#had to include the cute drawings and story with the postcard

[hqbeatles]

Anyhow, the boys are backstage discussing what they want the new album cover to look like, and John Lennon grabs the only paper that is around him and starts to doodle a few ideas for album covers.   He shows the other Beatles and they discuss them.   They think the last one looks pretty good (notice Ringo sketched in there...and who is the Beatles with the sad face?) and John signs his name of the back and puts it back into the stack to be returned to the fans after the show.

[tunglo]

repost of an old blog post for my new Ken era...

Today [March 13th] is Ken Day! Kenneth Sean "Ken" Carson first hit store shelves in 1961 and, in a move that preceded reality TV by a decade or three, we all got to watch as Barbie met the man of her dreams.

Since then Ken has gone through almost as many incarnations as Barbie herself and had over 40 different careers. In celebration of all that fantastic plastic, here are just ten of the top Ken dolls produced over the years...

--

The 'fun' of shaving Ken has been a staple of his repertoire over the years; there are versions from 1996, 1999, 2010, and 2019.

But, as ever, it's the original that's best. Here is 1979's Sport & Shave Ken. Not only did he come with this spiffing tennis outfit, he also had a shaving mug, two 'razors', and a marker pen of your very own to draw on Ken's facial hair...

According to the brochure: "It's Ken with a whole new look for the 1980s. He's athletic. He's all man."

Indeed.

--

Cool Times Ken.

Never has a name been quite so misleading.

There's a reason Pixar went with this Ken era for the Toy Story movies, and it certainly wasn't because of Ken's close relationship with the concept of cool.

--

Sometimes your problem is not that Ken has too much facial hair. It's that he just doesn't have enough. Luckily 1972's Mod Hair Ken had you covered. The same idea was utilised again in 1975 for The Now Look Ken, except this time around his hair was longer to capture the true essence of mid 70s cool.

--

Ken has been a doctor many times - 1963, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2011, 2018 - but 1987's offering beats the rest hands down. Not only is Ken a doctor, but you can fold the lapels of his shiny nylon medical coat down and he's ready for a night of wining and dining!

What a doll.

--

What more can I say?

--

--

According to Keeping Ken, this shot with Wedding Day Alan was an official Mattel postcard

In 1993 Mattel redesigned Ken to fulfil little girls' requests that Barbie's beau be cooler. Ken was now so cool he was attracting interest from all quarters, including the US gay community who were sure Ken's cock ring necklace came straight - heh - from the club scene. As a result Earring Magic Ken sold out for Christmas '93, and remains the best selling Ken doll of all time in spite of Mattel discontinuing and recalling the doll once they realised Ken's secret was out of the closet...

--

In 2010 Mattel released Sugar Daddy Ken, so named - they say - because he owns a little dog called Sugar.

Hmmm.

--

Back in 2004, just in time for Valentine's Day, Barbie ditched Ken in favour of Australian surfer dude, Blaine. Blaine O'Hare - or at least his face sculpt - began life in 1998 when Totally Yo-Yo Skipper was initially set to gain a new friend called Zach. Though he never actually made it into production, his features were used for 1999's Generation Girl Dance Party Blaine.

The Generation Girl line followed Barbie's time at high school in NYC, introducing a variety of new friend dolls and spawning another Blaine in 2000. When he returned in 2004 Blaine had wisely dropped the 'curtains' hairstyle and traded in New York for California. In this continuity the pair met through Blaine's younger sister, Summer, who was good friends with Barbie.

In fact, voting was held through the Barbie.com website to determine who Cali Girl Barbie ought to go for - Ken, Blaine, long time pal Steven, another newcomer named Diego, or stay single. We all know how that went. Ken went away to lick his wounds for a couple of years, but in 2006 he was back with a new look. It wasn't enough for Barbie to take him back though and the pair remained 'just good friends' until another PR campaign saw them get back together in 2011.

--

The Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse webseries is awesome.

Launched in May 2012, it pokes fun at the entire Barbie mythos and did more to give Ken a personality than any other Mattel project. We learn that Ken loves inventing, is addicted to sherbet, and suffers from Hyper Cuteness Sensitivity Disorder...

--

This year Ken is finally taking control of his own destiny. Well. His own laundry, at any rate...

[cdmagic1408]

Onward Fan Art Shout Out - 6

Theme: Onward in the Multiverse of Madness!

Given my excitement that I'm writing my own Onward crossover story and that I'm still reeling over the fact that it got to cameo in a spiritual Roger Rabbit sequel, tonight I'm going to spotlight the visual crossovers done with Onward and other franchises!

I know crossovers are either hit or miss for people but hey, I've had major crossover fever since NWH came out and I think it's super cool when characters from different universes interact! And there's no better feeling than when we actually see it happen with our own two eyes! So here's Ian and Barley exploring realms beyond the United Realms!

Disclaimer: I decided not to include any Pixar franchises here cause I figured that deserved a post of its own on a later date!

Artists

icanthinksstuff - I'd see that movie! Rocker Barley for the win! 🎸🎶 also the font is truly awesome!

lauren_williams_15 - I wanna say it was TJ and Buford that caught my eye with this one, but I love this group of characters! the style is super cute and Barley would totally love hanging with any of these guys!

brayshaun23 - I love Onward I love HTTYD there's no question why I absolutely adore this piece! oh and black painted nails on Barley?! yaaaas!! 🖤

aliameriart - I'm not much into DC nor have I seen Shazam but I love the caricatured style of this drawing!

inhonoredglory - I've only seen Klaus once, but I love the pairing of Jesper and Ian here! since they both had comfort zones to get out of in their respective films, they would make a very interesting team! also the line work here is spectacular!

randompopguy - I'm counting this as a crossover since Freddy Funko frequently dresses up as all sorts of characters and this one encapsulates the Ian Funko POP very beautifully! I also really admire the added freckles too since Ian also has those!

zxcasdf15 - I'm really liking the story this Harry Potter one is showing! I'd genuinely be interested in seeing a written AU of it

liefantonym - an Ian Baymax as a personal healthcare companion would be a dream come true! Guaranteed to keep you safe, huggable, and it's Ian! Double the cuteness! 😍

monstergram7 - ok ok this has Cars in it, but I picked this one mainly for Kim Possible! again really digging this team up and I also love how the artist thought to include hidden Mickeys! this would make an epic postcard for Disney parks!

[marshmallowprotection]

Saeran’s Passport Package

I’ve been waiting since the 19th to get my hands on this baby and I’m glad that it got here today. It took me a little bit to sit down and go through everything cause I wanted to cry about it the entire time. 

Spoilers Ahead, everyone. So, if you’re not interested in seeing what’s in the Passport set AFTER the events of Saeran’s After Ending, then do not click Read More, got it? I’ve made it clear to you. I will say that it’s worth the money if you’re debating buying it. 

So, we can go over the contents in the box, first as an overview. You receive a letter stamped with a cute sticker as well as the passport itself which holds the notes that Saeran’s been taking and drawing since this all started. I just think that’s cute. My brain said don’t open that passport until we review the letter first so, why don’t we go over the letter first? The little details are really cute. There’s just so many stamps on this baby. 

The little touches are what sell it. You’ve got this man putting his love all over it and there’s a CUTE NOTE of CATS. Sir, was that a touch to Saeyoung? I know you know that your brother is a dork. Homage to brother who is an idiot but too glaringly obvious. It got a chuckle out of me. I know this man, and it’s just getting to me. 

The passport itself is also really cute. It has the art from the promo banner but instead of everyone hustling around together, there’s new poses and all of that jazz. Jaehee isn’t rushing around. Zen’s got a selfie stick, no surprise on that front. Jumin just chilling. Seven and Yoosung... doing what they do best and you know it. RUN, YOOSUNG, RUN.

Saeran and MC... being cute on the inside made me go, “Aw!” Ice cream. They can really just put ice cream and it’s going to make me cry, huh? Really? Is that how easy this is? Am I a joke to you, Cheritz? Is that what this is? 

Now, if you want to talk about the contents in the letter, you get this sheet that is listed in three languages, surprised me, Korean, Spanish, and English, and it lets you tick off little things that you like to do. An itinerary sheet. I feel like this is purely Jumin crafting these. It asks about Cats. Literally. Cats. Wine? Yeah, this is on Jumin. You always come in flex, Jumin, but oh boy, I’m chuckling over here at these little touches. 

You get 2 boarding passes. One with Saeran’s name and one with a blank to fill in your name. I thought that was cute. Tying in that with the CG of the passes in the game with this just makes it more real to me. I’m holding this in my hands and it just makes my immersion feel much more real than it did when I was holding my phone in my hand and playing this out. 

I think merch like this just makes you feel more apart of the story then you do when you’re able to talk and chat, you know? If you really like feeling like you are involved with the game, this is how you do it. You wanna know how I know that Jumin is the one setting this up with Saeran? Flip over the fucking passport and you realize that Elizabeth is on the back.

I’m still laughing. 

I’m trying to imagine this and now, like, I’m starting to see why Jaehee is so damn tired because Elizabeth really is on everything that he can get his hands on and she’s good too many files to sort through when it comes to whatever the photographers take of her. Jumin can’t take photos. He’s either got Jihyun to do this for him at some point, or he’s straight up hiring photographers for her cause he can’t do it. 

I mean, we all know that Jumin will put Elizabeth everywhere but I just— It’s on the BOARDING PASSES? JUMIN! 

There’s also a postcard within the letter that is once more, written in all three aforementioned languages. Saeran says that it feels like a dream when he is with you, like this is where he’s always meant to be. His promise of happiness is made truest when he’s with you. I teared up a little. I know that he means well when he does that but damn, does it take an arrow to the heart every single time he does it. 

Saeran put a lot of thought into this in a very short amount of time. I know that he did this plan likely with the idea that he may not be able to go with us but he wanted us to be able to see the world for him. You know, how he implied that he wanted Saeyoung to see things for him? To live for him? Even if he was dead, he wanted Saeyoung and the player to be happy and free. 

The blurred state on those... doesn’t have names. It doesn’t name Saeran in this photo. 

The implication of his sacrifice with the boarding passes kind of hurts because this is a side note of the fact that Saeran Did Not Know If He Would Live To See This Through. He made it thinking maybe.. if things worked out, it would be an okay future, but this was... God. I just. I’m thinking about the weight of the AE and what that felt like. I almost glossed over the Boarding Pass because I was just so upset with him.

I’m the type to try to sacrifice myself for others, too. I have that in common with Saeyoung and Saeran. 

I think that we’d argue over who should die for the others and while that’s macabre, it’s just the kind of people that we are. We love these people so much that we’re willing to die if they’re safe and sound. Knowing that, I understand what Saeran tried, and even what Saeyoung tries, but it’s hard cause I want to make sure they’re happy in comparison to myself. 

This is where being selfless is a bad thing. 

Does anyone know what a big deal it is for Saeran to have a passport? He’s never had an ID or paperwork in his entire life. If he did, he would’ve been killed, so would his brother. They’re both never had IDs. Unless you count the ones from the Agency and Mint Eye. They’ve got them in the Believer box with their names and faces, but that’s not official. That’s not paperwork that everyone else has. That’s just... 

You know? 

Seeing this tangible thing in my hands is a testament to Saeran Choi being alive and thriving. He’s not afraid of showing his face. He’s living. He’s a free man and nobody can kill him for existing. Does that not weigh on anyone here? It hit me and I wanted to cry. I might break down thinking about this later because I just take this too seriously. Look at him. Look at HIM. Okay? Did you look? Now, LOOK AGAIN.

Okay, I’m not going to share every single page inside of the passport but I will give you little snippets of the journey ahead and show you what he writes and draws. Yes, he’s drawing. I knew that he was talented because he is great at doodling and drawing, but he knows how to have such a cute style that I want to gush about and he probably has no clue about how cute it is because nobody’s ever told him!

Okay, so the trip is broken up over a few months and into segments. You know how I was surprised by the 3 languages? Yes, this passport is written in three languages and it stays that way. It implies that Saeran knows English and Spanish, or at the very least, he’s been studying them, I get that it’s kind of a neat tie in to make sure that all languages are included but I only English and I can only read Spanish, I suck at conversational Spanish, so I could only read the English and Spanish sections. 

So, if anyone wants to throw in what the Korean segments say, please do. I have a rough idea, but it’d be nice to know. The first segment of the trip is spent traveling over Korea. You see the things that he packed in the bag! 

I almost had a heart attack because I thought the vitamins were Caffeine Pills. I was about to beat my Husband and make him go to bed. Thin ice, Saeran. Thin ice, the Special Believer package implied you take more then ten and I want you to go the fuck to sleep at night. 

