#thinking of importing lots of stuff from us uk and china

[fernsnailz]

FEB 2025 SHOP INFORMATION/FAQ

i've been getting a lot of questions about the next plans for my shop recently, so i'm gonna go ahead and answer a lot of them here as to update everyone. yay

edit: putting this shit under a readmore. shoulda done that in the first place lmfao 💀💥

WHEN IS YOUR SHOP REOPENING? i don't know the exact date, but i'm gonna try to reopen late February or early March. no promises though, 2025 has been kinda hard on me so far and i might have to push it back.

WILL YOU BE SELLING PHYSICAL COPIES OF BORN TO FAIL? yeah. they'll be on pre-order again. i'll have some b-grades available at a discount too.

ARE YOUR OTHER KEYCHAINS/STANDEES/PREVIOUS THINGS YOU HAD IN YOUR SHOP RETURNING? yes, i haven't retired anything. however, some things will be on pre-order again and other items may be pretty low stock. the band standees in particular are REALLY low, i think i only have one team dark one left.

WILL YOU BE SHIPPING TO MORE COUNTRIES BESIDES JUST THE US AND CANADA? no. i'm really sorry, i know this is something a lot of people want but i cannot expand shipping to more countries right now. i keep shipping limited to the US and Canada to keep the scale of my shop manageable, because my shop is technically a side gig i do on top of freelance storyboard work. additionally, i quite literally cannot offer international shipping to most countries through bigcartel (the service where i host my shop) without having to jump through a million hoops to collect and remit a number of different taxes + tariffs and comply with every country's requirements for international commerce.

the EU and UK are particularly difficult to ship to right now due to the EU's new GPSR (general product safety regulations) and the UK's VAT (value added tax) (which i would be responsible for collecting and remitting since i run an e-commerce site located out of the UK). the short explanation is that even though these are the two main locations people request i expand shipping to, i literally cannot feasibly ship to the EU or UK through my current shop without facing huge legal and tax obligations.

the best way for me to expand international shipping would be to sell stuff through a different shop hosting service that either does the complicated stuff for the seller or places tariff and tax responsibilities on the buyer, but please know that i honestly just do not have the ability or time to do that right now. i'm really sorry again, but i'm not going to be offering shipping to more countries right now.

ARE YOU GONNA HAVE NEW ITEMS? yes. i already have a few things i designed for my last convention that i have yet to sell on my shop, like some bluey and mouthwashing charms.

there's also a bunch of new robot related things i really want to design (transformers stuff, nge things, misc. other robot stuff), but i haven't finished them. this is the main reason why my shop isn't opening for at least another few weeks - i haven't had time to design my self-indulgent robot merch lol

HEY IS THE TARIFF WAR THAT THE US IS WAGING ON CANADA MEXICO AND CHINA GONNA AFFECT YOUR SHOP? yeahhhhhh probably. for those who don't know: i am based in the US, and our stupid idiot shit for brains country recently placed some absolutely insane tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. this led to all three of those countries implementing their own tariffs on US imports and a "trade battle" breaking out.

the short rundown is that the US' tariffs on Canada and Mexico were put on hold for 30 days, but if this battle continues after that then it will affect anyone in Canada who orders from me. i'll likely still be able to offer shipping to Canada, but if the tariff battle continues then Canadian customers at my shop will be responsible for paying any tariffs Canada imposes on US goods. and since the 10% tariff the US placed on China is still in effect, i might have to raise the prices of my keychains and standees a little bit since that's where i get those from.

ARE YOU GONNA BE TABLING AT ANOTHER CONVENTION ANYTIME SOON? the next convention i have lined up is Animazement (Raleigh NC) in May! i'll be tabling in the artist alley there. hopefully i'll be tabling at a few other events later in 2025, but we'll have to wait and see.

that's all for now! if i get more shop related questions beyond this, i'll probably add them to this post.

[deathberi]

merch stuff new releases + older stuff current price drops…i have a list of all i want to get before the year ends but skksskjsa they total to half a month salary 🤣 (still dodging a few at that) do i even deserve this shit

[phia-myth]

Can you talk more about the world building of your AU?

hi anon! i’d love to! since this au focuses on ancient greek characters i’ll focus on that, but i’ve put some degree of thought into most ancient cultures

so some stuff you may have gathered if you’ve read about my modern au so far is that the oracles are a very real thing people still use. the oracle of delphi is the most popular of course but if you can’t afford/can’t get to that oracle there’s always one that’s not too far from you. thetis’ parents, as i’ve mentioned, goes to the oracle of delphi and receives a prophecy which convinces them to make her marry peleus

greece is also not so much one country. it has a system a lot like the UK where i live — it’s a bunch of countries that have shared laws but have their own delegations and such. i won’t bore you too much with the politics — basically if you look up the UK that’s pretty much how it works. each country is one of the ‘main’ cities you’d think of from ancient greece like athens and sparta, they’ve just absorbed any smaller cities around them to become their own country.

fashion-wise people wear modern clothing we think of today, just with some ancient influences in jewellery and such. fashion we associate with ancient greece is worn more for traditional festivals and events, though it’s mostly women who wear peplos to festivals and religious ceremonies. things like formal wear are often a lot like ancient clothes, but they usually have a modern spin. men might wear a chiton with some legging-like pants for formal wear, but it’s about as common as someone wearing a kilt for formal wear — not unheard of, but not as common as a suit and tie. some might even wear a toga, but it’s pretty uncommon to see that in greece. it’s more of a roman fashion.

the au follows a modern calendar (mostly for my own peace of mind), but they celebrate things like dionysia and thesmophoria. there’s a pretty large atheist population, but they still celebrate the way an atheist might celebrate christmas and easter. religious plays and events are pretty fun and popular, so people don’t want to miss out. if there’s a particular festival you would like me to go into depth for, feel free to ask.

ancient greek pottery is still around. students learn to do it in school to some degree, but it’s mostly used as a wellness thing. it’s not uncommon to have an important event like a wedding commissioned onto vase art as well as a photographer, though it’s mostly richer families that participate in this since it’s pretty expensive. if you really want one an older family member might do one the way your grandparent might knit a jumper for you.

on that note, drinking vessels we see in ancient greece are more like a china, though they’re used quite often for important events. these events usually use plastic versions unless it’s a private event. plastic versions usually depict a popular myth rather than anything personal. but you wouldn’t really see these sorts of things used at a house party if you don’t want to be called a pretentious twat

hospitality is a very important part of their culture still. if new people or people you respect come over you’d usually be expected to wash their feet. if your pal comes over it’s not so much an issue but more traditional people still might offer. if your loved one has a bad day you’d probably offer it too. the same sort of thing applies to gifts. it’s usually something small, like spare change for transportation or a meal, but it would be rude to have a new guest or your boss or something over without giving them a gift. it’s also pretty rude to receive a gift from a guest and not at least offer one back. obviously this can be pretty inconvenient at times, and expensive, so it’s not as common as the foot washing thing. again, more traditional people might still offer at the very least.

i’ve also mentioned this but race and sexuality isn’t a thing. that obviously isn’t to say that nobody is this race or that sexuality. it’s just that there’s not really any terms that label someone for these things. people who don’t fit gender binary are labelled as nonbinary, but titles like trans aren’t a thing either. you transition and that’s that. ethnicity isn’t the same as our version of ethnicity, either. someone might come from a different country, but their child isn’t considered part of their ethnicity if they’re born in that country. say a babylonian immigrated to greece and had a child there with a greek. they wouldn’t be half-greek, half-babylonian - they’d just be a greek. though it’s not uncommon for children to adopt some semblance of their parent’s culture if their parent decides to keep up with their cultural practices. it depends on the parents.

that isn’t to say this is an ultra-woke progressive culture, btw. it’s just that the labels aren’t a thing.

as i’ve mentioned in my helen/menelaus/paris post, women’s rights are a very iffy thing, and it depends largely on where you live. progress is happening to a modern level, but as i’ve mentioned there are some archaic loopholes that can be exploited by the law and a lot of social pressure on women from more traditional communities. these loopholes are usually pretty subtle in things like providing a lighter punishment for any man-on-woman crime, but something more severe could be taken to a higher court and handled pretty swiftly. though something subtle is going to fly under the radar even if you try to take it higher personally.

democracy is the greek’s form of government though each country might have something more traditional in conjunction to that — though they’re usually more of a figurehead or a representative. ostracism is still a thing, too, but it’s usually reserved for politicians or other influential people and the occasional criminal. it’s taken to higher ups to determine if they should be relocated or some other way to solve the issue.

there’s a lot more but if there’s anything in particular you’d like to ask about feel free to ask!

[stephensmithuk]

"Army-crammer"

You may be wondering what one of these was, so I'll give a quick explanation.

An idea imported from Imperial China, where it had been going since the end of the 6th Century CE, the British at this time had a series of competitive exams you would do if you wanted to join the civil service (either UK or Indian) or become an officer in the British Army. These has been introduced to improve the quality of the men in the organisations and get rid of the problems caused by patronage by selecting on merit.

You would take this exam, covering a wide range of topics from the classics (of course) to modern languages to geography. If you passed, you were eligble for a role, although still needed to undergo the other sorts of checks you still do for employment today - background checks, health checks and also oral testing to make sure you knew your stuff.

Some more stuff here:

I think the "Modern Major-General Song" was influenced by this - officers who had a lot of broad knowledge, but not that much of use in a military context. Although the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes would make a great password.

You would have various organisations, either tutors or full-time schools, to help young men prepare for these exams.

The exams are largely a thing of the past in the UK, but are still very much around in India, where the UPSC to join their civil service is considered possibly the toughest exam in the world:

Those who got into the Army officer training programme would either go to the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich (for the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers) or the Royal Military College in Sandhurst (infantry and cavalry).

However, while these exams were designed to make the Army more merit-based, it still tended to be the richer guys who ended up as "Ruperts". You had to buy a lot of your own kit and maintain it too. You still do have to pay for full ceremonial dress (generally red or black), No. 1 Dress (blue, for ceremonial events) and "mess dress", which is basically the military equivalent of evening wear.

