#as well as various dialogue scenes near the quest's end as well (i think when speaking with mary-ann)

[genshinmp3]

A Narcissus Lullaby from Pelagic Primaevality Dimeng Yuan, HOYO-MiX

[wardens-stew]

my review of The Mask Falling - an ode to Arcturus and Paige

For me, the soul of this series has always been the relationship between Paige and Arcturus. It’s apt that this book, the exact middle of the series and as @sshannonauthor​ describes it, its heart, spends so much time with this pair. The intensity and uniqueness of their bond really emerges as the shining jewel of this series.

It’s clear that Samantha Shannon was intentional about putting Arcturus and Paige on equal footing for the first time in The Mask Falling. She manages the power dynamic between them with such attention and nuance, reversing their roles often and fluidly escaping gender roles. The protector role comes naturally to Arcturus, given his immortal strength and anxiety about losing Paige (it’s even part of the etymology of their names), but for much of The Mask Falling he is her silent shadow, trailing being her and supporting her quietly. They negotiate their differences with refreshing candor and in good faith, their arguments free from ego. “My fear is not your cage,” Arcturus tells her. “I will never ask you to mold yourself to it.” His affection for her is empowering, supportive, never constrictive or diminishing. Paige herself is markedly independent, doing the bulk of her fighting and plotting on her own. When she does seek support from Arcturus, there is no sense of her own strength being diminished, and as often as he rescues her, she turns around and rescues him just as easily. 

Indeed, while Arcturus is the immortal god, it is Paige’s power that really shines in this book. Her incredible ingenuity and strength is on full display, getting her out of certain-death scenarios at such a gripping pace I had to cover the pages with my hands to avoid glancing ahead. She couples her incredible powers with extraordinary mental fortitude and an acute conscience; each of her escapades has a satisfying emotional resonance that enlivens her broader quest. Whereas many YA heroines possessed of supernatural power oscillate between immobilizing moral anxiety and moral bankruptcy, Paige tempers her impulsiveness with reason (most of the time) and a powerful motive for justice. It’s clear that she has yet to access the full extent of her abilities, and I’m eager to see what roles she’ll play in the fight to take down Scion. 

While previous installments show Arcturus/Warden on various levels of guardedness, The Mask Falling gives us time and space in excess to see his true character. I was struck by his compassion, his hopefulness despite all that he has endured. He is often reassuring and comforting Paige, his optimism clear-eyed and measured. The contrast is especially stark with his persona in The Bone Season, where he appears cold and calculating, morally gray at best. In this book, he is almost unbearably kind, devastatingly sweet and thoughtful. As Paige remarks, “there was nothing terrible before me now.” The almost unimaginable beauty of his character is achieved with such a soft touch; the books are not about Arcturus being the the epitome of goodness - he simply is. 

A central thread of tension of this book follows Paige and Arcturus negotiating their relationship and coming to terms with their mutual attraction. Samantha Shannon manages this tension beautifully, carrying it forward constantly with poignant moments of intimacy interspersed with Paige’s honest internal dialogue. The smallest interactions and gestures between them felt so heightened. There are all the classic scenes - getting drunk and saying too much, jealousy spirals about past relationships, almost-kiss scenes interrupted, near-death confessions - all building up to a beautiful and satisfying climax. 

Samantha Shannon writes intimacy incredibly well. The love scenes feel specific to the characters, managing to be both meaningful and erotic. Romances between an immortal man and a mortal woman in particular tend to translate the man’s primal instincts and extreme physical strength into a voracious sexual appetite that leaves little room for gentleness and consideration. Arcturus really breaks the mold in this respect. He is so reverent, so sincere, so generous with Paige in a way few male characters with female partners approximate. Rather than relying on an imbalance of power in order to convey eroticism, the sexiness of Arcturus and Paige’s dynamic derives from the equality of their relationship.  It’s so difficult to create a heterosexual romance unsullied by patriarchy, and Samantha Shannon gets close to that here. 

I wonder if it is Arcturus’ immortal nature that makes him such a uniquely engaging character. Samantha Shannon really commits to that aspect of him - he’s not just a hot teenager. The best word I can think of to describe him is mature. He is so beyond the petty concerns of YA love interests, so ego-less and self-reliant. One of my favorite ways he diverges from human men - and traditional male love interests - is his lack of fixation on Paige’s physical appearance. This book has several of the classic moments that would typically elicit a remark or a look from the love interest on the heroine’s appearance, often framed as a cute romantic moment. Yet when Paige dresses up, or dyes her hair - even when she asks him outright - he never comments on the way she looks. “A human might have whispered in my ear, told me I was beautiful or perfect, but not him.” I love that. I’ve never found that lustful, almost predatory demeanor in male love interests nearly as sexy as the author would like it to be, and it always rubs me the wrong way when the man telling the woman she’s beautiful is framed as the epitome of romance. It strikes me as a very lazy way to convey attraction, for one thing, and it reeks of benevolent sexism. Arcturus never plays into those supposedly romantic tropes of disparaging other women in favor of the heroine or being selectively kind. His love for Paige is so pure. 

I continue to be impressed by the sheer scale of worldbuilding in this series. Many books attempt to create fictional tyrannical governments, but few succeed in building one as convincing and elaborate as Scion. The Mask Falling peels back even more layers of this complex world, bringing to fruition seeds planted in the very first book. Although the basic plot leans on some familiar tropes, Samantha Shannon always manages to add an additional twist of the screw. The complexity of this series is truly extraordinary, drawing on etymology and mythology, dropping mysteries and complicating loyalties with incredible dexterity. 

SPOILERS!!!!! --> I am still struggling with Arcturus’s possession and Paige’s failure to connect the dots and realize the reality of his situation. I see Samantha Shannon has pointed out on Twitter that Paige’s trauma and illness may have affected her judgment and decision-making. She says, “There's a particular scene where Paige reacts to an event in a way that is so deeply rooted in her PTSD and past experiences.” (I assume this is the scene she’s referring to.) I think that’s fair - Paige has been so inundated with the Rephaite aversion to humans that it’s almost as if she only needed one piece of evidence to confirm her doubts and destroy her trust in Arcturus. And it’s not as if she just takes it at face value, either - she does question him and try to convince him otherwise. But I still can’t help feeling that it’s a stretch. The Mask Falling makes Arcturus’ character so clear that the prospect that he would be loyal to Nashira the whole time is just ludicrous. Not to mention the fact that Paige somehow overlooked the obvious signs that he was being possessed. His eyes were such a dead giveaway - Paige had already seen that same thing happen when she possessed him! And when he moved to strike her and then suddenly stopped and his eyes flared - come on! That’s a classic mind-control trope. Paige is usually so perceptive, and they had built such a strong foundation… it feels unrealistic that she wouldn’t have connected the dots just because she hadn’t thought there could be another dreamwalker. 

If I had to find fault with this book, and it is difficult, I would say that it leans a little too heavily on some YA dystopian fantasy tropes towards the end - the mind-controlled love interest, for example, instantly made me think of Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, etc. Likewise, the forced memory loss is a fairly common fantasy trope that tends to be really frustrating to read. I have faith that Samantha Shannon will keep it from sliding into those tropes, and of course there remains so much mystery still to be untangled from those final 100 pages. /END SPOILERS :) 

This was the kind of book that captivated me immediately, left me lying awake at night and had me eating energy bars for dinner so I could keep reading. It was such a visceral, immersive experience, the kind where returning to the physical reality is almost physically disorienting. It’s been two days since I finished it and I’m still clinging to that fictional world, wishing I didn’t have to leave. Books like these are rare for me, and I’m still marveling at the miracle of finding that book that in Arcturus’ words, exists for everyone: “a book that will sing to them.”

[catflowerqueen]

Okay, I finished Hiveswap 2 in... basically all one go. I will definitely have to do multiple replays to get all the Steam achievements, but that can wait until I do all my actual work and projects. Thoughts and major spoilers below.

Well Hiveswap 2 was certainly interesting! I can see why it took so long to make, and why Friendisms had to come first. That game certainly gives some more background lore to certain situations, though it also kind of… gave me certain character expectations that I feel were left unfulfilled. Like… given it is Alternia, and Doc Scratch admitted to messing around with everyone involved via his whatever-it-was making people more open to befriending the reader, I guess I’m not entirely surprised how certain situations ended up? Just… severely disappointed.

As far as gameplay goes, I think that the item management system was a little better than in part one, and it was cool that you actually got to switch between playing as Joey and playing as Xefros, and that they each had different commentary when you clicked on things. There is also a replayability factor, which is nice. The music was also really cool, especially how you could tell that the same melody was being used in every train car, just changed up a little to better fit the “theme” of the castes present in the cars. And that even held true when it got a lot darker/more depressing during the final quest! I’m also extremely glad that there was a functional hint system, because there were times when I really, really needed it.

But the bee minigame came pretty much out of nowhere, and the formatting for the directions was horrendous because it gave them to you after the game already started. Not in a tutorial fashion, either! Which meant that I couldn’t really read or understand what was actually going on until I’d failed the game two or three times, making the whole thing really tedious. Also… I’m kind of annoyed at how little actually got carried over when you use the “import Act 1 data” function? Like… inventory was the same, and maybe there were some things I missed, but it didn’t keep the name I gave Dammek’s lusus! It didn’t even use the default name for that option, either, or even throw in a line about Xefros telling you what it’s actual name was at some point while you were fleeing, which would at least explain the discrepancy.

