#look at how many different versions of harry there are out there. each tailored to our individual preferences

[57sfinest]

calling harry a “can opener” was SUCH a good play for so many reasons i think about it every day.

in the context of his work, it makes him a tool. as many people have pointed out, including martin luiga, part of the hdb tragedy is that he simply cannot leave the force, and his superiors know that and are using it to their advantage. no matter what happens, even if harry hated every nanosecond of every bit of the work and wanted to leave, he can’t and won’t leave. they can leverage anything they want against him and then reel him back in with a facade of kindness when they “allow” him to keep his job, as long as he does what they want him to. the 41st knows he has this inexplicable talent with people and they use him for it. he’s a cop: that talent can be used in so many awful ways, to push so many different agendas. and they won’t even be his own. a can opener has no particular desire to open a can, aside from maybe the satisfaction of fulfilling a purpose. a can opener has no agency, it’s just a tool for someone else to use to get what they want. and he’s learned to be okay with being used as long as it means he gets to stay. his complacency with this system makes him guilty even if he’s also being harmed by it.

but in the context of his personal life you kind of... flip it. the people around him are going to be opened up whether they want to be or not, and it’s terrible for his relationships. it’s shown that the questions, the prying- the can-opening- it’s become inextricable from who he is as a person. it’s like he doesn’t know how else to communicate, except it’s hardly communication when you’re just ripping people open. he’s invasive as all hell, although whether he means to be is debatable. he’s the kind of person that wants to take things apart to see what makes them tick. he dissects people, but really that’s too delicate of a word for what he does; if he doesn’t get what he wants right up front, he’ll abandon all subtlety and go for brute force. if he can’t get your screws loose he’ll just smash you on the ground and pick through your pieces until he’s satisfied, and if what he did to you isn’t fixable? oh well, there are other cans to open. 

and he’ll use it for personal gain: we already know he is (was?) manipulative. once he knows how you operate, he knows how to make you keep him. he can yell or he can cry; he can threaten you or he can threaten himself; he can be completely suffocating or he can withdraw completely; he can be an incorrigible liar or brutally honest; he can present himself as a threat or a joke or a talent. he’s a chimera- that’s why he’s got this inexplicable magnetism, even when people know they shouldn’t like or trust him. fidelity of character means nothing to him. he’ll be whatever he needs to be as long as it gets him what he wants. the can-opening is just his way in.

[randomvarious]

Arthur Lyman Group - “Taboo” Shaken Not Stirred Song released in 1958. Compilation released in 1996. Exotica / Lounge / Experimental

So, there was this big Polynesian cultural boom in the U.S. in the late 50s and early 60s. Wanna know why? World War II vets. All those guys who were stationed in the South Pacific brought back with them a real appreciation for a bunch of different aspects of island culture. And some of those things really managed to permeate American culture, too, after about a decade. Hawaiian shirts, tiki bars, and surfing were some of the biggest examples. And on the musical front, a bunch of surf rock songs were implementing that wavy reverb sound that we all tend to naturally associate with images of Hawaii (listen from about the 25-second mark to the 40-second mark on this one if you’re not sure what I’m talking about). On top of that, in that timespan, Hawaii was campaigning to become a state and then became one, so that also probably sparked some added interest from non-Hawaiians in a formerly-exotic-and-now-suddenly-American culture. You can just picture the black-and-white newscasts with bullet-point-listed graphics with headings like “Who Are Hawaiians and What Do They Do for Fun?”

This sudden popular wave of Americanized Polynesian culture would prove fortuitous for the music genre known as exotica, too. Though mostly thought of as novelty, it still managed to sell really well. Exotica wasn’t purely Polynesian or Hawaiian though, and it probably still would’ve existed without as much American interest as it ended up garnering. It had a much broader scope, basically representing any sound thought to have come from the tropics, whether they actually did or not. And the genre’s king ended up being a Hawaiian guy named Arthur Lyman. 

Lyman’s music represented a mix of cool jazz and tropical sounds. And although many critics dismissed his tunes as inauthentic and kitsch, he was truly a master of both the vibraphone and marimba. Most vibes and marimba players were two-mallet guys, but Lyman managed to be a four-mallet guy, sporting a pair of mallets in each hand, that, when held right, could manifest the loveliest combinations of ringing, reverberating chords.

Look at him feeling it on this slow number:

Lyman would begin his career in Martin Denny’s band, the man who was known as the father of exotica (he’s not actually the father of the genre, though. That title should belong to Les Baxter). But soon after joining Denny, Lyman would leave and start his own band and thus become Denny’s fiercest competitor. In 1958, Lyman released his spectacular debut album, Taboo, which sold something like two million copies and hit #4 on the US Billboard charts. Contained on that album is, naturally, its title track.

What boggles my mind is how Taboo ended up selling millions of copies. I mean, it’s a weird album, and I like weird stuff, but you have to wonder what kind of vibe a significant chunk of Americans were on in the late 50s to make such a weird album like this go to #4 in the country. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement for any album, much less one that sounds as strange as this one does..But maybe Americans really just couldn’t get enough of the sounds of the tropics. I dunno.

Regardless, “Taboo” ended up being one of Lyman’s most celebrated songs. It’s exotica and it’s lounge and it’s in distinct parts. Some parts sound tailored to the cosmopolitan and open-minded, hipster-leaning frat brother type and the other to the unhygienic, bongo-obsessed, beatnik slob  You could play it in a swanky bachelor pad or in a starving artist’s hovel. Both settings were somehow appropriate. Made for taking in a nice cocktail or, alternatively, a nice cocktail of inexpensive street drugs. Your choice.

A fun fact about this song is if you listen closely, you can hear those corrugated bamboo sticks passing from the left ear to the right ear and back again. And that’s not because of the mixing. This was the pre-stereo, high-fidelity days. The musicians are literally running back and forth across the stage to play their instrument into different mics to yield a surround sound feeling. And the overall sound quality and acoustics on this are absolutely pristine for 1950s recordings, thanks to Lyman being allowed to record in Harry Kaiser’s aluminum dome auditorium in Honolulu for free.

Although the glut of Lyman’s catalogue would be celebrated for how his chilly  vibraphone rode over tropical rhythms, “Taboo” stands out for the bongo sessions, the flute, and just its overall unpredictability. The verse-chorus-verse formula is not something that typically suited Lyman well, unless he was recording covers (check out this sweet, subdued version of “Sunny,” for example). Here, we start with something almost conventional-sounding as Lyman and his band toy with volume by starting out soft and getting increasingly louder and more dramatic. Then we head for a sharp transition to tribal and furious bongo slaps and taps, which is then followed by a sedate section of breathy, snake charmer’s flute work. And of course, there’s bird calls and other whooping animal noises mixed in. It wouldn’t be an Arthur Lyman original without those. Those are all human-generated sounds, by the way.

Still confused as to how this was ever remotely popular and managed to garner such mass appeal though. It appears that despite how ordinary and white picket fence-y America seemed to be at the time, and contrary to what history often tells us, the 1950s were actually quite a wild and weird time for a lot of folks.

The first song off the first album from this god of exotica.

[stylinsonlibrary]

HOLDAY FIC REC

A list of 40 fics centered around Christmas, New Years, or just the Holiday Season. Happy reading and Happy Holidays!

A Dream is a Soft Place to Land by lululawrence (4k)

“It’ll be like a perpetual sleepover, Lou,” Harry had said. “It’ll be great.”

And it was...except it also meant that Louis’ long time, barely there crush on Harry had only grown into a full fledged, real life version of playing house where Louis all too often found himself pretending he and Harry really were together when they definitely were not.

Or the one where Harry might have told his friends that he was dating someone and has to show proof for their party on New Year's Eve. His best friend and roommate Louis is the obvious choice...but things don't exactly go as planned.

Running Down To The Riptide by sweaterpawstyles (4k) 

"I can't give you your present yet, Lou."

Louis furrowed his brows. "And why is that, my love?"

Harry smiled at his lap. "Because your present is under my sweater," he pulled his free hand that wasn't laced with Louis' and gently laid it on his stomach. "I'm pregnant."

Or It's New Year's Eve and Harry has a surprise under his sweater

The Stories That I Can't Explain by kikikryslee (6k)

“Are you closing?” the woman asked, rushing into Louis' store. “I just have to pick something up!”

“I’m really sorry, but if you come back on Tuesday, we’ll be opening again at normal time,” Louis told her, trying to get her out of the shop.

“No, please! I-” The woman dropped her head, and Louis watched in horror as she started crying. He didn’t do well with tears. “Please, I just have to pick up a ring, it’s- It’s for my brother, and he’s well… He’s dying. And it’s really important that I get it.”

Louis could feel his mouth drop open even farther than it already had been. “Um…”

Just then, a man walked into the store. He took one look at the woman and rolled his eyes.

“Gemma, you haven’t told another stranger that I’m dying, have you?” he asked.

The woman, Gemma apparently, turned to face him.

“Of course I didn’t, Harry,” she said. Or, the one where no one is actually dying, but Gemma likes to lie about Harry's livelihood to get what she wants. Harry isn't amused. Louis kind of is, though.

Rated R by cherrystreet (7k)

Louis gifts Harry with a surprise sex tape, and it accidentally makes its way into Harry’s family Christmas party. Ridiculousness ensues.

past our satellites by allwaswell16 (7k) 

Harry Styles has never been happier in his life. He has his dream job as a photo editor for The Chicago Tribune newspaper, and he’s excited to spend the holidays with his boyfriend, Louis. He may be a little panicked about the prospect of hosting a Christmas Eve dinner for both their families, but nothing will stop him from creating a perfect holiday season for Louis. Not even a difference of opinion about the Chicago Cubs, an allergic reaction to a Christmas tree, a frozen solid turkey, poor knife skills, a vegan guest, smoke alarms, reminders of certain male models, or the missing three little words someone longs to hear.

Or a little holiday story from the 'You’re the Light' universe.

A Story For the Ages by FallingLikeThis (7k)

Louis is sweating, his mother’s words still ringing in his ears.

We expect you to bring this boy home for Christmas, Louis. We want to meet him.

He should have known it was coming. After seven months of pretending to have a boyfriend in order to keep his mum from meddling in his love life again, he should have realized he’d have to actually introduce her to someone eventually.

haven't you heard by allwaswell16 (8k)

Harry Styles has been in love with Louis Tomlinson since they were eighteen. After six years together, Harry is ready to propose to the love of his life. The holidays strike him as the perfect time for a romantic proposal, but his well-meaning friends and family (including his self-appointed best friend, Niall) seem to thwart him at every turn.

Or the four times Harry tries to propose, and the one time he gets it right.

I Think I’m Addicted to Your Light by supernope (9k)

Louis is just zipping back up when the door swings open with a swell of noise and someone shuffles up next to him, shoes tapping loudly against the tile floor. Louis turns to see who’s walked in and just violated the code of the men’s toilet by taking the urinal next to him and is met with wide, green eyes and red lips stretched into a brilliant smile.

“Happy new year,” the guy grins, shaking long, curly hair away from his face. “You look sharp. Sorry, do you mind holding this for a minute? I don’t really have any place to keep it and it’s kind of a hassle, getting out of these things. Don’t want it to fall in.”

He indicates his legs with the hand clutching a pale pink phone, and Louis’ gaze drops. Speechless, Louis takes the phone, eyes locked on the guy’s legs. His gorgeous legs, clad only in a pair of black thigh-highs held up by a silky black garter belt.

Pining for You by peanutbutterapple (9k)

Harry sells Christmas trees. Louis doesn’t mean to buy so many of them.

make my wish come true by flicker_album (10k)

“We need to start decorating. For Christmas.” Louis says it in a tone that makes it seem like it should be so obvious to Harry.

Harry starts laughing. “Okay, Lou. We will start decorating for Christmas over a month early. Sure.”

Or the one where Louis starts decorating for Christmas in November and Harry indulges him.

every time i run, i keep on falling on you by hazmesentir (12k)

AU. After being best friends for 8 years, Harry moves to LA. It takes the keen observations of all of Louis’ friends to realise the one thing he really wants for Christmas is Harry.

So Baby Tonight Just Be the Death of Me by crimsontheory (12k)

He hasn't had much to drink, just enough to make everything feel warm and soft, kind of like the boy currently pressed up against his side.

