#I will always remember that creating a character is like creating a visual essay and I'm like oh ur on to something

[0tenn01]

I've learned too much information and now I need to kick myself into gear again

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[madrone33]

I don't know what to say. Thank you. Thank you Jorge. Thank you everyone who sung, and drew, and edited, and worked on EPIC: The Musical because you have all given me something that I will always - ALWAYS - remember and cherish.

I've been on this journey for over a year now, since Halloween 2023 when WolfyTheWitch posted a random short of Poseidon with the coldest musical lyrics I've ever heard. Ruthlessness brought me to this project, to this fandom. I was in all the events my timezone could reach, posted and messaged and freaked out with fellow fans on discord and tumblr and youtube and tiktok and twitch. I scoured the whole internet to find every piece of music, read the interviews, watched every livestream - most notably of which were the Ocean Crowdcast stream, the Circe Stream Crash of 2024, the Policy Violation Stream, and the IRL Odyssey streams XD

I got my family into it and was able to gush and rant and ramble to them about it; I've made so many friends because of this, and entered so many other fandoms too: MHSG, Udad, PJO, Hadestown, JCS, Lucids, DEH, and so many, many more; I've made essays and graphs and spreadsheets and analysis, discussing and picking apart the themes, characters, music details, motifs, lyrics; My voice has grown leaps and bounds because of how much I sing out loud now, I learned the songs on the piano, I started drawing?? I've written almost 112k words of fanfic for Epic, it's insane (and also not written down so much more LMAO). I even went out of my comfort zone and posted some of my writing and my covers which is CRAZY and nerve wracking and really fun!

Each saga I was left completely stunned and awestruck. Each saga I thought "surely, nothing can top this" and yet EVERY TIME I was blown away again the next time. The writing, the singing, the voice acting, the visuals, the orchestration, the lyrics, everything is just- !!!

Jorge. Miguel. Rivera-Herrans. HOW?? It's so good! It's SO GOOD!! And everyone's voices?? Everyone, just everyone is just talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same- THIS MUSICAL IS PURE ART, A MASTERPIECE OF A LEVEL HITHERTO UNKNOWN, THE LIKES OF WHICH MAY NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN. The fact that I was born in this spot in time, able to experience and appreciate and bask in the light of this glorious concept musical?? I am unfathomably lucky, and I thank the musical gods that it is so.

This past year has been one hell of a journey. I laughed a lot, I wrote lmao while actually only internally laughing a lot, I was tired and comforted and excited and anxious, I cried which I'm almost never able to do with media; Every day I would wake up and immediately check my phone for an upload notification, which is how I caught the Livestream today instead of missing it, so phew; I felt burned out sometimes, but managed to catch it and diversify my activities a bit, sinking into something else for a while before coming back refreshed and even more excited; My entire music wrapped this year was Jorge, Epic cast members' independent music, and greek mythology musicals; I watched the fandom grow even more, all the art, the fanfic, the theories, the memes, the friends.

I still don't think it's fully sunk in yet, but the entire musical is out now. It's done. I'm watched from saga three to nine, from Ocean to Ithaca. I've been here, every day, for a year. This is something that I don't think I'll ever experience again. I am so so thankful.

Thank you, Jorge, for bringing this into the world. What would it be, five and a half years now that he's been creating EPIC? He should be so proud, because I'm sure as hell proud. Odysseus finally made it home. The story is over.

But still, as Jorge said - This not the end of the journey, this is just the end of a chapter; the journey goes on!!

And I'll be here, taking that journey with you.

[mariacallous]

One of Russia’s most famous 20th-century novels has returned to the Silver Screen. Infamously difficult to capture as a motion picture (more mystical observers even speak of a curse), Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” is back, reinterpreted by American-Russian filmmaker Michael Lockshin. The new movie stars Evgeny Tsyganov and Yulia Snigir in the titular roles and features German actor August Diehl (Gestapo major Dieter Hellstrom in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”) as the story’s demonic character Woland. Meduza reviews the controversy surrounding the film’s director and funding, the book’s cinematic history, and Lockshin’s adaptation.

The political controversy

Michael Lockshin’s “The Master and Margarita” averages an impressive 7.9/10 rating with more than 43,000 reviews at KinoPoisk and leads Russia’s box office in its opening week after earning 57.3 million rubles ($640,000) on its first day in theaters, but the director was making enemies before his film ever sold a single ticket. Self-described patriots denounce Lockshin as a Russophobe, a traitor, and a neoliberal besmircher of the intrepid Soviet secret police. They call him a hypocrite, too, in light of the fact that this new adaptation of Bulgakov’s classic was made (in 2021, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine) with 800 million rubles ($8.9 million) from Russia’s Cinema Foundation, the state’s key funding agency for the domestic film industry. 

Lockshin, who now resides in the United States, declined to answer Meduza’s questions about the backlash in Russia, saying he’s not yet ready to comment on the situation. On Telegram, pro-war channels have circulated screenshots of Facebook posts that are now hidden from non-friends where Lockshin shared independent reporting about the war in Ukraine, wrote that he’s donated to Ukrainian organizations, warned that future generations of Russians will be paying reparations for the “tragedy they brought to Ukraine,” and compared the Putin regime to Nazism in Germany.

State propagandist Tigran Keosayan has advocated criminal charges against Lockshin, while Trofim Tatarenkov, a host on Russia’s state-run Sputnik radio (who admits that he hasn’t even seen Lockshin’s movie), called the filmmaker “scum” and fondly remembered how such “enemies of the people” were shot during the Stalinist era.

Previous adaptations

In May 2016, poet and literary critic Lev Oborin wrote an essay for Meduza answering several “questions you’re too embarrassed to ask” about Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita,” including the most shameful of all: Can I just skip the book and watch a movie version instead? The short answer is, yes, you can always skip the book. In fact, unless you’re a student or some other kind of hostage, you can skip the movies, too. But since you asked, there are at least two previous screen adaptations of “The Master and Margarita” worth knowing about.

The better-liked version, at least until now, has been Yuri Kara’s 207-minute film, made in the mid-1990s but not released until August 2011. Meanwhile, in 2005, Vladimir Bortko created a miniseries for Russian television that was criticized for uneven casting and even worse special effects. Unfortunately for Bortko, the 10 episodes drew deeply unfavorable comparisons to his beloved 1988 adaptation of Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog.” 

It’s also tempting to contrast Bortko’s miniseries with Kara’s adaptation — particularly how the two portrayed one of the novel’s most visually scandalous scenes: Satan’s Grand Ball. Filmed almost a decade later and made for TV, the sequence in Bortko’s series “looks almost puritanical” compared to Kara’s film, noted Lev Oborin. In raw terms of nudity and violence, this assessment is hard to contest:

So, is Lockshin’s adaptation any good?

Anton Dolin (a prominent Russian film critic who might be best known to casual Internet users as the interviewer who provoked Ridley Scott into saying, “Sir, fuck you. Fuck you. Thank you very much. Fuck you, go fuck yourself.”) liked Lockshin’s adaptation quite a bit. In a review published by Meduza, Dolin writes that the film “manages to retain the sharpness of the original source, which mocks Soviet power, and at the same time offers the viewer an innovative perspective on a classic text.”

Dolin praises Lockshin’s “Hollywood flourishes” and his capacity to juggle the book’s “genre and intonation incompatibility,” which has plagued past interpretations. The new adaptation brings a “circus element” to the story without sacrificing the script’s “rigidity,” says Dolin, while also “condensing the vastness of Bulgakov's novel into a coherent and clear narrative.” (You’ve been warned, formalists.)

Lockshin’s film takes some liberties with Bulgakov’s classic. For example, in the novel, the Master character doesn’t emerge until the middle of the book, leaving the reader to wonder about the title. In the new film, however, the main plotline belongs to the love story between Margarita Nikolaevna (the unhappily married wife of a Soviet functionary) and a writer she calls the Master. According to Lockshin’s script (which he co-wrote with Roman Kantor), the secondary narrative involving Pontius Pilate’s trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri (Jesus of Nazareth) is a play within the story written by the Master and pulled from production by Soviet censors after its opening performance. (In a feat of authenticity unprecedented in modern Russian cinema, the Jerusalem scenes, which comprise roughly 10 minutes of the film, are performed in Aramaic and Latin.) Meanwhile, all the adventures across Moscow involving Woland and his entourage are presented as figments of the Master’s imagination as he slowly loses his mind under state persecution.

As Lockshin has argued in comments promoting the movie, Dolin says Bulgakov’s novel enjoys heightened relevance in contemporary Russia, and the new film makes menacing villains of NKVD executioners while presenting even more revolting characters in the Soviet elites whose conformity and hypocrisy enabled the Stalinist regime.

Dolin praises the decision to cast August Diehl as Woland, the mysterious foreigner whose visit to Moscow sets the plot rolling in the novel. Diehl’s Woland “is a real find,” Dolin writes. The German actor plays the character as “an infernally sarcastic gentleman in black” who resembles Satan “more than the thoughtful, sad wisemen from various Russian interpretations of the same character.”

A cartoonishly scary foreigner, complete with a spooky German accent, Woland turns out to be the creation of the writer’s wounded mind, his alter ego, writes Dolin. The censorship and persecution the character faces in the film are a “chilling reproduction” of mechanisms that resonate more in Putinist than Stalinist Russia, Dolin argues, highlighting some lines that wink boldly at modern-day realities, including nods to Crimea, oil production, and military parades.

Lockshin’s adaptation also features a fantastical version of Moscow that recalls the visionary designs of artists in the Higher Art and Technical Studios, which flourished in the 1920s before crumbling under Stalinism. In this universe, Moscow completed the Palace of the Soviets, altering the skyline in a delirious finale that depicts the city ablaze. This scene, in particular, has upset several state propagandists.

Dolin notes that Margarita is absent from the story for much of the film, but she reappears in the final act as a heroine on her own narrative arc. In the character’s scenes as a witch and then a queen, Lockshin’s intentions and the meaning of the novel’s title finally become clear, says Dolin: 

It’s not the imagination of the writer that transforms the grim reality but exclusively the emotion that is capable of elevating you to the heavens, of burning cities, and punishing or pardoning with the mere force of thought. In the end, Lockshin’s film is not about Satan, not about Moscow, not about Pilate, and not about totalitarianism, censorship, or creativity, but about love. It alone makes a person invisible and free.

[pendulum-sonata]

1 and 21.

