#though... also getting my version of mangle vibes...

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Been listening to Paramore and ya know what? Yeah this is Roxy music lmao

[idolatrybarbie]

hiii wonderful bea :)) can u pls tell me anything about for times of trouble, if you please? 🫶

EEE i am so glad you asked - this is my first venture into writing joel and tlou and OC fic. we're following my OC jordan lowell, a half-black young woman who is raised by her father in a white supremacist evangelical protestant cult based in arkansas - the community of Love. when the cult falls to insurrection and is overrun with infected, jordan makes it her mission to find the remaining parts of her family: her estranged mother and unknown half brother, henry (yeah that one.)

joel and ellie are both in this, with joel and jordan's relationship being very platonic and reluctant father-daughter vibes. found family babeyyyyy~ i am super excited to get this out (probably in the late winter/early spring) to explore a tlou family dynamic with an older kid, since jordan is nineteen when this story starts. i also wanted to explore the grief of having a complicated family dynamic and losing that, and the way that can affect someone both before and after the loss.

the family and racial dynamics in this are very personal to me. i've discussed this fic a lot with @wannab-urs and realizing that a situation such as this isn't familiar with a lot of people made me want to write about it. i view jordan as a version of myself that's had the world fail her a lot more and only has rage to channel the impact of that failure. we will slowly learn just how much of a mangled and disturbed person she is. jordan is an angry black woman and there is nothing wrong with that.

oh and the title comes from proverbs 17:17. ok onto the snippet.

Even with the long wooden seats seemingly overflowing with sitting people, there are a pointed few missing from service. A dozen boys—though they'd certainly prefer young men—that Jordan knows varyingly well. She knows Isaiah. She likes him. He's got that same wandering eye she has, finding the cracks of stained glass or the autumnal explosion of coloured leaves a more worthy subject of his attention than...this. He's also the only other one here like her and unlike them. His skin is more taupe than her tawny, but they notice regardless. It doesn't matter what colour either of them are, not really. All that matters is that it isn't what they wish it were. Still, the people of Love let kids like them stay. Be here, members of the community, even if it comes with a few mumbled words. A few glares, a violent launch of sticky spit. That was one time. It'd never happened again. But Isaiah isn't here, his eyes nowhere to be found amongst the crowd. It sets Jordan's stomach alight, gut rolling. One thing Isaiah is that Jordan cannot be is angry. And that, he certainly is. Rage oozes off of him in waves, all-consuming in its power. It's exciting until it's scary. Like when he starts talking about leaving, the two of them, all by themselves. That's something she won't—can't—do. Isaiah never likes that answer.

that got a little serious, but regardless - thank you for asking ^__^

[steveharrington]

that's so fascinating to me that you liked little hope. I didn't like it for my own reasons but I am genuinely curious as to why you would rank it so high? (man of medan being at the bottom is so correct though lmao)

omg really :0 well disclaimer i haven’t finished it yet so this could all fall apart if the ending sucks but i’m pretty close (my progress is like 75% or smthing) and so far i’ve just had so much more fun with little hope. like i really enjoyed until dawn and parts of man of medan and the quarry, but i have pretty big issues with the plotline of all of them i.e. like massive plot holes or dropped story elements or just too much going on. little hope’s storyline is simple enough to avoid feeling over-written but still intriguing enough to keep the mystery feeling engaging. i really like the witch trials flashbacks, the cursed town vibe, the dopplegangers, and my beloved mary/megan bc i LOVE child antagonists (though i get the feeling she’s not really to blame at the end so i’ve been choosing to stay loyal to her). i also like the game mechanics a lot more with little hope! there’s a Lot less just walking around aimlessly in the dark for like 10 minute stretches, the shooting mechanics are better than man of medan & the quarry, and i feel like the choices actually matter. i can see why it might be unpopular but i personally LOVEEE the locked trait mechanic like. i love that the game punishes you for making safe decisions and i love that your choices, even if they seem insignificant, can determine the survival of each player. my biggest beef with the quarry specifically is that they boasted like “200 different endings” or some shit whereas i feel like in reality there were like… 5. sometimes i would make deliberate decisions in the quarry and the characters would basically just ignore/override them 😭? like as dylan i would often choose to hesitate/be cautious when exploring and the other characters would just be like “no” and we’d move forwards anyways so like why even bother letting me choose caution ykwim? and also it’s worth mentioning that i think the acting in little hope is a lotttt better than man of medan and until dawn. the dialogue feels more natural and the witch trials scenes are genuinely very riveting. plus i think little hope’s monsters are a lot scarier than werewolves/pirates/zombies/everything until dawn had going on. being chased by a version of your own corpse still mangled from your horrible death in a past life is so special. to me ❤️ anyways yeah this could all fall apart if the ending sucks but thus far i’ve just found little hope to be higher quality imo than the other games, which i still really like!!!! (except the quarry honestly i have a huge grudge against the quarry)

[west-tokyo-incidents]

Had a dream about a kind of like. Metroidvania style game. It was like a cross over of like Rainworld and a cyberpunk kind of vibe, and it was a pixel kind of game, leaning more towards games like, well, Rainworld. But also the game Tendril or Carrion comes to mind.

The main character was obviously Paresse because you know. But he was this like. Monster thing. Kind of like Hush but smaller and without so many teeth. And he moved like the creatures from Rainworld in that procedurally generated animation kind of way. Some of the enemies did, too. The first section I can't remember, because dreams be a bitch. The second, though, it showed like this neon board displaying a message.

[I don't know if this will reach anybody, anyone at all, but I need help.]

[My name is Fussa Fusataro, the famous singer, and I am NOT DEAD. I'm alive.]

[I need help. I don't know where I am, I don't know why I'm here, but I need help.]

The next shows Paresse on the side of a building, pressed against it and holding on. [I think the signal came from here.]

Then you go up and down the side of the building, searching windows until you see into one. There's a mangled pile of electronics and an obviously very injured Fusataro on a bed, unconscious but breathing. Its implied she was found out sending the signal and beaten for it.

You pick the lock on the door and go in, and the music gets soft, just a little piano number for a moment as the character approaches her. You can't interact with her, and you can't get too close, the character almost breaking the forth wall to refuse to go near. Almost as if scared.

Instead, you pick the lock on the door and slip out. An objective lights up that's just 'Clear the way out' so you have to go through the level killing everyone and knocking out every camera.

At some point in the level the view switches back to Fusataro and she wakes up, shivering because the window is open. She gets up and limps to it, confused, but shuts the window. Then finally notices the door is also open.

Flash back to Paresse and he's hit a point he can't pass, so you have to backtrack in order to find a way around(something that has apparently happened before in the game) and you end up running into Fusataro.

The cutscene starts with them both startling each other, Paresse curling up in the far corner of the room and Fusataro falling backwards and scrambling back. You can kind of move Paresse around, but he refuses to get close to her until she gets up and moves towards him. She reaches her hand out and he stretches his neck out to sniff it, eventually letting her pet him. And of course there's an emotional soundtrack that I will never hear again because FUCK DREAMS.

Anyways, after that, she travels with you and helps you solve a few puzzles, but you have to defend her and if she's hurt too many times you lose the level.

At the end of it, you're outside on the street and you have to choose between encouraging her to call for help or encouraging her to stay with you. She's talking to herself, scared that the cops are in on it since her death was faked so easily, but she doesn't know where else to go.

So OBVIOUSLY the dream took her along with the main character and it showed the abandoned place where the main character lives, which is clearly just a room with some shiny things, a pile of scavenged pillows, and an old bedframe.

I woke up around that point but now I'm imagining like even further like the game having multiple endings and you can get others along, too, and also this cute idea of Fusataro sleeping curled up with this monster version of Paresse in the fucking pillow pile AAAA...

[highdio]

I got an ask about the model boat that DIO's building as he and Pucci hang out and talk about the stand ‘Survivor’ in Part 6. The scene deserves its own post because it's the basis for one of my least-favorite wrong takes: that Dio is re-living a trauma by re-creating a "shipwreck" scene. Also no dw anon I don't think you implied this. This take's been repeated so often and without reflection that it's wound up being treated as something canon, check out this TV tropes entry to see how reflexively it gets parroted:

Dio's building a model ship in the middle of a wreck??? Fanon takes can take on a life of their own and, in Dio's case, so many people know his character through the caricature constructed around and outside of the canon instead of through how Araki actually wrote and drew him. So I'm going to break down the actual Part 6 scene to examine how we wound up so far from the truth of what's actually going on in it.

1. The first thing we need to get clear is whether Dio's model even resembles the ship he killed Jonathan on in Part 1, and the short answer is no, it doesn't. For reference here's the model:

and here's the ship from Part 1:

Both are hybrid sail/steam (implied on the model by the paddle wheels even though there's no smokestacks) but the ill-fated ocean liner that took Jonathan and Erina 1/2 way across the Atlantic is a lot bigger and grander. The OVA adaptation's helpful because it’s spot-on faithful to the manga:

It's gigantic, you can see three full decks and two large smokestacks, along with elaborate baroque-looking detailing all over the stern end. Dio's model ship looks entirely different. It's simple by comparison and, were it scaled up to full size, it'd still be a lot smaller (check out the model rowboats and their oars around it for size reference).

So it's not clear that the model Dio's building is even a callback to Part 1 or some sort of easter egg on Araki's part (after looking at the two ships side-by-side my gut tells me it’s not). Keep that in mind as we step through how much the scene's gotten mangled in fanon.

Like I said, the model-building panels form the basis for an oft-repeated bad take you see a lot online, where people say it's a "shipwreck" scene (I guess because there's rowboats around it?) and, therefore, a re-enactment of trauma. Ofc that's bogus. The ship's fine, and rowboats are how crew come ashore whenever a tall ship drops anchor. There's even a lighthouse and the ship is resting in a tranquil harbor. The anime version of the scene shows these details clearly:

Hopefully it's easy to see the scene for what it is: Dio engaged in the most mundane hobby you can think of, while having a leisurely conversation with his BFF. As Pucci explains it, they're talking like children ranking their favorite action heroes by how strong they are. It's a very chill little scene, remarkable for how unremarkable it would be if this wasn't DIO and Pucci.

It's worth including the official digital color version here too because, apparently, they forgot DIO was a vampire and gave the scene a cheery sunlit mood by making the sky outside the windows as blue as day:

It's a mistake ofc but it also underscores the relaxed feel to the scene: out of context, the day-lit color choice feels natural because the scene's got such a comfy vibe.

So how do we get from a chill guy chilling (canon) to a guy re-living a trauma (fanon)? Answer is, ofc, projection.

It's a fandom thing to need a villain's evilness to be justified - explained (excused?) in a way - through past trauma, say, or a series of unavoidable circumstances (or maybe some valid ideology they hold). A villain's villainy is only legitimized, validated, or complex enough *if* they've earned it by having a "good enough" reason to act bad. In Dio's case, where 'bad' is a wild understatement, some fans simply need him to be hurt, traumatized, or otherwise sufficiently suffering in ways that Araki just never intended. And this need is so strong it can override what's in front of their own eyes, even where the author and the text suggest the exact opposite.

In this way the Survivor scene acts as a Rorschach test where some people see the traces of trauma where there are none - in fact, it's the one scene where DIO seems most at ease, relaxed and unguarded (and ofc without his "shadow"). As such the scene and its misreading encompasses a lot of that's wrong about how fanon can sometimes view Dio and a lot of what's right about how Araki wrote him.

