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Things To Remember While Planning A Multi-Cultural Wedding In India!
Understanding Each Other’s Cultures - Familiarize yourself with the traditions, customs, and rituals of the cultures represented in the wedding. Learn the significance of different ceremonies, attire, music, and food. This understanding will help you plan a wedding that respects and incorporates the traditions of all cultures involved; it’s a great way to spend more time together!
Two Weddings, Double The Fun! - Decide whether you want a combined ceremony that incorporates elements from both cultures or separate ceremonies to honour each culture individually.
The Destination Wedding Trick! - Have a destination wedding! A destination wedding is usually a big party. Everyone celebrates and lives together for 2-3 days, allowing families to mingle and have fun.
Choose a Suitable Venue - Select a venue that can accommodate the rituals and traditions of both cultures. Ensure the venue has space for different ceremonies, diverse food options, and comfortable seating arrangements for guests from both sides. Consider outdoor or indoor venues depending on the weather and cultural requirements.
Food, Food, and Food - Food is one of the most important aspects of a wedding ceremony, so it is better to include the traditional dishes of both sides in your menu. Create menu cards introducing each dish, explaining its cultural origins and significance.
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Décor Designing, Execution & Entertainment Curation by FB Celebrations
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Delhi Police Seize 9 Posters Addressed to the Prime Minister, Who are being sent out of the Vaccine
#narendramodi#pmmodi#primeminister#india pm#bjp parliamentary board#technology#government#hollywood#entertainment#business#culture#karnataka bjp#maharashtra bjp#bjp national executive meeting#amit shah#gujarat#bjp mla#curators#nature#funny#health & fitness#cbi#cm yogi
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August 7, 2023
By Maureen Lee Lenker
(Entertainment Weekly) — We'll always have Paris, but for a time, it seemed as if we might not always have Turner Classic Movies.
Since 1994, TCM has aired films, uncut and commercial-free, 24 hours a day, all enhanced by monthly themed and curated programming, hosted introductions and conclusions (known as outros), conversations with filmmakers and talent, and original content. In its nearly 30 years of existence, the network has expanded beyond its already estimable remit as a cable network-meets-film-school, with fan events including a film festival and cruise.
The brand also plays a key role in global film preservation efforts. Restorations of bigger studio titles are typically done by the studios themselves, but TCM is more often than not the showcase for such work — both on air and at the annual film festival. TCM won a Peabody Award in 2008 for its "commitment to film preservation and restoration."
In 2023 alone, TCM partnered with the Film Foundation and the studio to restore 10 classics for the Warner Bros. 100th anniversary, including 1932's One Way Passage, 1941's The Strawberry Blonde, 1959's Rio Bravo, and 1955's East of Eden, all of which screened at the film festival and aired on the network. Last year, TCM celebrated its expanded partnership with the Film Foundation with the premiere of a 4K restoration of the Elizabeth Taylor/James Dean/Rock Hudson epic Giant at the 2022 festival. (Going even further back, in 2007, TCM tracked down the rights to six "lost" RKO films, including William Powell comedy Double Harness and Ginger Rogers rom-com Rafter Romance, not seen in over 50 years).
But on June 20, all of that seemed to be in peril as news broke that the entire executive leadership team of TCM (most of whom boasted 20-plus years of experience with the network) were being laid off alongside other members of the staff. The latest round of layoffs, which network staff tell EW they were blindsided by, are part of Warner Bros. Discovery's continuing attempts to cut costs across the studio.
Some backtracking from the executives at WBD is alright (especially in terms of staff rehires and bringing back the TCMFF Director), but they cut away at something that wasn't broken to begin with!
#TCM#saveTCM#Warner Bros.#Warner Bros. Discovery#WBD#David Zaslav#Ben Mankiewicz#Eddie Muller#Jacqueline Stewart#Alicia Malone#Dave Karger#Steven Spielberg#Paul Thomas Anderson#Martin Scorsese#Wes Anderson#Greta Gerwig#The Film Foundation#Entertainment Weekly#news
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DM: JAN MOIR: Another day, another desperate Montecito dollar. This time with jam on it!
Jan is not wrong here:
Perhaps, we will learn more when the two new Netflix documentary series about the Sussexes are broadcast next year. In one, Meghan will share the 'joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining and friendship' — most of which she is demonstrably unqualified to do*.*
The second series finds Harry giving 'unprecedented access to the world of professional polo' — the exclusive, elitist sport few people care about outside polo circles.
Maybe the Sussexes could combine the two documentary strands and have Meghan making sandwiches for some thunderously handsome Argentinian polo players while writing encouraging words on their bananas, too. That would bring in the viewers.
Meanwhile, this ambitious pair of control freaks will be executively producing everything, from the polo shoots to the avocado-potting sessions to the labels on the jars of strawberry delight; rolling out a carefully curated, highly sanitised, hugely commercialised version of their lives for public consumption and private profit.
Another day, another desperate Montecito dollar. This time with jam on it.
JAN MOIR: Another day, another desperate Montecito dollar. This time with jam on it! | Daily Mail Online (archive.ph)
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author: Von_und_zu_
submitted: April 19, 2024 at 12:12PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit
disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.
#SaintMeghanMarkle#harry and meghan#meghan markle#prince harry#fucking grifters#Worldwide Privacy Tour#Instagram loving bitch wife#Backgrid#voetsek meghan#walmart wallis#markled#archewell#archewell foundation#megxit#duke and duchess of sussex#duke of sussex#duchess of sussex#doria ragland#rent a royal#sentebale#clevr blends#lemonada media#archetypes with meghan#invictus#invictus games#Sussex#WAAAGH#american riviera orchard#Von_und_zu_
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Hi. I hope you don't find this weird. I've never met you before. But your words about kpop and BTS has always brought me comfort and clarity. I've been reading your blog for the last few days looking to see if you will clearly address it. You haven't written about your own view about Jimin's mistreatment and sabotage since it happened. But you have acknowledged it happened. You also reiterate how yoonmin is still in control. I respect you for that. But can you share your own view and feelings about this issue more? Billboard is clearly anti-BTS and hedging their actions by using Bang PD who it seems was interviewed by them long before the Jimin thing happened. You've said this before. You've also said BTS have said they won't play the music game the conventional way. But you haven't said how you feel about it. I want to ask for your genuine opinion.
***
Hi Anon,
Last night, I was finishing up some work I'd brought forward because of Agust D's tour. Set Me Free Pt 2 was playing on my speakers and I thought how good it would sound on radio. Alone, too. It's a crime that with the kind of music BTS makes, people are deprived of hearing it simply because the middle men of the US music industry refuse to renege on their mandatory cut.
Fifty Fifty is a group with good and extremely marketable songs. Their agency's co-founder stated he intends to make the female BTS, and he said he sold his car to make the dream of Fifty Fifty happen. It all sounds wonderful until you learn the CEO and other co-founder is the COO of Beyond Music - the largest music IP investment firm in Korea. It is bigger than HYBE's department for that. Not only that, the CEO sits on the executive board of Warner Music Korea, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. He also runs an actors agency that manages several high profile k-drama actors in Korea. Basically, Fifty Fifty has been partnered and owned by some of the biggest entertainment companies not just in Korea, but globally. The group broke out on TikTok with Cupid and enjoyed organic success, much like NewJeans. As a result it was added to several Spotify-curated playlists that run on a proprietary algorithm, and like NewJeans' songs, Cupid climbed up the charts because it's an easy-listening poppy tune. The difference between NewJeans and Fifty Fifty though, is that Warner Group has now adopted formal co-management of Fifty Fifty and Cupid will be officially sent to radio. Warner artists get a stupid amount of radioplay. It's going to be a wonderful thing for Fifty Fifty, and it's very likely that with that sort of support, they get a Billboard Hot 100 #1 win.
