#caption inspired by my friend Kit!

[noyoudidntbye]

“Moon always reads to the kids but does anyone ever read to the Moon? No. But you do. Every night before bed, he holds you in his lap as you read all the stories he wants, as he’s done for others.”

[seasonsofeverlark]

you & I (just meant to be)

Author: @rosegardeninwinter​

Prompt: This silly, silly ditty was inspired by two (count ‘em! two!) lovely prompts which are as follows “Peeta can’t stop staring at Katniss in her costume :0” and “Everlark meeting at a fancy dress party dressed as a ‘matching’ pair, although they don’t each other - maybe a famous couple but who don’t need the other … Joker and Harley Quinn, Batman and Robin or my favorite: Anna and Elsa from Frozen … Peeta would make a wonderful Anna” - I thought these two went well together, and took a couple of creative liberties to make them jive. Hope you lovelies like! [submitted by @deardiaryithinkiamaghost​ and @wendywobbles​]

Rating: T, for implied Everlark shenanigans��

Author’s Note: Thank you to my dear @archersandsunsets​ for her second pair of eyes on this one and to all the lovely moderators and coordinators of @seasonsofeverlark​, the true MVPs. It’s been a busy month, so I apologize for any incoherence. Sometimes, the heart just wants goofy modern AU fluff. Alrighty, Chatty Cathy is done … enjoy! 

____________

“Katniss, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Prim exclaims, though it sounds pretty pathetic with her congested, pinked nose. “You make the perfect ice queen!” 

“I don’t think that’s usually a compliment,” Katniss says dourly, plopping down on the couch where her sister is situated with several fuzzy blankets, a box of tissues, and a large bowl of ice cream. She can’t taste it very well, but it’s the spirit of the thing that counts. Prim is in denial. 

“I wish I could go,” she whines, holding the “o” in a long, dramatic note. 

“I wish I could stay,” Katniss shoots back, holding the “ay” just as long. 

“No you don’t,” Prim shoos. “You love our friends.” 

“I do,” Katniss sighs, plucking at the silver sequined sleeves of her—well, Prim’s—Elsa costume. It’s too long on Katniss, with her sister’s good half inch on her, but it’s all they’ve got. Her original plan was to pull the classic black top and pants plus cat ears, but when it became apparent Prim wasn’t budging from the couch this Halloween, the real snowy blonde princess of the family had insisted Katniss take her outfit. 

“You can’t show up to Finnick’s in a slapdash, last second costume, Katniss,” she’d said. “The man lives for Halloween. Don’t insult his extravagance with plastic headbands and tails.” 

“I do love our friends, but … I don’t want to go out tonight. I’m tired.”

“Just half an hour,” Prim says. “Snag me some candy, make some pleasantries” — “okay, Jane Bennet” —  “and then come home. At least one of us needs to show up. Just pretend to have a social life for thirty minutes, okay? For me.” 

Katniss rolls her eyes as she gets up from the couch in a twinkling of blue overlay and snowflake hair pins in her braid. She does a quick once over of her shadowy makeup in the hallway mirror as she grabs her car keys. “What do you want?” 

“Chocolate. Anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I’ll save it for when I can experience taste again,” Prim calls back. “Oh, and if Delly’s cousin is there, all of the cupcakes he brought.”

“Mmkay. All the chocolate and cupcakes, coming right up,” Katniss says with a resigned smile. On her way out, she clicks on her phone. It’s just now eight. She resolves to be firmly ensconced in bed by nine at the latest. She gives her sister a wave, keys jangling. “I’ll be back. Soon.” 

At ten thirty, Prim looks up from her Harry Potter induced doze to find she’s received a text from her sister. 

Staying a little later. Fifteen minutes maybe. Have the treats.  

Prim checks the time stamp. The text was sent forty five minutes ago. This might be cause for alarm were it not for the text underneath Katniss’s, from Finnick. It’s a photo, taken in front of a makeshift photo op with purple and silver and orange streamers in the background and cutesy little bat and pumpkin and vampire fang cardboard props for people to hold up. It’s captioned “You can’t marry a man you just met!” 

Prim brings her hand to her mouth to catch a laugh before it turns into a cough. Her sister, Elsa costume sparkling in the flash, is pretending to shake her finger disapprovingly at her “Anna” counterpart. The laugh breaks free this time. Prim grabs for her tepid tea to soothe her throat as she cracks up over the really incredible image of Peeta Mellark, Delly Cartwright’s stocky older cousin, in a red braided wig, and strikingly accurate green rosemaled gown, sitting quite comfortably, if amusingly, over his athletic build. He’s pretending to gripe back at Katniss about why exactly he can marry Hans of the Southern Isles. Their mock scowls barely contain smiles. 

Prim quickly fires a text back to Finnick: How??? Did that happen??? 

Finnick’s text comes through a second later: The Lord works in mysterious ways! Idk!

Okay but like?? Yes??

I know!!!!

Some people are worth melting for???? 

Her cold never bothered him anyway? *finger guns*

Omg. 

Katniss arrives back at the house at five to midnight, and Prim pretends to be asleep, watching with one eye cracked half open as her sister unstraps her silver heels and dumps them by the front door, drops her keys into the bowl. Sets down a full bag of what Prim can only guess are cupcakes and sweets. 

She’s humming under her breath. It sounds like the chorus of “Love is an Open Door.” Prim wonders if it’s possible that her folk and indie music loving sister actually listened to a Disney album on the way home. Katniss unbraids her hair and shakes it loose, dropping the pins on the side table as she sinks into the squashy chair kitty-corner to Prim’s couch. She curls up, knees to chest, making her look like some sort of ice mermaid as she takes out her phone and taps something on it, still humming. Prim watches her chew her cheek pensively, as if deciding to send the text. She takes a deep breath and taps one final time on the screen, then drums her phone nervously against her lips for a moment. Prim’s nerves are firing with anticipation. 

They wait a silent minute. Two. Three. Three and a half — 

Katniss’s screen lights up again and she flips the phone up to stare at the reply. Her whole face softens. Eyes, brow, edges of her mouth. Katniss bites her lip and closes her eyes, letting her head fall back onto the chair cushion with a contented sigh. “‘You know what’s crazy?’” she sing-songs in a mumble under her breath. “‘We finish each other’s sandwiches … I’ve never met someone who thinks so much like …” She yawns. “Me.” 

“You know,” Prim says, and Katniss shrieks, sending her phone flying to the carpet, “Peeta Mellark strikes me more as a Kristoff than a Hans.” 

“Prim!” Katniss yelps, going red. “Wha — what? What do you mean?” 

“So we’re done with stupid plastic cat ears for Halloween then I take it?”

[the very next Halloween] 

“Whoa. Okay.” Peeta sits up from the pile of cushions at the head of their bed, eyes wide and staring in approval, pupils gone dark. “Katniss Everdeen in cat ears is not something I knew I needed until this moment.” 

“Oh sure,” Katniss laughs. “Because it’s definitely the cat ears that are doing it for you. Not these.” She hoists one stockinged leg up onto the bed like a mountain climber posing for a magazine. 

“Well, those are certainly part of the appeal,” he teases, reaching for her leg, running his hands up and down the silk tights. “As is this lovely number.” He toys with the hem of her dress, a strapless black velvet thing that falls just above her knee. “Where’s this from?”

“Jo,” Katniss sighs. “She says if I’m going to be a cat, I need to be a Gretchen Wieners level cat.” 

“For whose benefit, I wonder?” Peeta muses, cheek nuzzling gently at her lower thigh. 

“You wonder?” Katniss laughs, taking her leg away and flopping onto the bed. She glances over at him, eyes sly and somehow soft at once. “I don’t.” 

“I can’t help thinking,” he muses. “that this is something of a counterproductive plan on Jo’s part. Because now, I have a sudden and distinct interest in staying in tonight.” 

“Oh?” Katniss raises a come hither eyebrow and pushes up on her elbows to accept the kiss he plants on her lips as he crawls over her, urging her back to the headboard. “Is it the cat ears?” She reaches up to give the (already molting) plastic and faux fur ears a flick. 

“The Kat ears,” he says. He nips softly at her real ear and she shivers. “The Kat nose.” He kisses that too. His nose nudges her head back, inclining her neck at the perfect angle for him to plant a stretch of kisses down it. “The Kat neck.” His mouth wanders down the front of her dress and he scoots down the bed with it. “The Kat’s cradle.”

“You have that,” she says, hiking her legs up to hug around his middle because her arms can’t reach to hold him. “You’ll always have that.” 

“A piece of that Kit Kat bar.” He kisses her stomach. “The whole Kit and Caboodle,” he teases and she laughs loudly, but on a dime his tone is changing, from silly and playful into husky and dangerous, as he moves lower. “Kitten,” he murmurs and her fingers curl in the bedsheets at the name. “Grab my phone,” he tells her, hooking his fingers around the band of her tights, “Tell Finnick we’re going to be late.” 

An hour or so later finds the cat ears lost somewhere among the remains of their costumes and a hasty snack of pepperoni rolls cooking in the convection oven. Peeta, festooned in boxers and an old apron, presides over the food like it needs a baker’s supervision. Katniss perches on the counter, wrapped chest to toes in the white sheet she pulled from their bed, feet batting absently at the cabinets. 

“This is a good look too,” he tells her, gesturing with the salad tongs he’s using to handle the pepperoni rolls. 

“What is? This sheet?” 

“I was thinking more along the lines of sexy ghost.” 

“Or sexy Roman senator,” she laughs, tossing one edge of the sheet over a bare shoulder. “Sexy Julius Caesar.”

“You’d make a good Julius Caesar,” he says. 

“Why?”

“You’ve got that “came, saw, conquered” vibe. Least that’s how I felt that night at Finnick’s party.”

“Conquered?” 

“I was gonna say seen, but — yes. Conquered too. I couldn’t stop looking at you.” He snaps his fingers. “Sexy ice queen? Definitely.” 

“I’m not exactly sure what kind of Freudian analysis one could make on falling in love with the guy dressed as your fictional sister but — ”

Peeta shrugs as the timer beeps, and he sets to fishing the pepperoni rolls onto a plate for them to share. “I choose to think of it as a metaphor for how the two people you love most in the world are your real, actual sister …” He sets the rolls beside her on the counter and sets his hands gently on her sides. She lets the sheet fall and pool slightly around her waist to cup his face as he leans in to kiss her forehead, very gently, thumbs rubbing circles on her hips. “And some loser who has the luck of … oh, I guess having the same first initial and hair color as she does,” he jokes. 

“And the same beautiful heart,” Katniss corrects in a whisper. “I mean that.” She’s rarely so sentimental to anyone except him. She smirks. “And I haven’t even started drinking yet.” 

“Well, my pretty kitty,” he starts, wrapping both his arms around her middle and hoisting her off the counter. She rolls her eyes, even as her hands card through his hair. “The night is still young.” 

[bellagbear]

I’ve been called nomadic by several people. It is true that I don’t associate home with a specific location, but rather with a place where I feel comfortable and I can read, write and do my creative things. Therefore, the question of being back or going away is a tricky one. Is it even a goodbye or a welcome back when you feel at home in many different places? I’m writing this post because I’ve been back in Kenya for about 2.5 weeks now and planning to stay for longer. I want to share the creative projects I’m doing here.

My stay here now is different from the last time though. The first time I came to Kenya to do research for my master thesis which is finished now. This time I’m back for love and to see if I can make a life for myself here with all the skills I’ve learned so far in life. In this article, I’ll show you the art projects I brought, and I’ll also tell you a bit more about my plans in Kenya.

Sewing abroad: what to take on a journey to a different continent

I’m back! Or: Monthly Sewing Update March 2019

The Quilt Projects

Quilting the Kenyan quilt

  The work on this quilt occupied most of my previous six months in Kenya and the five months I spend in the Netherlands to finish my studies. Now, the quilt top is finished and the quilt is ready to be quilted. When you quilt you sew through all the layers of a quilt to keep the layers together. I already made a start with the quilting as you can see in the picture:

I won’t show a photo of the complete top, because that is a surprise for next week’s post. You can read more about The Kenyan Quilt here:

The overall design of the Kenyan quilt

I am designing quilt patterns: Kenyan quilt update

Crazy quilt blanket

This project was started on the aeroplane to Kenya. The top is made from leftovers of The Kenyan Quilt and an old scarf. Part of the scarf is used in some tote bags I made as presents. However, the scarf fabric was so soft I wanted to use it as a blanket as well. I call it a crazy quilt because I’m using many different embroidery stitches to sew through the layers. In this way, I am teaching myself to embroider.

Crazy quilt blanket

The Dear Jane sampler quilt

Last time I went to Kenya I missed working on my Dear Jane quilt. And these days, my motivation to finish this quilt in the next ten years has even increased because I reached the 100 blocks milestone! Now there are only about 160 blocks to go… The first Dear Jane block in Kenya is finished:

Dear Jane Quilt Block C-7: Megan’s Mountain Laurel

The Dear Jane sampler quilt

100 blocks Dear Jane milestone

The Cross Stitch Projects

Death of Discworld cross stitch

This piece is part of an art trade where I get awesome dragon scale gloves. The pattern is by Lyndisfarne Cross Stitch, who makes trademarked Discworld patterns. The Discworld series are satirical fantasy books by one of my favourite authors Terry Pratchett (GNU). Check them out if you like fantasy, humour or social commentary.

Unconventional X stitch giant octopus cross stitch

It always looks amazing to combine something most people associate with homeliness, such as cross-stitch, with something macabre. Most of the patterns Unconventional X stitch (UXS)  creates are like that. I am a fan of the work UXS  does and what that means for the cross-stitch community. UXS their work helps to reach a bigger audience for cross stitch because of the original patterns they offer. As a tribute to that effort, I decided to make one of their patterns for myself. I finished a big part of the bottom and it is exciting to see this pattern come to life. The fabric is from Jodyri Designs.

  Shards of Fire dragon cross stitch

This pattern is made by another person in the cross-stitch world I greatly admire: Pinkythepink. The pattern is based on original artwork by Euclidstriangle. Both my love for dragons and bold colours is big, so when I saw this pattern, I had to make it. I was not aware of a large amount of speciality thread and stitches this pattern uses though, many I had never seen before! But I won’t let that surprise stop me. I will rather see it as a learning opportunity to expand my skills and knowledge of cross-stitching. So far, I love the process of learning how to use the speciality thread.

Hot air balloons cross stitch

This is a big cross stitch project I brought to Kenya last time, and since it’s not finished yet I carried it again. This is a kit from AlieExpress I ordered to see if they’re any good. For the longest time, I was very suspicious about the thread choices of this kit. However, the past week I started filling in the top right corner and it is coming together nicely now. Thank God for perseverance.

Embroidery Projects

People suck embroidery

 My friend is coaxing me to make an embroidery piece for the Big Memory Quilt I’m making for her. I do it gladly for her though because she gave me a great drawing as inspiration:

This embroidery will become part of a big memory quilt I’m making for her. A lot of her old childhood clothes and such are used in that quilt.

The Big Quilt introduction: a Memory Quilt

Coat of many colours badge

I wanted to make my boyfriend a coat of many colours. However, I don’t know how to do sew clothes yet. So, this badge is going to be the first step to achieve my bigger plan. The picture below gives you an idea of what I’m going for.

What will I do in Kenya?

My goal is to continue my research into the future of pastoralism and conservation. In the coming months, I’ll be writing proposals and meeting with people to decide which exact direction to take with my work. Besides research, I also want to write for non-academic publications about my research and experiences in Kenya. One place is the Dutch Website WereldWijven. I believe it is important to share your research and experiences with other people. If there is a way to make people benefit from the research, I will find it and execute it.

One of the events I joined so far to work out research plans is the Camel Caravan organised by IMPACT, the organization I collaborated with for my research. The Camel Caravan is a yearly event that aims to create awareness about the challenge pastoralist people face and the importance of the Ewaso Ng’iro river in their lives. During that caravan, we walked through pastoralist areas and met many people with stories about the challenges they face. It was a great inspiration for future work. But I not only went to Kenya for my career. I also fell in love and  I want to give that love a chance.

Conclusion: many quilts and embroideries

If you think these are a lot of projects, you are right. Not all of them must be finished though, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll just work on whatever takes my fancy and see how far I get. Some questions for you:

What are you planning to work on in the coming months?

Do you take art and creative projects with you when you go on a trip?

What is your favourite kind of project to work on while travelling?

In the coming months while I’m in Kenya I will update this blog as often as I can. Also, whenever I write a blog post, I’ll be sure to update you people on my adventures and work in Kenya. In the meantime you can also find me on a new website I’m setting up to collect the stories I write: Bella G. Bear Writes.

Would you like to know more?

 The Dear Jane quilt: seeing red, am I mad?

