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vonithipathachai · 1 year

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The Mario Movie and the Place of the Film Critic

So. I saw the Mario movie at the theater with my friend. …It was fine. I figure I probably would’ve enjoyed it more if I had a closer personal attachment to the Mario franchise. But I think it mostly accomplished its goals of being pleasant, light-hearted, mentally undemanding entertainment for families and fans of the games.

I will say, though, that as someone who doesn’t consider himself a big Mario fan despite having played his share of Mario titles, I found the discourse around the movie’s critical and commercial reception to be far more interesting than the movie itself. In the days shortly preceding and following its release, I found my YouTube feed being absolutely bombarded with Mario movie-related videos. These included not only blatant spoilers, but videos from YellowFlash, Ryan Kimel, and other anti-woke content creators weaponizing the movie’s success and using it as an excuse to take the piss out of Disney and the critical establishment (not that Disney and certain critics don’t deserve it). Now, I do feel I have something to contribute to the conversation, and I lean more on the side of the supporters of the Mario movie than the detractors. But I’m really not interested in waxing polemic here as, again, there are plenty of other people who are far better known than I am doing that already. Instead I’d like to ponder how we got to this whole situation between the critics and the audience in the first place and what can be learned from it going forward. Because I do believe we’re witnessing change in motion as Mario smashes the box office and big movie studios are finding themselves compelled to take notes. We might as well make the most of it.

The first thing we need to ask, which many who’ve observed large gaps in critical and audience approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes have wondered, is “What is the purpose of film critics?” Considering the question from a purely utilitarian perspective, I’m sure most would agree that they (at least in theory) act as a guide for the moviegoing consumer. We all have limited time and money to spend on media consumption, and we would ideally like to spend as many of these finite resources as possible on “good” movies rather than “bad” ones. Already we can see an issue here, as what exactly defines “good” and “bad” will vary between individuals. Some audiences simply want a dazzling audiovisual spectacle to relieve themselves from the suffering of mundane life for a couple of hours, while others may be looking for more substance from things like narrative, actor performances, themes, etc. so that they may feel personally enriched by the movie experience. Since the very nature of the professional critic’s job demands that the critic think more, well, critically about the movies they watch—carefully analyzing a film’s strong and weak points to argue for or against said film being worth seeing—they naturally fall into the latter category of defining “good” films primarily on the basis of substance. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be good, as it creates the potential for meaningful discussion and new perspectives which can help the ordinary audience member appreciate movies in a new light. It does, however, create an alienating effect between critics and more casual members of the audience.

Further compounding the issue is that the professional critic, once again due to the nature of their job, is likely to have different viewing habits from those of even other substance-oriented individuals within the general audience. They have to do multiple screenings per week (as many as 10-12 in the UK, not sure about the US) on top of writing their reviews and submitting them before the deadlines. Not only that, they do not have the luxury of getting to pick and choose only “good” movies to watch, but must watch whatever movies are assigned to them by their superiors, including all of the “bad” and mediocre ones. When you have to sit through so many movies, especially Hollywood genre movies that tend to follow similar plot beats, you naturally develop more keenly enhanced standards and sensitivity to whatever sticks out, both for better and for worse. This partially explains how Star Wars: The Last Jedi was able to win significant amounts of critical praise for “subverting expectations” and “taking risks” while at the same time drawing the ire of longtime fans.

With this in mind, it is easy to wonder why anyone would want to be a professional critic at all. A more pessimistic or distrusting individual might say that critics are driven by a desire for clout and prestige. Monetary gain would play a limited role at best, as the majority of film critics are in fact paid very poorly and must find additional income elsewhere. This typically comes through other forms of journalism, as critics are often college-educated with degrees in journalism or communications if not film studies specifically (which in turn explains how many of them can be construed as “woke” or otherwise politically left-leaning). But when the critic’s more demanding viewing habits have such great influence over how they assess what they watch, this limits the scope of people who take their opinions seriously, usually to fellow intellectuals who may or may not lean left themselves. Ultimately, the critic persists out of a sheer love for film as an art form, and the advancement of film as art is something their work gives them a vested interest in.

So then where does Mario fit into all this? When considering the critical predilection for substance instead of spectacle and their more refined viewing standards, along with the Mario movie’s safe, sterilized, corporate-mandated handling of the titular character and his world combined with a barebones and predictable story, it is not difficult to imagine how the movie could be given underwhelming critical reviews, even without accounting for any possibility of woke bias. If the critics can be said to “hate” the Mario movie, it is because it is antithetical to everything they stand for as intellectuals and lovers of film as art. It is pure audio-visual junk food. Well-made and satisfying junk food, but junk food nonetheless. But as far as its target audience is concerned, this is perfectly fine, even if it could do with just a little more time spent on plot and character development. Therefore it can be considered a “good” video game movie. Which makes it all the more curious that the critic scores have caused such an uproar.

As of this writing, the Mario movie sits at a 59% approval rating from critics and a 96% approval rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, which is only a 37% difference. For context, a movie on the site only needs a 60% critical approval rating to be considered Fresh, leaving it only a single percentage point away from Fresh status. It does not even have as low of a critical approval rating as similarly critic-Rotten-and-audience-Fresh movies on the site, such as Venom (30%C, 80%A, 50% difference) and Uncharted (41%C, 90%A, 49% difference). If the critics are too distant from the Mario movie’s target audience for their opinions to be worth consideration, then why is such a fuss still being made? Wanting to break the “video game movie curse” is no longer a viable excuse; by this logic, Sonic would’ve broken it already with two audience-Fresh movies well before Mario. The only logical explanation I can think of is that this is purely a matter of personal validation. The critic scores are essentially the one blemish on what has otherwise been a perfect triumph for Nintendo and its fanbase. …Either that or all the complainers are just a vocal minority and I’ve unwittingly found myself in one of those echo chambers. Maybe it’s a little bit of both, who knows.

I’d like to end this piece off with some advice, not that I expect either party to abide by it. Critics, if you are interested at all in expanding out of the intellectual bubble and gaining greater audience respect, it could be prudent going forward to try and put yourselves in the shoes of the movie’s target audience. Not every movie is trying or even needs to be Shakespeare or have a profound social message. Audience members, especially gamers, if you really don’t care what critics have to say about the movies you like, then just act like it. It makes you look a lot less stupid. And, uh, enjoy this possible new trend of high-quality Nintendo movies while you can. Shigeru Miyamoto’s not getting any younger.

#mario #mario movie #the super mario bros movie #super mario #film critique #film criticism

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hypnotichyenascrunchyrollcatchup · 28 days

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A Condition Called Love Hananoi-kun to Koi no Yamai

Broadcast: Thursdays at 23:56 (JST) Genre: Romance Theme: School Demographic: Shoujo

Synopsis Hotaru Hinase is a first-year high school student who treasures her family and friends above all else. Unable to understand romance, she decides she will be content living without the experience of falling in love.

While Hotaru is spending time at a cafe with her close friend, she witnesses the relentless breakup of a handsome honor student, Hananoi. Encountering him sitting alone in the snow on her way home, she extends her umbrella to him in a gesture of kindness.

The very next day, Hananoi appears in Hotaru's classroom, asking her to be his girlfriend. Despite being rejected, Hananoi sticks closely by Hotaru's side, performing selfless acts in hopes of pleasing her. Hotaru begins to feel emotions she had never felt before. Believing that these emotions could blossom into love, Hotaru agrees to date Hananoi.

First Impressions The first thing that really caught my attention to be honest, was the lead male's hair. I was thinking to myself, "Huh, he's actually kinda hot, usually these love interests have the most boring hair." Of course I knew it was too good to be true because I had already seen in the show's intro that he cuts his hair. Boo, cowards.

You see he cut his hair because of a misunderstanding while talking to Hotaru, and he keeps doing this, doing things for her without even asking if she wanted it. It's just a bit concerning because the way he's introduced he's breaking up with a girl and the way she shouts at him that he'll never have a real relationship it gives the impression that he's perhaps a player. So while I think the intention is that he's being romantic it's just giving me danger signals.

I can't help but think about the "Dobler/Dahmer Theory" from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. It's this theory that anything can be perceived as creepy or charming depending on how the recipient takes it. The name is a reference to Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything, who did a big romantic gesture in the iconic stereo scene, and Jeffrey Dahmer the notorious cannibal serial killer. The funny thing is I think that came out before the Dahmer stans really started popping up because of the Netflix series, but I think the stans actually make the theory stronger because it doesn't matter to them if he drugged, abused, killed, and then ate the flesh of his victims because they think he's hot I guess.

Similarly, I think Hotaru could have easily found Hananoi's actions creepy, but of course by the end of the episode she agrees to date him. I don't actually think this is a flaw of the writing, because the audience is given plenty of reason to think that Hananoi is sincere and not just wanting to manipulate Hotaru. He tells her that because he's hot a lot of people are too intimidated to get close to him and that she's the only one that's shown him genuine kindness.

This is a pretty standard romance trope, but what I think sets it apart is the fact that Hananoi pays attention to little details. Not just helping her lift heavy things or looking for her lost hair clip, but the way Hotaru was staring at a poster for a pork bun so he buys it for her later on without even saying he noticed it. And of course the reason he was trying so hard to find Hotaru's hair clip is because he noticed that she always uses the same things and guessed correctly that she treasured them dearly.

I don't want to make this too long but another thing I wanted to talk about real quick is how relatable I find Hotaru's lack of understanding with romance. I know some people on Tumblr might claim this anime is aromantic erasure, but I don't think it's actually doing that here. There's a lot of things Hotaru could be--aromantic, autistic, etc--but the development of feelings at the end of the episode doesn't necessarily mean that she's not aromantic. It could be a squish after all. Though I doubt the anime will go in that direction.

#hananoi kun to koi no yamai #a condition called love #romance anime #anime review #anime

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loonatism · 3 years

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WHAT IS THE LOONAVERSE? PART 2 – THE NARRATIVE DEVICES

LOONA is special among K-pop for its immersive storyline. These girls are not just k-pop idols performing a song, they also perform a story and that story is what we call the Loonaverse.

So, what is the Loonaverse? In a few words: The world and story that LOONA inhabits.

Yeah. Duh. But what is it?

Well… it’s complicated.

The Loonaverse is a fictitious story that borrows elements from real science and fantasy to build its world but also uses allegories, metaphors, allusions and other literary devices to tell its story. Our job as spectators (and specifically us theorizers) is to look beyond those devices to understand the message they are trying to send. In this post I’ll attempt to explain the numerous literary devices used to narrate the story of the Loonaverse.

So, these 2 things are LAW:

Each girl has two conflicts: an external one and an internal one.

The LOONAVERSE story is one of fantasy and mystery.

INTERNAL CONFLICT VS EXTRNAL CONFLICT

Or as I like to call it: UNIT vs SOLO

I’ve explained how the girls are trapped in a time loop and how escaping it was their overarching goal. This is the external conflict of the Loonaverse. The progression of this storyline is seen mainly in the Sub-Unit MVs and LOONA MVs but also in some teasers and other videos like Cinema Theory. The conflict is external because: 1) It comes from the outside. 2) The characters not have power against it, at least not at the beginning. 3) The conflict has effect over multiple people.

Also…

Every character has an internal conflict. A personal story. Each girl perceives the world differently and that changes the way they act and interact with each other. It is internal because: 1) It comes from within the person. 2) They themselves may be the cause for the conflict. 3) The conflict has effect on only one person: themselves. This Internal conflict is presented to us in the Solo MVs. Every solo MV is a window to the character’s mind. While the solo MVs are tangentially related to the main external conflict, they mostly focus on the internal conflict of the character.

External and Internal conflicts often mix and interlace each other to create a wider story. We will see how the external conflict fuels the internal conflicts of the girls and how their internal conflicts will shape the way they act towards solving the external conflict.

FANTASY AND MYSTERY

What is fantasy? The genre of fantasy is described as a story based in a world completely separate from our own. It usually features elements or magical/supernatural forces that do not exist on our own world. It is not tied to reality of science.

Wait a minute. You just spent an entire post explaining the science of the Loonaverse. You can’t call it fantasy now. Well yes, yes I can. Since most of the scientific elements I explained are theoretical, unproved in our world but in the world of LOONA they are a reality, a scientific reality. A reality that differs from our own, and thus a fantasy to us. But regardless of that the reason I call the Loonaverse a fantasy is because of the themes it explores.

Fantasy is a broad genre, it is one of the oldest literary genres, being found in old myths. Some of the themes often found in fantasy stories include: tradition vs. change, the individual vs. society, man vs. nature, coming of age, betrayal, epic journeys, etc. All of these themes are very present in the Loonaverse. But I’ll delve into each one as we encounter them.

What is Mystery? The mystery genre is a type of fiction in which a person (usually a detective) solves a crime. The purpose is to solve a puzzle and to create a feeling of resolution with the audience. Some elements of a mystery include: the Crime that needs solving, the use of suspense, use of figures of speech, the detective having inference gaps, the suspects motives are examined in the story, the characters usually get in danger while investigating, plus these:

Red herring. something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question and leads the audience to a false answer.

Suspense. Intense feeling that an audience goes through while waiting for the outcome of certain events.

Foreshadowing. A literary device that hints at information that will become relevant later on.

I just though you should know these definitions.

In the Loonaverse, the “crime” is the time loop itself, and the mystery is finding a way to break it. Or so we think. In reality, the “How do we break the loop?” question is solved rather easily. But can we really call this a mystery if the main question is already answered? Yes! It may no be a mystery story for the characters themselves but because BlockBerry uses various mystery genre tropes while telling the story, it is a mystery TO THE AUDIENCE.

That’s right! WE are the detectives!

In a classical mystery, the detective examines all clues, motives, and possible alibis, for each suspect, or in our case, each character. The same way we analyze every MV, every interaction, every possible clue to where and when everything is happening.

The Loonaverse differs from a classic ‘Who done it?’ by establishing that no suspect is actually guilty. The crime IS the loop, but no girl is responsible for it (or so we think). Our job as detectives is not to figure out who is doing this but to explain how and establish an timeline of events that shed a light to what really happened. In that sense, our job resembles more closely a real crime investigation than a mystery novel.

LITERARY DEVICES

There are many literary devices an author can use to tell its story. Too many to cover them all in here, so I’ll focus on the most recurrent ones in the Loonaverse:

Allusion. Referring to a subject matter such as a place, event, or literary work by way of a passing reference.

Archetype. Reference to a concept, a person or an object that has served as a prototype of its kind and is the original idea that has come to be used over and over again.

Faulty Parallelism. the practice placing together similarly structure related phrases, words or clauses but where one fails to follow this parallel structure.

Juxtaposition. The author places a person, concept, place, idea or theme parallel to another

Metaphor. A meaning or identity ascribed to one subject by way of another. One subject is implied to be another so as to draw a comparison between their similarities and shared traits.

Motif. Any element, subject, idea or concept that is constantly present through the entire body of literature.

Symbol. Using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning, they contain several layers of meaning, often concealed at first sight.

Genre. Classification of a literary work by its form, content, and style.

Some other literary devices worthy of your private investigation are: Negative Capability, Point of View, Doppelgänger, Flashback, Caesura, Stream of Consciousness, Periodic Structure, THEME, Analogy.

About Genre:

Genres are important because they give a story structure. They help an author tell the story in a way that makes it simple for the audience to understand what kind of story is being told. The classic genres of literature are Poetry, Drama and Prose. Some scholars include Fiction and Non-fiction.

In film there are a variety of accepted genres: Comedy, Tragedy, Horror, Action, Fantasy, Drama, Historical, etc. Plus a bunch of subgenres like Contemporary Fantasy, Spy Film, Slapstick Comedy, Psychological Thriller, etc. What defines a genre is the use of similar techniques and tropes like color, editing, themes, character archetypes, etc.

I point this out because the Loonaverse uses many genres to tell its story. Sure, the main story is a fantasy/mystery but every MV or Teaser has its own genre (especially the solo MVs). So, when I point out later that Kiss Later is a romantic comedy or that One & Only is a gothic melodrama, this is what I mean.

TLDR:

The Loonaverse is the world and story that LOONA inhabits. It borrows form real life science and fantasy elements to better tell its story. Each girl has an external conflict (escaping the loop) and an internal conflict (portrayed in the solo MVs). Both conflicts interlace to tell the story. The Loonaverse is a story of Fantasy because it takes place in a different world from ours and it is a Mystery because it is told using various mystery tropes. The story uses multiple literary and visual devices to tell it’s story and fuel the mystery.

REMEMBER: This is all my interpretation. My way of comprehending and analyzing the story. You don’t have to agree with everything. I encourage you to form your own theories. Remember: every theory is correct.

After all that you may be wondering what the story even is. And we’ll finally be getting to that. While I have my own interpretation of the timeline, themes and who did what. I think it’s more fun to slowly explore every brick instead of just summarizing it in one (incredibly long) post. I’ll do that much, much, much later. The journey will be just as interesting as the destination. I hope you’re in for the ride.

Let’s get to the real deal: The MVs. I’m going in chronological order so let’s start with girl No. 1!

Next: The bright pink bunny of LOONA: HeeJin’s ViViD.

#yeah i know its been months #life's tough kids give me a break #loona #loonaverse #loona theory #loonatism #heejin #hyunjin #haseul #yeojin #vivi #kim lip #jinsoul #choerry #yves #chuu #go won #olivia hye

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montystarotchild · 3 years

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💌 Life Path Readings (1-9)💌

Happy New Years everyone! I hope it was beautiful for each and every one of you all. I wanted to start the year off with an in depth reading addressing our Life Path numbers and the journey that we will be taking this year depending on each of them. All of the lessons of life have an over-arching theme of archetypes that look similar to others but become more distinct for each individual. We all have a story that only we can tell. This reading will help you to clarify, deep down, what you may already know and to act as a reminder whenever you need it along your path. I will be linking below the site you can use to calculate and read more about your own life path number. I hope you enjoy and cheers to a prosperous New Year!