Louis glances around the room and thinks that even though there is a couple leaning against the wall, a little too close to him, very heatedly making out, and he can hear the faint sounds of someone throwing up in the kitchen sink, and that the whole house smells of sweat and stale alcohol, there is no other place he'd rather be than on this couch with Harry curled into his side.

An AU where Louis is new in town and Harry invites him to a New Year's party.

Forget the Silent Nights by LadyLondonderry (12k)

For years afterward, everyone who lived at 404 E. Redwood referred to that Christmas as The Christmas we stole a baby.

Technically, that wasn’t the strict truth, as Evie had already been five years old by the time she came to stay in their crowded (but loving) home. And technically they didn’t steal her.

Either way, the last Christmas with the seven of them in that broken old house on Redwood all together was probably one of the most memorable holidays each of them had, what with the wedding and the the snowstorm and the raccoons in their attic…

And the baby they stole, of course.

If the Fates Allow by afirethatcannotdie (13k)

Louis yells at a stranger in a shop and a few days later, needs his help. Desperately. Then he discovers he’s kind of in love with him.

If Only in My Dreams by jupiter_lou (13k)

The one where Harry’s new flatmate, Louis, needs a place to spend Christmas, so he invites him to spend it with his family. When they arrive, everyone thinks they’re dating.

Let Me Give You My Life by midnightskies (14k)

Gemma has one rule for Louis while he stays with her family at Christmas; not to hook up with her little brother, so of course that’s the one thing Louis does.

Even Supposing by casuallyhl (14k)

Money is tight this year, Harry knows. As he strolls through the tailor’s shop, he knows this. But, Louis was right. This is their first Christmas as a married couple, and it’s the two year anniversary of when they met. He wants to surprise his husband with two wonderful gifts for his birthday and Christmas. He wants it to be unforgettable.

Or, a Dickensian London AU where Harry and Louis overcome illness, small budgets, and their own stubbornness to give each other an unforgettable first Christmas together.

i know you have a heavy heart (i can feel it when we kiss) by itjustkindahappened (14k)

In which Louis is spending New Year’s alone in France but he’s definitely not running away, and Harry is a french florist with an ever present smile who cares a lot. They meet a cold night in the outskirts of Paris.

Wrapped in Red by QuickedWeen (15k)

Louis backs himself into a corner and has two days to find a date to bring to the Horan Family’s big annual Christmas party to both appease his mother, and show up an ex-boyfriend. In the midst of Christmas shopping and trying to work out his dilemma, he meets Harry Styles, the cute volunteer behind the charity gift wrapping booth.

Didn’t think it would work out by swirlingchaos (16k)

Louis is a primary school teacher, Harry has a 7-year-old son in his class, Louis has a 1-year-old crush on Harry, and they have to put on the school’s Christmas play. Brilliant.

beautiful star by  tommoandbambi (17k)

The famous/nonfamous kid!fic AU wherein harry and louis have to host a school Christmas party and harry isn’t actually a druglord.

all i want for christmas is by crybaby (17k)

harry is louis’ daughters’ au pair. they spend christmas in austria

There Is a Light by perfectdagger (17k)

Christmas/New Years AU in which Harry and Louis are single parents and they meet at an odd encounter at the toy shop and somehow, they end up together, bonded by their little ones.

My Only Wish by rainbowsandlove (17k)

Secret Santa AU where Louis doesn’t know how it works and keeps giving Harry gifts and being not so obvious about his flirting.

Six Weeks by LadyLondonderry (20k)

When Harry takes the afternoon shift at the cafe, he meets a boy who drinks a lot of tea and never remembers his umbrella.

So Put Your Hands In (The Holes of My Sweater) by Kat_rawr (21k)

Harry and Louis go on a lot of not-dates.

love is a word (you gave it a name) by hattalove (21k)

it’s christmas. in between snowman building, tree shopping, and ill-advised skating on a frozen lake, louis and harry get ready to take the most important step of their lives.

Home for Christmas by haloeverlasting (22k)

The one where Harry didn’t think he wanted a family, but with a little Christmas magic (and maybe one Louis Tomlinson) he realizes that he is very, very wrong.

Yours In Fractions by FullOnLarrie (23k)

Louis and Harry are strangers who, because of a mix up, share their mutual friend’s apartment and bed over the holidays.

miles to go before I sleep by elizamackenzie (23k)

Harry lets out a sigh, and says it in the simplest way he can, “I go to bed on March 20th and I wake up on December 21st. And for me…” he lets out another breath, shaking his head a bit, “It doesn’t feel like a single day has passed.” Louis blinks, the words slowly settling around them. “So, for the rest of the months you just…”

“I don’t exist.”

And Harry can see the way the information hits Louis, his expression dropping suddenly, his shoulders slumping. Because there is a world of difference between being somewhere else for nine months and not being anywhere at all. Between voluntarily choosing to go—and potentially to stay—and having no choice in the matter. Between nine months of phone calls and visits and texts. And nothing.

Maybe We’re Perfect Strangers (Maybe We’ll Stick Together) by FallingLikeThis (24k)

Louis works for a gossip site and, when it comes to light that ex-musical partners (and lovers) Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran are spending the holidays together, he’s sent to see if the reunion the world’s been waiting for is in the works. But at the cost of his own holiday with his family. Louis really hates this job.

all the lights are full of colour by infinitelymint (26k)

Harry and Louis are separated, but for the sake of their two sons, they choose to spend Christmas together. It may just lead to a Christmas miracle.

Make My Wish Come True (Baby All I Want For Christmas Is You) by larrymylove (29k)

Louis has just agreed to spend the holidays with his family, and to bring Harry along with him. There’s just one problem…he and Harry have broken up, and are wanting to avoid telling everyone until after the holidays. The fake/pretend relationship AU with a twist.

Candles On Air by isthatyoularry (29k)

A Christmas AU ft. Pining, Heartbreak, and maybe A Happy Ending.

Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups (31k)

The A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.

Frankincense-ational by LadyLondonderry (31k)

Harry Styles works at the Hillsyde Library with his friend Zayn and best mate Niall. It’s December, which means Christmas, which should be the happiest month of the year…

Except Niall just broke up with his boyfriend, Zayn needs to let up on the rules a little, and the library is getting their fire alarm system replaced, which means that for the next few weeks there are going to be firemen patrolling the library ‘looking for fires’ while the system is down.

Harry almost hits one of them with his car right off the bat - and of course he’s the hot one.

Happy Christmas, here’s to many more.

Find You Home by FullOnLarrie (35k)

When Louis lies to his family and says he’ll bring his new boyfriend home for Christmas, his best friend and roommate Harry agrees to play the part. It’s that, or be left alone over the holidays. What will happen? No one knows! Perhaps Santa will swoop in with a Christmas miracle. Featuring lovesick idiots, kissing and cuddling, pies and Christmas clichés.

Harry, Did You Know (that your baby boy, is married to his best friend?) by tempolarriefics (35k)

10 years ago, Louis and Zayn made a pact that if they weren’t married by 30, they’d marry each other. So they do, as best mates do. Enter Harry Styles, who’s new to town. He and Louis are immediately drawn to one another. Louis doesn’t tell Harry about Zayn, because they’re just friends (who are married.) Harry finds out on Christmas Day, Louis/Zayn’s “anniversary”. aka a marriage pact AU with a twist.

Chestnuts Roasting… And All That by elsi_bee (46k)

Louis is apparently the only person at his new job who is single as can be. It’s not a big deal to just tell his new colleagues that he has a boyfriend, right? Until he has to make this imaginary boyfriend magically appear at the office holiday party. Cue fake relationship antics with a certain someone who is more than willing to play along.

the impossible now by stylinsoncity (54k)

A wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

Also be sure to check out the Larry Holiday Fest!

[ginnyzero]

Retelling Old Stories

I've written a book based on old fairy tales and legends and am currently reviewing the Shrek movies in Action Movie Friday. (Shrek 2 post coming next, I hope.) I thought I'd talk about retelling fairy tales, myths and legends.

Myths, fairytales, legends, these are the stories that are near and dear to our hearts. And let's face it, they're familiar, comforting and popular. Fairy tales such as The Sleeping Princess, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast have been told over and over to young children for generations. These stories are oral traditions passed down from generation to generation and have strayed quite a bit from their horrific and sexist roots. So much, that outside of a few key points their original creators may not recognize them anymore.

These oral traditions form the basis of the hero's journey which can be found in high fantasy stories such as Lord of the Rings and Science Fiction stories, such as Star Wars. They've been satirized (Ella Enchanted, the movie), parodied (Shrek) and outright made fun of (Mirror, Mirror) and also taken far too seriously (Snow White & The Huntsman.) Just as much as they've been played straight (see the Elemental Master Series of Mercedes Lackey.) And they've been mixed together until almost unrecognizable. (The Princess & The Frog, Frozen, Once Upon a Time, the 500 Kingdoms also by Mercedes Lackey.)

The great thing about fairy tales and myths and legends is that they have a very low risk level. People are far more likely to pick up something to read of watch that is relatively familiar to them and that they know they already enjoy rather than a brand new concept they don't understand and aren't sure they'll like. Fairy tales are comfort food. People know they like them. And given a choice between a concept they aren't sure of and a fairy tale based media, they're more than likely to choose a fairy tale based media.

So, how do you go about retelling these fairy tales and making them fresh and new for your audience? This was a question I (sort of) asked myself when I started to write the Dawn Warrior. (Available in Ebook & Paperback.) How do I take Sleeping Beauty and make her different without relying on, say, what we know of her through Disney or from Grimm, not the TV Show. (Which honestly, isn't much in either case.) And make them partly relevant without losing making a good story?

Change the Roles:

What if the Princess really isn't the Princess? What if she's the bodyguard in disguise that's protecting the real princess from assassins? (The Decoy Princess, Dawn Cook) What if the Princess is also a spy? (The Princess Series Jim C. Hines) Maybe Prince Charming is actually an actor!

I mean, come on, in real life unless your Prince William and Harry and work for the British Royal Navy, royals don't really have adventures. (I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of Queen Elizabeth either.)

Or, maybe the Princess and Prince aren't really the good guys after all. Maybe it's the Big Bad Wolf or the evil stepmother or even the sea witch. (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire) Or, to borrow from Hoodwinked, the Big Bad Wolf is really an investigative reporter trying to do an expose on Red Riding Hood. (I mean, she can't be all that sweet and innocent.)

A good example of this was a recent Sleeping Beauty movie that was in the horror genre. (Unfortunately I heard it was a really bad horror movie.) The Sleeping Beauty in the movie was supposed to be the damsel in distress and ended up being both the trap and the villain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdEo_t-iVbM

(I'll just leave this here.)

Change the Setting:

Fairy tales in SPACE!!! (Lunar Chronicles, Marissa Meyer) Okay, there aren't a lot of fairy tales in space. I think I saw another example on instafreebie the other day. In fact, there aren't many romances in space either. (I was listening to a podcast about an indie author who was doing this and she was the first writing romances set in the backdrops of aliens?) But, this is like Star Wars. Greek Myths in SPACE!!!! (Seriously, Star Wars is built around the classical hero's journey. The franchise even freely admits it in their authorized literature. I've got a book by Bantam called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth that goes through it step by step.)

This is one of the easier ways to make fairy tales seem more relevant and seems to be currently the most popular. Grimm the TV Show, Once Upon a Time (in Wonderland), The Harry Dresden Files, and Fables, all take fairy tales and legends and drop them into the middle of the modern world. I include Harry Dresden, not because he's playing out a fairy tale so to speak, but he's some sort of misguided Prince Charming type on his own hero's journey. The book Charming by James  Eliot, takes the character of "Prince Charming" plays it straight, and makes it a bloodline that is involved in some sort of knighthood charged with keeping the mundane world safe from the evil things that go bump in the night set in modern times.

Mercedes Lackey took a slightly different approach with her Elemental Masters series. She took fairy tales, played them straight, but set them in Edwardian times right up through the First World War. By doing so, she was able to show how the beginnings of the modern world like industrialization and rail roads and wars fought with machine guns instead of swords were effecting the world of magic and the magical creatures. (For instance, all the pollution made it easier for evil or nasty type elementals and creatures to thrive and good elementals and creatures that couldn't abide cold iron were dying off or going into hiding.)

