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televinita · 6 months ago

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The results of April's book sale bonanza, four library sales in two weeks! Long text post incoming...

Left stack in the first photo is from one sale, right stack is two other sales, and the final photo is from the last one alone. Somehow acquired more in April than I had Jan-March combined. I don't even want to count up how much I spent, so I'm simply going to decide it was worth it because so many pretty books, exciting finds, and fun!

I will say, the craziest thing to me is that the super-mega-huge sale, the one I made an effort to drive an hour for on Wednesday night? It was indeed huge and I spent 3 hours there & had a good time, but only found seven books, pictured in the right hand stack - from The Darcys & The Bingleys up through the 3 skinny paperbacks (plus a couple of CDs I took a chance on, didn't like). And the sale that usually doesn't have much of anything, that I barely had an hour in? The best sale of the month.

I tried to organize the cover photos mainly by age group, with YA blending into adult, so I think that's actually the order in which I'm going to go through them, not least because I missed a couple of them for the stacks.

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

1. A Dog Named Wolf - Erik Munsterhjelm (1973): I snagged it mainly because vintage dog/wildlife novel, but then I realized it's actually on my OpenLibrary TBR, so now I don't have to read it that way!

2. Mr. Cat - George Freedly (1960): not really a kids' book but small enough to put here. Apparently a bind-up w/ "More Mr. Cat" but I cannot imagine how short these were originally, as together in a mass market paperback it's still only 160 pages. I assume he was already a famous enough writer, even if only at a newspaper, to be granted the indulgence of publishing a memoir about his cat....

[edit: "theatre critic, librarian and founder of the Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library, Freedley was a regular columnist for PLAYBILL, and the drama critic, book editor, and feature writer for the Morning Telegraph (New York)"]

3. The Black Pearl - Scott O'Dell (1967, 70s edition): not unlike Call it Courage, this is another one I remember really liking in elementary school but the details have been forgotten.

4. BSC Super Special #7: Snowbound: only grabbed because it was super-cheap; it's not in great condition but super-specials are a little harder to spot in the wild so while I'm not trying to collect this massive series, I can't help having a soft-spot for a few reps. (side note: the Karen/Little Sister novelty book "School Scrapbook" was also there, which I thought might be a fun collectible, but it had already been mostly filled out by its previous owner. Still fun to read her answers, though! I would cherish having something like that from my own 3rd grade year).

5. Two-Minute Mysteries - Donald J. Sobold (1967, 90s edition): even though a teacher's name is inked on it, I couldn't resist this nostalgic read! My 4th/5th grade teacher used to read these aloud to us and challenge us to solve them, and you know what? They're STILL kind of hard to solve. You have to pay really close attention to specific wording and tiny details.

6-7. Animal Inn #3 + 6 - Virginia Vail: remember this series I love? By wild coincidence, these are the exact same ones I read from a Little Free Library in 2020, but where those copies were in horrible water-damaged shape, these are as good as can be expected from cheap-pulp kids' paperbacks of the 80s

8. The Dog In My Life - Kurt Unkelbach (1966): yay! I'm interested in all his books but have been wanting to read this ever since I solved it on a Goodreads "What's The Name of That Book?" queries (one of my first, and one I worked very hard on finding!)

9. The Black Stallion & the Girl - Walter Farley (1971): only grabbed this because it was so cheap; it's not in great shape and I probably won't keep. I always wanted to love this series more than I actually did growing up -- everyone who likes horse books always says this is their favorite, and I just never got the hype beyond the first couple! -- but there were a few I really liked. Maybe this could be one of them.

10. A Summer of Horses - Carol Fenner: I see an 80s teen horse book paperback, I buy. Unsure if I'll keep it after reading, but it's not that thick so probably.

11. Flash of Phantom Canyon -- Agnes Ranney (1960s): I see a vintage Scholastic horse book, I also buy. I ended up deciding to read this right away, mostly because it was small and light and easy to carry in a shoulder bag while walking on trails in search of a good reading bench. Honestly, it's as much historical fiction/history lesson as it is horse book and if I ever make myself weed through the Scholastic Stack this is probably a donation candidate...but not just yet.

12. The Stallion of Box Canyon (1997): part of the Treasured Horses collection I owned several of as a kid from Scholastic book orders and LOVED, but sold off when I outgrew them, and have now been grabbing back. When I learned in 2020 that there were model horses to go with them, as well as more books than I knew about, my interest increased, and this one about a Mustang was my #1 most wanted!

13. Foxy - Helen V. Griffith (1984): Dog book! I think I read this in elementary school but want to be sure. May or may not keep, depends how sad it is.

14. The Collector - K.R. Alexander (2018): the modern-day counterpart to Mary Downing Hahn, I freaking love this scary-as-hell cover. I listened to it on audio but I wanted a physical copy as well.

15. The Sun Will Come Out -- Joanne Levy (2021): it was simply too beautiful and pristine -- it looks off the shelf new -- not to buy, knowing I could flip it to Half Price. I think I probably will do that now that I've read it, but I did enjoy it.

16. The Diddakoi - Rumer Godden (1972): figures that I find it just one year after I finally caved and read it on OpenLibrary last year after 6 years on my TBR. But this is the first time I've seen a physical copy. This edition is not my favorite cover so I'm not sure if I really want to keep it, but I did enjoy the book.

17. Tucky the Hunter - James Dickey (1978): pictured in the last photo, I bought one (1) picture book because the illustrations were so beautiful, and the rhyming text written in calligraphy. Do I agree with the story theme of a child dreaming about all the animals he wants to shoot? Not really, but...

YA/TEEN

1. Seventeenth Summer - Maureen Daly (1942, 2006 edition): it's only a mass market paperback, but still thrilled to finally have this classic in my hands to read when ready!

2. City of Darkness - Ben Bova (1976): I just couldn't resist the premise of this one -- Manhattan is now under a dome and only "open" in the summer as a tourist spot, but a kid sneaks in and gets stuck there to find out that gangs secretly live there year-round, fighting for sheer survival? I intended to read & release because it's not in the best condition, so I read it right away, but now I think this is so creative I want to keep it around.

3. In the Hand of the Goddess (Alanna #2) (1984, 2011 edition) - Tamora Pierce: ex-library but I think I can peel the tape/stickers off. I've decided to collect both this version of the series and the mass-market paperbacks as I find them because I love them equally for different reasons.

4. In Front of God and Everybody: The Confessions of April Grace - K.D. McCrite (2011): technically middle grade but putting it here because it's a visual match. I saw this at the sale a few years ago but gave it a pass because it was Christian fiction. Now that bothers me less, and I'm so glad I changed my mind because I read it last week and it was HILARIOUS and I want the rest of the quartet. (also very minimally "Christian Book" -- it shows only in that the family goes to church/says a blessing before dinner and lives by the principle of "be kind to others no matter how ungracious they are")

5. Pretty Fierce - Kieran Scott (2017): a 5-star swoon-worthy YA spy thriller! So happy it's mine.

6. Top Ten - Katie Cotugno (2017): as recently mentioned in the reading triage, this is ex-library w/ a broken spine so I mainly bought it to dismantle for the snapshots on the cover and endpages, but then I realized ah heck, this sounds pretty good and I want to read it after all. I'm 70 pages in and really enjoying it, but saving it for the sunny days.

7. What Comes After - Steve Watkins (2011): one of my standout YA reads in *checks notes* actually 2011, wow! I still think about it regularly -- orphaned teen is sent to live w/ only remaining relatives, an abusive aunt & cousin; finds solace in caring for the goats

8. This Is What It Feels Like - Annie Barrows (2018): has been on my summer TBR 2 or 3 years running, now I can stop worrying about when the library will weed the last copy.

9. In Real Life - Jessica Love (2016): an underrated read from, I think, 2018? Again with the sweet romance.

10. The Girls of No Return - Erin Saldin (2012): a much more serious book about girls in a wilderness therapy camp/school that really impressed me, thrilled to have one in pristine condition.

ADULT FICTION

Now we're gonna mix it up a little as fiction and non aren't separated in the above photos, mainly to match size & color, but I'm listing all the fiction first.

Driftwood - Elizabeth Dutton (2014): I thought it was a misplaced YA when I bought it, until I started reading and MC is twenty-eight. It promised a solo California road trip, following a route left in letters by her late father, so I decided to take a chance. It seemed so perfect for the weather I ended up starting it in a nearby park before I even went home, and finished the next day. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4, I'm glad I bought it

2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon (2000): I bought husband a brand-new copy of the newer edition w/ four extra short-stories in the back, which he never read and now I'm kind of glad he didn't so it stays pristine in a way only I can manage, and meanwhile, I decided to get this one too because it is MUCH, MUCH floppier and more comfortable to read.

3. Maurice - E.M. Forster: I've never read this and kind of want to. I've started making it a habit to look for nice editions of classics at these sales, and while this isn't amazing, it's like new, a floppy paperback, AND it has horses on the front, so.

4. Where the Forest Meets the Stars - Glendy Vanderah (2019): I've been flirting with the idea of reading this and while my library DOES have it, I'd love a perfectly-new copy of my own for $2.

5. The Haunting of Gillespie House - Darcy Coates (2015, 2020 edition): same with this one. I still can't believe that after discovering a whole shelf of her books at the library in 2022 and being like "I'm gonna read them all!", I actually only read one. But this was definitely high on my interest list!

6. The Darcys and the Bingleys - Marsha Altman (2008): had there been more at this particular sale I wanted, I might not have bought it, but the library doesn't have it and my interest is piqued by this P&P fanfiction sequel (which...is the first of ten in a series?? good lord this one is already large enough).

7. Coffee Train - Margarethe Erdahl Shank (1953): It's in terrible shape -- awful foxing on the pages -- so I really shouldn't have, but I'm Intrigued by this vintage read; my family has no Scandinavian roots but much of Minnesota (including my husband) does so I have a soft spot for it. Even though this takes place in the state next door, I think it will be very charming.

