#I definitely learned to finish writing multiple-part stories ahead of time before posting

[shady-tavern]

Vampire’s Lullaby Part Three

The last and final part of Vampire’s Lullaby, part one and two can be found here. I hope it turned out alright! This is another long one.

Warnings ahead for mentioned child murder, please take care of yourselves.

***

Annabelle had worried the letter thin at the edges, folding and unfolding the piece of paper so often it started to fray a little. She was no fool, she knew exactly what Charlette was promising her. What she was trying to do.

Annabelle had often felt helpless and small in her life. She had felt it every time she had raced away from the shadows at dusk and every time she had chased after the sun at dawn. She had felt it every time she had to watch Dion step outside with no way of helping him.

She felt deeply touched that Charlette wanted to do something. That she cared enough about Annabelle, cared for her enough to want to change things for the better. Annabelle just wished she could help as well. She had never been an overly protective person of her loved ones, but she absolutely wanted them safe.

She just had no means to make that happen.

"You don't have to worry," Ophelia said, sitting on her windowsill tonight after Annabelle had invited her up. 

She had her son with her, who was climbing all around the roof, playing lookout with excited determination. The little werewolf looked very cute, much like an overly enthusiastic boy rather than a monster of fur and claws and teeth.

"Charlette is very tough," Ophelia added. "She had claimed a pretty big territory both in her old home and here as well. And you did notice how no one's coming to this part of town anymore, right?"

"I know, it's not that I don't think she can do it, I just wish I could support her," Annabelle answered. Of course Charlette was capable, but that shouldn't mean she had to do everything on her own.

Ophelia tipped her head in thought, one ear swiveling constantly to keep track of her boy and the hunters down on the streets. "You can't fight night folk," Ophelia pointed out, rather unhelpful in Annabelle's personal opinion.

"I know." Annabelle forced herself to set the letter aside. "If you see her, make sure she's taking care of herself, would you?"

Ophelia nodded. "Of course, she's family after all." Then her head snapped around and she made a quick growly noise in warning when her son tried to creep towards the edge of the roof where the hunters would see him.

"I should get to bed," Annabelle said quietly after a moment. "Thank you, for keeping watch."

Ophelia offered a gentler, less toothy smile. "You're my friend too, you know? Of course I'll be here if you need me." With those words she clambered off the windowsill and easily jumped onto the neighboring roof to join her now more cautious son.

Annabelle got ready for bed and struggled to fall sleep for long minutes, staring up at the dark ceiling. There had to be something she could do to help.

The thought occupied her mind throughout the following day, right up until they got another order from an impatient noble who wanted to have a notebook done by tomorrow to gift to a friend whose birthday he had forgotten. He was willing to pay triple the regular price for the rush order that would force them to stop working on all other orders.

Annabelle offered to work late again to finish up the notebook and Mr. Bell left with a reminder to be home before the sun was gone entirely.

"I'll be careful," Annabelle promised and focused back on her work. The trick was to not get sloppy despite feeling the urgency to head home, the fading light making her restless after a lifetime of fearful hurrying. 

Even though she was very sure nothing would happen to her, considering the protection she was under and the friend and lover she had now, that needling along her nerves remained.

She was nearly finished when the front door of the shop opened with a jingle. It made her startle, heart leaping into her throat, right up until she heard Ophelia's voice.

"Annabelle? Why aren't you home yet?" the werewolf called out and a glance towards the window showed it was pitch-dark outside. She had entirely lost track of time despite her best efforts.

"I'm back here," Annabelle called out. "I was finishing up an order."

The door creaked open and Ophelia poked her head in, ears swiveling as she listened and nose twitching at all the scents inside.

"I've never been inside a printing shop," the werewolf murmured as she ducked through the door, hunching down and shuffling to make her large frame fit. "It kind of reeks, though."

Annabelle couldn't help but chuckle. "I can imagine, my nose is nowhere near that sensitive, but even I don't like some of the smells around here." Especially some of the glues Mr. Bell sometimes bought. If he went for the cheaper stuff, their books always needed some time to air out to stop smelling.

"I was just wrapping things up," Annabelle said. "Thank you, for checking in on me."

Ophelia offered a wolfish grin, revealing fangs and teeth strong enough to bite straight through bone and metal. "Of course. Could I watch? I've always been curious."

Annabelle gestured her closer and showed how she put on the finishing touches.

"You know, if you ever want to stay late, you could," Ophelia offered. "I don't care if we sit around here or if I'm keeping watch outside your window."

That was a very nice offer and one Annabelle seriously considered taking. She could get so much more work done that way. But for now, she needed to go home or her family was going to lose it.

"You'd have to sneak me out my window if we want to return here," she said. "I have to be home or my parents and brothers are going to think I died."

Ophelia winced a little. "Yeah, that's fair, we don't want that. Let me know when you want to come back to the shop." She grinned again. "I could offer you a ride. I'll bet you I'm faster than you."

Annabelle snorted. "I'm not even going to take that bet, I know you are faster than me." There was a reason why hunters didn't run from the night folk unless panic took over. Why they chose to attack and lay traps instead.

She wrapped the book up in a soft cloth and left it to be picked up the next day. When she locked the store, Ophelia keeping watch, she jumped in surprise when the large werewolf suddenly started to growl, fur bristling.

"Peace," a calm voice spoke from the shadows. "I have not come here for blood."

Ophelia slowly settled down, tail lashing a bit and she kept standing half in front of Annabelle. 

"If I may have a word with the human?" the voice asked and Ophelia snorted.

"How about you show your face first," the werewolf rumbled. "Then she can decide."

After a moment's pause, a tall, willowy man stepped into the light of one of the sparsely placed street lamps. His dark eyes held a red shine and he was dressed neatly and cleanly and offered a polite bow of his head.

"You are Annabelle, correct?" he asked and Annabelle stepped away from the door, resisting the urge to fiddle with her keys. "The one who convinced Charlette to pick a fight with our kind?"

That did not sound like it would be a pleasant conversation. Ophelia's ears pinned back a little and Annabelle answered, "I am." While Annabelle hadn't asked Charlette to fight other night folk, she knew her words had had an impact on her vampire.

"Do you think it possible for us to get along? Humans and night folk, I mean," the man asked, watching her closely.

"I think it's going to take a lot of work," Annabelle answered after a moment. "But if I can befriend night folk, why can't anyone else? If the killing stops, we could start building something better."

He was silent for the longest moment. "I think you are very naive. It is not that simple. We night folk have tried, you know? To be part of your world." 

He stared off into the distance, something dark and grim crossing his face. "There are children no humans want, even though they are of their people. So I took them in. I loved them and cared for them, clothed and fed them and paid for their education. Do you know what happened to them?"

Annabelle found her mouth growing too dry to speak at the tone of his voice, her throat closing up when their eyes met. Fury and grief made his eyes glow a deep, dark red. Like blood. He was a vampire, she realized.

"I woke with the sinking sun to find them all hanged in secret," he said, low and with an underlying snarl that sent a stab of instinctive fear down her spine. "Children who had done no wrong. Children who died for consorting with monsters, as your lot call us. You humans didn't want them, but you didn't want anyone else to have them either."

He took a step forward, eyes blazing, only for Ophelia to step a little more firmly in front of Annabelle. He stopped and took a deep breath to reign himself in.

"I hold no insignificant sway in my part of this city," he said, voice calm again, but the darkness kept lurking in his gaze. "I will not support Charlette when we gain nothing. When the humans we dare to care about get slaughtered by their own kind. I will not fight for that kind of world, nor will all the others who agree with me."

He straightened, looking tall and imposing despite his willowy frame. "We are not the only ones who will have to change our ways." He then briefly bowed his head, polite enough but a little stiff now. "I said my piece. Do with it as you will."

Annabelle's mind was reeling too much to speak as he disappeared in the shadows. Ophelia glanced over her shoulder at her, a questioning look in her eyes.

Annabelle swallowed, wetting her lips, before she managed to speak, "Has this happened to many monsters?"

Ophelia looked away, her ears drooping a little. "To enough. It keeps us from trying to get closer to humans and it makes the other night folk more angry as well. It feels like we can do nothing right in the eyes of humanity. As though, after humans took our king, they now want to blame us for everything wrong in their lives."

"I'm sorry." Annabelle had no idea what else to say. Ophelia sent her a reassuring look.

"That's hardly your fault. Come on, let's get you home before your family worries too much."

They walked in silence and Annabelle's family was indeed very upset at her late return. The hunters outside who had escorted her home the rest of the way had scolded her as well, looking worried.

As she sat in her room, belly filled with a cold but delicious dinner, she found she was too restless to even consider sleep. The vampire's words kept circling in her mind, followed by what Ophelia had said. It wasn't until she restlessly fiddled with the papers on her desk that an idea hit her.

She couldn't grab a weapon and fight, at least not without dying needlessly in the process. She had no idea how to wield weapons after all and she especially couldn't help Charlette win against other night folk. 

But there was more than one way of fighting and more than one battle that needed to be won. She grabbed a piece of paper and her quill and began to scribble furiously, writing and rewriting parts until she thought she had gotten it right.

She shoved to her feet and hurried to the window, paper in hand. "Ophelia?" she called out in a whisper and the werewolf looked up form her perch on the neighboring roof. "Can you look at this real quick?"

The werewolf jumped across the distance easily enough, accepting the paper Annabelle held out. She was silent for a long moment after she read it and Annabelle fidgeted nervously.

"What do you think?" she asked and Ophelia looked up, astonished surprise on her face, then she grinned.

"I say you are amazing. What will you do with this?"

Annabelle smiled in relief. "Can you take me back to the shop?"

"Sure," her friend answered, puzzled and curious. "But why?"

"I've got an idea." Annabelle was already climbing out the window and was easily picked up by a big, strong arm covered in warm, soft fur.

Ophelia hauled her onto her back as though she weighed nothing and went bounding across the rooftops far faster than Annabelle would have traveled on the streets. They arrived at the shop in record time and Ophelia watched curiously as Annabelle got to work.

Annabelle printed two big stacks of flyers and by then exhaustion started to catch up to her. She had worried at first to blatantly use so much paper and ink, but should Mr. Bell ask, she'd come up with a fabricated story about tripping when she hurried to leave and spilling ink everywhere and that she had to regretfully toss things out.

"Can you help me spread these?" she asked the werewolf, who grinned, wide and a little wild.

"I can do better than that. Wait here." Ophelia ducked out of the shop and a moment later, Annabelle heard a loud, howling call. It was answered by others, near and far and as she peeked out the window, she saw shapes move and gather along the edges of artificial light.

"Annabelle, come meet our friends and bring some of the flyers," Ophelia called out and Annabelle took a deep breath and lifted her chin. She would not be afraid, she told herself. If night folk were meant to share a world peacefully with humans, fear had no place in it.

She walked out with a stack of paper in her arms and made sure to smile at the gathered night folk. All kinds of creatures had gathered and they all stared at her with varying levels of curiosity. She spread the flyers among them and within seconds she heard low chatter and murmur, the click of claws and clatter of hooves and the ruffle of wings.

"We will help," a raspy voice of a spindly, pale creature said and it smiled with a mouth full of sharp needle teeth. "We are tired of a never-changing world that does nothing but hate."

Ophelia ducked into the shop to retrieve the stacks and Annabelle decided that she would not worry about being this close to other night folk while her friend was gone. No one made a move to attack, on the contrary, the nearest night folk offered a bit of polite small talk. They were nothing like the stories of feral beasts she had heard all her life.

Soon every one carried a stack of flyer as tall as Annabelle's hand was wide and they left with excited murmurs and chatter, dispersing to spread the paper all across the city.

"That's just the first step," Annabelle said as she locked up the shop and Ophelia carried her back home. "Are you and they willing to help more often?"

"Of course," Ophelia said with a smile. "We've all wanted and waited for a real chance to change things. While some night folk have fallen too deep into the dark to return, many others who will take this chance with both hands and not let go."

*.*.*

The entire city was in uproar the next day. The flyers hadn't simply been dropped in the streets, the night folk had put them up on shop windows and street lamps and along all the intersections. They had even shoved any leftovers into mail boxes. It was impossible to go anywhere and not see at least one flyer.

Annabelle heard people curse and tear the flyers down, not wanting to hear what she had to say. But that was alright, minds didn't just change overnight. The few glimpses she got of people silently pocketing flyers, looking contemplative, was worth it.

She printed flyer after flyer as the days passed, sacrificing sleep gladly. And the more she did it, the more she told the truth, the more she spoke of injustices and wrongs committed that had to be made right and the possibility for actual peace, the more people stopped to think.

They started to look at the traveling groups of clerics and town guards differently, who tore down the flyers and demanded the heads of those who had done this. They all remembered the humans killed for being seen with monsters.

They hadn't known about the dead children, but someone had broken into the cleric offices and had returned with proof that such things had indeed happened. They had spread the information all over the city and people had been furious ever since.

Annabelle saw the expressions in the eyes of the citizens change as more and more things came to light. Most of all, people wanted safety and peace. The idea of no longer fearing the night, of not sacrificing their children or spouses just to try and keep the rest of the family safe was a very luring call.

Of course, the nobles weren't going to take this sitting down. Fear was one of the things that kept them in power, after all. Fear was what the clergy was built upon and how they got their money, by making people think they could buy safety off of them, as well as blessings for their homes.

Considering how swiftly the nobility retaliated, Annabelle knew that she was on the right track. Houses of rebellious fractions got raided and one day, the guards stood in front of Mr. Bell's shop as well.

"Feel free to look around," Mr. Bell said, making a sweeping gesture. "You won't find what you're looking for."

As the guards stomped past him, Mr.Bell met Annabelle's eyes, his expression telling her that they were going to have a long talk. It made her swallow nervously.

"You're very low on ink and paper," the head guard rumbled and Mr. Bell nodded.

"Yes, our resupply shipment will arrive tomorrow. It always looks like that at the end of the month. Especially with the rush-orders from various nobles we've been getting."

Annabelle involuntarily held her breath. This was not what their shop looked like at the end of the month. So Mr. Bell had noticed, of course he must have, that their supplies had dwindled down fast. Why hadn't he said anything?

"Show me the receipts," the head guard demanded and Mr. Bell dug out more bills than there should be. 

Annabelle didn't let her confused and worried tension show and soon enough the guards left, having found nothing suspicious. Not even a stray flyer anywhere. Annabelle made sure to remove any and all hints of her activities and any messed up prints she took home to burn in the fireplace while her family slept.

"So," Mr. Bell said as he watched the guards march down the street towards their next destination. "Explain to me why you've been making those flyers."

At her surprised, startled look, he huffed. "I'm no fool, girl. I know how much stock we have and how much we use. You're lucky I forged some receipts in advance when I realized what you've been doing. So, why have you decided to become a rebel?"

The entire story tumbled out after a moment of hemming and hawing and Mr. Bell listened carefully and intently, asking questions when he needed her to clarify things. At last he leaned against the counter in thoughtful silence.

"I know some supplies who sell under the hand," he said at last. "They'll bring us more ink and paper than we officially need."

Annabelle stood up a little straighter. "You'll help me?"

Mr. Bell chuckled. "Oh, my dear, you're looking at a rebel yourself. I might be getting old, but I've caused quite some mischief and trouble in my younger days." His eyes were bright and he grinned, excitement starting to shine through. "And here I thought I was going to have a quiet, boring life until I died. So, what's next on the agenda?"

Annabelle managed to collect herself, drawing away from the reeling surprise to lay out her plans. Mr. Bell had some great ideas himself and together they started to build a more solid plan of attack.

"I can't let you work on the flyers during the day, in case they come back for another surprise search," he said regretfully. "You'll be safe coming in after dark?"

"I am," she promised and he nodded.

"Then do that. In the meantime, you'll go and get some sleep, I'm sure we can throw something together." When she tried to protest, he waved her off. "I can handle the work by myself for a few hours. If necessary we'll refuse some orders in the future. We have enough money to give us that leeway for a couple of weeks." 

He gestured at the book she had finished for the noble. "And if we get more orders like these, we don't have to worry about money for even longer."

Annabelle couldn't help but hug her old mentor, who chuckled and gave her back a pat. "

Now, none of that," he said when she tried to thank him or to reimburse him by cutting short her earnings. "If anything, you are doing me a favor. I was wondering what to do considering that everyone keeps urging me to retire. Having a purpose is very fun, isn't it?"

She couldn't help but smile and he ushered her away to get some rest on their coats on the floor, while he got started on their remaining orders. Annabelle managed to doze off for a bit, waking up again when the noble dropped by to pick up the book. A well filled coin purse was left behind and Mr. Bell grinned at her when he saw her sit up.

"Ready for work?" he asked and she hurriedly got to her feet to join him.

Mr. Bell left in the afternoon and returned cheerfully. He kept what he had been up to a secret, right up until the evening bell rang and someone knocked on the backdoor. The one they only used to bring out trash to the small alley.

To her surprise, three young men were there, delivering crates of parchment and ink. Mr. Bell paid them and sent them on their way with a cheerful wave. The boys briefly peered at Annabelle with silent curiosity, though they said nothing.

"I'll keep the backdoor unlocked," Mr. Bell said as he ushered her out the front door. "Please use it just in case some guards show up to patrol at night in order to try and catch the flyer-rebel." 

The thought made her nervous, but Annabelle took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. If this was how she could help, she would do it, no matter the danger it brought. Things had to change.

She returned home, ate with her family and was glad to hear that Dion would return home at the end of the week. He'd stay in his bed for another week and then he'd have to return to guarding the house. 

The only reason Annabelle wasn't deeply scared for her brother was the knowledge that their part of town had become very, very safe. Not a single monster showed its face, at least not to attack anyone.

Ophelia waited by the window the moment her parents and brothers had fallen asleep and Annabelle climbed out and onto her back. They traveled along the rooftops once again and Ophelia dropped into the small alley to let Annabelle use the backdoor.

They printed another round of flyers, more monsters showing up to disperse them. Some smiled at her, others looked curious. Some seemed hesitant to be hopeful, but they had come to help all the same.

Annabelle didn't print flyers every night. Neither Mr. Bell nor she had the funds for such a thing, but she made as many as she could. Aside from flyers, she printed posters to leave on market squares and when one of the monsters handed over a well-worded letter their daughter had written, she published that one too.

Dion was home at last and she made sure her brother was comfortable. He looked tense and unhappy, though his worry eased whenever his hunter friends visited. They had told him they had guarded his family in his absence and how quiet things had been recently.

"It's weird, in all honesty," one of his best friends muttered, the woman who always waited and made sure Annabelle came home safely. It was the day before he had to resume his duty and he'd been high-strung since this morning. "Sure, there are times when things are calm, but never to that extent and never for that long."

Her brother was quiet that evening as they ate and he only grimaced a little in pain when he sat up for too long. Everyone knew he shouldn't return to duty tomorrow, but no one spoke up either. Annabelle kept her head down, her determination to change things stronger than ever before.

If the fighting and bloodshed ended her brother could finish healing in peace. Everyone could heal.

A knock at the door made her family and she startle. It was too late for visitors, there was only a faint glow of light remaining in the sky, the sun itself gone. 

"Open, in the name of the Inquisition," an authoritative voice shouted and Annabelle jolted in her seat, heart leaping into her throat.

Everyone knew the Inquisition. They were the ones who dealt with those who loved monsters, with humans who had gotten 'corrupted', as they called it. They also took care of rebels and 'threats to the city', which usually meant threats to the nobles. 

