#no way! 11:30 am february 24th

[ghostliteal]

yay happy twin peaks day!! this is my piece for @blue-nebraska for the wonderfulxstrange fanworks exchange hosted by @countdowntotwinpeaks !

they mentioned coop/harry, the environments of twin peaks, and no angst, and when i think of those things i think of the lure harry ties for coop :,)

[chuunibyou-showdown]

We're on our way to Round 3! Here's how the bracket is looking. Voting will begin February 24th, 11:30 AM Pacific time! If you make any propaganda, tag #ChuuniShowdown2023 so I can find it!

Resources

What is a Chuunibyou? (TV Tropes page)

Character Notes compiled by yours truly

FAQ Page

Tournament Rules

50-50 ties will go to whichever character had the most votes/is displayed as the winner.

All rounds will last one day, with one day of rest inbetween

Round 3 Battles

Shun Kaidou VS Rintaro Okabe Yohane VS Owain/Odin Gladion VS Don Quixote Anghel Higure VS Tokoyami Fumikage

May the best chuuni win!

[diariesofapisces]

Hell Week Anniversary.

You know how I look to reflect on Shit and today I would like to go back to I would say the darkest time of my freshman year. It all started on February 15th when I finally got a preroll and a battery for my cart. This meant that I finally could smoke weed as much as I wanted. I felt so manic and I literally took a million videos and photos about it. After I got that battery I went insane and greened out really bad hours after I got it. I woke up the next day on the 16th and forgot how much I smoked the night before. I did a wake-and-bake before even eating with very little sleep the night before. Of course, we all know that I greened out again but this time in the line to Starbucks. I literally could not stand and I had to sit down for about 10 min. I stumbled back to my dorm without my Starbucks and I had to miss class because I was so weak and high. When I filmed a video describing the event I looked pale and so weak. As I said in my videos I smoked in the evening because I had nothing better to do. The 17th wasn't very eventful because of a horrible work shift but I knew that Spencer was going to flake out on smoking with me which stressed me out. Also, I was upset because I was supposed to go to Tucson for Shelby and Morgans's birthday party but my mom couldn't get me down there. I was super upset about this and got a joint just to smoke with Spencer. The next day, the 18th, was tragic. I thought the last time I smoked with Spencer was bad. I texted him at like 2 to see if we still had plans and he didn't respond till 6:30 that he couldn't hang out. I spent the whole day stressed about whether he was going to cancel or not and I couldn't do anything more with my time than smoke and make ranting videos. That night I said I was done with him. Spoiler I wasn't. After that day I started keeping count of how many days I had no contact with him, I made it to 4 days. On the 21st I made a tik tok depicting just how I felt, it's super fucking depressing. From then until the 23rd I was keeping the delusion that he was going to miss me and reach out in my mind, and also the one where I could go without him. The 23rd is a day I will never forget. Let me paint the picture. Spencer had invited us to go see this stupid comedian and I didn't go becuase I didn't want to waste my money. However, I did decide to hang out with them after the show ended so at 11. I didn't really want to go but I was desperate to see him and to B do something with my time. So of course I make tiktoks to pass the time and I go. And guess what happened. I was triggered by the fact then he didn't really pay attention to me and she left me to go hang out with his other friends. After he left shit hit the fan. That really fucking triggered me so I decided it would be fun to take 10 shots of the shittiest vodaka ever. I encouraged everyone to give each other hickeys and make out and stuff which led to three of my friends having a threesome. I and Gib were sitting outside the room that was happening and I was complaining about Spencer. After that, I impulsively offered up my joint and we all went outside to smoke that. After that, Gib went home becuase it was 2:30 in the morning but me and three other girls decided to keep going. During the next two hours, we all decided to drink more and make out. I decided to go for a girl I didn't know as well because there was no way I was gonna do anything with Shi or Larissa. So on the 24th, I ended up having a semi-orgy with my friends and I ate out with that girl. It was funny becuase I was doing great until I rolled over and passed out. I was still helping tho. Then after a bit, I crawled to the bathroom threw up, and passed out again. At five am I stumbled back to my room and took a nap. I woke up on the 24th and in the afternoon Spencer took me to Joan's. The night before I asked him to take me and he reluctantly agreed. I ended up having to pay him 20$ to take me to my disappointment we didn't hang out after. He just said she you around and let me know if you want to smoke.

