#Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines

[midnight1nk]

WOTFI 2024 PREDICTIONS

Another year, another war.

WOTFI is just around the corner and this means a new arc!

Who will be our opponent this year?

Well, the most likely answer would be Marty, returning from WOTFI 2023. I mean, it was pretty obvious that would be him from the get-go in the episode 'We Must Kill Mario'.

This, personally, was a great episode that had some good foreshadowing and I love the dynamic between Four and Karen — I thought of it as 'SMG4 🤝 Karen ➡️ single parents who are just born to be parents'

...which made me want a dynamic between Three and Karen, single moms who would kill for their kids.

:)

Anyway, back to WOTFI, it makes sense for Marty to be the crew’s opponent timeline-wise. Looking at the calendar, we are expecting a WOTFI roughly sometime in October, based on the dates of previous WOTFI’s:

2011 - October 29

2012 - October 21

2013 - October 13

2014 - October 24

2015 - September 27

2016 - August 15

2017 - October 7

2018 - October 6

2019 - November 2

2020 - August 22

2021 - September 18

2022 - October 15

2023 - October 28

Assuming this arc would be 7 episodes and this being the first one, it lines up with our prediction. (Though, it may be subject to change depending on how many episodes it would actually have.)

What you may not know is this episode not only foreshadowed Marty’s return but the plot for WOTFI as well.

There is much more than meets the eye…

Join me as I go over the episode 'We Must Kill Mario' and discuss my predictions for WOTFI ‘24!

⚠️ But before we dive in though, I do want to put a disclaimer that while this is a theory, I want to be respectful to the crew behind SMG4. ⚠️

I don’t want any of my theories to influence/forcefully change any intended plans for the future so please don’t harass anyone working on the show just because whatever I said wasn’t true. It’s just a reminder to be kind and respectful. If they somehow see my post, uh hi, keep doing what you do and I hope for the best! ❤️

Now with that out of the way, Let’s-a Go!

CHANGE THE CHANNEL

The episode starts off in Karen’s house with her kids flipping through the SMG4 channel while she makes them dinner. In the scene where Zack, Cory, and Katie are fighting over the remote, we get a clip from the episode 'SMG4: You Made Mario Do This' when Marty was preventing the construction of the castle because he felt underappreciated for his hard work.

['SMG4: You Made Mario Do This' // timestamp, 2:15 ]

IT’S TO DIE FOR

In the next scene, Karen poured “Smarty’s Spaghetti Sauce” on the pasta.

…I mean, do I really have to spell it out here? If this cardboard cutout was able to run Casino Paisano before he and Mario went to jail, then it shouldn’t be a surprise. What is curious though is that somehow Marty, while on the run, has his face plastered on a Goober Eats bag in 'SMG4: Super SMG4 Wonder', owns a whole airline named “Marty Airlines” in 'Mario’s Plane Trip', and now has a pasta sauce brand in here. All with no one noticing anything.

['SMG4: Super SMG4 Wonder' // timestamp, 0:57 ] ['Mario’s Plane Trip' // timestamp, 0:13 ]

There is an ‘S’ put in front of his name, but the point still stands. Now, I wouldn’t say that this is “unusual”. It’s the SMG4 universe, after all, you can literally start a business and this is completely normal. Just some food for thought.

TAKING THE JOB

Back to the episode, Karen receives a call from the corporation that offers her a job — and when I mean ‘offers’, I mean ‘convinces her to take the job'. According to her former “boss”, it was a hit request on an international terrorist who has escaped from prison and is currently poisoning innocent people, who we later learn to be Marty. The “boss” also stated that Karen may know him. Karen initially refuses since she has abandoned that line of work for her kids, until her “boss” elaborates that if she doesn’t take the request, more lives could be lost, including children. Like her children. With no choice, she takes it.

But, who is this corporation?

Based on what little we have, I can determine this corporation may be affiliated with the government or something similar in power status.

They can keep tabs on all their agents, even if they quit, just as Karen did.

Apparently, they are able to get word on the people who interacted with them but not enough to know their personal lives (the corporation is seemingly uninformed about her kids.)

They are open to receiving requests from third parties.

They don’t take hits for kill’s sake, they prioritize people’s safety.

However, they don’t want any witnesses when taking the hit so they would kill IF they have to. For Karen, they trust her enough to know it won’t come to that since she is a professional, qualified agent.

Other than that, we don’t exactly know. There is a possibility that WOTFI could reveal who they are. But it also lead to Karen having her secret past revealed as well, potentially losing her job(s).

[side ramble: if that were to happen, it would be great if Three hired Karen to come work at his café. He needs the extra help after all, and Karen would be able to have more appearances in the series. I know it's not going to happen but hey, a guy could dream.]

TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW

Karen catches Four eavesdropping on their conversation and after some convincing, the two decide to work together. They head down to the basement where Karen keeps a stash of her weapons and demands Four to tell her everything he knows about Mario.

Well, first off, I don’t think Mario can be killed except if it was through manipulation of his code due to the cosmology lore. Of course, the real target isn’t Mario but it does bring up the question:

How do you kill Marty?

In the episode 'SMG4: You Made Mario Do This', it has been established that Marty is practically invincible since he was able to stand a nuke for memes’ sake. Water may have slowed him down but it wasn’t enough to outright destroy him. We don't know if he can be destroyed, not even Mario knows — the guy who created him. Likely, for WOTFI, one of the crew’s objectives would be that they have to find Marty’s weakness to defeat him.

['SMG: You Made Mario Do This' ]

Then again, cartoon logic exists.

THE “SPAGHETTI APPRECIATION” CLUB

Karen and Four go out to tail Mario and stumble upon a cult working on the distribution of the sauce. Confused about why Mario would be here, they continued on through the warehouse… Until Four accidentally alerted the cultists of their presence.

[another side ramble: Four, you can’t just say you used to have a deviantART account and not drop the link, dude.]

After an intense between them and the cult, they were able to find Mario and realize that yeah, Mario’s being Mario and had no idea he was even in a cult.

Pure of heart, dumb of ass ❤️

That was when a dying cultist and a jar of “Smarty’s Spaghetti Sauce” revealed that the poison mentioned earlier in the episode was the sauce itself. It also was a horrifying revelation that Karen used the same sauce on the dinner she just left for her kids.

Like I mentioned before, Marty is somehow able to have a pasta sauce business. Not only that but recruit a cult who worship spaghetti to work for him.

The cultists that were in the warehouse are dead but it doesn’t mean it was all of them. Indeed, later on in the episode, more cultists came into Karen's house to fight. For all we know, Marty has multiple distribution plants in the Mushroom Kingdom so perhaps Marty would bring more as part of his army for WOTFI.

AN UNEXPECTED REUNION

Karen, Four, and Mario rush back to her house and were able to stop her kids from eating the spaghetti just in time. However, they’ve faced an unexpected guest: Marty.

Four and Mario immediately recognized him, but Karen was confused as to why a cardboard cutout was with her kids. That was when Four tells her about WOTFI 2023 — which I dubbed ‘The Notebook Arc’ — and how Marty stole Three’s notebook.

[i really have to stop making these side rambles: i absolutely loved it when they referenced WOTFI '23 :) ]

Then, Mario wonders how Marty managed to escape from prison, allowing Karen to piece together that Marty was the real target all along.

Wait a second, wasn’t she there in WOTFI '23? His face was literally all over the casino, how did she not know about Marty?

She was there but it’s likely that she assumed as everyone else did: Marty was just a cardboard cutout. A mascot. How much damage can he really do?

A lot, apparently. He was clever to take advantage of his appearance so that no one would suspect a thing.

Marty greets the familiar faces and reveals his motive behind his poisonous spaghetti sauce: after the events of the Notebook arc, Marty swore revenge on Mario after our local funny man escaped from prison and abandoned him for spaghetti.

“The one person I trusted the most has left me behind for… SPAGHETTI! Now I’ve escaped! …And it's time for… everyone to suffer like I have! At the hands… of the one thing YOU love the MOST.”

This will definitely be his motive for WOTFI 2024, this time going against Mario due to betrayal. Marty said it himself that he would be back, after he escaped with the help of a helicopter from being cornered by Karen.

WELL PLAYED

Even after Marty managed to escape from Karen, she felt relieved that her kids were safe, thanking Four and Mario for doing so.

This leads me to suspect that Karen will have a big role in WOTFI. Thematically, it makes sense since she has yet to carry out the request and would likely give the finishing blow, defeating Marty once and for all. Well, until the crew could find a weakness, of course.

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

And there you have it: my predictions for WOTFI 2024, all based on the episode 'We Must Kill Mario'! As this arc is just starting, it might be likely we will get to see more hints about Marty’s plan for revenge or anything related to the plot of WOTFI.

To this, my dear fellows, time will only tell. But hey, that’s just a theory…

AN SMG4 THEORY

🎶Thanks for dropping by🎶

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Do you really think that is all? How naive.

…?

[technofantasia]

Rise of the TMNT Timeline

Alright, by piecing together some clues from the show and making some educated guesses, I’ve put together a tentative chronology for Rise!

(Note: not all episodes are included, just a couple that either have timeline evidence or are somehow plot notable. This is assuming the canonical episode order is also chronological order.)

[EDIT] Added some more information (namely Splinter’s birthday month).

1600s-ish: The Shredder was created and sealed away September 1960: Splinter was born 1966: Splinter’s mother left (Finale part 1 flashback) 1979: Splinter left for America (Finale part 1 flashback) 1980-1984: Splinter became an action film star, dated around 1984: Splinter started dating Big Mama 1987: Splinter’s “Hot Soup: the Game” was released 1989: Splinter proposed to Big Mama, was imprisoned in Battle Nexus November 2002: April was born April-August 2003: (Presumably) Raph was born April-August 2004: (Presumably) Leo and Donnie were born April-August 2005: (Presumably) Mikey was born October 2005: Splinter and the Turtles were mutated February 2014: The first Lair Games was held 2014-2016: Donnie made his first battleshell, goggles, and tech bracer Early 2018: Piebald was flushed August 2018: Mystic Mayhem (the series begins), Down with the Sickness September 2018: The Turtle Tank was created (The Fast and the Furriest), Bug Busters, Hypno part Deux October 2018: Bullhop,  Evil League of Mutants, Shelldon was first created (Smart Lair), Shadow of Evil November 2018: April’s 16th Birthday (Warren and Hypno), April meets Sunita (Operation: Normal) December 2018: Snow Day January 2019: S1 Finale February 2019: The sixth Lair Games was held (Lair Games), Repairin’ the Baron March 2019: Air Turtle April-May 2019: S2 Finale

(Reasoning below the cut!)