Nerves made her stomach clench and her appetite vanished in an instant. Her parents exchanged a nervous, confused look, before they got up to hesitantly open the door.

One of the head priests was waiting on the other side, flanked by two of his subordinates and behind them were three guards.

"How can we help you?" Annabelle's mother asked, shifting a bit to stand more firmly in front of her children. "I fear we do not have enough food to feed you all, but if you seek a safe place for the night, we offer our humble home."

"We are not here for peasant gruel or to beg a spot in front of your little fire," the head priest said with disdain. "We are here to question you on the integrity of your family."

"There is nothing to question," her father said sharply. "We are good, upstanding citizens."

"That remains to be seen," the head cleric sniffed, pushing forward until her father yielded and stepped back.

Annabelle watched warily as the priests and guards walked through the open door and when they didn't bother with closing it, a bad feeling began to churn in her gut.

"Leave the door open, woman," the head priest demanded when her mother rushed to close it. Her parents and siblings stilled, nervous and tense. Dion glanced to where his weapons sat by the door, gaze calculating.

Annabelle saw his hunter friends milling outside, watching warily and inching a bit closer, half of them staring at the open door, the other half watching the surroundings keenly. 

"We wish to question your daughter," the head priest demanded, those pale eyes boring into Annabelle, who scarcely dared to breathe. She sat ramrod straight, hands a gnarled knot in her lap as she gripped her skirts tightly, her heart pounding. 

The way he looked at her said it all. They suspected her. They didn't know for sure yet, which was the only reason she wasn't getting arrested, but they heavily considered her the culprit.

"Our daughter has done nothing wrong," her mother said, shifting to stand more firmly in front of her. "Anything you have to say to her, you will say with all of us present."

The head priest looked faintly annoyed, but continued on without pause, "Seeing as lately someone has been stirring up the masses, we've conducted a thorough investigation as to the people capable of such foolishness. And we've now come to you, Miss Annabelle. Care to tell us if these are yours?"

He reached into his pocket to pull out some of her flyers, unfolding them and tossing them onto the dining table.

"They aren't," Annabelle answered after staring at them for a second, heart pounding so hard she felt as though her very bones were rattling in time with the beat. "I've seen them stuck on walls before though, why do you think that I made them?"

"Because she works at a print shop?" her oldest brother asked sharply, smiling in a thin and very much unamused way. "Our little sister has worked her ass off to support this family and you come in here, accusing her?"

"I do not like the tone you take with me, boy," the head priest said sharply and at a look from her mother, Rudi settled down with a fierce glower. 

"Do you have any idea who could have made them?" the man asked Annabelle, who shook her head. "Or anything else you can tell us?"

Annabelle reached out to the closest flyer, coincidentally the newest one, pretending as though she was inspecting it. "The paper is thicker than the one we use in our shop," she said and the head priest's eyes narrowed. "And we don't own that shade of midnight blue either, it doesn't work as well when you want to print books."

She had never been been more relieved that Mr. Bell had gotten things for her under the hand, otherwise she could not have made those claims.

The head priest appeared faintly miffed, but turned to her parents next.

"Has she come home on time every night and not left again?" the head priest asked.

"She's shown up at dusk every day and she doesn't leave before dawn," her father said firmly. "We never heard strange noises or saw any wounds on her. Neither has she brought home gifts we couldn't explain. Go ask the hunters if you don't believe us." He gestured at the lurking neighbors outside.

"I shall," the head priest said, sounding colder and more displeased now. "You better hope your stories line up."

"They will," her mother said firmly. "Please leave now, we don't wish to invite monsters in and we still have to finish dinner."

The head priest stared Annabelle down a moment longer and she knew he didn't quite believe her, but he must have other suspects with how easily he accepted her answers. For now, at least.

"Have you considered that a monster printed these?" she found herself asking just as the man turned around to leave. "I heard some are smart."

"They're all mongrel beasts, mindless and driven by bloodlust," the head priest said sharply, looking at her over his shoulder, his eyes burning cold. "Don't be mistaken, girl, they can fake intelligence long enough to ensnare you. There is nothing more to them than instinct."

It was a fight to look appropriately chastised and agreeable and Annabelle made herself dip her head in embarrassed supplication. The head priest looked a bit mollified at that and stepped outside with his companions and guards, striding towards the waiting hunters.

Her mother closed the door, not quite slamming it but it made a clear, decisive sound. The entire living room was utterly silent, then her mother exhaled heavily.

"We will finish eating and then we'll wait for Dion's friends to knock." She turned around to look at Annabelle. "And you will tell us what exactly is going on here."

Startled, Annabelle glanced at her family and found all of them watching her with troubled frowns. She swallowed, nodding, and found herself too nervous to take another bite. No one ate in fact and Gerard soon got up to clear the table. It was almost unbearably quiet.

It didn't take long for someone to knock at the door and the hunter woman poked her head in. "They're gone. What happened?"

"Please come in and close the door," her mother said after a moment. "I think no monsters will attack, will they?" She looked at Annabelle, who ducked her head a little.

"No," she answered quietly. "They won't."

The hunters filled in and Annabelle found herself in the uncomfortable position of explaining what had happened weeks ago. Haltingly at first and then with more and more passion the story tumbled out of her.

She did not tell anyone about the kiss she had shared with Charlette, worried that it would be a step too far for them. Not because she had kissed a woman, they weren't like that, but because she had kissed one of the night folk.

Heavy silence rang after she finished, everyone staring at her with varying expressions. Dion looked guilty, Gerard and Rudi baffled, her parents incredulous and confused and the hunters were thoughtful.

"Is it possible to speak to one of these, erm, night folk?" the hunter woman asked.

"I think so," Annabelle said, thinking of Ophelia who was most likely waiting on the roof. "I can ask."

"Outside, not in here," her father said. "I just..." He sighed heavily, briefly rubbing his hand over his head. "What were you thinking?"

"She wanted us safe," Dion answered in her stead to her surprise. He sounded tired but understanding. "I can't say I blame her, father." He took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm tired of fighting for my life. Of worrying what will happen to you all when I fall. If there can be peace, I want it more than anything."

"As do I," the hunter woman asked and the other hunters of their street hummed and nodded in agreement, though they looked like they didn't really believe it possible either..

"I can go ask right now," Annabelle offered. "I could meet you outside?"

"Alright, we'll wait in the alley where no one will see us," the hunter woman said. "We just...we've got to see you're right, girl."

She got to her feet with a nod and hurried up the stairs. She heard voices rise behind her, but they were too quiet to understand individual words. It sounded like a hissed discussion, though.

"Is everything alright?" Ophelia asked the moment Annabelle opened the window. "I saw those fuck-awful priests prowling around."

"I have a request," Annabelle asked. "Would you be willing to meet my family and, um, our hunter friends?" When Ophelia reared back in surprise, she hurriedly tacked on, "It's safe, I promise. They just found out about everything and they want to talk to you. To see if peace is actually an option."

Ophelia was silent for a long minute, then she exhaled heavily. "I trust you, so, yes. Alright."

Annabelle smiled in relief, then visibly surprised her friend by climbing out the window. Ophelia easily hauled her onto her back and hopped down to the alley. Considering how everyone startled in surprise at her appearance but eased up immediately upon seeing Annabelle unharmed on the werewolf's back, Annabelle had chosen wisely to go with her friend.

"Everyone, this is Ophelia," Annabelle introduced her, clambering off her back and easily accepting the big, clawed hand that her friend held out for easy support. "Ophelia, meet my family and our friends."

"A pleasure," Ophelia said, sketching a bow, though she never took her eyes off of the hunters, who stared at her with the same intensity. "Annabelle said you have questions?"

The hunters hesitated, before Dion took a step forward, face tense but hope lurking in his eyes.

Slowly, with every question, Annabelle watched as the suspicion, the battle-ready worry, began to easy and fade. She watched as  hope began to glow brighter and brighter instead. As if a gentle hand had found an ember that had been about to go out and brought it back to life with steady care in order to create a fire.

"Alright," the hunter woman said at last, turning to Annabelle. "How can we help?"

At Annabelle's surprised look, she grinned fiercely and added, "We want peace and we want things to be fair. For everyone, nobles and commoners. And those night folk too, if they help us. So, I think it's high time we join your little rebellion."

Ophelia looked positively surprised and approving, grinning back just as fiercely. "Oh, I like you."

The hunter chuckled in her low, raspy voice. "The feeling is starting to be mutual." She turned to the others behind her. "What do you say, are you lot ready to go and fulfill our dreams of cozy fires and full bellies and night skies we do not have to fear?"

The hunters rumbled strongly in agreement, faces determined and even her parents and brothers looked convinced. They met her eyes with care and a supportive, if worried gleam.

Annabelle felt relieved down to her bones and she realized she was grinning just as fiercely as the hunters and the werewolf at her side.

*.*.*

A knock at the door drew Annabelle out of her concentration. "I'm almost done, Ophelia," she called out without looking up. "Just a minute."

"I'll wait," a familiar and sorely missed voice made her startle and she looked up to find Charlette stepping through the backdoor. 

Annabelle grinned wide in happy relief. Her vampire looked a little worse for wear, but proud in a way that told her of won battles. Her gait had changed as well. Where Charlette had been confident before, now she moved with the prowling knowledge of power, of tested strength and defeated opponents. 

To her surprise, Charlette wasn't alone. The willowy vampire she had spoken with what seemed ages ago accompanied her, tipping his head respectfully.

His eyes were considering as he watched her, then he looked at the flyers and posters she had printed. It was getting easier and easier to find just the right words to convince the people, to sway their minds and draw them to the side of change.

"I didn't believe it, at first," the vampire said as he slowly stepped forward to get a closer look. "When I heard of humans rallying behind the cause of this one." 

He nodded at Charlette, who curled her lips enough to reveal one impressive fang. He rolled his eyes at her, but looked fond rather than annoyed. 

He continued, "I didn't believe it either when I heard of hunters willing to lay down their weapons and hearing us out. Of other night folk protecting them from their mad cousins."

Annabelle had been surprised most of all when she had heard of the change that had traveled through the city ever since her conversation with the hunters. Of the impact the people who joined her had. 

Whoever had broken into the office of the high priests had done so again, publishing more and more damning material. They had brought proof as well for their claims, spreading committed misdeeds and crimes all over the city. More murdered children, stolen money, people forced and blackmailed into admitting night folk had threatened and thralled them when that had not been so.

The opinion of the night folk continued to shift slowly but steadily. Annabelle was helping where she could, doing her best to be a voice for the unheard. A voice for the people.

"None of that would have been possible without Charlette," she said, smiling at the vampire who smiled back with a warmth so sweet it made all the accumulated aches and stress and tension melt away. 

Annabelle yearned to be held by her love, but held back for now. She wouldn't want to be rude in the middle of a conversation by getting distracted.

The willowy vampire raised a brow. "And none of it would have worked without you." He glanced between them. "Somehow, the two of you have done what I thought impossible. You're bringing our two separate worlds back together, piece by piece."

"People don't want to fight anymore," Annabelle said. "They want warm fires and full bellies and peaceful nights." 

Or rather, most of them did. And those who wanted to continue fighting, well, there were always horrible night folk that still needed slaying. Just like there were horrible humans that the guards arrested to stop their evil deeds.

At this point, all that was left was getting their hands on the aristocrats, on the high priests, to force them to bow so they could cement the changes the people were demanding with increasingly louder voices. So they could have the peace back that greed and hunger for power had stolen from them.

"I will fight for that soft world," Charlette said firmly.

"Yes, you have proven as much," the willowy vampire tipped his head in respect and acceptance. "I only doubted if the humans would as well, but that doubt...it has waned with every sunlit voice that joined your cause."

He stared at the flyers for a moment longer, then looked up. "You will have my support. Every night folk from the warehouse district to the Emerald Park will immediately cease any hostilities towards humans and instead work with them when safely possible."

Annabelle's breath caught in her throat. That was...that was easily a third of the city. She stared at the vampire in surprise, who smiled thinly.

"Your Charlette isn't the only powerful one and I have many, many night folk to protect. I would not offer my support easily or foolishly. But you have convinced me, mortal maiden." He swept into a low bow. "I look forward to working together."

Annabelle hurried to curtsey back. "As do I. Thank you, really. This might...this is just the help we need to for a last push."

"I do my part as long as you do yours," he said and stepped back, gesturing at a finished and twine wrapped parcel of flyers. "I take it those are ready for distribution? May I take them?"

At Annabelle's nod he picked the thick parcel up. "I will spread these and I will get into contact with other night folk willing to help. We shall speak more on this matter tomorrow night. I believe it is high time both humans and night folk plan together." 

With those words he excused himself and Annabelle stared at Charlette in baffled surprise. The vampire smiled at her.

"I've been kicking a lot of teeth in lately," Charlette said with a casual shrug. "He's had to bend the knee to me, but that doesn't mean he had to help."

"I missed you," the words were out before Annabelle could stop them, though she didn't want to either.

She got a glimpse of Charlette's face softening, then the vampire stood in front of her between one second and the next, opening her arms. Annabelle threw herself forward to hug her tightly, strong, cool arms wrapping around her firmly, holding her securely.

"I'm so glad to see you again, well and happy," Charlette murmured against her hair. "It was hard, not coming back sooner. But I had to make sure I could return with good news. And I'm so proud of you, for all you've done for me and mine."

"This is our world," Annabelle said and pulled back enough to look up. Charlette gently touched their foreheads together. "Let's fight for it together."

"We already are," Charlette answered in a whisper and when she grinned, it was fanged and fierce and not at all human and Annabelle loved her so much in this moment. "And we will win."

[seyaryminamoto]

hey hopefully these aren’t too many questions but im asking mostly because I forgot if you had said so, how is our favourite couple currently where you’re writing & how far ahead are you compared to where the readers are at? and finally how many parts will Gladiator be? I’m sure you have said it already but Im sure I have forgotten!!

Well, they're a fair amount of questions, haha, but that's fine :D

I'm still around 50 chapters ahead, but I've had to invest most of my time into art exclusively over the past weeks, it's why I haven't been able to write as much as I usually do. I was at a 60~ish chapter advantage, I'm not doing double updates atm so that the gap won't get too big to be manageable anymore. I'm pretty sure we all want to keep the update rate steady and constant all across Part 3... so the more chapters I write in advance, the better.

And Part 3 is the final part of the story, worth mentioning. The way I structure Gladiator, each part has its own particular identity as the status quo shifts in some way (Part 1: will-they-won't-they, Part 2: when will they get caught?, Part 3: all hell breaks loose), and each of them have certain storytelling climaxes that basically mark the conclusion of each part, so to speak. For Part 1, the climax was also very literal as it's when Azula and Sokka finally go all the way :'D for Part 2, the climax is the Combustion Man fight, and for Part 3... can't tell you that but I'm expecting you can guess at it pretty easily, haha. After each of these climaxes, we've had some more story to cover before switching to the next bit... Part 3 will feature the longest post-climax chunk of story since we have a lot of loose ends to tie and I would hate myself if I finished everything too quickly. Hopefully all that I just said makes sense? :'D

Also, not sure if you wanted to know this exactly but as things stand, I've posted 7 out of 33 arcs for Part 3... and I'm due to start writing arc 20 :'D Part 3 has a LOT of arcs but they're generally shorter than they were before, I feel? Definitely shorter than in Part 1, where they were the longest in the story altogether, I believe.

As for your other, spoilery question...

Currently, Sokka and Azula are in complicated territory. Which I'm sure comes as no surprise considering what's been happening in the story as of late...

Azula's position is extremely precarious even in what stability she has found, and she has far too many complicated motivations pulling at her from all sides, too many people to protect, all of which comes into conflict with the position she's stuck in for the time being. Sokka continues his full dedication to waging war, but while he's doing well at it, the enemy's upping the challenge in what's coming, and as much as he's trying not to be rash and to make his decisions carefully, he has nooo idea how uphill things are going to get for his push in the near future.

It's worth noting that Sokka and Azula have been able to communicate through their spiritual bond a few more times, as well as having multiple chances of noticing something's wrong (or occasionally, right) with the other, even at a distance. Their communication hasn't always been effective in informing them about what the other is doing... but they're learning about each other's movements through other sources now, too. As expected from our chaotic and beloved pair... neither one is to happy about the other's position atm. Which makes it really interesting to me that in all their frustrations about what's going on, the faith they have in each other really doesn't waver.

I don't think I should say much more than that, but I will say I'm looming closer and closer to their fateful reunion, it will still take some time but not a lot, all in all. I only have two big battles left to write before we get to what we're all waiting for... so I really, REALLY want to finish all the art so I can get to that ASAP XD

[dangerouslysmartslime]

Trying to understand college: My first Academic Development 101 Zoom Meeting

Discussion is going to start, and it’s going to be for Chapters 1 and 7. Academic Development 101… Starting with a check in, so… I didn’t read both parts because it is purely questions that you’d find at a mental hospital, which makes sense but it is a pain. So stop wathcing fucking shows like People Watching and get stuff done.

What is one thing you hope to accomplish this Winter Session

I hope to get used to online classes, unlike my Junior Year of High School, which was quite unpleasant. At the same time I also felt like I was being babysat by the school as there was no on the campus who knew what I was taking. Taking US Government, Trigonometry, English, Environmental, and such but a lack of continual feedback. Just trying to understand things day in and day out and the best thing I could seemingly think to do was to read the material and then look at what other people online thought, and then use both the actual sources and analysis of others. To be a lot better person than that is ideal, however it can be a lot harder than being at a class and there being discussions and then what happens outside of class is review.

There are a lot of folks who are here today, so they’re taking attendance and I feel unsure of what to do. I realize now that the three classes are interconnected, in the fact that they aren’t straight and narrow, they’re pieces that you have to read, go over, then respond with in your ideas. You have two days left before all the assignments are due for the week. A lot of people say they should earn at least a B+ GPA. One must first be stable before they can help themselves. Apparently a lot of people don’t know what to do with themselves, but they spend a great deal of money on education. Where do you take it to and pursue. Improving as a student and being more organized. It’s definitely something that I should work on, as there are Modules 1 and 2 at the same time, and getting it all done is important so you don’t get multiple 0s and fail classes. Just as you ended up getting an 80% in a Quiz just because you didn’t answer the questions quickly and efficiently. Learning better time management as folks can often be procrastinators. Passing, keeping focused, and keeping ahead of assignments.

Transitioning to online classes can be a pain for people. How to apply the tools you have, as there is a difference between getting dressed and being there or being online. And the program they use is something that people get used to. Her name is Stacy Hurley, who’s taught at CCBC Face to Face since 2011, taught Sociology classes in the evening and worked with child protective services for Baltimore City as well as nonprofit and therapy. She is an adjunct, and works with the Howard County. She does dog walking, dog sitting, and tutoring for fun. She likes that she is flexible, and her favorite thing is teaching. She started a post-graduate program, as not only she has a teacher perspective but a student perspective, so she was taking classes as well as teaching. She even asked for extensions, using the tools to keep yourself on track. Any questions? Nope.

Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, and is a Synchronous class, meeting at those times and you are reading the chapters before class so there can be a good discussion. Know the material, and then review is in Zoom. There are quite a few modules she goes over, and the process is important. The “journey is the point of it” The final point is the “story of me” Where hopefully the class is at a different point in 3 weeks from now. All of the Office 365 applications are used, and there is a way that you can connect the google calendars to the school one. You can add those in there so everything is in one Calendar. Work on understanding everything so you can be organized. You also get a OneDrive to store work, and some people may also use a Google one, and saving it into the OneDrive is important so you can do it on your work computer, or home computer, or a library computer. You can make folders as to organize things by class, then week, then assignment (just as I have already done). I still need to make a To Do List for each week, and getting things done efficiently.

