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eleanor-devil · 4 years ago

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Boruto: Sacrifices [Remade] | Chap.5 - Mitsuki's Decision

Written by: Eleanor-Devil & @mirage-05

He was making a lot of noise in the early morning, but he didn't care. Ever since Sarada called him the other night and told him that Mitsuki, his best friend... was being mistreated, he couldn't sit still. It took him a great deal of self-control to wait until the morning, when they decided to meet. So, by any right, if he was waking up some people and they were complaining about it, he wasn't about to give them a rat's ass. “Boruto…” Sarada was practically running to keep up with her friend. It wasn’t exactly rare to see Boruto getting worked up about something, but he was really pissed off now. “Just try to calm down for a bit…” “How can I calm down?!” was his answer as he didn’t even break his pace. “How come he didn’t tell me he was being harassed?!” Sarada had no words to offer to that… She hadn’t seen anything other than the graffitis on the door but she had spoken to Shikadai… “Well, let’s see what he has to s-” The Uzumaki’s words were cut in half as they reached his friend’s door. Eyes huge in disbelief, he took them all in, one by one, getting more and more terrified and outraged the more he looked at them. These were not just simple harassments - they were threats, and pretty horrible ones at that…

“What the hell…?” he mumbled, raising a hand to touch one of the drawings. Then he turned to Sarada, the look of shock still in place. “W-wait, did you also know about these…?” “W-well, I…” And then they heard a click, and they were suddenly face to face with Mitsuki. The blue haired boy took a look at his expression, and sighed. “Boruto…” “When were you going to tell me?!” the blond practically spat out of gritted teeth. “Tell you what?” “Don’t play dumb with me!” Boruto yelled, banging his fist on the door, and Mitsuki flinched a little. “I’m talking about these graffitis Mitsuki!” “Oh…” the boy mused, giving the said graffitis a fleeting look. “Oh? Oh?! That’s all you have to say?!” “Boruto please…” Sarada glanced awkwardly around. “You really should keep your voice down…” “I would have if Mitsuki told me about this earlier!” The blue haired boy sighed again. “Boruto, I didn’t want to worry you about this. I wouldn’t have told Sarada either but she saw it… I didn’t want to worry either of you.” "How can I not worry when my best friend is being harassed?!" Boruto yelled, throwing his hands up in the air. "Why are they even doing it, huh?! But you know what?!" The blond took his cell phone out. "Boruto, that's not nec-" "Shut the hell up." At that time, a neighboring door opened and a groggy-looking man popped his head out. "Hey, brats, keep it down, will you?" "And you just shut up, too, okay?!" Sarada turned an apologetic look to the man, who just silently slid back into his apartment. Boruto took a few photos of the door. "There. My dad is going to hear about this." "Boruto..." the Uchiha began. "I can't believe you didn't tell me about this! What if you got seriously hurt?! I thought we were friends!!" At these words, the blue haired boy couldn’t help it. "We are. That's the reason I didn't tell you." "Because you didn't want to worry me?!" Boruto scoffed, and actually took a step to his friend. "Bullshit!" At that, the girl finally stepped in front of him, putting her hands on his shoulders and actually pushing him back a little. "Boruto, please!" she said urgently. "Calm down before you say or do something you will regret!" And just like that, Boruto's furiosity vanished on the spot, leaving behind only remnants of resentment. The last time he had almost... lost his father. He didn't want anything like that to happen - ever again. He gulped and stepped away from Sarada, his eyes on his best friend. "...fine. But don't think that this matter is over. My dad will know of this." Sarada sighed, a little relieved that the storm had passed. "Okay, um... let's get going, shall we?" … She had really, really hoped the day would proceed without any unpleasant incidents - but of course, in the current situation, it was too much to ask. They haven't even reached the outskirts of the village yet. Boruto was still seething and Mitsuki was quiet, but Sarada was on the lookout, just in case. And then she heard a rustle, quick footsteps and her instincts took over. "Boruto!" she called to her friend as she quickly stepped in front of Mitsuki, activating her Sharingan, as he turned at her voice. The blond had acted very quickly indeed, their months of team-work had really paid off. Before the person Sarada felt a minute ago could do anything, he was by his side, grabbing his wrist. The girl felt sad when she saw the boy couldn't be older than eight years old. "Just what do you think you are doing?!" Boruto asked through gritted teeth. "Throwing..." he looked at the squished red blob on the ground and raised an eyebrow. "Tomatoes? Seriously?" "We don't want him here." the child said stubbornly, nodding towards Mitsuki. "He's making everyone restless. My mom and dad had not stopped arguing since yesterday!" The blond's look got darker. "Well, it's not my friend's fault if your parents are dumb." "Guys, drop it, he's just a kid..." Mitsuki began, but Boruto wasn't about to listen. "You land anything on him, and you.are.dead.meat." he hissed dangerously, inching his face closer to the boy. "What the hell is going on here?" An older boy has stepped out from the corner of a building, a menacing look on his face. "Who do you think you are, bullying my brother like that, you little piece of..." As Boruto turned towards him slowly, seething with anger, the boy came to a halt. "Wrong," the boy said, and the elder boy actually took a step back. "The question is, who do YOU think you are, messing with my best friend?!" It took the boy a moment, but he finally snapped out of it and hurried forward, taking his younger brother by his shoulders. "Fumio, what did I tell you? Do not mess with that snake while the Hokage's son is with him! Now we're going to get in trouble!" "Stay away from him if you know what is best for you!" Boruto yelled at them as the brothers scampered away. After they were out of sight, he turned to look at his friends. Sarada deactivated her Sharingan with a sigh. Mitsuki wasn't looking at him, his eyes on the ground. "This is not your fault!" he said fervently, bothered by how Mitsuki wasn't even meeting his eyes. "They need to know that in Konoha you can't bully someone because of his origins! No one will allow it!" The blue haired boy sighed. "Boruto, just please... let's move on." "No! Not until you stop letting these stupid people get to you!" "I can't give you a promise I can't keep." Mitsuki said curtly before turning on his heels and started walking again. Boruto and Sarada looked at each other for a brief second before they started following him. ... The walk to the orphanage had been no different. Noone bothered them this time, at least not verbally, but every now and then they found at least a pair of unfriendly eyes peeking at them from around a corner. It came to the point where Boruto had it and turned to snap at one of those; "What are you looking at?!" But they never stayed long when they saw the Hokage's son was with them. They were now just a few blocks away from the main building. Not knowing what they should be expecting, because they never got to come to the orphanage after the attack, Sarada felt her pulse quickening as they approached. All three of them came to a halt when the campus came into view. The news never covered much, and although they knew it was bad, they had no idea of the scope. The whole front of the building was in ruins, seemingly blown apart by an enormous force. Pieces of rubble laid everywhere, and there were stains on them... dark stains... Stains that reminded all of them terribly of... Dried blood... As if he was in a trance, Mitsuki took a step forward, stopped for a moment, and then kept walking. Boruto, snapping out of his shock, noticed him. "Mitsuki - wait, don’t just walk inside like that!" The boy was aware that someone was calling for him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. This much pain... Why...? Someone grabbing his arm finally made him come to a stop, and he turned to see Sarada, with a worried expression on her face. "Don't rush inside!" she said. Mitsuki opened his mouth to say something, but someone cut him off before he got a word out. "Oh hey, it's you guys!" All of them looked up to see Inojin, Shikadai and Chouchou coming out of the building, their arms full of rubble and other things. "Yo, what's up?" Chouchou said nonchalantly, approaching them. "I thought you guys weren't supposed to be here?" "Not... supposed to be here?" Mitsuki mumbled, not quite understanding. "What she meant to say was, we didn't know you were also assigned here," Inojin immediately interjected before his friend said anything else. "We didn't come here on an assignment," Boruto sighed, coming up from behind his friends. "We just wanted to, uh..." "See how the renovations were coming up," Sarada finished helpfully. "Well, they are coming up pretty troublesome," Shikadai said with a bored expression. "At least the director is a pretty nice guy - even after all this..." Mitsuki's eyes widened. "Wait... Is Kabuto-san here?" "Of course," Shikadai raised an eyebrow. "Where else?" The blue haired boy then turned to his friends. "I need to talk to him." "Cool, I'm coming with you." "Boruto," Mitsuki sighed. "I'm gonna talk to him alone." "I can wait outside." Mitsuki looked at Shikadai with a bored expression. "Please... do stop him if he comes after me." ... He found Kabuto-san in one of the back rooms, one of the few rooms that didn't sustain a lot of damage. The man looked up when Mitsuki entered. "Oh, Mitsuki..." he said. "I didn't expect to see you." "I just wanted to see all of this myself." Kabuto sighed, and they both stayed silent for a while. "Why...?" "Hm?" Kabuto turned to the boy, questions in his eyes. Mitsuki was gazing out of the doorway with a distant look in his eyes, and it wasn't too hard for the older man to understand where the boy's mind was. "You are one of the few people who knows my father like the back of his hand. Why? Why would my father do this? For what motive?" "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that question. The truth is that Orochimaru always has a reason behind his actions..." "Exactly." the boy turned to the man, grasping for some answers. "So why would he attack innocent children? Not just the Shin clones, but other children, too." The man put a hand on the boy's arm, and his tone was gentle as he spoke. "Mitsuki, I understand that it's hard for you to handle it and I wouldn't believe it, either... But I saw your father's curse mark on that man with my own eyes." The boy didn't know what to say to that, and he lowered his eyes to the ground. Kabuto-san looked at him carefully. "Anyone bothering you?" he asked, quickly assessing the situation. Mitsuki gave a small smile as he thought about his friends. "Nothing I can't handle. And I have some very good friends." "I'm glad to hear that." Mitsuki kept looking around, his gaze taking a serious quality once again as he took in the damage, people rushing around... "Kabuto-san..." he said after a minute. "How did you become a medic?" "Where did that come from?" the older man asked, totally confused. "Just wondering... And how did you become a director at this orphanage?" Kabuto thought about it for a second. "They are actually connected." "Connected? How?" "You know... I was orphaned in the Third Ninja World War. Konoha took me in and in this orphanage, I was raised by a woman who taught me about medical ninjutsu. I guess you can say that I wanted to do what she did to me... To raise children in a family environment, to heal their wounds in one way or another..." He sighed and looked away. "It's too sad it didn't work out that way... I guess your past never really leaves you." They didn't say anything more as Mitsuki thought bitterly how true those words were... ... His mind was in overdrive when he was making his way back to his friends. Working to save, heal people... That seemed like a noble cause. Frankly, before he came here, even when he started his way as a ninja, he didn't have a clue of what will become of him in the future. He remembered it like it was yesterday, the day they met their sensei and Konohamaru asked what his future dream was. He had simply smiled and said that he wanted to become as great a ninja as his father, maybe even surpassing him one day. He wanted, no, needed so badly to make Orochimaru proud of him. He didn't know if this path he was about to choose would make him proud or not... But working to heal the wounds his father might or might not have caused, well... That seemed like a noble cause, too. Now if his sensei asked him just about this moment, he would say that he wanted to become a med-nin. He didn't know yet who he could be trained under to pursue this goal. Hopefully... not even all of the adults were against him? Naturally, the first person to come to mind was Kabuto, an uncle to him in more than one way. But he already had so much on his plate to take in a pupil. Of course the most famous med-nin in Konoha was Sarada's mother, or the Fifth Hokage, but Mitsuki wasn't exactly sure how he could approach them. Well... there was always Karin as his back-up plan, but... An unpleasant tingling was triggered in his chest just thinking about it. That would mean he would also have to leave his friends behind, and he... really didn't want that. Boruto and Sarada... The first real family he had in Konoha… He wasn't really paying attention, lost too much in his own thoughts. "What the hell do you think you are doing here?" Many things happened all at once that Mitsuki couldn't really find the time to react. When he turned back, he saw someone running towards him with a hateful expression, but before he could come too close, someone stopped him by throwing himself on that person. Metal Lee raised his head to look at him, and his eyes widened. "Mitsuki, watch out!" The blue haired boy turned just in time to dodge a punch aimed right at his face. "Asahi, Fuuto, help us!" Metal called. But no one helped him and Mitsuki actually had to grab the assailant's fist the next time. "I don't want to fight you." he declared in a calm tone. "Too bad, because I'm about to turn you to a pulp! How dare you even show your face here?!" Then the boy came to a sudden stop and the younger let go of his hand. "Two on one? You really are looking for trouble, aren't you?" Just by the manner of his speech, Mitsuki was quick to understand how the attacker had been stopped. "I'll show you who's gonna turn into a pulp!" "Boruto, no!" the boy yelled when he saw his best friend charging, but Shikadai acted before him. "Sheesh, hold your horses, won't you?" "Shikadai..." Boruto, who had also been stopped dead, growled through his teeth, clearly pissed off. "You better let me go. I really don't want to take this out on you." "Not before you calm down, no." "How can you even expect me to calm down?!" the blond yelled. "These two were just about to attack my best friend!" "Boruto, just calm down..." Mitsuki sighed, already getting tired of this. "How can you even call that thing your friend?" one of the other boys asked, and everyone tensed. "You better watch out what you're saying..." said Sarada, at the end of her patience. "It's way better than hanging out with the likes of you!" Boruto yelled at them, trying hard to get out of the shadow mimic technique. "Well, seeing that we outnumber you by at least a third, I would advise you to back down - unless you want us to get really mad." Inojin put in, all with a sweet but dangerous smile. The two thought about it for a second. "We will be back." they said, throwing dirty looks at the blue haired boy. "To get your asses handed to you? Anytime!" Boruto countered. As the two ran away, Metal looked at his teammates. "Why didn't you guys help us out back then?" The girl didn't say anything, but after a second of hesitation, Fuuto spoke. "Why... did you help?" he asked, and his tone was confused; not accusing, not degrading; just curious. "Seriously?" Metal asked unbelievably. "You really think I would just stand aside and let a friend - anyone - get bullied right in front of me?! We were taught better than that!" "Don't bother, Metal," Boruto said, a little ruder than he normally would. "Thank you for your help, anyway." ... The way back had been awfully quiet. They had stopped by a fast-food restaurant to have lunch on their way back, but the glares never ceased, even with Boruto glaring right back at those. They were almost at Mitsuki's house when it happened again. "You still here in this village, you snake?" Boruto tensed and turned back, his hands balling into fists. "You have any problems with your eyesight?" he growled at the group that gathered behind them, especially to Sarutobi Ichiro, who had just spoken. "I can't see any snakes here but you, waiting to strike, hidden behind corners!" "You know, you are overly confident, being the hokage's son and all... But we're gonna make our voices heard, too. He can't be hidden, protected under your wings for too long." "Try me..." Boruto hissed, shaking with anger. "Boruto, don't..." Sarada began. "And why do you protect him, anyway? Do you really think he would do the same for you if this situation was reversed?" one of the other kids shouted. "Don't... play... with fire...!" "Oh yeah? Well let me tell you one thing, not all of us agree with daddy dearest!" Mitsuki was having a hard time processing his emotions regarding this - did they really think that low of him? Why was it harder to just ignore this, tell himself this didn’t matter anyway, like so many other times before? He snapped back to the moment when he saw Boruto hurrying forward, and grabbed his arm in a fruitless attempt. "Let it go, Boruto." "Well, too bad for you that my 'daddy dearest' is the hokage, and you have to follow his orders!" "Well, you see... things can change, and then we will have our say!" "Boruto!" Mitsuki yelled, but it was too late. Already too agitated, Boruto freed his arm from his best friend with an angry yell, and actually charged the group before Sarada or Mitsuki could react properly. He had aimed for Ichiro, and as the two actually tumbled to the ground with Boruto's momentum, the other kids stood back a little, clearly indecisive about whether or not getting in a fight with the Hokage's son is a good idea. But they did hold back Mitsuki and Sarada when they rushed to help their friend. The fight didn't last for too long, really, but for the two, it seemed to drag on as they watched, helpless. Boruto and the older boy traded punches and kicks, none of them seemingly stronger than the other. It was after one particularly hard punch which left a cut over Boruto's eyebrow that Sarada finally snapped. "You little..." she growled through gritted teeth, and felt her chakra growing in her hand as she pushed away those who were holding her back. "Shannaro!" When she hit the ground with her fist, all the other children were thrown back by the force, including the one the blond had been fighting. Mitsuki was there to catch his friend. "Now run away before I get really angry!" Sarada yelled at the group, who didn't stay long after that. Boruto got up, wiping some blood that was making its way to his eye. "Come on, we're going to my dad's office NOW." "We should check on that wound first..." Sarada countered. "It's just a little blood, I'm fine. Come on..." Mitsuki had remained silent for a while, but he shook his head when he heard this. "No, I... I need to be alone." "I'm not gonna leave you alone anywhere, 'ttebasa, so you better move it!" the blond snapped at his friend. But that was too much. He had let his best friend get hurt over him... This wasn’t what a friend was supposed to be, was it? How could he hope to help people even when he couldn’t protect his own friend...? Maybe it was because this was the first time he saw this haunted and sad look in his friend's eyes… but it surely took the blond by surprise. Boruto's frown started to soften, actually turning into a look of worry. "You're not safe around me anymore..." Mitsuki mumbled, the slight cracking in his voice the only give off in his otherwise perfect facade. "I'll... I'll just stay at home, I promise..." "Mitsuki stop this, it's just a little blood, I'm not dying here..." the blond tried to reason, but the younger didn't look back as he rushed inside. "Shit..." Boruto mumbled and him and Sarada followed their friend inside. Mitsuki was quicker - he opened his door and slid inside before his friends made it. Boruto reached the door first and knocked it normally. "Mitsuki! Come on, this is nothing, and it certainly isn't your fault! We have to report this to my dad!" When there was no reply, Boruto banged his fist on the door. "Dammit, stop doing this! You can't just stay down because idiotic people make idiotic remarks about you! Come out so we can talk about it!" "Boruto..." Sarada put her hand on his arm. "Let's just leave him for the day." "What? Are you out of your mind?" "I... I think he needs it. We have training tomorrow, we can talk to him then." It was pretty obvious that the boy didn't like this, but he finally sighed and nodded. ... Mitsuki had been behind the door all the time, listening to his friends. When he heard them walking away, he slowly slid against the door, bringing his knees closer to him. His presence... was no longer wanted, nor needed in Konoha, that much was pretty clear. But his friend getting injured for that... He felt something wetting his cheeks and raised his hand to check. He stared at the tear on his fingertip for a moment, mesmerized. So that was… how crying felt like then? A let out of emotions, emotions that were too foreign and… simply too much for him. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. This was not the time to show weakness. He had other things to do. ... A knock brought Naruto back from his thoughts. "Come in." A ninja peeked in. "Lord seventh, your son is..." Before he could finish his sentence, the said son pushed his way through the man, tailed by Sarada. "Dad, we need to talk." "Boruto, how many times do I have to tell you, don't call me da..." Naruto did a double take when he got a closer look at his son's face. "What the hell happened to you?!" The blond sighed, trying not to roll his eyes. "For the last time, I'm not bleeding to death." "You should go check with the clinic immediately..." Naruto began. "Stuff it, dad, this is not about me!" Boruto snapped. "Do you even know what's been going on??" "About what...?" "Mitsuki! My best friend is being threatened and harassed all day! Look at this!" When his son shoved his phone under his nose, the hokage's eyes widened for a second, then he snatched the phone from Boruto and took a look at the other pictures as well, his expression growing darker with each one. "When did this start?" he asked finally, looking up at the two. "Yesterday," Sarada replied. "It just started as verbal assaults first, but then those graffitis and people attacking him today..." "Attacking?" Naruto felt his anger boiling. He was actually planning to send someone, maybe Konohamaru as he was their sensei, to check on the boy, but... this was taking it too far. "He didn't even do anything! He kept telling all those morons he didn't want to fight! Why are they doing this?!" Naruto sighed. "I should've known this." "Dad?" Boruto asked, his tone shocked. This wasn't the reaction he expected. "Some of the villagers... They are not very happy with my decision of letting Mitsuki stay in Konoha." "Wha... what...?" Boruto asked blankly, not even knowing what the hokage's words meant. "Where... where else is he supposed to live?" "They wanted me to exile him." Naruto said openly, looking at the two right in the eyes. Boruto and Sarada were so appalled that they couldn't say anything for a while. "Why...?" Sarada mumbled at last, her voice weak. “Is it because… what was discussed in the meeting…?” “What are you talking about?” the younger blond was looking at his friend incredulously. Naruto simply nodded at Sarada before explaining further. "Because he is the son of a villain this village is not about to forget anytime soon." He was playing all cards on the table. Being his teammates and close friends, they needed to know. "But that is no reason!" Boruto shot back, snapping out of his shock. "No two people are ever the same! Dad, you can't-" "Of course not." Naruto cut in seriously, and his tone made his son go quiet. "He belongs in Konoha, a member of our family. I'm not going to give up on him." The two just stared up at him in awe. The man's expression softened a little. "I am going to deal with this, make sure anyone who is involved gets punished. Now, please go check with the clinic and leave the rest to me." Boruto gulped and nodded. "Thank you dad." ... The two were quiet as they walked out of the Hokage’s office. Sarada wanted to say something to cheer Boruto up, but if she was being honest… she didn’t feel like she would do much, she herself had a heavy heart. Feeling the blond coming to a halt, Sarada followed his gaze, and felt another pang in her chest. “Konohamaru-sensei…” she mumbled. It seemed like the jounin wasn’t even aware of them, not until the girl spoke anyway. Blinking in focus, he gave them a small smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “Hey, you two. What are you doing out at this hour?” “Well, we-” Sarada started to say, but Boruto cut her in. “Konohamaru-nii-chan…” he started, catching the brunet off-guard - it had been some time since Boruto addressed him like that… And more so, the look in his eyes… it was sad, as sad as his voice, but also… disappointed somehow. “Let me just ask you one thing.” “What is it, Boruto?” It was true that he was out of it for the last couple of days, which he was coming to the realization and slowly coming out of it… he should as well start by paying closer attention to his team. “Was that… the reason you’ve been so distant with Mitsuki…?” And Konohamaru just blanked out for a moment, staring blankly at the pre-teens. “I… what are you talking about…?” “You barely talk to him and then yesterday, at the training… Konohamaru-nii-chan… are you blaming him too…?” The words were more like a slap on his face. The jounin had to keep his poker face, but it was hard… He… wasn’t even aware… “I… don’t blame him for anything, Boruto.” he said with a sigh, passing a hand through his face. “And I didn’t intend to be especially distant towards him… You three are all equal and important to me.” Boruto’s eyes softened a little at the sincerity in his words, but his expression was still very serious. “Well, you might wanna look at it from Mitsuki’s side. You might’ve come off as just the opposite, nii-chan…” “He had been through a lot, sensei,” Sarada put in, looking down with a sad expression. “There are a lot of villagers who want him gone… and they’re not being quiet about it…” “That’s an understatement!” Boruto almost yelled, he had been pushed way off his limit of tolerance today… and Konohamaru finally realized the cut above his eyebrow, making him frown a little. “They’d been harassing him, and now even with the attacks…” “I heard enough.” the jounin said, raising a hand… his stomach had become quite queasy. Just how much had he missed, god… he was feeling really lousy now. Yes, he had to do something to make this up… and quickly. “Don’t worry… I’m gonna talk to Mitsuki now.” That brought a smile to Boruto and Sarada’s faces. “Thank you, Konohamaru-nii-chan.” … “For the last time,” Mitsuki sighed as he looked at his two companions, his expression exasperated. “I didn’t summon you here to scare Mikazuki, Isis.” The scene would’ve been funny really, if it wasn’t for the fact that the kitten was so scared that he had been meowing non-stop… while Mitsuki’s summon, Isis, was hissing at him. At his words, though, the snake turned to shoot him a resentful look. “It wasn’t my fault, Mitsuki-sama!” “Neither was it his,” the blue haired boy explained calmly. “He is just a small kitten, he doesn’t know better.” And Isis was territorial, so she didn’t take it well that Mikazuki tried to paw at her swishing tail the moment she appeared. Striding forward, Mitsuki took the distressed kitten in his arms, before he alerted the whole apartment complex. So much for secrecy… “Listen Isis, I need to ask you a favor.” Isis decided to quit her hissing fit, although her eyes were still on Mikazuki. “What can I do for you?” “I want you to go to my father," Mitsuki replied clearly. "Tell him to meet me outside of Konoha's eastern border, to the end of the river." He couldn't have been more vague if he tried, something that Isis noticed herself. "If you need his help on a mission, you have to give him a more specific address." "No, I..." Mitsuki let out his breath and closed his eyes. "I'm leaving." "Not on a mission, no? Why then?" "I don't belong here anymore." There was a moment of silence. "Mitsuki-sama..." Isis began, her thin pupils regarding him carefully. "You do know you shouldn't satisfy anyone's needs by leaving..." "I'm not leaving to make anyone happy," the boy countered. "I am leaving to protect my friends. I should have never gotten them involved." The snake coiled around silently, deciding not to push forward. "When are you leaving?" Mitsuki checked his clock, and did a double take. Time really flew by. It was already nine pm. "In about two hours." "Got it." Opening his window, the boy watched as the snake slid out. And then a knock almost made him jump out of his skin. Calming down, he made his way to the door. Who could be visiting at this hour? He hoped it wasn’t his friends… not that his intentions were too visible - he didn’t have many things to pack after all - but it would just make things harder. It didn’t really help much that it was his sensei at the door. “Konohamaru-sensei…” he said simply in greeting, while Mikazuki meowed in unison. A small smile crossed his face as the brunet looked between the two of them. “Good evening, Mitsuki. Mind if I come in?” “Um… yeah, sure.” He stepped aside to let the jounin in. Konohamaru patted Mikazuki on the head, earning himself a purr from the now slightly calmed down kitten. As he walked in further, the brunet came to a halt. “Sorry it isn’t too much…” “Not at all…” It was more so the fact that… Mitsuki didn’t seem to have any personal belongings… pretty much the only sign of someone living here was the kitten in his student’s arms and the items all around the small apartment to take care of it. True, he hadn’t been to Mitsuki’s house before, but this wasn’t something he expected… “Umm… you can sit on the bed sensei…” It was kind of awkward for Mitsuki, he didn’t really have much accommodations to begin with. His sensei didn’t comment on it though, as he took his advice. For a moment neither of them spoke, although Mitsuki couldn’t help but make a mental calculation… he really didn’t have a lot of time to finish all he had to do and still make it in time… He could just hope his sensei would keep it quick. Although, well… Konohamaru seemed to be a little awkward now. “I see you’re taking good care of the kitten.” the young man said at last. The look in the boy’s eyes softened a little as he scratched Mikazuki behind the ears. “He has grown so much into me… I didn’t know how boring it could get before we started sharing this apartment.” “It seems that the feeling is mutual.” the jounin’s voice was gentle. “Yeah.” A thoughtful look crossed his eyes. “I… now I can’t imagine a life without him.” It wasn’t exactly easy to say that with a straight face, thinking about how he had to indeed leave Mikazuki behind, he couldn’t just take him to the hideout. “Here is to hope that it won’t ever come to that.” When his student raised his head to look at him with questions in his eyes, Konohamaru sighed. “Well, in truth… I think I’ve stalled this long enough.” “What is it that you want to talk about, sensei?” the boy asked quietly. “Look kiddo…” It had been a while since he addressed him like that, Mitsuki realized with a start. “I owe you an apology…” “What for?” Mitsuki asked, perplexed, and Konohamaru only sighed again. “The last few days had been… challenging on my part… And while I know this doesn’t justify my actions…” He paused for a moment before looking at his student directly in the eyes. “I just didn’t realize I probably came off as distant and… cold…” The boy didn’t know what to say for a moment. “Konohamaru-sensei…” The jounin raised a hand to stop him. “Please, just let me finish. It wasn’t my intention to make any of you feel sad. I care for each of you equally. And, well…” the look in his eyes turned pensive as he bowed his head. “I didn’t expect things to get so… out of hand so quickly…” he looked at Mitsuki again. “Why didn’t you say anything…? I heard from your teammates about the attacks and those… graffitis…” Yes, those drawings really didn’t help his mood. Mitsuki didn’t say anything for a moment, wondering how best he should reply… Their sensei was known to read them like clear water… “I… didn’t want to worry you sensei. You already have a lot on your plate.” Konohamaru’s gaze turned soft at these words. This boy… he was always so selfless, thinking about others before himself… sometimes it was just too much. “Mitsuki… there are times you should allow yourself to be protected as well.” And just like that, Mitsuki felt a slight lump in his throat. After what he had been through these last couple of days, these words, and the fact that it was coming from his sensei, just… touched him… almost enough to make him reconsider leaving the village… but no, not after what had happened… not after his best friend got hurt because of him… Petting Mikazuki to calm himself down a little and keep his stoic face, he finally said, “If these get any worse, I’ll report to you immediately.” “I’d appreciate that… although with Hokage-sama on the case, I doubt it will get any further.” The jounin got up on his feet and took the necessary couple of steps to approach him. Mitsuki was even more surprised when Konohamaru pulled him in for a tight hug. “We are and will always be here for you kiddo… Don’t ever forget that.” The boy had to blink a couple of times to make sure his eyes stayed dry. “Thank you, sensei.” The jounin patted him on the shoulder when they broke the hug. “Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow in the training.” He was just about to walk out of the door when the boy’s voice stopped him again. “Sensei?” The young man turned to him, question marks in his eyes. “Yeah?” There was a small, soft smile on Mitsuki’s face, one that… almost made Konohamaru feel a little… restless. “You should really make peace with Lady Hanabi.” Konohamaru was so taken aback that he just stared at his student for a moment. How could he think about such a thing with what he had been through…? “Yeah, well… we will see about that.” he mumbled for lack of a better reply before blending into the darkening evening. Why did Mitsuki’s last words feel almost… like a farewell…? … Even with his mind set, Mitsuki couldn't help but feel empty walking away from the place he called home for a year. Each step he took felt like a ton, and his mind was fogged by all the good memories. At least Mikazuki had stopped meowing, so he was hoping he wasn’t drawing much attention. "Hey, guess who's back, loser." 'Not again,' the boy thought, already too tired as he raised his head. This time, there was a bigger group of kids from various ages gathered in front of him. He realized that it was a hit-list of all those who already made their opinions about him heard - the boys from the orphanage, the Sarutobi kid, even those from yesterday. "Let me pass." he said calmly. "I have no intention to fight." "Why not? Do you only attack those who can't even defend themselves, you coward?" The blue haired boy sighed. "Let me pass." he repeated as he put the kitten’s cage on the ground. They would probably do so without a question if they knew what he was about to do. "No, you know what, come on. I dare you to attack us." The boy who tried to punch him in the orphanage came in front of him pretty quickly and shoved him. Mitsuki staggered back one step, but stood his ground. And he didn't do anything, not even raise his fists in a defense position. He just let it happen. "What's the matter? Go on, defend yourself." Another shove. "Afraid to go up against a large group? Afraid we would beat you?" Some of the other kids, mostly younger than him, the boy noticed, started cheering for the older boys. Still, he chose to do nothing. "We are not gonna let snakes spread their venom in Konoha!" "Enough." With the calm voice intervening, the children came to a stop, turning around to look at... Kakashi Hatake, the Sixth Hokage. "What do you think you are doing?" the older man asked, eyebrows furrowed. "At least ten on one?" All of the children around the boy took a step back, and one of them actually grumbled, "We were just talking." "Is that so? Well, be sure that your little 'talk' will be notified to Lord Seventh." As the kids ran away, Kakashi turned to look at Mitsuki, a little bothered by the fact that... The kid really didn't do anything... Anything at all in response, he just stood there. "You alright?" he asked, worry coating his tone. He just nodded. "Yup, I'm fine." "Where are you headed to at this hour? It's..." Kakashi checked his watch. It was almost ten pm. "Getting late." The boy didn't look at him. "I was actually headed to Lord Seventh's office..." Something that never occurred to him before then clicked on his mind. "If he is there...?" "He is," the former Hokage said, carefully gazing at the boy. "Let me escort you there then." ... Naruto had gained the habit of looking at his phone every few minutes in the last couple of hours. He had given Konohamaru two days to come back with his report, he wanted him to gather every possible lead he could trace back... But he still sat on edge, just waiting for a call... A soft knock on the door made him snap out of it. "Come in," he said, having a brief moment of dejavu of the late afternoon. He was surprised to see Mitsuki making his way into the room. "Good evening, Lord Seventh." the boy said, politely formal. "Good evening, Mitsuki," he said, and then gave the boy a warm smile. "What can I do for you?" He didn't know what brought him here at this hour, but then he thought that he might want to report the ongoing harassment on his own account, which made him feel glad. The boy came to a stop a little while away from his desk, and didn't know what to say for a moment. Naruto just waited for him to take the first step. "I am sorry." "Huh?" the Hokage asked, totally confused. "What for?" "For what happened to Boruto... I couldn't stop them..." "Mitsuki..." The older man began, but didn't know how to continue for a while. How could the boy even blame himself for this? "It's not your fault. The ones who did it will pay. They will pay for what they've been doing to you, too." Mitsuki smiled a little. "I... heard about it. But Lord Seventh... That's not why I came here." "Then what is it?" Mitsuki took in a deep breath. "I'm planning to leave Konoha tomorrow morning."

