#these drawings are months old already (so before any recent comic events) but these two are my LOVES | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rebelsofshield · 5 years ago

Text

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order-Review

Respawn Entertainment breaks an over decades long curse and delivers a phenomenal, if rough around the edges, Star Wars experience.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

youtube

Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) is a Jedi survivor of Order 66. Having survived the traumatic first stage of the Jedi Purge, Cal has spent the last several years on the fringes of the galaxy, keeping his head down and avoiding detection by the Imperial warmachine and their fearsome enforcers. However, when Cal uses his Force powers to save a friend in danger, he draws attention to his relatively normal life and he is soon once again on the run from the Imperial Inquisitorius. Luckily, he is found by two other renegades, former Jedi Cere Junda (Debra Wilson) and crotchety ship captain Dreez Gritus (Daniel Roebuck), and offered safe harbor. It comes with a catch though. Cere needs Cal to unlock the secrets of a potential list of new Jedi hidden by her former master, Eno Cordova, and scattered throughout the galaxy. Cal and Cere have their own secrets though and a deadly Inquisitor follows them at every step.

It’s been a long time since there has been a good Star Wars video game. At least, a single player experience that rewards with story in addition to gameplay and visuals. This decade has already been pretty sparse in offerings after the comparatively abundant 00’s, but even more so for those hoping for some kind of narrative from their gaming trips into the galaxy far, far away. Sure, 2017’s Battlefront II offered a short and deeply flawed campaign, but for anything more substantial we would have to look back to 2011’s The Old Republic MMO or 2010’s sloppy sequel to The Force Unleashed. For a franchise that offered some of the best experiences in the action adventure genre several generations ago, Star Wars was struggling to make its mark in this medium even with the pure abundance of film, comics, books, and TV offered each year.

Luckily, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a success. It’s a profoundly satisfying experience for Star Wars fans in addition to just being a rewarding and joyful gameplay experience. It may not be perfect, and it is certainly rough around the edges, but Respawn Entertainment has created a Star Wars experience that is among the best out there.

Much of this comes from Fallen Order’s outstanding narrative and story direction. Game director Stig Asmussen and narrative lead Aaron Contreras have spun a Star Wars tale populated by endearing and compelling characters, filled with interesting mysteries, and even populated by a few trademark Star Wars twists.

Cal Kestis, despite his profoundly bland character design, quickly establishes himself as an engaging protagonist and player stand in. Due in large part to Monaghan’s performance and a strong direction, Cal is a character that has experienced world shattering trauma, but is still fundamentally good hearted and courageous. Much of Cal’s arc becomes one of finding purpose in a new, much darker, world while also coming to terms with the violent events of his own past.

Trauma and its effect on a cast of people trying to survive a cultural genocide is a major theme of Fallen Order throughout. The majority of its central characters, light and dark, are survivors of the climactic events at the end of The Clone Wars and their methods of coping often end up shaping their personal narratives but also the trajectory of the plot. Of these, Cere proves to be the most compelling. Played with incredible nuance by Wilson, Cere is an atypical Jedi mentor that wishes to guide the future generations of the Force, but is just as often plagued by her own trauma, which frequently manifests in ways that are unhelpful or potentially dangerous to her pupil. Her journey at times even eclipses Cal’s and is frequently filled with moments of triumph and great sorrow.

Despite its male protagonist, Fallen Order is filled with a cast of compelling and dynamic women characters with Cere just being one of the most notable. The game’s primary antagonist, The Second Sister, has a tragic story of her own, which slowly changes and recontexualizes the events of the game as the story continues. Most fun however proves to be a surprising late addition to Fallen Order’s party of protagonists who adds a fun wrinkle to an extended part of the Star Wars mythology.

Any discussion of the game’s characters wouldn’t be complete without the endlessly endearing BD-1. The best droid companion this side of BB-8, BD-1 in typical Star Wars fashion is equal parts friend and McGuffin, and is often key to some of the game’s best story telling moments.

Fallen Order’s narrative direction is often its best tool. Respawn blends gameplay, cut scenes, and interactive exploration to evolve a story that reaches surprisingly affecting emotional beats before headed into one hell of a finale. The fact that Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab have crafted a new Star Wars score that feels a part of the franchise, but also infused with its own themes and identity certainly helps. Cal’s theme is a new classic for the saga and it’s even more infuriating that we don’t have a release for this music a month after launch. It makes for a narrative that is fun to savor, hard to put down, but also lingers far after conclusion. I can’t recall the last time I missed characters this much after putting down a controller and I’m very eager to return to the world that Fallen Order has spun.

Now time for a confession. I have played video games my entire life and I have very fond memories of all kinds of games. I love action adventure games and my most fond gaming memories of the last decade have been from Mass Effect and Uncharted. I’m also very, very bad at them. It may be my dysgraphia, which makes hand eye coordination very difficult, or it may just not be in my skillset, but I often find even the easiest games very difficult.

So when, Fallen Order announced that it would be taking inspiration from notoriously difficult games such as Metroid or Dark Souls, I was suitably worried that it was going to leave my flustered and confused despite really enjoying the adventures of Samus Aran.

What Respawn has done with Jedi: Fallen Order is take key elements and concepts from numerous other games and spin them together in a tight and exciting package. Those familiar with each genre of game are likely to see what Fallen Order does as a considerable pairing down. It ends up being a sort of gameplay smoothie of Uncharted, Dark Souls, and Metroid in an experience that blends all well, but doesn’t come close to being among the best in the genre for any of its many inspirations.

This may sound like a criticism, but for the larger experience that Fallen Order crafts this ends up working to its benefit. The puzzles in its Zelda like temples are never enough to stump you, but encourage you think outside of the box. The climbing and exploration is free flowing and easy to navigate and offers frequent narrative rewards for players that are ambitious enough to explore. The sheer amount of optional locations in Fallen Order is impressive and it’s easy to find yourself falling down amusing rabbit holes that easy could have been blown past on quicker playthroughs. It says something that this is the first game where I’ve actually felt compelled to hit that little 100% complete marker before running for the final boss encounter.

The combat itself is amusingly layered and just technical enough to feel like it takes mastery. Refreshingly, Respawn goes the opposite direction of other recent Star Wars adventure experiences and avoids falling into mindless power fantasy. You won’t be crushing AT-ST’s with waves of telekinesis or leveling rooms with storms of Force Lightning. You are encouraged to treat each combat encounter with the mentality of a vulnerable, if skilled, Jedi. Rushing in blindly will likely get you killed quickly. Measured blocking, dodging, tactical strikes, and creative employment of Force powers is the way to success and it leads to a combat experience that may seem familiar for fans of Souls games, but also feels very in tune with the spirit of the franchise.

Similarly, the leveling system is tied more into emotional discovery and personal acceptance. It avoids making the power system in Fallen Order too much of a gamification of the Force and helps keep the spiritual and emotional aspects intact.

That being said, there is some weirdness to it all. For the amount of effort put into making sure that gameplay matches the feelings of Jedi philosophy and mentality, the fact that murdering rooms full of enemies is often the only way to progress can feel a little jarring. Incorporating some form of stealth or noncombat alternative for certain sections may have been beneficial and even more in keeping with the larger goals of Respawn and Fallen Order’s narrative.

There’s also just a general bugginess to Fallen Order. Enemy AI can behave in ways that are often very strange and counter intuitive to their own survival. Graphical pop ins and oddities are frequent. Powers occasionally don’t work in ways you would expect them to. The environment occasionally drops out and leaves you stranded behind a rock or underneath a pool or puddle. Few of these are game breaking and are often few and far between, but it can be jarring and frustrating when they are appear and often take you out of what is normally a well-crafted experience.

As a whole though, Jedi: Fallen Order may be the best Star Wars gaming experience in a generation. Its heartfelt narrative and smart gameplay make for a strong and frequently stellar experience. It has its problems, but they are hardly enough to discourage from joining Cal and his allies on this adventure. Grab a lightsaber and head on in. It’s a journey worth taking.

Score: A-

#Star Wars #Star Wars games #review #reviews #Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order #Fallen Order

12 notes · View notes

ask-protoheroes · 6 years ago

Photo

(if you missed the new update with Katsuki and Yamikumo, click here to see it!)

So, I left the blog collecting dust for over a year. No way around that.

For those of you who had been following it back when it was active, you'll remember I'd have intervals of months between the last updates - a combination of being busy with IRL and struggling with art. The real catch though was planning out a LONG string of comics for the current sleepover/dares arc, which would require me to sit down and work on it for a while- and with the knowledge of how LONG this comic would be (for ask blog standarts) plus me being busy, I just didn't reserve myself time to start. And I put it off. And time passed. And the more time passed, the guiltier I felt! And it just rolled up on a snowball.

So one year passed and either I would pick this blog up again, or never would. And it's something I hold dear to my heart! I had a lot of fun running it, and didn't want the expectations and pressure I put on myself to ruin that fun. Y'know, putting all your work's worth on feedback can really ruin things for an artist. I'm still trying to balance everything, and I can't promise I won't go on more big intervals between posts again, but I'll do my best to not leave it for such a long period of time again.

So before I get any more lenghty, here's how we're kicking this blog back into action:

There'll be three and a half more posts for this event - two of them are already sketched, only need colors and text; one and a half are scripted. Each of them has multiple panels. So the asks that will go on each were already picked from the inbox; I will probably not include any new dare asks in the upcoming posts, unless they are similar to the asks already picked.

After I'm done with this long ass event, I'll be looking at doing smaller updates with much fewer panels so I don't sabotage myself again. I'll only do a long thread of posts with multiple panels again when I have free time OR by drawing them and holding them instead of immediately posting, so the gap between updates isn't too big.

You'll notice the color scheme changed - thought it was about time since my skills at picking nice colors improved a bit. You might see the style still fluctuating on the next posts since I recently acquired Clip Studio and gotta make sense of it.

I'm shooting for a minimum of one new update per month. I'll do my best to keep with it!

Since I might get new readers now that I'm active again, I'm going to clean up the ooc tag and delete old promos. I will still reblog new promos of currently active blogs though- feel free to request a promo if you're a fellow ask blog!

I'll still be logged in on my main @sonreiv more often though, so if you need to reach out to me ooc, hmu there.

I have old submissions that I remember were perfectly sfw fanart some of you sent to me (and I didn’t answer cause I had threads going on at the time, sorry!!) and that tumblr’s stupid algorithm blocked and now I can’t see or even delete them. So if you’d still like to, feel free to re-submit anything you submitted to me in the past.

Since the canon plot advanced a lot in one year, I’m looking at considering canon in this blog’s timeline only the anime events! I’ve been cooking some other details, but I’ll get to them later.

That said, I'm honestly anxious about bringing back this blog since tumblr's activity dropped A LOT the last months. What has been motivating me lately was the feedback I have been getting on instagram since I started posting protoheroes there - follow me if you have one! - and I still want to keep tumblr as the main platform for posting and receiving asks since the whole blog was shaped around it.

The feedback I got from this silly blog means a lot to me, and while I don't want it to be the sole motivation - I want to have fun with it! - I'll be so grateful if some of you guys still stick around to see where I lead this story. You know I don't answer ooc asks, but I'm super grateful for all the positive messages I got over the time behind the scenes of modding these two dumb nerds.

Thanks for joining me and hope we have a nice ride from now on!

#ooc #mod post #OOF PLEASE WISH ME LUCK #I AM RUSTY

146 notes · View notes

rpgmgames · 7 years ago

Photo

April’s Featured Game: Folkloria

DEVELOPER(S): folkloriarpg ENGINE: RPGMaker MV GENRE: Adventure, RPG SUMMARY: Folkloria is a lighthearthed turn-based RPG set on a floating island inhabited by mythological creatures. You play as Weaver, a young and unassuming griffin determined to rescue his family from the clutches of Dr. Zeralidius, a shady businessperson from the world below the clouds who plans to modernize the peaceful island.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Oi! I'm Domino, a wannabe artist. I've been drawing all my life, a passion I inherited from my father, but only recently I decided to publish my work online. Through the years I have tinkered with basically all iterations of RPG Maker, making silly short games with my friends before attempting to develop something full-fledged.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Domino: Folkloria is a very simple, cartoony turn-based RPG which spices things up with timed hits, counters and a variety of partners. The game takes place on a floating island inhabited by anthropomorphized mythological creatures. The protagonist of the story is Weaver, a child griffin determined to rescue his family from the clutches of Dr. Zeralidius, a shady businessperson from the civilized world who wants to forcefully modernize the island. Along the way he will meet new allies like Lauper, a thousand-year old phoenix who needs his help to drive Zeralidius out of the island, and Akinai, a kitsune merchant who will supply them with the best items she has to offer. I still haven't shown all the party members, but among them are a buff minotaur lady, a shy but frightening wendigo and a sculptor gorgon.

What inspired me to make a game was the indie scene in general. I have always dreamt of being a game developer since I was a kid, and when indie games first started becoming really popular I thought to myself "Hey, I could probably do that!". The folklore theme of the game was decided completely at random. When I first created the character of Weaver with my friends years ago, we wanted to make a traditional 2D platformer. We came up with a griffin character since being part lion and part bird he could fly, run fast and use its claws to attack. That decision alone basically shaped up the rest of the setting, and I started populating the game's world with different mythological creatures.

How long have you been working on your project? *Domino: The game in its actual state was started at the end of 2015, but the basic setting and characters (specifically Weaver, the protagonist and Zeralidius, the villain) were conceived as far back as 2012. I didn't pay much attention to it during the following years since I was working on another unrelated project with some friends, but after things fell out with them I decided to revisit the concept and flesh it out.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Domino: Of course! If it wasn't obvious enough, the game is heavily influenced by Nintendo RPGs, especially the Paper Mario series. I always loved the simplistic approach towards the RPG formula those games have, and I also adore turn based combat with timed button presses. I think it keeps the player engaged. Graphically, Mother 3 was a big inspiration. The art style of that game just resonates so well with me, with that colorful palette and the black outlines that make the sprites stand out so much.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Domino: The biggest challenge was overcoming the limitations of the engine itself. I chose RPG Maker because it's very easy to pick up, as I'm mainly an artist and I don't know anything about coding. But as time passed, I noticed that even when using countless scripts I couldn't achieve the battle system I had in mind for my game, which required timed button presses and numerous character animations. So one day I decided to try making the battle system from scratch, using only common events and script calls, and it worked smoothly. In the end it felt extremely satisfying to see something like that work as intended, and by experimenting with script calls and variables I at least learned something about coding.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Domino: Like I said before, the game was initially conceived as a 2D platformer. Then, when I picked up the project again years later, I envisioned it as a bare-bones boss rush RPG with Weaver as the sole playable character. As I started adding more features like partners and equipment, I felt those would be wasted in a boss-only game and I finally decided to include random enemies. Since then the game hasn't changed much, but to this day I always find myself revisiting minor stuff like the design of some NPCs (and I should seriously stop doing that!).

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Domino: I prefer to work alone, as I am very picky about how characters and gameplay aspects are handled, but I still enjoy receiving feedback. I have a very close friend who doesn't actively work on the game, but always tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, and I find his help invaluable. So far I'm doing well one-man-armying the project, I will have to find a composer sooner or later though, since making music is the only thing I can't realistically do by myself.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Domino: Animating the character sprites and seeing them interact in battles is incredibly satisfying to me. Being an artist at heart I'd say spriting in general is my favorite aspect of game development. Another thing I absolutely adore is worldbuilding, researching the mythical beasts from all around the world and trying to incorporate them in the game by giving them my own spin.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Domino: I haven't played many RPG Maker games, but I did enjoy LISA the Painful and OneShot immensely. I was impressed by how far these two games in particular pushed the RPG Maker engine to its limit.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Domino: Self-inserting isn't something I like to do in games, so this is a hard question for me, but I think I can relate with Weaver, he mostly keeps to himself but he's always willing to help his friends and family.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Domino: Yes, I regret not having started working on this project earlier and wasting too much time during the planning phase.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Domino: Absolutely! I would definitely love to expand the game's lore further through comics and other side projects.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Domino: The sense of accomplishment of having completed and released a game! But deep down, the thing I'd love the most is having fans of my work and seeing my characters drawn by other artists.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Domino: The whole marketing part scares me. I really don't know how to promote my game, so getting it noticed is going to be pretty tough for me.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Domino: Oh man I am bad at this. I'd say... when starting, keep the scope of your game small. Make something that you, as a player, would enjoy playing. Don't try to follow trends and, most importantly, value every bit of constructive criticism, but remember that you can't always please everyone!

Question from last month’s featured dev @plueschkatzeart: How do you keep yourself motivated? *Domino: Sharing my progress on the blog for everyone to see is what keeps me motivated. Since I set myself the goal of posting at least once a week I've become more productive than ever. Of course, the positive response I receive from my followers also help. Another thing that encourages me to keep working on my game is seeing other developers succeed; that gives me hope and drives me to do my best!

We mods would like to thank Domino for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Folkloria if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpgmaker #pixel games #indie games #pixel art #rpg maker #rpg maker mv #gotm #game of the month #folkloria #folkloriarpg #interview #upcoming games #april #april 2018 #2018

4K notes · View notes

thefloatingstone · 6 years ago

Note

If we are still on the anime topic, what’s your opinion of slice of life anime?

SLICE OF LIFE ANIME IS MY JAAAAAAAAM!!!!

And I’m gonna have to put this under a cut too because I can never shut up so this ALSO turned out really long.

My friend likes to joke I like watching shows “that are about nothing” and like... SHE’S NOT WRONG???

