#which is nothing new or unique to them; i think that people (audiences) naturally want to ascribe some Great Man Theory to everything

[thanatika]

low-coherency rambling in the tags

[spawksstuff]

Star Trek East Cruise 15-18 May 1987 Part 2

De's Q&A Session. The video was too large so I upload it to Youtube. The cuts in the video aren't mine, that's how the original is. His hat says "Trekcruise'87" and his shirt says "Trust me I'm a Doctor." Transcript below.

I'm a doctor not a sailor. So you're all-is everybody here from Florida? Hey, how about that, isn't that nice? What about Utah. Ok forget it.

Listen, again I want to tell you-can you all hear me? You hear me? I want to tell you how happy I am to be with you on this cruise. And everything down in sickbay is going swimmingly. My first patient this morning was James Doohan, then nurse Christine came in, and then of all people lil Sulu.

Would you believe little Sulu was hungover? But he was. Walter hasn't even shown up yet. Oh there he is! They finally brought him up, beamed him up.

Listen, I'm going skip all the preliminaries, I also come here to learn from you. I-we all learn everything from the fans. You tell us first what's going to happen. so you ask me a question, and then if I can't answer it I'm sure you can. So does anyone have a question? No? Well it's back to the bar.

About the fifth movie. I don't know. I haven't heard anything from Walter Koenig yet, he's my source. They're in the very embryonic stage of making this fifth movie and there's been nothing really released about it, only with the exception- I'M SPEAKING OVER HERE.

I hate those foreign boats [Note, they had already docked at Nassau at this point]. So I understand-AHOY. [Sounds like really bad Spanish]. You have to speak all of those languages to travel. Nothing has been really released on Star Trek five, only our good captain as you know is going to direct it and we're anxiously awaiting to see what they're going to do as much as you are. I wish I could help you more. Anyone else?

How do I feel about the new series? Sick. (laughing). No I have high hopes for it. I'm sure Paramount feels that they have a very worthwhile and viable product in Star Trek and they would like to see it go on and on and I feel that it is in the very best hands possible with Gene Roddenberry. If anyone will be able to make it work,

Naturally we have mixed feelings, you would too after 20 years.

It's a rather strange feeling to wake up and see the trade papers that they're doing a new Star Trek. It's the first time I've ever really felt like "he's dead, Jim." But I'm hoping for their sake that it will be a success. And I hope you will continue to look at our year-to-year movies. You're going to enjoy number six, I'll tell you that.

That's not the one I'm directing, but I've written the story idea for it. I can tell you that because I wrote it and it concerns all of us going to the proper rest home. It's going to be a lulu(?) you're going to like it, we're going to fool you.

Another question. Yes? Have I written anymore poetry? No not since...

Uh I had heard how he spoofed, no I have-my experience has been very unique with Star Trek fans. I find them very loving, peace-loving people, very courteous, and extremely intelligent.  So I have nothing but fondness for all of you and great respect for all of you and were it not for you, of course, none of us would be here.

Yes? In other words, you were glad to see the humor come back in? Yes we all were because I think everybody has forgotten, and people that didn't follow Star Trek really didn't remember just how much humor we did through the years. Gentleman standing over here, David Gerold, can testify to that with "The Trouble with Tribbles". But that picture felt more, to all of us I'm sure, like what we used to do. And I've often said I wish we had done that earlier in the series, something of that nature because this film has picked up a crossover audience, which is very nice. People are enjoying it simply as a motion picture, it's lovely.

Yes? Will there be a more sense of family in the next movie? I certainly hope so but none of us really know what the story is going to be about.

Yes? Was it for acting purposes that I dropped my first name "Jackson"? No, I never knew I had that name until I went in the Army. That's true. My family had always addressed me as DeForest, and when I went into the service I found that "Jackson" there. But anytime I would receive a letter addressed to Jackson I knew it was someone from the service. But I did not, I didn't take the name, it's really my name.

Yes, way back there. All of the presidents have libraries in their hometown state, he want to know if there's going to be one for Bones McCoy in Georgia. Well I'll have to speak to President Carter about that. It's a good idea come to think of it.

(The man in the black shirt on the left is Walter Koenig). My experience with Bill has not been that bad to tell you the truth. I must tell you that we very seldom, any of us, see each other on social occasions. We do, we do see each other at Star Trek conventions, we talk by phone occasionally and that sort of thing. But I don't know. Bill really, when Bill wants to be amiable, he has one of the most delightful funny personalities that you've seen on talk shows that you can have. And I think Bill, I think he's a very bright guy, and imaginative and I'm sincerely hoping that he will - my concern is that, and I'm hoping he will be able to bring Star Trek five off beautifully. That's the important thing. 

Yes? I'm just filling...what was that remark? I do make house calls. Yes, one of the few left. Yes, write it down, put it on a piece of paper and sail it on.

Yes? There was no blooper reel made from the movies no. They're two different ball games. The television series, we worked long, fast, and hard hours and there were a lot of released laughs. Motion pictures, you sit around for hours and hours before you do something. And very few things are funny by the time you get on the set. Yes?

I had done a film with Bette Davis and Susan Hayward called "Where Love Has Gone" which was bringing me out of the villain thing, and from that, I went into Star Trek. So I don't know what my future would've been but I would've continued to try to be just a good working actor and let what happens happens.

Ladies and gentlemen it's been a pleasure. And a line from my poem, "if you're wondering now what's with Kelley, what's with his life, he's still in the valley, with the very same wife."

[meep--tm]

if it helps i would read your completely self indulgent oc fic i love other people oc's send it to me please show it to me rachel /ref

ANON... for you. this is the first section of the specific thing i was referring to. the only context i can give are that yabis and shoki are two tieflings me and my friend luca played in a dnd campaign years ago (shoki was luca's character, yabis was mine) and latched onto and turned into our own seperate OC thing with their own mini story

i wrote this a while ago now but i like them so much i dont even CARE

👍

Somewhere downstairs, a gnome has taken on the mantle as the evening’s entertainer, and the drunken crowds have fallen silent.

It’s a natural fact of travelling bard-dom that wherever you may go, there’s about one peer for every ten sets of ears; Yabis learned this years ago and has kind-of, a bit, almost, sometimes made peace with it. There’s no one way to perform, after all - some carry a lute or a lyre, some carry nothing, some carry it all (although that’s only those with the luxury of a caravan) - and Yabis likes to believe they’re more unique with their technique than others. To linger on their self-doubt in the face of their competition would just concede the match, and would only foster bitterness; Yabis has a great amount of respect for their fellow performers, no matter the form of their craft or how much of Yabis’s business they may steal. It would hardly do them any good to go about as if they were deserving of special treatment. For one, no one wants to befriend a stuck up bastard - a bard who doesn’t network is hardly any bard at all - and for two, Yabis was homeschooled. They’re already fighting an uphill battle.

This is all to say that Yabis has a natural inclination to rush to the defence of any stray bard they may meet on the road, as it only makes sense to. It’s a lot more effort to be mean than it is to be kind, and you never know when you may need a performance partner. The current problem is that this bard, the gnome downstairs, is butchering The Moon Has Left Us Lonely - one of Yabis’s favourites - with the carelessness of a child’s off-key rendition of happy birthday. He’s singing as if a hag has replaced the lining of his throat with tree bark. He’s playing the lute as if he woke up this morning with new hands and is still determining how one should move their fingers. It’s unbearable.

“Somebody,” Yabis croaks as they’re ascending the stairs to the first floor, “should say something.”

A couple steps above, Shoki stops, turns on one foot, and stares down at them. Her expression is flat. Yabis stares back.

“To the gnome,” Shoki says. It feels like it should be a question - it isn’t.

Yabis nods heavily, grip tightening on the bannister. This is the first time Shoki has made eye contact with them in hours. “Needs to be told.”

“Hm.” Briefly, Shoki glances past the stairs and through the doorway towards the small sliver of the main hall that’s visible, and presumably to the bored patrons taking sips from their frothing mugs of ale. It’s packed tonight. Getting a room upstairs had been a nightmare, and Shoki had been forced to sit at the bar during Yabis’s performance instead of her usual routine of hiding in a corner booth; the house is full of tired labourers in need of relief. The perfect audience. As it is now, nobody is so much as humming. “I think he probably knows.”

“But he’s still going,” Yabis insists, also looking behind them now. One of the men at one of the tables notices her and waves, cracking a smile, which makes Yabis feel even worse because they’re not even in the room and they’re still managing to steal the show from this poor luthier. They wave back anyway. “Bombing. Everybody hates it. He’s still playing.”

A chord is hit particularly violently, ringing throughout the air with a sickening twang, and that horrible voice drags itself lifelessly over a line that Yabis had always found to be notably meaningful, one about elders and their children and the tragedies inherent to existing as either. It’s such an offence to the ear that an entire table of disgruntled women with scars on their faces take final swigs from their cups before scraping their chairs back and making for the door. The whole thing is one of Yabis’s stress nightmares come to life.

When Yabis wrenches their eyes away, they find Shoki’s looking down at them again - differently this time. More of her black sclera is visible than normal, the white irises of them looking dimmer and yellowed under the tavern’s lamplight, even though her broad figure blocks most of it. Yabis is largely standing in her shadow right now, actually, which is a thought that they carefully avoid lingering on in the name of acting well-adjusted and normal.

Today’s events have been unusual for the two of them, and especially for Yabis. Shoki could be thinking anything about them right now. This is another thought that Yabis is carefully avoiding.

Recent developments aside, her single minded focus on Yabis is a lot. Yabis is no stranger to being studied like this, but it always feels strange coming from Shoki - maybe it’s knowing that she has more knowledge packed into her head than Yabis ever has or ever will, or maybe it’s the unfeeling mask that she sports the majority of the time, or maybe it’s the disarming sweetness Yabis feels from her at times like these. Shoki’s hard to read on a good day, and today has been far from a good day. 

It’s alright. Yabis thinks her stoic “I don’t care, ever, and I didn’t ask, please don’t talk to me,” thing is pretty cute, actually, most of the time. Like she’s a cat or something.

Instead of trying to decode the look, Yabis studies her right back. There are flecks of muddy, dried blood scattered throughout her hair, the days-old plait falling over her shoulder the way tree branches fall over a stone-brick wall in winter, all splintered and dry. She looks pale, being a shade of lilac as opposed to her usual purple, with a dark flush running over her cheeks and nose and ears through the combined efforts of the sharp winds outside and the well-fed hearth by the bar. A dark bruise is already turning a sickly yellow at the hinge of her jaw, and her breathing sounds vast, and she seems to be slightly favouring her left foot.

(Yabis knows they probably haven’t fared much better themself; the fight today had been tougher than they had prepared for, and they still feel the stinging of a fresh scar spanning across their thigh, even after all of the healing spells. There’s a dried trickle of blood running from one of their ears, hidden under their mass of hair; even here, holding onto the bannister, they feel themself swaying slightly in place. It’s a miracle they had the energy to entertain tonight, and even more of a miracle that Shoki waited for them downstairs instead of disappearing upstairs for a bath. They’re not sure if they would’ve done the same, were the situation reversed; a bath sounds really good right now.) 

As the mutual scrutiny continues, Shoki’s mouth twists uncomfortably, unsure of what it’s trying to express. She looks tired.

“We won’t be able to hear him by the time we’re up in our room,” Shoki says eventually, her tone measured but equally as inexplicable as her face. “If it matters that much to you. I also,” she says, and she looks away now, resuming her pilgrimage up the stairs, “have earplugs in my pack. Help yourself.”

Yabis smiles and follows close behind, taking two steps at a time, feeling like they’ve won something. That was probably the best response they could hope for right now - it repeats itself between their ears a few times, help yourself, help yourself, help yourself - and the slight relief is wonderful. They just about have the mental fortitude to resist pulling their hair over their face and chewing on it as they ascend to their room for the night, if only because they don’t want to end up spitting out mud.

[sokumotanaka]

I recently saw this giftset of Neo making these copies, like roses fall out of her pants, and she suddenly has one two or more clones appear alongside her. I thought at that moment. “How do semblances even work or evolve?” there’s no rhyme or reason as to how they even works in universe.

The last time they tried to explain Semblance to the audience Ren told us “It either is something, nothing or entirely unrelated to the point I don’t even know why I opened my mouth.” That’s not me being facetious He literally contradicted himself.

“Some people say this, some people say this, others don’t see a connection at all.” It’s like the snake oil of explanations. If you’re trying to get people to understand the process of unlocking their unique super power they need more to go on than guesswork.

For example they watched HXH and stole hunters and technically semblance and Aura cause that’s what nen is and everyone gets a unique super power from said healing protecting aura.

But at least in Hunter X Hunter they have things like the water divition test, which they give you a glass or water and using your Aura near in tells you what you have as a Hunter.

For a short example: 1. The volume of water changes- Enhancer.  

2. The Taste of water changes- Transmuter. 

3. Tiny impurities appear in water- Conjurer.

---

Now why do I bring this up? Because Neo’s semblance Evolution makes no sense to her prior abilities. When the series started Neo could project a fake image of herself and others as a glasslike substance or transform herself later on. She literally wore a disguise in the Tournament, she didn’t shape shift into someone missing or a new person, she was wearing a wig and didn’t even bother to hide her eyes from the guy she stomped out.

And it seemed like RT forgot that cause she never seems to use the ability to project fake illusions cause that would of been smart as a get away rather than, standing there and letting Oscar a 14 year old get a punch on her...

