#vs how the games used to be almost mythical. like how people STILL talk about the old water temples

[isa-ah]

im watching a retrospective about Majora's Masks dungeon progression and realizing a little more every time he says "this game took a lot of very brave steps out to not be ocarina of time" that my disappointment with totk isn't out of place. I've been told "it's breath of the wild 2, why did you expect it to be different?" but like.. it's it's own game. why is it the exact same but with an arguably worse iteration of the story?

[talenlee]

The Gliscor In A Coal Mine

Gunna talk about Smogon here. Oh, you don’t know Smogon?

Weeeeell, deep breath.

Smogon is a Pokemon fangame played with the basic components of the videogame series Pokemon, which is itself, made by Game Freak and distributed by Nintendo, which you’ll probably recognise as one of the largest privately held companies in the world. Smogon, by contrast, are a forum and some emulators and a surprisingly dense little bubble of Youtube content.

‘Smogon’ in this context refers to a bunch of related games, that form a single fandom game, a folk game. They have, in the terminology I’m fond of using, made a game out of another game, which is a super cool practice I actively encourage. It’s how we get great things like, for example, the entire Legacy subgenre of games, from its dizzying heights of Pandemic Legacy Season 1 to the shocking lows of Pandemic Legacy Any Other Seasons. I like Smogon as a thing to observe through some sort of astrolabe or other technical device. I have no particular interest in engaging with the game itself, as they play it.

I don’t want to get into a play space with these people.

Not because they’re bad or anything, though they are overwhelmingly split between the still-thinks-he’s-on-4chan shithead vs autistic trans girl social binary of internet niches and you’re never sure what side that coin is landing on when you flip it. I don’t want to partake of Smogon because the game they’re playing looks unpleasant to me to play, and because part of Being Into Smogon means looking around at the game Smogon has made and thinking: Yeah, this works. This is a good system.

The current news out of Smogon, such as it is, is that in their OU format (short for ‘overused’), just banned the Pokemon Gliscor. Gliscor is redacted information that doesn’t matter, because you don’t need to know what Gliscor is to come to understand the problem that Gliscor highlights, and the lesson you can learn about making games and control over those games.

Smogon’s banning policy reflects a truth I espouse as a game designer: Players are great at identifying problems and terrible at solving them.

Pokemon as it’s balanced and released and supported and played by GameFreak is, competitively balanced for 2v2, 4-of-6 teams, with information openly available to players through previews. This has some odd knock-on effects, like poor Zoroark kinda got pooched when they make this information public, but whatever, there are more Pokemon than that that aren’t really for playing. This is a kind of game I think of as a ‘pool game’ – the game is built ostensibly around a pool of potential pieces, and you choose which pieces you use and how. Magic: The Gathering is a pool game, Pokemon is a pool game, and even games like Dominion are pool games, because the game pieces that are in the game at the start of each contest are determined by choices outside the game.

In the official tournament context, when it comes to limiting access to Pokemon, there are ‘mythical’ pokemon where you can only have one (or two, depending on the regulation) from that category on your team. The game is broadly speaking open, where almost anything in that pool is available for use. Now, it’s hard to dig into this for hard numbers, because the pool has a lot of stuff in it that isn’t really expected to be played competitively. There are Pokemon who exist for, most likely, their place in a single-player RPG experience, like most first and second form evolutions, and some that exist as more world content. Think Unown and male Combee. Of the pool available, that means you’re looking a pool of, like, around 1,021 Pokemon, you can’t act as if all of those are going to find a place in a competitive head-to-head environment.

The stat site Pikalytics gives us numbers of about 310 Pokemon that showed up at all, and in that space, 37 Pokemon were not allowed. Some of them weren’t allowed because there’s no way to access them, but Game Freak get to make those choices and Smogon doesn’t. Now, that 310 number is a really broad net, and it’s just the stats from one tournament with over 700 players. In that space, two or three people bringing along something for a laff are going to make it show up. And if we say, limit ourselves to anything that had at least 5 people bring it (so, a representation of .71%), that gives us a list of 75 Pokemon that showed up in the tournament. And the stats aren’t telling the whole story just like that — after all, two of the most common Pokemon, Iron Hands and Flutter Mane, were played on 50% of teams.

That’s the metagame for an official tournament, broadly speaking; the full pool is somewhere around 310 Pokemon, but the core of the pool is much smaller. And importantly, when I say there are ’37 Pokemon that were not allowed,’ these are Pokemon who are very specifically set aside by the game experience and with related traits indicating that they are not for typical tournament play. You never could play with them in this format, they are not appearing and disappearing based on feedback.

Smogon doesn’t have tournament-to-tournament kind of environment like this; they instead have a tiered tournament system which cares about usage and then cultivates that usage. What his means is that the Pokemon are divided into groupings described by, well, how often they’re used. That means the main, core space, at least according to the Smogon people I spoke to about it, is ‘OU,’ for Overused. Overused is a 1v1 format. At the moment, there are 31 Pokemon legal in Overused. You can use Pokemon from a lower tier in this tier, but it generally works out badly, because those Pokemon are not strong enough for this tier. There are 19 other Pokemon that were in this tier, but have been banned out of it, sent ‘up’ a tier to the category of ‘Ubers’ for being, well, too good. Ubers, for context, has about sixty two Pokemon in it.

That is, Smogon centralises its design space around 31 Pokemon, and only after kicking 19 of them out.

In the announcement banning Gliscor from their format, there were people calling for bans to Sneasler, Samurott-Hisui and Gholdengo. That would bring it up to 22/29, which feels unpleasantly close to half the format being banned. Even at 19/31, that’s essentially 2/5th of the format banned. And when you dig into this situation, you wind up chasing details that can’t address the whole problem:

Gliscor was too powerful at setting hazards and being hard to kill.”

“Well, why was it hard to kill?”

“Because it could heal from lots of small hits.”

“Well why not hit it very hard with a big hit, since it has a 4x weakness?”

“Well nothing in the tier can hit it hard enough.”

“Well, why don’t you bring up something from a lower tier that could do that?”

“Well nothing in that tier is good enough.”

“Well why aren’t there good ice types in this tier?”

“Well we banned the one that hits really hard.”

“Why did you do that?”

“It was too good at hitting things very hard.

And like, this whole conversation is is continuing to diagnose problem after problem after problem, but never finding anything that solves those problems. Because Gliscor being banned resulted in people talking about how now, there were more problems that had to be fixed.

A lot of this is the peculiarities of what Smogon does and doesn’t allow. For example, hazards are so important because everything in Smogon is expected to swap out constantly, and hazards make that hard to endure over time, meaning that hazards pull the game towards an end state. This swapping out constantly makes some statuses pointless (like confuse) and a lot of setup moves pointless too. It means that multiple sequences of turns can happen where players don’t attack one another because they’re just swapping back and forth to jockey into position. There are whole move types that are banned (baton pass and evasion boosters), because if you didn’t, people would use them. They had to institute a 1,000 turn timer on games because some tournament games ran that far without anyone actually winning the game.

What if those 19 Pokemon were just left as it is? You got rid of the Evasion rules and the banned moves and just let the game settle, as it is, on what people can do, in that space, and see how it works. I’m told it becomes a pretty simple game where everyone does the same thing of trying to get an angry fish into play with baton pass and kill your opponent. This is apparently a bad thing, where by banning a bunch of strategies the format is instead facing a situation where the’re almost halfway through banning the entire tier, to try and capture a way the game ‘should’ be. It seems to me the point of a usage-based tiering system means that if one tier sucks, everyone leaves that tier and recognises that the Pokemon in that space push a style most of the people there don’t like, and instead they go on to play in other tiers, like Underused. The best stuff gets pressurised out of it, pushed up and out into that rarified atmosphere by the math and social pressure of the natural churn of the system, right?

Right?

But they don’t.

They want to play OU.

And they want OU to be the ‘main’ format.

There are two competing challenges here, for me. The first is that Smogon can’t actually add anything to the game. They see their place as having to exclude things. I get this problem, kinda because ostensibly, they want their version of the game to be a thing you can play ‘on hardware’ rather than through their emulator. This ‘on hardware’ play therefore can’t actually add anything or overlay new rules, like, for example, adjusting the stats of Pokemon, or instituting score-based team building or even elimination drafts. And you don’t get to go ‘hey, that’s really obnoxious or hard to do,’ because Smogon’s ruleset is not easily processed or parsed, and it is not welcoming.

The second thing is that Smogon’s process for changing the game is their idea of democratic. It’s voted on by experts who can identify the problems and supposedly make good choices going forward. This means these people need to be socially active and engaged in the forum place and capable of earning respect within the competitive and social environment that represents which, let me tell you, that’s a worrying place.

And the thing is, this is all being done with an assumption that they’re trying to carve away what’s ‘wrong’ with the format to find the right version of it. On the one hand, yeah, that’s cool, they’re making a game out of another game. On the other hand…

Says who?

They use terms like ‘noncompetitive’ and ‘unskilled’ to refer to when a strategy can present a player with an abrupt choice and if they choose wrong they’re at a disadvantage, as if games with sharp swings aren’t competitive games that require skill. The language has the familiar structure of designers discussing problems with games but without the fundamental idea of being able to actually change it. Much like Smash players who try to remove variance from a game built around it, Smogon is trying to take something designed to get out of hand with crits and failure chances and make it fit something else.

Famously, new ideas and new mechanics get introduced and Smogon tries to route around them, to preserve the way things were in earlier generations rather than adjust to what the new generation is doing. Back in Generation 8 of Pokemon, Smogon just straight up banned Dynamax entirely; a mechanic that meant any pokemon could have a big bulky tank mode for a short period of time and punch through protects. That meant they played the entire format without access to a mechanic the main game was balanced around. Anyone who played Smogon exclusively through all the years of Generation 8 is someone who has no idea what a core mechanic of that game does to the game based on their play experience.

When Gliscor went, in that same announcement, people were bringing up, again, that they need to ban Terastallize, for the whole duration of the generation. Because the current format and game’s defining special rule is something they want to ignore, which just further builds on the idea that they don’t want Scarlet Violet OU. They don’t want the Pokemon that would bubble to the top of those usage stats so they could select where else they’d rather play. The only tool is shrinking the game… and it just so happens that it means that each generation kind of slowly but surely winds up looking a lot like the previous ones. They don’t want this ‘Pokemon’ game interfering with their game. And they don’t want to take measures to address these problems,because whatever they’re aiming at, it has to be socially agreed upon, voted upon, enforced by bans only, and only validated by vibes.

It’s all said with the selfseriousness of people sitting on the sofa glaring at the TV that they know what the game ‘should’ be and not considering what the game is. Which is fair! They’re making up their own game out of this other game, after all, and that game could kick ass! It doesn’t look like it, it looks like a rat’s nest of rules corner cases, with a stone-faced defensiveness that suggests newcomers have to Get Good and Do The Readings, and if you’re not involved, you should not dare comment on their game. Any opinion about their game must show due deference, even if it’s just recognising that it exists. An absence of praise is a presence of violence.

It’s very funny when they complain about Gamefreak’s decisions, mind you. Gamefreak’s game is one of the most successful multimedia franchises in the world and Smogon is a forum for a few hundred very sweaty dorks. Like, yeah, I don’t think Gamefreak are thinking about you when they make their choices about how to continue ongoing engagement with their multinational game empire. Which isn’t to say their game is better, the game you play is the game you want to play, but acting as if ‘Gamefreak doesn’t know what they’re doing’ – they do. They aren’t caring about you and the way you play the game, and haven’t for like… fifteen years? Your game isn’t unbalanced because Gamefreak are stupid, your game is unbalanced because you’re playing in the space Gamefreak is explicitly not balancing.

But okay, let’s look at what I said up top: Players are great at identifying problems and terrible at solving them.

These players are able to identify the problems they’re having. They don’t want to play doubles, and the singles game is balanced around a kind of play they don’t like. And when you’re dealing with playtesting of your own game, you need to be able to listen to this kind of thing and accept it as entirely neutral and entirely correct feedback. Players might lie to you about how they feel but you should always trust it anyway. They have identified a problem.

As it stands, right now, Smogon’s only tool they consider acceptable for changing this game is to take things away from it, and for the process of doing those changes being entirely social, and ostensibly democratic, with a real ‘well, if you didn’t vote, you don’t matter’ kind of approach to that.

And this is what you get.

Gliscor was used in somewhere between five and one teams in the Pikalytics, by the way.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[absolutebl]

I loved your beautiful ode to A Beautiful Man. (Even as someone pretty new to BL and unfamiliar with Yaoi I felt the power of that show.)

In it you wrote in passing, "Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." If you have further thoughts on that I'm curious to hear them.

Thanks!

Semantic Error vs Utsukushii Kare how two BL’s tell us A LOT about Korean vs Japanese approaches to cinema 

"Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." (from this post) 

Ah I was referring to the KBL inclination to create a perfect bubble in which being queer is not just irrelevant and unspoken, but ironically untouchable.

As characters, JaeYoung and SangWoo can only exist within this bubble. 

It renders their perfection unmoored and somewhat etherial feeling to viewers. As if they are the gods on pedestals that Hira is trying to turn Kiyoi into. There is no attempt to address the impossible nature of their existence. JaeYoung and SangWoo aren’t meant to be REAL in any way, they are meant to be fantastical - almost like mythical caricatures. 

I say this not as criticism, Semantic Error is one of my favorite BLs of all time. But it is almost too perfect, as if we are watching the fae perform for us - ageless and immortal. It has no real grounding, no tether at all to reality. It is the ultimate escapism.

This is fine, I watch BL for the escapism. It’s why it got a 10/10 from me. But it’s also why it’s never whipped me into a verbal frenzy. It’s exactly as perfect as I always expected Korean BL to get to. It is the pinnacle of the mountain they have been climbing - but they never faltered on that path to perfection. They were always gonna make it. It’s what Hallyu does. They did it with music (Kpop). They did it with horror (Parasite, Squid Games). They’re doing it with romance.

