#me: this is a fairly decent overview i think?

[septembersghost]

hi!! so i’ve been lurking on your blog for a minute and i love how much you love elvis!! it’s super sweet and interesting to me and you’ve inspired me to start learning about him, but i just have no idea where to start. there are like 20,000 albums on spotify 💀 so i was wondering if you could help me out by recommending certain songs/albums you really love/think are essential as a starting point? and i’d love to know if there are any specific books or documentaries you think are really good too. thank you so much!!!

hi!!! anon this is so lovely and kind of you. 🥺 and you're welcome here any time, whether that's to lurk and peruse or to say hello! it's extraordinarily touching that anyone ever looks at my silly posts, or if they can inspire you to listen or learn more in any way (about anything!, but it warms my heart with elvis particularly...he deserves it). i know his discography is staggering and very hard to navigate because of the way it's laid out and the amount of albums/compilations/live recordings/sessions there are.

there's honestly not a wrong place to start, but the obvious is his first self-titled record with RCA in 1956, he's just this young, enthusiastic talent and all pure potential. my beloved is the 1969 album from elvis in memphis, you can hear the passion and invigoration he was feeling creating that music in that time and space. it has a sister album with back in memphis. there are honestly gems across so many records for various reasons, it makes it difficult to narrow down! if starting with compilations/overviews is easier (and sometimes it is!), there's the #1s (this was the first album of his i had, long ago!), the essentials, or if i can dream (which is long but has a lot of great cuts). a bunch of songs will overlap between these because they're the Iconic Tracks, i secretly cherish some of the lesser known music even more, but the famous songs are well-known for a reason! i also really love the compilations they did with the london philharmonic - they added the orchestrations over the original tracks, but the arrangements are so beautiful and full and (to me) highlight his vocals rather than overwhelming them, and i just know he would've loved to perform them in such a lush way. if i can dream (they reused this title, but i cannot blame them. that song is so important, i could wax on about it forever), the wonder of you. if you want a feeling of his live electricity, it has to be the recording of the '68 special, and/or that's the way it is. i have to mention how great thou art, gospel music was particularly dear to him and this album won him his first grammy (his only grammy awards were all in the sacred category). it's interesting too because they split the album into an "a" side, with slower hymns, and a "b" side, with uptempo songs, which is the same concept they utilized on something for everybody, "a" side ballads, "b" sides rock and roll. also i would be remiss not to mention the movie soundtrack (i am linking the deluxe for Reasons!!!), it's not all elvis himself, but the other performances, from austin and from modern day artists, are a really fun experience and speak to the way his music still resonates and can feel really timeless. there's still so much i'm leaving off of this, but i know it's a LOT to sort through.

the '68 comeback special (the file labeled "disc 1" should be the full performance itself, the other two are outtakes/other versions of the session and such!) is a must. there's also a documentary upcoming from producer/director steve binder (who also published a book on the special) in may! the documentary/concert that's the way it is from 1970 is so good and highlights not only his skill as a performer but a lot of his personality, and 1972's elvis on tour is fun too! there's an HBO documentary from 2018 called the searcher that i personally thought was beautifully done and presented. i know there's tons of stuff out there and it's as confusing to parse through as the music, and the books are even harder to navigate. the ones considered the most comprehensive are peter guralnick's the last train to memphis and careless love, they're more scholarly/journalistic than personal. the personal memoirs can all be very tricky and subjective (as other anons and i have discussed recently), though i know a lot of people enjoyed his friend jerry schilling's book me and a guy named elvis (i have read many bits and pieces of it, a bad habit of mine with books recently, but need to read it properly!). elvis: the legend is SO gorgeous and officially released from graceland, so it doesn't delve into the harder struggles or gossipy stuff, it traces his career/music/accomplishments, but that's what i love to learn about and prioritize in many ways. also, on instagram, walking in memphis is a fan page, but she shares really nice stories and photographs that delve into his humanity and character (there are many fan accounts, and good ones!, but hers might be my favorite that i've found). if anyone else has recommendations they'd like to add to this, please do!!!

i don't know if this helps, there are likely better people to ask than me and i'm honored you'd trust me to try. 😭 i hope it does give you a beginning, if you want any more information/clarification, please feel free to come back! this brightened my day (well, night! so you are a star!), thank you again for being so sweet and sending this to me. 💖💖💖

edit: elvis is back!, from the comments <3

also this is how i feel every time anyone asks me about him:

[brachiosaurus-on]

/gen, i saw the “uncharitable jedi takes” in response to that last ask (i love it), and i just had a question about the “war crimes” box because it’s the only one i feel has a bit of… validity i guess? i know the typical response to that is the geneva conventions don’t exist in star wars and therefore stuff like false surrender isn’t a war crime but it still feels weird to me? i guess i’m just interested in the deconstruction of that accusation? again, /gen

Hello anon! Thank you for a genuine ask! I will try to give a decent breakdown of why I find the accusation flimsy.

So, "war crimes" is a box on the card because it's often thrown around as a very serious condemnation of the Jedi without consideration for what makes the accusation so serious. Usually the accusation is thrown with the intent of evoking an emotional & moral reaction against the Jedi through the same emotional & moral reaction one would have against war crimes. This tends to gloss over what actually makes a war crime.

War crimes are a rejection of the concept that war justifies brutality and inhumane atrocities. The root of this is harm done to people. This article is from the BBC and gives a brief overview of what a war crime is, why they were codified into international law, and some of what constitutes a war crime. (The article is dated from 2014, so you may want to find more up to date or detailed sources if you're doing more research, but I thought it was a concise & well-written overview that helps explain the point I want to make. It's a quick read, check it out before you continue.)

When people make this accusation against the Jedi, they often cite examples where the Jedi are fighting a droid army. Battle droids are not people. Battle droids are machines designed to autonomously kill people. These machines do not have any true choice or free will of their own. "We're independent thinkers. Roger, roger," indicates that each machine is individually autonomous and will carry out its designed function & programming as long as it remains functional. That programming is to kill and destroy. I reiterate: it will kill and destroy, on its own, until it is deactivated, destroyed, or given other orders.

Now I pose the following questions: is it a crime to deceive and destroy these machines? Should these machines be given the same regard as any life form? Is there harm done when these machines are destroyed? Should the safety of these machines be given equal consideration as the lives they are programmed to end?

Star Wars is not science fiction. It is fantasy in a science fiction setting. The sentience of droids is not the point and battle droids especially are not treated with any form of sentience in the narrative because they are not sentient life forms.

Should the Jedi treat machines with the same respect they treat living people? Or, do they have a duty to protect life from killing machines? Should they use the same tactics on droids that they use on people? Or, do they have more options to defeat the onslaught because they do not need to consider enemy lives as there are no enemy lives?

If the Jedi are to be accused of "war crimes" at least put a living enemy on the other side. Ki-Adi resorting to extreme weapons against the Geonosians? Sure, there are questions to be asked about the ethics, but to respond fairly, the full circumstances must be considered, and if it's to be called a war crime there's a higher bar for that argument. Should he prioritize enemy lives over the lives of his own troopers? When the willing enemy combatants are defending factories that build extermination machines? There is no perfectly moral answer; there isn't always a perfectly moral answer. These are situations where you get to make your own judgment call about the story. Do you think it's unethical? Do you think it constitutes a war crime? Do you think it's worthy of prosecution? How do you weigh your personal opinion against the narrative intention in your interpretation of the story?

When the accusation of "war crimes" is thrown at the Jedi, it's very often not accurate to start with, and ignores the reason that war crimes are so serious. I've seen many accusations of "war crimes" thrown that tell what a war crime is, but don't talk about why it's bad, because when you consider why a war crime is a crime, the argument against the Jedi starts falling apart.

tldr: is it a "war crime" if the victim is a non-living machine designed to kill living people?

Other people have written some good metas that explore this question from other angles, I'll link some below the cut if you're interested in further reading

This one (by @trickytricky1) goes into whether or not Obi-Wan actually commits perfidy in the TCW Movie.

This one (by @writerbuddha) is similar and includes an example of Anakin in TCW.

This one (by @monjustmon) explores what we know of in-universe laws regarding war crimes.

This one (by @smhalltheurlsaretaken) discusses characters that are portrayed as war criminals.

This one (by @lethebantroubadour) provides a list of acts committed by the Separatists which do have living victims and should constitute war crimes.

[littlesixxwrites]

"Matching a Malfoy" - Chapter 30 Preview

Catch up with MaM here on AO3. Also available on FFN.

Below is a snippet from the upcoming chapter. Workshopping, and I hope to have it posted in a couple days.

The beeping.

The bloody beeping.

Hermione opened her eyes, a bit easier this time. The garish fluorescent lights remained exhausting. She rolled her head just the slightest bit to the left and saw Oliver was still in the uncomfortable-looking chair, scrolling through his phone. She managed to croak out,

“You remember the last time you saw me in hospital?”

“Yes,” he replied without looking up. “As I recall, it was after your sixth surgery and three physical therapists. I used to work with Premiere League footballers, so I can handle any and all levels of bullshit. I also have the unique quality of not being afraid of you.”

“Wish more people did.”

Oliver looked up and said, “Bullshit.”

Hermione laughed, and her throat burned. It felt as though acid had come up from her stomach, or she’d screamed for a half hour on end. Oliver offered her water, which she sipped eagerly. Then he made for the door, saying over his shoulder,

“Doctor needs to be in.”

He was back twenty seconds later with a decent-looking man in hospital scrubs. The man introduced himself as,

“Dr. Kettleburn, Ms. Granger. I performed the operation on your shoulder, and Mr. Wood, here, has asked to give you the overview of what was done and what his plan is for the rehabilitation of the joint. I am here to provide additional insight if needed.”

“Thank you.” Oliver sighed and said, “Hermione, I won’t lie, this day is going to be shit for you. You’re going to have a lot of shit days.”

Always the sunshine with him.

