#this is: the exaggeration of a familial bond beyond the reach of what is socially acceptable (yes it's far fetched yes i know yes

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

"Can I call you 'Drias?"

"Only one person ever called me that"

"Oh! Gotcha! Too personal. Boundaries, Marcy!"

My babygirl blaming herself and her difficulty reading social cues when she didn't do anything 😭 how was she supposed to know it was "too personal"?? She automatically assumes she did something wrong she assumes she messed up my BABY

[cristallsnoww]

i saw dear evan hansen livee (review)

i meant to post this sooner but school was busy so here i am

this was the national tour in sac

i went w/ my sisters and my friend plus her siblings

i had upper balcony seats, i wish i got to see it closer, but i’m grateful they even came to my city uwu

let’s get to it~

STAGE & INSTRUMENTAL

*the stage was same as the og

* the projection of the social media posts were a good touch for the bg

* the lights were good too, the bg would change color (orange in sincerely me, pink in only us)

* the sound effects sounded real

* the lights were glowing the same as the the beat in good for you

* the way all of them kept walking around looking at “social media posts” on the projection bgs in some songs

* showing evan’s speech on the bg and the videos for the connor project too

* we can see the musicians bc they had a balcony where you can see a few of them

* the sound and instrumental were sounded real (guitar and piano)

* props to the musicians

ACTING:

* sam primack played evan

* he was super good !

* he portrayed evan well, the anxiety and all

* he gave a young fresh vibe of evan

* the panic in his voice, the sobbing and sniffing were so well acted

* evan looking lost in waving through a window

* the “WOOOOOOAAAHHHH” at the end of waving through a window

* them high notes in for forever and words fail tho 👌🏼

* “i’M NOT hYpERVenTILaNG!!” and then “Dear Connor Murphy..”

* when he dropped the note cards in you will be found

* he kept apologizing and picked them up w/ a small voice

* he sat on the ground for a while and starts to have a breakdown

* he tugs his knees and sobs there 😢

* when he walked up and KNEELED DOWN in only us, zoe was sitting on the bed, it was at evan’s verse, he went up to her and kneeled w/ both knees while singing + staring into her eyes singing “so it can be us~ it can be us and oooonly us~ and what came before won’t count anymore or matter we can try that~”

* that was unexpected by me since the only version i saw was the og broadway performance and it didn’t have that which rlly knocked my socks off

* the sloppy kissing tho 😔👌🏼✨

* he’s so LoUD in act 2, like damn he went all out

* his voice was squeaky/cracked from broken sobs at some points

* the way he looked so StResSed & shouting when talking to jared and alana before good for you

* his begging when connor took his letter and when alana posted the “suicide note” so painful but good

* also the way evan always wiped his hands on his pants when zoe would stick her hand out

* how panicky he was when he freaked out that zoe was gonna “break up” w/ him

* their chemistry honestly 😭💙

* he also said a lot “what do you means” throughout the show i noticed

* his lines in good for you w/ heidi, jared, and alana singing in bg were so overwhelming but in a good way

* just an overall fresh, awkward, anxious vibe to him 😔💙

* noah kieserman played connor

* his voice reminded me of the og broadway

* the face connor gave at cynthia when larry and zoe said he was high

* the way he play punches evan in sincerely me

* the choreo in sincerely me is so iconic

* “if i stop smoking POT then everything might be alright”

* he was snapping when he sang that which i thought was new lol

* that dance they did for “our friendship goes beyond..” between connor and evan

* “..your average kind of bond” they had their arms around their shoulders and stared into their eyes before evan said “BUt not Bc we’Re gAY-“

* living for treebros moments y’know

* his high notes in disappear tho

* “when you’re falling in a forest, and there’s nobody around, all you need is for somebody to find you..”

* evan was crouching down and connor crouched next to him when he sang

* “when you’re falling in a forest, aND WhEN YoU hIT THe GrOUNd,,ALL YOU NEED IS FOR SOMEBODY TO FIND YOUUUU~”

* he stands up and reaches his hand before leaving the stage

* one of my fave lines in deh honestly

* “did you fall? or did you let go?” will always hit

* “you can’t even tell yourself the truth” also

* when evan told the truth and the murphys left the living room, they showed connor too and he also left walking away w/ disappointment/pity

* zoe was played by stephanie la rochelle

* she was good and sounded nearly the same as the og broadway/laura

* the way how zoe was nice in the beginning to evan, distant to him at first in her house about connor, then slowly opens up to him and accepts him for who he is is just 🤧

* in for forever, “there’s nothing that we can’t discuss, like girls we wish would notice us but never do” evan looks at zoe and dramatically clears his throat and continues singing

* in if i could tell her, when evan said “he thought you looked rlly pretty ER-you looked pretty COOL when you had indigo streaks in your hair” she says “he did!” and evan says really fast “he dID AHAHAHAHAH”

* it made the theatre laugh and same

* the intro to only us “i need something for me”

* “i want...you”

* 🤧🤧🤧😭😫💙💙💙

* just;;;;;; i cry

* the way zoe would hold evan’s hands and the way evan would hold zoe’s hands—

* how she and evan would copy each other’s tone of voice

* “ᵗʰᵃⁿᵏ ʸᵒᵘ” “ᵈᵒⁿ’ᵗ ᵐᵉⁿᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᶦᵗ”

* “you’re so weeeeeird.” “i knooooww.”

* i love me so bandtrees ok, my crops have been watered and is flourishing

* jared was played by alessandro costantini

* his portrayal was accurate to the og

* “i have skills son”

* his laughs were A++, especially in sincerely me

* his evil maniac laugh in the sincerely me reprise

* he was so smol compared to evan and connor, especially during sincerely me

* vocals were gr8 in sincerely me and you will be found

* the dance w/ connor when he tried to put himself into the story

* he runs so fast to the stage when his parts came, tiny lil quick feet uwu

* he tilts his head a lot when giving evan the ‘duh’ face

* we all live for his sarcasm and jokes

* “do you need a paper bag? you’re having a considerable trouble time breathing—“

* the bitterness/sad look when evan says he doesn’t have any other friends/when zoe comes up and kisses evan

* my kleinsen heart 🤧💔

* alana was played by ciara alyse harris

* she was more lively than the og but sounded exactly similar

* she acted well, her vocals and the way she exaggerated words

* vocals in good for you 👏🏼

* alana singing “on the outside always looking in will i ever be more than i’ve always been cuz i’m tap tap tapping on the glass, i’m waving through a windoww”

* “very close acquaintances”

* all the titles + positions she gives herself in the connor project video

* while evan said he was just co-president

* murphys were played by claire rankin and john menphill

* cynthia had some light raspy voice? it was interesting

* larry sounded the same as the og

* the way they hugged each other so tight in you will be found and the lights were all on them T-T

* high vocals in requiem

* cynthia’s thank yous to evan

* break in a glove had some good vocals too

* when connor’s “suicide note” was posted around and “YOU ARE NOT ALONE” kept singing while the murphys were looking lost and afraid

* opposite to the other soft “you are not alone” while the murphy parent were hugging

* heidi was played by jessica e. sherman

* she was good, close to the og

* her gestures and little dances to evan to cheer him up

* she SNAPPED after going to the murphys house

* “DO YOU KNOW HOW MORTIFYING IT IS TO KNOW THAT YOUR SON WAS SPENDING TIME AT SOMEONE ELSE’s HOUSE AND YOU DIDNT EVEN KNOW?”