However, I don’t ONLY like Slice of life anime, which is important I think. because if Slice of life was the ONLY anime I watched, it would get pretty boring pretty fast. However, if I watch a balanced amount of shows, anime or not, having the slice of life anime as an added spice to my media salad that I consume and makes it all the more delicious!!!! (that metaphor came out from nowhere and I’m not 100% sure what it means)

I also find, with slice of life anime, even if there isn’t an overarching plot, I still prefer it when the slice of life story has some kind of thread through it that leads it forward to something.

I’ll use some of my favourites as an example for what I mean. (and I know these are super obvious but just bare with me.)

First, I’m a big fan of Azumanga Daioh! the anime. And Azumanga is masically as slice of life as you get. With no overarching plot whatsoever and even conflicts and situations changing up every few episodes or so as we literally just follow the girls around and the various school-related activities they’re in.

But there IS a through line to the whole show, and despite no major dramatic events happening, there IS character development as the show goes on. Most noticeably in Sakaki (who happens to be my favourite character) who starts off shy, reserved, and embarrassed of her interests and hobbies, and by the end of the show, has not only opened up about the things she enjoys to her friends, but has actually managed to use them to direct her life as she realises what she wants to do after school is to become a vet.

The series also has a through-line in that it follows the girls through their 3 years of high school, and so, it has a logical place its working towards, namely, it is working towards Matric graduation at the end of the series. So we are not left feeling as if we are in a static state regarding the Slice of Life nature. We are not trapped in limbo, we are progressing forward towards something. And I feel it’s this detail that stops a slice of life story from being stagnant. Even if there is no plot, there is forward momentum.

The other slice of life I really like a lot is Lucky Star, which is similar in many ways to Azumanga except with even LESS plot to it. As often times entire episodes of Lucky Star are just a random collection of events that sometimes have absolutely no connection to each other at all.

Which I think, is why Lucky Star works, ironically, even though it does not have a clear through line like Azumanga. Because Lucky Star, just like Azumanga, is based on a series of yonkoma manga, or “4 panel manga”. a type of manga much more like Garfield or probably more accurately, Calvin and Hobbes, with singular jokes and punchlines, sometimes with a situation or topic spanning a handful of strips before moving on to the next thing.

This means Lucky Star has no TIME to start feeling stagnant and in limbo because its just moving from joke to joke and situation to situation without any of it to linger for too long.

As a result, it also means Lucky Star can focus on small slice of life details to devote and entire joke to them, which means many situations end up being MUCH MORE RELATEABLE on a real life level than an anime that had to worry about plot or character development.

Things like Konata’s ongoing struggle with sitting down and actually studying for once in her life. Or Miyuki’s problems regarding her love for sweets and candy but her penchant for getting cavities and her crippling fear of the dentist. Or the character Hiyori who is an up and coming Yuri manga artist and who is already making her own comic strips (inspired by her rather problematic “I ship it” personality regarding two of her classmates, however she acknowledges that she is bad for doing this and honestly feels guilty for it. But she channels it into inspiration for her stories with her own characters)

(Please enjoy the most relateable moment in all of anime)

youtube

(also it doesn’t hurt that Lucky Star has shockingly good animation for an anime, which further helps the “Real life” situations, even though the characters themselves are hyper stylised. As well as it being clear the animators have a lot of life drawing in their repertoire, especially concerning hand poses)

Also just a side note; Lucky Star is absolutely my sense of humour in a meta sense. I can’t find out who exactly because the internet is garbage, but literally EVERY SINGLE EXTRA in the show is voiced by the same Seiyuu. Who himself was a very famous voice actor at the time. and he voices EVERYONE of the incidental characters. Doesn’t matter if they’re young high school girls. He has to voice them. It’s incredible.

Not to mention the ending credits which is different for EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, starting at first with the main characters singing Kareoke to famous songs from other anime, including Dragon Ball Z and Doraemon, before becoming live action as the crew went out to film the same voice actor who does all the voices for the extras just walking around tourists spots and being a weirdo, to which they then added things in post production to make it even stupider.

youtube

Lucky Star was making shitposts before shitposting was even a thing. And they put it into an anime that aired on television.

Also I am sorry I know I’m rambling but please enjoy my favourite outro EVER.

youtube

(this is my entire sense of humour in a nutshell right here)

However, I do want to mention an example I had recently of what I felt was an extremely disappointing version of a slice of life manga in this case;

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō

Kaidashi as I’ll call it for short, is a post apocalyptic manga about a robot girl who runs a coffee shop out of her house for any travelers wandering through the area, after an unspecified disaster has caused the earth’s enviornment to drastically change, specifically with oceans slowly rising each year and swallowing what was in the past entire cities.

But the post apocalyptic nature of the setting is not what’s important in the manga. It’s what I’ve heard call a “soft apocalypse”. There are no roaming bandits, or mutant animals or radioactive fallout or none of that. It is merely a world which the ocean is slowly encroaching on the land, and the human population has plummeted in numbers. Meaning the communities that remain are small and close knit, with “larger towns” resembling normal functionality, with us not even being aware that what we see as a middle sized town is in fact in the setting, the largest gathering of humans living in one place.

The manga follows our main character, Alpha (the robot coffee shop owner) and her dealings with about 3 or 4 other characters. Specifically an old man and his grandson. The old man runs a petrol station nearby and has more or less taken Alpha under his wing as she is otherwise on her own, her house sitting on the outside of the small town they live in (which we never really see as a result)

I started out really enjoying this manga, which is why I ended up reading all 100+chapters of it. But as I got near about the last quarter of it, it really fell apart for me.

The manga had set up certain things which would crop up now and then throughout its run. Like where Apha’s owner had gone and why, or who really developed the Alpha series of robots, or why Alpha has a strange quality to her that seems to ground other robots she meets into becoming more human, or why she dreams about fish so often, or who the strange immortal creature who lives by the waterway is. It sets up all these interesting ideas and mysteries as we follow Alpha in her day to day life... and by the end of the manga answers NONE of them. Not even one.

On top of this, whereas the manga started following Alpha with a very clear situation following upon situation, Her getting struck by lightning one evening and needing to be repaired by a local doctor, her reluctance to use her camera to take photos because she only has so much film she can use etc, and suddenly the timeline between events stops being a matter of days or at most a month, and suddenly YEARS are just jumped over. Turning the last quarter of the manga in a disorientating mess where we’re never quite sure WHEN we are, or what’s happened in the YEARS we apparently skipped over. Or where ANY of the characters now are because it’s suddenly 15 years later and somehow now characters are in a completely different place in their lives???

Not to mention the art started degrading rather shockingly by the end of the manga. It had slowly been turning to a more streamlined style as the chapters went on (the manga ran for 12 years) however, near the end there was a very jarring and sudden downgrade in quality. Robbing the manga of all its life and making the characters look flat and bland and unrecogniseable compared to where they use to be.

It just felt, overall, like the mangaka completely lost interest in his own story.

Art for Chapter 5

Art for chapter 139

It really soured my entire perception of the story as a whole. Because although I was reading it as a slice of life story, the story itself had presented situations and characters and questions I did not ASK it to have. But then at the end, it did not follow through on one single thing it set up. Coupled with the degrading art quality, AND the sudden fractured timeline where I had no idea when anything was happening any more, it felt as if every part of this story which had so much care and love put into it, was now just trying its best to get itself over with already. Because it had completely lost interest in itself, and was just trying to get to SOME feeling of conclusion so it could end, without taking time or effort to get there naturally.

I was supremely disappointed by what had started out as a very enjoyable series.

There are 2 OVAs adapted from the manga, one in 1998, and one in 2002. ANd just from looking at screenshots and gifs I can tell which one is the better of the two

And maybe the 90s OVA will do wonders for the story, without having to worry about the ending that I consider to be broken. And I can fully see how the slice of life nature of the show would be wonderfully suited to an anime adaptation, given that it gives the same care and attention to its real life honesty the first 3/4 of the manga did.

Because that’s what a slice of life story boils down to; How accurately it can capture the honesty of real life situations and experiences. Even in post apocalyptic settings. The setting is not important. What’s important is how well a slice of life story can portray actions, emotions and experiences we take for granted in real life. Things we do every day or things we have encountered and didn’t really think about as being anything special.

Slice of life stories’ strength lies in their ability to pump effort and care into bringing the mundane to life through art, and thereby shining a light on these taken for granted experiences, and showing it in a way that turns it into art. Which, in turn, then helps us look at our own realities a little closer, and we gain a deeper appreciation for our own lives and the every day experiences.

Even though his movies all have plots, Miyazaki does this a lot, in his glorification of the everyday mundane. Especially with food. But in other things as well. All the real world details he puts into his films, which is why they seem to breathe with so much life, and why I often find “ex Ghibli animators”, despite perhaps having the technical skill, are still not able to capture the living breathing feeling Myazaki and Takahata movies have to them. They understand what makes a Ghibli story and Ghibli characters, but they don’t understand what makes a Ghibli FILM.

Anyway this is an obscenely long post AGAIN. But that’s I guess “my opinion on Slice of Life anime”

#C-Puff answers #anime #Slice of Life #long post #image heavy #gif warning #video #Anonymous

40 notes · View notes

fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

https://fashion-trendin.com/kieran-culkins-shirt-is-off/

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

When Kieran Culkin first started reading the script for “Succession,” he wondered whether it had been sent to the wrong person. The HBO powers that be originally thought he’d be a good fit for the character of Greg, a bumbling nitwit who gets high in his first scene and spends the rest of the first season failing to sidle his way up the ladder of a massive media and entertainment conglomerate owned by his great-uncle, Logan Roy.

Almost from Greg’s first line, Culkin knew he was wrong for the part. “He’s already a lot younger than I am, and just the voice ― I was, like, this is not me. I am not right for this.”

When I met Culkin at a small restaurant in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan last Monday, it was just as clear to me as it was to him that he’s too old to play a character like Greg. But something in the Roy family’s dark saga held Culkin’s attention anyway. He said he kept reading the script, which follows the foibles of the billionaire Roy clan as its individual members vie for power within. A few pages later, Logan’s overconfident third son, Roman, appears, led into a meeting by a man hired explicitly to burn sage.

“Hey, hey, motherfuckers!” Roman proclaims to a room full of his father’s business associates.

“And I was, like, ‘Oh, who’s this fucking guy?’” Culkin said.

Culkin eventually got the part of Roman, an incompetent and lazy man-child who believes he wholly deserves the title of chief operating officer, even though he has little interest in doing any of the work that comes with it. Among the many nefarious faces that make up Logan’s Waystar Royco empire, Roman stands out as perhaps its most cynical ― a ratings-obsessed media executive motivated solely by profit. At one point, in his interpretation of corporate disruption, he takes off his shirt in a meeting, flexing and joyfully screaming “Blood!” at the thought of layoffs. During another, he gleefully tells his sister about a new viral video that is “evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting, liberal, metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” To Roman, nothing could be better.

Culkin can’t say exactly what drew him to the morally depraved heir, described by his father as a “moron” and his brother as a “walking fucking lawsuit.” But it’s not hard to imagine some small part of Culkin was intrigued by the idea of playing such a sneering member of a media empire.

After all, Culkin’s distaste for the tabloid industry is beyond well-established. (“No matter what’s written there, it’s a total lie, even the person’s name, lie, lie, lie, lie, everything’s a lie,” he once told New York Magazine.)

But let’s not lump Culkin into that hyperpartisan Level 10 “FAKE NEWS” category of 2018 American paranoia. Mostly because when he told me “Now it’s a thing, ‘fake news,’” and I said, jokingly, “Fake news. You’re a believer,” he got nervous and pushed out a quick “no,” immediately realizing the millions of different ways such a quote could be aggregated, recirculated, quoted out of context and otherwise misinterpreted. You can almost see it now, can’t you? “Kieran Culkin Joins the Chorus: Media Is ‘Fake News.’”

Culkin’s distrust is of a more justifiable form, born out of a lifetime of his surname showing up in headline-grabbing tabloid fodder. From the moment his parents, Kit “The father from hell” Culkin and Patricia Brentrup, entered into an ugly, obsessively covered custody battle to when the National Enquirer proclaimed his eternally famous brother, Macaulay, had “6 Months to Live” in 2012 (he’s still alive), Culkin’s last name has served as a way to move and make paper ― the most intimate moments of his life repackaged as factually questionable entertainment content to sell ads against.

Ron Galella via Getty Images

Macaulay and Kieran Culkin at the fifth annual American Comedy Awards back in 1991, just months after the release of the blockbuster hit “Home Alone.”

“There are things that are out there in the world as fact because it was written in print that are just completely false. My brother did not divorce his parents. They did not fight over his money,” he said. “But that’s out in the world as fact.

“I learned at a very young age to be, like, ‘Oh, I get it: It’s bullshit,’ shit that’s written in print.”

In person, Culkin ticks most of the boxes of adulthood: In his 30s. Takes his coffee black. Enjoys talking about his favorite East Village dives. Married five years. Nice watch. Clothes that fit. Hair slicked around his head just so. Like Roman, Culkin drops a “fuck” or “shit” every ninth word or so, as when he said to me, “Hold on, I’m going to eat the fuck out of these pickles. You say something for a minute, ’cause I’ve got a mouth full of shit.”

But no matter how many fucks he lets out ― and by my count, he let out around 25 over 40 minutes ― Culkin remains stuck with a membership to the official Former Child Actors club. Macaulay, or Mac, if you’re in the know, was always the main draw ― history’s most famous kid actor without a drink named after him. But Kieran was there too, in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.” He found himself on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” before the age of 10, and schmoozed with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” before his voice dropped.

Which is probably why ― and here I’m guessing ― Culkin might have been a bit annoyed when HBO suggested he audition for Greg.

But after 10 episodes of watching Culkin-as-Roman take part in his family’s imperious game of human chess, it’s hard to imagine the actor playing anyone else. If Jeremy Strong ― who plays Kendall, Logan’s cocaine-addicted second son ― is the show’s tragic star, Culkin is its nervous energy. There’s something in the way he pushes out a phrase like “What a pathetic beta cuck,” or belittles doctors and waiters alike.

What sealed Culkin’s interest in his character came in the first episode during a family softball game, when Roman points to a kid on the sidelines, the son of the site’s groundskeeper. Everyone grows quiet as Roman whips out his checkbook and starts writing a check for $1 million. Hit a home run in their game, Roman tells the boy, and the money is his. For the child and his family, it’s a potentially life-changing moment. For Roman, the child is nothing but a momentary subhuman toy to mess with and cast aside. After the child is tagged out at home, Roman can’t control his laughter. “I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you,” he says as he tears up the check. It is a degrading, truly awful moment of television.

“Oh, I get it,” Culkin remembered thinking, “he’s a fuck face.”

When Culkin filmed the scene, he embodied evil, letting out a cackle so cruel it sets the show’s moral compass for the remaining season. Culkin himself is not sure where his ability to play somebody like that came from.

“Being able to connect to some degree, not in a positive way, with these characters is odd to me because I don’t know the multimillionaires, I don’t know the super-rich, yet I know assholes like that,” he said. “I can’t even quite specifically pick out who I know that is exactly like that, but it’s weird that you can still, for me, relate.”

“Succession” suffered from a slow start, only truly hitting its stride around Episode 6, when Kendall leads the board in a tense vote of no confidence against Logan, who’s recently suffered a stroke, unleashing a sequence of events within the Roy family that are both comical and horrifying.

Culkin owns up to that. “The first three episodes to me, it’s not like they’re unwatchable,” he said, “but it’s not quite the show yet.”

Which, according to him, is fine. Some shows don’t grab you on first watch, and one in particular in his opinion: “I probably shouldn’t even say this on record. The example I have is actually [the British comedy] ‘Peep Show,’” which was coincidentally also developed by “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

But the first season of “Succession” gained enough momentum before concluding Sunday evening for HBO to pick it up for another season ― making this the first time Culkin has ever been part of a television show that made it to Season 2, according to his IMDB page, a small victory in his more than two decades on-screen.

Culkin’s most acclaimed role came in 2002, when he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in “Igby Goes Down.” But that time the victory led to a full-blown existential crisis.

United Artists via Getty Images

Claire Danes and Kieran Culkin talk at a coffee shop for a scene from “Igby Goes Down.” Culkin entered an existential crisis after the film and took a breaking from acting.

“[I] found myself at the age of 20 with a career I never chose, [and I] freaked out,” Culkin said. “I think everybody around that age has some sort of crisis. Usually, it’s like a straight-up ‘Oh, I don’t know what I want to do.’ Mine is, ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life, yet here I am doing it.’”

Culkin took a break before eventually returning to acting, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “I was just sort of doing it in the meantime,” he says now. He took parts in movies like “Lymelife” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Did two episodes of “Fargo.” Performed multiple versions of a stage play he loved, Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth.” In 2014, he was still apprehensive. “I often think about getting out of this job, but I’m terrified that there’s nothing else,” he told The Daily Beast.

Since then, Culkin said, something clicked. He remembered coming home from work one day and thinking, “Oh, I think I’m actually enjoying this.”

“I think I know what I want to do now,” he said to himself. “I think I should do this.”

Now deep into his 30s, Culkin has established himself as a stronger and more serious actor than the “essentially retired” Macaulay ever did. And in Roman, Culkin has stumbled upon something as special as it is sinister. TV Guide described Roman as “the very definition of the hate-f―k,” but he’s probably more accurately categorized as sexual overcompensation personified. He tells his brother that his “face is drowning in pussy,” despite the fact that his various partners claim he rarely wants to have sex. He masturbates to his office view of New York City while a string of emails piles up behind him. (“It’s to gain some sort of control,” Culkin surmised.)

More interesting than his sex life, though, is Roman’s complex relationship with his manipulative and emotionally abusive father. While most people want to prove their competence to the people around them, “Roman, for the most part, doesn’t give a fuck about that,” Culkin said, adding, “If his girlfriend says, ‘No, but you did a great job,’ it’s like: ‘Fuck you. Don’t patronize me.’” What he wants, Culkin said, is his dad’s approval: “That’s the only person that can get him, the only person that can look at him and make him nervous.”