Calculate your Life Path here: https://creativenumerology.com/life-path-number/

✨Life Path 1✨

This year you are being asked to step onto the path that’s marked ‘yes’! Your archetype for this year is The Bridge. The bridge is where we cross into the unknown on purpose. We do this in order to experience something that wasn’t on our side of the bridge originally. As a life path 1, your purpose is to learn all about the self. We are all meant to know ourselves but you specifically will initiate your passions based on what you discover about yourself. There are things within you that haven’t been recognized in a long while. This is the year where you will be tapping more into your instinctual wildness. You will be listening to your own inner voice as a master guide to lead you where you need to be. This voice is connected directly to Source and will never steer you wrong. While some may see you as self-centered, you actually work very well with others when it is needed. But as a life path 1 it is important to find a healthy balance of giving and receiving energy while interacting and working with others. It’s also important to acknowledge your attachments to things that keep you from acting upon your dreams. You should only have room for the things that match you energetically and for people who strive as you strive. This is where you can create with others very smoothly and lead effectively. The journey this year may look a lot like last year. It’s kind of like walking the same path everyday in the daylight and then having to walk it again in the dead of night. You can sense each step and it feels familiar but there is no sight to confirm what you feel. That is your intuition and you must trust each step. If your fear of potential or need for validation is keeping you from experiencing life and stagnant, it is time to release. No one can tell you where to go next, you must intuit this for yourself. Some of you may be singers, dancers or performers in general (spoken word poetry, live art, etc.) and this may be your main way of expressing yourself. It is time to believe in your talents and purpose. If you feel as if it is hard for you to accept your wins this year without an audience, speak with your ancestors. They are your biggest cheerleaders and are always rooting you on! Remember, “if a problem is not accepted as a problem, a solution may never be found.” Address those negative thoughts and free your soul.

✨Life Path 2✨

As a Life Path 2, you have been sent here to be the Judge. When we think of judges we think of harshness and punishment but that is the energy of the physical world, not the higher realms. You are here to bring balance, peace and serenity. As a child this could have been a magical gift that you were always tested to use. As an adult, the use of our discernment is essential to our daily decisions but as a child we are still learning these talents and how they work. You may have been put in many situations as a child where you were to be the mediator. Especially between parents but this could be between siblings, friends or even close family members. You may have always been seen as a sounding board for others. I’m seeing that this wasn’t always the easiest for you. You may not have had the time or space in order to learn about this gift because others were always demanding things of you. Now is the time. If you feel as if last year your goals did not materialize as fast as you wanted this message is especially for you. Patience. If we do not wait it out we can never know the results. This may have been something that kept you from moving forward with any creative ideas, for fear that they wouldn’t come about. This could have conditioned you to think small and leave “dreaming big” for others to do, even though your intuition is telling you that you too can live a great and abundant life and it’s not something you have to wait to be handed. The pains of the past have already happened and there is no need for you to bring them with you along your journey. Even if you aren’t completely aware of your unconscious actions, you may still feel hints of the past replaying in your present. This doesn’t have to be. You can let go of all that is no longer supporting your growth. As you are healing from childhood trauma I see that you will be swept away in a new study. You could be learning more about meditation and intuition and finding books that talk about both. As you absorb this information you share it with those around you that you care for deeply. I find it ironic that the number 2 talks about connections but every single card in your spread only has one person depicted. This is a reminder for you to not lose yourself in others. There can be no true connection without independence. I also see that the moments that you are able to sneak to yourself (the shower, taking a bath or even taking a toke 🍃) may seem wild at first if it isn’t something you are usually able to do but can be very therapeutic for you. Also, if you are looking into different ways to manifest, look into water magic. It might not be as intimidating as you think!

✨Life Path 3✨

What a beautiful reading! This will be a monumental year for you to truly tap into the depth of your own feelings. 2020 may have been a very “reactive” year for some of you. You may have found yourself reacting to situations strongly and emotionally without truly understanding why. If you found yourself starting shadow work towards the end of the year then clarity may be coming to you now. But for others, this may still be a confusing time and that is more than ok. When we first wake up for the day or from a nap it takes us a moment to gather ourselves right? Well imagine that you have been asleep this entire time, be gentle in the waking process of your spiritual consciousness. Because life has seemed so mysterious and “impossible” to crack you may feel as if you have missed a lot of the signs that could’ve kept you from engaging in situations you should’ve avoided. It is time to release replaying those moments because they have led you to today. And to unpack this emotionally may still seem like a daunting task for you. Most people refuse to face the unknown, will stay stagnant rather than move further into the future. Not you though. You have no problem exploring the unknown because interesting people and places lie within the fog. One thing that you may carry with you is a mask. You may enjoy changing your “appearance” in order to fit the room. You doubt that the real you would be accepted into the rooms where you really want to be. This year you are walking away from that mindset. You know that a true artist digs into the depths of their soul in order to create the things that change the world. It’s all about emotional fulfillment this year. Last year we learned that if it doesn’t move us it can’t come along this passionate journey of life. You are here to connect others with your words and the images you create out of them. There will be many opportunities for collaboration this year if you open yourself up to that energy. But before you can revel in that creative energy you must come face to face with yourself. There is a need to balance your emotional scales, which are so important when you are working with other people. If you don’t know where to start, your Ancestors are here to help you with anything you need, you simply need to ask. “Spirit, how can I uncover my hidden feelings/emotions today?” This is an opportunity for the floodgates to burst open within you. It may not feel like the easiest transition, and of course it won’t all happen at once, but this is where you find your creative spark. Because it is imperative that one come before the other, if not, you may show a level of cockiness to others that can be an emotional response that you aren’t fully aware of. Another way you can practice opening up to yourself more emotionally is by journaling. Write your most intimate thoughts and feelings down. When you can read them freely without judgements maybe practice your hand at a bit of poetry? It may really help with discovering the amount of depth you truly hold.

✨Life Path 4✨

This is going to be a powerful year for you 4’s. Things will seem unfamiliar but that is because things will be changing right before your eyes. Being born with a Life Path 4, you crave stability, structure and knowing. When others speak of change you may close off, feeling as if everything is exactly where it’s meant to be in your life, even if it’s not. This year you are coming from out underneath the covers and addressing what has probably been there all along. If you have found resistance in yourself when it comes to making a decision to act upon a thought, this message is especially for you. You are needing to step out of the mindset of control. You want to make the right decisions while receiving the right outcome but that isn’t what this year is about. Why limit yourself to what you believe is right when there could be many other different options that are equally as fitting, if not more? This is where you find your true feelings, in the midst of the storm. Think about something you really want to do this year. If no one else was around to decide for you, would you still be confident in the next steps you took towards that goal? Confidence is your key to success. Your belief in yourself will be the deciding factor on how 2021 will play out for you. I can tell you now, the more action you take (with less calculations of the end results) will take you to places you couldn’t have imagined! And you couldn’t have imagined because you still wanted that one way to work out more. That’s ok! If someone tells you they don’t struggle with controlling the outcome of life then they are lying. We all do. But for you, as soon as you release this need, new pathways begin to open up. I am seeing that many of you have been manifesting new networking connections, careers or financial opportunities. This can and will be successful! Your sole purpose as a Life Path 4 is to enjoy the work that you do. If this is not your current state or you are unemployed this only leaves the trajectory of onwards and upwards! There may be a mentor coming in for you this year. It can either be a masculine figure or they have masculine qualities, it could even be your father. They are going to assist in you connecting with the spark of life. There may be many other kindred connections coming about either through this new person or thereafter but I am seeing that you are surrounded by nurturing and compassion. This person(s) may teach you through lessons they have already learned, which will help guide you even more. You can relate to what they tell you and it may even help to uncover some of these hidden emotions behind your controlling. Either way, the connections in your life will be aiding you in these unfamiliar times, ensuring that you continue to nurture yourself. Do not lose hope, just because you can’t see the miracles doesn’t mean your wish isn’t being fulfilled!

✨Life Path 5✨

This year you are awakening the Healer within. As a healer (not just in the traditional sense) you understand that just like life, healing isn’t linear. You know that there can be many different paths to a common goal when it comes to healing. This may have taken you a while to understand or there are parts of this theory that you are still learning but either way, you are aware. You have really been working with the spiritual realm in order to manifest in the physical world and this has done you well. You continuously come face to face with your magic and everything that you are capable of. A part of this manifestation may be like minded folks who not only cheer for you but have their own ambitions you can cheer on as well. This year mutuals will be able to fully support and share in all of the magic that you are creating in your life. As new opportunities and financial gifts enter your life those who are around you who haven’t tapped into their own potential may not understand how you got so lucky. You may have others trying to intrude upon your sacred space trying to find out how it is that you do what you do and do it so well. You can be a very flexible person at times understanding that certain etiquette wasn’t granted to everyone but this year is a year of boundaries. If you feel as if certain boundaries are weaker for other people just because of who they are it is ok to reinforce with love. Being so adaptable allows you to shift your perspective whenever it is wanted or needed. With the proper boundaries in place you will receive confirmation on those who you can feel comfortable celebrating your wins with. This year will be a huge year for confirmations for you. You may even ask a question out loud and have it answered by Spirit that very same second. Especially if you see signs in 3’s, this is a divine message important for you to take notice of. As your true circle either grows with the right ones or, shrinks down to a tolerable and accurate number of supportive mutuals, take space for the pain it took for you to grow through this change. Separation isn’t always as easy as we think it would be even if we know we need it. With 2021 being the year of 5 (2+0+2+1 = 5) you have the double influence of change this year. This will be an important year for you to make a habit of constantly checking in with yourself. With so much change going on around you, your emotional self must maintain some kind of grounding. (333, 111)

✨Life Path 6✨

You are tapping into some ethereal magic this year 6’s! Last year you may have spent a good amount of time working with your spiritual self so this comes as no surprise. Your creative spark has been ignited in the presence of Spirit. You are honing your skills and mastering your talents. This may have been energy that you easily fell into in order to push aside an emotional response trying to get your attention. Your studies may have taken your observations inwardly where you discovered that you were accepting a lot more than necessary. Taking on emotional responsibilities that you are either hesitant to walk away from or are unaware of or ignoring your need to. This is also a very spiritual spread, highlighting clairvoyance and heightened senses. As you elevate energetically you may also tune into others’ emotions and energies accidentally. As you are exploring your spirit be sure that you are listening to your intuition as to what belongs to you and what belongs to someone else. Releasing the emotions and energies of other people will help you to clearly see who you are and all of your potential. Revealing your true self. Look into spiritual baths/showers and the process of cleansing your aura to help with releasing. A lot of you could be channeling your creative entrepreneurial spirit, wanting to heal the world and its inhabitants. Your ambition for this passion and your pure light continues to push you forward but you aren’t certain towards what just yet. If you are feeling strongly that there is more to the story when it comes to your dreams and manifestations, look deeper. You may be receiving signs from Spirit that you are dreaming too small, that there can be more. I am seeing that that doesn’t have to be an issue any longer. You could be coming into contact with a form of divination that helps you to continue to reveal your destiny. Either through Astrology, charm readings, tarot, life progression readings etc. You will be manifesting and reaching your goals of self-realization through this as well. This is the most important part of your message 6, when your manifestations begin to appear, do not question if they belong to you. That is the point of working on your intuition, so you don’t have to question, you just know. This is going to trigger a great change within you but you must not fight it. This destiny is yours.

✨Life Path 7✨

This year you are recognizing the pain current in your life and the boundaries you set up as protection at first but ended up being a source of limitations. Based on the life path 7, being as unique as you are, you have felt isolated for most of your life. Meaning just because you are in a room full of people doesn’t mean that you are showing up fully as yourself. There are layers to you that most cannot penetrate. Keeping people at a distance ensures that they don’t have an opportunity to learn you and then reject your most vulnerable parts. While this has been a comfort for you for so long you are receiving more and more confirmation as to how this is no longer serving you. Remember, when messages show up in 3’s it is divine. You are a seeker of knowledge but most knowledge can’t be consumed or discussed with others if you are afraid to let people into the sacred space of your mind. There is someone new coming in this year or this interaction has already happened, trust me you’ll know. This could be a quick interaction with a complete stranger or someone who is still fairly new to you. They are here to expand your point of view. This person’s open mindedness will inspire and intrigue you to open your own horizons a bit more. You could have a flash of ideas or inspiration that invites in a moment of reflection and nurturing care for yourself. Within this process your discernment looks similar to the ways of your new friend. Your healing will bring you a new level of mental clarity where you can clearly recognize your “boxes” more accurately and bravely step out of these confines. This won’t happen randomly of course. Spirit is aligning an opportunity for you to witness and experience a moment of awe. You may be exposed to a work of art, a composition of music or something that you view as a masterpiece. Are you interested in making something like that or something of your own? This is your moment to try! You never know what could come of it and you don’t even have to share it. Through this work or just in general you are finding your balance. Your body will be calling out for rest at the end of all of this and it is your duty to listen. No matter how good passion feels we must never give into burnout. If you believe in the possibility, it’s time to tune into both your feminine and masculine energy to truly understand what your body needs and when it needs it. We are all made of these merging energies where we learn to stand in our authority with an openness to vulnerability. Do not be afraid 7’s, this is all a part of the puzzle of you and there’s no way you can do it wrong.

✨Life Path 8✨

This year you are uncovering more to your own story 8’s. You may have spent 2020 doing extensive shadow work but you recognize that it never truly ends and there is always more to heal. Hence the infinity sign (∞) represented in your number. Based off of the childhood of people with the life path 8, you may have a tendency to lean into burnout culture. This may be because of being raised in an ‘all or nothing’ atmosphere. You may have been challenged frequently to do “better” as a child and that now manifests in all that you want to accomplish today. As an 8 life path you have a lot of goals set and all leaning towards financial security. But a large part of your shadow work this year is learning when to rest. Rest doesn’t have to mean always sleeping but taking intentional moments in your day just to exist. This is the year where you learn yourself and what you need intuitively. Some lessons are harder to extract from our psyche but you are tired of always being ‘on’. Your intuition is being called towards independence and freedom. You are being guided into the astral planes where earthly limitations do not exist. Here you will gain more spiritual knowledge and find your truth. You won’t have to do anything special to reach this new experience. Your soul has it’s very own connection to the Source of life. All you have to do is be. This year you are also learning the lesson of “this and that”. What this means is that something can be “this” but it can also be “that”. You may have had a decent childhood (this) but there is still trauma that you have to address and begin to try to heal from (that). This year is all about honesty. As a result of this patience with your soul work you display this same patience in all that you manifest. Where you may have been anxious or impatient for the results of previous manifestations, this year your dreams’ growth reflects your own personal growth. As you are reawakening beware of your speech towards others, especially those who you feel may have held you back. Intentionally or not. You have a way with words and can use them as a weapon if not cautious. Instead, taking your fast wit and humor inwardly and examining yourself through a less critical viewpoint will assure that no one is harmed in your inquiry. No matter how strongly you feel about others and their expectations of you, you must release your need to react. There is a difference between standing in your authority and not allowing others to sway or bully you vs reacting off of something that may have truly hurt you in the moment. Your deeper connection with Spirit will show you exactly what is important to fight for. It’s not for the last word but for all of your hopes and wishes. They are all coming true, it’s just time to stay aligned, no matter what.

✨Life Path 9✨

This year you are taking a deep look at yourself 9’s. I am going to start off by saying that this process is going to take some strength in patience because no healing is linear. We usually like to see the fruits of our labor the day we’ve put the seed in the ground but there’s an entire watering process that we are missing. You are the seed #9. You may have noticed something recently. You are unsatisfied or unhappy with your surroundings. You may have a hard time finding simple things in your room. Or there’s never any silverware clean when you need to eat. And laundry? Forget about it. If there is disorder within your home, your sanctuary, might there be some emotional cleaning that needs to transpire first? It is true that doing daily physical activities are much harder to do when there are unsettled thoughts and feelings trapped within the body with no release. Before anything can be addressed maybe taking a walk will free your mind up for some “heavy lifting” thinking. Or if you can’t get outside and haven’t yet, take a nice shower in order to connect with the water element. There is something that you have been back and forth about within your mind. Something that you want to take a leap of faith on. Sometimes we view ourselves as these small beings that life happens to. And other times our mind drifts to the idea that there is more, that you are more and are here to experience more. Which is true! But when we are so focused on what we want and our purpose for being here, the more, we tend to laser focus. We want this outcome so badly and we will cover every step to ensure that we get it. And when we do we must keep going. This year you may be finding that this doesn’t actually manifest your desires any faster. If anything you may find yourself wishing on stars that have already lost their luster. There is someone coming in to set some realizations straight for you. It could be them sharing their purpose or just a wise word that could really help you in your situation. Of course all ways be careful with strangers sharing their own thoughts but take what parts of the message ring true to your heart. Are there areas of your heart that are closed off from hearing something healing? Beneficial? Why? Do you view compassion as a weakness or a strength? This is only the beginning of your deep introspection 9’s. There are many layers to your emotions that you are just beginning to open up to. Take each life lesson brought to you with a different level of emotional maturity. Allow yourself to fall into the vulnerability of all that is you. This will bring in a breath of fresh air and clarity for you. Your thoughts will be diverse and you will be decisive. And if you are able to find a safe moment outside try something for me, open your arms out wide, tilt your head back, take a deep breath in and scream “THANK YOU” to the stars above. How did that feel?

If you enjoyed this reading please like/reblog! As this is a general reading, tipping isn’t required but always appreciated. 💖

https://cash.app/$aftonelizabethh

#positive message #oracle cards #divination #free readings #tarot services #tarotcommunity #tarot #tarot reading #life path #life path number #2021 tarot reading #2021 #montystarotchild

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thedangerfloofhasreturned · 3 years

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Writing Tips - The Art of Character Shipping

*Please note that this is a writing tutorial only, using formulas drawn from familiar story tropes already frequently used in the modern literary field. It is not meant to be interpreted as an ultimatum for actual lifestyle or relationship advice.

