#in the last half hour it goes off on a tangent where a bunch of ghosts of ppl that killed themselves convince a woman not to kill herself

[gaystardykeco]

everyones always talking about the bates motel tv series and not the 1987 bates motel movie that was a failed pilot for a tv series that never happened. which sucks bc i just watched the 1987 bates motel movie and now i cant stop thinking about it

[coffeeghoulie]

I'm gonna put myself on blast lmao, this is under the cut bc it got long lol

Thank you for the tag Belle! I'm gonna tag @hypnoneghoul and @ghoultrifle if you guys would like, and anyone else who wants to do this!

One Direction- Creative Enjoyer. They were the first band I ever got into and my first concert, and I was crazy about them. I don't know if any fanfiction of mine still exists, but I for sure remember writing it lmao. It probably would have been on Quotev but I'm too afraid to go look for it lmao. (NEVER MIND I WENT AND LOOKED. MY REAL NAME AND FACE ARE TIED TO THE ACCOUNT WTF WERE YOU THINKING, 13 YEAR OLD ME)

Doctor Who- Creative Enjoyer. This would have been around the same time as 1D, and I know there's a few OC fics of mine floating around Quotev from like ten years ago. I am very much tempted to rewatch all of New Who. I was insane about Ninerose and Tenrose and I kind of want to see if I still am

Marvel- Creative enjoyer. I was a stucky fan, and my first couple of fics on AO3 were Marvel. I did also have an OC named Donnie Noviak at one point.

Steven Universe- Creative Enjoyer. I did a bunch of fanart, and I had a couple gem OCs that I thought were cool. I have a drawing of Stevonnie that I did the linework for, brought my sketchbook to school, and one of my friends who was an art student colored it for me. I'm not certain where that sketchbook went lol.

The Adventure Zone- Creative Enjoyer. TAZ Balance altered my brain chemistry permanently, even though I had gone into it knowing the big plot twist. I relisten to it once a year, it's so good. I wrote a couple one shots for it for a friend's birthday.

Star Wars- Creative Enjoyer. I don't really have much to say about this one lol, I was kind of insane about attempting to "fix" the bad writing of the sequel trilogy and what a disservice it did to my favorite characters.

Dan and Phil- Passive Enjoyer. I don't have much to say except they were foundational in late middle school-early high school. I went to both of their joint stage shows, once as a birthday present. There may or may not be pictures of me with cat whiskers drawn on my face. I still own their plushies.

Fall Out Boy- Creative enjoyer, I did a lot of fanart in high school, and I'm currently in the process of drawing a FOB tattoo based on my favorite song, (Coffee's for Closers), which coincidentally is what my url is a reference to. As much as I love Ghost, this is my favorite band, and they have been for nine years. Their music got me through a lot of rough shit, ngl. (Also idk if this counts as fan art, but I spent like six months making 250 bracelets to hand out at the two concerts I'm going to, one of which is in three days at the time I'm writing this. I'm very excited, I have incredible seats and I hope they play something wild for the surprise songs.)

Stardew Valley- Passive Enjoyer. This is my favorite video game, and I have over 500 hours on steam (one save file, my perfection run, has 200 of those hours), so probably around 600 hours total if you include how much I played it on mobile. I started in high school when I had a chromebook that would not run steam games, so I was mobile only until college and I got a real laptop. The fishing minigame sucked until I got a mouse too, lol. I've spent a lot of time and most of my lunch breaks in the last two weeks playing, because there was just a huge update and I'm going in blind and having so much fun.

Hermitcraft- Passive Enjoyer. I've been watching this server on and off since my senior year of high school. I really like watching people play Minecraft in so many different creative ways? Like, one of the people I watch spent a year and a half creating this giant dungeon minigame complete with custom sounds and levels, and it was insane. They started their tenth season about two months ago, and I am attempting to watch 13 of the 27 creators on the server. We'll see how that goes lol. Also, side tangent, one of the members mispronouncing my twitch username is why I named myself Dottie.

Critical Role- mainly passive, but I have written a oneshot about my favorite characters so I'll count it as creative. This has been how I spend my Thursday nights for about two and a half years, and this year, I actually get an episode of Candela Obscura, their horror rpg show, on my birthday.

Dungeon Meshi- Passive Enjoyer. I binged the anime, and just finished the manga. I was completely hooked by the premise, and the writing is absolutely incredible. I could also go on a tangent about the lore and character design, but I digress lol.

Ghost- Creative Enjoyer. This is the thing I've written the most for, and I think it takes up over half of my total AO3 word count? IDK. I have never been this active in a community, and I'm just so happy to be here. The characters are all super intriguing to me, and especially how the ghouls are technically blank slates, barring their on-stage behavior, it's so interesting to see how different people bring them to life.

𝕱𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖆𝖌 𝖌𝖆𝖒𝖊 ✨

I saw this little fandom game thingie on another site and I really liked it, so I decided to bring it over here to tumblr while my apple pen charges. I’m also going to change up the rules. I’m going to list the fandoms I’ve been in, and classify them by:

Passive enjoyer = simply enjoyed it and the fan content made for it OR Creative enjoyer = actively made art, fanfic, cosplay, etc etc etc.

I’m going to tag people here but no pressure if you don’t want to do it! @miasmaghoul @lonelymentality @copiasjuicebox @iamthecomet @thediktatortot Also if you see it and want to do it, feel free.

Game under the cut since mine will be long<3

Harry Potter - creative enjoyer - My very first. This shit was a family affair in my house. I went to watch parties, themed parties. I cosplayed shittily, wrote shitty fanfic, and my walls were plastered floor to ceiling in teen magazine posters. Went to the Exhibition. Every second movie would come out in July so I would pretend it was like a birthday gift to me.

Twilight - creative enjoyer - Jfc. Don’t get me started. I still have my Edward action figure whose now missing both hands. Used to write self insert fanfic on quizzilla.com. RIP you beast of a website

The Walking Dead - passive enjoyer - This was also a family affair. Every sunday we would all gather round our shitty TV for the newest episode. I was more of a liveblogger than anything else. My dad has a bit to this day that ‘Hershel isn’t dead. He’ll be back.’ Yeah, sure dad.

Legend of Zelda - creative enjoyer - For most of my childhood I was passive, only really doodling Twilight Princess stuff sometimes. Then BOTW came out and it all changed.

Lord of the Rings - passive enjoyer - I look at Legolas and Aragorn. That’s enough for me. I don’t need creative works because I just need to look at them.

Marvel (Spider-man and Loki mostly) - creative enjoyer - I’ve been drawing these guys since birth, for better or for worse. MCU can suck my nuts but so can Loki franchise /sex DC (Batman) - creative enjoyer - Batman the Animated series did something bad to me. Now I draw Joker sometimes. Watch out, stay safe out there

Sherlock and Doctor Who - passive enjoyer - I’m putting these two together since I never really made fan art or anything, but I did attend watch parties for both on several occasions.

Supernatural - creative enjoyer - Sighs. Sighs even harder. Somewhere out there, deep in the depths of fanfic.net there’s miles of really really really bad fanfic. Somewhere…. Final Fantasy VII - creative enjoyer - Sighs far more dreamily. My favvvvv my ultimate fav. Sephiroth is my fictional other and LOMF. Many, many arts of him throughout every sketchbook I own. Also some fanfics IIRC.

TF2 - creative enjoyer - I used to draw Medic and Pyro kissing<3

Homestuck - creative enjoyer - War flashbacks. Not only was I a semi-well known fanartist, I was also a semi-well known cosplayer in my city. I was a ‘friendleader’ in my cities Homestuck fangroup and attended events, dances, etc etc etc. I was on a cosplay gif blog here on Tumblr. I ran the second most popular groupchat on MSPARP.com before it was MXRP.com. I had beef with mods. Most of my relationships at that time were forged in the fires of LOHAC. I still see my art of Dave in MCR black parade uniform around sometimes. Dramatical Murder - creative enjoyer - To no ones surprise. Yeah. I like the yaoi dissociation game. Dream Daddy - creative enjoyer - SHOUTOUT DREAM DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Evil priest Joseph lovers rise UP. Didn’t do much, but there’s some art floating around out there.

Voltron: LD - passive enjoyer - Thank GOD I never made anything for this. However, I was active in the kin community so thats a huge L. I also ate uppppp stuff about it and sheith still fucks.

Overwatch - creative enjoyer - Sometimes you’re a Genji main and the world is so so hard for you. That’s how I used to live my life, then I got better.

Final Fantasy XV - creative enjoyer - Second LOMF. My old art blog is stocked full of chocobro content, mostly fanart of the boys and meme redraws. Also used to cosplay Noctis CONSTANTLY! Here’s an old tiktok

The Band Ghost and Sleep Token - creative enjoyer - (((((((: Hi guys

[oasisofgalaxies]

s h a r e the head canons!!

oK!!!! Headcanon time!!! So apparently I can’t do anything without dragging the duo into it so wOOP!! Anyways here’s some headcanons if Mem and Mori went to Camp Unus Annus :D

Also thank you for helping me with these and letting me yell at you about them gjfNFNDNFN

•So both of them would be councilors and teach Outdoor Survival together

•Mem teaches the half where campers learn to build shelters or pitch a tent, start a fire and learn the various ways to make one, tell time and direction out in the wild, and general survival tips.

•Mori teaches people how to identify different plants and animals, how to gather food in the forest, how to find a good source of drinking water, and basically everything you need to know to keep yourself alive in the woods.

•A lot of their lessons overlap so sometimes they’ll co-teach classes together

•And when they’re doing separate stuff they’ll interrupt each other’s lessons frequently- Either to say something funny or dumb or show the other something cool they found!

•Mem gets really really excited when he gets to make fires cause this is the oNE time he’s allowed to do it and he’s gonna have F U N

•Mori often gets sidetracked in lessons if he sees a cool plant, mushroom, or even some moss. He’ll immediately stop what he’s doing and go on an excited tangent about it.

•He also had a habit of pointing out any and all birds and animals in the area and getting very excited over them

•Mem often has buttercups or other really pretty flowers tucked behind his ear!

•When Mori sees a pretty flower his first reaction is to pick it and give it to Mem! If Mori finds a four leaf clover that also goes to Mem too.

•To preserve the flowers Mem will use a bit of his magic to freeze them in time and make sure they don’t wilt.

•He has a lot of past gifted flowers laying on his shelf in the cabin.

•Likewise, Mori’s bag is stuffed full of cool looking rocks because like a penguin Mem will see a neat rock and immediately give it to Mori!!

•He also found seaglass by the lake (somehow-) and immediately gave it to Mori.

•Now matter how heavy his bag gets, Mori never refuses a rock.

•If he gets anxious during the day he’ll grab one of the smoother ones and use it as a worry stone.

•His cabin shelf is lined with many of the rocks from Mem!

•Both of them have made friendship bracelets for the other!