#boruto:sacrifices #boruto #naruto #mitsuki #konohamaru #sarada #boruto fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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w-ngs · 4 years ago

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jan21

hello 2021! you did not get off on a good start. let’s try and be a little better, okay?

i didn’t read much this month (and probably won’t be for a long while because of school), but it was a wild month. well, you’ll see.

***

crooked kingdom, leigh bardugo — oh my god???? i completely forgot that i read this before i left for school and almost didn’t include it in my monthly wrap-up????? how dare i forget this masterpiece.

it was great. i loved it. i think overall, i preferred 6oc because heist stories are my guilty pleasure. but romance-wise... let’s just say kaz and inej have made it to my top 10 ships. but also i read through this so fast because i had to finish it before i left that half the story is kinda just not in my brain lololol

the most intriguing part of the entire story was the anti-wraith. her character kind of came out of nowhere, and i’m not really sure she had much of a purpose than being someone who could physically match inej. i guess she was also anti in the sense that she had no respect, just ruthlessness, which is the opposite of inej and what she stands for. but i don’t know if the anti-wraith was significant enough of a character to really be considered a foil.

i don’t really give spoiler warnings because hardly anyone reads these other than myself lolol but big spoiler ahead. skip the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. cuz i accidentally spoiled it for myself before reading and i kinda ruined it for myself lmfao.

poor matthias. he was there, and then he was gone. i feel terrible for nina. they were finally on the same page, and then he had to act all saint-like and trigger some idiot into killing him. and matthias finally came to terms with what he’d been taught and what he was trying to teach himself (#charactergrowth), so he wrapped things up neatly for himself before the bye-bye. but nina, she finally got her guy on her side and they were supposed to change the world together. sigh.

and of course, we got kaz. he’s my favorite. how could he not be, with his trauma and desire to overcome it but not letting it define him and still maintaining that evil genius act he’s so good at. it definitely hit harder in this story, the extent of his trauma. it made him more real, too. both sides of him coexist, and one could not exist without the other. he’s crazy, in nearly all senses of the word. also crazy in love, the mfing idiot. ugh, i love vulnerable kaz. i love what inej brings out in him, how she knows just how hard to push without driving him over the edge. also i saw a tiktok (this app is gonna come up a lot more in the next few reviews fsjdsdfkjdf) with a photo of them kissing with a towel between their mouths because he can’t touch her but he desperately wants to and what a perfect solution is that their... bathroom scene had me holding my breath. or at least taking very shallow breaths. it was intense. so intimate, i felt like i shouldn’t even have been there. ugh, the cute little babies. uwuwuwuwuwu

one last note. leigh bardugo is a very good writer, plot and characters and all. everything flowed much more smoothly in this book, and once again i was impressed by the detail provided. you go girl. i can’t wait to see the tv series development.

a 10/10.

***

the shadows between us, tricia levenseller — literally what did i read lmaooo. this is my first tiktok book recommendation. and it. was. boring. boring characters that didn’t make much sense. boring plot. i skimmed it after the first 50 pages cause it was so boring. that’s it bye.

a 3/10.

***

manacled, senlinyu — um. wow. i literally......... even hours after finishing it my brain is still ridiculously scrambled. edit: it’s about a month later and sometimes random scenes and images still pop in my head for no reason and then i feel all twisted inside again. i love it.

so, this is not a published book but a dramione fanfiction on ao3. i don’t read fanfics that often anymore, mainly because i’d rather read other things, not because i don’t like them. but i found this one because a tiktok that showed the illustrations in the story and i was so blown away by the fact someone would illustrate an entire fanfic that i just had to read it. and i have no regrets. it’s kinda long and a biiit wordy for me at times but holy shit that hit like a mother trucker. and i haven’t read dramione in ages, not since... years. so this really hit different.

the illustrations are beautiful. they’re what dragged me into the story in the first place, so, of course they are. but i’d literally spend minutes looking at every detail in amazement at how perfectly the emotions were captured and the lighting casting the perfect shadows and just… everything. i know nothing about drawing but my eyes were truly blessed.

i think integrating the handmaid’s tale with the hp world was ingenious. i would never have expected that. and wow. the relationship between the two, it’s…….. i can barely put it in words in my mind, and it’s even harder to articulate on paper. complex, but at the same time not, simply the desire for the other to stay alive. timeless. destructive. their only defense from the harsh reality of their situation. desperation at its most desperate, their one and only survival method. depressing. it’s so depressing. i was so sad, the angst almost too much at times.

the flashbacks were insanely intense. and i thought the handmaid section was bad. it was awful to read. i could hardly bear it, it was so dark at times i didn’t know how either of them got through it all. i mean, they barely did. the near-death scares, the constant need to create a blank slate within yourself in order to not overwhelm yourself with crushing emotions… wartime sometimes has a tendency to sound romantic, but theirs wasn’t anything near romantic, and i appreciate that the author chose to be very real about it.

at the beginning, and in the middle when we went through the flashbacks, i was afraid the love would be toxic. and, well, it kind of was at some points. but in a time like that and a situation like theirs, it would be hard to not have a toxic relationship. i was glad that in the end theirs was a good love, the kind that sustained and kept them alive and got them through until the very end, because it was what they needed from each other. and, of course, my favorite part of it all was draco’s ceaseless possessiveness that only seemed to grow, never fade. i love simpy men.

they deserve each other. i was afraid at the end they wouldn’t, that one of them would die—that draco would die because hermione basically did once already for him, so he would have to “return the favor”—also she was pregnant so there was no way she’d be the one to die—idk many theories. but at the end i’m so glad they both ended up alive. after everything, they deserved it.

i did nothing for two days straight but read this book. except eat. and barely sleep. and i have no regrets.

a 9/10.

***

bloodlines, richelle mead — dang. i used to be obsessed with vampire academy when i was in middle school. i even watched the terrible movie that released because of it. and now i can’t believe i really thought that was peak literature lmfaooooo

i remember adrian being such a funny and interesting character that i picked up bloodlines to see if it was gonna be as good as i remembered it was. i was disappointed. it was just... well let’s just say there wasn’t enough to get me invested in the characters as i used to be. i think what it was is that adrian’s characterization was so weak. he wasn’t as ~quirky~ as i remembered him to be haha. the plot was also way too slow-paced, and a little too easy to guess. maybe if i was 12 again i’d be going crazy over it like i used to. but i’m not a pre-teen anymore and my brain craves stuff along the lines of manacled—destruction, death, angst that wants me to pull my own heart out to stop it from hurting.

a 5/10.

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fingaudioart · 4 years ago

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Hill House, and Audio Horror vs Film Horror

I got to thinking about this when an audio producer on Twitter asked what people thought the scariest parts of Haunting of Hill House, other than the jump scares. What struck me while reading the responses were almost all things that depended on the visuals, and would be very hard to move into the realm of audio.

I feel like many/most people think of horror movies as a template to build off of for horror audio fiction...which is fair, because for many of us, horror audio fiction wasn’t a thing we could find to listen to until recently (myself included). And it’s not uncommon to hear a successful, talent audio producer say something along the lines of “An audio drama is like a movie, without needing a million dollar budget.”

I agree with the thought, generally: audio fiction does have many similarities to film, but if you stretch it too far, it can be a dangerous approach. And it can be especially dangerous for Horror.

Let’s think about how we could move the Bent Neck Lady into audio (spoilers ahead). Except for one scream, she is silent and unmoving. To move it into audio, we’d either need a narrator (or someone to tell us what’s happening), or to make Bent Neck Lady move around. The first option would keep the nature of the ghost intact, but we would be robbed of having it happen in front of us. The second option would change the nature of the ghost entirely. This is before we even talk about the twist, that hinges on Bent Neck Lady largely being a silhouette, which obscures information without feeling like anything.

Horror is a genre that is especially dependent on craftsmanship, regardless of the medium. It’s a genre where--and you’re going to murder me for saying this--you don’t need a good story to be scary. You need a scary situation/scene, told with skill, but even if the scenes/plot/characters around it are terrible, you can still make the audience feel afraid (Looking at you, Argento).

That’s not to say the story doesn’t matter. In fact, a large part of what makes Haunting of Hill House so good is that it’s part horror, but also part family melodrama (and it actually spends more time on the melodrama than the horror), blended together so the ghosts have meaning. Bent Neck Lady is disturbing the first time you see it, but it’s the story behind it that makes her stay with you long after you’ve finished the show.

But if we set aside the story, and focus on the scary moments...they are pure filmmaking. Every aspect is working to create fear: the sets and art direction, the creature design, the pacing, the blocking, the editing, the sound design.

The same way a horror movie uses every weapon of filmmaking, a horror audio drama should use every weapon of audio to create dread/fear/suspense. But the flip side is, just as Haunting of Hill House isn’t using the tools of horror literature, your audio drama shouldn’t try to be a movie.

But I think we also need to own up to something: many of us (most of us?) have more experience watching horror movies than listening to horror audio dramas. So let’s get analytical here. What are films strengths? Audio’s strengths? Weakness? And how do these work in service of horror? Any tips for the audio drama producer?

Filmmaking’s Unique Gifts

Before I get into the list, I want to be very clear: I’m not to saying you can’t do versions of this in an audio drama. In fact, when these are successfully used in audio, they can be outright amazing. But they take a lot more work, either by carefully setting up signature sounds*, or by having narration, or some other creative way no one has done yet. The point of this list is that film does these things easily.

There are some obvious things, like, ya know, visuals. I don't think there's any amount of words or sounds that would allow me to imagine Giger’s Xenomorph. Some things just need to be seen.

One of film's special talents is it gives the audience an understanding of a location without even trying. I don’t mean the layout of a house (that can be confusing), but present an audience with one shot of a bedroom, and they’ll instantly understand where the bed is, the window, the door, the closet, the bedside tables. Films communicate small spaces so easily, they don't even need to stop to do it…a character walks in the room doing whatever, and as long as the space is seen by the camera, the audience gets it.

In horror, this is vital when the fear you're trying to create is that of a physical threat. Where is the killer? Behind the bookcase? Walking towards you from across the lawn?

Related to this idea of a physical space, films also have the ability to makes things appear--and disappear--quickly and unexpectedly. This is moments like Mike Meyers appearing in the closet in Halloween, or later, when Dr. Loomis looks over the edge of the Balcony, and Michael Meyers has vanished.

Perhaps film’s most famous strength is the montage. You can easily cut between different scenes and settings, without the audience ever getting confused.

There is one tool of film that I am very frustrated won’t work in audio: the Title Card. I don’t mean the title of the show, I mean those cards that say things like “Burbank, CA” or “CIA Headquarters” or “3:23pm.” Text on screen is a painless way to give the audience information without tripping up the storytelling.

Finally, let’s talk about one of film’s most powerful tricks...patience.

A film can stretch moments out, sometimes with slomo, but often with editing between close-ups. You can also have moments where nothing happens, you just linger in the mood/ambience/characters reactions.

A great example is the “Spielberg-Face”, those shots when the characters are reacting to something the audience hasn’t seen yet. In Jurassic Park, we spend a full 30 seconds watching jaws drop before we see the first dinosaur. This is pretty nuts, when you think about it. The true stars of the movie aren’t introduced with a speech, or a title card, or a curtain pulling back, but by the characters just staring in the distance for half a page.

Pausing the action, or even just stretching it out, is one of the fundamental tools of horror movies. It’s a way to create the mood: Show the spooky location, play the spooky ambience. It’s a way to create suspense in a scene, think of the long POV shot scanning the room for that noise. End the moment with something suddenly appearing, and you have the basic recipe for a jump scare. Even if you decide to be an artsy horror story, like Haunting of Hill House, silently drawing out the action is your primary weapon. Done well, the audience will be rapt, knowing that something could be about to happen any moment, even though as far as the plot goes, we haven’t moved much at all.

I’ll be honest, if I could go back in time and tell the younger version of me who hadn’t made an audio drama yet that you can’t draw out a moment the way you do in film, I probably would not have believed me. In my work as a TV Editor, it’s been one of the tricks that has really elevated my pieces...it feels like magic. But I’ll never forget editing my first audio piece, having a character fumble with a doorknob while trying to escape someone who was chasing them. They grunted at the door as the footsteps got closer and closer, and it was lousy. It felt like the manipulation it was.

Audio’s Unique Gifts

The thing that audio does better than any other media--and this is controversial--a narrator feels like they are talking directly to you, the listener (a narrator in a film feels more like they are talking to an auditorium). Now, here are people who find that narration is jarring and takes them out of the story. They aren’t wrong--you can’t argue someone’s experience--but that’s certainly not what happens to me. If you are one of these poor souls, I hope you take some time to listen to some narration and reprogram your brain, because you’re missing out on some magic.

The other great thing about sound is it activates the imagination. Films can also do this, of course, but audio does it be default.

Sound is also very good at evoking a sense of touch. Texture. Clothing. Almost anything you can feel in your hand.