* her good for you performance was great

* during the bridge, “i’ll shut my mouth and i’ll let you go..”

* she STRUTTED that walk ok ��� w/ all the lights on her

* so big/small was calming w/ the guitar

* the way they hugged u~u

* “when it all feels so big!” teasing evan saying he’s growing after they hugged

* he laughs 🥺 w/ a cracked voice from crying

* all the family fighting were so real, the shouting, the raising of voices

im so grateful i got to see it, such an emotional ride 😔💙

i hope people who wants to see it gets to see it, you’ll be blessed

or should i say you will be found

[overthinkingkdrama]

I stumbled on a post of yours listing your favorite kdrama melos and I hadn't realized until that moment that my fav kdramas (the smiles has left your eyes, just between lovere, secret love affair my ahjusshi etc) would all be classified together as distinct from other kdramas. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about Korean melodrama as a genre that is separate and distinct from not only other kdramas but also Western melodrama.

I apologize for how long it took me to post this response. This is a really great ask, touching on one of my favorite narrative subjects, and it required a bit of mulling before I could formulate an answer.

Melodrama as a genre umbrella is broad enough to include many different types of stories beneath its label. Sometimes the term "melodrama" is used specifically to differentiate from a "romcom", or to indicate that a drama (sometimes, but not always) will steer toward a tragic rather than happy ending. Sometimes it merely means that the subject matter is going to be "heavy" and "angsty" rather than "light and fluffy". The definition of the word in English typically connotes a story that includes sensational or exaggerated characters and themes, designed to appeal to emotion. In fact, if you start trying to parse what we mean when we describe something as a "melo" it might seem so general as to be unhelpful, but I believe we can narrow it down a little more.

The term "makjang" also very often gets applied to Kdramas, sometimes interchangeably with the word melodrama or as a sort of intensifier for melodrama, which is how I frequently use it. Although I would suggest that the way we use the word in the English-speaking fandom is somewhat different from its actual connotations in Korean. If you’re interested in specifics about what that term actually means and where it comes from this is a good blog post. And I think I’ve seen a couple other good definitions floating around if you do some googling.

If you’re more familiar with American television or fairly new to Kdramas, you might compare a makjang drama to a daytime soap opera. All the secrets and betrayals and star-crossed lovers you would associate with melodramas in general, but turned all the way up to 11. The most extreme end of the meo spectrum, verging on absurdity. This is generally what the uninitiated think all Kdramas are like. I frequently have people who don’t know much about the subject refer to Kdramas as “Korean soap operas”. I dislike this characterization because a) it ignorantly and rather Eurocentrically paints all Korean television with the same broad brush, when anybody with more than a passing familiarity knows that Korean television is just as varied in quality and content as any other country’s and b) the term “soap opera” has such a specific, culturally defined, low-rent connotation that I would have a hard time applying it meaningfully to non-Western television.

Not all melodramas are makjangs. Although all makjangs will be some variety of melodrama.

Rather than overwrought, exaggerated or sensational I prefer to use the word "heightened" to describe the subjects of a melo, since the word does not imply a value judgement and I think gestures at the central element of all story—but especially melos—that makes them so appealing in the first place. The emotions are “heightened”, the personalities are “heightened”, the actions are “heightened”. Everything is just a little bigger, a little sharper, a little louder than normal. They have deeper, more broad-reaching implications. They have greater scope and thematic resonance than what we generally experience in everyday life.

Even dramas that deal with fairly quotidian subjects (such as college, family relationships, workplace stress) can either have a more grounded/realistic bent, or a more melodramatic bent. Although I would argue that story because it seeks impose order and meaning on otherwise random or meaningless events through the magic of narrative structure will, by its very nature, necessitate certain type of melodrama. That is the quality of “heightened”-ness. Without it, we don’t really have stories at all. So, in that way this is very much a continuum, and not a set of discreet genre categories

As for the second part of your question, how Korean melodrama is distinct from the Western melodrama…I may not be entirely qualified to answer it, as my perspective is that of a Western viewer who is trying to define and categorize things as a non-native speaker with a distinctly Western literary critical background. However, I will attempt to give you my best answer based on the many dozens of dramas I’ve now seen and my own readings about Korean culture.

Because the single run mini-series with an average of 16-20 episodes is currently the currency of the realm, a lot of Korean television focuses on delivering a compact story with a limited cast of characters and bringing a single story arc to a conclusion. Which is different from most American network television which basically tries to stretch out endless seasons of a show whether the story actually calls for it or not. In the West this is changing because of streaming services, which make prestige television shows more and more desirable and common, resulting in more complete stories in limited runs. And it’s also changing in Korea which has been increasingly experimenting with preproduced, longer run and multi-season dramas. (This is of course a limited view of Korean television, which also has its share of long run weekly dramas or weekenders which have a different structure altogether, but I don’t know much about those so I won’t speak to them.) We’ll have to wait and see what style of television grows and thrives in the coming years.

While Korea has indisputably experienced an Americanization of its media in the past decades, there are certain things that are unshakably culturally construed, which appear in dramas again and again up to the present day. A lot of this peculiarly Korean sensibility I think can be tied to a few factors: the influence of Confucianism, the division of North and South, the country’s history of colonization, and a uniquely Korean relationship with emotionality typified by the concepts of han and heung.

I don’t want to wade too far into waters that are too deep for my shallow understanding, but a lot of the “fodder” so to speak of Korean melodrama comes from the specific history of the peninsula. The heavy emphasis on familial (especially parent/child) relationships and the specific way in which they are handle in Korean dramas requires a basic crash course in Confucianism to grasp. The concept of “filial piety” and different types of generational guilt or generational trauma might seem alien to a Westerner. Especially a Westerner from as young a country as the United States.

Because of the concept of “filial piety” and a strong emphasis on family background and blood ties, the recurrence of plots points like birth secrets, family registry falsification, the mistreatment of orphans, adopted children or the children of criminals/murders is much more frequent in Korean melodramas than Western television and treated with different weight within in the culture, and I find this can sometimes be off-putting or confusing if you don’t understand where some of these hang-ups come from. It’s also important to remember that South Korea is a relatively young Constitutional Republic with an extremely recent and troubled political past. More recent than the Japanese Occupation which left so many scars on the collective cultural consciousness, more recent even than the Korean War and the division of North and South Korea. Also, it doesn’t hurt to recognize that, while social stratification is an issue everywhere and that there is no culture in the world that doesn’t have some kind of class system, strongly Confucianism influenced societies have engrained into their history a type of caste system that many Western viewers are completely unfamiliar with.

