#dan's ridiculous spelling was fun to write

[jsteneil]

Neil Josten’s Birthday Bash

in which the foxes don’t get anything done, ever

 *

Nicky added Dan, Kevin, Aaron and three others to “Neil Josten's Birthday Bash Organization Committee”.

Nicky: can't add Andrew because he still owns a FLIP PHONE but here we go

Dan: hell yeah B-)

Nicky: kevin can fill him in with the details anyway

Kevin: why me?

Allison: because you live with him?

Matt: you're practically attached at the hip

Dan: omg ur roomm8s

Matt: ^^^ what allison said

Dan: yeah

Nicky: OR aaron can do it on wednesdays so that there's no chance of neil finding out :D

Aaron: no.

Aaron left the chat.

Nicky: what

Nicky: the

Kevin: just add him back

Nicky: fuck

Kevin: ffs

Kevin: some ppl are in class

Nicky added Aaron to the chat.

Aaron: im muting you all

Allison: just embrace the fact that you've lived in SC for years and say y'all

Nicky: y'all!!!

Nicky: yeah

Matt: dude don't how are u gonna know when to buy your coordinated outfit and rehearse the choreography if you mute us

Dan: Aaron?

Renee: I do think he muted us

Allison: fuck a crybaby

Nicky: hey

Allison: what's he gonna do? Unmute us?

Dan: asdhskfjdl ALLI

Matt: lmfao

Nicky: moving ON

Nicky: the important thing here is my boy neil's birthday

Kevin: and you wonder why Aaron left

Nicky: what?

Kevin: maybe Neil doesn't want to celebrate his bday

Nicky: no that's too sad

Nicky: next person?

Allison: not to be that bitch

Matt: oh?

Allison: but do we even know when his birthday is?

Allison: fuck you matthew donovan boyd

Matt: sorry i love you

Dan: it was easy

Dan: matt ur easy

Matt: ily babe

Dan: <3

Kevin: jan 19th

Renee: March 31st?

Allison: wait

Dan: uhhhh

Matt: Neil Josten deserves 2 bdayz

Kevin: no jan 19th

Renee: oh i thought we were using the one he chose for himself

Matt: Renee add a smiley face

Renee: :)

Renee: ?

Dan: babe ur mind,,,, im crying

Matt: ikr

Allison: stop using mygf so

Kevin: is it me or does it sound really passive aggressive bitchy with a smiley face

Dan: ye that's the point

Renee: I really wasn't trying to be

Matt: oh no we know, sorry

Matt: i feel bad now

Matt: it was just funny

Matt: sorry

Dan: :(

Renee: It's okay, don’t worry

Renee: :)

Dan: renee STOP i feel like ur going 2 murder me in my sleep

Renee: I could, but I won't

Nicky: im shaking and im not even in your dorm

Allison: and we daily thank god for that

Nicky: hey im an excellent roommate

Nicky: i always leave so cap and matt can have sexy times

Dan: yeah but then u call it sexy time

Allison: ive seen the bathroom nicky

Nicky: that's aaron

Matt: l o l

Kevin: aaron's a neat freak

Allison: exposed

Nicky: erik come get me the people here are mean

Renee: So when's Neil's actual birthday?

Kevin: jan 19th

Nicky: who's gonna ask andrew?

Kevin: HE HAS REAL PAPERS NOW

Kevin: JUST GO CHECK AND LET ME BE IN CLASS IN PEACE

Allison: well okay drama queen

Dan: kevin: *is on the chat as much as us*

Dan: also kevin: guys why r u dragging me here

Matt: it's okay kevin we can talk about it during practice

Renee: Don't goad him, Matt

Dan: lmfao babe u thought

Matt: uh oh

Allison: lol

Dan: we need 2 trounce the ravens nxt wk

Nicky: do we have to

Dan: y'all r hauling ass @ practice or god help me

Nicky: id settle for a close victory

Matt: nicky if you don't help us close the goal next friday im telling neil about his surprise

Nicky: noooooo :'(

Allison: ye renee has enough to do without having to face stuff y'all should have blocked

Renee: Andrew is also a goalkeeper

Allison: yeah but he doesn't give a fuck

Renee: That's neither true nor fair

Dan: i want bragging rights over this vctry, end of the question

Matt: are we just gonna ignore the fact that the fbi chose neil's old bday

Matt: even tho they made him a new identity

Allison: wonder how this conversation went

Nicky: are we ignoring the fact that neil is a goddamn CAPRICORN

Allison: "in my left hand is your birthday date. In my right hand is your other birthday" *shuffles behind his back*

Matt: idk about astrology but I checked and he tried to pass for an aries so what does that tell us?

Dan: shut up adfhskdjs

Nicky: im dying

Kevin: [attached picture]

Matt: did u steal neil's ID

Allison: i thought you were in class

Kevin: he sent it to me

Nicky: his phone can take pics??

Dan: RLY crappy 1s but yeah

Nicky: so all those times andrew refused to send me pics of his Eden’s Twilight's outfits so i could coordinate neil's…

Matt: :/

Kevin: he just doesn't like you

Allison: i would have laughed but you two have been fighting the good fight since last year, dressing neil up

Nicky: hey

Renee: Kevin, that was mean

Nicky: but thanx allison, I think so too

Kevin: sorry

Kevin: he's just difficult?

Nicky: yeah :(

Dan: omg u guys rmr when neil was on k ferdinand's show n he looked like a bite-sized snack in that shirt

Kevin: not exactly what I remember from this interview

Dan: u were pretty 2 <3

Kevin: oh my god

Renee: Didn't Neil keep the clothes?

Nicky: i've never seen him wear them again

Nicky: maybe he STUFFED THEM DOWN THE TOILET

Matt: uh okay

Allison: weird emphasis

Kevin: are you still stuck on that

Dan: what

Kevin: it's what happened with the clothes he wore the first time we went to columbia

Nicky: do you know how expensive that plumber was?

Matt: just a thought but maybe that wouldn't have happened if you didn't force him to come with you and drugged him against his will

Allison: don't tell me someone actually peed on them and tried to flush

Nicky: take it up with andrew

Matt: you literally drove the car

Kevin: what happened in columbia stays in columbia

Allison: omg oh my god

Dan: IM SCREAMING

Nicky: what was i supposed to do, get knifed?

Nicky: also ^^^^ yeah.

Nicky: ANYWAY

Nicky: now that Kevin got us proof that the FBI officially made neil a capricorn again,,

Dan: the fbi be like "oh u thought u could escape ur traumatic past? That's nice buddy

Matt: yeah I don't think beating last year's party is gonna be hard

Dan: here's ur bday n trauma back"

Nicky: HAPPY THOUGHTS

Nicky: :(

Nicky: anyway it's the big 21st, so the first thing in order is BOOZE

Kevin: uh nicky

Renee: He's turning 20?

Matt: what???

Kevin: yeah he aged himself up on his fake papers

Matt: oh my god

Dan: lmfao only neil

Nicky: he is baby

Matt: does. Does he know though. Like did he check when they made him the papers.

Kevin: I'm guessing so

Matt: imagine filling a form or smth and you get the day right but not the year

Renee: Wait Kevin, how did you get neil to send you the pic without telling him about the surprise party?

Nicky: DON'T YOU DARE HAVE TOLD HIM ABOUT THE NJBB

Allison: njbb?

Dan: neil josten's bday bash, im guessing

Nicky: Neil Josten's

Nicky: BIRTHDAY BASH

Nicky: yes

Allison: it doesn’t sound right

Allison: like, something’s missing in the name

Matt: alli we play a sport named after what you get when you take the s from sexy

Dan: 10 bux kevin wishes he didn't have such a stick up his butt so he could reply with exy is sexy

Allison: im not taking that

Kevin: i actually don't know why she named it that

Kevin: she never told the press and she didn't write it anywhere so

Nicky: :(

Allison: oh

Dan: sorry :(

Renee: Maybe coach knows?

Matt: maybe each letter has a meaning

Kevin: how?

Allison: endangering xylophones yearly?

Matt: EXceptional daY

Matt: and then, boom, it's about your name

Renee: Matt, I like that idea!

Dan: allison, no

Kevin: I'll have to ask coach, renee

Kevin: anyway it was always going to be her name, she invented it

Nicky: someone bring neil in so he can say something super serious about how kevin is a legendary striker whose name is already associated with exy and make us choke with emotion

Kevin: nicky….

Nicky: look it's working and he's not even there

Allison: it's the josten effect

Dan: changing your entire life's beliefs one extremely tragic remark at a time

Matt:...

Matt: someone change the subject im sad

Nicky: BIRTHDAY BASH

Kevin: oh yeah nicky asked me how i got neil's ID

Allison: and?

Kevin: i told him i signed him up for his own exynews account so he could stop hogging mine for streaming

Kevin: so i needed his name and birthday

Kevin: and then we got into an argument about date formats

Nicky: dd/mm/yy 4ever

Allison: eww

Kevin: so he sent me a pic instead of writing the date

Dan: it's the european propaganda getting to him

Kevin: i guess i really have to get him an account now

Dan: kevin i know you're entirely serious but that's so funny

Nicky: THE REST OF THE WORLD USES IT

Matt: admit it, you can't wait to go back to Germany because you secretly like the metric system

Nicky: yeah dicks sound bigger if you use centimeters

Dan: didn't need 2 know that

Nicky: not that erik needs that :)

Dan: I DON'T WANNA KNOW

Renee: ….

Matt: honestly im glad i don't understand german or i would never live down all the skyping

Dan: renee's like "can't relate" lmfao

Renee: No indeed

Allison: hell yeah that's my girlfriend

Renee: <3

Allison: hey minyard if you're secretly lurking now is the time to leave

Allison: …

Renee: No, he truly muted us earlier

Dan: are we surprised?

Renee: we'll catch him up on what we decide to do later

Renee: Nicky?

Nicky: oh, yeah!!!

Nicky: BIRTHDAY BASH

Matt: here we go again

Dan: mamma mia

[wheredidthe80sgo]

Should I read All For The Game?

A fan’s perspective, in case you were wondering whether or not you needed this mafia-sports series in your life (hint: I think you do).

(This post was made by a fan for people who may want to become fans. I was unsure about first reading something so different to other books I’ve read, so I thought that I should just put this out there for people who might feel the same way.)

Reasons to read AFTG:

1. The fandom: I’m starting with one of my favourite things about AFTG. While the fandom is small, it’s dedicated. There is fanart and textposts and fanfiction all over the place from these dedicated people. It was so nice to read a book series and walk into a place where other people are already there, and continuing to contribute to it. And from my pov, there really isn’t that much drama which is nice (although I am on the outskirts).

2. The writing: considering you won’t find AFTG in your local bookstore as it wasn’t published by a company, the writing and storytelling is well done. Sure, it reads like a fanfiction, but sometimes it’s nice to read something self-indulgent rather than literary masterpiece. Nora did well with the world-building and the grammar and spelling is all correct (which I wanted to mention since the writing was something I was hesitant about when reading it for the first time).

3. The actual storyline: yes, it has the Japanese mafia and a made up sport, but AFTG is nothing if not entertaining. There are twists and turns which I did not expect (the end of The Raven King anyone?) and there’s always something to keep you guessing and wanting more. It might sound ridiculous, but watching Neil Josten run from the yakuza is good fun. And, like I said before, this is no literary masterpiece like Dickens or Tolstoy, so just go with it and have fun.

4. The characters: the cast of characters is one thing I love especially about these books. Yes, most of them are assholes, but somehow you fall in love with them one by one. Our protagonist, Neil Josten, is one hell of a messed up kid, and yet makes you laugh and cry many times, or maybe that’s just me. Andrew Minyard, our blond midget, is, in my one opinion, the most interesting character in the series, and certainly provides the books with something... unique. Surrounding our two leads is the Palmetto State Foxes, and a lot of them: Andrew’s twin, Aaron; their cousin, Nicky; Kevin Day, former Exy superstar; Dan Wilds, team captain and badass; Matt Boyd, Dan’s boyfriend and resident Bro; Renee Walker, good girl with a mysterious past; Allison Reynolds, beautiful heiress; Seth Gordon, absolute asshole and Allison’s sometimes boyfriend; Wymack, coach; Abby, team nurse; and Bee Dobson, their therapist. The Foxes are an extremely dysfunctional bunch, yet come together as a family (eventually). They’re moving in times, hilarious in others, and always, always brilliant. Along with the main characters, there are side characters, such as Jean Moreau and Jeremy Knox, who absolutely steal your hearts while being present in less than ten scenes (less than five for Jeremy!!). Also, if you try hard enough, the characters can all be very gay. Personally, out of all of the characters mentioned above, the only straight ones to me are Aaron and Wymack, but it’ s really up to your personal opinion. The fandom certainly has a lot of opinions on this.

5. The sports: now, I’m not a huge sports fan, but when I tell you I actually got excited for the Exy matches, I mean it. A brutal lacrosse-type game, Exy is complicated and hard to understand, yet keeps you excited. Yes, it has lots of subplots related to the yakuza, but AFTG is a sports series at heart, and Exy is certainly fun. Plus, Kevin and Neil’s over-the-top obsessions are certainly a great running gag and guaranteed to make you laugh and/or sigh at least once.

6. The relationships: finally, we arrive. As a hopeless romantic, I always need romance in my books to keep me interested, and AFTG certainly delivers. On your first read, it may not be as obvious who the intended romance is, but by the time you get to the third book (spoiler alert!!) Andrew and Neil kick off their romance and it is beautiful. Featuring one of only two representations of demisexual characters I’ve ever seen in books, AFTG is romantic and very gay while featuring things like PTSD, assault and consent throughout. I may not be the best person to talk about this, but the way consent is handled is absolutely beautiful. If you research the fandom, you would know that one of the main things Andrew and Neil are known for is ‘yes or no’. The subtle way these two handle their relationship is a great way to represent consent, showing how it doesn’t need to spoil the mood. Not only does the series have great romantic relationships, but also familial connections. The Foxes are super dysfunctional (especially a few people in particular), but they do end up being a found family, which is always something to look forward to.

7. The aesthetic: orange, white and black, cigarettes, rooftops, gay pining, knives and guns; need I say more?

Although!! While I love these books for everything they are, I understand that other people have different experiences so I feel like I should mention there are a few things in the series that could potentially trigger people, so I just want to add a trigger warning: mentions of rape/abuse, drugs and alcohol use, homophobia, explicit violence, swearing, sex (not so explicit) , use and mention of things like knives and guns, quite a bit of torture (mainly talked about, or described in flashbacks except for one scene in the third book). All of the Foxes have traumatic backstories and as they’re being targeted by the yakuza so some really bad things happen over the series to a few characters. 

In conclusion (if you didn’t want to read all that), All For The Game is one of my favourite book series of all time, so of course I’m a little biased, but it truly is a good series. Very much something to read when you don’t want to take it too seriously, it has a dedicated fan base with great characters, relationships and a killer aesthetic. Everyone should say thank you Nora Sakavic for bringing this into our world (although we all collectively disregarded her canon pretty quickly). Yes, it has fanfic tropes (quite a few, now that I think about it) and it gets pretty ridiculous and cringe-worthy sometimes, but it also means a lot to a lot of people like me, and hopefully, if you’d like, it could mean something to you too.

[agentnico]

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) Review

If you haven’t yet came about this gem, look up the Russian submission for the cancelled Eurovision 2020. The group is called Little Big. You can thank me later. 

Plot: When aspiring musicians Lars and Sigrit are given the opportunity to represent their country Iceland at the world's biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.