Logan does exactly that when Roman prepares to stand against the tycoon in the vote of no confidence. With his father staring down at him, Roman can only muster a meek “maybe” before he slouches into his chair like an admonished child and votes with his father. Thanks to Roman, Logan lives to fight another day atop his dynasty, while Kendall is forced, temporarily, to surrender.

Earlier, in Episode 2, Roman finds himself watching as the world repackages his family’s tragedy into viral content. He and his family are huddled together in a New York hospital, awaiting information about their famous father’s deteriorating health post-stroke, like characters in a Gothic novel, when Roman starts scrolling through Twitter. His sister, Shiv, asks what people are saying.

“Eh, rumors, you know,” Roman replies matter-of-factly. “Some of Twitter says he’s dead ― and also a good deal of rejoicing at our father’s potential demise.” He notices a short video of the “South Park” kids yelling, “Oh my God, we’ve killed Logan! We’re bastards!” and asks an employee to “find out who these fuckers are and report them or screen grab their shit.”

When Culkin’s own father was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in 2014, TMZ, The Daily Mail, Perez Hilton all repackaged the tragedy as well. The National Enquirer pounced, too, running a headline that read, “Macaulay Culkin Rejects Dying Dad: ‘Rot in Hell!’” But unlike Roman, Culkin wouldn’t have been sifting through Twitter. “That would never be something that I would do willingly,” he says of social media more generally. “Because already at a young age, there was a public perception of me.”

Francis Apesteguy via Getty Images

Kit Culkin, Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin and Patricia Bretnup pose for a photo one month after the release of “Home Alone.” The father is now estranged from his children.

Like Roman, however, Culkin and his siblings have a less than ideal relationship with his father. By all accounts, they have been mostly if not entirely estranged from Kit ever since their mother won custody of the children in the 1990s. Patricia, the mother, claimed during the custody battle that Kit had been abusive, and Culkin’s brother Macaulay has continued to do so throughout his life.

“He was a bad man,” Macaulay Culkin told comedian Marc Maron earlier this year.

When I asked Kieran Culkin if he has spoken with his father recently, he answered with two no’s so quickly that I couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow-up question, only saying, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, “Fuck ’em.”

“Fuck ’em,” Culkin agreed. “I’ll go on record: Yeah, fuck ’em.”

After a lifetime of his last name being splattered across the front pages of tabloids, Culkin seemed ready to move on from the controversies that have dogged him since he was a child actor with moppy hair and oversized clothes. That’s not him anymore.

What we’re looking at instead is Kieran Culkin, age 35 ― no longer a Greg and fully embracing life as Roman.

6 notes · View notes

anothergracekellyblog · 7 years ago

Photo

PLAYBOY magazine, January 1966

- Interview with Princess Grace

Photos by Larry Fried (Taken in 1963 in Philadelphia.)

Click Keep reading for a full transcription of the original published interview.

PLAYBOY interview: Princess Grace - A Candid Conversation with the Regal Consort of Monaco’s Prince Rainier

Ten years ago, in an MGM picture called “The Swan,” Alec Guinness played the courtly prince of a fairy-tale kingdom who marries a beautiful commoner. Five days after its premiere, the movie's improbable cliché of the storyline was re-enacted in real life: Guinness costar, a cool, blue-eyed blonde named Grace Kelly, gave up her flourishing film career to become the consort of the absolute monarch of the principality of Monaco, a Graustarkian 390-acre realm half the size of New York's Central Park. Perched scenically on the Côte d'Azur between Nice and the Italian Riviera, bypassed by the tide of world events during most of its eight-century history, tiny Monaco - with its opulent Casino, emerald harbor and white beaches - had become in recent decades an elegantly antiquated playground for the diminishing ranks of international café society. But when Prince Rainier III announced his storybook betrothal to a regnant queen of Hollywood, the diminutive dominion found itself basking suddenly in the unfamiliar glare of worldwide publicity. Its huge palace, once described by Alfred Hitchcock as “a run-down post office,” was redecorated for the royal wedding; the pitted streets of Monte Carlo were patched and festooned with bunting; and hundreds of newsmen, photographers, TV camera crews and rubbernecking tourists descended on Monaco to watch, along with the principality's 27,000 inhabitants, as the sole surviving scion of the ancient House of Grimaldi, a holder of 139 titles, bestowed a new one on his 26-year-old bride from Philadelphia: Her Most Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco.

It was to be her most demanding role but one for which she might almost be said to have been typecast, by nature as well as by MGM. Though not a blueblood - her Irish father, despite a self-made $18,000,000 fortune, had begun his contracting career as a lowly bricklayer - she was born with a patrician profile and a demure demeanor that gentle rearing and genteel schooling refined into a well-bred bearing as finely honed as any Main Line debutante's. Refusing to content herself, like so many of her finishing-school mates, with the postgraduate role of social butterfly, she set out for New York at 17 - determined to “find herself” - and signed up for a two-year curriculum at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts, earning her tuition money with part-time photographic modeling for fashion and cosmetic ads.

Before long she was appearing regularly, if only in walk-ons and bit parts, in live TV dramas - making little money and less impact on the reviewers, but gaining invaluable experience for the bigger and better roles she coveted. They were soon to come. Longing to taste the special excitement of performing before a live audience - but mostly to remain solvent during the rerun season - she deserted the tube and the Great White Way for a cross-country stint on the summer-stock circuit. Graduating to supporting parts, Grace Kelly began to be mentioned, and sometimes even applauded, by the critics. Then, just before she turned 20, came an early birthday present: a featured role on Broadway opposite Raymond Massey in Strindberg's “The Father.” Heartbreakingly, for her, the play folded after only two months; but Grace didn't have long to grieve, for her performance had been seen and appreciated by a man who, though he didn't know it then, was about to rechart the entire course of her life in ways that a Hollywood hack would have dismissed as too wildly improbable a plotline even for a children's fairy tale. The man was an executive for 20th Century-Fox with a firm, if less than thrilling, offer of a very minor speaking part in a B suspense picture called “Fourteen Hours.” Though she wasn't enchanted by the thought of abandoning the intellectual ferment of theatrical Manhattan for the so-called creative Sahara of Southern California, she decided to accept the role; she could always act and run, she reasoned. She went to Hollywood and made the movie in 1951, but, like so many other screen-o-phobic New York stage-folk lured west for a single film, she found herself staying on, and on - at first just for one more picture, a meatier part, this one as the long-suffering Quaker wife of Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” When this classic Western turned out to be not only a box-office smash but also a resounding critical success, Grace was transfigured almost overnight into a burgeoning movie star, and before you could say “hot property,” the 22-year-old Irish bricklayer's daughter was signed to a fat seven year contract with MGM.

After one last futile fling at the Broadway stage - in a turkey ironically entitled “To Be Continued,” which wasn't - she returned to Hollywood determined to establish her credentials as a screen actress. She did so in her next film, winning an Oscar nomination in 1953 for her subtly modulated performance in “Mogambo” as the provocative hypotenuse of a triangle between a predatory white hunter (Clark Gable) and her ineffectual husband on an African safari. Next came a pair of Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, both in 1954: “Dial M for Murder,” in which she played the intended victim of a homicidal husband (Ray Milland); and “Rear Window,” in which she flirted with death yet again, this time at the hands of a psychotic wife-dismemberer, as James Stewart's intrepid girlfriend and partner in crime detection. “The charismatic combination of freshness, ladylike virtue and underlying sex appeal which she exudes with such style and self-assurance,” as one critic described it, had already become her trademark for millions of movie fans.

In her very next film, however, as if to confound their expectations - and those of reviewers who had become fond of saying about her things like, “Though Miss Kelly has little to do but look lovely, she does it with aristocratic aplomb,” - she played the dowdy, downbeat title role in “The Country Girl.” Her depressingly believable performance won her an Academy Award as the best actress of 1954. Not content to rest on her well-earned laurels and wait for a good script, she made a fourth picture that year: “Green Fire,” a steamy jungle potboiler that added little luster to her stardom. In it, reverting to stereotype as a coolly beautiful but headstrong Brazilian coffee plantation owner, she fought to transcend the banality of the scenario no less valiantly than to tame the wilderness - unfortunately with less success. In “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” she fared only slightly better as the demure, dutiful, quietly courageous wife of a Korea jet pilot (William Holden) who was shot down over enemy lines. “High Society," her first and only musical comedy, found her cast as a two-dimensional socialite type opposite Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Though her best lines were in her profile, she displayed an engaging comic flair that spurred producers to begin offering her light-comedy roles as well as straight dramatic parts.

But she never got the chance to consider either, for later that same year, on a trip to Europe, stopping off in Monaco on a picture-taking publicity session for Paris Match, she was taken to the palace and introduced, as a diplomatic courtesy, to Prince Rainier. Despite gushing fan-magazine reports to the contrary, no romantic sparks flew at this first brief meeting, though they liked each other - well enough to date two or three times before her return to Hollywood. On a state visit to the U. S. a few months later, however, the Prince was a house guest at the Kelly home in Philadelphia, and a few weeks after that their engagement was announced. Then came “The Swan,” her swan song for the screen, and finally the klieg-lit carnival of the rογal wedding.

In the decade since that historic day, both Hollywood and Philadelphia have been left far behind. She took naturally and happily to the role of wife and mother - bearing her husband three children, including an all-important heir, seven-year-old Prince Albert. But her adjustment has been slow and difficult to the elaborate protocol and politesse of princesshood, to the myriad diplomatic burdens and social constraints of her official role as consort, to the parochial atmosphere and attitudes of an old-fashioned European town after a lifetime in the cosmopolitan U.S., and to the impossibility of living like an ordinary citizen, or even like an ordinary ex-movie star. But after ten years in the role - almost interrupted in 1962 by a brief flirtation with the idea of returning to films for a one-shot as the star of Hitchcock's “Marnie,” a scheme vetoed at the last minute by her husband - friends say she seems, at 36, to have come to terms with her past and present, to have accepted finally the burdens and sacrifices of her new life, to have acquired a new poise, a quiet self-assurance which enables her not only to meet but to relish her royal responsibilities.

Among them is the task of winnowing through the hundreds of interview requests with which she's inundated from all over the world. Her crowded schedule of state duties and Monegasque charity work permits her to accept only a handful of them in the course of a year. PLAYBOY's is one of the few to which she has consented in recent months. Through her appointments secretary, we were advised that Princess Grace would expect us to call on her at the palace in the late afternoon on a date about one month hence - her earliest uncommitted time - when she would be able to spare us the hours between tea and cocktails. Arriving at the appointed time, we were ushered into a lavish, high-ceilinged drawing room where we found the Princess - behind horn-rimmed glasses - poring over her correspondence at an antique escritoire. Looking up as we entered, she removed her horn rims, smiled impersonally, rose from her chair, greeted us and invited us to take a seat. After a few minutes of polite amenities, her veneer of diplomatic reserve began to dissolve when we discovered that we shared mutual friends in the New York theater. Ice duly broken, we turned on the tape machine and began the interview.

PLAYBOY: What are your duties and obligations as Monaco's Princess?

PRINCESS GRACE: My first duty is as wife and mother to my children. I also have many official duties: I'm president of the Monegasque Red Cross, and the principality is so small that I am really involved in most of the social and charitable work here as far as children and old people are concerned. I'm also honorary president of the girl scouts, and I'm building a new nursery for children. I'm also interested in promoting handwork by artisans, particularly local crafts such as ceramics, pottery and hand weaving. Recently I opened a foundation which will try to promote handicraft. I want to give our artisans the opportunity to show their work.

PLAYBOY: Would you describe a day at the palace?

PRINCESS GRACE: Every day is so different. I rise fairly early. Often I'll spend the whole day in the office, see my mail, entertain visitors in the afternoon. Monday mornings I'm concerned with problems of the household, with what receptions are being held that week. We have lunch with our children as often as possible. Three afternoons a week I receive people who have requested audiences for one reason or another. I'm also busy with plans for the celebration of this year's centenary of Monte Carlo, which was created by Prince Charles, my husband's great-great-grandfather.

PLAYBOY: What is the origin of Prince Rainier's family tree?

PRINCESS GRACE: The House of Monaco is that of the Grimaldi family, whose history is linked with the principality. It came into being in Genoa, where the first member of historical note, Otto Canella, was born around the 11th Century. The descendants of Otto took as their family name the first name of Otto's youngest son, Grimaldo, who distinguished himself as ambassador to Frederick Barbarossa and Manuel Comnenus, emperor of Byzantium. At the end of the 13th Century, the struggles between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, political factions in Genoa, forced the Grimaldis into exile, and they took refuge in Provence. François Grimaldi, disguised in a monk's robe, succeeded in infiltrating a group of his partisans into the fortress of Monaco, which they took by surprise. Thus did the Grimaldi family retake possession of the place in which they were to found a dynasty. The coat of arms of this line of princes - two monks brandishing swords - perpetuates the memory of this event. During the last hundred years, the rulers have been Prince Charles III, Albert I and Louis II. The destiny of the principality has been in the hands of Prince Rainier III, my husband, since 1949.

PLAYBOY: Who introduced you to your husband? Was there a matchmaker of any sort?

PRINCESS GRACE: Pierre Galante of the French magazine Paris Match was the one who introduced me to the Prince.

PLAYBOY: Do you believe in the institution of matchmaking?

PRINCESS GRACE: It depends on the individual. I believe in the timing of people meeting; if I had met the Prince ten years before I met him, it would not have had the same effect. When we met we were both ready to get married. It just happened that way.

PLAYBOY: Your marriage has been described as a “fairy-tale romance.” Has it ever seemed that way to you?

PRINCESS GRACE: I've never seen anything fairytale-ish about it, no.

PLAYBOY: What was the most unusual gift you received for your wedding?

PRINCESS GRACE: We received everything from a hundred chickens to a lion and a bear. The chickens are gone, but the lion and the bear are still here in the Prince's zoo.

PLAYBOY: Did you feel any animosity toward those royal families who didn't attend the wedding?

PRINCESS GRACE: It made no difference to me. I didn't know them before.

PLAYBOY: With which of the European royal families are you friendly?

PRINCESS GRACE: We're very friendly with the queen of Spain, who is the godmother of our little boy. We're also friendly with the Greek and Rumanian royal families.

PLAYBOY: How long did it take you to get used to royal life in Monaco?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, it was quite a change; I had always lived in big cities. I had also spent nearly ten years acting; it was quite a change from an actor's life to civilian life, so to speak. But the biggest change was being married. This was the biggest adjustment. There were so many changes to be made all at once.

PLAYBOY: Do you miss the United States?

PRINCESS GRACE: I miss a lot about the United States. Most of all, I miss my family.

PLAYBOY: Has your relationship with your family changed since you became a princess?

PRINCESS GRACE: They probably tease me a little bit more than they used to. But other than that, nothing has changed. We're always teasing one another, mostly my sisters and brother. But I don't get to see them often enough. I also miss lots of my friends back in the U. S. And I miss a certain American attitude toward things. I enjoy my life here very much, but there is quite a different outlook and a different approach to life in Europe. At times I get homesick for the American approach, which is more direct, a little easier, perhaps.

PLAYBOY: Since you aren't a native-born Monegasque, are you regarded by any of your subjects as a foreigner or an outsider?

PRINCESS GRACE: Oh yes, certainly, very much so. People were terribly sweet and wonderful to me when I arrived and greeted me most warmly and affectionately, but there are certain people who still consider me a foreigner. When I go to New York, headwaiters will speak French to me, and when I'm in Europe, they will speak English.

PLAYBOY: Are you fluent in French?

PRINCESS GRACE: I'm still working at it.

PLAYBOY: As a girl born in Philadelphia who has lived in New York and Hollywood, don't you find Monaco at times a bit too small and parochial?

PRINCESS GRACE: It does seem small, yes. It is a very small town and, like all small towns, there is often a small-town attitude; one is not as free as in a big town. In my position here, everyone knows what I do at every moment.

PLAYBOY: Does this make you uncomfortable?

PRINCESS GRACE: It's been a little difficult for me to get used to. But I can come and go about Monaco more or less as I like, without inconvenience - except in the summertime, when a great many tourists and visitors come here. If I take a walk, I'll have 50 or 100 of them trailing me, taking pictures and asking for autographs.

PLAYBOY: Have you ever wished you could be just plain Grace Kelly again?

PRINCESS GRACE: I have no interest in going back. My life now is too full. I was very “plain” back in Philadelphia; I don't think I'd like to go back to that again. Before my marriage, I was very much a 20th Century modern young woman. I was very independent, which I enjoyed very much. But too much independence for a woman I don't think brings so much happiness.

PLAYBOY: If your daughter wanted to be a movie star, would you object?

PRINCESS GRACE: I think so, yes - although her father would object to it before I could. It isn't the life one would choose for one's daughter. I know my mother didn't choose it for me. When I was in the theater, I longed only to be on the stage. I got into films afterward.

PLAYBOY: Do you ever regret giving up your film career?

PRINCESS GRACE: No, I was only sorry to stop just when I was beginning to learn what it was all about. But acting is a wonderful career and I do miss it at times. But my life now is much fuller in every sense.

PLAYBOY: Do you miss Hollywood?

PRINCESS GRACE: No, I don't. I'd like to see some of my friends there, but as a city, I don't miss it at all.

PLAYBOY: Do you still receive fan mail from the U.S.?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes, I get quite a bit. I get many requests for pictures, autographs, and so forth and I fulfill them as best I can.

PLAYBOY: Do you still get movie offers?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes.

