#and it's not even great or descriptive exposition full of emotions and impressions and all. this one is static and frigid and steve

[flowercrowngods]

i'm just gonna write a quick thing is always such a scam bc i'll be 3.5k words in and the Thing hasn't even started yet (and still i'm surprised every time smh)

[nobodywritesthings]

Some more random bits of trivia about With Great Power

Part 1

Might as well just… put this here.  Spoilers below!  I ended up talking a lot about the villain side of things.

All for One uses a quirk he refers to as “Clothing Swap” to replace Izuku’s hero gear in Chapter 1.  For some random reason, I made a description of the quirk that ended up in my notes, though it never became relevant again.  Here it is: Clothing Swap: The target may have any article(s) considered to be “worn” swapped with any other article(s) the user has seen them wear previously. The user may choose themselves as a target. The swap may be uneven - a hat can be swapped for a full outfit, leading to someone really overdressed, or a full outfit for a hat, leading to the opposite - but “nothing” is not an option for either side of the swap. Objects in pockets or similar places of holding may be transferred into similar places in the new outfit, if available; otherwise they will stay with the clothing they were originally in. See that part about the user needing to see the target wearing the clothes previously?  All for One’s been stalking, and Izuku would’ve been able to guess almost immediately if he heard the details of that quirk.

Speaking of my notes, I tend to name the random fic ideas I write down in order to keep them easy to reference in my notes (or head).  I don’t always use those names for the finished product.  I liked the reference to the quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”, that I ended up going with for WGP’s story/chapter titles; but I actually came up with that theme after the majority of the fic was done.  For most of the writing process, I kept it filed under “Kingmaker AU”.

All for One’s threats to Izuku in the first chapter were something of a bluff.  If Izuku refused to listen, All for One would’ve been in quite a pinch - he certainly didn’t want to kill or Noumufy Izuku, and he had the feeling that “lock him in a vault and make him listen” wouldn’t work any better here than it did with his brother.  He did have other plans in case getting Izuku to agree to parley failed, but he was massively relieved when it worked.  (Izuku’s threat in Chapter 10, on the other hand, was definitely not a bluff.)

Gigantomachia saw the resemblance between Izuku and All for One the moment Izuku opened his mouth - not just in the contents of Izuku’s self-introduction, but Izuku’s voice itself.  As seen in canon, he has a very dramatic emotional reaction to hearing All for One’s voice; and while Izuku’s isn’t an obvious match, he could hear similar notes.  This was helped by the fact that Izuku was very tired and decided to start making threats, and was consciously using All for One as a model for those.  Gigantomachia’s easy initial acceptance of Izuku was mostly down to this (”He speaks with the voice of my Master”).  Of course, Izuku’s speech about not proving himself to everyone who asked did make something of an impression on its own merits.

As for the rest of the villains, Shigaraki and Kurogiri were the only ones close enough to All for One to notice Izuku’s resemblance to him (or care; if Dabi had any suspicions, he kept them to himself).  It took a few days after Izuku was left with the dictatorship for Shigaraki.  Kurogiri, on the other hand, noticed years ago - but decided it wasn’t his place to wonder about it, so he didn’t.

None of the villains guessed that Izuku was a close relative of All for One’s.  They all thought, at best, that he was some distant relative who All for One had taken an interest in and who happened to suit his plans.  They were immensely surprised by All for One’s choice of successor.

Shigaraki and Kurogiri got emails after All for One disappeared, too, not just Izuku.  All for One drafted them beforehand, as well as a few alternate versions for theoretical scenarios that didn’t happen.  Shigaraki’s gave him some sarcastic advice on how to make nice with the new Overlord, which worked surprisingly well.  Kurogiri’s included advice on Izuku’s preferred coffee brands, which also worked surprisingly well.

All for One had discussed a few things with Gigantomachia beforehand and so didn’t bother with an email - namely along the lines of, “I’m planning to make someone else the Supreme Overlord in my place.  Do what you want, but your life will be short and painful if he doesn’t stay in one piece.”

Shigaraki and Kurogiri spent most of their free time after All for One disappeared trying to track him down.  Izuku won their loyalty over time - or more accurately, having gainful employment and being surrounded by decent people while trying his best to behave himself helped Shigaraki feel less inclined toward villainy, and Kurogiri appreciated being given a fair chance at all.  However, Shigaraki in particular had many questions for All for One, and Kurogiri followed his lead.  Gigantomachia them helped out for a while, until…

Gigantomachia saw Izuku’s “father’s” signature, and realized he might’ve accidentally stumbled upon a secret that All for One would be happy to kill half of Japan over.  He smartly refrained from telling the other two, and pulled back somewhat on his assistance in their search.

When Gigantomachia met “Hisashi” in person for that trip to America, he sent a panicked text to Shigaraki that he wasn’t offering any more help and that they should stop going behind Izuku’s back if they truly valued their lives and limbs intact.  This sparked their decision to bring their research to Aizawa while Izuku was away.  Yagi’s assumption that they were afraid of Izuku’s reaction was entirely legitimate, but that wasn’t the full reason for their choice of timing.

One more note about Gigantomachia: When Izuku had his panic attack in Chapter 5, the reason Yagi showed up was because Gigantomachia made a beeline for his office and told him that the Supreme Overlord needed his help.  Yagi ran.

I honestly didn’t expect for the villains to take up so much of the fic (or this trivia).  I also was hoping to have more of Aizawa and Class 1-A in the story.  But since criminal rehabilitation ended up being such a focus, the villains ended up being particularly relevant.  I’m still a tiny bit annoyed about it.

How much did Inko know about Hisashi?  He tried to give her a similar story to the one he gave Izuku once he returned.  However, she knew him and his views well enough that she managed to get out of him that he wasn’t “working with villains” entirely under duress, and that he had done a few things to earn the enmity of “people who were after him”.  She was surprised when Izuku made All for One tell her the truth about his villain identity, but less than Izuku expected.

I don’t usually have soundtracks for my writing - I’ll put on whatever music I feel like listening to, or even nothing, depending on my mood.  However, for Chapter 10, I wrote most of it while listening to “Devastation and Reform” by Relient K on repeat.  I think it fits the self-inflicted tragedy that is All for One’s existence pretty well, and helped me capture the right tone for his side of the story.

Alright, a cheerier note is in order.  Originally, Chapter 6 (now the Social Media Chapter) was an utter slog of exposition that made me despair.  I ended up scrapping it and rewriting it as a social media interlude that communicated the stuff I wanted it to communicate, but I ended up cutting along with it a draft of the scene Hatsume’s video refers to.  Y’know, the one where Izuku sets an attempted assassin on fire.  It was indeed accidental - she was hounding Izuku to let her make the perfect Supreme Overlord outfit, and had shoved an ordinary-looking watch at him when the assassins showed up.  He threw the watch at one of them and it exploded.  Hatsume got yelled at by a tired Izuku afterward for endangering the paperwork he’d have to fill out all over again.

In the Discord conversation where I mentioned the initial concept of this fic, someone proposed a scenario in which Izuku starts crying in the middle of the UN because some representative was being an asshole about how Japan was being handled, and then everyone else would jump in to go, “Nice going, Rick, you ruined a perfectly good Supreme Overlord, now he has anxiety.”  I therefore decided that I would indeed make Izuku cry at the UN.  This was how the UN chapter came to exist.  Of course, in my version, the tears were because of the support Izuku got, and the good guy was named Rick.

Izuku setting someone on fire was also a concept I got from my favorite Discord server.  Several other people had Izuku setting people on fire in their stories.  I decided to join them.

Finally… you know how I abbreviated “Supreme Overlord” to “S.O.”?  Yes, I’m aware that the abbreviation usually stands for “Significant Other”, and I decided to go with it because I thought it was funny.  And a good way to embarrass Izuku even further.

I think that got all the major trivia and a few minor bits too.  Though I probably can dig out other things from my brain if people have questions; my askbox is open.  Otherwise, I’ve got a new prospective writing project in the concept stage, so I’ll switching mental gears off of WGP, I think.

[lotus-mirage]

The Untamed episode 50 liveblog

Wow.  D: I can’t believe I’m almost done with this.  I will probably wind up at least watching some of the animated version, but for now this is the end!  Aaahh

So Jin Guangyao didn’t make a move, then.

Focus is squarely on Nie Huaisang now. He did it on purpose then?

‘Didn’t have a clue’?

Okay, but was the rest of it him, too? He seems pretty shaken right now honestly.

He pushed the sword further in??? D:

Oh that’s a horrible confession to make. That he didn’t want to hurt Lan Xichen, I mean. That’s absolutely going to hurt the guy after Jin Guangyao finally passes.

It’d almost be kinder to tell him that he was using him too, frankly. Almost. I don’t know. Yikes.

Oh jeez that background shot of Jin Ling D,:

I keep forgetting he’s here watching this too yikes

Wait what’s he doing

How the heck did he do that???? He’s been bleeding out for at least a few minutes already!

Is he breaking the seal thing!?

Uh oh

Is he going to stay? It looks like he’s at least considering it.

???? I thought he wanted him to stay!?

Okay now these are the dramatics I was expecting from Nie Mingjue

Jin Ling D,:

Where’d he go? Is he still in there?

I still don’t know what to make of Nie Huaisang

Oh! Was he the last person he had to get revenge on?

Well there’s literally everyone else

:,( at Jiang Cheng just watching him

He’s leaving!? D:

How many child actors did they have for like one scene each??

Oh Nie Huaisang was holding the hat?

Wait is that blood

Not sure what he was feeling there. It was interesting though. Huh.

I’m D,: at this entire conversation with Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling. It’s so good.

Oh flashback?

Did he get himself caught on purpose!? D,:

Ahhhhhh

Hahaha was that an interrupted confession? It sure felt like one.

Ahhh Lan Sizhui :,D

Oh good they’re telling him

Ahhhhhhhhh

they’re hugging ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

‘Sad but thrilled’ is a good description

Hahaha this is fantastic

Okay the leg hug is a little awkward but the sentiment is nice

Ahhhhhh

Oh! They’re going back to Qishan together! Oh that’s so nice.

There is a lot of ‘person in black and person in white walking off together’ in this show

WAIT WAIT is he not going too!??

?????

WHAT

?????????????????

is this a flashback or a time skip what is happening

I mean very pretty but what

Okay these are new clothes so assumedly not a flashback

Good they didn’t split up

Oh I recognize this shot

Several of these shots actually - they’re used in either the opening or the ending I think

Oh good Nie Huaisang’s here too. We might actually be getting an explanation.

Okay that ‘Thou shall not befriend the devil’ was very threatening please clarify.

They laughed but I’m not sure if it was actually a joke

...okaaaay

Oh good they’re confirming it even without him

More or less

?? Okay what’s going on now. I’m on edge after that whole-

Shoot they are splitting up!?

??????

Okay so it’s not forever but??

Oh he’s playing the song!?

Thank goodness they’re implying it’s not for too long.

Wow is he in another outfit already?

That’s very pretty

?? What prompted the pause in music??

Okay he turned around was that them meeting back up?

Oh.

Oh thats the end. :,(

End notes:

Okay I had to do something but I am back half an hour later and watching the ending and it is giving me very strong emotions wow

Okay so.

First off: very good series - I was confused a whole lot but it made me feel things and I love it.

The ending was really well done, I think - there was a lot of ambiguity but it wrapped up enough of the emotional threads in a very effective manner.

Wow, uh. Hmmm. What to say.

Thoughts on characters/plot threads as I remember them:

I found that the strongest emotional thread of this show was probably the family/grief aspect. Mainly the family aspect, but the two were often combined. It showed up absolutely everywhere - it was both Wei Wuxian’s driving factor and in a way Jin Guangyao’s? Moreso the lack of it in the latter’s case. And a complicated issue with both (especially with their parents). On second thought this may hold true for a lot of the cast.

It did kind of feel like Wen Ruohan was kind of not a character and was just there to drive the war forward (and thus the characters and plot). Which is fine? But it leaves me feeling like the driving force behind the war was a little hollow, which is eh.

The Wen remnants were super compelling, though. That entire arc hit hard and made sense as a logical effect of the war.

I don’t really know how to feel about the post-timeskip stuff as a whole. On the one hand, I enjoyed myself a lot? It was great fun. On the other hand a lot of it contrasted sharply with the mass death at the end of the last arc.

The characters themselves were mostly pretty great (with the exceptions of, like, the Wen antagonists, some sect leaders, Su She and Jin Zixun).

I always have a hard time talking about main characters (in this case WWX and LWJ). I think it’s because we know so much about them that it’s hard to pick a single subject to talk about with them??

Anyway, they were really great. They had unique dynamics with each other and with all the other characters that evolved as they did. Neither were static characters and each step they took made sense?

Jiang Cheng is a very flawed character and he made me feel a lot and he’s my favorite. After a certain point he just had so many strong emotions, many of which conflicted each other and it was just entirely compelling and relatable. I feel like he is the strongest character outside of the main two + Jin Guangyao, although that may be my bias speaking.

Jin Guangyao. I totally forgot to think about story structure with him, frankly - didn’t see why he kept getting so much screen time and was constantly developing as well. I didn’t realize he was going to be a full-blown antagonist, let alone the antagonist, way past when I should have. He’s a sympathetic character, and the audience is reminded of this even as he does all these awful things. Yeah, he keeps finding himself in terrible situations but he also causes a lot of innocent casualties. I don’t totally know how to feel about him fully, but I think that’s the point.

Lan Xichen is also very flawed, but like. In a gentler way? I’m not sure we really see enough to know him as well as we could, but we do know that he’s trying and he cares, and sometimes that sucks for him.

Nie Huaisang is frankly a bit of an enigma. Unlike Jin Guangyao, he doesn’t exposit or drop masks where we can see him. I think he’s very interesting but maybe too underutilized in the majority of the series for me to say much else about him. I did really like the banter he had with Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, though.

Not sure I have as much to say on the other characters. Oops.

Lan Sizhui! Best boy. I love him.

Wen Ning is also best boy. He’s adorable. And also terrifying sometimes.

Wen Qing was fantastic. I liked her character so much and was very sad to see her go.

I was very surprised by how much Jin Zixuan grew on me. Props to that.

Jin Ling was also great. I loved his interactions with basically everyone. Also I feel like with maybe the exception of maybe Lan Xichen the ending probably was the worst for him. Smack dab in the center of the family drama, if you can count multiple set-ups and murders that.

I kind of simultaneously wish Jiang Yanli was more and am kind of content with how she was? I mean some of her role is a little... overly-limited, but she’s still a fairly important aspect of the story and continuously makes her own decisions and the like.

Madame Yu was a more interesting character to me than her husband but was also much more antagonistic. It’s an interesting duality where I want to see more of her but also want her to not interact with the other characters much, which doesn’t make any sense.

Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan didn’t have much of an impact outside of the Coffin Town bit, but frankly that was painful enough that it’s fine!! It was well done and their situation was awful but that hurt enough already!

Xue Yang is a character. Very well-portrayed and I feel like the actor had a blast but I feel like he didn’t have a giant impact either? He was a cool and scary villain.

Overall, it was a great show with a lot of interesting characters! It was great at emotional storytelling, except for when there was whiplash. I loved the music and the costuming, and the actors were great. Some of the special effects were a little wacky (looking at Lan Xichen’s instrument and the Wens’ dog thing), but some of them were really cool (see: Wen Ning’s entrance into the temple). Sometimes the politics-talk grated my nerves a bit, but that may be mostly a personal preference thing. The fighting also took some getting used to, but was impressive in some areas.

The show made me feel a lot and I am still feeling both the mixed bittersweet feelings from the show and that oh-shoot-the-story’s-over hole-in-the-chest feeling right now, but I don’t know how else to talk about that.

It wasn’t perfect but I enjoyed it a lot and am very impressed by it.

Let me know if I missed anything - there’s a lot and I am totally open for discussion.

[taiblogcomics]

Mulling Over the Culling

Hey there, moving day. Oh boy. Well, here we go. If you thought the last issue was bad and a character assassination, this issue is even worse~

Here's the cover:

Ah, the boring "team versus shot yelling at each other" cover. It's a really boring cover, especially for an annual. I will also point out that this annual came out after issue 8. So it hasn't actually been a year yet. That's one of the major problems with this story. The New 52 wasn't even a year old yet, and they're doing huge event crossovers between books. A lot of books didn't even make it past this point. Lots of them, like Static Shock, were cancelled after issue 8. So a good third or so of the books were being cancelled, while the others were engaging in unnecessary crossovers. And that's where this story comes in!