Quilting techniques with Dear Jane 101: Foundation piecing

How to turn a faux leather coat into a peek-a-bookbag

How to make a turtle rag quilt

 Next week’s post:

– A showcase of the finished Kenyan quilt top

See my DeviantArt or Instagram (username: bella.g.bear.art) for more artwork and WIPs. You can also follow my blog by clicking on the button on the left or by filling in your email address. There will be a monthly update at the end of every month and a new blog post every Sunday or Monday.

Kenya 2.0: I’m back! Or did I ever leave? I’ve been called nomadic by several people. It is true that I don’t associate home with a specific location, but rather with a place where I feel comfortable and I can read, write and do my creative things.

[wesonerdy]

Now that the battle against the Army of the Dead has been won, Dany’s attention turns to taking the Iron Throne. But even with Jon’s support, threats emerge from King’s Landing and inside Dany’s own inner circle… read our review of “The Last of the Starks”!

I just need to start this recap/review by saying two things:

1. Arya Stark is the only Queen I recognize.

2. If there was an award for LEAST valuable player for the Battle of Winterfell, it would be a tie between Dany and Jon for their utter uselessness, even though they both had dragons.

  “The Last of the Starks” begins in the direct aftermath of the Battle of Winterfell. The next day, those who remain are battle worn. However, they gather to pay homage and say goodbye to their friends, family, and comrades who have died. It’s thoroughly heartbreaking as we watch Dany say goodbye to Jorah and Sansa say goodbye to Theon (she places her direwolf pin in his lapel). Jon steps up to say some words of thanks to those who sacrificed their lives to defeat the Army of the Dead:

“Everyone in this world owes them a debt that can never be repaid. It is our duty and our honor to keep them alive in memory for those who come after us and those who come after them for as long as men draw breath. They were the shields that guarded the realms of men. And we shall never see their like again.”

The bodies are then burned.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Following this, Dany, Jon, and Sansa preside over a night of celebration with eating, drinking, and other forms of enjoyment.

Dany takes the opportunity to make Gendry a legitimate Baratheon and the Lord of Storm’s End (though it initially seems like he plans to punish Gendry for the betrayals of his father and uncles). Dany also toasts to Arya Stark, the Hero of Winterfell (which happens to be the only truth I recognize).

Tormund hails Dany and then Jon as a leader for uniting with the Free Folk. He speaks of Jon’s strength and ability to inspire even his enemies to join him. Jon has even conquered death. Dany overhears all of this, which only serves to heighten the lingering tension between her and Jon.

  At another table, Brienne, Tyrion, Pod, and Jaime play a drinking game where they try to guess truths about one another. Things get awkward when Tyrion rightly (AND SHADILY) guesses that Brienne is a virgin. Brienne stands to leave the table and Jaime follows after her.

This makes Tormund sad because he thinks Jaime has taken Brienne from him. He laments about his heartbreak to the Hound. But Tormund isn’t sad for that long though, because he finds comfort in another young woman *snort*

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Sansa approaches the Hound as he now sits by himself, drinking. They commiserate over their time in King’s Landing, with Sandor reflecting on a time that Sansa couldn’t even look upon his face. Sansa says that she has seen much worse since leaving King’s Landing. The Hound comments that he’s heard of her suffering, referencing Sansa being “broken in, rough”. Sansa assures Hound that she made sure Ramsay Bolton got what he deserved, by siccing his own hounds on him. The Hound is impressed, but if she would have left the city with him after he quit Joffrey’s Kingsguard, none of that would have occurred. Sansa takes his hand and says: “Without Littlefinger and Ramsay and the rest, I would have stayed a little bird all my life.”

Clearly, the Hound has a soft spot for these badass Stark girls. Damn it, we do, too!

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Speaking of the Stark girls, in the midst of the celebration, Gendry finds Arya outside practicing her archery. He’s very excited as he shares the news that he’s been made a lord. Now that he’s Arya’s social equal, he feels that he can offer for her. Gendry declares his love and makes a proposal. Unfortunately, Arya gently lets him down. She reminds Gendry that she has never been a lady and won’t become one for the sake of being his wife and Lady of Storm’s End: “That’s not me.”

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Elsewhere, Jaime has followed Brienne to her room. They share a drink and make small talk about the North being so cold. Jaime then starts to take off his clothes, though he struggles with his one hand. When Brienne starts to help him, Jaime attempts to take Brienne’s shirt off. She realizes what he’s after…

J: “I’ve never slept with a night before.” B: “I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

Then Jaime and Brienne share their first kiss.

  Dany has also followed Jon to his room, and both are clearly distraught. They love one another, but Jon’s true paternity is a massive wedge between them. Dany says she wishes Jon had never told her, so she’d now be happy. Jon pledges himself to Dany again, saying that she is his queen, that he would never challenge her claim to the Iron Throne. But, for Dany, the only way forward is for Jon to keep this secret and convince Bran and Samwell to do the same. Jon is concerned because he wants to tell Sansa and Arya the truth, since they are his family. However, Dany is firm: “You can say nothing. To anyone. Ever. Never tell them who you really are.”

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  The next day, the forces at Winterfell meet together to reassess as they get ready to pivot to Cersei and King’s Landing… All around, about half of the manpower and resources have been depleted from the Battle of Winterfell. They plan to surround the city an essentially starve King’s Landing until they abandon Cersei. Sansa throws a wrench in the plans when, speaking on behalf of the ordinary people, she cautions that there needs to be time for soldiers to rest and recuperate.

Dany becomes incensed. She came to Winterfell to fight against the Army of the Dead with the promise of the Starks’ loyalty in claiming the Iron Throne. Are they backing out? Jon quickly speaks up and pledges the North to join Dany immediately. The plan is finalized: Jon and Davos will ride down from the North and the remaining Dothraki and Unsullied. A smaller group will sail to Dragonstone with Dany and the dragons. Jaime will remain in Winterfell.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  As everyone leaves the room, Arya approaches Jon and says they she and Sansa would like to have a word. Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Jon meet at the Godswood. Ultimately, Sansa and Arya don’t trust Dany. Jon tries to speak on Dany’s behalf; they’d all be dead without Dany. Arya says that Jon did the right thing at the time, but now, they four of them, the last of the Starks, can only rely on one another. This prompts Jon, who now knows his parentage. Jon demands that Sansa and Arya swear to keep a secret. They do so, reluctantly. And then Jon tells Bran to disclose everything.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Meanwhile, that night Bronn has arrived at Winterfell, carrying the crossbow that Tyrion used to kill Tywin. Bronn confronts Tyrion and Jaime, telling them that Cersei has promised him Riverrun in exchange for killing her two brothers. But, given his belief that Dany will eventually win, along with the deal he made to Tyrion years ago, Bronn is here to give Tyrion to negotiate for a better offer. Tyrion immediately offers Bronn Highgarden. At first, Jaime isn’t convinced that Bronn will kill them… that is, until Bronn fires an arrow that just misses Jaime by millimeters. So, the three strike a deal and Bronn leaves to await the results of the coming war.

In the morning, Arya meets the Hound on the road: A: “You’re heading to King’s Landing?” H: “I have some unfinished business.” A: “Me, too.” H: “I don’t plan on coming back.” A: “Neither do I.”

Welps, the Hound is going to kill is brother and Arya is going for Cersei. But what’s all this business about not planning to return?!

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Everyone else is preparing to depart Winterfell, as well. Rhaegal is healing from his attack by the wights and is able to fly. Dany rides Drogon.

Tormund and the Free Folk are heading further North to Castle Black. Jon asks Tormund to take Ghost with him (*cries* because Ghost has been so loyal and doesn’t even get a goodbye!)

Sam and Gilly are returning to Oldtown, and when Jon hugs Gilly to say goodbye, he learns that she’s expecting another child! They plan to name the baby Jon if he is a boy 🙂

Tyrion approaches Sansa before leaving for Dragonstone with Dany. She’s very worried about Jon going south: “The men in my family don’t do well in the capital.”

TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN, because OMG Rickard Stark (her grandfather), Brandon Stark (her uncle), and Ned Stark (her father)…

  Sansa tells Tyrion she doesn’t think there’s any guarantee that Dany will be a good queen. But Tyrion doesn’t want to leave Winterfell without being sure that Sansa and Dany aren’t enemies. Why provoke her? When Tyrion comments that Dany wants to make the world a better place, Sansa suggests that there might be someone else better suited for the job. As expected, Sansa breaks her vow to Jon and tells Tyrion that he is a Targaryen and Stark.

And on the ride down to Dragonstone, Tyrion tells Varys. Varys knows that this information will soon spread… and Jon has the better claim to the throne. Even if Jon bends the knee to Dany, people are still drawn to him. Tyrion suggests a marriage between Jon and Dany, but Varys thinks Jon will be averse, given that Dany is his aunt. Besides, Varys is pretty sure that Dany would have no intention of sharing power.

  While we’re all distracted with Jon’s secret leaking and Dany, Drogon, and Rhaegal flying majestically, a giant spear comes out of nowhere and strikes Rhaegal in the chest and another in the neck. Euron and his fleet have been waiting for Dany and co. to return to Dragonstone. Plus, it looks like Qyburn has upgraded his Scorpion weapons and they are fucking deadly. I audibly screamed as we watch Rhaegal die and crash into the sea. Each of the ships in Euron’s armada is equipped with a Scorpion, and they try to take out Drogon. He’s able to weave, and he and Dany fly away in retreat. Unfortunately, Euron turns his attention to Dany’s ships, using the Scorpions to destroy them.

By the time Greyworm, Tyrion, Varys, and the remaining Unsullied wash up on the shore, there’s so much destruction. Greyworm’s priority is finding Missandei, but she’s missing.

Courtesy of HBO

  We pivot to King’s Landing, where we see that Missandei is bound in chains, now Cersei’s prisoner. Cersei then tells Euron that she’s pregnant… successfully able to pawn off another child with Jaime.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  At Dragonstone, Dany is made aware that Missandei has been captured and she’s ready to do anything to get her trusted friend back, including storming the city. Tyrion and Varys try to caution Dany about using extreme violence, particularly since Cersei has been moving innocent civilians into the Red Keep to deter Dany from attacking. Dany asserts that she will fulfill her destiny, no matter the cost. Tyrion seems to offer a middle path: negotiate with Cersei. Guarantee Cersei her life in exchange for stepping aside and releasing Missandei. They should at least make an effort to avoid bloodshed. Dany agrees, only so that the people will know that she did everything to prevent a slaughter and Cersei is to blame.

Later, Tyrion and Varys have an interesting conversation. If Dany is descending into madness, has the time come to take her out in order to protect the realm? Varys seems to think so, even though Tyrion has faith in Dany’s proclivity for justice. Yet, both recognize that there’s another option, perhaps a better one: Jon. “Jon is the one man alive who might actually be able to keep the North in the Seven Kingdoms.”

  Back at Winterfell, when Jaime hears about the impending attack on Cersei and King’s Landing from Sansa and Brienne, he tries to leave in the middle of the night. Brienne begs Jaime to stay by her side, reminding him that he’s a good man, a better person than Cersei. Jaime disabuses Brienne of that notion, telling her about how he pushed Bran out of a tower window, strangled his own cousin, and is prepared to commit any act of murder, all for Cersei. He rides away, leaving Brienne in tears.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

  Dany, Drogon, and a contingent of the Unsullied arrive at King’s Landing, where Cersei, Euron, the Mountain, and Missandei wait. Tyrion and Qyburn, as the Hands, meet to discuss terms. Both want the other’s surrender. When Qyburn refuses to take a message to Cersei, Tyrion speaks to her, himself. He speaks of how Cersei might not care for the people, but she cares for her children. For the sake of her life and that of her unborn child, Cersei should step down. Cersei turns to Missandei and tells her to speak her last words. Missandei looks upon her friend and Queen and speaks one word: DRACARYS. (AKA, Queen Dany, burn allllllllllll of this to the ground.) Cersei gives a signal to the Mountain, who cleaves off Missandei’s head with his sword.

Greyworm is visibly shaken and Dany is DONE. She turns around and walks away.

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO

Courtesy of HBO

  1. Apparently, with Missandei’s death, we’ve witnessed the birth of the Mad Queen. I’m actually quite disappointed in this choice… it’s predictable and doesn’t do justice to Dany’s character that we’ve watched developed over seven seasons. And the idea of Tyrion and Varys assassinating Dany and making Jon king is even more unpalatable. I reallllllllly hope the writers will take us in another direction.

2. Literally, Arya is the only person who can take Cersei out now. She’s the only one. Just like she did with the Night King.

3. You think Euron is curious about how Tyrion knows Cersei is pregnant…? He just found out, right?

  Game of Thrones, the final season, airs Sundays at 9:00pm ET|PT on HBO.

  REVIEW: ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8, Episode 4 “The Last of the Starks” Now that the battle against the Army of the Dead has been won, Dany's attention turns to taking the Iron Throne.

[dante2568]

It’s all well and good testing out various fitness gadgets, but sometimes you need to put all of that “training” to the test. I went for a splash at the Birmingham Triathlon and took the Elite Tri Box along to carry the gear.

Elite Tri Box Review – One Bag to Hold It All!

Sometimes the actual process of getting to an event can be as much of a challenge as doing the exercise itself. I’ve been finding that using the SeaSucker Talon has been a great way of transporting my bike without having to do more than take the front wheel off

Previously when going to a triathlon, I’ve just dumped things in various bags and kind of just winged it. This year I’ve upgraded to the Elite Tri Box – to try and make me a little more organised (don’t laugh!) – so this is a slight departure from my usual reviews – as there are not that many technical features to discuss – so this is more heavily my experiences of using the kit

Elite Tri Box – Specification / Manual

Hold the phone, why are you starting off with the specs and manual?? Well, Elite demos the Elite Tri Box’s four different configurations on their site, and manual, which initially seems great…

1: Standard Setup “Ideal for triathletes that do not take part in numerous events but still prefer to preserve the organisation of their gear.

2: Pro Setup Ideal for pro triathletes that need to prepare their transition zone as quickly as possible.

  3: Lite Setup Very useful when the transition area is cramped.

4: Lite Pro Setup Designed for advanced triathletes that cannot find enough room in the transition area.

OK, why do I highlight this initially? As I think Elite has considered the Elite Tri Box the triathlon equivalent of a Rubix Cube as the manual is next to useless – pretty, but useless.

There clearly is a terrific bag here – but I would argue only really one effective configuration – standard. The Ikea inspired flat pack design combined with the less than helpful manual managed to beat me – I’ve ended up with a spare section, and for the life of me, I can’t work out where it should be! It’s likely that the spare piece is related to using one of the non-standard setups, but a clue would have been nice! As a result, I remained using the standard configuration with the below dimensions

Size (In standard setup): 38 x 24 x 42 cm (not in use: 38 x 24 x 14 cm)

In some ways I wish that Elite had just made one configuration option, as it would have reduced the number of buckles and clips which there are holding some of the panels and lids together. Genuinely this is the biggest flaw of the Elite Tri Box – it has tried to be all things to all people, and has added unnecessary complexity to an otherwise very good tri bag

Elite Tri Box – Using the Bag

OK, packing is probably my MOST hated chore. I find it a real stressor. It’s daft; I know that I have everything, but I just keep wanting to make sure… and then I do forget something anyway. Hence hoping that using a triathlon bag would help

One small area that I do like in this regard is the inclusion of the T1 and T2 bags with the Elite Tri Box, as I sort of plan around those, folding bits up as I go

The Elite Tri Box also includes a tiny towel, in order to stand on when you are transitioning into the bike – no one likes gravel in their shoes do they!

The towel is positioned with velcro during your construction of the bag – as the towel, transition bag 1 and 2 all attach together

Then you fold the whole shoe collection up with the ends of bags forming grab handles of a secondary bag configuration. This then, in turn, is slid into the centre of the assembled, and waiting, Elite Tri Box

The Elite Tri Box easily swallowed the entirety of my kit for the day – I know, a real shock!

Ending up in its boxy configuration afterwards (The eagled eyed will see my Casco helmet was subsequently swapped out for my yellow Scott after realising the Casco pads were shot)

While only a small thing, I like the little name tag on the front of the bag meaning that you are less likely to lose your bag if you are racing in a team configuration, or with several friends also toting Elite Tri Boxes

The chest straps are a little thin, but not uncomfortable. Plus remember this is not a pack designed for humping loads for miles, merely to get you into your event. I found the Elite Tri box more comfortable to have it resting a little lower than I would normally wear a pack.

In addition, there is a waist strap which initially seems a bit redundant, but is actually very useful if you opt to ride your bike from parking to transition – parking was a good 10-15mins walk away from registration, so I was more than happy to buckle things down

You can be as clever as you want when heading to an event. Afterwards, by wetsuit went into the waterproof bag, shoes into bags. Then after pulling out all of the velcro attached dividers inside the main compartment everything else was unceremoniously shoved in. Sorted!