This uniform could be bought from various places, including the Army & Navy Stores, a chain of department stores run by officers from both as a co-operative. Their stores covered a whole range of stuff for soldiers and their families, ranging from groceries to guns. They even expanded to India, although those branches went with independence. In 1973, they were bought out by House of Fraser; a chain that has had a bad last few years, with a large number of its stores closed or closing.

You can get allowances and tax relief on uniform costs today. There is also a big second-hand market.

Also, living the lifestyle associated with being an officer and a gentlemen wasn't cheap. You had to pay your mess bills, ensure that your sword was in good condition, keep up a decent social life etc.

Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes also was an army coach in his past, by the way.

[sirfleetfoot]

One day, I hope to move to Sweden or Iceland, because it feels like home. For a long time I've felt guilt for 'leaving my own country behind' - I'm raised in Europe and ethnically from China - but, I think I'm beginning to sort of see things in a bigger picture now.

Sure, I love Chinese culture and history. I've grown up with a mix of myths and stories as I read a lot of myths by myself (growing up with predominantly Greek mythology) and I have a special place for all of them. Being ethnically Chinese, I think, changes one's perspective of culture. If I were ethnically European, I don't think I'd have people assuming my 'true' culture wherever I hang out in as it would be less certain. I think that's what I dislike.

I see Chinese culture and history as a place I spent a lot of time in - and no, I don't identify with being English either (tho idk who would LMAO have you seen the UK 💀) but I can't help but feel a pull towards Iceland and the places Norse myths came from. When I learn Icelandic it feels like I'm relearning an old language, like rereading a book I'd read when I was a child, and feeling a sense of familiarity- "Oh! I've seen that before!"

And I don't exactly wish I was born in Iceland. No, I value my past and the mixed cultures I was exposed to. Nah, I wouldn't change my past at all.

I think I just feel (like a lot of other people who came from immigrant families) that my 'chinese ethnicity' is something on my back I can't shake off, like that's 'what I really am'. Disregard how I was raised, etc. I don't blame anyone for thinking these things at all, but I think that's why I feel so much discomfort when the first thing people ask me is 'where I'm really from'.

In this day and age ethnically means less now. Maybe in the past it would be valuable to know because people didn't move around that much? But I doubt people ask for benevolent reasons and to gain a unique perspective from their view, influenced by their culture. Its just to know 'what your deal is', I suppose. To make themselves feel more sure when speaking to you, like asking an androdgenous person what their gender is. Irrelevant but makes the person feel sure of themselves, so they don't have to change their world view.

I am of the opinion there is a reason my background is so mixed. It does mirror Loki's in the myths in that way, though that isn't surprising. It's funny because before I was more comfortable in my identity as a deity I never really felt a connection towards one particular culture. Raised in England, grew up with Greek culture and Greek myths, English myths, ethnically Chinese with a weird mixed dynamic at home, my friends generally being of vastly different backgrounds and cultures too, I never really felt any of it was 'mine', till uh .. Iceland I guess. I used to feel bad for 'betraying my culture' till I realized its...uh...kind of a dumb thing to think. LMAO.

For one the idea of being 'from one place' is...uh...not as important as its made to be, if its not something YOU in particular are vocal and proud about. Aside from getting different perspectives because ye diff cultures=different perspectives, its not really...ehem...a Thing.

Also, on a funnier note, I kind of got disowned by China, my 'supposed' place of origin, because they vocally said they don't want people like me. In terms of British Chinese people. They don't want us lmao. We're not real Chinese people apparently.

So uh. Guess I'm disowned anyways.

And its not because I think Iceland is 'better', like their language and myths etc etc is Better than England's or China's or Japan's or Greece's etc. I don't see it as better or worse, its just home. I think honestly Chinese and Japanese culture to me is the most 'beauriful' and has the wackiest stories LMAO, it's not a matter of liking one or the other. It's just...that one, ye. That's the one. And I don't plan to not partake in stuff from the cultures I'm from, I just view it as a place I was raised and grew up in and its stuff is neat its just not home.

Context: A Loki who kinda vibed a lot of places and only feels at home with a place he's never been to YAYYYY

Yeah anyway fam, I'm joining the asexual storming of Denmark, is it over btw idc because I'll do another one

Hold my garlic bread

[sepdet]

Unfortunately NASA doesn't have the budget for an ISS… it was only possible during a brief window when multiple countries, including Russia and China, were willing to collaborate.

NASA has its chain continually yanked by Congress and presidents changing its goals and missions every 4-8 years. That'a why it's sunk so much into planetary probes with short-term missions it can stretch instead of ambitious, long-term missions subject to cancellation.  Once a probe's left Earth, it seems wasteful not to use it.

And it's not just Congress. News media, regular people, even Tumblr posts are always asking — why space? when there's so many problems that need addressing right here on Earth.

People don't know that space research has yielded

a heck of a lot of medical imaging and remote tech from programmable pacemakers to modern breast biopsy digital imaging to heart pumps to fetus monitors

materials and tech from modern firefighters' clothing to space blankets to water purification technology to rechargeable hearing aids to vacuum sealed food to autonomous drone navigation

TONS of educational opportunities and science inspo, both thanks to astronauts spending countless hours talking to classrooms or recording demos/experiments, sometimes suggested by students, and thanks to contests letting schools send mini-experiments into space

prep for humans working off Earth on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, which should become important for mining (we'd much rather the materials in our phones and gadgets be mined from lifeless rocks than the Earth)

Monitoring and documenting major historical events from 9/11 to volcanic eruptions, typhoons and tsunamis from space

Gathering millions of hours of footage of auroras and clouds/thunderatorms which can be used to study space weather and unusual, hard-to-monitor phenomena like sprites

And much more. This is just stuff I know as a NON scientist, because my grandmother and dad were a planetarium director and rocket scientist.

TL;DR: Space matters. But it's not enough for us to say, "Isn't it a shame a thirty year old space station is due to deorbit, and right now there's no plan to replace it." We have to educate lots of people about WHY it matters. We have to convince people it's still worth the money.

It's not enough to lament an era's passing, as I did in 1975 when I upset my dad by complaining I'd been "born after the space age" (ie the Moon missions). How do we fight for its future?

We have to lobby not just the capricious US government, but the EU, Japan, and Canada (who were ISS partners last time), the UK once it pulls its thumb out of its ass, New Zealand and Australia, INDIA whose space program has really taken off, and... hey, let's not forget Africa and South America this time, OK? They've sent up some astronauts, but I doubt they had much input on the current ISS.

The ISS was never going to last forever, any more than my beloved space shuttles which constructed it. (It was originally planned to come down in 2025, I think?) The next one could be even better by being MORE international. Then it wouldn't be dependent on western companies like Elon Musk's. he whose damned Starlink satellites are wrecking astronomy by painting light streaks on long exposures from every kind of telescope from backyard Dobsonians to the Hubble.

There are powerful corporations who want the era of publicly-funded, independent science and journalism to die. We have to push back loud, hard, and en masse to overcome their lobbying, and make politicians hear us.

I feel like nobody on Tumblr knows that the international space station is being discontinued.

Did you know that? In less than a decade it will be gone

CNN Link from above screenshot

More detailed article by Space.com

[absolutebl]

Hi absoluteBL,

I read your Review of utsukushii kare and saw that you love it just as much as I do :D

In the beginning I thought that Hira was the Uke in this show and that he was punished by the narrative for pursuing the seme (just like Intouch in uwma).

While watching the ending of the show, it became clear that Hira totally fit the Seme type, and Kiyoi was just a big tsundere Uke. This made me wonder why I thought all this time that Hira was the Uke. And I guess one big point is, that the seme is often portrayed as the cooler and more handsome part of the couple. Because the Uke often represents the "female part" in a BL - which is dumb because there's obviously no female part in a m/m relationship but you now how the writers/producers like to push their heteronormative thinking on these shows- they aren't seen as important in the show and don't need to be as beautiful as the seme. At least that's the feeling I get from some shows.

Now to my actual questions:

How you did you see Hira. Did you know that Hira will end up being the seme? Do you have a show, where you were surprised to find out that the Uke is actually the Seme or vice versa?

Sorry for the long ask! 😅

All asks are good asks. No apologies needed!

Did you know that Hira will end up being the seme?

I did see Hira as the seme from the start, but then I am used to whipping boy (attack dog) + spoiled prince narratives. The moment Hira goes crazy and beats up the other kid because of what is done to Kiyoi, his role is confirmed. That’s because it's more common in a bodyguard context like Golden Blood or Where Your Eyes Linger. But Japan and China (in particular) and fanfic/fandom love a quiet, shy, reserved character who is only really driven into fight/rage/extreme emotion by threat to their beloved. It’s a very popular narrative framework for characterization. You’ll see this deployed with the clumsy uke getting hurt or sick. (The baby is a clumsy bunny trope.) Or the protect baby from bullies thing used in a lot of het romances. 

The fact that My Beautiful Man also makes Kiyoi possessive and protective is very clever. But also a classic spoiled prince role. 

“He’s a monster, but he’s my monster.” does also go into, “That means only I can activate him.” Especially when we have an indentured ego/identity as whipping boy often entitles. 

In other words, because Hira will never act to protect himself, only to protect Kiyoi, it is up to Kiyoi to make sure no one else but Kiyoi can take advantage of him. And Kiyoi does. 

In fact I was more surprised when people thought Hira wasn't the seme. But then spoiled princes (and brats) are one of my favorite archetypes, so I am kinda trained for this one. Japan used this one with their ninja yaoi a lot, the idea on fixed loyalty from powerful warriors. 

Do you have a show, where you were surprised to find out that the Uke is actually the Seme or vice versa?

I don't think so? Maybe, one of my trash watches? So like the show itself wasn’t clear on its narrative. Like Gen Y. 