•Mem made Mori a lavender and rose colored one, a really simple striped bracelet.

•It’s pretty thin and really messy, Mem got frustrated a lot when making it because he couldn’t figure out how to tie the knots exactly right.

•Bracelets aren’t exactly his forte.

•But he gave it to Mori and he lOVED it!! He absolutely refused to hear any apologies for how it looked and insisted it was absolutely perfect. He now refuses to take it off because he just adores it!!

•Mori made a gold and black colored chevron bracelet for Mem.

•It’s rather big and very neat looking, almost professional.

•The gold thread is very glittery, Mori thought he’d like that. He even braided some glittery beads in!

•It took him a while to make since it was such a big bracelet.

•When he finally gave it to Mem he cried over how wonderful it was and gave Mori a bear hug.

•He wears it absolutely everywhere and refuses to take it off even for a moment.

•Mem shows it off to everyone and proudly announces that he got it as a gift from Mori. He says it like he’s saying he won the greatest prize in the world, and to him that’s probably what it is.

•Just the idea of them giving each other things they found or made is really really nice to me!

•Also the obligatory stargazing headcanon! It’s basically mandatory at this point.

•They can and will sneak out past curfew to look at the stars. Either they climb on the roof of the cabins, go to an outlook in the hills, or sit by the lake.

•Either way they bring snacks and blankets and just cuddle up to stare at the sky. It’s really nice especially with all the nighttime noise. Crickets chirping and the occasional bird call or owl hoot. The lake gently lapping on the shore and bats dipping and diving overhead.

•They’re both tired from a long day at camp but it’s always worth it to spend some nice alone time together. To recharge from all the crazy of the day. A few hours to themselves before the chaos of camp kicks back up once more. Just some peace and quiet. Just the two of them.

•They’ll quietly talk and share stories about their days, telling each other funny or interesting things that happened.

•Even though they’re always together it’s just good to listen to each other talk about what happened that day.

•It’s also a good time to exchange gifts, whether it be rocks, flowers, or other things they found during the day and didn’t get a chance to give it to them normally.

•And sometimes it not gifts but odd things they found and wanted to puzzle over together. Like the one weird stick Mem found with all the odd tunnel-looking grooves in it.

•It’s just a lovely quiet time under the stars.

•Their cabin walls also have lots of pictures hung up.

•Some are of the two either posing together or one or the other caught in the middle of something funny

•For example, like the time Mem tried to start a fire and all he got was a face full of smoke

•And aims are just really soft and quiet moments of them that the other snapped.

•Theres one of Mori reading against a tree while sunlight dappled over him from between the leaves. He’s surrounded by tiny little flowers and he has a really bright and calm smile on his face.

•Sometimes it’s also pictures of flowers or animals Mori took or scenery shots that Mem liked.

•There’s a few of the lookout, some deer, morning mist on the lake, some wildflowers in the field, and a forest full of fireflies at night.

I just kinda made a bunch of these last night while talking to Ophelia- Maybe because it’s just in part that I miss camp but these were so fun to think about :D!!!

[drizzitwrites]

Football RPF Challenge - Day 9: Cuddling

I’m officially renaming today’s prompt as “We started out on a short, simple, straightforward journey and ended up somewhere I never even meant to pass through on the way to our destination that is also NOWHERE near our destination, but whatever, it’s a nice place so I guess we’re just here now.”

Today's prompt was supposed to feature cuddling. This one should have been remarkably easy, or at least it seemed so on the surface before I actually started writing anything.

Basically, the plan for today was a short spin-off scene that may or may not actually get used in the fic it's intended for (but could get posted later as a related work maybe?) of Vincent's injury recovery and Christian cuddling up with him on the sofa instead of going to dinner with friends because Vincent’s been sleeping in a separate room to keep from waking Christian up and Christian misses him.

That is.......not what I wrote.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I could get back there given some more time, but I took 1.5 hours to write what I have because I did that thing where I started a scene and then accidentally slid into a flashback (about things that happened like FIVE HOURS EARLIER, WTF, Drizz?). I thought about fixing it once I got back from the appointment I had to leave for, or at least finishing the scene and writing until we got to the point where Christian was actually there cuddling up with Vincent on the sofa, because (and I cannot stress the word *shouldn’t* enough here) it shouldn’t take much more to get us there. 

BUT! I have things to do and would like to spend time with my SO, etc. so I decided to just post this as is. It doesn’t adhere to the prompt AT ALL, but there’s an object lesson here:

Sometimes writing is like this. Sometimes you sit down at the computer with a brilliantly clear idea of what you’re planning to write that day. You know everything that’s supposed to happen in the scene and you know the players and you know the motivations and you know all the things you are supposed to know and then...it doesn’t go that way.

And usually that’s frustrating, especially when what comes of it isn’t good or useful or taking you anywhere and you just feel like you had this plan and instead you couldn’t execute it and ended up with a bunch of worthless words and wasted hours. BUT! Sometimes it takes you to a place you didn’t think of, but you’re like...THIS SCENE THAT I HAD NO INTENTION OF CREATING HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL AND I WANT TO EXPAND ON IT AND MAKE IT ITS OWN THING.

Basically, when your writing takes you someplace you never meant to go, you have to ask yourself:

1. Is this place somewhere I actually *want* to be and thereby worth exploring more? Should I keep going down this path a bit further?

2. Is it okay that we detour through here on the way back to the main plot? Should I finish out this scene and then figure out a way to steer us back on course?

3. Is this NOT AT ALL where I want to be and I’m just going to pretend all this writing didn’t happen and start over, following the plan? (If yes, don’t delete what you did, just put it in a separate “for later” doc, because, who knows, maybe that place you went will work just fine in another story or will turn into a story of its own someday).

Explore those tangents, friends. Because no path explored is made of wasted steps or something equally profound that makes more sense.

Vincent shifted a bit as he heard the unmistakable sound of Christian's garage door sliding closed, followed a minute later by the slight creak the inside door made as it swung open. Was it that late, already?

Christian had left earlier that morning, Vincent only half-awake and still mostly delirious from his 6:00 am dose of pain medication. Vincent vaguely remembered a cool hand smoothing the hair back from his forehead and Christian's soft lips pressing a kiss to his temple.

"I'm off to training, Liefje," he'd said, his voice soft and low, as though he were afraid to rouse Vincent from his near-constant sleep. "I left you some fruit and toast, although it might be cold by the time you get to it, sorry. Someone will be here later to check if you need anything, okay? I love you. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Vincent didn't recall what he'd mumbled in response, or if it had been even marginally coherent. He'd slipped back into a fitful sleep before he'd even heard the door click shut behind Christian.

Christian, in defiance of everyone's advice, had insisted on staying home from training for the past few days so he could help Vincent with his recovery. Vincent hadn't minded, of course; it had been nice to have someone around to bring him food and glasses of water and, much to Vincent's extreme embarrassment, help him down the corridor to the toilet. Still, the Premier League season was only just underway and with so many of Christian's teammates newly back to training after the World Cup and several others out with injuries or international duties, Christian's presence in the squad was even more critical than usual.

Somehow, he'd managed to convince Pochettino to let him have three days of leave ahead of their match with Manchester United the following Monday, and today had been his first day back following Vincent's surgery.

He hadn't expected to miss Christian much while he was gone for the day--it wasn't as if Vincent did much of anything besides crashing in and out of fitful sleep in-between his doses of painkillers--but it seemed he'd gotten rather used to Christian rushing to his side whenever Vincent made the slightest commotion.

Toby's wife, Shani, had turned up around midday, bearing gifts of salad and selection of sandwiches. She didn't look in much better condition to make the trek up and down Christian's stairs as she went to refill Vincent's gathering of water bottles and exchanged the dishes left behind from his light breakfast. She was due to give birth any day now, and Vincent wasn't at all sure she needed to be prioritising his care over her own, but she'd waved away his protests.

"This is the first time I've left the house in days," she'd said with a laugh. "Don't get me wrong, I think after today I might be happy to stay shut up indoors with my feet up until all of this is over, but it's nice to have a change of scenery for a time."

Vincent had shifted around on the sofa, attempting to prop himself up into a sitting position so Shani could sit down. She'd done her best to lean over and straighten the pillows behind him, but Vincent had shooed her away.

"No sense you hurting yourself," Vincent had told her. "I can only imagine what Toby would say if he found out if something happened on account of you helping me. Besides, I'm not sure either of us would be in a position to help the other if we both end up falling over or something."

Shani had let out a giggle at that, but she held up her hands and let Vincent struggle through rearranging himself until he was scooted into a sort of half-slouch against the corner and arm of the sofa, leaving half a cushion free for her to settle in.

They'd stayed that way for nearly two hours, talking and laughing as they caught up on everything they'd both been up to in the months since they'd last seen one another. For all that Vincent and Toby had always held one another at a distance, he and Shani had fallen into amiable companionship from the beginning. She was lighthearted and kind and Vincent had always found her easy to talk to. It didn't surprise him that she'd been the one to volunteer to come by and check on him while Christian was away at training, despite her rather advanced pregnancy.

After the fifth time Vincent had nodded off while she was speaking, she levered herself off the sofa and began gathering up the remnant cutlery and containers from their lunch.

"Don't..." Vincent started, a yawn swallowing away the rest of his words. "I mean...leave it all. Christian can clear it up when he gets home. I need to make the long trek down the hallway to the WC anyway, so I'll at least, I don't know, push it all into a pile with one of my crutches or something."

"I should help," Shani said, staggering a bit as she tried to shift her wait to help Vincent to a standing position.

Vincent held up a hand. "No, thanks. Really. I appreciate the offer, but...I'm not sure we're the sort of friends who help one another go to the toilet."

"Fair enough," Shani said with a laugh. "But I should at least stay until you're back and settled."

Vincent shook his head. "At the rate this process usually goes it will be at least another hour. Plus, as we established, if one of us falls down there's not much the other can do. We'd just end up having to call someone to help lift us both off the floor of Christian's hallway."

They both gave a laugh at that thought--two of them flopped side-by-side against the floorboards until they managed to ring up someone to help them up.

"Alright," Shani said at last, her full cheeks pink with laughter. "But you'd better not fall. Christian will never let me hear the end of it if he comes home to find you laying there and me nowhere in sight."

"I'll take all the blame, I promise," Vincent said.

He turned slowly, dropping his good leg off the sofa and onto the floor, then leaning forward to lift the other--still encased in an immobilising cast. Shani grabbed his crutches from where they were propped against the door and held them out towards Vincent so he could use them to push himself up off the sofa.

The whole process was awkward, and Vincent had to give up and crash back down to the cushions once before he managed to get the angle right, but he eventually ended up in a standing position, cool plastic of the crutches wrapped around his forearm, his bad leg bent behind him so his foot could rest on the sofa.

