#even half that! even a third of that!! there are so many COMPLICATING FACTORS AT PLAY and I'm ANXIOUS ABOUT MONEY AHHH lmao :'D
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adrien often being referred to in fanon as “sunshine” and the sun and something about Felix having Moon symbolism. is this anything sunny?
sentitwin sun moon symbolism is absolutely ridiculous. i have thought about it before but never gotten anywhere. this time i consulted @ninadove about it and rotated it in my mind for many hours and i am still not sure about my verdict. therefore i'm just going to ramble a bit and then pass it over to nina. birthday teamwork!
i started out agreeing with the assignment of adrien as the sun and félix as the moon.
their personalities seem to fit the vibes. moreover, it ties into yin and yang.
adrien's miraculous is placed on the yang half of the miracle box, and ladybug's on the yin. his hair is parted to the right, which is the direction of yang, while félix's and ladybug's are parted to the left, yin.
a brief tangent here: even though the placement in the miracle box and adrien and marinette's civilian selves with their white and black outer garments respectively seem to indicate yang and yin, when they become heroes, they swap entirely. ladybug wears red, yang, and chat noir wears black, yin. their powers of creation and destruction are also yang and yin. my theory is that not only are adrien and marinette meant to be halves of a whole as partners, but their hero selves are also meant to halves of a whole with their civilian selves. yin and yang symbolism all around.
back to adrien as sunshine. before félix was introduced, adrien was established as the character in the show with the disney princess golden hair and golden smile, so it's easy to see where this fanon came from.
marinette describes her love for him as three suns in her heart.
then if we want to pair the sentitwins, and we think adrien is the sun, it makes sense for félix to be the moon.
some final evidence in support of this is mirror imagery. the same way the moon reflects the light of the sun, félix reflects adrien. both in his creation as a reflection of adrien's and in his behavior in the show. félix dresses as adrien in over half of his episodes.
but this picture is complicated by several factors. there's a fair amount of evidence that the twins are actually associated the other way around, with adrien as the moon and félix as the sun.
gold and silver color symbolism. one could easily think of gold as the sun and silver as the moon, but in the show, félix and the graham de vanilys are associated with gold and adrien and the agrestes are associated with silver. the wedding rings, the colors of their homes, their camouflaged miraculous, the lighting... anarchist gang talked about this a few months ago and i think nina may want to expand on what we discovered, so i will leave this to her.
another brief tangent here: white and black color symbolism. i have not fleshed out my thoughts on it but i am leaving notes here for future reference. adrien's civilian outfit features white, but this likely reflects gabriel's influence on him. his hero selves wear black. meanwhile, félix is introduced dressed in black and haloed in white as he enters gabriel's sphere. in the play, it's the opposite. at the diamonds' dance, he and marinette wear white and kagami, like lune rouge, wears red. obfuscation? femininity? yin and yang again?
and a third brief tangent here: when chat noir is unhealthy, he becomes chat blanc, who is white, and patte de velours, who is accented with gold. colors of entanglement? of influence? of inauthenticity? are félix's best parts adrien's idea of a perfect self? i am contemplating.
there are more significant reasons for moon adrien and sun félix. in important moments of the show, adrien is frequently associated with the moon. glaciator, chat blanc, kuro neko, new york special... and on the other hand, where does the sun play an important part of the story? in réplique, with félix.
narratively, sentitwins seem to have moon and sun roles. adrien is the one from whom things are hidden, while félix is the one who shines light on the truth. adrien spends most of his time as support, while félix is an active agent. adrien reacts to things, while félix makes them happen, for better or for worse.
nina has an entire essay on félix and the development of his sun associations from lune rouge to the sunrise in représentation, so i'll leave that to her to discuss.
all right. sentitwins are either sun and moon or moon and sun. what does this mean for them?
it intrigues me that adrien is viewed by fanon as the sun when he could be better described as the moon. adrien agreste enjoyers, please get on this.
here is a starting point for your thoughts. if adrien is the moon, it makes sense why he destroyed the moon in chat blanc when he was trying to destroy himself.
and if félix is the sun, it further puts into perspective why he felt guilty about réplique's fate. they were a sacrifice for his goals. he may has well have literally killed them.
role reversal and false impressions are prominent in sentitwins and this complicated picture adds to that.
frequently bought together. do not separate.
in conclusion, yes, autumn, this is most certainly something. fuck if i know what it is, but i love losing my mind about it.
#I'M SORRY I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS ENDED UP THIS LONG#also i have recently discovered the joy of answering asks and i am eating you for this one. eating you whole#miraculous ladybug#felix fathom#felix graham de vanily#adrien agreste#🌃#🏮#good lord i hope you enjoy at least some of this nonsense HAHE#ml meta
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For the IKISKB verse: what if Curtis was the celebrity (maybe an actor) and Reader was his PA or publicist? How would that change the dynamic?
Oh, I love this question! The short little thing I came up with has real ch 1 of IKISKB vibes. I went with Actor (action star) and PA. I hope you like it and it answers your question!
Just Part of the Process
Pairing: Actor!Curtis Everett x PA!Reader
Warnings: Explicit language, references to excessive drinking, adult themes, angst
You sat at the kitchen island on your laptop, going through emails and updating Curtis’s schedule. Schedule Tetris was your superpower, moving things around to make sure everything fit just so. It was one of the reasons he’d kept you around the last two years. One of many, you hoped.
It was about 1 PM when Curtis stumbled down from his bedroom and entered the kitchen. He went straight to the fridge, pulling out one of the fancy, high-electrolyte hangover cures you kept stocked. He pounded it quickly, recycling the container, and then finally looked at you. “Oh hey. How long have you been here?” he asked, his voice gritty with the remnants of sleep and whiskey.
“A few hours,” you said quietly. “I put your drycleaning in the downstairs closet. I didn’t want to wake you up. Now, I’m just working on your schedule.”
He grimaced. “Please tell me I’m clear today.”
You shook your head. “Your trainer will be here in half an hour.”
“Fucking shit,” he muttered and grabbed another drink out of the fridge.
You almost reminded him that his trainer was going to be pissed at him for being hungover, as Curtis was supposed to be bulking up for his next movie, but you didn’t need to bother. He knew.
“Did you have a good night?” you asked, instead.
“No,” he said in almost a growl. Shit, it was one of those nights. “Anything online?”
“I haven’t checked yet,” you said, carefully. Wondering what was on the gossip blogs was a bad sign. “Anything in particular I should be looking for?”
He shrugged. “I don’t–” he started, then looked away from you. “I don’t really remember clearly, but I feel like there might be something.” Oh, double shit. It was a really bad night, then.
This wasn’t fully out of the ordinary. Known as America’s Bad Boy by the tabloids and gossip blogs, it wasn’t uncommon to see stories about him insulting someone outside of a club, smashing a paparazzo's camera on the ground, loving and leaving some starlet. So you’d been surprised when you first met him to find that he was actually very quiet, soft-spoken when he did speak, respectful of your time, and appreciative of your effort. He was the third actor you’d PA’d for and by far the easiest to get along with.
But lately, he’d seemed increasingly tired and maybe a little – sad? He’d been going out even more than usual, blowing off prep for his next movie – which wasn’t like him at all, talking to you, or anyone, even less than normal. You’d prided yourself on being a help to him, knowing how to take care of him, but this? You didn’t know what to do about this.
The other complicating factor was the pesky feelings you’d developed over the past two years. You’d always known he was hot. He was an action star, that was part of the job. But up close and personal, you appreciated how beautiful he was. How kind. How thoughtful. How gentle. You were in love with him and you had been for a long time.
“Well,” you said, trying not to show your concern too plainly, “I’ll take a look and let you know what I find.”
He nodded absently, still looking away from you. You gave yourself a moment to take him in. He was a little hunched over, his skin paler than usual, his eyes a little sunken. You sighed, knowing you shouldn’t do it. He was an adult, he could face the consequences of his actions. But. You sighed, again. “I’ll call your trainer, and let him know you’ve come down with something. But that just means he’ll kick your ass even harder next time.”
You half-expected him to respond with a shit-eating grin or a sheepish smile. Instead, he looked at you very seriously. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.” You just sort of blinked at that, having no idea what to say. He turned back towards the stairs. “I’m going back to bed, wake me up if you need anything.”
He was almost to the staircase when you were finally able to turn your swirling thoughts into words. “Curtis,” you called out to him. He stopped and turned to look at you. “Are you ok?”
It was then that he shot you a cocky grin. You were a little stunned by the degree to which it didn’t reach his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be ok?” he asked, then spun back around on his heel and trudged up the stairs, leaving you to worry alone in his kitchen.
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Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared
The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!
#ACLA24#ACLA24Leaders#youtube#youtube video#climate leaders#climate solutions#climate action#climate and environment#climate#climate change#climate and health#climate blog#climate justice#climate news#weather and climate#environmental news#environment#environmental awareness#environment and health#environmental#environmental issues#environmental justice#environment protection#environmental health#Youtube
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I really liked your post about the Forever situation , im also part of his chat, and your post kinda helped
I got a very big anxiety crisis because of this situation, it was terrible, but im better now!!:D
The only thing that scares me is the fandom invalidate the people who were victims of pedo just because they decide to still watch Forever y'know?
I’m glad I could help somehow!! if you’re anxious about the whole thing, don’t be afraid to take a step back!! I felt this looming sense of dread over it this morning, as I’m sure many of us did, so I’m happy I was able to put some people’s minds at ease. we don’t know everything about the situation yet, so let’s all just take a deep breath and remember that we are not personally involved in this situation and we can make our judgements if and when more information comes to light.
and YES god the thing about invalidating victims sucks, and the thing is it seems to happen from both sides of the argument. ofc most people from both sides aren’t invalidating victims’ experiences, but there are loud minorities from both who are. Some of those who dislike him are ignoring the victim’s wishes to not be involved (bc the information came from a third party) and pestering her to talk about it anyway as if somehow hearing from her will magically make it all make sense, even if it means her reopening her trauma and causing her harm, and some of those who still support him are saying there’s no way this is a valid allegation and the alleged victim should be ashamed, and he is right to get pissed since it’s OH SO CLEARLY false and EVERYONE gets these allegations nowadays (sarcasm). We have no way of knowing 100% if it’s true, the alleged victim has claimed that she does not want to be involved as far as I’m aware, the information came from a third party who apparently has a history of digging up dirt about the Brazilian ccs—there are SO many factors here that we can’t confirm or deny anything.
half the fandom is reacting the same way Dream’s fanbase did when his allegations (whether they ended up being true or not; idk i don’t care enough about him to watch his fucking video essay) came out. People are saying that the person bringing up the allegations is clearly just a hater and that’s the only reason they have for this. And maybe that’s true!! Idk!!! I’ve heard through the grapevine that the alleged victim does not want to be involved!!! It’s like when Cellbit’s past abusive relationship was being talked about a few months ago; the victim wanted no part in calling him out because the situation was done and over with and they didn’t want to think about it, let alone fight for some kind of justice they didn’t even want. It’s a complicated situation, but people need to stop putting this off as just hate from antis. These are allegations, and they should be taken seriously, while also leaving the victim alone and not pestering her for details. If she comes out and says she doesn’t want justice for this, let her have her peace. If Forever shows that he has changed—which it seems like he has, at least from my perspective—let him sort this out. If all of it is true and as bad as it seems?? Sure, drag him to hell and back. But take in as much information as you can before you decide what you want to do.
but anyway RANT ASIDE, no matter what, do not be afraid to take a step back and do something else. Your mental health is more important than the dubiously moral actions of some content creator.