PLAYBOY: Are you ever tempted to accept any of them?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, I love acting, and certainly I would love to continue. But one has to choose in life. When I was acting, I wasn't a very happy person. It isn't much fun to have success and no one to share it with. Right now I have a very full and happy life. Much too full and much too busy. I don't have time for all the things I would like to do.

PLAYBOY: Would your husband oppose you resuming an acting career?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes, because, first of all, it would be very difficult. I wouldn't have the time. I have three children. I have the Red Cross and many other activities. I just would never be able to get three months together to be able to do a picture.

PLAYBOY: Even if it were shot in Monaco?

PRINCESS GRACE: How can I be Princess in the palace and run down to the set and make a film in Monaco? It's not possible.

PLAYBOY: Do your children know that their mother was a famous movie star?

PRINCESS GRACE: They've seen some of my pictures. They were very pleased and excited about it. They saw High Noon and To Catch a Thief.

PLAYBOY: Do you plan to have any more children?

PRINCESS GRACE: I don't know. I have three now, which is quite a nice number. It would be nice to have more, but I don't know.

PLAYBOY: How do you feel about birth control?

PRINCESS GRACE: As a Catholic, I have mixed viewpoints about it. Certainly something will have to be done about it. It's a problem that needs studying, and is being studied by the Catholic Church, very wisely. But I don't think it's something one can say arbitrarily should or shouldn't be practiced; it should be left to people to decide for themselves. As adult human beings, we should be able to decide such a personal thing for ourselves.

PLAYBOY: Do you think that birth control information should be made available to the general public?

PRINCESS GRACE: Definitely.

PLAYBOY: Do you favor the use of birth control pills?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, the pill does not exist in France, because it is a Catholic country; these problems are hardly even discussed. But I know from English people and my American friends that the pill is being used increasingly by people who can afford to have children. The big problem is for the ignorant masses of people who can't afford to. This is the problem.

PLAYBOY: Do you foresee a change in Vatican policy toward birth control?

PRINCESS GRACE: I don't know, but I hope something will be done for the benefit of the many who really need it.

PLAYBOY: Have you met Pope Paul?

PRINCESS GRACE: No, but I met Pope John. He was a charming man, a wonderful, warm human being, full of goodness.

PLAYBOY: Do you think that Pope Paul continues the spirit of liberal reform and brotherhood enunciated by John in his Pacem in Terris?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes, I do. I thought the Pope's visit to New York a thrilling and wonderful gesture; I hope and pray that mankind can heed his demand for peace. And I certainly feel that he champions both freedom of religion and tolerance of other faiths.

PLAYBOY: Do you know General de Gaulle?

PRINCESS GRACE: I've met the general on several occasions. He is a great man. I admire him very much.

PLAYBOY: How do you feel about De Gaulle's hostility toward the United States?

PRINCESS GRACE: I am naturally saddened by General de Gaulle's attitude toward the U.S. and the strong feeling of anti-Americanism that exists in France.

PLAYBOY: How do you account for it?

PRINCESS GRACE: These misunderstandings happen because of so many little things, sometimes insignificant ones. For the most part, Frenchmen who have been to the U.S. like Americans; but these are few, alas. Most Frenchmen know Americans only from those they see in Europe; and many people, when they travel, behave differently than they do when they're at home. But this pertains to everyone, not only to Americans. As a matter of fact, I find the behavior of other nationalities far more tiresome abroad than that of American tourists. I think Americans are misunderstood. For example, in America one tries to save time. You cut your telephone conversations short because time is short and you think you're doing someone a favor if you save him time. The French don't understand this. The more time you can give them, the more you can talk to them, the more flattering it is. Americans are perhaps a little more direct and abrupt, and the French mistake this for rudeness.

PLAYBOY: Apart from his attitude toward America, do you think De Gaulle has been a good president?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes, I think De Gaulle has done a great deal for France and for the Frenchman, and I do not think there can be a more difficult people to govern. Everyone in France is deeply concerned as to what will happen after De Gaulle. It is a tremendous problem. For one thing, Europeans are reluctant to give responsibility to young men; and for another, the Communists in France are much too well organized to suit me.

PLAYBOY: Do you know President Johnson?

PRINCESS GRACE: I've met him briefly.

PLAYBOY: What do you think of him?

PRINCESS GRACE: He's a very warm person with a very outgoing personality, and I think he's a very capable executive. But I don't always agree with American foreign policy, so it's difficult for me to comment too much.

PLAYBOY: What, in particular, don't you agree with?

PRINCESS GRACE: Vietnam. The U.S. has made some bad errors there, to my way of thinking. I think the Americans were very fooled by Madame Nhu. The newspapers made her out to be a wicked “Dragon Lady,” which maybe she was. But was she any worse than those who have followed? And the fact that the Buddhists were infiltrated with Communists did not seem to have an effect on the American attitude toward them. And the American role in the coup d'état there was shocking. So many mistakes have been committed. How does one go back and undo them?

PLAYBOY: If you were in the United States today, would you have joined the students, professors and others who are advocating that the U. S. pull out of Vietnam?

PRINCESS GRACE: I would have to know more about their motives. What can the Americans actually do in Vietnam? At this point, they can't just pull out and go away.

PLAYBOY: Then you think that the U.S. has a right to be there?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, someone has to be there.

PLAYBOY: Do you feel that the American policy of escalation in Vietnam is justified? Will it help bring the Vietcong to the conference table?

PRINCESS GRACE: I don't know. Things are in such a bad way now that I don't know how a satisfactory solution can be found. I leave that to bigger brains than mine.

PLAYBOY: Your neighbor, France, favors the admission of Red China to the UN. Do you?

PRINCESS GRACE: I feel it is difficult to ignore a nation of 700,000,000 people, yet one cannot admit them on their terms. I am only bewildered as to why Red China would like to be accepted into an organization dedicated to peace when they want war so badly.

PLAYBOY: Are you in favor of Western trade relations with Red China - or with any other Communist countries?

PRINCESS GRACE: No.

PLAYBOY: The U.S. has been criticized at various times for its support of dictatorial regimes - such as that of Franco Spain - simply because they are anti-Communist. What are your feelings?

PRINCESS GRACE: Some countries at certain times need dictatorships. As for Franco, I feel he has done a lot for Spain and its people.

PLAYBOY: Are you deeply and personally interested in international politics?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes and no. I sort of get disgusted. I can go along only so far. People do such foolish things and then I lose interest.

PLAYBOY: Then let's turn to Monegasque affairs. What are the facts behind your husband's much-publicized conflict with Aristotle Onassis?

PRINCESS GRACE: My husband thinks that Onassis does not do enough for the development of Monte Carlo.

PLAYBOY: You mean that he doesn't invest enough in Monaco?

PRINCESS GRACE: That's right. I don't think that Mr. Onassis' investment in the Société des Bains de Mer of Monte Carlo is of very great importance to his overall empire. He has so many more and bigger investments than Monte Carlo. I feel that his ownership of the majority of shares, and therefore a controlling interest, in the Casino of Monte Carlo has been more for his own amusement than a serious business affair. It's hard for someone to remain deeply concerned with something that was once fun but now gives him problems.

PLAYBOY: We understand Onassis also opposes Prince Rainier's plan to “popularize” Monte Carlo to attract the tourist trade. What do these plans involve?

PRINCESS GRACE: There are interesting plans to modernize certain parts of the principality, but Monte Carlo should never and could never be another St. Tropez; the two places are too different and each one has its particular charm. Monte Carlo must remain elegant and a little old-fashioned. Everyone is not of my opinion, unfortunately. We often have to fight to try to keep many people who are eager for a fast dollar from cheapening the tone of Monte Carlo. It is a hard fight.

PLAYBOY: Are you on speaking terms with Onassis?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes. I haven't seen him in several months, though.

PLAYBOY: Is it mostly a business feud, then?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes.

PLAYBOY: Maria Callas is a mutual friend of yours and Onassis'. What do you think of her as a singer and a person?

PRINCESS GRACE: I think she is a very great artist, and as a person I find her to be a nice, warm, and very honest, forthright person. She says what she thinks and what she feels, which is a quality I admire very much.

PLAYBOY: Do you do the same?

PRINCESS GRACE: Not quite as openly, perhaps.

PLAYBOY: You mean for diplomatic reasons?

PRINCESS GRACE: No, it's a question of temperament, I think.

PLAYBOY: Don't you ever get your "Irish” up?

PRINCESS GRACE: Oh, yes, that comes out by itself.

PLAYBOY: You said some time ago, “We have lost the joy of creation, and people have no challenges.” What did you mean by that?

PRINCESS GRACE: I said that as far as modern-day life is concerned. For a woman today, there aren't as many challenges to one's creative instincts as before. I mean, everything is made too easy. It has to be because [the] modern woman has so much to do; she has to be not only a wife, mother, cook and housekeeper but many things. And I think that the American woman does it better than most anyone else, though it's happening all over the world now - all over Europe, too. But we live at such a rapid pace that there isn't enough time to enjoy the everyday pleasures.

PLAYBOY: You have described yourself as a pessimist. Are you really?

PRINCESS GRACE: Yes, I guess it's kind of an inverted optimism. Because I am pessimistic, I always expect the worst. When it doesn't happen, I have a nice surprise.

PLAYBOY: Are you happy, then?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, I don't expect to be; I don't look for happiness. So perhaps I am very content in life, in a way.

PLAYBOY: How would you define happiness?

PRINCESS GRACE: I suppose being at peace with yourself, not anxiously seeking for something, not being frantic about not having something.

PLAYBOY: Are you at peace with yourself?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, I understand myself. But I argue with myself all the time, so I guess I'm not really at peace.

PLAYBOY: Have you ever felt the need of a psychiatrist?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, for the moment I seem to be getting along all right. So far, so good.

PLAYBOY: Since you haven't found peace of mind, what do you think will help you achieve it?

PRINCESS GRACE: Well, I have many unfulfilled ambitions in life. If, God willing, I can keep my health and strength and manage to pull myself out of bed in the morning, some of them may be realized.

41 notes · View notes

protytwo · 6 years ago

Text

You Too Can Join an APA by Jay Zilber

They've been around for over a hundred years, long before organized comics fans (or science-fiction fans) were around to adopt them. So it's a little odd that amateur press associations—apas for short—are still so little known. They survive to this day almost solely on the strength of word-of-mouth publicity, for in all this time there have been few serious attempts to bring this unique form of communication to the attention of mainstream fandom.

Apas have always had a difficult time getting publicity, partly because they are, indeed, so little known. They're not commercial endeavors, so they are never advertised. And though some apas may get an occasional short plug in a fanzine column here or there, these plugs don't tend to generate much interest because apas just can't be explained in a kernel of information 25 words or less. Apas can fulfill different purposes for different people, and at least seven definitions come to mind:

1. Apas are limited-circulation fanzines; in order to receive a copy, one must also be an active contributor to the apa.

2. Apas are the next-best thing to a comics convention, a fannish social get-together on paper.

3. Apas are the underground fan press, free of the "commercial" restraints and limitations of mainstream, high-circulation slick fanzines.

4. Apas are a system of centralizing correspondence which makes it possible to keep in touch with a large number of other fans at the same time.

5. Apas are an outlet for creativity and self-indulgence. They are an invaluable learning tool, through which one can develop writing, drawing and editing skills. They provide built-in feedback and constructive criticism on such creative endeavors.

6. Apas are where the old, tired fans go as an alternative to total gafiation.* And often, they are where the old, tired pros go for relaxation from their professional writing.

7. Apas defy clear-cut categorization in technical terms. Communication studies break down all media into two categories: mass media and interpersonal media. A mass medium—such as television, film, books, or this magazine—is a one-way system in which the Communicator sends a message to a group of Receivers, a large mass audience. If that audience wishes to relay their comments or reactions about this article to its author, they're met with various obstacles; they usually can't go back through the original medium and write their own article (or publish their own magazine) in order to make their reaction known. The obstacles are not insurmountable—hence, letters columns—but the original Communicator can get no direct or immediate feedback from his mass audience. That would require the use of a two-way system, an interpersonal medium (such as the telephone or, in the case of face-to-face dialogue, air), with which both parties have the opportunity to be both Communicators and Receivers in turn.

INSIDE THE APA

Obviously, there are many reasons for the appeal of apas; each member has his or her own individual attraction for being an active "apan," and the contents of an apa mailing is a mixed bag that reflects this diversity. CAPA-alpha was the first—and still one of the best—comics apas, and any recent mailing of CAPA-alpha showcases the full spectrum of what apas are all about:

Some members of CAPA-alpha (abbreviated K-a for esoteric reasons) are accomplished fan artists; they contribute superb illustrations and clever graphics, including a good deal of spectacular work that gives new life to the downtrodden "ditto" medium, imaginatively taking advantage of the so-called limitations of spirit duplicating. Other members are still learning the techniques of the craft; their inexperience betrays their enthusiasm and their work pales in comparison.

There is considerable discussion in K-a of all aspects of comics and comics fandom: behind-the-scenes news, reviews, indexes, speculations and such. Much of this discussion is insightful and well-informed, and some of it is insubstantial and short-sighted at best.

But comics are only a starting point—the discussion and commentary naturally spills over into related areas of science fiction, movies, television and home video recording, personal computers, and all areas of popular arts and culture. Personal trials, traumas and tribulations are also given much attention; some members use K-a as a sort of diary in order to sort out their thoughts and feelings about current events in their lives, and their hopes for the future.

Occasionally, there is original fiction or comic strips that range from brilliant on down. A good deal of purely self-indulgent or experimental material is run through the apa, for, should a member want to try out some new creative ideas, there may be nowhere else to put it on display. While self-indulgence is not necessarily encouraged, it is certainly tolerated for the most part—at least until someone's material becomes completely unintelligible and he is no longer communicating but talking to himself.

For some, the bylaws and politics of K-a itself take an overwhelming prominence in their apazines, and new meaning is given to the concept, "the medium is the message."

There is fannish news, rumor and gossip, there are special group projects and collaborative one-shots, there are comics convention reports that alternate between truthful accounting of fact and wildly exaggerated nonsense. There are in-jokes of the sort that simply aren't the least bit funny outside of the apa's membership (and even among the membership they aren't funny except at four in the morning).

This is the stuff that apas are made of—all this and more. There is no pay or compensation except in terms of personal fulfillment. Apas reflect every stage of fannishness, from the wide-eyed neophyte to the burnt-out gafiate. Apas are networks of communication and life-long friendships that never have developed in any other way. They are an integral part of the universe of fandom… but to truly understand the attraction of belonging to an apa, one must experience it first-hand.

The mechanics of apas are fairly simple, though they may at first seem confusing to the uninitiated. Since each apa has slightly different policies, I will continue to use CAPA-alpha as a useful prototype.

In order to join K-a, a would-be member starts by sending an initial fee of $3.00 to the current Central Mailer. Some apas require new members to be sponsored or voted into membership; this is not the case with K-a, but full membership still does not come right away. As a matter of practical logistics, K-a has a size limit of 40 members and presently has a modest waitlist. A new would-be member is sent a sample copy of the current K-a mailing and his name is placed at the bottom of the waitlist. Membership turnover may be slow; it may be several months, possibly a year or more, before a slot opens up for him. In the meantime, waitlisters may contribute to the apa as though they were already members, but can only purchase copies of mailings when they are at least three months old—and then, only if sufficient extra copies remain available.

At length, the patient waitlister is invited to join the apa. In order to attain membership, he must now produce an apazine; K-a requires that members contribute at least four pages of original material to every third mailing. (This is the minimum required activity, or "minac," to use the inside jargon; of course, one may contribute more often and in greater volume, as in fact most CAPA-alphans do.) The new member is responsible for printing his apazine, or arranging for its printing; he must deliver 50 collated and stapled copies of his zine to the Central Mailer by the stated deadline (usually the first day of each month) and keep his postage account in the black. If he fails to meet minac, copycount, finances or deadline, he risks being dropped from membership, though extensions are sometimes granted under extraordinary circumstances.

The Central Mailer is elected annually; he is a member of K-a who, in return for only the real or imagined glamor or ego-boosting the post has to offer, has opted to take on the tremendous responsibility of seeing that the mechanics of the apa remain well-oiled and that the mailings come out on time. He manages the apa's business and finances; he organizes the apazines as they arrive in the mail from the 40-odd members and waitlisters around the country, collates their stacks of apazines into 50 identical volumes that contain one copy of each zine, publishes the apa's Official Organ, and mails the bound copies of the mailing to the entire membership.

All this is much more work than can be suggested in the time it takes to describe it, and it's why most apas have a membership size limit; otherwise, the work of managing K-a would increase to the point where it would have to be a salaried full-time job.

After its long, torturous trek through the Postal Service, the member finally receives his copy of the mailing and reads it with all due enthusiasm. Perhaps he jots down some notes as he reacts to someone else's comments that he wants to discuss in his next apazine. The cycle continues every month, as it has with only one interruption since K-a's first mailing in October, 1964.

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

Actually, the concept of the amateur press association goes as far back as the late 19th Century—long before comics or SF fandom existed—with the formation of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) and other "mundane" amateur journalism spas. NAPA was founded in 1876 and was originally seen as a sort of training ground for professional journalists. Indeed, many early amateurs did "graduate" to become professionals, and the Association saw this as the most defensible role for NAPA.

At the outset, the inner workings of the original apa were worlds away from the present-day fannish version. In this early concept of NAPA, members were loosely organized by a constitution drawn up at a national NAPA convention, but the gist of it was that members were simply instructed to send copies of their amateur journals and publications to one another.

NAPA only began to evolve into the more modern concept of apas because of the lack of cooperation from the United States Post Office. NAPA's organizers had tried to get their individual amateur journals declared eligible for Second Class mailing privileges without success. As an alternative, they established a centralized mailing bureau; any interested publisher could send their journals to the bureau manager, who would in turn distribute them in bundles to the Association members. Some took advantage of this service, while others continued as before to send their publications directly to one another. As a result, these "private" mailings were not always fully distributed to the entire membership, and only the most active members could expect to receive both the privately-mailed, limited-circulation magazines and the centrally-distributed bundles. NAPA did not even actually require members to publish anything at all, so that an interested but inactive member might receive only the bundles.