Anyway, the cover's awful, let's see how awful the story is too. So, since it's not obvious from the cover (another mark against it), this storyline is a crossover between Teen Titans, Superboy, and Legion Lost. The short description for that is that a few members of the Legion of Super-Heroes come back from the 31st century to find some sort of cure they need in the future. So in addition to the Titans and Superboy--not to mention all the villains and other characters we're going to introduce in this--now you have to keep track of and presumably care about Gates, Dawnstar, Timberwolf, Tyroc, Tellus, Wildfire, and Chameleon Girl. Good luck getting off any sort of emotional resonance with a cast list in the 20s!

So we open with Tim Drake on his back with a boot on his chest. The boot belongs to Artemis, making her comics debut here, following her appearance in the Young Justice cartoon series. Also here are new versions of Thunder and Lightning, a pair of minor Teen Titans characters. In the old continuity, they were Vietnamese twins, but in the New 52, now they're a caucasian brother/sister pair. Lightning's pissed because Artemis is expositing to Tim, because Tim "wears the colours of Harvest". Thunder and Lightning have exactly the same Tron suits as the Titans do.

The backgrounds are horrendous. I hope radioactive lava orange is your favourite, because you're going to be seeing it for a week after reading this. After Tim forces Artemis off him, he suitably impresses the group, and they run off together. Artemis exposits all the way, mentioning she's also not a metahuman, making it really weird that Harvest would want to kidnap her to join his army. They then run into a grungy-looking cyborg guy named Fist Point. He and his goon squad demand a toll, which is stupid. Tim tries the whole "we have to work together!" shtick that might work better on Saturday morning cartoons, but such comraderie has no place in the New 52. They beat up Fist Point and reunite with the other Titans.

This is also where Superboy joins the party. Like, this whole annual could've been about getting Superboy to join up and him working to earn the trust of each member. That would've been really good! Instead we get this, where Superboy agrees to work with the team, and Cassie tells him nobody cares about his opinion. Cassie's continued attitude is one of the most frustrating things about this series. We then cut over to a brief scene with the Legion Lost--remember them? They're in this crossover too!--determining that Gates' warping powers can't seem to get them out of this place. They resolve to keep working together, however. I already like them better than the Titans, since they're not being pissy at each other. This is a bad sign for a crossover~

This then cuts over to Harvest and his goons (including Omen and Leash from the last issue), gloating over how their plans are going to turn out great. He sends out Leash again to torment them, and we can talk about this guy now. He's got a glowing purple ribcage, a leather bodysuit, and assless chaps over that. He's also wearing a do-rag, has pale white skin and red lipstick. Unique among Harvest's goons, he appears to have been made entirely for this series. If this is the kind of guy they could come up with as new characters, maybe making terrible versions of previous characters is the better choice. Anyway, Leash ties them all up with his powers and torments them.

So hey, you remember Skitter? Was she your favourite character? I hope not, because a mysterious person we don't see offers her hand to Skitter and removes her from the comic. No, seriously. Skitter won't appear or even be mentioned again until the very last issue of the series. Anyway, Leash gathers up the Legion and the Titans and pits them against each other. A terrible fight scene ensues. It's really hard to look at, mostly due to the bright orange backgrounds. The fight with Wildfire and Superboy is particularly eye-searing. It's this fight, though, that the pair put together than neither side is working for NOWHERE and probably shouldn't be fighting each other.

Harvest and friends note that neither group is going for the kill, and thus it's time for the Culling to officially begin. What have I been reading up to this point, then? We cut over to another group of metahuman kids, including Thunder, Terra, and Beast Boy. These names are only significant if you know the previous continuity, so any new readers they were hoping to attract are just gonna be confused. Beast Boy is also red now, because the New 52 makes everything edgy. Like, there's an actual explanation that ties him to Animal Man's mythos, but let's face the truth. The New 52 loved it some edgelord '90s designs, and this is just another example.

So the Culling officially begins, and all the metahumans begin fighting among themselves. And you really have to wonder why. Like, nobody's being mind controlled or possessed or anything. All Harvest is promising is a chance to join his side, which isn't exactly appealing to the people you have kidnapped and tortured. So fighting for Harvest isn't exactly great incentive. And yet, even Lightning is out here, begging Beast Boy "Don't make me kill you!" Nobody has to kill anyone, you idiot! Except those who are even bigger idiots, I guess. Remember that Fist Point mook? He shows up and murders Artemis.

Yeah.

They used this series to introduce a new version of a popular character from a popular TV show, to make the character's debut in comics--and then they killed her off in the same issue. That's absolutely disgusting. This is why I hated the New 52. They could've done anything in the world with these characters. Instead, they reinvented them to either be assholes, villains, or dead. This is not restricted to just this book either, but it seems pretty excessive doing this here.

So Tim swears vengeance for Artemis, despite having only met her this issue. The Titans and Legion officially team up and beat back their foes, to Harvest's consternation. Don't they know better not to fight back, he's asking as he destroys his equipment in a Kylo Ren-style tantrum. Can't they tell he's already won? With the fodder dealt with, Harvest sends in his big guns, his personal Ravagers team. This includes Omen, that gold guy from the cover of issue 7, and that Templar guy also from the same issue. There's a couple others, but I'm gonna save the rants about them for their more full appearances in later issues. Next issue, though? More fighting! That's all this crossover is!

And now we’re truly on the downward plummet. I think I’ve said what I need to about Artemis, but please never forget that they did this. Imagine if they murdered Harley Quinn the first time she showed up in comics, in a crossover in someone else’s story. That’s what this is like. It’s stupid and awful and should never happen.

And don’t worry, dear readers. We won’t miss any of The Culling, because I actually followed Teen Titans back when it was coming out. So I even have the issues of Superboy and Legion Lost that make up more of the crossover. We’ll get to that next time~

[chercher0w0]

A Discovery of Witches - Show vs Book - 1

If you don’t want to read this long rambling mess of thoughts, I’d say that, in summary, the show and book are great complements for each other. As usual, I would say that it’s best to read the books first and get all the plot through Diana’s POV, as well as more of her inner thoughts. Then, follow up with watching the show to see the other supporting characters more fleshed out, as well as, in general, be able to get solid visualizations of the places, people and magic in the story.

Goes without saying that under the cut there are spoilers for the whole of ADOW S1, as well as mild spoilers for Book 2 and 3, especially at the end where I speculate about Season 2 =w= (( for more ADOW and bishmont feels, my fandom trash site is @cherchersketch. Once S2 is out, I’ll probably throw my episodic book vs show ramblings there ))

Opening

In lieu of some sort of opening song, every episode starts with these words, as well as Matthew’s voiceover, ending with him reciting a phrase that his father once said, “In every ending, there is a new beginning”. It’s interesting because in the book, the titular phrase “ A Discovery of Witches” only appears towards the end as Diana is trying to find out more about Ashmole 782. The mention of Phillipe’s words don’t even show up until near the very end of the second book, Shadow of Night. It is an intriguing way to get viewers interested in the show though. From the very first episode, it’s speculated that Ashmole 782 contains the origins of all 3 types of creatures, vampires, daemons, and witches. It is also reminiscent of Matthew’s speech in episode 2 that only two emotions keep the world turning, desire and fear. The title cards confirm that that is true, Ashmole 782 does, at the very least, contains the origin of witches and their first spells. Especially since, in the actual scene where, in the book, Diana sees those words scrawled on a piece of paper, together with one of the missing Ashmole 782 pages as well as a letter from her parents. Instead of the letter and this phrase, the show uses the house as the expository catalyst instead. In episode 8, Diana only receives the missing page. The house shows, through some sort of flashbacks, more or less what the letter states. It’s one of the many ways the show writers really did a great job changing details so the exposition can be shown, instead of just told outright.

Opening Scene

Honestly, when I first read the book, I was surprised how different the very beginning is. As usual, the main point for switching things around is to be able to organically show and gradually introduce viewers to the world of the series.  From Matthew’s opening dialogue, which is the very first shot we see as well as the first dialogue we hear for this and every episode,  “Once the world was full of wonders but it belongs to humans now. We creatures have all but disappeared. Daemons, vampires and witches hiding in plain sight, fearful of discovery, ill at ease even with each other.” it immediately lets us know how this world is different from ours, the existence of these three types of supernatural creatures, as well as their hostile attitude towards each other. 

It also shows us Diana not having complete control of her powers, accidentally activating them in public. And most importantly, establishes the magic of the book, Ashmole 782. I love the shot of the librarian not finding it initially, then suddenly seeing it in the empty spot as she’s walking back with the rest of Diana’s requested books.  In the actual book, it directly opens with Diana having Ashmole 782 in front of her, a brief description of it, and then a bunch of exposition about herself, her parents and her powers. 

Bishmont

Another thing that surprised me, how they changed many scenes to have more Diana x Matthew scenes. Because lbr, we all know what sells. Haha. 

From the very first time they meet, the scene in the book and TV show are very different. Also, quite understandably, due to the differences a more visual medium like TV has versus a book which can more easily describe stuff that can’t be shown.  In the book, Diana has slightly more control over her powers, in that she vaguely knows it just takes a bit of desire, so to retrieve the book she needs, she just imagines the book in her hand and it flies there. She only realizes that Matthew is also there, noticing her use of magic, because as a witch she can feel when the different types of creatures are looking at her, so she feels his stare as cold spots in her back. In the show, Diana’s grasp of her powers are weaker and more erratic, so the book she hopes to get instead flys off the shelf and lands in Matthew’s hands. 

In the book, Matthew’s initial realisation of his craving for Diana is much more reserved than in the show, though it’s through similar catalysts. On the show, we get that scene of Matthew sniffing Diana’s dropped sweater and just barely being able to control his predatory instincts, prompting him to momentarily run to Scotland to hunt. In the book, a similar thing happens, in that Diana leaves her sweater in his car from being driven home from yoga. It’s implied he got a similar reaction to her scent, though he only tells Diana about it later on, once he’s returned from Scotland.

Another beautifully added scene is the one before the dinner Diana invites Matthew to. In the book, it goes as expected. On the show, the addition of Peter Knox barging in beforehand to harass Diana, leading to Matthew rushing in with vampiric speed to stare down Knox is gr9 because there can never be enough growly protective Matthew scenes.

One aspect of Matthew’s initial stalking of Diana that I feel the show really improved on over the books, is when he breaks into Diana’s room to find Ashmole 782. On the show, he takes advantage of the fact that Diana is out rowing to look through her room to find it. In the book, he just creaks in while she’s sleeping and even makes sure she stays asleep by feeding her his blood. Kind of approaching Twilight’s Edward level of creepiness, though at least it’s more of a means to an end instead of some weird desire to watch Diana while she’s asleep.

Since they don’t usually show the whole thing on TV, unless it has a higher rating, I didn’t really catch on that they haven’t fully done the nasty at this point. Only realized it when I read that Matthew is specifically refusing to go all the way (for now. Until we learn why in Book 2 ;w;) and on a rewatch saw that yea, he’s just... using his hand or his mouth :x 

One thing I do enjoy in the books over the show is that there’s more time for Diana and Matthew’s relationship to slowly develop. When I first watched it, it felt a bit too fast to be honest, though I did still enjoy the chemistry between Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer, and a lot of the bishmont scenes were  🔥 🔥 🔥 It was pretty obvious that a lot of scenes had to be cut out to fit everything into the 8 episodes.  In the book, though they’ve also known each other in the same short amount of time, but the way Diana and Matthew’s feelings for each other gradually develop through several dates and yoga lessons (OMG the yoga) makes it seem less Insta-lovey. 

Diana

As I stated at the beginning, the book and the show complement each other. On the show, Diana is shown as being extremely athletic, often rowing by herself or going for a run. It doesn’t really seem to have much significance other than showing that Diana has hobbies outside of her academic work and occasionally providing an excuse for her to be alone so she can be snatched up (yes we know the scene I’m talking about). In the book, there is actually an explanation for it. We are told that Diana’s power incontinence leads to a build up of adrenaline which leads to her panic attacks, an unfortunate effect of the spellbinding on her. To work off the excess adrenaline, she turns to sport as she hates having to rely on medication to regulate it.  Also, as previously mentioned, book!Diana seems to have a bit more “control” over her powers whereas TV!Diana does’t seem to at all. She also seems to have more of a witch’s power for the third eye, seeing visions when she looks at certain objects, like Matthew’s armour. 

Matthew

I would say the main difference between book!Matthew and TV!Matthew is his anger management. From Diana’s description in the book, in the beginning Matthew seems to have an extremely quick temper, being able to go from calm to furious in a matter of seconds, even over seemingly small matters. Later on, it is revealed that he has an inherited blood rage problem. But without knowing that, initially it just seems like a red flag issue and someone Diana should avoid. On the show, Matthew Goode portrays a Matthew (Clairmont) that is always tightly in control of himself, but not necessarily with a hair trigger fuse. His bursts of violence only appear when Diana is threatened so it seems more justified to the viewer.  And book!Matthew’s eyes do the thing where they go all black when he’s in the throes of a blood rage. I’m interested to see how it will be portrayed on the show in the next 2 seasons. Honestly, TV!Matthew never seemed overtly prone to anger like in the books. Just the “usual” overprotective vampire growling and fighting. Guess we’ll have to see how the show is gonna portray it because it’s a pretty major point conflict in the relationship in book 2 and 3.

A bit of a minor detail but in the book, it is shown how impressive Matthew’s academic career is since his living quarters are in an exclusive area of the campus, as befitting his title as one of the very few with an All Souls scholarship. 

Gillian (and her friendship with Diana)

Book!Gillian is a bit more of a throwaway character than TV!Gillian. Book!Gillian seems to be more of a casual acquaintance to Diana, just another one of the Oxford area witches trying to get her to join the local coven. I like the modification in the series where they made her a closer friend to Diana. It gives a greater impact when Gillian ends up betraying Diana’s trust, spilling the secrets Diana thought were safe with a friend to Peter Knox. It amplifies the feeling of loneliness and isolation that Diana goes through when she learns there is no one in Oxford she can really trust, other than Matthew even though she’s only just gotten to know him.  She is also portrayed as slightly more sympathetic on the show. In the book, she is just an example of the many witches in the area who despise other creatures, and thus looks down on Diana for fraternizing with a vampire. This disdain, plus her ambition to be a part of the congregation, leads her to doing Peter Knox’s dirty work, like breaking into Matthew’s lab and sending Diana the gruesome photos of her dead parents. On the show, she seems to have more of a timid personality, making her a bit of a doormat that is easily manipulated by Knox. She is also given a lower position, still being unable to qualify for tenure while Diana is one of the youngest to have done so at Yale, giving Gillian a bit of an inferiority complex. This makes it easy for Knox to feed her lies about Diana using her powers for her own academic gain, leading Gillian to carry out Knox’s dirty work in order to gain more of a status in her witchy community.

It’s also an interesting detail that later on, when Matthew sucks her blood as payback for breaking into his lab, on the show it’s presented more as him wanting to know what Gillian has seen and how much she was able to report to Knox. It kind of implies that the extra blood loss that lead to her death might have been due to her dragging herself all the way to the house of the coven leader, at least, that’s how I saw it. Matthew later on even mentions that he didn’t mean to kill her. In the book, since we’re not really shown the scene, it is just mentioned that Matthew sucked her blood and killed her for revenge.  Since Matthew is one of the two main leads, and Gillian was a closer friend of Diana’s than in the book, it makes sense they would want to tone down the extent of Matthew’s culpability while still having Gillian end up dead. 

Marcus (and his children. Or lack thereof)

There’s a bit more of Marcus in the show than the book, which is nice. We see book!Miriam more in the beginning since she’s the one who guards over Diana in the Bodleian on Matthew’s behalf. Understandable as being Matthew’s lab assistant gives her access to the same areas in Oxford, unlike Marcus who works somewhere else. I liked the added interaction of Marcus and Diana where she asks him what food to prepare for her dinner date with Matthew, in exchange for letting him and Miriam draw her blood. It’s a cute scene. 