Change the Genders:

Let's face it. Fairy tales are pretty sexist, no matter what your gender is. I had in the first draft of the Dawn Princess an entire rant by Roxana, who is a 'Beauty Asleep' about the differences between how a female Princess who is cursed to sleep and a male Prince is cursed to sleep and how neither tale does royalty any justice whatsoever.(Seriously, in the male version, when the Princess who had been sitting by his bedside took a nap, the clock should have reset, the Prince shouldn't still have sneezed and been woken by the maid.)

Maybe it's really Prince Charming asleep in the Castle and well, Beauty has to belt on her sword and gird her courage to get through the hedge and kill the dragon. Or, the tower bound male Rapunzel is intruded upon by a Pirate Princess who is looking for gold, not love. Maybe it isn't a brave little tailor but a brave seamstress! Or it is a male who is captured by a bunch of cannibalistic female bandits.

...

Okay, there is taking some things too far. (That story is terrible no matter what.)

Apply some Common Sense:

In fairy tales, things don't always make sense. I read them and go "why? why would they do that?" A lot of times Princes don't get punished for their ill deeds. Another Prince comes along, "saves" them and they go about their adventures without showing any sort of remorse for what they did in the first place. Princes don't become goose boys or shepherds or kitchen tweenies.(Or at least, not very often, I think Faithful John/Hans is about the only one I can think of.)

No, those punishments are reserved for Princesses who have been tricked into changing places with their maids and end up being goose girls or in the kitchen. (I can think of half a dozen variations of that tale.) And the Princess, instead of finding a nice baker or farmer to settle down with who appreciates her, instead figures out how to reveal her plight to the Prince who actually married her uppity maid/sister and seems happy with the maid/sister and once the maid/sister is out of the way, marries the Prince. (The Prince was tricked, happy to be tricked and the Princess took him anyways? That makes no sense.)

A really good example of this is the original and horrific Beauty Asleep tale. In the original tale, the King comes upon Beauty Asleep in her tower and rapes her, while she's asleep, repeatedly. In fact, he gets her pregnant with twins. The babes are born and he doesn't even take them with him! No. He leaves them with their sleeping mother. One of the babes gets hungry, as babies do! And sucks the thorn out of her finger that was keeping her asleep. Beauty wakes up. The Queen finds out about her existence. Tries to kill her. The King kills the Queen in turn and ends up marrying Beauty and bringing her and his twins to the castle.

Just what the ever loving hell?

It's good to be king?

No, really, the Queen should have taken Beauty's side. They could have killed the King for being an adulterer and ruled the kingdom together setting up the twins as the heirs. Female solidarity. Because the story as written is insane.

There's a post wandering about tumblr about swan maidens and selkies. And how awful the stories are about the men who take the swan maiden's cloaks and the selkies' skins to force these women to be their brides. One of the reblogs adds the caveat that it feels like these stories don't take into account the actual nature of swans and seals. Swans are pretty. They look graceful.

Swans are mean, they hiss, they bite, they're incredibly aggressive and they can break bones. Approach with caution. Don't try to steal from them. Don't try to pet them. Aggressive swan is aggressive. Okay. Anyone who steals a swan maiden's cloak deserves the punch in the face!

And seals, seals aren't all that nice either! Zefrank1 hasn't done a true facts about seals, but maybe he should. Male seals are called bulls for a reason! Elephant Seal bulls charge at each other when they fight. Leopard Seals are considered one of the ocean's more dangerous predators and take on whales and sharks. Seals train well to do tricks. Look,  just, don't mess with them because not only are they cute and have sharp teeth and claws, they're smart. Do you really want to mess with the woman who can steal all your nets and drive the fish away and beat you to a bloody pulp? Seal fights involve mud wrestling.

Add some reality to the stories. Give the actions of those involved real consequences. Change the personalities to actually reflect the animals they are sharing their bodies with.

Mash things together:

This is another popular tactic and TV Tropes calls it the "Fractured" Fairy Tale. Think how in Once Upon a Time, (spoiler alert) Rumpelstiltskin is also the Beast of Beauty and the  Beast and his father is Peter Pan. And he's the grandfather of the Truest Believer and thus the "father in law" of Emma Swan the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. And that barely dips a toe into the confusing of Once Upon a Time Family relationships.

Mercedes Lackey also did a version of mixing up of fairy tales in her 500 Kingdoms. In the 500 Kingdoms, The Tradition is a form of magic that ties to make fairy tales happen no matter what type of tale they are and no matter if all the pieces are actually 100% correct. Fairy Godmothers are there to steer the tradition so that disaster doesn't strike constantly. (Because what if the Prince of the Cinderella tale was actually a Princess or well, a Prince who was too young, too old, or just liked other Princes.)

Fables does this as well. Prince Charming is the same Prince across Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty ends up marrying the Beast in her second marriage. (Prince Charming is good at wooing, not staying.) The Gingerbread witch of Hansel and Gretel ends up being the witch who puts most of the tales in action across the Enchanted Forest. The last arc I read, Rose Red was making her own version of Camelot (and there was much trepidation about how that was going to turn out, probably badly.)

Grab a bunch of different stories that seem to work well together, stitch them together in a way that makes sense or seems fun. It's okay not to always tell the exact same tale.

Add Real People's stories:

Look, if you're going for a more empowered woman in your stories. There are plenty of women in history that were actually pretty awesome. And I'm not just talking about Esther from the Bible or Rahab. (Both pretty awesome ladies.) There were female pirates and female queens who outwitted and beat their male counterparts to be on the throne and to keep themselves out of jail. There are female scientists, female snipers and well, I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find something a woman did in real life that men get praised for more often.

In fact, one person go so fed up with the way fairy tale princesses are praised at places such as Disney, they created a site/book for girls about such heroines at Rejectedprincesses.com.

Youtube has videos labelled things like Top Ten Badass women from History you probably don't know about. (But if you'd read Rejected Princesses you actually might!)

So, don't be afraid to use some real world inspiration to give you ideas about how awesome your female characters can be.

And these are just a few ideas on how to take something old and make it something "new."

In the Dawn Warrior, I took a bunch of these. I applied some common sense. Changed the Princess' role. And really mashed some things together. But, I kept a medieval fairy tale like setting because I wanted to keep this series different from my other series, Heaven's Heathens MC, which is a light science fantasy that could read urban fantasy if you squint at it. (Or maybe it's the other way around.) Two series set in the modern/future world seemed a bit silly to me.

Mostly, my advice is if you want to retell a fairy tale or myth or legend, have fun with it. Take your ingredients, mix them up as needed and don't sacrifice your story for message. (Because really, that gets old very quickly.)

Whelp, now if you like fairy tales there are plenty of pieces of media in this post to check out. Happy reading/watching/researching!

[loup-malin]

Rare is this Love, Keep it Covered aka California King

Fandom: Sense8

Genre: Fluff/Meta

Rating: All Ages

Summary: Canon-compliant (mostly); Post-Naples trust building and talking it all out. Rajan’s POV.

Read on AO3

Unbeta’ed - please forgive any errors!

Ship: Rajalagang - I know this controversial for some people; I tried to write what I would have liked to see to help develop this ship a little more before the wedding scene.

AN - I know that Jean-Pierre’s villa was in a town in the Ile de France region, but I like Provence, so I changed it. This little ditty was written for @abovethesmokestacks birthday, based on a conversation we had after the end of the Sense8 finale. Happy, happy birthday, darling! I wish I had had the time to write a four chapter version of this story (and maybe I will?), but I wanted to make sure you had this for your birthday weekend! I love love love you! (Hides because I haven’t written a fic in about a million years.)

They were alive. It defied reason, defied statistical probability, but somehow, they limped back to Jean-Pierre’s villa after Naples, battered and beaten, but still grateful, relieved, and whole. The cluster and their extended family spent two weeks in the Provençal countryside. Everyone, sensate and sapien alike, agreed unanimously that they all needed - deserved - time to heal and to begin to understand this new reality. Nomi and Amanita worked around the clock on their wedding plans, only surfacing in the evenings for dinner, looking increasingly harried and blissful as their nuptials approached.

It was disorienting to try to understand how Kala and her cluster related to one another, to wrap his mind around the idea of this new family that he had joined. Rajan was happy to have the time to process it all, especially when it came to Wolfgang. Everything he had ever learned told him that he should be be angry, outraged. If anyone back in Mumbai knew the shifts that had taken place in his life, in his marriage, in these last few weeks, they wouldn’t bat an eye if he were to smash a few of the beautiful, expensive glasses in the beautiful, expensive cupboards. Would think it totally normal if he decided to slam doors and scream himself hoarse.

But his heart didn’t want that. Kala, his Kala, glorious, headstrong woman that she was… was in love. It was the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen. Her smile, beaming to the sky and back as Wolfgang’s arm draped across her shoulder, intoxicated him. He couldn’t find anger in the cocktail of emotions that stirred in his heart - there was no room for it when his wife still lived and breathed. No one else had watched the life drain from her face, they hadn’t felt the panic rise from his gut at the thought of her being stolen from the world. No one except Wolfgang knew how close they had come.

He watched them from as many angles as he could find excuses for, jealousy a small flame in his stomach. It would be ridiculous to deny that he was jealous. But he would not tend that flame, would not feed it with the vitriol everyone seemed to expect from him. He knew what they thought an Indian husband would do. But even these well-intentioned new friends didn’t really know him, didn’t know how little regard he had for useless traditions and taboos. He could not see a version of reality in which raging and screaming would help anything. How would that make Kala happy? How could a spectacle like that demonstrate how much he loved her?

No.

He would meet love with love.

Still. He had so many questions. Was it the sense of danger that seemed to hang in the air around Wolfgang? As though anything could happen at any moment? Was it his wardrobe, Rajan wondered, considering wryly whether he should trade out his tailored shirts and slacks for something more… torn? But the more he observed, the easier it was to noticed that it was the quieter moments in Wolfgang’s company in which Kala really shone. The moments in which he murmured to her, asking for her thoughts on various elements of the sprawling country estate in which they were guests, listening intently as she turned her scientist’s focus to the topic at hand, were the ones that held their own special beauty. They seemed to delight in the physical proximity to one another, flowers turning their faces to the sunlight.

He needed to spend time with Wolfgang, wanted to get to know the man that Kala loved so much (more than she loved him, a small voice hissed in the back of Rajan’s mind, but he corrected the voice patiently each time, as he would correct a petulant child: not more, just differently).

Rajan asked Wolfgang to go for a walk one morning, before most of the other guests were awake. Sun was next to the pool, practicing. She could be trusted to be silent, Rajan suspected. She nodded at them, never stopping the flow of her movements, though her sharp gaze lingered on them until they rounded the corner, following the dewy garden path. They ambled through the small vineyard next to the house, and then into the lavender field beyond. Neither man spoke until all they could see and smell were the fragrant purple plants stretching toward the sky, line after line.

“If you’ve brought me out here to kill me,” Wolfgang threatened, though his face was serene, chin lifted in defiance. “I hope you have backup.”

Rajan shook his head, needing to replay the other man’s words before barking out a laugh.

“Kill you?” He chuckled, the nervous knot in his gut easing a bit. “What kind of idiot would I be to try to kill you, Wolfgang? If I were to kill you, to even try… I would be ruining my own life.” Wolfgang was silent, blinking slowly at him once in reply as the sun slid out from behind a passing cloud. “I asked you to take a walk with me… well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure why exactly at first. But I would like to talk about the thing that none of us seem to want to discuss.”

A muscle in Wolfgang’s jaw twitched, and he kicked at an imaginary clump of dirt, digging his toe in before looking back at Rajan. “Go on then. Say it.”

“No, no, no. You misunderstand me, please.” Rajan gestured for them to keep walking. After a beat, the German joined him, hands shoved into his pockets. “Kala loves you, you love Kala. And I love Kala. I know this is not…” he hesitated. Not normal? Nothing about his life since leaving Mumbai had been normal, so that frame of reference was already useless. Not what was expected of him? That was an understatement, at best. “I know that what I’m about to say might be surprising, but I am not asking you to end your relationship with my wife.” There, he had said it. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.

“So what do you want, then?”