Then there was the jade and teal car… and oh boy do I have a lot of complaints against that car. It’s honestly the one I had the most problems with, from both a gameplay and story perspective. For one thing, it dragged on way, way too long—especially for a middle section of the game. It would have worked a lot better as an endgame thing, I think, just in terms of the way games and stories are supposed to ramp up the action as you play, so things get progressively harder as you go. While there was some nice foreshadowing of how depraved the purple caste really is during that section… like the early game foreshadowing for it, it only really works effectively if you know the source material.

I mean. I guess Xefros’ discomfort in general works and gives it more of a wham/gut-punch for those who don’t know the source ahead of time, but… still.

Anyways, the length isn’t my only complaint with that section. The story was very interesting, I’ll admit, but the execution was not very good, especially when it came to the evidence. Now, I know this is apparently a common complaint with Phoenix Wright games, which that section is based on—that there is a specific order and place you need to use specific pieces of evidence, even when logic dictates that there is a far simpler solution to the problem. Like… at one point you need to come up with a motive for Tegiri to be hanging out by the Jade lockers. Considering that the entire trial has to do with the theft of a “forbidden book on rainbow drinkers,” this is something you find out during the evidence collection phase before the trial even begins, and another piece of evidence collected clearly states (or at least implies extremely heavily) that Tegiri is into rainbow drinker stuff, one would think that piece of evidence would be enough for a motive, right? Wrong. Instead, you have to use a broken action figure… and then you STILL use the other piece of evidence to show that he’s into weird romance stuff and would have been interested in reading the book! And that’s not the only time stuff like that happens!

Not to mention the section in the middle where the trial takes recess. The dialogue implies that what’s happening is you’re getting the chance to collect more evidence and statements… but, no, what’s actually happening is that you’re supposed to be taking this time to accuse other people of actually being the culprit by combining two pieces of evidence. The problem is, it doesn’t tell you this is what’s happening, give you any warning that you won’t be able to talk to the people you’re accusing again if you combine the wrong evidence, or let you use any selection screen aside from the evidence ones when it would be extremely helpful to be able to check on the timeline or suspect section again in order to get a refresher on where everyone was. And one of the pieces of evidence is a diary—but once you have it in your possession, you can’t check the relevant entry again! It only says who the diary belongs to and that some of it is censored. And since there is reason to believe that someone else messed with the diary to implicate the owner, it would be very helpful to actually get to explore that further in depth!

I really do hope that this is a case where there are multiple different endings, since the way it left off on my playthrough left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth, especially in regards to Tyzias’s character, who I actually really, really liked in Friendisms! But here… I got the “Scapegoat” achievement (which is why I’m hoping that there are other ways to complete this section), with the end result being that even though we got our client declared innocent, we also got an innocent (or at least, one heavily implied to be innocent afterwards) person declared guilty—in part because our co-counsel did not inform us of the fact that she witnessed evidence being tampered with and, in fact, knew who the true culprit was all along. And while her “Experiment” was deemed a success—and, I suppose, was technically successful within the set rules and did actually follow the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing—it just highlighted that legislacerators still don’t actually care about justice. She could have, at any point, chimed in about what she saw, but was more interested in “keeping the peace” afterwards than actually getting the true culprit. And, yeah, baby steps and all, but…

I suppose thematically it does work well considering what happens at the end of the game when reaching the purple car, but…

I just thought better of Tyzias, is all. Friendisms implied that she was a real revolutionary for change, and, yes, I know that this wouldn’t be obvious to someone who didn’t play that game and some allowances must be made for that, but… even so, it just seems really out of character, and I don’t think it can all be blamed on forgetting lessons they learned while hanging out with the Reader/those things not actually happening in this continuity, for whatever reason (though, given how Fozzer was acting, and the fact that Chixie brings up the whole “Mask” persona, I’m pretty sure that we can assume they all remember some things that happened… just in a way that’s vague enough that those who played Friendisms can catch the references while those who didn’t won’t be lost on what’s going on)

…And, in hindsight, the whole thing was probably unnecessary to begin with since the book actually got found before the idea off a trial even came up??? I mean, part of that is because Marvus suddenly wandered in and seemed very interesting in holding one, and they didn’t want to upset him, but… yeah, it’s definitely a case of “this all could have been avoided,” especially since the book is apparently only forbidden for the jades to read. But I’m willing to give that one a pass, since trolls are weird and there were various circumstances escalating the situation.

I still think that Tagora had something to do with it, given what we know about his infatuation with Rainbow Drinkers from Friendisms… but that never actually came up in the game? I see where there may have been an opportunity for it, but it wasn’t a very clear-cut one and, at least the direction my playthrough went—would have required the player to actually have done his route in Friendisms.

(EDIT: Apparently there are some different ways to do this trial, according to some things already up on Steam, but they are dependent on some very early choices in the game--which would presumably affect some other choices in later games, and which means that i’m going to have to do many different playthroughs if i want to see everything available--and it still isn’t likely to remove the taint on my feelings towards Tyzias. After all, I’ll know that such capabilities for ruthlessness remain in her character, whether or not they’re actively showing.)

Also, hero-mode Xefros looks a lot older than I thought he was. And apparently joey is old enough to at least be a Freshman in high school??? I thought she was still in middle school!

As for other characters… some I felt were still in-character, some weren’t. Like… for what little we actually saw of Karako’s personality, considering he doesn’t really talk, I thought he was fine… despite being extremely surprised he was actually on the train at all considering his youth and, well, what little personality we saw indicating that he doesn’t really do “civilization” much. But the twins… while they were spot-on amongst themselves (resulting in an extremely chilling and heartbreakingly well-done scene near the ending), they seemed a lot more vicious in regards to their interactions with others. Wanshi apparently developed a real cruel streak in this game, and, ironically, Tirona was actually a whole lot nicer and not actually a suspect of that trial, despite being put on the stand as a witness.

I was also a bit disappointed that there weren’t more of those clever fight scenes we had from Act 1, where there was puzzle solving going on mid-fight—there were only two of them, one being so forgettable that I pretty much only remembered it existed just this second, and only the last one was really clever. There was at least one, maybe two other points where it would have been really cool/creative if Joey could have solved things with dance in a battling format… but her use of her dancing shoes was only plot important at two points in the game—and that first point wasn’t even her doing actual dancing, but, rather, as a buildup for the bee minigame. And then she never even got to use her “bee dance” skills again. At least Xefros finally got to use his bat—but, again, it was only once where it was actually a useful tool. He did get to use psionics more, though.

 And there was a plot point with Skylla that was pretty much completely dropped? I mean… they did bring it up as something that was still unsolved right at the end, but… well, hopefully this just means that they’ll actually solve it for real in Act 3, because otherwise there was a perfectly good opportunity for a solution that Joey had in hand, but which didn’t get utilized. The issue is that Skylla’s lusus is apparently sick. One would think that this means that, assuming you carried over from part 1 (and I would assume even if you didn’t because it looks like a lot of the problems would be game-breakingly unsolvable if you didn’t have certain items you would have picked up through a playthrough of part 1. I guess that’s something to test for next time), this would require you to use the bestiary and vet kit, right? Wrong: I tried that and nothing happened. Apparently, the solution is that you promise Skylla you’ll look for medicine further down, and use that as a reason that Marsti should move away from the door so that you can pass by. But there’s never actually an option for you to look for the medication.

 …Now that I think about it, though, this would be the prime opportunity for some inadvertent (or intentional, as the case may be) foreshadowing from Act 1. Two opportunities, even, with one being far more obvious than the other. One could be that Joey makes some commentary about knowing exactly what to do, having seen a similar problem in her own “lusus”—her pet dog back home. The other could be that Ladyy isn’t actually sick, but is instead pregnant and having little lusus puppies—which would be a callback to that Puppy Surprise doll from Act 1 where Joey hid her keys.

 Still. I don’t like the fact that it never got solved in this part. Also that Vikare didn’t really get to do much (despite how annoying and confusing I myself find him) and that we didn’t get to see Fozzer again on the train even though we got to see several others on the train who we first saw at the station.

I’m also wondering what’s going to happen in part 4? Obviously part 3 is going to be either the party or further attempts to reach the party (and the suddenness of what happened with the ending does lend some more seriousness to the whole “you only have eleven days before everything gets destroyed thing), but… I’d assumed going in that two parts would be dedicated to Joey’s story, and two to Dammek’s, but apparently that’s not the case? If Joey really does get four parts to herself… then what the heck is Dammek’s story going to entail? I mean… those monsters, obviously, and whoever Jude’s “friends” are, but… I don’t know. I feel like it’s going to be hard to top this.

 As far as lore goes… apparently the maturation trials are not the same thing as the exile, since Zebruh mentions already having gone through his, yet he is still on Alternia for what is implied to be… at least two sweeps, I think it was? I think he said he went through them at seven, and Chahut is approaching 9 or ten and mentions being only a perigee away from leaving. So that’s interesting. I guess the maturation trials are the equivalent of a career aptitude test or something?

 It does make me wonder what happens with the Jades, though. Unless there are more mothergrubs on other planets, what do they even do when they’re off world, since apparently they are specifically tested when they are a lot younger to see who actually is assigned to the caverns vs. just living outside with everyone else. I guess maybe they just get jobs that are slightly more prestigious than olives, but still under teals? That would at least make sense for the ones who weren’t assigned to work in the caverns. Though it does make me wonder about Kanaya a little bit—had there been no game involved, would she still be considered “special” like the jades from Hiveswap given what her lusus was, except that because of said lusus she had to live outside of the caverns? It was, after all, implied that virgin mother grubs and their matriorbs were extremely rare. 