"Thank you again for coming by. I appreciate you taking the time, especially when you should be at home yourself."

"I had to come by. It's the only way I will get to see you since you never come along with Christian when he visits."

"It's..." Vincent started.

"When you're feeling well enough, please come by. I hope by then that I can introduce you to my daughter."

Vincent couldn't help but give her a smile at this.

He shifted his weight so he could press air-kisses to her cheeks--right, then left, then right again. "How could I say no when you ask me that way?"

"So I'll see you soon?"

"Of course. I hope everything goes well. With the birth, I mean. I look forward to meeting her."

Shani flashed him a wide smile, then turned to make her way slowly out the door and down the steps. Vincent followed after her, crutches creaking and thudding as he moved. He hovered at the top of the stairs, waiting until she was out of sight and he heard the click of the door and the soft clunk of the key turning in the latch before he turned to make the long trek down the hallway.

[flatlinesunrelenting]

Spread Your Wings

Hey, @dan-yuna it’s ya boi, your secret santa! This went on a whole bunch of tangents, but I hope you enjoy it anyways <33 Thanks to @fander-secret-santa for organizing all this. This was super fun!!

Pairing: Logince

Summary: Character A (Logan) is feeling really down and Character B (Roman) helps him.

Tags: Negative thoughts, wings, and I think that’s it? Ask to tag if I forgot anything.

Logan does this every time. Whenever a video comes out delayed, the logical facet would slink away to his room as soon as it’s public and disappear for a few days. Whenever anyone would pass by his door and listen closely, the sound of scratching pens and the occasional murmur of frustration could be heard, only stopping in the early hours of the day for a couple of hours before starting up again. Ideally, it would have indicated that Logan is finally getting some sleep, but no one could never be sure. During those few days, the door would never open for anything.

Roman knows that Logan isn’t exactly fond of him. It’s almost to be expected considering they are polar opposites and butt heads more often than they have any sort of friendly interaction. The prince just assumes that every time Logan disappears into his room doing whatever it is he did, he would be the last person he would want to see.

Even then, Roman can’t help but consider it when he passes by Logan’s room after a video and hears something that sounds like sniffling.

That’s impossible, Roman thinks to himself as he stands frozen in front of Logan’s door. As the personification of Thomas’ imagination, he’s prone to getting so caught up in his musings that he doesn’t know if it’s the reality or if he has just been thinking too hard again. But no, even that doesn’t explain what he heard.

Because why in Odin’s name would Logan be crying?

Roman shakes his head and continues to walk down the stairs, where Patton and Virgil are making dinner in the kitchen. Absurd is what it is. Even Logan himself would deny to his grave that he felt… well, anything. He’s Logic, for goodness sake. Why does Roman care so much, anyway?

“Hey, Princey,” Virgil’s greeting snaps him out of his thoughts, “Logan’s still not out of his room?”

“He still hasn’t emerged from his nerd cave, no,” he quips in return as he eyes the strawberry shortcake on the counter. Before his hand even finishes reaching out to get a dollop of cream off to taste, Patton smacks it away. “Hey-!”

“Not before dinner, Roman.” Patton scolds, turning back to the stew cooking over the stove. The moral trait glances up the stairs and frowns. It has been a week since the last video and with how huge the project was, the release date was pushed back way more than the other videos have been. Through all the commotion, Patton still couldn’t help but notice Logan’s composure fraying to the point of being completely severed. He sighs. “I hope Logan’s okay.”

Dinner is spent in semi-uncomfortable silence with one of the three occasionally glancing at the stairs to see if their fourth counterpart is going to appear. Some amiable conversation made is a bit less awkward and after dinner, Patton and Virgil went to fix the dishes and left Roman to his business. On his way to his room, Roman finds himself focusing his hearing when he passes by Logan’s door. He hears it again, the staggered breathing. It’s mingled in with the usual noises of muttering and pen scratches, though the former is significantly less monotone. It’s probably the most emotion he’s ever witnessed from the logical side, and the sound of it makes his chest tighten.

Knock knock

His knuckles are rapping against the door before he can process what’s going on and the noises stop abruptly. There’s a tense minute of silence, followed by the sound of shuffling, then another minute passes before the door opens and Logan peeks out.

“What do you want.” Logan rasps, rough from disuse. The puffiness around his eyes and the light tracks down his cheeks are a telltale sign that disuse isn’t the only reason for the pathetic roughness of his usually monotone voice.

“You missed dinner.” It’s only by virtue of his acting skills did Roman keep the indifference in his voice, “It was really good. Patton made strawberry shortcake.”

“That’s great,” Logan mumbles and avoids his eyes, wiping his own with the back of his hand. “If that’s all, then–”

Roman’s foot shoots out and traps in between the door and the frame, keeping the door ajar. He ignores the tired glare that Logan gives him and pushes inside despite his protests. The room, once pristine to the point of clinicality, is a mess of papers and scattered thoughts. The charts lining the wall above Logan’s desks are a timeline of the two weeks he spent in voluntary exile. Off to the left, Roman can recognize the neat script of Logan’s impeccable handwriting and he watches it deteriorate as his eyes travel further right. The almost font-like writing starts getting littered with scribbles and blotches of stray ink until it borders on illegible, some of the papers even tearing at the edges.

“I didn’t give you permission to enter,” Logan growls, though any venom in it is effectively dulled by the sheer fatigue in his voice. Now that Roman looks at him closer, he looks like he’s dead on his feet, swaying slightly in place as if he’s having trouble staying upright. “If you have no business here, then I would prefer it if you left.”

“I do have business here, actually.” Roman replies, “More specifically with you.”

“I’m busy.” Logan shoots back through gritted teeth.

“Look,” His unusually stern tone makes even Logan pause, his lips pressing together to stop whatever he was going to say. “I know we haven’t always… seen eye to eye. But I would like your assistance in something.”

Logan raises an eyebrow and Roman takes that as the cue to continue. He grabs his hand and tugs him out of the mess of his bedroom, paying little mind to the half-hearted attempts at breaking free from his grasp.

“I have work to do,” Logan says monotonously.

“You’ve been in your room for forever, Francis Prick. You need to loosen up!” Roman declares. The blank look he receives from Logan makes him pause for a moment. “Francis Prick? Like a variation of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule? You’re a nerd, you should know this.”

There’s a flash of recognition in his eyes before the light goes out again. Logan looks down at their intertwined hands and frowns. “How do you know that?”

“Maybe I’m just smarter than you,” Roman says, earning an incredulous snort. He’s not about to admit that he spent hours looking up researchers and scientists to make up more creative sleights towards him. “Anyways, I have something to show you in my room. Just let me have this.”

Logan really wants to protest more, but his fatigue is getting the best of him and he decides that the sooner he agrees to whatever plot Roman has stirred up, the faster he can come back to his room and work out his mistakes so that the previous video’s delay doesn’t happen again. With a soft ‘tsk’ and a tightening of his hand, Roman walks a little faster and stops in front of the intricately carved oak door leading to his room.

As soon as he opens it, Logan is overwhelmed by the sudden gust of wind as they enter an open field lit dimly by the moon partially blocked by clouds. He shivers instinctively and rubs his arm with his free hand, looking around in confusion.

“Oh, this will not do in the slightest.” Roman lets go of Logan’s hand and looks up at the cloud-obscured sky with a small frown. If he had been slightly more coherent, then Logan would have pointed out that he had complete control over his realm and he could have just conjured the weather to his liking in the first place. Instead, he just watches as Roman rubs his hands together and hold two fingers up in a pistol-shape to the sky.

A burst of magic shoots from his fingertips along with a wave of energy, forcing Logan to shield his face from the incoming debris. When he opens his eyes again, Roman is smiling and he nods up to the sky. Logan follows his gesture and promptly feels all the air leave his lungs.

The sky is a canvas of twinkling stars, glowing jewels streaking along the inky blackness with the careful hand of an artist. With his mind a bit more awake from the shock, Logan recognizes some constellations dotting the sky with surprising accuracy. When he looks back down to Roman for an explanation, he is once again baffled when he sees a pair of pure white wings coming from his back fluttering gently in the breeze. With a wide grin, Roman makes a flourish with his hands and Logan feels his centre of balance shift and something move behind him.

He recognizes the wings on his back as belonging to a barn owl, bronze in colour and dotted with darker browns. Logan wordlessly flexed and spread them, feeling the wind resistance against the massive appendages and watching the feathers glisten slightly with moonlight.

“Well don’t just stand there.” Roman’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. “Moonlight’s a-burning!”

Logan shook his head, “I don’t know how to- I mean, I’m not familiar with the mechanisms required for the replication of flight.”

“This is the dreamscape, Logan. You will fly if you just believe!” Roman flexed his wings and hovered a few feet off the ground to demonstrate. Impossible for that wing type, but Roman did have the habit of completely disregarding common real-world rules with his creations. “Now come on!”

Roman doesn’t wait another second before grabbing Logan by the hand and shooting up into the sky. With a startled yelp, Logan clings to Roman with his own wings folded tight against his back and his eyes closed tight. The fanciful side lets out a bark of laughter and starts gliding across the sky, his powerful wingbeats gently pushing along the breeze.

“Hey, nerd,” Roman calls out, shaking the facet in his arms. Logan opens one eye and uses it to glare at him, still clinging tightly to his sash and uniform jacket. With a small smirk, he continues, “Look up or you’ll miss it.”

Against his better judgement, Logan fully opens his eyes and tilts his head upwards. Again, something in his chest stirs as he takes in the sight above him. In that altitude, the stars look close enough to touch. Light streaks across the sky as a meteor shower starts above them and his jaw drops in awe. Roman looks at him and the starlight shining in his eyes and feels something twist in his chest, warming up until it reaches outwards and sings through his veins.

When Logan finally looks back at Roman, the look of fondness on his face makes the feeling in his chest grow stronger. He blinks slowly and his eyes fall on Roman’s parted lips, looking impossibly close with their proximity. If he only leans forward a few inches.

Neither of them knows who started it, but suddenly their lips are pressed together in a soft embrace, moving together with such gentleness and such passion that neither thought the other was capable of. Logan feels the tension leave his body as Roman’s hands tangle in his hair, scratching gently at his scalp and drawing out a soft moan.

With that, Roman pulls away and Logan’s eyes flutter open to find Roman hovering a foot or so away with his arms crossed. The same arms that were wrapped securely around Logan just a few moments ago. There’s the movement from behind him again and he looks to see his wings fluttering with the pulse in his chest, his eyes widening as he realizes that he’s flying on his own.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Roman pipes up. His face is flushed and his lips are slightly pinker, stretched out in a small smile.

“… No, I suppose not.” Logan responds, cursing as his voice cracks a bit. “…Thank you, Roman.”

The smile on his face gets wider and he holds his hand out for Logan to take. “Don’t mention it. Now come on.”