1. Character that everyone gets wrong.

Lol, we're starting with the heavy weaponry aren't we? You know? To spice things a little bit, I'm gonna choose an Arc V character and a Kubera character, even though only one of my mutuals reads the last one >.>

Arc V

Well... as much as I would like to say Reiji again, I think I've established enough times how misinterpreted his character is, so this time I'll choose...

Ray Akaba, I wasn't even aware that there were still people around who apparently hate her so much, that they would call for the "Ray hater nation" or whatever, I'm not gonna mention who it was but it was very recent, which honestly makes me remember that one tweet pointing out how silly people sound when they justify not liking badly written female character, how they'd supposedly love them if they were better written, when they couldn't handle any of them having one bad feeling for they boyfavs.

And that's really all there sees to be behind A LOT of the Ray hate going around: They hate her because canonically she defeated Zarc and she split him and then split herself to chase him across dimensions, and hate that she was the one who had to give the coup of grace in the duel against him.

They hate that canonically, Ray is one of the best duelist in the yugiohverse, and they will pull the weirdest excuses out of their backside to justify why she's the worst, how she was "too conceited" to believe she could take Zarc on her on, like excuse me, she absolutely took him down, TWICE, not sure what series you were watching, how she supposedly pulled a deus ex machina with the En Cards, as if the requirements to use them weren't ridiculously difficult to meet and wouldn't require a very skilled duelist, how she was dumb for sparing Leo because he caused an wat to bring her back, like, sweetie, the world would have ended anyway because with or without Leo, Zarc would have awakened eventually, that's why Ray set herself to always chase him down and defeat him over and over, like honestly i could dedicate a whole rant essay to the ridiculous claims I've seen made about her.

But the one thing everyone ALWAYS gets wrong is this, and I'm gonna put it in all caps and bold text because it needs to be said:

RAY ALONG WITH ZARC CREATED THE PENDULUM SUMMON AND THE PENDULUM CARDS!!

(AND VERY LIKELY ALSO YUYA'S PENDULUM NECKLACE)

Seriously people, this isn't rocket science, the entirety of the 6th opening and ending is FULL of visual cues about how the both of them did it, we have visuals of Yuya and Yuzu forming the energy for the Pendulum, we know Ray was able to create and give cards to Reira in her spirit-like form, heck, lately the card game has released a bunch of cards that attach the word pendulum to Ray as well, come on.

And that's just something that a large portion of the fandom always gets wrong about her.

Kubera

For this webtoon there is way too many people with the worst takes on many characters, befitting as the characterization of the story is very complex and well-made, and many of them are girls, and the girls can just as flawed and commit terrible actions as the dude characters.

But one character that seems to exceed the number of bad takes rather than the good ones is Menaka.

Menaka is a nastika, a race who in this story are sort of like opposing force to the gods, the author has even mentioned that humans sort of see them like "evil gods", some fit the label more than others, and others like Menaka are the exact opposite of evil, she was actually hailed as the one nastika who was qualified enough to eventually become the wisest king of the clans, and would be the first one to reach enlightenment and defeat one of the main villains. Unfortunately this one villain would have none of that and screwed her over on a cosmological level to the point it costed her everything, her power, her life, her clan, her future, and she ended up being screwed over after her death and then some more.

Without saying too many things confusing to non-readers that's the gist, as as the type of character who was tricked into abandoning everything for the greater good, and lived and died to regret it because she ended up doing a lot of damages for her decisions as well, and then sacrifice herself once more she's the perfect candidate to be hated, mischaracterized, mocked, straight up make things up about her character that you'd thing they're talking about someone else.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that people called her a groomer and the true villain of the story, not like a joke or hyperbole, but as like what they actually think of her -_-'

Uff, that was hard to write without possibly spoiling anyone lol (don't judge me, Kubera in ongoing, Arc V is over :P)

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

Arc V

The Xyz arc, that all I have to say, I mean, you guys know me, for those who follow me when it was airing, you know my feelings about it and you know the absolute boredom that brings me every single time any of the xyz dimension characters were the focus (unless Yuzu, Dennis, Sora or Yuya were in them lol)

People love to say that the series did them dirty because they deserved a full arc, but honestly, we deserved a full arc dedicated to the fusion dimension, and I will die in that hill.

Kubera.

You know? Kubera doesn't have overhyped parts, because the series as a whole is just so underrated and obscure, and everything is so interwoven together, that it's impossible to remove any parts without affecting the overarching plot so... *shrugs*

[umberpath]

There's an ice floe in the broken cream film that floats on the ocean of my coffee

I am miles in the air, watching months of motion pass while I blow to cool it down

It's a little empty world

It's a whole faux memory away

I've been there in this moment only,

in both my bedroom and above that sea,

on the rocky cliffs that it crashes against in the overcast spring

when the gulls wail and swoop for fish

that do not exist and never have

And I remember the wind on my neck,

the cold in my fingers, the rub of my coat,

and I return to present, though I was already here

I look down, my coffee still hot, now clear

holding a fish mug the color of the coast

and a taste in my mind the color of its water

I blink and it fades, but I want to visit again someday

if only in my memory

of the memory

---

Notes/thoughts beneath readmore.

Dissociation, a vivid imagination, and homesickness can make for beautiful sights. Oftentimes it can be a melancholy adventure to detach from the real around you and picture somewhere greener, so for us it's better pursued through focused meditation than suddenly becoming...loose, but so it goes. You cannot always choose when your hold slips. I was in the middle of drinking my coffee after all.

That being said, as mentally constructed as these places we visit are, they are formed of real memories of sensations and visuals, of emotions and events. Whether it's a rocky coast, a mountain vista, rolling hills, forest trails...we are reliving memories that have been broken down into their bare ingredients and reformed into something new. Simulated nature. Imperfect, patchy, and distant, yes, but the mind is a powerful engine. They soothe the ache for home in a unique and special way.

That is to say, I like to think these places are 'real' in the sense that they inspire and recall real feelings and thoughts. In the same way a dream can touch you. How it can leave you wondering about the little simulated world you were taken to in your sleep and the characters cobbled from your subconscious. Never breaching through the barrier into the tangible, but effecting you in other means.

As a collective, I suppose having a headspace and mentally woven bodies means we view space portrayed inside the mind with a little more tactility than usual, but that's not necessarily special. Still, it certainly informs the experiences of meditation and dissociation both (who would have thought from a dissociative condition? haha.).

Long winded, I know. This was supposed to be a quick poem and here I am creating an essay. I am a chronic waxer of introspective nonsense.

[radellama]

29, 42, 58?

29. favourite film(s)

Whenever people ask my top choices, it's always these:

Gattaca - beautiful character driven narrative, low concept sci-fi, and dramatic all at once. I really liked this movie the first time I saw it as a young teen when there was a run of it on TV, and then we had to watch it for year 11 English and I was like 'yoooo I love this movie!' (but unfortunately we had to compare it to a piece of shit play called cosi which I was lowkey offended by the way they handled the subject matter, but I digress. Worst thing to write a comparative essay to🙄) I also took the opportunity to write the scene analysis I wanted to in uni while studying film, which is so fun cause there's such evocative imagery in the film, even if it's a bit in your face at times haha. I watched it a lot during lockdown, I think at least 20 times in the latter half of 2020. It's just a nice film I like it. And Andrew Niccol (writer/director) also wrote The Truman Show, which adds a fascinating layer when you look at both films together 😉

Napoleon Dynamite - this is just such a funny and quoteable movie, and every other moment makes me laugh, either at a visual gag, the dialogue or delivery of, or just out of endearment. There's some interesting points at just watching a slice of life type of movie like this, and when they're pulled off in such an entertaining way like this I reaaaally love the mundanety of it!

Daddy Day Care - childhood favourite, what can I say. I could probably quote 90% of the movie off the top of my head, so much is ingrained in my mind lmao. Like any time I come across anything laminated, or this iconic scene, or the 'loser, loser, looooser!!' that I do to my siblings often. Another down to earth, slice of life type movie. Also all the licenced songs in the soundtrack I associate with this movie, and being a Trekkie enhances the experience but isn't necessary lmao

Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan - brilliant fucking movie. I know most Trekkies say this is their fave, but I think this is mine for the series. I started a new tradition when I trans gendered and now watch it every year the night before my bday with some apple crumble and ice cream. Been going strong the past couple of years! I just love how tense the story can get when there's the chase and circling of each other when Khan decides to get his revenge, and the emotional highs and lows of the movie just hit. It's the perfect kind of drama for star trek, and I'm so glad Nicholas Meyer chose to bring back Khan as an antagonist and create such a rich and layered narrative to enjoy

42. favourite book(s)

Unwind - Niel Shusterman

I read this in the library of my last high school, the one I graduated from. I had already moved a couple of times and was incredibly socially anxious (still am, but not that bad anymore.. Usually) and didn't really try to make any friends cause I couldn't be bothered LMAO. Before I ended up with a nice couple of friends, I'd just go through the sci-fi and dystopian sections in the school library, and amidst all the schlock, THIS stood out and was genuinely a great read. I bought the box set for a past bday gift to self, but haven't had the time and remembering to read align to go through it again. The topics explored here are so fascinating and get dark and confronting in ways that were really great and harrowing to read as a 16/17 year old, and I look forward to reading it again.

Levius - Haruhisa Nakata

This is a manga I just took a chance on, seeing it on the shelf and really liking the art style. Flicking through the pages just confirmed that it was fucking gorgeous, and after buying and reading it, I'm soooo glad I did. Although I enjoy the sequel/continuation levius est as well, there's just something about the original run that hits harder, and it was sad to see some details of it changed and undone in est. Still, great manga and I wanna go through and read it again soon and try draw stuff for it maybe

Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

Childhood favourite, I read and reread all the Narnia books over and over as a little kid. I don't remember much anymore cause it's been years, but I should really pick them up again and see what changes now I've lived a bit more life. I remember really liking the horse and his boy in particular when I was a kid, which is funny to look back on... But I'm saying the chronicles as a whole lol can't stop me

Noragami - Adachitoka

Na na na na naaa I'm saying the whole manga series! I need to finish catching up with the manga (I was doing well reading them but then some health issues popped up and I couldn't read for so long and it made me sad, I'll get back to it soon hopefully 👊😔) but seriously. What a fucking fantastic story, I love the kind of.. religious inspired fantasy here, it was my favourite anime as a teen (and probably still is) cause a lot of the drama and plot points just feel so good. The characters are all so fun and I loved the main trio of yato, hiyori and yukine so much, but the extended ensemble cast are so great and it's really fun getting to know them and their histories...