Realistically, something like the Elite Tri Box, for most people is only going to be used a handful of times during the year, so it is a nice touch that you can fold down the bag down flat. Or in my case nearly flat, as leaving things like a tool kit etc. inside

 Elite Tri Box – Conclusion

With all the moving parts the Elite Tri Box walks a line between complexity and irritation until you have decided exactly which setup is going to be best for you. If you are a triathlete who is expected to encounter different levels of real estate space with your transition zones, then that might just be the feature which swings you towards the Elite bag. For myself, I found that having a dedicated bag with more than enough pockets improved my packing, and when deployed greatly improved my ease of getting through the transition zone. Although I’d still like to know what this leftover piece is for!!!

The @Elite_cycling triathlon bag has been put through it's paces as my beast of burden during my last #triathlon - good bag, but like any other flat pack kit, I seem to have a left over panel! doh! #elite It's all well and good testing out various fitness gadgets, but sometimes you need to put all of that "training" to the test.

[wickedbananas]

How to Rock MozCon 2018 Like the Marketing Superhero You Are

Posted by FeliciaCrawford

MozCon is just around the corner, meaning it’s time to share one of our absolute favorite posts of the year: the semi-official MozCon Guide to Seattle!

For those of you following the yellow brick road of I-5 into the heart of the Emerald City to spend three days absorbing all the SEO insight you can hold, this should help you plan both how you spend your time at the conference and outside of it. For those watching on the sidelines, scroll along and you’ll find a treasure trove of fun Seattle ideas and resources for future cons or trips you might make to this fair city by the sea.

And if you’ve been waffling on whether or not to take the plunge (to attend the conference — I wouldn’t recommend plunging into the Puget Sound, it’s quite cold), there may still be time:

Register for MozCon!

We’re now over 99% sold out, so act fast if you’ve got your heart set on MozCon 2018!

Official MozCon activities:

We know you’re here for a conference, but that’s only part of your day. After you’ve stuffed every inch of space in your brain with cutting-edge SEO insights, you’re going to want to give yourself a break — and that’s exactly why we’ve put together an assortment of events, activities, suggestions, and Seattle insider pro tips for how to fill your time outside of MozCon.

The MozCon kickoff party!

With day one behind you, we’re guessing you’ll be some mix of energized, inspired, and ready to relax just a bit. Celebrate the first day of MozCon at our Monday night kickoff party with a night of networking, custom cocktails, and good music at beautiful Block 41 in Belltown.

Meet with fellow marketers and the Mozzers that keep your SEO software shiny while you unwind after your first full day of conferencing. It’s our privilege and delight to bring our community together on this special night.

Our famously fun MozCon Bash

There ain’t no party like a MozCon party! We invite all MozCon attendees and Mozzers to join us on Wednesday night at the Garage Billiards in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. From karaoke to photobooth, from billiards to shuffleboard, and peppered liberally with snacks and libations, the Wednesday Night MozCon Bash is designed to celebrate the completion of three days of jam-packed learning. This is the industry party of the year — you won’t want to miss it!

Birds of a Feather lunch tables

In between bites of the most delicious lunch you’ll find in the conference circuit, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with your fellow community members around the professional topics that matter most to you. Each day there will be seven-plus tables with different topics and facilitators; find one with a sign noting the topic and join the conversation to share advice, learn new tips and tricks, and discover new friends with similar interests.

Monday, July 9th

Google Analytics & Tag Management hosted by Ruth Burr Reedy at UpBuild

Content-Driven Link Building hosted by Paddy Moogan at Aira

Mobile App Growth hosted by Emily Grossman at Skyscanner

Content Marketing hosted by Casie Gillette at KoMarketing

Local SEO hosted by Mike Ramsey at Nifty Marketing

Podcasting hosted by Heidi Noonan-Mejicanos at Moz

Workflow Optimization hosted by Juan Parra at Accelo

Tuesday, July 10th

SEO A/B Testing hosted by Will Critchlow at Distilled

Community Speaker Connection hosted by Sha Menz at Moz

PPC + SEO Integration hosted by Jonathon Emery at Distilled

Meet Your Help Team hosted by Kristina Keyser at Moz

Agency Collaboration hosted by Yosef Silver at Fusion Inbound

Site Speed hosted by Jono Alderson at Yoast

Featured Snippets hosted by Rob Bucci at STAT Search Analytics

Voice Search hosted by Dr. Pete Meyers at Moz

Wednesday, July 11th

Content Marketing Q&A hosted by Kane Jamison at Content Harmony

Paid Search Marketing for High-Cost Keywords hosted by Trenton Greener at the Apex Training

SEO A/B Testing hosted by Will Critchlow at Distilled

Team Hiring, Retention, & Growth hosted by Heather Physioc at VML

Local Search hosted by Darren Shaw at Whitespark

Machine Learning & Advanced SEO by Britney Muller at Moz

Reporting Q&A hosted by Dana DiTomaso at Kick Point

The delight is in the details

MozCon is literally brimming with things to do and ways to support our attendees when they need it. Aside from our hosted events and three days’ worth of talks, we’ve got things to fill in the cracks and make sure your MozCon experience is everything you’ve ever wanted from a conference.

Photobooth with Roger: Admit it — you see that cute, googly-eyed robot face and you just want to hug it forever. At MozCon, you can do just that — and memorialize the moment with a picture at the photobooth! Roger’s a busy bot, but his photobooth schedule will be posted so you can plan your hugs accordingly.

Ping pong play sesh: Don your sweat bands and knee-high socks and keep your paddle arm limber! During breaks, we’ll have ping pong tables available to burn some excess energy and invite a little casual competition.

The world map of MozCon: Ever play pin the tail on the donkey? Well, this is sort of like that, but the donkey is a world map and (thankfully) there’s no blindfold. You’ll place a pin from wherever in the world you traveled from. It’s amazing to see how far some folks come for the conference!

Local snacks galore: Starbucks, Piroshky Piroshky, Ellenos Yogurt, and Top Pot Donuts will happily make themselves acquainted with your tastebuds! Carefully chosen from local Seattle businesses, our snacks will definitely please your local taste pallet and, if past feedback is to be believed, possibly tempt you to move here.

Stay charged: Pining for power? Panicking at that battery level of 15% at 10am? Find our charging sofas to fuel up your mobile device.

MozCon is for everyone

We want marketers of all stripes to feel comfortable and supported at our conference. Being “for everyone” means we’re working hard to make MozCon more accessible in many different ways. The Washington State Convention Center is fully ADA compliant, as are our other networking event venues. But it’s important for us to get even better, and we welcome your feedback and ideas.

Here are a few of the ways we’ve worked to make MozCon a welcoming event for everyone:

A ramp on the stage

Live closed captioning of the main event

Walkways for traffic flow

Menus featuring options or special meals (that actually taste good) for dietary restrictions

A nursing room

Gender-neutral bathroom options

Lots of signage

T-shirts that fit different body types

Visible staff to help make everyone’s experience the best possible

A proud partnership with 50/50 Pledge, furthering our commitment to better representation of women on stage

Strict enforcement of our Code of Conduct and TAGFEE

Bespoke city exploration — Get to know Seattle!

In years past, Tuesday nights were reserved for our MozCon Ignite event, where brave folks from myriad backgrounds would share stories in lighting-fast Ignite-style talks of five minutes each — the only rule being it can’t be about marketing!

While MozCon Ignite has always been a much-loved and highly anticipated event, we’ve also listened closely to your feedback about wanting more time to network on your own, plan client dinners, go on outings with your team, and in general just catch your breath — without missing a thing. That’s why this year, we’re folding Ignite into the official MozCon schedule so everyone can benefit from the tales shared and enjoy a fun five-minute break between SEO talks.

Wondering about what topics will be covered at Ignite this year?:

The Ninja Kit to NOT Get Sick While Traveling by Dana Weber at Seer Interactive

My Everest: How 10 Years of Chasing Tornadoes Came Down to One Moment by Tom Romero at Uncommon Goods

Baseball Made Me a Better Engineer by Tom Layson at Moz

Trailblazer: How Reading One Book Changed My Life for Good by Lina Soliman at OSUWMC

Drag Queen Warlocks, Skateboarding Sorcerers, & Other Folks by Jay Ricciardi at Tableau

Voice Dialogue Therapy: Listening to the Voices Inside Your Head by Kayla Walker at Distilled

We’re opening up Tuesday night as your chance to explore the Emerald City. We’ll have a travel team onsite at the conference on Tuesday to help you and your friends plan an exciting Seattle adventure. Perhaps you’ve met a fantastic group of like-minded folks at a Birds of a Feather lunch table and would love to talk featured snippets over fresh fish n’ chips at the Pike Place Market. Maybe you’ve always wanted to catch the view at the top of the Space Needle (recently renovated and reopened to provide even better views!). Or perhaps a quiet sunset picnic overlooking the water at Gasworks Park seems like the perfect way to relax after a long day of learning and networking. Regardless of whatever floats your boat, we encourage you to plan local meetups, invite your newfound and long-standing friends, and forge a few irreplaceable Seattle memories.

Wondering what there is to do, drink, eat, and see in Seattle?

Well, who better to ask than us Seattleites? Using tons of real suggestions from real Mozzers, we’ve put together a Google Map you can use to guide your exploration outside the confines of the event venue — check it out below!

Seattle’s got more to offer than we can name — get out there and discover the renowned Emerald City quirks and quaintness we’re famous for!

Travel options:

Seattle’s got a pretty solid transit system that can get you where you need to go, whether you’re traveling by bus or train. The city also has its share of rideshare services, as well as taxis, bikes, ferries, and water taxis, depending on where you're headed.

Public transportation

King County Metro Trip Planner: Traverse the city by bus! You can also download an app to get real-time bus info (I like the One Bus Away app, developed here in Seattle by University of Washington grads)

Light Rail: Connecting the north end to the south, the Light Rail can move you across Seattle quickly (and even drop you off right at SeaTac for your flight home!)

Water taxis and ferries can float you right across the Sound (and offer a lovely view while they’re at it)

A Transit Go ticket or ORCA card will happily power your public transit excursions

Bikeshare programs: As you wander the city, you may notice brightly colored bicycles patiently awaiting riders on the sidewalks. That rider could be you! If you’re feeling athletic, take advantage of the city’s bikeshare programs and see Seattle on two wheels.

Rideshares and taxis

Uber & Lyft can get you where you need to go

Moovn is a Seattle startup rideshare company

Two taxi services, Seattle Yellow Cab and Orange Cab, allow for online booking via their apps (or you can call ‘em the old-fashioned way!)

Are you ready to rock MozCon?!

If you’re already MozCon-bound come this July, make sure to download the app (must be on mobile) and join our Facebook group to maximize your networking opportunities, get to know fellow attendees, and stay up-to-date on conference news and activities.

If you’re thinking about grabbing a ticket last-minute, we still have a few left:

Grab a ticket while you can

And whether you’re going to be large, in charge, and live at the conference or just following along at home and eagerly waiting the video release, follow along with the #MozCon hashtag on Twitter to indulge in the juicy tidbits and takeaways attendees will undoubtedly share.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

from The Moz Blog https://ift.tt/2yOfKka via IFTTT

[fandomsandfeminism]

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe was an Elizabethan playwright, friend of William Shakespeare, and a gay atheist spy. Let's talk about that. 

(video does have closed captions) 

Full text transcript below the cut

Hello everyone! Let’s talk about Christopher Marlowe being super gay.

For those of you who don’t know: Christopher “Kit” Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and playwright, and contemporary, rival, possibly collaborator and friend of William Shakespeare. He was born the same year as Shakespeare, in fact, but only lived to be 29, when he was stabbed to death.

He was a huge influence on Shakespeare, inspiring him to use Blank Verse in his plays. and Some people have even suspected Marlowe of writing, or at least co-writing, some of Shakespeare’s early plays. Marlowe and Shakespeare were close enough that many scholars think  Mercutio, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is based off Marlowe as a sort of tribute to the man after he died. If you like Shakespeare’s work, I highly recommend Marlowe. His most well known works are Doctor Faustus, which my personal favorite, Edward the Second, and The Jew of Malta.

He was also a spy for the crown, probably, and was accused of being an atheist and super gay.

Caveat:  a few months ago, I made a video about Shakespeare being pretty damn bisexual. I said this then, but it bears repeating now: discussing the sexual orientation of historical figures can be tricky. Modern terms and understandings of sexuality and sexual orientation are modern. The way we view and contextualize sexuality is very dependant on our place in history. If you were to ask Marlowe if he was gay, he wouldn’t have really known what you meant by that.

Also, People in our culture tend to view Heterosexuality as the default, that in the absence of evidence, people are assumed straight. We are going to try to work against this. What evidence is there for Marlowe’s sexuality at all, straight or otherwise, and why might that lead us to believe that he is, well, decidedly not straight.

So, let’s talk about Kit Marlowe and how he was, maybe, probably, a gay atheist spy as well as one of England’s greatest playwrights.

Born in Canterbury in 1564, he went to Corpus Christi University in Cambridge as a young man. During this time he has several long absences from school, and spent way more money on food than his scholarship funds would have allowed. He almost didn’t graduate because of all his absences in fact, but was given his degree after the Privy Council sent the University a letter saying that he had been engaged in unspecified "affaires" on "matters touching the benefit of his country". This letter, combined with his unexplained source of income, has led many to think he was...well, a crown spy. Which is pretty great.

After college, Marlowe seems to have dedicated himself fulltime to his writing. In 1593 though, Marlowe was accused of heresy and atheism. He was never put on trial as he was stabbed to death 10 days later. Why he was stabbed is a point of debate.  It might have just been a fight over a bar tab, but other far more sensationalist explanations have been suggested over the years, including that he was murdered to cover up some spy secrets or to keep him from naming others in the government as atheists.

Marlowe never married. He never had children. As far as we can tell, he never had any serious relationships with any women. Part of that might just be that he was a very busy man, writing all those plays and being an...atheist spy for the government.

However, we have...some pretty good reasons to think Marlowe was gay and it's a pretty well accepted theory in some scholarly circles. We’re going to look at two broad sources: Marlowe’s writings and things his contemporaries, especially Richard Baines, said about him.

Now. It’s important to not ascribe too much biographical reading to fictional works. Straight men CAN write about gay themes of course, though...I would argue that it really isn’t that common. And Marlowe wrote about gay themes….like...a lot. Far more explicitly than Shakespeare ever did.

In Hero and Leander, Marlowe writes of the male youth Leander, "in his looks were all that men desire" and that when Leander is swimming, the sea god Neptune becomes really...turned on, and interested in him "imagining that Ganymede, displeas'd, had left the Heavens ... the lusty god embrac'd him, call'd him love ... He watched his arms and, as they opened wide at every stroke, betwixt them would he slide and steal a kiss, ... And dive into the water, and there pry upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb, ... and talk of love",

Edward the Second, a play that explores the homosexual relationship between Edward and Piers Gaveston, and Edward’s reign as king, and eventual fall as a monarch, is a very sympathetic view of the historical figure and contains the following passage supporting homosexual relationships:

The mightiest kings have had their minions; Great Alexander loved Hephaestion, The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept; And for Patroclus, stern Achilles drooped. And not kings only, but the wisest men: The Roman Tully loved Octavius, Grave Socrates, wild Alcibiades.

Marlowe’s play “Dido, Queen of Carthage” begins with a scene of the God Jupiter fawning over Ganymede. There’s...a lot of good quotes from this scene, since it’s basically just a lot of flirting before Venus shows up and  There’s lots of “Come gentle Ganimed and play with me, I love thee well, say Juno what she will.” and “thou wilt be my love.”

So, Marlowe was definitely not shy about showing and talking about gay love in his plays. Which again, isn’t 100% proof he himself was gay, but...I would argue strongly hints towards the possibility.

Now, Our second set of evidence about Marlowe comes from the accusations against him in 1593. grains of salt since this came out when Marlowe was accused of heresy, and so there are shades of possible libel and exaggeration going on. But, like, it was not common to accuse your enemies of being gay at the time, so this kind of stands out.

Now, The quote you’ll see most often is that   Richard Baines reported Marlowe as saying: "All they that love not Tobacco and Boys are fools" Which...is a great quote. We have no idea if Marlowe ever really said this, but I kinda like to imagine him and Shakespeare laying around in some flat in London, smoking tobacco pipes and talking about cute boys. Maybe co-writing the Henry VI plays? Flirting and arguing about how to word Richard’s soliloquies? Yeah I’d pay good money for that movie. Hollywood, are we taking notes? Excellent

Baines also claimed that Marlowe told him that St John ‘was bedfellow to Christ’ which….again, I don’t know if Marlowe ever really said Jesus was...having lots of sex with St. John….but it makes me laugh to imagine it.