He packed his hanbok! Look! You remember? From the title screen event? The blue shirt is the one that he matches with MC in. There’s so much I’m screaming about it. 

It shows you things that you do. Like, biking, karaoke, gardens... is there a locket bridge in Korea? You know? If you put them together on a bridge, it’s said that your love lasts forever. I forget where that came from but I guess there must be one in South Korea, too. Oh, and food. Can you believe that he can eat whatever he wants now? I’m sobbing. 

Please. 

HE’S IN HANBOK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Okay, here’s the thing. I only have one gripe with the Passport Package and I’m going to say this again at the end, but I really wish that they had included big photos for this because the Passport itself it rather small and I wish that I could have bigger photos of this. It’s my only complaint. Literally, it’s the only thing I have to say about the box that will affect my rating. Look, we’re doing cheesy couple stuff! 

HE’S DOING THE HEART THING WITH HIS HANDS.

A KISS. 

KISS.

GUSHING.

DYING. HELP. ME. 

God, I wish I wasn’t broke. I would commission someone to do this for my MC. 

The second and third portion of the trip are spent in the U.S.A. and Mexico, I was so surprised by that! New York and Hawaii specifically are what they name and I was. Well, those are really far apart, huh. I mean, those are very popular spots. I’m not surprised. I’m chuckling because he’s got matching outfits. 

Saeran Choi, you really want the embarrassing couple look, don’t you? Well, if it’s for you, I’d do it. Did... Saeyoung or Jumin set us up, are we fucking loaded? There’s mad bank here. 

Saeran and MC basically are living per Jumin and Saeyoung, to be honest, because Saeran’s never had a job and MC is... your MC literally agrees to go and test a game in the woods, how good can our lives be? I’m broke, boy. I ain’t got nothing. So, I like to think that those two are offering to let Saeran be as happy and free as he wants. No expense. Like, kindness. The RFA is too damn much, I’m gonna cry. I’m starting to understand why the RFA didn’t hear from us for months. 

The final Check-In with the RFA is set 6 Months after the events that take place when we save Saeran. The events of this Passport cover 3 months. So, we go back to Korea after this adventure and met up with Saeyoung, because we know that we’re hanging out with him in the conclusion. So, if they haven’t really heard from us, that means that we’ve been traveling more with him. 

I kind of like that. 

We’re spending time with Saeran alone and time with the brothers together, and that’s sweet! I love that. I need to write more about it. 

I’m trying not to laugh about this Mexico portion but it looks like he passed out from an ice tea... lemonade...? It’s surely not alcohol. Maybe too much sugar, I know that crash can hurt. I’ve been there. I just know that you’re not implying the man with alcohol trauma is gonna drink. Nope. Neither he nor Saeyoung ever will do that. I stand by that statement and I’ll die by that statement. Bite me my tongue if I’m wrong, but I stand by that. 

Saeran is at least mindful of the sun. He’s also made notes that the perfect time for sunset is 18:34. Cute. He notes that it’s time for the Day of the Dead as well, so that’s fun!

IS THAT A FUCKING V CACTUS—

TWO V CACTUS—

There’s actually a portion in here where he asks you certain questions and you have the space to fill in it. I like that it’s interactive. 

Do you have favorites sweets? Are there things about yourself that you hide? Did you make sure to ask Santa what you wanted? I’m wheezing. The food doodles are one thing, and the Christmas photo is one thing, but he really drew himself as a butterfly and the MC as a bug catcher. 

“CATCH ME, MC.” 

Help me. 

I’m laughing so hard.

Saeran, you fucking goofball.

And, the last page of the passport is us assumedly returning home with all kinds of trinkets and gifts. Flower crown, snow globe, cactus, hats, listen, there’s a lot of details in this photos that I really wish I could have it blown up. 

That’s really my only complaint about the Passport Package. I really want to have bigger photos that are shared. I wouldn’t have minded if it was the photo of the final CG in the game, or the Christmas photo, I really would have enjoyed getting that to have for myself. 

You know? The passport itself is roughly like 5 x 7 or so, so while it’s not big, it’s still like. I would love to see the details blown up. It’s smaller then the diary, that I know for sure. I think it’s the only thing stopping from giving Cheritz a 10/10 on this item. 

I’m going to have to give them a 9.8/10 simply because it feels like we are lacking one big photo. 

I guess I’ll print my favorite CGs and decorate my room like that. But, all and all, I really enjoyed reading this and it made it feel like I was there and I was able to reflect on Saeran’s vacation with the player. Like, he was doing this as we were going using his little doodles... I’m in love with this fucking sap. I’d say that this is worth the money. 

For sure. 

My only gripe aside. That’s a personal problem, not really a content problem. I love this bastard. 

Look at him, he’s GOT A PLUSHIE. I have so many things that I want to write about now thanks to this. Saeran, darling, sweetie, my love, I am dying. Either way, I’m glad this arrived when it did. I needed this. I justified getting this for myself because I don’t expect to get anything for my birthday in early February but I’m happy I have him.

It’s been five years since I found this game in August 2016. I’m happy that it’s been here with me. 

[sleepymccoy]

Ideas for your thing instead of a calendar!

Sticker sheets? The paper is less expensive than I'd expect and you can print from a regular printer

Buttons of ur art? You may already do this but u can get ur own little machine to make buttons/badges with whatever you want on

These are all amazing ideas!!! It's so much and I have no idea what to do with it, so I'm gonna go through my thoughts on everything (and a few ideas I've had) and see if I come out with more of a concept

Sticker sheets

Yes, love it. It's been suggested to me before, and I think it would be within my grasp really. And it'd be an interesting thing to explore designing. I've never really used stickers on my own stuff before so I dunno if my designs will be spot on to start

Buttons

I would love to make buttons! That'll depend on finding the equipment I'd need, but it would be cool

Set of postcards

Yes! Very simple to accomplish, really. I also have this letter someone sent me once that's "reusable" in that there's a section inside that you can slip paper in and out of. I've always loved the design and would really enjoy doing something similar

Notepads

There are notepad type things with my art on the colour are already on redbubble (altho I don't upload often enough) so I don't feel a need to run that myself

However, designing little pages to put inside a planner could be cute. I'd want to check pricing options on that, cos it could get to be more than its worth

A similar thing I could do would be to make little stamps of my designs and do the printing myself. I've done some very good linocuts before, so that could be a cool direction. But it's moving away from the showcase of my art over a year idea, but might be something

A zine

Not sure i could pull that off. I like to adjust fandom art to something subtle and unrecognisable by the layman for my calendars so my family and friends can enjoy it as much as a good omens fan. I don't know how if do that with a short story

It is also close to an art book, and I'm just not that into myself tbh

Drawing prompt

That feels like flexing, but! I have not done a colouring book yet. I could very happily get the lineart of some drawing and include them as little projects

Post-it pad

I've never heard of that and it sounds genuinely gorgeous

Planner

Feels like a lot of work, most of which wouldn't be illustration. It'd be a lot of page design and layout, which I'm good for but it's not what I want to do really

Week to page calendar

Basically a planner, but I could make it much simpler. Would require a lot of art, but hey, I might have that much! Could be cute to do some short comics over the weeks as well as. Probably gonna run into the same low sales issues as the calendar tho

Address book

My thought here is I can do a different useful thing every year. So I can have an address book I can sell forever more! Cos you don't need a new one every year, but once is cool!

I'm leaning towards this year's November effort being a mishmash of new little things, cos those sound nice. Like, stickers, postcards, maybe badges, a short comic print, maybe a little notepad, a poster? That vibe would be nice.

I'll think about the others some more

If anyone has any further suggestions, let me know! I'm thinking now!

[musemelodies]

I guess it’s a good time as any to talk about Walter’s past relationships ‘cause to quote...whoever coined this phrase, (I wanna say John Mulaney), there’s a lot to unpack here. Despite being older than Zeke, Walter hasn’t been around nearly as much as him, but he’s been around and has quite a few stories to tell (some of them even true) sooo...I don’t know how to close out this introduction so I’m gonna let this guy do it for me:

John Mulaney, folks! Let’s give him a big hand!

A n y w a y...

Picture it: Las Vegas, 1932. A much younger (and less jaded) Walter had a grand total of one animated appearance so far, a crowd scene in one of those Bosko and Honey pictures and he was keen to put his name out there. After hopping a bus from Burbank to Vegas, Walt was trying his hand at stand-up when he found himself sharing the stage with--oh, I’m sorry, I've just been informed by Walter's legal representative that I’m not at liberty to tell that story. Or call him Walt. Insert tired as heck Disney joke here, but yeah...let’s fast-forward a bit, shall we? 

Much of the thirties was a hectic experience for Walter, having gone from a random extra to the main antagonist of the Slappy the Slaphappy Squirrel series. I’ve just been informed that that’s one and only time I can speak that name so there it is. (Don’t worry, one of these days, I’ll write a deeper thing about their relationship ‘cause that’s a novel on its own.) He didn’t really have time for romance, let alone a serious relationship or at least that’s what he told the press to get them to go away. Sometimes he was a wingman for Zeke and Marie, other times he was sandwiched between them, and Zeke asked him to be the best man when they tied the knot. Unfortunately for him, Marie chose a certain squirrel to be the maid of honor. They may or may not have danced together. His memory’s a bit fuzzy on that one.

Whenever Walter was questioned about his relationship with Slap--his costar and if there was anything going on between them, his answer was to throw a bomb at them. If he was in a good mood, he might’ve made a snarky comment about it, but most of the time, he reached for the bomb. Even if he did have those feelings--and he didn’t, don’t look at him like that--it would’ve seriously hurt their careers. After a producer caught him sneaking out of his costar’s dressing room (he was just there to drop off a bomb, honestly), he was yanked into his office and immediately reprimanded. 

He was given a long speech about professionalism and protecting the brand or something to that extent. He spent more time shielding his face from the man’s spit-filled rant than listening to him. At any rate, Walter denied having anything to do with his costar, other than what the script called for and what the audience expected from him. If they wanted slapstick, he’d give them slapstick, but as her fame quickly eclipsed his and he spent more time in traction than in the spotlight, he began to grow bitter. Not as much as in his later years, but still... 

With the arrival of the war, Walter joined the air force with Zeke and had even less interest in finding The One, though he did take up the sax. They both played for the company and later, after the war was over, the Toontown Philharmonic. After Zeke complained that the latter was too square, they took to the Ink and Paint Club and played backup for various stars, including the one and only Red Hot Riding Hood. 

To say Walter had hearts in his eyes was putting it lightly. He and Red struck up a strange, but genuine friendship with a lot of mallets and banter involved and slowly, but surely, it lead to something more. He loved her sense of humor and how she didn’t take any shtick from anyone and the way she just lit up the room. As cheesy as it sounds, those were some of the best days of his life. 

For a while, Walter even considered popping the question, but as the Tex Avery era was coming to a close and Red was longing to see the world, she gently broke it off with him in ‘55. Walter wanted to go with her, but she insisted he stay in Burbank. He still had a future in cartoons and maybe she would make a comeback someday, but in the meantime, she had to see what life was like beyond the showbiz scene. After giving him a smooch, she bid him goodbye, dropping him a postcard a month later. It took Walter some time to come to terms with it and even now, he still wonders what might have been. They still kept in touch over the years, though and he’s happy to call her a friend. <3

The sixties brought on a period of uncertainty. Theatrical shorts were no longer a big draw and Walter had taken to doing stage work and bit parts in B-movies and the occasional commercial, just to keep himself busy and pay the bills. It seemed like everyone he knew was either hitched or getting hitched and he felt like he was missing out. 

Enter Wilhelmina Wolf, a studio teacher whom he met through Sid. She was a nice enough gal, a math whiz, and knew her way around a good joke. After six months of going steady, they got hitched and the following year, Wilhelmina gave birth to three beautiful pups. The early days of their marriage weren’t bad and he loved being a father, but after a time, he and Wilhelmina had almost nothing to say to each other, save when they were arguing. After a while, they called it quits and received joint custody of their daughters. From then on, they stayed with their father every other month and he doted on them to make up for the drama.

From the end of the sixties and throughout the seventies, Walter didn’t play the field too much. He continued to do stage work and starred in a rather cheesy and short-lived superhero series with his oldest costar. He was still adamant that there was nothing between them, despite feeling a weird and distinct pain every time he saw her with that white-haired schmuck from Jonny Quest. Maybe it was indigestion. Yeah, it was most likely that.

By the time the eighties rolled around, Walter was starting to age (and so was his routine) and though he wouldn’t admit it, he was lonely. His daughters were growing up and his career was in limbo and he was yearning for something (or somebody) to make him feel young again.