“You had a couple rather severe tears in your rotator cuff tendons, and things went about as well as they could have.” Oliver was blessedly blunt in his descriptions. “They repaired the new tear in one tendon, and managed to sort of stretch the other tendon enough to screw it back into your shoulder. No true concerns there for me. Because of the damage, it necessitated what’s called a reverse total shoulder replacement. It’s exactly what we’ve talked about the past seven years, except the ball and socket is reversed.”

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and tried to understand what that must look like. What they must’ve taken out of her to make that happen.

“Oi, Hermione,” Oliver snapped his fingers to get her attention, “if you’re going to have a breakdown, do it after I finish giving you the information.”

She mumbled, “M’kay.”

“They did a fairly new procedure to extend the life of the prosthesis and preserve the bones in your shoulder. I’m quite stoked to learn more about it, but it required the removal of the plate from your clavicle, so that is gone.”

How many incisions had they made? Did she have stitches? Hermione still wasn’t certain she had an arm—

Oliver snapped his fingers again and demanded, “Listen to the information. If this operation was successful, Hermione I think you’ll get about eighty-five percent of the movement back in your arm. Lateral and rotational. This is going to change the quality of your life, and it will change your career for the better, I promise you.”

Hermione smiled. Oliver didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

“It’s going to take loads of physical therapy to get there; and I’m not talking about you being in Wiltshire and me visiting weekly. That’s fucking gone, now. You need to be here in London, seeing me every day these first six weeks or so, and we’re going to get your shoulder to where it needs to be. My core concerns are any blood vessel damage that might’ve gone unnoticed because your arm just wasn’t moving for so long, and I am concerned about a dislocation. We’ve got to go easy on it, transition your way into the new range of motion. I am concerned your bones may be weakened, so we will keep an eye out for potential fractures as well. Overall, I am quite confident your arm will be mobile, Hermione.”

“Thank you.” Hermione wondered, “What happened? Why do I feel this weight in my chest? It’s heavy,” she pressed her right hand upward and between her breasts, “here.”

Oliver’s face crumbled. He shook his head and said,

“That’s not for me to tell you. That comes after me.”

“After you?”

“You’ve got a load of people in the waiting room, hoping you’re okay. I have the delightful job of telling them you’re going to be alright.”

“Am I?” asked Hermione. “Going to be alright?”

“When aren’t you?” Oliver stood up from his chair and said, “I’m going to give you a kiss on the cheek because I care for you and I can’t hug you because they’ve just torn your whole fucking arm apart. Do me a favour and don’t make it weird.”

Hermione tilted her head the slightest bit and laughed when she noted Oliver’s cheeks had turned just a bit pink. His lips lingered on her cheek before he whispered,

“You’re not done fighting. No matter what you hear next, remember that. You’re not done.”

[byelacey]

Hello, sorry to bother you. I'm messaging a few different artists I know/follow because I'm hoping to get multiple opinions, but no pressure! Basically, I'm looking to get my first art tablet and was wondering if you had any suggestions/tips? Whether it be specific models you'd recommend or brands you'd suggest avoiding. I know next to nothing about art tablets and I'd like to get a decent one that's going to be beginner friendly and also not break immediately, ya know? Any help is appreciated!

i'm not sure your budget so i'll just give you a general overview of my experience with different tablets. if you want a screen tablet i've had good experience with huion brand. i've also heard good things about XP-pen. and of course iPads are fairly affordable now and procreate is a cheap & fantastic program available on iPad. i own an older iPad pro and pick it up from time to time, it's great for working away from home, i just don't love apple's file management & prefer to keep stuff on my PC. if you don't want a screen tablet wacom is quality & their bamboo (intuos now i think?) are inexpensive and last for years. my first bamboo lasted 8 years and i have an intuos 4 from a decade ago that i am confident will work if i plugged it back in. my main tablet is a huion kamvas 21" screen tablet & cost me around $700 CAD new but you can get smaller ones for ~300 CAD. hope this helps!

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Koga

The new EX for the month is, for some reason, Koga. I want to complain. I want to say this is sad to me in a month that has been unparalleled in its disappointment. But let's be honest, Poison desperately needed the win.

General Overview Koga is, earnestly, a pretty solid F2P sync pair. As far as Poison goes, he's practically exceptional. Decent if awkward self-setup that plays directly into a 100% multiplier, Poison Fang into Venoshock for DPS, Mind Games 9 on Venoshock for debuffing, and he's even fairly tanky and has evasion for a Tech pair. Koga can do quite a bit, and with a potent sync nuke, he's a reasonable approach to clearing stages.

Or, well, he should be. See, Koga's tools are good, but also littered with limitations. Single-target debuffs aren't great for fast-paced 3v3 games, and never really were. Evasion doesn't really help against sync nukes. 50% to land Toxic, which he outright requires to deal damage, is too inconsistent, and a major source of frustration in Gauntlet stages given they keep shrugging it off. His DPS is poor, and while sync is much improved, it's...never quite impressed me. Koga's one of those sync nukers who really just wants to get to sync, and the time in between is kind of a nightmare for him.

But I think on balance, he still comes out as a very strong common. Few of these criticisms don't also plague the rest of the F2P pool, and most have it worse than he does.

EX and investment? The question remaining, however, is whether the EX is worth it. I'd say getting to 5* and 3/5 definitely is, Poison is hard to shop for and he's the best non-limited you're likely to find (sorry, Looker). But it's a harder sell on EX. You would think it's an easy yes, Tech gets such a boost from it. But the question of being worth it has to come from whether he's picking up KOs he otherwise misses out on. And I don't think that's been his issue. At least, not for me. Usually if he misses KO, it's by a lot, in something like Gauntlet, or against center in CS. And often it's because the Poison didn't land. I think he's an okay addition, but similarly to Clair, I feel like lacking the EX wasn't his problem. Dude just needs Hostile Environment.

Team 1: Koga, BP Janine, H!Iris/Oleana/Drasna BP Janine and Koga were designed to be used together. Double Crobat offers Koga exactly the buffs he needs without relying on MPR for max crit and evasion. Janine offering special attack on the same button as evasion is even better. H!Iris is a great pick, thanks to Poison Zone, debuffs from Acid, and most importantly, Hyper Beam. Koga's nuke is great, but he lacks for DPS, something that Iris covers very well. The fact that she also needs Janine's exact buffing kit makes this team particularly effective. But let us also not mince words: Janine is frail. She does not take hits, and relies painfully on dodge. Oleana is an alternative to Iris. She doesn't debuff special defense, but her DPS is actually stronger, and the lack of Zone means turning off Offenses +5 for No Field Effects. Combined with the debuff to offenses and sure-Toxic on her Max Move, she's a very good fit for the team. Though she does come with the issue of needing both physical and special damage reduction off. As a final consideration if you're looking for something more F2P friendly, Drasna in the general pool has fantastic on-type damage through Sludge Bomb, and receives all the same benefits from Janine.

Team 2: Koga, BP Clemont, Viola Koga is also useful in Stall comps, thanks to Toxic, and the high evade chance. Complemented with BP Clemont's defense buffs and Synchro Healing, as well as Viola's trap and special attack debuffs, they're a good core against specially-focused stages. Lodge Lillie can be used over Viola if you need physical.

Final Thoughts Koga's never really stood out to me, and it has more to do with his lack of supportive effects than anything. Mind Games 9 is cute, but single-target often doesn't amount to much. Toxic is sometimes nice, but it's the worst status for Gauntlet, single-target in CS, and only a 50/50 per hit. Koga feels like he exists entirely for damage, and felt fairly clunky at it to begin with. But a strong nuke in a rare type still counts for something. And who knows, maybe one day we'll get a Sprint pair that really works for him.

[themarvelhorse]

Hi, Marvel! Hope you're doing well. Was wondering if you knew of any good causes or charities that could use more attention from folks wanting to make the world a little better.

Hello! I hope this isn't too late especially since this time of year has lots of groups and institutions asking for donations and stuff.

First off, thank you for contacting me! I appreciate you reaching out and believing that I would know a good answer to this! Bless you anon, I hope you're well too!

Second, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Admittedly I can't quite say for sure which causes or charities could use more attention. I don't like to tell people who to vote for politically even though I secretly hope they do vote for one party over another. It's satisfying enough knowing that they'll vote.

But to that point, I would like to at least provide what you may need to know!

The Small Change Fund might be what you're looking for, but its very Ontario and environmentally focused right now.

CanadaHelps is a fundraiser dedicated to streamlining the donation process, which could go a long way if you don't know where to send your support.

This can probably give a general overview of who's doing fairly well I suppose.

Charity Watch and Charity Navigator I believe are both decent places to check if you're not sure about how well said charity is spending your goodwill, they're US focused mind you.

Charity Intelligence is Canada focused version of those American charity accountability orgs, gives grades based on their need for funding and other metrics too!

It's hard to really pin down and say who to donate to, causes or charities or otherwise. The world is handling some difficult circumstances right now, and everyone seems to need help. I know a local food bank received more donations than in the past few years, but that doesn't mean stop donating. Inflation (and oligopolic grocery corporations) have made it so they really need more help.

So your local food bank could be a good place! Or maybe another organization working towards a problem you've heard about recently?

I know the American Red Cross has had its scandals in the past, but the Canadian Red Cross seems alright, as do other Red Cross organizations in countries facing challenges of their own. You could also donate to their international version, like the main ICRC one. Hard to go wrong - the Red Cross has helped in Canada with covid response (and even "post covid" with the failing provincial health system), and they support climate change action and the like. Funds are always needed before disasters to adequately respond to them when they do happen.

You could also always donate to the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite what people say about the UN and how useful it is, I truly believe its better that it exists than otherwise. Setting the SDGs is a start to making things better. The UN can be a tool for colonialism, but I'll paraphrase Romeo Dallaire - the UN can be a force for good, but how good it is depends on the member states. Its voluntary, so projects at the UN rely on member states' money, or yours. Or your vote and voice if you tell your reps that you want them to help implement the SDGs. Think Elon Musk refusing to donate $6 billion to end world hunger.