Also, considering how full this train was, and the caste segregation going on, I’m wondering why the train from Sollux’s route in Pesterquest was so empty, and how he could apparently just get on any car he wanted. I mean—sure, he ended up in a car that only had an olive on it, but considering they were literally the only other passenger besides reader, that may have just been a coincidence. It can’t have been that there were separate waiting platforms for the different castes, either, since everyone was mingling together in Hiveswap before separating by car. Is it just that everyone was going to the party, but the train otherwise doesn’t get much use, or something like that? Or did it have more to do with whatever the ramifications were for Trizza’s defeat? …Or possibly the fact that the attack on the train at the end just made people still extremely wary about travelling by rail even sweeps after the fact?

 There’s probably some more lore I can touch on, but… honestly, the trial section left me so upset that I can’t really put much of that together right now. I think I was going to say something about how the Jades would also be a good source of keeping culture alive between heiresses, since apparently they’re actually charged with doing so… but it’s hard to tell how much of that culture is just jade culture specifically vs. the rest of Alternia. Or even how much of it was actually serious, rather than a thinly veiled reason to let everyone indulge in things like tabloids, celebrity magazines, and rainbow drinker books.

Oh, yeah, and I’m pretty sure that Diemen at one point implied that his hot dog was actually made out of someone specific, though I’m not sure at this point whether that someone was his lusus, or if it was a troll. Either way, if that’s true, then it definitely explains why he is so protective of that specific hot dog.

EDIT: I remembered what the other bit of lore I wanted to discuss was. Well. I mean, it might not be considered “lore” as such, but... it’s interesting that of the two major rebellions we know of, both were headed by bronzebloods--that being the Summoner and Dammek. At least, I assume Dammek is the one heading the current rebellion. I wonder it it’s just a coincidence, or if there is something in bronzeblood nature that makes them more likely to lean towards these sorts of reactions? We know Dammek’s breed of lusus apparently favors strong leaders, and given the blood color would only be seeking out other bronzes (except perhaps when they hit the “my charge just died/got culled” stage and go looking for someone else to adopt, given what is happening with Joey), but presumably the Summoner had the same lusus type as Tavros. I dunno, it’s just interesting to think about.

Anyways... Overall I did really like the game! I loved the tone, despite how depressing it got at times, and Xefros’ and Joey’s developing relationship is amazing. I look forward to part 3. Hopefully it won’t take as long to come out.

[derpcakes]

So we watched (nay, Experienced) the BBC/Netflix Dracula series

Brought to us by everyone’s favourite team, Steve Moff and Mark Gatiss, promising to be an innovative and exciting new vision of the classic novel

Boy it was definitely something!!!

First I will say: obviously Moff is not my favourite TV writer and my fam and I did go into this with a bias. I’m happy to report, though, that it’s going to be one of these shows that haunts me forever, because if it had just been bad I could have said “bleh” and deleted it from my brain. But because parts of this were genuinely cool, interesting, and fun, and parts of it genuinely had potential, all the bits that were bad stand out as so much worse and the whole thing feels as cursed as a 500 year old undead count. 

Things that were enjoyable and well put-together:

Van Helsing has been gender-swapped into a vampire-hunting nun and her cat-and-mouse game with Dracula is rife with belligerent sexual tension. I was ready to hate this, and ready for like, Sherlock and Irene Adler 2.0, but their dynamic was actually pretty fun to watch! Their power balance is kept even throughout most of the show, and Helsing is never struck down because of ~womanly failings~ or infantilised. She’s consistently really clever and, even if there are some cringey one-liners, I found her and Draccy’s playful quest to murder each other one of the most fun parts of the show. It could’ve been better, but it was enjoyable! (I also like how Helsing isn’t Young and Hot, but is a capable older lady, and her actor and Draccy’s even seem about the same age. Amazing)

The second episode is a spooky murder mystery/horror mini-movie on a ship, with a cast full of interesting characters who all had different things going on and different relationship dynamics that were compelling to watch. There’s even an interracial gay couple! And they’re like, written pretty sympathetically and to be layered and flawed in ways that didn’t feel too stereotypical! And they don’t die first!! Wack! I understand the bar is on the ground, but it’s still worth a mention

Some fun with vampire lore: Draccy absorbs knowledge and traits from people he drinks blood from (which is how he learns languages. Get Duolingo, dude, stop eating people), leading to the intriguing suggestion that myths like “vampires will die in sunlight” and “vampires are afraid of holy symbols” have kinda become real to him even if they don’t literally work, because he’s swallowed so many people to whom these superstitions and beliefs were law. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been done, but groundbreaking or no it was kinda neat

Things that were not enjoyable and well put-together:

EVERYTHING ELSE

Episode 1: a weird speedrun of most of the original novel, feat. weaponised nuns and a weird fixation on whether or not Jonathan Harker and Draccy boned. They did not. Dracula pops out of the body of a wolf and he’s Whole Ass Naked. Him and Van Helsing have a power play where she stands just on the threshold of a convent and calls him a little bitch, knowing he can’t come and get her. A knife is licked. 

Episode 2: aforementioned cool ship horror story. Definitely the best ep. It really makes me think about hbomb’s critique that Moff is pretty good at doing standalone stories (and pilots), but when things are tied into a bigger narrative things get zonkers. 

Episode 3: Things Get Zonkers!!

Let me just. Okay. I have the most to say about this one because this is where things really got batshit. And yet, also really boring? How does that figure? Anyway:

Dracula emerges from under the sea and finds that 123 years have passed and he’s now the star of a Modern AU. Upon setting foot on British sand he is immediately accosted by what appears to be an anti-vampire task force. There’s a helicopter. It is later explained how they knew to pounce on him at this exact moment, but holy god it was wild to watch the entire British Secret Service descend on this one wet bastard in a suit

The editing shifts aggressively in the direction of Sherlock. Mark Gattis is there playing an amazingly annoying character. There’s a fuckign.... Underground Secret Society devoted to studying vampires and they put Drac in a Designated Glass Prison for Smug Geniuses (also as seen in Sherlock). Van Helsing is dead but her great-great-grand-niece is played by the same actress and. Okay. Van Helsing, vampire hunting nun, possesses her descendent and rises through the ether to roast Drac one last time, and he’s DELIGHTED TO SEE HER AGAIN. 

And she has cancer, right, so her blood is poisonous when Draccy tries to bite her, but in the end, right, the end of the episode, right, the final shots of the show, he comes to a place where he’s willing to die, and she’s already dying, and so he drinks her blood and they die together on a table while cinematic metaphor vision shows them having sex in the middle of the sun

There was a badly CGI-ed vampire baby. Jonathan Harker falls from a tower and a scene later they flash back to this event by reversing the footage of him falling down, meaning we just see him go VWOOP up through the air, bouncing off the wall on the way. Van Helsing says the words “come boy, suckle” when she’s goading Drac into drinking her blood. The show sits in a weird middle ground where the characters talk about sex a lot (”dID yOu HaVe sExUaL iNterCOURSE with COUNT DRACULA?”) and Drac is clearly meant to be super magnetic and sexy but the characterisation and cinematography is not horny at all. People have these sexy-type dreams of their lover of choice when Drac is drinking their blood but even those are very boring and weirdly chaste, except of course for the final one where, if I  can take the chance to remind you, Van Helsing and Dracula have symbolic Mind Palace sex inside the centre of the solar system

I can’t speak too much on its quality as an adaptation since I actually haven’t read the book, but splitting the story so that some characters (the Harkers, Van Helsing) existed in the time the story is set, and some (Lucy, Dr Seward) exist in The Modern AU felt very strange. Was there any reason to set the third episode in modern times, apart from the fact that I guess they wanted to do their Sherlock thing again? Or, perhaps, because they wanted to do their Jekyll thing again?? Oh my god, that’s what the editing reminds me of - the small clips of Jekyll I’ve seen. The zooming. The slow-mo. The emphasis on The Monster Man’s weird goddamn teeth

(Also, I don’t really feel qualified to dig too deep into it, but I will say there felt something a bit uncomfortable about Lucy being black in this version, while also being written to be very promiscuous and vain. idk. Also, since it happened in an ep of Sherlock as well, “weedy white Nice Boy rescues the Very Cool woman of colour he has a tragically unrequited crush on” is now an official Moffattis trope)

Count Moffatula is an experience. Its pacing is buck wild. The speeding through the original plot and the mish-mashing of elements in the Modern AU section feels like another expression of contempt for the source material on Moff’s part. Someone says “reality is overrated” in a show set in the 1890s. Draccy quotes a Beatles song. He also makes quippy allusions to having eaten various famous figures and basically winks at the camera every time. Granted, this wasn’t as obnoxious as I was maybe expecting, but there are still too many lines of dialogue where you think “oh, the writers high-fived each other after they wrote that one, huh”. The fact that Moff has such vitriol against fan fic writers is more and more grating every day because this is so, so clearly a zany-ass fanfic that he happens to be getting paid for. The costumes are nowhere near as nice as they could have been, and Dracula’s cape looks like his mum made it for him for the school play in which he is playing Dracula. 

This show is So Much. Watch it to share in this fever dream. Or don’t, and save approximately 5 hours of your life. God. 5 hours. Who was I before Count Maffatula. Who am I now. Why was his cape so bloody ugly. Why did they bone in the centre of the sun

[korora12]

Tagged by @corisanna

1. What is your favorite relationship type to write/read? Romantic, platonic, familial, and any subtypes.

I like romantic relationships that don’t rely solely or primarily on physical attraction, but instead on a deep similarity between the two characters. I like when two people meet eyes and realize that “You understand me. You get me better than anyone else I’ve ever met, and I feel less lonely knowing that someone else sees the world the same way I do.”