At Zeke’s urging, he went out with a fox named Vanessa Volpe, an aspiring actress and model who was twenty-six. She was gorgeous and she was quick to sink her claws into him or rather, his wallet. She had him on a string for about a year, all it took was a cute expression and a purred request, and Walter would give her the moon. Half his pals were green with envy and the other half were green with disgust, but not as much as his kids. His youngest daughter refused to speak to him and wouldn’t participate in the wedding. His costar showed up and cracked plenty of hard-hitting jokes about the happy couple. Three months later, Walter came home to find Vanessa messing around with their next-door neighbor (who also happened to be an up and coming director) and, well, that was the end of that. 

Walter’s love life was pretty uneventful throughout the nineties and well into the new millennium. Considering he was significantly older and bitter and deeply wrapped in his denial, the idea of getting into a relationship didn’t appeal too much to him. However, out of sheer spite towards his costar and having nothing better to do that night, he went on approximately one date with Candie Chipmunk and it was excruciating. Halfway through it, he ran screaming out the door. 

So that’s where Walter’s at as of today. As for the future, who knows??

[spoons4spoonies]

Story Time: POTS diagnosis

I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (or POTS, since that’s a mouthful and a half) in August of last year. It was nearing the end of my gap year, which was supposed to be a period of rest and healing, not of gaining new unwelcome symptoms and new diagnoses.

I had as usual set myself an unrealistically (in hindsight) high goal of becoming a completely healthy and abled person by the time I started university, as I simply could not wrap my head around the idea that I would be able to cope otherwise. In other words, it was get better or you will fail and never amount to anything and always be miserable – and yeah, needless to say as the time drew nearer and my body showed no signs of obeying my strict instructions, I entered more and more panic spirals of despair.

At this point I would like to return to the present to let you know that I have just finished my first year and survived my first lot of exams since the endurance test that was A-levels. Not to say that it has been easy – of course university was never going to be a walk in the park – but I have done well and I should be proud of myself.

(I know this because my mother keeps sending me postcards telling me how amazing I am. Bear in mind that she lives twenty minutes away and visits me once a week – often to hand the postcards over herself to save on postage.)

Anyway, unless you have it or know someone who does, you have probably never heard of POTS. It is essentially a problem with my blood pressure and that is what I stick to when I’m asking someone for their seat on the tube. When a normal fully-abled person stands up, their blood pressure increases slightly to account for the increased effect of gravity – mine does not and as a result my heart is forced to pump faster to keep blood going to my brain. My heart rate can increase by up to forty beats per minute just from getting up off the couch.

Symptoms include dizziness, an inability to stand up for long periods of time, nausea, headaches, fainting (though thankfully I have never experienced that one), digestive problems, fatigue (like I didn’t already have enough of that), heart palpitations (just casually in the middle of the night when you haven’t moved for hours) and even shortness of breath. Of all of these, I would have to say that the heart palpitations are the worst. They do not hurt exactly, but they are terrifying – especially before I had my diagnosis – and make it hard to breathe.

It is hard not to panic when your body is doing it’s very best to simulate a panic attack.

I have a friend whom I met online who suspected they had POTS and I’d been aware of it for some time before I started to consider whether I myself might have it too. I’ve read that about a third of those suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome also have POTS so it wasn’t a wholly unlikely scenario. I had also read the NHS page for it and noted that I had many of the symptoms, however, this was not conclusive proof to me as the problem with autoimmune diseases is that the symptoms overlap a lot.

Then I started a course of birth control pills and my CFS specialist, Dr S, wanted me to take measurements of my blood pressure to check that it wasn’t causing any problems. As it turns out I have fairly low blood pressure, so there’s no risk of getting a stroke from my daily dose of oestrogen. More importantly, I noticed how my heart rate would increase far beyond normal levels if I took a reading whilst sitting down and then another after standing up. This was the proof I needed to self-diagnose.

From there on out it was a case of proving the matter, so we brought it up with Dr S and she referred us to a cardiologist.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle when we arrived at his clinic, as it turned out to be a children’s hospital, which as a nineteen year old I was theoretically not supposed to be treated at. On the bright side, there were a lot of cartoon fish on the walls. Whoever decided that adults don’t need cute animal drawings in hospitals fundamentally misunderstands what it’s like to be in a hospital.

Eventually we managed to sort the whole situation out and I was taken downstairs to have an electrocardiogram. This was to test the electrical activity of my heart – don’t ask me how that works or what exactly the point was because the science went over my head. All I can say is that it didn’t hurt and there was something oddly exciting about being hooked up to a bunch of wires. But that might just be me and all the superhero media I consume.

Then I went to meet the cardiologist, Dr D, and give him a history of my symptoms.

It had not even crossed my mind up until that point that there might be something “seriously” wrong with me, by which I mean something life threatening, so needless to say it rather came as a shock when the cardiologist did an ultrasound of my heart to check that it didn’t have any holes (and I quote). In retrospect it might have been a joke, but it certainly didn’t land well with me.

The fact that I had a cold and unpleasantly slimy machine on my chest and was lying there with only a fairly ratty, old bra to protect my modesty did not help. This again was something that had not occurred to me and I was deeply grateful for the presence of my mother in the room so that she could fill the awkward silence with small talk and I could focus on breathing normally. It is extremely strange to hear your own heartbeat sounding like a foetus’s on TV and be painfully aware of the fact that anyone around will literally be able to hear your nerves.

Ultrasound over with, chest wiped down and clothes thankfully put back on we sat down to discuss what was next. Dr D was fairly confident from my description that I did have POTS but obviously I had to go through the whole process before it could be official. In the meantime he gave us some advice about dealing with the symptoms:

1.       Drink lots of water. Aim for three litres a day.

2.       Eat lots of salt. Aim for ten milligrams a day.

3.       Stand and sit up slowly and jiggle your legs to get the blood moving.

4.       Exercise.

This I interpreted as a prescription for Pringles and an excuse to hold in the face of people who tell me to stop fidgeting. My mind happily slid over the recommendation of exercise as a “Problem for later me” A.K.A something I hoped I’d be able to put off indefinitely.

Building up muscle, fitness and stamina are all worthy things and have helped now that I’ve achieved them, but in conjunction with my CFS they have often seemed impossible goals. Also, I like sitting down.

I shall now elaborate on the third recommendation, which I follow every morning, doing a funny little dance about my room to bring my limbs to life. I pity the person who lives below me in my student accommodation… at least I am rarely up before eleven. The hilarious point about this was that Dr D took it upon himself to give us a rather long and overly serious demonstration, standing up from behind his desk and jiggling about on the spot with a completely straight face.

Both my mother and I were struggling to maintain the same level of facial control.

It was a couple of weeks before we could return to London to embark on the next step of diagnosis: getting a blood pressure monitor fitted that must then stay attached for a whole twenty hours, taking measurements on the hour every hour. This was something of a trial as I had to walk around with a bunch of thick tubing wrapped round my neck and with the machine strapped round my bicep.

I garnered a lot of stares as people must have assumed I had something serious going on. The fact that it beeped loudly and inflated with a sound like an airbed being pumped up at every measurement, did not make it inconspicuous to say the least. It also meant that I barely slept through the combination of loud noises and the clamp tightening on my arm.

I was thoroughly exhausted the next day when we went to drop it off and then continue on to a hospital in order to do the tilt test. This involves being strapped to a table which is then tilted upright from the horizontal and then being stuck there for the next twenty minutes (feels like three hours) whilst measurements of your blood pressure and heart rate are taken. I already felt ghastly but by the end of this I was ready to curl up in a ball on the floor and stay there for the rest of my life.

The doctor administering the test ran through the results with us, confirming that I had POTS – though technically we still had to wait for Dr D to give the all clear as it were – and then confidently asserting that I didn’t have CFS and certainly didn’t have any mental health problems and should stop taking my antidepressant straight away since it was all because of POTS and once I started doing some exercise I’d be fine.

Right…. Thanks Karen.

One more appointment later I had my official diagnosis. Alas, having trekked halfway across London to make this appointment, it only lasted ten minutes and mostly consisted of me being told to come back in six months when I had tried some exercise and then we’d see about medication.

We have postponed this reunion indefinitely as I have seen little change for the better – though in truth I have not gotten started on the rigorous exercise plan he had in mind – but nor is it sufficiently bad that I am in desperate need of medication.

I have found that the most useful tool in combatting my symptoms are compression garments as they help with my circulation. I have some tights, a knee support, gloves and several random bits of tubing that can be used anywhere. They reduce pain and allow me to stand up for longer.

Mod H

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2018 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest Part 1.0 Results!!

Again, thank you everyone for your patience. Too many random things popping up over the last 2 weeks. ^^; Whew, just got this posted before midnight. Sorry for the late night post for those of us in the US, but it’s kinda my thing, isn’t it? 

14 total entries between the two categories, but as always, a nice mix of new participants and veterans to this contest. Are the usual players coming away with the goodies, or have the newbies snuck in to wow us with their creative styles? While tumblr will shrink down all the images, I will include the full size uploads (well, almost for all - 2 were way too big) on my imgbox account. Just click on the “(FULL VIEW)” link for each one. Hopefully this way, there won’t be people who have trouble viewing them this time around. 

My thanks to @digitallyfanged and @jaybird-c for helping me judge the entries this time around!! We were all sorta on the same page it seems for our individual results, but it’s always harder when there is a smaller total of participants, because everyone is deserving in their own way. 

Thanks once again also to all who participated! For all winners [and there are 10 of you, out of 14], I will be contacting you as soon as I can about your prizes. If you didn’t win, there’s always next time...which starts as soon as tomorrow, when I announce Contest Part 1.1 (as in Mega Man 11)!!

Without further ado, after the break, here are your top 3 winners for each category, the raffle winners, and all of the fantabulous artwork!

CATEGORY 1: Ride Armor Road Trip 

[FULL GALLERY HERE]

1.) @follyknight: (FULL VIEW MAIN IMAGE LINK) (PHOTOS 1) (PHOTOS 2)

*Tabby’s #1 - I felt like out of all of the pieces, this hit the theme the hardest. Definitely showing the back of one of the cards was a really unique touch to the piece as well. And that LaLinde postcard. The CHEEK. “Hey dad, I visited your girlfriend while on vacation.”

*Jay’s #1 - I have got to hand it to Folly Knight, above and beyond doesn't begin to cover this. Eight postcards, each with a unique theme, composition, and aesthetic, and then all presented together? That's fantastic.

Miyabi’s #1 - Even as simple, everyday objects, that book and cup of coffee are painted so well! I appreciate all the various scenes you presented in your postcards, with emotions ranging in each one of them. From the hilarious “Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy” bib to Blues’ loneliness in Fiji, your entry was varied and unique. I also felt your entry really represented the theme very, very well. 

2.) @multiple-sages: (FULL VIEW LINK PIC 1) (FULL VIEW PIC 2)

*Tabby’s #2 - This is very cute. I like that it showed summer activities from sort of a different perspective/culture. Not everything is action and traveling. Sometimes it’s small festivals and quiet cafes with friends.  Zero definitely seems like the type to sit around in a cat cafe for hours. 

*Jay’s #2 - Man, it was hard to pick -- a lot of these have great composition, but I think the #2 Spot should go to [multiple-sages for] Cinnamon and Zero. It does a great job at setting the scene for the moment and raises a lot of interesting questions as to how exactly we got here. Obon postcard is also very good, but of the two, this is a slightly less evocative piece (that is, there's less story apparent here)

*Miyabi’s #2 - Both cards look super cute, and show different ways the hunters spend their time not battling Mavericks, while experiencing tradition in Japan. The Maverick Hunter logo stamp on Axl’s was a nice touch. The little kitties are all adorable, either sleeping or pawing around with Zero’s luxurious golden teaser toy hair. Like Cinny is trying, it’s hard to hide your smile while looking at that scene!

3.) Steph O’Dell: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Tabby’s #3 - A very cute image of the ladies at the beach. Everyone needs some sun! I do dig how you made it sort of look like a selfie. 

*Miyabi’s #3 - While the hubby is away, the girls will play. Haruka finally gets out of the house and to the beach with some friends. The selfie style was a different take compared to the other entries, while still feeling like a postcard. While the palm trees look like they’re just ‘shopped in, the rest of the background ocean and sand is deceptive enough where I couldn’t tell you had worked on that until I zoomed in closer. So kudos for making that part of your background look photorealisitic!    .

Runners up (in alphabetical order):

@bracedshark *RAFFLE WINNER ~ X7 4KOMA*: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Jay’s #3 (tie) - Very appealing and exceedingly well-composed, but kind of suffers a little from how they handle the text. There's a sizing issue the cuts some of the text short.