While sounds is great at telling us about what’s very close, it also tells us about the world in the distance, i.e. ambiences. The sound of a forest transports us to a forest that exists in all directions. Distant traffic can tell us if the city is awake or asleep.

Audio also does an amazing plot twist that I’m gonna call the “Pull Back to Reveal” twist (yeah, that’s a film term). This is when, deep into a scene, something is revealed to the audience that the characters understood was there the whole time. While a movie can usually only sustain this for a minute or two, audio dramas can push this for a really long time. The Truth’s classic “The Dark End of the Mall” is a great example, as is the episode “Have You Seen My Mom?” It’s use in horror is more limited though...suspense works the best when the audience knows as much or more about the situation than characters (a.k.a. Audience Superior), and this is a twist that is Audience Inferior.

And, not for nothing: It’s way cheaper than a film. That’s not say the money doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t matter in the same way.

Film’s Failings

The hardest part of film is the flip side of its strengths: it’s so easily grounded in reality, it’s very hard to step out of it. That’s more of a problem than you think.

Take the sentence, “Andy called his sister-in-law.” While it takes just four words to write in a book, in a movie, you are going to be contorting dialog or some other clever trick, to get the audience to understand “that’s his wife’s sister.” (Non-narrated audio dramas also have this problem with exposition.)

Same goes for backstory. In the middle of a scene, a book can say things like “She’d been working on this for ten hours now, and was ready to scream.” One sentence. A film would have to lay out exposition, or clues for the audience to put it together.

Film also has a hard time conveying senses other than sound or sight. During scenes where a character walks into a place and says “Ugh, what’s that smell!”, I never really imagine the smell, I just see an actor pretending to smell something.

Visuals can be too intense. Gore or nudity are the first things that come to mind in this category, and are often alluded to in a film for exactly that reason. But even if they are merely hinted at, the film audience may spend a scene wondering “Are they going to actually show it?”, which knocks you out the movie a little.

Films are complicated to make, at every level. Casting is tougher---the actor needs to both sound and look the part. There’s the expense of sets and lighting, the effort of just getting a crew to a location can be monumental. And once it’s all shot, film editing is more complicated and time intensive than audio editing, and not just because it involves audio editing.

Audio's Weakness

The biggest: There's a big Blindspot right in front of the audience. Without some careful context, raw audio recording from real life is disorienting at best, intelligible at worst. Most sounds that come from the blank spot are descriptive, they generally tell us if someone’s shoes are wet, but they won’t tell who is walking around the room in wet shoes.

This blind spot can be especially dangerous to a producer, because in real life, our brain attaches sounds to the objects it sees, and when you understand what a sound is, it’s easy to place it. Because a producer knows what sound they are placing in the piece, it’s easy to think your sound design is intelligible. Sounds we don’t understand are also hard to place in the space. I personally find that while stereo and ambisonics can help make the sounds be more distinct from each other, they don’t really locate them precisely.

Another weakness of audio, characters are hard to tell apart. This can especially affect women's voices, who don't tend to have as much variation. This isn’t as true if the audience has seen the face of the actor talking, something about that seems to lock in our understanding of a voice (video though, not just a headshot). But without a face, it’s tough. EDIT: So I wasn’t very clear with that last point. To be clear, it’s not that you CAN’T cast people who sound different, or that you can’t direct people with similar voices to give different performances. It’s that you need to make a point of doing so. And while I have personally found that women’s voices are more likely to sound alike, that’s not the main idea. We remember face’s very easily, and names relatively easily (unless you’re me, I’m terrible at names). Voices without faces are easily confused.

This character confusion especially applies to large casts...I have a hard time imagining an audio only version of OCEAN’S ELEVEN, for example. Put twelve characters in a room for an audio drama, and it’s gets confusing for the listener really quickly.

If you aren't using a narrator, making time pass can be hard. A Rocky montage needs to be carefully setup. "Cut To: Five Minutes Later" is damn near impossible without narration.

Sound Effects need to be more meticulous. THE AVENGERS can sweeten a superhero punch so it hardly sounds like a punch at all, and the visuals on screen will lock it into place. Without a picture to give a sound context, they need to be much more realistic for them to be understood correctly.

So let’s put this all together.

Lets turn it into an “approach,” and design some scenes that work easily in the medium.

Ambiences are a strength, so we’ll pick a setting that has an interesting one, and avoid things like quiet rooms. We’ll have a small number of characters, let’s say four or less, and to make it easier for audience to remember who is who, we’ll cast actors with clearly different voices, and we can help on the script level by making sure they all have different motivations/goals/emotional states. To get that intimacy of the voice, we’ll have at least some of the characters close to each other (and the mics), and not shouting across the room.

The physical setup of the room will be straight forward, and our characters’ movements though the space will be clearly motivated and direct (“Does this key unlock this door?”), if a character has busy work that moves them through the space, the details won’t matter (like they are doing dishes). We’ll also want to have some moments that play on that sense of touch. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll want to paint some clear visuals for the listener to imagine.

For a horror scene, you really want to work your ambiences to make them add to the tension, vs just adding realism. We first want the monsters in the distance, say on the other side of a door or outside the house, or somewhere in the woods. Make our scared characters really close to the listener, play the sounds that you only hear when you are right next to them, like their breathing, swallows, adjusting the clothes or their make-shift weapon.

When the monster enters the room, have it spend as little time as possible in the blindspot, so avoid things like fist fights and fast-paced footchases. Instead get the monster right inside our character's personal bubble. If you’re aiming for a startle, instead of having it leap out in front of the hero like in a movie, you’d want to skip the blindspot, and have the monster pounce onto the hero--using those touch sounds that are so intense.

To me, that sounds like a scary scene.

It’s Not a Formula, and All of This is Nonsense

In fact, you probably wouldn’t want every scene in your piece to follow this, because a) it’ll get repetitive, and b) when you go against the medium, you’re more likely to make some magic (if you pull it off). But I do think it’s important to realize when the big moment of your piece is resting on some of the weaknesses. When this happens, you may want to make sure you’re leaning on something really strong to carry the weight. Other times, you may want to toss around some other ideas, make sure that it’s actually working, and to see if it could be improved.

Also, even though I’ve written a lot of words here, I fully expect someone has already proven every one of these rules wrong. But I also think it’s a good exercise to go through this and figure out why I’m wrong.

The medium matters. And I hate writing conclusions, so I’m ending it here.

*Signature Sound: A sound that the audience understands to mean something specific, such as a doorbell or a gunshot.

#audiodrama #horror #hill house

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sae-bae-ran · 7 years ago

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Hi! ^^ Since you didn’t specify the characters you want me to write for, I decided to pick three on my own. It didn’t seem fair to pick my faves, so instead, I used an online list randomizer on the list of RFA + Saeran’s names.

I’m gonna write scenarios for the first three characters in this list, hope that’s okay with you! ^^

Masterlist || Ko-fi

Zen, Jumin and Saeran reacting to an MC who gets hit by a car on the street

No, no, no.

Why today?

Why today of all days?

Why did you oversleep today of all days?

You’ve been dreading this day for a week now, but the interview you’re having in less than ten minutes is for your dream job. Memories of little you, running around and telling everybody about what you want to work when you grow up, start flooding your mind and a small smile forms on your lips. Nothing’s changed since then. You’ve always been working hard for your dream and now you’re so close to making it turn into reality that your heart flutters at the thought of it.

Then why, you wonder, did your brain decide to let you indulge in the comfort and warmth of your bed an hour longer today? You’ve been having troubles sleeping ever since they called you to schedule the interview, the ball of anxiety in your stomach keeping you from functioning normally. But last night? Last night you fell asleep as soon as your head hit your soft pillow.

As unlucky as you feel today, you can’t help but also feel happy. A soft giggle escapes your lips when you stop at the traffic light. An elderly couple with their gorgeous golden retriever stops right next to you, the dog’s tail wagging happily. You feel your luck coming back to you when you drop down on one knee to pet the animal and it moves to lick your cheek in a moment of love and affection. Your day can’t be that bad if the god of dogs is smiling down upon you, can it?

Your mood now significantly improved, you join the crowd crossing the street when the light turns green. You’re still deep in your thoughts when your ears start picking up someone’s yelling. Your eyes focus on the people on the other side of the road and you swear they’re all looking and pointing at you. A chill runs down your spine and you feel your blood pumping in your head. The people you were crossing the street with are running in panic, leaving you alone in the middle of the road to try and comprehend what’s going on. You turn around and you feel time slowing down.

A moment of distraction. That’s all it takes for someone to become an innocent victim on the road. You were focused on thoughts about your future, but now you wonder if you’ll ever see one. Your eyes find the driver’s terrified ones through thick glass, her hand tightly clutching her phone.

Oh. She’s been texting someone.

You really want to stop time and ask her if this message was so important that she risked hurting someone to send it. Was it worth it?

It’s too late now, though.

Time picks up pace to return to its normal flow. You close your eyes and hope that when you open them again, you’ll be in your bed, the warmth of the one you love most in this world wrapped around you like a soft blanket.

Unbearable pain hits you with its full force and your brain shuts off. The next thing you know is you’re falling down in an endless pit of darkness.

Zen

It’s rare for Zen to have a day off, so that couldn’t have happened at a better time. Today is a very important day for you and he wants to make sure you’ll be able to take a proper rest when you get back home.

The take-out he ordered is on its way, the dishes are spotless, and he’s just about to change the sheets of your bed when his phone goes off. Thinking it’s you, he all but runs to the other room to pick up.

His smile fades as soon as a man, his voice stern and clear, but unfamiliar, asks to talk to Mr. Hyun Ryu. Zen can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who still use his birth name, so his initial reaction is that of pure surprise.

Different types of thoughts start swirling around in his head when the man pauses for a second. “Mr. Ryu, do you know a woman named MC?” Zen’s blood runs cold, fingers gripping the kitchen counter with force he never knew he had in himself. His ears are ringing, eyes looking at what’s in front of them, but not seeing.

He doesn’t bother locking the door when he leaves the house. To hell with everything. Nothing will really matter if you’re not around. He hails the first cab he sees on the street, the strong smell inside the car doing nothing to distract his mind from thoughts of you. “She’ll be okay. She is strong. She’ll make it through. Yes, she’ll be okay.”

The ride to the hospital is long and slow and Zen wants to scream at the top of his lungs, irritated and angry at the world. He feels as if time itself is slowing down, mockingly showing him that nothing is under his control. He bites his lips and soon, the taste of iron fills his mouth, drawing his attention away from all the red traffic lights standing in his way.

As soon as he arrives at the hospital, he wastes no time getting to your room. He hears voices telling him that he shouldn’t run in a hospital, but those warnings sound distant and frankly, right now he doesn’t care about any rules.

His eyes widen at the sight of your tiny body looking even smaller with all the tubes and other medical equipment attached to it. The tears he’s been holding back until now burst forth like water from a dam as he runs towards you. He kneels next to the bed, hands moving to grab yours.

The feeling of your skin on his pulls him out of the trance he’s been in since your doctor called. He’s desperate for more, desperate to hear your voice and see your bright smile, but you can’t indulge him this time.

He doesn’t know when he’s dozed off, but he realizes he’s waking up to a small, barely noticeable movement that has piqued his sleeping brain’s curiosity. Your eyes are still tightly shut, your breaths faint and sustained by complex machinery, but he’s sure he felt your fingers move.

Hope fills his heart as he feels that tiny movement once again. A cry of relief echoes through the room, soon followed by Zen’s soft laughter. You’ll be okay. You’re strong. You’ll make it through. And he’s gonna be with you every step of the way.

Jumin

He skims through the contents of another folder of neatly organized documents, but finds himself unable to focus on his work. As his thoughts keep going back to you, he decides it’s time for a break.

With a deep sigh, he turns around in his chair. Usually, the view of the city from this high up calms his nerves and makes his worries seem small. Today, however, he can’t shake off the feeling of something not being quite right.

Dark clouds, heralds of an impending storm, loom on the horizon and Jumin’s bad feeling gets even worse. Just when he’s about to check his phone, it rings, an unknown number on the display making him hesitate before picking up.

Jumin’s many years as a businessman, along with the various trainings he went through as a kid, usually work in his favor. Analyzing situations and people and calculating different outcomes come naturally to him, but nothing has prepared him for this.

As the brief conversation ends, Jumin feels his knees going weak and the blood draining from his face. Fingers trembling, he steadies them for just enough time to dial driver Kim’s number and tell him to wait for him in front of the building in a minute.

After a couple of deep breaths, he feels his usual calmness slowly coming back. His heart is pounding in his chest, but his mind is clear. You need him. He needs to be strong for you and like hell he’ll fail at the most important job in his life. With a newfound determination, he heads to the elevator, fingers already working on dialing the number of his doctor.

Driver Kim’s years of experience shine through as he navigates the city with skill and ease. In less than fifteen minutes, Jumin is at the hospital, the beating of his heart getting louder and louder. He enters the building as if in a trance, the curious looks of people doing nothing to distract him from thoughts of you and your well-being.

Afraid of what he might see, he hesitates for a second at the door of your room. A deep breath steadies his resolve and he goes in.

He feels like someone just kicked him in the ribs, forcing out all the air that filled his lungs a second ago. Purple welts cover most of your pale skin and the sight is enough for Jumin to feel the world starting to spin around him.

He slowly moves towards your bed as if afraid to disturb the delicate balance of of all the tubes and life supporting machines in the room. Your breathing is faint and he feels overwhelming fear spreading through his whole body. A silent scream escapes his lips as he falls on his knees next to you, head buried in your pillow.

Why? Why would such a cruel thing happen to a brilliant person like you? Why do you have to suffer? Just why? He lifts his hand to remove a loose strand of hair from your face, the soft feeling of it making his eyes water. His fingers trace your jawline, their soft trail ending at the deep cut right above the corner of your lips. “Please... Please, don’t leave me, my love... Please, stay with me...”

In what seems like eternity, he dozes off on the chair next to your bed. His fingers are intertwined with yours, a gentle expression on his tear-stained face. A soft smile tugs at the corners of his lips when he meets you in his dreams, laughing, happy and very much alive. Dreams he’s determined to turn into reality.

Saeran

A soft smile forms on his lips as his fingers touch the delicate petals of the blooming primrose. Eternal love. That’s what this flower symbolizes, perfectly resonating with the feelings inside Saeran’s heart. If he’s sure about anything in his life, it is that he will love you forever.

You left the house in a hurry this morning, sparing only a second to give him a quick peck on the lips before bolting out the door. It’s partially his fault, he admits to himself. He tried to wake you up, but you looked so cute, so peaceful in your slumber that he decided to let you sleep a bit more while he made your favorite breakfast for you. Things did get out of hand since he became too preoccupied with cooking, but he knows you’ll be alright. You’re the strongest person he knows and he’s positive you’ll come home with good news.

The sudden sound of his phone going off startles him. Thinking it’s you, he picks up with a broad smile on his face. An unfamiliar voice says his name and he feels his muscles grow tense. Thoughts of his past distract him for a few seconds until he makes out your name and his blood runs cold.

Moments later he’s outside, phone still clutched in his hand. The hospital is not far from where you two live and he figures he’d get there more quickly if he runs.

Cool wind bites at his cheeks as he moves through sparse crowds of people. A golden retriever tries to join him in his race against time, but is stopped by its elderly owners. If Saeran felt a hole in his chest where his heart used to be just a few minutes ago, he’s now all too aware of its pounding, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

He only slows down for a moment to ask the receptionist about you. When he gets the information he needs, he starts running towards your room, the outraged shouts of the few people he pushes out of his way falling on deaf ears.