Much like Shakespeare, and like a lot of possibly LGBT+ figures in history, we’ll probably never know for sure. But Marlowe has become a gay icon of the theater of sorts, accepted as such by scholars and historians and actors alike for the most part. So I’ll leave you with this, a lovely quote about Kit Marlowe from the great Ian McKellen himself:

“When Marlowe met his own violent death, his glittering reputation was overtaken by law-abiding Shakespeare.  Had Will liked Kit Marlowe so much, that he recreated him as the roistering, iconoclastic Mercutio, who so resents Romeo's love affairs with women?” I don’t know Ian, but it’s a pretty good story.

[aimeeroomel6]

6 Influential Films

Exit Through The Gift Shop

‘An overlapping documentary where the line between what is real and what might be fake blurs, as modern art and celebrity are put under the microscope.’ I can see why the editors kept having breakdowns trying to put this...beast together. If we ignore the dubious authenticity of the whole thing, and the complete intolerableness of Mr. Brainwash, it could almost be possible to enjoy if viewed ironically. I’m not sure that’s the point though. Banksy, in all his Banksy-ness, is at heart asking us a very important question, and sometimes it can be an uncomfortable process to come with with an answer. That question being, where does art stop, and absurdity begin? Can we truly call Thierry Guetta an artist, or is he just a hoax concocted to undermine all those pretentious critiques who deem anything committed by an anonymous bloke with a can of stray paint and a dream ‘art’. At the end if it all I mainly felt tired, but also a bit sorry for Banksy. With friends like these, who needs enemies? And when it comes to film, all I really learnt is that I never, ever want to make a documentary about artists. Ever.

Nebraska

‘Woodrow Grant, an alcoholic, embarks on a road trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, with his estranged son, David, to claim a $1 million prize.’  A prime example of what happens when people who should go to therapy don’t go to therapy. Personally, I found the whole thing to be quite uncomfortable, mainly due to my prejudice towards Midwesterners and my total abhorrence towards junk mail. I did learn a lot about writing unlikable characters though, and appreciated the lesson immensely. One can only hope that eventually there will be no need to write bad fathers in film, because people won’t need the lesson in being a decent parent projected to them on a silver screen. Until then, I will continue to take the lesson that Bob Nelson and Alexander Payne seemed to want us all to learn from this film. Characters that are completely irredeemable can, in fact, be redeemed, if only given a bit of TLC and the opportunity to grow.

The Silent Child

‘A deaf 6-year-old girl named Libby lives in a world of silence until a caring social worker teaches her to use sign language to communicate.’ Fund the NHS. Please for the love of all disabled children everywhere, fund the NHS, and social workers, and every lovely person who cares for kids who’s parents are terrible, terrible people. I was left considering every choice I have made, both in film and in life, and how I could possible be more courteous to those living with an impairment. It was an uncomfortable watch, and certainly the most impactful. I am left with few words to describe my state of mind, and as I try and fully formulate a response, I have one things clear in my head. Learn BSL. Also, add closed captions to all my work, pronto.

Free Solo

‘Professional rock climber Alex Honnold attempts to conquer the first free solo climb of famed El Capitan's 900-metre vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park.’ Added to list of films that didn’t make me care about the safety of the male lead when climbing a big scary mountain because of the way he treats his girlfriend. It’s not a long list, but it exists. There's a lot to be said about committing to an idea, and I have to give credit where credit is due, the people who made this film committed. I detest Honnold with everything in me, but I commend the poor souls who had to follow him round to make the doc. They have stronger stomachs than I do. I applaud the people who took all that kit up a giant dangerous rock and filmed it without falling down. Lesson learnt - always fill out the health and safety risk assessment before rolling.

Fruitvale Station

‘Based on the events leading to the death of Oscar Grant, a young man who was killed in 2009 by police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale district station.’ Coogler’s directorial debut is devastating. As an ode to victims of police brutality it inspires outrage and heartache. The use of actual footage from moments before the murder are difficult to watch, and totally necessary.  As filmmakers, as allies, as people, we much tell these stories, and we must take action. 'Fruitvale Station’ serves as a haunting reminder to those of us who haven't suffered at the hands of prejudice that villains don’t just live in fictional tales.

Spotlight

‘The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.’ Who needs horror films when the world is already so terrible. Without the need for superfluous subplots, ‘Spotlight’ hits you to the core, tearing apart every bit of your soul that tells you it’s not all that bad out there in the real world. Although in the end the truth reveals itself, you are still left with the bitterest of tastes in your mouth, asking yourself where things went wrong. Of all the things I took away from this film, the most prominent might be that some of the most astounding stories a filmmaker can tell come from the truth, from events that happen all around us.

[keelymewett]

Zombie Movie: Cargo (2018)

Oh my gosh I finally realised why this movie is called Cargo and I finished it twenty minutes ago.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that I’m posting this from the land of the Dharawal (Tharawal) people, and acknowledge Elders past, present and emerging. I would also like to note that this post may contain names and/or images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I’m still crying after watching this so the first thing I will say is: please watch it. 

~~Rationing~~ (Picture: Andy’s wife Kay (Susie Porter) sitting in their house boat. Caption reads “So that means we’re down to quarter rations.”)

Cargo is a relatively chill zombie movie compared to movies like Train to Busan and I Am Legend, but because of this it’s able to take part so many other conversations - Aboriginal Land Rights and traditions, fracking, and for other zombie fans out there, new kinds of zombies!!

It is atmospheric, has tension in the right places, has an incredibly fresh plot, and is highly intelligent. Although, I do have to say, the lead of the Australian zombie movie is very British and that did make me laugh. 

This is an Australian zombie movie, and as an Australian I’m very proud to say that. While most of the movie follows our lead, Andy (Martin Freeman), traversing rural Australia (this is set in South Australia btw, found a license plate), there is a huge focus on Aboriginal communities and traditions, and their connection with country and the land. 

The sweetest frame in the whole film. (Picture: Andy holding his baby daughter Rosie, and gently brushing her hair aside while Thoomi (a young girl) applies a type of white paint to the baby’s face.)

So, this will be split into roughly three parts: zombies (because like I said, new zombies!! Very excited to talk about them!) before moving into the spoiler section with the plot and me roasting random things before ending up crying at the end, thinking I’d recovered from crying, then crying even more with the final shot. (I promise I’m okay this is a really good movie.)

Zombies!! Also small spoiler but the movie description kinda already spoils all of this so not really a spoiler??

Friends and enemies, want a fresh new take on zombies and the apocalypse? Cargo delivered. 

Ahhh new zombies!!! (Picture: Kay zombie-fied. She has amber sap covering her eyes and her mouth. Her mouth looks a little like tree bark covered in sap. She’s in a car with her seatbelt on, and Andy has turned towards her. Andy has blood dripping down the side of his face and on his fingertips. In the background you can see the blue coat hanger of Rosie’s baby toy.)

We have a 48 hour incubation period for zombies, we have new symptoms for people before they become zombies, we have a new look including sap (I believe it’s sap) as well as burying your head in the sand - literally. Nothing’s explained, but I love speculating and trying to guess for myself. Oh, they also hibernate? But the rules surrounding that are a little hazy cause they’re still out and about during the day, and also Australia doesn’t really have mammals that hibernate mostly just insects so I’m not quite sure on the inspiration for that. But yeah, the sap and the head in the sand thing is like zombie video-game levels of creepy and cool. 

Oh, also, unlike I Am Legend, we don’t have CGI zombies - we have special FX zombies!! Which is fantastic for anyone who wants to try and recreate the look and also makes it like 1000x more realistic. 

I also love the implication that the Australian government will give us free kits to help when you get infected, cause like... they would. We have free Medicare and COVID testing - I could literally pop over to the local dental place and get a free COVID test. This is funny in comparison to traditional American (referring to USA) movies where they’re like zombie apocalypse three years later? Ha here’s a gun fend for yourself mate. There’s also no army presence in this movie either. As in, the only army we see are some zombies from the local army base. None of that “the army’s coming to save you trope” (if you would like to know how this movie has a happy ending without army intervention, it will be near the end of the spoiler section).

Also, these kits are so interesting. There’s a poster with the symptom list, a mouth guard, an epipen looking thing that’s uh... if you watch it you’ll see. AND!! My favourite part: the countdown fitbit. 

Zombie countdown fitbit! (Picture: A white watch-bracelet with a 48-hour countdown timer on it. It’s on a woman’s wrist. There’s blood on her sleeve, her hand, and a towel underneath her hand. You can see her simple wedding ring on her finger.)

In terms of the name for the zombies, I don’t recall anyone calling them “zombies,” and Thoomi (Simone Landers) calls them “ghosts.” Now, if you’ve read my hill to die on post, I basically have a thing about people making up arbitrary names for zombies because like it literally doesn’t make sense and they don’t do it with other supernatural things like vampires, but, Cargo gets an exception because it makes sense. 

Okay, so, if you’ve learnt a little about Australian history, you’d know that Aboriginal people referred to the white colonisers as “ghosts” (for obvious reasons), ergo, it makes total sense for these zombies to also be called ghosts. They’re literally people without souls haunting the land. Therefore, the name “ghosts” isn’t arbitrary - it’s culturally significant and it makes sense. 

Now, spoiler time for the plot!

The plot involves Andy traversing and meeting several people in order to try and find someone to look after his daughter. I won’t actually say too much more, I’m just going to do some pictures with some key takes to try and incentivise you to watch it. 

The movie is rated MA15+, but I think that’s mostly just for the gore. There is a little violence towards the end but it’s mostly silhouetted so you don’t see anything. 

The literal embodiment of “wanna go, mate?” (Picture: A dad wearing a flannel shirt and jeans is discreetly holding a gun he’s just pulled from the front of his jeans, showing it to the camera. Behind him is his wife and kids, who are having a birthday party. There are pink, yellow and green balloons.)

That’s so smart what the heck. (Picture: Thoomi is using tree sap to stick leaves to the soles of her shoes. Presumably it’s to be both quiet from the zombies, and to stop her leaving footprints that can be tracked.)

Hahahaha nope nope nope nope. (First picture: Below deck on a small yacht. There’s wooden panels that presumably make up a wall, with a fire extinguisher next to it. Andy is off to the side in the foreground, looking down at what he’s doing. Second picture: There’s a small gap as the wooden panels open up. It is not in fact a wall, but a door. Andy suddenly looks up at the sound.)

But are you sure sure, tho? (Picture: Andy talking to Kay after being on the yacht in the aforementioned pictures. Kay asks, “You sure it was safe?” and Andy assures her, “Safe.” Sir, did you not see the wooden panels open?)

That is not baby safe! It’s a coat hanger with fishing lines! It’s the exact opposite of a baby safe toy! (Picture: There’s a crashed car in the background. Andy is standing to the side, only his hand and the top part of his leg are in frame. His hand is covered in blood. The camera is focused on baby Rosie, who’s wearing a bucket hat and is sitting in her little baby-carrying backpack that Andy wears to carry her around. Rosie is sucking on a baby toy made of a bent, blue coat hanger, decorated with fishing lines and plastic fish baits.)

Sad noises :’(  Also, why is Mommy spelt like that this is an Aussie film, it should be “Mummy.” (Picture: Andy holding Rosie in her baby-carrying backpack. The caption says, “I can smell Mommy too.” Mummy is spelt the American way for some reason.)

Racist prick (the guy in the middle). (Picture: Andy and Vic (Anthony Hayes), a random stranger he just found, are standing in front of a cage. From left to right, Vic’s car is in the background. Andy is standing next to a radio playing a song - the caption reads the song lyrics as “A crazy thing.” Vic is dancing along next to him. A white bucket full of blood is next to Vic. Inside the cage is the Clever Man (David Gulpilil). Vic has trapped him to use as zombie bait.)

It’s like a carrot on a stick for a minecraft pig!! 10/10 smarts. (Picture: Thoomi and Rosie ride on a zombie-fied Andy’s back. Thoomi holds out a stick with some meat on the end to steer Andy. Andy’s hands are bound and he has a mouthguard in.)

I take back everything I said about this baby toy. (Picture: Rosie’s baby toy tied onto a branch. A beautiful blue sky is in the background.)

Final things to say, I really liked Etta and Lorraine. Lorraine really got screwed over. 

There are mentions to fracking poisoning the land, and I know I’m going to go to my own research on it. I won’t talk about it here because I’m just looking at the movie and I’m also not qualified to discuss the issue. 

Also the ending is brilliant. The local Aboriginal peoples having their land and traditions and community and I know I’m not doing it any justice, but Cargo is a very considered Australian zombie movie, with Aboriginal peoples being very included. I apologise for not being able to phrase that better - just go watch it. 

Lastly, I was doing some quick research to find out if any Aboriginal people directed Cargo or worked on the screenplay - I haven’t found anything yet, but I did find that this was adapted from the directors’ short film by the same name, so I’m off to watch that now. 

Have a great night/day/morning/afternoon, and seriously go watch Cargo! (In Australia it’s on Netflix if that helps!)

[edivupage]

#captionsON™ Reading Campaign Inspires Kids to Turn Screen Time into Reading Time

Just 30 minutes of screen time with captions ON is like reading 30 pages of a 5th grade book, motivating struggling readers to ‘Be. CAPTION.COOL’

during TV, online shows, and games.

TROY, Ohio (Sept. 2, 2020) — Recognizing that 65% of American children are not proficient in reading—yet spend hours daily “glued” to screens—the new #captionsON Reading Campaign educates parents and teachers that screen time can be a form of reading time. All TV’s and channels, as well as online videos and most games, have built-in Closed Captioning functionality (CC), and it is easy, free, and cool to click captions ON. The #captionsON campaign is geared toward kids ages 8-12 but can benefit anyone with literacy challenges.

Many educators and parents have a visceral reaction against students spending time looking at screens, but screen time can and should be productive,” said Leib Lurie, Caption.Cool  Founder and co-founder of Kids Read Now. “With captions on, 30 minutes of screen time has a similar benefit, in building reading skills as 30 pages of a book. Our core mission is to improve literacy. A key success factor will come from turning captions on as automatic as buckling your seatbelt when you get in the car.”

Most tweens and teens spend 5 – 7 hours a day consuming screen time, which is increasing as a result of school closures and other learning disruptions related to COVID-19. As so many students struggle with reading, teachers and parents need better ways to boost reading scores. Evidence-based research shows the use of closed captioning can improve reading skills.

Chris Piper, the superintendent of Troy City (Ohio) Schools, commented: “At Troy City Schools, we have worked to deepen our literacy instruction and seek innovative ways to encourage our students to read. We endorse #captionsON because we believe it will motivate more children, particularly disadvantaged youth and English language learners, to turn their screen time into reading time.”

The #captionsON campaign is part of the Caption.Cool broader mandate to fuse literacy, technology, and empathy.  The Caption.Cool Reading Family, a diverse set of characters led by Capty, the Caption Cool unicorn will champion literacy to kids through relatable life stories of the characters and grow with the influence of Caption.Cool Literacy Champions. The C.C Champions are passionate literacy advocates from all walks of life who openly share their motivation behind promoting #captionsON and being ‘Caption.Cool’ to incentivize kids to improve their reading skills by sharing their love of reading.

CC Literacy Champion Laura Bemus, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, said, “I’m Caption.Cool because reading is so important and exposure to text, like captions, builds fluency and comprehension for students. My lifelong love of reading was established as a child and through making choices of great reading material of high interest.”

The campaign’s launch initiatives include an engaging 60-second animated video and the #captionsOn Reading Family Engagement Kit containing information for parents, and a full sheet of vibrant stickers for kids to pre-order at Caption.Cool. A social media Face-Swap E-card campaign geared towards younger kids and parents to share their faces in Caption.Cool characters complement the launch initiatives.

The CAPTION.COOL journey began in 1992

In 1992, serial entrepreneur Leib Lurie started his first Closed Captioning reading initiative and never wavered in his belief that closed captioning could improve reading skills. (click video here) Even in 1992 he was concerned about kids and “screen time” (then TV time), although the term “screen time” had not yet been coined!

In 2012, Leib and his wife, Barbara Lurie, a teacher and reading specialist who saw the effects of children who weren’t reading at grade level, co-founded Kids Read Now, a K-3 in-home summer reading program. Kids Read Now, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, gifted 400,000 books this year to 60,000 students in 18 states.

Leib’s long-time passion project to “turn screen time into reading time” came to creative life when he and Barb reached out to long-time marketing partner Gloria Maxx who created the Caption.Cool concept, brand, and diverse cast of empathy-based characters inspired by her experiences as a bullied immigrant child whose best friends were books.

“Charlotte’s Web is the first book I read as a kid.  I loved the characters as their actions gave me strength to find my voice through life’s adversities,” says Gloria Maxx, Caption.Cool Co-Founder and COO. “We want to emulate that experience to kids who struggle with reading by offering them stories they can resonate with which champion reading with captions on.”

