he'd still worship you. So God is like, "Okay, go for it." It's stuff like this that fascinates me. I think there's a fairly deep message to be heard in that if you read into it, but most Christians won't. As a text of folkloric wisdom the Bible is pretty meaningful to me, but most Christians don't treat it in that way in my experience.
And then we have the demented squeals of Chris from Spaztik Munkey doing the voice of God on track four which is about Sodom and Gomorrah. It worked out well that the ending riff fit perfectly with the syllables in the phrase "Sodom and Gomorrah."
In general, this release was a right laugh to work on. The songs just came together and it was good for us all to collaborate on something outside of our normal bands. And the response has been mega positive so far. Aaron sold out the first 50 tapes in three days so we're already on the second batch now.
Get Their Music
#D&S Reviews#Bible Basher#Doom#Sludge#Metal#Death Doom#Doom Metal#Sludgelord Records#HeavyBest2020#D&S Interviews#Doomed & Stoned
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February 2020 Book Review
The Last Wish / Sword Of Destiny
Letâs start with the books that currently have me in a stranglehold. I apologize to everyone that actually follows me and watched me descend into fandom pits but whatcha gonna do. So, I was aware of the video game when it came out, but not being a prolific gamer I was intrigued but never bothered getting into it. Then the Netflix series came out, and I was again intrigued... but I suck at sitting down and watching shows. So what the heck I decided, itâs probably mediocre hypermasculine high fantasy but letâs try a book to see what the fuss is all about.
Good god. Guys. Itâs real good. And so fucking different from the show. Geralt is actually a really emotional, well-meaning guy whoâs starved for positive social interactions and is just trying to do his best. And the booksâ consistent themes of colonialism, environmental destruction, forced extinction, and changing eras is... chilling and fascinating and honestly a little too relatable at times. These books have made me laugh and shout and frankly sob. Still a little sexist, cause 90s fantasy, but Geralt is so not the gruff, heartless, manly man character I thought he would be. I am so deeply into these and have just cracked the spine of the next book in the series. If you like high fantasy, I canât recommend these enough.
The Silver Eyes
I just learnt that there were Five Nights At Freddyâs books, and honestly picked this up from the library as a joke for my brother. Weâd played the games back when they first came out, and were into the lore, but lbr theyâre more of a meme at this point. Anyway, we ended up reading this out loud to each other, a chapter a night, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Probably wouldnât have liked it as much on my own, but the main character was complicated and messy, and the bookâs way or portraying trauma was neat. It was nominally horror, and did have the occasional chilling moment, or times it was fun to speculate, it over all it was pretty run of the mill middle grade fiction.
FRNK
Probably the best graphic novel Iâve read this month.Â
I was howling with laughter while I read it. Good quality Belgium comics, always a treat. This story is about a modern day boy, Frank, who is accidentally thrown back into prehistoric times, where heâs stuck with a bunch of cavemen who havenât invented the concept of vowels yet. Admittedly my French isnât great, so it made trying to decipher words with half the letters missing a challenge to say the least, but plenty worth it. I really want to get my hands on book two. I believe thereâs an English translation, and Iâd recommend giving it a try.
Best Friends
A neat little graphic novel that addresses common growing up issues, about what it means to be friends, stay friends, how to cope with people changing and when itâs time to walk away. Anxiety, being yourself, fitting in, all that sort of stuff. Itâs a quick read, very pleasant, and has nice art.
Karenâs Witch
Another cute graphic novel with charming art. I read this at the store while I was waiting for a prescription to be filled. Itâs about this five year old (or thereabouts) who is absolutely determined that her neighbour is a witch and by god she is going to prove it or at least scare herself and her friend silly in the process. A fun little read!
Endling: The First
The second book in the Endling series, and all my praise for the first book apply here as well. A super unique high fantasy that gives extinct and threatened species a voice. The book explore themes of war, environmental destruction, sacrifice and loss. You really get to see how much Byx has grown and how much she needs to continue to grow. This book has me so excited for the third, I havenât read such an emotionally rewarding quest novel in a long time.