There are many times BigHit fucks up with BTS. The issues of insulting subtitles (in Korean) towards Jimin and Yoongi occasionally piss me off; Jimin's stolen mail, the weirdo stalking Jungkook; how inconsistent shipping is (if there's a production bottleneck with a sub-contractor they should quickly change it), are all annoying; it's very possible some members of staff are anti several members because weird shit has been happening since HYBE's massive hiring of ex-Big 3 staff in 2020; and so on. But unfortunately many of those things are to be expected. I too wish Jimin had longer time to promote FACE, but both he and Yoongi had initially planned to release their albums late last year, but neither of them met their deadlines and instead moved it to Spring. The timing for their albums was always going to be close, and I'm sure booking tour venues as well as meeting enlistment deadlines only added to their constraints. I quickly got over my initial annoyance because it's clear both Jimin and Yoongi have accepted it. Plus the bigger problem is the industry's response to BTS.
Because of the sort of group BTS is, they will always have enemies. Their status as the biggest group in the world has only complicated things in many ways, especially when it comes to BigHit publicly and corporately addressing unfair treatment towards them. People already think BTS do not deserve their status and goodluck, do you think those people give a fuck if Billboard and Western music industry is screwing BTS over? No, they don't. And every party in this equation knows that. BTS has also said, since as early as 2017, that if they wanted to become massively successful sooner, they could've done so. Those opportunities came to them. In 2018 when BTS made history with Fake Love on the Billboard Hot 100, they could've signed with an American company like Warner, gotten carried by radio, and you and I would be having a very different discussion right now.
*
I don't know what the future will hold. Maybe BTS has in fact peaked and when they return after enlistment the world would've moved on to a better, hotter, more marketable artist. Maybe their bodies, interests, and priorities would have changed irreversibly. Maybe...
But I look at a group like BTS, and I don't care about any of that.
(The boys all signed Yoongi's guitar. It's his solo concert tour debut and they're all with him. He's taking comfort in them all being with him, and sharing some of that comfort with us.)
Anyway, I've rambled. You asked me what my feelings are about the whole thing?
I feel pride. That's what I feel looking at this whole situation. A NCTzen friend asked my opinion about it too, I told her the same thing, and she said this is probably one trait I share with my biases, that's shining through. I feel such a strong sense of pride looking at Jimin, at Yoongi, at BTS. Even if they eventually decide to play the industry's game with their rules, my respect for them won't change. Who they are as people, and as artists, make tolerating the hellscape that is stan environments much more palatable. They make putting up with bullshit from this industry, much more doable.
When I first learned about Jimin's week 2 sales being deleted, I checked US stock exchanges to see if Billboard's parent company was listed. I was prepared to short the stock. The minute I realized it was owned by a private company, and when I saw the owner, I knew we were fucked. I continued donating for the sales though. I'm not American so I couldn't buy, so the donations were the next most direct way to support.
BTS could very well never reach again the heights they reached before enlistment. But I don't care. I've been listening to some of the best music I've ever heard in my life since July 2022. Yoongi in Valentino, Hobi in Louis Vuitton, Joon in Bottega Veneta, Jimin in Dior, Jungkook in Calvin Klein - it's been a feast. Jikook are jikooking harder than ever before like I still haven't gotten over the birthday video JK made for Jimin. Like what the fuck was that?
BTS are some of the most incredible people to ever exist. They say they trust each other and their team. I'm keeping my eyes wide open to assess the situation for myself always, while never losing sight of why I'm here in the first place: to enjoy myself with them and the art they make. I'll try Jungkook's recipes sometime soon, and neither Jimin nor Yoongi's music has left my current rotation. I'm going to see Yoongi soon. With all that's happening in the world, it feels like a priviledge to have the means to enjoy being a fan of BTS. Not many people get to experience this, to not just hear their music but to have this connection with them. If you doubt that just watch the Amygdala music video. With BTS there's a trust that can be felt, and I don't take it for granted.
That's how I feel Anon.
#bts#bangtan#bighit#jimin#yoongi#kpop#hybe#fandom behaviour#music industry#kpop music#park jimin#min yoongi
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#the owl house#the mandalorian#ted lasso#taylor swift#welcome home#super mario#succession#wally darling#across the spiderverse#star wars
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In a different, not-so-distant time in his history, Renathal might have enjoyed, perhaps even instigated, such a rebellion; the challenge of outright revolt against the creator of the realm did hold a certain contumacious appeal. Read on Ao3 here.
“Sire Denathrius must be stopped.”
The Accuser’s grim pronouncement clattered off the dank stone walls of the Halls of Atonement’s inner sanctum, silencing the uneasy murmurs of the room’s other occupants and recalling their attention to its Harvester.
Until Renathal snorted.
A highly undignified sound, it undercut the Accuser’s echoes; and all the heads in the room, both venthyr and stoneborn, turned quickly to regard their Dark Prince. Regaled in full armor and formal coat, leaning noncommittally against a side wall of the nave, shoulder-to-shoulder with his expressionless mortal companion, he stared back at them in turn, appraising the nervously defiant faces of the rebellion he now knew beyond doubt existed: the Accuser, watching him askance; the Curator beside her, vacantly inspecting his mortal consort; their handful of trusted disciples, none of whom Renathal knew by name, interspersed with Venthyr from other districts - including Tenaval and Dehavia - and what Stoneborn could be persuaded to entertain sedition. General Draven and Chelra the Princeguard stood foremost among this small number, invited by the prince himself once he and his consort had determined to come.
No light decision, that. It had taken Renathal a week to work himself up to this meeting, and another for Elisewin to persuade him she ought to be allowed to attend as well. Every one of them stood to be punished, quite possibly destroyed, if Denathrius caught them here, and Renathal no longer harboured any vain hopes his Master considered him, or his mortal, special enough to spare.
“And how,” he asked, returning his gaze to the Accuser, bitter scepticism oozing from his words like anima from an open wound, “does one even begin developing a plan to stop the machinations of the creator of the realm?”
The Accuser tried a sardonic smile. It fit her pinched face oddly.
“That is why you are here, Prince Renathal.” She gave a little jerk of her head and torso; Renathal supposed this constituted her most deferential bow. “You are our resident expert on the Master. You have existed longest and know him best, and are our most likely avenue for discovering his weaknesses.”
“The Master has no weaknesses,” Renathal replied automatically.
But even as he said it, he thought of Denathrius’ new penchant for podal ambulation, his odd reluctance to use magic for even the smallest conveniences, and the continued absence of Remornia from her Master’s side. Could the Lord of Revendreth himself be feeling the realm’s current anima dearth?
As if reading his thoughts...
“Even the Master requires anima,” the Accuser declared triumphantly. “Regardless of how much he might be hoarding in Nathria, he does not have an endless supply. He will have to ration it carefully, even to himself, if he wishes it to last. We can use that against him. With enough of us together, we should be able to hold him at least, until we can contact Oribos for aid.”
“All ways to the Eternal City are closed,” Draven’s gravelly voice inserted. “To open one would take more anima than all of us have combined, even without the Master and his forces to contend with.”
“We do not need to open a way,” the Accuser insisted. “We only need to get a message across the In-Between. And the Master has methods of communicating with the Arbiter without ever leaving the realm. Does he not?”
She threw this last at Renathal, who thought he saw where she was going.
“A worthy idea,” he conceded, “but impossible to execute without the Master knowing.”
“Even for you?”
One of the Accuser’s thin, white eyebrows disappeared under her fringe. Which delicate aspersion on his abilities Renathal accepted with good grace.
“Even for me,” he admitted, dipping his head in acknowledged defeat. “Denathrius can sense anyone who enters his castle. Even I cannot hope to hide my presence from him there. To reach the room in question and remain there for enough time to make any sort of coherent explanation to the attendants in Oribos, let alone formulate a plan for their aid, without the Master interfering, would require -”
“A distraction.”