_____________________________________________________

Thanks to the anime there's an additional coda to all this. The Survivor scene in the Stone Ocean anime is faithful to the manga, but there's a twist: DavidPro gives us a sort of 'easter egg in reverse.' Remember the grand multi-deck ship Jonathan and Erina left for their honeymoon on? Here's the anime version, from all the way back in Season 1:

It looks a lot like Dio's model.

So here we have something from the manga that's likely not originally a callback getting turned into part of a callback, but in reverse order since the callback gets shown four seasons prior.

Of course, none of that negates the fact that the Stone Ocean anime scene is remains one of safety and comfort. The model ship isn't wrecked and DIO and Pucci are at their most relaxed and conversational. The scene hasn't been reshaped into any indice of trauma. What you have then is a fun little callback for the observant, and with it a wicked re-contextualization of this panel:

Now it’s become Dio towering over a model of the ship he killed everyone on. And somehow this feels appropriate: Dio's got a gift for casually being a jackass when referring back to some of the worst things that he's done. Aside from the obvious comparing human lives to slices of bread, a good example is this panel where he refers to Zeppeli's horrific death in the most deliberately offhand way:

So, anime Dio leisurely building a model resembling the ship he accidently destroyed while killing and then desecrating the body of the only man to ever defeat him? It feels right in character: a subtle nod to one of the many calamities he's caused. Assuming the viewer's more Joestar-sympathetic than me, I feel like what Dio's doing here and, on a meta level, what DavidPro either intentionally or unintentionally is doing is having some fun at the viewer's expense.

[ignoredtransartist]

So, a couple weeks ago I said that I had started to draw Qibli as a zombie, but the app sucked and deleted by progress, so I lost motivation. Well, when I saw Popcross Studios' zombie Sunny, I got motivation again.

Here's the comparison of my old, unfinished version and the new one I just finished~ Blood/Gore trigger warning

Let me tell you, I was tickled by how much I've improved.

Old picture, August last year

New one! Base and zombified versions

Details and ideas

First time doing a lot of blood, plus experimenting with shadows.

I tried to make it look like smoke was coming off of his back, like he had been briefly set on fire.

Bruised skin and scales.

Then there's multiple stab wounds from sandwing stingers, with black poison mixed with blood.

Tearing on the neck, mouth, ear, and wings. One of his wings is completely mangled, so he wouldn't be able to fly even if zombie dragons still know how to.

I tried to draw his intestines through the rip in his stomach, plus the tendons, bones and muscles in the thick of his tail and the arm and tips of his wings.

He's missing a finger,and there are chunks taken out of his bicep and thigh. Smaller cuts on his forhead and nicks in his lips.

I tried to give him a Resident Evil-esque pupil; almost looks like he's blind, but he can actually still see very well.

The "sails" on his head and back are shredded.

There's a small bite mark on his tail, from where he was bitten by an infected dragonet after trying to help them (before he realized it was too late).

I imagine that he got the tear on his mouth after he grabbed someone and they tried to keep him from biting them by pushing his head away, but they just ended up tearing through his cheek with their claw as he forced against it and bit them anyway.

The background (in the original) was suppost to be the arena in the Stronghold, and while I can't remember most of the base I came up with (if I even had one), basically it shows how he's absolutely lost his mind, attacking and killing the dragons he used to care about. I just decided to keep the idea, since I was more interested in the character than the background.

I also imagine that there's still a hint of what the dragon's personality/intelligence was,even after they turn. Example: Qibli is still fast and intelligent, even using tricks like throwing other dragons/zombies/corpses at his "prey" to slow them down and/or distract them. He also is more likely to not attack right away, instead stalking them silently and out of sight, and/or waiting for the other zombies to slow them down (if said "prey" has been able to fight them off/has a weapon, etc).

Also on that note, zombies tend to stick around each other if they had a good relationship before, or try to rip each other apart if they hated each other. Considering the fact that they were in the middle of a war (or just after), zombie brawls aren't an uncommon sight.

In this particular picture/story, JMA never came to be, so Qibli was still in the Sand Queendom.

(I might have another storyline/whatever where Jade Mountain DID come to be and the zombievirus showed up after the fact. In which case, my first idea was that the Jade Group is attacked during their escapade and Qibli and Winter are bit while letting the others get away and they turn together and become hunting buddies... yes I'm zombifying ships, I already know I'm weird. I also made a sketch a couple years ago where Winter was turned first and bit Qibli, who didn't try to stop him.. so, zombie romance.)

Yes, I gave him slightly different colors than canon, but I think it looks better than just *YELLOW*.

(No, I am not particularly following Popcross' storyline, though this one could fit into the same world. I'm just recalling what I already came up with last year, even though story wasn't my main focus then).

Song I listened to to get the vibe: Three Days Grace "Get Out Alive"

[vanderwoodlings]

Author Self-Interview

well @rainathorpe put out an open-ended tag so uh. here we go

Fandoms: I’ve published stuff for gossip girl and dc comics (mostly batfamily but I’ve also got a supersons series) and young justice 2010, took brief stops in pjo, rvb, and spn. I’m also working on stuff for btvs and hp (though given… certain things, I have no idea if any of those will ever get published) and I’ve put out some art for rwby

Most popular multi-chapter fic: that’s like a weird, murdery uncle you don’t invite to thanksgiving (batman, batfam&rogues gen) technically, which is a two-shot batfam fic, and also one of two multi chapters I’ve ever published, so… it’s kind of weird to see that given that’s it’s not one I think about much, but then again it’s very much something with wide appeal, so it makes sense

Favorite story you’ve written so far: this question is rude, but also Boy Hostage (supersons, jon&damian, au where damian doesn’t leave the league: jon gets himself kidnapped) which is the kind of “getting to where you can deal with your trauma” fic that I write over and over again, and it’s centered around the growth of a platonic relationship, which always makes me, as an aro, like. Vibe

Fic you were nervous to post: uh. All of them? Posting fics is kind of terrifying in terms of how much I crave validation lol. But in specific, but what good is a quick healing to go (yj, artemis-centric gen set in a soulmate au) because a) it’s the other multi-chapter and it’s actually got a plot, b) it’s a genfic in a soulmate au, and c) it’s one that’s does draw some off of my own experiences and that made posting it pretty uh. Exposing

How do you choose your titles: mostly just track down some songs to listen to that have the right vibe, and wait for a lyric to feel right, but there are a few titled after Shakespeare quotes/mangled versions thereof (see: If music be the food of love, then—shut up, Epsilon!) and a couple that are allusions to motifs or events in the fic (e.g. gorgeous)

Do you outline: not usually, but most of my stuff is pretty short — I do have an outline for the Michaelverse, aka the hp fic of doom, and one for an untitled spn series that I’m still debating about whether to even write, but both of those are rewrites for like. Entire series

Complete: uh. Not sure what I’m being asked, but I will say that I try to complete my fics before posting them — posting something and then abandoning it is a fear of mine

Do you accept prompts: I’d like to, but as contained under the above fear, I wouldn’t want to accept a prompt and then not fill it, and I’ve got the adhd so

Upcoming story you’re most excited to write about: recently started a Henry pov fic set in an au that diverges from canon post-series but pre-epilogue and its a lot of fun

Stories you’re most excited to read: thinking about the future is extremely hard, but I’m always excited to see what @rainathorpe comes out with next, and whenever @strideofpride updates I'm still alive (or, the Pearl Jam trauma series) I get inordinately excited

No pressure tags: anyone and everyone who sees this. Go wild

[rutilation]

I’d comment that Phos’s complaint about the final level of their game being ridiculously hard is a metaphor for how their entire quest gets exponentially more difficult as it approaches its conclusion, but the blurb in the margins already points out that parallel, so I guess my observation is redundant.  The accursed little thing is stealing my thunder.

Click the read more if you want to see me read way too much into the art.

Before I get into gushing over the artwork, I want to go over some of my thoughts on the narrative side of things, so let’s get the most annoying part out of the way first and talk about Aechmea.

I’ve heard that in the original Japanese, it’s clear that he’s referring to Cairngorm.  What’s interesting here is that he said this line when it seemed for a moment that Kongou was about to release the Lunarians.  But now that it’s clear it won’t happen, I wonder whether or not he’ll actually say what was on his mind.  In any case, I can’t wait to see more of his ugly mug next chapter.  Yay.

This chapter has sparked a bit of discourse regarding the earth gems, so I might as well chime in.  While I agree that the earth gems’ reaction isn’t unreasonable given the circumstances and the limited information at their disposal, it’s still not really the best reaction they could have had.  Regardless of their interpretation of Phos, the truth of the matter is that the version of Phos that the other gems feel the need to shatter, tie down, cage, and then shatter again is less of a threat to Kongou than the one they let walk around freely in chapter 58.  Just because what they’re doing is understandable, doesn’t mean that what they’re doing is right, and I don’t think that this pattern of shooting first and asking questions later is a good road for them to collectively go down.

And on the subject of Euclase, to reiterate what I’ve said before: they give me the willies not because I think their actions are totally unreasonable, (though said actions do tend to be on the more militant side of what could be considered reasonable, don’t they?)  Rather, a lot of the bad vibes I get from them are because of the menacing manner with which Ichikawa sometimes frames them, in addition to Padparadscha’s seemingly less-than-charitable opinion of them.

I’ve been curious for a while now about how Rutile would react after Padparadscha outright rejected them.  Looks like they’ve just doubled down on their obsessiveness, to the point of doing a stellar Onryō impression.  Really, the quickest way to ruin a relationship in this story is to either take someone for granted, or to be possessive/controlling.  Phos has some issues with the former, but a number of the other characters have a strong case of the latter, case in point being Rutile here.

I’m guessing that this implicitly confirms that the human particle is indeed in Phos’s eye?  I doubt that Kongou’s human sensors would go off due to Phos being merely metaphorically human.  I’ve also seen people posit that the reason Kongou can’t release the Lunarians is because his one-way ticket to nirvana only works on less sentient life forms.  (@rinboz has a good analysis that touches on this topic, btw.)  I think the chapter confirms this interpretation based on Phos’s mysteriously disappearing cage.  And that dovetails nicely into my thoughts on the art of this chapter…

Because the imagery of the cage coming to life, flowering, and vanishing in a breeze of petals is *chef’s kiss* gorgeous.

The scene starts off in gray and black, and the panels have a cluttered, claustrophobic feeling to them from the grain of the wood and the shadowy, looming architecture.  But once Kongou begins his prayer attempt, the panels start to become more spacious, those grays and blacks giving way to sleek monochrome.  Finally, this changes to stark white with minimal linework and virtually no shading.  The only other time I can recall Ichikawa using this blank, simplified style in hnk was when we saw a brief flashback of Phos as a child.  (For a given value of “child,” we are on arrested development island after all.)  

The way the cage seemingly transformed back into an earlier phase of its existence before vanishing reminds me of how Shiro went back to being a dog for a few moments before he left.  So, it seems that Kongou’s attempt worked just fine on a wooden cage—i.e, a plant—but none of the sentient beings present could actually be affected.  

Once he fails, the shroud of grey once again falls over the scene, black arches closing in.  And yet when the “camera” turns to Phos, their greyscale body is surrounded by white, as if the pure vision they had just seen is still haunting them.

I’m just in awe of how perfectly the environment here mirrors Phos’s emotional state.  Their heavy bondage flies away in a flurry of petals just as they’re getting their hopes up, and in the moment that those hopes are dashed, the rain of blades that shatter them are represented as black bars caging their mangled body.  Have I said before that Ichikawa is an absolute master of visual metaphor?  Because she is.