*Miyabi says - I didn’t know I needed to see starfish booblight Zero, but I am amused! XD I totally liked where you were going with the curved arc format for the text to match that familiar typefont on so many postcards, but I agree that the ‘from’ getting partially chopped feels like it just needed to be resized down a little more. Otherwise, a fun pic that fit the theme well!

@chaudandfrends *RAFFLE WINNER ~ ZERO ACCESSORY SET*: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Jay wrote - This drawing is ambitious, but I'm afraid it's more pictures with text over postcards.

*Miyabi says - I don’t care if I need to eat my calcium, I am not touching those fishbones, Captain Beefhead. Good mix of action with Yai, Dingo and Netto jumping into the water, to the rest of the crew reclining and enjoying their refreshing dip. The watercolor look to your sky and sand give a little contrast to the rest of your coloring technique for all the characters. LOL at Enzan ducky on his inner tube.

@forceway: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Miyabi says - Much like myself, a Shadow vacation involves not really going anywhere, not really doing anything, and just enjoying the simple things outdoors near home, while sipping an ice cold beverage. XD While you won’t see many Polaroids around these days, it feels fitting for these two bots. I felt it was a wonderful composition, and very enjoyable piece. 

@seabyrocks: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Jay wrote - I gotta say, I love Seabyrocks' sunset lighting, but I'm afraid the pose is a little simple and, I hate to break it to you, Rock, but you put your hands on backwards.

*Miyabi says - Nobody should visit Mega City without a commemorative autographed heroic Rock Light postcard! I do think you did wonderful blending those sunset colors in, on the right side of the pic. The purples and oranges are so pretty in the sky. Very cute!

@tealsalmon: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Jay’s #3 (tie) - Very appealing and exceedingly well-composed, but kind of suffers a little from how they handle the text, as it blends in with the darker parts of the background.

*Miyabi says - This turned out very pretty, and also gave me a laugh with Zero’s pointy helmet tips poking through his straw hat. Having a butterfly land on X’s finger feels so fitting for his peace-loving ways, and I loved the E-Tank being used as a container to hold all those fresh strawberries. Even the little details like the dirt and grass on Zero’s shovel are well done. 

CATEGORY 2: Ruby-Spears Mega Man: Plasma Powered Up!!

[FULL GALLERY HERE]

1.) @irissempi: (FULL VIEW ZERO SHEET RETRO)

(FULL VIEW ZERO SHEET CLEAN)

(FULL VIEW ZERO CAP RETRO)

(FULL VIEW ZERO CAP CLEAN)

(FULL VIEW ZERO CAP 2 RETRO)

(FULL VIEW ZERO CAP 2 CLEAN)

(FULL VIEW AXL SHEET RETRO)

(FULL VIEW AXL SHEET CLEAN)

(FULL VIEW X SCREENCAP)

(FULL VIEW LUMINE CAP RETRO)

(FULL VIEW LUMINE CAP CLEAN)

*Jay’s #1 - This. This is the picture that caught my eye immediately. The composition, the lighting -- this is one of those iconic series' images that gives you everything a character stands for. Lumine is going to end the world, and every second of it's gonna rock. Goofball Axl and hardcore samurai Zero are also winners.

*Tabby’s #1 - I love this. I love everything about this. I love the extra mile on making the design sheets, and making it look like a horribly ripped off tv shot. The corny dialogue. Clearly Ruby Spears needed to continue and make us an X series.

*Miyabi’s #1 - You get major kudos for using an actual Ruby Spears production sheet as your format, and adding those effects to make it look just like it was a photocopy I scanned. The grainy filter to make the ‘screencaps’ feel like they came from a VHS tape, and punny one-liners are wonderful! Thanks for putting in all the work to make your entry feel like it would fit in perfectly with the original series! (P.S. - those aren’t booblights for Zero anymore. Those are mammoth pec sunglasses, that would blind anyone who dares to stare at his super cool, manly chest!!! LOL)

2.) @kaitlinexe: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Miyabi’s #2 - Of course this theme was right up your alley, and you certainly didn’t disappoint! I can’t believe how many characters you tried to fit into this collage. While at first glance it might feel like you focused on mostly existing RS-characters, you really did add quite a few updated designs. I just have this feeling that you planned to be even more ambitious than this, but weren’t able to finish it as you hoped. But regardless of the lack of background, the work you put in drawing all of these characters is amazing! Kalinka, Treble Boost Bass, and Time Man are probably my favorites of your redesigns.The more pronounced spikes for Bass’ helmet and claws look so, so good!!

*Jay’s #3 - I gotta love all your new designs, and is your Skull Man taking notes from Hitoshi Ariga or am I just getting my hopes up? Bonus points for all the attention to detail and going out of your way to replicate the original style.

*Tabby’s #3 - You definitely have the style down pat here. It’s super clean. This would make a great poster, with a little bit of background work. 

3.) @pstart: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Tabby’s #2 - Dat Forte. You really changed up his and Gospel’s design quite a bit, and it definitely works within the Ruby Spears theme. Super kudos on the retro graphic design going on here. It almost looks like the back of the old DVD covers too.

*Miyabi’s #3 - Just from the look on his face, I feel like Bass would have the same wisecracks and would sound almost just like Proto Man...only with a deeper voice. And now I’m imagining Proto and Bass both harassing Mega in stereo. XD I like the "super” title twist to your ad, which would have played off the actual game well, if Ruby Spears got another season to coincide with Megaman 7′s release. It does feel like an ad I’d see in old gaming mags.

*Jay wrote - I like your poster design. Good job cleaving to the show's style, good job with the little details like the marketing schlock and copyright, great job with the classy reference to the old school instruction manuals.

Runners up (in alphabetical order):

@forceduser *RAFFLE WINNER ~ RUBY SPEARS WILY CEL*: (FULL VIEW PIC)

*Jay wrote - Block Man is a neat design; the plunging neckline is certainly evocative. This one, too, could've stood to have more personality exhibited.

*Miyabi says - From what little we’ve heard, Block Man’s dialogue in Megaman 11 is like by far the most fitting to be used in Ruby Spears. So he was a good, and relevant choice to try to tackle. Definitely can see his chiseled pecs hiding under his main shell, and feels like he’s at least been working out on leg day, doing squats while lifting his heavy body around everywhere. 

@hyperbole1729: (FULL VIEW COMIC) (FULL VIEW BURST)

*Jay wrote - Your Burst Man is something. The explosive nipples are going to haunt me. But as stand-out as your design is, I wish you would've shown off more of Burst Man's personality.

*Miyabi says - Your comic totally has the right tone with the dialogue, from Proto’s complaint not being able to deal the final blow, Wily being Wily, and the obligatory ‘sizzling circuits.’  It flows well, has some drama, and I totally read it all in their Ruby-Spears voices. Burst does seem like he’s bulked up just right, with some minor changes to his classic design. 

@3-oclock-blues *RAFFLE WINNER ~ ARCHIE COMIC INKED PAGE*: (FULL VIEW PIC) (FULL VIEW SPLASH)

*Jay’s #2 - Now THIS is promotional material. I love how well Bass is introduced by simply having him rage off into the distance. Everybody else, they're mad because they hate this moment. Bass?  Bass just hates everything. Splash Woman is also a neat design, but also shows off more design than personality.

*Miyabi says - BUT I WON’T MISS THIS TIME...With all the rage and fear from everyone around them, it’s quite amusing to see the two brothers smiling as they hold their glowing busters to each other. It’s chaotic, but also nicely almost ties in with the photo theme of the first category, too. Splashy’s side fins and more flowing waves protruding from her helmet are nice touches to her design. Would have been interested to see how she and other Light/Wily bots would have fit into that family photo. 

[snarkastic-blog1]

19 December 2018-Wed

Time log 1:50p-6:00p

Today I met with Maekawa sensei to discuss manga and my plans for my internship. We are setting plans in motion for our team’s debut at KawaiiKon, Hawaii’s annual anime convention, in early April. Maekawa is partnered with Nikkan San and Wasabi Magazine and will be occupying a small portion of the table to sell related artwork and goods. Us students will delegate times in assisting the table during our next meeting on Friday.

For my personal internship with Maekawa sensei, I will be practicing and honing my traditional and digital drawing skills in preparation for the convention. We have discussed the plan to sell manga and character goods. Neither of us are sure what extent we will be going to create merchandise, but options include straps for phones and bags as well as postcard-sized prints.

For the manga, I have been tasked with creating short stories which I will translate from writing to drafting in the form of manga panels and finally to a finished product which may or may not include coloring. My homework includes drawing character poses, expressions, and coloring with light source. Seeing how my digital work is lacking at the moment, most of this practice will be done on computer. Although I have used photoshop in the past, I recently came across Clip Studio for drawing on my computer. I am not yet ready for dynamic perspective so I will do what I can to master the craft a little at a time. As for the creation process of creating and printing a manga, Maekawa wants me to start small with my ambition and slowly work up to a full 25 page series chapter. Currently I am to create 4 page short stories which will work up to 6 and later 8 pages.

I was not entirely sure what to expect for my first meeting with Maekawa, but it was fun to talk with him about my drawings and story ideas I had to work with. Conversing with Maekawa is a really engaging experience and further facilitates the notion that not just anyone could have taken this opportunity to intern with him. My past self would have been lost without my current skills and cultural background. With this being said, I feel grateful for my experience abroad as it was very topical in our conversation about my knowledge of manga and Japan. Most of my conversation was conducted in japanese with some clarification in english which I do not feel will be a problem for me. As I expected, Maekawa sensei contains a wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry; using Japanese with Maekawa fills me with a similar sense of elation back when I conversed with my family in Shin-Iwakuni for the first time. I am a bit rusty, so I will be adding Japanese to my set of skills to practice.

From what I can tell, Maekawa wishes to ease me into the position of a mangaka. I have learned of the determination and commitment of mangaka during their careers as professionals so I can expect these assignments to be the mere tip of the manga iceberg. I await with bated breath. Spending time with Maekawa is a lot of fun and is a lot of fun to learn from. I feel he was impressed with some of my characters, but I think it is just because they are cute. He put a lot of emphasis on creating cute things; I believe we have reached common ground quite early in our time together. If and when I become skilled enough, Maekawa suggested I teach manga in Japan for english speakers who come to japan to study. Apparently English speaking manga teachers are in short supply in Japan, who knew? I sense potential for a final project thesis (just kidding).

I had my forms signed and will be ready to officially register soon. Probably tomorrow after work. I still need to set up my twitter, instagram for my social media outlets.

[rottendreamteam]

mun stuff!

Tagged by @rosemary-blue

APPEARANCE

I have black, shoulder-length hair

I have brown eyes

I have small hands

I have long eyelashes

PERSONALITY

I don’t like hanging around outside in the crowd very much

I enjoy challenges

I have so much going on in my brain, including painful memories and lack of self-appreciation

I can get offended easily

I yell and shout at almost everything

ABILITY

I can draw very well (i dont think i’m good at it but i’ve been told i am)

I can make up a story in a short while, if given the resources

I speak at least two language

I can remember certain places or people that’s not around me anymore

I can be feeling happy or excited at tiny or random facts(if that counts as an ability, of course)

HOBBIES

I enjoy to draw and write(especially about fandoms, recently)

I like to collect things (stamps, postcards, matryoshka dolls)

I like listening to music(even if I don’t understand what it says)

I would sometimes fancy to do some researches about anything(if not forced..or possibly even asked for)

I like imagining about random stuff(including something 'weird’, if relieving my stress)

I also do swordfights

EXPERIENCES

I once pretended myself to be snow white(even if for like, one day, duh)

I have been betrayed by friends

I have been bulied by two other girls of the same age, which included being stolen of money/threatened/harassed in front of a crowd(by the same girls who betrayed me, and by 'betrayed’ I mean this)

I kind of dressed up like a bride once

MY LIFE

I live in an apartment

I’m in europe

I still live with my parents

I might have a little sister

I have a lizard in my house, or maybe a beetle

RELATIONSHIPS

I’m not in a romantic relationship right now

I almost got into a relationship once, but failed under certain circumstances

I have had a crush on 3 or 4 men(celebrities or youtubers) before Magnús came in

I have a suspicion that someone might have crushed on me at elementary school, but I’m not 100% sure of that so I’ll skip that

I once had a crush for a same-gender actress but that only lasted for like a month

I once thought that I had a crush on a same-gender friend but later decided that she will stay as my good friend instead of a real girlfriend

My crushing lasts for about 4 or 6 months, but one of them lasted for about a year and my first crush lasted 4 years

RANDOM

I know tons of songs that I usually repeat a thousand time or more

I’m the one who can shift from cute bunnies and marshmellow things to things like brutal doom and heavy metal

I’d like to experience the life of a princess(not that of Disney princesses, but a real princess life where you could learn all the skills you need and everything)

I sometimes forget to clean my cup after brushing my teeth

I’d like to mock and tease people one day, but if my family doesn’t want that I’ll leave everyone be

I have a suspicion that one of my family members might be disabled but if it turns out to be true, I’ll not be ashamed

Tagging: anyone!