[feelingdeath]

"And i keep telling him, i won't leave yet everytime i say it my head goes "you won't right? he's perfect and you love him.... can this please be the one thing you don't sabotage just because you can?". " ~ December 13th, 2022, 10:10 AM

"I am going to hurt him, stab him in his weakest spots and he'd still love me. If someone came and hurt me instead, I'd gladly take the pain. . . i have made up my mind. I'll be better. I'll be better for him. I'll not let my dark side let even a glimpse of him. he's mine and I'll protect him. he deserves better, I'll be that better..." ~December 13th, 2022, 1:25 PM

" I wonder if we would drift if we healed completely, and sometimes its a void. just another void. i think i have more voids than mass now. i don't want to leave him.... my head's really messy sometimes..."

~January 24th, 5:24 PM

"I wish I was his, all his, but m not even a complete person...

Please don't let it be a tragedy, m trying my best. I know it's not enough. "

~February 6th, 10:24 AM "

" ~February 6th, 11:04 AM

"Still here, but not for long." ~February 8th, 1:14 PM "I want to tell him what happened last year, I want to be so vulnerable and open and melt away. He feels like home but i couldn't depend on him. Id hate myself for it." ~February 10th, 10:02 PM "Nosh justifies all her mean actions with that simple line. Someday all this pain will be useful to me. It's how nosh moves on, we believe the tragedy is a part of us" ~February 12th, 6:32 PM "it's part of why I push you away, I am scared I need you way too much. what if I end up suffocating you and you leave me because I come with too much baggage." ~February 26th, 10:12 AM "But staying apart from morphi for even an hour kills me. I love him so fucking much.

I love him to death and I fear that I am dying. so to speak." ~March 7th, 9:30 AM "i am terrified of ending up like my parents, but with you i feel safe. i feel like we wouldnt ever just become products of each other's making to please the way society sees us. we wouldn't let chains of parenthood and dignity come in between our self respect and the way we are to other humans." ~March 18th, 7:22 AM It got way better over time. Can defo say I called it though. I am getting better uwu. SHEYU are u reading this u sussy baka 0_0 , either ways m never leaving u loveeee ehehehe.

[absolutebl]

This Week In BL

Feb 2021 Part 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. 

Ongoing Series Thai 

Manner of Death Ep 11 - a nice beefcake twist, then another twist, plus proud gay dads. We are mighty pleased. 

Cupid Coach Ep 4 - Unbearably boring. I’m out. We are not amused. 

My Bromance Ep 9 - FINALE I watched it unsubbed (I’ve NOT been following since ep 3) and it looks like it has a nice cute happy ending. I’m now interested in binging it once good subs become available. 

1000 Stars Ep 2 - was a lot better than Ep 1, the mains have okay chemistry, the kids are serviceable (child actors, shudder), but I’m really loving all the side characters. We are cautiously optimistic. 

Ongoing Series Not Thai 

You Are Ma Boy Ep 5 (Vietnam) - pacing still good, cuties are still giving it their all, solid little series with bumpy side couples, confession call & response continues apace.

To My Star Ep 7-9 FINALE (Korea) - quirky as all goddamn getup, but so fucking cinnamon roll tasty. Charming end. Recommended so long as you realize we are in Mr Heart style K-BL. (Also @coldties posted a killer MV for this one.) This one will get a movie rerelease like Wish You, hopefully also on Netflix. 

We Best Love: No. 1 For You Ep 6 FINALE (Taiwan) - we got to see boyfriends being domestic af adorable with an ending that was a touch bittersweet but very college appropriate. With season 2 coming March 5 I am disposed to be VERY PLEASED. 

What will we do with ourselves and nothing new out of Korea or Taiwan for two WHOLE weeks? 

Stand Alone 

I rewatched Wish You (2020 Korean series WISH YOU: Your Melody From My Heart now retitled - thank fuck - and available as a movie on Netflix). I have to say Yoon Sang Yi delivers some excellent pining. I’m not a huge insta-love person and there’s some character dev flaws, but it holds up really well and delivers more as a movie then it did as a series.