They continue flying for what feels like forever, with Logan pointing out certain constellations and Roman conjuring a few more into the sky as per Logan’s request. In the morning, Patton would do his rounds and find Logan’s room empty, its usual occupant lying asleep in a luxurious red silk bed with his hand intertwined with Roman’s.

[gabe-wallace]

Dust & Rattling Bones || Self Para

SCCU Fall Festival Task (Baking Contest & Cornhole Tournament) (if you squint... fuck u I’m counting it anyway) Words: 1,659 Summary: Gabe goes to visit his mother for the first time in awhile.

Gabe's careful steps were accompanied by the faintest crunching of brown grass as he picked his way carefully through headstones. He took large, hesitant steps over people's graves and looked around him warily as he made his way towards an unassuming, pinkish stone. He had never found cemeteries scary or creepy, but there were other ghosts that lingered here.

He'd already taken his accustomed pause in the car, where he closed his eyes and let a fantasy play behind his closed eyes. He might cross the graveyard gate, take the bend in the road and notice a young woman standing in front of his parent's stone. She would be facing away from him, but her hair would be just as brown and wild as his own, and the unguarded stoop of her shoulder would speak to the same ragged edge of sadness he felt here in this lonely place. His heart would begin to pound, and he would pause, find the courage to call "Bekah?" and when he did she would turn, see him. Maybe she'd call "Gabe?" back, maybe she'd just recognize him after all these years. Someone would scream with joy, Gabe would feel tears on his cheeks. They'd run towards each other, heedless of the stones and years between them, and he'd wrap his long lost finally found sister in his arms, and then, and then, and then...

It hadn't happened. It was heartbreaking in the way most of his past was, an aching, bleeding wound square in his chest. But he poked at this particular wound enough that small jabs at it didn't hurt anymore. If he ignored it (or convinced himself that he was able to ignore it) it wasn't too hard to keep going about his life.

He took his second accustomed pause. The stone was made for two people- couples or siblings or parents and their child. Gabe always made sure to approach it from the back, to give himself time to examine how he might feel if he came around the side of it and found not one but two set of dates staring at him. Let down. Disappointed. He decided after a moment. It would be discouraging to have never found his father alive, and to never be able to tell him that he was a giant asshole to his face. 

As they'd been every time he'd visited so far, he fears were completely unfounded. It was only the one date that he would never, could never, forget. January 7th, 2005. He settled into the grass straight in the middle of the double stone, bunching his backpack under his head as a makeshift pillow and shoving his knock off aviators higher up on his nose. He had lived in Southern California his entire life, but he still loathed the heat- he was sure he could live here his entire life and never grow used to it.

He laid his hands gently on his chest, staring up at the cloudless blue sky and letting the relentless sun beat down on him. He hadn't been out here since this summer, when most of his roommates had headed home for weeks if not months at a time, and there had been no one to question where he was going. He'd have a farmer's tan by the time all was said and done, and everyone would assume he'd been out at the Carnival, or doing yard work for people with more money than motivation, and that was how he wanted things. He didn't talk about his past for a reason, and he certainly didn't talk about this.

It felt a little bit like regressing, honestly. He wondered if it was healthy, to curl up on his mother's grave, to run his fingers over the date and name on her stone in lieu of a face to touch or hand to hold, or tell her about his life as if she could listen and understand. That was a question for some far off future where he had enough money for a therapist. And the therapist could wait until he hired a private investigator to find the missing members of his family, bought a more reliable car and a better computer to code on, and treated all of his friends and foster family who had helped him along the way to a big fancy party. Until then.

"Hey Mom." Gabe murmured to the sky, eyes closed and he pictured Gloria Wallace as he had last seen her- brown curls a messy halo around her head, smiling from the driver's seat of the family's Volkswagen, blowing a kiss at her children as Gabe walked Bekah up the stairs of their school. (Gabe didn’t count her funeral, of course.) It was easy to picture her now, or how she might have been. A tiny woman, smaller than him now, leaning over their worn kitchen counter with paint smeared on her cheek and clay under her nails, exhausted from dealing with teenagers all day, peering at Gabe over the rim of a tea mug filled with orange juice- How’s college baby? Still liking your roommates? And your classmates? Not partying too hard now that’s you’re twenty one and making your mother feel older by the minute? I don’t have to ask about your grades, you’ve always been so smart- don’t know where you got that from. 

Another prod to the gaping hole in his chest, this one a little harder than the last. He was fine, he was fine. Another two years, then maybe he’d have time to break down over all of these small hurts.

“Hi Mom.” He said again, his voice slightly rougher. "I miss you, same as usual, you’re probably getting tired of hearing it every time. Tough, because I still do. It's Fall Festival time again, and I thought I'd pay you a visit. I remember how much you used to love it. I remember every year you'd sign up to enter the baking contest, and every year you got to run and you lost you'd complain about the wasted money, and dad would say it wasn't wasted if you enjoyed yourself, and you would say you'd enjoy it more if you had won. I heavily identify because I too hate wasting money, no matter how much enjoyment I might get out of wasting it. That’s why I hate strip clubs... You know, I know you know I’m kidding and would have laughed if you were here, and that still felt way too awkward. Anyway."

Gabe shook his head as much as he could with the book bag shoved under his head, grinning. "Bekah and I liked it when you entered the baking contest. We got to eat all your practice batches and accidents. We were accidents too, so we identified. Ba dum tssk. (Jesus Mom, this hiding my trauma through humor thing gets exhausting.) But I still miss those maple-apple-pumpkin cupcakes with that cinnamon cream cheese frosting- the ones you made the Fall Festival before- all of that. Bekah and I tried to make them for dad after. We thought maybe they'd cheer dad up. Bekah had this idea in her head that if we could just make him laugh he'd suddenly get better, and I was just desperate for him to not drink so much that night that I was willing to try.

We made just the biggest mess of the kitchen, and we didn't make the right of course. The frosting was basically just pure cream cheese with powdered sugar and about half a jar of cinnamon added. The batter was running and wouldn't sit up, and I had dumped so much vanilla extract into it was was nigh on inedible, but we still got so excited when dad came home, we ran to show him... I think I had this naive idea that it would be like the movies, where the parent is still sad, but seeing the kids had tried to cheer them up made an impression on them, and they at least tried to fake it better for them... Of course that's not what happened, but you know." Matthew Wallace had barely blinked at the food, had instead sighed, told them to clean up the mess and clean the dishes, and stumbled to his recliner with a bottle of Jack Daniel's already in his fist. Bekah had thrown the cupcake pan on the floor sobbing and ran to her room, and Gabe had spent the next two hours quietly cleaning the kitchen and biting his lip so his own cries weren't audible.

Rubbing his eyes under his sunglasses, Gabe sighed, letting his arms flop back to the ground and shaking his head again. "Whatever Mom. I know you have some things to say him, when it comes time. Kick him in the balls once or twice for me if you see him before I do. I didn't mean to go on a tangent. I just wanted to say that I saw the ads for the baking contest and it made me think of you."

"Did I tell you that this year they're importing corn for a corn maze? It's wild Mom, and there's some game called 'Cornholes' or something that's a big Midwestern thing. It just sounds dirty to me, but while someday I'm sure the Fall Festival will be dying for Gabe Wallace to show up as some kind of celebrity judge or wealthy alumni, in the here and now they don't give a shiiii-uck. Shuck. They just don’t give a shuck. That sounds even worse. Sorry Mom. Anyway. I thought about signing up for the tournament, it's this big competitive thing and some of the people on my Quidditch team wanted to do it, but in the immortal words of an exploited person of color 'ain't nobody got time for that'. Oh- You know mom, I wish more than anything you were still around so I could show you memes, because I know for a fact you would find them hilarious."

[sintrovert]

Sherlock: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Sherlock, once a groundbreaking, imaginative and exceedingly clever show, now grapples with one of the simplest aspects of any story: characterization.

As a previous mega-fan of the show in its prime of seasons one and two, season three was a mild disappointment, The Abominable Bride was just plain silly, and season four has just devolved this show into a faux-clever case, cheesy transitions, useless drama, and characters that are unrecognizable.

Spoilers for season four, episode one, The Six Thatchers, are under the cut.

To preface, I did go in to this episode with a negative view, stemming from my previous toxic experiences with fans of the show and my less than stellar opinion of The Abominable Bride, but Sherlock exceeded my wildest expectations. A show once my favorite, a show I would spend hours agonizing over, has fallen into the trap most shows face: it’s just plain bad. 

Let’s start off with the most basic aspect of a Sherlock episode: the case. 

The Six Thatchers was lifted directly from the original Conan-Doyle story of The Six Napoleons. Someone has been going around, smashing Thatcher busts. Makes sense, Thatcher wasn’t the most well-liked person. Sherlock, of course, has to repeat over and over that Sherlock doesn’t know who she is, because obviously we all need to be reminded that he’s oblivious, doesn’t care about most things, blah, blah, etc. 

So Sherlock goes hunting for whoever keeps busting the busts, and comes upon the culprit (while trespassing in some man’s house, who apparently either has really good earplugs or is deaf). They tousle, get some quality pool-fight action, and Sherlock smashes the bust, only to find the missing pearl of the Borgi--wait. PLOT TWIST! It’s actually a flash drive!! The same one Mary had! Hmm?? Sherlock’s adversary then spends a minute to fill him in instead of say, running away, and BOOM, Mary’s wanted dead. 

Of course, we later find out that Mary was just a simple assassin who went by a code name that she later gave her daughter (not suspicious, the many people hunting her down would never be able to find that out through public records and birth certificates) and who kept literally all of her information and secrets on  one flash drive that had no backup and was a huge liability, and she believed her partners to be dead and actually didn’t sell them out, because it was the minute-taker who used Latin as a codeword for some reason and who loved the aquarium. So, that was that. That was the whole case. 

Now let’s focus on Mary, or Rosemund Mary, or whoever the hell she really is. Based off of this episode, the show should be renamed Mary, as most of it revolved around her. Now, disclaimer, I’ve wanted her dead since she shot Sherlock. I also wanted her assassin story to be a bit more sinister, as all signs really did point to that in season three. 

Ah, but no, she’s just an ex-murderer who wanted a normal life and a family and sacrificed herself for Sherlock, a true hero. Bull. They could have done so much with the character of Mary, but Moffatt and Gatiss decided to make her story flat and boring, and kill her off to further the plot. Where’s Moriarty? Who the hell knows. 

We then get a useless montage where Amanda Abbington gets to show off her chops as an annoying American (New York? Boston? Somewhere east coast), then change her hair a bunch of times, and have all of that become obsolete because the super-spy didn’t notice a tracker on the flash drive she held--another reason the flash drive was just a very bad idea. Mary spends the confrontation with Ajay begging (she does a lot of begging and theatrics) but he gets killed, and she and John have a tiff.

