Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!
I actually wrote up a post right after the 4th palace. Then I played a bit and they dropped so much more info that I had to toss it. Tomorrow is the trip to Hawaii so I thought this was a good point to stop and make another round of predictions.
The 4th palace is my favorite so far. There was so much symbolism to look into and I really liked the whole cursed gem bit. The end boss was a little annoying.
Things are really picking up pace. I had so many questions that were answered like 20 min later. They're really starting reveal some important details.
This is what I have as of now. In addition to my way off predictions there are also a few bits of info I'm that I'm not sure how they fit yet and some general impressions. I tried to keep it short (I failed).
Please no spoilers for any of the Persona games. This is my first and I plan on picking up 3/4.
After Palace 1 predictions : https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13odesi/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_my_horribly/
After Palace 2 prediction : https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13q3q9j/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_just_beat_the/
After Palace 3 predictions: https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13sl0vp/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_just_beat_the/
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Futaba/Alibaba and somehow Morgana

• The squid girl from the movie finally gets a name.
• Futaba's mom is the curry lady (Wakaba)!
• the phone call Sojiro had about a printer not being the right one makes soooo much sense now. I knew he was taking care of someone but I thought it was an old lady. Honestly thought there were going for a cheap laugh were she kept on printing out pictures of snowball or something.
• translated some of the binary on the walls of her palace into ASCII looking for a secret message but they were just the same odd symbols that were on the doors and such.

---tinfoil hat time---

• Futaba picked Alibaba as her hacker alias. before we get to see the whole Egypt / pyramid theme of her palace it seemed like a really odd choice.
• It could be just a cool name that the writers picked but "Chekhov's gun" states that every element introduced in a story should be necessary to the plot. If the gun isn't going to be fired then the audience doesn't need to see it being loaded - or something like that.
• It got me thinking and for sure I remembered the name Alibaba but had forgotten the details of the story. I did a quick search and was able to find the story pretty easily.
• Short version : Alibaba was a dude who stole a bunch of riches from some thieves. Alibaba is living the good life when the thieves track him down and make plans to kill him. The plans are stopped by Alibaba's slave who kills the thieves.
• Alibaba's slave was named .... wait for it .... Morgiana! Mind effing blown! That's way too similar to Morgana not to be important.
• Morgiana was female. Early in the game Ann ask Morgana if it's a boy or a girl. It says of course it's a boy, but it also says that it is human.Morgana might be the Male version of Morgiana but this throws it's gender into question too. It's not like anyone had checked between it's legs as far as I can tell. (also where does it do it's business I haven't seen a litter box).
• Add to this the "birth" flashback that Morgana had
• Morgana is an unwilling servant (aka a slave) to the big bad which is trapped in the deepest part of mementos
• The big bad was able to squeeze through the crack in his prison just enough to deposit a small amount of it's power in the metaverse this power took the form of Morgana.
• The Morgana in the dream had yellow eyes. still going with yellow eyes = metaverse native.
• He was programmed to want to find the deepest part of Mementos at all cost so he could free the big bad.
• His attraction to human desires was not intentional. He got sidetracked from his mission and got caught by Kamoshida.
• Meeting joker was a stroke of luck.
• He keeps telling us that he's using us for his own goals and that he just needs pawns.
• We're made to think that this is just a defensive move to avoid talking about his real feelings but I see a perfect opportunity for a "I told you I was just using you all" scene after the big bad flips some switch later on.
• Most of Morgana's battle functions are getting replaced by other members. Makoto and Futba are both doing the combat calls now. Morgana will leave the party soon.
• Something will happen to Morgana that will flip his switch while the PT are in Hawaii
• Morgiana killed the thieves.... The big bad will take control of Morgana at one point and we will have to fight shadow Morgana or something to get the cat back.
• Was almost thinking Morgana could be the one who betrays us but no one can understand him and even Akechi would have trouble selling the whole "my informant is a cat" thing to Sae.

Kasumi

• A big problem with Kasumi is we know shes going to be a badass by the time the casino heist comes around but right now she's the complete opposite of the person who saves Joker. This isn't like Makoto who is a bad ass and was just holding back. Kasumi is 100% a wet noodle right now.
• Add to that the my weak self relied on you so much line and there is little doubt she has a split personality disorder of some sort.
• They also dropped a major clue for Kasumi after the 3rd palace. She had a sister who died.
• My fist thought was she never had a sister and just had two distinct personalities that were separate but equal to each other. Each would take control at different points and her mind created a fake sister to explain any inconsistencies with her memories. At some point one of her personalities (the sister) was repressed.
• The problem with this is her interactions with joker she doesn't seem like a totally different person just more sure of herself. like her week self is the Kasumi we know now and her complete self is the one we fight with.
• She could have really had a sister and the trauma of the loss sent her into a downward spiral of depression. So *someone* did something to her to repress the negative emotions.
• Her gymnastic slump is important. what ever was done to her was the cause of her slump. Shes missing something of herself which is why she says that her body doesn't move the way she wants it to.
• Current theory is some part of her is locked away. It's not separate, but a piece of the whole person that we fight along side with at the casino. At some point between now and then her two halves will join.
• This brings up the question of what's up with her dad? Unless your some sort bad person wouldn't you notice such a drastic change in your kid?
• Either dad works for the government and was ok experimenting on Kasumi or he somehow thinks whatever was done to her was for the best . Like her current state is better than what was before so this is the cure.
• explains why she transferred schools. He dad claims to work at a TV station (could be a cover). It's not like he would have to move for a new job. If she had a major personality change then her old classmates and teachers would notice. this would cause Kasumi to question her reality which could cause it to fail. moving to a new school removes this issue.
• This would have to go above standard therapy. Either hypnosis or cognitive psience.
• something is going to happen to her dad. we got the glasses shopping scene to show us how close they are. This will be her motivation for going into the metaverse.
• when her persona awakens the mental barrier will be taken down.
• She only has a 5 star confidant rank. It's not like Maruki who still has his card symbol but won't advance till the story does.
• The other 5 starts will be with her "other" personality. After whatever was done to her is undone she's going to be a mess and will turn to Joker.
• something will happen to her while we are in Hawaii. Only reason for her to let us know she was leaving the country of a bit. she might not actually be leaving the country and just be having more mental work done on her.

Maruki

• He want's to legit help people.
• Thinks that traditional therapy is not effective enough. Want to develop a medicine or medical procedure to actually fix people's negative emotions.
• with the introduction of cognative psience we now know the method that he's going to use to attempt this. (could be he already did a test run or two).
• Although his intentions are good things are going to wrong very very wrong.
• After the 2nd exams he talks to joker about not meeting peoples expectations. This comes right after some girls were gossiping about Kasumi in the halls.
• Total misdirection. Since the phantom thieves are making all sorts of waves, the Agency is putting pressure on him to complete his research. This will lead to mistakes being made.
• Eventually his logic will change to "It's better to feel nothing than to feel pain" - this will be his I still think I'm a good guy logic.
• Unless he is also a persona user then were going to visit his palace.
• The first time Joker goes to see Maruki he runs into Kasumi and she tells Joker that she has been seeing Maruki for some time.
• Add to that the line Sae's Boss says on 6/23 "This incident happened at the school you're supposed to be presiding over..." and we have a clear connection from Sae's Boss to the principle at Joker's school.
• He also seemed to be bothered that the Kamoshisa change of heart happened at Shujin like he was aware that something special was going on there.
• This set off all the alarms. The new girl who happens to be a badass persona user transfers to the school and a month later her doctor gets assigned to the very same school. He was hired by the principal who just happens to work for Sae's boss. Sae's boss knows of the metaverse and so does Maruki.
• Maruki was assigned to Kasumi's school to keep tabs on her and make sure whatever he did to her stuck. The Kamoshida incident was just the excuse they needed to bring him in.
• He either developed cognitive psience on his own or was giving Wakaba's research by the Agency.

Akechi

• he has to be the one who betrays the group.
• Keeps putting idea's in Sae's head
• At some point Sae will catch on that Akechi is messing with her.
• working with Shido but not for him. Has his own goals or works for the big bad.
• says he has to catch the PT "for the sake of my justice" combine that with the arcade scene where he ask joker what kind of justice he believes in and Akechi is def bad. He's not after "justice" but "my justice" which sounds a lot like revenge. Has something to do with his father. If the PT crew keep operating they're going to ruin his chance for revenge.
• He will frame the PT by sending a fake calling card and then killing that persons shadow.

Twins / Butterfly Lady

• The number of new confidants that unlock after the 3rd palace was a bit overwhelming but It did give me plenty of chances to watch the new confidant unlock scenes. It got me thinking about what it actually says. Just picked the fortune confidant for this but any would have worked.
• I am thou, thou art I - we are one and the same
• thou hast acquired a new vow. - you just unlocked a new confidant. to quote Jose "Good Job!"
• It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity. - butterflies have wings also still talking about Joker "thy chains of captivity". We are like a caterpillar and when we obtain out true power we will become a butterfly (not literally). the chains could be a the cocoon that the butterfly breaks out of.
• With the birth of the Fortune Persona I have obtained the winds of blessing that - creatures with wings (like a butterfly) ride the wind. Is now referring to herself in this line "I have obtained..."
• shall lead to freedom and new power..." - It's over 9000!
• The butterfly lady is our persona or at the very least out power levels are connected.
• Part of the butterfly lady's power is sealed in joker. Was not intentional but will be the key to rejoining the twins.
• When there is a fusion alarm the twins do this adorable back stretch where one kicks her legs. They then do this weird like side stretch that looks like the fusion dance from Dragon Ball Z.

Igor

• Not working for the thing that made Morgana.
• Morgana had no knowledge of the skill cards and his mind exploded when joker captured the pixie.
• Even though he's not bad he's still not good.
• Has some cosmic role to fill. His job is to prepare for the final battle. He doesn't care who wins just as long as the fight occurs.
• Gave Akechi the metaverse nav but Akechi betrayed him and went rogue which is why he went looking for a new recruit. He took on the twins after so the same mistakes wouldn't be make with joker.
• Says joker will fight someone with powers very similar to his (jokers) own. Akechi has the wildcard too?

Sojiro

• For the record Joker defended him and never once thought he was abusing Futaba.
• Met Wakaba when he worked for the government.
• Feels guilty that he didn't do anything when she said she was going to die. Was he in a position to do so? What did he do for the government?
• After Wakaba was killed he suspected his own government were behind it and left in disgust.
• Sojiro is just awesome. He would take a bullet for any of Joker's friends and die happy knowing he saved someones life.
• He will be the getaway driver after the PT crew breaks joker out. He's the only person we know with a car.

Sae's Boss / Shido

• They refer to it as the metaverse and not the cognitive world. could be the writers just didn't want to add a new term without context or they gained they're knowledge of the metaverse from an "other worldly" being.

​
Limo Girl.

• Is in the opening movie both the heist scene and the smash the city part. Will be joining up.
• Ran in to her in the hall at the star of the game she was labeled as a senior
• Riding in a limo. daddy is loaded.
• At the park cleanup she asked Mishima for the bottle cap so they can be used for medicine. She is seen watering flowers at the school also. What we should take away from this is she's a really good person. We need to know see that she's super duper good because her dad is bad like really bad.
• daddy's money is dirty money and she knows it or at least suspects.
• We will change daddy's heart and make him admit his evil ways.
• Her dad is the Shido.
• We don't know when she's going to join up or if the casino heist is her first. Stealing her dad's heart will prob be her first mission so the fact that shes on the comm at the start of the game isn't too much of a problem with her dad being Shido.

Opening Casino Heist

• on 7/29 Morgana says "But it's true that an observant criminal could have a true to reality city in their Palace."
• The opening casino heist wasn't in the real world but was Shido's palace. His palace just included a 1:1 of the city in it. He also says in the scene at the start of the game where joker has a flashback that he owns the cops. Would make sense that the shadows in his cognition would take the form of the police and security guards. The 2nd palace had two types of shadows (male and female) and the 3rd/4th had people/dogs. Multiple types of shadows is not unheard of
• Also looks like we did manage to steal his treasure but not sure if they were able to get it out.
• We don't actually see joker get taken in by the cops. It's possible that the traitor grabbed us after the shadow cops took us down and turned us in to the real world cops. Doesn't mean the world's can't be merging but my reasoning for it is off.
• One thing that bothers me is when they ask if everyone remembers where they have to meet up. Why was joker separate from the rest of the PT? The PT all leave the metaverse together so far. Could just mean where they're going to meet up near the exit (if there is an exit with the palace being the whole city). Hoping for more clues to clarify this.