Bleach
I found out my library has a billion books of this series and decided to jump into it again for the first time in over a decade. Honestly itâs even better than I remembered? The art is absolutely stunning, Ichigo is such a power fantasy hero, and itâs one of those series with a lot of really loveable characters and a lot of heart. Ichigo is a good guy who you actually feel good liking, which canât be said for all shonen protags by any means. This is just such a classic and it holds up man. And if you like manga and have never read it? Jump in and enjoy a normal human getting supernatural powers and kicking absolutely enormous monstersâ asses.
Dinotopia: Sabertooth Mountain
This was my favourite Dinotopia book as a kid, and it was still fun to reread. The world of Dinotopia is one separate from the rest of the world, where humanity lives in perfect harmony with many prehistoric creatures that have managed to survive and evolve on the island of Dinotopia. This story is about a crisis brewing, as the sabertooths are cut off from their food supply and are in danger of not only starving but of bringing death to the rest of the mountain as well. While surveying the situation with his older sister, the main character finds himself falling from the airship in the middle of a storm, directly into the valley of starving sabertooths.
I read a bunch of this authorâs graphic novels, and they are such feel-good queer lit. This was probably my favourite of the lot, but I also read Tea Dragon Society, Aquicorn Cove, and Princess Princess Ever After. Taking place in a picturesque mountain community, itâs about a girl meeting a guardian dragon who accidentally fell asleep in the mountains a century ago rather than watch over the village like intended. Itâs about coming to terms with and loving yourself (and also about super cute little tea dragons).
Just Jaime
Another story that focuses on the complications of middle school, and how friends can grow and change, and when sometimes friendships become toxic and cruel. These are novel/graphic novel hybrids that are very visually appealing, and really do manage to tell very heartfelt stories. This one takes a side character from the earlier two books, and turns her from a very one dimensional, somewhat annoying character, into a fully realized person with her own issues and her own need for growth.
The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up / The Life-Changing Manga Of Tidying Up
Given that Iâm not really a non-fiction person and DEFINITELY not a self-help book person, I really enjoyed these (though I didnât read Spark Joy). I read the manga first, out of curiosity, but enough of it struck true that I decided to try the book as well. Have I cleaned anything up yet? No. But honestly, I can genuinely say that despite being repetitive at points I do truly feel like I got a lot of good out of it, and I feel much more excited and prepared when I do decide to do a big clean next. It really does reframe the relationship you have with your belongings and with yourself. I genuinely love the concept of âsparking joyâ.
Bigfoot Boy: The Sound Of Thunder
Technically the last book of the series, whoops. Though honestly having read it I didnât feel like I missed that much. Itâs a Canadian graphic novel and I had... mixed feelings about it. Interesting and exciting in some ways, but the pacing was odd, and honestly I donât think indigenous voices went into making it (I could be wrong but...) and it reads as kinda... eugh. Problematic. Having a none indigenous author write about a white boy being the guardian of a first nation totem and turning into a bigfoot isnât a super cool optic.
Bloodchild
I was told âhey this is a really fucked up short storyâ so I read it, and guess what? It was a really fucked up short story. Would recommend if you want weird alien sex slavery bullshit-- it was a wild ride. And the overall themes obviously went a lot deeper than that, but honestly, itâs like a few dozen pages long if you wanna dig into all the philosophical shit, just give it a read! Uh, heavy content warning, tw tw tw, but a really bizarre, unsettling look at gender and power dynamics and oppression through a scifi lens.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIHM
I hadnât read this book since elementary school so I reread it on a whim. It really is such a charming story. As far as animal stories go, this feels almost like the platonic ideal. Mother mouse is worried about her sick son and winds up compelled to seek out the mysterious rats who live in the rosebush for help, and is not only thrust into her own adventure but learns about the strange past her late husband shared with the rats of NIMH. Itâs such a relaxing read, while still managing to be exciting and compelling.