But Mary, a liar, a killer, a traitor, gets to go out looking really good (never mind that the entire situation came about BECAUSE of her). And then she sends Sherlock a video message (how did she know to do that?????) and tells him to “Save John Watson. Save him. Save him.” Okay, we get it. And then, in the after credits scene, she tells him to go to hell? Why??

Don’t even get me started on her death scene. Easily the stupidest and most unnecessarily dramatic part of the entire episode.

Let’s move on to the worst part of this episode by far: John Watson.

John got very little screen time and most of it was spent with him either CHEATING ON HIS WIFE or being ridiculed by said wife and Sherlock. Are we even sure he should be credited as a main character in that episode? He’s flat, he’s dull, he offers none of the John-Watson-esque banter we’ve come to know and love, and he messages another woman while he has a wife and baby at home. In what universe would John Watson’s character do that? (Plus, the text conversations were stilted and not his style, so what even was that?) He meets a random woman on a bus and actually plans to meet with her before thinking better of it as his steps off the bus, last minute. Congrats on being less than a dick you could’ve been, I guess. 

My interpretation of John Watson has always been fiercely loyal to a fault, so his infidelity raised a huge red flag. Obviously, he’s not over Mary’s lies, but, y’know, he stays with her anyway, because of plot baby. And then, he almost turns into a werewolf or something while he cries over Mary’s dead body, then blames Sherlock, which is also so unlike him. Sherlock repeated over and over the vow he made to keep her safe, which, oh my god, we get it, you love John so you don’t want to hurt him, and when she jumped in front of him and got shot, that’s obviously his fault completely. What, pray tell, was John expecting him to do? Get shot again? Bullets are fast, there’s really not that much time to react. John shuns Sherlock, and tells Mary to tell him that he’d rather have anyone else help him but Sherlock (Jesus, John, harsh) and now the scene is set for the next two episodes: Sherlock and John’s excellent adventure back into the forays of friendship. Hooray.

Finally, let’s talk about the man of the hour-and-a-half, Sherlock Holmes. The writers made sure to emphasize his “high functioning sociopath” bit by making him cold toward his clients and having him constantly texting during really important events (seriously, for someone so damn smart, turn off your damn ringer so people can’t hear you typing!). He goes on long-winded tangents that amount to absolutely nothing, he talks to a balloon, he makes rash and impulsive decisions, and he has some sort of secret fort that he uses to confront Mary, ooh, fun. The best part of Sherlock this episode was his brief interaction with the baby. So, thirty seconds of the episode was enjoyable, congrats Moffatt and Gatiss, you did it again!

tl;dr Bland, uninspiring, disappointing, and thoroughly uncharacteristic, this may be Sherlock’s biggest blunder yet. The show is past its prime, and the two-year wait between seasons obviously isn’t doing much for the writing. Moffatt and Gatiss are running off of the success of earlier seasons and not delivering. That, matched with their enormously inflated egos, is a recipe for disaster. They state they don’t care about what the fans want: that’s how you lose fans. I’ve seen theories and analyses that go way beyond the drivel of this episode. Maybe you should take a look, guys. Get some inspiration.

Oh, and what, exactly, is Moriarty going to do next? We never actually got that point addressed.

[son-of-a-duck]

September 22, 2017

This morning I was a little slow getting around. I slept in a little bit and then I just didn't have much urgency. I'm okay with that. I did take a shower almost immediately after waking up but then I think I got a little lost on a random internet tangent. I eventually managed to update my address for my driver's license online, as well as update my voter registration information.

Around ten o'clock I headed down to pay for my car tag. There was a lot of people waiting and it said the average wait time was ten minutes. But that was apparently for other services because I was probably sitting there for less than a minute when they called me over. It was a nice surprise. They must have really wanted my two-hundred dollars.

When I got out of there I got a text from my aunt about lunch. I drove back across town to maybe go to the grocery store before lunch but the place was packed so I kept driving and went back to my house to grab a couple copies of the magazine I'm in for my aunt and grandma.

And then I drove back across town for lunch. My grandma wanted to eat at Olive Garden and I got an eggplant sandwich. I've always been curious about eggplant so I decided to go for it. And I'm still curious because I still don't know what eggplant tastes like. It was breaded and/or fried and covered in cheese and marinara sauce. So it was tasty but it could have been anything in there, not just eggplant. Lunch was good though, as a whole. After we ate we sat around and talked until about 1:45PM.

I then went back across town and went to the store to buy bananas and potatoes for the faire, as well as a few things for myself and some bagged popcorn for a birthday on Monday. I had just enough time to drop my groceries off at home, sit down for about two minutes, and then I headed back across town for my meeting with my conference partner.

She was running a little late which gave me some time to jot down things I needed to get/do before the faire tomorrow. When she arrived and got settled down (because she was juggling a few things due to our meeting being in the middle of her workday), we talked about conference stuff. We came up with a basic format and discussed a bunch of random things related to library school and work. It turns out she is also kind of stressed out with her job at the moment. And a little unsure about librarianship as a whole. Our goal is to not turn our session into a giant therapy session where we just complain about our jobs. I think we can manage that. I'm feeling a little better about the presentation but there are still a lot of details to iron out.

We called things good around four o'clock because she had a thing to go to, which she invited me to but I needed to get things together for the faire. We then ended up talking for about a half an hour near the entrance to the library before parting ways. I headed to my Mom's house to pick up wire and I grabbed a few tools.

When I got home I started writing a note to my friend to include in the magazine I'm going to send her. The idea was to finish it and get it mailed before the UPS store closed but when it became clear that wasn't going to happen I switched over to faire stuff. I think I got everything I needed to play Ragdoll Runners on the flash drive. I copied over the game and most of the Steam folder but ran out of room to get the last few things. I also copied the Steam installation program, so if it comes to it I should be able to download Steam onto the laptop. After dinner I cut out several rectangular pieces of cardboard and made six wire “buttons” by twisting the wire in a flat spiral. I then punched holes through the cardboard with a needle and inserted the buttons. I hooked it up just to try it out and it worked pretty well. I only made one set of buttons but I cut out several backup pieces of cardboard in case the first one gets warn down. I'm also going to take extra wire, just in case.

I watched It tonight because my friend said it was good. I want to read the book but it is huge and in my brief experience with Stephen King, his endings have been disappointing. I thought about looking into the audiobook instead but it is forty-five hours long. That is really long. So I watched the movie. I liked it. For the most part the casting was good. It can be hard finding a group of kids that can carry a movie but they did a pretty good job. The opening was shocking, I was expecting the kid to just get sucked down the storm drain, but nope. And spoilers, I was also a little surprised all of the kids made it. But do they? Because this was only part one.

It is now eleven o'clock and I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long, hot day. I am interested to see how it goes but I'm not looking forward to being outside my comfort zone for such a long period of time. It'll be a long day.

[kaitlinmcandrews]

If you were to ask anyone when the best time to visit Japan, I bet you anything that many people will say spring. Spring is probably the best know for the cherry blossoms.

I’m kind of torn on what I think about spring. As you probably know, I love love love cherry blossoms. Each year, I take way too many photos of these flowers. I also love the festivals that happen around this time. I also loooove festivals. I love food tents, I love eating outside, I love looking at all the different foods that are offered, and I love that I can just walk around with a beer and it’s no big deal…. hmmm I only named things to do with food didn’t I? Festivals are more than just food! … Or are they….?

Okay, as I said, I’m a bit torn. The biggest reason I think spring is a bit overrated is just because of the weather.

Now, this is totally perspective.

I like being warm. Spring is just not warm enough for me. For a normal Canadian, yeah, it’s warm. I think it was in the teens or low twenties. The biggest issue for me was the huge drop in temperature at night. If you know me and Pat at all, you’d know that we are night owls. I love festivals and would 100% prefer to go to them in the evening. Problem is, not only does the temperature drop as soon as the sun goes down, but the sun goes down so freaking early! I don’t know if a mistake was made when deciding what time zone Japan belongs to, but the sun goes down way too early (and comes up way too early in the morning).

Goodness, that was a heck of a tangent. Let’s just get on with it.  I’ll try to separate this like I did with the other blogs in this ‘series’.

Tokyo

Koishikawa Botanical Garden (小石川植物園 //  こいしかわ　しょくぶつえん)

On one of our days off, we headed up to Tokyo since I heard that the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom. Well, I guess the key word was “starting” haha. Oh well, the botanical garden was still quite beautiful. It was a bit out of the way, but it wasn’t too bad.We walked from Hakusan station on the meguro line.

It cost about 400 yen I believe so it was actually quite cheap. I’m not sure if the prices change in different seasons. We were kind of in an off season. I think that going while the blossoms are out would be absolutely stunning. Even going in the summer would be nice when all the trees and grass would be green. When we went, it was a bit grey haha.

Not too much to really say about our day. I really tried to take artsy photos of flowers haha. Enjoy~

un-bloomed sakura trees

I was a bit dissapointed, but I swear that I heard the cherry blossoms were blooming in Tokyo. Since we were already in Tokyo, we decided to walk to Ueno from the garden. Ueno is known for its cherry blossoms. It’s a pretty long walk already, but we made it even longer. On the way, we noticed quite a few tourists heading in the same direction. we decided to check out whatever they were headed to. It was a pretty neat cemetery called Yanaka Cemetery.

Yanaka Cemetery （谷中霊園 // やなかれいえん)

It was actually pretty cool. I’m glad that we took this detour, even if it added another 20 min to our already long walk. It probably took us over an hour to get from the gardens to Ueno. Pat seems to love walking….

Ueno Park (上野公園 // うえのこえん）

Anyways, we had been to Ueno once before, but only at night. It was really cool to see it in the daylight. I’d looooove to see it during the full bloom of the cherry blossoms. Anyways, again, not too much to say.

Just IMAGINE this in full bloom!

It was a nice little day trip. So, if your in Tokyo in the spring, especially during the cherry blossom season, I think these 3 places would be absolutely breathtaking. My only issue with Ueno is how crowded it is. I can’t even imagine how it would be during peak season.

  ~Cherry Blossoms (sakura // 桜 // さくら)~

So, like I mentioned earlier, I really really like the cherry blossoms. Unlike last year at the private school, we actually had time off to go places. We were actually in the middle of our spring break. We had basically all of March off. I was so upset last year because of our awful time off schedule. We were in a place known for cherry blossoms and could barely see any of it! This time, we had a lot more time to look around. Although I wouldn’t say Kawasaki and Yokohama are necessarily famous for cherry blossoms, I knew I would be able to find some hidden gems. Tokyo, on the other hand, does have some pretty well-known places.

Unfortunately, this year was a bit weird. The cherry blossoms almost did things in 2 parts. They seemed to blossom about halfway and then we got some bad weather. The wind and cold weather seemed to halt the blossoms. After a couple of days they rest of the blossoms started, but the other half was dying or had fallen off from the wind. Ultimately, the trees never seemed to be 100% in bloom at any time. They were still really great, just not their best I suppose. Also because of the weird timing, we weren’t able to see much during our spring break, but we had to see a lot of them during our weekends off. Oh well, still better than last year!