One of my favorite catches on the rewatch was the way Yoon Sang Yi’s jacket sleeves are always too long. It’s such a perfect little character trait. He is so shy and careful that he shrugs smaller into his coat, and also he hides his hands - when, as a pianist, his hands represent his self actualization and art. He only exposes them when making music... or holding Kang In Soo‘s hand. 

Incidentally, I was moved to look these two up... both out of K-pop. (This is my shocked face.) 

Breaking News 

Lovey Writer dropped its official trailer at last, looking good and trope-filed. It’s set to start Feb 24th. 

Top Secret Together dropped its first promo material (Thai, no eng subs). I’m excited about this one, it’s being lead out by an IRL couple. 

My Engineer 2 

The ME boys dropped an adorable gossip heavy promo vid. ME 2 is finishing up the script and will probably begin filming in April. It’s supposed to still release in 2021 (which makes me worry about post and explains a lot about some of Thai BL’s audio quality issues). With April filming, my guess is for an October (but more likely November) release. 

Close Friend 

Lay talked about his Close Friend project, which is a MV series from BOX Music featuring musically-inclined actors with established BL pairings so:

KimCop (MarkKit from Gen Y)

JimmyTommy (SaifahZon from Why R U)

JaFirst (LeoFiat from TharnType 2)

YoonLay (NottPun from YYY)

Y-Destiny 

Perth talked about Y-Destiny (previous title Destiny) which presumably is already filmed because he said it will be on air at the beginning of this year. As this is a Cheewin project, expect it to be something odd, campy, and frenetic in the YYY style. My guess is they’ll wait until You Only Eat Alone has completed its run before airing Y-Destiny, because who can take more than one Cheewin at a time? No one. Not even Thailand. 

KinnPorsche 

Perth also talked about KinnPorsche. He said it would be on air... but that he wasn’t allowed to say the date, so we can hope this means they finally got distribution. (The excitement over the trailer probably helped - it has over a million views.) He also said they would start filming soon (so Feb/March) which means, if everything goes smoothly, a late summer release at the earliest. However, with an independent studio, high production values, big cast, and fight sequences I would expect KP to have more post than most BLs, so my guess is it will air towards the end of the year. (And I would be scared for quality if they tried for any earlier.) 

KinnPorsche cast also continues to work the BL talk show circuit, they made an appearance on Sosat Seoul Say. Mile & Apo are adorable + good chemistry, in fact the whole cast is adorable with good chemistry, so I’m excited for this series. 

Gossip 

Cutest beans, Sam & Yu of We Best Love, have been dropping the most charming little lives ever. I’m so pleased we are getting a second season out of them. I can’t remember the title because, ya know, Taiwanese titles are beyond bonkers. But season 2 is listed now. 

Hong Kong is reported to be filming its first BL Series (15 eps to air on VIUTV). It will be an adaptation of 2018 Japanese BL drama Ossan’s Love (maybe same title?). Like Cherry Magic this is an office romcom: 30s single man who isn't popular with women lives with his parents. When they kick him out, he moves in with a coworker. Turns out this guy has a crush on him, as does another dude from his office. Foundational tropes: Office romance meets forced proximity meets love triangle. I expect the style out of Hong Kong to be somewhat similar to Taiwan, however they are politically less independent of China Main (although culturally VERY different) so this series could be DOA (for gay) or get killed early in its run (see Addicted web series - or don’t see it, if you’re in China). Also, like the Japanese original (and unlike most Taiwanese stuff), expect VERY low heat. That said, 15 eps is nothing to sneeze at, even if they are only 15-20 min each. So I guess I am... intrigued? 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

February Update: Others that are airing but I’m not following: 

Fools (Vietnamese) - I don’t think it’s going to end happily (it’s from the Stage of Love peeps), so I’m waiting to binge if it does 

Brothers (Thai) - deals with taboo relationships from the Thank God it’s Friday people (this will not end well) 

Happenstance (Pinoy) - I don’t follow Pinoy BL closely

One Day Pag-ibig (Pinoy) - ibid 

Love or Lie (Pinoy) - ibid 

The Alter (Pinoy) - ibid 

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here. 