I was so fond of the art, as a matter of fact, that I reread the chapter several times and kind of.  Stared at it for a couple hours.  Here’s some interesting things I noticed.

In chapter 71, Cinnabar’s mercury globules were gone, but now they’re back.  Were they gone before because Cinnabar had just unloaded a bunch of mercury the previous chapter, or could there be some other reason?  Also in regards to Cinnabar, they’re present while Phos confronts Kongou, just barely visible on the far left—note the floating mercury.

But at no point does Ichikawa let us see their face or what they think of all this—more on this in a moment.

Bort doesn’t seem to be wearing powder on their left leg.  It’s the same leg that Phos shattered, and as far as we know, that’s the only time they’ve ever been broken, so maybe they’re leaving that leg bare as a reminder?  That seems like the sort of samurai-esque thing Bort would do.

Everyone’s started wearing gloves.  Before, the gems with a <9 hardness would only wear gloves if they anticipated having to touch someone or something with a different hardness level, (or in Cinnabar’s case, if they didn’t want to contaminate the things they touch.)  But in this chapter, everyone’s wearing gloves the whole time.  There are two possibilities that come to mind for me.  One is that since the earth gems have to anticipate fighting other gems instead of cloud-people, they have to worry about abrasions to their hands while fighting, and are thus patrolling with gloves.  The other possibility is that since Cinnabar has been fully (?) integrated into the group again, everyone has to be careful of what they touch, and they’ve taken to wearing gloves to lessen the risk of being contaminated by mercury.

Peridot and Sphene aren’t wearing gloves while patrolling in chapter 69, even though the earth gems were definitely counting on fighting the gems on the moon sooner or later, which makes me think it’s more likely that Cinnabar is the reason everyone’s wearing gloves.  Maybe it went something like this: up until the night raid, Cinnabar hadn’t been living with the other gems despite the fact that they must have been engaging with them.  But after the night raid, they start living with the others in the school, thus necessitating the gloves.

Once the sleep deprivation started kicking in I found myself engaging in the potentially meaningless venture of counting swords, gems, and who had swords and who didn’t in the second half of the chapter.  I may have found a couple of interesting things, so get your tinfoil hats ready.

On this page, we see all the earth gems sans Jade and Euclase, and of those gems, Sphene, Cinnabar, Obsidian, and Red Beryl are unarmed.  My first observation is that one of the gems who was unarmed grabbed a sword from somewhere and threw it at Phos.  There are only seven swords on this page, but—not counting Rutile’s scalpels—there are eight swords on the ground on the final page. 

Which begs the question: who threw the mystery sword?  We can rule out Jade or Euclase; they were standing in front of Phos and it’s clear from the positions of the blades on the ground that they were all thrown from behind.  Best-case scenario is that Sphene simply set their sword aside while checking the cage and grabbed it again off-panel.  Worst-case scenario would be if Cinnabar was the one who chucked the eighth sword at Phos.  I’m just gonna hope that they’re too frail to pick up a sword in the first place; please don’t dash my hopes Ichikawa.

Speaking of which, on the penultimate page, there are eight lines piercing Phos—one for each sword on the last page.  This makes me wonder: did Bort not attack Phos here?  Their whip is seemingly unrepresented in the stylized depiction of the weapons that shattered Phos, and it’s not entirely clear from the last page whether they used it or not.  Then again, Rutile’s scalpels are on the ground on the last page but absent from the previous page, so maybe I’m reading too deeply into it.  But the fact that Ichikawa was careful enough to have the number of swords match the number of black lines makes it a possibility worth keeping in mind.

This is what happens when I’m assigned to read The Tedious Misadventures of Tristan and Isolde.  I start procrastinating by going all True Crime over who exactly murdered Phos.  Anyway, see you guys next month when we find out whether the earth gems were nice enough to put Phos back together or if they just chucked the pieces out to sea.

[awfullyhorriblybadfantrolls]

what do y'all think of the trollcall trolls?

[I’ll list my opinions and state that it is the 19th of december so i’m doing the trolls that have been announced before then, so let’s get on to it: ]

[Zebede: Seems alright, not sure what “subchirp”ing is though.] i take it as the troll version of subtweeting which is indirectly calling someone out on twitter. i also relate to him

[Tyzias: She’s interesting, and i’m guessing what’s in her mug is like the “coffee” that was on the meteor.] i relate to her too

[Mallek: Well i guess you can pierce horns, huh. Seems like a cool dude.] what are we gonna go about our “horns are erogenous zones” headcanons? don’t answer that.

[Daraya: She’s been in detention? Trolls have school? Also, what’s imitation grubhorn? I feel like she’s deadpan about everything.] i’m a little scared of her

[Barzum & Baizli: How does sharing a lusus work? What does keeps hydrated mean? it’s just kind of a silly tag yourself kind of description i believe They both seem interesting.]

[Nihkee: I’m getting hemo-ist vibes from her. What is muscular theater? judging from her belt, maybe a wrestler? A bit wary of her.] i’m pretty scared of her

[Chahut: Please stay at minimum 20 feet away from me thank you she’s scary.] i am very scared of her. i appreciate “single and ready to mangle” though

[Diemen: I don’t understand his first name. He’s cute though i like him.] he is such a fucking cutie. he is strange but endearing

[Skylla: I love the what is tarnation phrase. Good cowgirl.] reminds me of one of my friends for some reason but i have no clue why. lily has nothing to do with cowboys at all

[Folykl: What’s their deal? Does kuprum know they’re on his backpack thing? Not sure about them.] i’m amused by folykl and kuprum. particularly “what’s a shower” and i don’t know why

[Kuprum: He seems cool and i like the whole he can’t wait to pilot a spaceship but i can’t take his name seriously his first name is cup + rum and his last name is MAX + LOL how can i take that seriously?!] i don’t but i love it

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs The Devil Is a Part-Timer

“I believe they’re cosplaying, sir. It’s weird, though we don’t get much of their kind in this neighbourhood.” Cosplayers confirmed for demons 

“Mangled bird embryo.” Ffgjkhfgkhf I’m loving these observations about the human world 

Tbh I really want further explanation about at Holy Potter series poster 

Lmao @ Satan teaching Alciel how to obey traffic laws 

“I didn’t realize this body was one that required food.” We’ve all been there, Satan 

Omg Satan being a gentleman to ladies in the rain I love it

“These little efforts are necessary for my eventual comeback as lord of demons.” Customer service in a nutshell

I bet everyone who hears Alciel talking thinks he’s in a cult 

WHAT A PLOT TWIST I AM SO EXCITED FOR THESE IMMORTAL YOUTH ANTICS I HOPE THEY FALL IN LOVE

I can’t believe that Satan is already Emilia’s trashbag boyfriend 

“I shall become a regular employee in this world! And thus accumulate wealth and social status.” Isn’t that dream for everyone, Sadao 

I love this montage of Emi stalking Maou and Ashiya’s domestic life

“Sheesh, you, King Satan.” Ffgjhfkghkfh good lord 

I’m already loving Emi and Maou’s vibes these nerds are protecting each other by instinct even though they’re supposed to be enemies. Very sweet! 

“And we were okay because there were two of us, but it sounds like she’s alone.” “You’ve grown soft, King Satan.” I love how immediately clear it is that Maou is a safe and kind person in this world 

Lmao at Ashiya highlighting the difference between hero and demon conduct being which petty crimes you’re willing to do (like taking someone’s keys) 

Yikes @ Chiho trying to trick Maou into a date with an earthquake meeting. Too close to home man!

“I certainly didn’t expect you and the Devil to form a United Front.” That’s what I’m saying! They’re already so good at teamwork 

“But it’s okay to cause me trouble?” “Well duh.” Causing trouble for heroes is the whole point of devils, right?” damn Satan ur right also I hope all your evil is this mundane 

Ashiya has an emergency date fund set aside for the literal Lord of Demons and I think that’s very thoughtful 

The parody versions of all these brands (Unislo, MgRonald’s) is great

Even setting aside the whole Ancient Demon thing, you’d think there’d be more questions raised about Maou going on a date with a teenager

“I told you that my tinnitus got really bad around the time I started working at MgRonald’s, right?” Poor Chiho being on the same inner ear frequency as a bunch of demons 

Love how every confrontation Emi has with Maou turns into a couple’s drama: 

“We don’t have time to wait around for rescue. I’ll find us a way.” I’m cackling both at Maou bursting out of his tiny shirt and also at him using his ripped body to save earthquake victims

“Several days after I was separated from him, our village was burned to ashes by the demon army sent to crush the West, led by general Lucifer.” Emilia’s tragic backstory makes a lot of sense but it’s all very sad 

Emi’s had such a harrowing few days from Rika’s perspective (and perhaps her own) between losing her wallet and being caught in a cafe collapse (and also confronting someone who has done her a great wrong showing that he is capable of kindness)

“Sire, please punish me.” Kinkshame Shiro Ashiya 

HAHAHAHAH @ this police officer thinking Maou and Ashiya are promoting a play. That’s a fair conclusion

It really does seem like Rika has been looking for an Earthquake Story Outlet though based on her bringing it up twice

“Why can you be so nice?! If you can be nice, then why... Why did you kill my father?” Damn I wasn’t thinking Emi was going to reveal her deep-seated issues with the Devil so quickly and also yikes @ Maou just saying “sorry” for literally burning her crops and killing her family

I guess the boxers and last night’s clothes are incriminating, but in fairness to Maou and Emi there are spaced several feet apart 

“A lovers’ quarrel with his old girl over a beautiful new one... And then the new girl herself arrives on the scene and discovers he never really broke things off with his ex.” All roads lead back to a couple’s drama

I love that they never actually deny to anyone but Chiho that they’re dating

Tbh I’ve known it was going to be Lucifer from the beginning because he’s the only demon that would make sense as a villain and Emi’s backstory only confirmed it

Highly resonate with the guy getting motion sick in the dimensional portal

“I’m reducing your allowance, Sire.” Fghkjdfhgkfhg Ashiya pls

“Sire... at least watch [movies] on the first of the month... It’s discount day.” Me as a dying demon 

It is really interesting world-building that demon powers are manifested through fear and despair

“Becoming a human’s been pretty novel and interesting, and I don’t want to cause this world problems after all it’s done for me.” Looks like Satan just brought compassion to a gun fight 

Olba is comically evil shooting Maou with a gun after he was shot with magic

I do adore how incredibly good Maou is at teamwork, lifting up the whole train station and putting up barriers on the knowledge that Emi can use that focus to take Lucifer and Olba 

EMI FINALLY GETS HER MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATION WOO

This show escalated hella quickly they were merely having domestic problems and now there’s mass casualties at train stations 

“I’ll never forgive you, Lucifer,” said Emilia, after Lucifer whapped her devil boyfriend in the face with the magic equivalent of a dodgeball

“Emilia, are you out of your mind, joining forces with demons?” said Olba, like that wasn’t the most hypocritical thing he could possibly say

“You’re a demon general, so face your doom like a man.” Maou said: My monkeys, my circus 

There’s also something very kind about Maou using his demonic force on Lucifer, bc the implication is it leaves Emi more heavenly energy to get home

Incredible how Maou just assumes him and Albert and Emerauda are cool even though their last interaction was supposed to be a fight to the death:

“What the hell is with you two?” “Beats me.” I love two demon roommates

Maou using his remaining demon force to restore the train station <3 

“We set a broadcast to, ‘People constantly thinking about King Satan.’” I’m crying Chiho was in tune with sonar pulses from an ancient world because she had a crush on a demon