Sorry, a bit ranty there. The SDGs are good because you have your choice of goals, or can split your donation evenly among them. It covers almost every basis of improving society/life on earth for everyone.

Your home region may also have an organization dedicated to improving democracy. The Democracy Engagement Exchange, Democracy Watch, Fair Vote Canada, and Apathy is Boring are all great causes to support, you may likely have something similar wherever you are!

I mention those because at its core, I think we have a lot of undemocratic stuff going on. Which worsens or outright causes all the other problems. Did you know Canadian food banks were supposed to be temporary? The organization Food Banks Canada is trying to eliminate the need for them. Policies like those that support affordable housing are needed. So when we have a policy failure, we have a political failure, a failure of democracy when people either don't vote or feel like their vote doesn't matter, or they don't have the time to participate. You may even want to donate to a political party you believe in. They do need your money to do what they say they'll do. It's like tumblr - kinda funny that they're trying all these things to make money, but the only other ways to keep it going would be to collect and sell your data, show more and more ads, and do all kinds of dumb stuff. If parties get donations, that's less they need from rich people/corporations that have it in order to campaign and win elections and stuff. You could donate to a party that has a lot more minority representation - that'd be even more likely to get widespread support for that minority group too.

ACORN Canada is a neat organization that supports low-moderate income Canadians, there might be something there for your region!

I'd say donate to climate change orgs - 350.org, David Suzuki Foundation, Sunrise Movement, the Climate Reality Project...

Truth is, there's lots of what feels like repetition. A lot of these orgs in the same field are competing for donations. They say things like they'll run ads to advocate for change, and more money lets them spread that influence (and ofc do other things). But like, why? Why can't they just pool money for this kind of work? Wouldn't that be more effective? I don't know honestly. I haven't worked for an NGO in any such way that I'd have insight. Wish I did...

(Sorry, gotta get back on track)

Leadnow is pretty neat since they cover a lot of the things I mentioned, all in one - equity, just society, environment, democracy. They ask what their members want them to focus on, and try to facilitate advocacy campaigns around it. They're also struggling to hit their fundraising goals this year.

Also consider donating to your local marginalized group. Spend money at their businesses and the like too! It can go a long way.

Another organization that facilitates the stuff we need to address all these other issues is the Tamarack Institute. Again, Canadian, but take a look and see if your region has something similar! They work on building better communities, which means resilience, climate action, ending poverty, helping youth, and addressing equity and inclusion. In that vein, the Community Tool Box is from the University of Kansas but is freely available to use (and donate to).

Oh, also can't go wrong with the Wikipedia donations of course.

I hope this isn't overwhelming - donor fatigue is a real thing, and its hard to feel like its worth it in the end. But it really does help~

I also realize I may not have mentioned many health care orgs, which you know is a concern for me since I've added my voice in the tags enough (what're u doin in my private but publicly available tag thoughts anyway HUH?! Jkjk I never realized this may come back to me someday lol). Truth is though, I'm not well versed in those - there's a lot and even individual hospitals around here need donations to fund what they do. It fuckin sucks.

In sum: Decide what you believe is important. Everyone from their own field will say their own thing is most important. It's hard to argue for or against it since I don't quite know every field. Causes that need more attention might be more local and need community support, or they might need funds to be more impactful even if the organization is big. But that's probably because the problem is big and doesn't get the attention it needs. Or it could cover so many other issues, or it may (appear to) be the core where the problem stems from. Its hard to parse, I know, but I do hope this helped in some way.

[onelatenight-longago]

I love games like these I think they’re so fun and cute! So for the fic ask game 🥺 ✨ 🦅 hope you don’t mind multiple! And if you want just one feel free to choose your fav :)

I don't mind multiple at all!!!

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

-- Oh wow, I really had to think about this one! I think for me its the moment that two characters end up laying their insecurities bare. I'm a sucker for it and love writing it too! I've definitely hurt my own feelings writing it though! 💀

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

-- 😵‍💫I struggle reallll hard with this. Ummm... I like to think that I can write fairly decent emotional scenes. I feel like I'm better as breaking down and describing emotions more than physical environments.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

-- Well I try....😅 I have for a handful of my longer fics. Its moreso just been a sentence or two overview per chapter that I then build around but more often than not I just wait for a moment to strike me and then I'm off on a typing tangent and either have a whole fic banged out or a chapter or two.

[sorenblr]

do you have any book recs / website recs if I wanted to get into Arthurian Legend (cuz eirikr told me to go to you)

There aren't any really ideal entry points into Arthurian literature, in my opinion. If the early Latin and pseudo-historical works strike your interest than they’re as good a place to start as you’re likely to find, but a chronological reading may not leave a new reader terribly engaged with the material since the antecedents provided by the early chroniclers such as Gildas or Nennius will seem fairly dry and foreign compared to later medieval or modern conceptions of Arthur. 

I think a large part of the appeal in studying the subject comes from tracing the development of the various images, characters, and themes that recur across the ages, since Arthuriana is less static than the great mythological cycles that were consolidated into a few principal texts, although this makes them a bit more impenetrable. But any reading order will generate succesive interest so long as you continue to read and draw connections, so here’s a quick overview of the most critical texts that might provide a decent foundation:

Chrétien de Troyes: 12th century, five verse narratives that formally introduce crucial figures such as Lancelot and Percival to the cycle and establishes the tradition of chivalric romance that will define the next several centuries. Great influence on the following entry and generally engaging as poetry in and of itself.

Le Morte d’Arthur: 15th century, an attempt to compile a ‘complete’ telling of the Arthurian cycle from the various French and English sources that came into being following Chrétien. This is the focal point of nearly all subsequent works and especially the source for nearly all popular works produced in the past 200 years, from Idylls of the King to The Once and Future King. Unfortunately plagued by an interminable middle section concerning the Tristan and Isolde romance, but I think the early modern English prose of Mallory is extremely beautiful and tends to carry the repetition. 

The Mabinogion: 12th/13th century, compilation of Welsh prose narratives. These embed the emerging romances in the earlier Welsh and Celtic myths, blending both antecendents and unrelated folklore. Honestly not the most compelling read but necessary for a broader cultural understanding of the tradition. 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: 14th century, Middle English alliterative verse narrative cocnerning Gawain’s screwball Yuletime adventure. Short and easy read, fairly self-contained and can be enjoyed with little prior context. They made a movie based on this with Sean Connery as the Green Knight and it is surprisingly not even the best adaptation of this story in film.

If I had to recommend only one of these to start with I’d probably go with Le Morte d’Arthur, although it’s quite long and reflects my personal bias: I personally started with The Once and Future King and then worked my way backwards to Mallory and the earlier French romances. Unfortunately I don’t know of any particular websites that would be good for this, although this list that Dijeh linked in the previous ask contains a lot of great online resources for the original texts. I also recommend looking into the chronicles mentioned above (Gildas, Geoffrey of Monmouth etc.) once you’ve got a grounding in the later texts. Hope this helps!

[nonbinary-enderman]

C!Phil as a father or father figure (A.K.A., Why C!Phil Isn’t A Terrible Parent)

NOTE: this post no longer reflects my feelings on this subject. there are a lot of things i said here that remain consistent, but also a lot that i am no longer comfortable with. i will leave this post up because deleting it would do more harm than good, but please do not use this post as a source when discussing things. it no longer reflects my feelings.

Back in mid-January, right after doomsday occurred, I wrote a fairly extensive monologue about C!Phil’s actions, motivations, and behavior in reference to him as a parent. This was fueled by a number of instances of me seeing people regard him as a bad, abusive, or otherwise negative father, and general frustration about that, along with assumptions about who is and isn’t his child.

Now that it has been confirmed that C!Tommy is not C!Phil’s son (as has been implied for most of the SMP’s duration thus far), I feel like it would be appropriate to post this. If you believe C!Phil to be abusive, or otherwise neglectful as a parent or as a person, I encourage you to read this post. I don’t intend to force you to change your mind on things, I just want to offer an objective analysis of his character exclusively through the lens of canon.

As a general overview, most of this comes from irritation with posts detailing C!Phil as neglectful in reference to canon. To make it clear, I do not think projecting onto characters or having AUs or headcanons about characters is bad. I just get irritated when these things are lorded around as if they are canonical, and not the AU they actually are.

To start, the majority of the “C!Phil is a bad father” content can be traced back to one of two sources: projection, or intense metagaming of SMP canon. In the case of projection, I have no qualms with that at its core; I project onto fictional characters a decent amount as well, and don’t mind people doing the same with SMP characters. The problem lies in when these beliefs are stated as fact, and people do not distinguish between their projection-fueled headcanons, and what is actually occurring in the story itself.

The second case, metagaming, is a large problem MCYT fans have even outside of just C!Phil. Metagaming is a term used in role-playing games, which describes a player's use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their character's actions, when said character has no relevant knowledge or awareness under the circumstances. In the context of the SMP, this means using information the audience knows, whether from other people’s streams or external information, to criticize the actions of a character in the story, without considering what information the character themself has access to.

This is a rampant issue. From the stream chats giving the streamers information their character should not know, or otherwise spamming chat with information or commands, like back during Tommy’s exile when both Phil and Ranboo’s chats were bombarded with people demanding they attend his beach party, to people making posts about the morality of characters without taking into account their actual perspectives, this community has a big problem with metagaming the lore. And, since this is a more general problem, I’m not going to go into too much more detail here, since I feel like I’ve covered it sufficiently as it stands.

So, returning to C!Phil, I decided to look at the reasons I’ve seen people cite when calling him a bad father or bad person, and go through them one-by-one to refute them in reference to canon, identifying cases of metagaming and assumptions made by fans.

Reason #1: Phil is an absent father

This is one I have seen a ton, and it makes me really disappointed. People constantly talking about how Phil is never there for anyone, how he just leaves to go do his own thing. The most common argument for this that I’ve seen is the fact that Phil didn't visit Tommy in exile, didn't attend the beach party he threw, and doesn't magically know about the abuse Tommy went through at the hands of C!Dream. This is a criticism I've seen of a lot of the characters, actually, with Techno more recently being another example. Many people have said things to the effect of "how can they side with C!Dream, he’s C!Tommy's abuser!!"