I do enjoy Will Ferrell’s comedy. He has one funny bone, I tell ya that much! Obviously he’s great in all the Adam McKay films such as Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, all of which are endlessly quotable, and I also enjoy his lesser known outings such as Casa de mi Padre and The Campaign (the latter being a scarily realistic portrayal of the bonkers nature of American politics for a stupid irreverent comedy), however recently he’s definitely exhibited a dip in quality, especially with Holmes & Watson. That movie...........that movie.................that......movie.....can I even call it a movie? I still have no idea how in the hell that thing got green-lit? Honestly, who at Sony Pictures picked up the script and thought “hey, look at this, what a funny and original take on the classic Conan Doyle stories, this is a farcical revolution, a slapstick masterpiece, a fantastical example of burlesque interpretation.....let’s make it!!” Whoever this spherical dumbass of a producer was, he’s an idiot who should question his choices more as Holmes & Watson is diabolically bad! It’s excruciatingly unfunny! There’s a gag involving Holmes wearing a Trump-supporting ‘Make America Great Again’ hat....speaks for itself really. The movie is poop! But enough about negatives, let’s set our eyes upon Netflix’s new comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga about, you guessed it, the Eurovision Song Contest! Ironically, the movie is brought to us by the US, even though America has never partook in the real Eurovision contest, nor do many American citizens even know what Eurovision is, which is probably why film critics have been so negative towards this movie, as they don’t really know what Eurovision is all about. Yes, it’s about the music and the competition, but it’s also about the over-the-top set pieces, flamboyant costumes and general acts of weirdness that make Eurovision so enjoyable to watch. But does the new Netflix spoof recapture the magic?

The movie’s biggest negative is that for a comedy it’s not that funny. There are some solid jokes for sure, but there a lot more ones that fall flat than ones that hit. It seems that due to the movie being made in conjunction with Eurovision partners, the writing team avoided to take any true risks, so as to not offend anyone. The Eurovision contest has a lot within it to make fun at to be honest, and this movie avoids that in favour of typical stupid debauchery Ferrell is known for. Even the inclusion of Graham Norton, who actually commentates on Eurovision in real life is severely toned down, and his insults are nowhere as offensive and sarcastic as in real life. And yes, at first that may seem to come off as me saying that this film is a total pile of garbage that should be buried deep at the bottom of the dumpster hidden beneath various human excrement right next to a bunch of DVD copies of Holmes & Watson (grrrrrr!), but let me hit you back with a but! Yes, there’s always a but! No, I’m not referring to one’s backside, for starters that’s a different spelling so learn your English you uneducated son of a bee, please and thank you! Anyway, I digress, the but is that even though it lacks the promised comedic punch, the movie more than makes up with it’s element of romance and, more importantly its heartwarming feel-good nature. Especially in these very strange and confusing times that we find ourselves living in, one does not need a masterpiece in film-making......though I am very much still looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet...whenever that release date finally comes to fruition. But sometimes a fairly simple film with an abundance of cliches (there’s an obligatory ABBA reference) and terrible Icelandic accents but filled with good cheerfully innocent nature is enough to please one’s mind. And you can call me sentimental at my old age (I’m turning 23 in under a week so happy birthday to me!), but I’m not going to lie, I really dug this movie. I had a good time! As I said, it’s no masterpiece, far from it actually, but it is just so pleasing, joyful and upbeat to watch!

Interestingly enough, a few films came to my mind whilst I watched The Story of Fire Saga. There’s the obvious reference to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, another satirical film that parodies the music industry, only there the comedy worked better for me. Then also the movie has a surprisingly catchy soundtrack, with a lot of the song choices feeling like they came out straight from The Greatest Showman. There’s that element of oomph to each tune that really makes it pop! Not going to lie, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on repeat ever since I’ve watched the movie! Also there’s a certain scene that’s a straight up knock off of the Riff-Off scene from Pitch Perfect. Then the more surprising connection is actually last year’s film Yesterday, where a man wakes up one day and he’s the only one who remembers The Beatles and their songs. The connecting thread-line is that in that movie too there is a woman who is unabashedly in love for the main guy, but he doesn’t notice it as he’s so focused on his music dream. I’ll be the first to say I did not like Yesterday. It was very disappointing in light of the calibre of talent that was involved, with Danny Boyle directing and Richard Curtis penning the script. The romantic side of that movie came as a bit of a distraction that got in the way of the potential of the main story-line involving a world without The Beatles. However in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga that romantic thread is actually what holds the whole thing together so well. This is easily the most romantic movie of this year, and I know, I’m surprised to say so myself, seeing as this is a Will Ferrell motion picture! 

Speaking of Will Ferrell, he’s decent in the movie, if you like Will Ferrell, as he does his usual shtick, though looking unrecognisable due to the ridiculous wig. However it seems Ferrell himself realises his co-stars bring more to the table in terms of acting compared to him, as he devotes a lot of scenes to Rachel McAdams and Dan Stevens. Rachel McAdams is adorable in this movie, with such a pure and baby-like personality, and it was constantly a pleasure seeing her light up the screen. Though it is Dan Stevens who steals the show as an antagonist that is surprisingly not as villainous as first anticipated, and turns out to be a cute puppy-dog eyed Russian lion! Also, that hair style suits him well.......maybe too well. Appearances from Demi Lovato and Pierce Brosnan are welcome too, though heavily under-used. Speaking of the latter, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga and the Mamma Mia! films are now part of the Pierce-Brosnan-has-a-dead-wife-and-ABBA-is-heavily-involved-somehow cinematic universe.

As a whole Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is nothing groundbreaking, but a truly good time, with a soundtrack filled with low-key bangers, a visual feast to the eyes due to showcasing the gorgeous visages of the Icelandic landscapes, and is easily Will Ferrell’s best film in years! Especially with that surprisingly emotional finale. Yes, this movie is ridiculously stupid, though it’s more ridiculous how emotionally hard-hitting the ending is. The song “Husavik” does for this movie what “Shallow” did for A Star Is Born. So I say go watch this film and embrace its warm comforting feels. Perfect for a date night, me and my girlfriend can attest to that!

Overall score: 6/10

[perpustakawan]

Ikan Patin

Published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei in 1989. Written by Ak. Mohammad bin Pg Damit. Story told by Pg Aminah binti Pg Rajid. Illustrated by Abdul Hakim Haji Mokti.

I borrowed this from my university library solely for the name. Patin (the proper spelling is Fatin) is a human name given to women but it’s also the name of a fish but it’s actually a small size species of domesticated sharks that are aggressive but people in Malaysia commonly eat them as a delicacy. This is weird because in Brunei eating a Patin fish is an uncommon practice that it never occurred to me that there’s a local folklore around this fish.

You probably didn’t notice but I’ll point it out. If you read the first paragraph, you might have noticed that the book is written by a person but was told by someone else. This is because local folklore are usually told orally than by writing and I think this is because the proper writing system, like the alphabet for the Malay language was not standardized until the 1970’s. People used to write in the Sanskrit script, some cases in Pallava variety and Arabic alphabet. Then with it was written in the English alphabet with diacritics which were then discarded to form the New Rumi Spelling commonly used today. I’m not a linguist so I provided link to some keywords if you’d like to google more. I also have a few books that are written in the old Rumi Spelling which I’ll share in the future posts.

Because of this, a lot of local folklore are lost or morphed into a version far different than it was originally. So that little detail saying the story was told by this individual is kind of a cute gesture to credit the story teller.

Ikan Patin starts with basic couple, the husband is a fisherman while the wife takes care of their only child. On one bad fishing day, the husband caught one lone fish that was known for a few other names but the husband knows it as Ikan Patin. He comes home and leave the fish overnight in the boat hoping to catch at least two more tomorrow to feed his family of 3.

But at the dead of night, the wife woke up startled by the sound of the hysterical crying of a baby but it wasn’t her child, it came from outside, in the water, on the boat. The baby had a chipped upper lip (sumbing) at the center making her lips look like a cat mouth. It didn’t take long for the wife to connect the dots and realize that the ikan Patin turned into the shrieking baby girl.

The couple raised her like their own, she didn’t have a name but I guess it was Fatin. She later married a man and had a child of her own.

The cried day and night so the father thought a little song could stop the crying. But the song was about fish who had a hook stuck on its lips and made Fatin insecure. She later realized that her chipped lips were from a hook and now she remembered that she was once a fish. She asked her husband to stop but he found it amusing and it was the only thing making the crying child stop crying, even if it was for a moment.

He added a new lyric to his song that drove the poor girl to tears; ‘…mothers who were once fishes should return to what and where they were’.

In tears, she pecked a kiss to both her husband and child like it was a farewell kiss and YEETed into the river to transform into a fish and swam away. Her parents were devastated and her asshole of a husband stood there like a surprised Pikachu. The man really thought she wouldn’t do it but boy did he fucked up.

The crying child in his arm grew up and had children of his own. Because of his mother being a fish, he and his descendants were half-fish people who could transform into Ikan Patin. The ability was a secret but it was an open secret people in the village shared so out of respect, the non-fish people don’t eat Ikan Patin and that persisted to this day since its uncommon to eat the said fish in Brunei.

This story just shows how much of an asshole her husband is but, her descendants can transform into fish people? So you’re saying, there’s a Malay aquaman at some point in history but instead of talking to dolphins, he talks to the sumpit-sumpits? I’d love to see that. Knowing that Malays are mostly fisherman, it would be cool to read a Malay pirate story centered around the Brunei Bay. I would actually want to buy a book of that so badly!

Back to the story of Ikan Patin, the fish girl had a chipped upper lip that may have greatly affected her speech. I can’t seem to describe it but, in Malay, it’s described that’s she’s sumbing, confirming that she does have speech defect cause of the chipped shape of lips. The defect, sounds more nasally and there’s a slight lisp to it cause the chip actually extends to one her noses. Obviously, since people back in the olden days make fun of people’s appearance and intelligence harshly, I can imagine the girl’s pain when her own husband makes fun of her. He was the last person she wanted to hear such ridicule from and the man had the guts to tell her to ‘go back to where and what she was’ – it was an invitation to leave and she took it.

References (For New Rumi Spelling):

Asmah Omar (1989), "The Malay Spelling Reform", Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, archived from the original on 2011-08-26

[dvp95]

do you have advice on writing in a different language ? English is not my first language but there is No Phandom where I'm from rip. also advice on avoiding being out of character? I feel like it's something the phandom really values but i dont know how to do that lol. hope you're having an alright day thank you !!

my day is looking up, thank you for asking!

i haven’t tried writing fic in a different language in many, many years, and i certainly haven’t posted any - if any bilingual people want to chime in here, please do - but i do have some stuff i learned through that experience. 

your absolute best bet is to work with a beta who writes in english often. when you’re writing, just write your story the way you want it to be told, experiment with different phrasing, etc, and then let someone you trust or respect tell you what doesn’t work and what you can improve on. don’t worry about things like grammar or spelling while you’re writing, because those are really simple things for a beta to help out with! if you don’t have any friends who can beta, send a message to @phandomficfests who have a bunch of betas “on staff” and might be able to help you connect with someone willing to put in the extra work to make your sentences flow better in english!

avoiding ooc behaviour is easier for some writers than others, and for some of us it’s a big struggle to make our characterization work well with the story and with dan and phil themselves. a beta can absolutely help with this as well - you can have someone else look over your fic for the specific purpose of finding things that are ooc, britpicking (localizing your writing to dnp), or checking dialogue - but there are some tricks i use to help that process as well!

first of all, watch a lot of videos! that might sound silly, but having a handle on the way dan and phil speak is probably the key to making your dialogue sound like them. the research is the fun bit! you can even make notes if you like - i personally have a file on my phone of bullet points where phil has said something completely ridiculous, and i’ve been known to screenshot times that dan says a particularly creative curse. there’s nothing wrong with using exact phrases they’ve said, as long as your story isn’t full of them.

secondly, read your fic out loud if you have the ability to do so! reading dialogue out loud is the best way to see if it sounds like something a person would actually say. that’s helpful for any kind of writing! and i know that english isn’t your first language so maybe things sound strange to you anyway? but if you’ve gotten familiar enough with dan and phil’s speaking patterns you can think, “does this sound like something that they’d say? does it sound strange because they wouldn’t say it, or does it sound strange because i’m not familiar enough with the language?”

i hope this helps! sorry for the whole uhhh novel situation

[stillinaincrad]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Summer 2019 Edition

There are still a few that I have yet to check out, mainly due to a significant lack of free time (hooray, adulthood!), but there is already way more going on at the start of this summer season than there has been in months, at least to me. 

The Good

1. Given

Honestly, I don’t care how long it lasts. Honestly, I don’t know how long they can carry an entire anime based on the flimsy story already laid out. Either way, I really don’t care. The interesting art and especially the various facial expressions in just the first episode drew me in and caught my attention, but I was shoving all my chips to the center of the felt the second the music started. As a guitarist myself, there’s no way I could stay away from this combination of drawing, characters, and technical music. I think this is going to get very good from here, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll be onboard. 

2. Are You Lost? (Sounan Desu ka?)

I have this system I’ve developed where if the OP starts and it’s the cast singing/lip-syncing? The anime is almost always raw sewage. (take it out for a spin sometime, it’s amazingly accurate) There are exceptions, and I’m not going to call this one great, but so far it’s not too bad. I grew up out in the woods, hiking and camping sometimes where you were nowhere for days at a time with only what was on your back. I probably could be stranded and survive. Doesn’t mean I want to, but for all this anime is fluff, it’s also pretty realistic and accurate in places, too. Plus, I mean, even if it were awful, is only 12mins per episode, so yeah - not hard to move on from after. Still, though, am enjoying it so far. Am certainly not expecting anything, but it has yet to annoy me too badly, either lol  

3. A Certain Scientific Accelerator (Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator)

Know what anime I was most excited for last year? Yup, Index III. Know what anime I struggled to get through and kinda didn’t care for? Yup, Index III. In the first two, as well as the Railgun seasons, there was enough offset. I mean, yeah, there were themes of mass murder, and government corruption, and imbalance and all, but there was enough humor and goofiness to offset it. Index III to me felt like a great big piece of meat that was dense and you had to chew until you were tired of eating just to get through it. Accelerator seems to be sandwiched in between storylines and feels like it will have more of that balance. And, I have to admit, the first of the ‘Scientific/Magical’ series I watched was Railgun and haaaated Accelerator - thought he was the worst of the worst - but then as you get into the other stories and see how they intertwine, you see he's a little more Walt Kowalski and a little less Amon Goth than what you thought. Am interested to see how this show goes, given we know how he begins and how he ends. 

4. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka)

I did not get to see the prequel Dan Machi series because I wasn’t going to pay the money for Amazon Strike, which was the only place that had it without all the pop-ups and viruses and fun stuff we don't feel like dealing with like we used to for our shows. So, I never saw it, which drove me insane. I have really loved these characters since day one, and am wicked stoked that DM2 is being streamed and I get more of them for a while. They moved right in on the first episode, too. Looks like it’s going to be another fun season! 

The Bad

1. Magical Sempai (Tejina-senpai)

Yes, it is fun in small doses, but this is a bad anime. And I don’t just mean the weak writing, the dependence on fanservice, or any of the things anyone can demise from sitting through an episode which, well, isn’t totally terrible. The schtick gets old quickly, but there are funny moments. But what makes it bad to me is that Kotoyama, Tezuka, Feel... none of these names appear anywhere in the credits, but damn if Senpai isn’t awfully close to a dead ringer for Hotaru Shidaire, and the OP music/mood/sequence doesn’t have Dagashi Kashi written all the frick over it. This show is bad to begin with, yes but stolen valor is the worst kind of imitation. 

2. Granbelm

If you can’t tell what is going to happen about ten minutes before it happens - right down to lines that are going to fall out of these girls’ mouths - then you probably shouldn’t play video games. Granbelm has every edge rounded off for safety, and if the Powderpuff girls had had mecha back in the day, this is exactly what they’d have looked like (and at the same time, bizarrely enough, kind of remind me of the Invid from Macross in a way, too). Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to watch the hell out of it start to finish because it’s about badly acted mages having a battle royale in another realm using gooftastic-looking mechas that fire spells, and let’s face it - who wouldn’t? Just don’t expect me to talk about how good it is. I already know it’s going to be very bad lol

The Ugly

1. Isekai Cheat Magician 

OK, look - I watched In Another World with my Smartphone. It was awful. I watched Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku) and it was mindless as can be. And just this past season, I watched every episode of Wise Man's Grandchild (Kenja no Mago). They ALL are quasi-dependent upon cliché and irritating romances, tee-hee characters that are as shallow as the writing, and a singular, ridiculously overpowered character that nothing ever happens to. I really enjoy the isekai genre of anime and will tend to watch just about anything to see where it goes, but two episodes into this turd, I said no more. I just can’t do another one of these mimeographed brain leeches. Not this season, at least. 