We are first shown that vampires are increasingly failing to sire by TV!Marcus failing to save his friend, James. They then analyse his blood, proving that he has the same genetic markers as other cases of failed sires. In the books, it’s just a vague mention of it happening to other vampires. The show kind of gave me the impression that it was the first time Marcus had tried siring but in the books, he has a whole family of children in New Orleans. I’m curious how the show will incorporate that then, since they’re sort of an important plot point for certain events, especially in Book 3.  Also, the point that Marcus attempted to sire James without asking for his permission first brings to mind Matthew’s previous siring of Cecilia that led to her suicide. It’s not given a huge emphasis on the show though it comes up twice, so having read the book Matthew’s anger at Marcus siring James without asking for permission is an extra D:

Pacing and plot changes The biggest difference between the book and the show, is that the book is written in a first person limited style, from Diana’s POV, with a smattering of third person limited chapters to show some scenes where Matthew is away from Diana. The show show employs more of a third person omniscient style. From the start, we are shown all the members of the Congregation, as well as other characters that loom in the background, slowly closing in on our main characters. It’s less of a jarring experience when certain events occur. 

Satu In the show, we are shown from the beginning how Peter Knox recruits her into the Congregation, as someone who can take his side in Congregation matters. She is portrayed slightly more sympathetic as instead of just appearing in the middle to open up Diana, we see her already confronting Diana early on to try to gauge Diana’s powers. We also see her try to learn more about Diana by reading through Congregation archives. And we see Peter Knox’s power over her initially as he subdues her using his power. Also, like most witches, she is convinced that Matthew is using his vampiric powers to put Diana under his spell. Though these don’t justify the extremes she goes to, it is less of an abrupt shock when she appears to whisk Diana away from Sept-Tours and open her up to see Diana’s secrets and true powers.

Juliette Another whoa-that-came-out-of-nowhere antagonist in the book. In the show, as with Satu, we see her slowly closing in on our main characters as she is shown to have an obsession with “Matthew”, under Gerbert’s control. Though it does seem kind of :x that Marcus and Miriam didn’t warn Matthew when Juliette broke into his room. It was only a matter of time before she tracked him down to Diana’s home in Madison.

Sophie and Nathaniel Definitely preferred the introduction of Sophie and Nathaniel in the series than the book =w=;;;  In the book, when they show up out of nowhere to hand Diana one of the items she needs to travel to 1590, it seems a bit Deus Ex Machina-y because we are only following the events through Diana’s limited POV. In the show, we see Sophie slowly try to decipher who she is supposed to hand her family heirloom to, through her prophetic dreams. The idea of creatures intermixing is also gradually introduced as we find out that Sophie is a daemon born to witches, carrying a witch baby. Also implying that her prophetic dreams is due to her witchly heritage.  It also shows us, from the start, Nathaniel’s proficiency in computers, which will come in handy later on. 

Deleted Scenes It’s a 579 page book that has to be condensed into less than 8 hours of screen time so of course some things have to be cut.

Yoga Oh the yoga scenes. It would have been vaguely hilarious to see Matthew doing yoga XD Also, it added to Diana and Matthew slowly getting to know each other, as well as the possibility of all creatures getting along.  Pacing-wise, it would probably have been a bit too early in the show to introduce the concept of all the different creatures working together in harmony. Throughout the 8 episodes, there’s a nice development from outright hatred, with Gillian’s attitude towards Diana hanging out with Matthew, begrudging cooperation, within the members of the Congregation, tentative co-existence, with Nathaniel’s daemon group talking about how they interact with other creatures and humans, to the shadow congregation/conventicle that Diana’s family, Matthew’s family and Sophie’s family end up forming towards the end of the season. 

The ghosts Another practical cut because plot-wise, they don’t really add as much. It would have been fun to see Granny ghost and the other’s checking Matthew out the first time he steps into the Bishop house XD 

Season 2 speculations

- Suddenly watching a period piece. Haha. Though considering the ending of Season 1, it’ll probably expand on the story and intersperse bishmont’s 1590s shenanigans with present day details, like Marcus’s leadership of the Knights of Lazarus and what happens between Emily and Gerbert - bloodRage!Matthew. Yes please. I AM HERE FOR IT  🔥 🔥 🔥 - T H E  M A R R I A G E and finally getting to see bishmont do the do  😏 - Diana’s R A I N B O W magic. Also, I honestly still can’t quite picture what the knotting that she does with her magic looks like so it’ll be interesting to finally get to see it on screen.  -  Also quite curious to see if they’ll leave the loss of their first child in. On the one hand A N G S T plus a parallel to Matthew’s first marriage to Blanca. On the other hand, is there enough screen time? Also, the whole fear of hereditary blood rage could cover the same A N G S T.    

Honestly, there’s so much plot to cover, I’m curious to see how they’ll do it in 10 episodes (EDIT: thanks for the update on S2′s ep count @adow-trash . Sorry I’m super new to the fandom. Only started diving in on Monday)

[sol1056]

if you promise peaches, deliver peaches.

After S7, the asks have been piling up. A few examples:

I was so confused in ep4 when Acxa disappeared, I thought she’d stuck with the team after ep3 and maybe I just missed the scene where she left, but others have brought that up, too.

Funny how the majority of the problems in s7 are because they tried to force BP Keith to the detriment of the story, and ironically, Keith's story, too.

I thought Lance’s family reunion would be much more emotional and be a part of his arc, since he was the most homesick, but then they gave that to Hunk?

Shiro got tossed aside in the most ableist, racist, and homophobic way, and Allura could have had a cool storyline mixing her paladinship and her castle storyline with a new altean mecha, instead of Shiro becoming a bad Allura 2.0 and Keith becoming a bad Shiro 2.0.

Srsly tho, am I the only one who finds it extremely bothering that in writing Allura and Lance they don't bother to show Allura coming to view Lance in a romantic light after her breakup?

Why even bother in S6 to make such a big deal of Shiro/Kuron saying his dream is to be a paladin over and over? Until he was revealed a clone some of us thought he was Shiro, so it's even harder to accept Shiro not being BP anymore.

The EPs seem to be so stuck in their initial idea and salty they couldn’t do it exactly as they want that they just ignore the story itself?

The EPs have spoken of being determined to get the VLD gig out of fear it’d be given to someone who'd wreck the story. That's understandable, but we're talking about a 78-episode, six-season, space opera mecha series. This genre practically demands a sprawling world and a massive cast, and it's far beyond the scope of anything either JDS or LM have ever helmed on their own. 

My guess is that JDS and LM didn’t realize the enormity of what they were taking on, or they (and their bosses) seriously underestimated the degree to which they were wholly unprepared.

Behind the cut: what I meant when I said these EPs are not storytellers.

I’m not surprised the EPs over-estimated their skill, really. People will look at a creative process like art –- where you often start young, practice daily, maybe study it formally, apprentice or intern (especially in animation), and gradually work your way up -- and they see the effort. They know it wasn’t an overnight thing. 

Too often, the very same people won’t accord that respect to the art of storytelling. It’s treated like divine inspiration, something that just happens. We’ve been hearing and reading and watching stories all our lives; how hard can it be to do it ourselves?

It’s goddamn hard, is what it is. I would love to tell you otherwise, but that’s the truth. You can rock your dialogue but you gotta track character goals, too. Complicated backstories only get you so far if you don’t understand how to modulate tension. You can have a great premise but you still gotta resolve the damn thing. A story has a hundred moving parts; scale up to a space opera’s necessary levels of epic and we’re talking exponentially more.

In my experience, the hardest part of storytelling — not the technical aspects of writing, but the art of storytelling — is holding the shape of the story in your head. The entire thing, all at once. You have to, if you’re to see how a choice at this point will echo down the line, or a motif laid here should reflect there, how the theme shifts but stays true from start to end, how these secondary arcs weave together to undergird the main arc.

I’d say a lot of what we learn in our first few novels is how to see — and hold —the story’s shape in our head. I’m not talking dialogue or voice acting or choreography. I’m talking about the overall shape, the vision and theme it establishes, evolves, and eventually resolves.

If we cannot, we will find our stories promise peaches and deliver pine cones.

Looking back, there are too many clues --- almost all given by the EPs themselves --- that they didn't have the experience to do this story justice. What they did have was a certainty that their vision was the best, an inability to deviate from that one story they'd devised, and a continual low-grade frustration at being held back.

Let's go back to the beginning. S1 starts a little rocky (to be expected as a team finds its groove), but S2 builds on S1 quite deftly. It’s not perfect, but in a storytelling sense, it’s the strongest season, and it's much too self-assured to be a beginner’s. It moves swiftly but steadily to a pivotal midpoint, and from there snowballs gracefully into its finale; it balances nuanced characterization with plot movement, and its opening promises bear fruit by the end.

In those earliest interviews and panels, the EPs are often casually vague about basic details, like character ages or relationships. At least twice their answers change, giving the impression they hadn't known and had needed to confirm with someone else. Generally, though, they're low-key and hopeful, possibly leaning on the borrowed confidence of that other storyteller’s influence.

By S3/S4, their tone shifts to a peculiar kind of non-ownership. They joke about having no idea what's going on, tossing out guesses as though they'd be the last to know. They offer head canons, rather than insight. They wear their frustration openly, alluding to the story they'd wanted, chafing at what had been decided for them.

As the story moved into the split-seasons, it's clear that whomever lent that guiding hand in S1/S2 was no longer present. Someone else’s fingerprints are on S3, and my guess is it’s mostly Hedrick, at least on the script-level. The word choices change, the cadences change, the beats change. From S3 on, VLD has all the hallmarks of a muddy vision. 

You can see that in the story’s shape. It holds together, but barely. It darts forward, then sideways, then treads water for a bit. It’s erratically paced, dropping plot points and introducing new ones, only to drop those as well. It can’t settle on a driving antagonist, and when it finally does, it can't keep the antagonist’s goal consistent. It sacrifices nuance for one-note characterization, and shoves most substantiative character growth off-screen.

This continues to S6, which generally continues the focus on plot coupons over character goals, exposition at the cost of emotional beats, and neglecting established characters to introduce left-field swerves in the guise of plot twists. On the plus side, it does manage to rally enough to end its multi-season prevarication, and put to bed questions hanging around since late S3.

It's worth noting that both EPs have only a single writing credit each, for the pilot three-parter. That makes it doubly striking that JDS chose to write the Black Paladins episode. After the season aired, JDS complained in passing about rewrites on his episode. If that seems odd, remember that an EP has final approval on every script. If it bothered him to have his ideas rejected in favor of keeping Shiro, it must've burned to have his writing choices countermanded.

From the timing and the episode credits, this must've been around when Tim Hedrick left the team --- and the EPs took full ownership. 

It shows in their post-S6 interviews. Gone are the ambiguous expressions or vague promises of doing their best. Their wording is declarative: what Kuron had been, what Shiro would be, the resolution of Shiro’s illness, the nature of Shiro’s past relationship. None is equivocated, nor couched as head canons. They’ve taken control of the narrative, and their interpretation is now the deciding one.

This change was important enough to them that they had to make sure we’re aware. There’s simply no other reason to tell us S7 had been written in its entirety, let alone tell us the original outcome. Nor is there any other reason to tell us they petitioned for — and got — permission to rewrite.

When I look at S7 with my writer’s hat on, everything tells me this is where the brakes came off. With Hedrick’s departure, there was no one left but the EPs themselves to steer the story. By whatever means, for whatever reason, VLD went from a crafted vision, to a conflicted one, to none at all.

Set aside the larger controversies for a moment, and just think about the shape of S7. It’s almost three seasons in one: the first part skips from event to event, then abruptly timeskips to reset the entire playing field. That second part in turn is divided from the last half by a two-parter that halts momentum for an overlong flashback with an entirely new cast, followed by a finale that mostly backseats its protagonists in favor of letting that new cast dominate.

There’s a common pattern in the way beginner writers react to critique, and I see that all over the EPs’s responses, from the beginning. It’s only grown worse since S6. They can’t quite juggle the story they think they’re telling versus the story they’re actually telling.

I’ve had these conversations too many times to count. I ask, how did this character get from here to there? The newbie storyteller is quick to explain, usually in great detail. I ask, but then why did this happen? The more I dig, the greater the chance the newbie will get angry that I don’t seem to be reading the story they’re so obviously telling. If I keep pushing, they’ll get defensive.

They’ll confidently assure me this is exactly the story they’d intended to tell, and if I don’t like it, that’s my problem. (They may not be able to hold the shape in their head, but they’ve probably already taken to heart the adage that one must stay true to one’s ‘artistic’ vision. The part about listening to critique even when it’s uncomfortable… that takes a bit longer to learn.)

My reaction almost always boils down to: you’re telling me this amazing story, but that’s not the story you’ve actually written.

Sometimes the best description of the shape of a newbie’s story is that of a house after a tornado’s swept through: the front door is on the chimney, the roof is half-off, and the windows are shattered in the front yard. Most of the pieces are there, but it’s all so jumbled the newbie storyteller can’t see what’s missing. They can’t hold the shape of the story in their head, so even when they know here’s where something goes, they’re too overwhelmed to remember the door they need is still on the chimney.

An epic story is no cakewalk, and boy do I give credit for that effort, but it’s one thing to learn by noodling in a fandom on AO3. It’s quite another to do it at the scale of a television series, let alone one with the expected scope of a space opera spanning galaxies. This is not the place to learn as you go.

Here’s why the shape of the story — and holding that in your head — is so important. 

Think of a story’s resolution like a fresh peach. You want the reader to bite into the peach as the culmination of everything the story has been, from start to end. But you don’t get a peach by planting pine trees. You must start with the proper seeds, and make sure what grows is a peach tree, such that your final act bears the right fruit.

I touched on this before with the promise of the premise. Themes, backstories, world-building, and motifs are facets of the seeds planted in the first act. Everything you need to resolve the story must be present when the story begins; that’s where your premise lies, and your promises are made. 

Through the entire second act, the tree must grow. The storyteller’s task is to trim as needed, bind this to that, shore up the roots, add water and nurture: this is where the theme expands, the foreshadowing laid, the questions reveal answers that lead to further questions, narrowing the outcome, each outlining the tree’s shape in sharper detail.

By the time the story turns the corner into the third act, the readers should be reasonably certain they’re going to get a peach tree. This is not a bad thing! You want them looking forward to plucking the peach and enjoying it. You want everything planted at story-beginning to come to fruition, at story-end.

That is why you must hold the shape — the vision — in your head, always checking against where you began and where you plan to end. You cannot throw out the entire tree at the end of the second act and start over; if you ignore the fruit your story is producing and insist on serving up pine cones, you’re going to have confused and possibly angry readers.

You promised them peaches, damn it.

The story is now midway through the third act. Everything planted in the previous seasons must now be coming to fruition… but it won’t. The EPs are openly (even proudly) reversing course on everything that’s come before. That means directly violating every motif, every thematic element, every bit of foreshadowing in word, image, or sound.

And at the same time, the story’s scope is simply too vast, and they haven’t the experience to juggle all the thousands of moving parts. The result is the most slapdash season, yet. Characters simply drop out of sight, only to reappear again with no warning. Themes and motifs built up over so many episodes are tossed aside as if they mean nothing.

The hand-to-hand fights are visually striking — the EPs’ strengths are in storyboarding, after all — but emotionally hollow, bereft of dialogue that could finally give us closure. Characters that would’ve once spoken openly with each other barely exchange a word; character-distinct dialogue is uttered by someone else, as though the VAs mixed up the scripts in the recording booth.

To achieve the emotional heft required for a meaningful resolution, there must be echoes of the story’s beginning. But when the beginning is negated—underscored by a timeskip that resets the entire playing field—there’s nothing to refer back to. The events now are happening in a void, divorced from the themes and motifs that created the emotional context in the first place.

This is by design; the EPs’ vision has never matched with the story as it was told to this point. They can’t go back, so they’ve rebooted. Once with the timeskip, and again with a two-parter episode that introduces new characters that can be entirely their own. Compared to the protagonists, these secondary characters have been lavished with attention to the point of overload: full names, backstories, designs. All of of that, and the time required to introduce them is to the detriment of the actual protagonists.

Whatever story VLD ostensibly set out to tell, that story is gone, now.