Mashima

• not going to betray us. he almost fell to the dark side and I haven't seen the conclusion of his story but seems like he's going to an issue.

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Best Girl current rankings - Nothing is set yet no decisions have been made just the current rankings.

• Makoto - the scene where the lights go out and she grabs jokers leg just made her more endearing. Her driving skills saved the crew after Palace 4. Could beat Kamoshisa in 1v1 volley ball.
• Futba - who doesn't like a quirky redhead. Her being Boss's adopted daughter could be a good thing as he seems to like Joker at this point in the story so he wouldn't have to give him the whole "let me show you my gun collection" talk. Although I'm thinking shes more like the quirky best friend type then best girl material (so sorry Fatuba Fans plesedonthateme)
• Dr.Death - shes a doctor who really cares about her work. Cares more about helping the little girl then getting the credit for it. She basicly broke down when she thought the girl was dead. Also SP Adhesives are amazing.
• Kasami - 100% little sister vibe while Futaba has potential to move up in rank Kasami is stuck in the sister zone. Who knows maybe her "sister" is more interesting.
• Fortune teller- Still a nice person despite the way she was treated. A but gullible though. I could see her sending all of Joker's savings to a Nigerian prince.
• Chess Girl (I know it's not chess) - mid tier maybe she well get more interesting.
• Ann - Not even in the running really because She's going to end up with Ryuji. If Ryuji wasn't around I would say shes not the bightest bulb in the pack. shes not dumb and seems to at least have passed her exams but we have honor student Makoto and super genius Futaba to compare her to. She is empathetic and has a high emotional intelligence. No way shes going to make it as an Actress with her (lack of) skills I cringe every time she tries. She would make a great councilor though with how she relates to people and to seems to be able to get along with everyone. She could also make it in professional sports with how high she was able to throw Mona after the 4th palace.
• Kawakami - Yes she's ranked lower than someone who is not even in the running. First off she lied about her sister WTF! She just seems like a mess. Her clothes don't fit and her hair is never brushed. She is stuck in "the help" tier. Keep her around for laundry and coffee.

Best Bro current rankings.

• Ryuji - dude is our bro 100% He's the bad influence with a heart of gold and will stick with Joker to the end. He's the Ron Weasley to Joker's Harry Potter. He would be the most fun to go drinking with.
• Yusuke - you will only ever be his 2nd best friend. His true loyalty lies with art. If Joker was hanging off the side of a cliff and Yusuke had to make the decision to save Joker or paint the perfect sunset it would be a real nail biter to see what he decides.
• Mishima- Once he gets over himself he's going to be fine. He's like a more wimpy less fun Ryuji.
• Akechi - he's too full of himself. He always like "ugh I'm just sooooo popular I can't do the little people things like you do" Hanging out with him you would only ever be "Akechi's friend". His sweater vest is dumb.

Best Kitty current rankings.

• Snowball - he didn't deserve to go out like that.
• Morgana - is a spy and slave of the big bad. Also needs stop hitting on Ryuji's girl.

Ballots Here

1980-1984	1985-1989	1990-1994	1995-1999
2000-2004	2005-2009	2010-2014	2015-2019

The initial nomination round has finished, the ballots have been prepared, and the next stage of the indieheads Essentials Chart update begins.

What is this?

We are updating the sub's essentials list for the first time in several years. Following an initial nomination round, this first round of community voting is the next in a lengthy process of selecting albums for the essentials chart, reflecting the styles and attitudes of the community.

What is being voted on?

This round will determine which albums move on to the second round of voting for the chart, and more importantly, it also determines which albums will NOT move on. There are literally thousands of albums here, quite a few of those will not be advancing.

How will voting work?

Voting for the first round opens today, May 30th, and all ballots will close midnight CST on June 30th.
In each half-decade ballot, there are hundreds of albums which were nominated by the many members of this community. For convenience, albums have been organized alphabetically.
You DO NOT have to vote on every single album on the ballot. You are free to vote for or against as many, or as few, as you like. You are absolutely allowed to skip ones which you are ambivalent or unsure about, or haven't listened to before.
For every album, there are two choices;
YES (I believe this album is significant to the canon, the community, and/or influential in the scope of alternative, experimental, or independent music. It fits the criteria of being "essential.")
NO (I don't believe this album is significant enough in the scope of alternative, experimental, or independent music, to the community, nor fits the requirement of "essential.")
After submitting a ballot, you are free to return to it and edit your responses at any time, however much you want, as many times as you want, until the ballots close on June 30th. Since there are so many nominations, we want to encourage users to go back and revisit albums, check out some new stuff, debate and discuss certain bands or records, and overall take their time with every ballot.

How many albums will make it through to the next round?

Not sure yet. It depends entirely on how the results for this first round go-- who knows how positive or negative the voting will be! With this in mind, there's currently no set number of albums that will move on, and will be determined at a later time once all the ballots are locked in.

What's already locked in?

As stated in the original announcement thread, 20 albums from the past iterations of our Essentials Chart were identified as being "indiessential" auto-locks for the final results, and will not be voted on during this process. These albums are:

• Bjork - Homogenic (1997)
• The Cure - Disintegration (1989)
• Fiona Apple - When the Pawn (1999)
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! (2000)
• Joanna Newsom - Ys (2006)
• Joy Division - Closer (1980)
• Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985)
• LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)
• The Microphones - The Glow pt. 2 (2001)
• Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)
• My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
• Pixies - Doolittle (1989)
• Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)
• Slint - Spiderland (1991)
• Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (1988)
• The Strokes - Is This It (2001)
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
• Talking Heads - Remain in Light (1980)
• Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

We've also implemented a rule allowing only one album from an artist per decade for the final chart. If you're wondering why, for example, The Bends aren't on the ballot, that's because OK Computer already has that spot taken.

Other plans for the first round

This thread will act as a main hub thread for the first round, and will be stickied as often as it can to the front page throughout the month of June. It will also be easily located in the header announcements, in the Daily Music Discussion threads, in the search bar with the [ESSENTIALS] tag, etc.
Throughout June, discussion threads will be posted. These threads will range from focusing on the different decades, to providing soapboxes for users to champion certain albums, trading recommendations from the ballots, etc. Discussion in the Daily Music Threads and elsewhere is, of course, highly encouraged.
Good luck, and happy voting!

Hi guys!!! I wrote a post on here not too long ago about how I applied a few weeks ago once CASPA opened for the 2024-2026 cohort, and then received a call for an interview with less than a week notice to possibly start in one of my top PA programs this August 2023. I had the interview today. It lasted about an hour, and I got a call for acceptance an HOUR later. I’m in disbelief. 😭 But also super grateful and happy. Been on this journey for 5 years and I can’t believe it’s finally happening. Also feeling overwhelmed as I may have a lot to do within the month to prepare!! Wasn’t expecting to start a year early but still grateful! Classes start July 31. Tips?? Anything students do to prepare beforehand? Do I send thank you letter to admissions?? TYIA :—-)
*advice for Loans and how fast that process works would be much appreciated as well 🥲 Will probably apply to NHSC repayment program.
Stats for anyone wondering:

• degree: Behavioral Neuroscience, Minor in biology and psych
• cGPA: 3.89
• sGPA: 3.88
• PCE 2200 hours as an EMT at an extended care facility for kids with special medical needs
• HCE: 120 hours, EMT ride-alongs+ clinicals
• Volunteering: close to nothing (worked during undergrad)
• Shadowing: ~140hours shadowing a Neurosurgery PA and Orthopaedic PA
• GRE: 304 VR: 152, QR: 152, AW: 5
• LOR: 1 PA I shadowed, 1 neuroscience professor (he introduced PA to me in my undergrad and big reason i’m on this journey!), 1 Facility administrato RN at my PCE job, 1 Facility manageEMT-P at my PCE job

*I think the reason I want to be a PA really aligned with my program’s mission and definitely is big factor in my acceptance I believe
*Edit to add about loans

The second edition of ESC took place in Frankfurt, Germany. Does that mean one of the German songs won in 1956 as the usual tradition is? Well no it was Switzerland who also hosted the first edition but apparently didn't want to host another the next year. To this day rumours persist that Germany got second place probably with "Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück" from Walter Andreas Schwarz but since no ranking was released to this day we can't know for sure. Some even believe Germany won. Anyway the good thing about this contest is that this contest can be fully watched with moving images. The director of this was Michael Kehlmann, an Austrian movie director. I sinceryly hope he was better at camerawork for his movies as it was filmed rather static and with a persistence of keeping the artists heads in close-up for lengthy periods which felt rather disturbing to me. Quality wise the songs were in my opinion a lot weaker than the previous edition with most contestants playing it rather safe and with little variety.
1957 saw the introduction of a real jury system where each country had to divide 10 points over the rivaling countries. So here it was made clear you can't vote for your own country, a rule which probably was not in place in 1956 but as of 1957 it was set in stone and never changed. Don't really know if that meant that 1 country could give the full 10 points to just 1 country. I notice however that only France divided their points over 2 countries while all other countries divided their points over 3 to 6 countries. No one ended up with 0 points and every country got points from at least 2 countries. Strange system but at least better than the shady backroom voting from the previous edition, which certainly was put into question and led to protest. To this day there is still a points system and no matter the result there is always people not understanding why song X ended up so low and song Y so high. Some things never change and this adds to the fun. Apparently the points system was borrowed from UK's 'Festival of British Popular Songs' which decided on the entry representing the UK in the ESC. So a scoreboard was introduced which was adapted after each call (by a traditional phone) from one of the juries of the competing countries.
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With the 3 countries broadcasting but not sending a song for various reasons (UK, Austria, Denmark) last year now joining the competition there was no more need for each country to send 2 songs. So 1 song per country (and this remained so for later editions) but 2 people were allowed on stage (in 1956 only solo artists on stage). So more countries involved (10 vs 7 in 1956) but less songs (10 vs 14 in 1956). Last change was a rule stipulating that songs could not exceed 3 minutes but a few countries really went over that limit by quite a margin. Maybe that rule was introduced quite late and therefore no one was disqualified for exceeding it.
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We saw a first duet with Denmark. Italy and the Netherlands had a musician accompanying the singer. We also saw a first prop emerging (Germany) and some other costumes than the traditional tuxedo or evening gown (Denmark).
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For those wanting more info about this edition check the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_1957
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The full show can be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViOi13j5cO8&t=4s
​

1. Belgium - Straatdeuntje - Bobbejaan Schoepen (32 years) starts at 3:15

Just like previous edition the ESC kicked off with a song sung in Dutch however this time it comes from the Dutch/Flemmish speaking part of Belgium (Flanders). Bobbejaan Schoepen was the first Flemmish singer to try. Even though his success period was far before my time I knew that whistling was a trademark of his. He even had a song dedicated to whistling 'De jodelende fluiter' (The yodling whistler). Bobbejaan had an obsession with the Far West and often dressed with a cow-boy hat and later founded a theme park with a Wild West theme giving it his name 'Bobbejaanland'. Here of course he was as expected in a suit but with his hands in his pockets immediately giving him a pretty laid back attitude. The song is indeed a happy one about a melody he hears everywhere he goes making him happy. Don't think this had a chance winning, enjoyable definitely but in the end a bit too simplistic.
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1. Luxembourg - Amours mortes aka Tant de peine - Danièle Dupré (29-30 years) starts at 7:25

Language: French - Result: 4th (tied) - Points: 8
Just like last year Luxembourg send a female French singer to represent them. As expected she went for a French chanson about a break up. I'm absolutely no fan of these type of songs unless it has some quicker pace. Also I often compare French chansons with Edith Piaff whose famous hits at least had some recognizable melody and chorus. Danièle's birth date varies from the source. The most common is that she was born in 1927 but other sources say her birth year is 1938 which is a huge difference. Looks to me 1927 is correct as she already had quite a bit of songs as a minor star and retired from the music business in 1958. She would during the show become long lasting friends with her compatriot entering for France Paule Desjardins.
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1. United Kingdom - All - Patricia Bredin (22 years) starts at 10:55