I’m not saying that you have to be immersed in Korean culture or history to understand and enjoy dramas, but it certainly helps to understand some of the nuances or even troubling elements that you will detect while watching. And it might be a good attitude to adopt, that if you find something off-putting or weird in a character’s reaction or the behavior of a particular group of people in a drama, to ask yourself if there is some kind of shared cultural context that you might be missing to explain the difference. A lot of what I’ve learned about Korean history and culture over the past few years has come from detecting such differences or such intellectual discomfort and doing my own research to find out why these things are coming up again and again.

Moving away from structure and even just cultural context, I do think there is something really unique in the “feel�� of Korean dramas that isn’t present in other media I’ve watched. A special kind of relationship “raw” emotion that I think is integrally and inescapably Korean. I think this has to do with the concepts of jeong, han, and heung.

Jeong has to do with a sense of community and communal love, which I think might be the most “visual” of these three “indescribable” emotional concepts. You can see it in the special weight given to sharing food, or in drinking together. You can see it in the family that the neighborhood of Ssangmun-dong in Reply 1988, that creates an umbrella of bonds which extends far beyond blood relations. It’s something that generates a special kind of warmth that I look to Kdramas for specifically. Of course, when an ideal like this is damaged or missing or twisted beyond recognition it can cut deeply and leave behind irreparable scars. Which, I think, might explain why so many romantic heroes and heroines in melodramas come from places of profound social isolation (people like Moo Young in TSHLYE and Gang Do in Just Between Lovers) or from severely broken homes.

Perhaps more relevant to the discussion of melodramas in particularly, han has to do with a sort of internalized trauma, or grief that one carries with them throughout their lives. It can be a broader cultural trauma (like the societal scars left behind from the Japanese Occupation) or something more personal (Like the loss of a child or a broken relationship). I found this quote which I think explains the feeling and its relationship to Korean media well:

Long-term foreign residents here note a tendency of people to wallow in or enjoy the sadness, in an almost romantic way. There is a deep strain of melancholy in Korean culture, and this is expressed in the modern age through sad songs, films and TV dramas that offer an unrelenting stream of tragic heroes, unrequited love and bittersweet memories – most likely contributing to the appeal of Korean pop culture abroad.

[Korea: The Impossible Country’ by Daniel Tudor (2012)]

Heung is somewhat less relevant to our discussion of melodramas, although it is interesting and much more evident I think in other examples of Korean media, but it is the almost manic reaction or counterpoint to han. A sort of overflowing, irrepressible sense of pure joy. And I totally recommend you go out and read about this stuff yourself, I'm probably just slaughtering these concepts trying to summarize them in my feeble way.

It the special cocktail of all three of these "feelings" that give Korean dramas (for me, Korean melodramas in particular) that special addictive quality that made me fall so deeply in love with them. That tacit permission to feel things, to feel them deeply, even overwhelmingly and the catharsis that goes along with that. That is the special sauce, the “heightened”-ness I mentioned before that takes the mundane and makes it magical.

Sorry this got so out of hand, but I hope it was an interesting read and worth the wait. Thank you so much for the ask.

Jona

[sparklyjojos]

hey i sent you an ask but internet problematic here so i dunno if it was sent? As someone with no experience with neurodivergent people i was hoping you could elaborate what you have previously said about Kars in JORGE JOESTAR (and other characters maybe) seeming neurodivergent. Like, i'd love to know your headcanons about jojo characters regarding this, as well as reasoning for the headcanon's (optional, but i'd love it)

(wow this one sure took me a long time to answer, sorry!)

oh boy, this would be an extremely long post if I included all other jojo characters I headcanon as nd so I’m just going to focus on Jorge (the Japanese one) and novel Kars for now

this won’t be a “this character definitely has x thing”, but just pointing out traits and dialogue that may interest someone who wants to headcanon/write these characters as nd

am I going to be reaching with some of those? yep! but if the Jorge Joestar novel itself taught me anything, it’s that:

so, you know. I see what I wanna see.

(tw: mental illness, trauma, ptsd, suicide - all in the Kars segment)

Jorge:

 – the sheer difference in introductions is telling: English Jorge talks at length about his family, his classmates, his gay puppy crush, and anything else you’d expect to be major concerns for a kid. Japanese Jorge? social life haha what social life, HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR 10 PAGES OF PUZZLE SOLVING

 – no really if the very first thing someone says after seeing all your memories is that you sure spend a lot of time on puzzles then that’s some deep interest you have, a bit of a stereotypical hobby there but whatevs

 – hyperfocuses a lot??

 – (exasperated Kars who’s been trying to get his attention for a good minute:) “You have a bad habit of not hearing when people speak to you.” (Jorge:) “Yeah, if I’m focused on something else. Sorry. What?”

 – tunes out of one phone conversation with Bruno like 3 times

 – figures out how time-based Stands work specifically because he has experience with his internal sense of time getting royally fucked up whenever he’s deeply focused

 – was inattentive (and hyperactive?) as a young kid to the point it affects how the memories on his disc look like: “I was a fidgety child, and the image rarely focused on [Joseph] for long. I wasn’t interested in his story.”

 – visual thinker, good with patterns, can make complicated mental maps and solve slide puzzles in his mind

 – his memory is really good until it isn’t (as far as he’s concerned Funny Valentine’s Stand is called Dirty Whatever)

 – very particular about meanings of words and names, etymology (his arc starts and ends with him pondering over the kanji of his own name, knows latin names of various species like Hydrangea or Ursus maritimus and what they mean literally, that “sorry that name’s taken” line when Rohan calls something a Beyond, etc)

 – doesn’t like (is distressed by?) clutter and things/details being WRONG. (“If details don’t add up right I get agitated, and start searching for a better way. This trait has lead to my room being very clean, and made me a great detective.”)

 – infodumps to Rohan about polar bears of all things, and there’s a moment when he stops talking almost mid-sentence after mentioning they’re called Ursus maritinus and instead of speaking out loud he just thinks to himself that “The scientific name was given by John Phipps in 1774” as if he just realized that’d be Too Much detail to share, I feel you Jorge

 – (after Erina says he has a characteristic soft smile) “I do? I mean, I guess people do say I look like an idiot.”  

 – gets urges to laugh at very bad times (”Cars’ whispered response had an air of such grim realism that I almost started laughing, but he was watching me suspiciously. Whoops.”)

 – sometimes blurts out things, often fails one-liners, even when he pre-plans what he’s going to say something else may come out (“I’d thought of all kinds of things to say, but what actually popped out in that moment? (…) I have no idea what I meant by that last bit but I said what I said and had to live with it.”)