Exploring According to Og the Frog
And one last animal story to round us off. Iâd read one of the Humphrey books last month, and check out a couple more from the library for fun. I didnât enjoy Mysteries According to Humphrey that much, but this one was charming, showing the world through Humphreyâs frog friend Og instead. The same charming type of adventure, but being a frog, Og has a very different attitude and view of the world, which was fun. Very cute elementary kid lit.
#book review#february book review#canadian lit#queer lit#the witcher#the last wish#sword of destiny#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#the silver eyes#frnck#endling#baby sitter's club#mrs frisby and the rats of nimh#bloodchild#octavia butler#marie kondo#just jaime#tea dragon festival#dinotopia#bleach#novels#manga#graphic novels#comics#chatter
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Digging Deeper
Thank you to my radiant wonderful friend @alienfuckeronmain for sending me EXACTLY the type of self indulgent wind-down activity I wanted on this otherwise depressing weekend! If anyone else wants to answer FORTY-NINE QUESTIONS about themselves, Iâm super nosy and will read it all! @fight-the-seether @ptolemyofchaos @butchwizard @metalbutch @nyndelion @comrade-ziltoid @leatherdear @kristalknobb Enjoy, friends!
1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? I prefer black, but I always feel like I write neater in blue??
2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? The city, but only if it has breathable air, green infrastructure, and decent public transit. So like... definitely no city in America lmao
3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? The ability to quickly become fluent in another language! Iâve been struggling with Spanish for literal YEARS and itâs honestly pathetic. My brain is so stuck on English.
4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? Look pal. If I wanna drink sugar, Iâm gonna have a soda, not herb water or bean juice.
5. What was your favorite book as a child? I was OBSESSED with The Wish List, by Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame). I remember being so fascinated by how dark it was?? Itâs an afterlife adventure, where the main character has to escape purgatory by atoning for her crimes of robbery and fraud and whatever. I had a crush on her, so basically this book made me want to pursue a life of crime, even though it explicitly condemns crime and depicts Hell as a very real and horrible place. I was in like fourth grade and was super morbidly curious about Hell and the possibility of going there! Lol
6. Do you prefer baths or showers? Baths... but only when Iâm not actually dirty going in. A bath is leisure, not hygiene.
7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be? 100% fae! I would build my dwelling within a sidhe mound, steal shiny things in the middle of the night, make bastardly little contracts for no reason, and cause harmless mayhem and mischief because mortals really are fools (go off, robin goodfellow!) Also I love mushroom circles and dancing in the moonlight.
8. Paper or electronic books? Paper all the way! I read much more content electronically, but itâs usually in the short story or article format. Books are much better in print, I think.
9. What is your favorite item of clothing? Probably my rust-brown overalls.
10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? Iâve always hated my name but no alternative has ever stuck, unfortunately. My name is Amy, and I donât think it fits at all. If I knew Iâd never have to correct anyone on it, Iâd probably just change it to Amelia?
11. Who is a mentor to you? My little brother! Heâs this genius musician, and he has taught me so much about song structure, polyrhythms, guitar technique, production tricks, all kinds of trivia that really deepen my appreciation for music and the LABOR that goes into it.
12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? No, never, not for anything. I cherish my anonimity so much, I donât even put searchable tags on this blog cuz I get an adrenaline spike from anxiety if too many people interact with me. I also just think fame is a fucking hideous construct. I donât think itâs even slightly cool or desirable.
13. Are you a restless sleeper? No, Iâm a fucking log. I can easily sleep for 12 hours straight. Thanks, depression!
14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? No, actually. Iâm very much in love, and it brings me lots of joy to do nice things with and for my partner! But romance feels very difficult for me to connect with. Iâm super domestic, like, I love the idea of marriage but not necessarily a wedding, or a moonstruck romance or whatever. Those dramatic gestures feel very awkward for me.