This fails to take into account that basically none of the characters know that.

As far as C!Techno knows, C!Dream is just the person who had Tommy exiled, and that Tommy has some confusing feelings about him that could possibly be gaslighting related, but also might be a misunderstanding. C!Phil knows even less! He just knows that Tommy was exiled for some ambiguous reason, and that Dream as a person is kind of rude, shifty, and mean, and was the opposition in the first L’Manberg war. That's all he knows.

No other character knows what Tommy went through in exile. Tommy says that as a heart wrenching thing in arguments, because to him it is, but from everyone else's perspective, namely Phil's, Tommy didn't want anyone else there. Just look at the exile as a whole from Phil's perspective.

First off, we don't know for sure that Tommy is Phil's actual son in canon, and it’s very likely that he isn’t. (EDIT: now we do know, we know that he's not. Throughout this post, I look at things as if the entire SBI family dynamic is canon, even though I did not believe it to be even at the time, simply for the sake of argument. The arguments for Phil being a bad parent or person are even less valid when acknowledging that his only child is Wilbur.) But, we do know that Phil has a propensity for becoming a role model figure to younger people he befriends, as seen with Ranboo, so we'll look at it from that angle, for the sake of argument.

From C!Phil's point of view, Tommy is this loud, boisterous, strong willed kid who was close with Wilbur. That’s... really about all that he knows. They haven't really interacted much on the server, and Tommy never once asked Phil to visit him in exile. Phil isn't psychic; how would he know what Tommy wanted without being told? From what little he could gather, Tommy was doing fine, if a little bit upset. And Phil wouldn't want to hover over Tommy constantly, because that would be annoying and overbearing.

So, Phil wasn't there simply because he had no idea he needed to be.

And, even barring that, why did Phil have to be there for Tommy? Tommy isn’t his son, and his only relation to him is through Wilbur, who is dead. It’s painful, what Tommy had to go through, but Phil isn’t someone who was somehow required to be there for him. Tommy is just some random kid, to Phil.

C!Phil has no obligation to unofficially adopt or otherwise babysit every single minor he ever interacts with, and it is unreasonable for the fandom to expect this of him.

The second argument for Philza being an absent father that I've seen is that he didn't join the server until November 16th, which was far too late to fix things. And this argument is especially frustrating because, even in the context of lore, characters cannot control when they are allowed onto the SMP. The only way to get onto the server is to either A. "hack" your way in like Phil and Ranboo did, which is demonstrably difficult, or B. get invited.

I would like to emphasize how Phil was never invited onto the server.

Techno got onto the server via invitation from Tommy and Wilbur. They did not invite Phil. Phil did not know all that much about what was happening on the server and, even if he somehow knew absolutely everything, there’s basically nothing he could have done about it. The 16th was the earliest he could possibly get there and, while it was late, there isn’t anything he could have done to expedite the process.

Reason #2: Phil killed Wilbur

This argument makes... practically no sense to me. I just don’t understand it. It is true that Phil did kill Wilbur, but in canon we get a full arc showing us exactly why that happened and that Phil greatly regrets it.

We are given a multitude of reasons as to why the scene in the button room unfolded as it did, and I’m only going to name a few of them.

Wilbur was intentionally rushing and pressuring Phil in the room, giving him no time to think or process. Phil's killing him is fast and brought on by this, because Wilbur intentionally didn't give Phil time to breathe or think in hopes of forcing him to go through with it.

Wilbur, in truth, made a half-decent argument that killing him was the best option, that he would just continue hurting people, and that he somehow deserved it. The scene and argument was manic and terrifying, but especially when he started pointing out the people he'd hurt that were right there for Phil to see the evidence of, it becomes more understandable, to a small degree.

Wilbur was the first permadeath on the server. Technically the second, but Phil didn’t know about Schlatt or his death. As a result, Phil likely didn't know the death would be permanent, since all he knew is that this wasn't hardcore. Also, there's no telling whether or not Phil knew about the "three canon lives" system at that point and, if he did, he had no way of knowing how many lives Wilbur was on.

Phil protested it a ton at first, and ultimately turned out to regret it intensely, to the point where the revival arc has turned out to be a product of what C!Philza has been doing his entire time on the server.

Phil has alluded to his character having “voices” like Techno does, referring to his chat, multiple times. Wilbur repeatedly said “Killza” when begging Phil to kill him, which could possibly be seen as him appealing to these “voices.”

Wilbur fully and desperately begged Phil to kill him, taking at least some of the blame off in some respect, and yet Phil continues to harbor full and total guilt for the action.

Reason #3: Phil displays favoritism towards Technoblade

As I stated before, I’m going to be generous here for the sake of argument. We will pretend that Wilbur being Phil’s only child isn't a factor in this at all.

(I will mention that in actual canon, it isn’t unreasonable to expect that the man would spend more time with his own friends, rather than his fiercely independent and also dead child, or the gremlin his son seemed to have some affection for, especially while still grieving his son’s death.)

But, for argument’s sake, we will pretend that Tommy, Wilbur, and Technoblade are all Phil’s “children.” In this context, we need to look at how the three of them behave, and how they are different from each other. Because it would be remiss of a parent to treat all of their children exactly the same, seeing as they are all their own unique person with their own needs and desires.

I’m going to look at Tommy’s behavior first, because I've seen a lot of posts saying something along the lines of “Tommy is the least favorite child,” and that irks me for a number of reasons.

If you want to project issues with being neglected by a parent onto a canon, non-AU portrayal of an SMP character, C!Fundy is right there.

C!Tommy is fiercely independent, sometimes to his own detriment. He doesn't like being pitied, and the exile showed us that he views any help he doesn't explicitly ask for (which he doesn’t often do) as pity. In the context of a family, C!Tommy strikes me as the kind of kid that will brush off any guiding hand from a guardian or older relative, and continuously insist on doing absolutely everything on their own. Taking that into account, it makes sense that a hypothetical C!Phil who is C!Tommy’s father would devote less time into making sure Tommy was alright. C!Tommy is loud and exceedingly vocal, and he almost always outwardly complains if he has a serious problem, excluding the cases of being gaslit and manipulated. Why is it unreasonable for C!Phil to expect the same to be true during exile, given that he had no idea what C!Dream was doing?

And what if Phil did spend all his time hanging around Tommy? Tommy would almost certainly get annoyed at that, were he not being abused at the time. Tommy wouldn't want his father hanging over his shoulder at all times, constantly monitoring or hanging around him. He’d want to run independent in the woods with Tubbo and do whatever he wants with no one telling him no. So, in the hypothetical of Tommy being his son, Phil would only really check in on Tommy occasionally, just to make sure he's not too hurt, but he would leave Tommy to his own devices for the most part. He would trust that Tommy would come to him if something were truly wrong, as he would have in the past.

Next, let’s look at Wilbur, the only canonical son of the three. Wilbur is and always has been a free spirit. In lore, Wilbur has a history of running off without Phil, only to show up years later with some big announcement, like the birth of his son, Fundy. Wilbur doesn't wanna stay tied down; he wants Phil to be there for him as a steady constant he can freely return to if he needs. Wilbur wants to be able to go where he wants and do what he wants on his own, knowing that Phil is waiting for him if he needs him. And that's how Phil treated him in regards to the server; he waited for Wilbur to express that he needed him.

The instances of Wilbur saying things along the lines of “I wonder if Phil would be proud of me” cannot reasonably be taken as evidence of Philza somehow neglecting Wilbur as a child. More likely, it’s evidence of Wilbur subconsciously recognizing he's gone too far off the deep end, but not being able to reel himself in.

This leaves Technoblade. For the sake of argument, we're pretending he's also Phil's son for now. Technoblade tends to be similar to a house cat in behavior. He pretends he's all strong and independent, and when it comes to fending for himself he is, but in the emotional or social sense, he's shy and nervous and tends to sticks close to something or someone safe.

Techno isn't the “favorite child” in this hypothetical, he's the child that needed Phil the most.

Both Tommy and Wilbur can not only adeptly handle themselves in social or public situations, but they both generally prefer to, and wouldn't want Phil stepping in or hovering around them. Techno, on the other hand, almost needs that reassurance of a familiar face he trusts, so of course Phil would focus on him more. It isn’t favoritism, it's simply that Techno needed him more.

And in the case of the SMP? Early on, Phil spent almost all of his time with Fundy and Ghostbur, but people rarely talk about that. He invested his time into trying to help repair his dead son's relationship with his own son, and worked tirelessly to try to revive him. He only eventually moved to spend more time with Techno when A. Techno actually reached out and asked him to help him move, and B. when staying in L’Manberg became nonviable and Ghostbur started roaming more on his own.

It's not favoritism, it's logical, reasonable behavior for a human being.

Reason #4: Anarchism

This segment also annoys me, because this is also addressed in canon. Phil was very clear about why he helped techno on doomsday. It was to send a message that the government was ruining things. If you think about it from Phil's point of view, it makes much more sense.

Phil joined New L’Manberg at first, helped rebuild it, and wanted to help make it better. In return, L’Manberg assaulted him, placed him under house arrest, and tried to kill Techno, who was off living peacefully. Phil watched L’Manberg change people in front of his eyes. He had hoped that what had happened to Wilbur wouldn't happen again, and he tried to prevent it, but he wound up watching it happen all over again. So, he sent this message. Get rid of the government. It's part of the main problem.

It's what killed his actual son.

Phil doesn't know about the things Dream has done. He doesn't know about the abuse during exile. He doesn't know about the manipulation in detail. He only knows the man isn’t very nice, is pompous and mean, but he has TNT. Dream was a means to an end and Phil's already done with him. And, if someone told Phil that Dream was the bigger problem, he would probably be inclined to agree.