[lia-nikiforov]

Revised edition

Quick report on Kubo and Yamamoto’s attendance to Concomics Guadalajara. I was in line for 9 hours plus two more for their short Q&A and am objectively dying, sorry for typos 

ETA: When I wrote this it didn’t occur to me that it would get hundreds of reblogs before I ever got to fix it, now my half-deceased incompetent typing will live on forever *sobs*

I arrived at 6:30 am and there were already people in line jeeesus (lots were coming to see a youtuber though)

Gonna spare you the deets on the awful people in my surroundings thank @yuurinikiforov cos I screamed at her for hours

ETA: I just realized this sounds like it was Ally making me scream but in fact i tumblr-screamed at her to prevent from unleashing my frustrations on the gross fujos that surrounded me. Thank Ally because she got to read all that nervous-wreck garbage and y’all get to be spared

I had a two-day ticket so I was allowed in half an hour earlier and if not for that, I probably would’ve missed on the autograph line. They had space for 50 people (plus 200ish that had bought the express pass which was super expensive). I was #45. It took less than three minutes since getting inside for all 50 spots to be taken

(this was the line after three minutes. I was too lazy to take pics of it later, but it got to be around 5 times this at some point.)

ETA: According to Con staff, since the lines were very well organized, they actually got to sign quite a bit more people than the originally allotted 50. The Queens are so kind. 

No photos, video or sound recording of The Queens allowed, except for this one taken by Con staff. They were giving away those postcards for the filthy casuals people who didn’t bring any official merch for the sign

i’m mostly kidding about the filthy casual thing bc I hate fandom elitism but there were a lot of people bringing FANART PRINTS and I wanted to gut them

Kubo would quick sketch a character of your choice. I chose Victor bc I love how she draws his huge heart mouth

I was able to tell Sayokan how grateful I am from the bottom of my heart and that I’m looking forward to the movie and she said thank you and that they’re workinng hard. I died. ETA: I wanted to say so much more but I was so nervous my Japanese came out really garbled and we didn’t have much time. And I didn’t get to say anything to Kubo because I didn’t want to distract her from drawing ;---;

Sayokan has a beautiful smile and I love her

ETA: She also had an aura like Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada, twenty years younger: A STRONG woman who takes no prisoners and is fabulous af. I love her with all my soul.

After the autographs, The Queens had a short stage appearance

There was a cosplay contest and the winners would get to sit in the front row for The Queens’ presentation. I didn’t take any pics but the standout for me apart from a flood of gorgeous girls doing Eros Yuuri, was a pair of girls doing Lilia and Yakov. The announcer clearly didn’t watch the show and botched Lilia’s last name, but the cosplayer had the attitude 100% on point.

Something I hate is people who say Yurio stressing the u, it sounds so wrong and a lot of people today were doing it and driving me mad

The stage was packed af

Kubo drew quick sketch of Victor while she and Sayo answered a couple of questions. They will post the video later today

ETA: Here’s the video

Audience Questions logistics wasn’t very well prepared and even Kubo asked how it was gonna work. I was embarrassed for the lack of planning. In the end those that were lucky to be close to the stage got to ask the questions. Lia was praying for no stupid questions pls.

Q&A (translation partially mine partially from the interpreter)

1. What were your expectations about Mexico and have those expectations changed now

Kubo: I haven’t gone sightseeing yet but it’s my first time in Mexico and I didn’t expect so many people. [The people/audience] feels four or five times warmer than japan (make of that what you may, Japanese people say that about us a lot) Sayokan didn’t answer

2. Dumb question that has already been answerred in interviews about whether Yurio was planned to win from the start. As we know, yes, pretty sure both of them have said it before. Sayokan added that his character development wasn’t completely planned though, and he evolved a lot during writing.

3. Which word do you think of when you thibk of Yuuri and Victor 

Sayokan: Love (愛) 

Kubo: She didn’t talk to the mic and people were still screaming about 愛  so Ididn’t hear what she said but the interpreter said she said Friendship. My queens get your story sraight pls

HUGELY IMPORTANT ETA: Other people that were there have confirmed that Kubo gave a long answer that included 断ち切れない絆 “an unbreakable bond” and didn’t say anything about friendship. There was a telephone game going on because there was a JP-ENG interpreter and then an ENG-SPA interpreter and I don’t know how or why the latter got “friendship” but please take this into account, I don’t want people to hate on Kubo because I wasn’t close enough to hear her answer and the Spanish interpreter botched it.

Not important ETA: A girl close to me was yelling “Victuri” like she hoped they’d answer that and I was facepalming hard

Kubo also asked (in Japanese) if anyone understood Japanese, it wasn’t translated and a good dozen of hands shot up. She was surprised. Some folks screamed abd she said 落ち着け. One or two continued screaming so obviously they didn’t understand Japanese lol

4. Stupid question about whether they plan to develop Otabek and Yurio’s relationship. 

Sayokan said they hadn’t fully decided on how everything’s gonna end in the movie so can’t say yet but look forward to the bonus on V6 (the interpreter said V3 and I wanted to gut him). Hoes I like Otayuri but stop trying to shove it on The queens’ faces pls

5. Do you have plans for a special chapter about the Lady skaters? 

Sayokan said it’s definitely something they’d love to do but right now their focus is on the boys abnd finishing their story. Best answer for me tbh besides Sayokan’s 愛 cos I wanna see Mila skate soooo bad.

ETA: Forgot to mention this but a lot of people were chanting “Boda! Boda!” (wedding). Kubo asked what it was that people were chanting and the interpreter told them. Someoene else is reporting that Sayokan chuckled. There were two tall dudes in front of me so my vision was very obstructed and can’t confirm, but neither said anything out loud in response to it

Sayokan threw some gifts at the audience but My Queen is no pitcher and I was too far back so didn’t get anything *sobs*. Some were prints or maybe postcards but no idea of what exactly.

And that’s it! Theyll be signing more autographs and have another stage appearancw tomorrow but I can’t stay so someone else will have to report it whilst I die.

TL;DR I love them and my calebdar looks even more beautiful and I never thought that was possible and I’ll cry about this day for the rest of my life.

PS I’ll fix those typos when I’m not utterly destroyed PPs: I have no shame so I wanna plug my cute Victuri Tangled AU it’s really cute and it doesnt have typos promise, please read it  http://archiveofourown.org/works/10529547/chapters/23245557

[chut-je-dors]

Hello! Can you recommend some good mclennon fics that you've read over time? Thanks :)

Oh dear. I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS QUESTION MY WHOLE LIFE. also, it took me several days to answer this because i just kept thinking about the fics i could put here. the fics aren’t in a particular order. ALL OF THESE ARE GOOD. and there are many

Impossible Opening, by beatle_boots

Rating: RWhy is it damn good: Some good old traditional pining!John, Paul being a stubborn bull and thinking “no homo” but still on the way there (he just lives in sweet, sweet denial), tension-filled relationship progression, all the goodies are here.Overall rating: 👌👌👌

If I Fell, by eppic

Rating: RWhy is it damn good: This is actually the fic that got me into shipping John and Paul (along fiona’s drawings). It has stayed as one of my favourites for all these years, for nostalgia or for the quality? I don’t know, but this fic changed my life. Also a warning: After this you’ll never be able to listen to If I Fell without thinking about this fic and having FEELINGSOverall rating: 👌👌👌👌

April Fool, by beatle_boot

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: Cynthia dies while giving birth to Julian (a whole new perspective of what might have happened), John and Paul take care of Julian like an old married couple, John and Paul become an old married couple. What’s not to like? Includes Paul pining over John, John pining over Paul, Satisfyingly slow build, and Julian being just plain adorable. Aww. Definitely one of my favourites.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌

Je Ne Regrette Rien, by many authors

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: A multi-author collaboration about the Paris trip; 14 chapters, 13 authors, each taking one day of Paul and John’s two-week travelling. It’s a great thing, and a wholesome story even with the author changing at every chapter. Highly recommend ;))Overall rating: 👌👌👌

This, That, Drinks And Dreams, by Deux_Lunes

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: Okay, so this is one of my ABSOLUTE favs. I don’t know what it is in this that makes me come back over and over again, but. Paul mopes after John’s gone into Spain, and gets drunk, and complains to George, who makes John come over, and it is just perfect. Aaahhh. This fic is like a soothing salvation after a hard day at uni. Read it. Full five points.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌

Discipline, by Deux_Lunes

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: From the same author, and, well, dear god. There is basically no plot. Just good old spanking and... well, that’s it. Smut. Perfect.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌

Ah, Look at All the Lonely People, by Gereiheimer

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: Paul is a priest, John is a rich artist. John meets Paul in a god-forsaken village and they kind of fall for each other (”kind of” is underestimating the feelings in this one). I think this is also one of the first ones I read, and I love it still.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌

The Japanese Incident, by lukinha_jesus

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: Well, of course this fic is here. Never before has porn with a plot been so good. And it is literally just that; Porn. But there’s a plot included, as an extra. Which is wonderful. I could put all of lukinha’s fics here but I’ll restrain myself to my extra favs.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌

Roughhouse, by lukinha_jesus

Rating: R (I guess)Why is it damn good: This is a small fic, but it’s been my beloved one ever since I read it. Funny, and hot in a slightly surprising way. Also hella cute. This is seriously probably my favourite fic, which is funny considering that it’s so.... small. But I keep coming back to it no matter what, and it always brings my mood up. It’s a fic for pure, silly enjoyment Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌 (x100000)

Black Olives + I Want You, by lukinha_jesus

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: hhgnhnnhghngnh I accidentally read these in a reversed order at the first time, and was slightly confused (if you’ve read these, you can imagine). After that I’ve read them in the right order about a million times, and I am no longer confused. I am in love. Remember to check the warnings in these two. Basically BDSM/dub-con/kinky sex.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌

Très Beau,by lukinha_jesus

Rating: RWhy is it damn good: This is such a good fic, and cute. It also features French, which always makes me smile smugly (for no reason at all). I think it’s one of lukinha’s earlier works, but it’s still great. Her writing honed excellently over the years, but this is a good example of her potential as a fic writer even before she had tackled all the “good writer’s tips”. Just great fun reading this.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌

Boy, You’ve Been A Naughty Girl, by Merseysidestory

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: .....Do I really have to say why this is good? Despite the slight off-characterisation of Paul (which is totally fine!), this is a damn good fic. Contains a lot of women’s dresses, John pining over Paul, and being wonderfully oblivious. Also, sex in a chair 👌Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌

Come Together, by Merseysidestory

Rating: NC-17Why is it damn good: The boys... come... all over... Paul. That’s it. There’s no plot. It’s just sex. I don’t know if I should really put this sinful work on this list, but.... i’m going into hell anyway? SO ENJOY THIS SMUTTY PIECE OF GOLD. remember not to kink-shame me for thisOverall rating: 👌👌👌👌 (.........👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌)

Hare Fucking Krishna, by Smilesawakeyou

Rating: PG-13Why is it damn good: This is a rather new find of mine, which I only recently discovered with all the JP-library building. It’s set around George’s death, and he is... well, basically on his deathbed, and he’s got some unfinished business to sort out with Paul, and it makes you laugh and cry, but it’s beautiful. Definitely on my list of “new favourites”Overall rating: 👌👌👌

Small Paul’s Singularge Experience, by the_anglophile

Rating: NC-17Why is it so damn good: This is just a perfectly funny fic. I first read it yeeeeaaars back when it was on LJ, and it just makes me crack up every time. Basically, Paul stays small (Help! Universe), and he and John.... Well, they find ways to have fun with that. In an NC-17 way. hahaOverall rating: 👌👌👌

Lifting Latches/Sending Postcards, bythinkpink20

Rating: NC-17Why is it so damn good: A classic, a favourite, DAMN GOOD. You just kind of want to.... like.... ugh.... push..... Paul and John into each other’s arms...... and..... UGH-In all seriousness, just a prime example of how small actions can lead into big ones, and IT HAS SO MUCH PAUL PINING OVER JOHN. I LOVE IT.Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌

And last, but not least...