Announcements, and if you need tutoring, then you can arrange them through the virtual tutor. You go to getting Started, a tutorial to get to CCBC Email and Login, then the Keep Learning guide for online resources going from Face to Face, then logging into Blackboard. Going to Blackboard and it’ll bring you up, and if you don’t have it then you have to go to MyCCBC login. For the New Student Orientation there is a video and powerpoint to look at. The information will also be talked about in the next 2 hours (because it’s already been 30min) in the end there was the certificate, which I need to send to Stacy Hurley for Extra Credit.

Students improve and remain in college because of Academic Development 101. Think about Resilience and Grit. It’s not hard stuff, it just takes time and planning to deal with. Schoology is similar, for grades there is All, Graded, Upcoming, and Submitted. How much everything is worth, where you see discussion, assignments, and all of that. When she grades something you will see the grade out of how many points, then a text bubble giving feedback. “Hey you’re missing this, hey I like this, hey you should’ve had this.” And you can submit multiple times, taking her feedback into consideration. Practice your writing and communication.

In general the information hasn’t changed in the newer textbook, but it might be a good idea to buy, and we’re not going to get to all of the chapters. College Policy regarding etiquette for Zoom Classroom. Of course wear clothes. First part of the list, you must read. Student Success Navigators. There isn’t a counselor on campus, but they assist with finding resources like food, housing, applying for benefits, getting mental health help, referring for any of these services. You should be successful and going there is done at any way. Either talking to them or filing a report to need services. Someone contacts you to set up an appointment for what you need. There are disability accommodations, for different mental and physical disabilities depending on if you have a 504, and people don’t tell them why you get accommodations, as it is protected by HIPPA and such. There is also the Student Success Center offering tutoring, and avaliable for tutoring as the class fees pay for it. So use the link. Pay attention to the Academic Calendars, like when you can drop a class and when there are finals. Use proper college English, use proofreading. This is the time to do so. Turn your work in on time. Anything extra that was not assigned will be extra credit. Take advantage of it, as not every class has extra credit. Earn as many points as possible out of 800, so you earn as many as possible, then add the Extra Credit points, then the class grade is that out of 800. Know where everything is by keeping it in one place. Keep it in APA Owl Purdue College Format. It breaks down how to cite. Some courses may use APA, some may use MLA. You will be creating “The Story of Me as a Lifelong Learner” as each assignment builds up to the final project, which will be done using the app SWAY. Given each topic and skill you should be able to build a toolbox. The three words are Grit, Resilience, and

If you want to do the bare minimum, that’s on you, but if you want to do more, then you can. Really it is best to do as much as possible. The biggest Module is Module 4 as there are the most complicated pieces. Career Inventory, a survey that goes along with it, research links to look at careers you’re interested in. Looking at Educational Plan with DegreeWorks attached and information from ARTSYS website to plan Spring classes. I still need to talk to an advisor, so that is rather important. Transferring to another university later. You have to pay attention to each of the pieces. The final project is due February 1st, taking all of the pieces to have a Portfolio,/Presentation/Blog online about you as to finish it. The career piece will be on Animoto. You’re not paying for anything, you’ll just be using the free version. So manage your work and your stress to do what is needed. In person they used to do a career poster. Videos on how to set up Cornell Notes if handwriting. The templates were given for Word. You must write a summary of the chapter to show what you have taken away, it is pretty important. This chapter told me ABC. The notes must be in the format, whether typed or handwritten.

What is ACDV? Academic Development

Helps you be successful in your academics, to identify weaknesses, meant to help you develop good habits in academics, to come up with a strategic plan for yourself. Promoting healthy attitudes, to help sharpen your skills. To help you transition to college, to know where things are on campus and on Blackboard. To help make sure you are choosing the correct career path and educational path, to help you with a work/life balance with a new academic lifestyle, to help you prepare for the future, to help you have an idea of where to go. Getitng to know yourself better, developing academically. Exploring your passions, interests, values, skills, and talents. You can be interested in a great many things but you aren’t skilled in many. But interests can become skill. You can develop new skill based on the interests you already have. What are your values. The jobs that you’re thinking about, what is your motivation. Because if your motivation is purely money, then you could’ve taken a job that costs less to study for. What do you want to accomplish and look at. You don’t want to be a nurse if you don’t like blood or needles. Sure carrying tradition might be nice but it may not be fit for you. Do you want to have a career and not just a job.

What is academic development

To help us know what to do with our lives.

It can be quite difficult as there it can take a third of our lives to become who we want to.

A guide to CCBC and how to perform well in this institution.

What is Student Life is a thread that it has. There is the Community Book Connection as well. A book club, and the newest one is “The Truth about Stories, a Native Narrative” which if you do it, you get extra credit. Campuses are open, and you have to stop, they’ll check temperature and you have to ask questions on whether you’ve been close. The library and bookstore are open to go and get things. It is kind of a ghost town due to the plague, but things are still open. Blackboard has a list of Campus Events, Activities, and Resources she’s talking about. All of the folders are there, and things are due by tomorrow, while for Intro to Human Services my classes are due the day after. It is a pile of things stressing me out and the best thing you can do is to do your best at surviving and making the world a better place. Important things you need to cover, so let’s get done what is needed one thing at a time. Module 1 for ACDV is now due on Friday, and you’d get the rest done by Sunday. On Thursday we’ll talk about Finances, so that will also have to be handled. Filling your mind with sha helps no one, so take it one step at a time, use your peers and teacher. Try first, you will have to deal with things outside of time and sooner or later it will all click. We might not get to everything, so mainly do what is assigned. If it isn’t assigned, then wait until you’re done with assigned work before working on unassigned work or work due far later (following week). 

[taraninja]

Review of A Ghost of a Chance

Just in case my review is too long for fanfiction.net, I’m posting it here. 

To start, I want to apologize for the tardiness of this review. I actually began writing it after finishing Chapter 34, but thanks to College finals and the holidays it’s only getting out now. I like my reviews to in some way reciprocate the amount of effort the writer/writers spent in their fanfic, so this was definitely a multi-day project.

Firstly, I’d like to go over the characters and characterizations. Others have pointed this out as well, but you truly do get their personalities down perfectly. There were multiple occasions where I was tricked into reading this as if it were an episode screenplay, which is perhaps the highest praise any fanfic could achieve. Master Splinter is as elegant and effervescent as always, but you delve more into his character than the mere surface level; he also shows off humor, worry, empathy, concern, and of course, the love he feels for his sons and daughter is truly palpable. A great example is in his dealings with the Lotus; he is able to disagree in a way which shows honor and maturity, and even when the Lotus leave, he does not press the issue but let’s both parties (Donnie/April and the Lotus) have their disagreement and move on. It sent a perfect message to Leo that sometimes, interference is worse than simply letting an argument run its due course. I wish someone had taught that message to 2003 Leo, so maybe he could have avoided getting entangled in the gang wars.

Speaking of Leo, there are several facets of his character which have been masterfully delved into here. Something I prefer in the 2012 show is how they show that Leo is much more than just a serious and dutiful leader; he can also be awkward and silly at times, and this is perfectly encapsulated in his conversations with Karai within this story. Instead of distracting from the main plot, it melded perfectly with it and even helped to add to the plot. Karai has trouble getting used to life in the sewer, but has no problems understanding Leo and getting him to hopelessly unravel himself when talking with her. In contrast, Leo seems unsure of where he stands with her, and sometimes doesn’t know what the right approach is. Should he flirt back, or would that be too forward? Are their conversations one big game, or do they mean something to her? And are her questions meant to be taken literally, or as part of a running joke? As a master of deception, I can imagine how confusing talking with her must be. But on Karai’s part, it must be lots of fun, since it’s really more like she’s gently prodding him into taking the first step. I can still vividly imagine the chapter where they spar together, both teasing each other and then that one moment Karai thought she might have pushed too far. The tension between them was so thick that I could feel it past my computer screen, and I inadvertently held my breath as Leo drew closer and almost, ALMOST kissed her, but then revealed that he had just been teasing her back. That scene was perfect poetry, and it really showed me that you get their dynamic. You understand how and why they work, and that’s always great to see in a fanfiction.

Of course, Leo and Karai aren’t the only two lovebirds who have amazing development here, and the next two I want to gush over are Raph and Casey. I’ll admit that I didn’t really ship them before, but after reading this, you’ve made me a believer! There are of course, multiple ways a gay romance can go wrong; it can either feel too pushy, or not pushy enough, depending on the way it’s written. However, I think it was perfectly handled here. Our titular Raph and Casey start as more on the ‘bromance with benefits’ side, which works; a slow beginning helps get new shippers like me to see just how it can develop. Both of them have very similar outlooks and personalities, so there’s already that common ground between them, and then the scene where Casey gets drunk allow us to see them acting uncharacteristically caring for each other. Seeing adult Casey and Raph making out is definitely a—unique way to kickstart the romance, and a rather believable one. As someone who’s bi, I’ll readily admit that curiosity is what often causes a spark in a relationship like theirs. And again, the slow burn is the smartest move when it comes to them. Their kiss was left open-ended, as you could say ‘oh, they didn’t like it’ and not ship it, or you could think ‘hmm, I don’t think their answers were all that truthful’ and continue to ship it. I personally count myself among the latter category, but either way, their scenes have been written exceedingly well so far and I can’t wait to read more of them.

And, of course, my personal favorite ship, the one that made me get off my butt and read this fanfic; Apritello! After Chapter 34, I was squealing for literally hours. It got so bad that my roommate, who is not even a little into TMNT, forcibly grabbed my shoulders and ordered me to stop jumping around like a ping-pong ball. So suffice it to say, I have a lot to comment on when it comes to this dynamic within your fanfiction.

To begin with, I am SO glad that the music box was brought up again! When April pushed it aside in the “Bigfoot” episode, I felt so sad for Donnie and was more than a little peeved at April. It was no wonder that Donnie felt like ‘just a mutant’ with the way she was treating him; she pushed aside his heartfelt present, never lets him speak about his feelings with her, and yet continues to lead him on with hugs and kisses instead of actually being clear with her emotions. This is not to say I entirely faulted April, as having two boys crushing on you is never fun and is a situation I’ve had trouble with in the past. But nevertheless, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see the event be brought up and mentioned again between the two of them here. It gave the ship some well-needed groundedness and maturity, so that it could develop beyond just two lovesick teenagers. And oh, how beautifully developed it is! Of course, it begins rather bumpily (April, why d’ya have to take your anger out on Donnie? Him who would never fault you, ever?) with April asking out Casey for dates, keeping it a secret from Donnie, and then trying to get closer with him while not revealing anything to him. But there’s been tons of cute build-up too! The whole ‘evil scientist and best lab assistant’ bit has to be the most adorable love-speak ever, and of course, the silent glances at each other and the secret armor Donnie built is super sweet as well. And there’s no possible way I will ever forget when Future Donnie shook current Donnie to his senses and sent him chasing after April, which resulted in the most romantic scene of all time. Oh yes, it was certainly sappy; but it was a sappiness that felt VERY well-deserved and had been a long time coming. And I’m also really happy that you had Splinter inform and reassure Kirby on all the goings-on; I always feel bad for parents when their children hide things from them within stories, and it was yet another source of relief when Kirby was not only fine with April and Donnie but gave them the go-ahead. I knew he was a good father, but now I’m absolutely certain of it. And that means that April can continue her relationship with Donnie and the others without fearing for her father or focusing solely on college. Not to mention, dating Donnie can only mean good things for a future college career.

Oh yes, and then THAT ABSOLUTE BOMBSHELL in episode—I mean chapter (oh boy you know it’s good when I start calling it an episode!) 35, where April had to watch Donnie get knocked out in front of her. My heart definitely wasn’t shattering into a thousand tiny pieces at that moment (sarcastic tone intended). I’ll get into more detail later when I discuss the pacing, but man, did that scene hit like an oncoming bus.

Of course, I can’t leave out Mikey, the Future Turtles, or the Lotus from my gushing on the characterization! Mikey was at his most hilarious within this fanfic, and I’d even go so far as to say he was handled better within this story than in the usual 2012 episodes. Able to be light-hearted, a prankster, a gamer, and life of the party while still having a certain level of gravity and groundedness goes a long way to show that though Mikey may be the party dude, he has a charm and worth that is so much more than just cracking the odd joke here or there. While Leo and the others were certainly excited to have the Lotus staying with them, it was Mikey who went the extra mile to try and learn as many names as possible. And Mikey is the one who coordinated their family movie night to try and get ‘Karaiwa’ cheerful again. He’s an absolute gem who I want to protect, yet I also know that he is beyond capable of protecting himself.

I’ll admit that the Lotus took a bit of getting used to. When I heard there would be another ninja clan, my impromptu thought was ‘ah yes, the perfect way to insert OC’s’ because that’s usually how I’ve seen it handled within other fanfictions. But it definitely didn’t feel that way here. Though they were all original characters, they only served as big of a part as the plot required and were beneficial to the story’s development, instead of detracting from it. Hachisu-no-Hana served as a great parallel for Splinter, as both are heads of a clan who had been wronged by Shredder, but who took very different responses to said wrong-doing. Wakai wasn’t around long, but he emanated a youthful simplicity that made it hard not to like him, and of course Juro and Atsuko were easy to like as well. In the end I found myself liking the clan quite a bit and was hoping for their well-being just as much as I hoped for Karai’s.

Finally, we have the Future Turtles. It’s a bit harder to speak on their personalities, since they are literally different versions of the same characters within the story, but I think they were sufficiently developed enough to stand out from their current counterparts and show how the passage of time can truly make a difference. Leo has of course become a lot more serious, and along with all the other future characters, his moral compass is more black and white. Either you are on his side, or you are an enemy that deserves death; there is no in-between. This change is devastating to see when compared to how Leo currently is, and I would certainly be interested if you ever decided to do a spin-off fic detailing how the future turtles got to their current states. A lot of details have been divulged already, but like any good reader, that just leaves me wanting even more.

Future Raph and Casey seem to do a lot more laughing and have lot more fun than I would have thought, but it makes sense in the context of their relationship and is yet another great addition to their dynamic. Being in a relationship not only strengthens their bond, but themselves as people. Current Casey definitely can’t be described as sensitive, but Future Casey is not only willing but able to lend April an ear along with some solid advice. And Raph is seen helping Leo out more than arguing with him, which really warmed my heart. After Future Splinter’s death, I can imagine how hard it must have been for the turtles; but especially for Leo, who already had a heavy burden as the team leader, but with Splinter gone, that burden can only have hardened. I’m glad Raph decided to step up somewhat and help support him, instead of escalate their rivalry. It shows maturity and caring on his part, both attributes which I believe Raph already possesses, but doesn’t choose to emphasize.

In contrast, Future Mikey and Donnie seem much more solemn than their current selves. Mikey still has that fun-loving spark, but through his calmer mannerisms and way of speaking it is evident that the future events have tampered him down just as thoroughly as they tampered down his brothers. And while Donnie’s seriousness could be attributed to the important matter at the forefront of their time-traveling visit, I believe there’s more than the fate of his family which keeps him grounded. He’s always been the problem-solver of the group, and his brother’s reliance on him can only have escalated after Splinter’s demise. Plus, he lost the ‘best lab assistant in the world,’ so there has been an additional mental and emotional burden for him to carry. And though you didn’t go into the repercussions for this in too much detail, I imagine it must have been absolutely soul-crushing to see Casey go from dating April to Raph. The thoughts of “April is so great, I would have done everything in my power to make her stay,” “how could he abandon her like that?” “Maybe April feels the same way; maybe she was never into guys” and even “maybe she only dated Casey so she could finally get away from us mutants, and now that she has, she doesn’t care anymore.” I don’t know if he’d actually think like that or not, but I can envision him doing so. It must have caused at least a temporal shift between him and the two lovers and cooping himself up within the lab has obviously become a habit at this point. If he still remains within the lab while brought back to the past while his father is alive, then there’s no stopping it at this point. But hopefully he pulls himself together in a similar fashion that current Donnie did, and fixes his relationship with April. That would certainly be an ideal ending, if not an altogether realistic one.

Alright, now to more boring aspects of the story. First off; Grammar! While this has for the most part been on-point and smooth, there are some small things which could have been better to give the story a better flow. Most of these are nit-picks, because there aren’t many faults within this fanfic, but I think they bear mentioning. There were some misplaced words here and there, like “to” instead of “too” (slightly hypocritical since I KNOW I’ve probably made a similar mistake in this review alone) adjectives which were repeated three or more times in a paragraph, and one particular (and this is the most nit-picky comment of all) word phrase which stuck out and really bugged me, which was ‘portable portal.’ I believe the first time you used it, you had just described how the portal was transferrable, and my first thought was “well, if you wrote a whole section describing it as mobile, why did you describe it as portable again?” And then I saw that phrase repeated more than five times, which just led my OCD brain to go crazy. It might also have more to do with the fact that both words have a “po-“ beginning and an “able” or “al” ending, so it sounds like a repetitive description word, but nevertheless that’s more of a me problem than an overall issue.

Next, there is the plot. I read somewhere that the best plots can be outlined in a sentence and described in ten paragraphs, which I believe definitely applies to this story. While my descriptive powers are not great enough to fully divulge ten paragraphs, I shall do my best to review it properly.

It starts out simple enough; Donnie gets a message from his future self and learns that not only can he communicate with himself past the bonds of space and time, but eventually he can meet his future self without the fear of a time paradox. As Donnie and his brothers prepare to meet their future selves, they meet up with a fellow ninja clan who also has a beef with Shredder, and multiple cases of drama ensue as a result. However, there is so much more than that to pick apart in the plot. There’s action, mystery, romance, secrecy, plus a lot of confusion and mixed feelings which help to add tension and character development. And all the character dialogues don’t seem abrupt, out of place, or like mere exposition; they all blend perfectly together to give the story the feel of a big mixing pot, with multiple themes, characters, and motives blending together to give the story/soup an exquisite taste.

I could be wrong, but I think the main message behind this story is that ‘it is not our actions in the past that define us, but our actions in the present.’ In the very first chapter, we see a lot of characters mingling together who all have argued or slightly resented each other in the past. There’s Splinter and Karai, who used to believe she was Shredder’s daughter and wanted revenge on Hamato Yoshi; Casey and April, the former who used to see Raph as a villain, and then later saw Donnie as a romantic rival; the latter who blamed the turtle’s for her father’s mutation, and avoided them for weeks afterwards; and though it’s more minor, the turtles have all had big arguments with each other in the past. But the fic starts with them all united, sharing ‘Sensei Day’ together and really rallying together as one big family. Yet even though they’d love that moment to last forever, it can’t. There’ll be new hardships, arguments and struggles they’ll have to go through, and sometimes it may seem that the bad outweighs the good, like when Karai leaves the lair to go with the Lotus. But if they don’t keep striving for tomorrow, to make the best of fate while at the same time carving their own destiny, then they’ll never know just how beautiful life can be. This is the message I think Future Donnie learned when he urged current Donnie to run after April, and what all of the Future turtles realized when they learned they could time travel to this point. It may have happened in the past, and it might be too late for their happy ending; but who says they couldn’t help bring a happy ending to other versions of themselves?