If you want to see the posts I’ve made in the past, check them out: 2016 Kansai, 2015 Korea festival, 2015 Korea random

Koganecho Sakura Festival

Pat and I don’t live in Yokohama, but that’s where all the great stuff happens. To be fair, Yokohama is like the 2nd largest city in Japan or something crazy. Kawasaki, where we live, is not too high up on that list. Where was I going with this?

During cherry blossom season, there are sooooo many cherry blossom festivals. Of course. They are scattered in every season at varying times. I highly recommend attending at least one if you are in Japan at the right time. We decided to go to this one in particular was just because our friends lived in that area. Luckily, this area has a large river running through it, so it is so beautiful during the spring. There are cherry blossoms along this almost the entire river and is absolutely stunning. From Hinodecho to Gumyoji is a fantastic walk if you happened to be in the area.

The festival itself was close to hindecho and koganecho station. (I know this means nothing to most of you…. it’s mostly just in case people are on my blog for potential cherry blossom spots).

As I mentioned before, the cherry blossoms this year were a bit strange.

As you can see, they aren’t too impressive. Like, at all….We did find ONE fully bloomed tree, though! (so, I took 234039843 photos of that single tree….)

The first thing I personally like to do at a festival is seek out festival food. I have a soft spot for food tents, eating and drinking outside, and just eating interesting things. It is definitely a thing I will immensely miss when we go back home to Canada. Here is some food we got!

yakiika (grilled squid)

yakiika (grilled squid) // left is the body, right is the legs

dango (rice cakes with red bean paste)

sakura umeshu and sake

We got other types of food as well, but it was too hard is to photograph and eat at the same thing. I’d say the most common types of food at any Japanese festivals are takoyaki (deep fried octopus balls), okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake with different sauces), yakisoba (grilled soba noodles), and assorted meat on sticks. They are all so good. None of them are healthy. I highly recommend.

It was pretty hard to get around, so I really didn’t get many photos. It was pretty busy:

This area was an interesting location for a festival. There were tents along the river so there wasn’t anywhere to sit. The roads on either side of the river were closed for traffic, and absolutely packed with people. On the other side of the road were a whole bunch of small izakayas (Japanese pub). Our fiends happen to go to a few of those izakayas on a regular basis, so we have met some of the shop owners. It is a pretty neat experience to be able to drink with the locals and support their businesses. If we didn’t know them, we may have not gone to any of the izakayas. We probably would have not even noticed that they were open.

As you can see, these izakayas are really tiny. It is a pretty neat experience.

Looking through my photos, it is just us drinking haha. Well, here are the few cherry blossom photos that I managed to take.

  Mitsuike Park (三ッ池公園 // みついけこうえん)

Not too long after this festival, the cherry blossoms were really starting to bloom. I have always wanted to have a hanami (flower viewing) since I heard about it. I mentioned in my last year’s spring blog how I wanted to go, but Pat didn’t know what I wanted and we didn’t really get to have one. Even if we did, since we didn’t have friends in Kyoto, it might not have been that fun.

Well, this year, we have friends!!

Can you believe it?!

Haha, okay, that is a bit dramatic. Well, anyways, we were lucky enough to have a hanami. We went to a park that is kind of in the middle of Kawasaki and Yokohama. We are the only ones that live in Kawasaki, so usually we have to travel to Yokohama if we want to do anything with them. When I was looking for the best place to have a hanami, the results I got were mostly in Tokyo. Tokyo has too many tourists so I try to avoid going there if possible haha.

I really couldn’t find a good place. The best place for a hanami is usually a park. So, I looked at parks in the area that had a lot of cherry blossoms. I decided to check out this park that is near my workplace. I was doing research like 2 weeks before cherry blossom season. Luckily, this was the first place I checked out and instantly thought that it would be perfect.

Here is where the park is on Google Maps:

It obviously much closer to Kawasaki, but it’s technically part of Yokohama…. so….. I was able to convince some people to come ^-^.

I packed a bag with beer, umeshu and chips and we set off to our hanami. If you want to go to this park, unfortunately it is only accesible by bus. It isn’t near any train stations. You could walk, but it’s an uphill walk. We took a bus at Tsurumi station (near the JR side, not the keikyu side). The park wasn’t too busy

There are actually quite a few busses that go there. They are all on the same side of the bus depot. Google maps is pretty useful in Japan, so you can just google the bus routes and numbers. (Google was useless in Korea so I always want to give the bus numbers haha).

We were able to find a spot fairly easily. We set up our picnic as soon as we arrived and took turns going out for photos and such.

The weather was …okay… I personally prefer to be warm so a nice spring day is still too cold for me haha. Luckily for us, it wasn’t too crowded. Unluckily for us, we were still a few days too early. I think if we had gone 2 days later, it would have been perfect. I’d say the trees were at 75% bloomed. I think they only had the potential to bloom to 90% because of the strange weather this year.

There isn’t really much to talk about. We just hung out, talked, drank and enjoyed our day. It’s so nice to be able to drink outside. Another thing I will miss when we go back to Canada haha.

There were quite a few different types of sakura at this park. I could only tell the difference between the dark ones and light ones haha.

Okay, photo time. As always, there are a lot.

Hello~

The nice thing about this park is the nice lake in the middle. It really add to the cherry blossom photos, in my opinion. There were also a whole bunch of ducks there!

Maybe I just like water, haha, I don’t know…

It started to get really windy, which was a pain. It kept blowing our food and empty drink cans all over the place. Our picnic mat also had to be held down. The wind was frustrating and also made the weather a lot colder than it already was (it wasn’t cold… I’m just a wuss).

It was a really nice day and I’m glad that I can check hanami off of my Japan bucket list.

  Meguro River, Tokyo (目黒川, 東京 // めぐろがわ, とうきょう)

So, because I obviously have an unhealthy obsession, I needed to venture out on my own so I could take 2034983 photos and not annoy everyone. Once the sakura were basically a full bloom, I ventured out to Tokyo once again. I know, I just said that I hate it because of all the tourists….. but….. I really wanted to see this place.

Meguro river essentially runs from shimbamba station to naka-meguro station, but the cherry blossoms are the most heavily concentrated between meguro shinbashi and nakameguro.

I got off at gotanda station and walked along the river and was pretty dissapointed until I got to meguro shinbashi. As soon as I saw the sakura, I started a trail save thing on google maps on my phone.

So, if you are planning on visiting this famous river, just be aware that the entire river is not as fabulous as it is between the two points shown above.

It’s not a bad walk by any means. From above, you can see that there weren’t many people so I was able to get some nice shots without people in them.

Hmmm… how do I wanna do this…? Do I wanna just spam you with 2304983098 photos? Do I want to seperate them a bit? Ugh, the decisions I have to make for this blog.

I’ll seperate them a bit.

As soon as I got to Meguro-shinbashi, I knew that I was where I wanted to be. I have seen so many photos from this exact spot. I wiiiish that I could photograph them as well, but I’m not so skilled haha. Sorry. I took four of the same photo with different camera settings, but they all kind of look the same haha.

Surprisingly, there aren’t too many bridges along this river so there aren’t too many chances to get photos from this angle. For the majority of the walk (which was stunning by the way), I was walking along the river on a road or sidewalk.

Recently, I bought a small tripod and a remote timer for my camera so I was happy to test them out~

I definitely got some funny looks while taking those photos. I had to put my camera across the street and zoom in, so I don’t think people even saw my camera. Just me standing by myself haha.

Since I suck at waking up, I had actually gone to Tokyo around 4pm or so. I wish I went earlier so that I could see the sun shining on all the sakura. oh well. I think I missed the rush a bit and I was able to get some nice close-up photos of the blossoms.

Companies definitely take advantage of touristy spots though. I mean, the lanterns do look really cool, but each lantern has a different advertiser on it.

camera setting made it way to light…

As soon as I arrived at the next bridge, I did the same thing as last time: take 012349238 photos of the same thing with different settings.

As I mentioned earlier, I had left pretty late. The one advantage was that I was able to get some day and night shots. The lanterns looked really cool in the darkness, but it was pretty hard to capture it. I swear, I played with my camera’s settings like crazy. I suck.

On that note, does anyone else notice that cameras tend to make it look a lot lighter than it actually is? I mean, those were taken at dusk I’m fairly sure and it looks like the afternoon….

Oh, hey! Did I ever talk about my second obsession: tree caves? I’m100% positive I have. I love them sooooo much. I wish so badly that I could photograph them and show the depth. They are so freaking cool. Here are my attempts:

My best attempt?

It went on for quite awhile. Around this time, it started getting really busy. I quickly found out why. My guess is that people come either in midday or at night. Both times are beautiful and have their own charm.

Once I got to the last bridge (basically), I was stunned. It was actually sooooo beautiful. I stayed there for about 45 minutes waiting for the sun to completely set. Here is, again, 24-30943 photos of the same thing!

side 1

side 2

side 1

side 2

Both sides of the bride had a great view. I really enjoyed it. I took some photos here and there on my way back.

I left feeling satisfied about my day trip. If you are a sakura fanatic like I am, I highly recommend this river. Even if you just go to the first and last bridge on the route I shared.

Nikaryo Yosui Canal, Kawasaki ( 二ヶ領用水と大石橋, 川崎  // にかりょうようすい, かわさき)

This is a bit of a weird one… It is in the middle of a residential area of Kawasaki. It isn’t close to where I live, at all. How did I learn of this place, you ask? Well, I take Japanese lessons in that area and they gave me a guide book of things to do/see in Kawasaki. When I saw the photo of the sakura hanging over the water, I knew I had to go. They listed some other spots that looked amazing as well, but I just didn’t have the time.

I went to this place AFTER the prime bloom time. I was hoping that it wouldn’t have been too late, but it was. Most of the blossoms are wilted. But, at least I know that if I went in prime season, it would be absolutely beautiful.

oooh, the hanging type

wow, so pink!

The blossoms were pretty unique. They were the type that hang down, and they were also very pink! It was really pretty. If I am still in Japan during next sakura season, I would definitely go again.

Phew, finally done with the cherry blossoms.

Almost done, guys, almost done. One last activity that we did in spring.

  Ashikaga Flower Park (あしかがフラワーパーク)

I hope this one doesn’t get too long. This could probably have its own blog post, but I figured it would fit in this series….

Every once in a while, I look up what festivals and events are happening around me. I figure that since I’ll probably only be in Asia once, I should do/see as much as I can. So, while I was looking around, I found a pretty cool ‘event’. It isn’t a festival or event really, but a flower park that is famous for a flower called wysteria (the Japanese name is fuji // 藤 // ふじ). Wysteria have a bit of a longer blooming period than cherry blossoms. They basically start to bloom as the cherry blossoms start to wilt. I have never heard of this flower until I found this post. As far as I know, they aren’t native to Canada.

