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canirove · 2 years

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The Nanny Diaries | Chapter 1

Summary: Have you ever watched that movie with Scarlett Johansson where she works as a nanny for a very rich family, and Chris Evans is her very hot and cute neighbour? Well, that’s kind of been my life for the past few months. Hot neighbour included.

Author’s note: This story has been on my drafts for ages, and I wasn’t planning on posting it because when I finished it I didn’t like it that much. I even wrote a different version with someone else. But the the other day someone liked the “imagine” that inspired it, and sinde I don’t have anything else finished to post besides “Bluebell”, I said, why not? I’m sure worst things have been posted 😅

I hope you enjoy it, and as always, thank you for reading! 💜

Next chapter

Masterlist

Have you ever watched that movie with Scarlett Johansson where she works as a nanny for a very rich family, and Chris Evans is her very hot and cute neighbour? Well, that’s kind of been my life for the past few months.

It all started when my friend Alice asked me to drive her to a photoshoot she was working in as a make-up artist. It was at a park, and they allowed people to watch as long as they didn’t bother anyone on set.

I sat on a corner next to where Alice had all her things, and just watched my friend and her colleagues work. But the one who wasn’t in the mood for just sit and watch, was Levi, the model’s three-year-old son. He kept running away from her while Alice was doing her make-up, wanting to be free and explore. And on one of those trips, he found me.

He came running towards me, falling at my feet and starting to cry. His mum was busy shooting and I didn’t want to distract her, so I picked one of Alice’s brushes and used it on his knee as if it was a magic wand.

“See? Completely healed.”

“That isn’t a magic wand” Levi said, pointing at the brush.

“Ok, fine. It is a magic brush.”

“Brushes aren’t magical.”

“This one is” I said, shaking it in front of him.

“What can it do?”

“It can turn people into animals.”

“Really?” Levi asked, his eyes wide.

“Watch this” I said, pointing the brush at myself and starting to meow, making him laugh.

“But you didn’t turn into a real cat!” he said with a big smile.

“Meow?” I said before using the brush again. “Sorry, I forgot to undo the spell.”

He laughed again, and that’s how we spent the rest of the shoot, making the other turn into different animals, other members of the crew also joining our game.

“Thank you so much for keeping him entertained” Levi’s mum said when she had finished shooting.

“Oh, it was nothing” I replied with a smile.

“Mummy, can I take this home with me?” Levi asked, showing her the brush we had been playing with.

“You’ll have to ask her” she said, nodding towards me.

“Take it, Alice won’t mind. And besides” I said, lowering my voice “she doesn’t know how to use it to make magic the way we do.”

A few days later, Alice called me.

“Remember the kid from the other day? Levi?”

“I do. Why?”

“His mum just sent me a dm on Instagram asking for your phone number. She’s wondering if you would like to take care of him while she is at work.”

“She wants me to be his nanny?”

“Something like that. Are you interested? She said she will pay you, money isn’t an issue with her. And since you are currently jobless…”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Flashforward to the present. I’ve been working for the Kloss family for three months now. At first I was just staying with Levi for a few hours here and there while his mum was at work. Then, a couple of days, spending the night at their house because Mrs. Kloss had to shoot in a different city or country, and Mr. Kloss was busy with work. And right now, I’m living with them. With her, her husband, Levi, and their housekeeper, Mrs. McKenzie. And I’m doing it properly, with my own room and everything, one way bigger than the one I had at my old apartment. Though my whole apartment probably fits just on the area designed for the staff.

And I’m not gonna lie… I love living with the Klosses. They are lovely, and so far I haven’t felt mistreated in any shape or form. I have a really good salary, I live in the most expensive and poshest area of the city (which is gorgeous), and if I need a free day that isn’t among the ones we have agreed to, they don’t say no as long as it fits with their schedule.

I’m walking back home on one of those days after a date with a really nice guy, when I spot a group of young men standing at the door of my building, laughing and screaming. Great. Drunk men, just what I need to end my night.

“Excuse me” I say to one of them. “I need to get into the building.”

“What?” the guy says, turning around to look at me.

“I live here. Do you mind moving?”

“Only if you kiss me first” he says with a stupid smile.

“Jack, don’t be a jerk and let her through” one of the other guys says.

“I was going to start the night with a kiss and you just ruined it for me.”

“Did you see her face, bro? She wasn’t going to kiss you. I actually think she was going to kick you and leave with you without offspring.”

“Off… what?”

“Nevermind. Move and let the girl pass.”

“Ok” says the first guy, Jack.

“Sorry about him. Sometimes he can be a bit… you know.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry” I say, properly looking at my savior. And damn, he is gorgeous. I don’t usually use that word with men, but it is the only one that works with him. Those eyes, that smile, that hair… Gorgeous.

“Evening Mr. Chilwell” the doorman says. “I thought you were leaving.”

“I was, but the lady here needed to get home.”

“Oh, miss, I hadn’t seen you. I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t worry Louis” I say with a smile.

“Is there anything else you may need?” he asks.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good” he says, going back to his usual spot.

“I didn’t know I had a new neighbour. Where do you live?”

“Third floor, with the Kloss family.”

“Oh, you must be Levi’s babysitter.”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“You definitely are an improvement from the one they had before. She was… Well. Hard to look at.”

“Rude.”

“But true” he shrugs.

“Still rude.”

“If you say so…”

If I say so? What an idiot.

“I better go, I have to wake up early tomorrow” I say, moving towards the door. “You should go back to your friends, make sure they aren’t bothering more girls.”

“They aren’t bad guys.”

“If you say so…” I say, using his same tone.

“Why are you mad?” he asks, running a hand through his hair and making me feel… things.

“I am not mad” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Pissed? Maybe.”

“Because I called a woman ugly?”

“Exactly.”

“Whatever” he says, rolling his eyes. Those beautiful eyes of his.

“Yes, whatever. Goodnight, Mr. Chilwell” I say, walking into the lobby.

“Wait. Can I at least get a goodbye kiss? For being a gentleman and saving you from Jack.”

“You want what?” I say, not believing what I just heard.

“A kiss” he says with an innocent smile. Innocent. This guy. Ha!

“If you had any chance of getting one, which you didn’t, you completely lost it by behaving like a jerk.”

“Oh, c’mon” he complains.

“Goodnight” I say again, walking away from him.

“You are gonna end up falling for me, you know?” he says behind me. “No one has ever resisted to me. No one.”

“You are so humble, Mr. Chilwell” I snort.

“It’s Ben. My name is Ben. And it is what it is. You will fall for me just like all the others do.”

“In your dreams” I reply, daring to look at him while I wait for the lift.

“Oh, I will definitely see you there tonight…. Neighbour” he says before joining his friends outside and giving me a smile that, again, makes me feel things. And he knows it. He totally knows it.

#ben chilwell #ben chilwell fanfic #ben chilwell imagine #ben chilwell x reader #football fanfic #football imagine

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bunnyinfoxclothing · 16 days

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SWTA Character Timeline Pt.1

This is something I am going to start posting about, partially because it will be nice to put all of my thoughts in one place where they won't get lost, but also it shows the amount brain rot I have.

Just as a general warning, if you are not fully caught up on SWTA this contains minor spoilers. So please read until chapter 25 to avoid spoilers!!!

Keep in mind, while you can use this timeline for your own headcanons this is formulated specifically to fit my fic. So facts might not match fully with canon.

---

So, I was trying to plan out the world Vaggie lives in when she is alive. In order to do that I need to find out when she was born vs where she died.

And in order to do that, I need to know how old Velvette is.

Crazy leap I know, but stay with me.

Velvette is the youngest character in the show. We get a rough idea of most peoples ages based on their speech pattern or the way they are dressed. Velvette is the youngest overlord in the entire show. But she is also heavily social media based.

So I like imaging her as sort of an iPad kid. She wasn't a baby when it came out, but she was a child. The first iPad came out in 2010, so I am going to say Velvette was born in 2000. It makes the math easier for me.

With the new vs old school dynamic that Velvette has with Carmilla, I want Velvette to remain a child. She isn't 18. Let's make her 17. (If anyone wants to hear my semi complete draft of how Velvette dies, please let me know.) That easily puts Velvette's teen/high school years in the middle of the era of Musically and Instagram. And also around a year after TikTok first came out, but wasn't quite as popular as it is now.

So that firmly places Velvette as the young new school social media queen.

So she dies in 2017, but how long does it take her to become a Vee?

The only real story of how someone becomes an overlord is the general summary of Alastor and him 'suddenly appearing overnight' and making a big splash.

I assume, through this sort of story, it took Alastor around a year, maybe a little less. So Velvette comes to power in 2019.

But we also want to have a bit of a gap between Velvette's rise to power and Vaggie's fall to Hell. So, i'm going to say that Vaggie falls in 2020. And spends a year (sorta) without Charlie This perfectly allows for the three years Charlie knows Vaggie to place the current cannon in line with our own timeline 2024.

So if Vaggie falls in 2020, and was an exorcist for 11 years she died in 2009. And if she is 23 years old, that puts her birth in the year 1986.

So just to start a list:

Vaggie: 1986-2009

Velvette: 2000-2017

#swta #hazbin hotel #vaggie #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin headcanons #angel vaggie #hazbin hotel velvette #the vees #hazbin velvette #overlord velvette

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alexcaldownapier · 5 months

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Keeper - The Hard Work

I really like doing pre-production work. I love nothing more than sitting in a room with Ben, talking through a scene. We spin our wheels, argue, find something and then get excited and hastily write it out. Shot-listing is often where we find the film - we talk more about story than the actual shots. What is trying to be said with each shot and how can it be said? As described in my last post, I was having some trouble getting my head round what Ben wanted, so these early sessions were tough going. One thing Ben was insistent upon was that a camera not be placed anywhere that a camera operator wouldn't be if it was shot as a documentary. This meant that there were times I would want to place a camera in a certain spot to capture one part of the story, but this broke the rule. The camera could only jump around in space if the action was jumping around in time. Again, I wasn't sure this was a limitation that would help the film, so these early shot-listing sessions were slow-going and filled with lots of trying to explain ourselves to each other. Eventually, we kind of gave up on the whole shot-listing together thing, which we'd done for our last two collaborations, and instead, while Ben was away for the holidays, we agreed he would shot-list the entire film as he saw it so that we could get on the same page. He also then developed these shots into storyboards, which we talked through. Once Ben had a rough draft down, I was in a far more secure place to give ideas for shots and notes on the frames presented. After a few more sessions, we arrived at a solid shot list that we were not just happy with, but truly excited to shoot.

One other consideration we needed to have when shot listing was the dual cameras. In order for Ben to get authentic performances and intercharacter dynamics, we would need to shoot simultaneous frames so that we wouldn't miss a good improvised moment or good reaction. This meant we had to consider each frame, which to prioritise and how both could be achieved without encroaching on each others' frames.

One thing I do hate about pre-production work is finding "reference images". Even if you find something that has the same lense size, frame size, lighting, angle, etc, they almost never have the correct tone. This still from Midnight Cowboy (1969), was one we used when discussing 2.1, the long shot where Will and his Dad arrive at the club. But the only real things this still has in common is a long lense and a focus on two people. I find it frustrating as an exercise, although I do think it often helps to communicate intentions (although it can also lead to miscommunications). So, in order to be clear in my communication, I thought it best to do a previs of the film. More on this later.