Wednesday Evening Salons + The Elephant Dance + Too Much Rain, by yes_2dayRating: NC-17Why is it so damn good: I don’t know how many of y’all actually know this fic, but it is just... well, I have no words for how great it is. It’s a bit difficult to read the chapters, thanks to LJ’s impossible systems, and then fic might start a bit slowly, but in the end it’s totally worth it. The whole fic is still going on, and it already has about 250 chapters? That’s a lot of chapters for a quality fic. Also, you’ll fall in love with the author’s two OC’s. I know I did and I just scream with delight whenever they appear in the fic.Basically, John doesn’t die in 1980, and Paul and John entwine in a complicated and difficult relationship, managing to stand through hardship and years, and the fic is written so well that I sometimes forget things didn’t happen that way. Then I get sad. But then I read another chapter and get happy again. And get sad again ‘cos it’s not real. It’s a never-ending circle. I just can’t praise this one enough. (Gotta get it into the library ASAP, but there are.... a lot of chapters....)Overall rating: 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌+ BLESS THIS FIC

Well, that’s all for now. There are so many, and as you can see, most of these (well, all of them) are from LJ. Some of them I like because of nostalgic reasons, but mostly because they are just so good. And I’m a really, really picky reader. Have fun reading!

[tsnficmasterpost-blog]

POST-DEPOSITION

no wealth and no ruin by antistar_e: In which Mark Zuckerberg gets a job, learns important life lessons, makes friends, finds the love of his life, and dies. Not necessarily in that order. ★★★★★

how one thing leads to another, a story of coincidence by antistar_e: At 42, Eduardo Saverin has three things to his name: a plane ticket, one half of a formerly conjugal bank account, and a list.

place that don’t know my name by antistar_e: Looking up at the mess of stars above New (New New New) Singapore, he stops being Eduardo Saverin, absentee CFO of Facebook, and starts being Eduardo Saverin, time traveling companion to a mad man in a blue box who keeps on calling him Frank.

place between here and the destination by antistar_e: You know what's cooler than one million dollars? Eduardo Saverin, time traveler.

selective hearing by antistar_e: Marilyn's right, of course. The dilution wasn't the first time Mark plotted against Eduardo.

a seahorse gilt in gold by antistar_e: The first reported fatal case is in May, and within two months, Eduardo learns how to shoot people in the face. | remix of ‘the time is come when the day is done.’ ★★★

the time is come when the day is done by moogle62: Mark is in California. Eduardo is in Florida. There's a whole country full of zombies between them, but Mark's not going to let a little thing like the potential to be eaten stop him from getting somewhere Eduardo wants him to be. ★★★

what not to do when your boss is dating the guy he had erased from his memory by moogle62: In which Mark has a new mystery significant other, or so Dustin claims, and there is not enough alcohol in the world to make Chris's life any less stupid.

didn’t want to be your ghost by anonymous: Mark has an one-night stand with somebody and calls out the wrong name: Eduardo's. The person sells the story to the media, and things get kind of crazy. ★★★★★

never marry for money (you can borrow it cheaper) by hapakitsune: Mark and Eduardo get drunkenly married. Chaos ensues. ★★★

our endless numbered days by hapakitsune: You can’t change your situation. The only thing that you can change is how you choose to deal with it. Or, the one where Mark has cancer.

oriented towards the other by hapakitsune: Mark's empathy has been blocked off for years, for his own safety as well as comfort. But if he wants to win Eduardo back, he's going to have to embrace his ability and re-learn how to live with other people. ★★★

just the memory of your face by hapakitsune: Mark wakes up in bed with a husband he doesn't remember and a life he can't imagine having.

these things get louder by fledmusic: Mark finds out that everybody, including his mom, thought he and Eduardo were dating at Harvard. ★★★

almost, finally, finally by fledmusic: The first year of Mark and Eduardo's long-distance romance, featuring PDAs in formal wear, revelations about cookies, drama over Facebook info updates, and realizations that absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder quite so much as it makes the heart grow frustrated. ★★★★★

do you like me, yes/no? by ifeelbetter: Mark doesn't react well when he finds out the whole staff have been nursing a crush on Eduardo.

(act) as if the world is watching by grim_lupine: A lot of things are different from when they did this last. ★★★

in the details by grim_lupine: Where Mark learns the details.

the water under the golden gate by roaroftheninth: Eduardo’s father dies. Twelve days later, Eduardo jumps from the Golden Gate bridge. Neither of these things are the beginning or the end of this story.

cryptography for beginners by thedeadparrot: A few years after the depositions, Mark sends Eduardo an e-mail. Now Eduardo just needs to figure out what it says. ★★★★★

technical debt by thedeadparrot: Mark is trying, and he thinks Eduardo is trying, but their resentments go so deep it feels like their friendship can't go anywhere at all, like there's this huge architectural flaw in their code that they're trying to hack around when they should be trying to go back and rethink everything, like they need to tear it all down so that they can rebuild it all from scratch.

been at this far too long by beyond_belief: In which Eduardo learns how to argue with Mark, and Mark learns to be somewhat less of a jerk.

curious incident of eduardo in the night-time by jibrailis: Eduardo drunkenly tries to break into Mark's house to get back something of his. Mark isn't about to let a challenge go. ★★★

throw your back into it by jibrailis: Sex is not the enemy. Except when it is. The one where Mark is a slut, Eduardo has performance anxiety, and there are cross-country booty calls. ★★

strength in numbers by maxette: "Mark, you couldn't make a cat happy—you couldn't keep a plant alive, never mind make me—give me anything I—" Eduardo says and walks out. Mark takes that as a challenge.

learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss by forsanethaec: Mark receives intelligence that Eduardo hasn't left Palo Alto yet after the depositions and goes to his hotel to see what he can see.

unblock this misery by forsanethaec: One angry email from Singapore to Palo Alto snowballs into something that Eduardo had almost learned to stop hoping for.

trivial pursuits by fairy_tale_echo: But the top two players are always the same: E.S. and M.Z. None of the other players ever rank anywhere near them, it’s always just the two of them: Eduardo in first place and Mark just a few hundred points behind. No matter how long he plays or how well he does, every god-damn day he comes in second to Eduardo. ★★

draw me a map by fairy-tale-echo: The thousands of miles, both literal and figurative, Mark and Eduardo travel and the countless postcards and letters they write over five years as they grow up and towards each other. How do you get yourself back to a place you haven't been yet?

no big deal by fairy_tale_echo: The one where denial ain't just a river in Egypt. ★★

pieces from my heart by indecentexposed: Mark gets drunk, watches the video of the depositions, and comes to some startling realizations.

all that is left is all that i hide by therealw: Mark hires a prostitute that looks remarkably like Eduardo. The paparazzi spot them out somewhere. ★★★

the farther i fall i’m beside you by therealw: Wherein Mark, for the first time ever, actually listens to what a lawyer has to say. "You know what we're here for?" Marylin continues before he can interrupt, "I mean, what this really feels like?"

with a golden ring of wisdom in my cave by therealw: Wherein there's much discussion of a ring and Dustin makes LotR jokes. Set five years after the settlement. "On the last day of the depositions, Eduardo had thrown the small, worn-looking velvet box at her." | sequel to 'me who makes the monsters.' ★★★

always golden rocks to throw by therealw: Eduardo's plan was pretty much foolproof. He would attend the ceremony, politely converse with the guest sitting on his right during the first half of dinner and the one on his left during the second, just like his mother taught him, then have a glass of champagne and, as soon as Chris and Sean had finished their first dance as a married couple, get the hell out of there. | sequel to 'me who makes the monsters.'

old roads i go down by yellowteddysuit: Where Mark gets amnesia, and all he knows is that he's lost the last 'however many' years, and he's scared; he's got Eduardo's number in his phone, so of course he calls him. Eduardo, who's still angry, tells him what he's missing from those years.

tires sing to the asphalt by addandsubtract: In which Mark and Eduardo take a road trip across the us, and have a lot of issues. They seriously have a lot of issues. ★★★

how to make a second chance by blackeyedgirl: Mark goes to sleep in Palo Alto in 2007, and wakes up in Harvard in 2004. Meanwhile, Eduardo is in Palo Alto dealing with a Mark who seems to have forgotten more than just today's shareholder meeting. Both of them are wondering how many words it would take to change what happened next.

bugfixes in the redesign by blackeyedgirl: "Were you always this evil or is it a new development?" Mark tries to use his powers for good (or at least for Eduardo's benefit). Eduardo notices him trying.

delays in communicating by blackeyedgirl: Eduardo and Mark are both great at communicating. Just, lately, not with each other. They start sending messages without ever getting around to talking. Chris and Dustin watch and wait.

forgiving what we cannot forget by blackeyedgirl: Because there's nothing like an open wound, Eduardo sends for the deposition statements. He doesn't recognize the people in these pages.

share function by blackeyedgirl: Eduardo knows better now than to sign things without having them checked out by his lawyers first. So apparently what he needs are better lawyers. ★★

teeth in the grass by ninhursag: The one where Eduardo thinks they are in a tragedy with subtitles and pouring rain and his life is so hard, while Mark thinks they are in a romantic comedy and it is awesome. They meet in the middle. ★★★

on the path unwinding by thisissirius: In which Eduardo turns into a cute zoo animal, and Mark comes to a realization that he needs a human Eduardo around to deal with.

write it on the skyline by thisissirius: Chris bullies Mark away from the computer, fights him with words and angry gestures, tells him to get the fuck away from this stuff, I mean it like it’s detrimental to Mark’s health to be trying to find his best friend.

sky that’s always blue by abriata: Or, the one where Eduardo can control the weather, and Mark has to do something about it before Sean gets struck by lightning. ★★★

you only live twice (unless you're facebook. then you live forever) by lawofgravity: After he signs the nondisclosure agreement, Eduardo Saverin disappears off the face of the earth. Because he joins the CIA. He embraces the life of Super Secret Agent Man Eduardo Saverin. That is, until Facebook is threatened by terrorist plots and only Eduardo can save the day.

you came along and you cut me loose by pendules: Five happy endings Mark and Eduardo never had (and one they did).

[biofunmy]

The Moon Sits for Its Portrait

Century after century, the moon adamantly refused to give up its secrets. The ancient Greeks and Romans generally considered it pristine, smooth and white, but did not have a good explanation for the dirty spots on its face that were visible to human eyes. Then, around 90 A.D., Plutarch wrote that those blemishes were the shadows of mountains and valleys and that the moon must be habitable.

By no means did everyone agree, but ignorance is seldom bliss. Faced with an unanswerable question, our species generally comes up with theories, guesses, myths and fantasies. Telescopes made viewing more precise, and photography did even better, but though no living creatures showed up, the notion that they might would not die. After World War II, one of several rumors was that the Germans had established a secret facility on the moon, and some even speculated that Hitler had faked his own death and lived out his days beneath the lunar surface.

A new exhibition, “Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a journey through an uncommon history, the history of representations of the moon across four centuries. This outsize and beautifully installed revelation of persistent astronomical searches is a trailblazing marriage of science and art — 300 images and objects (a telescope, a photograph used as a fire screen, two moon globes, Hasselblad cameras used by astronauts), plus film excerpts. The images shine a bright light on astronomers’ unstoppable pursuit of knowledge as well as on technological advances, artistic responses and fantasy, and also a generous serving of unabashed cuteness. The show amounts to a testament to the human drive to know and explore, and it quietly affirms the growing influence of visual representations of the moon from the invention of the telescope through the first manned moon landing 50 years ago.

Mia Fineman, the curator in the department of photographs at the Met, organized “Apollo’s Muse” with Beth Saunders, curator and head of special collections at the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and they wrote essays for its informative catalog. (Apollo, god of the sun, never had a muse; he was leader of the nine muses. NASA, of course, wasn’t going to the sun. The moon landing project might have been named after Diana, goddess of the moon.)

After 1608, when the telescope was invented, the moon seemed approachable. In 1609, Galileo drew its first closely observed portraits: maps of a portion of the surface. The English mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot made telescopic observations a bit earlier than Galileo, but his were not published until later, and he could not explain the “strange spottedness” he saw. Galileo, expertly trained in perspective and art, realized that the “spottedness” was actually the shadows of mountains. His published drawings, two of which are included in the exhibition, represent the dawn of modern astronomy.

The 17th century brought to human vision both extremely distant and extremely tiny objects, as telescopes rapidly improved and the power of microscopes, invented at the end of the previous century, vastly increased. Accomplished artists collaborated to provide scientists and the public ever more detailed and delectable illustrations of information obtained au clair de la lune. Johannes Hevelius’s highly successful Selenography — a lunar atlas published in 1647 and named for Selene, the moon goddess in Greek mythology — is thought to be the first book entirely dedicated to the moon. Hevelius surrounded one lunar map with baroque flourishes: cherubs brandishing pronouncements, looking through telescopes or studiously drawing.