So. Assuming that the episodes occur in chronological order, we can reasonably assume that the course of the show proper takes around or slightly less than a year.

In Hypno Part Deux, April is going to a homecoming dance; homecoming dances happen usually around the beginning of the school year, in late September or early October. Since she is canonically 15 at the time (she says she’s 16 in Always Be Brownies, which happens after her birthday) and has a birthday that comes after homecoming, that would likely make her a high school junior! That’s not important, just a fun fact. Placing the beginning of the series around August makes sense, then, since it’d be before April started school and during flu season, giving Splinter a good reason for catching the rat flu in Down with the Sickness.

The other solid time marker we have is Snow Day, which obviously takes place during snow season in New York (which is usually December to March). It’d likely be closer to December, since I’d like to imagine that they would have gone out to have fun in the snow as soon as they could have, potentially even at first snow. Since Lair Games comes chronologically after Snow Day and confirms the year as being 2019, we can assume that most episodes that happen before Snow Day happened in 2018 while those after happened in 2019.

Another, slightly more tenuous time marker is Bullhop, where a calendar is shown that says the 21st of the month was on a Sunday; by our previous assumption, this is 2018, so a calendar shows this must have been during the month of October, which falls in line with the rest of our timeline here! Neat. The 2018-2019 NBA season went from October 6 to April 10, so, since Air Turtle presumably showed a late season game with potential for turnaround, early March seems like a fair bet. All of those episodes combined give a pretty good sense of time throughout the series, spanning from probably around August 2018 to Mid-2019. The finale could have happened any time after March and before June (when high school would end, meaning Sloppy Joe wouldn’t have had to be working Draxum’s kitchen). Because there were quite a few episodes that should have happened before the finale, though, I’ll split the difference and say the S2 finale happened in or around May.

Fun detail: by this timeline, April’s birthday is sometime between October and December/January, likely November (seeing as it comes after Bullhop but before Snow Day, and judging by the fall colors of the foliage in Operation Normal which comes directly after her birthday episode.)

As for the brothers, we can assume that they might have different birthdays judging by how in Lair Games, Mikey says that one of his favorite days is “my birthday”; if they all shared a birthday, he might have been more likely to say “our birthday”. They were mutated sometime close to October, but since they didn’t seem to see the date of their mutation as anything special in ELoM, we can assume they don’t celebrate it as their birthday. We know that at the beginning of the show, Mikey is 13, Leo and Donnie are 14, and Raph is 15; at no point during the show do any of them have a birthday, which leads me to assume that they are the same ages by the S2 finale. They COULD have had a birthday offscreen, but since birthdays are a pretty big thing for teenagers, I’d think that if one of them had a birthday it would be pretty noteworthy. I’ll just guess and say they didn’t have one. If that’s the case, then all of their birthdays would be some time between April-ish and August-ish. By the time the show starts, then, they would have already had their birthdays, confirming for us their (probably only guessed anyway but whatever) birth years as 2003, 2004, and 2005. Realistically, Splinter probably didn’t know how much older Raph was from any of the others or anything like that, but the years are still somewhat important for age calculation purposes. I could try to guess their birthday months by saying they might all have wanted a unique birthday month, but that would be complete conjecture on my part (as compared to the rest of this which is just mostly conjecture), and would honestly be more headcanon territory than an educated guess? So for the timeline I’ll just say that their birthdays are between April and August.

Now, reaching further backwards to figure out Splinter’s life timeline!

In Splinter’s memories in E-turtle Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we see a clip of a teenage Splinter. Said “teenage splinter” looks to be on the older side of teenager, as he seems to have his own apartment and just looks older besides, so I’d place him at either 18 or 19 (leaning towards 19). Additionally, taking a look around his room, it looks like he might be using a Sony Walkman (first made in 1979), and has what looks to be a Star Wars poster on his wall (1977). Additionally, he has a TV in his room that looks to be a Toshiba Blackstripe model that was popular in the mid-to-late 70s. While I can’t tell if he does actually have a walkman or not, I’d probably place this scene as being 1978 or 1979 anyway, so let’s just say it’s 1979. If he was 19 in 1979, that would place Splinter’s birth year as 1960, which is nice and even so I’m keeping it. That would make Splinter 58-59 during the course of the show, which seems to track! He has a birthday in Mascot Melee (the turtles are buying him a new robe as a birthday present), which, according to my episode timeline, puts his birthday around early September.

The flashback of Splinter as a kid is a little bit tricky, since he looks to be about five or six judging by how he acts in the scene? But he’s also holding a Kamen Rider doll, and that show didn’t exist until 1971. I nonetheless place the scene in 1966, since this is a cartoon and hey, maybe the Kamen Rider equivalent came out a few years earlier in this world, who cares. The bottle flip challenge already apparently happened in 2014 here, why not move some other stuff around? This exercise has already had me comparing calendar days, I will not be deterred

In Many Unhappy Returns, the clapperboard for the film “Crouching Shrimp, Hidden Tiger Prawn” in Splinter’s flashback shows that it was 1984 when he first met Big Mama, meaning that he was not only Lou Jitsu by then (at just 24 years old!), but that he had been making movies for at least a few years. After all, he and Big Mama were supposedly inseparable after meeting, and in The Shadow of Evil, it’s shown that Splinter did date around a bit as a star. Assuming that rat dad isn’t the cheating type, that would have had to be before meeting Big Mama. In Fists of Furry, Splinter mentions that he hasn’t seen any of his dojos in thirty years; while he may not have meant literally thirty years on the dot, assuming he’s at least close, that would mean that he was first abducted around 1989 (age 29). At that point, he and Big Mama would have been dating for around 5 years, which seems like a reasonable amount of time for him to wait before proposing. He also would have had time to build up quite a bit of fame as a movie star; the game he had of him looks to be on a system similar to the Atari 2600 and in fact looks pretty similar to the real life game “Kung Fu Master” that came out on Atari in 1987, a year which would have been the prime of his career. Sure, that date works as well as any. After that point, we know he was imprisoned in the Battle Nexus until Baron Draxum kidnapped him in order to use his DNA to mutate the turtles 13 years before The Evil League of Mutants. That would have placed his kidnapping and their mutations at around October of 2005, judging by the monthly timeline of the show. So, Splinter would have been around 45 when he adopted the turtles, after having been imprisoned and forced to fight for ~16 straight years. Dang.

Finally, I figured that the whole deal with Shredder and Karai would have happened at some point in the 1600s as it was 18 generations ago, judging by the number of “greats” in Karai’s grandma title, and if you average out a generation to be about 20-25 years, that lands you in the range of the 15th century. That works especially because Ninja apparently first started becoming a thing in the 15th century, so the timing checks out well enough.

(and, just as an extra fun note for the timeline, the lair games was said to have been going on for 6 years as of early 2019, meaning it must have started in 2014. We see that, in 2014 (year 1 of the Lair Games), Donnie doesn’t have his goggles or battleshell and is instead wearing glasses. In 2016 (year 3), though, he looks about the same as he does in the present, meaning he must have created all his tech that he wears on him (battleshell, goggles, tech bracer) between 2014 and 2016.)

So, the above timeline is a guesstimated and shoved around compilation of all this totally meaningless investigation, typed in a form that makes some kind of chronological sense! I hope that someone finds it useful, or just fun to think about :D

[rivalsforlife]

AA7 Speculation Post: 2021 Edition

So I did one of these back in August, claiming that it was likely we’d get an AA7 announcement sometime in September for the Tokyo Game Show. Obviously it was wrong. So I am doing ANOTHER ONE, because I apparently like publicly being proven wrong?

This will be shorter than the last one because I exhausted most of my material on the first one, and also there’s less material. There is, however, SOME new stuff we’ve learned since August. ... And I was going to make a post in November but completely forgot, so consider this a starting point for the year. I’ll be covering the leaks, in general terms, and theorizing when we will be getting announcements/releases.

The rest will be under the cut so as not to burden everyone with my ramblings.

The Capcom Leaks

First things first, a disclaimer: this information was leaked through a hack which was highly illegal and compromised the personal information of many former and current Capcom employees, and therefore, I do not condone the methods through which this information was obtained and will not provide any guidance as to how to obtain this information, nor have I sought it out myself. However, I will still talk about then in general terms, because the information is out there already, and the information I am discussing will not compromise any personal information.

In summary: early this November, the hacker group Ragnar Locker managed to hack into Capcom’s databases somehow and retrieved 1 TB of information from the company; this includes a bit of information on ace attorney, which was leaked in mid-November after the group demanded a ransom and, presumably, Capcom didn’t pay up.

The two major ace attorney reveals that came from this are as follows: the announcement of a DGS/DGS2 port for the nintendo switch, steam, and ps4 with an English translation, and a calendar for the development and release of this port along with... ace attorney 7.

It’s highly likely that this information was real, given the level detail and the fact that Capcom confirmed some of their information was leaked, essentially confirming that AA7 either is or once was in development -- more news about this than we’ve had in a long time! But what does it mean and when can we expect it? Let’s take a closer look at the calendar.

The Calendar

Unfortunately, this little thing happened in between the creation of this calendar and it being leaked, called “a global pandemic” or something like that, so this calendar is almost certainly behind.

But what did it say? I lost track of the original, but I did find a roughly translated version someone made (from this post which summarizes some of the stuff in the leaks):

So... what does this mean? First, let’s remember two things: one, this calendar was made pre-COVID and things were definitely pushed back. And two, the Japanese fiscal year starts April 1st, meaning that FY2021 starts in April. This means that as of writing this, we are technically in FY2020 Q4 - where, if we were on track, would be nearing the end of DGS1&2 port production and midway through AA7′s production. (We are almost definitely not on track.)