But Semantic Error’s innately KBL nature renders it, in a strange way, almost the polar opposite to something like My Beautiful Man, for all they share some really stunning visual similarities in filming techniques, manga framing and staging, uses of color and light, etc... 

The very perfect beauty of Semantic Error (both in visuals, execution, production, script, story arc, tropes and archetypes) is like the BL on the pedestal that A Beautiful Man is challenging within itself. 

Ironically of course, My Beautiful Man, is about the harsh honest ugliness of really loving someone, Semantic Error not only has no thought to address this, by it’s very nature it could never do so, since it sits on that pedestal with nothing to tip it off (yet) and nothing to pull it down to ground (yet) because KBL is still (mostly) at the pedestal state of it’s BL journey. 

Korea is focused on producing perfect BL. Which I might argue they did with Semantic Error. But as nothing more than a perfect BL. Classic. Typical. The opposite of challenging. Easy. Easily enthralling and riveting.

Utsukushii Kare is work. Work to watch. Work to tolerate. Work to understand. But it’s work I enjoy. 

Japan has always farted around with that kind of thing. Japan doesn't have anything to prove. But Japan has also always been one to use film to examine itself, it’s that uncompromising point of view thing I talk about and the reason people get frustrated with Japanese cinema. It’s not about anyone but Japan. 

Korea is a the opposite, it’s producing its pop culture these days explicitly with an expansion agenda. It’s all about how perfectly can they hit it so they can GET us. Like, capture us. Make us watch. Make us happy. Dazzle us with their brilliance and beauty. Lure us into the fae realm, under the green hill where time passes differently. 

Often I think Japan wants us to be uncomfortable. Ironically, that’s why I have such faith and confidence in them. 

But that’s also how they can surprise so beautifully. (Old Fashion Cupcake. Minato’s Laundromat. Gah.) They stay BL without shying away from difficult content, sometimes I think they stay BL so they can directly tackle it. 

Korea is doing everything they can to keep themselves safe and idealized, or to keep up the appearance of that. It comes off as disingenuous at worse, unfixed and fantastical at best. Semantic Error was all this, but correct, almost mathematical. I admire the precision art of it and the targeted intent. 

They are both master manipulators and I like watching manipulators at work. 

But with Korea there’s always a part of me that’s like, “I see you doing it. I see what you did there. Very good.” I’m noticing how good they are.

And with Japan, occasionally, I forget to notice. I’m still surprised. Even knowing what they are capable of. Even living in the shadow of 15 years of BLs. They can still surprise. 

(source)

[themousefromfantasyland]

Fairy Tale Laws: How Fairy Tales and their Worldbuilding work

Who follows me knows I'm mega into mythology and folklore. One of my favorite pieces of folklore and fantasy literature is the Fairy Tale. Since I was a child I was always draw to the magical world of Disney films and their darker literary counterparts.

I love fairy tales, yet in my opinion they continue to be one of the more misunderstood and neglected genres out there.

So, as a Disney fan and avid fairy tale reader, in this essay I show how the genre itself generally works and which principles rule their whimsical world

Fairy Tales, Myths and Fables

The thing that fairy tales, myths and fables have in common is that they all find their origins in the oral tradition.

They were fantastical tales, not told specifically for children but deeply enjoyed by them, that were transmitted through generations.

Both fairy tales and myths don't follow real world logic, instead following their own dream-like logic, in a sequence of weird and fantastical events, that are magical and intriguing to the listener, but essentially normal to the in-universe characters.

Often than not there aren't any explanations of why these events happen and their impact of those in-universe societies, they just happen. Animals talk, mythical creatures live along with human societies just fine, inanimated objects come to life, people seem to turn into animals all the time, etc, and nothing of that seem to ever change the status quo.

The thing that differentiate the fairy tale from the myth, is that the myth is supposed to have happened in our world, but in a far off past. They are supposed to explain how our world came to be, and they have a very strong religious importance. The fairy tale on the other hand is not supposed to be took seriously. It's a fun story that the older generation tell to the younger generation. It can pass deeply important life or religious values, but that's not their main point. They are fairy tales, not fables.

The point of the fable is to transmit a moral. The point of a fairy tale is to transport the listener into a fantastical journey.

Fairy Tales vs. Oral Stories

Although many folk stories became immortal fairy tales, not all fairy tales came from oral tradition. Actually, some can be traced back to specific authors.

The Little Mermaid, the Ugly Duckling and the Steadfast Tin Soldier are all considered immortal fairy tales, yet they were all created by famous danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. A lot of his stories are authoral, and all are considered true fairy tales.

The term "Fairy Tales" actually comes from the french "conte de fées" and was coined in the 17th century by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy, the Madame d'Aulnoy, a french writer who wrote about a world where love and happiness came to heroines after overcoming great obstacles.

These stories arise from the Préciosité, a French literary style in the 17th century, from "les précieuses", intellectual, witty and educated women who frequented the salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet. Themes presented in these stories are the ideals of feminine elegance, etiquette and courtly Platonic love, all hugely popular with female audiences, but scorned by men.

Telling fairy tales was a popular préciosité parlor game, and they should be told as if spontaneously, even though they all were carefully prepared. This style served as influence for Charles Perrault and Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.

Villeneuve herself was the original author of Beauty and the Beast, and although the story is heavily inspired by older legends like Cupid and Psyche, it still is an authoral story.

Even the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, who were famous for being collectors of tales from oral tradition, gave their own twists and embellishments to their tales. For example, in many Cinderella tellings it's her mother's ghost who helps her. The Fairy Godmother is Perrault's invention.

So more than been just stories from the oral tradition, fairy tales as a literary genre are the reinvention of the old tropes found in the folk stories under a more sophisticated polish, for a new public.

Fairy Tale as a literary genre

In a way I consider the Fairy Tale a sibling genre to Magical Realism. As TV Tropes puts:

"In Magic Realism, events just happen, as in dreams. [...] Magical realism is a story that takes place in a realistic setting that is recognizable as the historical past or present. It overlaps with Mundane Fantastic. It has a connection to surrealism, dream logic, and poetry."

Both use a surreal, almost poetic internal logic with little to no explanation. Magical Realism is the occurrence of a fantastical event in a realistic setting, in a fusion between the mundane and the magical world.

Fairy Tales are similar because they often deal with very domestic topics and subjects. The protagonists often are normal people with very mundane goals. They don't want to save the world, they want to save themselves and their loved ones.

Cinderella and Snow White for example, are more concerned with escaping from their abusive families than being cultural or legendary heroes like in the myths. Hansel and Gretel are trying not to die from starvation, and Red Riding Hood is trying to visit her sick grandmother. Regardless of class status, these are people with their own problems that find in the fantastical events a escape from them, or a even worse danger.

This is not a universal rule, as some characters are more heroic and there's more in stake, but generally the heroes are domestic heroes and it's only their lives that are in stake.

The difference between the Magic Realism and the Fairy Tale, is that while in the Magic Realism you can easily point where the realistic setting ends and the magical one begins, the fairy tale goes even further, and the lines between the worlds are way more muddled.

Worldbuilding in Fairy Tales

Now, that's the most important part. Fairy Tales are a sub-genre to Fantasy, but while in the other genres the magic world is described in the minimal details, often with rich details about the in-universe cultures and their rules, the Fairy Tale maintain the magic world as vague as possible. That's because it uses what I call "soft-worldbuilding".

Part of the appeal of the fairy tale is to transport the reader in a fantastical journey, but in order to do that they use as little details possible, allowing the reader to try to fill in the gaps. That's in order to avoid the magic world of feeling too real or too close to reality. The reader needs to have a sense of wonder and intrigue, and if you started to describe your world in all its details, it will become too grounded, and the wonder and the intrigue will be lost.

Said that, you need some basic rules, otherwise everything will be incredibly incoherent. You reader needs to understand how the magic world works and their rules, but they also need to be slightly lost, discovering all the details along the way and be amazed by them, lost in a mystery that they will never find all the answers.

To illustrate this, look at the differences between the Middle-earth and Narnia. One is a standard fantasy world, the other is a fairy tale world. J.R.R. Tolkien drew inspiration from the epics, C.S. Lewis drew inspiration from fairy tales and childhood stories.

The Middle-earth is grounded on its own rules, with their own races, cultures, languages and myths. Narnia is a playground were everything magical is allowed. Greek mythology creatures? Okay. Roman gods? Okay. Father Christmas? Okay. Jesus? Of course!

One is worried about all the small details, the other wants everything as vague and simple as possible, as to ensure the wonder and the intrigue will never be lost the reader.

When you're dealing with a fairy tale world you have way more freedom than the standard fantasy world. You don't need to think too deeply in the details. You can use the Rule of Funny and the Rule of Cool as much as you want, as long as it's minimal consistent and coherent

Fairy Tale Laws

This are some basic rules and principles that I believe rule over the fairy tale genre

Establish rules of how the world works. Keep it consistent and coherent. That's your base

Not every fantastical event needs a deep explanation, and magic is not allowed as an universal explanation

Keep it simple. Don't worry too much about the small details.

You don't want your world to be too grounded in reality. A little escapism is key

Poetic logic and surrealism reigns

Have fun with all the weird and magical things that crowded your world. "Rule of Cool" and "Rule of Funny" reign

Never reveal too much to your reader. They need to constantly feel as if there is something more happening off the limits of your story

Domestic heroes (As Narnia and the old dragon slayer stories show, this is not an universal rule)

The overall tone can be darker and edgier, softer and lighter, or somewhere in the middle

[esepoimipullula]

So, one of the (many, many) things I mean when I say I’m a Norse-obsessed nerd who gets way too excited whenever Norse mythology or Vikings are involved or even just mentioned in Disney Duckverse & Mouseverse comics or cartoons is that I love the DT2017 episode The Rumble for Ragnarok! to bits.

Asgard! Valhalla! Male and female dead heroes in Valhalla! Norse-inspired architecture! Impending Ragnarok! Vikings being crazy about wrestling, which is actually kind of weirdly fitting if you consider glima! Vikings having a sense of honor! Vikings hating overly greedy people! Beakley picking “the Shieldmaiden” as her stage name, and her costume having a winged helmet because it’s supposed to be over-the-top and kind of ridiculous and we clearly see nobody else in Valhalla wears anything like that! The person on the writing team who apparently has my same taste in mythical figures and, instead of whipping up Odin and Thor (whom I do love, too, but come on... you can’t always use them!) as usual, went, “Hey, guys, you know what would be cool? If Loki’s kids were loved and appreciated and had lots of admirers and weren’t cast away or tortured or killed!”...

Ahem.

Anyway, right after watching the episode, I already had my own headcanons about Jormungand and Hecka and Fenrir being siblings like in the myths. And about Fenrir really being the Biggest Wolf Ever but also able to transform into the Regular Wolf form we see in the episode and another, unseen Anthropomorphic Wolf form, yet preferring the Regular Wolf one during matches because the crowd loves the whole “good boy” schtick and it’s also useful to trick opponents into underestimating him. And about attitudes towards Ragnarok actually having shifted only fairly recently (for Norse standards) and Jormungand being really a pretty decent guy, just way too addicted to the crowds’ cheers and praise after millenia of being considered a monster and a harbinger of unspeakable doom, making him even more insecure and prone to get in over his head and lose control than Dewey and...

Ahem. So, anyway, some time after watching the episode, just for fun, I tried my hand at making my duck-ified versions of Loki, Angrboda, and Sigyn, to round out the family. Unfortunately I can’t draw, so I used the Ducktales: All Ducked Out game, which means my options in terms of body type, clothing, and everything else where pretty limited. So, basically, I just shrugged and went, “you know what? Since now Ragnarok is seen as a good thing but keeps getting thwarted, Loki has been freed and told to keep himself constantly available just in case the time for him to lead the Jotnar against the gods finally comes, though of course he’s still not welcome in Asgard. Which is fine for him, because he and Sigyn are running around Midgard looking for their sons, who have just been turned into regular, non-talking wolves and cast out in some area well-known for traditional wolf-hunting or something because this is Disney and also an embarrassingly self-indulgent AU. Angrboda helps them on their search, because I hate Sigyn vs Angrboda stuff and because I ship all three of them together, but generally she hangs out in Jotunheim and then she always watches her kids’ matches in Valhalla if she can make it, which means she’s the only one who still keeps to Norse style instead of adapting to Midgard fashions or mixing the two together.”

You know, normal things a normal person thinks about.

Anyway, here they are:

Loki:

He’s meant to be some kind of hawk as a call-back to him borrowing Freyja's and Frigg’s falcon-cloacks on at least two separate occasions... though I’m sure it doesn’t come across that well. I would have liked to go for longer hair, but there weren’t that many styles available and I liked the two different colors thing this one had going on. If you pretend the second color is less pinkish and more reddish, it gives a kind of fiery effect --- and yeah, I know the fire association is actually pretty thin and likely more of a later thing, but it’s a popular thing and personally, I like it.

No, he’s not “Norse Satan.” He’s more like an ambiguously moral trickster who causes as much trouble as he fixes, is responsibile for the gods having a lot of cool stuff, is (equally or almost equally ambiguously moral) Odin’s blood-brother and Thor’s friend but eventually fucks up both relationships, and at one point fucks everything up so very, very, very badly that it starts the chain of events leading to Ragnarok.

Sigyn:

A regular duck, to go with my long-standing headcanon that she’s a bit of a plain Jane but Loki and Angrboda love her because of her wit, passion, and unexpected chaos-loving side. I like to think her necklace was gifted to her by Loki when they were courting, and is the one flashy thing she’s always comfortable wearing no matter the occasion.

No, there is absolutely nothing in the myths about her being forced or tricked into marrying Loki or him abusing her. Sure, she is not happy with some of his actions and their consequences for both of them, but she voluntarily sticks with him and protects him from having acidic venom constantly poured all over him.