15. Which element best represents you? EARTH. Specifically, like... dirt, or soil.
16. Who do you want to be closer to? I want to be geographically closer to my family. Weâre thick as thieves, but we all live like 50 miles apart from each other. I miss my brothers and my parents so much, I feel so incomplete and depressed without them to hang out with, especially since quarantine.
17. Do you miss someone at the moment? See above! Lol
18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. When my little brother was a baby, he had this grey car seat with a folding mechanism which held his legs in place. It made a very satisfying clicking sound when the mechanism moved, AND when it was fully unfolded, it looked a lot like a Klingon battle cruiser. (Or so my five year old brain thought.) So! My older brother and I would take this seat out of the car CONSTANTLY so that we could unfold it and âsingâ the Klingon theme music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture while we scooched our car seat battle cruiser across the living room floor, pretending to shoot phasers into the TV or the dining table or whatever else got in our way.
19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? Gifilte fish, maybe?
20. What are you most thankful for? My family, including my wonderful partner and all the cats in our lives!
21. Do you like spicy food? Yes! But my tolerance for extreme spice decreases every year, unfortunately. So I canât handle as much heat as I used to, but I do enjoy a good kick.
22. Have you ever met someone famous? Lmaooo I made the regretful decision to PAY FOR a meet&greet with Fall Out Boy in like 2006, which was so fucking awkward and painful, I vowed to never approach that level of lame again.
23. Do you keep a diary or a journal? TONS! Iâm an obsessive record keeper. Some years I journal more than others, and Iâve found that it is super difficult to keep up with it while working full time. But itâs absolutely one of my favorite hobbies.
24. Do you prefer to use a pen or pencil? Pen for writing. Pencil for drawing, and math.
25. What is your star sign? Virgo sun, Aquarius moon, Scorpio rising đ
26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? Crunchy! A shallow bath in that milk is key.
27. What would you want your legacy to be? My artwork. I go through these aesthetic phases every year that I become super obsessed with/ focused on, and Iâve always meant to catalogue them in annual art journals, but Iâve NEVER FINISHED ONE! They always get pushed aside by the need to work, and I hate that so much. If I could just take a year off work and backfill all of my missed concepts into completed books, I would be so happy. But I literally have NO WAY to pay for that, absolutely none. I fucking hate capitalism.
28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? I love to read, but finishing a whole book has been A STRUGGLE lately! Right now Iâm chipping away at Tending Brigidâs Flame, which is a quaint lil devotional for the Celtic fire goddess. Very new agey, like cheesy Wiccan vibes. I love that shit!
29. How do you show someone you love them? Quality time!
30. Do you like ice in your drinks? Only if I have a straw. Ice touching my teeth kinda makes me wince.
31. What are you afraid of? Incompetance, doing a bad job, letting someone down, taking up too much space, being a nussiance, etc
32. What is your favourite scent? Incense! Especially cinnamon, dragonâs blood, and amber.
33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? I always call people, regardless of age, by the name they ask me to use. Sometimes itâs a surname or title, usually itâs a first name. Iâll ask their preference if Iâm unsure. But I definitely donât default toward a surname, thatâs weird.
34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY!!!!!! The need for money rules literally every single hour of my entire life, and I hate it so much. Iâm naturally nocturnal, but my job requires me to get up super early and sit in a car for 11 hours a day. I wake up at 5am, come home front work at 5pm, spend an hour or two trying to unwind, then go to bed and do it all over again. I hate my life! Really! I never see the stars, I never exercise, I am completely exhausted and burnt out all the time, and I barely get any quality time with my partner. If money were no object, I would sleep til noon or 1, make art and hike all day, ride my bike and stargaze all night, stay up til 4am reading and playing with my cats, and sleep like a baby. My partner and I would cook dinner for each other and watch Star Trek and collaborate on art projects and I would be so happy.
35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? Hereâs my hierarchy: Private pool > ocean > public pool
36. What would you do if you found ÂŁ50 on the ground? Iâd look around to see if anyone obviously dropped it and try to give it back. If I couldnât find anyone, Iâd exchange it for dollars and deposit that shit into my account!
