#anyway I am really grateful that this story exists purely because that scene where they try to skin a rabbit and are utterly confused

[bonaesperanza]

What I like the most about that Charls short story is that your knee-jerk reaction is to go, "Surely this was all entirely unnecessary? You are kings, surely there's a more efficient way of dealing with this guy breaking your laws than the acting rulers of two whole countries going incognito as fake cloth merchants!"

But then you realize that this is absolutely a want, not a need. They love pulling this kind of shit, they've had the time of their lives every time they've done it: Laurent was laughing his ass off as he was running across rooftops and dodging assassins in book 2, Damen's reaction to regaining his birthright and getting to be at the head of an army again was, "But no more shenanigans?? 🥺 The fun Damen and Laurent shenanigans?? 🥺"

And at this point in the story they've been stuck politicking and roleplaying Normal Responsible Adults for, what, six to eight months? And Laurent's ascension, which means even more politicking and less free time, is looming over them, so based on what we canonically know about how sensation-seeking they both are, I am totally buying that they heard about some guy breaking the new slavery laws and went, you know what, this may be our last bit of freedom for a while, let's go absolutely apeshit. Sleeping in seedy inns and other weird places did always give an extra oomph to the old sexual tension. Oooh, you know what we could do, we could involve Charls, that guy was always a hoot! And you know what else'd be funny? If we didn't tell him that you're the Akielon king and waited to see how long it takes for him to figure it out!

10/10 completely in character, they do canonically take turns being each other's Impulse Control and obviously sometimes the system will break down because they're both feeling impulsive

[annymation]

Reimagining the characters in Wish

(Part 5- The Goat)

This will be the last one of these blogs about the characters. I was stalling on this one because honestly there’s really not much to Valentino in my rewrite.

Will his existence influence the plot tho? Yes, definitely way more than the movie Valentino did… Although that bar isn’t high.

So let’s go, animal companion time!

Personality

- Valentino is a one month old baby goat, a little ball of energy, too pure for this world, doesn’t know basic math and we must protect him at all cost.

- His main gimmick is that he follows Asha EVERYWHERE to the point it’s comical, like, I didn’t write him much so far in my rewrite (we’re currently on chapter 3 and he was alive in only 2 of them, so no wonder) but even when I don’t mention him just assume, he’s there… All the time.

- He cares a lot about Asha and sees her as his mother, since well, she technically is, she took care of him all his life (a month).

Main Traits:

- Curious

- Loyal

- Silly

- Innocent

- Determined

Backstory

(Because it wouldn’t be a rewrite of mine if the character didn’t have at least some angst, not even the 1 month old goat is safe from me)

- A month before our story begins, Asha was drawing animals at one of the farms in the kingdom, to practice, when suddenly she heard a new born goat all alone.

- She asked the owners where his parents were at, and they explain they didn’t notice the little guy under the hay earlier, they sold their goats to be exported to a neighboring kingdom.

- Asha felt really sad for him, so she asked to buy him, the farmer said she could keep him for free, taking care of baby goats without a mama goat around was too much trouble anyway, Asha was basically doing them a favor.

- Valentino obviously doesn’t know all that, but even if you told him it’s not like he’d care, he sees Asha as his mama and that’s all that matters.

- He’s very thankful for her taking care of him, getting him a nice sweater and a cozy little bed… He wishes he could thank her.

Which leads us to:

This Book

- So hear me out, there’s this kids book, “The Grateful Goat”, about Valentino, and it’s adorable, it’s my main inspiration for his rewrite.

- In this book we follow Valentino trying to communicate something to Asha and her friends, but they can’t understand him, since we’ll, he’s a goat.

- They try over and over to guess what he wants but nothing makes him stop bleating.

- Then, once Star came down and granted his wish, it turns out all he wanted to say was “Thank you”

Oh

That

That’s cute, I like that.

- Imagine this, in my rewrite, once Aster does grant Valentino’s wish and makes him talk, it’s a cute scene of Valentino going like:

“THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS TAKING SUCH GOOD CARE OF ME!”

(And he sounds like a child by the way, because that’s how a baby goat should sound like DISNEY)

- Now, am I saying that Valentino is just gonna speak once to say thank you?… Kinda, but not quite.

- You see, Aster’s wish granting magic is only effective on you if you really really REAAALLY want it to be.

- As he makes animals in the forest talk for example, or brings the tress to life, they only remain like that as long as they really want to, and what do you know, turns out most trees are chill just being tress so his magic fades away from them in a short while.

- Valentino’s wish won’t be to permanently talk, he just wanted to thank Asha, so once he’s done doing that Aster’s magic fades away after a few hours.

-… However, some of Aster’s magic remains deep inside of Valentino, so if for whatever reason Valentino reeeeeally wants to communicate something… Something urgent perhaps… Then he regains the ability to speak.

- Oh yes I CREATED TALKING GOAT ON DEMAND! HE ONLY SPEAKS WHEN ITS RELEVANT TO THE PLOT BABEEEEY!!!

- Not gonna lie, I’m really happy with this, because that just means I won’t have to come up with lines for him all the time, he’ll only speak when necessary.

Design

- So. Many. Cute. Designs… AND WE GOT THE WORST ONE GAAAAH DISNEY WHEN I CATCH YOU-

- It’s fine, I’m fine *breathes* we can fix him.

- First of all, he has horns, because believe it or not 1 month old goats already start showing their horns.

- Second, I debated a lot on this but we’re keeping the little sweater, yeah I’m surprised too, I hated it at first (still do hate it in the way that it is in the movie) but then I was informed it’s a reference to how Walt Disney used to put clothes on the animals of his family’s farm when he was a kid, and that’s the type of deep cut and cute reference I wish we had gotten more of.

- But the sweater won’t be so tight on him, like, let it be a little bit more loose, and maybe don’t cover his lower half.

- This concept art I used for the second chapter of my rewrite kinda illustrates it perfectly how I’d like him to be:

- The fluffy tuff of hair, the big eyes, the long ears, the lil horns, it’s perfect, that’s it, that’s our boy. Tho I don’t imagine him being all white, lets say he has some brown spots.

Final Thoughts

This post actually made me really mad because I wrote it all once and it was perfect, but I forgot to save it before closing tumblr, so I lost it all, ughhh why don’t they have auto save on cellphones??

I have plenty of ideas on how to make him more plot relevant than he was in the Disney movie, he won’t be like THE MOST ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF ALL, definitely not, but little things that he does move the story forward.

If my calculations are correct he’ll most likely be useful on chapter 4 of my rewrite (or chapter 5, cause like, I’m trying to make them a bit shorter)

Not gonna tell how he’s gonna be useful in the story tho cause I think it’s better as a surprise.

A bit of a quick tangent here, but have you guys ever noticed how some Disney animal companions are the opposite of their human friends?

Ariel is brave and curious - Flounder is a coward

Pocahontas is wise and calm - Meeko is a dummy and Flit has anger issues

Alladin is generous - Abu is a kleptomaniac

You get the idea.

We didn’t get that at all in the Wish movie.

I was trying to come up with ideas on how to make Valentino have an opposite trait compared to Asha, but I don’t really know how to incorporate that into the story, oh well, I might just figure out as I go.

Anyway, that’s our goat, hope you like him!

Thank You For Reading!

[sevensided]

how did you get into writing fic? i'd love to start but idk even where to begin! I loved adats so I was wondering do you have any advice?

Oh my goodness! I am so flattered you’ve asked me this. Yes, I can absolutely help. I’ll throw a bunch of rambling under the cut.

I started writing fic probably when I was... sixteen years old? A lot of my early works were oneshots. I couldn’t figure out how to do anything plot heavy for the life of me, so I just stuck to AUs or whatever I felt like. I wasn’t in any particular fandom -- I really wrote whatever I had ideas for. I remember I tried once to do a plot-heavy story and I received a review absolutely ripping it to shreds. Like, it was so cruel I cried lol. I ended up deleting the fic. Years later, I get what they were trying to say (basically, more substance, less style), but at the time it cut to the quick. Really, it was only when I was in my twenties that I started writing work that was longer and/or better.

The fandom that helped me actually write plot heavy work was a historical-based fandom. As I’m a historian, it was perfect. I got to use my research skills and knowledge to create works that, above all, aimed to feel authentic. I mainly read historical fiction, so I was familiar with how that genre worked. Miraculously, people loved my work. I think I wrote about ~200k in the period of a year? These were several short stories (20-40k) and a few oneshot filler fics. While I was part of this fandom I also helped organise a Big Bang which was a lot of hard work but was extremely rewarding. Along with that, I interacted mainly with other fic writers, so I spent a lot of time chatting to people about ideas and encouraging other writers, and it just created a lovely medley where no concept was impossible or any line of dialogue too difficult. We supported each other and it was truly like a little commune. I gradually stepped away from the fandom mainly because it was just a part of my life at a very specific time, and almost as soon as that time was over, my love for that story/ship faded, but I firmly believe I figured out a lot of how/what I do now purely through that experience.

Regarding ADATS

With ADATS, it stemmed entirely from wanting to “explain” three months in canon (at the end of season three). I was interested in the idea of season four setting up Will/Mike in canon, and I wanted to test the source material to see if I could draw from what already existed to create something authentic. I began with that simple idea: what happened from July to October in 1985? Then I thought about the major themes I wanted to hit -- family, friendship, coming of age, sexuality -- and I nested them around the bigger concept: how do I get Mike from being ostensibly straight to realising he is gay? That meant thinking of two steps: Mike discovering his attraction to guys; Mike discovering his attraction to Will. Those two concepts were separate “arcs” that needed addressing in different ways. Balance was key to weaving them together and making the reader feel like they knew what was coming (and that they felt smart for putting the pieces together) without just rushing through and going “now kiss!” That’s partly why ADATS needs a sequel, lol: because it’s not finished!

Writing process

The first thing I do when I start to get an idea is I write it down. Sounds obvious. But when you have a killer line of dialogue come to you in the shower and you think “I’ll remember that” -- reader, you will not remember it. You gotta get it down ASAP! I do that the whole way through, as generally I’ll be thinking of scenes I’m stuck on and then it’ll just come to me and I’ll quickly jot it down.

The next thing -- or what I do in the meantime -- is start structuring. I plan. I try to plan a lot. Sometimes it’s okay to write “and something happens here to get them here”, because you’ll figure it out later, but for the most part I’ve discovered that planning is like gold and you can’t get enough of it. I break my work up into generally 3-4 parts/sections, and I treat each section like a mini story. So each part needs a conflict and resolution, and it needs to flow into the next section. You need to have a feeling of things evolving and maturing. Once I’ve planned those little bits, I start thinking about the bigger plot arc and how I can drop in hints along the way. I’m probably not a subtle or skilled enough writer to yet pull off that sort of gasping twist you get in really excellent books, but I’m trying to get there. It’s hard, is what I’m trying to say, but that’s okay, because we’re all learning.

Then I generally do aesthetic stuff. Sounds stupid, probably. But nothing helps me get more into a mood than doing a Pinterest board or -- most of all -- making a Spotify mix. I start thinking about the vibe and the general atmosphere, and then I almost exclusively listen to that mix when I’m working. Sort of like muscle memory? Just to get the creative juices associated with that particular selection of songs.

Another thing I’ll do along with plot structure is character structure. This is a biggie. I mean, a story is nothing without characters. So I’ll just jot down a bunch of bullet points of characters and particular aspects that I want to highlight or remember. I hate continuity errors in fiction. Like, if someone says they work on Maple Street but later in the fic they’re working on Pine Street. I hate that. So I keep note of specific things that my main character might notice at repeated points in the story (colours, places, smells, names, sounds -- so they’re all consistent even as the narrative evolves). That’s another thing -- your characters’ motivations. Not everyone is going to be a huge player, but they all do serve a purpose. The most important character is obviously your main character. I personally think it’s important to let your M.C. be an arse at times. They’re going to be mean, they’re going to misinterpret things or fly off the handle... just let ‘em. Let them be wretched humans, and then bring them back and make them realise what they’ve done. Let them learn! I love consequences in fiction, lol.

At the same time, I’ll probably start writing. We’ve already written down some snippets of neat dialogue or descriptions, but now we should start the actual process. For me, I used to start at the beginning. Usually this was the most fleshed out anyway: I’ll have a clear idea of the beginning and the end, but nothing in the middle. These days, if I have a scene in mind that I can’t forget, I’ll just write it. It will possibly get scrapped or rewritten, but that’s okay, because at least you’ve got it down and now you can devote your brain power to something useful (like figuring out what the middle is supposed to be). I’ll have half a dozen of totally out of context scenes just littered in my Word document that I’ll add to as I go along. Eventually, though, you’re going to start writing properly, and that’s when you write your opening scene.

Opening scenes: super important. Every time I write a scene I think: what is the point of this? What do I want the reader to learn or takeaway? Sometimes you do have filler scenes, but they also serve a different purpose (perhaps to establish a group dynamic or to explore/describe a character’s surroundings). Mainly, though, every scene should push something forward in some way, whether it’s character development or a plot point. So, with an opening scene, I always think you have to establish: where you are; who you are; what they are doing; where they’ve come from (in a philosophical and practical sense); and where they’re going (ditto). That doesn’t have to happen in the first paragraph -- that would be silly. But if you sprinkle that information in over time it’ll gradually build up a picture of your character and that way the reader can get an idea of who they are. You basically need to give a snapshot of what your story is about. This also goes back to the character creator stuff: where they are at the start should be different to where they end up. How that happens is, of course, because of plot, and because you’ve structured everything to the nth degree, we’ve got a very clear progression of that character’s growth (/s easier said than done lol).

General advice

Write down everything: every idea, a bit of dialogue, a description, whatever. Write it down. Doesn’t have to be neat. Just has to be on paper. You can’t remember everything, so if you’re spending time trying to hold those things in your head, it’s taking up space for new ideas to come along.

Structure, plan, structure, plan. Sometimes it’s boring and I hate it. Other times, when I’ve not written in a few days and I open the Word doc and think wtf is this supposed to be, I am very grateful for Past Me for leaving such detailed notes. Seriously, it helps so much. Oneshots don’t really need planning, in my experience. You just get those out there. But multi-chaptered stories really do, even ones that “just” focus on a relationship.

Whatever you want to write, commit to it. Space goblins invade Hawkins? Do it. Eleven and Max find themselves in a cult akin to Midsommar (2019) and must escape? Yes. Just... whatever you want to do, remember that you’re writing it for you. Write what most interests you, what makes you when you reread it go AHHHHH I LOVE THIS!! Because that makes it a thousand times easier to actually get on with the writing when you enjoy what you’re doing.

Write a lot. Every day, if you can, or at least at designated times. Occasionally I have a very specific headspace/vibe I have to be in, but sometimes it just hits me and I’ll say to my partner “I need to write now” and just disappear, lol. The more you write the more you write. It’s so, so, so true. Cannot emphasise this enough. When I wrote that ~200k in twelve months? It was because I literally wrote every. day. Or near enough. Remember that some days you’ll write 200 words, and other days you’ll write 20k (this happened to me with ADATS -- part of the reason I finished it so quickly was because I had sprints of writing 10k+ at a time that only happened because I was in the rhythm of it). Write, write, write. Who cares if it’s crap! No one will see it until you are ready. In the meantime, just write!