Angrboda:

A big, strong, tough jotun woman! I’ve already explained about her sticking to her Norse roots, so I’ll just say that I didn’t have any ideas about what kind of bird I should make her. I actually kinda wanted to make her a dognose or something to emphasize how WEIRD her offspring with Loki is, but... whatever, guess she’s a duck, lol.

No, she is never named as Loki’s first or second wife, and she’s never connected to Sigyn in any text so there’s nothing about the two being rivals or hating each other. So I’m completely free to imagine she’s both Loki’s and Sigyn’s girlfriend. :)

[foxtsumus]

Sorry to ignore explicit instruction, but I very much am going to ask you to elaborate on ur aeneid post b/c i am sensing some sexy thoughts, like people think God can.

ok. ok ok ok so this is wildly underdeveloped and i wasn’t specific enough in the original post, i’m rereading books ii and xii for a paper rn so i can talk about animal sacrifices vs human sacrifices and how they’re both used as a vehicle for and justification for the actions of an empire, but the latter’s usage in the mythical origins of rome underscores just how fucking costly rome really was. w/e man i’m not super interested in what i’m arguing in that paper but hey i’ll do my best on it. anyway The Post

yeah i’m specifically thinking about book ii vs book xii here bc reading them back to back drove me nuts. the dichotomy between the perspective of the two is enough to give me whiplash, i swear. anyway, in the light of my life, book ii, aeneas is the one telling us all of the events of book ii, and therefore the perspective for the fall of troy is from one of the many humans involved in it. the triangle is pointing up, sure, but the base is on the ground. the story is told by humans on the earth with an eye on the g-ds in the heavens. this results in something that kills me every time i read book ii- this story cannot be told from above bc there are no g-ds present to tell it.

sinon’s lie, the thing that succeeded where ten long years and thousands of ships failed, lays claim to the will of the g-ds, but it’s still a lie. the g-ds are in the minds of the listeners, but the listeners are still ultimately people on the earth, who are metaphorically looking up at them. of course, the g-ds aren’t actually present bc it was all a lie.

this book also contains the end of the proud city of troy, but according to aeneas, the g-ds aren’t there either. plenty of mention is made of their icons and their servants, from dream!hector telling aeneas he needs to save the relics and rites of their ancestral g-ds, to panthus and cassandra not being helped by apollo, to priam dying on an altar, but aeneas outright says that “when g-ds are contrary, they stand by no one”. (aeneas’ focus on the g-ds in his retelling of these events is his gaze still being turned towards them!!! the triangle is still pointing up!!!!) multiple ppl aeneas interacts with during the fall of troy have an eye on the g-ds, but they’re still stuck on the ground floor of a city that is falling.

aeneas says that venus was there, but arguably only to ensure that ascanius gets out alive and can go on to found alba longa and the julian line. the fall of troy is by this point guaranteed, but the foundation of rome is not. the g-ds now act in service of the latter, not the former. therefore, confirmed attendee venus can’t be the POV for the destruction of troy, because while she may have been present for it, she wasn’t there specifically for that.

book xii, meanwhile, sees the direct and indirect interference of multiple divinities, including turnus’ nymph sister juturna, who fakes an omen for the augur tolumnis early on. (it’s an EXTREMELY sexy reference to/inversion of what happened to laocoon earlier; we know exactly who caused this one and why instead of having to work with the trojan assumption that laocoon’s death was a punishment.) later, venus heals aeneas so he can go back out and fight turnus, and eventually jupiter himself tells juno to lay off and scares away juturna so that aeneas can fulfill his destiny. book xii’s main events are caused by the g-ds doing whatever they feel they need to in this situation, and as they gaze down on the ever-narrowing space between aeneas and turnus, you can almost feel fate closing in like a vise grip. the base of the triangle is now in the heavens as the attending g-ds react to fate in their own ways. book xii, very much returning to the familiar storytelling style of the g-dly parts of the iliad, is about the will of the g-ds, not of men--even when they tried to avoid a large-scale battle, juturna (and juno, implicitly) intervened--and it is certainly not about the will of aeneas. aeneas has been living in a divine fishbowl ever since the flames appeared above iulus’ head, but never more so than the moments before his final confrontation with turnus, when g-ds outnumber men and all of the g-ds with skin in the game are watching. the real action is up above, they’re just looking down.

(which makes it even more affecting when the g-ds fall away and it’s just the two of them and aeneas makes the choice to kill turnus. no g-d pulled his eye to pallas’ belt. no g-d whispered rage into his ear. in this moment of reckoning, aeneas, the primogenitor of rome, chose to do this. and then you go back and you read the latin and it says “ferrum adverso sub pectore condit fervidus”, 12.950, and ��conderet urbem”, 1.5, and you wonder whether aeneas the character ever really had a choice at all. what is a story if not a divine fishbowl. this poem makes me insane.)

tl;dr: book ii (△) is humanity looking up to the heavens and thinking they’re looking at the g-ds, but they’re actually just looking at destiny, which is past the point of no return. the g-ds are not there. book xii (▽) is the g-ds looking down at two humans but thinking they’re looking at destiny, which is at the point of no return. then, in only 15 lines, that point is passed with violence and fury and it was not by destiny, it was by one human. 

you, the reader, are still looking at destiny.

[tkmedia]

Man Utd need Ndidi, and a solution to the Haaland problem…

Your mails don’t have to be about Man Utd but keep them coming anyway. Send mails to theeditor@football365.com… Haaland sorted Erling Haaland to Chelsea? Simple! Dortmund want to keep him for another year. Chelsea want to pay up now to avoid a bidding war next summer when Haaland’s release clause kicks in. There’s a simple solution! Why don’t Chelsea give them £100 this summer to buy him but then loan him back to Dortmund for the upcoming season. Dortmund get what they want and Chelsea get what they want. Bing! Bang! Bosh! Thanks. Tim (CFC) Ireland Varane and Sancho not enough As happy I am at Manchester United signing Varane – with weeks left in the transfer window no less – I still don’t believe there will be a massive difference. Unless a top class defensive midfielder is signed, it will be more of the same… flattering to deceive. Varane is used to be playing with top level defensive midfielders both at Real and for France. I wonder how shocked he’ll be when he has McFred infront of him running around looking busy but not actually defending anything. With Leicester signing Soumare you’d think they are already ready for Ndidi leaving. Perhaps we could test the waters? I also would not mind Kessie from AC Milan who i watched run our midfield over two legs. Just keep Declan Rice away from Old Trafford. Longsight Lad F365 Says: Ole can’t go balls out with Varane alone The Pogba conundrum A lot of people have surmised that Paul Pogba has played well in multiple teams, such as Juve and France, or he has only played well when supported by high class talents. Some may say that the quality on offer in Italy is not as good, or perhaps the quality when he was there. Some may say that next to Kante, any midfielder will look better. So let’s break it down. Truth goes first. Pogba left England at a young age and went to Juventus. He joined the Italian champions, who would win the title in each of his four seasons. This is where the Real/Mythical Pogba was born. All action midfielder, very dynamic, given a license to roam and capable of a nice thunderbastard. Here, he flourished. This is true. During his career representing France, he has lost the Euro 2016 final at home to Portugal, and won the 2018 world cup vs Croatia. For France, he has looked almost as dangerous as he did for Juve, despite playing in a more tactically disciplined role. He is tasked with pulling the strings and sending those long balls for Mbappe, Griezmann and Dembele to chase. His first 3 games of the Euro’s showed exactly what he is capable of. This is true. At United, he doesn’t appear to be the Real/Mythical Pogba, why? Like most things, the proof lies in the details. At Juve, he had the honor of having the leadership and skills of Buffon in nets, a back three of Chiellini, Bonucci & Barzagli, flanked by Lichsteiner and Alex Sandro, with the mercurial Pirlo in front of them to protect. Alongside Pogba, were the box-to-box abilities of Vidal/Marchisio. This gave Pogba an outrageous amount of protection, while at the same time allowing him to be the man to dribble forward with the ball, take that long shot, attempt those long passes, safe in the knowledge he has an army of experienced defenders behind him. It made him worth 85M. Now, for France he does not appear to be as dynamic or dangerous, but not one bit less necessary for the team. With the previously mentioned three, and others, Pogba does not need to make the runs forward he would normally do at Juve. He is instead tasked with using his passing range and carrying the ball forward. It has evidently worked and it has evidently not. He has won the WC, His mistake cost them in the last Euro’s. For protection here, he has Lloris in nets, Varane and Kimpembe/Umtiti at CB with Hernandez and Pavard at fullback(Two defenders who can play CB) and he would partner with Kante and Matuidi(World cup winners) or just Kante( Euros). United in this time has not come close to either team’s level of quality when it comes to adequate protection for a player like Pogba. He has never had a midfield partner to the standard of Pirlo/Vidal/Kante and he has not had the quality of experience at the back either to match Chielini/Bonucci/Varane. This year may be different. If United could sign, let’s say, Ndidi. Pogba would have an experienced goalkeeper, experienced quality CB’s and fullbacks, midfield partners who have the discipline to protect him and forwards who will move into the spaces necessary. However, PSG would be the better choice for him. He has the quality goalkeeper in Donnarumma, a back three of Ramos, Marquinhos and Kimpembe. Bernat and Hakimi at fullback are great options. Gini can be their Vidal, Veratti can be their Pirlo. Add in the forwards, Neymar, Mbappe and Icardi, and you have a team that can more than match the ability of his successful Juve side. This all leaves us with the feeling of why? Why create all of this for just him? Well, you have to watch him to understand. Those first three games for France at the Euro’s. That run of form after Mourinho was sacked, where he scored and assisted 8 in 5 games. At his best he is an unstoppable machine capable of the delicate, and the dangerous. All you need to do is to listen to pro’s talk about playing against him to get it, and then watch his highlights for your eyes to get it too. That said, he is also such a liability, and this is why I would prefer to see him in that PSG team. United should use those funds to replace him with a solid CDM and a dynamic midfield passer, a la Scholes. He is a liability because he has often had brain farts at major moments, in major games. His giving away and taking of penalties record is horrible. Like at this Euros, when you take away the box-to-box partner he needed for the WC, even just Kante can’t save you, and he made Danny Drinkwater a 35M Midfielder. He does the magic many cannot, But in a team where Bruno is our main performer, there is not much space for the luxuries of Paul Pogba. You will get the screamer, and then be turned into a screamer, for his efforts. Calvino Rashford’s decision Can’t say I agree with JB. Rashford definitely looks like he’s been carrying an injury for some time to me. As for saying that if it was actually something wrong, you’d just get it fixed… it would be nice if it was that clean cut, but that’s just not how surgery works. I don’t know exactly what the nature of Rashford’s injury is, or what the surgical solution is, but the surgery could have a less than ideal success rate, it could only be a partial solution, it could leave the recipient with permanent (but lesser) pain in the affected area, surgery may only offer a temporary solution to an inherent problem that will eventually recur… There are plenty of reasons why a young guy may want to reflect on a choice between managing an injury versus going under the knife, or the exact timing of the surgery. But really, why is it such a big deal if the club was less than truthful in order to protect the player? Maybe it is made up and the issue is a sensitive one that the player doesn’t want widely known – like the early days of Darren Fletcher’s ulcerative colitis, or a mental health issue… Or maybe they are just making it up to alleviate pressure around bad form; sounds a perfectly valid tactic to me… what, if anything, is wrong with him isn’t really anyone’s business but his and his employer’s. Why don’t the press call them out on their BS? Probably because it isn’t newsworthy… Andy (MUFC) Wednesday’s PM Mailbox: How did a ‘useless PE teacher’ sign Varane? Lamela was a ‘liability’ and… Straw grasping Biscuit Dave – do you work in PR or marketing? There’s some wonderful creative framing going on in your description of United’s key players this morning. Listen, I get United are delighted to have finally signed a defender who looks competent in all areas of play rather than just a selected few, but to describe him as ‘the most successful centre back under 30’ is clearly heavily caveated so as to avoid anyone who didn’t hoover up Champions League medals at Real for most of the last decade, and even then you have to limit the age range so as to exclude his way more successful defensive partner. England’s best centre-back? John Stones is clearly why you’ve switched from ‘most successful’ to (a very subjective) ‘best’. John Stones might occasionally drop a bollock, but Maguire is always slow and one-footed. I know who I’d rather have. And to finish, a wonderful combo designed so as to exclude any striker under the age of about 29, yet not position Cavani behind of any of those he’s being compared to – ‘one of the best centre forwards in Europe over the last 10 years.’ Yeah, he’s been one of the best over that timeframe, but you’d probably find few outside of Salford who’d rate him above the other obvious names in that bracket such as Ronaldo, Lewandowski, Muller or Benzema. Even the intro to the group of players includes ‘(on paper)’. Absolute joyous and meaningless nonsense, and why I love the Mailbox. Jonny (on paper, one of the best bearded players over 6 foot tall between the ages of 42-45 in my street) Dance …Oh Biscuit Dave, I just have no idea how Ole gets these players to sign for the club with the highest wage bill in the country. Maybe he sent them a VHS of the time he did that tap in. And as for best English centre back, I think Joe Gomez (PL, CL) might have a word with Maguire(…….). United are back at the big boy table now. No more playing for nil nils or bragging rights when the leagues already lost. Ole has to do what only a small handful of managers have ever done and beat Pep in the league. No excuses now. Not injuries, not VAR, not playing on Thursdays after Christmas. He’s been spending like Man United, he needs to win like Man United. That means the league. United fans would do well to let their team do the talking on the pitch this season. Next year has to be their year. Anything else would be a failure for them. Alex, South London Ole: the good, the bad, and the ugly The Good: Ole took over a toxic situation from a toxic man in Mourinho. He was seen as a short term option to raise morale and see out the season. He nailed it, so much so, United gave him the job full time. I was concerned about this as Pochetino seemed like the better option. But I am not Ed Woodward, so I just had to sit back and hope for the best. What I did know was that we had a former player in the hot seat, we had a manager that fully understood what a successful United is, and the importance of sticking to the United way- Fast, attacking football, with local youths reperesting the club. It is a manager who has won trophies as a manager( Albeit in Norway, that said, his side were not favourites) From the get-go, you could tell the players where in a more comfortable environment, and happier for it. The results were not bad and by the end of his first full season, we had finished in the top 3, and reached 3 semi-finals. Last season we went a step further in both regards, finishing second in the league and reaching the Europa final. Despite a loss in the final, progress was definitely made. He has improved players as well. Greenwood has come on leaps, the best we have seen from Pogba has been on his watch. He added Maguire and AWB to make a sh*t defence solid, and he has them consistently getting high ratings without it really being noticed. His transfers have been the best since Fergie has left. He signs players that we need, but who also appear to have the right mental capacity to be a United player. Maguire, Fernandes, AWB, Varane, Sancho- These are all amazing players, but more importantly, the types of players we have needed and missed out on/Never went for. Tactically, he has beaten the best, and last season’s sensational comebacks should be seen as proof of this, instead of it being another ‘luck’ stick to beat him with. The Bad: I feel bad saying bad things about him, but then when I think about it, there is not much bad to him. He is nice and friendly, he doesn’t abuse, belittle or blame his players. You could say that tactically, he is maybe not as seasoned as your Mourninho’s or Pochettino’s, and he does not appear to have a preferred system such as Pep or Klopp. But Pep aside, not one of them was successful last year. You could say his use of substitutes can improve, as we learned in the lost final. We also learned in that game that, on occasion, he can be like a deer in the headlights when the opposition is delivering a masterclass. His interviews- this is where I think most people get their feeling for Ole, from. He just doesn’t scream anything, it’s never really emotional, engaging, or inspirational. He does not say anything truly wild or thought provoking. He just….is. The Ugly: The ugly I find is in his presence, so many are frustrated. It’s like your ex dating some really nice guy. You don’t want to like him, and he has given you no reason not to, but you still do. I don’t even think a trophy would do it, unless it is the league, and in a convincing way. But already people are saying he should win the league with this team, so we will see. He took over United in a similar way to that of Klopp at Liverpool. He achieved better success in his first full season than Klopp did in his. His second full season ended up in a losing european final(Albeit the Champions league for Liverpool) and a higher league finish than Liverpool. He is currently on an upward trajectory that should be seen as highly positive, yet, perhaps because he doesn’t have a thrilling tactical system and perhaps a slight lack of ‘Charisma’, he is being seen as lucky or unfit for purpose. Luckily, the United board does not. Calvino (His spending is about on par with Klopp in that time too)

