#but it's actually really difficult to find a list of the books With covers

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Harry Potter is Actually Really Clever

So often, I feel like Harry is underrated in his own series and I want to talk about how much I love Harry James Potter. Harry is my favorite character in the books and I want to showcase some moments of Harry proving the Sorting Hat knew what it was talking about when it comes to Harry possibly doing well in Slytherin and even Ravenclaw.

(I have more moments listed in my notes, and I'm in book 6 in my current reread, so I definitely am not covering everything)

Let's start then with the words of the Sorting Hat itself:

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, A my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting….So where shall I put you?” Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin. “Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that

(Philosopher's Stone, page 88)

The Hat says Harry is brave enough for Gryffindor, clever enough and talented enough for Ravenclaw and has the ambition and thirst to prove himself for Slytherin. And the hat isn't wrong about it's assessment of Harry. Harry is clever and talented and I so often find it underplayed in fics, or ones that do include it, acting like it's fanon characterization when it's really isn't.

Harry Potter is canonically a BAMF.

So, here I'm going to talk about his cleverness and give some moments of Harry being clever from the books.

(I'll have a different post for his magical prowess.)

Harry Has Brilliant Memory

So, Harry James Potter practically has close to an eidetic memory, and no one really seems to mention it.

An eidetic memory is described as an almost perfect recollection of images or events. And Harry actually shows himself as being very capable of it:

Angelina: “…Harry, didn’t you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?” “Hermione did it,” said Harry. He pulled out his wand, tapped his glasses and said, “Impervius!”

(Order of the Phoenix, page 379)

In thus scene its raining during a Quidditch match and Angelina asks Harry about a spell he used a year before. Harry remembered that moment, remembered Hermione was actually the one who cast the spell, a spell he himself never cast before this moment, and he then casts it perfectly from memory.

Harry remembers the incantation and wand movement perfectly enough to succeed on his first try.

Actually, almost every time we see him cast spells he gets the wand movement and incantation right on the first try (even his first attempt at a patronus worked, the happy memory just wasn't strong enough)

In general, they moments we see Harry fail at casting spells on the first try is when he overthinks it and fails himself like that.

Harry stared at the letters in brackets. Nvbl . . . that had to mean “nonverbal.” Harry rather doubted he would be able to bring off this particular spell; he was still having difficulty with nonverbal spells, something Snape had been quick to comment on in every D.A.D.A. class. On the other hand, the Prince had proved a much more effective teacher than Snape so far. Pointing his wand at nothing in particular, he gave it an upward flick and said Levicorpus! inside his head. “Aaaaaaaargh!”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 239)

Harry tends to fail potions, and nonverbal spells when Snape is breathing down on him expecting him to fail, though, in this example, the moment Harry feels he can succeed the spell and isn't overthinking it, he casts it perfectly and nonverbally on the first attempt.

He is the same with potions:

Snape, meanwhile, seemed to have decided to act as though Harry were invisible. Harry was, of course, well used to this tactic, as it was one of Uncle Vernon’s favorites, and on the whole was grateful he had to suffer nothing worse. In fact, compared to what he usually had to endure from Snape in the way of taunts and snide remarks, he found the new approach something of an improvement and was pleased to find that when left well alone, he was able to concoct an Invigoration Draught quite easily. At the end of the lesson he scooped some of the potion into a flask, corked it, and took it up to Snape’s desk for marking, feeling that he might at last have scraped an E.

(Order of the Phoenix, page 660)

When Snape wasn't breathing down his neck and stressing him, even without the Half-Blood Prince's superior instructions, Harry is good at potions. He accomplishes the potion to a level of Exceeding Expectations easily. The problem is never his skill, memory, or talent; usually, it's stress, being stuck in his own head, or carelessness (did anyone diagnose him with ADHD?)

Another example of his eidetic memory in OOP:

“Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds,” said Hermione fairly. “I suppose something in that snake’s venom dissolves them or something. . . . I wonder where the tearoom is?” “Fifth floor,” said Harry, remembering the sign over the Welcome Witch’s desk.

(Order of the Phoenix, page 508)

When Harry describes St. Mongos for the first time (about a week before the above scene) he reads a sign that describes what is located in each floor of the hospital.

A week later, without reading that sign again, Harry can recall where the tea room is since he has that sign he read once a week ago, memorized.

Harry is Sneaky

Harry is a proper sneaky slythein and actually has more cunning moments than some slytherins in the books. Here are a few examples I have from my notes:

“Should call Filch, I should, if something’s a-creeping around unseen.” Harry had a sudden idea. “Peeves,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “the Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible.” Peeves almost fell out of the air in shock.

(Philosopher's Stone, page 197)

Harry is a good liar and scared of Peeves like this in his first year.

“…He likes to keep in touch with me, though . . . keep up with my news . . . check if I’m happy. . . .” And, grinning broadly at the look of horror on Uncle Vernon’s face, Harry set off toward the station exit, Hedwig rattling along in front of him, for what looked like a much better summer than the last.

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 435)

But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather — for Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

(Goblet of Fire, page 24)

Again, Harry lying and tricking the Dursleys so they won't hurt him. Leveling Sirius as a threat against them.

“Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess — I let you pass. Answer wrongly — I attack. Remain silent — I will let you walk away from me unscathed.”

[the riddle and Harry thinking through it]

“Spy . . . er . . . spy . . . er . . .” said Harry, pacing up and down. “A creature I wouldn’t want to kiss . . . a spider!” The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass. “Thanks!” said Harry, and, amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forward.

(Goblet of Fire, page 629)

I skipped the sphinx's riddle, now the riddle isn't a hard one, but still, Harry isn't stupid. But he thinks he is. He even tells himself during that scene:

Harry’s stomach slipped several notches. It was Hermione who was good at this sort of thing, not him. He weighed his chances. If the riddle was too hard, he could keep silent, get away from the sphinx unharmed, and try and find an alternative route to the center.

(Goblet of Fire, 629)

But it's just Harry and his low self-esteem. He solves the riddle quickly thinking aloud near the Sphinx and he does solve it, and is amazed by it because he doesn't think of himself as smart, even though he is.

Most of the riddles to the Ravenclaw common room are probably along this line of difficulty too. It just goes to show he isn't stupid.

“There,” she said, handing it to him. “Drink it before it gets cold, won’t you? Well, now, Mr. Potter . . . I thought we ought to have a little chat, after the distressing events of last night.” He said nothing. She settled herself back into her seat and waited. When several long moments had passed in silence, she said gaily, “You’re not drinking up!” He raised the cup to his lips and then, just as suddenly, lowered it. One of the horrible painted kittens behind Umbridge had great round blue eyes just like Mad-Eye Moody’s magical one, and it had just occurred to Harry what Mad-Eye would say if he ever heard that Harry had drunk anything offered by a known enemy. “What’s the matter?” said Umbridge, who was still watching him. “Do you want sugar?” “No,” said Harry. He raised the cup to his lips again and pretended to take a sip, though keeping his mouth tightly closed. Umbridge’s smile widened. “Good,” she whispered. “Very good. Now then . . .” She leaned forward a little. “Where is Albus Dumbledore?” “No idea,” said Harry promptly.

(Order of the Pheonix, page 630)

Harry is clever enough to recognize drinking anything Umbridge gives him is a bad idea, so he doesn't. And he does so without her realizing.

“even if you do cause a diversion, how is Harry supposed to talk to him?” “Umbridge’s office,” said Harry quietly. He had been thinking about it for a fortnight and could think of no alternative; Umbridge herself had told him that the only fire that was not being watched was her own. “Are — you — insane?” said Hermione in a hushed voice. Ron had lowered his leaflet on jobs in the cultivated fungus trade and was watching the conversation warily. “I don’t think so,” said Harry, shrugging. “And how are you going to get in there in the first place?” Harry was ready for this question. “Sirius’s knife,” he said. “Excuse me?” “Christmas before last Sirius gave me a knife that’ll open any lock,” said Harry. “So even if she’s bewitched the door so Alohomora won’t work, which I bet she has —”

(Order of the Phoenix, page 658)

Harry can and does strategies. He planned how to get into Umbeidge's office. He employed his friends and actually led them. Being a leader and a strategist — rules we see him grow more into later.

Harry’s mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted this dusty spun-glass sphere. He had no interest in it. He just wanted to get them all out of this alive, make sure that none of his friends paid a terrible price for his stupidity . . . The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange’s face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow. “You need more persuasion?” she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Very well — take the smallest one,” she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. “Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I’ll do it.” Harry felt the others close in around Ginny. He stepped sideways so that he was right in front of her, the prophecy held up to his chest. “You’ll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us,” he told Bellatrix. “I don’t think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?” She did not move; she merely stared at him, the tip of her tongue moistening her thin mouth. “So,” said Harry, “what kind of prophecy are we talking about anyway?” He could not think what to do but to keep talking. Neville’s arm was pressed against his, and he could feel him shaking. He could feel one of the other’s quickened breath on the back of his head. He was hoping they were all thinking hard about ways to get out of this, because his mind was blank.

(Order of the Pheonix, page 783)

This is a bit of a long quote, but I really like it. Harry gets the Death Eaters at an impasse because they can't destroy the prophecy. Then, when they threatened Ginny, he changed tactics and got them talking to buy time.

And even when he says his mind is blank:

“What?” whispered Hermione more urgently behind him. “Can this be?” said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were laughing again, and under cover of their laughter, Harry hissed to Hermione, moving his lips as little as possible, “Smash shelves —”

...

“NOW!” yelled Harry. Five different voices behind him bellowed “REDUCTO!” Five curses flew in five different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit. The towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart

(Order of the Phoenix, pages 785-786 and 787)

He's still the one coming up with plans and pulling them out of there.

And if we look at his grades:

(Half-Blood Prince, page 102)

He is very far from failing academically. Actually considering how little studying Harry actually does, he receives very high grades, even for Hogwarts' abysmal education standards. Harry is naturally smart enough and talented enough that with the bare minimum of effort, he can get almost exclusively Es (his failing being in History, an exam he didn't finish, and Divination, which Harry has only been thought bullshit in).

Makes me wish we saw him put in an active effort. I bet it all would've been Os with his memory.

Even Potions, which Harry is supposedly bad at, he got an E...

I just... Harry is just really smart and it kind of frustrates me how I don't see enough fics that treat Harry being clever and with a cunning streak as if it's canon, even though it very much is.

I don't know, maybe I'm just reading the wrong fics...

[worldume]

TWO DEMONS AND AN ANGEL….

˖┊ spotlight: yamato endo & chika takiishi.

˖┊ synopsis: (name) is endo and chika's favorite coloring book! they love to bully their sweet little lamb into doing things she’s not comfortable with. why? because they can & its fun!

˖┊ content: dark content, power imbalance relationship, bullying, themes of humiliation, implied polygamy, toxic relationship, coerced piercing, christina piercing, needles, alcohol transfer from mouth to mouth, afab reader, she/her pronouns, canonverse but endo and chika own a sleazy tattoo shop, tattoo artist endo, piercer chika for lore purposes, all characters are adults/aged up, endo and chika are awful!

˖┊ word count: 2k.

“you scared?”