 – sometimes impulsive, like yeah let’s just get up in the middle of the night and search through a 10 km^2 area on a bike for something unprecised while you have several death threats to your name, this can’t possibly backfire

 – (after Jorge quite literally blows himself up by impulsive carelessness) “Cars was still laughing. “You really don’t think things through.“”

 – small point that’s made moot by paranormal things like that being real in the jojoverse, but his tendency to see signs and messages meant for him everywhere and in every event, and insisting on coincidences not being mere synchronicity gives off a different vibe than intended (at least at the beginning before he knows Stands and Beyonds are a thing)

Kars:

 – honestly I could just slap the definition of “neurodivergent = with their brain functioning differently from what’s seen as ‘normal’ in the population” here and point at his backstory in this book and be done with it

 – remember everything I’m writing is on top of his canon image of an asocial genius scientist with poor affect (or, in the anime, varying between stone face and painfully exaggerated expressions) who has a connection with nature and animals, which I guess can? be seen as some type of autistic coding (unfortunately in this case it dovetails into “a loner with autistic traits = snaps and kills everyone” type of coding sooo maybe let’s not go there)

 – novel Kars talks about how when he was younger he didn’t even know that feeling sympathy and wanting to have emotional attachments with others –was a thing– (apparently his race wasn’t capable of it??), and he had to sorta consciously try to understand and learn it through reading human fiction. It came off to me like he relates better to fictional characters (and maybe animals?) than to his race or humans, too

 - ^^(that backstory’s a bit unclear with how it’s told; either just like his race he doesn’t have the drive for social bonding, empathy etc. and his understanding of others is made purely on the intellectual level - that’s relatable for some nd people - or he DOES have those things in a drastic difference from everyone else of his race, which I guess makes him nd by definition. It’s… complicated.)

– on the topic of “consciously learning how to sympathy” - there’s a few times in the novel when he’s a prick not because he wants to be but because he genuinely doesn’t understand why the other person would be upset (”Cars, sorry, but can you put me back at my old height?” “?…isn’t the view better?”), but if that person explains how the thing is upsetting he then backs off like “oh okay” (when Jorge is disturbed about the women’s heads thing - “Yeah. But I just feel sorry for them. I can’t watch this.” - Kars just goes “I see.” and makes them disappear). He still has to work on the “taking your private memories without asking” issue tho

 – that moment in the backstory where Kars became deeply aware of just how flawed and “not up to own potential” he was which launched him straight into unhealthy perfectionism and desire for control and power as a way of dealing with it? relatable

 – and that thing where him becoming much more chill is preceeded by the realization that he can’t ever - and that he doesn’t have to - become an infinitely perfect being without weaknesses, and that he’d still have worth and meaning even when he’s not performing to some ridiculous self-imposed standards?? GREAT, and I love to see lines like this one coming from him: “Cars smiled. “I have no desire to be the leadingman.””

 – he talks about how traumatic events and your emotional reactions to them (“feeling like you’re dying”) can damage your soul. Since he claims to have experience determining soul damage, and the only souls he worked with before belonged to 36 other Karses, we can assume he’s talking about himself as well. (and it’s kinda obvious that having everyone you love die in

 – ^^^also worth noting that even if Kars knew a lot about brains biology-wise, he missed out on practically all of modern psychology after 1939, so of course the way he relates to trauma and mental illness would be different, and more informed by what he learned having spent most of his life around ancient civilizations in the Americas - the concept of soul loss. And it’s not like the book doesn’t wink towards it in other places (English Jorge dissociating during torture is described as him having learned how to remove his soul from his body)

 – Light Dancer Kars speaks about how he wanted to commit suicide, then in the same paragraph says that he and our Kars feel “the same sadness”, which, wow. Earlier there are scenes where you can interpret Kars’s behaviour as passively suicidal; he doesn’t seek death, but if something (burning upon reentry while saving the humans, fighting Dio) did kill him, he wouldn’t mind that much

 – this one is very subjective because you can interpret these moments as just him being very lost in thought / focusing on healing (Jorge sure does), but: when faced with intense emotional stress - like hearing Light Dancer Kars’s existential speech, or almost getting killed because he chose to shield the humans from harm - Kars has a tendency to go non- or barely verbal, motionless, unresponsive to outside stimuli (including people trying to get his attention by calling his name) and staring at one thing / into space, ignoring even a zombie attack or that they’re pressed on time in alternate!Morioh. When I first read it I assumed he just dissociated really hard (ptsd-related?), or was in a shutdown

 – if you pay attention to what traits Kars seems to be holding in high regards - either through saying that X is a good thing about humanity, or bemoaning that humanity doesn’t have X (that he ofc does) - they’re stuff like creativity, perseverance, attention to details, pattern-based thinking, the desire to “figure stuff out”, and good memory. AKA traits often (though not always) increased in autistic people

 - at one point he says: ”In the end, you’re just another human. You see a mystery and think, ‘How odd!’ and put in on a shelf somewhere.” I’m sorry but even in context it sounds like “apparently people can see an interesting thing without instantly getting fixated and wanting to know and understand everything about it right there and then, what the fuck”

 – he tends to be either very invested in what’s going on or bored, no inbetween, and avoiding that boredom is a high priority (”And it seems I’ve run out of time to eat you all… But I wasn’t bored.”)

um yeah that’s all I can think of rn

[socialattractionuk]

Life in lockdown has made us more open to virtual dating and long distance relationships

Will you continue to date over video chat once lockdown ends? (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Long after lockdown is lifted, some after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic may linger.

Our experiences in the last few months will likely have an impact on how we date, as one example, from FOMU (that’s fear of meeting up) in the short term to cosy nights in cocktail bars no longer being the go-to date.

New research from the dating app Plenty of Fish looks at just how the pandemic will affect how we form romantic relationships, by surveying 850 users about how they’re feeling about dating right now.

Turns out it’s not all doom, gloom, and an overwhelming fear of physical contact – our experiences in lockdown may actually change our approach to dating for the better.

66% of those surveyed said they now value deeper conversations more than they did pre-pandemic, likely because lockdown has meant dating takes place through lengthy conversations over phone calls rather than rushing into the physical stuff.

The survey points to daters becoming more open to connecting in new ways.

Seven in ten (71%) of those surveyed said they’d be happy to go on a virtual date once lockdown is over, while 33% would now be open to a long distance relationship. Months apart has allowed many of us to realise we can form strong bonds from a distance.

This is a trend echoed by the team over at Badoo, who told us video dating have become so prevalent in lockdown that a virtual date ‘will become a natural step in the dating process before meeting face to face’.

Our experiences in lockdown have changed the way we approach dating and relationships (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Badoo’s UK Brand Marketing Director Natasha Briefel told Metro.co.uk: ‘t’s a great way to get to know somebody beyond messaging, and it also means you can make sure they are who they say they are!’

All those virtual dates and socially distanced strolls may have changed what we look for in a date, perhaps as we’re no longer able to overlook personality clashes by searching for a physical spark.

18% said being socially distanced from dating has made them open to romance with someone who’s not their usual type, while 35% said they now deem looks less important than before.