Generally it's more I'm surprised when they go for verse/switch or no seme/uke dynamic. So at first the Taiwanese stuff used to confuse me, now I'm more surprised when they do execute a strong seme/uke since for them that's the exception rather than the rule. And I think that has to do with their preference for physically matched muscled co-stars, and their more gay/queer lens given the social structure in Taiwan.

Thailand still shocks me. Like Bad Buddy, or right now Vice Versa which I *think* is going to avoid/play with the dynamic.

I'm sure there were some out there that surprised me, maybe Japan? Mr Cinderella definitely, but that was more I didn't think Bah Vinh would allow even a hint that he might be an uke.

But these days I kinda am rolling with the different country’s styles and that guides my expectations into more predictable standards. Which is great for me, since I garner much comfort in the predictable. Just not TOOO predictable. If that makes sense.

[argumate]

I saw your graphs about trade surpluses but I am - frankly - a noob and I just wanted to ask, are they a bad or a good thing? Is it bad the US has a deficit?

that's an interesting and complicated question!

sometimes people do act like trade surpluses are a sign of a healthy economy and every country should have one, which turns trade into the ultimate zero-sum game as every dollar of surplus over here has to be matched by a dollar of deficit somewhere else, there is no way for every country to export more than they import unless we start shipping stuff to Mars, or just push it into the ocean!

so it comes down to a question of balance: if the net sum of trade is always zero, what does it mean for a country to be consistently positive or negative over time?

now, the data I was clumsily poking at was based on trade balance over the twenty years from 2000-2019 and the population of each country, and that was already enough to reveal some meaningful facts about the world:

China is very large, I think we already knew this but it's good to have it confirmed, and its trade surplus is correspondingly large.

Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, and Thailand are very productive, in that workers there are able to produce a higher quantity of higher value products than workers in China, presumably due to technological and institutional advantages that China is still in the process of acquiring.

Norway, Russia, and other petro-states keep pumping away, they produce more oil and gas than they can consume locally, so they have a steady source of exports even with few factories or people.

the US and the UK are running staggeringly large trade deficits, the former industrial powerhouses of the world are now importing vastly more than they export.

most other countries have a modest surplus or deficit, basically clustering around zero compared with the outliers listed above.

okay but the way I phrased that has some implications, like does China have a big trade surplus just because it's big? America is also big! and does Germany export a lot because it's a technologically advanced economy? America is also technologically advanced! clearly there is more going on here, trade surpluses and deficits are downstream of other factors industrial policy, geopolitics, and even inequality.

Pettis and Klein make the point in Trade Wars Are Class Wars that if a country habitually exports more than it imports then this is a sign that the workers are getting ripped off, or more politely are not being compensated commensurate with their productivity.

their theory is that if workers are adequately paid then consumption should rise in tandem with production, this means that as workers make more stuff they also buy more stuff, either locally or abroad, which means exports will fall or imports will rise, either way trade should end up roughly balanced (and both the workers and the world should be better off for it).

so you can argue that China and Germany underpay their workers relative to their productivity and this has the result that both countries flood the world with cheap goods, forcing other countries to cut wages too in order to compete (leading to a race to the bottom that suppresses global demand and leaves everyone worse off) or accept higher levels of unemployment and debt.

the question is what do the overproducers get out of this? how do they benefit by selling more stuff to the world and why do they want to keep doing it? well, do they want to keep doing it? China has been talking about rebalancing and boosting consumption for a decade now but has just set two monthly trade surplus records in a row, are they unable to stop making so much stuff? that's weird, right!?

this is where the economics shifts to politics: which people and institutions benefit from particular economic arrangements and what changes are possible or impossible depending on the political arrangement of society.

why can't China slow down its factories or pay its workers more? why has Norway, a country the size of Melbourne, accumulated an investment fund holding a trillion dollars of the world's assets, and what will it do with them? why is everyone so eager to sell stuff to the US, and what does the US give them in exchange? can imbalanced trade go on for ever? if it cannot go on forever, then eventually it must stop, and what happens then?

anyway read the book and get back to me.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Just so everyone knows, this is how the “number one worldwide phenomenon” LO ranks on the other Webtoons servers*, ranked from best to worst (November 2021)

Webtoons France: #6

Webtoons LATAM: #9

Webtoons Germany: Doesn’t Rank at all

Webtoons Korea/NAVER: Doesn’t rank at all, one of their lowest rated series ever on the whole site.

So it’s only Number 1 on a single server, meanwhile does either ok, lags behind, or is rejected outright everywhere else. Meanwhile other Western made imports to these other servers (such as Let’s Play and Down to Earth) all do easily top five, while True Beauty ranks as number one in all other servers except the English one, where it’s number 2. Unless America, Canada, and the UK are the “World”, then LO is not as popular as Webtoons’ marketing team wants you to believe.

* Webtoons Indonesia, China, and Thailand are excluded from this list since LO isn’t on any of these. 

2. is it just mean to say the romance in Lo is just not good? like i didnt feel anything when they kissed, it just seemed really random. their flirting isnt very cute and it cant seem to decide if its wants them to act like actual adults or teenagers. them constantly being shy after while just gets boring when it happens over and over again. also it constantly has other characters say how "in love" they are which tbh only says to me even rs knows its not written well so she needs to spell it out.

3. why do the stans act like rachel "spending years" on lo means we cant critique it? a lot of things have years put into them, doesnt mean its now flawfree and we have to care about their poor egos. if rachel doesnt want critique, then she should have never agreed to being published much less putting her stuff online to begin with. i swear lo stans have no idea how the actual world works.

4. geniuenly want to know wha's going on in that lily white head of rachel's to not think its REALLY WEIRD to have hades lust after a tiny version of his mother and have persephone be turned on by hades looking like his abusive, murderous dad. like what the fuck is that. what is that saying exactly??

5. cannot stand how lo fans (or just hxp fans in general) claim there are "several versions" where hades doesnt kidnap persephone and she actually elopes willingly with him bc as soon as you ask for proof of this they get awfully quiet. like if there are "several" versions, show us at least ONE source of proof then. and no, it cant be LO, some fanfic, or a tumblr post. give us an actual source from ancient greece and we'll believe you, not going off your word that "it totally exists, trust me".

6. lo hades absolutely seems the type to buy nfts and no i will not elaborate on that

7. idk how the stans were like "how is lo a white savior narrative theyre all blue and green lmao" as if that was some epic own? or that hades being an ugly shade of brown in a human disguise (as in not his actual race? thas literally a disguise?) "proves" theyre not white like?? even rachel's fancast was all white people? even if they dont have races persephone being like "hey dead people i killed! be thankful for what im doing for my own purposes!' is literally a white savior narrative like -

8. Is there actually an anti-lore olympus server? If so, I'd like to get in if possible.

From OP: Yup! Search up ‘anti lo discord’ since it’s the hashtag I used.

9. The more i read LO the more it feels annoying and cringy. From the art to the conversations it’s just a shit show basically. Birthday cards, making Persephone look like a toddler? Hades turning into a giant spider? The humans who were the exact copy of Hades and Persephone?? The jury show? Like? The entire comic is just a cringefest. Not to mention the stans who defend this comic and RS like she’s personally going to save their life.  My god had RS said that LO would be a fanfic telenovela webtoon of greek mythology then there would be no problems at all, but to say that this a modern adaptation and retelling of the mythology?? And to say that you know greek mythology better than greek people themselves?? Is this woman having delusion instead of actual food for her meals?

10. i also dont get why rachel keeps making a point persephone is so innocent and would never hurt a fly when its like?? isnt the whole point of the story supposed to be her growing up and being the "badass dread queen" its been promising us? bc it makes no sense to keep insisting she's this precious lil bean but also tell us she will also be some dark girlboss when she's not allowed to own or accept that part of herself? like even her "dark" side is just some vague "feeling"she cant control :/

[nunuisancenewt]

I mean, most of them, cause this is probably net negative…

I like the Shrimp Welfare Project , Aquatic Life Institute, and Fish Welfare Initiative, they are doing work in a similar space ( mostly welfare reforms for farmed ( and for ALI wild caught) animals) , ALI has also advocated against the use of insects as fish feed.

I’m not a fan of stuff that amounts to plant based meat/ lab grown meat research or lobbying, UK research has shown no correlation between plant based meat and real meat sales, theres no proof it makes any more sense then supporting the potato chip or clementine industries…

When it comes to conventional farm animal focus/ Vegan advocacy, DxE seems to kept more squeaky clean , most of the others focused in the area got caught by the cage free craze… ( besides sanctuaries of course)

Some causes that seem effective just because of things getting better and impacting lots of animals:

Fur farming: Fur farming has been on a steep decline : Fur free Alliance in Europe has played a large role, ( most Fur is farmed in Europe, Russia or China, North America produce a tiny share of fur but is weird for its high rate coming from wild animals)

Beasts of Burden: besides PETA, animal Rajat in India has been involved in both mechanizing industries and providing sanctuary for camels/cattle/horses/donkeys, and Save Elephant foundation in Thailand has been involved in rescuing elephants and retraining there handlers in other businesses, I have a whole article on my sub-stack on this space https://placeholderatthemoment.substack.com/p/working-for-working-animals-progress

Animal Testing?: besides PETA ( which has alot of international subdivisions) Cruelty Free International is working in this space in developed countries, bans on testing for cosmetics have been very successful internationally

I wont touch on conservation/environmentalism/ hunting focused stuff because harder to measure/compare but a-lot of them are out there doing important work ( and Ive talked about my reasons for valuing conservation before https://placeholderatthemoment.substack.com/p/conservation-as-compassion-a-101 ), also a case can be made for human family planning services but I don’t think anyone has quantified it yet

I’m in Hot take/ unpopular opinion mood … lets see

- theres nothing wrong with keeping rescued foxes or mink as pets, at the very least it is more humane than keeping pet parrots

- PETA is a good organization, HSUS is a bad one

- Cage free reforms are bad for chickens, ( but most other welfare reforms are good)

- climate change is small potatoes compared to most other environmental problems ( especially habitat loss)

- environmentalists should be less weird about and more embracing of plastic

- I don’t recognize the split of Babirusa into multiple species

- the most popular insecticide in the US by far is a scam that doesn’t even increase crop yields, and should be banned entirely

- I’m accepting the split of reindeer/caribou into multiple species for the time being

- Fiction effects reality

- space colonization is extremely bad

- “ Humans are part of nature” rhetoric always boils down to noble savagery or rejecting environmentalism/conservation entirely in favor of human dominion and supremacy ( this is distinct from “ reject the naturalistic fallacy” which tends to come to the correct conclusion wild animals natural suffering is morally relevant)

- commercial pine wood plantations aren’t forests, anymore then an apple orchard is , and it is not only misleading but blatant lies for federal/state governments or the FAO to describe them as such

- “ X is responsible for Y% of global carbon footprint” style statements from the Media are meaningless, as you can never tell what they include and what they don’t

- Laymen should ignore anything the media says about invasive species, and if they are interested should start by downloading iNaturalist and seeing how much they are surrounded by invasive plants

- There is no justification for hunting and trapping invasive animals

[monstersandmaw]

hi do you have advice for someone who want to make resin jewelry? thank you

Hello Anon! I have a few things which I would recommend to you, but a lot of it will come from your own trial and error, I’m afraid...