Again, the heads in the room turned as one, this time to stare at the prince’s lavender shadow. And Renathal, having already related her conversation with the Sire in its every humiliating detail, knew what they were thinking. He tucked an errant fold of one cuff more securely into its corresponding bracer.
“What if we went to Nathria? " Elisewin continued. "Just Renathal - the Prince, I mean - and I? That shouldn't arouse too much suspicion. Denathrius has probably been expecting it ever since the Countess’ court. I can seek him out in the castle, demand to know more, or - or something like that. And if I can distract him for long enough, Renathal can -"
“Absolutely not.”
The words were a reflex, and out of Renathal's mouth before he had time to prepare the rational supporting argument such a forceful objection would require. Aware of Elisewin’s startled blink and the narrowing of the Accuser’s flinty eyes, he cleared his throat and concluded:
"That is unlikely to work. And perhaps," - on a desperate whim, he voiced the hope that had tortured and teased him since Denathrius’ cryptic confession - "unnecessary, after all. Perhaps, the Master's behaviour is not as nefarious as we think. Perhaps, he is keeping anima for... some other purpose."
It sounded unconvincing even to Renathal's own ears, and he was unsurprised by the susurrating sea of dissent that followed. The Accuser alone of the would-be rebels, however, was willing to challenge the prince outright.
“Even if his scheme were only to hoard anima for himself and a few hand-chosen nobles, it is still corruption and a smirch on Revendreth’s purpose.” She took a step towards Renathal, arms rigid and fingers twitching against her skirts. “But you know it is deeper than that, Renathal. You know something is happening. You can blind yourself to it no longer. The time has come for the Harvester of Dominion to decide whose side he is on.”
Apart from the echo of the Accuser’s brazen ultimatum, the shrouded nave was still and silent for the first time since the seditious rabble had arrived. A stark contrast to Renathal’s mind, in which a clamorous battle raged: conviction versus caution; the demands of his eternal duties against his new instincts and, admittedly, selfish desires.
At last, glaring down his nose at the other Harvester, he declared, “I am on Revendreth’s side. As ever." And, even without his medallion, the words rang with a surety to subdue all doubt.
“Very well, then.” The Accuser’s shoulders relaxed the merest degree as she nodded the group’s collective approval. “We shall hear no more fruitless arguments over the Master’s motives and return to developing a plan. The mortal’s idea is a good one.” Her eyes swept over Elisewin, as if assessing whether her fragile-looking flesh were up to the task, then gave another curt nod. “And if she is willing to help us, I believe she should be given the chance.”
“I am willing,” said Elisewin at once. “I want to help, if I can.”
Renathal’s claw-like nails gouged furious crescents into the skin of his palms.
The next hour was devoted to details – the specifics of Elisewin’s subterfuge, the plea the prince was to make to Oribos should it succeed, where the rest of the rebellion’s forces should wait, and for how long, before attempting a rescue. The Accuser and Elisewin seemed to take it in inadvertent turns to throw respectively shrewd and furtive glances at Renathal throughout. He ignored them. He knew he ought to be contributing, but he stayed conspicuously silent; and remained so even after the assembly dispersed and he and his consort clambered back into his carriage. As far as he was concerned, the meeting could not have gone worse had the Master himself arrived and sentenced them all to an epoch in the Ember Ward.
In a different, not-so-distant time in his history, Renathal mused as his carriage trundled across Penance Bridge, he might have enjoyed, even instigated, such a rebellion; the challenge of outright revolt against the creator of the realm did hold a certain contumacious appeal. Now, however, the thought of pitting himself against his Master inspired a wary dread. And not only because of the beating his effortless deception had inflicted on Renathal’s self-confidence...
His eyes flicked to Elisewin, her smooth, lavender face watching him placidly from the bench opposite, and his stomach clenched. He had never had so much to lose.
"Chin up, your Highness," she said, a teasing lilt to her words. "It really is a decent plan."
Renathal drummed his fingers restlessly against his armored leg.
"It is hardly a plan at all,” he scoffed. “It is a risky gamble, at best."
“No more risk than sitting back and doing nothing while we wait for Denathrius to finally act, or the last of the anima to dry up. Besides…” Elisewin smiled – a sideways smile, all sparkling blue-white eyes and blunt mortal teeth. "Since when is the Dark Prince of Revendreth afraid of a little risk?”
“It is not the risk to myself that concerns me, but to you,” he retorted, claw-like fingernails catching harshly on his tasset’s gold edge. “Should this plan, such as it is, go sour, you will be alone and unprotected. And you can barely hold a rapier. Your chances of defending yourself against even one of the castle’s guards are slim to none, not to speak of the Sire.”
If any of this bitter criticism affected her, Elisewin hid it deftly. She did not blink, or move at all except to sway in time with the carriage, now careening through the Chalice district’s deadly curves.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “There’s no need for it to come to a fight. Apparently,” - she pulled a wry face - “I make a very good distraction.”
“Elisewin.”
There was a note of pain, almost anguish, in the warning way Renathal said her name. Unintentional; and he would have been mortified at the raw vulnerability of it had Elisewin not immediately dropped all attempts at humour, slid to the edge of her seat, reached across the aisle and taken his face in both her hands.
“Renathal,” she said, and infused his own name with a warmth as tangible as the heat from her mortal skin. “Something has to be done about Denathrius. You know it does. And I know you. No matter what you might wish, you will never be able to let this go. Worrying about it will eat you alive. Figuratively speaking.” She wrinkled her nose at the careless metaphor, then hurried on. “You are right to be cautious, but our best chance of success against someone as powerful as he is lies in strategy, and proper use of available resources. Myself included.”
“You are not a resource to be used,” Renathal growled into Elisewin’s face, turning her cheekbones that pretty, heated violet. But she still managed to hold his eyes as she replied, “Am I a friend to be trusted?” and when he could offer no argument to that, continued, “Let me help you, then. Let’s do this together.”
There was something in her voice… a supreme, unbroachable confidence… familiar, though Renathal could not remember hearing it from Elisewin before. And the mélange of feeling it ignited in his chest was familiar as well. Hope. Determination. That electric thrill he associated with battle. Anima effervesced in his veins, vibrating his limbs, urging him to action.
“Well… I suppose,” he admitted, “despite the inarguable danger, executing such a deception under the Master’s nose does sound like a good bit of fun.”
And Elisewin's laugh, her exultant, "That's the spirit, your Highness," and the awkward kiss she planted on his lips despite a sudden jolt of the carriage, drowned out the worries still whispering at the back of Renathal's mind.
"You are to be careful, however," he ordered sternly as she pulled away and resettled herself more safely in her seat. "Assiduously so."
"Of course," Elisewin agreed.
"Very well, then." Renathal indulged in one final dramatic sigh, then peered through the carriage’s narrow slit of a window at the rapidly approaching castle. "Shall we review the plan one last time?"
Its beginning was flawless.
They entered Nathria by the side door from the Bridge of Paramountcy – obvious and unsuspicious, but not so ostentatious as the formal front gate – and set off through the candle-lit labyrinth of staircases and halls, Renathal leading the way. He was aware of the eyes of servants and stoneborn guards on them as they passed; observing their movements, then slipping off through hidden doors to report them to the Sire. All according to plan.
He and Elisewin exchanged only innocuous pleasantries – commentary on various paintings, complaints about the steepness of the stairs – until they reached their destination: the Master’s private library; where Renathal began at once perusing the shelves, pulling down a curated selection of dusty volumes, then arranging himself at a desk with them before requesting, in a casual but carrying voice, his mortal charge visit the kitchens and fetch him tea.