Ah, romance––where would we be without it? While this subject will delight some readers and leave others feeling squeamish or annoyed, a balanced story usually contains at least a little. But yes, this phenomenon is in fact an art, and as an art it comes with a few formulas of structure. How you ship your characters depends largely on the genre your story is following, your target audience, your story's main theme, the natures of your characters themselves, etc.; however, the most crucial point for literary shipping is whether or not your characters can be identified as a good fit for one another. Believe it or not, a key element to good quality romance in your literature is if your target audience isn't completely blindsided by whomever you decide to ship––i. e. your coupling methods are somewhat predictable. Whether or not this is how reality works (I wouldn't know), for literature, it's important to understand which formulas you're using.

Character Types: What Counts as a "Good Fit"?

The definition of a "good fit" will usually vary with your target audience. Depending on how much effort you really want to put into this portion of your work (as well as how widespread and accessible you expect your publications to be), never can the divisions between Eastern and Western cultures be seen so well as they can over this particular subject. Interpretations of marriage and symbolisms aside, when you don't throw in a little fluff from time to time, your story will likely be taken as either a cautionary allegory for something or the author's coping mechanism for past trauma, neither of which garners as strongly to the interests of a reader who wants to read a story, not "learn a moral." One of the most notable differences between the stories in which the main character's True Love figure represents an ideal or concept and the ones where it's just two people awkwardly blundering around each other is the extent of sweet, silly humor employed; the grand ideal is more often than not setting itself up for some kind of disillusionment, while the other will probably manage just fine as long as the comfortable hilarity stays intact.

Here are some of the classic archetypes of character shipping that can be recognized throughout most of modern literature:

1) The Noble and the Fool

This ship type can be found in plenty of today's YA literature. Its central theme is like its title says: Bungling Idiot Meets Beautiful Gem. This is a spin on an older stereotype of how nice guys act towards the girl they like, often seen in stereotypical teenaged school settings; it is also a strong favorite of teenaged school girls, who find it a useful method of how to identify their ideal of genuinely nice guys. While gender is a flexible factor, the overtone still carries heavy shades of the “goofball guy and Princess Charming” vibe, and has come to be a popular media favorite; awkward flirting is a key tipoff for this type, as are sweet gestures of kindness that result in either dismal failure or complete disruption. Depending on how you want your romance to play out, it’s also possible to give each member of the ship their own doofy characteristics, thus dispersing the adorkable humor more evenly instead of leaving all the awkwardness on one side. Examples of this type include Bernard/Bianca from The Rescuers, Amity/Luz from Owl House, and just about any romantic coupling Ryan Reynolds has performed in.

2) Love/Hate but Not Really

This is one of the most well known classical ship types, its formula structure in Western literature dating back over 500 years, and probably more. Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing gives one of the clearest depictions of how this ship works, as well as demonstrating why it's so funny to watch it play out. The staunch refusal to either publicly acknowledge or lie about having a crush is what gives this type its unique flavor, and also guarantees a good supply of entertainment for the rest of the characters; they're free to snigger in their sleeves about these friends who carry the potential to (and often outright do) work themselves into an existential crisis over leaving the issue unresolved. Examples of this ship include Han/Leia from Star Wars, the Potterverse Ron/Hermione, and Elizabeth/Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

3) When Sparks Fly

Some types of ships kick off well from the get-go, which is perfectly fine; the obvious indicator is when both characters operate on the "same frequency" (a mutual understanding). This usually happens with well-grounded characters who know themselves and one another and what they both want well enough to be able to work as an "Us" unit. While intensity varies from couple to couple, you can always see an element of warmth, be it more like a flaming inferno or more of a gentle glowing candle; either way, this ship will carry its own variant of “the Smolder.” Many examples of this ship type can be found in (of all places) classic children's literature, such as Mr. and Mrs. Darling in Peter Pan, Fred/Scrooge's niece from A Christmas Carol, and Jim-Dear/Darling in Lady and the Tramp, as it often carries as a large part of the preset expectations of what a healthy marriage looks like to children. In a shocking parallel, Bojack Horseman also gives several practical examples (more in the final season than elsewhere) of some of the factors such relationships naturally entail.

4) Taming the Beast––or "Pruning"

What's not to appreciate about the classic Beauty and the Beast/Taming of the Shrew trope? This ship usually plays into a redemption arc of one or more of the characters, where an unexpected love interest will change bad habits into good ones, occasionally culminating into a "final sacrifice" moment. Depending on the theme, one member of the couple is usually either coming from a dark place in life or from a position of pompous arrogance left unchecked for too long. In the humbling process for pompous arrogance, while the extent of severity of the reality check that must be given varies, many story themes favor a harsher one than "experts" would recommend, thus leading the character out of the pompous arrogance into the dark place in life; however, it is possible to not traumatize your character into better behavior and simply humble them through the discovery of true love. Either way, the central pillar of this ship is, "You make me a better person." Classic literary examples outside of the obvious Beauty and the Beast are James/Lily from the Potterverse, Dulcinea/Don Quixote from Man of La Mancha, Eliza/Henry from Pygmalion, and, one of the most extreme demonstrations (and possibly the most readily misinterpreted), Jesus and the Church.

Toxic Ships: What Defines Toxicity?

Whether intentionally or otherwise, most readers' expectations of romance will be shaped by what they read, regardless of its accuracy; readers will also make outside interpretations about whether or not a certain ship is toxic, regardless of any indicators to the contrary. I will not be analyzing what should or should not count as Stockholm Syndrome here; this is purely meant as an outline for helping determine and understand your story’s plot direction. For at least much of Western culture, the main problem lies in today's interpretation of what a "toxic" relationship incorporates––what it looks like, what the expectations for it are, how bad it has to get before it's “officially” toxic, etc. Many writers have made desperate efforts to elaborate and illuminate the differences, but the results are so widely diverse and far apart from each other that almost no solid knowledge can be gleaned from it other than that each one stems from that individual's understanding and experiences. The simple fact is that there is almost no set of rules that determines what makes a relationship toxic other than the most obvious: possessiveness, stripping of freedoms, controlling activities, etc. For all observers, if the "beloved" has to escape from the "lover" in order to survive, it's a toxic relationship. Original intentions of the authors aside, there are many types of ships that have been labeled "toxic" when they are actually not, while other types of ships get a long way before anyone identifies them as being toxic at all. Here's a few things to keep in mind when crafting a ship for your story:

A healthy ship can happen well naturally.

A healthy ship can stand independently of its setting.

A healthy ship is designed to protect and unify.

A healthy ship has clear boundaries and expectations.

A healthy ship includes teamwork.

A healthy ship is never self absorbed.

This is where cultural differences split East and West in the definitions of what makes a healthy relationship. Being more community oriented, many Eastern cultures often disregard certain factors in a relationship in favor of other priorities––money, political standing, basic survival needs, etc.––but that is not to say that the emotional experiences are completely disregarded for their “lack of good judgement." The standards which many of these cultures hold marriage by are fairly serious, as the origins of marriage itself are fairly serious, but the chief priority for most Eastern societies is having children and continuing the family line. For some social groups, this aim takes precedent over the euphoria of "being in love," but many others make efforts to form matches that already show good romantic potential.

On the other side of the issue, Western culture takes what many other cultures have taken to be a hedonistic approach; most ships in pop culture are based on feeling, and end whenever that feeling runs out or an obstacle appears. Fortunately, this is not always the real-life norm; plenty of couples who understand the limitations of emotional overflow by itself can retain solid, harmonious relationships that share a common understanding of what is expected by each member. The central problem in the Western interpretation of romance seems to stem more from lack of self control rather than malicious intent. Notice how this factor doesn't alter the initial definition of relationship toxicity, nor is that definition itself dependent on Western or Eastern cultural interpretations. Depending on your audience, as long as you formulate your story clearly enough that the reader can easily tell what's going on and why, they should understand whatever meaning you choose to supply it with.

Fluff vs. Erotica

For vanilla readers (like me), erotica is generally something we try to skim through as quickly as possible; if it's not relevant to the main plot line, there's no need to have to read it in detail. The term "smut" is used specifically for fanfictions, while "erotica" is more generic, but both essentially mean the same thing: porn, but with words instead of pictures. I will neither endorse nor condemn such writing here; the only thing I caution you to do is to clarify your content very expressly and meticulously. You have to let people know exactly the kind of book they're picking up and what it will entail, and it is possible to do this without giving away key plot components. The YA genre is especially prone to this writing style, as it contains most of the coming-of-age and disillusionment story themes that frequently contain explicit connotations. Do not let your more sensitive readers get sprung with an unpleasant surprise, especially when it is, or even looks like it is, largely unnecessary to the main plot of your work.

Believe it or not, there are methods of writing erotica that will not immediately brand your work as sex fuel for the vulgar in the eyes of lighter readers. Depending on your writing style, the amount of poetic license you include in your story on the whole can help mitigate the connotation your scenes will naturally carry; if it looks more like art and flows as smoothly and gracefully as honey, you will have entered the writer's equivalent of the "tasteful nude." This style does not alter, eradicate, or adjust the facts, but leaves the obvious muted by placing the reader's perspective more in the background of your scene. By drawing more attention to the shadows than the action (in this context I mean figuratively), it will give the scene a sensual illusiveness that leads the reader far enough to get the basic principle, but "leaves them wanting more." In this way, readers who are not interested in erotica can easily skim through the section without losing their appetite for the story itself. Another element that can help the reader wash down the erotic is by including the traumatically graphic––not necessarily anything vibrantly ugly, but something truly tragic that renders the tone of the story in a new light. Once again, it is important to notify your readers of the kind of content they're picking up; without it, if your work ends up in the wrong genre, you risk losing a valuable audience segment.

#so great how I can write romance so well without ever having had it #writing tips #books #nerds #literature #authors #romance #romantic #storytelling #write

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duchessofostergotlands · 3 years

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Who was your favourite character in Squid Game?

Spoilers ahead: Ok so I wrestled with this response. Because there's my favourites as in the adorable cupcakes whose cute little faces I just want to squish (Ali, Sae-byeok, Ji-yeong) and then there's the ones I think are the most compelling, well written, well acted, essential to the plot/themes etc and those ones are not necessarily people I like. I think people have spoken a lot about the adorable cupcakes and my answer will be exactly the same so instead I'll focus on the second question:

Cho Sang-woo - Ok, listen. Hear me out. He is viewed as the villain by a lot of people and yes, he does horrible things. But I honestly think his character disturbs people so much because a lot of us would act in the same way in that situation and that frightens us. I think his character brought in a lot of moral ambiguity and complexity which made the show so interesting . Partly because of the fact that unlike the other characters, he had a well paying and high flying job and he fucked it all up due to greed. And secondly because he points out the fact that while Gi-hun may genuinely be devastated at the loss of his friends, he is also hiding behind Sang-woo because Sang-woo does the dirty work. Gi-hun may be a good guy, but Sang-woo reminds us he is knowingly benefiting from someone else's ruthless behaviours and when you look at the overarching theme of a capitalist critique, that's a highly relevant point for a lot of us in wealthy nations. And this is all brought to life so beautifully because of Park Hae-soo's performance which was in my opinion the best in the show. He was phenomenal.

Hwang Jun-ho - I think his character was crucial to the whole show because it gave us a window into the machinery around the Squid Game. Also it could have been quite samey if they'd rattled through all the games really quickly and just focused on the players so whenever his character came on it was a break for the audience, something different to explore. For some reason it gave me kind of Die Hard vibes! I think because they are both not typical "action heroes" - they are more sensitive, they are genuinely in pain when they're injured because they're not invincible, they spend most of their energy trying to hide rather than fight. And I like that in a hero. He used his intelligence and creativity to get him through and the whole time he was guided by his love for his brother.

Jang Deok-su - another one whose character is a total prick but I found them highly compelling. Unlike Sang-woo there was no real moral ambiguity with him. He was a bad guy inside the games and outside. But watching it he was the one character where I was most curious about how he got to where he is. Because if you watch, the times when he is most angry or where he lashes out are times when he feels rejected, insulted, betrayed. And obviously I am nothing like him but I do relate to reacting in anger when you're actually experiencing hurt because you don't know how to process and manage hurt. So I think despite his toughness and brutality, he was probably the most thin skinned and insecure of all the characters and that's a hard thing to get across in the writing and acting. It is actually really difficult to create a villain or a bully without straying into either a distasteful redemption arc or a cartoon of a villain with no human qualities. I think Deok-su was a great example of a bully who was clearly not a good person and didn't have any real growth but was realistic and fleshed out.

#ask #ssimsass #non royal #squid game #spoilers

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sailor-muno · 3 years

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Hi and welcome to my new series called: Mixing D&D with the Black Clover Universe

In this series I will be taking elements, mechanics, and other random things that I like from D&D and figure out how these things could work/be implemented into the Black Clover world. With that being said please add on your own thoughts and ideas to this topic because I want more stuff to think about. Also do not be afraid to suggest a D&D concept to me because it’s all valid here. With that being said let’s get started!

The topic: Classes - The Bard

“Words and music are not just vibrations of air, but vocalizations with power all their own....They say that the multiverse was spoken into existence, that the words of the gods gave it shape, and that echoes of these primordial Words of Creation still resound throughout the cosmos.” - D&D Players Handbook

Section 1: What is a bard?

Typically, we think of bards as magical musicians, but that’s only a narrow wedge of what a bard can be. Bards are experts, performers, and craftsmen, worldly travelers who can win the day with a smile and a careful selection of words where bladed steel cannot. Their spells lean toward charms and illusions rather than blatantly destructive spells. With a wide-range of knowledge in many subjects and a natural aptitude that lets them do almost anything well, Bards become masters of the talents they set their minds to perfecting, from musical performance to esoteric knowledge.

However, not every minstrel singing in a tavern or jester cavorting in a royal court is a bard. Discovering the magic hidden in music requires hard study and some measure of natural talent that most troubadours and jongleurs lack. It can be hard to spot the difference between these performers and true bards, though. A bard's life is spent wandering across the land gathering lore, telling stories, and living on the gratitude of audiences, much like any other entertainer. But a depth of knowledge, a level of musical skill, and a touch of magic set bards apart from their fellows.

Only rarely do bards settle in one place for long, and their natural desire to travel—to find new tales to tell, new skills to learn, and new discoveries beyond the horizon—makes an adventuring career a natural calling. Every adventure is an opportunity to learn, practice a variety of skills, enter long-forgotten tombs, discover lost works of magic, decipher old tomes, travel to strange places, or encounter exotic creatures. Bards love to accompany heroes to witness their deeds firsthand. A bard who can tell an awe-inspiring story from personal experience earns renown among other bards. Indeed, after telling so many stories about heroes accomplishing mighty deeds, many bards take these themes to heart and assume heroic roles themselves.

Cassiea - OlchaS

The Bard class takes inspiration from the Norse skald, the warrior-poets and historians of Scandinavia; the Celtic bard, honored storytellers who reportedly followed heroes into battle to retell their deeds and also acted as neutral diplomats; and the southern European minstrel, musicians who entertained royalty.

In medieval Ireland, the bard was a highly respected profession of poets, storytellers and historians. Bards trained for many years, and held the important role of learning and retelling history in memorable poetic form, in a time before reading and writing were commonplace. By some reports, the bards held the highest social caste in society, and it was taboo to refuse them any request; one even asked for the king's brooch, who was forced to comply, though the brooch was later returned.

When it comes to Bards in Black Clover I would see them as pretty much the same thing. Historians who have a passion for stories and knowledge. They’re the documenters of all knowledge that isn’t related to spellcasting (think grimoires, making magic items, anything Julius would be interested in, etc.). This means that they are in charge of taking care of documenting things like the history of the kingdom, popular folktales and songs, news articles and basically anything else that one would consider to be a historical resource. They are the lore keepers of the kingdom and as such they often have a large presence all about the Clover Kingdom and can be found in all social class districts.

“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” - Oscar Wilde

Section 2: Magic and the Bard’s College

When it comes to black clover and it’s magic system, we all know that the only way to cast spells of significant power is with a grimoire. This will never change and I will not change it within the context of adding classes to the world. However, with that being said I still believe that while we can’t change the core foundation of how a spell is learned and stored, we can change what the caster uses their magic for. When we think about classes in this context all of a sudden we no longer see them as a different way of casting magic but instead we see it more like a school. How we use our magic in this world is dependent upon our education, like fine-tuning a weapon a class takes your sword and sharpens it m into a fine point.

To go along those lines I now must address The issue of bards only being able to cast their magic with music. In the world of black clover instead believe that bards can cast magic in any way they see fit, as long as they are using their magic in an artistic way. This could be painting, cooking, singing, dancing, or any other artistic medium. when we put the class under these definitions there are actually quite a few characters in the show that could be considered Bards. Some of these characters include but are not limited to:

Kahono

Kiato

Puli Angel

Rill Boismortier

Marx Francois

Charmy Pappitson

Vanessa Enoteca

Kirsche Vermillion

Catherine

Samantha Kravitz

Elvira Aguirre

Damnatio Kira

David Swallow

Langris Vaude

Dorothy Unsworth

Dominante Code

these are just a few of the characters that I believe are bards. something interesting to know about this list though is that a lot of the characters on this list or female, more specifically they’re witches. well I cannot give a solid explanation for why this is I can give my own theory on it.

Witches have an innate ability forecasting artistic spells. Based off of what we’ve seen from most of the witches in the show a lot of their magic is based around the idea of Creation or illusion magic. With Elvira and Samantha both having a form of illusion magic that manipulates sound and sight. I like to think of their magic being like the Minor Illusion spell in D&D. Vanessa having threat magic and using it to make dolls and sew clothes is another bard like trait that helps fit this theory.