Language: English - Result: 7th - Points: 6
Patricia Bredin had the honour to be the UK's first ESC entry. She won as part of the Malcolm Lockyer Quartet the first Festival of British Popular Songs convincingly. Patricia was in the first place an actress (Malcolm Lockyer was a film composer and conductor so makes sense) but also did musicals. Presenter Anaid Iplicjian (from Armenian descent) referred to the UK as England a few times. With a duration of 1'52 this song remained the shortest in ESC history until 2015 when Finland came with a song of only 1'27. So yeah I can be pretty short about this entry too. She has a high soprano voice so even if your English is good it's just hard to understand what she is singing most of the time. It felt more like an opera song and I guess that's why it didn't do too well here. Was the disappointing result the reason UK didn't enter in 1958 and also didn't organise the Festival of British Popular Songs? However from 1959 they wouldn't miss a single ESC. Patricia's song was never recorded or released on a single.
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1. Italy - Corde della mia chitarra - Nunzio Gallo (28 years) starts at 13:35

Language: Italian - Result: 6th - Points: 7
In previous edition two young females were sent, this time a male artist got a try. Nunzio Gallo was accompanied by a guitar player who gets quite a bit of exposure with some solos (a really long one at the start). Nunzio sings a ballad which gave me much more latino/Spanish vibes than Italian. He sings a love song not for a woman but for his guitar. This theme actually reminds me of the Belgian entry of 2010 Tom Dice with "Me and my guitar". The biggest problem is the song's duration with over 5 minutes going well beyond the maximum time limit. Also its very slow pace makes it very hard to sit through. Fortunately Italy would bring a real hit in the next edition.
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1. Austria - Wohin kleines Pony - Bob Martin (34 years) starts at 19:45

Language: German - Result: 10th - Points: 3
Debut for Austria but Bob Martin wasn't the first Austrian performing in ESC. That honour goes to Freddy Quinn entering in 1956 for Germany with "So geht das jede Nacht". The song is accompanied by jazzy music. Of course a 30+ guy singing about riding his pony through the fields is a tad weird but at least he seems to be having a good time smiling a lot during his performance. It's also the only song which is (slightly) more uptempo than the other entries. A last place is rather harsh but I can understand this song perhaps didn't really fit well in the contest. After ESC he remained popular in southern Austria. His real name was Leo Heppe.
​

1. Netherlands - Net als toen - Corry Brokken (24 years) starts at 23:20

Language: Dutch - Result: 1st - Points: 31
The winning song and this time even a critical one like me will find it hard to disagree. If they stuck to the rules this entry would be disqualified as it is going approximately 1 and half minute over the 3 minutes time limit. However it doesn't feel like ever lasting like Italy's due to a good pacing, great vocals and some really good music accompanying the song. Dutch conductor Dolf van der Linden was so eager to start making the orchestra start before Corry Brokken reached the microphone. Corry's previous entry was a break up song now it's again about a relationship but one that is already lasting a very long time. So yes the couple especially the man have become old (and grey) and their love has become a bit stale. But since he can still flirt (with other women I suppose) his wife wishes he would be sweet and gallant towards her, give her roses, say she is beautiful and all that jazz just like the time they first fell in love (referring to the song's title). Yes it's kinda weird given the young age of Corry and it's rather schmulzy. Also the style is a bit the same as her 1956 song "Voorgoed voorbij". However her vocals and the accompanying music really make up for that. About halfway a violin joins her on stage who also gets a solo towards the end. I'm not surprised this won quite convincingly and deservedly.
​

1. Germany - Telefon, Telefon - Margot Hielscher (37 years) starts at 28:30

Language: German - Result: 4th (tied) - Points: 8
Host Germany did the opoosite of Italy after sending 2 men in 1956, now a woman was selected. Margot Hielscher already tried her luck at the German National final in 1956 but was unsuccessful. In 1957 she won and became the first woman to represent Germany at ESC. She was the first artist to use a prop on stage. What was more applicable than a telephone since that was the instrument for many years to come for the juries of the participating countries to send their points. Margot used the phone for another purpose though, expecting a call from her lover. Between talking in several languages (mostly saying hello) she sings in a calm and soft voice. The song in itself is not that special but the phone as gimmick is cool. Her song was also too long almost like 4 minutes. Placing 4th wasn't too bad and we would see her return the next year with a more uptempo song (and another prop). For the German audience she was no unknown being active since the 1940s as both singer and actress.
​

1. France - La belle amour - Paule Desjardins (34-35 years) starts at 33:40

Language: French - Result: 2nd - Points: 17
A song about love in a French café. I liked this one more than the French song from Luxembourg. It came second and I don't think that is undeserved given she has a lovely voice even though the song in itself quickly fades from my memory. Paule had moderate success with a musical career lasting until 1962. When she married she stopped singing and started working as designer for the lingerie company of her husband. Her full birth date is unknown, Spanish wiki mentioned she was born in 1922.
​

1. Denmark - Skibet skal sejle i nat - Birthe Wilke (20 years) and Gustav Winckler (31 years) starts at 38:00

Language: Danish - Result: 3rd - Points: 10
Denmark made its debut bringing the ESC its first duet. They were actually the only contestants in the first Dansk Melodi Grand Prix where 6 songs were entered 2 by them as duet and 2 by each as solo artists. As native Dutch/Flemmish speaker I can clearly hear it's from the same language family (German) as mine even though I hardly understand a word of it. I like the sound of it though and while it's nice that the presenter tells us that the translation of the song is "when the ship is sailing out" looking at the man's uniform it's pretty clear he is a sailor saying goodbye to his beloved girlfriend and future wife who is also wearing a typical dress from the country. There is also some gestures like him kissing a picture of her indicating he will be thinking about her on his trip and putting a ring on her finger meaning they will marry when he comes back. Actually the sailing theme is already clear before we see the couple as the orchestra starts with the sound of a ship's horn. It's all lovey dovey and cute but it works and they sing in harmony, complementary. A top 3 placing was well deserved in my opinion. Oh yes and there was in the end an 11 second kiss which definitely shocked the audience. They were applauded anyway. Did that hamper their chances to win, nah I think the Dutch entry was just too strong.
​

1. Switzerland - L'Enfant que j'étais - Lys Assia (33 years) starts at 42: 30

Language: French - Result: 8th (tied) - Points: 5
Lys Assia returned to defend the ESC crown of Switzerland. The new crown however went to the other returning performer from 1956 Corry Brokken. Interesting to note that her birthday was the 3rd of March, the same day as the the contest of 1957 took place. I can't think of any other reason why the ESC took place so early (usually it's in May). She wasn't however gifted a good end result finishing a tied 8th with Belgium. Hard to understand as I found this song about a happy childhood very sweet and more captivating than her entries from 1956. However it was also too long about 4 minutes. But vocally I found her a lot better than the French songs from Luxembourg and France. Was it perhaps too childish or too happy? Notice that the other 2 songs in the bottom 3 were Belgium and Austria both upbeat songs. However Lys would still come back for a third consecutive time in 1958 just like winner Corry Brokken. Lys would do well a year later but Corry suffered even a worse fate as title defender than Lys.
​
My top 10 was a bit harder to compile except the top 2 which stuck with me after 1 hearing. The rest is not too memorable for me.
​

1. Netherlands
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Germany
5. Austria
6. Belgium
7. France
8. Luxembourg
9. Italy
10. UK

​
Deceased artists
Paule Desjardins (1962) 39-40 years (only the Spanish wiki has a year of decease)
Gustav Winckler (1979, cause: car crash) 53 years
Bob Martin (1998) 75 years
Nunzio Gallo (2008) 79 years
Bobbejaan Schoepen (2010) 85 years
Danièle Dupré (2015) 88 years, French wiki has birth year 1938 and decease in 2013 (75 years)
Corry Brokken (2016) 83 years
Margot Hielscher (2017) 97 years
Lys Assia (2018) 94 years
​
Alive artists
Patricia Bredin (88 years)
Birthe Wilke (87 years)
You can check reviews also on RelivingEurovision

The second edition of ESC took place in Frankfurt, Germany. Does that mean one of the German songs won in 1956 as the usual tradition is? Well no it was Switzerland who also hosted the first edition but apparently didn't want to host another the next year. To this day rumours persist that Germany got second place probably with "Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück" from Walter Andreas Schwarz but since no ranking was released to this day we can't know for sure. Some even believe Germany won. Anyway the good thing about this contest is that this contest can be fully watched with moving images. The director of this was Michael Kehlmann, an Austrian movie director. I sinceryly hope he was better at camerawork for his movies as it was filmed rather static and with a persistence of keeping the artists heads in close-up for lengthy periods which felt rather disturbing to me. Quality wise the songs were in my opinion a lot weaker than the previous edition with most contestants playing it rather safe and with little variety.
1957 saw the introduction of a real jury system where each country had to divide 10 points over the rivaling countries. So here it was made clear you can't vote for your own country, a rule which probably was not in place in 1956 but as of 1957 it was set in stone and never changed. Don't really know if that meant that 1 country could give the full 10 points to just 1 country. I notice however that only France divided their points over 2 countries while all other countries divided their points over 3 to 6 countries. No one ended up with 0 points and every country got points from at least 2 countries. Strange system but at least better than the shady backroom voting from the previous edition, which certainly was put into question and led to protest. To this day there is still a points system and no matter the result there is always people not understanding why song X ended up so low and song Y so high. Some things never change and this adds to the fun. Apparently the points system was borrowed from UK's 'Festival of British Popular Songs' which decided on the entry representing the UK in the ESC. So a scoreboard was introduced which was adapted after each call (by a traditional phone) from one of the juries of the competing countries.
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With the 3 countries broadcasting but not sending a song for various reasons (UK, Austria, Denmark) last year now joining the competition there was no more need for each country to send 2 songs. So 1 song per country (and this remained so for later editions) but 2 people were allowed on stage (in 1956 only solo artists on stage). So more countries involved (10 vs 7 in 1956) but less songs (10 vs 14 in 1956). Last change was a rule stipulating that songs could not exceed 3 minutes but a few countries really went over that limit by quite a margin. Maybe that rule was introduced quite late and therefore no one was disqualified for exceeding it.
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We saw a first duet with Denmark. Italy and the Netherlands had a musician accompanying the singer. We also saw a first prop emerging (Germany) and some other costumes than the traditional tuxedo or evening gown (Denmark).
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For those wanting more info about this edition check the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_1957
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The full show can be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViOi13j5cO8&t=4s
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1. Belgium - Straatdeuntje - Bobbejaan Schoepen (32 years) starts at 3:15
   Language: Dutch - Result: 8th (tied) - Points: 5
   

Just like previous edition the ESC kicked off with a song sung in Dutch however this time it comes from the Dutch/Flemmish speaking part of Belgium (Flanders). Bobbejaan Schoepen was the first Flemmish singer to try. Even though his success period was far before my time I knew that whistling was a trademark of his. He even had a song dedicated to whistling 'De jodelende fluiter' (The yodling whistler). Bobbejaan had an obsession with the Far West and often dressed with a cow-boy hat and later founded a theme park with a Wild West theme giving it his name 'Bobbejaanland'. Here of course he was as expected in a suit but with his hands in his pockets immediately giving him a pretty laid back attitude. The song is indeed a happy one about a melody he hears everywhere he goes making him happy. Don't think this had a chance winning, enjoyable definitely but in the end a bit too simplistic.
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1. Luxembourg - Amours mortes aka Tant de peine - Danièle Dupré (29-30 years) starts at 7:25
   Language: French - Result: 4th (tied) - Points: 8
   

Just like last year Luxembourg send a female French singer to represent them. As expected she went for a French chanson about a break up. I'm absolutely no fan of these type of songs unless it has some quicker pace. Also I often compare French chansons with Edith Piaff whose famous hits at least had some recognizable melody and chorus. Danièle's birth date varies from the source. The most common is that she was born in 1927 but other sources say her birth year is 1938 which is a huge difference. Looks to me 1927 is correct as she already had quite a bit of songs as a minor star and retired from the music business in 1958. She would during the show become long lasting friends with her compatriot entering for France Paule Desjardins.
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1. United Kingdom - All - Patricia Bredin (22 years) starts at 10:55
   Language: English - Result: 7th - Points: 6
   