58. description of my best friend

Reverse jerk off time 😏

We've been friends for so long and it's funny to think about how different the dynamics have been over the years. I remember when we were in every single elective class for some reason in year seven, even tho all the electives were supposed to have rotating students so we all got a chance to meet each other and not have the same students all together. We didn't talk to each other until a mutual friend at the time introduced us, but I remember we got along singing Smosh songs and would discuss (and argue) almost everything LMAO. We also got on due to our mutual interest in writing, and I remember a lot of times where we'd share little bits of our stories and even try write some stuff together.

All these years later and we're still doing that. It's been fun seeing how much you've changed over the years, and how that reflects in your story telling (tho you should write more) cause you've had some really interesting ideas for characters and stories and it's fun hearing them grow into what they've become. We definitely need to write and film stuff together at some stage, even if it takes a few years to get going lolll

You're funny, a bit cheeky, clever and way too tall. Can't wait for the next phone call where we just make noises for a few hours and then once it's 2 am start discussing deep character motivations, like "do you think they get horrrnnyyyyyyyy???" And make up silly shit that is not at all canon to our stories. Unless it is, just depends 😏

[theotherpages]

An Essay on AI Art

Steve Spanoudis, 8/12/2023

Some of my friends are upset with me for generating AI art. I am not really a fan of AI art - in general - but I am a practitioner of it for some fairly specific reasons - some of them creative, and some of them practical.

Before I start: there are 22 images included with this essay. Can you find the one that is NOT created using AI? Hint - NONE of these are photographs.

First the negatives. There are several very big negatives. The most obvious is that with AI art, as with deep fake videos and AI authored text - someone is creating artificial realities that can be both authentic in appearance and absolutely fraudulent in intent and messaging. This is doubly dangerous in the times we are living in, in which our increasingly polarized society is constantly searching for scraps of evidence that fit their narrow worldviews. That did not start with, and will not end with AI. But for people who exist in echo chambers, things are probably going to get worse.

There is also the problem that it’s too easy. Yes, that is a problem. Anything of worth should be gained at a cost - a cost of time, or effort, or pain, or in trade for something else also of worth. Anything we gain too cheaply we do not appreciate, and in honesty, we do not understand. In my case, I have been drawing in perspective since I was ten and writing programs to draw things since I was thirteen (old enough to bicycle to the university, sneak into classrooms, and copy down class accounts and passwords). I never claimed I was good at it, but it gave me understanding and appreciation. And a viewpoint. Five decades of perspective. Of appreciating how hard it is to turn difficult ideas into something I can share.

Another negative is the fact that much of AI art is essentially theft. Clearly the ‘bot had to be trained on something - actually millions of somethings. The most obvious issue here is that those artists, or their estates, which own those intellectual properties, are owed both the right to approve or disallow derivative uses of their work, and financial compensation for the use of their intellectual property. They never got those opportunities, or that compensation, and that is clearly wrong.

And this is a rapidly expanding problem. We’ve seen it mainly in visuals so far, but I suspect we will see the problem increasingly in writing (hence the screenwriters’ strike), and eventually in music as well. Autotune was only the beginning. “Is it real? Or is it MidVoice AI?” (My apologies to Memorex, for those who remember.)

So why do I make use of AI as a platform for generating art? For one thing, as a novelist, I have spent a lot of time exploring the idea of AI, and as AI-enhanced tools come available, I want to explore those too. For another thing, it is an enabler. A minor one or a major one depending on your viewpoint, but within its parameters it can often provide an effective way to translate words and ideas into images. Not always - there are limits, and iterative guidance is needed, though that may change over time. It helps me see what my written character descriptions might look like, with interesting variations.

So, for example, instead of me spending a month painting a book cover or making a visual character sketch I can live with (I paint with Acrylics on stretched canvas mainly, and am not great at faces), I can now create something within a few hours using a combination of prompt-based AI art, iterating on text descriptions, and post-processing in several additional sets of photo and painting software.

I can even paint something by hand, and merge it with AI art to create a hybrid, or edit the AI result and fix inconsistencies and things the software has not been trained to express - either because of language limitations or because certain described concepts are beyond its range. In my view, the recent advances in AI art have created a powerful tool. A tool with limitations, and a tool with great potential for abuse, but nevertheless, a tool.

One of the things I DO NOT DO, and will never do, is to intentionally ask for anything “in the style of” or “in the manner of” and try to pawn it off as my own work. I have no desire to usurp someone else’s creative ideas or techniques, or infringe on what they should be earning for their work. Lord knows how hard it is to get people to value real creativity in any appropriate monetary way. Just look at NFTs. The value has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the artwork (or anything else).

Are you going to point a finger at me for using AI tools and argue that it’s a slippery slope? That any use of the technology only leads to it becoming wider-spread, and potentially even more filled with abuses? If so, my response is to hold up a mirror. Do you have an avatar on your profile? That’s AI art. How about your background image? Did you create that? If not, are you crediting the person who did? Grabbed an image from Google to illustrate your presentation? How readily visible is the provenance? Do you like movies or video games with CGI? More AI. And if you are a social media user (you probably are if you’re reading this) what percentage of stuff that shows up on your own personal space is something you created? Or are you just recycling other people’s material? Lots of slippery slopes here. Convolved and confounded both in terms of who created it and how it was made.

And what about your home? My house is filled with original paintings I have bought directly from artists I know and admire, and photos I have taken myself, or bought from other photographers. There are only two non-original artworks in our home - one was a gift and one is an old picture of a place on my bucket list that I haven’t gone to yet. How many things in your world are copies of copies of copies that the originator probably doesn’t get a penny off of? It’s not just digital rights that are slippery.

In an honest discussion we must admit that the genie is out of the bottle, and has been out for a long time. It’s just been getting better at doing genie-kind-of-things. If you really want to combat the advance of AI, then be an activist consumer. Buy physical art from real people. Buy the books of real poets. Support your local bands. Go to real museums. Do things that put you and the artists in control. But also appreciate that the AI tools are going to be out there and they are going to be used. They already are. If you really want to understand them, go experiment yourself. It’s not that hard. I certainly have grown to appreciate them. But at the same time, I’m also teaching my 3-year-old neighbor how to paint with watercolors. Acrylics next, then pastels. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I know where I draw my lines. I’ve found my balance. Find yours.

So which image was not created using an AI program?

--Steve

Thanks to the current MidJourney interpreters for generating the AI images.

[rollercoasterwords]

fancasts + the prettification of queerness

hello tumblr this is gonna be another essay that nobody asked for but this post got me thinking thoughts and my go-to person to rant to is my aroace sister who literally cannot understand or relate to what i'm talking abt when i get into this stuff so. here i am <3 i'll put it under a cut tho

ANYWAY as i've gotten deeper and deeper into the marauders fandom over the past year i have of course seen hundreds of tiktok edits + pictures + artwork + discourse about fancasts/faceclaims and the ways different people picture the marauders. and this is not me trying to put anyone on blast or make any kind of moral judgment about the way other people visualize these characters; i honestly don't really care much how somebody else pictures a fictional character. BUT i have felt an odd sort of disconnect from the way i see many people imagining these characters, and i wanted to talk about why + where i think that might come from -- i'm gonna focus specifically on the girls here, because i'm a lesbian and this is just where i notice it most.

essentially, the disconnect that i have with most of the visual portrayals of these characters is just...they are all pretty. they are all so palatably pretty. they are all so pretty in the same way; they are almost always skinny, and long-haired, and pixie-faced and feminine and boring. like jesus christ, they are all pretty and it is so fucking boring.

and i think this is just a topic i've been thinking about more and more lately, but like...being queer does not automatically undo the years and years of socialization when it comes to cishet beauty standards. like we are all taught to think of beauty in strict standards that are deeply rooted in white supremacy, in classism, in cisness, in heterosexuality. and it creates this beauty standard that is so cookie-cutter and just demands the replication of the same features over and over again and...idk. it's just been making me reflect a lot on my own experience with queer attraction + desire.

like, growing up and undergoing this intense cishet socialization when it came to beauty standards alienated me in many ways from like...a genuine understanding of my own attraction. because i never experienced attraction the way i was told i was supposed to, and so when i tried to be attracted to things i was supposed to be attracted to, it just felt very plastic. it felt like i was watching myself as a spectator, thinking, would this look good in a video? would this look good in a picture? would this look good on a screen? and thinking that's what i was supposed to be attracted to.

and then once i began to embrace my queerness, there was still a lonnnnnngggg process of slowly, slowly unpicking those beauty standards (which i continue to do today; it's not a process that ever really ends). and so when i first started embracing attraction to women, specifically, it was still very much rooted in these cishet beauty standards. it was still centered around what was "conventional." and it was still disconnected from what was actually attractive to me.

the more comfortable i've gotten with my own queerness, the more i've reconnected with my own queer desire + my own queer experiences with attraction, the more alienated i've felt from the way that so many people around me discuss and think about attraction. like...there is just so much about conventional beauty standards that isn't fucking attractive. and it's like. idk. it's just weird!! it's weird to find things attractive when so many people around me think those things are weird or gross or icky.

like, ok. here's an example, right? orange is the new black. it was super popular while i was in high school, and i remember the craze surrounding ruby rose when they were cast. like everyone was going on and on about how attractive this person was. and it was no big deal to be like "omg yes ruby rose" bc in many ways they fit conventional beauty standards. like obviously they were gnc, obviously they were kinda butch, but they were still white, and skinny, and just...pretty, y'know?

now, big boo? completely different story. another butch lesbian, right, but people very much treated her character as like...ugly gross dyke. for general audiences, it was unfathomable that someone like big boo would actually, genuinely, be seen as attractive. because she was fat. and she wasn't pretty. and she didn't check enough of the conventional beauty standard boxes to make her palatable to straight audiences.

and this is something that i feel like happens so often with lesbians, specifically. it's all palatable and fine as long as the women are conventionally attractive, but people will react with such visceral disgust the second that these strict beauty standards aren't met. and i mean visceral disgust. people hate ugly lesbians in a way that is rarely questioned, because it's easy to laugh at the stereotype of the fat ugly dyke. and i just...idk. it makes me feel like i'm living on another planet sometimes. because fat ugly dykes are literally some of the sexiest people alive to me, so...???