Elisewin’s eye contact was fractionally longer than necessary, her answering, “Of course, your Highness,” a breath too polite. Allowing himself only the briefest parting glance at the back of her scarlet tunic as she disappeared around a corner, Renathal offered a silent prayer to the Purpose that she proved better at distraction than she did at subterfuge, and settled in to wait.
Ten minutes. That was how long they agreed he was to give her before slipping from the library and making his way to Denathrius’ chambers above. Hardly enough time for Elisewin to actually find the Master in the cavernous castle, as would be her story to him or any who challenged her, but plenty long enough for him to find her - the lynchpin on which their whole plan hinged.
And where it collapsed.
Having no timepiece, and the Sire being far less whimsical than his Firstborn when it came to décor, Renathal was relying on instinct alone to judge when ten minutes had passed. He stared sightlessly at the open tome in front of him on the desk and set up a careful count in his head. But he had not made it to sixty even once before -
“Renathal.”
- a rich, resonant, and unexpected baritone almost toppled him from the chair.
“What are you doing?”
Denathrius' voice echoed from somewhere behind him; neither curious nor accusing, but unusually flat, as though reciting lines. Alarm bells clanged in Renathal’s head. Wresting control of his suddenly leaden limbs, he slid from the wooden chair and pushed it under the desk, then turned slowly to face his Master - looming in the library's arched entryway, every regal inch of him preternaturally still.
“My humblest apologies, Sire, I did not hear you arrive,” Renathal began, buying himself time with a bow and a few meticulous adjustments of his coat. He, too, had a story prepared should his presence in the library be questioned, but it would require some ad-libbed additions; the Sire should not have been his audience. “I - that is, we; Elisewin and I - stopped by on a bit of a lark. She has expressed an interest in discovering more about her people - the Shal’Dorei, I believe you once called them? - and I thought such information might indeed prove useful in furthering her atonement. I would have asked your thoughts on the matter, of course, but as you are so busy of late, I preferred not to bother you. It is, after all, of little real importance.”
Renathal paused, wondering if he ought to add more, but a glance at Denathrius convinced him there was no point prattling on. The Master’s face was stern; that carved-in-stone expression Renathal knew only too well hid a brewing storm of anger, and out from which no one, not even the Dark Prince, could talk their way.
But, “Come,” was all the Master said before he turned on his booted hoof and strode away; out of the library and down the adjoining passage, his long pale hair and slashed cape catching the wind of his demanding pace. Not once did he look back to check if Renathal followed – though of course he did, tripping quickly in his Master’s brisk wake. Thoughts of escape, of wending himself into the shadows and summoning the rebellion’s waiting reinforcements, drifted feebly through his mind, but he dismissed them. Elisewin was still somewhere in the castle; mercifully not on the receiving end of the Master’s ire, but one misstep on his part and he knew how quickly that could change. Besides, it was no mean feat extricating his will from the Master’s command. The very fabric of his being tugged at Renathal to obey.
Neither spoke again until they had walked - walked; something Renathal noted significantly and which heartened him even through his writhing nerves - seven flights of stairs and countless halls, finally emerging onto the Master’s rooftop garden. Denathrius crossed this as swiftly, and manually, as he had the rest of the way. His gold and scarlet boots stopped at the very edge of the terrace, and he bent his head to stare through the wisps of blue-grey mist separating the roof from the ground many hundreds of miles below.
Renathal approached more cautiously, wondering if it was the Master’s intention to throw him off. The twilight air around him was thick and foreboding; and sickly-sweet, courtesy of the garden’s indigo flowers whipping about as if caught in some invisible breeze. Revendreth, it seemed, was as uneasy as its prince at their creator’s ominous mood.
“Renathal,” Denathrius said at last, in the same flat voice as before, "you occupy a precarious position.”
He let the words settle between them. Renathal glanced around the terrace.
“I suppose it is rather high,” he said, reckless in his confusion.
But the Master was in no mood for humour. He rotated his neck to stare down at his Firstborn, cowing him with his mere expression, then returned his severe gaze to the courtyard before commanding, "Observe.”
Renathal took another step, stopping at the shallow iron lip that served the roof as balustrade, and, heart pounding superfluously, peered over Nathria’s side. Far, far below, just discernible through the thin mist, three figures emerged from the front gate: two winged stoneborn enforcers half-leading, half-dragging one smaller, slighter being. The sheen of her lavender skin was recognisable even from this height, as were the bared blades the stoneborn clutched in their free hands, and Renathal's heart stopped affecting any beat at all.
“Sire,” he began, voice unexpectedly hoarse, “what are they-”
But Denathrius interrupted him.
“You have a choice before you, Renathal.” And he held out both elegant hands as if to illustrate; lifting one and regarding the upturned palm with solemn reproach. “You may persist in this ridiculous notion that I am somehow capable of corruption and continue down the inevitable path to which such heresy leads..."- the hand clenched into a fist - “...destruction. For you, and all you consider your own. Or…”
Denathrius turned, facing Renathal directly for the first time, and extended his other, open hand.
“You may choose eternity as I have given it to you - complete with every gift and privilege. Because make no mistake, Renathal: every good thing you imagine you possess comes directly from me.”
He paused, allowing the words to hang meaningfully in the heavy, perfumed air, before continuing, his voice more customarily orotund,“There is nothing in this world that is truly your own. Nor have you earned any of it by your own merit. And if you continue to make these poor, poor decisions - prove yourself unworthy of my gifts…” Denathrius glanced pointedly down at the minuscule figures in the courtyard, “I would find myself in the regrettable but necessary position of... taking them away.” He met Renathal’s gaze again and held it; and whatever pretty words he chose, there was no mistaking the glitter of glee behind the sanguine threat.
And with a sudden icy pain in his gut, like the stab of an unseen blade, the Dark Prince of Revendreth believed.
Denathrius was playing with him - with all of Revendreth - and always had been. Every soul in the realm was merely a toy for their Sire’s eternal amusement. All Renathal's half-harboured hopes that this was a mistake, a test perhaps, that his Master had some hidden but justifiable plan, that he might even be impressed by his firstborn's dedication to duty, disintegrated in an instant. He opened his mouth to speak, but could think of no words. He was utterly frozen, from his hair to his boots; impaled to the spot by horror and impotent rage.
Red eyes still lingering on Renathal, Denathrius stretched a hand over the edge of the terrace and gave a careless wave. Renathal's stomach dropped - but the stoneborn below only released Elisewin's arms and sheathed their weapons, granite faces upturned to their Master.
"She is waiting for you, Renathal," said Denathrius, voice silky with condescension. "Go to her. Enjoy her. Enjoy the world I have remade."
An odd choice of words, Renathal noted distantly, but he did not question it. Or any other of his Master’s now-indisputably treacherous deeds. Acting on instinct, or their creator's orders, his legs sprinted him back across the rustling rooftop garden without waiting for input from his shambolic brain. He took the stairs - and the hall beyond, and every floor between him and his unprotected lover - at the same frenzied pace, and did not stop even after he had crossed the castle’s threshold and saw her waiting for him, lavender silhouette standing out starkly against the shrouded twilight.
At the sound of frantic bootsteps, Elisewin turned, and her almost comically enormous blink would have amused Renathal any other time. Now, he felt only relief; and even that, muted - there was little room left in the maelstrom of his mind to register additional feeling. Elisewin opened her mouth to speak as Renathal reached her. A minute shake of his head, like the cocking of a crossbow, killed the words on her tongue. In similarly stiff, silent fashion, he gripped her arm and urged her forward, away from the leering spectre of Nathria and, he was certain, the distantly watching Sire.
They sped through the vast courtyard, Renathal ignoring the curious looks of perambulating nobles and the confusion wafting off his companion in waves; the protests of his legs as he forced them up yet another massive staircase and the familiar shadows of Draven and Chelra swooping low in search of the prince’s signal or report. He gave them neither. His amber eyes were fixed on the growing promise of Darkwall Tower, and he did not speak, did not breathe, did not think again until he had reached it, wrenched the doors open, threw himself and Elisewin inside, and slammed them shut - safe, at last, behind his home's protective wards.