Emi and Maou are each other’s terrible boyfriend and girlfriend constantly interrupting each other at work I love it 

“But doesn’t it mean, even if it’s only a couple of people for a limited time, you’re get to rule over humans?” I can’t believe Chiho is trying to make Satan feel better about not having subjugated the human race 

Chi’s friend who thinks Maou and Ashiya are dating is like 30% right 

I love that the literal king of demons is spooked by ghost stories 

“The internet is really something!” That’s one way to put it Maou

“This model only has one heart!” “Mr. Ashiya, I don’t know about demons, but humans only ever have one!” Ashiya confirmed for heifer heart syndrome

You know, you gotta admire Urushihara’s tenacity for going straight from getting his ass handed to him to sending his guardians/roommates/fellow demons to pick up a game console

You know, Emi thinks very charitably of the Demon Boys considering she thinks they’re responsible for the death of her father 

Lmao @ Maou immediately mocking Urushihara for being a shut-in in front of their new neighbour 

“[Urushihara] won’t listen to these things from his own family.” I love one (1) Demon Family

I appreciate the continuity of their injuries from scene to scene 

“Or rather, there seems to be no restraint in your relationship.” Ur not wrong Suzuno

“Are you the evil sheriff now?” Pretty much lmao 

How many times has Emi fallen down that staircase OMG 

“So how are you getting on with the Devil these days, then?” “The same as ever. We basically fight whenever we see each other, and we’re both so busy with work we don’t have the energy for personal lives.” All roads lead back to a couple’s drama 

SCREAM @ Emerauda using this as segue to essentially warn Emi not fall in love with Maou lest she have to merk her

“Well, none of the countries have made any obvious moves.” What is Ente Isla exactly? A planet? A dimension? A kingdom seems too small a scale

Perhaps some therapy is in order for Chiho for not even taking one (1) second to re-evaluate her crush on the devil after realizing he’s responsible for nearly destroying a world

“Why is everybody so mean to me?” asked Urushihara, as if he had not tried to kill half of them a mere three episodes ago

“Say, Chi, didn’t your parents have anything to say about you visiting a bachelor pad?” An extremely valid question from Maou, why DON’T Chiho’s parents care that all her closest friends are at least 20

Maou can apparently also be defeated by having to deal with a teenage girl having a crush on him:

Chiho really said, about Maou’s crimes: If I didn’t see it, it’s not important

Which is, admittedly, a very bold and funny way to deal with having feelings for a former warlord 

Oh my GOD Emilia was asking if Suzuno had a crush when Suzuno was confirming that she was an ethical investigator good lord

“Oh, and I don’t know why you’re giving them food aid but I’ll warn you of one thing: if you mess with him or play any cheap tricks, he’ll see right through you.” Emi’s warning seems more to the benefit of the Demon Boys than it does to Suzuno 

I can’t believe the KFC in Japan is managed by James from Team Rocket

“First you’ll have to tell me all about this ‘Maou’ guy.” Rika has been waiting for the opportunity to get involved in Emi’s personal drama LMAO

“Why are you so set on me and Maou getting together, anyway?” You can’t spell Enemies to Lovers without Emi

Maou and Ashiya’s passionate exchange over the Sentucky Fried Chicken Investigation is absolutely killing me:

“If I show fear now, unrest will spread among my men [the shift workers at MgRonald’s.]” I do genuinely love the sincerity with which Maou approaches every task. Maybe I too would get enraptured by this part-time worker 

“Our company mainly focused on real estate management and personnel placement,” said Ashiya, describing the Devil’s Army invading Ente Isla

Gfghdkjfhgkdfgh Ashiya was just sitting on that whole dramatic ass story he made up about Emi and Maou’s history as rival construction workers in a failed business

Wow @ Ashiya being the one to identify himself as a househusband 

“Since you’re supportive of each other like that, I know things will go well!” “You’re the first person who’s ever said that to me. Thank you for encouraging me--I feel a a bit stronger for it.” Rika said, ‘I feel left out of the demon love dynamics, r u single Alciel 

“Men take advantage of women when they’re vulnerable.” What a threatening message to receive with your takeout

“Naturally pestilent ogres, huh?” That’s also how I feel about organic food Maou

Maou volunteers for neighbourhood cleanup my sweet demon boy

The demonic glow emitting from the happy little MgRonald’s tree LOL

“Why does Emilia...?” Because he’s nice and I’m rooting for their slow burn love story

I do love a beach episode but I wish there was less focus on Chiho’s swimsuit. It is a bit much!!

Maou really does not react at all one way or another when tiddies are out though; which I do appreciate hahahah

Ashiya giving himself food poisoning rather than waste leftovers kjhfjgj 

“It’s creepy when [lizards] just appear out of nowhere.” “Yeah, it is.” I love when Emi agrees with some mundane part of her friends’ lives and they cut to Emilia’s extremely unrelatable experiences:

“Sadao here loves the ladies, you see. He’s a real problem child.” Even if this is a filler ep, this monkey sharing the name Sadao might be the first time we’ve ever seen Maou blush HAHA

Imagine being a theme park worker and you see this MgRonald’s staff chanting seven alligators into submission 

“Eh, it’s not like sacrificing one little village really affects us.” We cut to the comically evil upper class businessman of Ente Islan (overthrow the bourgeoisie)

What departure this hammer-murder is from the beach park episode 

“You keep denying it, but I bet this Mr. Maou is on your mind, isn’t he?” I’m with Rika on this one 

“Okay, none for Urushihara then.” “Why not?! There are exactly five of us.” “Me, Emi, Suzuno, Chi, and Ashiya.” I enjoy that Lucifer is still in the doghouse for destroying a neighbourhood, trying to kill them and generally being a dick

“We have no way of taking responsibility,” said the Church, continuously throughout history and in this anime 

It would be pretty bold of Urushihara to send Ashiya to the hospital considering they can’t be certain what their exact biology is as humans

“You only fought with his army. You never even met him in person! So what would you know?!” “False logic! Obviously a commander bears responsibility for all of his troops.” 1) Suzuno’s making a good point here and 2) Emi, who is standing right beside you, DID know him as both and DOES struggle with what he did and allowed to happen in Ente Isla and 3) Chiho’s really gonna double down on ‘if I didn’t see it’s not important’ LOL

“Some sacrifices have to be made.” Sounds like ur easing a guilty conscience Suzuno 

This entire conversation demonstrates why I am so much more invested in Emi and Maou’s dynamic than in any other relationship. Because she understands what he’s done and chooses to try to understand him before acting anyway. And her opinion of him matters to him, even as they label each other an enemy 

Olba taking Ashiya’s health card is genuinely one of the most transgressive things he could do lmao 

“It’s worth investigating what effects the Devil’s power has on human [biology].” I haven’t said much about Sarue aka James from Team Rocket the Angel, but: icky

Sarue to Suzuno: Heaven hearby gives you permission to be a dick <3

“If you fight dirty to get what you want, how are you different from us demons?” Lmao @ Maou stripping and giving his opponent moral lectures instead of fighting them what kinda Gray Fullbuster move is this 

The implication that Ashiya and Maou knew they were poisoning themselves with celestial force but decided to do it anyway because it’s cheaper than groceries hahahaa 

The way Maou not only saw through Suzuno/Crestia but also shamed her into switching sides hahaaha

“That girl works for MgRonald’s and the Devil is her shift manager.” I wonder how she got through that line without laughing

“If an employee is in danger, it’s the supervisor’s duty to protect her.” THE WAY EMI AND MAOU ARE MAKING THE EXACT SAME ARGUMENT ABOUT WHY HE’D PROTECT CHIHO. I LOVE THEIR SYNCHRONICITY

There’s a lot more partial nudity in this final battle than I anticipated 

Surely the closeness to the moon from a roof versus twenty feet above the roof would be negligible for Sariel, no? Considering the overall distance of earth from the moon? Or is it like a werewolf, under the moon’s light kind of thing 

You really can’t win in a fight with the devil because the more destruction you cause the stronger he’ll get

“Heaven can be found on Earth in a one-room second floor apartment, you know? I knew Lucifer wouldn’t actually betray them lmao 

“Hey Emi...” “What?” “Your shirt’s open.” Guess Satan does react to someone’s titties after all 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

HAHAHAHA @ Emi interrupting Satan’s hero monologue:

A moment to acknowledge that Satan’s titties actually have nipples how remarkable for an anime

Ashiya missed the final battle because he was getting their capes ghfkjhgkfdhg

How do you explain this kind of abrupt workplace absence LOL

I suppose “the Devil is a temp” doesn’t have the same ring to it, huh? 

I love that Emi is the chosen friend to accompany Maou to complain about this door-to-door scam. Teamwork!

Hahahahah I love that this episode confirms that Maou and Ashiya are legally Lucifer’s parents 

God I love a full circle moment:

Emi twirling her umbrella like I am metaphorically twirling mine while watching this development 

[rannzy]

now that i’m living in london i decided i might as well keep track of all the exhibitions i’ve seen because i know that when im 40 im definitely going to forget about all of this... i was thinking of doing multiple posts but at this point i cba (‘cant be arsed,’ a term my welsh flatmate anjelica has taught me)

sense sound/sound sense @ whitechapel gallery 

this exhibition was about fluxus’ explorations into sound art. i rly like fluxus to begin with so i was excited to see this exhibition. it was nice bc the works were rly gud (i liked mieko shiomi’s embryo of music, which plays an entangled/mangled version of a cassette tape recording of mozart’s minuet -- direct from the accompanying text: “As described by the artist, it is ‘an awkward performance (as if music were taking its initial form)’” -- which i think is a great way to look/hear that work). the exhibition was a collection show w works owned by fondazione bonotto (never heard of them) though unfortunately the room was too small to accommodate everything it kinda just looked like a mess although i really liked the works individually.

luchita hurtado: i live i die i will be reborn @ serpentine galleries

its a shame i cant get with surrealism... this lil old lady had some works about the universe and womanhood w a dash of like strange colors and forms and envisioning the light u would see upon exiting ur mothers womb. but anyway i liked this self-portrait she painted

interim @ goldsmiths

so this exhibition was an in between exhibition done by the mfa 1st year now 2nd year students to show what works theyve been making. really there is no curatorial anything behind this nor any description behind any work so ur really just meant to look at the form unless u ask the artist whats the haps... so i didnt really gather anything from it -- there were works that i really liked looking at and works that i didnt. my mom said the exhibition was too depressing because there were some stuff about death and racism and violence

i liked this work by rafael perez evans despite knowing nothing, though i wonder if its just a better version of a spectacle than works by mark justiniani??? maybe i am just amused bc it is my first time to see it?? i dont know but i thought his work was nicely polished compared to many others from his class

i also liked this hair work by pei-chi wu. i kept on thinking about where she harvested this hair and how she was able to make it into a loosely knit scarf kinda thing without her fingers getting cramped??? also the title (’It’s a long story’) is great

olafur eliasson: in real life @ tate modern

it took my mom and i 3 tries to get into this exhibition!!! the first two times we went to tate, a part of the exhibition was closed n we definitely did not want to pay gbp 20 to get in to see an incomplete exhibition. i was able to see some olafur works in the past 2 years but its def better seeing a hella big version of it. im p sure everyone’s favorite work was ‘Your blind passenger,’ which was this long straight hallway filled w fog that u could only see about 1.5m in front of u. the light changes from white to yellow to blue to white again and its rly such an experience walking slowly and feeling for the walls bc u think ur gonna trip. im p sure tate advertises this as the main selling point of the exhibition which i think it rly is, nothing else in the show compares to this work everything else kinda reminds me of being in mind museum (he had a kaleidoscope tunnel thing, constructed rainbows from mist, and other tricks of the eye)

untitled by danh vo @ south london gallery

apparently ‘danh vo’ in reverse (vo danh) means unnamed in vietnamese. danh vo collabed with a buncha other artists n ppl and used their work in his exhibition. the main space had these big mirrors with glow in the dark paint washed over them and also these portraits (i-D vibing) of his nephew/muse taken by his lover, which felt kinda call me by your name ish even though i havent seen the film. everyone seems to be raving about this exhibition though i only really liked one work, which was a letter sent by this french missionary to his father on the eve of his execution. danh vo collabed with his own father who doesn’t speak french but carefully replicated the calligraphy in the letter.