If you're using a 2-part epoxy resin, and you live somewhere that's on the chillier side, you can put the bottle of 'Part A' into some nicely hot water before you measure and mix the two parts together. This helps with viscosity and reduces bubbles.

Use a heat gun or a lighter (be very careful not to touch the silicone with the flame though because it will permanently damage it!!!) to pop the bubbles that float to the surface after pouring. Just pass the flame really quickly and delicately over the resin - don’t linger, or you can burn the resin and that’s super super toxic and bad news.

If you’re using flowers, make sure they’re completely dry - if there’s any moisture, it can mess with the resin and go gross in time. Pour a thin layer of clear resin into the mould, place the flowers, and wait for it to go tacky or fully cure before adding colour behind. Same for vinyls.

Be aware that a LOT of the cheap moulds you can buy from China are stolen designs. AlleyCatsCraft on Instagram literally just did a post about how it affected her when her designs and logo were stolen and sold on, so I would recommend seeking out quality, handmade moulds from small businesses, rather than getting the cheaper ones from places like Aliexpress. Ravcontino also had their moulds stolen, which I have unknowingly bought myself - they’re the demon kitty ones among many others. They said they don’t blame people who unwittingly buy them, but it has also affected their mental health a lot. Plus the cheaper moulds are much worse quality. Better to make a few things of good quality, than lots of poorer quality stuff, and support small makers who care about their work.

Be patient when making your pieces. Don’t just chuck loads of liquid into a mould and be done with it. I really started to plan each one ahead of time, and noticed my pieces picking up in quality immediately.

Silicone mats and stirring rods are your friend for reusability and mess-containing.

Wear a respirator. VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are given off by almost all resins, even if they’re odorless ones, and they can be extremely toxic. Protecting your eyes is important too, not just from splashes, so wear goggles too. This stuff is nasty (even the ‘non-toxic’ ones can be), so protect yourself. Nitrile gloves (not latex) are also essential to protecting your skin (plus who wants all that gross stickiness on their skin anyway!).

Alcohol hand gels/sanitiser/sprays are really good for getting goop and gunk off your skin if you do get it on you, or for cleanings hard surfaces, but don’t get it on your moulds repeatedly as it’ll damage them over time.

If your surface is covered in cured drips of resin, very gently heat it with a heat gun and lift/peel it right off without damaging the table.

Mica and glitter are great for mixing in almost any amount, but liquid colourants can interact weirdly with resins, so only use them in very small quantities, and if you’re using UV resin, be very sparing as it can stop it from curing altogether. You can also apply mica powder directly to a mould, but it will dull the surface more quickly over time.

Be very careful about where you source your mica powders from though, because a lot of mica comes from mines where children are exploited for labour.

If you’re using UV resin and it’s not curing anymore or is still a bit tacky, cover your piece with some water and then try it under the light again. Some resins don’t cure well in air, and will cure better without it.

Have fun? I can’t think of anything else, but if you want to ask me something more specific, I’d be happy to help out. If it’s a question about suppliers though, bear in mind I’m based in the UK, so it may not be practical for you to use the same as me. There are some great mould makers based in America too though. I’m not sure about Europe or elsewhere either.

Hope that helps! Happy making!

[tiesandtea]

Mr. Lazy – fanzine interview with Alan Fisher, December 2004

intrepid suede globetrotters elina and sirje conducted this interview with alan fisher, the man about whom songs like "lazy", "high rising", "beautiful loser" and, according to the man himself, "the most of the others as well" have been written. (editor's note: not to suggest that alcohol played any part in this q&a session, but it did take place in alan's local. oh, and in other locations in the uk, plus morocco & finland, in both oral & written forms. anyway, surely worth all the so-called trouble.) no animals, be they cats or terrapins, were harmed during this interview, but a considerable amount of wine bottles did get destroyed.

how long have you known brett? where did you grow up?

i have known brett since i was 16/17 – near on 20 years now. i grew up in sussex, near haywards heath.

how does it feel that so many of brett’s lyrics are about you? (did you ever get the feeling that brett was just kind of observing you or waiting around for you to do something flamboyant so that he could write about it?)

it’s very flattering to know that some lyrics are about me. however i was never aware of brett observing me purposely to get lyrics or ideas for songs. it’s funny because there are so many songs that are very personal to me, and you think some part of the song is about you, and they are not. over the years many friends who have been in close contact with brett and the music think that songs are about them, because of various lyrical content. i think brett has ability to take elements from friends’ lives or chapters and create a story blended together, a fusion of characters in one song. i remember when i heard “the big time” and the last line – “now we’re in the big time and you’re in the way” i was extremely put out, i took it very personally. i thought it referred to me, but luckily it didn’t. however i’m pleased to say that my favourite song has to be “lazy”. the original version i think went like this – “here they come with their make up on as lovely as the birds come and see them” which i think is very beautiful. which changed to “here they come gone 7 am bla bla bla”, which was about being up all night, then putting on make up so as to hide the effects of being on a bender, and going down to off-license to buy cornflakes and bottles of red wine.

what was the best experience traveling with suede? (what happened in las vegas?)

difficult question, as i’ve had many amazing experiences on tour with suede. two very contrasting escapades were one journey in japan, and one on the west coast of america. brett and myself had the fortunate experience of visiting a buddhist temple in japan called the “moss gardens”. we visited a temple that was so beautiful and peaceful, and the entire gardens were immersed in moss with beautiful ponds and waterfalls. we sat in the temple and wrote a mantra admist buddhist chanting, which i believe influenced the song “introducing the band”. the other experience was a trip to la, san francisco and las vegas. i seem to remember i hadn’t been to bed for a few days, and when i was there i didn’t sleep much for various reasons. we stayed at a friend’s house in beverly hills called michiko, a house of pure opulence, with plenty of alcohol and other fineries. i seem to remember that towards the end (in vegas) brett wouldn’t let me sleep – just more alcohol. and i think that when i went to bed brett checked to make sure i was alive.

what will/do you miss the most about suede?

the thing i miss the most about suede is being around when a great song is created. i’d come home and brett would say “i’ve got it.”, some missing song on the album and consequently we would stay up night after night listening to the same song over and over – the poor neighbours.

at what part of his career was brett at his happiest?

when he was writing happy songs. actually i don’t think brett ever made happy songs. only joking! i don’t know when brett was actually the happiest. i think maybe when the band first started and the first album came out, that’s when he realised his dreams were coming true.

has brett being famous ever bothered you?

brett being famous has never bothered me; in fact it’s been quite a relief; it’s taken the limelight away from me.

fame can and has certainly changed many people who obtain it. how do you think it's affected brett over the years? has it affected your friendship?

i don’t think fame has changed brett’s fundamental characteristics, obviously it has shaped his life aspects like walking down the street, or having a drink in pub. i think living with me for so long has definitely fucked him up.

is there a lot of divergence between brett's public persona and the man underneath it all?

not really. he’s the same complex, passionate and artistic character at home and on stage, i don’t know about the bedroom though!!

how were the new band members really welcomed?

some dreadful, unmentionable initiation ceremonies.

was brett & bernard getting back together a surprise for you? how do you like the new material? how about brett’s solo material?

not really; they had a magic chemistry together that never really fulfilled its potential. and the new stuff is absolutely great! wait and see!!

what's all this about brett meditating? it was mentioned in the love & poison book.

i haven’t actually read love & poison, which is extremely lame of me, eventually i will. however, i think brett has some interest in meditating, maybe from visiting japan’s buddhist temples and being influenced by their way of living, zen and all that.

is brett good at pub quizzes?

brett, i could imagine, is very good at pub quizzes if he entered them. they have a quiz at our local pub, i think brett and mat osman entered once, and came a very admirable second place, which is no mean feat, because it’s a very professional affair in that establishment.

have there been times when brett did something you wish he hadn't? musical decisions or anything.

i can’t think of anything that resembles a mistake or regret in terms of musical direction. over the years, artists are faced with monumental decisions to make in terms of artistic development; single releases; band commitment and general themes for the forthcoming albums. however, i think brett has the ability to listen to other people’s opinions as well as his own, to come up with the best viable decision. considering the turbulent times of drug taking and various band members coming and going, i don’t think he’s done too badly.

how posh is brett?

how posh is brett – what a strange question – in fact the hardest one i’ve ever been asked! – not at all. crikey, well for somebody that came from a council house and bought second hand records/clothes. he now drinks tea at 4 o’clock in proper bone china tea cups – doesn’t get any posher than that. oh! and he has a butler called jessica rabbit.

does he watch sports on tv?

well it has to be football, brett hates posh sports like cricket & rugby (un)like me. he is very obsessive over the england football team, ipswich and manchester united (because that’s my team, and i always cry when they lose).