2. How much or what kind of research do you do for your fiction? If you don’t write, has a fic ever made you curious enough to research something?

Only as much as is necessary. I usually use research as a springboard for inspiration when I hit a block, letting myself wander the fields of Wikipedia until I stumble upon something that knocks the block loose.

Of course, sometimes I research stuff just for fun, with no relation to my writing whatsoever, until some random point down the line where it suddenly does and I’m super happy I already know [Random Fact #237].

3. What was the first work of fiction you remember becoming completely engrossed in?

Hmm. Probably Animorphs. I remember doing everything I could to hunt down the numerous books in the series (back in the ancient, pre-Amazon Prime days). I’d prowl the various school and public libraries near me, ask for specific books in the series for Christmas and birthdays, and even buy the occasional book at the yearly Scholastic Book Fairs, using what little money I got for an allowance.

I made it most of the way through the series, but then there was one book, near the end, that I couldn’t find, no matter how hard I looked. And it was an important, plot-changing, book that I had to read before continuing. Which meant I never actually finished the series.

Of course, nowadays you can find them all online as pdfs. Maybe I should revisit the series sometime and finally finish it. I already know how it ends, but I still feel like those last few books deserve to be read.

4. What work(s) had a lasting influence on you or your writing style?

Going back to Animorphs again. There is a straight-line connection between me reading that series as a child, through my elementary school friends Brooke, who was obsessed with dogs, and Caitlin, who was even more obsessed with dolphins (I used to find pictures of dolphins in magazines and cut them out just to give to her), through my Grandma’s love of science, all the way to my decision to study Zoology in college. If I had never read those books, I wouldn’t have developed the passion for animals and animal behavior that has shaped my life for over two decades.

Also, stylistically speaking, I really respect that series for how it treated its readers. Its target audience was grade schoolers, and yet it never shied away from showing the realities of violence and war. I don’t know that I’ll ever write children’s literature, but I’ll always have this series to remind me of what kids are capable of understanding and handling.

5. What kind of sound environment do you prefer for writing/reading? Silent, white noise, music with/without words, sitting in a public place with the ambient noise of humanity, etc.

Depends on how well my brain is cooperating. Pure silence is ideal, but more often than not there’s some manner of song stuck on repeat in the background of my mind, and the only way to drown it out is with non-lyrical music of some sort. Usually I try to pick songs that match the mood of whatever scene I’m trying to write.

6. Are you or do you like authors who are teases, in story or out?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m a big fan of the Death of the Author trope, so I tend not to get too worked up by whatever the author may be saying and just let the story speak for itself.

My first instinct is to say that an author shouldn’t worry too much about what their fans think and should write the story they want to write, and it will find readers that appreciate it. However, I recognize that the nature of serial online writing, such as fanfiction, changes the game a bit. Such authors have a much more immediate, direct connection with their readers than authors who release one or two physical books every year or so. Some authors take that to an extreme, turning stories almost into a dialogue with their readers, each new chapter in some way defined by how people reacted to the previous one. And that doesn’t even touch on Quests, a type of story on forums sites such as Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity that require player input on a regular basis to continue. In these types of situations, I can hardly blame an author for playing with their readers heads a bit. The reactions they have can be a form of entertainment all their own.

7. Have you ever experienced a “the characters write themselves” or “character rebellion” mental state?

Not yet. For the time being, I remain in complete control of my universes, but I recognize the hubris of assuming this to be a permanent state.

8. Do you have a favorite franchise crossover? Like Bleach/Harry Potter, Madoka Magica/Card Captor Sakura, etc.

I don’t know if I have a particular favorite. I was really fond of Secret Trio for a while, which is Danny Phantom, American Dragon Jake Long, and Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja. I’m still very fond of the Disney/Square Enix megacrossover that is Kingdom Hearts, despite being very disappointed in the most recent game in the series. Then there’s Kino’s Journey/Anything, mostly because I love Kino’s Journey, and I love seeing her response/reaction to various other worlds.

Also, Stargate/Anything. The only reason I ever started watching the show was because I’d read several different fics, all in different fandoms (Avatar, Yu-Gi-Oh, Star Wars, Naruto), and all of which crossed over with Stargate. Despite the similarities, both being sci-fi stories set around the turn of the millennium involving mind-controlling aliens, I’ve yet to see a good Stargate/Animorphs crossover. It’d be pretty easy to do, too. There’s a point in the Animorphs series where they decide to bring knowledge of their guerrilla war to the attention of the US government. If they’re already in the Stargate universe, I’m sure the president will quickly pass the problem along to the experts, and suddenly you’ve got the perfect setup of adults who think they know how to handle the problem, are mostly right, and don’t want kids fighting in a war, vs child soldiers who have no intention of giving up the fight so near its end, even if the adults are more competent than they expected.

I’m gonna have to write it myself, one of these days, if no one else gets around to doing it.

9. Do you remember anything about the first fanfic you ever read?

Two Halves by DameWren. My first fandom was Naruto, and my first fanfic was a NaruHina fic that both introduced me to the concept of fandom, and also sold the ship for me in a way that I’ve never shaken. I remember very little beyond that, except that it managed to correctly predict that Naruto would go on a training trip, despite being written before such an event happened in canon.

10. Is there a work of fiction that you are annoyed doesn’t have much if any fic? Like Bizenghast.

Kino’s Journey, Cowboy Bebop, Double Arts (just never got enough attention in general)

11. What fictional character do you strongly identify with?

Weiss Schnee, from RWBY. While I’ve never been accused of being rich, I am a middle child with a much older sister that cut ties with the family when I was young and a younger brother that I never got along with while growing up. My parents were also abusive, my father physically and both of them emotionally, and they taught me a number of unhealthy ideas about race, amongst other things, that I’ve had to put serious effort into unlearning. And I have, since becoming an adult, traveled long distances across the world, partially for my own benefit, and partially to distance myself physically from a family I’ve never felt particularly close to, resulting in a drastic personality shift that took a couple years to complete, but ultimately left me a very different, and much better, person.

So, yeah, Weiss is basically my favorite RWBY character, and one I really need to write more often, all things considered.

That was fun! I’ve never been tagged in anything like this before. My turn for questions!

1. What is your the most recent fandom you’ve gotten involved in? Have you made any content for it?

2. Do you have a favorite AU/plotline that you love regardless of fandom (ie. Peggy Sue, Coffee Shop AU, Space AU, Self-Insert)? What about it do you like?

3. If you write, how do you go about deciding a character’s sexuality? If not, do you ever have any sexuality headcanons for characters?

4. What’s the longest fanfic that you’ve ever read, beginning to end?

5. How often do you make something you’re proud of? Doesn’t have to be writing, just has to be something that wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t made it yourself.

6. What are your opinions on OCs in fanfiction?

7. What is your favorite storytelling medium (ie. television, written word, spoken word, video games, song, etc.)?

8. What was the last song you had stuck in your head, and what was it about?

9. Do you prefer reading/writing stories set in fictional worlds, or stories set in the real world/real world analogous (ie. Supernatural or Marvel Comics)?

10. If you could bring one fictional character into the real world, who would it be and why?

11. Pick your favorite of the questions I was asked to answer for yourself.

I just realized that I don’t know how many of my followers are writers. I guess @hunkygoddess @tmifangirl21 @queendarktigress @ladyvallhalla @i-mushi @xekstrin @shinobicyrus and anyone else who sees this and might be interested. No pressure, it’s just for fun!

[badwitchgame]

Substance designer - part 2

Some issues were presented during the making of the ground texture, it turned out one if the nodes had a random value that I was cranking up too high and that caused the edges to look weird.. The resolution to that is in the Q&A at the training. 

This was the better sand texture result, I guess, ground texture, but since it was too yellow, we can just call it sand with pebbles (unreal):

Then the wavy sand texture:

and the result in unreal:

Up close it’s not bad, but as we gat further the repartition is obvious. This should be mixed with the ground texture in a landscape material. Also needs different rocks. 

I was pretty happy with how the grass texture turned out: 

For the base colour I created the mix of white flowers and yellow center. The tutorial was same orange flower with no center. So I actually used my knowledge at this point to create a variation. 

And this is how it looked in Unreal:

Not perfect, but this is quire OK, I guess. Considering that this is just a node based texture that I can modify any time for a different result. Grass without flowers, Grass with mud etc..

I made one more material, the wood plans with nails:

This was significantly more complex then what I did before, and I can’t say it turned out the same as in the tutorial, but what is mine is mine... I’m OK with it and received some praise praise from the friends I showed it to. 

The next step is to finish the SD training, and then start the next training about Substance Painter: https://www.udemy.com/course/next-gene-assets-for-videogames/ 

12 hrs! When I have that I’ll have a good understanding of how to make textures and paint models with SP. That’s the modern workflow.. Not like I wouldn’t enjoy handpainted models, I’m not that good in painting to make a whole game with that technique. A simple model takes a better part of a day like that. Even with practice it’s not easy. I’m glad that I learned it, but for what I planned I need to learn more modern techniques. I need to be able to reliably make high quality models and textures with less effort. Once that is done I’ll go through some of the videos in my playlist that I saved over the years. I have a long list of interesting stuff saved for. When I can create foliage with SD and SP and models, I can start dressing various scenes and progress with the one map I planned to make. 

