#40 is a pretty much approximate number…think of it being sometime after ending of the game

[blue-unifox]

You can tell it was very self-indulgent

[nikadoesanart]

My predictions on BSD getting animated going forward

I’ll be taking a look at the novel page counts (Japanese and English) and comparing them to the screen time they’ve gotten so far and then using this to predict how long the remaining light novel adaptations will be (approximately). At the end will also be my rough prediction/hopes for the order of some of these being adapted. I say some because I have yet to read what there is so far of the gaiden novel translations, the main story manga has essentially still been on the DOA arc almost since where the anime left off, and I personally think that it’s currently too soon for Storm Bringer (aside from money purposes).

Note, most of this was written well before the anime 5th anniversary livestream but the announcements wound up not affecting it. I then of course made adjustments as needed account for the novel content we do have so far, both in Japanese and in English (officially).

Page to Episode Count

Not counting the afterward, ads, etc for the English/US copy, Japanese is including it

Also all eng page counts are using the Yen Press release and jp page counts are taken from the fandom wiki

*148 is purely counting the Untold Origins portion of the novel. If we also count the A Day at the Agency short story that’s included before it (56 pages), then we get the full 203

Also the English page count for BEAST was noted before the English release date but after page counts have been posted by affiliated retailers, so subtract a couple pages from the written count of 176 for the time being to account for the afterward and possible character sheets being included

Now that we have our page to episode counts (as of April 5th, 2021), let’s find the actual content run time of what we do have animated so far.

Seasons 1-3 and the OVA all have the same episode length/duration. Each episode is 23 minutes, and we can subtract 3 minutes on average from that to account for the OP and ED being played. This leaves us with an average of 20 minutes of BSD story content per episode. So on average, each of the first 3 seasons contain 240 minutes, or 4 hours, worth of story content.

Dead Apple’s total run time is 91 minutes, with the OP and ED making up 9 of those minutes. However, we do have a bit of the story content being played while the ED is playing (as sometimes happens in the anime as well). To keep the math simple, I’ll be approximating story content time at 82 minutes.

Apply these numbers to the novels that have been animated so far and this is (approximately) what we get:

Now let’s use these numbers to predict the screen time needed for the other novels

Note that we can’t really use Entrance Exam as a fair measure because of how much got cut out (just compare the run time of it to Dark Era and it speaks for itself). However, the numbers for Dark Era and Dead Apple are the best ones to use, as they both have minimal changes between anime and novel and both have official English translations currently available. Take out the approximate time taken up by OP/ED and and the numbers pretty much match up.

So with that being said, we can estimate Untold Origins (only) at approximately 3 eps/60 min and 55 Minutes at 1h 40-55min/100-115 min or 5-6 eps if it doesn’t get a movie. We can also estimate the A Day at the Detective Agency short story at the beginning of Untold Origins to take up about 1 ep, probably even a bit less.

1+ 3 + 5-6 = 9-10 episodes which isn’t enough for a full single cour season unless they all get put into one big OVA season, but also 10-11 eps (or less) seasons are a thing (ie. Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, Blood Lad, Black Butler: Book of Circus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of a Holy War, FLCL)

My personal predictions/hopes for the anime adaptation timeline going forward

This is considering the manga content, current “pausing/stopping points” what wouldn’t be too awkward, each of the novels relevancy/necessity to the main story manga, and assuming we continue with single cour (12-13 ep) seasons

Hopefully/ideally a 55 Minutes movie

S4: ch 54-70

Early S5 (preferably) or end of S4: Untold Origins or A Day at the Agency

S5: ch 71-88/around where we are now?

A Day at the Agency can, in my opinion at least, be chucked in at any point either as a single episode OVA or as the light novel content for s4 (maybe not even taking a full episode and then starting ch 54 in the last few minutes for example). Keep in mind that the current DOA arc is a long one and has plenty to it, so personally I think it may even be better to not include a novel adaptation in a future S4, as it would likely already be a right squeeze content wise. Remember, we also have a few XX.5 chapters that are continuations of the chapter directly before them.

I still need to read what’s currently available of the gaiden novel fan translations but it can probably be adapted at any point as well. I’m estimating approximately 5-6 eps as an OVA series. I don’t really think it would get a movie, partially because you can make it only so long, especially since it’s an anime movie and unlike Storm Bringer, it doesn’t have Chuuya to practically guarantee the profit.

BEAST also doesn’t directly impact the main story and can be adapted at virtually any point. However, seeing as we do have a live action confirmed for it and it’s page count lines up very closely with Dark Era, it can be either 4 eps or (more likely in my opinion) a movie, as it can be considered almost stand alone content.

Personally, I believe it is currently way too soon to animate Storm Bringer as it came out only a little over a month ago (as of writing this) and has minimal plot necessity as of ch 91, but I do believe it should be either split into 2 movies (a part 1 and part 2) or it would need 8 episodes, likely as an OVA season. If it were to get animated sooner than 55 Minutes or Untold Origins, which I believe to be very unlikely, I feel that it would almost certainly be driven by the financial gains of Chuuya being included, and his popularity alone. Reminder, SB is about Chuuya and not SKK. Dazai’s appearance in SB is proportionally a very small percentage and he’s not even mentioned in the official plot summary.

However, you can argue that SB is starting to have some relevance now, with the recent mention of the Order of the Clock Tower in ch 90 and the increased relevance of sealed ability weapons in ch 91. However, I really do believe that you can’t adapt Storm Bringer before 55 Minutes because of Standard Island and its treaty, it also talks about sealed ability weapons, knowing who Wells is, and 55 Minutes canonically takes place during the “downtime” portion of S3. In fact, here’s Asagiri’s words directly from the Afterward (translation by Yen Press):

“this volume didn’t take place in the past, but rather sometime after the tenth volume of the manga. In other words, it’s a tale about the ‘usual’ detective agency in novel format.” (55 minutes, p 237)

Untold Origins also should be adapted sooner rather than later (at least compared to SB in my opinion) because it’s about Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s shared past, which becomes increasingly relevant ch 70 onwards, as well as the need for the ADA being founded (which ties in with Yosano’s backstory in ch 65-66).

In regards to whether I think each of these would be better suited to a movie adaptation or as multiple regular length anime episodes, it’s mainly due to page count and partly due to the budget difference between the two, as well as how difficult I think it would be to animate each of these based on what needs to be drawn. The anime industry isn’t the fastest to switch to newer technology, hence why we see issues with 3D blending sometimes. I really do think that at the very least, 55 Minutes deserves the movie budget because of how detailed and complex the architecture of Standard Island is described as, as well all the mechanical parts needed for the final battle of the novel. Hate the lizard mouths introduced in Dead Apple all you want, but you can’t deny that the 3D cgi was blended very smoothly. For any of the other novels to be movies, it’s more so because gaiden and BEAST can be considered their own stand alone stories that don’t rely too heavily on the main story in terms of when they take place and get adapted. I feel that SB is more likely to get its own season or an OVA season more so due to its length, but multiple part anime movies have also been done before (ie. the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel movies), so it’s not entirely impossible. Especially considering that merely having any Chuuya screen time means that you can expect the profit and popularity to really go up, especially with SKK being on screen together (regardless of whether you love or hate how the fandom tends to push a shipping POV on them).

These are all of course just my hopes and predictions and estimates based on information currently available, so take them with some salt. I’d love to hear opinions on how, when, and why each of the currently non animated novels should be adapted going forward. Also please stop begging the relevant BSD official Twitter pages for SB to be animated next and go read the other light novels you Chuuya simp

[ereawrites]

HCs: Camboy! Batboys

this was requested by: anon

taglist: @daddyissuesmademe

Dick Grayson:

He probably gets into cam work after Barbara mentions it: not necessarily as a suggestion for Dick to do it, maybe just mentioning it in passing while she’s doing her genius computer-y stuff. Dick laughs at first, but he definitely goes home and researches it a little more, and he thinks it’ll be some fun if nothing else. No one has to see his face, right? He can just wear a mask!

Cautiously makes an account (careful to hide it from Barbara) and ends up getting 100 subscribers in under a week. His first videos are pretty tame, just recordings of him doing some light exercise and a few stretches, working up a bit of a sweat before he starts playing with himself. No toys that are too fancy at first, but people love it.

Probably didn’t realise that he would get off so much on this. He’s definitely a bit of an exhibitionist, past lovers can attest to that, but he didn't anticipate how much it would turn him on to be watched by total strangers. The anonymity of it is actually quite comforting, and he feels like he can let loose in a way that he hasn’t been able to before. Probably comes harder on camera than he’s ever been able to achieve by himself before. Definitely goes for another round after he switches off the livestream.

Dick’s a natural performer, and that shows when he’s on cam - he kind of loves being the centre of attention like this. You can visibly see him get excited when people leave comments or tips on the livestream, and he’ll always thank the person and put on a little show for them, maybe even moaning their name. People go crazy for it, so his livestream comment section is always buzzing.

Audience is probably a good mix of male and female. Everyone has a crush on Dick Grayson, and everyone finds ‘Nightwing’ hot. Dick’s completely fine with this, and he tries to appeal to everyone with his videos by keeping them pretty ambiguous most of the time.

He definitely does a few male/female-oriented livestreams though, maybe as subscriber milestones or special events. Sometimes he lets his subscribers buy him toys (usually vibrators or cockrings) to use in these videos, or he’ll let them vote on a specific act to do. Not so many private videos - he kind of wants as many people as possible to see him.

Entry fee to his livestreams isn’t too high - he doesn’t necessarily need the money, and he really enjoys doing it, it’s one of the sexiest things he's ever done - but oh boy, he’s going to empty your bank account through the tips alone. You just can’t help it when you’re in there. He teases, he grinds on pillows instead of showing anything, he takes his sweet time, and people get desperate. He’s hot, okay?

Top tags: flexible, athletic, male moaning, striptease, toys

Jason Todd:

Jason probably gets into cam work as a way to reclaim his body and sexuality. He definitely watches camboys and camgirls a lot, and one day he sees one with scars - this guy’s totally owning it, and Jason wants to be able to do that. He's very, very tentative about it, and probably spends a few months just filming himself and not putting it anywhere, but it does wonders for his confidence. 

When he finally decides to make an account, he probably puts a limit on the number of viewers for a while, just to get used to things. It’s pretty standard stuff: him getting himself worked up, stroking up and down his body, then masturbating on camera. He keeps his face completely cut off, and doesn’t really talk much, but his body is on full display and...wow. He gets great reviews, and the exclusivity of his streams only build the hype.

Slowly, Jason will remove the limit on the number of viewers, but that entry fee is pretty high. He tells himself it’s a smart move (hey, guns are expensive), but he also kind of likes the idea of people paying to see his body. At first, it’s purely as a confidence boost, but soon the concept of people actually getting off to him really sinks in - then, when he's on cam, he’s imagining people getting themselves off at the same time as him. It does wonders for him.

After this little revelation, he branches out a bit more with his videos. He lets himself be freer vocally (and he’s loud), and when people go wild for that, he manages to push himself to do some dirty talk - saying what he’s imagining, or what he wants to do to his watchers, or describing fantasies. Maybe with a voice modulator, like in his helmet, or maybe without so people can hear how hot he is. Tips start absolutely pouring in at this point.

His audience is around a 40-60 male/female split. He normally keeps the dirty talk pretty ambiguous. Part of his cam persona is being a rough top/dom, so either way, he can cater to his viewers. If he builds a rapport with a certain viewer (someone respectful, who tips well and gets along with him), he’ll definitely consider doing a private stream; he might even switch to his more subby side, for the right person.

Sometimes, maybe once a month, he brings out the leather gloves/jacket. Jason loves the way that people go crazy for it, even though he feels he’s at his most dangerous like that. Possibly even does a few roleplay scenarios - it feels a little awkward at first, but he finds his rhythm quickly, and he really enjoys it. He’s considering branching out into audio porn, too (now that his confidence is soaring).

Top tags: dirty talk, buff, edging, interactive, growling

Tim Drake:

Yeah, he definitely knows about Dick and Jason’s accounts, and they definitely inspired him to start his own cam account. For Tim, it’s a way to explore his sexuality in a way that he doesn’t really get to in real life - he can be whoever he wants to be, live out whatever fantasies he wants, and he gets to control whatever happens. He probably toys with the idea for a few weeks, but he just can’t resist the temptation for any longer than that. It's just so appealing to him.

Tim absolutely gets off an insane amount from cam work (knowing he’s exposing himself like that is a huge turn-on), so he probably hacks into the website to send his account to no.1 on the recommended page. He goes viral for the content, though: he’s got a super high-quality set-up, he knows his angles, he plays things up for the camera. He does his research, and he loves to look pretty for his viewers.

Very much into kink, and not shy about it. He’s 100% confident that no one can trace his account, and he wears a mask (inspired by Dick), so he can totally let loose. This is basically just a way for him to explore what he’s into - think anal, overstimulation, breathplay, etc - and people watching just heightens all the sensations tenfold. He’s always sure to tell his viewers how much he gets off on them watching him play with himself.

He loves doing private shows, too. It’s all very exclusive and professional. People will pay ridiculous amounts of money just for 20 minutes alone with ‘RR’, because he’s always so busy with other viewers: Tim lets each private viewer tell him exactly what to do to himself, though, so it's definitely worth it. He ends up with a whole drawer full of toys and accessories that people have bought him as gifts.

Probably a more male-oriented audience, but he gets a few girls as well - Tim also often finds himself interacting with other popular camboys/ camgirls on the site. He does a lot of collaboration videos, for example mutual masturbation or letting himself get bossed around by another creator, and viewers go absolutely nuts for it. He probably gains around 500 new subscribers each time, purely because he’s so cute and everyone on the site just wants to ruin him.

His absolute favourite thing to do is carve out a whole day in which to cam. He starts with teasing himself (nipple play + breathplay, mostly) for a few hours, on and off, interspersed with chatting to his followers - he works it up into something more intense, comes once, and then breaks out the toys and does it all over again, multiple times. Poor baby is absolutely exhausted by the end of it, but very pleased, and approximately 5000 dollars richer.

Top tags: anal, gag, lingerie, multiple orgasms, femboy

Duke Thomas:

Duke gets a lot of comments on his physique, a lot of attention on both social media and IRL, and he loves to brighten people’s day. Cam work was kind of a natural move for him: he probably stumbles across it while he's watching porn one day, and he’s drawn in immediately. Sets up an account after a few days of working out the technicalities - he's coming into this prepared, so he can enjoy himself without a worry while he’s working.

He probably flies under the radar for a few months, with a few dedicated subscribers who tip well and love him, but he doesn’t mind, he really is just in this for a little fun and a good orgasm. His account blows up after he posts a particularly lengthy video with lots of edging (requested by one of his subscribers), and stuff just takes off from there. Duke still maintains close relationships with many of his viewers after this, and most of his videos are inspired by suggestions.

More than anything, Duke enjoys knowing that people are getting off to him, and it makes his day when people thank him in the comments (plus, he gets a little power rush from it). He’s a people-pleaser, and while being watched is definitely a turn-on for him, it’s mostly about the knowledge that he's satisfying others. That’s what really gets him going, and he’ll often edge himself until he knows all of his viewers have gotten off too.

While he’s never really explored the world of kink, beyond a few things with partners, Duke’s absolutely open to branching out. It’s all good fun, after all. He gets his followers to decide on something new for him to try out every week, and makes a little series of it: his favourites so far have been wax play, semi-public settings, and making himself come while still in his jeans (that video got thousands of views).

He’ll do a private show now and again, but the majority of the time, it’s livestreams that everyone can watch. Duke likes to randomly pick out a few viewers on each livestream, and make them feel special for a while, so people can mostly get their fix off that. He probably also makes an OnlyFans, where his viewers can pay a little extra to get some exclusive pictures and shorter clips.