tony cokes: If UR Reading This It’s 2 Late: Vol.1 @ goldsmiths cca

the exhibition was full of diff video works that all had some text flashing with like poppy disco/other fun music playing in the bg. the artist apparently is a professor at brown university and incorporates some theory and political jabs, w quotes by diff figures in history. he had a whole work about how morrissey from the smiths is now a tory but dont worry we dont all have to be tories when we get old. idk i feel like this work was a lil bit too lukewarm take for me?? maybe i have to sit down w it longer n watch everything thru and thru but i think that young hae chang heavy industries does it better

other spaces: UVA @ 180 the strand

this was COOL HAHHAHAA it was super spectacle but i was really amused and intrigued!!! uva apparently is a collective of artists that work across new media and video and walking thru this exhibition felt like being in some sort of interstellar-star trek-matrix kinda vibe?? the first room were these lamps that were swinging around by themselves (kinda like the lamps u would picture in a police interrogation in the films) -- the room was foggy too so u couldnt really see the end of the ceiling it really just looked like lights floating. its supposed to be a commentary on surveillance n stuff?? typical things global north people care about but it was amusing to watch. the other works were like this light beam that made walls?? and theyd close in on u? it was reimagining space as framed by lights. and the last work was this animal orchestra where a bioacoustician recorded snippets from the amazon/ocean/etc and isolate specific sounds by certain species

this was a LONG POST THE END

[adoranymph]

So. I wanted to keep up a momentum of positivity up given current world circumstances, which means I figured it was time I expressed and explored my love for family tropes in stories, found or otherwise.

They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. On a genetic level that’s indisputable, but what if apart from that, your friends are your family? I just love that stuff, personally. Actually, I love stories that examine and enrich family bonds in general, biological or not. And today, I’d like to share a few (a fair few) of them with you, if for no other reason than to try and spread around some warm-fuzzies instead of other, nastier things.

If we’re talking a specific, earliest moment that I recall having a strong reaction to a family bond, I’d have to say it’d be after reading what became my favorite installment in the Harry Potter series, Prisoner of Azkaban. I specifically remember thinking, “Aw, Harry finally has an adult in his life he can see as family.” I mean, yes, the Weasleys were already there in his corner, but Sirius Black had a more personal connection to Harry’s parents that gave this sense of him being able to connect more with the family he’d lost with what little connection he had gained that was left. And yeah, include Lupin in that too, while we’re at it.

And that love for that trope has just grown more with time with the amount of media that I’ve consumed. Found families, blood families, families struggling, families coming together, I eat that up with a big hot fudge sundae spoon. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tailored 99% of my stories around these types of plot points, perhaps with more intensity after having lost my own parents. If only because my fulfillment from it always comes from wanting to see more stories that feature family and family bond themes. Moreover, the opportunity to experience them in fictional contexts offers differing perspectives on family and what family means to others. Which I also enjoy.

With the Fate series, for example, starting with Fate/Zero, the respective relationships of father-and-son in Kiritsugu and Shirou Emiya (which honestly gave me Harry Potter and Sirius Black vibes even though theirs is a relationship far different from what’s here), and father-and-daughter in Kiritsugu and Illya (which I melt at for the sake of being a father-daughter relationship) was the initial thing that most had me immediately hooked, in addition to the concept of historic and legendary heroes from across time coming together in the modern era for a battle royale for the Holy Grail. With all of that though, and everything else great about Fate/Zero (which is, yeah, everything), you have a shoe-in for what still stands as my favorite anime. Although the family moments are minimal, not just in Zero but in its sequel Stay Night as well, the moments themselves are powerful enough to stand out and be effective in spite of that. More than that, but they’re written so well, they transcend any tropiness they would have had in the hands of another creator. Zero in particular.

I think part of that comes from how much Fate and the Type-Moon universe seem to emphasize how broken the family relationships of mages and those related to the supernatural are, which in turn makes the ones that still manage to radiate love all the more precious. Especially in terms of Kiritsugu, his wife Irisviel, and their daughter Illya. Not wanting to repeat myself too much, I’ll distill it down to this: the fact that Kiritsugu’s relationships with them is tailor-made for tragedy might, on paper, seem almost contrived, but it’s Kiritsugu’s character, and Irisviel’s too, that highlight how dearly they love each other, throwing any contrivances about it out the window.

You can read more about it in my Type-Moon post. Suffice to say, I could talk about this stuff for hours, days even perhaps, and that’s just about Kiritsugu’s family. There’re also the Tohsakas and the Matous who all have their varying degrees of screwed-uppedness that still manage to produce people who are loving and caring in their own ways, from child abandonment as a result of a skewed view of fatherhood to just straight-up abuse. Which unfortunately brings to light more twisted examples of my beloved father-daughter trope that really gets under my skin, not unlike a very cold example of this in V. A. Schwabb’s This Savage Song and the unfortunate fact that the main heroine’s father never grew to love his daughter despite his wife’s reassurances that he would. Which is just sad without having to go into much further detail.

Same with Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)/ Fullmetal Alchmeist: Brotherhood. That franchise had the audacity to take my most beloved family trope, the father-daughter relationship, and mangle it (literally as well as figuratively now that I think about it) with the arc of State Alchemist Shou Tucker and his daughter, Nina. Desperate to keep his State Alchemist license, he uses his daughter Nina and their pet dog Alexander in an alchemic experient to create a talking chimera, by fusing the two of them together into one being, making for one of the most equally horrific and tragic scenes I’ve ever seen.

And yet again, these perversions of family are no less enjoyable than those of ones built far more genuinely and conventionally on love and care. Both are satisfying in their own way, to see not only places where love lives, but also places where we know love should live but doesn’t, which makes us, the readers, or the audience, want all the more to scoop these characters up and give them the hugs they deserve.

Funimation

Funimation

Not to say that Fullmetal is all about broken families. In fact, it’s more about the functioning ones that still manage to get torn apart. First you have the main plotline of the Elric brothers, Edward and Alphonse (Ed and Al). They committed the taboo of “human transmutation” in their attempt to resurrect their mother from the dead. For committing this taboo, they pay a heavy price: Ed, literally an arm and a leg, and Al, his entire body, leaving his soul to remain tethered in the living world by nothing more than a blood seal on a suit of armor. The brothers struggle with their efforts to set things right, and along with what happens to Nina, encounter their estranged father, though in the 2003 version the character arcs that form in those vary to those in the Brotherhood reboot.

In both versions though, their meeting Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes and his family, his wife Gracia and daughter Elecia, plays out the exact same tragic way, resulting in one of the worst sucker-punches of a death, and anyone who’s seen the show(s) knows what I mean. There’s even something of a family (if a dysfunctional one) in that of the homunculi (villainous ones in this case, unlike the homunculi in the Fate series). They might be named for the Seven Deadly Sins, but in their respective incarnations between the 2003 version and the reboot version, they develop in various ways, due in no small part to their relationships with each other. And part of what makes a family, in my experience, is nurturing the character of those with whom you are close with your own relationship to them. Hence why blood ties aren’t all that make a family, and why the concept of found families rock.

An anime I just finished recently, March Comes In Like a Lion, a pretty chill show, but still very emotionally engaging, (and chill is a high priority on what I’m looking for right now, which shouldn’t be surprising–save of course for my catching up on Season 3 of Castlevania), involves a young boy, Rei Kiriyama, roped into the fate of becoming a shogi prodigy when he loses his parents and little sister and is taken in by a shogi family as a foster son. The father was a friend of his father’s, but unlike his father, pursued the profession of playing shogi seriously, and unfortunately he was one of those fathers who meted out his affection to his children based on how good they got at the thing he was good at.

Which brings out the dark side of the found family, when Rei proves to be far more talented than either the daughter or the son of that family. He begins to see himself as “in the way”, as the daughter in particular takes her anger with her father out on him, sometimes in violent ways. This is further complicated by the fact that in his early formative years he appeared to have developed a crush on her despite the way she treated him, and continues to treat him throughout the majority of the anime.

Thankfully, where the story starts is with Rei, now in high school and now living on his own as a pro shogi player prodigy, and the relationship he’s developed with a family of threes sisters who just recently lost their mother. With them, he finds all the wonderful things a family can be, certainly the standard to which all found families should measure up to. He finds love and warmth that he’d not only been starving for, but had taught himself not to even hope to expect in his life going forward. An affirmation of where love can be found, not always with blood, and not always with where you thought you’d find it, which will never fail to be an incredibly moving thing to me.

The struggles of a young pro shogi player interlaced with the interpersonal struggles of the characters both inside and outside of the world of shogi, was incredibly satisfying on the emotional palate. I loved it, and it was definitely getting me through this difficult time at present, along with how much keeping in touch (without touching) my own family and friends has been. It’s one of those shows that shares both such dark struggle and passionate triumph and hope, and I’m glad that I chose now of all times to get around to watching it (though initially I chose it because it was the month of March, and it’s called March Comes In Like a Lion so ha ha).  Regardless, while I can’t speak for the manga as I haven’t read that, I recommend the anime to anyone who’s interested, and who’s anxious right now and needs something to binge in this time of self-isolation and still get the warm-fuzzies.

Incidentally, Rei is among a small group of fictional characters, all of who have hit particularly close to home with me. He’s almost a boy version of me: his introversion, his experiences with depression (some of the thoughts he had circling in his head while struggling with that were, a lot of times, verbatim the same as the ones I’ve had, which gave me chills if nothing else), the fact that he had to learn how to “survive” school not because school itself was hard, but just because of the ostracizing social structure, that he lost his blood family and went to live with another, that he wraps himself up in something to cut off the pain that everything else causes him (with him it’s shogi, with me it’s writing)–these things all resonated with my own experiences of losing and regaining family. So much so that at this point, I’ve set aside an idea for doing a separate post on his character. You know, when I get to a few more of the hundreds of other post drafts I have on the backburner.

The shounen anime Kimestu No Yaiba takes the traditional shounen trope of “main character loses whole family to tragedy and that sets him on the hero’s journey he probably wouldn’t have taken otherwise”, and creates what I’d consider the most emotionally engaging shounen I’ve ever watched (and this coming from the same young lady who got herself hooked on Fairy Tail after putting it off for months and months because she told herself she’d never fall into the “shounen trap”). Not only is it done by the godly studio ufotable who put Fate on the map with Fate/Zero, scored by one of my most favorite composers, Yuki Kajiura, but it also features one of the most emotionally engaging shounen fights I have ever seen, and that primarily comes from its focus on the family bond between the main protagonist, Tanjiro Kamado, and his sister-turned-demon, Nezuko, and how searching in the memories of his father, he rediscovers a technique to use that helps him survive a fight that would have otherwise killed him and his sister both.