More: Dating

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The most popular qualities people look for in a date (on Plenty of Fish, at least. People on other dating apps might still be superficial) are humour, shared interests, and authenticity – all important if you’re planning to have lengthy conversations, over Zoom or otherwise.

Shannon Smith, Dating and Relationship expert for Plenty of Fish, says: ‘Lockdown and self-isolation has clearly had an impact on how we date, but it hasn’t stopped singles from looking for love.

‘There are so many ways to get to know someone, and once you spark that initial connection, why not try a virtual video date? It’s clear from our findings that no matter how you’re dating, the best way to find love is to be authentic and true to yourself.’

Dating terms and trends, defined

Blue-stalling: When two people are dating and acting like a couple, but one person in the partnership states they're unready for any sort of label or commitment (despite acting in a different manner).

Breadcrumbing: Leaving ‘breadcrumbs’ of interest – random noncommittal messages and notifications that seem to lead on forever, but don’t actually end up taking you anywhere worthwhile Breadcrumbing is all about piquing someone’s interest without the payoff of a date or a relationship.

Caspering: Being a friendly ghost - meaning yes, you ghost, but you offer an explanation beforehand. Caspering is all about being a nice human being with common decency. A novel idea.

Catfish: Someone who uses a fake identity to lure dates online.

Clearing: Clearing season happens in January. It’s when we’re so miserable thanks to Christmas being over, the cold weather, and general seasonal dreariness, that we will hook up with anyone just so we don’t feel completely unattractive. You might bang an ex, or give that creepy guy who you don’t really fancy a chance, or put up with truly awful sex just so you can feel human touch. It’s a tough time. Stay strong.

Cloutlighting: Cloutlighting is the combo of gaslighting and chasing social media clout. Someone will bait the person they’re dating on camera with the intention of getting them upset or angry, or making them look stupid, then share the video for everyone to laugh at.

Cockfishing: Also known as catcocking. When someone sending dick pics uses photo editing software or other methods to change the look of their penis, usually making it look bigger than it really is.

Cuffing season: The chilly autumn and winter months when you are struck by a desire to be coupled up, or cuffed.

Firedooring: Being firedoored is when the access is entirely on one side, so you're always waiting for them to call or text and your efforts are shot down.

Fishing: When someone will send out messages to a bunch of people to see who’d be interested in hooking up, wait to see who responds, then take their pick of who they want to get with. It’s called fishing because the fisher loads up on bait, waits for one fish to bite, then ignores all the others.

Flashpanner: Someone who’s addicted to that warm, fuzzy, and exciting start bit of a relationship, but can’t handle the hard bits that might come after – such as having to make a firm commitment, or meeting their parents, or posting an Instagram photo with them captioned as ‘this one’.

Freckling: Freckling is when someone pops into your dating life when the weather’s nice… and then vanishes once it’s a little chillier.

Gatsbying: To post a video, picture or selfie to public social media purely for a love interest to see it.

Ghosting: Cutting off all communication without explanation.

Grande-ing: Being grateful, rather than resentful, for your exes, just like Ariana Grande.

Hatfishing: When someone who looks better when wearing a hat has pics on their dating profile that exclusively show them wearing hats.

Kittenfishing: Using images that are of you, but are flattering to a point that it might be deceptive. So using really old or heavily edited photos, for example. Kittenfishes can also wildly exaggerate their height, age, interests, or accomplishments.

Lovebombing: Showering someone with attention, gifts, gestures of affection, and promises for your future relationship, only to distract them from your not-so-great bits. In extreme cases this can form the basis for an abusive relationship.

Microcheating: Cheating without physically crossing the line. So stuff like emotional cheating, sexting, confiding in someone other than your partner, that sort of thing.

Mountaineering: Reaching for people who might be out of your league, or reaching for the absolute top of the mountain.

Obligaswiping: The act of endlessly swiping on dating apps and flirt-chatting away with no legitimate intention of meeting up, so you can tell yourself you're doing *something* to put yourself out there.

Orbiting: The act of watching someone's Instagram stories or liking their tweets or generally staying in their 'orbit' after a breakup.

Paperclipping: When someone sporadically pops up to remind you of their existence, to prevent you from ever fully moving on.

Preating: Pre-cheating - laying the groundwork and putting out feelers for cheating, by sending flirty messages or getting closer to a work crush.

Prowling: Going hot and cold when it comes to expressing romantic interest.

R-bombing: Not responding to your messages but reading them all, so you see the 'delivered' and 'read' signs and feel like throwing your phone across the room.

Scroogeing: Dumping someone right before Christmas so you don't have to buy them a present.

Shadowing: Posing with a hot friend in all your dating app photos, knowing people will assume you're the attractive one and will be too polite to ask.

Shaveducking: Feeling deeply confused over whether you're really attracted to a person or if they just have great facial hair.

Sneating:When you go on dates just for a free meal.

Stashing: The act of hiding someone you're dating from your friends, family, and social media.

Submarineing: When someone ghosts, then suddenly returns and acts like nothing happened.

V-lationshipping:When someone you used to date reappears just around Valentine's Day, usually out of loneliness and desperation.

You-turning: Falling head over heels for someone, only to suddenly change your mind and dip.

Zombieing: Ghosting then returning from the dead. Different from submarineing because at least a zombie will acknowledge their distance.

  MORE: What Comes Next: The coronavirus pandemic will change how we view dating and relationships

MORE: Dating app launches new tool to stop you receiving unsolicited dick pics

MORE: How to cope with lockdown dating anxiety

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/i-will-answer-every-question-onetime-trump-business-partner-felix-sater-is-set-to-tell-house-panel-new-details-about-moscow-project/2019/06/20/754b9e8c-91d8-11e9-b58a-a6a9afaa0e3e_story.html?utm_term=.5e08529f8a52#click=https://t.co/KQpa4cPh9I

BREAKING: Felix Sater didn't show up to his hearing today, per House Intel. "The Committee had scheduled a voluntary staff-level interview with Mr. Sater, but he did not show up this morning as agreed. As a result, the Committee is issuing a subpoena to compel his testimony.”

In the meantime in an interview with the Washington Post, former Soviet general confirms he served as adviser on Trump Tower Moscow project during 2016 campaign, consulting with Michael Cohen by phone. By @thamburger @antontroian

#readthefullmuellerreport #TrumpCrimeSyndicate #ImpeachmentHearingsNow

‘I will answer every question’: Onetime Trump business partner Felix Sater is set to tell a House panel new details about Moscow project

By Tom Hamburger and

Anton TROIANOVSKI | Published June 20 at 3:23 Pm | Washington Post | Posted June 21, 2019 |

Congressional investigators looking into President Trump’s ties to Russia are scheduled to hear Friday from one of the most cooperative Trump associates yet: Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer who said he plans to discuss previously undisclosed details about his efforts to get a Trump tower built in Moscow.