Only… they were not safe, were they?
Renathal dropped abrupt anchor in the middle of his torchlit foyer as he realised, with another eviscerating pain, there was nowhere safe to go. First, his affair with Elisewin; now, his meeting with the rebellion - Denathrius knew everything, and almost as soon as it happened. There truly were no secrets from the Sire.
All the purposeful energy that had carried Renathal from the castle dissipated, leaving a dull, indecisive fog in its wake. Breakfist and his dredger underlings clustered at their master's knees, awaiting commands. But the Dark Prince could only stand, arms limp at his sides, for once, entirely lost for what to do.
It was Elisewin who saved him.
“Breakfist, take your Master’s coat,” said her voice near his ear. Renathal felt the garment in question slipped from his shoulders and firm hands usher him forward. “And have a tray of tea prepared and brought up to his bedchamber,” she continued, moving with him, “then, go and find Chelra and … no, don’t send someone else. You won’t have to go far. I expect she and the General are waiting just outside. Tell them … do not argue. Tell them it didn’t work and we will regroup at a later time. Quick as you like, now.”
The ghost of a joyless smile flitted past Renathal’s lips as Elisewin led him up the tower's winding staircase. She really had become quite free with orders; was surprisingly well suited to them. Her voice brimmed with the same, supreme self-confidence he remembered from their earlier carriage ride - could it really be mere hours ago? - that made unpalatable, even impossible tasks feel effortless. Her hands could do it, too. They coaxed his aching legs up the final steps, down the hall, and into the flickering red candlelight of his bedroom, stopped him by his valet stand and guided his limbs through the removal of his armor, all without uttering a word.
Renathal consented readily. His brain was numb; his body ached as badly as if Denathrius had thrown him from Nathria’s roof. For once, he was grateful to follow someone else’s lead; until, clad in his shirtsleeves and trousers, Elisewin eased him onto the crisply made bed. For one uncomfortable moment, he worried his lover would expect more of him than he could currently give. But she merely piled the silk satin pillows behind him and propped him against them, then toed off her shoes and sat opposite him, legs curled underneath her, hands clasped in her lap.
"What happened?" she finally asked.
The question was gentle; Elisewin's lavender face as she studied him appropriately bland. Nearly a foot of undisturbed coverlet lay between them and no part of their bodies touched, and yet… this felt more intimate to Renathal than many other more adventurous positions they had tried. It drew words from him without thinking.
"We had a ... conversation," he said, voice hoarse after his extended silence.
"You and the Arbiter?"
"Denathrius and I."
Elisewin blinked.
"Oh.”
A knock at the door broke the spell - a dredger servant with the ordered tea. Elisewin shot up, retrieved the laden tea tray, dismissed the dredger, then deposited the tray on the floor by the bed with a careless rattle. Less than a minute’s interruption, but enough time for Renathal to blink away some of his mind's dense fog. He had a choice before him, and only seconds to make it. Any hint of indecision, and Elisewin, resuming her seat, would undoubtedly see.
“What happened?” she repeated, more earnestly this time, her blue-white eyes wide and glowing with a tender concern that made up Renathal's mind.
“Nothing,” he decided. “I'm afraid we were… mistaken.” He paused, pushing back his windswept hair and inhaling superfluously as he cobbled together passable lines. “Denathrius has nothing to do with the drought, after all; beyond doing his best to meliorate the situation. He has deceived us, yes – a regrettable, but necessary position for rooting out where the corruption truly lies. There is nothing we can do. Nothing we need do – except… enjoy ourselves,” - his lips fumbled the Master’s words - “and await the Sire’s next command."
He lifted his gaze as he finished, gauging Elisewin’s reaction. She blinked - as was to be expected - but did not speak. Yet. Renathal braced what brittle mental fortitude the Master had left him for the interrogation that was surely seconds away.
After a minute of laden silence, however, Elisewin only edged closer, knees knocking against Renathal's as she reached for his hands. And it was another full minute of her fingers gliding softly across his tensed knuckles before she finally said, with a hint of wry humour, "You are remarkable at many things, your Highness, but you're a rotten liar."
Another time, Renathal would have taken mild offense - he considered himself quite a dab-hand at duplicity and deception when the situation called for such skills. But he was too exhausted to summon any indignance and too worn for more prevarications. He could only squeeze his eyes shut against Elisewin's watchful gaze and let her fingers work their magic on his hands. Her every touch imbued his cold skin with warm, tangible comfort, the sensation singing its now-familiar song through his anima-starved veins. And, with the third vicious stab of the day, this one leaving him light-headed and nauseous, Renathal realised just how close he had come to losing this - losing her - forever.
Something crumpled in his chest. Quite literally; though he was only aware he had actually collapsed into Elisewin’s lap when his forehead struck her hipbone. Rather hard, if the dull pain in his temple was any indication, but she neither flinched nor pulled away. Her arms closed around him; somehow, everywhere at once - stroking the cramped curve of his spine, his unruly hair, his own arms wound round her waist as if seeking to entangle himself inextricably with her.
“Renathal.” His name quivered on Elisewin’s lips, her rib-cage contracting erratically beneath his clinging hands. “Renathal, tell me what happened. Tell me what he said.”
It was more plea than command, with nothing behind it except what Renathal thought with absent curiousity might be the threat of tears, but he had no strength left to resist it anyway.
“He said…” He struggled for words to sum up everything the Master had said - and not said; the threat in his silence, the warning in his gaze - without having to relive the whole ignominious encounter. “He said ... if we continue to press this … if I continue to press him … he will take you from me...”
A short silence stretched. Renathal wondered if Elisewin had heard him, his voice muffled as it was against her thigh. Then - "Denathrius cannot take me from you," she declared with all her newly adopted self-confidence; both of which Renathal found so offensively ridiculous in this moment, he unwrapped his arms from her torso and pushed off her legs to stare up at her.
"Of course he can!" He struggled to a seat, a sudden renewed spark of anger lending him vigor and vehemence. "He is Denathrius! The Sire! The fangs of the Shadowlands, the Master of this realm! He can do anything here - whatever he pleases, wrong or right. He has powers mortals cannot fathom - powers even I have never dreamed.”
“Why doesn’t he use them, then?” Elisewin asked, infuriatingly calm even inches from the Dark Prince's red-eyed glower. “Why is his realm a disaster? And if he knows about the rebellion, why hasn’t he punished us all already? Thrown us in cages, or the Ember Ward? Or just ended us entirely?”
All excellent questions, and they pulled the rug out from under Renathal’s vitalising surge of rage. Without it to animate him, he sagged again, shoulders slumping against the buttress of pillows Elisewin had erected. She, herself, was there a heartbeat later, hands on his face and forehead pressed to his until her lavender skin and carefully even breaths were all Renathal could see or feel.
“Renathal, listen to me. I love you," she said. It was no lover’s soft reassurance, but a statement of inexorable fact. “I love... everything about you: your beliefs ... your - your dedication ... the way you see reality and your place in it. You are perfect, to me. Probably, you do have flaws, but I can't see them. My love blinds me to them. The same way it blinds you."
She leaned fractionally back on her heels, just enough to meet Renathal’s unblinking eyes. Her hands still held his face, but beneath the gentle comfort was a certain pragmatism; she was not going to let him look away.
"You see Denathrius," she went on, stark and forthright, "through the same lens I see you. You worship him. He is everything to you - good and bad. Even as you hate him, you adore him. But I - I am unburdened by either. I can see him for what he is: a master of lies and manipulation, yes, and certainly not on our side, but… not all powerful. At least, not anymore. Something has weakened him - the drought I suppose. And we can use that against him.”