Fruits Basket (both the original anime adaptation from 2001, and the the reboot coming out now) takes the concept of a family curse and examines how that affects certain of its members, and the ripple effect that comes from one outsider–a young girl grieving the death of her mother–deciding to befriend him through that anime “quirk of fate”. The curse itself being certain members of the family turning into animals of the Chinese zodiac when under stress or…hugged by a member of the opposite sex. Classic. And at first, yeah, is it a bit silly, but then you see how it’s affected those members of the family born with the Zodiac spirits of this curse. Like how one of them has to pretend that he isn’t his mother’s son, because his mother was horrified by the fact that the first time she held her child, he turned into a rabbit, and so, to ease her suffering, she had her memories of her having giving birth to him erased. Which gives credence to the idea that any idea can work, as long it’s executed well. Whether an idea unique will mean nothing if the idea itself is executed poorly.

And the criminally underrated anime film, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, tells a fantasy story of a young woman who follows the emotional arc of discovering what it means to be a mother. Maquia, one of a race of immortal people called the Iorph, is separated from the rest of her kind after a  mortal human kingdom attacks them for their power. Alone upon her escape from capture, she comes across a mortal human family who’re all dead, save for their newborn baby boy, and she takes it upon herself to raise the boy as his mother. Along the way she learns what it means to be a mother, the pain that comes with watching a loved one grow old and die and leaving you behind. To say that I felt things in that story would be grave understatement. And it comes from a place of genuine familial emotion: the film’s director and writer, Mari Okada, drew from her own relationship to her own mother.

Even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the idea of the found family and the idea of family in general isn’t lost on its writers, particularly in regards to Guardians of the Galaxy, which touches not only families, but family abuse. Never mind that it involves people from alien worlds, cyborg assassins, and the like,  it still manages to have a very human resonance. And of particular note is a part of Natasha Romanov’s character arc, and how much she had come to view the Avengers as a family, while at the same time trying to repay the debt of all the lives she’d taken by saving lives instead. Which results in interactions like the very touching sort of brother-sister banter between her and Steve Rogers (that’s right, a male-female pair I don’t actually ship).

In the world of books, The Girl at Midnight, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone both involve found family subplots and explore those in their own creative ways.

We have Echo in The Girl at Midnight, raised by a group of bird-ish people called Avicen, and she gets to live in the attic of a library (lucky), and play a little with the magic she otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to if she hadn’t ended up adopted into her situation. I’m nearly finished with the sequel, The Shadow Hour, and we did get a glimpse of the life she had before: she’d run away from her birth mother, who was an abusive drunk to her daughter, which hurts on the very fundamental fact that we are born in the world with the idea hardwired in there somewhere that our mothers are supposed to love us unconditionally, and certainly never hurt us. It hurt me in my own way too, as my father was an alcoholic, and while he wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t abusive either, just more of a lost soul, I suppose, which can carry its own problems trying to function as a parent.

While I wasn’t too keen on the vision Echo has of her past characterizing her mother as the sort of abusive drunk you’d find…eh…like, in an amateur play, it could be argued that the idea was that the vision was based on her memory of her mother, and thus her perception of her at the time. Which was yeah, a mother who spouted nothing but verbal abuse at her daughter and hit her, and for seemingly no reason. And later on, when she discusses it with one of her close friends, not only does her friend tell her that it’s not from whom we are born that defines us, but also that even if her mother had her complicated reasons for why she was the way she was as a parent, the simple fact that’s irrelevant, and there’s never a “good” or “justifiable” reason to hurt a child. That it’s one’s own makes it all the more saddening.

For Daughter of Smoke and Bone, we have another eccentric waif in Karou, raised by a family of people called “chimaera” (not like the ones from Fullmetal Alchemist, these are a mishmash of different animal parts, sometimes human parts too). It too involves a complicated sort of father-daughter relationship that unfortunately seems to have ended in tragedy (I’ve only finished book one), as the slowburn story meticulously reveals that our heroine is being hidden to keep her safe from a threat that stems from a grand, epic, interdimensional war between chimaeras and angels. Last I saw, it looked like the father figure was probably dead, and unfortunately he and Karou hadn’t parted the last time they saw each other on the…best of terms, to put it mildly. Like with Kiritsugu Emiya’s estrangement from his daughter Illya in Fate, this one too hurts in that same, “what could have been, but never will be” way.

Then you’ve got a graphic novels like Saga, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Fiona Staples (published by Image Comics), which, again, I was drawn to merely on the premise of it being about a male and female of two different alien races on opposing sides going AWOL together and ending up having a baby daughter along the way. I haven’t got too much into graphic novels aside from this and Monstress (also published by Image Comics), written by Marjorie Liu and illustrated by Sana Takeda (which deals with dead mother and mother-daughter issues against a very dark fantasy setting), but from what I’ve read so far, that premise has delivered as far as emotionally anchoring me to the story is concerned. Couple forced to flee for their lives + newborn introduced to the situation = my interest.

And that’s basically what it boils down to, beyond merely it’s emotional fulfillment for me. Apart from the family and friends I have found in my own life, it’s one other way I can regain something of what I lost in the passing of my parents. Even more than that, it’s a way for me to process it, after initially refusing to process it at all, especially when it comes to my own writing. In some ways, the novel I’m currently working on, the crux of which involves a father-daughter relationship, is a wish fulfillment of my own for the difficult months I spent with my father, between when my mother died and then when he himself died. Which even here is something that’s difficult for me talk about so straightforwardly, so the catharsis I get from writing about these things is far more valuable and useful to me. Even the deconstructional value of the dysfunctional versions of any parent-child relationship, not just father-daughter ones.

Exploring these themes both in writing and reading nurtures feelings and reinforces how important those feelings are. Found families in particular can be a lense through which we can begin to view people who are not related to us by blood still as kin, if only for the fact that we all are human. Family themes engender hope, even in the case of dysfunctional families, and it’s moving to see families who work to earn each other’s love as well as love unconditionally, depending on circumstances. Especially when death and danger threaten to tear those bonds apart, only for those bonds to emerge stronger than ever.

In times like these, don’t forget those you care about the most, or even those who you know who don’t receive as much care as they should, and reach out if you can (and thanks to the internet, reaching out remotely isn’t out of the question). The simple act of looking out for someone else is one of the most beautiful things about being human in my opinion, more so that it’s not even an exclusively human thing, which serves to draw we humans closer to each other. It’s a precious thing, and losing that would be a tragedy indeed in the long run. So as I press onward with this thing called living from day to day, I’ll keep seeking new family dynamics that inspire me with joy, with sorrow, and with hope. Particularly the hope that I’m not the only one who finds value in seeking these out in stories far and wide, and learning from them, and taking them sincerely to heart.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure I’m keeping up with the currently running Kakushigoto, incidentally an anime about a father who draws adult manga and tries to keep the nature of his profession a secret from his young daughter. Hijinks and heartwarmingness I’m sure are in store. In the meantime, also enjoy this very emotional Fullmetal Alchemist AMV, as well as a revisit to the “Shelter” music video by Porter Robinson. Because fathers and daughters.

  Family Bonds So. I wanted to keep up a momentum of positivity up given current world circumstances, which means I figured it was time I expressed and explored my love for family tropes in stories, found or otherwise.

[thetapelessworld]

Spitfire sprinkles SOUND DUST with second collection of unique, strange, and inspiring instruments

Spitfire sprinkles SOUND DUST with second collection of unique, strange, and inspiring instruments

Spitfire Audio is proud to announce availability of SOUND DUST 2 — the second collection of unique, strange, and inspiring instruments created by the company’s collective favourite British sound designer, composer, and aficionado of all things (that sound) weird and wonderful, Pendle Poucher, the innovative brains behind boutique Brighton-based library company Sound Dust (to which the collection obviously owes its magical ‘musical’ name) — as of November 15…

Like its predecessor — originally released by Spitfire Audio as DUSTBUNDLE back in 2015, SOUND DUST 2 acts as another gateway to a playground of sonic discovery — this time to a diverse selection of five of its innovative creator’s namesake company’s most recent hybrid creations. Collecting unique oddities and eccentricities, richly sampled with Pendle Poucher’s radical recording processes and obsessive attention to detail, these range from hip-hop beats through to broken violas and rare, distorted pianos — all as they have never been heard before. Better still, these are truly expressive, intuitive left-field sounds, supremely designed to spark anyone’s imagination. Indeed, as Pendle Poucher posits, “My approach is not as a proper composer; I make organised noise. For me, the sounds are more important than the notes. I’m always thinking about the timbre and the quality of the sound, then I try to make that into a musical thing.”

The thing is, in creating an interesting Sound Dust library, Pendle Poucher does not limit himself to any one type of sound or instrument; rather the only requirements are that interesting noises are made which with he can create something that has not been heard before. By being based at The Toy Rooms Studio in Brighton, UK — a veritable breeding ground for interesting British sounds since it is a hub of renowned film composers, musicians, and producers, such as Nick Cave, Gomez, Jez Kurtswall, and UNKLE, surrounded by a multitude of rare instruments and equipment, perhaps Pendle Poucher’s obsession with strange sounds is all the more understandable. After all, this innovative individual started out by playing guitar in Rough Trade-signed art-pop band Butterfly Child before working on sound and art installations, including a permanent one for the National Trust at Avebury Manor. Meanwhile, he has also spent 10 years working as sound designer and composer for the award-winning DreamThinkSpeak theatre company, as well as writing and producing scores for the BBC and many other television entities in the UK and beyond. But for Sound Dust, Pendle Poucher mostly works alone as he prefers to see a project through from start to finish, with laser-sharp attention to detail: “The whole Sound Dust thing started by accident,” he reveals. “I bought a beautiful old Dulcitone off eBay; it was kind of knackered and I couldn’t really play it, so I decided to sample it. I then started selling the samples, which, to my surprise, were amazingly popular, and it all grew from there. Had I not started with Dulcitone, Sound Dust wouldn’t be what it is today, which is essentially me indulging in my desire to make funny noises.”

Needless to say, a clandestine, Cold War-style meet between composers Christian Henson and Pendle Poucher beneath London's Hungerford Bridge, resulted in one of the most exciting partnerships Spitfire Audio has forged in its illustrious history... history has shown, then, that the original DUSTBUNDLE — recently re-released as SOUND DUST 1 — has become a staple of Spitfire Audio’s 70-plus sample libraries to date; SOUND DUST 2 is surely set to follow suit, thanks to its integration of the following five hybrid creations — each effectively ‘mini’ magical, sample-based virtual instruments in their own right, fit for sprinkling over anything anyone cares to play with them. The FLUTTER dust module could conceivably be considered a truly 21st Century Mellotron, made using existing Sound Dust instruments with added effects and parameters. It is based on recordings of acoustic instruments — just like a Mellotron, albeit with extra functionality to transport its users to places its tape-based Mellotron counterpart’s could only over dream of! Furthering flexibility, FLUTTER dust module features two interfaces — namely, Looper, offering controls on a per-note basis, and Wavetable, with edited, mangled, morphed, and reversed sounds from Sound Dust favourites (such as Autoharp, Cloud Viola and Cello, Dulcitone, Ghosts Piano, Hammr+ and Rubber Bass, Hogwarts Piano, Orgone, Pendleonium, Plucked Grand Piano, and Ships Piano) providing long and complex, multi-sampled acoustic wavetables that can scan in real time to create beautiful, evolving, and unexpected new sounds. Meanwhile, moving the mod wheel results in instant, live fluttering/glitch/jitter effects; playing the coloured key switches produces realtime gating effects. Either way, clicking the chaos button simply serves up a totally different sound each and every time! That said, moving the playhead position or loop points can construct completely new sounds — from delicate ‘flute-otrons’ to majestic organ-celestes and complex polyrhythmic Philip Glass-esque soundscapes. Seeking to make music that inhabits a sonic ‘other’ space by sounding simultaneously acoustic and electronic? Enter the wonderful world of FLUTTER, a world where creating granular sounds and ghostly versions of real-world timbres clearly comes naturally.