He storms in your room startling the nurse who’s checking your vital signs. She tries to protest, but the look of desperation on Saeran’s face convinces her otherwise. After a long minute, she leaves the room, giving him an empathetic look on her way out.

Breathing still rapid, he approaches your bed. You’re unconscious, pale, massive bruises covering the soft skin he adores touching. He tries to steady his breaths, but his efforts fall short as tears start falling down his cheeks and muffled sobs fill the tiny room.

When night comes, he makes it clear to the hospital staff that he’s not leaving your side. As moonlight starts sliding in through the curtains, Saeran’s eyelids grow heavy, the constant beeping of the heart monitor lulling him to sleep.

Dreams of you fill his slumber, a red thread connecting your little finger to his. He tugs at it to try and draw your attention to him and you turn around, a brilliant smile gracing your beautiful face. As you start walking towards him, he notices the thread stretching and tangling on its own, as if alive. Seconds later, he feels familiar warmth enveloping him in its comfort as your soft lips touch his. Then he remembers the most important thing about the red thread of fate. It will never break.

#mystic messenger #saeran choi #jumin han #zen #hyun ryu #mysme scenarios

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velkynkarma · 7 years ago

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Hey! Happy birthday!! I hope I'm not too late, I understand if I'm am, but if you're still accepting prompts could I get some Keith and Pidge interaction? Like literally anything, but if you want a more specific prompt, like maybe they go on a mission and Keith get's hurt, and Pidge has to get them both back to the others? Or again just anything you want to do with those two. Also I Love your voltron fics on AO3, they're amazing!! I espically love your Friends in Space Places series!

I decided to combo these two since they had similar characters and topics! Hope you guys enjoy, even if this is probably not even remotely what you had in mind (but man, the idea got in my head and I couldn’t let it go!)---------- Pidge gasps in pain as she dives behind the high stack of metal storage containers and comes down the wrong way on her bad leg. She bites her tongue to keep from yelling and giving away her position, and twists to sit with her back against the container, stretching her bad leg out in front of her. A moment later, Keith comes stumbling in after her. He thuds awkwardly against the side of the container with one shoulder, and nearly trips on Pidge as he skids to a stop and crouches down next to her.There’s a long pause as they take stock of the situation. Pidge can hear the clank of sentries all throughout the storage unit they’re hidden in on the Galra land base, and the occasional ba-choo ba-choo of their blasters as they fire to try and flush out the enemy. But Pidge thinks she and Keith have a few doboshes at least to catch their breath and figure out a plan.“Well,” Keith says after a moment, keeping his voice low, “At least it can’t—““If you say it can’t get worse,” Pidge interrupts him with a barely contained hiss, “I swear I will punch you so hard you can see again.”

Keith stares, and raises an eyebrow at her a moment later. At least, Pidge thinks that’s what’s happening. The effect is sort of greatly diminished by the fact that he’s staring about a foot to the left of her actual face. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”“Yes—no—ugh, never mind.” On occasion, Pidge forgets that Keith, while a great team mate in a lot of things, is less than savvy when it comes to things like don’t say it can’t get worse, it always gets worse. “Haven’t you ever seen a movie?”“I’ve seen plenty of movies,” Keith says, a touch defensively. “Then how can you…” A particularly sharp stab of pain races through her broken leg, and she gasps despite herself. “Y’know what, never mind. Not the time,” she manages to grit out through her teeth. Keith frowns. “How you doing?” he asks. He sounds concerned, and he’s clearly trying to force some degree of control into his tone for her benefit. “I saw you get hit before…”Pidge winces. They’d been on a mission to steal data from the Galra land base they were in. They’d used Shiro’s tried-and-true method of distraction and stealth—Shiro, Lance and Hunk were out wreaking havoc on the rest of the fleet and surface-to-air weapons and drawing attention to themselves, while Pidge had stealthed in with the Green Lion, with Keith for backup. And the first part of the plan had gone well—Keith had gotten them past the biometric locks easy, and it had been a breeze for Pidge to download all the data they were looking for.Getting out had proven to be a bit of a challenge though, because they’d gotten caught halfway through their escape back to the Green Lion. Even then it hadn’t been going so badly—Keith could mow through sentries when he was so inclined, and Pidge was no slouch in a fight. Then she’d gone and gotten herself hit by a druid’s spell. They hadn’t expected the druid to show up; no one had even figured there was a druid here. The caster had blinked out of nowhere and blasted at Pidge full on with a lightning bolt, and she’d barely had time to try and throw herself aside. She’d avoided taking the hit directly to her head or torso, but the lightning blast had smashed into her right leg, and it hurt. She’d collapsed, and it had taken her a moment to even remember where the hell she was and what she was supposed to be doing through all the pain.Keith had hit the druid from behind when it charged up another blast to finish off Pidge. The good news was he’d managed to kill it, driving his Marmora blade through the druid’s chest. The bad news was he’d taken a faceful of imploding druid spell when he did. His helm had protected him from the worst of the damage, but he’d stared straight into the intensity of the spell as it burst. And when he’d staggered away from the twisted, burned out pile of robes moments later, wide-eyed and unfocused, Pidge had realized he’d been blinded.Even now, he doesn’t look good. The helm of his paladin armor has been shattered, leaving his head and face exposed, with a clear view of his eyes. His pupils are shrunk down to the size of pinpricks, and his gaze doesn’t track anything, even when she waves her fingers in front of his face. Not to mention the injuries he’s already sustained from the fight prior to that, a host of scrapes, bruises and burns from all the scuffles they’ve been in since getting spotted.Not that Pidge is much better. She can see, but her leg is totally busted. She doesn’t even want to look down at it; she already knows it’s gross. The bolt had shattered most of her greave and burned through the under armor, leaving everything from the knee down a burned, cracked, sluggishly bleeding mess. It smells like charred meat, and it’s only through sheer force of will that she’s not throwing up.“Been better,” she admits, trying to downplay it for now. She’s in rough shape, but Keith can’t see that, and there’s no point in worrying him more. She does her best to keep the rough edge of pain out of her voice. “You? Any vision coming back?”“No. Everything’s dark and fuzzy.” He sounds frustrated, and Pidge doesn’t blame him. She’s seen Keith keep fighting with all manner of injuries, but he’s never had to fight blind before. A busted arm or leg might have worked out better for him than this. He’s calmer than most people would be when suddenly rendered sightless, but he’s still more anxious than Keith usually is in a fight.Pidge really, really hopes the cryo-pods can fix that. She’s pretty sure they can. Almost positive. Assuming they can get to one, anyway. Odds are less good on that, unfortunately.She curses under her breath as the clank of sentries starts to get closer. “We are so screwed. There’s no way the others can get to us in time, even if we did manage to get a distress signal out.” There must have been more panic or pain in her voice than she’d intended for, because Keith frowns. “Hey, no,” he says, and flails round a bit awkwardly in front of him, narrowly missing Pidge’s face before he manages to find her shoulder. He squeezes reassuringly when he finally does, and says insistently, “Look, I’m okay, and you’re okay. We’re both okay and neither of us is dead yet. And that means we can figure a way out between us. But you’re the brains here, Pidge—if you can figure out a plan I’ll follow you.”“How?” Pidge snaps, more aggressively than intended. “You can’t even see me to follow, and I can’t walk to lead! The only working thing we’ve got between us are arms, and it’s not like we’re Voltron and only need to be the…one…thing…”Her eyes widen in surprise, and suddenly she has it.“Pidge?” Keith asks with concern. His hand, still on her shoulder, gives her a little shake. ��I have a really stupid idea,” Pidge tells him solemnly. “It might not even work. It’s pretty ridiculous.”“It’s already better than what I have, which is nothing,” Keith tells her. “What’s the plan?”Pidge takes a deep breath. “I’m gonna be your eyes,” she tells him, “and you’re gonna be my legs. We’re gonna Voltron this. Kind of. Two person Voltron.” To his credit, Keith only takes about five ticks to process it before he says, “Okay, fine. I can’t see what I’m doing—gonna need your help to get you on my back.” It’s an awkward and thoroughly painful endeavor, but in the end Pidge is situated in a piggyback with Keith carrying her. She’s able to help by clinging to his shoulders with her arms, and keeping her left leg curled around his waist as much as possible, although the overall effect is a bit monkey-like. She thanks her lucky stars Lance isn’t here to make fun of them for it.“Can you move okay?” Pidge asks.“Maybe. I think. You’ll have to direct,” Keith says. “How do we fight though? We’re open targets like this.”“I can help with my bayard, but I’ll need to take the right side,” Pidge says. “Good thing you’re ambidextrous, you’ll have to be the left arm.”“There’s a change of pace,” Keith mutters. Pidge rolls her eyes, and pushes his Marmora knife into his hand—he’d lost it on the floor when trying to help her climb onto his back with a busted leg. “There. You’re armed…no pun intended. Whatever you do, don’t do that thing when you use your jetpack to fight, or I’m gonna be charbroiled Pidge, okay?”“I wouldn’t even if you weren’t being my eyes,” Keith says, grumbling. “With my luck I’d blast myself right into a wall.” The almost cartoonish image in her head of a flattened Keith peeling off a wall Wile E. Coyote style might have been hilarious if the situation weren’t so dire. “I’ll keep you away from the walls,” Pidge promises. “On the count of three. Ready?” Keith crouches a little to better take her weight. The knife in his left hand extends to a full sword, glowing slightly. His right hand curls beneath her upper leg to better support her injured limb, which is simultaneously painful and a relief. “Ready.” “One…two…three…go!” Keith blasts out from behind the storage containers in a rush. Pidge grimaces at how painfully it jars her leg, but does her best to ignore it—especially since they have bigger concerns. Two sentries are right there, and immediately turn to raise their blasters. “Shit!” Pidge curses, and lashes out with her bayard, activating the taser function as soon as the grapple leaves its port. The two sentries jerk and sizzle almost immediately, collapsing where they stand. Unfortunately, her wild strike also throws Keith off balance, and he stumbles sideways, nearly tripping on one of the collapsed robots and colliding with another metal container.“Sorry,” Pidge says with a wince. “I didn’t mean to—strike left!”Keith, to his credit, doesn’t even hesitate. He swipes out in a wide arc to the left with his Marmora blade, bracing his legs to counter the momentum. It’s wildly uncoordinated, but it does still manage to slice open the front half of a sentry’s chest cavity, enough that it sparks and collapses to the ground.“Felt something—did I hit it?” Keith asks, head twisting around and eyes wide, like he’s trying to see through the non-existent gloom. Pidge spits out some of his hair that gets in her mouth, and pulls back to keep from getting her chin smashed with his skull. But that ends up overbalancing Keith the wrong way, and he staggers backwards. “Ugh, this is hard,” Pidge hisses in frustration. She leans forward again, keeping her head to Keith’s right instead to help balance him again. “Keep going forward, I think we’re clear for a few ticks.”Keith does, leaning forward for better momentum. Pidge swears she hears him muttering under his breath, “Starting to appreciate the work Hunk and Lance do more….”Despite herself, Pidge snorts.They blast through the storage room, and manage to avoid most of the sentries, which have spread out throughout all the containers searching for their quarry. “Watch the robes on the floor,” Pidge says, and Keith manages to skirt around them at her direction to avoid tripping on the druid’s remains. “Right right right!” she hisses next, and Keith banks hard, nearly unseating Pidge as he turns for the door. She wraps her hand hard around his collar and neck to keep hanging on, and he makes a strangled choking noise. “Breathing’s nice,” he manages to hiss at her, as he manages to stagger back upright from the turn. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Go for broke. Run! Fast!”Keith does, and even blinded and burdened with her additional weight, he’s pretty fast. He leans forward to get the most speed he can, and Pidge leans forward with him, thankful he trusts her enough to just run full out without fear of careening into a wall. They make it up the first hallway just in time, and when Pidge (carefully) turns to look over her shoulder, the remaining sentries are only just starting to get into place enough to shoot.“Turn coming up ahead,” Pidge warns. “On your right. Maybe twenty steps.”“Got it,” Keith acknowledges.He nearly overshoots the turn anyway, and clips the edge of the hall with his left shoulder as Pidge screeches, “Turn, turn, turn already!” The Marmora blade takes a small chunk out of the corner of the hallway intersection, and Keith winces. “Sorry,” Pidge says, genuinely apologetic. “Forgot your steps are longer than mine.”“S’fine,” Keith says, panting slightly. “What’s next?”“We make it down this hallway and one more, and we’re at the bay we hid the Green Lion in,” Pidge says. “It’ll be locked, we’re gonna need your hand for th—dodge right!” Keith does immediately, barely missing the blast from the sentry’s gun as the enemy appears ahead of them. “Not that far right!” Pidge screeches a moment later, as Keith turns too far and bounces off the right wall. She suppresses a scream through clenched teeth as her bad leg slams against the metal walls of the hallway, and her fingers dig into Keith’s collar unconsciously. “Pidge!” Keith yells. “You okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—““S’fine,” it’s Pidge’s turn to hiss, still through clenched teeth. “Brace. My bayard.” They do better the second time she attacks. This time, Keith turns and manages to counter her momentum as she lashes out with her bayard. It’s not unlike Voltron’s movements when Keith strikes in the Red Lion with the Blazing Sword, and she wonders if maybe he learned it from that. Whatever the case, her electrified bayard smashes into the sentry’s head, and it collapses to the floor. They don’t teeter awkwardly afterwards, and Keith is able to right them again with no incident.“Ten paces and jump, or you’ll trip over the sentry I just downed,” Pidge warns.“My steps or yours?”“Yours—jump!”Keith does, clearing the robot’s sparking remains just barely. He stumbles awkwardly on the landing, and Pidge is afraid for a moment they’re going to go tumbling, but he manages to catch them both at the last minutes and get upright again. “Where now?” he asks, trying and failing to look around on instinct. “Forward, twenty more paces, then turn left,” Pidge orders.This goes much more smoothly than the last turn, and Keith actually manages to make it into the center of the hallway without hitting anything, which is impressive on both of their parts. There’s two more sentries there, but Keith lashes out at Pidge’s order with his Marmora blade and manages to take one down through sheer dumb luck, and Pidge manages to electrocute the second. “Run about fifty more steps,” Pidge orders. “Then start to slow down. There’s a door ahead, don’t run into it. We’re gonna need your hand for this.” Keith follows her directions, and manages to not slam headfirst into a locked steel door, which is a relief. Then comes the newest hurdle. “Uh…how do I…” he asks, trying to look around for the panel right next to his head, and staring right through it without realizing. “Give me the sword thing. Carefully,” Pidge instructs. Keith, to his credit, trusts her with his Marmora weapon without hesitation, reducing it to knife size and holding it up by the blade for her to take the handle. She manages to not impale either of them with it when she takes it from him. When his hand is free, she says, “Panel’s on your left. About head height.”Keith pats around on the wall awkwardly, but after two or three tries he still can’t seem to find it. She can tell he’s getting frustrated—for all his supposed calm through all of this, Pidge can tell his blindness is clearly bothering him. She grimaces, sticks her own bayard between her teeth to free up her hand, and grabs Keith’s wrist, guiding it to the panel. Keith huffs in irritation, but after a moment he mutters, “Thanks.”“Don’t mention it. Really.” The panel beeps as it recognizes Keith’s Galra DNA, and the door slides open—just as company shows up from behind them. “Go! Two steps, and we’ll lock it.”Keith does as bid, and Pidge hastily presses his hand against the panel on the other side of the door. “Hold it there,” she instructs, and Keith does. Pidge hastily punches in half a dozen instructions on the keypad, and the panel beeps again, flashing red as the door slams behind them. “Okay, locked. We shouldn’t get hit from behind, at least until they can override that.”“Good.” Keith pulls his hand away from the panel, and Pidge presses the handle of his knife back into his palm. She feels the tension leave his shoulders just slightly when he gets the weapon back—Keith definitely does not like being unarmed in a dangerous place like this. “Where’m I going now?”“Forward, and—oh, no.” Pidge can see the green honeycombed dome of the Green Lion’s particle barrier just ahead, and the wide-open bay doors just behind, letting in hot desert wind and bright sunlight. It’s a beautiful, welcome sight. The twenty or so sentries between them and the Green Lion, however, are not.“What? What’s going on? What do you see?”“Trouble,” Pidge hisses. “We got so close—left, dodge left!”Keith does, tripping over some spare wiring, and he crashes painfully to his knees behind a pile of large metal canisters. They miss being shot by inches. “How many?” Keith asks, panting and wincing slightly as he gingerly tries to shift to a more comfortable crouch without dropping her. “Sounds like a lot.”“It’s a lot,” Pidge agrees. “More than we could take—“There’s a screech of metal and a shuddering rumble that sends Keith collapsing onto his side, with Pidge sprawled out painfully next to him. A moment later there’s an unmistakable digital roar, and the dry, hot desert heat gets inexplicably frigid. “We figured you guys could use a little help,” Lance’s voice says over the comms. Pidge has never been more happy to hear that voice, even if she can absolutely see the smug look on Lance’s face that unquestionably accompanies that tone. She hastily manages to re-climb onto Keith’s back with his help, and he clambers to his feet. Pidge peeks carefully around the stack of canisters, and her eyes go wide in surprise. The Blue Lion is hanging half in and half out of the bay, behind the Green Lion. Its metal paws outstretched as far as they can go across the bay floor, huge claws dug into the steel panelling for stability. Blue is a little too big to fit into the bay door properly, and is wedged awkwardly into place by the blue plating of its back; Pidge is pretty sure the Yellow and Black Lions couldn’t have managed the tight fit at all at all. Lance has managed to cram his Lion in just enough to get a decent angle with its ice ray, and the sentries that had been between them and the Green Lion are now little more than miniature glaciers. “Nice shot, Lance!” Pidge says. Even Keith nods in agreement, although he can’t actually see the extent of the maneuver. “I got you covered, get in your Lion,” Lance says. The Blue Lion’s head turns and its jaw opens wide, aimed at the door they’d just come through. Pidge isn’t about to argue. “Careful,” she warns Keith. “The ground’s icy now, watch your footing.” He nods in acknowledgement, and she manages to guide him around the icy pillars of former sentries to the Green Lion’s particle barrier. Green drops the barrier when they’re close, and even helpfully crouches just in front of Keith, opening her jaws wide and dropping the ramp at his feet so he doesn’t have to find his way to her on his own. Getting through the hatch to the cockpit is a veritable nightmare, but Keith eventually manages to stagger his way to the pilot’s chair, patting awkwardly until he finds it. He deposits Pidge in her seat and sits down wearily with his back to the dashboard, closing his eyes—not that it does much, as far as Pidge can tell.“We’re out of here!” Pidge calls over the comms. “Lance, back out so we can escape. Thanks for the cover.”“Are you two alright?” Shiro asks. He’s using his Leader Voice, but there’s an edge of concern to it. Pidge isn’t sure how much the three of them managed to hear over the comms, but they have to know things weren’t exactly going great. “Nothing a cryo-pod won’t cure,” Keith says, loud enough for Green’s cabin comm to pick it up. Shiro makes a little hmph that says he’s not entirely satisfied with the answer, but it’s the best he’s gonna get for the moment. “How’d you guys make it out?” Hunk asks, as Pidge finally guides the Green Lion out of the bay. She sees the Yellow and Black Lions zip past defensively, blasting several approaching fighters out of the air. “We figured we would have to break in somehow to get you guys out of there.”“Just had to think like Voltron,” Pidge answers, grinning a little. She glances over in Keith’s direction, and even though she knows he can’t see her grin, she does catch the little smirk on his face all the same. Yeah, things aren’t the greatest at the moment—her leg is still killing her, and Keith’s still blind until they can get him in a cryo-pod, so piloting and actual Voltron are out until further notice. But like Keith said…she was okay, and so was he. They were alive, and they’d made it out in one piece between them. And that wasn’t a bad ending at all.And more importantly, she can’t believe that idiotic plan worked. She can’t wait until she has time to tell them the full story. Lance and Hunk are going to eat it up. Even Shiro and Allura and Coran will probably be impressed. Yeah. Definitely not a bad ending at all.