Probably last of all (although I could go on and on) is connect with other writers. If you’re struggling to start, sometimes just talking about it can help a huge amount. I hope it goes without saying that you can message me whenever you want, anon or not, and I will talk to you. We can talk about ideas or I can beta stuff, whatever you want! Find like-minded people and talk to them about what you want to do. Another thing this helps is in advertising your work when you do publish. I see a lot of first time fic writers get super down because they publish their magnum opus on AO3 but no one comments. Honestly, it’s because no one knows you’ve published! You don’t have to be tooting your own horn every which way, but just actively talking about your work and even collaborating with other content creators with get you hyped and other people too (and the input and encouragement other fandom members give is just... out of this world. Anon messages helped me finish ADATS when I was really worried I wouldn’t [that’s the truth]. Seriously, support is everything). When you have people excited about your work, you get excited. It’s really as simple as that.

I could go on but this is already horrendously long. I hope even a bit of this helps! If you want to chat or have any more questions, just hit me up any time.

[disasterbialert]

So, I finished The Untamed and ok ok I think I have collected most of my thoughts about it. (I’m late, so I guess these thoughts don’t really matter, but I wanted to put them somewhere and here seemed like the place.) SO here’s a post absolutely NO ONE WANTS and imma do it anyway cool cool.

Firstly: love. This entire show is about love. Obviously other things too ok I’m simplifying for the sake of my point. But importantly it is about love. The love for our families, found, made and blood. The love of soulmates, romantic and platonic. The love of humanity, of the people known and unknown, love for them purely because they are human and are therefore deserving of love. The love inherent in honour and duty, the sacrifices made for that love. Loving someone—bravely, in the face of every adversity, despite being told it’s wrong. Learning to be true to that love, learning to love faithfully, learning to love, to show love, to be loved.

Bless the tireless translators. Y’all. The work you do is often thankless but y’all are so valued. Thank you.

The music. I actually don’t have the words for this, I can only thank the composers and musicians for the gifts they have blessed us with. My heart my heart my heart.

The costumes, set, props and cinematography are all so exquisite. I’m not an expert in any of these fields but I can see the care and detail paid to each facet of this show. What an absolute visual joy. Stunning.

And now, the characters.

I’ll start with the ladies. They deserved so much more. We deserved to have more than just one by the end, but I understand this wasn’t their story (still hurts tho).

Jiang Yanli. Proof that kindness is powerful. Her heart holds entire worlds. She is not weak (don’t even try me I swear to the gods). She holds her family together. She takes care of her siblings. She feeds their bodies and their souls. WWX is right—JZX does not deserve her but that’s because nobody does. But Jiang Yanli deserves to be happy, therefore her marriage to the Flower Peacock is valid purely bc it makes her happy. She stands up for what’s right, she will not compromise her morals, she will defend her family to her last breath (and so she does💔). She does not harden herself, she does not have to. Her patience and kindness, her softness, her gentleness—things that are seen as weaknesses or inferiorities—are what put her above all around her. She is gracious, she is strong, she is loving, she is determined, she is brave. She deserved better.

Wen Qing. A queen. A powerhouse. The most brilliant mind. A lightning-quick and sharp-bladed tongue. She loves Wen Ning so much and her love is powerful, just as Jiang Yanli’s. Her dedication and devotion to her people, her true family, not just a name, is incredible, inspiring. Why? Because she’s not perfect. So she learns. She grows. She becomes herself. When she’s at the Burial Mounds, she essentially adopts WWX as another younger brother, caring for him because she knows he won’t care for himself, and she does so out of love and respect. But she never replaces Jiang Yanli. She is keenly aware of all she perceives WWX loses because he aids them. Hence the pivotal, crucial: I’m sorry and thank you. She walks to what she knows is her own death with her head held high and her hand in her brother’s, offering love and support and what protection she can to the end. She does not flinch. She does not bow. She fights with all of her and surrenders with grace not reflected by those she surrenders to. Honestly I could write an entire thesis on Wen Qing but I’ll cry too hard so I’ll just leave it here that she deserved better, she deserved to live, she deserved to be free.

Mian Mian. Mian motherfucking Mian. Here is a woman who stares injustice full in the face and says no fucking way, says over my dead body, says you and what army old man. Strips the robes of the hypocritical off her own damn body, throws them at the feet of a false god and walks out, back straight, head held high. She makes her own way in the world, carves out her own life, finds love and happiness and lives. She does not compromise. She does not bow. She fights and she wins and she is glorious. And she lives she lives she lives.

Yu ZiYuan. I may be in the minority here but that’s ok. No I don’t approve of her abuse, just gonna nip that one in the bud right out of the gate. Was she fair? No. Was she cruel? Yes. Was she an incredible fighter who fought for her family, for her home? Who showed raw courage and furious strength in the face of insurmountable odds? Who loved a man with her whole bitter heart, loved her children with that same fractured heart? Was clearly the subject of spiteful rumour and vicious gossip and did not let it defeat her? Refused to bow to anyone? I do not like her, do not like how her bitterness made her cruel. But seeing her wield her blade, take wound after wound, witness the death of her love, then take her own blade and rob the monsters invading her home of the satisfaction of taking her life, took her own life with her own hands because that’s how she did everything in her life so why the fuck wouldn’t she do it in death too, who crawled her way to the man she loved, laced their fingers together so he wouldn’t die alone, so they could both die held? How can I not respect her.

Ok. The lads.

Jiang Cheng is a man-child idiot with the emotional expression range of a loquat, an inferiority complex the size of the moon and self-worth issues going back farther than the Big Bang, and I love him, ok? He loves so hard and so much and it is heartwrenching that he cannot communicate that. Some of his best moments are actually in the background, which is both funny and terribly sad. His rage is at times ridiculous, at times frustrating, at times all he has left, his joy is bright but brief, his grief is devastating. Watching JY greet WWX after the 3 months in the Burial Mounds. The entire temple scene. Crying on his knees. We were to be the Heroes of Yunmeng. Take care. Fuck me right in my feelings ok.

Wen Ning is so fucking precious and I would die for him for all eternity. What an absolute gift his character is. I honestly can’t write much more about him because I’ll cry. But special mentions to his interactions with A-Yuan/Lan SiZhui and the incredible scene where he reveals to Jiang Cheng the truth about his/WWX’s golden core. Unparalleled emotional intensity. The equal parts tenderness and fierceness of his love is breathtaking.

And the loves.

Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen. There is a lot of tragedy in The Untamed. There is great sadness in the main plot line and even in the small side plots. The Ballad of Song Lan and Xian Xingchen (as it’s come to be known in my head) is for me the most devastating and poignant. They just wanted to do good, to wander the world together and do their part to make it a better and safer place. It’s noble, yes, but it’s also so human, so close to home. Because we all want that, to know that we can do some good before we leave this world. They do not want to be involved in the petty squabbles, the undignified and cruel vying for power and dominance. They simply want to live and be. The fact that both of their deaths are pointless, could have been avoided, are the faults of poor timing and terrible terrible luck and cruel turns fate is almost what makes it sadder. Xue Yang screams that XXC is not better than him, that his righteousness and the righteous way he has attempted to live his life is all for naught. And then he is immediately proven wrong—XXC’s heartbreak means he can’t become XY’s puppet. SL is free from XY’s control and avenges himself and XXC. Which is also somehow just as devastating. That XXC and SL were so close, so very close to being together, to living, to making it, but didn’t. Nothing grand or heroic about their deaths—just the unknown and unpredictable nature of life. There is no rhyme or reason, no big important plan, no fate or destiny. They both simply die as we all one day will. And it is their potential cut short, the love and life they could’ve had, that hurts the most. They are not Lan Zhan and Wei Ying: they do not get their second chance, their reunion, their happily ever after. The look shared between SL and LWJ—the shared grief, the recognition, the understanding—and LWJ’s brief and unelaborated-on comment to WWX ‘how fortunate’ speaks volumes. How fortunate you came back/I found you/that’s not us when it could’ve been. That final shot of SL walking away and the brief out-of-focus moment of XXC walking beside him—particularly when it’s echoed with the parallel of WWX and LWJ—chokes me every time.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. Soulmates in every sense of the word. Their song. Their bunnies. Their child. The years they were robbed of. The yearning. The pining. The loyalty. The growth. The love the love the love. The loss the loss the loss. Every Lan Zhan. Every Wei Ying. Every glance. Every soft breath. Every gentle touch. The tenderness. The intimacy. The quiet acceptance. Their love story is one of the ages and, on a personal note as a queer person, what a gift it is to see a queer love story like this. (even when censored as a bromance, which like I mean, they tried but the glances alone are +9000 gay pining but whatever and yes I am making a joke because I’m crying don’t look at me)

TL;DR: I am so thankful The Untamed/CQL/MDZS and all of its adaptations (the source material included obvs) exists. I am so thankful to the writers, translators, casts, crews, creators. I am thankful for the community of fans that exist that love it as I do, who share that love and passion—whether through passionate discussion, rich fanfic or mind-blowing fanart. I am thankful I live in a time where content like this exists and can be shared. I learned a whole lot and I’m so grateful there aren’t even words. Love y’all. I’m gonna go be soft now. 💙

[incomingalbatross]

More Holmes Meta

Okay, so, actually serious version of "Holmes faked his death because Drama Brain" because I keep thinking about this and I have a New Take now. (I mean, probably not NEW new considering the extent of Holmesian fandom, but I've never seen it.)

1. To start with, I'm pretty confident that Holmes has some bipolar-adjacent mood disorder--cyclothymia seems the closest to what we see in canon, from my very basic knowledge of the subject.

Cyclothymia, as I understand it, fluctuates more frequently than bipolar disorders proper, but doesn't normally reach full-blown manic or major depressive episodes. We see Holmes go into hypomanic states during cases fairly often, I'd argue, and his depressive episodes after/without cases are explicitly canon (although both his hypomanic and his depressive stages can also show up without an obvious external trigger).

2. Given that, I think there's an argument to be made that he's in a hypomanic state for at least the last bit of "The Final Problem", and that that affected his actions and decision-making.

He doesn't quite seen like he is at the start, but he's definitely not all right:

Shows up at Watson's door EXTREMELY scattered, explains what's going on all out-of-order

Watson says he "looked even paler and thinner than usual," and "something about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension." He's wound tighter than his violin's E string.

As said above, hard cases often seem to trigger a hypomanic episode, and he's been working for MONTHS on this, the hardest and most intense case of his career. (Especially interesting is the case mentioned at the start of "Reigate Squires," where he A) didn't sleep for FIVE DAYS at one point, and B) collapsed into "the blackest depression" as soon as he'd finished.) So he's probably at least been hypomanic recently, and neglected his recovery.

(Makes some situationally-inappropriate jokes... but it's Holmes. Not sure that can be classified as anything but his inability to NOT be Witty In The Face Of Peril. He's a loser like that.)

Anyway, while he seems to be low-key holding himself together with duct tape and willpower in the first part, it's after they get word Moriarty escaped that his mood really becomes questionable.

We get one (1) really serious moment from Holmes: on receiving the telegram, he "tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate." (Note: this is not incompatible with hypomania, but it's also not an unreasonable reaction--so not evidence on its own.) He then shows a genuine awareness of danger for... the last time in the story, yep... As displayed by his immediate attempt to send Watson home.

After that, though...

Absolutely assured Moriarty's going to catch up with them: DESPITE this, however, Watson "can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant spirits."

Holmes. Buddy. I know Moriarty is really evil and having brought him down is really cool but HOLMES. PAL. THAT'S NOT HEALTHY.

SMUG about apparent murder attempts, because they show All Is Going As He Has Foreseen.

Keeps going on and on about how catching Moriarty is a Fitting Close to his career and he can't imagine continuing as a detective after this.

Spends most of his time hiking in secluded places, with only Watson and maybe a guide, instead of making a solid plan; deliberately sends Watson off when he sees his enemy is trying to trap him alone in a secluded location.

Writes the note to Watson, which boils down to "Yeah, so I'm about to die... Sorry, Watson, I guess this'll upset you. But it's the COOLEST thing I could do at this point, right? Isn't this a cool ending? I'm good with it, don't worry. :) 👍"

I mean... I don't think Holmes had a death wish, per se. But he wasn't trying very hard to stay alive!! And he was HAPPY with that, so!

My opinion, informed by basic mood disorder research (though I am NOT an expert):

He was in a hypomanic state at this point, whether he had been before or not. And Hypomanic Imagination was caught up in the grandiose drama of the approaching Final Confrontation, of him sacrificing his life to take down Moriarty for good, without being able to really process the consequences. Like, you know, being dead.

But ALSO I think some depressive elements were joining the mix at this point (as bipolar disorders can apparently give you a mixture of both ends at once?? Delightful). He knew he'd just done the coolest thing he'd ever done... and that there was probably a worse depressive episode than he'd ever known before lying in wait for him, just waiting for the current crisis to be over. And I think he may not have been able to face the idea of sticking around to go through that, either.

So... Yeah. That helps me feel I've got a handle on Final Problem.

And then the parts we learn about in Empty House? I feel like his brain stalled out on the fact of his Plan Not Happening, when he survived, and immediately had to latch onto a new plan. (He says he'd come up with "faking his death" before Moriarty hit the water, so at least that much is true.) The new plan partly made sense, partly existed to fill his need for drama... And may, partly, have been a way to avoid returning to the parts of life he'd been planning on getting out of.

He climbed the almost-impossible ledge, which was an incredibly reckless decision and--with the rest of it--makes me wonder if his manic episode had just gotten a boost. (Can it work that way? I'm honestly not sure...) He lay there, while Watson found the evidence and brought others to look at the scene--an indicator of extreme confidence in his plan, BTW, to sit there while Watson's mourning him right there--until nightfall.

Then Moran showed up. And we got a very interesting line...

"I scrambled down on to the path. I don’t think I could have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult than getting up."

He'd CLIMBED TO A LEDGE HE COULDN'T GET DOWN FROM. That is NOT planning. That's impulsive, overconfident self-endangerment!

Then, he says, "I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I found myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me."

... I have questions about this. Google Maps says it takes six days to walk from Reichenbach to Florence--was he on foot the whole way? Did he have a goal, or was he just trying to hide, day-to-day? Why does he cut out that entire week, as though it was a purely transitory period?

...Given that he says he "found himself in Florence," I'm tempted to say he doesn't know all the answers to those questions. Pronounced manic episode after Reichenbach? Or did everything catch up with him somewhere in that week, and send him spiraling into the depressive end so hard that he lost track of the outer world?

I don't know, but I don't think he was entirely rational for that post-Falls week.

As for why he kept up his death, after that... Well, at that point he'd already been "dead" for at least a week. Moran and Co. might easily believe he'd died in the mountains in that time. And, well... The harm of his death was already done. He might at well commit and stay dead until he had something to show for his Plan, right?