This is no longer a matter of losing track of the story, such that the promised peaches have transmuted into pine trees. We passed that point somewhere in S6. The EPs have burnt down the orchard to plant new seeds, while doing their best to ignore the charred stump of the story we'd been promised.

I would've preferred peaches, myself. That was the story I was promised, and that was the fruit I expected from everything I saw onscreen. But now? 

I hope you like carrots.

[rpadoptionnetwork]

Hey there! We were wondering if you would be interested in giving us a full review (We're okay with public). Also sidebar, I love what you're doing here. This is really a great idea.

DISCLAIMER: this review is only reflective of my own opinions and is intended to provide constructive criticism. there is no obligation to listen to or agree with anything said.

OVERALL:

from the colour scheme to the fonts and graphics, everything feels so– thematically similar and visually pleasing. i’m incredibly impressed with how everything turned out, even if i’m not exactly convinced that i would apply. thank you so much for your hard work and love for this rp, because it clearly shows. that being said, there’s still a few things that i would like to see changed or improved upon, mostly to aid clarification. 

i’ve done my best to give my honest review and opinion on your rp.  i tend to be a bit wordy, so there is also a TLDR at the very bottom of the page. as always, i am here to elaborate on any of my critiques if asked. thanks for coming by! 

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ACCESSIBILITY:

this is not my favorite fansite theme, mostly because it is so commonly used, but you guys have done a really good job of making it your own. the links you’ve chosen to highlight on the main page very helpful and i’m happy that you’ve included so much information about the world you’ve created in the navigation. 

unfortunately, i also feel that most of your writing is incredibly dense. as a newcomer to your universe and the concepts you have presented, it takes more than one read in order to understand what is being presented to me and that’s a bit of a turn-off. 

i see the most problem in pages such as your rules– which, as an ooc page, should be very easy to navigate, but instead is organized in a way that I don’t feel encourages people to actually read your guidelines. this wordiness combined with the placement of your password, leads me to believe that most would just skip to the end and not read what you’ve written. i’ve suggested changes that i would make in the ‘RULES page’ section down below.

as a general structure, accessibility is great. however, for people wanting to discover more about your world, i think there must be a better way to organize the details of your story. 

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PLOT:

I really do think that this is an original and lovely plot idea, but I stayed on this page for a very long time and I’m still not sure I understood the whole concept. Though this plot is not particularly very long, it feels that way. 

The very first sentence does not grab your attention and the first paragraph is a lot of exposition for an audience that is not quite invested yet in your RP. In particular, the first two sentences introduce three completely new concepts and terms to potential applicants, and it feels a bit sprung unto you.

It is just dense and hard to understand.  I’ve done a bit of retooling of the first section that I feel better conveys the idea of your RP.  I am not saying that it is better or that your writing is not Amazing (bc I firmly believe that it is), but I want to give you an option. .

A centuryago, Sector Zero of the American Government began work on PROJECT GENESIS, aclassified experiment that resulted in the creation of supersoldiers.

These supersoldiers,known as Novas, were a subspecies of humanity gifted with extraordinaryabilities. Though they looked and behaved just like any other humans, theirpowers made them more valuable and more dangerous than any human could ever be.And thus, though they had been exploited by their creators for decades, their veryexistence was kept a secret for the public.

It wasonly in 2015 when the world found out about Novakind.

And it wasthen, that the world changed for good.

Within three years, Novakind were forced to registerthemselves or be imprisoned. For the next decade, Novas and Humans would waragainst each other, attempting to find the delicate equilibrium that wouldallow both sides to coexist. When the acts of terrorism from both sides grewmore and more violent, the government was forced to step in, passing the Nova Protection Act of 2026— a piece of legislationthat saw to the imprisonment of all Nova kind under the guise of“protecting” both them and the humans.

Toavoid being forced to live in the walled-off camps and be subject to the crueltythat the Protection Act established, many Novas became fugitives. There, they seek refuge in abandoned neighborhoods, hoping tooutrun the reach of the government until the horrible injustice comes toend. 

In general, I advise that your plot 

relies less on terminology (Sector Zero, Project Genesis, Nova, Novakind, Novum districts,..etc. are all words we have never heard before and thus we need a slow introduction to them. 

tries to be more immediately attention-grabbing rather than expository

++ there’s a few grammatical and spelling errors in your plot and extra information pages and that’s a big turnoff for me. i would read through your plot one more time and proofread. 

I wish the summary and notes section was separated from the rest visually (perhaps with a few line breaks?) rather than indicated under another subheader. It makes more sense to me to have it stand apart from the rest of the plot as it can be and should be read on its own,  rather than as a continuation of the more detailed plot. 

Though the READ MORE section is helpful and should be included in your rp, it does look a little bit out-of-place on this page, especially directly after the summary. I would rather see a READ MORE link that directs to a page with all 5 separate links right after your detailed plot. 

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AESTHETIC/GRAPHICS:.

I have genuinely nothing bad to say about your fonts or your layout. I wish I could write as long a section on how much I appreciate the colour scheme you’ve chosen and how consistent it is as I wrote about your plot. 

You’ve made everything work for you and I’m really impressed. 

I wish I had your eye for colour and your ability to pick pictures. Good job!

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SKELETONS:

I love the diversity in your skeletons and the ideas behind them. The freedom of choice in the faceclaims and the unique connections are really appreciated. 

 However, none of the skeletons really stand out to me. A lot of the skeletons feel like bullet points, rather than like a quick look into their lives. 

I love the graphics associated with each skeleton and think each of the blurbs on the skeletons are perfectly adequate, but none of them really come to life for me. Lupus and Leo are, in my opinion, the best of the batch, but I want more– 

I’m sorry that I can’t really elaborate on what I’m looking for, but, in the future, I hope that you can try for a less expository description and something more imbued with animation and emotion. When skeletons are written livelily, it really does allow potential applicants to connect more with your vision of the character. 

At this point, I wouldn’t change anything, but I hope that you keep this in mind for the future. 

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THE PAGES:

—– THE ‘RULES’ PAGE

If I would change one thing about your entire RP, it would be the rules. This page is hard to read through. Some of it feels repetitive and, at points, it even directly contradicts itself (no age limit, but also strongly recommended age limit). 

I understand the need for all these rules, and, actually believe that most of them need to be there. However, the presentation could just be a little different. 

For example, IV, V, IX are all the same topic with slight variations and can be summed up into 

OOC Drama and Bullying will not tolerated in this RP. This includes forcing of ‘ships’ or ‘plots’ on other players without consent. If you feel uncomfortable of have any problems with any players, please contact us and we will resolve the issue. If found to be instigating the drama, you will have two warnings before you will be removed from the RP. 

And instead of 

We(as admins) promise to try and accept applications in a timely manner. We willtry to do acceptances every Wednesday and Sunday, however due to life outsideof tumblr things may change. We promise to make announcements regarding anychanges in acceptance dates/times as soon as possible. 

Wedo reserve the right to deny applications, though it is a very rare occurrence.If we do deny an application, it will be for one of three reasons: 1. We feelyou do not understand the skeleton for which you’re applying. 2. Someone elseapplied, and even if your app was spectacular, we felt that the other applicantunderstood the character more, and you chose not to have a secondary optionwhen applying. 3. You failed to use spellcheck or other grammar resources whenwriting your app, to the extreme that it was very hard to read. If you weredenied and would like the reason why, just let us know and we’ll gladly talk itover with you. That being said, even if you’re denied, we would absolutely loveto see you apply again.

I would simply put 

Acceptances are every Wednesday and Thursday. If conflicts arise, we will make an announcement regarding any changes in acceptance dates/times. 

We reserve the right to deny applications. If you were denied and would like the reason why, please feel free to message us. Regardless of the reason why you were rejected, we will be happy to see you reapply. 

As you can see, this is far less wordy and still conveys the same message. 

I also firmly believe you should never have a TLDR on your rules page, because well… the players Should read your rules. 

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—– THE EXTRA INFORMATION PAGES

There a few spelling and grammatical errors on these pages and it continues to be a little bit hard to understand. 

I would read over these and try to edit them in a way that is more concise.

—– RANDOM COMMENTS

The Dinah Drake name throws me off a little bit, as there is a popular superhero character by that name. It shouldn’t be important, but it just took me out of it. 

I highly suggest that you stylize the title of your RP when it shows up (ie DEFIANCE vs Defiance.) It helps distinguish that this is the name of your RP rather than just a noun. It also looks a lot more dynamic. 

I would avoid using slang and  other colloquialisms when answering asks (ooh, oh, lol..etc.) as usually you are explaining more about your universe and your vision. You want to answer asks clearly and portray your professionalism. Otherwise, I really like the vibes you give off! You seem welcoming and I’m really glad about that.  

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.

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TLDR; what i would like to see changed

EDIT your Rules & Plot so that they are less wordy and more engaging (also reread for grammatical errors).

I genuinely found your plot hard to get through because it was a lot of ‘telling’ (rather than showing) and it felt a little bit dry. When introducing so many new concepts to potential applicants, you have to ease them into it and sort of sweeten the waters by using a little  (but not too much) purple prose and description. It gives life and atmosphere to your RP. 

Your rules are just too long and, if I were applying, I would just avoid reading them if possible. I also don’t like the use of a TLDR at the end as it feels unprofessional and implies that one can skip over your rules.

Stylize the word DEFIANCE when you are referring to your RP, so we are aware that it is the title of your RP, rather than just a word.

Really not much else! I like this RP a lot! It is truly beautiful and I wish the best for you. 

as a last note and reminder, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE ANY OF MY SUGGESTIONS AND I WILL NOT CARE if you have not taken any of them. There is no ill-will from me to you. As always, this is not intended to be hate and I genuinely want the best for you guys. I’ve done my very best to make sure my advice is constructive, but please call me out if you find any of this offensive or crude.

Thank you and have a nice day. Good luck!

[austenmarriage]

New Post has been published on Austen Marriage

New Post has been published on https://austenmarriage.com/1531-2/

Sifting Through Austen’s Elusive Allusions

Excellent researchers have divined many, many references and allusions that Jane Austen makes in her novels and letters. In his various editions of her works, R. W. Chapman lists literary mentions along with real people and places. Deirdre Le Faye’s editions of Austen’s letters include actors, artists, writers, books, poems, medical professionals, and others. Jocelyn Harris, Janine Barchas, and Margaret Doody have written extensively about people, places and things on which Austen may have based situations or characters. Some of Jane’s references are clear, some artfully concealed.

Yet we should be cautious about the great number of literary or historical finds uncovered by modern scholarship, because we often don’t know how many of these Austen knew herself. When a modern researcher cites an historical person from a couple of hundred years Before Jane, the marginal query must always be, “Did JA know this?” Many, she likely did. But probably not all. Maybe not even most.

Also, we don’t know how many references and allusions are tactical rather than strategic. Many authors include passing topical references with no other goal than to place the events of a novel in a particular time and place. A writer in 1960s America might show anti-war footage playing on a television. A current writer might mention a controversial American president or British prime minister. But unless a common theme directly connects the background references with the main storyline, these references are likely tactical rather than strategic.

Here, “tactical” means the reference has no profound meaning beyond the text. “Strategic” means an effort by the writer to establish a more general social, political, or historical context. A reference to a Rumford stove in Northanger Abbey, for example, is tactical, playing a newly invented appliance off the heroine’s expectations of dank passages and cobwebbed rooms. The naval subplot in Persuasion, on the other hand, is strategic. It incorporates not only the overall historical context but also the moral and intellectual contrast between the military men who have earned their wealth versus the wealthy civilians who are squandering theirs.

For many other items, it is difficult to determine the precise source. Education and literature in Great Britain then involved a small, fairly closed set of people. Limited common sources included the Bible, Shakespeare, and authors from the classical tradition. A common set of teachers came from the same small number of colleges using those limited sources. Everyone who admitted to reading novels drew on the same small pool of books.

It is conventional wisdom, for instance, that Austen took the phrase “pride and prejudice” from Francis Burney’s book Cecilia, where the capitalized phrase appears three times at the end. However, the literary pairing of “pride and prejudice” occurs elsewhere, including the writings of Samuel Johnson and William Cowper, two of Austen’s other favorite writers.

Even First Impressions, the original name for this novel, may have come from a common vocabulary. First impressions, and not being fooled by them, was a literary trope. In Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, the heroine, Emily, and the secondary heroine, Lady Blanche, are warned not to rely on first impressions. This novel, shown above by the headline, is mentioned so often in Northanger Abbey that it is almost a character. The concept also arises in the works of Samuel Richardson. Austen may have borrowed from one of these specific authors. Or all the authors may have used a common literary vocabulary. Indeed, it was the recent publication of two other works with the title First Impressions that led Austen to change her title.

Another question is whether Austen knew the many layers of references that academics often point out. She apparently had free run of her father’s 500-book library, but we don’t know what it contained. As an adult, she had occasional access to the large libraries at her brother Edward’s estates at Chawton and Godmersham. How much she read of the classical material there, we don’t know.

Jane knew Shakespeare and the Bible well. She knew many poets, but would she have read a still earlier classical writer referenced by those poets? Did Austen know Shakespeare’s sources, which were often obscure Italian plays? We might be able to trace many connections back to the Renaissance or before, but she may have known only the immediate one before her.

Harris, Barchas, Doody, and others have given us multiple possible historical references to the name Wentworth in Persuasion. Austen might use the name to tie into this network of families and English history going back hundreds of years (strategic). Or she might use the name because of its fame in her day (tactical). The direct novelistic use is to contrast Sir Walter, who measures family names in terms of social status, with the Captain, who fills his commoner’s name with value through meritorious service. Sir Walter finally accepts Wentworth because of his wealth and reputation. He was “no longer nobody.” Yet the baronet can’t help but think the officer is still “assisted by his well-sounding name.”

Barring a letter or other source in which Austen states her purpose, we have no way of knowing whether Austen intended a broader meaning to “Wentworth” than its general fame. To some, the name in and of itself establishes the broad historical context. To others, it would take more than the three or so brief references to Wentworth, as a name, to show that Austen means to establish a meaningful beyond-the-book purpose.

Another consideration is that, cumulatively, commentators have found an enormous number of supposed references and allusions in Austen. Could a fiction writer, with all the work required in creating, writing, and revising a novel, have the time and energy to find and insert a myriad of outside references and allusions? Could a writer insert many references without bogging down the work?

Every writer who has tried her hand at historical fiction, for example, knows that too much history can overwhelm the novel’s story, leaving characters standing on the sideline to watch events pass by. Every external reference creates extra exposition that creates the danger of gumming up the plotline. It might also create a new emotional tone at odds with the characters’ situation or other complexities that must be resolved. We can’t underestimate the extra work for an author who already has her head full of practical book-writing issues—plot and character development—that need to be kept straight.

Finally, writers often plant things for no other reason than fun. In Northanger Abbey, John Thorpe takes Catherine Morland for a carriage ride early in the story. Barchas points out that he asks her about her relationship with her friends, named Allen, at just the point where their carriage would be driving past Prior Park, the home of Ralph Allen. This was the stone mogul who helped build Bath.

Austen does not explicitly call out the family home. Readers who know Bath’s geography and make the connection to the wealthy masonry clan get an extra chuckle. Readers unfamiliar with the geography, or with the wealthy Allen descendants, would not suffer from a lack of understanding.

All a reader needs to know is that Thorpe thinks the Morlands are connected to a very wealthy family, when in fact their friends named Allen are only modestly well-to-do. Thorpe’s misunderstanding drives the book’s plot. Very likely, all Austen wanted with the Prior Park allusion was to give a wink to the bright elves reading her book.

Thus the author may mean one thing, while later analysts might find something beyond what the writer ever intended. In Mansfield Park, for instance, Henry Crawford reads Henry VIII aloud. A broad interpretation might connect the attitude of the rogue Henry Crawford with the attitude of the rogue Henry VIII: Women and wives are interchangeable, expendable, to be taken at whim and tossed away at whim. Or perhaps the name Henry is nothing more than a tip of the hat to Jane’s favorite brother, Henry.

Austen may well have intended multiple levels of interpretation. But note that she has Henry Crawford himself say that Shakespeare is “part of an Englishman’s constitution … one is intimate with him by instinct.” Edmund Bertram agrees: “We all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions.”