With #captionsON, kids read along with closed captions during screen time, which allows children with low literacy rates who consume several hours of screen time daily to improve their reading skills, which ultimately improves their lives and future potential. Caption.Cool is an innovative, independent campaign for literacy with a single focus on making the use of captions (subtitles) an “automatic reflex” during all screen time, as it is now second nature to “buckle up” seat belts when driving. The diverse Caption.Cool team members hail from six countries, including the United States and Canada. Learn more at Caption.Cool and click #captionsON!

  CAPTION.COOL contact: Leib Lurie Founder, CEO (937) 339-8115 leib@caption.cool

Press contact: Cici Allen PR with Panache! (612) 401-4488 cici@prwithpanache.com

The post #captionsON™ Reading Campaign Inspires Kids to Turn Screen Time into Reading Time appeared first on The Edvocate.

#captionsON™ Reading Campaign Inspires Kids to Turn Screen Time into Reading Time published first on https://sapsnkra.tumblr.com

[whittlebaggett8]

Kylie Jenner denies putting her Jordyn Woods-inspired lip kit on sale, and seems to confirm they’ve been in contact since the cheating scandal, Defence Online

caption

Jordyn Woods and Kylie Jenner have been finest friends for several a long time.

resource

Emma McIntyre/Getty Photos

In an interview with the New York Instances, released Saturday, Kylie Jenner denied applying her enterprise to ship a message about her relationship with Jordyn Woods.

Following information broke that Khloe Kardashian’s boyfriend Tristan Thompson experienced been spotted finding cozy with Woods, followers found the Kylie Cosmetics lip package named “Jordy” had been put on sale.

“That is just not my character. I would by no means do a little something like that and when I saw it, I was like, thrown back again,” Jenner explained. “Jordyn is familiar with I didn’t really put it on sale.”

In accordance to Jenner, the lip kit had previously been on sale for a couple weeks thanks to a alter in packaging.

Kylie Jenner recently dealt with the cheating scandal encompassing Tristan Thompson and her very best pal, Jordyn Woods, for the to start with time.

In an job interview with the New York Moments, released Saturday, Jenner denied making use of her company vindictively to send a message about her marriage with Woods, as enthusiasts earlier assumed she had.

“That is just not my character. I would hardly ever do some thing like that and when I noticed it, I was like, thrown back,” she explained to the Situations.

Soon after information broke that Khloe Kardashian’s boyfriend had been noticed having cozy with Woods in February, followers noticed the Kylie Cosmetics lip kit named “Jordy” had been place on sale.

Read additional: A total timeline of Tristan Thompson reportedly cheating on Khloe Kardashian with Kylie Jenner’s most effective pal, Jordyn Woods

But in accordance to Jenner, the lip package experienced previously been on sale for a couple months because of to a change in packaging.

“Jordyn understands I didn’t essentially set it on sale,” the 21-12 months-aged mogul discovered.

Notably, this quotation also seems to affirm that Jenner and Woods have been in call since the scandal, irrespective of quite a few studies that the former roommates are not on speaking terms.

Woods previously appeared on Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Red Table Talk” to talk about the experiences and verified that she and Thompson had kissed. She also stated she experienced apologized to equally Jenner and Kardashian a number of occasions, but feels the media unfairly focused on her because she’s “a youthful black girl who created a oversight.”

Go through additional: Jordyn Woods suggests that Tristan Thompson is the one who initiated their kiss: ‘I didn’t know how to feel’

Woods went on to say the Kardashians ended up knowledgeable that she had gone to Thompson’s home, but that she was “trying to forget” the component of the story when she kissed Thompson.

“I was truthful about getting there, but I was not genuine about the steps that experienced taken position,” Woods stated.

She extra: “I just realized how substantially turmoil was heading on that I was like, ‘Let me not toss much more gasoline to the fire.’”

Judging by the teaser trailers, admirers will see Kardashian react to the scandal through the new period of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which premiered on E! on Sunday.

Year 16. Airing this Sunday pic.twitter.com/WUlkteiXXS

— Khloé (@khloekardashian) March 27, 2019

Examine the full New York Instances profile here, which capabilities interviews with Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian West, Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Khloe, and Kylie.

The post Kylie Jenner denies putting her Jordyn Woods-inspired lip kit on sale, and seems to confirm they’ve been in contact since the cheating scandal, Defence Online appeared first on Defence Online.

from WordPress https://defenceonline.com/2019/04/01/kylie-jenner-denies-putting-her-jordyn-woods-inspired-lip-kit-on-sale-and-seems-to-confirm-theyve-been-in-contact-since-the-cheating-scandal-defence-online/

[mitsunari]

Skybound We Roam: Ch. 5

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.

This chapter is from Yuuri’s POV after he’s done his tours for today. Otabek and Phichit are in a different building. Yuuri wants to show Otabek a meteorite crater! 

Koyanshyk, i’m told, is Kazakh for “son of a bitch”.  Пиздец (pizdetz or w/e romanization) is a Russian exclamation for when shit goes wrong.

Oirandau is a darker spirit in my story. It and Otabek last met a couple years ago because its behavior prompted an earthquake that would’ve hit Almaty, but Otabek used his flute to deal with it. Yuuri was in Almaty during this and saw Otabek riding through town. I edited this flashback out of this chapter because I didn’t know how to write it in well, so i might reference that later.

I wanna say that all my stuff may as well be rough draft work. I write and sometimes I take out stuff or add stuff, then consequently forget things or mention stuff vaguely. I don’t have an editor and my attention span is like... dead for editing. I’ve been struggling on this on and off, trying to figure out what direction I want to take this. I’m worried that I’m adding too many layers onto the story. :’( I want to make sure it’s interesting but I tend to overcomplicate. However, when I finish this series, I’ll go through and edit the whole bit or ask someone to beta it for me before I put it up on A03.

When his second tour of the day finished, Yuuri lingered in the observatory’s viewing dome to answer questions. Tourism was a large part of funds and he never begrudged learning minds, but there was always a part of him feeling like he struggled at keeping a crowd’s interest. His anxiety had come a long way from his First Tour Ever. If anything, skating when he was younger and still in his hometown of Hasetsu, Japan, garnered him some confidence. Not… much… Yuuri wasn’t a professional ice skater, just a hobbyist, but seeing other people whose heart burned for the sport really inspired Yuuri to go back to college.

At the time, he’d floundered between “you’re turning your back on skating because you failed” and “n-no, i’m not running away, I’ll get back into school to do what I love”. He liked to say he kicked depression’s ass, but he didn’t do it alone. Yuuri sent an an initial e-mail to Phichit, who already studied at Touhokudai in Miyagi. Their next Skype session, he may have drank a little (a lot) and opened his heart about passions and space and… well... Yuuri didn’t actually remember applying for anything. He just woke up to an email notification from Phichit’s favorite professor and, weeks later, Touhoku University’s acceptance of his application.

Phichit refused every one of Yuuri’s promises to pay him back. Instead, Yuuri snuck them in by driving all their field trips and cooking their dinners. Sometimes they’d eat out in Almaty, but driving an hour to and from never happened every day. Even though they’d both graduated by now, he still had those habits. Not that he minded! Yuuri made a mean katsudon, and Phichit taught him Thai foods that they always cooked together. Most of the Kazakh workers lived in Almaty, but as foreign nationals, he and Phichit stayed under the government’s provisions, booking in the observatory’s bunker. Yuuri called their living quarters that because they hadn’t updated anything except the observatory’s command center since the Soviet Era. Even the tourist’s lodges were fresher than theirs! But Yuuri’d lived in Japan and knew all about spartan living space. They’d made their rooms their own as best they could.

Making the kitchen hospitable was the first rule. It even had a recipe book--all in Cyrillic, of course--so Yuuri practiced his translation abilities with Kazakh and Russian foods that seemed feasible. There were many bastardized quasi Russo-Japanese meals in the beginning. Russian food eventually grew on Yuuri. In fact, his lunchbox for today contained butterbrod instead of solely a Thai or Japanese bento.

When the tourists finished milling out the door, Katsuki Yuuri let out a soft sigh on his way in the opposite direction, off to the employee break room to fetch his lunchbox. For once, his coat hung from his labeled coat hook instead of across his office chair. Yuuri put it on, along with his winter wear, and grabbed his lunch to take it outside. He fished out his phone to text Phichit.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: Where are you? I’m about to head out to the meteorite so will you cover me?

Yuuri walked down the hall to the security office to sign out a mountain aid kit and fill out the location docket. It was safer to work in pairs. The officers opened up the kit to ascertain the walkie talkie worked, the first aid half was sterile, the mini-radio worked, etc, etc. While he marked his coordinates so they’d know where to look for him in an avalanche, his phone beeped a reply from Phichit.

From: Phi-chan!

Message: The lounge in B2!!

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Otabek’s here with me. ＼(・ω・)/

Yuuri’s pen nearly punched a hole through the paper when he read the message preview on the screen. He filled out the rest of what he needed to sign out of a government building temporarily, then quickly typed out a reply to Phichit. In his haste, his phone’s keyboard typed out a mass of kanji that he deleted and repeated in English.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: WHAT?

He sent that just as Phichit added,  “He’s been waiting for you so I kept him company, so he can cover you instead. I won the bet, remember? (•́⌄•́๑)૭✧”

Yuuri groaned. He did remember, but it was still awkward to ask anyone else to partner up with him in winter. He already worried enough about imposing on others, now he was hit with the double whammy of inconveniencing Otabek for waiting and asking him to babysit so Yuuri didn’t roll over a mountainside alone.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: Are you serious? Please tell me he is not bored to death!!!!

This time, it was a snapchat bing instead of a message. Yuuri opened it to a selfie of Phichit and Otabek. Phichit was winking and pointing a finger to his smile, but also to Otabek sitting next to him and a completed painting sitting on the table. Yuuri recognized the lounge for its table and intense amounts of sunlight coming in through those windows.

He sent a SnapChat back--a selfie of himself with his chin tucked into his scarf and a caption that said “i’m walking there soon”. He took his lunch and the mountain kit in both hands after stuffing his phone away. He wobbled out the door into the cold, crossing from Building 1 to Building 2, and fighting with the frozen doorknob.

“BRR!” Yuuri shuddered loudly and trod hastily down the angular halls, turning into the open lounge. His eyes widened at the sight of the table taken over by art supplies. A plastic cup filled with dirty water there, a palette and sketchpad here. “Otabek! Phichit!” He bowed his head quickly and approached. A nervous look flickered over Yuuri’s face at the sight of Otabek’s stoic one.

“Yuuri!” Phichit crooned. “Come look at this! Our man is Hokusai!” He pointed at the sketchbook. Otabek’s paintbrush rested diagonal across the corner.

“Whoa!” Walking around to Otabek’s other side, Yuuri marveled at the sketch drawn in pencil with its lines painted in. The picture was a lovely landscape of mountains and trees with the new star shining down. The stylized star was left unpainted. “Wow! This is amazing,” Yuuri whispered.

“Thank you,” Otabek said to the both of them. A small smile cracked upon his face. “Phichit said you were busy today.”

“Y-you didn’t come just to talk to me, right?” Yuuri stammered.

“Seeing my friends was an added benefit of scouting the mountain pass between here and the park,” Otabek said, and Yuuri’s shoulders visibly relaxed.

“Wow! And you’re not thirsty?”--Yuuri saw the teacups and hastily launched into--”Cold? Saddlesore? Are you comfortable?” he blurted out.

The corners of Otabek’s almond eyes crinkled when he gave a musical laugh. Yuuri blinked dumbly at him, feeling very much like he was witnessing God’s gift to mankind minus the angelic trumpets to go along with that sparkling smile.

“You and Phichit are of similar minds. Be at peace, Katsuki Yuuri; he has been a good host,” Otabek replied.

Yuuri looked at Phichit who gave a proud nod back, but it just made Yuuri even more apprehensive to ask Otabek to cover him. He kept squeezing his fists around the lunchbox and mountain kit, staying quiet.

“Yuuuuuriiiii?” Phichit singsang. Yuuri started, blinking up at the two men. Otabek cocked his head at him, and Phichit had a concerned look.  “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I… well, uh.” Fuck, why did his tongue keep knotting up? “I was just wondering, uh, well since Phichit won his bet, uh, Otabek, do you want to cover me on the mountain?” Yuuri made to gesture outside and nearly dropped his lunch. “There’s something cool I can show you--”

“Let’s do it,” Otabek interjected.

“--so it’s not a total waste... of your.. tim--really?!” Yuuri blurted out.

Otabek nodded and started putting the art supplies away. He said something to Phichit about “remember what you promised” before joining up with Yuuri, who didn’t ask what that was all about. He looked over Otabek, wondering if this really was an imposition, but with a sigh, Yuuri forced the anxious doubts aside. There wasn’t anyone he’d be safer with in the wilderness than Otabek.

Yuuri sighed again, this time in relief. He was glad Otabek agreed. Living in the mountains was a lot like living on the edge of the world. Between wild animals and natural disasters, it held as much danger as it did beauty. Yuuri, who’d seen the Kazakh shaman calm earthquakes with a quray’s hollow notes, felt the same could be said for Otabek.

The man’s affinity for nature was even more valuable than any government-made machine Yuuri worked with. After Phichit’s video of them in Aralkum went viral, there were a lot of questions over the internet. Who was he? Was it a hoax? Thankfully, in the age of plentiful CGI and Photoshop, Yuuri had been able to just let people speculate by saying “aliens lol”.

Yuuri trusted Otabek… and he wanted Otabek to trust him too. The last thing anybody needed was a government sticking their fingers where they didn’t belong. Otabek called him his friend. Yuuri hoped he could be worthy of that.

“Which exit? Otabek asked, bringing Yuuri back to the present.

Mouthing “oh, right”, Yuuri turned away to say bye to Phichit. He told Otabek to hop into the truck. Once it roared to life, Yuuri pulled out onto the snowy road that wound around the entirety of Big Almaty Lake. Seven months ago, a meteorite barreled through Earth’s atmosphere and struck the side of the mountain near the observatory. If he hadn’t been monitoring it, Yuuri would’ve mistaken it for an earthquake.

“Hey, do you remember when that little meteor hit us a couple months ago?” Yuuri asked. His voice was a little muffled behind his scarf, for the pudgy man was bundled up well.

Otabek took a moment to think. “I was told of it,” he said, frowning. “But I had business in Atyrau.”

Yuuri didn’t know the region names that well but nodded anyway. “It’s where I’m taking you.” Yuuri smiled and glanced over expecting a smile too but Otabek simply acknowledged his statement with a neutral nod. Tapping his fingers fretfully over the steering wheel, he reminded himself that Otabek’s frown was his default expression. Seeing frowns just made him instinctively worry. I’m dumb… Yuuri ground into himself, gripping the steering wheel hard. “Uh, were you traveling again?” he asked, referring to Atyrau or wherever.

“Mhm. Caspian Sea this time,” Otabek rumbled.

Yuuri let out a sharp gasp. He knew where that was. “Don’t tell me we missed its disappearance!?” he blurted out.

Otabek’s eyebrows disappeared into his fur-lined hat. “No, that was only Aral. The Kaspiy had a spiritual imbalance and needed my attention. You did not use the feather I gave you to write for my aid so…,” he trailed off with a shrug.

Oh right. Yuuri had kept it until the Plisetsky’s new star showed up. Truthfully, he’d been so excited geeking over the meteorite with his crew that he hadn’t thought about Otabek. Yuuri hadn’t considered the idea of Weird Fantasy Mojo at work. “Haven’t you gone to see it?” Yuuri asked incredulously, receiving a head shake “no” in reply. Wasn’t Otabek like, King of Pride Rock? Everything the light touches was his kingdom, that whole schtick? Didn’t he have to check everything out?

For a second, Yuuri thought Otabek could read his thoughts. The Kazakh laughed a single amused note and said, “It would take me a lifetime to ride through every pass in these mountains. I confess I have not been that way since the meteorite hit, but”--he paused with an enunciation of the world, holding up a finger--”I can tell you that I haven’t been warned about it either.” Otabek paused again and turned his head to actually stare at Yuuri for a few seconds. “Is this why you were preoccupied about a world-ending omen?”

Yuuri’s entire face went red. He sputtered out a nervous laugh. “Ehehe...heh…... I mean we have precedence of meteors wiping out the dinosaurs. Of course it would be my luck to witness an event that hasn’t happened in a bajillion years.” He started chuckling even harder. “And… pfft... aliens….” He gestured at Otabek.

“...Aliens?” said Otabek.

“Yeah, that was our joke cover story whenever someone tweeted Phichit about the Aral Sea video.”

His passenger snorted a laugh, giving Yuuri a gloved thumbs up. A few seconds of silence passed, and then he shook his head, smiling a little. “It works.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened. Okay. He could finally relax over the idea that the video wasn’t going to summon government troops down on Otabek. “It’s like an old meme now, I guess. ‘Oh, the aliens chose Kazakhstan. When did your fav ever?’ type of posts still go around sometimes,” Yuuri chuckled.

