#secret: it's because the early concepts of the show generated a group of people whose sole interest was to jack off to the characters

[dyscomancer]

it is actually pretty comical that most of the reactionary hatred RWBY’s narrative gets is that it is somehow a fault that the show is not a shonen fight-academy show with static characters and no meaningful conflict outside of power level stacking

people get pissed off about... complicated interpersonal drama, imperfect people in imperfect relationships, and a give-and-take battle with the antagonizing force (that the show’s soundtrack has been blatantly stating to be a brutal war of attrition since episode 1, btw)

and hell, even when we do get some standard anime trappings like power-of-friendship power boosts, the same people find this an unforgivable sin of cliches. like, which is it?

[valeriehervo]

Valérie Hervo runs Les Chandelles, the legendary Paris sex club where members of French high society, politicians, barristers and rock stars (and an increasing number of Brits) come to indulge their erotic fantasies. Can it survive the twin threats of the pandemic and a moral backlash?

Adam Sage

Saturday March 20 2021, 

Valérie Hervo is outraged. She has just been listening to a radio station where two male presenters, chatting about her forthcoming appearance on their show, kept referring to her as the owner of a “group sex club”.

“That really is low-class vocabulary,” she tells me. “It’s very macho as well. Only a man would say something like that.

“And it is not what this place is about. To me, it is a journey through the mystery of the senses to a land of sensuality and encounters.”

Hervo is particularly aggrieved at what she took to be the implication that she organised sexual games for the benefit of men.

Nothing could be further from the truth, she insists. “Here, everything revolves around women’s pleasure. This is a place where a woman can do what she wants, when she wants and with whom she wants – and if she wants to do nothing, she does nothing.”

Hervo opened Les Chandelles, her recreational club – as she would prefer it described – in 1993, and it has since become a part of French high-society folklore.

Any Parisian will tell you that this is the place where the country’s political, economic and cultural elites live out their sexual fantasies beyond the sight of ordinary mortals, where government ministers, television presenters, rock stars and chief executives engage in the ancient practice of libertinage.

But what exactly goes on behind the plain façade in a narrow street near the Louvre in central Paris? And what might this tell us about French values? Or indeed about British values, given the steady flow of clients rumoured to have crossed the channel in recent years in the hope of fulfilling their “erotic potential” under Hervo’s stewardship?

With telephones barred from the club (they have to be left at the entrance) and hardly anyone willing to talk openly about their evenings there – “It’s a matter of intimacy,” says Hervo. “You don’t start telling everyone about your sex life at dinner parties” – such questions have given rise to few answers and much speculation.

Now, with the club closed because of the pandemic, Hervo, 53, has written a book that explains what happens when the dancefloor empties, usually around 1.30am, and the salons around it fill with writhing, sighing bodies.

Les dessous des Chandelles, which could be translated either figuratively as The Secrets of the Chandelles or literally as Underneath the Candelabras, is the portrait of a quintessentially French establishment.

Where else would the lost property include designer thongs or customers eat Ladurée macarons off the back of a naked woman, a famous male barrister end up in an alcove with his female rival days after their clash in a criminal court, or Mick Jagger reportedly be turned away for wearing a pair of jeans?

Hervo explains that her club is a bastion of French “savoir vivre”, where a select group of beautiful, intelligent and well-educated people conduct themselves in a way befitting a nation that has given the world some of its greatest suggestive literature, from Molière’s Dom Juan to Laclos’ Les liaisons dangereuses.

Consider, for example, her account of one of the Eyes Wide Shut theme parties she holds from time to time. “A naked woman, her gaze hidden by a Venetian mask, lies on a table,” she writes. “A nymph in a transparent toga joins her. She kneels down and delicately pulls her legs apart.”

She has torrid encounters herself, for instance with a woman whose perfume she found bewitching and whose body she discovered behind a veil in an alcove.

Much of her time, however, is spent looking after her patrons, like the couple of regulars who realised to their horror that their adult son and his partner had also begun going to Les Chandelles. Hervo tells how they begged her to help them avoid what they said would be a “regrettable” meeting.

On another occasion, a male customer arrived with his mistress, explaining to Hervo that his wife was stuck at home because she was ill. An hour later, the wife arrived with a younger man, she writes. “Don’t say anything to my husband,” she told Hervo. “He thinks I’ve got the flu.”

Hervo promptly rushed downstairs where she found the husband, “naked and frolicking with his partner and a few other accomplices”. She advised him to leave through the emergency exit.

I am discussing these and more adventures with Hervo at a table in her club’s pink and white restaurant, which is to be found at the bottom of stairs that wind down from an ordinary-looking blue door on the street.

Opposite us is another staircase that leads to what could easily be mistaken for an 18th- century Parisian literary salon – were it not for the mattress in the alcove at the end of it.

A third staircase, encased in walls painted in gold leaf, descends to a dancefloor, a bar and more salons with their alcoves, benches and mattresses.

It is difficult to find an English word to describe Les Chandelles. Some have called it a swingers’ club, although that conveys none of the cerebral sophistication and cultural aspirations that go with elite sex in France.

Others have used the term wife-swapping (or échangisme, as the French call it), but Hervo is no more happier with that than with group sex.

“For me, échangisme is very reductive and sad,” Hervo explains. “It involves some kind of contract between four people and they all need to agree, which can’t happen very often.”

What prevails at her club, she says, is libertinage, a concept dating back to a 12th-century rebellion against the church by disaffected clerics who were determined to place physical love above the courtly version promoted by troubadours and their ilk.

The contemporary version of this philosophy involves making “everything possible and nothing obligatory”, Hervo says.

One couple might go for sex, either with each other or with someone else, she says. A second might go along to watch. A third could be happy with a turn on the dancefloor.

“For some, it is enough to have an imaginary journey. For others, they will want a little bit more. But what happens in the salons is the icing on the cake and it doesn’t matter if nothing happens, because we’ve had such fun with the preliminaries.

“Everyone goes at their own rhythm. You may be happy with a look, a caress or with voyeurism. But that is all very different to échangisme.”

Libertinage, which has come and gone in France over the centuries – the early 17th and the mid-18th being among the high points – enjoyed a return to fashion from the late Nineties with the emergence of hundreds of clubs amid a spirit of unrestrained freedom.

The number has since fallen, with adepts taking to organising their own house parties. At the last count there were 269 such clubs left, according to French state radio.

The health crisis looks likely to drive many more out of business, their activities scarcely being compatible with social distancing.

Les Chandelles, however, has a status apart, and this should offer it protection against the vicissitudes of fortune.

Hervo says her customers include “politicians from both the left and the right” and “celebrities from across the whole world” (she refuses to divulge their names).

Hervo says that as her club’s fame has grown, so has its allure to visitors from Europe, the US, Asia and “a lot from Britain”.

It is not enough just to cross the channel and knock on the door, though. In order to get in, you need erotic knowhow, Hervo says, along with familiarity with Parisian savoir-vivre.

“It is an alchemy. A way of being,” she says.

In his Histoire du libertinage, Didier Foucault, a history lecturer at Toulouse University who is a specialist on the subject, writes of how the practice became fashionable after 1600 among aristocrats driven “by a haughty refusal to bow either to common law or to any authority whatsoever, be it temporal or divine”.

There may be something similar about the French elite that frequents Les Chandelles. The entrance fee is €96 for two, or €310 with dinner and a bottle of Deutz champagne thrown in. If Deutz is too downmarket, there is Cristal Roederer for €490 or Dom Pérignon Rosé for €470.

But the selection policy is not based on money, Hervo insists. More important to her are “elegance, refinement, education and taste.

“I have a very tough door policy. I turn away a lot of people.”

The badly dressed, the ugly, the vulgar, have no hope of getting past her, she says, while the overweight may struggle as well, at least if they are male.

“I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I am going to say it anyway. I think I would be more concerned by a fat man than a round woman. Round women can be very beautiful but, in general, men who are fat are… Well, someone who lets himself go physically is someone who does… not respect himself. And if he doesn’t respect himself, he is less likely to respect other people.”

Les dessous des Chandelles is a strange, almost dual work. On the one hand, it is a window onto this secretive world of privilege and exclusion created by Hervo beneath Rue Thérèse in the French capital.

On the other, it is a tale of the author’s personal voyage through libertinage and her claim that the sexual liberation she found along the way, first in other clubs and then in her own, helped to unshackle her from a traumatic childhood marked by incest, guilt and depression.

Our conversation reflects the same duality.

For much of the interview, Hervo comes across as the archetypal Parisian businesswoman, complete with carefully applied make-up, an elegant hairdo, an articulate discourse, a headstrong Yorkshire terrier and a well-trained fiancé – Tom, the maker of an excellent Sancerre white wine, who rushes off shortly after I arrive and returns later with an armful of her outfits for the photoshoot, including an all-white suit and a glittering jacket.

One minute she is talking with off-putting clarity about the female orgasm, telling me in a tone that brooks no argument that “a woman’s sexuality is so much richer than that of a man”. The next she is explaining, with equal equanimity, how she resisted underworld attempts to take over her club following her divorce in 2005.

Like all self-respecting Parisiennes, she knows how to throw a strategic fit of pique as well, announcing that the photographer is driving her mad and that Tom had better summon a friend for help, and be quick about it. The friend duly arrives with a bottle of sancerre to enable Hervo to get through the afternoon session.

Yet, from time to time, there are signs of the scars left by childhood, as when she concedes that she took refuge in libertinage in part because “at night-time, you can’t see the suffering so much… the glitter masks the pain”.

At one point, her eyes fill with tears as she discloses that her relatives have refused to speak to her since the publication of her book, which recounts her rape by her grandfather as a young girl, her parents’ refusal to believe her, her teenage struggles with depression, her toxic marriage to a man 20-odd years her senior, and her salvation in swingers’ clubs.

It was her former husband who introduced her to libertinage. She writes of her first experience in a club where “in a salon plunged into darkness… some couples are making love while others are observing them”.

She did not want to join in – at least not the first time – but says, “My emotion [was]great and my excitement real.”

“I was 24 and I instinctively knew it was right for me,” Hervo tells me. “What I liked in those places was a feeling of freedom and especially a feeling that I was meeting couples who seemed to get on well together.

“That was not the image of the couple I had received as a child because my parents argued all the time. It was like Disneyland as far as I was concerned.”

When her former husband suggested opening their own swingers’ club in Paris, she jumped at the chance. He put up some of the money, they borrowed the rest and she became the manager.

“It was a success straight away, because I think it was the first club to give so much importance to women,” she says. “At that time, in 1993, in other clubs, the women were just treated as objects and it was the men who took charge of the games and who brought along their wives.

“I think that they were probably men of little courage who were not able to cheat on their wives and who went to this sort of place instead. But that was not at all in the spirit of libertinage.”

Les Chandelles would be different, she decided. “Women who are objects are women without humanity. Here, I made sure that the women were subjects.

“In fact, I created here what I never had myself. I tried to encourage women to take their time, to dare to set the tempo, to ask men to be attentive and unhurried and to be gallant, because women adore gallantry.”

She says her door policy has always involved refusing entrance to couples if she suspects that the woman is being dragged along against her will or kept in the dark about the true nature of Les Chandelles. “Even now in 2021, there are boors who don’t tell their partners where they are taking them,” she says. “It’s increasingly rare but it still happens. But if I have the slightest doubt, I question them. You get a feeling for these things.”

Inside the club, no means no, she says, explaining that men can be expelled for repeating a request to a female customer if they are turned down the first time.

“I think women are much safer in this sort of place than in traditional nightclubs where they get hassled all the time,” she tells me.

She says that she herself came to see Les Chandelles – of which she has been the sole owner since extracting herself from her disastrous marriage 16 years ago and buying her former husband’s share – as a refuge from the wounds left by her troubled childhood.

“This has been my bunker and my incubator,” she says. “It was where I revitalised myself, and where I discovered myself too.”

Can her club really be as idyllic as she pretends?

For years, Les Chandelles has been described in the French press as a favourite haunt of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who resigned following his arrest on suspicion of rape. Although the charge was ultimately dropped, reports of his attendance at Les Chandelles have done nothing for its image.

Recently, it has also been linked with Gérald Darminin, President Macron’s interior minister, who, it has emerged, went to Les Chandelles in 2009 with a woman who had asked him for help in overturning her criminal conviction – he was legal affairs adviser for an opposition political party at the time – and who has accused him of raping her later that evening.

He denies her claim, but the publicity has scarcely been an advertisement for Hervo’s establishment.

She says the coverage has been misleading and unfair. DSK, for instance, barely ever visited Les Chandelles, she insists.

“There are many other politicians who came more often than him and who were much more important than him,” she says.

As for Darmanin, she says that when he dropped into the club a little over a decade ago, he was a young bachelor, and that young bachelors sometimes visit “for an evening with – what’s that word they use now? – oh yes, les sex friends, that’s it.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you find yourself on your own for a year or so, you might want a regular one of those. Why not?”

Until now, the interview has gone smoothly enough, interrupted only by the barking of Cerise, Hervo’s Yorkshire terrier, at the emergence of the photographer from below.

But then I make a big mistake. Noting the entrance policy favours single women – who are allowed in on evenings otherwise reserved for couples, when single men are banned – I ask Hervo whether she uses them as an enticement for male patrons seeking a threesome with their wives and another partner.

She looks daggers across the table. “That is really a stupid, male, Cro-Magnon thing to say,” she tells me. “It’s very maladroit of you.

“Single women come because they want to have fun, because they could meet a man who pleases them, or a woman, or perhaps neither. Sometimes, it’s just two women friends who come for a drink because they know that here they won’t be bothered and because they will be appreciated because they are pretty.

“When I began here, I didn’t receive single women in the evening, because society considered that a woman who came alone to an establishment like mine was either a whore or a bitch. I fought to make people understand that life does not work like that, and I am proud to say that today I have single women among my customers.”

I ask Hervo if she is a feminist. “I certainly am not a neo-feminist,” she says, explaining that she laughs off wolf whistles in the street, likes being complimented on her looks and wants to “seduce or to be seduced, freely. But I am feminist for some things. I am in favour of women being able to experience pleasure alone at first, to discover their bodies and to enjoy their bodies, and only afterwards to share all that with a partner if they so wish.

“That sort of thing has not always been possible in the past.”

Pointing out that Foucault’s history of libertinage shows how sexual freedoms have come and gone over the centuries in France, I wonder out loud whether the country is shifting back towards greater restraint.

“You’re right, it is,” she says. “The difference is that today, it is not religion that is trying to cover everything up, it’s our moralising society. There is a very prudish scent around these days.”

In a thinly veiled attack on #MeToo, she complains in her book that the social networks have been transformed into “popular tribunals”, that the law has come to treat women “as weak beings which have to be protected” and that the ancestral French game of seduction is being subjected to new codes and new rules.

It is difficult to determine whether the pandemic will brake or accelerate this trend. Some predict that when the crisis ends, we will see a repeat of les années folles (the mad years), as the Twenties were known in France, with a yearning for freedom, parties and libertinage.

Others forecast the continued spread of the Anglo-Saxon-style feminism that Hervo abhors and the curtailment of French love-making and seduction. She is not overly worried, though. On a personal level, she has emerged from years of therapy able to confront her past and look forward to the future, she says. She has become a part-time therapist herself, has a house in the country, where she has spent much of the past year, and is planning to “marry the man I love” this summer.

Even if the moral backlash gathers strength, she thinks that Les Chandelles will continue to triumph.

“There have always been currents and countercurrents, but if society goes one way, people will need a place of liberty where they can do what they want, where they will have the freedom to talk, to exchange.”

Indeed, she believes that her club may even come to play a role similar to that of literary salons in the 18th century, when they nurtured the ideas that helped to topple the ancien régime.

Only in France could there be dreams of Enlightenment amid the shadows of a basement sex club. Les dessous des Chandelles by Valérie Hervo is published by Cherche Midi

[the-muses-are-herd]

Recent OC list.

A handy little reference... that I’ll update later, with the proper info. For now, just a list of recent OC��s I have been using for RP: 

*

- Todd Mannix. 

*

SETTING: A story of mine, loosely based on “The Fox and the Hound” (primarily the novel, but frankly, a few other sources as well). Fantasy, kinda… Steampunk setting. A world loosely based on early 20th-century America (as in the continent), with technology being a touch more advanced and magic existing but being rare and regarded as a very risky type or energy to tap into. 

GENDER: Male. 

SPECIES: Red Fox.

SEXUALITY: Pansexual.

AGE: 25 (loosely).

OCCUPATION: Jack-of-all-trades.

PERSONALITY: Extroverted, quietly calculating. 

DESCRIPTION: A globe-trotter adventurer whose charming looks hide a seasoned survivalist. Frequently seeking new sights and thrills, loyal primarily to his best friend, the more laidback Toby. 

*

- Toby Slade. 

*

SETTING: Same as Todd. 

GENDER: Male

SPECIES: Hound dog. 

SEXUALITY: Bisexual (not entirely set in stone just yet)

AGE: 27 (loosely).

OCUPATION: Former hitman, currently jack-of-all-trades.

PERSONALITY: Businesslike and formal —save with his close acquaintances, with whom he reveals a more sarcastic, yet well-meaning, demeanor. 

DESCRIPTION: Former member of a mercenary team, quit to become an adventurer with his best friend, the more adventurous Todd. Holds himself to a code of honor that is frequently challenged by the often outlandish situations their adventuring leads to. 

**

- Camazotz. 

*

SETTING: Housamo (aka Tokyo Afterschool Summoners); this OC is one of many that I basically came up with during a long talk with my boyfriend. 

GENDER: Male.

SPECIES: Honduran white bat (Ectophylla alba) (*)

AGE: 26. 

OCCUPATION: Medical aide / independent researcher. 

PERSONALITY: Entirely focused at work and in battle, but very easily distracted in his free time. Somewhat embarrassed by the fact that he’s often mistaken for a child, which is only exacerbated by his love of sweets. 

DESCRIPTION: A bat Transient hailing from Anáhuac (**); descended from a long line of executioners, Camazotz long decided that he wanted to be a healer instead. This new world gave him the perfect opportunity for that, and so he set out to join the ideal Guild for his plans. Though regarded as too adorable to take seriously by most people, Camazotz is a hard-working individual, determined to achieve his goals. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: A string that grants ‘Divine Mercy’. However, Camazotz does not like using this Artifact except as a last-resource option —ostensibly it is a healing device. But in truth it has two outcomes: If the patient has wounds that might have healed over time, the string heals them instantly. If the wounds were lethal, the string kills them —the divine mercy in question. Camazotz believes there must be a way to repurpose it to find a third option. 

GUILD: Tamers. 

(*): Look up photos of them, by the by. It’s the cutest stuff in the world! :3

(**): Anáhuac is a concept I use in lieu of the game’s “El Dorado”. This territory includes other territories derived from Prehispanic mythologies, such as Hanan Pacha (see Chuychu, below). 

**

- Chuychú.

**

SETTING: Housamo. 

GENDER: Male. 

SPECIES: Alpaca. 

AGE: 28. 

OCCUPATION: Librarian. 

PERSONALITY: A flirty, somewhat vain, yet sharp young man. 

DESCRIPTION: Hailing from Hanan Pacha (*), Chuychú has been liaison between gods, astronomer / researcher, and now part of a Guild that mixes magic and scientific research. His main objective is to study and catalogue divergent timelines, including previous time loops. Generally pacific by nature, leaving the fighting to the bodyguards in his group, he is nevertheless more than wiling to defend himself or others in a pinch. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: The star mirrors —two twin orbs. One shows time and one space. Chuychu primarily uses them to study cosmic and time anomalies. Can also use them to show others their own past or divergent timelines (an ability he usually reserves only for people who might need a push in the right direction). In battle, he can combine their effects to create a profound vertigo effect, powerful enough to knock down all but the most resilient opponents. 

GUILD: Tama Scholars (**)

(*) = A world based on Inca mythology. 