what's brett's best quality?

brett’s best quality is having good taste in friends and good taste in music, i.e., suede.

and his worst?

i can’t think of his worst qualities, but i remember the worst thing living with him, he would always become too comfortable on the sofa which would mean i would have to rewind the suede demos and go out and get another bottle of wine from the off-license.

we're sorry this is all about suede/brett... when we start an alan fanzine we’ll interview you about yourself... ok?

ok.

tell us a secret

my favourite colour is black.

how much do suede lie in the interviews? (if you read them)

i’m too busy to read suede interviews, i’ve got my own press cuttings to examine.

what do you think brett would have become without suede?

i’m sure it would have only been with some musical compaction. however, our living arrangements would have resembled something out of “the servant”.

what about you? how much has suede affected you?

suede were the most important thing in my life. as my girlfriend just put it a moment ago whilst i was writing this, it’s like going out with three people: her, me and suede. as i tell her, it could have been worse: i could have been friends with ronan keating.

do you love us? what do you think of suede fans in general? a lovely bunch on whole, or have you had some harrowing experiences with obsessed loonies?

well, i’m a suede fan myself, so i would have to say they are great. obsessed loonies? i am one; i have been stalking brett for 20 years, but he doesn’t realise.

there are lots of mentions of yours and brett's drug use in l&p. is this an accurate characterization of the state of affairs or did it get glammed up a bit for press?

it’s all a myth, i once smoked a joint with brett, it was really far out man! oh, and i snorted some glue at a dinner party once, it was so chic.

tell us something about suede that we don't know.

they are a figment of your imagination!!

tell us something about brett that we don't know.

i know something extremely juicy, real top gossip. but you’re going to have to wait to see whether he meets my blackmail demands.

if you were an animal, what kind of animal would he be? what kind of animal would brett be?

brett refers to me as an electrocuted rabbit, something similar to the mad hatter in alice in wonderland. i think brett would be a very feline cat.

speaking of cats, they tend to go missing, don’t they?

we had a cat called meisk – when brett was on tour it went missing. when i found it on the street, i thought it had a cold because it had a funny meow – it turned out to be the wrong cat. i remember brett was extremely pissed off. we had another cat called sphinx that was an incredibly lively character, it had a long run up – then produced its claws and wham!!

have you ever been arrested?

yes! on several occasions, on suspicion of being sinister and bad influence on society.

dave thompson’s yet-to-be-published suede-book, an armchair guide to suede, includes this: 

"‘young men’ developed out of lyrics written for a joke band, the bruisers, that anderson, his flatmate alan and a hairdresser friend named gary hatched one evening;"

can you tell us anything more about this?

after one crazy night early in the morning we had this inspiration to form a band based on idea of national front skinheads with the title song “british bulldog”. brett and gary were both very amusing and inventive with songs like “santa ain’t a wanker” etc.

besides that, have you ever been musically inclined or in a band yourself?

after hearing brett playing an instrument called the melodica, something like a mouth organ with a pipe attached to it, waking me every morning, it put me off music for life.

what other music are you into besides suede?

sigue sigue sputnik and mozart.

have you and brett ever had a fist fight? have you ever fought over who does the shopping or cleans the toilet or whose dirty plates are in the sink?

we have never had a fist fight in 20 years. however, we once had a duel at sunrise over who was the vainest.

that’s it then. say something nice. or mean. whatever you like. thanks!

stop asking me questions about brett, and more about myself!

Source: Pornographic & Tragic, the official Suede fanzine, issue 2 (December 2004).

[untamedunrestrained]

The Untamed and Mo Dao Zu Shi

These past eight days have been surreal.

I have drowned so fully in this story that it feels like I am just surfacing.

On Valentine’s Day, fandom on tumblr reblogged this fanart of WangXian by qulfeeh and I was intrigued. The reblog was tagged with two important key words ‘Wangxian’ and ��The Untamed’. In the brush of a few keystrokes I came across the Wikipedia page for a show known as the Untamed that was available on Netflix. The thing that stood out was that it was based on a BL novel and that both the very male protagonists were described as each other’s soulmates and somehow that was enough. So, I opened Netflix and after like a second of hesitation I started watching the show and I didn’t stop. I started at eight in the evening and I watched nine episodes in a row which basically meant I was up till five in the morning. What followed seems like a record for me. I finished all fifty episodes of the Untamed in under seventy-two hours.

I put hardly five minutes of thought into my decision to watch this story and ended up dedicating the past eight days straight. The first three days to the live action drama and the past five to reading the novel.

If it isn’t obvious this story is that good.

The Untamed

The Untamed is a first for me on so many levels. I have never watched a Chinese show before ever and that seemed extremely significant to me because China is actually a neighbouring country yet as far as my mind is concerned it might as well be on another planet. Which seems particularly odd considering shows from English speaking countries like the UK and the US are a staple for me which makes these countries feel so much closer though they are geographically on the other side of the planet. Of course, a major factor is the language barrier but another is the political scenario between our two countries and amazingly this show made me realise how much of an impact perceiving different cultures can have on your perception of their people. It has literally opened up a whole new world for me that I have just realised I have never taken the moment to discover. Well, considering this is me we are talking about, how appropriate, that it would be a drama based on a BL novel that unlocked this whole new world for me.

I have tried reading a Danmei novel before which was awful and it completely turned me off the genre but it did have a side effect of educating we about elements of a wuxia novel which made this xianxia world seem a little familiar but even if it hadn’t, I would have still been hooked.

It didn’t take long for The Untamed to find a new fan and I have been obsessing over it ever since.

The Untamed is an amazing drama which revolves around the love Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian have for each other and the plot is so intriguing that you wouldn’t be able to stop even if you tried (I didn’t because that thought didn’t even manage to enter my mind).

It’s a love story and that is undisputable for me, they don’t say it, it isn’t mentioned but there is this palpable force influencing events and you know they love each other. I have somehow really disregarded how much a show can show you stuff without ever explicitly stating it but The Untamed set me straight in that regard. I doubt anyone who watches the show would mistake it for anything but the love story it is.

Wei WuXian was an instant hit for me. He is a lovable, gregarious character always up to mischief but is someone who always wants to be on the side of justice and I have a weak spot for characters with a hard on for justice. He is just such a lively character who keeps smiling all the time that it’s just hard not to fall for him in minutes. His antics and his demeanour are so charming that you’re hooked. He would have easily been my most favourite character in any other drama that doesn’t have a Lan WangJi.

Lan WangJi is an amazing character. In a world, which has become increasing about everyone voicing their opinions (like I’m doing at present) it is hard to believe that people like Lan WangJi exist. People who are quiet, who don’t speak unless absolutely necessary. He is literally the embodiment of tranquillity and more important he is Wei WuXian’s hero. Like literally he protects him like he’s protecting his life which on second thought he definitely is.

I literally had second-hand embarrassment from how obviously romantic these two are.

Hands down the best thing I have watched in 2020 by far! The characters are amazing, the plot is intricate and it is so, so interesting. I watched almost fourty hours of this series non-stop and I don’t remember a single point where I felt like the story became boring for a second which now that I think about it is, is… astonishing. How can such a large drama be so engrossing? This isn’t binge-worthy there is literally no other way to watch the show!!!

Mo Dao Zu Shi

But after coming down from the high of the first seventy-two hours of being submerged in this world, I was reluctant to leave this world so much so that I didn’t even contemplate it. I had a wide variety of media to choose from. The story is based on a web series by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu that was made into a manhua, followed by an donghua, followed by an audio drama followed by The Untamed. It must speak to the universality of the story that the people are willing to read the same story in so many different formats, I know I’m not done.

But, high up on my list was the source material, one of the articles described the show as being extremely faithful to the novel, which made me want to jump on that wagon posthaste, and I agree whole-heartedly. I read the translation by Exiled Rebels Scanlations and what struck me was how the show and the novel were tonally the same. I had switched mediums but it didn’t feel like a different story or like I was reading different characters which is shocking because that’s literally how good the show was at translating words into video.

Differences

One of the startling things about the book is that it really ties up the plot neatly. There are tons of plot points that aren’t as completely resolved on the show as they are on the novel which I only ever realised after reading the novel. A lot of this had to do with how certain details of the plot are different. A classic example that the reason behind the scars on Lan Zhan’s back is different in the two. In the novel, LWJ whisks WWX away from the Nightless City after he massacres and pretty much beats-to-a-pulp the entire alliance of sects. LWJ then has to tend to WWX so they remain in hiding for three days. When cultivators from the GusuLan Sect finally discover the two, LWJ has to defeat all of them to keep WWX safe and that’s why he is given one whipping for every cultivator he defeated. Of course, since WWX dies on the battlefield in the show this couldn’t be the reason behind the scars so they have LWJ defend Burial Mounds which wasn’t all that fruitful considereing the LanlingJin Clan does end up with a lot of WWX’s artifacts, there was no point in defending Burial Mounds as he couldn’t have kept it up in the long run but him going to Burial Mounds after the massacre at Nightless City is important to ensure they story can credibly reveal Lan ShiZui to be A-Yuan. So, yeah differences, the show focuses on the Wen Clan and the Yin Iron while the novel doesn’t have the Yin Iron at all and focuses on Jin GuangYao. But, despite the differences the story still feels coherent between the two mediums mainly because the relationship between LWJ and WWX that is at the core of both remains central to the plot at all times.

The plot of the novel though is extremely intricate and the author does an amazing job of deconstructing it which makes it easier to understand what’s happening while the show in hindsight does get away with sweeping up certain loose ends.

Of course, the kisses and the sex are gone but I will gladly take that cliff scene in exchange. I was actually shocked that the novel actually doesn’t dwell on WWX’s first death at all. Like, we don’t even know how exactly he died in the novel and this was hsocking given how pivotal that cliff scene is in the show.

Characters

Surprisingly though a lot of the roles of side characters were expanded for the show, the novel seems to have delivered a better understanding of these characters. The biggest example for me being Jiang Yanli.