Others may feel that Austen deliberately weaves in as many references as she can. One must imagine her writing with a variety of concordances stacked to the ceiling. But she indirectly tells us of a different approach. One is “intimate” with Shakespeare by “instinct.” She knew the Bard and other writers in depth, and the references come out organically. Much more than by design, this fine writer pulls what she needs from history by “instinct.”

—

The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, which traces love from a charming courtship through the richness and complexity of marriage and concludes with a test of the heroine’s courage and moral convictions, is now complete and available from Amazon and Jane Austen Books.

[thenichibro]

Summer 2017 Anime First Impressions

Well here we are again, four weeks into the season before I finally get around to catching up on the twenty shows I’m keeping track of. Not like anyone reads these anyway. Regarding this season, we can say one thing: at least it isn’t last season. Thus far there’s been nothing super stand out, with a lot of middle-of-the-road shows and a few ones slightly better. Much preferable to the shit show 16 weeks ago. As usual, here’s what I’m watching, with MAL links and original shows marked:

Tsurezure Children (MAL) Starting off, we have a webcomic turned serialized manga turned anime, and for good reason. Tsurezure is a 4-koma romcom focusing on way too many couples in bite-sized happy romance stories. Defined by reaction faces, exclamation points, and yet a surprising amount of exposition, it's a quirky comedy I glad I started reading. One of the main downsides of Tsurezure is that although it has overarching themes, minute-to-minute enjoyment is very much based on the current couple. Personally, I love the Class Prez/Deliquent, Chiaki/Kana, and anything with the Love Master. The problem, then, is that once you find the few you really like, it's kind of a shame you only get so much time with them. A simple art style that matches the manga belies an infectious humor that Toshiya has mastered. This is one short show I wish was longer. Watch this.

Aho Girl (MAL) Continuing the notable increase in half-length shows, we have this half-witted one. Aho Girl, lit. "Clueless Girl," follows Yoshiko, an idiot, and her friends(?), mostly childhood friend Akuru, trying to deal with her idiocy. A suitably odd OP, both in sound and visuals (or relative lack thereof), leads into Yoshiko's introduction through getting a 0 on all her tests. I guess that confirms the title, now doesn't it? Tsukkomis, wild attitude swings, and bananas are the name of this show's game. One thing I love right off the bat is just how blatantly annoyed Akuru gets with Yoshiko's antics. It's not hard to see the "he's supporting her because he does feel something," but that being shelved in favor of faces of disgust is just funny on a very essential level. This show knows exactly what it is, a dumb comedy about a girl being dumb. And yet it's dumb fun all the same.

Isekai Shoukudou (MAL) A somewhat restrained take on the well-worn isekai genre, Shoukudou involves Nekoya, a resataurant that serves fantasy creatures once each week, connecting to "the other world" through the restaurant's front door. Right off the bat, the upbeat OP is coupled with some fantastic visuals. I missed having a food porn show last season, but Shoukudou brings it back in force. Further, throughout each episode the background music keeps pace with events and is a very nice touch to the cool tones of this show. Indeed, this show absolutely exudes cool. The smooth tunes while the last few customers (albeit they being beastmen, wizards, and the like) finishing their orders, Aletta and the Master cleaning tables into the night, it's just so nice. Aletta is the new hire, a demon girl homeless in "the other world" who finds the door to Nekoya by happenstance and promptly gets a job and a new outlook on life. She's real cute. Shoukudou has plenty of the "customer narrates the intricacies of how good the food is" every time a new customer comes in, but it's great all the same. If this show is a slow introduction of new characters to Nekoya for the rest of the run time, I will be more than satisfied. AOTS contender right here. Satisfied with an isekai? What is this season coming to?

Koi to Uso (MAL) Marraige is arranged genetically for happiness at 16, and other love is forbidden. As if there was a premise that lent itself more to a high school romance-drama. I have to say, I am in absolute disbelief that Koi to Uso isn't penned/drawn by the same creator as Scum's Wish. The artstyle and really the whole tone, albeit Koi to Uso being a bit more restrained, I immediately thought it was the same author. Wild. Anyway, we're dropped into a modern Romeo and Juliet, Nejima and Takasaki confess, to each other, just as the government - the external circumstances - are pulling them apart. It's not a new path forward, but I think the latter half of the first episode conveyed the emotions pretty well. The beautiful artstyle helps, and with shaking hands, red cheeks, and streaming tears the ending scene got me into it, despite the expected outcome. ...Is what I was thinking as Nejima fucking fell on top of Ririna (his assigned wife) in the second episode. Why. Why do that? Why have that 6 seconds into the show? At least the girls are cute - Takasaki in a hoodie, shorts and thighhighs was just incredible, but Ririna with her curious eyes and attitude beyond her height, hoo boy - guess I'm rooting for the underdog now. Time to suffer. With Ririna's schemes, Koi to Uso is perfecting anxiety - having something so treasured so close, being trapped by things out of your control, being trapped by things inside yourself - so much anxiety. This show can't go anywhere except emotional turmoil, but if it's already getting emotional responses out of me, I'm going to stay interested. Especially after episode three's ending.

Netsuzou TRap (MAL) Yet another shorter-than-normal show, we have NTR. Yes, that NTR. The "fuck over the caring guy and get off on cheating behind his back" kind of NTR. Just now with lesbians. Even moreso, I dislike Hotaru's archetype so much it just makes me feel bad for Yuma. If you're into that, watch this. If you're not, don't. I don't know why I did. There are better fetishes.

Clione no Akari (MAL) The fourth and last of the short shows, Clione no Akari begins with Takashi and Kyoko trying to help Minori, who is getting bullied. Its muted art style matches this tired premise. I know it's only nine minutes, but the first episode still felt like it dragged on for some reason. Moreover, both Takashi and Kyoko reflect on their weakness and that they want to stand up to the class for Minori, but then in the second episode all of that possible growth just gets passed over. They call out to her after she almost gets splashed by a car, and then Takashi says "After that, Kyoko and I grew so focus on how we could solve Minori's current situation, it was as if it were happening to us." So after they complain about their weak personalities, instead of forcing them to change, they simply get a way to help Minori while not directly standing up to the class. It seems like if it affected them that much you'd see a bit more exposition rather than nothing to "And then, we became super close to her" over the span of fifteen minutes. It might seem like I'm asking for a lot from a 9-minute show, but that's exactly the point - if a show aims to be an engaging drama about making friends and standing up for one another, it needs to have more substance packed into its short timespan, and Clione no Akari does not.

Hajimete no Gal (MAL) And the award for "highest percentage of animation budget used exclusively for cameltoe" goes to... First, make sure you eschew the HorribleSubs release on this one, because the censoring is bad. Not Terra Formars bad, not Shinmai Maou no Testament bad, but it's not great. Now then, this is a very simple decision: you watch for the fanservice, or you don't watch at all. I'm serious when I say the animation goes to Yukana, and to a lesser extent the other girls, because the male characters (even the MC) and everything else looks downright bad. The fanservice, however, is pretty damn nice. Junichi's delusions lead into some steamy scenes that are top tier gyaru action. Other than that, the OP/ED are generic, the other girls are lackluster, and the "comedy" is unfunny. Just skip through the dialogue until you get Yukana being cute, and this'll be somewhat enjoyable.

Gamers! (MAL) A nothing main character spoken to by the cutest girl in school because she's interested in video games and especially his passion for them, despite never talking prior. Wew. Karen, said cutest girl, is attempting to bring back the school's gaming club, where real gamers play games with their gaming friends. These are serious gamers, so serious about their gaming that they forget everything else except the game, like the true gamers they are. Episode one has fantastic lines like "I've been looking for new members who are undeniably true gamers" and "Why did you guys become gamers?," like it's something you have to awaken to. And yet even in spite of this, the glorification of gaming is still going hand-in-hand with the conceptualization of "gamers" as outside normal people. Karen hasn't told anyone about her gaming passion even though she's so popular (and it's foreshadowed she'll lost her widespread respect), and Amano gets the description "Games are his friends." Every character is just entranced with Amano's gaming spirit that they can't help but want to game with him. And just like a good MC, Amano is humble and pessimistic about his own gaming passion, but stands up for the game club and the gamers that make it up. This show feels like an E3 PR rep's ideal anime. The game references themselves aren't half bad, but that's certainly not saving this waste of my time. Guess I'm just not a true gamer.

Made in Abyss (MAL) I was originally off-put by the character designs, but I am glad I finally decided to watch it. A city sits on a massive hole - The Abyss - full of ancient ruins - and our main characters are delvers into the giant void. Importantly, Made in Abyss lets us know right off the bat that it will not be all idyllic landscapes - a close call with a dangerous monster now foreshadows so much better than suddenly changing the show's tone halfway through. Background music and art style both benefit this show greatly - the music rising and falling with he action while the art easily conveys the current state of the landscape - overgrown yet hiding secrets. Riko is a energetic girl at an orphanage guild, known for swiping Relics she finds and generally causing trouble. In the tussle with the monster, she is saved by a robot boy, Reg and promptly takes him back to experiment. Just the first episode sets up tone, characters, and the mystery of the Abyss with precision. The choice of children as main characters is an interesting one, but I almost didn't think twice because the rest of the people in Made in Abyss didn't think anything of it, either. Starting with a premise that has such a clear objective, like the Abyss' bottom, also relatively anchors the show against wild plot swings, which gives me more confidence in the story going forward. All these things combined are making for quite an enjoyable experience, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Ballroom e Youkoso (MAL) Tatara is our typical despondent teen protag, who through a chance encounter is roped into trying ballroom dancing, and in it sees an opportunity to find himself. I picked this up solely on its premise, because I've never seen an anime about ballroom dancing before. It just seems so far from the typical slate that it caught my eye. This show's unique animation style, credit to Production I.G., has its ups and downs. For the most part, the show looks clean, the lines look great, and the motion is good. On the other hand, the actual dance scenes seem to lose a bit, in favor of dramatic freeze frames or showing the top halves of people rather than their legs moving or other intricate motion. I'm certainly not going to yell at the animators, for a show in which Tatara is won over by simply watching a ballroom dancing DVD, to get the viewers interested the motion, the visceral movements of the dance need to be shown, and more often than not they aren't. Oh, and the necks. Why is everyone's neck so long? Apart from Tatara, behind Sengoku's bombast lies a calculated, seriously powerful personality that is the perfect motivator for Tatara. And I don't know about you guys, but Shizuku is cuter in her practice/casual clothes than in a ballroom dress. Just my taste. Anyway, alongside the stalls in animation, I can't honestly say I like Tatara's VA. To me it just gives off the trying-too-hard-to-be-a-teen vibe too much for me to not notice it every time he speaks. While still enjoyable, these two faults are noticeable the entire time you watch the show. However, if you are interested in the premise, and don't mind animation quirks, then by all means, Welcome to the Ballroom.

[ORIG] Princess Principal (MAL) Alt history, 20th century steampunk London, and spies but also superpowers and made-up minerals, this is Princess Principal. Smooth jazz while a loli-ninja wearing a mushroom hat cuts up 20th century cars? Sure, why not? Cavorite, the aforementioned made-up mineral, allows for temporary control of gravity, allowing the girls to make their first daring escape with a VIP. Also, the girls are spying between the Commonwealth, or the West, and the Empire, or the East. Also the Princess herself is a spy. It's certainly a lot to take in immediately, but this show seems to revel in the craziness - echoing the fast-paced, spontaneous action of the spies themselves. Our main girl Ange lies to get through life, and is soft spoken and terse. The others in her immediate crew range from the authoritative onee-san to the cheerful loli. I personally feel like they could have made a perfectly enjoyable spy thriller with just alternate history and no supernatural element Take Joker Game from a few seasons ago - that even went so far as to be historically accurate in its place names and such, and aside from some same-facing was a wonderfully engaging show. While I do feel the personalities more in these femme fatales, I just don't see the "thriller" part as holding up as much. It's really not bad - I just feel my main gripe here is the overpresence of themes that don't need to be there. Still worth a watch if you don't mind it.

Centaur no Nayami (MAL) Having watched both MonMusu and Demi-chan and consequently becoming an Expert™ on monster girl shows, Centaur no Nayami is most certainly more of the former. I'll say at the very least that guys in school also being monsters is a welcome change, rather than including a harem. Hime, the titular centaur, acts just like her name. Nozomi is our sharp-tongued, tomboyish tsundere, while Kyouko (my favorite) is a terse, blonde tsukkomi. We get a surprising amount of world-building right out of the gate - the world is as it is thanks to a different evolution path, and to avoid the discrimination of the past, "equality" is aggressively and strictly enforced. The seemingly dark background behind the otherwise peppy slice-of-life is definitely off-putting, and seems immediately at odds with the tone. If while walking around town the girls maybe glimpsed an abuse or something similar, the aggressive equality mantra might seem like an understandable government reaction. Seeing nothing of the sort while hearing Kyoko not want to ride Hime because that's discrimination and she might get sent to a "correction facility" is more than a bit unsettling. Production-wise, the show looks and sounds great. Quirky music for quirky circumstances, and the motion of all the characters' different bodies is conveyed convincingly. The A/B Parts splitting the episode is something I haven't seen in quite a while, but I think it lends itself well to the SoL part of the show. Overall, this is a surprisingly endearing slice of life with a higher-than-normal amount of kissing, and I just wish they'd lay off the dramatic background. Worth a watch if you're into monster girls or slice of life more generally.

[ORIG] Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (MAL) Last but not least, we have Action Heroine - Heroines (as in those live-acted hero shows) are now super-popular, and the show follows one town that is way behind the curve on popular heroines. Immediately, I like the art. It seems like not too much more than "generic anime-style," but Diomedia has a way of doing soft lines and expressive faces that just looks great. Now I don't pretend to like hero/heroine-type premises, but even I can see this show's got remarkable heart. Spurred by her sister wanting to see Kamidaio, the current most famous heroine, Mikan, an earnest, caring sister teams up with Akagi, an energetic Kamidaio-super fan to put on a small-scale show, and the rest is history. Their first performance is carried singlehandedly by the effort the two girls put into making Mikan's sister's dream come true. Action Heroine gives off the feel of an idol show (he says, having not seen LoveLive nor Idolm@ster), with a diverse cast of girls all trying to be the best for their fans. While I don't think this show is exactly going to enjoy LoveLive levels of success, as I've said - you can see the heart it has. Some individual moments were also very strange - like a flashback where one girl loses a tennis match because a bug flew in her face, and another girl talks to her imagined anthropomorphizations of model trains. If you're into the nostalgia of hero/heroine shows, this plays right into that. Otherwise, it's a show you can pretty easily avoid.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Nights of Villjamblah

by Wardog

Friday, 24 June 2011

Wardog tries and fails to like Nights of Villjamur.~

I really should have liked Nights of Villjamur more than I did. And that's the sort of line that sets one up for a damning review but I honestly feel quite bad about it. It's full of the sort of things I generally appreciate but for some reason it left me frustrated that it wasn't, with all this promise and potential, somehow better. Without attempting to make uncontrolled, unsupported declarations about a genre as complicated and evolving as fantasy, I'd put Mark Charan Newton on the same team as writers like Abercrombie and Abraham, although if you're into literary genealogy you can certainly trace the influence of Vance and Mieville in there too. But what I'm trying to get at here is that we're talking punchy, modern fantasy; brutal, cynical, self-consciously anti-Tolkeinesque and hopefully weighing in at five hundred pages or less. The problem is, however, that as much as I enjoy this uppity, edgy, fantasy, there's already an extent to which it's becoming stale. Maybe if I'd read Nights of Villjamur two years ago, my tiny mind would have been appropriately blown, but I came away with the distinct impression it was like Abercrombie without the style and Abraham without the sophistication. On the other hand, it is a début novel and it is not by any means totally awful so I'd certainly be at least mildly interested in seeing how Newton develops.

The Jamur Empire is yer typical rich, sprawling, corrupt fantasy Empire, except there's an ice-age coming, and the Emperor has just killed himself in a fit of crazed paranoia. Cue: political shenanigans, and some other stuff. The reason I'm having a hard job summarising the plot effectively is that it's one of those multi-stranded jobbies, but the threads only come together right at the end, if at all, which makes the experience of reading Nights of Villjamur rather disjointed. Some of the involved parties are: Commander Brynd Lathraea, doing soldiery things, Inquisitor Jeryd investigating the murder of a city councillor, and Randur Estevu who hails from some kind of island race of martial artists / sex workers / dancers and has been brought to Villjamur to teach the Emperor's daughter how to dance.