His audience is majority female - girls just fall for Duke, with his sunshine personality, and the way he can be cheery and sweet right up until the moment he comes. Duke’s also very much about making porn more female-oriented, so he probably plays to this demographic a lot, and asks his viewers a lot of questions about what they want to see.

Huuuuge praise kink. If people rave about him in the comments, he literally moans when he reads them, and more often than not he has to take a little break to cool down.

Top tags: loud, popular with women, grinding, ball play, spitting

[bikeforlife]

Bike Tour Blog

I honestly can’t believe I made it from the Pacific to Atlantic.   This morning I woke up in my own bed for the first time since early February.  Oh my god it felt so good.  If a mattress maker wanted a testimonial, today would definitely be the day to get one from me.   After 45 days straight of being on a bike it feels really good to be home. 

On the first week we made from San Diego to Tucson Arizona.  This section had some significant climbs through places like Alpine CA  and  Pine Valley CA and lots of desert riding in eastern tip of California and the state of Arizona.  We camped in San Dunes CA where ATV’s are very popular and in places like desert view towers that had insane views of the Ko-Pah mountains.   We also slept in a town park in small town in Arizona called Welton.  I did snap my chain in Pine Valley but Tone was right there to help out.  It was also the first time I rode my bike on the interstate and the first time I ever had rode a bike 10 miles straight downhill from the Ko Pah Mountains to Ocatillo California. 

The next few week would take us through New Mexico and the beginning of Texas.  The highlight of this section was the climb through the Gila National Forest on our way to Emory Pass.  This section had absolutely breathtaking views and an abundance of nature.  We climbed to over 8200 feet of elevation at the peak and went through awesome towns like Silver City NM and Hillsboro, NM.  A couple days later we crossed the border into Texas at El Paso. This mammoth state would be approximately 1/3rd of the total miles we would cover.  Many parts of the Us but especially Texas  had recently experience significant weather event with snow, freezing conditions, and a failure of the local power grid.  Fortunately we got to the state about a week after the weather had passed.   

In Eastern Texas a significant portion of our miles would be on US highway 90.  This would feature some awesome small towns like Marathon and Sierra Blanca Texas. The route also had remote areas  of riding where there wouldn’t even be a gas station for 80+ miles.  I found myself having more to think and unwind than at any part of my adult life.   It was also during this stretch that we stayed at some great state parks.  Seminole Canyon State Park and Lost Maples State Park in particular stood out to me.    There is something magical about looking at the stars on a clear night without light pollution.  

Eventually we went through Austin, Texas and I got to reconnect with my friends Jason and Max. After so much time pedaling through remote areas it feels really good to see friends and be in a city.   Austin as a city has grown so much since I was there last.  I ate great food during our off day and found an amazing bike mechanic that help me resolve a derailleur issue that had been lingering since San Diego.  

We would hit a few more state parks on the eastern half of Texas and eventually crossed into Louisiana.  After being in a very dry part of Texas the swamps of Louisiana offered a very different riding experience.  For the most part the terrain was flat and the roads were in good condition.  This part of the tour was special to me because of the amazing friends we made.  During one week we stayed with Mandy in Deritter, LA and Perry in Jackson, LA.  These amazing people took us into their homes and did everything they could to be helpful and make us feel at home.  We were able to take a day off in New Orleans which was awesome.  My friend Chris and his friend Bobby came down from from Jackson Miss and we all got a chance to hang.   It was great to see Chris again after almost a decade of not seeing him.  Hopefully I’ll make it to Mississippi at some point 

The final stretch would have us riding through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.   During this time we met even more incredible hosts.   Kellie/Mason in Bay Saint Louis and Dave/Stacy in Bagdad, Fl were both incredibly kind and generous.  Thank you for everything.  The ride took us through places like Dalphin Island, Alabama.  I never knew there were islands in Alabama . They are absolutely gorgeous.  

We stayed in a couple more awesome state parks in this stretch.   In Bainbridge Georgia we stayed in the east bank campground operated by the army core of engineers.  They gave us a site right by the water and it was a pretty magical experience.  The final section of the tour featured a massive uptick in the number of bugs in these parks.   I found that during camping were almost always under attack from mosquitoes or being visited by either argentine ants, caterpillars , or bees.  Bug spray can help but sometimes you just have to cover every single bit of skin on your body. 

During the final day push to the ocean Tone and I split up.  The original route that we were using had us going through Jacksonville to Saint Augustine Florida. He wanted to stick to the route while  I made a decision to go directly to Jacksonville which was more direct to the Atlantic Ocean.  For me the final day was filled with a range of emotions and thoughts.  Admittedly even 10 years later I still have some anxiety of my past medical condition.  As i’m riding i’m feeling a huge sense of accomplishment and simultaneous release of anxiety/stress. To be able to survive a full coast to coast tour of the United States on a bike is the kind of proof that the only limitations are the ones I place on myself.  I think about my life with Riana over the past 10 years and how fortunate we’ve been to be able to experience living in larger cities, traveling abroad, and getting to start our own business.  

I think about how grateful I am to Tony for doing this tour with me.  I’ve known him for 15 years and he’s always pushed me to do things outside my comfort zone.  From helping me get first passport stamp, to hosting great events, to now riding through the US on a bike.  Particularly on this tour he went above and beyond.  He help me with mechanical issues which i’m not particularly good at, he lead our route navigation almost every day, he found places for us to stay, and helped lead us through all kinds of unique day to day challenges.  

My tour came to a strange end.  I was on my way to stay at my friends Stephanie’s house in jacksonville when I stopped at a convenience store.  When I came out my bike and all of my gear was stolen.  This included my passport, clothes, tent, sleeping bag, paneers, bike tools, food, journal, and more.  I tried my best to look through the neighborhood and called the police but no luck in recovering any of it.  As unfortunate as this situation is, I'm grateful it happened on the final day of the tour just a couple of miles from my friends house.  I won’t let that person take away my memories and diminish the experience.   They are worth infinitely more than the material value of the bike and my belongings.  

As i’ve had a couple of days to relax before going back to work  i’ve been reflecting on the experience more.  I absolutely would recommend doing something like this to anyone I know for a few reasons.   It’s a great way to decompress.  You have time to actively think and it helps your focus significantly.  The riding is tough but manageable.  I only rode my bike on a couple training rides beforehand.  I was also asked a ton of questions from people about my experience. So I wanted to answer them one by one below.  

What did you eat?  

Being a vegan on a bike tour has its challenges.  I ate a lot of clif bars, peanut butter banana burritos, trail mix, , Fritos chips, subway Veggie Delights without cheese and Impossible burgers from Burger Kings.   Honestly a lot of days on tour it was challenging to find vegan friendly dishes.  Thankfully our hosts made some really nice home cooked vegan meals and every large city we visited had great vegan options.  

Where did you sleep?  

It was a mix of hotels, backyards , rv parks, state parks, town parks , and then random wild camping.   On nights where it was too cold to camp we opted for hotel most of the time.  

What gear did you have?    This was my packing list before the bike was stolen. 

Tools Bag

Park tool Allen key Hand pump Kevlar spoke Back up derailleur  Baby wipes Chain scrubber Degreaser Spare tube x2 3 tire lever adjustable wrench Poncho Hand warmer Head lamp

Food Bag Varies but generally 3 portable camp meals  Clif bars 

Back paneer 1

Extra water plastic jug - Nalgene Sleeping bag (40 degrees) Sleeping bag liner. (10-15 degree etc) Micro fiber Towel Waterproof socks Large winter gloves Small gloves Zip ties

Back paneer 2 Short tech shirts (red and green) Socks (long wool, short cotton Medium wool Blue t shirt

-Toiletries bag

Deodorant dr Bonner liquid and bar soap, bug spray toothbrush toothpaste back up Masks Hand sanitizer

Electronics bag Solar charger Headphone and charger Cell charger Extra water container - 3 liter emergency

Duffle Sleeping pad Wind pants Under armour Long sleeve shirts (grey , black , blue yellow winter Jacket

What was the hardest part?    I suspect every single rider will have a different answer to this .  For me there were two things that probably equally as challenging.  First and foremost there are large portions where people are not wearing masks.  It was very demoralizing to be in situations constantly where people have made a conscious decision to disregard the health of others.  Since the services were so spread out I found myself having to get food from places that have anti mask propaganda on their front door.  

Secondly this tour really taught me that I am more comfortable in cities and around people.  It was charming to spend  days riding our bikes through  farm country in remote roads but eventually it began to wear on me and I found myself crave cities.  Also in cities the percentage of people wearing masks shot up significantly.  

What was your favorite small town?  

I really enjoyed Silver City New Mexico.   It was a quirky mountain with good architecture and really nice people.  There was also a very helpful bike shop, great co-op,  nice motel, and the town was filled with cool art.    

What was the weather like?  

For the most part we had good weather.   I would say were typically 50-60’s during the day on the first half but colder at night.   We were able to avoid some of the extreme weather that hit Texas but still found ourselves that was a little too cold to camp in.    Most of the biggest issue that would we would face would be consistent headwinds.  After a first week full of tailwinds the rest of the tour would almost always deal us 10-25 mph headwinds.   

How many issues did you have with your bike?  

There are always some day to day issues but the most common were flat tires ( I think i had 5 throughout the trip), My front derailleur was a consistent issue.   The fenders on the bike were kind of a pain.   However for an old 80’s bike with an older drive train it held up pretty well.   I would recommend to anyone thinking about touring to consider customizing their bike to their own needs as opposed to buying a brand new touring bike.   There will always be maintenance.    

 How did your body hold up?   

For the most part I wasn’t in a lot of pain on this tour.   Everyone’s body is different.  I found that if I got a majority of my miles during the morning I would do much better.   However on days where we were riding until close to sun down i found myself in a lot of pain near the end of the day.   Most commonly knees, butt, lower back, quads.   Occasionally my hands would be numb on long riding days.   

How long did it take?  

45 days coast to coast.   During that period we took 3 full days off and had a number of short days (30-40 miles).    I’m told that this was a very quick trip as many folks take between 60-70 days to complete this route.  

What would you recommend to someone doing this?  

There are a million things but i’ll try to summarize here.  

If you’re touring with other people try to have honest conversations in advance about things like how many miles you want to shoot for a day.   How early in the morning do you want to start pedaling.   Where you are you comfortable staying.  What kind of timeline you’re under with work?    What food you’re comfortable sharing.   If you’re comfortable deviating off the route to save miles/time.       Ultimately the more you and your riding partners discuss this in advance the less confusion you’ll have day to day.  

With your work I would communicate to co-workers honestly how involved you want to be while away.   Some have traditional jobs that allow them to totally leave work and decompress.  In my case as an entrepreneur I found myself involved on almost daily basis with work.   For me that was comfortable but for others it might take away from their experience.   

I would also make sure that you have a good instinct for eating food even when you’re not hungry.  I had to learn this throughout the tour as my food options were limited with a vegan diet.  

I would recommend that you try to do some level of training in advance.  On my first bike tour I did almost no training and I was in pain almost right away.  On this one I did some cross training and some scheduled rides.  It made all of the difference in the world as far as my day pain levels.   

Would you do it again? 

I don’t personally know if I would do a tour of this length again.   While I enjoyed the experience and the bucket list aspect of it I found myself going through the motions on a lot of days.    I think I would enjoy much more doing a tour of a 7-14 days.   Possibly if I’m ever retired I may feel differently but the looming pressure of my career was a bit hard to get through mentally.   

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

Being in the blogging business for around 8 years now I came to learn a lot. Let’s hear from the old bitter blogger about the difference between being an ambassador and being a customer. When you’re investing more than you’re gaining from the collaboration it’s not really a collaboration you’re looking for.

There is a new trend going around social media, especially Instagram. I’ve been getting collaboration offers on a daily basis even pre COVID times but now the amount of pseudo collaborations increased.

Hands down it is an incredible business strategy from the business point of view.

Everyone wants to be an ambassador.

Ambassador became an even more prestigious title than an influencer. Influencer posses some sort of responsibility for their actions whilst ambassador is just being paid for simply being.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Many brands use this knowledge to the fullest and offers these pseudo collaborations.

So what is a pseudo collaboration?

Well, it starts off by being contacted by a brand.

You’ll receive a ctrl+c ctrl+v message from a brand-name-scout. The message contains several cute emojis and addresses you as a gorgeous, pretty, cutie, love, honey, sweety, and if they really want to get you, even by your Instagram name.

It’s usually followed by a bunch of compliments about your fashion style, vibe, Instagram, or whatever. Then there is a lie about following or just generally noticing you for a while without ever seeing your insta story, like any of your posts, or even actually following you.

Now it’s time for an offer beneficial for you.

Usually, it’s free products, a way to earn a commission, or just the sheer option to be able to call yourself an ambassador. Every single brand out there offers a “support” like anyone really knows what’s that supposed to mean. I had several ones even offering me a travel trips, but never elaborated on it after my further questioning.

Now comes the hook with a “do you want to learn more?” question.

If you think I’m exaggeration for the story and I can’t be generalizing all of the collaborations offers into a simple standard form I wish you were right. Here are some of the screenshots of my current Instagram DMs:

You might think: “What’s wrong with that? They’re trying so don’t be mean. Just ignore them.” let me remind you how dumb Instagram algorithm is.

If your account is followed by bots, messaged by bots, liked by bots Instagram assumes you’re one of them or you got hacked by them. Sweet of them for trying to protect you thought, but holy hell did that made everything super complicated for me.

I got several messages from the brand scouts messaging me again because their previous account got deleted.

No shit Sherlock, it’s like you can’t keep creating accounts, following and messaging a bunch of people at once and ask for money anymore.

So now every time my account gets suspicious activity such as too many likes/follows/messages Instagram suspects my account got hacked. Each time they require I change my password and let me tell you I ran out of password ideas months ago.

That’s not the worst part though.

After each time I change my password I’m blocked for 7 days from liking, following, or adding tags to my posts and that sucks. Just to get a better picture of this issue I’m blocked approximately once sometimes twice per month.

The block comes hand in hand with a shadowban that lingers for god knows how long, meaning Instagram is not gonna support you in any way. That’s why I have around 40 likes on a posts with 47K followers most of which are bots anyway.

I loath Instagram app yet I spend hours a day on the hellish site and I’m not only one.

We spend so much time on Instagram anyway so when a chance to earn money form it comes along you’re tempted to take it. Brands know that.

Imagine you’re a small-town girl with around 400 followers on Instagram. You already feel pretty popular right?

Now imagine you get the messages I shared above but you get just one. Someone out there thinks you’re so popular they want you on their team, you are just like the big influencers, you get job offers for being an Instagram star. You’re the next Kardashian.

You can have all of the things they said to you BUT you need to do something for them first. You have to pay for it.

And here is the catch with all of the pseudo collaborations.

What they don’t say to you in their first message is what it’s gonna cost you.

Many offers you free stuff but you need to pay for the one-time shipping. Some brands offer you a unique discount of around 40-60% off so you’ll pay just a part of the price and you can call yourself an ambassador.

I don’t know about you, but I thought that was called the customer. You buy a product, you wear it and occasionally you take photo of it on your social media sites. The new term is an ambassador apparently.

I get why so many people agree to this kind of collaboration. It’s new for you. It makes you feel good and successful in your friend’s and families eyes. And there is that hopefully undertone of making money from it.

Aren’t the brands unprofitable when they give away discounts and free stuff?

In a theory, yes, but there is one thing all of the brands that messaged me had in common except for the audacity.

Overpriced products.

I got messaged by jewelry stores, fashion stores and gym equipment stores most of the time. I took the time and did my research on every one of them.

When a store sold jewelry, they had the same products as the rest of the jewelry stores I got contacted by. A small variety of around 8 products most of them sold out anyway. And let’s not forget the ridiculously high prices. You can’t charge a cheap Chinese necklace you can get on amazon or aliexpress for under a 1$ for 40$.