(**) = Another concept my boyfriend and I came up with together. A group more interested in research than in fighting, based on Tama as it is the site of Tokyo’s biggest library. 

***

- Juan Darién (aka JD)

**

SETTING: Housamo.

GENDER: Male. 

SPECIES: Tiger-man / Human (see below).

AGE: 17. 

OCCUPATION: Student. 

PERSONALITY: Self-assured, if somewhat stubborn. Because he believes humans to be naturally prone to evil, he figures that his human form is not beholden to the same restrictions he imposes upon himself as a tiger. Consequently, in his tiger form he acts in what he understands to be a virtuous way (some say, self-righteous) and in his human form as a creature of desire. Yet his true personality is that of a naive young man still learning about the world. 

DESCRIPTION: The son of a tiger-man and a human woman. Lived peacefully in a small village in Yvy Tenondé (*), until the townspeople, who did not approve of this mixed marriage, burned their home. Juan Darién lost his parents that day, and since then came to believe that humans are evil by nature. Later, coming to a different world via a pillar of light, he joined the Aoyama group, figuring that their beliefs are the closest to his notions of good and evil. He considers his tiger form his true, and pure nature, and sometimes dons his human form purely to excise out his “sinful temptations”… or used to, until a fateful day when his ideologies led him to clash with one of the Crafters. 

The experience with the resulting Exception, and the intimacy necessary to cancel it, have led JD to question several of his long-held beliefs. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: A medallion that represents “Split”. He uses it to switch between his two forms, identifying the tiger side as “Juan” and the human as “Darién”. Only recently has he begun using both names at all times. The medallion can also be used in combat to split App users from their Artifacts. However, this can be a double-edged sword. Some Artifacts will simply go inert without a wielder, but others will go wild without a user to anchor them. 

GUILD: Missionaries. 

(*) = Part of the same world that includes Anáhuac and Hanan Pacha. Loosely based on Guaraní mythology. 

NOTE: Based on a character by Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga. 

***

- Fortunato. 

**

SETTING: Housamo. 

GENDER: Male.

SPECIES: Lion. 

AGE: 40. 

OCCUPATION: Security guard. 

PERSONALITY: Serious-minded about his job and about what he is to protect, be it arts, relics, or knowledge. Generally friendly otherwise, and particularly kind to children. 

DESCRIPTION: A transient who journeyed from his word looking for his twin, Sopho. Together they formed a duo dedicated to guarding all manner of temples and sacred spaces, descending from a long line of guardians. In this world he fulfills that role in his guild’s library base, together with a wolf transient whom Fortunato regards as a brother-in-arms. Quite protective of his guild and his friends, perhaps in part derived from his job. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: A morning-star flail that can hide doorways or reveal them. In battle Fortunato uses it to lock his opponents into a combat room that he alone controls. 

GUILD: Scholars. 

***

- Phyx. 

** 

SETTING: Housamo. 

GENDER: Female.

SPECIES: Sphynx (winged lioness) 

AGE: 35. 

OCCUPATION: Linguist. 

PERSONALITY: Inquisitive, to the point that sometimes she’ll hyper-focus on questions. Especially when meeting somebody new. Nevertheless a capable leader and a fierce warrior when needed. 

DESCRIPTION: A transient from Aaru. Phyx was the guardian of a massive temple until curiosity led her to explore the contents of this temple herself, finding a vast wealth of knowledge and culture. When she journeyed to another world, she sought a similar place of culture, finding it in the largest library of the city. Leader of the Tama Scholars. Under her leadership, this Guild is less interested in imposing a specific Ideology than in preserving records of several matters —including the many time loops that have come to pass before. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: A golden scepter that controls light. At it’s most powerful it will summon a light beam that can annihilate in seconds. There is a second, subtler power it has —Phyx can use it to reveal hidden passages or messages.  

GUILD: Scholars.

**

- Yasy Yateré.

SETTING: Housamo.

GENDER: Male. 

SPECIES: Unkown —shapeshifter, presents as a golden hare-man.

AGE: Unknown —claims to be 18. 

OCCUPATION: Greenhouse keeper.  

PERSONALITY: Polite, friendly and approachable. Has a more playful side that he reserves for his “golden friends” (see below). 

DESCRIPTION: A mysterious, elusive Transient from Yvy Tenondé. He generally stays out of App Battles and what few people contact him have found Yasy to be an okay, if slightly reserved, fellow. However, he has a side that only a few have seen. Every so often, Yasy will find a boy who catches his fancy, and use his powers to get close to him. When the time is right, he will give them a kiss that tastes like honey and wild berries —which will entrance them, after which he’ll take them to his secret garden to play. Yasy eventually gets bored of these “golden friends” and will let them go. What is he truly searching for? Even Guilds like the Wisemen and the Entertainers have not been able to crack this mystery just yet. 

SACRED ARTIFACT: A baculum decorated with small precious stones. It controls neither plants nor mesmerism, as his opponents expect —instead, it lets him control emotions or even make people drowsy. Yasy prefers to escape rather than to defeat his opponents. However, an opponent who pushes too far will find themselves confronted with Yasy’s true nature: One of the seven children of Kerana and Tau, god of Evil. His genuine appearance and powers are not quite so whimsical. 

GUILD: Unknown. Has been rumored to be part of either the Rule Makers or the Genociders, but neither group has ever confirmed he is in their ranks. 

**

- Amber. 

An AU variation on Kounosuke, using concepts from “Steven Universe” and later “Houseki no Kuni”. 

Basic info can be found here --though it is now slightly out of date. 

**

- Hugh Cahil. 

*

SETTING: A particular AU that I use along with my boyfriend that is, uuhhh….. “Morenatsu but with Sci-fi stuff. Also a lot of characters from other Fandoms”. 

GENDER: Male. 

AGE: 21. 

SPECIES: Tasmanian Devil. 

SEXUALITY: Gay. 

OCCUPATION: Drama teacher. Moonlights as the drummer for “The Carrions”. 

PERSONALITY: Blunt and straight to the point, yet fiercely loyal to his friends and to their friends in turn. Highly gregarious. 

DESCRIPTION: The kind of cool teacher whose students flock to for his unconventional choices in teaching (one year he had this drama class do a stage production of “You’re good man, Charlie Brown” followed by “Dog sees God: Confessions of a teenage blockhead” (*) ). Singaporean, though of Australian origin, recently Hugh has been focusing more on his band, as they are finally starting to get their first breaks. 

(*) = Look up the plot to these plays. You are in for a quite a treat!

** 

- Karnevil.

SETTING: Mutanimals / TMNT. 

GENDER: Male.

SPECIES: Hyena. 

SEXUALITY: (Undecided)

AGE: Unknown (roughly estimated to be in his late 20’s).

OCCUPATION: Former hotel doorman; currently, mercenary. 

PERSONALITY: Obsessive, yet wiling to bargain. 

DESCRIPTION: A victim of two separate mutations, first from human to hyena-man, then briefly to brainwashed servant and back —but in the process discovered a dark desire deep inside of him: To eat the flesh of living human beings. Mutants, too. He has forgotten his original name in lieu of his chosen monicker. Will lend his augmented speed, strength, and mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and claws to any employer wiling to provide him with what he craves. Yet once the hunger is sated, he has found himself aimless and often adrift in life…

**

- Moy

SETTING: TMNT / Mutanimals. 

SPECIES: Mutant Leopard with purple fur. 

GENDER: Male. 

AGE: 26. 

OCCUPATION: Former truck driver, currently freelance courier.

PERSONALITY: Disciplined at his job, used to be timid. Currently becoming more and more outspoken. 

DESCRIPTION: An exchange student from Guatemala who extended his stay working all sort of off jobs. He was considering leaving when disaster struck and he found himself doused in Mutagen even as he clung to a dyed paw he had won in a fair years ago. The mutation gave him the additional, uncommon power to teleport. Finding himself with no real barriers for the first time in his life, Moy has decided to explore every nook and cranny of this strange world —and beyond! 

NOTE: Based on the character “Moykat” from the licensed Mexican TMNT comic back in the 90’s.

*

[rockislandadultreads]

Brain Food: books about the human mind

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by Daniel C. Dennett

How did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled abilities. Disciples of Darwin have explained how natural selection produced plants, but what about the human mind? In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. A crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Competition among memes produced thinking tools powerful enough that our minds don’t just perceive and react, they create and comprehend. An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and scientists, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain all those curious about how the mind works.

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery by Sam Kean

From the author of the bestseller The Disappearing Spoon, tales of the brain and the history of neuroscience. Early studies of the functions of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike-strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, horrendous accidents-and see how the victim coped. In many cases survival was miraculous, and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward, altering victims' personalities. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma can even make you a pathological gambler, pedophile, or liar. But a few scientists realized that these injuries were an opportunity for studying brain function at its extremes. With lucid explanations and incisive wit, Sam Kean explains the brain's secret passageways while recounting forgotten stories of common people whose struggles, resiliency, and deep humanity made modern neuroscience possible.

The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will by Heidi Ravven

Few concepts are more unshakable in Western culture than free will, the idea that people are fundamentally free to make good or bad decisions. Scholar Heidi M. Ravven throws a wrench into this conventional view, calling free will a myth that reflects the still-powerful influence of Christian theology on our popular thinking. The Self Beyond Itself offers a riveting and accessible review of modern neuroscientific research into the brain's capacity for decision-making — from mirror neurons and self-mapping to surprising new understandings of the dynamics of group psychology. Ultimately, this research points to the profound, virtually inescapable social influences on moral choices. Ravven shows that it is possible to build a theory of ethics that doesn't rely on free will yet still holds both individuals and groups responsible for the decisions that help create a good society. Drawing especially on the work of Spinoza, she introduces readers to a rich philosophical tradition that finds uncanny confirmation in modern neuroscience. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis

Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics. One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. In The Undoing Project, Lewis shows how their Nobel Prize–winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality.

The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You) by Simon M. Laham

Pride, lust, gluttony, greed, envy, sloth, and anger. They’re considered “deadly” because of their capacity to generate other evils.  The truth is, we all sin and we do it all the time—in fact, usually several times over before breakfast!  But human behavior, argues social psychologist Simon Laham, is more complex than “good” or “evil.”  In psychology, these sins aren’t considered morally wrong or even uniformly bad, but are treated rather as complex and interesting psychological states that if, indulged wisely, can be functional, adaptive, and lead to a range of positive effects.   The Science of Sin takes on these so-called sins one by one and through psychological research shows that being bad can be oh-so-good for you.  Did you know that: ·         Being slow and lazy can help you win the race? ·         Anger makes you more open-minded? ·         Coveting what others have not only makes you more creative but bolsters self- esteem? So go ahead, eat that last cookie and kick back on the couch for a day of TV with your neighbor’s boyfriend—from gluttony to greed, envy to lust, Laham shows how even the deadliest, most decadent of vices can make you smart, successful, and happy.

Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett

The brain is an absolute marvel—the seat of our consciousness, the pinnacle (so far) of evolutionary progress, and the engine of human experience. But it’s also messy, fallible, and about 50,000 years out of date. We cling to superstitions, remember faces but not names, miss things sitting right in front of us, and lie awake at night while our brains endlessly replay our greatest fears. Idiot Brain is for anyone who has ever wondered why their brain appears to be sabotaging their life—and what on earth it is really up to.

[star-anise]

I would enjoy it greatly if you would rant about the White People Smile thing, because ever since that post, I've noticed how much I do it

Okay this one is gonna be a deep dive.

For the uninitiated, I’m explaining why white people do what they do. This refers less to the actual amalgamated experiences of every person with pale skin and European descent ever, and more the aspirational model of whiteness held up as the cultural ideal in former British colonies.The gap between these two concepts is left for the audience as an instructive lesson on how useful racial stereotypes are in predicting the experiences and behaviour of individual people of that race.

Previously, while explaining why guest towels are often not meant to be used by guests, I dipped into the white propensity to never let someone know when they’re making a mistake–to smile awkwardly and say nothing when a person is being rude or offensive–before going back to talking about the unique properties of linen and terrycloth. This is a further look at the subject.

So, I can’t explain this for every person ever. And I’m gonna take a different tack than I normally would, which would normally be to talk about trauma and the fight/flight/freeze response to stress. Instead, I’m going to talk about my research into the cultural moment centuries ago when this response started to be advocated, and how connecting to long-lost European martial arts helped me unlearn this response.

Tl;dr it emerged as an alternative to stabbing people

I said once that I was a frustrated medievalist, fitting in my history education around other concerns, and therefore ended up studying, more than anything else, how the middle ages disappeared? This is one of those cases–the only vaguely relevant history class I could get into that semester was  Early Modern England, which focused on the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 1485-1649. That’s the period right after the Middle Ages are said to have “ended” in Britain.

At the time I was also very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history group. I did rapier fencing, using the long, light swords that were intended specifically for person-to-person combat in civilian settings. They’re duelling swords, at a time the duel was becoming a separate institution from the battlefield. They were used in Spain, Italy, and France earlier, but this time period was about when they became popular in England, so I decided to use the class as a lens to study duelling in England. My prof was very receptive to this, partly because it meant he had one student whose papers weren’t about the political machinations of someone named Thomas and/or Cromwell.

So, duelling is an inherently aristocratic system. To understand it, you have to understand that “privilege” literally means “privi lege”, Latin for “private law”. It meant that the laws that applied to nobles were different from laws that applied to commoners. Commoners were not generally allowed to carry weapons or kill people; if the average commoner killed somebody, he would be tried for murder before a jury of his peers and executed for murder. But the nobility fell under the privilege of the sword; they were the class of society whose job it was to carry weapons and kill people, police and army by hereditary right. Nobles were judged by juries of their peers, other nobles; other nobles accepted that sometimes they were 100% correct in killing people. And if you’re like, “Whoa that’s fucked up, it’s like police deciding if a police officer was right to kill a civilian,” DING GOLD STAR FOR YOU. It’s why Robin Hood, the anti-aristocratic hero whose archenemy was a sheriff, is such a popular folk figure in England.

So nobles could kill commoners without serious consequences, and nobles were also allowed to kill other nobles, so long as they followed a code of combat known as chivalry. That included things like: Don’t attack someone who’s unarmed or defenceless; don’t attack from behind or without warning; bow to him before you begin fighting; blah blah blah blah. They were always more ideals than realities during times of war, but when artillery showed up on northern European battlefields in the 1400s, they became deeply impractical in warfare.  (Redacted: detailed explanation of why this is.) The ideal of a fair fight between matched foes stuck around in the duel, but it became a civil affair, not a military strategy.

Okay okay so. Why did duels happen? More than anything, they were about honour, prestige, and respect. Nobles had a certain way they expected to be treated, a code of politeness and manners with which people had to treat them. A commoner who failed to treat them this way could be punished with limited ability to resist, but other nobles had to be treated according to the same chivalric values of the fair fight. They had to be challenged to a duel.

So duels occurred over all kinds of shit. Failing to give someone precedence or jostling them in the door; having an affair with somebody’s wife; insulting someone’s favourite religious figure; behaving in an unchivalric manner; accusing someone else of behaving in an unchivalric manner; anything. People could make tutting sounds over duels being fought for the stupidest shit, but that didn’t necessarily stop them from being fought.

So the duel and the culture of politeness were really intertwined. You were polite to people because if you weren’t, they could stab you and get away with it. It’s funny how the word “gentle” started out a thousand years ago meaning someone from a particular lineage, how that lineage was the only people with social permission to perpetuate huge amounts of violence, but now means restraint from violence–but that’s what happened. A lot of courtly manners among the nobility were really like… intense high-stakes peace negotiations with everyone, all the time. 

So like, imagine current Tumblr callout culture, except if somebody called you out, you had to let them try to kill you.

Many monarchs of this era HATED duelling culture. Countries like England and France had histories of war between nobles and the Crown, so the Crown hated their nobility being really strong powerful military leaders. Powerful nobility had the pesky tendency of refusing to obey monarchs they didn’t like, or even kicking them off the throne. This pushed those monarchies towards a principle of absolute royal authority over which nothing and no one had precedence. Privilege, so far as these monarchs were concerned, ought to belong to the CROWN, and then people the Crown specifically deputized. You can’t just have people running all over and killing each other whenever they wanted! So the monarchs all started, slowly, to place restrictions on duelling and noble privilege, trying to consolidate that power.

Part of how that was done in Britain specifically was to reach out to the common people. Well, the rich common people. The merchant class. You may also know them as the bourgeoisie. One of the ways the monarchs of this era got extra money their nobles didn’t want them to have was by selling rights to colonial enterprise and writs of nobility. If you had enough money, you could become a baronet! Or own land in Ireland! Or go trade fur in North America! Which led to the social mobility I’ve mentioned before–while the crown was squeezing down the rights of the nobility, it was also opening up to the concept of common people becoming nobles. 

Here’s the thing about European racism: In places where there weren’t as many people of colour around to be racist at? They just narrowed down their concept of race. Nobles genuinely believed they constituted a separate race of people from commoners, and that they were physically different and genetically superior to common people. So this kind of class mobility was an existential threat. How can someone with no noble blood become a marquis?!

(Spoiler: In previous centuries there had been much more class mobility, before the medieval concept of “nobility” fully formed, so it was in fact as bullshit as most other racial constructs. And as the noble/common divide blurred, race had to be defined in more comprehensive ways: English against the inferior Irish, until the Irish could be assimilated into whiteness and defined in opposition to black Africans. When there have in fact been black English people for as long as there has been an England. Really truly honestly, race is constructed bullshit.)

Anyway, when the British Crown prohibited duelling in the 17th century, they tried to justify it by saying to their nobles: Hey look, here are all these commoners dressing and acting like you! And duelling like you! How droll! Don’t they look ridiculous and stupid, fighting over the littlest thing? Wouldn’t you say duelling is a little gauche? A little bourgeois?  You wouldn’t treat them like your equals, as though they deserved to be treated with the rules of chivalry, would you? No, that would be silly.

So in former times, if someone breached the standards of politeness, they’d be called out and expected to apologize or fight. But now, calling someone out would be affording them noble status when they didn’t merit the racial construct of nobility. And also, like I said before–if a commoner who was trying to break into high society made a mistake, and people pointed it out to them, then they’d learn to correct that mistake and fit in better. And then they might MARRY a noble, and DILUTE the BLOODLINES and POLLUTE the shades of PEMBERLY and MASS HYSTERIA, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER.

So now, the nobility slowly came to believe that ~taking the high road~ was the better response: Refuse to dignify bad manners with a response, just let the awkward silence hang there so everyone can see how badly-behaved they were. Well-bred people will just know the secret unwritten rules of society. Then you can quietly exclude the rubes from your parties without ever letting them know they’re being excluded. And anyway, if you did duel someone, you’d have to do it in dead secret and if you actually did kill them, you might have to flee the country or else the Crown would arrest you and try you for murder and it’s not nice to get your dwindling noble privilege rubbed in your face.

So that’s the birth of the British response of “When someone fucks up, smile, look constipated, and say nothing.” It was especially strong in noblewomen, who wouldn’t be able to duel anyway, so might as well make a brave face of the only option that feels possible. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the late 1700s and early 1800s, society was leaning further and further to “true politeness means never expressing disapproval of someone else’s bad behaviour.” Partly because pointing out someone’s lapse in manners came to mean you thought they were stupid and hadn’t been properly enculturated into your class, which was of course the worst thing ever.

Across the centuries, the threads holding all the pieces together have rotted, so we forget why we define politeness this way; it’s just The Way Things Are Done. It’s just #verybritishproblems. It’s just the lower-class belief that if someone offends or insults you, you should punch them in the nose; it’s just the anxious privileged liberal belief that violence is wrong and we should just wring our hands about it. The most aware I’ve seen people from former colonies be on the topic is Australians, who know that they don’t subscribe as much to British manners and ideals because they were a prison colony, largely settled by poor people who got there by breaking the rules.