When it comes to bards in this world and their magic we often find that their magic in it of itself is very showy and performance like. While any magic can be interesting to see some mages are just gifted or taught how to use their magic in a way that is particularly showy or dramatic. For those who are not gifted with artistic magic, and struggle to teach themselves how to use their magic in a creative way there has to be a place where they can go to learn how. This is why we have the Bard’s College.

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul” - Joseph Addison

Section 3: The Bard’s College

The way of the bard is a gregarious one. Collecting songs and stories and sharing them with each other in an effort to spread knowledge. It is for this reason that the bards college was made, it is a place for bards to come together and share their finding and store them somewhere they can be taught to future generations. It also serves as a place of learning, teaching its students various mediums of art along with how to properly preserve and document history and record the world around them. While they may not be magical scholars, they certainly are the clover kingdoms finest anthropologists and non-magical historians to date. The college is also home to the biggest Historical Archives in the Clover Kingdom. These archives are treated very much like the Vatican Library and will be explored in the next section.

Now in D&D there are 8 different colleges a bard can attend (including the new Unearthed Arcana college because it’s cool): The College of Creation, The College of Eloquence, The College of Glamour, The College of Lore, The Collage of Spirits (UA), The College of Swords, The College of Valor, and The College of Whispers. Rather than putting all 7 college into the Black Clover Universe I have decided to take these 8 colleges and merge them together to make one college with 8 different “degree plans” one can take. This section will provide you with a generalized overviewed of each of the eight schools. If you wish to look more in depth at either of the colleges from a more mechanical viewpoint rather than a lore point I have provided links to each of the different colleges above.

Bard of Creation

Bards believe the cosmos is a work of art - the creation of the first dragons and gods. That creative work included harmonies that continue to resound through existence today, a power known as the Song of Creation. The Bards of Creation draw on that primeval song through their art as they try to spread the Song of Creation and its meaning to all life on the planet. Usually Bards in this Path either have a love for their art or an already artistic magic such as voice or painting magic. This path is one of the most difficult routes for a non-artistic mage to take on, but it isn’t impossible.

While studying under this practice most mages learn how to take non-magical items and infuse them with Mana to serve as a arcane focus for their spells. Taking their magic and concentrating it into a fine point that is easier to control and direct (think like Noelle and her wand.) along with this the Bards of Creation also put a heavy focus on Creation spells, helping their casters hone and fine tune their spells to perfection. Most Bards of Creation go on to either work in the noble realm as scribes for the nobility or become performers in small towns, collecting villagers stories and immortalizing them through their craft.

Some Characters that I believe are Bards of Craation would be:

Rill Boismortier

Dominante Code

Telian Springbreeze - College of Creation

Bard of Eloquence

Bards of Eloquence master the art of oratory. Persuasion is regarded as a high art, and a well-reasoned, well-spoken argument often proves more persuasive than facts. These bards wield a blend of logic and theatrical wordplay, winning over skeptics and detractors with logical arguments and plucking at heartstrings to appeal to the emotions of audiences.

Bards of the Spoken word most people in this group tend to be Debaters. Always looking to be the winner of an argument these bards are almost unparalleled when it comes to knowing what to say and when. Spending their time studying vocabulary and reading they learn to retain lots of memory and also learn how to regurgitate it properly for any situation. Most bards of this type often go on to become politicians or work for the Magic Parliament as a lawmaker and negotiator. They also end up becoming Royal Advisors in order to help with lawmaking.

Some Characters that I believe are Bards of Eloquence are:

Damnatio Kira

Marx Francois

Valorant Rose - College of Eloquence

Bard of Glamour

The Bards of Glamour are regarded with a mixture of awe and fear. Their performances are the stuff of legend. These bards are so eloquent that a speech or dance that one of them performs can cause captors to release the bard unharmed and can lull a furious dragon into complacency. The same magic that allows them to quell beasts can also bend minds. Bards of this college instead use this power to gladden the downtrodden and undermine oppressors. The can also use their magic to inspire their allies and keep them going through the worst of times.

Often times bards in this school are taught how to use their magic to captivate people and serve as support characters in a battle. Being able to draw on their mana as a source to take their art and use it as a method of passing their spell buffs to their allies these bards often times are found as support roles in their communities. A majority of them finish their training and then apply to join the magic knights, they’re often highly sought after to serve as combat support and occasionally as healers (though this is less common) .

Some Characters that I believe are Bards of Glamour are:

Kirsche Vermillion

Charmy Pappitson

Antigone LaRue - College of Glamour

Bard of Lore

Bards of Lore know something about most things, collecting bits of knowledge from sources as diverse as scholarly tomes and peasant tales. Whether singing folk ballads in taverns or collecting the stories of people at the old folks home, these bards use their gifts to hold audiences spellbound. When the applause dies down, the audience members might find themselves questioning everything they held to be true, from their faith in the priesthood of the local temple to their loyalty to the king.

The loyalty of these bards lies in the pursuit of beauty and truth, not in fealty to a monarch or following the tenets of a deity. The Bards of Lore are the protectors of the archives, serving as it’s curators and guardians. As this is such, a majority of the Bards of Lore prefer to stay with the archives and study rather than leave out for adventure. However some bards do go out and these aren’t the ones that spend their time looking for stories to add to the vast collection of tales in the archive already.

Some characters that I believe to be Bards of Lore are:

Samantha Kravitz

Elvira Aguirre

Bonezo the Undead - College of Lore

Bard of Spirits

Stories of the past are powerful; they hold lessons of history, philosophy, and magic. Bards of Spirits seek the stories of those from beyond the material plane. Using seances and rituals, they reach out to hear their stories, but the bards have no control over what story they find. These bards are closely tied to otherworldly powers often being able to tap into the astral plane (dream dimension) and the threads of fate themselves. Some speak to the dead while others become oracles and masters of fate.

Bards in this school often end up training themselves to use their magic see into the other planes of reality. All bards in this college need to have a gift for the sight in order to join because their magic needs to be tied to the planes. Here they learn how to use their magic safely and correctly so as to avoid any dangers that come from speaking with things outside of the material plane. Most of these bards go on to become oracles or fates. Traveling the countryside easing the pain of lost souls and misguided individuals.

Some characters that I believe to be Bards of Spirits are:

Dorothy Unsworth

Vanessa Enoteca

Tristan - College of Spirits

Bard of Swords

Bards of Swords are called blades, and they entertain through daring feats of weapon prowess. Their talent with weapons inspires many blades to lead double lives. One blade might use a circus troupe as cover for nefarious deeds such as assassination, robbery, and blackmail. Other blades strike at the wicked, bringing justice to bear against the cruel and powerful.

Blades who abandon their lives as entertainers have often run into trouble that makes maintaining their secret activities impossible. A blade caught engaging in vigilante justice is too great a liability for most troupes. With their weapon skills and magic, these blades either take up work as performers or will join the magic knights in order to take their two lives and finally merge them together. Seen as skilled combatants and magic users these bards are not a force to be reckoned with.

Some characters that I believe to be Bards of Swords are:

Kiato

David Swallow

Sierra - College of Swords

Bard of Valor

Bards of Valor are daring skalds whose tales keep alive the memory of the great heroes of the past, and thereby inspire a new generation of heroes. These bards gather in mead halls or around great bonfires to sing the deeds of the mighty, both past and present. They travel the land to witness great events firsthand and to ensure that the memory of those events doesn't pass from the world. With their songs, they inspire others to reach the same heights of accomplishment as the heroes of old.

These bards are taught the stories of dead heroes and in turn a lot of them end up going on to write music about them or use their stories as inspiration for their magic. Often using their knowledge to help inspire their friends in combat and bring hope in bleak battlefields. A majority of the Bards of Valor go on to join the magic knights in hopes of finding their own hero to write and tell stories about. Seeing this as their shot at becoming Chaucer or Geoffrey of the world (Chaucer wrote A Knights Tale and Geoffrey wrote the stories of King Arthur)

Some characters that I believe to be Bards of Valor are:

Kahono

Puli Angel

Hype - College of Valor

Bard of Whispers

Most folk are happy to welcome a bard into their midst. Bards of Whispers use this to their advantage. They appear to be like any other bard, sharing news, singing songs, and telling tales to the audiences they gather. In truth, the College of Whispers teaches its students that they are wolves among sheep. These bards use their knowledge and magic to uncover secrets and turn them against others through extortion and threats in order to seek out justice.

Many other bards hate the Bards of Whispers, viewing it as a parasite that uses the bards’ reputation to acquire wealth and power. For this reason, these bards rarely reveal their true nature unless they must. They typically claim to follow some other school, or keep their true nature secret in order to better infiltrate and exploit royal courts and other settings of power. However they can also use their powers for good, often times bards of this school can use their power to help bring justice and equality to a flawed system or to bring justice to those the law cannot touch.

Some characters that I believe to be Bards of Whisper are:

Catherine

Langris Vaude

Ichiro - College of Whispers

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.” - Sue Monk Kidd

Section 4: The Archives

Miles upon Miles of shelves full of nothing but books and thousands of feet dedicated to this one library located deep below the college. Centuries worth of national history folklore legends no one‘s heard hundreds of years live buried beneath the dirt and cobwebs of this dank and mystic labyrinth of books. These are in the royal Archives. most people don’t even know this place exist however, the bards and nobles of the kingdom are very aware of its existence... and of it’s secrecy.

Now you may be thinking “Hey this sounds just like the Vatican library“ but unlike the Vatican library, the archives are open to anyone wishing to seek knowledge. The only reason a lot of people don’t know about it is because no one really cares to ask. If we’re being real here, a majority of the books in that archive are really just diaries written by old people that are really hard to read because they’re either in a different language or they just have poor spelling because people back then were illiterate. However some of the stuff within the walls of the archive it’s rather interesting. Ancient maps leading to long-lost treasures, legends that have faded and been forgotten with time, stories of war love and loss.

It is within these walls that we find that only the country‘s history but it’s very soul. We find the story of our people hidden deep within these tombs of books. Well it is very rare for somebody that isn’t a barred to visit the archives if one is really out seeking knowledge the archive is open to them. I would like to believe that Gauche and Gordon have both visited the library at least once right after the seabed temple arc.

The grounds of the archives are guarded heavily by the bards of the college. Not only are they guarded but they are also highly protective of the knowledge there. One of the worst things that could possibly happen is the destruction of the archives. It would be on the same level as the burning of the library of Alexandria. It is for this reason that anyone wishing to enter the archives must first pass a test of character. If you are perceived as a threat you will be turned away from the archives but not banned, nobody should ever be denied access to knowledge.

“A society that has no respect, no regard for its bards, its historians, its storytellers, is a society in steep decline, a society that has lost its very soul and my never find its way.” - Laurence Overmire

Section 5: Conclusion

I’ll keep this section short and sweet because it’s been a long read and I just wanna give my thoughts. Honestly I thought that Rill and Kahono had such a unique style of magic that it almost felt like a crime to give us a taste of bard magic without making it something that was common. Plus I felt the clover kingdom needed historians to archive their history so I felt that this was a fun thing to put together to solve both problems!! I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to add your own thoughts and contributions to this post because I really wanna hear them!

#black clover #bard #seriously tho this was so much fun to write I’m sorry it’s so long I couldn’t help myself #I think I wanna go into monks next time #I was originally gonna say grey was a bard but she doesn’t have the charisma to do it. she’s more of a Druid anyways

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thewhizzyhead · 3 years

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HELLO SOME OF YOU GUYS LIKED MISFITS AND SOME OF YOU GUYS LIKED GRADE 11 (i posted about that musical draft thingy back in march and um yea there have been a lot of changes fjxjf) AND GUESS WHAT DUDES I HAVE MORE MUSICAL CONCEPT SHITS TO RAMBLE ABOUT BECAUSE MY BRAIN IS WAY TOO HYPERACTIVE FOR MY OWN GOOD SO SIT BACK, RELAX AND ENJOY THIS CLUSTERFUCK

@ari-is-anxious have fun with this and i wish you the best of luck in trying to comprehend this-

+ Kasaysayan (which means History) - this is the 2nd musical concept thingy i made (the first one being Misfits) and yea i started thinking of this went I was 14. I kinda wanted it to tell a story of like the entirety of philippine history as narrated by students and i wanted to kinda emphasize how history has many faces and how many different factors essentially blur our perspective of what we view as the past. I also wanted to like draw parallels between what our ancestors have experienced and what we currently experience esp when it comes to sociopolitical and economic stuffs and I wanted to like correct a lot of misconceptions about ph history and provide more insight and info about ph's past (i.e how centuries of colonialism have affected our current culture and overall social mindset esp in regards to our want for validation from foreigners aka the whole #PinoyPride thing; how even though activism and revolution is like the main reason on as to why the Philippines even exists, it continues to be demonized here; the ideologies of some of our revolutionary heroes and presidents and why some of them are dicks; etc etc). Also I wanted to showcase like um PH music, art, and dance and how that has progressed and also regressed throughout the years (*shakes fist at colonizers*) and um YEA YOU CAN SEE WHY I EVENTUALLY AND RATHER QUICKLY DISCONTINUED THIS TJCJSJF THIS IS *NOT* DOABLE AT ALL THSJFHF it could work as a concept album and a one-time performance BUT NOT LIKE A LEGIT PRODUCTION SO YEA FOR NOW IT WILL STAY IN THE DRAFT FOLDER FJXNSJF but yea this idea then led to the next two ideas woo

+ Noli/Fili - started wanting to make this at the start of quarantine so like um march 2020 heck i even made a wholeass word doc for this fjdjdv so it's basically a ph-rock-rap-based musical adaptation of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibuster) (yes these two novels are like tne national novels here since rizal is our national here and yea these were originally written in Spanish) but the protagonist of El Fili (Simoun) takes charge of telling Noli's story in Act 1 while Noli's protag (Crisostomo Ibarra) takes charge of telling Fili's story in Act 2. Those two books have very different tones and those two characters have um VERY DIFFERENT world views so i thought it would be interesting to tell one's story through the eyes of someone different and yet also the same to provide a lot more insight on how the events in the novels affected these two protags (there is a Good Reason for this and um Filipinos who studied this in 9th and 10th grade know what i'm talking about fhshf if u wanna um know what i'm talking about and don't wanna read the novels (they are very long) i suggest looking up El Filibusterismo and um yea check out Simoun fjsjf). Like for example, there would be times that Noli's narrator (Simoun) (whose general demeanor is like um a lot more cunning and cynical and a lot more resentful of the events that have happened compared to Fili's narrator) would directly question the Noli protag's (Ibarra) actions while Fili's narrator (Ibarra) (he is a lot more um hopeful and peaceful compared to Simoun) often questions how Fili's protag (Simoun) turned into well um a very cynical and cunning person with a taste for revenge (I am trying my hardest to NOT spoil the novels here gjdjf) and yea because the story is set in Spanish Colonial times here, i wanna focus more on the sociopolitical aspects and problems in the novels and how those still remain relevant here, hence the ph-rock-rap-based music. Also I would like to point out that the curriculum here barely like goes into depth about the subject matter of the novels (esp the sociopolitcal parts) and how said subject matter shaped the characters here and HOW EVERY SINGLE THING IN THIS DAMN NOVEL IS STILL RELEVANT,,,so um basically the curriculum is currently missing the entire point of the novels since Rizal wrote these two with the intent to provide socioecononic and political commentary on the pure shit that many of the Filipinos experienced under Spanish colonial rule,,,SO THIS THINGY IS BASICALLY MY MIDDLE FINGER TO THE CURRICULUM AND ESSENTIALLY MY ATTEMPT TO SHOW MORE OF THE NOVELS COMPARED TO WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO US FJJSJFV this is gonna be a nightmare to write tho cause wow those novels are jampacked

+ Patron - if this ever becomes a thing, I will consider it the greatest thing i'll ever write gjcjdbc I REALLY WANT THIS TO BE A THINGY AAAA so the plot is barebones atm but it's basically about journalism and activism here in the Philippines (and how both can get you killed fjjsjf i'm not kidding these two can legit get you killed wah redtagging sucks shit and the anti terror law can suck even more shit) and how the youth are expected to be purveyors of the country's advancement and improvement despite the fact that our voices are oftentimes dismissed and even permanently silenced when what we say goes against what those in power want us to say,,,those this is basically Misfit's spiritual successor fjxjdjf both of those musicals share similar themes fjxns so yea expect me ranting about a lot of political stuff here and a lot of talking about the ideologies of past and present politics and revolutions and how those affect the masses and how the masses can shape them in return. There will also be talk on how journalism's role in shaping society and how proper dissemination of information and lack thereof can affect people's mindsets aND HOW JOURNALISM IS OFTENTIMES MANIPULATED TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE'S MINDSETS (STUDENT JOURNALIST AND ASPIRING PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST'S RANTS GO BRRRRR YEA I HAVE A LOT TO RANT ABOUT).

Oh and also this musical is heavily inspired by both the noli and el fili novels and by spring awakening (Everything I Write Will Be Inspired By Spring Awakening dbjxd) in a sense that Act 1's active protagonist (who then becomes Act 2's passive protag) is named Elias and is based on both Elias from Rizal's novels and on Melchior Gabor (which is funny cause rizal's elias is NOTHING LIKE MELCHIOR GABOR SO UM LOOK IT'S GONNA BE HARD TO EXPLAIN JUST UM YEA IT'S MESSY) while the passive protagonist (who becomes the active protag by the end of act 1 and throughout the entire 2nd act) is named Cris Ibarra and is based on Moritz Stiefel and Rizal's Ibarra (more specifically um Rizal's Ibarra's growth into a very different character throughout the events of the two novels).