Astronomers drew what they saw; artists made the drawings better. But some images were of little use to astronomers without good scientific texts, and most were not widely seen by anyone but scientists. The French artist Claude Mellan’s 1635 engravings were not simply beautiful but also so accurate that they were not surpassed until two centuries later. In 1805, the British portraitist and amateur astronomer John Russell made a superb engraving of the moon titled “Lunar Planisphere, Flat Light,” showing the moon not as we see it but rather in flat, even light. It’s a choice that reflected Russell’s belief that an artist should “correct’’ nature in order to produce an ideal.

The idea that earth’s mysterious companion might be inhabited kept being broached by imaginative people, mistaken people and hoaxers.

The name of Sir John Herschel, a noted British astronomer, was slyly stolen in 1835 by The New York Sun for the sensational “great moon hoax,” which reported that Sir John had observed houses, roads and sophisticated cities on the lunar surface. The story was reprinted across Europe, and a wide international audience ecstatically bought both paper and hoax.

The invention of photography four years later meant that more accurate and believable imagery was about to take center stage. “Apollo’s Muse” has several of the earliest photographs of the moon, including John William Draper’s remarkable 1840 daguerreotype — exposure time: a half-hour. (Daguerreotypes required more light than the moon produced, hence the long exposure, during which the earth and moon both moved.) Draper’s photograph gives us a glimpse into a rare moment of double discovery, comparable to Galileo’s: a more precise understanding of the moon’s surface, and one obtained with an instrument able to see more accurately than the eye.

Until mid-19th century, photographs could be reproduced only with great difficulty, and photography by the light of the moon as the earth rotated was no mean feat, so for years the public saw less than visitors to the Met will.

The British astronomer James Nasmyth, despairing of photography’s power to capture the minutiae and three-dimensionality he saw through his scope, made detailed plaster casts. In 1874, his photographs of his artful stand-ins for the moon were published and lauded as the most “truthful” representations ever seen. So much for photography’s reputation for veracity.

In fact, photography did not simply run artistry out of town. As late as 1882, the French astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, working at the Harvard College Observatory, believed that photography had limitations that art did not. He published “The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual,” illustrated with stunningly drawn prints of craters on the moon and an eclipse of the sun. His scientific drawings were published in a large portfolio and collected; public interest in science was growing.

New and more accurate information does not always move minds. (Consider the Flat Earth Society.) Technological and scientific advances never produced evidence of lunar inhabitants, but the moon was too fascinating to be held back by mere science.

Literary voyages to our constant companion existed long before Jules Verne’s influential “From the Earth to the Moon” (1865). Illustrations included humanoids and fanciful animals, but more charming was the first science fiction movie, Georges Méliès’s “Le Voyage Dans la Lune” (“A Trip to the Moon”), from 1902. A group of astronomers are shot off the earth by a cannon, land smack in one of the man-in-the-moon’s eyes, and barely escape hostile natives. A colorized excerpt (as well as clips from Fritz Lang’s “Woman in the Moon,” from 1931, and Irving Pichel’s “Destination Moon,” from 1950) plays in the exhibition.

By the early 20th century, the moon had become cuddly. Portrait studios acquired sturdy, smiling crescent moons (and at least one that was implacably grumpy). Nudes, lovers, friends, families and pranksters sat on the crescent curve to be immortalized on postcards.

By the time NASA came along, the moon was a pretty serious matter again. Before the launch of Apollo 11, on July 16, 1969, cameras were surveying the moon from unmanned Lunar Orbiters, looking for a landing site. (Spy satellites had already taken photographs, and in 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 took a picture of Earthrise two years before the astronaut William Anders took the more famous image.) Some of the photographs taken from 239,000 miles away were converted into three-dimensional moonscapes and carefully studied for a landing site, but Neil Armstrong eventually, and breathtakingly, used his eyes to find a safer landing spot than the one to which he had been directed.

The exhibition usefully supplies some Soviet propaganda photographs — the first dogs in space, the first woman in space — that were stoking popular support for their outstanding space achievements when the United States was still feverishly working to surpass them.

These proved to be forerunners to the hugely successful American public relations campaign that followed the first moon landing. Images of the Apollo 11 astronauts — Buzz Aldrin walking near the lunar module, for example, or standing by the American flag — still resonate 50 years later.

Critics initially dismissed the Apollo program as a “moondoggle.” After Apollo 11 landed, a few declared it a fake. But Americans generally saw it as an affirmation of national greatness after a decade of tragedy, upheaval and Cold War, and the whole world thrilled to this intimate encounter with the moon, which had been aloof since something like forever.

Perhaps nothing can live up to the moon landing. Less exciting is the artistic response in the last gallery of the show. In 1962, the NASA administrator James Webb and the artist James Dean founded the NASA Art Program. A NASA website suggests one reason: “An artist also could bring something that engineers and managers loathe to admit to: emotion.”

The program commissioned well-known artists including Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, all of whom made tiny drawings in 1969 for a small ceramic wafer that was attached to the Apollo 12 spacecraft and left on the moon. (It has become known as the Moon Museum.) Also left behind, in 1971, was Paul Van Hoeydonck’s small sculpture “Fallen Astronaut,” a replica of which is at the Met.

The space program’s impact on popular culture is represented by Harry Gordon’s “Rocket” dress (1968), which depicts an alarmingly phallic rocket exploding upward through the mannequin’s middle. Made of paper, the dress could be cut apart and displayed on a wall. And it makes clear how just about everything, including history, is grist for the commercial mill.

The American flag was planted on the moon in 1969, not to proclaim our satellite an American colony but to memorialize our achievement. A 1971 photograph by Stephen Shames of a message spray-painted on a brick wall in a vacant lot in Brooklyn says it all: “THE MOON BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE!!!”

The images collected here read like a love letter from all its ardent suitors.

Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography

Through Sept. 22 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org.

Sahred From Source link Science

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[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 61: Wishbringer (1985) – Introduction

Written by Joe Pranevich

When Wishbringer launched, the writing was already on the wall for Infocom. Cornerstone had been thrashing in the marketplace for five months and a successful game launch– or two or three– was the injection the company needed to keep its feet on the ground and its future focused on games rather than business products. At least in some respects, they succeeded: Wishbringer was the highest-selling new game other than Hitchhiker’s Guide, and it would eventually receive both a “Solid Gold” release as well as a novelization. And yet… before starting into this series, I knew absolutely nothing about this game. It had even been relegated to the second “Lost Treasures” set alongside such classics as Cutthroats and Seastalker. How exactly could a game simultaneously be Infocom’s most successful launch at their most dangerous time… and also fade away quite so quickly?

My guess, having not played it yet, is that it has something to do with Wishbringer’s status as the second “Introductory” (previously called “Junior”) title, a successor to Seastalker to bring kids in the door and get them hooked on Interactive Fiction. Am I going to find the game too childish for lasting appeal? This is also Brian Moriarty’s first game for Infocom having done a tour of duty as a backend software engineer working on 6502 systems. I wrote a long introduction to his career last week, as part of my review of Adventure in the 5th Dimension. If you skipped that one because you never heard of the game, please check it out. Mr. Moriarty had finally achieved his dream job; that is the story of how he got there.

Festeron again!

Before I deep dive into the manual, let me tell you my first surprise: Wishbringer is unambiguously a Zork game. I had heard that it was “Zorkian”, perhaps sharing a certain sense of style with the original trilogy, but I had absolutely no idea that it was literally a Zork game. What do I mean by that? This game takes place, or at least purports to, in Festeron in Antharia. This was established in the Zork manuals (which had been recently updated) as being an island province of the Great Underground Empire. That doesn’t tell us when this game takes place and the manual suspiciously only uses two-digit dates, but it’s unambiguous that we’re having an adventure in a new corner of the GUE. I am much more excited than before to see where this is going and how it connects to the other games in the series.

Travel guide to Antharia from Zork II

The story of the “Wishbringer”, the stone that is included in the packaging, is a surprisingly dark one. The manual tells of us a princess named Morning-Star whose mother forced her suitors into difficult trials. One by one, each and every man who would claim her hand in marriage was defeated by their various quests. These quests include references to the previous Zork games, such as the suitor that defeated a grue but was unable to bring its body to the surface. There’s even a suitor that tried to get the Coconut of Quendor which I vaguely recall being mentioned in a later game, although I do not remember if it was Zork Zero or Beyond Zork. (I never made it very far in either of those games and last played more than twenty years ago.) Unfortunately, none of the suitors were worthy and Morning-Star was forced by her mother to remain celibate to the ends of her days. Many years later, an explorer found her heart, now a small glowing lump the size of a stone, filled with the wishes of a life unspent. That’s not dark at all.

The manual further explains that the Wishbringer stone can be used for seven different wishes, but each of them can only be used once. Each also requires you to find and use a special item:

Rain, when you wish on the stone while standing under an umbrella

Advice, when you wish and listen into a seashell

Flight, when you wish while sitting on a broomstick

Darkness, when you wish after drinking the “Milk of Grue” (ewwww)

Foresight, when you wish while wearing a pair of glasses

Luck, when you wish while carrying a horseshoe

Freedom, when you wish after eating candy

We will see exactly how these will be used in the game. I’m a bit disappointed that you can only use each wish once, but other choices might just have invited too many comparisons to Enchanter and Sorcerer, plus Spellbreaker is just a few months away. The only thing left is to play the game!

Starting the game in a dream? Someone played Sorcerer.

We start the game in a daydream as I, the brave hero, am fighting against a magical dragon with a sword. This, as you all probably know by now, is a useless gesture. Dragons can only be defeated with your bare hands or, failing that, by taunting them into attacking you in a room filled with sheets of ice. Fortunately, I wake up before I am doomed by not understanding the basics of dragon-defeating when someone calls me from inside a nearby post office. Should I go in first? Or explore? I consider exploring, but better to go in instead and see what this game is all about.

I head inside and find my boss, the local postman, reading other peoples’ postcards. He says that he has a “Special Delivery” that we have to drop off immediately. The envelope has to make it to the Magick Shoppe by 5:00 PM. It’s just after 3:00 PM now, according to the timer in the corner of the screen, so I don’t have much time. The envelope is one of the feelies from the package and includes the address of the shop:

American-style letters have the return address in the upper-left.

The package is from “The Tower”, although where that is exactly I have no idea. It’s all fairly domestic for an evil plot. Surely if I were some sort of Dark Lord, I would have crows or something to deliver my ultimatum instead of using the postal service. And is that a platypus on the stamp? What evil being would buy platypus stamps? Before I go, I also check out a wanted poster on the wall in case it revealed anything about our villain. It did… in a way. It says that “Professor:” Brian Moriarty is wanted for “Impersonating a Storytelller”. Ha! From what we know about his history, he might have felt a bit like that really given that he was hired just as a backend developer rather than an “Implementor”. I also love this because it’s a return to the practice of having the game credits hidden on some random object somewhere; I haven’t seen that in a few games, although I could have missed the objects.

Heading out of the Post Office, I check the signage. There is a cemetery off to the west of me and the town to the east. I head east first and find a small cottage belonging to the librarian. There’s a poodle outside and he’s pretty much blocking the way. I cannot either enter the house or proceed into the town to the north. The game hints that I may be able to bribe it with something, but I don’t have any items of interest yet. I guess I have to head to the cemetery after all.

Something tells me that poodle is famous…

Entering the cemetery, I get a warning that it is creepy and that I should turn back. I have to answer that I really really want to go in a few times before it lets me. It’s obviously just a retread of the Engine Room joke from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I suppose I can let it pass since younger players may not have played that game.

Just to the north is a gravedigger. He asks to see the envelope that I am carrying, but I refuse and he eventually leaves. Did I make the right choice? I have no idea, but he looked pretty suspicious to me and a good mailman doesn’t show anyone the wrong mail. Once he’s gone, there’s an open grave that I can climb down into to find a bone. On one hand, I bet this can distract the dog! On the other hand… is this a human bone? Am I going to let a dog munch on a human bone? That is more than a little disturbing. Exploring the rest of the graveyard, I find an umbrella and an iron gate leading out to the north that I cannot unlock. The gravedigger is still wandering around and he warns me against going into the graveyard after dark.

With no way out, I go back the way I came and approach the poodle. Giving him the bone makes him happy (and me a bit unnerved), but it will let me head north now. I still cannot enter the librarian’s house without being blocked, but that’s okay. Just to the north, I find the Librarian, Ms. Voss, locking up the library. She gives me a note that she wants to have delivered to Mr. Crisp, the Postmaster. I cannot read it, but it says “Corky” on the outside. Corky Crisp? How cute. She runs off.