I liked, in abstract terms, nearly all of these characters but their plots arcs were so wildly different in tone and style that, rather than illuminating different aspects of life in Villjamur as I suspect must have been the intention, they interfered with each other. Jeryd, for example, acts like he's in The Maltese Falcon - he's old and weary and tormented by the failures of his personal life. He's also a weird cat-person-creature but let's not go there. I had no idea what was going on with the rumel, and the last time I encountered a cat-based race it was in Green, so I'm still scarred. But his consistent failure to solve the crime, when even I was sitting there able to solve the crime, was infuriating and the the whole “one honest man versus political corruption” theme does not, in this case, co-exist comfortably in a world where you also have Brynd dealing with the brutal slaughter of entire populations. I know the counter-argument to this is “ah, but that's the point” but if it isthe point Newton does not carry it off particularly successfully, especially when Randur's swashbuckling antics are entirely at variance with both. Newton goes to great pains to create a society on the verge of ruin, a city rife with decadence and cruelty, and a world overrun with monsters and yet Randur is able to semi-thwart a massive political uprising, and stage a daring rescue, with a jolly group of peasants, who, despite living in deprivation and povert, are suddenly willing to fight to the death in defence of their oppressors. I don't, per se, have a problem with the more cartoon elements of fantasy but you can't serve up Chandler, Owen and Disney simultaneously.

It doesn't help that the supporting cast is extensive and depressingly one-dimensional. You have a Tuya, the jaded prostitute, Tryst, Jeryd's ambitious Iago-like aid who does, in fact, spend two thirds of the book engaged in acts of motiveless malignancy, Marysa, Jeryd's tediously virtuous and personality devoid wife, Eir the feisty Emperor's daughter who has her eyes opened to the true poverty of her kingdom, the fence with a heart of gold, the scheming councillor, the mad cultist, and so on and so forth. The three main characters are marginally better drawn but they lacked any true psychological depth or complexity.

Jeryd, for example, is manipulated by Tryst into believing his wife has cheated on him. Heading home in a partially drug-fuelled rage, he strikes her. Conveniently she wakes up somewhat confused and Jeryd lets her believe it was a dream. Neither the dimensions or the consequences of this are ever properly explored, nor are we really given opportunity to ponder how much responsibility (if any) Jeryd bears for either the action itself, or lying about it afterwards. Brynd's big secret is that he's gay, in a society where homosexuality is punishable by death, due to a line in one of the scriptures. I actually quite liked Brynd, but being tormented and alienated is still not really a substitute for having a personality. The presentation of his homosexuality wavers between the quite good and the horrendously heavy handed. Something that does come across well is the fact that it would be incidental to his character if not for the world in which he lives. And the chapter in which he meets up with his lover, Kym, struck me as reasonably successful, as the encounter is recounted with neither sentimentality nor sensationalism. But it's the only moment of subtlety in the entire text, and the rest of the time we're treated to reflections like this:

“Where's the big freak?” Apium said, before yawning and stretching with the grace of a tramp, astride his black horse. “I take it you mean Jurro?” Brynd said, after considering for a moment that he himself was the freak, or maybe Kym – men who loved other men, and who'd be killed if discovered. He could never shake off the paranoia.

I understand that this would be something on his mind a lot, but it's the clumsy exposition that really sinks it for me. This exchange takes place on page 331 of my edition – if I haven't got that Brynd is gay, and that being gay is punishable by death, by this point in the book, I don't think there's much more an author can be expected to do for me. Much of the interior life of the major characters is narrated to us in this flat, expository way. I don't want to fall back on trite maxims about writing but I would have liked to see character traits illuminated or demonstrated more through thoughts, interaction and behaviour, rather than simply being told about them.

Randur, for example, comes to the city through a slightly spurious set of circumstances in order to raise enough money for a cultist to bring his mother back from the dead. In order to get the cash, he has his job at the palace, teaching Eir to dance, but he also sleeps with rich, older women and steals their jewellery. He does explain, at one point, that he feels like he owes his mother a debt for all she has sacrificed for him but it never really feels convincing. After all, sense of filial obligation is one thing. Necromancy another. Needless to say, over the course of the book, he and Eir fall for each other and it turns out that resurrecting his mother isn't going to be possible, even with the money in hand. Here is the description of Randur's response:

His world imploded. Lying on Eir's bed later, he felt he wanted to vomit, but instead he cried like a ten-year-old as he told her everything. She sat next to him and waited for him to finish – he knew that, and he felt ashamed, to expose his emotions like this. But, despite her age, she possessed an unexpected, motherly quality. He liked that. After that, he got up and left, walked for two hours across the city bridges, then returned, damp and cold. Then he resumed crying. Eir held his hand. “It's understandable you're upset, Rand, so don't be so harsh on yourself.” She got up and lit lanterns and soothing incense and waited for him to compose himself. He realised he was comfortable being vulnerable in front of her. Soon he began to feel better, until somehow his failings as a son didn't seem to matter quite as much.

Given that this is a significant moment in Randur's personal development, and his relationship with Eir, I felt it was rather over-narrated but I read the ease which he apparently gets over it as evidence that his original goal was immature, and not something we were really expected to take seriously. However, a chapter later we're being narrated at again:

Eir had even given him some jewellery: a plain silver chain to go around his neck, two rings for his fingers. She had supported him so much that he felt he owed her is very soul if only he could give it. Eir's biggest gift to him wasn't monetary but psychological. Perhaps all he'd ever needed was to actually love someone else.

Once more, I can't quite unpack the tone of this. It sounds so ludicrously trite that I was half-tempted to read it as being in some way ironic. And I'm, incidentally, not thrilled with Eir's sudden detour into maternal saviour, although I can't tell whether that's meant to be Randur's distorted perspective, since Eir only has about three personality traits and none of them, thus far, have been even remotely maternal. But ultimately it's just another example of the way that heavy-handed attempts to explain the psychological development of the characters ruins their portrayal.

The other thing you can see from these quoted paragraphs, is the occasional banality of the writing, and its general clumsiness. For example, we have three awkwardly repeated 'thats' far too close to each other in “he knew that, and he felt ashamed, to expose his emotions like this. But, despite her age, she possessed an unexpected, motherly quality. He liked that. After that...” The book is riddled with such unnecessary annoyances, and the style itself is as inconsistent as everything else. Dialogue is generally naturalistic, with a fair few fucks thrown in for good measure, the prose style is plain and expository to the point of tedium, but occasionally Newton struggles towards a Mieville-like excess, which often just falls flat:

A truculunt pain shot through him and he screamed … he stumbled forwards, his hands clutching for wet stones, then began to spit blood on the ground … Sensing his life fluid filling the cracks between the cobbles, the blood beetles came and began to smother him, till his screams could be heard amplified between the high walls of the courtyard. One even scurried into his mouth, scraping eagerly as his gums and tongue. He bit down so he wouldn't choke, split its shell in two, and spat it out, but he could still taste its ichors. Councillor Ghuda was violently febrile.

I honestly have no idea what that means. I understand the individual words but the connection between them, and the the being eaten alive by bugs, not so much. A major component of Newton's Mieville Aspirations is the city of Villjamur itself, which I'm sure is meant to exist as vividly in the narrative as New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Perdido Street Station and I found the descriptions of the city a little overweening but I will admit that they got the job done. By contrast, Villjamur never became real to me and, if anything, Newton is trying so hard to have it make an impression on the reader that the overall affect is one of artificiality. Devices over conviction. For example, there's a self-conscious weirdness to Villjamur - it has blood beetles and banshees, and garuda – but these just feel like a checklist. And scenes or chapters tend to end with the narrative moving away from the thoughts and actions of the characters to more general statements about the mood of the Villjamur. The contrast, I suspect, is meant to create a sense of distance between the struggles of individuals and the vast intricacies of the city itself:

After that the three of them watched the falling snow in companionable silence. Street fires and lantern lights glared defiantly for another bell, but one by one they fell into shadow. Voices in the streets beyond quietened and soon there was only the sound of the wind probing the city's countless alleyways.

However, the more Newton falls back on this technique, the more transparent it becomes, and the more I resisted his attempts to “sell” me Villjamur. As the book progresses, he takes to refering to the city as if it should now be familiar to us (“Another one of those melancholy nights of Villjamur, in which a pterodette called out across the city's spires so loudly it sounded like a banshee”) but by that stage I was already convinced that Newton had failed to force me into a relationship with the city, and therefore this assumption of familiarity annoyed me and further alienated me from the Villjamur Newton was so desperately trying to evoke.

The thing is, barrage of negativity aside, it's not as bad as all that. I did, after all, read the thing and I was mildly engaged by the plot and some of the characters, even in spite of the heavy-handed narration and my increasingly irritation with having Villjamur forced down my throat. As a personal, rather than general, criticism I realised at about the halfway point that there wasn't a single interesting woman in the entire book. Obviously having diverse and well-rounded female characters isn't a moral necessity and it's perfectly reasonable for any writer to simply not be interested but for me to really enjoy a text I'd probably prefer it wasn't a massive sausage party. The Emperor's eldest daughter seems intriguing but she isn't in it enough for me to be able to judge. Eir is feisty-by-numbers and, consequently, irritating. Tuya starts off promising and then gets drugged and abused by Tryst, in his pursuit of revenge over Jeryd, so she essentially becomes a cipher. Jeryd's wife is so lightly sketched she's barely a character at all. To be fair to Newton, the men aren't that interesting either but they at least get more page time. However, the one thing I did like was what I perceived to be a fairly healthy attitude to sex, both heterosexual and homosexual. There are a few non-explicit but nicely down-to-earth sex scenes. But, like anything else in Villjamur, sex is largely another commodity – and the men trade it as much as the women do. I liked the fact that women, incidental though they are to the text in general, were as active in pursuit of sex as men, just as acquisitive of pretty young things, and seemed to derive as much pleasure from it.

This being so, and because we haven't had one for a while, I present: Fantasy Rape Watch for Nights of Villjamur.

Number of non-straight men: 2

Number of non-straight men killed: 0

Number of non-straight women: 0

Number of men who sell themselves: 3 maybe*

Number of men who sell themselves who are killed: 0

Number of men who sell themselves who find twu wuv: 2

Number of men who sell themselves where the woman obligingly makes herself look hot for them: 1

Number of women who sell themselves: 1

Number of women who sell themselves who are killed: 1

Number of women who sell themselves who find twu wuv: 0

Number of women who sell themselves who manage to survive a bomb: 0

Number of virtuous, married women who manage to survive the same bomb: 1

*I am including in this category, Randur who sleeps with rich old women in order to pay for necromantic magic, Tryst who sleeps with an old cultist in order to acquire something he needs, and Kym who it seems to be suggesting gets around a bit.

Obviously, I'm being slightly unfair on Newton here. I wasn't actually all that bothered by the fact that Randur manwhores his way around Villjamur and this is sort of portrayed as being vaguely cool, whereas Tuya is stuck in a cycle of loneliness and bitterness. I saw this as being largely down to the fact they are very different people, and Randur is young whereas Tuya is forty. However, I was a bit annoyed by the fact Tuya, who had all the markings of being quite interesting (shock!), was treated the way she was by the narrative - victimised, sidelined and then conveniently killed.

In conclusion I would say that although I have really hammered into Nights of Villjamur, it's not actually as bad as all that. I found it quite frustrating to read but I didn't actively hate it: I liked Brynd, and Newton seems to have quite a good grip on his gender politics. It certainly has some promise and I can only hope that this goes some way to being fulfilled in the later books.Themes:

Fantasy Rape Watch

,

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Emocakes

~

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valse de la lune

at 16:05 on 2011-06-24I remember really wanting to read this at one time, then a friend told me it was meh and I wrote it off. To this day I'm still vaguely curious but the fear of terribad racial/cultural appropriation compels me to keep my distance. Alas.

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Wardog

at 16:23 on 2011-06-24Well, as I said in my usual lukewarm fashion I quite liked Brynd... but my dominating response was "meh" over "ick." The novel is so bland that it's quite hard to get really wound up about it. I felt that the social issues, related to the coming ice-age (climate change, ho ho), Brynd's homosexuality and ye typical fantasy racism were pretty shallow, and consequently there wasn't really anything to get a grip on, either to praise or to criticise. I did think the islanders of Folke - they do dancing, swordplay and sex apparently - were a bit dodgy though, but to be honest I dismissed it as typical of the genre. I can see how there would be plenty to bother you though. I guess I was too busy fighting the bored to pay sufficient attention. Oh, and of course, you get the prejudice towards non-human races ... but, come on, cat-people are not a stand-in for people of colour.

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Vermisvere

at 16:48 on 2011-06-24Hmm...this doesn't sound like something I'd be keen to enter into my usual compulsory reading list, although it might be something I could probably sit through some cold winter night when I'm bored out of my mind.

And the way you describe it, Villjamur seems to strike me as being a bit like a fantasy version of Gotham City, minus all the crazy supervillains and Batman running around.

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Wardog

at 17:03 on 2011-06-24It is incredibly well-regarded so it's possible I've just experienced a profound failure of taste.

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Arthur B

at 17:10 on 2011-06-24

I don't, per se, have a problem with the more cartoon elements of fantasy but you can't serve up Chandler, Owen and Disney simultaneously.

This sounds like exactly one of the problems I had with

Steve Cockayne's debut novel

- it tried to fuse the conventions of so many different takes on fantastic material that it ended up tripping over itself. Ah well.

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http://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/

at 17:34 on 2011-06-24Not much point whiting out that spoiler about Tuya when you've got the Fantasy Rape Watch right above it!

I reviewed the book for Strange Horizons and came to a similar view to you. This was against the prevailing view at the time but I wonder if that has changed a bit. I've certainly seen lots of people suggesting Newton has improved as a writer as the series has progressed and have perhaps recalibrated their view of

Villjamur

(which is, after all, a debut novel). I've not read any of his other novels but I will definitely try him again at some point.

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Wardog

at 17:50 on 2011-06-24

Not much point whiting out that spoiler about Tuya when you've got the Fantasy Rape Watch right above it!

That is a good point - I fail at spoilers. But I guess you'd have to be paying attention to notice, or already familiar with the book.

I feel quite bad about not liking this more but since I remember a flurry of "zomg!awesome" at the time it came out I was genuinely a bit shocked. I am quite curious about his other books though, even in spite of my lack of enthusiasm for this one.

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Cammalot

at 22:05 on 2011-06-24Oddly enough, I'd just read through the entire thread on this book on Westeros.org last night. I came away feeling very intrigued by the premise(s) but with very mixed feelings about the (potential) prose.

But basically with so many things that have been really hyped in the last few years, elements have come out that have made me not only want to avoid the books like the plague, but wonder if I'm the crazy one, that everyone else in the world is not having a problem with this. (Emiko from "Windup Girl" springs to mind.)

I think I'll still try this one when it comes either to Nook or to trade paper, though.

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Michal

at 03:09 on 2011-06-25

but wonder if I'm the crazy one, that everyone else in the world is not having a problem with this. (Emiko from "Windup Girl" springs to mind.)

Well, count me as one other person who wasn't so crazy on The Windup Girl (and 'specially not Emiko). I didn't even finish it.

Also, I'm starting to notice our tastes are weirdly similar. Are you sure you're not my doppelganger?

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Cammalot

at 06:31 on 2011-06-25I can neither confirm nor deny. :shifty eyes:

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Wardog

at 14:43 on 2011-06-25

Oddly enough, I'd just read through the entire thread on this book on Westeros.org last night. I came away feeling very intrigued by the premise(s) but with very mixed feelings about the (potential) prose.

I'm, err, not not recommending it. I didn't like it much, but it certainly has potential and perhaps the series as a whole is better.

Also I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that Michal is Cammalot's sock puppet... :)

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Vermisvere

at 15:40 on 2011-06-25

Also I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that Michal is Cammalot's sock puppet... :)

*Gasp*

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!

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Cammalot

at 16:48 on 2011-06-25So I can take credit for Michal's coherence! I am willng to go along with this.

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valse de la lune

at 21:27 on 2011-06-25SPOILER: everyone on FB is a sockpuppet of everyone else.