Although we had these ideas of what the shots should be and where the cameras should be, they were entirely untethered until we had a location sorted. Lucy had been searching for a changing room and pitch since early last term so we had a few options coming into this term. We took a day to go down to World of Football and then to Peffermill Playing Fields to see what was up. What was up was that World of Football was not only extortionate, it was also ugly, awkwardly laid out, extremely echoey and the agreement seemed to give us little priority to any of the spaces we needed. But the afternoon was an absolute dream. At Peffermill, we were shown around the entire facility, talked through all the options available and the different allowances that could be made in regard to lighting and crew movement. We were excited and decided to return soon for a full technical recce. But before we left, we took some pictures for the 'gram, the instagram.

The Keeper HoD team.

Because, of course, in order to make this film, we needed money and lots of it. We had a location to secure, costumes to buy and transport to be covered. We had to look viable for investment so we needed a slick and stylish social media presence that we could parlay into a couple thousand british sterling pounds. I asked to design the instagram posts as I have a secret passion for graphics that burns within me. But Lucy took these designs and ran an excellent social media campaign, followed by a successful crowdfunder.

One part of this campaign that also fed into my pre-production was our crowdfunder video and HoD headshots. We spent a morning in the changing rooms at North Merchiston Football Club, where we'd filmed our test shoot. We wanted use this opportunity to test out this new-fangled approach and shoot and edit the crowdfunder video as we planned to make the final film. This allowed James to dress a space in a similar way to the final film, Rosie to practice recording with changing frames/moving camera and for me to see how it would look, using long lenses and hand-held camera work to create that documentary feeling.

James being photogenic amongst his production design.

One thing this really helped with was coming up with interesting lighting solutions to the problem of having dual roaming cameras. The main worry for me was that the changing room scenes would need to be entirely top lit, creating a rather one note lighting set-up. But through testing out some lighting set-ups in this space, I ended up quite liking the effect of bouncing a light into the ceiling at an angle to create a fill with a bit more shape that still reads as being from an overhead light. Paired with a hard backlight, it makes for a nice simple lighting setup which has shape, motivation and lets actors move around the space and still be reasonably evenly lit. It was a nice wee test, although I was pretty upset with my camerawork for the final video. I was MASSIVELY overdoing the zooms and shaky feel and was picking some strange frames. Not a great video, but a video nonetheless.

It also let me test out the FS7 which was a camera I was interested in using for the film after the move towards a documentary aesthetic as it has a servo zoom lens, is easy to use handheld and (I'm not sure if this is the camera or the lenses but) it has a certain cold digital feel to its images. We then also tested the workflow through avid, when using XAVC files from the FS7 and got to grips with it, wasn't too complicated at all. I did also want to test the FX6 as it was a smaller, lighter camera with similar lenses and features. However, after testing out the FX6, I realised that its lens was not servo so would have to be zoomed by the barrel and its lighter weight made it more shaky when operating, so I decided to lock in the FS7 as our camera of choice.

I still find the FS7 a little weird - what's with all the buttons, man? What are you trying to prove, huh? All these buttons and no false colour? But I took it out to our two tech recces at Peffermill and we got to know eachother. Spend a night reading through every menu option and you can't not empathise with a camera, love it, even.

Cradling my baby

The tech recces allowed us to block out the action in the space as well as realise the options we each had afforded to us. The main takeaway for me was the ceiling panels and the single plug socket. I knew then, that to light the two changing room scenes, I would need battery powered lights that I could hide in the ceiling. For the first tech recce, I brought the camera, a nanlite forza 300 and some LED panels. The LEDgos gave out a far too measly kick when on batteries and had quite janky fix points that made me uneasy about suspending them above actors. With those being a dud, we blocked and shot the scene with just the Nanlite and our crew acting out the different roles, giving us some pre-vis that would help inform other parts of our pre-production.

Pre-vis shots of scenes 4 and 10

One thing we wanted to achieve with these two scenes was a change in tone and feeling of a space, while still keeping a similar set-up, so as to be cohesive, but subtly different. One simple way to achieve this was to move to the other side of the room, closer to our protagonist. This put our key further round the opposite side of Will's face, making for a moodier image. Adding in blackout material as close to our subject as possible helped to add more contrast on the face. Another way that this move changes the feel of the space is losing the accent wall. The room had one wall painted bright red, which was the wall were Graham, the coach, would need to stand, so would need to be in shot in scene 4, but not in scene 10. Losing the bright red creates a more monochromatic colour scheme and a more sombre tone. I also like having the space be introduced as far more colourful, not to mention CoLoUr ThEoRy (which I generally believe to be total shite, but in this case advances my goals, so I'll use it). Red = Passion... but also DANGER.

"Are you red-y, Will?" *Crowd of players cheer*

This idea was mirrored out on the pitch. We had chosen a pitch on the outskirts of the playing fields so as to give us the best chance of getting clean sound. This meant one side of the pitch looked out onto an endless expanse of pitches while the other looked out into darkness. In order to help bring out the emotion of the final football match, where nothing really happens, story-wise, and is instead a purely emotional sequence, we had to highlight the change in environment for our central character. When we first enter the pitch, we would shoot into the playing fields, making each shot have some busyness in the background, showing the hustle, bustle and excitement of the training grounds. But for the final scene on the pitch, we instead look out into darkness, to isolate our characters and create a bizarre two dimensional, high-contrast environment, like what we'd talked about last term - a sort of realist infinite dark space.

Our tech recce for out on the pitch was a little different, we weren't able to book a slot at night, so instead practiced in the day with a few extras, just so I could practice shooting people moving at pace and playing football. But after all our tech recces, we had most of our film pre-vis'd (is that a word?) and I was far more comfortable in shooting and lighting the scenes.

Otherwise, I finished the rest of my pre-vis at Craiglockhart with Ben, James and some people that Ben recruited (sadly I can't remember their names right now - terrible!). From the pre-vis that we shot, Ben edited a wee something that we could then reflect on and see what was working - our conclusion: most everything. the framing and movement was working well and we were confident that with proper lighting, production and sound design, it would give the desired effect.

Throughout this time, I was having many, many meetings with the team to talk through the film and discuss what we wanted to do with it. Ben and I stayed in close contact throughout my pre-production work as well as James and I talking through what was to be on screen and how our work would interact - mainly the colour palette and the use of dark clothes in the changing room as negative fill. I also had calls with Andrew to discuss lighting and shooting football games - something he's experienced in. His advice pushed me to do more tests and make sure I was comfortable using the camera in the context which is where the film's use of primarily low-angle shots comes from, as I found that, when shooting football, low angles allowed for more depth as the players weren't flattened against the grass and had room to breathe, compositionally. A wee coffee with my Gaffer, Naimh Gilhooly, was also extremely useful as we were able to talk through all the lighting set-ups I had planned and she gave some advice and options that we could try on the day, meaning she was totally on the ball as soon as she arrived on set. Having met Niamh in the summer on a music video shoot, through a number of other shoots, she's become someone I am very comfortable collaborating with and we have a nice working relationship now, putting me at ease with the lighting for the film. Other than Niamh, I managed to assemble a great team for my camera/lighting department. I steered towards securing people with a mix of experience in drama and documentary. I knew I had to have Eva on board as my main B-Camera operator as I not only love her work, but she is also very experienced and capable in both documentary and drama, not to mention has a deep love for the football film, be it documentary or drama. I called up the king of drama DPing, Cal White to fill in on a day that Eva was unavailable for, and the king obliged. For my 1st ACs I had to have my boy Kushal Dhingra, someone who I have depended on for every short I have shot and has always been incredible. However, due to his busy schedule, I needed another AC for the pitch days, where I called in Angus Webster, a cracking guy I met during the fringe last year where we were working breaking down the venues together. A documentary filmmaker who currently works filming football games - a perfect fit. Last, but in the way that a dessert is last, is Sam Craigie, who had approached me at Shortscape last year asking to work with me on something. Sam as a 2nd AC is a joy, he helped keep everyone excited about what we were doing and he was ever professional and capable. I can't wait to return the favour and assist him some day soon.

We saw you from across the bar and thought you might want to join our camera team...

I don't want to keep going on and on about the pre-production as I think the "Bible" I prepared speaks for itself. The bible is a compilation of all of the information I, or anyone interested in the visuals, would need on set. It was also designed as a tool of communication for the camera/lighting team, all of whom read it and got to grips with the big picture before focusing in on their individual tasks.

An excerpt from the holy book, Alex 1:14

I'll go more into the creative choices that went into the film when discussing the shooting and final outcome. Going into the shoot, I felt very happy and prepared, knowing exactly what I was doing for each shot and setup, who was going to be with me and what we were aiming for. But, feeling extremely prepared for a shoot leaves you also feeling that the other shoe is about to drop. Then there is also the horrible idea that what you've dreamed up in your head, the film you want to make, is going to be failed by your own incompetence and you'll never live up to your initial idea.

Wah wah, just shoot the movie. It's not that deep...

#keeper #final project

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swampstew · 1 year

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Thank you @thus-spoke-lo for the tag in this fun self-recommendation game! I always feel a bit awkward posting reminders and announcements when chapters are ready for reading, but I'll take a moment to hype myself and the words of my labor up. Here are my 5 favorite things I've written so far!

What's the Magic Word? - So I love how One Piece is this giant fantastical world where pirates are a real threat and mermaids, dragons, and magic quite literally exist. I thought it was odd that there wasn't a witch character at all, especially with how well it would fit into the universe, and what type of role/responsibility power like that would look like. Rowena my baby was born. It's everything I've ever learned while practicing the craft, enjoyed seeing in pop culture media, and inspired by cultural lores that I participate in or have great respect for. I wanted to create a character that could believably exist in the One Piece world and then have her do a bunch of fun and cathartic things (that may or may not be a reflection of real life). Falling in love with Eustass Kid was not on my radar (is falling in love ever?) - in fact the first draft of the story didn't have the Kid Pirates at all. Nope, just my witchy girl and the Straw Hats having adventures. Then I got to the Sabaody Archipelago and I saw him. I thought it would be fun to put these characters in a situation where they weren't friends or enemies but rather temporary witness protection body guards with a powerful ass witch as their protectee. Plus the smut. Love the smut and romance always. Its my first writng project I've done since college and I'm so happy to be back in the writing sphere. This book will have a sequel :)

Turn Back Time - This was a random dream that turned into a 20+ multichapter fic and I'm not even mad about it. In this one I took a fun approach to the story by centering it not just on the OCs but the Kid Pirates themselves. My first fic didn't really acknowledge many of them until the editing stage but this fic is entirely about the Kid Pirates and what it's like being in their crew. Especially as the love interests of some of the scariest, beefiest dudes that end up just being touch-starved men who are fully capable of vulnerability and love. It's been fun and I am excited for the upcoming themes and trials they'll go through! There will only be the one book but it will follow the journey of the Kid Pirates up until the very recent events in the manga.