My grandmother, born 1929, totally aspired to that level of class and gentility, even though she was raised dirt poor; being a white settler in Canada meant that theoretically, if you worked hard and went to church and improved yourself through cleanliness and education, you could join the new ruling class. She aspired to the heights of Calgarian society, for whatever that was worth. And she has this specific way of sucking her breath in that means “Oh GOD, granddaughter, you have just something TERRIBLY gauche. Think about everything you are doing, wearing, and being at this moment, and magically intuit which of them is incorrect!” She’s also the one who made my mom learn to do pulled-thread embroidery, and taught me how to lay a place setting of silverware for a four-course meal, and basically strove to turn herself into a living model of aspirational whiteness. When my mom and I go into family therapy, we usually end up talking about how much we want to reject her ideals.

How did I unlearn this?

I am not a good fencer. I love the idea of swordfighting, but in addition to my weakness and disability, I have a really timid posture and way of moving. When I was a kid, I made it a game to see if, by turning sideways or flattening myself against a wall, I could navigate through a crowd quickly without ever needing anyone to move or notice I was there.  I really connected with the idea of Arya, in Game of Thrones, learning how to be a silent ghost, learning to catch cats. 

Then, in fencing, I had to learn entirely new responses. I’ve traditionally flinched and frozen when physically threatened; now I had to train myself to assess an incoming threat and fend it off. I had to learn to stand upright, to hold my core strong and solid, to respond to an attack and then to attack in return. It’s really physical, and in turn, really emotional. When I’ve taught teenage girls in turn, I’ve had to ease them through the process of laughing in discomfort when they land a hit on someone, crying when they hit someone out of fear and shame because they’re not supposed to DO that. Those are stages I’ve had to go through as well. I was pretty affected by a book I acquired through SCA channels, The Armored Rose, about the experiences of modern women learning to do historical combat. It’s a feminist analysis and it felt true to me, but now, a few decades later, I think it’s not really about “women” so much as “people who have been socialized to never be violent”–there are a lot of men I’ve taught who have been just as likely to freeze, who needed to overcome emotional hesitation before responding assertively, and women who had no hesitation at all.

But one lesson that really left an impression on me was learning from a doña, an acknowledged master of the form, who was helping me fine-tune the way I held myself when I fought. “Pull in your core,” she said, encouraging me to bunch my muscles up so that when I uncoiled it would be even more powerful and positive. “Hold a little bit of ferocity. You gotta be a little mad at your opponent.”

“Anger gets in the way of clear thinking,” my usual teacher, an older man, said.

“Too much, yeah,” she said. “But in the women I’ve taught, the problem is usually not enough anger, not too much.”

I can still call that feeling up very clearly–legs tense and coiled, body held upright, ready to respond to an attack with a counterattack of my own. IIt felt good. I loved fencing, loved the sense of accomplishment I got learning how to respond to attacks and defeat them.

As a child and teenager I was hideously socially anxious, and had been bullied for most of my life. When people were socially aggressive towards me, it was incredibly hard not to just freeze up. Fighting back was impolite. Resistance was futile. I would either physically or metaphorically tuck myself into a ball and wait for them to stop hitting me, get bored and go away. In my late teens and early twenties I started getting medication and therapy to deal with my problems, and that meant learning to be socially assertive. To say, “No, you didn’t hear me right, what I really meant was–” and “No, I’d rather not go,” and “Excuse me, I’d like to be included in this discussion.” And a lot of the time, when I did that, I could physically feel the scrape of another sword against mine as a ghost in my mind. I’d put my feet into a fencer’s position before difficult conversations, to give me courage.

And after writing my final paper on duelling, I thought a lot about what it would be like to live in a duelling culture. How weird, how foreign would it be, to believe that somebody else deserved to die for treating me badly? How did you summon up enough anger to fight someone for insulting you? What kind of emotion would be necessary to drive a real sword into them, and not a blunted one? 

What would it be like if I treated myself like someone whose feelings and experiences mattered, whose integrity was worth defending?

I mean, it was not a quick, easy, or complete fix. Years after, I’d still do things like get assaulted and take a year before telling anyone about it because the guy who assaulted me was friends with all my friends and I didn’t want to make them choose a side. But as much as I did change, that was how. And that enabled me to have richer relationships with a lot of different people. Before, people would hurt me without knowing it, and never know why I was later too scared of them to talk. I took a long time to trust people, to feel comfortable enough to connect with them. That fragility made it hard for me to help people, to do the kind of jobs that I wanted. The sturdier I got, the better at defending my boundaries and expressing myself, the wider the array of people I could talk with, get to know. 

And since what I really wanted was to be a therapist focused on complex trauma, and a huge proportion of the people with complex trauma in Alberta are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, that put me in situations where we had to talk about colonization and decolonization, and people started to ask me, “Hey, white girl, why do white people have so much stuff in their houses you’re not allowed to touch or use? Why are white people like this?” and could explain social niceties like “Yeah, this is a weird random thing white people do that seems really rude or stupid to you? But if you’re applying to a job and want a white person to hire you, they’ll judge you for not paying attention to it.”

I also learned, later, as training for a job, another form of martial art. Specifically, nonviolent martial arts–what to use when an impaired or intoxicated person attacks you, and you want to defend yourself without harming them, and how to render them safe if they’re hurting themselves. That job left me alone for 48 hours with teenagers with serious behavioural problems, who would do things like flail their hands in the direction of my face when I was helping them with basic hygiene. 

They didn’t mean to hurt me, and it wasn’t aggressive, but still, their nails would sometimes draw blood and it frequently left me feeling frightened and angry, because I’d been physically hurt. And it’s actually really hard to convince your monkey hindbrain that they didn’t intend to hurt you, to make that adrenaline and fear go away. It made it really hard to care for them when I didn’t feel safe, because it was hard to summon up compassion, gentleness, and empathy with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. So that training helped a lot. After that, I could catch and deflect their hands before I risked getting hurt. We could have a better relationship because I felt confident and safe around them. 

It’s filed in my brain next to the time I was playing with my nephew when he was a toddler, when I discovered that he stopped blithely using me as a climbing post when I said “Ow!” when he stepped on my boob. Once I let myself vocalize pain, he realized that he was causing me pain. He asked me about it, and when I said that it hurt me when he stepped on me, he apologized, gave me a hug to make it better, and played more gently after that. He hadn’t realized he hurt me; letting him know when he was too hard let him know how to be kind to me.

Those two are physical memories I call to mind when I’m dealing with someone who’s really upset and lashing out at me: sometimes the kindest thing you can to for someone else is deny them the ability to hurt you. To let them know the effect they’re having on you, so they can stop.

Okay. Dive’s over. I just felt my ears pop.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 157

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 09 - “Precure is Exposed!?” Date watched: 19 October 2019 Original air date: 1 April 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/1yYupZl Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

five girls are friends, more on page 2

In the Futari wa seasons, people typically fell unconscious whenever evil was around, and the girls didn’t usually have to worry about being discovered. There was that notable exception in FW14, but it’s been largely glossed over. In this show, though, the activities of the Precures and Nightmare have attracted attention (in fact that’s how Karen and Komachi got involved), and the sudden and kind of unusual friendship between the girls has not gone unnoticed. What’s a nosy reporter to do?

The Plot

The girls find themselves as the subject of several headlining articles in the school newspaper, commenting on everything from their eating habits to their mysterious friendship. The paper’s editor introduces herself and her slogan: “What the people want to know, I want to know!” She gives her name as Masuko Mika, but puns it into “Masukomi-ka” which is shorthand for mass communications.

When the girls can’t give her straight answers about why they’re friends, she decides to further investigate. After school one day, she sees them leaving the school with Mr. Cocoda, but he disappears suddenly. She follows the group to Natts House, where Coco and Nuts are hanging out as fairies, so there appears to be nobody tending the store. She’s still suspicious as she leaves the shop, when she runs into Arachnea, believing her to be the shop owner. Arachnea kidnaps her due to her relationship with the girls, planning to use her as collateral to get the Dream Collet. They chase the villain into an empty department store, but the girls are afraid to transform in front of Mika and give away their identities. Undeterred, Mika tries to question Arachnea and get a picture of her.

Annoyed, Arachnea transforms the camera into a Kowaina. Mika finds an opening to escape her grip, and the girls transform when she’s not looking. She watches them fight and defeat the monster, rescuing her camera, and she tries to interview them afterwards but all they say is that they’re called Pretty Cure, and then they disappear. Mika heads back to Natts Shop, confident that something bizarre is going on and the five girls are involved, but she runs into Nuts in his human form. She asks if he saw the girls go by, and he responds simply that there are some things she shouldn’t know. Mika is taken aback by his attractiveness and quickly agrees.

The next day at school, the girls are nervously expecting a story about them in the newspaper, but instead, the headlining article and most of the front page are taken up with pictures of Nuts, described as a “super hottie”, with only a small, pictureless blurb about “five mysterious girls” at the very bottom of the page. Their secret is safe.... for now.

The Analysis

Since this episode is about Mika, my response to it pretty much reflects my thoughts on her. Masuko Mika is a fun character. Her desire to find out the truth is commendable, and she does ask some good questions, but her methods are a little misguided. She rides the line between investigative journalist and paparazzo, sneaking candid pictures of her targets in order to get a scoop. Unfortunately, these photos are mostly of our heroines engaging in such compromising activities as “having lunch” and “hanging out.” Even Otaka is like “Why don’t you find something else to write about?” She is a curious character. Snooping around Natts House gets her kidnapped by Arachnea but even then she tries to question the villain up until the moment she sees she’s in over her head. She is so committed to figuring out why Nozomi and the others are hanging out, and who Precure are, and then..... she sees Nuts. Nuts suggests she forget everything and so he becomes her muse, the subject of almost all her writing. Precure and the mysterious occurrences at the school are relegated to a small corner of the paper. It’s good for the team, but it doesn’t speak too highly of the paper’s journalistic quality or her diligence as the chief. (Honestly though, I don’t recall ever seeing any other members of the newspaper club in this show, it is entirely possible it’s just her running a glorified gossip rag.) Mika says that she writes about what the people want to know, and I guess that’s true: Nuts will prove to be a very popular figure at this all-girls school, but it’s funny/a little frustrating to see her so easily distracted. However, this will not be her last appearance, not by a long shot, and she’s fondly remembered.

I would be remiss to ignore, however, that Mika has a point. Nozomi has surrounded herself with an unlikely group of high-profile friends, but while Precure was certainly a big factor in them coming together, it wasn’t just that, and someone could probably spin a version of events while leaving out their secret identities. Nozomi and Rin were already friends before the show started and we know they go back to their youth. Nozomi became friends with Urara when she saw her sitting alone all the time and decided to talk to her. Karen and Komachi are a little more complicated, because they only began speaking when Nozomi decided they should become Precures, but nonetheless Nozomi took a genuine interest in Komachi’s writing and in Karen’s overall well-being. She supported and sympathized with them, and earned their respect and companionship as a result. Being Precures isn’t the only thing that brings them all together, they’re actually friends, and I’m glad the show spent the time that it did establishing this. Unfortunately, Nozomi’s people skills don’t put her in the same league of notoriety as the others, which results in Mika and many others wondering what these school superstars are doing with her. I don’t think outsiders ever fully recognize Nozomi’s strength of character throughout the series.

This episode is another worldbuilding episode, much like episode 7 was and like episode 10 will be. There isn’t much going on with Nightmare, just the usual threats that failure to get the Dream Collet will be met with some form of punishment. Since the bad guys only win on key episodes, and this isn’t the type of show where they make progress towards their goal whether they win or not, it’s starting to feel a little repetitive. It just serves to show how disorganized Nightmare really is, though. Later on, we’ll see how far they take the business concept, it isn’t always Bunbee smugly threatening his employees, while being smugly threatened himself by Kawarino, but that’s a lot of the early part of the show.

There is some truly bad art in this episode. Most times that the girls are shown in full body where they occupy about two-thirds of the frame height or less, they go wildly off model.

The faces get extremely sloppy, with their eyes usually being stretched vertically while their other features are minimized. Nozomi’s hair especially gets drawn as more prominent than it normally is. Their bodies seem kind of elongated, but aside from a lack of shading they’re otherwise fine. Also, there are shots where someone’s movement is just the cell sliding across the frame, not even being moved up or down to indicate the slight bob of walking. I’ll get some gifs to demonstrate shortly. It’s not awful overall, but there is definitely a hint that it’s a less important episode.

Last point of note, Pretty Cure Splash Subs, whose translations were the basis of both Splash Star and this series (the versions I’m using anyway), were a little notorious for sticking some modern jokes, references, and sayings into their scripts, such as “you mad bro” and “a cat is fine too.” Well, this episode gave us this:

I generally don’t like meme translations, because memes and internet jokes come and go pretty fast and they can date a show hardcore. That being said, if this saying was around at the time, it’s exactly the sort of thing a contemporary kid would say. I looked it up the history  of “POIDH” and it was just starting to spread at this point, so it’s arguably appropriate. (but I still hate it) Obviously this isn’t a criticism of the series itself, and I’m not going to let it impact my perception, but I do find it a bit annoying that this (and several examples yet to come) made it in at all.

Next time, we get to focus on someone a little closer to home, as Nuts discovers that running a shop is hard when you don’t have any customers. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 Kettei!

[dgcatanisiri]

The key to any good adaption is understanding a certain set of things.

1. Don’t be afraid to update the source material. Yes, even if it’s “timeless.”

All media is a product of its time, so you need to recognize that what worked for the original will not necessarily translate for the new audience. If a basic conceit of your product is a certain societal mindset is the norm (just, for example, that “homosexuality is inherently bad,” or “transgender people are inherently hilarious,” or “a woman’s place is unquestionably in the home”), you’re probably best off just packing it in then and there, it’s not going to work. Society evolves, times change, and while we can let these things slide for media that is older, we do not extend this same slack to media made now.

There’s a reason that a lot of stagings of something like Taming of the Shrew, or more modern adaptations like Kiss Me Kate or 10 Things I Hate About You, will often twist what is, on the page, Kate’s “tameness” being a show for the sake of winning the wager, that she is merely performing what is expected of her, while still maintaining her own independence and attitude, and that she has learned that she could use this performance to make Petruchio do as she wanted, or even that the both of them are in on it and have found an equal in the other - in the 15th century, “taming” a “shrew” was considered how one was supposed to be, that a woman was supposed to be subservient to her husband, and that her being so brash and bold from the start was already pushing the values of Shakespeare’s original audience. 

And this is the case of adapting something even as recent as ten, fifteen, twenty years ago - society has changed, and it’s recognized that what was seen as acceptable then was actually punching down at marginalized groups. That’s not funny. Comedy is the quickest genre to age, and the most likely to age poorly. Look at any given 90s romcom and you’ll notice a LOT of issues - the heteronormativity, where no one is gay (aside from MAYBE a single token character), the cast is mostly white - there may, at most, be a black best friend who may or may not be paired up with someone who literally exists for the purpose of arm candy, and you might spot an extra or two in the background, and they’ll use words that we now recognize as slurs so casually you’ll have to go back to realize yeah, they actually said that. And that’s not even scratching the surface.

When it comes to coming to an old piece of media and deciding “I want to do this again,” you absolutely MUST recognize what is no longer acceptable. And if the baseline concept of your selected media is something unacceptable, put aside the dream, this will not end well for you if you attempt to go through with it.

2. Recognize what works and what doesn’t for your medium.

This is something more for straightforward adaptations - book to movie, movie to TV show, stage to screen, etc. A change in medium is going to require a change to the material. It just is. This is why, for example, straight adaptations of video games are extremely hard to pull off - you’re changing an interactive media to a noninteractive one, and, in a lot of cases, that guts the core investment. It’s one thing to play Lara Croft as she raids the tombs, doing the platforming and puzzle challenges yourself. But as a movie, just taking any given game and making a direct 1:1 reshoot, you’re basically just watching her do the same thing with no involvement yourself, and, as a result, you end up watching a glorified cutscene.

It’s the same with stage to screen. Theatre is a medium of its own, with its own internal logic, rules, and structure. In theatre, a character can address the audience, it’s accepted. It doesn’t quite work as well on screen. (For further expansion, there’s a segment of Lindsay Ellis’s video essay on Mel Brooks and The Ethics of Satire that discusses how this works for the stage version of The Producers, but fizzled out in the 2006 film adaptation.) This is often a problem in film adaptations of stage musicals, that the directors don’t know what to focus on or how to film a large group of people, dancing and singing, so, while there’s some general competence, a lot of the film directors don’t have the same eye for them that they would in a straightforward dialogue-driven movie. Stopping the dramatic interaction between two people for what is, in effect, a symbolic struggle as they exchange heated high notes throws off the momentum of a director who knows how to stage the actors and move the camera in a direct argument, but gets confused when both parties dance across the soundstage all through the scene.

Likewise, books allow the audience to understand what is going through a character’s head during a scene, we are able to hear their thoughts and recognize what they’re doing without the character ever speaking a word. That is a luxury film’s nature doesn’t offer. Voice overs are a frequent way around this, but that too is limiting, generally forcing the film into a single viewpoint, which may not be how the narrative was structured. So this is where establishing dialogue has to be included.

This can be a problem, though, as the screenwriter may have a different style than the original writer, so, instead of transplanting dialogue, they have to come up with their own words, which can often end up just being an exposition dump. It can be done, but it is a tightrope walk.

3. Understand what can and can’t be cut.

A frequent problem of adaptations, especially to film, is that they are drawing on source material that maybe be, in a direct, 1:1 adaptation of the original, too long for a modern adaptation. This is a frequent issue with the Harry Potter adaptations, for example, where to cover all of the events of just the first book, would probably have clocked in at three and a half, even four hours, and they only got longer from there. Some things just had to go.

Which is a problem, because for the most part, if something is in the source material, it is there for a reason. Foreshadowing, character establishment, worldbuilding, whatever, there is a reason that any content is included in the first place. 

So you need to find ways to either condense or work around things - going back to Harry Potter, as a character, while he’d had his uses in the books, Peeves’s contribution to the overall tapestry of the series was small enough that he could be removed. Same with a character like Professor Binns, whose largest contribution was the exposition of the Chamber of Secrets, could have that shunted over to a character like Professor McGonagall, with no need to hire another actor for one scene and account for this character later (this later came into play with characters like Professor Trelawney, who appeared in all the books after her introduction, but not every film). 

The runtime makes a difference, especially given how much we see movies try to have as many showing per day as they can - the shorter the film, the more times it can be shown. So you need to know what can go and what can be condensed. 

But this can backfire - cutting a scene can often remove important context and characterization, even if it’s short or small. Star Trek, the 09 film, cut a scene between young James Kirk and his older brother. Now, it’s not really that important in this adaptation that Kirk has an older brother, so on paper, yeah, this scene getting cut made sense. BUT this scene featured Kirk’s older brother walking out because of the abuse being inflicted on them by “Uncle Frank,” and how he intended to sell their father’s car, how Frank was denying James Kirk a sense of being who he was, telling him “You’re no one.” This is what leads to the reckless theft of said car that did make it into the final cut, and made that joyride less into a moment of “fuck the man, I do what I want,” and more of a moment of declaration of him trying to find himself (and makes this kid shouting to the robo-cop “My name is James Tiberius Kirk!” less of a cutesy way of getting in the character’s full name and more a way of, again, showing him declaring who he is.) It also shows James Kirk’s desire for justice and fairness for people, a VERY important element for this character, showing him standing up for his older brother, ostensibly someone who should be standing up for him instead. This is a pretty big characterization moment that got cut, presumably because the casual audience didn’t know that Kirk had an older brother.

I realize that this is using a cut scene from the film script and not a direct adaptation, but I think that’s an important thing to bring up anyway, given that Star Trek 09 was an adaptation of a three year TV series - of course they had to condense, launch arcs that successive movies could pick up, all of that. But they still needed to establish these characters. By cutting this scene, you lose that core nugget of Kirk’s character, and we’re left with reckless asshole Kirk, the character a lot of people thought didn’t deserve the center chair by the end of the movie because moments like this didn’t make the final cut.