Instead of shooting for a whole game at first, I planned to make 1 map with menu and settings, that can be played from beginning to the end and it has only (or mostly) my assets on it. I planned to make every model mine, but there might be some more complex stuff like NPC players that I don’t know how I’ll solve. it will be a simple story of the hero waking up in a cave, wonder out to a small island, a quest  to go around it, then travel to a bigger island to small city and maybe up / into a volcano with some cinematic at the end where the character travels to the mainland. 

I estimate the next year for completing this. Another till the end of the year to learn all the trainings for substance painter and designer to set into my brain, and maybe an unreal one ( https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Unreal-Engine-4-Open-World-Landscapes/1848786978/projects?via=watch-history ) Once I chewed through these, I need to make some plan on how the island will be sliced up to chunks that I can manage and build them up one by one. Once the environment is ready, I need to write the gameplay and dialogues. Items, inventory, pickups, sounds and music is stock for the moment, I bought enough music and sound effects to be able to cover this one map.. Then write dialogues, set NPCs, enemies, and the ability to “play through” the level, seal off off limit areas, and make sure that the level is ready for playthrough testing. 

When it is done, and shared, the next step will be to build upon, but since the possibilities are limited by what I know, we’ll see what the possibilities will be with I have the knowledge of the level behind me. I might see a way to go bigger or to expand on the level. Maybe I’ll need to revisit the level with new knowledge. Maybe I need new techniques to be researched or new tools. Maybe FL studio for creating my own music. don’t know yet. Even learning this much will be a feat. Now sure if and how I’ll use it in the future. 

At least the pandemic is helping me greatly, and now that I have a UK job with UK salary things will be more smooth hopefully, less worry about finances and money, more concentration on the task ahead with gamedev. If I find the motivation.. Because, although individual tasks are not impossible there are so incredibly much of them that I do realize why most people give up gamedev halfway through. Making a model is not much, but making a good model is more effort. Painting it with base colors is not much, painting it in painter or handpainted is half a day. Making a composition is not much dressing up an area in Unreal is huge task. Lighting, water, clouds landscape, landscape material layers, paint, Even if you think you have everything you need, adding details, setpieces, making sure some are interactable, have music, have sounds have footsteps, have a different weapon in hand, animations are good, interactions are good you have dialogues, everything is covered... player is blocked out of areas that he is not supposed to be in, make sure story is progressing as you expect etc.. 

Myriad of tasks. Each seems to be easy on its own, near impossible in complexity as you realize what more you need to make a convincing environment. An interactable game where you can be in the area and interact with it. and to make everything harmonize together. Enormous task. Game making is not easy, especially if you have other things to do as well in life. Sure you can just make simpler games or lower the scope, but I never seen any gain making a game that I’d myself not enjoy playing. Why learn towards making a 2d scroller if I never really played those games before? The last one I played was Hocus Pocus. And that was f long time ago.. 

[ciathyzareposts]

Challenge of the Five Realms: Summary and Rating

Notice how the box has little scenes from each of the five realms.

             Challenge of the Five Realms: Spellbound in the World of Nhagardia

United States MicroProse (developer and publisher, under its Microplay label)

Released 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 2 November 2019

Date Ended: 31 December 2019

Total Hours: 35

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Summary:

Challenge of the Five Realms is a plot-heavy axonometric title set on the flat world of Nhagardia. A prince must race against a creeping darkness to retrieve the five crowns of Nhagardia’s five kingdoms (human, gnome, elf, fish-man, and effete flying man), whose leaders have been killed by the mysterious, demonic Grimnoth. The game is as full-featured as anything in 1992, with animated cut scenes and voiced digital dialogue at the beginning and end. There are hundreds of NPCs, dozens of side quests, and a book’s worth of dialogue. Many of the NPCs may join the party, which maxes at 10. The tactical combat system works relatively well. But the game lacks in other key role-playing areas, particularly character development. *****

Challenge of the Five Realms is easily the best game from the team that previously created the Paragon Software adaptations of Games Designers’ Workshop (GDW) titles, including the two MegaTraveller games, Space 1889, and Twilight: 2000. This suggests that either the GDW games were fertile practice ground or the development team did better without GDW fetters, or perhaps both.

However, Challenge is far from a perfect title, and at least one of its weaknesses was seen likewise in the GDW adaptations: almost no character development. Characters enter the party as full adults with long careers behind them. You may choose, keep, or reject them because of their attributes and skills, but you don’t expect those attributes and skills to get better during the game–at least not in any consistent, understandable way. Some skills increase not at all, a few increase by 3 or 4 points, and a couple increase by 50 points. That’s a Paragon game if I ever heard one.

It’s too bad because the game is quite strong on other RPG mechanics, including combat and side quests, but Challenge really drives home how an RPG player like me only cares about those things in the context of character development. Take away the reward, and I don’t really care if the old woman gets her wedding ring back or not. The economy and inventory systems are likewise a bit of a mess, meaning that not even they compensate for a lack of intrinsic character development.

There are a few other flaws that don’t entirely cripple the game but come close. The time limit is employed badly. The limit itself is fairly generous, and it’s hard to imagine a moderately conscientious player running afoul of it. The problem is that the “creeping darkness” slowly eats the map from the bottom up, so that your time constraints are a lot more urgent for the locations in the south The various towns and castles in Nhagardia are all interesting in appearance and character, and it’s a shame to have to rush through them. It’s equally a shame to reduce replayability by forcing the player to prioritize the southern locations; without the “creeping darkness,” the game would be satisfyingly non-linear.            

What happens if you miss the time limit.

            I have a feeling that this is going to GIMLET in the extremes, with several high scores and several low scores.

1. Game World. The setting, backstory, and plot are all strong. I like the way that each kingdom has its own character, and the people have their own values. In the human kingdom, each town and castle has its own story to impart. I love the slow reveal of the depth of Clesodor’s evil. The twists at the end didn’t do as much for me, but at least they brought the whole thing to a proper conclusion. Someone really wrote this one. Score: 7.                 

Grimnoth lays out the charges against my father. All of this was unknown at the beginning of the game.

             2. Character Creation and Development. If the old Paragon develops should have kept anything from their GDW experience, it was the Traveller-style character creation process that puts the character through a wringer of training and experience before shoving him out the door and into your party. Instead, the authors opted for an Ultima IV-style process of answering role-playing questions to determine the main character’s starting skills and attributes. Other characters come as they are.

Unfortunately, where the creators’ GDW experience comes through the most is in the lack of character development. No explanation is given for why some skills (“Learn Spells,” “Bargaining”) increase steadily with use while others (including all the combat skills) don’t increase at all. It is a depressing oversight that nearly strips the game of its RPG credentials entirely. Score: 2.             

Chesotor ended the game hardly better than where he started.

          3. NPCs. Challenge undoubtedly offers more NPC speech than any previous game. It isn’t quite “dialogue,” though. Except for a small number of yes/no responses, the game speaks for the characters, and thus the NPCs’ speeches are more like information dumps than anything approaching “role-playing.” Beyond that, the attention to NPC characterization is excellent, as is the general quality of the text.

Even more fun is the sheer number of NPCs who will join your quest. You have a generous party size (10) and at least three times that number of potential members, including the novel idea of “grouped” party members. For the first time that I remember in RPG history, your NPC companion have bits of banter as you enter areas, talk to other NPCs, and solve quests. My only complaint is that dismissed companions utterly disappear from the game instead of going back to where you acquired them (or to a central location). Score: 6.          

The NPCs in this game were interesting, but man did they have a lot to say.

         4. Encounters and Foes. Weak again. Almost all of the combat foes are people, with very little to distinguish them or to change player tactics. There are no puzzles beyond simple inventory puzzles. However, the game does excel in what I call “contextual encounters.” Nhagardia is not a land swarming with monsters that you must mindlessly kill; every combat is set in a context, usually with some preceding dialogue, so you always know who you’re fighting and why. Score: 3.

5. Magic and Combat. Ironically, the old Paragon team finally fielded a decent combat system in a game that only has about a dozen battles. It’s hard to characterize the exact nature of the system. It looks somewhat like “real-time with pause” except that it only appears “real-time” and there are actually turns at fixed intervals behind the scenes. Either way, whether the player micromanages the combat by issuing new orders every round or just relies on “quick combat,” the mechanics and tactics are generally satisfying.

Spells are another matter. The spell system is primarily used for puzzle-solving (woe is the character who lacks “Truth,” in particular) and travel. Combat spells are a bit under-developed. There are no area-effect spells and only a couple of buffing spells. Magic depletes so quickly that you can only cast a few spells in any given combat anyway, which makes it jarring to have so many endgame enemies that don’t respond to physical weapons. Again, the developers’ lack of experience (none of the GDW properties were fantasy RPGs) shows here. Score: 4.            

Fighting some peregrines.

         6. Equipment. Another weak area. The game has slots for a lot of different equipment types, but I only ever found a few rings, one item of headwear, and a couple of pairs of boots. There are maybe three magic items to find during your adventures, but beyond that the roster of weapons and armor is no different than the starting store in a typical D&D-derived game. Score: 2.

7. Economy. The economy is so favorable to the player that I think it might be bugged. From the moment the game began, I spent blithely whenever anyone asked for money, and I never seemed to lack any. Of course, there isn’t a lot to spend money on. All shops of the same type sell the same things, and you can get most of your equipment in the starting castle. Score: 2.

8. Quests. If you can say one thing for the Paragon team, they’re one of the only groups of developers in this period that truly understands “side quests.” Every map area has a bunch of Joe Commoners with their own problems that they’re hoping that the characters will solve. These side quests are rewarded with gold, spell reagents, equipment, and the availability of new NPCs. Some of the quests even have multiple options for ending them, usually favoring one town faction over another.