(The answer to that is probably "no," but Holmes is ALSO an idiot who underestimates the importance/impact of emotions--his own and other people's--and since he WAS safer while presumed dead, that, like.... objectively outweighed Feelings-related concerns, right? Right?)

As I said, I'm not an expert on cyclothymia or related disorders... So if you know more and I got something wrong, please let me know!

[yvaquietdays]

On giving up on all your unrealistic dreams.

There’s a rumour going around that I’m gonna give it all up. 

The rumour is only in my head. But still.

Entirely expectedly at this time of year, I’ve been experiencing some introspective anxiety. Namely, noticing that when I think about my music, my anxiety starts peaking. Ugh, I know. So boring. The streams of panic, sending whirly moments of fear through my gut; I’m not good enough, I haven’t done enough, I don’t want to do enough. If I don’t want to do enough, then I mustn’t want this.  I’m going to escape, move to New Zealand, sell books.  You see where I’m going with this.  The slow, maddening, endless descent into spiralling negative thoughts. Let me just lie down.

Firstly, I have to be very careful that I don’t take my reluctance to do something as a sign from the universe that I’m on the wrong track. The universe, sometimes, doesn’t know shit about it. I put too much stock in the universe and all its power at the dawning of 2019 and look where that got me. Alright, all the way out to LA, but I came back, didn’t I? Quite clearly something (that I’m not going to talk about, because it doesn’t actually matter, honest) didn’t pan out as it was supposed to.

But I set my intentions! I rode the wave of acceptance! I was grateful! 

Come off it. Nah. Sometimes shit doesn’t pan out and you either fall hard or get on with it. In the end, I was glad that thing didn’t pan out, because I felt like I’d been freed. Freed from an industry that felt fake and vacuous, freed on my own trudgey path, to do whatever I want on it. I could kick some stones for a while, make some moves. Or, as it happens, stand completely still. But here’s the rub. I’ve been entertaining thoughts of doing other things. I wrote a book a year ago and sat on it for another year, picking it apart, editing, sending to my beta readers. It reawakened a very simple, undemanding love for reading and writing. It doesn’t always make me feel bad when I do it. It is a pure and unadulterated mode escapism. Excuse me while I jump off the world for a sec. Of course, there are days I have no ideas, I can’t pull together any words, and on those days, I feel like a steaming hot pile of turd. But generally, I lie awake at night imagining scenes, characters. I’ve realised I see the world through a writers eyes, always creating stories for people, craving seeing inside someone else’s life, figure out their quirks. Everyone I meet is a character I analyse and flesh out in my head.  I couldn’t quite believe I’d buried this part of me for so long. I challenged myself to finish a novel in a year, and I did it. I finished the thing, just to prove to myself that I had it in me. I can’t tell you how freeing this is. So I started wondering if music had led me down a certain path, because from a young age, I had also craved attention and being on the stage, to perform. In my head, I imagined myself on red carpets and at award shows, even though I learned in my late teens how childish and silly this was. But in the back of my mind, always, I had pictured my life playing out away from Newcastle, away from London even. I guess I existed in a different world than the one I knew, even the one that looked real. It meant if I didn’t make music, or get played on Radio 1, or play the big festivals with the other big guys, or be the one to watch... I would fail. There was nothing else. It was this, or nothing. 

Obviously that mindset had repercussions in the end. So. I’ve given up on all those unrealistic dreams. 

I have no desire to be part of the music industry. Not now, after everything. It’s like I can see through the veil, and on the other side, all I see is poor mental health. I honestly love my life, my little flat, a hot brew after hot bowl food, wasting my life on Netflix but being held by a person I love. That’s all there is for me. Everything else is a bonus. I’m not giving up. I’m just, sort of, giving in. Letting go of the things that don’t make me happy. That includes those dreams, those expectations. The way I see it is, we live in a world that tells us to want more, get more, be endlessly unsatisfied and in a perpetual state of craving. I have wanted this idea for as long as I remember, but the reality is, the idea doesn’t exist.  It’s kind of like planning for a holiday. You’ve booked the flights, the transfers, you know you can get by with the bikinis you already own, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking, I could do with a very specific vest top or skirt or shorts for this holiday, otherwise I’ll be really annoyed not wearing the right thing when you’re climbing the steps from GoT in Dubrovnik, and you’ll have to look back on those pictures knowing that vest top was cropped when you didn’t want it to be. Or you’ve suddenly got a long list of items you need for this holiday, even though you know deep down, it’s about the memories and the respite of being on the actual bloody holiday, not the new travel wallet you bought from Liberties because Marie Claire told you it was a must-have for the holiday season. We’re always being sold stuff, only valuing ourselves through the lens of how everyone else perceives us, and what’s worse is that social media knows exactly what we’re thinking, what we’re tempted by. Instagram reinforces the need for a new cross-body bag for the holiday because you googled it or searched or it on ASOS. So you think, yeah, you know, I do need all that stuff. I need to fulfill my dream version of the holiday otherwise it won’t count.

That’s life. If you boil it right down to a lovely little jus, and drip it down on your unrealistic expectations, you’ll realise you’ve been spending years berating yourself by wanting more, wanting the goal, even wanting more while you have it, while doing everything to forget to be grateful or appreciative to yourself for the work you’ve put in to achieving it already. You’re missing it all while you set your sights ahead.  Dreams about how your life is going to look are a waste of time. Dreams are full of stuff we don’t need. Spend your days with your head in the clouds and you forget how to walk in the street without being hit by a cyclist.

Look, if I can release music and write a book, while being able to go to the pub for a pint and a game of Monopoly cards, and think about the possibility of having a family one day, then I’m happy. Family, people, connections, meaning, that’s what human beings need. It’s what I need, anyway. 

I don’t want the guilt that comes with never quite achieving that perfect version of my life. My life is perfect. It might not look like how I imagined it when I first got my passport, imagining where I’d be in ten years time, but if I spend one more day looking years ahead to that perfect moment, I’d completely miss it. Miss now. I’d miss the fact that my actual life, today, right now, is better than I could have imagined. 

So fuck that, pet.

I’m still recording, and I’m releasing very, very soon. But I’m just going along with it. I’m nervous about playing live, about the music world opening it’s doors to me again. Not sure if I want to step through. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But what I’ve realised recently is that I can, as a woman, as a person, have it all. I can make my own music, release it, perform it live. I can do session work, I can tour the world with Nitin Sawhney and perform to crowds of thousands, and I can clock out. I can write a book, I can work on a second. I can work in a coffee shop and enjoy it. I can audition for shows. I can stay at home on the PS4 on New Years Eve with my love and have the best time, and not think about how there was no huge monumental moment for me at the end of the decade, only the realisation that I have all I could ever really need. 

There isn’t one line that I have to follow. There isn’t one line you have to follow! Do what makes you happy, and remember what you really need to be so.

Thinking that music was the only thing that I was permitted to do was the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I felt that trying my hand at anything else was pushing my luck. Nobody would take me seriously if I spread myself too thin. Jack of all trades, and that. I didn’t even let myself explore to find out how good I am at any of it. I told myself no. I allowed myself to cradle that silly dream of making it (I honestly don’t know what this means any more), for years, and it held me back. There is no making it. There is only work, and today. 

And, anyway, I really don’t make enough money in one of those fields to warrant me only trudging through one. At this point, I have to think realistically, financially. 

I have to hike through them all.

[love-little-lotte]

POTO Manila 2019 Experience

I crossed one thing off my bucket list last March 2, 2019. 

Finally, finally, finally. I finally got the chance to witness my all-time favorite musical, The Phantom of the Opera, live. Anyone who really knows me knows that I am totally in love with this show. 

I first learned about the existence of POTO when I was 10, when I first read an abridged version of the Gaston Leroux novel. Then I watched the 2004 film, starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum. Ever since then, I fell in love with the musical. I listened to the Original London Cast, with Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, and Steve Barton. I watched the 25th anniversary, with Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess. I streamed countless YouTube videos. I wrote down the lyrics, memorized them by heart, and sang along even though I couldn’t reach the high notes, not for the life of me. 

POTO became one of my passions, and (yes it sounds cheesy AF) also helped me become the person who I am today. It’s not my first musical (family friendly The Sound of Music is my first because my mom plays the Julie Andrews movie all the time), but it opened my obsession to musical theatre. Through POTO, I got to learn more about Broadway, theatre, and musicals. 

I have my brother to thank for this wonderful experience. This was meant to be a birthday and graduation present all rolled into one. And it’s actually the best present I’ve ever received. Not only did he pay for all of my expenses, he also accompanied me and took my pictures! Shoutout to him for making one of my major dreams come true.

This was taken on our way to the theatre. It was a one-show day, and the play was going to start at 2:30 PM. I heard from my friend (who already saw the previews) told me I should be there as early as possible so I can take a lot of pictures before most of the audience arrive. And since I want to take as many photos as I can, my brother and I left our hotel as early as 12 noon. 

I was so excited I even took a photo of the theatre while we were in the car. My heart was pounding the entire time. My head was reeling. I still couldn’t believe I was there. It felt like a dream I had before. And believe me when I say I dreamt a lot for this moment. 

When we got closer to the theatre, I saw a big poster just right outside. I gave out an excited squeal. “I got to take a picture of that!” I told my brother. 

And so I did. 

Before entering, we noticed there was some Phantom stuff just right outside by the entrance. Aside from the make-up closet (which is self-explanatory), I didn’t know what was inside of the rest of the boxes but I still took some photos nonetheless. I still had a lot of energy around this time. 

This was by the entrance: some posters of the musical productions that toured in Manila before. (From left to right: Chicago, Singin’ in the Rain, Les Misérables, Wicked, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music)

After entering the building, I saw this amazing backdrop and of course, immediately posed in front of it......

.....only to learn the words “The Phantom of the Opera” were cropped so I told my brother we had to go back so we can take a proper picture again. 

And there we go. 

We went to the second floor afterwards, which was where the theatre was located. And this was when the “taking of photos” spree began. 

Exhibit A: Mask, roses, and candelabras. Yep, that’s the whole show right there. 

I’m kind of bummed that they didn’t really have a photoshoot for the World Tour. I mean it’s nice to see Kelly Matheison from the West End cast because she’s adorable and gorgeous, but I would love to see some Meghan Picerno HD posters too. 

Don’t mind me, I’m just posing here with the POTO posters. 

Exhibit B: Ah love this shiny, sparkly mask. Yes, the pic is sadly a bit blurry. 

Exhibit C: My brother told me to go sit down on the floor and pretend to be Christine, but there was no way I’m doing that with that dress. I wanted to put on the cloak and the mask, but decided I should go with the rose instead. 

Exhibit D: “Look at yourself in the mirror, I am there inside!” This is my favorite picture, which also refers to my favorite part in the musical. 

Exhibit E: Yeah at this point I was running out of poses. Standing and smiling at the camera was getting boring. 

Oh, and would you look at this! A production of Cats in November 2019, starring Joanna Ampil! Isn’t that amazing? She’s one of my favorite theatre actresses and I would kill to see her sing Memory live.

Anyway, what’s up with the Philippines and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals?

Yeah, what is up with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Philippines? We just can’t get enough of it. I’d definitely want to watch Love Never Dies when it comes to Manila, even though I’m not such a big fan of the story. The music is brilliant, as well as the sets and costumes. Can we please have Meghan Picerno as Christine Daaé in this production once again? (And maybe throw in Jonathan Roxmouth, too, cause people love him so much here.)

At this point, my brother already left me. He went back to the hotel while I sat on one of the couches, waiting for the theatre to let the audience in. I took a selfie with the brochure. I thought we were all given a program for free, but it turns out you still have to buy them in the gift shop. 

Yay! I’m finally inside. I was in the second row, which was very thrilling, especially since the chandelier was really close to me. I couldn’t wait for it to fall down at the end of Act 1!

Sadly, this is the only picture I had inside the theatre. I was so busy taking it all in that I forgot to take a selfie or something. I still couldn’t believe I was there.

I cried as soon as the overture began to play. There are three possible reasons why I did so: one, I can’t believe I’m really here; two, the music was so beautiful, and three, the light from the chandelier made my eyes hurt lol. But, whatever the reason was, I assure you, there were some tears.

My first genuine cry was during The Mirror scene, when the Phantom showed himself in the mirror. It’s just a super iconic scene, and truly one of my favorites.

But the major highlight for me was Masquerade. Sure, I was expecting myself to cry during All I Ask of You (Reprise) or the Final Lair, but Masquerade overwhelmed me. The costumes were amazing up close! I’ve mentioned a lot of times before that POTO costumes are my favorite things ever. The intricately-designed Elissa dress, the fan-favorite Wishing dress, the iconic white robe, and of course, my personal favorite Aminta dress.

But the costumes during Masquerade was the highlight. I didn’t know where to look because I want to take it all in! The ensemble were great, too, and there was just a big fat stupid grin on my face the whole time.

You know, live theatre isn’t that perfect. I can hear the whirring of the machines as they change the backdrop and their heels clicking loudly onstage. I see them spit at each other’s faces. But damn it, it was beautiful. It’s raw and real, which is what theatre is all about. 

Sorry for the bad angle haha. This was the cast I saw my first POTO production and I’m eternally grateful at them for giving me a performance to remember. I was just so excited to see that I’m going to watch Jonathan Roxmouth and Meghan Picerno! I’ve seen a lot of videos of them rehearsing, and they both sounded heavenly. I was grinning from ear-to-ear.

Jonathan Roxmouth didn’t fail me. His voice was soft and angelic, and he truly embodied the Angel of Music. I got chills during The Mirror scene, as soon as he sang the words, “Insolent boy!” His Music of the Night was a spectacle, and his height difference with Meghan Picerno also helped. I don’t know why, but I really love it when the Phantom’s a great taller than Christine. Meghan only reached Jonathan’s chest, so their iconic “hug” scene during MoTN looked really good. He also glanced at me during All I Ask of You (Reprise) as he sang the words, “You will curse the day you did not do, all that the Phantom asked of you!” So that truly “made my night.”

Jonathan also scared the crap out of me during the Final Lair. He was truly menacing and just plain scary. I love scary Phantoms, and he definitely delivered! When he said the line, “You try my patience! Make your choice”, he put his face really close to Meghan, and I could definitely see him seethe angrily at her.

But he gained my sympathy in the last part when he started singing Masquerade to the music box. At that point, I was crying my eyes out already. I hope the people in my row didn’t judge me too harshly! No matter how many times I’ve seen POTO, I always cry during the Masquerade reprise.

On a side note, Jonathan’s really adorable in the curtain call. He made a Korean heart sign just after he bowed. Korean culture is really popular in the Philippines for some reason, and he earned a lot of laughs and claps from the audience when he did so.

Meghan Picerno, on the other hand, was the sweetest and sympathetic Christine ever. Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch since she’s the first Christine I saw live, and I’m a bit biased. Her crystal-clear vocals also didn’t fail. I’ve seen videos of her in Love Never Dies, and she was amazing there. Her Think of Me was just so pure, and her Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again made me teary eyed.