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something. 

[ybcpatrick]

rules: answer 30 questions and tag some blogs you want to get to know better. I was tagged by @setting-in-a-honeymoon thaaaaank you gracieeeee

name/nickname: kell!

gender: agender

star sign: aries/taurus cusp

height: 5'9"

time: 11:46pm

birthday: april 19th

favourite bands: fall out boy, my chemical romance, green day, the 1975, twenty one pilots (edit the next day I FORGOT MARIANAS TRENCH WTF IS WRONG W MEEEEEE)

favourite solo artists: trixie mattel, halsey, patrick stump, gerard way, owl city

song stuck in my head: mr. rattlebone by matt maeson

last film: oh shit um. i think it was fucking cars 2 because my dad and i's curiosity got the better of us after ten years

last show: friday night smackdown

when I made this blog: february 24th, 2014

what I post: pretty much anything i want, but i parade myself around under the guise of a fob blog bshljsdvks

last thing I googled: how to know if you're iron deficient

other blogs: @angelofthefuckinlord for supernatural, @2words4ya for wrestling, and @twothousandz for nostalgia

do I get asks: yes which is funny cause i'm the absolute fucking worst at answering them and everyone knows it

why I chose my url: i'm a stannie and also a sexy, sexy winner. my url is my only flex

following: 301

followers: 1067

average hours of sleep: 6-7 hours

lucky numbers: 14 and 67

instruments: piano, acoustic guitar and ukulele

what I am wearing: a fob shirt for a tour i never went to, and my cactus pyjama shorts that i got from my partner

dream trip: i'm a basic bitch i wanna go to new york.

favourite food: lasagnaaaaaaaa

nationality: canadian. a4 printer paper ass white.

favourite song: just one yesterday by fall out boy feat. foxes

last book read: oh dear LORD i haven't finished a book in years. last one i opened, though, was trixie and katya's guide to modern womanhood

top three fictional universes you’d like to live in: bro none of them they're all horrible and scary danny phantom!! and that's it

favourite colour: GREEN

tagging: @ybcpete even tho i know all ur answers lmfao, @leafyychu, @boy-with-the-thorn-in-his-eyes, @asthesunwentdown, and @residentjoth!! no pressure to you guys!!

[tehri]

Look, I’ve been writing stuff using Tolkien Gateway’s handy page for explaining the Shire Calendar for a long while now, and basically every dang time I see someone refer to the Shire Calendar in fics, there are errors, and I am a nitpicky damn person and I will therefore write this post.

Have I said lately that hobbits are nuts? Because they are. They are so nuts. So insanely bonkers. So nuts that they, some 300 years prior to the War of the Ring, simply because they didn’t like the old one, worked through a reform of how their calendar works so that the following things would happen:

The new year would begin on the first day of the week, and it would end on the last day of the week.

Every month would have 30 days in it and would always correspond to the same weekdays. No more moving dates, the way we have it. Also means no month ever begins on a Friday.

12 months of 30 days each. You can guess a few days are missing. Well, thanks to this Handy New Reform, five additional days are added to make out the 365 day year. Plus a sixth for leap years.

This reform came about in the days of Thain Isengrim II, during his reign between 1083-1122, by Shire-reckoning. Which in, you know, actual Third Age years is around 2683-2722. Because hobbits also have that little thing that they count the years with year 1 being the year TA 1601 - when the Shire was first colonized.

ANYWAY I’m not here to talk about the Shire-reckoning, but about their calendar, F̫͎͍̤͍ͪ͌͂͂͞ͅO̩̹ͣ̅̇͛͢Ċ̷͉̙̱͈̳̥̙ͯ̃̎U̵͈͈͛͐Ŝ͍̫̖̘̘̤͇͑͊͊͟

Okay. So. It used to be that hobbits did not count weeks, but months - the passages of the moon ruled their calendar. In that calendar, the new year began right after harvest. But through contact with other races, they began to count weeks as well. This new way of reckoning was based on what is called the Kings’ Reckoning - the calendar system used in Númenor, Gondor, and Arnor - but with some minor alterations to fit the hobbits.