At First Sight - this was a one shot that turned into a mini-series and I surprised myself with how much I packed into it. I didn't want to or expect to make it into a series but after giving it maybe a whole day's worth of thought and effort, I feel like I pulled a pretty good fic out of what was originally a stand-alone porn trope collab story!! This one is also on the Kid Pirates cause they're my comfort characters and again its been a fun way to put a spin on these murderous pirates when they're engaging with someone who's neither foe nor friend. Not a frenemy but a familiar with benefits! I lowkey based Y/N's badassery on Beidou from Genshin Impact.

KillerCook - I saw a hot dude make brownies on Instagram and thought 'what if Killer.' That's it. I wasn't sure how I was going to present it so I settled for creating a social media experience and I'm pretty sure I delivered. I'm a Kid Pirates loyalist, if you want something else you can check my Swampstew Bedtime Stories but my bread and butter are these anarchist psychos. Now comes with accessories such as: baker's hat and apron, and also a set of gold body piercings! The response has been supportive and excitable, and it's inspired me to do another modern social media influencer monetization fic, coming soon 😏 on Friday actually!

Oh Yandere! series - I wanted to give myself an opportunity to play around with some dark content and found myself really enjoying it. Especially in the noncon/dubcon vein. I've been too meek to do anything more than head canons but I have recently been inspired to explore some truly deplorable characters if I pick this series up again. If not, I might do a short series on Yandere Eustass Kid that has some...inspiration from another popular fandom that may or may not piss some people off. ANYWAYS! Live Laugh DarkContent

Tagging for funsies but def no pressure - I just think every author should get a chance to fluff themselves up and talk about their works that make them proud!

@abysscronica @cebwrites @goldenandhappy @zoros-sheath @kenruu @creamsickle-writes

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beanacomputer · 10 months

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Hello There (Rambling)

I've been gone a while. Not just from Tumblr. So hi!!!

I've been fiending for somewhere to share my thoughts now that Twitter has left the chat. I'm also on Threads and Post News (ehh I don't like the points system, I get it but I won't participate). I spend the most time on Instagram now.

I use Reddit a decent amount but entirely for business. I sell and work on fountain pens. Other than that I'm also technically a student but honestly pretty crappy at it. So we'll see how that goes...

Those are all distractions! Not really, lol, but sort of! I am working on my tabula magna, my Great Document: The Constitution of the United Republics of Spacia Centralia. I have a couple of other constitutional documents that are nearly complete, and a couple that are early drafts; different ideas and concepts. Unfortunately development of Nova Langa is on the back burner. It's being used in the two early draft documents though, so it's not completely stalled.

These are all fictional interstellar governments in my science fiction universe, working under the name Starfarer. There are also documents describing these governments in simple terms, as well as discussing statutory laws and their various types of uniformed services (not just military) and relationships with each other. I do have individual characters, but the primary subjects of my writing are governments not people.

I suppose from a point of view, I'm writing not one, but several propositional manifestos. From another, I'm creating an excessively intricate astrapolitical world without real characters or a point. From yet another, I'm using entire peoples and governments as characters in a story where the timeline is measured in years and decades rather than days and weeks.

The truth is that I'm a highly politically inclined individual who happens to be obsessive compulsive and on anxiety meds that tend to make me produce rambling essays like this. So I try to focus that energy into Starfarer.

The thing about Starfarer that keeps me so fervently attached to it rather than exploring new concepts for other universes, is that it is my life's work. I began work in the early 2000s, meaning I've put two decades into this, it's a bit hard to change course now.

You might be like "Where the aliens at, bro?" Well, they're coming... Soon™. I'm working out concepts to try to make these new species interesting. In the meantime you can enjoy the fact that Starfarer begins with the uplifting and mass naturalization of the other species of great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. This has severe implications. Two decades-long Interstellar Wars are fought, in part over this issue.

Aight I'm running out of steam here.

This has been your friendly neighborhood hermit, Oiralire.

Peace out.

#blog #science fiction #scifi #world building #fictional politics #writing

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projectstardog · 11 months

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Launch Announcement

When I laid out my goals for 2023 in January this year, I mentioned how I had ambitions to make a feature film called Empty Pages. It would be an anthropomorphized version of Laika and the Sputnik 2 mission, showing her fate as the first animal to ever go into orbit with tragic results. I picture it being an animated adult drama, influenced by movies like When the Wind Blows, Apollo 13, Titanic, and the Plague Dogs. I’ve been quietly planning and preparing it for well over a year at this point. I had to research historical details, learn how to make a screenplay, constantly revise the writing, design the characters, get feedback from friends, etc. With today being the anniversary of the real Sputnik 2 launch, it’s only fitting that things go public now.

The first phase of work is just about done. A new draft of the screenplay is in progress, and I’m feeling confident that it’ll be a good foundation to build upon. So the next phase of work, which I’m calling Project Star Dog, will have four main parts to it:

1.) Storyboarding the entire script from front to back, and editing the stills together into a full-length demo reel for the movie.

2.) Hiring a cast of freelance voice actors to dub over the storyboards and create guide tracks for all the main characters’ dialogue.

3.) Composing a full soundtrack for the storyboards, potentially with professional music software if I can afford it.

4.) Adding basic sound design, foley, and audio mixing to the storyboard reel as the finishing touches.

On top of all this, there’s also character model sheets to make, environments and props to design, concept art to draw, and trying to get the word out. The voice actors will be by far the costliest part, and so far I’ve been saving up my own money to afford them when the time is right. I’ve set up new social media accounts to help promote the project and share updates on it as I go. If my current plans work out, I hope to have this storyboard reel finished by the end of 2024. I’ll most likely post it to YouTube once it’s ready. What will happen then? At this stage it’s too early to tell, and I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure where it could go from there. But until then, getting a full storyboard reel is the priority, so that’s what I’m putting everything I have into.

Although I picture most of this being a solo project for now, I’m more than open to collaborating with other artists and creators to help speed things up. If you think you have something to offer the project, send an email or DM me at any of the links listed below. I don’t have a ton of money to spare, but I’m willing to work out payment agreements for anything that could help artistically. Even just following one of the accounts or sharing things around would be an enormous help for getting this campaign as far as it can go.

Online indie animation is currently in a renaissance. Things Helluva Boss, Lackadaisy, Murder Drones, Digital Circus, etc. are paving the way for a new era of the medium. Combine that with the long-overdue victories won by the WGA strikes this year, and the future feels brighter than ever for the scene. I want to try throwing my hat in the ring with a story I hope will connect with people, and emotionally resonate with them. The process of getting there will be hard and time consuming, but at this point, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Business email: [email protected]

LINKS:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ProjectStarDog

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProjectStarDog

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMsdX2ysfKxEwCCIcYHOyvQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project_star_dog

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/projectstardog.bsky.social

Newgrounds: https://projectstardog.newgrounds.com

#projectstardog #laika #animation #indie #sputnik 2 #anthro #furry #announcement

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felixschokehold · 2 years

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To see if my writing requests are open, and the rules, please click here.

Want to be part of a Volturi lovers Discord server? Join here! Want to be part of a Baldur's Gate 3 Discord server? Join here! Want to be part of a Fourth Wing Discord Server? Join here!

Like my writing? Help support me at my Ko-Fi here!

Find my side blogs here:

Thirst Blog @justasideofdelicious

Book Blog @batboys-cumdumpster (largely ACOTAR atm)

Video Games Blog (mostly BG3 atm) @rolansrighthorn

ABOUT ME:

Cal|’94|Casually learning to: blog; write; draw; make gifs; etc|This blog will primarily be for Twilight at the moment, but if you check out my blog you’ll see I am in multiple fandoms (Shadowhunter chronicle books, Night World books, etc BUT I am trying to keep those to my specified side blogs)

Here is a post about my Twilight faves, non faves, and other opinions on the characters in The Twilight Saga.

MY WORKS:

You can find all of my works ONLY on AO3 here under my user FelixsChokeHold

I have two official, original fanfictions in the works;

Facing Your Fate- A Felix/human mate focus that adds in Demetri as a third lover in later chapters. This story follows Elise’s journey to proving she is worthy to become immortal. This fic is in it’s late stages, beginning to end. There will be a prequel series eventually, detailing Elise and Felix’s story of how they fell in love pre-Facing Your Fate era.

Family of Ruins- A fic that follows Juniper’s journey to adjusting to vampire life after book!canon Jane and Alec turn her impulsively one day when she catches their interest as a mother. This is also another Felix mate bond fic that is slow burn, frenemies to lovers. This fic is in its early stages, with major events still being drafted.

You can find my general works for other fandoms on AO3 here.

You can find my Felix X OC "Ariadne x Dionysus reimagined" chapter story prompt here, inspired by this post.

I have a DeviantArt I have barely posted to (lol) and I sporadically upload here to my Twilight saga instagram.

I also have a Twilight saga twitter that’s not super in-use but I would like to be more active.

All of my og posts I make are generally going to be under a couple different tags

my post

own post

You can find reblogs I’ve replied to here.

You can find reblogged posts where I have expressed opinions in here.

Twilight universe headcanons can be found here.

Miscellaneous Links:

You can find information about the real Quileute tribe here and find a link for donations.

This pinned post will be updated sporadically.

#new pinned post #cos for some reason I can't edit the other to be colorful lol #my post #own post

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j-a-smiths-blog · 8 months

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2123 10Feb24: Chapter 41.1

To say I'm annoyed with Tumblr is well... like a love hate relationship...

I've learned to not post a photo here that I've used on Instagram as it apparently possibly has some sort of compression that makes it fail when uploading... but today all I did was type.. and I spent a while type, all from my phone just to have it all delete.

I guess it was for the better... because when I went back to use my laptop... I started writing away and I got four pages of just outline without full detail a decent start of a shell so I can get everything ready to start shooting the film in late March or early april.

I just went ahead and hit save as a draft to see if it helps.

Anyways of fuck.

I clicked thing and now don't know how to delete hahahaha

Well anyways... I started changing the story a bit to flow a little easier and I realize what props I really need to make... this will also allow me to see how many times I need to utilize what dioramas so I can put my focus on those...

For one, I know I need a forest diorama... and with that, I need to establish 2 different setups because there is a very important bend in the path. Next I need a diorama of a fire pit area... which I plan to utilize the forest shot to add depth for where Abigail will observe the ritual. Building these to dioramas will allow me to film almost fifty to seventy five percent of the film.

I mean the film is titled.

"Demonyo Sa Kakahuyan" so I have to feature the forest....

The next big section to build will be the house, which is probably the most labor intensive... I not only need to build a believable structure... I need to construct a table and chairs, a basket, at least three pails, an earth oven and a water well... so I'm establishing some real work to be completed... and that's actually the simple part of the film... the other portion will be building the segment of the galleon... this will require some work as I need, probably at least a 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot area to construct this section... it would make for a get section of the ship to show them throwing the guy over board... questioning the cook, and the room they place the sick at... so we will see...