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Op-Ed: We're starting to understand 'long COVID.' We can fight it - Los Angeles Times
...While its incidence among adults who have been infected has been estimated at 5% to 40%, a recent study that tracked symptoms before infections and compared participants to controls has given us one of the best snapshots to date. It indicated that 1 in 8 people who have had COVID experience prolonged symptoms over many months.
With vaccinations and different variants, the incidence may be lower, but even if it were half as many (6% of adults who have been infected), and we assume two-thirds of adults have had COVID, that would equate to more than 10 million Americans who have endured persistent symptoms that interfere with their daily life activities, frequently impairing their ability to return to work.
One of the mysteries: As opposed to those most likely to get severe COVID, the vast majority of people affected by long COVID are younger (30 to 50 years old) and previously healthy. The typical symptoms include marked fatigue, exercise intolerance, difficulty breathing, brain fog, muscle pain and weakness, chest pain, headaches and fast heart rate. While the list of troubling symptoms is long, the number of proven therapies is very short — zero.
...A combined team from Yale and Mount Sinai used artificial intelligence to determine what, of so many factors, may be of central importance in determining whether a COVID patient develops lingering symptoms. There was a singular driver — low cortisol in the blood — a particularly intriguing finding.
...While these studies have helped illuminate potential biomarkers, we still do not have one that has been validated in large numbers of people with long COVID, which is essential to provide an objective measure. Large studies will also be needed to determine effectiveness of treatments inspired by these findings.
...The “long” in long COVID has not been emphasized enough. A new report from more than 1.25 million people with COVID showed an increased risk of developing brain fog, dementia, seizures and psychosis over two years. Similarly, follow-up at one year or longer has shown an increased risk of heart and blood vessel diseases, diabetes, clotting disorders, and lung and kidney damage, even among people who had only mild to moderate COVID and were not hospitalized. Such risk appears to be cumulatively increased with reinfections, including infections that break through vaccinations.
While we await a validated biomarker and effective treatments, what can we do about long COVID? First off, we can drop the skepticism and denial. Long COVID is real, and it takes a real toll. In the latest study, which followed patients and controls for an average of 400 days, there is a very close tracking of self-reported symptoms with objective markers — in fact 94%.
The recent relaxation of mitigation measures by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is premature, at a time when COVID hospitalizations are at a plateau for adults at more than 40,000, four times what they were in April, and still rising for children. Fortunately, children are at very low risk for long COVID, but the rare cases are linked with a doubling of some serious sequelae such as cardiovascular events.
...Too many people are indeed living with chronic COVID, detracting from their daily lives. As we eventually emerge from this pandemic, long COVID will be the enduring, major public health complication that we failed to address in a timely and aggressive manner. It’s not too late to invest in understanding and combating it.
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Minecraft Legends
Developed by Mojang Studios, Blackbird Interactive
Published by Xbox Game Studios
Release Date 2023
Tested on Xbox Series X
MSRP 39,99 USD
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Minecraft has been a household brand since 2011, the game is still being updated with events and whatnot, and everybody in gaming has heard the name ‘Minecraft’ one way or another, regardless of being interested in it or not. Legends is a second attempt to establish a successful spin-off experience founded in Minecraft universe, first one being Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler.
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The game builds on already-existing Minecraft world as a spin-off, and the gameplay feels like it’s intended for younger-audience who is invested in Minecraft but not keen on or never had the chance to try RTS games.
It is always a constant challenge when it comes to adapting a controller for strategy games, simply because of importance of precision, accuracy and speed. In case of numerous sections, pages, buttons on the screen, the player’s navigation should feel fluid and user-friendly. Minecraft Legends is successful at creating a smooth experience for controllers, button-layout and controls don’t feel over-complicated and you can get used to it within half an hour with no problem. The major hiccup arises when you are commanding your troops during fights.
Even though the only button you get to press is RT (R2) and select the unit(s) you wish to move, more than often the units did charge to the location I marked but did not attack the enemy I specifically picked. Another notable missing feature I detected is that you cannot see Health of enemy troops or enemy buildings, I am not sure if this was intended but it is absurd not being able to see HP of your enemies during an intense fight, the player would decide whether to retrieve or push further and this would mean victory or defeat. So, the most basic element is absent from the game and this is one thing a player with RTS past cannot just disregard. Due to this issue, the fights I got involved in lasted longer than they should have and made me lose interest a bit.
The experience with this game made me acknowledge that top-down camera angle (for instance Age of Empires) is more intuitive than third-person camera for strategy games, considering that you’re strategizing your approach, overseeing your units, observing enemy troops and movement.
We have a hub area, where we construct buildings, towers, walls, gates, unit spawn locations etc by collected essential material such as iron, wood and stone. In contrast to Minecraft, you are not manually collecting material in this game. There are creatures who look like kind of fairies, who are called Allays, you call give command them to collect iron, wood, stone in a specific location and they collect them one by one automatically, and on the screen it informs you when there are material to be collected and the amount of it. You will know how many irons you will collect before you spawn Allay. This is a welcome change for me, not spending time to get resources. The map also needs a bit of improvement, it contains all the locations you need to be aware of and you can fast travel them once you visit there, but when you are travelling to a place you have never been before, you will be riding your horse and I had encounter this issue at least 3-4 times in one and half an hour: When I was journeying to the location, I end up stuck between canyons and when they are too steep you cannot climb them, you need to find the end or beginning of it get out of the canyon there. The map does not include any info about this, there should be some sort of visual warnings that let the player know that it is a mountainous area and such. This looks like an oversight and you never know if you are running into a canyon or not, if yes, you need to go around it to avoid it.
There are two factors in play for recommending this game or not. First, are you mainly looking for an RTS game? If yes, there are much better and polished game, such as Total War and Age of Empire franchises. If that is not your priority and you are generally interested in Minecraft and want to experience this universe in a new game with a unique gameplay and mechanics and you can ignore small shortcomings then you would be satisfied with it. As I mentioned, this game positions itself friendly for younger players first and foremost, considering narrative, mechanics, complexity of the game, not trying to be the next big title in RTS genre. From this point of view, the Minecraft brand will be able to draw passionate and invested player base.
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Six Frequently Found Types of Medical Malpractice
Numerous factors can lead to medical misconduct. Failure to treat a patient is among the most frequent mistakes. The patient may have lasting incapacity or possibly pass away if the injury or ailment is not adequately managed. Unfortunately, 31% of doctors have been accused of not treating a patient correctly. A healthcare-associated infection, inadequate paperwork, and failure to diagnose and treat a patient are some additional typical malpractice causes. The most typical categories of medical negligence are listed in this succinct summary.
Misdiagnosis
According to a recent study, misdiagnosis caused one-third of all medical malpractice lawsuits that resulted in death or severe disability. In a research that looked at diagnosis data from 2006 to 2015, the most prevalent category of medical errors was this misdiagnosis. Infections, vascular events, and malignancies are the most frequently misdiagnosed types of conditions, according to the study. Nearly half of all major injury is accounted for by the top five categories.
Misdiagnosis cases for medical negligence might be complicated, but they can also be quite significant. Delays in diagnosis may result in more severe issues or even fatalities. A patient may file a lawsuit for damages, such as medical costs and pain and suffering, if the error causes a delayed diagnosis. Typically, a medical expert in this situation would not have sought out second opinions.
A patient will want an expert witness in this kind of situation to judge if the doctor committed any malpractice. Typically, the patient seeks the advice of a medical expert with knowledge of the disease in question to determine whether the doctor acted fairly. Before arriving at a final diagnosis, the doctor will usually compile a list of potential illnesses and examine the patient.
neglecting to treat
Failure to treat may come from negligence or inefficient treatment in addition to misdiagnosis. In the latter instance, the patient's illness progressed or the patient did not receive the appropriate treatment because the doctor made an incorrect diagnosis. In the latter scenario, the physician might not have given the patient the necessary follow-up care or failed to recommend a specialist. One of the most severe malpractice injuries occurs when a patient's condition is not treated during labor. While doctors must be thorough in their examinations and diagnoses, failing to follow up with patients and prescribe the proper course of action can result in life-altering injuries and millions of dollars' worth of medical costs.
Failure to diagnose an illness is another typical medical blunder. It is not unusual for patients who receive a false diagnosis to pass away. Heart attacks and cancer are the most frequent medical errors. Life-threatening injuries or a handicap may have resulted from the subsequent misdiagnosis. Failure to diagnose a problem can also result in surgical blunders, such as operating on the wrong patient or place and leaving equipment within the body.
A doctor's failure to make a diagnosis is a typical basis for medical malpractice claims. This error could cause serious harm or even death. Fortunately, a mistake like that can be fixed. Many doctors are eager to invest the necessary time in examining the prospective negligence case. In actuality, neglecting to treat a patient is the cause of many malpractice lawsuits. Failure to diagnose can result in wrongful death in addition to severe injuries.
medication mistakes
When a physician or other healthcare provider makes a drug error, the fact that patients' rights are violated may be sufficient to support legal action. The defendant must demonstrate negligence on the part of the individual in the chain of custody in addition to the pharmaceutical error itself. Many times, the physician or other healthcare professional merely disregarded the accepted standards of practice. If so, the offender may be held accountable for the patient's injuries.
Medication mistakes happen when a doctor or nurse doesn't double-check the information or misreads the prescription instructions. It may have severe effects. A drop-down menu misclick can have disastrous consequences. Similar to this, a new doctor should take the patient's health into account before employing diagnostic instruments or assessing symptoms that might be beyond the scope of their training. This human error may result in excruciating pain or even death.
A significant reason for medical malpractice claims is improper dosage. At any point throughout the delivery of the medicine, mistakes can happen. They may result from a poorly chosen medicine, an incorrect dosage, or a challenging routine. The medicine may occasionally be given too quickly, leading to an overdose. Prior to giving the medication, it is possible to identify probable mistakes.
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one of my irl friends is asking about commissioning a big full party piece, which is something he’s talked about before, and the PROBLEM with this is I just have no idea how to handle it as a commission because like
- the actual scope of the project means it Should Be QUITE expensive, admittedly more than I’m entirely comfortable charging anyone, let alone a friend in real life
- the art is the kind of art I’ve wanted to do for a long time anyway, feels kind of weird to charge for it at all, given that?