[ricekrispyjoints]

Dima’s top 12 quick and dirty hacks for sounding more proficient in French

Bonjour à toutes et tous !

A friend recently asked for some French help, and I…  got carried away. And made this list. There are probably similar lists out there, but I had a lot of fun making this so OSEF (that’s on s’en fout, or “who cares”).

I realize it’s basically all for spoken (or very casual written) French, but hey, talking is hard, but at least you don’t have to spell anything.

I have more or less put these in the order I (from personal experience) consider to be the easiest to the more advanced/difficult to implement. You may have more luck with one further down the list, who knows. À chacun son style !

(NB: I’m a native speaker of American English currently living in France. I started learning French in 8th grade (~13 years old) and fell in love.) 

Click here to listen to the sample sentences used in the list.

If you would prefer this list in .pdf format, or have any questions/corrections contact me here. 

(Other than typos, I would prefer that only native speakers offer corrections if there is a definition/usage concern.)

At the end of the list is a (short) list of my top English-French resources.

edit: the part about verlan has been updated, thanks to @fcktaken for pointing out the over-simplification.

Bref ! On y va, c’est parti !

1.     Oui= Ouais

Okay, this is an easy one. Instead of saying a strict “yes” all the time, try a “yeah” in your speaking. (It sounds like “weh”, in case you weren’t sure.) Ouais, ça va.

2.      Double subjects French, especially spoken or casual writing, likes to double subjects. It emphasizes who you’re talking about, especially when you’re discussing or comparing multiple subjets.

Use the direct object version and then the subject version of the pronoun:

Moi, j’aimerais bien. Toi, tu as un stylo à me prêter ? Lui, il est parti. Nous, on a déjà fini. (Notice here that “nous” corresponds to the « on ». see trick 3 for more on « on ».) Vous, vous êtes satisfaits ? Eux, ils parlent espagnol.

It also works for objects (at higher levels you will get yelled at for doing this in academic settings but everyone does it so fight me).

La chaise, elle est confortable ?

Le cahier, il est où ?

Le français, c’est une langue compliquée. (Fun fact:  the c’ in c’est comes from ça which comes from cela, which is the official subject form “it”. I did not know this until literal years into my French education. Don’t worry about it.)

 In questions, the direct object version (moi, toi, lui, etc) goes at the end :

Tu as des sœurs, toi ?

Il a réussi à l’examen, lui ?

3.      “Nous” is out; « on » is in Especially when speaking, but also in more casual writing (and even in some scientific research papers, despite what my professors all say), instead of saying “nous”, use “on”. It uses the same conjugation as “il/elle” singular. –Caroline, qu’est que tu as fait avec ton amie hier ? –On est allées au ciné le soir. On s’est bien amusées ! (Note: you must show agreement with whoever the « on » is referring to! That’s why there’s an extra e and an s here: two girls = es ending.)

Nous, on a déjà fini le projet.

It can also be used to refer to people in general, as in “you have to pass a test to become a teacher”, where “you” is just some person in general, and no one specific. In English, we can also say “one”, as in “one must pass an exam…” but it sounds kind of snooty or pretentious. In French ? Very casual. Very common.

On doit passer un examen pour devenir prof. On dirait que c’est de ta faute !

On est plus fort quand on a bien dormi. (Note : for a general use, no agreement is necessary. So just “fort”, not “forts” or “fortes”.)

4.      Drop the “ne” from your negations Ok so your professor might not like this, and you should definitely still write it. But when speaking, most French people (young and old except for absolute sticklers) do not say the “ne” in a “ne__ pas” (or “ne __ rien”, “ne __ plus, etc.) construction unless they are really trying to emphasize the negative. Again, this is for speaking only. J’ai pas de stylo. Vous êtes pas d’accord ?

Là j’ai rien compris.

Il peut plus continuer à courir.

Vous voyez personne ?

 5.     Contractions with je suis, je sais pas, and tu es/tu as

When speaking quickly, French speakers tend to contract certain sounds. Think of the English “I’m going to” becoming “I’m gonna”. In French, there a few common spoken (or chatspeak 😉) contractions:

Je suis: Chuis contente de te voir! ALSO Chu contente de te voir ! (Remember that in French, « ch » makes an English « sh » sound.)

Je sais pas : Chais pas trop. (Remember, we abandoned our « ne”! For some reason, the affirmative “je sais” doesn’t really get contracted as “chais”.)

 Tu es : T’es très gentille !

Tu as : T’as un vélo, toi ?  

6.      Filler words Get rid of your “um”s and “uh”s and replace them with things like “euh”, “ben” or “fin”: Je suis… fin, je suis pas content de voir ça.

Ben, écoute, il y a plus que ça dans la vie !

7.      “du coup” This is a spoken/casual replacement for “donc” and I swear native French speakers use it in every conversation. I honestly thought it was just a random filler word for literally weeks the first time I lived in France. Any time you want to say “so” or “therefore”, try du coup instead of “donc”:

Du coup, j’ai oublié l’heure du rendez-vous.

J’ai raté le train, du coup je suis arrivé en retard.

On comprend pas les consignes, du coup on peut pas finir le projet.

8.     « N’importe quoi ! »

Okay this is a very self-indulgent because this is like. My favorite thing to say in French. It’s a very flexible phrase, and hard to “directly” translate into English. Here are a few scenarios where it works well:

·       To say « anything »: Tu peux faire n’importe quoi avec un diplôme de Business. (This might be the original usage? But not the most fun…)

·       Someone says something totally false or incorrect and you want to call them out (a tiiiny bit rudely): Mais tu dis n’importe quoi !

·       Something is ridiculous or nonsensical: C’est vraiment du n’importe quoi…

·       When someone is doing who-knows-what: Tu fais du n’importe quoi!

9.     Le subjonctif

Listen. I’m really sorry. As a native English speaker, I had no idea what the subjunctive was. We don’t inflect it in English, and there’s a shit load of irregular stems, and sometimes the use of subjunctive seems random and doesn’t follow the “rules” our teachers give us. (Welcome to language, where everything is made up and rules don’t matter.) However, it’s really common in French. Anyway, even if you don’t master this mood, there are a few common phrases and irregular forms you should pay attention to:

·       Il faut + infinitive: the easiest one. Seriously, you got this one.

·       Il faut que j’y aille : I gotta go ! (aille is from aller) (please don’t ask me what the “y” is for; it’s a pronoun for a place but like… where are you going? Somewhere… Just don’t forget it.)

·       Il faut que je fasse… : I have to do/make… (fasse is from faire)

·       Il faut que tu sois/ça soit/vous soyez … : You/One/Y’all must be…. (sois/soit/soyez is from être)

10. Complain more

You think I’m kidding ? Okay, I am a little bit. But if you have the opportunity, a little whining never hurt anyone. According to my sources, 25% of French culture is complaining.

Here’s a few phrases to try out:

Ça craint! (That sucks!)

C’est chiant, ça. (A bit vulgar, so mind your audience.)

J’ai des devoirs à faire mais j’en veux paaaaas. (really draw it out)

Mais non, c’est pas possible… (with a sense of despair)

 When in doubt, just fais la grève (go on strike).

11.Slang (argot) and swearing (gros mots)

Learning and integrating slang is… difficult. It varies regionally, it doesn’t translate directly, and if you’re only using French in a classroom setting, your teacher probably wants you to use more formal (and polite) French. BUT. It’s fun and if you spend time around native speakers in a casual setting, they will probably use a shitload of it. Here is a small selection of my favorites:

·       Bordel: literally a brothel, you can use this to say something is a mess (J’ai pas fait le ménage depuis longtemps… Mon appart’ est un bordel…)

·       Je m’en fous !: The more aggressive/vulgar cousin of “je m’en fiche” and “ça m’est égal » (all meaning various degrees of “I don’t care”), tell people you don’t give a fuck with this expression.

·       Abréviations communes : la faculté (université) becomes la fac, d’accord becomes d’acc, personnellement becomes perso, ne t’inquiète pas becomes t’inquiète (negation ? don’t know her). There are loads others, but those are the ones that come to mind right away.

·       Putain (‘tain): roughly the French equivalent of “fuck”. Use it as an exclamation, or add “de” and a noun to say “fucking (thing)”: putain de stylo ! Il y a plus d’encre !

·       Merde/marde: literally “shit”, another common French swear. Merde is the French-from-France version, marde is the Canadian-French version that I also use because I think it sounds better. Feeling really angry? Try combining it with “putain” for “putain de merde/marde” for a nice, resounding “fucking shit!”

·       Verlan: I personally don’t like/use verlan, but you might hear it among younger (teen/young adult) native speakers, especially those in urban/immigrant areas. it’s a heavily cultural kind of slang, but many words have entered “mainstream” French. Check out the french wiki for more on verlan (the English wiki is less complete re: cultural significance, but explains the form a bit). This is only on the list so you recognize what the hell people are saying when you hear it. The 2 most common ones I hear are meuf (femme) and ouf (fou).

·       Wikebec.org: If you want to learn a lot of very diverse Canadian French (including slang and swearing, which is a whole art), check out wikebec. It is all in French, so if you’re not as advanced you may need an additional French-English dictionary.

 12. Punctuation (aka I am passionate about silly things you can honestly skip this one I won’t be sad)

Wow, something about formal writing! So this is getting kind of knit-picky, and if you switch your word-processor language to French, it will do this automatically for you. Anyway, punctuation in formal French writing is a little different from English. Obviously, where and how many commas there are is very nuanced and I’m not going to get into much here, but here’s a few stylistic things to consider for the Advanced Schmoozer  Student of French™:

·       Commas in a list (virgules dans une série)

Ok so in English, I am an Oxford Comma Stan. The French have cordially invited me to go fuck myself. Here’s an English example WITH the Oxford comma, followed by the French translation withOUT the Oxford comma:

I bought milk, eggs, and fruit at the store.

J’ai acheté du lait, des œufs et des fruits au supermarché.

(The Oxford comma is the one after “eggs” in my example. It’s not there in French. It’s not a thing in French.)

·      Quotation marks (des guillemets) You may have noticed in this document that for the French words, there are some accent looking things. Those are quotation marks. In narrative writing, these bad boys are largely ignored, but if you use MS Word with a French dictionary turned on, it will automatically turn your English “ “ into French « ». (See next point for further usage instructions.) « Les guillemets français sont différents de ceux d’anglais. »

·       Extra spaces For all punctuation except periods and commas, an extra space is used. This means that colons (:), semicolons (;), quotation marks, question marks, and exclamation points have an extra space. Again, if you set your language to French, MS Word should do this automatically for you, but it looks like this:

 Tu parles à qui ?

J’étais choqué !

Il faut faire attention ; sinon on va se tromper.

Danger : entrée interdite !

Le mot « putain » est vulgaire.

Quelques ressources utiles et d’autres conseils

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the resources that I’ve used throughout my French education. BUT, these are the ones I frequently use and find easiest to navigate.

·       www.wordreference.com Ok if you’re not already using wordreference and you are a fluent English speaker learning French, honestly what are you doing. Love yourself. It’s not perfect, but it’s by far the best online English-French dictionary I’ve used. (There is also a Spanish-French dictionary, but as my Spanish isn’t that advanced, I can’t speak personally to its accuracy.) Highlights of WR: easy to use, free app for phones/tablets, audio pronunciation for most (perhaps all?) main entries (and IPA transcription, if you know IPA), extensive phrases/expressions/idioms per entry, lots of example sentences (though not for every definition), forum with discussions of usage in context.

Just like any dictionary, pay attention to the part of speech and context: don’t just pick the first translation! Make sure it’s the version you want for your sentence.

·       https://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais

Another good online French-English dictionary, though I don’t use it as much.

·       http://bonpatron.com/ A spelling and grammar checker! The free version has a character limit, but you can just cut your original text into smaller chunks and check it in parts instead of all at once if you pass the limit.

Highlights: Will tell you the general rule for errors it identifies (in English! As long as you make sure the “I’m a francophone” box is NOT checked), distinguishes between “double check this” (yellow highlight) and “just wrong” (red highlight), will check for feminine adjective agreement if you check the “je is feminine” box

·       www.french.typeit.org

If you don’t want to install a French keyboard, memorize keyboard shortcuts, or spend 5 minutes searching for your accents in the “insert symbol” menu of word, typeit.org offers a free, online French keyboard. You can use their shortcuts or click on the button with the accent you want. Only downside is that you gotta copy paste it back into your document, but I used it a lot back in high school for typed French assignments.

·       http://soutien67.free.fr/francais/francais.htm

Okay, hear me out: yes, this is a site for grade school teachers to help their kids learn French (as native speakers). BUT, there are a BUTTLOAD of conjugation exercises, vocabulary builders, and they all have answer keys! Available in .doc and .pdf format.

“Fiches” is where you want to go for the worksheets. It has downloadable worksheets, and then you can either choose a grade level or just start scrolling. The worksheets are organized by category, like “lire” with short stories and poems (for kids, so eh idk if that’s interesting), “grammaire” (goes more into parts of speech and such, but all in French), “orthographe” (spelling/writing rules), and “conjugaison” (our good friend verbs).

For the niveaux (levels): CP= 1st grade, when kids learn to read. These are likely not what you are looking for. CE1= 2nd grade, CE2= 3rd grade, CM1= 4th grade, CM2= 5th grade. Obviously gets more complicated/harder the higher the level.

So if you can put up with the grade school approach and you want more practice, check out what they have. (If you can’t find what you’re looking for, ask me and I will help you find what you need.)

 If you made it this far…. Félicitations. You either have too much time on your hands, are very dedicated to French, or maybe both. 

Merci et au revoir !!

[shirlleycoyle]

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon

This story was originally published on mssv.net by Adrian Hon (@adrianhon)

The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory is so sprawling, it’s hard to know where people join. Last week, it was 5G cell towers, this week it’s Wayfair; who knows what next week will bring? But QAnon’s followers always seem to begin their journey with the same refrain: “I’ve done my research.”

I’d heard that line before. In early 2001, the marketing for Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, A.I., had just begun. YouTube wouldn’t launch for another four years, so you had to be eagle-eyed to spot the unusual credit next to Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, and Frances O’Connor: Jeanine Salla, the movie’s “Sentient Machine Therapist.”

Close-up of the A.I. movie poster

Soon after, Ain’t It Cool News (AICN) posted a tip from a reader:

“Type her name in the Google.com search engine, and see what sites pop up…pretty cool stuff! Keep up the good work, Harry!! –ClaviusBase”

(Yes, in 2001 Google was so new you had to spell out its web address.)

The Google results began with Jeanine Salla’s homepage but led to a whole network of fictional sites. Some were futuristic versions of police websites or lifestyle magazines; others were inscrutable online stores and hacked blogs. A couple were in German and Japanese. In all, over twenty sites and phone numbers were listed.

By the end of the day, the websites racked up 25 million hits, all from a single AICN article suggesting readers ‘do their research’. It later emerged they were part of one of the first-ever alternate reality games (ARG), The Beast, developed by Microsoft to promote Spielberg’s movie.

The way I’ve described it here, The Beast sounds like enormous fun. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a doorway into 2142 filled with websites and phone numbers and puzzles, with runaway robots who need your help and even live events around the world? But consider how much work it required to understand the story and it begins to sound less like “watching TV” fun and more like “painstaking research” fun. Along with tracking dozens of websites that updated in real time, you had to solve lute tablature puzzles, decode base 64 messages, reconstruct 3D models of island chains that spelt out messages, and gather clues from newspaper and TV adverts across the US.

This purposeful yet bewildering complexity is the complete opposite of what many associate with conventional popular entertainment, where every bump in your road to enjoyment has been smoothed away in the pursuit of instant engagement and maximal profit. But there’s always been another kind of entertainment that appeals to different people at different times, one that rewards active discovery, the drawing of connections between clues, the delicious sensation of a hunch that pays off after hours or days of work. Puzzle books, murder mysteries, adventure games, escape rooms, even scientific research—they all aim for the same spot.