While the testimony of former Trump aides has been largely stymied so far by White House objections, Sater, who has a long history of assisting government investigations, said he plans to give substantive answers during his closed-door interview with the House Intelligence Committee.

“I will answer every question without exception,” said Sater, who worked on two separate efforts to develop a Trump tower in Russia. “I always have and always will cooperate with anything the U.S. government asks of me.”

Among the topics Sater said he plans to address: How a former Soviet army general offered him advice on developing a Trump tower project in Moscow during the 2016 campaign — interactions that were not detailed in former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

Sater is also expected to provide additional details about how he and Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal attorney, pursued the dealeven as Trump was seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Cohen, who is now serving a three-year prison sentence, admitted last year that he lied to Congress when he said that discussions about the project ended in January 2016.

An attorney for the Trump Organization declined to comment on Sater.

Trump has said he barely knows the onetime stockbroker, and skeptical GOP committee members note his criminal convictions for a 1991 assault and a Mafia-backed stock scheme in the late 1990s.

For his part, Sater is expected to offer — as a testament to his credibility — details about what he describes as a two-decade-long history of assisting the FBI, the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency on highly sensitive investigations.

With new details about his life as a secret government operative, Sater brings even more drama — and another larger-than-life character — to the already baroque Russia story.

His work for the U.S. government, he claims, included helping track Osama bin Laden before and after the 9/11 attacks, locating Stinger missiles at risk of being sold to al-Qaeda and providing information about assassination plots against then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and President George W. Bush.

Some current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the claims of the fast-talking entrepreneur who grew up on Surf Avenue in Brooklyn, in the shadow of the Coney Island amusement park, said he has exaggerated his role.

But according to several former prosecutors and government documents reviewed by The Washington Post, Sater made significant contributions as a government cooperator.

“He was extraordinarily valuable,” recalled Todd Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York who represented the U.S. attorney’s office at Sater’s 2009 sentencing hearing and on other matters. “He had knowledge of so many different areas — from financial fraud to terrorism to street crime.”

Kaminsky said that both prosecutors and FBI agents spoke on Sater’s behalf at his 2009 sentencing, and that the letter the U.S. attorney’s office submitted detailing his cooperation “was unlike any I had seen as a prosecutor in its detail and breadth.’’

Justice Department veterans said that one of Sater’s most impressive assets was his far-flung networks of contacts — which include mob bosses in Queens, Afghan warlords and Ukrainian oligarchs.

Among his close associates is a retired Soviet army general named Evgeny Shmykov who Sater said aided his anti-terrorism inquiries in the 1990s and later helped him with the Trump Tower Moscow project. Shmykov, reached by telephone in Moscow, confirmed Sater’s account.

Among FBI agents, Sater’s ability to leverage information and operational plans earned him the nickname “Quarterback.”

Sater jokingly embraces a different moniker, a nod to his Jewish heritage: “Moishe Bond.”

'CRITICAL' COOPERATION

Sater was born in Moscow and moved to the United States at age 7 with his parents, who he said were fleeing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

The family settled in Brighton Beach, where Russian emigres congregated in the 1970s. His father, Misha, was a former boxer and butcher turned cabdriver who could quote Chekhov and Tolstoy from memory.

At social events during their high school years, Sater met Michael Cohen, who would go on to be Trump’s longtime personal attorney.

After a year and a half at New York’s Pace University, Sater became a broker at Lehman Brothers — a career that was derailed after a Manhattan bar fight in 1991, when he stabbed another man with a margarita glass. He served a year in prison and lost his broker’s license.

He eventually went to Russia to pursue business deals to support his family, he said.

Sater, a U.S. citizen, said he first cooperated with the government while working in Moscow in the mid-1990s on telecom deals in the newly privatized Russian market. At a party, he said, he met a Defense Intelligence Agency employee working undercover in Russia who asked Sater to help gather information about a new Russian radar system.

DIA officials declined to comment.

Months later, Sater said, he learned that he was under investigation in the United States for his role in a stock fraud scheme run out of a Mafia-linked brokerage firm where he had worked just after getting out of prison.

Sater came back to New York, pleading guilty in 1998 to one count of racketeering as part of a $40 million stock fraud in which Wall Street brokers artificially inflated the price of stocks.

The scheme relied on members of the La Cosa Nostra crime families for extortion and to resolve disputes, federal authorities alleged, part of a concerted effort by organized crime to make inroads on Wall Street.

Sater was spared prison time, thanks to the information he provided on national security matters and his role in the conviction of several Mafia figures, according to court records and interviews with former officials.  Kaminsky, the former prosecutor, told the court that while Sater’s criminal conduct was “serious and real, I don’t think there’s any question that Mr. Sater has prevented far more financial fraud than he has caused.”

Justice Department filings reviewed by The Post describe Sater taking personal risks to provide information about al-Qaeda’s financial structure, North Korea’s nuclear program and organized-crime leaders in Russia, among other matters, as BuzzFeed reported last year.

“Sater provided the United States intelligence community with highly sensitive information in an effort to help the government combat terrorists and rogue states,” according to a 2009 court filing.

The document noted that prosecutors could not confirm whether all of the information Sater provided checked out. “Sater, acting in good faith, simply made this intelligence available to those who were in a position to determine its value,” it read.

At Sater’s 2009 sentencing hearing, deputy U.S. attorney Marshall Miller lauded Sater’s efforts “to protect the United States. His cooperation was critical and he did go above and beyond what virtually any cooperator I have seen has done,” he said, according to a court transcript.

Miller declined to comment. The CIA, FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.

Several current national security officials, speaking on the condition on anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Sater made numerous offers of information but disputed that he provided intelligence of value.

Sater and his attorney, Robert Wolf, said that Sater worked extensively with law enforcement and intelligence agencies and that both were told his information was helpful.

Gathering intelligence on al-Qaeda and the mob for the U.S. government provided him with a sense of purpose, Sater said.

“It gave me a feeling of redemption that I was making up for my past misdeeds,” he said.

His sources included several top former Russian military figures, Sater said, including Shmykov, who had worked in military intelligence, as the New York Times first reported.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shmykov said he worked in the 1990s in a private capacity as an adviser to leaders of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, which was at odds with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Shmykov told The Post in the phone interview that he connected Sater with sources in Afghanistan and that the two traveled through the country together.

Shmykov said that it was clear that Sater’s loyalty was to the United States but that the two shared a common enemy — al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“He did a lot for your country,” Shmykov said, adding: “There were attempts to get him to work for Russia, but this was pointless. There were personal relationships” in the United States.

REAL ESTATE PARTNERS

Around 2000, Sater sought to remake himself as a real estate developer. He co-founded a company called Bayrock Group and rented space on the 24th floor of Trump Tower, two floors below Trump’s own offices.

Shortly after moving in, Sater said he went upstairs to meet his new landlord. “I said, ‘Mr. Trump, I am going to be the biggest developer in New York, and I think you are going to want to be my partner.’ ”

Trump laughed, Sater said, and then called two Trump employees over and told Sater to talk with them about his ideas.