I really want to improve my photography skills, and for some reason, I’m really into flower photography. You may think I only like cherry blossoms, but I swear I like other flowers as well.

Now, as soon as I knew about these cool flowers, I naturally looked at where is the best place to see them. They bloom in various places in Tokyo, but I found a flower park that is kinda infamous for them. It is a place called Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi prefecture (NNW of Tokyo). Here is the website if your interested: https://www.ashikaga.co.jp/english/index.html .

As soon as you leave the main metropolis areas, the trains become infinitly more difficult to use. You may have noticed from all my navigation problems we seem to have haha. So, it’s my fault for always wanting to explore outside of Tokyo, but Japan has a LOT to see that is outside Tokyo. I wish more people talked about them. That’s why I do these blogs ^^.

Okay, so lets start with how to get there.

I’ve mentioned before that the best way to find directions in Japan is to go to the website and find a tab that says “access”. They don’t always provide times and such, but it is a good place to start. For example, this website gives this information:

The access pages aren’t necessarily in English, but this one was, luckily. I mostly used Google Maps to get us there, but it was nice to have this as a reference. I especially like to use these pages when Google maps suggests taking the shinkansen. It took us probably 9months of being in Japan to realize that there is usually a way to get somewhere without the shinkansen (which is way too expensive…). Here is what Google map suggests:

Unfortunately, I don’t remember what route we actually took, but we definitely didn’t take the shinkansen. We had a weird situation at, I assume, kitasenju station (I really don’t remember where we were, but that must have been it….). There were actually signs for what train to take to get to this flower park, but the train was full! It must be that nikko-kinugawa line. It seemed that you couldn’t use your rail pass (the card that you beep in and out with) and had to buy tickets for this particular train separately. I was a bit confused as to what we were supposed to do, so I asked, in Japanese, “Does this train go to Tochigi?” and he dismissed me by saying in broken English “ticket first” over and over. Like, fuck, what the hell dude? So does it or not? like, you want me to buy a ticket for a train that may not even go where I want to go??

Annoyed, I went to the ticketing area and asked a different train attendant the same question and he luckily answered (nicely) that it was full. Again, fuck you first guy. So, the new attendant showed us which train we could take instead and said that it is cheaper, but next one comes in 40 min. So, we waited. The next train was pretty full, but we got a seat. It took a bit longer than the sold out train, and added that 40 min of waiting time onto our trip. That meant that the already long (almost 3hrs) ride up there was extended by an hour.

Ugh.

Oh well, we got there. It was just a long journey. The local train from Tochigi to the park was crazy packed. Everyone was going to the flower park! It was so packed that I got off before Pat and had to wait like 5 min until he came out as well. We were not standing together and people just push and shove their way off the trains (whoever says that Japanese people are oh so polite have never had to navigate the trains during rush hour or an event….). I tried to take a photo of how many people there were, but it was kinda hard…

As that website mentions, there is a bit of a walk from the station to the park. It was easy to find just by how many people were walking in that direction. We basically just followed the crowds.

This was another place that changed their price depending on what is in season and how fully bloomed the flowers are. We went at prime time for their most famous flower so it was the most expensive price that it could’ve been. It was like 1300 yen (~$15) each or something like that.

Despite how busy it was, this park is actually really big so it was easy to walk around and take photos without it feeling to crowded. Well, once you got out of the entrance way that is…

Surprisingly, this park had more than just wysteria. It was a really diverse flower park!

Another thing that I didn’t expect was there is more than one type of wysteria. Not only are there essentially 2 distinct colours, but different type of trees. Some hang it bunches, some are seperated. They did some interesting things with them for sure. Here are the white ones in tree form:

They had some in hanging-above form:

They also had some sparsely on a wall:

I have a feeling the wall one is fairly new, since the ones in the pink/purple variety were much fuller:

Of course, these ones came in regular tree form:

And lastly, the star attraction, the hanging above form:

Do you see the tree?

It’s hiding in there

Sorry, I couldn’t capture how cool the ones that hang from above look…. We noticed later, that those ones that are hanging down all come from one tree! Isn’t that crazy? So, there is one tree in the middle (if you look closely, you might be able to see it) and the bamboo structure supports the branches above you so it can continue to grow. There were actually 2 overhead ones in the purple variety.

I’ll be honest guys, I actually think the white ones are so much prettier.

Anyways, this was a really great place to go if you love flowers. The whole park smelled amaaazing. They sold flower flavoured ice-cream that we didn’t try. One random thing I noticed, this place was very mobility-impaired friendly. I saw a few people in wheelchairs that were able to enjoy the flowers. I think that as a mobile person, I often forget how difficult it would be to go to some of these places.

Okay, with that, I think I’m done talking about spring.

This is definitely the longest post in this series. Part of it is because I have an obsession with flowers, and part of it is that we had a lot of time off during spring and were able to do more things.

  The 4 Seasons of Japan – Spring If you were to ask anyone when the best time to visit Japan, I bet you anything that many people will say spring.

[designstormsu17-blog]

Naz Mohseni | Assignment 2: Learning Diary   6.12 - 6.18

MONDAY 6.12 

*I had a rather prickly encounter with a peer today. 

Miscommunication was the culprit...I’m sure... I’m hoping...

I am troubled do I discuss this event or let it slide, I’m not sure I care enough to discuss but perhaps that’s half the problem. 

*I met with my group to edit an interview video for my ID research class. One group member is frequently late. It’s currently a slight annoyance. 

We find out that the videographer in my group lost a third of my interview video. 

Due to schedule and time constraints I offer to take both videos and edit them at home. 

This was a GIF I sent my best friend Miriam when discussing this day.

TUESDAY 6.13

Product 7

I laugh a lot in this class and find myself captivated during lectures. James, my teacher goes off on tangents and uses life and history lessons as examples. I’m always entertained. He engages the class in discussions as well as individual students. He has a great way of sandwiching compliments and criticism in a way that makes you want to do better next time.

* In class we did brainstorming sessions in groups. My turn was cut very short due to time constraints and only a few members were left. My group was pretty uncommunicative and it was really frustrating - I felt that I gave a lot of feedback but didn’t get much in return. By the end of my session there were only 5 post-it notes on my board. 

The post-it notes on the image below are from my own brainstorm - I need to find time outside of class to set something up with my peers if there is no time during class.

*I also listened to the song below on repeat for about four to five hours straight while doing homework. I’m pretty sure I’m going to sample this track for my 3M rebranding video. OBSESSIONS

WEDNESDAY 6.14

ID Research

I know I’m going to look back and say, I had the good fortune to take Katherine Bennett’s class. I’ve always admired her tenacity, her precision, and her old-school technique. I had her for ID history awhile back, and she taught me a ton. She is an important part of my education here at Art Center.  

I look forward to this class each week, as it challenges me. Everyone is engaged and we all get to learn new things from each respective group. It’s a vocal class, and I feel everyone is comfortable expressing themselves.

I had some frustrations with my group again, one is over an hour late and the other one is sick. I get over things quickly however when one of the members arrives and our videos receive great feedback. I feel good about the response and I can tell Katherine is pleased with our assignment. 

* Margeaux and Charlie lay their belongings out in front of them. Charlie is always super organized. He tells me, “I like just having everything out where I can see it all..”

LATER ON

I go and visit my friend patrick at REI. He has been working  in the footwear department and he knows a lot about feet and hiking!  When I tell him about my study away trip to Costa Rica he invites me down for a hiking shoe lesson.

Next I go and explore and see the travesty of the hiking shoe department.

Seriously what is the deal with all these ugly ass hiking boots?!? There are plenty of super chic windbreakers and functional apparel, but the footwear seems stuck in the past. 

OPPORTUNITY:  Chic functional hiking boot...?

THURSDAY 6.15

Detention Hall: Philosophy Lab 2PM-7PM

This whole class is a learning experience and I have to say it’s a very unique course. Each week we are challenged to approach learning and ideas in a different way. From day one, the entire group clicked. Our discussions go into some really intimate subjects, and many of the students open up with one another. We have a solid trust and comfort among the group.

This week is about performative writing and copy. Gary lectures and there is a lot to learn; We are told that we are going to practice this firsthand....

Gary makes us bring our favorite book to class and then do a master copy for about 10 minutes. Afterwards he goes around the class and asks us how we felt about the exercise. There was a wide variety of answers.  I felt pretty complacent, as I saw it as a time to unwind and not really think about anything. I found it hard to focus on the meaning of what I was writing about because I was astutely trying to meditate as I was doing this exercise. 

The next exercise sometime later in the class is to write for 25 minutes about the History of any topic we wished.

 I wrote about the history of the Islamic Revolution. I wrote about this because it was something  I grew up hearing about over and over again (My dad likes to repeat himself).

I realized that writing it down i was confronted with the fact that I thought was more knowledgable on the topic than I actually am. It forced me to make up a new history and fill in some gaps with questionable information. I’m ok with that and I realize that nothing was holding me back from re writing history completely. * Profound experience

After class everyone hangs out for about another 30-40 minutes. We discuss our class and what we did. We frequently lament about how short the class is and that we should all keep in touch when this class is over.

Lis, Jaime and Cady - Teaching me all about the Illustration / Entertainment / Life department.

* Apparently I bought my cat a rug today.

 FRIDAY 6.16

Carol Young Undesigned: WORK

Too many things to do! 

I have to alter some patterns today. I am overworked and my focus is always straying to homework. Its extra difficult at work since our intern left early in the week and wont be back for another couple of days. 

I’m learning to appreciate her more...lol 

I usually pack up shipments in the studio but since I am working alone today  I have to relo my packing station to the storeroom. I have to get the package out but I also don’t want to look unprofessional to any customers. 

I compromise, deciding to work in the front when the store is empty. Just as I’m finishing up, a customer comes in and tries on a bunch of shoes. I quickly regret my decision as it now looks sloppy and hectic. I clean up, vowing to never again try to multitask this way again - too risky!

When I get home from work I sneak in to capture my pets sleeping. Sometimes I’m stealthy enough I catch my dog and cat sleeping together. It is the rarest of events. But today is the day! 

I had to dart in and sit next to my dog before he stirred, otherwise the cat gets anxious and has to flee.

Picture below is capturing this event...I love all animals not only my dumb pets!

SATURDAY 6.17

MORNING: PASADENA CHALK FESTIVAL

I met my friend Bonnie in my surfacing class last term. She spends all her term making and creating things. She is always smiling. I love people that smile, I feel I need to smile more :) 

She was participating in the chalk festival at the Paseo Colorado this morning. 