But now she makes generic clones like Flynt, Sun and Blake do; and I can’t help but think it be cooler if her illusions were fully solid, so she could project creatures to actually attack, or her semblance went out towards a full room illusion. It’s the natural progression for illusion based powers. (And explain her home randomly appearing in the alice and wonderland world)

But honestly in a better series they’d put them under semblance categories like Blake, Flynt and Sun could go under a conjuror field, or Ruby, Yang and Nora a enhancer, since they enhance parts of their body, Ruby’s speed in comparison to Yang and Nora’s strength. And also explaining to the audience how Semblance growth works, so the audience can keep up and predict where a semblance’s growth can go, and even help out the writers.

I don’t even know how to feel about this semblance’s evolution. Like When Katara stopped the rain completely in the last season of Avatar I felt pride cause I watched her go from barely being able to move with it too manipulating it in full. You know what that is? Growth!

Or Steven from Steven universe who goes from barely being able to summon the shield and getting tired from summoning the shield in full and beyond, making giant walls of shields, then you move onto “Ruby has her speed.” To another separate person telling us what her super power is cause the main character doesn’t even know what it is??? What has Neo done growth wise to get this upgrade? What about freaking ren who just exist?

This is the issue with them not wanting to explain anything, with them making WOR and then retconning them consistently, with them talking about how you can’t run into potholes if you don’t make it a plotline or it’s a cartoon. So is Avatar and it has enough respect and care for it’s own craft to make a coherent and functioning world full of characters and creatures and places we care about.

I wouldn’t save Remnant from a Meteor if it made me rich to do so.

Semblance evolution has no structure, Ren’s turned into a lie detector, Neo’s clones, where will Yang’s semblance go? Or speed or weiss’s bs semblance? We don’t know, and neither do they; because it’s so poorly and lazily defined.

Anyway thanks for reading to this point, if you did let me know how you’d make the semblance system better, I’d love to read those.

Thanks again. -Sokumon

[bored-frog]

Progress

As I scroll through my gallery, it finally shifts into focus just how far I've come with the love for my physical features; Admiration for one's own exterior.

When I was younger I hated the way I appeared in the mirror, my eyes and nose scrunched up at the hideous creature that frowned back at me, she made me want to vomit all over the sink, whenever we lock eyes now, I want her by my side, for she is stunning, I am mesmerized by myself; Growth.

Everything about me was a flaw, a mistake I did my best to cover up and hide, it felt safe and comfortable to be wrapped up in layers; Years of oversized-sweat-soaked hoodies.

I used to burn up underneath the thick fabric, afraid everyone would see the hairy-manly-wolf arms protecting my skin, anytime I rolled up my sleeves to cool off my unshaven limbs, someone would stare or state the obvious to me; Fear over natural human features.

With jealous rage, I watched as every other person paraded about in beautiful clothes, materials that wonderfully showed off the eye catching features I neither had or felt I carried, a watery fire bursting when hearing them get called pretty or asked out; Wanting to wear their irresistible shoes over my own, to feel attractive by the public.

Tears of aggravation pouring down, as everyone I used to want made me feel ugly for looking the way I do, I felt foolish in my large cloak of safety for even thinking they would want this, an oily beast who offered nothing for them to gawk at; A young fool liking the wrong people.

As I sit and analyze my journey out of the security cocoon that I spun myself into, I am truly proud of the butterfly that emerged from what she thought was her home, she is so lucky those pest she used to desire did not see her true worth tucked away behind what they viewed as merily muck.

Although she slouches, she stands as tall as her little legs allow, finally smiling in pictures, enjoying the photoshoots she spends hours taking, giggling and blushing over herself for once, gawking over the outfits she never would have worn trapped in her overheated blankets of protection; Crushing on me.

I have tossed out the piles of meekness that clogged up my self image, making room for vanity to decorate the space, she carries an ego with appreciation for every part of me, even though my huge-ass-four-finger-length forehead has grown a bit, it feels rather nice to have pride to be me, which is quite new; Cheering for team us, Me-Myself-& the one and only...I.

Thank you to the ones who saw the enchanting jester nervously hiding behind the curtains, afraid to go out on stage and be poorly judged by the audience surrounding her; Gifting her with inspiration.

She is more than grateful that her favorite supporters encouraged her to step out of her opaque shell, freeing herself of the gown of shame that she used to cling on for shelter, exposing a gorgeous goddess who looks enchanting yet quite silly, for she proudly gazes upon the crowd dawning her favorite facial expression; A dumbass whose face goofily contorts, her thin eyebrows smashing together, as she either purses her lips out or sucks them in pridefully with confidence over her unique exterior.

"I love you, you're total babe inside and out, always coming up with the oddest jokes that make me crack a smile even if it does not land with your crowd a hundred percent of the time, you're my favorite comedian and artist." - Me to Me.

- Autumn(Me)

[uelden]

Vanity Fair interview translated

Just a side note before the actual translation; I don't know why, but instead of reporting the full questions and answers in full as she should, the journalist decided to report only summarized fragments of what Måneskin said and patch these fragments up into messy clusters. She also worded a couple phrases in a very confusing way (and yes, she's fully Italian). In short, she did quite a poor job, so the final shape of the interview is not that good. I didn't expect top-tier journalism from Vanity Fair but ffs. You'll see what I mean.

I translated it as it is, adding just a couple footnotes to give you insight on Italian pop culture references.

Translation under the cut

Måneskin: "Different from whom?"

by Lavinia Farnese, 09 June 2021

"True justice is being judged for what you do and not for what you are." The ones who are convinced of this are Damiano, Victoria, Ethan and Thomas who, by being the emblem of a generation that is finally free, refuse labels and conformism. In life, in love and on the stage. Where, maybe precisely because of this, they're winning everything

With the still unexpected (first place at Sanremo Festival) and the incredible (triumph at Eurovision) in their eyes, Måneskin are on the sofa of the house-studio they rented - to resume writing songs and rehearsing them - like you are after a won battle: lying in a calm and unreal silence, alert and a bit irreverent, happy.

In the garden there's the tennis table and the pool, the light of summer when it's starting and calming the country all around, and it filters inside from the large windows, and it goes onto the shining black of Ethan's hair, which blends with Thomas' eye shadow and the butterfly he has tattooed oh his naked forearm, which completes the picture of Victoria's golden crucifix hanging between neck and tank top and ends on the black nail polish of Damiano's stretched hands.

It's a human fresco, a Theatre of wrath [translator's note: "Teatro d'ira"] - to call it with the title of their latest album, a platinum record already - where their flaunted 20 years of age, their irregular femininity and virility are grown into proud and challenging custom, a pop glam rock generational manifesto of hard-earned liberties in a finally-unconditional expression of the self.

To watch them from any angle and from another age is to think that a great love will be born in those who'll understand: this new way of being in the world, the true and sovereign realm they hold where "diversity=exceptionality", the power of the artistic and cultural revolution of which they are healthy carriers in establishing in all lyrics and gestures the right to live according to one's own nature past the "people (who) talk, the people (who) unfortunately talk, and don't know what the fuck they're talking about." [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

We go where we're afloat, where the air isn't gone. [tn: journalist's own variation on "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

Miley Cyrus says hi – The numbers of a phenomenon

"The streams of Zitti e buoni are growing by the second, and they bring us above Muse, at the top of English charts, twelfth in the Spotify Global Chart. Followers almost tripled, in the post-Rotterdam period (from 1,4 to 3,3 millions, ed.) Contagious and universal folly: t-shirts and merchandising sold out in 10 minutes. Like the records, the tickets for a tour that keeps adding dates and expanding over geographic maps. They're contacting us even from some festivals were The Rolling Stones went." Thomas

"After the pretextual controversy over cocaine that France built against us, later disproven by my drug test, some graffiti popped up in Spain depicting me as a “No drugs” poster guy. Some tweets made us laugh: "Congratulations, Italy! I've never been more certain that four people have had sex with each other." Miley Cyrus started following us -You're great. -You guys are greater." Damiano

From the garage to the stars – Story of a flight

"It was only 2016, and we played in restaurants, in the streets, in via del Corso. Damiano without even a microphone, Thomas' guitar with wonky strings, Ethan was drumming on a cajón. During Rome highschools' sit-ins (Kennedy, Virgilio, Mamiani) we had our first confirmations and half-hours of celebrity, playing among those who criticized us and those who went "wow they're really cool." One of the rare times when they would have paid us – 50 euros each – we gave the money to the next band in the lineup so that they would make us play in their spot, later in the day, when there would have been more people. We had already realized how things worked. Visibility mattered more than money. And we still think that." Victoria

The intimacy of rock – Choice of a genre

"Music allows us the miracle of extending to others some very personal and private topics, sometimes even difficult and thorny ones. They are and they remain deeply your own, but at the same time they become a confession that reaches a wider audience, and in this passage that is alike a delivery, they find a place in you as well, a processing of them. You overcome them, you accept them. One second it's something aggressive, the next it's a ballad. Cathartic». Damiano

Against panic – The stage as therapy

"I've suffered a lot from anxiety and panic attacks, it's an issue I've worked on thanks to a psychotherapy course, my friends and my family. Playing helped me in not letting myself be paralyzed by my fears, not making myself limited in my private and professional life. I've learned to accept, to live with this side of myself. I don't hide it. I don't feel ashamed of it." Victoria

Analysis as necessity – Relying on someone saves you

"This belief that only madmen go to the psychologist is a widespread ignorance. No-one's born learned. [tn: common Italian saying] And it's often hard to understand the very reason why we're here, let alone the origin and direction of our desires. It's a long and legitimate journey towards lucidity, a kind of backing to become transparent." Damiano

Being out of our minds – But different from them [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

"When you feel a strong passion towards something that is not a canonical job but an artistic language, that already puts you on a level of anomaly, which is not superior or inferior to other people, but it puts you in the position of the one who breaks the mold and also works at a loss, the one who sustains great risks while trying to do something that who knows if it will take you anywhere. "Why do it if it doesn't pay?". You want to give this dream of yours an aesthetic, but it becomes "You're dressing so weird! You must be gay!" - now that I'm 22 I laugh about it, but when I was 17 it had an effect on me, too." Damiano

The beauty of uniqueness – Of believing in it and defending it

"And I mean, at the end of the day if we're all different it's not because we want be alternative but because, really, no-one is the same. Justice is being judged on what you do and not what you are. Justice is equality, respect, beauty." Ethan

Fluid sexuality – Pride is freedom

"Heels for men that like themselves in them, kisses among ourselves, we have an open, extended mind, and we're proud of it. The horizons become vast, past the oppression of conservative families. With the information on the web knowledge becomes greater and with it the possibility that minorities will be less and less minorities, because the majority will be less of a majority. This way we'll make insults and bullying grow quieter. If social media get to a village of 50 souls and reveal to a girl who's afraid of the dark that someone has felt her same fear, then there's no reason to give a name to that fear, to mark it with labels which also limit and restrict. Definitions always had this effect on me. You shouldn't even consider the gender when judging someone, let alone their orientation." Victoria

Sexism – A culture to be dismantled

"Emma [tn: Emma Marrone, Italian singer] drops the bomb: “At Eurovision when I was there they massacred me for a pair of shorts, while they said nothing to Damiano – bare-chested and in heels.” The easy judgment against women is more fierce, constant, debasing (if I have a lot of sex I'm cool while Vic is a whore, where I show myself strong I'm a leader while Vic is despotic and a pain in the ass who reached success because she's hot.) As a male I'm privileged, the abuse I get is not comparable to those a woman has to live through, the comments over my aesthetic are centered only on my aesthetic and don't insinuate anything about my professionalism and my competence, while women are victims of this kind of thought in a systematic way. It happened though to find myself standing with a woman who while pulling me to herself to take a selfie, started licking my face out of the blue... I mean, what the hell do you want? Who asked you? Consent exists, and it's due." Damiano

Grow yourself – The only commandment

"To me conformism is the opposite of education [tn: could also mean "politeness"] and is the asphyxia of expression. I fortunately never endured heavy bullying, heavy enough for the the judgement of others to change me. But the mold of the small crumbs of bullying I got and of the kind of aggression that scars is the same. If I'm a kid who dances and likes dolls you have to let me do what I like. I was a kid who wanted to keep his hair long and played with Barbie. As a teen, my friends looked at my hair: " You have to find a girl with short hair to be at your side." My grandparents took away my dolls: "Stop it, they're not for you." Ethan

"When I was six I was already sick of them, the distinctions between masculine and feminine. I've always had strong ideas about how I wanted to be. I refused things that were typically defined as girly, and all around me they mocked me because I went skateboarding, I played soccer, I didn't wear skirts, I was giving myself the chance to be as I wished. I endured it a little, I suffered a little, but I had courage, and now thanks to that courage I know that I could have gotten even much more hurt, otherwise I would have left to others the most important choice: the one about myself." Victoria

Love in progress – Music, girlfriends

"I've been married to music for the last 20 years. I can't wait to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary." Ethan

"Everyone makes their own experiences, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes wrong, but it's always not anybody's business." Thomas

"When I first felt feelings and attraction towards a girl it was a bit disorienting because I had never had the courage of going beyond the limitations I had put for myself. For society being heterosexual is the norm and so you often define yourself in that way automatically, depriving yourself of the freedom to live many shades and faces of love. Once I overcame the initial insecurity of having to call into question my certainties I've lived my sexuality in a very natural and free way, as it should be for everyone." Victoria

"I had paparazzi at my door every day and night. So, after four years of relationship, I revealed her name. I still have paparazzi at my door every day and nigh, but at least I don't have to hide anything anymore." Damiano

The worth of the group – Phenomenology of protection

"The true engagement though, the true family is among ourselves, our band. We've believed in it since day zero, even before we called ourselves Måneskin (Moonlight in Danish), even before Ethan drew a giant moon on the flier for the first concert we ever did. We share everything, even the pain for the tragedy of Seid Visin, who committed suicide at 20 because of racism. [tn: I think the journalist asked them their opinion about Seid Visin's death, which was a current events topic in Italy, and then pasted it syntaxically in the middle of Thomas' answer, which was not a great move] A group is what we all should be: stay united and not back down an inch in the face of oppression that is generated by a distorted view of diversity." Thomas

I'm not of the right age – Like Gigliola [tn: Gigliola Cinquetti won Eurovision with her song "Non ho l'età", which means "I'm not of the right age"]

"Before you the only one who won both Sanremo and Eurovision on the same year was Cinquetti (1964). If there's anything I feel I'm not of the right age for? No, honestly no. Maybe having children. Regarding children I'll be honest: I'm not of the right age." Damiano

Having touched the sky – The fears that remain

"We're more than inside the dream, we're in the conquered dream. When you fly high there's the risk of plummeting and hurting yourself, but we'll work hard not to end up like Icarus, who burns his wings with the sun. Everything is in our hands. And this - a bit pretentiously - reassures us rather than scaring us." Damiano

[katsukikitten]

WARNING 18+ BIRB NOT BIRB SMUT! Band AU, harem collab. In which reader meets her favorite faceless singer. Little over 3k

Sweat trickles down your spine as your favorite song is blasted from the large speakers. Fog from the stage lingers just above your head as you feel as if you were in a dream. The setting is surreal especially since you actually managed to WIN those rare radio tickets to see a band in concert. And not just any band, your favorite fucking bad.  