anyway, i didn't really set out with this to make a point or come to a conclusion; i just wanted to ramble and write out my thoughts. but...yeah. i think this is just a little bit of a disconnect that i have with much of the marauders fandom in the ways that we visualize characters. because for me, my involvement in this space is centered very much around connecting with queerness + celebrating queer desire + attraction. and so...idk. i'm sick of pretty people i guess lol. and it's not like this is anyone's fault, but i do think it would be cool to see a bit more conversation around the ways that conventional beauty standards are so often rooted in systems of oppression, and also are so often removed from like...actual attraction.

in conclusion: i love ugly dykes!! i love fat dykes and hairy dykes and butch dykes and gnc dykes and i would love to see them celebrated more bc unpicking ingrained cishet beauty standards is so beautiful and so freeing and...yeah. i love attraction that falls outside the boundaries of cishet understanding <3

[meat-wentz]

Not to be creepy but I’ve been lurking through all your playlists on Spotify because of the pool boy one and duuuuuude their so good! I know you mentioned having a process about playlists so can you spill your secrets because apparently I need to up my playlist game.

omgggg not creepy at all, ty for listening to my brain worms!!!! ALSO THANK YOU FOR THIS QUESTION I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO CREATE PERFECT PLAYLISTS. buckle up for a long post. (links at the end lol)

this is a habit primarily formed out of two things:

1) making personalized mix cds for my friends through high school and into college because i never had money to buy them gifts for birthdays or holidays. (literally a core tenant of this practice was starting every mix with money by the drums so they knew “i want to buy you something but i don’t have any money”). this helps you cater your music taste to a specific person, encapsulate who they are to you, and also what you want to give them as a sign of your affection, whether it be a song that aligns with their music taste, or a song that sends a message (i want to buy you something), or just something that describes the relationship you two have. this skill helps a lot when you move from friends to characters and shaping those characters in your brain!

2) watching a lot of movies, promptly downloading the soundtracks onto my ipod and studying them throughout high school and college. in fact, much of my music taste has been formed by my favorite movies so i always recommend putting on your favorite soundtracks and studying the way they capture the feeling, atmosphere, visuals, and narrative of the movie they’re attached to.

^ this has also helped me INFINITELY with writing, fiction or non-fiction, i always need to be completely immersed when i write and what i listen to is soooo important in keeping me in the headspace. for instance i wrote an huge portion of an essay on haunted houses as physical/traumatized bodies solely listening to get out of my house by kate bush on repeat for like months.

i typically start with a few things if i’m going for a more themed, narrative playlist: a title, three core songs, and a sort of visual guide (typically a playlist cover, could be a bit of a mood board if you prefer), a little bit of a one or two sentence narrative in the back of my head.

title says what it’s going to be and keeps you in the headspace, similarly with the cover art. these things keep me from straying too far from the sound or narrative im attempting to set up. getting distracted during playlists is easy to do!! you might want to put every cheeky vampire song on the damn thing but that’s not what we’re here to do! we keep it concise, it’s a curation, specifically selected songs in a specifically set order. this is why it’s always good to have that one or two sentence plot in the back of your head along with the three core songs. they’re like your beginning, middle and end. use those three songs to build from sound-wise and narrative-wise/transition from the beginning to the middle to the end.

you’ll notice that pool boy at the vampire mansion has three separate sections: a short opening of three songs about swimming/wetness/being sexy (focus on the fact that he’s a damn pool boy), a middle which is mostly funky little covers of disco/groove songs all surrounding the center piece stayin alive, all very sexy (pool shed sex chapter), and then the maneating blood fiend portion at the end, songs that focus on blood, murder, maneating, etc (pool boy now fully aware his employers are blood-sucking fiends). transitioning from one chapter to the next with a little side step into the 80’s and back out.

REMEMBER: COVERS ARE YOUR FRIEND. it would not have made sense for my personal ear to hear the original versions of the little disco chapter, instead opting for more industrial grit, dirty guitar noises, heavy bass, growling or screamy or sultry vocals, AND COVERS HELP ME ACHIEVE THAT. you’ll also notice the sexy boy motif, beginning with the og and ending with a dramatic sweeping strings cover, it shows we start somewhere and we end up somewhere else, the same but changed in a notable way (i do this a lot with specifically character based playlists). beginnings and ends are very important, sometimes i mirror them sonically, sometimes literally through good use of a cover, sometimes i’ll even opt for, like, pure atmosphere like wood larks chirping in a forest ssoundscape, no music at all.

puns and subverting songs to fit your needs creates a rich a layered text!! for instance “i’m your boogie man” means hello i boogie down on the dance floor, but in the context of a vampire playlist: that’s a literal boogieman in your closet.

also references are everything for people listening who will get it even if others don’t. this is why i pay so much attention to soundtracks! like you may not see operate by peaches as a halloween song but guess the fuck what it’s the song that plays during the halloween party in mean girls. you may not see backstreet’s back as a halloween song but if you watch the music video, that’s a fucking halloween song. make the reference!! it’s rewarding!! fit songs to your needs!!

i’ve mentioned this before but i got a lot of experience just being on 8tracks and listening to themed playlists there for years on end, as well as finding a BUNCH of music i wouldn’t have found otherwise.

some general rules i like to abide by:

personal playlists can be whatever, but themed playlists should adhere to a specific order and flow, as well as limiting play time to an hour and a half at most (feature film length or, generally i go for hour playlists that are the length of a good hour long episode of television)

generally try to limit the same artist to two or three songs at most, and never next to each other unless it’s like a FEATURE that those songs are next to each other.

spotify recommends proves to be a useful tool if you’re stuck.

i try to be subtle. if im making a playlist about a certain film, i won’t use a song from the actual movie, or i’ll opt for a cover of a song from the film instead. if i’m making a playlist about gerard or frank or whoever, i won’t put any of their music on the playlist (i will however use music they’ve mentioned liking). if im making a vampire playlist or a fairy playlist or whatever, i’ll try to avoid vampire or fairy songs and opt for songs about like blood or fangs or the forest instead.

also rules were made to be broken! i break my rules all the time! my style will not be everyone’s but ive found it to be successful for my playlist needs and also just generally in aiding my creativity. i will now plug some of my favorite themed playlists ive made:

Pool Boy at the Vampire Mansion

I’ll See You in My Dreams: A Twin Peaks Love Story

Misty Mud-Laiden Moors

Fever Dreams of the Erl King and His Thorny Touch

A Sleepy Western Motel Crawling with Vampire Cowboys

Songs for Sleuthing

Teenaged Outlaws

Ivy Leagues & Old Money

Anthems for Slutty Mechanics

The Flaxen-Haired Maiden and the Knight of the Seelie Court

NEW!! Sit. Stay. Beg.

i should also mention that i have a few reserve playlists of JUST music to add to playlists at some point, organized into: songs i just want to weasel in somewhere or will be helpful later, just covers, atmospheric or instrumental, and just generally spooky or sexy songs waiting to be somewhere. sometimes i’ll scroll through each of those and be like aha! a theme!! and go for it!!

[suenitos]

i am a lore head and i won't even apologize for it i was writting essays in my friends dms on the wholeeee thing until Um techno's passing where i lost any and all motivation to tap in (he was my favorite). idk it was so special i can atest that the reason it was sooo build up was because it worked in a way you could both take things at face value (as in, dream looking for the disc using his minecraft abilities being translated to him having those abilities in-character) and also imaginate stuff (such as burning george's house and/or the pogtopia arc could both be dramatized and downplayed). IDK IT WAS SO FUCKING SPECIAL

i do agree that q's lore being of incredible visual quality and cinematographic helped create this sense of greatness but it lacked so much succint stuff. you couldn't do anything but strong lore beats with that kind of lore, so a mixture of normal rp-ing and big lore cinematographics would've been good, but he missed the equlibrium and made a lot of people very annoying in how they reacted to the "writting" of the dsmp (like, remember those people saying that certain characters should have certain endings for how their characters had done, while the ccs were just having fun? yeah the change between dnd kind of rping to the fake idea of this being a fully scripted and narratively consistent arcs was q lolol). ANYWAY IDKKK lots of thoughts about everything always

sidenote on "is this lore" "is this canon" i also hatedddd that so much everything is canon lore. nothing is canon lore. lore doesnt even mean what you think it means 😭 you really mean plot.

YESSSS LIKE THESE PEOPLE WERE OUT THERE CHECKING EVERYTHING ANF CATEGORIZINFG EVERYTHIGN JESUS CHRIST THAT FAKE NATION YOU LOVE ROSE UP TO MAKE A DRUG MONOPOLY AND MAKE CDREAM'S LIFE HELL NOTHING MORE !!🌟

like people forgot really quickly that this used to be a mishmash of breaking bad and hamilton roleplay 😭 and most of the ccs are not actors or writers but they clearly had a lot of fun with it and again the relatively unserious medium of streaming made a lot of those moments actually more epic becuase it was serious but also not. i love your persepctive on this! its kinda funny you mention the dream irl abilities a little bit because i remember a few months ago friday got slammed for that here by an insane lorehead who was very much of the Everything Must Have A Reason crowd even though that was WAYY before any actual substantative plot HAPPENED.

i agree with the balance aspect and even though a lot more interactions between LN characters happened on other peoples streams (and was relatively more chill), i think the emphasis on these huge lore streams was a detriment to the story it was trying to tell whatever that was. i was confused more than sad that slime fucking died because as a casual dsmp viewer i only tapped into the big streams and nothing about the way slime was intro'd or integrated into the story through those streams really captured me the way someone might be swept into like crimeboys for example. it just wasnt the same. and also on the point of obsessive viewers FUCK michael i wish sapnap killed his ass

[tallbluelady]

between you me and those two lalafall t posing that azure dragoon in submission in the corner there what is your favorite part about screenshoting writing or otherwise producing content for your character?

Buckle up cuz I've been rotating this concept in general for a while!

Okay, back in college (I still feel weird saying that) I lent a friend my notebook cuz he missed a lecture one time. He noted that I doodled all over them, and asked why I did so. My answer was something along the lines that I was going to burst if I didn't.

And it's still true for me to this day. I have to write or draw or do gpose/screenshots cuz otherwise I'm going to explode. An idea comes to me and stares me and compels me to execute it. Hell, when I get a good shitpost idea, it feels like my third eye snaps wide open and I cannot get any rest until I make some sort of token effort to try and make it real in some fashion.

As for a favorite part? I don't know! The Defunctland tweet about film making being the worst thing other than not making films is pretty accurate on occasion. I mean, I do enjoy the fruits of my labor. I was scrolling through my own blog smiling at the stuff I've made before I started writing this answer. But depending on the creation, creating the thing is more important to me than having the created thing.