And of course, this message is closely intertwined with Splinter, Karai, and Oroku Saki. Shredder chose to follow in the footsteps of his former clan; to carve for himself a path of bloodshed and vengeance, which would dictate all the future choices in his life. Splinter had the choice to follow a similar path, but instead took the path less traveled on; the path of peace. This has opened new options for him, as he gained a new family, obtained happy memories to replace the bad, and got to know many amazing people he wouldn’t have otherwise. Who knows if he would have met April, Kirby, Murasaki, Leatherhead, or Kurtzmann if not for his sons? And while Splinter tries to tell Karai that to choose peace is to choose the higher option, Karai has been raised by the Shredder for too long, and her thoughts are obviously tainted by her false father’s teachings. After all, surely someone who hides away from a fight is the bigger coward…? Surely more honor belongs to the man who seeks out his opponents and does away with them…right?

This is all part of why the Shredder-Splinter-Karai relationship is so compelling. Karai is literally the gray line, separating Splinter’s white and Shredder’s black; she has parts of both of them within her, which makes her choices and actions truly interesting. Someone who is neutral is more relatable than someone who is wholly good or wholly bad, and (at least for me), we want to see what she does because we want to know how we’d react in those same situations. Personally, I can’t fault Karai for a single one of her actions and could see myself making the same mistakes. Even if every part of my rationale told me to trust Splinter, I wouldn’t be able to wholly turn myself away from someone who’d raised me from birth. I’d want to cut off that wrongness, that falseness from my life so I could truly feel free, and that perfectly describes what Karai does. She can’t separate what happened in her past, so she wants to cut it out; even though Splinter and the others don’t care about her past, they just want to help and support her current decisions. I hope Karai comes to realize this by the end of the fic, and that her bond with the others becomes stronger as a result of this whole experience.

For the final tidbit of this review, I’d like to go over the pacing. Like everything else within this fanfic, the pacing has been very smooth and well-handled, with one event following another like dominos falling one after the other. The first chapter starts with a peaceful scene, which leads into a comedic scene in the next chapter, which in turn leads to a romantic scene gone wrong in the third chapter. The progression feels very natural, and the slow as syrup beginning is perfect to help ease the reader into the action. I described the fic as a screenplay earlier, because the events really do take place in a movie-like pace. The tripartite structure has long been lauded as the perfect story system, and that still holds true to this day. Having three big acts which are either followed or preceded by a consecutive list of smaller acts is the perfect way to hype up your big scenes and give them more weight, which your fanfic certainly did.

I promised I would go into a little more detail for Chapter 35 and go into detail I shall. At this point I think you have the three-part structure down so well, that you’re even starting to instill it into your chapters! The first act starts out peacefully, if slightly tear-jerking; the Future turtles say good-bye to Splinter for the last time, and he had some great advice to give the four of them. Once again I found the fanfic hitting close to home with me, as my grandmother has Alzheimer’s and I know any day could be the last day I say bye to her. I swear, your fanfic is going to be one of those I return to over and over again just for the little personal tidbits of emotion it gives me!

Anyways, returning to the topic; the second part of the chapter sees the different groups initiating their plans. Leo, April and Mikey taking the secret passage by the church catacombs, and Donnie, Raph and Casey entering through Baxter Stockman’s lab. Of course, things don’t start out well for either group, as Leo’s group/Team Nerf gets the ceiling caved in on them, and Donnie’s group/Team Roof has some mutated human kids attack them. I was thinking this would be the point the Future Turtles come in to help, but since they don’t I’m sure there’s another aspect to the plan that the Leo’s are looking out for. Perhaps they realize that Karai would have split off from the main Lotus group and want to save some man-power to help her when the time comes.

And then, the third/final act of the chapter comes and gives me a minor heart attack. Three mutants aptly named Lock, Shock and Barrel enter the fray thanks to Rahzar, and don’t only injure most of the main fighters; Barrel knocks out Donnie as well. The turtles, Casey and April barely manage to defeat Barrel before the focus returns to Karai, who places herself straight in Shredder’s den amidst a throng of enemies. While cliffhangers aren’t my favorite things in the world (again; intended sarcasm), I do think it was perfectly timed here. Any more action taking place would just be too much, and at least you ended it in a way that reminded us readers of the important stakes behind their battle. Even though the turtles may be beaten and battered, it is imperative they push on; not just for their sakes, not even just for Karai, but also for the Lotus, Future Turtles, Splinter, and everyone else the Shredder has hurt. While it is true they can’t turn back time and reverse all the evil he has done, they can at least stop his hand right now, and save those that matter most to them. And that is truly the most important cause the turtles could have for their fight.

[entwinedmoon]

John Torrington: Reflections

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Today, January 1, 2020, is the 174th anniversary of John Torrington’s death. Him dying on New Year’s Day must have dampened whatever celebrations the crew were most likely enjoying, a dark day in a quite literally dark month, as the sun would not return for some time. He would have been buried in that endless night, during a snowstorm (a layer of snow was still preserved on top of his coffin), the first death in what had so far been a successful expedition. A death so soon may have worried the crew, but since it was due to an illness he’d brought with him, it may have just been considered a fluke. They may not have been concerned, still thinking they would make it through and discover the last piece of the Northwest Passage. If they had succeeded, Torrington would have been a minor footnote in the history of a triumphant journey, his grave a small curiosity for anyone who may pass by. But no one made it home from the Franklin Expedition, and Torrington is now seen as an early warning sign of the tragedy awaiting the rest of the men.

Why is it that, after all these years, anyone still talks about Torrington? What is the fascination with him and the other men buried on Beechey? I know what draws me to his story, and while I can’t speak for everyone, I think there are at least some people who share the same reasons.

So what intrigues me about John Torrington? Why did I write this series, spanning eleven blog posts and over 25,000 words (that’s half a book!), about a 174-years-dead Victorian sailor, spending my spare time researching and dedicating long hours to studying his life and death?

In trying to pin down just what fascinates me about Torrington, I went through some of my old writing, and I found this little snippet from an essay I never finished. It was written almost ten years ago, on January 13, 2010:

It was all John Torrington’s fault. I couldn’t sleep because of that frozen grimace, mouth and eyes both slightly open—eyes, intact, seriously, staring back at me. He just stares, cold, frozen, dead. I’m not likely to go on a polar expedition any time soon and possibly die from lead-tainted food or whatever killed him, but it’s not that idea that frightens me. He stares at me in the night, in the corners, in the reflections in the moonlit mirror on my closet door, in the folds of the dirty laundry on the floor, he’s there, staring at me. Going to the bathroom at night is the worst, walking through the dark hallway, knowing he’s following me, just behind me, out of sight, but still manages to jump ahead to stare at me in the split second before the bathroom light comes on, inches from my face in the thick darkness, but then he runs and hides again in the shadows of the hall, lurking, waiting to follow me back to my room.

Sometimes it’s Otzi or Jaunita or Ida Girl or Cherchen Man. Never King Tut or Ramses II for some reason though. But John has always stood above the rest, just the memory of a picture haunting me.

As you can see, I had a slightly different attitude toward Torrington back then. To explain this, let me start from the beginning.

When I was about seven or eight, my older brother brought home a copy of Buried in Ice from school, where he was learning about the Franklin Expedition. He of course shared the pictures in the book with me and my older sister because he thought they were creepy and that’s what you do when you’re a kid, you share creepy stuff to try to scare your siblings. I’m in my early thirties now, so the memory has faded over the years, but there’s still a lot that stands out even now. I remember eating a particular type of corn chip that to this day I associate the flavor of with lead poisoning. My brother told me about how the brains of the three mummies had turned into a yellow liquid—something we thought was gross but also cool for some reason. I remember that there was no way to just flip the book over to cover up the picture of Torrington on the front cover because—oh goodie—there was a picture of him on the back too. My brother and I commented on the golden color of Torrington’s discolored skin (I don’t know why we thought “golden” instead of yellow—it sounds more poetic to call it “golden” but that was certainly not our intention). I also remember that later, after my brother had returned the book to school but we were still haunted by the images, we couldn’t recall the names of Hartnell and Braine, so we called them Big Head and Snarl Face instead. But we remembered the name Torrington, probably because he was featured more prominently in the book. And due to that prominence, Torrington was the one I would think of when lying in bed at night, watching shadows in the closet morph into monsters.

To try to combat my fear, I used a trick I’d learned where I turn the scary thing into something ridiculous (this was before Harry Potter was published, but it’s the same theory as how to fight a Boggart). I put the three mummies into a long-running story that I’d made up in my head—and I made them undead idiots. Like zombie versions of Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, I did that. I made them weird funny sidekicks in my story, but it didn’t really stop me being afraid when I saw pictures of them again.

Remarkably, despite being terrified of Torrington, I became obsessed with mummies as a kid, an obsession that continues to this day. I would marvel over pictures of Tollund Man, Ötzi, and the Qilakitsoq mummies of Greenland.

But not John Torrington.

Whenever I would flip through a book about mummies, if I encountered a picture of Torrington, I would slam my hand over the page to cover it. I would be creeped out by other mummies, but it was never to the same level as it was with Torrington. And yet, I would still be compelled to peek, even after covering the page. I would regret it immediately, but there was something that made me want to look, even though looking at him was the last thing I wanted to do.

Over the years, Torrington would find his way into a few more stories of mine, in some form or another. In college, I wrote a short story for a fiction writing class where the picture of Torrington on the cover of Frozen in Time started talking to a young woman, representing her repressed thoughts and fears (he cracked a lot of jokes in that one). At that point in time, however, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read Frozen in Time. I had bought a copy a while ago—the 2004 revised edition—and when it arrived from Amazon I flipped through it, telling myself that I was an adult and I loved mummies and I could bravely face the pictures of these boogeymen from my childhood.

That last part turned out to be incorrect. Several weeks of being too afraid to turn off the light at night ensued. I wouldn’t read the book for another eight or nine years.

But eventually I did read it, multiple times in fact, and I’m no longer terrified of pictures of Torrington, or Hartnell and Braine. That all started a little less than two years ago.

It began with another story idea I had that incorporated Torrington, one I have yet to write. I thought I should do some research into him first if I was going to include him. Around the same time, The Terror was airing on AMC. The exact timeline is a little hazy for me, because the story idea actually first came to me at the end of 2017, but The Terror first aired in March 2018. I can’t remember if I had the idea to add Torrington to my story before I started watching The Terror or not, but I think it was before.

Once I started researching Torrington and the Franklin Expedition, I quickly became obsessed. I had poked around Franklin research before, but my fear of Torrington would always hold me back. I would peer through my fingers at pictures and facts, but I could never do more than that. But now I was hooked.

My childhood nightmares were there at first, just out of the corner of my eye, but my research started to shift those in strange ways. I had always seen Torrington as this ancient, towering monster, but then I discovered that he was only twenty when he died and stood at only five-foot-four. I’m older than him. I’m taller than him. His desiccated body weighed less than ninety pounds, which I definitely weigh more than. Basically, if he came charging out of the closet, I could take him.

But what really drew me in was realizing that we knew so little about him. I could look at a picture of his face, frozen in time, but I couldn’t reach back into the past to ask him about himself. I’ve known about him almost my whole life, with him skulking in a corner of my brain, stepping out of the shadows every now and then, but I didn’t really know who he was as a person. The Franklin Expedition can drive people mad with the mystery of what happened to the men after they entered the Arctic, but suddenly I became obsessed with knowing what had happened before the expedition. Who was John Torrington? Who was this guy that has occupied my dreams and nightmares, who has taken up a permanent residence in my mind ever since I first laid eyes on him? Who was this young man who has somehow been a part of my life for so long, but whom I know so little about?

I know I’m not the only one who has been asking these questions, or who has been living with the Franklin ice mummies in their heads. I’ve met some amazing people online who are just as obsessed, if not more so. Thanks to this series, I’ve had people contact me about their own interest in Torrington and the Beechey Boys and how they understand my love for them.

Many times before, I’ve attempted to put in words just what draws me to mummies. In 2011 I even started a long-since-abandoned blog about mummies called Digging the Dead, where I tried to explain my interest. But I’m going to try my best now to pin down what has compelled me to study Torrington, and why he keeps popping up in my life.

I think part of the appeal of Torrington—and Hartnell and Braine—is the shockingly alive appearance of their preserved bodies, with some morbid curiosity over their undead vibe thrown in. The preservation of a body, preventing the natural process of decay, is fascinating. It’s a type of immortality, although one the mummy doesn’t get to enjoy. Torrington looks like he could get up and walk around—possibly in a zombie-like way, but still. He looks more like a real person than some mummies, like bog bodies that became too twisted by the weight of the peat or desert mummies that have a freeze-dried appearance. But a large part of the fascination with Torrington, and mummies in general, is that it’s like touching a piece of the past. When we see their pictures, we’re looking at something that is from a time long gone, but they seem so very present, so tangible in the here and now. They are time travelers, in a way, and this is our way of reaching out to them across the years.

And with the mystery of the Franklin Expedition, Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine add an extra layer of intrigue as well as reminding us that there were more than just officers on board. We have pictures of Franklin, Crozier, Fitzjames, and many of the lieutenants and mates, but the ordinary sailors and marines didn’t have the luxury of having their pictures taken. What they looked like has been lost to time, but the preserved remains of Torrington and the Beechey Boys literally puts a human face on the ordinary men of the expedition, the ones who never wrote memoirs or had journals that were preserved for posterity. Men who have been largely forgotten by history, who don’t get the same reverence we give the captains, who don’t get memorials or landmarks in their names. When thinking of the men of the Franklin Expedition setting sail for their destiny, it’s easy to see Torrington on deck—alive, his striped shirt billowing in the wind as they sail toward Lancaster Sound—and to imagine that these were working ships, fully manned with ordinary people who led regular lives and had dreams of what they would do when they returned home to double pay and the fame of having helped discover the Northwest Passage.

But on January 1, 1846, those dreams winked out for one of those men. On this day, I think not about how well Torrington’s body has defied time and decomposition, but about who sat with him as he passed. Was he alone? Did he have friends on the crew? And what of his family back home? Did they toast him and his journey, not knowing that he was gone?

Who said a prayer for John Torrington 174 years ago?

If it’s not too late, I think I’ll say one for him today.

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Torrington Series Masterlist

[jazzy-writes]

An Update+A Rant

An Update

Hi! I know I haven’t made an actual post in a while and I’m sorry they’ve been extremely inconsistent. I would also like to say thank you for 50 followers! I’m so happy you found my blog and like it enough to follow me!

This post will be more of an organizational post for my wips and other projects I am working on, so I apologize if it is a little all over the place and informal.

I finally finished a wip… kinda… sorta…

This is my wip Charlotte, a short story gore series.

I wrote four parts even though it could have been six. The four parts in order are ‘Him’, ‘Her’, ‘He’, and ‘She’. He was the first part it’s the shortest at 1,000 words and I wrote it about a year ago. (which is crazy to me) At the time I thought it was really good but I reread it now and it’s poop. However, I refuse to edit it because it really shows growth, and how I've improved as a writer. Of course, I could edit it or rewrite it but I love having that... Like evidence that I am getting better and I can definitely continue to get better. Along with that ‘He’ the third part of the series, I hated after I wrote it. I thought it was atrocious and wanted to throw the whole thing away. A little while later I wanted to prove to myself that I could write something substantial that I did like. So I wrote “” it’s literally titled “” because I have no name for it. It came out as 5,000 words which is the longest ‘chapter’ or ‘short story’ I’ve ever written. (don’t judge lol) I was actually happy with it, I thought the word choice was good, the pacing was good, it seemed pretty great. However, it had absolutely no purpose. It could have been the start of a new wip but the main character was a blank sheet of paper and could have played a more side character role in the overall plot. During this time all of my other wips that had a “plot” I had absolutely no idea what to do with. I couldn’t continue anything and starting something new would just make everything more complicated.

So I took a break from writing altogether for almost three weeks, I tried to work a few things out and ended up dropping a few wips completely. The first thing I decided to work on when coming back was actually a one-shot for two of my OC's that were introduced in “”. That is Cozzy, Connor and Ozzy(or Oswyn which is his full name) but I actually liked it a lot and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed writing after being so unsatisfied with it. I finished up the Charlotte series with ‘She’ which I liked a lot actually, now before I get into other wips here are a few things I learned during and after my writing break:

Don’t compare your work to others- I know this can seem generic and simple but it’s very important to learn if you want to be remotely satisfied with your writing. You need to understand that it's YOUR writing and it won’t look like anyone else’s whether that’s based on word choice or word count. It’s good to be able to learn from others without pulling yourself down by comparison.

Understand not everyone will like your writing- I would be childish and get upset if I felt someone didn’t like my work even if they had only hinted at it. I craved validation and yes I still do but I realized that if you let that one person or few people who don’t like your writing make you upset then you aren’t writing for yourself. Which brings me to...

Write for yourself- Write what makes you happy, write when you need a release, write whenever you want to. Don’t write for someone to say it’s good, don’t write just because you want praise, write for yourself!

These things helped me become more satisfied with my work, these are the things that work for me and it might not work for everyone but you should at least try it. Back to explaining my wips:

Charlotte- I finished the four parts and it hit over 11,000 words which I am proud of. (Be proud of your work!) I am actually posting three of the parts (Not the first part because the last three parts work more cohesively together) on my wattpad account.

I have a wattpad account!

It is @CinnabonOreo 

But yes I published Charlotte on there so you can go check it out, there is one extremely old wip on there that I do not like talking about but refuse to delete. If you can please go read and maybe vote, and also possibly follow me if you're feeling really generous.

I have done one full one shot for Cozzy, my Oc ship, and I’m trying to finish the second one. I’ve been putting off the ending for like a week and a half and it’s kind of sad I haven’t finished. The first (we will call them chapters for now) chapter was “Chocolate Covered Strawberries” and it’s how my Oc’s met, also it’s a college au. The first chapter is super soft and all uwu first date. The second chapter is more angsty (oof I cringed too) and a lot longer, it will probably reach 5,000 words it’s called Strawberry Scented Shampoo. There is supposed to be a fruit theme but I’m not sure what the overall name will be other than Cozzy one-shots. Anyways I have a third chapter in mind but I’m not completely sure of it yet. I want to do OC intros for Connor and Ozzy on here so watch out for that and I will probably post the first two chapters on wattpad once I figure out a name.

I have another wip idea (just a really quick short story) called Bethanne. Bethanne will be similar to Charlotte, if you haven’t seen my wip intro, Charlotte is a gore short story series. If we compare the two them, in both I’m just taking one person and applying their dynamic to certain situations. Charlotte murders in a ritualistic way, she wants to make sure beauty can only exist in a world that is not this world. Bethanne has a completely different dynamic and in short, she is a yandere… sorry. But Bethanne will probably be only one maybe two “chapters” and that’s it, just to go ahead and finish the idea since I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

Lastly, there is my poem it doesn’t have an official name yet but its theme is uneasiness in beauty, a topic I’ve been thinking about for a while. I won’t say much about it but I am auditioning to perform it at a school talent show type thing. I’m doing it as slam poetry which is very hard to do correctly so if anyone has any tips please dm me. I am very anxious since auditions are soon and it’s not completely done and I need to start rehearsing lol.