TOKYO MOB

The band consisted of four people, Bakugou Katsuki, the drummer who was angrier than any person you'd ever seen wearing nothing but skinny black jeans and a perpetual frown. Jiro, so cool and sleek in anything she wore as she tore up her guitar as side vocals. Then there was Denki, funny, cute even, on the bass with his electric blonde hair and killer smile. Lastly there was "Dark Shadow", the lead vocalist. 

No one knew his real name or what he looked like, he chose to wear a headpiece in the shape of a raven or crow. You loved him, even without knowing his face. 

He was so fit, strong arms and deadly abs that could be seen from beneath his cut off band tee crop top, much like you were wearing now. His voice was soothing as a bird's song, whether he was screaming or singing. The sound so uniquely beautiful it brought tears to your eyes the first time you heard it. And standing here with nothing but a small barricade and stage separating the two of you was a dream made in heaven. 

He sings your favorite song, looking out into the crowd, body drenched in sweat from the high energy show as he jumps to the beat. He pauses to hit a long note and while the guitar riffs he looks into the VIP section. You swear you feel as if he is looking dead at you. The next few lyrics are packed full with emotion as he gets onto his knee, one hand holding the microphone while the other gently floats towards outstretched hands. 

"I've been looking for youuuu, I just need to find youuuuu and when I do, when I do I'll dress you in my band teee and make youuuu~"

But it's yours that his fingers brush, intertwining his fingers with yours as tears prick your eyes. 

"Mine. Forever miiinee~" 

The world stops, his silky voice smoothing over your skin before it erupts in goose flesh, he holds on to your hand as he sings the chorus again. The screaming people around you fade away as you hear nothing but his sultry voice. 

As if he were serenading you in the kitchen of your home. 

"I've been looking for youuuu, I just need to find youuuuu and when I do, when I do I'll dress you in my band teee and make youuuu~"

"Mine. Forever miiinee~"

He squeezes your hand as he finishes the note, releasing your hand slowly before starting to stand. The music begins to fade as he huffs, trying to catch his breath before looking over the band. He sees that ever might need just a second more to take in some water so he brings the mic close to his face as he shouts. 

"Are we having a good time tonight?!" 

The crowd erupts into a scream, so loud you can barely hear the one tearing up your throat. 

"I can't fucking hear you, extras!" Bakugou shouts into his own mic. The sold out stadium shakes rivaling the bass of the sound system as they all play off random notes and beats. When the deafening roar becomes a hushed, dull roar Bakugou sets the beat, Jiro and Denki join in as their most popular song begins to bump through the speakers. The song sets a heavy, hype beat that can get anyone to bang their head to. You start along with them, booze lighting up your system and causing you to ignore the charged air around you  

Some of the bystanders, some of the women especially were jealous of the fact that you were holding hands with none other than the DARK SHADOW. 

"Stupid bitch." They murmur amongst themselves, "Let's really fuck her up." 

One says before shoving her unsuspecting and overly excitable boyfriend into another guy while shouting. 

"MOSH PIT!" The crowd follows suit, putting you in the thick of it. Normally you could handle a little mosh, staying on the fringes to avoid too much damage but being in the center was beginning to spell trouble. The world spun as body after body began to slam into you, turning you this way and that before someone begins to take advantage of the situation. A sleazy guy you had hoped to avoid "falls" into you, rough palms grabbing a handful of your ass, beneath your skirt. A yelp lost to the crowd leaves your lips, tears burning in your eyes as this man set out to ruin what was possibly the highlight of your life. 

He was going to ruin it with his disgusting cigarette breath, lips sloppily kissing at your throat as he moved the two of you closer to the barricade. His fingers dig into your ass, spreading your cheeks as he shouts into your ear. 

"These fishnets for me slut?" He slurs, chuckling as he presses your back into the cool biting metal, "Love the crop top baby, do you got a bra on underneath?" 

A sob threatens to rack through your body as your elated high quickly turns into stomach churning nausea. Desperately you look up to the stage, anything to distract you from the fingers that try to venture between your thighs, while the other rips at your favorite top.

Tokoyami jumps, stopping to adjust his feet for steady ground to do the screaming part of the song, he glances down into the crowd, silently looking for you. The woman who made his heart flutter for the first time in years and when he sees your face tilted up towards him with fear and pain twisting your features he loses his cool. 

"Fucking stop!" He shouts, the lyrics gone for now as the music abruptly stops, the man holding you startles as the light follows Dark Shadow's accusing finger. He is illuminated by the stage light as bystanders rip him from you, he punches one guy and makes a run for it. 

 "Aye yo security. Get this asshole!" Dark Shadow shouts, leaning down for your now outstretched arms. Pulling you on stage with ease as his fingers flutter over your shoulders and sides for injuries.

"You okay my sparrow?" He coos softly and you nod, and he guides you towards the back of the stage, leaving the two front members to appease the excited crowd. He presses a cold water bottle to your hand before pulling up a chair a few feet from the drum kit. 

"Stay by Bakugou okay? He'll take care of you." He wipes some sweat from your face before squeezing the nape of your neck. Bakugou glares your way with mixed emotions before doing his show starting beat to get the crowd jumping. 

"Anyone else wanna act like a fucking douche?" Denki asks, walking up and down the front of the stage waiting for Tokoyami to return to the forefront. 

"NOOOOO!" The crowd shouts, Denki offers a cheeky smile before adding. 

"That's my good fans!" He blows a kiss to the crowd and the screams fly up an octave. 

"Alright let's start this shit from the top!" Jiro shouts, letting out some hypnotic notes before looking towards Tokoyami. 

"Actually, let's give them a sample of the new album. Let's give them a tease. Do you wanna be teased?" He asks the crowd aiming the mic towards them as if he needed to. 

"SHOW US! TEASE US!" The crowd chants before Tokoyami looks towards his band members. 

"I dunno do they deserve it?" Bakugou prodes and the audience lets out a dejected whine. 

"Promise to behave?" Jiro teases and the crowd collectively screams out desperately "YES!"

"Well keep your hands to yourself and listen up cause you're only gonna hear it this once til it drops!" Tokoyami shouts before Jiro starts playing that hypnotic sound, shortly after Denki joins in. Bakugou twisting his drumstick as he waits for his cue impatiently. Dark Shadow takes in a deep breath before singing the haunting first lines of their new song. 

"What do you do, when it's stalking after yoouuu? What do you say when it's just a breath awaaay~? Coming closer and you can't seem to get awaaaaay?" 

"Always watching, always loooomming-" 

Bakugou slams his sticks down hard onto the kit, foot tapping the bass drum at an alarming speed as everything seems to be hitting a climax. 

"WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN ITS COMING FROM INSIDE OF YOU? WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN IT SHARES YOUR NAAAAME? 

WHEN YOU CAN'T HIDE THE DEMON THAT'S LURKING INSIDE!" 

The last line he screams and the crowd is overcome with emotion. The height of the music and the new song that the band pours their hearts into, sends the crowd into a frenzy. Sweat dripping from everyone as their black shirts dampen around their collars. 

The song the crowd wanted to last forever comes to an end and you find yourself standing to scream, tears in your eyes.

"That was amazing!" Curling your fingers into a fist, Dark Shadow turns back to see you, out of the millions of people there tonight, in that moment he could only hear you.  

"Well I think we gave them a good show huh?" Denki asks into the mic, Bakugou drums a heavy beat as he shouts. 

"FUCK YEA WE DID!" 

"HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!!" The band members shout in unison before waving and slowly backing off stage. Tokoyami rushes towards you, hand slipping around your natural waist as he guides you into the darkened stage towards his dressing room. Your heart is racing in your ears as the silence becomes deafening. Being this close to Dark Shadow you couldn't help but notice the little cushion that keeps his helmet from damaging his throat and the intoxicating smell that rolls off of him like a cool breeze. He smells like cedar and pine at twilight while the wind brings with it the threat of snow. 

You shiver despite the warmth of his touch. Swallowing the lump in your throat you force your tongue to cooperate as he steps in front of his door politely opening it for you. His small silver chains clink from the motion.

"You must be tired, are you sure you want...company?" If you could see his face you imagined he'd be smiling. Pressing his hand at the small of your back to urge you inside. 

"I'm sure." He walks in, waiting for you to follow before he slumps onto a worn leather arm chair. Your platform converse move on their own as you cross the threshold of the room, closing the door behind you. 

"Lock it, would you sparrow?" All you can do is nod as you turn the lock until you hear a soft click. He gestures for you to sit on the couch beside him before his broad hands go towards his helmet. 

The blood rushes from your face as a moment of honor and horror wage war in your gut, pulling your heart down towards your feet. 

"Wait!" You shout, startling both of you and you feel heat rise into your cheeks and throat, "I don't want you to feel obligated to take it off. We can just...talk." 

Nervously you fidget with the hem of your skirt, thinking he was going to kick you out for being so lame. 

Boring. 

He stands and you flinch before he sits beside you on the love seat. If you could see his eyes you wondered if they were sparkling. His winter woods smell tickles your nose and you smile. 

"I'd love to just talk. But first." He must notice your ripped shirt as he stands again. Rummaging through his suitcase to find the first edition band tee ever made for TOKYO MOB.

"I couldn't!" You half shout and then squeak, "I shouldn't" 

"I insist." He says softly placing it on your lap before giving you his toned back. The cropped tee he wears shows off the dimples in his lower back that has you thinking of what it would look like while those hips piston into you. Quickly you toss your ripped shirt aside and slip his over your head, relishing the present smell, heart stirring.

"It's safe." You say softly and he turns around taking the seat beside you again. 

After a small awkward silence the two of you begin to talk, the conversation coming easy as you gushed over his voice and where you went to college when he asked. Him wanting to know more about your life and the night ended up being about you instead of him for once and it was nice. 

Nice to not have someone prying or clawing at his neck to find out just who he was and what he looked like, suddenly heat rushes to his pants. His hand comes to rest on your knee just below the hem of your skirt, ringed fingers sliding beneath the black fabric. You swallow, looking into the face of the bird mask and softly speak. 

"How- how would we kiss?" It feels stupid, embarrassing that you would even think that. He kills the light by the love seat flooding the room in total darkness before he takes off his helmet with a clatter. 

"Like this." His lips are by your ear now sending ecstacy through your body in the form of a spine tingling shudder. He kisses at your lobe working his way down your throat and then up to your jaw, avoiding your lips as he tastes every inch of you he can. His damp hair tickles your nose as he moves you to him, hovering over you as he kisses the plane of your stomach beneath his lifted shirt. 

"You look damn good in my shirt baby." He trails his tongue up your sternum causing you to moan, he smirks against the bone before sucking at the supple skin of your breast. Choosing them for his canvas to paint in blacks and blues that you would soon come to wish would last a life time. His free hand twists your nipple, pulling it as he scrapes his teeth against your other. Tongue flicking against the sensitive nub another moan escapes your lips as he plays with you for what feels like hours. He doesn't even go to touch your aching cunt until you're covered in a sheen of sweat. Begging for his hands to move lower as your vision spots in the dark from his sensual touch alone. Your own hands explore up his defined abs and torso occasionally catching the cool metal of his chains, this time you decide to pull him into a kiss. Your lips touching his for the first time all night and you feel like a live wire. Hungrily and aggressively trying to devour him as you feel music dancing through your blood, humming in your bones, he groans amplifying the feeling as his clothed hard on presses into your core. His tongue swipes over yours and the thought of not even knowing what he looks like arches your back into his touch. 

Finally he flips your skirt up, his fingers venturing between your thighs and when he finds no fabric and the satisfying sound of your slick he bucks his hips, biting at your breasts. 

"So wet sparrow…." His voice is soft breath and a little desperate causing your cunt to clench. He circles your clit until you're crying, his fingers occasionally checking for a stream of tears. When he feels the droplets on your face he chuckles shoving his fingers knuckle deep going agonizingly slow until you're fluttering around his thick curled digits. You cum hard and he whispers praises in your ear, several times as your body shakes and you think you won't be able to make it through the night. 

"Ready for my cock babe?" He asks gently swiping his thumb over your swollen and heavily abused clit. You perk right up, ready for the finale silently thanking the gods for a band members stamina. You notice him shaking as he leans down for a kiss, his stomach sweaty and sticking to yours. You fist his hair, pulling him back just a bit. 

"You'll be okay?" You can just make out the gleam of his teeth from his smirk before his voice comes out as pure sinful husk. 