37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Of course!! Hundreds!
38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? America is evil and needs to be destroyed.
39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? Lmao this is so cute. If you HAD TO HAVE a tattoo! I really wanna finish my damn sleeves, theyâre literally 9 years in the making and barely half finished. But Iâd also love more art on my legs! I DESPERATELY want Ziltoid in a lacy valentine heart on my thigh.
40. What can you hear now? Our fish tank water bubbling and my fan on full blast.
41. Where do you feel the safest? Home alone, doors locked, windows covered, lights low. I absolutely LOVE to not be seen or perceived in any way.
42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? My fear of discomfort
43. If you could time travel to another era, which one would you choose? I feel like Iâd want to be a teen in the 80âs and an adult in the 90âs. Does time travel work that way?
44. What is your most used emoji? đ or đ
45. Describe yourself using one word. Defeated
46. What do you regret the most? Convincing myself that math was too hard or boring (or something?) when I was in middle school. I feel like Iâm actually a pretty intelligent person who couldâve totally overcome that difficulty and gone on to understand all kinds of patterns and concepts which have eluded me to this day! Itâs so frustrating to try and fight that formative self-concept, which now comes naturally but ultimately sabotages me. đ
47. Last movie you saw? I made my partner watch Troop Beverly Hills, one of my childhood faves. Itâs so fun! I love chick flicks so much.
48. Last tv show you watched? Deep Space Nine. Getting through the first season has been harder than expected. Itâs actually my favorite Star Trek show?? (Orrrr maybe thatâs TNG, ahh! Itâs so hard to choose!) But season one is so baffling and awful! Why is there so much space capitalism??! And racism? And war? And drinking alcoholic beverages? #notmystartrek
49. Invent a word and its meaning. I used to call a single strand of curly hair a âcurly quinkâ when I was a child. Therefore, a âquinkâ is a section of hair, usually a particularly cute or iconic one.
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I know I've already asked about this before, but do you have anymore headcanons about your self insert and Eggman? I like hearing you talk about your self insert
Thank you so much! It really means a lot that you like Julian! :âDÂ
Yes of course, I have tons more and I can choose a few to share right now! Theyâre in no particular order and some are more detailed descriptions of events while others are simple concepts broken down to make them simpler. Iâm gonna put this under a read more because itâs perhaps a little bit lengthy.
Julianâs favorite robots of Eggmanâs are the Egg Pawns, Egg Fighters, and Metal Sonic. The first time he got to see the museum dedicated to his creations, Julian fell in love with the first prototype for the Egg Pawns, which is my OC by the name of Jimmy. Julian wanted to adopt him the moment he saw him and he was the first of Eggmanâs robots that he called his son. He then later joined Eggman calling Metal Sonic his son and became the second father to him.Â
Julian especially likes to help build Egg Pawns and Fighters with him because of how their features resemble Eggmanâs appearance the most. Itâs the closest to them being able to create a child together that way lol. A follow up would be the Eggrobos if he were to produce them again!
Julian is always there to support Eggman through everything whether itâs a plan, the Olympics, racing, tennis games and more! Even if he doesnât get a place in the top three, Julian lets him know that heâs just as proud of him no matter what. The same goes for when he faces defeat, depending on how he needs to deal with it. Whether thatâs by giving him space to vent out frustration alone or by being there to make sure that heâs comfortable and calm. Heâll happily look after him and help soothe him in any way he can because caring for him is one of his favorite things to do in general.
Since Eggmanâs anger can get the best of him very often, he can be impulsively destructive as shown. Julian knows he doesnât like to be disturbed during these times, so he has to just let him do his thing and keep the robots away so they donât come in and bother him. He allows him to offload those feelings in any way that he needs to instead of bottling them up. Even if he needs to go and destroy things to achieve that.