Meanwhile, the main quest and its various stages are equally compelling. An open question is whether it would be possible to complete the game by murdering each king for his crown. Score: 6.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The graphics are very good for the era, and I particularly like the title cards that precede each map. Sound effects, on the other hand, are a bit too sparse. There are no background sounds, and only the occasional effect during combat.

The interface is horrid. Keyboard backups for the most common commands don’t help much when you have to move exclusively with the mouse. The process of hailing and talking to NPCs is needlessly complex and inconsistent. After 35 hours, I still can’t give a good account of it. Sometimes, you have to both “Hail” and “Speak” and other times you just seem to have to walk near an NPC to get him to start talking. Sometimes, the speech cursor remains active and you can keep clicking on other NPCs, and sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes dialogue exits on its own and sometimes there seems to be no way to exit. Once or twice, I literally had to reload the game.           

The multiple inventory screens added needless complexity to what should have been a simple process.

          The inventory interface is also needlessly cumbersome. The idea of a single chest shared by all characters is great. Beyond that, each character simply needed an individual “wearable” inventory. Instead, each character has his own pouch, backpack, and non-specific “inventory” space in addition to the wearable inventory and collective chest. Also, the process of removing and replacing things in the chest could have been quicker. The interface issues were so consistently annoying that they weaken the entire category score despite the good graphics. Score: 2.

10. Gameplay. As previously discussed, the game would be wonderfully non-linear if the team hadn’t forced the player to prioritize the southern locations. Even with that weakness, there’s still a lot of non-linearity to the game, which enhances its replayability. The length and challenge are about right. We thus finish on a strong category with only minor complaints. Score: 7.

The final score thus adds up to 41, well above the “recommended” threshold. I thought it would out-perform all of the Paragon games, but it turns out I gave the same score to MegaTraveller 2, which had many of the same strengths and weaknesses.

I don’t know what was happening at Computer Gaming World in the fall of 1993, but the lukewarm review (by Gordon Goble, who I’ve never seen before) is the worst one that I’ve seen in the magazine since its first few issues. It’s like it didn’t even pass the eyes of an editor. (Among other things, Goble makes reference to “Darth Vadar.”) It’s full of pretentiousness, non-sequiturs, dumb jokes, senseless allusions, and tired cliches. He spends several paragraphs complaining that he attacked some random NPC, and that NPC turned out to be harder to defeat than would make sense. His concluding paragraph references “inadequate beta testing” and “a certain awkwardness to gameplay” that aren’t justified by any of his previous text. Gods know what editor was asleep at the wheel for this one, but I certainly hope this is the last we’ll see of this writer.

There must have been something in the water that month, because Dragon magazine’s three-star pan is equally baffling in different ways. The author’s enjoyment is far too influenced by what he or she sees as plot holes (“Why the evil fellow simply can’t take the crown after he kills the king makes no sense”), as if any fantasy RPG of the period holds up to the most cursory plot scrutiny.

As we previously covered, Challenge was the first RPG from the old Paragon Software team after the company was acquired my MicroProse. The team included Marc Miller, F. J. Lennon, Paul M. Conklin, and Quinno Martin. For some members, this was their last RPG. Others contributed to MicroProse’s BloodNet (1993), which uses a similar interface, before leaving MicroProse for Take-Two Interactive. BloodNet will be our last MicroProse title and the last of the Paragon legacy. Hopefully, by then I’ll have been able to get in touch with one of the team’s principal developers and get some insight as to why this series, though innovative, always slightly missed the mark.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/challenge-of-the-five-realms-summary-and-rating/

[juliayepes]