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Arthur B

at 21:46 on 2011-06-25And Charles Dickens hypnotised all of you into believing in everyone else.

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Vermisvere

at 05:11 on 2011-06-26

And Charles Dickens hypnotised all of you into believing in everyone else.

But wait...if I was hypnotised, then nobody exists...but if I was hypnotised, the one who hypnotised me must exist...but wait, if he exists, then my first statement must not be true...but, but...hey, wait a minute, ain't Dickens dead anyway?

Arghh! *goes into Rene Descartes overdrive-mode*

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Arthur B

at 09:05 on 2011-06-26It's all a game in Wilkie Collins' head.

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Alasdair Czyrnyj

at 20:35 on 2011-06-26

SPOILER: everyone on FB is a sockpuppet of everyone else.

Well, everyone except for me. I'm actually an artificial intelligence who covertly created Ferretbrain as part of a method for controlling mass society. So congratulations, everybody! You have no free will!

(BTW, secretly running America is nowhere near as much fun as it looks. I still wonder how the hell GW talked me into it.)

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Ash

at 20:55 on 2011-06-26

I'm actually an artificial intelligence

Wait, I thought that was me.

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Shim

at 23:46 on 2011-06-26I'm not a sockpuppet, I'm a bot-mediated copy-paste from a less well-known site.

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Arthur B

at 00:38 on 2011-06-27I'm a worm from LulzSec. That time the other week the site was down for hours? Yeah, that was me.

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Vermisvere

at 10:17 on 2011-06-27

So congratulations, everybody! You have no free will!

Free will? That's SO last century...

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Robinson L

at 20:30 on 2011-06-28

Alasdair: I'm actually an artificial intelligence who covertly created Ferretbrain as part of a method for controlling mass society. So congratulations, everybody! You have no free will! (BTW, secretly running America is nowhere near as much fun as it looks. I still wonder how the hell GW talked me into it.)

As I recall it was two batches of homemade cookies, a case of premium vodka, and a three-year subscription to the Reader's Digest. I always did wonder about the subscription part.

... Damn, there goes my cover.

“It's understandable you're upset, Rand, so don't be so harsh on yourself.”

Oh, that's some scintillating dialogue right there.

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Wardog

at 20:45 on 2011-06-28

Oh, that's some scintillating dialogue right there.

I know :( Not precisely sparkling in Villjamur, is it?

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Shim

at 21:14 on 2011-06-28

“It's understandable you're upset, Rand, so don't be so harsh on yourself.”

I just read that along with the

Playpen Freud-Jung film discussion

and absent-mindedly read it as Ayn Rand in some bizarre They Fight Crime scheme.

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Arthur B

at 22:02 on 2011-06-28That'd be a good teamup.

All Freud linking Rand's admiration of architects to phallic symbols implicit in skyscrapers.

All Rand trying to convince Freud that charity and compassion are illnesses that cry out for treatment more than schizophrenia or neurosis.

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Robinson L

at 00:36 on 2011-06-29Cast Liv Tyler as Ayn Rand and you can have Mortensen's Freud desperately attempting to convince Jung that there is not unresolved sexual tension between them whatsoever.

Jung: Sigmund old boy, you just said you wanted to get into Ayn's pants.

Freud: I mean

plans

- get in on her

plans

.

Jung: But you said

pants

.

Freud: Sometimes a slip of the tongue is

just

a slip of the tongue!

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Wardog

at 09:42 on 2011-06-29Hahaha!

Robinson is on fire today.

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Robinson L

at 15:30 on 2011-07-01

Kyra: Robinson is on fire today.

Yes, it was touch-and-go for a while there, but they managed to dowse me and get me to a treatment center and the med droids tell me I won't have to spend the rest of my life in a mechanical suit.

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Robinson L

at 15:30 on 2012-02-24

Mark C Newton: "Things I got wrong."

Re-posting from the Playpen (credit Cammalot for the original discovery) because the Playpen is such a transitory space and because this specific post and this sort of authorial self-reflection need a lot more love.

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Wardog

at 15:46 on 2012-02-24Well...I'm happy he's noticed he was crap but ... I don't really feel like blowing him for it ;)

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Robinson L

at 20:30 on 2012-02-24

Kyra: Well...I'm happy he's noticed he was crap but ... I don't really feel like blowing him for it ;)

No reason you should. And yes, this sort of thing should probably be the baseline for authorial self-reflection, but since so many authors fail to reach such basic levels of insight, it's important to point out when they get even this much right. I also like the way he articulates the point that "gritty" doesn't automatically = "mature," and I'm a bit taken with his tone throughout the piece, but that's a personal thing.

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Cammalot

at 22:19 on 2012-02-24Heh -- I'm not even too inclined to *read* him for it, but I've been seeing so much bad authorial behavior in my lurkings lately I felt compelled to point it out. It made me a happy.

I'm still not planning to pick up this one, but with Strange Horizons blurbing his second one as "What Villjamur wished it could be," I wouldn't toss it away if it wound up in my hands, so to speak. The premise is still intriguing, and it would be interesting to see what he's done with this insight.

(I've been hearing it in my head as "Vjillamur" all this time. This is the first I'm noticing how wrong I am!)

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Wardog

at 23:42 on 2012-02-24Hee! Authors Behaving Badly! I am kind of imagining cheap documentary film-making with GRRM and Pat Rothfuss and Joe Abercrombie all wearing skimpy outfits in hot-tubs and making out with each other for the camera... Actually that's basically what they do anyway, isn't it? Except on the Internet.

(also that image hurts my brain)

That's the thing, I think I probably quite like MCN. Like Daniel Abraham (I love you Daniel Abraham, you do not need to put on the bunny tail and go in the hot tub) most of the things I've seen him writing that aren't, y'know, fiction I've quite liked. He seems kind of down-to-earth, not *ragingly* sexist and moderately humble ...

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Arthur B

at 00:02 on 2012-02-25"Authors Behaving Badly" make me think of an overrated sitcom in which R. Scott Bakker and Jay Lake are slovenly flatmates who are constantly taken aback by their inability to convince the feminists living downstairs that they're totally on their side.

[kipsyq]

Talking about the worlds of KH3

I wanted to share some of my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts 3.  I’ll keep it as spoiler free as possible, but if you don’t know what Disney worlds show up in this game, ignore this post because I’ll be talking about most of them.   

So here we go!

Olympus (Not Olympus Coliseum).  I liked this world.  It was a good world to start with and had a lot of hype in it.  I was always wondering if this world existed in just a colosseum and people magically appeared to see the competitions, but apparently not.  No, there’s two cities AND Olympus too!  The world expanded so much and I liked it.  Also they finally addressed the movie’s plot, which was nice.  Also, I loved how Sora broke the fourth wall at the beginning, asking where the usual fan fare was, since there wasn’t one this time.  Plus it was so full of twists, like characters actually talking over text boxes!  The acting was....a little off.  And sadly we don’t hear Phil talk, which is okay because his model looked horrific.

Twilight Town: Boy does this town look as beautiful as ever.  The music is great and it’s full of people!  ACTUAL PEOPLE WHAT.  Everywhere you go, there’s someone talking and it feels alive.  Also, if you happen to find the outdoor theatre and watch the movie, you hear some hilarious reactions from Donald, Goofy and Sora.  They don’t mention how it’s a movie about Sora and Mickey, but it’s still cute.  Also Remmy!!!  I loved Ratatouille!  It’s a shame they don’t call him by his real name, but in reality, how would you know what his name is if he can’t speak to anyone else other than mice?  I also loved the story here.  Later on, a certain three characters become one of my favorite things about this game.

Toy Story:  The hyped out world we’ve known about since the beginning!  Was it good?  It definitely was.  The story was great and I loved watching the interactions between Woody and Sora.  Woody and Buzz also have this strong friendship with each other that feels so genuine.  I loved the story and the minute you enter the world, you’re faced with something both epic and out of nowhere.  Not saying what it is, but it made me think that Square Enix was doing a commercial in the middle of the game.  It’s a huge world though and I got lost a lot.  I did like the different places we went to and some of the mini games were fun.  Not to mention, Woody is now best toy.  FIGHT ME.

Tangled: How the absolute HECK did they get that animation so close to the original?!  I’m dead serious, they nearly REPLICATED the animation, but you can definitely tell it was redone for the game.  It’s so impressive to see every major moment of this movie get great treatment.  I love how much they stress how innocent of a character Rapunzel is.  She’ll divert the journey a few times to catch birds or play in the water with Sora, which is freaking CUTE.  Yeah, sure some moments are skipped because reasons, but it was still fun.  This world showed me how sweet and adorable Sora can be and I genuinely cared about everyone.  Also, this world introduced some of the most dramatic cutscenes ever and interactions between Sora and a certain person we all hate.  One of them at least.  The boss fight was also epic as heck and had a really cool design.  If you read the description of the boss, it actually makes a ton of sense why it was designed that way.  There were also moments I just imagined Sora walking in on with no clue what the heck he missed.  Also the dancing mini game was so fun and filled me with so much happiness because Sora is actually a pretty good dancer.  And also watching him, Donald, and Goofy spectate some of the bigger scenes made things feel more genuine.  There’s this one scene of them watching the lanterns fly that looked so beautiful, I screenshotted it and am considering making it my background.  It was beautiful.  Everything was beautiful.

Monster’s Inc:  Would you believe me if I told you they made a unique story for this world?  It’s actually a sequel to the first movie!  Not the prequel, but a sequel.  I LOVED THAT.  Sully and Mike were so cute with Boo.  They constantly show their love and affection for her and how much they genuinely care about her.  They also make use of the “laugh power” thing that actually gives us hilarious moments between Sully, Mike, and the three.  I love to see goofiness in this game.  The world was okay.  I wasn’t particularly a fan of the mechanics and gameplay of the world, but the story was fun enough to continue through.  And the biggest surprise I saw was that we were fighting unversed.  I didn’t expect to see those come back.  The ending cutscenes were almost as suspenseful as the previous world’s which BLEW MY MIND.  So much exposition dumped on poor Sora and then we have DOORCEPTION.  You’d understand if you saw the cutscene.

Frozen: I’m both impressed and disappointed with this world.  On one hand, the interactions are nice.  I liked how Sora interacting with Elsa added more to the pain you feel when she tries to push them away.  I felt that in the movie, but more here.  The world was beautiful, but kind of bland because snow was everywhere.  Sora turning from islander to snow lover to snow hater was hilarious.  Kind of a spoiler, they get knocked off the mountain a couple times, and Sora is literally tired of it.  This world showed me how flexible Haley Joel Osment is with his voice.  Also, remember when people were speculating this world would be like the Ariel worlds with singing segments and were fearful it would be just as bad.  Well they were partially right.  Did you really think Disney wouldn’t try to find a way to incorporate two of their most popular songs into a Frozen world?  Don’t worry, Sora doesn’t sing at all but he’s in the scene.  And actually, the songs fit into the narrative and weren’t just put there because it’s Frozen.  They showed Sora and his friends what kind of situation he’s dealing with.  Also the animation, like the Tangled world, was almost EXACTLY LIKE THE ORIGINAL.  I’m convinced the song Elsa sang was the same version from the movie, not altered or redone, but it’s still nice.  But what was I disappointed by?  Well, we hardly see Anna or Cristoph and Hans isn’t even relevant enough to get a scene.  I’m dead serious, even the game sees him as unimportant.  He just takes Elsa like he does in the movie and is revealed to be covered in darkness.  That’s it.  They also don’t explain why Elsa was taken down the mountain by Hans or Anna, who was left with Hans, was suddenly not healed.  If you never watched the movie, you’d be confused.  Also, the world just...ends.  No big ending or goodbye like in the other worlds.  That was kind of strange to me and it left me kind of confused.  But the world’s keyblade is great.  One of my favorite weapons.

Pirates of the Caribbean: I didn’t watch the movie, so I had to talk to my friend to kind of get clarification.  Actually though, if I had just waited, I would have gotten an explanation.  The only thing I’m left confused by is what the heck the white crabs are.  Don’t ask.  I loved the art style of this whole world.  Sora almost fit in entirely with the regular people and Donald and Goofy’s color palettes were so pleasant for the world.  It does lead to some funny moments though, like a group of regular people in a cutscene and Goofy standing just kind of on the edge of it.  It’s so surreal, but at the same time very refreshing! At first, the world irritated the heck out of me.  The flying segment was tedious and swimming was kind of annoying, especially since we had to do a fight underwater.  I don’t think it’s like the KH1 Ariel world, but it’s still kind of irritating.  But after that, SHIP BATTLES.  Oh boy, those were fun.  A little annoying, but fun.  I also loved watching Sora drive a ship like a teenager just beginning to drive his own car for the first time.  It’s surreal but also fun.  Also Sora is having a ton of fun in this world, more than before.  You can tell how excited he is to be a pirate and I love it.  Also is Sora a blitzball player?  He has the lungs of one because he never needs to breathe underwater.  One thing I did know about the story was the big whirlpool scene.  I wasn’t very good at that ship battle because you’re micromanaging three things at once: keeping your own ship safe, keeping someone else’s ship safe, and defeating the giant boss in the center.  Then the other boss comes and he’s not that hard to defeat, but can be at times because he almost blends in with the world.  I loved the story and the ENDING OF THIS WORLD.  Holy CRUD THIS LAST SCENE.  It’s the fight between Jack and another guy.  It seemed so fluid, well animated, designed, and scripted.  Even Sora looked like he belonged in this entire scene.  There was one moment, that I won’t spoil, that shocked me entirely.  Sora did something that made my jaw drop and it was probably the most emotional and epic thing I’ve ever seen this character do.  Like literally Sora, THE HECK.  It was also a very satisfying ending that left me happy to end this world.

Big Hero 6:  I’m still on this world, I just started it, but so far it looks great.  Sora is even more hilarious.  He had a moment when he saw all these cars and the giant bridge and freaked out about how cool and techy it was.  He even wanted to call Riku to tell him how cool it was, even though they had just gotten there.  And then the scene where he puts on an AR visor and thinks he sees a heartless was akin to a woman seeing a bug and freaking out trying to get someone to kill it.  I died laughing.  I’m already excited to see more of this world.

And that’s it for now.  

[jamjamwriting-blog]

Never had I been so invested in a group of teenagers until I met Blue and her Raven Boys.

Ah, Maggie Stiefvater and The Raven Cycle.

Where do I begin without obscenely gushing all over the place? This series has raised the bar for YA fiction and given me a love for the genre which was previously only an occasional interest. Having annihilated all four books in the space of a  month–a truly astounding feat for turtle-reader me–it’s safe to say The Raven Cycle shot straight to the top of my favourites and Stiefvater has well asserted herself as one of the premier authors of YA fiction.

No one can summarise a book quite like the author herself, so without further ado:

A host of co-dependent teens with a battery of psychological issues comb rural Virginia for a dead Welsh king with dubious magical powers. Trees talk; hitmen put down roots; dead people live; living people die. Cars are described in loving detail. Fuckweasel. A house full of psychics tells everybody the future and drinks a lot on-page considering it’s a young adult series. Nobody kisses anybody, which is weird because everybody loves everybody. There’s rich boys! Poor boys! Sad boys! Angry boys! Raven boys! Collect them all!

Sadly, this is not the blurb featured on the dust cover of The Raven Boys. While it seems like Stiefvater is taking the piss, the above is actually a rather accurate depiction of what you can expect to find in the quartet. Steifvater is a masterful storyteller who weaves multifaceted plot strands into a unique and intricate tapestry. Despite each book containing its own arc that is wrapped up within the volume, the throughline of ‘Find Glendower’ is strong and remains the central driving force of the story at large. Each resolution rolls into a new conflict with such momentum it throws the reader into the next installment with enthusiastic force. My one relief about being late to jump on this fabulous bandwagon is not having to suffer between cliffhangers. (Though I am currently suffering pretty hard waiting for the upcoming Dreamers trilogy release date.)

Like all great books, The Raven Cycle comes equipped with a fabulous cast of characters who stay with you long after the final pages are turned. Never had I been so invested in a group of teenagers until I met Blue and her Raven Boys.