Despite his durability, there are times where Eggman ends up with a few injuries after a fight or after another one of his tantrums that result in bloody knuckles from smashing things. Eggman would usually just leave it a bit before getting the plasters and bandages but Julian approaches him to get him cleaned up as soon as he can. Eggman acts grumpy about it and insists that he can do it himself but heâs actually glad that someone will aid him without patronizing him like his robots tend to do.
Julian can listen to Eggman talk about himself, his plans or absolutely anything for hours. Itâs always in a way where he is still listening and not just daydreaming because he wants to take in his beauty and hear what he has to say. He can usually do both at the same time but sometimes he gets a little lost when it comes to the smart complicated stuff that he canât understand. But he still loves to hear his words nonetheless. XD
Before they met, Julian had almost nothing and thatâs why he was always bored. The danger in his life was the most exciting things which is one of the reasons why he developed his huge fascination with him in the first place. Eggman can easily provide everything that Julian was missing out on in life and he knows this. In fact, itâs a point that Eggman raised when he was trying to coax Julian into staying with him. That was at the time when he still thought he needed persuading in order to serve him and wasnât certain that Julianâs loyalty was 100% genuine yet.
Eggman realized just how shitty Julianâs life was before he took him in as soon as he got to know him more personally. He likes how much he is credited for being Julianâs main motivation to go on. He also likes how easily he can please him in every aspect of his life because he seems to find everything so astonishing and amazing. His idea of casual fun or even just relaxing is such a big thing to Julian in comparison which amuses and surprises him.
Plus, despite all the cool things that living with Eggman has to offer, Julian only really expects the basic necessities to survive. His wealth and what he owns means nothing compared to what he likes about him as a person. He could lose everything (even his mustache!) and Julian would still stay. He isnât sure how aware of this truth Eggman is but he lets him know of his importance to him whenever he can.
During the time where Julian was being searched for by the surviving members of his pack, Eggman would get especially protective without realizing it. But to Julian and any of the uninvited guests, his behavior was noticeably stranger than usual. He would get aggressive with them no matter their approach and heâd pull Julian in closer to let them know who it is that he belongs to. Once heâd gotten rid of them, heâd always make sure Julian knew that heâd never let them take him away from him. Never again would he have to return to his old, miserably boring life.
One of my other wolf characters by the name of Nimbus made the mistake of coming back a second time and managed to get him alone while Eggman was asleep. He was the only one that managed to slip past the defenses twice to get the chance to ask why Eggman seemed so possessive of him, finding it disturbing. But Julian likes it and his reaction the first time he guarded him like that was literally like that Marina meme lmao
Nimbus was also one of the first to learn that there was something deeper going on between them. Julian only told him so that he could reveal that he actually wanted to stay with Eggman and didnât need rescuing. He then alerted him of Nimbusâ presence and Eggman arrived immediately to take him away to be punished personally for daring to return after his warning. Letâs just say that after his disappearance, the other members stopped trying to enter any of his bases for a long time. đ
They have gone to places in disguise before and seeing Eggmanâs deception and trickery in action is what helped Julian learn to become a better undercover spy. It gets the job done and they find it amusing when nobody figures them out, even when some say that Eggman looks strangely familiar at times. They have a lot of fun messing around and causing trouble for the hell of it too, so long as they donât get caught or lose sight of the actual mission. Usually, they go it alone together but on one adventure they had, they were with my yet to be fully revealed human character, Lawrence.
Eggman can get flustered with the amount of praise Julian gives him so often. He can tell how genuine it is and how easily the words come to him with how he can find ways to compliment literally everything he does. Itâs more flattering than he would admit because even though heâs constantly praising himself with his genuine self-confidence, Julianâs love is even enough to surprise him at times.
Eggman also very much appreciates Julianâs desire for an Eggman themed museum to exist. Heâs already got a fairly big space that serves as a museum for his creations that he plans to expand upon. But now there are also plans to have one dedicated to the appreciation of his visage. Eggman already had a huge headstart on it with all the displays he has dedicated to his beautiful self already, of course. XD But thereâs still so much more that he wants to do!