Through the eyes of little Mugs, a Norwegian-American girl, we see life in North Dakota with Norwegian Lutherans in the days following World War I.

8. The Dogs of Christmas - Bruce Cameron (2013, 2018 edition): I absolutely loved this book and this is the "author's preferred edition" with an extra chapter at the end! I saw it at a garage sale 3 years ago and resisted like an IDIOT who was trying not to over-buy books she didn't ~need~; have regretted and been looking for this version ever since, now it's mine.

9. The Christmas Dog - Melody Carlson (2009): I couldn't resist this slender novella. This year's December reading is gonna be SO CHRISTMASY I swear it.

10. Christmas at Corgi Cove - Annie England Noblin (2023!): aaand now I am back up to owning 3 unread books by her after having only read 1 and given it 3 stars. But hope springs eternal and all that.

11. Roxane the Blue Dane - Alice Kingham-Lechevre (1988): "a series of short stories chronicling the relationship between the author and her favorite show dog, Roxane, told from the perspective of the great dane." Takes place in France, so I had a devil of a time trying to figure out why this author was famous enough to write about her pet, and finally deduced she was a decently well known English/French artist/illustrator, particularly of animals, born late 19th century. It seems quite wonderful from the chapter or two I've read.

12. The Sccrets of Pistoulet - Jana Fayen Kolpen (1996): this one I'm actually really excited about because a) it's in a slipcase, which I didn't previously know because I read a library copy, and b) I spotted it in the cookbooks section I only ever skim (for Susan Branch). I don't actually love the story, which is a murky magical-realism adult fable set in France, but I do love that it's mixed-media with transparent overlays, at least one card that opens up, and several recipe cards you can physically remove from envelopes.

NONFICTION

1. Unauthorized X-Files -- Hatfield/Bur (1996): I would have climbed over people to get my hands on this in high school. "In this ultimate game book for X-philes, the authors have put together a collection of trivia challenges: Some are based on specific episodes from the first three seasons (brief episode summaries are provided); others address behind-the-scenes and on-the-set information, site locations, dialogue between characters, more. Testing methods vary, ranging from multiple choice to fill in the blank. Also included are actor and character profiles, memorable Mulderisms, and scintillating Scullyisms!"

Even though it's limited to the years of TXF I mostly avoid rewatching, the vestigial Phile in me is still intrigued. By the same authors, I also saw Unauthorized X-Cyclopedia, which tempted me, but I figured I'm unlikely to actually use it for reference and tbh, it'll just annoy me that it doesn't cover the full series.

2. Growing With the Grass - Ted Hall (1992): a small local press-published memoir of a boyhood circa the 1920s, arranged as a collection of brief anecdotes & vignettes, snagged because Old Frontenac is a lovely day trip visit and still just as much of a village as ever. I don't know if this will fully be to my tastes or a keeper, but I couldn't resist.

3. House Lessons - Erica Bauermeister (2020): a memoir of restoring an old house on an island off the coast of Washington, crossed w/ life lessons. Would you believe I was on a Libby waitlist for the audio for three months as our library doesn't have a physical copy, finally finished it during first week of driving to book sales, and then found a physical copy at the last one! Decided I liked it enough to own, at least for a while. Plus physical copy has little sketches before each chapter!

4. The Big House A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home - George Howe Colt (2003): now for the opposite coast...I think I put this on a TBR before; our library only has one copy and I really want to read it but I'm never quite in the mood. Now it's mine forever!! (I was SO excited to find this with you lmao)

5. Cold Antler Farm - Jenna Woginrich (2014): I read her first book twice (Made From Scratch), and while unfortunately there are 2 more memoirs to go before I chronologically reach this one and the library doesn't have any, I'm really excited I have this one!

6. Connemara Mollie - Hilary Brandt (2012): I'm ALSO super excited to try this one, never heard of it but it's a memoir of a long-distance pony trek the author took around Ireland in 1984.

7. Brother Super - Bill Rice (1961): Pet memoir about another Great Dane, this time a family pet.

OTHER MEDIA (not pictured)

Audiobooks: When We Were Lost by Kevin Wignall, a cracking good YA adventure about a plane crash in the jungle, and Why Not Me?, so now I have both of Mindy Kaling's memoirs in her voice! (someday I'll listen to it...)

DVDs: Spiderman: No Way Home; Uncharted

CDs: Patty Larkin - "Watch the Sky," and Matt Wasner's eponymous album/limited advanced edition copy (I took a chance on these based on appearance, because nothing is more fun than guessing right on something random that becomes a new fave!, but unfortunately I didn't like either of them so they will be leaving)

#library sale

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biggreenstache7 · 1 year ago

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what's the lore behind nick's creation? are there any other woodpeople?

So, basically, (or not so basically because I can take a while talking about this), Nick came from a huuuge domino effect where if basically anything that has happened didn't, she wouldn't exist.

I'm probably gonna lose my thread here so sorry if this doesn't make sense at some point. But, to figure out where nick came from i first have to go back to when i realized john was a Cool Character (to say the least) to me.

so i've been a siiva fan for about 4 years now (if you really want to know, since Exactly january 31st 2019) and i quickly grew to be a fan of the lore. and my favorite character was woodman, and you don't really need to know this because this story starts in 2020, but it sets it up a little, probably. i've always Liked woodman and at first he was the only real character attachment i had to siivagunner.

Ignoring anything that happened in between then and 2020 (very ironically, since those were the last appearances john ever had and i totally ignored them while they were coming out, lol), we flash forward to march 2020, where i started reading a book called the priory of the orange tree (this has NOTHING to do with siiva, but it's really important and nick wouldn't exist without it as i'll explain later, so bear with me. also really good book i recommend it thoroughly btw) this will be important soon enough

OK THE FIRST ACTUAL IMPORTANT MOMENT was. april 1st (2020). where harmony friends (aka hinchy) hosted a sort of character voice request thing on the siivagunner discord since it's john's VA and idk, probably just felt like it. And i was there, and i requested some goofy "be gay do crime" line, which she said, and idk why but i think that sort of meaningful-esque interaction caused me to go back and look at john's previous appearances and have him like, slowly become a meaningful character to me.

so we're around april to may now. i'm still reading the Book (which i'll shorten to tpotot for convinience) and thinking about john like maybe once every few days and, the thing about this book is that it has like, multiple character povs. and one of them, which is the main focus here, was this sorta cowardly sorta morally grey 60-ish year old gay man called Niclays Roos. Who i was mildly fixated with because his pov spoke to me Immensely, and still does.

so what i started doing was sorta projecting that sort of character onto John, with a few other traits i had picked up on from what little content she has. (silly interests despite being supposedly uptight and professional coming from her interest in eddie murphy's haunted mansion in spooktacular iii, etc) also the moment i became interested in him i Knew he had to be gay like that was almost an immediate click and maybe why i connected him to niclays in the first place, which brings us to our next moment.

so here's another thing about niclays. he had a lover. (ex-lover, but i don't wanna dwelve too much into it cause tpotot is cool and you can find out abt it on ur own) called jannart, who was a general contrast to niclays in the short segments he appeared in, being much more relaxed, much bolder and open about himself, and also. a painter. who took an interest in niclays because he wanted to attempt to capture the beauty he saw in him onto canvas)

DO YOU GET IT NOW!!!!!!! i saw this sort of almost relationship template, and when faced with the fact that john had no contrast funnyman in siiva that i could put together with him like a kid knocking dolls against eachother to make them kiss, well, you can imagine the rest.

so after a while of just thinking about it, on a 40 minute car trip on may 16th 2020, while listening to color my life by chicano batman on loop, i came up with nick, loosely and vaguely, decided that i wanted him to be a woodman too because it just felt. Right (did consider human for maybe a minute before shutting it down) and began drawing him the moment i arrived to my destination.

i still have the sketches which is cool but not on me rn and it might take a few months to get the notebook back but i'll remember to update this post when i do for a fun little snippet. it even has the word "jonnick" right next to them, which i believe i chose at the time because "johnnick" already had like, 2 results, and i wanted something original. i sorta regret it now because it almost sounds like a typo but i got too attached to change it lol

also nick's canon birthday is actually may 17 to me but only because that was the day i actually decided i wanted to pull through with this Very self indulgent thing (not as a bit) (real) and also the day i drew his ref (under a read more at the end of the post cuz its UGLY ASF)

so yeah, a few people already knew about this, but i don't think i ever wrote it out fully in a public space before yayyyyy.

tldr got attached to john in april 2020 for little reason and it spiralled and i projected part of another character's personality onto him and that character had a partner which caused me to give the same thing to john and then that went from being half joke to a fully realized character who's like a real living person in my head. yay! and it's been 3 years since their very stupid goofy beginning and they've grown to become almost an extension of myself with how much i've developed them and think about them. also yay!

to answer your other question (lol); i didn't make any, save for like one time where i made a woodsona as a bit, but according to my own fuckin story robots (including woodmen) are massproduced and only in rare occasions grow sentient but like, yeah it's totally 100% possible that there r other sentient woodmen out there just livin their lives n shit. you can make one if you want! i grant you my knight's permit 🫡

this exact drawing is still on my tumblr if you scroll far enough down, lol.

here's another one that came before it that i could find and that i reference pretty often as being the first (atleast digital) jonnick drawing. i remade it in 2021 and included it as a photograph in another painting i made last year. yay! that was so many fun facts just in one day. but now i have to get back to playing animal crossing new leaf on my nintendo 3ds

#john.txt #ask #siivagunner #learning not to apologize for rambling so i'm just gonna say #u set yourself up for that one #/LIGHTHEARTED

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nikosasaki · 1 year ago

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hello Mara my dearest can you tell me abt your k-pop groups?

oh BOY can i;

I actually made a sideblog for me to post all of this stuff on so hopefully sometime soon you'll see an official intro post and company bio on there, but here's the unofficial introduction!

the company is called Infinite Stage Entertainment, or ISE. it was founded by a husband-wife duo in 2006 but didn't land their 'big' act until the debut of girl group SUG★R in 2016. the company's mission statement is that they want to produce 'infinite' idols who transcend trends and generations. as you can imagine this hasn't always gone the way they want to. for the most part the company has an okay image, but in recent years rumors have been coming out that their trainee schedule and the rules their idols are required to live by are inhumane and abusive.

the company (currently) has three active groups that have achieved genuine success;

SUG★R, lead by vocalist Hyejin, with Sohee, Julia, and Ari. the group debuted in 2016, and is still going strong seven years later, with their most recent comeback in february of 2023.

these girls are the prized possession of ISE, and despite especially Hyejin being vocal about her issues with the company management they would never dream of pulling the plug on this group.