Like this essay of an answer! Not only do I feel obligated to answer you, but I have to admit that writing this is going to be more satisfying to me than coming back to it later and reading it. And that's been true for most of my life. I remember goofing off with spriting at a young age and just enjoying editing the visual of Pokemon trainers without worrying about posting them for a while. It's just been this last year and like, high school that I would get consistent feedback on my creative endeavors. College and working at my last job didn't leave me with enough energy to do creative stuff and present it in a viewable fashion. So that leaves me wrapping my head around the idea that I am having positive human interactions because of my blorbos and blorbo related content.

As for Rowan being the central character of this content? She's more or less the character I've always made creative content for. Whether it be in a Night Elf form or original Elf form or Elezen form, she's just been the vessel for any creative endeavors that need a person-shaped avatar to fill. Now I can confidently say that Rowan is probably distinct from her predecessors by virtue of being worked on so much more lately, but she's just drawn from the same primordial muse ooze that I've always been drawing from.

I think I hit all the points I've wanted to here. Well, the peer-reviewed, undiagnosed ADHD is probably a big contributing factor as to why I feel like I'll burst as a way to combat boredom (and for how this reads lmao).

But, uh, yeah. Thanks for the ask, anon. I hope it wasn't far more than you bargained for XD

[askaceattorney]

So, it’s finally here.

Ace Attorney's 20th Anniversary.

I still can't believe it's been two decades since the first game's release.

TWO DECADES! That's as many as two tens! And that's amazing!

(One of the oldest comic book references out there, by the way. Hilarious!)

Anyhow, I've talked to the other mods, and they agreed to do a collaborative "Series Essay" of our separate experiences with the Ace Attorney series as a celebration. Co-Mod will go first, followed by Mod Edgeworth. Finally, I, Mod Justice, will finish the post off.

Let's get started below the cut!

Co-Mod, whenever you're ready.

Co-Mod:

.........................

O-Oh!  That’s me, isn’t it?  Sorry, I was lost in thought.

(As usual.)

Oh man, where to begin?  I was first introduced to the Ace Attorney series through Matthew Taranto’s incredible webcomic, Brawl in the Family, which included a hilarious mashup of Ace Attorney and the Kirby series.  I didn’t quite realize it wash a mashup (no, for real, I actually thought the courtroom part was something he invented) until I discovered Shu Takumi’s incredible visual novel game, which happened to be about...lawyers?

Unfortunately, I don’t quite remember what clued me in to Ace Attorney -- it may have been a picture, a video, a blog post, or something else -- but the idea of playing a game where your goal is to defend your client from a Not Guilty verdict in a courtroom, mixed with the magic of anime (which I was only a moderate fan of at the time) was enough to intrigue me.  I ended up watching a playthrough of the first game, then watched about halfway through the second before it finally hit me:

Watching the games being played was no longer enough for me.

I had to buy them and experience the stories for myself!

So I did.  I went ahead and bought the entire trilogy on WiiWare (which made the pointing experience that much more fun), and all in all, I’d say it was a pret-ty good deal.  Long story short, I eventually bought every other game in the series, which didn’t include Spirit of Justice at the time, but you’d better believe I downloaded it tout suite the moment it came out.  And between defending Larry Butz and taking down a corrupt foreign monarch, I’ve had one heck of a good time with this series -- getting to know the characters, connecting to their experiences, and doing all I could to make things go the “Wright” way for them, even if it only meant pushing buttons.

So, what’s the secret to Ace Attorney’s charm, and how did it give rise to such a large and diverse fandom?  I can only speculate as a single fan, but I believe the answer lies in something the series’ creator, Shu Takumi, gleaned from the Japanese author Shinichi Hoshi -- the “element of surprise and unexpectedness.”  Sure, the games’ characters, stories, and music would still be awesome on their own, but the fun opportunities they give the players to realize something is amiss, then be thrown for a loop when they discover the truth, is what makes Ace Attorney games so much fun to play in my mind.  Let me tell you, when Athena’s fingerprints were supposedly discovered on a piece of evidence, my jaw dropped like an anvil.

Dai Gyakuten Saiban 1 and 2 -- or the Chronicles games, as I call them now -- have been just as satisfying as their predecessors, which leads into another thing I love about Ace Attorney: it’s one of the rare series out there that’s managed to not only stay satisfying, but even get better over time.  Sure, not all the games were smash hits...

...but each one of them created something new for the fans (and even newcomers) to enjoy, and the developers’ willingness to add new things here and there while maintaining the “heart” of the series (the logic-based mechanics, the hilarious writing, the difficulties involved in pursuing the truth, etc.) paid off beautifully in the end. Only time will tell if it’s possible to keep a saga like this going, but I’ll always be grateful for what exists now thanks to Capcom and Mr. Takumi’s creative genius and love for good storytelling.

(Hmm...  Anything else I want to say?)

Oh, yes!  And I also want to thank them for timing things so that Ace Attorney’s 20th anniversary would happen on my final year on this blog.  That worked out pretty dang well for me, huh?

‘Kay, I’m done.

Mod Justice: Nice work, buddy! Alright, now that Co-Mod's done, let's keep going. Mod Edgeworth, if you would?

Mod Edgeworth: 

Sure thing.

For me, my first discovery of Ace Attorney was literally when it was first advertised. I can’t remember how old I was at the time, but I’m certain I was… at least around 12? Maybe younger or older? It was during the time I was binge watching Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, which was between ages 10 to 16. That was back when both had really good shows… that weren’t potty humor and when SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly Odd Parents were addicting shows.

At the time, I wasn’t really that interested. For one, I was a TV watcher. I also didn’t know how to type until I was in Middle School and I was using Dial-Up internet. Yeah, that was fun. God, I missed this.

This was also the first time I was introduced to fan fiction and ironically it was on Nick.com on their blog. I was about 12 to 13, so I wasn’t at the age to join Deviantart… yet. But yeah, I wasn’t really interested in Ace Attorney at the time. I wasn’t and still am not really a gamer. I was mostly glued to the TV watching awesome shows like these

Wait, who put that last one…? Uh… let’s ignore that.

I was going through a phase, okay! Don’t judge me!

So, um…. I started getting interested in Ace Attorney around 2010 to 2011. At the time, I was still living with my parents and was jobless. I only had a laptop and, unless I could download the games for free, I couldn’t play anything. I did play Turnabout Trump from Apollo Justice online for free. I remember how hard it was. Since I never played the trilogy first, it was hell going through that. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was and I fell in love with Trucy the moment I met her.

So, I was shocked to hear people hating on Apollo Justice. It was fine in my eyes and I loved it for what it was. I have a better understanding now of why Apollo Justice was hated and called a Gary-Stew. The main character was reduced to a chump, the protagonist hardly had any character, the super powers did feel overpowered, the MASON system was a mess, all the characters from the trilogy were gone and everyone felt betrayed by how Phoenix was treated. Luckily, it was fixed by the time Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice came around, but that wouldn’t be for another few years.

I kinda fell out around 2012, because I was limited to what Ace Attorney games I could play online for free and I was more interested in… other things.

IGNORE THE LAST ONE! MOVING ON!

So… about a few years ago, I was into the Hetalia fandom. This would’ve been around 2016-2017. The creator had to take a break, after finishing World Stars, so I kinda got bored and went into Danganronpa. Unfortunately, I couldn’t purchase the game, since I don’t have the gaming system and I was too lazy to download and use Steam, unless it was a free game that I loved, was awesome and…

So yeah, around a few years ago, I purchased the trilogy on my smartphone from the Apple Store. After finishing it, I went to Ace Attorney Online. Not the French blog one (Side note from Mod Justice: the URL for that is aaonline.fr for those who wish to check it out for themselves), I mean this one.

During the time I was on there, I was playing the Miles Edgeworth Investigation games, then Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. I might go back there sometime. Eventually, I ended up on Tumblr and that’s when I discovered AskAceAttorney and now am a mod.

I consider Ace Attorney to be a very unique journey for me, because I was there when it first came in English and played Apollo Justice back when I was in High School. To see how much it’s grown and has affected me over the years is astounding. I even have a shelf for all of my Ace Attorney merch.

I find Miles Edgeworth especially to be a character that speaks to me. He is certainly not a flawless character. He has made horrid mistakes that effect him and his mental health. Even health wise, he deals with trauma and mental illness. I also have a disability myself and while it isn’t the same as Edgeworth’s, I feel how he deals with it inspires me heavily. Instead of denying his mental illness or using it as an excuse for his behavior, he takes responsibility and betters himself. Never once does he ever try to make excuses or justify his bad behavior, even going so far as to order Gumshoe to not defend him when Raymond Shields tells him he’s no better than the man that murdered his father.

I once admitted that I used to be very narcissistic and many of the things I did was make excuses for my behavior and use my disability as a crutch. My parents had to work with me for five years of my young adult life to erase that behavior. Ace Attorney teaches us to never use your own victimization or disability/mental illness to make excuses for bad behavior. If you’ve done something wrong, take responsibility and improve yourself. Dahlia Hawthorne was groomed, but that never excused what she did to Terry Fawles. The moment she manipulated him into suicide, what Terry Fawles did to her no longer mattered.  Manfred Von Karma was falsely accused of forging evidence and set up to a penalty by his own boss unfairly, but that didn’t excuse his actions of murdering an innocent man and orphaning a child. Even Miles Edgeworth, who was manipulated and used by his superiors, was never excused for how he handled SL-9 and allowed the real criminal run the Police Department. Non of the Ace Attorney characters are ever excused for any bad behavior. Not even the main protagonist, Phoenix Wright, whose unfair treatment towards Franziska and Miles Edgeworth led to him getting a taste of what it was like for them as soon as he started defending a criminal against his will.

I’ve watched plenty of shows and anime where someone’s victimhood becomes a justification for their actions. While I understand the idea of highlighting real life suffering, victimization should never justify one’s actions. Even making their victimization open to the public can make them feel justified without trying to better themselves. Ace Attorney uses victimization to highlight how it can impact everyone negatively and it’s only when those people take action to better themselves that they can improve. Not to say their trauma or illnesses will completely heal, but sitting down with the woe is me mentality isn’t going to improve anyone.

Even in this fandom and now as a mod, I’d like to inspire people to better yourself and avoid using victimhood as a crutch. Here is to 20 years of Ace Attorney teaching us how to be better human beings, having better taste in games and

Guilty Pleasures, I suppose? 

Mod Justice: Okay, so it's my turn now! Here goes...