But the hobbits thought that this constant shifting of weekdays in relation to dates was untidy and inconvenient - so they made it tidy and convenient, by ensuring that Mid-year’s Day (and their Leap Year day, Overlithe) would not correspond to a weekday. They would be their own thing.

Sounds simple, right? Well, let’s face it, there were some issues around it, but the hobbits worked through it and formed their new calendar, which goes roughly like this:

2nd Yule - first day of the new year

Afteryule - first month of the year, roughly corresponding to the dates of 23rd December - 21st January in our calendar

Solmath - month 2, 22nd January - 20th February

Rethe - month 3, 21st February - 22nd March

Astron - month 4, 23rd March - 21st April

Thrimidge - month 5, 22nd April - 21st May

Forelithe - month 6, 22nd May - 20th June

The Lithe-days: 1st Lithe (21st June), Mid-year’s Day (22nd June), Overlithe if there’s a Leap Year (no corresponding date), and 2nd Lithe (23rd June)

Afterlithe - month 7, 24th June - 23rd July

Wedmath - month 8, 24th July - 22nd August

Halimath - month 9, 23rd August - 21st September

Winterfilth - month 10, 22nd September - 21st October

Blotmath - month 11, 22nd October - 20th November

Foreyule - month 12, 21st November - 20th December

1st Yule - last day of the year

Little bit confusing, isn’t it? But well, hobbits, you know. To add to it, their Mid-year’s Day is meant to correspond to the summer solstice, and is approximately 10 days earlier than our mid-year’s day.

So. The main holidays that the hobbits had were the Yule-days and the Lithe-days - the end/beginning of the year and the middle of the year. Plus that Highday, the last day of the week and corresponding to our Friday, was considered a holiday where hobbits often held evening feasts. As it stands, the 1st of Yule and the 1st of Lithe both fell on Highday, too. Fun fact - it corresponds to the day Orbelain in the Númenorean week, which is dedicated to the Valar. This would reasonably have been a thing also in Arnor when the hobbits settled the Shire, which would likely be why the hobbits grew to consider Highday a holiday and a time for feasts.

Alright, so what can we even get out of this mess? Well - first of all, we can’t actually use our own calendar as example of when important events happened for the hobbits. And beyond that, have a nitpick of mine that has bothered me for ages: Bilbo and Frodo were born on the first of Winterfilth, NOT in Halimath. Halimath kind of corresponds to September, yes, but the LAST day of Halimath is the 21st of September, the day BEFORE Bilbo’s and Frodo’s birthday.

Have we all learned something today? Yes? Good? Good. Byebye, it just snowed, I’m going outside to enjoy the hobbit-calendar new year, it’s already the 5th of Afteryule!

[jackie-talks-about-starkid]

Starship (Rewatch #4, 9/30/2020)

YouTube publish date: April 30, 2011

Number of views on date of rewatch: 4,171, 828

Original Performance Run: February 11-23, 2011 at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre in Chicago

Ticket price: $25

Director: Matt Lang

Music and Lyrics: Darren Criss

Book: Brian Holden, Matt Lang, Nick Lang, and Joe Walker

Cast album price and availability: $8.91 on Amazon and iTunes

     Release date: April 29, 2011

Parody or original: original content, inspired by Starship Troopers, The Little Mermaid, and Alien

Main cast and characters:

Bug - Joey Richter

February - Denise Donovan

Commander Up - Joe Walker

Taz/Buggette - Lauren Lopez

Tootsie Noodles/Pincer - Dylan Saunders

Mega-Girl - Meredith Stepien

Junior - Brian Holden

Roach - Brant Cox

Specs - Julia Albain

Krayonder - Joe Moses

Musical numbers

Act I

“I Wanna Be” Characters: Bug, Roach, and Ensemble (playing inhabitants of the Bug World)