He suddenly pointed to the curve around the mountain. “This is where we’re going.” He turned onto a service road that looked no different than their environment with all this snow. Otabek looked around curiously at their surroundings.

Yuuri’s eyes brightened but didn’t look away from the road. “Hey!” he burst out. “It’s, uh, it’s good that you haven’t seen it then. I can show you something impressive for once,” he said.

“Oh really?” The corner of Otabek’s mouth quirked upward.

“No lights or flutes though. Or special feathers for that matter.” Yuuri took him up a kilometer further, rounding the mountain’s wide base until Big Almaty Lake couldn’t be seen anymore. The “service road” stopped at a natural vista. On this side of the range, the mountainsides were sharp, and their cliffs dropped into a bowl-shaped depression shared with all the surrounding mountains.

Yuuri turned off the truck and shoved the keys into his pockets. Together, he and Otabek crunched over the thick snow, wading in between leafless bushes. At the edge, he trod carefully and pointed Otabek’s gaze down. The meteorite had crashed into the wall several meters beneath their cliffside vista, leaving a crater pocket in the bowl.

“Climbing?” Otabek commented. “I see no other way down.”

“That was our problem too.” Yuuri said. The vista was only a ten meter gap from one wall of mountain to another. He knelt at the left wall, pushing snow off the cliffside until he’d cleared all the way to the bottom. Otabek watched as Yuuri pulled aside a shelf of frozen snow and let it fall.

“In springtime, this is all covered with plants,” he explained. “I had to get to that meteorite and there’s no way to get into this part of depression without climbing or flying in.” Helicopters were popular with hunters but not part of Yuuri’s budget. “Until… I discovered this.” Yuuri pushed his entire arm through snow and grinned, turning around at Otabek.

Otabek’s eyes widened and he approached the rock. “A cave?” he whispered almost reverently.

“A cave,” Yuuri repeated eagerly. Wringing his arm around, he knocked free all the fallen snow blocking up the narrow slit in the wall. He pulled off his backpack and shimmied sideways. Once he passed the gap, Yuuri clicked on his flashlight, shining it through the slot. “Look at that, huh?” The crack in the wall was the gateway to a cave system inside the mountain.

Otabek nodded quickly. He too removed his pack but it was wider than Yuuri’s own and harder to shove through. He turned it on its side and pushed it through to Yuuri’s side.

The dark cave was the size of an office cubicle, but they were both relatively short men. Yuuri knew there were three holes leading deeper in. One unnavigable one above his head, dripping water constantly from the ceiling. The second and third were ground level. The cave possessed one hole in the wall, heading into the mountain’s belly probably. The other was a hole in the sloped ground, forming a descending tunnel.

“Be careful,” Yuuri said softly, pointing his flashlight at the slick rock . “It’s like a slide.” He placed his bag on his knees and squatted in the hole, crawling into the pipe-like tunnel. Although dark like the initial cave at first, the lower he and Otabek came, the more light revealed itself at the bottom. The tunnel opened up and became a ledge in a wall of another cave. Yuuri walked to the very end, able to stand up and let his bag sit on the ledge. He looked around for a safe foothold before climbing to the second cave’s floor.

The crashing meteorite broke through the cave’s ceiling and wall, opening it up to the elements. The fallen portions of mountainside had formed crude stairs between this high-roofed cave and the tunnels Yuuri discovered, allowing him to climb down to the secondary cavern in the first place.

“I haven’t cleared away all the rubble,” Yuuri explained, “but there’s a path to the meteorite, see? And much of the crater’s edges.”

A sledgehammer laid discreetly against the wall Yuuri dropped down from. He sat his backpack near it, then his lunchbox atop the bag. Otabek remained on the wall ledge in silence. He just looked. Yuuri didn’t know him that well to know if he was impressed or not.

“Um… I didn’t do anything bad, right?” Yuuri asked quietly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Like…” Yuuri gestured between the Kazakh and the meteorite. “I didn’t disturb the ‘spiritual balance’ or whatever?” He lined his index and middle fingers up in front of his nose. “I can pray to the Buddha and burn incense.”

Otabek’s eyebrows came together, and after thinking for a time, he nodded silently. He jumped down from the four meter ledge easily, straightening up in front of Yuuri. “Sit somewhere.” said Otabek. He chose a place on the ground with the two meters-wide crater stretched before him.

He’s serious! Quickly Yuuri picked three o’clock to Otabek’s noon, letting his legs dangle in the crater. The meteorite itself sat in pieces in the crater’s middle. Besides the biggest chunks of collapsed rock, it alone remained unmoved by Yuuri. The meteorite’s chunks were incredibly dense; he was certain one weighed the same as his truck. Yuuri returned his wondering gaze to Otabek.

The shaman pulled a long bamboo tube out of his bag. He drew a long amber-colored flute from it, carefully looking over it first before putting it to his mouth.

“Before we get started, I should say I don’t know what will show up… if anything. Understood?” Otabek grunted.

“I trust you, man. You have more experience with this,” Yuuri replied. When he had last seen Otabek in Almaty, this flute had not been with him. Yuuri squinted at the beautiful instrument. “Is that new?” he asked.

Otabek thought about it before nodding. “It is different from the one you remember. That Almaty earthquake was caused by a spirit on the wind. It disturbed the peace, and the mountains took offense. The flute dealt with the spirit. The quake quit once it went away.” He sucked on his tongue in lament. “It destroyed my flute. But”--he gestured with the amber one--”I was gifted this one shortly thereafter.”

“Wait, is there really a spirit in here for you to use that on?” Yuuri exclaimed, looking hastily around the cave before going back to Otabek.

“Well.” He paused. Otabek pointed to the broken meteorite. “Let’s welcome whatever this is. Traditionally we welcome the coming of new things, like the new year or springtime, with prayers and music. This can count too.”

Yuuri nodded, familiar with ringing the bell in the temple and praying to Buddha. “We do that back home in Japan. I’ve, um, never prayed to welcome a space rock before though. Here.” He turned to open up his lunchbox. “I can give offerings.” He pulled a riceball from the rest and sat it down by his feet. Otabek bent down with him and placed a small loaf of bread into the crater.

“You can say whatever you want for this,” Otabek said, adjusting his flute.

Yuuri clapped his hands together firmly. “Is this really going to wake up some kind of sp-sp-space spirit!?” He sucked in breath. He had been coming to this cave at least once a week for seven months now. It was the perfect private place, and no one, not even a spirit, had disturbed him here. He didn’t want a new earthquake to mess this up.

“Guess we’ll find out. Pray well, Katsuki Yuuri!” Otabek grinned.

Yuuri’s eyes went wide like a spooked deer, and he quickly shoved his ham on bread into his mouth. He wasn’t about to get started on an empty belly! When he finished, he pressed his hands together again. “Namu Amida Butsu Namu Amida--” he muttered, pressing his thumbs against his forehead.

Wait. I sound so bored… Yuuri was way more excited the first time he saw the meteorite down there, but now, he certainly didn’t feel the same. He tried to channel the glee he’d felt upon seeing the dark smooth space rock. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, this time praying within himself instead of aloud. I am not a stranger to you, amazing meteor, but I hope you don’t mind an official welcome this time instead of me gushing over your dimensions. He didn’t feel strange at all speaking to a beautiful figment of space. Finding “gods” (“kami” in Shinto) in all living things was what Yuuri suspected Otabek’s powers to be about, or that he was a “kami” himself). Yuuri was quite familiar with all the old Japanese folk tales, so it was easy for him to believe.

Please, if there is a kami, please do not smite me for my bad singing or shitty chatter every time I’m in this cave. I laugh at my own dumb jokes too much, I know. If you’re just a space rock, that’s, uh, chill too. Space rocks are welcome here. Please keep staying here.

He gently bowed his head once before the rock. Yuuri had plenty of experience hosting in his parents’ inn back home so he ended his prayer feeling very much like he was greeting valued customers. Opening an eye, he peered past his fingers, wondering why he didn’t hear any music.

Yuuri inhaled a deep breath in surprise at the sight that befell him. Silver specks of light hung in the air all around them. In an instant, he was transported into a dream, surrounded by the lights that touched his fingertips.

“Yuuuuuuuuriiiii…” His name was whispered lethargically in his ear. He could hear no whistle of the flute, only this.

Standing up slowly, Yuuri drifted toward the meteorite and he rested both hands on the meteorite’s cracked top. It was as tall as a kitchen counter, and Yuuri short and squat. He felt suddenly compelled to climb atop it by any means necessary. Without a step stool, he was forced to dig his fingers into the crack and pull himself up.

“Where are you?” Yuuri whispered to the voice. Who had said his name? Looking to his right, he saw Otabek with the flute. His eyes were shut, his cheeks and mouth worked, but Yuuri could not hear the notes.

A light touched the tip of his nose, and once more he was drawn to the meteorite’s cracked midsection. Every day, it was exposed more to the harsh mountain elements. The smooth space rock was icy and harder to get a foothold, but he struggled anyway, pushing up until his knee caught leverage. As he adjusted his glasses, the lights continued dazzling him. He rubbed the speck off his nose.

Blinking, he dug his finger into his ears, wondering if he’d gone deaf or if he’d been bewitched somehow. The voice did not return, but the lights falling into the meteorite’s crack stayed there and glimmered inside. The porous rock contained minerals of some kind in their pockets, for Yuuri saw a honeycomb of jewels inside. The brightest of these reflected like a mirror.

Yuuri reached in with one arm at first, then decided to hang by his thighs, climbing head-first to grab the shiny thing deep inside. The meteorite’s worsening cracks revealed a silvery portion previously unseen. His fingers grazed the sparkling thing. Straining, Yuuri managed to hook a finger under a lip he felt, and pulled it up, taking it with both hands.

It’s a… It’s a…?? Panting, Yuuri turned the silvery mineral over. He couldn’t tell what element it was made of or even what it was. It was as pretty as a glassy seashell. It took both hands to cup it, and Yuuri realized the inside had a pearly reflection. He could see his glasses reflected in this side.

“Yuuri. Quickly, is it safe?” the voice asked quietly.

“Y...es?” Yuuri replied. His thoughts raced uneasily between Oh my God it’s aliens! And Is WHAT safe? And How the hell can it know my name? He thought of Otabek and decided to agree that it was safe right now.

A sleepy sigh exhaled right into his ear. “I will send him to you….,” it murmured.

Wait, what? Yuuri blanched.

Otabek drew the flute away from his lips. The stars vanished as if they were a trick of the sunlight. Yuuri blinked and he was seated again, as if he’d never been on the meteorite. What the hell just happened? However, he sucked in a breath when he looked down at the strange plate still in his hands.

Tilting his head at Yuuri, Otabek asked, “What did that sound like to you?” at the same time Yuuri yelled, “WHAT HAPPENED?” Their staring eyes widened at each other.

“Mm!” Otabek blinked in astonishment at the object Yuuri held up. “That appeared because I played?”

“Played what? I didn’t hear any music!” Yuuri said. “I saw… lights… and I heard a voice. What were you doing?”

“An invitation,” Otabek remarked in English, then switching back to their mutual Russian. “A reveal. Encouraged all latent magic to show itself.”

“But why did it come to me?” Yuuri asked. “It knew me. It said my name!”

“You went down to it first, didn’t you?” Otabek pointed to the tools near the wall. “You broke these up. You said you cleaned all this. It knows you took care of its housing.”

“I mean I had some help,” Yuuri stammered. “You mean to tell me there’s been a spirit in here this entire time.”

“I… actually don’t know what it is,” Otabek admitted.

“ It s-said ‘i will send him to you’ but send WHAT to me?”

“It sounds generous.” Otabek went quiet for a moment, observing him. “It has no aura. I didn’t detect it before. Still don’t..”

Yuuri turned it over, but he did not hear the voice again. When he tapped it with his fingernails, it sounded like tapping on a window, but it had no blemishes or marks despite being inside a space rock. He put it into his empty lunchbox for now.

“Weird,” Yuuri sighed.

“That’s not all that’s revealed itself.”

Yuuri froze. Oh no. He stared at Otabek bewildered until suddenly a movement by the meteorite caught his eye. Two snakes floated around the meteorite’s bottom curiously. Yuuri did not dare move around the creatures.

While they were legless, their dark crocodile-like heads and overlapping diamond-shaped scales made them unlike any snakes he’d ever seen. Their bodies were as thick as Yuuri’s fist. He’d put them at 1.5m long. They took interest in the human food sitting in the crater. They opened mouths that were bright blue inside. He tensed. To Yuuri’s shock, each snake ate their respective item whole.

What the hell? Since when do snakes eat rice? Yuuri thought. He stared at Otabek in disbelief..

“They’re aidaharlar. Kazakh dragons,” Otabek murmured low. At the sound of the shaman’s voice, the snakes’ heads both zoomed in his direction.

“Wait a minute, did they come out of there?” Yuuri pointed at the meteorite. He hadn’t seen those creatures in that illusion.

“I don’t think so. They’re younglings but still older than your rock. I think they answered the flute and got greedy at the sight of our offerings.” Otabek suddenly frowned as one of the snakes struggled with the bread. Their heads were more like dragons than snakes, but retained the distending jaw.

Yuuri grimaced as he heard the creature make a gagging sound. “It’s choking!” he cried.

The dragon that had eaten rice hissed distastefully at the other. It used its tail to thwack its companion, until the serpent spat out the bread and a circular pearl-like rock. It rolled down all the way to the meteorite. Tink. The mandarin-sized stone pinged a clear hollow note.

“What did you steal?” Otabek asked coolly as he stood up. He stepped over one aidahar in the crater to fetch the pearl. Yuuri couldn’t tell if the aidahar were deterred by Otabek or if the man was simply fearless. The scaly beasties floated out of Otabek’s way, and Yuuri’s legs jerked away from them. He eased up when he saw the aidahar take no notice in him.

“What is it?” he asked Otabek, who rolled the gleaming rock across his palm.

“They boggart shiny things and love to cause havoc,” Otabek grunted. “I am suspicious of where they got this.” Turning to Yuuri, he walked toward him and showed the circular white jewel. It rolled over to reveal an eye made of crystal gleaming in Otabek’s palm. Otabek’s eyes widened at it

“Pretty… and strange,” Yuuri mumbled. The unsettling X-files theme ran through his head. However, his eyes quickly flicked down to the dragons. “H-how long are they sticking around?” Snakes frightened him, and these Kazakh dragons looked a lot more dangerous than those.

Before Otabek could answer, both dragons showed their small but numerous small fangs at him. The dragon who’d puked earlier glared and let out a hissy snarl. “Give it back! It’s mine!” a childish voice squeaked. It sprung up at him with jaws spread, teeth digging into Otabek’s wrist.

Yuuri hollered in surprise, throwing his lunchbox down at the aidahar and springing backward for dear life. The creature wailed at being hit. He heard his lunchbox clatter to the ground, but he looked away from the scene, cringing back from whatever retaliation the aidahar had in store for him. When nothing came, he ventured to peek out. He quickly fixed his glasses and saw dark blood streaming all over Otabek’s hand.

“Oh no!” Yuuri said. Panic rushed through him. His eyes raced from the downed aidahar wailing thick infantile tears,, then up to the wound on Otabek’s hand.

A pulse sounded audibly in the cavern.

“Be still,” Otabek whispered in Kazakh. He stared at the ground, long black hair framing his face. How he hadn’t moved or flinched was beyond Yuuri.

“Otabek,” Yuuri gasped. “Otabek…?” The lunchbox, with the plate rock inside, had hit the dragon in the head and yanked it off his hand. The wailing creature fled back to its comrade, who hadn’t said a thing the entire time and was actually backing away, further around the curve of the meteorite..

“Are you--?” Yuuri couldn’t finish his sentence once he finally saw Otabek’s face.

Otabek’s eyes were completely black. They stared at him, following him up when he straightened from the frightened crouch he’d been in. Yuuri felt his blood turn cold.

“Yuuri. Run.” Each word came out deliberate. Otabek turned his hand over to show the jeweled eye. Its elaborate painted lines all glowed red. The gleam spread infectiously to the wound. “It’s chosen me as a conduit.” Otabek’s voice cracked.

Yuuri tripped over his own shoes in alarm. Otabek was scaring the shit out of him. “What does that mean?” Fuck, he tried not to wail. Where the hell was his sledgehammer? Did it even work against spirits? Yuuri glanced to the wall where he’d rested it last, and turned back to check on Otabek. The man’s furs no longer looked like clothes. They darkened, blending together, bulking out.

“It… belongs to--Koyanshyk!” A swear tore through him. “Belongs to … a great spirit… and it acti-acti-activaarroooOOARGHHH,” Otabek’s words disintegrated into an animalistic sound. He brayed as his hair was lengthened before Yuuri’s eyes, roiling in black waves down his front. “Пиздец, I can’t control this one!!” he managed to spit out before he roared once more. A shadow fell upon Otabek’s face. He staggered, bending double until the blackness swallowing him whole.