I first discovered the series partially in 2014-2015 on the Flash game, "Escaping the Prison," played on YouTuber Markiplier's channel. Mark had mentioned “Phoenix Wright” in the video, but I - being a middle school student who, at the time, didn't know anything about how to look up references in video games I've never played - didn't think anything of it.

It was only a few years later in high school that my curiosity had finally gotten the better of me. As I was re-watching Markiplier's playthrough of "Escaping the Prison," I decided to look up the game(s) for myself. I watched a few videos on the series, and I was immediately HOOKED. After watching the video for “The First Turnabout,” I was drawn into the amazing world of Ace Attorney, traveling across the Internet and discovering many places to share and discuss the series. I even decided to play and create a few fan cases on the popular French fan website, Ace Attorney Online!

Because of Ace Attorney, I even got properly introduced to similar, semi-unrelated game/movie/TV franchises, such as Professor Layton, the Sherlock Holmes book/TV/movie franchises, and...

ALRIGHT, MOVING ON!

Needless to say, I discovered so much content within the Ace Attorney fandom (and beyond), and in 2020, my discoveries ended up including this AskBlog.

To be honest, I have no IDEA how I managed to discover it in the first place, but I don't regret it one moment. I started writing letters as a non-user at first, but then I got my own Tumblr account. I've been writing letters to this blog since then, and now, I'm officially a moderator of AskAceAttorney!

Even with the drama that this blog went through over the course of its life (even other than what happened recently), I’m glad I stuck around. Honestly, I never thought I would get this far in a video game series overshadowed by giants like "Super Mario," "Halo," "Mortal Kombat," "Spyro The Dragon," and so many other video game series.

And to think I had discovered all this because of a guy with a pink mustache prop who plays (mostly) horror games and creates wacky skits.

...Yeeeeaaaahhhh... weird.

But after so many years and so many good memories (and a few not-so-good ones too, I guess), it seems all that's left to say to everyone is...

Thank you, Capcom, for such an amazing, inspirational, and revolutionary video game series. And thank YOU, fans of Ace Attorney, for joining us on this ride for so many years. Whether you were a fan of the Originals, the new games, the AskBlog, a different AskBlog, or simply just an overall fan of the series, we appreciate everyone who is or was a part of the fandom for how long this series has lasted.

Here's to us: the Ace Attorney Fandom as a whole!

-The Mods

[sanstropfremir]

I’d love your thoughts on BTS and their current image and music if you have them and aren’t afraid of the mindless internet hoards.

Personally, I liked a lot of their older stuff, but haven’t liked anything since I think the Fake Love promotions 3+ years ago. They’d started losing their personality and soul before that album cycle, but it feels like the sanitization of their image and artistry really kicked into hyperdrive after that. Now most of what they do seems like a sterile money grab driven by the Hybe hive mind which is a shame.

ok alrighty (cracks knuckles) let's get into it.

now that i've fully given myself a headache watching the majority of the bts videography, here are three points i'm going to cover:

performative character and the lack thereof

interesting aesthetics and the lack thereof, and

the inevitable cracking of perfection

ready, set, let's begin.

1.

idol music is very clearly definited by spectacle based aesthetics. and it's had that structure for its entire existence. so i gotta hand it to hybe for this one, because they managed to revolutionize being utterly fucking average. the triumph of bts is that they're just some guys and they look like just some guys. hybe found a niche in the system and then gamed that system to the tune of one of the largest musical acts in the world. they're not marketing bts as a romantic parasocial relationship, they're marketing them as your friends. and that is just as insidious to lonely kids as a run of the mill romantic fantasy. but that's not what i'm here to talk about today.

there's a pattern i find very interesting with bts mvs and that is that i don't remember anything about them. specifically, i don't remember the stuff that's happening IN the video; not the styling, not the setpieces, if i didn't know the members i doubt i would remember them either. what i DO remember, is how expensive the production is, and specific shots. i couldn't tell you what a single member was wearing, but i sure as hell remember that first upward angle shot of jungkook and the rusted park ride in spring day. or every single time they do that birdseye shot of jin in like every video. honestly as far as i'm aware jin has only ever worn a loose fitting beige longsleeve shirt.

it took bts a long time to establish any kind of consistent visual character. and the character they did establish.... i don't know if you can call a family-friendly-style clean aesthetic 'character'. they debuted as a hip hop group to little (comparative) success, and then made a switch to doing an early version of where they're currently at right now. if you've seen any of the mvs, you know that this is a pretty significant visual change. i don't think it is inherently a bad change, since the visual branding for hiphop based groups always tips over into iffy terrritory, but it is dramatic enough and early enough that it doesn't strike me as a natural evolution. concept switch ups are common, but they usually work because the members have established a bit of character for themselves, used their performance abilities and presence to fit into a niche in the group. the idol mould is perfect for showcasing the performers; that's its function. the groups that are the most fun to watch are the ones with stage presence, the ones who know how to perform, who can act all the parts they need to play. and bts? 4/7 actual performers on a good day. in my personal opinion it's 2/7.

i'm gonna expand on what i said about jimin here (this is technically the first part of this series), because it does apply to the rest of the group on the whole:

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is.

bts has been very insistent on the image of the group as a single unit. despite having the size of fanbase and the revenue that would make any official solo debut a massive success, none of them have done any substantial solo work. this isn't artistically a problem, and i think it's very admirable of them to be so dedicated to the image and the legacy of the group, when that can be an uncommon trait in the industry. i do however, think it starts to become an issue when we want to discuss what the artistic visions and images of groups are. shinee taemin and solo taemin have two distinct artistic representations, and taemin himself will attest to that. it's the same with all the shinee members that have solo careers, and the same with other groups. jackson, bambam, yugyeom, and jaebeom's solo work is all very different from got7. yixing's solo work is very different from exo's. even the subunits within exo all have their own character (cbx and sc). kpop groups all ostensibly are trained under the same system, so why the disparity with bts? mostly, it's their brand of "authenticity." it's impossible to perform authentically, by the nature of performance as a medium it is unnatural, and tragically, not everyone is naturally interesting, or suited to performing: that's why the performing arts even exist in the first place. it required painstaking training to be good at performing; it is a complex set of skills and those skills are not learnt by "being authentic." being an idol is not just the singing, dancing, rapping; that's only half the work. you need to be able to act to be a compelling performer. pulling your true self and emotions out on stage every night is a fast track to burnout and psychological issues, there's plenty of evidence. the only member of bts of whom i can say for some certainty has a persona and a stage presence is jhope/hoseok, a) because he's kept up a very specific brand in the solo work that he has done, and b) he has actual dance training, not just kpop dance training. the rest of them may have the kpop dance and the kpop vocal training, but what they do not have is the ability to market themselves as compelling performers on stage. taehyung is the only other member i would hesitantly give a semblance of persona and ability to, but i think he stumbled onto that mostly by accident. and if all the pieces don't each have a distinctive colour, how can the whole machine be visually interesting?

2.

bts may never have been able to establish an aesthetic brand, but what they did establish is an intellectual one. if you talk to a fan, the schtick they give is that "it's about the lyrics." as noble as having an intellectual or cerebral message is, what does that look like? how do you portray intellectual on stage, on film? what about intellectual is interesting to watch? cerebral, by it's literal nature as a descriptor, is very difficult to communicate in visual language because it is internal. to successfully communicate cerebrality and intellect in a short form medium like music videos requires a deft hand with metaphor that can elude even an experienced designer. and honestly? i don't know whether to applaud hybe's visual team for being the most successful subtle contemporary designers i've every seen, or to decry them as worst kpop designers i've ever seen. maybe both. regardless, i don't think they're able to cross the gap.

there are exactly four mvs where i actually remember the content of the mv and not the frame it sits in, and those are dna, idol, the singularity comeback trailer with taehyung, and war of hormone. and of an eight year career......that's not very many. these four mvs have at least an inkling of interesting spectacle and character, but even then, it's still a stretch. there is absolutely nothing to write home about in the styling for dna, other than it's well colour matched. I don't even know if I should include singularity because it involves none of the other members. idol is probably their most interesting mv because it actually has alternative styling and varies (at least a little bit) from the standard hybe boom crane shot-that-shows-off-how-we-can-afford-big-studio-spaces-and-locations. the company and the group would be loathe to admit it, but war of hormone is a well designed and interesting mv for the time it was made, with a well crafted gimmick and some actual showing of character from the members. it was the start of a potential that they squashed quite quickly because it wasn't picking up in the hiphop-group-saturated market of 2014. but the rest of their mvs? remarkably uninspired styling. like it's truly impressive how boring the styling is. and like i've said, that is the triumph in their aesthetics: they all look like normal dudes (if you had professional skin + makeup techs looking after them for the last 8 years).

all of this is a carefully crafted image that's tailored to hooking an audience, especially an international one. the mvs are boring in the relative scale of kpop, but they're just different enough from a western pop mv to catch attention. and once you do sink a hook, there's a direct clickfunnel of content that bills itself on these men being "authentic" and "self-producing," which is a huge draw to international fans, because people are racist and believe that the kpop industry is a factory that produces idols like clones, where none of them know how to do anything other than sing and dance and all the music is just handed to them by companies. and they have SO much content that there's no way a new fan can get to it all in a timely manner, so they'll never have to engage with any other kpop artists' work if they don't actively seek it out. but that's another essay for another time.

3.

that brings us to current day, in which at least the last five bts releases have been in the same aesthetic vein of positive, sanitized, and pristine. i said it in one of my txt responses and i will say it again here: money scrubs the humanity from the aesthetic of living. minimalism is for rich white people. hybe and bts may have pivoted their style and brand directly into the lane of mass appeal, but when you pair that with the amount of money funding them, there's a cognitive dissonance between the message and the aesthetics in which it's portrayed. some people do like the clean cut looks, and i won't say that they don't work, but as you've likely gleaned from this response, it isn't my style and if you've been around and reading my writing for longer you'll know that my tastes runs much closer to the messy and the weird, so very little about any of bts' visuals have appeal to me. i do find the contradiction of applying the appeal of radical relatability with the aesthetics of expansive (and expensive) minimalism interesting; it's an extremely fine line that hybe is walking and eventually they are going to tip over, the porcelain mask will not hold forever. maintaining the all ages aesthetic is going to be difficult now that all of them are grown ass men. with other groups of this member age and generation there's very obviously been a shift to a more adult tone, and not necessarily explicitly. got7, mx, nu'est, btob, shinee, 2pm, and groups that have older members like a.c.e and sf9 have all made slow shifts in tone that are undeniably aimed at a maturing audience: they know their core fanbases are aging with them and they (the fans) are not as interested in the 'boy' in boy group. and most of them have telltale visual styles, enough so that i can distinguish a specific group's mv. the last year and change of mx mvs have a very distinctive character; got7 too, since easily as far back as if you do. i can always tell an a.c.e mv by its impeccable fashion and formic styling, and although shinee has always had a more experimental aesthetic edge, their sound and voices are unmistakable.

honestly, i can't predict what bts is going to do in the future, but i personally don't believe they can keep up their clean aesthetic indefinitely without some fallout. part of the fun of following bands is watching them grow musically, and the last couple of years of bts haven't felt like growth. there are fans that have already started realizing it, and there's likely to be more soon.