Now, Phil should've been kinder to Ghostbur, I don’t deny that. But that scene between them on doomsday is supposed to hurt. Phil blew up L’Manberg knowing how much it meant to Wilbur, both alive and dead, but he genuinely believes, or at least hopes, that he did the right thing. L’Manberg destroyed Wilbur. It killed him. Ghostbur doesn't remember that part of it.

And, yes, Friend was in L’Manberg. Everyone's items were in L’Manberg. But nobody considers how much people were warned. They were given an entire day to get their valuables out of the country, and the only one who did was Ranboo, who moved his pets. They didn't get their things, Ghostbur didn't move Friend, and that's on them.

Phil wasn't exactly right, but he wasn't completely wrong, either.

Conclusion

In conclusion, C!Phil is not a bad father, nor is he neglectful. He isn’t the literal best father ever, but he’s not horrible, and it’s unreasonable for people to metagame the plot into making him seem like an irredeemable villain. And it’s frustrating how many people are so quick to demonize him unfairly. It’s not reasonable for people to hate C!Philza for supposed bad parenting. He has committed war crimes and other questionable acts, and he's not the best parent, but he’s not horrible. It’s perfectly fine for you to personally dislike C!Phil, and you can create AUs of whatever you like so long as you tag it properly, but it’s very hard to have a cohesive, effective storyline if people continue to intensely metagame the plot.

[skyisaura]

Tea Time with Isaura - Part 1

For Days of Bloom, I thought it’d be fun to look at the apparent inspirations behind the 2021 and 2022 tea table props.  Why?  Because I have tea parties on the brain! 

We’ll start with the 2021 table and in a future post, go over the 2022 one.

This is of course just a light touch overview and I encourage you to run searches on any topics that seem interesting, as there’s a huge amount of information out there. If you have any questions, just let me know!

Overall, I think this was inspired by Japanese and Chinese tea tables.

There are no tea accoutrements visible except for the teacups, so how the tea itself was prepared is unclear.  (Maybe the butterflies did it ;)) Handle-less teacups as above are found in both Chinese and Japanese tea preparation methods and come in different sizes depending on how they’re being used.  These look to be fairly decent size. One brewing style that might use this size and not have an accompanying teapot is ‘Grandpa style’, where the tea leaves are steeped directly in the cup from which you drink.  

There are many more tea preparation methods, as well as accessories used.  Some terms (and far from all of them!) to look up for more info:  gongfu (a popular tea ceremony style in China), gaiwan (a lidded cup for brewing and drinking tea), Japanese tea ceremony (involves preparation of matcha, a powdered green tea), and kyusu (’teapot’ in Japanese, of whatever style.  Though outside of Japan, it’s often taken to mean a particular style with a side handle on it). From there, you’ll also find many more avenues to explore in teawares! :)

The flowers made me think of ikebana, which is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. While researching further, I learned that there is also chabana - a related art focused on flower arrangements for tea ceremonies/the tearoom specifically.   Based on its description, it sounds even more fitting to what Isaura sees on her little table here.

And not to be forgotten, the tea!  What could it be? 

All true teas come from the Camellia sinensis plant, but different ways of treating the leaves - as well as where a particular plant was grown - results in a vast array of different flavours and colours of liquid.  Given we are admittedly working with a computer graphic here, I think the above shows either an oolong tea or a green tea based on the colour.  While some of the latter is much more green when brewed than the picture here, many are similar in shade to the picture.

Next up, the 2022 tea table and British afternoon tea.

[jawsofbalmung]

my final (detailed) thoughts on the two most controversial games in the aa series, now that im done with them (contains spoilers):

dual destinies

overview: dd is one of those games that is decently fun, but not really that good. you can definitely see the difference in the writing style, and while i think all ace attorney games are good, and i did enjoy playing it, this one is by far the worst one in the whole series. i love simon though, prosecutors are always perfect.

my biases: i had to play dd on a very slow emulator which ran at 30-50% speed the ENTIRE game (slower on trials) so this game, especially monstrous turnabout, took me absolute AGES to finish. also i was... a little spoiled about fulbright, but not that much, honestly.

turnabout countdown: as far as first cases go, this one is fairly alright, but overall just kinda eh. its a bad mix of both predictable and confusing, but it's actually kinda funny in spots and not too egregiously horrible. 3.5/10

monstrous turnabout: i have a personal vendetta against this case. it took me two whole weeks to finish, when a case usually takes me two to five days on average with my pace. the actual content of the case was negligable, i liked the tenma family as characters, but the end result was very predictable (the fact that we were shown the killer in the beginning animation is inexcusable in my opinion). i could blame the length of the case on just the shitty emulator, but the fact is monstrous turnabout took me way longer than any of the other cases in this same game on the same emulator, and i can only blame its penchant for endlessly dragging out every single point, and throwing in many compounding twists when they're really unneeded and the case would be a lot better if it was simpler. they tried to make up for you knowing the killer right away by making it impossible to predict anything else, but it ended up just making the whole case frustrating and obnoxiously long. 2/10

turnabout academy: this is probably one of my favorite cases in the two games. its twists are a lot more satisfying and understandable than monstrous turnabout, and the character value of this case is very high. i love hugh robin and juniper, and i like how their friendship ties so deeply and intrinsically into the mystery of the case. a little cheesy, and as is expected with dd, not the best writing ive seen in ace attorney, but overall a pretty good case, and has probably the funniest killer breakdown. also klavier cameo is very much appreciated. 6.5/10

cosmic turnabout: i feel like there's not really much to this case, since it mostly serves as a bridge into turnabout for tomorrow, so they didn't put a lot of love into writing the episode itself, but honestly i think that's okay, cosmic turnabout does its job well, and i like how it takes the time to introduce important characters and concepts without stuffing too much into turnabout for tomorrow. as for the case itself, its honestly so hard to separate it out, and i feel like it was pretty short compared to the other episodes. 5/10

spirit of justice

turnabout for tomorrow: probably the most controversial case out of the two games in terms of fan opinions, but i frankly love this case. it's engaging, it's high stakes, it's got all the punch and intrigue that a final case should have, and on its own it's definitely one of the best. unfortunately, i wish the fulbright reveal was foreshadowed even a little bit. a mutual of mine said that since they were spoiled about fulbright being evil, they enjoyed turnabout for tomorrow a lot, but someone who went into it blind would probably find it confusing and out of left field, and i have to agree with that. it's definitely a case you want to spoil yourself just a little bit for it to be satisfying as you figure out the rest, because dual destinies seems to be allergic to Actual foreshadowing, and seems to be made up along the way. im also probably pretty biased in a weird way because ive seen a lot of fan content and meta about turnabout for tomorrow that makes it Better and Cooler and Make More Sense in a way that it certainly is not in canon, so that makes me both love it more for what fans have extrapolated out of it, and simultaneously resent that it didn't live up to its full potential. 8/10

turnabout reclaimed: this case sure was.... dual destinies. turnabout reclaimed is one of those cases that gets a lot of publicity in the fandom just for being absurd, but is actually not one of the good ones if im being honest. the twists fall flat, it drags on a bit too long, and it's honestly pretty forgettable. it wasn't awful to play, i certainly had some fun with it in spots, and it was nice to go back and play it after i finished spirit of justice mostly just to see simon again, but overall it's a very mid case, and im not too stoked about how they represented marlon rimes either tbh. 3/10

overall (averaged) score for dual destinies: 4.5/10

overview: everyone seems to hate spirit of justice and i don't know why. honestly, soj is way up there in my list of favorite ace attorney games ever. it feels more based in the feeling of the original trilogy, i love the way all the existing characters are written, and love the introductions of the new ones. nothing wrong with soj in my book, especially once i figured out that the portrayal of khura'in isnt nearly as racist as initially expected. the divination seances are a very fun mechanic that had a lot of potential beyond how they used them, and i would have liked to be able to do them every case if you ask me.

my biases: i am in love with nahyuta to a worrying degree, and dhurke is one of my favorite characters as well. the character value, which is what i automatically focus on the most, is very high in this game, so while im trying to rank these cases by how well-written they are, i can't help but adore spirit of justice for its character work. i also had a few spoilers, but nothing too strongly story-based.

foreign turnabout: once again, a first case is a first case, and foreign turnabout does its job in that respect. it establishes khura'in well, and helps lead into the complex opinion of it that you're eventually supposed to form throughout the game, but i do have to say it starts in a pretty deceptively xenophobic place in this case. kind of an underwhelming case, but ahlbi is adorable and it's certainly a fun start to throw phoenix into a new place out of the blue, and again it does its job as a first case satisfactorily. 4/10

magical turnabout: this case was fun! i like how the second case, while not connected to the overarching plotline, still had the spirit of the rest of the game imbued in it, and while i do think ace attorney shouldn't rely on the Twin Twist as much as they already do, they seem to handle it pretty well and it often makes sense when they slip it in. many funny moments, high stakes, good twists, fits in well with the game, and i love that we get to see trucy as a defendant, because it felt like a long time coming on that. 6.5/10

rite of turnabout: this case is more emotionally hard hitting than the final case of this game, if you ask me. it's juicy, it's strongly tied to the plot of the game, all the twists make so much sense and everything ties together so well, and it comes to a supremely satisfying end, which keeps hopes high for the last two cases. intrigue and immersion are high in this case, i love love love the introduction of rayfa as a weird little girl investigative assistant, and the revisualization sequence in this case is one of the only ones out of the two games where it exists that actually surprised me, and felt both satisfying and exciting at the same time. i haven't gotten a lot of those yelling "OH!!!!" as the pieces suddenly slide together moments since the original trilogy, so this case has to go down as one of the best ones in my book. 8.5/10

turnabout storyteller: y'all, i know this is a filler case, but god damn is it good!! it's enjoyable as hell, the perfect amount of challenging for me, a nice bitesize length that a filler case should be, not too predictable or too random (though i will admit i was spoiled about geiru because of the iconic tumblr posts about her whoops), and i got to see simon again, so i'm very happy with it! plus, the only realistic and respectable portrayal of DID i have ever seen, especially in murder mystery media! i could say so much about this case, and i already have on this blog before, but i do adore it. it's one of my faves tbh, especially for a very non-plot relevant case. 9/10