- if my friends respect me enough to proactively request to spend money on my art I should let them, I guess
- if I don’t do it as a commission then without that concrete accountability I will simply not ever get it done
#the good news is I am in No Position to take commissions right now and told him so SO like I still have time lmao#the BAD news is the first time he mentioned wanted a commission like this was like three or four years ago#and that was apparently not enough time for me to unspool this little riddle kdfgjhkgfh#re: the last point-- a different friend asked if he could commission me to draw a couple of his PCs-- like more standard character portraits#like.... last summer#me privately: I'm not gonna let him pay me for this I'm BADLY overdue to draw these characters it's the least I can do#also me: [doesn't fucking DO IT]#I mean. in my defense. my mental health has been uhhh. ummm. uhhhhhhhhhh#but Still. need that looming crushing guilt ruining my life to get results kjgdhfdg#but hOW MUCH.... DO I CHARGE.... THIS IS THE IMPOSSIBLE FUCKING QUESTION!!#my commissions page doesn't have a listed rate for Groups but the one(1) I've done before was like... 300$ I think?#just scaling up my rates per single character#and honestly with the amount of time and effort I put into these things I'm probably not charging enough as it is BUT LIKE.#YES MY FRIEND IN REAL LIFE IF YOU'D LIKE TO COMMISSION ME TO DO AN ART I WANTED TO DO ANYWAY THAT WILL BE ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. NO????#even half that! even a third of that!! there are so many COMPLICATING FACTORS AT PLAY and I'm ANXIOUS ABOUT MONEY AHHH lmao :'D#the concept he has in mind IS. extremely good. it makes me very happy to think about so the OTHER good news is I will Like Doing This#I just. ugh. UGH.#about me#irl frens#my art
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How many people can the Earth actually support while still preserving the environment? I see people saying things like "Humans are overpopulated and destroying the Earth" and then other people saying "Humans aren't overpopulated, every human can live comfortably in Alaska" and it really worries me.
Even popular well loved conservationists like Jane Goodall advocate for 94% less people but I can't imagine that being done without mass genocide and eugenics. Who gets to decide which humans are the good ones that get to stay and which ones are the useless eaters that should be killed for the greater good? As a disabled mentally ill person, I don't have high hopes that I would be one of the people that gets to stay on Earth.
Hi Anon!
Thanks for the ask—I know this is something that worries a lot of people.
So first, this is not my area of expertise. I am going to try to give a decent overview of this issue, but please know it is likely going to be at least slightly imperfect or oversimplified.
Second, “how many people can the Earth support” is a super complicated question, because it largely depends on how many resources each person is consuming, which is itself related to how sustainably, efficiently, and equitably we are using our resources.
Third, the main factors shown to sustainably slow population growth within a particular country are 1) reduce the infant mortality rate, 2) increase social and economic opportunity for women, 3) increase access to education, and 4) increase reproductive autonomy and access to birth control.
I’m not going to say there aren’t gross ecofascists out there who advocate for genocide or eugenics because unfortunately those people do exist—but when the vast majority of generally well-meaning people talk about “stabilizing population growth” the points above (more access to birth control, better educational opportunities, etc.) are what they are referring to (for example, based on the organizations she supports that is almost certainly what Jane Goodall was referring to in that clip).
That said, focusing on population growth rather than resource consumption (rightfully) leaves a bad taste in many people’s mouths because it has often been used to shift the blame from countries in the Global North (which consume a disproportionate amount of resources) to countries in the Global South (many of which have comparatively higher birth rates). Addressing consumption patterns (especially of very wealthy countries and individuals) is a much more important issue that will enable the Earth to support many more people. Focusing on population growth as the source of our problems rather than consumption is both misguided and deeply unjust.
Even with perfect equality and the most sustainable possible use of resources, there is probably a finite number of humans the Earth can support while still preserving life-sustaining ecosystems. However, we don’t know what resource use looks like under perfect equality and perfect sustainability, so it is very hard to pinpoint what that number is—but it is almost certainly much higher than the current population. If population growth slows or stabilizes (via voluntary means due to increased reproductive agency, etc.) that could make it easier to meet the needs of the global community while preserving the environment, but that is a molehill compared to the mountain of reducing our resource consumption.
As an example: “If human populations were somehow, heaven forbid, reduced to only 10% of its current level but those were the 10% richest in the world[…] and the fossil fuel industry continued on their current trajectory, we wouldn’t even cut carbon emissions in half.” (Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe).
tl:dr When most decent humans talk about stabilizing population growth they mean doing so via greater social and economic opportunity for women, greater access to education, and more reproductive autonomy and access to birth control BUT disproportionate resource consumption by wealthy countries and individuals is a much, much, much larger factor in climate change, etc. than population growth and without addressing consumption patterns a slower rate of population growth would do literally nothing.
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As a muslim Iraqi American with a significant tumblr following, I feel as though I should let it be known exactly where I stand when it comes to Riordan’s statement about Samirah. I have copied and pasted it down below and my reaction to it will be written down below. This will be the first time I have read it. If you want to engage with me or tell me that I’m wrong, I expect you to be a muslim, hijabi, Iraqi American, and from Baghdad. If you are not, I suggest you sit down and keep quiet because you are not the authority on the way I should be represented.
Like many of my characters, Samirah was inspired by former students of mine. Over the course of my middle school teaching career, I worked with dozens of Muslim students and their families, representing the expanse of the Muslim world and both Shia and Sunni traditions. One of my most poignant memories about the September 11, 2001, attack of the World Trade Center was when a Muslima student burst into tears when she heard the news – not just because it was horrific, but also because she knew what it meant for her, her family, her faith. She had unwillingly become an ambassador to everyone she knew who, would have questions about how this attack happened and why the perpetrators called themselves “Muslim.” Her life had just become exponentially more difficult because of factors completely beyond her control. It was not right. It was not fair. And I wasn’t sure how to comfort or support her.
Starting off your statement with one of the most traumatic events in history for muslim Americans is already one of the most predictably bad moves he could pull. By starting off this way, you are acknowledging the fact that a) this t*rrorist attack is still the first thing you think of when you think of muslims and b) that those muslim students who you had prior to 9/11 occupied so little space in your mind that it took a national disaster for you to start to even try to empathize with them.
During the following years, I tried to be especially attuned to the needs of my Muslim students. I dealt with 9/11 the same way I deal with most things: by reading and learning more. When I taught world religions in social studies, I would talk to my Muslim students about Islam to make sure I was representing their experience correctly. They taught me quite a bit, which eventually contributed to my depiction of Samirah al-Abbas. As always, though, where I have made mistakes in my understanding, those mistakes are wholly on me.
As always, you have chosen to use “I based this character off my students” in order to justify the way they are written. News flash: you taught middle school children. Children who are already scrutinized and alienated and desperate to fit in. Of course their words shouldn’t be enough for you to decide you are representing them correctly, because they are still coming to terms with their identities and they are doing this in an environment where they are desperate to find the approval of white Americans. I know that as a child I would often tweak the way I explained my culture and religion to my teachers in order to gain their approval and avoid ruffling any feathers. They told you what they thought you’d want to hear because you are their teacher and hold a position of power over them and they both want your approval and want to avoid saying the wrong thing and having that hang over their heads every time they enter your classroom.
What did I read for research? I have read five different English interpretations of the Qur’an. (I understand the message is inseparable from the original Arabic, so it cannot be considered ‘translated’). I have read the entirety of the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim hadith collections. I’ve read three biographies of Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) and well over a dozen books about the history of Islam and modern Islam. I took a six-week course in Arabic. (I was not very good at it, but I found it fascinating). I fasted the month of Ramadan in solidarity with my students. I even memorized some of the surahs in Arabic because I found the poetry beautiful. (They’re a little rusty now, I’ll admit, but I can still recite al-Fātihah from memory.) I also read some anti-Islamic screeds written in the aftermath of 9/11 so I would understand what those commenters were saying about the religion, and indirectly, about my students. I get mad when people attack my students.
And yet here you are actively avoiding the criticism from those of us who could very well have been the children sitting in your classroom.
The Quran is so deep and complex that its meanings are still being discovered to this day. Yes, reading these old scripts is a must for writing muslim characters, but you cannot claim to understand them without also holding active discussions with current scholars on how the Quran’s teachings apply today.
When preparing to write Samirah’s background, I drew on all of this, but also read many stories on Iraqi traditions and customs in particular and the experiences of immigrant families who came to the U.S. I figured out how Samirah’s history would intertwine with the Norse world through the medieval writer Ahmad ibn Fadhlan, her distant ancestor and one of the first outsiders to describe the Vikings in writing. I knew Samirah would be a ferocious brave fighter who always stood for what was right. She would be an excellent student who had dreams of being an aviator. She would have a complicated personal situation to wrestle with, in that she’s a practicing Muslim who finds out Valhalla is a real place. Odin and Thor and Loki are still around. How do you reconcile that with your faith? Not only that, but her mom had a romance with Loki, who is her dad. Yikes.
First of all, writing this paragraph in the same tone you use to emulate a 12 year old is already disrespectful. “Yikes” is correct. You have committed serious transgressions and can’t even commit to acting serious and writing like the almost 60 year old man that you are. Tone tells the reader a lot, and your tone is telling me that you are explaining your mistakes the same way you tell your little stories: childishly and jokingly.
Stories are not enough. They are not and never will be. Stories cannot even begin to pierce the rich culture and history and customs of Iraq. Iraq itself is not even homogenous enough for you to rely on these “Iraqi” stories. Someone’s story from Najaf is completely unique from someone from Baghdad or Nasriyyah or Basrah or Mosul. Add that to the fact that these stories are written with a certain audience in mind and you realize that there’s no way they can tell the whole story because at their core they are catering to a specific audience.
Yes, those are good, but they are meaningless without you consulting an actual Baghdadi and asking specific questions. You made conclusions and assumptions based on these stories when the obvious way to go was to consult someone from Baghdad every step of the writing process. Instead, you chose to trust the conclusions that you (a white man) drew from a handful of stories. Who are you to convey a muslim’s internal struggle when you did not even do the bare minimum and have an actual muslim read over your words?
Thankfully, the feedback from Muslim readers over the years to Samirah al-Abbas has been overwhelmingly positive. I have gotten so many letters and messages online from young fans, talking about how much it meant to them to see a hijabi character portrayed in a positive light in a ‘mainstream’ novel.
Yeah. Because we’re desperate, and half of them are children still developing their sense of self and critical reading skills. A starving man will thank you for moldy bread but that does not negate the mold.
Some readers had questions, sure! The big mistake I will totally own, and which I have apologized for many times, was my statement that during the fasting hours of Ramadan, bathing (i.e. total immersion in water) was to be avoided. This was advice I had read on a Shia website when I myself was preparing to fast Ramadan. It is advice I followed for the entire month. Whoops! The intent behind that advice, as I understood it, was that if you totally immersed yourself during daylight hours, you might inadvertently get some water between your lips and invalidate your fast. But, as I have since learned, that was simply one teacher’s personal opinion, not a widespread practice. We have corrected this detail (which involved the deletion of one line) in future editions, but as I mentioned in my last post, you will still find it in copies since the vast majority of books are from the first printing.