---

the third part is here, which is a short followup about some of bts' industry influence.

[space-blue]

Dune, the mostly spoiler free review.

Spoilers will be under breaks.

Having slept on it (and since I got to bed at 4am I needed that), and having eaten enough sugar to kickstart my brain again, I can now confirm, wholeheartedly, that Dune is a masterpiece.

Hardly a hot take on the internet right now, I know. I'll say this, to start on a low note : Dune's greatest flaw is that the side characters (anyone outside of Jessica and Paul) can be left wanting development. Some non-book readers might struggle to get attached.

The film simply doesn't have time to deliver narrative, mood and emotional characters the way Fellowship of the Rings did, as I often see the film compared to LOTR. Unlike LOTR, Dune has not shot part 2, and it doesn't have enough action beats/plot beats to give you engaging character interactions for 1/3 of the story.

As a result some characters seem to be "seen in passing". Which... Bothered me a little at 3am, but has since faded. My memories turn to Jessica and how incredible Fergusson was. Absolutely show stealing. And Skarsgard!! Yeesh, the Baron Harkonnen does not need more screen time to be intimidating...

All the cast delivers. The visuals, design, costume, photography... It's clear to me everyone involved in this was at the top of their craft and giving it their all for a career turning point of a production. I even struggle to believe book 2 could land such a punch again, I mean, I've rarely been punched in the face this hard by a movie...

I mean, I'm not the type to be into spaceships or anything. I even struggle with models in the Star Wars universe and I published 58 fan fics for that fandom so... And yet in this film, hah... When the Atreides ships are introduced (you see these big transports in the trailer) I was like "No. He didn't... OMG the madlad, he did." — the music, the visuals, the scale... And then there's the thopters, and I was having moments of prescience myself, seeing actual ship/spaceship nerds rise up, foam frothing at the mouth. Modeling thopters and making videos about them for years to come.

The audio was loud, bold. The music alien. The sound mixing done so well I had a snappy thought 2min in, along the lines of "I hope Nolan sits to this film and learns something about sound mixing from this" (don't @ me, I'm still spicy about my viewing of Tenet).

In short, Dune is spectacular. It oozes with mythos and charm, feels lived in, intimidating yet beguiling. The plot is as sound as the book's the visuals are a cinema/SFF fan's wet dream, the acting and production value are stupid crazy, and the only drawback IMO — for non book readers — will be the "in passing" characters (like Raban, Piter, Gurney, Hawat... Who simply don't have the space and time to shine yet) and the ending, which is 100% "INSERT CD 2"

It feels jarring and leaves you begging for more. But book readers probably won't feel the same pang, since we can now close our eyes and image how bonkers part two can be in such visuals.

I've over-heard old french people saying it was super boring and slow and... lol I can't disagree more, but then again the trailer does market an action movie, and the film is not any more action packed than BR2049 was. When the action comes calling it's big, fast... When it isn't, the movie is moody, deliberate, and meticulous.

It won't be for everyone, but if you've so much as "enjoyed" the books, you'll be having the experience of a lifetime.

Before I delve into some mild spoilers I'd like to make a disclaimer: Denis has begged people to see Dune in cinema, and I was thinking "of course, what film maker wouldn't want people in cinema?" but also suspected he might want the numbers in order to get part 2 started.

I owe him an apology for these impure thoughts. You MUST watch Dune in cinema, not for Denis or part 2 (though, come on...), but for YOURSELF. There is not a single home cinema set up that can do justice to this film. It's the definition of why you go to the cinema for. It's epic in scale, it makes you jump at startling moments, it punches and screams at you, and makes you squint at others, and you walk out of there with a sense of having witnessed something like... To me, like Interstellar. Remember seeing that docking sequence scene in the theater and walking out being like "holy shit" ? Well Dune is very much like that. It was made for the big screen, and anything short of IMAX or Dolby ATMOS would be a disservice to both the film and yourself.

I will be seeing it in France the instant it comes out in September. It begs rewatching.

Now for some spoilery thoughts (mild spoilers, and a warning for further spoilers below).

The film takes surprisingly little time to delve on certain topics. Like the spice. Sure you're told it's important, and the economics that drive the story make it feel important, but not nearly as much as I suspected it would be. There is no clunky exposition on the topic (lol no fucking time for that!) no scene where someone shoves spice in your face and goes “oh but blah blah spice must flow”. It’s said in passing and newcomers better hold on to their seat and pay attention.

Sadly though a fair bit of the dialogue was expositional imo, and too little of it over all felt like that heart warming moment between Paul and Leto. It's not a big drawback, but since I enjoy more character driven stories, I regretted the lack of general emotional investment.

On the point of emotions though, I was taken aback by Jamis! The scene of him in the trailers "I'll show you"... creates a sort of very subtle and implied dynamic that was probably one of the biggest heart punch for me, and started driving home how dire Paul's visions can be. I suspect some viewers won't interpret it the way I did though.

THE VOICE WAS SO WELL MADE YOU GUYS!! The thopter escape scene was always a "meh, sure, they get away" moment for me in the books. Good teamwork between Paul and Jessica... But *hearing it* was a completely different business. I was at the edge of my seat, I LOVED IT.

There's also a lot of actual signing in the film! And the Sardaukar don't speak english but a super guthural language. Kind of like making a conlang merging German and the Black Speech of Mordor and giving it to a Danish to speak. Felt very cool.

The shields were just as badass as you think they'll be. The slow impact weapons are just... *chef kiss*

Finally some heavy spoilers on book story details (jihad, Muad'dib, some characters) :

There is no mentions of Jihad, but not because it's avoided. The visions of a fight Paul has are rare, and he mentions them once. At that time he says war or massacre but not Jihad. I didn't notice until I was asked.

He also doesn't chose the name Muad'Dib. If I recall that's right after killing Jamis, but doesn't happen here, even if we see the literal muad'dib in the desert. It's also fine. Those scenes were at the very end, and I felt like slamming newcomers with such a significant moment with alien language at the very end might be a mistake. I'm curious to see how it's handled in part 2 though.

I was looking forward to Piter... His role is uber minor. As much as Hawat's. Like, the Bull that killed Leto's father gets more screen time, funnily enough. There's a heavy imagery around it that's going to fuel many video essays.

[life-rewritten]

Start up: Nam Dosan and his helping hands

I find it challenging to accept finding clues for 'the husband scavenger hunt' type kdramas because they always have this leftover annoyance and unfairness when the second lead gets duped and broken-hearted in the end. Shows like the Reply me series, Hospital playlist, Dreamhigh etc. always use this device, flesh out both men and their reasons and love for our main girl whilst making us hurt with the push and pull of how both men are perfect for her. If one loses her, we all lose. In Start-Up, Jipyeong joins that list of the second lead men who are known to play with our heartstrings and get us rooting for him. He's Cyrano; he's pitiful, the one who's been by the girl's side this whole time, the one who spoke to her and won her heart, the soul of the letters she clings to in her mind as her happiness and person that she wants. Her fantasy for a prince come true. He's exactly that. This is why he should end up with the girl except the main lead Dosan isn't someone to forget, he seems determined and driven to get the girl, he looks ready to give it all for her. Who should she choose? After watching episode 1 and 2, seeing the in-depth and sad yet profound background story of Jipyeong, our minds automatically leans towards him. It makes no sense why he is second lead; he has this incredible bond with her grandmother, he's precisely the guy on paper she's looking for, and he has this innate thing in him ready to protect and look out for her. In a way, fortune has brought them back together again so why is Dosan still the one she probably will end up with? I've written this analysis to stand behind Dosan despite the many people who have dropped him and gone aboard Jipyeong's ship. I want to say that as a writer the show has already given Dosan the girl 80% he's the endgame why you ask because of Fate (Luck)—warning a very long essay upcoming. 

Nam Dosan and Dalmi are meant to be together

The first reason Nam Do san enters Dalmi's heart without knowing who he actually was (she held onto his picture, his name and also how smart he was (from seeing him win the awards) is because fate wanted them to interact and meet each other. Hear me out before you roll your eyes, it feels more like fate is pushing her and Jipyeong together since he's the one who wrote the letters that got her out of her depression and were her rock and anchor when she was broken and looking for something to hold on to. His words comforted her, but fate still made happen in Dosan's name. Fate has supported Dosan and Dalmi from the start. It's fate who pulled Jipyeong to notice Dosan on those tv screens winning his gold medal  (a psychological trick to get him to pick the newspaper later on and be open to using him as a proxy for the letter). Likewise, him seeing Dosan winning a gold medal also hints to who's winning at the end of this. The medal has other meanings as we find out in episode 5 so I'll just move on from that for now and continue with this first. Here's how Fate/The universe is on Dosan's side instead of Jipyeong. 

The universe is supportive of Dosan's journey. Most things that happen to Dosan and Dalmi seem convenient and just random luck because the universe supports them in the story. Dalmi mentions this in episode 5; it's the writers warning us already. First Dosan is good at manifesting what he wants at the right moment and time:

He needed to get support from Jipyeong (his role model who he adored and looked up to) to get into the Sandbox (something Dalmi's inspiration created/she's also the little girl on the swings). This is manifested to him by Dalmi showing up and him selling baseball being the reason she finds him (follow your dreams). Because of her, Jipyeong has to pay attention, mentor and push him into wanting to be better. It's all fate conspiring to get him what he wants; his dreams to succeed in his company despite everyone looking down on him because he's a loser.