#familyofpaladins #karma's birthday bash #velkynkarma writes #voltron #blood #injury #temporary blindness #keith #pidge #lance #shiro #hunk #I dunno wtf this is but damn if I didn't enjoy writing it anyway #I wanted to post this yesterday sorry for the wait guys

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labgrownsteaks · 4 years ago

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Chatper 16

I came back first. I was lying on the cool forest ground, looking up at Guy staring at the piece of bark, and Erin frozen in time. Cujo was staring at me. I felt like I had a terrible hangover. All the effects of the acid seemed to have drifted away. I blinked my eyes as I pulled myself up onto the tree stump next to Erin.

"What the fuck" I said to myself. Cujo was bouncing around in a blur of fur, yapping away. They had picked up a stick and it stuck comically out of their mouth like a cigarette. I looked back over at Erin, and still nothing. Guy continued to stare at the bark, unmoved. I took a deep breath and whispered. "Come on Erin, come back. I can't do this shit any more" to which Erin promptly replied "Can't do what?!" and then she burst out laughing. Guy chimed in next. "What does it even mean to do something? You know. Like. Do we even really do things, or just experience them?" and then he began to laugh again as well. They were both still tripping. Erin continued "How is it that time even can exist? Like, if we have endless multiverses that our psyches exist within. How can time even be a thing?" Guy retorted. "It's a thing. You know that was actually in Pride in Prejudice" Erin looked at him befuddled and asked completely straight faced. "What the fuck are you talking about". The two then descended into laughter again. There was no use in discussing what had just transpired, Cujo becoming possesses by Siri, breaking into Quicksilver, Guy with the USB, and floating near the ceiling over an endless sea of cubicles. They had no recollection of these events, and they were in no position to hear my story.

The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around in Cottonwood Grove, and throwing rocks into the river by the bank. Guy made a sand castle and diverted some water from the river into a moat for it. He had made sticks and used them as flagpoles and tied bits of candy wrappers to the tops as flags. Erin was working on scratching a drawing with a red lava rock she had found into a smooth large stone which lined the banks of the river. She was drawing a giant beaver. I sat on a large grey stone and had some small stones I had pulled from the gravel road nearby. I was throwing the stones in one by one. Thinking about what had transpired, and then tossing a stone in. Plonk! It was already evening, and the sun was beginning to lose its power. We wandered back to the parking lot, unsure of whether or not we'd get an Uber, or would just try to walk back. The time still wasn't right to bring up what I had experienced. Not because they were still tripping, the effects had begun their usual tapering, and everyone was coming back to reality. But because I was worried if I had said something, they would probably just think that I was tripping. The odd part was the fact that they were involved as well. Guy and Erin were kicking rocks and discussing an episode of The Next Generation where members of the Starship Enterprise were tasked with preventing an asteroidal moon from crashing into a planet. A beat up blue 1978 Ford F150 pulled into the parking lot in a cloud of dust and approached them. The window rolled down and we were delighted to see it was Mr. Halling, our favorite Life Science teacher from 7th grade. "Hey dinks!" he said with a smile. "Dinks" was the word he also used for kids in his class, no matter if you were good or bad. He continued on "What are you kids up to?" Erin responded with a big smile "We've just been taking in all the biodiversity here!" "Oh is that right?!" Mr Halling said, suspecting that we were probably up to no good in one way or another. "Well, how are ya gonna get back home? Sun's goin down. You need a ride?" Me, being the sober one at this point was the most overjoyed with this proposal. "Yes!" I yelled out quickly. "Well jump in the back then. Shelly's taking up the rest of the front seat here" he said, motioning to the old golden retriever. A cacophony of "Thank's Mr Halling!" followed as we all jumped into the bed of the truck. "You all still live near the Cathedral?" Mr Halling asked,. "Yep that's great!" Erin replied. "I'm not a taxi service but I'll get you there!" Mr Halling stated as he took off from the parking lot, kicking up a bit of gravel and dust into the air.

The sunset had become a deep purple at this point, and the cool autumn air bit at our cheeks as the truck roared down river road. Erin had her eyes closed and a smile crept up her cheeks. Guy stared off at the cottonwoods whizzing by on both sides of the road. The sun vanished as the streetlights replaced the tree trunks, and we soon found ourselves back in Chisuwick. Bouncing down the main street, and up into the cathedral district where we all lived. Mr Halling dropped us off and we stood in the streetlight in front of a large white Catholic church which had been made in the 1950s. Back then the "Future was now" and it was quite angular and modern for a church. It had a playground we used to play on when we were younger. We naturally made our way to it as we reminisced about the "good old days" which weren't that long ago. We jumped around on the playground, and went down the slide, and talked about playing "The Floor is Lava" when were younger, and how crazy it was that we could jump so far. Completely fearlessly just leap across a void. After a bit, Guy wanted to head back home, and Erin and I were left on the swings. She looked up at me and said "What's up? You've been weird for a while now" I was actually relieved that she had noticed, as it gave me an excuse to talk about what I had experienced. I jumped right into it

"When we were sitting on the stump. Did you...Like. Did you notice anything different happen?"

Erin scrunched up her face and shook her head.

"Ok. Well, when Guy was staring at the tree bark. I uh..."

And I spilled it all. Cujo telling me about the mission beginning, going to Quicksilver, and Guy uploading something in the server room. Everything. Erin was really listening too, perhaps she was maybe worried I had some sort of a break. But she kept eye contact, and was quiet, and just listened. It was this sustained eye contact, for some reason, it just made me start crying. I turned into a blathering mess. She rubbed my back as we gently swung back and forth, and I took a deep breath, looking up at the stars which had begun to shine in the night sky. Erin broke the silence.

"I had an experience too"

My fear of not being believed melted instantaneously, and was filled with another horror, and that was the realization that I hadn't just been tripping, but that something else was going on. Erin continued.

"Mine happened when we were wrestling with that sturgeon. We were underneath a long series of server racks, and there was cords everywhere. All of us had maintenance uniforms on. You had a tiny flashlight in your hands, and were unplugging and plugging in different Ethernet cables. I was just watching you, and it felt like I was on.." I finished her sentence with her "Autopilot" "yeah, exactly" Erin said. With that I heard a rustling in the bush near the chain link fence. I looked up to see two eyes glint back at me. I got up from the swing and made my way to the fence, the soft gravel under my feet. Erin was right behind me. Then I heard what sounded like whimpering as I picked up my pace. Once at the fence I knelt down near where I had seen the eyes glint in the light, to see a pile of familiar fur. It was Cujo, but they had been hurt by something. Their back legs were completely disconnected, and a glob of blood and wires were twisted together precariously. "Cujo! Oh Buddy!" Erin yelled out. Their eyes were looking right up at us, powerless and drooping. I scooped them up, getting blood all over my flannel shirt in the process, and brought them into the light. Turning her back leg over, I could see buckshot implanted into her muscles which had been torn from the tufts of fur which surrounded it. Someone had shot her with a shotgun. "Goddam those fucking rednecks!" Erin shouted. Thinking that some yahoos full of Natty Light had taken some pot shots at them. But i wasn't so sure. I lived only a few blocks away, and we all ran together back to my place.

I burst into my room and plopped Cujo down on my plywood table as if it were an operating room. Their eyes had closed, and she continued to lie there, "dead" on the table. Erin was done crying, and had a look of rage on her face which peeks out from her red eyes. I clamoured for my soldering iron under some shelves. I poked around into their flesh and circuitry, trying to see if the battery had been ruptured. Her memory chip was still in tact, and I popped it out, and tried to dissect the rest of the "salvagable" parts inside. Beside the pile of fur lied a series of different electric components covered in flesh and blood. I knew I couldn't save them, but I could reboot them if I worked fast enough.

#lgs

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early-gc · 7 years ago

Text

Animator’s Interview (Jio Manuel Consuelo)

Carreon, Earl Gerard H.

BFA-3B

(Disclaimer: Because of the hectic schedule of the animator, we are only able to interview him through Messenger Chat, for proof, we can show you the actual conversation with the Artist through Facebook/Messenger, Weren’t also able to take a video chat with him because of their Work/Company Policies)

Questions :

1. What type of animation are you specialized in?

2. What software do you use more often?

3. What inspires you when making animations?

4. As a fan of animation, what are your

favorite things to do when not working in the field?

5.If you were working on a project and suddenly

the deadline changed, how would you handle it?

6. How do you keep track of work so that it gets done on time?

7. How do you stay focused while working long hours?

8. As an Animator, what do you believe is your best asset?

9. Why did you chose a career as an animator?

10. What steps are you currently taking to

improve your knowledge and skill as an animator?

11. As an animator, what advises can you give to beginners

and your fellow animators?

Animator’s Answers :

1. Flash/Cutout Animation

2. Adobe Flash Cs6/CC

3. Money, Bills, Hobbies. There's the still the drive to pursue the artistry naman, may passion parin for the craft. Pero syempre nandun narin yung real world problems e, kailangan lang talaga i-balance.

I'm inspired with what I see. Satoshi Kon, Hideo Anno, Studio 4C, Madhouse, Ghibli, Disney, mga ganyan. Yan yung kumbaga #goals sa industry. Di Nawawala yan. Pero syempre, kailangan enough parin ang kitain para sa sarili.

4. I usually go out in the weekends, either with friends or workmates. Be it hiking up mountains or drinking out. I also collect toys and books, actually most of my income goes there.

5. For me I just assess my remaining scenes and see if I still have time to do it all. I I can't, I ask my colleagues if they can help out, and I reassign my scenes to them. It's all about having a clear head really, try not to let your emotions cloud your judgement, especially when there are possible solutions to think about

6. I do my scenes in by order, I don't usually do the easy ones first and leave the hardest for last. I have a daily quota of scenes to be finished, but it depends on the difficulty level too. Sometimes I do 5 scenes in a day, or I do one scene for 3 days. I try to finish it all at least a week and a half before the deadline, so I still have time for revisions.

7. I keep a notebook for sketches nearby, and a brush and bottle of ink. I also have some toys that I pose around if I feel like I need a break. Or I look at cute dog memes to pass the time. Music helps too, I find that I work faster and better when there's some fast paced noise going on in the back ground.

8. Kaya kong lumamon sa gabi pero sa umaga walang ebidensya, payat parin.

Kaya kong ubusin yung sinahod nung Friday tapos pagdating ng Monday gapang ulit.

Kaya ko buhayin yung character sa computer pero diko kaya buhayin yung bank account ko.

Kaya kong mag OT kahit hindi bayad.

Actually mas ok ako sa mga fast, action scenes. Sa mga acting, kaya naman sakto lang. Mas nag eenjoy and nag eexcel sa ganun kesa sa simpleng scene lang.