ALSOOO there is this one concept that made me really REAALLY want to make Patron an actual thingy and that is the existence of um Shadows in the show. Inspired by the voices in Deaf West Speing Awakening, these Shadows can always be found lurking on stage alongside their respective characters like um if Elias is in a scene, his shadow can also be found on stage somewhere. I kinda want them to like represent the characters' innermost thoughts and the other parts of themselves the characters' would like to hide through how the Shadows act on stage and um yea choreography gjsjf Patron is porbably gonna be very dance heavy so um yea it's a bit hard to explain so i'll just point to Alex Boniello and Daniel Durant's Moritz fjxjjf i kinda want it to be like that. The Shadows would be part of the show's ensemble and um yea lots of dancing and prop moving woo also at times they would be singing for the character they are assigned to like um while Elias would be in the middle of doing something on stage, his Shadow would be the one singing in his stead and when his Shadow sings, that's when the character becomes the most vulnerable to the audience because the Shadows often expose their characters' thoughts and worries to the audience that the characters themselves wouldn't really express. So like um the Shadows address the audience a lot gjxjsjd except for one aka Ibarra's Shadow. Instead of addressing the audience, Ibarra's shadow addresses IBARRA directly, often questioning Ibarra's actions (especially their hesitance in Act 1). ig ibarra's shadow is rather representative of what Ibarra would turn into in Act 2 when they take over as the Active protag. But um Ibarra's shadow still questions Ibarra frequently esp in regards to their risky actions so um yea Ibarra's shadow is kinda like the Fates the hadestown wherein they serve to sow doubt but over here Ibarra's shadow is meant to symbolize how insecure they feel in regards to their decisions which well, as the protag, make and break the show. Also um yea the rest of the characters' shadows also start addressing their characters more while the characters themselves start addressing the audience more so woo switcheroo! Also the dynamic that the characters have with each other is similar to the dynamics between the kids in Spring Awakening wherein they are just kids (well in this cause young adults aged 18-20) trying to figure out life in general and all that so woo

(also I would like to note that I really want Ibarra's role to be open to all genders in order to like make a statement that anyone can grow into the character Ibarra becomes throughout Patron but rn hmm i'm still thinking about how that will play out especially given that I kinda wanted Patron's Ibarra to have two love interests here aka Elias and Clara (kiiiiinda based on Maria Clara aka Ibarra's actual love interest from Rizal's novels but um YEA THERE ARE A LOT OF DEVIATIONS GJXSF) but tbh i'm still figuring out a way to make Clara have a much larger role here in terms of pushing the plot cause rn the Elias and Ibarra dynamic have an advantage since um active-passive protagonist switcheroo so I'm kinda thinking of a way to make Clara a secret 3rd protag that is both an active and a passive one? I dunno fjsjd honestly i'm still trying to figure out what Maria Clara represents in the novels cause I know for certain that Rizal did not write her to be a mere demure love interest so um yea WORK IN PROGRESS AND UM ALL IN ALL IBARRA CAN BE PLAYED BY ANY AND ALL GENDERS AND IBARRA IS PANSEXUAL BECAUSE I FUCKING WANT THEM TO BE GJSJJF)

+ Grade 12 - OKI SO LIKE I'VE POSTED ABOUT THIS BEFORE BACK IN MARCH BUT UM I'VE CHANGED SOME STUFF GJXJJD so anyways Grade 12 is well um designed to be a campy-please-don't-take-this-seriously-this-is-just-for-laughs-and-gags musical about 12th graders (i changed the grade to raise the stakes) that makes fun of Filipino TV tropes esp when related to teenagers while also providing a lit more insight on ad to what teenagers go through on a daily basis in terms of trying to grow into the person they want themselves to be while also trying to change to adapt to a world that more often that not goes against them. So yea it's not as heavy as the other musicals, heck I designed this after Preston Max Allen's Carrie 2 musical (dude check it out it has jenny rose baker and it's gold) so woo funsies but i also like this to mean something. Oh and also this is basically me ranting about Everything Wrong In The Philippine Education System (how it more often than not is really detrimental to the students' personal wellbeings through constant overwork and disregard of physical, mental and emotional health issues, its accessibility issues esp the issues experiences by those of the poorer sectors, the um very outdated info at times, how the system perpetuates classism and a shit ton of very detrimental social hierarchy bullshits esp through the implementation of the star sections (speaking as someone who's been in the "lower" sections and has also been in the star sections, I HAVE A LOT TO RANT ABOUT THIS ONE OH BOY FUN FACT I WANTED TO MAKE AN ACADEMIC PAPER ON THIS BUT MY 10TH GRADE TEACHER WOULDN'T LET ME) etc etc) plot is mainly barebones atm but um yea here are some of the updates to the characters: Kyla (formerly named Kate), Noel and Ella haven't changed that much but um I've decided to give the Halos Lagi Nalang number to Kyla and Max (nonbinary student that serves as a foil to Kyla in which Max is constantly being denied opportunities that they want while Kyla constantly refuses opportunities that Max wants; also yea i'll be talking about stories that trans and nonbinary students have experienced in both of my high schools through Max cause i really wanna bring attention to how the trans and nonbinary community is really being shat on despite the um sliiight improvement in the way schools treat the (cisgender) members of the lgbtq+ community; also they are just as ambitious as Ella (i envision her to be like um Draft Eva + Riley jfhdf) um yea major plot pusher woo I'd compare them to Draft Eva + Reese but um I Sincerely And Solemnly Promise To Not Screw Them Over In Act 2 fjjxfj) instead because they will be the ones with queerness being a much bigger factor to their individual plotlines compared to Noel and Ella.

The other main characters are um Marco (typical jock dude who's actually one of the more philosophical and introspective characters in the show; i want to like um highlight the whole sports scholarships debacle, how stereotypes can affect how people are treated in real life and also touch on the machismo culture that's um really being enforced here esp with him being an athlete and all; also he's really good friends with Max and through that friendship he learns that him slightly questioning his sexuality is a good thing so yea), Ruben & Lexi (i don't have that much planned for them atm because woo barebones plot but i do imagine them to be initially framed as the more antagonistic characters and have that like stereotype be taken apart as the show goes on esp considering that both are in the "lower sections" and are um more prone to stereotyping) aND A NARRATOR CHARACTER HMMM WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE GJXJD oki but this Narrator (can be played by any gender as long as the actor IS VERY FUNNY LIKE COMEDIC TIMING IS A *MUST*) is based on the Narrator in PMA's Carrie 2 but I also want the narrator to be like um more crucial to the plot as the story progresses esp as they interact with both the audience and the characters a lot more so like um it's a bit hard to describe their exact role here because um BAREBONES PLOT FJXJD but altho they can't directly affect the story they are telling (cause so far my plan for them is like um they were a former classmate of 7/8 of the characters here but unfortunately they died due to a car accident), they can and do indeed influence the characters in it and all of the characters (except Kyla) know who they are (especially Ruben) so um yea. Also the solo I have planned for them is called Live On (which is um yea a spin off of Move On fjxjd) and through them, I plan to explore the tragedy of unexpected deaths and what happens to those left behind (this will be based on observations and accounts from many of my former schoolmates) and how many have yet to move on and how they choose to live on despite of that because they know that's what their former classmate, schoolmate, and loved on would've wanted.

SO OBVIOUSLY I OWE GRADE 12 TO SIR PRESTON MAX ALLEN GJXJFJD THANK YOU PMA FOR ONCE AGAIN INFLUENCING MY WORK WOO

+ Concepts - oki so this is the only musical so far that i wanna write solely in English nfjsj so this is inspired by Fun Home in which there are like versions of characters in different ages right? Over here there are 2 versions of 6 characters: the 17-18 year old ones, and the 27-28 year old ones. Through them, this musical will explore two main things: (1) the sad and depressing reality of having to give up one's artistic dreams and passions for the sake of practicality and (2) choosing to take a leap of faith and try to grasp on to whatever chances one may have left to live a life that means more than just making ends meet. Act 1 has the teenagers focus on Point 2 while the adults focus on Point 1; Act 2 has the teenagers focus on Point 1 while the adults end up focusing on Act 2. Once again, um barebones plot with even more barebones characters (heck i dont even have NAMES for them gnxnd) but i think it'll be pretty cool to elaborate upon the shitty circumstances here in the ph when it comes to artistic pursuits and how most of the kids I know are terrified of growing up because they don't want to give up dreaming even though that they know that they have to wake up. I also think it'll be cool to point out thay even though that yea situations like these suck, it'll never ever be too late to pick up the pieces and try again cause at the end of the day, life only ends when you say it will end: there will always be chances, you just need to be gutsy enough to grasp them. Also um yea I originally planned to post like a shit ton of poems this month that would basically be the lyrics of the songs that would go into this musical bUT I'M LAZY SO I'M THROWING AWAY THE POSTING SCHEDULE FJXJSJD anyways here r 2 of the poems/songs that i wanna make for this:

+ In 10 Years - a duet between one of the teenagers and their adult counterpart which is um basically the teen singing their optimistic yet really in-depth and mature perspective on chasing Point 2 while the adult sings about Point 1, wishing that they could tell their teen self about how disappointed they will be; i imagine this to be um kinda like the first version of Dear Theodosia but um more intense maybe fjdjf

+ Run - a duet between two teens who are best friends where one girl tries to convince the other to run and play with her in the nearby playground AND YES THIS DUET IS VERY FUCKING GAY JDJSJDF this was um originally part of Grade 12 tbh and it was supposed to be sung by Lexi and it was supposed to be about a 9th grade event that i personally was a part of where um 9th grade student researchers at a research seminar at a different freaking university took over the elementary students' playground when the seminar finished (I SHALL TREASURE THAT MEMORY FOREVER) and um yea it was basically about holding on to your childhood while you still can...aND THEN I UNINTENTIONALLY MADE IT GAY JFJSJSF Lexi is still getting that song about the research seminar event tho but um it won't be Run cause Run basically turned into a song that's not only about holding on to what's left of your childhood but also to the people you treasure that you know you have to leave behind sooner or later and um yea the girl that the one girl tries to convince to go to the playground agrees to that and then boom go duet stylized after 21 and Alone Now + I Don't Care by freaking preston max allen once again woo (i promise that this won't be plagiarism gndnd) (also altho the two girls have to go their separate ways by their graduation, they eventually meet again at the end of act 2 so woo hopeful ending for the sapphics

OKI THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY FHXHSHD THIS IS WAY TOO FUCKING LONG OF A RAMBLE GOOD GOD AAAAA SO UM IF ANYONE ELSE MADE IT TO THE END, I ONCE AGAIN WILL SEND YOU A SHIT TON OF CARBONARA-

#ari i'm so sorry but this is like...so unbelievably long and convoluted tjxjs GOODLUCK #AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS TJXJSF #so moral of the story is: my brain is too hyperactive for my own good #God help me #also God help those who are gonna try to read this fjxjs #so woo more musical concept rambles aaa #move on tw #move on #ask to tag #izzy's rambles and shit

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amimons · 4 years

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Miraculous Sweet-ember (Sept. 24th)

September 24th: Backwarder, Gamer 2.0, & Weredad

Backwarder went deeper into Master Fu’s past by introducing an old love interest who has some involvement with the miracle box. Marianne was back in Paris after years apart from Fu due to the sensitive nature of Fu’s position as guardian. Unable to meet in person Fu gave Marinette a request to give Marianne a letter. A simple request made not so simple when Marinette also has a letter of her own she wishes to give Adrien on top of picking up Fu’s prescription at a pharmacy with a Doctors note. Its a classic situation of switching the papers up but it turned distarious when Marianne took Marinette’s note to Adrien as Fu’s note. She turned into Backwarder giving her the ability to reverse things.

Marianne is used as an example as to why having secret identifies is a positive thing. Since she knew the guardian of the miracle box she was able to inform Hawkmoth. It’s nice seeing the what could go wrong with sharing too much information about the miraculous which gives all the secretiveness a purpose. Backwarder was a tricky akuma to battle. Her defeat called for Ladybug’s most complicated lucky charm. I love seeing how Ladybug’s mind work. She is able to plan out solutions in her head by taking in her surroundings and getting the timing just right. She always has to be one step ahead of the curve. Which makes it interesting when her plan is all about goin backwards to get the result she needs. Ladybug has a brilliant mind and I love seeing it highlighted.

Gamer 2.0 explores the heavy toll that Marinette’s life takes as she works balances school, projects, and being a super hero. Giving her little to no time on doing activities for fun like playing video games. Because she has a jam pack schedule she lacks the patience to focus more energy on an akuma battle and wants to just quickly finishes things. This effects her performance in the battle which Chat Noir picks up on. Chat is having fun playing along with this akuma video game battle. He is someone who likes to live in the moment not feel stuck in it. He understands Ladybug’s perspective but knows that offering his own can help her get out of the funk she boxed herself in. This is one of the things that we constantly see Chat do over and over in their partnership. He is able to communicate with Ladybug in a way that can reach her and pull her out of a negative mental space.

This is a big reason why I love them as partners. Chat was just extremely fun to watch this episode. He was not only performing well in battle but having a good time along the way. And as him and Ladybug work their way up to completely the video game battle they are forced to face off against each other. Chat Noir heroically sacrifices himself knowing he can fully trust Ladybug to bring him back and save the day. Another grand gesture of trust shown by Chat Noir. After the battle Chat Noir leaves Ladybug with a sweet sentiment. He tells her that his favorite moments are when he is just with her and he would give up everything for just those moments with her. Not only is this very sweet of him to say especially since Ladybug was having a hard time struggling with sacrifices but because we know what Adrien’s home life is like. He is forced to strict schedules and not allowed enough quality times with his friends. So being with Ladybug gives him that chance to feel free and have fun.

Weredad puts Marinette’s acting skills to the test. After fearing that her identity was almost exposed to Chat Noir after he went after Ladybug only to find a detransformed Marinette on her balcony she does what any reasonable person will do in her situation. Proclaim her love for Chat Noir. Little did she know she also had an audience, her parents heard her proclamation of love and invited Chat over the apartment to join them in a meal. The whole situation called for some hilariously awkward moments and some really intense irony. Marinette does her best to act like she is hopelessly in love after Chat Noir respectfully decline her stating that he is in love with Ladybug. She pretends she is devastated by the news aiming to be as convincing as possible. Which actually worked a little too well because after seeing his daughter in such a distraught state, Tom gets akumatized into Weredad.

Weredad traps Marinette in a thorn tower to protect her from getting her heart broken again. This means Chat Noir is temporally going to have to take on the akuma alone. Chat’s determination to save Marinette is so strong. Even though he does not yet understand his romantic feelings for Marinette that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deeply care about her. Not only was this situation confusing for him but it was extremely difficult for him as well. It was hard for Chat to reject Marinette because her friendship means a lot to him. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Marinette but he needed to be honest with his feelings. Even when Weredad had Chat bested, Chat refused to lose. Ultimately Marinette was the one who was able to deakumatize her father because she found the hidden rose. I’m glad she was still able to rescue herself from this situation while Chat was willing to fight for Marinette’s safety.

About Sweet-ember:

For the month of September I wanted to spread some positivity and praise Miraculous Ladybug on the things I’ve appreciated/enjoyed from the show.

Everyday I’m going to select one particular moment, event, theme, etc. from an episode of Miraculous and shared what I liked from that episode. Each post will discuss 2-3 episodes (from season 1-3; 78 episodes in total).

Whether its something big or small there is something positive that I can take away from every single episode of Miraculous.

Please feel free to add a moment from these particular episodes that you loved to this post as well!

Salt towards the show, characters, ships will not be tolerated!

Sweet-ember posts

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

#miraculous ladybug #ml sugar #ml sweet-ember #Backwarder #Gamer 2.0 #Weredad #ladynoir #marichat #mine

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letteredlettered · 3 years

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hi! ive been following your writing for a few years now and i drop by periodically to check if you have anything new posted, and im really surprised that you seem to be enjoying the untamed? im curious what you think about the show - its story and characters, the acting, the production, etc. idk if you know, but the untamed is the most successful example of a current trend in chinese entertainment, where popular online novels centered around a gay romance is adapted into a 'safe' drama.

continued:

due to the many explicit and implicit restrictions imposed on creative media in china, many crucial plot points have to be changed (often badly) or removed, including the nature of the relationship between the main characters. the untamed is considered the most loyal adaptation so far, but like all other works in the genre, it received criticism for weak acting and queerbaiting. that's why im really curious about what you think of the show as it is, as itself, free from its context.

if you're interested, you could also check out guardian! it features much better performance and chemistry by the leads imo, but the story was heavily botched bc the original incorporates and reinvents a lot of classic chinese folklore beautifully and stuff like that is considered disrespectful and not-pc. i think it's really sad how so many great pieces of writing with complex world-building and plotlines are simplified into... idek what to call them, but just, less than what they are.

im sorry this turned into a rant. as a mainland chinese person with oh so many frustrations about our current society, it's hard to comprehensively describe my feelings about the untamed's popularity. it's the first mainland chinese show/movie to gain this much organic interest abroad so i should be glad? but, but. anyway, yes, im sorry.

There’s no need to apologize for ranting, but I admit to some confusion as to whether you want your question addressed or the rant. Because I’m me and tend to be thorough, I’ll address everything, in reverse order.

First of all, I’m sorry that this show is sad to you. I’m sorry that the popularity of it is difficult. I’m also deeply sympathetic to your frustrations about your society, as I too am deeply frustrated by my own.