In the months following that introductory meeting, Sater said he pitched the idea of building Trump towers in cities across North America and around the world, including Istanbul, London, Moscow, Warsaw and Kiev, Ukraine.

Trump gave Bayrock rights to use his name in developments in Arizona, Florida and New York — and a one-year deal in 2005 to develop a project in the Russian capital, according to court filings obtained by The Post.

Sater traveled with Donald Trump Jr. to work on a proposed tower in Phoenix and with the future president to unveil a proposal for a Trump tower in Denver, he said.

All the while, Sater promoted himself as the leading developer of Trump properties, recalling that he told would-be investors: “I can build a Trump tower because of my relationship with Trump.”

In 2005, Sater said he found potential investors in Moscow and a possible site: a shuttered pencil factory that had been named for American radicals Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were convicted of murder and executed during the “Red Scare” that swept the United States after World War I.

He had architectural plans drawn up by a New York firm and reviewed the project closely with Trump, he said.

[‘We will be in Moscow’: The story of Trump’s 30-year quest to expand his brand to Russia]

In a 2007 deposition, Trump acknowledged that Sater’s company, Bayrock, had brought Russian investors to his office to discuss building in Moscow. “It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”

Sater also said he squired Ivanka Trump and Trump Jr. around Moscow at their father’s request, even arranging a private tour of the Kremlin for Ivanka Trump, who was invited to sit in President Vladi­mir Putin’s chair.

A spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s attorney declined to comment.

Alan Garten, an attorney for the Trump Organization, declined to comment on Sater’s relationship with Donald Trump. But in 2016, he told the The Post that Sater’s description differed from Trump’s.

“I can see how the relationship may have been viewed differently from one person’s side of the relationship from the other,” Garten said, adding: “There was no relationship with Mr. Sater. The relationship was a business relationship with Bayrock.”

In a deposition for a 2013 lawsuit, Trump said he interacted with Sater only occasionally, adding, “If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”

In the end, the Moscow pencil factory project foundered. Bayrock ended up developing only two Trump-branded properties, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and in the SoHo neighborhood of New York.

During that period, Sater said he recalls talking with Trump “sometimes more than 20 times in a single week.” In 2010, the year the SoHo hotel opened, Sater moved into an office inside the Trump Organization’s 26th-floor suite — three doors down from Trump himself.

A LUCRATIVE PROPOSITION

When Trump announced his presidential bid in 2015, Sater saw a golden opportunity to push once again for a Trump tower in Moscow — while also elevating the New York businessman on the world stage.

“I want to get a tower built, and I am all excited,” Sater recalled thinking in 2015 as he contemplated connecting Trump and Putin during the campaign. “I am going to make $100 million on this deal.”

Sater acknowledges that his communication about the project during the campaign was entirely through Cohen. But he said that “every signal I got was that Trump loved this idea about pushing the Trump Moscow tower during the election campaign” as a way to boost Trump’s political and financial prospects simultaneously.

Cohen has said Sater approached him with a proposal for a Moscow project in September 2015. He had found a new Russian partner, a Moscow-based developer called I.C. Expert Investment Co., whose chairman was a former Sater business partner named Andrei Rozov.

In October, Trump signed a letter of intent to proceed with the Sater project, Cohen has said. It came on the same day Trump participated in the third Republican debate.

Cohen told Congress in February that Trump kept tabs on the project throughout the 2016 race.

“There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me, ‘How’s it going in Russia?’ — referring to the Moscow tower project,” Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee.

While Cohen talked with Trump, Sater said he concentrated on Moscow, drawing on the advice of other powerful Russian friends during this period, including Shmykov, other former military officials and a top executive of GenBank, a Russian financial institution now based in Kiev.

In Moscow, Sater said he and Rozov circulated plans for a 100-story glass-and-steel Trump tower, designed in the shape of an obelisk, that was to be the tallest building in Europe, as BuzzFeed has reported.

In his interview with The Post, Shmykov confirmed Sater’s account of his role in the Trump Tower project.

“He turned to me with this project” and others, Shmykov said, saying he talked to Sater about the Moscow tower beginning in early 2015 and into 2016.

Shmykov said his role on the project was “as an adviser — a senior comrade,” helping Sater and Cohen with influential Russian contacts, including those who could help acquire land. His outreach included checking out a site for a proposed land deal in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk.

Shmykov said that he also spoke to Cohen several times by phone but that he couldn’t remember whether the conversation was in 2015 or 2016.

A lawyer for Cohen, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.

Sater said Shmykov helped secure invitations and visas for Cohen and Trump to visit Russia in June 2016 — a trip that Cohen canceled as the Republican convention loomed.

Mueller’s report describes Sater’s efforts to secure the Moscow development, which it says could have been worth millions for Trump, but it does not mention Shmykov’s role in the unsuccessful effort.

“I was very disappointed” that the project stalled, Sater said. “I could have really used that $100 million — and I wouldn’t have minded being known as the guy who built the tallest structure in Europe.”

Sater said he continued his relationship with the FBI until 2016 but said he did not provide the bureau information related to Trump during the campaign. In 2017, Sater said he was contacted by the special counsel’s office. He said he cooperated with Mueller’s team fully, meeting twice with investigators and testifying once before the grand jury.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) has said he believes Sater’s testimony before his panel can help illuminate Trump’s interest in Russian business opportunities.

“Our paramount interest is in the Trump tower Moscow project and what went into trying to make that deal happen,” Schiff said in an interview in March. “The idea that a president of the United States was seeking a multimillion-dollar deal in Moscow — a deal that would have been the most lucrative of his life — at the same time he is running for president just screams of compromise.”

During an appearance Wednesday at the National Press Club, Schiff said that although negotiating with the Russians while running for office may not be a matter for prosecutors, it could have made Trump vulnerable to foreign influence.

“It may not be a crime,” he said. “It is, however, a counterintelligence problem of the first order of magnitude.”

Troianovski reported from Moscow. Ellen Nakashima, Rachael Bade, Alice Crites, Karoun Demirjian, Rosalind S. Helderman and Devlin Barrett in Washington and Natalia Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/different-types-of-card-games/

Different Types of Card Games

There are limitless types of card games to be played. People think because two games use the same deck of 52-cards that they are similar games, but nothing could be more different than Barbu and Speed, or Pai Gow and Pinochle.

Here’s a list of twenty different kinds of card games, and some facts about them.

Some Card Games are listed here

1.Bridge

Bridge is a popular contract bidding game. Bridge has a culture — there are websites, newspaper columns, and even radio shows devoted to bridge strategy. There is a world-wide obsession with bridge, even though it has been called the hardest card game in the world. With a complicated strategy and steep learning curve, to many bridge is not just a game, it is a lifestyle. I wish I were exaggerating.