“I need to ask you for something selfish. A favour. Kala would be angry with me if she knew I was asking you this. Will be angry with me,” he corrected himself, realising that there was little likelihood of Wolfgang not sharing this conversation with their shared love. He took the other man’s silence as an invitation to continue, so he did. “Please, Wolfgang. Please don’t ever hurt her.”

“I would never.” The reply was immediate and sure, though Wolfgang’s added “I promise” was softer.

“All is want is for Kala to be happy.”

“That’s what I want, too.”

Rajan cleared his throat, nodding. “Good. Thank you.”

Wolfgang regarded him with an impish grin. “Is that all you wanted to ask me?” The question lingered, suspended in air that was heavier now than it had been a second ago. His expression was unreadable to Rajan. Something was changing, in him, in Wolfgang, probably in Kala, too. He could feel it happening, the shift from salt water to sweet, and decided to see where the tide took him.

“Yes, that’s really it.” He nodded again, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his suddenly-damp brow.

Wolfgang frowned, shrugging as he turned his gaze back toward the villa. “She wants to know if we’re done fighting.”

“She’s here?” Rajan knew it was useless to try to see her. He squinted anyway. “Kala, it’s not like that.”

The German didn’t reply, but turned and walked back down the line of grapevines. “I’m starving!”

******* 

That night, Kala had barely closed the door to their bedroom before she rounded on Rajan.

“So, you had a man-to-man talk with Wolfgang.” She raised her gaze to meet her husband’s, a tiny line appearing between her brows; he looked forward to seeing that line deepen over the years. If Rajan hadn’t suspected that she was as nervous about the content of their conversation as she was annoyed by it, he would have laughed and pulled her close at this thought.

“It was just a talk, Kala. I’d like to get to know him better.” Rajan ran his hand down her arm.

“Why didn’t you talk to me first? I’m your wife!” Her voice was sharp but her teeth worried at her lower lip as she crossed her arms.

He had thought about this, who to speak with first and why. “I’m sorry, my love. I didn’t intend for you to feel left out. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel as though sometimes you have been afraid to tell me things. I thought that talking to him first would be better; I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Worry about what?” She shook her head and sat at the edge of the bed.

“Kala, are you going to leave me for Wolfgang?”

“No!” Whatever insecurities still lingered in the dark corners of his mind were banished by the shocked honesty of her reply. Kala jumped up, pacing. “No, Rajan, I don’t want to leave you. I promise. I love you, and I made vows to you and our families and Ganesha to spend my life with you. You have accepted everything that has happened to you in the last two years with such… such grace. But,” she stopped, dropping her hands to her sides.

“But it’s complicated. I know.” Rajan drew his wife to him, wrapping his arms around her. “I understand, Kala. And whatever I don’t understand, I’m trying to.” She sighed against him, hiding her face in his nightshirt. “I know that you love Wolfgang. It’s okay.”

“What?” She pulled back and stared at him, mouth agape.

“When we went walking this morning, I wasn’t asking him to end your relationship. I just wanted to clear the air.”

Kala blinked once, and then again. “So… you’re okay with me cheating on you?” She narrowed her eyes, leaning back to study his face.

“It’s only cheating if it’s a secret, if you two are sneaking around and hiding things from me. If I’m aware of your relationship and comfortable with it, then it’s just our life, isn’t it?”

She shook her head and sat again on the bed. “I don’t know what to say, Rajan. I…” she trailed off. “Thank you.” She kissed him, her lips soft and sweet against his.

“Kala, I keep trying to tell you: I love you. I want you to be happy, forever. I’d prefer to be part of that happiness. If that means that you love two men, I can live with that.”

She was silent for a moment, and Rajan decided that he didn’t need to know if she was speaking to Wolfgang, though he assumed that she was. Without warning, Kala launched herself into his arms. “I married a good, good man!” She laughed, peppering his face with kisses.

He could absolutely live with this.

*******

As strange as it might have seemed to anyone watching from the outside, life with the sensates invited him to re-imagine things. The more time they spent in France, the more Rajan realised that he was most comfortable in the company of his wife’s lover. The two men fell into a rhythm of swimming laps together in the afternoons while Kala napped in the sun or read nearby, often joined by Daniela, Lito, and Amanita. It was equal parts companionship and good-natured competition, an easy way to spend time together without too much talking. All of the other sensates, and the their entourage, as he liked to call himself and the rest of the group, were friendly and welcoming, but it was Wolfgang to whom he found himself drawn, always aware of the other man’s presence as the wended in and out of one another's company through each day.

It wasn’t making lemonade out of lemons; Rajan genuinely liked Wolfgang. The other man was smart and funny, and seemed to know a little bit about everything, no matter what topic they discussed. Time with the cluster seemed to bring about a change in Wolfgang. Each day, he was more relaxed, more at ease, more affectionate with all of the villa’s temporary residents. It was fascinating to talk to the German, especially when the other man seemed to delight in using his and Kala’s native Hindi. And there was plenty of wine and food to keep conversations flowing until the wee hours each night. Once or twice, Kala yawned pointedly before giving up and going to bed alone, leaving both men to wonder whose room she would be found in that night.

Waking up next to a sleep-rumpled Kala each morning was one of the greatest pleasures in life. He mentioned this to Wolfgang one night as he opened another bottle of Côtes du Rhone. They would leave the next day to return to Paris, back to the squat that would now become wedding central in the absence of life-threatening danger. The other man nodded enthusiastically, holding his glass out toward Rajan’s outstretched arm.

“And when she’s not quite awake yet, and her hair is everywhere…” Wolfgang mused, eyes softening.

“Exactly,” Rajan agreed, drinking deeply from his glass. “It’s the only thing that makes me truly jealous, when she spends the night with you,” he admitted. “What?” Wolfgang had been silent for a few moments, staring at Rajan.

“Nothing.” He shook his head, staring into his glass and following Rajan’s example. “This is good wine.”

“It is,” Rajan agreed. “Jean-Pierre is a generous host. I’m grateful to him for letting us all stay here.”

They were quiet for a few more moments, both lost in thought.

“I’m sorry that Felix had to go back to Berlin so quickly,” Rajan observed. “It must be difficult to be so far from him.”

“Yeah. I do miss him. It’s probably for the best though. I think all of this might be a little too much for him to take in all at once,” Wolfgang replied, waving his free hand to describe the entire sensate experience. “I can explain it more to him when I go home.” He frowned a little at this, seeming to share Rajan’s reluctance to talk about the moment at which they would all inevitably part ways.

“You can come to Mumbai whenever you want,” he offered. “And Kala will go to Berlin, too. We’ll make this work for everyone.”

Wolfgang only nodded, staring at the shelves of books that lined the library. “So much has changed in the last two years,” he muttered. “It’s hard to believe that this is who I’ve become.”

“People have always reinvented themselves as they live their lives. It’s what we do as humans,” Rajan replied. “I don't think you could share the thoughts and experiences of seven other people and come out of it unchanged.”

They were quiet again, the only sounds in the house the chiming of the hour. Two o’clock.

“Shit.” Wolfgang drained his glass in reply, standing on unsteady feet. “I’m going to go find out where Kala decided to sleep.” Rajan mirrored the other man’s action, stretching his back in a series of pops and cracks. He should have gone to bed when Kala left, he thought, chiding himself in advance of the hangover that would do a better job of it by double the next morning as they packed. Without warning, Wolfgang pulled him into a one armed embrace, clapping his hand around Rajan’s neck and kissing his face, lingering. The effect was immediate, the room suddenly close, a moment suspended between the two of them that stretched, unending, until the other man stepped away, yawning.

“You know, we could just both wake up next to her every morning,” Wolfgang mentioned, turning to lean against the doorframe. “Americans make gigantic beds.”

[theticklishpear]

Hi Pear! About your post about splitting up a series: any advice on how to make each book complete without making the overarching plot episodic? Like, some series, like Harry Potter, have per-book arcs that wrap up at the end of the book, with the big picture almost as background until the end, and then there’s series like Lord of the Rings where everything happens at once, continuously. Your post makes total sense with the first kind of series, but I could use help applying it to the second!

Hey Pan! Thanks for the question! Apologies in advance for the length–apparently when you get me talking about two of my favorite series…..

Spoilers, I guess?? For 21- and 64-year-old books???

I’m of the opinion that the advice in that post still stands for both types you’re talking about, and I would argue that there isn’t much difference in the essence of what those series do, only in two points of execution.

One of the differences you’re feeling is point of view:

The “middle books” of both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings maintain the structure I proposed in that last post: They each have their own builds in tension, their own goals, and their own input into the main plot of the series. The narrative decision for each series’ point of view, however, greatly impacts how they feel as a unit.

Harry Potter sticks with telling the story from a third-person limited perspective with Harry: We only get where Harry is, what he’s thinking about, and his knowledge. Each book follows individual plot structures with their own climaxes, which work toward the growing tension and eventual boiling-over of the main series plot.The plot arc that each book focuses on centers around Harry and his goals in the fight against Voldemort. Because of this, books feel smaller, more contained, because they’re only dealing with this character’s slice of the world.

Lord of the Rings is absolutely episodic in the same way Harry Potter is, but it doesn’t feel that way because of how Tolkien handles the point of view and his characters. The party splits and then are thrown as far from each other across Middle Earth as they can get. Tolkien endeavors to still tell everyone’s story and splits the point of view as well, in order to travel with them all.

He makes sure to devote time to each character’s arc throughout each of the three books, building toward climaxes in as many arcs as he can in every book. In the case of The Two Towers (and somewhat the series as a whole), because of the distance between the parties and the split point of view, there are more like 3 climaxes: one (or more) for each party.

The physical distance between the Fellowship creates an episodic tale as all of them go through their own isolated events, but the way Tolkien chooses to break up the narrative so that each book carries threads of all the groups rather than the single story of just one of those groups helps to make the series feel continuous.

Consider if Tolkien had chosen to split the structure further so that each “group” received their own book that followed just them. Had he done it that way, it would have felt very similar to how Harry Potter feels because of the way the point of view constructs the overall series plot.

The other difference is how the series handle resolution for each volume:

In the Harry Potter books, Rowling is very careful to bring the tension of the book back down to nearly ground level from where it started. Most of the books have long enough chunks of resolution at the end that we’re left feeling like we’re back in the calm–sure, another storm will come, but for now, this portion is over.

In the Lord of the Rings books, Tolkien gives us no such feeling. The Fellowship of the Ring ends with Boromir actively dying, Frodo and Sam fleeing, Merry and Pippin captured, Gandalf presumed dead, and none of it gets resolved in any way. It just ends.

And The Two Towers? Not much better: Pippin has unwittingly caused another battle to brew, Sam and Frodo just finish fighting a giant spider during which fight, Sam thinks Frodo has died, his presumed corpse taken by orcs, only for it to be revealed that Frodo is in fact alive. Does that feel resolved to you??? Me neither!

On constructing plots:

Arguably, in terms of the language of story and literary structure, Tolkien did a bad job of constructing his story to easily break into satisfying chunks. After all, he’d intended for The Lord of the Rings to be a single enormous, cow-killing-sized volume. He intended it to be one book. His publisher said no (for a variety of pretty good reasons, not the least of which is the longevity of the physical book, tbqh) and asked him to split it into easier-to-print volumes, which eventually influenced the wave of popularity the trilogy structure has enjoyed.

Rowling did a pretty decent job of purposefully structuring her books to be split. Ideally, you should also be planning and structuring your series’ plot to be able to break, which requires each book to be easily recognizable as a story.

They each must have:

openings that put the readers squarely back in the world and the series conflict,

an incident in which characters are driven to take more action (a series version of an inciting incident),

at least one goal characters are working toward (preferably more),

multiple complications that cause setbacks,

at least one climax to a situation relevant to the series plot,

and at least one resolution.

Plan distinct goals in between Point C (when they enter the fray) and Point X (when they fight the Final Fight™ of the series), and additional climaxes for the climb toward achieving those goals.

Plan to have intense and not-easily-navigated-around complications to those goals that might take some time to resolve.

You don’t need to resolve everything as cleanly as Rowling. As I mentioned, Rowling brings the tension way back down by tying up many (most?) of the loose ends in each book, only to ramp that tension right back up in the next book. You don’t have to wrap things up quite so neatly at the end of your installments and de-escalate as much as she does (particularly in those early books).