SUG★Rs concept is the idea that they're the big sisters everyone always dreamed of having. they are meant to embody fun and joy to the fullest extent. they're also the girls with the longest trainee period out of any of the ISE idols, and they're often praised by netizens for their professionalism (though Hyejin not as much, as of recent)

according to many, limit/less is ISE's attempt at recreating the success they found with SUG★R. with members Evie, Sunyeong, Hana, Minni, Honey, and Bea. the group debuted in 2020, and their most recent comeback was in april of 2023.

limit/less is known for their timeless pop sound and their colorful concept, with many of their styling centered around looking like the idealized teenage sleepover.

despite being only three years young, limit/less is already known for their several controversies, including alleged in-group bullying, dating controversies, and even rumors of members entering relationships with ISE staff.

finally there's S-DIVISION, a k-rock group lead by bassist Max, with drummer Dae, guitarist Leo, Jasper on keys, and main vocalist Atlas. the group debuted in 2017 and has since produced five albums, with their next comeback teased to drop in august of this year.

they're unique in a lot of ways, but the main thing is that these guys write and produce all of their own music! they are given complete creative control by ISE (as far as the public knows, anyway) and write, record, and produce all of their songs themselves.

they are often praised for just how talented each individual member is, but none of the boys have expressed any interest in going solo either now or in the future. they are a team, and they'll always stick together.

so, yeah! follow Infinite Stage Entertainment to keep up with the idols, comebacks, social media posts, and more!

#sorry to people who have no idea whats going on here. its fine #asks #witchofinterest #fkpc

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deepspacedukat · 2 years ago

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so i was looking up stuff about star trek: resurgence (for completely none chavok related reasons, i assure you) and it said its an rpg that includes dialogue choices and “relationship building” and im like !!!!!!!!! can we romance the characters????? can we fuck the characters?????? i feel it would be accurate to gene roddenbury’s vision to let us fuck the aliens in a star trek rpg

anyway apparently its due to come out this year, was wondering how you felt about it 💛💛

Hey there, friend! Yeah, I heard that description too. (Also was doing research for non-Chovak reasons...) From what I understand, since the developers are formerly from TellTale (a game company that was known for making episodic games with a single story line and dialogue choices that didn't really change the outcome of the story overall) I would imagine that what they mean by that is that your dialogue choices do influence the overall direction of the story. I've been looking into the game as well, and they're sticking with some of TellTale's formula - meaning that the players all go to the same planets. However, they have stated that your dialogue choices do actually influence how the story unfolds.

Unfortunately, given the nature of the plot I think they meant relationship-buidling in the diplomatic sense (so how you handle the conflict between the two main groups in dispute), but if they did mean to say that we have the option to romance characters, then I'm gonna be hustlin' to get in the Make Out With An Alien line and I'm draggin' Chovak with me! That would honestly be accurate to Gene's vision, but who knows how a video game company would interpret that vision?

At this point, I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but tbh this is the one of the best looking Star Trek games I've seen in a long time! Whether or not we can romance characters, I'm honestly just really excited to have s Star Trek game that seems this good. The technobabble sounds good, the voice actors sound fantastic, and the game looks so detailed.

Apparently the release date is slated to be in April (which is about a month after the final issue of the prequel comic comes out, btw). I haven't been this excited for the release of a video game since Animal Crossing came out in 2020.

#deepspacedukat asks #queendumbbitchsupreme #please let us romance the aliens. amen.

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fleur1005 · 2 years ago

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YiZhan fandom interviews!! 003 @OldObsess/overthinkingthis

I am so thankful that not only she accepted this interview, but accepted it with eagerness! 🙏 I was actually very excited about finally being able to talk to her because one of my first fics I read in this fandom was hers (and is my favorite to this day) and it was rec’ed by none other than Ren 😆 Now you can imagine what fic that is lol, but I digress. So without much ado… here’s Tee, aka @OldObsess!!!

▪️ Please, tell us about yourself. How you like to be called or how you go by in this fandom and how long you’ve been in the swamp.

i respond to a lot of names in this fandom, it's all good. on twitter, i'm @oldobsess... if i could do it again, i'd probably pick a new handle, but i had never used twitter before this fandom, so didn't know what i was doing! my first screen name was "too old to obsess over 💚❤️" and then sometime later i decided that there was no shame in being an older fan, so i changed it to "never too old to obsess over 💚❤️" 😂

on ao3, i'm "overthinkingthis" — i deliberately picked a different handle entirely because i had never read or written fics before, and wanted to keep my fic activities separate, like a secret side thing. that did not last long. again, shedding the shame!

on tumblr i'm "overthinkingyizhan" but i'm new to tumblr so there's not a lot going on there yet.

fandom friends also call me tee, and that works too!

how long have i been in the swamp? i watched cql in march 2020... my family watched it first, and i had no interest in watching with them until i saw xz's face. i literally asked, "why is that man so beautiful???" i watched the entire series twice, read mdzs a couple of times, and then one day i was listening to wuji and thought, "are the actors singing this as a duet?" i googled them, was horrified by 227, amazed by yibo's dancing, and then started mainlining the official bts and all the fan analysis videos on youtube. i was so charmed by how happy they looked together, but i'd never shipped anyone in my life before, so wasn't sure what to make of all the shippy stuff. i came to yizhan twitter in april 2020 to find out what happened to them after weibo night (aka "divorce night"). what finally threw me into the pit was seeing video of yibo looking teary in a ddu clip from the first taping after 227... i remember thinking, "oh my god, he really loves him."

wow, i'm rambling. let me let you ask your questions!

Ooh, I’m loving your story…! You could keep going and I can keep listening/reading it… 🥹🥹🥹

So it was the first time you shipped someone???

yes, this is my first and only fandom! i was very lucky to find really good friends in the fandom when i came to twitter, and they have been such good guides. that's one of the reasons i love what you're doing with this project (and i very much vibe with your "omg how can i organize all this information" panic because that's how i ended up on ao3!) i could go on, but let me answer your next question:

▪️ Where are you most active/ favorite place to dabble in fandom-wise? (Twt, tumblr, ao3, pixive, privetter, etc)

i'm most active on twitter as @oldobsess… i've posted more works on ao3 than i ever expected to, and i have a tumblr that i hope to use to archive more of my collected fandom candy if i ever find the time

▪️ I’ve also been very fortunate to be in friendly fandoms, but being this your first, were you surprised by the toxic side of it when you found out?

yes! i mean, because i learned about 227 right away (it had just happened when i started watching cql in march 2020), i learned about antis very early on. i don't really understand why anyone takes the time to hate a character or celebrity when they can spend that time on the character or celebrity they love, but sadly, i know now that there are people who do that in every fandom.

i was also very surprised that dynamics is a thing some people get very worked up about, especially with an rpf ship where no one has any idea what people do in private. i've tried to be more mindful about it now that i know it's a thing, but i wish everyone could assume more positive intent when it comes to this particular topic. personally, if i see or read something that isn't my thing, i don't stop to comment and i don't like to do callouts in public. (that's what private chats with friends are for!) instead, i scroll on by or use the back button. i don't like to give fandom wank more exposure by posting about it publicly. there's enough negativity in the world as it is — i don't need to add to it!

i'm also aware that as an rpf shipper, i have to be careful about where i do my screaming. i don't do it on posts by official accounts (whether in comments or qrts). also, i follow a fair number of solo accounts because we share a love for either xiao zhan or yibo, but i am careful not to say shippy things on their posts... i think that's basic courtesy, because they're entitled to do fandom the way they like. if i don't like the way they do it, i scroll by or i can block if it's really something i don't want to see. some solos block me, and i prefer they do that than to say unkind things to me.

basically, i try to follow the golden rule... how would i feel if something said X to me? i feel like i've had a relatively drama-free fandom experience by following these guidelines. fandom should be fun, so as long as you're not hurting anyone, you do you!

I very much share the same opinion about how to handle 🐜.

Now that you bring up the topic about the dynamics, I think it’s a cultural thing b/w Asian countries and Western countries. They simply have different backgrounds of how they came to be and have very different view points. They can’t really be compared. But I still love both styles.