Renathal shook his head, but threaded his fingers through Elisewin's so as not to dislodge her hands.
"He is merely biding his time," he argued hopelessly. "He does not consider us any real threat. Even at his weakest, he still has more power than all our rebellion combined. If we attempt an open revolt, we will lose. We will lose this." He squeezed her fingers for strength through the selfish admission. "I will lose you.”
“No. You won't," said Elisewin, and there was a surety in her words to give even the Dark Prince pause. “I am not a true penitent soul, am I? And I'm not Denathrius’ creation, to be offered up and snatched back at his whim. He cannot take me from you without force. And if it comes to that sort of fight... well...” she smiled - really, a wistful twist of her lips - and stroked Renathal’s sharp cheek, “that’s why we’re doing this together, remember? Whatever happens, happens to both of us. Destruction or victory.” She leaned into him again, as she finished, “Wherever I go, you are coming, too."
Her mouth, like the rest of her face, was pressed to Renathal's, but neither of them had the stamina to pursue any sort of kiss now. Elisewin's breath was ragged after her uncharacteristically impassioned speech, the harsh inhalations and exhalations fluttering his unruly goatee. And Renathal, drained by the truth in her words and what he desperately hoped would prove true, had no energy left for further fights or more expressive acts of affections. He simply sat, entwined with his lover, savouring each second as they slipped inexorably past, and wishing for a magic that would freeze them in this moment, bind them together forever...
Renathal straightened so suddenly his sharp cheekbone cracked against Elisewin's. This time she did wince, but he barely noticed. A thought had occurred to him that could not wait another of those fleeting seconds to be voiced.
“Soulbind with me.”
“What?” Elisewin asked, prodding gingerly at her face.
“Soulbind with me,” Renathal repeated, the words spilling fast and urgent. “There is a power in that ritual as ancient and timeless as the eternal ones themselves. A magic even Denathrius cannot undo, which is why he does not often permit it. With our souls bound together, he cannot separate us by any means, apart from ultimate destruction. And even that would be much harder to accomplish once you share my power.”
It took Elisewin, still rubbing her cheek, several heartbeats to process this information - her own, mortal heartbeats; Renathal’s redundant muscle dared not move. After what felt to his keyed nerves like an age, she dropped her hand from the new little violet bruise and sighed.
“I keep telling you he can’t, but… if it will make you feel better...”
“Is that a yes?” Renathal asked. "You are... saying yes?" and the hushed, vibrant awe in his voice seemed to alert Elisewin at last to the importance of the question. And the momentous significance of her answer.
Her blue-white eyes met his, their amber fiery with anticipation, and there was no hesitation in them as she repeated, “Yes, Renathal. I’m saying yes.”
Read Chapter 12: Rebels on the Road | Visit the Masterpost
If you enjoyed this story, I would love to hear it 💜
#renathal x maw walker#renathal fan fiction#prince renathal#fanfiction#wow fanfiction#world of warcraft#shadowlands#elisewin#the maw walker#nightborne#wend in the shadows#slow burn romance#revendreth#venthyr#Sire Denathrius#Castle Nathria#the accuser
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the BEST looney tunes cartoons (in my humble opinion)
after spending weeks - possibly months - curating the list of the top looney tunes cartoons, i have decided to share it with the world. i organized them based on character, and chose the cartoons that i think specifically follow this basic criteria:
1. they portray the characters in a way that is comedic and true to past writing and established character traits
2. they are entertaining, funny, and have well-executed gags
3. they give the authentic looney tunes feeling and are good representations of looney tunes as a whole
if you are introducing a friend to looney tunes, or want to get into it yourself, i suggest you start with these cartoons. they are my personal favorites and i think they capture what makes looney tunes great. before i get into the list, some things worth noting:
- i did not include the characters elmer fudd, yosemite sam, tweety, marvin the martian, the tasmanian devil, or any smaller characters. this was because all of these characters are usually paired with more major or more entertaining characters that i made lists of instead. i don't think these characters are enough on their own to make a separate list about, and i don't think that learning about these characters is a necessity when starting looney tunes.
- if a cartoon features multiple characters, i put it under the character i thought that it represented best. for example, in porky and daffy cartoons where daffy is silly and funny, i put them under daffy. but in porky and daffy cartoons where daffy is messing with porky, and porky's forced to become sinister, i put those under porky.
finally: the list.
(also a shift from my strict no-caps policy)
Bugs Bunny
A Wild Hare (1940) - first appearance
Hot Cross Bunny (1948)
Buccaneer Bunny (1948)
Rabbit Fire (1951)
Bugs and Thugs (1954)
Daffy Duck
Porky's Duck Hunt (1937) - first appearance
Porky and Daffy (1938)
The Wise Quacking Duck (1943)
Duck Soup to Nuts (1944)
Daffy Doodles (1946)
Porky Pig
I Haven't Got a Hat (1935) - first appearance
The Pest That Came to Dinner (1948)
Often an Orphan (1949)
The Ducksters (1950)
Fool Coverage (1952)
Sylvester
Life With Feathers (1945) - first appearance
Who's Kitten Who (1952)
A Bird in a Guilty Cage (1952)
Gift Wrapped (1952)
The Last Hungry Cat (1961)
Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner
Fast and Furry-ous (1949) - first appearance
Beep, Beep (1952)
Stop! Look! And Hasten! (1954)
Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958)
Wild About Hurry (1959)
Foghorn Leghorn
Walky Talky Hawky (1946) - first appearance
The Foghorn Leghorn (1948)
A Fractured Leghorn (1950)
Little Boy Boo (1954)
A Broken Leghorn (1959)
Honorable Mentions*
The Henpecked Duck (1941)
The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946)
Operation: Rabbit (1952)
Mouse Divided (1953)
Devil May Hare (1954)
Birds Anonymous (1957)
Robin Hood Daffy (1958)
Best One-Offs
Porky in Wackyland (1938)**
Cross-Counry Detours (1940)
The Haunted Mouse (1941)
Russian Rhapsody (1944)
Dough Ray Me-ow (1948)
Feed The Kitty (1952)***
One Froggy Evening (1955)
*these are cartoons that i almost picked for top cartoons, but didn't quite make the cut. but these are definitely worth being mentioned because they are almost if not equally as great.
**i know this isn't a one-off because it has porky in it, but i don't consider this a great cartoon for porky because he's really bland in it. i love this cartoon because of the ridiculous characters and backgrounds.
***this also isn't a one-off because there are multiple shorts featuring marc anthony and pussyfoot, but they're very small characters so i consider it part of that category.
#looney tunes#looney toons#bugs bunny#daffy duck#porky pig#sylvester#tweety#wile e coyote#roadrunner#foghorn leghorn#warner bros#cartoon
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1. I have something going on with dopamine (many of my issues are correlated with dopamine stuff) which makes it hard to be happy.
2. The dopamine stuff and possibly other neurology of mine (combined with the world I was raised in) mean I have significant executive function issues—making it hard to start things, keep doing things, finish things, plan things, and even to want things.
I'm trying to find more joy in life, because it sucks being miserable all the time. But finding things that give me joy is hard work. Getting myself to start the thing that might be fun is work. Pretty soon, doing the novel and interesting thing that made me happy becomes work, because it's not new and doesn't keep my interest and doesn't hold as many secrets to uncover—it's just another thing I did/learned/tried, and forcing myself to maintain it becomes a hated chore.
The more interests I've gone through, the more overlap there is with other potential interests. I've already done something like that, so why do it again? (But also sometimes: I've already done something like that, so I have some skills that can transfer over.)
Do I constantly chase a new interest? Do I try to reignite passion for an interest I'm losing passion for? Do I pick up an old interest again, in the hopes that a spark flares up? Do I expose myself to new things outside my comfort zone (Hah! No.)?