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la-muerta · 3 years

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11.29 Begin - English Translation of Gong Jun’s book

In January 2019, Gong Jun wrote and self-published a book titled 11.29 Begin, with sales from the book going to charity. The book is currently out of print but at that time, he wasn’t very popular yet so he didn’t actually manage to sell many copies, so he quietly donated the projected sales in advance out of his own pocket — 150,000 yuan (about US$23,000). The money went to the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (中国扶贫基金会), funding school kitchens for four schools in Sichuan, and fans only noticed because the organisation tagged him in their thank you message. Gong Jun also made the donation under “俊味仙” — the name for his fans.

There are seven chapters plus a preface and afterword, with each chapter talking a bit about the seven projects he had done up to that point, as well as stories about himself and some of his thoughts about life. Gong Jun has said that he doesn’t intend to reprint the book because it has fulfilled its purpose, although he may do similar charity projects in future. I have translated his text but I won’t be posting the photos from the book (also because there are 190 pages in this book ^^;).

Please do not repost my translation anywhere else, including other platforms like twitter and Instagram. If you want to quote parts of it, please link back to me or at least give credit. And if you feel inspired by his book and have the means, perhaps you can consider making a donation to a fund for needy students on his behalf.

Preface

Life is like a long, meandering journey. On the way, many beautiful sights [1] may pass you by, and you can choose to go with the flow or go against it, admiring the scenery along the way and enjoying the freedom, unfettered by limitations. Life is also like a movie, with a rousing opening, ups and downs in the story, and at the end you come away with an understanding of how wonderful the whole process has been and a love for life.

If I could, I would like to just get a backpack and take to the road, so I can feel the wind on my face; travelling throughout the four seasons, admiring the scenery along the way and enjoying the glow of freedom.

If I could, I would like to take a leisurely stroll along the side of a lake, quietly savouring the feeling of not having a care in the world. I would watch movies in the afternoon, taking in the breadth of human experience, and appreciate the joy of being alive.

The hustle and bustle of the city brings its own unique drive and passion. Caught up in this busyness and activity, I often ponder: What kind of person am I? What version of “me” do I want to become? How can I become the version of “me” that I want to become? When I think of things like that out of the blue, it makes me feel like a profound philosopher; and then, poof, I’ll laugh at myself. I never thought I would write a book for myself one day. Before I started writing, the mental draft of things that I wanted to write about would probably have used up countless post-it notes. Suddenly, I discovered that I was more prone to rambling than I’d expected. But when I actually put pen to paper, I didn’t know what to say. Anyway, I hope that from the sparse and simple prose in this book, you can feel the real me, the “me” just the way that I am.

And then, in the unknown future that lies ahead, I hope that even as I pursue my aspirations, I will always remember my original intentions. I hope I can face every unexpected acquaintance and long-awaited meeting with sincerity.

Two years ago, I left Shanghai and came to Beijing. It was an unfamiliar city, a completely new environment, and there’s a vast difference between the north and south (where I’m from). Along the way, I’ve seen different sides to myself, and at different stages and circumstances I’ve experienced love and friendship, as well as setbacks and pain. Still, from the bottom of my heart, I am grateful for all the people I’ve met and experiences I’ve had along the way.

After playing these characters, I’ve discovered that acting is truly a Pandora’s box. In every character, I’ve found a different side of me. I like the rich inner worlds and the unique soul in every character. They are the only ones who will always be with me for every next stage of my journey.

Life is not a grand banquet of material things, but a polishing of the soul, so that when the curtains fall the soul shines brighter than it did at the beginning when the curtains rose. For example, my favourite singer, Li Ronghao-laoshi, whose soul blossoms with the spirit of all things; he can write a whole song by himself and I can feel the power in the melody and the truth in the lyrics, all of which resonate in my heart. I may be just a fledgling in my career as an actor, but I am willing to work ten times, a hundred times harder, to create a character with a soul. That way, I won’t let myself down, I won’t let the years of my youth down, and I won’t let all of you down.

I would like to dedicate this book, 11.29 Begin, to myself at the age of 26, as well as to the interesting souls I admire.

[1] The phrase he used was 十里春风; literally translated to “ten li of spring scenery”, originating from the poem 《赠别·其一 (Presented at Parting, Part One) 》by Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu.

–

Chapter One

I’ve chosen what I love, so I should love what I’ve chosen. I’ve always wanted to be an actor.

Advance Bravely

Advance Bravely (盛势) is an adaptation of a novel by Chai Ji Dan (柴鸡蛋). Before I was casted in Advance Bravely, I had not read any of Chai-laoshi’s novels. Because the process between accepting the role and starting filming had been very rushed, I didn’t have the chance to read the script properly, so I thought it was simply a drama with two male leads. To better understand the character I was playing, Xia Yao, I decided to read the original novel. My first reaction was: “Wah! This is going too far!” So I was quite resistant at first.

I’ve forgotten where I came across this, but later I read this piece of advice: “I’ve chosen what I love, so I should love what I’ve chosen.” It was truly enlightening. Since I’ve chosen acting as a career, I should be passionate about every role that I play, imbuing every character with a soul and sense of self. That is my job. After that, I loosened up a lot and was less inhibited on set, which also lessened my mental stress. Only by letting go of my self-consciousness can I find my character’s sense of self.

This was not only my first time working with a proper filming crew, but also my first time taking on a role that had so many scenes. Xia Yao is the pivotal character in all the drama’s storylines. At first, I had a hard time coping with the number of scenes I had to film every day, but gradually I got the hang of it. In every production, everyone in the cast and crew are working hard together to present the best work to the audience.

The experience of filming the fight scenes and the scenes in the rain remain vivid in my mind. The martial arts instructors were very patient with me when they taught me the moves and techniques, including wrestling and sprinting under the machines making artificial rain. Previously, I had seen such scenes in the movies and they always looked so cool. Now that I’ve experienced the process of filming them, I realise that it takes a lot of hard work from the cast and crew to complete a scene like that.

We filmed this drama in Tianjin in summer. The weather was really hot and there were a lot of mosquitoes; we would not have survived without fans and a lot of insect repellant. Even the winter scenes were filmed in summer, and I had to wear heavy winter clothing and walk under the blistering sun at 37–38°C temperatures. At that time, I was suffering from an allergic reaction on the skin at the back of my neck, and it was then that I realised that being an actor really isn’t easy.

Xia Yao really enjoys his food, so I had a lot of scenes where I had to eat. I’m also someone who enjoys food so I was really happy until I actually had to film the scenes. Almost all the scenes that involved eating were scheduled on the same days, and in every scene I had to eat a lot to accommodate the various shots from different angles and camera positions, and I did so many takes that I had to keep eating and eating. By the time we wrapped, I had put Xia Yao’s favourite food, lotus root filled with glutinous rice, on my blacklist. I never want to see that dish again in my life, haha.

To get closer to the character of Xia Yao, when I’d finished filming my scenes for the day, I’d go for roller-blading and boxing lessons. As a result, I only had a few hours of sleep every day, and I felt like I was fighting in a war. I considered giving up a few times, but in the end I managed to pull through, not wanting to let everyone else down and waste all the effort that we had already put in. When I finally saw the finished product and saw that the accumulation of every day’s hard work had been woven into a story with such emotion and spirit, it solidified my passion and aspirations for acting as a career.

Acting is not just a job but a career I love

Before becoming an actor, I knew nothing about it. Now, I think that while you might be able to find a succinct definition of the job in the dictionary, what being an actor entails is so much more than that. Acting (as a profession) is like the rains of the south, constantly changing throughout the four seasons – sometimes a roaring storm and sometimes a gentle drizzle, bold and exciting, elegant and obstinate, always bringing anticipation and imagination, and giving one the kind of energy that seeps into your soul. An actor’s every performance can take your breath away with their mastery of their skill. Whether one is playing the mightiest hero or the most mild-mannered scholar, each character has their own emotional journey and soul.

I love acting. I love being able to experience different life stories through each character, I love the metamorphosis of every character that I bring to life. I love it, and I enjoy every moment of it.

In a life filled with trivial things, acting has become my dream, my aspiration, and where my heart lies. As Stephen King wrote in Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” For me, right now, that’s what my love for acting means to me. No matter how big the challenge, I will face it bravely.

–

“Life is a train to the grave. There will be many stops along the way, and it is difficult for someone to accompany you from the beginning to the end. When someone who is with you has to get off the train, you should say ‘thank you’ even if you find it hard to let go. Then wave goodbye.”　

一 Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki

–

Chapter Two

The process of growing up is like a thief of time; it will steal the things you’ve been dependent on, the things you’ve been holding onto all your life.

Love Lost in Times

Love Lost in Times (醉玲珑) was my first costume drama, so I had to learn a lot of things, including horseback riding, archery, chess and so on. One particular scene filmed mainly in Dunhuang required many shots of me riding a horse, but I had zero experience with horses. It took me almost a whole day to learn how to ride a horse, but they told me I was a pretty fast learner, and I was quite gleeful about that – maybe I have some talent in this area.

I played the role of the eleventh prince, Yuan Ji, or as you all like to call him, “the scary protector of his brother". In the drama, he is brave and loyal, protecting his fourth brother in every way, obeying everything he says, and aiding him in everything he does. Yuan Ji is also pretty devoted in his romantic relationships, doting on Cai Qian. But the reality on set was that everyone was taking care of me. The director guided me on filming techniques, and Wai-ting-ge (William Chan Wai-ting) shared his years of experience with me. As a newcomer to costume drama, every time I couldn’t get into the right headspace, everyone helped me get into character, feeding lines to me off-camera, practising lines with me, and teaching me how to be more natural. I remember there was a scene in which three characters were playing against each other and I couldn’t get into the right headspace. We must have had to do more than ten takes because of me, but the director didn’t blame me. Instead, he guided me patiently, talking through the emotional beats of the scene so that I could get into the character’s headspace more easily, and Wai-ting-ge was there to feed me my lines. It made me feel that the whole cast and crew was like a big family, bringing together a lot of loving and caring people who helped each other like family.

My company is the best gift that I can give my family

There is an old saying: while your parents are still alive, do not travel far.

My parents were always there for me while I was growing up, and now that I’ve grown up, my biggest wish is to take my parents travelling and show them the world. But as an actor, free time is hard to come by. Whenever I do have time between projects, I’ll bring my family out for a spin, taking them to try out food places and shops that have been highly recommended online, and touring famous landmarks and scenic views with them. What’s important is that I’m there to hold their hands.

The moon is always brighter at home [2]

One of my friends shared this quote in our group chat: “I went through so many examinations, but all I got for it was having to leave home, never getting to spend the spring or autumn with my family, only the fleeting winter and summer.” [3]

Going to university was my first taste of separation from my family. I was born in Chengdu, grew up in Chengdu, and I’d never left it before then. On the day that I left, I took the last possible flight out. Behind me were my parents, reluctant to see me go and filled with worry; in front of me lay the university life that I’d been looking forward to. I was suddenly aware that I stood at a turning point in my life. I would no longer have my nagging but loving parents by my side, and I would have to grow into my best self independently, taking responsibility for myself. The two-and-a-half-hour flight brought me to a foreign city. There were none of the familiar little shops that I’d visited every week, none of the internet cafes that I’d frequented when I was playing truant from school, none of all my decade-old “secret bases”.