“n—no but—” (name) stammered under his gaze, her voice cracking as she struggled to find her words. she averted her gaze from him, finding a sudden interest at chika moving about through the room as he gathered a few things around their shop. it was tucked away in a narrow sketchy alley in japan that looked like the kind of place only those in the know would visit— covered in graffiti and old posters with a flickering neon sign. the place had the vibe of a dive bar.

there was a small furrow in her brows and her lips tugged slightly in a glossy pout. no fair.. no fair!

looking at endo was so.. difficult for a couple reasons. number one: he was so fucking attractive. the kind of attractive that made her shy away from his gaze because she started to feel self conscious about everything little thing. did he like her hair? her makeup? the outfit she wore today? but more importantly, he could be just so mean if someone caught him on a bad day— he was finicky with his moods. and sometimes he didn’t want anyone looking him directly in the eye.

she’s witnessed first hand how brutally yamato beats people into a shell of themselves— weak people who he believes test who’s a poser and who’s not. endo is a pretty laid back guys for the most part, but, he has very little respect and tolerance for those who are weak. he thinks they’re boring, a drag and a complete waste of his fucking time. weak people get under his skin. weak people disgust him. weak people don’t deserve to call themselves human. and he couldn’t stand when weak people paraded around as though they weren’t.

but (name) was weak. so it makes her wonder why he keeps her around— why the both of them keep her around.. they’re not laughing at her behind her back right? she helps around.. sure she wasn’t the strongest person physically but she has uses.. or at least that’s what she tells herself.

you see, (name) is a pushover. a people pleaser. and a pathetic excuse for a spine. which is precisely why endo initially took such an interest to the girl— the irony, right? endo was just.. so tickled by it he giggled like a little kid who was told their first joke. he’s never seen anyone quite as pitiful as her. but he supposes women were an exception, right? endo almost found it.. cute? (name)’s looks were really the cherry on top of it all— a pretty little bow to wrap his present. just how could someone as pretty as her be such a.. disappointment. endo almost found it to be a waste of a perfectly good vessel, but.. he found that he gained some sort of sick gratification from bullying (name).

it was fun for him. and something to help pass the time when there’s nothing interesting going on. it was sad really— some of the things they made her do were nothing more than mere humiliation tactics that served no real purpose other than to see her actually do everything she’s told. no questions asked. like controlling when she use the bathroom, a “dress code” that usually consisted of micro mini skirts and the requirement of no panties, making her call herself awful things when she fails (bitch, slut and whore are some of noroshi’s favorites), her mouth being used as an ashtray— the list can go on.

‘how did such a sweet girl like (name) get caught up in this crowd?’ is what all the sweet townspeople of makochi ask amongst themselves when they see her on an off chance visiting her mom. but no one would be able to guess that she devoted herself to these men by choice. (name) felt as though she were indebted to endo and chika. that she owed the both of them all of herself because they saved her.

there had been a night where she had found herself walking alone after a night out with her friends, she was a little bit more than tipsy and stumbled across an alley she shouldn’t have. (name) remembers it well— stopping to pull out her phone for her gps. (name) hadn’t have been familiar with the area so she hadn’t been quite sure where she was. there was a voice behind her and all she knows is that she was being grabbed— she remembers screaming for help and thinking that it was her end. but that’s when they came to help her.

she remembers endo’s eyes that night when he got on one knee to match her level— her eyes drifting to chika who stood behind him. (name) couldn’t have been more thankful, they were her saviors..

that was then but now (name) felt as though she were walking on a pit of eggshells and thin ice— something seemingly so simple as holding the eye contact he was so insistent on made her feel uneasy sometimes which was so unfortunate because he has such pretty eyes. as much as she admired him, endo often used eye contact as a tool for intimidation— borderline a threat specifically for her alone. probably because he knew the only real thing he had to do was give her a look and she would submit— cowering like a scared little lamb so scared of getting gobbled right up by the big, bad wolf.

endo followed her gaze, tilting his head as his eyes bored into her own. he could admit that she was more than a looker— that sad, kicked puppy look really does something for him.

“but? but but but? but what.” it was a nasty sneer that left from endo’s lips as he mocked her. his lip curling in a way that screamed he was becoming more and more agitated by her hesitation— her lack of immediate compliance. this wasn’t their obedient little love— she was starting to piss him off.

“nothing— i just..” she trailed off. “will it hurt..? what if i cry?” she asked, looking up at him with the sweetest look. (name) were so naive it hurt. god— he could skull fuck her right now and he knew she’d absolutely love every single moment of it.

“sweetpea, you said you’d do anything for us. you didn’t lie to me did you?” he asked, brows furrowed as though he were actually hurt at the implication he just pulled from his book of manipulation.

“no..! of course not..!” she shook her head quickly.

“then a little pain shouldn’t be an issue, right? all the fights and trouble we get in for you isn’t even comparable.” there is was— he always did this. make her feel like she didn’t appreciate all that they’ve done for her which was her biggest fear.

“yeah, you’re right.. o–okay.. okay.” she let out a shaky breath as she nodded, a small smile growing on her lips as she felt endo’s hand pat her head.

“takiishi~ our little love’s all done bein’ a crybaby. c’mon.” he said.

chika sits down onto the roller stool, scooting over smoothly while the wheels squeaked over the cracked floor tiles so that he’s nestled in between her legs now. he spreads her lips apart, his eyes low as he watches how she clenches around nothing. hm. was she scared or was this arousal? it wouldn’t be the first time chika’s suspected she gets off on that kind of thing..

“wait— please!” panic rose in her chest, her cheeks heating up as she captured chika’s eyes. her pussy was completely bare before him, her thighs raided with tattoos that were more like brands as they stated slogans like ‘property of noroshi,’ ‘endo was here :),’ chika’s initials, and other dehumanizing phrases tattooed on her. to anyone else these could be perceived as insulting and degrading but for (name), she wore each proudly. of course the first time endo talked her into she had her reservations but she really just couldn’t say no, could she?

“will it hurt?” chika hadn’t responded, only opting in for a stare before endo spoke up once again.

“how about this? we’ll give you somethin’ that’ll take the edge off, alright?” he clasped his hands together before spinning on his heel to walk over to a counter where he snagged a bottle of vodka. “some old fashioned anesthesia.” endo smiled as he turned back around, walking back over to her where she laid.

she eyed the bottle with a look of hesitation on her face— it’s contents half full as the clear liquid sloshed around in the thick glass container. “yamato.. i don’t like to drink..”

“what?” he raised his brow as he twisted off the cap. “you know, you really shouldn’t mumble, sweetheart. i can’t hear a damn word you say.” but endo knew good and well that heard her as clear as day.

“n—nothing.. ‘m sorry. let’s do it..”

“no shot glasses or anything fancy like that but— i like doing it like this.” his hand finds its way to the crown of her head to tilt her head at an angle. he takes a swig of the vodka, holding it in his mouth for a moment before leaning in close to her and pressing his lips to her own. endo transfers the liquid in a slow controlled flow, the alcohol passing from one mouth to the other.

“mmf..!” the taste is awful and (name) told herself she’d never be able to get used to it but the warmth she was starting to feel a few seconds later seemed to help with her anxiety just a bit.

endo crouched down a bit to her level on piercing bed, an obnoxious smile on his lips as he watches on.

chika’s gloved hands aligned the needle, hovering just above the skin as the sharp tip gleamed under the light. his moment is skillfully controlled, fingers firm but gentle— the cold metal of the needle presses lightly against the flesh, the sensation a mix of cool steel and the warmth of skin contact. just before the needle penetrates, there’s a brief pause..

(name) let out a shriek as she felt the needle pierce through her flesh— the initial sensation was sharp, a pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. her toes curled and her hand flew to endo’s dark locks, involuntarily pulling his head back as her body started to writhe and lift at the pain. but it had been over as soon as it happened— chika’s fingers were nimble and worked quickly as he threaded the dainty jewelry through. the pain shifted into a dull ache and a sense of relief washed over her when chika spoke: “it’s finished.”

“fuck yeah— let’s see it.” endo said as he reached for the hand mirror sitting on the tray stand beside chika. (name) couldn’t help the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, a sniffle or two escaping from her lips.

there was slight throb where the jewelry laid as she sat up to look down at the mirror. the gem was her favorite color— she had to admit that it looked pretty good.

“she’s gonna be outta commission for a while, baby.” endo cooed at her. “you like?”

“yeah.. it’s cute.” she giggled breathlessly. “i did.. i did good, right?” (name) asked, her eyes screaming for approval.

“so good— let’s take a picture and show the guys, yeah?”

© all content belongs to worldume 2024. do not, translate, modify or repost to any other platforms.

[toskarin]

just because I'm thinking about it, here's one of those periodic posts where I list off a few random youtube channel recommendations I've been enjoying lately (or have been enjoying long-term (or for any length of time really))

Masaru. - I like fishing. but I can't do it at the moment. Masaru also likes to fish. he free dives, he brings a fish up, he cooks the fish, then he says how it tastes. sometimes it is an unusual fish. sometimes it tastes good. sometimes it tastes wretched. he will tell you. this singlehandedly solves basically every single complaint I have with most cooking/fishing channels. this is cocomelon to me

MIQ(MIO) - it's MIQ! one of the strongest anison vocalists of... well, basically ever. it's her official channel! she uploads concert recordings, karaoke advice for her own songs, and general updates on what she's doing here. I'm always aghast when I see how low her viewcounts are, given that she's an industry legend who's been going strong for over 40 years.

bellykelly - vinyl collector, uploading some really good cuts that you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. one of those channels where I'm always up to date on uploads, and when I fall behind, I just playlist it all to catch up

Xerxes Vinyl Classics - vinyl collector, hasn't upload in a while, but has lots of older releases and remix pressings that are otherwise pretty rare. has some of the higher quality recordings of cantopop releases that are otherwise a little difficult to listen to in acceptable quality

Zuka Zhvania - music-enjoyer and song-uploader with a VERY frequent upload schedule. he's (as far as I know) not an official promoter or anything, but he's pretty damned good at keeping the tunes coming. if you're looking for someone to set you on some obscure industrial and house cuts, check out this channel

LIVING ONLY RECORDS - official channel for a doujin label with some absolutely fantastic noise rock, punk, and shoegaze bands on it. it's my understanding that this is less of "a record label" and more of a way for 群青リボン and friends to book out live houses together while selling merch at one table. which is a pretty noble cause

Someone45356 - probably laying pretty safe claim to the title of "most genre-firsts in the touhou doujin scene," Someone45356 is a strong recommend just for the level of care they put into their arrangements. I love their video thumbnails and their arrangement notes in the video description. a great channel at any level of musical interest (but an ESPECIALLY good channel if you're also a musician)

UPROAR24 - sick and tired of plguin and samplepack demo videos that are 75% ad copy by volume and still don't manage to show you the stupid thing in action? tired of looking at questionably-useful free vsts and not being able to tell whether you're even comfortable having that rubbish on your pc? UPROAR24 runs a channel that's pretty explicitly a reaction to this, making dodgy demos of dodgier plugins. works lovely as a catalogue to browse when you're looking for a new toy

USUDA - the pillar of the Armored Core fan community, USUDA has arranged more Armored Core music than anyone else short of actual FromSoft staff. he also releases his music for free download, including his midi arrangements. very friendly guy in all the interactions I've seen, and also pretty good at remembering people he's seen in other comment sections. I'd honestly shoot him a message first if I had any questions about arranging songs from these games lol

Ricardo Cruz - if you've listened to any portugese (br) covers of anison, you've heard Ricardo Cruz. even if you only listen to originals, there's still a pretty fucking solid chance you've heard him, because he's a JAM Project contributor. absolutely wonderful channel if you like watching skilful singers duet with other powerhouses

Saint Mauve - the best Hellsinker channel on youtube, which isn't an especially competitive title. but I think Saint Mauve would probably still be the best Hellsinker channel on youtube even if there were more than like three. my qualifier for when I've found something weird in the Hellsinker periphery is when I haven't seen Saint Mauve post about it. also plays other (often HS-adjacent) doujin stg and has good opinions on them

Tom Green - this is a weird recommendation but if you don't intuitively understand the appeal of a now-early-50s Tom Green calmly talking about his farm animals and riding around on a horse for hours at a time, I'm really not sure I can sell you on it. oddly calming

mercurytower - this channel is run by Asa, the musician behind Souvenirs to Forget. before they started releasing their original work, this was mostly used to upload guitar covers (which are good, but guitar covers aren't really enough to make me give a glowing recommendation of a channel). Souvenirs to Forget is a really exciting solo project and one I'm personally keeping an eye on. naturally, they upload their releases to this channel

Trance Classics - vinyl collector, records videos to go with the music, focuses more or less entirely on trance. I've got no excuse here. I just fucking love trance and always have, so you can pander to me really easily by just making a channel like this. if you like trance, it has hours and hours of trance

SJ HanStone Lee - the early-gen Mabinogi composer, among a lot of other things. it's been a while since he's posted anything new on this channel, but I check in every now and again. by my reckoning, one of the best mmo composers (and honestly one of the best game composers in general) of the past two decades. there's some stuff on here and his soundcloud that serves as wink-wink-nudge-nudge loveletters to his time working on the early Mabinogi soundtrack

[inawickedlittletown]

Handsome Little Bookworm (BuckTommy) - one-shot

Summary: In which Buck discovers how avid of a reader Tommy is.