The problem is, interest can't be forced, only attention. So most of the time, if I'm not trying to make myself wash dishes or brush my teeth or call the doctor or something, I'm disinterestedly whiling away the time with something relatively mindless and mildly entertaining (often while trying to get myself to stop doing the mindless thing and get myself to do the important thing). Which is no way to discover new interests or take care of the home or get a to-do list done. It is soothing, though. Sometimes. Occasionally.
On the other hand, getting joy out of doing things kicks my brain into high gear (heavily focused on the fun thing) without giving me choice of where my focus goes, often leaving necessary things undone (leading to future misery).
Forcing myself to care for myself and do necessary household stuff uses so much of my energy and my limited capacity to choose where focus goes. After that, my brain needs a break. But the first break of the day is often the end of the 'working day'. Regardless of when the break occurs. The next day, I once again have to push myself to get fed and washed and take care of stuff around the house, collapsing before it's all done. And again. And again. And...
My attempts to connect with others (because doing fun things with people is fun, and I want to have more fun) online leads to idly scrolling my feeds, which have been curated to show me things I think are important. So an idle decision to check my notifications will result in idly scrolling for hours through post after post about how people are being harmed by the systems of society, and by genocide and by individual acts of bigotry. And in person, you can't block people or choose to skip over their rants or check someone's profile before making a choice about whether to engage in conversation.
Anyway, the moral of this story is: [possum_screaming.png]
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FEARSMag.com Partners With NOVA ENTERTAINMENT To Bring THE NY HORROR SHOW To RESORTS WORLD NEW YORK CITY September 9th & 10th, 2023
NOVA ENTERTAINMENT, the creative minds behind Eternal Con and WinterCon, forms an unholy alliance with the masters of doing the fright thing at FEARS MAGAZINE to reanimate THE NY HORROR SHOW September 9th & 10th, 2023, at RESORTS WORLD NEW YORK CITY, located at 110-00 Rockaway Blvd, Jamaica, NY.
FEARS MAGAZINE’s executive editor Joseph Mauceri brings over thirty-five years of experience working in and covering genre entertainment to help bring to the event exceptional content and programming. Among the highlights FEARS MAGAZINE will be responsible for are:
The New York Horror Show Film Festival: FEARSmag.com is curating a program of fresh and cutting-edge genre feature films by some of the talented filmmakers in the industry. From the dark and horrific, to the insane and hilarious, they plan to showcase some of the most entertaining future releases. Click For Details & Submissions
FEARSmag.com’s Killer Shorts Sudden Death Film Competition: Filmmakers will have a unique opportunity to have their submissions judged by the audience in attendance for each program, sending those winners onto a final viewing where ultimately the audience will pick the best of the The New York Horror Show. The number one audience choice short will earn a slot in the programming of the 2024 Winter Film Awards & Festival in New York City, as well as the runners up being entered into the first round of the festival’s judging. C lick For Details & Submissions.
FEARS MAGAZINE (aka FEARSMag.com) & Joseph Mauceri - Launched in June 1999 at the beginning of the internet, FEARSmag.com has been covering the vast multimedia genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror with news, reviews, interviews, and a variety of promotional sweepstakes, as well as a presence and programming at a variety of pop culture conventions. The executive editor and co-founder Joseph Mauceri has over thirty years working within the genres in addition to being a moderator, panelist and programmer for numerous pop culture events such as Monster Mania, NY Comic Con, Wizard World Cons, Big Apple Comic Con, Eternal Con, and WinterCon, to name just a few. Mauceri has also been a judge for The Hampton Film Festival, NY Horror Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, the NYU Tisch Film School, and currently is on the board for the Winter Film Awards & Film Festival. Joseph has written for numerous pop culture magazines, both domestic and international, and continues to participate as a regular co-host on NiteShift, a weekly radio show on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City, the theme of the show being “life is science fiction.”
NOVA Entertainment - Founded by Frank Patz, Nova Entertainment operates in the Media and Entertainment industry, producing four annual events, the largest pop culture conventions in the NY area. Since their inception in 2012, they have been dedicated to bringing family friendly events. 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Eternal Con and WinterCon, and they return this September 2023 with the NY Horror Show, which was first held in 2015. The two day event will feature an eclectic array of vendors, music, entertainment, programming, celebrity guests, movie screenings, contests, and so much more!
#film festival#horror#fearsmag#fearsmag.com#thenyhorrorshow#nyhorrorshow#nova entertainment#joseph mauceri#joseph b mauceri#short film#competition#resortsworldnyc
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I have a little rant because I think there’s a complicating factor that we don’t acknowledge enough in our considerations of how we as a fandom consider Izzy Hands: the fact that he’s the homophobic force in a pro-queer show.
I think Izzy Hands is a good (as in well-constructed) character on the show, a complex antagonist who fleshes out characters around him and advances the plot and allows for complex conversations around the themes of the show. He’s complex enough that people can like him based on their interests and their perspective on why they like/dislike characters. If you just love a good antagonist, or like the way other characters play off of him, or like his aesthetic, or think he represents necessary complications to a floating queer paradise, or think he’s hot, whatever-- he’s a character on a show you like and you’re allowed to like him.
Absolutely hating Izzy Hands doesn’t negate any of that. You can hate Izzy hands because you don’t like harm coming to characters you care about, because he’s a threat to the sweet found family the show is building over time. You can hate Izzy Hands because Con O’Neill really knows how to play him as threatening, unsettling, and hypocritically whiny. You can hate Izzy Hands the same way any given character can rub you the wrong way-- you can dislike the way his dialogue is written, or you can think his priorities are out of whack in a way that you just don’t find as entertaining as the rest of the show. Antagonists are complicated, particularly in a setting this morally dubious, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dislike him, and have a good reason for doing it.
This has all been said. I think it also needs to be said: regardless of his role, writing, and execution, you can dislike Izzy Hands because he’s a homophobic, queerphobic, anti-fem, slut-shaming, close-minded asshole.
This show is remarkable for its portrayals of queerness and queer masculinities. For a lot of us, it marks something big that we’ve been waiting for in our media: it’s fun, high-quality, diverse, gripping, and unequivocally, unapologetically gay. It’s a funny little period rom-com for the queers, with a cast and staff who seem to care about making good media for folks who have been routinely exploited and generally screwed over by media for decades. If you’re queer and you really enjoy the show and then want to engage in the sheer pleasure of it without remembering the shitty things Izzy Hands says, does, or represents, that’s allowed. Hating Izzy doesn’t mean not understanding his value and place, and doesn’t inherently make a statement that should be taken off the show, or whatever else, it just means you, you know, don’t like homophobic assholes. I have lots of traits and identities which Izzy would openly harass me for, and I don’t always want to see him when I’m in my little curated fluffy gay wonderland. On the show, I wouldn’t mind seeing him redeemed, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him killed. I think queer people in particular should be allowed to want either without issue (granted it’s for an appropriate reason). Off the show, I just don’t want to see him at all, particularly portrayed sympathetically without putting him through the work of redeeming himself.
For all of the discourse around our various relationships with Izzy Hands, I just want to keep in mind that in S1 he embodies real, immediate trauma and violence against queer people in what’s otherwise, finally, a pretty safe show for us. If some queer people don’t want to include that in their fandom participation, I think we should respect that with sympathy. If others want to include him, we should allow and respect that. Asking for mutual respect in this or any fandom isn’t new, but I hope realizing Izzy hits folks a little differently than most antagonists might usefully inform that respect and the conversations around it.
#izzy hands#ofmd#this might be unnecessary#and i might delete it#but i've kept quiet about izzy for a while#here are the thoughts
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The Writers' Strike and Dystopia News Today!
Just finished listening to the most recent Trash Future (it's great, find it wherever you listen to podcasts, because you don't live under a rock and of course you listen to podcasts). It's about the writers' strike.