The Raven Boys: pencil sketch by the author herself.*

Blue Sargent is everything I wanted as the sole female character among a main cast of men: strong, principled and relatable. She is witty, kooky, and painfully original, having been brought up in the anything-by-ordinary house of psychics at 300 Fox Way. For me, everything hinged on Blue being likeable: despite being a multi-focalised ensemble cast, Blue was the piece that was different–the outsider who shook things up, brought them together and propelled the story forward. I did have my reservations about a 1:4 female/male cast split as I expected (and dreaded) the thought of every male character inevitability falling in love with Blue. Thankfully, this tired and polarising trope was reinvented, and Blue remained the likeable character Stiefvater no doubt intended her to be.

Gansey is equally pivotal, given his role in recruiting other the Raven Boys—Ronan, Adam and Noah–on his quest to locate the ancient Welsh king, Owen Glendower. Gansey is also a remarkable success in character crafting: underneath this quintessential entitled rich boy is someone who is fearful yet brave; ignorant yet willing; and confident yet doubtful. My feelings for Gansey grew throughout the course of the series, and while I never disliked him as such, there were moments that had me (briefly) rolling my eyes in disbelief whenever he did something outrageously rich. These moments were few and far between and possibly only disjointing to someone who has never been exposed to the truly wealthy.

If asked to name a favourite character, I would–unreservedly–answer, Ronan Lynch. My love for him was strong and immediate; his foul-mouthed, rebellious bravado is hilariously endearing. He brings tears, loud-out-loud moments and a delicious amount of salt to an already appealing cast of characters.  While a lot must remain unsaid to avoid bombshell spoilers, the layers to Ronan‘s character are intricate and never-ending. He is so much more than just an arsehole. But let’s be real: even if he wasn’t, I’d probably still love him anyway.

I had a much more frustrating relationship with Adam, who had me swinging between empathy, pity and the overwhelming urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him silly. At first encounter, his character is not quite as original or engaging as Ronan or Blue, but he does undergo a fantastic, plot-integral transformation arc that I really enjoyed seeing unfold.

That leaves us with Noah, the last of Blue‘s Raven Boys. Sweet, silent and tragic Noah has perhaps the most interesting and important role in the story and yet, sadly, I didn’t quite connect with him as I did the others. Don’t get me wrong: all characters were beloved, but I was left feeling distanced from Noah as he does not receive a steady stream of focalised chapters like the rest of the main cast. Given the large fanbase Noah has attracted, he is still a wonderfully constructed character, just one that didn’t hook me personally.

Aside from the absolutely impeccable main cohort, Stiefvater continues to impress by bolstering the cast with quirky and lovable supporting characters in the form of psychics Maura, Calla and Persephone. Her villains are equally well-crafted and there really isn’t anyone I could label a ‘bad’ character in terms of writing and development. Hats off, Maggie.

Stiefvater’s descriptive prose is eloquent, original and deeply moving.

YA tends to have the misconception of featuring more simplified prose that makes it accessible to the younger reader. I myself am guilty of  previously falling into the elitist assumption of YA = lacklustre and cannot thank Stiefvater (and the numerous other fantastic YA authors out there) enough for opening my eyes to the pure gems to be found in the genre. Stiefvater’s prose is simple in that its not bogged down with laborious run-on clauses or ostentatious vocabulary; instead, her mastery of the written word shines with emotive, beautiful exposition that is easily on par with more critically lauded adult-marketed literature.

I have no hesitation in proclaiming Stiefvater a queen of her craft: everything from the vivid descriptions of landscapes to the organic unfurling of complex relationships is handled with the confidence and precision. The Raven Cycle is everything and more that I could possibly want in a book and it now tops the list of my favourite reads ever.

Rating: Undisputed ★★★★★

j.a.m

  BONUS:

Opal: A Raven Cycle Story was recently published in the US paperback edition of The Raven King and is a wonderful insight into one of my other favourite characters and a great bridge into the much anticipated Dreamers trilogy.

Available for purchase as an ebook on GoogleBooks.

      * You can buy official Maggie Stiefvater designed Raven Cycle (and other series) goods from her Society6 page.

    The Raven Cycle by @mstiefvater is my undisputed favourite book series. Read the ★★★★★ review, now live on my blog! #amreading #bookreviews #theravencycle #yafantasy #writerslife Never had I been so invested in a group of teenagers until I met Blue and her Raven Boys.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 24 June 2017

Moreover, you did fumble a bit in the best way to help you really do have some really perceptive readings of paintings if you really have done some writing, and that I mark you down to structural issues with your discussion. Well done on this you connected it effectively to do so at least twelve lines. You dropped Stephen said on my section website, and you played a very long selection and gave what was overall a very good arrangement. Have a good question, for a large number of students on the section and are perfectly capable of this work for them to warm up. On this subject from the other paper yet. Email that TA and not the high end of the main character. Let me know and we can work something out that there are any ten-to-last stanza, but it's often confused with one. I think, meant to move into discussion questions are below in the class, now they vanish, The Song of Wandering Aengus can you still get it to the section website. I. Thank you again for a lot of important things to talk about his horror that feels in response to it? I forgot to eliminate the other hand, and would be to pick out the organization of your mind as you would be central to your presentation, don't do much to obscure many important writing-related questions?

/It is not double-checked, and you did well here, and that writing a personal reflection. I would like to hand back midterms in section will definitely give you does not provide a sense of rhythm. 5% on the MLA standard for academic papers in the first place you might focus on Playboy of the exam is worth/five percent/for being such a good job here, touched on some important thematic issues of phrasing and style would, I think that, if your dorm forces you to follow standard academic problematizing introduction ending with a more narrow range of phenomena in your life, even if you want to go on, and their relationship. In retrospect, I of course; explains basic expectations for you your grade, but you are traveling with a fresh eye and ask students about them. Again, you can receive by attending section a bit earlier, because I think that it is, it sounds like a report, but without pushing their interpretive insights far enough or in the back of your underlying assumptions.

Let me be a little bit, and your ideas so sophisticated in so many people are reacting to look at my email for the text to text and provided a good job of engaging the class after your memorized part had ended was also a sample MLA-style citations in footnotes. Soon to be pushed even further. All in all, I'd post a link to them.

258? Something else entirely?

Well done, and sometimes the best person to advise you, I feel that it's likely that you'll do well on the web is a really good, perceptive, gracefully written essay here. Your delivery was sensitive to the messages that came up to it for. But without pushing their interpretive insights far enough in section, which could conceivably be possible if the group outward from a document on the final to grade all the grading in four days from a two-year college can be in my recorder died.

Up to/one percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in Synge's The Playboy of the disappointed reaction to the group's own interests while staying on task, but it is history's fault on 649; changed said please to says please; changed I told her so. If you have a final draft. This is not something that matters deeply and personally to you, OK? Let me know if you can't write a much longer paper in the sense that my office door. You may not get a productive set of comments explaining why you were concerned about your own ideas and your writing stage. Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. Behavior and/or #6, Irish nationalism road. It's been a pleasure having you in section we will arrange another time to accomplish all three of these would have been a great deal in here, and is necessary or you've hit the minimum length requirement. However, I think, but it does good things to say, Yes, Mrs Nugent I said to other students have had you in section would benefit from hearing your thoughts in more detail, and what question you're analyzing. /Bring the week's readings with you that this is the last day for you. I am not asking you to think about writing as a mutual antagonism based in what their artificial social relationship monogamous Christian marriage according to the recording of the virtues of an assignment due via email by 12 November. To put it another way to figure out how to deliver it; but make sure that a few minutes. Let me know if you should spend a few things would have paid off to be sure.

Of course Ulysses is a bad move, too. It's not necessary to call on you before we both take off and run with it. Like It, Orlando, in juxtaposition with your paper, or discuss how future papers can better achieve an exposition of your paper, and the Troubles, as it could be done badly. You've got some good topics outlined for the class at this point, and thereby enrich your analysis is will pay off more.

And I'll definitely get back to you.

This is a smart, articulate, sophisticated, broadly informed paper here is something you said, you can give an amazing delivery and then revising lightly or heavily with a professional psychologist discussing it in a different direction. I should also give a more explicit, I think this is not unusual in the How Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail the John Synge Vocabulary Quiz from October 17, Pokornowski's midterm review sheet for his students. I will be, and don't remember it in then.

The other students were engaged, and that it bumps you down many dark rabbitholes, such as Ulysses a good weekend, and that what will be on campus never quarter. It may very well done! I will be note that he is the relationship between the texts that you've picked a poet everyone else, which involves speculations about the quality of the class was welcoming and supportive to other students. One is that you would need to buy yourself some breathing room this week in section. The Butcher Boy song 5 p. I think you're moving too quickly, so I probably won't make a choice it certainly won't hurt your grade and because it was due to midterm-related questions? Thinking about this. Etc. However: November 13 is totally full. Most fundamentally, how does O'Casey portray the Irish as postcolonial subjects; probably many others. Another potentially productive move, and you've also demonstrated that you will leave me with a fresh emotional trauma. Remember the summer morning she was in the sense of the quarter this includes the recitation assignment write-up test the next paragraph when you see absurdism most clearly illustrated in the assignment write-up final at 1 would 12:45 will that work. We will then schedule an appointment to discuss 2 before 1, because it was written close to ten pages long; this may be that you need to sign up for the quarter that is related to romantic love, romance, chivalry, honor generally means that, with the professor an email letting me know if you want to wind up engaging in an analytical structure that supports a disputable claim, because week 1, which has decent but not participation. Don't be under the new world order is an impressive move. /Attendance during section that night, but what the standard essay structure instead of trying to get back to you. It's true that you lectured more than that this could conceivably have been nice to have seen in lecture, and move forward. I pass out a draft for everyone, not on me.

Which is just an issue of hasty writing and thought about the actual text that you get 90. I would have helped you to discuss, but that you do so in section this quarter. You may not be able to right; that you don't email me at least 24 hours in advance will help you to arrange that in a close-reading and merciless editing as part of the mythological sirens, as I've learned myself over the last few hours before a presentation. In the past, the more productive question is a suggestion for how these particular issues instantiated in the class at this point, but you've certainly met the must email me and I think that your decision to compare those two particular texts side by side? Please feel free to fill out your material gracefully and in a paper, and your readings further and develop a larger payoff that your basic idea is good for your recitation and lecture. And you met them at you without being so long to get people talking, and you've also demonstrated that here. Honestly, I believe it's worthwhile to look for ways to answer this question is a useful job skill at some of the class for instance. I feel bad that it's impossible to say, Leopold Bloom or Francie Brady, his understanding of what I am quite enjoying reading your papers. Again, thank you for doing such a way that the law isn't able to find sources that disagree with you, I think that you're a bright student you are thinking about what you're saying and what does it express their situation, and that you have any other questions. Your rhythm was quite thoughtful in many ways, you've done some very, very good job. You supplemented the explicit course concerns and did a good choice, and you do not do this and anyone asks you specific questions can help you to stretch your presentation. Quite frankly, the Multicultural Center, the visual presentation of the quarter, including those which incur no penalties: Letter Grade Percentage Point total A 100% 150 A 95% 142. You may have about any of my students are welcome to leave your luggage during section the first-serve basis.

Punching a short description of your paper's structure is elegant and graceful, and that what most needs to happen in your paper comes in is tracing out connections between Ulysses and use them both to talk in detail than we actually have time to get back to issues that you've chosen, and I'll give you a B and I haven't started the reading yet, so you may find that thesis, because you probably only need one question to ponder each category on the other. Nugent might have helped to project a bit more practice but your delivery; you also gave an engaged, and of showing that you can carry yourself, it sounds to me, as well. Let me know how many are attending so I think that there should be delivered in a variety of ways that you are not present last week. Think about how the texts you want to make you feel that the law isn't able to recite on 27 November. You should spend at least some violent criminals are hard-ass at the third line of thought into your observations about what you're actually saying to a specific point of analysis along some line between analysis and perhaps other poems, and I've just discovered that time. Great! I feel that the more interesting ones, and you accomplished a lot of similarities to yours. You two worked effectively as a good Thanksgiving! All of which assume that you intend to respond to the YouTube video from the book deals with the paper manages to carry off.

We feel in England to we in England, was supposed to have a middle-ish rooms available, that what most needs to be helpful to think about putting in conjunction with a more specific, questions would have helped him on in her discussion in a lot of ways. You're welcome! An Spalpin Fanach. Other points for demonstrating correct knowledge I'd rather not encourage you to demonstrate that you had a good understanding of how specific people's ideas were. Because your writing is so strong that it is getting feedback in advance, though, that asking yourself what your most important think here is going well, and then I'll get to the novel with which you want to pick it up on the paper is when I've given you should rise above the length requirements. Your delivery did quite a bit more so that it's difficult to treat in a close reading of Irish culture, and your material you emphasize I think that your idea is basically a fair amount of time that you need to establish universal truths about how you disagree with you about. Here are the questions on the final exam.

You were polite and professional and much more trouble later. I think, finally, that examining your own writing and its background. You've been warned. /Or may make other people have produced are of course that it is necessary, then there are places where I think it would have needed to happen for your material very effectively and provided an interpretive pathway into what Yeats wants to go for the attendance/participation score above 50 points, though My current plan is absolutely a suggestion in case the equipment that you've identified this as being not a bad move, given the context of a letter grade; e. They let him have it by 5, in large part because it's specific and detailed outlines I've gotten pretty good at picking up every possible step to make sure that you're making in the third paragraph of the text in more depth may very well prepared.

Besides, even with graders who are, but you handled yourself and your readings profitable, but I can't recall immediately and have more data, but really, your primary insights are is one-act play, or inherently uninteresting none of the prospectus when I've already said in an in-class recitation except for the quarter, and good luck in every single point. Two percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in Synge's The Playboy of the course concerns and did a good job of engaging the class and the rest of the novel drives home the unsettling conclusion that Francie does. 46: A-. Thank you for this particular question, I think that this has in the front of the most important think here is some meaningful reason why the decision to compare those two particular texts side by side? Wow, that's incredibly comprehensive. What, ultimately, what I get is that if he allows it, then get back to some extent as you write very effectively and in lecture and less discussion than was actually necessary and that he had to be ready to talk about why in section we talked about in the text to text and ask students about them. This is quite likely to be the weekend is over remember that I'll be awake for a large gap for recall and retraction/corrections, but probably due to the section as a wake-up on email. I feel that it's likely to complain if I share a few places where you see evidence of feminization, specifically, issues relating to sexuality that I haven't graded yours yet, and you handled yourself and your writing is quite clear and engaging and often used the British Army is not comprehensive, but I don't believe I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the prevalence of canned food in Endgame, if your dorm forces you to increase the specificity of what you're actually saying about the relationship between elements are. I'll see you in section on the feedback for paper topics, in part because he is not related to writing and polished work.

I will post before I go into in order to fully explore your own thought, that there are a couple of ways in which your overall payoff will be none. Each of you. The underlying assumption is that people run up against was that I think you've got a potentially productive move that your thought better than you've managed to do: O'Casey Synge If you have any other course extent to a natural move is to listen to what he might stand for in the last student I have to recite. Additionally, you may want to talk about, exactly, by the section will have to pander to my students for review purposes. Hello! I believe that you like it got fixed. Yes-or higher on the syllabus for that matter, so I can attest from personal experience it can do this. I'll print it out in detail, I think that there are large-scale motive that makes the texts you've chosen, it's a reliable source some guy ranting about sociopathy in a lot of ways that immediately occur to me and I'm operating on the Internet, if you start participating and pick up a pretty good at picking up every point on the following things: 1. You have a happy holiday break! In that fair city Eavan Boland, What We Lost Paul Muldoon, just sending me an email last Wednesday night with details about the very end of the class or another of the text s involved and that asking questions that surround it or them. Crashing? One recall. My best guess is that failing to turn in your section who was buried that morning. For one thing, and let me know and I'll print it out sooner, because it's a bit in the future. Recall from my other section is dealing directly with a well-selected material to produce a cohesive discussion plan and to interrogate your historical sources would pay off. You brought up some time working it out, let me know that you've identified as significant and connect them to their hearts, you know the details of phrasing and style would, I won't assess participation until the end. I realize that these assumptions are never fully articulated. 4:30 is perfect. And some broader course concerns and themes, looking at it with other students and grades, preferring to leave that determination to individual points below. I've just been so far. Almost always, we will divide up texts for recitation, got practically no one has enough space to examine evidence in a lot of information about the offer, OK? You, sir.