This separation of active and non-active members brought about a bizarre class separation of amateur publishers. NAPA also encountered a number of other problems during its formative years; its members rarely used their journals to communicate with one another, and many would-be publishers experienced difficulty in purchasing or gaining access to a handset letterpress, the most commonly-accepted method for printing member-journals at the time. It was this stumbling block that made it impossible to establish a "minac" requirement that all members be active publishers. Yet the notion of a new kind of apa persisted, an apa in which every member was a participant.

Oddly enough, the link between mundane and fannish Amateur Press Associations was provided by no less a personage than H.P. Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft became involved in amateur journalism as a youth, and joined one of NAPA's rivals, the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA) in 1914, and then NAPA itself three years later (for both of which he served several terms as president). SF (then-)fan Donald Wollheim learned of the mundane apas through Lovecraft in the mid-1930s, shortly before Lovecraft's untimely death in 1937. By most recountings, Wollheim saw apas as a useful solution to the problem of keeping up with fanzine trading and a method of reducing postage as well, and promptly joined the National and United Apas. With help from some of the other major SF fans of the time, he then founded FAPA, the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. July 1937 saw the first tiny, 42-page bundle of fanzines, still bearing little resemblance to any modern-day apa. But it was only three months later, in FAPA's second mailing, that two of its members introduced what later became the life-blood of contemporary apas: mailing comments.

Quite simply, mailing comments are the inclusion in members' apazines of comments on the previous mailing. It was the solution to the noted lack of communication within mundane apas; prior to the mailing comments in FAPA, discussion of topics raised in one another's publications was almost nonexistent. Mailing comments provided a sense of continuity from mailing to mailing, and brought about a degree of group spirit and camaraderie among members never before conceived. More than merely exchanging fanzines, apa members now exchanged ideas; rather than just absorbing information, they were now encouraged to think about and react to what their fellow members had to say.

Additionally, FAPA promoted the notion of substance over style; inexpensively mimeographed or spirit-duplicated contributions were not discouraged but actually taken for granted to be the most sensible printing method for a low-circulation apazine, and this made it practical and affordable for every member to contribute. Unique, innovative and successful in everything it set out to achieve, FAPA became the model for most of its followers and imitators in SF fandom, and eventually for its second cousin, comics fandom.

*Gafiation (n), a common fannish buzzword from the root "gafia," an acronym for "Getting Away From It All."

Mark Evanier contributed the left cover to Capa-Alpha's 200th mailing, while in 1971, Wendy Fletcher was an active apa fan. She now concentrates on Elfquest as Wendy Pini.

A young Frank Miller contributed to apas and this sample page shows, even then, a sense of design and drama that has since matured into some the finest comics work done today.

NOTE: This article was first published in the March 1983 Comics Scene magazine. Comics APAs were very big back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, surviving APAs are very unlikely to have a full membership and there isn’t any waiting period before a fan is invited to participate and join the membership roster.

#apa #comic book fandom #jay zilber

4 notes · View notes

wazafam · 4 years ago

Link

The Flash movie will feature several superheroes from the DCEU. While Grant Gustin has been playing Flash in the Arrowverse for almost seven years now, the Scarlet Speedster is going to get active on the big screen very soon. Ezra Miller will be carrying the torch as DC's super-speeding hero as he'll star in his own film that will be draw inspiration from the iconic Flashpoint storyline. Even though it won't be a straight adaptation of the comic arc, it will have ramifications for the DCEU going forward, because of Barry's time travel.

Miller will soon be seen as Flash in Zack Snyder's Justice League where fans will get a taste of him traveling back in time to change the future. However, the Flashpoint-inspired film will be on a whole different level as it not only deals with time-travel but also the DC Multiverse. Barbara Muschietti, who is producing her brother Andy Muschietti's directed film, has teased that there will be a lot of DC characters showing up. The film has recently gone into production and will be filming for several months, maybe longer due to the global pandemic affecting TV and film production.

RELATED: Iris West's Role In Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut Explained

As The Flash development and production progresses, more heroes have been added to the cast. Originally, Ray Fisher's Cyborg was going to appear in The Flash movie, but Fisher's character has since then been removed from the script following the battle between him and WarnerMedia, in which he's alleged mistreatment on Joss Whedon's part during Justice League production. It remains to be seen if other superheroes from the DCEU will reprise their roles, given Barry's actions will alter the entire universe, but so far, the film already has an interesting lineup.

Barry Allen aka Flash first appeared in the DCEU during a brief cameo in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice through archived footage. He is seen stopping a robbery while grocery shopping, likely in his early days as a speedster. He then showed up in another cameo in 2016's Suicide Squad where he briefly encounters Captain Boomerang before locking him up. If the Whedon cut of Justice League is excluded, then there hasn't been a lot of Miller's incarnation of the DC hero so far. The last time fans got to see Miller was in the Arrowverse crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths where he and Gustin's Barry Allen get to share the screen for a brief moment. That cameo, however, is how Miller's version of the character gets the name The Flash.

In the DCEU, Barry Allen's father, Henry, is imprisoned for the murder of Nora Allen, Barry's mother. As in other iterations of the character, he gets a job in Central City Police Department's crime lab so he can one day prove his father's innocence. The Flash movie will likely see Barry continue in that part while also seeing the ramifications of time travel play out. Despite having already suited up and operated as a superhero, this is essentially Barry's origin story in some fashion. He's still not The Flash that people know and loves from the comics, but that'll be the journey he goes through.

A big surprise for The Flash movie was the announcement that Ben Affleck would be back as Bruce Wayne aka Batman. Given that he had already stepped away from The Batman (which now serves as a reboot for Robert Pattinson's character), it seemed like his time as the Dark Knight was perhaps over after 2017. But it turns out that the DCEU's Caped Crusader will be joining Barry for another big adventure after the Snyder Cut drops on HBO Max. What part he plays has yet to be revealed and it's also unclear how much Affleck's Batman is in the actual story.

But the fact that the actor is still wanting to play Batman in the DCEU might mean that Affleck isn't completely done as some thought. Even though Bruce's father won't be in this take on Flashpoint, it doesn't mean Bruce won't be affected by Barry's actions. Perhaps the reason Affleck is in it, is to appear pre-Flashpoint as well as after Barry tries to restore the timeline to some degree. Given who else appears in the film, this Bruce may cease to exist because of Barry saving his own mother from being murdered, which would bring in another Batman.

RELATED: Why Ben Affleck & Michael Keaton Can Both Be The DCEU's Batman

While Affleck's Batman is showing up, there will actually be two incarnations of the infamous DC detective. Before Affleck was announced to appear in The Flash movie, it was revealed that Michael Keaton would officially be suiting up again as his character from the Tim Burton films. Given that the story is leaning more into the Multiverse concept, it opens up the opportunity for someone like Keaton's Batman to appear. This will be an older version of Bruce Wayne from that franchise that was established to exists on Earth-89 in Crisis on Infinite Earths. When Barry changes the past and returns to the present, Keaton's Batman will somehow be the DCEU's current Caped Crusader as a result of Flash's actions.

This is basically the film's way of having a Thomas Wayne figure (who plays a big role in the comic book) without having the actual character. Barry will get to engage with a different Batman that is still Bruce Wayne, but not the one he is used to. A big aspect that Keaton's Batman brings to the story, however, is that he'll be the one to create Barry's brand new suit. But given that he's reportedly going to be considered for additional DCEU projects after The Flash, it's likely Keaton's Batman is still around post-Flashpoint. Perhaps this paves the way for Keaton's character to star in a Batman Beyond project that takes place in the distant future of DCEU.

Another surprise that was recently revealed was the casting of Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl. This will be the first time a Latina actress portrays the character in live-action. Currently, Melissa Benoist players the Arrowverse version on her own Supergirl show that is set to end after the upcoming sixth and final season. It's unclear how big Supergirl's role will be in The Flash and if it's a result of the Flashpoint event that she's suddenly in the DCEU. But The Flash movie will set her up for bigger things in the DCEU's future as there's a reason why she is specifically showing up in this film. One scenario is that the Flashpoint timeline rewrites history and has her be the last survivor of Krypton rather than Kal-El. Instead of Clark, Kara was the one to make it to Earth and become the planet's ultimate protector as Supergirl.

This will be the second big-screen version of Supergirl after Helen Slater played her in the 1984 film. There was a Supergirl DCEU film in the works a few years ago that was reportedly paused for unknown reasons. But with Calle now cast as the latest version of the heroine, it's possible the feature film is now being considered again. Since there haven't been any announcements yet on additional installments with Henry Cavill's Superman, perhaps this is a sign from Warner Bros. on who their new main Kryptonian will be going forward. Although, hopefully, this might actually mean that Cavill's Clark Kent will have another family member to interact with within future films. After all, Man of Steel did partially set up Kara's existence within the DCEU through its prequel comic book that came out ahead of the film.

It's also possible the introduction of Supergirl in The Flash movie will lead her into a future (and potential) Man of Steel 2. Either way, fans of Supergirl should have every reason to be excited as this will be the first time Kara gets to engage with other Justice League characters in a shared universe. With Kara now added, it seems she may not be the last DC hero to join the cast. Since the film is currently in production, more characters can be announced very shortly. Whether they are new or old DC players for the DCEU, fans can expect more faces to pop up in The Flash movie.

NEXT: The Flash Movie Can Confirm The Snyder Cut As Canon (With The Multiverse)

Every Superhero In The Flash Movie (So Far) | Screen Rant from https://ift.tt/37x4Nm5

#Blogger

0 notes

calvinphilip22-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Your Wedding Entertainment Planner

Creativity is becoming more and more a reality and a necessity for today’s brides and grooms. Many select a special spot for the ceremony and reception. This popular approach to planning a wedding does involve some serious planning, and of course there is also the expense to consider too. Wedding locations can be chosen based on the couples favorites so let’s look at some basic ideas to be considered.

A wedding on the beach is very popular since it affords some dramatic photo opportunities. You may choose a seacoast community nearby or plan a wedding in the Caribbean. The Bahamas, the ABC Islands, Virgin Islands, Jamaica or other tropic locations afford opportunities for combining the wedding celebration and honeymoon in one package.

Of course you and your groom-to-be may be fans of the mountains so a different sort of planning will be needed to provide entertaining ideas. Quite often the wedding is planned as a weekend event, which will in many cases limit the guest list. And planning a wedding from a distance from home for a remote location has its benefits and pitfalls. When a wedding is planned and travel is involved a good deal of advance planning is in order. Consider approaching hotels with a planned list of your needs that include guest accommodations, meals and activities. In the mountains you may arrange for horseback riding, hiking, backpacking, photo and sightseeing trips into the back country…even overnight camping.

Either in the mountains or on the beach, arrange with the hotel for a cooking demonstration at the hotel restaurant. Your guest will love a complimentary cooking demonstration, wine tasting or an introduction to local, gourmet meals. Hawaii is a favorite location for weddings so how about a luau. Or other locations may be great for a barbecue in the mountains or on the seacoast. This activity could serve as rhe rehearsal dinner��another time-honored tradition. As the main event approaches, there are many ways to incorporate the theme of the location into the planning. At a beachside reception, you can play "pass the shell", which involves a large conch shell to be passed around and guests "listen" for some advice from the other world.

Once they get a piece of advice (really something they think of themselves) they share it with the bride and groom. Other pre-wedding activities can include guided tours or shopping excursions. If you choose to include any of these activities keep in mind that the bride and groom (or their families) are expected to pay for the bulk of them. If you arrange a sailing excursion, for example, you are expected to pick up the tab for the trip. Do not tell people ahead of time that the activity will be x-number of dollars. Since one of the great benefits of the destination wedding is that only your closest friends and family will be surrounding you, you can plan some meaningful activities that you wouldn't plan if the wedding were a larger event. For example, you might plan a slumber party night with close friends that includes movies, popcorn and north west entertainment agency drinks in your hotel room, villa or cottage, depending on your selection of the trip venue. If enough advance notice is given to potential guests, you might mention that perhaps they would consider the trip may double as a vacation. If this is the case you will not be expected to plan an abundance of events since some folks will want to pursue their own interests before and after the wedding.

If you would like an outdoor wedding, but don't want the weather to spoil your plans, then an indoor botanical garden or conservatory is the perfect place for your ceremony! It also makes it possible to have the feeling of an outdoor wedding during the winter months. This ceremony took place at the Quad Cities Botanical Gardens in Rock Island, Illinois. Located right on the Mississippi River, this venue is a hidden gem! The ceremony was inside the Sun Garden, but the weather was nice enough to allow for guests to wander outside and take pictures in their other gardens.

The waterfall that usually runs was turned off so that the guests would be able to hear the officiant (and the harp!). They started right on time, with the maid of honor and the bride entering to "Hymne" by the Greek composer Vangelis. This is a beautiful piece with a new-age style, and makes a perfect romantic and non-traditional wedding processional. During the ceremony, the bride requested that I play Handel's "Aria" from Rinaldo for a moment of reflection. It's a good idea to have time during your ceremony when you can just stop, take a breath, and try to remember the moment. It all goes by so quickly! For the recessional, she opted for the third movement of "Spring" from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

I continued the postlude music until all of the guests had left the garden. I am available to provide harp music for weddings and receptions throughout the Quad Cities, and would love to speak with you about including a harpist in your plans! Visit my website, Quad Cities Wedding Harpist, or call 1-877-HARP-578 for details, availability, and to receive a customized quote for your event.

What's wrong with me? I drew him real fat, with these pockmarks and everything," Friedman said in a recent call from Pennsylvania. "I thought, 'Why did I do this? Friedman's caricatures sometimes honor, sometimes skewer, his subjects. 19.99), which collects more than 120 caricatures of the famous and the obscure, the forgotten and the never-known, the old and the older. Caricature subjects include Steve Jobs, Larry David, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and Whoopi Goldberg. There are plenty of the old-timey entertainers that Friedman is so enamored of, such as Al Lewis, Shemp Howard, Groucho Marx and Bela Lugosi. Some were commercial assignments, such as Hillary Clinton dressed as Wonder Woman (from "back in more innocent times"), which Friedman did for the New York Observer. Counter to what you might assume, there are no depictions of President Donald Trump.

Friedman wrote brief bios of his caricature subjects in the back of "Chosen People." In the one for Woody Allen, he implies that the filmmaker swore off writing for the Observer after it published Friedman's caricature of him. The caricatures are presented alphabetically, which provides for some odd pairings on facing pages. Friedman is certainly the first artist to put Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News chairman and White House strategist, next to Bobby Barber, an obscure, diminutive comic actor from long ago. Friedman said of the pairing. Friedman's stuff is fun to view on the web, though you couldn't see him drawing for online exclusively.

His work almost has to be printed. But the medium of print has been so embattled, so threatened, over the past decade. People are always talking about the death of print. Q. In "Drew Friedman's Chosen People," the caricatures are presented alphabetically, which ties your hands in a sense; you can't control which caricatures go next to each other. But you do have facing spreads of, for instance, Bob Dylan and Robert Crumb, so that the art is not interrupted. Please talk about the puzzle in putting "Chosen People" together. A: Puzzle is a good word. Like, there were two Lou Jacobi's (caricatures).

But they didn't fall together, so my editor (Eric Reynolds) did some finagling. Then it dawned on me: George Zucco. That was a perfect way to end the book. It begins with Forrest J Ackerman and ends with George Zucco. Q. Some caricatures you drew "just for fun," as Merrill Markoe says in her introduction. But a lot of them were commercial assignments. A: Some of the ("just for fun" caricatures), I'd never drawn before. But some of the assignments still applied to the "Chosen People" title. I wouldn't do somebody I wasn't somehow drawn to. I've said a polite "no" to some assignments -- young actors or TV shows that I'm not aware of.

Not that I admire everyone I've ever drawn. Some, I have not. I'm not necessarily a fan of Steve Bannon or Kathie Lee Gifford or Rudy Giuliani. Q. You wrote brief bios of your caricature subjects in the back of the book. Two of the bios are already outdated. You say that Bannon was still White House chief strategist "as of this writing," which was fairly prescient of you. Also, you have a Kevin Spacey caricature, but in the bio, you don't mention the trouble he's in. Does it feel like the world is moving too quickly? A: I kind of called it with Bannon. With Kevin Spacey, there was time to slip something in about his being accused of sexual assault, but we left it out. We decided to just leave that alone. The face is what matters most.

And people have commented that I kind of captured what was going on beneath the surface. Even if it's just a raised eyebrow or something subtle, the face tells what's beneath the surface. It's tricky. It's hard to be topical. It's easier to stick with deceased celebrities (laughs). A documentary titled "Drew Friedman: Vermeer of the Borscht Belt" is in the works from director Kevin Dougherty.

0 notes

idontevenwannaknow · 6 years ago

Text

Anime Girl

Need to buy X-Men t-shirts online? Whether you may have a love for The Avengers, Incredible 4, Thor, or X-Males there are loads or t-shirts and different merchandise to own. My childhood included a love for 60s and 70s Marvel and DC comics, and my potential to draw originates partially from learning the stories I learn in these days. We labored for a yr collectively on the piece to plan and draw it. Toy companies like Hasbro and Kenner used to produce thousands of Batman motion determine than is launched every year with some variation in it. Transformers 2, the science-fiction film is the most recent sensation, and is probably the most awaited movie of the 12 months. Let's take the movie Avatar for example. Every now and then I went again to the game to take just a few more screenshots to increase a plot. Inside a few minutes, I started making comedian strips. Not like his other comic strips, in Battling Boy, the hero is a child, who is on a mission to save lots of the town.