So even if you’re paying just around 30$ for your ambassador order they are still making a profit on your wannabe Instagramer need cuz they purchased said items for far less.

Well, I’m being a little miss know it all right?

How can I talk about pseudo collaboration like this when it’s all based on assumptions. Well you know me, I’m curious as hell and I actually went through 3 pseudo collaborations myself just to prove a point.

I literally spend money so I can tell you about it right now so here is how my 3 pseudo collaborations went like.

All of the ones I choose were jewelry based pseudo collaborations. With the corona times, post offices are overwhelmed with parcels. I ordered big parcels in recent times and they arrived with around a month delay. I figured smaller jewelry in an envelope form would be quicker to arrive and I was right.

Pseudo collaboration number one VONACHI:

A simple yet luxurious-looking website with very few decent pieces of jewelry, offered me 3 free pieces to take a photo in and promote. I would also get a 60% discount code and every time my code would be used I would receive 30% of the money amount. Incredibly overpriced amount in the first place.

Here is the list of all of the benefits they offered.

The scout that approached me was very eager. They kept insisting I place my order right away. No time to waste.

To make it clear I got a simple code to apply in a check out that subtracted the price and I got the pieces for free. All I had to do was pay a 20$ shipping fee what seems like nothing but for 3 small necklaces, it is way too much.

Another thing that was odd was that I was required to take a screenshot of my order and send it back to scout. I guess to prove I was legit.

After bunch of further compliments and claims how excited they are to be working with me we ended our conversation.

If you think I was being reckless to give my credit card and home address to such a questionable site don’t be.

Honestly, I trust zero people, sometimes I don’t even trust myself. I used a card I have no to very little money on and I got it shipped to a work address.

My parcel from china arrived in around a month and a half. I got one black box with one necklace and the other 2 necklaces were in small plastic bags. I received a note about welcoming me to the program and asking me to contact vonachi’s official Instagram account for setting up my discount code and that’s exactly what I did. The official page responded after longer time period with just a “this is your code” message. I took a photo, tagged vonachi as a business partner, and shared my code. I did my part and I was never contacted by them again.

My 60% code is VONAMBNAT and as you might have guessed no one used it so far.

Or at least no one told me it was used. If someone were to use my code I would be contacted by vonachi and here is the problem. I’m supposed to trust them with their credibility cuz there is no other way for me to check it for myself. This is what it’s missing from the old Time collaborations of mine. I would get a tracking code, an account login, graphs, statistics, and one on one communication with a brand in my previous collaborations. But you know Golden times for influencers are long gone.

Now I’m left to just simply trust them.

Why would they ever confess someone used my code? If a customer gets 60% off and I’m getting 30% from already discounted item there is just a very little left for vonachi. They don’t say anything and get to keep my 30% share.

They didn’t put much effort into tracking system cuz they are not expecting their ambassadors/customers to make any sales anyway.

The products were not that bad. They came in a bit rusty and tangled but I was excepting much worse.

Hell, I was not expecting them to legitimately arrive.

Pseudo collaboration number 2: ENGELSINN

I initiated this pseudo collaboration myself. Engelsinn paid a significant amount of money to Instagram promoted post and that’s where I found out they are looking for ambassadors.

I filled out an application form.

This one felt more legit cuz they actually asked for followers count and all of the communication occurred via email. Automated emails but still it reminded me of good old days.

I was given a 40% discount code to use on my first order. The shipping was free but it still cost me another 20$ to get the product. Since placing my first order I got a 20% discount code “nat7x20” for my followers to get 20% off their engelsinn order.

When my code is redeemed 2 times I get one jewelry of my choice for free.

Do I even need to mention that I didn’t get any email since?

Well, that’s not exactly true I got 2 more emails each with another discount code I could use for 24 hours and buy more of their stuff. But none about redeemed code.

Engelsinn is a german based brand and living so close I got my parcel in around a week. I got myself a rose gold knot bracelet and I feel like a hypocrite but I actually really love this one and wear it every day. I know I wouldn’t get it if it wasn’t for the research but I’m glad I did.

Btw the ad about engelsinn looking for ambassador is still up there and it still says they have only a few places left. It’s been 2 months.

Pseudo collaboration number 3: CUZETTE

I got messaged by them on my Instagram and their offer was super confusing. They promised it all. 3 free stuff now, free stuff every month, paid trip to several destinations, and even 50$ voucher. The scout called me sweety exactly 9 times during our conversations. It was super annoying.

So I choose another 3 free items and paid another 20$ for shipping. When I asked about the 50$ voucher I was told I would need to refer 5 friends who would also become cuzette ambassador or delegate as they named it, to get the 50$. No info about the travel trips though.

I was told to contact the official page for more info but it took days for them to finally reply with nothing new just more compliments and excitement about the future. It’s been 2 months and I still haven’t received my order just as I was expecting.

Later on, I endorsed in conversation with several other brands asking for more info, looking for something different than standard copy and paste form. Unsuccessful.

Every time I asked how many ambassadors they have in their program the answer was always “around 3000“. Once again, you have 3000 customers and not 3000 ambassadors. If the only people who buy from you are people you ask to buy from you, you’re doing something wrong.

But your business plan is on point.

When I asked about who and where makes their products I was either met with a silence or a sweet talk about a responsible brand.

These brands are providing people with content. You get to take photos of the items you ordered and you get to be as creative as you want. In these COVID times so many brands had to cancel or postpone their collaborations with bloggers or Instagrammers. I saw huge travel/luxurious instagramers switch form hotel and travel collaborations to promoting kitchen wipes. Times are tough and you got to do what you got to do.

Yet these small businesses with hight prices are thriving?

You know it’s not about the product but about the potential.

Profiting on greediness.

So smart.

To prove my point even further I got to confess one more thing. I mentioned before that I manage Instagram accounts for different brands and among them is one fashion store. I was not only at the ambassadors’ side but on the scouting side as well.

All I had to do was search for people who looked like they would be willing to become an ambassador for our store and had decent amount of followers. I had saved message form and all I did was try to guess peoples names so the message seemed more personal. Once they agreed to a discussion I let my boss take the lead.

So yeah, try to really think about the offers you get.

Look at it from all points of view and ask yourself if it’s profitable for anyone else but the brand.

If you want to have offers pouring your way try adding #ad #spon #collab to your next Instagram posts. That’s how they look for their next ambassador.

Everyone wants to be an ambassador. 

Pseudo Collaborations- Everyone wants to be an Ambassador Being in the blogging business for around 8 years now I came to learn a lot. Let's hear from the old bitter blogger about the difference between being an ambassador and being a customer.

[lysanderish]

CW: Food Talk in the context of restriction due to a medical condition, medical talk, I am literally just getting out some thoughts and feelings about being diabetic.

If you weren't already aware, I am diabetic. Type 2. And have been for over 6 years. Yes, I am 29. It's fucking bullshit and is a solid 75% of why I feel so raw about my health. I am just. So angry. About the particular, excessively shitty hand I've been dealt when it comes to my health - I get to spend the rest of my life struggling with this and 10 other things specifically wrong with me AND I have to work the whole time until I can no longer work (which will be a lot earlier than planned, probably), at which point the good ending is I get on disability and live in poverty for the rest of my life.

I digress.

So, I am forcing myself to actually pay attention to my health again. Which is fucking hard and sucks so fucking much, in part because I'm at the point where if I don't get my shit together, I am going to be put on insulin - which I CANNOT afford, financially, and I have my doubts about my actual ability to effectively utilize it due to all of my brain worms.

Anyway, to help me manage my diet, I downloaded an app to log my food. It's supposed to be for keto dieters, but the name doesn't have the word diet in it, the app doesn't force you to follow keto guidelines, and even the little ratings they have on the foods aren't guilt-trippy or authoritarian - the worst rating I've seen is "avoid" which is pretty reasonable imo. Like, it's actually really nice compared to what I used to use and even on the day I went over my carbs last week they didn't do anything to make me feel discouraged, just reset my streak.

But yeah, I've been doing really good on the carbs overall. I'm starting to see more normal sugars, though my readings first thing in the morning are still fucking ridiculous. The med management lady said if I have sleep apnea (and I know I do) getting it addressed might help with that. W/e.

My biggest complaints about all of this so far are:

1.1. I can feel myself cycling back into a "Cooking takes too much effort" phase.

1.2. After ordering a salad from Subway yesterday and getting several bites where the lettuce tasted like how I imagine dirty dish water tastes, I am also entering a "Vegetables are poison," phase, so that's cool.

1.3. As a result of the above, I have no fucking clue what I'm going to be eating soon, especially since, for some reason, the hot trend among men over 40 in my home is to fucking steal any Low Spoons Day food (i.e. canned soup) I'm stupid enough to think I can leave in any part of the house except my bedroom.

2. Here's a fun thing I've noticed: sometimes I will get extremely hungry, to the point where all I can really think about is how hungry I am. I happened to test my blood sugar during one of these times and it was right in the goal range for when I took it. I have taken readings during these hunger attacks several times since and my sugars are always sub 200 when it happens. Which is neat to learn but also kind of makes me want to die a little, because how the fuck am I supposed to live my life if my body's response to relatively normal blood sugars is to try to eat itself from the inside out? I'm sure a lot of this will go away once my body acclimates to the new dearth of rice, potatoes, and pasta, but what if it doesn't?

3. My app tracks all the macros, not just carbs, and I am mystified by the numbers they've got goin on for me. Like, I'm sure a lot of it is that food/water math tends to get kinda fucked up once you exceed a certain weight. I've had apps try to suggest I drink literal gallons of water a day because I weigh over 300lbs. I'm consistently eating way more fat than they recommend and I don't care so much about that. But they want me to eat 300g of protein a day. 300! That's approximately 6 chicken breasts! That's fucking nuts!

That last point is what I actually came on here to talk about. Like, surely that number just comes from some combo of my weight and projected caloric needs from said weight combined with the default ratio of carbs:protein:fat I selected, but it's still fuckin nuts.

Christ in hell but I am a pitiful creature.

[hydrospanners]

13 to 24 for rhese becuase it's important and since you never talk about your ox's in the discord then it's public shaming time

Lol thanks for calling me and my extreme social awkwardness out bro. Buddy. Pal. Thanks for drawing attention to how bad I am at discord!!! And talking to groups of strangers!!! I can barely talk to one stranger!!!! Much less many strangers!!! It is hard!!! I can’t just walk into the house of an acquaintance and start boiling eggs in their kitchen!!!! I don’t care how much I like eggs!!!! It’s uncomfortable!!!! What a weird analogy to use!!!!!!! Someone please save me from myself and all these exclamation points with some questions!!!!!!

(Thank you very much for asking you are the nicest.) (Meme is here.)

13. Let’s see those outfits!

It is a great tragedy that simplicity and disavowment of material goods is part of his Jedi philosophy cause my boy Rhese loves clothes. He is dedicated to keeping it brown and simple, but he likes his fine fabrics, elegant lines, and the occasional heroic silhouette. These are his in-game outfits. My headcanon wardrobe for him is much more extensive.

14. Who is/are their favorite companion(s)?Already answered here.

15. Who is/are their least favorite companion(s)?Doc. Which is not to say that Rhese doesn’t like Doc, just that if he had to be trapped in a cave on Hoth with anyone on Rea’s crew, Doc would be his last choice. The list of Doc’s personality traits and the list of things that stress Rhese the fuck out are identical. Doc flirts too much. Doc talks too much. Doc takes too many risks. Doc is too cavalier. And probably the worst part is that Doc is real enthusiastic about boning Rhese’s sister, which would be easier to deal with if the two of them knew how to keep it in their pants until they had a little privacy, but they don’t and Rhese has been traumatized too many times and looking at Doctor Pornstache only reminds him of Things He Has Seen Rea Doing With His Own Two Eyes That Cannot Be Unseen.

16. What do they do in their spare time?Already answered here.

17. Do they have family? Siblings, parents, children?Rhese has more family than he realizes at basically every point of his life. Obviously there is his sister, Rea, who sometimes seems like a more important fixture in his life than he is. He also has another much older sister named Kieres who they left behind when they were smuggled off of Eriadu. He didn’t know she existed for the longest time, but in the years since he finally discovered her, they have had something approaching an amicable acquaintanceship that largely revolves around complaining about Rea.

Rhese’s believes both of his parents are dead, but his mother and her parents are still alive on Eriadu. He found out his father’s parents were still alive and doing well for themselves on Corellia when his grandfather begged him to come visit his dying grandmother just before the assault on Vitiate’s Fortress way back in the class story days. His grandmother has since died but his grandfather is alive and they would still talk occasionally before KotFE happened.

There’s also Liss. While not technically family, she was his aunt’s partner and pilot growing up and he always considered their whole crew his family, but Liss especially. She was always his favorite on the crew and he was hers. He thought she died with the rest of his aunt’s crew when she was betrayed, but they found each other again during the time Rea was missing on Vitiate’s fortress (isn’t it funny how much of his family that he thought was dead mysteriously turns up again when Rea isn’t around???? hmmmmm) and were very close until Rhese went MIA sometime during KotFE.

So he has family, but the only family member he’s really close to is Rea.

18. Who is their BFF? Kira. They have the sort of tried and true friendship where they bond over hating all the same things. At first they just irritated each other but, then they bonded over irritations with Rea, then their frustrations with the Senate, then how annoying Doc was, then all the problems with the Order, and by then they were best friends having secret conversations about all the ways they both felt inadequate and the things they dreamt of doing and the people they dreamt of being and also Rhese kinda wanted to make out with her.

19. Who is their rival? Everyone is Rhese’s rival at some point, but probably mostly Rea. It’s a very one-sided rivalry that she is not aware exists 85% of the time.

20. Do they have a love interest? Who?He had a mad crush on Kira once they got past their weird beef when they first met. They’re both passionate about being Jedi, about improving the Order, and about doing good for people who are often forgotten. They share similar ideas about what role the Jedi should play in the galaxy and the Republic and have similar ideas about how to make that happen. They share similar insecurities about themselves as people and as Jedi.

Basically they have a lot in common and Kira’s pretty and feisty and challenges him and stokes his emotions, good or bad, and miraculously she saw something enticing about his dumb ass, so they had a Thing™ but they are both too much alike to work well together in any kind of long-term, stable relationship so that Thing™ did not last but it didn’t exactly end either. It’s turned into a kind of on-again, off-again thing that only ever seems to be On when they are in a mood to do something dumb.

21. Would they continue their legacy by having children? Adopt? Get an apprentice?Rhese would kind of like to have kids, but it’s not something he’ll ever do. It goes against his every philosophy as a Jedi, and he knows himself well enough to know that all those controversial tenets about attachments exist for people like him. Rea might be able to handle it, but Rhese knows that for him, a family would be an express ticket to temptations he couldn’t resist. He struggles enough with his relationship with Rea, who he doesn’t even like at least 40% of the time and has never once felt responsible for. There’s no way he could bear the emotional rollercoaster of fatherhood without it ending in tragedy and he’s kinda sad about that.

Rhese wants an apprentice though. That would be just enough emotional distance for him to be able to not go crazy and he would be a good teacher. I imagine he might have had one over the course of the five KotFE years where Rea was in the wind, but I can’t say for sure what he’s been up to until BIOWARE TELLS ME WHAT THE REST OF THE CREW WAS DOING. DAMMIT BIOWARE.

22. What is their sexual orientation?He’s real demi. He can count on one hand the number of people he’s been attracted to in the whole of his life and so far they are all women but he’s not entirely convinced that means he’s only attracted to women. Just that a lot of the men he meets are terrible. (Yes he is definitely including Doc. Probably at the top of the list.)

Regardless, he’s not that concerned about it. He loves romance stories but he has spent approximately 0.000000001% of his life seeking out his own romance.