Meghan carried herself well. Not only was she a darling and innocent Christine, but she was also a fierce one too. During the Final Lair, when she said the words, “This haunted face holds no horror for me now, it’s in your soul that the true distortion lies”, her expression was not scared or anything. I just love that she could project a lot of emotions from Christine, and not only stick to one.

She also shared good chemistry with Jonathan Roxmouth, especially during The Point of No Return. The sexual tension between the Phantom and Christine was undeniable. The way they touched each other, even caressed each other in that scene was so, so, so good. It’s definitely one of the main highlights of the show for me.

And, of course, Matt Leisy was a darling Raoul. Just like his co-stars, his vocals were heavenly. His All I Ask of You is plain sweet. The way he hugged and twirled Christine at the end part of the song was also a major highlight for me. Also, he was very attentive to Christine, and he was protective of her - some important qualities that Raoul should have. In the Il Muto scene, when Christine started getting nervous that the Phantom was watching over her, I can’t help looking at Matt because he was so undeniably concerned and protective of her. And during Twisted Every Way, he was demanding, but at the same time, very considering.

Matt also worked well alongside Meghan. They balance well with each other. As a matter of fact, the three of them are great together. It’s obvious that they’re comfortable with each other onstage. The Final Lair was so thrilling, and it’s all thanks to them. I’m so happy that they get to be my first POTO Big 3.

Overall, the ensemble was great! I love them so much, and I’m extremely honored that I had them as my first ever POTO cast.

Also, bought two souvenirs from the gift shop! A really cute necklace (which costs 1,500 PHP/28.75 USD) and a tote bag (800 PHP/15.33 USD). I wanted to buy the charm bracelet, too, but I feel like I’m going to have more fun with the necklace, compared to it. 

And there you have it! This was an extremely long post, but I want to immortalize my first POTO experience. I’m still in cloud nine, even though it has been almost three days now. It’s truly an experience I will never forget.

[malexfan10]

What is it about Malex?

I was playing around on my phone at work (when I should have been working lol) and came across some article about the best TV couples. It was published in 2018 so Malex wasn't in it lol

But I was going through the pictures in the article and I saw a lot of the couples I've liked & enjoyed over the years listed. Pacey & Joey, Captain Swan, Haleb, Stydia, Kurt & Blaine etc.

I started thinking...what is it about Malex that makes them extra special for me? What is it about them that made me join Tumblr and Twitter for the first time? I never had either before this year. What is it about them that made me write more fan fic in the span of 3 months than I have in years of watching other shows? And I'm someone who studied English Lit in university and have written many novels, hoping to finally pursue publishing this year with one of them. But the amount of fan fic I've typed out the past 3 months? My hands seriously hurt!

So why is Malex so special?

(I made a collage below)

Is it because they're an LGBTQ pairing? There have been other LGBTQ pairings I've rooted for. Malex isn't the first and they won't be the last. Times are changing in TV land and we're seeing more and more representation. It's progressing slowly, but it is changing.

Is the reason Malex is extra special a shallow reason? The actors are both incredibly good looking. No getting around that. But I loved Haleb too and Tyler was one half of that ship. I adore Joshua Jackson and Dylan O'Brien. I think Holland Roden is beautiful. In the couples I've followed over the years, all the actors & actresses have been attractive in their own ways.

-- side note -- I know I put Destiel (SPN) in the collage below even though technically they're not a couple but some of their lines over the past decade, I mean come on! It's so obvious! --

Anyway...

Is it the chemistry between Tyler & Michael? I thought Katie & Josh had amazing chemistry. Only reason I watched PLL was for Haleb and the friendship between Tyler & Ashley. Some of the couples I've rooted for really sizzled on screen. Do I think Vlamburn has better chemistry than all the others? Not necessarily. I think they tie for first with some of my other faves (although I would probably rank them above right now just because they're current).

So what is it about Malex that made me so emotionally invested that I joined social media like this? That I've written a bunch of fics and have so many other concepts cooking in my head.

I think it comes down to the angst at the end of the day and how the story has been written.

I've directed a lot of disappointment and anger towards Carina and the writers since that finale because I'm afraid the triangle will grow and span multiple seasons. I'm afraid the writers will show Michael really starting to have deep feelings for Maria the longer M&M exists (I know Vlamis said in those last interviews that his feelings for her are already very deep but sorry Vlamis. I love you but I don't see that yet.) I'm afraid now that they know they were renewed, they'll drag this storyline out, pursure M&M and then Michael with other relationships if/once M&M ends with Alex just waiting in the sidelines, moping and heartbroken.

But despite all my fears and disappointments after that craptastic finale (seriously, I can write a 20 page essay), I have to give the writers their credit.

The story they wrote, the beauty they created in Malex, with that amazing angst and history and love is the reason I'm so invested.

"Where I stand, nothing's changed"

"I never look away"

"That I loved you and I think that you loved me."

"Cosmic"

"But you are mine"

"I don't look away Guerin"

"I love him. I probably always will"

I mean, these lines all exist. No one can take those words away. Yes, the writers can try and diminish it by shoving another relationship down our throats & attempting to give that relationship the same level of meaning and importance (sorry, not buying it. Hardly anyone is). But those lines will always be there.

The epicness of Malex will always be there.

That beautiful first kiss in the reunion will always be there.

Their connection in senior year, bonding over their painful childhoods and living situations will always be there.

Caulfield, although bittersweet, will always be there.

Michael Guerin wanting to be Alex's hero will always be there.

The angst and love between them is just unbelievable. I don't think any other couple I've rooted for over the years has had the same amount of angst or history. Their story is just beautiful.

I don't cry too much in movies or TV shows unless there's a really sad death that hits me hard. LOST was one of those shows where I sobbed constantly (Jin & Sun's death, Juliet's, Charlie's...I could go on).

But I cried after that last scene in episode 6, when Jesse destroyed such a beautiful and pure moment 🥺

I cried at that moment in Caulfield 🥺

I cried at the finale, watching Alex just waiting there while Michael....let's not remind ourselves 🤨

So yes, the chemistry is unbelievable between Tyler & Michael. How close they are offscreen shines through their performance and this is in a cast where everyone's close. But with Vlamburn, especially from Michael, he's so unfiltered when he talks about Tyler's eyes or the way he kisses or just how much he loves him. What can I say, they make me love Malex more ❤

Yes, they're both incredibly good looking but that's a miniscule, shallow reason. How good looking a couple is in no way compares to how much their emotional connection matters, at least for me.

So really, it's the story. It's the history. It's all that profound, made for each other, soulmates love that they share. It's the incredible angst that makes me root for them even more.

And yes, as much as Carina and crew have angered me after that finale and after their insistance of shoving this triangle down our throats and in our faces, they did create Malex so I have to be grateful for that. Vlamburn perfected it and made it epic but the concept came from Carina (trust me, it hurts to give that credit).

So as much as it still hurts with what happened, as much as seeing the M&M promos bothers me, as much as I'll be a sobbing mess once season 2 hits and Alex realizes what happened, I have to believe that this much care and heartbreaking angst was given to this couple for a reason. That reason has to be that Malex is endgame.

Can Carina change her mind about Endgame Malex? Sure she can, if she wants to lose a substantial percentage of the fandom. But I can't believe she'll do that.

I can't believe that Malex is anything but each other's ending.

I can't believe that this beautiful love story we've seen between 2 men who started as scared, lonely boys and are now broken men trying to put themselves back together is anything short of EPIC.

I can't believe that M&M, however painful and ridiculously unnecessary, is anything but a bump in this road for Malex.

All that matters is how the writers take us from point A to B.

Does their separation last for 4 more seasons (pending renewals) and Malex reunites in the series finale, season 5? God I hope not. I need to see them existing as a couple together on screen, not just a kiss and makeup moment last episode and assume they made it. So once this teenage level of triangle nonesense has been dealt with (please let season 2 be the end of it!!!!), I really hope the writers realize the amazing couple they created and give them their due justice by bringing Malex together for good.

Episodes 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, last Malex scene of 9, beginning of 10 and all of 12 point this show towards one inevitable ending with Malex and that's reuniting (did I get the episodes right?). Just keep your fingers crossed it happens sooner rather than later. Right now, that's where my main fears lie.

This fandom has been super great about lending support to one another when things get tough. Unfortunately, things will get even tougher next season so it will be good to have this great support.

As far as the promos and interviews we'll be getting between now and 2020, I'll try to only watch interviews that Michael & Tyler give together and avoid anything that seems like M&M promotion (outside of full cast interviews or festivals etc). I love all the actors on this show. They're all wonderful and talented and deserve our love and support (not commenting on that Nathan instagram thing).

But as a Malex fan, I have no place in my life for unnecessary stress from a TV show because honestly, as invested as I am, it's still just a TV show. No need to give myself more heartbreak before season 2 even airs by watching pro M&M interviews like yesterday. I'll just stay in my happy Malex bubble until then (and then die when I see M&M next year 😭).

In the end of this long post, all I wanted to say is that Malex is extra special, head and shoulders above others ships I've rooted for and that's mostly because of the beautiful story I've seen on screen but Vlamburn defintely plays an imortant part in making it epic ❤

I'm a Malex lifer. Nothing will ever change that.

❤

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Hold Your Breath. Make A Wish. Count To Three.

You know how you sometimes have this dream - it could be a nighttime thing, or a daydream, or some lofty ethereal goal - but it’s something you just can’t quite imagine. It’s there and you can almost picture it, but only ever just almost.

I’ve had so many of these dreams that I lost count long ago. But I think it’s something that’s just in the DNA of artists and creative types.

Right?

Well, beginning sometime around the fall of 2016 I had this dream (the goal kind) of what it would be like, feel like, look like, sound like, etc to see The King’s Legacy - which had finally found the correct structure - come to life in a full production.

It simultaneously felt easily attainable and yet a thousand years off. I truly could almost see it happening. But it wasn’t happening - not yet anyway. So all I could do was just keep imagining and letting various scenarios pass through my head.

But I will tell you that, when it came down to the reality, it was nothing like I had imagined.

It was so much better.

Come With Me And You’ll Be In A World Of Pure Imagination

Writers are often asked:

“Do you see the show in your head as you write? Are you staging it? Directing it?”

And I am absolutely certain that some writers can and do.

But not me.

That’s not to say that I’m not imagining how it could possibly go and making sure that it seems workable, both as someone who has directed and continues to perform as an actor. But I either do not have the ability or the synapse wiring to fully direct the show in my brain as I write/create the entire world of a possible production. For me, it’s more a conglomeration of possibilities than it is a concrete idea.

And that’s where Chris J. Handley comes into the story.

I’ve known Chris as an actor since 2014 and one of the first things that struck me about him is that he is - plainly and simply - extremely good at what he does: as an actor, singer, emcee, and overall professional. He is an artistic force to be reckoned with.

Last year I had the pleasure of finally encountering Chris as a director as well (in The Spider’s Web at BVT). I had a small role, but I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in on the rehearsals - even when I was not needed - just to watch Chris work and direct. His intelligence and grasp of overall picture, while never letting the details slip away, is really a special experience.

So when I was told Chris would be the director for The King’s Legacy this summer, I was thrilled.

There is much I could say about the process of working with Chris on the script prior to the actual production, but the biggest takeaway for me from our early conversations was that he had a complete and utter grasp on what the piece was, wanted to be, its flow, its importance, and all of the layers that were on the page. It was like being fully seen for the first time - our conversations were deep and productive and wonderful.

And - if you would indulge me another moment - when we got to the summer and I finally got see the production elements that he had put together with the designers, I knew he truly understood the piece.

There was no doubt: this musical was going to truly come to life.

We’ll Begin With A Spin

There is a flow to the script of The King’s Legacy that is, potentially, a little difficult to find.

With the framing device of having the show performed by a troupe of Elizabethan Players, there are elements of narration and driving storyline that move the piece quickly between scenes and songs. And there’s a great deal of storytelling that must be done very quickly.

What Chris and the entire design team put together was a show that could move as quickly, freely, and easily as the words and performers have to move.

There is space. There is freedom. There is an element of play built directly into the production from the top down. And it’s awesome.

In a show where there is a great deal of information, 20 characters, and countless scene shifts, the whole experience can be somewhat dizzying at times. And when that is appropriate to the piece, they’ve allowed it to continue to exist in that way. And at times when we’d rather not give that experience to the audience, they figured out a way to create a more grounded experience, without losing the sense of movement.

Running through the show for the very first time in the rehearsal room was, as an actor, an exhausting and delightfully rewarding experience. The show is a runaway train that can never slow down or stop until it absolutely must, and it is this movement that Chris has infused throughout the entire show so masterfully.

The core, the heart, of this show has been lain bare for the audience, and it’s a beautiful experience.

Traveling In The World Of My Creation

Now, as the writer, walking into the theater is an awe-inspiring experience. Every time.

They built a world. There is literally a different world built in our space. And it’s the world of the show that I wrote…

I mean, whoa. That’s the coolest thing - like - period. Holy wow.

It’s beautiful. It’s magical. It’s period. Yet it’s not. It’s theatrical. It’s musical. And it’s our world - our home - for the next 9 days.

There have been a number of incredible experiences for me working in theater - as an actor, musical director, educator, and so on - but the experience of walking into this world fully realized for the first time is not something I am going to forget any time soon.

There it is. It’s right there.

Is it what I imagined? Nope. No way.

It’s so much better.

If You Want To View Paradise, Simply Look Around And View It

So, as we walk into our opening night tonight, what do I want to say?

I’m really not sure.

All I know that I can say is that I am so thankful and grateful for having been given the opportunity to bring this show to life for the first time, and with this insanely talented group of people. This team has been nothing short of incredible, and I could not be happier with the work they have done and the world they have built.

This world - this dream - exists because of these amazing individuals, who I must give credit to:

Executive Artistic Director - Karin Bowersock

Associate Artistic Director - Katelyn Cantu

Director - Chris J. Handley

Assistant Director - Kate Reynolds

Set Design - Christopher and Justin Swader

Lighting Design - Mary Ellen Stebbins

Costume Design - Sammi Miller

Costumes/Wardrobe - Valerie Frizzell

Costume Assistants - Joan Luther, Joan York

Sound Design - Rich Miller

Musical Director - Annabelle Revak

Stage Manager - Morgan Montgomery

Assistant Stage Manager - Andrea Armer

Choreographer - Adam Corcoran

Assistant Choreographer (+) - Meaghan Finlay

Dramaturg - Liz Porter Woods

Technical Director - Sam Santoianni

Assistant Technical Director - Mary Atchley

Props Mistress - Ammy Roth

Props/Paints - Mary Claunch

Carpentry - Mars Peterson, Ace Evans

Electrics - Amber Hahn, Amanda Ryan

Marketing/Administration - Emily Haan

Administration - Angela Einwachter

House Manager - Mary Peaty

Box Office/Front of House - Caity Peaty, Angela, Kyle Rook

Player 1 - Mike Kinzer

Player 3 - Mark Poppleton

Player 4 - Jennifer Arfsten

Player 5 - Hannah Karpenko

Player 6 - Alex Loucks

Player 7 - Tess Marshall

Player 8 - Leigh Martha Klinger

Player 9 - Bunny Baldwin (care of Joyce Baldwin)

As you can see, it really does take a village.