The pandemic started hitting Japan around April 2020, I believe, so that would be in FY2020 Q1. The DGS ports seem fairly unaffected, considering it’s later in production, and also, the DGS games are already complete, so most of the work would be on translating and adapting the games for modern consoles, rather than starting completely at scratch like AA7. AA7 is a little trickier: it was still in the prototype/pre-production stage, most likely, when the pandemic hit. I’m not tooootally sure what that means because I’m not a game developer, but it’s quite possible that this meant it took a serious hit. Given that there didn’t seem to be a lot of other AA7 data leaked, including in a large schedule of releases for Capcom later, there is the possibility that AA7 ended up being scrapped owing to the pandemic or other extenuating circumstances... but I don’t believe that’s likely, with the 20th anniversary coming up. We’ll see.

Another thing of note is that the name “AA7″ is temporary. Here in the English-speaking world that isn’t a big deal because all the AA games have random titles (like “Justice for All” and “Trials and Tribulations”...) but in Japan, they’re referred to simply with their numbers (GS2, GS3, etc. standing for Gyakuten Saiban 2, Gyakuten Saiban 3). The fact that “Gyakuten Saiban 7″ is a temporary name could possibly mean that what we are getting is not another mainline game. 

However, again, there’s not really anything to support either of these things. I’m just bringing up random possibilities to cover my bases; but personally I think it’s likely that it is another mainline game, and that it is still in development. If we hear absolutely nothing about AA7 for all of 2021, though... then perhaps not.

Now... obviously, this calendar was pushed back. If we’re in 2020Q4 right now, then by the calendar DGS1&2 is hypothetically going to be released in about three-six months, and there has been absolutely no word on that so far. If this calendar were still being followed, we’d have AA7 on sale in Q3 of 2021 -- meaning October-December 2021, possibly in October for the 20th anniversary of the series, which would be super cool. ... but I doubt that will happen now.

So then, when are we getting the games?

I haven’t seen actual evidence of it, but rumour is that they’re pushing back DGS1&2 for a July release and an April announcement, giving three months between announcement - release. This is a shorter period than the most recent trilogy switch/ps4/pc/xbox release, which was announced in September 2018 and released February 2019 in Japan, a five month waiting period. 

When we English-speaking players will get the duology is unknown, too -- the trilogy rereleases took a month and a half before they were released in English, despite already having been translated and the original released in Japan coming with an English language option. (No idea what was up with that!) The duology released in Japan reportedly will have an English option from the outset, though the English released version will not have the Japanese option because of copyright issues surrounding Sherlock Holmes -- sorry, I mean, Herlock Sholmes. Still, we should expect a few months following the Japanese release before we are able to play it ourselves. Same goes with the hypothetical AA7, which seems to typically be around three months following the Japanese release for an English release.

As for when we can expect AA7′s announcement... to the extent of my knowledge, the shortest announcement-release period for a game was Spirit of Justice, announced in September 2015 and released in Japan in June 2016, a period of nine months. Usually it takes longer. Assuming that there’s still that six-month gap between the DGS duology release and the AA7 release, we could hypothetically have AA7 in early 2022, pushed back a quarter, and if the announcement comes nine months ahead... it lines up pretty nicely with an April announcement. If we’re having a DGS announcement in April as rumoured, it would make sense to tie in the AA7 announcement to that as well.

How will they be announced? ... I’m not sure. TGS back in September would have been the most opportune time for an announcement, but I have the feeling that owing to our good friend the pandemic, they didn’t have enough to show for either the ports or AA7 back then and so opted not to show anything. If these games are for the Switch, they could be announced in a Nintendo Direct. Or they could be announced in a Famitsu magazine with trailers released later outside of any other event. Honestly I don’t really know for this part.

Overall, though? This is the upcoming 20th anniversary of the series. I’d be surprised if we ended up not getting anything. Despite the pandemic likely pushing everything back, I think it’s highly likely we’ll get some big ace attorney news soon, even if it’s not quite in time for the anniversary -- of course, the safety and health of the employees comes first, so a bit of a delay will be just fine.

TL;DR: I’m theorizing we’ll have DGS port/ AA7 announcements around this April, with DGS being released around July and AA7 being released late 2021/early 2022, with a few months delay for the English versions.

[gophergal]

A/N: SO, this is the Michael Myers x OC story rewrite I was telling y’all about! I started it in August of 2019 around the time I started this blog. The only warning for this chapter I can think of is home invasion. I would also like to thank @bucketofcowboys for beta reading this for me. I <3 you, dude!

I’m Not Lonely - Chapter One

Word count: 2000+| Rating: M |  Michael Myers x OC | M/F

Houses passing by slowly drift farther apart as the car bulleted forward on the empty road out of town. Clouds overhead obscured the moon and stars that Jean loved so dearly. Instead, the world was masked in inky blackness, save for the headlights and few porch lights left on by the sleepy residents inside. Beyond that, there was nothing, just the varying shades of black that made up the road, trees, and sky. It was a quiet night, Halloween night, she reminded herself. Seems that if you have no kids to take trick or treating and no parties to get drunk at that Halloween is just a date on the calendar. A block of black up ahead drew closer. It was her home, the house she'd inherited when her grandfather passed away. The old man had always been taken good care of her and, even after death, still kept that up.

“Thirteen dead and two injured tonight after a killing spree perpetrated, possibly, by an escaped patient of Smith's Grove Sanitarium. The suspect, one Michael Audrey Myers, is thought to have been caught in an explosion at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, though police urge residents of the surrounding area to remain cautious until further notice,” the radio droned as Jean tiredly pulled her car into the driveway. Jean shook her head, dirty blond locks sweeping across her face as she frowned. The world's really gone downhill when things like this happen every day, she thought, or maybe I just never noticed how cruel it can be.

A shiver ran down her spine as she thought about the madman running amok, murdering innocents. Mentally, she slapped herself. Keep your cool, Jean. No way could a loony like that evade capture for long. Hell, he might even be lost in the woods, looking around wildly as coyotes sized him up for a meal. He was probably dead, or at least would  wish he were. She couldn't be losing her head over something the police could handle. She was safe here. That name though- It sounded familiar.  

The moon was already high in the sky when she finally pulled open her front door, kicked off her shoes on the mat, and shrugged her coat off, stretching the stiff muscles of her shoulders. It had been a late shift. That was never a problem for Jean though. She didn't have anyone waiting for her at home and everyone knew it, so she was a good choice for late nights. Not that she minded. Jolene, her co worker, liked to lecture to her about getting out there and “catching herself a man”. Well, to Jean, dating was a tiresome and pointless game, and it wasn't like she had a line of suitors waiting to sweep her off her feet. Keys clinked in the dish where they were set and Jean ran a hand through her hair, her body rapidly growing heavy with exhaustion as the day caught up to her. Thinking back on it, she'd never been very popular. No problem though. Popularity didn't matter if you didn't want it to, and Jean was perfectly happy on her own.

She slipped by the kitchen, grabbing first for an apple then, remembering granddad's lectures about “eating heartily and eating well”, prepared a sandwich instead. Lazily she took a bite, too tired to care about how it tasted. Without thought, she flipped on the radio. For a moment she stood in front of the table, knowing very well that getting ready for sleep would zap what was left of her dwindling supply of energy, but not wanting to go to bed. She would have time to read a book if she put off brushing her teeth. She'd recently gotten a copy of that book Jolene recommended to her. Some horror story about a hotel. The Shining, she thought it was called. Jo seemed to like it quite a bit, but Jean had never been a big fan of horror. She often found the protagonists a bit stupid and would reluctantly admit to being easily spooked by those kind of stories. Still, she'd wanted to give it a chance, but hadn't yet had a chance to start reading it.

With the last crumb of bread stuffed into her mouth, she grabbed her pen and pad of paper to jot down a note to buy more bread. Tomorrow would be a good day for laundry and relaxation, she thought. Sunny and warm according to the forecast, as much as early November can be. It would be a good day off, she decided. She finally surrendered to her exhaustion, the need for sleep driving her through her routine. She only briefly stopped to look in the mirror, examining the dark circles under her eyes. She sighed, flopping into bed unceremoniously and snuggling into the soft covers. Exhaustion overtook her and the comforting dark arms of sleep came easily.

THUMP. Jean bolted upright, panic flooding her veins as she became aware of her surroundings. A stone sunk in her guts as she realized that she could not remember locking the door. She groped beneath the bed for the baseball bat she kept for home defense. She cursed herself silently for not taking granddad up on his offer for shooting lessons all those years ago, Her nerves were not calmed as she slid her hand over the smooth wood of her weapon. She had a white knuckle grip on the bat to keep her hands from shaking as she padded silently down the stairs, avoiding the creaky last step with practiced ease. She kept to the wall as she entered the living room, her terror striking her mute as she beheld the sight before her. Upon her couch, covered in blood and soot, lay a strange man, the ragged rise and fall of his chest her only indication that he wasn't a corpse. He shifted, mask clad head turning to her before he sprung up to shaky feet, filthy knife held defensively in his wavering grip. Even from here she could see the shaking of his large hands.

“Woah! Woah, hold it, big fella!” She exclaimed, bat extended in the space between them, “I'm not going to hurt you, not unless you hurt me first” A stupid thing to say honestly, given that he had a great deal of height and mass over her and, even injured as she believed him to be, could likely subdue her with ease. Not to mention the fact that he was an intruder. Logic seemed to leave her when she needed it most, it seemed. She swallowed thickly as he tilted his head, seeming to consider her words. His hand came to hang at his side, the knife loose in his fist. She lowered her home defense, her gaze still shifting nervously as she searched for his eyes behind the mask. A futile effort, for all she could glimpse was the sunken blackness of the eye holes.

“Why don't you take a seat. Wouldn't want you to pass out in the middle of my living room floor. You're a bit too big for me to carry,” she said as she studied his person to see what injuries he'd sustained. Jesus Christ, she thought, has he been fucking shot? Indeed, the telltale entry wounds were present, six in total, on his chest, arms, and leg. The dark blood that had bloomed around them was beginning to dry. The man all but fell to the couch, his sudden weight making the springs creak slightly.