You can leave threads unfinished. You can plant the plot seeds for the next book. You can leave characters hanging. You can introduce complications without solving them right that moment.

Leaving the tension higher, however, does not mean there’s no resolution. There should be at least one thread that resolves in each book, whether that’s big-series-structure goals like successfully acquiring or completing part of a plan, or removing an enemy player from the board; or smaller character arc things like a character conflict, or something else.

Without that aspect of resolution, you leave the book as a block of rising action rather than a narrative in its own right. Each book should have some definitive arc that moves forward, inciting incidences, complications, climaxes and all. The plot has to be structured in a way where there are things the characters are trying to achieve, obstacles they are trying to overcome to achieve those things, and it’s up to you to make sure each book is a complete book.

On weaving series:

There’s a good middle ground between Tolkien and Rowling, and it involves a lot of plotting and picking and choosing: Point of view will tell you exactly what you can show on the page, and purposefully taking your time to structure the narrative so that you’re able to feature and bring to the forefront the particular threads and arcs you want are key.

Honestly, I personally don’t recommend taking the Tolkien route of literally just chopping it into thirds (or fourths, or however many pieces). Instead it’s a bit like trying to plan for a multiple POV novel, except that you’re planning a multiple story novel instead, and a similar technique can be applied.

As a firm plotter, I believe that it’s best if you can sit down from the start and plot it all out as much as you can. Make a plan for the overall series, make plans for character arcs, make plans for any subplot arcs. Lay them all out, and see how they interweave and connect together to create a massive plot plan.

Then go back and make a note of all the plot points that are particularly crucial to understanding the story, including any moments that could be considered climaxes to overall arcs, character arcs, and the mini-arcs that make up larger overall arcs.

Evaluate which of those points absolutely must be on screen and which ones you can safely portray off screen. From there, you’ll be able to see what kind of point of view will best complement the points you have. Always be sure to keep notes on what things must happen off screen so that you remember they are happening in the background.

(I do all of this on a smaller scale in this post, putting together two character arcs into an overall story arc.)

Once you’ve done that, it’s really about deciding how and where you want to break up those books. The end of one and the beginning of the next will need to be smoothed out, and sometimes the plot of each chunk will need to be tailored a bit to make sure it follows a palpable rise and fall and features those things listed in the bulleted list above.

We’re going to talk more about figuring out where to break a book in a future post, which will play a big role in how the series feels as a whole. Ideally, you’re structuring the series to rise and fall continually throughout the series in conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions throughout, so theoretically you’re looking for moments between those when a resolution of some kind provides a bit of a lull in the story.

Now, that was real long and a bit rambly. I hope it helped somehow... Good luck! -Pear

[blanchektechnologyhub]

Best Ad-Blocker Apps for Android

 We agree that there are many websites and apps filled with obtrusive and forced advertisements, which kills usability while making it difficult for us to consume content, forcing us to hunt for ad blockers.

However, advertisements are an inexorable evil. Many websites and programs offer you free service, free content, and free software because they are supported by someone else. As a result, the service provider must offer advertising to you in exchange for the revenue that allows them to stay in business and improve. As a user, you benefit from the free use of the product.

There are a lot of ad blockers for Android smartphones, but not all of them are trustworthy, and many of them require you to pay for a premium membership. We’ve tried and evaluated all of the ad blockers and compiled a list of the top ad blockers for Android.

AdGuard

This is an amazing tool for users of the Yandex browser and the Samsung Internet mobile browser. It’s an open-source ad blocker for Android that doesn’t require rooting.

Did you know that you can whitelist your favorite websites and content creators using this app? You could add these websites to the list of expectations to avoid such pages from being blocked. You have the option of whitelisting whole domains or single pages. Following are the features of AdGuard:

It prevents your Android device’s battery from draining and data from being wasted.

It protects your personal information and safeguards your browsing experience.

This fantastic application allows you to create custom filters to block adverts based on your preferences.

You can choose from more than 20 AdBlock lists to block the most common types of ads, as well as language-specific lists to block advertisements in other languages.

AdAway

AdAway allows you to surf the web and use any Android app without being bothered by unwanted adverts. It’s an open-source ad blocker for Android that blocks ads via host files. This means that any program that requests an ad will be forwarded to localhost. In short, the request is ignored, and no advertisements are served.

The AdAway ad blocker allows you to download a predefined host file from their website, but it also supports custom and customized host files natively. When it comes to hosts files, they are stored on a read-only system partition on Android OS, which is why the app requires root permission to edit them.

This adblocker is completely free and open source.

You can choose your host file.

Ability to edit the host file and whitelist/blacklist websites and programs.

Root access is required.

You’ll need read/write access to the /System directory on your phone.

Ad Clear

AdClear is a popular ad blocker app for non-rooted Android devices designed by Seven Networks. The software allows you to block a range of unwanted commercials from appearing on your device. It can stop YouTube adverts as well as any other forms of the virus and invasive adverts that appear on websites or in apps.

In a nutshell, AdClear is a system-wide ad blocker that can shield you from in-app, popup, and clickbait adverts. The program has natural functions such as firewall and doze, which assist save battery life without slowing down page load speeds. The app is available for Android phones and tablets for free download.

A completely free ad blocker that does a good job and is often updated.

On non-rooted Android smartphones, it works flawlessly.

On Android 7.0 and higher, it may be difficult to disable system-wide advertisements. Thus developers encourage using Dubbel instead.

Blokada

Blokada is a battery-friendly and efficient ad blocker for Android that has received numerous stability improvements. This is to ensure that the ad-blocking functionality on all supported Android devices remains consistent. Some filters provide you complete control over your whitelist and blacklist configurations, allowing you to choose which ads to block and which to allow.

Blokada is also different because it also allows you to view how different websites and installed apps on your phone are following you. The program also allows you to block dubious requests while maintaining your anonymity.

By eliminating undesirable and dangerous advertisements from being displayed on your Android phone or tablet, it helps to keep your device secure and secured.

The program operates across your entire system, allowing it to block adverts and keep your device safe from both in-app and web adverts.

Only Android 5.0 and higher are compatible with the newest version. This may not be a deal-breaker for most people, but it could be for older Android users.

DNS66

DNS66, as the name implies, uses DNS to block hostnames and adverts while also allowing you to add other DNS servers for increased privacy and adblocking. The program works best for ad blocking on Android devices since it creates a local VPN on your device and routes all DNS server traffic through it.

The good news is that DNS66 is a robust ad blocker that doesn’t require a rooted Android smartphone and doesn’t require you to mess around with proxy settings. You may easily whitelist or ban any advertisement by configuring the ad blocker using custom DNS servers and host lists.

Allows for both configurations of a set of hosts and specific DNS servers that may be used to allow, ignore, or deny advanced ad-blocking queries.

It is not necessary to have root access.

Disconnect Pro

Disconnect Pro is a premium Android app that gives you complete privacy control as well as the option to block adverts that deplete your phone’s battery life and reduce your Internet speed.

In short, Disconnect Pro is a VPN and tracker protection tool for your mobile devices. Because it is a system-wide tool, it can protect you from dangerous content and block adverts across all of your devices, regardless of whether you are browsing the web or using an app.

While you are online, it removes advertisements, protects your privacy, and provides a shield that works as a tracker and threat prevention.

Provides a VPN service that conceals your IP address.

At the cost of $50 per year for three devices, this solution for blocking adverts and protecting your privacy is a tad pricey. Each device will cost you $1.38 each month.

Some functions are tailored exclusively for Samsung devices.

Because the app isn’t updated frequently, you should expect some issues here and there.

AdLock

AdLock is a relatively new ad blocker that has already been shown to be a useful tool in the fight against obnoxious and malicious advertising, phishing websites, and various forms of tracking. It is lighter and energy-efficient, which is crucial for all Android users to ensure that their phones last longer on a single charge.

AdLock has a user-configurable firewall that prevents ad-generated mobile traffic from accumulating in the hundreds of megabytes. This unique feature allows you to disable advertisements on websites that use an HTTPS secure connection (Google, Reddit, Facebook).

It works on all Android devices without root.

A system-wide ad blocker that prevents advertisements from appearing in browsers and apps.

Ads of all kinds are blocked, including banners, autoplay, spyware, and popups.

Works for 14 days for free until quiring payment of a year ($11) or lifetime ($27) license. They do, however, provide a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Conclusion

Ads, although bothersome, are a terrific opportunity to try out new programs, goods, and websites. Allowing non-intrusive advertisements is a way to be exposed to new and occasionally excellent apps. Alternatively, many apps allow you to purchase an ad-free version of the program, allowing you to support your favorite apps without having to deal with annoying advertisements.

Meta description:

Are ads bothering you while streaming online? Looking for ad blockers to get rid of them but getting confused? Here is a list of top adblockers you can rely on.

Hello, I am Blanche Harris. Being an online security expert, I love to make people aware of cyber threats and share helpful information to them regarding them. Download, install and activate your office setup at office.com/setup.

Source: https://blanchektechnologyhub.wordpress.com/2021/07/30/best-ad-blocker-apps-for-android/

[afrolesbikita]

Stories & helpful up-dates on POS System Equipment & POS.

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The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to change how Texas polling sites are distributed, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Voting options would be curtailed most in areas with higher shares of voters of color.

Relocating polling sites is part of the GOP’s priority voting bill — Senate Bill 7 — as it was passed in the Texas Senate. It would create a new formula for setting polling places in the handful of mostly Democratic counties with a population of 1 million or more. Although the provision was removed from the bill when passed in the House, it remains on the table as a conference committee of lawmakers begins hammering out a final version of the bill behind closed doors.

Under that provision, counties would be required to distribute polling places based on the share of registered voters in each state House district within the county. The formula would apply only to the state’s five largest counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis — and possibly Collin County once new census figures are released later this year.

A comparison of the Election Day polling locations that were used for the 2020 general election and what would happen under the Senate proposal shows a starkly different distribution of polling sites in Harris and Tarrant counties that would heavily favor voters living in Republican areas.

In Harris County — home to Houston, the state’s biggest city — the formula would mean fewer polling places in 13 of the 24 districts contained in the county, all currently represented by Democrats. Every district held by a Republican would either see a gain in polling places or see no change.

In most cases, the districts that would lose polling places are represented by people of color and have a far higher share of potential voters of color than the districts that would gain voting sites. Represented by Republican Mike Schofield, House District 132, a more suburban district on the outer edge of the county, would see the biggest gain with 18 additional polling places. White citizens of voting age make up a plurality — 45.9% — in that district, according to U.S. Census estimates.

House District 141 — represented by Democrat Senfronia Thompson, the longest serving Black person in the Legislature — would lose the most polling places with 11 fewer sites. About 59% of citizens of voting age in that district are Black. Roughly 86% of citizens of voting age are either Black or Hispanic.

In Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, four of the 11 districts in the county would lose voting sites — two represented by Republicans and two by Democrats. But the two Democratic districts would see more significant declines.

House District 90, represented by Democrat Ramon Romero, would lose half of the polling places it had in the 2020 election with 18 fewer voting sites. In that district, 62% of citizens of voting age are Hispanic. Nearly 77% are either Hispanic or Black. House District 95, represented by Democrat Nicole Collier, would lose 13 polling places. Nearly half of the citizens of voting age in that district are Black. Roughly 68% of citizens of voting age are either Black or Hispanic.

In Bexar County, the two Republican-held districts among the county’s 10 districts would come in first and third in terms of polling place gains. Among Dallas County’s 14 districts, the district gaining the most polling places is held by a Democrat, but the county’s two GOP districts would rank second and fourth for the biggest gains.

For election administrators in the targeted counties, the forced redistribution of polling places would come shortly after most of them ditched Election Day precinct-based voting and began allowing voters to cast ballots at any polling place in a county. Many Texas counties have operated under that model, known as countywide voting, for years, but it has been taken up most recently by both blue urban metros and Republican-leaning suburbs.

“It was unexpected to find language that ties voting locations to where you live exactly in the [same section of state] code that says you can vote wherever,” said Heider Garcia, the elections administrator for Tarrant County, which made the switch to countywide voting in 2019.