"The question is, will you sweet sparrow?" 

Too stunned to answer he swallows your silence with a kiss before he sheaths himself inside you. Relishing the moan in his mouth and the fluttering of your velvet walls as they adjust to him. You were so wet, so ready for him as he slowly rocked his hips. Your half wish from earlier coming true as your hands fly to the dimples of his lower back, trying to urge him to quicken his pace but he keeps it languid, deadly. Each stroke hitting with purpose. The head of his cock hitting that cushy spot as his pelvis snapped against your clit. The sensation sends you into a never ending moan. Each gasp his stage name as he marks you as his, nails raking down your arms as he praises. 

"Such a nice pussy you have. Taking me so fucking well." He lingers by your ear, his tone the opposite of his lustful words. Your own nails claw down his back in viscous lines as he keeps you on the edge. The coil, steady and tight as you feel the pressure in your stomach growing. He can feel how tightly you're squeezing him and how your thighs are locked around his waist. He press his fingers into your stomach as his thumb swipes over your clit, his hips snapping faster and faster as he waits for what he hopes is coming. The pressure becomes too much he overstimulates your body, shaking as you cry out. 

"I can't, I can't…" 

"You can, just for me. Don't be shy, cum for me baby." His deep voice sends a chill through your body, you go rigid, quiet before your body jerks and releases a clear liquid onto his pelvis and cock. Shaking as he fucks your through it before his voice comes out strained as you milk him. 

"Imma cum baby, where do you want it?" 

"In me, I promise I have an IUD just fucking cum Dark Shadow!" You gasp and he obeys, adding to your pleasant after shocks, filling you to the brim with his hot seed with a husky grunt. He collapses onto you fixing your shirt before he gently withdraws, keeping his face to your chest as your fingers find his hair. You try not to let your thoughts wander and as if he could read your mind. 

"I promise you, you're the only one who's made me do that." He kisses your throat gently before his hand searches for your free one, interlacing his fingers with yours before he hums. Slowly singing you to sleep. You welcome the feeling as exhaustion blankets you in darkness.

"Uh miss." The voice comes as a shock as a large man tries to wake you from a distance. You startle, grabbing at blankets to cover yourself although you're fully clothed.  

"Hate to wake you miss but we're locking up. The venue is closed and the band is…" Although he looks a brute he clearly has some sort of heart. Unable to say what you know.  

"Gone." Tears burn your eyes as you think of how stupid you were. To ever think you were special enough to be anything more than a groupie. A note sits on the bedside table. 

"Should we cross paths again, Sparrow. I'll make you forever mine" 

The note blurs as you recognize the lyrics to the song. You look down at his band tee and wonder if your favorite song was more of a gimmick to pick up fans than some fated promise. 

And so life moves on.

You can only tell that time has passed from the fading color of your bruises. Slowly they melt from a cold bluish black into cool greens and warm dotted yellows. You sigh, looking in the mirror before you head towards your room for clothes.  Finally mustering up the courage to wear that stupid band tee he gave you again. It still smells faintly of him, of the winter woods suspended in forever twilight. Of musk from your sweat and his. You fight back the tears as you remind yourself you just put on mascara, finally choosing to participate in a social life after having your heart broken for being a fool. You decided to get ready sooner rather than later, otherwise you would have backed out from the plans and mopped around the house. You figured some coffee would help kill the time as you lace up your converse thinking of your favorite shop. You head out and walk leisurely to the cafe off the beaten path of downtown.  The street is full but not overly so as people browse the shopping district of the huge city you call home. Everyone fades into the background until your eye catches against a handsome man, dressed in tastefully torn black jeans, and an onyx turtleneck. You would be concerned for his attire in this weather if he wasn't so damn handsome. You must catch his eye as well as his face instantly lights up when he makes eye contact. He beats you to the cafe door, holding it open for you with ringed fingers like a gentleman waiting for you to enter. The gesture feels familiar causing your heart to squeeze in your chest, feeling trapped beneath your too small rib cage. As you walk past him you think you smell something familiar. 

Like cedar and pine, dancing on a snowy wind as the sun sets the world on fire. 

Your world on fire as you grip at the front of Dark Shadow's shirt trying not to cry. You just wanted your fucking macchiato and to move on with your life. You had lived every fan's dream of sleeping with your favorite band member. Tasting Dark Shadow's blackberry mouth. Shouldn't that be enough? 

Your aching heart said otherwise. 

Suddenly warmth is behind you, radiating off of a thick body as the handsome man bends over to put his profile to your ear. Goose flesh prickles your skin in late August as he says with a voice that drapes you in sinful black silk.

"You look damn good in my shirt, sparrow." 

[lazzledazzler]

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

[oswald-privileges]

ALL RIGHT BUT YOU ASKED FOR IT

Power of Three as a series is just. full of weaknesses, most of which come down to poor continuity and structure. I'm not gonna try and fix ALL of those, bc that'd be laborious as hell, but I will pick out things that I feel are the most egregious as case studies.

What Po3 does have, tho, is an absolutely shining strength in the concept of its three main characters. After twelve books of Blandly Heroic Protagonist Syndrome, Jayfeather is an absolute godsend. He's angry! He's rude! He's unhappy! He's not nice. I Love Him And He's My Son. Lionblaze has his invincible pride (hah) and emergent bloodlust, and Hollyleaf has her moral absolutism and certainty. These are good starting points for characters. Sadly, the lack of continuity undermines what could have been three really good character arcs.

So! I present to you:

HOW TO MAKE "WARRIORS: THE POWER OF THREE" NOT COMPLETELY SUCK ACCORDING TO MY PERSONAL TASTE; A NON-EXHAUSTIVE, NON-CONSECUTIVE LIST BY ME

ONE

- Have there be a persistant, overarching series threat. Sol is a character with amazing villain potential who does literally nothing except hang around, and do exactly 2 Bad Things completely off-screen. This Is Not Good.

- Instead, have him be present from the second book onwards- initially introduced as a friendly but enigmatic outsider who is slowly revealed across the series to be a complete black hole of a personality, a social parasite quietly rearranging whatever community he's a part of to just-so-happen to benefit him as much as humanly possible. His "preach individualism not starclan" methods are not so much values as one strategy out of many. (to those who know me- yes i have a type. no i will not apologise.)

- Maybe his ultimate goal is to dissolve and centralise the clans or something so that he can live out his life as a political puppetmaster in all the cat-luxury he likes. idk it's hard to imagine overall stakes for this rewrite BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL DOESN'T HAVE ANY

TWO

- For gods sake you don't have a series based on the premise of "the main characters develop super powers" and then only have the second power confirmed by the end of the fourth book. I understand the first book mostly focusing on Jayfeather- his powers are obvious from the start, he's got the strongest personality of the three, he gets access to most of the prophecy plot stuff because of them. But you NEED to have the other two show an interest in something concrete happening to them beyond that, and you need to at least hint towards the other two having something unique to them even if nobody clocks it yet.

- Have Jayfeather tell his siblings about the prophecy by the end of book two at the latest. The amount of time he spends noodling around not sharing it with them is inexcusable. It's not that it's out of character for him to hang onto a secret for a bit, it's just that there's no point and it slows everything down. It would be equally in character for him to go to his siblings and be like "look, i'm SPECIAL. well you as well but ALSO ME". Boy starts off as desperate for recognition, what can I say

THREE

- Have Jayfeather discover that StarClan don't withhold signs or information on purpose for the sake of "building courage and faith" or whatever nonsense. Seeing and communicating the future is metaphysically very difficult, so interpreting signs and messages is a genuine skill, or even an art. The cats of StarClan, however, really are just ghosts, much more similar to living cats than the currently living believe. This is the impotus for Jayfeather's discarding of his reverence for StarClan, which remains consistent throughout the series.

- Have Hollyleaf and Jayfeather both still change their cat careers in the first book, but put place more attention on the fact that they basically switched jobs. Have a scene where they end up yelling at each other, because can't the other see how lucky they have it? The tension breaks when they realise they've both lost something important to them- Jayfeather his chance to prove he's as capable as a sighted cat, and Hollyleaf her path to helping her clan in the way she thinks is best. They commiserate together, and reluctantly promise to do the best they can with their lots, so they don't waste the path the other wishes they'd taken. This closeness is eroded over the series as they disagree more and more on the subject of StarClan and its role in their moral choices and obligations.

FOUR

- Speaking of Hollyleaf! I nearly threw my phone across the room when the first Omen of the Stars book claimed that Hollyleaf "worked so hard to discover her power to help her clan". Where, Ms Erins??? I would have LOVED to have seen that!! Hollyleaf expresses absolutely no concern over the details of what power she has/will develop, and only has a couple of scenes even touching on her ambitions to help her clan. She has some vague ideas about becoming leader and like one scene where she gets to do some leadery things, but that never gets followed up on. What does happen is that the whole "warrior code" thing becomes more and more a part of her personality (for no clear reason) until she snaps.

- Hollyleaf going off the deep end is something I wanted so badly to get into and be moved by, because I could see where it comes from! Her moral certainty is fascinating, especially since it's based in something as abstract as the warrior code- which, when you think about it, isn't really... anything. There's no concrete set of rules that make it up, no traditional wording or cat philosophers, not even any fables. It's a handful of agreed-upon, common sense rules- don't cross boundaries, don't take prey that isn't yours, respect your ancestors, and don't murder. That's it!

- So, combining the above points, I think Hollyleaf not being one of the Three should stay, but both the audience and the characters are given good reason to believe she is. By around the third volume, make it so that Hollyleaf has found that her power is to get cats to "Do The Right Thing"- i.e. what she wants them to do. She sneaks off often to see Sol, who teachs her how to use this power. Her siblings are concerned about this new power, having already gotten a glimpse at what Sol can do, but she's confident that she can only use this power for good. Volume-specific plot happens, Sol manipulates her into causing him to win, she is shocked and horrified, and vows to stick ridgedly to what she knows is right i.e. The Warrior Code

- However, the more fervently she tries to stick to this abstract idea, the less it gives her results, the more her power seems to be failing. Believing that StarClan is taking her power away from her, she becomes caught up in a faith-guilt spiral that puts her in the position to snap at the end of the series. By that point it's clear to her siblings that Hollyleaf has no power- she was just very, very good at persuading people to do what she wanted.

FIVE

- Lionblaze is a girl now because I Said So. This Cat Is Trans And There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

- Her relationship with Heathertail stays the same- childhood sweethearts who are torn apart as they begin to understand the nature of the societal divides that exist between them.

- This can be used to contextualise the whole "half clan/outsider blood" thing as a cultural contradiction. In reality, inter- and outer- clan relationships aren't at all rare. They can't be, otherwise the whole society would be inbred out of existence in like five generations. But if at least one society of humans can spend a good 200 years pretending Sex Is Bad And Sinful Actually then cats can have persistant cat-racism in the face of all logic. Heathertail clocks this contradiction, Lionblaze doesn't.

- Her relationship-to-power arc doesn't need changing all that much either, other than starting much sooner and being more consistent. At first, she's completely overjoyed by her power, since unlike her siblings, it lines up so well with her ambition- become the finest warrior any of the clans have to offer. As the berserker rage aspect becomes more prevelent, she becomes more and more disturbed by the fact that she isn't disturbed by what she can do, and that she doesn't want the escalation of her power to stop.

- Tigerstar still does his thing, but Brambleclaw knows about it. He recognises the signs from when his father used to visit him, and tries to train Lionblaze in his own way. She ends up caught between wanting to be a good warrior, and testing the limits of her power.

SIX

- Jayfeather can stay basically the same because he's my perfect little angy boy and nothing needs to change. His arcs can be strengthened by having a more robust relationship with Yellowfang where they try to out-bitch each other, and coming to terms with his internalised ablism. Maybe he has a chat with Mothwing about faith a couple of times. Him furiously lashing out at being offered help transitions into an acceptence and understanding of his abilities more naturally. He never stops being A Grumpy Old Man.

- All fucking past-lives unexplained time travel goes in the BIN. Doesn't fucking happen. You can have that lore dump sprinkled across the books, or come from going deep into the tunnels and having a surreal meeting. Make it properly eldritch-level scary, shake Jayfeather's confidence in the idea of them being just a bunch of ghosts.

SEVEN

- Have the way Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight present very clearly as parents to the Three be explicitly, textually unusual. One of the things I liked so much about the first series was an almost total lack of emphasis on who was mated with who, and who was related or not. It felt very real to how feral cat colonies form, where raising kittens is a communal job. This gets completely dropped the moment series 2 starts and now the cats have monogamy.

- This emphasis on the family unit and fostering close relationships between parents and kittens is deliberate on the part of both Leafpool and Squirrelflight. Their aim is to cover for Leafpool so she doesn't lose her role as medicine cat- something she already gave up Crowfeather for before she was pregnant.

- In that little bit of backstory, have a robust reason for both Leafpool and Squirrelflight to leave the camp while Leafpool is pregnant and giving birth, possibly one that ties into the present day story in some minor way. I don't know how, it would just make that element of the story a lot more ground than "we left, the kits were born, then we came back and everyone was cool with it"

- When it comes to the "I am Not your mother" reveal, Jayfeather and Lionblaze are confused and hurt that they were lied to, but come to the reasonable conclusion that well, since they were raised mostly by Squirrelflight, saw Leafpool often, and are loved by both, they don't hate her. Lionblaze has something of a crisis over being half-clan, possibly initiating an attempted reunion with Heathertail. Jayfeather is more concerned with how other cats will think it makes him lesser, something he's still sensitive too.

- Hollyleaf, meanwhile, completely fucking snaps at the way her mother Violated Part Of The Code. It's a completely irrational reaction, but expected because she's been growing more and more reliant on The Code for the whole series, and less and less stable in her attempts to aid her clan and train to be its new leader.