“I'm willing to bet good money that you've been hurt pretty badly from the look of you. But 911 isn't really an option now, not with the breaking and entering, y'know.” The intruder remained stone still, as he'd been since he sat down. Jean fidgeted, thinking of what to do next. “Since going to the hospital probably isn't an option for you, I could patch you up, if you want. I mean, I'm no doctor, but it's better than nothing.”

At the mention of “hospital” he seemed to stiffen, if only slightly. The offer to tend his wounds seemed to relax him again. Though maybe she was looking too deeply into things. “I'll go ahead and get the kit, you- well you need to strip down a bit so I can help you.” She didn't wait for an answer of any kind before she began up the stairs, her full weight coming down on the squeaky step in her rush. She was playing nurse to the strange man- strange masked man, she corrected- that had broken into her home and threatened her with a knife. The ridiculousness of the situation, the pure stupidity of it all, was not lost on her, but now she was on autopilot. Moving without thinking.

With the first aid kit and water basin now safely in her arms, she moved down the stairs purposefully, almost hoping that her unwelcome guest had left or had been a dream. Her hopes were dashed when she saw him there, partially undressed, on her couch. For how scorched his jumpsuit was he had relatively few burns. In fact, the biggest one was about the size of a hand on his left side. It had blistered, but the rubbing of cloth must have caused them to rupture, leaving them as seeping open wounds. The gunshot wounds were concerning though. They were hard to see under all the crusty dried blood, but she knew that the bullets had to go.

Drawing nearer, she saw on the coffee table sat five bullets, droplets of red pooling around them as the masked man's thick, grubby fingers set down the last one. Jean blinked, then decided it wasn't worth the shock, horror, or confusion. She just needed to tend to him, get some sleep, and wake up from this weird dream. If she was quick enough, she could let it fade from her memory with no problems. Carefully, she cleaned the wounds, watching as the water changed from it's original crystal clear state into a murky red. His wounds, however, looked better than they had before. She dressed them with ointment and bandage, every movement slow and deliberate as she treated the wounds.

She lent to him an old pair of jeans and a button down her granddad had owned. Anything would be better than those grubby coveralls. The more she thought, the more she realized that not all the blood on them could possibly be his, but she pushed it from her mind. The sooner he was out of here, the better. And that would be much faster if she cooperated. You'll regret this later, a small voice, probably her common sense, told her. Maybe I will, she thought in response, but I'll burn that bridge when I get there.

With everything being returned to it's proper place in the box and the filthy water  drained into the sink, she looked to him, a slight nervous grin on her lips, “You'd better get some rest then. Those wounds won't heal up very well otherwise.” He looked in her direction in a way that her exhausted mind read as unsure, yet confused. With a sleepy stagger, she made her way up the stairs to her room. The door slammed slightly behind her as she entered the room, the sound of it echoing throughout the room. She greeted the bed readily, succumbing to unconsciousness as soon as she hit the soft pillows.

Downstairs, the man, now wearing another stranger's clothes, sat on the couch. His mind working to weigh the options at hand. The immediate pleasure of stalking up the stairs and watching the light fade from her eyes as he stripped her life from her was tempting, but this woman, she was useful to him. More-so alive than dead, he figured. And so, he would wait. He was very patient; He'd needed to be for 15 years and could wait just a bit longer for her death. The very thought of it satisfied him.

The night's hunt had been less than successful. Prey had escaped. He'd been injured. And the Doctor- he'd tried to kill him; tried to shoot him dead. Not that it surprised him. Doctor Loomis had promised him for years that he would be killed if he stepped out of line. No matter. He was free now. He could not be stopped. And anyone who tried to stop him would simply become more prey for him. There was only one that had escaped him and she would be hunted, caught like a rat, then slaughtered by his hand, and his hand alone. But first, his body needed rest.

[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

I.

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

[haylanmakesstuff]

Day 1 & 2 of my 21 day Skeksis Costume Build

I usually work as a seasonal Interpretive Ranger for outdoor agencies, like National Parks and Forests, and last year when I got back from working all the way across the country from my home, I had less than a month to pull a Halloween costume off! I always make my costumes from scratch (except things like shoes, but I often alter them, etc.)

I wasted about a week of my time debating what I should do. I had a few ideas but I wasn’t crazy about them. I often feel like I need to be CRAZY excited about whatever I make. When I didn’t work during the summers out of state, I would often start my costumes any time between late June and early August depending on how ambitious it was. Now I had less than a month!

I had been watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and was thinking about how since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted to make a Skesis costume. Then I realized – I didn’t have a job or anywhere to be until school started, so why not go nuts and make one in just 21 days? I did just that. I took pictures along the way to be able to show how I did it…now welcome to the first post detailing the experience!

Also, I had posted about this costume on a Halloween Costume Club I used to run as a Facebook group and actually had people being jerks about it. I am not here for your negativity. I am here to share my process and love of crafting with others, and I am happy to answer questions, too. No, you don’t have to make this costume or anything in just 21 days, even I would usually start months in advance and only work on it intermittently for a better product, I just didn’t have that option in 2019. But please, I’m here to share the happiness of crafting, not to hear how stupid you think my hobbies are. 

First, the end game:

Now, let’s back up 21 days and start from the beginning. I kept a calendar with notes on what I worked on because I eventually wanted to go back and make this post. Currently (July 2020) I am updating the costume for a second Halloween (if that happens during this pandemic) and those updates will be the last post of this series. Enjoy!

DAY 1: OCTOBER 10TH

Today I worked on the head/face, and eyes. Go big or go home, because if I couldn’t make the most important part of the costume, then the rest is cancelled.  I first gathered a bunch of screen shots of Chamberlain from the new Netflix show, googled images of the character, the puppet, and models. I started the head and completed that process before I realized I liked Skekso’s character design WAY more than The Chamberlain. And I had seen Chamberlain done several times before online and realized I wanted to take on a new challenge. That’s why you’ll notice the head shape is that of Chamberlain and not of The Emperor.  That morning I went to craft stores and hardware stores and got the stuff I would need to start off. This would mean many trips to these places, and since I live in a partially rural area, it’s a drive for me so I try to limit these visits so I don’t waste all my creating time driving. You’ll see each material listed as we go along.

First, here is Skekso, The Emperor from Dark Crystal; Age of Resistance, so you know what he looks like from the source material. If you haven’t seen this show, obviously I would recommend it, and would tell you start with the show, not the movie from the early 80’s, because the show is a prequel. I think to new viewers the movie may be more exciting if you see some of the back story on why it’s happening.

So now to the build:  

1.)    I started with plastic craft mesh in white to make a skull shape:

 I used a paper pattern so my sized would line up correctly, etc. You’ll notice I’m not only terrible at math, but I absolutely hate it. Not a great quality for a Maker and I have to compensate A LOT for my lack of math love and skills. I missed a lot of school growing up and never actually learned stuff like long division until college, so….make do! Our weaknesses and flaws won’t end us, we just find a way around them.

2.)    Once I got the plastic mesh pieces the right shapes, I glued them together with hot glue, very carefully.  I cut out a spot for the eyes making sure the future-eyes that were still ping pong balls fit snuggly. Notice all of my shopping and material decisions are heavily reliant on being light weight – I’m only 5’2 and not very strong, I knew I couldn’t pack a 50 pound costume around all night. I can keep my carry-on bags under 20 pounds usually, so I was confident in tricking this costume to be as light as possible.

3.)    Next, I used upholstery foam from the craft store (look in the furniture/upholstery section) to coat the mesh skull with without any contours, etc. That will all come later. I also made my favorite 3 ingredient pumpkin cookies that are the BOMB. Let me know if you want the very short recipe.

4.)    After I had all the basic forms of foam where I needed them and hot glued on, I started carving out the foam into the various shapes and valleys to look like Skekso. This took a long time and make a crazy mess, so beware if you have pets, roommates, or husbands – you’ll owe them some of those cookies to put up with your bull.

5.)    Then, I started on the eyeballs. Keeping it lightweight, I used regular old ping pong balls.

In the background, to the left of this picture, you’ll see a yellowish-hand. During this time I was also making a Halloween Decoration/Party Decoration; a full size Dementor from Harry Potter, for my yard for the month of October, and for November when I have an annual Hogwarts Feast; both of which I will showcase on here later! I liked these hands so much I ended up adapting a fancier version for this Skekso costume, so more on that later.

  DAY 2: OCTOBER 11TH

                       Face, teeth, eyes, and head dress.

1.)    Today I continued painting the eye balls, giving a base coat of off white, painting the iris and pupil, and veins. I used acrylic for all of this, but dipped the reds and pinks in water before using tiny brushes and toothpick points to create the veins. I actually glued a part of a wooden skewer (thicker than a toothpick) short, maybe 1.4 inches at most, to the back of the eyeball so I would always have something to hold onto without messing up the paint job. I figured this would be handy when gluing it into the head later, and it was.

I also continued the carving of the foam on the head from yesterday, finally getting it where I wanted it, ready for the next stage.

2.)    Next, I drew dark spots of different sizes on the jaws of the head to see how many of what size teeth I wanted Skekso to have. I used a picture as reference and got it as close as I could. Counted how many large, medium, and small teeth there were, so I knew how many to make.

Then, clearly, it was important that I sang him a little song of encouragement. It could be reenacting that scene from Alien 4 that’s so darned sad too, hard to say.

Now I know what you are wondering: What the heck am I wearing on my head? No, I don’t have a mushy skull like a bitty baby, I’m actually preparing myself to get used to the helmet that will be used for the costume later. I am not sure how heavy it will be, so I want to get used to the bike helmet, and you’ll see later I slowly add some weight to it. Yeah, I look kinda crazy, but at least I got to do it in my own home. And I am not superhero Christine McConnell – I never dress in anything but slouchy pajamas for the most part if I’m heavy into a crafting project. I want comfort and not to ruin everything I own because shit gets messy! 