The Sly Poetics of Terry Zwigoff

"I can't relate to 99 percent of humanity," says a character in Terry Zwigoff's perceptive cult film Ghost World (2001).  That movie—an ode to alienation, loneliness, and the melancholy process of growing up—was inspired by the graphic novel of the same name by Daniel Clowes. It's a bittersweet comedy with a strange but alluring rhythm that intricately captures the peculiar moods and emotions of its characters, which include two teenage girls, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson); Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a middle-aged record collector; and various other characters in an unnamed suburban town. Zwigoff and Clowes collaborated on Ghost World's Oscar-nominated screenplay. With its intentionally oversaturated colors, quirky characters, and offbeat dialogue, the movie bears the signature features of Zwigoff's work. Ghost World was Zwigoff's first fictional film. Previously, he had made Crumb (1995), a startling documentary about a celebrated underground cartoonist that won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. Zwigoff's other films include Bad Santa (2003), a wicked (but redemptive) comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox that was a commercial hit; Art School Confidential (2006), a deft satire, loosely based on a short comic by Clowes; and Louie Bluie (1985), an hour-long documentary portrait of obscure musician, artist, and storyteller Howard Armstrong. Zwigoff's movies are filled with playful touches, as well as withering commentary about consumer culture. In Art School Confidential, there's an Apocalypse Now poster on a film student's dorm-room wall and a cat adoption flyer that's visible during a gruesome campus crime. In a single scene in Ghost World, we see signage for Popeyes, Radio Shack, ProNutrition, Sony Panasonic, and Budweiser, while in Crumb, we see glimpses of Payless Shoe Source, Foxy Lady Boutique, and Picway Shoes. Ahead of a film series devoted to his work at Metrograph, the Lower East Side movie theater in New York, we corresponded with Zwigoff over email. Over six days, he answered our questions—sending a batch of responses each day. He's mild-mannered, but friendly and generous, with a lightness that wasn't evident in earlier profiles. Despite his own occasional feelings of alienation, one of the reasons Zwigoff's films are so insightful is that he's empathetic and attuned to the feelings of others. "I try to relate to almost every single character in my films," he writes. "It makes them much easier to direct." JULIA YEPES: It's hard to think of a movie that, across the board, is as well cast as Ghost World. Were there actors in the film who you had the idea to cast or who you really wanted for their roles? TERRY ZWIGOFF: I was lucky enough to get my first choice for almost every single part in the film, which was a minor miracle in itself. Except for Brad Renfro. He wasn't my idea. I wanted someone much more naturally reticent and introverted [for Josh]. Brad was a rambunctious, outgoing sort. That said, he did a good job, considering the casting was so faulty. And Teri Garr did a fine job [as Maxine], but she wasn't my idea. I was having a difficult time finding someone for that part when Steve Buscemi suggested her. And she was terrific. YEPES: You've said that the first place that most films go wrong is in casting. In the case of Ghost World, Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson were not necessarily obvious choices for the roles of Enid and Rebecca. You thought Thora was better suited to play the role of the conventionally attractive Rebecca than she was to play Enid, the maladjusted one. Do you think that the casting of the two leads added a dimension to the film that wasn't in the graphic novel? ZWIGOFF: I wasn't as concerned with adding another dimension to the film as I was with maintaining a feeling of truth. I recall having a hard time convincing everyone to go along with me wanting to cast Scarlett. I'd seen her in Manny & Lo (1996) and The Horse Whisperer (1998) and I thought she was really terrific. The studio wanted a bigger name and was suggesting a number of older actresses to me, most closer to 30. I thought if this thing were to have any chance of feeling real at the end of the day, we had to hire actresses who were actual teenagers. Scarlett was actually only 15 at the time, but she certainly had the poise to play a little older. Hell, she probably had enough poise to play 35! And then the studio, in their quest for bigger names, suggested Thora after American Beauty (1999) was a big hit. I originally was wary of hiring her for the role of Enid because she played a somewhat similar role in American Beauty and I wanted to differentiate between the two parts. But Thora was really persistent and dedicated and really wanted the part and kept after me. She actually gained 20 pounds to play Enid which I think helped a little bit, but it was her acting ability that really made it work. YEPES: The theme of the two friends growing apart is at the heart of Ghost World. How much did you, Thora, and Scarlett talk about the friendship between Enid and Rebecca beforehand? How did Thora and Scarlett develop the relationship of two college-age girls who've probably known each other all of their lives? ZWIGOFF: I don't recall if we ever spoke of it directly, or anyone in the cast or crew having a hand in it. I give full credit to Thora and Scarlett for building a convincing friendship in a very few days before we had to start shooting. I'm not sure to this day how they pulled that off, but we all hit it off and had a lot of laughs together, on and off the set—I think that helped. I try to make the set as relaxed and fun and stress-free as humanly possible, while still having control over things. It's usually tension that hurts a performance or makes it seem self-conscious. YEPES: Seymour provides an interesting parallel to Enid, and in a sense, his inclusion makes the movie more poignant. Both he and Enid are lonely and both he and Enid are misunderstood. By including Seymour in the movie, Enid has to confront the notion of unfulfilled adulthood more directly. Were there other ideas or issues you wanted to introduce through Seymour's character? ZWIGOFF I wanted to make it a romantic comedy, as well as a coming-of-age story. And through his character, I was able to make it a social and cultural satire as well. YEPES: Near the end of Ghost World, there's a shot of a pensive Enid walking through town. There's a melancholy soundtrack, and a middle-aged sportswear-clad man with a soda and a bag of fast food passes through the frame. The inclusion of these weird, sad characters is the sort of personal touch of yours that adds a layer of pathos and humor, but that also serves as commentary about your view of the world. And in Crumb, there are striking sequences that show people outdoors who seem to reflect aspects of Robert Crumb's perspective. When you made Louie Bluie and Crumb, were you thinking about the kinds of details you could incorporate into fictional films that would make them seem more true to life? Had you wanted to make fictional films long before Ghost World? ZWIGOFF: Incorporating details was more of a natural inclination than a game plan in both documentary and fiction films. It layers the films in a way that allows them to hold up to multiple viewings. The thing I was up against in documentary films—and mine were both primarily character studies—was trying to get non-actors to convincingly play themselves in a way I'd come to know before the camera started rolling. And many non-actors can't do that convincingly, even if they just have to play themselves—they can't be naturalistic. And I would always want to recreate something I'd witnessed them do or say, and it just would be incredibly difficult because of the fact they weren't actors. And so I started thinking it might be more satisfying to just work with actors and get to tell them exactly what to say and how to say it. That appealed to me and led me to fictional films. You get so much more control. I think control is one of the things that appeals to me about cinema in general. You can force people to sit in the dark and focus on this story you're telling them without any distractions. In real life, people seem very distracted all the time. YEPES: The specificity of many moments in Ghost World and Art School Confidential makes them seem like they've been drawn directly from real life, like when Seymour's roommate decides the mongoose at his yard sale is not for sale one week and yet it's at his booth again the next week. Were a good deal of the details and exchanges that you and Daniel Clowes came up with things one of you had observed, and if so, can you recall a few examples? ZWIGOFF: Some were based on things we'd observed—and often disguised and exaggerated or embellished—and some were entirely imagined. Seymour's roommate Joe is based on my old friend Al Dodge. He didn't usually run a garage sale out of his house (he often sold at the Alameda Flea Market) and he didn't own the mongoose taxidermy (I used to have it before I gave it to an ex-girlfriend). But anyway, Al always had a reluctance to part with anything—especially once you made the mistake of expressing any interest in it. Then it'd always be this, "Naaaah ... I dunno ... I may have to hang onto that." Or, "That's not officially for sale." That kind of thing. I've witnessed similar behavior from many collectors over the years, actually. They have a hard time letting go of the treasures they've hoarded, or maybe they just like to play with you. Or maybe they get suspicious once you express interest in it that it must be worth more. For whatever reason, I found that trait memorable and wrote it into the script. YEPES: I watched Ghost World with my boyfriend, who's a record collector, last week. We were cracking up at the behavior and the language of the collectors in the movie—he even more than me—because we recognized so much of it. ZWIGOFF: Does your boyfriend collect 78s? That was, of course, the easiest scene for me to write in the entire film—I could have written a 30-page scene of that milieu's jargon. YEPES: No, but he only buys records that are in pristine condition—like some of the collectors in the movie. ZWIGOFF: Ha! YEPES: One of the things I'm struck by in your fiction films is the dialogue. In Bad Santa, there are quick exchanges between Santa and children that are really funny: "What do you want?" "Pokémon." "Done." ZWIGOFF: I give full credit to the Bad Santa screenwriters John Requa and Glenn Ficara for a wonderful script. YEPES: Is good dialogue one of the most important elements in that you look for in a script? ZWIGOFF: Yes. Dialogue that's distinctive, funny, peculiar, and specific is the main thing that makes me want to get involved with a film to begin with. There was a line in that script I really loved, which almost single-handedly got me to sign up for the film. "Sweet Jews for Jesus," laments the store manager as he sees Santa destroying SantaLand. That really had me laughing.  You have to say it with a southern accent. The Coen Brothers are great at dialogue too, of course. Very smart. YEPES: You also devised the scenario for what's probably my favorite moment in Bad Santa. It's the scene where the mother and child approach Santa at the mall on his lunch break. For anyone who's ever had a miserable job, it's a highly relatable moment. ZWIGOFF: I was inspired by "The Santaland Diaries" by David Sedaris—I give him a lot of credit for that scene. I wanted to help make an unlikeable protagonist more sympathetic and I thought this scene helped the audience get there in a truthful sort of way. YEPES: What do you think are other strengths you have as a director? ZWIGOFF: I think I have pretty good taste in the projects I choose to take on. It's a blessing and a curse—I certainly could have worked a lot more if I wasn't as selective, but I just can't bring myself to spend two years of my life slaving away on some project I'm not really enthused about. YEPES: What was your life as an adult like before Crumb was released? And how has it changed since then? ZWIGOFF: I was plagued with a lot of back pain during the years I was making Crumb. I doubt it had anything to do with making the film, but it's since disappeared, which makes my life and outlook much sunnier. YEPES: According to his wife, Aline, you were Robert Crumb's best friend at the time you were making the documentary about him. You must have known how good the film could be as you were shooting some of it. ZWIGOFF: The very first footage I shot was of Charles Crumb and I was certain I had a great film after that very first day. I thought, "I'll just edit this footage of Charles and show potential investors a sample of it. It's so strong that no one will hesitate to give me the money to finish this." Sadly that wasn't the case. It took years to scrape together the money. YEPES: Did you have a sense it could be your breakthrough film? ZWIGOFF: I never thought in terms of a "breakthrough" film. I wasn't looking for fame or a career path into Hollywood. I was doing it for myself. I just wanted to make a film that I really loved. If other people liked it, great. But you can never guess what other people are going to like. YEPES: Roger Ebert quoted you as saying during the nine years that it took to make Crumb, you were averaging an income of about $200 a month and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum said you were in therapy during the making of that documentary. Do you think you've become better able to cope with challenges as you've gotten older? ZWIGOFF: Yes, I'm better able to cope with everything, largely thanks to that awful back pain subsiding. YEPES: I love the moment in Louie Bluie when Howard Armstrong reacts to an outdoor Picasso sculpture in Chicago, emphatically saying he can't relate to it and you should be able to relate to art. At what point during the making of Louie Bluie did you decide you wanted to shoot Howard in shops and walking down the street? The scenes of both Howard and of Robert Crumb interacting with the environments around them reveal so much about their characters. ZWIGOFF: In both films, even though they're documentaries, I had hundreds of pages of notes and ideas I'd jotted down in preparation for planning what I was going to film. I'd sat with Robert many times in cafes while he drew the world around him. I found it interesting, so I made a point to include that in the film. YEPES: Would you give your subjects prompts each time before you began filming? ZWIGOFF: Yes, I usually prompted and set up and staged scenes. Largely due to budgetary constraints—shooting film was expensive! YEPES: How involved was Daniel Clowes during the production of Ghost World and Art School Confidential? ZWIGOFF: We became such good friends writing the [Ghost World] script together, that I encouraged him to come to L.A. to watch the shooting. I thought he'd get bored (every other writer I know gets bored after a few hours and leaves), but he stuck it out and proved to be a big help and made the process much more fun for me. We'd crack each other up all day long. He helped with set dressing, wardrobe, extras, and myriad other things. He'd sometimes whisper ideas into my ear after a take. Some were even good ideas. But he'd never pressure me to take his advice and often I didn't. When we did Art School Confidential together years later, he wrote the script himself (as I was still stuck working on Bad Santa). And I never had any input into that script (I've since learned never to direct a film I don't have a hand in writing), and found it much more difficult to direct. So I leaned on his advice a lot more during that film. He was the producer and writer of it, and it was also sort of the story of his life. It was hard to find my way into it, but he was especially helpful on that one. YEPES: You've said you prefer staying home and reading to traveling or going out for beers. What do you like to read, and do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? ZWIGOFF: I read a lot of non-fiction as well as fiction. I like Charles Bukowski, Jim Thompson, Nathanael West, Camus, Dostoevsky, Orwell, Patricia Highsmith ... all the light, uplifting stuff. YEPES: Are there any recent films that made a favorable impression on you? ZWIGOFF: Recently? Hmm ... The film I liked the most last year was Manchester by the Sea. I'm misquoted somewhere as saying "you have to go back to the '30s and '40s to find any good films." That's not true—I love a lot of films from the '50' to the present. Adaptation (2002) is one of my favorite films. Vertigo (1958). Sunset Blvd. (1950). The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Dr. Strangelove (1964). The King of Comedy (1982). The Godfather (1972). Viridiana (1961). Army of Shadows (1969). Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), Le Trou (1960), Strangers on a Train (1951). I could go on and on. YEPES: I know that the studio was thinking that since Ghost World was about teenage girls, it could have a pop soundtrack. You found an effective way to counter that idea by incorporating the character of Seymour into Ghost World, in part, as a way to choose music you liked for the movie. Can you tell me how you've played with music in your fictional films? ZWIGOFF: Music is of course incredibly important in films. I remember in Bad Santa, when Marcus chops down a mannequin, cross-cutting that with Willie swinging a sledgehammer against a safe. It wasn't really funny until I tried using "The Anvil Chorus" as the music there. I used a lot of familiar pieces of music in that film like the melancholy Chopin in the opening as Willie sits at the bar alone amongst the cheerful festive crowd. It perfectly set the mood for this character study. The studio replaced it with Alvin and the Chipmunks doing "Jingle Bell Rock" and added some uninspired voice-over narration. They were afraid the audience wouldn't know it was a comedy soon enough. Jesus. That was their idea of humor. I fought and fought to get my music back in there. I was mostly successful. YEPES: Who do you think is funny? ZWIGOFF: Well, W.C. Fields, of course. Chaplin. And Laurel & Hardy. James Finlayson. John Candy. Chris Rock. Tony Cox. Will Ferrell. Will Forte. Larry David. Woody Allen. Richard Pryor. Sacha Baron Cohen. Mike Myers. And I love Kristen Wiig. Kate McKinnon. Tina Fey. And the late great Jan Duggan (she played Cleopatra Pepperday in The Old Fashioned Way.) I'm sure there are many others I'm forgetting at the moment. YEPES: Can you recall some things people have said about your movies that you particularly enjoyed or took as compliments? ZWIGOFF: Yes, one critic's review of Bad Santa said, "Bad Santa is the closest thing we have today to a W.C. Fields movie." That's about the highest praise I can imagine. If I can achieve anything even close I'm happy. And I think Roger Ebert said, "It's not what it's about, it's how it goes about it." I thought that was very wise. I miss Roger. ALL FIVE OF TERRY ZWIGOFF'S FILMS ARE PLAYING AT METROGRAPH IN NEW YORK CITY FROM TODAY, MAY 19, THROUGH MAY 21, 2017, AS PART OF THEIR CAREER RETROSPECTIVE OF THE FILMMAKER'S WORK.