turnabout revolution (the name of this case still makes me laugh): learning that this was the longest case in the whole series, tied at 12 hours with rise from the ashes, came as no surprise. this is an absolute GIANT of a case. i think it's fun and fresh to split it up between two related trials in two different places the way they did, but i have to say i had a lot of expectations that went unfulfilled. the civil case and its investigation were very fun to do, especially how it seemed to bleed into more of a story-based visual novel format for a while, but i feel like they missed the opportunity to show us everything from phoenix's point of view as well. i adore dhurke, i love how he interacts with apollo and nahyuta, i love slowly parceling out the reveal of his death in a way i haven't really seen in aa yet, i think this case is very carefully and lovingly written and takes its time to stop fucking around and deliver the real meat of this game. unfortunately, i think the very end seemed kind of rushed and flat, and the characterizations of ga'ran and amara needed more work and at times were confusing or annoying. whereas dual destinies was a kinda underwhelming game with a fantastic ending (had it been foreshadowed more), spirit of justice was a fantastic game with a kinda underwhelming ending (that was properly foreshadowed, just not well excuted). but i don't think all of turnabout revolution suffers because of the very end of it, i think its a phenomenal case that brings the spirit of the old games along with the new ideas of the modern ones, and for the most part caps off the game in a way that makes sense with all the other information in all the other cases and closes it out as a very good game. 7.5/10

turnabout time traveler: compared to the other dlc case, this case is a lot more fun and engaging, though it doesn't have the gimmick that everyone talks about like turnabout reclaimed does. the killer is a little predictable right away from the first investigation, but i think the path to get there is fun anyway, and it's a pretty solid aa case with good characters and interesting twists, miles is there, and pierce nichody is hot as fuck, so i'd say it was a pretty good case! 6/10

overall (averaged) score for spirit of justice: 7/10

conclusion: i see a lot of hate and a lot of love for both these games, and while i definitely don't hate either of them, because i do love all aa games, i see where the animosity for dual destinies comes from and can somewhat agree. i think both have their merits, spirit of justice moreso than dual destinies, and their shortcomings. i love all the new characters though and always will, i adore how the waa is expanding and how phoenix interacts with new characters and old, and i think these two games do have a proper home in the aa series and in my heart <3

[cozy-neko]

The Cherry On Top • 02 • 03 | Charity stream disaster • 04

Kenma checked his stream overlay one last time to make sure everything was set up correctly. The streamer was only ten minutes away from his scheduled 24-hour charity stream that Akaashi had set up for him in partnership with the energy drink company, Black Sheep. For every donation Kenma receives during his live stream, all proceeds will be 100% donated to help animal shelters in need of supplies.

For once, Kenma was actually excited about a partnership. As a lover of cats and raising three rescues himself, it wasn’t particularly a hard decision for Kenma to make when Black Sheep had approached him and brought up the idea of a partnership and a charity stream campaign in conjunction with the animal shelter Black Sheep was associated with.

That was why when his sponsorship with Black Sheep had been threatened by a rumor, Kenma ultimately made a public announcement to deny the rumor and personally reached out to the PR/Influencer team at Black Sheep to talk it out with them.

Now, three minutes prior to going live, Kenma’s phone buzzed multiple times. He glanced at the lit up screen and rolled his eyes. It was Kuroo who was blowing up his phone, and Kenma had a fairly decent idea of what the texts were about.

Last week, Kuroo and Kenma had met up with Akaashi and Bokuto for their monthly dinner meet up when Akaashi had mentioned Kenma’s upcoming charity stream.

��A 24-hour stream is too easy for Kenma; the gremlin routinely stays up at least 36-hours once a week anyways.” Kuroo let out a barking laugh as he flipped the meat that was grilling in front of the four friends.

“That’s besides the point, Kuroo.” Kenma rolled his eyes and leaned back in the vinyl booth. “I’m doing a charity stream. All donations I get during the stream goes towards the animal shelter that Black Sheep partners with.” Kenma made sure to slowly emphasize the word “charity” when he explained his upcoming project.

“You know, I’ve never seen Kenma so excited about a project,” Bokuto quipped as he eagerly tucked into his meal.

“It’s for a good cause and Kozume was quick to say yes,” Akaashi added as he flashed a small smile towards the flushed streamer. Kenma still wasn’t used to hearing people praise him, no matter how often he was always featured in esports commentary and articles.

“I have three cat rescues myself, so it was a no brainer,” he mumbled, averting eye contact. He opted to push around the burnt pieces of meat with his chopsticks around his plate instead.

“Aw, you’re embarrassed that you got caught being openly excited for your next project!” Kuroo smirked and nudged his friend. It was all friendly-banter, and Kenma knew that Kuroo meant well and was extremely happy for him, but he flushed harder as Bokuto and Akaashi chimed in to cheer on their friend.

“I’m just being a nice person. Maybe you should try it some day,” Kenma shot back.

“What do you mean?” Kuroo scoffed. “I’m always a nice person.”

Akaashi and Kenma rolled their eyes at Kuroo while Bokuto let out a good-natured laugh at Kuroo’s response.

“Hey, wait! You know what you should do to make your 24-hour stream more spicy?” There was a mischievous glint in Bokuto’s eyes as he waited for his friends to respond. 

“Bokuto-san, whatever you’re thinking probably isn’t a go--” 

“Drunk 24-hour stream!” 

“Oh, nice!” Kuroo snapped his fingers and grinned his infamous Cheshire Cat smirk. Akaashi sighed and Kenma grimaced. 

"I’m not going to take ideas from two drunks. And we barely sat down to eat, how are you two this drunk already?” Kenma wrinkled his nose.

Kenma unlocked his phone and quickly scanned through his group chat. Yup. There it was: a barrage of texts from Kuroo asking Kenma if he had his booze ready followed by a spam of suggestive eye emojis by Bokuto. Kenma was quick to notice that Akaashi had purposely chosen to ignore the group texts and offered no help in diverting the suggestions.

Kenma snorted quietly at Bokuto's message as he locked his phone. He looked up at the monitor to his right and read some comments that were starting to flood in his stream chat. He gave his camera a small smile and leaned back in his chair, answering some questions that caught his attention and saying "hi" to others.

Kenma usually liked to start his stream off rather chill by interacting with his viewers. After playing his music playlist and adjusting the volume, he finally announced his agenda for the day after a few minutes.

"Today I'm partnering with Black Sheep for a charity stream. It's going to be a 24-hour stream and we're gonna spend most of the time playing some League. All donations I get will go towards helping an animal shelter which you guys know I'm all for." Kenma paused as his donation notification sounded and his text-to-speech setting began to read the donation to him and his viewers.

"meowriachi donated $25: 24-hour stream? too ezpz kodzuken"

Kenma laughed and ran a hand through his messy half-up styled hair.

"I was telling my friends about today's stream and Kuroo said the same thing. Maybe in our next collaboration we'll do a longer stream if you guys want that. We'll also be able to have more fun and do more things, too."

Kenma was smart and sneaky. He always was. Kuroo did always say he was the brains of the team back in high school when they played volleyball together. Kenma was good at analyzing situations, and because of this strength, Kenma knew when to use certain words and situations to create benefits for him and his career. This was no exception. The streamer knew Black Sheep would be moderating his stream, so now the company had slight pressure to partner with him again if there was an in demand from his fans. And this was Kodzuken we were talking about. There was no doubt Kenma knew there would already be a second sponsorship in the works.

Kenma smirked. Easy peasy stream indeed.

Kenma loved his job. He truly did. It wasn't every day someone could wake up every day and actually look forward to going to work, and for that, Kenma was thankful. He was thankful that he had the skillsets to do well in competitive gaming and that he had a knack of being able to pick up mechanics of new games so easily. He was thankful that he had a fanbase that enjoyed his commentary and sarcastic humor, and a fanbase that supported and helped him build his brand from ground up.

Kenma knew he owed one-third of his success to his fans and another one-third to his own hard work and passion. But Kenma also knew he owed the last one-third of his success to his friends.

Not once did Kenma regret making Akaashi his manager; Akaashi had gotten him way more sponsorships than Kenma himself could've if he was still balancing streaming, content creation, and managing his own projects.

Kenma was thankful for Kuroo for always challenging him to step outside his comfort zone. Even when Kenma was irritated and didn't want to hear Kuroo's words of advice and encouragement, Kenma was still grateful for it all.

And Bokuto. Kenma guesses he can be thankful for Bokuto for always hyping him up when he needed it the most. Especially when he was extremely hung over from a night out of (forced) drinking and had barely ten minutes to wake up and set up his stream on time.

Yes, Kenma was truly thankful for his friends. But right now, Kenma wanted to kill them. He wanted to kill Kuroo and Bokuto for coming over to his house uninvited even after he warned them not to and for raiding his stream in real life.

Right now, Kenma was seething. One, he was in the middle of a very important sponsorship deal. Two, he was in the middle of a ranked game in League of Legends and he didn't want to lose his winning streak. And three, his two goofball friends had showed up to his house with alcohol and announced out loud to his viewers that Kenma would now be participating in a drunk 24-hour stream.

Kenma doesn't remember the last time he got this mad. What's worse was that Kenma's fans were all for it. His stream chat was getting spammed with poggers emotes, and it was difficult for Kenma to admit that he had been getting more and more donations ever since Kuroo and Bokuto had shown up and the alcohol was brought out. And because of that, Kenma had begrudgingly surrendered and cracked open a White Claw.

Except he didn't stop only at one; not if Kuroo and Bokuto could help it. And at only about 5'8" with a smaller build, Kenma unfortunately fell victim to being a lightweight. And with Kuroo and Bokuto, kings of being instigators, were there to egg him on along with his stream chat, Kenma downed can after can.

Just a little something to take the edge off a work week, right?

end notes:

→ kenma’s twitch stream took me 30 minutes to piece together 😪

→ if you see the same comments on kenma’s twitch chat twice... no you didn’t 😀🔪

→ also peep the stream title change 👀

→ kenma’s the type to use scuffed candids of his friends as their contact photos, but it didn’t work out too well. he actually respects akaashi enough to use a decent photo, and bokuto never takes a bad photo. ever. i guess kuroo’s the only one he can easily clown.