When I took my dog out for a walk we stopped and visited. I got a crash course on the history of Chalk Festival. It was originally created in 1993 and in 2010, The Pasadena Chalk Festival was officially named the largest street painting festival by the Guinness World Record!

The walk back home revealed some new neighborhood information... the Masonic Temple around the corner was relocated. I’ve walked past this building a million times with with my dog and never thought anything of it. I spotted this tablet that marked the buildings relocation during the 70s. 

 I always thought the Masonic temple was indigenous to Pasadena. Small life change...

LATER ON

* Earlier on in the week I found a meetup event for my ID research group. We are researching the Tiny House movement and needed some interviews for our project.

We meet at my house before the event. Group member who is frequently late is late yet again. Big surprise. I’ve gone from being mildly annoyed to just now accepting that this is just going to happen all the time. We discuss our interview techniques and create a list on what we want to get out of the meetup event. We are all pretty excited to go!

It’s in Patagonia, we all love Patagonia.

We find an participant to interview at the Tiny House event in Pasadena. Setting up an impromptu interview goes well for us. We definitely work well as a team and we get some great insights! 

We learned a lot through this process about our interviewing techniques. First we had to maneuver to recruit participants, while also setting up an impromptu interview site.

I am filming the above interview with my iphone.

Note to self: I need an iPhone stand for taking photo / video! I’m masterfully balancing it on the back of a chair to keep it steady, while craning my head forward to take notes. It’s awkward and I look bizarre - I don’t really care, but I don't want to freak out our research subject. 

[rojpoj-diary]

Blog Entry #22

4/19/17

Ciao. so today was pretty cool, it started out with me texting Amanda about my grandpa but she didn’t respond but Maria did and she was very happy for me, come to find out from one of Amanda’s tweets, Maria is in Hawaii and I have no idea why, probably for vacation. But before I get to the meat of it, everyone kept talking about it being 4/20 tomorrow and the memes were funny. Oh and apparently there was some new Starbucks drink that just came out and it’s called Unicorn...I forget but whatever, it looks like someone liquified a bunch of pink crayons lol. So anyway the day started out fine and lazy, but later when my mother what complaining about how I wasn’t doing the dishes at 4pm even though I do them at 4:30pm, and when it got to that time she complained again so I got up irritated when when I opened my bedroom door she was mopping the floor so I couldn’t get to the kitchen because she doesn’t like it when people walk around when she is mopping. So I tell her that I can’t do the dishes when I can’t get to them and apparently she was already irritated about something or whatever but she started to get all mad and called me lazy then went off on a tangent on how everyone is lazy. I was defending myself by saying how I am always doing more chores than anyone else and how I give so much to our family but no one cares it went off into a bunch of different topics like the ownership of my parents’ security company and how before she said that every was in my dad’s name so she had little power now she was saying how she had equal power and that if she sued my dad she could get half of everything. I was just pointing out the conflicting claims and she gets angry and in my face so I do as well and I know in hindsight I should have left it there but I didn’t out of anger and she complained how I knocked over a bag in the living room even though she was the one who put it in a position that would make it fall over easily and she completely blamed it on me, even though she kept knocking it over earlier. So she proceeds to get more angry and tells me to get out and how she can call the cops and have me removed even though she is the bad parent. We argue about how she was high off cough syrup but she denied it. And it gets worse into more private arguments and so I get dressed and leave and just walk out and not do the dishes. I texted Bradley and he said he’d pick me up. So I make it to the elementary school down the street and my dad calls saying how I should get ready to go with him to drop off my sister at work to get me and my brother out of the home but I told him I walked out and Bradley was picking me up. He got annoyed and we got into an argument about how he thinks I do very little even though I am basically the servant of the house, it was a similar argument I had with my mother but with way less anger. Anyway Bradley shows up and I get in and end the conversation with my dad with him saying I should be back my 8pm at most. So we start driving towards the country and he offers some liquor, vodka and whiskey to take the edge off and I said no and he persists but only jokingly because I don’t like drinking or smoking because i’m not emotionally ready as it reminds me of my mother’s alcoholism and medication addiction. The alcohol was from his friends leaving the bottle behind because they were drinking the other day and Bradley didn’t want to bring them into his home as his mother would kill him, so he kept them in his care to have a few sips here and there but he doesn’t do it when he’s driving. He is the sober driver when he goes out to have fun with friends like when they went out to go to the snow spontaneously early in the morning a couple days ago and stuff like that. He proceeds to ask if I want to go to Dutch Bros and I told him I have never been so I agree and we start heading towards there. I did get some alcohol on my hand when I sniffed the fireball cinnamon stuff since I opened the cap as I couldn’t smell it from the outside as my nose is clogged from either being sick or from allergies. Anyway I just wipe my hands together and we arrive in Davis quickly as he was driving fast and I was confused where we were because I didn’t notice. And when we get there we talk about what they offer and we both eventually decide on Double Rainbow Rebels. Bradley told them it was my first time so they said it was on the house, how sweet of them. Bradley joked about how it was because they thought I was cute and I said embarrassed, for him to stop and he laughed. I paid for Bradley’s drink and when I get mine they wanted to see if I liked it first so I take a sip and it tasted wonderful and told them. And then we start heading to the place that Bradley mentioned when we were getting there and I suspected it to be the mountain near us that my Brother Alex took us to when it was raining, as he said it would be beautiful and the road there would be kind of dangerous. And come to find out it was. Since his car is stick shift, he had to drive relatively fast so his car doesn’t stall. But it was a smooth drive that took a while. I trusted his driving skills but I still had normal nervousness about it all. When we got near to the top we went on private property because a radio tower what up there. We saw two bikers riding around which was neat. When the path started to get more gravely we drifted and skidded a few times which terrified me but the view at the top was amazing and I took pictures. When Alex took my family it was foggy so we couldn’t see 20 feet in front of us. He pointed out a few cities and it was cool. We went past a gate, well he jumped over it and I crawled through and we saw the other side then he started to smoke a cigarette because he started to smoke a few months ago because of family stress which wouldn’t surprise me. Someone had apparently drove a truck up there because there were large tire tracks against a slope. Anyway he head back to the car and we do the same thing with the gate and I pointed it out and said that it was because he was short and then stopped and realized his mistake and corrected himself as I was the short guy and he was the tall one. He pointed out that he’s been running on little sleep which was comical. So then we drive down and it was less nerve racking but still scary and he asked if I want to be dropped off at my home or stay with him to hang out with friends who will eventually drink and he said that it would probably be best not to go as the drinking would make me uncomfortable. And then I mentioned that I had to be back by 8pm. So we go to my home and it was 7pm and I tell my dad and explain the situation after giving Bradley a handshake and going inside. My mother was crying and later went into the room to be by herself. So I used the couple of hours of peace to listen to techno music and work on Duolingo for my Spanish class. I texted Ellie about Beth and her questionable behavior and we were in agreement that we worried about her. Then I texted Malina about how the LGBT shirt order was coming in but she didn’t respond. Oh and the great part was that later at night Lauren texted me! And I was confused as to why and she said she was just trying to be a good friend. And we basically just talked about today’s events, then talked about how both our parents are strict and it sucks. I showed her a picture of Bradley and she called him cute, which is kinda is but I’m still getting used to being open about talking about stuff like that, and when she asked what drink I had I had to ask Bradley as I had forgotten but Bradley comically gave me the names of the alcohol. Anyway we basically finished with how I stay up late and how I am night owl, then she stopped responding probably because she fell asleep though she mentioned that she has notifications off at night so meh. I was so cool though and it made me feel good, I sat on the kitchen flood for most of the conversation. So now I have spent the last hour playing warlight out of bordom and now I am going to get so night peoples! Here are some pictures of the day!

[televisor-reviews]

“Ghostmates” Movie Review

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“You know T-Pain, your’re making this real difficult for me!”

I’m sure many of you think this review is late, well it’s not... kinda. You see, I set March 16 as the anniversary, which was last Thursday. And I was planning on doing this review on Thursday, but the last few days of my life were pretty hectic. So, I’m doing this now & not counting this as late. Anyways, a while back, I did an analysis of Smosh: The Movie (found here: https://animatorreviewer.tumblr.com/post/133110281350/smosh-the-movie-movie-review ), & for my 2 year anniversary of doing these, I thought it would be fitting if I took a look at Smosh’s last venture into filmmaking, Ghostmates!

After dying from his tie choking him, Ian Hecox (I’m sure his character has a name, but I don’t care enough to remember it) must get help from his new roommate Anthony Padilla (same as Ian) to pass on to heaven.

Above all else, Ghostmates is an example of how the little things can ruin a film. A T-Pain concert only has like 10 people in it, Ian’s tie that’s stuck in a door doesn’t show on the other side, there’s no reason why Anthony is the only person who can see Ian, etc., etc. These small things that, in most other films, wouldn’t be huge problems. But considering that A.) this movie sucks anyways & B.) there are so many of these small things one after another, it wears the movie down. It makes this already shitty movie even shittier.

Next is the humor, I noted that in Smosh: The Movie, there were only 1 or 2 jokes that were at all funny. Now, in Ghostmates, there weren’t only a few humorous moments... there were none! That is a special kind of horrendous, one that isn’t funny in the slightest. But I will have to make a correction from my Smosh: The Movie review, there I put most of the blame for its terribleness on Ian Hecox & Anthony Padilla. Since then, I’ve found out how that’s not very fair. The 2 of them don’t really write most of Smosh’s stuff anymore, they leave it to a bunch of hack writers while they... I don’t know, count their money or something. So it’s not entirely their fault, they just hire shitty writers.

This film keeps going off on random tangents that go on FOREVER!!! There’s this whole scene where Anthony & this awkward chick laugh over their mutual hatred for sex offenders. This scene feels like it goes on forever, is super unfunny, & serves practically no point to the movie at large. There are so many of these moments that do nothing but slow the film down & make it longer than it should be. This is probably done on purpose because without these moments, the movie would only be about half an hour long. So it needs these dumbass moments no matter how stupid they are.

The acting is nothing if not awkward. There are so many “uh,” “um,” & “y-yeah”s that you’d think this was written by Jeff Goldblum! In moderation, these additions make the movie seem more natural & real, but they make up 90% of the dialogue. At some point, it stops feeling real & makes the entirety of the dialogue feel awkward & weird.

The cinematography is boring as all hell! This is something that I normally don’t notice, but when your movie is so dull & unfunny, I need something to focus on so I picked the camera angles... which are amazing boring. All of the camera shots are the same medium close up or 3/4 shot, with the occasional over-the-shoulder. These are the basics in filmmaking, nothing more interesting is ever done which makes the movie itself more boring.

Overall, Ghostmates is dull, terribly written, & is honestly just unfunny. Not a single joke lands, I swear even modern Smosh is usually more humorous than this! The acting is so awkward with way too many “uh”s throughout the entire film! Ghostmates is dismal even for Smosh & it sucks so hard!

2/10