Their guest (a Hollywood writer) recounted an interview with the Russo brothers (the team behind The Avengers films, among other things) where someone asked them what they were hoping AI would do for movies. The Russos thought it would be super fun to come home some day, tell your smart speaker you want to watch a 90 minute romcom starring your photorealistic avatar, and Marilyn Monroe's photorealistic avatar, and sit back and let it be instantly generated and served. And what's wrong with that?
A lot. There is a lot wrong with that. Just for starters, the uncanny valley lives and you'd relate better to a simplified cartoon cat than a photorealistic Marilyn (who is dead, and whose acting career should not continue without her consent). Also, if AI actually could generate decent movies like that, everyone involved in the entertainment industry would be out of a job, including directors like the Russos!
But the Trash Future crew didn't say this, so I'm gonna: You know what this is? This is capitalism trying like hell to control the means of production. The means of production for a story is the human imagination, and, although it has tried, capitalism has failed to monopolize and control that. It can control the resources you need to publish, and copyright will prevent you from publishing certain things, but that's only controlling the expression, not the thing itself. It can also try to control what you see, but if you really want something, you can always make a version of it yourself and self-publish, even if it doesn't get as much traction as a corporate-approved project.
You know what a creatively sterile corporate executive would really like for Christmas? An imagination that can be built from scratch, altered at will, and owned. And if AI can do that for 'em, they can finally kick all those useless, expensive, delicate human creatives to the curb.
I'm working on my art manifesto. It's slow going because I have a lot of other things to do, and I keep backing away and telling myself, Art doesn't need you to save it. This really isn't necessary. Check your ego, the most you can accomplish is like a wet fart in a hurricane, and that's okay. But stuff like this... These corporate interests that want to kill Art (and not like Dada, I mean REALLY. FUCKING. KILL IT.) have already defined the battle they want to fight and they're making moves.
They want you to stop being a producer. They want you to stop competing with the media they buy and curate that you have to pay them for. Ultimately, they'd rather not even buy these things before selling them to you, they want an AI slave to tell stories that they can own outright. And they want you to come home and plop down on your couch and not even consider writing a self-insert fic to entertain yourself, or finding a Reader/SugarKane (see, that's a character Marilyn played, rather than a reanimated corpse) story somewhere. They want you to pay money to CorpseFucker Monthly (or whatever they'd call it), put in your order and consume it. And when you're done with that, you can slam some more money on the counter and have another one.
We are tired, and we are delicate, and we need support. Telling stories is hard. I've often wished I could just read what I'm writing, instead of doing all that work, because that's really all I want. I want my story to exist so I can read it and enjoy it and connect with other people who read it and enjoy it. I don't want to stare into a white void until my eyes bleed, trying to think of a way to express what X character is thinking and why they're going to do a thing that makes the plot go. I don't want to rip into my trauma looking for Milo's motivation, I just want to feel better seeing him learn and grow.
But although that is what I want, there is not a magic box that can do that for me, and if there were, the people in charge of the box would not ask it to generate my story. I'd have to pay them for the privilege. And if I wanted to share it and build a community around it, I'd have to pay for that too. I didn't make it. It's not mine. All I did was dash off a prompt - that's not special, no one cares, go away and let someone else have a turn with the box. You are disposable, and your story is disposable, all that matters is that rich people got a little richer.
This is not new. The owners have been pushing for this since the advent of the printing press, if not longer. But they finally have a way to do it for real. They just need to frontload as many human imaginations as possible to train the box, after which any further input will not be required.
They already have all our work that they bought, and paid for, and have the rights to. And they have everything that fell into the public domain too. And, of course, they have everything stored on their various servers that they may leaf through and steal.
We do know this, and we're fighting back, but we're fragmented and disorganized and it's hard to pull back and see the whole picture. Yes, we are having a writers' strike, and thank God, but it's for reasonable paycheques and job security. Writers should have those things! But there is no fair compensation for the total commodification of Art. That's like... buying carbon offsets while the planet burns. (I know, I know, we're doing that too.)
Every word, every image we put out there is fodder for the magic box. Copyright is not going to save you from this, that's not what it's for. If they want the rights to your thing, they'll just buy them - probably not even from you. (And I'm giving my thing away, so I'm just as screwed.) They are going to do this, and we're not going to stop them.
The only question is, are we going to be able to build some kind of corporate-independent structure to tell and share our stories, and support each other... or when they yank the rug out from under us, are we gonna fall?
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Thompson’s not only right about the implications of the phrasing. She’s right about the real-world impact of what is, make no mistake, a devaluing of the creative process. Those who defend its use will insist that we need some kind of catchall phrase for the things we watch, as previously crisp lines have blurred between movies and television, between home and theatrical exhibition and between legacy and social media.
But these paradigm shifts require more clarity in our language, not less. A phrase like “streaming movie” or “theatrical release” or “documentary podcast” communicates what, where and why with far more precision than gibberish like “content,” and if you want to put everything under one tent, “entertainment” is right there. But studio and streaming executives, who are perhaps the primary users and abusers of the term, love to talk about “content” because it’s so wildly diminutive. It’s a quick and easy way to minimize what writers, directors and actors do, to act as though entertainment (or, dare I say it, art) is simply churned out — and could be churned out by anyone, sentient or not. It’s just content, it’s just widgets, it’s all grist for the mill. Talking about “entertainment” is dangerous because it takes talent to entertain; no such demands are made of “content,” and the industry’s increasing interest in the possibilities of writing via artificial intelligence (one of the sticking points of the writers’ strike) makes that crystal clear.
Perhaps the finest example of this school of thought can be seen at Warner Bros. Discovery, where David Zaslav ascended to the throne of chief executive by overseeing the Discovery Channel’s transition from nature documentaries to reality swill. The “content”-ization of that conglomerate’s holdings is the only reasonable explanation for the decision to rename HBO Max as simply Max — removing the prestigious legacy media brand that most clearheaded, marginally intelligent people would presume to be an asset. It lost 1.8 million subscribers in the process, but that’s merely the battle; it won the war, because when you visit Max now, the front-page carousel is a combination of scripted series, HBO documentaries, true crime and reality competition shows. It’s all on equal footing; it’s all content. But “Casablanca,” “Succession” and “Dr. Pimple Popper” are not the same thing — and the programmers of a service that pretends otherwise are abdicating their responsibility as curators.
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TCM Saved?
from Entertainment magazine, June 28, 2023:
Lovers of classic cinema breathed a sigh of relief today — and it came out as a puff of gorgeously backlit cigarette smoke.
Esteemed directors and avowed film buffs Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson basically saved the beloved cable channel Turner Classic Movies, after a series of recent layoffs at the network.
As IndieWire first reported, the trio placed an "emergency" call to Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav last week following cuts to the majority of the network's leadership, including senior VP of programming and content strategy, Charles Tabesh.
Tabesh, however, will return to TCM with Scorsese, Spielberg, and Anderson acting as unpaid volunteers who will help guide and curate the network's programming, even including host intros and outros. TCM's Classic Film Festival will also continue.
"We have already begun working on ideas with [Warner Bros. executives Michael de Luca and Pamela Abdy], both true film enthusiasts who share a passion and reverence for classic cinema that is the hallmark of the TCM community," the directors said in a joint statement.
"This unique arrangement, initiated by David Zaslav, reflects his commitment to honoring the TCM legacy while also involving us on curation and programming," the statement continued. "We are thrilled that longtime programmer Charlie Tabesh will be staying with TCM and gratified to know that the team is focused on preserving TCM's mission of celebrating our rich movie history while at the same time ensuring that future generations of filmmakers and film lovers have TCM as a valuable resource."
Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group issued a statement of its own, saying, "TCM is a cultural treasure, and we are honored to help steer the future direction of this beloved brand with the partnership of three of the most iconic filmmakers of our time, Steven, Marty, and Paul."
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