This is actually really embarrassing for you and speaks to your lack of research and reading comprehension. It is true that for shia, immersion breaks one’s fast. If you had bothered to actually ask questions and use common sense, you would realize that this is referring to actions like swimming, where one’s whole body is underwater, rather than bathing. Did you not question the fact that the same religion that encourages the cleansing of oneself five times a day banned bathing during the holiest month? Yes, it was one teacher’s opinion, but you literally did not even take the time to fully understand that opinion before chucking it into your book.
Another question was about Samirah’s wearing of the hijab. To some readers, she seemed cavalier about when she would take it off and how she would wear it. It’s not my place to be prescriptive about proper hijab-wearing. As any Muslim knows, the custom and practice varies greatly from one country to another, and from one individual to another. I can, however, describe what I have seen in the U.S., and Samirah’s wearing of the hijab reflects the practice of some of my own students, so it seemed to be within the realm of reason for a third-generation Iraqi-American Muslima. Samirah would wear hijab most of the time — in public, at school, at mosque. She would probably but not always wear it in Valhalla, as she views this as her home, and the fallen warriors as her own kin. This is described in the Magnus Chase books. I also admit I just loved the idea of a Muslima whose hijab is a magic item that can camouflage her in times of need.
Before I get into this paragraph, Samirah is second generation. Her grandparents immigrated from Iraq. Her mother was first gen.
Once again, you turn to what you have seen from your students, who are literal children. They are in middle school while Samirah is in high school, so they are very obviously at different stages of development, both emotional and religious. If you had bothered to talk to adults who had gone through these stages, you would understand that often times young girls have stages where they “practice” hijab or wear it “part time”, very often in middle school. However, both her age and the way in which you described Samirah lead the reader to believe that she is a “full timer,” so you playing willy nilly with her scarf as a white man is gross.
For someone who claims to have read all of these religious texts, it’s funny that you choose to overlook the fact that “kin” is very specifically described. Muslims do not go around deciding who they consider “kin” or “family” to take off their hijab in front of. There is no excuse for including this in her character, especially since you claim to have carefully read the Quran and ahadith.
You have no place to “just love” any magical extension of the hijab until you approach it with respect. Point blank period. Especially when you have ascribed it a magical property that justifies her taking it on and off like it’s no big deal, especially when current media portrayals of hijab almost always revolve around it being removed. You are adding to the harmful portrayal and using your “fun little magic camoflauge” to excuse it.
As for her betrothal to Amir Fadhlan, only recently have I gotten any questions about this. My understanding from my readings, and from what I have been told by Muslims I know, is that arranged marriages are still quite common in many Muslim countries (not just Muslim countries, of course) and that these matches are sometimes negotiated by the families when the bride-to-be and groom-to-be are quite young. Prior to writing Magnus Chase, one of the complaints I often heard or read from Muslims is how Westerners tend to judge this custom and look down on it because it does not accord with Western ideas. Of course, arranged marriages carry the potential for abuse, especially if there is an age differential or the woman is not consulted. Child marriages are a huge problem. The arrangement of betrothals years in advance of the marriage, however, is an ancient custom in many cultures, and those people I know who were married in this way have shared with me how glad they were to have done it and how they believe the practice is unfairly villainized. My idea with Samirah was to flip the stereotype of the terrible abusive arranged match on its head, and show how it was possible that two people who actually love each other dearly might find happiness through this traditional custom when they have families that listen to their concerns and honor their wishes, and want them to be happy. Amir and Samirah are very distant cousins, yes. This, too, is hardly unusual in many cultures. They will not actually marry until they are both adults. But they have been betrothed since childhood, and respect and love each other. If that were not the case, my sense is that Samirah would only have to say something to her grandparents, and the match would be cancelled. Again, most of the comments I have received from Muslim readers have been to thank me for presenting traditional customs in a positive rather than a negative light, not judging them by Western standards. In no way do I condone child marriage, and that (to my mind) is not anywhere implied in the Magnus Chase books.
I simply can’t even begin to explain everything that is wrong with this paragraph. Here is a good post about how her getting engaged at 12 is absolutely wrong religiously and would not happen. Add that on to the fact that Samirah herself is second-generation (although Riordan calls her third generation in this post) and this practice isn’t super common even in first generation people (and for those that it DOES apply to, it is when they are old enough to be married and not literal children).
As a white man you can’t flip the stereotype. You can’t. Even with tons of research you cannot assume the authority to “flip” a stereotype that does not affect you because you will never come close to truly understanding it inside and out. Instead of flipping a stereotype, Rick fed into it and provided more fodder to the flames and added on to it to make it even worse.
I would be uncomfortable with a white author writing about arranged marriages in brown tradition no matter the context, but for him to offhandedly include it in a children’s book where it is badly explained and barely touched on is inexcusable. Your target audience is children who will no doubt overlook your clumsy attempt at flipping stereotypes.
It does not matter what your mind thinks you are implying. Rick Riordan is not your target audience, children are. So you cannot brush this away by stating that you did not see the harm done by your writing. You are almost 60 years old. Maybe you can read in between your lines, but I guarantee your target audience largely cannot.
Finally, recently someone on Twitter decided to screenshot a passage out-of-context from Ship of the Deadwhere Magnus hears Samirah use the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” and the only context he has ever heard it in before was in news reports when some Western reporter would be talking about a terrorist attack. Here is the passage in full:
Samirah: “My dad may have power over me because he’s my dad. But he’s not the biggest power. Allahu akbar.”
I knew that term, but I’d never heard Sam use it before. I’ll admit it gave me an instinctive jolt in the gut. The news media loved to talk about how terrorists would say that right before they did something horrible and blew people up. I wasn’t going to mention that to Sam. I imagined she was painfully aware.
She couldn’t walk the streets of Boston in her hijab most days without somebody screaming at her to go home, and (if she was in a bad mood) she’d scream back, “I’m from Dorchester!”
“Yeah,” I said. “That means God is great, right?”
Sam shook her head. “That’s a slightly inaccurate translation. It means God is greater.”
“Than what?”
“Everything. The whole point of saying it is to remind yourself that God is greater than whatever you are facing—your fears, your problems, your thirst, your hunger, your anger.
337-338
To me, this is Samirah educating Magnus, and through him the readers, about what this phrase actually means and the religious significance it carries. I think the expression is beautiful and profound. However, like a lot of Americans, Magnus has grown up only hearing about it in a negative context from the news. For him to think: “I had never heard that phrase, and it carried absolutely no negative connotations!” would be silly and unrealistic. This is a teachable moment between two characters, two friends who respect each other despite how different they are. Magnus learns something beautiful and true about Samirah’s religion, and hopefully so do the readers. If that strikes you as Islamophobic in its full context, or if Samirah seems like a hurtful stereotype . . . all I can say is I strongly disagree.
I will give you some credit here in that I mostly agree with this scene. The phrase does carry negative connotations with many white people and I do not fault you for explaining it the way you did. However, don’t try to sneak in that last sentence like we won’t notice. You have no place to decide whether or not Samirah’s character as a whole is harmful and stereotypical.
It is 2 am and that is all I have the willpower to address. This is messy and this is long and this is not well worded, but this had to be addressed. I do not speak for every muslim, both world wide and within this online community, but these were my raw reactions to his statement. I have been working on and will continue to work on a masterpost of Samirah Al-Abbas as I work through the books, but for now, let it be known that Riordan has bastardized my identity and continues to excuse himself and profit off of enforcing harmful stereotypes. Good night.
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Ok, Hades gameplay reaction time!
(Because I have been terrible this quarantine year about posting thoughts about stories I've been invested in, and I'm really enjoying this game, and I'm playing basically blind and I have theories, and what is tumblr for if not recording those things to look back on later.)
I love this specific kind of fantasy/speculative fiction, that straddles the line between 'allegory clearly designed to explore a real-world issue' and 'the themes of this reflect real-world issues but also everything is times one million for drama and setting's sake'. I love it so much. Because, look, this is a story about a teenager/young adult trying to gather up the skills and resources and help he needs to escape his controlling, possessive, emotionally abusive father's house. That's it. Strip away all of the trappings, and that's what the story is about.
By comparison, I think about Star Wars. (I love Star Wars too.) That's also a story about a dysfunctional fucked-up family dynamic. But that family is fucked up because dad went on a magic-corruption-induced killing spree, and his twin children were separated at birth to be raised in seclusion with the intention of someday taking him down, and look, that's cool, but it's definitely not how people actually are. All of the dysfunction in that family is an outgrowth of the fantastical setting, which means it is fantastical dysfunction. It can occasionally mirror or remind us of real-life interactions, but it's a fantasy. Which is great and fun to watch and very comforting and so on, but I don't necessarily want that in every story, and I love Hades because it is not that, at all.
When you extend out the basic 'kid trying to escape his toxic home environment', Hades is the story of Zagreus trying to get out with the help of his dad's estranged, complicated, wealthy and powerful family, who are absolutely part of the reason why dad is Like That in the first place, and may not be any more reliable in the long run but who he needs right now. And his stepmom and teacher, who love him enough to help him leave, unconditionally and supportively (ask me how many feelings I have about 'look, Hades can't hurt me for helping you, don't worry about me, I am going to take care of you and that means helping you get out of this house' coming from an adult authority figure, ask me). And his dad's employees, who like him but also have to fear the old man's wrath, and walk that line in different places the best they can. And stepmom's long-estranged parent, because this is a story about families and how they split apart and come back together. And all of that is so real, so grounded in actual, concrete, this-is-how-humans-work family dynamics. But it's also individual.
The story works so well because Hades isn't just a silhouette of the controlling asshole father; he is clearly The Way He Is for reasons, complicated ones, good and bad alike. The Way He Is has details, particularities, paperwork, a dog he pretends not to love and rely on. He is specific. Nyx and Achilles are specific, not just generic kind stepmom here to be a trope inversion and cardboard cutout teacher. Nyx has backstory and personality of her own, Achilles has a complex history, opinions, a missing lover, and they BOTH have very particular relationships with Hades that aren't just boilerplate script. Yes, there's abstraction there, you meet these characters in brief visual novel-esque three-line conversations over the course of dozens of escape runs, of course there's abstraction--but there's the very real sense that all of these people have nuance, have good and bad days, that they've made choices to be who they are, even if we don't know what those choices are yet.
And, like Star Wars, some of the ways in which this story is so specific rely entirely on the fact of the otherworldly setting! I've seen stories that go the other way, that try to use their setting entirely as window dressing, and they end up feeling so flat I can't even remember them right now because they don't let the environment lend complexity and nuance to their characters at all. The environment these characters live in matters. The absolute control Hades exerts over his surroundings is a divine power. The fact that everyone Zag runs into, for or against him, is either immortal or immortally dead, changes how the react to
one another and to the situation at hand. The shape of his attempted escapes (gauntlet combat with a variety of legendary weapons) might be an allegorical construct of the genre, true, but it doesn't work in any sort of real-world setting where there exists the possibility of authority figures above or aside from Hades and his extended fucked-up family. That's part of why the family is so fucked-up in the first place.