▪️ What was your first motivation to start writing/ drawing about them?

before this fandom, i never read or wrote fic! and i had no idea rpf was a thing! to be honest, i was a little weirded out by the idea of reading or writing fic about real people. 🙈 but then after spending hours chatting about ggdd candy with my first fandom friends, i felt completely overwhelmed by the need to organize everything they were sharing with me. (also remember that the pandemic lockdown had just begun, so i was going a little stir crazy and needed something to do with all my restless energy.)

one night, we were musing over when ggdd might have first gotten together, and one of my friends told me that a significant minority of cbxg (chinese ggdd shippers) believe they got together BEFORE cql. i demanded to know more about this theory, and after countless hours of drowning in candy from 2017, i decided i had to write a fic with this alternate timeline or i would lose my mind.

i opened an ao3 account and started posting "we are made to love" in june 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669283/chapters/59612737 i had no idea what i was doing! i just wanted to write something about all the candy for myself and to amuse the three fandom friends i had then. 😂 but then what started out as "maybe i'll write 15k on this, 20k tops" turned into a 20-chapter, 83k work that took me six months to post in full.

i swore all along that i would write that one fic to get it all out of my system, and then never write again, but that did not happen. these two beautiful and talented individuals are just too inspiring! i've created or co-created over 50 works since then, but wamtl is still my best-known work.

sorry, these responses are just so long! renren was so much more succinct... please feel free to tell me to shut up hahah

No, I won’t cos I’m enjoying this way too much myself 🤭

▪️ How many fics/ fan arts have you written/ drawn so far? Which one is the one that you’re most fond of and why?

i've written 45 fics (including two drabbles that i drew art for, and one anonymous work). i co-wrote an additional eight fics with friends. i also posted two works (a recipe and a knitting pattern) that were part of an art/fic collab that i did with some creative fandom friends.

i don't know how to answer this question (about what fic i’m most fond of)! i've been asked before, and my answer changes all the time. it depends on my mood, and also on what it means to be fond of a work. sometimes a fic is bound up in the feelings i had when i wrote it, or who i was writing it with or for. if you asked me what fic of mine i would most want to reread, that would also depend on my mood. do i want to laugh or cry?

i am really fond of "talk to me," which is the fic i HAD to write after i saw an article about a japanese man who rented himself out as a "rental-san" to keep lonely people company... i was absolutely seized with the idea of writing yibo as a "rental-ge," hired by xiao zhan to listen to him talk about a boyfriend who keeps breaking his heart. it's also a wholesome t-rated fic, and soft getting-together fics are really my jam.

i'm also very fond of "lying in the dark (no sunshine)," which is my angsty break-up/make-up fic. it's based on the movie "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind," which is one of my favorite movies. i am also in love with the concepts of memory and forgetting, and this fic is a long meditation on those themes.

i'm really cheating now, but i am super fond of my tattoo and tentacle aus ("under my skin" and "wrapped up in you" ) because i wrote them with and for dear fandom friends, and so both were so much fun to write. when i re-read them, i think of these friends, and the warm feelings i have for this fandom.

Ooh, I’m glad you mentioned ��Wrapped Up in You” cos it’s been one of my first fics I read when I came into this fandom and was rec’ed by none other than Ren and it’s one of my fave fics for so many reasons! 😆😆😆

*screaming* i cannot believe that you joined this fandom and read TENTACLES right off the bat 😂😂😂 i love that! 🐙

▪️ What’s your favorite trope to write/draw or a new one that you want to try this year?

"established relationship" is my most common "additional tag" for my fics! i just adore writing yizhan all soft and secure with each other, even if they're sharing insecurities or bickering. to me, they fit together like puzzle pieces, so no matter what i put them through in the story, when i get to the parts where they're settled and happy, with all the trust and fondness that comes with that, the writing feels effortless.

among the projects i want to finish these year is a getting-together rom-com, a sci-fi au, and a fairy tale! occasionally i think about writing more "canon" fics based on real-life candy that they throw out there, but i also feel like i've written so many of them already, and i have a lot of other ideas i'd like to try to write.

oh, i should say, since this is supposed to be a guide for baby 🐢, i've dumped a ton of links to candy in the endnotes to a lot of my fics, especially wamtl and the fics in the "extra chapters" series. since i started writing fics as a way to organize my thoughts and the fandom candy, i actually do continue to revise the endnotes as i come across new sources (and if links go dead, i try to fix them). ideally, i would post all these links to tumblr so people don't have to go to my fics to find the links, but there are only so many hours in a day!

Wow, I’m amazed at how organized and prolific you are!

▪️ Are you bjyx, zsww or lsfy? Is this dynamic important to you?

i would say i am lsfy. i do not care about who does what physical act. i do care about characterization, and to me, that is completely separate from how the characters have sex. if a fic is written well, and the way yizhan is written feels real to me, i don't care how they have sex (or if they do at all).

one of the things i've really enjoyed about writing yizhan fics is that because they are both men, i don't worry about gender baggage the way i might if i were writing a m/f fic. i have the freedom to flip things around to fit the story and i don't spend emotional energy worrying whether having a character cook, cry, or apologize — or bottom — is gender-coded. honestly, i spend enough time irl worrying about race and gender, so i like that these are not issues i need to think about when i write yizhan.

so yeah, at this point, i have written all possible dynamics (and with tentacles, you really can do everything, everywhere, all at once 😂)!

i do try to tag my fics for dynamics (the actual sex act, not for vibes or characterization) so that people who *do* care can find what they want to read. i'd rather that someone who cares a lot about such things is able to avoid reading a fic of mine that doesn't suit their tastes so they don't feel compelled to write me a nasty note (also, readers, don't do this. there's a back button for when that happens).

That seems to be a very important issue in this fandom, they even have names for each dynamic. That a first for me and it was another thing that surprised me as a new 🐢.

▪️ What’s your most fave 🍬? Have you written about it? Where do you get your 🍬 sources?

i don't know if i can pick a favorite candy! like renren, i love the tattoo cpn, and so i wrote an entire fic about them having tattoos ("under my skin," in which xiao zhan is a tattoo artist and yibo is an idol who meets xiao zhan and suddenly wants to be inked all over his body haha).

i am fascinated with kadian, which is a kind of number language that's popular in china. i honestly thought it sounded far-fetched the first time i was introduced to it, but over the course of the years i've been in this fandom, i've seen enough evidence to know that kadian is real and yizhan use it (for example, 520 means "i love you" because the chinese numbers read out loud (wo ai ni) are a homophone for 我爱你, or "i love you" — may 20 (5/20) is a nationally-recognized couple's day in china for that reason)... yizhan (and all of their endorsements) post at 8:05 or 10:05 frequently because those timestamps represent their birthdays. there are many examples of different codes in wide use in china that have shown up in yizhan's various socmed posts... and there there are all the 18s (一八 sounds like yibo) and 3s (三 sounds like zhan).

i do incorporate kadian in nearly all of my fics in some way (and there's a whole chapter about it in wamtl), often because i’ll have yizhan post not-so-secret kadian messages to each other over weibo and oasis.

i even embed kadian codes into the word counts for nearly all of my fics, i'm that obsessed.

twitter followers know i post about kadian a lot too!

my first fandom friends have been such excellent sources of candy... @ShirasagiS @VenOceanofStars were the ones who spent hours talking to me about the candy that cbxgs had unearthed when i was writing my first fic. they helped me so much with translations (translation from chinese can be so difficult, especially when it's xiao zhan who's posting... he loves the word play and can get very literary in his wording).

other good accounts to follow to stay on top of weibo/oasis posts, endorsements, past appearances and such are @wxyzybxz @bjyxiaos @bjyxnoa @sunhuas

i also follow some solo accounts... although they don't *intentionally* deliver candy, they always have great content about xiao zhan and yibo.

candy also comes my way through chats with friends!

i'm not on tumblr much, but i like UntamedConnotations and AccioVictuuri for roundups of candy that aren't captured as well in tweets

Wow, thank you for sharing with us so generously your sources! I for one am very grateful cos I didn’t know several of them.

▪️ Open topic: hot/latest topic of the boys and/or fandom.

the latest hot topic!? i think it has to be yibo's new song, his performance, and his many, many posts about them! it's ticking all the boxes for me... a GORGEOUS, heartbreaking song, a beautiful and emotional performance, and a tidal wave of posts about it, with kadian, possibly hidden messages, and yibo looking incredibly handsome.

just today, he posted pictures of himself in a hoodie with a rainbow logo and his ever-present 🦴 necklace, and combined with a song and performance that already feels like yibo baring his soul in a way we haven't seen before, it's just SO MUCH and i am just in awe of how comfortable he is in his skin, how unapologetic he is about who he is... and how safe and secure he must feel to be able to shout all this out. i realize i could be completely deluded, and that none of this has to do with love, or that maybe he loves someone who isn't xiao zhan, but after all that i have seen over the past few years, i'm not sure how else to harmonize it all if they aren't szd. if nothing else, it makes me so happy to imagine that they've really found a love like this with each other, and for me, that's been the joy of being in this fandom (especially these last few years, with all that has been going on in the world).

anyway, i like to tell people that i fell into the wangxian pit because of xiao zhan's beautiful face, and that i tripped and fell into the yizhan pit because of yibo's lovesick face. everything about yibo's "like a sunshine" song and performance is just making me even more emotional about them and the epic romance that i see between them, and it brings me so much joy.

▪️Now that you bring up about the the 🦴 necklace, do you think the necklace is actually XZ’s gift? Does it really have a 王 engraving on it? Do you think the 🦴 necklace some kind of statement?

i'm not sure if it's really engraved with a 王... but i think the 🦴 is (1) a gift from someone special because yibo wears it so frequently... you only come back to a piece of jewelry that often when it has great personal meaning... especially when you are someone who wears fancy accessories for work all the time. it has shown up in inappropriate times too, like under a period costume on set, when he's not supposed to be wearing personal jewelry... that tells me it means something very special, because he just won't take it off. and (2) i think it's from xz because he has called yibo a puppy (gouzaizai), there was that time yibo's co-star from LoF said in a livestream that he can't call yibo gouzaizai because he's not xz (which tells me that other people know about xz using that term of endearment)... also xz has called yibo clingier than jianguo (comparing him to a pet), so yeah... i think it's really only xz who could give yibo a 🦴 necklace 🥰

could it be another person? i guess if i am wrong about them being szd, it could be someone else... but to me that would mean he's in a relationship with someone else. i have jewelry that other friends have given me that i wear on occasion, but the pieces that i wear all the time are the ones my husband has given me.