And now, all that is left to do is to soak in this paradise together - as artists, as creatives, as audience, and as lovers of theatre.

Yeah. Let’s do this thing.

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

The Legend of Frosty the Snowman REVIEW:

Hello there everybody. My name is JoyofCrimeArt and welcome to the third review in my month long "Deviant-cember." special event. If you where here last time you would of seen my review of the 1992 holiday specials "Frosty Returns." But as I said at the end of that review, we're not done with Frosty the Snowman just yet. Because there's not just one, but two Frosty the Snowman sequels that came out after the fact that weren't created by Rankin-Bass. One was "Frosty Returns" and the other was 2005's "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman." which we are going to talk about today! 

 "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman," as previously stated, was a 2005 special direct to DVD special created by Classic Media and Studio B productions, and was designed to be a "broad strokes reboot." of Frosty the Snowman. Other then that, there's not much history behind this special other then the fact that they use to show this all the time on Cartoon Network when I was younger. How does this special hold up to the other entries in the Frosty mythos? Well, let's dive in and find out.  The special opens up in the dark and creepy attic of an old man...  ...Not the best place to start.  All jokes aside, this is where we meet our celebrity narrator, this time played by Burt Reynolds. He introduces us to the story, just like all of the past narrators have done in these specials, and he has an advantage over Johnathan Winters because he is not a scary gremlin man. So points to this special right off the back.  The special starts with a series of chained up crates being magically opened, with Frosty the Snowman's hat locked inside. The hat, free from it's shackles, flies out the window. The narrator tells us that Frosty the Snowman always goes where he is needed. We then get to see our main character of the special, Tommy Tinkerton, (played by Kaith Soucie.) Tommy, and his brother Charlie, are woken up by there father Mr. Tinkerton, and told to get ready for school.  Now might be a good time to talk about these three characters. Tommy, our main character, is rather bland. Now granted the main kid characters in all of the Frosty special where bland, with Holly from "Frosty Returns." being the closest to not bland, but still not quite making it. So Tommy being the boring "generic kid" character isn't really that much of a surprise. Tommy's brother, Charlie, on the other hand I actually kinda like. He's the stereotypical "big brother bully" character but with the added twist of, rather than being a delinquent he's actually a of a stickler for the rules, which is an interesting combination of traits that you don't see that much of in characters. It gives him a bit of depth, or at least by Frosty the Snowman standards, which is not much.  And then we have Tommy's dad, Mr. Tinkerton. He is the mayor of the town (called Evergreen) and also one of the whitest humans to ever white. This is appropriate because he is voiced by Tom Kenny, who is also one of the whitest people to ever white. This guy is a control freak, to a cartoonish extent. Granted, that's obviously the point of the character, and it's used for comedy, but still. It's a bit insane. He goes outside to inspect the city, I guess, and he goes to make sure that the sun rises at exactly six am. (Which by the way is frickin' earily for the sun to rise in winter.) He licks a sidewalk (to test how clean it is.) And then he "convinces." a flower to be in bloom despite it being winter. This Mayor is frickin' nutty to say the least.  He then goes back inside his house to "inspect." his family before the kids go off to school. Now I know this is all suppose to be played for laughs, and Tom Kenny's voice does make it much harder to find this scene terrifying, but all I'm saying was that if you put these scenes and played them off a little different it would come off as a LOT more cultish. It kinda comes off like that one dystopian future run by Ned Flanders in the fifth Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode.

(Look at those eyes. Those are eyes of true fear.)    Mr. Tinkerton inspects his kids and they they go off in there single file line off to school. The narrator tells us that the kids in this town never stepped out of line, unless it was on accident. Then as there walking they all slip on some ice, causing a massive chain reaction causeing Tommy to knock over a mailbox, which makes a car swerve into a fire hydrant. The fire hydrant burst releasing a massive flood of water that instantly freezes, causing the kids to slip more until they crash into city hall. And do you want to know what the messed up thing is? The special heavily implies that it was FROSTY who did this. Because right as Tommy is getting up after crashing into the wall of city hall, he see's the hat fly by and land on the school statue. And this special establishes that in this incarnation Frosty can use magic without being built, because the hat itself is sapient and magical in it's own right. And Frosty's consensus is held there.  What the heck Frosty, what did you do all of that for? To show them about non conformity by forcing them out of there line? I mean yeah, you did that, but you also nearly killed these kids! And what about that guy driving the car? He easily could of died, and now he has to ride the bus everyday to work! Frosty is just a being of pure Chaos!

FRICKIN' REK'D SON! (Part Deuce!)   Tommy goes and talks to his nerdy black best friend, Walter. (Cause you have to have a nerdy black best friend. "Danny Phantom" taught me so.) And talks about how he's going to ask out his crush, Sara, out. Walter teases Tommy, saying that he says that everyday by Tommy tells him that "There's something different about today."  Tommy makes it to school where he sees the flying hat again, and tries to tell the school principal, Principal Pankley, about it. Unfortunately for Tommy the head fly's off before the principal can see it, and he yells at Tommy telling him to get to class.  In the classroom we see that things are just as strict and cultish as they are outside. It seems that Principal Pankley is just as strict and uptight as Tommy's dad is, only he's a lot meaner about it. He also seems to stalk the classrooms watching the students just to make sure that the students are acting in line. Shouldn't he have like, paperwork to do, or something? Tommy once again see's the Frosty hat, this time outside the school window. But since hes in class there isn't much he can do about it.  The school day ends Tommy tries to talk to his crush, Sara, but he strikes out. We then cut to Tommy's house at dinner time where Tommy and his brother compete in an...table etiquette themed game show? WTF! (Which, by the way, stands for "What the Frosty." in this context.")

So yeah, just in case we haven't drove home the point that Mr. Tinkerton is a frickin' maniac, this scene is here to reiterate that this guy likes rules. Tommy's brother Charlie dominates the game and Mr. Tinkerton ends up giving him a number one pin for winning. While this scene is...dumb, it does sort of serve a point. Shocking, I know, but hear me out. This scene shows, in a kinda subtle way, that Mr. Tinkerton as a lot more in common with Charles than he does with Tommy, showing a bit of a parental favoritism. I wish the special dove more into this, but sadly it does not.  After dinner, Tommy is seen looking out the window and the hat appears to him one more time. This time Frosty shows off one of his many new superpowers. This version of Frosty can create an astral projection of himself, cause why the heck not, am I right? I mean if Elsa can use her ice powers to somehow make herself a dress in "Frozen" then I don't see why Frosty can't use his ice powers to make an astral projection of himself.  Tommy see's the astral snowman beckoning to him, but Tommy tells Frosty that he can't go outside because he's scared of getting in trouble and disappointing his father. This is very different from the most realistic response of "OH MY GOD! THAT FLYING HAT CREATED AN ASTRAL IMAGE OF A SNOWMAN OUTSIDE MY WINDOW! WHAT THE ACTUAL F#&K!" But I guess somethings never change with these specials. (I swear I think the traffic cop is the only one who ANY of the Frosty specials to actually react to Frosty!)

 So the hats like "Ugh, whatever, screw this kid." and flies off to find a kid who's more willing to be a main character! So Frosty's hat flies over to Tommy's best friend Walter's house instead. We see a bit into Walter's home life. We see that Walter is a very nervous child with a very loud and demanding mother, who Walter is kind of afraid of. Walter see's Frosty's hat tap on his window and...wait, what the heck is wrong with that map behind Walter?

(So is that weird land mass in the lower right hand corner suppose to be Australia? Or is this confirming that this special actual exist after some kind of nuclear Armageddon ravages the land and ends up reshaping the continents #CARTOONCONSPIRACY)  Anyway Walter opens the window and grabs on the hat, only for the hat to fly off with Walter holding on to the hat. Taking Walter flying over the city. Tommy see's this and opens the window asking where Walter is going. Walter response that he doesn't know. Tommy then proceeds to do nothing to help his friend and is nowhere to be seen for the rest of the scene. Man between Tommy and Holly I think there might just be a tradition of the main character of Frosty specials to be massive jerks to there friends.  So after Frosty kidnaps this child he then proceeds to bring him to the middle of the forest. #happyholidays. Walter admits that the flight across the city was fun a proceeds to put the hat on a snowman, thus reviving Frosty the Snowman, this time played by Bill Fagerbakke. In case you don't know Bill Fagerbakke is the voice actor of Patrick Star in "Spongebob Squarepants" and his voice really works for Frosty in this special (Though it can get a bit grating when he yells, though luckily that's not that big of a problem here because Frosty actually whispers a lot of his lines in this special.) As typical at this point Walter only seems slightly surprised to see a talking snowman. Though to be fair he did just fly across the city riding a hat, so by comparison I guess this isn't really that out of the ordinary.    So Frosty shows Walter about all the fun one can have in the snow when there not to concerned about rules and safety and the like. They have a snowball fight, the race down a hill, Frosty makes it snow (Showing off more of his reality warping Godlike powers.) And then Frosty walks Walter home. Walter talks about how he's scared to go inside, because he's scared of how his mother is going to react. Frosty ask why Walter would be scared of his own Mom, and asks if Walter's mom is some kind of hairy monster or something. Walter tells Frosty that his mom is just a normal lady and Frosty wonders why Walter would be scared of a normal lady. This gives Walter the bravery to go inside his house.  This is what I really like about this iteration of Frosty. He manages to combine both the dim witted nature of the original Rankin-Bass Frosty with the wisdom and insight of the "Frosty Returns" version of Frosty. He comes off as an idiot, but he actual ends up having some sage advice for the kids, weather on accident or on purpose. In fact, do you want to know what this version of Frosty the Snowman reminds me of? A better version of "Uncle Grandpa." Think about it for a second. He's a magical entity who shows up out of nowhere who only interacts with kids, and takes them on adventures where they learn about themselves while also acting kind of like an idiot. It's a pretty apt comparison! I remember at one point the creator of Uncle Grandpa said this during an interview with the website Cartoon Brew about the character of Uncle Grandpa.

He talks about how at the end of the day you don't know if Uncle Grandpa is an idiot or if it's all really planned. The thing is though, is that when you watch "Uncle Grandpa" it's made pretty frickin' clear that he's an idiot. We see him when he's not with kids and he acts like an idiot there to. However, I feel like this version of Frosty fits this description better. It is kept vague. There is a bit of mystery around Frosty, and how much he knows. You really don't know if his advice comes from genuine wisdom, or ignorance or both, and that's what I really like about this version of him.  So Walter walks inside and when his mother asks him where he was, he just says that he was "out having fun." and walks off. This disobedience causes his mother to faint. The next day Walter goes to school and, because he stayed out after curfew, is considered "the bad boy." of the school and everybody takes noticed. Including Principal Pankley and Tommy's dad. And because Walter stayed up past curfew, Principal Pankley decides to give him detention, which is...way beyond his jurisdiction. A principal can't punish a student for something they did after school. Also why is Tommy's dad here? He's the mayor! While he may have some kind of ability to punish Walter for breaking curfew he has no power to punish him in the school. Evergreen seems to be pretty much a dictatorship where the mayor and the principal have the power to do whatever the heck they want.  During lunch Charlie ends up threatening Walter, warning him that if he keeps up this delinquency he'll be sorry. Unfortunately Charlie pounds the table, knocking Walter's food off it, and the food lands all over the principal and Charlie ends up getting detention too. Mr. Tinkerton ends up removing Charlies number one pin. Mr. Tinkerton and Principal Pankley ask Walter where he was the following night and Walter tells them that he was hanging out with a talking snowman. Mr. Tinkerton has a weird reaction to this, but Principal Pankley just says that that's nonsense.  While all of this is going on, Tommy tries to stalk er, I mean "follow" Sara into the forest so he can tell her how he feels about her. But unfortunately for Tommy, he chickens out yet again. We see that Sara is building a model city out of snow in the forest because she dreams of being an urban planner. But her mom does not want her to become an urban planner, because even urban development is to much fun for the people of this town. But then, for like the ten billionth time in this special so far, Tommy see's Frosty's hat. Only this time he actually decides to chase the hat down. The hat ends up flying into the local library. Tommy runs around trying to find the hat only to trip on a secret lose panel in the library, leading to some kind of secret passage way.  Okay, now here is when things get a bit confusing. Even though we just saw the hat fly into the library we immediately see a fully formed Frosty outside the school window. (Which by the way how is he fully formed. Who built him the body this time? Did the hat just fly all the way back to where he left his body before showing up?) Charlie and Walter see him and leave detention through BECAUSE THERE'S NO TEACHER WATCHING THEM! (like I know they locked the door, but they where still able to leave the room through some off screen other door I guess!) and they go outside to go see Frosty. They goof around and Charlie begins to warm up to Frosty.  Then we cut right back to Tommy, meaning either this special is telling events out of order or that the scene with Walter and Charlie took place in exactly zero seconds. He's still at the top of the stairs that he started descending in the last scene! He goes down the stares through the secret tunnel in the library where we see Frosty's hat again! This leaves only three options, either  A.) The scene with Walter and Charlie takes place after this scene, and the specials telling these events out of order. (Which the special gives no other hints of.)  B.) Frosty entered the library (in hat form.) Then left the library and met up with Charles and Walter (in snowman form) and then came back to the library (in hat form again.) all in the span of time it would take Tommy to walk down the steps. Which would be like a couple minutes at MOST!  Or C.) THERE ARE TWO FROSTY'S #CARTOONCONSPIRACYAGAIN!  Anyway Tommy ends up finding a comic book in this library. This comic book happens to be a comic book ABOUT Frosty the Snowman, telling of his origins! (D-Don't ask why. Just roll with it.) We learn of the story of a small little boy who is the son of a magician (a magician who you may recognize if you've seen the original Frosty the Snowman, though they change his name.) This kid grew up never believing in magic since, being the son of a magician, knew how all the tricks where done. This was until he ended up putting his father's hat onto a snowman, and the snowman came to life. But after his first meeting with the snowman was unable to find Frosty ever again, and assumed he made it up.  It's a cute re-imaging of the origin story all things considered. Though in some ways it does seems like a bit of a self insert fanfiction, replacing Karen with this new kid. But whatever, it's neat.  But then Mr. Tinkerton enters the library and the librarian informs him that his son is here. Tommy quickly runs out of the secret basement and meeting up with his father. Mr. Tinkerton tells Tommy that he needs to rely on Tommy to help him keep order, and tell him if any more mischief comes up. He also tells Tommy that all of his rules are there to make sure that people don't have any unrealistic expectations when it comes to things like magic. Mr. Tinkerton gives Tommy the number one pin and gives him a hug. It's a nice scene that puts Tommy in the situation where he has to pick between his father's acceptance and what is actually the right thing to do. (Also I think the voice acting really sells it. This special might not be that "good" but it does have some great voice talent.)  That following night we see Sara, working on her piano scales, which she does not seem to find much enjoyment in. She tells her mother this, but she does not seem to care. That, or course, is when Frosty shows up. Sara mentions that nobody seems to listen to her and Frosty says it might be because she's talking to loudly. Because to paraphrase Frosty "The quieter you talk, the more attention you have to pay just to hear what your saying." See, this is what I like about this version of Frosty. He has this air of wisdom to him. It's a good lesson, as the loudest people aren't necessarily the ones who you should be listening to.  Sara says she wants to learn how to ice skate and Frosty obliges. He demonstrates more of his Godlike powers my making THE FRICKIN' MOON SHINE ON THEM, MAKING IT THERE OWN PERSONAL SPOTLIGHT! (Why can Frosty control the moon? This goes way beyond the power of ice and snow. Also Frosty vs Elsa "Death Battle" please.)

