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felixcloud6288 · 1 year ago

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Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 10

This chapter gives me the same vibes as the episode "Joker's Favor" from the 90s Batman cartoon.

2nd Lieutenant Maria Ross and Sergeant Danny Brosh are the real stars of this chapter. They are two very ordinary military officers with no connections to Alchemy, the Elrics, or anything for that matter. And we get to see how freaking weird these boys are through their reactions to everything going on.

Yes, it is weird that a guy walks around in a full suit of armor. It is quite wild to meet someone who can copy thousands of pages from memory. I'd be just as freaked out if a kid casually handed me a check for a life-changing amount of money. I'd be shocked if they had a casual conversation with someone I'd never dare speak to unless spoken to.

Over in the B plot, We learn Roy is not on the best terms with Major General Hakuro with the implications Hakuro thinks Mustang is out to take his position, which is true. Back in chapter 4, Roy casually said Hakuro should just die in the train hijacking. And we learn Roy wants to take over the entire military. The panel where he says this paints him in a more sinister light. His eyes are a different color.

Oh look! A map of East City. ...It's worthless. There aren't any discernible markers and we never go back to East City anyway.

Lust mentions not needing to tail Ed now that he's in Central most likely meaning someone else in her organization will take over from there. I wonder who this new tracker could be that Lust would withdraW RATHer than continue her assignment.

Scar gets into a fight with Gluttony and still has a small wound from when Hawkeye shot at him.

Back in the A plot, we learn State Alchemists hide their research notes in code. Ed's looks like a travel log and Roy's looks like a dating calendar. I have to wonder what part of Marcoh's recipe book corresponds to a human soul. I'm going to assume either love or cinnamon sugar.

As a side note, this chapter takes place over 15 days. It took Sheska 5 days to write down all of Marcoh's notes and another 10 days for Ed and Al to decode it. The scene with Scar happens before any of that in the chapter and we can assume it happened before that chronologically from some extra context clues.

We can assume the trip from Central to East City takes less than a day because Hughes and Armstrong managed to do that back in chapter 6. Meanwhile Pinako said she'd get Ed's arm made in 3 days and no one said she didn't pull that off.

Assuming the trip to East City and Resembool takes a day, even with the detour to meet Marcoh, here's a rough timeline of events since chapter 8 as far as I can tell:

Chapter 8: Ed, Al, and Armstrong head to Resembool. Along the way they meet Marcoh and get the location of his research. Lust later forces Marcoh to give her the same info.

1 day after chapter 8: Ed and company arrive in Resembool. Pinako and Winry begin working on making new automail for Ed.

4 days after chapter 8: Ed gets his new arm and leg.

5 days after chapter 8: Ed and company leave Resembool for Central City, likely with a layover in East City. Lust destroys the 1st Branch Library.

6 days after chapter 8: Ed arrives in Central City and meets Sheska. Sheska starts transcribing Marcoh's notes. Lust returns to East City. Gluttony attacks Scar.

11 days after chapter 8: Sheska finishes her work. Ed and Al begin decoding it.

21 days after chapter 8: Ed and Al finish decoding. End of chapter 10.

Anyway, I'll explain why I got so hung up on this next chapter cause it's more relevant there and this has gotten long enough already.

Hughes brought up Tucker.

Nina Trauma Count: 3

back

#fullmetal alchemist reread #fullmetal alchemist

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wovenstarlight · 4 years ago

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YWBK update: chapter 26 + liner notes

yesterday will be kinder has updated! you can read chapter 26 here, or start from the beginning here

as always, commentary below the cut

Yoojin🐉😊

watch this space....

In preparation for it, Han Hyunjae temporarily requisitions Yoojin’s laptop and combs through the internet looking for photos of the Hunters that he thinks his family should know about in advance. He goes down one too many internet rabbit-holes, takes way too many screenshots, transcribes a summary of the notes in his future diary, then painstakingly puts everything together into a neat little presentation for them.

picture HHJ reading his fifth article wondering where the sung family heir has disappeared to and being like 👁️👁️👁️👁️

had a little giggle to myself about “future diary” that phrasing was definitely on purpose. will exclusively be referring to it as this now

“Right,” he starts, clapping his hands together, after Yerim’s been sent off to play with Hohyoung.

LHH is so much of a background figure.... i want to see more of himself but he likes his privacy.... he’s got his girlfriend and his baby sister and yoojin who’s wormed his way into his good graces by way of Living In Same House but that’s kinda it....... he’s always lurking in the background instead of showing up on screen. come here hohyoung oppa i just wanna talk

Even if Yoojin’s right, Han Hyunjae still has to protest. [...] But he can’t keep it up when Jiyeon looks at him like that.

KJY has the world’s best Stern Mom Voice and Disappointed Mom Glare and to her great delight they work even on fellow adult HHJ. she will use this power For Evil

The other S-ranks are Moon Hyuna, leader of Breaker Guild, and Bak Mingyu of Hanshin Guild.

OK FOR THIS PART I STRAIGHT FORGOT ABOUT HANSHIN GUILD AND I WAS COUNTING UP ON MY FINGERS LIKE WAIT... IF YERIM WAS THE EIGHTH KOREAN S-RANK WHO WERE THE SEVEN BEFORE HER.... (for those curious they were 1. sung hyunjae, 2. han yoohyun, 3. moon hyuna, 4. song taewon, 5. bak mingyu of hanshin, 6. choi sukwon of MKC, and 7. yoon kyeongsoo of soodam. but. i forgot about the last three altogether.)

“Oh, blond guy,” Yoojin says, unimpressed. “Yeah, I’ve seen him on the news and stuff.”