23. Do they like their role in their current situation? ei: if they are a Sith do they like being in the Sith order?This one’s tough because I’m not entirely sure what Rhese’s current situation is post-KotFE. I really need to know what canon says the rest of Rea’s crew has been up to before I can know how much of that to ignore and be sure what Rhese has been up to. I will say that no matter what, Rhese still thinks of himself as a Jedi and that is a critical component of his identity. But he’s probably massively disappointed in the Order and how things went after Zakuul invaded. He’s probably bitter. He’s probably decided he’s one of the only True Jedi left. He’s probably formed his own subsect of the Jedi, probably consisting only of himself.

TL;DR Rhese will always love being a Jedi but he is deeply unsatisfied with the current state of the Jedi Order.

24. If they could be part of another group, what would it be? You can choice from Old Republic, Expanded Universe, or Cinematic Universe.Rhese would be Luke Skywalker’s biggest fanboi. Give him that sweet Cinematic Universe. He is here for that hero’s journey shit and he will stay for the Classic Jedi Retreat to Isolation in Bitterness and Guilt Gambit and he will nut on that self-sacrificial redemption. He wants to live there. Doesn’t even matter that it’s objectively terrible cause his life is already kinda that.

[cyrelia-j]

A Tale of Two Parmaks (or the big write up on my crazy versions)

In thinking of multiverse and character stuff, I thought this would be a good opportunity to familiarize everyone with the two big versions of Parmak that I write. He isn’t super fleshed out in the books, but I think that there’s still somewhat of a consensus on defining character traits both physical and mental/intellectual/emotional that make up the heart of him. I know that in both my primary iterations of him there are some characteristics which diverge sharply from what most people imagine he’d look like/think like/act like. There are a few short things I’ve written where I think he remains “canon” Parmak but those are definitely the minority.

So, without further ado, may I present:

C132 Parmak and C147 Parmak

(Yeah, I totally ripped off Rick and Morty for this)

The idea for those not familiar with the show is that there are various multiverses where alternate versions of the world/characters exist. It’s a pretty common theme in sci fi but I took the universe designation format from that show. Just as a reference, in the show it’s generally accepted that the “Primary Universe” characters are C137 so I definitely will not be using that number :)

C132 Parmak: This Parmak appears in my serious and dark/dramatic stories. I’m working on an ambitious series of backstories for his life in this universe. Right now these start with “If” and are going to continue through [upcoming as of 5/24/18] “The Downward Spiral” and others. Parmak in these stories is intersex- having characteristics of both sexes. In this universe I had envisioned Cardassia as having a detailed spectrum of sexes (Known as the Ba’zan Spectrum) which range from what we would approximate from Cis Male at one end to Cis Female on the other. I won’t get too detailed with that in this post but as a note, Parmak is “X210” which means that his primary body characteristics skew slightly female in appearance (ie the hip to shoulder ratio, slightly more feminine ridges, a bit of a softer voice etc) but as far as biological sex are closer to the center of the two.

The reason that this characteristic and matter of his sex gets such detail is because it’s a critical part of this Parmak’s identity. What I mean is this: I wrote this character to reflect a bit of myself. In the Cardassian records systems and medical systems etc he’s not considered male, he’s defined by this designation. But he considers himself male and refuses to be defined by the sum of his biology. As a trans male I wanted this part of him to be reflective of my own feelings and experience. (Yeah I know, confusing avatar- think of the Cyrelia J pseud like Conchita Wurst) This Parmak has spent his life with different expectations and prejudices being pushed on him because he refuses to call himself anything other than male. He’s rejected from his petition to study medicine before he gains a sponsor, he’s slandered and objectified by people he encounters, and he encounters a lot of pressure to conform. In spite of that he refuses to be anyone other than who he knows himself to be.

This Parmak is from Nokar. He was a physically “abnormal” child in that he is an albino (in the Cardassian sense), he has poor eyesight, and has kyphosis (a spine curvature which can be very minor to a pronounced hump- my cousin was born with this so that’s where the concept had originated from. Scoliosis, that thing they test for in schools is a spine curvature on the other axis). He’s terrified of his own reflection and has no desire to know what he looks like. He’s actually very attractive. His main drive and passion in life is medicine. When he was a teenager there was a plague of a mutated Yarim Fei which struck his village and everyone but him died. He spent months burying those who died while simultaneously trying to cure them with his own limited medical knowledge. He realized later he wasn’t infected because of his mutated genes. This really shaped his life because when he was able to devote himself to medicine he worked tirelessly for a vaccine on that and other diseases.

His passion and unique talent is in pharmacology and chemistry. This gets a bit “too perfect/sue-ish” but I like it so it’s not likely to change here. He’s like a magician/alchemist when it comes to his ability to mix up serums and drug compounds. It’s a highly coveted almost genius ability and one that Tain wants like oxygen. This Parmak was involved sexually with both Tain and Garak. He’s afraid of Garak’s eyes because of Tain’s induced illusion ability. He was soft spoken but fearless and was taught by his foster father Vakem Parmak that the Doctor’s role is to survive at all costs, be unbreakable, and so he was raised from his late teenage years to his mid 40s to withstand poisons and torture of an extreme form. It had only ended when Vakem Parmak died. Shortly after that he was recruited by Enabran Tain (albeit not exactly willingly). It made him arrogant in his abilities until Garak broke him. That combined with his experience in the work camp changed him.

In the present day, he’s kind but pragmatic. He’s aware of his own shortcomings but he still has a “survive at all costs” mentality due to his upbringing. The Parmak family credo which he lives and dies by is “one for a hundred” meaning for every life taken he must save a hundred. He’s unbending in this assessment. He still has his quirky sense of humor, he still refuses to look at himself in the mirror, and he doesn’t understand why people find him attractive as his own self-image is still poor. He has few hobbies because his life is work be it medicine, advocacy, raising a family, or self assigned “missions”. He enjoys reading and gardening but really has to be dragged into leisure because he doesn’t understand it. His life has taught him that life isn’t leisure only survival and work so he’s not very able to relax.

He’s a tireless advocate for the Northern Continents and northern rights and he has far less moral limits than I would imagine canon Parmak to have. He’s willing to kill to save but he works to heal the disenfranchised and protect those who need him most. He also has a warped pain tolerance because of his foster father’s training and enjoys being hurt- he doesn’t ask for it or seek it out, but he was conditioned to have that response when it occurs so that’s been used against him. I guess you could say he’s a bit of a broken Parmak.

Stories featuring C132 Parmak are: “If—“, “The Downward Spiral”, Invictus, and Inside a Dream” so far

If you like your Parmak closer to Julian ethically, more “light” than “dark”, and much less twisted then this isn’t the Parmak for you :)

On the opposite end we have:

C147 Parmak: This Parmak appears in all my humor/crack/lighthearted stories. His sex is irrelevant to the character unlike C132 Parmak though for reference he’s usually male in this iteration unless otherwise stated; so far in every story but “The Power of Three” he’s been cis male. This character borders on being a parody so I would encourage most to take this one with a grain of salt because he’s not meant to be a serious representation of Parmak. A lot of his traits come about because of silly late night conversations or “what if” jokes. The biggest example would be his cock obsession. For me this is more of a running gag because I imagine it to be so far off of real Parmak canon and behavior that it’s just silly. I find all sorts of stupid things amusing.

He had a happy childhood in the North, has living parents, and only moved South to study medicine for the adventure of it. He’s usually near lifelong friends with Garak (as this Parmak appears primarily in AUs) and occasionally it’s a friends with benefits arrangement. He appears as various types of doctors/healers but in the Extraverse he’s a yoga instructor as well. I’ll probably branch out his professions as I write more for him. He likes to wear his signature hair beads (silly fanon thing of mine) and often says outlandish things “unintentionally”.

He has a massive hoarding problem and he loves pop culture. You’ll find his space (car, house, office, etc) full of records, CDs, books, bumper stickers, old bottles, and anything he finds interesting. In some universes this includes a massive sex toy collection This Parmak loves taking pictures and loves music. He comes across as oblivious and spacey. Some of that’s genuine, some of it’s played up a bit because he likes seeing people smile and he likes spreading positivity. He loves yoga and tends to be super flexible and fit (sometimes in teasing contrast to the C147 Garak who’d rather lounge with a cocktail). This Parmak also loves television, Queen, and Columbo. He’s incredibly adventurous and has a devious little smirk. He’s a voyeur and a closet sadist (in a playful sense- he doesn’t enjoy actually hurting people).

He’s a bit of a bad driver, is into conspiracy theories in a big way, and is into alternative medicine and new age ideas. He’s more the “Hippie” part of “Hippie Lizard”. He absolutely loves sex and could be considered shameless but he’s proud of this and infinitely creative in that realm. I might even make him a sex therapist one of these days since I think he’d be good at it. As a side note, his companion C147 Garak is much the same. He loves games and stories and “cute” things though he seems rather unaware that he himself is one of those “cute things”. He likes to wear his sunglasses perched on his head while still wearing his glasses. Fun fact- his sunglasses aren’t prescription and he never actually wears them as sunglasses.

He’s a good listener, emphatic to the max and is comically strong while being pretty slim and unassuming. Sometimes he’ll also have the congenital stoop of C132 Parmak but not always. He dresses very free in the summer and bundles up like the kid in A Christmas Story in the winter. He has a strange obsession with tentacle porn and stopped consuming sugar sometime in the early 2000s. He’s pretty much everyone’s friend and can be outspoken and opinionated (especially on obscure things). He totally grows on people even if they don’t like him much at first and is always a brilliant doctor and ethically upright and kind character.

Sometimes he’ll appear in contemporary Cardassian fics/drabbles so some of the more Earth centric traits will be missing but everything else will pretty much hold true. The sex thing also holds for anyone in the C147 Parmak verse including Julian and Garak who are usually the 2 other constants. This too is actually kind of personal for me. It’s a lens through which I see the world. Maybe it’s because growing up I was like listening to Howard Stern since I was 7 and had a lot of exposure to that sort of thing. It’s difficult for me not to sexualize things and interactions and in my writing I tend to be super sex driven. Since my RL doesn’t even remotely reflect that activity I enjoy expressing it through fic even if the C147 Parmak and others get kind of caricature-ish.

Stories featuring C147 Parmak are: The Extraverse, Lizards Melt in your Mouth (epilogue 1 not 2), The power of Three, and the drabble Fine Print

So if you don’t like your Parmak to be an over the top extra dick magnet then steer clear of this Parmak :)

As a side note “A Gift for My Darling” has a mirror Parmak that’s a combo of both these Parmaks while being kind of completely insane.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read, and I hope this enhances everyone’s experience with my stories. I’m always super appreciative of anyone reading and giving feedback. I’m kinda of like a sponge... but not the Seinfeld kind haha

I’ve been debating if people might prefer that I tag either version of this character for ease of filtering so any feedback on that either by reply or DM would be much appreciated!

[jooliargh]

How I made a habit stick and lost 3kg

Content warning: weight loss; calorie counting.

If you find this article interesting and decide to use a similar method to lose weight, please get proper advice from a doctor or dietitian. I can talk about habit forming, but I'm not qualified to say what is safe or healthy for you to eat.

This isn’t really a weight loss blog, because what could be more boring or unnecessary than a weight loss blog from someone only a few kilos overweight? It’s a blog about how I built some better habits, and found a system for sticking to them that worked for me. But in the first couple of months of lockdown I was moving about less than usual and probably eating a bit more, and the effect of those things was gaining weight (specifically, my jeans were getting tight). So the habits I needed to build were to move about more and eat less.

(For what it’s worth, I find it helpful to think about weight gain and loss as effects of different eating habits rather than problems or goals in themselves since I read Gillian Riley’s excellent book about food addiction Eating Less.)

The Problem

In my job, sometimes when we start a piece of work we use a set of questions something like this:

What problem are we solving, for whom?

How do we know it’s a problem?

How will we know if we’ve solved it?

My answers were:

I’m eating too much and moving about too little, which is bad for my health, which is a problem for me. Also, I want my clothes to still fit.

My jeans are getting tight (even my ‘comfy’ jeans which I wear on days when the others are too tight)

When I’ve adopted better habits that lead to me comfortably being able to fit into my favourite jeans

At this point I needed some science, which meant thinking about calories and weight for a while. I reckoned my jeans used to fit pretty well when I was about 3kg lighter so to achieve that, the energy I used (from moving about) needed to exceed the energy I consumed (from food) by about 22,500 calories in total. Whether it took me a few weeks or a year to create that difference didn’t matter.

The Science Bit

Caveat: I got a D at GCSE Science.

When I talk about calorie deficit, I’m not talking about someone else’s idea of what I should or shouldn’t be eating or how much I should be moving. I’m talking about physics: what goes in needs to be less than what comes out.

Side note: Did you know that when we lose weight, it leaves our body via our lungs? Yes, there’s wee and poo and sweat and stuff, but fundamentally when we ‘burn’ energy we turn oxygen into carbon dioxide. The air we breathe out is very slightly heavier than the air we breathe in, and that’s where the weight goes. I only found that out a few years ago and it’s still one of my favourite facts.

So for me, a 47-year-old woman, 5′3″ tall, weighing 69kg and working at a desk all day, on average*, I’d be burning about 1600 calories a day. (That number is different for everyone. And it makes me wonder where the 2000 calorie target for women on food packaging comes from, because I’m fairly average size for a woman.)

If I go for a 2 mile leisurely stroll, I’ll burn about 150 calories. (Click the link to work out your numbers because they’re probably different to mine.) So if that same day I get 1400 calories from food and drink, I’ll create about a 350 calorie deficit.

The System

I made up a card with 75 empty circles on it. Each circle represented a 300 calorie deficit. (75 x 300 = 22,500, my target from earlier.) When I’d filled in all the circles, I should be 3kg lighter.

To add some accountability, I decided to use different colours for different days of the week. That way I’d want to fill in circles most days, and it might help me spot patterns. You can see from the key at the top of the card, Monday is red, Tuesday is orange, and so on. So if on Monday I ate 1600 calories and used 1900, I could colour in one red circle. If on Tuesday I ate 1200 calories and used 1800, I’d colour in two orange circles. As you can see here, I started with a 600 calorie deficit on a Thursday. (I actually started this experiment on a Wednesday, but ended up eating about the same amount of energy as I used, so didn’t get to colour in any circles that day.)

If I ate 300 calories more than I used on any given day, I’d have to add an empty circle to the bottom of the card. (If you zoom in you might be able to see some very feint circles I printed out for this purpose.)

I've tried numerous ways to be better in control of my eating or exercise over the years and I’ve learnt a few things about what works for me and what doesn’t. This felt like it had a good chance of succeeding because:

I like having data, and I like data to be visible. Graphs, charts, etc. are all good.

I like to see progress. The bathroom scales are a bad measure day-to-day for me because on a traditional diet, what I gain or lose in hormonal and other random fluctuations can be more than I’d target to lose in a week. Colouring in circles should be a good measure because, even though my goal is better habits and not weight loss per se, as long as I don’t cheat, regardless of what the scales say on any specific day, every 300 calories of energy I use that I don’t replace with food will result in me being one step closer to my jeans fitting.

Things which rely on all-or-nothing thinking don’t motivate me very much. e.g. the Seinfeld Method where you have to avoid ‘breaking the chain’. I need to be able to have off-days and to be able to get back on track the next day. If I feel like I’ve failed at the whole task because of one slip-up, I’ll inevitably slip up and won’t continue.

I like stationery and have a lot of Sharpies.

If I had to draw in extra circles because I’d eaten more than I’d used in a given day, it would be a rough, hand-drawn circle and would stick out like a sore thumb from the neat printed circles. I like neatness, so I probably wouldn’t want to do that. (Please don’t look too closely at my colouring in.)