The great spirit took his friend’s place. Yuuri gaped in horror as the black mass stood completely upright at four meters high. No way. I can’t do anything against this. Even if he grabbed the sledgehammer, he couldn’t risk hurting Otabek inside that thing. I have to run. Except he knew that thing would intercept him to the ledges.

The jeweled eye emerged at the top, and four completely white eyes opened once it stood totally upright.

“The thief lingers…” It spoke with such malignance, Yuuri’s whole body shuddered.

“I am not a thief!” he protested. “Two aidahar came--.” The monster rounded on him and with no aidahar in sight to blame, Yuuri floundered.

“An insect like you dares speak to the Hero of Kazakhstan?” A deep voice interrupted straight into Yuuri’s head. Its scathingness made him flinch, but his spine straightened afterward, even if his leaden legs wouldn’t.

“You’re not the Hero. Otabek is,” he replied before he could stop himself.

“I am he,” snarled the deep voice.

The spirit was utterly dark, as dark as the nothingness of space, save for the four narrowed eyes fixed down upon Yuuri. The jewel hovered at the very top of him, where a forehead would be on a man or beast. It glowed, just as the four eyes glowed, but none of the light fell upon its wearer’s skin. All of Yuuri’s experience through science fiction books told him that was the source of all this shit.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

“Y-you’re not!” he yelled back at it. He groped behind his back, found the ice-cold hammer head, and drew it close. “Now you’ve swallowed my friend. Give Otabek back please.” Yuuri eyed the ground to measure the distance between him and the darkness.

“Friend?” A brutal laugh tore through the word. “The Hero has no need for those. He is neither human nor spirit. We transcend you maggots.”

With another snarl, the mass crouched over and lunged at Yuuri. Its posture was that of a predator. Yuuri was used to his shitty eyes giving him visibility issues but this spirit’s lack of definition really took the cake. Turning the hard head away, Yuuri shoved the wooden end out. The spirit swung at it before it could sink in, and the wood exploded into fragments. Splinters tore into Yuuri’s right hand but he had no time to register the pain there once the spirit was fully upon him.

Pressure squeezed hard upon Yuuri’s body. He did not feel the thing sitting on him or pinning him physically, but it forced him hard onto stone nonetheless. His winter hat cushioned his head slightly, his glasses askew as the monster pushed its eyes near his.

“Being a poor thief and a poor liar makes you fat enough to become Oirandau’s prey,” it hissed.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. Let us go,” Yuuri sniffled. His head hurt awfully.

Without warning, a flame burst in front of Yuuri’s glasses and smote Oirandau. The spirit roared in surprise, turning away from his face. In that moment of weakness, a brown-skinned elbow slid out of the black mass. Yuuri let out a high-pitched gasp and grabbed it, tugging it, yanking it.

“Otabek!” he cried.

The creature turned its eyes back down on him. Yuuri felt that heavy pressure close around his throat, but still he held onto Otabek’s arm. “Do not presume the Hero has business with prey like you,” it snarled. “Heroic duty is to the land, not to thieves. Water stealers, desert makers, hate bringers.” Every insult was punctuated with the sensation of pins and needles digging into his shoulders. “First, you will disappear….” Yuuri’s breathing became harder. “then the others will follow too.”

I don’t want to die.  Yuuri had never wished on a star in emergencies (unless final exams counted…) but he was desperate. I know I wish on you all the time, but Nikiforov… please… help… Otabek…

[narcisbolgor-blog]

Girl With One Arm Pulls Off The Most Epic Halloween Costume You’ll Ever See

Halloween is an excuse to get extremely creative with absolutely no shame. Whether it be blood gushing from your eye socket, or a knife through your abdomen, the possibilities for gore and horror are endless.

This is also something that is especially true for Lauren Duck, who lost her arm in a freak accident. The 21-year-old, with an unparalleled sense of humor, has incorporated her extreme misfortune into her Halloween costume and it’s truly epic. Duck, from San Diego, has garnered an enormous following online as a result of her witty updates in which she uses the loss of her arm as the center of her jokes. Earlier this year, she went viral after her amusing Tinder bio was shared online. “Hands down the best catch on tinder,” her profile read, before listing her qualities: “face 10/10, body 9/10, personality 20/10, arms 1/2.” Not only that, but she had also listed her profession as an “arms dealer.” Duck lost her arm in a freak accident on June 29th, 2016, which she recalled for Buzzfeed News:

“I was going pretty fast on a moped and lost control of it, and I hit the median in the road. I flew off and hit a sign and it sliced my arm off. I stayed conscious the whole time.”

Whilst on the No Jumper podcast, Lauren explained how she was “going like 60 miles per hour, in like a 50 zone” when she swerved and was catapulted from her bike before “a sign sliced [her] arm, like, clean off. It flew like 30 feet, from my body.” Luckily, she was saved by a police officer on the scene who had just received tourniquet training. “I remember I asked the cop, ‘Hey, am I gonna die?’ and he said, ‘No, you’ll be fine,'” she said. Duck also recalled how doctors ALMOST saved her limb: “Doctors attached my arm back for, like, two months, but in the hospital during the surgery where they’re reconnecting the rest of my nerves they like turned me and I lost blood flow. They had to amputate it.” To begin with, she struggled with the jokes, finding it painful to see the funny side in her predicament. “For a while, I wasn’t okay with the jokes,” said Lauren, who now has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. “But then I started telling the jokes, and it’s kind of helped.” Her openness has garnered her thousands of fans online who are inspired by her strong personality. Many find it difficult to laugh at the jokes she makes, but Lauren says she is “completely comfortable with it.” So, don’t feel ashamed for laughing when you see her kickass Halloween costume… Lauren chose to style the iconic missing-arm-prank, however, in her case she wasn’t hiding her arm down her sleeve. Posing for a series of stunning pictures, Lauren proudly shows off her incredible humor and sensational body. “Nothing to see,” she casually captions the images, which have gone viral online. Speaking to UNILAD about the costume, Lauren simply said:

“I bought like this $4 effects makeup kit and some gauze and just threw it on last night. I walked through my living room last night with it on and my roommate had a friend over and they both almost had a heart attack. People seem to be a fan of the Halloween costume.”

“This is the first year I’ve done anything cool since losing an arm. I guess it was practice I was just trying it out. I’m going to do it on Halloween but I’m going to use better makeup.”  Users online were quick to comment that the 21-year-old had “won Halloween”, with one commenter typing: “You’re incredible your beautiful and just a fantastic attitude.” Meanwhile others were slow to understand the costume, with several commenting that it was “photoshopped”. One oblivious commenter even wrote: “Makeup artists are getting good.” Lauren is trying to raise $50,000 for a prosthetic arm, so if you appreciated her humor then you can donate to her worthy cause via her GoFundMe page. “I am not ashamed of my injury and I’ve always embraced it but I’d like to have an arm back, any arm,” she writes on the page, which has currently raised $35,000 since being activated 14 months ago. We hope she reaches her goal, she certainly deserves it! Her strength through such a difficult time is insanely inspiring and we cannot wait to follow her journey! Inspiring stories are what makes this world continue to spin (well, sort of) and it doesn’t get much more inspirational than this amputee who adopted a dog, also missing a limb. If this doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, then you should probably go and get yourself checked out…

Click video to play…

More From this publisher : HERE

=> *********************************************** Read More Here: Girl With One Arm Pulls Off The Most Epic Halloween Costume You’ll Ever See ************************************ =>

Girl With One Arm Pulls Off The Most Epic Halloween Costume You’ll Ever See was originally posted by 11 VA Viral News

[jessicakehoe]

Everything You Need to Know About Selena Gomez’s Beauty Line, Rare Beauty

Update: We’re just days away from the launch of Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty line and the anticipation is reaching fever pitch – especially now that we know what products the singer-turned-beauty businesswoman will offer in said line.

According to a release, the line includes the Liquid Touch Weightless Foundation and Liquid Touch Brightening Concealer, both of which are available in a whopping 48 shades “to suit all skin tones”, as well as the Always An Optimist Illuminating Primer, Always An Optimist 4-in-1 Mist, the “first-of-its-kind” Blot & Glow Touch-Up Kit, the Perfect Strokes Matte Liquid Liner (which was inspired by a calligrapher and contains more than 1000 individual hairs for optimal precision), the With Gratitude Dewy Lip Balm (available in eight shades), Lip Souffle Matte Lip Cream (available in 12 shades), the Positive Light Liquid Luminizer (in eight shades), the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush (in eight shades, four of which are matte and four dewy), the Brow Harmony Pencil & Gel and three tools.

Photograph courtesy of Rare Beauty/Sephora

Gomez was heavily involved in the creation and development of each product, and wants the line to “challenge the beauty myth of physical perfection.” Speaking of the brand, Gomez said, “These products aren’t about being someone else, it’s about being who you are, whether that’s rocking a full face of bold makeup or barely any makeup at all. Makeup is something to enjoy, it’s not something you need. I want every person to feel beautiful exactly as they are.”

As a reminder, the products officially launch in Canada on September 3, exclusively at Sephora.

Update (06/08/20): If you’ve been glued to your phones waiting for news of an official release date for Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty line, then you’re in luck because the multi-hyphenate has finally announced when the collection will be dropping. In a post shared to Instagram, Gomez wrote, “I’m SO excited to finally share that Rare Beauty will be launching September 3rd only at Sephora US, Sephora Canada, Sephora Mexico and RareBeauty.com.” She added, “I’ve had so much creating everything and can’t wait for y’all to try it all! I hope you love it as much as I do.”

View this post on Instagram

I’m SO excited to finally share that @RareBeauty will be launching September 3rd only at @Sephora, @SephoraCanada, @SephoraMx and RareBeauty.com. I’ve had so much fun creating everything and can’t wait for y’all to try it all! I hope you love it as much as I do!

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Aug 4, 2020 at 9:31am PDT

The news comes a few weeks after the announcement that Gomez is launching the Rare Impact Fund, a mental health focused initiative, as part of Rare Beauty. The goal is to raise $100 million over the next 10 years, and one per cent of annual Rare Beauty sales will contribute to this amount.

Update (14/04/20): More details have come to light about Selena Gomez’s upcoming beauty line, Rare Beauty. Scheduled to launch in Sephora this summer, the line will launch with a whopping 48 shades of foundation and concealer. In a new piece for Interview magazine for which she was interviewed by friend Amy Schumer, Gomez said of the products, “It’s all very clean and easy. I wanted people to feel safe.”

She added, “I wanted to start a conversation about how you can make yourself feel great. It’s not necessarily about needing these things to make yourself feel beautiful. People of my generation have all this pressure to look a certain way, and I wanted to make a line that took away a bit of that pressure.”

Schumer then asked if the Lose You to Love Me singer could “make a mascara that doesn’t clump” to which Gomez replied, “Yes, I’ll be sure to.”

Watch this space.

Original (05/02/20): Last year, rumours began to circulate that Selena Gomez was gearing up to launch her own beauty line after she filed trademark paperwork. Now, the pop star has confirmed they were indeed true, launching the Instagram page for her new line, called Rare Beauty, this week.

The page currently only has three posts introducing the range, however it’s message of self-acceptance and inclusivity is abundantly clear. One caption reads, “Our mission is to shape conversations around beauty, self-acceptance, and mental health. We want to help more people get access to support and services, and help people feel more authentically connected to one another and less alone in the world.”

In a video, Gomez talks about the purpose of the new line, saying, “Being rare is about being comfortable in yourself. I’ve stopped trying to be perfect. I just want to be me. I think Rare Beauty can be more than a beauty brand. I want us all to stop comparing ourselves to each other and start embrace our uniqueness. You’re not defined by a photo, a like or a comment. Rare Beauty isn’t about how other people see you, but how you see yourself.”

View this post on Instagram

Guys, I’ve been working on this special project for two years and can officially say Rare Beauty is launching in @sephora stores in North America this summer! Follow @rarebeauty and become part of our beautiful community. Here’s a tiny sneak. There’s more to share AND I can’t wait.

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Feb 4, 2020 at 12:51pm PST

The singer has always been very open about her mental health. In a January interview with WSJ Magazine, Gomez said, “I had low self-esteem, and that’s something I work on continuously. But I feel so empowered because I’ve gained so much knowledge about what was going on mentally. My highs were really high, and my lows would take me out for weeks at a time. I found out I do suffer from mental health issues. And, honestly, that was such a relief. I realized that there was a way to get help and to find people that you trust. I got on the right medication, and my life has been completely changed.”

In the one minute long clip, Gomez can be seen sampling products including eyeshadow, lip colours and complexion. At one point, Gomez says, “I’m so nervous!”

The brand will launch exclusively in Sephora this summer. Stay tuned for more updates.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Selena Gomez’s Beauty Line, Rare Beauty appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Everything You Need to Know About Selena Gomez’s Beauty Line, Rare Beauty published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

[sheminecrafts]

Quibi is the anti-TikTok (that’s a bad thing)

It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The company seems to believe it can succeed on only its content (mediocre) and marketing dollars (fewer than it needs).

I appreciate that Quibi is doing something audaciously different than most startups. Rather than iterating toward product-market fit, it spent a fortune developing its slick app and buying fancy content in secret so it could launch with a bang.

Yet Quibi’s bold business strategy is muted by a misguided allegiance to the golden age of television before the internet permeated every entertainment medium. It’s unshareable, prescriptive, sluggish, cumbersome and unfriendly. Quibi’s unwillingness to borrow anything from social networks makes the app feel cold and isolated, like watching reality shows in the vacuum of space.

In that sense, Quibi is the inverse of TikTok, which feels fiercely alive. TikTok is designed to immediately immerse you in crowd-vetted content that grabs your attention and inspires you to spread your take on it to friends. That’s why TikTok has almost 2 billion downloads to date, while Quibi picked up just 300,000 on the day of its big splash into market.

Here’s a breakdown of the major missteps by Quibi, why TikTok does it better and how this new streaming app can get with the times.

What Hollywood thinks we want

Quibi feels like some off-brand cable channel, with a mix of convoluted reality shows, scripted dramas and news briefs. Imagine MTV at noon in the mid-2000s. Nothing seemed must-see. There’s no Game of Thrones or Mandalorian here. While the production value is better than what you’ll find on YouTube, the show concepts feel slapdash with novelty that quickly fades.

Chrissy Teigen as a small claims court judge? The tear-jerking “Thanks A Million” does skillfully multiply the “OMG” gratitude moment from makeover programs to happen 4X per episode. But a cooking show where blindfolded chefs have to guess what food was just exploded in their faces…(sigh)

The catalog feels like the product of TV writers being told they have 10 seconds to come up with an idea. “What would those idiots watch?” The shows remind me of old VR games that are barely more than demos, or an app built in a garage without ever asking prospective users what they need. Co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg may have produced The Lion King and Shrek, but the app’s content feels like it was greenlit by, well, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s leader Meg Whitman, who indeed is Quibi’s CEO.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman

Despite being built for a touch-screen interface, there’s little Bandersnatch-style interactive content so far, nor are the creators doing anything special with the six to 10-minute format. The shows feel more like condensed TV programs with episodes ending when there would be a commercial break. There’s no onboarding process that could ask which popular TV shows or genres you’re into. As the catalog expands, that makes it less likely you’ll find something appealing within a few taps.

TikTok comes from the opposite direction. Instead of what Hollywood thinks we want, its content comes straight from its consumers. People record what they think would make them and their friends laugh, surprised or enticed. The result is that with low to zero production budget, random kids and influencers alike make things with millions of Likes. And as elder millennials, Gen Xers and beyond get hooked, they’re creating videos for their peers, as well. The algorithm monitors what you’re hovering over and rapidly adapts its recommendations to your style.

TikTok is fundamentally interactive. Each clip’s audio can be borrowed to produce remixes that personalize a meme for a different demographic or subculture. And because its stars are internet natives, they’re in constant communication with their fan base to tune content to what they want. There’s something for everyone. No niche is too small.

TikTok screenshots

The Fix: Quibi should take a hint from Brat TV, the Disney Channel for the YouTube generation that gives tween social media stars their own premium shows about being a grade school kid to create content with a built-in fan base. [Disclosure: My cousin Darren Lachtman is a Brat co-founder.)

Take the Chrissy’s Court model, and shift it to stars who are 20 years younger. Give TikTok phenoms like Charli D’Amelio or Chase Hudson Quibi shows and let them help conceptualize the content, and they’ll bring their legions of fans. Double-down on choose-your-own-adventures and fan voting game shows that leverage the phone’s interactivity. Fund creators that will differentiate Quibi by making it look like anything other than daytime TV. And ask users directly what they want to see right when they download the app.

No screenshots

This is frankly insane. Screenshots of Quibi appear as a blank black screen. That means no memes. If people can’t turn Quibi scenes into jokes they’ll share elsewhere, its shows won’t ever become fixtures of the cultural zeitgeist like Netflix’s Tiger King has. Yes, other mobile streaming apps like Netflix and Disney+ also block screenshots, but they have web versions where you can snap and share what you want. Quibi never should have structured its deals to license content from producers in a way that prevented any way to riff on or even let friends preview its content.