But these changes still fit well within the realm of, 'yeah, if you took this extremely real-life dynamic and added these factors to it, I can envision people doing this thing'. I can envision these specific people doing this thing. They add to the specificity of these characters. Letting them be influenced by their unreal surroundings makes them more real. So hell yes for good storytelling!!!!
I'm still relatively early in the game (by which I mean I'm like thirty runs in but only just got past Meg for the third time, because I am not good at this game, although in my defense it's only the seventh video game and second button-mashing game I have ever played in my life so there's that), but I'm starting to develop suspicions about Persephone. Because, look, outside of Persephone's absence from the underworld, this story knows its Greek mythology, uses it, revels in it. And there is some kind of mystery still shrouding Persephone leaving in the first place. She left a goodbye to Cerberus in her letter but not to her own son. Nyx has warned Zagreus multiple times not to let the Olympians know she's his mother. He literally never even knew she existed. That's complicated!
Add to that, Persephone left--the exact thing we are trying and failing to do again and again and again. She left with one note, which means either she managed a one-shot speedrun out of the entire realm or she had some other way to leave, because if she'd washed up in the Styx pool to plod back to her room and try again, she wouldn't've needed to leave the note in the first place. And, you know, she's Persephone. Really quite famous for leaving the Underworld! Also quite famous for being forced back.
So. I'm wondering if Zagreus, so conspicuously absent from her goodbye, has something to do with it after all.
Six pomegranate seeds condemned Persephone to six months, half a year, half her life. I wonder if a child that's half of her her constitutes a fitting trade instead. Which, of course Hades would be even more resentful and dismissive and cruel to the kid he got in place of the wife he loved (who he chased away by being cold in the first place). Of course Persephone would have difficulty saying goodbye to her son in those circumstances. It would make sense.
The tricky thing here is how the Olympians fit into it, because I also suspect the rift between Hades and Zeus sprang from Persephone's departure. And yet, if the Olympians never knew Zagreus existed, let alone that he's Persephone's son--how can he count as payment into the deal in their eyes? So in that case, what does Zeus think is the justification for Persephone leaving, after the pomegranate thing?
Or are we just not doing the pomegranate thing at all? It would be a shame to lose it entirely, out of a story that really seems to enjoy the myths it's playing with. And there should be something complex here, something more than simply 'mom fucked off and left because dad sucked and now I'm following her because same'. It feels more complex than that. 'Mom and dad had a baby to try and save their marriage, it didn't work, but when mom left she had to leave me behind because otherwise dad would have gotten the cops and her extended family involved' feels more right, while still just as grounded in reality as the story has been so far.
I sort of want to write some meta about how each of the six legendary weapons corresponds to their original divine wielder, but I haven't unlocked all of their codex entries yet (look I am very bad with ranged weapons in this game ok, I am working on it), and I still need to think about the details.
Aside from, of course, fuck yes of course Hestia's the one with the railgun. Leave drama and elegance and traditional weaponry to her brothers and sister (Demeter, who knows how to get her hands dirty, gets a pass). Hestia is out here to get shit done. With a grenade launcher.
#hades#hades game#zagreus#hades spoilers#I do not know this fandom are there tags I should be using?#C plays stuff#long post#driveby meta attack
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How would you rank the 18 Class Trials from THH, DR2, and V3 from worst to best?
This is... virtually impossible for me, lol. Comparing the trials from each game to each other?
How about I just rank them within each game? That'll make it a little easier for me to deal with...
DR1
6) 5th. It's driven by lies and ultimately rushed to its end before the characters can draw any solid (pointless/meaningless) conclusions. So of course it's last for this game, and it’s probably last for the entire series as well. If there are any saving graces to this trial, it’s the surprise when your closest ally is willing to let our protagonist die... and that this trial contains the fake/bad ending route.
5) 3rd. Although the main culprit is pretty obvious from the jump, it requires some surprising twists to explain how everything got to be the way it turned out. But did I always find those twists plausible? Errrrm... not really.
4) 2nd. Pretty good trial that's hurt for me by the fact that there'd barely be any need for a trial at all if a certain third party didn't dick around with the evidence for no reason. Also, the dual nature of Toko is an incredibly predictable reveal. Without those two aspects dragging it down, though, this could easily go higher.
3) 1st. Sure, the major hint given and, subsequently, the eventual culprit are pretty obvious, but this one establishes so much about how the trials work and how much the details you observe will matter that it’s still pretty fun that first time around. The initial surprise of the first victim makes for a great way to keep you invested in the trial experience. This trial is damn near iconic now, so it feels almost mandatory to respect it.
2) 6th. DR1 still has the best "final trial,” easily. SO MANY great reveals, and they all totally work for me. Nothing rings false or disappointing, and it also features Makoto finally coming into his own and taking the lead. I nearly labeled this my top pick for DR1, but...
1) 4th. It's easily the most emotionally dramatic/satisfying for me, and there’s something weirdly inspirational for me about Hina’s incredibly harsh stance during it. This one GOT ME IN THE FEELS, and in part that was because I saw so little of it coming. After the more predictable elements of the first and third trials, this felt like the writing was firing on all cylinders.
DR2
6) 2nd. You have to accept a couple leaps of logic to make this trial keep flowing, and the fact that trial is ultimately reliant on someone noticing a candy that’s very small and hard to see while the person is also in a stressful situation and they are groggy from being drugged/asleep and it necessitates the person retaining this seemingly useless detail inside their brain .... that’s always bugged me. The “escape route” conversation even retroactively raises questions about the first trial. Oof. On the upside, the reveals it brought us about Fuyuhiko and Peko were incredibly important, satisfying, and legit surprising turns. And it’s pretty cool how it’s basically a two-for-one combo trial because you have to solve the Twilight Syndrome case before you solve the current case.
5) 3rd. Other people have pointed out the leaps of logic and missing pieces of this trial, but at the same time, the candlelight hanging is so intense and the ultimate reveal of the culprit is such a brutal turn that I have to give it some props. The culprit’s primary plan is ultimately one of the most ingenious in the series, IMO, and definitely one of the most twisted/fucked-up, which earns it some points.
4) 4th. This is probably the single murder case in the franchise that I understood the absolute least about when entering the trial, for better or worse. On the one hand, that made it really fun to see the mystery gradually unfurl, but on the other hand, it made it tough for me to provide the right answers at certain points in the trial, leaving me fumbling. A big part of those issues was how it was initially hard for me to wrap my head around the nature of the funhouse via the provided 2D graphics... but once I eventually got there, I had to respect the creativity that went into devising such a “weapon.” Also, it can be hard to tolerate Komaeda in this trial. He’s even more of a know-it-all-but-reveal-none-of-it jackass than ever before, and his turn towards overt cruelty towards the others (and Hajime in particular) left me raging. The culprit reveal is good, but the motive does beg the question of why he didn’t just come forward from the jump.
3) 6th. There are a lot of great reveals in the final trial that totally reframe how you see the characters, and some of them are deliciously twisted. There’s also a ton of great dialogue provided, and in retrospect, it’s actually sort of neat to have one endgame mastermind reveal in this franchise that doesn’t involve the “They were hiding among us this whole time” trope. All that plus the surprise return of our surviving heroes from the first game! However, this is also where they officially reveal a core element of DR2 and its setting that I've never liked. This knocks the trial down a few pegs for me. Of course, by the time you reach the trial, I'm sure 99% of players have already figured that particular "twist" out. There’s adequate evidence to predict it in the first freaking chapter, and I know this because I DID predict it in the first chapter of my initial playthrough... which further hurts the supposed “reveal” of the island’s true nature when it comes around.
2) 1st. Probably my favorite of the “first trials,” there are lot of components that go into this one. There’s a combination of two premeditated killers plus one spur-of-the-moment accidental victim, there’s a satisfying (though admittedly maybe too easy) reveal of the killer being one of the most unpleasant people to be around during the first chapter, and I really dig how audio became a very important component of the mystery due to the total blackout. This is also the part of the game where we learn just how twisted Komaeda really is, which is HUGE both in terms of its immediate shock factor for a total newcomer and in terms of its impact on the game as a whole. Of course, since it’s a “first trial,” it can’t be too complicated... but they still manage to confuse so many of us with “MEAT ON THE BONE” :P
1) 5th. Again, I will almost always give the most emotionally intense one the top slot. The “traitor reveal” is obviously THAT MOMENT in DR2. I also love how this one used the strange internal logic established early in the game RE: Komaeda’s luck to develop the eventual solution. And forcing us to make use of evidence gathered in multiple locations outside of the immediate site of the body/murder? That more complexity of that type that I see relevant to a trial, the more I appreciate it, and this one has loads of that stuff. Although I guess the investigation isn’t technically part of the trial itself... but it’s still very relevant to it.
DRV3
6) 4th. I found this whole trial to be just... extremely predictable. Maybe it’s because I was so far into the series that I’d gotten used to its tricks by this point, but this was the most predictable trial for me since the first one in the first game. The whole looping/rollover map setup of the VR? Obvious. The murder weapon? Obvious. Our culprit’s ongoing confusion at everything discussed? Obvious. There were only a couple of points I didn’t have already figured out when I walked into the trial room, and those turned out to be basically irrelevant (such as the bottle of poison). The eventual motive is at least a surprise, but I also found it hard to accept that this culprit would really kill people over it. Overall: Super lame.
5) 3rd. Another double murder trial, and once again one murder overshadows the other. The séance murder is definitely clever. Sure, you know the culprit pretty early on, but the methodology is the good part. However, the real fascinating one for me is the art lab “locked room” murder. Going into the trial, I couldn’t fathom how they were going to explain that one, and I found the answer both smart and satisfying. It’s funny to imagine how many times the culprit had to try that stunt with the lock before it actually worked, heh. This is probably the best of the three “double murder” mysteries in the series, but the trial isn’t as emotionally affecting as the 3rd trial in DR2 to me. Moreover, the trial loses points for the most infuriating Hangman’s Gambit of the series and especially for the motive reveal. When the killer’s motive can be boiled down to “they’re basically just a psycho serial killer,” it’s not very interesting.
4) 6th. The first part of the trial, which deals with re-assessing the first case? It’s pretty damn on-point. That leads to the mastermind reveal, which... isn’t great, really. It’s not a terribly interesting character to make the mastermind, they have no interesting motives or characterization to unevil, and they’re ultimately just a pawn behind another, off-screen group of masterminds. But then things get uproariously funny to me. The metatextual stuff is just so goddamn ridiculous. It’s frustrating and annoying how much of our not-mastermind’s explanation is clearly full of lies and half-truths that we’ll never have complete answers on, but that’s also part of what makes it all fascinating. We get to swap protagonists like four times! There’s a fake-out Game Over! These are really cool things. But it all leads down the road of our protagonist arguing that fiction does affect reality (yes, good), that fictional people can still matter (definitely) and that... fictional lives are equal in value to real ones? Uhhhhh slow down there, champ. That only works for YOUR universe, where fictional people can be made out of living, breathing individuals. But in light of the metatextual stuff you’re surrounded by, you kinda sound silly AF right now?