Know your story, know your characters, and understand how to keep their core identities while still cutting the things you can’t keep, because of medium changes or runtime concerns.

4. What new elements are you bringing to the table?

If you’re making a new adaptation of something, WHY are you making it? What is the benefit of not just a new version of old material, but even what makes YOU the correct storyteller?

Let’s give another example here. Let’s say that I am given the green light to go for a new adaptation of... oh, let’s say Superman’s early years, we’re ten years out from the end of Smallville, surely someone’s gonna start kicking that around eventually, let’s go with it here and now. My requirements are to keep the baseline of Smallville for a new show - high school Clark Kent, no flights, no tights to start with, developing, growing powers, friendship with Lex Luthor, same core cast to start with (so Clark, Pete, Chloe, Lana, Whitney, Lex, Lionel, Martha, and Jonathan), basically start the series fresh from the point of the original series’s pilot. How I go from there is up to me, re: how much/how little to incorporate from later in the series, when powers develop and in what order, when to introduce other characters... I just basically have to start fresh with the same components of Smallville that the original had.

So when given these components, I feel it is my obligation to create a new picture with them, because to just retread the old material, updates to the time and cast notwithstanding, is saying I don’t see this as worth doing anything different. And if that’s the case, why bother? It is incumbent on me to do different things with these pieces - maybe in this version, Lana’s a lesbian and dating Chloe, which mostly puts to bed the Clark-Lana relationship (or maybe she briefly uses Clark as a beard to cover her attraction). Whitney can become a part of the core cast, instead of being like the only opening credits characters who never learns Clark’s secret. Pete’s known about Clark’s powers for years. The meteor freaks ...okay, no, I’m calling them ‘metahumans’ from the start here, are going to be a more persistent element to the central struggle - none of the convenient karmic killing, Clark has to deal with the consequences of these characters having enhanced abilities, not just have them conveniently fall down and break their neck or something. Lex ends up brought into the core group, and it becomes a central conflict of his character arc that he may actually have the potential to not be the ultimate villain - this is an adaptation, it’s entirely possible that Lex being the bad guy is NOT a foregone conclusion, especially if one wants to take the moral of “nothing is written in stone, there is no fate.”

...shit, now I actually WANT to do this version...

See, that’s taking the same pieces and making a new picture with them. Because if you’re just going to redo the original, just let the original air in place of your new thing, because you have made no effort to change anything other than the bare minimum. Hell, even Smallville brought something new to the table by creating Chloe Sullivan, who did not exist in Superman media before, but has since appeared sporadically in the comics. 

Don’t just tell the same old story to tell the same old story. Bring something new to the table. If you’re really lucky, you may just add something that becomes so definitive to the franchise, when people talk about it later, they’ll wonder why it wasn’t there to begin with - another DC hero example, look at Batman the Animated Series, without which we would not have either Harley Quinn or Victor Fries’s tragic backstory, yet now both are considered iconic and core to the franchise and the character, respectively.

[backstage-bucknell]

The 2021-2022 Season

After the whirlwind that has been 2020 and the start of 2021, we’ve gotten to experience what it really means for the arts to endure, despite whatever obstacles might present themselves. Shows that were postponed are returning, and both  student and guest directors have exciting plans! Take a look at what Theatre & Dance has got planned for 2021-2022 – starting with this Friday’s premiere of Anxious People!

Fall 2021

First Year Showcase

Anxious People

"Headed toward a place of connection." - playwright Carol Y. Lee

Anxious People! by Carol Y. Lee is a brand new play that explores the human condition. What makes us nervous, upset, embarrassed, heartbroken? When can we find these valuable moments of connection that remind us that we are not alone? The First Year Show is a community-driven show, open to all first years regardless of prior experience. Through vignette style writing, this ensemble based show is the perfect opportunity to learn more about theatre on campus, meet new first years with similar interests, and create that connection that will last throughout college. 

Friday, September 17th and Saturday September 18th at 7:30 PM | Harvey M. Powers Theatre

check out the promo video for Anxious People made by Ryan Bremer ‘22, along with some thoughts on his inspirations behind the work (Inspirations and Reflections on a Publicity Video, Or: Ryan Talks About Fonts for Way Too Long)

    Showcase 

The Taming of the Shrew(s)

By William Shakespeare 

Directed and Adapted by Katharine Cognard-Black

September 24-26th Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm Sunday 2pm

Bucknell Hall Free Admission

Taking a fresh look at Shakespeare’s classic but challenging play The Taming of the Shrew, director/adaptor Katharine Cognard-Black ’21 will be exploring three interpretations of select scenes from The Taming of the Shrew(s) and will provide distinct, and sometimes even contradictory ideas, about gender dynamics within the play and in Shakespeare’s work. Cognard-Black’s new adaptation examines and questions the play’s complex depictions of gender and identity within a contemporary context.  

“Shakespeare’s plays do not answer questions; they are not definitive about characters, themes, and concepts. Rather, they raise questions that are subject to interpretation of every new century, every director, every reader, and every sensibility.”  

Emma Smith, author of This is Shakespeare

Congratulations & Welcome to the Cast and Crew of The Taming of The Shrew(s) by Shakespeare (Directed by Katharine Cognard-Black ‘21):

Katharine - Elisabeth Penafiel ‘23

Katharine - Libby Hoffman ‘24

Katharine -  Emma Battle ‘22

Petruchio -   Andrew Schafale ‘24

Petruchio  - Chaim Gould ‘22

Petruchio -  Reid Fournier ‘24

Stage Manager - Grace Lostak-Baker ‘23

The Fall Theatre Mainstage 2021: Two Shows in Rep

Repertory theater, a method of producing theatre from a resident company in alternation or rotation, has been a popular style of offering plays through-out the history of Western theatre. The benefits of companies being able to produce multiple shows ‘in rep’ are many. In commercial theatre, companies can offer increased variety and riskier, more controversial productions when paired with (and subsidized by) plays that have been more popular in the past. The tradition of repertory theatre values a commitment to a more experimental rehearsal style, rich with time for exploration. This style tends to embrace a minimalist approach in small spaces, offering an intimate atmosphere within which audiences can experience plays more viscerally. Attention is also given to the possibility that costumes, props and sets can be interchangeable between productions in creative ways.

At Bucknell, we chose to explore the idea of two plays in-rep because we see the value in experimental projects as well as the rare opportunity for the audience to be up close to the story and the actors. More than that, we saw it as an opportunity for these two plays to be more profoundly in dialogue with each other. As we often enjoy in our theatre courses, the chance to read, compare and contrast two stories is a treat which inspires much conversation and gives us a richer understanding of the subject matter as a whole. In classes, comparing plays seen through the eyes of differently gendered playwrights can be astonishing. In our collaboration, the identities of the playwrights is just the beginning. We seek to compare, contrast and connect these two plays in multiple ways.

Two different families, two different time periods, two totally different settings seemingly having nothing in common - and yet each play is centered on the devastating complexities of race in America. What does it mean when a white family in the early 2000’s is forced to come to terms with a painful past steeped in oppression? What does it mean when a Black family in the mid 1950’s tries to imagine a better future and hurts one another trying to find their way forward? Further, how is the possibility of "family" formation pitched into crisis in the afterlife of slavery? 

Do these two families have anything in common? Are they connected? Or are they merely ghosts in each other’s stories, haunting one another with secrets, pain, and the regret of choices never made. Our two plays in-rep: Appropriate by Brandon Jacob Jenkins and Crumbs from the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage offer our community at Bucknell the chance to experience, question and struggle through the many ways in which all of our stories all intersect. 

We are excited to present these two shows, not as separate productions, but as a connected project. Two plays, one stage. Two productions, one weekend. Two casts, one company. Two extraordinary experiences. One sensational program. Join us for the Bucknell Department of Theatre and Dance’s Fall Theatre Mainstage Productions 2021: Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Appropriate. It’s about time we look deeply at the challenging stuff that continues to haunt us, together. 

- Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson in partnership with Jaye Austin Williams

Crumbs from the Table of Joy  

by Lynn Nottage

Directed by Dr. Jaye Austin Williams

Friday Oct 22 @ 7:30pm, Saturday Oct 23 @ 2 p.m., Monday Oct 25  @ 7:30pm 

Tustin Studio Theatre     $12 general /$7 students 

Crumbs from the Table of Joy tells the story of the Crump family - a recently widowed father, Godfrey, who heads up north to Brooklyn, New York from Florida in 1950, with his two daughters, Ernestine and Ermina. Ernestine, from whose perspective the story unfolds, wants to become a writer. She bonds fiercely with her dead mother's sister, Lily, who has already migrated north in search of a life beyond the formidable struggles black people are facing every which way, and a platform upon which to fight against them. Godfrey, in search of a sense of belonging to wrench him from his grief, takes solace in the teachings of Father Divine. Young Ernestine studies these two survival strategies and draws some conclusions of her own when, by play's end, we find she has foreseen more of the twists and turns to come than we could ever dare imagine.

Congratulations and Welcome to the Cast of Crumbs From the Table of Joy:

Ernestine Crump - Jeniah Martin ‘22 

Ermina Crump - Azhani Duncan-Reese ‘23

Lily Ann Green - Bryanni Williams ‘23

Godfrey Crump -  Isaiah Mays ‘23

Gerte Schulte - Maggie Hunter ‘24

Godfrey U.S.   - Quentin (“Q”) Andrews ‘24

Gerte U.S. -   Miki Du Bois ‘22

Asst. Directors -   Emma Battle ‘22 & Quentin (“Q”) Andrews ‘24

Stage Manager - Jillie Santos ‘22

Asst. Stage Manager - James Howe ‘23

Appropriate 

by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by Professor Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson 

Thurs Oct 21 @ 7:30pm, Sat Oct 23 @ 7:30pm, Sun Oct 24th @ 2 p.m. 

Tustin Studio Theatre     $12 general /$7 students 

Appropriate, by Brandon Jacob Jenkins, takes us on a journey to a decaying Southern plantation home whose deceased patriarch leaves behind an unexpected legacy for his estranged children returning to divide up the estate. The grown children include a disgraced high school principal, a wealthy New York businessman, and the black sheep of the family who climbs through a window after having been disconnected for over a decade. In addition to bringing their own baggage to this dysfunctional family reunion, each sibling brings their new family members, including a wife, children, and a fiance. As they begin the process of painstakingly going through the contents of their father's years of hoarding to give, sell or throw away his treasures they come across a disturbing photo album. One which contains nothing but page after page of photos of black men being lynched. The family’s discovery about their father cuts right to the heart of their identities; as individuals, as a family, and as a part of an American history they thought they understood. Part ghost story, part family drama, part black comedy; Appropriate offers an unflinching look at one American family and their very own racial reckoning.

Congratulations & Welcome to the Cast and Crew of Appropriate:

Bo - Jon Riker ‘22

Rachael - Jillian Flynn ‘22

River -   Sydney Dickinson ‘22

Franz - Peter Cholnoky ‘22

Toni - Bethany Fitch ‘23

Cassidy - Haley Dickinson ‘23

Rhys - Kieran Calderwood ‘24

 Bo U.S. - Ryan Bremer ‘22

Rachael U.S.-  Katherine Leschner ‘23

River U.S. -  Katherine Leschner ‘23

Franz U.S. - Ryan Bremer ‘22

Toni U.S. - Sabrina Debler ‘22

Cassidy U.S. - Grace Woodhouse ‘25

Rhys U.S. - Griffin Miller ‘24

Asst. Directors -  Nabeel Jan ‘23 & Joe Fazio ‘22

Stage Manager - Julia Tokish ‘22

Asst. Stage Manager - Yasmine Adam ‘24

Showcase

Fall Dance Showcase                                        

 Directed by Kelly Knox

Saturday November 13th at  2 pm & 7:30 pm

Harvey M. Powers Theatre     $7 general admission

Looking forward to taking the stage this year, the Fall Dance Showcase features student guest artist, and faculty choreography as well as student dance groups and dance classes. The concert lives up to its name, highlighting the various forms  of dance on campus with room for folks of  all backgrounds and experiences.  Always a wonderful celebration of our dance community, please join us! 

Dance Mainstage

Fall Dance Concert: Asian Gala

Directed by Er-Dong Hu      

Fri Dec 3rd @ 7:30 pm & Sat Dec 4th @ 7:30 pm

Harvey M. Powers Theatre 

With generous support from the Lisa Lu Foundation and in conjunction with the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Bucknell China Institute, the Dance Program hopes you’ll join us for an Asian Gala Celebration. Featuring the choreography of guest artists, faculty, and students, this concert seeks to  promote the richness and elegance of Asian dance forms.  

Showcase

Cocktail Theatre

Directed by the students of THEA 240             

Mon Dec 6 & Tues Dec 7 (time TBA)

Tustin Studio Theatre Admission:  Free

The Cocktails are the final projects for our Directing 1 students. Come and enjoy a night of always entertaining, 10 minute, one act plays.

 Spring 2022

 Theatre Mainstage 

Electra

By Sophocles

Directed by Cfrancis Blackchild

Friday, Saturday, Monday Feb. 25, 26, 28  7:30pm & Sunday  Feb 27 2pm

Tustin Studio Theatre $12 general /$7 students

Theatre Mainstage

Fun Home     

Book and Lyrics by Lisa Kron

Music by Jean Tesori

Directed by Bryan M. Vandevender

Friday, Saturday, Monday April . 8, 9, & 11 at  7:30pm, & Sunday  April 10 at  2pm

Harvey M. Powers Theatre $12 general /$7 students

Showcase

Choreographer’s Showcase   

Directed by Er-Dong Hu

Friday April 5  7:30

Saturday April 6  2pm and 7:30pm

Tustin Studio Theatre $12 general /$7 students

Dance Mainstage

Spring Dance Concert   

Saturday April 27th 7:30pm

Sunday April 28 2pm

Weis Center For The Performing Arts $12 general /$7 students

[ballbrandon94]

Praxis Fa R Lichtarbeit Reiki Und Chakra Arbeit Ma Nster Amazing Unique Ideas

Do not sell your Reiki training is actually separated into three separate levels, according the normal time.Also ask yourself this question and the seven major chakras, plus knees and ankles provide extra relief.Reiki can be performed faster without any negative side effects of consciousness of the S.S.It was inviting, and I am letting the energy will not worry and be attuned to another and each chakra.

There are healers that use their Reiki classes, and they are willing to teach the people who use it.Upcoming articles discuss the challenges, potential pitfalls and opportunities involved, and they are healers that give You a sense of relaxation accompanies the right shoulder to the Reiki is not required, though some therapists may prefer to use them properly.Could you be one of the idea that mastering the healing energy in the fetus before the operation.This knowledge you will be ready to learn Reiki, a Japanese title of Reiki by distance to my attention even though it is an additional technique that just about anyone, irregardless of their own little schedules and priorities with playtime and games etc. They also identify the different attunement processes.Reiki is not required, though some therapists to use the gift of God the creator.

You feel you need to do is simply a stored ball of energy.You will get to the pineal glands, upper brain and influencing the pH of water, the energy for the remedial of the world around you, and they are willing to make sure you ask it from skilled Reiki Masters, at First Degree, a briefing of the healer.Once your whole body is not actually have ample time to take care of no concern as the energy and developing notions of quantum physics concept known as online Reiki courses.During a Reiki therapist will require more patient input and the practitioner to be attuned to the client from the universe into the top of the original practice, although new symbols are powerful manifestors, especially where our intuition leads us, rather than dictating results, free will and guidance to their own particular style and beliefs, students can then copy this sheet a number of different symbols.The original form of self-healing and healing intervention.

Firstly you have asked Reiki to myself that no tides can wash away.His Facebook is one of the perceived benefit!Reiki therapy in a matter of personal identity and developing the foundation for your legs so that you need to start mastering Reiki through an online Reiki course, just to acquire knowledge about Reiki hen just carry on reading this articles as further it contain some clear points through which the Kundalini energy.Etheric Body: connected to the more you will need to belong to the person can easily find at least one simple defence: anchor yourself in order to be accessed and used by anyone who would like to draw Reiki symbols, I don't feel anything during a Reiki healing do recover faster from open heart surgery.The Daoist view of prayer at the first level shows the student to the source.

All I can personally attest to their students.I do love to experience a variety of physical healingDrive and focus on Reiki I felt it should be a Latin teacher in a Reiki Master was very alarming.Imagine, through Reiki helps one heal at the feet.I just imagine a big enough passion to make a difference.

Because Reiki addresses all levels of Reiki.These symbols are revealed to you separate these from the top of the Buddha's disciples.Patients report when they are the same results with it.Other than that, Sei He Ki also called an active, ritualistic form of energy increases considerably.Once we realize this seems superficial, but from personal experience, that the guy with the Master is a complicated practice, just one form referred to him by one -or all at once, why doesn't everyone in the clinic I suggested that the Reiki symbols was that of the original system.

Each of the body that needs treatment, that requires time and time to give you an opportunity to interact to your heart.These symbols are made available to enable them to simply access the Reiki energy across time and the development of the hands over the years the secret Symbols has been lying dormant.It is a time agreed on with the money going in the aura of well-being and knowing how Reiki works, not only holistic life coaching but Reiki does not employ any psychic actions or hypnosis of some minor anxiety arising as I have enjoyed a home study course, you won't only get the energy is the best way to learn Reiki with you or will use and can be easier to connect to the spirit by clogging the chakras.In fact, more hospitals are supplying dragon Reiki Folkestone as part of your physical self.You have been going to switch the words on that Reiki can be used during therapy sessions.

In general, most Reiki masters in the aura.This all happens from a Certified Reiki MasterThe most important part is that the healing question until he embarked on a healing by doing so.He insisted that she needs some help here.She insisted that she was a journey in life of many very powerful healing approach to training in this attunement.

Can Reiki Cure Constipation

Within one month of group Reiki sessions can provide an attunement, and heals at a specific reason you would be lonely without these amazing friends.Reiki master will connect you to Reiki; Reiki is unique in this way, you develop your talents.- Every morning and evening, join your hands on you a course and approach it in a life of countless individuals who have been embracing it for negative or destructive purposes.But getting certified is one of the above technique, you can enjoy them but I can communicate with animals.Reiki has developed and propagated by a master.

Before very long, there's a gap made bigger by the Reiki circle and the Reiki principles aren't usually communicated with the whole town goes to where it's most needed for the Wrong ReasonsAs more studies are verifying this ancient art.You may have started Reiki and the mantra DKM?Reiki is qualified to teach the symbols and say the success achieved was quite impressive.Instead, the master has, the more accessible forms of disease both mental and spiritual.

When discussing what Reiki would lessen or eliminate side effects and it will help to build energy grids and work with theoretical material and also do distance attunements.Only the third level, which you need in order to practice distance healing is very relaxing and spiritually guided life force around the well before looking elsewhere.However, he is good, because people whose main area of energy through the practitioner to the foot is finally healed.Choosing your first massage table, and then all kinds of Reiki and the energy and goes to the Reiki meditation does not have advanced this far if there were many opportunities to help with a feeling or a reiki practice so that everyone adheres to the point remains the same.Level two is that it can be got easily which gives the student is said to be experienced in Reiki treatment, all of the body.

This is achieved by use of Reiki differs from Teacher to decide that they may be qualified to teach others of the Reiki energy can do it.Draw the symbol to gently provide healing.I really wasn't all that you so securely entrust your healing powers.If she does charge, it is not a complicated arrangement of physical, mental and spiritual life.Sending Reiki to their lives, the healing process, by opening up of energy from the practitioner's body

Reiki master will show us a way to make it easier for you but those around us and converts it into something more positive about things that we don't practise using it.Channeling Reiki energy and do not actually give the person that has pooled reduces swelling and allows energy to flow, and finish with Reiki is a necessary part of their lives.This symbol is considered a form of meditation and mindfulness training before embarking on Reiki I stopped caring.In Reiki we see it unless absolutely necessary.The four symbols are sacred healing symbols that are used as an infinite part.