- Squirrelflight is the one to murder Ashfur. This is easy to work out while reading- she's literally the only one of the four with a motive who isn't a perspective character. The mystery is less around finding out who did it, and more about why she did it (it's very ambiguous as to whether it was an accident or not). The main tension comes from who finds out when.

- Lionblaze is shocked, awed by how far she'd go to protect the three of them, and reassures her she did the right thing (as a way to salve her own uncertainty over her own longing for violence). Jayfeather makes it all about himself because he's Jayfeather- upset that he didn't know immediately, instead of, you know, figuring it out in a few hours because he can basically read minds. They try their best to hide it from Hollyleaf, who is already rattling around the final volume as a full-on antagonist, but are unsuccessful. This almost costs them something incredibly important- possibly Squirrelflight's life.

EIGHT

- the whole plot with the Tribe Of Rushing Water is a MASSIVE can of worms that could be removed from the series without issue. As it is:

- Characterize the Tribe as uncertain of how to fight other cats, because yes, they haven't had to do this before. DON'T characterise them as pathetic, doing whatever their leader says without thinking, and with ancestors who have Given Up

- Have some of the Tribe be really good at the violence. Worryingly good. Have others be sickened by what they're being asked to do.

- Have some of the clan cats reflect on what they've done. Hollyleaf would be all for introducing this society to jesus The Code, but even she might be horrified at being thanked by a tribe cat who can't wait to get out there and win themselves glory, only to be killed a few hours later

- The Tribe begin a new tradition of marking the walls in the mud they use as camoflage in order to commemorate their battles, and memorialise the fallen. One of the characters reflects on the fact that in a generation or two, the Tribe will feel like it's always been this way. How many of their own traditions- those that feel almost like natural law- started out the same way?

- Have Sol as the leader of the invaders, or maybe having insinuated himself into the tribe as a "mediator" and doing his charismatic cult leader thing.

NINE

- Cinderheart isn't a reincarnation of Cinderpelt. She's just named after her bc Cinderpelt saved her mother from a badger. this is because I think the reincanation thing is stupid and I can't think of a way to make it good.

TEN

- No more using tails as hand gestures like covering people's mouths. Never. None of it. It's expunged from existence.

Disclaimer: I haven't read Omen of the Stars yet, so I can't account for anything that might happen in that series that's grounded in Po3. I'm like... two thirds of the way through the first volume. I'm Not Impressed.

[fireemblems24]

Post Grondor Field AM Analysis

I'm prefacing this by saying that I'm still not sure I can write a good analysis of this scene for two reasons:

1. I don't know what comes after, and

2. I'm very emotionally involved in what happened.

But I tried my best. One thing is for sure though, what happened in Grondor in AM was an incredibly significant turning point for AM and Dimitri and my thoughts and analysis on it will definitely expand as I keep writing about and playing the game.

Part of me is just so happy I got to see Dimitri's supports, have the inevitable turn around, and get to do things like tea and dinner time again that it's hard to be objective about this scene.

And by "this scene," I don't mean that actual fight at Grondor, but everything from Fleche's attack to Byleth's words in the rain later.

It wasn't all about Byleth . . .

Given how poignant Dimitri's character arc has been so far, I had a deep rooted fear player-pandering would ruin it. Byleth, as a concept, isn't bad, but too often the heaps of praise feel underserved and other things (like Claude's intelligence, Edelgard's relationships with everyone else) get ignored to make more room for player-pandering.

Thankfully this did not happen. Byleth, throughout the early chapters of AM's part 2, failed to reach Dimitri. And, honestly, seeing Byleth actually struggle for once has done wonders for how I view her character. Still, I worried that player-pandering-power, rather than something that felt earned, would cause the inevitable eye-opener for Dimitri.

But it wasn't just Byleth. Fleche's vengeance kicked everything off, what veered Dimitri away from his fate in other routes. He accepted his death at her hands, not bothering to defend himself. Rodrigue stepping in the way and his parting words forced Dimitri to confront things he'd ignored. Throughout AM so far, people have posed questions to Dimitri who refused to answer them because he didn't want to face what they asked. But Rodrigue dying for him, spending his final words telling Dimitri to live for himself - combined with Fleche's attack - forced Dimitri to confront things he avoided. It wasn't until after all of that when Byleth steps in.

And Byleth didn't "fix" him either. Dimitri's supports show a young man who's still very much struggling with his mental health, poor self-image, his previous actions, and wondering if he deserves not only to live for himself - but if he even deserves to live. Byleth didn't hand-wave Dimitri's problems away.

Everything about the scene is stronger because it didn't fall back on player-pandering, but more earned, realistic, and dramatic actions and consequences - including Byleth's involvement which felt far more earned than usual because of prior failure.

But I wish Dimitri's friends played a bigger role.

Not everything was perfect though. I wish we got a little more than we did from Dimitri's house mates - especially his childhood friends Sylvain, Ingrid, and extra special mention to Felix and especially, especially Dedue.

Throughout all of AM, none of the above mentioned characters feel utilized to their full potential. This isn't a problem exclusive to AM, and by all means it's far from the biggest offender, but given how close all the ties are in AM, it's felt when it's not there.

I still don't know what exactly I would've done with them. Maybe I'd need to make the game an actual novel to do it, and you can't forget how perma-death has historically held back games at times, limiting major moments to a select few "retreat" candidates.

Still, though, getting a bit more from Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Dedue would've made the scene even more powerful.

I actually really liked the scene in the rain.

I haven't made it a secret that I dislike Byleth. Or maybe disliked is more accurate. Lately I've been rethinking my stance on Byleth, in part because I've heard from people who like her or found ways to make her work and from my own thinking about the game while planning future write ups.

I don't think it's Byleth I really dislike, but the player-pandering. Separating the two isn't easy, but it's easier since I've starting coming around to seeing Byleth as her own character.

There's been a few moments that made me care for Byleth, and this scene in the rain was one of them. Because she didn't just fix everything. She tried and failed for months to reason with Dimitri, and despite everything she never gave up on him or failed to keep offering her hand.

I'm not going to lie. I got all the bubbly, heartwarming, heartbreaking feels the writers wanted me to in this scene. Seeing Byleth reach for something and fail, and then finally, finally get through was rewarding in a way many of Byleth's prior accomplishments aren't because this one felt earned. And by God did she earn it.

Some people will likely disagree with that last point, but I disagree with them. She asked Dimitri hard-hitting questions, forcing him to come to unpleasant conclusions rather than trying to force him into anything. She kept Dimitri from veering to far off course, even at expense to herself when she killed Randolph. She saved Dimitri from Fleche when he refused to save himself. She quietly supported him, coaxing out the good she knew was still there and refused to give up on.

I'd never in a million years say someone in real life should put up with Dimitri's toxic behavior and verbal abuse, even considering his extreme trauma and aggravated mental illness. But seeing someone fuck up so badly still get forgiven, still get supported, still struggle but honestly change for the good, still get loved, start to accept and forgive himself through the power of love and forgiveness from others is very powerful, especially since media so often downplays those "softer" things as weakness in comparison to the "badassery" of ambition and stoicism. Using Byleth, who previously had little experience with feelings, who was encouraged to experience them in healthy ways by Dimitri, return the favor isn't really the worst choice.

It's cliche, but cliches aren't always bad.

The mentor dies. Redemption in the rain. Revenge against the protagonist's actions opens their eyes. Etc . . . This scene was chuck full of cliches, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Tropes serve an important narrative purpose because a writer can rely on them to convey a message to the audience that either saves time or sets them up for something unexpected or even expected. Fire Emblem has always and will always be incredibly cliche and full of tropes. It loves tropes so much there's in-universe ones that make some unit or character discussions sound like a foreign language to people outside of or new to the fandom, talking about "Ests" and calling someone a "Camus."

What matters is if a story pulled something off well, not if it's terribly unique. A mentor dying is powerful because it forces the student to grow. Redemption in the rain is high symbolic of water washing things away + the somber atmosphere rain creates. Someone trying to get revenge against a character provides an eye-opening experience about the ripple effect of their actions. We see these things in fiction all the time because they work.

All the tropes worked like expected in this scene. Using images instead of cut scenes did make less of an impact, but more on that later.

Tl;dr: There's nothing unexpected or terribly unique about what happened. It was honestly painfully predictable, but that doesn't make it bad and is in a series that does this all of the time.

The voice acting carried because those images can't.

A major downside to this scene is that it used vague images instead of a cut scene. I get that budget and time were likely concerns, but many cut scenes from earlier in the game seem rather trivial. Did we really need that dance one? Really? I don't think so.

This was a hugely important, action heavy moment. Using one or two still images to convey everything that's happening and all those emotions, really makes it less than it could've been.

That said, the voice acting saves it. I've raved about how amazing Chris Hackeny is as Dimitri, so nothing new here. Rodrigue's and Fleche's VAs also did a fantastic job. No one oversold or undersold the emotions. Even without the cut scene, you felt what happened thanks to the skill of the actors. This scene would've been so much harder to engage with without them, if this was an older FE game where all you got was text. This is 100% one of the moments highly elevated by the decision to have a fully voiced game and choosing high caliber talent (let's not talk about Radiant Dawn's voice acting).

Questionable support timing.

One issue I had came right after the scene when I viewed Dimitri's supports. The nature of some - like his with Raphael and Alois - didn't quite line up with the character I saw in dialogue right after. I wish they staggered them a bit more or got picker about what you could get in part 1 or 2.

This isn't limited to Dimitri either. In the same support batch, I also got a Marianne B support where she still had no confidence or self-worth. And then like 10 minutes later I talk to her in the monastery and she mentions about how seeing all the death in Grondor made her value her life even more.

In the past, I've also received entirely valid opinions that Dorothea in part 2 is hard to understand because she's cherry and flirty in her supports, and morose and hates the war in her monastery stuff, making her seem inconsistent.

It's a bit jarring. It's not really an issue for characters who don't change much like Edelgard or Raphael, but even for characters with more subtle differences than Dimitri, Marianne, and Dorothea - like, say, Lorenz - you get a lot of weird stuff because of supports. I just think Dimitri's stands out because he's a main character with a really prominent, important turning point for his growth.

[tlbodine]

The Horror Genius of Five Nights At Freddy’s

I’ve been playing FNAF: Help Wanted VR on my Oculus Quest lately (a birthday present to myself -- I know I’m late to that party!) and it’s reignited in me my old love of this series. I know Scott Cawthon’s politics aren’t great, but I don’t think there’s any malice in his heart beyond usual Christian conservative nonsense -- and I think he stepped down as graciously and magnanimously as possible when confronted about it. Time will judge Scott Cawthon’s politics, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about what makes these games so damn special, from a horror, design, and marketing perspective. I think there’s really SO MUCH to be learned from studying these games and the wider influence they’ve had as intellectual property. 

What Is FNAF? 

In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the last seven years, Five Nights At Freddy’s (hereafter, FNAF) is a horror franchise spanning 17 games (10 main games + some spinoffs and troll games, we’ll get to that), 27 books, a movie deal, and a couple live-action attractions. 

But before it exploded into that kind of tremendous IP, it started out as a single indie pont-and-click game created entirely by one dude, Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had developed other games in the past without much fame or success, including some Christian children’s entertainment. He was working as a cashier at Dollar General and making games in his spare time -- and most of those games got panned. 

So he tried making something different. 

After being criticized that the characters in one of his children’s games looked like soulless, creepy animatronics, Cawthon had his lightbulb moment and created a horror game centered on....creepy animatronics! 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

The Genius of FNAF’s Horror Elements

In the first FNAF game, you play as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a sort of ersatz Chuck-E-Cheese establishment. The animatronics are on free-roaming mode at night, but you don’t want to let them find you in your security room so you have to watch them move through the building on security camera monitors. If they get too close, you can slam your security room doors closed. But be careful, because this restaurant operates on a shoestring budget, and the power will go off if you keep the doors closed too long or flicker the lights too often. And once the lights go out, you’re helpless against the animatronics in the dark. 

Guiding you through your gameplay is a fellow employee, Phone Guy, who calls you each night with some helpful advice. Phone Guy is voiced by Cawthon himself, and listening to his tapes gives you some hints of the game’s underlying story as well as telling you how to play. A few newspaper clippings and other bits of scrap material help to fill in more details of the story. 

Over the next set of games, the story would be further developed, with each new game introducing new mechanics and variations on the theme -- in one, you don a mask to slip past the notice of animatronics; in another, you have to play sound cues to lure an animatronic away from you. By the fourth game, the setup was changed completely, now featuring a child with a flashlight hiding from the monsters outside his door -- nightmarish versions of the beloved child-friendly mascots. The mechanics change just enough between variations to keep things fresh while maintaining a consistent brand. 

There are so many things these games do well from a storytelling and horror perspective: 

Jump Scares: It’s easy to shrug these games off for relying heavily on jump scares, and they absolutely do have a lot of them. But they’re used strategically. In most games, the jump scares are a punishment (a controlled shock, if you will) -- if you play the game perfectly, you’ll never be jump-scared. This is an important design choice that a lot of other horror games don’t follow. 

Atmospheric Dread: These games absolutely deliver horror and tension through every element of design -- some more than others, admittedly. But a combination of sound cues, the overall texture and aesthetic of the world, the “things move when you’re not looking at them” mechanic, all of it works together to create a feeling of unease and paranoia. 

Paranoia: As in most survival horror games, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t move or defend yourself, really -- all you can do is watch. And so watch you do. Except it’s a false sense of security, because flicking lights and checking cameras uses up precious resources, putting you at greater risk. So you have to balance your compulsive need to check, double-check, and make sure...with methodical resource conservation. The best way to survive these games is to remain calm and focused. It’s a brilliant design choice. 