After I started university, I seldom had the opportunity to spend the mid-autumn festival at home, and after I graduated I didn’t even get to go home many times in a year. Over time, I began to really feel the accumulation of all those mid-autumn festivals and other festivities that I hadn’t had the chance to celebrate with my family. Like my favourite Dongzikou Zhang’s cold noodles and Liaoji Laoma’s pig trotters from the alleyways of Chengdu, all these have become things that I can only experience in my memories.

[2] This is a line from 《月夜憶舍弟 (Thinking of My Younger Brothers on a Moonlit Night)》, a poem by Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu.

[3] These are lyrics from the song 《我的大学 (My University)》. Both the spring festival (the Lunar New Year) and the mid-autumn festival are important celebrations of reunion and family in Chinese culture.

–

Chapter Three

I have come to join this celebration of youth that I’ve heard so much about, pulling aside the curtains to face the unknown with excitement and enthusiasm; embracing it, protecting it.

The spin-off

Love Lost in Times (醉玲珑) and Exquisite Drunken Dream (玲珑醉梦) were filmed at the same time, one after the other, so we managed to keep the same cast for both projects. Because we’d all been working together for a while, we were all very fond of each other and comfortable with each other, and at the later stages we were even confident enough to make suggestions to the director.

Exquisite Drunken Dream is mainly about the eleventh prince and Cai Qian. Xu Muchan and I had gotten to know each other well after Love Lost in Times and we’re very good friends in real life. She’s from Dongbei, so when we’re chatting, sometimes she’ll unconsciously say something in Dongbei dialect so I ended up picking up some of it from her. Sometimes I still slip into Dongbei dialect! I remember reading a joke from somewhere, that if there’s someone from Dongbei living in your dormitories, after a week you’ll all become people from Dongbei. It looks like the Dongbei dialect really does have that power, and Xu Muchan definitely has plenty of the generosity and charm typical of the people from Dongbei.

We had a lot of fun filming Exquisite Drunken Dream and we were more relaxed on set so we were more daring about trying out new things in the scenes that would not have been possible in the main series. There were a lot of characters in Love Lost in Times and every character had a very fulfilling storyline, so we didn’t want to suggest too many of our own changes in case it messed up the big picture story arc. But because Exquisite Drunken Dream revolves around the eleventh prince and Cai Qian, we were more daring about suggesting quirks for our own characters to make them come alive, and contributed more of our own opinions on our performances. That was a new experience for me.

To my beloved friends

I am thankful for the new friends I make from every project, and I’m grateful to have them in my life.

I make friends quite easily. As long as we get along and are comfortable with each other, friendship is as simple as sharing stories over a round of drinks, and being open and relaxed around each other is the most important.

Actually, a lot of my friends are very similar to me in terms of personality, and we share similar interests. Our interactions are simple and casual. I don’t really have many hobbies or interests – playing video/computer games, going to the gym, cooking. I live quite near two of my friends from university, so we’ll play games together, they’ll let me borrow their gym membership cards, and I’ll cook for them. It might not be much, but it makes me happy.

I have passed through your world countless times

Many people will appear and bloom in your life, bringing joy and laughter, while many others will leave, sometimes forever, bringing pain and regret. Time passes quickly, and those who pass through my world must have had a special bond of fate with me.

At the end of every project, I will feel melancholic for a while. The end of a project means we will have to say goodbye to each other, and separation means eventually becoming distant to each other. But because I have put in time and effort into every relationship, I don’t want these relationships to fade over time.

On set, everyone treats me like a younger brother, and the time we spent together remains vivid in my mind – shooting scenes together, memorising our lines together, eating together, playing games together, and chatting about everything and anything together. The happy and busy times pass so quickly and before I know it, it’s time to say goodbye and end this brief time together. With reluctance, gratitude and stammered words of farewell, everyone heads off on their next journey.

–

“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. You see, the world looks very different up here… Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way. Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try.”

“Seize the day… Carpe Diem.”

一 Dead Poets Society

–

Chapter Four

When you are faced with obstacles, chew through them carefully like you would chew your food. Life is something you have to digest slowly on your own.

Fantasy Westward Journey

Fantasy Westward Journey (梦幻西游) is a classic game that a lot of us played for many years, a unique memory from our youth. I was a fan of the game too and I was really excited when I found out I was going to be in this drama [4]. As an avid gamer, getting to play the main character in the game world is usually the kind of dream you have after gaming all night, but this dream came true for me.

I joined the production team with great anticipation and excitement. All the mountains, rivers, and valleys that I had visited in the game world were represented by green screens on set, and the ever-changing fantastical abilities of the characters would only be added in with CGI in post-production. It was extremely challenging for me at that time to act with no physical guides. The actors were surrounded by green cloth and had to find their own sightlines, camera angles, and position markers.

Because the story would alternate between the historical fantasy setting of the game world and modern day setting of the real world, the actors had to adjust their performances and speech patterns accordingly. In the game world, we had to speak in a more elegant manner, while the dialogue in modern scenes were done in casual everyday speech. A lot of the scenes played on the juxtaposition and switching between these two settings. I learnt a lot through this production, including new acting techniques.

The ten-thousand-year love affair between Chengdu people and hotpot

Chengdu people like to take life at a leisurely pace – it is our attitude to life and things that come our way. I was born and raised in Chengdu, and like the people of my hometown, I enjoy a comfortable and relaxed lifestyle but that doesn’t mean that I’ll overindulge in it. The best way to demonstrate the characteristics of Chengdu people is probably in the spirit of the way we eat hotpot. In Chengdu, eating hotpot is all about the mood and feelings it inspires. Slow cooking brings out the unique flavours and reminds us to savour life. Every ingredient dipped however briefly in the soup stock makes us realise that every chance meeting adds to the rich tapestry of our lives, and the bubbling soup mimics the ups and downs that we must experience in life.

To fully experience Chengdu’s spirit of hotpot-eating, you must of course eat it with both the “ma” (numbing) and “la” (spiciness) flavours. There are hotpot restaurants everywhere you go, and all of them are imbued with the same spirit. You can cook tens of thousands of ingredients of every variety in the same hotpot, and that is how you understand the tolerance and open-mindedness of the people of Chengdu.

I’ve loved eating hotpot since I was a child – I don’t know if I was born with a taste for it, or it was something inculcated by my family. When I was young, my family ran a business and there was a hotpot restaurant near the factory. I ate there very frequently, basically every other day. The owner of the restaurant was very friendly with my family, and I ate there so often that I was practically like their foster son!

Eat more, my friends, life is short!

In many households, the mother is the one who is capable both in and out of the kitchen and the father just sits in the living room soaking his feet and watching TV. But in my family, my dad takes care of everything in the household, and he also has a special skill – he’s a really good cook. When I was a kid, my mother and paternal grandmother would always play assistant to my father and paternal grandfather in the kitchen. One of my most heart-warming memories from childhood was that after walking home from school every day at noon, my grandfather would have my lunch ready and he would be waiting for me at home. I liked to watch TV while I ate, so my grandfather would mix the sauce from the dishes in my rice before bringing me my meal, and if I ate well he would chuckle and pat me on the head. In my memory, my grandfather’s hands were very large and warm. [5]

When I was young, my family had a small factory, and the cook at the factory cafeteria was a really good cook. When I had nothing to do during the summer holidays, I would go and watch him cook and I learnt a lot of cooking techniques from him. Most of the dishes I know how to cook are Sichuan cuisine, and the finished products are all pretty presentable. The first time I cooked was during the Lunar New Year – I cooked a full table of dishes for my family, and although it’s so long ago that I don’t remember how the food tasted, I still remember the pleased smiles on the faces of my family members. Probably because of the affirmation I received when I was young, I have always taken great delight in cooking, so I often cook for my friends and colleagues. When I’m at home and not away filming, my house is basically their communal dining hall.

With a messy kitchen, a dining table laden with piping hot dishes, and three to five friends getting together with laughter and jokes, even being in the big city of Beijing doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.

[4] This drama series was filmed in 2017 but put on the back-burner for a long time. After the success of Word of Honour, it was eventually released in April 2021 under the title The Player (指尖少年). Gong Jun is also currently the new spokesperson for the PC version of the game.

[5] Gong Jun’s paternal grandfather passed away in 2015, four years before the publication of this book.

–

Chapter Five

No longer wandering aimlessly along this limitless and boundless path to growing up, but seeking victory through experiences, finding a direction, and always searching.

Art On!

Art On! (艺术生) [6] is a coming-of-age drama series about youthful inspiration, with art students as its main characters. As an art student myself, I really empathised with the challenges the characters faced working towards the university entrance exams/auditions.

Dance is the second most important skill that all art students have to learn, but for someone like me with very bad physical coordination, it was a real challenge. Before we began filming, all the actors went for about half a month of classes. The different stretching exercises were a nightmare for me, but I gritted my teeth and bore with the pain for half a month. Filming Art On! was like reliving my days as an art student in university. Other than the dance classes that I couldn’t get the hang of, everything else was more or less familiar to me, so it was much easier to get into the role.

The straight-A student with a guilty conscience

Other than the dance practices, another challenge I faced for this role was having to understand how it felt to be a straight-A student. In the drama, my character is an all-rounder and high achiever with perfect grades, but in real life I’m the complete opposite. I think most guys don’t like studying when they’re young – this is my personal opinion, and maybe I’m just giving myself excuses for my poor results. Anyway, there are always many outstanding students in school, but I was never one of them.

I’ve never stressed myself about school. The classroom was the best place for naps and internet cafes were my favourite haunt. I slept during classes and only woke up to play computer/video games after school, and sometimes I’d even play truant so that I could spend more time playing games. Before I started preparing for my university entrance exams/auditions, I had probably never put in any real effort in my studies. It was only after I became an art student that I decided that it was time to put in some effort towards my own life.

An accidental occurrence

The university entrance examinations are an extremely stressful period, an army of thousands trying to cross a bridge made from a single plank. By the time I realised that I would actually have to study to get into university, it felt like it was already too late. But sometimes life is like that – just when you’ve given up hope, the gods will give you a bit of candy.

One completely ordinary afternoon, three teachers came to visit our class. After one week of observations, one of the teachers pointed at me and said, “Could you please step out.” Just like that, the door to the examinations/auditions for art students was open to me. I worked hard to learn the skills needed for the auditions, and every day was rewarding, happy, but also very tiring. Fortunately, I soon received the acceptance letter for Donghua University in Shanghai.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the teachers hadn’t walked into my class that day, or if I had played truant again and hadn’t been in school? What would my life be like now?

Youth, in all its glory

There’s a song that goes, “Youth is a journey where you may stumble and fall, but when you look back on it, there’s beauty in it” [7], and I think that’s exactly what it’s like. Art On! brought me back to a university campus and made me feel like I was reliving my university days. All the big story arcs and little details brought back so many memories of those four years.

It is the best age, the best time to shape up into the best version of yourself. There were a lot of students learning together, and most of our days were pretty mundane. But whenever we had to put up an actual performance, there would be a lot of laughter. Because we were all inexperienced actors, our performances were very unstructured, and when we watched our classmates perform, we didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

My university days were filled with both laughter and tears, and it was both the easiest and the toughest time. Being reminded of a single moment can lead to endless reminiscing, a beautiful memory of youth. I remember that one chef on the first floor of Cafeteria No. 2 made really good claypot rice, I remember being scolded by the lady in charge of the dormitories for secretly cooking hotpot in the dormitories, I remember the banners under the parasol tree where you could confess your crush, and I remember riding my bicycle through the breeze that made my short hair slightly messy.