The universe provides him with Dalmi's love and support. Dalmi is the companion he never knew he needed (he realized it so much in episode 5 as she was giving his speech; she was his missing piece to his company). She's his catalyst for inspiration and the spark that was missing from his company's startup. He's given a chance to get into Sandbox because of her, (first because of her, Jipyeong backs him in Sandbox hoping he fails, and then second she chooses him to join her team)

The universe has set someone else on his team; Alex, the other Korean American, is also another way Dosan manifests his dream into a reality. Despite everyone looking down on him, Alex is amazed at Dosan and has a past with him that he wants to repay (I'll talk more about how both Dosan and Dalmi's 'choices' is why fate is on their side in another post)

Fate is on Dosan's side, and it keeps on helping him to get there with the presence of Dalmi. Fate wants them to be together regardless if she doesn't know that he's not her first love, the universe already set him up like that by his name being the proxy for the letters, they were destined from the start. 

Nam Dosan always chooses/gets the real Dalmi

The second reason why Dosan and Dalmi are meant to be together, for now, is because he loves and knows the real Dalmi. Jipyeong has been writing letters to Dalmi, listening to her express her self and he never paid attention or remembered who the real Dalmi is. That's already a sign that his slowness will cost him the win in this race. Dosan who the letter was intended for from the start (because it was to his name) reads her messages, and he's affected by who Dalmi is. He chooses to keep going to her side because of this. Her words inspire him, and her genuine self makes him want to push out of his comfort zone and want to win. Her presence in his life is so significant to him because she's meant to be there and it's vice versa for her. They both needed each other, both being pulled to each other without knowing why. Its destiny.  

Let's focus a bit more on this fact about authenticity, both Dalmi and Dosan are on equal grounds (they may seem like they're just acting with each other but they're not they see through each other when it matters), they both think they're nobodies, they're not necessary, they lose on purpose for other people's happiness, and they react the same way to things. The first time we're given this idea of how similar they are  is when she understands why he would lie about being wealthy and prosperous; she just did the same thing in episode 1, so it made her understanding and grateful instead of thinking about the fact she lied to him, Dalmi focused on how she found someone just like her, someone who understands what it's like to be her(it brought her comfort and confidence that he's the right partner for her)

Dosan is her father’s mirror image (the right choice)

The third, Dosan, is a mirror character for her dad. The show has had so many people come to her to mock her for choosing to stick with her dad. When in reality, as we know it was the right choice, that consequences for her choice are slowly unveiling. It's also the reason why fate is on her side She's the inspiration of Sandbox (she's always been destined to enter and become CEO, she became great at what she does because of how many times she spent helping her dad with his own startups, and she stayed untainted by greediness and wealth because she chose him she has heart and different perspectives to the others who just follow things by the books; this is important because that's what her most significant strength is). 

The show is already showing you that Dalmi always choosing things that may not seem perfect for her in the long run rather than the ideal choice (Jipyeong), is already foreshadowing why she'll pick Dosan at the end (if he doesn't change). I noticed Dosan's connection to her dad when he mentioned that the food he wanted to eat in episode 3 was Fried chicken, and Jipyeong told him to erase it and criticized him for his lack of communication skills. Dosan is like that fried chicken (a weird symbol but hear me out this show has so many signs for these two), it's not very fancy, or romantic as a meal (both Injae and Jipyeong reject and look down on it because it holds the opposite connotations to wealth and success). 

Still, it has a sense of comfort and authenticity for Dalmi. See again; authenticity makes its way back to Dalmi and Dosan. Fried chicken is what connected Dalmi to her father; it's also what he went to get for her before he died. It represents family, unity and just a time she was the most grateful for because it brought her to spend time with her father. It was all he could give her without it seeming like it was something, it's just like Dosan who she appreciates his hands, it may seem like nothing, but it means the world to her that he's just there by her side, together and close and real (chooses her authentic self). Just like her father needed Dalmi's steadfast support, Dosan also needs her by his side because of that; she's also his helping hand. Still, he also is that to her by choosing her to become a CEO of their sandbox company, thereby helping her achieve her father's dreams. This is again the universe supporting and bringing them together to make their dreams a reality. 

Jipyeong; the fanstasy and ideal man/The mentor

First look at the ending of episode 5, the show already shows you through visual cues what Jipyeong represents; a mentor for both Dalmi and Dosan. And it breaks my heart. Life already assigned him to be behind the scenes a tool to bring them together. Let's pause and look at what Jipyeong represents. Jipyeong represents fantasy. As much as he was important to Dalmi when she was younger by being the reason she was happy all those times, he was like a fantasy to run to that wasn't real. He wasn't the real Nam Do San. As much as behind the scenes, he's the reason for why Dosan entered her life (both times), and he's falling for her slowly. Like I said the picture above is pretty telling what he is to her and Dosan, life has assigned him as a mentor.  Apart from his wealth, knowledge and being her ideal guy on paper, he isn't doing much for Dalmi as of now. (Hear me out before you lose your minds) Yes, he helped her in episode 5 by teaching her how to speak and present and its all cute that he's there. He isn't Dosan who stayed up with her and stayed by her side through the whole making of the product. He is helpful as a mentor,  able to offer his knowledge and wealth to help Dalmi become successful but as we've seen that's not what Dalmi needs, she just needs someone to hold her hand and be by her side and inspire her to be better. (Do san keeps on doing this for her). Jipyeong represents idealism of our first love, a fantasy, an ideal situation, but that isn't enough to make him the right person for her. Both her and Dosan actually catalyze and affect each other positively, they push each other and provide for each other things they didn't know they needed. Still, they also provide (through the lessons from each other) a healthy but dose of realism. 

That's what love is meant to be about, both equally providing and aiding the other by each other's side, pushing each other to their calling. 

I keep on saying it, but the Jipyeong/Fake Nam Do San she fell in love with is a fantasy, he's good with his words, but they don't hold as much authenticity as Nam Do san's actual words to her, she may fangirl over his texts and letters, but it doesn't mean anything. I fangirl over fantasies (celebrities speeches, love letters written by other people, movie characters) all the time, doesn't mean it's my true love or my soulmate you know? Unless Dosan's character switches, nothing has made me think Jipyeong is even close to being who Dalmi needs, I don't see him as her one despite him realizing how great she is and helping her from behind the scenes because he's been assigned by life to be her helper, not a soulmate. Sorry, not sorry. 

Symbolism, Foreshadowing and Visual Devices pointing to Dosan

Lastly, the proof is with the writers: Symbolism, subtext and foreshadowing devices for Namdosan and Dalmi. 

Let's mention a few:

1. The music box; she wrote about it in her letter. In episode 3, after spending time with him, she realized opening it was wonderful. Foreshadowing, knowing the real Do san, she finally opened the music box. This inspires him to go to her side and choose to stay there despite what's to come)

2. The baseball that brought them together despite Jipyeong and Grandma thinking there was no way it would happen. Fate had other plans. The ball received says what they are meant to be for each other, a way to follow your dreams. It's a representation of fate pulling them to each other to make their dreams a reality. Emphasis as if I haven't said it enough times already they are meant to be with each other, and they are destined to be together. 

3. His hands; Her helping hand she needs,  a hand pulling her up when she's down, lifting her when she's low, pulling her to her dreams, a companion by her side always, comfort, intelligence (as his friends explained in episode 5. This  is also what he's looked down for when it comes to romance; his logical, robotic personality but its needed for her company, and to teach her.) Lastly, his hands represent his authenticity and potential. (like his friend said it's not about how it looks but what he does with it)

4. Her letters and his name; the messages affect him and make him choose her because of her real voice and her authentic self. His name is what makes them meet again, remember he's the actual recipient of her notes from the start.

5. Sandbox; both their dreams and reason for inspiration. They were always on their way to get there; to get her to make her dad's plans a reality, to make his company dreams a reality, a place for a push to become better, both are a team here, both are meant to work with each other on equal ground, and again both are inspiring each other and bringing their positives out.  

6. And even fried chicken; her dad, authenticity vs fantasy, comfort, warmth, togetherness and looked down upon but what she wants in the end

From episode 5: 

1. Tarzan and Jane; from the story, Tarzan is slow and can't provide accurately for Jane the romantic/ideal things she is meant to like and want (Flowers, bunnies etc.).  Just like Jipyeong can provide for Dalmi all the things that are intended to be an ideal for Dalmi (his wealth, his status, making Dosan look rich, providing the texts for Dosan to send to her, the letters etc.). Still, it isn't what she wants in the end. Dalmi says out loud that she overlooks the pretty on the surface things, she wants the useful stuff, like Dosan's helping hands, Dosan's presence by her side, and his words of wisdom to help them create a product in episode 5. Tarzan may seem like he has nothing to offer but the rocks and the gifts he gave Jane is actually what was needed to survive and be happy. Dalmi recognized that. That's foreshadowing who she will choose.

2.The sweets: At first, I wondered why they kept using it as a recurring motif to show Dosan eager to choose what Dalmi chose for him. But no it's foreshadowing. Jipyeong tries to steal the sweets from Dosan unintentionally, and interferingly  (just like he's been unintentionally falling for Dalmi and is slowly starting to want to reveal the truth). Still, Dosan chides him and takes back all the ones she chose for him. This foreshadows that he will lose her to Jipyeong, but because of his heart, and determination, he'll get her back. She's also like the sweets; people don't see the importance to her yet, but Dosan and his friends are excited and eager to have all the free food and sweets because they've struggled for a bit, they have this childlike fascination with it, and she joins them as well later. Dosan doesn't overlook Dalmi's importance, she means a lot to him, and he appreciates and is grateful for her just like the sweets. 

3.Lastly, the handwriting test/ the ability to test forgery: Another symbol for both Dosan and Dalmi. It's telling that the test was able to see 99.8% of what was real and what was fake (idealism vs realism), but it failed to recognize the new handwriting created by Injae and the others. This is foreshadowing there will be a moment when Dalmi won't be able to acknowledge idealism vs realism when Jipyeong reveals who he is. However, it doesn't mean that the handwritings were authentic, they were still forged even though the machine picked them up as real. Dalmi will question things, but at the end of the day, she already said it with the Jane metaphor, she will choose what's accurate and useful to her. This also makes the metaphor she told her grandmother (Jipyeong overheard this I think) about the rain and the storms to create something sweet, instead of choosing again what is ideal (just sunshine), Dalmi chooses the other way all the time, and she appreciates the results of it. That's why I believe she will end up with Dosan/choose him if he doesn't change. 

So yeh for now Dosan is endgame for Dalmi, Jipyeong has been shoved into the role to bring them together and fulfill their goals and destinies. This could change because there’s so much more stuff that can happen, Dosan maybe tempted by greed later on and change and that will pull Jipyeong ahead. But if Dosan doesn’t change, then there’s no doubt that Dalmi even after she knows he’s not her first love, will not choose him. Let’s see how it turns out.