(Or maybe Frosty is just trying to activate his Oozaru Form.)    The next day at school it seems that all of Tommy's friends have turned against him because, now that he has Mayor Tinkertons number one pin, they believe him to be the enemy. Tommy mentions that Frosty's powers steam from his hat and walks off, unsure if he should chose his friends or his father to follow (even though his friends are kinda being jerks here, in all honesty.)  That night Tommy walks into his family room to see his mother scrap booking when he see's a photo of the boy from the comic book. It turns out that the boy from the comic book, the one who originally created Frosty was none other than...Tommy's father.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvcoly2i-3M

(Except, y'know, it was pretty dang obvious.)  The next morning Mr. Tinkerton goes outside to do his inspection and nobody is listening to him. The sun refuses to rise at 6 am (rising at 6:01 instead. Which I think is less a sign of disobedience and more just a sign of the season changing.) and nobody is following the rules. Even the adults, for some reason. Even though later we see that the adults are just as upset about the disobedience as Mr. Tinkerton is. 

(Here's something my older brother pointed out. This special is basically "Footloose with Frosty." It's Frostloose!)  Anyway this mild chaos makes Mr. Tinkerton spiral even further into his madness. Principal Pankley goes up to him and tells Mr. Tinkerton that he does not have what it takes to quell this rebellion, and so Principal Pankley decides to take matters into his own hands. Pankley ends up seeing Frosty while he was spying on the kids playing in the woods. (Which sounds a lot more eff'd up now that I right that sentence down.) and decides to take action. You see throughout the special Walter has been getting progressively more and more jealous of the other kids for stealing his time with Frosty, to the point to where he kinda becomes that clingy girlfriend type who always wants you to themselves. Principal Pankley see's this and tell's Walter that if he wants to have some time with Frosty all by himself he should go after dark when there less people around, and Principal Pankley agrees to chaperone the excursion since it's set after curfew. Walter ends up agreeing to the arrangement, even though this entire special has made it really clear that Principal Pankley is even more of a rule freak than Mr. Tinkerton is, and has made it pretty clear that he would never do something this nice to anybody ever.  Then, in case things weren't out there enough Principal Pankley decides to basically just, declare himself mayor of the town, in order to more efficiently take down the menace of Frosty the Snowman. Y'know I don't think a snowman running around is really worthy of bring out this kind of marshal law. And of course everybody in the town just kinda rolls with it, because why wouldn't they.

That night Tommy is reading the comic book, trying to looks for some kind of a solution when suddenly some more pages of the story are magically reveled to him. The books shows that the reason that Frosty never returned to Mr. Tinkerton as a kid was because another, jealous child had found the hat and locked it up. And that kid happened to be Principal Pankley! And the comic also reveled that Walter was at the lake with Principal Pankley right now. Thanks magic comic book for waiting this long give give Tommy the answers he needed. If you just had all your pages from the start maybe we could of avoided this, but no, you had to wait till the very last minute give us all the information we needed, because you wanted to be dramatic! Also how come Frosty waited this long to leave the trunk that Principal Pankley locked him up in? I mean he just kinda broke out of the box at the beginning of the special. It's not like anyone let him out. Why did it take twenty years to escape?  But whatever. We see that Walter is out in the middle of the woods...at night..with Principal Pankely...

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

And Walter is skating with Frosty. (Principal Pankley is hiding behind a tree so Frosty doesn't see him.) But while there skating the thin ice breaks and Frosty ends up falling into the water. What would of happened if the ice didn't break? This plan isn't very thought out at all. After Frosty melts Principal Pankley grabs the hat and leaves laughing.  Later all the kids have noticed that Frosty stopped showing up, and everybody assumes that it was Tommy who got rid of him. The think this on the ground that Tommy never spent any time with him, he has Mr. Tinkerton's number one pin, and he would have the knowledge on how to destroy him because he mentioned knowing his origin earlier. Principal Pankley begins to revel in his new found power. But Tommy decides that he has stop being scared and do whats right and save Frosty! He get's Walter to confess to his accidental role in Frosty's destruction and the hatch a plan to bring him back. He shows the comic to all the other kids and gets back to there good graces and then they storm to school to retrieve Frosty's hat. (Which is just in a frickin' glass case in the middle of the school where everyone can see it. Cause that'll stop the hat that broke out of like six chained up trunks.)  Principal Pankley chases the kids back to the frozen pond where they engage in a snow themed chase and snowball fight that is way less epic then the specials says it is. Everyone in town hears the commotion (because the glass case had an alarm.) and goes to the pond as well. The kids rebuild Frosty the F#&k Boi and all the adults see Frosty for themselves, including Mr. Tinkerton. He and Frosty reconnects and Tommy gives the pin back to his father. Frosty ends up hitting Walter's mother and an entire snowball fight with all the kids and adults break out as all the adults learn the error of there ways. As for Principal Pankley...

(Okay that doesn't happen, but let me have my version dang it!)  And the special reveals the shock twist. That Tommy ends up growing up to become...Burt Reynolds! Er, I mean the narrator. The narrator is a grown up Tommy. I like the twist, making the narrator have more of a point then just being some random guest star. Though it is a bit weird that the narrator isn't some kind of horrid uncanny valley version of Bruce Willis. It just feels like it's breaking Frosty tradition. Oh, and we learn that Tommy ended up marring Sara, and I definitely...don't care.  Oh and what happens to Frosty? Um...In don't know. They never really say what happens to him once the winter ends. Also they never really say what happens to Principal Pankley. I guess he's still the principal? And will continue to make life for the student miserable at school? I dunno, who cares? The special is over now.  So that was "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman." is it any good? Well, probably not, but it has some good parts. The voice cast is pretty good, including Burt Reynolds, who has a really good voice that adds a lot of gravitas to the narrator. (Also Bert Reybnolds sings, which is probably something that you won't here in Dukes of Hazard.) The animation is okay, kinda generic looking but they kinda make up for it by having a lot of nice colors, with lots of blues and whites. Also I really like this version of Frosty. I don't know if I like him more or less than the "Frosty Returns" version of him (as Bill Fagerbakke loud and oafish sounding voice he gives Frosty can get a bit grating at times, like I said previously, but It's prety good for like 90-95 percent of the film) I still think the voice is a perfect fit for what there doing with this version of Frosty, there are just a couple of times where it sounds a bit to much like Patrick Star yelling. (By the way, I like how this special has Bill Fagerbakke still being friends with Tom Kenny.) I love the idea of Frosty being this world traveler and I think this special does a good job combing elements from both the original and the "Frosty Returns" incarnation. It's a good reboot even if it's not the best story.  Unfortunately the film has a lot of problems to. Most of the kids are fairly generic. Charlie and Walter are kinda interesting but Sara and Tommy are both rather bland. Tommy has a good conflict in the story, and a good arc, but outside of that he's just a generic kid. And there love story felt very tacked on, like I think they only speak to each other a couple of times in the whole movie and they don't have any chemistry. We don't get a reason on why Tommy likes her other than "cause I'm the main character and she's the token girls so I guess we're suppose to be together! Also the story is pretty dumb and full of plot holes. They go to cartoonish lengths to show how uptight the adults are but it doesn't come off as funny. It's just another 'fight the establishment." story that we've seen many times before. Also Principal Pankley, while having some goofy and amusing moments is nowhere near as fun of a villain as Mr. Hinkle or Mr. Twitchell. Also this special is sixty six minutes long and it can be a bit of a drag by the end. They probably could of cut it down to forty four if they cut out some of the more filler-y scenes.  So do I recommend this special? Well, it depends on who you are. I think you can tell by reading this review if it's something that would be up your alley or not. It's dumb, cheesy and kind of bland but there are some creative elements in it that might warrant you checking it out. It available on Netflix and on DVD if you are interested.  So I hoped you liked my review. It's a bit longer than I was expecting but what are you going to do? Have you seen "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman?" and if you did what do you think of it. Tell me in the comments. I think discussion is a great way to never fall into a echo chamber so I'd love to start a discussion. Where does it rank with the other Frosty special? And what are some of your favorite Christmas specials that not that many people talk about? Do you have any ideas for things for me to review in the future? Leave all of that or any other thoughts in the comments down bellow and feel free to fav and follow if you liked the review. As you can hopefully see I put a lot of thought and time into so I would be very appreciative. I'll be back next Friday for the finale of "Deviant-cember." with the "2016 year in REVIEW!" Hopefully see you guys then and have a great holiday. (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/The-Legend-of-Frosty-the-Snowman-REVIEW-652910204 DA LINK

[luwucas04]

About 4000 (I am so sorry) Words Concerning Films that Helped Define My Existence

Ah, movies. So much in one package. Story, music, visuals, what’s not to love? Today I shall be elaborating on the most noteworthy films in the thrilling ever-changing saga that continues to be my life. Screenplay alongside a screenplay, if you will (please take this statement as modestly as you can).

The first ever thing in my entire life that I remember being an avid and enthusiastic fan about was the original Star Wars saga, written and directed by George Lucas, spanning May 1977 (A New Hope) – May 2005 (Revenge of the Sith).

As mentioned in the podcast and as you may be able to tell from said podcast, I can’t really pinpoint an exact point in my life where I was introduced to it as it was kinda integrated into my upbringing from the get-go—and due to this it’s a very near and dear franchise to me. And oh boy fun fact my first ever childhood crush was Luke Skywalker (I vividly recall my uncle asking why I had his page bookmarked haha). I remember it was something that I would always watch with my dad and or grandpa, and then when I couldn’t find the VCR set that we had for it, I officially commenced my illicit streaming career (not really though, I didn’t get very far. Only crappy 20-minute clips on YouTube). Star Wars for me was the first thing that I actively sought out stuff for or showed genuine interest in pursuing if that makes sense. Like, you’d watch whatever movies or shows were thrown at you and you never thought much of them. Ohoho not Star Wars, though, that one lasted years. My cousin and I would always bring our little action figures to play with whenever we visited—or we’d find long-ish sticks in the backyard and have lightsaber fights, I got the video games, posters, Lego sets of ships (X-wing and Y-wing to be exact), an entire encyclopedia that I still own to this day (I just checked and there’s a date written inside, April 9th 2010 (which is my 7th birthday)), and of course inspiration for my own art and such. I remember I made this magazine that was essentially just me redrawing pages from the guidebook I had. I still have it, too! Sitting at the bottom of a drawer right now. Also, later on for some reason I absolutely loved drawing Ashoka Tano. Over and over again man. I drew her taking up my cousin’s entire driveway in chalk once.

Not only are the Star Wars films a nostalgic and comforting series, but it held onto its marvel throughout the. Wow well over 10 whole years, I’m getting old. Additionally, because at the time we didn’t have as much access to the things we can achieve with modern technology, I was basically all on my own with it. I fueled my own fascination. And shockingly, not a lot of people in my elementary school (up until maybe grade 6-7) showed much interest in it either. So it was pretty much just me myself and I, and occasionally my cousin whenever he visited, and I think that made it all the more special to me. Also, at the time I think it was geared way more toward kids. There weren’t series like The Mandalorian or active internet communities that were obsessed with the series as far as I was aware, so there wasn’t the same quantity of content nor overall enthusiasm around it. Nonetheless, it was and still is a very personal series due to how engrained it is into basically every aspect of my childhood. I’ll try not to be too repetitive with what I said in the podcast, but ultimately the clear nature of the franchise (attractive character designs, colours, setting in general (it’s an action-packed space adventure what’s not to love)) is what really made me latch onto it, and it kickstarted my interest in the very essence of media and understanding the film medium and what it has to offer. I remember asking how they got Jar Jar to exist on screen and he told me they made him out of CGI, and I interpreted that as they somehow made a real-life computer model out of him and that they were actually interacting with like a physical, solid hologram. Anyway, revisiting the franchise and diving into more of its intricacies now (like the production diaries) is like an absolute goldmine. There are so many aspects of it that 100% contributed to and nurtured my goals, passions, and ultimately who I am as a person. Here is some of my very recent art for good measure:

Up next up we got Lord of the Rings (dir. Peter Jackson, December 2001 – December 2003) or I guess a better way to put it would be those plus The Hobbit (December 2012 – December 2014) trilogy. I think it was earlier than the Marvel phase (which follows this section) because like Star Wars I can’t really remember my first viewing of it, but I definitely watched it all. It might’ve been around grade 3 so 2011-ish? Quick anecdote, one time I had a sleepover I was really excited for, and as we all know when you’re excited for something as a kid and it’s later on in the day, time doesn’t actually pass at all, and so my genius ass decided to flip on The Fellowship of the Ring and boom it was 5 pm and time to leave. Also my grandparents from my mom’s side of the family (they’re German so we call them oma and opa) were visiting once and my opa (grandpa equivalent) wanted to watch something so I was like “omg Lord of the Rings is perfect there are so many characters he can feel empowered by (Gandalf and Saruman because they’re old)”. Phenomenal logic—now thinking back it was probably much too violent for his tastes but yknow.

I love Lord of the Rings so much because it’s the true embodiment of an ideal fantasy story; there’s such pure character dynamics and personalities and Tolkien created such an incredibly solid world in which these stories take place. Man knew his stuff, and in turn provided a charming and utterly wonderful scape for young minds to roam free within. I was going to talk about this if I did my other culminating idea regarding masculinity within the media, but I have the perfect opportunity to do so here: something so great about said world is how sincere and genuine a lot of the male characters are (yknow minus people like Denethor and Alfred). Namely the fellowship, they all openly care for and are affectionate towards one another, something we rarely see between men both in modern media and in real life. Aragorn is a perfect example of someone owning and being comfortable in his masculinity. He is kind to and uplifts others, and communicates openly with them. He isn’t afraid of being intimate and vulnerable towards them, either. We see this in Boromir’s death scene. Aragorn doesn’t patronize him for trying to take the Ring, he consoles Boromir in his last moments and they treat each other with the utmost tenderness and respect—not callously or stiffly. Right after decapitating an orc, Aragorn is still able to run to his side, hold him, and kiss him on the forehead following his passing. Aragorn also isn’t afraid to share fame or glory, in fact he never seeks it out in the first place despite his lineage. It was at the battle of Helm’s Deep that he embraced that destine to be king, not out of lust for power, but because these people needed guidance and leadership and he could provide it for them. He elevates others in an incredibly positive and empowering way, especially Frodo and Éowyn, and is content with the fact that the story is not about him. Even at his own coronation, he directs every single person’s attention to the literal earth-saving feat that the hobbits have achieved in light of his own massive accomplishment. He is such a great role model to have been able to look up and aspire to be like, and I wish there were more characters and people like him.