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THEATER / 2017-2018

Wilderness

by Seth Bockley and Anne Hamburger Directed by Seth Bockley Presented by En Garde Arts

*(Please note this show contains mature themes and language that may not be appropriate for audiences younger than 13.)

So, What’s Going On?

The Play

“I was just, I guess, lost.”

Wilderness is the story of six teens who’ve gotten lost in their lives. It is based on the experiences of real youth who ended up as “clients” in a wilderness therapy program—voluntarily or not—as a way to confront their personal struggles and demons. The production also features real parents’ points of view as they sought help for their children whose lives were spinning out of control.

The play unfolds in a series of scenes, or vignettes, as the group of teens and counselors backpack and camp through a stretch of high-country desert in southwestern Utah. Through these scenes we trace the back stories of the teen clients: Elizabeth, Sophia, Chloe, Dylan, Cole, and Michael. They share stories about drug use and abuse, gender identity, dangerous thrill-seeking, sexual abuse, cutting and other self-harms, and ongoing struggles and fights with parents. (“I miss you and I hate you,” Elizabeth signs in a letter to home.) And slowly, they reveal how they came to be there. Staffers and fellow campers interact, hassle, confront, and support one another, trying to get at the personal pain that seems to be driving anger and cruel behavior toward themselves and others.

Action onstage is mixed with video projections of interviews with the actual parents. The parents retell their fears and frustrations about watching their kids’ lives race toward wreckage. In desperation, they reached for a wilderness therapy program to try to intervene in these teens’ destructive trajectories. For many of these adults, wilderness therapy was their last hope for saving their kids.

A “Mom” character is also represented on stage. She plays both an interviewer and a dramatic stand-in for the video parents. It eventually becomes clear that she and the parents are on their own journeys to make peace with their children and their children’s troubles and choices. A phone call with a camp counselor communicates to Mom that she can’t control what is happening with her son. She has to let go and practice living her own life. It appears that the adults have recovery work to do, too.

As the play nears its conclusion, we see the campers gain self-confidence as they experience the natural world and gain pride in their improving social and wilderness skills. And near the end, we learn what happened once they returned to the life they had known, often with new insights and clearer ideas of who they are and can become.

Good to Know

The Story Behind the Play

“People that love us will forgive us.”

Wilderness is an example of “documentary theater.” It is a style of drama that presents the stories of real people, told by actors, often mixing interviews with onstage action. In this production, the stories of real-life teens are acted out on stage mixed with video excerpts from interviews with the actual parents. Movement and music brighten and punctuate the play’s themes.

The theatrical project grew out of the personal experiences of co-writer Anne Hamburger and her teenage son. Their family tried traditional therapies, she says, “But it got to the point where we just couldn’t reach him. [Wilderness therapy] seemed like a viable alternative. And for us, it was successful.”

The play itself is the result of a year-and-a-half of research and interviews conducted by Hamburger and Seth Bockley. (Bockley also directs the show.) They spoke with parents and teens who had undergone wilderness therapy and who bravely shared their experiences and outcomes.

Hamburger emphasizes that wilderness therapy provides the setting but isn’t the core of the play. “It’s really about the quest for connection within families,” she said in an interview at Penn State, “and, when troubles arise, how one looks at oneself differently and how one needs to change in order to heal and make connection possible.”

Here, you can find an interview with Anne Hamburger, co-writer and producer of Wilderness.

An Explanation First: What is Wilderness Therapy?

“They said you’re going to the wilderness.”

Wilderness therapy encompasses programs that immerse troubled teens in the outdoors. The intention is to remove them from environments that seem to trigger destructive and self-destructive behavior. Away from civilization and guided by counselors, they are given the chance to face their problems without the distractions of social media, drugs and alcohol, or dysfunctional relationships.

Many such programs exist, of various durations and intensities. As a rule, though, they last for nine weeks to three months at a cost upwards of $20,000. In many cases, wilderness therapy has become a last-ditch effort by parents to help their kids survive adolescence after more traditional approaches have been exhausted. Parents may hire agencies to arrive in the early morning hours to take away their kids and deliver them to the therapy program. Some young clients go willingly, but minors may be “transported”—coerced in one way or another to go.

The programs themselves amount to around-the-clock therapy, designed to change harmful thought and behavior habits. Daily activities are usually a mix of hiking, learning wilderness skills like camping and fire-making, and ongoing and as-needed therapy sessions. The therapeutic goal for most kids is to raise their sense of self-esteem and self-efficacy to the point they become more resilient to self-destructive and antisocial behaviors. Ideally, they also develop the social and emotional skills that allow them to function, thrive, and create happier lives once they return home.

Not all wilderness therapy programs are equal or regulated, however. Especially in the past, they have been conflated with correctional “boot camps” that have emphasized physical exertion as well as punishment. Horror stories about mistreated youth have occasionally emerged from these places.

Today, though, wilderness therapy programs receive greater scrutiny and oversight. Organizations like the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Center at the University of New Hampshire have published accreditation standards and provide accreditation to distinguish the good from the bad, the reputable from the disreputable.

Anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of wilderness therapy programs is often glowing. Peer-reviewed research indicates it is beneficial for most youth attendees, and points out programs that emphasize therapeutic treatment over recreation are more successful.

Who’s Who

“Dear Mom, please don’t do this to me.”

Elizabeth—came to camp voluntarily to deal with issues related to an abusive, mentally ill mother Sophia—a rebellious teen who has anger issues, especially toward her mom Chloe—after being sexually abused by a boyfriend and bullied by peers, she started cutting herself Dylan—a trans boy and music lover who feels unloved by his parents and everyone else Cole—a risk-taker and Hip Hop lover who has struggled with drug use Michael—he became verbally and physically abusive toward his mother after a nasty divorce Field Staff (Merritt, Rebecca, Billy, Corey, Taco)—wilderness therapy counselors Mom—a woman alarmed and fearful about her child’s behavior and her ability to deal with it; the performer also doubles as the Skype interviewer

Watch and listen how…

the performers switch from teens to counselors by donning jackets or sweatshirts.

setting is established using projections of home, school, and the outdoor scenes.

music and movement support the production and reinforce themes. Pay attention for a scene as the teens wrestle with sleep in a movement sequence on the floor.

characters signal with their bodies and tones of voice what they’re feeling toward themselves and others.

Think about…

ways the characters’ attitudes toward their wilderness therapy experience change during the play.

how the parents and children offer differing views of each other and their relational difficulties.

nonverbal cues you, your friends, and your family use to send a message.

In an interview, co-writer Anne Hamburger said that wilderness therapy provides the “setting” for the play. “It’s really about the quest for connection within families, and, when troubles arise, how one looks at oneself differently and how one needs to change in order to heal and make connection possible.” Think about ways you connect with friends and family. What actions do you take when those connections become frayed?

how a lack of communication between parent and child can lead to devastating consequences.

About En Garde Arts

“Do you want to hear something real?”

En Garde Arts developed Wilderness as part of its ongoing mission “to produce bold, unconventional, and innovative multimedia and interdisciplinary theatre that marries content with community and inspires dialogue and debate about the salient issues of our time.”

Anne Hamburger, co-author of Wilderness, founded the company in 1985. Since then, En Garde Arts has won acclaim for its site-specific productions in New York City, ranging from Orestes at Penn Yards, New York, to Father Was a Peculiar Man in the City’s former Meatpacking District. It has since taken productions including Basetrack and Wilderness on tour.

For more information, visit their website.

Take Action: Take a Nature Walk

“It was a beautiful spring night ...” Ah tranquility! Penetrating the very rock, A cicada’s voice. ~Matsuo Basho

In Japanese it’s called shinrin-yoku—forest bathing. In the West, something similar might be referred to as Nature Therapy. This practice involves taking easy walks in a calming natural environment, away from the chaos and noise of daily life. Studies have shown that time spent in quiet natural settings reduces depression, negative feelings, and stress hormones in the blood. It lowers one’s pulse and blood pressure as well.

Try an experiment. Think of a calm, natural environment near your home or school, or find one. Plan a 30-minute visit of walking or sitting in the most tranquil place there. Leave the smartphone and headphones at home. Don’t even bring a book to read, though perhaps carry a notebook to jot down thoughts that pop up. If you invite a friend, make a pact that you won’t speak during those 30 minutes.

Note your thoughts and feelings before you begin. Note your thoughts and feelings at the end. Compare and contrast your state before and after your quiet time. If you want to get biological, measure your pulse rate before and after as well.

Compose a haiku or two based on your experience. Haiku is a short poetic form that often explores themes in nature.

The first line contains five syllables.

The second line contains seven syllables.

The third line contains five syllables.

A haiku by the Japanese master Matsuo Basho appears above. Here is another: A squirrel hurries. It is part of its nature. Worries? Not so much. ~Sean McCollum

Spend some time in a quiet, natural place. Pay attention to your breathing. Listen for words to float up in your mind. Write a haiku and post it to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, or any platform of your choice. Share it at #wildernesshaiku.

Explore More

Go even deeper with the Wilderness Extras.

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All photos by Baranova.

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