Visceral Horror: The monster design of the animatronics is absolutely delightful, and there’s a whole range of them to choose from. The sheer size and weight of the creatures, the way they move and position themselves, their grunginess, the deadness of their eyes, the quantity and prominence of their teeth. They are simultaneously adorable and horrifying. 

Implicit Horror: One of the greatest strengths to FNAF as a franchise is that it never wears its story on its sleeve. Instead of outright telling you what’s going on, the story is delivered in bits and pieces that you have to put together yourself -- creating a puzzle for an engaged player to think about and theorize over and consider long after the game is done. But more than that, the nature of the horror itself is such that it becomes increasingly upsetting the more you think on it. The implications of what’s going on in the game world -- that there are decaying bodies tucked away inside mascots that continue to perform for children, that a man dressed in a costume is luring kids away into a private room to kill them, and so forth -- are the epitome of fridge horror. 

The FNAF lore does admittedly start to become fairly ridiculous and convoluted as the franchise wears on. But even ret-conned material manages to be pretty interesting in its own right (and there is nothing in the world keeping you from playing the first four games, or even the first six, and pretending none of the rest exist). 

Another thing I really appreciate about the FNAF franchise is that it’s quite funny, in a way that complements and underscores the horror rather than detracting from it. It’s something a lot of other properties utterly fail to do. 

The Genius of Scott Cawthon’s Marketing 

OK, so FNAF utilizes a multi-prong attack for creating horror and implements it well -- big deal. Why did it explode into a massive IP sensation when other indie horror games that are just as well-made barely made a blip on the radar? 

Well! That’s where the real genius comes in. This game was built and marketed in a way to maximize its franchisability. 

First, the story utilizes instantly identifiable, simple but effective character designs, and then generates more and more instantly identifiable unique characters with each iteration. Having a wealth of characters and clever, unique designs basically paves the way for merchandise and fan-works. (That they’re anthropomorphic animal designs also probably helped -- because that taps into the furry fandom as well without completely alienating non-furries). 

Speaking of fan-work, Scott Cawthon has always been very supportive of fandom, only taking action when people would try to profit off knock-off games and that sort of thing -- basically bad-faith copies. But as far as I know he’s always been super chill with fan-created content, even going so far as to engage directly with the fandom. Which brings me to....

These games were practically designed for streaming, and he took care to deliver them into the hands of influential streamers. Because the games are heavy on jump-scares and scale in difficulty (even including extra-challenging modes after the core game is beaten) they are extremely fun to watch people play. They’re short enough to be easily finished over the duration of a long stream, and they’re episodic -- lending themselves perfectly to a YouTube Lets Play format. One Night = One Video, and now the streamer has weeks of content from your game (but viewers can jump in at any time without really missing much). 

The games are kid-friendly but also genuinely frightening. Because the most disturbing parts of the game’s lore are hinted at rather than made explicit, younger players can easily engage with the game on a more basic surface level, and others can go as deep into the lore as they feel comfortable. There is no blood and gore and violence or even any explicitly stated death in the main game; all of the murder and death is portrayed obliquely by way of 8-bit mini games and tangential references. Making this game terrifying but accessible to youngsters, and then marketing it directly to younger viewers through popular streamers (and later, merchandising deals) is genius -- because it creates a very broad potential audience, and kids tend to spend 100% of their money (birthdays, allowances, etc.) and are most likely to tell their friends about this super scary game, etc. etc.

By creating a puzzle box of lore, and then interacting directly with the fandom -- dropping hints, trolling, essentially creating an ARG of his own lore through his website, in-game easter eggs, and tie-in materials -- Cawthon created a mystery for fandom to solve. And fans LOVE endlessly speculating over convoluted theories. 

Cawthon released these games FAST. He dropped FNAF 2 within months of the first game’s release, and kept up a pace of 1-2 games a year ever since. This steady output ensured the games never dropped out of public consciousness -- and introducing new puzzle pieces for the lore-hungry fans to pore over helped keep the discussion going. 

I think MatPat and The Game Theorists owe a tremendous amount of their own huge success to this game. I think Markiplier does, too, and other big streamers and YouTubers. It’s been fascinating watching the symbiotic relationship between these games and the people who make content about these games. Obviously that’s true for a lot of fandom -- but FNAF feels so special because it really did start so small. It’s a true rags-to-riches sleeper hit and luck absolutely played a role in its growth, but skill is a big part too. 

Take-Aways For Creatives 

I want to be very clear here: I do not think that every piece of media needs to be “IP,” franchisable, an extended universe, or a multimedia sensation. I think there is plenty to be said for creating art of all types, and sometimes that means a standalone story with a small audience. 

But if you do want a chance at real break-out, run-away success and forging a media empire of your own, I think there are some take-aways to be learned from the success of FNAF: 

Persistence. Scott Cawthon studied animation and game-design in the 1990s and released his first game in 2002. He released a bunch of stuff afterward. None of it stuck. It took 12 years to hit on the winning formula, and then another several years of incredibly hard work to push out more titles and stoke the fires before it really became a sensation. Wherever you’re at on your creative journey, don’t give up. You never know when your next thing will be The Thing that breaks you out. 

If you want to sell a lot of something, you have to make it widely appealing to a bunch of people. This means keeping your concept simple to understand (”security guard wards off creepy killer animatronics at a pizza parlor”) and appealing to as wide a segment of the market as you can (ie, a horror story that appeals to both kids and adults). The more hyper-specific your audience, the harder it’s gonna be to find them and the fewer copies of your thing you’ll be selling. 

Know your shit and put your best work out there. I think there’s an impulse to feel like “well, nobody reads this anyway, so why does it matter if it’s no good” (I certainly have fallen into that on multiple occasions) but that’s the wrong way to think about it. You never know when and where your break will come. Put your best work out there and keep on polishing your craft with better and better stuff because eventually one of those things you chuck out there is going to be The Thing. 

Figure out where your target audience hangs out, and who influences them, and then get your thing in the hands of those influencers. Streaming and YouTube were the secret to FNAF’s success. Maybe yours will be BookTube, or Instagram, or a secret cabal of free librarians. I don’t know. But you should try your best to figure out who would like the thing that you’re making, and then figure out how to reach those people, and put all of your energy into that instead of shotgun-blasting your marketing all willy nilly. 

You don’t have to put the whole story on the page. Audiences love puzzles. Fans love mysteries. You can actually leave a lot more unanswered than you think. There’s some value in keeping secrets and leaving things for others to fill in. Remember -- your art is only partly yours. The sandbox belongs to others to play in, too, and you have to let them do that. 

If in doubt, appealing to furries never hurts. 

Do I take all of this advice myself? Not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a lot to think about. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat The Curse of Dreadbear. 

[shihalyfie]

Have you ever imagined if the 02 trio had unique crests like Ken? I used to give them some in a few old stuff I doodled/wrote, but recently I prefer to embrace Qinglongmon's infodump that each children has all crests within themselves and the different ways to manifest them.

But in the past I had imagined Determination for Daisuke, Fairness/Justice for Iori, and Miyako hit jackpot because I used to think Energy (as in positive-negative) for her but later I also believed Passion was a good option as well.

As I know, the fandom tends to associate Miracles with Daisuke, which is not a bad choice! Though in those old stuff I made, Miracles was something "special power" only unlocked at the end and with the help of the other crests (in the same fashion of Sonic franchise's Chaos Emeralds for the Super Sonic form)

And some people associate the Wonderswan Digimentals as something the 02 trio would have if I'm not wrong (and since they have no official design sans Darkness, there's room for a ton of interesting things there...)

(Before anyone asks, please note that I'm friends with the OP and we've had extensions of this discussion in private, so while the following answer is probably going to sound like I'm shutting her down out of context, there's a lot more to this than this single question-and-answer.)

I think it's difficult to say because even the canonical Crests are multilayered and have different nuances depending on the person. For instance, I won't say "Purity" between Mimi and Miyako have completely different meanings, but in the former the focus on "lack of malice" is stronger, and in the latter "being aware of one's true nature" is stronger. "Knowledge" means "wanting to know and understand more" in both Koushirou and Iori's context, but in Koushirou's it's about the tenacity to press for more in order to understand better, and in Iori's it's the ability to question one's own preconceived notions and be willing to change them in light of limited understanding. Even some of the traits you mentioned could be collapsed into the existing Crests as well; "determination" could well be "the determination to stand up against increasingly terrible-looking odds" (courage), and "fairness" could be "sticking to proper moral principles" (faith). Then there's the question of whether the trait is inherently what they want to be or what their true potential lies in; for instance, I could say a given character has a lot of traits, all of which could be good or bad, but how relevant are they to their own personal feelings and development? Energy or passion does fit Miyako, but I wonder if that's what she personally cares about or values (especially when she doesn't like how poorly that passion is being channeled)?

Crests/Digimentals are really difficult, and I think it's too easy to fall into the trap of oversimplifying them or thinking of them in terms of "personality traits they happen to have"; even the novels warn you not to think of them in terms of what they have already, but what they have the potential for having. They're a guide to helping the audience understand each character's base priorities in an easy-to-understand manner, but ultimately it's up to the kids themselves to really grow into each one, and figure out their own ways to do it (which is why you can have "redundant" Crests across Adventure and 02 yet each kid's way of executing it is distinctly different, even before taking into account that three of the 02 kids have two). So to be honest, in terms of inventing new ones wholesale, I feel like there's just so much abstract stuff to even think about that it goes beyond myself a bit...

I also agree that I don't know if Miracles should be associated with Daisuke in particular, but since Miracles isn't much of a virtue, I associate it with "the ability and will to overturn things that seem impossible" (which Daisuke was definitely doing in both 02 episode 20-21 and Hurricane Touchdown), and likewise, Hurricane Touchdown's Destiny is similarly "the motivation to change a supposedly predetermined path by will" (which ties into Wallace’s denial problems throughout the movie, and remember that Kizuna follows up on this by its distinction between "inevitable fate" and "changeable destiny").

As for the WonderSwan Digimentals, while I'm personally interested in the ones they provide and what they might mean for the story, keep in mind that, like a lot of things with the WonderSwan games, you need to take them with a grain of salt; Darkness is kind of understandable in this narrative's context, and "willpower"/"tenacity" sounds great, but what's often translated as "desire" has a very negative connotation (it means "greed", functionally), and the last one literally translates as "being really good at singing". What? (The Japanese fanbase is exactly as weirded out by this as you might think, so this isn't a translation issue.) So...yeah, unfortunately, I got nothing.

[mintvender]

UTOPIA [ 1 ]

Pairing: BTS x Y/N

Synopsis: Y/N L/N, the name of the current monarch of Corea. They became the ruler after successfully ending the previous king along with the dynasty as well. In their harem, countless men are present to help balance the court’s power. However, is this truly their intentions? The palace was always a place that needs to be proceeded with caution but as time goes by, recklessness would most likely outweigh it. You found yourself unable to prosper the kingdom without being too connected to it.

HaremAu!

Warning: Profanity

Word Count: 3.1k

a/n: This is the first official chapter of the series “ Utopia”. It is connected to the series “ When the Stars Meet their Sun” which is the prequel to this one. It explains the major events that happen to the major characters and will get released along with this serie.

Masterlist

Being a ruler for some, would be a blessing. Others would shudder with just the possibility of said position. After all, isn’t the crown the most desperate for blood?

Unlike wild animals, humanity has long hunted for more than they could ever need. It happens so often that people would say that greed was the worst trait for a ruler, but little do people like to admit, greed was something that was inevitable. Everyone has at least some greed inside of them, either burying or flaunting it as their unique trait.

Y/N L/N, the current ruler of Corea was yet to be an exception. Though, they have enough conscience to at least hide it and be a decent ruler.

Using their right palm to steady their head, they continued to look over the countless ministers standing in front of them as the regular audience continued to take place.

“ Your majesty, we need to send troops to the east to defend our borders immediately.”

The eastern border connected Corea to the ancient nation that owns the eastern sea. As a result, those people were extremely arrogant and deemed themselves superior because of the amazing achievements that their ancestors have done years ago.

“ The eastern bastards are causing trouble again?” Y/N asked, annoyed.

The ministers couldn’t help but flinch hearing profanities come out of the monarch’s mouth. Everyone knows that such words could not be said during a formal meeting but who were they to lecture the monarch?

“ Yes, your majesty. Even after our recent victory, they have yet to turn around and surrender to our nation.”

Y/N’s eyes glanced up from their nails to the nervous individual, irises gleaming in interest.

“ Is that so? What have they been doing?”

“ Reporting to your majesty, the Grimores’ guards have been destroying our farmlands and threatened many of our people there. As a result, agriculture has decreased by a large amount. People living there are suffering under Grimore’s violence.”

Perking their left eyebrow at the somewhat expected eyebrow, Such ignorant people, Y/N thought.

The eastern land was one of the best places in Korea for hurting crops and agriculture. The crops there almost took up half the entire stock of supplies that the palace gets every week.

So that’s why the servants were complaining, they thought.

“ Do you have any suggestions, General Kwong?”

General Kwong, a name that would bring fear to people across all lands. He was part of the four leaders that have guarded the borders for years on end and have made many outstanding achievements because of it.

“ I believe that it is best to send troops over to the border and eliminate them all.”

After hearing those words, the monarch’s eyes turned cold.

“ General Kwong, you truly do have some courage,” tilting their head, Y/N continued to taunt the general, “ Are you not afraid that they would retaliate? Even if we were to bring victory home, our relationship with them would be on thin string. Are you willing to take such responsibility when such things occur.”

Cupping his left hand over his right, General Kwong brought them to his forehead before executing a low bow to show his respect.

“ My bloodline would take all the responsibility if the eastern bastards were to declare war with our nation,” he announced.