BuckTommy Positivity Week Day 4: hobbies and dates

Rated: G

Words: 1.1k

@bucktommypositivityweek

-

Read on Ao3

Buck realized fairly quickly that his boyfriend was a romantic. He didn’t seem to think that he deserved romance or that anyone would be willing to go to all that trouble for him, but he certainly loved to watch romcoms and he read more romance books than anyone that Buck had ever met. The first time he was invited over to Tommy’s house he’d zeroed in on the built in bookshelves that held both books and DVDs. He’d been interested right away, especially because of the insight that it might give him to Tommy. 

“This is quite the collection,” Buck had muttered as he perused the movies. “Chimney did say you were a big movie guy.” 

“When you grew up the way I did, escapism is all you really have, Evan.” 

Buck nodded. “I went with the route that kept me out of the house until I broke something. Usually my bones.”

“Evan,” Tommy said, exasperated.  

“I don’t do that anymore.” 

When he got to the book section of the bookshelf, Buck pulled out a dark blue book with white writing that read Boyfriend Material. 

“Is this a guide? Do I make the cut?” Buck asked. 

Tommy plucked the book from his hands and returned it to its spot. It brought him close enough that Buck could smell his cologne. It was earthy and warm and Buck wanted nothing more than to press himself up against him and maybe turn around and kiss him silly. 

“You are definitely boyfriend material,” Tommy responded and he took a step away from Buck. 

Buck knew he was blushing and thinking about how it hadn’t even a week since they had defined what they were doing. After not having had a boyfriend his whole life, it felt amazing to actually have one. Some might say it sounded a little juvenile, but Buck loved it. He loved that Tommy was his boyfriend. 

Buck ran his fingers over the spines of a few more books and slowly came to the conclusion that half the books Tommy owned were romance novels. It was a little unexpected, and Buck didn’t know what he had expected to find on Tommy’s shelves because Tommy had never struck him as someone that spent their time reading non-fiction or the thrillers that had become popular due to all the true crime podcasts. Maybe he just hadn’t expected Tommy to be very invested in reading. Romance books made sense, though. So did the mix of sci-fi/fantasy. 

“So which of these is your favorite?” Buck asked. 

“I don’t think I have a favorite,” Tommy admitted. 

Buck glared at him. “Which one have you read more than once?” 

“Not that many.” 

Buck perused the books himself, looking for one that might be a little more worn than the others. It was difficult entirely because Tommy seemed to take meticulous care of his books. But, of course he did. He had an entire section made up of classics whose titles Buck recognized from reading lists at school. Going up a few shelves, two books whose pages faced out caught his attention. Buck could understand putting the books that way on the shelf because the edges of the pages were pretty. He grabbed them both out. 

The books were by the same author, TJ Klune. The covers were cartoonish in a way. One featured a house at the end of a cliff and the other a house in the middle of a forest that looked entirely like it was ready to collapse. He looked at the back cover of one and then the other. 

“These sound interesting,” he offered. 

“They’re very good. Your favorite?” 

“Nope.”

Buck hummed and put them back. He grabbed another book at random. Less. The cover featured a suited up guy falling backwards. 

Next he looked at a very thick white book with some kind of ship on the cover. And then The Hunger Games which Buck had actually read. A Sherlock Holmes story collection and a few books by Andy Weir. He recognized The Martian because he’d seen Hen reading it a few years back. 

“Have you read everything on here?” 

“Most of them,” Tommy said. 

“Hmm, I think I like knowing my boyfriend is well read,” Buck said as he put Good Omens back in its place. 

Tommy snorted. “If you count romance and speculative fiction well read.” 

“You read more than me.” 

“And I bet if we found a book in a topic you found interesting, you’d be in a deep dive,” Tommy said. 

Buck didn’t deny it. He did smirk at Tommy and pull him into a kiss. “How about we keep you my handsome little bookworm.” 

The rest of the tour of Tommy’s house resulted in Buck finding even more books. He hadn’t been looking, it was just that Tommy had books literally everywhere. He had another bookshelf in his bedroom and a small pile on his bedside table. He had cooking books in the kitchen, even. It was cute and Buck had no idea when Tommy made time for reading, but he did. He knew that he took a book to work with him for the downtime in between calls, but with everything else Tommy did, it was still shocking how many books he got through. 

In the months that followed, everytime he stayed the night, he found that Tommy had already finished the book he’d previously had on his bedside table and that it had been replaced with something entirely new. He liked looking at the current book and asking Tommy to tell him about it. 

As far as hobbies went, reading was not one that Buck had expected to find hot. Not like Muay Thai which involved tight shorts and a very sweaty and delicious looking Tommy, or even Tommy tinkering away at a car wearing a backwards cap and a tight tanktop that would invariably get covered in oil or grease stains. Buck just hadn’t known what it would do to him to know that Tommy wore reading glasses. 

He’d kissed him about it and begged him to keep the glasses on during sex that night. He had absolutely no regrets about it. 

Buck was also a little amazed by how much of Tommy’s mail consisted of books getting delivered to him. Or how whenever they went anywhere that had a local bookstore they had to make time to go inside and peruse the wares. Tommy always bought at least one book. 

Some of the best nights were the quiet nights where Buck had his headphones on and he watched a documentary or dived into his research and next to him, glasses perched on his nose and a book open in his hands was Tommy. Buck could picture them doing that for years. 

He could see it so well, the two of them a bit older sharing in each other’s space but doing their own thing. Occasionally sharing a smile or a kiss maybe with rings on each other’s fingers to top it all off.  

[girl-in-the-mirrorbluenight]

Okay I've been thinking about this pretty much all day since I saw the hbomberguy and then todd in the shadows video i just have so many thoughts. While I wouldn't necessarily call myself a Video Essayist™ (I've only made a few over the years) as a youtuber and someone who has made video essays i definitely have more experience than the average person. There are so many things that stand out to me about this whole debacle i dont even know where to start.

First I want to just give a little insight into the process for making video essays from people who've never given it a shot and just how absurd it is to do the type of plagiarizing James has done. Video essays take a fuckton of research, even for pretty simple topics, but on top that you also have to make them with the medium of video in mind. it's really not enough to just take an essay you would write for a class and read it out loud. the flow is different, you have to have accompanying visuals, often background music, etc. They're a beast to make. My Twisted video for which i used literally two sources for my research (Sondheim's books and the musical Twisted) still took days of thorough reading, note taking, watching the musical, watching the musical again, watching the musical and taking notes, cross-referencing my notes, etc. For videos that synthesize multiple sources or are covering multiple pieces of media, that time goes up exponentially. Then there's writing, recording, gathering clips (often one of the most difficult parts depending on how obscure what you're talking about is), and editing. Even for a silly video like my Glee video, I still had to do a ton of research to make sure I was getting things correct, and that was a funny tier list about freaking Glee! There is just no way you could come up with a thorough analysis by just copying and pasting. Which brings me to my next point.

I think James may have thought (or more likely rationalized) what he was doing as analysis based on like the vaguest definition. When you do any kind of analysis, what you're doing is taking research from multiple different places (news articles, primary sources, existing analysis, etc.) and coming to your own conclusions, whether that's a synthesis of those different sources, or applying it to a specific thing like a movie. Really simple example is my Twisted video where I take Sondheim's writing and apply it to a specific piece of media (in this case Twisted). I'm using existing work but coming to my own conclusion. In the Spies Are Forever video, I took existing research about the Lavender Scare and the Hays Code, including primary sources from the time period, and applied it to the musical Spies are Forever. What James seem to do is take a bunch of existing scholarship, copy and paste it all together and then come to a "conclusion" that was not actually his own original thoughts but either "facts" he completely made up or something that didn't do anything to actually link his other "sources" together. I can see why it has the veneer of analysis, but making up a random "fact" you think might be true is not the same as a drawing a conclusion based on research.

I also think Todd made a really good point in the part about England's propaganda campaign against Italy around 9:30 that it's just really bad video making to not include examples of images from this so called propaganda campaign. I have a ton of examples of news clips, government reports, etc. in my SaF video about the Lavender Scare because...it was a real historic thing that happened! If something was supposedly so widespread and not even that long ago, you can probably find evidence of it somewhere. Kaz Rowe (who is also linked in the queer creators playlist on hbomberguy's vid) talked about this a lot in their video about tiktok misinfo where people often make these outrageous claims but the thing is if something so outrageous happened (like people constantly shitting on the floors of versailles), other people at the time would probably be talking about it somewhere. It's a big red flag when someone makes such bold claims and has no evidence to back it up.

Putting this last section under the cut because I go talk about WWII, Nazis, and HIV/AIDS a bit (watch Todd's video for some more context) so if you don't want to see that post is over here.

Lastly I wanted to talk about something else Kaz brings up in a lot of their videos when talking about historical topics and that is the tendency to dehumanize people of the past, often as unwashed, unintelligent masses who would just do any ridiculous disgusting thing because they were so stupid and disgusting. There are a lot of things to criticize about the people of the past and their actions obviously, but we cannot forgot that they were in fact, people. Real individual people with their own lives and dreams and ambitions and individual opinions and they have never been and never will be a monolith. Claiming anything is broadly true of "the victorians" or "the ancient egyptians" or whatever other vague historical group you want to talk about is usually a lot more nuanced than "they all thought or acted in this one particular way". I'm certainly not a historian and i've only done one history focused video but James Somerton seemed to make a lot of broad historical claims in his videos that I think fall into this trap.