3.)    Now that I know how many and what sizes teeth I need, time to make them. I bought a shit ton of Crayola Modeling Magic for this costume because it’s lightweight and I am used to using it. I used only white, mold it how I want it, then it dries for at least 24 hours for these little teeth. Anything bigger will add time – you’ll see more made of this later. Here are the little teeth on a pretty platter to dry:

4.)    Now time for more work on the head: I painted the mesh inside of the mouth black so it couldn’t be seen once the head is done. The mouth will be slightly open so you can see the teeth. If I had more time, I would have made a tongue, to.

5.)    First unexpected fix: when working on the head I noticed I didn’t like how wide part of it was, between the eyes. The head already is Chamberlains head shape instead of The Emperor, so I used a stitch through the middle to pull in the eyes, making the bridge of the nose narrower.

   That’s all for today! And it was a lot. Come back for more posts about my journey through the Cliffs of Insanity to build this Skeksis costume in 21 days. Happy Halloween All Year!

[calendarforoffice]

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines Template –

This is the official calendar portal and in this portal we have already shared some unique calendar templates. You can print as many calendars as you want.

These blank calendars can be used for many purposes. Download free printable Calendar in different formats. If you want to download a PDF file, please comment below.

Calendar August to…

[calendars2print]

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines

Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines – 

We all need to plan to make our future better and easier. We think it is important to set our day to use time and this is the reason why we are uploading Four Monthly Printable Calendar for the months of August to November 2019. You can see this latest collection of images here.

Free Calendar August to November 2019 with Lines to Print

2019 August…

[1monthcalendar]

Four Month Calendar August to November 2019

Four Month Calendar August to November 2019

Four Month Calendar August to November 2019 :

There are thousands of sources on the internet, where you can get online calendars. And we are also trying to offer you the best quality calendar pictures. There are so many purposes to use these following calendars that these calendars can be used to prepare monthly schedules.

All of these templates are ready to print. Download your favorite template…

[freshcalendar-blog]

PNG Calendar August September October November 2019

PNG Calendar August September October November 2019

Here we have a variety of calendar formats like Word, Excel, PDF and Image. You can choose your favorite calendar template to download and edit it. In this post we will give you PNG Calendar August September October November 2019 images and wallpapers for free.

Also Check This : Four Month Calendar

PNG Calendar August September October November 2019 Printable

4 Month Calendar August November 2019

[poirott]

any news on Death on the Nile?

Hi! Yep, Kenneth Branagh confirmed Jodie Comer’s casting again yesterday after the article two weeks ago, and it was about time we got some official news because we waited three months for it, not just about Jodie but the production in general. Ken said they’re currently casting other characters, and that a lot of actors are asking him if they can be in the movie! :)

It’s been a long process of news and rumours for Poirot fans since the movie first got announced in 2017. Let’s look at the timeline again because new fans have joined us since the recent casting announcements:

Nov 21 2017 - Death on the Nile, sequel to Murder on the Orient Express, announced to be “in development” by 20th Century Fox, with MOTOE screenwriter Michael Green already on board, Kenneth Branagh expected to return. We’re speculating how the ending of MOTOE - Poirot learning about the murder on the Nile when he exits the train - plays into DOTN since in canon Poirot is already on location in Egypt when the murder happens.

Dec 27 2017 - Ken teases the DOTN ensemble cast could include “old friends”, and loves the idea of a new Poirot/Christie “Cinematic Universe”, starting fan discussion about other Christie characters potentially meeting Poirot, or getting their own movies. I’m curious which actors could fall under the term “old friends”; thinking back on it now, Ken may have meant Tom Bateman returning as Bouc from MOTOE, but perhaps there will be other casting surprises.

Feb 13 2018 - DOTN release date is confirmed to be November 8 2019, but will later change twice. Ken confirmed to return as actor and director.

Feb 24 2018 - A follow-up to the Christie “Cinematic Universe” speculation, Ken again talks about the possibility of Poirot and Miss Marple meeting sometime in the future if the Christie Estate was up for it. He explains he picked DOTN as the sequel to MOTOE because there is “disturbing sexual passion at the centre of it. It’s a dangerous tale of obsessive love and the central characters are very youthful and that produces crimes of passion. And once again, [Christie] does it in extraordinary places with great spectacle.”

June 23 2018 - DOTN changes release date for the first time from November 8 2019 to December 20 2019, now going against STAR WARS: EPISODE IX and Wicked. MOTOE did well in Nov 2017 as “counter programming” next to superhero films like Justice League and Thor: Ragnarok.

Sept 13 2018 - DOTN expected to start filming “early next year”, in spring at the latest, returning to the UK to shoot at Longcross Studios in Surrey, like they did with MOTOE, while there is “automatic assumption they’ll shoot exterior shots overseas.”

Sept 28 2018 - Gal Gadot in talks for the role of Linnet Doyle in DOTN. The movie expected to shoot in “spring 2019″. Scottish Daily Mail writes Armie Hammer and Jodie Comer are rumoured to be in “early talks”, and that Tom Bateman from MOTOE is “likely to join.” The casting of Bateman as Poirot’s assistant again could mean this adaptation of DOTN won’t have to introduce the character of Colonel Race, Poirot’s assistant in the DOTN book, since there is no need for two assistant characters filling the same role.

Oct 3 2018 - Armie Hammer confirmed to play Simon Doyle, the husband of Linnet Doyle, in DOTN. Movie now expected to shoot in “mid-2019″, which starts speculation about the release date being pushed back again.

Oct 15 2018 - DOTN changes release date for the second time, getting pushed back for almost a year from December 20 2019 to October 2 2020. The rumour is not picked up by any major outlets but is later confirmed to be true. We later learn the studio wanted to change the release date quietly, hence no official announcement. Deadline also reports Tom Bateman will indeed be in DOTN. The new release date has DOTN going against Bios starring Tom Hanks, and two untitled superhero films (Fox/Marvel and Sony/Marvel), one of them likely being Venom 2.

Oct 19 2018 - Still no official confirmation about the release date change but ScreenRant posts about it as a done deal. The biggest reason for the move is the “impending Disney-Fox acquisition (which is now expected to be finalized by January 2019).” In anticipation of the deal, Fox has been rearranging its release calendar of late, and DOTN was one of the movies that got hit. The movie is no longer expected to start shooting “in spring”. Tom Bateman’s talent agency confirms he is returning as Bouc in DOTN.

Nov 30 2018 - Deadline posts conflicting info about DOTN starting to shoot in “early in the New Year for Fox”, news that goes against what we’ve heard weeks before. We speculate how much the production of DOTN will overlap with Ken’s other movie in the works, Artemis Fowl, which comes out on August 9 2019. Can Ken work on two movies at the same time or will DOTN only start filming once Artemis Fowl has finished its promo tour in August?

Jan 4 2019 - The Daily Mail reports Jodie Comer will play the character of Jacqueline de Bellefort, Simon Doyle’s ex in DOTN, news they got from Ken during a reception for his film All Is True. They say the movie will start shooting “inthe early autumn“ 2019, which suggests Ken will indeed complete the promo for Artemis Fowl first before DOTN starts filming.

Jan 22 2019 - Ken confirms Jodie Comer is in DOTN, adding he’s very excited about the central trio of Gadot, Comer and Hammer, and that the production is in the “the process of casting the rest.” He compares DOTN with MOTOE in the sense they “want the same sense of event“, and says, “Something I’m pleased about is that I bump into a lot actors I admire and they ask, ‘Can I be in the next one?!’ So I’ll absolutely be taking them up on that.“

And here we are. :) We can expect to get the rest of the casting news over the next few months, and may get reports of scouting teams on location abroad (Egypt? Morocco? We don’t know yet), the crew building sets at the studios, little bits here and there before actual filming begins. The cast going abroad to film will also make local and international news, like it did with MOTOE. We’ll hear about various partnerships DOTN has made with other companies, like MOTOE teaming up with Godiva. And as I’ve said before, Ken may get asked about DOTN during Fowl promo in the summer, sometimes actors drop hints and updates about their projects while promoting some other movie. Same with the rest of the cast who have projects lined up for 2019 and 2020.

Before you know it, we’ll have the first trailer and behind-the-scenes videos. I can’t wait for the next casting announcement! I so wanna know which actors are approaching Ken about the movie! :)

Thank you for your ask and take care!

[dansnaturepictures]

Pictures on my wildlife 2020 calendar: June-December

June: One of my favourite birds the Kittiwake at RSPB Bempton Cliffs taken in June 2018

A picture I was so proud to take. 

July: One of my favourite butterflies the Purple Emperor at Knepp taken in July 2018

One of the moments of perhaps my best ever summer, and my hobby. So glad I could capture it. 

August: Another of my favourite birds the Gannet at Bempton Cliffs taken in June 2018

One of my favourite ever pictures to take. 

September: Lesser Yellowlegs at RSPB Lodmoor taken in March 2019

What a bird, so glad I could get this chance to photograph it. 

October: Red Deer at Bushy Park taken in October 2018

The Red Deer is always a good bet to be the subject of my one mammal or as I may do in years to come wildlife minority (so not bird or butterfly) picture that I aim to put on my calendar. Owing to a late change of heart between my two standout pictures from the 2018 version of our annual Richmond and Bushy Park visit, this is the first appearance on a calendar of mine of a female Red Deer and of one at Busy Park. 

November: Redshank at Keyhaven taken in November 2018

What photography is all about for me, I got out of the car and this moment was waiting to happen instantly in the Sunday afternoon walk for me. Everything came together. I don’t know if I have ever managed to get the effect like that before with the sun on its back. 

December: Bittern at Blashford Lakes taken in March 2019

And finally I saw a Bittern possibly the same one here on the penultimate day of December 2018, it was perhaps their best ever winter here and I was so thrilled to capture this after a rainy walk elsewhere in March to be my first seen in 2019. As it was rainy I had my spare Nikon bridge camera with me to capture this. I generally accepted the quality of pictures I produce on this won’t be as good as with my Nikon DSLR but this is the first bridge camera picture of mine ever to make one of my calendars. And generally it has to be one of my best quality pictures over a year to make it so it shows how far I have come since taking this second camera on in September.

Please see the first half of the line up in my previous post, and my landscape and outdoor 2020 calendar line up in two posts yesterday.