In between this answer and the next question, we both became a crying mess remembering the beautiful and meaningful dance performance of Yibo’s LtS at the New Year’s Gala, till we regained our composure, lol

▪️ How did you come to meet your good friends when you first started out in fandom?

when i first came to twitter in early april 2020, i really didn't know where to start. i wasn't a twitter user, and i'd never done the fandom thing before. i lurked for awhile, following solo accounts (at first, just xfx, because i was really worried about how xiao zhan was doing... it was still very early after 227). i stumbled over ventus's (@VenOceanofStars) posts, and spent a few long nights scrolling her posts of old candy. she noticed that i was liking literally hundreds of her posts, and dm'd me to ask me "how old is too old to obsess over ggdd?" and that's how we became friends. 🥰 she introduced me to @ShirasagiS and the three of us spent a lot of time just talking about ggdd and c-ent generally, since they are fluent in chinese (i am also asian, and although i've been perpetually trying to learn chinese, it's been a slog!)

i also found @BjyxObsessed because i thought her pinned tweet was hilarious and it spoke to me (back then, it was all about the shock of falling into this shippy pit as an older fan), and because i am not a shy person, i slid into her dms and forced her to be my friend. 😂 she introduced me to the world of rp fiction, and her sweet and funny fics were among the first i read (in any fandom!)

that's generally been my pattern... i see people around who might share an opinion or a demographic (a lot of my fandom friends are older fans with families and irl jobs) and i might dm them to see if we click. sometimes we do, sometimes we don't (and that's okay!)

when i finished posting wamtl and realized i was not done writing after all, i helped put together a discord server with some other writing friends, a place where we could encourage one another as we prepared for an upcoming fic exchange that we were all participating in. that was a great way to make friends... gathering around a common creative interest, be it writing or art or maybe just yelling about the boys.

some of those writers have since moved on, and some new writers have joined... it's sad when friends go on to other fandoms or to other interests, but i'm told this is a natural ebb and flow of fandom, and so i've learned to roll with it and keep making new friends.

somehow, nearly five years after yizhan started filming cql together, new 🐢 still find their way here, and i like to think that that's a testament to how beautiful and real their story feels.

▪️ Okay, I have the exact same question. How old is too old? Because I regard myself as one of the older 🐢 age-wise. I was VERY relieved to see several 30+ or 40+ in fandom 🤭

well, i don't like to tell people how old i actually am because i feel like putting a number on it might make people wonder if they're too old (if they're older than i am)... i prefer the mystery! but yes, i've been told that my saying i'm an older fan makes other older fans feel more comfortable with being here, and that's nice to know!

i do have readers and followers who i know are older than i am, and i think that's awesome!

▪️ Lastly, a piece of advice for newbie 🐢, please!

i would second renren's advice to respect the boys, their business partners, and their co-stars/friends and don't write shippy things on their posts. think of the golden rule before you hit "send" on things... how would you feel if you were yibo or xiao zhan and people were yelling shippy things on your work projects? for that reason, i try to keep my nonsense within this fandom bubble... i don't hashtag with their names, and i don't interact with solo accounts unless i *know* they're tolerant of cpfs.

the other thing i would say is to spend your energy positively. being excited about yizhan's projects and their accomplishments does not mean you have to trash someone else... that's a really bad look, and can only make trouble for them (and especially don't do that if you're using them as your profile picture because it reflects badly on them).

finally, don't evangelize. if people see what you see and want to find out if they're szd, they'll find their way here. arguing with people and trying to "prove" to outsiders that they're together is bad form... remember that we really don't know anything. i might personally feel they're szd, but if other people don't see it, i respect that too. THAT SAID... if they trip and fall into the pit the way i did, i'll do what i can to make them feel welcome so they can enjoy a positive and joyful fandom as i have!

END

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themostimportantmeals · 2 years ago

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"The Most Important Meals" and "Sama-sama sa Distansya"

“The Most Important Meals”

McDonald’s

What is the advertisement all about?

The advertisement is all about a commercial that was aired during the pandemic. During the difficult times in 2020, we all felt like we were in cages just waiting to come out and many people died due to the fact that they have no more money left to buy food because they can no longer do their jobs. One of the most important jobs when the pandemic broke out was being a Healthcare worker we truly can’t thank them enough and respect them enough for being so courageous and tuff during the difficult times I can’t even imagine what they had to go through just to help and protect people, they had to carry bodies and throw them away they did operations and took care of people nonstop and we truly don’t give them enough credit, and that is why I chose this advertisement. It was all about giving First responders and Healthcare workers free meals I just want to thank all of those people who help us conquer the pandemic, Thank you to all of you.

Who is the intended audience?

The intended audience for this commercial was all the First Responders and Healthcare Workers, I respected Mcdonald’s when they did that because for me personally I think that is the least they could do for the Healthcare Workers they have been through so much during the pandemic and they still stayed strong despite being exhausted most of the time.

Were the products advertised to the target audience necessarily good for them?

For me, I think that the products advertised to the target audience are good and slightly bad for them, it is good because you’re getting not just a free meal but a thank you to all those you’ve helped, we cannot thank you enough for saving others and taking care of others, they put their selves aside just to took care for others they didn't even have time to take care of themselves just for the better good of others and for that We thank you. It is slightly bad because Mcdonalds’s is a fast food meaning it is not necessarily healthy for them but never the less that is not the point.

Are there any forms of Media Manipulation present in the ads? If yes, what is it and why do you think so? If no, discuss how the ad managed to capture the attention of the viewers.

I think that there is no Media Manipulation present in the ads because I know that they were only trying to help other people, their only intention was to help the ones who helped us during the tough times.

“Sama-sama sa Distansya”

By Globe

What is the advertisement all about?

The advertisement was posted by Globe on April 17, 2020 on the midst of the pandemic. It is all about being away from those whom you love and that distance is a way to not be only safe but to be more close to each other. It caught my eye because in the midst of the pandemic here in my province in Mindoro we were not really restricted as much unlike in manila. Almost everyday the only thing that we did was go to the near by river and swam all day till we were tired and I never realized how much other people suffered.

Who are the intended audience?

The intended audience were all the people who were suffering from the pandemic at that time, I could never imagine how lonely it was to be all alone in the midst of all the suffering, the only thing that you’re able to interact with is your phone. I respect those who survived that pandemic and all those who sacrificed for the good of others.

Were the products advertised to the target audience necessarily good for them?

The product that was advertised to the target audience is good for them due to the fact that Globe has so many uses in our daily life, like we use it in communicating, in entertainment, and so much more. Also if it weren’t for globe I could have never watched that advertisement and learn what the world was really like back then.

Are there any forms of Media Manipulation present in the ads? If yes, what is it and why do you think so? If no, discuss how the ad managed to capture the attention of the viewers.

I don’t think that there is any Media Manipulation present in the ads because the only thing that it did was teach us to be aware and to be safe at all times. It managed to capture the attention of the viewers because of the lesson and values that it taught us. It really was a fantastic video not only the lesson but the voice of the woman, a warm, sweet, and gentle voice and it really taught us that in the midst of the pandemic, we can have many more ways to be happy and not only think about the pandemic but to conquer it.

globeph. (2020, April 17). Sama-sama sa Distansya | #SafeAtHome [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZNnrEKbyJ4

Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. (2020, June 8). Top 7 COVID- 19 Commercials [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfG0oCd-ns

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empyreanwritings · 2 years ago

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March & April Book Review

I did not read that much in March because of the demands for school and I was lowkey going thru it, so I combined these months <3

Emma - Jane Austen: As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, I think Emma is one of Jane Austen's best works. Emma is an incredibly flawed character, but she has such a loving heart on top of it that you enjoy her anyways. The love stories, the drama, the comedic scenes - they all tie into the story really well. Also, if anyone wants to watch Emma (2020) I highly recommend it. There are differences, obviously, but I think it makes you enjoy the book even more. Overall Rating: 8/10

A Soul to Touch - Opal Reyne: This is the third book in the Duskwalker Brides series, and I have yet to be disappointed. Mayumi and Faunus were an amazing duo that had so much angst and tragedy building up between them because of certain circumstances. My only complaint is that I wish we could have seen more of Mayumi's grief - yes, her character wasn't about showing too many emotions, but it would have been nice to see more. It obviously just didn't work that way bc of how much time she truly had to get it together, it was limited, so it was understandable! I cannot wait for the fourth and fifth book of this amazing series. Overall Rating: 9.5/10

Tall, Duke, and Dangerous - Megan Frampton: Yes this is absolutely a $3 book I found that has one of those cheesy romance novel covers with a shirtless hottie. I never in my life imagined myself enjoying a book like this but HOLY SHIT it was written so well?? The smut? Delicious. The story? Amazingly executed with characters who are so much more than just bland copy + pastes from other regency era stories. I actually plan to read another one of her books because of how good it was. Those old ladies who were gobbling up these stories long before us knew exactly what they were doing. Overall Rating: 12/10

Persuasion - Jane Austen: If you have followed me long enough, you know that enemies to lovers has always been my top tropes. But after Persuasion and some other stories I read last year, I'm starting to realize exes to lovers is ???? SO SUPERIOR. The Netflix adaptation of this book did not do it justice if I am being honest. I loved watching the progression between Anne and Captain Wentworth. The subtle hints of being flustered and jealous are *chef's kiss* for real. I know I said Emma was going to be one of my faves, but I think this one took the top spot in Jane Austen novels. Overall Rating: 10/10

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen: This was the last book I had to read for my class, and I was a little underwhelmed. The story was good, and the characters all had pretty contrasting personalities that helped fill in some gaps, but overall nothing really happens. There's some conflict towards the end, but it is resolved within two chapters. I don't imagine I would ever go out of my way to reread this one or see any adaptations of it. Overall Rating: 5/10

The Gargoyle's Captive - Katee Robert: WHEW this one was a ride. I have read all of the books in the A Deal with a Demon series, and I think this one might be the best so far. I love that you can see her progression as a writer the more she delves into these characters - and I'm a little sad to think that she really only has two more book to write after this one. Bram's feelings are a little too close to home for me - he feels so indifferent towards life and it just made me so sad. The plot twist was predictable, but I always believe good writing SHOULD make the plot twist predictable - and it certainly did not take away the impact of it. Please make sure to read the trigger warnings before reading this book though. There's a lot that occurs that could be triggering to someone. Overall Rating: 10/10