What was new in The Beast and the ARGs that followed it was less the specific puzzles and stories they incorporated, but the sheer scale of the worlds they realised—so vast and fast-moving that no individual could hope to comprehend them. Instead, players were forced to cooperate, sharing discoveries and solutions, exchanging ideas, and creating resources for others to follow. I’d know: I wrote a novel-length walkthrough of The Beast when I was meant to be studying for my degree at Cambridge.

QAnon is not an ARG. It’s a dangerous conspiracy theory, and there are lots of ways of understanding conspiracy theories without ARGs. But QAnon pushes the same buttons that ARGs do, whether by intention or by coincidence. In both cases, “do your research” leads curious onlookers to a cornucopia of brain-tingling information.

In other words, maybe QAnon is… fun?

ARGs never made it big. They came too early and It’s hard to charge for a game that you stumble into through a Google search. But maybe their purposely-fragmented, internet-native, community-based form of storytelling and puzzle-solving was just biding its time…

This blog post expands on the ideas in my Twitter thread about QAnon and ARGs, and incorporates many of the valuable replies. Please note, however, that I’m not a QAnon expert and I’m not a scholar of conspiracy theories. I’m not even the first to compare QAnon to LARPs and ARGs.

But my experience as lead designer of Perplex City, one of the world’s most popular and longest-running ARGs, gives me a special perspective on QAnon’s game-like nature. My background as a neuroscientist and experimental psychologist also gives me insight into what motivates people.

Today, I run Six to Start, best known for Zombies, Run!, an audio-based augmented reality game with half a million active players, and I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification.

It’s Like We Did It On Purpose

Perplex City “Ascendancy Point” Story Arc

When I was designing Perplex City, I loved sketching out new story arcs. I’d create intricate chains of information and clues for players to uncover, colour-coding for different websites and characters. There was a knack to having enough parallel strands of investigation going on so that players didn’t feel railroaded, but not so many that they were overwhelmed. It was a particular pleasure to have seemingly unconnected arcs intersect after weeks or months.

Merely half of the “Q-web“

No-one would mistake the clean lines of my flowcharts for the snarl of links that makes up a QAnon theory, but the principles are similar: one discovery leading to the next. Of course, these two flowcharts are very different beasts. The QAnon one is an imaginary, retrospective description of supposedly-connected data, while mine is a prescriptive network of events I would design.

Except that’s not quite true. In reality, Perplex City players didn’t always solve our puzzles as quickly as we intended them to, or they became convinced their incorrect solution was correct, or embarrassingly, our puzzles were broken and had no solution at all. In those cases we had to rewrite the story on the fly.

When this happens in most media, you just hold up your hands and say you made a mistake. In video games, you can issue an online update and hope no-one’s the wiser. But in ARGs, a public correction would shatter the uniquely-prolonged collective suspension of disbelief in the story. This was thought to be so integral to the appeal of ARGs, it was termed TINAG, or “This is Not a Game.”

So when we messed up in Perplex City, we tried mightily to avoid editing websites, a sure sign this was, in fact, a game. Instead, we’d fix it by adding new storylines and writing through the problem (it helped to have a crack team of writers and designers, including Naomi Alderman, Andrea Phillips, David Varela, Dan Hon, Jey Biddulph, Fi Silk, Eric Harshbarger, and many many others).

We had a saying when these diversions worked out especially well: “It’s like we did it on purpose.”

Every ARG designer can tell a similar war story. Here’s Josh Fialkov, writer for the Lonelygirl15 ARG/show:

“Our fans/viewers would build elaborate (and pretty neat) theories and stories around the stories we’d already put together and then we’d merge them into our narrative, which would then engage them more. The one I think about the most is we were shooting something on location and we’re run and gunning. We fucked up and our local set PA ended up in the background of a long selfie shot. We had no idea. It was 100% a screw up. The fans became convinced the character was in danger. And then later when that character revealed herself as part of the evil conspiracy — that footage was part of the audiences proof that she was working with the bad guys all along — “THATS why he was in the background!” They literally found a mistake – made it a story point. And used it as evidence of their own foresight into the ending — despite it being, again, us totally being exhausted and sloppy. And at the time hundreds of thousands of people were participating and contributing to a fictional universe and creating strands upon strands.”

Conspiracy theories and cults evince the same insouciance when confronted with inconsistencies or falsified predictions; they can always explain away errors with new stories and theories. What’s special about QAnon and ARGs is that these errors can be fixed almost instantly, before doubt or ridicule can set in. And what’s really special about QAnon is how it’s absorbed all other conspiracy theories to become a kind of ur-conspiracy theory such that seems pointless to call out inconsistencies. In any case, who would you even be calling out when so many QAnon theories come from followers rather than “Q”?

Yet the line between creator and player in ARGs has also long been blurry. That tip from “ClaviusBase” to AICN that catapulted The Beast to massive mainstream coverage? The designers more or less admitted it came from them. Indeed, there’s a grand tradition of ARG “puppetmasters” (an actual term used by devotees) sneaking out from “behind the curtain” (ditto) to create “sockpuppet accounts” in community forums to seed clues, provide solutions, and generally chivvy players along the paths they so carefully designed.

As an ARG designer, I used to take a hard line against this kind of cheating but in the years since, I’ve mellowed somewhat, mostly because it can make the game more fun, and ultimately, because everyone expects it these days. That’s not the case with QAnon.

Yes, anyone who uses 4chan and 8chan understands that anonymity is baked into the system such that posters frequently create entire threads where they argue against themselves in the guise of anonymous users who are impossible to distinguish or trace back to a single individual – but do the more casual QAnon followers know that?

Local Fame

A Beautiful Mind

Pop culture’s conspiracy theorist sits in a dark basement stringing together photos and newspaper clippings on their "crazy wall." On the few occasions this leads to useful results, it’s an unenviable pursuit. Anyone choosing such an existence tends to be shunned by society.

But this ignores one gaping fact: piecing together theories is really satisfying. Writing my walkthrough for The Beast was rewarding and meaningful, appreciated by an enthusiastic community in a way that my molecular biology essays most certainly were not. Online communities have long been dismissed as inferior in every way to “real” friendships, an attenuated version that’s better than nothing, but not something that anyone should choose. Yet ARGs and QAnon (and games and fandom and so many other things) demonstrate there’s an immediacy and scale and relevance to online communities that can be more potent and rewarding than a neighbourhood bake sale. This won’t be news to most of you, but I think it’s still news to decision-makers in traditional media and politics.

Good ARGs are deliberately designed with puzzles and challenges that require unusual talents—I designed one puzzle that required a good understanding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs—with problems so large that they require crowdsourcing to solve, such that all players feel like welcome and valued contributors.

Needless to say, that feeling is missing from many people’s lives:

“ARGs are generally a showcase for special talent that often goes unrecognized elsewhere. I have met so many wildly talented people with weird knowledge through them.”

If you’re first to solve a puzzle or make a connection, you can attain local fame in ARG communities, as Dan Hon, COO at Mind Candy (makers of the Perplex City ARG), notes. The vast online communities for TV shows like Lost and Westworld, with their purposefully convoluted mystery box plots, also reward those who guess twists early, or produce helpful explainer videos. Yes, the reward is “just” internet points in the form of Reddit upvotes, but the feeling of being appreciated is very real. It’s no coincidence that Lost and Westworld both used ARGs to promote their shows.

Wherever you have depth in storytelling or content or mechanics, you’ll find the same kind of online communities. Games like Bloodborne, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Animal Crossing, Eve Online, and Elite Dangerous, they all share the same race for discovery. These discoveries eventually become processed into explainer videos and Reddit posts that are more accessible for wider audiences.

The same has happened with modern ARGs, where explainer videos have become so compelling they rack up more views than the ARGs have players (not unlike Twitch). Michael Andersen, owner of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network news site, is a fan of this trend, but wonders about its downside—with reference to conspiracy theorists:

“[W]hen you’re reading (or watching) a summary of an ARG? All of the assumptions and logical leaps have been wrapped up and packaged for you, tied up with a nice little bow. Everything makes sense, and you can see how it all flows together. Living it, though? Sheer chaos. Wild conjectures and theories flying left and right, with circumstantial evidence and speculation ruling the day. Things exist in a fugue state of being simultaneously true-and-not-true, and it’s only the accumulation of evidence that resolves it. And acquiring a “knack” for sifting through theories to surface what’s believable is an extremely valuable skill—both for actively playing ARGs, and for life in general.And sometimes, I worry that when people consume these neatly packaged theories that show all the pieces coming together, they miss out on all those false starts and coincidences that help develop critical thinking skills. …because yes, conspiracy theories try and offer up those same neat packages that attempt to explain the seemingly unexplained. And it’s pretty damn important to learn how groups can be led astray in search of those neatly wrapped packages.”

“SPEC”

I’m a big fan of the SCP Foundation, a creative writing website set within a shared universe not unlike The X-Files. Its top-rated stories rank among the best science fiction and horror I’ve read. A few years ago, I wrote my own (very silly) story, SCP-3993, where New York’s ubiquitous LinkNYC internet kiosks are cover for a mysterious reality-altering invasion.

CITYBRIDGE/NYC

Like the rest of SCP, this was all in good fun, but I recently discovered LinkNYC is tangled up in QAnon conspiracy theories. To be fair, you can say the same thing about pretty much every modern technology, but it’s not surprising their monolith-like presence caught conspiracy theorists’ attention as it did mine.

It’s not unreasonable to be creeped out by LinkNYC. In 2016, the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to the mayor about “the vast amount of private information retained by the LinkNYC system and the lack of robust language in the privacy policy protecting users against unwarranted government surveillance.” Two years later, kiosks along Third Avenue in Midtown mysteriously blasted out a slowed-down version of the Mister Softee theme song. So there’s at least some cause for speculation. The problem is when speculation hardens into reality.

Not long after the AICN post, The Beast’s players set up a Yahoo Group mailing list called Cloudmakers, named after a boat in the story. As the number of posts rose to dozens and then hundreds per day, it became obvious to list moderators (including me) that some form of organisation was in order. One rule we established was that posts should include a prefix in their subject so members could easily distinguish website updates from puzzle solutions.

My favourite prefix was “SPEC,” a catch-all for any kind of unfounded speculation, most of which was fun nonsense but some of which ended up being true. There were no limits on what or how much you could post, but you always had to use the prefix so people could ignore it. Other moderated communities have similar guidelines, with rationalists using their typically long-winded “epistemic status” metadata.

Absent this kind of moderation, speculation ends up overwhelming communities since it’s far easier and more fun to bullshit than do actual research. And if speculation is repeated enough times, if it’s finessed enough, it can harden into accepted fact, leading to devastating and even fatal consequences.

I’ve personally been the subject of this process thanks to my work in ARGs—not just once, but twice.

The first occasion was fairly innocent. One of our more famous Perplex City puzzles, Billion to One, was a photo of a man. That’s it. The challenge was to find him. Obviously, we were riffing on the whole “six degrees of separation” concept. Some thought it’d be easy, but I was less convinced. Sure enough, fourteen years on, the puzzle is still unsolved, but not for lack of trying. Every so often, the internet rediscovers the puzzle amid a flurry of YouTube videos and podcasts; I can tell whenever this happens because people start DMing me on Twitter and Instagram.

This literally came a few days ago

A clue in the puzzle is the man’s name, Satoshi. It is not a rare name, and it happens to be same as the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. So of course people think Perplex City’s Satoshi created bitcoin. Not a lot of people, to be fair, but enough that I get DMs about it every week. But it’s all pretty innocent, like I said.

More concerning is my presumed connection to Cicada 3301, a mysterious group that recruited codebreakers through very difficult online puzzles. Back in 2011, my company developed a pseudo-ARG for the BBC Two factual series, The Code, all about mathematics. This involved planting clues into the show itself, along with online educational games and a treasure hunt.

To illustrate the concept of prime numbers, The Code explored the gestation period of cicadas. We had no hand in the writing of the show; we got the script and developed our ARG around it. But this was enough to create a brand new conspiracy theory, featuring yours truly:

My bit starts around 20 minutes in:

Interviewer: Why [did you make a puzzle about] cicadas?

Me: Cicadas are known for having a gestation period which is linked to prime numbers. Prime numbers are at the heart of nature and the heart of mathematics.

Interviewer: That puzzle comes out in June 2011.

Me: Yeah.

Interviewer: Six months later, Cicada 3301 makes its international debut.

Me: It's a big coincidence.

Interviewer: There are some people who have brought up the fact that whoever's behind Cicada 3301 would have to be a very accomplished game maker.

Me: Sure.

Interviewer: You would be a candidate to be that person.

Me: That's true, I mean, Cicada 3301 has a lot in common with the games we've made. I think that one big difference (chuckles) is that normally when we make alternate reality games, we do it for money. And it's not so clear to understand where the funding for Cicada 3301 is coming from.

Clearly this was all just in fun – I knew it and the interviewer knew it. That’s why I agreed to take part. But does everyone watching this understand that? There’s no “SPEC” tag on the video. At least a few commenters are taking it seriously:

I am the “ARG guy” in question

I’m not worried, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a touch concerned that Cicada 3301 now lies squarely in the QAnon vortex and in the “Q-web“:

Here’s a good interview with the creator of the “Q-web”

My defence that the cicada puzzle in The Code was “a big coincidence” (albeit delivered with an unfortunate shit-eating grin) didn’t hold water. In the conspiracy theorest mindset, no such thing exists:

“According to Michael Barkun, emeritus professor of political science at Syracuse University, three core principles characterize most conspiracy theories. Firstly, the belief that nothing happens by accident or coincidence. Secondly, that nothing is as it seems: The “appearance of innocence” is to be suspected. Finally, the belief that everything is connected through a hidden pattern.”

These are helpful beliefs when playing an ARG or watching a TV show designed with twists and turns. It’s fun to speculate and to join seemingly disparate ideas, especially when the creators encourage and reward this behaviour. It’s less helpful when conspiracy theorists “yes, and…” each other into shooting up a pizza parlour or burning down 5G cell towers.

Because there is no coherent QAnon community in the same sense as the Cloudmakers, there’s no convention of “SPEC” tags. In their absence, YouTube has added annotated QAnon videos with links to its Wikipedia article, and Twitter has banned 7,000 accounts and restricted 150,000 more, among other actions. Supposedly, Facebook is planning to do the same.

These are useful steps but will not stop QAnon from spreading in social media comments or private chat groups or unmoderated forums. It’s not something we can reasonably hope for, and I don’t think there’s any technological solution (e.g. browser extensions) either. The only way to stop people from mistaking speculation from fact is for them to want to stop.

Cryptic

It’s always nice to have a few mysteries for players to speculate on in an ARG, if only because it helps them pass the time while the poor puppetmasters scramble to sate their insatiable demand for more website updates and puzzles. A good mystery can keep a community guessing for, as Lost did with its numbers or Game of Thrones with Jon Snow’s parentage. But these mysteries always have to be balanced against specifics, lest the whole story dissolve into a puddle of mush; for as much we derided Lost for the underwhelming conclusion to its mysteries, no-one would’ve watched in the first place if the episode-to-episode storytelling wasn’t so strong.

The downside of being too mysterious in Perplex City is that cryptic messages often led players on wild goose chases such that they completely ignored entire story arcs in favour of pursuing their own theories. This was bad for us because we had a pretty strict timetable that we needed our story to play out on, pinned against the release of our physical puzzle cards that funded the entire enterprise. If players took too long to find the $200,000 treasure at the conclusion of the story, we might run out of money.

QAnon can favour cryptic messages because, as far as I know, they don’t have a specific timeline or goal in mind, let alone a production budget or paid staff. Not only is there no harm in followers misinterpreting messages, but it’s a strength: followers can occupy themselves with their own spin-off theories far better than “Q” can. Dan Hon notes:

“For every ARG I’ve been involved in and ones my friends have been involved in, communities always consume/complete/burn through content faster than you can make it, when you’re doing a narrative-based game. This content generation/consumption/playing asymmetry is, I think, just a fact. But QAnon “solved” it by being able to co-opt all content that already exists and … encourages and allows you to create new content that counts and is fair play in-the-game.”

But even QAnon needs some specificity, hence their frequent references to actual people, places, events, and so on.