The one that stood out most to me in Todd's video was the claim about Nazi body standards which is a whole mess in general that Todd goes into for a while, but the way he talks about WWII soldiers was just like...weird. Besides the fact that a lot of his claims about Nazis seem to be bordering on glorifying them and their aesthetics (gross), I think we should remember that WWII was less than a century ago. There are still over 100,000 surviving WWII vets in the US. My grandfather who was in the Army during WWII (he didn't serve overseas but he was an enlisted soldier I can literally look up his enlistment records in the national archives online) was a real person who I obviously knew personally and who died fairly recently. To think he enlisted because he was jealous of German fitness or whatever and wanted to prove how tough Americans are is an absolutely hilarious thing to think if you knew him. I'm sure there are as many reasons for enlisting as there were enlisted soldiers. When James talks about even as relatively narrow of a group as "WWII American soldiers," he's still talking about a very large group of real and diverse people and to make such broad claims that "most" or even "a lot" of them were just so taken in by strong german physiques or whatever is frankly insulting. I haven't watched the entirety of James video so maybe he does address this at some point, but from the clips I've seen it seems very generalized and implies some level of racism when WWII soldiers in fact included a lot of racially diverse people. IDK, i think if you're a supposed historical researcher and you're making a video about WWII and you don't know about groups like the Tuskegee Airmen or the Navajo Code Talkers, that's on you. I don't want to discount some of the really horrible shit that American (and obviously other countries) soldier's did in the war and how many of them held disgusting views (even my grandpa who I love dearly was not the most politically correct person to put it lightly) but Jame's claims are not criticizing any real ideology or the consequences of them, they're oversimplifying complex and harmful historical ideas and attributing them to something he pretty much made up. I'll also give you a little hint about something. When people fall into Nazi ideology, it's because they ultimately agree with the ideology, not for some surface level aesthetic reason of "fitness" or whatever. They are antisemitic, they are racist, they are eugenicists, plain and simple. They don't just think the Nazis are cool except for all their beliefs. I also think (and again I could be missing a part of the video here) the hyper focus on the Germans and the Soviets and not mentioning Italy is at the very least an oversight too. Mussolini, like Hitler and Stalin, had a pretty big campaign of promoting an ideal strong race which he tied to ancient Romans. Like this was also a country controlled by a fascist dictator that American soldiers fought in idk it just seems weird to me to leave it out. (okay edit i looked up the transcript and he does talk about Italian fascism a little bit but only about how Mussolini rose to power, nothing about his ideologies or anything really related to the main topic of body image).

And one more thing on that note that bothered me a lot. I think his claims about HIV/AIDS is probably the most well-known here on tumblr and has been pretty thoroughly destroyed by this point, but I do just want to say one more thing about it which is that AIDS isn't gone! I feel like they way he talks about it from what I've seen of this video makes HIV/AIDS sound like a problem of the past now that we have drugs for it, but that is just not the truth. There are still tens of thousands of new infections in the US each year and way more globally and yes, people do still die from it. I just don't like when people talk about AIDS as if it's this problem of the distant past, a separate era that people went through in the 80s rather than an ongoing epidemic that still does not have a cure. Safer sex, clean needle usage, and getting tested are just as important now as they were in the 80s and 90s and don't forget that.

[spockandawe]

I'm so close to catching up with my books! Here we have the triumph of time, again, as a vellucent binding, again. And this may not look super different to you from my last iteration of this project! The differences were VERY process-driven and hard to photograph, but I pinky swear that there are incremental but noticeable improvements, and i would never mix up editions irl.

First up, refresher, vellucent binding is when there's a protective layer of vellum floating over your cover illustration, protecting it. Or. If you're cheap. Paper vellum. My first time around, I realized as soon as I got the vellum paper wet that oh shit, this REALLY has a grain, and it is the opposite of what my books want. It's the first time I've ever been punished for ignoring grain, though, so I can't complain. I pressed on anyways, because what is even the point of fucking around if you aren't bold enough to find out? As a result, my vellum on the first set has noticeable wrinkles, despite only the turn-ins being glued down, and it all floats more than i wish. You have to smooth it with your fingers to really SEE the detail in the images.

So, naturally, my second time, I got bigger vellum paper, covered the whole thing in paste, plopped my covers onto there, and planned to smooth the wrinkles out. Yeahhhh, that... it was fairly forgiving in the one volume with a primarily white background, and was a goddamn nightmare on the three illustrations.

Lesson one: paper vellum is like a sandworm that wants to curl up and die at the first touch of moisture. Lesson two: it wants to hurt you. PUNISH you. Lesson three: no seriously it is so much more difficult and unforgiving than any other material I've sampled yet. The wallet cost of actual vellum may be outweighed by the emotional cost of this shit.

Naturally, I am bewitched and determined to science it into submission.

For the record: v1 (turn-ins glued, wrong grain) in the bottom left, v2 (paste everywhere, abandoned on the curb without text blocks to warp and writhe as they please) in the top center, and v3 (turn-ins glued, correct grain, more effort to pull tension on the vellum) in the bottom right. I'm not done experimenting by any means, but i need to stop for a minute until i nail the process, to save my poor toner cartridges

But the books themselves! Even though i still see ways to polish my own process, i am DELIGHTED with them. The pull of the paper vellum still wants to introduce slack and wrinkles to the cover as it dries, but there's much less! The moment you get adhesive on paper vellum you commit to a fight to the death, but I'm getting better at handling and anticipating it!

There's a level of polish in the assembly of this set that was lacking in my first and second attempts at the covers. Even if it isn't perfect yet, I'm learning so much, and have new ideas for how to troubleshoot. The idea of making this bookbinding style more accessible and affordable fills me with so much delight, I can't even articulate it. I'm still very much an amateur myself, there are lots of professional best practices I can only speak to in the abstract. Pinning down something this niche and luxurious would make me so happy. Future science will be done on single-volume sets, probably after I'm done moving, but it's at the top of my to do list!! And when it's perfected, I'm for SURE coming back to this series, it's one of my all-time faves, I want to give it the fanciest treatment my hands can devise.

[blackandwhitemotley]

Top 10 best RotE covers

So my Top 10 worst RotE covers has been making the rounds again, and it reminded me that I had started a list of my 10 favourite covers. NGL it was much harder to find 10 covers I liked than it had been to find 10 really bad ones, but there are still some gems out there 💖

10. Assassin's Apprentice (Brazilian Portuguese)

This is where you can clearly see that I don't have much to work with in terms of good covers for this series. Do I love this? No. Is it generic-looking? Yes, but the stag and font look badass and the result is effective

9. Assassin's Quest (Turkish)

Nice and graphic, I really like the tile effect and this red is very striking.

8. Mad Ship (Romanian)

I'm not sure if the figurehead is supposed to be Paragon or Kendry, but they did take a risk and the result looks cool and very different from every other cover out there.

7. Royal Assassin (Polish)

What I really like about this one is that instead of looking badass and in charge like in most covers, this Fitz looks sad and lost, so the artist got that right. And the cloak that morphs into a trail of blood is 👌👌

6. Fool's Assassin (French)

Bee actually looks her age and there's a heartbreaking contrast between this small and lonely child and the pyre burning next to her. Very good one!

5. Ship of Magic (French)

Althea reaching out to a gorgeous and very dramatic-looking Vivicia with a mysterious atmosphere around them, yessss! Really cool and memorable

4. Fool's Errand (UK)

A classic, and this spot is for John Howe's covers in general. I don't love them all but there's a very unique and ethereal feel to his art, his use of colours is wonderful and there are always a lot of details to look at.

3. Fool's Errand (Japanese)

The Japanese editions for Tawny Man look unreal and it was extremely difficult to pick just one so again, this spot is for the whole set. So, so beautiful and imaginative!

2. City of Dragons (Czech)

I fell in love with this style as soon as I saw it. It looks absolutely fantastic, damn, look at this Alise and the stone statue behind her!! I love that all the covers from this edition of RWC focus on a different character instead of just showing random dragons. The artist has obviously read the books and it shows.

1. Fool's Quest (UK)

I am not just saying that because this is the edition I own, but Jackie Morris is the queen of RotE covers for me. I have nothing bad to say about her covers, they look stunning and they work extremely well as a set.

[blue-asher]

Percy Weasley X Squib!Reader

Summary: when you try to buy a book by a Squib author Percy shields you from the discrimination of the bookshop owner.

Let's say that the Weasley family and the Golden Trio decided to go to Diagon Alley to buy supplies for the new school year and they invite you and your siblings (who attend Hogwarts; that's how you met them) to come along.

Their first stop was a library where they got the essentials like paper and quills. There you decided to treat the trio and bought some matching pens that had witches' hats on them. Ron was the most intrigued out of the three.

Then you go to a bookshop with the list of required books in hand. It was then that problems arrised.

Once you enter the bookshop you all part different ways to find your things: Hermione goes straight to grab the school books so as to check out the novels later, Ron and Harry go the adventure books first so as to go for the school ones later, Ginny and her mother look into the new Lockheart's novel and Mr. Weasley went to look after the twins (as instructed by his wife) but soon lost track of them.

And, although you didn't notice at first, Percy decides to look out for you (his words, what if you got lost in all the sections and ended up in a shopping spree) and see if you actually had good taste in books at all—not because he was taking notes for next birthday presents, of course. He also didn't want to leave you alone. The rest of the lot had actual things to do in there and went straight to crossing names from their lists. All of them walked in different directions with confidence, like men on a mission. So he was fairly surprised when you did as well. He wanted to know what you were up to.

He considered going up to you and ask you what you thought about the bookshop after 15 minutes of just watching how you read the tilted of a couple books in sale. Until he saw you grab, rather excited, a particular book. Then the bookseller appeared.

"Good evening, young lady! I'm sorry to bother you but I couldn't help but notice that you picked up a particular book" the bookseller said anxiously "Memories of a forgotten kind. I hope it struck your interest, of course! but I must insist you buy it nonetheless" Y/N was quite shocked at the sudden approach and rambling of the man but she was just about to ask for more information about the magnificent book so she was glad the man came just in time.

The book in question is an elegant hard cover edition with beautiful art work in the front about philosophy. It was from a squib author that discussed the problems with Squib identity and how they perceived themselves in a world that seemed to want to label them one way or the other, essencially robbing them of the core of their existance: the middle. The author also included some biographical aspects in it to help make a point of his stand. You, being the same as him, were very excited to have found it as not only it spoke about an issue that had revolved around your self-confidence all your life (you had to admit you were just a tiny bit jealous of your siblings' magic) but because it was also a rare occurrence to find a squib author in general. Sadly, they rarely got published.

"You see, I've been having a real hard time to sell them. No one wants them—nobody could ever want them, really." His sudden statement quickly pulled you out of your thoughts as you were thinking about what to ask him first. You had just decided to ask whether the guy had written other books when he screamed that first statement.

"I shouldn't have made a deal with the man. I tried to diversify my collection, you know, my partner told me to. But I told him it was a bad idea, he just wouldn't listen" he continued rapidly ". I know everyone wants to say we are in modern times but business are business. You get me"

It was as if he was trying to excuse himself for even having the books in the shop; he didn't even stop to breath. You got concerned. Why was it difficult to sell? Had the writer been in some sort of scandal? Was the information in the book no longer valid? You didn't remember if you looked at the year of publishing but the book seemed brand new. Why was it in sale? It seemed like half the price a book so pretty.

"You don't seem too convinced. That's all right, I understand" you tried to pich in and tell him that he didn't understand at all because not even you understood what he was talking about. But he kept going "I'll make you a deal, just for you. You seemed like a lady of culture. How much is it? 400 sickles? I'll leave it to 300, what do you say?"

'I'll be damned' you thought. Shouldn't it be the other way around? What would he even gain from that amount? You finally got a moment to ask:

"I'm confused, It's such a beautiful edition with great quality, why is it so cheap? Did the author do something?"

You waited for his answer.

The bookseller looked at you like you just grew an extra head but quickly changed his expression to one of realisation "My apologies, ma'am. You mustn't have notice, how silly of me!" He spoke as if the fact was obvious but you still didn't understand. He composed himself and in a more calmer manner said "The author's a squib"

That's all he said.

And Percy thought he had already said enough.

You were stil expecting to hear something more, an aclaration, because clearly it didn't seem like a logical reason. What does that have to do with anything? You didn't have time to say anything else as Percy suddenly appeared beside you and put his hand on your shoulder. You looked at him but his gazed was fixed from above into the bookseller's eyes.

"I think we have heard enough desperate rambling from you. No wonder you can't sell a book for the life of it." His tone was cold and it shocked you greatly. You hadn't seen Percy this angry before, you hadn't ever heard him insult another adult like that.