9. I really like drawing, ever since I was a kid I was already sketching. Supposed to be I was gonna take up MMA, but I found out that I needed a lot of capital for that. Cameras, computers, which at the time we couldn't afford. Then I saw there was an animation course offering at CSB, so I went with that. And I stayed. I really enjoy the work, regardless of the time lost and money gained, I enjoy it. I don't really feel like I'm working, I just go to the studio to draw and animate. The only stress there is is with other people and deadlines. But the job itself is great.

10. I don't watch cartoons as often as I'd like, but that's not really a requirement. It's more like, you have to know what you're looking at. Don't just see, but observe. It really is a study about life, how things move and feel. I do some life drawing, read graphic novels, copy the files of the scenes that have really nice movement in them. I always try and see how other animators do a certain move, ano yung diskarte nila sa isang eksena. Thats where you learn really.

11. Don't strive for "just ok" scenes. Hindi pwede yung "pwede na" na gawa. If you're gonna do something, give it your all. If you did the work, but didn't get the money, it doesn't matter. You still have the work. It's always about self improvement, don't get blinded by the salaries of other veteran animators, kahit 40k a week pa yun. Quantity darating ka rin naman dyan e, quality ang kailangan unahin. Mas gusto rin ng director yun. Wala kang ibang kompetisyon kundi sarili mo. In everything in life, be it good or bad, don't forget to make good art. Yang Law, Medicine, Engineering, lahat yan kailangan to sustain life. But Art makes life worth living.

Also protip: kung may binigay na sayong trabaho, wag mo unahin yung mga madadali tapos pagdating ng deadline saka mo ire reassign yung mahirap. Madali makahanap ng ka away pag ganun, walang magkaka gusto sayo at tatanda kang virgin.

Animator’s Scenes & Work web references:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq4XTNX0vdQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IHKP0MO9U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMYVvG4Kbgw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAFVQqJi3g8

(Samples of his scenes & work are also shown at the end of the interview slide ; soft copy)

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gplewis · 7 years ago

Text

a few failed beginnings

Why one writes: to unload one’s neuroses without having to explain what every little thing means. it’s a place to talk without being analyzed; perhaps there’s no skin in the game or it’s post-skin somehow; it’s a vortex with comfy clothes

Luckily I’ll never be as obsessed about the perfection of these pages than I was when I was desperate for progress in those critical formative years of 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30. Yes, I’m a bit self-righteous about my age and experience now. I am a new narrator.

“Once written, the text becomes fixed.” —Ismail Kadare https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1105/ismail-kadare-the-art-of-fiction-no-153-ismail-kadare

thank God I failed at fame

I’m an enthusiastic innovator OK with failure; I like the brotherhood of the workday, I make a job a way to satisfaction and participation in the economy a form of play and spirituality; money is value and time is a fresh canvas to blow into and try to be heard by the system in the language it speaks; yes, systems and analytics need their preachers. It’s fun to know what to do and stay focused on the people.

I still want to play piano, sing, play tennis and soccer and baseball, have the choice always to turn to reading or listening (Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff)

—

the book is a record of the person I was, and I feel pride in the young person who was able to write it all down https://theparisreview.org/interviews/6312/henri-cole-the-art-of-poetry-no-98-henri-cole ^ him at 40

another Saturday morning washed up on the shore of the in-between, another new before

comets fly days hum making a song

since women I adored have gone away; it’s OK, I emigrate like a bird to the blinking cursor, Notes track where and how I grew up,

http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/poems-week-2011-2012/poem-week/dress-rehearsal-apocalypse-tomas-q-morin like Lazarus he rose from the darkest beds taking the splinter where he broke and carved castles from jagged beds he took time to make

My language of obviousness has hollowed out like a hole in a tree and is filling with water; the structure of the Notes is irrelevant in ways - I am not going to publish a memoir about my life experience from 25 to 30; it's good that I have it and I'm proud of the young man who wrote it but I can't see my enthusiasm ever matching up to the action of suggesting someone else read what I have written

writing was a way out of the hell of not knowing myself or what to do

it’s a record of thrashing you’re reading now; thanks

But why throw your Notes at them when you can be nice instead? It’s not like I’m far away. If you ask me for my number I’ll give it to you and we’ll text. We can relate.

—

a tweetstorm I read that mattered https://twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/890970472774602752

life is work. also, love.

ivy climbing around poles, flowers popping out of tractor grates, nature fighting through and against and amid human insistence on place and stillness - nature exerting that time is fluid, everything is burning, things don't remain unbroken; time rusts all

The thing about the moment is it isn't going anywhere; we're gonna be here for the rest of our lives “what I was doing” is never rare; I need not hunt for anecdote https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/17/elena-ferrante-im-tired-of-fiction-i-no-longer-see-a-reason-to-go-hunting-for-anecdotes

I have the record of what I was; so much data of two years ago and I edit it; I clean it up, make the trail from birth to hear traversable but we have to live today, bear the burden of survival every hour eat hydrate meditate pray the verbs that keep us together the best thing to do is to be something—use your body, use your day, use your manner of speaking to get a life that’s worth being seen and thought about—so far so good: connive your way to a safe career that finances your creative, spiritual efforts like typing thoughts, reading articles, playing piano, singing, having weekends, taking pictures; of course don’t be a public figure; twentysomethings who haven’t done therapy are going to stay up all day and night clutching their image on screen; you have an ambivalence that is rare and valuable but you have no patience for impressing any media elite

so write and grow to make the truth bearable hit notes well: sing, play, write, message, talk with a backdrop of defensible business career and healthy habits (diet, exercise, water, sleep) live into the years when you know how to write fiction because you have a fuller sense of the human condition - you know no one can save you; you know a profound solitude, a caring, nurturing, generative, restorative relationship with yourself alone at night, in the morning, over lunchtime, standing at a red light—that’s where the joy is

looking forward to seeing her was nice

a man typing to make himself feel better about his losses

Andante - walking pace Allegro ma non troppo - fast but without tripping

fuck literary elites: no one has a monopoly on what is nice to read, how solitude and disappointment draws eyes down and hearts open, seeking a like-minded soul with whom to bond, whose brave existence can make you feel seen, can give you reason to go on yet another day

one media source is insignificant because everything else is just as available

take my lovely worm out of the bag show you what I wrote

[years of sitting with the blinking cursor]

drugs, love, money, art, death, freedom, time, social media, banality and justice are all still of interest; they're the only things left to do once you’ve won career

Vanity, fear, desire, competition

thinking, feeling, living my life with access to a keyboard and the endless internet occupying this political and personal moment in time as my body accelerates toward certain demise

typing, my voice is all I’m left with here at the edge of late capitalism, Saturday, overcast a plane flies overhead

I have no plans except and love shall stomp a new era

a rainforest glistening with possibilities a house on the coast, working from home so many lives I could explain which could be self-sustaining I have many two-year stints left to luxuriate in

and words will fill the pages of my days because a keyboard is where my soul is home

the people I love are out there people who love are out there

we all want the same thing: a safe home, a supportive community, education, time to pursue our curiosity, to contribute meaningfully

I know who I am now

I’m here for the collapse of capitalism

I’m ready for a role in the world as it and I will be

I fear no fate

I love life, I trust life, I am a fucking miracle

I think people will get what they deserve Good people find each other and

Bad people get found out.

the lame crown-pieces at the tops of traditional hierarchies who don’t do anything difficult or admirable are gonna come crashing down

systems of government based on blockchain technology, i.e. transparency

get the rich people at the top out of power—distribute wealth down for education, health care, housing, food, infrastructure, community projects

why is this money sitting in bank accounts? 2017 is the light shone on all dark corners of American reality and the 99% are not going quietly to their desk jobs

millennials are killing everything wasteful and actually think about consequences and interconnectivity

I was made for the future I am just as opinionated and demanding as I was at 26 at the height of burning intensity

Now I've gotten therapy and found a safe career and I'm 100% logged on

and we know that connection is the electric pursuit so

edit something in public and realize it doesn’t need to be there!

working on your front door is good work to do because everyone walks through

06. Connection is the electric pursuit reread and skimmed 10/10 10:11am (21 pages)

As my aging MacBook circles the drain, I wonder: have I overestimated my computing needs? https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9bdm/i-tried-to-replace-my-laptop-with-my-phone-and-a-dollar20-bluetooth-keyboard how much footprint do I really need? I will have to learn how little I have to control (as far as images stored and available and my habits well-worn, i.e. I know the click and search path to getting any particular image I can remember - always honing my library - perhaps that’s the fate of man who’s transcended hourly rate and execution for others’ profit-making schemes

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/511276/free-speech-in-the-era-of-its-technological-amplification/

late nights engaged in conversations on Usenet https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-messy-fourth-estate-a42c1586b657

to be imaginatively drawn into the sticky world of some nearby human being’s home life https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410623/i-just-called-to-say-i-love-you/

The numbers keep getting worse: the true energy costs of AI, connected devices, and cryptocurrency https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/tsunami-of-data-could-consume-fifth-global-electricity-by-2025 written by a beautiful woman ripe with life https://genius.com/Talib-kweli-joy-lyrics

The numbers keep getting worse: a memoir of a civilization before its collapse

tsunami of data will consume all Human Resources https://twitter.com/katecrawford/status/1046766828939341824?s=21 giving to the void of send, to the possibly seen the atomization of my desire to be real that’s what will take up electricity for the rest of days

our endless desire for connection is what kills us in the end!  OR we become part of the worldwide effort to save humanity in heroic fashion by therapy for everyone, a collective Kumbaya, a come-to-Jesus moment where we actually come to [have?] a savior and worship, love and people are loved and adored instead of fear and money but we love images and the devices that serve we are comfortable holding an abstraction of the world in our hands and we can operate our piece in it and yes, then we sit down to dinner and realize our body is just the container of our situation...our body is an emissary of the struggle for survival and love we are in this year this month

The craving for that single stranger-filled neighborhood would not stop with the telegraph. Over the next hundred years, radio, television, and even the telephone all dramatically increased the number of daily interactions people have with information. https://medium.com/@Marinaccio/the-telegraph-changed-how-you-spend-your-time-9a691d860e11

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theworstbob · 8 years ago

Text

yellin’ at songs, 5.27.2017 & 5.26.2007

the songs that debuted on the billboard hot 100 this week and this week ten years ago

5.26.2007

32) "Straight to the Bank," 50 Cent

There's actually something interesting at the core of this song -- if you make enough money doing your thing to sustain yourself for the rest of your life, what motivates you to keep doing your thing? I understand why 50 Cent wasn't willing to explore that theme, 50 Cent isn't here to offer a treatise on ennui and what creative fulfillment means to him, he's here to point at stacks of money and claim ownership. I think "I've made so much money I don't have to rap anymore" would be a fun twist on the "WE DEFIED INSURMOUNTABLE ODDS TO MAKE OODLES OF CASH!" song. It would've been a weird-ass 50 Cent song, but someone should take that theme and run.

48) "First Time," Lifehouse

See, like, at least 50 had the decency to give us the nugget of a decent song, to present something with a hint that it could be something more. This just is what it is, an alternative/rock song that sounds like a thousand alternative rock songs before it with nothing to say except "love feels nice." But I'm in a weird spot where I'm not sure if I'm reacting to the actual song, or if I'm reacting to the idea of Lifehouse and all the connotations I've attached to the Lifehouse brand. I keep wondering: if this song or something like this made it to the 2017 song, would I find it a refreshing throwback? If some long-forgotten mid-aughts alt-rock track, The Calling's "Our Lives" or whatever, if that found new life amidst the EDM and pop/trap, wouldn't it seem like a fun change of pace, an actual almost-rock song instead of the usual novelty indie track? I'm pretty sure this song is bad, but it might be because being weighed against history means being weighed against the titans, whereas the standards are different (lower) for modern songs, because there's a more limited pool to draw from (five months, as opposed to all of history). Hard to tell if I'm judging this song or the context in which this song is released. We need a control for 2017. America: are you finally ready to give Tonic that second chance?

52) "Anonymous," Bobby Valentino ft./Timbaland

I'm no expert, but I'm reasonably confident that, if you're tryna get with someone, and they don't tell you your name, that means they don't want to fuck you. I don't think you're being #problematic, but I do think you need to do better at picking up on signals, Bobby. They're not even giving you a FAKE name! It's so easy to give a fake name! "My name's Jamie." Took me two seconds. IT'S SO EASY! If they're not even willing to do that, they just want you to stop talking to them! You're not being #problematic, that would be a bridge too far, but you need to do a better job of picking up signals. You can't make a song about how you can't even get someone to tell you their name. They rejected you, dude. Move on. (Maybe if it were the next day, when you spent a night dancin' and romancin' but they left before anything sexy could happen, and you're trying to track them down but can't find them because you can't remember their name? That'd be a cool thing! This legit sounds like dude doesn't know someone said 'no,' and not in a shitty "I heard yes!" Robin Thickey way, just a dunderheaed boy-just-don't-get-it way.)

72) "Tambourine," Eve

The least 2007 could do after shoving Timbaland down my throat was give me a Swizz chaser. I greatly enjoyed this! One gets why this song fell from the consciousness, it's a jam but it's not the song that gets the party started, y'know? And like all songs named after an instrument, there is not enough of the titular instrument in the track. I don't necessarily want it to sound like a second grade band performance, but I should have heard more tambourine than I did. But, yeah, hot party jam, always down for a well-executed version of a song with simple goals.

79) "Same Girl," R. Kelly & Usher

This song is fun, it's a foundational block of my relationship with my older sister, and it wasn't worth however many lives it cost to keep R. Kelly's name alive in our hearts.

83) "Vulnerable," Secondhand Serenade

more like glove-compartment admittance. for all i know, secondhand serenade probably actually did get big on myspace and i'm about to accurately describe this song, but this sounds like some fucking dude made a song in 20 minutes using his computer, uploaded it to myspace, and spent 4 hours picking out the right picture of him looking forlorn to put on his profile. you can hear the label executives looking at his picture and agreeing he's an 8, which is perfect -- hot enough to induce swooning, but just enough of an uggo to be approachable, impossible. ...oh no. oh no oh no it got me it got me run it got me you have to run you have to RUN BEFORE YOU CATCH IT TOO.

85) "I Don't Wanna Stop," Ozzy Osbourne

GOD YOU JUST DON'T APPRECIATE HOW AWFUL BUTTROCK IS UNTIL YOU LISTEN TO A REAL-ASS ROCK SONG. Ozzy was fucking 60 and swinging this sledgehammer. This fucking ruled. Remember that Bon Jovi nonsense from last week? THIS is how you do a late-career single. You fucking just remind people you've been doing this shit for 40 years by making a song you can only write with 40 years of experience under your belt. I heard the Bon Jovi song, I just heard a song. I heard this song, I heard Ozzy, I heard Zakk Wylde, I heard years of accrued expertise and experience, I heard fucking character, dude. I'm not even a metal dude, and I'm fucking into this song. This was great. Later, Breaking Benjamin. I can't in good conscience have your lilly ass in the Top 20 if you're gonna say you're in the same genre as this creature.

91) "Like This," MIMS

This is somehow the second track called "Like This" that 2007 has given us. The official music video for this song starts off with the hook for "This Is Why I'm Hot," because I guess the video is trying to give us what we really want. He also mentions "This Is Why I'm Hot" in the first verse, which, that's a bold move, to reference your hit in the second single. It's either swag, because you recorded both songs years ago and knew "This Is Why I'm Hot" would smash so hard that you wanted to give a shout-out to its inevitable success on the album, or it's safety, because you hurried this follow-up out the door and needed to mention the one thing you're ever gonna do. Either way, this song is mediocre 2007 pop/rap. It's as boring and listless as you would imagine the other MIMS song would be.