3) 2nd. Look, this is still incredibly irritating to me. Also, if you go down the alternate “lying” route at one point, you are forced to accept that these piranhas were somehow trained to only eat dead things, which is just... so deeply dumb. But what is good is the entire ropeway conceit (which is a very significant part of the trial!) and the idea of the partition inside the tank. This was a murder with an elaborate, intelligent plan that is very well-executed. And the motive reveal? It’s one of the best in the series! I respect that stuff. (If I had the right to toss the execution in as part of the soup, I’d say that it’s also one of the series’ best. Let’s call it the icing on the cake.)
2) 1st. The writing that made this trial work is undeniably clever. The way the narration told us exactly what was happening without really telling us what was happening? It was a masterstroke of both great writing and perfect localization coming together. When it becomes clear during the trial what is about to happen, it’s a huge shock. The transition to another protagonist with the lights flickering out and back on is beautiful. Even the core concept of a protagonist who was willing to step up and try to kill the mastermind immediately is just deeply interesting. And obviously this one made my emotions run high. HOWEVER! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Kaede Akamatsu was a more interesting, unique, and compelling protagonist than Shuichi Saihara ever was. Ultimately, the protagonist-swap, no matter how well-written, was a mistake because they shifted us from a unique character with an interesting new perspective to a character who is, in many ways, “Makoto Naegi with even less self-esteem.” Yes, I know he has aspects that make him distinct as his own person, but there’s still just too much there that feels like we’ve done it before, and he never fully escapes from that. It feels like a massive waste and a huge missed opportunity to ditch Kaede like this. Now, if they had just done the protagonist swap in reverse — making us start out with Shuichi before flipping things over to Kaede — we could’ve had ourselves something amazing here.
1) 5th. I know I decided that I couldn’t rank all among each other, but if I did do that, I feel confident that the 5th trial in DRV3 would rank very high indeed. You go into the trial unable to even determine who the victim was due to the fact that two people are missing and there was nothing left of the body that spoke to an identity. Going into it, you naturally figure that one of the two missing parties has to be the victim and the other one is probably the culprit. But even with just two friggin’ suspects, the amount of turnabouts in the case that made me rethink all my assumptions was insane. Sure, the explanation for how the person inside the Exisal can maintain “character” is pretty damn thin, but once you get past that, I don’t think there’s a single false note in the trial. It even breaks unprecedented ground by continuing into another Non-Stop Debate after everyone has already voted. And of course, it culminates with a lot of intense emotion. Even the execution is emotionally satisfying! ..... although I’m not sure if I should count the execution as part of the trial, but hey, still. As far as Dangan trials go, the fifth one in DRV3 is basically a masterpiece.
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First of all I've been binge reading your fics whenever I get some free time so huge kudos to ya <3
Second, I've got a fun lil ask for ya: domestic headcanons for HB/PI and SS/DD :D
how do they share all their houses' chores? We all know HB is probably an amazing cook and DD looks like an organization freak but what about the rest? Does anyone besides HB knows how to cook a proper meal? We need to know!!
Well, hell!
First of all, thank you so much this is so sweet! Absolutely makes my day to know you’re enjoying my work. I hope you get lots more time to read soon, bro!
And second I’m about to go ON so I’ll chop the post here, but I’ve got headcanons old and new cooked up for you:
As I’m sure you’ve noticed I like writing about buildings so I can tell you exactly what everyone’s houses are like. The whole Crew lives across from each other on a block in the center of their territory, Slick and Droog in a Victorian townhouse and Hearts and Clubs in a duplex that’s broken into two railway style spaces. Slick would live shoebox if it was up to him, so thankfully Droog has very opinionated taste and likes spending his husband’s money enough to buy a whole antique for them to live in.
I don’t have to tell you that cooking is huge for the Crew. They’re a small family of Italian uncles, so cooking is a major factor of their lives.
As skill goes Droog is the best cook out of anyone. He’s self taught but for the very basics and some old family recipes his mother drilled into him back in Tuscany. And like everything with Droog, he’s someone who grew up dirt poor and now desperately wants to show off taste and affluence by being a highbrow snob. That means his skill for cooking has driven towards very elegant, subtle cuisine, lots of French influence (he says it must have been Italian, originally, but the French got famous for it somehow), and small portion size. Think of the fanciest restaurant you've ever been to and how teeny the serving sizes were and then imagine it was cooked by someone who is ferociously closeted and you’ve got it.
Despite all that, Droog has not had working taste buds in at least thirty years because he’s smoked two packs a day since he learned to walk. Slick, likewise, had a bad smoking habit and quit for the kids so he’s not swimming in buds either. Add to that the fact that he’s had his nose broken so many times he’s functionally lost his sense of smell and you’ve got a match made in heaven.
Lucky them, Karkat and Aradia get the spoils of Droog’s great cooking and are the picky eaters their fathers wished they could have been as boys. Droog is very proud to have snotty kids. So it is his great displeasure when, instead of having a single scallop lightly seared in browned butter then dusted with rosemary and thyme, the kids just want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But both happen regularly.
Hearts is a close second but of a very different school. He learned to cook primarily from his mother, who is a master of Southern cooking and made sure her boy knew how to do for himself before she let him leave her home. The rest he learned as a cook in the army, and then later from Droog after Hearts insisted he learn some real Italian recipes since his father never cooked when Hearts was a boy. Hearts still has a habit for cooking for a literal army and so he often cooks for the whole family.
His food is mostly soul food/American southern and he seasons hard and often. One might even say it is dangerously flavorful, and everyone agrees it is extremely fortifying. It’s even strong enough to get through to Droog, who can (with the addition of hot sauce) taste it and secretly wishes Hearts would offer to teach him a thing or two.
Too willful to learn, Slick is a very low third place. He doesn’t care about food much and burns most things he tries to cook out of impatience. Plus, he hasn’t needed to learn since he married Droog so why start now?
Pickle Inspector, dead last, can’t so much as fry an egg. He loves food and knows the locations and operating hours of every restaurant and pub and gas station hot bar in the city. But cooking itself eludes him. He does occasionally try to go vegetarian but folds immediately when offered the chance to have a big beautiful meal he didn’t have to cook himself.
This matches up perfectly with Hearts’s master plan, which is to feed Pickle Inspector to within an inch of his life. And Pickle, like a stray cat, loves the attention and knows where the free food is. Hearts insists he’s too skinny and will often say ‘Just have a little,’ and then hand him a plate with half a lasagna on it.
HBPI is a ‘you cook, I clean’ split. Self conscious of his lack of cooking knowledge Pickle does every dish in the house whenever he sneaks in (read: breaks in) to spend time with Hearts and Tavros. And very often when he breaks in he tries to carve out some time to spend playing DnD with Tavros, with an ambition to get him and Hearts in a game so they can show Hearts a more kinetic version of fantasy than having a read a lot of books by nudists from the 60’s.
Because they may or may not be out as a couple to the Crew, Pickle and Hearts don’t get to spend a lot of time out on Hearts’s front porch together, although kicking back on the porch is one of Hearts’s favorite things to do. But, every so often, they take their coffee together out on the porch way before anyone else is awake. They watch the city all in blue together, right before the sunrise.
SSDD and chores are much more complicated.
Droog is fastidious, meticulous, and intense about cleaning. He also uses it to avoid or ignore any emotions he may be feeling so their Victorian is constantly spotless. Droog does all the kitchen chores, all the rewarding dusting of art pieces, mantles, and mirrors, and looks after the kids to make sure they learn how to keep their own spaces clean.
He dumps all the chores where you actually chance getting dirty on Slick. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the cars, touching anything weird, bugs, that’s all Slick.
Slick also looks after their garden, not for any love of plants but because he’s gotten himself into an all out war with a warren of rabbits that want to eat Droog’s spices and tomatoes. The war has been multi-generational for the rabbits and they’re too invested to pull out now. Slick is the only person who really looks after the garden, Droog assumes ownership of the plants but doesn’t care about them beyond having fresh basil to cook with.
Slick’s contempt for the bunnies and ferocity in keeping his husband’s plants alive have made him an unwitting expert on what a good spice garden needs. Like Droog, his feelings for the whole thing aren’t tied to love for the plants but instead pride and anger. Droog, meanwhile, loves seeing Slick do violence in his name and will often watch his tantrums in the backyard whenever one of the tomato plants gets chewed up.
Whew, this got long quick. Since it’s already so long, I’ll leave you with one more hc which is that Pickle Inspector knows how to juggle. Thank you again for the great questions, this was so fun!!!
#the midnight crew#ssdd#hbpi#spades slick#diamonds droog#hearts boxcars#pickle inspector#the intermission#I fucking love domesticity bro I LOVE IT
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JUNE 1, 2021
Cities and towns are opening back up after their coronavirus-induced shutdowns. Job vacancies have surged to historic highs. Millions of Americans report that they are looking for work. Yet employers are struggling to fill available positions, leaving them with no option but to shorten their business’s hours of operation and pay overtime. Payroll growth has proved lackluster.
The familiar story about what’s happening goes like this: America is in the midst of a labor shortage. Businesses are unable to find enough workers, in no small part because of the country’s generous unemployment-insurance payments and repeated stimulus checks. This is a nightmare for growing companies, a trend that’s slowing the economic recovery, and a problem that policy must solve. Workers are “dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” the Chamber of Commerce said, calling the situation a “very real threat” to the recovery. In response, 23 states and counting have slashed unemployment-insurance payments.
But what has rapidly become conventional wisdom is not necessarily wisdom at all. The labor shortage, so far as it exists, seems to have many complicated causes. Even if benefits are among them, policy makers should not rush in to help ensure a flood of low-wage workers for America’s businesses. As the pandemic abates and the economy strengthens, why not focus on creating good ones?
The evidence of a labor shortage comes both from hard numbers and from soft anecdotes. In terms of the hard numbers: Lots of Americans want work. Roughly 10 million Americans are looking for a job, and the unemployment rate is an uncomfortably high 6.1 percent. At the same time, lots of businesses want to hire. Employers report that they have 8.1 million positions open, the largest number in recorded history. Yet the number of Americans taking a job remains subdued: Payrolls grew by just 266,000 in April, when many economists expected a number as high as 2 million.
In terms of the softer stuff: More and more business owners are complaining, loudly, that they cannot find people to work. Restaurants are offering hiring bonuses to try to get potential workers in the door, Uber and Lyft are desperate for drivers, and Costco, McDonald’s, Sheetz, and Chipotle, along with many small businesses, have raised wages to attract employees.
The issue, many business executives and politicians claim, is that the country’s social-insurance and anti-poverty programs are providing more of a hammock than a safety net: Many workers are getting a $300-a-week bonus on top of their regular state UI payments, and are still flush from the rounds of stimulus checks sent out during the pandemic. Workers would rather stay home and collect the dole than go out and take a job, the argument goes. “Continuing these programs only worsens the workforce issues we are currently facing,” Missouri Governor Mike Parson said at a press conference, announcing a cut to the state’s UI payments. “It is time we ended these programs that have incentivized people to stay out of the workforce.”