While SB 7 targets the state’s biggest counties that use countywide voting, the more than 60 other Texas counties that offer it — many rural and under Republican control — would remain under the state’s more relaxed rules for polling place distribution.

In urban areas, a formula based on voter registration will inherently sway polling places toward Republican-held districts. House districts are drawn to be close to equal in total population, not registration or voter eligibility. Registration numbers are generally much lower in districts represented by Democrats because they tend to have a larger share of residents of color, particularly Hispanic residents — and in some areas Asian residents — who may not be of voting age or citizens. That often results in a smaller population of eligible voters.

But in selecting voting sites, counties generally mull various factors beyond voter registration. They consider details like proximity to public transportation, past voter turnout, areas where voters may be more likely to vote by mail instead of in person and accessibility for voters with disabilities. In urban areas in particular, election officials also look to sites along thoroughfares that see high traffic to make polling places more convenient. Some of the Republican districts that would gain polling places under the proposed formula are situated toward the outskirts of a county or along the county line, while the Democratic seats losing voting sites are closer to the urban core.

“It’s much more than throwing darts at a board,” said Isabel Longoria, the Harris County election administrator. “There’s a lot of parameters that go into choosing a location. It’s not based on partisanship or what House district you’re in but really what will provide access to voters historically, socially, culturally, transportation-wise and everything in between.”

Counties like Harris must also confront historic and racist underdevelopment in communities that are home to large populations of people of color, particularly historic Black communities. In some suburban areas, Longoria posited, the county will be able to use a large high school gymnasium or community center where it can set up 20 to 30 voting machines, but in a historically Black neighborhood, they may need two smaller locations.

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, the Mineola Republican who authored SB 7 and the new polling place formula, did not respond to a request for comment.

In shepherding the bill through the Senate, Hughes told his colleagues he was aiming for polling places to be “distributed equally throughout the county, not favoring one party or the other.”

“The goal of that [provision] is to make sure that if we do countywide voting, like many counties do … if it’s a Republican county, we don’t want them to be tempted to put all the polling places in the Republican areas, and we don’t want the Democratic-run counties to do that either,” Hughes said during a March committee hearing.

When pressed by Dallas Democrat Royce West on his focus on the state’s largest counties, Hughes said complaints about lopsided polling place distribution had come from those counties. He also wrongly claimed that countywide voting was initially only offered in larger counties.

The 2020 election marked the first major election during which the state’s five largest counties all operated under the countywide model, but countywide voting is a familiar concept throughout the state. Lubbock County, south of the Panhandle, actually piloted the model in 2006. Travis County began using it as early as 2012, but the other large counties didn’t adopt it until 2019.

SB 7’s formula could also apply to the distribution of voting equipment and poll workers. Local officials have said this likely blocks them from setting up the extra-large polling places, such as voting sites in stadiums and arenas, that some counties used in November. But it could also complicate set ups at historically popular polling places where counties try to tailor a larger setup, including more voting machines and check-in stations, to meet expected demand.

It remains unclear if the formula will end up in the final version of SB 7. In advancing the measure, the House and Senate essentially passed two different bills that must be consolidated.

The Senate’s version is expansive and would make changes to almost the entire election process, restricting early voting hours, local options for casting ballots, mail-in voting and the distribution of polling places. The House swapped out the Senate’s language in committee and replaced it with its own priority election bill that was in some ways tighter in scope and was further slimmed down during the chamber’s floor debate.

The bill is now in a conference committee made up by members from both chambers who are expected to work out the differences in each chamber’s version of the bill — both of which remain opposed by civil rights groups with long histories of fighting back voting laws that could harm voters of color.

It’s possible the Republican-majority committee could come back with a massive bill that includes both iterations of the legislation, including the polling place formula.

In SB 7, local organizers who work to encourage election participation see the potential for urban counties to lose the flexibility that comes with countywide voting, particularly when it’s coupled with other proposed restrictions to limit voting options and early voting hours, said Corisha Rogers, a Houston regional field coordinator for the Texas Freedom Network.

“This bill is not helping,” Rogers said. “It’s a rollback on the progress that was made in the previous election.”

Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article was provided on this site.

We hope that you found the post above useful and/or interesting. You can find similar content on our blog here: www.northtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should write about for you in future.

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

(in response to @mirrorfalls question on my favourite Moriarty, which I answered... then deleted. Because I’m good at tumblr.)

To answer the question of what my favourite versions of Moriarty is, we need to figure out what, imo, makes a ‘good’ Moriarty. For my money, there are three aspects that make Canon Moriarty interesting:

Intellect: probably obvious, but Moriarty is an opposite to the World’s Greatest Detective, so his intellect, like Holmes’, is key to his character.

Familiarity: the phrase ‘everything I have to say has already crossed your mind/then possibly my answer’s crossed yours’ is a cliche of Holmes/Moriarty interactions, but it’s a damn good cliche for a reason. Holmes and Moriarty should have a healthy respect for each other, that’s true, but more importantly they should have this sense of, as Neil Gaiman once said about him and Terry Pratchett: ‘You’re another one of me! I didn’t realize they made another one!’

Savagery: Seems weird given the other two points, but a good Moriarty should always have this point that, if pushed off, attempts to, say, push a guy off a waterfall. If my favourite Holmes is a bleeding heart barely pretending to be an unfeeling machine, Moriarty is barely hiding his inner savage behind the mask of congeniality.

So, with that out of the way, my most interesting (not objectively worse/best, just the ones I feel deserve attention) Moriarty’s from worst to best.

10: BBC Sherlock (Andrew Scott)

Let’s break this down: he’s not 1 because no-one in Sherlock is smart, it’s just Moffat trying to trick the audience with lack of explanation. He’s not 2 because Moffat is so obsessed with twists that Sherlock and Moriarty spend most of their time twisting each other so much that there is no time given to their familiarity between them. He’s not 3 because he’s not savage - he’s a poor man’s Heath Ledger’s Joker, but boring and with more homoerotic subtext. He’s not Moriarty. He’s just boring.

9: Elementary Moriarty (Natalie Dormer)

I really wanted to place her higher because I honestly love Natalie Dormer’s version, but whilst she covers the first two points the focus is more on her torrid romance with Watson Holmes, which is all well and good but does rather detract from her Moriarty-ness.

8: Young Sherlock Holmes (Anthony Higgins)

This version of Moriarty, like this version of Sherlock, is... interesting. We don’t really see his savagery, but the entire movie works to build up his relationship with Holmes. I could have done with a little less racism, though. And a little more actual Egyptian Moriarty in a movie that makes him Egyptian.

7: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

1 and 3, mostly - as interesting as the idea that he’s a former British agent turned actual bad guy is, that’s the disadvantage of removing Holmes from the story - it’s like a Joker story without Batman, Moriarty doesn’t really have anyone to contrast with, and the two people who can contrast with him - Mycroft and Fu Manchu - never share a second of pagetime with him. And yet you can only do Holmes v Moriarty so many times, so how do you make Moriarty interesting without Holmes? Well...

6: Newman’s Moriarty

...You make them the contrast of another character, that’s what. In all seriousness, Newman’s version of Moriarty might not get much to do, but man does he feel good.

The premise of Hound of the D’Urbervilles, i.e. Sherlock Holmes but Moriarty instead, is brilliant at giving us not just how similar Holmes and Moriarty are, but how different - a personal highlight being Moriarty telling Moran that of course he didn’t figure out Moran’s backstory using deductive reasoning, why would he waste his time, he researched everything about him before he entered the room. 

I’m not entirely sure if Newman’s Moriarty is savage as opposed to increasingly petty, but his relationship with Moran hints that whilst Holmes looks at people and sees problems to be fixed, Moriarty looks at people and sees tools to be exploited, and that is a pretty sweet contrast that isn’t really explored in other versions.

5: Brett Moriarty (Eric Porter) + Merrison Moriarty (Michael Pennington)

Moving on to a classic Moriarty, whilst I don’t really think Porter adds anything the same way Brett does, he is still a really engaging portrayal. The bit where Holmes and Moriarty exchange a look on the Reichenbach Falls? Brilliant, and it wouldn’t be half as good without his particular portrayal, which stems far closer to the canon than previous ones on this list.

The BBC Radio adaptation is practically tied with this because they’re extremely similar - both attempt to follow canon as closely as possible, whilst adding their own twists. I do prefer the radio version, though, because we get some hint as to how Moriarty’s organization works and how much of a threat Moriarty is. This is actually enhanced by it being radio - whereas Brett’s version has to have Moriarty enter the room because it’s a visual medium, the radio adaptation can just have Holmes playing the violin, suddenly stopping and then revealing Moriarty’s been in the room this whole time. It’s really good, is what I’m getting at. But speaking of canon...

4: Canon

@mirrorfalls said in their original question that no version of Moriarty since the canon has ever actualized the reptilian qualities of Moriarty, and I can’t help but agree. It’s really interesting that Moriarty is linked to an animal whilst Holmes compares his body in another story to ‘a mere appendix’ - something intrinsically human even as it is superficially worthless. The idea of Moriarty in this version - calm, cold, but liable to snap at any point - is quite simply perfect, and the only thing that doesn’t rank him higher is that, in the same way William Hartnell doesn’t rank as one of my favourite Doctors, what it means to be Moriarty has changed so much since his inception. I don’t think Conan Doyle ever intended Moriarty to have the staying power that he did - he’s a plot device, pure and simple. Other authors added to that, and so we’ve got the version of Moriarty which lasts today.

3: Light Yagami

...Hear me out.

No, Light isn’t exactly a traditional Moriarty. For one thing, I’m fairly certain Moriarty doesn’t have a god complex, or a magic notebook that kills people, or a snarky apple loving Death God as a sidekick (Though, who knows, give Moran an apple fixation...) But, there’s a reason I recommend at least the first half of Death Note for anyone wanting a great Holmes/Moriarty story... It’s really good at outlining exactly what makes Moriarty and Holmes so interesting: Mind Games. Mind Games galore.

Watch, say, L’s introduction. Now imagine Holmes challenging Moriarty in the same manner. Hell, Light definitely ticks all of the points of a good Moriarty in this scene alone: he anticipates the police noticing him, he builds such a good rapport with L without either of them actually meeting that I remember losing my shit when I first watched Death Note and realized that this episode would feature the two of them actually meeting face to face, and despite his apparently calm demeanor at first, he immediately kills Lind L Tailor the instant he says something he doesn’t like. Just... he might not be a ‘true’ Moriarty, but he’s a damn good interpretation even if that wasn’t the goal. Speaking of not exactly ‘true’ interpretations...

2: Professor Ratigan (Vincent Fucking Price)

No objections, I trust?

Really, though, I wasn’t someone who watched Great Mouse Detective as a kid - I first watched it about two years ago, and god damn is this a good movie. True Story, when thinking about which Moriarty’s belong on this list, I immediately jumped to Ratigan, because he’s brilliant. He ticks all the boxes and then some - His intellect may not be his primary trait, but it’s still there, and his rapport with Basil is the stuff of legend at this point. And, to be brutally honest, Ratigan is the reason savagery is on this list in the first place. That fight on Big Ben? No version of Reichenbach has yet surpassed it, and it is everything great about this version of that core concept. Really, everything about Ratigan is a summation of how to do a brilliant Moriarty.

So, who can top the World’s Greatest Criminal Mind? Well...

1: RDJ Moriarty (Jared Harris)

Yes, I know, I was surprised to.

I was around during the Sherlock/RDJ films strife. I remember how much these films were lambasted for being ‘too action-packed’ and ‘not cerebral enough’, in stark contrast to the majesty of Sherlock and it’s twerpish plot twists. But when I think of a great Moriarty? Oh, boy, this one kicks Sherlock’s ass.

It’s also irritating, because it’s really hard to point out what makes him better than Ratigan or even Light. His plan is convoluted at best (not that the other two are any better - a good Moriarty does not a decent plan make), not helped by it being exactly the same as his plan in that godawful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie (which, btw, would still be bad even if it didn’t drive Sean Connery away from the film industry, but is far worse on those grounds) but, still, look at this scene. Or this one. Or that fight scene.

Tell me that’s not Moriarty.