The bookseller went off pretty angry and told the both of you to not bother coming back if you weren't going to buy a proper book. You were pretty sure you heard him say something about you only looking into the Sale section, most likely an insult.

However, you thought it had all went down hill unnecessarily and were about to question Percy's sudden change of attitude but when you turned you noticed that he was already looking at you. With a sad warmness in his gaze.

"He meant the writer, Y/N"

You stared at him for a few seconds and blinked "What?"

"He meant that the books didn't sell because the writer's a squib"

You felt embarrassed because of how long it took you to pick up on the que. Angry embarrassed. You had just made a fool of yourself, in front of Percy! Just when you thought you had dominated that kind of anti-squib talking.

In the end everyone left without buying a single textbook from the place, not wanting to support such a prick. But not before your siblings gave the bookseller a piece of their mind and spoke every insult the could come up with.

You insisted to the Weasleys that they didn't have to leave: they needed the books and the other bookshop was a good 20 minutes away. Hermione gave a nasty look to anyone who seemed tempted on the idea of buying the books and get the shopping over with. 'Anyone' being Ron -but just for a quick second.

Quickly you started making jokes about how you should have bought it either way because "Where else will I find a book so amazingly cheap? No, Y/N! You mustn't succumb to capitalism!! You have to support the writers" Your antics successfully made the trio and twins laugh and it was only then, when you wanted to raise your fist at the sky in a dramatic way, that you noticed that Percy had been holding your hand. Probably had since you left the bookshop. When you looked at him he sheepishly let go while giving you a shy smile.

You wished he hadn't.

A couple of days later you family had the Weasleys over for a farewell dinner since everyone left the following day for Hogwarts.

Just when everyone had left and you were making yourself comfortable in your room, you noticed a wrapped package in your bed. A gift that was not there before. It was very clearly a book but it didn't have any note as to who might have left it. Did the Weasleys leave a gift for you? You didn't see anyone entering your room.

Dying with curiosity, you opened to see what it was and find a clue of who your mystery friend might be.

It was the philosophy book you had tried to buy a few days ago! You were admiring it with delight when you noticed something falling from the inside of it.

A piece of paper had fallen, it was receipt! From a library you didn't know and where it stated that the book had been purchased at a price much suitable for its quality; probably the original price that the bookseller had tried reducing to nothingness the other day.

But there was something else written at the back of the receipt, something in handwriting.

"Proof that I've bought it at full price.

Found a new bookshop with a section dedicated to squib writers, mind if we explore it together some time?"

You would recognize that handwriting anywhere, and would make sure to send Percy a package of his favourite chocolates with your next letter.

[suzuran777]

Unreleased & cancelled BL visual novels

Recently I purchased some second-hand BL visual novel magazines, and while reading them, I realized just how many of these announced games were never actually released. I thought it could maybe be interesting to compile a list of these games. I will mention which games were officially cancelled, but the status of most of these games is completely unknown. Perhaps they will still be released one day, but some of these publishers also don't seem to exist anymore. The magazines I used to find most of this information are Binetsu Ouji, B's Log and Cool-B!

Ouka Otsu - Shinshuu Kikou Senki (【櫻華堕つ) Publisher: Fareastblade This story of this game was supposed to take place during the Second World War. A famous researcher called Dr. Kisaragi Akira made it possible for the Japanese empire to develop cyborgs with super human strength. However, the United States also developed cyborgs and their creator intends to destroy Kisagari's research. Kisaragi escapes and seeks the help of the few surviving cyborgs, who all have their own reasons for helping him even though they don't like him. Part of this game was released as an e-book and translations can be found here. I am surprised the developers stopped publishing information about this project because I frequently saw it in Cool-B. Back then they published a lot of information, CGs and even short stories. Their last blog update was posted in 2016 in which they explained how things have been difficult and they decided to temporarily suspend the project. However, they never returned to confirm when production would be resumed. Secretly, I still hope that this game will be released one day, there's so much content already and it all seems really promising, but the official website doesn't work anymore and the Twitter account was also deleted. Some of the staff who worked on the game did mention how they still wanted to complete the project one day, but it has also been some years since these tweets were posted,

Angel's Feather Onsen mono Publisher: Blue impact This was supposed to be the third, and final Angel's Feather game. Some Japanese websites mention that the game's staff left the company, which was probably the reason why this game was never released. The magazines mention how the name of this game was just a placeholder name at the time (literally Angel's Feather hot spring story) but I could not find if they ever announced the real title. Some CGs were published in magazines and it looks like it was supposed to be light-hearted fandisc, focusing on the characters spending time with each other and having fun at the hot springs.

White Shadow Publisher: Blue Impact According to the official website, which can still be accessed through Wayback Machine, the first information about this project was published in Binetsu Ouji in 2004. Similar to the third Angel's Feather game, there's not much hope that it will ever be released because the staff that originally worked on it quit. This means that sadly, Angel's Feather was Blue Impact's first and last BL visual novel series. It was supposed to be a post-apocalyptic story which takes place after a long-lasting war that destroyed most of the planet. Some humans survived, who clung to a small piece of land that had survived the disaster. The people who live could be classified into three types, normal humans without supernational powers, humans who have characteristics of other creatures (for example animal characteristics), and people with strong supernational powers. This game was also featured on the cover of Cool-B volume 2. The regular updates that were posted on the official website make it look like the game was almost finished before the employees quit, so it's really a shame it was never released.

Torus Zero/ 0 -Torus (トーラス・ZERO) Publisher: CORE This is another one of these games that is mentioned pretty often in older magazines and was also featured on the cover of Cool-B (volume 4). The publisher CORE, became quite well-known in the industry after releasing Messiah, but Torus Zero was the project they originally wanted to release first. Before Messiah was released, they also released another visual novel called Fanatica, which upon reaching the final ending, mentioned how the story would be continued in Torus Zero. Unfortunately some of CORE's staff officially announced that they couldn't continue their projects after a big earthquake struck Japan in 2011. Now there's actually a bit of hope for this project because a few weeks ago, the artist Carnelian, announced a completely new project called Tokyo Gentou/Tokyo Phantasmagoria. In the magazine article it was mentioned that similar to CORE, a new BL game branch called Procyon would be releasing this new game. In an interview published in Cool-B volume 111 they mentioned that they came up with some of these ideas a long time ago, so I do wonder if they will use some elements of Torus Zero in this new game. Originally, Torus Zero focused on protagonist Riku who somehow ended up in a world in which he was the only human.

Unnamed project Publisher: CORE This game was only slightly teased in magazines and according to old BL game info website BOY-S STREET, the images were only on the website for a short time before it seemed like the entire project was scrapped and replaced with Torus Zero. It was supposed to be a school setting, but the main character is actually a demon and has two personalities.

Tenrin no Guneval (天輪のグネーヴァル) Publisher: Madalabo/Claw Mark A sci-fi story in which shadow creatures attack earth. Humans with special abilities saved mankind from this crisis. These characters all have their own special ability, some use fire or wind to fight while others can distort space. Technology also advanced, and flying motorbikes called 'Guneval' are used. This game was announced in 2012 and surprisingly the website can still be accessed, however it has been removed from all upcoming game lists in magazines and the last update on the website was only 4 months after the game was originally announced. Other than the usual visual novel gameplay, it was also supposed to have battle scenes in which you could control the main character to fight enemies. I'm kind of sad they never released this game because it seemed pretty interesting! Madalabo is mostly known for their other game Hadaka Shitsuji which seemed to be...the complete opposite of the story described on this game's website. I also really like superhero themes and the art is nice, so it's really a shame it never got released.

Shokushu Densetsu (触手伝説) Publisher: Madalabo Another Madalabo project that never got released. The title means 'legend of the tentacles' so I think you can already guess what this game is about. In 2011 they released a short booklet with some of the game's concept art, the characters, and other ideas for different future games. You can actually still buy a digital version of the booklet on DLsite here! You might even recognize some of these early concepts, as some of them were eventually used to create Kanja S (Patient S).

Nihon ni Natta Yoru (2本になった夜) Publisher: HardG.Lab This is… a strange one, the protagonist Taki Naruse is an ordinary university student who's busy with his homework and assignments. One day when he's forced to do a large number of tasks he decides to go to his lecturer to complain, but Taki gets ignored and his lecturer suddenly decides this is a perfect opportunity to check the new drug he has been developing. Long story short, Taki suddenly grows another dick (yep...). His lecturer suggests Taki uses his body to sleep with other men to ''cure'' his condition. I think this game was announced somewhere in 2011 and they published some information about it in Cool-B, but the official social media accounts were all deleted eventually.

New World Order Publisher: Love Delivery (HolicWorks) "When you die, say hello to God for me". This game was announced in 2015 and takes place in the United Kingdom. It focuses on a young British man called Lyr who works as a pastor at a church. He’s good at material arts and also knows how to use a gun. Together with three of his fellow pastors, he’s on a mission to kill. These are not just normal pastors, they’re professional assassins. I made a separate blog post about this some time ago, so if you want to read more you can find it here! The project was unfortunately officially cancelled in November 2022.

Heimskringla Publisher: Tyrant (HolicWorks) A dystopian future in which people developed the ability to see when a dead person’s soul leaves their body. The world once fell apart, but was then revided once more. In this new distorted world, humans started adapting to the environment and refugees from all over the world drifted to this country. As a result of this, it became a melting pot of many different races and towns continue to develop their own individual cultures. Five people, with five completely different backgrounds and birthplaces, travel together towards a certain place. There is only one thing all of them are looking for. Death. This game was officially cancelled in 2018, but it's quite hard to find any traces of it because Tyrant's official Twitter account was also deleted. I also wrote a blog post about it which you can check out here.

Gekka Souei (月下双影) Publisher: NOEL Two childhood friends who became enemies due to unfortunate circumstances. This game was supposed to focus on protagonist Hayate and two groups of shinobi, taking place in a modern day setting. It was quite hard to find information about this game because even with Wayback Machine you can't find much on the website. I happened to find a pretty good image of it on Twitter, posted by a user who happened to save some of the wallpapers back then. A little bit of information about this game was published in B'sLOG and in Cool-B, but only in 2006. Looking at the little bit of information I was able to find on the website, it seems like they had quite a lot of plans and wanted to add roleplay elements to this game too, as well as a SFW and 18+ version of the game. The magazines introduced quite a lot of characters and the interview with the developers (in Cool-B volume 10) mentions that they had planned to create five routes. They didn't really specify which characters, but I assume it's the ones that can be seen in the main visual?

Psychedelic (サイケデリック) Publisher: LOVE&DESTROY Another game that is not officially cancelled, but the publisher is working on multiple new projects and the official website has not been updated since 2014. The game takes place in Shibuya, Japan and focuses on five good friends who always hang out together. Will these normal days last forever? They promoted this game as being ''all reverse'' so you could choose which character tops/bottoms which is pretty rare nowadays. In 2018 LOVE&DESTROY mentioned that the project was currently 'on-hold' and it's still unknown if they ever decide to create the game.

Tsukiiro Tanshikyoku (月色譚詩曲) Publisher: Adelta & MonstreCarameliser I think most BLVN fans immediately recognize Kurosawa Rinko's artstyle, who's well known for creating Hashihime and Uuultra C. This game is also not officially cancelled, but there hasn't been any news for years. It was announced in 2018 as a second collab between Adelta and MonstreCarameliser (a year before that they released the short game Umiiro Kyoushikyoku). The website still works, but it was only updated a few times in 2018 and once in 2020. The game focuses on Kaguya, a heir of a certain kingdom (probably some kind of god realm if I look at the names of the characters) who was only interested in women and spending his parents' money. His parents eventually give up on him and send him down to planet earth, in the form of a baby. A young shunga painter (shunga = erotic art) called Takemasu finds him and takes care of him. However, Kaguya grows much faster than the inhabitants of the planet and regains his adult body within a few days.