Top 10 Funny Yoojin Moments (I JUST THINK IT’D BE REALLY FUNNY IF HAN “HAVE I MENTIONED IN THE LAST 5 MINUTES HOW HANDSOME SUNG HYUNJAE IS” YOOJIN DID NOT GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT HIM IN THIS TIMELINE....)

Han Hyunjae takes a moment to double-check that he really doesn’t have Noise Resistance (L), and looks back in time to see Yoojin rubbing at his eyes and glaring at the screen.

HEHEHE...... A SECRET TOOL THAT WILL HELP US LATER

“Hyunjae-yah,” Jiyeon says, looking at the photo of Sung Hyunjae on screen, “this man looks—” “LIKE A PIECE OF WHITE BREAD,” Yoojin bellows. [...] “HYUNG THINKS HE LOOKS GOOD? [...] Oh, god, he kinda does, [...] but like, in a trashy romance novel cover way.” [... Jiyeon] gives the computer screen an assessing once-over. “He looks like the models in cologne advertisements.”

this part of the chapter was planned waaaay back in august 2020 and i actually crowdfunded these descriptions from the s-class server dshblksjdfkblsdfb. the original suggestions (thanks to server members for these):

“bland whitie potato with a slap-on seme personality”

“tacky valentine’s day/mom’s cologne advertisement”

“the face of the dude on the cover of all my mom’s trashy romance novels”

and tbh HYJ does think he genuinely looks good but like, disgustingly good, you know... also Hyung Likes Him so [19 gun emojis]

also me handwaving moment of mild homophobia because like. jiyeon doesn’t know yet AND homophobia is a thing in this world BUT i don’t really wanna do, All That (we already did it with HYJ once), so.

“Do S-ranks get rich?” Yerim asks as she enters, because apparently everyone’s coming for his life today. Han Hyunjae closes his eyes and lies down on the bed while Yoohyun calls out an affirmation over his head. “Then I think— oh! He looks nice!” He cracks open an eye just in time to see her nod. “I think ahjussi should marry him for the eye candy and the money.” She beams very wide. Han Hyunjae closes his eyes again and tunes out the loud conversation going on around him. And wishes, not for the first time, that he’d picked literally any other name when he first got here.

yerim says gay rights cuz she’s like 12 rn and she straight up does not really care. but says it in, like, the most frustrating way possible.

sometimes you just need to lie down even as the world keeps throwing shit at you. just lie down and nap for a little bit. especially when the shit in question is the alias regret you had literally back in chapter one of your 25+ chapter story. this is gonna come back to bite you in the ass Very Fucking Soon babe!!!!

You Oh this is like the 17th one I got wrong I swear this course is trying to kill me

me, flicking on that EPSON brand projector,

(i have. been having a Time of it.)

[Yoojin🐉😊 called you (21:35)]

that’s minutes and seconds babey... you can pretty much guess the content of call from context :(

well, uh. most of call. some internal plot and Realizations happening right at the end of those 21 minutes, 35 seconds. namely:

Yoojin🐉❤️

:-)

or i dunno you can be my roommate and we can both leech off my rich and prosperous baby brother!

[extremely sad voice] heehoo... they... care each other....

YMW’s parents are kinda shit ngl. they care about him, but unfortunately, that does not show through in their care for him, ykwim? if they just paid attention to what he was actually talented at and encouraged him in his efforts.................

well, he wouldn’t have met HYJ in canon. but he would also have been a lot happier!! and YMW deserves to be happy!!!!!!!! YMW fucking rights!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You When you came with me to drop off Jihui’s standee.

they finally remembered her name sjfbklsjdfbl

Yoojin🐉❤️ OH right i was talking to one of my new commissioners about their piece realized they were an old friend of hyung’s

HEEHOO.... HONKS MY LITTLE CLOWN NOSE yoojin forgot to ask about pronouns but that’s okay they’re figuring that stuff out still

Yoojin🐉❤️ it’s getting late the kids are going to bed i have to turn off the lights

you can take the caregiver out the role of caregiving but he will still think of his baby siblings as his kids

Part of that is changing his behaviour. Hyunjae and Yoojin sit side by side and watch as Suk Simyeong gently coaches Yoohyun on how to interact with others and present a neutral, if not friendly, exterior.

[same voice as ingredience] neurodivergence.....

try and look them in the eye, or at least look somewhere on or near their face, if eye contact is too much

yoohyun, who’s the type to look people in the eye without blinking until they inevitably look away because then they don’t try that eye contact shit again later:

tbh i kinda made up shit for the Training In Formality section i don’t know shit about being Formal and Polite. hope i got it right :pensive:

“He’s not good with touch,” Hyunjae cuts in. [...] “Sorry,” [Yoojin] says apologetically to Suk Simyeong, crossing the room and gently pressing a hand against Yoohyun’s back. The kid slowly stops rocking and leans into the touch as he talks.

he’s not good with touch, Usually..... there are exceptions :-) every time i think about this being canon i go insane. wow. love and trust and faith.

Suk Simyeong nods understandingly, giving the closed door a considering look. “If that’s the case, perhaps he can take over part of the preparations,” he offers.

SSM who’s frothing at the mouth wanting to know more about this dude who apparently did some killer business deal with the head of Dungeon Task Force who all the dungeon people are gossiping about on their phone calls while they cart around unassuming A-rank businessmen: PLEEAAASEE fucking involve him PLEEEEASE make him involve himself in business with me

Still, Yoojin’s work is fairly repetitive and boring, so Hyunjae and the women pull out a pack of UNO cards from somewhere and start playing while he works, not paying much attention to either of the boys.

plugging my Han/Bak family playing UNO art here, please reblog like and subscribe,

He stares down at Yoohyun’s hair. Yoohyun’s wavy hair sits there judgmentally. Yoojin bemoans his budding career as a stylist and admits, “This… isn’t working.”

i’m sorry sweetie... hair isn’t your forte :( you can still do fashion if you try really hard

(fun fact about this whole scene, yoohyun not being able to straighten his hair until he could control flame resistance is Certified Canon!)