TikTok, on the other hand, defaults to letting you download any video and share it wherever you please — with the app’s watermark attached. That’s fueled TikTok’s stellar growth as clips get posted to Twitter and Instagram — and drive viewers back to the app. It has spawned TikTok compilations on YouTube, and a whole culture of remixing that expands and prolongs the popularity of trending jokes and dances.

The Fix: Quibi should allow screenshots. There’s little risk of spoilers or piracy. If its deals prohibit that, then it should offer pre-approved screenshots and video clips/trailers of each episode that you can download and share. Think of it like an in-app press kit. Even if we’re not allowed to set up the perfect screenshot for making a meme, at least then we could coherently discuss the shows on other social networks.

‘Content network effect’ makes TikTok tough to copy

Sluggish pacing

On mobile, you’re always just a swipe away from something more interesting. It’s like if you watched TV with your finger permanently hovering over the change channel button. Ever noticed how movie trailers now often start with a fast-forward collage of their most eye-catching scenes? Quibi seems intent on communicating prestige with its slow-building dramas like The Most Dangerous Game and Survive, which both had me bored and fast-forwarding. And that’s watching Quibi at home on the couch. While on the go, where it was designed to be consumed, slow pacing could push users with a minute or two to spare to open Instagram or TikTok instead.

None of this is helped by Quibi not auto-playing a trailer or the first episode the moment you scroll past a show on the home screen. Instead, you see a static title card for two seconds before it starts playing you an excerpt of the program. That makes it more cumbersome to discover new shows.

Where TikTok wins is in immediacy. Creators know users will swipe right past their video if it’s not immediately entertaining or obviously revving up to a big reveal. They grab you in the first second with smiles, costumes, bold captions or crazy situations. That also makes it easy for viewers to dismiss what’s irrelevant to them and teach the TikTok algorithm what they really want. Plus, you know that you can score a dopamine hit of joy even if you only have 30 seconds. TikTok makes Quick Bites feel like an understaffed sit-down restaurant.

The Fix: Quibi needs to teach creators to hook viewers instantly by previewing why they should want to watch. Since tapping a show’s card on the Quibi homepage instantly plays it, those teasers need to be built into the first episode. Otherwise, Quibi needs a button to view a trailer from its buried dedicated show pages to the preview card most people interact with on the home screen. Otherwise, users may never discover what Quibi shows resonate with them and teach it which to show and make more of.

Anti-social video club

Quibi neglects all its second-screen potential. No screenshotting makes it tough to discuss shows elsewhere, yet there’s no built-in comments or messaging to discuss or spread them in-app. Pasting an episode link into Twitter doesn’t even display the show’s name in the preview box. Nor do shows have their own social accounts to follow to remind you to keep watching.

There’s no way for friends to follow what you’re watching or see your recommendations. No leaderboards of top shows. Certainly no time-stamped, live-stream style crowd annotations. No synced-up co-watching with friends, despite a lack of TV apps preventing you from watching with anyone else in person unless you crowd around one phone.

It all feels like Quibi figured advertising would be enough. It could run contests where winners get a Cameo-esque message or chat with their favorite stars. Quibi could let you share scenes with your face swapped onto actors’ heads, deepfake-style like Snapchat’s (confusingly named) Cameos feature. It could host in-app roundtables with the casts where users could submit questions. It’s like if Web 2.0 never happened.

TikTok, meanwhile, harnesses every conceivable social feature. Follow, Like, comment, message, go Live, duet, remix or download and share any video. It beckons viewers to participate in trending challenges. And even when users aren’t itching to return to TikTok, notifications from these social features will drag them back in, or watermarked clips will follow them to other networks. Every part of the app is designed to make its content the center of popular culture.

The Fix: Quibi needs to understand that just because we’re watching on mobile, doesn’t make video a solo experience. At first, it should add social content discovery options so you can see which friends opt in to share that they’re watching or view a leaderboard of the top programs. Shows, especially ones dripping out new episodes, are more fun when you have someone to chat about them with.

Eventually, Quibi should layer on in-app second-screen features. Create a way to share comments at the end of each episode that people read during the credits so they feel like they’re in a viewing community.

Can Quibi be more?

What’s most disappointing about Quibi is that it has the potential to be something fresh, merging classically produced premium content with the modern ways we use our phones. Yet beyond shows being shot in two widths so you can switch between watching in landscape or portrait mode at any time, it really is just a random cable channel shrunk down.

Youths act in front of a mobile phone camera while making a TikTok video on the terrace of their residence in Hyderabad on February 14, 2020 (Photo by NOAH SEELAM / AFP) (Photo by NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the few redeeming opportunities for Quibi is using the daily episode release schedule to serialize content that benefits from suspense, as Ryan Vinnicombe aka InternetRyan notes. Bingeing via traditional streaming services can burn through thrillers before they can properly build up suspense and fan theories or let late-comers catch up while a show is still in the zeitgeist. Cliffhangers with just a day instead of a week to wait could be Quibi’s killer feature.

Suspense is also one thing TikTok fails at. Within a single video, they’re actually often all about suspense, waiting through build up for a gag or non-sequitur to play out. But creators try to rope in followers by making a multi-minute video and splitting it into parts so people subscribe to them to see the next part. Yet since TikTok doesn’t always show timestamps and surfaces old videos on its home screen, it can often be a chore to find the Part Two, and there’s no good way for creators to link them together. TikTok could stand to learn about multi-episode content from Quibi.

But today, Quibi feels like a minitiaturized and degraded version of what we already get for free on the web or pay for with Netflix. Quibi charging $4.99 per month with ads or $7.99 without seems like a steep ask without delivering any truly must-see shows, novel interactive experience or memory-making social moments.

Quibi’s success may simply be a test of how bad people are at cancelling 90-day free trials (hint: they’re bad at it!). The bull case is that absentminded subscribers among the 300,000 first-day downloads and some diehard fans of the celebs it’s given shows will bring Quibi enough traction to raise more cash and survive long enough to socialize its product and teach creators to exploit the format’s opportunities.

But the bear case is already emerging in Quibi’s rapidly declining App Store rank, which fell from No. 4 overall when it launched Monday to No. 21 yesterday after just 830,000 total downloads according to Sensor Tower. Lackluster content and no virality means it might never become the talk of the town, leading top content producers to slink away or half-ass their contributions, leaving us to dine on short video elsewhere.

Zuckerberg misunderstands the huge threat of TikTok

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2yIK9kl via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The company seems to believe it can succeed on only its content (mediocre) and marketing dollars (fewer than it needs).

I appreciate that Quibi is doing something audaciously different than most startups. Rather than iterating toward product-market fit, it spent a fortune developing its slick app and buying fancy content in secret so it could launch with a bang.

Yet Quibi’s bold business strategy is muted by a misguided allegiance to the golden age of television before the internet permeated every entertainment medium. It’s unshareable, prescriptive, sluggish, cumbersome and unfriendly. Quibi’s unwillingness to borrow anything from social networks makes the app feel cold and isolated, like watching reality shows in the vacuum of space.

In that sense, Quibi is the inverse of TikTok, which feels fiercely alive. TikTok is designed to immediately immerse you in crowd-vetted content that grabs your attention and inspires you to spread your take on it to friends. That’s why TikTok has almost 2 billion downloads to date, while Quibi picked up just 300,000 on the day of its big splash into market.

Here’s a breakdown of the major missteps by Quibi, why TikTok does it better and how this new streaming app can get with the times.

What Hollywood thinks we want

Quibi feels like some off-brand cable channel, with a mix of convoluted reality shows, scripted dramas and news briefs. Imagine MTV at noon in the mid-2000s. Nothing seemed must-see. There’s no Game of Thrones or Mandalorian here. While the production value is better than what you’ll find on YouTube, the show concepts feel slapdash with novelty that quickly fades. Chrissy Teigen as a small claims court judge and a cooking show where blindfolded chefs have to guess what food was just exploded in their faces…

The catalog feels like the product of TV writers being told they have 10 seconds to come up with an idea. “What would those idiots watch?” The shows remind me of old VR games that are barely more than demos, or an app built in a garage without ever asking prospective users what they need. Co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg may have produced The Lion King and Shrek, but the app’s content feels like it was greenlit by, well, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s leader Meg Whitman, who indeed is Quibi’s CEO.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman

Despite being built for a touch-screen interface, there’s little Bandersnatch-style interactive content so far, nor are the creators doing anything special with the six to 10-minute format. The shows feel more like condensed TV programs with episodes ending when there would be a commercial break. There’s no onboarding process that could ask which popular TV shows or genres you’re into. As the catalog expands, that makes it less likely you’ll find something appealing within a few taps.

TikTok comes from the opposite direction. Instead of what Hollywood thinks we want, its content comes straight from its consumers. People record what they think would make them and their friends laugh, surprised or enticed. The result is that with low to zero production budget, random kids and influencers alike make things with millions of Likes. And as elder millennials, Gen Xers and beyond get hooked, they’re creating videos for their peers, as well. The algorithm monitors what you’re hovering over and rapidly adapts its recommendations to your style.

TikTok is fundamentally interactive. Each clip’s audio can be borrowed to produce remixes that personalize a meme for a different demographic or subculture. And because its stars are internet natives, they’re in constant communication with their fan base to tune content to what they want. There’s something for everyone. No niche is too small.

TikTok screenshots

The Fix: Quibi should take a hint from Brat TV, the Disney Channel for the YouTube generation that gives tween social media stars their own premium shows about being a grade school kid to create content with a built-in fan base. [Disclosure: My cousin Darren Lachtman is a Brat co-founder.)

Take the Chrissy’s Court model, and shift it to stars who are 20 years younger. Give TikTok phenoms like Charli D’Amelio or Chase Hudson Quibi shows and let them help conceptualize the content, and they’ll bring their legions of fans. Double-down on choose-your-own-adventures and fan voting game shows that leverage the phone’s interactivity. Fund creators that will differentiate Quibi by making it look like anything other than daytime TV. And ask users directly what they want to see right when they download the app.

No screenshots

This is frankly insane. Screenshots of Quibi appear as a blank black screen. That means no memes. If people can’t turn Quibi scenes into jokes they’ll share elsewhere, its shows won’t ever become fixtures of the cultural zeitgeist like Netflix’s Tiger King has. Yes, other mobile streaming apps like Netflix and Disney+ also block screenshots, but they have web versions where you can snap and share what you want. Quibi never should have structured its deals to license content from producers in a way that prevented any way to riff on or even let friends preview its content.

TikTok, on the other hand, defaults to letting you download any video and share it wherever you please — with the app’s watermark attached. That’s fueled TikTok’s stellar growth as clips get posted to Twitter and Instagram — and drive viewers back to the app. It has spawned TikTok compilations on YouTube, and a whole culture of remixing that expands and prolongs the popularity of trending jokes and dances.

The Fix: Quibi should allow screenshots. There’s little risk of spoilers or piracy. If its deals prohibit that, then it should offer pre-approved screenshots and video clips/trailers of each episode that you can download and share. Think of it like an in-app press kit. Even if we’re not allowed to set up the perfect screenshot for making a meme, at least then we could coherently discuss the shows on other social networks.

‘Content network effect’ makes TikTok tough to copy

Sluggish pacing

On mobile, you’re always just a swipe away from something more interesting. It’s like if you watched TV with your finger permanently hovering over the change channel button. Ever noticed how movie trailers now often start with a fast-forward collage of their most eye-catching scenes? Quibi seems intent on communicating prestige with its slow-building dramas like The Most Dangerous Game and Survive, which both had me bored and fast-forwarding. And that’s watching Quibi at home on the couch. While on the go, where it was designed to be consumed, slow pacing could push users with a minute or two to spare to open Instagram or TikTok instead.

None of this is helped by Quibi not auto-playing a trailer or the first episode the moment you scroll past a show on the home screen. Instead, you see a static title card for two seconds before it starts playing you an excerpt of the program. That makes it more cumbersome to discover new shows.

Where TikTok wins is in immediacy. Creators know users will swipe right past their video if it’s not immediately entertaining or obviously revving up to a big reveal. They grab you in the first second with smiles, costumes, bold captions or crazy situations. That also makes it easy for viewers to dismiss what’s irrelevant to them and teach the TikTok algorithm what they really want. Plus, you know that you can score a dopamine hit of joy even if you only have 30 seconds. TikTok makes Quick Bites feel like an understaffed sit-down restaurant.

The Fix: Quibi needs to teach creators to hook viewers instantly by previewing why they should want to watch. Since tapping a show’s card on the Quibi homepage instantly plays it, those teasers need to be built into the first episode. Otherwise, Quibi needs a button to view a trailer from its buried dedicated show pages to the preview card most people interact with on the home screen. Otherwise, users may never discover what Quibi shows resonate with them and teach it which to show and make more of.

Anti-social video club

Quibi neglects all its second-screen potential. No screenshotting makes it tough to discuss shows elsewhere, yet there’s no built-in comments or messaging to discuss or spread them in-app. Pasting an episode link into Twitter doesn’t even display the show’s name in the preview box. Nor do shows have their own social accounts to follow to remind you to keep watching.

There’s no way for friends to follow what you’re watching or see your recommendations. No leaderboards of top shows. Certainly no time-stamped, live-stream style crowd annotations. No synced-up co-watching with friends, despite a lack of TV apps preventing you from watching with anyone else in person unless you crowd around one phone.

It all feels like Quibi figured advertising would be enough. It could run contests where winners get a Cameo-esque message or chat with their favorite stars. Quibi could let you share scenes with your face swapped onto actors’ heads, deepfake-style like Snapchat’s (confusingly named) Cameos feature. It could host in-app roundtables with the casts where users could submit questions. It’s like if Web 2.0 never happened.

TikTok, meanwhile, harnesses every conceivable social feature. Follow, Like, comment, message, go Live, duet, remix or download and share any video. It beckons viewers to participate in trending challenges. And even when users aren’t itching to return to TikTok, notifications from these social features will drag them back in, or watermarked clips will follow them to other networks. Every part of the app is designed to make its content the center of popular culture.

The Fix: Quibi needs to understand that just because we’re watching on mobile, doesn’t make video a solo experience. At first, it should add social content discovery options so you can see which friends opt in to share that they’re watching or view a leaderboard of the top programs. Shows, especially ones dripping out new episodes, are more fun when you have someone to chat about them with.

Eventually, Quibi should layer on in-app second-screen features. Create a way to share comments at the end of each episode that people read during the credits so they feel like they’re in a viewing community.

Can Quibi be more?

What’s most disappointing about Quibi is that it has the potential to be something fresh, merging classically produced premium content with the modern ways we use our phones. Yet beyond shows being shot in two widths so you can switch between watching in landscape or portrait mode at any time, it really is just a random cable channel shrunk down.

Youths act in front of a mobile phone camera while making a TikTok video on the terrace of their residence in Hyderabad on February 14, 2020 (Photo by NOAH SEELAM / AFP) (Photo by NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the few redeeming opportunities for Quibi is using the daily episode release schedule to serialize content that benefits from suspense, as InternetRyan notes. Bingeing via traditional streaming services can burn through thrillers before they can properly build up suspense and fan theories or let late-comers catch up while a show is still in the zeitgeist. Cliffhangers with just a day instead of a week to wait could be Quibi’s killer feature.

Suspense is also one thing TikTok fails at. Within a single video, they’re actually often all about suspense, waiting through build up for a gag or non-sequitur to play out. But creators try to rope in followers by making a multi-minute video and splitting it into parts so people subscribe to them to see the next part. Yet since TikTok doesn’t always show timestamps and surfaces old videos on its homescreen, it can often be a chore to find the part two, and there’s no good way for creators to link them together. TikTok could stand to learn about multi-episode content from Quibi.

But today, Quibi feels like a minitiaturized and degraded version of what we already get for free on the web or pay for with Netflix. Quibi charging $4.99 per month with ads or $7.99 without seems like a steep ask without delivering any truly must-see shows, novel interactive experience, or memory-making social moments.

Quibi’s success may simply be a test of how bad people are at cancelling 90-day free trials (hint: they’re bad at it!). The bull case is that absent-minded subscribers amongst the 300,000 first-day downloads and some diehard fans of the celebs it’s given shows will bring Quibi enough traction to raise more cash and survive long enough to socialize its product and teach creators to exploit the format’s opportunities. But the bear case is already emerging in Quibi’s rapidly declining App Store rank, that fell from #4 overall when it launched Monday to #21 yesterday. Lackluster content and no virality means it might never become the talk of the town, leading top content producers to slink away or half-ass their contributions, leaving us to dine on short video elsewhere.

Zuckerberg misunderstands the huge threat of TikTok

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2yIK9kl Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com