Those are all my current wips, I’m upset that I don’t have a full, plot worthy novel idea. I dropped one during my break and the other one I’m very unsure about. This was my first ever huge wip idea and I’ve had it sort of planned out for four years. I wrote the first eight chapters but that was about two years ago. (it’s not the best) I want to write and solely work on that one thing but I’m so afraid of wasting my time on something that won’t be good enough. (sorry I got all serious and shit) I like the wip idea but it needs a lot of reconstructing and I’ve tried to reconstruct it multiple times and it never really works out. I know I should write for myself (lol like I said earlier) but I’m soooooooooo afraid of wasting my time. I don’t want to give up on it because I’ve fallen in love with the idea again and again but I don’t want it to weigh me down so I’m still debating it.

Anyways if you read to the end thank you for reading my rant, I appreciate you for taking time out of your day. If you want to you can follow my wattpad and read Charlotte. Thank you!

-j.

Wattpad: https://my.w.tt/iR6DxkYnKU

Charlotte: https://my.w.tt/vnQ3se2pKU

[beardyallen]

Well, that went quickly...

What day is it? I’m starting to lose track of how long I’ve been here...

Well, it’s been a week since my last post, and it seems that a lot must have happened, but honestly I feel like I’ve just been cranking through a bunch of comic books.

But I do know that Friday and Saturday involved a good deal excitement, so I guess we had might as well pick up pretty much where we left off!

Last Friday was Orientation for ICB, which meant getting all of the 35-40 instructors, 10 staff members, and the 6-8 people in charge of this program together in a room to introduce us to...basically what we’d been doing all that week. Also, aside from a couple study-abroad-undergrads and my officemate and me, everyone there had probably already heard the spiel.

It was scheduled from 5p-6p with a buffett afterwards, but a bunch of the Communications people from my floor were going out to eat (again?) afterwards, so I made plans with NR. She wanted to try this Mexican restaurant in what I’ll describe as the “international district” of Beijing. Most everything around us when we got there looked like it belonged in literally every metropolitan area in the world. Every major brand you can imagine had a store. Multiple. Too many...

But the Mexican restaurant we visited is owned and managed by a Mexican expat, apparently. He even stopped by our table to ask how the food was, and let me tell you: that quesadilla was the BOMB!!! And the margarita was pretty good (not as good as MHO’C’s, though!). By the time we finished up dinner, it was kind of late, so we wondered around the shopping center, found a bookstore. You know: the usual.

Fun fact: when a store or restaurant wants to indicate to their patrons that they are getting ready to close, they play smooth jazz and turn the lights down. Like for real. Had their not been windows open to the pavilion outside with it’s hundreds of light displays, I would have been seriously concerned when the lights in the place just went out and Kenny G popped up on the speakers.

We entertained the idea of finding the cinema nearby to see Alita Battle Angel, but during the 15 minutes that we spent wondering around in search of the complex, it seemed to elude us. Plus it was getting close to that time when the subway shuts down, and I wasn’t exactly hankering for a taxi ride this early in my stay....if at all.

The next morning, I got up early to meet back up with NR at the National Museum near the Forbidden City. Now, for the most part, the stairs I get don’t bother me. But I will say, if you’re going to stair at the pasty white guy with a hard-to-describe-its-color-accurately-beard, maybe don’t do it when you’re going 15 mph on a bike, facing in the wrong direction! *sigh.....Some people’s kids...

But what really bothered me, especially at the time, was the father-of-three who straight-up filmed me on his phone from 5 feet away for a solid 6 minutes, three hallways, and two escalators! I get it, I’m funny looking. But I really think I a picture would have done just fine...

One of the things that bothered me the most about that experience was that (a) he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, (b) his daughters seemed rather embarrassed, (c) he filmed me with the screen aimed at me so I could watch myself on his phone, (d) there was text on the screen, and (e) it went on for a solid 6 minutes.

In hindsight, I was wearing sunglasses and a hat, in a subway system, in the morning, heading to the center of Beijing. Maybe he thought I was a celebrity? I had spoken to a Communications graduate student the other day who happens to be black, and he told me the story of how a citizen here pull out their phone with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on it, and gestured to him as it to ask if it were him...even though SLJ is for sure at 70 years old and this kid is no more than 35. And he looks 25. #smh

Anyway, after dealing with whatever the hell that was, I got to visit the museum! They, for whatever reason, were not allowing people to bring their charging blocks into the museum (external battery that you can use to charge your cell phone and other devices on-the-go), but more surprising to me was just how many people carried one with them! At least, it was surprising until I took a moment to think about it. As I’ve mentioned before, basically every payment made in Beijing is through WeChat, which needs internet access, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. You also really can’t navigate through the city with some sort of Maps app; there are just too many bus routes, train routes, terminals and stops to keep logged in your head.

As far as the museum itself goes, the gifts to China from foreign governments exhibit and the Ancient China exhibit themselves took most of the day. Also, no surprise: the gift that took up the most floor space was given by a U.S. President. I also got a refresher in 8th Grade Social Studies. Too many small countries to remember all of them, and that space made me feel somewhat moronic.

The Ancient China exhibit was exceptional, though. They broke up the last, oh...750,000 years of human-ish life in China into 8-10 separate eras, the first few cataloguing the life and evolution of Homo erectus pekinensis into Homo sapien, while the latter eras were segregated dynastically. I’ve never seen the progression of human evolution laid out in such detail! The rock tools became better rock tools, then pottery and paper, stamps, buildings and so much more! There were even ceremonial helmets that would put the Juggernaut to shame!

It was strange, though, to have all of this knowledge just beyond my fingertips both literally and figuratively. The literal sense isn’t too shocking, as I’ve been to a museum before and know not to touch the pieces, but to have placards written in a language that would take years to learn was frustrating. Fortunately, NR has a never-ending supply of patience, and she translated much of the text. She even quizzed me on several of the characters. I’ve worked out how to write “rock” for sure.

After the museum, we wondered over to a nearby mall that, honestly, puts the Mall of America to shame. No joke. This place was huge! It just kept going and going and going! There was a particular alley that has all of the “exotic foods” that you might see on The Amazing Race, which I haven’t tried yet but intend to, but the rest is mostly-outdoor shopping center. Our reason for being there was to find food (we had been in the museum for a bit over 7 hours), and then sit our fine asses down in a movie theater to watch Alita.

We found a restaurant that served food traditionally found where NR grew up. It was exceptional. And the beer just made it better. :P

The movie experience was something else entirely. I’ve gotten used to watching television and movies with subtitles so that, when people decide to talk to me, I can follow along with both bits. Or if people are just talking near me while I’m watching television, I don’t have to rewind the show. That helped a lot; the movie was still spoken in English, but there were Chinese subtitles. I recognized the Chinese character for “1″ frequently enough, but that was about it.

The movie itself was way more than I expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that one of the primary characters is played by Christoph Waltz. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely consider it.

Also, additional fun fact: I’m thinking that most (if not all) showings of major motion pictures here are in 3D. *shrug* Side note: we’re going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow and I’M SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!!

After the movie, we wandered back to the subway station and parted ways mid-subway-ride to head home. The next day I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and sipping some beer in the 3rd Floor Lounge. All day. It was blissful.

This workweek has consisted of four main things: teaching responsibilities, a bit of dissertation work, trying out another one of the cafeterias on campus, and reading comic books. Oh, and beer. But that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There’s a convenience store on the other side of the building in front of the Guest House that has cans of beer. You can buy them individual for 3 yuan, or roughly 45 cents. I won’t lie to you: I bought 12 of them and it didn’t cost me more than 6 bucks. And it’s really not bad, and even more convenient than the liquor store I lived by in Denver.

Anyway, as I said, I’m going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow, then to “W-Town” (originally Watertown...so glad they shortened it...) in northern Beijing, which sits at the base of part of the Great Wall. More than 20 people from ICB will be heading up to their on Saturday, so I imagine one of them will take pictures. Probably ML or S. So you’ll have those to look forward to since you know I won’t be taking any!

Oh!!! I almost forgot the biggest thing that happened this week! Actually, it might be the biggest news of my entire stay!!!

I did laundry.

And I washed my slippers. I’m not convinced that they’ve stopped smelling, but I’m holding out hope that I’ve finally figured out how to resolve an issue that I know humanity has been seriously struggling with for decades. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, people, I swear!

Anyway, time to finish this beer, read a bit more of Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves (WE FINALLY FIND OUT ABOUT SABETHA!!!!), and head to bed. Big couple of days ahead...

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

P.S. I bet you thought I was gonna forget! After class on Wednesday, I worked out how to make a phone call from here to the States to wish my Mom a Happy BIrthday. Caught her at work, and we got to chat for a good long while. It really put a nice cap on my evening, and it seemed it gave her a good start to her day. Anyway, I hope you had a great evening, found something nice at C&B and enjoyed that glass of wine you mentioned! Love you!!

[generatorera]

I don’t post often, but when I do, it’s because there’s something I really want to talk about. Like this.

If you’re a fan of Spider-Man, Insomniac and or potentially great games in general, you’re probably aware of the new game that recently came out. Let me just say that it was definitely worth the wait. This is not just a great game, but a great Spider-Man game. It is perhaps the best version of the character and his universe that I have seen. When Insomniac’s creative director said they know what he means to people, he meant it. I do have a few minor complaints but overall, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

That being said, I want to talk about this trailer in particular. It was released the day before the game released (unless you went to the midnight release) and when I said Insomniac knows Spider-Man, this trailer is a clear testament to that. 

It starts off with the game’s main villain, Mr. Negative blasting Spider-Man out of the top of the building, sending him and the building’s debris plummeting to the ground. As he gets closer, the world starts turning dark and time begins to slow down. There’s a neon sign in the background that says ‘Deep End’ and the meaning behind it becomes more apparent. Someone whispers Spider-Man’s name softly as Spidey closes his eyes in his slowed down, darken state. Then, a demonic voice yells “You’re Nothing!” and out of nowhere, Shocker grabs Spider-Man and pulls him up. He’s standing on the floating debris and punches him through it. As he hurdles down, multiple voices call him a “Nobody, Loser, a Freak!” just as Electro floats above him and zaps him downward. As he hurdles back down, Vulture flies up to him and kicks him down as a female voice says, “You don’t belong here!” As he slows down again, Scorpion’s tail wraps around him as more voices tell him to “Give up” and that he’s “Useless, disgrace, a failure!” and Scorpion throws him down into the debris. Spider-Man finally lands, but before he can even get up, Rhino steps on him. As he glares at the hero, all the voices finish by saying, “Everyone hates you!” Then Rhino stomps him down and he falls through the ground, into a pitch black space with the only light coming through the hole he came through as he slowly falls.

If this isn’t a metaphor for depression, I don’t know what is. Spider-Man was made to be the most relatable hero, the everyman, the guy we can see ourselves as. In this universe, Spider-Man has been around for eight years, faced all of these guys but Mr. Negative is the newest threat. Even with all he’s experience and skills, he still struggles against the newest member of his rouges gallery. We can see how this relates to ourselves. As we get older, we hone our skills and get better at what we do. However, that doesn’t make us perfect and unbeatable. There are times where after years of learning, we are met with a new threat, one that challenges us in ways we never imagined. We can try to fight it but despite our efforts, we can still fail and fall like Spider-Man did. When we do fail, we sometimes think back to the struggles we previously had and how hard they were to overcome. We think back to our other failures even if we don’t want to. Eventually, we send ourselves to our lowest point with little strength to get back up. We enter the deep end of ourselves.

However, in his deep end, Spider-Man heard the voice of Aunt May, the woman who raised him, sacrificed so much and got so little in return all for her family, telling him to “Get up” which is probably a reference to all the times she had to wake Peter up for school after sleeping late, which was probably due to all his late night patrols. However, it was enough to shake Spidey out of the faze and back into reality. He uses his webs to pull himself back up, while enter the dark world again and kicking Rhino in the face, causing him to vanish. Back in reality, Spider-Man is webbing up all the falling debris as he works his way back up to the top of the building. He reenters the dark world, webs zips onto Scorpion and causes him to fade as well. Spider-Man continues to make his way back up and goes back to the villains as he shoots Vulture with a web and throws him into the remain debris. Spider-Man makes one last stop to the real web, webbing up whatever remains, then goes back to the dark world and hits Electro with a web line and pulls him onto the ground. All that’s left is Shocker as he prepares to shoot Spidey with a shock wave but Spidey, using his momentum, grabs Shocker, spins around, tosses him above himself, shoots a web line, pulls him in, lets out a scream of power, and finally punches him into dust like all the rest. Finally out of the dark world, Spider-Man is about to reach the top as we see behind him, the debris is all webbed up, as he kept all of it from hitting the ground. On the street level, everyone in New York who say, all of whom probably hated Spider-Man when he first appeared in this world, cheered for him, seeing his accomplishment. At the top, Mr. Negative turns around in shock as he sees Spider-Man back up on top, shooting a web line, ready to fight him again. The two then  resume their fight, which is more or less even, as a man from the real world watches on as he says to the audience, “Some see self-debt as an invitation to be greater. This is your opportunity to prove it.”

So. Much. Awesome. If the first part showed how we fall into depression, the second part shows us getting out. When we feel like the whole world is against us, there is also someone, even if you feel there isn’t, who still loves us and wants us to succeed like Aunt May does for Peter. When Spidey stopped himself from falling, he was able to keep up the momentum and make his way up to the top, catching the debris and fighting the villains. It shows that sometimes the hardest part of something is starting but when we start we can keep going for as long as we want, reminding ourselves that, while we failed in the past, we have also succeeded and overcome the odds against us. It’s with this I think back to a line I heard in my new favorite anime “My Hero Academia” which was, “remember where we started, who I am, how I got here.” If we remember all that when facing the odds, remember what drives us, where we get our strength from, and what we can do now, we can fight the challenges ahead and win the day and be ready to take on the next challenge, even if we don’t know if we’re gonna win or not.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you probably know all this is obvious. All I’m saying isn’t new. Hell, what this trailer did has probably been done in others before. However, this is the first time I’ve seen it done so well with a character I love so much with only a few seconds to work with. It reminds me why I love Spider-Man and heroes in general. A lot of people say heroes are boring and easy to predict and they’re not wrong. Sometimes heroes can come across as that. However, there are so many stories and works that show that being a hero is a lot more complex than people think it is and why, even if they can seem boring at a first glance. I’m also reminded of how the heroes were sometimes presented with a seemingly unbeatable threat that seemed impossible to overcome and yet they did it anyway. Some people call this an ass pull or ridiculous or bad writing. In cases like these I disagree. I think that as long as it seems plausible fits the world that was made, it can make for a truly epic moment. You either loved the train scene in Spider-Man 2 or hated it, you either loved Deku vs Muscular or hated it, you either loved it when a character was almost defeated and displayed overwhelming strength to overcome the odds at the last second or hated it. I for one, loved seeing this. Even when it’s not done well or right, I’m still soft around knowing the message it’s trying to display. I’ve said before, I’m not a critic, I don’t intend to be one, so there’s a lot of things I like even if a lot of it is controversial. Call me an idiot who forgives to easy with bad taste, I don’t care. I do what makes me happy and unless I hurt someone or myself, I don’t care what others say about me. Like Spider-Man, I want to face the odds and do what I think is right, even if the world’s against me. 

That is why I love this trailer, this game, this character, and so many more things I that inspire me to be greater.

[alohomorastudies]

Hey guys! I took the AP World History exam this past year (2017) and because I felt confident enough with my score, I am giving you some tips and tricks on how to do well on it.

A quick overview: The College Board splits World History into six time periods: Unit One (history - 600 BCE), Unit Two (600 BCE - 600 CE), Unit Three (600 CE - 1450 CE), Unit Four (1450 CE - 1750 CE), Unit Five (1750 CE - 1914 CE), and Unit Six (1914 CE - Present). The exam is split into three sections: the multiple choice, the short answers, and the essays. You have 55 minutes for 55 questions for the multiple choice, 50 minutes for four short answers, and 1.5 hours for two essays (I think they're changing this next year?? not sure). The two essays are a document based question (DBQ) and a long essay question (LEQ). The DBQ is where they give you 7-8 documents and using those, you have to write an essay about the topic, and the LEQ is where they give you two different topics and you choose one of them to write about.

A little personal story: My AP World History class was a mess. Our tests were crazy hard because it tested us on very specific facts from our textbook. Our teacher also expected us to take notes on 20-30 pages of dense textbook pages, and not having discovered the studyblr community then, it was my biggest struggle of freshman year. My advice is mostly based on what other AP World classes are like and also some personal experience.

General tips... 

Buy the Princeton Review prep book for AP World History. It has really good content that doesn't have too much information, and this is a great supplement for the school year (basically self study from this book alongside learning about it during the school year).

Buy the Crash Course prep book for short term review. I personally didn't use it because by the time I learned about there was only 2? weeks until the AP exam, so I didn't think it was really worth it, but some of my friends that used it said that it was very helpful because it was so condensed.

Start studying early. I know its already pretty late in the summer, but you can start now! There is so much information in AP World to learn (I mean, its like 10,000 years of work crammed into one year!). My class quickly fell behind on content, and we never even got to learn about the Cold War in class :(. So if you don't want to self study the difficult events, start studying now!

For pre-studying, I would recommend trying to get through the first two units because not much was going on in those time periods. Also, its a lot easier to juggle themes in these time periods, and basically these time period are easy to understand.

If your class does start falling behind in content (I would say the French Revolution by winter break is pretty good), your best bet at succeeding is reviewing and studying ahead during spring break. Really focus on studying ahead because it's really important that you get to current day events (but not too specific luckily). You can briefly focus on previous chapters, but at this point, having a somewhat good cover of everything is better than knowing mostly everything super well but not knowing some things at all. I made the mistake of studying everything from the Cold War to present day in the last week. I had several sleepless nights, but this just proves that the Princeton Review book is actually very good:(

DO NOT FOCUS ON FACTS, FOCUS ON THEMES!!! This has got to be my most important tidbit. AP World History is more focused on the trends than trivial facts (unlike the SAT II World History). Take some notes on the general trends of each time period (you can find them in the AP World History Course Description) AND KEEP THEM IN MIND WHILE YOU ARE READING YOUR PREP BOOK. 

Completely contradicting what I've said before, know some very detailed facts (lol). These can help you understand the larger trends going on, and they could be useful for the short answers and essays. However, I would recommend remembering these facts by using them as evidence for the trends.

Unless your class was like mine in which every week we had to remember very trivial information about history that consumed all of our time, then you want to go over everything you've ever learned about world history every one or two weeks. This will definitely help in the long run when you're planning out a study plan because you already remember so much information!

Getting into the actual exam...

Go quickly on the multiple choice. As with any multiple choice, it's better if you finish earlier so you can check your work.

In order to fully understand the content on the multiple choice and the format, take a practice test. I found that the Barron's practice test were the most similar to the actual exam, so it might be worth it to invest in one. Or maybe you could borrow one from a friend. Either way, take practice tests— you won't regret it.

Understand the essay formats and what they're looking for. The AP World essays mostly test you on writing like a historian, not an English professor. There are some key components in these essays that you must get, otherwise your score will start to slowly drop. For example, if you have a perfectly written DBQ but forget the contextualization, your DBQ score will go down. Just keep in mind all of the parts while writing your essay, its simple enough.

ANSWER THE QUESTION!! A lot of people (apparently) don't do well on the essays because they start rambling and talking about a completely different topic. As long as you answer the question by supporting it with facts, you will get a majority of the essay points.

Quality ≠ Quantity. The recommended length for the DBQ is 4-5 pages while the recommended length for the LEQ is 3-4 pages. COMPLETELY SCRATCH THIS INFORMATION. My DBQ was a little over 2 pages, and my LEQ was exactly two pages, and I am very happy with my score. As long as you answer the question, your essay doesn't need to be 4-5 pages.