“No, shit, don’t get up.” Yoojin flaps his free hand at him distractedly. Hyunjae and his need to do everything himself, jeez. “I mean, like. The iron is not. Straightening.”

“hyunjae and his need to do everything” says the man who a few paragraphs ago wanted to be hair makeup clothing and management all in one

“Okay, but why is it not working, though? Is the iron not turned on?” Wow. Wow! Yoojin wonders suddenly if Yoohyun ever felt as homicidal towards him as Yoojin’s currently feeling towards his big brother. If he ever had, then it’s frankly stunning Yoojin’s survived as long as he did. “Do you think I’m stupid,” he snaps. “It’s plugged in.” “Yeah, but did you turn it on.” “You know what, why don’t you touch it and see?” Yoojin unplugs the straightening iron for a minute so that he can take it over to Hyunjae, presenting it to him with a flourish. The heat will hold on for the few seconds this takes. “Come on, touch it right now. I dare you.”

zmur put this into words better than i can, she described this part as “the feeling when elder siblings doubt your intelligence”--

“What if you used a regular iron. Like for clothes,” Hyunjae says, completely ignoring Yoohyun. Yoojin hums thoughtfully.

--and this part as “THEY ARE RIGHT TO DOUBT IT !”

“Killjoy,” Hyunjae mutters so only he and Yoojin can hear.

(should doubt your elder sibling’s intelligence too, once in a while. keep them on their toes.)

“HAN YOOHYUN YOU TAKE YOUR HAND OFF THAT RIGHT NOW,” Yoojin and Hyunjae and Jiyeon holler in perfect unison.

parental instinct for particular phrasings of commands

“Flame Resistance,” Yoohyun reads out. “S-rank.” It’s not heat resistance, but it’s pretty close, so it probably still applies.

hum hum the flame skill works on heat as well, huh

Yoojin’s watching Hyunjae idly when the flickers start up at the edge of his vision again. He blinks, rubbing his eyes idly, and looks back up in time to see, just for a split second—

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE VISION PROBLEMS WAS IT? RUBBING HIS EYES WAS IT??

“Eh? It didn’t? I’ll… I’ll try it again, one second.” Nothing, for a second— but no, there is, pale flashes here and there. Yoojin shakes his head and blinks. They die down, then start up again. Fainter, this time. Why?

gonna say this here because i accidentally set it up as a Thing there’s. there’s no reason. whether the message shows up or not is pretty much random error.

“Ahjussi has an L-rank skill?” Yerim demands. “That’s so cool!” Jiyeon and Yoohyun and Yoojin stare at Hyunjae in silence as he returns Yerim’s eager high-five. He cowers when he notices them.

these three are already so mad and they don’t know that between S and L there’s SS and SSS. they’re gonna be SOOOOO mad. anyway yerim remains the chillest in the room

“So, say you needed to cauterize a wound in an emergency, and you didn’t have access to healing items or Hunters. You could drop the Resistance there, set it on fire, and just… sear it shut.” Yoohyun blinks, an intrigued look coming into his eyes, and looks down at his own forearm. “That’s true, I could probably…” “Yeah, food for thought, I suppose.” “What the hell?!” Yerim yelps. “Though it’s up to you if you want to try it. I still think your hair is fine as is, we don’t have to—” “That’s horrifying,” Yoojin blurts. “No, I should know how. In case something happens like you said. How do I do it?” “Now hold on a second,” Jiyeon says, voice rapidly rising in pitch.

sometimes i think about how dungeon stuff made yoojin significantly more chill with violence and murder and self mutilation in some cases. and how he comments specifically (i think this might be in a slightly later chapter, possibly unreleased) that people like myeongwoo who don’t have those extra years of immersion in the dungeon culture still reject and avoid violence and killing whenever possible. really makes you think

anyway! i saved some extra commentary for those okay with spoilers. continue reading at your own risk. extra large warning in case you’re skilling

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE BELOW CONTENT!!!! IT DRAWS ON INFO FROM UNTRANSLATED CHAPTERS, POST-170S AT LEAST!

“How many of these people did you personally know?” “Not many!” “So one, then,” Yoojin concludes. “You don’t know that!”

HE DIDN’T SAY THAT YOOJIN WAS RIGHT, THOUGH..............

“Why did you pick his name out of everyone’s! I thought you weren’t in touch with S-ranks. I thought you picked a friend’s name!”

they wanted some kind of bedroom decoration for a family member, counting sheep or something, i forget

a sheep, for a family member of one of han hyunjae’s old acquaintances, is it

#star.txt #work: yesterday will be kinder #writing commentary #my writing #some family antics to make up for what's next #more and more i feel like i need to write a timeskip. i'm so tired of early guild and dungeon management.#i need to write insanity. murder. kidnapping. classic s-class stuff #AND OF COURSE SUPERPOWERED FAMILY ANTICS WHICH IS SO CLASSIC S-CLASS STUFF IT'S BCE

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yooleestruck · 4 years ago

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in which lee rambles about how great writers are

I don’t really know what this is. I don’t know if now is the right time to do this, or a really bad time, or if it makes any sense, but I want to talk about it! I feel like a broken record saying ‘the writing matters most, the writing matters most’ but maybe I need to show what I mean by that? So, here is an attempt.

I’m sorry not all of these are the same length and not everyone is here, because every time I see that someone is a writer I do try to follow but I don’t always know/remember! Also I am weird about this sort of thing and don’t want to tag people in a monster-long post, so I’m just going to link. I also don’t want to make this a producers vs writers thing, it’s not, it’s just, when I say I notice writer-stuff, an explanation of what, specifically, I mean.