Actually, the other collection of battling boy grew to become popular. To conclude on this matter, I believe it is a great concept to provide our youngsters the humorous comics created method-again-when, comics from your and my childhood. To read a narrative in adventurous manner mangas is quite thrilling for all the children. You've got to overcome the constraints of speech bubbles and the difficulty of telling a narrative frame by body. Admit it you will have! I’m positive you've got heard this well-liked online store. Since Youngsters's Graphic Novels are actually simply an old thought with a fancy new name, why shouldn't you discover taking outdated successful comicbook concepts and reinventing them for a brand new generation? The idea was to convey the identical that means with phrases that I prompt by colors, textures and images. Standard On-line Comics solidify a that means of a word as a result of pictures support meaning to phrases. The nomination was a major achievement for an artist who had - quite actually -started out small, drawing Publish-it observe sized comics and hiding them in other people’s work in bookshops. The primary comic strips appeared in Germany in 1865. It was about two boys who're getting punished for at all times stepping into mischief.

Furthermore, if we are trustworthy with ourselves, we know that loads of mischief is downright humorous. Why are previous coins value greater than right now's coins? Full collections will fetch too much more than random particular person comics. Our goal is to present our readers an excellent piece of entertaining and instructional comics on which can grow up not one in all the future generations. These blockbuster movies plays an important function within the comeback of comics. People who want to cherish their childhood recollections with the comics; they'll easily discover low-cost comics to begin their comic assortment. In at the present time of "I want the latest and latest," we truly find that a few of the actual treasures are issues of old. Comic books are detailed tales. Apart from conventions, yard gross sales and used e-book shops can also be extraordinarily price effective sources for collectible comic books. A comedian e-book adaption as well as a novel publication is being executed for the movie's promotion. That assumption is mistaken and is an insult to the whole comic guide community.

These comedian guides provide you with the type of information you want like where to get the uncommon and helpful comics and where you will get first situation comics as properly as the again challenge ones as well. By promoting and buying and selling comics you may be there were the art work is most enjoyed and valued. In addition to, that is the place you get the meet fellow fanatics and catch up on the latest within the comedian books world; information that may show invaluable. Some comic books editions are collector's gadgets and if preserved in mint high quality condition. Books are restricted as a result of the reader cannot physically see what the writer envisions. Are those behaviors to be condoned? Eyes turn out to be circles or dots, mouths are diminished to curved traces, and noses or feet are triangles. Get the newest news. Those who already evaluate extensive skills of our web site, confess that it is really probably the most convenient and simple approach to be in touch with the latest innovations of the world of comics.

Properly aware of the advantages that come from studying comics. Which Marvel comics must you learn before (or after) Captain Marvel? Repetition. Go back to your daily newspaper and look on the comics’ page. The cartoonist is using repetition to determine the character. Subsequently, we may say that it has nothing to do with a changing trends, no matter is new and trendy, photograph to pop artwork print remains in the midst of its identified usability in field of art. I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! There really is something for everybody. Cosplay also means costume play and the fans typically come to the comedian conventions dressed in costumes. Eight delectable Expansions that followed added to the joy of the game play. Then by all means, use it. By the use of those exaggerations, it doesn’t matter what other particulars I embody. The possessed doll first hit the screens in the 1988 horror basic 'Kid's Play'. Corey Haim, the lead of the original horror movie, and Corey Feldman, the two Coreys, reprise their authentic roles. Nonetheless, in 2003 Hasbro would relinquish management to Batman's rights to Mattel. You additionally get preferential treatment in some instances and access to special events and performances. Best Comic Books For Investment - Top Comic Books To Invest In

When I was a student there are two upperclassmen who were along the way of putting together an accumulation of a comics title. One of them dedicated to the "Uncanny X-Men", his friend was doing the same for that "Fantastic Four". Another classmate were built with a Dad who kept an entire variety of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian". I was reading a lot of letters pages back then and there was a fan who bemoaned that he was required to sell his complete number of "Iron Man". It makes me sad, however, not for me, the location retains comic strip shops and I know where they're. It makes me sad for all the the younger generation who'll lose out on comics, as well as the magic that reading comics may bring. Getting into those issues and collecting them was a highlight of my young years. The kids nowadays have what I didn't: games, movies on dvd, another stuff I don't know about. I'm almost certain that comics will not be constantly working out, as these days, you truly need to get through your approach to grab a problem or two. Maybe the graphic novels and trade paperbacks inside the bookstores will keep the hobby alive. I'm talking here not about the financial facet of comics as being a business though the pleasure aspect of comics as being a hobby. I'm speaking about reading comics and achieving in love with something absolutely enjoyable. Colour - Some people would have this in the last place BUT I cannot stress this enough don't letter your comics in illustrator when you colour if you do not enjoy frustration, that's. Select every one of the paths in your page and utilizing the live paint bucket tool (select it by pressing k) click once in your comic to make it a live paint group. Now you can fill any closed paths with any colours you want just by clicking on them.

William Shakespeare's most popular play, Romeo and Juliet are available in the sort of comic strips. The book with graphic illustrations and attractive texts carries the energy to enchant your readers. Different genres have been maintained to include tension between tragedy and comedy. The story-telling technique creates an imaginary arena of love inside the mind of their readers. That's not to state this is a perfect game. There are some issues with outdoors world gameplay. The map you're furnished with isn't quite fleshed out this means you will be considered a small bit confusing to go to a unique point. Also, should you be playing split screen and you are exploring Gotham City you'll notice that you will find there's little bit of a framerate issue. Sometimes I felt such as the game only agreed to be too easy at parts; sure, this is the kid's game but a bit challenge in some places wouldn't hurt. Also, bare in mind that is primarily a Batman adventure so aren't getting too bummed out whenever you can't play because your favorite Justice League hero through the get-go. Once you progress over the story your preferred hero is likely to make an appearance.

0 notes

nora-reads-homestuck · 8 years ago

Text

"Fan" Album, old archived posts by Hussie, some videos, and two actual Fanworks!

(SkaiaMechanic) Another Fanfest Post! What Nora responded to here was actually done back in December. However, various parts were incomplete (for reasons you’ll see) so this just sat around in the Google Doc for months. It’s getting to a point where it’s just clogging up the shared document, so I’m posting what’s here and will make additional posts based on the rest of the content when/if she gets to them. Enjoy!

brrrrrrrrd submitted to nora-reads-homestuck:

Visual art has never really been my thing, and other people have been far better at sharing pre-Act 6 art than I could be, but I can submit a few things you may have missed. They’re all somewhat dubiously labeled “fanwork” being that most of them made by either members of the music team or Hussie himself, but I don’t know of any better time to post them.

———————————————————————————

Before we get into the meat of this post, there is one more “fan” album you are current on. It came out just a week after Act 6 began and has no songs about anything from it. It’s called Tomb of the Ancestors and is by Kalibration (aka Robert Blaker) who also wrote Upward Movement (Dave Owns), Skaian Flight, Play the Wind, and Ira Quod Angelus, among other things. https://homestuckgaiden.bandcamp.com/album/tomb-of-the-ancestors-unofficial-album

There’s nothing more recent than Nov. 17th, 2011 on that page.

(Past!Skaia) As a single person fan-album, it’s not necessary to review this, at least not now. If you were going to, I would suggest holding onto it for later, when the amount of music albums in the story dramatically drops off.

(Nora) I agree, and will hold off for now! Album reviews actually take me a while to get finished because I can only listen to things at certain times, and I want to save my steam for meatier posts right now.

———————————————————————————

Most of this stuff is stuff that has previously been deleted by Hussie or hidden by the original poster, so if that’s not kosher then feel free to skip down to the section below this one. A little background: Hussie at previous points in time had both a Formspring and a Tumblr on which he would talk about various things Homestuck, and other various things. He also has a nasty habit of deleting old things, meaning a LOT of his old posts are gone and most of them only exist as archives. Here’s some of that stuff, most which was posted before Act 6 or if it was posted during only very early on and not referencing events of Act 6.

To start things off, the origin story of Hussie’s horse painting. This one actually still exists, but the images are broken: https://web.archive.org/web/20140408053025/http://andrewhussie.blogspot.com/2009/01/need-for-steed.html

(Nora) I’ve seen this one before, but I read it again and I think I guffawed just as hard, if not harder. Hussie has quite the way with words… and homoeroticism.

Hussie’s infamous trip to Olive Garden: https://web.archive.org/web/20130312060633/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/12963616983/land-of-souls-and-olives-a-conclusion-pasta-la-vista

Olive Garden part 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20130312060012/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/13585722775/land-of-souls-and-olives-a-conclusion-plmfers-part

(Nora) Trix once suggested I audio react to these. Would that be a good idea?

(Past!Skaia) Nah, just read them through. It’s definitely worth a read, but nothing more than that. (Current!Skaia: As of 3/5/17, there’s no indication whether she’s gone through it or not. I’ll keep it in the GoogleDoc just in case though.)

The post-Cascade recap part 1, in which he talks about the the process of creating it and then the content of it. Really great insight into his creation process: http://web.archive.org/web/20111028175330/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11938555890/about-eoa5-part-1

Cascade recap part 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20111028222551/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11941710181/about-eoa5-part-2

Recap part 3: http://web.archive.org/web/20120801112223/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11960418585/about-eoa5-part-3

Recap part 4: http://web.archive.org/web/20111029142442/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11975241895/about-eoa5-part-4

There are more posts on his tumblr if you go to the archive and and mess around with the Wayback Machines captures, including a reddit AMA that for some reason only collected the questions from reddit and answered them on tumblr. But that’s for a point much later in the comic.

(Nora) Huh! Fascinating read-through. I enjoyed him talking about the process in particular (he makes it seem deceptively simple, doesn’t he, considering the lion’s share of the comic was a completely solo project banged out at a nearly inhuman pace). It hadn’t occurred to me that [S] Descend was actually scored, as opposed to simply animated to existing music, which is a bit embarrassing since it is obviously a medley. I also like what he says when he clarifies Doc Scratch’s means and motive—it’s basically exactly what I’d surmised from reading all his conversations. That tricky, tricky bastard. I am however still mystified by the Horrorterrors, and neither does Hussie seem keen to provide a real explanation for their actions:

The dark gods helped chart their course through this spacetime maze to deliver them to this location, at this time. Take that for what you will

(Nora) Also… why the hell did I not ever realize that Lord English is literally a giant green space pimp??? He’s got the gold tooth, the horrible gaudy coat, the pimp cane cue stick peg leg…

First of all, [Jade] didn’t actually conjure the 4th wall out of thin air. Remember when Karkat told her to turn the wall off, and then draw it? He was asking her to captchalogue an undamaged copy using her Pictionary modus, for this exact purpose. The eventual getaway. So she had it on standby, waiting for the right time to use it.

(Nora) Ohhhhh. OHHHHHHHH. Wow, this whole plan was even more convoluted than I thought, and with the whole password system and all, it was already pretty damn convoluted.

What’s waiting for them on the other side, beside a big ugly coat? Recall the setup I had with the two 4th walls facing each other, separated by one yard. They will break through the wall on the right, traveling nearly the speed of light, and presumably, break through the wall on the left to enter another reality. If you were thorough during Seer: Descend, you might have caught this excerpt on a bookshelf. “Though we adore Him we shall never enjoy His beauteous Croak. We spill our blood on acres of black and white so they may cross the yellow yard. At last in Skaia’s reflection through broken glass He may find the pond in which He’s meant to squat.”

(Nora)You may recall that when I played through the minigame, upon coming across that excerpt I said the following:

(PastPast!Nora) ….’They’ may cross the ‘yellow yard’? This must be referring to Hussie’s aforementioned interference with the story. It’s pretty abstruse, but I feel like it’s telling me something that I’m going to come back and go ‘OHHHH’ over, when I’ve seen more of the story.

(Nora) Consider me motherfuckin’ OHHHH’ed.

However, speaking of AMAs, Hussie’s Formspring was essentially a year and a half long AMA and most if not all of the questions answered there have been compiled here: http://irratio.org/andrew_hussie_formspring_archives.html

Most of the early questions are inane, but after a while (after he stops answering everything that comes across his message box) there’s some really great responses in there (and some really funny jokes.) Only thing is, it is *LONG* and will take a really long time to get through. It went on from late February of 2010 to early October of 2011, with the last responses being around the beginning of the pause during work on Cascade.

(Past!Skaia) It truly is long. Kinda worth it though, and amusing to see Hussie’s actual trolling.

(Nora) Hahahaha, Hussie is a troll and I love him.

Who do you think should be the next president of the United States?

dumb

(Nora) Welp, consider that one prophetic.

Once there is a reasonable number of strips, is there any chance of a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff book with commentary by Dave Strider?

yeah

(Nora) That one too, I guess.

When do you think HS will be over?

ive been considering ending it on 8/26/10.

but who the hell knows if that’ll pan out.

(Nora) AHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHA. AHAHA. HA.

(Nora) I’m going to leave it here for now, as there are SO MANY DAMN QUESTIONS and I really ought to finish my text post.

(Past!Skaia)Sounds good. Once you finish the post above I’ll set up a queue for your responses to the messages above.

(Current!Skaia) This was the main reason I held onto this post. It’s no telling when she’ll get back to this though, so I’m posting what I have. I’ll keep the link in the document, and if she ever does go back to read and comment more I’ll make some more posts!

———————————————————————————

Enough decidedly *not* fanworks, here’s some things you might possibly call fanworks! If you can call things made by Bowman or Toby Fox fanworks. And bonus actual fanworks!

(Current!Skaia) I have not shown Nora any of the below. I think…they’re not really necessary? Except Savior of the Slamming Jam, obviously, but that’s also in a submission she hasn’t gotten to yet. If enough people think she “needs” to see them I’ll pass it along but otherwise I’m just leaving it here.

A concert in someone’s front yard! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/HRT758PTmpw

Toby Fox’s Homestuck Abridged! [Removed for Giant Spoilers!]

An actual fanwork, Savior of the Slamming Jam! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/CKrO8kS8D6g

Chorale for Jaspers & Pony Chorale, Live! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/o0Z0oopPGpM

I’m a Member of the Midnight Crew, Live! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/xR5vN0ve4lY

How Do I Live, live! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDSEXd4KyO8

Actual fanwork, Club’s Deuce’s Homework! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/dLo22lvynNg

And two shitpost videos by Bowman:

1) Cascade announcement (can’t no spoiler link to this one, but comments are disabled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o4NvBz8xac

2) “Toby Fox” is now on YouTube (can’t no spoiler link to this one either, unfortunately. Still, comments disabled): https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=WL&v=pA9uy3KdeEU

———————————————————————————

I don’t think I have anything else at this time that either definitely has spoilers or possibly does due to having come out squarely in 2012 or later.

#NRHS #brrrrrrrrd #submission

9 notes · View notes

naughtyfandomfreakwriter · 5 years ago

Photo

Chapter One - The Red Reaping

Word Count: 8,932

I remember wearing the braids in my hair. I remember watching her on every screen around. I remember the nightshade berries, and the quarter quell, and the rebellion.

I remember it all, even as everyone tries to forget.

When she lost… when the districts were forced back in line, I remember… I never forgot Katniss Everdeen.

I was only a child when the rebellion failed. The Mocking Jay was made quiet and the Capitol ruled supreme. President Snow had vanquished another uprising.

However, the people still remembered, and that needed to be changed. The Capitol had never seen a Hunger Game with more drama and although they couldn’t be happier to be safe and spoiled once more, they still adored the romance of Peeta and Katniss.

You could trust President Snow to use this to his advantage. As the districts needed to be punished, he left it to his game makers to formulate a new challenge. While the Summer months were used to continue the hunger games, the Winter would set a new game that would still cost lives. Each rebellion had to pay a price, after all.

The Red Games were instituted. A game that would give the capital the love and drama they so craved, while acting as a punishment to the districts. A twisted bloodbath for the next generation.

It was the morning of the Red Reaping. It was easy to tell, what with all the noise outside. With a groan, I turned onto my stomach, face in my pillow.

“Quiet please,” I couldn’t help but groan as I reached for my remote. I knew well enough already which button to press to hush the outside world and block out the light. One tap and my favourite starry night sky played on the window screen.

I should be lucky to live in the Capital, but some days it was damn near intolerable.

On a day like today, I knew my family would want me up and dressed as early as possible but they knew not to come wake me themselves. I never liked this day, and only my father understood.

I never enjoyed any of the capital events. Not since my family and I returned from District 7.

My father, Damiin Silver, was a peace keeper assigned to the Lumber district. I only spent three years there before dad got a promotion and moved back to the Capital. Still, the memories remain the same. The hunger, the weight on their shoulders, it made an impression that no amount of wealth could fix. My Mom, Letta, always said I was too young and impressionable when we lived there. She blames that time on why I’m so hard to handle. She’s not wrong.

Finally dragging myself out of bed, I move to the mirror to braid my hair.

Mom also blames my fascination with Katniss on my time in the district. She’s not wrong.

I’ve been a fan of braids for so long most people don’t even relate it to the Mocking Jay anymore. It’s just an out of date style I refuse to give up. Though that seems to make sense from the way I wear my clothes as simple as possible. I remember a time when I dressed like everyone else. Now the idea of such ostentatious clothing seems uncomfortable.

I looked in the mirror when I finished. Brown hair that faded into gold swept into a side braid, my curvy figure made obvious in a simple peach dress and gold belt. The silk flowers in a pale pink peach sewn to the dress would be about the only thing that seemed ‘capital’ about my outfit outside of its colour. Painting my face might be the only thing I actually enjoyed about getting ready. Glueing gold lashes to my own, adding a peach colour to my lids, applying another gold bar of colour down the center of two delicate pink lips, it was like crafting a mask, one I hid behind as much as I could.