[6] This drama series was filmed in 2017 but has not been released, although there are rumours that it might be released at the end of 2021 or in 2022.

[7] 《小幸运 (A Bit of Good Fortune)》by Hebe Tian.

–

“Only when one travels can one hear their own voice. It will tell you that the world is bigger than one can imagine. In this world, you will meet many opportunities, but you will never meet ‘God’. You have to find your own way.”

一 Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki

–

Chapter Six

I had a cup of hot coffee in my hand, or perhaps it was a cup of warm milk tea – I forget. All I remember are the opportunities and tribulations that came and went.

Unique Lady (绝世千金)

As a newbie, my acting experience and life experiences are both limited, so I enjoy getting the opportunity to experience new things during filming. Unique Lady is adapted from a text-based adventure role-playing game titled Lascivious Lady (好色千金) with a very Mary Sue protagonist. My character, Zhong Wumei, is arrogant with a dark side, sharp-tongued but secretly kind-hearted, a domineering prince who will choose righteousness over love. The part about this production that left the strongest impression on me is that the director would step in to fill whatever roles were required when we were short of actors, playing both male and female characters. He was very good at helping us figure out where we needed improvement, and it was always very entertaining when he dressed up for female roles.

Creating a “Domineering CEO”-type character for costume dramas that stands out from the rest means coming up with new gimmicks. The director gave me a lot of suggestions and inspiration when I was figuring out the character, and I really must thank him for his guidance.

My personal “Doraemon”

I really am quite a lucky person. I didn’t experience much hardship when I was growing up, and a lot of people took care of me when I went to university. In my second year of university, my seniors from school linked me up with some jobs filming commercials. That was my first taste of working life, and my first practical learning experience. After graduation, I stayed in Shanghai and filmed commercials for a year, but gradually I realised that as an actor, this wasn’t what I wanted from my career or pace of life. So I decided to move up north to Beijing.

In the cartoon series Doraemon, the main character Nobita has a round blue friend that he can always count on – I have a round friend who is always by my side too, my biaoge (older male cousin). My biaoge is very plump and fair, and with a full beard on his face, he may look quite fierce. But in reality, he’s a very kind, sensitive, and meticulous person. He’s given me a lot of help along the way, and I discuss a lot of things with him. Initially, I was quite anxious and uneasy about moving to Beijing, but even when faced with the unfamiliar and unforeseeable future, I knew that my biaoge had my back. He helped me with renting a place and the little everyday things, so that my move to the big city went smoothly and comfortably.

A strong support team

Many people who come to Beijing to find work may find that it’s full of hardship and really not easy, but things have gone pretty well for me since I’ve come to Beijing, and that’s my bit of good fortune. I haven’t experienced anything that has been particularly unbearable or upsetting since I’ve moved to Beijing, and things have been fairly smooth-sailing both in work and in my personal life.

Soon after I moved to Beijing, Chai Ji Dan-laoshi found me through Weibo, and I was casted in my first ever drama series, Advance Bravely – so thank you Dandan-jie.

Since I started my career, I have found that the difficulties of being a newcomer, the struggle to make ends meet, and preparing for the daily grind, have not drowned my passion and enthusiasm for this place. Instead, I feel that these experiences have made my life more real and added flavour to it. I have been able to adjust to and accept these unfamiliar things because I have my team, Biao-ge, my cousin, and many, many people around me supporting me. Their help, guidance, and companionship have given me the confidence and a great sense of security so that I can persevere on my path. I know that I will face other difficulties in future, but I believe that I will still be able to overcome them with big strides and keep going forward.

–

“I didn’t remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.”

一 The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

–

Chapter Seven

Fate doesn’t always come knocking, but when it does, it always arrives with a dramatic entrance. That’s why its other name is “Moment”.

Just a little drunk

The protagonist in Flavour It’s Yours (看见味道的你) was even more of a Mary Sue than the one in Unique Lady. In this drama series, I played a genius wine critic – except that my superhuman taste buds had to be awakened with a kiss, and that was the beginning of a strange love story.

In my opinion, when filming romantic dramas, you have to know each other very well. Once you get in character, you must imagine that you really are the character in this story. When I was filming Flavour It’s Yours, I convinced myself that I was indeed Lu Weixun, and I really loved the girl who was standing in front of me. To make a character come alive, you have to invest real feelings when you are acting out the scene. But once filming is over, you must step out of the character and live your own real life.

Flipped

One of my favourite movies is Flipped (an American romantic comedy released in 2010, with the Chinese title 《怦然心动 (Fluttering Heart)》). “Every once in a while, you find someone who’s iridescent, and once you do, nothing will ever compare.”

Finding someone you like is easy, but finding one who matches you is a little bit more difficult. Liking someone is about finding them attractive, feeling positive about everything they say or do; but the transition from “liking” to “matching" each other means you will end up taking on some of each other’s qualities. This is a process that nobody else can get in the way of, a communion of two souls and a promise to guard and protect each other. With such a relationship, you can find comfort in each other’s company, and you feel the simplicity and purity of the connection.

Many people spend their youth being involved in all sorts of heart-rending and gut-wrenching romantic relationships, but I seem to have spent most of my youth playing games and hanging out with my buddies. Looking back now, I’m actually quite envious of people who’ve experienced earth-shaking, passionate romantic relationships.

I can’t give you a definite physical description of my ideal type of girl or tell you what kind of personality she should have. But when she does appear in my life, I will take her hand bravely and invite her into my life.

–

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

一 Darkest Hour (a 2017 UK war drama film)

–

Afterword

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I’m already on the way there.

This is a letter to myself at the age of 26, as well as a summary of my life so far. A lot of unexpected meetings and events have happened in my life, but luckily, all of them have been beautiful and fortunate accidents. Both the joy when things are going smoothly and the pain when things are not going well are stepping stones for the long, arduous path to the future, so that I can keep improving and become a better version of myself.

In the past, I often felt lost and confused, but now I’ve finally had the time and energy to sum up all the things that have happened in my life and work so far. This book, 1129, marks the beginning of a new phase of my life, and is also a farewell to the phase that has passed. Whether the path ahead is going to be a field of flowers or a sea of thorns, I will face it filled with confidence and courage. After all, I’m already on the way…

With thanks to

I would like to thank all those who have accompanied me and supported me, giving me energy and strength. Their appearance in my life have helped me so much, and I am thankful to fate for bringing these people into my life and giving me the chance to know them.

A note in Gong Jun’s handwriting that is printed at the end of the book:

I’ve used the scenery I’ve seen along the way (as a backdrop to the photos in this book) to present this image of myself: someone who doesn’t have very intense desires, but also someone who doesn’t like a bland life. Like the majority of people, I am unexceptional but real, and both sincere and genuine.

Along the way, in both the happy and sad times, all of you have been there with me, sharing your warmth with me. I am thankful for your unwavering companionship and your constant unchanging warmth. To me, you are all priceless and rare treasures [8], and in the blank pages at the end of this book, I hope you can write down your own feelings and give it the perfect ending.

Gong Jun

[8] The phrase he used was 夏代有工的玉; literally translated to “jade with workmanship from the Xia Dynasty”, originating from the poem 《可遇不可求的事 (Things That You May Chance Upon But Cannot Seek)》 by Chinese novelist Feng Tang. The Xia Dynasty was the first dynasty in Chinese history (2070–1600 BC) and the jade items that survived from that era were almost never polished or worked on, so it’s a metaphor for something priceless and incredibly rare.

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forabeatofadrum · 2 years

Text

Hi, hi @you-remind-me-of-the-babe thanks for the tag. It’s a national holiday in the Netherlands, but I’ve never celebrated King’s (or Queen’s) Day, so I am enjoying my day off. The real MVP today is Charlie Spring. Screw the king of the Netherlands, happy 27th birthday Charlie Spring!

I once again come bearing the gifts of Klaine and Snowbaz. First, some Ebb and Flow. I hoped to have finished it by now, but it is still coming together. One more chapter left, folks!

Blaine’s waiting for the door to open and fuck, what is he doing? He’s mentally trying to find a swift escape route. He can move a couple of feet to the right, to his own door, and just bolt. But then Mr. 21 might wonder who knocked on his door. And they live on the fifth floor of an apartment building, so Blaine can’t make Mr. 21 believe that it’s a couple of kids playing around. Besides, he knocked, instead of using the doorbell, which makes it even more obvious that someone is actually in front of the door-

“Oh, hello neighbour.”

Blaine was so stuck in his head that he didn’t even notice Mr. 21 opening the door.

The escape plan is definitely a no-go.

Second, I posted my @co-wipadoption fic Call Me Maybe which I’ve written with/adopted from @captain-aralias, but I actually have a little deleted/alternative scene. I’ll put it under the cut for possible spoilers, together with an explanation and the tags.

This takes place on the day Penny and Shepard went shopping in London. Penny calls after their ramen dinner and Agatha is at her own flat in San Diego, scrolling through Instagram. The call originally went like this:

“Hi!” I hear, “We’re walking back to my flat. Shepard’s here too. Say hi, Shepard.”

“Hi Agatha,” Shepard’s voice is clear and I won’t be surprised if Penelope used a spell for that.

“To answer your question, the fall and winter collection is currently on sale, which is why I am looking at knitwear.”

“Well, that and the whole demon thing,” Shepard says and Penelope hisses at him to be quiet. I think she said something like ‘not in front of Agatha’, and I bark out a laugh.

“Sorry, we know you don’t want to talk about magickal stuff,” Penelope says.

I am home alone, so I don’t have to hide my surprise. Penelope keeps doing all these things for me. I am not used to it.

“It’s fine,” I say, “I actually did some household magic yesterday. Merlin, I forgot how nice that can be.”

“Really?” Penelope sounds surprised.

I automatically get up to retrieve my wand.

“Does this mean we can talk about the curse?” Shepard asks.

I fling my wand without magic.

“Well, I still prefer to live a more Normal life, so I don’t really want to know what kind of trouble you two have gotten yourself into, but,” I sigh, “I am still a mage. I just don’t want every conversation to be about magic.”

“So… no demon?” Shepard asks.

“Preferably not,” I answer, “So. How was the ramen?”

“Fan-tas-tic!” Shepard exclaims.

The main reason I cut this is because of Shepard. In the final scene, Penny tells Agatha about the whole curse thing alone, because they’ve gotten home and Shepard is taking a shower. I decided that I wanted Agatha, Penny and Ginger to be the only characters in the story that got a big role, so I pushed Shep back to the background, where he’s chilling with Simon and Baz. I wanted to focus on Agatha and Penny instead. This is also why I kept writing Shepard out of the story when Agatha and Penny are calling after I cut this. He’s showering! He’s at Pret-A-Manger! He’s out with Simon and Baz!