[scifigeneration]

Look up! Your guide to some of the best meteor showers for 2019

by Jonti Horner and Tanya Hill

The 2018 Geminids meteor shower recorded over two very cold hours on the slope of Mount Lütispitz, Switzerland. Flickr/Lukas Schlagenhauf, CC BY-ND

The year gets off to a bang with the Quadrantids, the first of the annual big three meteor showers. Active while the Moon is new, it gives northern hemisphere observers a show to enjoy during the cold nights of winter. Sadly, the shower is not visible from southern skies.

The other two members of the big three — the Perseids and Geminids — are not so fortunate this year, with moonlight set to interfere and reduce their spectacle.

So, with that in mind, where and when should you observe to make the best of 2019’s meteoric offerings? Here we present the likely highlights for this year – the showers most likely to put on a good show.

We provide details of the full forecast activity period for each shower, and the forecast time of maximum. We also give sky charts, showing you where best to look, and give the theoretical peak rates that could be seen under ideal observing conditions – a number known as the Zenithal Hourly Rate, or ZHR.

It is important to note that the ZHR is the theoretical maximum number of meteors you would expect to see per hour for a given shower, unless it were to catch us by surprise with an unexpected outburst!

In reality, the rates you observe will be lower than the ZHR – but the clearer and darker your skies, and the higher the shower’s radiant in the sky, the closer you will come to this ideal value.

For any shower, to see the best rates, it is worth trying to find a good dark site (the darker the better) – far from streetlights and other illuminations. Once you’re outside, give your eyes plenty of time to adapt to the dark - half an hour should do the trick.

Showers that can only really be seen from one hemisphere or the other are denoted by either [N] or [S], while those that can be seen globally are marked as [N/S].

You can download this ics file and add to your calendar to stay informed on when the meteor showers are due.

Quadrantids [N]

Active: December 28 - January 12

Maximum: January 4, 2:20am UT = 2:20am GMT = 3:20am CET

ZHR: 120 (variable, can reach ~200)

Parent: It’s complicated (comet 96P/Macholz and asteroid 2003 EH1)

Despite being one of this year’s three most active annual showers, the Quadrantids are often overlooked and under-observed. This is probably the result of their peak falling during the depths of the northern hemisphere winter, when the weather is often less than ideal for meteor observations.

For most of the fortnight they are active, Quadrantid rates are very low (less than five per hour). The peak itself is very short and sharp, far more so than for the year’s other major showers. As a result, rates exceed a quarter of the maximum ZHR for a period of just eight hours, centred on the peak time.

The Quadrantid radiant lies in the northern constellation Boötes, relatively near the tail of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The radiant is shown here at around midnight, local time, as it begins to climb higher in the northeastern sky. Museums Victoria/Stellarium, Author provided

The Quadrantid radiant lies in the northern constellation Boötes, the Herdsman, and is circumpolar (never sets) for observers poleward of 40 degrees north. As a result, observers in northern Europe and Canada can see Quadrantids at any time of night. The radiant is highest in the sky (and the rates are best) in the hours after midnight.

For this reason, this year’s peak (at 2:20am UT) is best suited for observers in northern Europe - and given that peak rates can exceed 100 per hour, it is certainly worth setting the alarm for, to get up in the cold early hours, and watch the spectacle unfold.

This false-color composite image shows a combination of Quadrantid and non-Quadrantid meteors streaking through the skies over NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in the US, on the night of January 3-4, 2012. NASA/MSFC/Meteoroid Environments Office/Danielle Moser and Bill Cooke, CC BY-NC

Alpha Centaurids [S]

Active: January 31 - February 20

Maximum: February 8, 1:00pm UT = February 8, 9pm (WA) = February 8, 11pm (QLD) = February 9, 12am (NSW/ACT/Vic/Tas)

ZHR: Variable; typically 6, but can exceed 25

Parent: Unknown

The Alpha Centaurids are a minor meteor shower, producing typical rates of just a few meteors per hour. But they are famed as a source of spectacular fireballs for southern hemisphere observers and so are worth keeping an eye out for in southern summer skies.

Alpha Centaurids are fast meteors, and are often bright. As with most showers that are only visible from the southern hemisphere, they remain poorly studied. Though typically yielding low rates, several outbursts have occurred where rates reached or exceeded 25 per hour.

The shower’s radiant lies close to the bright star Alpha Centauri – the closest naked-eye star to the Solar System and the third brightest star in the night sky.

The Alpha Centaurids are well placed for the southern hemisphere. This view from Brisbane around the time of maximum activity. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Alpha Centauri is just 30 degrees from the south celestial pole. As a result, the radiant essentially never sets for observers across Australia. The best rates will be seen from late evening onward, as the radiant rises higher into the southern sky.

This year, the peak of the Alpha Centaurids coincides with the New Moon, making it an ideal time to check out this minor but fascinating shower.

Eta Aquariids [S preferred]

Active: April 19 - May 28

Maximum: May 6, 2pm UT = May 6, 10pm (WA) = May 7, 12am (QLD/NSW/ACT/Vic/Tas)

ZHR = 40+

Parent: Comet 1P/Halley

The Eta Aquariids are possibly the year’s most overlooked treat, particularly for observers in the southern hemisphere. The first of two annual showers produced by comet 1P/Halley, the Eta Aquariids produce excellent rates for a whole week around their peak.

The radiant rises in the early hours of the morning, after the forecast maximum time, and best rates are seen just as the sky starts to brighten with the light of dawn. It can be well worth rising early to observe them, as rates can climb as high as 40 to 50 meteors per hour before the brightening sky truncates the display.

Look for the Eta Aquariids before sunrise and catch Venus and Mercury too. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Eta Aquariid meteors are fast and often bright, and the shower regularly rewards those who are willing to rise early. Spectacular Earth-grazing meteors that tear from one side of the sky to the other can be seen shortly after the radiant rises above the horizon.

This year conditions are ideal to observe the shower, with New Moon falling on May 4, just two days before the forecast maximum. As a result, the whole week around the peak will be suitable for morning observing sessions, giving observers plenty of opportunity to see the fall of tiny fragments of the most famous of comets.

Southern Delta Aquariids, Piscis Austrinids and Alpha Capricornids [N/S; S favoured]

Active: Early-July to Mid-August

Maximum: July 28 - 30

Combined ZHR: 35

Parent: Comet 96P/Macholz (Southern Delta Aquariids); Unknown (Piscis Austrinids); Comet 169P/NEAT (Alpha Capricornids)

In most years, the approach of August is heralded by keen meteor observers as the build up to the Perseids – the second of the year’s big three showers. This year, moonlight will interfere, spoiling them for most observers.

But this cloud comes with a silver lining. A fortnight or so before the peak of the Perseids, three relatively minor showers come together to provide an excellent mid-winter show for southern hemisphere observers. This year, the Moon is perfectly placed to allow their observation.

These three showers – the Southern Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids and Pisces Austrinids – favour observers in the southern hemisphere, though they can also be observed from northern latitudes.

Regardless of your location, the best rates for these showers are seen in the hours after midnight. Reasonable rates begin to be visible for southern hemisphere observers as early as 10pm local time.

The radiants of the Southern Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids and Piscis Austrinids ride high in the southern hemisphere sky around local midnight. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

For northern hemisphere observers, the radiants of the same three showers sit low to the horizon around local midnight. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

The Southern Delta Aquariids are the most active of the three, producing up to 25 fast, bright meteors per hour at their peak, which spans the five days centred on July 30.

The Alpha Capricornids, by contrast, produce lower rates typically contributing just five meteors per hour. But where the Southern Delta Aquariids are fast, the Alpha Capricornids are very slow meteors and are often spectacular.

Like the Alpha Centaurids, in February, they have a reputation for producing large numbers of spectacular fireballs. This tendency to produce meteors that are both very bright and also slow moving makes them an excellent target for astrophotographers, as well as naked-eye observers.

An Alpha Capricornid meteor captured among the star trails in 2013. Flickr/Jeff Sullivan, CC BY-NC-ND

Taurids [N/S]

Active: September 10 - December 10

Maxima: October 10 (Southern Taurids); November 13 (Northern Taurids)

ZHR: 5 + 5

Parent: Comet 2P/Encke

The Taurids are probably the most fascinating of all the annual meteor showers. Though they only deliver relatively low rates (approximately five per hour from each of the two streams, north and south), they do so over an incredibly long period – three full months of activity.

In other words, the Earth spends a quarter of a year passing through the Taurid stream. In fact, we cross the stream again in June, when the meteors from the shower are lost due to it being exclusively visible in daylight.

So a third of our planet’s orbit is spent ploughing through a broad stream of debris, known as the Taurid stream. In total, the Taurid stream deposits more mass of meteoric material to our planet’s atmosphere than all of the other annual meteor showers combined.

So vast is the Taurid stream that there is speculation that it originated with the cataclysmic disintegration of a super-sized comet, thousands or tens of thousands of years in the past, and that the current shower is a relic of that ancient event.

The two Taurid radiants, as seen from northern Europe before dawn [Paris 6:30am, October 10] Museums Victoria/Stellarium

The November maximum will be hindered by the Moon, this view as seen from Melbourne during the early hours of November 13. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Taurid meteors are slow, and are often spectacularly bright. Like the Alpha Capricornids, they have a reputation for producing regular fireballs, making them another good target for the budding astrophotographer.

Rather than having a single, sharp peak, Taurid activity stays at, or close to, peak rates for the best part of a month, between the maxima of the northern and southern streams, meaning that it is always possible to find some time when moonlight does not interfere to observe the shower.

Geminids [N/S]

Active: December 4 - December 17

Maximum: December 14, 6:40pm UT = December 15, 4:40am (QLD) = December 15, 5:40am (NSW/ACT/Vic/Tas)

ZHR: 140+

Parent: Asteroid 3200 Phaethon

Another of the big three annual meteor showers, the Geminids are probably the best, with peak rates in recent years exceeding 140 meteors per hour.