A brief aside on designing very hard puzzles

It was useful to be cryptic when I needed to control the speed at which players solved especially consequential puzzles, like the one revealing where our $200,000 treasure was buried. For story and marketing purposes, we wanted players to be able to find it as soon as they had access to all 256 puzzle cards, which we released in three waves. We also wanted players to feel like they were making progress before they had all the cards and we didn’t want them to find the location the minute they had the last card.

My answer was to represent the location as the solution to multiple cryptic puzzles. One puzzle referred to the Jurassic strata in the UK, which I split across the background of 14 cards. Another began with a microdot revealing which order to arrange triple letters I’d hidden on a bunch of cards. By performing mod arithmetic on the letter/number values, you would arrive at 1, 2, 3 or 4, corresponding to the four DNA nucleotides. If you understood the triplets as codons for amino acids, they became letters. These letters led you to the phrase “Duke of Burgundy”, the name of a butterfly whose location, when combined with the Jurassic strata, would help you narrow down the location of the treasure.

The nice thing about this convoluted sequence is that we could provide additional online clues to help the players community when they got stuck. The point being, you can’t make an easy puzzle harder, but you can make a hard puzzle easier.

Beyond ARGs

It can feel crass to compare ARGs to a conspiracy theory that’s caused so much harm. But this reveals the crucial difference between them: in QAnon, the stakes so high, any action is justified. If you truly believe an online store or a pizza parlour is engaging in child trafficking and the authorities are complicit, extreme behaviour is justified.

Gabriel Roth, editorial director for audio at Slate, extends this idea:

“What QAnon has that ARGs didn’t have is the claim of factual truth; in that sense it reminds me of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoir wave of the 90s and early 00s. If you have a story based on real life, but you want to make it more interesting, the correct thing to do is change the names of the people and make it as interesting as you like and call it fiction. The insight of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoirists (I’m thinking of James Frey and Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris) was that you could call it nonfiction and readers would like it much better because it would have the claim of actual factual truth, wowee!! And it worked! How much more engaging and addictive is an immersive, participatory ARG when it adds that unique frisson you can only get with the claim of factual truth? And bear in mind that ARG-scale stories aren’t about mere personal experiences—they operate on a world-historical scale.”

ARGs’ playfulness with the truth and their sometimes-imperceptible winking of This Is Not A Game (accusations Lonelygirl15 was a hoax) is only the most modern incarnation of epistolary storytelling. In that context, immersive and realistic stories have long elicited extreme reactions, like the panic incited by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds (often exaggerated, to be fair).

We don’t have to wonder what happens when an ARG community meets a matter of life and death. Not long after The Beast concluded, the 9/11 attacks happened. A small number of posters in the Cloudmakers mailing list suggested the community use its skills to “solve” the question of who was behind the attack.

The brief but intense discussion that ensued has become a cautionary tale of ARG communities getting carried away and being unable to distinguish fiction from reality. In reality, the community and the moderators quickly shut down the idea as being impractical, insensitive, and very dangerous. “Cloudmakers tried to solve 9/11” is a great story, but it’s completely false.

Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for the poster child for online sleuthing gone wrong, the r/findbostonbombers subreddit. There’s a parallel between the essentially unmoderated, anonymous theorists of r/findbostonbombers and those in QAnon: neither feel any responsibility for spreading unsupported speculation as fact. What they do feel is that anything should be solvable, as Laura Hall, immersive environment and narrative designer, describes:

“There’s a general sense of, ‘This should be solveable/findable/etc’ that you see in lots of reddit communities for unsolved mysteries and so on. The feeling that all information is available online, that reality and truth must be captured/in evidence somewhere”

There’s truth in that feeling. There is a vast amount of information online, and sometimes it is possible to solve “mysteries”, which makes it hard to criticise people for trying, especially when it comes to stopping perceived injustices. But it’s the sheer volume of information online that makes it so easy and so tempting and so fun to draw spurious connections.

That joy of solving and connecting and sharing and communication can do great things, and it can do awful things. As Josh Fialkov, writer for Lonelygirl15, says:

That brain power negatively focused on what [conspiracy theorists] perceive as life and death (but is actually crassly manipulated paranoia) scares the living shit out of me.

What ARGs Can Teach Us

Can we make “good ARGs”? Could ARGs inoculate people against conspiracy theories like QAnon?

The short answer is: No. When it comes to games that are educational and fun, you usually have to pick one, not both—and I say that as someone who thinks he’s done a decent job at making “serious games” over the years. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s really hard, and I doubt any such ARG would get played by the right audience anyway.

The long answer: I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification. Come back in a year or two.

For now, here’s a medium-sized answer. No ARG can heal the deep mistrust and fear and economic and spiritual malaise that underlies QAnon and other dangerous conspiracy theories, any more than a book or a movie can solve racism. There are hints at ARG-like things that could work, though—not in directly combatting QAnon’s appeal, but in channeling people’s energy and zeal of community-based problem-solving toward better causes.

Take The COVID Tracking Project, an attempt to compile the most complete data available about COVID-19 in the U.S. Every day, volunteers collect the latest numbers on tests, cases, hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every state and territory. In the absence of reliable governmental figures, it’s become one of the best sources not just in the U.S., but in the world.

It’s also incredibly transparent. You can drill down into the raw data volunteers have collected on Google Sheets, view every line of code written on Github, and ask them questions on Slack. Errors and ambiguities in the data are quickly disclosed and explained rather than hidden or ignored. There’s something game-like in the daily quest to collect the best-quality data and to continually expand and improve the metrics being tracked. And like in the best ARGs, volunteers of all backgrounds and skills are welcomed. It’s one of the most impressive and well-organising reporting projects I’ve ever seen; “crowdsourcing” doesn’t even come close to describing its scale.

If you applied ARG skills to investigative journalism, you’d get something like Bellingcat, an an open-source intelligence group that discovered how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Bellingcat’s volunteers painstakingly pieced together publicly-available information to determine MH17 was downed by a Buk missile launcher originating from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade in Kursk, Russia. The Dutch-led international joint investigation team later came to the same conclusion.

Conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of trust. Today, people don’t trust authorities because authorities have repeatedly shown themselves to be unworthy of trust – misreporting or manipulating COVID-19 testing figures, delaying the publication of government investigations, burning records of past atrocities, and deploying unmarked federal forces. Perhaps authorities were just as untrustworthy twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago, but today we rightly expect more.

Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, believes it’s that lack of trust that leads people to QAnon:

“Q’s [followers] … are starving for information. Their willingness to chase bread crumbs is a symptom of ignorance and powerlessness. There may be something to their belief that the machinery of the state is inaccessible to the people. It’s hard to blame them for resorting to fantasy and esotericism, after all, when accurate information about the government’s current activities is so easily concealed and so woefully incomplete.”

So the goal cannot be to simply restore trust in existing authorities. Rather, I think it’s to restore faith in truth and knowledge itself. The COVID Tracking Project and Bellingcat help reveal truth by crowdsourcing information. They show their work via hypertext and open data, creating a structure upon which higher-level analysis and journalism can be built. And if they can’t find the truth, they’re willing to say so.

QAnon seems just as open. Everything is online. Every discussion, every idea, every theory is all joined together in a warped edifice where speculation becomes fact and fact leads to action. It’s thrilling to discover, and as you find new terms to Google and new threads to pull upon, you can feel just like a real researcher. And you can never get bored. There’s always new information to make sense of, always a new puzzle to solve, always a new enemy to take down.

QAnon fills the void of information that states have created—not with facts, but with fantasy. If we don’t want QAnon to fill that void, someone else has to. Government institutions can’t be relied upon to do this sustainably, given how underfunded and politicised they’ve become in recent years. Traditional journalism has also struggled against its own challenges of opacity and lack of resources. So maybe that someone is… us.

ARGs teach us that the search for knowledge and truth can be immensely rewarding, not in spite of their deliberately-fractured stories and near-impossible puzzles, but because of them. They teach us that communities can self-organise and self-moderate to take on immense challenges in a responsible way. And they teach us that people are ready and willing to volunteer to work if they’re welcomed, no matter their talent.

It’s hard to create these communities. They rely on software and tools that aren’t always free or easy to use. They need volunteers who have spare time to give and moderators who can be supported, financially and emotionally, through the struggles that always come. These communities already exist. They just need more help.

Despite the growing shadow of QAnon, I’m hopeful for the future. The beauty of ARGs and ARG-like communities isn’t their power to discover truth. It’s how they make the process of discovery so deeply rewarding.

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[goddamnmuses-a]

Dan Watches Crisis Part 4&5

Alright so.. Gonan just write some things here in the breaks.. obviously spoilers so.. under le cut. 

Because I’m writing these after big chunks of watching i’ll have forgot stuff and im on a time limit before it starts again so.. yeah if i forget to mention stuff it’s me brain farting. 

Part 4

Oliver as the Specter is pretty cool

I like the Monitor origin thingy

HOLY SHIT EZRA MILLER WAAAH!!!??? I can’t believe they did this.

Lex, the universe is literally ending, can you maybe make sure it doesnt end before you take it over?

Paragon of Humanity is also pretty good i cant remember his name though, I wanna say Kevin Tran but pretty sure thats his supernatural character :P

Kinda liking the whole going back to previous scenes thing and It’s not like fucking up any timelines because it’s like.. a memory? it’s weird but they’ve vaguely bullshitted enough for me to buy it. 

Also I kinda hope Oliver stays the Specter.. not ready for him to be gone for ever.. Also Constantine deals with the Specter from time to time soo fun. 

Is it Specter or Spectre ... I wanna say Spectre but Specter feels better to type. 

So Lex could just be like “Don’t do it” but instead he’s like “Do it and work for me!”

The Turning.. Yes this is me talking about an advert for a movie now.. Is The Turning just like a horror movie where the Adams Family hire a nanny? 

Americans have to deal with so many more ads than the English.. it’s ridiculous. 

Still liking Kevin Tran. 

Kinda dumb they had to get through to Mar Novu for it to not matter at all 

Oliver has major Obiwan vibes

Antimonitor looks cool.

The guys without powers who just punch the ghost things.. idk about how that looks. 

Awwh Oliver died :(

Part 5

Merged Earths now?

FFS Lex. I feel like a disappointed Parent.

Merged Earths now! Woop Woop

Marv, you legend. Marv for president. 

Imagine if in the Flash movie they play the scene from Part 4.. i’d maybe watch it. 

Jon’s the best boy, doing his bit to bring peoples memories back. 

Awwh no Dig don’t cry! Nooo. This is not Diggity. 

Yo but you know.. maybe Google the spectre.. try both spellings.. just in case? 

Yeaaah fuck you Nash you son of a Reverse Flash bitch

Yo Sara, Everyone and not Oliver is better than nobody at all, maybe be a little bit relieved, just a little bit? 

Oh fuck it’s Beebo!

I used to have a crush on a girl named Sara but it was pronounced like Sar-ah not Ser-ah... Like Sahara ... it’s hard to explain through text. 

 Someone needs to go check on Black Lightning and Lucifer and like other Earth people just to check. I’ll watch a whole hour of someone being like “Maybe the Titans are here now?”.. “Nope.. What about Smallville?”...”Nope.. What about..” and so on. 

Fuck you Chick Fil A I’m so hungry and you’re not over here. 

We stan Rebecca. 

The fact they call team ups crossovers is both wonderful and offputting and idk how i feel bout it

Yay Batwoman!

Damn right Beebo is off limits. 

Nash, redemption time, work on it. 

Remember everyone, Oliver Queen died for our sins. 

Nash’s wrist thing reminds me of a pip boy. 

Now they’re all on the same earth can we get more weird relationships with characters who were on different earths before. 

OH SHIT A GHOUL

oh apparently called shadow demons

OH NO RYAN.. .. You’ll always be Kevin to me. 

Kevin Tran is the atom in the comics too because like.. i googled him a while ago. 

Microverse trademark issues.. heh.

HOW HAS BARRY NOT SEEN IRIS YET? 

They should have had Booster Gold at the start of time just like “Huh so this is what it was like” and then he just leaves. 

WTF was that old spice ad? 

I just realised theres gonna be so many more notes for this part because like.. it’s the end and i’m having after thoughts from the first part. 

I’m also getting rly tired now as it’s 2:39am here. I accidentally wrote 2:£9 then and £ does just kinda look like a backwards 3 

Does anyone wanna go to the Daytona 500 with me? You pay for it, and my flight, and my food and hotel and everything else and I’ll show up, maybe... tbh it’s not my kinda thing.. but free holiday!

AND THE SHOWS BACK ON

Loving Jons new look. 

Am i going to ship Mick and “Frosty” now? 

Yooooo This is for the streets Black Lightnings back!

What if they just pretended to surrender and then shanked him when he wasnt looking. 

Also i saw this fight in a behind the scenes thing that i think was leaked 

We got a big boy. 

So Sara and Kate are gonna fuck at some point right.. or already have in this new earth timeline

Yo where is like.. Cisco and Wally West and Lightning and Thunder and.. c’mooonnnnn crossover.

Tiny Superman is pretty good.

How come there was no Atom crawling up the Antimonitors butthole theory? 

So.. Antimonitor shrunk to death.. we all good now? 

Clark has sons!?

Diggle has a daugher too.. forgot to question that.... 

They couldn’t quickly get every single DC actor to do that moments silence? 

Ohhh okay so Multiverse still exists and thats the other shows they cant rly crossover 

Justice League being formed? 

Also cool that green lantern and swamp thing got mentioned at all tbh

... If this is Justice League being formed.. feels weird with no Batman 

Mia should really be here for this somehow to actually be the Green Arrow?

WTF IS A GLEEK.. other than a fan of Glee

Just googled what Gleek is and I think it’s a good place to end.. 

Leaving you.. with this mother fucker. Night!

...Fucking Gleek. 

[sunshinedjh]

The Wolf of the Woods part four

Word count: 1346

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Warnings: swearing, blood (Punch to the face) 

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  Wattpad <<<

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 The next few weeks went pretty terribly for Dan, the amount of revision that not only Mrs Lewis, but all the other teachers were making them do was quite ridiculous. 

Phil Lester was settling in pretty well, although Dan had not spoken to him. He seemed to have joined the group that most of the school knew as ‘the populars’ which mainly consisted of Dan’s regular bullies and a couple of girls who tended not to even notice his existence, so naturally he had stayed well clear. He was still intrigued though, by this Phil character with his mesmerizing eyes, he had seemed so nice that time they’d met downtown and he seemed different to the others he surrounded himself with. Still unable to take his mind off Phil he had completely forgotten that he was in a lesson, history to be precise, and he hadn’t done any more work than he had talking to Phil. 

‘Mr Howell’ said a sneering voice belonging to Mr Matthews, the rather tired looking history teacher 'You are supposed to be working’ 

'I er, sorry sir’ 

'How much work have you done anyway?’ Mr Matthews came strolling over to Dan’s desk and Dan looked into his weary eyes for a second, he had always thought that Mr Matthews looked older than any of the time periods they had ever learned about in history but be kept that thought to himself. He looked guiltily from his teacher to his empty page of work. 

'Detention’ Mr Matthews said, shortly, Dan was sincerely hoping that he didn’t say anything else. 'Your exams are tomorrow Mr Howell! How do you expect to pass if you don’t even do any work?’ 

 'I um…’ 

'Don’t answer me, we shall finish this conversation later, 4Oclock in my room. And don’t be late!’ 

 Dan sighed inwardly. He had very much hoped that the day would get better from that point, that however, was the complete opposite of what happened. He had been set a ton of homework from various teachers, He’d tripped and fallen down the stairs in front of Phil and his detention with Mathews had been horrible - he’d had to write lines for half an hour and then explain we he thought it was acceptable to 'doze off’ in class. 

Furthermore Seamus and his gang had been calling him names like 'fag’ and threatening to stick his head down a toilet throughout most of the day. He had to be very careful, he hadn’t come out to anyone yet and wasn’t planning to for a while, especially around them. Although, Being gay wasn’t the biggest thing Dan was hiding and he was used to this usual torment from them, what really hurt him was when Phil was with them outside the classroom after his detention. Had they really waited 40 minutes after school just to torment him? No, they couldn’t have done. 

 'Hey dweeb, I’m gonna get you tomorrow, Jack and Harvey are gonna help me aren’t ya?’ 