Measuring

Most fitness trackers will try give you some sort of estimate of how many calories you’re burning each day. I have a Garmin Vivosmart 4 which measures heart rate, so it should be fairly accurate. But most Fitbits and similar devices will do it, and if you don’t have one of those, MyFitnessPal and various other apps will give you an estimate which should be close enough to get you started. I’ve also included links to my own estimates from Wolfram Alpha in The Science Bit above, which are very close to what I get from my tracker.

Without a tracker, background activity level (walking around, physical effort involved in housework or childcare or whatever) you’d have to estimate based on whether you’ve had a ‘sedentary’ day, light activity, etc. Being anything other than as honest as you can gains you nothing. As for specific activities (going for a walk), there are tons of places online you can get estimates for walking, running, swimming etc. Any estimate which doesn’t take account of your approximate weight is close to useless, so bear that in mind. There’s no real need to weigh yourself frequently or accurately, but you do need a rough idea of what you weigh to know how many calories you’d burn by, say, walking two miles.

As for energy coming in, I kept a food diary using MyFitnessPal. The free plan does everything I needed for this exercise. Pre-packaged food comes with a calorie count, but especially in lockdown, where I was making more stuff from cupboard ingredients, I was using the meal and recipe functions and having to weigh things. It’s a hassle, but only a minor one.

What Happened? Did It Work?

Yes! Here I am, eight weeks later, sitting comfortably in jeans that haven’t fit me for a few years. I realise 3kg in eight weeks is hardly headline-grabbing stuff, but the point is it worked for me, where all the headline-grabbing weight loss plans just don’t.

Confession: for all I try not to think in terms of weight loss, I do weigh myself most days and I do collect data. Above is the chart from my Wifi bathroom scales, because of course I have Wifi bathroom scales.)

But more importantly, I’ve changed my habits:

I’m being more mindful in my food choices. Do I want a snack after lunch, or do I want to colour in another circle? If I’m genuinely hungry I haven’t been depriving myself, but a couple of times I’ve planned to eat something and then... just decided I wasn’t bothered.

In the first weeks of lockdown I’d developed a bit of a biscuit habit. But within the first few days of this experiment, I’d find myself in the kitchen, thinking about taking a chocolate chip cookie, and deciding not to because I didn’t want to sacrifice a circle for the day.

I’ve been walking absolutely loads. A long walk on a Sunday means I can have croissants and jam and an oat mocha for breakfast and still eat a decent sized dinner. And now a walk has become part of my weekend routine, I miss it if it doesn’t happen.

I’ve been getting up at 7am to walk 4km before I start work each day. I listen to podcasts when I walk so if I skip days then I feel like I’m missing out on my podcast time.

Chocolate raisins are my weakness. There have been a couple of times I’ve gone for a 40 minute walk just so I could ‘earn’ some chocolate raisins. This probably isn’t entirely healthy in terms of my eating addiction, but still healthier than just eating the raisins and not going for the walk.

I think what I’m saying is it’s taught me to make better choices. This is also a big theme in Eating Less - that putting all our focus on weight is unhelpful because anything I do today takes a long time to pay back in terms of a noticeable improvement in my weight. But hour by hour I can make better choices about what food I eat and how much I move about. This system lets me see the effects of those choices the same day. The circles don’t lie - if I create a 300 calorie deficit 75 times I will be about 3kg lighter, however long that takes. I’m holding myself much more accountable for those choices than I would be if I didn’t see the outcome for a few weeks.

Not Just For Calorie Counting

I’m telling you about my calorie deficit journey because that’s the change I needed to make and that’s why I built the system. But you could easily use the same system for any consistent change you want to create. These are the things that I think would apply to building any new habit:

It gave me near-instant feedback on the results of my choices.

It provided visible evidence of progress toward a goal, where progress might not otherwise be discernible immediately.

It doesn’t fix a timescale. It didn’t matter to me how many weeks I took to fill in the circles. Of course I wanted to get there sooner rather than later, but if I had a bad day or a bad week, there was no reason for it to derail me.

I wasn’t showing the card to anyone else, so I was accountable only to myself. There was no point in cheating or lying to myself because it wouldn’t gain me anything.

I found colouring in the circles surprisingly motivating. I’ve always been sceptical of ‘star chart’ type trackers because of the public element. But even though nobody else saw it, I was still disappointed on the days I couldn’t colour in a circle.

Other uses I can think of, off the top of my head:

Being more active: one circle for every two miles walked - if you change nothing else in your life this will make a difference

Decluttering: one circle for every shelf, cupboard or drawer cleared out

Study schedule: one circle for every half hour of study

Guitar practice: one circle for 20 minutes practice

You get the idea. If you try this, let me know how it works out for you.

[maren-as-an-adult]

I Severely Underestimated the Lack of Time and Energy This Job Would Allow Me

So my plan of posting a weekly-ish update about this job severely backfired on me, because HOLY SHIT DO THEY KEEP US BUSY! This is legitimately a full-time job, we should all get a raise, but because the Man hates the Arts we probably won’t ever at all and counselors are people who do the most but get the least, goddammit. SO! The week started off where I was a scared beanpole of a girl super intimidated by all of the nearly 300 children that would be staying with us for the next 3 weeks. I had no idea how I would run my classes, I had no idea what I’d be doing for my show, I had no idea if I would make friends, and I had no idea if I’d be able to handle the six girls I’d be in charge of on my floor. 

Three weeks later, I was so emotionally compromised when they left and I realized I wouldn’t see them for another year... unless I don’t come back next year in which case I’ll probably never see them again. WHICH IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN!

Basically, here’s the breakdown:

CLASSES

I taught three dance classes: beginner jazz, intermediate ballet, and advanced modern. I only had four in my modern class, and I grew to love each of them so much. They were so receptive and willing to perform their best, and they all said they really admired me. Modern also was set to perform in the class showcase, and they were able to beautifully perform the choreography I gave them.... although I didn’t actually get to see their performance, the class showcase was on my day off, and on that day I went into the city for a date with The Boyfriend. That was a fun day, but back to camp for now. 

THE SHOW

The show I worked on was Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. And WOW was our director intense. We were flying through the show which was to be expected because we only had two and a half weeks to have it blocked, cued, choreographed, and memorized and even though I’m good at picking up and learning choreography, I was struggling myself to keep up. 

This was especially nerve wracking for me, as the cast would frequently come up to me and ask me for clarification on what we just learned. Because it’s not considered professional to say, “Sorry, dude, I know about as much as you do right now, so I guess you’re fucked,” I struggled to help them as best I could. 

I’d feel so useless, incompetent, and foolish when I couldn’t help them, and there were days I was definitely overwhelmed. I was also super lost on several of the group dances, because I’d been gone for a weekend up in Albany for my grandfather’s funeral which was a fucking blast there was a rainbow and everything. 

There was this one girl in my cast who was, in a bit of a word, super high-strung about everything. She wanted to be perfect in the show for all the wrong reasons (I won’t get into it much, but basically she felt she needed to be perfect to prove to other people outside of this particular production that she deserved better treatment from them) and was constantly oscillating between doubting herself (because even though she’s clearly talented, that knowledge isn’t enough when another cast member gets applause after her numbers in rehearsal and she doesn’t) and taking it upon herself to correct others and give them notes. She wasn’t a nightmare to work with, but I’m glad she’s not in the production I’m working on for Session 2 (she was one of the few stay-over kids we had who stay for two sessions instead of just one)

There were some great and memorable times during rehearsals, though. One of our leading men during dress rehearsal got a costume ring stuck on his finger and had to be taken to urgent care to get it cut off. Before that, though, I took him over to our nurses to see if we could get it off there. When lotion, an old ring cutter, an ice pack, and dental floss did not work, that’s when we put his fate into the hands of the professionals. 

There was also the time a rumor may have started that the director and I were sleeping together, which is hilarious because he and I both have boyfriends. 

THE GIRLS

So last session I was assigned a room of six girls to look after: wake them up, make sure they’re on the floor by curfew, make sure they’re in their rooms at 10:30, take away their phones for the night, and make sure their lights are out by 11pm. If they’re having problems or want to talk to someone, they should come to me. They were all between the ages of 14 and 16, which in my experience can make for some fairly catty attitudes. 

I did not realize how sad I would be when most of them left (one of my girls is a stay-over, yay!)

They all gave me huge hugs before they left, and asked if I would come back again next summer. I told them that unless Stagedoor decided not to re-hire me, there was no way I wasn’t coming back. 

They would open up to me, confide in me, and told me how much they loved me. 

I’m 99.99% certain it was all genuine and not just flattery so I’d be lenient with them. 

But I do miss them, and I hope I get to see them again. 

PRODUCTION WEEKEND

During this week, my birthday happened and I turned 24. My roommates decorated our door, I got a cake at lunch, was sung to twice, and received over a hundred “Happy Birthday” messages in various electronic form: Facebook, text, voicemail, Snapchat, etc. But the top three moments of the day were:

- A voicemail from The Boyfriend, officially being the first person to wish me a Happy Birthday

- A card from one of the director-choreographers, and head of the dance department (who has worked at Stagedoor for 25 years and everyone loves)

- A card from my family with a very generous gift cart to purchase show tickets (which I now have thanks to The Boyfriend!!!!)

But apart from that there was nothing particularly special about the day. My girls kept wishing me a Happy Birthday each time they saw me, though, so that was nice. 

One good thing about production week is you get real good at pin curling and iron curling hair. I had so many flashbacks to my high school theatre days when the crowds formed around a handful of curling irons all plugged into one communal power strip and a box of approximately 8,000 hairpins was constantly floating around. But at my high school, it was just one show with about 40 kids getting ready. Imagine almost 200 girls needing their hair pin-curled for wigs by counselors (because apparently none of them knew how to do it?) on a super strict schedule that didn’t give them much time, coupled with the fact that everyone needed to get makeup done and costumes on an hour before the shows opened. 

And on top of all this, there was some weird plague going around. Campers and counselors alike were dropping like flies and succumbing to this illness, and if it wasn’t that illness it was strep throat. The hectic and stressful environment coupled with the fact that parents were coming to visit had staff near the breaking point, and the only thing we wanted was 24 hours of quiet solitude. 

That was a little more than a pipe dream, though. 

I myself almost caught this mysterious flu-like death virus going around. Our music director for Follies caught it, and was struggling to stay alert and conscious during our dress rehearsal, our stage manager caught it and was promptly sent to bed to try and sleep it off. That night I remember a rather large headache and a weird pre-nausea feeling in my stomach, along with a general full-body ache, and I just remember thinking, “Please God don’t let me have this.” I made sure to go right to bed that night after our end-of-the-day meeting, and woke up feeling fine. I’d already gone through some pretty shitty allergy sickness at the start of the session, and I didn’t want to start and end session 1 sick. 

Thankfully, though, our music director and stage manager were back in action the next day for opening show, and the shows were flawless. I’ve never been so proud of a group before, because they did one of the most challenging things I could have imagined. 

But the day had to come where they packed up their stuff and drove home with their families. It was sad to see them go, especially after bonding so strongly with some of them. And there was no time to feel sad, really. As soon as a room was empty, counselors and cleaning staff would immediately start cleaning the rooms and prepping them for the next batch of kids to come in. 

And now they’re here. I have two rooms this session, and on night one of session two my first room (which has my stay-over girl in it) managed to break a bulb on a string of lights and get glass over the floor. My group leader had forewarned me that they could be rowdy and quite a handful, but I was hoping they’d give it a few days before breaking something. So I knew I had to do something to prevent excessive rowdiness ASAP. 

That night, after cleaning up the shards of glass/plastic, I gave them a quick speech about how busy it was for counselors: not only did we look after a room full of girls (and in my and other counselors’ cases, sometimes multiple rooms), but we also had classes to prep for and teach, and shows to either manage or choreograph. I asked them to help make the counselors’ jobs a little bit easier by being smart, conscientious, and mature. That seemed to get through to them, because thus far I haven’t had any trouble from them. 

And it’s now been a few days into session 2. I’m teaching intermediate tap, intermediate modern, and musical theatre. The class structures could not be more different for me this time. Musical theatre thus far doesn’t have a set class structure, what I’ve kind of cobbled together as a lesson plan has been: work on one piece for the showcase, and throw potential audition combinations at them to train them to pick up choreography quickly. Tap is basically a warm-up of basic moves, and then the rest of the class is spend working on moves they want to learn. Modern still holds some semblance of structure, though, but it’s my largest class and the students take up all the floor space, so it’s harder to really see everyone and make sure they’re getting the combinations I give them. 

I was super excited when I heard about the shows for this session, but the two that I really wanted to work on were choreographer shows, and didn’t require an assistant choreographer (A.C.’s only work on shows with director-choreographers). They were Evil Dead - The High School Version and Guys and Dolls. But I’m still excited about the show I’m working on: Me and My Girl. It’s kind of like My Fair Lady and Half A Sixpence. My director-choreographer is this really great lady who is super organized with everything, so with the way she has things planned and mapped out, we should have the show ready for full runs in less than two weeks. 

Today was my first day off for this session, and it was pretty amazing. I slept in, treated myself to some nice makeup, went out for pizza with my friend Anna, and got some counselor work done. Next week I get to see two of my favorite people in the world and a Broadway show (I’m seeing Kinky Boots starring Brendon Urie with The Boyfriend). I still need to figure how I’m getting to the bus station but that’s a problem for tomorrow or the next day. 

So, weekly updates won’t be a thing, but I can try to do session recaps. That’s what I’m aiming for at this point. 

And now, on to session 2!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

what are your feelings on the buffahuman book?

Short opinion: I can admit that there are some cool concepts in this book if I’m willing to overlook its three or four glaring plot holes.

Long opinion:

It seems like Cassie’s books tend to be either earth-shattering adventurefests that sweep the plot of the series forward in leaps and bounds (#4 and Ax, #19 and Aftran, #29 and the YPM, #34 and Aldrea, #50 and the Auximorphs) or they are extremely random asides that have no connection to the main plot and never come up again after they’re over (#14 and the andalite PortaPotty, #24’s Helmacron battle, #44 and the Random Australian Field Trip, #39′s buffahuman) and there’s pretty much no in-between.  And yeah, this book is both totally random and objectively bad.

However, criticizing this book also kind of feels like swatting a fly: the poor fly already has enough problems what with being small and ugly and disease-ridden and only having 28 days to live, so smearing it on the ceiling is just mean.  I’m happy to lovingly poo-poo on the Animorphs books that have a fair number of admirers among the fandalites but don’t personally appeal to me (#41, #30) and the ones whose issues have Deeply Unfortunate real-world implications (#40, #46) but kicking this one while it’s already down is like… like shooting a buffalo that never asked to get accidentally turned into a freak of nature and is just trying to go about its buffalo life without bothering anyone.  Bearing that in mind, I’d like to start by mentioning a few things this book does right.

The Good

Once again, this book shows off Cassie’s strengths.  She can run and keep running for a long time while also refusing to compromise her morals (no matter how idiotic the resultant decisions might be under pressure), she can work well alone, she can do nearly-impossible things with morphing, and when necessary she can fall from the sky in order to squash her problems flat on the ground.  Cassie is awesome in this book, mostly by being Cassie.

This plot also starts with an emergency right in the first couple pages, and the tension does not let up until the very end.  The plot-driving problem is a pretty simple one, but it does excuse the Animorphs’ needing to run and keep running for several hours.  The entire story takes place in just a few hours, which gives this one a very tight feel with no room for unnecessary frills.

There are a couple of mind-blowingly simple tactics—throwing the morphing cube across the roadblock, shoving several controllers off a cliff, dropping an “anvil” on the helicopter—that the kids use to get around the yeerks, which I always have a soft spot for because it makes it feel realistic that six children could figure out how to defeat an empire.  They might not be the Justice League (and portraying them as chessmasters of strategy would be silly and unrealistic), but they get by anyway through coming up with creative solutions to complex problems.