Patricia Bredin had the honour to be the UK's first ESC entry. She won as part of the Malcolm Lockyer Quartet the first Festival of British Popular Songs convincingly. Patricia was in the first place an actress (Malcolm Lockyer was a film composer and conductor so makes sense) but also did musicals. Presenter Anaid Iplicjian (from Armenian descent) referred to the UK as England a few times. With a duration of 1'52 this song remained the shortest in ESC history until 2015 when Finland came with a song of only 1'27. So yeah I can be pretty short about this entry too. She has a high soprano voice so even if your English is good it's just hard to understand what she is singing most of the time. It felt more like an opera song and I guess that's why it didn't do too well here. Was the disappointing result the reason UK didn't enter in 1958 and also didn't organise the Festival of British Popular Songs? However from 1959 they wouldn't miss a single ESC. Patricia's song was never recorded or released on a single.
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1. Italy - Corde della mia chitarra - Nunzio Gallo (28 years) starts at 13:35
   Language: Italian - Result: 6th - Points: 7
   

In previous edition two young females were sent, this time a male artist got a try. Nunzio Gallo was accompanied by a guitar player who gets quite a bit of exposure with some solos (a really long one at the start). Nunzio sings a ballad which gave me much more latino/Spanish vibes than Italian. He sings a love song not for a woman but for his guitar. This theme actually reminds me of the Belgian entry of 2010 Tom Dice with "Me and my guitar". The biggest problem is the song's duration with over 5 minutes going well beyond the maximum time limit. Also its very slow pace makes it very hard to sit through. Fortunately Italy would bring a real hit in the next edition.
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1. Austria - Wohin kleines Pony - Bob Martin (34 years) starts at 19:45
   Language: German - Result: 10th - Points: 3
   

Debut for Austria but Bob Martin wasn't the first Austrian performing in ESC. That honour goes to Freddy Quinn entering in 1956 for Germany with "So geht das jede Nacht". The song is accompanied by jazzy music. Of course a 30+ guy singing about riding his pony through the fields is a tad weird but at least he seems to be having a good time smiling a lot during his performance. It's also the only song which is (slightly) more uptempo than the other entries. A last place is rather harsh but I can understand this song perhaps didn't really fit well in the contest. After ESC he remained popular in southern Austria. His real name was Leo Heppe.
​

1. Netherlands - Net als toen - Corry Brokken (24 years) starts at 23:20
   Language: Dutch - Result: 1st - Points: 31
   

The winning song and this time even a critical one like me will find it hard to disagree. If they stuck to the rules this entry would be disqualified as it is going approximately 1 and half minute over the 3 minutes time limit. However it doesn't feel like ever lasting like Italy's due to a good pacing, great vocals and some really good music accompanying the song. Dutch conductor Dolf van der Linden was so eager to start making the orchestra start before Corry Brokken reached the microphone. Corry's previous entry was a break up song now it's again about a relationship but one that is already lasting a very long time. So yes the couple especially the man have become old (and grey) and their love has become a bit stale. But since he can still flirt (with other women I suppose) his wife wishes he would be sweet and gallant towards her, give her roses, say she is beautiful and all that jazz just like the time they first fell in love (referring to the song's title). Yes it's kinda weird given the young age of Corry and it's rather schmulzy. Also the style is a bit the same as her 1956 song "Voorgoed voorbij". However her vocals and the accompanying music really make up for that. About halfway a violin joins her on stage who also gets a solo towards the end. I'm not surprised this won quite convincingly and deservedly.
​

1. Germany - Telefon, Telefon - Margot Hielscher (37 years) starts at 28:30
   Language: German - Result: 4th (tied) - Points: 8
   

Host Germany did the opoosite of Italy after sending 2 men in 1956, now a woman was selected. Margot Hielscher already tried her luck at the German National final in 1956 but was unsuccessful. In 1957 she won and became the first woman to represent Germany at ESC. She was the first artist to use a prop on stage. What was more applicable than a telephone since that was the instrument for many years to come for the juries of the participating countries to send their points. Margot used the phone for another purpose though, expecting a call from her lover. Between talking in several languages (mostly saying hello) she sings in a calm and soft voice. The song in itself is not that special but the phone as gimmick is cool. Her song was also too long almost like 4 minutes. Placing 4th wasn't too bad and we would see her return the next year with a more uptempo song (and another prop). For the German audience she was no unknown being active since the 1940s as both singer and actress.
​

1. France - La belle amour - Paule Desjardins (34-35 years) starts at 33:40
   Language: French - Result: 2nd - Points: 17
   

A song about love in a French café. I liked this one more than the French song from Luxembourg. It came second and I don't think that is undeserved given she has a lovely voice even though the song in itself quickly fades from my memory. Paule had moderate success with a musical career lasting until 1962. When she married she stopped singing and started working as designer for the lingerie company of her husband. Her full birth date is unknown, Spanish wiki mentioned she was born in 1922.
​

1. Denmark - Skibet skal sejle i nat - Birthe Wilke (20 years) and Gustav Winckler (31 years) starts at 38:00
   Language: Danish - Result: 3rd - Points: 10
   

Denmark made its debut bringing the ESC its first duet. They were actually the only contestants in the first Dansk Melodi Grand Prix where 6 songs were entered 2 by them as duet and 2 by each as solo artists. As native Dutch/Flemmish speaker I can clearly hear it's from the same language family (German) as mine even though I hardly understand a word of it. I like the sound of it though and while it's nice that the presenter tells us that the translation of the song is "when the ship is sailing out" looking at the man's uniform it's pretty clear he is a sailor saying goodbye to his beloved girlfriend and future wife who is also wearing a typical dress from the country. There is also some gestures like him kissing a picture of her indicating he will be thinking about her on his trip and putting a ring on her finger meaning they will marry when he comes back. Actually the sailing theme is already clear before we see the couple as the orchestra starts with the sound of a ship's horn. It's all lovey dovey and cute but it works and they sing in harmony, complementary. A top 3 placing was well deserved in my opinion. Oh yes and there was in the end an 11 second kiss which definitely shocked the audience. They were applauded anyway. Did that hamper their chances to win, nah I think the Dutch entry was just too strong.
​

1. Switzerland - L'Enfant que j'étais - Lys Assia (33 years) starts at 42: 30

Language: French - Result: 8th (tied) - Points: 5
Lys Assia returned to defend the ESC crown of Switzerland. The new crown however went to the other returning performer from 1956 Corry Brokken. Interesting to note that her birthday was the 3rd of March, the same day as the the contest of 1957 took place. I can't think of any other reason why the ESC took place so early (usually it's in May). She wasn't however gifted a good end result finishing a tied 8th with Belgium. Hard to understand as I found this song about a happy childhood very sweet and more captivating than her entries from 1956. However it was also too long about 4 minutes. But vocally I found her a lot better than the French songs from Luxembourg and France. Was it perhaps too childish or too happy? Notice that the other 2 songs in the bottom 3 were Belgium and Austria both upbeat songs. However Lys would still come back for a third consecutive time in 1958 just like winner Corry Brokken. Lys would do well a year later but Corry suffered even a worse fate as title defender than Lys.
​
My top 10 was a bit harder to compile except the top 2 which stuck with me after 1 hearing. The rest is not too memorable for me.
​

1. Netherlands
   
2. Denmark
   
3. Switzerland
   
4. Germany
   
5. Austria
   
6. Belgium
   
7. France
   
8. Luxembourg
   
9. Italy
   
10. UK
    

​
Deceased artists
Paule Desjardins (1962) 39-40 years (only the Spanish wiki has a year of decease)
Gustav Winckler (1979, cause: car crash) 53 years
Bob Martin (1998) 75 years
Nunzio Gallo (2008) 79 years
Bobbejaan Schoepen (2010) 85 years
Danièle Dupré (2015) 88 years, French wiki has birth year 1938 and decease in 2013 (75 years)
Corry Brokken (2016) 83 years
Margot Hielscher (2017) 97 years
Lys Assia (2018) 94 years
​
Alive artists
Patricia Bredin (88 years)
Birthe Wilke (87 years)

I AM NOT REPLACING ANYONE
I'm looking for someone to play as mermaid! Possibly instead of the cliché Ariel knock off, I want this mermaid to be different! Possibly a different version of Ariel? I am more than happy to discuss about the character! Any who, I will talk more about the plot once our characters are finalized but you should get to know me first! Hi, my name is ZOD and I am 22 years old! I do have dyslexia so I do not understand my writing, I am happy to communicate and fix any problem! But to add on for what I am looking writing wise: 3rd person and at least 2 para or more! Plus please be 18+! Edit: this become a recent problem as I’m getting frustrated with this. PLEASE say you don’t like an idea and I’m happy to discuss anything else. I get it that some people may not agree on all ideas but please don’t ghost me and keep saying you are interested. It’s not helpful and wastes my time if you are not willing to communicate at all with me.
And here’s the starter!
It was a late night for the ships but this was a special occasion! It was Cole’s birthday! Cole was old enough to run his own kingdom and his palace was nearly complete! It was perfect time celebrate on the sea since Cole was fascinated by myth of King Triton, a king merman ruled over a kingdom full of merpeople. Yet on the boat, the night was just getting started as people began to pull out the alcohol and the gifts that was given out of appreciation of being one of the best prince. Cole was sterling the ship as they were more to sea. “Alright crew! You may set off the fireworks and let the party begin!” He yelled to them as the crew began to set off fireworks in the sky, letting the sky light up in bright colors. Which soon began to drink and dance to the music was provided by Cole. He laughed as he danced around like a fool along with some of his closes members who have worked with for ages now. Yet what bother him was the lack of being high alert. Partying is one thing but being safe should be above that! If one thing slips, all could be doom for this royal ship! Little did he know, a young mermaids was watching him on his ship, out of sight and easy to slip away if caught.
Thanks for reading! If you are interested in this rp, I just ask to have these when you dm me! All I ask is little a bit about you like your age, etc. Then a example of your writing and finally, maybe a quote from the little mermaid? :) that last part is not important but you if do, I will appreciate it!!

I AM NOT REPLACING ANYONE
I'm looking for someone to play as mermaid! Possibly instead of the cliché Ariel knock off, I want this mermaid to be different! Possibly a different version of Ariel? I am more than happy to discuss about the character! Any who, I will talk more about the plot once our characters are finalized but you should get to know me first! Hi, my name is ZOD and I am 22 years old! I do have dyslexia so I do not understand my writing, I am happy to communicate and fix any problem! But to add on for what I am looking writing wise: 3rd person and at least 2 para or more! Plus please be 18+! Edit: this become a recent problem as I’m getting frustrated with this. PLEASE say you don’t like an idea and I’m happy to discuss anything else. I get it that some people may not agree on all ideas but please don’t ghost me and keep saying you are interested. It’s not helpful and wastes my time if you are not willing to communicate at all with me.
And here’s the starter!
It was a late night for the ships but this was a special occasion! It was Cole’s birthday! Cole was old enough to run his own kingdom and his palace was nearly complete! It was perfect time celebrate on the sea since Cole was fascinated by myth of King Triton, a king merman ruled over a kingdom full of merpeople. Yet on the boat, the night was just getting started as people began to pull out the alcohol and the gifts that was given out of appreciation of being one of the best prince. Cole was sterling the ship as they were more to sea. “Alright crew! You may set off the fireworks and let the party begin!” He yelled to them as the crew began to set off fireworks in the sky, letting the sky light up in bright colors. Which soon began to drink and dance to the music was provided by Cole. He laughed as he danced around like a fool along with some of his closes members who have worked with for ages now. Yet what bother him was the lack of being high alert. Partying is one thing but being safe should be above that! If one thing slips, all could be doom for this royal ship! Little did he know, a young mermaids was watching him on his ship, out of sight and easy to slip away if caught.
Thanks for reading! If you are interested in this rp, I just ask to have these when you dm me! All I ask is little a bit about you like your age, etc. Then a example of your writing and finally, maybe a quote from the little mermaid? :) that last part is not important but you if do, I will appreciate it!!

What are some of the best restaurant/bar happy hour or drink specials that you guys know of in Charlotte? I live in the downtown/NoDa area, but I’m open to other areas in Charlotte, too. Are there any groups/people that like to go out drinking and socialize? I’m 28F and just trying to branch out and meet more people! Also, I’m more of a wine/liquomixed drink drinker, so not too interested in beer specials.
EDIT: I guess the terminology I should use is more, drink specials vs happy hour since “happy hour” is apparently illegal in NC.