Secondly, yes, I’m aware of the context of The Untamed. I’m aware that the book it’s based on is a BL novel, and that, in order to align with Chinese politics, overt queerness was erased from the adaptation. I’m aware of the censure laws of gay media in China. I’m also aware that some aspects of necromancy and morality were adjusted to make the show more palatable for general audiences, but I’m fuzzier on those details. Lastly, I’m aware that the popularity of the show calls attention to certain things, such as fanfic, and that attention results in more censorship,

The fact of this erasure and this censure provokes a lot of questions: by consuming this product, which contains erasure and censure, do we engage in the erasure and censure? By posting gifs and writing fanfic and talking about this product, do we increase its popularity, thereby encouraging additional erasure and censure? By increasing the popularity of this product, do we diminish the popularity of the original gay morally gray canon, thereby decreasing representation? Do we discourage other authors in China from writing explicitly gay morally gray material? In short, are we allowed to enjoy this media?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. However, I do know that boycott is a very effective tool when it can inflict economic pain on the producer, or when it can exert pressure on an entity to change. That said, I feel like a lot of the calls to boycott certain media these days are a lot like telling people to stop driving their cars to stop climate change: it’s suggesting that individuals can solve the problem, which presupposes individuals are the problem, and therefore fails to address the scope of the problem, or present the possibility of a real solution. Not watching The Untamed isn’t going to change laws about portrayals of homosexuality onscreen in China, partly because the laws in China are a much bigger problem.

The other part of it is that The Untamed is coded queer, so if you run a successful boycott against it, you end up with . . . less queer TV. I know a whole lot less about China than I do about the Hays Code, but if you had told gay people during the Golden Age of Hollywood that they couldn’t enjoy movies that were coded queer because they weren’t explicitly queer, they’d have said you were crazy. In fact, many people will tell you that media that was coded queer was a big reason we got more explicit queer stuff later. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the US is still fighting that battle . . . partly because it wants to sell movies to China.

So then there’s a question about whether me, an American in the US, liking something coded queer from China but not explicitly queer--does that encourage Chinese censorship? Should I only support texts that are explicitly queer? But the answer is the same--it’s not addressing the scope of the problem, and by supporting texts that are coded queer, you could be paving the way in the future for something brighter.

But you weren’t talking about boycott! You were talking about your discomfort with the popularity with this show, which I accept. I understand feeling uncomfortable. I can only hope it makes you a bit more comfortable to know that plenty of fans are deeply aware of the context and do wrestle with the question of what liking this show means in the context of a society that would never allow aspects of the original to be portrayed onscreen.

Thirdly, I’m not against trying Guardian at some point, but by comparing the acting and chemistry of the leads to The Untamed, I feel like you prove our tastes are very different in these regards. I love the acting of the leads in The Untamed; I found their chemistry off the charts. It’s okay you don’t feel the same.

Lastly, you asked my opinion of The Untamed: its story and characters, the acting, the production, sans context of the canon upon which its based and censorship laws in China.

a. I love the overall story, but the plot has deep plot holes. Quite a few segments do not actually make sense to me, because the plot is so haywire. However, I’ve never cared that much about plot, except when it gets in the way of characters and themes, and for the most part, this plot serves its characters and themes, except when the parts they leave out are so confusing that I cannot follow the story. As for the story, it feels like it’s built for me, because ultimately it’s about moral decisions and how to make them; it’s about guilt and paying for mistakes; it’s about learning, changing your mind, and remaking yourself. Really, I’m not sure there are many stories I love more--except they killed my favorite character, and I almost quit. So, that certainly put a damper on things.

b. I love the characters most of all, although the villains are really two-dimensional. However, large parts of the plot are not Hero vs Villain, they’re Hero vs Society, and then some Hero vs Himself in a way that suggests the Hero is no longer a hero. I could talk about the characters forever, but suffice it to say I think they’re really strong. Also, the relationships are really exquisite, particularly when it comes to family dynamics. Unfortunately, they killed my favorite character off. Also unfortunately, there are six women in this show, only two of them are main characters, and every single one of them dies. It disgusts me.

c. I think the two leads are exceptional, in particular Xiao Zhan . . . when he’s not being too broad, which he is quite a bit. However, I do wonder how much of this is direction and production style, because in many instances, he’s quite subtle, and the choices he makes are astounding. Then there are times where it’s like they needed more footage, or wanted to drive home a point, and he turns on the extra, and it’s awful. It could just be him, but I actually feel it’s the case with most of the actors, which does make me think it’s a directing issue. Meng Ziyi never really has that problem though, because she is the most perfect of all. But then take He Peng, who I actually thought could be incredible, but every scene was just SO BROAD that I began to feel sorry for the poor dude having to act that part. But there is nothing to be said for Wang Zhuo Cheng, who really is just terrible, which is sad, because it’s a great part.

d. Production-wise, it’s really hit and miss. So much of the locations are truly beautiful. A lot of the costumes are too, unless the shot is too close. I actually don’t mind the wigs; I love the long hair. The CGI is terrible. And then while a lot of the shots are beautiful, some of them are awkward, and the pacing is really difficult, imo. It really seems like they wanted to drag it out, and there are so, so many scenes where I’m sort of embarrassed that we’re in the same scene or that we’re still looking at someone’s face, or that everyone is just standing there waiting for the shot to finally end.

I will say that film is a language that does differ from culture to culture. It could be that both the broadness of the acting and the awkwardness of the editing are my cultural lens based on American and a lot of western film. When I watched older Hollywood films, the acting is a lot more broad and maybe a little less “true” feeling, but I understand that it’s not the case everyone in the past was a bad actor. It was just a different style, so I’m not sure I’m equipped with the cultural knowledge of Chinese acting, cinematography, and editing to be able to really judge the value of these things.

I do know how I feel, which is that the editing is the biggest hurdle for me while watching the show. However, I feel that the beauty of it makes up for a lot, and the strength of the characters and themes really carries it.

I hope I addressed your points adequately, and I wish you well.

#Anonymous #the untamed #china

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hippychick006 · 4 years

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Paleyfest 2006: Supernatural Panel

So many memories and a lot of things I’d forgotten but definitely worth a revisit to remember falling in love with this show and these guys, particularly with Drabbernatural and all the negativity recently.

I mentioned on another post, but want it stated here for completeness, that Supernatural Paleyfest 2006 is the panel that made me sit up and take notice of J2 as an entity, rather than just Jared and Jensen. Their natural chemistry in this panel just jumped out and you can see they were already becoming a bubble in how they interacted with each other. This is the panel that reeled me in, dammit!

In summary, this panel gave us the following J2 gold moments;

Jensen strip teasing for Jared (we think)

Boys acting like brothers

Protective Jensen

J2 dodging questions and trying to pass it to the other

J2 not listening to the actual question and having to ask again

J2 teasing each other and playing off each other so naturally

Flirty boys and gutter minds

Jared v microphones – microphones: 1, Jared: 0

Use of Jared and I…

Mirroring body language

Jared trying to get a kiss in public (it will become a running theme and if Jensen’s podcast with Michael Rosenbaum is correct then he’s getting his 15 year reward for being patient) Please don’t @ me, I’m aware Jensen is joking!

Shy, embarrassed, adorkable clapping and laughing Jared

J2 finishing each others’ sentences

J2 in sync

Placing under a cut as longish post

Note: Part 1 was posted recently. There are 3 edits so far between that post and this one: 7:15 and 17:45, 27:55, they are all clearly marked, otherwise the text is the same as before. Part 2 has been added since the initial post.

Timings are based on the video link and start at the answer point rather than the question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6YHq20XmNE

Part 1: Questions from the host

Supernatural was named in the Top 5 of new series by Entertainment Weekly

Aww. Kim Manners ☹ Miss his influence so much on the later seasons

2:20: Jensen followed by Jared are announced to the panel. Jared arrives and doesn’t quite know where he’s supposed to go. Oh Jared.

Robert Singer looks so young! Working with J2 for so long has definitely aged him. 😊

3:35: Erik says as far as he’s aware, this panel is the first gathering of Supernatural fans

3:40: Erik tells the story of them filming in Stanley Park the night before the panel and they get a call about a man near their filming with a handgun, set gets shut down, J2 held away, police etc. called in and 2 hours later they find out it’s one of their own guys from Special Effects team.

They showed Scarecrow episode at the panel – great choice!

7:15: Jensen is reintroduced to the panel. The host can barely get through Jensen’s previous roles because of the fans. Jensen says something at 8.10 “Over to you, Jared.” I think, not 100% sure, but he definitely shouts something to Jared (who has still to be introduced). [Edit, thanks to @wordsfallapart we think this might be “This is for you, Jared” which Jensen says as he’s taking off his jacket].

8:11: Jared is reintroduced to the panel. The host is still having the same trouble getting through Jared’s roles as he did with Jensens. A guy shouts, “I love you.” Same random audience member, same.

8:55: J2 slap hands as Jared sits down beside Jensen at the panel.

13:40: Erik’s been talking about the concept of the show and the care the brothers have for each other. Cut to Jared who is currently pouring Jensen some water. Aww

15:00: They auditioned “everyone in town” so J2 did really, really well getting these roles. They flew Jensen down from Vancouver and Jared’s complaining he had to drive. They thought they had found their Sam in Jensen.

15:45: Jensen and Jared trying to dodge the question by passing it to each other, Jared: What’s the exact question?

Immediately following this Jared’s talking about getting the role from his perspective and his little baby!Jared Texan accent is just…

17:05: Jared, talking about his mom being an English teacher who teaches mythology and legends: “…the taught teachings of Joseph Campbell” Jensen: “Didn’t rub off that she was an English teacher” Oh boys! Stop bullying Jared, he worked till 4.30am before flying down to the panel!

17:45: Jared’s still talking, Jensen starts snoring. I can’t… Jared shakes him to wake him up.[Edit: thanks to @annianvi Jared wakes him up by saying: Dean!”]

18:20: Jared and Kripke are trying to clarify something (who was in the room when Jared auditioned) but Singer is in the way and they keep going front and back trying to make eye contact

19:24: we get to what Jensen’s experience of the audition process was. Jensen: Pretty much the same. Jared (immediately): zzzzzzz (resting his head on Jensen’s shoulder). Jensen goes on to talk about liaising with Nutter who wanted to bring him in and reading the script (for Sam). Jensen reading the script: “What about Dean? I like Dean. He’s funny” He studied for Sam (and Dean a little bit just in case) and went into the audition, said he felt good about it and got a call later from Erik: “There’s this guy, Jared Pada, Pada Something… that they’re really liking for one of the brothers” So Jensen looks him up on line and he’s like…

Jared: He thought I was hot. Jensen: This guy’s smoking hot, I can’t play his brother! Jared throws his head back and does that clapping thing he does.

21:10: host is asking by the time they performed together, they actually had the parts? Jensen: No, we didn’t have it officially. Jared (a bit surprised): Didn’t we? (looks at Erik). Erik says they were the only actors they brought into the Network audition (as you have to have the formality of the network signing off).

Jared says auditioning for the network is usually a terrifying process in front of around 5 people with a few others auditioning but when they turned up, it was only the two of them. Jensen: Just you and me pal. And it was the first time they’d met.

22:00: Jensen: “...And we’ve hated each other ever since.” He reaches for his water, Jared: “I poisoned your water so…” Jensen looks at water and drinks anyway

22:15: Kim Manners gets asked how he became involved. Kim: “I read for Sam…” Miss this man so much!

23:00: Erik says he doesn’t know what they would do without Kim up there [Vancouver] Kim: I know what you’d do, you’d get another guy! Panel: There is no other guy. Not true... Jared: “There is no other guy… named Kim.” Kim looks like he’s scheduling Jared in for a 4am pick up on his next episode.

23:40: Jared and Jensen talk about Kim and when he directed for the first time – Dead In the Water – they’d asked who he was and all David Nutter told them was they would love Kim, which they did and they contacted everyone from Day 1 saying he was incredible. Jared’s memory during this is pretty amazing in terms of episodes and directors etc. All the love for Kim and completely deserved!

24:20: Jared gets so expressive he sends his mic flying. Is this the very first Jared v microphones?! I think it might just be. Jared: 0, Microphones: 1

Jensen offers his own mic, then Jared asks Singer for his also then finishes speaking by just holding his own mic, saying they begged and pleaded them to give Kim a job. Jared: because he was hungry… and he kept trying to bite my arm… and I was really worried.”

24:45: They were asked what is so incredible about Kim. Jensen: “Jared and I…” Wait, I need a moment here. Jared and I… sobs. He says they just responded well to him and his style of directing.

25:15: Bugs is mentioned by Jensen, Kim puts imaginary gun to his mouth. He really hated that episode and pleaded with Kripke not to do it. Jensen goes on to tell the bees story, 65,000 bees in a room, crew with full gear on. “Okay Jensen and Jared, hop on in…” Jared: “And don’t swat them because it makes them angry!” Jensen credits Kim saying that if J2 didn’t have bee suits on then he wasn’t going to either.

I should point out that J2 are mirroring throughout this segment in terms of their body language.

26:45: John (Shiban) is talking about how he got involved and what drew him in, and he said 2 things: the premise, he can see 5 years of suffering for these guys. Jensen throws his head back dramatically. The second thing is casting and chemistry and chemistry is something you can’t manufacture and these guys have it… 27:20 Jared and Jensen look at each other hearing this and Jared leans in for a kiss. Jensen shakes his head and points to the audience. Jared: worth a try. Oh boys. Jared will go on to try (and fail) to get a public kiss several times and will eventually give up and admit he doesn’t kiss Jensen... in public.

27:35: Bob [Singer] is asked what about you? Bob: Can I just watch them? (indicating Jensen and Jared). Same Bob tbh

27:55: Bob has to stop talking because J2 are doing something and we can’t see what they are doing but everyone is laughing. Bob throws his hands up and says, “This is what it’s like to direct them!” I think from memory, Jared might be pouring water for Jensen and he keeps pouring and overspills and Jensen stops him. I might need to check my DVD as I think it’s got a different angle than this youtube video that I’m using or possibly this point comes later in the video. [Edit, it doesn’t come later, so I definitely think this is where Jared overspills Jensen’s water and not sure why it isn’t in this edit]

Bob’s is a very interesting segment where he talks about how he and Kripke complement one another and I think this helps understand why Drabbernatural has gone off the rails as Singer (character focused) needs someone like Kripke (plot focused) to balance him out (and vice versa tbh) whereas Drabb is too much like Singer and can’t keep a handle on the plot. Anyway, interesting to watch from perspective of 14 years later and the mess that Drabbernatural is in terms of plot. This segment ends at 31:00 where Bob and Erik hug – after complimenting each other.

33:09: Kripke and John are talking about mythology v MOTW and at this point Erik is saying they have a mythology plan for season 2 and season 3 (if they are picked up). Jared looks confused at Jensen and they both turn to John. Jensen: When do we get to see this?

34:35: Erik Kripke (when asked if he knows where the story ends): He does, but you don’t know if you’re going to get cancelled or go 37 years like Gunsmoke. Kim: The boys are in Walkers. Jensen (I think, old man voice): Sam! Oh, how they would be shocked to learn they went for 15 seasons in total

Part 2 – Questions from the audience

note timings here again generally refer to the start time of the answer, not the question.

36:45: One of the questions was whether there was any significance to John being in Sacramento twice, was it random or spoilery? John (Shiban) answers mysteriously: I don’t want to give it away yet and says nothing else. Jensen: So yes, there is. John: I’m not going to tell you either. Jensen (throws his hands up): I want to know! John promises after. The host then asks if there is any significance to Lawrence, Kansas. Erik answers that basically yes there is (but not what it is), host asks J2 if they know what it is. J2 (lying in sync): uh, yeah, gosh, of course...

37:45: When asked what folklore or urban legend scares you, Jensen says he’s been dealing with them all season, someone shouts out “bees!” Jensen says “bees.” Jared tells a story of watching Shadowman as a kid, then realises “it’s probably not scary” and stops talking, gets embarrassed and tries to hide in his jacket. Audience (and me) awwws

39:15: Audience member has asked about the disconnect between Sam being at college for 4 years but only not having seen Dean for 2 years and is there an answer to what happened 2 years ago. J2 aren’t sure, Jensen: Erik? Long story short, “hehe, it was a mistake!”

40:50: Question about whether they have to trade off with the network for scenes that are too scary. Bob: you get into strange discussions; the network might say “can we not see the decapitated head roll…” Bob: Can we do half a turn?

41:30: still talking about trade off, Jensen: There was also the uh, when… Jared: the gun rig. Jensen: yeah, the gun rig with me… Jared knowing exactly what Jensen was trying to say and finishing his sentence – and this was end of season 1! I’m going to need another moment! They go on to talking about Dean getting shot in the head in Nightmare and it was the only scene Standards and Practices wouldn’t allow. They wouldn’t show the entire shot, so we only see the splat on the wall when Dean’s shot and not the entire thing moment to end. Singer says when he saw the dailies of the full shot, he called Phil (Scriggia) who was directing to ask what the hell he was doing and Phil answered “well if they see that, they’ll give me the rest of the stuff…” Kim explained it was a game they play with standards and practice where they deliberately shoot extra frames violent, expecting them to come in and say they need to take stuff out and you act all disappointed – 4 frames, really? But you always knew you didn’t need those frames and you get to keep the stuff you do want.

44:20: Question about whether anything on set – e.g. the scarecrow has creeped them out. Jared talks about filming Skin when a clock randomly fell off the wall during filming, and they all decided to pretend it didn’t happen, rather than investigate “the way real brave people do it”. Jensen immediately follows up with Asylum and that it was filmed in a real mental asylum. The crew had said not to go up to the fourth floor. Jensen… obviously went up to the fourth floor “taking a shortcut”. He came to a long, dark hallway that had no lights. Jensen (to himself): Well… it’s not that long… I can make it.”

46:20: Question about moving to a new network (WB to CW) and if they were going to get more NC17 stuff like Jensen’s recent episode. Jensen and Jared look at each other. Jensen: I’m confused. Audience members shout out: Teh sex episode! J2: oh, oh right. Jensen: How could I forget that. (looks at Erik): Thank you for that. Erik: Sure, Happy birthday Jensen

46:40: still on this, Erik: The CW is huge on full frontal male nudity. Jared laughs, claps and reaches for some water, then proceeds to choke on it. Jensen immediately slaps his back, making a gesture for a medic. This panel really does have it all!