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[reversemoon255]

DX Dogouken Gekido + Unofficial Blade Extension + Thoughts on Saber

I think Saber has the most transformation items of any Kamen Rider to date, so it’s not that surprising that at least one of them would appeal to me enough to pick it up, though it was the extension sliding across my feed that was the nail in the coffin. There are a couple full sized official swords and unofficial extensions for blades, with this being the first that was revealed and released. And in a show all about swords, it’s cool to have a full-sized sword to match.

Assembly: Putting the extension together isn’t difficult, but is careful work. There’s a chance of the internal mechanisms being misaligned if you’re not careful, so you should start taking the screws out on a flat surface, and not pick it up once it starts giving. This particular extension comes with an appropriate screwdriver and a detailed sheet of the locations of all the screws you will be taking (basically all of them). There are only 2 sizes of screw, long for the handle and mechanics, and short for the blade, so don’t worry about getting them mixed up or putting them in a cup so you don’t lose them during the process.

The Good: Even without the extension, this is a fairly hefty roleplay toy. It does the slashy sounds you’d expect, and has specific noises to enhance the transformation books and for finisher moves. With the extension it’s longer than a real short sword.

The Bad: While I call it a transformation device, it doesn’t have many more sounds than a typical roleplay sword would from any other series, with most of the transformation noises coming from the Ride Book. Also, while the sword is impressively big with the extension, it’s still smaller than in the show, and not as wide, as the existing sculpt hinders it in that regard.

Thoughts on Saber: I’ve talked to people who really like Saber and those who don’t like it at all. I’m of the notion that it’s ok. Not terrible, but not spectacular either. I really like the fast pace the show started out with, but it slowed to a crawl during the second arc and only started reaching that speed and intrigue again near the very end of the show.

I like the characters, and even early on I felt like we got a better than basic understanding of all of them. I also think that the action, comedy, and cinematography were all very good.

However, I have some issues with the writing. Again, I think the first quarter of the show was very good, but the second was very slow and repetitive in comparison with the way the betrayals and returns of the swordsmen were handled. And while the third improved, it continued some of that repetition with Espada and the twins. And I have particular issue with the theme of duty versus freedom that permeated the show. I don’t think it’s a bad moral, as it was shown that a balance of the two is important for both society and ones own happiness, but the sides weren’t balanced very well. Everyone who was initially fully on the side of duty got redeemed (the swordsmen), while everyone who chose Freedom died (Calibur, the Megido, Desast, and Solomon). There really should have been some pushback on either side, with some of the duty-bound losing their lives and some of the freedom-seekers getting redeemed.

Sorry I didn’t do a full overview like I usually do, but while I do like the series, nothing about Saber (apart from that last point) really stood out to me enough to write a full piece on it, so I thought I’d just give my abridged thoughts here.

Overall, this is a decent roleplay toy and Saber is a decent show. If you’ve ever handled a roleplay sword before, then you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to be getting, and Saber is similar in many ways. Let’s hope Revice will stamp a better impression on me.

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Colress

Man, I feel like Colress was one of the most anticipated additions to the game, how is he a spotlight?  How did they give Genesect, as a Bug-type no less, to Hilbert?  I just don't know, man.

General Overview Colress is an oddball Tech.  He gets paralysis, defense debuffs, and a good defensive profile backed by a 60% chance to debuff accuracy of the foe, and ripple effect to make it AoE.  He also gets a ton of defense buffs from his trainer move.  However, he has no healing.  Not "minimal healing," none.  He also can't handle attack, although he can boost the team's crit by attacking a paralyzed foe, which is something.

I feel like Colress' main utility was supposed to be an odd kind of tank unit with the defenses and accuracy drops, but that's wildly inconsistent and outright dangerous in Gauntlet where Sure Hit/Sure Crit combos are legion.  He's got decent sync multipliers in Static Shock 9 and Towering Force, but needs help offensively for it to matter.  It's a little bizarre.

Move Level and EX? Colress is pretty okay at 1/5.  He gets the majority of his utility set at base, and all 3/5 does is give sync nuke, and Go Viral if desired.   Which isn't strictly bad, but isn't strictly necessary either.  The EX isn't necessary unless you're going 3/5 for sync nuke either.  The stats can be nice if using him as a tank, but as a generalist support, Colress doesn't need a ton.

Team 1: Colress, Classic Elesa, MU Hitmonchan I feel like this is an oddity but hear me out.  Colress can cap team's crit, which is useful.  Classic Elesa takes pressure off of his grid by removing the need for Go Viral, while also serving as a fantastic debuff bot.  Colress is then able to set up perfect offensive sync potential through the attack buffs from Hitmonchan, while also getting a bit of useful speed control.

Team 2: Colress, N, Hilbert/SC Rosa Colress can serve as a decent support partner to N, thanks to Screech's defense debuffs that N loves.  The Go Viral paralysis also saves N some energy on his demanding grid, allowing him to flex to whatever he really needs.  Hilbert's optional, thanks to N's expansion, and Colress contributing nothing to damage here.  You can replace him with just about anyone, and in example of that, SC Rosa has debuffs to special attack, debuffs to evasion so N can hit, and most critically, Potion to heal Colress, who can now serve as your tank.

Team 3: Colress, Hapu/Lodge Marnie, Hop/SC Jasmine Colress' ability to debuff accuracy, and guarantee a Ripple Effect, makes him incredibly useful for units that need the accuracy debuffing, like Hapu and Lodge Marnie.  Colress works well for Hapu in particular, thanks to the defense debuffs. Hop and SC Jasmine can be the ideal buff partners, although do watch gauge issues.

Final Thoughts I don't strictly dislike Colress.  I think he's honestly one of the most interesting options in the bunch, having good tech nuking skills, but also legitimate utility just as a support bot, or even a frontline tank so long as someone can heal. He's fairly eclectic, which is...fitting.

[scoutception]

A look at: Moon.

Writing reviews is always a learning experience for me, and one of the important things I’ve learned is that, sometimes, it’s pretty hard to write about certain individual games, visual novels, or such considering the kind of detail I like to go into. Therefore, this will be the first in a new series of mini reviews, or as mini as they get with me. Maybe there’s just not enough to a game to really give me details to dig into, or maybe it’s difficult to talk about without giving away more than I wish, or maybe there’s just something related to it that I’m more interested in talking about than the actual product; whatever the reason, these will hopefully be less rambly and excessive than my usual reviews, while still giving enough of an overview that they stand as proper reviews on their own. Either way, the subject of this post is an old, obscure visual novel from 1997 with a bit of history to it, called Moon.

Moon was developed by Tactics, a humble developer of adult visual novels, and was the second one developed by them, with the first, Dōsei, seemingly just being, well, a plain H-game, and the third, One ~To the Radiant Season~, while still obscure, is actually fairly notable for being a prototype to Kanon in a lot of ways, as many key staff at Tactics would later break off to form Key afterwards, with them having also worked on Moon beforehand. Thus, Moon is in a very interesting spot when it comes to the progression of the developers that would change VNs as a genre with the release of Kanon, and that’s really the only reason I checked it out.

Moon follows Ikumi Amasawa, a girl who joins a mysterious organization called Fargo, which recruits others with the promise of acquiring an alleged “invisible strength” that can put one far ahead of ordinary humans, in order to investigate their possible connections to the murder of her mother, and if possible, take revenge on the ones responsible. Upon arriving at the Fargo facility, Ikumi quickly befriends two other initiates with ulterior motives of their own for joining: Haruka Mima, a determined girl with a cool attitude who keeps her goal to herself, and Yui Nakura, a cheerful, but naive girl who’s seeking to bring home her older sister, who joined Fargo several months prior. Though the three agree to become allies and help each other achieve their goals, they are quickly separated in different “classes” housed in different buildings, with Ikumi being assigned to Class A, the most prestigious of them all. Settling into her new life as a Fargo initiate, which mostly consists of “training” with the Minmes and Elpod, machines that confront her with various parts of her very troubled past for the purpose of “mental reinforcement” in the form of a vengeful doppelganger of herself, Ikumi gradually discovers many strange things about her situation, such as there only being one other member of Class A, that being Youko Kanuma, a quiet, cold woman who has been part of Fargo for many years. Additionally, Ikumi is forced to share her room with a strange boy who doesn’t volunteer his name, who, though part of Fargo itself, is quite low ranking, and more than a bit dim witted at times. Worst of all, upon finding a passage that allows her to access the buildings where her allies are kept, Ikumi finds that the other classes are subjected to horrific abuses by Fargo’s personnel in order to further their mental reinforcement. As Ikumi struggles to aid her allies however she can, the confrontations with her past begin to put a heavy strain on her mind, and the existence of the invisible strength Fargo claims to have starts to become more and more plausible.

Needless to say, Moon isn’t exactly Clannad. I did not know much about this VN before I got into it, and finding it to be a psychological horror VN was a bit of a shock. Even more of a shock was just what form the majority of the horror came in. You see, even though One ~To the Radiant Season~, Kanon, and Air were all released as adult games, the h-scenes are very disconnected from the plot, most of the time, to the point of losing nothing from skipping them or even removing them from the game, and were pretty much just obligatory inclusions to help them sell better. From Clannad onward, most Key VNs have been clean to start. With Moon, on the other hand, you can’t go 5 minutes without running into some explicit scene, the main source being the Elpod sequences and the abuses the Fargo personnel inflict, and it wastes no time getting to them, at that. This is the biggest thing that drives off many of the few who go out of their way to experience Moon, and even with me having just watched an understandably censored playthrough of this on Youtube due to its shorter length, I almost quit very early into it, and definitely would have if I had actually played it. The Elpod is one thing, as the sequences are used for the purpose of developing Ikumi, but even then, most of them are just excessively disgusting more than disturbing, and that goes doubly for the sequences outside of it. Instead of really changing things up, they’re just content to get gradually more and more depraved, and outside of disgusting, the main thing I can even call them is repetitive. This is one of my biggest problems with Moon, and it was pretty hard for me to get into it because of it.