She has an elaborately expanded role in the show which does highlight how deep her bind with her brothers particularly WWX is but somehow she seems like a timid character among a bunch of very strong characters. What the novel does is that it gives you a very realistic picture of her, she might not seem like a significant influence on the story but her impact is far-reaching. The novel doesn’t showcase much of her character but the scenes that feature her in the book are some of the most poignant ones and incidentally those are the same ones that stand out in the show. I feel like novel did a better job of showing off her strength. While, in the show I couldn’t look beneath her timid demeanour the novel manages to showcase the strength of her love. She cares deeply and loves deeply and the novel manages to show you the courage it takes to love someone so deeply. I definitely admire her character more and in fact I’m kind of in awe that someone who appears so traditional was so awesome. It felt easy to dismiss her character but reading the author’s words made me realise that I would be very, very wrong in doing so.

Wei WuXian might be the luckiest guy in the world to have a shijie like her followed by a husband like LWJ who both seem very determined to spoil the hell out of him. I might be experiencing some jealousy right now.

The author somehow manages to imbue her characters with qualities that makes them real and unique. Like WWX forgetting everybody’s face which is a real world problem that I have never seen anybody suffer from in a novel but just the fact that WWX doesn’t immediately bring his old hang-ups in his subsequent meetings with side characters didn’t only have hilarious consequences but made everything that much more intriguing and credible.

This author also does an amazing job of flipping characters. There are very few villains who are black and white in this story. WWX himself is a character caught in the gray of it all, universally reviled for standing up for the right reasons. This is a theme throughout the show and the novel where bad characters might be good and good might be bad but the author endeavours to show us all sides to a character. While this most definitely applies to Jin GuangYao, I’m surprised with how it resonates with Xue Yang who’s relationship with Xiao Xinchen can only be characterized with the words “It’s Complicated”. I don’t actually know what to think of these two Xiao Xingchen was definitely betrayed but can we ignore the fact that he found himself a companion in Xue Yang his sworn enemy and Xue Yang’s feelings for Xiao Xingchen are enough to drive me crazy. This guy has no idea how frustrating he is, that piece of candy clenched in his fist will drive me crazy for the rest of my life. The entire Yi City Arc is a big mess of grey there are no whites and blacks and the show underscores that with this quote –

Once upon a time, there was a little child who liked sweets very much. But because he had no parents nor money, he could never have such things. So he’d been dreaming if only someone could give him a candy every day.

Don’t even get me started on the music that plays in the background when this quote is being narrated.

There are just so many amazing things about the show and the novel. I mean the show might have actually worked harder to make things more romantic and one scene that I’m surprised isn’t from the book is the lantern scene with both of them making pledges like that particular scene neatly underlined who WWX is and would become. The hand-fastening scene is also not from the book but then there are other scenes and other delights to be found in the novels.

This story is definitely worth reading and watching for years to come. If anyone has any apprehensions about the novel I will be glad to clarify but the everything about “The Untamed” and “Mo Dao Zu Shi” stand in the same breath.

[dailyaudiobible]

04/27/2021 DAb Transcript

Judges 7:1-8:17, Luke 23:13-43, Psalms 97:1-98:9, Proverbs 14:7-8

Today is the 27th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is great to be here with you today a little later than usual. Now for…most everybody's probably not going to notice that this is a little bit late but those of you in the UK for sure will and those of you early risers on the East Coast will. We’re in the 4 o'clock hour this morning and we've been up all night. We’re late a little bit because…well…China went into labor and she's been in labor all the way around the clock and she has successfully delivered a baby girl that is pretty much as all newborns are, perfect. And once we knew for sure she was in labor and was going to give birth at some point in the night then we’ve been waiting to make this announcement. So, China has had her baby daughter, our granddaughter. I don't know the weight yet or the length yet. She was born at 4:14 this morning. And we’re gonna have this news out within the hour, the hour of her birth. So, we’ve been…we’ve been keeping vigil. Jill has been with China the whole way here as has Ben of course. And they have decided to name this little girl Reagan Brave Brown and she is a brave little daughter of the king. She's our little Reagan the Brave and everybody is safe and sound and exhausted and a full of adrenaline and I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet. I think there’s water boiling in the background here. Just trying to be able to make this announcement. So, I'm sure before the days out we’ll have pictures posted and the details given. But there’s a new daily audio baby and her name is Reagan and she's eating and she’s sleeping, and we haven't even…she hasn’t even been weighed yet, but we didn’t want to wait a whole day to tell everybody. So, this is the good news. All is well, the baby has been born, everyone is safe. And, so, let's…let's now do what we have come here to do and read the Scriptures. And today we read in honor of Reagan the Brave who was born April 27, 2021. Okay. So, yesterday we were introduced to a man named Gideon in the Old Testament in the book of Judges. Gideon becomes one of the judges of Israel and we will continue with his story today. We’re reading from the Good News Translation this week. Judges 7:1 through 8:17.

Commentary:

Okay. So, today in the book of Judges the…the battle for which Gideon was called that was waged today. Although Gideon for his part, he had an army of 32,000 people but ended up confronting the enemy with only 300 people as God whittled down the army so that basically so that Gideon's early on question could be answered. Gideon early on in this story was asking the angel of the Lord, “where is this mighty God that did things that we've heard of from our ancestors, the great things of old?” God was inviting Gideon into one of those stories. And, so, a 300-person army confronted essentially three different armies who had banded together to raid and pillage and destroy. And it's interesting to see Gideon's confidence grow. At first, he’s like, “where is the God that did great things”, right? And then it…it went to, “Oh, the God who did great things is right here in front of me and I have borne witness to this. Am I gonna die?” It went from that to, “if you are truly calling me will you just give me confidence through this sign with dew? Can there be dew on this cloth, but not on the ground?” And then he did it the next day. “Can there be due on the ground but not on this cloth?” After that we don't really see Gideon confused anymore about who he’s following so when this 32,000-person army gets whittled down to 300 Gideon remains confident in the Lord. And let's be honest, 32,000 people, that’s a lot of people. If you’re going confront another army that's a lot of people depending on how many people they've got. But if they have an army that’s like covering the ground like locusts and their camels are as many as the sands on the seashore, that's all a lot of people. So, 300 looks more like a suicide mission than a confrontation with an enemy army. But the Lord had come before them and actually did what He said He was going to do, and the Israelites were set free. We’re not done with Gideon's story. There’s actually a dark chapter in the story to come before us, but it gives us a real sense of the times, times of the judges. So, the tribes of Israel have settled. This is a tribal time. They are tribes of Israel. And as we began the book of Judges, we were told that everyone was doing what they…whatever they thought was right in their own eyes. And we’ll get some glimpses of the different things that that can look like as we continue the journey through the book of Judges.

In the book of Luke today for the third time this year we have encountered the story of Jesus death. This, His trial and execution. And today we read of His crucifixion and that He hung there in agony and…and took more and more verbal abuse, even as He was dying. And in the face of that He displayed forgiveness, which…which really is the centerpiece isn’t it, that God would forgive us and welcome us into his family. And I know, we…we…we celebrated Easter just a few weeks ago. So, this is reasonably fresh in our mind. And we might even think, “yeh. We just made a big to do of that just a couple weeks ago when we were moving through holy week and celebrating Easter. There's just never a wrong time to meditate upon this though, to consider what kind of love we’re talking about because that's the kind of love that can change the world, that's the kind of love that conquers all according to the Scriptures. So, it's important that we give some time today to just meditate upon the sacrifice of Jesus. We will…well…I mean we…we’ve read through that story, that part of the story three times now - Matthew Mark and Luke - and these are the synoptic Gospels. We only have one gospel left after this, the gospel of John. We will only encounter this story one more time during this year. And, so, it's always important to just slow things down and become very grateful for what we have because we have been rescued.

Prayer:

Jesus is impossible to use words whether there roughly hewn or whether there just beautifully ornate words. There are no words that actually can add up to the description of what You've done for us. And, so, it would be maybe easier for us to just stay here in silence just in attitude that is grateful from the bottom of our hearts. And we plan to do today, just spend some time thinking this through and being in a space of gratitude and silence before You, thanking You, thanking You, knowing that our words fall short. And, so, we stand before You silent, not because we can’t find words to say but because this is the most honest thing we can do, present ourselves before You without a bunch of explanation. We are here and we are here because You saved us, and we are grateful, and we are expressing that. And, so, come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, its where you find out what's going on around here.

What’s going on around here right now is Reagan's birth and we will work to get pictures, all…all of that. We’re like really delirious, kind of right now we’re really focused on what we’re doing and one foot in front of the other. That's kinda how it gets when there's a severe lack of sleep going on but we’ll definitely…we’ll deftly get the word out on social media as soon as…as soon as China says we can. And we’ve had a running…how long…how long will this baby be, what will this baby's birthday be, what will the baby weigh…in our family for a long time…so we don't even know who’s going to win that one. We’ll post that stuff too as soon as we…as soon as we know. But we couldn’t wait any longer, wanted to get the news out and literally you’re hearing this within the hour of her birth. So, thank you for your prayers over everything that goes into bringing a new baby into the world over this little family, over her mommy and her healing, over this little girl who has had to trust and be thrust into a whole new existence that she’s never known before. And she's been experiencing it for less than an hour, so she's safe with her mommy and she knows that, and she knows the voice of her father. And this is a good place to start. So, thank you for your prayers.

That's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Jackie from Oregon I called to pray for Honeybee from Louisiana who's had twenty eye surgeries. I feel in my spirit the need to pray for you. Just talking on this podcast, I know God has a way of healing. I know it's come to a place where that's your only option and I really pray very hard for you in the name of Jesus that this eye be completely healed and restored. I know Jesus can do it. I know it's up to him. And I pray for that to happen. Thank you.