Writers have a style fingerprint. I’m sure someone with an actual creative writing or English background could describe it all academic-ly, but my ex-chemist ass is just going to call it a fingerprint.

My first game in Lovestruck was Starship Promise - I love Firefly, I’m a bisexual disaster scientist by education, it fit. But I had been REALLY put off by GIL when it first came out (this was back when they released stories in parts? And the heroine, which I will get to) and though I’d glanced at AFK, I mistrusted it after GIL and Medusa, who was who I was interested in, wasn’t out yet. So I resisted a LONG time. I finally picked up LS and SP and played it explicitly because a friend said, you need to give this another chance, for a list of specific reasons.

And when Atlas’s route came out, I read it a stupid number of times. I must have re-read his season 1 & 2 at least eight times apiece (he is still my most read route, despite the fact I have not read his last season because I want to leave the story open-ended) so when I read Neil Dresner’s route, I recognized the fingerprint. Not only that, when I was reading Jett and the episodes with the paint scene (YOU KNOW THE SCENE) came out, my breath caught with how lovely it was, a particular in-between moment and touch, and even though it wasn’t a phrase I had seen, the style of it, had me re-reading (because it was gorgeous) again and again from the log for like five minutes and I thought, “I bet Melissa wrote this” AND SHE DID.

Physical touch! (& in-betweens)

Melissa-grey has a particular way of writing about physical touch in very emotional moments that is very real and grounded and ironically the effect is just magical. It creates these so skillful “in between” moments, those little things that aren’t dialogue and aren’t metaphor but SHOW you that this closed off person is cracking for their little ray of sunshine. They are SO subtle and so beautiful, like, the heroine noticing the scent of a pillow, or a softening of an aborted hand movement. She sets up and executes these moments of physical touch as a conduit for emotional touch with characters who aren’t ready to admit he latter and it’s DELICIOUS. Those little in-betweens are what I live for in story - and it includes all the supporting cast moments, who swell up to make the world feel lived in, and balanced (I loathe love stories where no one else exists! That’s a recipe for disaster, people need networks) I noticed when she stopped writing, and because I missed it, I went and bought the entire Midnight Girl series, as well as Rated (I hope that is flattering and not creepy!) and that style of writing is so unique, that without KNOWING, I picked it up in four separate routes (noticed in Sev’s s1, too!)

Pacing (& friggen heartache)

Another fingerprint! Ripping your heart out! Arthoure has had me in tears, MULTIPLE TIMES and I get very grouchy about it every time because I am the least sentimental and romantic person that I know (I once MOVED STATES to avoid an ‘I love you’ conversation. I once said ‘yikes’ in response to an ‘I love you’ and I once broke up with someone because I thought he was going to propose. I’m a bitch) but I think it’s because of pacing! I know that producers play a role in that, but that actually makes it more impressive, because making each bit of story feel like it fits precisely the amount of space it needs when you don’t really get a say in how much space that is has got to take a MASSIVE amount of effort. Every little hint, every emotional beat, every character tell, they drop at a consistent build so the emotional payoff is just brutal (in a good, cathartic way?) every time a route makes me cry I wait and see and YEAH ITS ALWAYS ARTHOURE. The sweep and sentiment of Remy’s season 2 is unparalleled. Across Time is gutwrenching, and I actually stopped reading Renzei at one point because I was so emotional over it I had to like, LEGIT TAKE A BREAK to recover. Pacing and heartache. I have to stop and wonder - is it because the routes themselves are so gut-punching? OR is it because she knows how to wring every last emotional drop out of whatever story framework is handed to her? Because, Ezekiel’s villain costume is a bit silly (there I said it, it is) I get the cobra helmet shape in theory but in practice, ooof, but POINT BEING despite being skeptical I’d be able to take his story seriously as a result, I was hiccuping from crying so much (and I am gosh darn adult, in my thirties, with three degrees and a high-stress job at pretty major company. I DON’T CRY EASY)

Dialogue (& heroines!)

Xekstrin is the gosh damn master of dialogue. Clever, witty banter that doesn’t go where you expect it to, meandering but natural topic changes that are delightful to follow and feel real, and--special shoutout for this, okay--the navigation of viscerally important topics like consent, kink, self-worth, power in relationships, self-sacrifice, and apologies in a way that is not stilted or forced at all (listen, I know Viv & Lyris are the most recent and they are amazing but I remember this first hit me when I was reading Astraeus, and I spent half the route with my jaw on the floor going, oh shit, oh shit. The communication! The navigation of the complexity of emotion going on, chef’s kiss! Casual isn’t the right word, but, natural, maybe?). I don’t actually take that many screenshots of the app--it’s usually single lines that get me--but when I do, they are almost always conversations from one of her routes, because they’re so damn good, and often so unexpected, and yet always make such perfect sense for the characters involved. Dialogue is SO HARD OKAY. Actually try and transcribe a conversation sometime, it’s nuts how people talk vs how most people write people talking. Xekstrin also writes some of my absolute favorite MCs, and going back to fingerprints, I was reading Lyris s1 and right there in the first tavern scene, as we were following along with the heroine’s thoughts I went, ah, yes, I know who you belong to and I am SO EXCITED. Being able to give the heroine unique thoughts and quirks, to make her genuinely relatable, without overriding the necessary template of the genre dictates, is a skill all of its own. But I love her MCs! There is a beautiful balance of compassion, competence, and dash of bratty, wild, fun mischief. I can actually cheer for them. I can actually get behind them. I WANT the love interest to flop at their feet for who they are, not just because the story says so. And that comes from how the heroine’s thoughts are written, from her phrasing in conversations, how she sees situations, not just a producer saying ‘she is a strong lead who is self conscious about her ears and she’s nervous in the council meeting’ or whatever. I AM REALLY STRUGGLING to articulate this if you can’t tell from how long I have been blathering. Maybe this - the heroine is the same across every route, presumably, yes? Everyone has the same base. I NEVER question, when xekstrin is writing, why the love interest falls in love with her. Side note - I had hard written off GIL after a bad experience with the standalone app. I only read Aurora BECAUSE I learned she wrote it, and I would have SO MISSED OUT otherwise.