Taking its name, naturally, from the time funnel in Kurt Vonnegut’s terrific time-leaping novel, Sirens of Titan, INFUNDIBULUM is a multi-arp workstation and three-part sequencing machine offering a playground of polyrhythmic possibilities — perfect for creating unusual textures, rhythmic textures like ostinatos and interesting cross-rhythms, and different types of sequencing. Since those three arpeggiators all run at different speeds and lengths, featuring chiming piano sounds for an instant Steve Reich vibe, the radical results can be likened to being in a room full of noise generators; bowed, plucked, or struck things; and exotic vintage synths! INFUNDIBULUM is not intended for authentically replicating any of the included sounds — some have been deeply multi-sampled, after all; instead it celebrates what happens when sampling goes too far! Furthermore, holding any chord results in different notes starting to cycle back on themselves in disjointed yet glorious, hitherto unheard ways. With the an amazing multi-arp added into the magical mix — three sounds repeating through different cycle lengths at different speeds, users are already heading halfway towards an out-of-body experience!

Elsewhere, ODDHOP — powered by modular chaos engine #3, no less; imagine, if you will, a 303 and a 909 drum machine fused together with additional quirky percussion machines — makes for disappearing down a rhythmic rabbit hole easier done than said! Since it is packed with hundreds of original acoustic and electronic sounds arranged into five octaves of one-shot kicks, as well as pre-programmed basses, pianos, and vocal samples, ODDHOP is specifically designed for electronic music production and, as such, compatible with Pendle Poucher’s other piano-based instruments for a wonky, eclectic hip-hop sound. Saying that, things get really exciting when using the new drum and bass sequencing engines, each with 12 tracks of drawable-per-note control over nine parameters and polyrhythmic patterns. Put it this way: users will literally never be sure what they are going to get!

Get this, though: PENDLEONIUM comprises six sampled source instruments, intended to create something entirely new. The instruments themselves — two Danelectro baritone guitars, two Fernandez infinite guitars (with Sustainiac pickups and built-in eBows), and a spring viola (hardwired through a Roland Space Echo, creating an endless pad) — are arranged left to right across the main panel. PENDLEONIUM creates sounds reminiscent of Twin Peaks, Radiohead, and an orchestral haze, seamlessly merging organic and electronic elements. Each instrument comes complete with enhanced editing tools to tweak to suit, with effects like dirt, eq, rotor, and reverb, together with delay send and reverb send, for gnarly, lo-fi treatments. PENDLEONIUM produces seismic shifts and deep, rich tones at lower registers, while in higher registers it can be configured to produce sounds like ripples passing through mercury! SHIPS PIANO is fashioned from a selection of three characterful pianos — namely, a ship’s piano; a ‘school hall’ grand, recorded binaurally in a Hogwarts-style school chapel; and a deviously altered home upright, reversed, fed into high-end reverb, and reversed again for a backwards attack effect. Speaking of effects, users can cunningly combine different aspects of each piano — accessing ADSRs, convolution reverb, high and lowpass filters, and vibrato to create impossible-sounding piano hybrids!

Having said all that, so intuitive is this collection of instruments that as soon as users start moving buttons and faders around, magical things start to happen! Is it any wonder, when Pendle Poucher — Spitfire Audio co-founder Christian Henson’s sampling hero — delights in taking left-field routes, resulting in inspiring new sounds and mind-bending sound design possibilities. SOUND DUST 2 can be purchased and digitally downloaded for a time-limited introductory promo price of £149.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$149.00 USD/ €149.00 EUR (inc. VAT) until November 29, 2018 — rising thereafter to an RRP of £199.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$199.00 USD/€199.00 EUR (inc. VAT) — from here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/sound-dust-vol-2/ For more in-depth information, including some superb-sounding audio demos, please visit the dedicated SOUND DUST 2 webpage here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/sound-dust-vol-2/

Watch Spitfire Audio Director Paul Thomson’s ‘traditional’ video walkthrough of SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/u3eTyp5bOUI

Watch Spitfire Audio ‘composer-in-residence’ Oliver Patrice Weder’s ‘In Action’ video for SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/JCeZy_Dovrc

Watch Spitfire Audio Director Christian Henson showcasing the delights of SOUND DUST 1 and SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/ox09fK1ns6w

Watch Spitfire Audio’s An Introduction to Sound Dust documentary here: https://youtu.be/H8sJtqnrGd0

SOUND DUST 2 needs Native Instruments’ free KONTAKT PLAYER (5.6.8 or higher) — included in the purchase — to run as a fully NKS (NATIVE KONTROL STANDARD®) supporting plug-in instrument for Mac (OS X 10.10 or later) or Windows (7, 8, or 10 — latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit), while Spitfire Audio’s free Download Manager application allows anyone to buy now and download anytime.

[damajority]

DaMajority Fresh Article https://www.damajority.com/week-iphone-x-worth-hype/

A week in with the iPhone X — Is it worth the hype?

A week in with the iPhone X — Is it worth the hype?

Before I begin, here’s a TL;DR for you if your attention span is short and you’re on the fence. The iPhone X is great. It’s a definite step up from previous iterations, and is better than the iPhone 8/8+. The screen is gorgeous, the phone feels weighty and substantial, the speakers are clearer (not louder), photos are noticeably better, and the notch should only really be annoying if you’re coming to the X from an Android device. Do you need a case and screen protector? Yes. This thing is a scratch magnet, and if you drop it, it’s game over. Do you need AppleCare+? Absolutely, because repairs will break your soul. For a more detailed review, photo comparisons, and video, keep reading.

https://www.damajority.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/video-1510711079.mp4

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During my second year of undergrad, I lost a political science paper to a blue screen of death. Nine pages and two weeks of research on how Marcus Garvey’s black nationalism compared to the Nazi philosophy of lebensraum, gone. I got a matte black MacBook, and never looked back. I’m completely immersed in the Apple ecosystem—a die-hard fan. I’m also dramatic. The kind of dramatic that would make me play “Barry Bonds” as I unbox my iPhone X. Somehow, Kanyé rapping “This what y’all all been waiting for, ain’t it? What people paid paper for damn it, they can’t stand it, they want something new, so let’s get reacquainted” feels like a fitting way to introduce myself to Apple’s newest offering. This isn’t going to be one of those reviews where I talk lustfully about the iPhone’s innards and drone on about things that you couldn’t care less about. This is an everyday user review where listen to music, spend time arguing with people on social media, occasionally use the camera, and hope my battery lasts until I call it a night. Here we go.

So shiny — an introduction

I’ve been waiting for Apple to redesign the iPhone since the 6 Plus. I had hoped that the iPhone 7 would be where that redesign happened, but it was not to be. The candybar form factor with the bezels on the top and bottom is dated—like Jheri Curls and Fila gear. So, when the rumour mill started churning out news of a redesign, I was all in—when I picked up the redesigned iPhone X for the first time, I was sold.

My first thoughts were that it was the most beautiful piece of technology I’d seen in recent history. The phone feels weighty, the materials used are gorgeous, and the fit and finish is on par with what you’d expect from a $1,100 phone. My first gripe is that I wish Apple would have put AirPods in the box, but we can’t have everything. In typical Apple fashion, though, the transfer process from my 7 Plus to the X was seamless. I turned the phone on, went through some steps, and iOS 11 noticed I had an new device in close proximity to an old one, and offered to set up everything automatically over the air. When I tell people that the Apple ecosystem is incredible, these are the kinds of creature comforts I’m talking about.

Screen play

The screen on this thing is incredible—the new Samsung-made OLED blows everything I’ve ever used out of the water, perhaps with the exception of the 5K Retina iMac. The Galaxy S8+ and Note 8 are beautiful devices, with screens that would make the most loyal Apple fan jealous. But they have nothing on this. Blacks are pitch black, colours are vibrant without being oversaturated, and everything looks incredible. The notch is noticeable at first, but not in a way that I find upsetting. I may come to hate it eventually, but right now, it doesn’t matter. I will say this: if you’re coming to the X from any previous model of the iPhone, the notch likely won’t bother you much either. If you’re an Android convert, especially if you’re accustomed to Samsung’s huge, gorgeous screen real estate, then it will definitely be more visible, and probably more annoying. If I were to complain about something, I’d say that I would have preferred a wider aspect ratio, because this thing is long. Not long enough to be uncomfortable, and certainly not longer than the competition. Just long enough to make you notice.

Face ID?

With all the pre-release hype (and criticism) over the home button being gone, users needing to get used to a new gesture-based interface, and Face ID being a poor replacement for Touch ID, I was a bit apprehensive about how everything would work. After setting up Face ID, which was seamless, I started going through my usual routine of checking email, deleting old notifications, and overusing social media. This is where the X surprised and impressed me most. It’s also why I detest pre-release reviews from writers who spent 10 minutes or so with the device on launch day.

First, I never missed the home button. Swiping up felt as natural as putting my finger to the Touch ID sensor—perhaps more natural, since Face ID allowed me to glance at the phone and swipe up in one fluid motion. Second, Face ID feels like a near perfect security solution. Critics of Face ID have harped on about how it doesn’t work under all circumstances, which puzzles me because Touch ID didn’t work for me all the time either. Wearing dark sunglasses in bright light while using Face ID is the equivalent of trying to use Touch ID with wet hands—it will or won’t work. Is it mildly annoying? Sure. Is it a backward step because Touch ID was perfect and Apple ruined everything? No. I’m convinced at this point that some tech writers are luddites who loathe progress, especially when Apple’s the frontrunner. Headphone jack, anyone?

Third, the True Depth camera and Face ID work together using Attention Detection to handle notifications and prevent random unlocking for those people who prize their privacy. Messages and email, for example, show up with a name and time stamp but will not show their content until the device recognizes your face. To unlock the device, you have to be awake and looking at it, so the hypothetical situation where a jealous or nosy partner uses your face to unlock your phone while you’re sleeping is near impossible.

Fourth, and maybe most importantly, is how Face ID handles passwords. I have not needed to remember a single piece of security information since I picked up the iPhone X. Apps, website logins, shipping and billing addresses, and banking security information populate automatically once my face is recognized. If you use LastPass or 1Password to supplement Safari’s native password saving capabilities, then Face ID can authenticate those too. I’m excited for a Mac ecosystem where biometric scanning is ubiquitous, and I can sit at the computer and start working without needing to type in a password.

Housekeeping — AppleCare+, phone cases, and battery life

There is no way around it—this phone will break if you drop it. Apple claims this glass is the hardest glass it’s ever made, and the hardest ever in a phone. Cool story, but it’s still glass, and glass breaks. It’s also a scratch magnet, so especially on the space black version, scratches will ruin your vibe. If you want to protect your phone and still show it off, I recommend this Tech Armor screen protector and this transparent Otterbox Symmetry case or this one from Spigen. Otterbox is synonymous with bulletproof drop protection, Spigen’s pretty good, too, but your mileage may vary. True, AppleCare+ is an eye-watering $199US on top of your $999 or $1,149 phone, but with iPhone X screen repairs at $279 and other out of warranty damage at $549, I’d argue it’s essential.