Two huge expressionless and extremely dumb looking boys grunted behind Seamus. 

'Oh and Phil here too, he’s part of our gang now, says he’s met you before. I’m sure he’ll come along too’ Seamus smirked, stood next to an extremely uncomfortable looking Phil. 

'We’ll teach you to be a fucking gay fag’ One of the huge boys seemingly roared at Dan. Dan didn’t know what to say, he wanted to look at Phil but thought better of it. What was Phil even doing with them anyway? Was Phil like them too? Did Phil think he was gay and a fag, was it that obvious without him telling anyone? His mind was racing so fast it was like a drum rapidly pounding in his head, he couldn’t cope anymore. He ran for it. 

He wouldn’t stop running till he reached his home. He darted down the deserted corridors, ignoring the jeering remarks the three boys were making behind him and sprinted as fast as he could to the forest. He didn’t stop when he reached it, he continued running, slightly unsure of what he was running from. Branches were cutting into him as he ran, he finally reached his treehouse and collapsed beneath it. 

He breathed a long and heavy sigh of dread and relief. Why of all days to beat him up did it have to be tomorrow? He know longer cared about his exams, he had more to worry about than answering questions on a stupid piece of paper. He stayed sat there for a long while, his thoughts contaminating him. Darkness filled the forest, the moon was staring to come out, it glistened and gleamed in its almost full state. It shone so bright it was almost as if it was taunting Dan, for he knew that tomorrow was the day. 

Dan awoke the next day with twinge of a pain in his neck, he had fallen asleep in the tree roots beneath his treehouse, he could tell by the height of the sun in the sky that he was already running late. 'Fuck’ he said, unsure of how loudly in his dazed state. He really felt no motivation to get up and or go to school.

Around four hours later he was sat in a dark dingy classroom, the walls and interior of which looked just a depressed as the students. Dan had already sat through three exams and was thoroughly wishing he’d stayed at 'home’ in his rather uncomfortable position below the treehouse. sitting a few rows behind him was Seamus, Dan hadn’t dared to look back and tried extremely hard to focus on his maths exam. (What was the square root of 12 again?) When something hit him hard on the head. It was a scrunched up ball of paper. Dan wearily and unwillingly unwrapped it to reveal a note in Seamus’s handwriting.

'You’d better whach out if u no wots good for u'

(Seamus had never been one for good spelling)

Dan gulped, he thoroughly hoped that last lesson’s exam would go as slow as possible. 

I thought time was supposed to fly when you were having fun, not when you were sat in the back of an English classroom writing nonsense? Dan thought to himself as he stared at the clock. The more he stared the more time seemed to mock him. Eventually the final bell went and the class was dismissed. Dan practically threw his paper onto the teacher’s desk and tried to make a break for it. He was stopped though, shortly after stepping through the doorway. He saw Jack, Seamus and Harvey towering over him, the were intimidatingly taller than him and despite not having much in the brain department they definitely made up for it in brawn. 

'See Lester didn’t show up’ growled Harvey 'Guess he won’t be joining our gang after all’ 

Jack and Seamus smirked and Dan’s heart skipped a beat at both their expressions and the mention of Phil. 

'Come on, let’s drag him to the bathrooms, no one will see us in there’ 

Dan could hardly argue, he was already being held in a tight grip by Jack and Harvey either side of him. When they reached the point of arrival the two boys simply dumped him on the ground. 

'Got anything to say for yourself then?’ Seamus bent down and whispered into Dan’s ear, Dan shoved his huge head out the way and tried to get up, no sooner then was a harsh punch thrown at his face and his head was smacking into the floor tiles. Blood came gushing out of his nose and he bit his lip in an attempt to hold back a cry of pain. 

 ‘Want to try me again Howell?’ Seamus seized him by the collar and Dan let a tiny whimper of fear escape him. 

'Why don’t you try me instead?’ A voice called from the doorway. A tall dark haired boy strode into the room with a look of pure anger on his face, Dan looked up in confusion and gasped. It was Phil.

[easteregg316]

On Fanfiction and Self-Hate (kinda)

Quick note: I'M NOT AN EXPERT. I'M A TEENAGER THAT JUST LIKES TO TALK. OKAY? OKAY. @markiplier maybe you will read this or maybe you won't idk. 

It's easy for anyone to create a world with a few taps on a keyboard. Within minutes, a story can be written that directly reflects a person's wants, desires, and personality. But when I say personality, I don't mean in the way they describe their character. Cuz generic fanfictions will usually have at least one of the following phrases: 

"I don't think I'm that pretty." 

"How could he ever like me?" 

"I'm a nobody." 

Self-hate, although it has become a rather normal thing to see in these fanfictions, reveals exactly why they may have been written in the first place. 

If you don't think highly of yourself, and you wanted to be told that you are someone great, who else would you want to say it but your favorite celebrity crush? Of course, it's not as easy as calling them up and asking them to compliment you. So instead, many fans will write stories that "satisfy" that want: 

"You're beautiful, you know that?" he said, smiling down at me. 

Reading that sentence to yourself after writing it might make you feel "better". But I'm going to be honest, when I would write that, it would sting a little every time I read it. It was just a reminder that it was fantasy. A lie. And it quickly revealed just how much I cared about what this person thought of me. 

Because some fans are younger and might desperately want to date their favorite celebrity crush, it's very common to see horrid spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in these stories. Even in older fans, it gets to the point where they don't care about mistakes, they just want to write as quickly as possible to lose themselves in a fantasy world where everything is "perfect". 

I'm not gonna lie, I cringe whenever I see or hear badly written fanfictions, especially being someone who loves to write. But there is a person behind every story. Even if they may seem selfish or ridiculous, which they very well can be, it may also be a case of just wanting to rid themselves of insecurities about themselves, and this is the only outlet that seems to work for them. 

I know, I know, insecurities in fanfictions are becoming annoying, but the fact that there's enough stories to make it annoying should be concerning. 

I will say this: I used to write a lot of fanfiction, mostly romantic, and I enjoyed it! But I eventually realized that I didn't necessarily like what I was writing about, I enjoyed writing itself. Which is why I drifted away from that. 

I do read fanfictions from time to time, tending to stick to the more PG ones. I like cutesy stuff, not stuff that makes me feel like I just killed someone for reading it (That stuff disturbs me on a whole other level, but that's a post for another day). But what I don't appreciate the fact that many fans, mostly girls, find it necessary to deal with their problems this way. 

Creating a fake world for your problems is not okay. If anything, it makes coming back to the real world a million times harder, making it nearly impossible to deal with your problems head on. Not only that, but it blinds you to the fact that there are already people that love you--not necessarily some famous guy on the Internet. 

There are many people you can find online that can help you. You might hear that a lot, but it's true. Their job is to help you, and they've trained for years to do so. If anyone can help you, they can. I'm just a girl on the Internet, but feel free to ask me questions and I'll get my best to help you or find someone that can :) 

To conclude: I'm not saying fanfictions are bad. I feel like the word fanfiction has become tainted. 

Fanfictions are just that: Fan fictions. Stories that fans write about celebrities or video games or YouTubers. There are some really awesome ones. But because an overwhelming amount of people have written romantic fanfictions, that's become the face of the genre. 

In my opinion, most romantic fanfictions are meh. When it involves people that are or it's strongly suggested that they're in in a relationship, I think it's cool. But things like Septiplier and even Rhett and Link dating...guys, they're already in very healthy relationships! That's just messed up, man! And when you insert yourself into their Iives...well, that's just weird. 

Don't forget that there will always be someone that wants to help you. :)

Yo! There's a few topics I touched on in this post, but let me know what I should talk about next time! 

Stuff I was thinking: 

-Mature Fanfictions 

-Shipping and Self-Shipping (Stories/Fanart romantically depicting two friends/people or yourself with someone else that isn't your partner) 

-Big YouTubers Trying to Interact With Fans Consistently (mentioned in the story below) 

-Anything else you guys suggest! 

That's technically the end of my rant, but feel free to continue reading. I was bored, okay? 

And now, a Markiplier fanfiction about how I meet Mark at VidCon. (It's 100% clean and it's 0% romantic, but don't read if you don't want. It's long anyway lol. By the way I'm not 18 as the story says.) 

For years, Mark had gone on and on about conventions he was going to, signings he was going to have, and panels he was going to host. And year after year, I found myself only watching from behind a screen, chained to my home by my high-school maturity level. The year arrived, however, when I finally turned 18, and was I allowed to go. 

Upon arriving at the convention center for VidCon, I was instantly overwhelmed by the smell of sweat. I uncomfortably pushed my way through dozens upon dozens of people in various outfits, cosplayers being the most difficult to get around. My phone was ringing like crazy, but my arms were pressed up against my sides, making it impossible to reach into my pocket to retrieve it. It was most likely my mom, calling for the fifth time since this morning to find out where I was and if I was okay. 

I looked up briefly and was able to catch a glance at a nearby clock. It was 12:49....and I totally forgot when Mark's panel started. Panicking, I carefully tried to squeeze my way out of the crowd, which I found out was because of fans spotting Dan and Phil somewhere. 

I successfully sidled past a tall man in sunglasses who looked uncannily like Rhett from Good Mythical Morning and was finally able to breathe comfortably. 

Within five minutes, I heard someone yell, "Rhett! Rhett!" Murmurs turned into shouts behind me, and I didn't even turn around, my teeth clenched. Of course it was Rhett, why wouldn't it be? 

I took the moment to check the panel schedule on my phone. Mark's panel was at 1:00. I looked at my watch. I ran as fast as I could, nearly knocking a girl in a Minecraft t-shirt over. I mumbled an apology before taking off again, barely being able to stop in front of the conference room without slamming into the door. 

I heard applause, and I threw the door open. Mark had barely just gotten on stage, along with Bob, Wade, and Ethan. 

I sighed happily as I stepped inside. A few heads turned when I walked in, but they turned back just as quickly when Mark started to talk. 

"Hey everyone, welcome to Markiplier and Friends 2018!" 

I looked around for a chair, and pulled one up at the back of one of the aisles, plopping down with a huff. 

"So, sorry guys, we can't do selfies, or gifts...we need to be careful with time. I'm really sorry, I wish I could talk to each and every one of you." The audience murmured in disappointment. 

The panel was fun for the first half hour, when the guys did improv, but once the questions started, I began to lose interest. My ears only perked up when someone asked about his thoughts on a game or really deep questions. 

I ignored all the ones that started with, 

"Remember when I..." 

"Why didn't you finish..." 

"Are you ever going to..." 

"When's the next..." 

"You saved me from..." 

I frowned. I felt bad for ignoring the "saved" ones, because they were probably true. Many fans had found hope in Mark's videos, many being helped through their depression or anxiety. But it was obvious that Mark was trying hard to understand what they were going through and wasn't succeeding. "I'm so sorry that happened, but I'm glad I could help in some way," was the automatic answer. It was especially awkward when they began to cry. 

And it wasn't that I thought it was wrong for them to thank him for it, but doing it in front of all these people was extremely odd, especially when they explained their situation in detail. Mark sometimes showed signs of being slightly uncomfortable as well, which would quickly spread to the crowd. He was aware of how his videos helped people, but hearing it over and over unfortunately lessened its value, and it sucked. 

I never had the nerve to go up and ask him a question, mainly because I didn't want to stand in line for that long just to ask him something he would probably forget about in a few days. And if I was going to ask him anything, I wanted it to be something good. 

The panel ended with Ethan doing two backflips, Mark getting three questions about Septiplier and fanfictions, and at least six people asking if he remembered them. 

...He only remembered three of them. 

I was surprised to find myself only waiting for Mark's signing for an hour. I had heard stories of people waiting for like seven hours for these kinds of things. When I turned to look at how many people were behind me, I believed them. 

As I neared the table, I began fumbling with my journal, flipping open to a page with a small sketch of the Markiplier logo where he would sign. Underneath that were several other YouTuber logos in case I saw anyone else. It was VidCon, after all. 

"Next!" I heard security yell. 

I blinked hard as I neared the table. Markiplier was in front of me. I was freaking out. He was there. Would he think I was weird? Would he like how I look? 

He looked up at me, and one thing became painfully obvious: He was exhausted. His eyes were squinting against the lights high above on the ceiling, and there were bags under his eyes. A small smile crept onto his face. His mouth was just barely shaking. He was trying to keep on a happy face for the sake of his community, but he was only human. There was only so much he could do before he would start to shut down. 

"Hi, thanks for coming!" he said, standing up to lean over the table and give me a small hug. I wasn't expecting him to, and I was awkwardly able to wrap my arms around him for a second before he let go and sat back down. 

"Whaddya want me to sign?" he asked, looking around for a marker. I timidly presented my journal to him, and he took it happily. Successfully finding a marker in his lap, he commenced to sign his autograph next to the Markiplier logo on the page. 

"So, what's your name?" he asked, though it was clearly small talk--he would forget in 0.2 seconds. "Oh, u-uh, Esther!" I replied nervously. He smiled and nodded, handing me back the journal. "Awesome to meet you, Esther. Nice sketch, by the way." 

My face burned as I nodded stupidly and pulled out my phone. I clenched my teeth, hating to ask for a picture. "Hey, is it okay if I be generic as hell and take a selfie with you?" I asked. He chuckled softly and nodded. He gave a big smile, one I had seen quite often. He shook my hand one more time before moving on to the next person. I looked at the photo as I moved away. The bags under his eyes were slightly visible, but his smile was much more genuine than I had thought. I glanced behind me to see his interaction with the girl behind me. He smiled the same smile. I began to drift away from the long line and towards the main area with a grin. I couldn’t understand how he was able to be that nice. I really hoped I would bump into him one day. 

I never did. 

But I did continued to enjoy his videos, watch his panels at conventions, and get his autograph on an item or two. And I was totally okay with that.

Not the story you were expecting? Well, most fanfictions are practically impossible. Even this story is stretched. (I mean, who would casually see Rhett in the middle of a crowd?) 

I myself have never gone to a convention where YouTubers have been, but I do want to go one day. This story was kind of a half tease at those really ridiculous stories that would never happen (i.e. bumping into your favorite YouTuber and ending up having a coffee with them) but also a half serious reflection of how I feel about certain topics. If there's anything you were like "WHAT, BLASPHEMY!" feel free to yell at me! I want to hear your thoughts, and I'm expecting to be berated to be honest. 

Anyway, if you read this far, man do you have time on your hands. Drop a note ;) Or don't. 

Thank you for reading, really. <3

[shepgeek]

Deus Ex Machina in Films

Spoilers for Slumdog Millionaire, Jaws, Angels & Demons, Contact and Signs.

If a tale is worth the telling, then should it not be extraordinary?

From our very origins, where stories of gods and monsters were told around a flickering campfire to our modern multiplexes, it has been the stories of the most dramatic shifts in people’s lives that we long to hear. These tales bring with them an inherent problem: should the piece prove to be too fantastic, too far removed from what we can connect with, then the spell is broken. Suspension of our disbelief is only a part of this, and often a film may cause a snort if it takes a dramatic step too far, or when the mechanics of an author making a story fit can be readily sniffed out. This magical balance, of spinning a yarn but never yielding the sense that the tale itself has a fundamental ring of truth to it, has plagued storytellers for centuries and the term “Deus Ex Machina”, dating from Aeschylus, has come to be associated with this issue in the modern cinematic age.

Meaning “God from the Machine”, it refers to when a story takes a contrived turn. In Ancient Greece, there would be a literal contraption that would lower actors playing the Gods into the theatre and such divine interventions would often allow direct solutions to whatever dramatic tangle the characters found themselves in. The fine line between this dramatic “Get out of Jail Free” card and writing resolutions that thrill and inspire audiences has ensnared storytellers for millennia. Modern audiences will complain when a film hits moments of what feel like implausibility, despite the entire picture up to that point involving a man who can talk to fish or a Prime Minister courting a tea lady. The moments that shunt audiences out of the experience of watching a film are both fickle and, of course subjective and, since no storyteller sets out to leave themselves open to this vulnerability, there is seemingly no way to protect your film from it, hoping instead that a crumbling of verisimilitude never manifests.