48:40: Question about whether the show will explore the boys’ past. Erik says they’ve got an episode coming up where they do just that. Jared: Another positive is that if little Sam and little Dean are filming, big Sam and big Dean are sleeping. Everyone: So keep pushing. Jensen: Flashbacks. I’m so glad the boys finally got some more time off in later seasons!

49:15: Question about whether Dean’s necklace means anything. Jensen looks at Erik/Singer: Are you going to hang me out to dry on this one? Singer: Oh yeah. Jared laughs. They basically say it does, but they can’t talk about it. John Shiban: It’s from Sacramento (referring to earlier question where he was being mysterious). Jensen loses it.

50:15: Question about if working with green screen has got easier to do and also when the DVD comes out, is it going to have a lot of behind the scenes jokes because “this is funny”. Uh, yeah it is lady and yes they will. Jensen answers that they’ve just had a film crew on set the last week doing behind the scenes stuff and that will be on the DVD. He then goes on to answer the green screen “we do do..” then stops, looks at Jared, “I said do do!” There follows a brief intermission for juvenile humour. Jensen (tries to regroup): We do… work a lot with… Kim (I think): doo doo. Jensen and Jared are laughing. Jensen: Jared, you can take this one. Jared: As Kim and Jensen were saying we do do… They do eventually get around to answering and also talk about not just green screen but when they’ve got to pretend on a normal set and special effects will add things in later.

53:45: Question about whether Jensen has trouble to do this type of show being a Christian and whether fans had called the number Dean gave out on screen. Fan gets very excited during her question. Jared: If you want to actually call him its 800-Wet legs. I can’t... Jensen leans over to whisper in Jared’s ear. Jared: oh, you changed it? They’re lost and have forgotten the question. Jensen answers the Christian question very honestly, saying his family is very religious and does his grandmother cringe sometimes, yes, but he’s happy. Kripke answers the phone question saying it was real and he listened to around 20-30 of the thousands received. “Sam, Dean, you need to come quick, there’s a ghost in my attic!”

55:45: Question about what car they drive. Jensen (proudly): it’s a 67 chevy impala. Audience shouts metallicar. And Jared repeats it to Jensen, so I think this is the first use of metallicar. Someone on the panel says, “they’re going to sell well.” Jensen says they have about 5 of them. Jared: That’s why you can’t get them on e-bay. Jensen: We have them all.

When they ask for the next question, lots of people put their hand up and the boys are surprised at the number still wanting to ask questions.

56:15: Fan says, let’s talk about the music. Audience cheer, Jensen says “Yes”, Jared claps in agreement. Fan asks for the inspiration for using 70s mullet rock. Kripke answers that he is a huge fan of that music and he was adamant it had that and not the usual music on the network that he wrote into the pilot script: Cue Music. And you can take your anemic alternative pop and shove it up your ass! He goes on to say he wrote the scene where Sam’s going through the tapes in the pilot specifically so the network would have no choice but to use that music because it was already shot and part of the pilot.

58:50: Question from aspiring actor wondering how hard it was for J2 to get started. Jensen (to Jared): Go ahead.

Jared talks about winning Teen choice awards and giving trophies to winners like Freddie Prince Jr for “best hottie of the world”. Jensen: it’s been pretty much downhill from there.” Jared talks about picking up his agent (Dan) and then going back to finish school, because his parents (and he says daddy which I love about him) said “He’s finishing high school!” He then went out for pilot season, picked up a pilot and used the money from that to go back out during the summer (after school ended and before college). He’s very humble and hasn’t changed in that respect saying he has buddies that are much more talented and more committed than him that are still struggling to make it, it’s a tough industry but keep working hard.

Jensen talks about being in theatre in Dallas, talent agent from LA was in the audience, he came up to Jensen afterwards and gave his pitch, Jensen told him to “bugger off” and the agent went to his parents who listened more than he did. It still took him a few years to take up the offer (so he must have been a lot younger) and decided to go to LA and give it a couple of months. He started working straight away.

1:01:12: Question about what alcohol they like to drink (?!) Jared: What alcohol do you got? Questioner clarifies: Are you hard guys, light guys. Jared laughs and claps: My mom would kill me. Jared does go on to say the beer bottles in the show always have fake labels… [Something makes a noise in the ceiling, Jared gets distracted and looks up: God? then continues answering] …the labels usually have something do with the town/state they are supposed to be in, so if Texas, it will be Lonestar Lager. Boys are mirroring again at this point.

Jared (looks at Jensen): You know we’re Texas boys. I think… Jensen: You know, we’d probably drink what you imagine a couple of Texas boys would drink Jared: Put in a cup Jensen (does that smirk thing he does): That’s right Jared gets embarrassed so no idea what any of this means but I’m putting it under flirty boys

1:02:38: Host asks their favourite scene they’ve written, directed or acted in since the show started and why

Kim: Shadow, where the boys first saw their father. He talks about the scenes and particularly the one where Dean asks Sam why does he think Dean came to get him from Stanford, because Dean wants them to be a family again. 1:03:00 Jensen pretends to wipe his eyes and audience awws. This prompts Kim to say that Jensen had a tough time with that and he and Kim had to arm wrestle over it - and Kim isn’t missed more than listening to him here, talking about Dean letting down his barriers for a fraction of a second. He got Dean and Sam and he got this show and the first few seasons are so good because they had his hands all over it. Kim says their [J2s] game of tennis improves 2000% when up against JDM and Nikki and I would agree, the casting decisions in the early seasons were phenomenal, later seasons, not so much though we still have amazing finds in Rowena and the witch twins. J2 nod pretty much throughout Kim’s answer.

1:03:55: Jared comments after Kim’s answer and says not just to say this but having a great director to tell you exactly what to do doesn’t make it hard. Jensen and I would tell you a thousand times every day that, you know, Kim got it out of us.

1:04:10: Host asks Jensen if he didn’t want to do that scene because you thought Dean wouldn’t say that? Jensen gives a really thoughtful answer. He talks about him being a little protective of Dean and him showing emotions. And he wasn’t sure how much of the layers to peel away in that scene so was putting up his own barriers and if there was anyone to get him through it, it was Kim and he’s glad he was there.

1:05:00: back to the original question about favourite scene and this time it’s John who answers with Skin. Again, he has some interesting things to say and in particular, they talk about how they want to do this monster (skinwalker), but how will Supernatural do it, how do we make it special for our show. He talks about the scene of Dean in the sewer. He says his friends sent him some online posts of a fan’s reaction to that scene. “Oh my god, Dean’s taking his shirt off!” followed immediately by “Oh my god, he’s taking his skin off!!” Jensen laughs, not sure he’s heard that before.

1:06:10: Jensen talks about filming the scene in Dead in the Water where he saves the little boy and the slow motion etc. was all really neat but the build up to that, shooting it was really (shakes head). He talks about trying to keep both him and the boy afloat with one arm while 2 divers were under water holding onto his feet ready to pull him down. He said that was overwhelming. Reading between the lines and from memory of other interviews I think he was concerned that the boy’s life was in his hands.

1:07:30: Jared talks about Wendigo and he had so many questions because of the time difference between filming the pilot and filming Wendigo about where they pick up and where they’re going and how they continue the momentum. He talks about being on the stage with Jensen and it’s the dad’s journal scene. Dean’s got dad’s journal saying what it’s all about and Sam wants to find dad and that they had 9 pages of dialogue to do so they went to practice and Jared had an acting coach who pushed and prodded Jared a little bit “and I don’t know what he did to Jensen but uh…” [Jensen’s face! Rumour iirc is he did not like the acting coach and I know he didn’t last long on set].

Jensen: I don’t want to talk about it Jared: It was noisy Jensen: Never again Jared: That’s between y’all and the wall

They got the scene and it was the first time Jared thought he was doing what Kripke wanted.

Kripke adds he remembers seeing the dailies on that scene and they were just through the roof. It was incredible Such a supportive cast and crew with each other!

1:09:15: Bob, the scene at the end of Faith. The scene between Jensen and Julie Benz where Dean says, “I’m not much for praying, but I’ll pray for you.” And Julie’s character responds, “Well that’s a miracle right there.” Bob thought it was incredibly well acted by both.

1:10:20: Kripke, agrees with all of them, but will add the scene when Dean first calls his father in Home and tells him to come to Lawrence and the way Jensen was able to try to put up walls and the walls kept coming down but… remember this is Kripke… “when the dude stuck his hand in the disposal… [everyone laughs] Kripke getting more excited: “and then the monkey starts clapping and we had that shot beneath the sink and you could actually see all the goo come out. They saw the shot in dailies and thought they would never let them use it. It’s probably the scene in the show where people watch behind their hands and that’s part of the fun of getting the reaction out of the audience. Again, completely agree with Kripke here, the show first and foremost was about horror and it’s sadly forgotten that somewhere along the way. So Kripke’s answer at this point in time for favourite scene is “garbage disposal scene in home”

The panel ends with Kripke asking for a round of applause for the crew who are in the audience for an unbelievable season. The host thanks the panel for being there and for the good work they are doing.

So a great panel, and answers some of the questions, for me at least, why the show hasn’t managed to retain some of the core magic that made the earlier seasons so special.

Kripke as the creator was very clear in his vision - sometimes manic in the delivery of it - but he had people like Singer and Gamble to balance him out and bring him back down.

The show knew why they were successful and focused on that (chemistry between J2) and they first and foremost were focussed on telling a scary story every week while weaving in the mytharc without being too heavy on mytharc, and I believe Kim helped enormously in keeping them grounded in the horror aspect with his previous work on x-files so again, he is severely missed in later episodes.

All things which have either been lost or severely watered down the futher removed from Kripke at the helm the show has gotten.

All jmho.

Next up in terms of classic panels will be Chicon 2007 - which I think was the first fan convention iirc - and I’ll cover the J2 panels and the individual panels from that, but not any other actor.

#supernatural #paleyfest 2006 #supernatural panel #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #j2 #my boys

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putschki1969 · 4 years

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I hope everything is fine with you. I would like to know something about Kalafina's artistic performance, if you can. How was the music scene in Japan during the period in which they were active (2008/2019) and the receptivity of their music? Was the group very successful, selling a lot of records? Were the girls part of a Top5 or Top10 of the best japanese singers/bands? Were they successful outside Japan? (to be continued...)

(continuation) And how were the criticisms in general about Kalafina's music with each album released? Sorry if the content is extensive, but as a great fan of Kalafina, I think it’s interesting to know how they were as artists in the music market, especially here, where there is no such information. If you can add anything else, I appreciate it very much. Thanks from your fan.

I am so sorry, I have no excuses. I have been procrastinating for a very long time because I wasn’t sure I could do justice to your question. As a matter of fact, I still don’t know but I thought I would give it a try. Don’t want to make you wait any longer.

Please note that I am by no means an expert when it comes to the Japanese music market. Kalafina are literally the only Japanese group I have ever followed so I am having a hard time comparing their success to the success of other artists.

Overall I would say that Kalafina were moderately successful (but definitely underrated) during their 10 years of being active. Like so many Japanese artists, they gained popularity through their anime-tie-ins and were mostly defined by that. Many of the animes they have sung for have been extremely successful both in Japan as well as overseas so otakus around the globe have an idea of who Kalafina are and their work is generally well-received I would say. Kalafina’s continuous participation at various big anime conventions/anime events in Japan and other countries throughout their entire career is proof of that. (Although it still shocks me that many otakus apparently used Kalafina’s acts at anime events for bathroom breaks ¬_¬ Blasphemy!!)

Unfortunately due to their “niche” image/vocals they were forever stuck singing ending themes (which are typically not as popular among the masses as opening themes) so they were never able to reach a super high level of popularity. It is no coincidence that the three OP they have done in their career (Hikari no Senritsu, to the beginning, heavenly blue) are among their most popular and most frequently performed songs. They were sung at almost every live and event to please the crowd.

Let’s take a look at Kalafina’s Oricon Chart Ranking, shall we? They have never reached #1 of the Oricon Charts with a single or an album. Their highest single ranking was #4 with “Kimi no Gin no Niwa”, their highest album ranking was #3 with THE BEST “Blue”. On a side note, the BEST albums as well as “heavenly blue” were arguably a turning point for them since those came with a notable surge in popularity. Things really changed for them starting in mid 2014, their fanbase grew considerably, so much more PR, their first Budokan live being announced, bigger tours, more elaborate stage productions, more generic anime-tie-ins, etc..

Anyways, let’s get back to the rankings. A majority of their singles (14 to be precise) did at least reach the Top10 and all of their studio albums hit the Top10 as well (with “far on the water” being the most popular among them). However, unlike other artists of the anisong genre, they never managed to stay in the charts for a very long time. Sony also never really bothered to make Kalafina’s music easily accessible to international audiences which was probably not very beneficial either.

Kalafina’s numbers pale in comparison to let’s say, LiSA’s. They were active at roughly the same time, are more or less the same age and have done songs for similar projects so it’s not like we are comparing apples with pears. Lots of similarities can be found in their career paths and yet, LiSA has been far more successful, both in Japan as well as worldwide. This could have many reasons of course but it’s certainly not for lack of trying on Kalafina’s part. They have worked very hard throughout the years. We also know that Kalafina have amazing talent and an outstanding discography so that can’t be the reason either. I think it’s mainly due to the fact LiSA has done more popular OPs and has a more generic sound/voice that appeals to a wider audience. But that’s just an assumption...

That’s really all I can say about this topic. Feel free to click yourself through Oricon rankings of other artists to get a feel for their popularity as far as sales are concerned. I have never really cared much about other people’s opinions so I am not really sure how fans thought of Kalafina throughout the years. But based on the brief glimpses I got of old CPM threads I guess there have always been fans who talked trash about Kalafina and then there have always been those who worshipped the ground they walked on. And a bunch of casual fans thrown into the mix for good measure. Once again, I can only recommend to check out those threads for yourself in order to get a general idea of how the individual releases were received.

Everyone, feel free to elaborate, this is not the end-all-be-all summary of Kalafina’s career XD

#kalafina #reply #long text #oricon charts #lisa #fredgrs

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beerecordings · 5 years

Text

Puppet Show

okay here’s some stuff to think about based on JJ’s little story even before his possession. cause like it seems a little bit like meaningless play, but not entirely. of course this is all just conjecture. feel free to add on.

he says “wapoosh” and “top of the morning to you” which could just be meta but could also indicate that Jameson has some memory or at least concept of Jack and his channel

likewise if he designed his box himself he may have some concept of Marvin, having painted his card suits along the box. this may also just be a callout to Marvin. is he evil? trying to find JJ? those suits must mean something

he waves and bows without looking at us. he’s performing for an invisible audience.

the theme is murder, could be just a game he’s playing but could also indicate a preoccupation with death and violence (he even goes to Hell at one point, the detective believes this is where a murderer might be found - maybe existential concern about what Anti’s used him to do)

“This booth isn’t that big after all!” are you stuck in a tiny box, J?

his mouth movements do not always match what the slides say, it’s possible he’s just mouthing because he knows that’s what people do when they communicate. i think it’s unlikely that anybody pays attention to his signing anyway, so it doesn’t matter if he’s mouthing or signing, no one is listening, he’s just doing what he knows other people do

still makes exaggerated gestures and facial expressions when he’s performing. what does this mean? only that he is cute but i feel like it’s important

seems largely happy, excited by his story, makes jokes to himself and his audience, low distress at the first appearance of the strings. this is good news even if he’s only acting, hopefully he is holding on mentally.

the alcoholic could be a reference to Chase (alcoholic is portrayed in a condescending light, possible that Jameson has been taught derision of him, or just play with a goofy-looking toy)? the murderer could be a reference to himself or Anti/himself as Anti? the investigator could be someone trying to find him or Anti?

encouraging and sweet even to his toys and characters

tie instead of a bow. easier to grab or choke him?

however he mostly seems to just be playing. there’s a bunch of random toys in his box - the banana, Chad, his puppets, etc. is he being treated like a child, given toys to mess around with so he plays quietly in his cell? to keep him company even though he’s alone? obviously it’s abnormal for someone of his age to play like this even if he’s an actor (doesn’t seem just like a performance, the story lacks coherence). he seems to be doing what he has to to entertain himself

wears his sleeves long instead of rolled up now. probably nothing, but maybe cold or hiding scars?

search for the murderer indicates a desire to help others

if he’s locked in that box, he stays quite clean and tidy and doesn’t like swearing, seems interested in being neat, sweet, and keeping up appearances. he also does things like wearing the mustache and taking out the gauges, which Anti will later remove/add. it’s possible these are things he does to differentiate from Anti. “i’m not like him! I’m clean and nice and I look different!” then again, he’s confused by the strings and doesn’t think much of them, so he may not really know much about Anti

the irony of calling him jolly

#jameson jackson #jj spoilers #jacksepticeye

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comradeclown · 4 years

Text

OK, so in honour of my top posts now being me saying at various degrees of length that Arthur is gay (hashtag mylegacy, lmao…), I thought I should just go for it and actually dive in a bit a lot into why I read the character as gay. Now, usually all the justification I need to read a character as gay is “wouldn’t it be cool if this character I like/relate to/etc were gay like me?” and “it’s OK, officer, I do what I want”, and I’m well aware that 99% of the time it’s me using my own creativity to do a resistant reading + the film/book/whatever bumbling into subtext entirely by accident. And while I definitely don’t think there’s ever any more justification needed for any kind of LGBT reading, lol, as it comes to Arthur, obviously feel free to disagree with me, but I honestly think my read of him as a gay man is entirely textually supported, however unwitting and accidental that might have been on the part of the filmmakers (mind you, I don’t think it was Todd Phillips’ conscious intent, but I’m like… 85% sure Joaquin Phoenix knew exactly what he was doing).