Hashihime Fandisc Publisher: Adelta Every time I mention this people ask me if they really announced it, but yes, two fandiscs even! A 'good end' and 'bad end' one. It was announced in 2018, but only mentioned once in a blog post and in Cool-B magazine. It is not officially cancelled but they haven't posted anything about it ever since. It's actually still in Cool-B's upcoming game list, however usually when a game gets cancelled it just one day disappears from the list, without any explanation, so I don't want to be too hopeful. I think it's very possible that it was announced because a lot of other games also have fandiscs so it seemed like a good idea at the time, but Adelta started working on Uuultra C after this and is currently working on their new game Ooe, as well as their original drama CD series.

No Thank You!! OVA Publisher: parade Not a game announcement, but I still decided to include it. One of the tweets announcing it can still be found here, and no it was not posted on April Fools'… I think it was mentioned again a few months after the original announcement, but it has already been 10 years and they haven't mentioned it ever since.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

from this post of mine receive this comment:

@relativestranger85 Please help. I'm in the UK and have a pseudo none verbal 7 year old and idk what aac is. The only things we've ever been offered is pecs which he absolutely does not like. (If you don't know pecs is pictures on a velcro board)

thank you for trust me with this question! try answer best i can. i know a lot abt AAC and nonverbal now and struggle with speech communication entire life but! not born nonverbal, so please take what i say grain of salt.

(gonna also tag @birdofmay , hope that okay, especially on perspective of nonverbal since birth & didn’t become aware of people & surroundings & communication until later? some nonverbal people very aware of surrounding since young, while others are very opposite. the “not aware” perspective am not good resource since i Don’t Remember.)

also, am in US, so not very familiar with UK laws. you may need to look into it. but even then not familiar with US laws - not lawyer.

AAC:

AAC stands for augmentative and alternative communication. has many forms. low tech AAC is like communication book, picture cards, PECS is a form of low tech AAC (talk more abt later)! high tech AAC is probably what people think of, an iPad or a dedicated communication device that generates voice. with iPad, can download / buy AAC apps on it on your own.

in US, public schools or schools that receive federal funding is i think required to give students who need it an evaluation with speech therapist, which can include AAC evaluation. some schools may not like to do it may not do it on their own because high tech AAC device expensive, but it is your right as parents & your child’s right, should 100% ask and push if school resist. getting AAC device through school is through education perspective—does child need this for education success. if AAC device approved, you may get to keep it (ideal) but also may have to keep in school or give back to school once leave (not ideal). now, don’t know if same in UK.

in US, can also get high tech AAC device covered through insurance. speech therapist do evaluation on what AAC app and device best fit, then submit to insurance. if insurance covers it, it’s yours, get to keep. insurance look through a “medically necessary” perspective. again, don’t know if same in UK with NHS (i think that what it called).

otherwise, can also buy an iPad or android device and download/buy AAC apps on there. many AAC users have made list of good & robust apps recommendation, will link below. however, AAC apps can get expensive, and some most popular apps only support ios/iPad.

either way, really do recommend find speech therapist who specializes in AAC to help, if can afford & have someone near you. it’s possible to do it on own, but can be difficult. but sometimes also bad speech therapists give wrong advice or not up do date info, so either way recommend do own research. can be really really overwhelming, please take one step at a time.

important things to mention is using AAC does not hinder mouth speech development. in some ways it actually helps! doesn’t mean your child will always catch up and become fully verbal when older (happens sometimes, but not often). but really, goal for child is to give them way to communicate. speech is not inherently better form of communication, just more normalized. i know it can be hard to believe, because so many people say other wise, even clinicians! but really. communication is most important. speech just a form of communication.

sometimes nonverbal people struggle with more than just speech. may not speak because of many reasons. may be struggle with communication as a whole, expressive and/or receptive language disorders, maybe motor skills (childhood apraxia of speech), maybe not aware that sounds people make is communication, maybe not aware of people, maybe not aware they can & should communicate, maybe not understand. here is something i wrote about it, it not directed at parents but more so other lower support needs speaking autistics, but think info may be helpful, because know why child nonverbal can help with target intervention.

AAC, especially robust AAC apps, can be extremely overwhelming to even adults. if you as parent overwhelmed by amount of information and amount of buttons, it’s okay, it happens. may feel like running out of time, but time you take to learn to make sure support child in helpful way and time you take to rest is not wasted time.

there is always more to things write here. here is a more comprehensive thing (but of course, still missing things because cannot write everything):

a reddit post i once wrote to parents abt AAC (prefer for people to not dig through this reddit since don’t like use now)

additional:

once wrote a tumblr post with many AAC info and words by AAC user. lots of information so may be overwhelming so specifically highlight these things for you (semi-ranked):

genuinely the best intro to AAC resource out there, if read nothing else please please read all of this: https://www.assistiveware.com/learn-aac

a facebook group ask me, i’m an AAC user! (24 hour rule) - really recommend if want other AAC user perspective, and after 24 hours of a post, may also hear from parents of AAC users, SLPs/speech therapists, etc.

tiktok user AverageMillenial18 - an autistic parent to an nonspeaking autistic AAC user child. talks about own parenting experience, especially a lot of AAC modeling (very important!!!!) and presume competence. genuinely helpful, not just “silly tiktok bad.”

aac apps: a personal opinion review of AAC apps i tried, another thing of mine, not mine but All About AAC: A Guide to Augmentative and Alternative Communication Options!

gave you lots of information already, probably already overwhelmed you. hope didn’t come off too strong. remember it okay to take it slow.

p.s. you mention using PECS (picture exchange communication system). am assuming you talking abt the actual PECS system and not just picture exchange cards. (PECS is a type of picture exchange card with rules and stuff)

not here to say “PECS worst don’t use PECS” because don’t know your situation. think there more nuance than that. but do think you deserve know multiple perspective—the specific PECS system can have issues and problems, a professional explains here better. give you this so you can make informed decision! not here to shame you, many parents not given all information, you clearly care very much and want best for your child, and also - may still see improvements even if harmful elements, because not binary black and white. but considering you say he does not like, maybe sign that PECS not work out great with him.

hope you and your child the best and please, if have any questions feel free ask.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hello sex witch! Long time listener, first time caller, love how you do the teaching you do 😄

I was having a chat with my (college age) sibling, and I found she might have some... skewed views on the morality of being sexual. Think along the lines of purity culture, with a sprinkling of religious teaching, and a dash of how legality/morality must be intertwined. I know that sort of thing can lead to some unhealthy thinking, and honestly, I'm a little worried!

This is just background for context, I'm not asking you to solve or even unpack all that lol. But I really vibe with your stance on sex-neutrality, and it seems like a good concept to introduce her too. Like, a lil'nudge.

My personal sex-neutality mindset was gained over years of life experience and internet osmosis, which is really difficult to condense into a "quick-start guide," given I've never really had to educate on it before. I mean, I'll start with the definition, but she would probably prefer having sources other than just me talking for hours lol.

So. TL;DR. As an educator, do you happen to have any resources you could point me towards on sex-neuteality? Books, websites, podcasts, previous posts..? Things I could pass along?

Thank you so much sorry for the length

hey anon,

this is a tricky one because, as you said, sex neutrality is something that comes about from a lifetime of nurturing influences. adopting a totally new mindset is rarely something that can be adopted by one book or video essay, no matter how good they are. this is especially true in the face of religious influence, which can be very difficult to tactfully circumvent without making someone feel as if they're being criticized for being religious at all.

just having a figure in their life (that's you!) who's willing to start and engage with non-judgmental discussions about sexuality can be really helpful for people unlearning sexual stigma, so congrats to you for doing the hardest work just by being present!

having said that, you can't do everything and a recommended media list never hurts. there isn't a lot of work (that I'm familiar with, at least) that just sit you right down and say "hey. here's why sex neutrality good," so I'm going to drop work where that's sort of a powerful background radiation.

Emily Nagoski's book Come As Your Are is a pretty great guide for cis women learning to get comfortable with their bodies and sexualities and, more importantly, the possibilities of communication to find a relationship and sexual style that works for them! I really like the way Nagoski normalizes such a wide range of different needs and desires while assuring readers that there's no "wrong" approach; it's very comforting! if your sister is a podcast person, Nagoski also has an eight part podcast series of the same name where she debunks myths and answers more questions about sexuality.

actually hi as long as we're talking about podcasts Kate Lister, a historian who specializes in historical records of sex work, has a terribly fun podcast called Betwixt the Sheets that's nothing but sex friendly fun. it's got enough interesting historical meat to it that it's not even obvious sex neutral propaganda on the surface; some of my favorite episodes have Lister interviewing other academics about Queen Victoria's dietary habits and Hollywood portrayals of vodun.

if we want to talk about the 101 of getting comfortable with one's own genitalia and reproductive health, I must point to Dr. Jennifer Gunter's Vagina Bible. Dr. Gunter has made a whole career out of debunking medical misinformation, wellness scams, and Goop over on twitter. I think she should be allowed to attack Gwyneth Paltrow with a sword but I can't make that happen so I can at least promote her book.

if your sister starts feeling adventurous, Dr. Lindsey Doe's youtube channel Sexplanations has been a formative influence on me and has years worth of videos covering tons of topics in quick, unabashedly enthusiastic bursts of information. this video where Dr. Doe talks about her own instances of internalized sex negativity could be an excellent starting point, especially if you want to discuss it together like a lil youtube bookclub.

for a longer youtube dive, Khadija Mbowe's ruminations on sex positive feminism, its shortcomings, and which parts they see as worth preserving could also be a great point of conversation, especially for someone whose coming into the conversation not identifying with sex positivity. caveat that they do link to Christine Emba's book Rethinking Sex in the video description and I cannot in good conscience recommend or fuck with that at all, sorry.

Angela Chen's book Ace, about asexuality, is genuinely so so wonderful, and I think required reading for anyone trying to make sense of any kind of sexuality.

Meg-John Barker's book Rewriting the Rules is a maybe a more expansive version of Nagoski's book, less focused on sex and much more interested in expanding ideas of what relationships can look like and encouraging personal expression within them. honestly I think that's a really important part of embracing sex negativity - more compassion and less judgment for yourself can lead to more compassion and less judgment for others, right? right, hopefully.

Jaclyn Friedman's book Unscrewed is a delight, and does something similar to Mbowe's video linked above by highlighting ways in which commercialized #girlboss "sex positivty" is useless and then providing instances of real people doing actual, tangibly useful and positive work. Friedman highlights everything from queer youth shelters to orgs run by and for trans sex workers of color to reproductive justice organizations; it's a great dip into a lot of different radical causes without (hopefully) being too overwhelming.

I hope this serves as a good starting place for a lot of positive conversations with your sibling! good luck, friend xoxo

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

Hello <3

I've listened to both songs and I love both of them, but I like "Cast your spell uranus" a bit more, because of the lyrics - and drumming of course. I like these lines a lot: "Take me to the tower Make love to the Moon" Just lovely <3

But daaamn, "You can do voodoo" is hella catchy!

So, as I'm in your ask box... Could you tell me your 5 favorites songs by Russ? And why you like them?