A complete aside in which Lee grumbles about heroines and not writers!

(Complete side vent: Often, the heroine is, if not a blank slate, a sort of collection of assigned traits, and she often remains so unless the story demands she become otherwise. Which is fine! I don’t personally, but I know a lot of folks self-insert, and so erring towards that makes sense. Almost all the otome I’ve played were originally written for a Japanese audience. When I played original Voltage games, starting back in 2014, I always had to remind myself - different culture, different culture, different culture, and it was not possible for me to relate to most of the heroines. I still enjoyed the stories, but I rarely cheered for the heroine’s romance, especially in some of the slice of life stories. I understood her, but I rarely wanted her to get with the love interest, I wanted her success to come in other ways! Another game company, Cybird, tried to ‘Americanize’ their heroine to IMO disastrous effect - it was such a stereotype, and made no sense since they didn’t also Americanize the context, so she come across as, frankly, ridiculous. And frankly, Voltage’s GIL heroine REEKED OF THAT. When they first posted her on social media I was legitimately annoyed about it, like could you lean into this more? I think not. So when I talk about being able to relate to and cheer for the heroine, it’s a big deal, because my blatant mistrust of Voltage and their ability to craft a heroine I could tolerate was a BIG factor in how long it took me to give Lovestruck a try. I was willing to tolerate it in translated stories, I was so skeptical of -en only ones.)

Metaphors (& balance)

literacouture writes beautiful metaphors for connection between humans! I’m really bad at keeping track of who writes what, but I purposefully kept an eye out on tumblr after reading Cal’s route, because there were some lines that were pure poetry, and I wanted to keep an eye out for more. It is HARD to spin metaphors prettily without delving into trite, painful, purple prose cringe territory, and it’s navigated beautifully in Cal’s route. There’s a balance between those spin-out moments and things that are tangible and anchoring and make it feel authentic and unique to the two characters involved, instead of just ‘I am trying to make this sound romantic and this is a romantic phrase so here it is’. That balance is really necessary. You NEED the mundane alongside the metaphor or it doesn’t feel authentic. Also. Trying really hard to write this without throwing any authors or producers under the bus, but...listen. I love Sin with Me. But the world logic (or LACK THEREOF) drives me up a wall. I don’t read Cal because of his character traits or sprite or (sigh) his story. I read him because literacouture writes a beautiful romance.

So anyway...

There are more! When I am less tired and don’t have meetings, I will try and write them up (Please know there are so many routes I love, and so many things I do recognize across chapters! I don’t even HAVE words for what theivorytowercrumbles accomplished with Helena’s story not to mention how much I adore Cyprin, SummerLightning’s handling of Onyx’s past relationship was so deftly done when it could have so quickly become ‘milk abuse for plot’ and joidecombat gave Sev a fresh, mischievous energy and navigated the dream/reality line with SUCH skill, and so on and so on.)

I’ve written a lot of reviews. And I try to give nods where I feel they’re due - sometimes, it really is obvious that the whole team’s work came together to makes something great, the world, the plot, the arc, the art, the words, and the music all fit into place in a well-crafted tour de force. And sometimes one piece or another is lacking, and I’ll admit I’ve left some...less than kind reviews to that end (I try and soften it, because I know there are humans on the other side of everything, but I’ve been harsh more than once with my opinions). I’ve read routes with plots that made me want to tear my hair out because I DO value consistency and logic to a degree, even if I’m going to accept at face value that, say, space travel is a thing or demons turn to sand when stabbed.

In the end, these are romance stories. So I will let a lot slide when it comes to plot. What sells a story are the words - not the outline.

And if Voltage doesn’t believe that - just remember that Hamlet existed long, long before Shakespeare wrote it. His was the version that lasted, because the people liked it best. The plot, the world, the characters, they all existed a hundred times over. Even just look at fan translations of manga. Why do people keep translating, even if someone else has? Because the words someone else picked don’t do the story justice.

I don’t know. I’m talking in circles because I don’t know my own thesis!

Maybe it’s just - the worlds these stories in are nice. But when I say I’m a fan of something, the premise is like. 10%. The rest is the writing.

#lovestruck #lovestruck voltage #lovestruck writers appreciation week #this isn't exactly one of the prompts #but #it's in the spirit of it #brevity may be the soul of wit #but that just means I'm not very witty I suppose #this is not a complaining post #except for maybe one section where I go off on heroines COUGH #but it's flagged

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survivingart · 5 years ago

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STORY IS EVERYTHING

Be it online or in person, there’s a lot of competition in the arts. And the fact that the art world is much smaller compared to the world of business, law or medicine, only makes it harder for any one artist to succeed. While everybody online is telling us to “niche down”, and explaining why it’s so important, usually no specific tactics are disclosed, and the how is left for us to figure out for ourselves.

This blunder is intended for anyone who wishes to find their focus and stand out in today’s oversaturated creative market by understanding the immense power of storytelling — especially when positioning ones creative skill and aspirations in the market.

Regardless if you paint, sculpt, make experimental video installations or are a political performance artist, the main goal for all of us is to express ourselves.

We do so not because it’s the quickest or easiest way of making a living, but because it’s who we

are. Most of us love our craft in some form or another and follow some internal aspirations that guide our interest and consequently the kind of art we make.

But while creativity is a general term, it could not be describing a more colourful and rich abundance of personal motifs and ambitions of why we do what we do.