Follow the recommended timing for the essays (I think they're adding time for both essays next year not sure though). I almost didn't have enough time to finish my LEQ because i spent too much time on the DBQ. Even if your not done with the first essay you were writing, once that time is up, move onto the next essay. Perhaps the next essay is easier than the first so you might be able to finish early and go back to your other one.

You have a lot of time to write the short answers. They're supposed to be "short", but you nearly have a page for each question. 12.5 minutes for each question is plenty of time to think through your answers and write a beautiful response. But, if you're having trouble with timing, practice practice practice!

A lot of people this year lost a lot of points on the short answers probably because it was much more detailed oriented than the multiple choice. Each short answer had three sub-questions that were like "List one example... List another example... List a third example...", and it definitely got annoying, and my brain definitely had a hard time coming up with three examples, but as long as you remember the trends, you could probably make something up related to the trends of that time period, and still get the point for that short answer question.

Wow, if you got to here thank you for reading my complaints/tips and good luck with AP World History! It's a challenging but rewarding experience. If you have any questions about AP World, leave me an ask, and I'll get back to you ASAP. Here are some helpful links when I got desperate...

AP World History Course Description

AP World History Practice FRQ's

AP World History Course Notes

Super Detailed AP World History Quizlet

Crash Course World History

Crash Course World History 2

Barron's AP World History Practice Test

Varsity Tutors Super Detailed AP World History Practice Tests

and of course...

History of Japan

History of the World, I Guess

PS. Sorry if this was too much information and long and ramble-y and unhelpful. I'm still new to advice posts/masterposts/blog posts and all of that pizzazz. Forgive me :)

[becomingbrave6]

Heartstrings

I’ve tried to write out this post more than once (I have multiple drafts...), but I haven’t really been able to find the words to express everything that has been on my heart over these past months. Sooo much. And while there have been so many things to say, I feel that I haven’t had much time to be still and just- process and find the words. You know how it goes. You just go and go and go, In your day-to-day routine.. For me- even when I get ‘down time’, it seems to get filled up in seconds with things on things to do. It’s hard to find time to pause, reflect, and process. So now that I’m on break, hopefully I can finally express what I’ve been wanting to say.

I’ll start with a general update. Right now, I am home in Georgia for Christmas for two weeks. This is the first time I’ve been home in 9 months, which is the longest I’ve ever been away. I’m relieved to be reunited with family and friends. This time has been much-needed. I have really been enjoying spending time off with loved ones, and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends in these next days before I return to Ecuador.

This upcoming February, I will have completed my two-year contract with the school I have been working at in Ecuador, Colegio Menor. I will have accomplished my original mission! It is absolutely crazy to think that those two years have almost come to an end. Time has flown by, and it’s surreal. If you had asked me a few years ago if I had thought that this would have been possible, I would have probably laughed and told you, “Not a chance”. I never would have envisioned making it to this point, but I am grateful to say that I have done so only by the goodness of God and the relentless support of my people. 

Furthermore, I have decided not to renew my contract. My experience in Ecuador has been totally invaluable to my personal, spiritual, and professional growth. However, I know that it is time for me to begin a new chapter. People have been asking me what my plan is for what’s next.. The truth is that I don’t really have one all mapped out yet. I know that I definitely would like to spend some time being closer to family, and I have a few ideas in mind in relation to my profession. But still not a set plan, and if I’m being real, I don’t really like that I don’t have one. If you know me, you know that I like to have a plan and be in control (to a bit of a fault). I’d definitely never advise anyone to leave a job before finding another. However, I will be returning to the states towards the end of the school year, and so, the timing is not completely ideal for finding a teaching contract.

Nonetheless, despite my own worries and uncertainty, I completely and totally trust that God is going to show me what’s next in His good timing. He has always done so in my past, and He will now. My faith in Him helps me to dismiss those doubtful thoughts when they come- and that is what I’ll continue to hold on to. Mark 9:23 states, “..Everything is possible for one who believes.” I’m sure it won’t be an easy process, and there will be a lot of kinks to work out, but He will show me the way- I am sure. I know that teaching in Ecuador has already positioned me for my next job, whatever that will be. I think that God is uniquely equipping me and enabling me for wherever He has me next. I want to remain completely attentive to His plan for me. Sometimes He strips us down to nothing in order for us to depend on Him for everything. Sometimes that means a season of waiting. And if I must wait, so be it.

Naturally, I’ve been starting to process this change little by little before it has even begun. I’ve had to start telling people about it and doing some necessary tasks. Crazy how those moments solidify the decision and make it more and more real each day. I know that it’s going to be hard to transition back, and I’m already mentally and emotionally preparing. I’m starting to recognize the things I’m going to miss about Ecuador. People who I have grown to care deeply for. Places that I go frequently. Restaurants (the fooood in general). Things that have become my new normal. I keep thinking, “Wow, I’m gonna miss this.” It’s hard to grasp the fact that soon I won’t be near them anymore.

That being said, this year has been satiated with so much to be thankful for. Living on my own has shaped me immensely, embracing dependency on Christ in many ways. I’ve learned a lot- sometimes by failing, sometimes from the words of those wiser than me, sometimes by taking a risk. I’ve been working on being braver, stepping fully out of my comfort zone. I think that this required me detaching myself from what I had been used to in order to really push myself beyond what I knew I was capable of (with Christ, of course). In that, I’ve been learning to love who I am presently while recognizing that I still wish to refine myself in many ways: like seeing rest as imperative and non-negotiable, being more intentional about being kind, having compassion for others, letting go instead of over-analyzing; the list goes on. I’m blessed to have had the constant and consistent support of my family and friends, even though I’ve been away from them for far too long. I have worked through many challenges, and ultimately, I am especially proud of how I am evolving as an individual and as a professional. I know that I still have much to learn ahead of me, but this experience has shaped me and molded me in countless ways that I hope God will use in the near future. I’m so thankful for my family, my friends, my coworkers, my students, my growth as a 2nd-year teacher, my job, my country, living in Ecuador, the friendships I’ve developed, the opportunities of travel I’ve had, my accomplishments, and much more. To God be the glory.

One of the things that I love about teaching is that I also get to learn. Learning never stops, and I am passionate for learning about the world.  Nelson Mandela said it well: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”I looove getting to learn from my students. Their little minds teach me so much about life and perspective. They keep me young and remind me to never lose my passion to explore. I have also loved having companions from other parts of the world. We often have thoughtful, authentic conversations about life that have brought insight and perspective from international points of view. I’ve fallen in love with the Ecuadorian culture, and have loved learning about other cultures that I’ve had glimpses of through traveling (Netherlands, England, Italy, Aruba). 

My placement here has enabled me to experience a deep appreciation for my own country combined with the appreciation of other countries. I know that I have so much more to learn ahead of me, but I love expanding my perspective of the world and developing my own beliefs through it all. I know I’ve said this before, but it brings me a sense of closeness to God- seeing all that He’s created and how his love for us is woven through all of the intricate, complex fabrics of life. It’s also made me more intuitive, considerate, and confident in who I am than I was two years ago. I hope that I continue to become someone who makes changes, takes action, and stays brave. A powerful weapon is something that you use.. something that requires action to function properly. I want to put to use what I’m learning by being a contributor wherever I am; being someone who influences their surroundings through actions- demonstrating integrity and serving others, serving the community and environment to the best of my ability. I also hope that my story might inspire others to be brave, no matter the circumstances. You never know until you try and push yourself beyond your own self-constructed limits. I firmly believe that God blesses those who step out of their comfort zone. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” From my own experience, I can testify that it has already blessed me in countless ways, and I believe it will continue to in my future. While it hasn’t always been easy, I know that it has been worth it.

I really strive to teach my students the importance of caring and respect for others. It’s not always an easy task, but it is important to me. Lately, I’ve been trying to teach them about being kind to others, even those they don’t know. We recently started a random acts of kindness project, and I loved seeing how they became so excited about being kind towards others; holding doors, complimenting others, helping someone who dropped their books, writing encouragements, etc. I hope that I can instill a mentality of compassion in them while they are young, care and respect for others, a desire to learn, and an aspiration to change the world through small actions. Showing each of them that they matter, have a voice, and can use it for good.

So, all of that to say that 2019 has truly been a year that I am proud of and will never forget. Yet, I am thrilled for what 2020 will hold. I know that this upcoming year will bring with it new challenges ahead, as well as new opportunities. I want to finish well in Ecuador, giving my very best and soaking up this experience in full. I hope that I can apply all that I have learned in these two years to whatever position God will lead me to next. I plan to further expand my understanding of this world, while serving others to the best of my ability. The 1920s had a pretty good reputation, so... let’s make the 2020s exceed expectations. 

[youcouldmakealife]

LBTE: Robbie Edition (1-3)

Here we go with a return to the ‘liveblogging the end’ format, in which I reread my babies before I let them go. (If this continues with other series, it will be AFTER I have let them go, but never mind that!) Edition: little ball of hate (last edition would be ‘Hockey Robot Who Learns to Love/Live’, if we’re naming things).

I’ll be doing these in threes, so it’s easier to follow along, and so, hopefully, the liveblogging will conclude around the same time as Robbie does. I’ve made a rule for myself that no liveblogs (except this, the first) will be posted until I match each part by 100 words min, in the hopes that I’ll finish BAIT before my birthday. Fingers crossed!

1. holy, holy:

Present Robbie:

-It’s super interesting reading the opening scene, because it takes place not only post!past Robbie, but like...after Robbie and Georgie start fucking again. Past!Taylor had not been THAT far ahead. Past!Taylor did not know this. There are definitely some tweaks to this scene I’d like to do, but this line? “Robbie gets hit with a wave of fondness so hard it hurts, can’t look at him.Those are the worst moments.” Yeah, that’s the encapsulation of BAIT entirely.

Past Robbie:

- “Robbie knew Georgie Dineen’s name before he met him..” Like, because that Big Fucking Deal pick was going to BU, same as Robbie, but also because Robbie watched the draft with some friends (a mutual acquaintance was in it) and they turned it into a drinking game because said acquaintance was REALLY not likely to go in the first round (projected third) so they had to kill the time somehow, and Robbie’s thought when Georgie was drafted? “Whoa, he’s hot”. That thought has not changed, even if everything else has.

- “ The ice smell as he gets closer to the locker rooms is comforting, though, and so is the noise that filters out of the open door. Robbie doesn’t know anyone, but a room’s a room wherever you are. “ There really is such a distinctive smell to arenas (and a less great smell distinctive to locker rooms). I love it. (the first one, not the latter)

- “ He’s really fucking good. Robbie can’t even be jealous, because like. Hockey crushes are a thing, and he just got one. Hard.” He practically IS hard. Honestly, Robbie’s first reaction to Georgie’s hockey in person feels almost pornographic to read in hindsight. 

-”Robbie’s got a really good feeling about this.” *snickers*

2. back in business

Present Robbie:

-” He’s not sure how he would have phrased it, like, obviously not ‘Yeah we played great together and also were kind of a thing off the ice until he fucked around on me with a fucking chick at least one time I know of, so. Maybe don’t do that.’” I mean, this is massive understatement by Robbie (’kind of a thing’ does not really match ‘over a year together in a committed relationship’), but never let it be said Georgie’s infidelity was hidden. Unlike, say, Luke and Nikita, everyone knew exactly why things would end, if not when or in what context.

-” The thing is, if you’re watching close, you can see his grin collapse before it remakes itself.” A line from a tumblr fill that lead to the story!

- “ Robbie can’t blame Georgie for [the trade],” Oh, you’ll manage.

Past Robbie:

- “ They’re both in the same hall, Robbie on the fourth floor, Georgie on the tenth, “ I legitimately spent a good hour looking at multiple BU residence halls to find one that was large, had at least some single rooms, and a meal plan, and I would like you all to know that this throwaway thing involved me looking at BLUEPRINTS. Other things I researched for this part: how far said dorm was from BU bookstores, and what the closest cafe was to said bookstores. I spent a lot of time on Google maps, writing Robbie, moreso than any other series.

-”“The fuck are mattress toppers?” Robbie asks.“Go over your mattress, make it more comfortable,” Georgie says.“You’re a genius,” Robbie says.” My mattress topper saved my life, my first year of university. Or at least my back.

- “ “I bought Sprite too in case you don’t want to drink that shit straight,” Braden says, and Robbie’s barely spoken to the guy before, but he basically loves him. “ Yes, this is the same Braden Robbie is currently training with, if anyone’s wondering.

- “ Edmunds hauls himself up to go to the bathroom, says, very seriously “I am trusting you with this,” and then hands the bottle of tequila to Robbie, which makes Robbie kind of feel touched and also kind of want to laugh. He’ll make sure to take care of it, though. Even if he liked tequila he wouldn’t touch it, getting on your goalie’s bad side is fucking stupid.” Robbie’s Craney training.

- ““You’re plastered, huh?” Georgie asks.“No,” Robbie says.“Yes,” Braden and Edmunds both say, and Robbie glares at them.“Kay, let’s get you home, dude,” Georgie says.” The beginning of caretaker Georgie. Takes less than a week! (Honestly, Georgie would do it for anyone -- witness: David -- but Robbie got a little above and beyond)

3. buck up

Present Robbie:

- Robbie bumps his shoulder against Wheels’, grins at him.“You’re still my main man, Dougie,” Robbie says.“Ugh, shut up, you’re the worst,” Wheels says, flicking him in the forehead. Dougie and Robbie’s relationship isn’t as close as Matty and Robbie’s (or Matty and Dougie’s), but the friendship they have (let’s annoy each other and never talk about anything serious) is important to Robbie. There’s a reason Robbie ordinarily trains with him in the offseason.

- “before the Nordicks can blink the sleep out of their eyes” Robbie is proud of Nordicks. I am longsuffering.

-” Sometimes Robbie thinks Chaps was a robot made by Hockey Canada to like, breathe hockey, and then power down whenever nothing hockey related was happening” Like I said,  ‘Hockey Robot Who Learns to Love/Live’. Robbie’s with me.

Past Robbie:

- “ Robbie with a yellow highlighter in one hand and an orange one uncapped, waiting for the super key shit.” I am Robbie.

- ““Bullet points,” Georgie says, then, primly, “Rephrasing information in your own words helps with knowledge acquisition.”Robbie rolls his eyes at him. “Get back to your two finger typing then.”” I am also Georgie. In both the rephrasing and the two finger typing.

[tumblunni]

Random Long Post About Charon!

This is random, but I feel like fans often don’t take into consideration what Professor Rowan says during the Rotom event. I think his words actually make it very clear that Charon was the kid who wrote the diary and shines some light on Charon’s motivation for acting like a jerk to Rotom. I’ll explain why I believe this:  “Ah, imagine finding you here! You must be eager to fill your Pokédex to be searching even here. What am I doing? I visit a professor I know in Eterna every so often. He tells me intriguing rumors of rare Pokémon sightings and such.” This part isn’t particularly relevant (though I do sort of wonder if the Professor Rowan visits is actually Charon himself), but this next part definitely is: “A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say… Hmm… That is somewhat off from what I’ve heard about it. Hmm… This is what I’ve heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not… Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion–the Pokémon-infused robot–disappeared…” Okay, so the first thing that is really important to note here is that Rowan doesn’t have the exact same information as the player. This means Charon has done research that he was keeping to himself, and fits in with Charon writing that he wants his Rotom research to be a “secret.” But we also learn here that other scientists were at least introduced to Rotom somehow despite this.  Now, as for the “topic of discussion… disappeared” part–because Charon’s lab is secret, these words don’t refer to Rotom leaving the lab. Instead, they must refer to Charon putting it in that lab to keep it a secret. This might seem odd at first–why would Rotom have been introduced to scientists in the first place at all then…? But I actually think this all makes sense. Here’s a stripped-down version of the backstory based on all these details: –Charon obtains information about Rotom “by pure chance,” as he writes in the journal we know for a fact is his. –Other researchers somehow knew about it and were going to start debates about it. –Rotom is locked away in the lab by Charon so that he would get all the credit for describing it.  –Rotom eventually leaves the lab.  This still haves a lot to be desired. Is Charon the same person who found Rotom as a child? It seems that way, since the speech patterns and diction are the same. But then how and why did other researchers learn about Rotom in the first place? Why did Charon want all the credit only after this happened? Here is where analyzing Charon’s character makes everything clear.  Obviously, Charon is a greedy person. Specifically, he seems to be someone who is pragmatic to the point of being a cynical jerk. He desires money for himself and his team, but we know from his dialogue that it’s because he thinks people can’t achieve anything without it. We can also see that Charon has a high opinion of himself (he says so), but it also seems like he may have a low opinion of himself at the same time. The fact that he keeps trying to assert his self-worth, brag, and explain that he has a place in Team Galactic every time he speaks in-game hints at this. Also, Charon’s own co-workers hate him. Considering his plan at the end of the game, we know that if Charon were presented with a way to make himself known to all, he would do everything he could to make that happen. He also at one point says “I like seeing children try their best,” which sounds a bit weird out-of-context, but makes perfect sense if the Rotom kid’s childhood was his.  Putting together all of the information I’ve discussed, here is my interpretation, applying Occam’s Razor the whole way through, of the story behind the Rotom event:  –Charon came across information about Rotom “by pure chance.” How? When it came out of a lawnmower in his childhood. –At some point, Charon was excited to tell everyone about Rotom. They were probably still close friends at this point.  –Other researchers were going to start debates on Rotom after Charon gave them some information about it. –Because of Charon’s greed, desire to belong, and selfishness, he became possessive and wanted to get “all the credit.” He freaked out and locked Rotom away in his secret lab. –Everyone was confused because it had disappeared, and debates couldn’t continue.  –Rotom was upset and tired of being stuck in the lab and left. I’m almost certain this is the story the writers intended.

+++

Bunni’s comments! (is it a tad awkward that you keep sending these as submissions? have you thought about posting your thoughts on your own blog and then I could reblog them? sorry to make you go to all this trouble!)

REALLY LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT:

This is a really well reasoned theory!! I dunno if we’ll ever really be able to know what story the writers intended until we actually get this plotline expanded in a remake HINT HINT NINTENDO But it does definately seem to me that Charon = kid who had that cute backstory in that journal literally in Charon’s lab written like Charon talks and nobody else does. That seems very much like the simplest option to me, and it makes this character so much more well-developed, yet its kinda not a popuar theory.. alas... I don’t completely follow this exact sequence of events in my headcanons but I do think it fits perfectly with everything we know so far. You’re so good at analysis!!

Personally I think maybe people forget about Rowan’s few sentences at the start of the event... just cos the event is really hard to find. Practically nobody actually played this thing, I certainly never got a chance to do it until a decade later when i was able to emulate + use gamesharks. So before that I got my information secondhand through script-dumps and lets play videos, and a lot of people seem to leave out the rowan bit. A lot of people actually leave out the diary too! It seems even people who actually played the event didnt realise it was there, just grabbed their new rotom form and left. Alas poor Charon, ignored even in a meta sense! Also on Bulbapedia the script-dumps are organized weird. The actual page for the event and the Rotom Room as an area don’t contain it, its just got the diary part and the rowan part cut off separate and put on charon and rowan’s pages respectively.

Anyway, my personal thoughts + alternate interpretation to add to this!