A composite image of the Geminids shower from the vantage point of Johnson Space Center, US. NASA/Lauren Harnett, CC BY-NC

The Geminids are visible from both hemispheres – although the radiant rises markedly earlier for northern observers. Even in the south of Australia, the radiant rises well before midnight, giving all observers the rest of the night to enjoy the spectacle.

The Moon interferes with the Geminids, which radiate close to the bright star Castor. This view is from Perth in the hours before sunrise. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Moonlight will seriously interfere with the peak of the shower this year, washing out the fainter meteors, with the result that observed rates will be lower than the ZHR might otherwise suggest.

But the shower regularly produces abundant bright meteors, and yields such high rates that it is still well worth checking out, even through the glare of the full Moon.

Ursids [N]

Active: December 17 - December 26

Maximum: December 23, 3:00am UT

ZHR: 10+

Parent: Comet 8P/Tuttle

The final shower of the year – the Ursids – is a treat for northern hemisphere observers alone. Much like the shower that started our journey through the year, the Quadrantids, the Ursids remain poorly observed, often lost to the bleak midwinter weather that plagues many northern latitudes.

But if skies are clear the Ursids are visible throughout the night, as their radiant lies just 12 degrees from the north celestial pole. As such, they make a tempting target for observers to check out in the evening, even if the radiant is at its highest in the early hours of the morning.

Most years, the Ursids are a relatively minor shower, with peak rates rarely exceeding ten meteors per hour. They have thrown up a few surprises over the past century, with occasional outbursts of moderately-fast meteors yielding rates up to, and in excess of, a hundred meteors per hour.

The Ursid radiant, in the constellation Ursa Minor, is circumpolar for almost the entire northern hemisphere, as it lies just 12 degrees from the north celestial pole. It is shown here as it would be seen at 11pm from near Tokyo, Japan. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

While no such outburst is predicted for 2019, the Ursids have proven to be a shower with a surprise or two left to show and so may just prove to be an exciting way to end the meteoric year.

About The Authors:

Jonti Horner is a  Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy) at Museums Victoria

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

If you have a good photo of any of this year’s meteor showers that you’d like to share with The Conversation’s readers then please send it to readerspic@theconversation.edu.au. Please include your full name and the location the photo (or any composite) was taken.

[thezodiaczone]

November Forecast for Leo

Your annual “nesting season” has arrived, Leo—and you’re oh-so ready for a little downtime! The Sun is in Scorpio and your fourth house of home and family until November 22, so if you’re already drafting your holiday gifting and guest lists or eyeing decorations, well, blame it on the stars. For you, Scorpio season is all about getting your “hygge” on—the Danish art of perfect coziness that became extra-popular last year. Bring out your ambient lighting, your scented candles and the cashmere throws…then snuggle up with your favorite people!

The November 7 Scorpio new moon is an ideal day to pause and attend to your personal life. If you’re thinking of buying a home or expanding your brood, today could set the wheels in motion. Make a dedicated plan to add regular self-care and downtime to your busy calendar.

But don’t get too comfortable in your newly adorned Lion’s den just yet! Despite the comfy backdrop, November is one bustling month in the stars. Jupiter and Uranus are making major zodiac sign changes, and three planets will move in and out of retrograde. Martha Stewart moment: interrupted! The second you fill an oversized vase with eucalyptus leaves or put a “simmer pot” on the burner, life turns into a hyperactive scene (though the scent of orange peels and clove is still lovely, Leo…).

It starts on November 6, when radical changemaker Uranus, which has been retrograde in Taurus and your career house since August 7, backs into Aries and your expansive ninth house. Between now and March 6, you’ll want to reconnect with a visionary project, or resurrect plans to travel or study that got sidelined after Uranus entered Taurus on May 15. Since last spring, you’ve been busy with exciting career shifts, perhaps even starting on a whole new path or stepping into a meaningful leadership role.

Uranus’ final spin through Aries will make sure you don’t leave your ideals at the door or “sell out” in the name of success. After March 6, the side-spinning planet will settle into Taurus until 2026, not to return to Aries again in your lifetime. Book those bucket-list vacations and set entrepreneurial plans in motion; but prepare for a few plot twists and turns while Uranus is retrograde until January 6, especially if you’re a student or frequent traveler. Life will NOT follow a linear path…so embrace the unexpected and stay flexible with your plans. Any chaotic curveballs might make you frantic in the moment, but they could lead you to an important realization.

The headline news arrives on November 8, when expansive and lucky Jupiter begins a 13-month visit to Sagittarius, amplifying your fifth house of passion, creativity and self-expression until December 2, 2019. Woo-hoo! Not only is Sagittarius a fellow fire sign, but the fifth house happens to be the domain of the zodiac that’s ruled by Leo. Translation: You’ll be hosting the planet of good fortune in YOUR native turf for more than a year. How awesome is that?!

Get your wardrobe and glam squad ready, Leo: Showy Jupiter in this dazzling zone could be a nonstop party. If you’re an artist or performer, this could be the year that your talents gain major recognition since Jupiter in this fame-fueled sector puts the spotlight directly on you. This Jupiter shift will be quite a change from the last 13 months. Back in October 2017, Jupiter decamped to Scorpio and your fourth house of home and family. Your private, personal life took center stage, and while you had plenty of other cosmic action pushing you into the public eye, you still may have spent a lot of time flying under the radar. With Jupiter expanding your foundational fourth house, some Leos moved into bigger spaces, bought or sold homes or added new members to their families.

Now Jupiter turns on the stadium lights and demands that you trade those yoga pants for red-carpet gear. And you might not be strutting down that step-and-repeat alone, either. With global Jupiter in your zone of infatuation, sparks could fly with someone from a wildly different background, perhaps even through a long-distance affair. Single Leos could be fielding multiple admirers, and couples might experience a romantic resurgence. It’s been shown that novelty stimulates attraction because doing new things together causes the brain to release adrenaline and dopamine, giving you a “rush” that feels like the honeymoon phase all over again.

Since the fifth house rules fertility, don’t be surprised if all that excitement leads to the bedroom…and, for Leos of the childbearing set, to a “baby on board” status. Just watch for the drama to amplify with outspoken and leap-without-looking Jupiter in this fiery zone.

On November 16, a little wrench gets thrown into Jupiter’s plan because Mercury, the planet of communication, technology and travel, will turn retrograde until December 6, spending the bulk of its pivot in Sagittarius. Back up your most important data and erase those raunchy photos from your online albums! Mercury retrograde can mess with all your electronic files and devices and could also bring an embarrassing public gaffe (like we said: delete those photos). Retrogrades reconnect us to the past, so in your love life, unresolved tensions can flare—or you might see the return of an ex. Maybe you finally get some closure on some ancient history or put that stupid fight to bed already. For some Leos, a romantic reunion could be in store. Proceed with caution: Mercury retrograde isn’t the best time for binding decisions!

You’ve had your share of this already because Venus, the planet of love, has been retrograde since October 5. With the planet of harmony and attraction gone awry—which happens every 18 months—relationships and friendships were on the rocks. On November 16, Venus will turn direct (forward), bringing back the love; but you’ll still have to contend with Mercury’s mayhem for a little bit longer.

On November 22, the Sun will join the party, moving into Sagittarius for four weeks and kicking off the holiday festivities. It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S., and you’ll have plenty to be grateful for during Sagittarius season. Your joie de vivre and “It factor” will go through the roof, especially on November 26, when the Sun and Jupiter make their annual conjunction. Many astrologers consider this the luckiest day of the year. Certainly it’s one of the most charismatic, with the revitalizing Sun and optimistic Jupiter combining their superpowers. And since it’s happening in your head-turning fifth house, don’t be surprised if the world takes notice of you!

While you’ll revel in being the star, there’s one day when you’ll want to focus on being an awesome team player. That’s November 23, when the year’s only Gemini full moon beams into your eleventh house of collaborations and humanitarian endeavors. The next day, November 24, healing Neptune ends a five-month retrograde in your eighth house of transformation and wealth. Get your holiday giving underway, Leo, whether you raise funds for a charity drive, grab tickets to a benefit ball or press “donate now” on the website for your favorite cause.

Love & Romance

Relationships are heating up! Spicy Mars is spending yet another full month firing up your committed partnership houses. Until November 15, the red planet is in Aquarius and your dynamic duos zone (where it’s been since September 10), turning up the temperatures AND the tension. On the downside, couples may fight more and single Leos could feel the pressure to pair up. Watch out for the tunnel vision now!

With Mars here, though, you’ll be highly attracted (and attractive) to people who are looking for a real-deal romance. This month, you could meet someone who has the potential to stick around for the long haul. Coupled Leos could bring some sexy excitement and adventure into your bond, prioritizing your one-on-one time. Things will get even steamier starting November 15, when Mars blazes into Pisces and your erotic eighth house for the rest of the year. Just watch for a streak of jealousy and possessiveness that could flare up.

Meantime, Venus is wrapping up a six-week retrograde on November 16, spending the first couple weeks of the month adrift in Libra and your communication house. With Mars pushing your buttons, you could be quick to bite people’s heads off. Maybe someone’s getting on your nerves or your stress levels max out, and you end up (regrettably) snapping at someone. Save the big talks for November 9, when Venus and Mars unite in a cooperative trine (120-degree angle), helping you clear the air and return to productive dialogue. If you need to apologize today, please do so!

On November 8, lucky Jupiter starts a 13-month visit to Sagittarius and your fifth house of true love. This could be one of your most adventurous romantic years in over a decade—but there could be a brief interruption a week into this transit. Communication planet Mercury turns retrograde from November 16 to December 6, mostly in Sagittarius, causing another round of the “ex factor” or possible bruised feelings—and egos—in the game of love. Slow down and think before you speak or rush under the mistletoe with anyone.

Key Dates

November 30: Venus-Uranus Opposition Talk may be cheap, but under this potentially game-changing transit, you or your sweetie could initiate a dialogue that radically shifts the relationship. You may discover something about your mate that alters the state of your union. Good news? Bad news? It all depends on how you both handle it.

Money & Career

Don’t hate, collaborate! Competitive Mars is spending all month—and the rest of the year, really—in the partnership houses of your chart. From September 10 to November 15, the red planet is booked for a stint in Aquarius and your seventh house of contracts, strategic alliances and balance. Working well with others is the goal here, and Mars could speed up any dynamic duos you’re considering.