Julian loved the idea of getting to go to casinos and amusement parks ever since he heard that itâs what Eggman likes. Heâd never been to any since he had been living in the small boring outskirts of Green Hill all his life. But one of the many reasons why heâs always anticipated Eggmanâs rule over the world is because it would give him the opportunity to experience them in the best way. Everything is always best when itâs Eggman themed after all!
Eggman has of course been banned from multiple casinos but he has his own that are obviously far superior. Julian was thrilled when he was finally able to visit them along with the theme parks he has already had built to get a feel for Eggmanland. They go to them in their free time to have some fun and Eggman gets to show off the games/rides that he���s proud of!
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aight... hereâs a pretty long yet tip-of-the-iceberg collection on my overall thoughts on bl3 now that iâve finished the damn thing, every main mission & every sidequest (dynasty dash donât interact).Â
obviously mega spoilers
the good
aside from that one infuriating difficulty spike when i arrived on promethea, i had a lot of fun playing. i found the gameplay a lot smoother than the others in the series (as it should be), i liked being able to climb stuff, i liked having an easy mode tbh!!
i really liked playing amara and i like the flexibility of action skills and being able to swap on the go without having to respec. the brawl tree ended up being very well suited to my type of play, it hindered me only during boss fights and even then at least i could switch to phasecast yâknow
i had a lot of big fears about what this game would do and it managed to not do anything that makes me want to, like, burn and salt the earth, so thatâs a win
i thought it was pretty funny! or at least on par with the other main games, which always kind of ride the line between funny and obnoxious and sometimes misstep
i enjoyed a lot of the cast, both new characters and characters who were returning but who i had no particular feelings about before, hammerlock, zer0 and ellie as particular examples
hammerlock and wainwright were cute af and itâs nice to see a gay couple in a triple-a gameÂ
thought the twins were fun and funny af i liked them. because fandom is Like That i was a little exhausted by troy before he even showed up but even then, like, idk i liked them as a duo and i liked the break from jack honestlyÂ
a lot of the new gun quirks were fun. iâm not like a big... gun person... but i found some cool ones i enjoyed playing with.Â
loved getting to see different planets, it was a nice break from pandora all the time. and skywell was super fun! love the low-grav playfulness from TPS without the infuriating oz kit nonsense
the little quality of life improvements from previous games were great, like fast travel from anywhere, auto-refilling ammo, etc
some of the side quests were really fun. i liked the ratch quest for rhys, the birthday party quest for mordecai, the claptrap dancing quest was sweet, the buff movie buff quest was fun, the quest where i killed grandpappy 2 seconds in and got a reward was funny as hell esp because i drove off a cliff by accident, etc
lots of people had really bad glitches and stuff but... honestly canât relate the game ran very well for me. advantages to not marathoning it before theyâve released their first couple patches, i guess, lolÂ
the less good
i played a solo amara and there are some bosses that seem like they wouldâve been pure hell to do alone... i was lucky and able to phone a friend for a lifeline in those scenarios (shoutout to @heavybreathingcatt and @valoscope) but if i couldnât do that idk i wouldâve just broken my controller in rage i guess lmaoÂ
why is resurrecting each other so hard? i donât think iâve ever done it successfully, because it takes too long and more importantly bc while iâm doing it some enemy will just toss a grenade or punch me and i get knocked away from the ally, rendering it useless
rest in peace maya, the best res AI in the whole damn game, got me through the rampager fight her damn self
there were a lot of characters and themes and ideas that i liked in theory more than in practice... because in practice they felt like a first draft. very often i felt like i liked a thing, and then on reflection thought about nine hundred ways it couldâve been better, deeper, more emotionally resonant, more developed, whatever.Â
the angel stuff was kinda nice but... also... my longest deepest sigh ever @ Poor Sad Jack Some People Terrorize Entire Planets And Abuse Their Daughters To Cope With Their Fridged Wife
like the siren lore... wish i coulda heard it without having to backtrack across every map post-game