I was a fan of those original films at an earlier point in my life, but the thing that brought that interest back a little stronger was undoubtedly the release of the Hobbit prequels. Like the Star Wars prequels, everyone can say what they want but they are very gorgeous to me. I skipped out on seeing Frozen with my class to go see The Desolation of Smaug with my dad and that was SUCH a good decision. Although, I’m rewatching them all now and Battle of the Five Armies kinda sucks at the beginning. They kill Smaug in like the first five minutes and like it wasn’t bad but it was very anticlimactic. I also don’t like how they shoved Legolas in there, his personality is really jaded and he’s kind of a big prick in those films. But it’s fine I love Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage and the rest of the dwarves the most. They were obviously the most significant and I like them a lot, and there are three movies as opposed to the one book so there’s even more content!

WHEW sorry about that anyway The Hobbit really was the revival/rekindling of that past love for Tolkien’s world. I also had a good close friend who was also along for the ride as well—being able to be into these things alongside someone is always fun and I’m grateful she was there and shared my same energy. She had the Lego game for that one, very similar free-roam concept as my Marvel one (coming up next), so we had lots of fun with that too. To reiterate, I am rewatching these movies again now as an older person with like an actual conscience, and my takeaway from them is vastly different on more of like… a philosophical level, I suppose. I appreciate the process of things more and the backstory behind Tolkien’s lore and the timeless characters and deeper meanings that he’s conceived. But that wouldn’t be very chronological of me to go into it here so moving on.

Proceeding next, around grade four at the most (so just after it came out), I watched The Avengers (dir. Joss Whedon, 2012). Not only did this single-handedly make my art convictions explode (in a good way), it also instigated my love for soundtracks (and also the entire Marvel universe but we’ll obviously be covering that very soon).

The Avengers was like an epiphany for me. Literally ground-breaking and earth-shattering. Changed my entire 10-year-old life. It was all that I ever wanted and more, and since it was around 2012-13 that I became aware of its existence, the internet community was blossoming with possibilities and content. That same friend liked it as well! My Avengers/Marvel phase definitely rivals my Star Wars phase; I think I watched The Avengers first, and then my dad was like “yeah ok you need to watch everything else now” and so henceforth Captain America and Iron Man and Thor. Those were very good times, and I actually remember experiencing all of them for the first time ever. The Christmas of 2013 was absolutely wild. I only got Marvel related gifts which was incredible at the time. My first ever ‘art of’ book was for the Avengers film, too! I also got an arc reactor shirt that actually lit up and I thought that was the absolute coolest thing ever, and then I remember I cut my tongue on this candy I was eating and my mouth bled profusely for a while. However the most iconic gift of all was my copy of Lego Marvel Superheroes for the PS3. I finished it in about 2 days, and it’s the only Lego game that I’ve gotten 100% completed progress on. I love that game dearly and still play it sometimes. The thing that I love specifically about it was the ability to free-roam the entirety of New York City as any character you wanted, me and that friend would do that exclusively for hours on end and make up our own stories with all the characters. Here is Galactus perusing the streets

Speaking of characters, this was the first thing that really got me making up and drawing a shit ton (apologies for lack of a better phrase) of original characters. I’d make superhero characters for me and my friend (ok I guess I should give her a name huh), Mackenzie, and even for random people in my class cause we needed to fill in some blanks in the stories we’d make. I’d create comics, write little stories, make variation after variation of these people we came up with, and of course like normal children me and Mackenzie would go to the park near my old house and pretend we were said characters. Man it was so fun. Then we’d do all those personality quizzes to find out which member you were most like. Mackenzie and I would do these quizzes on none other than our state-of-the-art BlackBerry playbooks. For me it was usually either Iron Man or Thor, and Mackenzie had this weird curse where she’d only ever get Loki as a result for anything at all which was very hilarious to me. Circling back to soundtracks, The Avengers OST was one of my first full album purchases. The main theme was my favourite track out of all of them for obvious reasons, but I still paid respects to all of them and listened to it often. Since I bought it with my dad’s Apple ID, it’d show up on the communal iPad that we used for music in the kitchen and I have full recollection of my grandpa playing it on blast in the morning to wake us up one time. I was aggravated at first but then when I realized what it was I was like ah yes of course. After the Avengers soundtrack, I got the Wolverine (2013) OST and that was fun but I didn’t like all the tracks in the same way, but THEN I got the Days of Future Past soundtrack. THAT is a good soundtrack AND a phenomenal film.

Anyway, after that I was a Marvel connoisseur for a little while. Like Star Wars I got an entire character encyclopedia, a bunch of comics, posters, you name it. My parents and sister also enjoyed dabbling in stuff too; we’d watch the animated series together on Netflix and eventually ended up seeing all the new movies together when they came out in theatres (except not my mom though cause she gets motion sickness from action films). Marvel was a staple in the adolescence stage of my life before I was introduced to anime (then it was all downhill from there (I am kidding anime was a part of my life that I look back at with great fondness)). It was reason for so much of what I explored with my art and my own imagination, and was one of my first experiences in what it was like to be a part of a fandom-esque community. There were also memes ripe for the picking when it came to Marvel; as one can assume I had no access to memes in kindergarten to grade 1 in the late 2000s. It was such a lovely and warm point in my life, something that established what kind of passion I really poured into something when I really liked it. And akin to Star Wars, there’s just so much to like about it. There’s so much to offer, an array of colourful characters and storylines—and of course, creative liberty when it came to superpowers and that whole narrative. The sky was literally the limit. Here is some of my ancient 2014 portraiture that I dug up for the sake of this assignment

Ok heads up we are now veering AWAY from childhood content and touching on a film that played a more personal part, namely during a very pivotal point, in my life. I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 1999) at a bookstore and read it at the speed of light; I was crying in my room on my bed by the time I finished it. I love how we see Charlie’s character change over the course of the novel, not only through what he describes or how he perceives things but his style of writing in general. Anyway, I wanted to read the novel first before I watched the movie (dir. Stephen Chbosky 2012), and I was pleasantly surprised by how accurate the movie is to the book (well duh the author directed it). I read/watched this right before I started high school, so I was kind of (but not really considering the built-up childhood trauma he has yikes) in the same position as the protagonist, Charlie, as he was starting out (minus a lot of the major aspects of his character and what he went/goes through (like drugs)). A lot of the things that he learns were really important takeaways for me before heading into that new chapter of life like he did.

Contrary to the title of the (I know it started out as a novel but I’m just gonna say film) film, you need to put yourself out there and advocate for yourself in life. It’s great to be a trustworthy individual whom everyone is vaguely aware of and likes, but you need to approach things with reason and make yourself known somehow. At the time, both before and during grade 9, and even still sometimes in the present (though I do it more deliberately now), I found myself just standing on the sidelines as life happened before me and I let it sweep me away without having any feet planted on the ground. It was like I wasn’t in control of it, and in turn I might’ve struggled in some areas more than I should have. I didn’t own anything, like I wasn’t totally present. Similar to Charlie, I was a person who’d always be there for others, someone people could talk to and confide in, and ultimately someone people truly enjoyed having around—which is pretty great. But I didn’t fully know my position or what I ultimately wanted in any of those situations. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for my entire freshman experience and I absolutely wouldn’t have wanted it any other way considering all personal circumstances, but with that foreknowledge of the importance of making a name for yourself, especially in high school, I think I was able to branch out with ease a bit more than I would have without it. I at least was aware of what was going on in that sense. That movie is really special to me because it ended up being a pseudo-mirror of my own experiences. Charlie’s English teacher, Bill, embraced his writing abilities and urged him to participate more, share his own thoughts, and express more of his personality by giving him books for extra reading. My first ever semester of Laurier did the exact same for me as Bill did for Charlie. It fostered my interests and intellectual abilities, and you guys constantly urged me and everyone else to go above and beyond what we were used to because you knew we could do it (even though I feel like I could’ve done a lot better on some things as my marks in grade 9 are a bit lower than I’d like them to be, but hey it was a time of adjustment and I did my best and that’s what matters). As a direct result of Laurier, I’m really lucky to have been surrounded by an amazing group of passionate students, a handful of which became my closest friends throughout high school, and that my very first teachers of the day were people who uplifted me and genuinely cared not only about furthering my academic work, but about my growth as a person.

Whew let’s wade out of the sap and get into some more energetic stuff!!! To tie off this recollection of my life through film the most recent and notable movie that impacted my life was, the one and only, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman, 2018). Similar to The Desolation of Smaug and Frozen, I went with my dad to the cinema but parted ways with him to watch this movie by my lonesome (he went to the Aquaman theatre instead smh). Again, phenomenal choice. I talked about this in my grade 11 blog, but Spider-Verse is an absolute masterpiece in every way shape and form.

At the point I watched it, I knew what I wanted to generally do with my life (be part of the art industry) and the visuals of this movie alone were enough to make me want to elope with it and never see or talk to anyone ever again. It is such a gorgeous film. The way they strayed from the yucky 3D conventions norm—and there is literally no way they could’ve done the majority of what they did in that movie effectively if they did it live action. Or, they could definitely try and make an attempt, but it’d look like garbage. For example, a lot of the action scenes in general and also when they become abstracted like with the particle collider. 40-60 fps would not do that sense of movement justice at all. Too smooth. Not enough grit and personality.

Anyway, they also pioneered new animation techniques in mixing 2D and 3D, and explored a newer superhero trope where the main character’s own mundane life struggles are equally as important as him trying to sort things out with these new powers. It’s more of a battle between what Miles wants with his own personal life—new school, the friends he won’t be able to see because of said new school, owning his own abilities and adjusting to change. Then on top of that he’s met with all these alternate-dimension people that he has to work and be on par with. Aside from the art, I thought the overall message was every special: Miles learns through trial and tribulations, unsureness—and most importantly, failure. Confidence and optimism, in regard to what he thinks he can and can’t do, is vital. Amidst everything he is faced with, he starts out as just another kid who wants to be just another kid. But we all have something special inside us that we must choose to embrace if we want to truly flourish. We see him come to terms with the fact that he really is capable of greatness if he sets his mind to it—and that’s the main message: anyone can wear the mask. And can we talk about that soundtrack??? Not only the instrumentals, but the actual songs were great too! “Sunflower” and “What’s Up Danger”? Lovely and fitting. And back to the OST, the Prowler’s theme??? Shivers.

There is such a unique and beautiful vibe to this movie, and it’s inspired me in more ways than one. Aside from that nice motivational stuff, it also has recently played a tremendous part in developing my own art. All of the artists who worked on the film are people I immediately tried to find on social media so I could see more of their work. I purchased the art book, and even bought a 2D sequence illustration course provided by one of the art directors, Patrick O’Keefe. That course also came with the (digital) brushes he uses, and I’ve used them in pretty much every single one of my pieces since downloading them. This movie really showed me the possibilities of what could be achieved in the art industry, and it made me want to be a part of it so much more than I was before. I want to be involved in revolutionary visual achievements, and I want to develop characters and stories and worlds that are as interesting and loveable as the ones in Spider-Verse. (my stuff featured below)

So there you have it folks, 5 (five) of the most significant movies in my life relayed in a whopping just over 4000 words. I hope this has been enlightening for all you readers out there, perhaps you now have a better understanding of how I came to be personality/interest-wise, and I hope you can catch a glimpse of that same importance these pieces of media have in regard to me and my values.

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

AK Monthly Recap: July 2017

There’s nothing like summer in the city, feeling droplets fall on you and wondering if it’s pee.

I kid, I kid. At least 10% of the time I’m certain someone’s spitting out their window.

I spent almost all of the month sleeping in my own bed in New York, only leaving to visit the Keys for five days. Here are the best and worst happenings of July 2017!

Destinations Visited

New York, Amagansett, Montauk, East Hampton, Sagaponack, and Bridgehampton, New York

Key Largo, Grassy Key, Marathon, Big Pine Key, Stock Island, and Key West, Florida

Favorite Destination

KEY WEST. Man, do I love that place. So much fun, so chilled out, so beautiful, and as wacky as ever with all the Hemingways.

Highlights

A fabulous trip to the Florida Keys. I just wrote about the trip in depth, so I won’t repeat myself here, but the biggest highlight was hanging out with all the Hemingways at the lookalike contest!

My first real Fourth of July barbecue in years. I’ve been traveling so often on the Fourth of July, and when I’m at home, I usually hang out in Boston or go to a Red Sox game, so this was unusual! But my friend and her husband bought a house with a yard in Brooklyn this year, so yeah, they were kind of contractually obligated to invite all their friends over.

At that barbecue I was introduced to Secret Hitler. Have you ever played that game? It’s an insanely fun party game made by the Cards Against Humanity people. Think Clue plus politics. There’s nothing like celebrating your country’s birthday by accusing everyone of being fascists!

Hanging with blogger friends — and Miss Marcella. I keep joking that New York is the new Chiang Mai because so many travel bloggers pass through! This month, Steph from Why Wait to See The World (formerly Twenty-Something Travel) and Mike from Art of Adventuring visited for a few days with their 11-month-old baby Marcella. We met up with Jodi of Legal Nomads and former blogger Joel. Fun fact: I have partied with all of them in Thailand.

Steph and Mike are two of the blogger friends I’ve known the longest, so it was amazing to meet their baby. She’s definitely a kid of the 2010s — she smiles big as soon as you aim a phone at her! I hope to hang with the three of them (but let’s be honest, mostly Marcella) once they move to Bologna this fall. Like I need an excuse to drop by my favorite Italian city…

Celebrating a special bachelorette. A travel blogger friend celebrated her bachelorette party in New York this month and I got to plan a lot of it! While she was open about it being her bachelorette on social media, I’ll let her tell the story on her blog when the time is right.

Drinking on the Staten Island Ferry. This is my new favorite thing to do in New York. Did you know that it’s totally fine to drink on the Staten Island Ferry? They sell beer in both terminals and you don’t even need to brown-bag them. My friend Matt loves to do this and he invited all his friends to join him on his birthday.

The result? Around 25 of us rode the ferry four times in total, drank a variety of beers and ciders, ate cookies, visited the Flagship Brewery in Staten Island, and had a grand time! Matt even made us cozies that read “I don’t start partying — I keep partying.” SO MUCH FUN.

A fun day trip to Montauk and the Hamptons. My friends Beth and Colleen and I drove all the way out to Montauk, which is a bit ambitious for a day trip from New York (you should really stay overnight), but we had a blast anyway! I’ve wanted to visit Montauk since I got into The Affair, and we visited several sites from the show, including the Lobster Roll, the restaurant where many key scenes take place.