I love that their plan to drop whale-Cassie on the helicopter fails.  I have a huge soft spot for plots in which the heroes’ grand master idea simply does not work (something that happens a lot in this series) just because, once again, it feels realistic.  There are a ton of risks inherent in their plan: Cassie could miss the helicopter, Cassie could end up unable to catch the helicopter at all, Cassie could hit the helicopter but be wood-chipperified by its rotors, Cassie could hit the helicopter and survive but squash her friends on the landing… The fact that it doesn’t go according to plan just makes more sense under those circumstances.

Speaking of the ending, I freaking love this dialogue:

«You missed all the fireworks, Cassie,» Marco said, swimming circles around us. «One minute we’re watching this whale the size of a FedEx truck dropping out of the sky and we’re thinking, Uh-oh, she’s not big,enough to take down that helicopter and live through it—»

«You weren’t thinking it, you were screaming it,» Rachel said sweetly.

«Screeching like a bad set of brakes,» Jake teased. 

«Emitting a loud and continual series of high- pitched shrieks similar to an unauthorized entry into a Dome ship air lock,» Ax added.

Silence.

«Well, it was an accurate comparison,» Ax said defensively.

It’s just so them.  We need a moment of lightness after the tension of the rest of the book, and the characterization is spot-on, especially because we can feel the giddiness of their relief that the helicopter is destroyed and they’re not all gonna die.  

If this book had found a different way to get there, the idea of having a nonhuman morpher explore the experience of humanity might actually be pretty interesting.  Science fiction has been all about exploring the boundary conditions of what it means to be human pretty much since Day One, and this series embraces that concept in spades with characters like Elfangor, Tobias, Aftran, Menderash, Toby, and Ax.  However, the buffahuman never does anything interesting or useful while it’s there on screen, and its very existence is rendered idiotic by the nature of its creation, so this book doesn’t exactly capture the same degree of uncomfortable meditation on human nature vs. human culture that, say, The Experiment does.

The Bad

The Andalite’s Gift called, and it wants its plot back.

Seriously, though, this exact same premise—the yeerks can detect morphing energy, and the only way the kids can keep from getting caught is through an elaborate game of keep-away—has already been explored, and better, in an earlier book.  

It would also make a fair amount of sense for the yeerks to make a second attempt at using a veleek, or a second pass at destroying the local forest, or to reuse any of their plans from earlier books.  Instead we get them arriving at a similar place through using Helmacron tech, which would fit better if there were any hints at all in #24 or #42 that the yeerks had access to Helmacron tech.  Which there aren’t.

Not only does this book present approximately the same conflict as MM1, but it also offers the exact same resolution: drop whale-Cassie on one’s problems.  Couldn’t the ghost come up with anything better than that?

«You had an aunt who tried to kill you with her pincers?» Rachel said, giving me a playful nudge. «Boy, and I thought Tobias’s family was bad.»

IS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE TO CRINGE SO HARD THAT YOU COLLAPSE INTO A BLACK HOLE OF SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE WRITER?  Seriously, what even is this line?  Why would Rachel even think that Cassie’s aunt would be hiding out in the woods in the first place?  Would she SERIOUSLY make a comment like that about Tobias’s abusive relatives?  Doesn’t Rachel already know Cassie’s family well enough to make the question “which aunt” (assuming charitably that Rachel actually wants to know) the more logical one?  For that matter, wouldn’t “are you okay” be a better fricking question to ask your best friend who just survived a near-death experience?  

Why does Cassie consider the buffalo “human” if it has morphed one?  

Rachel makes a really straightforward argument—that the buffalo is no more a human than she is a grizzly bear—and that should basically be the end of the discussion.  Jake makes the really straightforward argument on top of that that the buffalo could get them all killed/captured if the yeerks decide to infest it, and again that should be the end of the discussion.  Cassie doesn’t balk at predators killing seals to stay alive (#25), and she understands that sometimes you have to let a deer die to save a human (#9), so it makes no sense whatsoever that she is that obsessed with saving a creature which has the means to kill them all.

Also, Cassie doesn’t consider her ant-copy “human” like 15 pages later when she stomps it to death, and she doesn’t consider herself a wolf-human hybrid, so WHY does she keep insisting that the buffalo is a person?  It’s just idiotically unCassieish.

Also also: no offense Cassie, but this book ends with you killing at least two or three humans who are inside that helicopter.  When you factor in the yeerks, that is four to six murders at minimum and possibly as many as fifteen to twenty depending on the size of the chopper.  What makes buffaChapman more worthy of life than those people are?

Three words: deus ex seagull.

Tobias’s brief explanation about the sheer gross horror of birds sucked into jet engines is not sufficient setup to justify a seagull happening to meet an untimely end AT THE EXACT MILLISECOND it needed to do so in order to stop Cassie from getting food-processed, Marco and Tobias from getting eaten by sharks, and the others from getting squashed or shot to death.  

I’m actually a fan of the Animorphs getting accidentally assisted by real animals, since it fits well with the theme of the books, but the animals’ existence has got to be justified somehow by the plot.  In #27 the presence of the random-ass whale whose DNA lets them morph squids is justified by Crayak’s meddling, in #4 the random-ass whale who saves their butts from Visser Three is explained by their own desire to save it from sharks, in #36 the random-ass whales who try to help them out only to get shot by the Sea Blade are attracted by the calls of other pod members, my god I am only just realizing how many random-ass whales there are in this series… Anywhoo, the presence of the plot-saving seagull is not remotely explained by anything that happens at any point earlier in the book.  Couldn’t the author(s) have left out one of the 70-odd scenes with the buffalo sadly wandering around and thrown in some kind of setup for this ending instead?

The Ugly

That’s not how the morphing cube works.

In #1, Jake picks up the morphing cube inside Elfangor’s ship and only mentions that it feels “heavy;” he doesn’t mention the “tingle” that other people also describe when acquiring the ability to morph until he’s touching it at the same time as Elfangor.

The rule about needing to have one morpher touch the cube in order to “pass on” the morphing appears to hold true throughout the rest of the series.  David carries the cube around for a while but again doesn’t get the zap of morphing energy until he touches it at the same time as Ax (#20).  Tom doesn’t appear to be able to morph until after the battle in the hospital garage, given that the yeerk makes no attempt to acquire or use any of the oodles of hork-bajir or taxxon DNA lying around even when injured; presumably the yeerks later passed the ability from Alloran to him (#50).  The narration’s a little ambiguous as to whether Tobias is touching the cube at the same time as Loren when she gains the ability (#49), but Cassie or Rachel definitely has to be holding the cube for any of the Auximorphs to get it (#50).  

Point being, Cassie is definitely not touching the cube at the time when the buffalo brushes against it, and probably not when the ant crawls on top of it.

That’s not how acquiring DNA works.

If all it took was brushing against someone to pick up their DNA, then all the Animorphs would be able to morph their parents, their friends, various taxxons and hork-bajir, family pets, stray cats, head lice, baby goats from the petting zoo, skin mites, the school nurse… etcetera.  For that matter, Ax and Tobias would also be able to morph Alloran by now, which is the kind of incredibly useful morph that I’m pretty sure the series would have mentioned if one of them had.

The series mentions 700-odd times that acquiring DNA requires deliberate concentration on the part of the morpher.  Why would any self-respecting buffalo in a dominance-fueled rage be thinking “man, I should really try and shapeshift into that human over there”?

That’s not how morphing works.

Morphing requires concentration.  Jake first describes the process as “So I have to, like, meditate on becoming a dog” (#1), and any time the kids’ focus is interrupted, they’re unable to continue morphing.  The most interesting example of that is when Marco can’t morph normally at all because he’s so freaked out over his dad remarrying (#35) but the series mentions time and again that anything from pain to sudden noises can interrupt the process enough to sabotage it.  We’re supposed to believe that a buffalo was capable of directing sustained attention to an abstract task in order to morph, when no mammals other than humans have shown signs of this ability?

More importantly, morphing requires focusing on a mental image of oneself as the desired animal.  When first explaining it to Jake, Tobias says the key is “forming this mental picture of [the animal], right? I thought about becoming it" (#1).  When talking Marco down from nearly being stuck in morph, Cassie says “Focus on the picture of yourself. Form the picture in your mind. Let go of the fear and focus on the picture of your own body” (#21).  WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THAT AN ANT CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE TO PICTURE ITSELF AS A CASSIE?  

Morphing also doesn’t happen accidentally.  The only times we ever see involuntary morphing are when Rachel has allergies (#12) and when Ax has brain-appendicitis (#29).  So unless that one buffalo and that one ant both happened to be suffering from illnesses that led to hallucinations, this plot makes no sense.

That’s not how ants work.

The narration of the very scene in which the ant morphs Cassie describes all the ways that it would be pretty much impossible for an ant to imagine itself—and only one self—as a human being.  If an ant cannot wrap its little hive-insect mind around the idea of an independent consciousness, then it also should not be able to wrap that mind around the idea of only changing the one body it happens to possess into something different like a human.

Luckily for that one ant, it’s apparently an estreen, since it chooses to demorph just its pincers while keeping an otherwise human body.  Yes, ladies and gentlebeasts: THE ANT IS AN ESTREEN.  Why.  Just… why.  

Don’t get me wrong; I think that there are justifiable reasons to stretch or even break the rules of one’s own applied phlebotinum, provided that the resultant plot is cool enough or character-advancing enough or mind-blowing enough to be worth it.  This mess?  Is not worth all the rule-breaking that goes on.  It’s not the most Deeply Unfortunate Animorphs book, nor is it my personal least favorite, but it’s also not good enough to justify its existence built on a tower of plot holes and logic failures.  

[thescentofwhiteroses]

5 Things you’ll find in my bag:

everything except for the one item I ACTUALLY need

but actually, usually my zune (yes I still use a zune, seriously fuck ipods)

a bag of assorted writing utensils, with a tape measure, and other assorted odds and ends

at least one crystal, sometimes many more than that

approximately three box cutters, never actually sure how many I really have, I think they multiply in my purse

5 Things you’ll find in my bedroom:

my crystal collection - not counting the probably hundreds of tumbled stones I still easily have over a hundred individual pieces (40 rainbow moonstone points ALONE and that’s just a small part of my collection)

well over 50 funko pop vinyls, I stopped counting after that and that was over a year ago

an excessive number of shelves to house my crystals, and yet I still need more

too many clothes... just.. way too many clothes

my bed with it’s NEW MEMORY FOAM MATTRESS AND ALSO AN AVENGERS BLANKET (that is not new I just really like it)

5 Things I’m into at the moment:

VOLTRON - I AM VOLTRON TRASH, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO SHIRO AND ALLURA

Yuri on Ice, oh my godddddddd I love that show so fucking much just stab me with some ice skates already

my hair - and appearance in general (that’s not new tho)

drawing sigils, and making sigil pouches that I should sell but still haven’t listed on my etsy

WRESTLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (as if that wasn’t apparent from all the wrestling posts I reblog.)

5 Things in my to-do list:

Redye my hair, though not majorly, just like, cover up the spots that have faded to blonde

make signs for when we go see wrestling at the Joe in Detroit (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

cry about fictional characters

FUCKING LIST SHIT IN MY ETSY SHOP ALREADY, GODDAMMIT BREE WHAT THE FUCK

schedule my yearly physical... that I’m already late for

5 Things people don’t know about me: *********

my middle name is Emmanuelle, and yes my parents did indeed get it from the porn star with that name

I have scientific proof (well not exactly) that I see more colors than the average person

I saw a ghost in my house when I was 3 or 4ish, I still swear to this day that it actually happened and I was not dreaming

I wanted to be Ariel when I was a child, and then I wanted to be Sailor Moon after that, and then I settled on being myself

I pretty much jump straight to getting sexual with someone once our mutual attraction is confirmed.  This is one of the many reasons I shouldn’t, and don’t date.

********* So the only things I could think of at first, were legitimately terrible things that I don’t want to talk about online, though also probably at the very least my PLP but probably my entire group of close friends know everything about me already.  So this is pretending they don’t count, and also assuming that people have forgotten these things since I can almost guarantee I’ve mentioned all of them on my blog at one point or another... but you know I’ve had this blog for a long time so probably most of you didn’t follow me back when I might have mentioned some of this

Tagging 5 people in the spirit of this:

tagging people makes me nervous, cuz I don’t want to put pressure on people, and I don’t want to leave someone out, and ALSO I don’t want to upset my own feelings by feeling bad if someone DOESN’T do this (I’m a mess)

[rigelmejo]

May Progress Update, and June Goals

6/1/2021  - I just want my goals to be “like last month” lol. But I realize its probably not gonna turn out that way.

My Chinese May goals were:

1. ***Read anything

I did this! Looking back though, a majority of what I read was actually the “hard” stuff on my list though lol. I read mostly Guardian, hanshe, and then I finished one of my easier extensive reading materials. I also read a random few chapters of a few things extensively, just testing things out (like Poyun, dmbj 1, svsss, dage, The Rebel, just a ton of random chapters).

Chinese chapters read (during May): 63 (unlike last month, this number isn’t inflated much - most were 5 page priest-level print reading or 15-20 pages in Pleco reading on the phone, with ~5 hanshe 10-pages-in-pleco chapters so even cut down to my usual reading-length-chapters comparison this month would be ~60 chapters read)

Chinese stories finished (this year): 5 - 笑猫日记之会唱歌的猫 is the only one finished this month, with 3 (intensely long 55-pages-in-pleco) chapters read of  猫城记, intro skimmed of 许三观卖血记, intro skimmed of 撒野.

2. ***Continue listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio 

I also managed to do this one! 20 audio listened to so far! (I think I’d listened to up to 12 of the files in April). So I listened to 8 this month  - yes, not a huge amount. But as there’s 36 or 39 files, I’m over halfway there!

3. Optional: experiment with Listening Reading Method. 

This is what I mean when I say I sideline off my intended study plan sometimes! I ended up doing some form of Listening Reading Method a TON this month. 

Guardian: 12 chapters*40 minutes each (roughly)=480 minutes= 8 hours Alice in Wonderland, other L R Method random chapters: 2 chapters (one 30 minutes, the other 80 minutes) =110 minutes= ~1.8 hours Silent Reading: 6 chapters, approximately 1.5 hours. SVSSS: 1 chapter, 10 minutes = ~0.2 hours  (I only did step 2 with this - chinese audio with chinese text, I am debating if I want to bother with step 3 as I can follow the story fine)

~11.5 hours spent doing Listening Reading this month (steps 1-2). Also including random audio I’ve listened to throughout the month, mostly repeated listens of L-R’d chapters but also other things, in a previous post I calculated to be: 22.8 total hours listening to L-R material. Then add more hours of listening to random things in the background, and its up to ~30ish hours total listening this month. This is by far the most dedicated listening I’ve done in a month.

With just what I’ve done so far of increasing my listening, and doing L-R more, I’ve seen good improvements. So I want to keep trying. I checked a few novels and there’s a lot I should be able to do this with (especially since with using Pleco for the translation for step 3, I do not specifically require either a translation or a parallel text). I also have tried some variants of using listening/reading to study japanese and French this month which I’ll talk more about a little below - and those variants were fun and pretty effective too!

4. Other optional: listen to misc audio, watch shows, read Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters, do some of my Radical-hanzi book.

Hilarious to me? Maybe so? I actually ended up doing a surprising amount of this I guess? Kudos to me - I think I did my whole study plan I made for once? Although honestly I barely did any reading-only until like May 20th.

I listened to almost 10 hours of misc audio at LEAST (see above) - any chance to listen to some chinese and I did (although with 30ish days in a month I probably can find ways to do more). I watched pieces of shows - half of 2 episodes in Viki Learn Mode (Granting You a Dreamlike Life, Guardian), and some random Reaction Videos in chinese so ~5 ish episodes as far as lengths of stuff watched. I read 28 pages of Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters book this month (not a lot of pages but its something - also I put it on my phone which definitely increased my ease to open and read it randomly). I think I did a couple pages of my hanzi book (but I decided to put that back on the shelf and stop prioritizing it).