I have been with my fiancé for 4 years and we recently decided to get married. We’ve been engaged for 2 years, but we wanted to wait to have a ceremony until we had some money saved up.
The reason that we decided that now is a good time to get married is because I just joined the military and will have to move for my job training, but it would be a lot harder to pay the bills with my new salary as it stands. If we were married, however, I’ll get more money based on my zip code that would significantly help pay the bills and I won’t have to break my current lease.
The issue that I’m running into is whether I should tell my parents. They aren’t fond of my fiancé because he grew up very poor and they don’t like the way he is because of it. My family is fairly wealthy and they 100% look down on him. It even got to the point that 3 years ago I moved two states away to go to university and they canceled the two bills of mine that they had been paying because they thought he had followed me (which he didn’t), but that was right before COVID and we had mass student evictions. I got sent back to my home state and had to move in with him at that point because my parents wouldn’t help me pay to get all the way back to them and he had a truck and just enough money for gas.
I had cut my parents out of my life for a few months because I was incredibly hurt that they would react so harshly and for such a ridiculous reason that wasn’t even true. We later got back into contact and have been working on our relationship to improve our communication and things have been going decently well, but they still can’t stand him and he feels very uncomfortable around them.
My family and I have both moved quite a bit in the past few years, and my fiancé has put in an effort to get into contact with my family to bring me by to visit if we make a road trip anywhere near their house. Every time, without fail, my mom finds a way to tell me that I shouldn’t be with him. After bringing this up to her, she’s stopped saying it, but now my fiancé feels so uncomfortable around my family that he won’t go with me to any holidays or vacations. At this point I really don’t understand why they can’t even pretend to be nice, but they refuse.
They also blame him for me dropping out of school, but the truth is that I couldn’t afford my tuition because I couldn’t get approved for a loan, even with him as a co-signer, and the school basically kicked me out since I couldn’t pay. Now I’m joining the military so they can help me pay for school and my parents aren’t too happy about it.
They know at this point that we will get married eventually, but I know that my mom wants me to have a big wedding ceremony and I would rather just have a small outdoor gathering with some good friends and the love of my life! I personally don’t think that there is any room for people that will make either of us uncomfortable on such a special day, but what do you think?

so for some context i (17m) met this girl (steph 17f) back when i was in my first year of high school (2016-17) i don’t remember talking to her that much at first but overtime we became somewhat friends because we both played xbox, we had only had a handfull of convos over text and less in person, she ended up leaving that same year and came back for a little bit the next year then she left again and i hadn’t heard or seen from her since, i still followed her on instagram so i’d see the occasional post or story but that’s about it, over the time i saw that she had been in and out of hospital for mental health reasons and you could tell her in her photos that she had been self harming, her whole style changed aswell into more “gothic” i guess you could say, fast forward 2 years or so from then, i was around 15 and i was on my way to one of my friends (jarred 17m) little get togethers, usually i’m always late for these kinds of events but this time i had come pretty early and so as i was opening the back yard door expecting only jarred and one of my other friends to be there to my surprise i see steph sitting on the little porch bench by herself and my friends were inside the house, at this point i’m very confused because these groups of friends are from a whole different school and area so i didn’t think they knew steph or at least enough to invite her to something like this but of course i wasn’t going to start asking questions because either way it was nice seeing someone after so long but anyway about 30 minutes later jarred tells me him and my other friend are going to pick up something on his E-scooter and to chill with steph and i was fine with it so they left and steph and i talked for a while and it was probably one of the most down to earth and funny conversations i had but anyway shortly after that she left and that was the last time i saw her, i continued to follow her on instagram but i had gotten into a relationship so i forgot about her all together, fast forward 2 months ago i had already left that relationship i was in and felt like i had moved on enough to try find someone new so there i was laying in bed when i open stephs story and it’s the usual selfie with a lil peep type song in the background nothing special from her usual posts but for some reason when i saw it it made me feel almost like butterfly’s in my stomach and i knew it was something different because i had always thought she was decently attractive. so there i was, thinking about her allot and i’d get excited when she’d post but i still couldn’t understand why because i hadn’t spoken to her in nearly 2 years so within that week i was so invested in to this almost “celebrity crush “ that i had a dream that i had asked her out and she said yes, i remember being so happy that i did it and genuinely feeling loved and warm with her then i woke up and realised everything was a dream, i was actually heartbroken because it’s not even like we did date and broke up nope it was all a fictional tale in my brain so that morning i decided to at least try because i don’t wanna live my life wondering “what if” so i built up the courage to reply to one of her selfie stories and i did and although i felt abit intimidated by her because i had never been or tried to be with someone that is “alt” i felt that the conversation went good but this is where the real problem begins after at the end of our convo i suggested we should catch up sometime when i move back closer to her (probably should’ve mentioned i live out of the city at the moment but i’m moving back) and she said yes and i was so hyped up at myself i didn’t even think of asking for her snap or number and when i realised it was already too late to double message her so i kinda just accepted my defeat and through the month my friends and even sister have been saying i fumbled even harder by not asking at all, now it’s been almost 2 months since the dm should i try or has that ship long sailed help, any and all advice would be greatly appreciated thank you :)
edit: i also wanted say the reason i gave that backstory was to give you guys abit of knowledge of what kind of personality she has and if there’s anything i should know before i fully indulge myself in this journey, thank you all :))

Yo mangaswap trying to part with a lot of manga right now! Happy to work out some good deals so if you see something you want feel free to make an offer!
Shipping included if you spend $30 or more!
Timestamp : https://imgur.com/a/9WmhuXd
Pics are from a few days ago, happy to get you new pics if you are interested in anything :)
For Sale:
Manga:
Gleipnir 1-12 G5 $90
Higurashi 1-10 G4-G5 (some are older prints that i say are G4) $90
Blue Lock Volume 1 G4 $8
Biomega Volume 1 G4 $16
Tokyo Revengers 1-4 (1-2 is B&N Special Edition) G5 $40
Land of the Lustrous 1 G5 $8
Bloody Stumps Samurai G5 $14
Its just not my night 1 G5 $7
Chunchu the Genocide Fiend 1-3 COMPLETE G3-G4 $15
I am a Hero 1 G4 $15
Now 1-5 G4 $20
Val x Love 1-2 G4-G5 $15
Bungo Stray Dogs 1 G5 $7
The Asterisk War 1-5 G4-G5 $55
Seraph of the End 1 G4 NO POSTER $4
Jaco the Galactic Patrolman G5 $30
Toto! 1-4 G4 $20
The Rising of the Shield Hero Manga 1 G5 $7
Blue Giant 1-2 G5 $15
Mai the Psychic Girl 1-2 G4 $35
Dragons Crown 1-2 G5 COMPLETE $25
Magical Girl Apocalypse 1 G4 (remainder mark on top) $7
Light Novels :
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 1-3 G4 $20
The Reprise of the Spear Hero 1 G5 $8

Hello and welcome to the 23rd installment of The Great Spice Off! What is The Great Spice Off?
I love the scent of Old Spice, so much so that it's the only aftershave I use as I don't really feel a need to splash anything else on. But, as we all know, Old Spice no longer makes shaving soap. They do still make a cream but that's hardly a great soap and it doesn't actually smell like Old Spice. As such my plan is to test out all the Old Spice options that are out there on as many bases as possible both to try out a variety of bases from different soapmakers and to report back to you on who really nails the scent.
I'll be shaving three times with each soap, using a variety of brushes and razors, and blades. Yes, I know that means it won't be exactly scientific but this is going to take a while and I want to use all my other shit too. Soaps will be rated on a few factors and given points from 1-5 for each.

• Oldness: How much does the soap smell like OG Old Spice. This is the more analytical scent analysis and I'm comparing to an OG Old Spice aftershave I have and the Shulton aftershave from India.
• Spiciness: This is the je ne sais quois of Old Spice. Does the soap make me feel the nostalgia, warmth, and whatever it is about the scent that works. Is there something special about it that makes it stand out? Does it invoke a memory or make a new one? The most subjective of this list.
• Lather: You know, can I make a shave soap out of it.
• Shave: How's it work on the ol' face while shaving.
• Post: How's the scent profile after the event. How does my face feel.

Pinnacle Grooming The Good Ship OS

Pinnacle Grooming is a UK-based soapmaker with a pretty solid following around the wetshaving community. I couldn't find exactly when they launched but their Facebook page says it was created in October of 2019 and since we all know social media is nothing but a bastion of truth I'm going to say it was around then. They say their ingredients are ethically and sustainably sourced but it's a little hard to trust them on the whole for reasons we'll dive into in a few paragraphs. (That's called a teaser, now you have to keep reading to find out THE SHOCKING TRUTH).
The Good Ship OS was a late addition to the series despite launching in 2021, well before I began digging around for Old Spice dupes. That may be because, from what I've seen, Pinnacle Grooming released this soap on a limited release, meaning once it was gone it was gone and it appears that The Good Ship OS is gone (outside of The Razor Company's stock, which is where I picked the soap up). This actually seems to be something they do often as their site notes, in some awkwardly written English, that they release limited editions of scents in order to cater to their cutomer's needs. Those scents seem to range from the weird (nutmeg/green appple/rose) to their "take" on already established scents.
"Take" is, of course, a controversial word in the land of duping and there's no clear statement from them on if they're just using dupe scents they've bought or actually building their own but most soapmakers aren't very clear on that anyway. I think this is meant to be a straight dupe but they do list two scent notes that don't always appear in descriptions of Old Spice: Clary Sage and Frankincense. So in the top layer you have the addition of Clary Sage alongside the more normally listed notes of Orange, Lemon, Spices, Anise, and Aldehydes. The middle notes are all the same with Cinnamon, Carnation, Geranium, Jasmine, Heliotrope, and Pimento berry. Then the base notes add in Frankincense to accompany the traditional Vanilla, Musk, Cedarwood, Benzoin, Tonka, and Ambergris.
The base is a bit of a hodgepodge of stuff you find in shaving soaps, with a wide variety of oils, butters, and other soapy things tossed in. It honestly reads like the creation of a child in their dad's soapmaking lab who just pores everything into the pot and lucks out with creating a soap: Beef Tallow. Potassium Stearate. Mango Butter. Distilled Water. Avocado Oil. Castor Oil. Goats Milk. Olive Oil. Aloe Vera Juice. Kokum Butter. Vegetable Glycerine. Almond Oil. Shea Butter. Silk Amino Acid. Coconut Oil. Lanolin. Grape Seed Extract. Bentonite Clay. Cocoa Butter. Camellia Oil. Sodium Lactate. Vitamin E Pure. mica pigment s (CI77019, CI77891, CI77288) Fragrance & Essential Oils. Gotta give props as always for goats milk, though. The soap itself is on the harder side and a darker color, heading into dark brown territory.
On a side note, Pinnacle Grooming did something pretty awesome with this soap. For every purchase £2.00 was donated to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which seems to be the British equivalent of the the U.S. Coast Guard... or maybe the Coast Guard is the U.S. equivalent of the RNLI. Anyway, it seems like a good cause and they even posted a picture of the donations being sent to their Facebook page.
Sadly, no matter how good this review is or isn't and no matter where some of the proceeds go, I can't recommend buying from Pinnacle as they appear to be thieves. I thought at first that Pinnacle Grooming had some of the coolest artwork around with a variety of unique images, unfortunatley that seems to be because they've stolen most of it. I ran about 10 searches on random artwork on their tubs and every single one of them came from either an artist's website, a literal official piece of character artwork, or one of those t-shirt design sites. This extends to The Good Ship OS artwork, which appears to be taken from an artist named Ian Gowdie. The piece itself is a fantastic rendition of what I assume to be an RNLI lifeboat cutting through a brisk sea, supposedly on its way to save someone's life while smelling really fucking good. I bet whomever it saves will instantly say something like, "Thank you for saving me, and damn you smell good." But despite being perfect for an Old Spice soap container, it's not theirs to use. They don't credit any of the artists anywhere on their page that I can see nor do they mention it on the tub so even if they did pay for a digital copy of every piece of art on a tub it's still pretty shitty and a total bummer.
Caveat: I would be happy, by the way, to be proven wrong about that and discover that they are paying the artists for their art but it seems unlikely. And now I've spent two hours doing research on a shaving soap company and the images on some fucking tubs, basically ruining my desire for the soap itself so... now I'm just grumpy. Let's get on with the review (which was actually written first and not influenced by any of the above).
Oldness: 3
While they may be aiming for a dupe, Pinnacle Grooming should really market this as a riff. They aren't veering far off from the original but the scent feels different. Off the puck, the soap is especially strong in the anise with the citrus playing hard in there as well. That settles down on the shave with the on-point middle notes and base coming through stronger but it still isn't a traditional Old Spice scent. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely an Old Spice scent but there's something a bit fresher and more modern to it. Maybe it's the Clary Sage but I couldn't tell you what that actually smells like or who this suspicious Clary person is and why he's got special sage.
Spiciness: 5
Honestly, I love this scent. It feels fresh and modern for some reason and at some point I'm going to have to buy some U.S. Old Spice to see if it maybe matches closer to that. Part of this is, of course, the fact that it's just something different enough from the OG scent I'm using all the time to stand out but it's also really great to smell. There's something incredibly refreshing about Good Ship OS that makes it actually fit with the sea-faring theme of Old Spice -- like a brisk breeze on the ocean air. It's not aquatic but it feels like something you would wear while on a boat, going fast, wearing a nautical-themed pashmina afghan.
Lather: 2
Pinnacle's Base builds up easily enough for sure but what it builds into is kind of lackluster. The lather is kind of airy no matter how long you work it. It's not so bad that it looks broken or overly thin but it never heats that glorious zone where the lather turns into a slick, fluffy mess. It's also super thirsty, which isn't always a bad thing but does mean that it can be tricky to dial in if you're not patient, which we all know is a strong suit of people shaving their faces at 6 a.m.
Shave: 3
Sometimes an airy lather can still deliver a great shave, which is one of the reasons that I separate shave and lather. The Good Ship OS kind of does. In fact, the shave is all sorts of "kind of." It's got kind of good cushion, and kind of good slickness, and kind of good face feel. Nothing stands out especially about it but it's definitely not delivering a bad shave either, plus it helps that the scent is so good. I will say that it doesn't do much in the residual slickness department but, again, it's not terrible.
Post: 2
Good Ship doesn't do anything to special on the face despite the presence of goat milk (and a bajillion other face-softening ingredients)! I'm not sure how that's possible but maybe they're getting their milk from lackluster goats. You know, the shady kind that eat the wrong kind of grass. Anyway, it's a perfectly fine post-shave feel but now we come to the real rub. This more "modern/brisk" verson of Old Spice doesn't play so well with the classic scent of the aftershaves. It's OK with the Indian version, where the elevated anise and crisper scents mingle fine, but put it with the vintage one and it goes together about as well as stolen art and a moral compass. (OK, that last sentence was edited post research it originally said "a fish and a bicycle.") While its score could easily be improved by one by just not using an aftershave that doesn't work with its scent, the point here is to use Old Spice as much as possible so I had to ding it.
Final Verdict: 15
Why, oh, why is this fantastic scent stuck in this middling soap (and attached to a crummy company). The Good Ship OS delivers one of my favorite takes on Old Spice but can't manage anything else great and has a shave that is simply on par. The soap is a cut above the truly terrible ones, easily, but it can't deliver anything special either. Maybe, outside of the confines of this review system, I'd like it more but within the bounds of The Great Spice Off it mostly misses the mark.
Previous Great Spice Offs:

1. 1940s Old Spice Shaving Soap in Vintage Mug (9)
2. 1973-91 Old Spice Shaving Soap (7)
3. Old Spice Shaving Cream (Original) (12)
4. Master Soap Creations Vintage Spice (19)
5. Black Ship Grooming Classic (17)
6. OSP Old Gold (19)
7. Chiseled Face Groomatorium Trade Winds (17)
8. Wholly Kaw Twice as Spice (17)
9. Barrister and Mann Barrister's Reserve Spice (21)
10. Mama Bear Aged Spice (10)
11. MERShaving Old Timer Spice (20)
12. Soap Commander Endurance (20)
13. Signature Soaps Novus Spice (17)
14. Hoffman's Shave and Soap Company Burn the Ships (19)
15. Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements Cold Spice (15)
16. Hendrix Classics & Co Commodore (20)
17. Ginger's Garden Old Spice Type (15)
18. Lisa's Natural Herbal Creations Mariner (10)
19. Stone Field Shaving Company Ltd. No. 37 (18)
20. Cooper & French Old Goat (19)
21. The Holy Black Artisan Line Shaving Soap (21)
22. Stirling Soap Co. Stirling Spice (20)
23. Van Yulay Spicy Man (10)

I'm also looking for the below soaps if you've got any you're willing to sell/trade/donate:

• Wild West Shaving Co. Snake Oil
• Whickam Spice Trade
• Occult Grooming Essentials Modern Spice
• Artifact Soap Works Old Spice Type
• Wet the Face Spices From the Sea

I already have these soaps that I have not reviewed yet:

• Seaforth Spice
• Pinnacle Grooming The Good Ship
• Hendrix Classics & Co Commander
• Crowne & Crane The Spice
• Mystic Water Windjammer
• The Village Soap Smith Old Spice Type

So why we dont edit the holiday special to make at least decent? Like cut some unescescery scenes, make have like at least decent enough to pass it for a watchable thing?
Ps:sorry for the bad english im not american

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So about 3-4 years ago my wife and I had a huge, near relationship ending, fight. It was mostly about how she feels I don’t care about her. I get busy during the day and I forget to text her for hours at a time, and when I do it’s the normal “how’s your day going” stuff.
So to fix this I made a list of 31 prompts or activities in my notes ranging from a simple “I love you and can’t wait to see you” to getting flowers or planning a picnic at the park to surprise her with. I set a reminder in my phone to go off every two days and I will use the prompt that matches the day of the month so it feels random and not like I’m repeating the same stuff. If I think of something new I’ll add it to the sub list and swap them around every few months.
This has worked out pretty well. It’s not that I don’t mean these things, but I just need a reminder to pull me out of work mode for a few minutes to check in on her without having to resort to the same boring and generic texts.
Fast forward to this weekend. I was doing some car maintenance, and I also have important information about the cars and a maintenance log in my notes as well, and while I was under the car i asked my wife to look at the notes and check the torque spec for a drain bolt. Naturally, she sees a note called “spontaneity prompts” and is curious so she opens that and sees a laundry list of romanticisms. She puts it together probably recognizing some of the things I’ve said to her that I’ve been using this to talk to her during the day.
She asks about it and I say I reference it from time to time when I want to do something nice/random to surprise her or when I feel like saying something non-generic over text. She says I shouldn’t need a list of things to talk to her about and suspects I just pulled a list of ideas off the internet, even thought I made this list on my own.
Edit: Holy cow, I was not expecting this to blow up. I appreciate the kind words and support here, it means a lot. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear up a few things and answer some of the most repeated questions as I can’t respond to every comment.

1. My wife was upset at first because she felt my messages to her were somewhat disingenuous, but I explained that I mainly did this so I wouldn’t forget to message her and would try to have something different to talk about. She understanding, but I think I need to stop using the prompts for a while and just go from muscle memory when the reminders go off.

Yes, she does work. She gets busy like I do and gets annoyed when she sends me a message and I don’t respond for several hours, after all she can make time so I should be able to as well, especially when I find time to do other things during the day. I’m more of an asshole than she is, she’s very kind, and she does random things for me all the time, but I’m not going into that for the sake of being family friendly. We’ve been together for a long time and she feels to some degree that there has to be some intensity to the love in the relationship or one day there won’t be and that scares her, and we both have to be emotionally invested for her to be in it. She doesn’t want comfortable to become complacent.

1. A lot of people were asking for a list, I’m not going to provide that unfortunately, but a few people suggested making an app, and I may try to do that. The work isn’t in creating the list, that takes 5 minutes of thinking, the real work is in setting up and following through on doing this. Some examples are just saying “I was thinking about you today and miss you” or sending a song saying “this reminded me of you/that thing we did that one time/that’s trip we took/that story your grandma always tells during holidays”, or a dumb joke, or a picture of her that you like to show you took candid pictures and go back and look at them from time to time.

It doesn’t really matter what you say, just that you say something more than “How’s your day going, what did you have for lunch, what’s for dinner, be home soon” and that you keep some form of consistency. If you cant come up with 10-20 ideas that you repeat, then you need to think about things you would like to hear from your SO that would make you happy and try those.

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I need these books gone. Happy to provide more pics, happy to negotiate on multiple books (less shipping trips for me!). NOTE: all prices include all fees and shipping costs. Anything > $100 will ship UPS and be fully insured. Check out my flair - 250+ on here, plus like 15 years of 100% positive feedback on ebay (same userid as here). I pack books the way I want to receive them - bubble wrapped and packed well in good boxes (no bubble mailers!)
Mostly want paypal but there are some select EPIC collections at the bottom that I'd be happy to work out a trade/ trade+paypal deal with.
Onto the books! Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/efEfttq
Black Panther early years (std cover, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/JWCZCsL = $60
Captain America vol 3 (DM sealed) + Captain America Kirby (std, unsealed) Bundle https://imgur.com/a/JFGRyDp = $85
Cap by Waid omni-like bundle = Captain America Heroes Reborn Complete Collection TPB vols 1+2 and Sentinel of Liberty OHC https://imgur.com/a/2jjmPjB = $50
Cap Brubaker 5 omnis set Selling as a lot, not breaking up set https://imgur.com/a/2C1d409 = $450
Includes:

• Captain America Brubaker - Omnibus vol 1 / Death of Captain America Omnibus
• Captain America Lives Omnibus / Trial of Captain America Omnibus
• Captain America Return of Winter Soldier Omnibus / Marvels Project OHC

**All books are FIRST PRINTINGS - see indicas in pics to prove as such. I know some of these have had reprints, but these are the older versions with thicker coverboards, thicker paper, etc... All books are wrapped in Brodart protectors (which can be removed if that's not your thing). All books have been read once and shelved lovingly for many years.

• Conan The Barbarian omni vol 5 (STD cover, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/l219WTz = $65
• Conan The Barbarian omni vol 7 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/aLPllLJ = $70
• Conan The Barbarian omni vol 8 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/aLPllLJ = $70
• Conan The Barbarian omni vol 9 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/NIrpzcl = $70
• Conan The Barbarian omni vol 10 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/HdghTlN = $85
• Conan the King Omni vol 1 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/NIrpzcl = $70
• Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme vol 3 https://imgur.com/a/BS7ul2z = $45
• GI JOE Special Missions TPB Bundle vols 2-3-4 (3 + 4 extremely rare!) https://imgur.com/a/HTFITTX = $200
• Invaders (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/Atr1r7z = $60
• Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (OHOTMU) Deluxe Edition (DM, unslead) and '89 update set (DM, sealed) bundle https://imgur.com/a/uj7ISoQ = $200
• She-Hulk omnis by Slott and PAD bundle https://imgur.com/a/3KqLWuj = $90
• Star Wars Empire vol 1 omni (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/V1ufDeb = $65
• Star Wars Rise of the Sith vol 1 omni (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/V1ufDeb = $65
• The Thing Omnibus (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/mSjGqfG = $65
• Uncanny X-Men vol 1 (DM, old printing, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/8Am1cLc = $85
• Uncanny X-Men vol 3 (DM, old printing, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/KWDC6hQ = $135
• Transformers IDW Collection Phase Two vol 1 + 2 Bundle https://imgur.com/a/dQAZaA0 = $100
• Transformers IDW Collection Phase Three vol 01 https://imgur.com/a/EePJz4q = $40
• Transformers IDW Collection Phase Three vol 02 https://imgur.com/a/EePJz4q = $40
• Transformers IDW Collection Phase Three vol 03 https://imgur.com/a/EePJz4q = $40