This is different from implausibility or fantasy. Films go to huge lengths to make the audience invest in a story: the reason Jaws is held up as one of the finest the medium has to offer is not due to the convincingness of the shark but how much we have invested in the three lead characters, and the shading to make them and their worlds real to us over the first hour of the film demands our investment such that, when a 25 foot plastic shark finally leaps from the water, our terror is welded to theirs. Our human biology is a problem here, since the idea of the extraordinary is what inspires the very best stories but is undermined by our animalistic understanding of coincidence. In evolving our way to the top of the food chain, we have learned to spot patterns and are built to learn from mistakes in order to thrive, so that if an extreme event happens it is programmed into us to be intrinsically suspicious. Phrases such as “truth is stranger than fiction” are accepted truisms, and yet some films are criticised if they rely too much on remarkable events, despite this often making them the stories worth telling. The logical response would be that nobody would want to see a film in which one of the other double-O agents dies in the attempt at saving the world: show us instead the spy that survives ludicrously improbable traps to win the day.

Slumdog Millionaire is a fascinating example of this contradiction and is based around the concept of a penniless boy appearing on the world’s most famous TV quiz show. What happens, however, is far from a typical appearance and the boy, who has no schooling, is in fact using the show to search for his lost love. Along the way he is asked questions that he happens to know the answers to, with the film flashing back to explain how he would know each of these facts. Statistically this is an interesting approach: given that there are hundreds of thousands of people who must have appeared on a version of this quiz over decades, one of them would have to be ranked as the luckiest in terms of the questions they happen to have been asked and, therefore, would not their story not be the most compelling? There is an intriguing idea within the film of defining intelligence as being asked the questions that we happen to know the answers to, but the role of chance in shaping a person’s destiny can prove divisive in audiences and it is this friction that blurs the line upon which audiences’ readiness to accept the story we are spun is founded. Slumdog Millionaire is ultimately not that interested in the mechanics of this since the boy himself is not motivated by the money, using the show playfully to up the dramatic stakes and revealing more about the characters involved, but the boldness in using such a unusual framing device is relatively rare.

We can take a certain amount of improbability in our stories but the dangers of invoking anything beyond chance are arguably greater, and whilst there are many examples of outrageousness in the plotting of modern films there are few, if any, whose audacity in terms of confronting these shades of grey are as remarkable as 2009’s Angels & Demons. Having made a career from inferring conspiracies around artistic and historical fact, Dan Brown’s book is adapted by Ron Howard and builds to an unforgettable climax. A series of grisly murders are investigated by symbologist Robert Langdon and escalate to a finale in which a priest detonates an antimatter bomb in the skies above Vatican City, bailing out of his helicopter with a parachute at the last minute. We soon learn that said priest had, in fact, planned both the murders and the bomb (stolen from CERN) in order to get himself elected as Pope. As preposterous plotting goes, this is pretty much as far on a limb as even the most ridiculous of Hollywood thrillers has gone but there is something to be said for the gusto and straight face that the film commits to in bringing it to a screen. What makes it completely outrageous, however, is the concluding scene, where a kindly cardinal thanks both Langdon and God. As an atheist, Langdon demurs, but the cardinal replies that, given the remarkable nature of what has happened, how could this be anything other than God’s plan: a literal use of Deus Ex Machina in the modern cinematic age!

Angels & Demons’ approach is far from unique, although perhaps not in terms of sheer nerve. Raiders of the Lost Ark’s denouement also sees the God of the Old Testament wipe out the villains (The Big Bang Theory delighted in pointing out that, for all of Indy’s heroics, he plays no role in actually saving the world) whilst the Eagles in the Middle Earth films have a strong whiff of godliness to them. The moments when a storyteller is clearly fumbling for a way to get themselves out of a sticky corner will now be increasingly exposed online, whilst even knowing moments that try to poke fun at the fourth wall have a tendency to get lynched, such as Ocean’s 12’s set piece where Tess Ocean (played by Julia Roberts) bumps into actor Bruce Willis (played by Bruce Willis) and is then coerced into saving the day by pretending to be actress Julia Roberts, whom Tess apparently resembles. The only moments when such brazenness can be allowed are when a film dives wholeheartedly into the silliness, such as the moment in Life of Brian where our hero is saved from falling to his death by some convenient passing aliens.

Many films dance around this fault line in fiction but M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs chooses to confront it by forcing each viewer to reflect on their own choices in terms of how they each decide to see the world. Following The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, narrative twists had become the director’s trademark so the marketing of the film was stealthy, with the only knowledge circulated that the film was centred on the frivolous phenomenon of crop circles. Audiences who had been thrilled by Shyamalan’s first two films came expecting to find another sting in the tale and, whilst they would have that expectation met, for many it was not in the manner in which they were expecting.

From its propulsive opening credits, which musically and visually invoke Saul Bass and Bernard Herrman’s work for Hitchcock, the film casts a macabre spell, introducing us to a close family broken by bereavement. As enigmatic shadows, ominous animal behaviour and melodramatic news reports seem to imply that the world may be on the verge of disaster, the film spends our time focused on this household who is living as if Armageddon has already happened. Far from casting a morose tone, however, the focus is very much on their love and support for each other and the film is surprisingly funny, with a dryness and drollness that invites you to emotionally invest in them and their world to a huge degree, with various idiosyncrasies cleverly painted in to seemingly deepen their credibility, as is the norm for this genre. Charisma was always Mel Gibson’s strongest suit but, in this film, he uses it sparingly behind an expression of a man whom life has utterly defeated; a minister who has abandoned his faith after the cruel and arbitrary loss of his wife. His performance as Graham Hess is incredible and, in one scene, he processes rage, humanity, forgiveness and sorrow within the space of a few seconds. Joaquin Phoenix plays Graham’s brother Merrill, an honest and simple man whose awkwardness belies a gently painted integrity, whilst Cherry Jones also adds considerable emotional heft as the kind and empathetic local Sheriff: the world these characters inhabit, whist harsh and simple, makes it clear that these people are good-hearted and worthy of our empathy.

Shyamalan takes what would be the hugest event in human history and focuses upon the least significant of locales. He called Signs his “most popcorn” movie and takes many cues from Spielberg, with the juxtaposition of ordinary with extraordinary, a cast of children and a troubled, failing father (literally and professionally) all Amblin tropes, and the film is notably produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. As the eeriness builds with the aid of an impeccable score from James Newton Howard, the crop circles increasingly seem to be the work of alien visitors. Throughout the film however, there is a mischievous sense of ambiguity and the film continuously undermines this fantastic possibility: Shyamalan plays on the audiences’ expectations with masterful sleight of hand, continuously teasing us with the prospect of a narrative twist that we are all trying to spot ahead of time, knowing all the while that, whilst we focus on this, our attention remains away from the ace he has hidden up his other sleeve. Everything we see seems to be developing this potential alien threat, but the film is subtly sowing very different seeds and Shyamalan uses a full array of tricks to keep our attention away from his final intentions. The most memorable of these is where Merrill watches a blurry Brazilian news report whilst hiding inside the cupboard under his stairs. This simple scene is edited to creepy perfection and, as the announcer intones “what you’re about to see may disturb you”, we share Merrill’s ghoulish excitement at finally discovering the truth behind the mystery. The reveal of a creature looming for a split second, out of focus but stalking us with predatory malevolence is one of cinemas great shocks: simple, matter of fact but unexpectedly stark. As Shyamalan tears away the ambiguity, this extraordinary image pays off the patient teasing shown by the film up to this point and, crucially, keeps us frightened for this family and what this all might mean for them.

Set almost entirely set around the family’s farmhouse, the key moment of the film comes as Graham attempts to comfort an alarmed Merrill. Gibson is shot in shadow throughout the film but with a light from behind the camera reflecting in his pupils, keeping the whites of his eyes prominent and obscuring our view of his lost soul. Graham’s speech about two truths and the choice we have in how we interpret the world appears, on first viewing, to be a charismatically sad mission statement of how Graham’s faith has been lost although, as we soon discover, he has not stopped believing but has moved away from his God in rage at the loss of his wife. Graham tells Merrill that we always have a choice to either interpret the world as a confluence of happenstance or as the plan of a deeper, bigger force. Shyamalan brilliantly undercuts this hugely significant moment with an immediate distraction, as Merrill recounts his experience of once narrowly avoiding getting vomited on by a pretty girl, but the scene is of fundamental importance to the whole purpose of the film. There is a way to read Signs as Shyamalan viewing himself as the god of his own worlds, with the characters he writes bending to his will (and his subsequent film, The Lady in the Water would see him develop this idea to memorably baffling effect) but the message of this film is centred on choice. When Graham is at his lowest ebb in the final reel, he does not appeal to God but simply repeats “not again” and, eventually, “I hate you”: he has failed to disavow himself of his faith, despite trying walk away from it. Graham spends the film in a purgatory of his own making and one reading of the piece is that of a man beset by demons on his way back to the path, which is finally triggered in the film by an emotive Last Supper. Shyamalan himself comes from a Hindu background but attended a Catholic school and the film wisely stays far from any one dogma, always ultimately returning to the choice of the individual to read the world as they see it and Shyamalan invites us to do the same with his film.

In the final act, Graham has an epiphany that all the events of his life are coalescing in this single moment: his brother’s failed baseball career, his wife’s death, his son’s asthma, his daughter’s habit of leaving glasses of water everywhere: all of these factors converge simultaneously and with specific purpose. This extrapolation, whilst fantastical, only involves the joining of a handful of dots and the film never demands that the audience agrees with Graham: we have the choice ourselves to view this confluence as coincidence or as part of a wider plan. This is the genius of Shyamalan’s film, to make a film about faith, call the film “Signs” and then conceal the entire purpose of the film within an alien invasion. Another outstanding film about faith, Robert Zemeckis’ Contact, has a similar denouement, where the lead character is forced to make a choice about whether they can believe what has happened to them but Signs does not repeat the only error of that film, where the audience is privately told what really happened.

As Signs concludes, we are left alone with our own choice to make and this is what many viewers objected to, feeling that the contrivances were too silly, or maybe that water would be an unlikely vulnerability for invading aliens (despite the definitive text on this, War of the Worlds, invoking a common cold for the same dramatic purpose). I can sympathise if a viewer felt they were promised plotting to resolve the tale and it must be conceded that ambiguity from a story is dangerous if it comes as a surprise, but the conceit, showmanship and storytelling guile in making this twist thematic instead of narrative makes it, for me, Shyamalan’s masterpiece. He plays it with astonishing skill and total assurance.

We all always have a choice of how to accept what the world presents us with, and the gift of a great storyteller is to blend the meeting of the extraordinary with characters to ground our interest and our emotional investment, whilst simultaneously building a world which audiences can recognise as real. Such alchemy is so delicate, so complex that this makes a potent reminder of why so many films miss that mark, but the reality that so many storytellers have it in them to keep reaching for this delicate balance is the reason why we will always keep coming back to that campfire, waiting to be enveloped in a new, fantastic tale.

[yukithesnowman314]

Disclaimer: Possible spelling and grammar error below I’m just knocking this out of my way so I can work on this Hi-Score Girl review.

Round 1: https://yukithesnowman.com/2018/05/15/yukis-path-to-doki-doki-literature-clubs-good-ending-round-1-sayori/

Continuing from where I left off, I was able to obtain the CGs for Sayori’s route in order to unlock the true ending.  Re-playing her route gave me a new insight into her accurate portrayal of people suffering from depression (such as feeling numb, hopelessness, lack of desire, etc.) made me appreciate her character. I want to see more educated takes of characters struggling with mental health in fiction –because done right, it can hit hard.

Since I’ve “completed ” Sayori’s route, I’m going after Natsuki’s next.  I haven’t done her route since my first run through, which is perfect given I need to go through her route before replaying Yuri’s.  Going through Yuri’s route in Act 1 requires me to witness Sayori’s death scene; therefore ruining my plans to get the game’s true ending.

For cut down on time, any previous read dialogues are being skipped unless I find something interesting and worthy of being talked about.

I like Natsuki. She’s slowly becoming a favorite character of mines. I’ve said this many times, but I hate the tsundere trope in anime – unless a writer puts realism to the trope (as we see with Natsuki).  She’s a “tsundere” but her aggressive, angry nature is a resulted of her being physically and emotionally abused by her father. It’s common for victims of child abuse to struggle with anger issues and develop an inferiority complex. Obviously, Natsuki hides her insecure nature (from the abuse) by acting tough and hard-hearted (but of course, she secretly cares about other people and don’t wanna see them down or hurt).

Playing Act 1 again, I couldn’t help but laugh at MC’s awareness of overused anime archetypes as Natsuki did her little “tsundere” bullshit such as “It’s isn’t like I did this for you” and hiding her love for cute things through acting hard and tough.  It almost made me forget that DDLC was a psychological horror VN.  Almost.  With that said, I can’t help but find some parts of my personality in her (as weird as it might sound).  There are some things I do enjoy that I’m kinda shy to admit (some moe’ blob anime like Lucky Star, classical music, reading about heart-warming stories , and shedding a tear or two at emotional scenes in anime to name a few).

…that’s as far as my softer side y’all gonna get from me.

Tsunsuki

The first night of the poem homework for Natsuki went smoothly.  And by smoothly, I cheated and save scummed because I accidentally got a few reactons from Yuri and Sayori that completely override my goal to have MC romance Natsuki.  Eh. I dunno what cute shit fictional girls like. Or real ones at that.  I suck at the romance thing.

After starting over I got MC to interact with Natsuki,.  There’s a hint for shadowing/mockery here as Natsuki talks about her favorite manga,“Parfait Girl” MC makes fun of the cover, which offends Natsuki telling him the old adage of never judging a book by its cover and how things may have more layers than it appears. A subtle jab at the true nature of the game.

I can’t help to think how Natsuki’s character mirrors that of the otaku. Otakus are quick to defend their passions – may they be anime, manga, gaming, etc.. Sometimes, they find inspiration in them (such as with Natsuki becoming a baker and a cook from reading her manga) and opening up to those who also share their passion. Natsuki struggles to share her love of manga with her friends. Every attempt has been met with ridicule by them (since they believe she’s still childish for not growing out of her manga phase).

I’m sure you guys had to deal with this in the past (maybe even today as adults for the older people reading this).  With nerd culture growing ever popular by the day the stereotype of nerds and anime fans being childish and immature is dying. The stigma is still there, but it wasn’t as bad as it was decades ago.

I was able to have MC make Natsuki fluttered with the poem with him writing something that matches her style.  Guess she’s not used to people appreciating and sharing her passion.  I know that feeling.  Doesn’t excuse her from acting goofy about it but I get it.  As Natsuki share her poem with Monika Monika tells MC how Natsuki’s writing style is similar to late author Shel Silverstein: “childish”, but with adult themes and straight to the point by using fewer words than necessary.  I like that lowkey.  I believe that you can say more by saying less and the more you talk and ramble, the less interesting you are to people.

Make people think about what you say and keep them in wonder by saying less.

Everything goes per normal so let’s skip ahead to Natsuki and Yuri’s fight.  Stated in an earlier post (I think, it’s been a while and I don’t feel like searching for it), I went to Yuri because she’s my favorite character and I like her character archetype, but for this one, I went for Natsuki.   She gets happy, proud that somebody like her childish, but blunt writing style.  Real shit,  I get her.  It gets annoying when people talk down about your style (without any advice to improve it, mind you).  When somebody sees the beauty of your style, it reminds you that it is not bad.

You do get a little egotistical, however.

Following the second poem writing,  there’s a funny scene where Natsuki  is struggling to get her manga collection from the top shelf of the clubroom’s closet.   Natsuki, dealing with her short complex, tries to reach for them but fails.  MC tries to help out, but couldn’t, as he was put in an awkward situation – either hold the step ladder  that Natsuki had (while innocently looking up her skirt), or let her fall in which she hits head hard against something, crack it open, bleed out and die; thus ending her route and the game .  The two fall down and shit scatters, with one of her manga being damaged.

(…okay so she didn’t fall to her death.)