Rule changes Three rule changes to improve “The Game”. 1. Stop the clock when the ball is out of play (e.g., throw ins, corners, subs, goal kicks). Simple…removes doubt, rewards playing. No stoppage time and reduce the 90 minute game time if needs be. Probably advanced by many others before me, but let’s ease into this. 2. Introduce sin bins. We need a card between the yellow and red (e.g., orange). The reason players “take one for the team” (e.g., yellow card with little time left to play), is because the balance between reward and punishment is…unbalanced. “Tactical fouls” go against good play/skill and are only supported by idiot hipsters (e.g., “Chiellini on Saka, is brilliant defending”. Nah, it’s cheating). Deliver the punishment within the game the crime occurred, and create jeopardy for cheaters. 3. Make VAR reviews the decision of managers or captains. I think most people want good skill and fairness, not decision making perfection/porn – they are different and the latter does not exist…as far as I’m aware. No fan wants to “cheat” their way to a win (think Henry handball against Ireland, Lampard’s phantom goal against Germany or Maradona’s handball), particularly in a significant game. But do we really care that a marginal offside or free-kick occurred 2 minutes before a goal? I don’t…get on with it, play on, tackle, defend. Use the tennis review model (i.e., 2 reviews per set and you keep them if you get your review right) to remove the obvious and impactful mistakes, but don’t make a video referee the central character in a game of physical skill. If you like decision based dramas, go and watch A Few Good Men. Dissecting grey areas is dull, futile and comes at the cost of the overall shape and integrity of the game. If Liverpool 3-3 AC Milan, or Liverpool 4-3 Newcastle is less likely with VAR, then remove it until you have something that doesn’t make it so (N.B., I am a football not Liverpool fan). Last thing… We are all controlled by others…ultimately high finance, PR, and Government, in some shape, form or collaboration. Moments of joy are few and far between. I don’t think we should allow The Man to place himself in front of one of the few moments of uncontrived joy left…put that power in the hands of your “elected” managers and captains, make it part of the game…and most importantly deliver fairness not officiousness. Nick (not The Man) P.s. Imagine Wenger/Mourinho/Fergie/ arguing they thought the ref had a bad game after they called 2 decisions wrong themselves��� Already seems worth it. Non-perfect perfect goals Adding to Paul from Brussels mail about perfect goals that come out of left field where there looks to be no chance to score, my favourites are the goals from players that rarely get close but suddenly spot an opportunity. When they score there is this look of bewilderment followed by sheer joy, it’s the pure fun you have playing as a kid. As I am biased, check out Makelele’s goal against Spurs. Not only a great goal but he just stood still for a split second before realising he’d actually scored, and the reaction from the rest of the team says it all. Blue Chelsea Blue Read the full article

[numbertwocontender]

Watch the event in all of it’s glory.

The early Ultimate Fighting Championship events were such a success, especially on Pay-Per-View, that there were bound to imitators. Promoters, looking to cash in off the UFC’s popularity, set up a cage or ring, picked a three or four word name, and tried to steal away a part of the UFC’s market share. The vast majority of these imitators ended up being miserable failures, both financially and aesthetically, and yet for some reason these type of events kept popping up, and to some extent still do today. The first of these events was the World Combat Championship.  

Background

Christopher Peters, son of movie producer Jon Peters, had previously approached Rorion Gracie and Art Davie, the men behind the first UFC, in 1994 about putting together a promotion to rival the Ultimate Fighting Championship that would be more based in sport, rather than spectacle; Gracie and Davie passed. Undeterred, Peters partnered with Bob Wall, a martial artist with connections to kickboxing juggernaut K-1, and started planning what would be the first, and only, World Combat Championship. The event was scheduled to take place on October 17, 1995 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The idea behind the event was fairly simple. Two brackets, one composed of four strikers, the other, four grapplers, with the winner of each bracket fighting in the main event.

Enchanted by the grappling majesty of Royce Gracie’s UFC outings, Peters wanted to get a Gracie to build his show around. Initially, he reached out to Rickson, thought to be the best off all the Gracie’s, and even in 1995 was already somewhat of a mythic figure both for his fighting ability and hardball negotiating tactics. Ultimately, Peters was unable to agree to terms with Rickson. Determined to have a Gracie compete in his event, Peters reached out to Renzo Gracie through an ad Renzo had placed in the back of Black Belt magazine.  Intrigued by the $120,000 up for grabs in the tournament, Renzo jumped at the opportunity.

Rounding out the rest of the grappler’s bracket were: Ben Spijkers, a Dutch Judoka who won an Olympic bronze medal in 1988 and had fought Erik Paulson a few months prior in the Japanese MMA progenitor Shooto. Mike Bitonio a practitioner of Kapu Kuialua, a Hawaiian martial art characterized by its joint locks, throws, and  emphasis on bone breaking. The final grappler, and perhaps the most famous competitor in the tournament was Kenpo Karate stylist and acclaimed Shoot Fighter Bart Vale. Vale was most well known for competing in Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, a Shoot Style pro wrestling organization that presented itself as a legitimate fighting promotion, despite having predetermined outcomes.

When assembling the striker’s bracket, Bob Wall’s K-1 connections seemed to pay off in spades when both Peter Aerts and Sam Greco agreed to fight in the event. Once K-1 got wind of the tournament, and what exactly a No Holds Barred tournament entailed in 1995, they pulled both of their fighters. Without the marquee names of Greco and Aerts, Peters and Wall had to scramble to fill out their tournament with fighters with less sterling resumes.

James Waring had perhaps the best resume of anyone in the tournament. He had previously held the IBF Cruiserweight title, various kickboxing titles, and had an amateur kickboxing victory over future Heavyweight boxing king, Vitali Klitschko. Though in 1995, Klitschoko had yet to make his pro boxing debut and was almost entirely anonymous to most fight fans.

Erik Paulson’s inclusion in the striker’s bracket was somewhat dubious. Paulson was a Taekwondo black belt, but had been training with the Gracies for nearly a decade and already had already immersed himself in catch wrestling, a style that would become his trademark and calling card in future years. By the time of the WCC event, Paulson had already had 5 fights in Shooto, including a win over the aforementioned Ben Spijkers. 

The final two fighters in the striker’s bracket were Justin McCully, an undefeated Muay Thai fighter, and Jerome Turcan, a French Savate world champion.

The Event

The show opens with the above graphic. Showtime, the premium cable channel and boxing mainstay, produced the event. It says something about this event that it took Showtime another decade to try MMA again. Peters later claimed the event was a financial success, but based on Showtime’s ten year sabbatical from promoting MMA and a sparse crowd, it seems unlikely that there is any truth in Peters’ statement. 

The show opens with a video package that is as ostentatious as it is hamfisted. Men are seen practicing their martial arts while an unseen narrator rattles off the show’s opening salvo. With lines like “All people are his family, all places are his home ... he is alone, he is a legend, he is a warrior,” and claims that the winner of this 8-man tournament will be crowned “the greatest warrior on the planet.” It is clear that we are in for quite a show.

Our lead announcer, Todd Christensen, a man who looks like a cross between Dan Severn and Dick Butkus but with a hint of Kyle Kinane’s stage presence, opens the show by flubbing the name of the venue. He then introduces the rest of the commentary team. Bob Wall, a karate world champion and one of the events organizers, who can only be described as a better coiffed Councilman Jeremy Jamm, and Tom Murray, who eerily resembles Heaven’s Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite. Murray procedes to predict/read of an obviously pre-prepared note card that the tournament will come down to Renzo Gracie and Jerome Turcan while blinking an inordinate amount of times.

Christensen then throws to  Richard Norton, an Australian actor known for being in over 40 martial arts films, I guess. Norton introduces former WBA lightweight champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the only person on this broadcast who is notable in anyway. Mancini offers some tropes about fighting being mostly a mental game, and how fights are often lost on the way down the ramp. Norton stumbles over his words and throws it back to Christensen.

Todd runs down the brackets, and then has Bob Wall explain the bracket system and the rules. All strikes are legal except eye gouges and groin shots. The grapplers’ bracket matches will be one 22 minute endurance round with a ten minute time limit on the ground. The strikers’ bracket has identical rules, except with a two minute limit on the ground and submissions will result in a disqualification. 

  Opening Round Fights

Cecil Peoples is the referee for the entire event, and is dressed for the occasion, wearing the classically stylish look of a t-shirt tucked into sweatpants. However, much to my displeasure, in 1995 Cecil had not yet seemed to have developed his signature knee-lift/arm cross dance to start a round.

Renzo Gracie vs. Ben Spijkers

Both men circle until Spijkers takes Gracie down to the mat. Renzo briefly works a guillotine variation before he begins working for a sweep from the bottom. Renzo uses a butterfly to sweep and brings the fight back standing momentarily before Renzo returns the favor and takes Spijkers down. The two grapple for a bit, much to the chagrin of the crowd, who in 1995 were most definitely shouting out a whole slew of homophobic slurs, until Renzo takes Spijkers back and hits three pretty rough looking elbows to the back of the judo player’s head. Renzo locks in a rear naked choke rather quickly and the fight is over. Ever the sportsman, Renzo disgustedly shrugs off Spijkers semi-conscious body and as an added show of chivalry steps on the back his opponent's neck on the way to his corner. Cecil Peoples grabs Gracie like he’s about to Irish whip him into oblivion, but decides to just give Renzo a stern talking to. Inspired by Cecil’s words, Renzo goes to shake Spijkers’ hand, but Spijkers is still lying dazed on mat, so Gracie’s handshake just looks like he’s half-heartedly trying to drag Spijkers around the mat. 

A side note on the whole stepping on the neck deal: apparently Spijkers had been repeatedly calling Renzo’s hotel room in an order to psych him out or something like that, so in the future if somebody calls you a couple times feel free to step on their neck, it’s cool. 

Sean McCully vs Erik Paulson

Before the fight, we are treated to a “funny,” and believe me those quotation marks have never been more necessary, vignette that features Sean McCully training and eating food, in order to illustrate the point that he is both trying to build muscle and that he is undersized for this tournament. It is not good. 

A corresponding vignette airs for Erik Paulson, who looks like he could be the rhythm guitarist for seminal Florida death metal band Atheist, that outlines his background, it does not feature any of the “comedy” that was expertly showcased in McCully’s video. The commentary team remarks on Paulson’s long hair, which in this tournament is fair game and in the background Anton Chekhov is placing a firearm on the wall.  

The men start the fight exchanging strikes, with Paulson using his range to get the better of his opponent. McCully takes Paulson to the mat, and Paulson begins to work for a triangle from the bottom, which in this bracket is illegal. McCully shrugs off Paulson’s weak triangle attempt, grabs his hair, and rains down a headbutt and some punches. McCully moves to side mount and lands some more punches before the 2 minute limit expires and both fighters have to stand up. Paulson again has the advantage on the feet, getting the better of McCully at range and on the clinch. Paulson lands some effective knees while holding McCully’s trunks. McCully decides to flop to the mat and finds himself mounted. Paulson lands some punches before his opponent gives up his back. Paulson lands a combination of punches and elbows mostly to the back of McCully’s head leading him to tap out.

Bart Vale vs. Mike Bitonio

A vignette introduces San Pedro, California’s Mike Bitonio, claiming that San Pedro has a reputation for being a tough place, although the video seems to contradict this statement by showing Bitonio roller skating down the street a few seconds later. Later, the vignette goes onto show Mike training with his instructor, a man simply known as Kaja who looks a lot like Scott Norton’s burnout cousin. After a clip of Bitonio agonizingly riding a mountain bike, he ends the segment by informing the audience that if he wins the tournament he plans on paying some bills.