Avengers by Hickman set (FIRST printings!!) = $200 for set SOLD
Batman by SnydeCapullo = $50 SOLD
Transformers IDW Collection Phase Two vol 12 https://imgur.com/a/wzUAUjA = $145
Conan The Barbarian omni vol 4 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/pEHyyK7 = $65
Conan The Barbarian omni vol 6 (STD cover, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/l219WTz = $65
Moon Knight Marc Spector Omnibus vol 1 (DM, sealed) https://imgur.com/a/igZmjmI = $60
Uncanny X-Men vol 2 (DM, old printing, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/KWDC6hQ = $175
Uncanny X-Men vol 4 (DM, old printing, unsealed) https://imgur.com/a/KWDC6hQ = $90

I recently purchased the Shinku Hadoken cabinet. During the build process I modified the buttons and did the softmod as well. Below are the steps I took with the resources I used. I found that all of the information was available but kind of scattered so I am putting together my thoughts and process for others to find in the future.
1) Modifying the Buttons
I started the build with the button mod. As a note I used IL (HAPP) buttons so this information is specifically related to that. I unpacked everything from the box and immediately took the control deck out and started working on it. I followed this tutorial video which I found to be easy to follow and understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLzq-DZ1Q_E This part of the process was the easiest part of the entire build. The parts he used are listed in the description. For one of the buttons I had to use the original wires, snip them, and crimp new connectors on because the ones he listed were not quite long enough to reach, he does go over this in the video. Because of this I also chose not to mod my live button because I think that would require the same thing due to the length and modding it doesn't help much. However, I did find these cords afterwards in another video https://www.diyretroarcade.com/products/zero-delay-usb-encoder-jumper-wires-terminals-size-0-187-compatible-with-happs-style-arcade?variant=36779437424801 These are 12 or 18 inches compared to 8.66 so I think if you were to use these you wouldn't have to do any cutting. The biggest mistake I made was not connecting them to the correct terminals on the switches. I am not sure why but my brain completely heard the opposite of what he said in the video. I didn't connect to the middle switch. I connected to the top and bottom. This caused all menu items to need to be double clicked, in addition I couldn't map my buttons in Retroarch. To fix this I had to take all of the terminals off the end connector and move them to the middle. These connectors lock once connected so removing them was a little tricky but can be done using a method like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NznqT5ASUcM For me I just used a full nail and pushed in the hole while my wife pulled the connector off. After connecting them all properly everything worked as expected. I know it is unlikely anyone will make the same mistake but in case you do this should get you back on track. Other than that if you follow the video step by step you should have no issues. As a note I left my joysticks stock so I can't speak on the directions he gives for that.
2) Building the Cabinet
During the pandemic I got in to woodworking. I have built a workbench, an Adirondack chair, and a desk from raw lumber and step by step instructions/blueprints. So I have no issue building things or following directions. I also recently built an iiRcade machine. So that is a level set of where I am with building things. These directions are some of the worst I have ever seen! Some of the steps like this one https://imgur.com/a/8BZz01S are just completely wrong! Where it is saying to put the dowels in Part H are actually the screw holes and the empty holes it shows are where the dowels go. Additionally the viewing angles at which it shows the steps are usually not in the position needed to build from so you constantly have to re-orient yourself to the pictures. Also the step order is frequently inefficient. One great example is it wants you to put it all together and then take the screen protector off. This left little bits of screen protector at the top of my screen that I have no way of getting off without taking the whole thing apart. Long story short, take the screen protector off before the cabinet is closed up and just be very careful not to scratch it. You will end up with more scratches trying to pick off the left over bits of screen protector. Because the tracks give play on the cabinet getting the second side on was annoying as well. For comparison I built the iiRcade by myself in about an hour with 0 issues and no help. This took multiple hours and I needed my wife's help some time for no good reason. This was the worst part of the entire process.
3) Softmodding
This was a pretty straightforward process following these instructions https://archive.org/details/easy-arcade-1up-softmod-pack-yoga-flame-edition This site contains all of the instructions to get your 4 cabinets set up. It also contains all the files needed to do so. If you want to add Retroarch you can find that here https://www.retroarch.com/?page=platforms navigate to the Android section and select the Download (32bit) option. Do not use 64bit, it won't work. You can install it by following the same steps you used to install any of the other cabinets. If you would like a transparent icon I used this one and placed it above my X-Men vs. Street Fighter icon. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Retroarch.svg/1024px-Retroarch.svg.png Setting up Retroarch can be a little annoying. I found this video helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pumOKx1vx_s but only for the Retroarch piece. The other pieces related to the other cabinets seem to be outdated or not needed for Yoga/Shinku. Follow the previous instructions for those cabinets. The first thing you want to do when you get in is let it do its extracting thing. Once that is done set the controls so you can control it with the onboard controls via the method shown in the video. I would highly recommend to set the select button to be the live button. You will use this as your coin in the arcade games. I then mapped the second player start button in hotkeys to exit content. So at any time you are playing a game you can press 2P start to go back to Retroarch. I also mapped the exit Retroarch hot key to hold 1P start for two seconds. You have to do it twice in succession but there is an option you can choose so you only have to do it once. Next I would recommend changing the user interface. Under settings go to user interface and select ozone. You can try the others but I personally found ozone to be the most user friendly. You will need to restart the machine after changing the interface to see the changes. Next you want to download your cores I am personally only using arcade, nes, snes, and sega due to the lack of buttons for others. You can find a list of the best cores to use here https://qnnit.com/best-retroarch-cores/ only one is needed per system. Sometimes games don't work on certain cores or work better with other cores but these should be good for a lot of them. I found NES had the only issues out of all of these for me personally. After that you want to load your games. You will have to find your own games out there but there are plenty of links. Any roms will do there are no special roms for Retroarch. When you load them go to Import Content>Manual Scan>Content Directory here you want to navigate to the folder they are stored in. Your SD card will be called /storage for me after that is was as series of letters and numbers to get to the main file directory. I had my roms sorted by folders so NES in one folder SNES in the other, etc. This made it clean when importing I would suggest you do the same. After this go back to the manual scan screen. If you are using zip files make sure you turn on scan inside archives. Then go down to the bottom and import. The games should now appear at the bottom of the main menu under the system name they are for if you did it by folder like I suggested. To run a game just navigate to the system from the main menu, click on the game, click on the core to run it (You only have to select the core the first time you are running it).
I hope this guide is helpful to others thinking about modding their systems. I am happy to answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability. I also want to give a big shout out to RWTD_Burn! He answered a lot of my questions before I started my button mod and helped me feel a lot more comfortable with the entire process.
Here are some pics of my finished mod: https://imgur.com/a/uRUBGQw

Welcome one and all! Some of you may remember me mentioning the idea of this series a while ago in the Daily Discussions, and now, many moons later, we’re finally here. Worldbuilding is one of my passions and one of the things that keeps my brain playing with fanfiction, so I’m here to share my dubious expertise. Remember though that these are just my methods and preferences, and if you can find something different that works for you, that’s great! I hope at the very least this series of posts will provide a decent basis for people to develop their own skills and style of worldbuilding.
The goal of this first post is to get you acquainted with some fundamentals of worldbuilding, things that apply to both original fiction and fanfiction, and we’ll to expand on how to apply these ideas in the next post.

First Principles

Back in my younger days in uni, I spent a while exploring the interaction of history and anthropology, which meant I learnt a little about anthropology as well. I’m far from an expert, so if you have actually studied anthropology in any depth, you may have to hold your nose through this section, but I want to stress that this is not necessarily a commentary on anthropology as a discipline, but on what I took away from it as a useful way to think about fictional societies.
Okay, disclaimer done. Broadly speaking, we can talk about two major approaches to analysing the rituals and practises of societies: as symbolic or functional. A symbolic understanding of a society will take the approach of focusing on the, well, symbolic meaning of rituals, essentially having them stand in for something bigger. Functional analyses, meanwhile, will focus on what purpose a certain ritual may serve in a society, which may not necessarily be what it appears to be on the surface.
(“Ritual” is another bit of anthropology speak here: rituals aren’t necessarily religious or virgin-sacrifices-under-the-full-moon (that’s only the fun ones), but can just be shared traditions. For example, singing ‘happy birthday’ could be considered a celebration “ritual” in our society.)
Now, “symbolic” and “functional” reasons can overlap and even be different ways of understanding the same thing. For our purposes, we want to remember that every bit of detail we introduce about a society should serve at least one of these functions in order to feel realistic. If you’ve ever seen an obvious Bad Guy Nation that worships Evil God Bob who regularly demands human sacrifices and puppy kicking and rolled your eyes, it’s probably because these rituals failed to establish symbolic or functional meaning, and thus society felt shallow and unrealistic.
What purpose do the human sacrifices serve? Perhaps those sacrificed are symbolic methods of bridging the gap between the people and their god: by spilling innocent blood, the people grow closer to their god’s power and incorporate some of it into themselves. Or, perhaps those sacrificed are criminals, and thus the function of the ritual is punishment and as a focus for the community’s anger against those who have transgressed social norms or broken laws. Just because a nation is full of bad guys doesn’t mean their society can’t have sensible meaning in it’s rituals.
Symbolic or ritual or both? This question is worth asking yourself as you build your society. Of course, you should feel free to work backwards if you come up with some really cool shit. This is fiction after all: “because it’s cool” is half the point.