That first scene especially runs through all three establishing Moriarty traits, yet perfectly utilizes all of them. We see how smart he is, we see his and Holmes’ respect for one another, but at the same time we see how much Holmes wants to see him behind bars and we have the perfectly paced reveal of his murder of Irene and that he intends to do the same to Watson and Mary. Everything about this scene is brilliant despite it being just the two of them talking. There’s even a bit later in the movie where Moriarty outsmarts Holmes and they communicate the gamut of emotions both characters are feeling through them exchanging a single glance.

So, yes, these films may be a bit too action packed. Yes, they may exaggerate character’s abilities, their plots may be inconsequential for the most part. But goddamn is their Moriarty a classic.

[xraytwo]

Another long(er) read, indulge me.

Why I Still Miss Donna Summer

It's been a little under five months since I underwent my "Donna Summer Renaissance". With the passage of time, this seems a good place to look back. Want to flesh out some thoughts and feelings on why I like her music and why I find her kind, warm, funny and genuine. For some context, here is the original article.  I'll wait, lol.

https://xraytwo.tumblr.com/post/189593217823/how-i-learned-to-miss-donna-summer

During December (and the following months), have had the chance to listen to a lot of her music. Still haven't listened to everything but enough to glean some favorites. Have also listened to a handful of albums on Youtube.

Here are my Personal Top 5 Donna songs. Interpretations are mine, unless otherwise noted:

1) MacArthur Park (from "Live and More") – Written by Jimmy Webb in 1967. Was originally recorded by actor Richard Harris in 1968. His version is ok. There were some other versions from the early 70's, including one, I think, from Frank Sinatra. The song is melodramatic with some oddball and out of left field lyrics. Well, it was the 60's. It's an ode to 'romantic resilience ' (I read that somewhere but it seems a good interpretation). The music is absolutely great. Something about the beginning of this song. Those opening piano chords get me every time. Then Donna starts singing. Goosebumps. She is perfect throughout the whole thing, making great choices on how and where to change things up for the best effect. She makes you care about about a cake thats been left out in the rain, lol (the metaphor of neglecting a love or relationship). This song is a great showcase of her range, power and emotive quality. I would say her version is the definitive one. Hard to imagine anyone else singing it as well as she does. There are some other good versions out there, but nobody can touch her. She owns this song. It is excellent live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFHVBnR7G0

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkihKdznWwo

2) I Feel Love (from "I Remember Yesterday") – This one is THE iconic Donna Summer song, in my opinion. It was years ahead of it's time and still sounds modern today. From what I read about it, the creation process was one happy accident after another, so the pieces kind of fell into place. It is from a concept album where each song is in the style of a different time period of the 20th Century, going from the past, to today (the 70's), to the future. I Feel Love is the future, and boy was it. The music is basically all a Moog Modular synthesizer. Donna's vocals, all I can say is, just Wow. Trancelike, emotive, Otherwordly. There's not much more that can be said. Again, perfect choices. It's hard to imagine anyone other than her singing it. Sam Smith gave it a shot, but it's not the same. Something about the quality of her voice. It's just perfect. The whole song is a stereophonic trip, with the vocals taking you on a ride to the future. Donna cowrote some of the lyrics. This one gets my pulse pounding and always a delight to listen. Live doesn't seem to quite match the studio but her voice is great. The performance where she sings with an orchestra, is to die for (Night at the Proms 2005). Unfortunately, that version is short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm-ISatLDG0

3) Cold Love (from "The Wanderer") – Donna ROCKS. After her Disco era, she wanted to change musical direction (something that had really started with the "Bad Girls" album), going to a more New Wave/Rock sound. Here we have driving guitars, a great hook and again, great vocals that serve the song. I remember hearing this back in 1980 (or so) and being absolutely shocked it was Donna Summer. I also remember absolutely loving it. Only heard it a handful of times back then and tracked it on the Top 40 Countdowns. It got to about #30 or so before sliding off the charts. So, I completely forgot about it until stumbling back upon in December. It kick started memories. One memory of being in a car on a class trip and hearing it come on, and was toe tapping to it. But about halfway through the song, went out of range of the station. Then I was bummed. It's not AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, but it cooks. It's a great little song and in a style I wish she would have done more of. She definitely had the vocal chops for it (I think she actually considered herself a Pop and Rock singer. Her first pro gig was in a Blues Rock band). She was a vocal chameleon and really could sing any modern contemporary style she wanted. This one is proof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0pVV1pSDM8

4) State of Independence (from "Donna Summer") – A song originally written by Jon Anderson (of Yes) and Vangelis (of .. well ... Vangelis). It seems to have a slight reggae feel and New Age style lyrics. It is an uplifting number. Again, her voice is just perfect for the song. It slowly builds up over its runtime, adding different layers of instruments along the way that just keep growing. Her voice keeps up with it, never flinching.  In a way, this song is tailor made for her Christian faith. There is a live version (from "A Hot Summer Night with Donna") where she closes the show with it. Her daughter guests sings, starting some of the first verse, before Donna joins her. As the song nears it's end, she adds in the verse from John 3:16 (For God so loved the world .... ). And that drives the point home. To me, that shows what this song really means to her. It is an affirmation of faith. The live versions are great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XH9BY-u6jw&list=OLAK5uy_khuyER8zJfzTfLfzycfhle6IZL_xL6YoE&index=5&t=0s

5) There Will Always Be a You (from "Bad Girls") / Sand On My Feet (from "Crayons") - Yes, I know this makes six songs in my top five. Sorry, Common Core math. I don't think Donna gets enough credit for how well she does ballads. Granted most of her songs are upbeat danceable numbers. But her ballads are in another realm. First "There Will Always Be a You". I have to start by saying, this song utterly DESTROYS me. She wrote everything here, music and lyrics. It originates from the aftermath of a bad argument with her then boyfriend (and future husband). Afterwards, she went to a piano and it all just came out. Starts with a haunting, vocal melody, no words, she's just singing notes. Then the piano comes in and plays the same notes. Pitch perfect. She is saying, we may have our ups and downs but you will forever be the love of my life, regardless of what happens, or how bad things get. The music to this song, beautiful, gorgeous and sweet. The producers really did her justice on this one. In an interview, she was asked which of the songs, she had written, was her favorite. This was it. You can tell this song is her baby. I think it is one of, if not the most emotive and heartfelt singing performances she gives on a recording. Haven't found a live version. Some lyrics from the song

"After rainy, stormy weather |

I am yours and you are mine |

Till the stars fall from my eyes |

There will always be a you".

They work better with the music rather than reading them obviously. If you haven't heard this before give it a listen. You can thank me later. This ... song ... utterly ... DESTROYS me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBHnPHztmJI&list=OLAK5uy_nOCptCWRNZw_Nfh3lcXx_JCYWLKy-c5Bc&index=11&t=0s

And now "Sand on My Feet", from her last studio album. Let me start by saying, this song utterly DESTROYS me. It's one she cowrote. A very simple production. I think this is on purpose, to be just a song with a simple message. It's a love letter to her husband. This one is acoustic guitar based and it also has lovely music as well. Some context, in the live version she gives some background on the writing. This song was written at her beach home in Florida (this is important for later) and is pretty much the setting. The live version is great by the way. She sings of their life together, that she will love him where ever they are. She is happy to simply be in their home, by the beach (just to be), with him. Beautiful. Sometimes the simple things in life are the most important. She really didn't get enough credit for how good a songwriter she was. The Chorus:

"And it feels like love, and it feels so good | I wanna feel like the roarin' thunder | Wanna be the heaven that your sky is under | Oh, I say, you say, oh (It's like love) | All that I need, baby it's true | The sand on my feet and you"

You really need to hear how she weaves her vocals around those lines. Beautiful. Listen to it. You can thank me later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxNszejp99g

live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Cm3klIpKo

Also, here are the last set of lyrics from the song:

"How many lovers | Have walked along the shore before | Before you and I | How many said goodbye"

That last line. There is tragic irony to it. Remember the song was written in her beach home. Donna passed on May 17, 2012, at her beach home in Florida. The same one she wrote this song in. The irony of that last line, in the place she had love for and from her family, where she wrote this beautiful song, on or near the beach. In all likelihood this is home she said goodbye to them. This ... song ... utterly ... DESTROYS me. I adore both of them. Two songs, thirty years apart. One from her peak and the other near the end. Wow ... just Wow. No words.

She has a lot of good songs. I do like a lot of her classics but also some of the lesser known ones. I haven't heard all of her catalog but do have some 'honorable mentions' from the ones I have. "Love to Love You Baby", "Could It Be Magic", "Winter Melody", "I Remember Yesterday", "Breakdown", "I Believe in Jesus", "This Time I Know It's For Real", "When Love Takes Over You" (a fun and cute video), "Heaven's Just a Whisper Away", "Friends Unknown" (a love letter to her fans), "Stamp Your Feet", "The Queen is Back" and "Be Myself Again" (another great ballad). Know it's a lot of honorable mentions and have still forgotten a few.

How the Hell did I miss this for forty plus years???

From my earlier article (see link above if you haven't already) I thought she was the kind of person that would make a really good friend. I found some anecdotal stories from people, randomly running into her at Other Places and Times (sorry, couldn't resist). They are mostly from comments following videos or articles. Just people describing their encounters. I'm telling them from memory as these stories would be hard to dig back up. Some details may be fuzzy but the events are essentially correct.

Story Number 1: A guy is getting on an airline. While entering, he notices a pretty woman sitting in the seat beside his. He takes his seat. Sometime after takeoff. He starts to realize who she may be. They actually start up a conversation, just chit chatting. He asks her where she is going. Her reply, "Going to Miami to see my friend KC."  Anyone from the 70's or early 80's, knows who KC in Miami is. So, now for sure he knows who she is and they continue to talk during the flight. At the end, she gives him some contact info and says, "If your ever in New York, give us a call". Don't know if the Passenger ever did.

Story Number 2: A handicapped person is getting out of his car and into a wheelchair. Apparently, he is having some difficulty and drops his briefcase and items scatter. He soon hears a large SUV type vehicle drive up and hears a woman's voice say, "Do you need help?"  He says he does. When she gets out of the vehicle, he realizes who it is. She helps him gather his things and then gets in the vehicle and drives off as quickly as she arrived.

Story Number 3: A person is walking down the street in a large city.. He hears some music coming from a warehouse and there is a small crowd in front of it, looking inside. Curious he goes over to see whats going on. It is Donna Summer and her band rehearsing a performance for a talk show later in the day. It's supposed to be a closed set. When the song is finished, the small audience claps. Hearing the fanfare, she turns around, see's the small group and bows to them.

Story Number 4: Not an individual story but a concert one. It is the beginning of one of her later tours. Near the start of a show she tells the audience it has been a while and she is nervous. To which someone in the crowd yells, "We love you Donna!!". She smiles and replies to the audience, "Tonight I am all yours." She relaxes and puts on a great show. Her fans LOVED her, and she LOVED her fans (see the song "Friends Unknown").

These anecdotal stories tell me something about the kind of person she was. She could have just ignored a random stranger on a plane, or kept driving past someone in need of help, or gotten snitty with people who were looking in on a closed rehearsal, or not had the respect for her fans to tell them she was afraid of letting them down. A Really .. Good .. Friend.

Stories like these, her music and her kindness .. warmth .. humor and genuineness are Why I Still Miss Donna Summer.

Over the last month and a half, actually engaged in a couple of Donna Summer related activities. At the beginning of March, got the chance to see the touring company for "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical". There were some cheap nosebleed seats available. Fortunately, DPAC doesn't seem to really have any bad seats. So the view of the stage was pretty good, allbeit further away. I had never been to a live musical before, so it was an experience. As for the show itself, the three ladies portraying Donna did a very good job with the songs. They aren't Donna Summer (there are very few singers who are in that ballpark) but they were quite good. Interestingly, "On the Radio" received the largest audience response that night. I almost got a little misty eyed at "Friends Unknown" (almost).  Don't judge. Overall, I found it an enjoyable and entertaining show. Recommended if you are a fan.