Chinese stuff done in May that wasn’t on the study plan:

Practiced some pronunciation/shadowing with my apps (maybe 2 hours total but its something). Also hearing more from others really makes me think I want to try more shadowing particularly of audiobooks and/or certain characters in dramas, to specifically get better at my own speaking when in sentences.

had my first convo in chinese where I was understood, without prep time to help my active vocab or correct myself (so that was super exciting). Also texted a bit in chinese this month but not really much just real basic stuff.

while I said I only ‘watched’ around 5 eps worth of content, I did a lot of ‘listening’ this May. Just in the sense of like - when I did watch shows with english subs (which I did a bit) I made an effort to specifically grasp what I was hearing (actually trying to listen only, then replay and glance at eng and chinese subs to figure out any unknonw words). Because of that I only watched a few show episodes this month (and its why I switched to Viki learn mode so I could just click to replay audio/get definitions). And in viki, although I only watched about 1/2 of each of the 2 eps, I relistened to each piece of dialogue until I both understood all words in the line when seeing the chinese subs AND could listen to the line without looking and understand all the words (so ‘intensive’ show listening). So those ‘20′ minutes of each ep took me more like 1 hour each. Since I kept replaying and replaying each scene. I read someone on Reddit did this ‘intensive’ show listening activity and it improved their listening/speaking a LOT, so I tried doing it a bit. If you’re using Viki Learn Mode or Learn Languages with Netflix extension I do recommend trying it, since its very easy with those tools. But doing it on youtube like I did at first, with shows just replaying scenes? It would’ve been easier for me to just take off my glasses to not see the chinese subs and try to listen lol. 

My Japanese goals this May were:

1. ***Continue: Nukemarine’s LLJ courses

AHAHAH! Ok so last month I marked this as the PRIORITY (and I was right)! Guess what I did absolutely none of this month? (Or at least, if I did, it was 400 crammed reviews of previously studied flashcards then not actually doing any new content lol). I... just was not in the mood to do srs flashcard study.

2. Hopefully: Continue some kind of grammar explanation 

I also marked this as priority. Past me was wise. Past me, I do not listen to well all the time. This was a mixed back - genuinely, I think my thoughts back in April remain true: finishing either Tae Kim (unlikely but i was at chapter 10 before), Cure Dolly (i’m on 6), Japanese Audio Lessons Grammar, Japanese in 30 Hours while writing japanese in (I’m on page 24) - will result in a good foundation and is a priority.

What did I actually do?

I read more Japanese in 30 Hours (I’m now at page 60 and 1/3 through it). I will probably finish it in June. I also read a smattering of random stuff, and “Reading Japanese” a book I have to learn reading skills specifically (not grammar). My guiding principle ended up being: just read/study whatever you want, follow your interest, its better than doing nothing. For May, that worked out pretty ok to be honest and I’ll probably continue that principle in June.

3. Optional: Reading in any form and Optional: listening in any form

Strangely I did a surprisingly high amount of this for someone who didn’t plan to?

I found the site Wasabi Japanese - and experimented with their Read Aloud lessons (Yue-muffin linked to a bunch of graded japanese resources here which included Wasabi Japanese). My opinion: I LOVE their lessons, I love the structure, I love that they have a free grammar guide course to go through (which I’d like to read after Japanese in 30 Hours). Their lessons go from N4-N3, which is a good spot for me to learn, and the way they teach is a bit like Listening-Reading Method and a bit like Re-Reading Technique (video by PolyMathy) which I’ve linked to before. 

Their lessons have really nice instructions, which amount to: 1. Listen to the audio several times or even dozens, trying to grasp what all the sounds are/understand what you can. 2. Read transcript with audio to fully match audio to actual words and look up any unknown words. 3. Re-listen with and without transcript until you feel you’re hearing all the words okay. 4. Shadow the audio a few times with/without transcript. 

As you can see, its a lot like L-R Method and Re-Reading Technique, with a lot of emphasis on listening and shadowing. I did it and I feel even just with one lesson I could tell my listening skill was improving a significant amount. When I have more time I want to dedicate to japanese, I’d definitely like to go through all of Wasabi Japanese lessons - I think they’re really cool. I also used their lesson-structure, and applied it to listening to a few eps of the podcast “Slow Chinese” which I think was very effective. So I really think their site is worth checking out at LEAST to read their article How to Proceed with the Read Aloud Method, so you can apply it to your own study materials more if you want. I’m definitely considering applying this study method to Nukemarine’s memrise courses, stuff I might listen to in the future etc.

As for other small japanese stuff I did - just a lot of ‘random manga chapters read, random small lessons done’ sort of stuff. Here’s what I wrote a week ago:  I read 3-4 manga chapters, 50 pages of a 160 page grammar book, listened to a short story several times and studied it, read a short story chapter (very short though), read 3 very small graded readers, read a page of parasite eve. In addition to that, I know I watched a few bits of lets plays and just in general tried to read a bit of japanese here and there.

All in all I probably only did 5-10 hours of japanese study this month, so not much. The bulk of it was probably reading Japanese in 30 Hours. But I did find stuff I like learning from, which is always nice. And japanese isn’t the priority right now. 

French goals from May:

***Continue watching Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature videos. 

I did this - 6 chapters out of 50 total. I do think it helps, I actually studied them doing the Re-Reading Technique linked above - since the guy used Lingva Latina to demonstrate so I figured it would be a perfect to do with a similarly structured French book. Also just listening to 10 chapter’s audio while out walking. Just kind of refreshing my memory.

Read???? Read???

Idk I read a few random pages, French not a priority rn. I do plan to read Carmilla in June though.

-

Next Month’s Goals!

I want to stick to a pretty similar plan tbh, this past month’s worked well. I don’t know how much will get done though, I’ve got a lot happening lately.

Chinese June Goals:

1. Read! - this goal I’ve been able to consistently do, so I’m gonna keep it. Would like to do some extensive reading with easier novels (猫城记, 许三观卖血记, 撒野), and some intensive reading with stuff like hanshe still. However whatever I read, is good to me.

2. Continue listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio - if I just keep doing this I’ll be happy. Would like to get to a point where I’m just playing it in the background when I work, so I can both finish it and get some repetition-review from hearing more chinese (and some increased comprehensible listening practice each day). But we’ll see - I had success the past couple months playing it in the bg while I played video games. Its just as audiobooks/audio dramas/condensed show audio get easier to comprehend, they’re obviously more interesting to listen to in the background lol.

3. Listening Reading Method - this went real well in May, and I want to keep doing it (and its fine if I only do step 2 sometimes tbh). Would like to keep doing Guardian specifically (but any novel done will be good). I would love to have Listen-Read all of Guardian by the end of August (and in a dream world also have read the entire print novel!). If I can do that, then it means by year 2 I will have read and listened to the novel that originally pushed me to study chinese. Which would just be really really cool to me ;-; It will also mean that by 2 years in I will have finished reading a book by priest (and again the book that got me into the author ToT), so I can start reading future books by priest with hopefully a LOT more vocabulary I know specifically tailored to making those books easier to read. 

When I started learning, I had guessed it would take 4 years to even struggle through priest chapters slowly with a dictionary - since I was guessing chinese would take me around as long as japanese to hit milestones (and 2.5 years of japanese was when I just barely started grasping simple manga with a dictionary). So already everything I do with listening and reading in chinese blows my mind a bit, just because I never thought I would even get Here, let alone here in this amount of time. Its not perfect by any means, but its much better than I’d assumed it was gonna take (which probably says a lot about how much more per day I studied and how much more effectively I studied chinese compared to japanese, if I had to guess WHY it took so much less time). So yeah, reading Guardian is a really big goal of mine. And yes - jumping on that, I’d also love to rewatch the show at the 2 year mark without english subtitles. And I don’t want to rewatch until I’ve read the novel because I tend to mix up details lol if I do both at the same time ToT

Practical goal for June: L-R Method Guardian to the end of the sundial arc, and read print novel to end of sundial arc. IDEAL goal for June: also L-R Method Guardian to the end of the 2nd arc, and read print novel to the end of the 2nd arc - and ideally that puts me finishing the first print volume in June. God mode goal for June: L-R Method ALL of Guardian (reading print novel can happen slower cause no way that’s happening in 1 month lol - I say that and now watch it happen cause I said it wouldn’t lol). 

I’ve calculated it before so here it is again: Guardian audiobook is about 35 hours, so 70 hours to finish L-R Method steps 2-3. Add in time to read the english translation (step 1) lets add 8 more hours (probably would take me 2-5 hours to finish the english but I’m being generous). I’ve done 12 chapters already which is 8 hours. So I’ve got 70 hours left to do. If I did 2-3 hours of L-R a day (or on average), I could finish the novel in June. Like 1 hour Mon-Fri (20 days = ~20 hours), and 5 hours each weekend day (10 days = ~50 hours). That would have me finishing around July. However... that’s unrealistic lol. Now if for half the days per month (15) I could do 4-5 hours a week (the other days doing nothing), I could get done by the end of June. So like... realistically either I get super into Guardian and do a lot in a couple weeks (in which case its totally possible to finish just like I managed to watch ~60 eps of Love and Redemption, ~40 hours, in like 4 days because I was so into that show). I’m starting to get why the writer of L-R Method tended to do this in a focused burst for 8-10 hours a day for a couple weeks - much easier to make the time, if you’re just super into it for a short period of time. Its much harder to make a few hours to do this for multiple months (also why I think a lot of ppl did HP when testing this method, since the 1st audiobook is like 9 hours total so its only 18 hours to L-R the whole book). So I guess... either I get super into Guardian, or I might only get through the 1st-2nd arc by end of June. We’ll see.

Also... what a cool experiment it would be... to see where my listening and reading skills would be at after the whole book. And that’s without the shadowing/translation steps 4 and 5 which I’d like to try eventually lol.

4. Optional - do anything in chinese, shows, manhua, misc audio. My new feelings are: if I feel like doing something, I might as well do it as its better than nothing. 

-

Japanese June Goals:

Finish reading Japanese in 30 Hours - or any other thing that strikes your interest. My new feeling for japanese study is just doing anything I feel like is better than nothing lol. (But grammar guide is still priority)

Continue Nukemarine’s Courses - if I can get into srs flashcards, if not don’t worry just keep remembering its ultimately a priority. (vocab priority)

Optional - whatever I want in japanese, shows, manga, lets plays, video games, reading scripts, wasabi japanese lessons, my Reading Japanese book etc. If I feel like doing something go ahead and do it tbh. (Long term I’ll want audio study to replace Chinese Spoonfed Audio though, like Core 2k audio files or Japaneseaudiolessons files, to study listening skills).

-

French June Goals*:

*all optional

Keep listening/reading Le Français par Le Method Nature. I just. want to finish that book... and its good review...

Read/listen to whatever, if I feel like. Hi Carmilla...

[ladystylestores]

How Coronavirus Has Changed Consumer Attitudes Toward Beauty – WWD

https://pmcwwd.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/reset-consumer-1.jpg?w=640&h=415&crop=1

Beauty consumers will never be the same.

On the heels of a global health crisis and social uprising demanding true justice for all, everything from how we buy to what we expect from the brands we use has been permanently altered.

“We’ve been seeing remarkable behavior changes across so many categories as a result of the pandemic, and beauty is no exception,” says Kristopher Hull, senior vice president, senior client officer at Ipsos.

“The pandemic has had an impact on what [people] buy, where they buy it, their openness to new brands,” he continues. “Also, it’s having an impact on how they think about shopping after the pandemic eases up and as the economies reopen.”

As confinement is being rolled back in countries around the world, people’s appearance remains important to them. Just under 60 percent of those recently polled worldwide by Mintel reported no change in terms of how that’s prioritized, while 50 percent to 60 percent said they haven’t altered how much money they’re spending on beauty products.

Sarah Jindal, associate director, global beauty and personal care at Mintel, says if you peer into consumers’ beauty bags, they’re as full as before.

“It’s just the composition of what’s in it has shifted,” she explains. “It’s more skin care, more self care. Maybe they are trading down in certain categories with regard to price, but they are still spending.”

“Skin care started to grow to the point where it captured almost half the volume of the total industry,” says Larissa Jensen, the NPD Group’s vice president, industry adviser, beauty, referring to the U.S. market. “This is unprecedented.”

Consumers, adds Jindal, are “still engaged.” Yet the complexion of their engagement differs markedly from generation to generation.

Generation Z

Sales of makeup declined in the U.S. during the pandemic. Jensen pins much of that to younger people wearing less of it.

“Add to that the fact that the younger consumer is more likely to be shopping online, and you stir in the pandemic, where online became the only channel for consumers to use, and you’re starting to see the preferences of the younger generation potentially,” she says.

Additionally, many Gen Zers are missing some of their big life events, such as an 18th or 21st birthday, prom or graduation, due to the lockdowns. In other words, why get dressed up when there’s nowhere to go?

A recent GlobalWebIndex study showed that in numerous product categories, delays for making purchases were led by Gen Z. More than four in 10 said that was the case in buying clothing, for instance. They were also the demographic to most likely delay buying a smartphone, smart device or personal electronic device.

“How are brands going to build these long-term relations over time and actually make connections to keep Gen Z interested, if Gen Z are going: ‘Actually, I’m feeling a bit cautious about what we’re going to spend our money on,” Bishop says.

For a generation that’s somewhat in the doldrums there’s an opportunity today for a brand to connect, inspire and even just entertain. As an example, Bishop cites E.l.f.’s virtual TikTok challenge.

“That tapped into the mind-set of ‘We’re looking for brands to be there for us, even if we’re not buying right now,” Bishop says.

Another key is go “to the places and spaces where Generation Z exists,” in other words omnipresent branding that might involve brands sending text messages to consumers or having them create user-generated content.

“It’s not trying to replicate what you would experience in store, but to use technology to your advantage, to have virtual-reality experiences, gaming experiences that will resonate more with younger generations because they are more open to technologies,” says Michael Nolte, creative director at BeautyStreams.

Well-being is another key focus. Ipsos asked consumers in the U.S. about what matters more to them since the pandemic began. “For both Gen Z and Millennials, safety is the most important; about 40 percent of them said safety matters more to them since COVID-19,” says Hull, adding mental health was second, at 35 percent, followed by family, at 34 percent.

Masks being worn gave the biggest reassurance for all age groups queried. “But Millennials and Gen Z were more interested in how deep [stores’] cleaning protocols were and how frequently [stores were] cleaned,” Hull says.

In keeping with a pre-COVID-19 trend, Gen Z’s being open and vocal on social media about brands’ messaging or marketing is not expected to diminish. They are among the loudest voices calling for change during the protests around racial injustice, and it is clear that they expect transparency from the companies they spend money on. “That will extend moving forward,” Jindal says.

Millennials

While the U.S. was in lockdown, about 15 percent of Millennials told Ipsos that they’d tried a new beauty product, and that was split pretty evenly between cleansing items and facial care.

“They were three-times as likely to have tried a new product than Gen X or Boomers,” says Hull, adding such behavior tends to have stickiness. “Probably on average 50 percent to two-thirds of people who have tried a new brand are willing to continue using it after the pandemic.

Many expect to see Millennials trading up when it comes to beauty. “Maybe they want premium experiences, like taking an appointment with a brand and experiencing new items in a very small group,” Nolte says.

“A holistic approach to life will probably resonate a lot among Millennials and the Gen X — so everything that is healthier, cleaner, has an approach from inside-out, body and soul is key, without excluding the other generations,” he continues.

Kathryn Bishop, foresight editor at The Future Laboratory, says the pandemic has been a massive period of digital connection for Millennials, who have embraced connection with beauty brands over platforms such as FaceTime and Zoom in their quest for a personal experience, education and guidance.