I tried to live between words. Just colourful enough not to draw attention but never enough for the standards of fashion applied to the Capital. A sense of invisibility was always the aim.

“Alright, Gemma. Let’s get this over with.”

With a heavy breath, I walked out of the room. Downstairs, Mom and Dad were already eating and celebrating. Havvery, the Avox assigned to my family, served as Mom twitted on about her plans for the day. There was a time I’d have to endure those plans but for this year, I’ll be graciously separated, just as I was last year and the year before that.

“Oh Darling, you couldn’t have… tried a little?” Mom asked.

Of course, my style is never more critiqued than on days like today. At 20 years old you’d think she’d get tired of judging my looks. They’d been the same for quite some time.

“Leave her be,” my Dad chimed in, eyes on his screen working already. Busy days like today demanded a lot from a peacekeeper as high in rank as he.

“Just, a bit of glitter, or maybe a necklace or two,” she continued to complain.

“I’m fine,” I brushed off, heading for the food set out in a bright spread. A sweet orange would be enough while getting me out of the house quickly. I was only just starting to peel the skin when I felt a snap on my ear.

“Ouch!” I cried out, reaching to feel cold metal on my ear and turning to see my mother. She’d clipped on a gold dangling earring and waited with the other.

“Please,” she begged.

I turned around to my food, which she took as an invitation to add the other. I flinched again.

It was such a talent that my mother could so easily reach my limit of her shallow vanity. Of all the people I knew, she was the most like the capitol. No wonder the Districts revolted.

Standing from the table I moved with my fruit in hand.

“I’m meeting Belba before everything starts,” I didn’t want to spend anymore time with my mother than I had to. Not today.

“Darling, I thought we could head down together-”

I didn’t let her finish. I was out the door and into the loud chaotic streets before she could stop me.

The Red Reaping was one of the big parties of the year. It was the first party of the Red Games and although it was a brisk fall day, everyone dressed up for the event. I slipped on my knitted coat with the thinnest of fur trims and continued to eat my orange. Around me everyone was shouting and laughing. Parts of the city played music and there was literal dancing in the streets.

Absolute luxury paired with excited gossiping. It was so different from District 7.

I could easily imagine the trepidation and fear as each citizen from age 18 to 29 dressed for the reaping. It was a more conservative fear, cloaked by the brave faces the older citizens wore. The Hunger Reapings, with their younger children, laid their terror quite plainly on their faces. It had always been so strange to watch a child my age make for the town square knowing I was safe and they weren’t.

‘Trig…’ I thought, the name scarcely on my lips when a familiar voice stopped me.

“Gemma! Over here,” Belba called over. She was a tree amongst most people, that was only worsened by the tall heels she always wore. I rushed through the crowd to her side, accepting the hug she had to bend over to give.

“You made it out of the house, I see.”

“Not unscathed,” I added, showing off the earrings that had turned my earlobes red from their sudden addition. They were fake and so they pinched to stay in place.

“Here,” Belba smiled. She took them off of me gently and turned me around. I could feel her moving a bit at my hair and soon the clips framed by braid instead of tormenting my ears.

“Thank you,” I genuinely spoke, my hands feeling behind my head to where they now sat.

Belba was always so wonderful at fashion. She had dreams of becoming a fashion icon in the city and was well on her way with an internship under Tigress’ guiding hand. I trusted her as Belba was my best friend and understood my minimalist wishes. She always took my odd desires and found ways to merge them with the excessive expectations of the city. In a way, she hid me in the crowd, misdirecting others from my near rebellious tendencies.

“I’m at your service,” Belba giggled. She gave an elaborate bow and it was then I noticed the ring on her left hand. It wasn’t hard to see, sparkling silver against dark ebony skin. Not to mention the ring was huge.

“Is… Is that…” I stammered.

Belba nodded. “It is!” She excitedly exclaimed. “Fredrick proposed!”

I took her hand and examined the ring. I couldn’t have been more excited for Belba! She and Fredrick deserved happiness. They were wonderful but…. “You’re not in the Reaping then.”

The smiles on both of our faces fell. Belba shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to leave you alone in this but—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted.

“We could wait to register out until next year.”

I shook my head at Belba’s offer. “No point in putting your name in for my sake. Capitol forbid you’re picked and married off to some district boy,” I joked.

She laughed out of kindness at my joke but the pity never left her eyes.

“I know you hate today,” she added quietly.

“I hate all days like today. No need to make this one special,” I forced a smile which Belba understood. I was done talking about it. She was so supportive in ways I could never fully thank. Of everyone in my life, Belba was the only one I could really stand. She let me be me.

“Let’s go,” she sighed and looped her arm with mine. She’d walk with me to the city circle, where she wouldn’t be able to stay with me.

It was odd the first years of the Red Games. Capitol citizens had never done their own reaping and so they looked unorganized and almost comical as those eligible stood in the centre of the circle. There were many of varying ages, a colourful pageantry of dull witted singles. It took a few years before age restrictions were put on the capitol entrants. When a 73 year old woman was picked as the Capitol’s 4th Red Games Rose, they limited the ages to match the districts.

Any single capitol citizen between the ages of 18 to 29 must participate. The gender required switches ever year. Of course this isn’t forced in the capitol. Everyone is beyond excited to play the Rose in the games. Well, apart from myself… but to refuse to be part of the reaping is to show rebellion and the last rebellion was too recent to risk pointing yourself out like that.

The districts were different, of course. Two tributes between the ages of 18 and 29 of each district are chosen, their gender is picked by the Rose after our reaping. In the districts, this day is just like the Hunger Reapings. It’s the same forced participation that few survive, as deadly a game as the Hunger games themselves. So, just as you survive your time in the Hunger reaping pools, you’re entered into the Red reapings and no one is safe until they turn 30.

This year will technically be my first year. When I was 18 I was registered out by a betrothal. The next year the Rose was a male pick and so now…. Now my name rests with all the others. My mom couldn’t stop talking about it, watching previous years competitions and thrilling at the idea that I might be picked. I had to bite my tongue to keep my mouth shut, and by now I had a very sore tongue.

It was easy to be the Rose. A capitol citizen to be an object of desire for others to fight over. The arena was the Capitol, events and parties, but there was a small arena. One in the city that pitted the tributes against each other. The Rose had all the control. Who would be spared, who would be thrown in ‘The Pit’ as it was affectionately called by everyone, who would survive to continue playing. And after all the torment and blood. The Victor and the Rose would be married and live in the capitol as celebrities for the rest of their lives. It was easy to see how a normal Capitol citizen would be thrilled to play the Rose.

But not me.

Belba finally released my arm as we arrived at the check in.

“Try to have fun,” she offered but the stern look on my face told her I’d do otherwise. She rolled her eyes in response. “Just twenty minutes of your time and then you can find me. Fredrick’s got a great spot to watch the fireworks. We’ll have a blast! Just twenty minutes.”

I sighed and offered a soft smile. She was right. A short twenty minutes and I could pretend all this celebration was for something other than death. It was little asked of me in comparison to the citizens outside the city.

“I’ll see you after,” I confirmed and turned to line up.

The line was jittery and nervous, it reminded me of District 7, though the energy there came from dread, not excitement. The line moved quickly as eager women and men rushed into the centre of the circle. Soon, chariots of doomed tributes would be standing there instead.

Cameras lined the area and broadcasted over large screens. Everyone was dressed rather extravagantly. After so many years, everyone wanted to look their best if chosen. Your future partner was watching after all.

Now the citizens have learned to line up properly. They stand in rows based on age. I couldn’t wait until I grew old enough to stand in the very back rows, covered by high collars and even higher hair. For now, I was nearer the front in spectacular view of the cameras and without many people to hid behind. Still, I managed to find a particularly tall wig to stand behind in the hopes of remaining anonymous and unseen.

Twenty minutes, twenty minutes, just twenty minutes.

I looked down at where they pricked my finger to admit me. A small prick that many whined and moaned about even if it was such a quick and easy prick. Some faced much worst pain in their beauty procedures, this was only worth complaining about because of its lack of immediate reward.

The space will get tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. We all tightly press amongst each other as more eligible citizens clamour for their chance at fame and love. In the stands on all sides the older and younger generations sat with just as much anticipation. And beyond the city circle, others would be at venues and private parties watching the broadcast.

The people around me jabbered on, pointing out cameras with waving hands and discussing their chances. In front of us all was a stage with a bowl of names. One single bowl. My name rested in their twice, unless my mother purchased more entries for me. I was never sure if the same option was offered to the districts but really, who would pay money to have their name in there more often. Here it was an option heavily used, which was why the bowl in the center of the stage held far more little papers than their were people standing. It was five times the size of the capitol bowls.

The likelihood of my name being in there more than twice would have been high were it not for my father. Ever since my engagement ended, my mother had placed all her attention on finding me another match. No one was surprised at her enthusiasm and obsession with the Red Games this year. It was her chance to force me into a match. The only thing that stopped her at every turn was my father. Thank the Capitol for him.

The excited chatter only got worse and I knew why before I saw him. President Snow had taken his place in his large golden seat. Game makers filed out to stand on the stage with last years winners. Married now, Dawn and Tennitt stood hand in hand. Tennitt was what you might expect from the Capitol. He was tall and thin with bright orange hair and a sparkling blue suite. His white gloved hands held that of Dawn’s. Her slanted almond eyes looked about the crowd. Long black hair swept down her back, much longer than they’d been in the games last year. Her pale complexion looked odd against her orange dress, puffy and made to match her new husband. She was quiet, as she’d been in the games. There was something… empty in her eyes. It contrasted with the pleasant smile she kept plastered on her lips. She belonged to the Capitol now. There seemed to be no trace left of her District 2.

Everyone roared with sound until the President stood.

“Welcome to the 8th Annual Red Games,” he began.

The president’s speech was a blathering of self satisfaction, boasting commentary and fluff to fill the spaces. It was the same warning to districts not to rebel. The first year he’d had the thought to mention Katniss by name, which created unrest and anger through the districts. The next he only called her the rebel but still that only caused unrest. Now he was smart enough to pretend the girl on fire had never existed. It was a far firmer point to the districts who fell in line now.

With his words done the crowd was in a roar of applause again, this time for the Victor and Rose as they stood together for their chance to speak. Tennitt spoke of finding his love, his words eloquent and flowery. In reality they meant nothing. Dawn had her own chance to speak but it was much shorter. The way she spoke, it all sounded rehearsed and not of her own.

Finally the Capital’s representative stood. He’ll spend his time ushering the new Rose around, a job the district representatives would have killed for. His was a position hard fought as his Rose is a winner every. single. year. No matter what.

Garth Havensbee a short man dressed in emerald green with a pocket square of orange to match his last Rose. He looked pompous, and far too pleased with himself to be where he was, a celebrity in his own right. His voice was nasally as he offered a “Happy Red Games and may the rose bloom.” It was the newest version of ‘May the odds be every in your favour’. A constantly repeated mantra through these games that caused a wave of cheers.

Garth motioned for the crowds to calm and I looked about. There was no chance of me finding Belba and Fredrick, or any of my family. There were just too many people in the stands. Still, I couldn’t help but look just in case. It was better than listening to yet another speech about finding love and fighting for its prize. It was laughable to think Love could be found anywhere in these games.

The way a tribute won, was through violence and lies. Each district would offer up two tributes of the chosen gender. Some years that’s girls, others its boys, most of the time it’s one of each. Then the tributes are brought to the capital where they must woe the rose. It’s their only chance of survival. Each week, a set of tributes will be thrown in the pit to fight to the death. The winner continues to court the Rose. This all continues until there is only one. So a tribute is expected to romance a Capitol citizen, spoiled and naive, so that they might live as a prisoner. At least the victor of the hunger games would be sent home to live their lives in peace. The Victor of the Red Games would never be free. The most they could hope for would be a gilded cage.

The crowd suddenly picked up in volume, jumping and screaming in excitement. I looked back to the front to see Garth dramatically waved his hand over the bowl. Oh, it was selection time.

“Alright ladies, are you ready?” He asked and the crowds around me screamed. I had to cover my ears to block out the screeching.

Garth dipped his hand into the bowl, stirring the names around and I held my breath as I was jostled around by the ensuing mosh pit. Trust to Capitol to show such undignified behaviour during a reaping.

‘Not me, not me, not me,’ I chanted in my head. I didn’t really think it could be my name pulled. There were hundreds of thousands of slips in that bowl. My two slips had very little chance of being pulled amongst the incredible number. Still, I held my breath while the anticipation grew and grew.

Garth lifted his hand into the air, a slip of paper in his stubby fingers. He made a great show of opening the paper and the accompanying roar was near deafening. He opened his mouth and the audience never ceased their cheering so that he had to yell the name into the microphone to even be heard.

“Gemma Silver.”

One time, when I was young, I was playing by the waters edge with some friends. We always liked the way the current felt against our legs. The nearer you got to the dams the stronger the current. I had been fooling around when I slipped on a rock and found myself submerged under the current, being pulled away towards the dam. I remember the way the water encased me, how muted everything else became around me as I was swept away without any ability to resist.

That’s how I felt now, stunned as the world slowed and went silent around me. Of course the screaming was still rampant as people turned to look for Gemma. A few who knew me began pointing and the whole crowd excitedly pushed me towards the front. I was swept away in such a daze that sound didn’t seem to return until Garth was staring right at me. He was pausing for something. It took a moment to realize he’d asked me a question.

“What?” I asked, my own voice a foreign whisper to my own ears.

“What’s your choice for Tributes?” He asked again with a nasally laugh. The crowds joined, enjoying my speechlessness.

“I….” I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, to tell them to redraw, to tell them I choose no gender, that I wanted no part in this. But the world watched, every set of eyes trained on my face, every voice paused in one silent moment as they waited on my choice.

“Come on darling, we haven’t got all day,” Garth prompted away from the mic for only me to hear. He was becoming impatient with my silence. The crowds itched with anticipation as well.

“Male,” I squeaked out.

“She’s chosen male!” Garth declared and the whole stadium erupted into more cheers. Garth took my hand and raised it into the air to which the audience grew impossibly louder.

I could only stand and watch as the Capitol celebrated. I… I had given in, just like that. I had become a part of what I hated most about this place. For all my desire to rebel and change the world…. I gave in. I was a coward.

It was a blur after that. The Panam anthem played and a few more words were said before I was swept away yet again, this time by peacekeeper staff, gently guiding me out of the city circle and into a tall tower nearby where what seemed to be a private party for the game makers and other important people was taking place. So many came up to me, congratulating me and complimenting me. I could only whisper hushed thank you’s and nothing more. I managed to find a window which overlooked the city streets. People filled the area so it was a messy moving river of colours. I stared down as I processed what had just happened to me.

I was reaped. I was the Rose now. I’d be married off to someone from the districts after I cause the murder of 23 men. I was everything I hated about this place.

No, this wasn’t happening. None of that could be true. This was all just a bad dream, a horribly bad dream, just like the one I’d been having every night for the last week.

It began as a memory. I was nine again, living in District 7. School had just finished and all the kids were rushing out of the school to head home. The Hunger Games were being broadcasted and everyone was to go straight home to watch it. I was heading that way when I was pushed to the ground. I spun around to look up and see Trig’s face. Her usually olive complexion was paler and her eyes were rimmed in red from tears, but she wasn’t sad. She was angry. Rage painted her face as my best friend looked down at me.

“You! You’re one of them! This is your fault!” She yelled at me.

I didn’t understand and words failed me which was the wrong answer as Trig swung back and kicked me in the side. It tore the breath from my body as a huddled on my side, cradling the pain.

“You killed my brother!” She screamed again and kicked me in the stomach. My lungs struggled for air without success as pain I’d never felt before ran through me. By now, teachers had come by and grabbed Trig, pulling her away from me. I was helped up from the ground in time to make eye contact with Trig. Her dark brown eyes held a fury as she thrashed against the men pulling her away.

“I hate you! I hate you!” She screamed to me as she was dragged back to the school for punishment.

In reality, Trig would never speak to me again. Her brother had died in the 73rd Hunger Games that day and she’d forever blame the Capitol and all born there for it, including myself.

However in the nightmare, Trig would escape the men holding her and come barreling towards me. A knife appeared in her hand as she tackled me to the ground. She’d slice at my neck and laugh as I bled out, just like her brother Carver died. I felt every moment of it and by the third dream I knew it was coming. I’d struggle against her, attempting release but she’d always manage to hold my down and slit my throat. I’d wake up wrapped in my blankets like knots and in a cold sweat.

I gasped rather dramatically when I felt a hand pull at my shoulder to turn me around. Belba stood before me with Fredrick not too far behind her.

“Congratulations!” She loudly proclaimed but as she leaned forward to hug me, she whispered in my ear. “Are you alright?”

I couldn’t speak. I could only shake my head and fight back the anger that was beginning inside me. Belba sighed and released me, holding on to my shoulders to look over me.

“Of all the people who could have been drawn…” she murmured for only me to hear. She understood how much I didn’t want this.

I opened my mouth to speak but a shrill squeal came from the room in it’s place. My mother came in, loud and ecstatic, she made it over to me and wrapped me in her arms.

“Gemma, we did it! You’re the Rose! Oh the life you’re going to lead now!” She cried. I had to pry her arms off of me to get some air. The feathers at her neck were chocking as it was, let alone her smothering affection. The last thing I needed was her joy.

Luckily, her mother turned her attentions to the other people in the room.

“Can you believe it? My daughter! The Rose! I couldn’t be more proud!” She coed loudly to the room. I could already see her eyes darting around to see who were the most influential and important people in the room. It took everything in me not to die of embarrassment.

My father came around then, looping his arm around my shoulder and only speaking to me.