The focus of the broadcast then shifts to Bart Vale, a supposed veteran of this type of event, you know in the same way my obsession with NHL video games has made me a veteran defenseman.  The narrator attempts to make an analogy between Bart Vale and a hurricane, but I was distracted by what seemed to be a very young Chuck Liddell, or some lookalike, being put is some strange submission.

The two men begin the fight with a short flurry of punches before Bitonio drags the much bigger Vale to the ground. Bitonio struggles to maintain half-guard, and Vale uses the opportunity to reverse the position. Vale fights off an armbar from the bottom, and delivers a few headbutts to his opponent. Bitonio’s defense from this positions seems to be running his fingers through Bart Vale’s luxurious period-appropriate hair. Somewhere along the line, Vale has opened up a cut on his opponent, and is now using his chin to exacerbate the cut. Mark Kerr is at home taking notes, thinking of ways to top Vale’s cleft-based offense. Bitonio scrambles and Vale transitions into a standing neck crank. Back standing, Bitonio goes for a headlock takeover, but Vale ends up on top and takes mount. From there he lands some more headbutts and a few elbows and begins to work for a kimura, which he quickly abandons. Vale lands the most meaningful strikes of the fight at this point, throwing some heavy punches from the mount, until Bitonio comes close to bucking Vale off. Vale, not wanting to lose position, goes back to working for a kimura. Bitonio defends by using his free hand to push on Vale’s nose in what looks to be a very unpleasant way, and uses this small distraction to reverse position and end up on top. However, it is all for naught, as Bitonio doesn’t have enough energy to mount much offense and Vale grabs an arm triangle from the bottom to force the submission at 7:10 of the first round. 

Jerome Turcan vs James Waring

A rather standard hype video for James Waring airs here. It recounts his Kickboxing and Boxing exploits, and shows him being a dedicated father. He seems like a good dude. 

Jerome Turcan’s introduction claims that he is a connoisseur of baroque architecture, savate, and fine art. This is kind of dumb, because we all know that Mixed Martial Arts is the finest of the arts, so the narrator is just being redundant. We see clips of Turcan obliterating people in the Savate World Championships. Following the video, our commentary team breaks down the fight; all of them see it going for Turcan.

The opening section of the bout is fairly uneventful, both fighters stand at range with Turcan getting the better of Waring with some low kicks. Waring clinches his opponent and lands some punches in close before his opponents spins out and both fighter are back at range. The fighters return to trading strikes at a distance, this time Waring is getting the better of the exchanges, pressuring his opponent up against the fence and landing a few jabs followed by  a right hook. Feeling the pressure Turcan goes to circle out, Waring follows. Turcan throws two leg kicks, the second one Waring counters with a short right hand to the temple and drops Turcan. Waring swarms, lands a few hammerfists and Turcan taps at 2:35.

Semifinals

Renzo Gracie vs Phil Benedict

Bart Vale had to pull out of the event due to a laceration on the top of is head. His manager, looking like every single wrestling coach in 1995, is out here to explain the situation. Richard Norton, star of over 40 films that surely have been seen by less than 40 people total, calls Vale’s manager Max, despite the graphic reading Matt. Matt/Max is here to tell us that the doctor won’t allow Vale to compete. I don’t mean to comment on Bart Vale’s finances, but if the guy you pay 10% of your money to walks around in a sweatsuit, you may have to find someone else to manage your money. Replacing him is alternate Phil Benedict, who the broadcast tells us very little about, aside from the fact that he is a wrestler. Actually they don’t even tell us that, it just pops up on a pre-fight graphic, but they do tell us he can bench 400 pounds, which I suppose is not irrelevant. 

Benedict, in gray spandex shorts, resembles, in some ways, the Incredible Hulk -- in other ways he looks like that weird greaser guy who was on an episode of American Pickers. The announcers basically tell us that Benedict has no shot against Gracie, and at this point in 1995 they are probably right.

The fight starts with both fighters missing with nearly every strike they throw. Benedict gets a bit antsy and throws a wild flurry of punches. Gracie reacts with a single leg attempt and wrestles Benedict to the ground. From there Gracie quickly gets to the mount and starts throwing some stiff punches to his opponent’s skull.Benedict can’t offer much off of his back and eventually taps to Gracie’s strikes.

Instead of stepping on his opponent’s semi-conscious head, Gracie decided to help Benedict up to his feet, which I suppose is better, but when you step on one guys neck you might as well step on everybody’s neck.

We cut back to the announce desk, where the commentary quartet of Christensen, Wall, Mancini, and Murray marvel at Gracie’s technique. Here in 2017, I am marveling at Renzo’s Dorian Grey-esque ability to not age. Christensen then shifts focus to our next fight.

Erik Paulson vs James Waring

As Paulson makes his way to the cage, the announcers again mention his long hair and his decision not to cut it. Chekov, having already placed a gun on the wall, takes it down, loads it, and pulls back the hammer.

Waring runs to the cage, and we get a quick cut to Paulson in his corner. He looks every bit of a person who has been recently headbutted. Waring on the other hand looks fresh. Ray Mancini adds on commentary that while he is rooting for Waring, he thinks Paulson’s ground game will give him an advantage. Mere seconds later, referee Cecil Peoples tells us that grappling is illegal in this bout.

The first minute or so of the fight in fairly uneventful, Warring paws with a jab irregularly and lands two inside low kicks. Paulson seems tentative for the most part, but eventually rushes Waring and pushes him against the fence. Clinched against the fence, the two exchange strikes, Waring mostly punching to the body, Paulson to the head. This goes on for a while, until Waring lands some solid knees in the clinch that cause Paulson to circle out, but not before Waring clips him with a solid right hook to the head.

At range the fight returns to it’s fairly slow pace, with Paulson being a bit more active, throwing more kicks to both the legs and body of Waring, even attempting a head kick at one point. Paulson then tries to take Waring down to the mat, but settles for pressing his opponent against the cage again. Against the fence, both fighters fight for an advantage, until Waring finally seizes on one, in the form of Paulson’s blonde ponytail. Chekov fires his gun and all is right in the world.

Apparently, Paulson had some stunt work scheduled and felt cutting his hair would lose him that gig, instead he just lost some brain cells. Good trade in my book.

With a fistful of hair, Waring lands solid punches and a few elbows which cause Paulson to break the clinch, The two trade sparing strikes for the next few minutes, the highlight of which is Waring landing a solid left hand and Paulson quickly shouting back that it didn’t hurt him. Shortly after, Paulson throws a strong leg kick that Waring checks, and from this point on it is all Waring. He lands with a pair of solid side kicks and then pressures Paulson toward the cage. From this position he again grabs a fistful of Paulson’s hair and begins to unload with strikes. Paulson tries to circle out, but Waring yanks him back by his hair. Waring lands a series of brutal knees, that drop Paulson,but Waring still maintains his grip of hair and drags Paulson back up in much the same way you would pick up a troll doll. Waring lands a few more stiff shots, but then decides to take a bit of a rest. Still holding Paulson’s mane, Waring chooses just to lean up against the cage and regain some of his stamina. Despite Waring’s lack of action, Paulson doesn’t mount much offense. Near the 16 minute mark, Waring finally decides to unload with a pair of knees to the body, and then drags Paulson down to the ground by the hair and lands a series of stomps. Paulson taps after Waring lands a few follow up punches, and the fight is over at 16:07

John Higginson, the ring announcer who looks a lot like Brad Maddox and has a lisp reminiscent of Al Stewart, declares Waring the winner, while his corner, a cross between Guile from Street fighter and a thing Ruben Villarreal politely claps. 

Bonus Prelim

Jerry Flynn vs Fred Floyd

Yes, this is WCW megastar Jerry Flynn, trained by Boris Malenko and Karl Gotch, which some people will tell you is impressive, but so was Bobby Blaze and I don’t think he was much of a shooter. Flynn has a mullet that would knock Billy Ray Cyrus’ dick in the dirt. We see Flynn shadowboxing in front of a mirror wearing Zubaz and the narrator tells us some people call Jerry the “Flynn Slam Man.” Who are these people? Who made them this way?

Flynn walks to the cage, and then we are introduced to Fred Floyd. Floyd is a bodyguard, exponent of Budokan Kung-Fu, and all around large man. Floyd claims you have to be a thinker to succeed in an event like this. I am skeptical.

To start the fight both fighters rush to the center of the cage and exchange strikes. Flynn throws a low kick, loses his balance, and Floyd lands on top. From the guard, Floyd lands a flurry of punches to the head and body as well as a few well-placed elbows. Flynn, using a body lock, is able to reverse position and end up in side control. He works for a wristlock from here, but nothing materializes. The two jockey for position of the ground, neither throwing many strikes.  In a scramble, Flynn tries to stand up and Floyd lands a nice knee to the body that hurts Flynn. Floyd follows his to the ground, but is tired and sort of just lays there for a bit. I get it man. I want to lay down all the time.

Flynn has a hold of Floyd’s ankle. He’s working for what looks like an achilles lock. PRO WRESTLING. Floyd sorta just turns and is out, somewhere I’m sure Karl Gotch is talking about how tough he is and how he would have killed every fighter ever if only he had the chance. Floyd ends up in North-South position and is sort of just laying on Flynn with his hands in the general vicinity of his neck. Flynn taps proving that while Pro Wrestling is indeed the strongest, it is no match for a fat man laying on you. 

Finals

Renzo Gracie vs. James Waring

It is time for the tournament final. Bob Wall calls Renzo the most aggressive Gracie, which at the time is true, but little did he know the aggressiveness with which Ralek Gracie would refuse to pay people who grappled for Metamoris.  

The fight starts with both men tentative. Waring paws out with a jab, but only to create separation. Eventually Gracie shoots for a takedown that looks a lot like what would happen if you tried to hit an ankle pick while falling down a flight of stairs. Nevertheless, he gets Waring down. Renzo grapples his way to mount, and gets a neck crank/smother/Arm Triangle. Waring taps at 2:47.

Richard Norton, star of over 40 films, interviews both fighters. They spout cliches, paving the way for many fighter in the future to say nothing of interest following a fight. Richard Norton, star of over 40 films, then introduces Christopher Peters, who looks like the adjunct English professor from you local community college, to present Renzo with a championship belt. 

And thus ends the inaugural and final World Combat Championship. It happened and nobody can take that away from them.

[simic-initiate]

I started watching this video and five minutes in I just had to get my thoughts down SOMEWHERE. First and foremost, let us all commend The Professor for being willing to not only hear opposing arguments, but give them a platform even when they are unpopular, especially with the majority of his viewers.

One of the first things James Chillcott says is “No one is forcing us to spend a specific amount of money on Magic” and “...near infinite options for cheaper, more casual play...”

Now this has always been a selling point from me to others about the game. Playing casual Magic or Commander can cost as low as a one time investment of $25-50 for a decent deck, another $15 for solid sleeves and deckbox. But this is essentially saying “Don’t like it? Play something else.” And let’s hope Wizards has the opposite attitude and instead wants to take actions to allow us to play all kinds of formats. He is right on this point, so long as you have people to play against and the right attitude, those who spend the least can have as much fun as those spending the most.

He then speaks on how Modern’s health is comparatively small in the grand scheme. This I agree is true, as the vast majority of magic players do not care one bit about the pro scene of any format, and many don’t even know the formats exist. I don’t think that means Wizards shouldn’t be trying to make Modern easier to play and get into though.

AND HERE is my IMMEDIATE hang up with this guy and why I just had to get my thoughts down somewhere. “No gaming company is looking to dip into our pocket book just the one time. Modern gaming economics whether physical or digital realms, almost universally requires ongoing subscription style revenues to keep players engaged whether we’re talking about MOBA players buying new characters and skins or Call of Duty players buying their annual addition.” I’ve played League of Legends with friends and siblings for coming up on a decade now. Not once have I ever spent a cent on it. League of Legends is a prime example against the kind of thing he is arguing for, which is that requiring constant payments is good for both parties. I strongly disagree. The genius of LoL is absolutely free gameplay and it isn’t that hard to get all the champs you like in due time at zero financial cost. Completely optional aesthetic purchases can be made if you want. LoL is an undeniably successful game and business, and it boils down to a simple fomula. Made Good Product - Provide that Product for free - Sell something related to the product. This idea hinges on one thing, the fact that People Love Spending Money on Things They Love. It’s fun! It shows support for creators we like! PATREON is built on this philosophy more or less, showing that people will just shell out some cash without any concrete rewards, just because they want to support content. I see this with so many shows that don’t understand they need to personally provide their work on youtube or at least Netflix, and only when people can find your show to know it’s good will they spend money on it. Do otherwise, and you get minimal exposure and increased piracy. This kind of system rewards Quality content. Rant over. As for how this relates to Magic? Magic can’t really function in this way, yet Wizards does at least send out Welcome Decks to try and emulate it.

Collection Value Vs. Accessibility of Formats is probably the biggest underlying debate in all of MTG. Every reprint, at least for a small while, hurts the value of cards and hey, I have some decent cards here and there. Let’s not lie to ourselves, we think it’s pretty cool when we have an expensive card. So when it drops in value it’s natural to at least give little frown. But that frown shouldn’t reflect your actual thoughts on the subject if you think about it for long. A card is expensive because people need it to play, it’s why a powerful common can EASILY become more costly than a Mythic. Magic Card Prices have been on a steady rise for a long time due to the game’s 8th year of growth. More people means more demand. So for a long term perspective, the more Wizards fights to combat high prices via reprints and the more people DO join Modern, then in the longterm, the more prices with climb. Focusing on letting the maximum amount of people play will always, in the end, benefit both the players, Collectors and Investors more.

Why would they made Modern packs $1? Are you implying that Wizards CAN do that and still make an appropriate profit? The $10 tag is seen as gouging because although people have prescribed higher values to those cards, the cost of designing the set and making the product is either the same or less than a Standard Legal Set. Wizards pretends they can’t acknowledge the secondary market when they are obviously making the product cost more BECAUSE of secondary market prices, and then conveniently cannot comment on it.