2. Whist

Whist could be called “Bridge, Jr” — and though it is not as big a game as it once was, and is dwarfed in popularity by big-brother Bridge, Whist has never really died out. Card gamers love trick-taking games — beating out your opponent in such a visual way is one of the more exciting part of any card game. Whist has some of the complexity of Bridge without any bidding.

3. Texas Hold’em

Texas Hold’em is something of a legend — a poker variation with a story as rich as a Spaghetti western. This version of poker, a drawing and betting game, was invented and then made popular by old time poker sharks in Texas, hence the name. This is easily the most popular poker variant right now, and is bringing more new people to card gaming than any other game.

4. Hearts

It is said that most of the professional poker tour players are hardcore Hearts players and that they bet big money on cutthroat games of Hearts in dark mysterious rooms during tournaments. Romantic as that may sound, it would make sense for these card sharks to love the game of Hearts – an otherwise childlike game of matching cards (and no bidding) usually turns into a competitive nightmare. Because of the game play, there are lots of ways to screw your opponents in Hearts. Trick-winning and passing card are big elements of Hearts.

5. Spades

People don’t realize it, but spades is a variation of bridge that simplifies the game even more than Whist and changes the outcome of the game as well. Spades is really popular in large groups, on college campuses, and in tournaments around the world. There may be as many variations of Spades as there are groups playing it — thanks to “jailhouse rules” which penalize tactics like point sandbagging and the existence of multiple versions of “house rules”. A strategic game you can play without paying much attention if you want.

6. Go-fish

This is the simple children’s card matching game we all remember from our childhood. You can play Go-fish with as many players as you have cards. Some people claim Go-Fish is a variation of Rummy but the simplicity of the game and the children’s game gimmick make it likely just some toy company’s creation. Strangely enough, Go-fish is known as Literature in some parts of the world. Write in if you understand that one.

7. War

Another children’s game (or time-killing game) War is a straight luck based game. Depending on the flop of the card, you either win or lose a war. Most people under the age of 30 learned War before they learned any other card game. You’ll see War played a lot in lines at airports.

8. Oh Hell!

Substitute your own dirty word for “Hell!” and you know this party game. Most of the fun is the fact that you get to cuss a lot and people laugh at you. What keeps this game popular is that it is a strict betting game. The object of Oh Hell! is to bid the precise number of tricks you will win. You have to take only the number that you bid, no more and no less. Play is precise, and because of the structure of the game, one player always blows it big time. There. That’s what’s fun. Screwing your opponent.

9. Blackjack

A skill game that in some casinos is the best bet you can make, if you can play a perfect hand. This is one of the most popular casino card game, and has a place in popular culture as THE “Vegas” game. The point is to build a hand that adds up to a total of 21 points without going over, and ending up with a higher number than the dealer. Players compete against the House directly, adding to the fun. Little known fact — there exists somewhere in this world a blackjack player’s hall of fame. Safe to say that this game’s got a cult following

10. Baccarat

James Bond’s favorite game (don’t believe the hype — it wasn’t poker or blackjack — read the books) Baccarat is a basic betting game. Players bet on who will win a given hand – the player, the banker, or if there will be a tie. Sure it looks easy, but Baccarat is a skill game. A small sidenote about Baccarat — the name comes from the name of the worst possible hand. This would be like calling your video poker machine “High Card Poker”. Just doesn’t have the same ring as “Royal Flush”.

11. Solitaire

The most varied card game in the world. In England, they call this game Patience, and for good reason. Solitaire requires little set up beyond putting cards in specific places, and is usually played by yourself. Solitaire is another popular airport line waiting game.

12. Rummy and variations

There are lots of different kinds of Rummy, more than are probably written down on any list. I’ve written for a website that had me list 500 variations or other names for Rummy, so I’ll spare you the reading and just say there’s lots of kinds of Rummy. The more popular versions are called Gin Rummy, Liverpool Rummy, and Contract Rummy. The feature that makes a game a Rummy is a player matching identical cards into pairs and other groups. Some experts believe the Chinese game of Mahjong is part of the Rummy family, though I’d bet the Chinese are just fine with Mahjong as it is.

13. Pai Gow

This is an old Chinese domino game that has been passed down through the years as a poker variation. You’ll see Pai Gow at casinos in both as a poker and a domino game — it is probably the casino game that the least number of people understand. This is a game of fast bets, player versus dealer. Pai Gow strategy is just as rich as any other poker betting game, and the culture of Pai Gow is similar to the Blackjack culture — super-fast bets and edgy behavior at the margins.

14. Spoons

A silly card game probably invented to keep kids out of trouble, Spoons is a bluffing game (with some elements of matching) that uses simple kitchen utensils as an added play element. The first player in the group to draw a poker style four of a kind reaches to a pile of spoons in the middle of the table, signalling the other players to grab for one. Since there’s one less spoon than players, one player will be left out every time. So its a social interaction game, and not a game chock full of card strategy. its still fun. Great date night game.

15. Speed

Speed (sometimes called Spit) is a matching game that is unique because both players play simultaneously and as fast as they can. In Speed, a player tries to ‘get rid’ of his or her cards by matching them to cards placed face-up on the table. This is a face to face game, though there’s actually little interaction between the two opponents. The last few moments of any game of Speed reminds me of solitaire on fast-forward, with hands and cards flying around and rows forming and draining like water pipes. Strange game, Speed.

16. Crazy 8s

This is another children’s matching game, you could say it is cousin to the popular game Uno. The 8s in the deck of standard cards are considered “crazy” not because they need to be medicated but to indicate they are wild cards. In some variations of Crazy 8s, not just Wild Cards but other “rule cards” exist, making the game more complex for older players.

17. Slapjack

If you want to teach more complex card games to younger kids, Slapjack is the perfect vehicle. The object of Slapjack is to acquire the whole deck of cards by matching and slapping pairs. Kids like to slap stuff, and the game can be played over and over again.

18. Old Maid

You don’t need an “Old Maid” deck to play this kid’s card game — any standard 52 card deck will do. Just remove one of the Queens. Old Maid is a matching game where players find pairs You trade cards with your opponent until that player is left with the unmatched Queen. Matching games are popular, and the novelty “Old Maid” packs are fun for kids.

19. Cribbage

This is a hybrid board and card game with complicated rules that generally intimidates people, even hardcore card gamers. You play cribbage by forming groups of cards that are worth different point values, and moving a peg on a board that represents your progress accordingly. Requiring a specific board (or a quick hand with a pen and paper) cribbage isn’t the best travel game, but as fans of cribbage will tell you, no two games are alike. There are solitaire versions of cribbage, and other varieties of cribbage game play to choose from if you’re bored with the standard version.

20. Pinochle

Pinochle is popular because it is a trick-taking game that you play with a 48 card deck. In Pinochle, you try to make melds or tricks, much like in Gin, but there’s a really complex scoring system making the game fun to learn and to master. To be good at pinochle, you have to play for a number of years, and lose plenty of hands. Though it is less popular year after year, Pinochle is one of those “heritage games”.