OMG HI

okay yes i have to agree with that too, actually! though i love that russ did just about everything on that solo album 'you can do voodoo' is from himself, it was kind of like him making use of his new freedom to do whatever he wanted after he left the band, so that's one of the reasons i love that album. AND it was not long after he did that one that roger asked him to write for/produce his ride a rock horse album, so he must have liked what he was doing too.

i can't think about that anymore without thinking of the story russ told, which i think more or less went like this:

roger: russ, can you write some songs and produce my next album for me? russ: yeah roger: great, i'm going to the caribbean for six weeks, bye russ: NOOOOOO russ: i won't know what key you're gonna sing in! roger: I CAN SING IN ANY KEY

it's better when russ tells the story, the way he does the "I CAN SING IN ANY KEY" in roger's voice, and he sounded pretty close too

AND THEY TOURED TOGETHER TOO in the 80's, russ played guitar for him. i always think about the way, before russ did one of his own songs in the set, roger introduced him and was like "he's a great singer" the way he said it was so. like. awwwwwwwww. sounded so genuine.

this picture was from the same tour:

(a fan handed the flowers to russ to give to roger and i believe russ has this picture on his wall in his studio)

i THINK that was the first tour he did since he took like a decade off of touring to be with his kids when they were born.

and then they were part of the rd crusaders later for charity.

okay anyway, i ramble a lot and go off topic sometimes

oh my god i have to only choose 5 songs???????? IMPOSSIBLE

okay wait i'll try

no wait, I'LL DO A DOUBLE LIST(still difficult to choose when i love literally everything) and then if you want to listen, you can either choose between the lists or both of them if you want. one from argent and one from russ.

from argent, i'll chooooooooooose:

liar <- i love this one because it was the main one that stuck in my memory after i first watched their set of six video where i couldn't stop thinking about it for months before i actually got into them more(the video the massive gifset of bob henrit drumming was from(also i am once again thanking @burn-on-the-flame forever for showing me argent in the first place, hello i love you)) three dog night did a cover of this, which made it a hit. (they also did a cover of their song 'chained'.)

it's only money <- both part 1 and part 2. this is me cheating in an extra song because they're technically two songs. i just really love the way these sound

thunder and lightning <- i love the sound of this one too, and the lyrics. like, just everything.

gonna meet my maker <- same with this, i love everything, but especially russ's voice in this, i can't listen to it enough. also you can never go wrong with adding harmonica to songs.

tragedy <- CATCHY and CORRECT

and from russ AFTER argent, i'll choose:

winning <- this was about his life, i love the catchiness and the lyrics. santana did a cover of it, most people know that version.

rock and roll lover <- another catchy one. bob drummed on the album this was from, into the fire, and the album before it, barnet dogs

dream on <- this is one of his motivational songs, he loves putting things like that in a lot of his lyrics. he always does a little intro speech for this when he does it live, about how life makes sense when you have a passion and he always encourages people to find one.

just like me <- this is from my favorite album ever, book of love, which is like a concept album about his life. he said this song was a true story.

in to the light <- i love the lyrics of this one too. i actually love the lyrics of every song on that album, he's been helping me so much with my own mental health, it's almost unbelievable how much progress i've made since learning he exists

this is from his website, what he said about that album:

[silver-stargazing]

Epilepticon Movie Marathon Anniversary

This is technically the 5th Anniversary of me going through and reviewing epilepsy media and, having accumulated 35 different films, I wanted to highlight 5 favorite films that I've covered. Cheers and here's to more marathons and for better rep overall!

The Sacred Disease (2016)

[Image ID: Angie from The Sacred Disease. She is a young woman with short blonde hair. She has several electrodes attached to her head and is staring off with a vacant expression. /end ID]

A phenomenal short film detailing a young woman going off her epilepsy meds and the horrors that she witnesses. The final shot still gives me chills.

The film is also free to watch on Vimeo here.

2. Silas Marner (1985)

[Image ID: Silas Marner as played by Ben Kingsley in Silas Marner (1985). He has dark hair down to his shoulders and is wearing a brown-grey suit and jacket with a grey neckerchief. /end ID]

A solid retelling of George Eliot's classic novel, this film follows Silas Marner, a cataleptic weaver, after he is banished from his church. Catalepsy, a potential symptom of epilepsy, is so rarely discussed and Kingsley sells the heck out of the scenes where he has seizures (without indulging in over-the-top dramatics) and the scenes where he's just a guy trying to survive after being abandoned by his religion.

3. One Day at a Time (1975) (Episode: Ann's Secretary)

[Image ID: Leslie, a young red-haired woman, sits at a secretarial desk, answering the phone. /end ID]

An episode from the show One Day at a Time (1975) where main character Ann needs to hire a secretary but fears that her new employee may have a drug abuse problem.

I loved this episode because it ended up subverting several of the clichés of "Very Special Episodes". Leslie is plucky and has a good amount of positive self-worth but also she would rather people think of her as a "pill popper" rather than as someone with epilepsy due to the negative stigma of being epileptic. Ann has to confront her unconscious ableism towards people with epilepsy and ultimately concedes that she can't get past it without a lot of effort on her part.

The episode felt more honest about how things really are, that a lot of people with epilepsy will struggle with and even deny being associated with the label of "epileptic" and that even people who are allies will similarly struggle with their own ableism.

4. Control (2007)

[Image ID: A silhouette of Ian Curtis (as played by Sam Riley) on stage. He's holding a microphone. /end ID]

A biopic on the life and death of Ian Curtis, lead singer for Joy Division. This film shows up on a lot of epilepsy media recommendations lists and rightfully so. Of all the epilepsy-related biopics I've seen so far, this film had the most mature handling of the subject matter, tackling difficult issues such as drug resistant epilepsy and how people can be negatively impacted by the side effects of medication.

5. Fast Color (2018)

[Image ID: Ruth as played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Fast Color. She has short brown hair and is wearing heavily worn clothes, with several tears in her blue jeans. She's walking alone down a dirt farm road while carrying a canister. /end ID]

Following Ruth, a woman with an unspecified seizure disorder that is negatively impacting her super powers, I just love that there's a superhero film out there with a main character that has seizures. That's not even representation you can find in actual superhero comic books!

Also: shout out to Electricity (2014). I've rambled about that film in the past but it always deserves more attention. A truly amazing film.

[anjumbai]

The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi - Thoughts

" 'a clever hawk hides its talons,' I had modestly kept my good sense and talents hidden so no one would find them, but I did such a good job that I hadn't been able to locate them myself for the past few years." "Rather than speaking grammatically bankrupt English, I would choose the glory of silence. I am a man who looks before he leaps." "When you fall in love, you realize how pathetic you are."

A spectacular comedy and a well presented view on life. I love Tatami Galaxy. Back when I first watched the anime without even knowing its source material was a novel, I was absolutely astounded by how bizarre yet beautiful it was. Masaaki Yuasa had brought this book to life, put his own style and story in it and presented the opportunity for this beautiful book cover. The seemingly obvious differences in the anime and novel can't really throw you off if there's a huge gap in terms of when you consumed each form of the story. The differences are massive, and in a good way. I didn't know I could enjoy the same story in so many different ways. The novel only had four chapters in total, while the anime had 10 episodes, extending the storyline with the characters and events hinted in the novel and chose to go with a different ending which I can't even remember anymore.

I watched the anime in around 2021 and it's still one of my most favorite anime. I'm really glad that the book is less repetitive. You can just stroll through the repeated dialogues without much attention. The similarity in both pieces of media is that they both flesh out the main character, whose name we never find out in an accomplished and fulfilling way. While novels like these heavily rely on witty monologues, most adaptations can't use monologues like this since you are adapting the same story to portray it in a different way. A same-to-same adaptation never really holds well except for maybe the relationships anime and manga have. But even anime find ways to spectacularize bland manga panels with stunning animation. An example of monologues making adaptations difficult is Classroom of the Elite. It's an old light novel I used to keep up with after watching the anime. And reading the light novel made me realize how bland the anime actually is since the light novel depended solely on the protagonists internal monologue while the anime chose to adapt none of that, while also not giving us any other medium that fleshes out his character (interactions, conversations etc). It just left out the monologue part and adapted the rest of it, making the anime void of any creativity whatsoever. Tatami Galaxy, however, adapted most of the monologue. Not only that, the voice actor practically rapped out the monologue making you change the speed setting to .5 just to keep up with what he's saying. This is creativity in varying mediums.

The novel chose to use repeated dialogues in four different chapters to flesh out our main character in the final one. I love how the novel ended, and its worth talking about again once I re-watch the anime ( I might one day, you never know ).

Tatami Galaxy is hilarious. So many fun interactions and interesting characters, absolutely amazing monologue and bizarre events you just can't make up take place in the novel. I haven't highlighted this many dialogues for their comedic value instead of emotional depth since American Psycho. And it doesn't even have any blood involved. How amazing is that. One thing the translator added to her notes was the love of Tomihiko Morimi for Kyoto, Japan. It really shows in the novel, this love of his. Both the anime and novel have amalgamated a hearty image of Kyoto in my mind, making me put Kyoto in the bucket list of the places I want to visit. I also wanna sit down and talk for hours with my wife next to the Kamo River while some bastards blow firecrackers around us cause they are single and mad and will obstruct other people's love affairs cause they can't make one of their own. Sounds fun.

I have also decided to say "idiocy doesn't discriminate between sexes" to sound like some sort of 90 year old man trapped inside a 19 year-old's body. The book really takes narrating to a whole different level. It has changed my views on reading books. Books don't have to always be serious, deep or emotional. It can just be a comedy, bizarre and chaotic. Books like Clockwork Orange and Master and Margarita may have provided me with these before but the overall difficult language barrier just made it difficult to fully enjoy those books in the first try. Salute to Morimi and sending my heart out to the gifter of this book, you are amazing. I will pick up more and more titles from Morimi since I love his narrative structure and witty remarks and references.

The book plays out in a chaotic fashion while also hinting out important life lessons. Our nameless protagonist has wasted two years of his university life and has been loveless and achievement-less. He has regretted his decisions and kept on saying stuff like "If only I had made that decision instead of this" without really taking initiative to change things now. The first three chapters mock his ideas, showing three different decisions in his life that play out the same way. The final chapter felt more like a self-searching kind of chapter. The narrator getting trapped in an endless four and half mat tatami universe, finally deciding to appreciate people and moments. His devious friend Ozu, who he wished he never met, he starts missing. The four and a half mat tatami room he isolated himself in, he starts hating. The seemingly annoying and chaotic moments of his life seem fun and when he finally frees himself from the tatami universe, the world seems full of life. He gets out a newer man. Making changes now and overlooking his past decisions instead of wallowing over them.

It also has a really cute, I don't know the word, romantic aspect to it? Okay maybe not romance. Akashi and the nameless narrators interactions were my favourite and the chapters always ended after hinting a possible relationship between the two. Because, you know what they say- "There's nothing so worthless to speak of as a love mature."

9/10. Enjoyed, laughed and closed the book with a huge smile on my face. Here's a cute picture of the Mochigumen Rangers.

"Your life hasn't even started yet and you're already lost?"

[coquelicoq]

For the 30 years old ask meme, could I ask: 8, 13, 15, 18, 36, 41, and 62 please? (I promise I restrained myself 🙈 I'm just very curious) -☆

thanks friend~

8. What cleaning product do you swear by? i am not a person who has strong feelings about cleaning products, except i prefer not to use antibacterial handsoap on a regular basis in the home environment…seems like tempting fate. if i had to pick something i guess i'd say detergent for washing dishes by hand, because i use it more than anything else probably.

13. Which filter are you most likely to go "eh, it's probably fine" when you find out you need to change it? the air conditioner. i clean it once a year…most years.

15. Do you go down each aisle when you grocery shop, or only the ones you know you need stuff from? only the ones i know i need stuff from! yesterday i went to a grocery store i don't usually go to because i'm not in my neighborhood at the moment, and it was such a frustrating experience because i had to go down every aisle multiple times, not knowing where anything was. hate that. i am in and out at my regular grocery store. i am here to get the stuff on my premade list and then get the fuck outta dodge.