But surveys of workers—and the simple observation of the strange and still-awful reality we find ourselves in—indicate many reasons why workers are hesitant or unable to take new gigs. The pandemic is abating, but it is not over. Many workers have preexisting medical conditions or a sick family member to worry about, meaning they cannot take a frontline, essential job. Millions of parents are still struggling with the closure of child-care centers and schools. More personal, less easily quantified impulses are at play too: After a year of immense personal and collective trauma, many people just want to take a beat before committing to a new job.
Wages are another pivotal factor. Workers used to making $21 an hour are unlikely to take jobs for $17 an hour—nor would doing so be good for the American economy. Workers used to making $17 an hour are unlikely to take a much more dangerous job for the same amount—nor would doing so be good for the American economy. And workers used to making $15 an hour, who now have a reasonable expectation that more $21-an-hour jobs will be available in a few weeks, are unlikely to take a job for $15 an hour—nor would doing so be good for the American economy.
Yet many employers are dragging their feet in raising wages to make their job offerings worth taking, given the economic climate and the risks of service work. Much of the “wage growth” evident in recent statistics is due to high-wage workers being much less likely to have lost their jobs than low-wage workers; once you account for that fact, wages have not risen much at all. This is part of what accounts for the “labor shortage.” The issue isn’t workers. It’s employers.
The country’s generous UI is likely playing a role too. In a recent survey by ZipRecruiter, job seekers reported feeling far less financial pressure to take the first job they were offered, likely because UI and stimulus checks buoyed family finances. But a large body of research has shown that UI has a more moderate effect on job-acceptance rates than one might think, because it offers only the lowest-paid workers more incentive to say no.
Moreover, UI helping drive wages up by giving workers the option of saying no to a bad job is not a bad thing. Ample UI improves what is sometimes called “job match,” because it gives job seekers the ability to wait for the right position to come along. It also has disproportionate benefits for Black and Latino workers, who have borne a disproportionate burden of both the health crisis and the economic crisis of the past year.
A more philosophical point needs to be made here, too: The job of the government is not to ensure a supply of workers at whatever wage rates businesses set. And workers’ having the power to say no is not a policy problem that the government needs to solve. For decades, though, Washington and America’s statehouses have helped rig the country’s policy infrastructure in employers’ favor.
The federal government has set the country’s wage floor below its poverty line, for instance, and has not increased the minimum wage to account for improvements in productivity and output over time. The current federal minimum is just $7.25 an hour, compared with roughly $10 an hour in Ireland and Canada, $11 in the Netherlands, $12 in France and Germany, and $12.50 in Australia and Luxembourg. Indeed, the United States has the lowest minimum wage compared with typical or average wages of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That helps explain why the United States has the highest share of low-wage work among the OECD countries. Fully one-quarter of American workers earn less than two-thirds of the median wage, compared with just 5 percent in Belgium and 12 percent in Japan.
The government has also proved complicit in the collapse of unionization and collective bargaining, making it easy for businesses to beat back organizing efforts and difficult for workers to band together to demand raises, benefits, and safe working conditions. The country has half, one-fifth, one-ninth of the collective-bargaining coverage of many of our peer countries. This has increased inequality in America, holding down wages while bolstering corporate profits.
At the same time, the government has declined to make companies compete against one another—for customers or for workers. Corporate concentration has increased, and any number of industries are dominated by just a handful of giant players. This pushes up profits and decimates wages, particularly in areas with fewer employers.
In recent decades, the government has also decided to allow the unfettered proliferation of Uber-type jobs, sacrificing the needs of low-wage workers in order to satisfy the preferences of wealthy, urban consumers and calling it all “innovation.” The central “innovation” of the gig economy is to call employees “contractors,” to avoid giving them benefits and a stable salary.
Even the American safety net exists not to eliminate poverty so much as to use poverty as a cudgel to force individuals into low-wage work. The earned-income tax credit goes only to people with earned income; food stamps and welfare benefits require a job-search effort. Over time, UI has become in some ways more and more like welfare; many states have made benefits shorter in term and stingier in size.
The government has long encouraged low-wage jobs and forced people into them. This is what we are seeing when governors rush to slash UI at the first sign of a real recovery and when policy makers describe workers’ demands as a “drag” on the economy. Uncle Sam is acting in the interests of low-wage employers, not the economy as a whole.
Perhaps the status quo is changing. The Biden administration has pushed a new New Deal designed to end poverty and provide greater economic security to the 99 percent. It is arguing that bolstered, extended UI should be kept in place for the benefit of American families. It is also promising to be the most pro-union government in decades. Part of this push must be giving workers the power to say no to employers—and putting employers in the uncomfortable position of having to compete for workers.
Maybe a labor shortage is a good thing.
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Jellicle Songs: Order of Introduction
So, the Cats wiki says that, though Munkustrap always gets the first line of the show, the rest of the opening lines in Jellicle Songs For Jellicle Cats can go to any character. But, I’ve noticed that there are a few different patterns that different types of productions use, and that most productions after 2002 use the same one.
Now, there are some lines that almost always go to the same characters, most of them in the first and second verses:
“Are you blind when you’re born” is always Munkustrap’s line.
Outside of the Broadway Revival, Demeter always gets “Can you see in the dark?”
The next two lines go to Skimble and Asparagus, though they can go in either order.
The next three lines go to Chorus Tugger, Alonzo, and Babygriz.
The second verse is also almost always the same. It goes: Jellylorum, Coricopat, Jemima/Sillabub, Chorus Deut. Newer productions have Coricopat and Tantomile say both of their opening lines together instead of each getting a separate one.
In older versions, where the twins aren’t in unison, Tantomile opens the third verse.
“Familiar with candle” is always Jenny’s line. Sometimes Victoria sings it with her and sometimes she doesn’t.
“With book and with bell” is where things start to get complicated:
Pattern 1: London Version
There is a clip of a rehearsal of this number in London in 1993 or 1994, a few years before the VHS was done. Though the VHS is mostly London-based, the line distribution differs wildly from what was probably still the order onstage in London while the VHS was being filmed.
Now, for the sake of clarity, I’m going to define what the verses are here. The first and second verse are easy to divide, because they’re both followed by a chorus. But, there’s no chorus between the third and fourth verses. I consider them two separate verses, because the melody repeats.
“Can you ride on a broomstick to places far distant?” opens the third verse.
“Are you mean like a minx? Are you lean like a lynx?” opens the fourth verse.
There are a few lines in these verses that always go to the same character:
“Are you Whittington’s friend?” is Bomba’s line.
“Were you there when the pharaohs commissioned the Sphinx?” is Cassandra’s line.
Not even the Broadway Revival, which seems to delight in breaking from tradition for the sake of it, changes this.
Now, back to the London Pattern.
The lines that differ are:
“With book and with bell”
“The Pied Piper’s assistant”
and every line following it until Cassandra’s line at the end.
So I don’t have to retype entire lines over and over, I’ll nickname the lines:
Book and Bell
Pied Piper
Heaven and Hell
Mean Minx
Lean Lynx
Keen to Be Seen
In London, but the early 90s, and in London-based productions, the order is:
Book and Bell: Admetus/Plato
Pied Piper: Rumpleteazer
Heaven and Hell: Mistoffelees
Mean Minx: Mungojerrie
Lean Lynx: Usually Carbucketty/Pouncival, but this can also go to Bill Bailey/Tumblebrutus.
Keen to Be Seen: Traditionally Etcetera, though the line usually goes to whichever cat will be swinging on the trapeze. In the original London production, that was Etcetera. Most productions don’t include Etcetera (what is wrong with these people?), so the line gets passed around. Productions that include Electra will usually give the line, and the trapeze, to her. Productions that don’t include either queen kitten usually give the line to Bill Bailey/Tumblebrutus, but he’s sometimes switched out with Carbucketty/Pouncival.
The VHS only has two of those lines follow the London pattern. There is a reason for some of this, however. It can mostly be explained by:
Pattern 2: Broadway Version
There’s actually a surviving video recording of the original Broadway cast singing Jellicle Songs on YouTube. A lot of the lines are said offscreen, but I’ve been able to piece together who probably sang what based on other Broadway-based shows that followed the same pattern.
Book and Bell: Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. Now, the original Broadway cast cut these characters, so what they most likely did here was have Carbucketty and Etcetera, the two characters who were cut when Jerrie and Teazer were added, sing those lines. In the Mexico and Buenos Aires versions, both Broadway-based, Jerrie and Teazer sing the lines and you can hear two voices in the Broadway clip. This is probably where they got it from.
Pied Piper: Mistoffelees. I rarely find productions where this line is said offscreen. Misto is a camera magnet.
Heaven and Hell: Plato
Mean Minx: Pouncival
Lean Lynx: Victoria. Only London-based productions had Victoria be completely mute at this time. Others gave her a single opening line to herself, and then nothing for the rest of the show.
Keen to Be Seen: Tumblebrutus. Like with Etcetera, he was the original trapeze cat.
The VHS used the Broadway pattern for Misto’s line only. The VHS Misto was played by Jacob Brent, who was playing Misto on Broadway at the time. Fergus Logan, who was playing Misto in London at the time, played Tumblebrutus in the VHS, which is why he gets Heaven and Hell in that version and that version only. Both actors were given the opening lines they used onstage.
The VHS didn’t borrow anything in the opening from:
Pattern 3: Vienna Version
But, I’m talking about it anyway. Since we have a full recording of the Vienna production and two productions based on it, we can observe that most of the line distribution in the three versions differs from both London and Broadway, but are identical to each other.
Jennyanydots says the entire “Familiar with candle? With book and with bell?” by herself.
Pied Piper: Pouncival. This one was really hard to figure out, because he only sang the line onscreen in the Zurich bootleg, which wasn’t zoomed in. Vienna and Paris, both professionally shot, didn’t show Pouncival saying the line, instead focusing the camera on Mistoffelees. In Broadway-based productions, which these technically are, Misto got this line. But, Vienna-based Mistos are mute. Misto is more officially mute than Victoria in these productions, though Zurich Misto does say “Old Deuteronomy?” at the beginning of that number. He can speak, but he can’t sing, and there are very few spoken lines in the show. In Vienna and Paris, he’s completely mute and has to mime to the twins so they can speak for him.
So, since Misto is mute, Pouncival, usually played by his understudy, says his line while Misto is the one attracting attention to himself.
Heaven and Hell: Plato. This didn’t change from Broadway.
Mean Minx: Tumblebrutus. Now that Pouncival has Misto’s line, Tumble steps in on Pouncival’s line.
Lean Lynx: Victoria, also unchanged from Broadway.
Keen to Be Seen: Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. Mute Misto created a domino effect of line changes. Pouncival gets Misto’s line, so Tumble gets Pouncival’s line, so Jerrie and Teazer get Tumble’s line, so Jenny sings both her line and their line.
Outliers:
I’ve mentioned the Broadway Revival being weird already, but the other standouts are Hamburg and the VHS. Hamburg and the VHS are the only productions to give Teazer the “Lean Lynx” line. Having Jerrie and Teazer have lines that play off of one another is so obvious that I’m surprised by how rarely it happens.