“This is going to be quite the adventure, eh Gemma? Nothing is going to be the same,” he optimistically remarked.

It was hard to ignore the heaviness in my heart at his words. He meant them in celebration, but I felt them in dismay and despair.

The rest of the party felt like a blur. Important people shook my hand and asked me ridiculous questions such as what colour would be my signature or how tall I hoped my future husband might be. It all felt so trivial and it only worsened my mood. Guilt wracked me at every turn.

“Gemma! Over here!” Belba called at one point. I drifted over to her and the woman standing before her. “Gemma this is Belladonna. She’ll be your stylist this year!”

Belba was starry eyed as she looked over the lean woman who wore all black apart from a red rose. It would seem understated were it not for the large black cages that sat on either hip and her shoulders. A black veil reached over her left eye and gave her a dangerous look. Her blond hair was pin straight, ending in a sharp bob and complimenting her dark carmel skin.

“Charmed,” she purred, holding out her hand covered in a black lace glove. Her black lips quirked up in a smirk when I took her hand and shook it in a daze.

“Quite a shock to the system, this sudden surge in fame,” Belladonna offered but there was something in her eyes like she meant more that she couldn’t or wouldn’t say.

I could only nod before the designer began to circle me. She gently touched the few flowers on my dress and the gold clips in my hair with her spidery like fingers.

“A flower to be sure, but is there anything beneath it,” she commented to herself.

It was then my mother came barreling over. Letta had indulged too much on wine already. Her bleach blond hair was falling out of it’s careful curls and the literal nest she’d secured this morning was falling to the side.

“Gemma! My sweet girl,” she came over and pinched my cheeks. It hurt nearly as much as her checkered dress hurt my eyes. “You’re going to get married. You’ll have a wedding after all,” she explained a little too emotionally.

I looked about at the attention she was drawing. My shoulders tensed with it.

“You know, when Marcius broke off the engagement I was afraid you’d never find a man, or a partner. Honestly I thought Belba might have been your girlfriend for a time but then she found fredrick and I thought you’d be all alone.” Letta continued.

It was all too much, too loud, too embarrassing.

“Stop it mother,” I tried to speak through gritted teeth but she either didn’t hear me over her performance or didn’t care. Instead she placed her hands on my shoulders to speak directly to me, and the crowd that gathered around us.

“You were always such a hard one to match up. No matter how hard I tried, and believe me I tried, I couldn’t seem to get a man to stick around for you but now! Now they’ll have no choice, eh piglet?”

It was a cruel nickname my mother had for me when I was young. I carried too much weight in her opinion, my body not quite the style it should be and my refusal to take Capitol measures to fix it was what spurned the name. I grew out of it to some degree, my baby fat becoming a fuller womanly figure. Still, she could not help but comment on the willowy form that was popular in the city and my much curvier shape.

It was that name that made me snap. “Enough!” I screamed and pushed aside my mothers doting hands aside.

The room was silent from my outburst but I didn’t care. The startled eyes could look at me all they want, it wouldn’t help calm the simmering rage beneath my skin.

“The one thing I’m most grateful for mother, is the time I’ll have away from you,” I hissed before turning and storming out of the room.

All eyes watched and I could hear one quiet comment over the silence.

“The flower has some thorns,” Belladonna spoke.

I walked home that night. Few people stopped me as few people thought the Rose would be anywhere but the largest party of the night. I managed to get home with relative ease and went straight for my bedroom where I locked the door. The room was still silenced from this morning, the first quiet I’d found since this morning.

Finally I could have a moment of peace. A moment to process. A moment to sink to the floor and cry.

It felt like hours alone. I managed to pick myself off the floor and into my bed where I hid under the covers, hoping this was all a dream. No matter how many times I shut my eyes when they opened, it still wasn’t a dream.

A pounding fist on my door startled me. Letta’s voice came through.

“Gemma! Open this door this instant!” She screeched. I could hear my father trying to make her see reason and not confront me but she wasn’t having any of it.

My rage renewed I stood and marched to the door, opening it to both of their surprise.

“Gemma!” My mother seemed as angry as I was, even more of a mess than the last time I’d seen her. “What were you thinking!? Do you have any idea how much you embarrassed me!”

“I embarrassed you?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes! Your blow ups, Gemma they’ll be the death of me I swear,” she tried to head into my room for her next performance but I refused to step out of the way for her.

“I wish they would already,” I spoke through gritted teeth.

“Gemma,” my father scolded but Letta took the insult and ran with it.

“You wish me dead? Is that it?” Large fake tears began to fall over her rosy cheeks. “Oh isn’t that wonderful. I give my daughter the world and she wants me dead.”

“Quit your crying, we all know you don’t mean a word of it,” I spat.

“Oh I mean it! These tears are real but they’re not for me! They’re for you!” She tried but I rolled my eyes. “You know this is the reason Marcius left you,” she tried.

Without thinking I reeled back and slapped her across the face. Silence prevailed as shock replaced my mothers dramatics. Not even my father dared to say another word.

“How DARE you!? I should-”

“You should what?” Letta was interrupted by a nasally voice. Behind her and my father stood Havvery and some guests he’d let into the house. Garth stood with Belladonna and a few others behind her.

“I.. I… she…” Letta sputtered but Garth was already moving past her towards me.

“Might I come in?” He asked and I stepped aside for him, casting Letta another dirty look. The others followed and when only Letta and my father were left in the hallway Garth offered a pleasant thanks and shut the door.

“Gemma Silver, I believe you’ve had the change to meet Belladonna Ivy.” I gave a not to Garth’s words. “Well this is Remington and Imogen, members of her, and now your, style team.”

I had no words, the sudden change from a fight to such polite introductions was staggering. Garth used this as a chance to speak a rehearsed welcome he must have given to all the Roses.

“As we begin the 8th Annual Red Games you will become the centre of focus for all of Panam. As such it is imperative that you make a good impression on the country. As such I will help guild you through these tasks and assist in any way I can. Together we will craft your love story and show Panam that life is always better unified.”

I was barely listening as he spoke and it seemed Garth didn’t care much.

“Now, I will take my leave. Belladonna will see that you are ready for your send off and we’ll head out on this marvellous adventure,” he spoke, again rather board.

I only nodded again. Garth accepted that and left to no doubt calm my mother down, perhaps scold her a bit if I was lucky. Though luck hadn’t exactly been on my side as of late.

Belladonna began rounding me once more. Her assistants, Remington and Imogen, who happened to look like twins with their lavender hair, near white skin and sweeping fitted cloaks. The only differences lied in their eyes. Remington’s were a soft grey and Imogen were a deep jade. They began taking notes on a small tablet while Belladonna circled me like prey. She came to the front and took my chin, raising it to meet my eyes.

“Tears of joy perhaps?” She commented, noting the redness of them and what must have been streaks of gold carried down my cheeks with my tears. She didn’t need me to answer. Instead she moved to my bed where Imogen placed a large box, unsnapping latches and opening all the various folding trays. Inside lay a smattering of colours, all waiting to paint my face. Her collection of paints and brushes put mine to shame. Belladonna spoke while examining the many tools and trays.

“My job is different than most stylists. Where most stylists are meant to help tributes find sponsors, my role is far more important.” She stopped and turned to me. “I am to make you worth dying for.”

My heart dropped at the idea. I hadn’t even thought of what the tributes might think of me.

“Now now, not to fear,” Belladonna sensed my fears all too clearly and reached for me, pushing my hair back and taking my face in her hands.

“This is your kindness to them, do you understand? They will be chosen, no matter who the rose is, tributes will be chosen and will die. It’s a service to them, you see, that you make yourself a worthy prize for all the loss they’ll face.”

Her words added more pressure that I hadn’t even thought to add to my shoulders. I would be their ruin and now I had to make myself worth that ruin? I had only hours ago let myself down. How could I not do the same to 24 unfortunate souls I’d yet to meet?

“Where are they?” Belladonna asked, confused.

For a moment I thought she might be speaking to her assistants but it seemed she was looking for something on my face.

“What?”

“Your thorns dear, where did they go? I saw them at the party,” she clarified with a kind smile on her black lips that didn’t match her usual mischievous grin.

She waited until I cracked the smallest of smiles before she released me and headed back to her work. My face was cleaned and drops were placed in my eyes to calm their redness. I was stripped down and placed in a robe as well, my hair untied around my shoulders to start from scratch.

“You made a sweet impression at the reaping, but let’s not have them think you’re some kind of soft girl. You’ll need to be capable. You’ll need to seem in control.”

The way Belladonna spoke, I had the impression the tributes were still more on her mind than the Capitol. That did ease my worry in some way. If her worries were alined with my own it would make this all so much easier.

Belladona began, painting my face with brushes and powders. She and her large cages stood in my way that I couldn’t see her work. Behind me I could hear the twin assistants working and moving, all in silence.

All the while Belladonna made small conversation. She asked me questions, about my family and my life. I wasn’t sure if it was to get to know me or to ease and distract me but it worked on all accounts. Soon she turned me and began working on my hair. I could see now that the twins were laying out clothing options, accessories and more that Belladonna gave the most subtle cues to. I couldn’t even perceive them but they seemed to know what she wanted.

The colours that laid on my bed weren’t far off from my peach choices this morning. White crossing strips of ribbon were embellished by flowers in blues, lavenders and soft pinks.

“So we’re taking the rose thing rather literal this year,” I commented to Belladonna. I instantly regretted it, I shouldn’t have been so rude to someone who was just trying to help.

“Oh the flowers aren’t about your title,” she corrected without skipping a beat. “The capitol can be cold, fake and cruel. Every district knows this but you, you will be different.” She finished with one last pin in my hair and encouraged me to stand with a push to my shoulders. The twins were already removing my robe and holding out a nude strapless one piece. The lines in it and corseting gave detail and shape as I stepped in.

“Though the Capitol look can be very alluring, it won’t be to tributes. I want to make a statement that separates you from the rest of us. A beacon for tributes to flock to.”

Once laced into the corseting, the white ribbons were lifted over my head. I could see now what the idea was. Each white ribbon wrapped around me as though the outline of a dress rather than the full piece. It began around my neck in a chocker and down my shoulders. More lines moved across my waist and at my hips the ribbon became stiff, moving away from me to create an a-line gown that reached to the flood. Through t it reacted the illusion of a dress my full leg was shown all the way to my one piece. This would have been rather risqué were it not for the flowers that wrapped around my waist and flowed down the ribbon cage. It was beautiful to be sure but…

“Ah, ah ah,” Belladonna waved her finger before me. “No second guessing yourself.” She took my shoulders and turned me towards my mirror.

On the other side of the mirror stood a beauty. Every line of ribbon the dress created was meant to accentuate my figure, making me look mature and kind of sexy, while the flowers made me look feminine. My make up matched that tone, colours that were reflected in the flowers of my dress had been painted on my lids, making my eyes large and my skin dewy. My hair was far less tamed than most in the capitol these days. My hair was pulled back in loose braids, nearly falling apart, that ran down my back. Delicate flowers had been woven into my brown hair all the way to its gold ends.

Belladonna picked and perfected a few of those flowers as she stood behind me. Imogen placed simple pearl earrings on my ears while Remington added a perfect violet gold band to my finger.

“You, my dear, will be a natural beauty amongst a world of harsh illusions.”

I gawked, unaware my curvy shape could be celebrated rather than altered. The look felt, simple and authentic yet would not be questioned by the capitol citizens. “Thank you,” I whispered as my hands began to explore the garden at my hips.

“Don’t thank me yet, we have a long journey ahead of us,” Belladonna added as she made a motion to the twins. In mere moments the entirety of their tools and things were packed away and ready to leave.

I was lead out to my living room where Letta and my father sat. Father read from his tablet while mother bowed her head. It was clear that Garth had been disciplining my mother. He all but ignored my father behind him and stood directly before Letta.

“We’re ready,” Belladonna announced and Garth lifted his gaze with a smile.

“Ah, aren’t you lovely,” he complimented and moved to my side with an offered hand. “Now, we’ll take you to the train station where we’ll begin the Reaping Tour. It is customary to say your goodbyes here.” He let his gaze turn to my uninterested father and emotionally exhausting mother.

“Goodbye,” I gave in a short tone. Father gave a wave and a smile, knowing he’d see me soon. Letta only made a blubbering sound, unhappy she wasn’t being doted on for her fake tears.

I gave Garth a nod and he seem to be quite understanding of my lack of sentiment. He lead me out the door without question into an awaiting black car.

This time I, or rather the car, was clearly noticed. They waved and screamed from either side even though I was sure they couldn’t see me through the tint of the car.

“You can stand and wave if you’d like,” Garth informed me when he noticed where my attention was. He motioned to the sunroof above us.

“No,” I spoke and cast my eyes down to my floral ring.

I’d been right not to wave. There was no need. It seemed the whole city had turned out at the station.

Citizens and reporters with their insect like cameras trained directly on my face all pushed to get just a little closer as the car doors opened. Peacekeepers kept them at bay but it seemed a struggle for them, especially once they caught sight of me. They screamed and hollered for even a second of my attention. This was fame it seemed.

I caught a glimpse of myself on a television screen on the wall that was airing my arrival live and felt gratified that I appeared just as Belladonna hoped. I looked natural, especially amongst the capitals vivid colours and multitude of augmentations.

I gave small sweet smiles but I just couldn’t hide how overwhelming this was.

I was ushered towards the train, eager to be out of the spotlight. Still, I was forced to stand a few minutes in the doorway of the train while the cameras gobbled up my images, then we were allowed inside and the doors close mercifully behind us. The train began to move at once.

The speed initially took my breath away. It had been years since I’d been on a train. The last one brought me back to the capitol almost eleven years ago. It was one of the high-speed Capitol model just like this one. I ran a hand over one of the chairs, it even smelt the same as before.

The staff on the train wore Red outfits with golden trim and showed us each to our rooms. I was surprised as I passed door after door. Twelve to be exact, one for each district on this section of the train. Their handlers and designers would be at the other end of the train. My room was larger and set just before the last car of the train. I’d be close to the viewing room with all it’s windows, but every single person on the train would know where to find me.

Stepping inside my chambers had a lavish suite. It would have been a well sized room were it not for the monstrous bed taking up most of the space. There’d have been room for a sitting area otherwise. Instead I had only a bathroom and dressing area apart from the sleeping area. I wouldn’t have seemed so… spoiled if I didn’t know exactly why the bed was so large.

Though I’d avoided watching too much of either games, it was impossible to ignore. It was broadcasted everywhere and all anyone talked about. I’d seen the blood and carnage. I’d seen the parties and events. I’d even heard of and seen one of the more heated nights between the rose and a tribute. I could never understand how the rose agreed to allow the broadcast of such an intimate moment. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it, let alone be broadcast doing it.

The drawers were filled with fine clothes all approved by Belladonna, as was expected. They were simple and comfortable. The real dresses were in Belledonna’s room, those were the dresses for the cameras. For now I was free to wear whatever I wanted.

After carefully taking off my outfit I looked over the clothing and opted for the thick, warm robe instead. I pulled out my hair and all it’s flowers as well as wiping off my make up. They’d just re-dress me again when we arrived at district one in a few hours. That was our first stop. District one. The district took turns deciding which way they would be reaped. The rose was to be present at each so the order the districts were reaped mattered strategically, it added time alone on the train with the rose. This year would begin at 1 and end at 12B

The only thing I kept on was the violet ring.

Flowers weren’t often real in the Capitol. They were silk or other materials and the ones that were grown were genetic mutations meant to look perfect. The petrified violet on my hand however, that was a real flower. Or it had been once upon a time. I let my finger stroke over the now preserved petals. Real, genuine beauty. That’s what I wanted to be. Belladonna’s natural look was to make me stand out and it had certainly done that. I wanted more. I wanted to be separate.

I’d always played the rebel. I stood up to the capitol in meaningless, insignificant ways. A braid, a secret aversion to games, a reluctance to participate fully. It was pitiful attempts to make up for my birth given status. This time I would make it clear, I would pick a side. I would choose the districts and their tributes instead of the capitol I was born to. No matter what happened, I would be on their side.

Garth came to collect me for supper. I followed him through the narrow, rocking corridor into a dining room with polished paneled walls. There was a table set for myself and my team.

I sat at the head of the table. Garth took the seat to my right and Belladonna to my left with the twins beside her. The rest of the table held countless chairs with no place settings. It would be for each of my doomed suitors. A shiver ran down my spine at the horrid idea.

Supper came in course after silent course. A thick carrot soup, green salad, lamb chops and mashed potatoes, cheese and fruit, a chocolate cake. Throughout the meal, Garth kept blathering on about all the exciting things I would experience in each district. After the Reaping they would put on some sort of feast, celebration or custom to entertain me. It would all be for me. I knew Garth was trying to cheer me up and get me excited but every word grated on my nerves and worsened my guilt.

I remained quiet until the meal was over and the moment I was free I excused myself and rushed straight to the last car to be alone. This time of night it was actually beautiful, the capitol was so bright that seeing the stars was impossible. Out here, they twinkled far above me, perfectly displayed through the glass ceiling of the car. I curled up on one of the chairs and stared at the sky.

All night the parties in the Capitol would continue. They would rerun my reaping, speak about all the things they could find out about me through the day. My age, my parents of which Letta would be thrilled, my past in District 7, my past engagement and tragic break up with Marcius, it would all be playing all night for the Capitol to indulge. My life, their entertainment.

I didn’t mean to but I fell asleep in that chair. When I woke to sunlight I ached from being curled up. It took time to stretch myself out. The sun felt too bright and I stumbled even though the train was no longer moving. We were stopped at District 1’s station, ready for the first of district reapings.

#The Red Games #Hunger Games #Fanfiction #Chapters #smutless

1 note · View note