He makes a vast amount of assumptions, that making Modern Masters sets $4 and giving them an unlimited print run would destroy the secondary market, that universal accessibility to Modern would ACTUALLY SHUT DOWN MANY LOCAL GAME STORES. This contradicts his previous suggestion that Modern’s health is low impact on the rest of the game since it is ‘at best’, “5-10%” of players.

He says older formats sell less cards, but this contradicts the high prices and demand for so many of these cards. They may sell less NEW cards, but of these older cards, these older formats have AN ABSURDLY high demand.

He is extremely quick to slippery slope his way into whatever point he is making to having the secondary market collapse.

Mark Rosewater has said the game has experienced eight years of growth, but this guy is saying new player acquisition is lower now than about eight years ago. Gonna need some numbers on this pal. In fact, I’m going to go ask Rosewater about that right now.

[jillmckenzie1]

Critic & Son – Star Wars Edition

You shouldn’t expect your kids to be into the same things you are. It certainly wasn’t the case with my father and me. Bill was a World War II veteran, a lover of big band music, and a guy with the kind of effortless charisma that made him likable to everyone he came across.* He was also a casual moviegoer. I remember him laughing himself into a mild asthma attack during The Naked Gun, and I remember us seeing both Goodfellas and The Silence of the Lambs theatrically.

However, I should emphasize he was a casual moviegoer. Did he care about the works of Altman and Kurosawa? Nope. Not even a little. Movies were strictly for entertainment, full stop. For some odd reason, I dove into movies far deeper than he ever did. Along with my desire to visit Loch Ness and my wish to make a pilgrimage to the grave of John Belushi, obsessive filmgoing was one more piece of evidence to my father that his son was defective, perhaps fatally so.

With my son, Liam, things are different. At twelve years old, he’s already developed strong opinions of his own regarding film. In between snickers, the mother of one of his friends told me about Liam critiquing their video library. He’s said, “I love Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s not a good movie.” He’s a perceptive kid, and like just about everybody else in this time of plague, he’s bored to tears.

For the last couple of months, I’ve gotten numerous comments from Liam that were variations of, “Can I help write a review? Please? Please?” In the interests of familial harmony and for my own physical safety, we’re going to have a recurring feature around these parts  On a semi-regular basis, Liam is going to join me in ranking the top five picks of franchises and genre flicks to you, our discerning readership.** We’ll begin with our Top Five picks for Star Wars Visual Media:

  Liam’s #5 – The Last Jedi: My reasoning for placing this here is that The Last Jedi chose to experiment with the mythos of the Star Wars universe. It made bold moves, took characters in unexpected ways, and had the coolest space fight of all time, even if it came out of nowhere. There could’ve been more brand-safe plays, and a heck of a lot of people disliked this movie for said bold moves, but this is the movie from the sequel trilogy that I re-watch the most.

Tim’s #5 – The Mandalorian: Maybe all this time Star Wars is better suited for television? As the crown jewel (and virtually only series of note) on Disney+, The Mandalorian follows the adventures of a taciturn bounty hunter tasked to take care of an alien infant that’s both Force-sensitive and cute as the dickens. It’s essentially Lone Wolf and Cub with spaceships and blasters, along with some interesting ideas about parenting and nature vs. nurture.

Liam’s #4 – Rogue One: The best way to fill a plot hole is to make a feature-length movie about it! Rogue One is a smart, witty, and brutal Star Wars movie. It introduces a cast of fun and intriguing characters and then kills them off in a variety of ways. It features cameos from C3PO, The Ghost from Rebels, and the best scene of Darth Vader ever, which really makes his next duel look sad in comparison. A solid war film, and the best prequel movie from Star Wars.

Tim’s #4 – Rogue One: For a minute there, it looked like we’d get a series of self-contained Star Wars movies that had nothing to do with the Skywalker Saga. Then Solo killed that idea stone dead.*** Before that happened, we got Rogue One, an honest-to-Tarkin war movie about a suicide mission to swipe the Death Star plans. A game cast and director Gareth Edwards’ intense sense of scale took an idea that was unnecessary and transformed it into an engaging piece of entertainment.

Liam’s #3 – Revenge of the Sith: I know I called Rogue One the best prequel, but it isn’t my favorite. Revenge of the Sith is the movie that makes the prequels feel important. It shows us Palpatine annihilating four separate Jedi Masters, we finally see Anakin become Darth Vader, and we see the decimation of the Jedi through Order 66 in what is, in my opinion, the best half an hour of Star Wars.

Tim’s #3 – The Last Jedi: If I’m being honest with you, I have to admit that I kind of hate the sequel trilogy that kicked off with The Force Awakens. Both that film and The Rise of Skywalker look gorgeous, have fun action sequences, and rely almost entirely on nostalgia to push the narrative forward. The polarizing middle chapter The Last Jedi took big chances, including a grizzled Luke Skywalker who’s given up being a hero due to a moral failing. Writer/director Rian Johnson had very little interest in catering to fans. That’s a good thing, and I prefer having my expectations subverted.

Liam’s #2 – The Mandalorian: In easily the best piece of Star Wars television, The Mandalorian shows us what it is like to be a bounty hunter after the fall of the Empire. We see a cast of colorful characters interact with the bounty hunter, we get Taika Watiti as a murder droid and, most importantly, Baby Yoda. It is breathtakingly beautiful and has some of the best writing in Star Wars.

Tim’s #2 – The Clone Wars: Hey kids! Instead of swashbuckling adventure, how about we spend time focusing on trade disputes and political skullduggery? We all know that the Prequel Trilogy, by and large, sucks. But showrunner Dave Filoni saw through the layer of anti-entertainment. It took some time to get going. Over seven seasons, The Clone Wars managed to make the fall of Anakin Skywalker tragic, managed to turn faceless clone troopers into mostly sympathetic characters, and managed to introduce Ahsoka Tano. She’s Anakin’s apprentice and her journey from an annoying sidekick to a hero with the courage to walk away from the Jedi Order is genuinely mythic.

Liam’s #1 – The Empire Strikes Back: In one of the best sequels ever made, Empire blows the original Star Wars out of the water with how smart the writing is, one of the best lightsaber fights of the series, and causing the heroes to lose by the end of the film. It made Darth Vader into one of the best villains of all time and caused all other Star Wars projects to feel meek in comparison. It’s no wonder that this movie still is one of the most impactful movies even after 40 years since its release.

Tim’s #1 – The Empire Strikes Back: We can all agree that Star Wars is one of the most important movies ever made. Its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, does what most sequels can only dream of doing. It takes everything that works about the first film and makes it better. The action scenes are more interesting, the dialogue isn’t as clunky, and the characters have arcs that are deeper and better defined. We have a hero who makes many, many stupid mistakes, making his eventual wisdom feel more hard-won. We have a plot twist that’s astounding. We have a Harrison Ford performance that’s charming and engaged. What’s not to love?

  *The racist Border Patrol agent that he got fired? Probably not a big fan of my pops. Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you the story.

**Huge credit goes to film writer Drew McWeeny, whose outstanding column Film Nerd 2.0 examined his introduction of classic movies to his boys. It’s excellent writing and I’ve wanted to try something similar myself. His work is well worth paying for and you can buy their introduction to the Star Wars movies here.

***There was talk about a riff on Seven Samurai, in which a squad of Jedi Knights had to defend a small settlement from hordes of Imperial troops. I would have loved to have seen that.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/critic-son-star-wars-edition/

[acahill2-blog]

Asher’s Creative Process

Asher’s creative process is somewhat inconsistent throughout the novel. Sometimes Asher is aware of what he is creating, sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes he has a planned idea of what he’s making, sometimes that idea comes to life after he starts. Sometimes he makes several drafts, sometimes his work is one-and-done. One consistency is that when Asher is painting or drawing, he is completely consumed. Just thinking about drawing or painting leaves him unable to even hear people around him. There is no multitasking for Asher Lev. After drawing the Rebbe in his Chumash, Asher had a serious meeting in the mashpia’s office. During this meeting, Asher was completely unable to stay with the conversation, and unable to fake it.

The mashpia was saying something about Vienna but I would not listen. The darkness was gone from the street and I could see the trees beneath the lashing rain. The rain moved in waterfalls across the asphalt. The curbs were flooded with rushing streams of water. Oh, if I could paint this, I thought. Ribbono Shel Olom, if I could paint this world, this clean world of rain and patterns of glass, and trees on my street, and people beneath the trees. I would even paint and draw pain and suffering if I could paint and draw the other, too. I would paint the rain as tears and I would paint the rain as waters of purification (pp. 134 - 135).

I think this type of absolute focus is really interesting in the context of creativity. Today we have a million things crossing our minds at once - how much more productive would we be and how much higher would the quality of our ideas be if we really eliminate distractions? Our innovation groups have so far been meeting for just 20 minutes per week. With such a small window, we need to absolutely maximize our focus, and we certainly aren’t. I’ve seen members, myself included, take a quick glance at their email, read a text message or periodically zone out thinking about lunch, other classes or whatever else. It used to be that multitasking was a skill, but now it seems more of a challenge to stop multitasking. While Asher employs this laser focus involuntarily, we can still learn something from his process of intense undisturbed thinking and try to be more aware of the distractions we allow to hinder our productivity and creative thinking.

Interlude: Flow

I think Asher’s ability to completely block out distractions when thinking about and carrying out a project is an example something we haven’t yet talked about in class but something I am really interesting in: flow. Flow is characterized by hyperfocus and an increase in positive energy. I was a strong basketball player in high school and played for two years on Wellesley’s varsity squad. There are times that I remember being shocked  after games when my dad told me that someone had yelled something or screamed in a silent gym during my foul shot because I never heard it. Similarly, we had announcers at our games that narrated into the gym speakers who had scored, fouled, etc. Despite scoring 800 points in high school, I could never tell you after a game if there had been an announcer there or not. Apart from this hyperfocus, I would describe my experience of flow as feeling like I was in an alternate universe or dream where I had complete control over the situation, where my reaction time was faster than everyone else’s and I had no knowledge of a world beyond the court, almost like a video game. Interestingly, I only ever felt flow in games, never in practice or doing drills on my own, so I think there may be an intensity factor at play. These days, I’ve been trying to reach this feeling of flow in my running, but haven’t been able to yet. I wonder if running is not a dynamic enough activity to exercise creativity, if there aren’t enough moving parts or junctures to make decisions. I also wonder if to achieve flow you need to have extensive experience performing the activity. I had been playing for over eight years before I began to feel flow in basketball games. Similarly, Asher had been drawing for many years when he began to experience this all-consuming creative process.

It impressed me throughout this novel how Asher seemed to paint entire canvases in one go. Of course, Asher is telling this story by looking back in time and recalling his experiences, so it’s possible that more drafts happened that were not included in his recounting of events. Nevertheless, when the different drafts of a piece were described, it stuck out. One of Asher’s first truly creative works, the portrait of Rivkeh that used cigarette ashes for shading, was the product of several successive failed drafts. Other times, Asher’s drafting process wasn’t so linear. In these cases, the idea of an incubation period where ideas are given time not just to be tweaked but to transform and generate entirely new ideas, comes to mind. Shortly before his painting of Brooklyn Crucifixion I, which was really just a draft of Brooklyn Crucifixion II, Asher began to build and experiment with some of the themes that these eventual masterpieces would stand on.

… I drew the Pietà from memory, and discovered that the woman supporting the twisted arm of the crucified Jesus bore a faint resemblance to my mother. I stared at the drawing in horror, and destroyed it (pp. 314).

It’s difficult not to make the connection here to one of Asher’s main inspirations, Picasso, who described his masterpieces as a “sum of destructions”. This word, “destructions”, always sticks out to me in how violent it makes the drafting process sound. Why were Asher and Picasso so angered by a miscalculated attempt? Jacob Kahn would say it is because both artists drew on their true emotions. As Asher closed in on his ability to convey the anguish of his mother, he also became more sensitive about his work. Leading up to his final show, Asher, for what seemed like the first time, became anxious about other people’s perceptions of him and his work, especially his family. According to Kahn, this was the price he would have to pay to be a great artist, to escape the easier route of becoming a mere “whore” to the art world.

Interlude: Asher’s use of the Muse

Historically, many creatives have been known to have a muse or person who is the source of their creative inspiration. I think Asher had at least two muses, his mother being one. Since he was a little boy, Asher always drew his mother. As he grew older and his relationship with Aryeh became more and more strained, Asher grew closer to Rivkeh. In his teenage years, he developed a special sensitivity to Rivkeh’s pain. By the end of the book, Asher seemed to feel her longing and anguish deeply within himself. While there are a lot of places one could take this in terms of the novel’s literary themes, in the context of creativity, it suggests something of the importance of emotion in creative work. Big C creativity, it seems, must be a product of passion.

Asher’s other muse, in a different sense, was his mythic ancestor. He often saw and portrayed this ancestor, his father’s great great grandfather, as a towering, demonic character. In my eyes, this character, too, represented several of Potok’s literary themes, one being the dichotomy and clash of good vs. evil. Asher’s gift was often said to be a gift from the Other Side, and his pursuit of art a continuous dance with the devil. On his first meeting with Jacob Kahn, Kahn told him, “There is something demonic about such a gift, Asher Lev. Demonic or devine, I do not know which” (pp. 263). This dichotomy often reminds me of the Spider Man quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”. People with power or a gift or fame have influence over others, and this influence must be executed with caution. Some of the world’s most evil people are also the most intelligent, like the Unabomber, for example. A similar “dark side” exists in the creativity field. Malevolent creatives use their gifts in a way that is intentionally harmful. By the end of the book, Asher was certainly a malevolent creative in the eyes of his Brooklyn community. To them, there was no other explanation for his actions than his intention to hurt his community, which led to his being asked to leave. This brings up a problematic question of who gets to determines what malevolent creativity and benevolent creativity is. Throughout history, our ideas of what is good and bad have evolved drastically and different values, temporal contexts and cultures largely determine these characterizations. Like other instances where we make value judgments, the judgment of malevolent creativity must be taken with a grain of salt. 