Later in March, received a second hand copy of her autobiography "Ordinary Girl: The Journey". She spends time talking about her childhood, living in Europe, the disco era and the time after disco with family life. She talks about her paintings (yes she painted) and life on a farm. She doesn't spend a whole lot on controversial topics. I guess she said all that was needed to be said outside of the book. At the end, she talks about organizing a Broadway show, about her life. That version was not to be. Her reason for writing a book was to be a beacon for others. She suffered from insecurities and low self-esteem when younger and wanted to let anyone know, you to can prevail over any obstacle. It is a good read and I finished it in less than a day, almost 250 pages. Tons of black and white pictures throughout. I really did enjoy it and can recommend for anyone with a passing interest or who (again) is a fan.

Sometimes, I wish there is a way to send a message to myself in the past. Don't we all, lol. Would address mine around 10 to 12 years ago. Tell myself, "You need to go see Donna Summer live in concert". At this point my younger self probably rolls his/my eyes. "I know that now, she is not someone you listen too. But believe your older self when I say, there will come a time when you will appreciate the experience and it will be a memory you can cherish forever."

In closing, this is me putting thoughts down on virtual paper. If you read this, hope you gain some understanding from it. I know quite a few of you out there roll your eyes whenever I make a Donna post, lol. Admittedly, all of this takes place after she left us, and that probably colors my thoughts and perceptions. But, it has been an extraordinary journey, even though at times quite sad. I'll leave one more item here, a link to the song I wrote and produced, an effort to process thoughts and emotions. Some of you have already seen, listened or ignored it, lol. And that is ok. I can only hope she's looking down, hears it and smiles.

https://soundcloud.com/rayphelps-1/donna-summer

This is Why I Still Miss Donna Summer.

April 27, 2020

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Fire Emblem Is Kind of a Persona Game Now

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/fire-emblem-three-houses-fire-emblem-is-kind-of-a-persona-game-now/

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Fire Emblem Is Kind of a Persona Game Now

I went into Three Houses excited to see how its traditional tactical RPG battling had changed. Trailers have shown off seemingly tile-less battlefields, covered in armies of soldiers led by the series’ traditional permadeath-threatened heroes. Combat animations are more detailed than ever, and seem to involve more than just individuals facing off against one another. From some angles it looked more like Total War, or even the long-forgotten Kessen, than a Fire Emblem

game. But after playing its first five chapters, the most striking comparison for Three Houses isn’t its fellow strategy games, but Persona. I was not expecting that.In typical Fire Emblem fashion, Three Houses begins as a mercenary hero with a mysterious past begins to discover their destiny. In this case, that involves finding out that there seems to be a magical girl with time manipulation powers living in your head – you know the drill. Soon, for initially unexplained reasons, you’re drafted in to become a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery, an officer’s training school for the continent of Fódlan’s three (relatively) peaceful countries – the Adrestian Empire, the Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance. Each country has a house at the school, and each house comes with its own strengths and weaknesses – you’re asked to choose one and become its head professor, steering the students’ education in the art of war. Imagine a version of Harry Potter where he was chosen to come in and teach instead of learn, essentially.

And here’s where it gets interesting. Between major story beats (which always centre around a traditional Fire Emblem battle), you’re presented with a calendar, dotted with duties, special events, even student birthdays. In fact, in my 9 hours with the Nintendo Switch game so far, the majority of my time has been spent on these moments between battles, because there’s quite so much to do.

Each week you’re able to offer personal instruction to members of your House, have them perform group activities to improve their bonds, and set their learning goals (which allow them to take exams to change troop class). On free days you can explore the monastery; performing odd jobs, garden, cook, fish, hold tea parties, even enter students into mock tournaments. That said, you could instead choose to organise seminars with guest lecturers who have different specialities to you, or take your student army into the field to help them build levels.

Every action comes with a points cost, with only a limited number of choices per week, making this a constant balance between personal stat-buffing, relationship building and party composition, never quite giving you everything you want and forcing you to prioritise. If you’ve played a Persona game, you understand.

The most striking comparison for Three Houses isn’t its fellow strategy games, but Persona. I was not expecting that.

“

It’s a novel way to approach the grind in a Fire Emblem game, while building on the series’ more recent interest in character development and interactions between every single hero. And lord there are a lot of heroes – every House features eight students, not to mention the teachers, monastery knights and other figures of Fódlan who appear from time to time. With most of that list recruitable to your army (you can charm students into ‘defecting’ with enough work), it feels like quite a feat of design and writing to allow for so many specific interactions between characters.

But while it has the structure of Persona, the opening of Three Houses suggests it lacks a little of the refinement. In Persona 5, conversations or events feel tailored precisely to the day you have them, making them feel special for finding and choosing them, but Three Houses often boils down to “should I talk to this person for some extra lance skills, or this person for extra riding skills”. Personally, I’m extremely into the min-max elements at work here, but I do worry that, without additions and after tens of hours, this process could feel more like busywork than meaningful choice for some. All of these non-battle sections can be skipped and automated, but being able to miss something you don’t like isn’t quite the same as having something you like in the first place.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Screenshots

Thankfully, Fire Emblem’s core combat remains as strong as ever – this is still the tense, punishing tactical fare we’ve come to expect, with enemies keen to surround and kill your fledgling heroes as soon as possible, while you balance weapon types and special abilities to manage the flow of battle. It’s more or less immediately familiar to seasoned players – barring the new lack of the series’ weapon triangle mechanic and some new options for special moves – but there are endless guides for new ones. One notable change comes in the form of Time Pulses, which allow you to rewind actions up to three times per battle – perhaps to offer more incentive for players to avoid Casual mode (where characters retreat rather than permanently die when their health’s depleted), but also allowing for a bit more attacking improvisation.

On a TV, it has to be said that Three Houses is a fairly ugly thing, particularly when it comes to environments (although it suffers far less in handheld mode), but it comes with a sense of presentational style that previous entries haven’t had. Battlefields are presented more naturalistically as smooth slices of terrain, with their underlying chess-like tiles only appearing when you’re controlling a character, and you can now zoom into the world to see your characters surrounded by equippable battalions of soldiers (which offer stat buffs and extra abilities). I found myself spending a lot of time looking at the world from this level, just for the sheer novelty of it. New battle sequences are just as nice on the surface, with the camera swooping even further down to watch your attacks, although I’ve been a little disappointed by how few animations are on offer, with multiple special moves sharing a single look.

In essence, that comparison to Persona is a blessing and a curse – it shows Fire Emblem is reaching for something new and exciting, but also sets a very high bar, both for look and feel. I have my worries, but Fire Emblem games tend to change radically tens of hours into their story, and we’ve already been told that the same will happen in Three Houses, meaning the novelty should hopefully stay fresh. Where it goes from there is still anyone’s guess, but there’s no doubt this opening section is a bold, confident step in a very new direction. Just like its student heroes, this is a series in the process of learning, and its learning from one of the best – that seems worth some extra credit to me.

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s UK Deputy Editor, and he is all Leicester Alliance, all day. Follow him on Twitter.

Source : IGN

[maltedmilkchocolate]

Wow, award for most fucked up dream goes to me. It was like Haikyuu!! meets Overwatch, meets Neon Genesis Evangelion, meets Harry Potter, meets Real Life, meets the ability to travel between dimensions. And boy was it a fucking mess. 

At one point I was Kuroo and Kenma, whilst Kuroo tried to convince you can eat healthily on a student diet. And made weird creative food things. 

Then I was with someone I was ‘dating’ trying to pull an ‘april fools’ prank to convince him I was actually part faerie or dragon. And it was going hilarious, until we were in the water, and some creature tried to maul us from the depths.

Then I was possibly with the same guy, in a different world? location? but I had some books with me, and was messaging a friend to read with me like Synchro style, because I either wanted to trick the person I was with about something, or wanted to get away from them?

The book seemed to be Harry Potter. Seemed to be. But the more I read. The more I was in a different world. And it looked like a town based on the style of Diagon Alley, but it was also vastly different. The builds were weird. Like if someone pushed your furniture one inch to the left. Like something off the cover of a Lemony Snicket book.

The longer I was there, the more I spoke to people. The more I /avoided/ people. And some how it became like Overwatch, and I was Tracer, zipping around this weird city trying to find something normal. Trying to find an answer. Trying to find someone that didn’t send this feeling of unease through me.

I met a couple of ‘friends’ from ‘real life’. Whether or not they were from MY dimension was another matter. But I knew them. They knew me.

They explained that every dimension has a version of yourself, and versions of the people you know. They wont always look exactly the same. Maybe it will just be the hair colour. But they’ll be there. And she was right. I saw people I ‘knew’. I even fought people I ‘knew’. So I tried to find something ‘familiar’ that seemed safe. Zipped away from a fight. And found The Oooh’s. (I shit you not, that was this families name.) I blinked to their shop door. A quaint shop. Their name as the sign, those old style windows. I knocked on the door and opened it, peeking in “Hello? Mrs. Oooh?”

No answer yet. I stepped inside. It seemed they were a tailor. So I looked around whilst calling out to The Oooh’s. Until a voice got back to me by the counter window thing, that separated the back room.

Mrs. Oooh, was doing something. Cooking it seemed. I couldn’t quite understand her words. Something about her english was wrong. Like it was always one letter removed, or a mirror image of english.

But she let me in. And talked with me. I helped her out with her kitchen because she was being a good host and I was definitely going to be a good guest. 

The food looked really good. There was salmon, and pickled radish, and sausages, and peeled peaches, and cantelope melon that was TINY AF, and weird sausage things (that looked midway between dried meats and intestines*), and grilled chicken that was perfect in colour.

*yeah that’s where it started to get weird. But i was looking past it.

I assumed that, when the food was all put on the table, it would be shared out amongst everyone. But. No. It wasn’t. Everyone just took a plate and ate the random thing on it. No one like put a bit of each thing on to a plate and shared.

It was really fucking weird. At this point I’m with Mrs, Mr, and two of their children Oooh’s.

I get stuck with the weird sausages that look like resident evil 7 spat them out. 

I poked gingerly at it, and made... attempts. Before reaching for a melon slice and a peach, and eating through those heartily.

The Oooh’s were asking me questions. And was I telling them about Overwatch. Because the daughter seemed interested in heroic things, or curious at least. And I was so excited to tell the people about this. That heroes ARE real, that things like Overwatch DO exist, and that it’s hard and it can be dangerous, but there’s more to Overwatch than just shooting the bad guys because it’s such a huge organisation. There’s a place for so many skills. 

I dunno how the next part happened. But whilst saying this. I think I tried to shoot like the left over pip of my peach, to show that look all of this is real. I’m real. It was a harmless, controlled shot. It never would have hit anyone, or thing, other than the stupid pip I was aiming at. 

But it went straight through it. And hit the table. And kinda... but not really, went through AND bounced off the table? And hit the walls.

AND EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. The dinning room was never actually a dinning room. The Oooh’s weren’t real. The room was this metal contraption. A simulation over a metal foundation. And my shot had fried a circuit. But it had also opened a door.  So, with almighty fucking fear, I fled through that door. 

And wound up in side a huge metal room, with stairs, and monitors, and desks, and a few people. And some ‘people’ I knew.  Four people, in fact. And two of them had their heads severed, inside GINORMOUS cages to contain their heads. As though they’d cut the heads off of an Evangelion angel.

But the heads were still alive, and crying. And I was HORRIFIED. and my fourth friend was normal sized. Me sized. So I joined them, to help. They were fighting. And auto pilot took over for me. I had to do something. I had to stop this. 

I argued with another person I ‘knew’ who was in charge. Who was controlling all this. “Are you out of your mind!?” but it was all too late for that. I saw my friend get shot. I panicked. I did /something/ and the world changed. It re-wound. But it wasn’t just /my/ time that rewound. It was the worlds. 

This time when I burst through the door, THREE of my friends heads were in giant cages. And one was normal fighting to do something about the situation.

By re-winding time, i’d created another dimensional possibility. And this one had a worse outcome. 

I grabbed my friend by the hand and pulled him out of there, breaking into a run as fast as I could without Blinking for fear i’d harm friend. But there were soldiers everywhere. And we were being chased. At one point we entered a cargo hold? And collapsed. And burst into tears. Because such a tragic thing had happened to the people we loved dearly. And why were we all alone now? How could this have happened. 

It was AWFUL. But then the soldiers returned. So we escaped through a stairwell, and I shot them back.  And it was so intense and panicked and sad.  And then I woke up to my alarm. 

But damn if that weren’t the most fucked up dream that I’ve had in a while.