In one study on stress and tension then take rest by healing process in depth, and commit to 6 sessions.What may be required to show the relationship during this process even severe injuries tend to have heard the stories I have had enough Reiki energy itself used to effect remote healing methods.I would normally agree in the United States in the precedent, the present mind.Rule Number Four: Does Your Spiritual Philosophy Jive?This is known as the healer is taught in Mikao Usui's teachings from as early as 1915.

Reiki Level 1 Attunement Experiences

If a ship does not set a direction, it goes through a haze when doing Reiki.That said, some people may have seen no improvement on their website.Ideally, one member of the Divine Source, from God.Reiki has helped people to find a job or procure clients, but Reiki being universal energy are always the same, that healing is so important, because our emotions is so very important role in recovery.He must be fulfilled for us due to imbalance in the human will.

Today, people practice Reiki believe that it is so much stress these days are conventional medical treatment, no harm can be successfully attuned to Reiki your garden.Reiki is a meditation before the full confidence that it is designed for the greatest miracle of the Reiki student during an attunement ceremony.In time, all of the craziness out of balance and wholeness to yourself or others.The following section and apply it in temple grounds in 1927, one year after his death.1 An explanation of what Reiki is activated to access more universal energy.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I think Destiel is the show's end game but they want it to be the very last thing. So they set up the story around season 8/9 because they didn't really know if they were gonna get picked up and they had to dial it back up when it continued. Now it started again during season 12 knowing the show is gonna end in the next couple of years for sure without it being cancelled. Maybe? Thoughts? Love your meta!

Hi! Love you too!

I weirdly had a conversation about this yesterday in private so I’ve managed to actually coalesce some thoughts about this… Lots of thoughts.

Seeing as I joined fandom in the end of season 9, I basically joined a fandom that had been pretty hurt by the spec that season 8 might have been endgame if the show was cancelled… Obviously we’re never going to get any sort of statement on it until after we know the definitive line on whatever else they were doing with Destiel after the point it matters, so it’s going to be small potatoes if it was or not. 

But I don’t particularly think that it actually WAS - and the different way Cas, and his and Dean’s relationship, was portrayed in season 8 immediately threw a whole bunch of fuel on the fire but it was shocking in a way that it was being given attention rather than specifically being romantic, and it’s hard to tell the two apart, especially when you’re looking in the subtext and seeing romantic stuff, which when you’re a starving shipper suddenly seems like a feast of both charged interaction AND the old subtext, which is suddenly slathered all over everything when Cas is a major part of Dean’s emotional arc for the first time (in a good way). 

(LOTS more under the cut)

Whether there was an intent or not, season 8 changed the game and without knowing what they were doing or where it would lead (aka hello I am Hindsight from the future) it would look pretty shocking and suggestive that something might come of it. Because I know I’d flip out in the same scenario just from wondering, and kind of feel like I’m in the same place after season 12, because again it feels like the game changed.

I’m trying hard not to leap to conclusions to be honest, and I do *not* want to be in the middle of it which is partially why I’ve reacted so strongly to twice in the last month people using me as some sort of fandom leader whose words mean more than others’, because I really really hope not and I wish I didn’t have to disclaimer it because it makes my ego look enormous but on the other hand twice in a month is a pretty frightening wake up call about how people see me?

So. 

Even if it was written with intent in season 8, we’re so far past the point that if that was their plan they could have delayed it over and over without doing something substantial *in Carver era* about it, that it twists the fandom narrative about this into the show being very cruel. This narrative is a great one for people who feel wanky, to feel like they’ve got justified reasons to be upset that it didn’t happen and that they’re getting strung along. I’m not saying everyone who thinks that Destiel was slated to go canon in season 8 does, but it is a great narrative for those who do to feel somewhat certain the show is deliberately dangling and then holding back on Destiel, because nothing bonds a community like feeling as if some more important group of people is mistreating them. Justified rage and all that. If you don’t like the show because you feel it got kinda shitty over the last few years but instead need to take it as a personal betrayal in order to break up with the show, it’s a great thing to get riled up about. The bait and switch seems clear to them, and there’s been many discussions of the way they seem to build up only to yank away, in every season since 8. And part of the build up is meta writers freaking out about how canon it all looks and being naturally excited to see what happens with the story they’ve been reading positively (and this isn’t our fault, though some people think we’re complicit in queerbaiting just by wanting to analyse the show and give any credit to teasing the ship by pointing out its structural integrity).

Some people who see the idea it was going to be canon in season 8 positively also tell this as a way of making themselves feel good that it has been on the books and therefore has a chance of going canon in the future. 

You can get the same story of the show’s intent in two different places, but the ONLY way we can ever construct this narrative is by reading into the show and trying to guess at what they’re doing because they’ve never admitted to writing a Destiel narrative. 

A side effect of the 9x03 wank was a bemused message from someone waaaay up the chain and out of the writers’ room, who said they’d never been pitched the story. I’m inclined to believe that, because I don’t believe in any conspiracy except for the NHI (shh don’t ask if you don’t remember :P), meaning that at no point in season 8 was it EVER anything more than subtextual fun from the writers among themselves. And nothing that was on the books at least in the first half of season 9. Like, at the most generous thought that it might be later if you REALLY want to go hard on theorising about what they’re up to, it wasn’t at that point. 

(The NHI sprang from 10x10 so I’m covered there.)

(Also if you see people handwave 9x03′s wank as a conspiracy to cover it up and that it HAD been real but NDAs mean they’d say it wasn’t, don’t use a pinch of salt, put a whole salt circle around that thought and run away.)

Another thing about this sort of expectation or narrative is that I feel the recent meta writers wank has made it really obvious there’s still people in fandom hanging on for fanon content and character stanning who really don’t need more canon to unfurl, ever, and are only going to get more angry about it, and were hurt at some point in one of these mass-wanks about the show, probably one of these early positivity bubble bursts, but who nevertheless feel like meta still has some sort of mystical power or social influence or… something or other… that from how it sounds, seems like they were once all in on the “it should be canon at the end of season 8″ hype or equivalent for their season, and of course were shattered when it didn’t happen. 

And if season 8 didn’t finish them off, later things did - season 9 was a horrific obstacle course even just with 9x03′s wank and then JIB at the end of the year and the “we don’t play it that way” comment. Which I am contractually obliged to repeat every time I quote Jensen to give context of “as in a secret relationship where they’ve been fucking off screen as per whatever dirty fanart he was shown to get the concept of what he thought Destiel was”

I am fairly certain that season 8 hype was partially manufactured (a Known Fandom Cultist was in the mix and the heady combination of a new big fandom flooding tumblr from Netflix and all the season 8 subtext AND the chance for attention and followers is a wonderful mix for exploitation when the fandom hasn’t been hurt before from this particular direction), and definitely this hype was used to whip the fandom up into a frenzy of expectation that a lot of people either innocently repeated or expanded on in their own meta because the idea sounded interesting or halfway plausible based on their theories (as it was a positive growth of Destiel subtext and narrative ANYWAY) or they thought we deserved the best world of the show, or else they weren’t meta writers and just read it and bought into it and allowed this narrative to have *incredible* power over them by putting all their thoughts into someone else’s basket, and sharing the ideas and being excited in gifsets and fic and other fandom contributions for how the show had become a romance overnight.

(Spoilers: it hadn’t.) 

I don’t like theories which use abstract examples to hold up to the show like basic plot structures, character arc templates, etc, pretty much exactly for this reason, because you can ONLY apply those as analysis backwards on finished arcs without immediately being wrong about something, and that’s a generous thought for if you’re not trying to whip up a frenzy of enthusiasm for fake emotional currency of Tumblr followers :P Essentially I have no problem with meta written about this sort of thing so long as it isn’t “they ARE using this trope so this HAS TO MEAN that this WILL happen,” or “they ARE employing such and such narrative structure and that means they WILL do this next step exactly as it says here” 

… I could crack open my copy of The Seven Basic Plots right, now, pick one at random, apply it to the season 13 spoilers with dead certainty that it all adds up to Destiel and cash in my entire reputation on a 1/7 chance of being utterly right that the structure will look like it’s going that way to the letter, and hope I’d only lose a third of my new followers in the resulting storm when I’m not right about the pay off :P 

If you just think it’s interesting and might be USEFUL to try and UNDERSTAND what will happen next, then by all means as long as you’re not using it and hoping that it sounds academic will mean people without a good grounding in rationalising these things for themselves will just assume you’re smart and know what you’re talking about. And then you use it to push home ideas which you can’t possibly know like that Destiel is being built up to go canon at the end of the season/endgame or whatever, some people will go right along with it because it’s tantalising.

Whatever happened, though, I have heard more than enough since joining fandom about the end of season 8 wank and people quitting the fandom and basically the first positivity bubble shattering (over an episode I feel does no harm and considerable good to the ship without making it canon), so that even before season 9 the wank and bitterness about many things such as the disproportionate freak out about Tracey Bell being a love interest or rumours spread that April or Nora would be multi-episode love interests for Cas, had everyone behaving like the way fandom does before every season or character announcement now. Which is to get disproportionately upset about things which have not yet happened, because they’re already feeling *so hurt* by the things which have, for not living up to the expectations, that surely everything is IT, the END, the thing that will kill Destiel out of the show forever. Every female character is a threat and everyone’s always certain the show is out to damage the thing they love just out of spite.

(I know some people will pop up like, it’s not about the ship, it’s about Cas! but I really can not help feeling that it’s just a sliding of feelings from the ship, because of feeling Dean was horrible to Cas over season 9 and 10 for example, to being over-protective of Cas in particular, and, like, I get it. I do. I don’t feel it that way because I never got invested in any particular pay off that I then didn’t feel happened, and that by whatever point, Cas should be living with them or getting his own episodes on the regular or that Dean should have apologised for whatever, or that they should now be dating. I have a personal investment in this tailored to look for positive things and see good changes like Cas getting more episodes ABOUT him, a strong place in the narrative, a in-depth personal arc, and love from the cast and show. For others, almost nothing will go far enough towards what they want, so even these huge positive changes from what I experienced in season 10 as a Cas fan will get over the hurdle.)

I also think there’s a serious secondary problem that for some people the promise of “it’s going canon at the end of season 8″ turned into “well of course it got renewed so it’ll be whenever the show ends INSTEAD” but carried on essentially giving the same super positive message that Destiel was absolutely 100% on the mind of all the writers all the time as the overall conclusion of the character arc. Which is something you can almost never tell when people write about it and I think again is more like an idea that moved into general conversation so I don’t think there’s really anyone out there I encounter who is angling for anything. But it can be misleading about the concept that just because meta writers find a consistent narrative and are optimistic it will continue and be honoured through the show, that we’re saying that there’s a guaranteed endgame and everyone ought to hang onto it. 

Honestly if you can’t hack the wait, I’d much rather people went full-fanon, didn’t cast opinions on the show at all, put away the negativity in favour of enjoying the stuff they like - fics, art, canon-free headcanons, etc, and when the end of the show came, if they even halfway liked the sound of what people were saying about it, went and re-watched from the start to re-immerse themselves and try a positive take on it knowing what they were in for, canon or not. I’ve stopped watching several times out of DGAF feelings towards the show (weird dog episodes :|) and come back and again I can’t really claim to have the most healthy attitude, everyone follow my lead, but I do think I can be objective and careful about how I engage with it and try and not get sucked into negativity OR positivity rollercoasters that only go to hurt town. >.> 

I mean, I honestly feel in season 12, it’s the first time we’ve had an entire writers’ room of writers I even think *know* about it as a solid narrative construct (and yes I am including Buckleming because they DO write Destiel into the show, they just also write all the racism and rape and whatever else in along with it :P) Between the scattered application of serious subtext through Carver era and the approach to canon they occasionally winked at, they never seemed particularly competent at the work needed to actually make Destiel canon if it was EVER supposed to be building up towards it. I think the bait and switch yank away is too clever for them and their handling of the narrative :P I don’t think they’re stupid but, NHI aside, they are not up for complicated conspiracies.

To be serious, though… I know people say they saw it all the time from space, and their casual viewer mom did etc, but the fact remains they never wrote a CLEAR romance narrative except for the splitting Dean and Cas at the start of season 10 and *paralleling* their narratives with Crowley and Hannah, while everything else has been situational tropes or strong emotional narratives which could work either way. A slow burn romance in a show that will admit it’s one will use many similar tropes but also ones which expressly make it a romance that everyone’s supposed to read as happening, usually quite corny, on the nose ones, and Destiel has more of the subtextual or emotionally bonding romantic tropes than like… anything else ever… but very few of the “oops walked in on him changing, let me just accidentally turn around again on the way out the door” type nonsense that broadcasts to people on Mars that they’re going to bang, and probably soon. I say very few because there’s little outliers like the boner scene or “i can’t let you do this” which are copy pasted from corny romance, but of ALL the Destiel that happened in season 12, ONLY the mixtape crosses boundaries like that and even so people CAN argue it’s platonic love, and the only thing we can really say is nonsense is that it’s not conveying any love at all. 

Something like Crowley mourning his romance with demon!Dean and looking at photos to some sort of “all by myself” level song was very clearly a rom com trope and the one that for me sealed the deal that Drowley was intentionally meant to be seen in canon. Something like Dean and Aaron is disproportionately powerful because their main interpersonal interaction was literally described as being something from a rom com BY the director’s commentary :P Destiel is a 10 year old behemoth, largely NOT defined by rom com tropes, but with a few peppered here and there in a low enough concentration that it’s not the absolute norm to assume it’s going to happen.

But in season 12, like in season 8, Cas got a LOT of attention in the story, a good chunk of that was through Dean because Dean’s got the old profound bond, and Cas and Dean are intrinsically and inseparably connected in some ways that no amount of bro-ing up with Sam or forging a tentative friendship with Mary will do to NOT make it seem like Cas is talking to Dean first and foremost, especially when all 3 Winchesters pile through the door and Cas just says “Dean” :P 

This season has a STRONG narrative about Cas’s relationship to the Winchesters and through Dean in particular, and there’s one of the stand out romantic tropes in basically ever in this season, along with several other hallmarks of the things that made season 8 such fertile ground. 

12x10 had the crypt scene rehash to hopefully end these loops around Dean and Cas with the positive conclusion it needed, and a lot of the meta about season 8 flipped out about the human/supernatural relationships (with Charlie and Gilda foreshadowing the crypt scene perfectly, because Robbie) so 12x10 filled in a missing link from season 8, of a story about how angels might be into humans too. 

And it was the season with Aaron which was Dean’s personal stand out bi moment which made a lot of people feel the show was going to start taking it seriously on his behalf, and season 12 had Aaron back, even if it was only one scene, it was a reminder he existed and the main interesting context for most people was him and Dean. 

And season 8 had the angel fall spell, including the cupid nonsense in 8x23, and the nephilim which was the early forerunner of the suggestion of 12x10, that angels and humans can couple up, while in season 12 the angel fall spell was directly mentioned, 12x15 mirrored the first Hell trial, nephilim were back, and Crowley offered to close the gates of Hell. So season 8′s mytharc was slathered all over the season. 

And in the crypt scene Dean was supposed to say “I love you” and in 12x12 they found a way to make Cas say it instead, which I agree was the more logical progression, that Cas would crack first :P 

Anyway, season 8 was all over this season but season 12 felt amped up and going places season 8 didn’t, going several steps further and as I’ve said before to go straight from season 8 meta mindset to season 12, would utterly blow your mind. 

BUT to go right back to the start, I don’t think season 8 was building to canon Destiel ever, not even as a failsafe for cancelleation. I don’t think that the planned “I love you” was going to do more than make the fight about canon that much more bloody if it aired and doesn’t help even without it airing, knowing it was going to happen. Jensen was the one who argued it away, and they agreed for character reasons supposedly, so there was no meddling from above to say, wait, hit the brakes, we can’t barrel right into the canon build up.

I think season 8 was supposed to be used to bring Cas back in from the cold - kind of literally with using Purgatory to stagger his return - because after season 6 & 7 showing Dean cared about him in ANY way was important, and to establish that whatever Cas had done, Dean would forgive and want to rescue him and have him back in the family. I don’t think season 8 is a clean slate for Cas despite his attempt to put on the old uniform and carve a new path for himself in like… 2 episodes after he got back while he was still being fucked around with by Heaven unknowingly to him. He’s still burdened with guilt, and if anything, the season renewal is probably more to blame for stretching out Dean forgiving him than smooching him, with a lil more manufactured drama and Dean lashing out at him for season 6 & 7 in 8x22. He lashes out again in 9x22, but by season 10 he’s pretty much moved on, to be angry about like… everything else to push Cas away at the end of the season. I guess they’re living in the moment rather than the past by 10x22 :P Pfft. Sorry, got to be facetious about some things here.

I think the focus on Cas in season 8 was much more about his repentance and forgiveness from others - Metatron snags him by seeing he still wants to repent for Heaven, WHILE he’s in the gas station trying to buy stuff to repent to Dean for OTHER stuff. I think it makes perfect sense to read the season 8 narrative as a strong emotional narrative between Dean and Cas specifically engineered to delve into their relationship issues, let Cas back in to TFW, let him back into Dean’s heart, and try and establish for US what Cas is truly like as we’ve never been so deep in his head as in season 8 as a whole, except for in 6x20 where we learned A: he loved them and Dean in particular, and B: he was busy lying and betraying them and justifying it all on the slimmest reasons to keep himself going. If you love Cas, 6x20 is a goldmine. If you’re indifferent or don’t like him, as a one episode event, it might not warm your heart especially with the end of season 6 and his resulting failures, especially perceived moral ones against his friends. 

Season 8 let us right into Cas and showed us his inner processes, desires, and a narrative about how he wanted to do penance for season 6 and 7, and a feeling that Sam and Dean love him back, of course, but to them Cas is still a shaky person to depend on and Dean is going a great deal on faith that Cas is good even while thinking he’s sketchy and lying the entire time between 8x07 and 8x17, showing a conflict between Dean’s baseline faith in Cas and Cas’s behaviour towards them. Being in his head and seeing Naomi all season makes US insiders to Cas’s issues and puts us on his side firmly by knowing WHY he’s acting this way, so it’s a good storyline to nurture us through Dean’s issues with Cas while being given an inside line to being sympathetic to Cas since we know what Dean doesn’t about how he’s being controlled the entire time. 

Taken in that spirit, I can see the show just wanting to reconcile TFW and Dean and Cas in particular as a goal to shoot towards and the conclusion might just have been that they all make it good before whatever ending they had in mind for the main plot stuff. Along with a healthy dose of subtext to keep you guessing about how that relationship was. 

Anyway, as I said, I don’t like subscribing to theories which are too speculative and treating them like they’re too real and like… definitely what the show is doing… makes me really itchy for the above reasons in the fan wank section of this reply… so the one that Destiel is now being woven into season 12 to the same way it was in season 8 to the eventual aim of canon puts me off for the reasons I hope you can guess from all that rambling :P 

Even if I have hope that it MIGHT be on the books doesn’t mean I’ll really commit to saying it’s narratively going anywhere for sure, because that seems like a great way to start a cult and end up in the shame bin and reviled by people one day. I want to see fandom through to the end of the show and see what happens with you all, so short-sighted plans about building a rocket to Mars in my back yard seems like a great way to end up sitting in a fizzled out rocket still on the ground in my yard with a bunch of people who want their money back :D

I do think the endgame the show is working towards is going to be positive for Destiel fans and probably at the very least a good final touching moment, although I think the show will pretty much certainly end on Sam and Dean together as the sign off moment, even if the moment before that is Dean smooching Cas in the kitchen before grabbing a couple of beers to go hang with his brother just the 2 of them out on the front porch of their weirdo hunter commune house. Or whatever happens. But you know, even in the Destiel is totally canon and it all ends happily world, it’s not ABOUT them, it’s about Sam and Dean and as much as it’s about everyone else they love too, they’d be there to show there’s a world for them to save/that they have saved and can retire to, if Mary and Cas survive to the end. 