Society Load-Bearers

Now that we’ve considered our intellectual starting point, it’s time to consider our pragmatic starting point: the shit that actually makes up “a society”. You could probably make an argument for multiple things to be included here, but I have boiled this section down into what I believe are the three most important elements to consider. These three are: landscape, religion/beliefs, and people.
#1: Landscape
To a certain extent, this list is in priority order, not necessarily because one is more important to consider than the other, but because certain things on the list will necessarily limit what you can do with other parts of your worldbuilding. Nowhere is this more true than with the landscape of your society. The land your people are in will dictate what kinds of foods they can eat, what methods of travel they most commonly use, weather patterns… unless of course you use your Author Fiat Wild Card and declare an exception because of Reasons(tm), but we’ll get into that later.
Let’s say you want to write a pirate story. This means that you have excellent taste because pirates are awesome, but it also means your story necessarily takes place on islands or the coast: the rhythms are a sea are going to be a major part of your characters’ lives, and therefore of your story. Sea travel means you need to think about the preservation of food and water on a ship, hazards that could overcome your characters, and the space on the ship itself, cramped cabins, et cetera, and this will be where you want to focus your research in order to make the “landscape” around your characters feel realistic, even if they’re fighting mythical sea monsters.
In general, knowing the “landscape” of your story is very important, and I recommend having a map, or several maps depending on the number of locations in your story, for your own personal reference. This doesn’t mean you need an epic fantasy style map with detailed illustrations and every river, wood and village named. But having a rough sketch of the area your story takes place in won’t hurt and allows you to keep the areas of your world consistent. This applies to contemporary or science-fiction worlds too! Whether it’s planets in a system or the bus route your main character takes to work, just knowing how your characters move through “their” landscape will make your story feel more real, and allow you put in road blocks (maybe literal, in the case of the bus route) that your audience will understand all the better because of how this landscape has already been established.
#2: Religion/Beliefs
The next most critical element is what people in your society believe. This will guide social norms, relationships, character motivations, systems of government, all of that jazz. This sounds like a broad and complicated category, and it is, but you can simplify development in this area by focusing on one (1) major guiding principle for your society, then adding nuance as you expand through the other parts of the world. You can also, as with the previous example, work backwards from what your end goal to be.
Let’s say for example that you want to build a pseudo-medieval world, but one where gay relationships are completely normal and accepted. To make this work for your society, you might say, okay, let’s set up a society which values individual freedom. The god(s) of your medieval tech society value freedom and love, giving you a culture which puts emphasis on free choice in marriage, regardless of anyone’s gender. Since freedom is a staple of the culture, you probably don’t have a monarchy in this medieval world; instead, perhaps you have something more like the early democracy of some of the Greek city states, with limited numbers of citizens who can vote for representatives. This, again, would play into the individual freedom that was your starting point.
So we have our basics of this society down. But this sounds a bit happy and low on conflict. Here’s where we add the nuance. A society which places a religious emphasis on love puts pressure on people to be in relationships, which is bad for ace and/or aro folks, or for those who simply don’t want to be in a relationship—there could be a character story in this! Similarly, perhaps a society which values freedom also struggles to find reasonable limits on that freedom, meaning that blunt honesty (and hurt feelings resulting) are a norm. People who are more sensitive may find themselves looked down on for not being able to meet societal norms of tolerating others’ freedoms. And a democracy in a low-tech society may be slow to respond to crises (because speedy transport options are limited, slowing communication before you get into group discussion) or troubled by corruption (because it’s difficult to make tamper-proof voting methods)… not to mention those who may not get to vote.
There you go! From a really simple premise we built a pretty decent society and thought of ways its norms might pose problems to characters, whether as internal conflict in character arcs, or external conflict with plot issues. More detail, such as in specific rituals, days of celebration, and so on, will add more depth to this society, but if you’re stuck on this point, you can always go back to your central premise: what sort of things would a society that values freedom celebrate? What religious festivals might there be if their gods that value freedom and love in all forms? (You can try this as a worldbuilding exercise by leaving some ideas in the comments!)
#3 People (or: Movement)
I went back-and-forth on what I wanted to call this part, but in the end settled on ‘people’ because that expresses what I mean better, I think. Anyway, the main point of this society is to remember that your society is made up of multitudes of different people, hundreds or thousands of individuals. You can generalise about values your society might have, just as you can with any modern society – but just like the world we live in today, no society is a monolith. People will push back against their cultural norms in various ways, and even folks who accept cultural norms may participate in norms to different extents, with varying levels of enthusiasm.
As a parallel, think of people who take part in religious festivals like Christmas as a part of their religion, and people who do it as a cultural norm without serious religious elements, or without actively believing in Christianity at all. Those people are participating in the same cultural norm, the same “ritual”, but they aren’t all doing it in the same way. To make the world of your society feel truly alive, you should attempt to show something similar.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t have to be something that you dedicate masses of space to. In fact, generally it’s more realistic if there isn’t one “counter-cultural” character who all questioning or negativity about aspects of the culture is pushed onto. I’m talking about things such as, people who leave a cheering crowd because they’re not interested or disagree with a public speaker, a store owner who doesn’t ask questions about these strangers whilst others in the street blatantly stare at them, various levels of enthusiasm in the major religion, the presence of religious or ethnic minorities. You can tie this into your main story by using it as part of character arcs or subplots, too, to get characters to question their prejudices, beliefs, or generalisations they’ve made because of past experiences.
Another thing to remember about building a society of various individuals isn’t just how they “move” through the space culturally (...you can see why I felt “movement” didn’t really work), but how they move through the space of your world physically.
This is partly covered under ‘landscape’ for things like travel (if you have to teleport people around your continent, keep it subtle, yo) and what food is readily available, but it’s worth thinking about more specifically too, how your society will show, physically, that it has a multitude of people living in it. For example, if your character goes to a city, they should probably see signs of different periods of architecture, rich and poor areas of the city—and if they’re not seeing that, there has to be some reason for it. (There could be an interesting story in that idea!)
Think about the ways people will live in a period of your tech level and how that will make the space around your character feel ‘lived in’. Are the city streets clean? Where do children play? What do people do to celebrate festivals? As a modern example: even though I don’t really follow football (soccer), I always know when England are playing, because people start putting England flags in their windows… and then flags of other nationalities start appearing as well, because no society is a monolith! I hope this example also shows that worldbuilding doesn’t have to be complicated or about elaborate rituals. You can add lots of depth to a society with really simple touches like this, things that you may not even think of as “worldbuilding” because it’s so normal. But adding touches of normal is precisely what makes a fictional society feel natural!
So, that’s u/holliequ’s three major points to remember when building a world. My area of expertise, and hence most of my examples, is in (pseudo-)historical societies, but this doesn’t just work for building pre-modern or pseudo-historical societies! Let’s say that the “society” you’re building is a more modern neighbourhood instead: you can go through the list above in order in a similar way.
For “landscape” here, you’d want to think about urban vs rural communities (or a place where those communities mix, such as at a school), which country or area of the world they’re in (weather, basic patterns of life). Let’s say you want a ‘fish out of water’ story with classism themes, so you pick a rich urban neighbourhood for your main character—someone from a poorer, rural background—to move into.
Now depending on the area of the world you’re in, the urban neighbourhood may not be very religious, but they may have certain sets of beliefs already, such as homeowner’s associations which expect certain standards in the neighbourhood, or just shared assumptions about what ‘people like them’ do and how they act: for example, maybe in this affluent neighbourhood they’re used to hiring people to do housework for them, and so when they see the main character working in the garden, they assume the MC is ‘hired help’.
Lastly, people: even if your character encounters classism or snobbery from some of their new neighbours, not all of them are going to be the same kind of classist. The neighbour who mistook them for a worker, not someone who lived in the area, for example, may have made an honest mistake because of being raised with certain classist assumptions. Other characters may be explicitly hostile to the newcomer, whilst still others might be genuinely friendly and welcoming of different perspectives. In a smaller-scale “society” like this neighbourhood, which of these attitudes is dominant depends on exactly what kind of story you want to tell and there’s a bit less room for generalising than there is when developing a whole country, but as you can see, the principles work basically the same.

On using your Author Fiat 'Get-Out-of-Jail-Free' card

The above is a rough guide to building a society which functions more-or-less on the same principles as our own. But what if you don’t want to build a society that functions like our own? What if you aren’t working with humans, but aliens? Or your society has magic? Or it’s set in the future with some cool science-fiction technology?
This is when you pull out your Author Fiat card to handwave away any of the issues we’ve talked about. (This is also for occasions when you want something to just Be and don’t want to explain it, like “yeah this medievalesque society isn’t sexist. why? it just isn’t ok” but you know… this is a worldbuilding post, so we’re gonna assume you want to do some explaining here.)
For example, you probably need to think about how your characters move around the world, roughly how long it would take to get them from place-to-place with various methods of travel, the distance between stars, etc. Unless you Author Fiat declare there is an element which can make ships travel between solar systems in almost no time at all. (Hello, Mass Effect!) Unless you Author Fiat declare that giant birds can quickly taxi people around the country. (Hi, Pokemon!) Unless you Author Fiat declare that magic lets people teleport, or create gateways between different parts of the world, or… you get the picture, you always have a special ability to say “yup, it is that way because of magic and/or science”.
That said, there are consequences to using your Author Fiat card. If you have a world in which teleportation magic is a thing, then you need to think harder about ways to explain why your characters can’t get to a place: you will lose your audience if you have to resort to explanations like ‘they forgot about teleporting because they were so panicked!’ or ‘this never-before-established way of blocking teleportation magic happened!’ and erode the willing suspension of disbelief.
This is when it becomes necessarily to build probably THE most famous bit of worldbuilding… a magic system! jazz hands Or a sci-fi piece of tech. (A tech system? I guess tech systems can be a thing too.) At its most basic, the idea behind a magic/tech system is to give the audience an understanding of the rules so that things such as “magic that can block teleporting” don’t appear to come out of nowhere. By delivering these explanations early, and keeping to them consistently, you can use them to create tension later when the audience realises that a critical system in the starship is about to fail, or the main character doesn’t have the ability to cast the teleport spell right now, or whatever.
There are two approaches to building magic/tech systems: hard or soft. (Stop that smirking. Stop it now!) You may already know about the distinction between “hard” (scientifically realistic) and “soft” (scientifically plausible-ish, mostly, sometimes) sci-fi, but this can also be applied to magic systems, “hard” magic systems being popularised as a concept by Brandon Sanderson. Essentially, a hard magic system is simply one with more detailed explanations or formulas for how the magic works, giving concrete limitations, whereas soft magic systems may rely on more vague limitations such as “lack of energy” or “magic supply depleted”.
Neither of these is necessarily a better approach than the other, and mainly it’s about what kind of story you want to tell. If you believe Sanderson’s First Law, it’s easier to get your audience to buy characters solving problems with magic if they can understand, as it were, how the magic trick was done, but you may not need this sense of detail in your magic system if the issues faced by your characters are personal, or plot problems that can’t be solved with magic.
There’s not really room in the scope of this post to discuss building magic/tech systems (it’s long enough already!) but in general, unless you really enjoy making these things for their own sake, I recommend building your system backwards, starting with a vague idea of your plot and what kind of issues your characters will need to run into, and then building flaws or limitations into your system that facilitate that. For example, limit the time the character can be in the mech suit without taking brain damage, heightening the tension of the long finale you have planned, or invent some kind of magic rock that blocks teleportation magic, so your villain can have deposited a bunch of it in Plot Critical Location to prevent your heroes just teleporting there to stop them.

Resources

One last thing I did want to discuss was, in my opinion, the best way to improve your confidence and ability to worldbuild your own societies: learn about other societies! So to that end I’m going to discuss a some places where you can increase your knowledge and help your worldbuilding :D
The first one is probably an obvious one for writers, which is read widely. Fiction stories are a great resource for improving your writing, especially ones that have in-depth worldbuilding themselves. Some of the books I’ve enjoyed most over the past year from a worldbuilding perspective are Judy I Lin’s A Magic Steeped in Poison, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, and The Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, respectively a China-inspired fantasy setting, 1920s Shanghai with supernatural elements, and a sci-fi alternate history of the 1950s and 60s—so quite a wide range! A Magic Steeped in Poison also has one of the freshest and most interesting ‘soft’ magic systems I’ve encountered if that’s to your interest as well.
If we want to learn about societies, though, there is an entire profession that have dedicated themselves to learning about past societies! I keep telling everyone that my history degree comes in very useful for writing >D However, I do realise that getting into historical non-fiction can be a bit intimidating if you don’t have the degree, as history books are not always accessible. What I recommend if you do want to read more non-fiction is to look into books aimed at a popular audience rather than academic works. Two particular accessible recommendations I’ve read over the past year would be Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveller’s Guides series (particularly useful as they cover all kinds of elements of historical life, from religion to clothing to how people greet each other) as well as The Five by Hallie Rubenhold, which goes into great detail about working class Victorian life through the lens of biographies of the five victims of Jack the Ripper.
If you are willing to tackle more academic sources, when it comes to specifics, I recommend Jstor which allows you to make a personal account and access free articles each month. Trust me, some historian has DEFINITELY written something very specific on your area of interest at some point. Outside of that, I would suggest looking for books that are collections of multiple authors, since these are often designed to give a broad overview of the period from multiple historians’ specialities/perspectives. For example, I finished relatively recently Japan Emerging edited by Karl F. Friday, which was a great introduction to Japanese history from the perspective of someone mostly completely unfamiliar with the topic, and the bibliographies of books like this are an excellent starting point for doing more detailed research.
Apart from these “edited by” collections, series that are designed to be a comprehensive history on the topic can be very useful. I’ve been making my way through the Penguin History of Britain series and two books in particular, Britain After Rome by Robin Fleming (covering c. 400-1070AD) and The Struggle for Mastery by David Carpenter (1066-1300ish), stood out for their excellent attention to detail and the amount of ground they managed to cover.
(If you want any other recommendations, feel free to ask me! My best areas of knowledge are probably early modern and modern Britain and Europe, but I’ll see what I can do for any other periods or topics of interest!)
Non-fiction books are not the only way you can learn about societies either, especially for those of you who struggle to find time for books. Historical documentaries can be a great and accessible way to find out more about a particular era – my favourite documentary of all time is Victorian Bakers which is a BBC series available on DVD where bakers from the modern day try out different methods of baking throughout the Victorian era, starting with stone ovens and all the way up to industrialisation. Since bread has been a staple food for most of European history, it’s a really valuable perspective, as well as fun! (And yes, I am the kind of person who has a favourite documentary of all time, lol.)
There are also plenty of youtube series out there talking about history, but do try to find reliable perspectives if you can, particularly people who actually share their sources with you (and even if you don’t want to read the source itself, you can google it to check out the reviews). Some historians are now putting their work online to try to reach a wider audience, and one historian’s blog in particular which has been useful for me is A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry by Brett Deveraux which even has an entire section for resources for world-builders, looking at things such as what do pre-modern cities look like, how do people make clothes, etc.
Now I really have talked for long enough, so I’ll leave it there. I hope you all learnt something from this post, even if it’s just “I don’t like this, so I’m going to do everything the opposite way”. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments as I may consider posting a revised version of this on AO3 at some point.
There is one more post planned in this series. The next one will cover how to apply these worldbuilding concepts to fanfiction in a more direct way (i.e. when you’re not building a world from scratch, but expanding around existing concepts) and how to actually put all this worldbuilding into your story. Look out for that some time in the next week or so!