For example, I could be selling skilfully crafted portraits because of my passion for creating narratives about beauty, intimacy and connection. But it could also be that I just really enjoy painting figures and fabric and am good enough at it to charge for my work.

Both are great reasons to make a portrait and market ones skill, but even if the end product looks similar in both cases, their target audience couldn’t be more different.

So, let’s put the “art” in artwork.

I’d like to open this conversation with one of the hardest, but probably the simplest of all questions to answer, because we need to get it out of our way to really get the point of why story matters so much. But to find the answer we will have to go all in and drop the proverbial A-bomb.

We’ll have to ask the big question. The one you can read about in 50€+ books, written by prominent and knowledgeable art historians and theoreticians, whose answers are mostly written so thoroughly, so extensively, that one needs a dictionary to find their point.

Ready?

What is Art?

Boom.

Unlike most other questions like: “What is carpentry?”, “What is music?”, even “What is philosophy?”, we artists and other creative souls appear to have an enormous problem — none of us really seem to know what the heck we are doing in our lives. Not because we are confused, undisciplined or too spontaneous, but because no-one actually seems to know what art is.

If you ask most academic professors, they will usually give you an academic answer. If they’re more on the liberal side, it will surely have to do with the freedom of expression and the lyrical power of images in the fight against social injustice.

Ask a person in the street — anyone you want really — and they might tell you it’s something pretty, something that looks good. And probably also something that is quite expensive. For a wealthy collector it might be freedom; a way of expressing themselves without the need to actually learn how to paint or draw or sculpt.

A tattoo artist will tell you it’s tattoos. A barber will tell you it’s an exquisite haircut. An IT technician might even tell you it’s a perfectly sorted and laid out collection of ethernet and electrical cables in the server room.

Just don’t ask an aesthetician — the branch of philosophy that researches art — and they might tell you a lot. Truth be told, they might tell you too much while saying very little. A wonderful example is Tiziana Andina’s prominently titled book: “The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition: From Hegel to Post-Dantian Theories”. Read at your own peril.

Art seems to be everything. And we all know that something that is everything is consequently nothing at all.

We have to take a closer look into the production of art; the making of paintings, sculptures, videos and maybe even haircuts and tackle the question by investigating the process of making something an art piece.

So, let’s see if we can’t fix this mess of tattoos, pretty pictures and ethernet cables into a more workable definition by asking a better question: What makes something art?

In the 1960s the art world had a small crisis, caused by none other than the famous pop artist Andy Warhol. The root of the crisis was his artwork, titled simply: Brillo Box.

It looked exactly the same as a normal Brillo soap pad box, albeit being made out of wood. The question: What made Andy’s Brillo boxes art, but at the same time dismissed the original boxes made by James Harvey (the creator of the design) as mere industrial design?

Surely it wasn’t looks, and it couldn’t have been materials — the prestige of using silkscreen on wood instead of printing on cardboard was not the deciding factor after all. The only real difference that one could discern was the name associated with either product.

You had Andy Warhol superstar and the other guy.

Apart from being a marvellous posh object to own, Andy’s Brillo box shines light onto an immensely important topic in art, namely that when push comes to shove, the classification of an artistic piece does not have anything to do with its physical composition — be it medium, motif, size, you name it…

This is immensely important, because if we distill the factors that make up art, we can get a pretty rough, yet quite precise equation, that looks a bit like this:

ART = Viewer + Art Piece + Artist

But why does it now seem like the art piece, the central point of the equation isn’t really important? Well, there’s another surprise coming up.

The artist has been regarded as a genius ever since the invention of the cave painting about 40.000 years ago. The master painter, listening to the whispers of his or her muses and transcribing the messages of the gods into reality, for all of humanity to experience the righteous powers of the divine.

As humans, we couldn’t have been more proud of the lineage of artistic mastery that our planet had created over the years, and we had every reason for it. From the Ancient Greeks to Giotto and Titian, then Caravaggio, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso … all geniuses in the craft, that shaped how we perceive reality itself.

But then came the trickster. The black sheep, the snake, the devil himself. Then, came Duchamp.

In 1917 as part of The Society of Independent Artists’ exhibition at the The Grand Central Palace, he unveiled his biggest joke of all — a urinal. And even though the organisation of the exhibition had promised that each and every art piece that was entered in the application stage would be shown, they decided to remove The Fountain (as Duchamp named his vertical toilet) from the exhibition.

It was serious.

But the problem that Duchamp’s art piece created was minuscule compared to the big issue that was yet to come. His simple question : “Is this art?” didn’t just create a revolt inside The Society of Independent Artists, it started a revolution.

Thus, conceptualism was born.

The point he was trying to make was simple: Art is an internal human experience, not an invisible aura imbued into an object by some artistic genius.

The art world though, instead of getting his point, concluded that Nietzsche was indeed correct; the gods of art, beauty and aesthetics truly did perish. The murderer’s weapon was finally found — fully drenched in nothing but bloody ideology, the Fountain stood as proof.

Now, more than 100 years later, this narrative is still the bedrock of many institutions, both commercial and educational. And I feel it is about time we change this.

Not only could more people start to appreciate art — instead of thinking of it as a pretentious playground for the rich, filled with expensive junk and weird intellectuals — but by removing some of the misconceptions that either artist or artwork are the origin of the artistic experience, we could actually improve the status of us artists in society.

How?

By educating the viewer. By making our artistic process visible to all via social media and other means. By not trying to overcomplicate our work descriptions and artist statements and ending the need to feel like we have to defend our right to paint, sculpt, dance or make videos, with big words and complex explanations.

By connecting with our audience and being strong, sincere and genuine people. And with social media exploding in a constantly connected world, the timing just couldn’t be better.