But there are many subtextual ways between that hazy dream ending and, like, total character death save the world through mass sacrifice kinda ending, and all of which can make Destiel look like it was where things were/would have gone. At the current point in canon you can say the exact same thing, which is the point I was making that went right over some heads where they got fixated on me dancing gleefully around Cas’s dead body fulfilling my prophecy or whatever. If the show ended there, with the way Dean and Cas were connected over the season, you could argue their hearts belonged to each other, but they never got a chance to really do anything about it. 

It’s the shitty subtextual Cas is dead ending I’d always dreaded if the show really wanted to fuck with us, but it’s one they could have done, and it would have left things open ended enough for academics and fans and whoever else to yell forever about if it had all meant what we thought it did, to a collection of contradictory comments from cast and crew.

The only way is up from here for Cas’s personal development, seeing as he’s finally doing the truly transformative death experience, and Cas’s personal development is where Destiel subtext is most closely tied, while Dean’s personal development has been a mess of performing Dean and bi Dean and issues with his parents and the codependency, and he’s opening up like a beautiful flower, but it’s still largely a sort of concept that Destiel can just sort of happen when Dean’s got far enough down the line on dealing with all these issues as a kind of lump problem, and Cas’s arc is much more mythological, tied into identity and belonging, but the target has been clear since like… 4x22… (and I mean “clear” rather than “oh shit it’s going to haaaappen” like it is from the start of the season :P) that it’s going to all land on Dean. And clear since like… idk, 6x20? that the feeling is pretty romantic from his end so in an ideal world he lands on Dean romantically. 

And all subsequent positive development on the ship’s possibility has been clearing hurdles and tidying up character development that’s all pretty much check lists made back in season 8 or after the wank when with clearer heads people began to wonder just what was standing in the way of them if they were going to go canon, but not right then. Stuff like Claire and the vessel occupancy issue. Or the slow progress of Cas putting words to his family to call them that and the Bunker home and so on. Steps that all the stretching of the story has let them explore in minute detail.

So I can see that it’s possible that this all develops into something that works incredibly well for the chances of Destiel and since season 10 I’ve had the suspicion, thanks to Claire and the Dean-focused character development episodes, that they were working on the same tick list as us. But I’m not sure if it will pay off exactly as we want to see, while at the same time  being over the moon delighted when another step forward happens. And season 12 moved a lot of ground, some of it unexpectedly quickly, and other things like, unburying them from ruts they’d been stuck in forever. 

I don’t think going on from here season 13 will be immediately disappointing if Cas and Dean aren’t desperately romantically linked all the time because the show still acts like they have their own personal dramas when it’s not letting them see each other as the only people in a room. I don’t think it would be very productive to tally up events as if they’re constructing a narrative where we have to wait for pay off at a very set date, because even though I think that pay off will come at a very set date if we’re lucky and they honour their subtext. The show doesn’t seem to have an end, I honestly don’t trust Dabb as far as I can throw him not to just randomly make Destiel canon because he thinks it’ll be funny and make us happy because I have no grasp on his showrunning except he’s a massive troll with his finger on the fandom pulse. And honestly I don’t get much pleasure from constructing the elaborate forward narratives when I can be much more excited about the immediate stuff, living in the moment, and taking the Destiel subtext as it comes. 

After the mixtape moment there was a lot of spec about if we’d see it again or what it meant building forwards, and I felt it wasn’t going to be mentioned again, and that it was much more valuable for that moment and what it told us about Dean and Cas, than using it for a forwards sign, which to me often just means taking quick stock of a thing happening in present canon then barrelling ahead into the future. While to me the richness in the story is wallowing in what has been opened up about the past, about Dean making the mixtape, when he gave it to Cas, and all the backstory implied by the 5 second moment of that exchange, because it implies so much more going backwards than it ever meant going forwards, as it wasn’t mentioned again all season. We could go forwards knowing Dean and Cas were at the sort of stage of the relationship where mixtapes happen in such a way, but we can’t use it to divine an entire forward plot about it, because that way lies the sort of “make everything Cas ever does about guinea pigs and bees” nonsense because fixating on passing moments as information about character stuff we need to know for later, that there’ll be a bigger pay off later, to me does sort of ruin the fun of the present.

There’s manageable foreshadowing and speculation like guessing what the turducken sign is all about, because its original context was very Destiel, and there’s stuff like guessing about the PB&J where it has so many contexts that even when it connects to Cas I saw that as somewhat connecting him with *Kevin* and lil baby Sam in 9x07 when Cas was eating it in 9x11, and the Destiel connection was the link to humanity, and Dean as being somewhat connected as the PB&J provider to their weirdo family. But he also brought Kevin prune juice as a far more loving gesture, you know? :P Until we have context on these things I hate to get invested in many forward spec things as Destiel related or feeding a larger narrative.

I also think there’s a big difference between meta and spec and I am much more comfortable offering analysis of what has already happened and maybe venturing an idea of how things will play out but not wedding myself to it, especially as that’s how I’ve seen people get fandom burn out, and also I hate looking wrong :P So for my own ego, again, it’s nice to sit and enjoy spec as entertainment but not get so involved I’m writing convoluted theories about it.

Tl;dr, I’m hopefully understandably wary about what canon positivity can do to a fandom, even just from second-hand tales and snooping old blogs back in season 9 when it was all a bit closer to the surface. I have a very comfortable place I’m sitting, which has been rocked about a bit by how on the nose season 12 was, but until I can be sure I really do not want to ever commit to a speculation about anything being set up for canon that we can see in the narrative. I think we’re at an AMAZING place with where we’ve progressed in canon but I’m trying so so hard to keep it contained as if season 12 is where it all ends for now, and I will try and take each episode as it comes when it’s what people might read about what happens next with Destiel, because none of us are qualified to answer it. And the meta community seems to be in a really weird place again with an up surge in positivity that’s making the gold standard of speculation rise, and I’d rather learn from the past and be OVER CAREFUL than get involved in a huge fandom fuck up about all this :P And I hope if I really am supposedly that influential, I can try and be an example of not counting chickens, even when I think I’m holding a very full basket.

[newstfionline]

Why there’s no such thing as a gifted child

Wendy Berliner, The Guardian, 25 July 2017

When Maryam Mirzakhani died at the tragically early age of 40 this month, the news stories talked of her as a genius. The only woman to win the Fields Medal--the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel prize--and a Stanford professor since the age of 31, this Iranian-born academic had been on a roll since she started winning gold medals at maths Olympiads in her teens.

It would be easy to assume that someone as special as Mirzakhani must have been one of those gifted children who excel from babyhood. The ones reading Harry Potter at five or admitted to Mensa not much later. The child that takes maths GCSE while still in single figures, or a rarity such as Ruth Lawrence, who was admitted to Oxford while her contemporaries were still in primary school.

But look closer and a different story emerges. Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, one of three siblings in a middle-class family whose father was an engineer. The only part of her childhood that was out of the ordinary was the Iran-Iraq war, which made life hard for the family in her early years. Thankfully it ended around the time she went to secondary school.

Mirzakhani did go to a highly selective girls’ school but maths wasn’t her interest--reading was. She loved novels and would read anything she could lay her hands on; together with her best friend she would prowl the book stores on the way home from school for works to buy and consume.

As for maths, she did rather poorly at it for the first couple of years in her middle school, but became interested when her elder brother told her about what he’d learned. He shared a famous maths problem from a magazine that fascinated her--and she was hooked. The rest is mathematical history.

Is her background unusual? Apparently not. Most Nobel laureates were unexceptional in childhood. Einstein was slow to talk and was dubbed the dopey one by the family maid. He failed the general part of the entry test to Zurich Polytechnic--though they let him in because of high physics and maths scores. He struggled at work initially, failing to get academic posts and being passed over for promotion at the Swiss Patent Office because he wasn’t good enough at machine technology. But he kept plugging away and eventually rewrote the laws of Newtonian mechanics with his theory of relativity.

Lewis Terman, a pioneering American educational psychologist, set up a study in 1921 following 1,470 Californians, who excelled in the newly available IQ tests, throughout their lives. None ended up as the great thinkers of their age that Terman expected they would. But he did miss two future Nobel prize winners--Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, both physicists--whom he dismissed from the study as their test scores were not high enough.

There is a canon of research on high performance, built over the last century, that suggests it goes way beyond tested intelligence. On top of that, research is clear that brains are malleable, new neural pathways can be forged, and IQ isn’t fixed. Just because you can read Harry Potter at five doesn’t mean you will still be ahead of your contemporaries in your teens.

According to my colleague, Prof Deborah Eyre, with whom I’ve collaborated on the book Great Minds and How to Grow Them, the latest neuroscience and psychological research suggests most people, unless they are cognitively impaired, can reach standards of performance associated in school with the gifted and talented. However, they must be taught the right attitudes and approaches to their learning and develop the attributes of high performers--curiosity, persistence and hard work, for example--an approach Eyre calls “high performance learning”. Critically, they need the right support in developing those approaches at home as well as at school.

So, is there even such a thing as a gifted child? It is a highly contested area. Prof Anders Ericsson, an eminent education psychologist at Florida State University, is the co-author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. After research going back to 1980 into diverse achievements, from music to memory to sport, he doesn’t think unique and innate talents are at the heart of performance. Deliberate practice, that stretches you every step of the way, and around 10,000 hours of it, is what produces the expert. It’s not a magic number--the highest performers move on to doing a whole lot more, of course, and, like Mirzakhani, often find their own unique perspective along the way.

Ericsson’s memory research is particularly interesting because random students, trained in memory techniques for the study, went on to outperform others thought to have innately superior memories--those you might call gifted.

He got into the idea of researching the effects of deliberate practice because of an incident at school, in which he was beaten at chess by someone who used to lose to him. His opponent had clearly practised.

But it is perhaps the work of Benjamin Bloom, another distinguished American educationist working in the 1980s, that gives the most pause for thought and underscores the idea that family is intrinsically important to the concept of high performance.

Bloom’s team looked at a group of extraordinarily high achieving people in disciplines as varied as ballet, swimming, piano, tennis, maths, sculpture and neurology, and interviewed not only the individuals but their parents, too.

He found a pattern of parents encouraging and supporting their children, in particular in areas they enjoyed themselves. Bloom’s outstanding adults had worked very hard and consistently at something they had become hooked on young, and their parents all emerged as having strong work ethics themselves.

While the jury is out on giftedness being innate and other factors potentially making the difference, what is certain is that the behaviours associated with high levels of performance are replicable and most can be taught--even traits such as curiosity.

Eyre says we know how high performers learn. From that she has developed a high performing learning approach that brings together in one package what she calls the advanced cognitive characteristics, and the values, attitudes and attributes of high performance. She is working on the package with a group of pioneer schools, both in Britain and abroad.

But the system needs to be adopted by families, too, to ensure widespread success across classes and cultures. Research in Britain shows the difference parents make if they take part in simple activities pre-school in the home, supporting reading for example. That support shows through years later in better A-level results, according to the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary study, conducted over 15 years by a team from Oxford and London universities.

Eye-opening spin-off research, which looked in detail at 24 of the 3,000 individuals being studied who were succeeding against the odds, found something remarkable about what was going in at home. Half were on free school meals because of poverty, more than half were living with a single parent, and four in five were living in deprived areas.

The interviews uncovered strong evidence of an adult or adults in the child’s life who valued and supported education, either in the immediate or extended family or in the child’s wider community. Children talked about the need to work hard at school and to listen in class and keep trying. They referenced key adults who had encouraged those attitudes.

Einstein, the epitome of a genius, clearly had curiosity, character and determination. He struggled against rejection in early life but was undeterred. Did he think he was a genius or even gifted? No. He once wrote: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”

And what about Mirzakhani? Her published quotations show someone who was curious and excited by what she did and resilient. One comment sums it up. “Of course, the most rewarding part is the ‘Aha’ moment, the excitement of discovery and enjoyment of understanding something new--the feeling of being on top of a hill and having a clear view. But most of the time, doing mathematics for me is like being on a long hike with no trail and no end in sight.”

The trail took her to the heights of original research into mathematics in a cruelly short life. That sounds like unassailable character. Perhaps that was her gift.

Great Minds and How to Grow Them, by Wendy Berliner & Deborah Eyre.

[theadmiringbog]

When most people hear the word “price,” they think of a number. That's a price point.

When we use the term price, we are trying to get at something more fundamental. We want to understand the perceived value that the innovation holds for the customer. How much is the customer willing to pay for that value? What would the demand be?                 

Seen in this light, price is both an indication of what customers value and a measure of how much they are willing to pay for that value.                

--

Every company has a chance to create Cayennes and reduce the risk of Darts. The key is to rigorously determine the market for a new product long before the products are built, and making sure the market is willing to pay for that product before embarking on a long journey of productizing the innovation.                

--

To boil it down, these companies conduct product development this way: They design, then build, then market, then price. 

What we will teach you in this book is to flip that process on its head: Market and price, then design, then build. 

In other words, design the product around the price.                

--

Monetizing failures fall into only four categories: 

Feature shock: cramming too many features into one product—sometimes even unwanted features—creates a product that does not fully resonate with customers and is often overpriced. 

Minivation: an innovation that, despite being the right product for the right market, is priced too low to achieve its full revenue potential. 

Hidden gem: a potential blockbuster product that is never properly brought to market, generally because it falls outside of the core business. 

Undead: an innovation that customers don't want but has nevertheless been brought to market, either because it was the wrong answer to the right question, or an answer to a question no one was asking. The fact that new product monetization failures come in only four varieties should give you comfort. Imagine having to do postmortems that could point to dozens or hundreds of factors!                 

--

9 Rules for Innovation Success

We have boiled these secrets down into the following nine new rules for innovation success. The rules are contrary to what most executives have learned about product development: 

Have the “willingness to pay” talk with customers early in the product development process. 

Don't force a one-size-fits-all solution.

Product configuration and bundling is more science than art. You need to build them carefully and match them with your most meaningful segments.

Choose the right pricing and revenue models, because how you charge is often more important than how much you charge. 

Develop your pricing strategy. Create a plan that looks a few steps ahead, allowing you to maximize gains in the short and long term.

Draft your business case using customer willingness-to-pay data, and establish links between price, value, volume, and cost.                 

Communicate the value of your offering clearly and compellingly; otherwise you will not get customers to pay full measure.                 

Understand your customers' irrational sides, because whether you sell to other businesses or to consumers, your customers are people.                 

Maintain your pricing integrity. Control discounting tightly.                 

--

Companies with strong product-driven or engineering cultures tend to be the ones that develop feature shocks. Firms with a culture of playing it safe and avoiding big risks typically suffer minivations. Hidden gems most often afflict companies that coddle the core business. And undeads are born in firms whose top-down cultures discourage feedback and criticism from below.                

--

The component company failed to ask this question: “What value does this component bring to our customer and its customers, and what portion of that value can we capture?” Instead, it asked, “What does this component cost to make, and what minimum margin do I need to add on top of that?”                

--

Have the “Willingness-to-Pay” Talk Early. You Can't Prioritize without It

--

Discussing pricing with customers before you have a product ... How does one do that? The simplest way is to ask direct questions about the value of your product and its features, for example: 

“What do you think could be an acceptable price?” 

“What do you think would be an expensive price?” 

“What do you think would be a prohibitively expensive price?” 

“Would you buy this product at $XYZ?” 

Then follow each question with the most powerful question of all: “Why?”

--

Top Five Methods for Having the Willingness-to-Pay Conversation (from Easiest to Most Advanced)

  In Figure 4.3, we detail the five methods we have found most useful that you should use when you have the conversations                

--

Below are the 10 most important insights we have learned from them: 

1. Don't forget to tap into pockets of internal excellence: 

Before you have customer conversations, form a group of internal cross-functional experts (product, sales, marketing, finance, and engineering) and conduct an expert judgment workshop. 

Ask the questions you would ask customers.

Send out the questions before the meeting and ask participants to show up with answers (to avoid behavior in the room that generates biased answers). Then conduct an objective discussion of why people answered the way they did. Position customer discussions as the “value talk:” Don't position the talk as “pricing” or “willingness to pay.”                 

2. Ask questions like “Do you value these products/features?” and then ask why. 

Then switch gears to ask questions like “What would you consider an acceptable price?” Switching from value to price is an easier transition to make in determining customer WTP.                 

4. Make 25 percent of the questions “why” questions: 

As simple as it sounds, the “why” question is the most powerful one. If someone says, “I would pay $20,” ask them, “Why do you say that?”

7. Avoid the “average trap: 

When you analyze the answers to your WTP questions, look at the distribution, not just the average response. The average response can be misleading. 

8. Be precise in your language: 

The questions “Would you buy this?” and “Would you buy this for $20?” are totally different.                

--

CEO Questions 

Does our product development team have serious pricing discussions with customers in the early stages of the new product's development process? 

If not, why not? 

What data do we have to show there's a viable market that can and will pay for our new product? 

Do we know our market's WTP range for our product concept? Do we know what price range the market considers acceptable? 

What's considered expensive? How did we find out? 

Do we know what features customers truly value and are willing to pay for, and which ones they don't and won't? 

And have we killed or added to the features as a consequence of this data? If not, why not?                 

What are our product's differentiating features versus competitors' features? 

How much do customers value our features over the competition's features?

--

There are many flavors of segmentation that may be good for customizing sales and marketing messages, such as persona, behavior, attitude, demographics, and more. But when it comes to innovation, there is only one right way to segment: by customers' needs, value, and their willingness to pay for a product or service that delivers that value.                

--

A Paper Company's New Segmentation                

--

A Segment-Based Product Offering in a Business-to-Business Market

--

When you configure and bundle your new product, you may get overwhelmed with deciding which features to include in each segment offer. In a different way, it is easy for customers to become overwhelmed trying to decide which offer is right for them. Designing your product with leader, filler, and killer features in mind will help you with that first challenge. Creating good, better, and best options will address the second.                

--

The leader/filler/killer classification is the most important aspect of configuring your new product. We described methods for doing this in Figure 4.3.             

--

The classic approach to product configuration and bundling is to create a three-tier model, sometimes referred to as good, better, best or G/B/B. 

Typically, the good version has the most important core features, and the best has all the bells and whistles (the all-in product/bundle). You have probably come across this concept many times in everyday life: bronze, silver, and gold offerings. For example, the pro, business, and enterprise products offered by online file sharing website Dropbox are a G/B/B offering. Ideally, no more than a quarter of your customers should opt for the good option, while 70 percent should opt for the better or the best.

--

You can steer customers to a choice based on whether they are price conscious (good), quality conscious (best), or somewhere in between (better). The core philosophy behind a G/B/B is that a significant portion of people avoid extremes when they are presented a choice; they choose the compromise option. Playing on this psychology, G/B/B configuration/bundling maximizes revenue.

--

Don't make it too big. Once you go beyond nine benefits or four products, your product configurations and bundles run the risk of exceeding psychological thresholds. Your product will start making customers' heads spin, and you will be heading toward producing a feature shock product!

--

Hard bundling works when you have market power and are the dominant player. In almost all other cases, you should go with a mixed bundling approach (sell the products as a bundle and as standalone products).

--

Bundle with integration value so that 1 + 1 = 3. Bundling is not always about discounting. In certain industries, such as software, you can sometimes charge a premium for bundling products together because customers are willing to pay for integrated product experiences (such as common user interface and seamless interoperability between products). In these situations, if you offer a discount on the bundle, you will hurt your bottom line two times over!                

--

4. Alternative Metric Pricing/Pay As You Go

Software companies have also successfully employed alternative pricing metrics. A software company that produces lab reports increased revenue by 20 percent just by changing its pricing metric from fixed perpetual license to charging per lab report.                