To me it didnt sound like someone else discovered a rotom and tried to start these debates, then Charon freaked out at the competition and became paranoid. To me it sounded like Rowan was talking about someone (Charon) who started a debate and then suddenly vanished on the day it was going to take place. i dunno, just the way it was phrased seemed to come off like this was some relative unknown who popped up with this information about rotom, and then everyone assembled to hear him out. Cos specifically the ONLY information Rowan knows is that its ‘a pokemon that can possess a toy robot’, you’d think if multiple scientists were debating the existence of rotom for a long time then they’d have more info than that, info that isnt super specific to Charon’s situation. Or, at least, you’d think that if they were still researching rotom AFTER this one failed conference, they would have gained more info by now? I dunno, its hard to explain what I mean.

So, the basis for all my deductions is this interpretation that Charon (at least for that moment) had decided his rotom research was finished and wanted to reveal it. For me, the big question is... why didnt he?

WHY would Charon not want to boast about his discovery in this ‘debate about rotom’? We know at least one famous pokemon professor was gonna be there! Charon’s whole thing is (supposedly) wanting to become famous cos of rotom, absolutely no attatchment to it except as a revenue source, yep totally, no lies here. So you’d think that joining in a big debate with a bunch of high ranking scientists and making his great reveal would be.. like.. exactly what he wanted?? Why did it not happen?? 

My interpretation of this is kind of a mushy one linked to my general irrational decision that this man is potentially redeemable and totally has a soul. Alas, why can I never leave the grampademption train! I think that maybe this was some sort of major moment where the good and bad sides of his character clashed. REALLY CLASHED. He’s spent so many years trying to lock off himself into two mutually conflicting boxes, the innocent kid who sees this pokemon as a friend and the bitter cynical old bastard who wants to become famous off it. And now he has to choose, and it led to a complete mental breakdown! He initially chose money over rotom, he was gonna go ahead with the presentation. But then his better side won out and he cancelled it at the last second. He got cold feet, being scared of losing his best friend. Maybe he was actually going so far as to do some sort of morally repugnant deal, he was gonna sell rotom off to the highest bidder and never see it again? Or it’d have to be dissected as the first specemin of a new species, or locked up forever and experimented upon? Or maybe its just simply.. when you only have one friend in the world you kinda wonder if they’d want to keep you around if they found another friend. Maybe he thought rotom only needed him because of his research, maybe he thought it would become just as greedy as him if it got the chance? Maybe he thought that it would leave him if he let anyone else know it existed, which is what led to his growing paranoia and decision that his research was perpetually ‘not done yet’. (Cos seriously, what you see of his lab and stuff seems pretty finished???)

So that’s my interpretation of why he and rotom ‘vanished’ at that point, but then there’s the question of how they ended up separated. this is now going into complete fanfic territory, I dont really have evidence for any of it. In my image of how this whole scene would go down, mid-freakout Charon would have snapped at rotom and it led to an argument that ultimately resulted in like... triple decker bonus back of Regrettable Decisions. Charon’s been shown to kinda dig himself further into his own grave whenever his plans go wrong. So here we go, scene is set with Charon suddenly grabbing everything and running the fuck out the fire exit, five seconds before the meeting is about to start. From rotom’s perspective, it has NO IDEA what is going on, it just listens when he says to get in the pokeball. And now we have Charon in the position of having NO CLUE how to explain this all when he opens that pokeball again, he’d never just be honest about his feelings. Hell, he’s such an emotionally stunted guy wrapped up in his own neuroses, i don’t know if he’d even be honest about his feelings to HIMSELF! He just sitting here having a panic attack like ‘why did i do that?? I was about to become rich??’ Giant neon sign flies overhead saying ‘YOU HAVE EMOTIONS’, he ignores it. I figure he’d also exaggerate it in his head and destroy his entire scientific career just because he thinks he’s embarassed himself too much to go back. And he’s decided that this somehow proves that being a good person will only ruin all your dreams, and you have to be as bitter as possible to succeed. this is where he went from a dubious guy who occasionally breaks the law to ‘well I’d better jump off the slippery slope forever and join a space based evil team, literally just because of One Social Anxiety Moment’. (Relateable, amirite?) And ironically everyone he met that day is literally just thinking ‘oh god what happened to that guy, is he okay?’ and would have totally understood if he just explained his damn self... So all his panic comes to a head and he decides to blame rotom rather than actually do some in-depth analysis of his own life choices. I feel bad because I don’t want to hurt my friend?? I personally value friends higher than money? No, nonsense, you’ve somehow CORRUPTED ME! How could you do this, don’t you know how important that meeting was? WAS THIS YOUR PLAN ALL ALONG??? It was my ONE CHANCE! (apparantly, according to me)

So even though he just ran away because he didn’t want to lose rotom.... he throws away rotom. (just imagine the internal screaming this man must have experienced for the next twenty years)

It was a stupid, STUPID decision based on misdirected anger that he should have been aiming at himself. Nope, can’t believe that the great charon might have made a mistake, that friendship might indeed be a thing that exists in your dried up old heart. Instead it has just proven that friendship = weakness! And now because of this you’ve turned a salvageable situation into the worst disaster possible, yet again. (Man, I feel like Charon can barely survive without rotom. Its not just his conscience but a large chunk of his common sense...)

And rotom of course has NO IDEA why its suddenly been abandoned, so it probably was a really depressing time sitting alone in its trainer’s old house, hoping he’ll eventually come back so you can apologise for something that you don’t even know what it is... And at the same time we have Charon freaking the fuck out for decades, too caught up in his own neuroses to make the very simple decision of just turning around and walking back to where he left that pokeball. And even if he got there, what would he even say? Would he actually have the balls to admit he was wrong, or would he make excuses? ‘Oh, I was just too busy to visit, so much work to do, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill’ In his darkest moments he even considers that maybe he’s wrong to regret this decision at all. ‘But I did the right thing, I don’t need rotom, I don’t need anyone, I have to sacrifice everything to be famous...’ He’s probably even managed to get all the way to the door of the old chateau before running away yet again, leaving rotom thinking it just imagined seeing him outside the window :( Its like in his past when he startled rotom and it thought it had hurt him, but this is if he didn’t chase after it and just left time frozen on that moment. Well, he wishes it was, that he could just choose any second to take back his decision and everything would go back to normal. Never that easy, though...

I APOLOGISE FOR OVERLY LONG POORLY EXPLAINED FANFIC THOUGHTS WHILE I AM SLEEP DEPRIVED ok i need to go cry over dumb grandpas and then probably get some damn rest

oh wait one last random headcanon! i think that charon’s secret lab in team galactic eterna building is actually something he only built after the big moment of abandoning his pokemon Why does Charon have a rotom lab here if he doesnt have a rotom anymore? sure it could just mean he lost his rotom relatively recently, but since my fanfic idea places it earlier in the timeline I like to think that maybe he’s made this room in case he ever gets rotom back. He made a bunch of form-machines even better than the old ones, and decorated the place all fancy, and hopes that maybe it could be at least a small apology for all the suffering he’s put his friend through. Though he doesnt understand that rotom isnt as superficial as he is, so he cant just buy back its love... He just sits in there are rereads his journal whenever he gets nostalgic, he hasnt actually done any science in there for years. Also, it would maybe explain the duplicate rotom lab in silph co in HGSS? that’s the original, and he’s tried to make his new galactic lab as similar as possible because of how guilty he feels, and how he wants to just escape that guilt by turning back time instead of actually saying sorry.

A big thing I always struggle with in writing redemptiony fics is whether I’m lessening a character’s evil and forgiving them too easily and all. I think this series of events would definately still qualify as A Total Dick Move, even if its one that actually has a reason to it other than just ‘i’m evil’, and hurt himself as much as he hurt rotom. And man its so frustrating, seriously I’m here like ‘DUDE STOP IGNORING YOUR EPIPHANIES, JUST GO APOLOGIZE’ yet I also know that if I make him do it immediately and have everything resolved without conflict it’ll be so much less of a believeable redemption arc :P so yeah believe me i still wanna slap charon just as much as everyone who hates charon does, just for different reasons XD Also he needs a hug too. But he needs to do a lot of development before he could actually earn it!

[paintedrecs]

You're such a good author!! What are you thinking when you're writing? And what's your editing process? If you don't mind me asking!!

Ah, thank you!! I’m very often thinking “wow I am not a good author” while I’m writing, so it’s always nice to hear positive responses once the finished work is out there. :)

This ended up (unsurprisingly) long, so be aware there’s gonna be a Read More.

My editing process is very, very nitpicky. To begin with, I edit a LOT as I write, so those two questions share some answers. 

I considered posting a photo of a page I handwrote this week, but I don’t want to subject you to that. Suffice it to say that if I’m writing in pen, there’s a lot of scribbling and paragraphs that branch off into the margins and spiral around the edges of the page as I rework sentences and expand sections. Before I switched to writing almost exclusively on my computer, I used to use a mechanical pencil to make all that a little less messy. Still, though. Eraser shavings. Everywhere.

It seems like most of fandom swears by writing sprints, and I can’t do it. I either write in long, tireless stretches where I forget to move for hours, or I spend an hour writing a sentence, frowning thoughtfully at it, tweaking a few words, tilting my head to the side, changing it back, muttering, “No I don’t like that,” and shifting the structure until it fits with the rest of the story.

I spend a lot of time reading my own writing out loud, which is part of why I’m not usually that productive when I try to write in public. (Although once I’m in the zone, I’ll write on my phone as I walk to the grocery store, take the bus to work, etc. I probably still mutter to myself.) At this point, my poor neighbor has probably heard the entirety of all my fics in scattered bursts. I’ll read a single paragraph to myself six times in a row to make sure the pacing sounds right and the dialogue feels natural.

I’m a start-to-finish writer: if I write scenes out of order, they won’t work in the final version. With tide pulls, I wrote all this emotional, ultra angsty dialogue that I was expecting to stick into one of their final scenes, but by the time I got there, it didn’t fit. I initially tried to squeeze stuff around it to keep those lines intact, but it’s never a good idea to force your characters into something that they don’t naturally want to do over the course of the story. It rings false, and I think readers can generally tell.

That’s not to say that I don’t plan ahead or map out certain arcs or important scenes. I just don’t write them in their full form until I’ve reached that point. PDIW was much, much too long to plunge through without an outline; if I hadn’t marked down and organized all the emotional points I wanted to hit, I would’ve lost control over the scope of it. (Which is ridiculous to say when it’s over 200k, but it had the most detailed outline I’ve ever made for one of my stories.) 

Still, though, pieces moved around a lot. I’d push a scene into a later chapter when it turned out that Derek and Stiles needed to talk to each other more before getting to that exchange. Or a conversation that was meant to be between Derek and Laura ended up being between him and Cora instead, catching both of us by surprise. Laura was always Derek’s best friend and confidante, but he turned out to have a lot more in common with his younger sister than he’d ever realized. Of course I had to let that play out. 

There are a few sentences I desperately wanted to get into the final version, but they’re clumped at the bottom of my notes doc, along with all the other unused or deleted material. Sometimes you think a phrase sounds really, really pretty, but if your character doesn’t want to say it, that’s all there is to it. 

I don’t have a beta for my shorter fics, because by the time I’m done writing, I’ve probably spent more time editing than actually putting new words down on the page. (Unless they’re tumblr fics or notfics, in which case please forgive the fact that they’re wobbly; they’re just me having fun!) That doesn’t make the final product perfect by any means, but I don’t have a regular beta set up to read over my fics for me, and I don’t like bugging people unless it’s necessary.

For my longest fics, I tried to rope in at least 2-3 betas. It seems like most people in fandom just share their fic’s Google Drive link, sometimes while it’s still a WIP, and have their betas all work in the same doc. It may be annoying that I don’t do that…but I want to get separate, unbiased responses. If multiple people tell me to fix the same thing, it definitely needs more work. With that said, I’ve found that there actually doesn’t tend to be all that much overlap, because betas have different styles in much the same way that writers do.

The fandom dream (or any writer’s dream) is to have a set, longterm writer-beta relationship, because it really does involve a lot of trust and communication. One of my PDIW betas was the wonderful @bleep0bleep​ , who prodded tirelessly at all my pronouns and long paragraphs but also took the time to learn my style and where I most need/want help. (She also laughed at me when I had conversations with myself in the comments while figuring out how to fix passages that she’d told me weren’t working.) She and other betas found gaps that you simply can’t see for yourself after spending that long immersed in your own story. I ended up writing a few extra scenes and expanding some other areas, and the final version is absolutely better as a result.

If this was going to be a published work, I would’ve ideally set it aside for several months so I could come back to it with fresh eyes. My posting schedule for PDIW was already months behind what I’d originally planned, and I was super eager to share it, so I rushed right into the next stage. I also very much wanted to start posting on April 1, since that was Stiles’s birthday in the fic.

So I finished writing the final chapter, gave myself about a day to celebrate, then went right back to the first chapter and started editing. My betas got those pretty-much-completed chapters, and I took their edits and suggestions and transferred them back into my central doc. Then I started drafting the fic on AO3, editing each chapter one final time as I was posting. 

It was…tiring. I wrote the fic in about 7 months and edited the entire thing twice…almost three times?…in a little over a month. I’m going to give myself more leeway if I ever do that again. Thank goodness for my speed-reading betas, though.

I don’t know if any of that was the kind of information you were interested in hearing. Welcome to my writing world, I guess? It’s a little messy, but it has pretty intricate organization if you know what to look for.

As for what I’m thinking as I’m writing…that’s a complicated answer. Is it weird to say that I’m kind of not thinking anything? Writing is a craft, but it’s also a strangely instinctive part of myself that I tap into when it’s going well. I absolutely cannot write if I’m busy thinking about where a scene should go or whether anyone’s going to like reading it or if I even remember how to string words together. That’s the kind of thing that makes me slam right up against writer’s block. Or, if I do manage to get words down, they’re clunky and I’m never really satisfied with them.

When I sit down to write, I do my best to clear my mind out. I tap into my characters. If I’m writing from Derek’s POV, I’m seeing him - all his gestures, mannerisms, the actions he’s taking in a scene - but it’s more important to me that I’m feeling what he’s feeling. The same goes for Stiles, or anyone else whose eyes I’m trying to see through. I guess I’m an emotional writer? I want to feel things as I’m writing, and if I did it right, my readers should feel things, too. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s incredibly rewarding.

Reading has always been an escape for me. When I’m wrapped up in a book, I lose touch with the world around me and slide into the pages, living alongside the characters. Writing’s the same way. It’s an indescribable, addictive feeling. 

When I finished PDIW, it almost felt like I’d lost a part of myself, because I was letting go of something I’d been living with and dreaming about and spending so much time getting to know.

I’m glad I got to share it, though. It’s a wrenching, terrifying process, but you all made it worthwhile. The final step of a story is its readers. Thank you for being amazing ones, and for letting me share my words with you.

[growthvue]

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Joe Brennan on episode 297 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Digital filmmaking can successfully be integrated into any class. Learn practical tips and ideas from Joe Brennan for making movies in the classroom.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e297

Date: April 24, 2018

Vicki: Let’s talk about making videos with kids!

Today we’re talking with an expert on the subject, Joe Brennan Creativity and Innovation Specialist. He is in Illinois.

Joe, where do we start, making videos with kids?

Where do you start?

Joe: Anywhere you want to.

I’m a big proponent of using it in any classroom, with any subject.

I teach a graduate class, and I challenge my teachers to do it, regardless of what they teach. The math teachers, the science teachers, the PE teachers complain that it just wouldn’t work in their discipline. After a couple of weeks they figure out, it can!

Vicki: Give me an example.

What would be an example of a video you’ve seen in math or in history?

Give us an example of a video in an unlikely subject

Joe: One of my favorite ones in math that a teacher did was the division sign as Eeyore. It starts out with lonely division sign perched on a chair, I guess.

And it says, [delivered in an Eeyore voice] “Nobody likes me. Every time a teacher says we’re going to divide, there’s a groan in the room.”

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: Then he kind of becomes the division sign, and describes what you have to do when you divide, and how it’s the opposite of multiplication and things like that. It just kind of puts a human voice (not necessarily a face) on it. But he talks about the application.

So that was, I think, a fourth grade or fifth-grade math teacher.

Vicki: Think about it. I make videos in my classroom and digital film and… you know.

You want to have a purpose, though. So how does a teacher start off finding a purpose, and then helping their kids plan out their video?

How does a teacher begin to structure the purpose and the plan?

Joe: Well… Do they want to review? Do they want to introduce something?

It depends on what class it is.

I go right back to the writing process with this. Whichever model your school uses to teach kids how to write, I always boil it down to the “Tell ‘ems” method.

Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em.

Tell ‘em what you told them.

You’ve got the introduction, body, and the conclusion sort of thing.

But you can do that visually, and it’s much more memorable for the kids when they kind of see it and hear it at the same time.

I downplay using music. It can really be a crutch. We don’t want to make music videos.

Vicki: Joe, take us through an example of how you’ve coached a teacher recently through this process of making videos with their class, and the objectives that you covered.

Give us an example of how you coached some video projects

Joe: We try to employ PBL tactics, whether we’re 100% PBL or not is up for discussion.

But I have a fifth-grade class that just finished that just finished reading Night of the Twisters.

They made videos on disaster preparedness — tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, you name it.

My favorite ones are the ones where the kids kind of do a newscast. They’re at a desk like you see on the nightly news, and then they go to a reporter on the street.

The use a little green screen.

They could be in an earthquake. They could be in a flood. They could be in a hurricane.

Then they talk about what people have in their preparedness kit.

I forget what else they pick up from the novel, but they employ all those things.

I guess there’s a little aspect of a book report in there. There’s a big aspect of current events, and kids making an argument, presenting themselves, public speaking.

Vicki: So, they’ve decided their topic.

How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Are you big on scripting? Storyboarding? How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Joe: The quickest, easiest thing to do is shoot and edit on the computer, iPad, whatever your device is going to be.

The big thing is preparing.

So it’s a pay me now, pay me later, or pay me much later sort of a thing.

We want a script. We want a storyboard.

Of course, you can edit things in post [production.]

But the more you can line up ahead of time, the more you know what’s coming, and what each team member’s part is going to be.

Kids take turns behind the camera or in front of the camera. Or they’re on the side doing some sort of coaching or moving props in.

But definitely, you want a storyboard. You want a script. Keep those separate.

I also like Jason Ohler’s storymap idea

http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/assessmentWIX.cfm

You can almost simply that using the story spine sort of thing, “Once upon a time… Something happened… Because of that…. Then that…” And eventually, you come to the conclusion.

Vicki: You know, the scripting and the storyboarding is something the students really — I know in my classroom — they’ll fight me on it!. But it just HAS to be there. Otherwise, you just end up with a mess.

I don’t know why kids think that they’re just going to go to the next viral YouTube video.

Kids think they can just point and shoot without a plan

And it just doesn’t work that way, does it, Joe?

Joe: Exactly. It’s just like stream of consciousness writing.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: If you didn’t have an outline or do a first draft before you put pen to paper, or started typing… it shows.

Vicki: It does. It just turns into a mess!

I think it’s just when we start with video — and I made that mistake early on — I guess it’s kind of ignorance, in some ways. We just don’t know better. Once you know better, you guide your kids through the scripting, through the storyboarding, or use Jason Ohler’s storymap idea.

Hardware and software choices?

And then what do your students shoot on? My students shoot on — I have a Gimble, and they put their phones in it, and we usually rip off of their iPhones or their Droids and we pull it into something called Pinnacle Studio.

So what do you use with kids?

Joe: Oh, Pinnacle Studio. Nice!

We use iPads and iMovie.