[olyer-reylo-blog]

Revenge of the Myth: A Reylo Meta

OMG I wrote 2500 words on Reylo. All errors mine as I don’t do betas. Feel free to share. Feel free to comment. Criticisms will be welcomed. Abuse will be ignored.  Disney owns Star Wars. The fans own Reylo. I own the arrangement of these words.  In a recent meta, further discussed on her podcast Fansplaining, Flourish Klink addressed "The Problem of Reylo." For Flourish, the problem is that the Star Wars universe has relied on mythic tropes, but the Sequel Trilogy's humanization of these archetypal characters has led to a somewhat unresolvable tension in Reylo fanfic. Flourish observes that "If we think about the plot of the new movies in the same mindset as we watched the original trilogy, then, Kylo Ren can’t be considered a mass murderer in any real world sense. He’s simply an embodiment of Badness, which means he can be saved by the embodiment of Goodness, which is probably Rey (because when has there ever been a Star Wars movie that didn’t feature a battle between Good and Evil?). (More on this later.) In this context, Reylo seems not just reasonable but almost required. We aren’t really talking about any action either of them has taken, any person either of them has killed. We’re talking about sweeping themes of redemption, forgiveness, and Light and Darkness in balance." The problem, Flourish notes, is that once we see these characters as humans, once we see the greater psychological complexity in them, beyond the Original Trilogy tropes of good and evil, we then have to make these characters responsible for their choices. Realism renders the characters of Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to be pretty much un-shippable. 

Maybe. 

When confronted with an either-or proposition, my instinct is to go all Kobayashi Maru and find a third way. And so I propose a third way of looking at the Sequel Trilogy.  

No (Mono)myth 

The OT was a relatively simple tale of Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark. But the Sequel Trilogy is not retelling the monomyth so much as problematizing it. Those who live in the 21st century have seen the ways the myth of good vs evil has been leveraged against us, the way that it has been used to enact horrible crimes against humanity. One example, of course, is the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Currently we see the demonization of the "other" in all sorts of ways, from the War on Terror, anti-immigration policies, Gamergate and online misogyny.  

If we stop thinking about the ST as part of a Campbellian monomyth, as in the OT, and instead consider it as a rejection of the monomyth because monomythical thinking is inherently flawed, we may see Kylo Ren differently and thus perhaps see Reylo differently.  

The text of the ST explicitly addresses the power - and flaws - of the mythmaking surrounding the Star Wars Universe. The myth has power, of course. But how much should it have? Both Luke (the "good" guy) and Kylo Ren (the "bad" guy) want to discard the past. Rian Johnson has said that the question of how much of the past to keep and honor and how much to discard is one of the issues of the ST.  

The ST has made a conscious effort to destabilize the monomyth by creating characters that are more than tropes, by humanizing and naming a Stormtrooper, by giving emotional depth to a low-level maintenance worker, and by explicitly calling attention to the human costs of a world built around endless war. Flourish recognizes this in her meta but sees it as a problem because the monomyth cannot co-exist with realistic depictions in a story about galactic war.  

Monomyths do not talk about themselves as monomyths. They simply live their monomythic-ness. That's part of the monomyth's power. The ST is profoundly different. The language of the ST, especially TLJ, is to talk about myths *as* myths, about stories *as* stories. This is important. TFA is about trying to locate the mythical hero, Luke Skywalker. The movie ends with Rey's triumphant visit to the island where he has lived in self-exile. But TLJ begins with the rejection of Rey's quest. Luke just throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Fuck This Shit, he seems to say. The myth of Luke is very different from the reality of Luke, much to Rey's disappointment. Lesson the first: we should not mistake myth for reality. 

At the same time, mythmaking does have power. At the end of TLJ, the myth of Luke Skywalker is shown to prevail, representing hope and the spark of the rebellion. Luke projects himself onto Crait and buys time for the Resistance to escape. Luke saves the Resistance, but it only works because Luke himself is not some immortal figure able to deflect blasters with his light saber. He works by distracting Kylo Ren into fighting a projection, a figment. If Luke Skywalker embodies the monomyth, the hero's narrative, well, it's an incorporeal, unsubstantial, ephemeral narrative that can't hold up for very long.  

But perhaps the other story that has to be destroyed is the one that people in the galaxy, like Rey and Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, have grown up to believe: that someone like Luke Skywalker will come save them from evil. The myth has power, but it cannot save everyone.

We all use these myths, these stories to try to make sense of our worlds, to give meanings to our lives, to understand our identity in the world. But these myths come with costs. They are ephemeral and cannot replace self-help, or the help members of a community give to each other.  

Another cost is ignoring the humanity of others. That was Luke's mistake when he thought about killing Ben because Ben had "the dark side" in him. For a brief moment, he turned Ben into the Bad Guy who needed to be destroyed. That dehumanized Ben at great cost.  

So, if there is no monomyth in the ST, what is left? Is it pure reality? Is Reylo doomed because, in the end, Kylo Ren is nothing more than a mass murderer? 

What's the Story, Allegory? 

Well, we can still see Rey and Kylo Ren as symbolic figures without having the story follow the pattern of a Campbellian monomyth. We don't need the Good vs. Evil tropes or the Heroic Journey tropes or the so-called romance tropes. We've got ourselves a contemporary allegory happening.  

Much to the surprise of many viewers of TFA, the backstory of Snoke was not explored. In fact, his bisection by Kylo Ren came as a bit of a shock to viewers, many of whom were pretty angry at the lost storytelling opportunity. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Snoke himself is not important. Snoke's *actions* were important. 

And what did Snoke do? He whispered in the ear of a young boy as he was growing to adulthood, corrupted his soul and used the boy's ability to achieve his own ends. And therein lies the heart of the allegory.  What else whispers into the ears of adolescent boys and encourages them to embrace the worst parts of themselves? As the mother of a 15 year old boy, I can tell you my greatest fear is that despite my attempt to raise him to be a feminist ally and to respect and value the rights of all, he will end up being "seduced" by the easy white supremacist misogyny of the Internet. 

Snoke isn't evil personified. He is actually a very banal evil. He is the alt-right and 4Chan and the Reddit Red Pill community and every "MRA" or "PUA" community out there. He is Steve Bannon and Milos Yiannapoulos and PewDiePie and Roosh, every toxic male that populates online communities today. They don't wear masks, but they wear pseudonyms. They hide behind these masks and they yearn for an imagined past of white supremacist patriarchy because it makes them feel stronger.  

This isn't a new idea. Kayti Burt at Den of Geek made this argument first, though her focus was mainly on Leia and Holdo schooling Poe Dameron and the delusions of heroism that motivated him to take the ill-considered step of fomenting a rebellion. Poe learned from his mistakes and earned a leadership role at the end. 

 It's clear that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo wearing a mask, trying to be like his grandfather, who lived in a world where his toxic male power was unquestioned and abused; Vader even abused (physically and emotionally) his own daughter (the torture of Leia and the destruction of Alderaan).  

Ben's adoption of the name Kylo Ren is not unlike an online gamer's adoption of a gaming name. The best ones often take from one's own name, of course (Kylo Ren pulls in Ky from Skywalker, Lo, from Solo, and Ren from Ben). He has a "posse" of "Knights" who think like him and support him. The word "Knight" suggests chivalry, a social dynamic that relies on prescribed gender roles that emphasize male heroism and female weakness and submission.  

Kylo Ren does not make sense as a trope in a monomyth. He makes the most sense as someone who *sees himself* as a trope in a monomyth, the hero of his own story.  But it's a story that has been told to him, that he has adopted in lieu of another story (his status as the crown prince of the Skywalker dynasty), and it is a story that is flawed. It's the story of white male supremacy that he holds onto because he fears he is nothing without it. 

So when he tells Rey she is nothing, he is repeating the negging of toxic misogyny, because that is the language he has been immersed in. But the whole speech he gives is telling. He has killed Snoke. He wants a new order. All the myths - Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi - none of those matter. He wants to be free of all these stories. In Rey he sees someone without all the baggage of the past, someone he can start anew with. As Dickinson might say, I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there's a pair of us! 

It's not the best argument he could have made to Rey at that point, but it was the best argument he could have made to himself. Thinking he is nobody (because of abandonment issues or because all adolescents think of themselves as nobody), he has embraced an ideology that tells him he is somebody, an ideology that values his gifts. For him to destroy the source of that ideology is to say that he does not need it any longer. Rey knows him and, he thinks, accepts him for who he is. She identifies the fearful, insecure person behind the mask and still thinks he has value. 

But Rey can't save him. She thought she could, and that was the old-school romance trope Flourish disparages, that scene from Pretty Woman where Richard Gere saves Julia Roberts from Snoke, and she saves him right back by throwing a lightsaber to him. But it doesn't work, and it was never meant to. The text of TLJ has already rejected the romance-y trope of a woman saving the man with love.  

Relationships don't work that way. The existence of a "good" person in a "bad" person's life is not redemption in and of itself. But that doesn't mean that there is no role for love in redeeming another.  

What Rey has introduced into Ben's life is compassion for another, a feeling he has not felt in a long time. It's not Rey's compassion for Ben that is significant. Rey's compassion for Ben cannot save Ben.  

Rather, it is the compassion Rey brings out in Ben. Compassion, love, sentiment: these are all anathema to Snoke. They mean "weakness." It's not that different from the men and boys of the alt-right, of the GamerGate community, of these toxic internet spaces. The men and boys there lack and/or deliberately eschew empathy and compassion for someone not like themselves.  

Snoke sees that Rey has made Kylo Ren feel compassion, and Snoke thinks that by making Kylo Ren kill Rey, he can kill the compassion that has developed in Kylo Ren. But Snoke's mistake is that killing Rey cannot kill the compassion because she is not the compassion. The compassion is now in Ben himself. The Force has been awakened. 

The Real Humanizing Turn

The allegory then is an allegory of humanity. The alt-right trolls of the Internet play games for lulz, for spite, for power. They don't see that they are doxxing and bullying and hurting real humans. They hide behind their anonymous masks wielding power because they can and because they don't see their prey as human. They lack empathy. They lack compassion. They see themselves as heroes of some sort of story they are telling themselves, one that involves Good and Evil, and they are the Good and women/people of color/LGBT/"libtards"/anyone different are the Evil.  

Feeling compassion for the "other" is the first step to radical change. Black feminist theorist bell hooks speaks eloquently and often on the need for love as a condition for social change. hooks cites Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for love in the social justice movement and notes that after King's death and the black power movement's ascendance, "a misogynist approach to women became central as the equation of freedom with patriarchal manhood became a norm." This came, hooks says, from a shift away from a love ethic to an ethic of power. Sound familiar? Is the Force about power, or is it about love? 

 Love between Rey and Kylo Ren has enormous symbolic resonance. It represents the emerging compassion and love within Kylo Ren, and his acknowledgement of a woman, a "girl," as powerful as he is. A powerful woman, one without a fancy Jedi lineage, has no place in the monomyth, she has no place in misogynist ideology… but she has a place in a new story. That Kylo Ren is open to that story is a significant development. In a movie or even a trilogy we can't tell the story of a changing society by looking at every individual, but we can look at one individual as representative of that change.  

So the story of Reylo can be read as an allegory of love, the turn to humanity, the humanizing of Evil, the shift from a power conflict to a love "concord," a word that means, at its root, a coming together of hearts. This is not a bug. It's a feature. 

That there are viewers of the ST and readers of Reylo fanfic that want to explore this allegory is not a cause for despair. It is the new hope. It is the hope that love can transform society, and it's a hope that has parallels not to reductive tropes and monomyths but to social justice movements. 

[twilight-deviant]

The rules: answer your set of questions, add 11 of your own, tag 11 ppl.

Tagged by @mynameiseyyyyyy​

I tried to squeeeeeeeeze this in before it's not Halloween anymore since these are Halloween-themed questions~

What’s your favorite scary movie? I'm a wuss who doesn't really like scary things. Does Fright Night (2011) count as scary horror? Because I seriously love that movie. For some reason. lol. I almost feel like it should be a guilty pleasure, but I gave the sentiment of guilt up years ago.

Favorite not-scary Halloween movie? No brainer. Hocus Pocus. The greatest Halloween movie ever made and I've tried to watch it every year since it came out in 1993. I hear they're talking about doing a remake, to which I say, "Nooooooooooo please. Don't."

Who did you root for in Jason VS Freddy? I haven't watched it and I don't know who wins, but I support the destruction of Freddy Krueger. My dad made me watch Nightmare on Elm Street when I was like five. And he also had the mask and claws he would chase my sister and me around the house with. So yeah, he's kinda been a lifelong phobia. To this day, I cannot look at a picture of Freddy.

Favorite horror video game? Still a wuss. lol. Someone cajoled me into playing a horror game once. I can't remember which one it was. But I think all of my screaming was very amusing for them.

What scared you the most as a child? [See above Freddy Krueger scarring which has followed me for 23 years and counting.] But ya know, also ghosts, zombies, and bodies of water.

Which haunted place would you like to visit or have visited? I know I have an answer to this. I just can't remember right now. I have always wanted to look through Bryce Hopsital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It is a mental institution opened in the 1860s which has since (and far too recently) been decomissioned. I know conditions became very horrible over time. It was supposed to house a couple hundred patients but at one point had over 5,000 and they were treated appallingly. So there are understandable reports of hauntings there. I would like to see the facility as it was, but apparently the university next door (which I actually attended for a year) has purchased it and is currently renovating it for their use. Which, to me, sounds like you're just asking for your new building to be haunted. And it's also a shame because I love old architecture and I feel like they're either going to take it all out or cover it up. I will agree that it does need to be renovated though. Because guess what happens to an abandoned building next door to a university? Drunk college students happen. I know there are places outside of Alabama I would like to visit, places I put on a to-do list, but I'm having trouble remembering them.