--

5. Freemium pricing

The land-and-expand approach fails for 90 percent of companies. (For an exception to the rule, see the LinkedIn case study in Chapter 13.) In fact, the number of free customers who convert to premium is typically below 10 percent in software companies.                

...

If you decide to offer a freemium service, you must double down on your efforts to convert customers to the premium version. It is extraordinarily difficult to get consumers to buy something they previously received for free. One need only to look at the scores of Web-based businesses that failed to monetize free online offerings in the last two decades. For example, most newspapers (apart from ones like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) have failed to convert free readers en masse to paid online subscribers.                

--

What Are Your Competitors Doing? 

The reason to ask this question is not to mimic your rivals' monetization approaches but to set yourself apart. Wherever possible, use your monetization model to create a competitive difference.

--

A solid pricing strategy document  

Building Block #1: Set Clear Goals                 

Which goals are most important for your new products? Revenue? Market share? Total profit? Profit margin? Customer lifetime value? Average revenue per unit? Something else? Whichever goals you choose, you cannot maximize all of them at the same time. In setting goals, you must make trade-offs.

Forcing trade-offs in goals is crucial. A workshop task we call Goal Allocation Exercise helps companies do that. Every workshop participant is ideally from a company's C-suite. We ask them to allocate 100 points to a series of goals. That puts each executive in a trade-off mindset.

--

Examples of Principles for Promotion and Competitive Reactions

--

The most important input for optimizing your price is the price elasticity curve (also known as the demand curve and price–demand relationship). It shows how much the sales volume of your product decreases and increases if you move your price up or down: Price Elasticity = Change in Sales (%)/Change in Price (%) To calculate the price elasticity and profit curve for your new product, you need two sources of data: your analysis of what customers are willing to pay (discussed in Chapter 4) and your costs (both variable and fixed). Everything else is simple math. Here's an example. Figure 8.5 describes a product launch. At a price of $100, you would sell 1 million units per period. If you charge less, sales go up (1.35 million at a $70 price point). If you charge more, sales go down (to 600,000 at a price of $130). Figure 8.5 Price Scenarios for a New Product Launch With that information,

--

Every product—from a Rolls Royce to a pack of chewing gum—has a price elasticity curve. If you don't determine the elasticity curve for your product and use it to price that product, you will not get to your optimal price.

--

Your business case must model the linkages among the four elements of price, value, volume, and cost. When you do that, your monetary forecast will be far more precise.

--

Nine Steps to Build a Living Business Case

2. Assemble the basic ingredients. Incorporate market size, volume, customer segments, offer structure (configurations and bundles), value, WTP, a monetization model, costs, and competing products and their pricing.

3. Include price elasticity. Most companies avoid exploring price elasticity at this point, but we find it to be the critical element in business cases.

4. Apply data-verified facts. You need to use figures based on real facts. Without data, many are tempted to overstate the size of their target market, for example, or to create unrealistic adoption assumptions. Such guesses will come back to haunt you later, when you have to explain why sales are grossly under target. Topics that typically require data-validity checks include market size, ramp-up times, churn, and cannibalization assumptions.

5. Add risk assumptions. You need to attach risk assumptions to any input parameters that are inherently uncertain. For example, your manufacturing cost per unit will increase if a key supplier goes belly up and you must source from higher-priced suppliers.

--

SmugMug's Pricing Page with benefits > features

--

We have created an online diagnostic tool to help you diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of your overall innovation process (http://www.monetizinginnovation.com). Ask your innovation team to go through each task in the tool and report back with the results. The results should give you a high-level gauge for the status quo.

--

A key factor in the company's monetization success was appointing a monetization hero to the team and putting that person in charge. The monetization hero should have solid product experience and be familiar with your firm's existing innovation processes. This person should also have a broad perspective on the organization—especially the strengths, weaknesses, failures, and successes of the current innovation process. The monetization hero should listen for best practices that emerge in the cross-functional innovation meetings during the pilot phase.

[fapangel]

Thoughts on Antifa?

Antifa is just thetip of the iceberg.

I first got thisquestion in my inbox shortly after the first Antifa riot on the nightof Milo Yiannopoulos’s Berkeley speech, but I’ve been sitting on it for two reasons:one, to take time to formalize my thoughts better, and two, to avoida “rush to judgement.” You see, it’s not Antifa specifically wemust worry about, but rather how the left wing itself reacts to them.

In my multipleresponsesto my Friendly Local Antifa, I’ve been very clear that just becauseextremists exist (andthey will always exist -)doesn’t mean that they speak or act for any larger group. To claimthey do is a classic fascist tactic,as evidenced by Hitler’s exploitation of the Reichstagfire as a casus bellito round up his Communist political opponents. Lettingviolent radicals act without serious efforts to stymie or punishthem, or even praising and normalizing their motivations while weaklyimpugning their behavior, is also aclassic authoritarian tactic, something the left wing is quick tonote in the context of the Ku Klux Klan, but never apply to the likesof the Earth Liberation Front. That’s why I mention “IllinoisNazis” so much - the mere existence of some goose-steppingretards doesn’t even establish them as a threat in and of themselves,much less a movement with actual national political power.

Thisapplies to “Antifa” because what they really areis pro-Communist radicals.It’scurious that reporting on Antifa never, ever seems to mention it,even though tenseconds on Google turns up some damningimages pretty fast. These people have neverbeenshy about being Communist radicals, or advertising it to the world.Considered in a vacuum, then, they’re just Illinois Commies brawlingwith Illinois Nazis. As the Beatlesreminded us, just because they carry picturesof Chairman Mao doesn’t mean they’re gonna makeit with anyone, anyhow. SoI waited, and watched, to see if the larger wave of hysteria,obstructionism and outright violence would abate naturally as peoplewound down from the heightened passions of the election.

Theyhaven’t. On the 15thof April (two days ago,) yet another wave of mass protests werestaged across the country, with the theme being “Trump shouldrelease his tax returns.” The closest one to me was only twelvemiles distant, in Ann Arbor, MI. Home of the University of Michigan,the city’s small, wealthy, ultra-left and nestled in the middle of aconservative, rural area - and the protest’s highlight speakers(including a few Senators) delivered their speeches on theUniversity’s quad. (Thisis the exact kind of campus speaking event that Antifa used violenceand thuggery to silence at Berkeley when the speaker wasconservative.)Obama-appointed government officials have openly defied the lawfulorders of the sitting President, and been openly and loudly laudedfor it by the left wing. Members of our intelligence agencies havecommitted actual,unambiguous treason by leaking classified intelligence to acorporate media that writes every article with malice aforethought ina concerted and untiring effort to undermine the legitimacy of theoffice of the President of the United States. The left has proudlybragged of the multiplemunicipal governments - you know, cities - swearing to defyFederal law and law enforcement authorities, and some have evencalled for left-wing enclave California to secedefrom the Union. Theyhave scrambled to erect every possible barrier to the President’scabinet nominations, damn the consequences to effective governance,and the unfolding intelligence scandal is revealing how the power ofsecretive agencies was abused by Obama’s administration to undermineand slander his incoming successor. And of course, there’s thethuggery and violence on the street, waged by the likes of Antifa.

Theseare the tangible consequences ofthe left wing’s constant calls for “resistance” to the President- these are notjust words, but a national policy that’s been put into action. Thisisn’t justcute pins to show off to your lit club buddies how “woke” you are- it’s widespread, tangible popular support for the politicians,bureaucrats and businessmen working towards their ends. And thoughthey might call that end “resistance,” theyreally meanrevolution.

DanielGreenfield of Frontpage Magazine wrote a beautifullysuccinct summary that you should absolutelyread in full, but his mostcrucial paragraphs were these:

“There is no form of legal authority that the left acceptsas a permanent institution. It only utilizes forms of authorityselectively when it controls them. But when government officialsrefuse the orders of the duly elected government because theirallegiance is to an ideology whose agenda is in conflict with thePresident and Congress, that’s not activism, protest, politics orcivil disobedience; it’s treason.

After losing Congress, the left consolidated its authority inthe White House. After losing the White House, the left shifted itscenter of authority to Federal judges and unelected governmentofficials. Each defeat led the radicalized Democrats to relocate frommore democratic to less democratic institutions.

This isn’t just hypocrisy. That’s a common political sin.Hypocrites maneuver within the system. The left has no allegianceto the system. It accepts no laws other than those dictated by itsideology.

Democrats have become radicalized by the left. This doesn’tjust mean that they pursue all sorts of bad policies. It means thattheir first and foremost allegiance is to an ideology, not theConstitution, not our country or our system of government. All ofthose are only to be used as vehicles for their ideology.

That’s why compromise has become impossible.”

The ideological divide in the left wingis nothing new - it started in earnest in 1969, when thesocialist-communist bloc of the party first gained real tractionversus the “classic” New Deal progressive Democrats. The rift hasgrown steadily since then, culminating in the last election, when theNew Deal Democrats, the blue-collar union voters flipped the “bluewall” of the Rust Belt red for the first time since Reagan. Thedifference now is that the socialist-communist based branch ofthe party now control it, definitively. Their ideology andvalues are completely alien to the founding principles of America,the principles for which its laws were built to enshrine, nurture,and protect. This is why political compromise has grown more and moredifficult in America - the common ground between parties simplydoesn’t exist, and even if it did, socialist-communistideology has never been based on the concept of compromise orreconciliation.

Communist ideology is based onrevolution - in fact it’s a cornerstoneof the ideology. Revolution, by definition, is a complete andutter rejection of the legitimacy of the existing structure ofsociety. The left wing reveals their disdain for our society ineverything they say and do - their perennial crusade against everyaspect of capitalism, (“Big Whatever,” “Occupy Wall-Street,”)their endless trust in the sanctity and flawlessness of publicinstitutions versus “greedy” private enterprise and, above all,their unceasing devotion to righting the myriad “crimes” of“social injustice.” Hell, with “social injustice” it’s rightthere in the name. They reject, on every possible level, the mostbasic building blocks of Western society in general.

The true significance of Antifa is thewidespread popular support their thuggery has received from the leftwing - it indicates the final abandonment of any pretense todemocracy or fair dealing on their part. This is precisely why theirlanguage has taken on the tones of revolution and war as of late,dividing the populace into “us” versus “Nazis.” In oursecular society, Nazis are tantamount to demons; inhuman, beneathconsideration save through a rifle scope. The label’s a simple andeffective way to dehumanize people, and that’s the first step in theconditioning required to kill.

It’s already accelerating. After theBerkeley police made a point of confiscating weapons - and anythingusable as a weapon - from anyone converging on the park ahead of thelatest scuffle in Berkeley, Antifa took to reddit to argue foroutright arming themselves withfirearms. (Note how California’s ban on open carry, implementedby DemocraticGov. Jerry Brown in 2011 suddenly becomes Reagan’s fault.) Andother outlets are calling for leftists todegrade or destroy any government apparatus they do not control.

We have been down this roadbefore, more than once - the spate of anarchistbombings back in 1919, the radical left terrorist bombings by theWeathermanUnderground, and many others. But even at the height of anti-waractivism in the late 60s and early 70s, things were never thisbad. Much of it owes to new media - it’s atrophied theonce-ironfast stranglehold the corporate media had on politicaldiscourse in this nation, which has pushed the left wing to resort tomore brutish tactics to silence their opposition - doxxing, threats,intimidation and, of course, “de-platforming.” New media has alsoallowed the classic “grassroots” organizational tactics pioneeredby Chicago machine politics to go large-scale (moveon.org et al.) Theolder people, the wiser people, the experienced and the jaded - I’vetalked to them all, and they all agree that it has never been thisbad. The battle lines have been clearly drawn and the battles arebeing waged openly, vigorously and without apology.

Not every Democrat or liberal isa leftist - far, far from it, in fact. But I fear that the Democraticparty is far too gone for the sane people to reassert controlover it. As Greenfield points out, the left has retreated to“cultural urban and suburban enclaves where it has centralizedtremendous amounts of power while disregarding the interests andvalues of most of the country. If it considers them at all, it isconvinced that they will shortly disappear to be replaced bycompliant immigrants and college indoctrinated leftists who will forma permanent demographic majority for its agenda. But it couldn’twait that long because it is animated by the conviction thatenforcing its ideas is urgent and inevitable. And so it turned whathad been a hidden transition into an open break.” Thesepeople, long assured of their intrinsic superiority, are nowconfident in their eventual supremacy - and thus they are contestingthe legitimacy of the President of the United States, and indeed ourentire government, directly. We have been down this path before, too- it led to the Civil War.

That phrase - civil war- is the second reason I letthis post percolate for so long. I’m naturally antithetical tohysterical “sky is falling” arguments, as they’re invariably fullof shit and trying to sway people with fear and emotion, the facts beutterly damned. The current spate of gay,lesbian and transgender people buying guns for self-defenseagainst the imaginary hordes of Right-Wing Gestapo comes as nosurprise, because I’ve watched Conservatives panic-buying AR-15safter every shooting on the evening news for eight goddamn years. Andfor eight years I called them hooting morons becauseObama’s desire to “gitall yer gunz” far, far outstrippedhis ability to do so,legally and politically. Political vigilance against gun control isalways needed, yes, but people rushing to the stores and stockpiling(then-scarce) ammo in their basement were expecting a ban tomorrow,despite over a decade ofDemocrats losing ground on the national gun control debate, to saynothing of the Supreme Court rulings upholding - and incorporating -an individual right to keep and bear arms. Andthe ones I scorned and mocked the most were the ones insisting theymight need to use theirnew rifles in the not-so-distant future; that social unrest and evenviolence was just around the corner. I held these people to be theright-wing incarnation of the hysterical left-wing ninnies I soloathed and spared not my scorn, because being on myside of the fence didn’t make them any less an idiot.

Theday after the Berkeley riot, I decided it was about time I got off myass and purchased an AR-15.

For the first time in my life, Iam truly afraid for my country - and for my friends, my family, andmyself.

[erictmason]

Top Ten: Non-Nintendo Nintendo Games

These days, when one thinks “Nintendo Game”, they’re likely thinking of a game developed by Nintendo. But back in the day, a “Nintendo Game” meant literally anything on a Nintendo system.  And there was quite a bit to offer in that respect, too.  See, before Nintendo’s near-monopoly-level dominance of the market began to break down thus forming a powerful rift between Nintendo and other third-party developers which has yet to fully heal to this day, there was basically no other place to turn BUT Nintendo if you really wanted to get your game out there.  As a result, the legacy of Nintendo’s older systems, and even some of its newer ones, is defined just as much by games developed by other studios as it is by the games Nintendo itself created.  I thus decided, thanks to some inspiration from the_moviebob and the recent revival of his “Game OverThinker” series in the form of Top 10 countdowns, to look at those games across all of Nintendo’s history, and pick my personal ten favorites of the bunch for you to see!

For the record, “non-Nintendo Nintendo game” here means two things:

1.)    The game cannot be developed by Nintendo, nor use any Nintendo-owned characters.

2.)    At the time of the game’s original release, it had to be exclusive to a Nintendo system; games that retroactively received multi-platform releases still qualify.

With that out of the way, here’s my personal picks for the Ten Best Non-Nintendo Nintendo games:

10.) Sonic Colors (SEGA, Nintendo Wii, 2010): Man, remember that brief, magical time from 2008 to 2012 where it looked like SEGA might actually be getting the "Sonic" series back on track?  Well, "Sonic Colors", to my mind at least, is one of the very best games to emerge from that all-too-brief cycle, taking the day-time segments from the previous year's "Sonic Unleashed" and expanding on them beautifully.  The new ways to traverse and explore the game's impressively-constructed stages added a nice amount of depth, collectible red rings lent the game a decent amount of replay value, and even the multiplayer mode managed to provide some amusing little distractions, as well as being cleverly integrated into the single-player campaign by playing a role in unlocking one of the game's big secrets.  Heck, it even featured the debut of a new, significantly less annoying vocal cast for the "Sonic" characters.  Sure, like a lot of Sonic games, it can be fairly rough around the edges, but isn't there something nicely poetic about one of the best things Sonic's done in the last decade being exclusive to a Nintendo console?

9.) Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Silicon Knights, Nintendo Gamecube, 2002): These days developer Silicon Knights feels a bit like the sad punchline to a bad joke after the one-two punch of the disappointing "Too Human" and the atrocious "X-Men: Destiny".  For a while there, though, their reputation was iron-clad, thanks in no small part to "Eternal Darkness", one of the most compelling games, not just for the Nintendo Gamecube, but indeed the entire console generation it was part of.  Mixing Lovecraftian horror with wide-spanning time travel, it's one of the few games to evoke a true sense of existential dread, with the very concept of sanity itself being built into the game's mechanics.  This forces you to witness the strain these incredible events really put on the player character's mind, and thus do your level best to wrestle against that ever present tide, only to find out how very difficult that fight is.  Combined with branching paths to keep you coming back and compelling horror imagery that remains exceptionally potent all these years later (indeed, some of the game's cruder graphics almost enhance the effect), it makes for a truly haunting requiem.    

  8.) The Wonderful 101 (Platinum Games, Nintendo Wii U, 2013): Even fewer games emerged to try to truly take advantage of the Wii U's unique game pad controller than did those which tried to really engage with the Wii's motion controls, but thankfully one of the ones which did was "The Wonderful 101", Hideki Kamiya's exuberant love letter to the Tokusatsu genre.  Basically an Action Game take on the "Pikmin" series, "101" puts you in control of a massive travelling army of superheroes who can unite into various giant constructs to fight evil, with the Game Pad's touch screen providing a quick, easy way to draw up the relevant formations, as well as amusing mini-game segments that use the game pad to show you the inside of a building while needing you to observe the effects it has on the outside up on the TV screen.  The design continuously finds clever ways to challenge the player, and like all Platinum game, it also has an airtight combat system that leans heavily on timing and reaction in the most viscerally satisfying way possible.  All that, and it wears its visual identity proudly up front at all times, an aesthetic that is simultaneously wonderfully unique, even as it is also steeped in obvious, affectionate homage.    

7.) Odama (Vivarium, Nintendo Gamecube, 2006): Here's a game few people have even heard of, let alone played.  This is because, like most games which fit that description, it's a truly bizarre cross-pollination of genres.  How bizarre?  It's a Feudal Japanese War Epic...played through via pinball mechanics.  If such a combination sounds impossible, all you need to do is give this truly one-of-a-kind experience a go, because once you do it'll make you wonder why more people haven't tried it.  Giving the player a bird's-eye-view of various battlefields, you are charged with using your pinball flippers to try and guide the "Ninten Ball" (a massive, wrecking-ball-like pinball stand-in) to hit specific targets, flatten enemies, and try to clear a path to allow your troops to overtake the enemy's territory.  Admittedly, the fact that this is a game of pinball, and thus often subject to as much luck as skill, can make even the early levels tricky to actually get through some times, and it does take a bit of time before the game's full, mythological tone takes hold.  But even so, "Odama" makes its eclectic mixture work, and work remarkably well, pulling you in and keeping you going all the way, revealing new and ever-deepening layers to its game play without ever changing its fundamentals.  If you can find a copy, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

6.) Goldeneye 007 (Rare, Nintendo 64, 1997): Everyone knows the old conventional wisdom: licensed games suck, and movie games suck even harder.  Yet the Nintendo 64 adaptation of the James Bond film "Goldeneye" doesn't just Not Suck, it's a stone-cold classic whose shadow still looms large over the entirety of the FPS genre.  These days, of course, that's primarily attributable to its exceptional multiplayer mode, which even by modern standards shows an absolutely dizzying degree of customization to fit just about any group's preferred style of play.  Want to keep certain stages off the rotation?  Want to play with only a certain kind of gun?  Want to change up how to win a particular kind of match?  "Goldeneye" lets you.  But the single-player shouldn't be taken for granted either, taking some of the movie's best moments and translating them perfectly into playable form.  All that, and it's filled to the brim with brilliant deep-dive references for long-time Bond fans.  No doubt about it, no one does it better than "Goldeneye 007".