Queen of Myth and Monsters - Scarlett St. Clair: Full disclosure, the author acknowledges this story as 'the one where everyone gets a backstory' and it's true. literally everyone gets a backstory, and characters are introduced that don't have much to do with the current story because you know they will be essential in the next. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I also feel like TOO much happened at one time. There were too many conflicts / too many introductions and "plot twists" and too many unresolved arguments. I'm all for fighting and fucking - but at some point the MCs gotta actually talk things out. It felt like everything was shoved in there at once to pave the way for a third book, but it definitely could have been separated and hashed out better. I won't lie, I'm a little disappointed, but I will hold on for the third book. Overall Rating: 6/10

Forever Theirs - Katee Robert: I think this series is probably one of Katee Robert's underrated ones because it came out in 2018 and I never heard of it. Truly it needs more hype. I need BookTok to grab onto this one because it's poly and it's written SOOOOO well. Y'all want a royal / citizen / bodyguard throuple then this book is for you. The smut? Glorious. The overall plot? Even better. I am obsessed and cannot wait to read the next book in the series. I'm still not over this came out so many years ago and I am only just discovering it bc I'm obsessed with this author's monster fucker books. Overall Rating: 10/10

#book recs #book reviews

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jmdbjk · 2 years ago

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I'm kind of new JKK, only here since 2020. The Dec 2021-March 2022 break was the longest Jikook drought for me. It was kinda hard watching everyone on IG interact but Jikook. Obviously they were fine cause everything after the break, YMK bday pic, white day, keep being jealous, carrying JM out to their car etc. Now here we are again & this time its almost longer, since April. It makes me sad. So my ques. Has Jikook taken long breaks like this in the past from riding together/hanging out/posting?

Hey, Anon...

They have not taken a break from hanging out together. And that means they ride places together, where ever those places might be.

Just because we do not have social media posts confirming all this doesn't mean it's not happening. Just because we do not have official content showing specific things you would like to see doesn't mean it isn't happening. Just because we do not see real time updates doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

I know I keep saying this, but really, you need to trust them.

As far as posting pics of themselves together on social media, they stopped doing that consistently years ago. And also over the last few years, except for Jungkook's boredom-fueled IG marathon Q&A's both Jimin and Jungkook are not on social media much. They are busy working and enjoying the time they have to do what they want. Just imagine Jimin working on his music and MV and photo shoot concepts and Jungkook playing In the Seom in between sessions of getting his tattoos colored in and working on his own stuff.

In case you didn't know yet, the twitter is ablaze about them and both jikook and kookmin are trending because of today's content and other chatter about what they are up to. K-Army's are keeping us in the loop here and there.

Perhaps lowering your expectations can help you feel less sad. They are fine.

#jikook #kookmin #minkook

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samssims · 3 years ago

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I wish I had a family that I loved/loved to play with as you do. Your NSB fam is so precious. I've tried so many times to stick with a family, but I haven't managed to do it so far xD

Hi Bri! It takes time! And changing sims/projects is nothing to be ashamed of. I have...a many projects that I quit after I start.

This gets pretty introspective so I'll put it under the cut, for those that care about NSB & Sam fun facts:

You may or may not remember that this Armie is not the original we know and love. I mean, she's the same sim but I attempted to tell her story (in 2019!) via a more classic NSB way first but it fizzled out because I just wasn't vibing with it.

But I loved Armie so much that I didn't want to give up on her! Apparently one drunk night in April of the next year I decided to give it another go.

And 9 days later I made Ruby in CAS and here we are!

I wanted to show the tags on this post because imagine me saying "we'll meet her soon" and now here is our disaster lesbian vampire mom of two.

NSB Fun Fact: The girl that Armie shows a mild interest in/is a love rival to Ruby in the NSB Redux is a homage to the original Ruby sim. She is not the same sim at all (just both redheads), but it’s sort of a throwback to the fact that Armie had a different love interest in my NSB Ver 1.

Trust me it doesn't always come easily. I've been on simblr since...2013 (back in the ts3 days). And I've loved many sims.

I sort of have a pattern of getting attached to one family for a long time. I had my TS3 Family which made it to 6 gens and they're stories were very quintessentially sims and silly which is what made them fun. And really the only reason I stopped playing them is because TS3 lagged so bad that I switched over to TS4.

After that I had my DPR family which made it to 9 gens! (One day I'll finish, I'm sorry for making you wait Lonnie...) But my love for Disney and the stories kept me going there!

And now here we are with the NSB fam. And who knows how long it will last. Maybe I will lose interest once Armie and Ruby go. I have aging turned off and I just want them to stick around forever and ever. I am only now sort of figuring out how Armie and Ruby's gen will wrap up as we move forward.

I've been playing this family since...May 2020...

So it's been a good year and half with them. I never thought I'd end up here or loving them all so much. I'm mostly honored that everyone enjoys them too. It's part of what makes it so much fun. But even if their stories didn't get any notes (like my ts3 family), I'd still have fun because I'm exploring the game my way through their eyes and having a blast doing it.

All this to say, you can totally get there one day with a family of your own! But it's also not necessary. Part of what's great about the sims is being able to create so many new characters and worlds and tell so many stories through generations. It's all in good fun!

#Sam Speaks #so much....sorry fam #I just started thinking out loud #ask #nonsims #I could talk about the Girls(tm) and this project forever #Sorry I just rambled on #NSB Asks

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msgrumpygills · 3 years ago

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Social Media Anon Here!

You asked about Go Mantra Labs and I'll cut some stuff that another blog (occamshipper) did.

My two-penneth... Jared has dropped a lot of Mantra Labs advertising. No "Mantra Mondays" anymore. Whilst the company issues a press release every time the owner takes a dump, Jared isn't in these now or re-blogging.

If you look at

a. How Jared didn't convert SPN fans to Walker just because he was in it (Walker fans are 70+ using Walkers and SPN fans were 18:49)

b. How Jared hasn't been able to convert SPN fans to Towwn, despite it being free

.... I can quite believe occamshipper is right and he can't convert fans to his expensive pee water.

Anyway this is what they said

"Got this in notes on another post and decided I would update.@inexhaustablesourceofmagicHow is the healthy living company and Jared and Gen set up going? I haven’t heard or seen any promos for a while. From what I see, Mantra Labs is still... around. But uh. Much smaller business than you would expect from Jared's face on it. I'm seeing an annual average revenue of $26,345. This is also... interesting, because it's also listed as having 1.5 million funding acquired april 2021. Doing some digging this was in Seed Round funding. This is also on top of the $20,830 PPP loan they pulled April 11, 2020. I imagine this is why Paul Janowitz declined to share revenue figures and just vagueblogged about "expecting success." In fact, now that I'm looking at it, it appears that they literally used the PPP loan to *open* the business. Once you make the effort to filter out the random indian company named Mantra Labs which is far more successful, and instead make sure you're looking at "Mantra Labs, Inc", located in Austin, there's actually very little mention of it. I see a mention in a vitamin magazine a year ago, a few cross site listings to sell it, a give away, and then the above information. So uh, as to how it's going probably not as well as they were hoping. if you mean some other company, clarify, idk, I can look it up easy though, as you can see. Looks like once a handful of fans got past being gouged 30-50 or more bucks for sandy vegetable powder and liquid copper, the appeal really faded. RIP anyone that bought the $145 package. Even if most of that is subscribers with the 25% off recurring monthly delivery, that's still about... 100 customers. So it's basically a very ritzy looking etsy shop. Follow occamshipper mathed bad when I first posted and fixed it now. I said 1,000 customers for the monthly, which is around 28 bucks a month. Actually it's less than 100 customers, because, you know, there's 12 months. Go, Rest, and Rise are individually 41.24/mo or 54.99 for a one time purchase for the 30 serving tub. 15 count bag is 29.99/39.99. Sampler is 6.74/8.99. The chrono bundle of all three are 108.74/mo or 144.99 one time for the 30 day, 72.74/96.99 for the 15, 13.49/17.99 for the sampler. 26345 divided by 12 = 2195.42 a month in sales. Hence "ritzy etsy shop." So going with the 15 counts as the middle ground prices, recurring subscription, that's about 146 monthly customers. The second chrono bundle comes into play, that's less (higher cost, less customers involved in the sum). The second individual non-subscription orders come into play, that's even less less. The second bigger packages come into play, that's less. One could argue samplers make more but uh. Obviously the people buying those aren't coming back unless you want to imagine a few hundred people unanimously buying in the dumbest way possible on repeat. TLDR, it looks like Mantra has like. 100 customers. And I bet I could tell you who 40 of them are. Ritzy. Etsy. Shop. frankly nothing quite pisses me off like a millionaire pulling a pandemic PPP loan for small businesses to launch his vanity project that shit was designed to help small businesses stay open and pay employees, or independent people establish their businesses so they could survive during the pandemic. Mantra doesn't even have employees and Jared wasn't struggling. That is some BULL shit how very fucking republican of him" 22 notes

You are a superhero, Social Media Anon!

Kudos to occamshipper for doing all of that math and providing this information. Since this seems to be public information, I’m more inclined to believe the numbers but if someone has other information that’s truly correct, I will change my stance.

I feel like I’m surprised but also not surprised about those numbers? I’m surprised because we’ve all seen Jared’s stans and how they’ll buy anything he tells them to or promotes to them. But at the same time I’m not surprised because Jared hasn’t promoted Mantra as much as he could have? I know, I know, I harp on him for posting ads and trying to shill his snake oil but you’d think he’d want this to be a success, no? That’s why he joined Paul on this venture, right?