Art is a multitude of stories, each different from another and all created by every one of our viewers.

And like good spelling and a decent vocabulary are the bedrock for any novel, we visual artists have a bunch of tools that we can use to build our narratives too.CREATING YOUR STORY (CONTEXT AND CONTENT)

In 1976, artist and critic Brian O’Doherty published his essay Inside the White Cube, that not only created lots of buzz in the art world, but gave this popular mode of displaying art in museums and commercial galleries a catchy new name.

While his wonderful critique of the White Cube is better to read in the original form, I would like to focus on one psychological factor that made his essay become so well known.

People experience things instantly and as a whole, rather than a collection of individual parts. When looking at a red triangle, we can’t just decide to see it as a triangle or just as something red — we always see both of its features at the same time.

Similarly with music; we can’t decide to hear just the tone of a note, while zoning out the colour of the sound (for example hearing the same note being played on a drum compared to a double bass or saxophone).

We as beings need context for just about everything in our lives — even our ability for differentiating object sizes and various temperatures is done by creating context from the surrounding environment.

Ok, but what does this have to do with art? Truth be told — everything.

As art is subjective, we can never really take full control over how a viewer of our show or a customer who bought one of our pieces will understand the work’s narrative.

A description of the work might help, but some actually prefer to make up their own mind about what a particular art piece means to them on a strictly personal level, rather than listening to the artist describe what it should mean. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

But, while we aren’t able to control everything our viewer will experience, there are many aspects of our work that we absolutely can and should be thinking about. Because understanding them makes our job of finding potential buyers or getting a place in an exhibition incredibly easier.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Choose materials carefully, not just as a means to an end but as building blocks of your work’s narrative.

A marble sculpture and a wood carving of the same motif tell different stories. Both may be a portrait of someone, but marble will always communicate prestige, longevity and may form subconscious connections to Ancient Greek and Roman statues of prominent individuals, making the portrayed look even more respectable and important. Wood on the other hand is softer and warmer in appearance and more suitable for creating intimate portraits emphasising emotion rather than status.

Evoke emotions, then seal the deal with a well prepared concept.

Nothing is worse than a conceptual piece that doesn’t also work on an emotional level. The appearance of your work will make or break its ability to convey your message, so regardless of how brilliant your idea may be, if your work doesn’t first captivate your viewer and make them curious enough to step closer, all is lost.

Presentation is really important when exhibiting your work.

Adjust lighting, surrounding objects like tables, chairs, plants … to compliment your work, or at least not to distract your viewers attention.

Impressionists used a lot of green leafy plants to compliment the vibe of their paintings, modernists decided to completely remove everything (including the frame of a painting or plinth of a sculpture) to maximise emphasis on their work — hence the White Cube principle.

When showing work online, it is imperative to get it right.

Show your work not just as a clean, shadowless and speckless photograph with good colour correction (because the images should look identical to the real thing), but incorporate it into an environment — even a generic architectural shot of a living room will be better than nothing.

Give your online images enough context and help your visitors understand the colours, size, textures and other features of your work by providing enough visual information; a few detail shots, a side view and maybe even the back of the work (if it’s 2D). For spatial works, maybe make a 360° GIF by stitching together multiple angles — nobody wants to buy a sculpture only to find that they don’t like the rear end of it.

The venue is a big part of your exhibition.

If you paint a picture of an apple being picked by a woman somewhere in a forest and hang it in an office of a juice company, people will probably see a nice lady picking apples. But hang it in a church community centre and people might see the highly complex concept of Ancestral Sin.

Same painting, same communication, immensely different results — just by changing the context.

So whenever you have the chance — for example if you are invited to create a show in a certain gallery from scratch — work with the space in mind, or change it if you can to make it a better fit for your work.

Regardless of what kind of art you create, if you make a thorough examination of the materials you use, the message you are trying to tell and the environment you are telling it in, you can use all of this information to reverse-engineer your work to find your target audience.

It should never be the other way around.

from Surviving Art https://ift.tt/2mSC2Mu via IFTTT

#artist life #contemporary art #surviving art #make art everyday #blog

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growthvue · 7 years ago

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Happy Apples: Fun PD Subscription Boxes for Teachers Made By the District

Crystal Marshall-Krauss on episode 263 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Crystal Marshall-Krauss and her colleagues at the district office in Howard County, Maryland have created a fun way to excite teachers about professional development. They’ve created “Happy Apples” subscription boxes for their teachers around a variety of subjects. Learn about this innovative PD idea and how your district can craft these boxes for your teachers.

This week I’ll be sharing the 7 Pedagogical Shifts That Make Interactive Displays a Key to a Student-Centered Classroom on the Cool Cat Teacher blog sponsored by SMART Technologies. Shift #1 is that Students are collaborators. My interactive display is the common workspace for the whole class. I use it as a digital workspace, to display any screen for the whole class to see, as a large multi-touch drawing and brainstorming space and so much more. My interactive display is a must-have device. I wouldn’t want to teach without one. Recent research shows that large interactive displays are vital to the classroom ecosystem.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Happy Apples: FunPD Subscription Boxes for Teachers Made By the District

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e263 Date: February 28, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Crystal Marshall-Krauss @crystalmmarshal, Digital Learning Innovation and Design Resource Teacher from Maryland.

Now, Crystal, you and your team came up with this really cool subscription box type idea for PD for your teachers. You call it Happy Apples.

Tell us what this is.

Crystal: (laughs)

So we came up with this to kind of address a couple of needs.

We saw so many people getting excited about subscription boxes, so we thought, “How can we use that? How can we use learning in some way?”

People get excited about subscription boxes

So we started prototyping it, and tested it out on a few teachers. They all loved it.

What they get is an actual physical cardboard box like a catalog mailer. Inside they have tons of little goodies.