Natsuki gets upset, snaps off on MC, but then starts to  cry, saying things like “I’m just having bad day” and “every day, it just gets harder”.  Subtle hints to Natsuki’s homelife and being abused by her dad.  Of course, you won’t catch it on your first run (unless you read the spoilers).  You assume that Natsuki acting childish or overreacting, not knowing that her acting out is a result of her stressful home life.  Over time, it’s going to take a toll on any child dealing with abuse.

There was an interesting theory I came across on a DDLC Facebook group months back that not only Natsuki’s dad belittles her for reading manga, it’s possible that he may have destroyed a few from her collections.   It’s not uncommon for abusive parents to destroy their children’s personal items. I have friends who during childhood, their parents would break their things as a form of “punishment”.

Natsuki could be hiding her manga at the clubroom to avoid any further damage from her dad.  Monika fucking with her collection adding to how horrible her home life is only fueled by Natsuki’s paranoia that she may lose her manga – her way out of reality for a little bit. Really wish Dan did more with Natsuki character.  There are layers about her that need to be explored.

Continued in  Round 2 Part 2.

(before I go I gotta say some of you Natsuki fans need Jesus)

Original Fangsta Natsuki Disclaimer: Possible spelling and grammar error below I’m just knocking this out of my way so I can work on this Hi-Score Girl review.

[lilmizzqtpie]

Entry 1

Do people still blog? Is this a thing anymore, or did I miss the whole enchilada. This gurl had to figure out how to spell this dish - as well I'm pretty sure this is NOT an expression ..ah well, going with it. That would be mildly embarassing if I found out in fact, I had spelled it wrong. Welp, here I go. Starting up a blog.

So, here I am on tumblr, where I feel most transparent. What you see on here is literally what I'm thinking at that point. Only a select few know who I am. I can express anything and not feel obligated to explain, or feel guilty, maybe? Regardless. I feel safe here. To quote the lovely Olive of Easy A, " -And what better way to express my opinion than to broadcast them on the internet."

I want to thank Sir Daniel of howell, for my inspiration, to make an actual effort in finding out, what it is that makes me happy. With his latest video, as of March 2018.

Side note. I haven't actually written anything since middle school? I think?? Am I EVEN using punctuation properly ? I don't understand anymore. Also, too lazy to research and relearn some more. Maybe, I'll pay attention to it more when I read.... And, if I happen to use words that are not words, my apologies.

Where was I, Dan said this thing about being true to yourself. I think I struggle with this. Being told I am a people pleaser. I feel awful about this, but watching that video, made me soo thankful knowing I wasn't alone. I don't know what makes me happy. I'm pretty sure this is actually a common thing.

Also, I had recently read a quote, on some gif it turns out. Damn. I can't even remember it at this point. Mind you while I'm writing this it's 3 AM. What am I even doing awake ?? Okay, it was along the lines of do what you love for work and you'll never work a day in your life. . something or other.

Edit: I had just posted it before this; it's "find what you love and do it for the rest of your life." As per the cute detective guy on that show: criminal minds

That's when it hit me. I don't know what makes me happy? A lot of things I like to do, are hugely influenced by people around me, then for whatever reason, If can't do said thing. I feel like it doesn't matter.

I'm striving to figure out what I love. And, daily I think it's super weird. Living as myself and not knowing much about me.

I see people everywhere. Whatever it is they love to do, yhey made it their lives work to do it. Made it happen, worked towards it. I'll look at anything and be like, "Oh, someone who really loves writing, wrote this book, or another person drew this graphic design. Someone else who loves acting is in plays, or tv shows, movies. Then there's those people who are also involved in the production, advertising, wardrobe, camera crew.

There are limitless possibilities out there, the thing is, in order to figure out that dream career or job. You need to know what you strive for, what keeps the blood flowing in those veins, what makes you wake up happy. Whatever, it is that you want to spend your life doing. I, like probably, all of us millennials want to know what that is that I'm running towards. I just, have no earthly way of telling, if I don't even know what makes me feel joy and excitement, in the first place. I don't even know if I'm really good at anything.

So to start off, keep in mind, I'm listing off things I couldn't possibly go a day without here.

Video games were a huge thing for me, about 7 years ago. But I think it turns out it was because my friends and boyfriend were all really into them. I'm not sure if I made myself like it. If it's just something I put up with. But the thing is, I can't tell. Since its so easy for me not to. Video games bare no real significance to me. Did I even like it in the first place? On the other hand. I have been playing since super Nintendo and Sega were really big. On and off through all of those systems and brands. Ect. Maybe, I think it's fun, recreationally?

Didn't find what I'm passionate about there. Next with a new trend of mine is, make up. Okay, while I was working, I spent TONS of money at Sephora. I don't really know how I got into it in the first place. Was it a make up guru I was watching? I think I can peg it to a video I was watching sponsored by a dewy stick. That just looked so cool. And she was upselling it, hard. And I just carried on from there. But, I don't feel compelled to do any looks anymore, unless of course, I happen to be going out somewhere.

Love nikki, let's touch up on my most recent obsession. Today marks.. I think day 39 days in a row of playing. Love Nikki, is this mobile game where you dress up this little anime girl. I've spent about 20 dollars on here. And I'm not technically working. Why did I do this??? Do I actually like this? Or, is it because Dan and Phil said it was Coolio. I'm pretty sure I could live without it. I think this one stems from me not being able to do any real shopping of my own anymore.

Aside from make up, I bought lots and lots of clothes. Not only for myself but for my son and boyfriend. You should see our closet it's kind of ridiculous. My passion for clothing went as far as me buying out an entire thrift store. Not as in, oh everything in this display? I want it. No, as in I literally got out a loan and bought a entire store. At this point I was 21. Now, my business went belly up, and I pay a little over 100 dollars,every single month, in storage fees. It's been 3 years. Why did they even approve of this loan!?!? I didn't go to school for business. I was a health care assistant!!!

Now if you're still with me, let's move on to that portion of my life when I was in the health field. I had just had a baby. Panicked, to find a job to support this tiny human I just grew. I jumped into this course that was available. It was for health care assistants. I'm going to be honest. I didn't have a clue what that was. If you're not sure about it, as I was. It's where you help the elderly or otherwise unable, with their activities of daily living: ADL's.

That being showers, teeth brushing, getting dressed, Fed, toileted, glasses on, etc. You know, basically any of those things you do whilst on autopilot, mindlessly sipping your morning coffee.

So! Before I start this care stuff, let me point out there are very few things I am proud of myself. Taking this course, is one of those things where I felt, I was pretty great. Durring the entire thing, the lowest grade I received was a B+. That, my dear friends, made me happy.

There were 3 years of my life in that line of work. Put me in what my therapist called situational depression. Easily put, being a HCA did NOT keep me happy. I used to cry most mornings before work. For years?? Why didn't I quit sooner??? This is a different story in itself.

You've read more then enough of my first attempt. Moral of my story is. Who the hell am I?

×o×o sincerely yours

Chanel no.2

[manetsgarden]

Let Blogmas Begin! I thought a nice way to kick off December would be a little bit of inspiration for those of you who aren’t sure how to spend your extra time, or how to get into the holiday spirit! All of these are going to be fairly low-budget because let’s face it, I’m low budget. Here we go:

GO THRIFTING! Either alone or with a friend, find the most ridiculous and wonderful things for cheap – bonus points if you find a killer holiday sweater.

Harry Potter Movie Marathon. This is a must for anyone that has more than a few days off. Even if you’ve never seen it, do it. Trust me. Bonus points for lots of snacks, extra points if they’re homemade.

BETTER YET: Read Harry Potter. Or any other book, I just feel like Harry Potter has a holiday feel to it. My favourite is the Prisoner of Azkaban but you can’t really start in the middle if you haven’t read it before so….. The Philosopher’s Stone it is!

Make a moodboard about literally anything you want. Holiday party moodboard? Do it. Fashion inspiration moodboard? Get! That! Blogging inspiration board? WONDERFUL IDEA. Mood! Board! It! Up! It’s such a fun way to self reflect AND get crafty. Win, win. 

GO ICE SKATING! Ohhhhh it’s getting wintery up in here now. Ice skating isn’t quite so cheap if you don’t have skates but it’s FUN! Best part of skating: super fun and great work out if you know how to do it AND if you don’t then there’s only super cute and funny times to be had. Bonus points if you know how to play hockey and you scrimmage when you skate (someone do this with me please).

An hour long (at least) dance party. Alone. In your room. Bonus points if it’s to Taylor Swift’s new album cause that’s where I’m at currently. Seriously, I’m bopping as I type this. I guess bonus points if it’s Christmas music too but I can’t really get down to that. Except Text Me Marry Christmas – ICONIC SONG. 

Go through an old photo album (or your Facebook profile) because SO MANY LAUGHS. This one is for the days you don’t want to leave the house but your brain feels like it will melt if you watch anymore Netflix. Photo albums are simultaneously hilarious and nostalgic and they’ll make you ugly cry and snicker at the same time, and there’s nothing better than that.

Make yourself the best, most ultimate, rich and luxurious hot chocolate you could possibly have. You’re going to want it so over the top you’re going to question yourself whether you got this baby from Serendipity 3. I’m thinking whippsed cream, I’m thinking marshmallows, I’m thinking peppermint sprinkles, chocolate shavings, a candy cane and stick of cinnamon. TREAT YO SELF, HOLIDAY STYLE. 

Visit your grandparents if they’re still around. If not, spend time writing a letter to someone you love that lives far away. If neither of these apply to you, find a dog and hug it. If you’re not a dog person I don’t know what to tell you ’cause I’ve never seen a cat hug. Just spread some love to people who always love on you and maybe don’t always get alllll the love they deserve back. It makes a difference to them, I promise.

Girls night with wine and cheese and glitter and gossip. Everyone needs a stupid write off night with their friends every once in awhile – especially after a loooooong semester.

I for real just scrolled up to make sure I didn’t promise these would be fun (and I didn’t)…ready for it? CLEAN UP! One of the benefits of having a lil extra time is to have time to clean up the clutter and chaos in your life, so if you’re not there yet, here’s your reminder. Clean your room, wash your sheets, throw out things you don’t need anymore, reorganise, revitalise, REINVIGORATE! I’ll be fun now ok.

Go for a hike with a friend! (Even if they’re furry! Bonus points if they’re furry!) In my case this hike involves snowshoes but usually that just means double the laughs every time one falls off or I fall over. There’s something reeeeally nice about getting outside when it’s snowy and cold and taking in the nature after you’ve been holed up inside for awhile. 

Practice your Christmas/NYE makeup or hair ~look~. I just think it’s fun to play around with makeup, and it’s nice to get the hang of a look that’s a little more ~out there~ than usual. Also it’s fun to get dressed up and feel fancy so do it up! Then take 50 selfies and bask in your own gloriousness, you go. (I just googled if that’s how you spell bask lol)

Bake some mf christmas cookies. Who cares if you celebrate christmas bc cookies, cookies are for everyone. I’m talking shortbread, I’m talking christmas spices, cookies shaped like trees and snowmen are here for EVERYONE and they are delicious. I’m invisioning biting of the snowman’s head and I’m filled with glee. This is what the holidays are about. My favourite recipe is, you guessed it, Taylor Swift’s Chai Sugar Cookies. I’m coming off like a crazy swiftie aren’t I? This is a side you’ve never seen of me.

Do a puzzle. That’s right, I’m bringing back puzzles. Listen guys, puzzles are GREAT. I rediscovered this a few years ago when at an impromptu girls night my friends and I decided to do a puzzle and listen to – guess who? – old T-Swift. It was wonderful. I bought a Christmas puzzle and my mom and I are already planning it out – because yes puzzles needed planning. We don’t mess around.

Go to a Christmas or craft market. Best thing about these is that there’s no pressure to purchase, so you can get a coffee and browse around looking at all the wonderful little things and just take in the ambiance. 10/10 holiday thing to do.

Bubble bath time – I really want to use a bad word but then I think, what if my little cousins find my blog? What if I become really famous for an unknown reason and then I’m scrutinized for things like this? Anyways. Bubble baths are pretty straight forward, you know what you like. Note: no bubbles are necessary, perhaps a lush bath bomb is more your speed, or a little Epsom salt. You do you, get a lil drink, get a good book (or Netflix show and set that laptop up on your toilet) and relax because it’s December, school is done for now and you have no responsibilities. The world is wonderful. 

For month-long entertainment, go pick up a disposable camera. Haven’t you watched Stranger Things? Retro is in. Seriously these are pretty cheep and they’re fun to have around and pick special moments to document! You can easily play around with film photography and also make funny memories (because people will laugh when you whip yours out).

Spend some time catching up on your journal (ngl this is more of a personal reminder ha), or if you’re into it, google up some writing prompts and get CREATIVE! I know this isn’t for everyone but I love it. Writing prompts can be great to get them creative juices flowing. I dare you to write something inspired by these prompts (I’m looking @ you Taylor. Write a song about me already).

Learn all the lyrics to a new song. Bonus points if you do it with a sister/sibling/friend. My sister and I used to sit with a pen and notepad and listen to songs at caterpillar speed, write out the lyrics, and then learn them all. This is how I learned how to sing The Element Song – one of my greater talents, Dan Rad doesn’t have anything on me. Nowadays you can easily Google it but is it just me or is it getting harder to remember lyrics? Am I getting old?? Bonus points if you can play an instrument on there (I’m doing New Years Day on piano. I can’t play piano).

Take a printed picture you have – sidenote: if you don’t print your pictures, pick your favs and print them out. Okay now take a bigger piece of paper, and get all Tumblr in it. By this I mean create a lil art around the picture, based on the picture. This is a wonderful way to inspire yourself to get artsy. Even if you’re not good at it (like me) it’s fun and you spend time on your own just getting creative and thoughtful and it’s just the best. 

PHOTO SHOOT IT UP! You had to see this coming. Bonus points if you have friends who don’t care and will go out in public and do a photo shoot with you. Extra bonus points if you try it with a film camera. This is just a fun way to push yourself out of your shell – because yes it feels weird for everyone doing it, but once you decide you don’t care and you’d rather just have a good time with your friends and get some cute pictures and memories out of it, no one cares anymore.

People watch! This can be hard if you live in a smaller town like me, but malls are always bustling around this time of the year so that’s a sure bet. I’d like to get a gooood coffee and just sit and watch society for awhile. You’d be amazed at some of the stuff that goes on out there. Insane. 

Do a Youtube tutorial – but, like, a wild one. Pick something you love – music, makeup, hair, nails, dance, whatever, and find a tutorial of something that looks hectic and awesome, and try it. Dance tutorials seem like a good idea (hoedown throwdown anyone?) but I’m the worst dancer – does it make it any less fun? Not in the slightest. I’m really trying to cut back on how often I use the word fun.

I CAN’T BELIEVE I MADE IT HERE THANK GOODNESS GRACIOUS! The one you’ve all been waiting for: give it up and spend the day watching Netflix. I’m serious. Take your OTT Serendipity3 hot chocolate, your Taylor Swift chair sugar cookies, and sit your ass (ah! a curse!) in front of the TV for awhile. Lucky for you, tomorrow’s post is a Netflix guide for only the best in Netflix – it’s the worst to flip through there with nothing to watch. The worst.

  I did it I really did it! One other thing I’m doing during Blogmas is a daily “Moment Behind the Blog” because I feel like none of you know me me and I want you to! Hi! I’m Sabrina Mara! This is my blog! Welcome! Here’s today’s…

Moment Behind The Blog: Day 1

I’m writing this on November 28 – I just finished one heck of a paper. Background: I’m in my final year of my HBa in History. I love it. It’s horrible and I am such a hecking nerd I genuinely love it. That being said – it’s SO HARD to write about fun things to do when you’re free of school knowing I still have this one HECKIN long paper to write between now and then. FRUSTRATION.

Also – Heckin is officially my replacement word for every swear. Just decided that right now. It’ll be like Eleanor on The Good Place (what’s that?! Wait until tomorrow!)

Your question of the day: Since I was so extra about TSwift in this – what’s your favourite song on reputation?! (Don’t lie, I know you have one).

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Contact: arcticsabrinabusiness@gmail.com

25 Things to do This December Let Blogmas Begin! I thought a nice way to kick off December would be a little bit of inspiration for those of you who aren't sure how to spend your extra time, or how to get into the holiday spirit!