Another major problem I have with Moon is how it handles its cast. Moon is pretty short for a VN, only around 10 or 11 hours if you go straight for the true ending, and even though there are 7 endings in total, they don’t add much more time onto that, with two being worse variants on the true ending, and the rest being bad endings gotten through making bad choices. Having as small a cast as it does should naturally work fine with that, but they really aren’t balanced well. While Ikumi gets developed across the whole game, and Yui gets a good arc pretty early on, Haruka only gets a short arc that ends as quickly as it starts and doesn’t do a lot for her, Youko barely has any screentime despite establishing a good dynamic with Ikumi, and the boy doesn’t have much presence or relevance until late in the story. The pacing is just bizarre and rushed feeling.

That’s not to say there aren’t a number of good points to Moon’s story. Ikumi is very well developed throughout the story, with the Minmes in particular leading to many melancholic scenes that make her quite sympathetic, and were definitely the high points of the normally rigid daily schedule much of the story takes place during for me. Despite the story’s flawed handling of some of them, the cast is still decent on a whole, with Youko’s gradually developing friendship with Ikumi and Yui’s development during her arc being some of the more memorable parts for me. The atmosphere is very well done, with the cramped, depressing corridors of the facility always feeling like they’re hiding something awful just around the corner, especially since you need to manually navigate the place using a map screen, and once the plot really kicks into high gear things become much more compelling, with the final days containing many high points in characterization and an infamous mindscrew of a sequence that, once looked back on with a more understanding eye, is actually quite fascinating in its own right.

Visually, Moon’s art was done by Itaru Hinoue, the same artist as the majority of Key’s VNs, and it’s a lot rougher than the art of, say, Kanon. It’s not outright bad, but it looks very dated, with the designs and sprites not really sticking out. The CGs vary in quality, as some look pretty ridiculous, but others are quite good. Most impressive, though, is two animated intro sequences included in the DVD version, which happens to be the only version with an English patch anyway. They’re fairly brief, but do a great job of setting up the atmosphere and premise despite that.

On the sound side, the soundtrack is great. It’s not a very big one, with only about 16 tracks, and the use of them can get a bit repetitive, but most of them are just a joy to listen to. From the electronic and tense Closed Space, to the wistful, yet peaceful The Place Where the Sun Shines, to Youko’s ethereal theme, to the credits theme, Sorrow, and especially the nostalgic music box theme, Memory, it’s worth looking up even if you hold no interest in the VN itself. There’s also voice acting, also added in the DVD version, and most of it is just average, with not many performances standing out, with the exception of Kahoru Sasajima as Ikumi, who delivers a very solid performance, especially during the more intense moments.

Overall, Moon can be a pretty hard sell. While I thought it was a decent experience by the end, its very offputting content, lack of similarity to any other Key works, and bleak atmosphere can make it pretty hard to go through even if you’re prepared for what’s to come. Even if you wanted a horror VN, there’s plenty others out there, like Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child, Higurashi: When They Cry, Wonderful Everyday, Raging Loop, or just about anything from nitro+. That said, if you can stick to the end, I definitely feel it becomes fairly satisfying, and when I got to thinking, I realized something that actually boosted my opinion quite a bit just by itself. As much as Moon is a story about cults and psychic powers with a somewhat unclear point to it all, it’s even more so just a story about a very troubled youth struggling with her grief, irrationally falling in with a bad crowd, and being forced to face her past and actions if she wishes to accomplish anything. Looking at the story that way, it’s actually quite well done, and going in with that in mind may even make it a bit more palatable. Still, I wouldn’t especially go out of my way to recommend it, and ultimately it’s still very far from being one of my favorite visual novels out there. Either way, that concludes my first mini review, which still turned out longer than I thought it would. My next post will be something unusual for me as well, but that’ll take a bit to come. Till next time. -Scout

[mallowstep]

visual impairment in the uk in the early 20th century preliminary research

so it's july, disabilities pride month, i'm researching for watlcitf (1910s ireland au), and i figured i should share what i'm looking at.

(the title for this post is so incredibly specific but that's because most research is. my previous post for watlcitf was like, 2k words exclusively going through census data for one census and one county in ireland. i named maybe twenty characters.)

anyway, disclaimers out of the way, tagging @foxstride because i think they'll be interested in this, let's get started.

unlike last time, i have a specific research goal: to determine what jay's life, as a blind person, would be in the uk (specifically, ireland) in the early 20th century (specifcally, 1900-1914), given that he's from a well-off family.

so i have the benefit of being a bit more focused.

unfortunately, i don't have a great backlog of information. i can't just pull up the national archives and start going through census data. that's alright, what else is research for?

i'm going to try to keep to things that are broadly accessible, but if i can't find things on the internet, i will be turning to my university's library resources.

getting my footing

so after checking that the obvious search (various combinations of the keywords form the title) didn't pull up anything particularly useful, i started going after disabilities in general in early 20th century england.

(i know i'm not set in england, but i also know that i can find broad coverage of information about the uk by starting my research in england.)

before i do that, thoough, we did have britannica's history of the blind, something i found fairly unhelpful. i already know braille was around by the 1910s, and then for some reason it tailspins into the us, which is exceptionally unhelpful.

(an interesting story might be sending jay abroad for a better education, but this is not that particular historical au.)

anyway, as per usual, britannica told me a lot of what i already knew and didn't offer any good leads to new information. (i draw the line at buying books for a fanfic. this is a one-shot. i am going to have written more about my research for it than the actual fic. sigh.)

so next up: historical england's a history of disability, which covers a wonderfully long time range, making it good for anyone from the middle ages to the recent past.

i jumped straight to disability in the 19th century, because their 20th century starts covering 1914 and on.

for those following along at home, the 4 headings in the sidebar are clickable links to articles with more information.

i know jay is going to be living at home, so while i did skim through the section on asylums and workhouses, neither of those are applicable here. we're skipping straight to the daily life of disabled people.

since about 50 years pass between the main time period of this article and my time period, i'm not sure how much i can rely on the attitudes section, but jumping off places.

some key quotes:

"These were the ambivalent Victorian attitudes towards disability - a combination of fear, pity, discomfort and an idea of divine judgement."

"Henry Fawcett (1833-1884), blinded as a young man, became Postmaster-General in 1880; he introduced the parcel post and the postal order."

"In 1838 the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read was formed and in 1866 the Worcester College for the Blind ('for the blind sons of gentlemen') became the world's first further education provision for disabled people."

"In 1868 the British and Foreign Blind Association was formed by Dr Thomas Armitage, initially to promote the use of braille. It was to become the Royal National Institute for the Blind."

"In 1894 the first branch of the Guild of the Brave Poor Things (motto: 'Happy in My Lot') was formed as a self-help group for people with physical disabilities. They described themselves as a group to "make life sweet for the blind and crippled folk of all ages"."

so great! that gives me a good number of jumping off places. nothing ideal, but it's a start.

henry fawcett

seems like a good enough start. researching attitudes won't help me entirely, here, mostly in that i'll be better off starting with other things and seeing what i pick up.

well according to wikipedia, he was blinded as an adult while he was already in education.

that's incredibly frustrating.

moving on.

royal national institude for the blind

as i know this exists, i figured it's as good a place to start as any.

sticking with wikipedia, because frankly, sticking with wikipedia is as good a place to start as any, we're on the wikipedia page for royal national institute of blind people

wikipedia's history summary was saddening.

moving on.

rnib's history page is next up on the list.

well, the first key takeaway is the adoptation of a braille magazine ("progress") and braille contractions. i'm not doing an overview of braille here, because these research posts are primarly for my own benefit, and i'm comfortable with my understanding of braille as it stands.

alright, i'm frustratingly limited in what i've learned, but i'm making progress.

the white cane

i took a bit of a change of course. we went back to the drawing board: literally just googling "history of blind people" in vain hope but lo! i actually stumbled upon something.

a list of facts about the white cane lead me to the wikipedia page for the white cane lead me to an archived web link about the history of orientation and mobility and good lord! have i finally started getting somewhere.

this is entirely focused around the us, and i'm not going to type up a summary here as it's quite long.

that said, it's alltogether helpful. the biggest takeaway is that mobility was taught by individual teachers going home to home. exceptionally helpful tidbit, that is.

the thing with historical research is that there are things that feel like reasonable assumptions to make often aren't, so i feel quite happy in that knowledge.

to the specifics: ireland

alright, while i'm mostly unsatisfied with what i've done, i want to move on. i have a feeling that i'm going to need to revisit this. i actually just changed the title to preliminary research to account for this.

sigh.

so we've moved to the history of ncbi, the national council for the blind of ireland.

they were founded in 1931, meaning that my instinct to start in england was correct, but still. their history page confirms that home teaching is the big thing at the start.

summary and moving on

okay so i went to do some research into the history of education in the england (the status of ireland vs england is at the moment Complex, but suffice to say that for most purposes i'm searching for english history) to see if i could find any sort of wrap-up about home tutors vs schools, and.

lo.

i found something fairly useful. it's an elemetary education act for blind and deaf children, which, like, god. so useful.

laws are just. good ways of establishing the general outlook of a time period.

so.

unfortunately.

it does not apply to ireland and scotland, and yes, i do have to do research into the history of education in ireland, but i feel i have hit some kind of nebulous conclusion.

because this is half research notes and half helpful information for others (if anyone else needs this kind of specific information), i'll try to summarize here

schools were possibly able to handle blind students. by "handle" i mostly mean "provide a seat and something resembling education", but that's better than nothing.

most mobility, braille, etc., skills seem to be taught by instructors going home to home

thanks to the relatively low traffic, population density, etc., blind people seem to have a decent amount of mobility

that's all for now. my skills in research are not historical research, so i can't promise that like. i have the best critical thinking skills here. etc. etc.

<3