92) "teachme," Musiq Soulchild

This song about a man admitting that his confinement to traditional gender roles has made him emotionally unavailable and stunted would probably play a lot better in 2017 than I assume it did in 2007. I don't remember this song being that big a thing, but in 2017? Apart from being thrilled that someone in an R&B song is emoting, we'd also be stoked for a song that tacitly acknowledges toxic masculinity. This was pleasant! Musiq Soulchild dropped a song about fuck buddies and another song about the role gender norms played in his emotional upbringing, and I've appreciated all he's done!

94) "I Told You So," Keith Urban

OK this week's a pretty hot one for 2007. This is the fourth jam of the week, already quadruple the amount of jams I thought this week would have, and we haven't even gotten to the song I'm figuring is gonna be a jam. I forgot that sometimes country dude songs could have character! This song has a dope-as-hell instrumental break, an entirely reasonable amount of stops, and hey: Keith Urban? Pretty decent singer! This was rad. I keep forgetting "Alyssa Lies" exists, but were it not for that, this would be the lead contender for Least Worthless Country Dude song. Hell, I might even upgrade the title to "Most Acceptable Country Dude Song," since this and "Alyssa Lies" were both pretty great.

95) "Impacto," Daddy Yankee ft./Fergie

Oh. Oh no. Oh no! ...Oh, oh, I forgot. I forgot Daddy Yankee was once Very Bad. Oh, no. This is -- nothing about this is good. This is someone shouting over a beat that is also, somehow, shouting. I. I am going to stop writing this capsule? Because the longer I am writing about this song, the longer I am making myself thinking about this song, and I just, I'd like to very much not do that anymore.

98) "Get Me Bodied," Beyonce

DO YOU HEAR THIS SHIT, MIMS. THIS IS HOW YOU REFERENCE YOUR DEBUT SINGLE. You wait until you have an impressive catalogue of hits and an unassailable career, and THEN, you can shout out your debut single. Hey everyone did you guess which song I epected to be a jam? TURNS OUT I WAS RIGHT. The vocal work on this track is outstanding, like even for a Beyonce song it's ridiculous, there's a couple things Bey does on this track that made me laugh in disbelief. This is probably not even one of the 20 best songs in the extended Beyonce universe, and I'm still riding hard for it.

99) "All Good Things (Come to an End)," Nelly Furtado

so by this logic this song should have lasted forever OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHah we have fun here, but no this song was boring. like i know i have a tendency to check out with the last song of the week for both years, but i think it's justified in this case, because seriously it's timbaland and coldplay on the track, nah dude, i got cheers to watch.

The 2007 Top 20! Beyonce! Ozzy! 18 other songs you’ve been seeing for a while! 20) "Movin' On," by Elliott Yamin (3.17.2007) 19) "U + Ur Hand," by P!nk (1.13.2007) 18) "Doe Boy Fresh," by Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire (1.20.2007) 17) "Get Me Bodied," by Beyonce (5.26.2007) 16) "I Don't Wanna Stop," by Ozzy Osbourne (5.26.2007) 15) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 14) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 13) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 12) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 11) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 10) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 9) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 8) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 7) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 6) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 5) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 4) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 3) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 2) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 1) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) Almost at a point where we can do Top 30s for each year! I don’t know why I comment after the list but here we are!

5.27.2017

64) "Malibu," by Miley Cyrus

This is a song where you have to be at least somewhat invested in the arc of Miley Cyrus' career for it to have maximum emotional impact, and I'm not, I'm very not interested in Miley Cyrus' journey or personal growth. Like, yay, the rich kid finally sobered up and is finally ready to accept the rest of their life with the vast fortune they have accrued, hooray for them, I'm glad something good finally happened to Miley Cyrus.

79) "Every Time I Hear That Song," by Blake Shelton

Oh good a country song about a different and better country song. Always a welcome addition to a chart, this type of song. Four people wrote this song. How does it take four people to listen to The Bro Country Song and say, "Let's do that again!" It's just, I have to come up with something relatively new to say about the same fucking country dude song every week, and meanwhile these four chucklefucks get to rhyme "mind" with "time" and call themselves PROFESSIONAL writers. Life's not fair.

89) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton

"Baby, you can go or you can stay/But I won't love you either way." fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk THIS was that chris stapleton shit i was lookin' for a couple weeks back. i haven't had time to get to from a room yet, not sure if i should do vol. i now or take it in with vol. ii, but god damn, this is what a country song is. this is pain, laid bare and unvarnished, nothing but a guitar between you and this dude's voice, which, i mean, chris stapleton is as born to sing country songs as kendrick is to rap, as beyonce is to sing anything beyonce desires. this is just a solid fucking song, and the entirety of nashville should feel endless shame for thinking anyone else should have had this song.

97) "Drinkin' Problem," by Midland

This was what I was talking about when I was talking about Lifehouse! This song is kind of a throwback, but it's only throwing as far back as Toby Keith, yet even doing an imitation of Toby Keith's occasional dad-humor songs feels so good, feels so right, feels so unlike the bro country song that it counts as a zag for country music. This is a song with clear, discernible influences, for which success seems like a happy accident and not the result of piloting the world's most efficient country hit-making engine! Maybe there's a chance I would find this trite and corny when weighed against the entirety of country music -- and honestly, being the country dude song following Chris Stapleton on the chart, hoof, that I didn't think this sucked should prolly give me a clue as to how great this song really is -- but given that Sam Hunt nothinged his way to the top of this world, I'm willin' to be down with this song.

Top 20! 20) "Heatstroke," by Calvin Harris ft./Young Thug, Pharrell Williams & Ariana Grande (4.22) 19) "Yeah Boy," Kelsea Ballerini (3.4) 18) "You Look Good," by Lady Antebellum (4.22) 17) "The Heart Part 4," by Kendrick Lamar (4.15) 16) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18) 15) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18) 14) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 13) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 12) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 11) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 10) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 9) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 8) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27) 7) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) Yo, look at “Despacito,” toppin’ the chart! I might have to actually listen to the remix. BUT THE ORIGINAL IS SO GOOOOOOOD THO. I don’t want to listen to Justin Bieber.

Who won?

2007. Great as “Either Way” was, 2007 just had more songs at a more consistent level. Like, “Either Way” is at least half a street ahead of “Get Me Bodied,” but “Drinkin Problem” doesn’t hold a candle to “I Don’t Wanna Stop,” and the other two 2017 entries aren’t worthy of mentioning alongside “teachme.” Easy W. Didn’t think it’d happen, but hey, 2007 was pleasantly surprising! Next week... I see what 2007 has for me next week. Gonna take a huge fuck-up from 2017 to even things up for ol’ 2007. Two Linkin Park songs. Two of them. Guh.

2017: 5 2007: 4

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twistednuns · 8 years ago

Text

March 2017

Passer une semaine merveilleuse à Paris avec Frank! Wow, my first impulse was actually to start writing in French, this is how far I've already come in little more than a week of intense training... Which brings me to me first good thing this month, even before writing about the great things that happened in Paris:

Being extremely motivated to brush up my French! It was so much fun to notice how my language skills improved every day even though I only spent five days in Paris. On my last day, I bought one of the Harry Potter books in French (I figured reading a book I already know more or less by heart will make it less hard when I have to guess every other word). I read seven chapters on the train to Munich and have since scored thousands of experience points on Duolingo. Gosh, I even started filling a notebook with vocabulary and grammar rules. I wonder how long I can keep up this pace... But it's so amazing, I catch myself talking to myself in French (in my thoughts at least). Immersing myself in the language definitely made an impression on me.

Ok, so, Paris. The train ride was great because I started AND finished reading a whole book. / I was so happy whenever I managed to have a successful conversation in French. / I really liked Ombeline, especially roaming around her apartment (with more than 17 chairs in the living room alone). Going through all her books and bandes dessinées (she even had one by Margaux Motin!), making breakfast in her kitchen, opening some of the cupboards and marvelling at the sheer amount of stuff and back-ups she owns, looking at her souvenirs from Africa and the beautiful crescent moon mask. / The SOHN concert at La Maroquinerie (which was by chance only a few hundred metres away from Ombeline's flat). "I can feel it coming, we can never go back." / Finding a statue of a gorgeous bearded man in marble; surrounded by baby angels with severed heads. A man after my fancy. / Sitting in Sacré-Coeur, taking cover from the rain, having a profane conversation. / Taking a walk from Montmartre to Faubourg; a good hour of sunshine, glitter on the streets in Pigalle, noticing that gay Frenchmen have a very distinct style. Sharing a passion fruit éclair. Decadent bulky waste (a pink satin canapé). / Spending time at Centre Pompidou, rediscovering Twombly, Brancusi and Klee. / Sitting outside a café with a strong drink and a cigarette (I had to think about Franzi's idea of the ideal way to spend time in Paris - sitting around in cafés all day, wearing red lipstick and smoking way too much). / Watching the swing dancers at Balajo. / Le jardin des plantes! The palaeontology and geology museum were fantastic. I've always wanted to go there but somehow I never managed even though I've been to Paris three times before. / Sitting at the Seine, next to each other, taking in the scenery.

Minimalism input: reading Escape Everything by Robert Wringham in Ombelines overly full apartment made me consider doing something drastic with my life. Sell all my stuff, become a digital nomad. So many ideas!

Overhearing a little girl one afternoon addressing the red, white and blue balloons she had just gotten in a bakery: "Ja ich weiß, ihr Luftballons ihr wollt weg!"

I've basically stopped watching TV? What's going on? I only saw one movie in February, and that was at the cinema! Awesome! More time for books!

Buying books is so satisfying. I loved spending time in French book stores (Les Mots à la Bouche!), going through the used-book section at the Bouquinistes and Shakespeare and Company. I bought so many books during the last few weeks. It's gonna take the rest of the year to read all of them.

My colleague asked me whether I'd like to start a sustainability exchange programme with a school in South America! Exciting!

The Grossstadtgeflüster concert at Feierwerk was awesome. I even got a sticker with a street sign for Fickt-Euch-Allee (I kinda wanna put it over the real street sign here in my street).

Oat cookies with dark chocolate. Baking my favourite lemon cake with poppy seeds and blueberries.

A weird weekend - I neither left the house nor talked to anyone - but I was in the mood to clean all my windows! My productivity high is getting scary...

How sadly true this article on jealousy is. The first paragraph actually triggered me to shout out "ha" because I felt caught. Oh well. After all "you have to keep breaking your heart before it opens." (Rumi)

ALMOST booking a flight to Cancún over Christmas and New Year's Eve. It might still happen. So far I'm afraid I'm spending too much money as it is... we'll see how much unreason my bank account can take. But just imagining lying on a white, sandy beach on the first day of 2018 while Germany vanishes in a cloud of dust and smoke after the annual fireworks... nice thought.

Making poached eggs for the first time. You have to make a swirl with an egg whisk in a pot of vinegar water and crack the eggs while the water is still moving.

The nice feeling of the dust cover of Zeige deine Wunde by Rüdiger Sünner.

Talking to Inge on the tram.

Watching Wilde Maus at Rio Filmpalast. Pia Hierzegger is such an interesting actress and I just found out that she's been dating Josef Hader for years now! Ha. Best quote: "Bist du angrennt irgendwo?"

Drawing some figures for my sixth-graders and colouring them in Photoshop (I haven't done that in a while but it's so much fun). And in general - being more creative. Drawing a treasure map with black ink. Getting the watercolours out. Sitting down with my students to make clay and stone sculptures. It's so nice to create something, free from pressure.

A fantastic room tour.

The handsome dude from the French textbook publishing company. Can he come over more often, please?

Watching old Art Attack videos.

A very stormy morning. 6am, the sky still dark blue, the trees bending and bowing as black silhouettes against it. What an energetic start into the day.

Pressed flowers. I'm thinking about making my own, just like I used to as a kid.

This article: On drowning goats.

I just had a wonderful idea: I'd like to make a book for my friends. I'm not quite sure what should go inside but I was thinking of stories and memories, recipes, photographs and of course some of my drawings. I'd have so much fun layouting it and I'd also have a full round of really good Christmas presents. Projects! Whee!

It sounds counter-intuitive but: Running from a situation instead of suffering through it. I often try to do "the right/decent thing" to put a good face on the matter and sit it out when I'm actually dying on the inside. It felt good to say "no, not that shit again" and walk away.

An unexpected support squad at school (thanks, Selina, Osna, Katarina!)

Liberté, Egalité, Beyoncé

My tiny new portrait drawing class.

Successful adulting: taking care of boring insurance policies, contracts, applying for a visa, having my bike repaired, refilling my car's water tank. But I did all the things!!

Milchschnitte Himbeer and mango panna cotta.

Liebertext / exchanging daily mails with a stranger.

Getting the invitation for Franzi's and Ralf's wedding in the mail! I was so happy I was hardly even mad about all the confetti in the envelope, I mean, on my bathroom floor. And I was so relieved that my return flight from Helsinki is going to be on the day before; for I second I thought I wasn't going to make it.

"Komm mal her!" - "Aber ich hab dich gar nicht lieb." - "Ich dich aber trotzdem."

Sexy schmexy (I love saying this at the moment)

Bibiana Beglau as Mephisto in the Faust production at the Residenztheater.

Hitting the jackpot when opening a pint of ice-cream just to find a huge pool of liquid caramel right under the lid.

Seeing how creative some of my students are (I mean, hello, Frenchman, hunter, Santa Claus, rockstar and superhero minions made out of clay? Such great ideas!)

Little pink tulips with round heads and yellow edges. So cute.

Dinner with the Educational Lady Warriors. I mean, Franzi, Elsa and Martina. Finding out that Elsa is pregnant! She showed us her ultrasound picture and you can actually see a tiny human already, with the spine, brain hemispheres, the heart, the limbs... Fascinating.

Receiving a 50€ gift voucher for a book shop after completing a random survey on school questions. AND winning two theatre tickets for Liebesblind at the Pathos. Sweet.

Unsweetened almond milk. It tastes like marzipan!

I noticed that I really like the sinew over my right big toe. I don't have many body parts that aren't soft, which is why I appreciate this one sinew standing out.

I won two tickets to Liebesblind at Pathos and took Franzi with me. The location was pretty great, very Berlin-esque. Afterwards we had some drinks at her place, Ralf and a few of their friends were also there. A pretty nice evening!

My trusted old 2-minute-recipe: couscous with some feta and tomato puree.

I went to a drive-in cinema for the first time and I don't know why I'd never been before, it's AWESOME. You're in your cosy little box, get the audio via radio frequency (since my new car has a BOSE sound system the quality is excellent) AND you can talk throughout the movie!!

This incredible weather. Getting the first pistachio ice-cream of the year at my favourite ice-cream parlour in Schwabing. Seeing everyone sitting in the sun in front of the Glypthothek. And the blossoms on the trees. Munich is so nice in the sunshine.

Having pizza and ice-cream with Lexi, driving on the highway with open windows and extremely amusing German songs blasting (Schnipo Schranke, Von Wegen Lisbeth, Sookee). Drinking beer at the Bilderbuch concert, singing along, mock-arguments with Frank.

Hugging Doris just as long as she can bear it.

The other day my pupils told a colleague that she was beautiful, then they saw me and quickly added: "Oh, you are beautiful, too!" And then they group-hugged me. Adorable, bootlicking little gangsters...

How much fun I can have when I'm layouting tests and worksheets.

#personal #present perfect #things i love #march #2017 #march 2017

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