It is pretty gross that they got a PPP loan to start the business when Jared has plenty of money to invest. There’s nothing wrong with getting loans, but to apply for one that is specifically made for small businesses who are trying to stay afloat and not for vanity projects that someone wants to get started? Gross.

#grumpy answers #anti jared padalecki #anti mantra

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h-o-timeline · 3 years ago

Text

As It Was - My Interpretation

I'm writing this on April 1st (finished writing it on April 2nd). It's morning and I can't stop listening to Harry's new song since it came out. His vocals and the lyrics make me want to cry, but they also make me happy. I believe this is one of his most intimate songs ever.

The song starts with Ruby Winston, one of Harry's godchildren, saying, "Come on, Harry, we wanna say goodnight to you." The decision to include this on the record may seem odd at first glance, but it makes sense as the song progresses. The Winstons are close friends, people who care deeply about him, and Ruby wants Harry to know that. She wants him to know he's loved. Her voice at the very beginning is Harry reminding himself of this.

"Holdin' me back/Gravity's holdin' me back/I want you to hold out the palm of your hand/Why don't we leave it at that?" He feels depressed, but doesn't feel comfortable elaborating on why. He just wants to be supported.

"Nothin' to say/When everything gets in the way/Seems you cannot be replaced/And I'm the one who will stay." He is frustrated. He feels like he's vulnerable and ready to risk it all for this relationship, but the other person is not. Still, he'll stay. He'll wait. Though this looks romantic, it's also sad. There's a lot of loneliness and uncertenty involved in waiting.

"In this world, it's just us/You know it's not the same as it was." We all know how much Harry's life has changed in the last two years, and it seems like he's finally ready to embrace those changes. The first of which is that he now realises he's not completely by himself. He has friends. He has a family. A home. Hence the use of "us" instead of "me." Do I mean that he didn't know that before? No, but it seems to me that he has become even closer to the people who are dear to him.

"Answer the phone/Harry, you're no good alone/Why are you sitting at home on the floor?/What kind of pills are you on?/Ringin' the bell/And nobody's coming to help/Your daddy lives by himself/He just wants to know that you're well." I believe this entire part is about Harry and his father, Des. Harry is mentioning an occasion in which his dad, who lives by himself in the Manchester area, called him to see how he was doing. At this point, which I believe is the lockdown in 2020, Harry is isolated by himself in London. Because his father is also alone, he understands his son's situation and wants to make sure he is well. His father seems to worry that Harry might be depressed and self-medicating. The entire line is a huge blow to the listener. Harry is showing us something deeply personal.

"Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet/I don't wanna talk about the way that it was." Harry stayed out of the spotlight for most of 2020, but that changed in 2021 when his personal life became a hot topic in every tabloid. Here he seems to be saying he goes online to see what the news outlets are writing so he can be "prepared." But in reality, there's no way he can be prepared for the invasion of privacy and gossip. Again, he's frustrated, and he doesn't want to discuss his personal life with anyone.

"Leave America, two kids follow her/I don't wanna talk about who's doin' it first." This part is an obvious reference to Olivia. She left America, her home, to be in England with him, a decision (that now seems permanent) he doesn't want her to regret. He doesn't want them to one day have an argument about who did what for the other. The line reflects his anxiety very well, his vulnerability. He overthinks things, imagining an argument that hasn't happened and might never happen at all.

In his bio on Spotify Harry calls "As It Was" a "complex love story about losing one's self, finding one's self, and embracing change," and that's exactly what it is. It's not a romantic love story though, or at least not romantic in the typical way. It's a love letter to life, to his life. A love letter to all the complexities of it.

Let it be known, people: Harry Styles is in love with life.

#harry styles #harrys house #as it was #personal opinions

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uglierdaikon · 3 years ago

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I’ve been waiting 👀 Wings 1, 2, 5, 10

Graves 1,2, 4 (in this case a second sequel I mean) 5, 10

BSMFH 1, 4, 5

I want you to know this was actually restraint 👀❤️

Dana you dweeb (affectionate). All right here we go. (Spoilers ahead for all three fics)

Wings

1) Any deleted scenes from this fic that didn’t make it into the final story?

Well I did do those Wings spin-off one shots, which I never actually finished posting. Maybe I will someday. Those were mainly about Amane and Tsukasa (y'know, before all the murdering). Other than that, I just reread my outline and apparently I planned for Nene and Teru to be considered missing for a while before their bodies were found? Which obviously I did not end up going with, since Amane turned himself in/immediately tried to kill himself. Fun times.

2) Was there an alternative ending for this fic you had in mind?

Nope (unless you include the "Teru and Nene being considered missing" thing). The plot of this fic was ripped off entirely from a song, so I had rules to follow! The ending was decided for me by Colter Wall. Poor things never had a chance at a happy ending.

5 If you were to go back and change anything a scene, a way anything was written, a piece of dialogue etc. What would you change from this fic?

I wouldn't write it. KIDDING! I'm kidding (mostly). I don't think I've ever hidden the fact that Wings is (in my opinion) the worst thing I've written in years, so honestly the list is too long to bother with. I know a lot of people really liked it, and I won't bash on anyone's taste and I so greatly appreciate the support that it got/has continued to get but I just... don't like it. I didn't even have fun writing it. Bleh.

10 How long did it take for you to write this fic?

Well, it was posted on October 15, 2020, and the last chapter was posted on November 30, 2020. So, roughly a month and a half? I posted every chapter as soon as it was finished, so the timeline of all of my multichapter fics (except for BSMFH) is always gonna be what it says on paper.

Graves

1) Any deleted scenes from this fic that didn’t make it into the final story?

Sorry to disappoint, but no! Not that I can remember.

2) Was there an alternative ending for this fic you had in mind?

Also no 😂 Graves is exactly the fic I set out to write. Honestly, though, the ending was so hard to come up with. I can't imagine how much harder it would've been to come up with a whole different one. I remember being really pissed with myself because I'd kind of written myself into a corner and didn't know how to fix it. Figured it out in the end though!

4) Hypothetically if you were to make a sequel to this fic…What is a story you would think of? A sequel? A prelude? A time skip? Etc. Just any thoughts you might have for it?

I... wouldn't? Just to be completely honest. The only ideas I ever had were for Hananene wedding/Mitsukou finally getting together, and I did that in the sequel! There were a couple wedding traditions I didn't end up using for the sequel fic though, such as the groom being "kidnapped" by the bride's family (in this case, Teru and Kou) and having to find his way back to the bride by the wedding. That would've been funny as hell but it didn't fit the tone of the story I ended up writing.

5) If you were to go back and change anything a scene, a way anything was written, a piece of dialogue etc. What would you change from this fic?

Absolutely nothing. This fic is my pride and joy.

10) How long did it take for you to write this fic?

From April 26, 2020, to September 13, 2020. So... about 4 and a half months!

Be Still My Foolish Heart

1) Any deleted scenes from this fic that didn’t make it into the final story?

Dana I am absolutely shocked that you would give me the opportunity to share the bar scene with the world! It's not exactly a deleted scene, but I know exactly what happened with Kou and Amane at the bar the night they ended up coming home drunk together (and Dana knows too). Since the fic is from Nene's perspective, though, we won't be seeing it (unless I decide y'all deserve a treat).

4) Hypothetically if you were to make a sequel to this fic…What is a story you would think of? A sequel? A prelude? A time skip? Etc. Just any thoughts you might have for it?

Let me start off by saying there will not be a sequel. I'm not trying to get anyone's hopes up. But there has been a joke within my heart that I desperately wish I could make, and if I ever did write a sequel it would solely be so that I could make this joke. Let me set the scene. Nene and Amane have an ill-advised tumble on the pull-out couch in a moment of passion. Nene gets pregnant. What is the joke, you may ask? Easy. "The couch may pull out but Amane sure doesn't."

That is easily the best answer I've given in this whole post and it's a damn shame 99% of people will just scroll past this because it's too long. Anyways I'll see myself out (after the last question).

5) If you were to go back and change anything a scene, a way anything was written, a piece of dialogue etc. What would you change from this fic?

Nothing yet? I would do some tweaking to the Hanako and Kana scenes I suppose, for reasons I can't disclose at this time. I've also gone a while without any conflict between Amane and Nene, and I feel like they should argue more. But c'est la vie. I trek onwards.

God damn, Dana, you get your fill boo? Teasing, teasing. Thank you for asking!

#i don't remember how i've been tagging asks #dana literally didn't save any questions for anybody else #this is my comprehensive author interview apparently #love you dana

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t-diggitydawg · 3 years ago

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i find this uswnt situation is pretty weird. they played well in friendlies (or so i thought), but when the olympics rolled around, they played like they didn't want to be there. no joy, no passion, no spirit, they were like a soulless team. do you think it's because of them being unbeaten (at least before losing to sweden) and being the #1 team in the world have put a bigger burden for the team? or do you think there are other factors?

i think there are many factors. i do wish they would have lost against sweden in april, i never like unbeaten streaks when they are going into a tournament. but i don’t think it was a burden. the fact they have kept the same tactics for years hasn’t helped, they need to have more tools in their toolbox. correlation isn’t causation, but i wouldn’t be surprised if the fact that sweden outsmarted them shook the US and they were never able to get back into it.

then there’s the heat, no crowds, “distracted by endorsements” (lol carli said that 🙄 tbh i thought it was BS and also a very catty thing to say... but it’s carli), old age claims (which, i am not a fan of this roster, but even the last game showed how carli and pinoe underperformed in the previous matches. i don’t think it is that. if the results for the 2023 world cup are poor i’m going to attribute to the focus on the older players and lack of bringing in younger players though), fitness/injuries (i don’t think tobin played well. she wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t amazing. tbf no one really was that good. i am surprised that julie played as much as she did.), etc etc etc. it’s hard to name several factors, let alone just one thing. the players and coaching staff don’t even know what went wrong (which is concerning)

i wouldn’t be surprised if years down the line we find out about conflict/turmoil within the team at this period. there are distinct differences in values and opinions regarding social justice on this team that came into awareness in this past year and a half. i know some players have referenced these differences and make it seem like they can get past them and focus on the game, but it’s hard for me to imagine that it doesn’t have any affect at all. maybe it doesn’t cause the entire team to collapse, but maybe it affects team chemistry some. i mean look at carli’s tweet that ended up just fueling more hate towards christen and crystal. and lynn liking a tweet questioning carli being the only one standing. i don’t think players are simply accepting other people’s opinions as “oh teammates have different thoughts on social justice but that’s totally fine because we are teammates and so everything is rainbows and sparkles!”

i guess my official answer is i have no clue. i would like a tell-all book about the 2020-2021 USWNT, please.