Hey, this call is for honeybee from Louisiana. Your call played today Thursday April 22nd and right away you caught my attention honeybee because my name is Melissa and that means honeybee. And, so, I have another friend who is also named Melissa and we call each other honeybee. So, right away you had my attention. But just listening to your request for your eyes for your site for the multiple surgeries you've endured and just the difficult spot you're at, I just want you to know that I…I’m praying for you now and I will continue to pray for you as the Holy Spirit brings you to my mind. And I'm just praying for God to do a miracle. I just kept thinking of the story of Jesus healing the blind men, how He just did it in different ways. You know, all the stories of the blind men healed in the Bible, they’re done differently. And He heals differently but He does heal. He's got the power to do that. And while you're waiting for that healing, I'm just praying for the peace of the Holy Spirit to surround you and encourage you. Be encouraged and blessed my sister, my fellow honeybee.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Tony the truck driver. I haven't called in in probably two or three years, but I still listen every day and support in partnership with the DAB. And today I just called with a heavy heart. One of my fellow truck drivers at my job was tragically killed today. Just pumping fuel in his truck, a guy came and just shot him for no reason and then took his own life. His name was Raymond Ramirez. He’s from Allentown PA. He leaves behind a wife and three young children. So, I’ve just been in prayer for him and his family…for his family all day. Everybody at the job has a heavy heart. So, I’m just asking you family to pray for his family. Just pray for the peace that Christ can give him…give his family Lord and that they would…He would just be with him, be with their family in this time, that they would have the peace that surpasses all understanding our Lord and saver can give. Thank you, family. Love you. Still listening. I'm definitely gonna try to call more often. Blind Tony I heard you one day still talk…shouting out me and my son AJ. He's doing great. He's actually gonna be 20 in a week or so. So, thank you for all you guys prayers. I'll be talking to you. God bless.

Hi, Olivia this is Dawn Rising in Michigan. I'm so glad you're in our community now and I just wanted to pray for you in your situation. I know it can be very confusing when you love somebody. You wanted to hear from people. So, I took that as an open invitation to give my opinion. I too was in an unequally yoked relationship for three years and I loved the person, but God gave me the foresight to be able to think of ahead of my current situation and how I wanted to raise my children and it didn't match up with the person that I was with. So, you know, if you want to look forward into your life and see how your life goals and how God's will for you could be obtained with the current person. So, just take a look at that and if, you know, and look into his heart and if there's room for change, but don't yoke yourself to somebody, you know, that will not want to change because it will be forever an uphill battle. And, you know, it'll be like the idols in…with the Canaanites. You'll be tempted to sway his way unfortunately. So, anyway, praying for you my friend and it's…it's not easy and I…I don't envy your situation because I've been in it. Anyway, we love you. We’ll pray for you.

Hi guys my name is Kimmy I'm calling in because Olivia from New Mexico, I'm sorry if I did not pronounce that right, your ask for prayer really, really spoke to me as my best friend of two…just broke up with her boyfriend of two years because they were unequally yoked. And, so, your stories were similar, and I just wanted to encourage you to continue to pursue the Lord and just pray, be in constant prayer to know what to do. But I wanted to encourage you with the words that my best friend had spoken to me was that she broke up with her boyfriend not out of a lack of love for him but out of a greater love for the Lord. And, so, whatever the will of the Lord is, I think being open and willing to hear it and to obey it is really important and I'll be praying for you no matter what the Lord…no matter what you decide to do. But I wanted to read to you Philippians 3 versus 7 through 11 which says, “but whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share His sufferings becoming like Him __ that by any means possible I may obtain the resurrection from the dead. I hope this has been an encouragement. And yeah, just keep pursuing the Lord. Be in constant prayer to know what to do because He's right there with you and He holds your heart in His hands and I’m praying for you.

Hi, I'm Ethan from Indiana and I just wanted to say thank you guys for doing this. And it really helps me because I can listen to the Bible while I'm in the shower or something like that and I can listen to the word of God. Thank you for everything. And I just pray that you guys are…have a blessed life and I pray that you guys have great days while you guys are in...

[encyclopika]

Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #17

Brought to you by a marine biologist who might be getting back on a boat soon?...

Fish I’ve Covered: Click Here

Every two weeks, my job keeps threatening to put us back on boats and that’s a little scary. Yeah, I miss going out, tbh, but I’m not willing to put my life on the line any more than I already do for that, smh. Humans aren’t the only ones that take pleasure cruises around the world, though. Believe it or not, fish do, too, and it’s actually a very important part of their population dynamics and life cycles! Most bony fish living out in the ocean do this, and today’s fish, the Barred Knifejaw, is one:

Available all day from March until November, the Barred Knifejaw is a generally uncommon catch in the ocean. But it’s so fun to get it! Love the black and white aesthetic, if I do say so myself. This fish was requested by my husband, and honestly, like the Killifish, I thought this was going to be a boring fish, but nay! We’ll actually get to cover something really neat about fish today - larvae dispersal!!! 

The Barred Knifejaw gets the honor of being named down to species in AC:NH, unlike unluckier fish, and I don’t know why. But here it is, the Barred Knifejaw, also called the Striped Beakfish (Oplegnathus fasciatus):

Knifejaws are so named for their fused teeth that look like beaks (kind of like parrotfish). They use these teeth to eat barnacles and other hard-shelled critters. They are native in the northwest Pacific, so near China and Japan, and they are often considered sport fish there. They’re also commercially important food fish, and like the manila clam we covered yesterday, they are farmed.  But uh, what else? Well, we started this off by talking about larvae dispersal and fish taking pleasure cruises. The vast majority of bony fish are “broadcast spawners”, meaning that they reproduce externally by releasing their sperm and eggs into the water to find each other out there. It’s a different type of UwU...

Once the eggs and sperm are out, they are taken by the current. All over the world, adult fish congregate to spawn in this manner, with the hopes that their babies are taken by the current and dropped off elsewhere. Once the larvae are old enough, they’ll settle into habitats miles away from where their parents live. This natural phenomenon is the basis for marine preserve/protected area conservation. Fish protected within marine preserves spawn within the preserve, but their young are carried out of the preserve to support fisheries elsewhere. It’s an incredible way to save the oceans. By this year, the world has vowed to protect 10% of the ocean by locking it into marine preserves all over the world. LOTS of countries, including the USA, the UK, and many many more, worked hard towards this goal, but I don’t think we reached it. Lots of studies by 2018 mentioned we weren’t even halfway there. 

For the barred knifejaw, this method of spread has extended the fish’s range from Asia all the way to Pacific islands like Hawaii. Recently, researchers have found the fish, as well as other Asian species, making it all the way to the western shores of North America, floating in on debris that was washed out to sea during the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. So yeah...baby fish taking a pleasure cruise on literal rafts of debris. Not as unlikely as you think.

And there you have it. Fascinating stuff, no? 

[makczio]

Maxence Danet-Fauvel's interview for EntourageS with Kevin Elarbi part 1/2

On this interview for EntourageS, Maxence and Kevin Elarbi talks about Actors Factory, the success of Skam France, the pros and cons of a transmedia serie, and Maxence’s favorite series.

K: So Skam, a phenomenal serie from france tv slash. A bet that also made france tv shlash because it’s a transmedia serie, which we’ll talk about it later with Maxence Danet Fauvel, one of the pioneer actor. How are you Maxence?

M: I’m very good!

K: We’ve been running after each other for few months now to know where we can meet, which podcast an everything. I’m so glad you’re here with us for this premiere on Betaseries the radio. This serie is amazing it’s crazy, on the representation but especially on its popularity. Is this something you expected?

M: No

K: By the way, how did you arrived on that serie?

M: How did I arrived? Well I was in an actor formation at the Actors Factory for, at the beginning I didn’t really knew why. And when I started to discover the method I thought “I would love to work on castings it would be cool to do casting director. We do classes opened to the public every friday since January, and at the class I did at the end of my second year there was Léa Coquin, the casting director for the first two seasons of Skam France, was in the public saw me and called me a couple of days later and proposed me to do a casting.

K: Because the Actors Factory, we’re going to talk about it now ‘cause you just started talking about it. For the people that doesn’t know or that are not actor. It’s a theatre school but not like Cours Florent or Cours Simon (French institutions were you can study theatre), but looks a lot like Actors Studio in the 50’s

M: Wow! You just said 3 things, if my coach hears you she destroys you haha

K: I mean by the creation and the group, it’s not 2k people classes, were we want to know the actor

M: Yeah

K: How much could you define Actors Factory?

M: Yes I’m saying that because I always have the habit to say School but she doesn’t like it. For her it’s a studio.She’s at the extreme opposite of the french methods of acting, so it’s not a theatre school it’s a… (Max just realised he wasn’t speaking in the mic haha) It’s really an actor formation for the cinema. We work on camera, we work on the organic processus of the actor. It’s far from a theatre school. And how can I talk about it? It’s a 2 years formation where we first work on ourselves which allows us to get rid of the mask and avoid pretending on the camera and really live things.

K: And you arrived on Skam with that formation? Because you just said that you were at the Actors first, so you worked on that character with that formation. With professors or alone?

M: So at first it was alone, and then for every role I play I’m helped by my coach, the one who trained me at the Actors Factory, she also train actors that aren’t in the Actors Factory. And when I really worked on my character I see her and everytime she gets to see things, not really important for the viewer but very important for me to understand my character more and play it with all I have.

K: Because in the seasons 3 and 4 of Skam France, the very popular ones, the word to mouth worked! So popular that whenever we do an interview with one of you it’s immediately translated in China, UK, well everywhere!

M: Haha it’s true!

K: In theses seasons your partner is Axel Auriant, you have a common narrative arc. You’re going very far in the scenes you’re playing for a series for “teenagers”, that’s why I wasn’t surprised to see Euphoria in your choices because Euphoria does that too with HBO and OCS in France but we’ll talk about that later. So I’d like to see a clip from Skam France, a love scene between you and Axel’s character, so you can explain to us if it’s a decision of France 3 and France TV Slash because it never happened to go that far in a teenager serie.

A part of the Samedi 9:17 clip is showed.