Also, Teazer was offscreen when she said her line in Hamburg. I’m not entirely sure if it was her. Either Victoria has Book and Bell and she has Lean Lynx, or Teazer has Book and Bell, which she normally shares with Jerrie, and Victoria has Lean Lynx, her usually Broadway line. I actually couldn’t tell, so this might not even be a thing.
The main VHS outlier is Electra with the “Book and Bell” line. I haven’t seen any other production do this and it probably wasn’t what London was doing at the time. The way they’d arranged everything else, you would think they would’ve given the line to Plato. You’d also think they’d give Pouncival Lean Lynx. Perhaps they wanted to try something new, and giving Jerrie and Teazer these lines works too well for no one to do it.
These Modern Productions:
First, because Broadway and Vienna had Jerrie and Teazer share a line while Coricopat and Tantomile had separate lines, and newer productions have the Psychic Twins sing their lines together, there’s an interesting reversal. Earlier shows put emphasis on Coricopat and Tantomile as separate characters, while sometimes having Jerrie and Teazer act in unison. In newer shows, the opposite is true. And the opposite is always true, because nearly every production uses the London Pattern.
I went through my entire bootleg/pro-shot collection and searched the Cats wiki and YouTube for clips from other shows to compare as many Jellicles Songs as I could find. Around half of them are from the era between 1981 and 2002, when the original London production was going, while the other half are from after that.
Japan and the Broadway Revival broke from tradition to such an extent that I couldn’t factor them in. Japan has its own traditions and the Broadway Revival saw itself as a reset of the show, so it tried to be as different from what came before as possible.
Hamburg and the VHS are also outliers, but they have more overlap with other productions than the above two. The above two are the only versions to have a character other than Demeter get the second line. They break from any pattern immediately. Hamburg and the VHS mostly keep their pattern-breaking to the third and fourth verses.
So, the Older Productions are:
London
Broadway
Vienna
Paris
Zurich
Mexico
Buenos Aires
Hamburg
The 1998 VHS
US Tour V (Though all the bootlegs are from 2005 or later, it was still a Broadway-based production that started up in 2001 as a continuation of the original Broadway)
The Newer Productions:
London Revival
UK Tour 2013
UK Tour 2016
Berlin
German Tent Tour
Madrid
Moscow
Dutch Tour
Out of the Older Productions, only the London production used the London Pattern. Broadway, Mexico, and Buenos Aires all used the Broadway Pattern, with Hamburg also doing a very similar thing. Based directly on Broadway, US Tour V also used the Broadway pattern, despite being newer than the other versions in this category. The VHS was a hybrid of London and Broadway. Vienna, Paris, and Zurich used the Broadway pattern
London: 1
Broadway: 4
Vienna: 3
Other: 2
There’s a fair amount of diversity with a slight lean towards the Broadway Pattern. The productions that use the Broadway Pattern exactly are all from the Americas. Different regions of Europe have their own variations.
As for the newer productions, excluding the Broadway Revival, they all use the London Pattern. Every single one of them. Three of the productions are from the UK, so that’s to be expected, but the pattern is now everywhere. Berlin was partially based on Hamburg and started in 2002, right as the original London was closing, but it uses the London Pattern. Other German productions followed suit, taking more inspiration from London than from earlier German language productions. The first production in Dutch, Amsterdam, was Vienna-based, but the Dutch Tour is London-based.
Honestly, I’m kind of disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with the London Pattern or London-based productions, but do they all have to be like that? I’d prefer for there to be some diversity. The Broadway Revival provides that, since America always has to be different from everyone else, but I honestly don’t like the Revival arrangement. In earlier versions, each line went to a different character, while the Broadway Revival gives some characters multiple lines, leaving characters who’d normally have lines with nothing. Skimble has his line, but he also gets Keen to Be Seen. Jellylorum gets both her line and Jenny’s line. Sillibub gets her line and Lean Lynx. Munkustrap has three lines to himself.
So, though I appreciate the Broadway Revival for giving us something different, I wish it could provide a good different
tldr: Every production in the western world is either London or Blankenbuehler and that’s a bit boring.
#jellicle songs for jellicle cats#cats london#cats obc#cats vienna#cats paris#cats zurich#cats hamburg#cats 1998#cats mexico 1991#cats buenos aires#cats 2014#cats uk 2013#cats uk 2016#cats troika#cats berlin#cats german tent tour#cats madrid#cats moscow#cats dutch tour#cats 2016#andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats#the other shows are all fine#i just get bored easily#this is a long one
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Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’
This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!
TL;DR
Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?
A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.
Context
In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.
(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)
(SVSSS donghua - ep1)
I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.
I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)
Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:
(Excerpt I - ch2)
Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.
(Excerpt II - ch2)
(Excerpt III - ch2)
Contrarian Tendencies
You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.
A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.
In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.
For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).
The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.
But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.
AO3 Comments
Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:
(Comment I- ch3)
(Comment II- ch4)
(Comment III- ch4)
Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.
I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.
On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!
#svsss#bingyuan#bingqiu#the scum villain's self saving system#luo binghe#the untold tale#phoenixtakaramono#ask#technically not an ask#but i like to categorize it there#I mainly wrote this lengthy explanation on tumblr#bc I wanted to link this as ref#anytime someone asks me in the future regarding LBH’s kids#lol it’s actually not cinnabar pills hidden in a bracelet#it’s some sort of seeds which supposedly stopped concubines from being pregnant#I discovered this when I rewatched Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace#Do you all notice you have a unique writing syntax/ style#that’s how I can identify that you’re all diff ppl in the comments#one time an anon guest wrote something for G&G#and in the comment thread as another guest anon they supposedly agreed with the prev anon#in that case it was obvious it was the same person pretending to be another guest anon#and I can tell because their writing syntax/ voice is identical#which is why I’m so pleasantly surprised to see this phenomenon in the SVSSS fandom#you all have diff writing syntaxes#seeing you all interact with each other’s comments or my comments to other comments#is just such a delight ahhhhhh#I love the SVSSS community#you guys are so warm and welcoming
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My Attempts At Making Unique Nonhumans Part 4: Aasimar/Tieflings/Genasi
Listen, time is soup. I forgot it was Wednesday. It’s been a Week. Anyways, have some funky magic people.
Taglist (just ask to be added/removed!): @hellishhin @talesfromaurea
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Aasimar: I really like the lore for the Aasimar so I really didn’t change much besides the ways they are created, of which there are now 3 kinda loose categories. The first is the normal way, a semi-celestial born of mortal parents due to some sort of divine happenings or a mortal infused with celestial energy. The second is being literally part celestial from a very different kind of “divine happenings”. The third is that they were created by direct divine intervention, which is much more rare, and usually results in a more obviously celestial appearance (as well as often being created as fully grown adults with no mortal template). I also kept the stuff about their “purpose” though I do think it’s a little more loose and hard to determine than the official lore makes it seem. Anyway, onto the funky stuff! Aasimar are immensely varied due to mainly two factors: 1. They don’t have genetics since they’re literally angel people, and most celestials primarily self-actualize. 2. The ones that used to be a part of/were born from mortal species will retain those features as well. So honestly, an Aasimar could be just a plain looking human who sometimes sprouts glowing wings, or an Aasimar could be an 8 foot tall lady with silver skin, glowing markings, and wings on her ankles that match the 4 that appear on her back. So yeah, they can get all sorts of weird. Extra eyes, all sorts of wings, holy markings, weird colors, glowy bits, all of it. A lot of it fluctuates too, especially with the more emotionally driven of aasimar. For example, they might glow slightly when happy or proud, or their eyes might get cloudy when confused or angry. And any Aasimar’s appearance of their angelic features might change based on how they feel, due to the self-actualization bits of their celestial heritage.
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Tieflings: Tieflings, my beloved. Same as the Aasimar, I kept most of the lore and just added some ways they are created. (Also I removed the racism against them because I don’t like it. They aren’t even fully fiends, leave them alone.) The first way is obviously via curse or fiendish pact passing down bloodlines like the official lore. The second is that they are the product of mortal/fiendish relations, because monsterfuckers. The third way is when fiendish energy infuses a place or person it can create tieflings, especially if the person/someone nearby is pregnant (baby becomes the tief). I also decided there should be demonic Tieflings too, because I want to, and it really makes sense for that third way especially. (In my world, places of great evil/sorrow/etc can create demons based on what happened there, so that sort of applies with Tieflings on a smaller scale.) Also, like Aasimar, Tieflings can vary widely as well. Could be an average bloke whose eyes are just red orbs or it could be a fourteen-fingered ivory-skinned half-demon with a set of horns shaped like a crown on their head. So yeah, pretty much anything. Some commons ones are wacky eyes, acidic or boiling blood, spines and horns, tails, pointy bits, and pretty much anything slightly spooky you can think of. Generally though, these traits will mirror or mimic the curse/fiendish magic/demonic heritage that makes them a tiefling, and unlike Aasimar this rarely changes even throughout generations.
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Genasi: Okay so I did it again, I added some new origins for genasi, because there’s so much potential. First way to get genasi is for elemental magic to imbue itself in someone, which could mean you were born during a magical storm or you witnessed an opening to the realm of fire or a thousand other things. Second way is to have elemental heritage, which is far less common, but it still happens. (I also extended this to not just djinn, because again, the potential). I also added some more types of genasi besides fire, water, air, and earth. In my world there are also storm genasi, smoke/steam genasi, dust/sand genasi, ice genasi, and life genasi. Genasi can be widely varied as well, depending on what elemental energies they have, but within elements many genasi can look different too, based on how much elemental magic they have. For example, a fire genasi could be just a human with glowy eyes and fire powers OR someone with glowing fiery tattoos and literal fire for hair etc etc. I think as far as biology goes here there isn’t really a lot besides the manifestations of the elements over top of whatever mortal species they would have been/their other heritage is. Like, a dwarvish ice genasi would still have all the dwarf things (like the two hearts and metallic bones and etc) but they would also have a body temperature of next to nothing (even worse for a mountain dwarf lol) and smooth icy skin and the ability to freeze water by touching it and all the ice genasi things.
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Now where all of this gets really weird is when you start mixing these three. Tiefling or Aasimar based Genasi is probably the most common since elemental magic is cosmically neutral and would just lay on top of the other thing, but like. A half Tiefling half Aasimar I’m sure would be very interesting, and who knows what the mortal bases for that were (imagine if they were different too). Also, Tiefling/Aasimar/Genasi bloodlines tend to overpower mortal ones so there can be generations of them from one event.
Basically, I like to give my players the opportunity to make the most complicated character designs possible, is what I’m saying.
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Thanks to @hellishhin for the suggestion for this week! Probably gonna do dragonborn next week if I’m not struck with inspo for something else first.
#Nonhuman series#long post#not story#worldbuilding#I don’t have a lot of specifics for these because I like the creative freedom of just saying they can be literally whatever#but i still think they’re interesting#also again if ya got suggestions#shoot#I’ll take em
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