With Millennials’ mind-set skewing toward wellness, brands might focus more on self-care products and services.

That was a takeaway for Hershesons, for instance. While the company’s salons remained shuttered in the U.K., it introduced Zoom appointments for clients. Many Millennials who signed on for those didn’t actually want hair-related advice, but instead to chat with a hairstylist.

“It turned into a bigger mental-wellness and well-being conversation, and that says a lot around the potential future services we could start to see from beauty and wellness brands. There is an opportunity to tie wellness, layer that conversation, that human layer back into digital service,” says Bishop, who also expects Millennials’ penchant for DIY products probably to continue post-pandemic.

  Generation X

During the pandemic, Generation Xers have tended to turn to their trusted brands.

“They do trust advisers from brands and also word of mouth, like with their peers,” Bishop says. “For brands who want to speak to Gen X [nowadays they] need to be thinking: ‘How do we tap into the kind of word of mouth of this generation?’”

When Ipsos asked older U.S. consumers about what matters more to them since the start of the pandemic, while safety remained important, physical health entered into the discourse.

Mintel’s numbers showed that Baby Boomers became increasingly concerned about their risk of exposure to COVID-19 as the pandemic continued.

“So that fear factor, especially for the older Gen X and Baby Boomer generation, is going to stay for a long time, and that will have an impact on how quickly they are ready to get out in the world and get back to ‘normal,’” Jindal says. “Starting to think about how to cater to some of those consumers from a retail and a brand perspective is going to become really important.”

“[Gen Xers] are going to be the ones who really champion the return to stores,” Bishop says. “Most of them are still very much focused on this idea of browsing and buying in store.”

There, Nolte suggests sales people might take on an even more important role for the demographic that might be sensitive to the added value of speaking with an expert.

Bishop suggests Gen Xers will be looking for products with greater benefits in sync with positive aging and renewal.

“It’s also going to be around an emergence of antibacterial claims woven into some products,” she says. “Gen X has this quite cheeky, fun, ironic, sarcastic streak that is sometimes overlooked, and actually brands need to play into that a little bit.”

Baby Boomers

Ipsos reports that during the pandemic, Baby Boomers in the U.S. went from buying about 14 percent to approximately 44 percent of their high-end beauty online.

“The older consumers were more likely to stick with [such online purchases],” says Hull, citing 38 percent of Boomers, 53 percent of Gen Xers and approximately 26 percent of Gen Zers and Millennials.

Still, for older consumers, visits to brick-and-mortar stores will remain paramount.

“A lot of these older Boomers — or even older elders — are often a little bit isolated from the other generations, so shopping for them is also a way to get in contact with people,” Nolte says. “To have real trained salespeople, who are good communicators, who are not just there to sell you something but also exchange, will have a real added value in offline retail.”

Industry experts are noting a hankering in Boomers wanting pampering in hair salons post-lockdown.

Bishop cited a Mintel report saying that the 65-plus set was the demographic most likely to first race to British salons once they reopened.

Regarding product preferences, she says: “They want formulations that are going to be tailored to their skin, the changes in the way that they look and how they’re feeling.”

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[the-record-columns]

July 24, 2019: Columns

‘Finders Keepers?’

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

In the news recently there was a survey reported on in which wallets were left where people could find them — some with money, some with no money, but all with a name and a way to contact the person who "lost" the wallet. 

The statistics were interesting, noting that more folks tried to find the owner of the wallets with money in them as opposed those who were broke.

Go figure.

Then, in the past week or so an armored car on an interstate in the Atlanta area had a side door swing open and $175,000 fell out, making a blizzard of currency.  At least 50 cars stooped to help themselves, many posting their finds on social media.

Big mistake there.

The cops are using those posts to track down the money — it is a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how much you find, if you know who it belongs to. 

All this brings me to "Moose" Robinson. 

I know no other name than Moose, a ragged sort of character who lived in Wilkes for many years.  One fateful day in the early 60’s, I was drinking a Cherry Coke at the counter of the Brame Drug Store and Moose was there as well.  For whatever reason, as we talked he said he had some advice for me — to always look down at my feet as I walked, because there was no telling what I might find, and he smiled. "Listen to old Moose," he said, "...you will be glad you did."

He was right.

It may seem silly, but lo nearly 60 years later, I still do what Moose said, and, when I notice a piece of treasure — even a penny — I always look to the sky and say, "Thank you Moose."

Sometimes I even say it out loud.

Which brings me to a story. 

In the 1970’s, I worked in advertising for Paul Cashion at WWWC Radio, when it was a little Top 40 station that could be heard almost to Cricket. In those days there was a big Easter Sunrise Service at Mount Lawn Cemetery and we carried it live on the radio. The narrator spoke in hushed tones as he read the script of everything that was going on in front of a huge crowd each year.

Those of is who worked on the event would meet at the then Holiday Inn on 268 in Wilkesboro where they who had 24-hour room service, and would let us in at about 2 a.m. and fix us a big breakfast. There were five of us to meet there and I was the last one in. They were all standing on a rug which said Holiday Inn on it as I came in.

By this time in the mid 1970’s, I had been heeding Moose Robinson’s advice faithfully for over 15 years, and, as I glanced down walking in, I saw what I thought was money folded up.  I leaned down and palmed the money and asked if anyone had lost any money.  Lo and behold, they had all lost money — at that very moment — one had lost a 5, one a 10, one a 20, and the big loser lost a 100 dollar bill.

Yeah, right.

I turned my back to them and realized that I was holding four neatly folded 100 dollar bills so new they stuck together.  I told my cohorts that they were out of luck and walked over to the front desk where the man on duty told me just to give it to him and he would put it in their vault until someone asked for it.  I didn't tell him how much I had found either, and gave him my phone number if someone reported losing some cash.

But what to do now. On Monday, I locked the cash in a file cabinet at the radio station and waited for the Holiday Inn to call.  I figured no one could lose that much cash and not be retracing their steps. Thirty days went by with me looking at the money about every day, but no call.

Unsure of what to do, when I ran in to the Wilkesboro Police Chief Delbert Wilson in the post office one morning, I buttonholed him and told him my story, and asked him what I should do.  He didn't bat an eye and said that after 30 days if no one had come forward, I should just take my kids to the beach and enjoy it.

I took his advice, and, as I paid the room rent at the old Blockade Runner Motel near the Cherry Grove Pier in North Myrtle Beach, I took a moment to look up to the sky and once again say a hearty, "Thank you, Moose!"

Note:  Finding $400 in 1975 is like finding nearly $2,000 today.

No kidding.

To the moon and back, from North Carolina

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary was last week any many a fascinating science fact have been shared.

But did you know that a small town about 35 minutes from where I’m sitting at my desk was integral in the mission? The special nylon material of the U.S. flags that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the Moon in1969, was woven at Burlington Mills in Rhodhiss, N.C.

Rhodhiss gets its interesting moniker from John M. Rhodes and George B. Hiss who partnered and built a cotton mill in Caldwell County in 1902 called Rhodhiss Manufacturing Company.

Then they constructed the village of Rhodhiss, which included a horseshoe-shaped dam, electric generator, and mill, general store, and worker houses with Rhodhiss incorporating as a town in 1903.

Workers were offered comfortable housing, some health care, schooling and credit at the company store. A two-room school house was built soon after.  Within the next decade, the Town of Rhodhiss would expand into Burke County, courtesy of a new steel bridge that spans the Catawba River, cementing North  Carolina’s place in the boom that made our state the textile capital of the world. The small town has a total area of 1.3 square miles, including the river, has only one traffic light, a cautionary flashing yellow light, not a stop light. As of the last census there is only one police officer for the 366 people, (112 families) that reside in the town. It was the perfect place to make a flag representing small town American ingenuity, I would say.

Of course there were some naysayers and critics as these things often go.

Being an employee at a mill that made flag fabric, one tends to focus on the job at hand, not about the next plant the material would end up in. For goodness sakes, they were a supplier to hundreds of companies and agencies, including NASA. It wasn’t until a few weeks after the moon landing that a company memo was put up in the weaving room about the part they played in history. Even then, there were some Burlington Mills employees who thought the moon landing was staged, but that didn’t stop them from partaking of the celebratory steak dinner with all the trimmings for every employee.  

According to Rhodhiss Town Historian Sherrie Sigmon, the flag material wasn’t the only item prepared for NASA in the plant. In a magazine article, she wrote that Burlington Mills contracted with NASA and the military for bulletproof vests during Vietnam, and material for the nose cones and heat shields on the U.S. Navy’s Polaris and Trident missiles as well as NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecrafts.

Burlington Mills closed in the early 80’s.  

In 1995, a NASA administrator presented the town with a plaque and a small North Carolina flag that had been flown to the moon and back on Apollo 16, a thank-you for the mill’s many contributions to the space program.

Rhodhiss’ first town seal has an image of an Apollo astronaut standing next to an American flag. Town leaders ordered green signs to place at the town limits that include this picture, along with the words: “U.S. Moon Flags Woven Here.”  

Though there is still some historical question about the nylon material coming from this particular plant, the good people of Rhodhiss are not dismayed and even added a little extra to their towns celebration last week, with fireworks beginning approximately the same time that Aldrin posted the flag. These citizens are pretty sure about where the facts of history lie — after all, a National Space Agency simply doesn’t end up in a one- square mile town by accident…

  True Christians support Israel

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

The influence of Evangelical Christians - those who regard the Bible as the ultimate guide for life and stalwartly regard their Messiah as the way, truth and life - is declining. Why it is falling is complex, but boils down to accommodating the current culture resulting in confusion concerning matters of faith. Coupled with the rising population of the post-modern generation in an increasingly hedonistic culture, immoral secular education, embracing the faulty concept that there are no absolute rights or wrongs, a lack of respect for authority, a high degree of self-absorption, and the list goes on, leads to the conclusion that society's downward slide toward apostate thinking is practically inexorable.

An internet search today for articles that have “Evangelical” in the search engine is shocking due to the malice the public media has for Evangelicals. Even more jaw-dropping are insinuations of contempt toward Evangelicals from those proclaiming themselves to be Christians.   

Such adversity is disheartening because of what it means for both Christianity-at-large, and Evangelical Christianity in particular, and their respective stance regarding Israel and the Jews. Evangelicals are considered pro-Israel whereas many others who claim to be Christians embrace anti-Israel policies and attitudes including anti-Semitism and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). 

The Evangelical church has largely repented of the sins and atrocities of Christian history as it relates to hatred of the Jews having come to realize that Christians have not replaced the Jews. The modern witness and revelation that God stills loves His Chosen people, the Jews, and the Holy Land He speaks so much about in the Bible, is undeniable to those who are Evangelical. In contrast, many mainstream denominations hold anti-Semitic views and Millennial churches often have no opinion about why Israel and the Jews matter nor do they understand their importance to God as plainly expressed in His Word. This all stems from the liberal education being taught at many theological seminaries.

The post-modern church totters on its understanding of Jewish-Christian relations including the Jewish connection to land of Israel, and it is certainly not Evangelical in practice. Some mega church pastors are minimizing Hebrew scripture from the pulpit in an attempt to make a case for a more modern, accepting Christianity within their church walls. Such tactics may bring in people and improve attendance, but they are left bereft of the fuller teaching of ethics and morals for life, and judgement awaits those who oppose instructions as taught by our Creator who is the God of Israel.

It’s no wonder that churches, and even whole denominations, support boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against the apple of God’s eye (Israel) and harbor anti-Semitic attitudes and practices, though many would deny it.

Such teaching about Israel and the Jews is compounded by a failure to understand the history of both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example. This is where post-modern thought in the 21st century manifests a major defect, i.e., forgetting that history begins before a person is born. Such forgetfulness and omission results in poor judgement.

Judging by media double-standards and hypocrisy, this will not bode well in the future for Israel and Jews. The non-Evangelical will be less sympathetic to Israel and her people. Regardless of Israel being the sole democracy with freedoms unheard of in the other countries in the Middle East, the self-interests of modernity versus Israel is ambiguous at present.

Today, Evangelical Christians are a tour d'force, influential in the defense of Israel and the Jewish people. They understand God’s love for the Jewish people and the land of Israel. They understand modern history as well as they do ancient history. These are the people who support Israel by visiting the Holy Land by the millions each year. They prayerfully support the Israeli government just as they support their own government. Evangelicals have contributed millions of dollars to help support the return of Jews from all over the world to their ancient homeland. New arrivals are helped in a variety of practical ways by Evangelicals as they integrate into Israeli culture and society.

Because of the sincere and enthusiastic support from Evangelicals toward Israel and her people, an unbreakable bond has been formed.  We must be sure that no one breaks it. 

The Watermelon People

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

You never know for sure what’s going to happen when it comes to an outdoor summer festival in the Carolinas.

It might be clear, it might rain, it might be hot, or it might be hotter, you may have long lines, you might have shorter lines. However, if it’s been going for many years and at approximately the same time every year you have a good idea about what’s going to happen.  

Not so long ago I traveled to Pageland, S.C., about producing a segment on the long running Pageland Watermelon Festival.

I met with Tim Griffin, the festival director and Sherri Honeycutt, a committee chair. They are, as are all the other committee chairs and members, volunteers.

The festival has been going for 68 years. For the most part it is a year-long planning process with only a short break just after the festival ends each year. I’m sure everyone needs a break.

My original thoughts were to produce a standard six-minute segment on the festival which would include about a half-day visit. The show had visited the festival for a segment about eight years ago so I had a reasonable idea of what would be happening.

As our conversation progressed, I begin to hear a much bigger story developing. It was more than a festival; it was about a community working together for the benefit of their hometown. A celebration of heritage, agriculture, beauty queens, entertainment and yes, the humble watermelon.

The decision was made to work toward the develop of a special that will highlight the people of Pageland and others who have chosen to be part of this massive project, now and over the past 68 years.

The decision was also made for Life In The Carolinas to go Live for the Parade. This task would require a great deal of support including fiber installation to handle our data streaming requirements. Sandhill Telephone was able to step in and make this happen — once again demonstrating community support.

The 2019 festival would have a few new things and a few older traditions added back to the festival lineup. The watermelon relay race was brought back and would proceed the highly anticipated Watermelon Festival Parade.

A new “dance-off” was added at noon on Saturday, shortly after the parade. Two music stages would feature almost nonstop entertainment on both Friday and Saturday until the festival ended.

The week before the big festival, the plans called for the selection of the official Watermelon Festival Beauty Queens, an airplane fly-in, a golf tournament, and a Sunday Gospel singing. All being administered by volunteers and secured by approximately 50 members of the Pageland Police Department and Chesterfield County Sherriff’s Department.

Tim is the president of the Pageland Chamber of Commerce; he lives in Pageland and has long been a tireless promoter of the good in Pageland. It was Tim who contacted our TV show several years ago about visiting Pageland.

Sherri is the Clerk of Count in Pageland; she is not a resident, but she loves where she works. She said it’s because of the people.

Pageland is a special place and like the Watermelon there is debate as to what it is. Is it a fruit or a vegetable? It really depends on who you ask.

Is Pageland a good place to visit because of the Watermelon Festival, or is the Watermelon Festival a great event to visit because of the people of Pageland?

From my observations it’s the people. So, visit the festival for sure, but then plan your travels to visit Pageland at other times. Slow down and visit with the merchants and maybe catch a movie at the historic Ball Theatre.

Take a little time and get to know the colorful people in this little Southern town with a few hidden treasures worth looking for.

It’s worth the effort, because I think they have figured out a few things along the way, but they will be the first to let you know they are still working on it.

I’ll let you know when we finish the special, I know there will be lots more to share.

By the way, the 2019 Pageland Watermelon Festival was a big success and we had a great time.

See you at the Watermelon Stand.

Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com

[fear0997-mel-blog]

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