The reason I added Shepard in the first draft was because I wanted Agatha to pick up on some romantic tension between them during the call, and that would lead to the big ‘are you and Shepard a thing?’ question. But I was very much struggling with how Agatha would pick this up, especially since my aroace ass has difficulties with that too. (Hence why I asked the people on the CO Discord for the eventual Stormchaser scene.) So instead I moved the whole Shepard thing AFTER the events of AWTWB, where Penny can just outright tell Agatha that they’re together. I think this works better.

And another change is the magic thing. In the final scene, Agatha does agree to listening to the curse story. Now that it’s just Agatha and Penelope, they get to talk about how Agatha is opening up to magic again. I didn’t really know how to do that with Shepard around, since Shepard doesn’t know Agatha’s history with magic.

That’s why I changed it and I think the final scene is better. I got really stuck on this snippet, so I just decided to throw it in the bin all together.

Tagging @quizasvivamos @blurglesmurfklaine @coffeegleek @esperantoauthor @redheadgleek @urban-sith @mostlymaudlin @captain-aralias @dragoneggo @otherworldsivelivedin @bookish-bogwitch @caramelcoffeeaddict @thnxforknowingme @sillyunicorn @ivelovedhimthroughworse @wellbelesbian @cutestkilla @urban-sith @excalisbury @takitalks @bazzybelle @tea-brigade @martsonmars @facewithoutheart @captain-aralias

#wip wednesday #tagged in

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bluewinnerangel · 3 years

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Hi there! I can to you from twopoppie’s blog! I sent her an ask about someone who’s willing to explain recent Larry theories! Is that someone you?!

Hi! Happy you found me, and of course I’d love to :)

So I'm going to be real honest here, I was working on this loads today. I made a big and I mean BIG draft, like a detailed long collection of shit they pulled and explaining each thing but the further I went the more uncomfortable I got. Like, gathering everything together in one single post. But I definitely want to discuss these things, perhaps I'll divide the things I wrote into seperate posts at some point, but for now I just wanna ask you instead to be more specific which theories to explain? I'd be very happy to go into detail about individual ones, and I might have a lot of shit ready in my drafts because of it now lol.

Anyway, I copied most of it to another draft but left some, have some very loud recent-ish larrying bits:

Feb 28 2020 (Harry’s Falling MV released but also:) Harry did an interview, where he said

“the fish is uh... he’s traveling at the moment, he’s on a gap year, and hopefully he will come back safe. We’re taking a little time apart”

while Louis’ Tour would start only 5 days later.

Same days:

They then geared the larrying in full speed as these dorks were in some kind of out-bluegreening eachother competition. It’s not that I want to be that person that starts screaming everytime they wear something remotely blue-and-green and call it “larry proof”, but, they seem to avoid it like their lives depend on it and then suddenly boom there is blue-and-green 3 days in a row???

Harry papped march 1st - doing interviews march 2nd - and louis’ video that released march 3rd (explained here):

July/September 2020 - during lockdown eleanor posts this one pic of louis to her instagram stories, and puts it in her highlights (it’s still there in the uh dogs folder), this is like one of the very few Louis-with-eleanor moments of the past... years? But then about 2 months later Harry "makes it his" in a way when he takes a picture with a fan wearing the same shirt... And it’s a vintage shirt, and Harry doesn’t wear Umbro (Louis often does). Sooo that’s the same damn shirt. Here a good tag about it.

Dec 12 2020 - this idiot wears a MASSIVE MASSIVE H during his liveshow. We barely see him and the one, the one show he does he shows up like this:

Really could have worn anything, chooses a plain black shirt with a ridiculous H on it. He really must love Hotels. The fact that Harry often goes by H, signs of his tweets with it and all just makes it 10x worse lol.

Jan 4/5 2021 (same day holivia happened) people who bought Harry's merch (that wasn't advertised to have bluegreen hearts on them) started receiving them, once opened it turned out they were literally the most vile bluegreening mess...

Jan 31 2021 - I went into deep detail about the spotify backgrounds but ill just link this here instead, basically Louis put Harry's tattoos on his spotify on during his Walls anniversary and Harry's birthday. He also tweeted a song "Maybe Tomorrow"

considering it was H's birthday the next day and it wasn’t even an answer to the question it looks like he really really just wanted to post that song that day and took whatever thing that came closest to a relevant question to answer this to. To make things worse, the song is about maybe tomorrow finding your way home and includes rainbows.

I don't really know if that answered anything, but I hope that helps. Anyway, my inbox is open :)

#honestly i kinda burned myself out with that draft #like i love love discussing the shit theyre doing #because i truly am convinced theyre pulling the wildest shit #aggressive larrying #but im not looking for proofs in the things they do #so then to make a post that effectively is out there with the purpose of showing proofs #trying to convince people #just kinda made me uncomfortable?#while im out here with the larry laurels masterpost and ridiculous deepdives about louis lining up his playlists to harrys albums #maybe i shouldnt be the one to talk #but ok #and also #like just the thought of inviting discourse #being by angry antis #just drained my energy bigtime #imapuddle #long post

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mcmansionhell · 4 years

Text

Coronagrifting: A Design Phenomenon

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled content to bring you a critical essay on the design world. I promise you that this will also be funny.

This morning, the design website Dezeen tweeted a link to one of its articles, depicting a plexiglass coronavirus shield that could be suspended above dining areas, with the caption “Reader comment: ‘Dezeen, please stop promoting this stupidity.’”

This, of course, filled many design people, including myself, with a kind of malicious glee. The tweet seemed to show that the website’s editorial (or at least social media) staff retained within themselves a scintilla of self-awareness regarding the spread a new kind of virus in its own right: cheap mockups of COVID-related design “solutions” filling the endlessly scrollable feeds of PR-beholden design websites such as Dezeen, ArchDaily, and designboom. I call this phenomenon: Coronagrifting.

I’ll go into detail about what I mean by this, but first, I would like to presenet some (highly condensed) history.

From Paper Architecture to PR-chitecture

Back in the headier days of architecture in the 1960s and 70s, a number of architectural avant gardes (such as Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy and Archigram in the UK) ceased producing, well, buildings, in favor of what critics came to regard as “paper architecture.” This “paper architecture” included everything from sprawling diagrams of megastructures, including cities that “walked” or “never stopped” - to playfully erotic collages involving Chicago’s Marina City. Occasionally, these theoretical and aesthetic explorations were accompanied by real-world productions of “anti-design” furniture that may or may not have involved foam fingers.

Archigram’s Walking City (1964). Source.

Paper architecture, of course, still exists, but its original radical, critical, playful, (and, yes, even erotic) elements were shed when the last of the ultra-modernists were swallowed up by the emerging aesthetic hegemony of Postmodernism (which was much less invested in theoretical and aesthetic futurism) in the early 1980s. What remained were merely images, the production and consumption of which has only increased as the design world shifted away from print and towards the rapidly produced, easily digestible content of the internet and social media.

Architect Bjarke Ingels’s “Oceanix” - a mockup of an ecomodernist, luxury city designed in response to rising sea levels from climate change. The city will never be built, and its critical interrogation amounts only to “city with solar panels that floats bc climate change is Serious” - but it did get Ingels and his firm, BIG, a TED talk and circulation on all of the hottest blogs and websites. Meanwhile, Ingels has been in business talks with the right-wing climate change denialist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. (Image via designboom)

Design websites are increasingly dominated by text and mockups from the desks of a firm’s public relations departments, facilitating a transition from the paper-architecture-imaginary to what I have begun calling “PR-chitecture.” In short, PR-chitecture is architecture and design content that has been dreamed up from scratch to look good on instagram feeds or, more simply, for clicks. It is only within this substance-less, critically lapsed media landscape that Coronagrifting can prosper.

Coronagrifting: An Evolution

As of this writing, the two greatest offenders of Coronagrifting are Dezeen, which has devoted an entire section of its website to the virus (itself offering twelve pages of content since February alone) and designboom, whose coronavirus tag contains no fewer than 159 articles.

Certainly, a small handful of these stories demonstrate useful solutions to COVID-related problems (such as this one from designboom about a student who created a mask prototype that would allow D/deaf and hard of hearing people to read lips) most of the prototypes and the articles about them are, for a lack of a better word, insipid.

But where, you may ask, did it all start?

One of the easiest (and, therefore, one of the earliest) Coronagrifts involves “new innovative, health-centric designs tackling problems at the intersection of wearables and personal mobility,” which is PR-chitecture speak for “body shields and masks.”

Wearables and Post-ables

The first example came from Chinese architect Sun Dayong, back at the end of February 2020, when the virus was still isolated in China. Dayong submitted to Dezeen a prototype of a full mask and body-shield that “would protect a wearer during a coronavirus outbreak by using UV light to sterilise itself.” The project was titled “Be a Bat Man.” No, I am not making this up.

Screenshot of Dayong’s “Be a Batman” as seen on the Dezeen website.

Soon after, every artist, architect, designer, and sharp-eyed PR rep at firms and companies only tangentially related to design realized that, with the small investment of a Photoshop mockup and some B-minus marketing text, they too could end up on the front page of these websites boasting a large social media following and an air of legitimacy in the field.

By April, companies like Apple and Nike were promising the use of existing facilities for producing or supplying an arms race’s worth of slick-tech face coverings. Starchitecture’s perennial PR-churners like Foster + Partners and Bjarke Ingels were repping “3D-printed face shields”, while other, lesser firms promised wearable vaporware like “grapheme filters,” branded “skincare LED masks for encouraging self-development” and “solar powered bubble shields.”

While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design.

Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to Save Lives.”

Some of the earliest offenders include cutesy posters featuring flags in the shape of houses, ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home;” a designer building a pyramid out of pillows ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home”; and Banksy making “lockdown artwork” that involved covering his bathroom in images of rats ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home.”

Lol. Screenshot from Dezeen.

You may be asking, “What’s the harm in all this, really, if it projects a good message?” And the answer is that people are plenty well encouraged to stay home due to the rampant spread of a deadly virus at the urging of the world’s health authorities, and that these tone-deaf art world creeps are using such a crisis for shameless self promotion and the generation of clicks and income, while providing little to no material benefit to those at risk and on the frontlines.

Of course, like the mask coronagrift, the Public Service Announcement coronagrift continues to this very day.

The final iteration of Post-able and Wearable Coronagrifting genres are what I call “Passive Aggressive Social Distancing Initiatives” or PASDIs. Many of the first PASDIs were themselves PSAs and art grifts, my favorite of which being the designboom post titled “social distancing applied to iconic album covers like the beatle’s abbey road.” As you can see, we’re dealing with extremely deep stuff here.

However, an even earlier and, in many ways more prescient and lucrative grift involves “social distancing wearables.” This can easily be summarized by the first example of this phenomenon, published March 19th, 2020 on designboom:

Never wasting a single moment to capitalize on collective despair, all manner of brands have seized on the social distancing wearable trend, which, again, can best be seen in the last example of the phenomenon, published May 22nd, 2020 on designboom:

We truly, truly live in Hell.

Which brings us, of course, to living.

“Architectural Interventions” for a “Post-COVID World”

As soon as it became clear around late March and early April that the coronavirus (and its implications) would be sticking around longer than a few months, the architectural solutions to the problem came pouring in. These, like the virus itself, started at the scale of the individual and have since grown to the scale of the city. (Whether or not they will soon encompass the entire world remains to be seen.)