You may feel pressured to sign on the dotted line, and if you’re ready, do it quick! On November 16, communication planet Mercury will turn retrograde until December 6, which is a less favorable time to sign paperwork, since details and fine print can be overlooked by accident. There can also be technology crashes and data losses, so back everything up to the cloud and strengthen those passwords.

On November 15, motivator Mars zooms into Pisces and your eighth house of joint ventures and long-term finances. You could feel the intensity of those holiday expenses coming up, so make a budget! Some Leos might be considering an investment or a large purchase (such as a car or home). With galactic galvanizer Mars at the wheel, this could all move quickly. Be sharp and strategic about how you use your time, energy and resources now. Do your research instead of rushing in, even if your instincts say “go!” But don’t take too long, because you could miss out. Strike while the iron is hot—but be sure to polish and sharpen your weapon first.

Work pressure will lift a bit after November 6, because disruptive Uranus will take a four-month vacation from Taurus and your career sector. You’ll get a little break from the constant change that’s been happening since Uranus entered this sign back on May 15, keeping you on your toes at all times professionally. Uranus will dip back into Aries until March 6, which could bring exciting chances to study, publish your work or start an indie business. Take your time while Uranus is retrograde until January 6, but revisit some plans that got sidelined and see if there’s still gold in them hills!

Key Dates

November 19: Mars-Jupiter Square The stability of a collaboration could be threatened under this power-tripping transit. A larger-than-life personality (is that you, Leo?) may be looking for a bigger half of the pie than what was originally agreed upon; or one party might be doing all the heavy lifting while the other is “busy” playing Candy Crush Saga.

Love Days: 13, 18 Money Days: 24, 29 Luck Days: 23, 31 Off Days: 29, 16, 20

[bpoole500]

Delayed

Are comic book release delays inevitable?

With a steady flow of delay announcements in the industry in recent months, especially from the Big Two, it certainly can feel that way. Over at Marvel, in addition to the frequent problem of the concluding issues of its event series coming out late, several high profile ongoings have experienced delays, some more than once. Titles such as Iron Man, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther and Fantastic Four have all fallen victim recently.

Over at DC, a few much-publicized series launches had to be pushed back at least a couple months, including Justice League Odyssey, Batman and the Outsiders and Shazam. The first two were due to editorial issues that mandated scrapping already produced material and starting over, while Shazam has already seen multiple additional issue release delays in its short lifespan. An even bigger problem for DC are delays for its limited and event series. The capper to Dark Nights: Metal was pushed back several weeks and Heroes in Crisis saw one issue be a couple weeks tardy (though quickly got back on track), while the concluding issue of the much-discussed Batman: Damned is facing setbacks that keep piling up.

And then there’s Doomsday Clock. The 12-part series, part Watchmen homage/sequel and part capper to the mega-story begun with Rebirth, has become the poster child for release delays. Launching in November 2017, it was supposed to roll out over the course of 14 months, with two scheduled “skip” months, before concluding in December 2018. But only a couple of issues in, the creative team was already falling behind and DC announced the book would release on a revised bi-monthly schedule. Except that even that proved unworkable. Nine issues have made it out to date, with the tenth notoriously pushed back multiple times. Previously slated to hit stores in March 2019, per the revised bi-monthly release plan, issue #10 is now tentatively penciled in for early July, with the 11th issue (once expected in May 2019), now solicited for the end of August, with the series capper not on the calendar at the moment. DC has announced two collections for the book. Volume 1, covering the first six issues, should hit its October 2019 release date. As for the January 2020 date for Volume 2? That very much depends on issue #12 seeing the light of day before year’s end, a scenario that’s by no means guaranteed.

Release delays seem to be a vicious circle for the industry, especially for the big two. There will be a phase, like now, where delays seem to run rampant, causing unrest for fans and retailers that risks alienating them. So eventually the companies will crack down and commit to getting their books out on time. Often that requires the use of substitute or supplemental creators to produce pages that allow an issue to make deadline. But if that happens often enough, while a book may release on time, fans then grow restless that anticipated creative teams aren’t around for an entire arc. And then publishers over-correct back the other way, starting the whole cycle again.

Ask fans if they’d rather have issues come out late but with the preferred creative team or come out on time, but with additional/different writers and/or artists and you’d probably get a different answer every time. But do delays have to happen at all? Can’t companies remedy the issue?

To an extent they can. Look at Image. After its splashy early ‘90s debut, the company became ground zero for egregious release delays, especially outside the books published by the founding partners. Image would strike a deal with whomever the hot talent of the moment was and make a big announcement about their creator-owned project. But as happened frequently, those series were lucky to produce an issue or two before lengthy delays set in. Many never produced more installments.

Whereas Image had previously prided itself on not being like a traditional comic book company, within a decade, the publisher put more structure in place to help mitigate many of the issues that had plagued it. Especially when it came to books not produced by one of the owner/partner studios, Image would expect a certain percentage of a series or arc to be completed before announcing it and soliciting orders.

In part, that desire to announce projects from high profile creators is a big part of the eventual delay problem. Publishers want the headlines that come from trumpeting that a blue chip creative team is doing a project for them, but often those announcements are unworkably premature, as sometimes not a single page has actually been produced. That’s a big risk, especially with creators who are either heavily scheduled or not known for their speed.

Both of those issues seem to be part of DC’s recent problems. Geoff Johns, writer of both Doomsday Clock and Shazam, has a lot of demands on his time, especially given his involvement with various movie and television productions. Both series also feature fan-favorite artists who are particular “go to” collaborators for Johns (Gary Frank for Clock, Dale Eaglesham for Shazam), but who aren’t noted for their speed. For a series like Doomsday Clock, which is packed with characters and also uses a throwback nine-panel grid outline for most of its pages (as part of the Watchmen homage), that can further bog down the process.

The question then is, can DC really find allowing a series to come in nearly a year late to be preferable to tagging in additional help to finish it sooner? After all, Doomsday Clock is expected to have a significant impact on DC’s entire line. The longer the finale is delayed, the further DC has to punt that down the line, affecting any number of other books in the process.

The dirty little secret of the industry these days is that no matter how often senior execs talk about the importance of the monthly periodical business, that segment has become a low priority for most companies. Collected editions have become a bigger driver of profits, especially in the age of multimedia content deals. DC would rather Gary Frank draw the entirety of Doomsday Clock, however long it takes, because they have every reason to expect the collected edition to be a perennial strong seller. The kind of series that remains in print, in one format or another, indefinitely and moves units reliably each year. Whatever short term losses the company may experience from disaffected fans drifting away from the release of individual issues they expect to make up with long-term trade sales. And long-term trade sales benefit from having a single, superstar artist on the book.

Publishers can and should do more to address delays. Whether that’s being realistic about whether star talent can deliver on the schedule they hope or holding back on announcing/soliciting projects until they’re done, or nearly so, or dealing with the disappointment of a certain fan favorite creator not working on the entirety of an arc, there are options. But for series or arcs that a publisher expects to be long-term players in the collected edition arena, don’t be shocked if delays remain an unavoidable part of the industry.

[alwaysinstoryland]

Fic Year in Review 2018

So I saw someone do a fic year in review thing somewhere and I thought it sounded like fun so here we go!!! (even tho I can’t remember when I actually posted stuff so this may be a bit over the place lol)

January

Nothing was posted. I probably wrote some lil bits and pieces but mostly I just did nothing this month

February

. Flowers for You

. Adrien and his Girl Problems Ch17

Mostly just flowers and Ladynoir and silly knock knock jokes this month :)

and also the awkwardness of Adrien and his Girl Problems

March

School was busy. Nothing was written

April

The only things that got written this month was a dozen or so essays

So I was writing. Just not what I wanted to be writing

May

. Adrien and his Girl Problems Ch18

June

Ladrien June days 1-11

. Signs

. Babysitting

. Cats Like Cardboard Boxes

. ‘Till the Next Time

. Akuma, Akuma

. Perfect for Each Other

. To Wake a Sleeping Bug

. Paris, the City of Secret Love

. A Special Charm

. I Didn’t Know you had a Balcony

. My Partner, My Crush

I decided I was going to do Ladrien June this year so this month was the one I did the most writing-wise. Didn’t finish all of them like I had hoped to but that’s fine. To Wake a Sleeping Bug was one of my faves of this month coz of the sleeping beauty vibes and Adrien being awkward and adorable

July

Ladrien June days 12-14

. To Wake a Sleeping Bug pt.2

. Stars and Bugs

. A Crush

August

Ladrien June day 15

. Trust

September

Ladrien June day 16

. Don’t Apologise for Kissing Me

October

. Adrien and his Girl Problems Ch19

My calendar of days I posted things said I posted a whole heap more then just this but I literally have no clue what it was so

November

Nothing new was posted this month. Just some Ladrien June stuff I was posting separately coz I liked them

December

Nothing was written this month. Well actually I started writing a cute lil Christmas fic but didn’t finish it so it will probably be posted sometime in January coz why not. I was sick and travelling for several weeks as well so all I really wanted to do this month was sleep

Some Drabblely bits and half finished things

. Forest au/witch au/plants and stuff I’m not really sure what this is but it’s good I promise

. Hawkmoth talking to his butterflies

. Superheroes can get Embarrassed too

. Pickup Lines

. Just Marinette pinning Adrien to the wall... ya know, as you do

. Ladrien slowdancing

. A Wedding Mixup

. Water Fight

Total words written: approx 22 000!

So overall, I didn’t write as much as I though I would this year. I guess didn’t realise how much time senior school would take up. With that being said, I am keeping my expectations low for 2019, though I would love to do more, as it’s my last year of high school and will undoubtedly be just as stressful

fic goals for 2019!

. Finish! Adrien and his Girl Problems

I started this in like 2016 you guys. It’s embarrassing to read back over it now. I want to just finish this

. Get some serious work done on my forest au and also probably the knight au maybe. Or a royalty au maybe. I dunno. But definitely the forest au. I’ve written several chapters of it and actually have an outline of sorts and I’m super excited to share it with you all!