while i found the game generally pretty funny, almost all the emotional scenes fell completely flat for me and there were a number of scenes that SHOULD have been emotional that just were notÂ
for eg i am actually not upset about maya or lilith dying (or turning into the moon as it were) -- i am ok with those beats for those characters, especially lilith getting a heroic sendoff. however... both of those scenes couldâve been more impactful than they were. mayaâs i think was better than lilithâs, but both of them felt flatter, either in the moment or in the aftermath, than those characters deserved.Â
related: NPCs reacting to major events is fun. i liked to do the tour and check in with all my buds to get their couple custom lines after a big plot thing happened. HOWEVER... those lines are obviously timed which is *mostly* fine but in some cases really, really weird? the lines about maya should stay in rotation for a lot longer. ava shouldnât go back to LOL LETâS STEAL two seconds after mayaâs gone. i missed zer0â˛s maya lines entirely bc i didnât track down zer0 on time lol. stuff like thatÂ
the bad
i miss my girls :( we really did keep only the white men huh
the last act felt severely underbaked. i have to wonder how many rewrites this game went through, and how much the back end was slapped together last minute, or cobbled together from various drafts. a lot of this felt very first or second draft, where the characters and themes are *there* but not refined at all, or they contradict each other. the family theme that goes basically nowhere and says nothing. the way the story handles atlas vs the way the story handles jakobs vs the way the story handles corporations writ large.Â
for the twins -- lack of proper emotional resonance or development for them is one of the biggest failures imo, because i think they WERE very enjoyable villains and the core concept of like... evil video game streamers is honestly on-brand and funny af for the franchise... but as soon as troy died everything went downhill? tyreenâs non-reaction to her brother dying isnât even a reaction, itâs not even âtyreen doesnât care sheâs evil lolâ which wouldâve been a boring direction to take anyway) itâs just.... âwe barely wrote a response donât worry about itâ. her endgame is to be a big monster because... sheâs ... fame hungry? huh? her motivation fell apart.w whether they went with âtroy and tyreen are shitty people who get caught up in a power struggle but ultimately love each otherâ OR âtroy and tyreen are shitty people who turn against each other in individual bids for powerâ could both have been interesting stories but they did neither.Â
iâm def missing some echos on the twins which brings me to another thing i hate although itâs endemic to the series and not to bl3 specifically -- hiding important lore and characterization in random echos in random places on the map without even an indication of how many there are total, how many youâve collected, where to find them... frustrating as hell. a lot of those echos are some of my favourite material in the game! at LEAST tell me â1 of 5 echos on this mapâ if you donât wanna tell me where they are! why is major lore like the twinsâ backstories hidden??????Â
and bc i havenât heard them i donât know if itâs fandom doing what fandom always does, or if it really is the game implying tyreen is The Evil Mastermind and troy is poor manipulated brother, but either way fuck that entire noise lmao of course the women of colour in the series are just Born Evil but jack and troy and whoever else are just Sad :( fuck off actuallyÂ
typhon... sucks... what an irritating character. irritating to retcon him in as The First Vault Hunter, irritating to have him talk about shit and sex all the time, irritating to have every established NPC be like oh wow my HERO typhon deleon what a HERO i LOVE him, irritating that we skate over his parenting failures, irritating that he has a fridged beloved wife, ESPECIALLY irritating he gets a memorial sidequest and maya didnât . just. bad.
aurelia is evil now cause reasons... bad...Â
vaughn also bad lmao i canât believe they made amara yell âblood feudâ... disgusting...Â
the playable had no role in the story. theyâre just a fly on the wall in every cut scene. this is whack in general, and a crit i can apply to all of the main borderlands games, however it is extremely jarring to play amara in a siren-heavy game and have no one acknowledge it.Â
OVERALL... I guess like a B-? Maybe a B. I had fun playing it and Iâm still having fun running around in Mayhem Mode and I am def looking forward to the DLCs. Gameplay is great. But while I had hoped this installment would take the storytelling of the main games a step further, it actually felt like a step back in virtually every respect.Â
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