Vicki: Awesome! And iMovie is incredible.

So actually shooting on the iPad, and then pulling it right into iMovie, huh?

Joe: Right, and they also have the Do Ink green screen program.

Green screen options

Vicki: Ohhhh! So where’s your green screen at your school?

Joe: Anywhere we want it to be.

Vicki: So is it moveable?

Joe: This was such a big hit with our five language arts teachers that they got their own green screen. I have a portable one I lend out from my center. I also have two green walls in my studio technology office area. They can shoot anywhere.

One of my favorite pictures is — we have an open balcony area, and we’ve got three green screens set up — and kids are using both sides of them at the same time.

Vicki: Wow! Well, how’s that for audio, though, huh?

Joe: Well, that’s a challenge!

Vicki: (laughs)

Tips for overcoming problems with background audio noise

Joe: They have also learned the trick that you don’t have to get the dialogue. You can do a great job with narration. Tell the first person’s story, and your character could be in the picture which your voice is coming sort of in retrospect.

If you watch young Sheldon, I kind of like the way the old Sheldon talks about what Sheldon is going on in the show.

Vicki: Yeah. When you do have actors and you do have audio, that tends to be the most difficult piece of what I do with my students, is capturing that audio. We actually invested in a road microphone set which is pretty expensive to be able to capture that. But it is so difficult to get good sound off your set, isn’t it?

Joe: It is. It is.

I’ve got some iRig mics that — when the kids do their news broadcast sort of thing, they can use. But the more I can get them to narrate their story, have live actors, or have pictures they borrowed from the internet with historical people… and then do a narration in post and use one of the nice microphones or at least get closer to their iPad in a more contained area where they don’t have a lot of the background noise…works much, much better.

And also it helps to make a shorter story.

Shorter is better, and concise is nice.

Really, you just don’t want kids to make something that’s more than three minutes.

And if they can do it in 60 or 90 seconds, that’s even better.

If you’re not fighting dialogue, and people working through their lines — if somebody’s doing it with a narration, you can get the same amount of information, or more information in that short time period.

Vicki: Joe, as we finish up, what’s the simplest way to start?

Simplest way to get up and running?

Joe: You just do it.

But you’ve got to prepare. You’ve got to get that script. You’ve got to get a storyboard, with an idea of what your pictures are going to be. If you’re going to borrow things from the internet or use still pictures or use something else besides live video, get all that stuff lined up first.

Vicki: OK, teachers! So making videos, making digital film is an incredible way to really enhance learning in every subject.

In my own classroom, it’s one of the most exciting things that we do. I’ve actually added another digital film project this spring, just because my students are really in to making digital videos.

It does take a little bit of work, though, and you do have to plan ahead.

Thanks, Joe, for this great advice to help us make better videos with our kids!

Joe: My pleasure!

Contact us about the show: https://ift.tt/1jailTy

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

After seeing how well video making worked for his Spanish students, Joe moved from the Spanish classroom to an AV/Media Coordinator position. He is an American Film Institute Screen Educator and an Apple Distinguished Educator. He is currently serving as the Creativity & Innovation Specialist at Meridian Middle School in Buffalo Grove, IL as well as teaching in the Wilkes University Instructional Media Program.

Blog: http://joebrennan.us/Digital_Storytelling/Handouts.html

Twitter: @joebjr

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Making Better Videos and Movies with Students appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students published first on https://getnewdlbusiness.tumblr.com/

[succeedly]

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Joe Brennan on episode 297 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Digital filmmaking can successfully be integrated into any class. Learn practical tips and ideas from Joe Brennan for making movies in the classroom.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e297

Date: April 24, 2018

Vicki: Let’s talk about making videos with kids!

Today we’re talking with an expert on the subject, Joe Brennan Creativity and Innovation Specialist. He is in Illinois.

Joe, where do we start, making videos with kids?

Where do you start?

Joe: Anywhere you want to.

I’m a big proponent of using it in any classroom, with any subject.

I teach a graduate class, and I challenge my teachers to do it, regardless of what they teach. The math teachers, the science teachers, the PE teachers complain that it just wouldn’t work in their discipline. After a couple of weeks they figure out, it can!

Vicki: Give me an example.

What would be an example of a video you’ve seen in math or in history?

Give us an example of a video in an unlikely subject

Joe: One of my favorite ones in math that a teacher did was the division sign as Eeyore. It starts out with lonely division sign perched on a chair, I guess.

And it says, [delivered in an Eeyore voice] “Nobody likes me. Every time a teacher says we’re going to divide, there’s a groan in the room.”

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: Then he kind of becomes the division sign, and describes what you have to do when you divide, and how it’s the opposite of multiplication and things like that. It just kind of puts a human voice (not necessarily a face) on it. But he talks about the application.

So that was, I think, a fourth grade or fifth-grade math teacher.

Vicki: Think about it. I make videos in my classroom and digital film and… you know.

You want to have a purpose, though. So how does a teacher start off finding a purpose, and then helping their kids plan out their video?

How does a teacher begin to structure the purpose and the plan?

Joe: Well… Do they want to review? Do they want to introduce something?

It depends on what class it is.

I go right back to the writing process with this. Whichever model your school uses to teach kids how to write, I always boil it down to the “Tell ‘ems” method.

Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em.

Tell ‘em what you told them.

You’ve got the introduction, body, and the conclusion sort of thing.

But you can do that visually, and it’s much more memorable for the kids when they kind of see it and hear it at the same time.

I downplay using music. It can really be a crutch. We don’t want to make music videos.

Vicki: Joe, take us through an example of how you’ve coached a teacher recently through this process of making videos with their class, and the objectives that you covered.

Give us an example of how you coached some video projects

Joe: We try to employ PBL tactics, whether we’re 100% PBL or not is up for discussion.

But I have a fifth-grade class that just finished that just finished reading Night of the Twisters.

They made videos on disaster preparedness — tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, you name it.

My favorite ones are the ones where the kids kind of do a newscast. They’re at a desk like you see on the nightly news, and then they go to a reporter on the street.

The use a little green screen.

They could be in an earthquake. They could be in a flood. They could be in a hurricane.

Then they talk about what people have in their preparedness kit.

I forget what else they pick up from the novel, but they employ all those things.

I guess there’s a little aspect of a book report in there. There’s a big aspect of current events, and kids making an argument, presenting themselves, public speaking.

Vicki: So, they’ve decided their topic.

How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Are you big on scripting? Storyboarding? How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Joe: The quickest, easiest thing to do is shoot and edit on the computer, iPad, whatever your device is going to be.

The big thing is preparing.

So it’s a pay me now, pay me later, or pay me much later sort of a thing.

We want a script. We want a storyboard.

Of course, you can edit things in post [production.]

But the more you can line up ahead of time, the more you know what’s coming, and what each team member’s part is going to be.

Kids take turns behind the camera or in front of the camera. Or they’re on the side doing some sort of coaching or moving props in.

But definitely, you want a storyboard. You want a script. Keep those separate.

I also like Jason Ohler’s storymap idea

http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/assessmentWIX.cfm

You can almost simply that using the story spine sort of thing, “Once upon a time… Something happened… Because of that…. Then that…” And eventually, you come to the conclusion.

Vicki: You know, the scripting and the storyboarding is something the students really — I know in my classroom — they’ll fight me on it!. But it just HAS to be there. Otherwise, you just end up with a mess.

I don’t know why kids think that they’re just going to go to the next viral YouTube video.

Kids think they can just point and shoot without a plan

And it just doesn’t work that way, does it, Joe?

Joe: Exactly. It’s just like stream of consciousness writing.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: If you didn’t have an outline or do a first draft before you put pen to paper, or started typing… it shows.

Vicki: It does. It just turns into a mess!

I think it’s just when we start with video — and I made that mistake early on — I guess it’s kind of ignorance, in some ways. We just don’t know better. Once you know better, you guide your kids through the scripting, through the storyboarding, or use Jason Ohler’s storymap idea.

Hardware and software choices?

And then what do your students shoot on? My students shoot on — I have a Gimble, and they put their phones in it, and we usually rip off of their iPhones or their Droids and we pull it into something called Pinnacle Studio.

So what do you use with kids?

Joe: Oh, Pinnacle Studio. Nice!

We use iPads and iMovie.

Vicki: Awesome! And iMovie is incredible.

So actually shooting on the iPad, and then pulling it right into iMovie, huh?

Joe: Right, and they also have the Do Ink green screen program.

Green screen options

Vicki: Ohhhh! So where’s your green screen at your school?

Joe: Anywhere we want it to be.

Vicki: So is it moveable?

Joe: This was such a big hit with our five language arts teachers that they got their own green screen. I have a portable one I lend out from my center. I also have two green walls in my studio technology office area. They can shoot anywhere.

One of my favorite pictures is — we have an open balcony area, and we’ve got three green screens set up — and kids are using both sides of them at the same time.

Vicki: Wow! Well, how’s that for audio, though, huh?

Joe: Well, that’s a challenge!

Vicki: (laughs)

Tips for overcoming problems with background audio noise

Joe: They have also learned the trick that you don’t have to get the dialogue. You can do a great job with narration. Tell the first person’s story, and your character could be in the picture which your voice is coming sort of in retrospect.

If you watch young Sheldon, I kind of like the way the old Sheldon talks about what Sheldon is going on in the show.

Vicki: Yeah. When you do have actors and you do have audio, that tends to be the most difficult piece of what I do with my students, is capturing that audio. We actually invested in a road microphone set which is pretty expensive to be able to capture that. But it is so difficult to get good sound off your set, isn’t it?

Joe: It is. It is.

I’ve got some iRig mics that — when the kids do their news broadcast sort of thing, they can use. But the more I can get them to narrate their story, have live actors, or have pictures they borrowed from the internet with historical people… and then do a narration in post and use one of the nice microphones or at least get closer to their iPad in a more contained area where they don’t have a lot of the background noise…works much, much better.

And also it helps to make a shorter story.

Shorter is better, and concise is nice.

Really, you just don’t want kids to make something that’s more than three minutes.

And if they can do it in 60 or 90 seconds, that’s even better.

If you’re not fighting dialogue, and people working through their lines — if somebody’s doing it with a narration, you can get the same amount of information, or more information in that short time period.

Vicki: Joe, as we finish up, what’s the simplest way to start?

Simplest way to get up and running?

Joe: You just do it.

But you’ve got to prepare. You’ve got to get that script. You’ve got to get a storyboard, with an idea of what your pictures are going to be. If you’re going to borrow things from the internet or use still pictures or use something else besides live video, get all that stuff lined up first.

Vicki: OK, teachers! So making videos, making digital film is an incredible way to really enhance learning in every subject.

In my own classroom, it’s one of the most exciting things that we do. I’ve actually added another digital film project this spring, just because my students are really in to making digital videos.

It does take a little bit of work, though, and you do have to plan ahead.

Thanks, Joe, for this great advice to help us make better videos with our kids!

Joe: My pleasure!

Contact us about the show: https://ift.tt/1jailTy

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

After seeing how well video making worked for his Spanish students, Joe moved from the Spanish classroom to an AV/Media Coordinator position. He is an American Film Institute Screen Educator and an Apple Distinguished Educator. He is currently serving as the Creativity & Innovation Specialist at Meridian Middle School in Buffalo Grove, IL as well as teaching in the Wilkes University Instructional Media Program.

Blog: http://joebrennan.us/Digital_Storytelling/Handouts.html

Twitter: @joebjr

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Making Better Videos and Movies with Students appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students published first on https://getnewcourse.tumblr.com/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Joe Brennan on episode 297 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Digital filmmaking can successfully be integrated into any class. Learn practical tips and ideas from Joe Brennan for making movies in the classroom.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Making Better Videos and Movies with Students

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e297

Date: April 24, 2018

Vicki: Let’s talk about making videos with kids!

Today we’re talking with an expert on the subject, Joe Brennan Creativity and Innovation Specialist. He is in Illinois.

Joe, where do we start, making videos with kids?

Where do you start?

Joe: Anywhere you want to.

I’m a big proponent of using it in any classroom, with any subject.

I teach a graduate class, and I challenge my teachers to do it, regardless of what they teach. The math teachers, the science teachers, the PE teachers complain that it just wouldn’t work in their discipline. After a couple of weeks they figure out, it can!

Vicki: Give me an example.

What would be an example of a video you’ve seen in math or in history?

Give us an example of a video in an unlikely subject

Joe: One of my favorite ones in math that a teacher did was the division sign as Eeyore. It starts out with lonely division sign perched on a chair, I guess.

And it says, [delivered in an Eeyore voice] “Nobody likes me. Every time a teacher says we’re going to divide, there’s a groan in the room.”

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: Then he kind of becomes the division sign, and describes what you have to do when you divide, and how it’s the opposite of multiplication and things like that. It just kind of puts a human voice (not necessarily a face) on it. But he talks about the application.

So that was, I think, a fourth grade or fifth-grade math teacher.

Vicki: Think about it. I make videos in my classroom and digital film and… you know.

You want to have a purpose, though. So how does a teacher start off finding a purpose, and then helping their kids plan out their video?

How does a teacher begin to structure the purpose and the plan?

Joe: Well… Do they want to review? Do they want to introduce something?

It depends on what class it is.

I go right back to the writing process with this. Whichever model your school uses to teach kids how to write, I always boil it down to the “Tell ‘ems” method.

Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em.

Tell ‘em what you told them.

You’ve got the introduction, body, and the conclusion sort of thing.

But you can do that visually, and it’s much more memorable for the kids when they kind of see it and hear it at the same time.

I downplay using music. It can really be a crutch. We don’t want to make music videos.

Vicki: Joe, take us through an example of how you’ve coached a teacher recently through this process of making videos with their class, and the objectives that you covered.

Give us an example of how you coached some video projects

Joe: We try to employ PBL tactics, whether we’re 100% PBL or not is up for discussion.

But I have a fifth-grade class that just finished that just finished reading Night of the Twisters.

They made videos on disaster preparedness — tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, you name it.

My favorite ones are the ones where the kids kind of do a newscast. They’re at a desk like you see on the nightly news, and then they go to a reporter on the street.

The use a little green screen.

They could be in an earthquake. They could be in a flood. They could be in a hurricane.

Then they talk about what people have in their preparedness kit.

I forget what else they pick up from the novel, but they employ all those things.

I guess there’s a little aspect of a book report in there. There’s a big aspect of current events, and kids making an argument, presenting themselves, public speaking.

Vicki: So, they’ve decided their topic.

How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Are you big on scripting? Storyboarding? How do you help them get ready to shoot?

Joe: The quickest, easiest thing to do is shoot and edit on the computer, iPad, whatever your device is going to be.

The big thing is preparing.

So it’s a pay me now, pay me later, or pay me much later sort of a thing.

We want a script. We want a storyboard.

Of course, you can edit things in post [production.]

But the more you can line up ahead of time, the more you know what’s coming, and what each team member’s part is going to be.

Kids take turns behind the camera or in front of the camera. Or they’re on the side doing some sort of coaching or moving props in.

But definitely, you want a storyboard. You want a script. Keep those separate.

I also like Jason Ohler’s storymap idea

http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/assessmentWIX.cfm

You can almost simply that using the story spine sort of thing, “Once upon a time… Something happened… Because of that…. Then that…” And eventually, you come to the conclusion.

Vicki: You know, the scripting and the storyboarding is something the students really — I know in my classroom — they’ll fight me on it!. But it just HAS to be there. Otherwise, you just end up with a mess.

I don’t know why kids think that they’re just going to go to the next viral YouTube video.

Kids think they can just point and shoot without a plan

And it just doesn’t work that way, does it, Joe?

Joe: Exactly. It’s just like stream of consciousness writing.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: If you didn’t have an outline or do a first draft before you put pen to paper, or started typing… it shows.

Vicki: It does. It just turns into a mess!

I think it’s just when we start with video — and I made that mistake early on — I guess it’s kind of ignorance, in some ways. We just don’t know better. Once you know better, you guide your kids through the scripting, through the storyboarding, or use Jason Ohler’s storymap idea.

Hardware and software choices?

And then what do your students shoot on? My students shoot on — I have a Gimble, and they put their phones in it, and we usually rip off of their iPhones or their Droids and we pull it into something called Pinnacle Studio.

So what do you use with kids?

Joe: Oh, Pinnacle Studio. Nice!

We use iPads and iMovie.

Vicki: Awesome! And iMovie is incredible.

So actually shooting on the iPad, and then pulling it right into iMovie, huh?

Joe: Right, and they also have the Do Ink green screen program.

Green screen options

Vicki: Ohhhh! So where’s your green screen at your school?

Joe: Anywhere we want it to be.

Vicki: So is it moveable?

Joe: This was such a big hit with our five language arts teachers that they got their own green screen. I have a portable one I lend out from my center. I also have two green walls in my studio technology office area. They can shoot anywhere.

One of my favorite pictures is — we have an open balcony area, and we’ve got three green screens set up — and kids are using both sides of them at the same time.

Vicki: Wow! Well, how’s that for audio, though, huh?

Joe: Well, that’s a challenge!

Vicki: (laughs)

Tips for overcoming problems with background audio noise

Joe: They have also learned the trick that you don’t have to get the dialogue. You can do a great job with narration. Tell the first person’s story, and your character could be in the picture which your voice is coming sort of in retrospect.

If you watch young Sheldon, I kind of like the way the old Sheldon talks about what Sheldon is going on in the show.

Vicki: Yeah. When you do have actors and you do have audio, that tends to be the most difficult piece of what I do with my students, is capturing that audio. We actually invested in a road microphone set which is pretty expensive to be able to capture that. But it is so difficult to get good sound off your set, isn’t it?

Joe: It is. It is.

I’ve got some iRig mics that — when the kids do their news broadcast sort of thing, they can use. But the more I can get them to narrate their story, have live actors, or have pictures they borrowed from the internet with historical people… and then do a narration in post and use one of the nice microphones or at least get closer to their iPad in a more contained area where they don’t have a lot of the background noise…works much, much better.

And also it helps to make a shorter story.

Shorter is better, and concise is nice.

Really, you just don’t want kids to make something that’s more than three minutes.

And if they can do it in 60 or 90 seconds, that’s even better.

If you’re not fighting dialogue, and people working through their lines — if somebody’s doing it with a narration, you can get the same amount of information, or more information in that short time period.

Vicki: Joe, as we finish up, what’s the simplest way to start?

Simplest way to get up and running?

Joe: You just do it.

But you’ve got to prepare. You’ve got to get that script. You’ve got to get a storyboard, with an idea of what your pictures are going to be. If you’re going to borrow things from the internet or use still pictures or use something else besides live video, get all that stuff lined up first.

Vicki: OK, teachers! So making videos, making digital film is an incredible way to really enhance learning in every subject.

In my own classroom, it’s one of the most exciting things that we do. I’ve actually added another digital film project this spring, just because my students are really in to making digital videos.

It does take a little bit of work, though, and you do have to plan ahead.

Thanks, Joe, for this great advice to help us make better videos with our kids!

Joe: My pleasure!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

After seeing how well video making worked for his Spanish students, Joe moved from the Spanish classroom to an AV/Media Coordinator position. He is an American Film Institute Screen Educator and an Apple Distinguished Educator. He is currently serving as the Creativity & Innovation Specialist at Meridian Middle School in Buffalo Grove, IL as well as teaching in the Wilkes University Instructional Media Program.

Blog: http://joebrennan.us/Digital_Storytelling/Handouts.html

Twitter: @joebjr

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

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