#ask #this is all over the place my apologies

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dramaruni · 4 years ago

Text

@bpdaf so this answer opened a can of worms (that I can call procrastination) and I wanted to address it, but with the limited characters in the reply function, I decided to answer it with a new post. Also sorry if this come as an attack, I promise it's not. I just became really curious if I had the wrong idea about the live-shooting system as I was ready to refute your points, but realized I didn't have enough knowledge to do so.

*also tagging @jahe, @yasmini24, @le-amarant as they also replied to my post and I figured maybe you were also interested in this (although it's really long and rambly, so I don't blame you for ignoring the post entirely). So yeah warning, this post is really long.

So I'm well aware of kdrama's live shoot system. But I did wonder if it was normal to start shooting 6 months before the first airing episode, as I was under the impression 6 months of shooting exceeded the standard duration of filming. But I couldn't actually refute it without some data to back that up. So I went to find data.

According to Wikipedia's page on Korean Dramas, they write: “As producing a series involves high expenses, production companies seek to shoot the episodes in the shortest time possible. In contrast to practices elsewhere, the first four episodes of Korean series are usually shot in advance, but the rest are shot continuously as the series is being aired.”

This fits in line with what I believed about Korean dramas live shooting system. They film a couple of episode ahead of time and then rest comes while it's still airing to fit with the audience response to it. Even preproduced dramas are sometimes reshot and re-edited while it's airing. But it didn't really say anything about the average filming duration for a drama or what shortest time possible was defined as. Probably because all dramas will aim for different things and given the content it can vary a lot how long it takes to film.

But I highly doubt it took Vincenzo 6 months to shoot something around 4 episodes and then crammed the rest into the 2 remaining months, as they knew from the start they had 20 episodes to fill.

So let's go through some other drama's shooting schedule to compare with Vincenzo.

I chose to limit the list to 2020 dramas (as they were likely affected by the pandemic) and tvN dramas, so it's the same broadcasting company as these dramas will likely share the same practices. Obviously with the amount I have included, I can't make any definite conclusions, but it does show a pattern.

*disclaimer I tried my best to accurately determine the shooting duration from when filming started to when it ended, but not all of these dramas had that information readily available, so I made do with the information I had at hand. This means some of these are just estimations.

So without further ado, here's the list:

Vincenzo:

May 2020, Director Kim Hee Won and writer Park Jae Bum teamed up.

July 2020, Song Joong Ki and Jeon Yeo Bin were considering the drama, while Ok Taecyeon had confirmed

September 2020, filming started

February 20th, 2021 first episode aired

No episodes April 17thand18th

April 17th, last episode script delivered

April 23rd, filming wrapped

May 2nd, 2021 last episode aired

Shooting time: 8 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 8 days

1. Crash Landing on You

*not affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic * includes overseas filming

July 31st, 2019 – first script reading

End of august 2019, filming overseas begin

December 14th, first episode airs

January 12th, filming wrapped

February 16th, 2020 last episode airs

Shooting time: 5 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 4 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 1 month + 4 days

2. It’s okay not to be okay

I couldn’t find the exact time shooting started, so these numbers are based between March and May, as I assume they didn’t shoot without Oh Jung Se being casted and while the table read photos were released in May, it could very well be they had started shooting before this.

February 2020 Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Ye Ji casted

March 2020 Oh Jung Se casted

May 8th 2020, first script reading photos released

June 20th 2020, first episode aired

July 31st 2020, filming wrapped

August 9th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 3-5 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-3 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 9 days

3. Start-up

August 4th, all the leads are confirmed for casting

September 2020, promotional starts to come out

October 17th 2020, First episode aired

November 21st 2020, Bae Suzy wraps up filming (assuming filming wraps up around the same time as her as she is the lead)

December 6th, last episode aired

Shooting time: 2-4 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-2 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: around 15 days

4. Hospital playlist season 1

*only aired 1 episode pr. week

October 2019, principal photography took place

March 12th, first episode aired

Late April 2020, filming wrapped

May 28th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 7 months (couldn’t find when they actually started shooting, so let’s just pretend they also filmed around October)

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 1 month

5. A piece of your mind

February 7th 2020, article of the first script reading

February 13th, first photos from drama unveiled

March 23rd, first episode aired

April 8th 2020, tvN announces that 4 episodes are cut due to low ratings

April 28th, last episode aired

Shooting time: 2-4 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-2 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: N/A (couldn’t find the exact time but they also axed four episodes and I don't know how much that affected filming)

6. Psychopath diary

*not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

August 2019, first script reading

November 20th, first episode aired

January 9th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: n/a

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 3-4 months (assuming they started shooting shortly after the first table read)

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: n/a

7. Stranger /Secret Forest season 2

* preproduced based on the information I found

January 2020, first script reading

June 20th, 2020 lead actors wrapped filming (But I only found this article that says this)

August 15th 2020, first episode aired

October 4th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 6 months

Shooting duration before first episode aired: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 4-5 months

What does this mean?

So the drama that comes closest to Vincenzo's filming duration is Hospital Playlist, but they also did things a bit differently. According to their Wikipedia, they only aired 1 episode a week to comply with 52-hour week system and to avoid overnight filming for the cast's and crews' health. So that would extend their shooting time. They also had the same amount of shooting time as Vincenzo before the first episode aired, i.e. 6 months, but Hospital playlist was only 12 episode drama so they also had less content to fill.

The rest of these dramas has a shooting time with 6 months or less. I will say though a lot of these dramas are not action-packed (also I haven't checked the budget for any of these), so comparatively they probably have different needs when filming. The drama that comes closest in terms of action is Stranger/Secret Forest, and it's also pretty close in shooting time with only 2 month different (that's counting from the first table read though). This was however pre-produced so they wrapped up filming before the first episode even aired (if my information is correct). Also this was a season two so they were operating under a little different circumstances.

But with the exception of Stranger/Secret Forest (preproduced) and Hospital Playlist(tried to work with humane working hours), none of this drama has a 6-month filming duration before the first episode aired. In fact some of these dramas don't even exceed 6 months of filming. Meaning they had less time to shoot before the first episode aired. Their production was probably also lower and none them did CGI (although I haven't watched all of them so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) as that should also be accounted for.

So 8 months of filming is a lot to allocate to a drama, at least it's not the norm. There are other dramas that exceed that filming time that didn't make the list (Mr. Sunshine sorry too much research for at this point), but obviously that is not the standard.

Obviously I don't know how the filming was divided, how many of the episodes they had filmed before the first one aired. I don't know how many of the episode scripts were written before it aired. But I can see that even with the live-shooting, Vincenzo has some very uneven scheduling that doesn't align with how the rest of these dramas did their scheduling and airing. None of the mentioned dramas had any delays (in airing, I can't be sure about filming as some of them are probably affected by the pandemic), and yet Vincenzo did, even though they had spent more time filming before the first episode aired.

Also, most of these dramas wrapped up filming with more than a week to spare before the final airing, with It's Okay Not To Be Okay coming the closest to the airing date (with the ones where I know the date when they finished shooting), but they also only had 1-3 months of filming before the drama actually started airing so much less time than Vincenzo. And although they didn't have CGI, they did have the animations for each of the fairytales which I don't know how long it took but I can imagine it took some time.

So then I looked up another drama not by tvN but by Park Jae Bum:

Good Manager/Chief Kim

December 15, 2016 first script reading

January 25, 2017 First episode aired

March 30, 2017 Last episode aired

I couldn't find the date they finished filming, but given they only started a month before airing (honestly I felt super sorry for the cast and crew when I saw these dates), I am assuming the hit the last airing date pretty closely with filming, and that would give them 3 months of filming roughly. And they also had 20 episodes like Vincenzo.

I haven't seen this drama myself, so I can't say anything about the writing quality, but here Park Jae Bum was working under even more time pressure and was able to deliver the ending on time and as I hear, it was pretty a pretty good ending (but I haven't seen it, so feel free to refute me). And yet he couldn't do it for Vincenzo. So I do think something happened with ending, whether it was Park Jae Bum just took a long time writing it for whatever reasons, or someone/thing (be it something personal, writer's block, execs not liking the ending etc.) actually interfered and that prolonged the writing or entirely changed the ending.

Anyway this became too long, so let me just end it here.

I wish I had time to make a more comprehensive list so I could be more definite in the conclusion because obviously I can't base everything of the schedule of 8 dramas that also vastly different in production quality, genre and content.

So yeah I might have just wasted the last three-four hours making something that doesn't even make sense. But hey, at least I'm less prepared for the exams now, good use of time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#Vincenzo #so much procrastination #I don't know if this was just an excuse to not look at unity #probably #also I think this mostly also to satisfy my curiosity about the live-shooting broadcasting system in general #although there is still a lot to be learned #sometimes I have this idea that bad dramas are live-shoot and the good dramas are preproduced #but then I think of descendents of the suns and remember not all preproduced dramas are good #and if chief kim/good manager is as good as everyone says #they did a pretty good job considering the circumstances they had to work under #I have put it on my watch list #so once I'm done with exams I can watch it #and then I can tell you if I think PJB can write a good drama under immense time pressure #anyway this was probably pointless #but here it is anyway

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