“Get Back Up” Characters: Taz, Up, and Starship Rangers

“Life” Characters: Bug

“Hideous Creatures” Characters: Starship Rangers and Bugs

“Kick It Up A Notch” Characters: Pincer, The Mosquitoes, and Bug

“Status Quo” Characters: Bug

Act II

“The Way I Do” Characters: Tootsie Noodles, Mega-Girl, February, and Bug

“Beauty” Characters: Roach and Bugs

“Kick It Up A Notch (Reprise)” Characters: Junior

“Beauty” Characters: Company

Notable Notes:

This production won the 2011 “Best New Work” award from BroadwayWorld’s Chicago theatre awards

Starship is Starkid’s first show that they produced independently from the University of Michigan! The show opened in Chicago, where the following few shows were produced before a majority of the most active members moved to Los Angeles prior to The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, which opened in 2018

StarKid had their own short segment on MTV that highlighted certain aspects of the production such as Criss’ music and the puppetry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlnIXIGrjVg). At that point in time, Darren Criss was already a television favorite due to his role as Blaine Anderson on Glee, who joined the cast during its second season

The show’s cast album debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Cast Albums within three days of its release and at the 134th spot during that week’s Billboard’s Top 200 chart (x)

The opening sequence features cameos from other StarKid members such as Chris Allen, Tyler Brunsman, Richard Campbell, Britney Coleman, Arielle Goldman, Devin Lytle, Lily Marks, Nicholas Joseph Strauss-Matathia, and Brian Rosenthal.The same sequence was narrated by actor Bob Joles (AKA Man Ray in Spongebob Squarepants)

***Fun Facts provided by Abby:

Nick and Dylan think the worst StarKid song is ‘Hideous Creatures’

During a rehearsal, Joey told Nick that he thought the choreography for ‘Beauty’ was boring. Then Nick asked him, “Do you want to choreograph the number?" and then walked out of the room.

There was a theoretical sequel to Starship in which Taz and Up arrest Spaceclaw but get injured by an explosion. Up ends up in the hospital because of his injuries, and while Taz waits for him to heal, she has flashbacks of when they first met and the missions they went on together (Taz’s quinceañera, etc.)

Lauren: I'd like to imagine that Taz has that same hairstyle just in a big quinceañera dress

Once during rehearsal, they were all in a bad mood during ‘Beauty’. Darren wanted to surprise the cast with a visit, so he burst into the theatre singing the song and was just met by silence

At LeakyCon 2014 on Orlando, StarKid were invited as guests and performed a staged reading of a one-act sequel to Starship called Starship: Requiem.

Official synopsis: The story follows the adventures of Mega-Girl the robot and her half-witted Starship Ranger husband. The newlyweds are sucked into a black hole of trouble when they go to visit Mega-Girl’s human-hating family, including her overbearing mother-unit, her jealous sister-unit and the return of her hunky ex-boyfriend-unit. (x)

Cultural Context: 2011

The production’s MTV segment aired a little over a week after Glee’s “Original Song” episode, which featured Kurt and Blaine’s long-awaited first kiss [rip Pavarotti]

Prince William and Kate Middleton get married

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 premieres on July 15th

Beyoncé announces her pregnancy during her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards

“Friday” by Rebecca Black gets released in March

In early May, President Obama announces that Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces

New York becomes the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage on June 24th

The 9/11 Memorial Museum opens to the public on the tenth anniversary of the attacks

Content Analysis:

During my time on social media, I have found that Starship is one of the StarKid shows that gets discussed the least. Up until the show’s debut in StarKid’s history, the only shows they’ve done were AVPM and AVPS, both major viral hits, and MAMD, which reached popularity partly because it was released after StarKid became known for AVPM. Coming off of their great and unexpected successes with these productions, one would think that there would be a bigger fandom for Starship. It’s their second show that is based on original content rather than being a parody, and the production quality is the strongest in their repertoire, considering the funds they gained from their album sales for MAMD and their growing merchandise sales for their Potter musical series.

