Lostinfandomtea - LoveinTeaandBooks

A few of these are not strictly “new”, but they’re recent discoveries!

Masquerade by Alexis Black is the most questionable one on this list, a short story about a scarred man who meets a woman at the masquerade but of course their romance is impeded by the fact that she doesn’t know what he looks like. Also it’s on the MOON.

“Masquerade Melody” by Angela Bell is a short story in The Regency Brides collection, featuring a musically gifted but disadvantaged heroine torn between her intended cousin and a grouchy composer lord who wants to be left alone.

The Monsters of Music by Rebecca F. Kenney is doing a LOT, including having a female Phantom and a male singer standing in for Christine, a modern-day rock music oeuvre, an American Idol-style singing competition, and Irish folklore with fairies. So obviously we need to know more about that.

The Phantom of the Opry by Brett Kelly is yet another lampoon musical based on the original story, set in an Op’ry House with regional bumpkin performers and bad puns abounding. The reviews are pretty positive, though, even if the composer’s website seems to be down!

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Cracked Mirror by Pennie Mae Cartawick is a short story featuring the famous detective investigating Christine’s kidnapping in the original story, with mention of the flaming death’s-head of Leroux’s novel.

On we go, heading into autumn. The next roundup will be at Halloween, the spookiest and thus most Phantom-appropriate time of year, so let’s all hope for some great new stuff!

“autism wouldn’t have been difficult before capitalism” “nothing that caused me burnout existed before industrialization” well what if your boots feel weird against your skin. and your cape is itchy and too heavy. and your brooch keeps making an annoying sound everytime you move and this party is too loud and you’re hungry and there’s pigeon stew but you can’t stand the texture of pigeon so you ate some olives and now your hands feel oily and gross and you drank a little bit too much wine (bc there’s no clear water. also it was too bitter) so now your head hurts and you feel a little hot but not hot enough to take your cape off and you promised this time we leave when I asked, Aurelius! you promised! and don’t forget we still have a three hour ride back home you promised it’s not going to be like last time! or something of the sort.

This is frustrating.

I love the comparison, but I hate how they are comparing.

They are acting like she is using optics to give herself an advantage. But the device she is wearing is just for comfort and essentially does the same thing as closing one eye and squinting the other.

The little thing over the left eye is basically like an eye patch.

And the thing over her right eye is a mechanical iris, like in a camera lens, but it is NOT a lens.

Different lighting environments are going to be brighter or darker and you may have to squint more or less to let in the same amount of light into your eye. Squinting allows the shooter to get the sharpest possible vision in order to shoot a bullseye the size of a 12-point Times New Roman period.

But if you have to squint for hours for practice and in competition, this can strain your face muscles and become uncomfortable. So this iris basically squints for you.

It's more like wearing comfortable shoes so your feet do not hurt than a lens magnifying the target and giving an advantage.

Both athletes have access to these items. One felt more comfortable without them. The other didn't feel like getting a muscle cramp from squinting all day.

Either would have shot the same if they had or had not used these devices.

Just a funny difference in gear preference.

I should also add, the Turkish dad is the only one using lenses.

Some of my favorite magic side effects:

-Nosebleeds. Never gets old.

-Coughing up blood. The good ol’ “cough into your hand and pull it back to see blood” also never gets old.

-Headaches. You keep fighting as your head pounds, desperately telling you to take a break. At first they fade within minutes when you stop using magic, but overtime, they become chronic.

-Fatigue. After a big battle, you stand triumphant, and then just fall asleep on the spot.

-In a similar vein, overuse causing you to straight up faint rather than just fall asleep. Darkness begins to overtake your vision in the middle of battle, unconsciousness abruptly looming over you.

-Any of the side effects happening to another person. Maybe two close characters are connected, and whatever side effects character A would normally endure are transferred to character B. When A uses a blast of magic B screams loudly because holy shit that hurt.

-Magic gradually deteriorating your mind. Using it too much eventually caused hallucinations and an inability to retain memories, or even larger scale memory loss. 

Feel free to add more, I’m looking for some to steal

anyone who's always wanted to watch leverage but couldn't afford it and couldn't find it to pirate it, or just prefers watching things on youtube instead of futzing with unofficial sites:

the first three seasons are on youtube, in full, uploaded by the creators, in the correct order (the first season was aired out of order by the network)