(ETA that this is extremely long, so I’ve put it all under a cut.)

First of all, there’s of course… pretty much the entirety of Joaquin Phoenix’s performance (a very, very small sample can be found in my he gay son tag and just generally in my arthur fleck tag, ha), from his mannerisms to his physicality to the way he interacts with other characters. I know part of it is a function of wanting to go back to the character’s campy roots (which are themselves… you know…), and I know I’m relying on stereotypes to some extent, but first of all, you can’t divorce either camp or gender non-conformity from LGBT history and existence, and secondly this is literally how characters have been coded as gay throughout the entire history of cinema. What I’m saying here is that you can’t have a character who acts like Arthur does, literal limp wrist and all, or says “come on, Muuuurrrayyy, do I look like the kind of girl clown who could start a movement” the way he does, to pick one of many, many examples, and not evoke the long history of cinematic wink emojis at People Like Me.

That in itself would… honestly be plenty, lol, but it could be chalked up to, idk, Joaquin Phoenix doing his own thing, were it not for the fact that it’s completely reinforced at every turn by the filmmaking language, even down to his wardrobe choices, and it’s worth noting at this point that the framing is always one of empathy — albeit with nuance — and affording the character subjectivity, rather than being “ew, look at this gross [homophobic slur]”. Like, the very first time we see Arthur, literally our first impression of the character, he’s at a mirror, putting on make-up and then ruining it by crying, and while the make-up is of course part of his job, this is just not how the inner crises of straight male characters are expressed in the language of cinema. Of note too is the fact that he’s clearly visually separated from his co-workers in all the scenes at Ha-Ha’s, indicating his alienation from them, and while this could be chalked up purely to his disabilities, I don’t buy that that’s the only reason, given that Gary gets shit due to his dwarfism, sure, but at the end of the day he’s clearly “one of the boys” in a way Arthur (can’t be) isn’t.

There are honestly so many examples of the framing working to separate Arthur from conventional masculinity and heterosexuality that I’m just going to pick some highlights, such as: obviously, the way he expresses himself emotionally through dancing (to the point that one of his coworkers explicitly ribs him about it, “if your dancing doesn’t do the trick”), which again is not something that straight male characters do in the language of cinema. The fact that all the media we see him consume is musicals, classic comedies and a talk show he’s obsessively fannish about and watches with his mother — and we know he’s a fan of the show as a whole, not just Murray, hence him saying “I love Dr Sally” (and the way he says it…). Or, speaking of his media habits, when he’s dancing with the gun while watching Shall We Dance, this could have so, so easily been about him ~regaining his lost masculinity~ through, say, fantasies of revenge or badassery, but instead it’s about him being acknowledged as a great dancer and punishing bad dancers, and it all ends in slapstick anyway.

Also, while I’m on this topic, I want to address the nature of Arthur’s dissociative fantasies about Sophie. Honestly, I don’t read them as indicative of genuine romantic/sexual interest at all, because the film frames them as identical to Arthur’s more deliberate daydreams about Murray. I mean, not that I’m adverse to gay readings of that if that’s what you want to do, lmao, but to me they’re both very clearly post-traumatic fantasies of having another person look after you for once, of having someone value and cherish you and take care of you emotionally (which obviously has massive appeal if you’ve been dealing with the after-effects of catastrophic trauma all your life but nobody has given a shit about your suffering and you’ve had to be the one to look after other people to boot). Note that after the get-together with Sophie — which is clearly patterned after all those old comedies and musicals Arthur watches — the Sophie fantasies are incredibly platonic and involve things like having another person be there for you in a crisis, telling you something supportive, getting you a hot drink (in contrast with the reality of the hospital scene, in which Arthur is alone and he’s the one trying to comfort someone else, i.e., holding Penny’s hand), essentially no different from fantasy!Murray hugging Arthur and knowing exactly what to say to make him feel good about himself. Also note that both fantasies involve being the object of someone else’s affection, Murray picks Arthur out of the audience and Sophie comes to him, it’s a pillow princess Cinderella fantasy, more than someone loving you it’s about being loved. (And, once more, this could easily have all been v. v. different, the Murray fantasy could have been the much more conventionally masculine fantasy of being a famous comedian and being invited on Murray’s show, the Sophie fantasies could have had an undeniable sexual component, etc.)

Anyway, to get back to the general point of cinematic framing, again if the movie didn’t want me to read Artie as gay, it shouldn’t have had a pivotal moment in his character arc be him sitting at his mother’s vanity table, doing a new make-up look which involves using her lipstick, and then having a Moment while he’s literally holding a quasi-glamour shot of her.

And the thing is, all these reams of stuff aren’t even the key piece of the puzzle for me, which is the way in which the film as a whole can be read as a gay narrative. I’ve posted before about how part of the emotional catharsis of the film is about Arthur finally shamelessly embracing and even revelling in all his freakishness and socially-despised traits, a big one of which being what is arguably his effeminacy and… honestly I don’t need to explain how that’s a classic gay (and more generally LGBT) narrative, do I? Like, there’s a reason why a pivotal scene is Arthur having his hair-dyeing underwear rave in a flat that’s suddenly incredibly bright and sunny for the first time, it’s about reclaiming the pain and ugliness of your life and your circumstances into a space of potential liberation, which is honestly why this movie is always going to be incredibly personally meaningful to me for so many reasons, but definitely meaningful to me as a gay woman. (Again, this could so, so easily have been about him becoming some stone-cold badass or whatever, but instead the film has him dye his hair, put on a super garish new outfit and new make-up look, dance shamelessly in the street, and be incredibly campy on national television.)

More generally, there’s other aspects of the narrative arc that tie into this general theme and which also serve to continually distance Arthur from the conventional cinematic narratives of heterosexual manhood: for instance, once he starts fully embracing the Joker persona — which is… just Arthur, the crucial difference is in how others perceive him and how he perceives himself — any attraction to women, feigned or real, goes completely out the window and the only genuinely affectionate interaction he has with another human being is with Gary (I know we all love to joke about his first kiss being with Dr Sally, but it’s obviously Comedy Jokes and he doesn’t even kiss her for real, his make-up is completely intact; Arthur’s only real kiss in the movie is when he kisses Gary). Or, when Arthur’s personal narrative finally intersects completely with the larger social narrative — which is itself about upheaval, reclamation and potential liberation — the big triumphant moment is him once again dancing, this time for a cheering crowd, and using blood like lipstick to redraw his smile.

Or even, to a lesser extent, his whole sub-plot with his mother, before I watched the film I was worried that this was going to be the usual narrative about the henpecked guy who finally puts the bitch in her place as part of becoming a Real Man, and it’s not at all, quite the opposite, Arthur is not henpecked and is clearly in charge of the household, he genuinely loves Penny — and is confident she loves him back — and enjoys doing at least some things with her (them watching the Murray Franklin Show together), and up until the reveal any issues he has with her are largely the product of having to look after an ill person with zero social support and while working a physically and emotionally demanding job and dealing with his own disabilities. When he kills her, it’s a deeply sad and self-destructive scene and it’s the result of his profound anguish and sense of betrayal and he frames it as the bitter, trauma-haunted dark half of self-actualisation and self-acceptance (“that’s the real me”, “I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire fucking life”, “now I realise… it’s a fucking comedy”).

Or, at a more meta-textual level, the way the film is unabashedly both a pulpy thriller and a melodrama, just shamelessly embracing all its emotions, its pain and catharsis, without a trace of irony. Like, yeah, part of this is the immense sincerity and compassion Joaquin Phoenix brings to his performance, but it really is the movie’s approach as a whole, and when there is humour — and I do think there’s quite a lot of humour in the movie — it’s not the distancing, let’s-not-feel-anything-too-deeply-bro humour of your typical MCU movie, it’s the camp sensibility of laughing with and at your own tragedy. (Myriad examples down to the use of certain songs in the soundtrack.)

On a final note, you guys know how much I don’t care about authorial intent, but I feel compelled to point out that in his director’s commentary, Todd Phillips says, while discussing Arthur’s journey into becoming Joker, that he reads the larger pop-cultural character of the Joker as someone who doesn’t want women, and like… Again, it’s not like I think that he was deliberately making a gay narrative in any way, it’s just that if you’re creating this journey of a man who eventually becomes a character who’s not interested in women in that sense, you’ve also just ended up stumbling into a gay narrative accidentally on purpose, lmao, what’s the real difference between “at the end of the story, Arthur doesn’t want women because he’s ~da Joker now, baby, he doesn’t want anything~” and “at the end of the story, Arthur doesn’t want women because he’s gay and he’s no longer deeply repressed and closeted”?

Anyway, like I said, feel free to disagree, he’s a fictional character, lol, but this is where I’m coming from, and the reason why if everyone involved in the movie decided to make a statement tomorrow about how much Arthur Fleck wants to bone women I’d just say “shit, idc, I’m afraid you made a gay movie about Arthur Fleck, a gay man, it’s a little too late to retcon this bitch now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”. Also this is over 2,000 words long what the fuck I am so sorry

#long post #joker 2019 #class struggle clown movie #arthur fleck #dive down into chuckletown #he gay son #now in the form of 95 theses nailed to my tumblr #gonna make a letterboxd list called 'the author is dead this is lgbt cinema now'

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technooccult · 3 years

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Womxn Mho Make Spiritual Machines--Jess Rowland

For my dissertation, I’m interviewing womxn in the performance art and music worlds who make spiritual machines, whatever that means to them.

1)Tell me how your performances tie into causes and ideas that are important to you personally? What are those ideas and causes?

I started out in a San Francisco scene that was anti-capitalist and anti-consumer. This experience deepened a line of thought I was already committed to - and I probably, on some subconscious level, was drawn to the community I found in the Bay Area. This was in the 90s, fyi, and since then a lot has changed. Some of the folks are still there, but most have moved on. A lot of my performance work is tied to an exploration of consumerism - I never really got into the more overtly political anti-capitalist thing. I grew up in a suburban world where consumerism was everything. It felt like to me a substitute for substance and a substitute for love. The idea that Ronald McDonald would stand in for your father, and that the bliss-point of snack food would make up for real meaning in one's life. I told people that corporations hated humanity. Most people disagree, but I still think it is largely true if you look at what consumerism has done to the planet. It's a lot of what Kurt Vonegut was talking about - How do you explain what people do to the planet and each other? The only answer he could make sense of was that people actually hated being alive and wanted it to stop. I saw my thinking as a continuation of that line of thinking. He was mostly talking about nuclear weapons, but I saw it more as the effect of consumerism and corporate American-style capitalism.

So, when I perform the eating of a bag of snack food, I'm acting out that process of how we take in consumerism as a substitute for nourishment and love, and that includes self-love. when I do the googlespreadsheet sonification, I'm talking about work, as in 9-to-5, and its emptiness. Sofy, you probably don't know this work, but I used to do a lot of video/music improv like "McDonaldland is Changing" and "John Ashcroft vs. the Space Librarians" and "The Barbie Explosion". This was my thinking mostly as I started out in performance, and I still explore that theme, though it has changed over time.

"McDonaldland is Changing" and "John Ashcroft vs. the Space Librarians" and

What has changed in the idea of the work is then - how does consumerism and work and consumer technology affect our body. Especially the body that wants to be expressed, for me that is Woman-ness and Woman power. When i think about how these forces of capital and consumption act on myself, I see the way the systems that are in place act against: transness, queerness, and the female body. Much of my adult life has been committed to expressing the feminine in myself. This is fundamentally a feminist, or trans-feminist perspective on consumerism. And, since consumerism acts - in our society - on the deepest levels of our being - how negative perceptions of the self work for capital and how love, if it is possible, can counter that. I hope when I perform ,there is a little bit of that love that can reach the audience, even in the darkest, most excorcism kinds of performance. Maybe there is a purging, the way to remove things from the deep insides.

These days, consumerism largely acts through technologies, cell phones, computers, etc. When I perform the laptop destruction or cellphone thing, it's an attempt at purging as a feminist action.

2)What are your thoughts on queer and feminist visibility? How do you express it in your work?

i think I might have just answered part of this question. Visibility = good! When i perform it is important that I am seen, that is part of the process of a ritual of purging. But more generally, I feel that trans visibility and trans-feminine energy needs to be out and about.

3)Can you describe your spirituality (or thoughts you have on spirituality) and how you express it/perform it in your work?

This is a big one Sofy! Growing up, i considered myself a Taoist, and largely I still do - at least as a spiritual practice. As a kid, i had an experience with music that was a sort of spiritual awakening, and when I started reading about Taoism, I realized it coincided with the kind of experience I had. I sometimes think of this as a sort of "musical taoism". The basic idea, if it is possible to express, is that the universe is energy which flows through everything and is, in fact, everything. Creativity allows us to tap into this energy, the way a radio can tune into a radio station. The truer you are to the moment you are in, the less the ego demands to assert itself, the less you fight against the natural power of that energy, the more that energy can work in a positive way in your life, but most import for us artists - the more you are in touch with the source of creation. and for me, this expresses itself mostly in music. This is where my commitment to improvised music started. In San Francisco, I had a band called Spork, which was committed to this idea. It was (at least at first) a 100% improvised ensemble. We never played the same music twice, because no two moments are the same. when we were in touch with the power of that energy, we felt it and it shows in the music. I'm still committed to improvisation, and it acts in my performance as a force which can counter consumerism, conformity, and surface-awareness. The energy of the universe I consider primarily a feminine force, and - as you know so well - we have our group dedicated to the Electromagnetic Goddess.

"The Barbie Explosion"https://www.discogs.com/Jess-Rowland-Scenes-From-The-Silent-Revolution/release/3879362

overall speaker stuffhttp://www.jessrowland.com/art/

music for earringshttp://www.jessrowland.com/music-for-earrings/ laptop destructohttps://vimeo.com/154124264

piano rollhttps://vimeo.com/249305849

Electromagnetism and the spirituality of electromagnetism is huge in my practice. In addition to the Bunker, my art practice focuses a lot on homemade paper speakers and other unexpected sound-making objects using embedded circuitry, all relying on electromagnetism. These are technological objects. But they stand against consumer technology. It is a feminist statement against the system of technology which corporations try to force us into. this work is also essential an expression of my particular journey as a trans person: it explores voice as hidden impulse, a speaker where no speaker is allowed, sound made manifest. Quite often my works require interactivity to activate sound, the active search for the truth of bodies that are otherwise hidden, bodies inhabited by sound. A good example of how this feminist critic of music technology plays out, is my audio jewelry and music for body space. a vast majority of music technology has a masculinist-aesthetic, a robocop or terminator kind of feel to it. With the audio jewelry I wanted to challenge that aesthetic explicitly. I created some music for the audio jewelry, a four channel spatialized piece (2 earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet). In making the music, I played off the idea of an "etheric body", the aura that supposedly surrounds the body. The music is meant to generate a sound-field to protect the feminine body, or as I sometimes call it "sound perfume".

My circuit prints are often stand-ins for the body, and the electromagnetism contained therein is a stand-in (or might literally be!) spirit. The foil surfaces are meant to act like the metallic gold leafs and precious stone inks of Illuminated Manuscripts, as a connection point to deeper truths.

I'm currently reading "The Mysticism of Sound and Music" by Hazrat Inayat Khan,a Sufi musician and mystic, which expresses these ideas - and more! - about sound as the source of all power and the center of the body in ways better than I could. It is interesting to see so many of the thoughts I've had about sound as a spiritual power from a taoist perspective, be matched from the perspective of Sufism, a different (though slightly connected) spiritual tradition than Taoism.

"The Mysticism of Sound and Music" by Hazrat Inayat Khan https://www.shambhala.com/the-mysticism-of-sound-and-music-1071.html

Snaxxx https://vimeo.com/319382872

4)Tell me about your electronic techniques, hardware or software configurations or objects you have made to create your unique sound. Basically I am curious about the tools of your trade as, on the technical side this is a very NIME-like round up of performers. You can speak about a particular piece or your practice at large.

These days, I use Max a lot. Though I use it in a specific way - as a controller of sound, but not as a content-creating device. Snaxxx, for example, uses Max as a signal threshold detector for a contact mic on the snack bag. The detector then triggers pre-recorded sounds to play. The sounds themselves were recorded from a performance of feedback elements. Outside of Max, almost all my tools are analog, the input sound is analog and the output is often played through analog materials. In this way, I think of my technology practice quite often as "postdigital". The paper speakers are probably the best representation of my kind of postdigital aesthetic. I use foils and magnets to create embedded circuitry, and some of these objects are intended for performance, at least of a sort. I have performed on the piano roll before, which uses circuit-completion with a foil backing on the piano roll, connected to a computer running Max. Again, using signal threshold, the circuit completion triggers pre-recorded sounds. I still rely on old-fashioned pedals, which often I find more effective and useful than staring at a Max patch for hours on end. Laptop Destruction uses contact mics hidden in the laptop to be sent through loop pedal, delay, reverb, and ring modulator. The cell phone piece uses induction - like our Bunker performance - and also contact mics on the cellphone. So: lots of contact mics, induction mics, analog signal generation and completion, often connected to Max.

5)Please provide me with a short bio

Jess Rowland is a sound artist, musician, and composer, and a 2018-20 Princeton Arts Fellow. Much of her work explores the relationship between technologies and popular culture, continually aiming to reconcile the world of art and the world of science. At UC Berkeley, she developed techniques for embedded sound and flexible speaker arrays. Her research includes music perception, auditory neurosciences, and music technologies. In addition to an active art practice, she has taught Sound Art at The School of Visual Arts in New York and continues to present her work internationally. Recent installations and performances include the New York Electronic Arts Festival, Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Berkeley Art Museum, and Spectrum NYC.

#jess rowland #handmade musical instruments #art #interviews #sofy yuditskaya #technoshamanism #feminism #punk

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