Letting out a smirk, eyes gleaming with bloodlust, Y/N glanced at the bowed figure.

“ How are you so certain that they will not declare war with us?”

He affirmed, “ Compared to the Grimores, our nation is prospering at an inhumane pace. Even if we are much younger than them, they would still have to show some face and be more pliant. The guards at the borders are just teenagers who know nothing and just want a taste of power, I am sure that the intrusions have yet to even reach the main city.”

Have not yet reached the main city, does he mean that…

“ By that, do you mean that the imperial family have no idea about the attacks. And that it was caused by children?”

General Kwong shivered at their tone, feeling all too warm in a sudden.

“ I’m afraid it is so.”

Y/N glared at him, “ You mean that you were incapable of protecting the border? To what? Measly children who have even yet fallen into reality? How daring of you, General Kwong!”  

Practically letting gravity push him towards the ground, he frantically tried to come up with an explanation.

“ My apologies, your majesty! This servant does not know that those bastards were going to threaten the border.”

Y/N did not like shortsighted people to serve under them. People who only focus on what may benefit them would not put out the necessary effort to ensure that they were safe from less ideal possibilities. Hence, why Y/N have to deal with the current mess the east is facing now.

It has only been a few hours after the sun has rises but they could already sense that a headache is brewing.  

“ How shortsighted you are, General Kwong,” Y/N seethes out, “ Did those dozens of years out in the battlefield crippled your brain that you were unable to even think of such a possibility?”

“ T-this servant acted rashly. This will not happen next time, your majesty.”  

Sighing, Y/N shook their head, “ Make sure to keep this promise, General Kwong.”

General Kwong nodded his head immediately, mouth rambling promises to help support his genuine apology. He only stood back up after Y/N motioned him to.

“ Send 1000 soldiers to the eastern border. General Kim, you will be leading this mission,” the monarch commanded.

General Kim stepped up from his position, and bowed down, accepting their command.

General Kim, one of Y/N’s most trusted officers. He was once their companion who has travelled together long before Y/N have to ascend the throne. General Kim was already notorious for his sharp knowledge on various weapons along with a keen mind. As a result, he was one of the first people to be granted a position after the new dynasty was formed.

Knowing that he will definitely complete it, Y/N let out a satisfied nod.

“ Make sure that those kids will never escape from their job again. You can do anything to educate them. Children like them need a strict instructor in order to blossom,” the monarch said, satisfied.

And with that, the topic came to an end.

Seeing the previous topic have finally come to an end, another soon appeared.

“ Your majesty, regarding your harem, this s—“

“ Minister Jung, why are you so persistent in expanding my harem? Isn’t three already enough?” Y/N interrupted.

Minister Jung, another old officer from the previous dynasty who has switched sides in order to survive. He was also a man known for his greed yet a thoughtful insight who would choose the absolute best option, even if it meant being a two-faced bastard. Even though his personality wasn’t the best, he has helped Y/N multiple times in the past thus granting him the position of higher rank.

Minister Jung, was also infamous for his suggestion on constantly wanting to admit new concubines every couple of weeks. Regardless of how powerful he seems, however, he does not get to have the final say. Never in his life would he get the chance to do so.

“ Your majesty, just by having three consorts doesn’t give the imperial a natural balance. Your majesty’s harem has been the most limited in the entirety of Corea’s history!”

All the officers nodded in agreement. They all knew that if their son were to enter the harem, and even gain a piece of the majesty’s favour, then their house’s name will become known for as long as the monarch was on the throne and hopefully even after that.

“ And where are you going with this, Minister Jung?”

“ Your majesty, I suggest a competition to help select a few more concubines.”

Ah… the same old idea, how utterly boring.

“ Continue.”

“ A concubine selection would occur at a good time where the imperial family will be recruiting whoever you see fit.”

Looking contemplated, Y/N then looked over to their bodyguard to see his uncomfortable face. Obviously wanting to tease him, they decided to follow whatever plan the minister was setting out.

“ The selection will definately be happening,” Minister Jung lightened up at their words, but that quickly changed when he heard what came after.

“ But when it's happening will be undetermined.”

“ Y-y-your m-majesty, please reconsider. Your age is not that small anymore, if we were to pass your young adult years, it will be much harder to recruit concubines later on,” Minister Jung then motioned to the rest of his section to follow his lead.

Soon after, over one third of the ministers all yelled out while bowing down to the monarch, “ Your majesty, please reconsider! Your majesty, please reconsider! Your majesty, please consider.”

Seeing how much of a fraction Minister Jung managed to gather for himself, Y/N began to think that all the effort they had put in was all in vain. After all, they didn’t need disloyal bastards? Who knows what they could be planning behind their back?

“ Tch, who do you think you all are?”

Everyone in the room shivered at the monarch’s tone, knowing that if they did not upset them with bringing up this topic, they clearly have now.

“ You think that you could control me with your little words? How daring of you!”

“ Y-your majesty, we don’t mean it that way. W-we all j-just want the b-best for you,” Minister Jung stuttered out.  

“ The best for me? You think that you’re in the spot to do so?”

“ Y-your majesty, p-p-please dwell your anger, it will affect your h-health.”

“ My health? Are you taking me as a joke? Thinking that you can control me because I have yet to fully mature?” Y/N seethed out.

Though, the current monarch was yet to be the youngest but they have still not reach a mature age to properly decipher from right or wrong.

Well, at least that was what they all thought.

Standing up from their throne, they made their ways down the stairs while looking into every single pair of eyes that were previously begging them to reconsider.

“ I believe that you have forgotten that I single-handedly killed the previous king hence ending the Min dynasty. I was also kind enough to save your disloyal asses to enter my court and serve me, knowing the possibility that you all will change sides when another one appears.”

With their words, all the ministers bowed down in shame, knowing that it was true.

“ I was also the one to help you build your fame. You all were lower rank nobles and didn’t have that much influence. I was the one who guided and helped you to become what you are now! And what did you do to repay my kindness? By forcefully controlling me for your own gains?”

Y/N walked to where Minister Jung was, “ It looks to me that I didn’t train you all enough… No, if you even dare to even repeat this same mistake, don’t even think of entering this room ever again!” Y/N announced, “ We’re done for today. Jungkook, let’s go.”

Jungkook then snapped back to reality from Y/N’s mentioning his name. Immediately after, he quickly rushed towards their walking figure and both left the room.

☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️

Not being able to conceal his curious gaze, Jungkook kept glancing at the powerful figure in front of him.

Obviously sensing his curiosity, you could help but rub the area between your eyebrows to help soothe your headache.

Sighing, you told him, “ Asked whatever you want, Jungkook.”

Flushing at how obvious he seemed, Jungkook shyly fidget the violet tassel of his sword, not knowing how to start the conversation.

“ If you don’t mind me asking, how were you able to… to do that?”

“ Do what, Jungkook?”

Jungkook pouted, knowing that you obviously knew what he meant.

“ How you managed to win.”

“Win? I didn’t think it was that much of a victory…In your perspective, how did I do it?” You questioned back.

As he continued to walk behind you, Jungkook tried to recall what he earned in the previous lessons he did with you. Unfortunately, all he got was a few unnecessary words and a black mind.

As a result, he could only go for the most obvious option.

“ Hmm… you managed to control the situation by poking at their weakness?”

“ That... is part of it but it occupies quite a small part in how I managed to do it.”

Jungkook nodded, obviously intrigued at your previous actions.

“ At the beginning, I acted quite intrigued at the suggestion to lead him to where he could possibly make a mistake. You must know, Jungkook, that anyone will make a mistake when their adrenaline reaches a certain point. You must take hold of such opportunities and use it to your advantage,”  you explained.

“ What did you do next?”

“ You must observe the situation and predict what will happen.”

Not understanding your words, the boy stopped in his tracks, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

“ How does that work?”

You stopped in your tracks and turned around, staring into his doe eyes, you let out a smile.

“ That is a lesson for another time but for now, you need to do something for me.”

Letting out a small pout, Jungkook looked at you curiously, “ What do I need to work on.”

“ Your emotions.”

“ My emotions?”

“ Yes, you wear your emotions on your sleeves, practically letting everyone the chance to manipulate you.”

“ Please elaborate.”

“ Alright, hmm… you know how predators always sneak up on their prey and wait for the right moment to finish them?”

Jungkook nodded, “ Unlike you, these predators are always calm and act strategically, making sure that they leave no tracks behind while approaching the prey. They hide into the background and stay silent until the perfect time where they launch towards the prey and end them.”

With this explanation, Jungkook becomes more confused.

“ So I need to be the predator?”

You nodded, somewhat happy that he understood the overall concept.

“ Yes, you need to be aware of what you are letting others know about you. You have to be able to use what you have to your advantage,” you said, “ Do you understand?”

“...”

Not hearing his response, you chuckled, “ You don’t need to understand it now. We will continue to work on it. If you want, go to Taehyung whenever you are free and ask for his assistance.”

You then lift your right hand from their position from your side before setting them on top of his head. Ruffling his ivory black hair before turning away.

Jungkook, on the other hand froze at the feeling of your hand on top of his head.

“... Y-yes, your majesty.”

“ Good, let’s go.”

And with that, you continued your way to your office, content with the current outcome.

☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ ☁️

Walking into your office, you couldn’t help but let out a tired sigh. Today was truly one of those days that exhausted most of your energy. Unfortunately, being the person who makes the final say in all the decisions of the nation does not leave you that much time to relax and have your way.

Taking off the outer jacket of your hanbok, you stretched out your back before making your way to the expansive desk in the corner of the spacious room.

Contrary to popular belief, your office was rather simple. With just your desk and a little table for guests as the centrepieces. There were multiple shelves displayed on the other walls. You liked to keep the space simple as the place mostly gets covered in the amount of work you finished over the spans of days.

You made yourself as comfortable as you can in the seat, and began with the papers that were underneath the paperweight. Picking up the brush nearby, dipping it into the already grinded ink, you then began to work on the necessary papers that were starting to pile up.

To say the least, your office was a busy destination. There were constantly people entering your office day and night but you made sure that those people were yours; to ensure that no unneeded individual could get any information that was likely going to threaten your position.

Minutes then morphed into hours leading you into the familiar embrace of the night.

Deciding that it was time to take a break, you stood up from your seat and began to organize the paper into piles that were going to be returned to the different departments the day after.

After that, you began to stretch out your sore limbs to try and relax your tense muscles. Groaning at how your muscles seem to refuse to move, you tried to warm it up by doing a few exercises.

As you were warming up, you noticed that the lavender oil that you have used earlier was still permitting a comforting fragrance within your study. Impressed by the quality, you found yourself spending some time inhaling the scent while stretching out your muscles.

When you were finally able to move properly, you walked towards the desk and pour yourself a cup of tea.

As you continued to work, Jungkook constantly entered the room to refill the pot of tea despite you insisting that you don’t need it. Though, you were thankful for his thoughtfulness as you got to enjoy a cup of hot tea that was tingling your numb senses.

Blinking a few times to help clear your vision, you looked over to the shadow that was behind your closed doors. Knowing who it is, you began to walk your way towards the door after setting your cup down, feeling the need to go for some fresh air.

However, before you managed to even take five steps, a figure suddenly approached Jungkook.

His shadow was quite tall and was quite similar to Jungkooks. The pair seemed to be arguing about something that you didn’t quite manage to catch on. Confused at whatever they were talking about, you started to contemplate whether or not you should intervene.

That worry soon came to an end when the door was pushed open.

“ Y/N?”

Letting the bitter taste of the tea coat your tongue, waiting for the effect to sooth your tired self and come back to life. Your tired eyes that were previously blurring your vision from how strained it was, slowly loosen up before clearing up.

Oh, how you missed this person.

Copyright © 2021 MintVender

All rights reserved.

[winterhawk-olympic-bang]

Emotive Writing

Guest Poster: @thepartyresponsible​

Emotive writing is about making people Feel Things. People use this all the time to sell you stuff, but we’re out here giving emotions away for free. Here are a few tips and tricks I’ve found to make people feel the most emotions.

Word choice:

This is the most straightforward part of emotive writing. Your word choices add an extra layer of complexity to your message. You aren’t just telling readers what happened; you’re signaling to them how they should feel. Most writers do this unconsciously, but being deliberate can make it especially effective.

Here’s a non-emotive, just-the-facts sentence: The soldier lifted his weapon and turned toward the enemy.

Here’s the same sentence reworked to make you care a bit more: The exhausted soldier raised his broken shield and faced the invading army.

The actions here are fundamentally the same, but exhausted and broken invoke sympathy while invading skews negative.

The words you choose are sign posts for the reader. They indicate how to interpret the story and help your readers orient themselves and form expectations. Subtly building expectation is important because, while surprise can be effective, shock is generally numbing and confusion tends to be irritating, so word choice helps you frame things and guide your reader along.

One of the keys here is to attempt some subtlety. If every sentence about your protagonist reads like an ad campaign (effervescent, brilliant, impervious) and every sentence about your antagonist reads like a political diatribe (cruel, spineless, malicious), you’re probably overusing your sign posts. People want to know who to root for, but too much emotive language can make them feel manipulated.

Think of word choice like adding spices to food. If you put oats in boiling water, you’re making oatmeal, and the spices you use won’t change that. But if you throw in some honey and cinnamon, I know we’re headed somewhere wholesome. If you sprinkle in little discordant notes of garlic powder and cayenne, what we’re cooking is a tragedy. And if you upend an entire bottle of cinnamon, a quarter cup of nutmeg, and toss in seventeen whole cloves, I am not staying for breakfast.