Battery life is what you’d expect from a phone made by Apple. Long enough to get you through a day, but definitely not long enough to survive 9 cumulative hours of heavy screen use. With all-day bluetooth tethering to my Apple Watch, 3-4 hours of music, pictures of my food, the occasional social media argument, and constant texting, I can call it a night at 11pm and wake up with 20% battery the next morning. If you live on your phone all day, consider a battery case or a charge pack of some kind.

Photos & Video

I don’t have earlier models on hand currently to compare exact scenes, but I do have photos I’ve taken with various iPhone models going as far back as the 3GS. That might be overkill, so I’m going to stop the backwards comparisons at the 5S. I won’t compare the iPhone with other brands, simply because much more qualified people than me have already done so. Professional photographer Austin Mann has an exhaustive and comprehensive review on his website, and the guys over at Fstoppers compared the X to their favourite camera, the Panasonic GH5.

I’ll post a more in-depth review at a later point with photo and video comparisons, but my first thoughts are that the X is noticeably better than the 7 and 7 Plus, and much, much better than previous generations. Photos on both the front and rear cameras are crisp in good lighting, not overly saturated or washed out. In low light, there is some noise, but significantly less so than in previous generations. Throw in a camera app like ProCam or Camera+ and your DSLR is (almost) obsolete. The Portrait Lighting beta still feels like it’s, well, in beta. It doesn’t always get selfies right, and sometimes it mangles an ear or shave part of my head in real world use. Overall though, to make an Android comparison, the X is a few software updates away from the Pixel 2 XL in terms of photo perfection. Video is as detailed and rich as you’d expect from 4K, slow motion in 1080p is brilliant, and with a gimbal or tripod, you could easily shoot a movie off this thing. Again, your mileage may vary.

Augmented Reality

What’s to say about it, except that it’s really, really good? I got my hands on a Microsoft HoloLens headset a few months ago, and while I enjoyed playing with it, it felt incomplete. The iPhone is better, cheaper, and has broader application. I’ve played basketball on a table-sized half-court, measured my entire condo (at scale!) and made a 3D model of it,  and developers are still thinking of ways to get more out of this thing. Changing tires, building treehouses, rebuilding engines, interactive how-to videos, the applications are endless. I’m excited about where this technology is heading, and with Apple mainstreaming it, broad adoption is inevitable.

Final Thoughts — worth the hype?

Well, it depends. If you have $999 in disposable income and want to upgrade from any other iteration of the iPhone, you won’t be disappointed. The X is familiar enough to feel like home, but different enough to warrant the purchase. The screen alone is worth the upgrade, in my opinion. But with new technologies like TrueDepth and Face ID, the updated form factor, and that new camera, it’s a must buy. If you’re an Apple fan who jumped over to Android to escape the small screens and boring form factor, it’s a great “welcome back to the fold” moment waiting to happen. If, however, you’re looking to be completely blown away by something vastly different from anything Apple branded that you’ve used in the past, leave this one alone. It’s worth the hype for the faithful. For those on the fence, if the reviews haven’t convinced you, wait a year and buy it at a discount.

[charliechanaratsopon-blog]

How 'Charming Charlie' Built A Hit Fashion Chain In Under A Decade

Charlie Chanaratsopon is a young man in a very great hurry. "I hate downtime!" exclaims the 35-year-old Thai-American, chopping the air for emphasis. With his slicked-back hair and sleeves rolled up to the elbows, he's always ready to get down to business--even as he weaves frantically in and out of Houston traffic in his black Mercedes S550, eager to show a visitor one of his stores. "I'd probably be the worst lawyer, worst doctor, worst engineer on the planet because of my ADD-ness," says Chanaratsopon (cha-na-ROT-suh-pon).

No examples of botched cases, mangled surgeries or shoddy construction in his world. But there's an element of reckless endangerment in Chanaratsopon's rush to build a retail chain of accessories. In less than a decade the young founder and CEO of Charming Charlie has built a $400 million-plus (sales) mini-empire of watches, necklaces, scarves and handbags--284 stores in 40 states that FORBES values at $1 billion-plus. With an estimated net worth of $500 million he's careening toward billionaire status before his 40th birthday.

Since launching his first store in Houston nine years ago, Chanaratsopon hasn't slowed down a whit. He's now opening five stores a month, mimicking the model of fast-fashion giants Zara  and H&M by selling attractive but cheaper versions of trendy items, sourced from Asia. Examples: $15 scarves, $9 sunglasses and $7 to $15 iPhone cases. Customers spend, on average, $30.

Is he making money? Chanaratsopon insists that all but one of his existing locations is profitable. The company's Ebitda is an estimated 15% or so--better than most apparel chains but far below luxury retailers like Coach COH -1.76% and Michael Kors. Chanaratsopon refuses to comment on a key index--same-store sales growth--though it's probably safe to peg it at 10% (Francesca's, a clothing and accessories boutique with 360 outlets, does 10% to 15%). One former Charming Charlie buyer claims on her LinkedIn LNKD +% page that her division, apparel and accessories, expanded 26% across same stores in 2012.

Charlie Chanaratsopon says he's in a race to capitalize on a burgeoning trend. Accessories are a $9.2-billion-a-year business in the U.S. and expanding swiftly. As a category, paired with beauty and footwear retailers, it grew six times as fast as other mall-based apparel stores from 2007 to 2012, reports Credit Suisse. "We've spent years brute-forcing things across the finish line," says Chanaratsopon.

His drive runs deeper than business, supercharged as it is by a familiar immigrant success story. His maternal grandfather worked at a gas station in Houston to put his two daughters through college. As the first generation born in the U.S., Chanaratsopon always felt the heat to keep pushing. Perhaps a frightening childhood episode played a part, too. Burglars broke into his house at 2 a.m., tied up his family and forced his father to give up all their valuables. "They put me on the floor and started kicking me," he recalls. "They took the revolver out, shoved it in my throat, clicked it back. I'm 13, and all I remember thinking is, 'Well, I think I had a great 13 years.' "

His parents, who immigrated in 1974, had founded Silver Express, a sterling silver jewelry outfit that sourced production from Thailand and sold on consignment to the likes of J.C. Penney, Nordstrom JWN -3.11%, Target TGT -1.46% and Wal-Mart. Chanaratsopon grew up with the business, watching his parents work 18-hour days, overhearing dinner-table discussions of employee issues and traveling with them on sales calls and sourcing visits.

Some of that business education surely stuck, since Chanaratsopon ended up in the elementary school principal's office after charging first-grade classmates $1 a day to rent his Nintendo games. Profits fueled more game purchases and, hence, more rentals. Today, he says, "I'm still buying and selling--that's what I love."

There were detours. After graduating from Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles with a degree in finance, he became a real estate analyst at Sanwa Bank, then came back to Houston to help his dad find a new headquarters, persuading him to build rather than lease. Chanaratsopon supervised construction of an office building as well as an adjacent strip mall, which he quickly filled with tenants. That venture was so successful he started financing construction of other shopping centers in Houston's suburbs, building seven in two and a half years. "It wasn't being smart, it was kind of luck at the time," he muses. "The real estate market was so hot, and they were valuing it so high, whatever you built you could make so much refinancing and selling it."

But Chanaratsopon couldn't sit still. He dreamed of building 100 such malls and making more money by owning the store that anchored them all. But what kind? Apparel had too many players. Harwin Avenue, Houston's stretch of discount stores offering cheap imports in warehouse settings, offered inspiration. With leftover consignment returns from Silver Express as the merchandising backbone, the first Charming Charlie opened in October 2004.

It nearly died after the first month of desultory traffic. On a whim Chanaratsopon decided not to pull the plug and re-lease the space but to stay open another couple of weeks. Thanks to dumb luck, or a direct-mail drop, women started queuing up outside the doors before Charming Charlie opened each morning. "It became the 'in' place for suburban moms' day out," recalls COO Steve Lovell, who joined the company after the third store. "Word spread like crazy. My wife heard about it from her friend before it ever opened near us."

Chanaratsopon didn't need much encouragement to start fast-tracking. "Own the store, own the complex--that was the idea," he says. "That kind of turned when I realized you couldn't physically build 100 shopping centers in six years. The stores were getting so much traction. It was a better business--a faster business." Each cost, on average, $750,000 to open.

So he appended a grandiose plan to his business school application to Columbia in late 2005. Over the next two years he flew back and forth most weeks between New York City and Houston, where he not only wrote checks but also hung display racks and swept floors at new locations. Monday mornings he was back in Morningside Heights, soliciting advice from professors and speakers.

Slapping "the go button even faster" after he returned to Houston full-time in 2007, Chanaratsopon raised an undisclosed amount from private equity firm Hancock Park Associates, to double the store count from 7 to 14. (He and Hancock today control 95% of the company.) As the economy crumbled, Chanaratsopon squeezed desperate shopping mall operators for the best terms. "Landlords were freaking out," he recalls. Charming Charlie more than doubled in size to 36 units in 2010, jumping to 96 in 2011. Its cheaper wares hit the mood of the times, offering what Hancock Park managing partner Mike Fourticq calls "the perfect shopping experience for a hurting economy."

But as the economy mends and the chain grows, Chanaratsopon pegs his overall performance at six out of ten. As he walks into store number five, it's obviously in need of a face-lift. He shudders at the warehouse-style fluorescent lights, beige slat wall and water-stained ceiling panels--all part of a discount store vibe that "drives me nuts." As the company fanned out across the country, it replaced those features with higher-quality fixtures but still organized merchandise according to color instead of type (walk out of teal and into orange).

The newer stores are smaller--averaging 5,300 square feet instead of 8,000--and assert more fashion confidence, leaving little to a wandering imagination. Push on the hot-pink doors and walk into walls of bold navy and white stripes and blaring pop music. The floor is packed with mannequins and flat-panel TVs to demonstrate hot looks using different Charming Charlie products. New trend tables show off the latest bubble necklaces and sand-blasted bracelets; cubby walls hawk higher-margin handbags.

One slight problem: The redesign isn't making the stores more lucrative. Average sales are slightly lower than they are at the company's traditional stores, though costs per square foot are up 25%. So why do it? Customer surveys suggest that store experience has dislodged low prices as the chief reason for shopping there. Put another way, Chanaratsopon is trying to develop Charming Charlie into a brand--one he hopes to export to the Middle East and South America (as well as to New York City's Fifth Avenue next year). "Where I think we have an opportunity is 5,000 stores globally," he blurts without hesitation.

You want to tell him to chill. "A few stores in Canada are a whole lot easier than in Europe and Asia," says Laura Champine, retail analyst at Canaccord Genuity, the New York investment bank. "There's still plenty of runway in the U.S."

Charlie Chanaratsopon might also put more horsepower behind his e-commerce efforts. The first attempt, two years ago, was a painfully expensive mistake he refuses to quantify. "We didn't really focus on it, didn't complete the thought," he says. Take two, launched in October, is a clean if unexciting website that isn't yet mining a potentially rich vein of customer data.

If there are speed traps ahead, Chanaratsopon seems determined to ignore them. Says Bill Moreland, the new vice president of real estate, "It's 100 miles per hour all the time around here."

Original posted... https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/11/27/speed-demon-how-charming-charlie-chanaratsopon-built-a-billion-dollar-fashion-chain-in-under-a-decade/#1b625ce62dc3