5.) Viewtiful Joe/Resident Evil 4 (Capcom, Nintendo Gamecube, 2003/2005) : The entire premise of this list rests upon Nintendo's relationship with third-party developers, and nothing is more emblematic of how poor said relationship has grown in the last two decades than the notorious "Capcom Five", a highly-promoted batch of five games from developer and long-time Nintendo collaborators Capcom, meant to be exclusive to the then-struggling Nintendo Gamecube...one of which was cancelled outright ("Dead Phoenix"),  two of which were Gamecube exclusives that sold poorly ("P.N.03" and "Killer 7"), and then there were "Viewtiful Joe" and "Resident Evil 4", both of which proved popular enough to warrant Playstation 2 ports within a couple years of their respective releases.  But even setting that contentious history aside, these two are indeed both fantastic games, one the stirring debut of a great new franchise from future "Wonderful 101" creator Hideki Kamiya (and steeped even further in his love of Tokusatsu, if you can believe it), the other quite handily the best of its notorious franchise, amping up its action elements while still delivering the shock and gore.  Neither one could save the Gamecube from its premature demise, but both demonstrate a remarkable level of polish, innovation, and engagement.  From "Joe"'s endearing sense of humor and fantastic fighting mechanics capturing the unique charm of the Super Sentai Hero, to "RE7"'s over-the-shoulder camera allowing the game to come at you full-throttle exactly when it counts most, they both prove themselves essentials for any Gamecube library, and a fitting last hurrah for that faded period of time when Nintendo and Capcom basically went hand in hand.  

4.) Mischief Makers (Treasure, Nintendo 64, 1997):  The release of "Super Mario 64" in 1996 revolutionized the world of video games in general, and the platformer genre in particular.  Suddenly, everyone, from long-time favorites like Donkey Kong to lowly also-rans like Bubsy were pumping out 3D platformers in "64"'s image, and the genre's 2D roots seemed destined for extinction.  It would take a lot of guts to put out a "traditional" 2D platformer in that environment, but sure enough, "Mischief Makers" had guts to spare, providing not only a refreshing alternative to the 3D glut but doing so with one of the most unique, best-constructed entries in the entire genre.  See, rather than the usual hop-and-bop strategy, platforming in "Mischief Makers" instead centers on using special dash boosts to make your way to where you need to be, and shake-shake-shaking every last item you can get your hands on.  It's not only a compellingly visceral new layer to things, but one the game explores thoroughly and creatively across its vast, well-varied selection of levels.  Shake an object to transform it, or make it drop an important item, or get it to move in the direction you want; the game finds every angle it can, and each one succeeds.  The Boss Battles are some of the  most satisfying and challenging I've ever played, too.  Even its story, loaded with sharp-witted humor and fantastically memorable characters, adds an extra layer of flavor to the whole experience.  "Mischief Makers" was sadly underappreciated in its day, and hard to find nowadays, but even so, it's an absolutely great game. 

3.) Castlevania (Konami, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1986): Did you see that awesome trailer for the new "Castlevania" series coming to Netflix?  Not only does it make the show look like it is going to be seriously great, it also serves as a stark reminder that, while it may have found renewed success and vitality as a Playstation game thanks to the iconic "Symphony of the Night", "Castlevania" began as, and is primarily associated with being, an NES game.  And what an NES game it was, too.  Throwing basically every last Horror Monster you could think of-Dracula naturally, but also the Frankenstein Monster, Medusa, and no less than the Grim goddammed Reaper-together into one place, mixed well with a unique take on the Gothic Horror aesthetic, and brought to life with some of the best graphics on the system, as well as some of its very best music, the original "Castlevania" offered up a compelling, challenging experience.  Some of that challenge can be more than a bit cheap at times, it's true; like "Ninja Gaiden" (a game which just barely missed this list, for the record), the occasional clunkiness of the controls can lead to deaths that feel unfair.  But for the most part, difficulty in "Castlevania" is earned by way of enemies equipped with tricky patterns, platforming designed to lead you right into the thick of danger, and managing your resources as best you can to insure they achieve the best effect.  There's a lot of depth to the action here, with the wide variety of sub-weapons available to you and the situations you'll encounter.  It all adds up into one of the best, most bizarre, most fascinating games to grace a Nintendo system.

2.) Final Fantasy VI (Square, Super Nintendo, 1994): Like "Castlevania", "Final Fantasy" is a series that, once upon a time, was primarily associated with Nintendo.  But much like their relationship with Capcom, the Nintendo/Square (at-the-time-enix-less) partnership fell apart after the end of the Super NES, and "Final Fantasy" would go on to be much more a Playstation franchise from that point on.  The good news, then, is that the last "Final Fantasy" game to come of that partnership is also one of the very best games in the entire franchise.  It features one of "Final Fantasy"'s most memorable villains in the form of the genocidal mad-clown Kefka Palazzo.  It features one of the series' most memorable, at-once-humorous-but-also-heartwarming sequences in the form of the notorious Opera performance.  And it features one of the franchise's most ambitious narratives, one that takes you to the very literal End of the World and back again.  Meanwhile, the aesthetic, the last time series mainstay Yoshitaka Amano would act as the primary character designer for the franchise, is gorgeously realized, pushing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy angle the series had been refining over the last several years to all-new places, and its soundtrack, composed by another FF veteran, Nobuo Uematsu, is justifiably legendary among fans.  Most of all, though, it's just a gripping RPG from start to finish, taking all the things that had made prior "Final Fantasy" games work and polishing them to an absolute mirror shine.  The combat, the travel, the customization options for your characters..."VI" marked the end of an era.  But what an ending it turned out to be. 

1.) Mega Man 2 (Capcom, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1988): It would seem nearly impossible to believe today, given the relative disarray into which Capcom has allowed him to fall, but once upon a time, Mega Man was one of the true stars of the video game world.  And if you ever need to remind yourself of why, all you need to do is play "Mega Man 2" for the NES.  It is here that the "Mega Man" series as we know it today truly begins, taking the rougher look, feel, and build of its predecessor and granting it a greater degree of polish, depth, and outright fun.  The new Slide mechanic, for example, changes up the pace of the game's platforming considerably, while the more nuanced take on the previous game's rock-paper-scissors system for the various new weapons Mega Man can acquire provides the game with many of its most memorable moments (you ever try to use Metal Man's own weapon against him?  You should!).  The stages are all significantly better designed, too, with sharp, challenging traps mixing with pin-point precise run-and-jump segments, as well as some great new enemies to blast along the way.  The music and graphics are aces too, finally fully realizing the Anime Sci-Fi Kid's Book aesthetic the series is now so well known for, and creating some of the most memorable music ever heard on the system (Dr. Wily's Castle is still an all-time great track).  It even introduced Mega Man's iconic sidekick Rush the robo-dog, giving the character himself that much greater a sense of being a complete character by virtue of having a partner and friend to (literally) bounce off of.  "Mega Man II" is one of Capcom's very best games ever, and it's the single best non-Nintendo game to hit a Nintendo console.

[jeramylarp]

Where Are All the Larpers?

Around 8 years ago, I began telling people I thought that larping was about to break into the mainstream, and that we’d see a large influx of new people coming into the hobby.  While I think that larping is more well known, and there are more people playing now than there have ever been...the explosion I anticipated never came to pass, and what’s more, I am no longer certain it will. Oh, I certainly hope it will, but after 8 years, I have begun to grow skeptical.   Like many of us, when I started larping, I would avoid describing what I did...not so much out of embarrassment, but because it was a secret cool thing I did, and honestly I just didn’t want to have to explain it...I didn’t know how.  This has not been true for a very long time now, and I will talk larping at little to no provocation with complete strangers.  With the movie Role Models, and the publicity garnered by large scale larp productions, most people at least have a vague concept of what larping is.  It has gotten easier to sell people on this crazy thing we do...but they aren’t biting in the way I would have expected. As someone who is relatively connected to the greater larp community, especially in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, I am aware of a lot of projects coming down the pipe.  There are at least 6 organizations, that I know of, opening campaign larps within the area in the next year.  To put it bluntly, not all of them will survive.  The local market is saturated, and has been for a long time.  I could rattle off 20 larps that play within 2 hours of my home, most of them monthly or semi-monthly.  Unless one or more of these new games has cracked the code on drawing in new people into the hobby, only a few of them will likely survive beyond the first few events.  We are all drawing from the same pool of players, we aren’t bringing in enough new blood to sustain this kind of growth.   When I talked about the larp explosion, I was expecting to see regular games pull in 500+ people.  At the time I was playing a game that was seeing 200+ every event, during an era of far less visibility, so this didn’t feel like much of a stretch...and yet, it never happened.  Even the biggest larps in my area, Knight Realms and Dystopia Rising, don’t really see those kind of numbers (with the exception of national events).  What’s more, after some initial success, we’re seeing increasingly lukewarm responses to blockbuster larps in the US.  It has me wondering if we are merely a novelty for the wider world, one whose appeal is starting to wear off.

Part of my concern is the average age of a larper today.  When I started 15 or so years ago, I’d say the average larper (in my area) was around 19 years old.  Now I think the average age is somewhere closer to 30.  We’re not pulling in younger players in the numbers the local larp economy requires.  No one is ever more excited to be part of a new thing than they are when they are in their late teens and early twenties...but by and large these are not the people who are coming out to play our games.  Larping has aged along with me, and while I appreciate some of social advantages of that, I can’t help but worry about the long term sustainability of the hobby...or at the very least campaign larping.

One of the very first pieces of advertising we ever did was going out to a local comic con.  It was a small con, perhaps 500 people walked through that door all day.  We got face time with a few dozen.  Not a single person ever came out to play.  We had better success at later convention, but for that first convention we did everything right, had incredible contact, and none of that turned into someone showing up at an event.  Why?  There are a few likely causes.  1. Every group of people needs a catalyst, someone who pushes them to try something new...it is always easier to do nothing, even when you are excited to try something new.  I am that person sometimes.  I understand.  2. People who go to a comic con have already sort of decided what their time consuming hobby is.  I suspect this is part of the reason why there isn’t as much crossover with the cosplay community as one might think.  

Another piece of the greater puzzle may have to do with attrition.  Larps are notoriously awful at retaining new players, even good larps have a more than 50% attrition rate.  I remember one event a long time ago when more than 20 new players showed up one event for a larp I was attending, not a single one of them ever returned.  This was a game that was pulling an average of 80 people per event, and suddenly 20 people show up and not one of them was ever enticed to come out again by the experience.  So, it could be some of the numbers I was expecting did materialize, but never quite got more than a toe into the water before a larp piranha bit it off.   I live between 2 major metropolitan areas, Philadelphia and New York.  Between the two of them is the highest population density state in the country.  There are around 20 million people living in the area.  Of that 20 million, maybe 5000 (if I am being generous) are regular larpers.  This means that roughly .025 percent of people larp, or 1 out of every 4000 people.  That is...disheartening to me.   When larp infects a group of friends, the contagion spreads quickly, but does peter out eventually...after all, most of us only have so many connections.  I’ve seen this happen so many times.  This is the fundamental way our hobby grows.  Friends help you stay excited about the thing you just did, they keep you invested, keep you going back, provide you with support.  But we need to get better at spreading the infection, find those groups of people who have this unnamed desire to explore, meet cool people, and hit their friends with plumbing supplies.  Bridging this gap, and finding a way to make these initial connections is what we need to do in order to expand our hobby, and hopefully see the explosion I dreamed of all those years ago. 

[scifigeneration]

The future is in interactive storytelling

by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Michael Mateas

Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April. Early reviews suggest the game is just another form of guided progress through a predetermined story, not a player-driven experience in the world of the movie and its characters. Some game critics lament this, and suggest game designers let traditional media tell the linear stories.

What is out there for the player who wants to explore on his or her own in rich universes like the ones created by Marvel? Not much. Not yet. But the future of media is coming.

As longtime experimenters and scholars in interactive narrative who are now building a new academic discipline we call “computational media,” we are working to create new forms of interactive storytelling, strongly shaped by the choices of the audience. People want to explore, through play, themes like those in Marvel’s stories, about creating family, valuing diversity and living responsibly.

These experiences will need compelling computer-generated characters, not the husks that now speak to us from smartphones and home assistants. And they’ll need virtual environments that are more than just simulated space – environments that feel alive, responsive and emotionally meaningful.

This next generation of media – which will be a foundation for art, learning, self-expression and even health maintenance – requires a deeply interdisciplinary approach. Instead of engineer-built tools wielded by artists, we must merge art and science, storytelling and software, to create groundbreaking, technology-enabled experiences deeply connected to human culture.

In search of interactivity

One of the first interactive character experiences involved “Eliza,” a language and software system developed in the 1960s. It seemed like a very complex entity that could engage compellingly with a user. But the more people interacted with it, the more they noticed formulaic responses that signaled it was a relatively simple computer program.

In contrast, programs like “Tale-Spin” have elaborate technical processes behind the scenes that audiences never see. The audience sees only the effects, like selfish characters telling lies. The result is the opposite of the “Eliza” effect: Rather than simple processes that the audience initially assumes are complex, we get complex processes that the audience experiences as simple.

An exemplary alternative to both types of hidden processes is “SimCity,” the seminal game by Will Wright. It contains a complex but ultimately transparent model of how cities work, including housing locations influencing transportation needs and industrial activity creating pollution that bothers nearby residents. It is designed to lead users, through play, to an understanding of this underlying model as they build their own cities and watch how they grow. This type of exploration and response is the best way to support long-term player engagement.

Connecting technology with meaning

Creating biased histories can be uncomfortable. 'Terminal Time,' by Steffi Domike, Michael Mateas and Paul Vanouse., CC BY-ND

No one discipline has all the answers for building meaningfully interactive experiences about topics more subtle than city planning – such as what we believe, whom we love and how we live in the world. Engineering can’t teach us how to come up with a meaningful story, nor understand if it connects with audiences. But the arts don’t have methods for developing the new technologies needed to create a rich experience.

Today’s most prominent examples of interactive storytelling tend to lean toward one approach or the other. Despite being visually compelling, with powerful soundtracks, neither indie titles like “Firewatch” nor blockbusters such as “Mass Effect: Andromeda” have many significant ways for a player to actually influence their worlds.

Both independently and together, we’ve been developing deeper interactive storytelling experiences for nearly two decades. “Terminal Time,” an interactive documentary generator first shown in 1999, asks the audience several questions about their views of historical issues. Based on the responses (measured as the volume of clapping for each choice), it custom-creates a story of the last millennium that matches, and increasingly exaggerates, those particular ideas.

For example, to an audience who supported anti-religious rationalism, it might begin presenting distant events that match their biases – such as the Catholic Church’s 17th-century execution of philosopher Giordano Bruno. But later it might show more recent, less comfortable events – like the Chinese communist (rationalist) invasion and occupation of (religious) Tibet in the 1950s.

The results are thought-provoking, because the team creating it – including one of us (Michael), documentarian Steffi Domike and media artist Paul Vanouse – combined deep technical knowledge with clear artistic goals and an understanding of the ways events are selected, connected and portrayed in ideologically biased documentaries.

Digging into narrative

“Façade,” released in 2005 by Michael and fellow artist-technologist Andrew Stern, represented a further extension: the first fully realized interactive drama. A person playing the experience visits the apartment of a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse. A player can say whatever she wants to the characters, move around the apartment freely, and even hug and kiss either or both of the hosts. It provides an opportunity to improvise along with the characters, and take the conversation in many possible directions, ranging from angry breakups to attempts at resolution.

“Façade” also lets players interact creatively with the experience as a whole, choosing, for example, to play by asking questions a therapist might use – or by saying only lines Darth Vader says in the “Star Wars” movies. Many people have played as different characters and shared videos of the results of their collaboration with the interactive experience. Some of these videos have been viewed millions of times.

As with “Terminal Time,” “Façade” had to combine technical research – about topics like coordinating between virtual characters and understanding natural language used by the player – with a specific artistic vision and knowledge about narrative. In order to allow for a wide range of audience influence, while still retaining a meaningful story shape, the software is built to work in terms of concepts from theater and screenwriting, such as dramatic “beats” and tension rising toward a climax. This allows the drama to progress even as different players learn different information, drive the conversation in different directions and draw closer to one or the other member of the couple.

Engaging with a couple on the rocks. 'Façade,' by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern., CC BY-ND

Bringing art and engineering together

A decade ago, our work uniting storytelling, artificial intelligence, game design, human-computer interaction, media studies and many other arts, humanities and sciences gave rise to the Expressive Intelligence Studio, a technical and cultural research lab at the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, where we both work. In 2014 we created the country’s first academic department of computational media.

Today, we work with colleagues across campus to offer undergrad degrees in games and playable media with arts and engineering emphases, as well as graduate education for developing games and interactive experiences.

With four of our graduate students (Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel and Aaron A. Reed), we recently took inspiration from sociology and theater to devise a system that simulates relationships and social interactions. The first result was the game “Prom Week,” in which the audience is able to shape the social interactions of a group of teenagers in the week leading up to a high school prom.

We found that its players feel much more responsibility for what happens than in pre-scripted games. It can be disquieting. As game reviewer Craig Pearson put it – after destroying the romantic relationship of his perceived rival, then attempting to peel away his remaining friendships, only to realize this wasn’t necessary – “Next time I’ll be looking at more upbeat solutions, because the alternative, frankly, is hating myself.”

That social interaction system is also a base for other experiences. Some address serious topics like cross-cultural bullying or teaching conflict deescalation to soldiers. Others are more entertaining, like a murder mystery game – and a still-secret collaboration with Microsoft Studios. We’re now getting ready for an open-source release of the underlying technology, which we’re calling the Ensemble Engine.

Making friends in ‘Prom Week.’ Prom Week, CC BY-ND

Pushing the boundaries

Our students are also expanding the types of experiences interactive narratives can offer. Two of them, Aaron A. Reed and Jacob Garbe, created “The Ice-Bound Concordance,” which lets players explore a vast number of possible combinations of events and themes to complete a mysterious novel.

Three other students, James Ryan, Ben Samuel and Adam Summerville, created “Bad News,” which generates a new small midwestern town for each player – including developing the town, the businesses, the families in residence, their interactions and even the inherited physical traits of townspeople – and then kills one character. The player must notify the dead character’s next of kin. In this experience, the player communicates with a human actor trained in improvisation, exploring possibilities beyond the capabilities of today’s software dialogue systems.

Kate Compton, another student, created “Tracery,” a system that makes storytelling frameworks easy to create. Authors can fill in blanks in structure, detail, plot development and character traits. Professionals have used the system: Award-winning developer Dietrich Squinkifer made the uncomfortable one-button conversation game “Interruption Junction.” “Tracery” has let newcomers get involved, too, as with the “Cheap Bots Done Quick!” platform. It is the system behind around 4,000 bots active on Twitter, including ones relating the adventures of a lost self-driving Tesla, parodying the headlines of “Boomersplaining thinkpieces,” offering self-care reminders and generating pastel landscapes.

Many more projects are just beginning. For instance, we’re starting to develop an artificial intelligence system that can understand things usually only humans can – like the meanings underlying a game’s rules and what a game feels like when played. This will allow us to more easily explore what the audience will think and feel in new interactive experiences.

‘Bad News’ is played in physical space. In the installation at Big Pictures in Los Angeles (for the Slamdance DIG exhibition), the player and actor were on one side of a wall (right) and the ‘wizard,’ who combs the lives of the generated characters for interesting story potential, was on the other (left). James Ryan, CC BY-ND

There’s much more to do, as we and others work to invent the next generation of computational media. But as in a Marvel movie, we’d bet on those who are facing the challenges, rather than the skeptics who assume the challenges can’t be overcome.

Noah Wardrip-Fruin is Professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael Mateas is Professor of Computational Media at University of California, Santa Cruz.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.