K: So a really beautiful scene with Axel Auriant that we kiss (in France, when we talk about someone we like on television or radio, we say we kiss but it means we salute). How did you worked together? I know you shoot many useful minutes per day, and we don’t see it because it’s a qualitative serie, as I said in the introduction of the podcast. So you shoot many useful minutes per day however it’s very qualitative and technical. How did you did? Did you see each other a lot? Talked a lot? Repeated a lot when you weren’t on set? How did it happened? 

M: So we have a big work behind where we repeated a lot with the director. With Axel we worked a lot about, how can I call that? It’s not even a work in fact, we get to know each other, first we went to take a beer, then we repeated at his place etc. And yeah we really took a big month to prepare ourselves, we got our texts and positions on the rooms rock solid before arriving on the set, so when we arrived on set and it was David’s goal, we just had to live all the colours that we created together, and yeah it worked so well because we trusted each other, we were well leaded with a great team. I mean it’s really an impressive team on Skam France because we don’t have a big budget, we shoot a lot and fast so it means that we barely sleeps, and really everyone is really invested and united and it gives a work energy were you don’t count your work hours, you don’t care acting 18 hours a day, you’re so invested that when it ends you feel like it’s a dream and lasted half a second and yeah the months were so fast!

K: Did you watched movies, did you got any book references or did you went with your knowledge in this character?

M: Well no, I never watch movies during a shooting or during the preparation 

K: That’s very interesting, can you explain why? I think I know why but...

M: You wanna know why? 

K: Yeah

M:  Well because… Well my favorite part during a shooting, what really makes me love it isn’t the shooting itself but all the month before, all my preparation, the isolation is really a phase where I need to be alone at my place, changing my morning routine and the decoration of my apartment, there’s really a work to be the character. And that’s really the phase that I love the most, and it’s something that should be me that I don’t want to be inspired by... I don’t want to take the risk to steal something that an actor build. But what I do is maybe better than going to the cinema, is that I go on the street and I observe a lot people. And for Skam France for example, it was really impressive. I spent 6 or 7 hours a day walking in Paris without a destination or a goal. I walked an sometimes there were things that came in my mind and when I went back home I wrote it and thought “Yeah that’s good, this is a good element for this or that” so bit by bit you build something and a complete character

K:  That’s so interesting! And as I said in the introduction, it’s a transmedia serie. So when we say transmedia we don’t understand it in the first place, can you explain what’s a transmedia serie? If I'm right it's a serie that take your character and broadcast it in real time. It's so 2.0. Did you understood this concept at first?

M: I understood… Well I didn't tried to understand it. Until the last day on set I was really focused on Eliott, and it's a character that's so close to me that I couldn't fail. It could've been so easy to go for my comfort zone thinking "Oh they took me for Maxence so I'll play some Maxence and it will be easy!" So no, until the end of the shooting I wasn't paying attention to that. I heard stuff, they asked us to take selfies on the set, I was expecting there was something to follow. But I understood that the serie was broadcasting in real time, so a Monday at 10:21 will be out a Monday at 10:21 and it was a full episode a Friday at 18:00 but I didn't really cared about it. So you want me to explain that's right?

K: No but that because when Lula explained me that concept when she came I didn't understood anything, I was thinking "What the fuck is that"

M: Okay so I'll explain

K: Yeah explaining but popularizing this term, for those who aren't used to this kind of serie

M: So a transmedia serie is… should I watch there? (he was pointing at the camera, funny he thought about that 11 minutes after the interview started). So basically a transmedia serie is… I'd like to call that a serie that you can't really see if you don't watch it during the airing time. Skam France season 3 you can find it in the France TV Slash website or youtube but during the airing, something like the scene we saw earlier, if it happens at, I'm going to say some crap I'll be bullied by fans haha, but I'd it happens Saturday at 11:21, I said it randomly, it will be online Saturday at 11:21 etc, and it's the same for every clip. And at the end of the week, there's the episode.

K: And that episode is the whole episode?

M: Yes that's the whole episode, plus, the characters have Instagram accounts where we can see them in real time, exchanging texts, that they put in an Instagram story so people can follow them, they post pictures during their days. For example if Eliott, well he doesn't do that but we can imagine Eliott posts a pic during the airing of an episode, if you update if Instagram account at that second the pic will appear. So that's a total immersion.

K: Isn't it dangerous for an actor, I'm thinking about the distance to have with the public, who is enormous. After the scene that we'll watch later I'll ask you something about the LGBTQI+ community in China or even the Middle East, that serie is very important and so many people watch it,  sometimes they're hiding just to watch it. But how do you put a frontier as an actor, I mean during the convention when you meet tour fans, this serie is one of the few ones to have that many conventions I mean you'll soon have one in Seoul, it's crazy

M: Yeah it's crazy 

K: Yeah, how do you do to.. Yeah there's tour character that's in your life and it's just fictional but is also everywhere like on Instagram. How do you do to put a certain distance? Is it something that you like or is it hard?

M: No that's not something that I really like, I mean I think we're already so much on our phones, even I am! I don't remember when but I discovered on Instagram you can see how much time you spend on it, it's dumb but you do there on the morning, during coffee, etc. I think it's not a good solution because we use a society problem to encourage people to use it more etc. I don't think people need that, I think in the new generation, there's people that wanna go to theater, there's young people that wanna go to the cinema, there's no need to give them that much on social networks to interest them. It's not something that I really like but it gives something to the serie that, I know when I watch a serie, during two seasons I miss the characters and I think "Fuck the next episode is in a year, it's hell", so in that case it can be cool. I don't know during an evening you wanna watch an episode of Peaky Blinders and the season isn't out yet, well you can see between the seasons what the characters are doing and it makes a link during the seasons. So there's something interesting about it but I can't say that I like it, because it would be a lie. The idea is good but if it was created in an other way I would've liked it too

K: So another clip and then I'll ask you to react to the importance of that serie for like I said the Middle East countries or China, countries where the liberties are less than in France, where your character and Axel's character are now close to political characters 

A part of the Friday 20:27 clip is showed.

K: Yeah so a part of a clip of Skam France, a strong one. Oh and you're filled with emotions

M: Noooo haha (he's moved and has his eyes all teary)

K: Haha barely. I didn't wanted to move you. I know how difficult it must be because I know you gave a lot of yourself for this scene and maybe you're back at how you were during the shooting 

M: Haha no I don't know

K: Haha yes I know, I tell you. Do to change the subject, I didn't wanted to touch you that much Maxence I'm sorry 

M: No that's cool, it's beautiful. It's such a beautiful scene. This scene is magnificent it kills me, Axel is...

K: It's everything 

M: Yeah it's everything, the music, the editing its wow!

K: Yes the travelling on him, and the light! I completely agree it's one of the most beautiful scene of this season, and I have to say thank you to Mathilde who works with me and insisted that I play this scene. Do you have any idea how important this serie is, seen by ao many people legally or not, even more seen in other countries than in France 

M: Oh really?

K: Yes! Have you ever received testimonies, I'm thinking about Middle East or Chinese, even Russian, it's amazing the success in Russia

M: Yes Russia is unbelievable 

K: So have you received testimonies?

M: Yes, we've got a lot of them in private, also a lot of touchy videos from hundreds of people, you were talking about Russian, I remember of hundreds of Russian doing secret meetings to watch the serie because they can't watch that kind of fiction and, and yeah that's very touchy but it's true that it brings to a really rough reality and we did Skam France for the love of cinema first and now with the message we give,  it's true that it has a big impact and gives us responsibilities that we didn't thought about. And yeah when we see the impact it has like in China, even Corea, you know I lived in Corea and we might thought that it's free but not that much, it's getting better slowly but not that much. So seeing that in all those countries all these people are watching it and taking this message, it's something we didn't imagined. We weren't expecting this

K: We're lucky to have this serie, hopefully it will last. By the way, I don't know, because I know but I don't know if we can say it, I'll do like I didn't knew. You're currently on set?

M: Yes we are but I only acted just a day for now K: The shooting just started?

M: Oh no, it's been shooting for 3 weeks already 

K: Oh okay not a lot

M: Yes it's not a lot but for Skam France it's almost half of the shooting 

K: Oh yeah that's true. How many useful minutes a day?

M: 16-17

K: Wow, and with quality!

M: Yeah with quality!

K: Not a lot of series can afford 17 useful minutes a day! Don't laugh that's true!

M: Haha no you're right that's true

K: And the choices of the team are amazing!

M: Yes and also Xavier director of photography is completely insane, David the director doesn't give up, the actors are so invested. And yeah we're with a passionate team, very young. For most of us it's the first project, it was mine. For David it's also one of his first one. We all want to do something wonderful because it's our first experience, it was my first experience in front of a camera and you want to remember that your whole life and I think that, yes, it's by far the best shooting I ever done for now 

K: A shooting followed by many, became I know the Actors Factory take a lot of time, the Skam France shooting too. And also one of my friends that was on the shooting with you guys

M: He also was there during the shooting of seasons 3 and 4

K: Oh yes but what I understood is that this year his work is more important 

M: I won't say anything!

K: Fuck! I was trying haha! So you lose me I don't remember what I was about to say. Oh yes, I wanted to wish you a good luck for this shooting and I wanted to know if there was new ones?

M: Yes! There's new people coming but...

K: But you can't say who?

M: No I can't say

K: Why?

M: Mostly because, there's someone I won't talk about it

K: Okay 

M: And a project that I won't talk about because I don't want to and I want to work it alone, also another serie but I don't know if I can tell for who or what it is

K: Is it french?

M: It is

K: A hertzian group?

M: Yes

K: Shooting in October, this summer?

M: From January to April

K: So it will come very soon

M: Yes very soon

K: So you'll come back to talk about it then

M: It would be a pleasure!

K: So now we'll talk about the series you picked. First we're going to talk about an amazing serie, and OCS serie called Westworld and the a scene without visual effects but I think you'd like with Anthony Hawkins, a philosophical scene from the first season