18. Pro or anti tchotchkes? they don't really do anything for me from a visual perspective, because everything in my line of sight becomes invisible to me after a short period of time. (i have seen this called "visual exhaustion", but when i look up that term i just get results for eye strain, so maybe that's not an official term lol.) so having a bunch of small items in my vicinity ultimately just means there are more things to get dusty and for me to not even notice getting dusty until we are at critical levels.

36. Do you keep a daily journal or agenda? i keep a weekly agenda, which is structured as a table where the columns are the days of the week Mon-Sun and the rows are things like "french", "book", "puzzles", "social", "shower", "chores", etc. and then for every day i write down the initials of the french-language book i'm currently reading in the french row, the initials of whatever other book i'm currently reading in the book row, whatever task i need to do for my newspaper puzzles, and so forth. there isn't always something in every cell - for example if i have more than four days with something in the "social" row (which includes phone calls), i am in trouble because i don't have the bandwidth for that lol. then on the far side of the page i keep a running list of things i need to do at some point but don't plan to work on in the current week, so i don't lose track of them. i used to keep a daily journal but it petered off several months ago when i realized 1) i was running out of space for all my old journals, 2) there were so many it was prohibitively difficult to actually refer back to them for any reason, since just finding the relevant entry could take hours unless i already happened to know what date to look for, and 3) it was taking up time and also depressing me. lol. problems 1 and 2 would be solved by keeping a digital journal rather than a handwritten one, but that's never appealed to me. so now the only thing i write down is how much i slept, how heavy my menstruation was, and (only if they were notably unusual) how my mood and appetite were.

41. What's the oldest thing you own? the last time i thought this over i concluded it was a copy of a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court, and i haven't come up with anything else. i don't remember exactly how old it is. from the early 1900s maybe?

62. Where are you on the minimalism-maximalism kinsey scale? hm idk really. as stated before, i got the ol' "this sign can't stop me because i cease to even notice it if it's been on the wall for more than one hour" disease. so you could go all out and cover a room in all sorts of shit and i would enjoy the aesthetic and think it looks neat right up until i would never see it again, which would be very soon. so it kinda comes out to a wasted effort for me. however, on the other hand i can't say i'm a minimalist person either, because if you put me in a bare bones room with two sticks of furniture, within half an hour i'll have covered every space with bags and books and assorted papers and devices that i am planning to use throughout the course of the next few days and not even notice how cluttered i have made it due to the aforementioned visual exhaustion thing. so yeah. i have no idea. i do enjoy looking at pictures of maximalist decor though, and last year i visited a friend of a friend whose house was THE most intensely decorated place i had ever seen and i thought it was amazing. but if we're talking my own living space or anywhere i will be spending any amount of time, it does not and cannot matter.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

In the last twelve months, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to see/hear a bunch of 2023 Edinburgh comedy hours. I’ve enjoyed following the process over a year, going from early WIPs, to previews, to stuff done in Edinburgh, to post-Edinburgh tours. A fascinating yearly cycle that we don’t have in North America, but I wish we did.

However, I see why it’s difficult to maintain. A lot of the shows I’ve seen/heard run together in my mind, so many variations on similar concepts, taken in so close together. It can be really hard for any one comedian to distinguish themself. I feel like I understand better than ever why people make such a big deal about USPs and stuff. They really are all just competing to find some tiny bit of ground that everyone else hasn’t covered a million times before. And if they do find any, they’re not allowed to stick with it for more than a year because that’s called recycling material, so they’ve got to walk across Scotland or some shit just to have something new to say. I think you get fewer comedians walking across a country for material in North America, where they don’t have to write a new hour every year and then have it directly compete against the new hours by every single other comedian in the country.

But I always enjoy a good competition, so I’ve liked getting to hear the different entries this year, compare them, root for them like sports teams. I already posted, at the end of August this year, that I felt like my favourite team had just won the championship when the 2023 Edinburgh award went to Ahir Shah’s show Ends, which was the one I’d rated the highest out of all the ones I’ve heard. I still think it’s the best 2023 stand-up show I’ve heard. Honourable mentions go to:

Adam Kay’s Undoctored, Andrew O’Neill’s Geburah, Paul Foot’s Dissolve, Ian Smith’s Crushing, Pierre Novellie’s Why Are You Laughing?, Laura Davis’ Well Don’t Just Stand There Dancing, Milo Edwards’ Sentimental, Robin Ince’s MELONs, Tom Ballard’s It Is I, Zoe Coombs Marr’s The Opener, and I’d probably have Mark Watson’s Search on this list if I weren’t currently mad at him. Daniel Kitson’s First Thing doesn’t count as stand-up, but obviously that too.

I made that list by going through my spreadsheet of stand-up shows I’ve seen/heard, sorting it by year, and picking out the ones I really really liked from the 2023 section. But that also showed me some 2022 shows that I have marked as 2023 on my spreadsheet, because I've heard a version of it from 2023. And I can’t end that list without giving honourable mentions to the best of those as well: Grace Petrie’s Butch Ado About Nothing, Josie Long’s Re-Enchantment, Hari Kondabolu’s Vacation Baby (I’m actually not sure when this one started, but it was released on YouTube in April 2023 so I’m guessing it was performed in 2022), Mae Martin’s SAP (see note about Hari Kondabolu), Paul Foot’s Swan Power, James Acaster’s Heckler’s Welcome, Huge Davies’ The Carpark, and Shelf’s Hair. Frankie Boyle’s Lap of Shame would probably be on this list, if I’d actually heard it during its first run, rather than hearing it after I saw the last New World Order season so I’d heard most of the jokes before.

Okay, now that I’ve done that, I can’t go on with this post without going through the 2022 section of my stand-up list and naming my favourites of the 2022 shows of which I actually heard a version from 2022: John-Luke Roberts’ A World Just Like Our Own But…, Rhod Gilbert’s The Book of John, Kiri Pritchard McLean’s Home Truths, Mark Watson’s This Can’t Be It (that one started in 2021, but it was performed at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival so counts as a 2022 show), Tim Key’s Mulberry (I think that may actually be a 2021 show as well, not sure when it started), Nick Helm’s What Have We Become, Sam Campbell’s Companion, Daniel Kitson’s Outside, Nish Kumar’s Your Power Your Control.

Also, I need to mention that Nish Kumar didn’t do a proper Edinburgh hour in 2023, just messed around with WIP stuff, but from having heard some of the stuff he’s messing around with at the moment, I can already say I think he’s building toward a good shot at my favourite show of 2024. Also, Andy Zaltzman has just announced that he’s preparing to soon do new stand-up for the first time in a bunch of years, and I think the last new show he did may have been his absolutely brilliant 2019 year in review, so I can’t wait to hear that (hopefully they’ll release some of it on The Bugle, they’ve done that before).

Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee needs to be on my list of favourite entries in the 2022/2023 season, even though I’m also a little bit mad at him these days.

Anyway, this post wasn’t even supposed to be about that. It was supposed to be about the show I’ve just heard, but then I got caught up in talking about how it fits into my hobby of following the competitions for the best Edinburgh hour like it’s a sports championship. Any time I have the chance to see or hear something that was nominated for the main Edinburgh award in any year, I like to do that. Because whether or not it ends up being good, I find it interesting to learn what gets considered good by those standards.

In 2023, I’ve heard a few of the shows that were nominated. Ahir Shah’s Ends was absolutely incredible and I thought entirely deserved to win. Ian Smith’s Crushing was streamed on NextUp, and I thought it was great. Really well written and well delivered, definitely deserved to be nominated even if I didn’t think it was better than the one that won (he was on The Bugle a few weeks ago, getting affectionately mocked by Andy Zaltzman for being the Edinburgh Comedy Award loser, though by the end even Andy had to drop that long enough to acknowledge that getting nominated is impressive and he did well).

NextUp also streamed Phil Ellis’ show, which… I don’t get it. I don’t mean I don’t get why it was nominated (though that’s also true), I mean I literally did not understand the show. Maybe it’s the sort of thing that’s only funny if you’re in the room. I kept wondering when it was going to start being funny. It is clearly a type of comedy that I do not get.

I’ve also heard Kieran Hodgson’s Big in Scotland, and I think I did get that one, but I also don’t see why it was on the nomination list. It was pretty good, I enjoyed it. But when listing the best stand-up shows I’ve heard from 2023, it wouldn’t occur to me to include that one. It was well written and well put together. It had a good underlying message about romanticization of Scotland, and an interesting take on the subject. It wasn’t all that funny. It just didn’t seem special, it’s one of those shows that gets lost in the blur of all the other hours like it in my mind.

Anyway, I’ve just heard another show that was nominated but did not win that award this year, currently on a post-Edinburgh tour, Ania Magliano’s I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This. And that is what this post is actually supposed to be about. I wrote all that other stuff because I was trying to say that this is another one that rises above the blur of hours with a theme, I think it’s going to stick in my mind and should be added the list of shows I liked best from 2023. I definitely see why this one got nominated.

I normally drop spoilers liberally on this blog, and only occasionally remember to add a “spoiler alert” a few words before the actual spoiler, as I operate under the assumption that if you want to avoid spoilers for a show, you shouldn’t read my post about it. But as this one is still touring, I’ll try to avoid going into too much detail about the actual content. Spoiler alert: it’s got more depth than it appears to at first. Surely that’s not too big a thing to reveal, as that’s the case with every Edinburgh show ever made (well, every Edinburgh show tries to do that, not all succeed).

I just thought it came together really really well. All these different stories and observations, connected fairly loosely but you can see the way they all relate to something central. There was a theme, a quite serious one but covered with the lightest possible touch, and it worked. A lot of the individual bits were funny, the way they connected was satisfying, the message was resonant and felt earned by the end.

What I’d meant to say at the beginning of this post was I’ve heard a lot of Edinburgh hours, and most of them have some theme or other, and it often feels like they started with a few stories, found some tenuous thing that links them, then made that their theme and contrived a few other stories that could possibly fit around it. That doesn’t always make for a bad show, but I find it often makes for an un-memorable one.

This rose above that so nicely. It felt like everything was in it because it was something she actually wanted to say, not just because she needed to fill an hour. And not every bit was of deep importance to the world (though a few were), but every bit was funny and/or well observed enough to be worth wanting to say anyway. Nothing felt tacked on.

People make jokes about an Edinburgh hour with a sad bit at the end, which this sort of had. But the sad bit was also sort of there underlying the whole thing, but also, it never took a break from the humour to cover that. I’m always impressed with a show that manages to blend the funny bits and the sad bits not by going back and forth between them, but by doing both at the same time. Ania Magliano managed to be funny about the serious stuff, nothing felt compartmentalized away from comedy.

Also, she seems to be 24 years old. What the fuck? No one should be allowed to be that good at anything when they’re 24 years old. No one should be able to craft things that well, to express themselves that clearly, to cover their topics with that much nuance.

I’m pleased to say she was a Footlights member, though. Normally I wouldn’t be glad add yet another person to my List of Footlights Comedians I Very Much Like, because there are too many people on that list already, given that I am supposed to be a socialist who does not glorify the elite classes of society. But I also dislike that my List of Footlights Comedians I Very Much Like is almost entirely a list of white guys (with some exceptions, all due respect to the reigning Edinburgh champ Ahir Shah, also Perkins and Toksvig, and I might have added Ayoade’s name here if I were not currently mad at him), so at least I’ve diversified now!

Anyway, add one to my list of things that are done well in this world. And this one is not by a man whom I have reason to be mad at. Hooray for diversity!