The architectural Coronagrift began with accessories (like the designboom article about 3D-printed door-openers that enable one to open a door with one’s elbow, and the Dezeen article about a different 3D-printed door-opener that enables one to open a door with one’s elbow) which, in turn, evolved into “work from home” furniture (”Stykka designs cardboard #StayTheF***Home Desk for people working from home during self-isolation”) which, in turn, evolved into pop-up vaporware architecture for first responders (”opposite office proposes to turn berlin's brandenburg airport into COVID-19 'superhospital'”), which, in turn evolved into proposals for entire buildings (”studio prototype designs prefabricated 'vital house' to combat COVID-19″); which, finally, in turn evolved into “urban solutions” aimed at changing the city itself (a great article summarizing and criticizing said urban solutions was recently written by Curbed’s Alissa Walker).

There is something truly chilling about an architecture firm, in order to profit from attention seized by a global pandemic, logging on to their computers, opening photoshop, and drafting up some lazy, ineffectual, unsanitary mockup featuring figures in hazmat suits carrying a dying patient (macabrely set in an unfinished airport construction site) as a real, tangible solution to the problem of overcrowded hospitals; submitting it to their PR desk for copy, and sending it out to blogs and websites for clicks, knowing full well that the sole purpose of doing so consists of the hope that maybe someone with lots of money looking to commission health-related interiors will remember that one time there was a glossy airport hospital rendering on designboom and hire them.

Enough, already.

Frankly, after an endless barrage of cyberpunk mask designs, social distancing burger king crowns, foot-triggered crosswalk beg buttons that completely ignore accessibility concerns such as those of wheelchair users, cutesy “stay home uwu” projects from well-to-do art celebrities (who are certainly not suffering too greatly from the economic ramifications of this pandemic), I, like the reader featured in the Dezeen Tweet at the beginning of this post, have simply had enough of this bullshit.

What’s most astounding to me about all of this (but especially about #brand crap like the burger king crowns) is that it is taken completely seriously by design establishments that, despite being under the purview of PR firms, should frankly know better. I’m sure that Bjarke Ingels and Burger King aren’t nearly as affected by the pandemic as those who have lost money, jobs, stability, homes, and even their lives at the hands of COVID-19 and the criminally inept national and international response to it. On the other hand, I’m sure that architects and designers are hard up for cash at a time when nobody is building and buying anything, and, as a result, many see resulting to PR-chitecture as one of the only solutions to financial problems.

However, I’m also extremely sure that there are interventions that can be made at the social, political, and organizational level, such as campaigning for paid sick leave, organizing against layoffs and for decent severance or an expansion of public assistance, or generally fighting the rapidly accelerating encroachment of work into all aspects of everyday life – that would bring much more good and, dare I say, progress into the world than a cardboard desk captioned with the hashtag #StaytheF***Home.

Hence, I’ve spent most of my Saturday penning this article on my blog, McMansion Hell. I’ve chosen to run this here because I myself have lost work as a freelance writer, and the gutting of publications down to a handful of editors means that, were I to publish this story on another platform, it would have resulted in at least a few more weeks worth of inflatable, wearable, plexiglass-laden Coronagrifting, something my sanity simply can no longer withstand.

So please, Dezeen, designboom, others – I love that you keep daily tabs on what architects and designers are up to, a resource myself and other critics and design writers find invaluable – however, I am begging, begging you to start having some discretion with regards to the proposals submitted to you as “news” or “solutions” by brands and firms, and the cynical, ulterior motives behind them. If you’re looking for a guide on how to screen such content, please scroll up to the beginning of this page.

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If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my Patreon, as I didn’t get paid to write it.

#architecture #design #coronavirus #dezeen #designboom #capitalism

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perpetual-stories · 3 years

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How To Fight Writers Block

hello, hello. hope everyone is doing well. as you can all tell, this post will be about how to fight writers block.

it’s really annoying to me when I hear people say “oh you don’t have writers block, you’re just lazy.”

first of all, yes, I am naturally lazy. second of all, how dare you. writing isn’t as easy as many think. granted, all you have to do is write down words on paper, but it’s not always easy to find the right words to express what you are feeling, or what you wish to say.

I have had terrible writer’s block for the last few days and it’s horrible! as a business owner or a small writing store, I have to be ready to write and fulfill my clients’ ideas and orders.

it’s not easy. It takes a heavy toll on my imagination, and digs me a deep pit of blockage, drowning in the lack of originality because of the constant writing and repetition or certain phrases and sentences in different projects.

i am making this post in the hopes to remind myself about over coming the dreaded and sometimes skeptically believed writer’s block.

What is writer’s block?

Yeah, I know. We all know what that is, but let me define it.

is the state of being unable to proceed with writing, and/or the inability to start writing something new

some people believe it to be a real problem, others believe it's “all in your head”

What Causes Writer’s Block?

in the 1970s, clinical psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios decided to find out

they concluded that there are four broad causes of writer's block:

Excessively harsh self-criticism

Fear of comparison to other writers

Lack of external motivation, like attention and praise

Lack of internal motivation, like the desire to tell one's story

How to overcome writer's block: 20 tips

1. Develop a writing routine:

Author and artist Twyla Tharp once wrote: “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.”

it might seem counterintuitive

if you only write when you “feel creative,” you're bound to get stuck in a tar pit of writer's block

The only way to push through is by disciplining yourself to write on a regular schedule. It might be every day, every other day, or just on weekends — but whatever it is, stick to it!

2. Use "imperfect" words:

A writer can spend hours looking for the perfect word or phrase to illustrate a concept

You can avoid this fruitless endeavor by putting, “In other words…” and simply writing what you’re thinking, whether it’s eloquent or not

You can then come back and refine it later by doing a CTRL+F search for “in other words.”

3. Do non-writing activities:

one of the best ways to climb out of a writing funk is to take yourself out of your own work and into someone else’s

Go to an exhibition, to the cinema, to a play, a gig, eat a delicious meal

immerse yourself in great STUFF and get your synapses crackling in a different way

Snippets of conversations, sounds, colors, sensations will creep into the space that once felt empty

4. Freewrite through it:

free-writing involves writing for a pre-set amount of time without pause — and without regard for grammar, spelling, or topic. You just write.

The goal of freewriting is to write without second-guessing yourself — free from doubt, apathy, or self-consciousness, all of which contribute to writer's block. Here’s how:

Find the right surroundings. Go somewhere you won't be disturbed.

Pick your writing utensils. Will you type at your computer, or write with pen and paper? (Tip: if you're prone to hitting the backspace button, you should freewrite the old-fashioned way!)

Settle on a time-limit. Your first time around, set your timer for just 10 minutes to get the feel for it. You can gradually increase this interval as you grow more comfortable with freewriting.

5. Relax on your first draft:

Many writers suffer form perfectionism, which is especially debilitating during a first draft

“Blocks often occur because writers put a lot of pressure on themselves to sound ‘right’ the first time. A good way to loosen up and have fun again in a draft is to give yourself permission to write imperfectly.” — editor Lauren Hughes

perfect is the enemy of good,” so don't agonize about getting it exactly right! You can always go back and edit, maybe even get a second pair of eyes on the manuscript

6. Don’t start at the beginning:

the most intimidating part of writing is the start, when you have a whole empty book to fill with coherent words

instead of starting with the chronological beginning of whatever it is you’re trying to write, dive into middle, or wherever you feel confident

7. Take a shower:

Have you ever noticed that the best ideas tend to arrive while in the shower, or while doing other “mindless” tasks?

research shows that when you’re doing something monotonous (such as showering, walking, or cleaning), your brain goes on autopilot, leaving your unconscious free to wander without logic-driven restrictions

showering is my favourite thing to do if I may add

8. Balance your inner critic:

successful writers have in common is the ability to hear their inner critic, respectfully acknowledge its points, and move forward

You don't need to completely ignore that critical voice, nor should you cower before it

you must establish a respectful, balanced relationship, so you can address what's necessary and skip over what's insecure and irrelevant

9. Switch up your tool:

a change of scenery can really help with writer's block. However, that scenery doesn't have to be your physical location — changing up your writing tool can be just as big a help!

if you’ve been typing on your word processor of choice, try switching to pen and paper. Or if you're just sick of Google Docs, consider using specialized novel writing software.

10. Change your POV:

great advice from editor Lauren Hughes: “When blocked, try to see your story from another perspective ‘in the room’ to help yourself move beyond the block. How might a minor character narrate the scene if they were witnessing it? A ‘fly on the wall’ or another inanimate object?

11. Exercise your creative muscles:

Any skill requires practice if you want to improve, and writing is no different! So if you’re feeling stuck, perhaps it’s time for a strengthening scribble-session to bolster your abilities

12. Map out your story:

If your story has stopped chugging along, help it pick up steam by taking a more structured approach — specifically, by writing an outline

13. Write something else:

Though it's important to try and push through writer's block with what you're actually working on, sometimes it's simply impossible

feel free to push your current piece to the side for now and write something new

14. Work on your characters:

It follows that if your characters are not clearly defined, you’re more likely to run into writer’s block

15. Stop writing for readers:

write for yourself, not your potential readers

this will help you reclaim the joy of being creative and get you back in touch with what matters: the story.

this is something I really need to do. because of my etsy business i don't write for fun anymore, but instead as a business and a deadline. i'm going to have to pull out my old crappy wattled fanfics or write some new ones.

16. Try a more visual process:

when words fail you, forget them and get visual. Create mind maps, drawings, Lego structures — ideally related to your story, but whatever unblocks your mind!

17. Look for the root of it:

writer’s block often comes from a problem deeper than simple “lack of inspiration.” So let's dig deep: why are you really blocked? Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I feel pressure to succeed and/or competition with other writers?

Have I lost sight of what my story is about, or interest in where it's going?

Do I lack confidence in my own abilities, even if I've written plenty before?

Have I not written for so long that I feel intimidated by the mere act?

Am I simply feeling tired and run-down?

once you identify what's wrong, it'll be so much easier to fix.

18. Quit the Internet:

If willpower isn’t your strong suit and your biggest challenge is staying focused, try a site blocker like Freedom or an app like Cold Turkey

19. Let the words find you:

meditate, go for a walk, take that shower

Word Palette is a great app that features a keyboard of random words, allowing you to simply click your way to your next masterpiece.

You can also try AI auto-completers like Talk to Transformer, where you can enter a phrase and let the app “guess what comes next.”

even though they often produce nonsense, it's a great way to help that writer's block.

20. Write like Hemingway:

And if your biggest block is your own self-doubt about your prose, Hemingway offers suggestions to improve your writing as you go

it's a pretty cool app if you ask me.

it highlights your sentences (if need be) and makes suggestions on how to improve them!

well, there you have it! a lengthy post on how to fight writer's block. now i just hope i can combat my own soon.

like, comment and reblog if you find this useful! feel free to reblog in instagram and tag me perpetualstories

Follow me on instagram and tumblr for more writing and grammar tips and more!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #original writing #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writersconnection #writersofig #writersofinstagram #writings

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