Narrative distance:

Narrative or psychic distance is the space between the reader and the character, usually navigated by the intermediary figure of the narrator. Your narrator can be an omniscient figure that knows the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of every character in the world. Or your narrator could be sitting on the shoulder of your main character, close enough to hear their thoughts and know their story but not so close that they speak with the character’s voice. Or your narrator could be your character.

If you want to ramp up emotion, you usually want a narrator who is very close to one character (or, alternatively, to separate characters in turn). But you don’t have to stay at one distance for the whole story, and, just like word choice, shifts in narrative distance can be helpful indicators to your reader about the story and the characters.

A sudden, dramatic shift in narrative distance is quite jarring, like a sudden zoom-in during a movie. It can be effective, but it’ll lose its punch if it’s overused. Generally, if you want to shift narrative distance, you should build to it slowly. Here’s an example of shifting from a distant third person to a closer third person:

They wake the Soldier because the archer is missing. He has a habit of slipping his lead, disappearing post-mission. The chase grew tedious years ago, but the Soldier runs it just the same. He’ll do as he’s told. But it bothers him, when he lets it. The why.

Why does he do this? the Soldier wonders, when he shouldn’t, when it isn’t his place. Where is he going? he thinks, when he can’t stop himself. Who is he running to? But he tries to think nothing at all.

Another trick of narrative distance is to suddenly pull back to show a character who’s been compromised, shocked, or deeply hurt by something. Imagine spending a long time in a close Bucky perspective, hearing his thoughts, and then being abruptly walloped across the face with: The machine went quiet, and the Soldier opened his eyes. Zooming out can emphasize what’s been lost. Because you aren’t just taking the soul of Bucky Barnes right out of him, you’re also taking that closeness away from the reader. You’re silencing the voice they’ve been listening to.

Whether you zoom in or out during highly emotional moments depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and also on who’s involved.  Some characters have loud, messy emotions that will get louder when they’re hurt. Some characters will freeze over and push a narrator further away. You can use narrative distance to show a character slowly opening up or suddenly slamming a door. But you need the reader to have a solid understanding of the character in order to follow what the shift means, which leads to the next component.

Know your characters:

So, here’s the thing. You gotta Velveteen Rabbit this. Every character is Tinker Bell. If you stop believing, they die.

If you want people to care about these characters, you have to treat them like living, breathing, fully feeling people. They have favorite colors. They have phobias. They have Friday night plans and blisters from new shoes and sesame seeds stuck in their teeth. They have superstitions and secrets. You don’t need to know all of these facts, but you should try to give the impression that someone could know them. The more real your characters are, the more we’re going to care about them.

Since this is fanfiction, you start with a receptive audience. Your readers are fond of these characters. Figure out why. Figure out which parts of the character you can relate to and dig in until you feel like you can understand the parts of them you can’t relate to.

Try to collect things that make you feel close to that character. I always have music playing when I’m writing, so I make playlists for characters and playlists for stories. If I feel like I’m losing a character, I’ll go back to their playlist. But you could also use Pinterest boards, reread favorite fics or comics, rewatch movies or fanvids, or spend an unreasonable amount of time researching bows and tactical knives. Whatever works!

Also, remember, your characters don’t know what story they’re in. They don’t know it’s going to end well (or terribly). Maintain that tension, because that’s where the emotions are. When you watch a good horror movie, you’re not really scared of the monster. You’re scared for the characters, because they don’t know if they’re going to survive.

Emotions come from the characters. That’s why it’s still sad that Tony Stark dies, no matter how many times you watch it happen. Tony Stark was brave and flawed and usually right and often sarcastic, and it hurts to watch him die because that’s a full, unique human we’re losing. We know him well enough to know he’s choosing to sacrifice himself and why he made that choice and who will mourn him.

Know your characters, and let them be messy and weird and wrong and hopeful and cantankerous and unique. Fear is relatable, flaws are relatable, and awkward, ungainly, stubborn progress is relatable. Just remember what it is that makes their progress their progress because, if you can swap Dominic Toretto in for Ted Lasso and have the exact same story, you’ve probably lost your characters.

Plan your emotional trajectory:

Okay, time to get a bit technical. This is for people who like to plan. For those terrifying, godlike writers who just sit down and write, this might not be helpful. For my fellow planners:

There’s a theory (which you can get a general overview about here or, if you’re very into data, right here) that there are six core emotional trajectories in narratives:

1)      Rags to riches (rise)

2)      Riches to rags (fall)

3)      Man in a hole (fall then rise)

4)      Icarus (rise then fall)

5)      Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)

6)      Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

Since rise and fall can mean different things, I find it helpful to combine these building blocks with emotional axes, which you can find some examples of here.

So, basically, for my winterhawk baseball au Got a Heart in Me, I Swear, I planned to follow the “man in a hole” trajectory (fall then rise) along the anxiety-confidence emotional axis with some bleedover from the humiliation-pride axis. Which basically means Clint started comfortable enough, nosedived deep into anxiety and humiliation, and then slowly built his way to confidence over the rest of the fic.

If the listed axes don’t appeal to you, you can very easily create your own. Just think of an emotion, identify what links it to its inverse, and then list the related emotions between the two opposites. Disgust and adoration are opposites, but they’re linked by attention, right? You can’t ignore something you find disgusting or adorable. So, here’s an example emotional axis you could follow: Disgust – Resentment – Obsession – Fascination – Reverence – Adoration. Enemies to lovers, anyone?

Emotional axes help provide a natural framework for your character’s emotional trajectory. They can be subtle; you don’t have to start on one end of the spectrum and go all the way to the other. A story that moves just a step or two on an emotional axis can be incredibly compelling. That small progress from discomfort to hope can hit really hard if the progress feels fought-for and earned and real.

Tips for writing emotions:

·         Get physical: If you want to show an emotion instead of telling it, describe its impacts on the body. Most characters won’t think I’m embarrassed. They’ll feel a drop in their stomach like someone cut the elevator cables and a hot stinging in their face like they’ve been slapped by some disappointed version of themselves. The more visceral your descriptions, the more the reader will feel them. If you want your reader to feast on feelings, you have to set the table.

·         Dramatic zoom: When something very intense happens, shift the narrative distance. In or out is fine, but a sudden, dramatic event should result in a sudden, dramatic change in focus. Characters might hyperfocus on their physical bodies (the mechanics of breathing, the ringing in their ears, the mad animal urge toward flight) or they might be kicked so far out of their own heads that they feel like they’re dreaming or watching the scene play out from overhead. This distance is useful for two reasons: it feels real, and it allows readers to absorb the situation in pieces, without being overwhelmed by it.

·         Unreliable narrator: Some emotions can be so charged that people don’t want to own them, like grief, shame, jealousy, rage, lust, and guilt. Characters might unconsciously misrepresent these to themselves as something else. A grieving mother might insist she’s tired. A rehabilitated assassin who’s fallen in love with an absolute dork might tell himself he’s just tracking a target. Everyone knows what it’s like to lie to themselves, so this makes characters relatable. And, also, everyone likes being in on a secret, so, sometimes, this is just fun.

·         Face the monsters: We’re often conditioned not to dwell on unpleasant things, which is part of why it can be powerful to examine them in stories. From small things like inglorious emotional states (envy, cowardice, resentment) to character flaws (recklessness, withdrawal, arrogance) to personal tragedies (loss, betrayal, abandonment), the negative parts of human emotional life pack quite a punch. Acknowledge them. Not only are they relatable experiences, but redemption and recovery arcs are some of the most compelling stories we have.

[fyeah-bangtan7]

J-Hope on Growing Up in BTS, His Next Mixtape and More

"We wanted to make music that can give people more strength," says J-Hope, in the first of our digital cover stories starring each BTS member

One of BTS’ many high-profile fans, Late Late Show host James Corden, says the group is “at their core, a force for good.” With his dimpled smile, warm manner, and fierce stage presence, 27-year-old rapper, dancer, songwriter, and producer J-Hope embodies the group’s combination of fundamental goodness and overwhelming talent; even his choice of stage name radiates positivity. In the first of Rolling Stone‘s breakout interviews with each of the seven members of BTS, J-Hope looked back at the group’s early days, reflected on his musical future, and more. He spoke from a studio room at the Seoul headquarters of the group’s label, HYBE’s Big Hit Music, wearing an olive coat over a crisp white T-shirt. His energy was restrained compared to his relentlessly buoyant TV interviews, but his high-watt smile was never far away.(In celebration of BTS’ appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone, we’re publishing individual digital covers with each member of the band; check back throughout the next week for more.)

Did you wake up and come straight here, or did you get a chance to do anything else this morning?

I went to the bathroom! [laughs]

So what have you learned about yourself over the course of this pandemic year?

It was an opportunity to learn how precious our ordinary lives were.  I had to think about how my life should go on and how I should just stay calm and focus even during these times. It was a time to reflect on myself a lot.

And what did you take away from that reflection?

The takeaway is I have to do what I can do best. Time goes on and life flows on, and we just have to keep doing music and performances. I just thought that I have to make music that can give consolation and a sense of hope to other people. You know, we’re just people, like everybody else. So we feel the same way as everybody else. So we just wanted to make music and do performances that other people can resonate with and that can give people more strength.

What you’re saying reminds me of the message of “Life Goes On,” which is a beautiful song.

That song came from thinking about what can we do during this time, during the Covid pandemic. It’s about the stories that we can tell at this point in time. It motivated us to really talk among the members about what we are feeling. So I feel that it’s an important song.

In some of your lyrics, you’ve revealed that there is sometimes a sadness behind the smile that everyone loves. How do you balance the positivity that you present to the world with the more complex emotions you may experience in real life?

Things are really different from how it used to be. I just try to show who I really am. I think that’s the most comfortable for me. Everybody has, you know, different sides from what they show. Of course, I do have a burden and a pressure as an artist. I just take them in for what they are. I just try to express that I’m going to overcome these difficulties.If I express those things, I think that also gives me a sense of consolation as well. We have been communicating with our fans ever since we became artists, but now I think it’s become more natural and comfortable. Before we tried to only show them the good side, the bright side of us. As my name is J-Hope, I only tried to show the bright side of our group and myself. But as the time passes by, one cannot feel the same way forever so I also felt other emotions. I tried to express those emotions through music or dialogue, to express them in a very beautiful way.

One of those songs is “Outro: Ego.” What were you thinking when you wrote that one?

It’s really about self-reflection, reflecting on who I am, my ego, as the name implies. It’s about the life of Jung Ho-seok [J-Hope’s real name] as an individual, and the life of J-Hope. And the conclusion that I draw from this inner reflection is that I believe in myself and I believe who I am, and this is my identity. And then these are the challenges that I have faced, and I’ll continue to face these challenges and do new things by relying on who I am.

In 2018, you released the mixtape Hope World, which was a major artistic achievement. What are your favorite memories of working on it?

You know, looking back, I think it was really pure, innocent, and beautiful that I could do such music at those times. When I work on music right now, I have an opportunity to go back to those emotions and think, “Oh, those were the days.” I think it really has a good influence on my music that I work on now. Through the mixtape I learned a lot, and I think it really shaped the direction that I want to go in as an artist, as a musician. I’m really just grateful that so many people loved my mixtape. I am planning to keep on working on music and to try to show people a [style of] music unique to J-Hope.

What are your thoughts on a second mixtape?

Right now, the goal is to get inspired and make good music. Nothing is decided yet, so I’m just going to keep working on music. I think my style of music will not greatly change, but I think it will be more mature. I will try to contain stories that I really want to tell in the second mixtape.

You just released the full version of the song “Blue Side” from Hope World. Was that just something you had the whole time, or did you finish it more recently?

It wasn’t a full version at that time, so I always had the thought of going back to that song and completing it. I always had that in mind. I think it was like two weeks or one month ago that I finally came to think that “Oh, I want to finish this song.” As I mentioned earlier, I really look back onto the emotions that I have when I worked on the mixtape.

When you started as a trainee you hadn’t rapped at all. You’ve obviously come a long way and developed some serious skills — what was that learning process like?

I still think I have some shortcomings. I still think that I have a long way to go, to learn more things. I have to find my own unique style. But I think I could only come this far thanks to the other members. When I first started training, all the members were rappers in that crew. So when you go into the house, beats were dropping, and everyone was just rapping in freestyle. It was kind of not easy to adapt at first, but I really tried hard to adapt to that new environment. And I think those were good times and good memories, and it was really fun as well.

You were very young when you began as a trainee. What’s it been like to grow up in BTS?

I think during my training, life was far apart from being ordinary. Because other guys, my friends, would do schoolwork at school and go on field trips and build memories as a student. And of course I chose this career, my own path, giving up those things. Maybe I could feel unfortunate to not to have experienced those things, but I was chasing my dreams. And meeting the members during our trainee days was really amazing, because it is just amazing that different people who were so different could come together to form a group. And I really want to thank those guys, and I sometimes I feel like I really want to go back to those days.

What do you think when you look back at BTS’ earliest videos, when you all had this almost tough image?

Back when we had released “No More Dream,” our music embodied the battle against prejudice and oppression. So naturally, such values carried over to the style and visual aspects of the release as well. You could say it was our identity and the image that we also portrayed at that moment. But we can’t forever dwell in that static state. As time flows, things change and trends change, as did our tendencies in music. We took into account the influences around us, including, of course, our audiences. These influences guided us toward our own change in musical style and concepts.

You’ve all said many times that when you first got together, there were conflicts because you had different backgrounds and different values. What were some of the key differences that made it tough early on?

We were just really different from the beginning, so it was awkward. It did take time to get used to it. We were living together, but we had to make sure we each had our own personal spaces. Eventually we learned to understand each other, and now we’ve been doing this for so long together that we have this sort of harmony, an understanding of each other that allows us to have the kind of teamwork we have. And each of us has different roles and different things we do in the music, so we also try to help each other in what we’re doing and try to help each other become better.

© source

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!