I really liked Montauk, even though we didn’t have the best weather. It’s very casual and down-to-earth, albeit quite expensive. Also expensive but much fancier were East Hampton and Bridgehampton, which feel like New York transplanted to the beach — LOVED it. Also, there was a guy with four border collie puppies and I got to play with them.

Later the weather cleared up and we stopped at the gorgeous Wolffer Estate Vineyards for a tasting. The single best dish I ate this month was the lobster spaghetti at Almond in Bridgehampton — perfectly cooked pasta with lobster claw meat, red scallions, grilled cabbage, lemon, crushed red pepper, and parmesan. There’s one in Manhattan, too!

Visiting the Museum of Broken Relationships display in New York. I visited the actual museum in Zagreb years ago and loved it, so I was delighted to hear the exhibit was coming to Flatiron for two days. It featured artifacts from New Yorkers’ past relationships and the stories behind them.

Challenges

I went through the biggest tech headache of my 7.5-year blogging career this month. My site was attacked twice by a Russia-based operation that disguised their traffic to make it look like it was coming from all over the world.

Not only did this shut down and block a lot of you from the site, I also took a financial hit. My display ads stopped running due to the influx of poor quality traffic and I had to pay a lot out of pocket to get the issues fixed.

And not only that — it took several teams of tech professionals weeks to figure out how to block the attack. Finally, the team at Sucuri figured it out and shut it down. If you run a website for business, I highly recommend you get protection with Sucuri so you’re prepared in case an attack happens to you. Their basic plan is just $9.99 per month.

Anyway, I went through hell and back this July. I’m glad to now have my site in the hands of the team at Performance Foundry, who are making my life infinitely easier by handling the site, protecting it, as well as managing myriad tech issues I never dreamed existed.

We had a weird encounter in the Hamptons. While at dinner at Almond, we sat down next to a table of slightly intoxicated men around our age. One made a comment along the lines of, “Sorry our friends are drunk,” and Beth said something innocuous like, “Oh, that’s fine with us.”

Well. We think that they might have misheard her, because that’s the only explanation for what happened next! They started glaring at us, making snide comments to each other about us. Then one leaned over and said, “You’re in town for the weekend? Oh, that’s CUUUUUTE. I live here.”

What the fuck?! Seriously?

Colleen and Beth and I looked at each other with giant fake smiles on our faces, unsure of what to say to each other. The men were sitting so close to us that they would hear everything we said. Eventually I started telling stories about Scrooge McDuck and we started talking about…that. Every time we laughed, their table would swivel their heads toward us and glare. One even banged his head on our table and pretended it was an accident.

The men left when our entrees came and as soon as they were gone, we exploded. What was their problem? Why would you treat strangers like that? What did they think she had said? We had been afraid to move or say anything because we didn’t know what they would do next and it looked like they were friends with our waiter. Just such a bizarre experience.

The “summer of hell” on New York transit. A lot of construction is taking place this summer, especially at Penn Station, and the trains are running slow and less often. 1 trains aren’t running to my stop on the weekend this summer, and on two different weeknights it took me two hours to get home from Brooklyn. This reminded me of how grateful I am not to have to commute to work, though.

Most Popular Post

All of the July Elevenths — Who knew that my past July Elevenths of the past seven years were so significant?

The Other Post

A Sizzling Summer Trip to the Florida Keys — Everything I did on that trip, including the Hemingways. Oh God, not like I DID the Hemingways. I’ll stop talking now…

Most Popular Instagram Photo

If you’ve got a purple sunset on Instagram, it will clobber the rest of your photos. This was taken in Key Largo.

For more live updates from my travels, follow me on Instagram at @adventurouskate!

Fitness Update

“What do you want out of this training?” my trainer Gayle asked me this month.

“Are you kidding? I’m just to look good!” I told her. “This is purely aesthetic!”

She laughed. “So how would you like to look in particular?”

“Sexy arms.”

“We can do arms!”

“Can we do the arms of Michelle Obama?”

And that’s why I’ve been doing a lot of work on my arms and shoulders this month.

What I Read This Month

I went overboard on books this month, and yes, it’s actually possible to do that. I read 10 books, including the 1100-page behemoth 1Q84. For four days in a row, I read four books cover to cover. It was too much — my brain felt fried and I couldn’t write.

The good news is that I’m on track to finish the 2017 PopSugar Book Challenge next month! Only six books remain! Here’s what I read in July:

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017) — This is the best book I’ve read this year and the one I’ve been recommending to everyone I know. The story is narrated by sixteen-year-old Starr. She’s black and lives with her family in the inner city while attending a mostly white prep school in a wealthy suburb. It’s hard enough maintaining two different identities in two very different environments. Then one night, she’s driving home with her friend Khalil when he’s pulled over by the police and shot to death for no reason. Starr is the only witness and she has to decide whether or not to speak up.

What I love about this book is that it’s not only topical and relevant, but it’s also beautifully told. Every character is so perfectly formed, you fall in love with each of them, and Starr’s family is one of my favorite families in literature. I didn’t want to say goodbye to them.

I believe in the power of literature to teach compassion and empathy. An academic study has shown this. For that reason, The Hate U Give could be instrumental in raising kids who grow up to fight the shameful racism that engulfs our country. If you’re a parent, an aunt- or uncle-type figure, or a teacher, I encourage you to introduce this book to the teenagers in your life. I hope to see it become a classic. Category: a book that’s published in 2017.

Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World by Nell Stevens (2017) — Have you ever thought that you could easily write a book if you didn’t have any distractions? Going on that premise, Nell Stevens was finishing her MFA and had the option to go anywhere in the world on a three-month writing fellowship. Rather than Europe or Southeast Asia, she chose to go to the Falkland Islands — specifically, an island with no one else on it. In winter. How could she not write a book in those conditions?

Well, things did not go to plan. Turns out living completely alone on a stormy island, having no social contact with anyone, dealing with nonfunctional internet, and surviving on 1100 calories per day is neither healthy nor sustainable and won’t make you a better writer. She tells several story fragments in the memoir, but none of them had potential to become a longer work. I found this book utterly delightful and one of my favorite reads of the year. If you’re a writer or blogger, I highly recommend you give this one a read! Category: a book that is a story within a story.

Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton (2012) — This is a book that I’ve wanted to read for quite some time. My sister loves it and Anthony Bourdain considers it the best chef memoir of all time. This book tells the stories of Hamilton’s life leading up to her career as the chef and owner of Prune in the East Village, from family lamb roast parties as a child in New Jersey to cocaine- and larceny-fueled years as a waitress in Manhattan to living and cooking with her husband’s family in Puglia each summer.

The best memoirs are interesting stories told in an interesting way, and this book fits the bill. The layers upon layers of details are fascinating, and if you love food, you’ll appreciate everything Hamilton has to say. I love memoirs about work, whether they’re about cooking or comedy or writing or being Richard Branson, but I have to say that the book’s weak points are the parts about Hamilton’s relationships with her mother and especially her husband. Perhaps that’s not fair of me to say, as both her mother and her husband had a huge impact on her love of food and subsequent career. But I found they put a big damper on what was otherwise a wonderful book. Category: a book about food.

The Riddle of Penncroft Farm by Dorothea Jensen (1989) — Back in the fifth grade, I read Baby-Sitters Club books voraciously. My teacher called them “taco chip books” (that made me furious) and demanded that I read something more substantial. She recommended this book, I read it and enjoyed it immensely, and I’ve always remembered it fondly. So when it came time to read a book from my childhood, I chose to revisit this one.

Lars is a kid who moves to his great-aunt’s farm in rural Pennsylvania, not far from Valley Forge. His eccentric aunt is a Revolutionary War buff and avid bamboozler. Soon Lars is visited by Geordie, a ghost (or shade, as he says!) who was his age during the Revolution and tells Lars his stories so he can unravel a mystery to protect his family. This book is such an engaging read about a subject kids are likely studying in school and it’s a great book to get them interested in history. Category: a book you loved as a child.

Black Dog Summer by Miranda Sherry (2014) — I picked this book up at Shakespeare and Company in Paris a few years ago, but it’s been sitting on my shelf forever, so I decided to finally read it now. Sally is living in the South African bush with her daughter when she’s attacked and murdered by intruders. But Sally doesn’t die properly — she stays on as a spirit, drifting alongside her daughter as she moves in with her aunt’s family. Soon Sally must use her powers to save her daughter and her family.

I did enjoy reading this book from a narrative perspective, but I never would have chosen it today. I love South Africa and this is not the point of view of South Africa that I like. In a country that is only 8.4% white*, yet where whites hold enormous economic privilege and wealth, this is a story about almost exclusively white people where the only black characters are witch doctors or murderers. If you want to read a more inclusive, nuanced book about South Africa and South Africans, I suggest you read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, one of my favorite reads of the year so far. Category: a book with one of the four seasons in the title.

Hunger: A Memoir of My Body by Roxane Gay (2017) — This memoir has been in the news a lot this year, and for good reason. It broke all the rules. It doesn’t have a plot or much of a structure. It doesn’t involve a transformation. And it’s not an inspirational tale — not remotely. In fact, it’s very sad and never rises or falls in tone from beginning to end.

Gay writes frankly about living as an obese person today. Her weight issues began after she was sexually assaulted as a twelve-year-old; she wanted to make herself “big” and thus “safe.” Her words about trying to be accepted by her family and society, searching for peace in herself, and finding and losing love will break your heart. Gay is known for her intersectional writing, and she covers many angles of being a queer obese woman of color, as well as the daughter of immigrant parents. This book will give you new levels of compassion. Category: a book about an interesting woman.

From Pavlova to Pork Pies by Vicki Jeffels (2016) — I met Vicki and her husband at a conference in 2012 and was captivated by their love story. She was a recently divorced Kiwi and mom of three who went on holiday to Paris; while there, she met a younger Englishman, fell in love with him, moved to England with her kids, and got married. This book is a loose fictionalization of their journey — unlikely romance, family-blending, transcontinental move, and jumping through immigration hoops.

I enjoyed reading this book, in part from a dying-to-know perspective of their crazy love story. That said, the book isn’t professionally edited, and there are issues — for example, the tense switches back and forth between past and present, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. But if you’re willing to overlook that, this is a lovely little love story, especially if you’re interested in transcontinental romances and blending families. Category: a book by an author from a country you’ve never visited.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (2009-2010) — What a strange book. I’m still not sure how I feel about it or whether I think it’s a good book, but it’s unforgettable, that’s for sure. What is 1Q84 about? It’s a descent into a parallel world, told from the point of view of two thirty-year-old narrators living in Tokyo. It involves a love story, a vigilante assassin, a gifted ghostwriter, a powerful cult, and some fantasy and science fiction elements tying it together. Magical realism? Sure. And it’s 1100 pages long.

My biggest issue is that Murakami, like many male authors, has his female protagonist talk about her breasts constantly. Come on, dude. In addition to that, so many questions go unanswered and critical moments in the plot are rammed through quickly while dozens of paragraphs are devoted to the mundane (like all the unnecessary food preparation scenes).

But you know what? I couldn’t stop reading it. And I enjoyed it immensely. So I encourage you to go for it, and don’t let the long length intimidate you — it reads very quickly. Category: a book that’s more than 800 pages.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (2015) — I’m glad I started reading poetry again — this is my second volume this year. Rupi Kaur tells poems drawn from her life, divided into four categories: “the hurting,” “the loving,” “the breaking” and “the healing.” These poems are simple, touching, familiar, and accompanied by Kaur’s drawings.

he says i am sorry i am not an easy person to love i look at him surprised who said i wanted easy i don’t crave easy i crave goddamn difficult

I dare you not to relate to these poems. Category: a book with pictures.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017) — Well, this might be the most original concept of a book I have ever read — and also one of the batshit craziest. In 1862, one year into the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie died of a fever. After Willie was interred, Lincoln returned to the crypt at night to hold his son’s body. This book is a fictionalization of that night — told through dozens of voices of spirits in the bardo, which Tibetans believe is the waiting place before spirits move on to the next world.

Imagine dozens of spirits who have no idea they’re dead, jabbering on about the unresolved issues in their past lives, fighting with each other, arguing like mad, spouting gibberish as evil forces try to overtake them. And that’s about as much as I can say about it — I’ve never read anything like it. I imagine this is the closest book I’ve read to James Joyce’s Ulysses, a.k.a. the book that scares me the most. Category: a book from a non-human perspective.

What I Watched This Month

I feel like I need a discussion group for Orange is the New Black. Season Five was weird, wasn’t it? Without giving away spoilers, this season takes place during a prison riot. And while there were many serious moments in the season, some of the plotlines were ridiculous and seemed out of place.

Where can they narratively go after a riot, really? The prison was damaged in the riot! The inmates can’t stay there — they’ll be sent to separate prisons! It feels like the writers painted themselves into a corner.

But I still love this show. It’s amazing for racial diversity, queer visibility, and telling the stories of women who are too often ignored. And it has created major awareness about private prisons in America, which could have been a contributing factor to Obama ending the federal government’s use of private prisons (which was reversed by 45, part of his overreaching efforts to undo everything the black dude did).

What I Listened To This Month

Here’s something you didn’t know about me: in high school I was obsessed with the “Thong Song.” I thought it was hilarious as well as a great dance song, and I played it constantly. I even wrote a song about the rise of Unitarianism in America to the tune of the Thong Song for an AP US History project. (You could do literally anything for a project and get an A.)

Well, they’ve finally remade it with JCY, and it is great. Sisqó said that he’s been asked to do a remake so many times but this is the first one he actually liked. It’s so faithful to the original yet sounds like it was created in 2017. Give it a listen if you haven’t yet — I bet you’ll love it! As far as the video goes, though…kind of weird casting. I mean, the dumps were definitely not like a truck.

Coming Up in August 2017

After a relatively quiet June and July, August is going to be a busy month of travel for me.

First up, Booking.com asked me if I wanted to revisit my least favorite city and give it another chance. Well, my actual least favorite city is Manila and I didn’t want to go that far, but my second least favorite city is just 90 minutes away by train: Philadelphia. If you’ve been following me on Instagram or Facebook, you know how it went! Expect a full post on it this week.

Next, I’m visiting a new state: Colorado! I’m working with the city of Vail to see just how enjoyable a ski town can be in the summer months. I see no reason why it won’t — ski towns are full of mountains, which are even more beautiful in the summer. There will be frolics through the wildflowers and hiking with a llama. Afterwards, I’m going to visit Denver for a few days and spend time with my cousins.

At the end of the month, I’m flying back to Europe for a 2.5-week trip. The first destination is one of my favorite countries to visit during the summer: Finland! I’ll be attending the World Air Guitar Championships in the city of Oulu (yes, seriously, I’ve wanted to go to this event for years) and will be road-tripping across the forested Lakeland region (pictured above), ending in Porvoo and Helsinki.

After that, I’ll be visiting some new-to-me countries in Europe. I’m fairly certain August will conclude in Belarus.

Any suggestions for my upcoming trips? Share away!

via Travel Blogs http://ift.tt/2uAp7wP