They will have a curated list of online and digital content. We call those their personalized learning “bytes.”

They get some books, a student activity, other articles or magazines that meet their needs.

We always like to add a few other kinds of fun things that they can do, so we have thank you cards with prompts to send thank you cards to parents, students or colleagues during the time that they get the box.

They get one delivered five times a year, and we sneak into their schools and put it in their teacher mailbox, (laughs) so they get a surprise when they come to their mailbox at the end of the day.

They seem to really be enjoying it.

Vicki: Now you’re using Canva to kind of even put, “Here’s some people to follow on this topic.”

What other kind of things are you designing for these boxes?

Crystal: We use Canva for a lot of our printed content. It’s an easy design tool to use.

What kind of things are you designing for these boxes?

We will create student activities. At the beginning of the year, one of the ones that pretty much all of the teachers who got it used it, was really a student interview guide. Sort of to come up with some questions and some guiding thoughts behind that about how to interview students to find out more about them, and to kind of get more of a one-on-one relationship with the student.

A lot of teachers have a lot of students, so they were able to work in small groups and focus in on and learn some really interesting and new things about their students that they may not have had a chance to learn before.

We also create student handouts. We created a whole activity about listening to podcasts, with some sessions for some great podcasts, for students to be able to practice listening and getting their learning in a different way, and to be able to take notes. The great thing is that we have from K-8 teachers, so we have to differentiate a little bit for the different grade levels. It’s easy in Canva, because you can just make a copy, and kind of make those adjustments as appropriate.

Vicki: So how did you decide to customize these different boxes, because every teacher doesn’t get the same thing, do they?

Every teacher doesn’t get the same thing

Crystal: No, they don’t.

So it took a little bit of figuring that part out. We have a larger team, but there are a two of us that are really committed to this little side project that we came up with. The other (person) is a resource teacher in instructional technology, Karrie Truden.

So we had about ten topics that we felt we could probably get started with. We had enough information and knowledge and context to be able to pull together.

So we had the teachers choose between their top three out of those ten. We had hoped that several would pick the same three.

(laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Crystal: But several of the same boxes did not turn out that way.

Vicki: (laughs) Oh my!

Crystal: So pretty much, everybody has a different combination of the three, or they’re at different grade levels, so they had to be changed a little bit anyway.

But that’s OK, so we kind of work on smaller pieces of information and content.

For instance, instructional technology is one item that I would say about 90% of our teachers were asking for.

So we create a couple of items or links to some articles, or find some magazines that we have articles that match up with their grade level. So we’ll kind of work on all of that.

Then when we put the boxes together, we take all the pieces and match them up for the individual teacher that we’re providing it for.

Vicki: So, tell us a story about one of the teachers that got this box, and it changed something in their classroom.

Crystal: So I would say that the biggest changes we’ve seen have really been in the student relationships.

The biggest changes we’ve seen have been in the teacher-student relationships

Seeing teachers say that they were really excited to have a new activity to try with their students. The student interview piece was a huge one that we got feedback on after the first box. The teachers were able to learn about different interests of the students, and then they created small group reading assignments around those interests for the students — which they may not have done before. That one was a huge thing for them.

We also have some specialists in the schools that are kind of on their own, They may not have another teacher in a similar role in the building. They really appreciated having things kind of customized just for them — the media specialist, the reading specialist, and that sort of thing.

Vicki: Wow. So you tried this with just a few teachers, and you’ve gotten some feedback now. What’s the feedback you’re getting, and how are you going to change this for the future?

Crystal: Our big goal is to double the number of teachers that we get for the last two boxes.

What’s the feedback you’re getting?

We met with a few of them to get some feedback, and they said, “We have so many colleagues that want one, too.”

One teacher said she ran down the hall, bringing everybody their boxes, saying, “We got our boxes!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Crystal: So we plan to send an invitation in the box that’s going out this week. They’ll be able to invite a colleague to join the last two boxes for the school year.

We’re trying to include more of the student activities — really kind of branching out in that area where we can start to differentiate a little bit more, and really get down to things that they can use right away, while also providing some kind of stretch and reading content that they may not have seen before.

Vicki: So, there are a lot of folks out there listening to the show who design professional development for teachers.

Now this is not a company you bought this from. You’re actually making these boxes yourself.

So what is your advice to those who are listening to this, saying, “Hey, I want to do my own versions of “Happy Apples,” and make some kind of subscription box for my teacher?

What is your advice to those who want to make their own version of this?

Crystal: So my advice would be to make sure you have a team of people. (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs)

Crystal: And get really organized.

I think starting small — especially if you have the opportunity. You can get that feedback from them as you’re going, and figure out what’s really working, what do they want more of?

We keep asking them what they want us to change, and they keep saying they like everything.

Vicki: (laughs)

Crystal: It’s a really fun kind of thing. I think probably the most fun thing that we’ve learned about this is to look at the things that people get excited about, and see how you can bring that into professional learning for teachers

Vicki: Fun!

We will share the link in the Shownotes to the Happy Apples idea.

This is a fantastic idea for professional development.

I even wonder if we could figure out a way to use this with our students, because everybody likes to get — basically, it’s a prize box, which we used to use that even in the 1970’s and 1980’s when I was a kid in school.

Crystal: (laughs)

Vicki: So thanks, Crystal. I love this idea. We all need to be creative and get excited about learning.

Crystal: Great, thank you!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford [email protected]

Bio as submitted

Crystal has been an educator in Howard County Maryland for 12 years and currently serves as the Digital Learning, Innovation, and Design Resource Teacher. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband, two children, and two dogs.

Twitter:@crystalmmarshal

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Happy Apples: Fun PD Subscription Boxes for Teachers Made By the District appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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athena29stone · 7 years ago