Seeing that the envelope says to go to North Festeron, I cross the town and a bridge. I’m not quite sure that I am going in the right direction. I reach a point where the game tells me that I’m getting in deep and I should probably draw a map and that seems like something I wouldn’t be doing at the very beginning of a kids game. Besides, I’m almost out of time already. I elect to explore the town first.

Town map from the end of this post

It takes a couple of games because with only two hours to explore, you really cannot see everything in one go. In that way, it reminds me a bit of the early stages of Zork where you had a limited time period with the lamp, but at least this makes some amount of sense. If 5:00 PM passes, you get fired from your job and the game ends. I hope all this exploration will come in handy later. Rather than give you a blow-by-blow, let me just summarize the areas that I found so far:

There’s a rotary in the town center, around which is a police station (containing an officer and an empty cell), a locked theater, a locked library, and an empty church containing just a candle.The center of the rotary has a statue and fountain; inside the fountain is a coin and a fish.

To the west is a lakeshore and the locked northern entrance to the cemetery. There’s a pile of leaves there and a “Do Not Disturb” sign. If I search the leaves, the wind picks up and they fly away revealing a pit in the sand. It was a trap! But for what? My score goes down by ten points for not following the sign so I restore.

In the northwest of the map, you can climb up to “Lookout Hill” where we can see a tree stump and a horseshoe.

In the northeast of the map, I find a tiny lighthouse, a pelican, and a conch shell hidden in a tide pool. I have no idea why anyone built a scale model of a lighthouse on a beach, but it’s not sillier than anything else in this game.

On the eastern edge is a “Pleasure Wharf” with a video arcade and a mailbox. There’s also a seahorse that I can rescue by throwing it back in the water. I’m reminded a bit of the arcade in Sorcerer, but I suppose how many different kinds of arcades can there be?

And unfortunately, that is it: there is no magick shop in town so I’m going to have to explore north after all. At least I have found ingredients for three of the wishes: a horseshoe, an umbrella, and a seashell. I’ll have to be on the lookout for the rest. It says that the postal code for outside the grid is 23-51-1 which is exactly what is on the envelope. Oh well.

The path up the mountain is simple enough. There’s a not-quite-maze that you have to pass through, but it is easy to map as the exits are listed and distinct. It’s only a couple of rooms anyway. At the top is the magic shop, a quaint little establishment. When you go in, a little bell rings. You know the type. Inside is an assortment of magical things but we’re there on business so we hand the envelope over to the proprietress. She has misplaced her glasses and asks us to open and read the letter to her.

He took her cat! That is evil!

“The Evil One” took the woman’s cat! She’s angry, so angry that she’s holding back tears of rage. She says that she has concealed the Stone of Dreams, the “magick stone” that the Evil One covets. She says that she gave up her childhood and family to keep that stone safe, and now her burden has even cost her her cat. She says that she’s not supposed to tip mail carriers, but she hands me a metal can of mixed nuts anyway. She says goodbye and that we should be getting back to town. She pushes us out, asking if we will keep a look out for her cat, all black except for a white dot on her forehead. Her name is Chaos. She says that if I want to look for her cat, the Stone of Dreams can help me find it… but that she cannot tell me where it is because then the Evil One could hear. With that, I’m out the door and she locks it behind me.

Outside, it’s practically a new world. As the sun sets, fog rolls in across the island. Things are… different. The post office where I started is in the distance, but now it is replaced by a large tower. What is going on? Is the Evil One attacking? I’ll have to find out next time!

Time played: 1 hr 40 min Inventory: metal can, gold coin, violet note, umbrella (plus the stuff I saw but didn’t pick up yet) Score: 24

It’s time to guess the score! While this is Moriarty’s first Infocom game, he is not new to our blog. We recently looked at Adventure in the 5th Dimension, his first published game, and that one scored only 13 points. In contrast, Loom managed to score 65 and is still one of our top games of all time. Moriarty also played much smaller roles in the development of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (65 points) and Fate of Atlantis (82). That is an incredibly wide spread so I cannot possible provide any meaningful score guidance this time. If you absolutely insist, I’d say that the average of the two games (that we have played so far) where he was the sole creator is 39. Is that a good guess? I have no idea.

One final programming note: Fooblitzky has been moved to 1985 and I will look at at after A Mind Forever Voyaging. This game was released in stores in 1986, but was launched as a mail-order exclusive in 1985. I’m still not sure how I will cover this game, but I will figure it out when I get there.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it’s an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won’t be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return. It’s also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-61-wishbringer-1985-introduction/

[theseventeenthcentury-blog1]

Option Jan/Feb 1988

FELT THE PAST TENSE OF FEEL

BY JOY PRESS

Lawrence is sitting in a cramped little office drawing stickmen on someone else's stationery. They are mindless stickmen, each grinning madly. Since Lawrence is the ringleader of a band called Felt, and since I'm in the room to interview him, I watch closely. (I might learn.) He doesn't look up as he answers my question.

Do you draw? "No, I only draw stickmen. I'm an expert at stickmen."

You could, I suggest, draw bubbles and have them speak to one another ...

"I know. These are the silent types. They have nothing to say." He draws a lone frowning stickmen on the end and reevaluates: "They are a pretty moronic gang." We sigh I fondly over the poor alienated frowner and I turn our attention, more or less, to Felt.

Poem of the River (Creation US/ Relativity) is Felt's seventh LP, though it's the first released in America. For seven years, they've flitted about the periphery of British indie heroism, every so often unleashing singles like "Penelope Tree," "Primitive Painters," or "Ballad of the Band," which cause critics to fall over themselves with gentle praise. But gentle is the key word. If Lawrence could have exaggerated and crystallized his confusion and cynicism into, an accesible drama, he might be where Morrissey is today. The point is, Felt are to subtle for their own good.

Lawrence looks up earnestly when I ask: do you care about what people say about Felt? "We've always had good press ... It doesn't matter. No. No. Not at all." He later asks, "What are you going to write?" Exactly as it should he.

The band members live in the industrial city of Birmingham, northern England's version of Detroit. Lawrence (who claims no surname) avoids leaving the house other than to do his shopping. He formed the band with now-departed guitarist Maurice Deebank. According to Lawrence. "He was a lad. He was also a classical guitarist and I wanted him in the band. He wasn't into it at first, went through his stages — drinking in pubs and that. I never did. I knew what I wanted."

Did you have friends at school? "I did, surprisingly! Well, not surprisingly. But when I was 15, I just changed, I didn't want to be like them. I stopped going out. I didn't have any songs but I knew I could write; well, maybe I can't ..." He looks sheepish here, "But I thought I could write well then, and it was a skill, maybe the only one I have, so I did it."

Gold Mine Trash, a Felt 1981-1985 compilation which former UK label Cherry Red has released (and which is slated for American release at this writing) can only begin to hint at Felt's history. It opens with their debut single, "Something Sends Me To Sleep," all guitar-brushed innocence, and ends with lush "Primitive Painters," throwing the glittery and glib between. A suggestion of Lawrence's penchant for slipping high romanticism into a pop format, as well as his adoration of dry humor and the Velvet Underground, is present on the collection, but just as the barest of introductions.

In retrospect, Felt seem as if they've always been more musicianly, more studious than their pop peers, littering even their earliest albums with startlingly serious instrumentals. Yet the early eighties music scene was made sympathetic to precious, sensitive songwriters by the Postcard Records stable. Cute, clever bands such as Orange Juice and Aztec Camera created tuneful guitar pop on Scotland-based Postcard while Felt found a home on London's more adventurous Cherry Red. A few years later, a post-Postcard resurgence, urged on by the Smiths and Lloyd Cole, came to focus on Alan McGee's Creation Records (with several Scottish bands once again dashing in and out of the spotlight). Felt, perhaps instinctively compatible, jumped over to Creation (as did ex-Orange Juice leader Edwyn Collins).

Between Felt's 1981 debut LP, Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty and the second, The Splendour of Fear (complete with "Chelsea Girls" graphics), three years elapsed. This period produced singles like "My Face is On Fire" and "Penelope Tree," full of confidence and wistful optimism, lyrics pleading. "Oh no, don't let them break you down." "The World Is As Soft As Lace" offered a sort of manifesto for delicate post-adolescent sensibilities, saying on one hand "if I could I would change the world" and on the other, "all my great plans get blurred, by the softest touch, the gentlest word."

The Strange Idols Pattern & Other Short Stories, also released in 1984, found Felt's sound further refined, divided into smart, catchy jangles like "Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow" and "Dismantled King is Off the Throne," and lovely instrumentals such as "Sempiternal Darkness," all co-written by Deebank, showcasing his musicianship. Ignite the Seven Cannons, produced by the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, continued this musical progression, expanding childhood memories and bittersweet ambitions into finely-woven tapestries. The single, "Primitive Painters," which included Cocteau Twins singer Liz Fraser on supporting vocals, was a swirling and enthralling pop tour de force.

In 1986, "Ballad of the Band" and Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Reads to Death signaled a new era: not only did Felt switch over to Creation, but guitarist Decbank departed. Martin Duffy's organ took precedence on Let the Snakes and continues to remain important on the two most recent albums, Forever Breathes the Lonely Word and Poem of the River.

"Ballad of the Band" documented inner-band strife ("Where were you when I wanted to work? You were still in bed, you're a total jerk") and Lawrence explains, "It goes. 'you know, I feel like giving in,' not I will give in. It was just telling how bad things were, I just wanted it to stop, but I'll never give in. It was definitely disruptive, really sad ... We're not so together, you know, as if we'd been together since the start." Fans, like Lawrence, cling to the romance of the band through it all. "We have real fanatics. A lot of them want to be your friend. And you get to be friends and they just think, 'Oh, he's not so special.' I'd rather be alone and ... adored."

So are Felt's members good people? "No, we're horrible. There are so many evil people around you in the music business, there's no way you can escape it."

Much of Poem of the River seems to escape Lawrence's usual caustic tongue. reveling instead in the softly psychedelic organ.

He describes it as "late-night listening" and worries that it may be "too introspective" for an American audience. It is an altogether less accessible record than an LP like Ignite the Seven Cannons, but still contains that dizzy mix of the starry-eyed and the defeated. The one-and-a-half minute opener, "Declaration," flatly proclaims: "I will be the first person in history to die of boredom." As idealized as a song like "She Lives By the Castle" may sound, there is always a sharp poke of consciousness, where pride and defenses kick in.

Felt lyrics generally work within plain speech, because, Lawrence says petulantly, "Why say metamorphosize if you can say change?" The stunningly simple completeness of Felt at its best, like "Primitive Painters" or even the "Final Resting of the Ark" single released this past summer, strips away the most frustrating aspects of their world until indelible images scamper out.

"It's always the same kind of sound, but it's progressing melody-wise. If you were just a casual observer, you wouldn't notice so much and you might say, 'They all sound the same.' But they're getting stronger all the time.

"Every time we make a record, though, it does feel like a new band, because we've always got different members. 'The Final Resting of the Ark' is completely different from any other Felt you've ever heard, and Gary [Ainge, drummer), who's been in the band since the beginning, said it figures the best Felt record ever is the one he's not on! It started off as a list of things I liked, but I couldn't finish it ... It's just emotional, it makes you cry."

As for the subject of isolation, Lawrence shrugs his shoulders. "That's just the way I work. I write alone, and then the band just ... colours it in." With such highly visual music, the precision of the band is crucial. "There are pictures flashing behind the music in a way. Like the song 'Nazca Plain' is about this strip of land — it looks like an airstrip, but back in the times before Jesus they didn't have airplanes, it's one of those mysteries ..."

The album which contained that song, Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death, was completely instrumental, with oozing organ pieces outnumbering the guitar and piano songs. "That is my favorite record. Do you know any other pop band to put out a record like that? I really don't think there has been one, but people just ignored that and pretended we were crazy."

Felt is always the moment after the one where you would have laughed or screamed, when you've found the space to rationalize and wise up. I once wrote of Felt, "They might've been messiahs — if only they didn't have to think about it." So why bother risking public humiliation?

"It's a way of making money, and money buys freedom. But yeah, if someone connects to something in our music, like some of Kerouac's stuff ... When I was a kid riding in the car, I used to put my hand out when I was bored and pretend to he chopping mountains. And he did that too! Or when I was walking, I'd pretend I was the best footballer and the best everything all at once. He did that too! I thought I was the only one, and that's amazing when you connect with someone like that."

I get the feeling Lawrence used to think of Felt as some sort of poem. Does he still think they make a difference? "No, There are a very small number of bands that will ever matter. You can fool yourself, but the truth is maybe one band in this decade are going to be important — and I've realized it's not us. It was quite depressing to realize."

Does this mean Felt aren't messiahs?

"Yeah, I'm not a god after all."