What’s the scariest myth/urban legend from the town or country you’re from? I wish I knew more word of mouth local legends. I'm not cool enough to be near the gossip. Haha. I know Alabama has a lot of ghost stories. (Because, ya know, it's Alabama. Not the most savory of histories.) There's a bridge not too far from where I live where a woman running away from her wedding was crossing it only to be run over by a carriage. And she haunts the bridge-- even though it has since been replaced. Apparently people can hear horses galloping and a woman screaming. I don't know if I'm brave enough to drive over it. Hahaha. There's also the hole that won't stay filled. A preacher/Union supporter was hanged during the Civil War, but because he was so tall, they had to dig a hole in the ground so he could actually hang. And, as you can probably guess, anytime someone tried to fill in the hole, they would return and find it emptied. It's also said every man in his lynching party died unnatural deaths. I think that story is in a book called 13 Alabama Ghosts that I really need to read.

Any cryptids local to your area? I don't... think so? Just a lot of ghosts. We're lousy with ghosts. But I'm sure there's something. Lots of woods around here. There's probably been a few Bigfoot sightings. No doubt. The wampus cat sounds familiar. I think it's supposed to have been seen around here. Big black panther-like cat. (Coincidentally, that is also my Ilvermorny house.)

Do you have any personal ghost or paranormal stories? I saw a will-o'-the-wisp a couple years ago. The last house I lived at was in the middle of nowhere in the woods on a dead end street. The start of the street intersected a cemetery. As in there were graves on either side of the narrow road and you had to drive through it. (Old cemetery too. It has graves from the Civil War.) At that point in time, I worked late and didn't get home from work until almost 9pm, meaning it was always dark driving home through this cemetery. Sometimes there was fog, making it extra creepy. One night there was someone walking through the fog, making it SUPER creepy. And then one clear night I was driving through and I saw a dim blue light out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was one of those solar powered crosses people put on graves that glow at night. (Which are creepy all on their own.) But when I looked over, I noticed it was moving. I then thought it was someone with a flashlight, but there was no beam of extending light. Just a blue orb hovering above one of the graves, moving up and down, back and forth in a slow little dance. I slowed down and studied it to see any outward cause, but... just a will-o'-the-wisp I suppose. btw, this was before I knew what a will-o'-the-wisp was. It remained the "I saw a glowing blue ball above a grave" story until I knew how to classify it. Oh, and also I was haunted at the house I lived at before that one... Which was a townhouse right next door to a graveyard. Items would just fall off my desk and other surfaces, and I had a recurrent nightmare of a shadow man. And one weird dream where the leaves and branches of the tree outside my window spelled out a name and left me with the overwhelming and undeniable sensation that it was the last name of someone buried on the other side of the fence. I never confirmed it though.

Are you looking forward to any upcoming horror films? ...No.

Favorite monster, creepy mythical creature, or cursed object? I like vampires when done right-- as in scary monsters, not lovesick wimps. Also djinn. And ghosts (though, yes, I am afraid of them). Sirens. The base human fear of man versus himself and a lack of control associated with lycanthropy. I like dreamcatcher mythology. Oh wait, I forgot my absolute favorite. Duh-doy. I love immortals. God, I love immortals. Especially when it doesn't have to be connected to and distracted by vampirism. Stand alone immortality. Oh, yes, yes, yes. The dramatic hopelessness of a person being wise and experienced but watching anyone they care about die. Watching themselves slip into inevitable madness as the mind stretches past its limitations of memory and normality. The longing for a death that shuns them. I love immortals who are unable to die. It's so deliciously tragic. Oh, the plots you can write with an immortal. I have several immortal OCs for different stories and I just like to think about them sometimes. Immortals are great. Yay immortals.

I don't know if I can think of my own 11 questions, but in the spirit of Halloween, you should definitely answer these if you want.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

[evehasplans]

How I spent some of my time off Tumblr

An in-depth guide to getting N‍a‍z‍is in your community

While I was becoming profoundly upset with Tumblr corporate, I found a "forum game" on a forum I used to go to. It's a very simple, very fun game. Because it was on a Discourse-based forum, I started racking up forum badges and a lot of the people were neat and I started friendships with several of them. With the amount of time I spent on either site, I couldn't keep up with both. My Tumblr use fell to the way side.

Unfortunately, the fun new hangout wasn't going to last.

(CW: anti-s‍em‍it‍ism, but not described in detail)

Gradually over 2016 things on the forum were getting worse just like they were all over Britain and the U.S. We were mostly pretty far left so it wasn't like we had an acre of people fighting about T‍r‍u‍m‍p vs. Hi‍la‍ry. Instead, folks on the left getting cranky with each other, deciding whose rights they were going to throw under the bus to gain the support of the mythical moderate right, and people having short tempers in seemingly unrelated conversations. The mood shift wasn't limited to the people on the forum, either. The staff had increased tensions too and their tension filtered over into the moderation arena.

Staff who weren't supposed to be moderators started coming in and handing out disproportionate bans to people they didn't like (almost always women and other underprivileged people) while bad actors got a pass or light enforcement. People started bailing. The evenhanded awesome moderator retired and was replaced by someone who had never done moderation before. (We don't know why the moderator left and while the timing was irritating, it probably wasn't related to the stuff I'm talking about in this post.)

This went on for a bit. In a way, it's still going on.

A beloved performance art account got a several day ban for making an innocuous joke. Then the guy who created the forum game I mentioned earlier got something like a 20 year ban for asking why.

When we bailed, we bailed gradually and we bailed in different directions. A lot of us found ways to keep up with each other. Some stayed behind to fight the good fight. Some asked to have their accounts banned, publically condemning the turn in moderation policy and general shitty behavior. Some asked to have their accounts banned, just implying it wasn't a fun place to be around anymore.

At some point in the time frame after the new moderator was brought on, they got a N‍a‍z‍i. Someone who was literally posting material from well-known anti-s‍em‍it‍ic sources ... with the serial numbers filed off.

When they were reported, the new mod gave them a ban that amounted to about a month. A month. The ban was so light (especially in comparison to bans for far less meaningful reasons), many of our Jewish friends didn't feel comfortable or safe staying there anymore.

In the mean time, the amount of better-concealed anti-s‍em‍it‍i‍s‍m started slowly rising. The guy who had been the victim of the first N‍a‍z‍i would go back to fight the anti-s‍em‍it‍i‍s‍m from time to time but because it wasn't safe, he only went back for that.

Until one day, the same moderator who banned an actual N‍a‍z‍i for one month decided that this guy was no longer welcome on the forum because “he only comes here to attack the community.” The folks posting anti-s‍em‍it‍i‍s‍m are, from an official perspective, the community now.

There are still some people left fighting the good fight. I left almost entirely around the time of that 20 year ban I mentioned and was entirely gone before the last incident.

And that's how you contract a N‍a‍z‍i infection on a fairly lefty geeky community.

Note: I didn't keep a detailed timeline of the events so some of these are out of order.

[tampon-on-the-sidewalk]

New York Recap

I am really sick so this’ll be short sweet and simple(enough) very long and under a cut

My travel anxiety SUCKED on my way to New York and I got there 20 minutes late but all it took was one hug from my boyfriend to make it all better(I have not seen him in 9 months)

That night we went to the Japan Society art exhibit which was really really neat and about gender(though a few of the paintings were explicit). They had a little café/bar setup with a live band playing and it was just really really neat. Also, if I am remembering the painting description correctly, Geisha were originally all men

I think we ate at Applebees that night.

The following day we visited my old haunts- Nintendo Store(where he found a Legend of Zelda sheetmusic book and a Venusaur, and we looked at their collection of old consoles and watched a couple people try out the new games), Sunrise Mart(Four words- Chocolate Chip Melon Pan), Bookoff(Where I found all seven volumes of the anime Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok and all were under 7 bucks except for one that was like 8, naturally I bought all seven and now have a show to binge.Also found some Morning Musume concert discs/Single Vs but couldn’t remember what I already had so I let them be. Talked myself out of buying a Tsunku album.), and Kinokuniya(Café Zaiya’s sakura mousse was absolutely fantastic and I FOUND BOTH MOMOCHI AND KARIN’S PHOTOBOOKS AND A C-UTE ONE TOO but they were like 40 bucks a pop and he had to do everything in his power to stop me from buying them though honestly I should’ve bought C-ute’s). We ate at the hotel restaurant I think, it was okay but I started getting a sore throat.

That same night, we ended up going to the Ripley’s Museum(whish was really fricken neat, I’ve been to the one in Atlantic City before but this one was quite different).

The next day and easily the best day of the trip we went to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater NJ for the first time since 2011ish. Started with the market itself and bough over 50 bucks of snacks and curry roux, then went to the café  for some curry and a Strawberry Crepe(is was so fricken good omg). We then moseyed on over to their Kinokuniya, got some chuckles at manga covers, read some Japanese childrens’ books, found a book about Maru.. And then went to eat again =w= I got a Ten-don zaru soba combo and he just nibbled on some pocky. After sitting for a while longer we checked out Little Japan USA(Used to be Mars toystore/traditional good store but they combined them) and my heart told me that in the one of three remaining Shippuden mystery boxes(which were like 15 bucks a pop) was the figurine I wanted so I chanced it and IT FUCKING WAS.

After that we walked a ways to check out a shopping plaza/the supermarket chain my love works for, took a stroll by the Hudson river, and then went back to Mitsuwa for one last quick snack of Taiyaki. At the bus stop we saw two people who also came from Mitsuwa and they were talking about Kpop so I was keeping to myself but then somehow we started talking and I said I was more into J-idols and it turned out one was a fan for like 10+ years now and actually went on a 30day concert streak just to see H!P concerts and they’re like a legend in my eyes now and we talked for the entire ride back to Port Authority and it was so cool. We walked back to the hotel fully content. We found a ramen chain close to the hotel that we were familiar with from our Philly trips and it was really really good, plus they were playing oldies music and SHARAMQ’S SINGLE BED CAME ON AND I GOT SO GIDDY I DROPPED MY PHONE

And then the day of the concert.

My cold started hitting hard so we went back to Sunrise mart, mainly for lunch/Choco chip melon pan but also so I could grab some facemasks. We walked Central park for a couple hours and rode the carousel and had a grand old time while I got the worst looks from white people for wearing a mask. Then we went to the Turnstyle underground market just to look, went into Lush so I could show him all the neat things, asked about the different flavoured toothy tabs and she was like ‘I can give you a couple of this one to try back home’ and I was like ok cool AND SHE GAVE ME LIKE 20

Then we get to the venue and after a long while in line and our bladders almost exploding we get in and get like the best possible view of the stage(it was standing room and as y’all might know I am one tiny guy) and the first band was really great, Gothic Knights, they were NY based and one of few lesser-known openers that were really really good and the singer was goddamn gorgeous

Then Hammerfall came out. They were great. The mosh pit behind us? Not so much. We had to move because my boyfriend kept getting bumped into and I was pissed because he was getting annoyed so the only place we could really go was behind a support beam which was conveniently also right under an air vent. By this point I’m starting to cough super duper hard and was so close to just saying ‘lets go back to the hotel’ But no. I traveled 9 hours from Florida to NY just to see these guys. We hit up Gothic Knights’ merch booth(The lead singer was right next to me and a. he couldn’t see me smile bc facemask so he just saw my sick-and-dead eyes and b. by the time I realized he was there it was too late to tell him how amazing he was), got a T-shirt and an album and I think my sweetheart helped me pay for it

By the time Delain got on stage I was like 100%done so we sat on the stairs until the staff yelled at us and then we stood on the stairs. I could barely hear, charlotte was off her game, and it was just such a disappointment. But I am pretty sure that Merel looked right at me and smiled which made my night

Hit up the main merch booth and spent far too much- Signed Hammerfall CD, Delain Moonbathers T-shirt, and a button set. We grabbed a quick snack for my boyfriend on the way back to the hotel but I was just far too sick. Think I fell asleep as soon as we got back.

He left the following afternoon and then I went to karaoke despite being very sick and entirely croaky. You should’ve heard me try to hit the notes in Shall we Love. Got to sing with one of my close friends for 2 hours and catch up briefly before I walked back towards the hotel. It was downpouring and I still didn’t eat that day so I went back to Terakawa for some ramen and heard even more oldies jams(Diamonds by PrincessPrincess, a Finger Five song, and hilariously enough the folk song Kasa Ga Nai aka Without an Umbrella). Took a nice bath and got ready for the next day’s departure.

It started out okay honestly. Watched some TV, mailed myself my snacks, ate a great breakfast at the Cosmic Diner(the food got to me within like 2 minutes of ordering) and then left an hour early for the Subway. Glad I did too, because if I took the 1230 and had all the delays that happened on the 1130, I would’ve missed my flight. The subway took like 40 minutes longer than it should have. But anyway, get on the flight, smooth sailing so to speak, but due to overhead compartments being full before I had gotten on I needed to check my carry-on.

So I’m waiting at baggage claim. The conveyor belt gets stuck. We get stuck there for like 30 minutes while they try to fix the jam. in that time I get a call saying my 8pm shuttle(which I got so I could have time to eat beforehand, my flight landed at 540) was cancelled. Started sobbing uncontrollably and my immune system failed yet again so I was feeling even sicker because of it, and still haven’t gotten my bag yet so I was scared I’d miss this shuttle bus too and be stranded. Then another person from the company calls and informs me that no, the 8pm was NOT cancelled and I can still take it. By this time it’s almost 7p and I’m sobbing to them on the phone and I go to get something to eat but I’ve lost my appetite and am feeling far too ill. I grab something small from a restaurant, head over to the lush in the airport and buy myself 2 bathbombs, a bubble bar and toothy tabs, and go to wait for my shuttle. It shows up about ten minutes early and  everything goes smoothly. I ended up calling out of work for today because as the ride progressed I was getting progressively worse.

Got home, got bombarded by my cat who was extremely upset with me, took a nice bath and went straight to sleep.

Now after spending over an hour to type this up I’m going the fuck back to bed. Goodnight everyone and thank you for reading.