Personally, it’s one of my favorite StarKid shows because of the production quality and because the performances are so strong. Joey Richter makes a perfect leading man, and seeing how his general abilities as a performer have grown since MAMD has been delightful. His vocal range got stronger and more pronounced and he has a very confident stage presence, especially since Starship was StarKid’s first production independent of the University of Michigan’s monetary assistance and performance space. Lauren Lopez and Dylan Saunders do such an incredible job at playing two completely different characters themselves within the same show. Saunders plays Tootsie Noodles, a lovable idiot with a heart of gold who falls in love with a robot of all things, while also playing Pincer, the villainous instigator of the plot. Lopez has a similar about-face in character portrayal. She plays Buggette, a bug who’s in a helpless one-sided romantic relationship with Bug, and then two seconds later Lopez transforms into Taz, a kickass Latina Starship Ranger with excellent comedic presence and the undisputed leader of the group before Up regains his confidence as commander.

Starship is very unique in that about half of the characters in the show are portrayed by puppets, which themselves are incredibly designed, but unlike other productions that use puppets, they do not detract from the actor’s performance of the character. StarKid did a very good job in ensuring that the puppets are not a gimmick, but rather a compliment, to their individual actor’s portrayal of the character. All actors who play puppet roles do such a great job of vocalizing their character that, despite the design of the puppet not having the ability to change facial features, make the puppets feel so alive that it’s almost like watching a live-action animated movie (the good kind we’ve yet to experience, not the Disney kind). If there is any one thing that Starship represents for the company as a whole, it’s that character creation and embodiment make up the heartblood of the performances. Aside from the vocal performances, the facial expressions and physicality of the performances add so much to the puppetry performances, even when the focus on the character isn’t their physical representation but their dialogue and place in the plot. Regardless of whether or not the recording is emphasizing the puppet itself during a scene, the actor controlling the puppet is using perfect facial expressions and has matching body language with the puppet, which not only helps the actor stay in character, but gives more life to the puppet itself.

While I am eternally grateful that StarKid to this day ensures that their musical productions are put on YouTube for free, there are two very clear downsides that make themselves especially present in the recording. One is that, unlike in live theatre where any audience member can choose who and what to look at onstage at any given time, the camera is the one dictating what each audience member can focus on. Generally speaking, that isn’t too much of a detriment as most of the shots StarKid uses tend to showcase the most important characters during each scene, which any audience member would do if they were to attend a production live, but because StarKid members are so adept at character performance, it really makes me wish that I can look more at the ensemble’s performances during group scenes, or secondary character’s reactions during smaller scenes in which their character may not be the main focus.

Another thing was the general editing style. Though it did not necessarily take away anything from the performance itself or make watching the recording any less enjoyable, there were some editing choices that I felt were too distracting for what the scene called for in the show. For example, when Crayonder mentions to Taz that he thinks that Commander Up has “gone soft” since the injury he sustained in the Robot War, twice does the camera pause on his face and a record scratch and ‘booooo’ track is heard overlaid onto the scene. I understand the comedic nature of that bit in retrospect, but for a viewer, regardless of whether or not they are watching the show for the first time, it’s very distracting and forcibly shifts the audience’s focus on the story and the characters to a one-off joke. For a first-time viewer, that editing choice especially does not have as much impact as it does for a recurring viewer, as at that point in the story, the audience is only just being introduced to the characters and has no personal connection to Up and his backstory, making the effect of the joke less successful. As well, throughout the recording, and during the first act in particular, the show has a lot of quick and experimental cuts in the frame that I feel don’t allow the audience to sit enough with the action and the performance happening onstage, instead making the audience pay more attention to quick facial gestures rather than allowing the audience to take in the performance of an individual actor or an entire scene as a whole. Overall, the editing just reminds me that I am watching this beautifully done live-performance through a screen rather than being there for the performance in person, and lessens the potential impact of the recording as a whole.

Regardless of the editing, Starship still has some of the best character performances and musical numbers in StarKid’s production history. One that really stood out for me during this rewatch was Denise Donovan’s portrayal of February. Her character gets introduced as a classic ditzy character who initially doesn’t have a lot of agency in the story, but through good writing and likable performance, grows into the most sympathetic and dynamic character in the show. Donovan’s performance makes February more human than the trope she represents, and plays off her character so well that her jokes make her more endearing than a throw-away character that’s used just for laughs and a love-interest. Starkid tends to do this with a lot of the trope-y roles that they write for their productions . The writing and the direction have a very unique way of taking seemingly predictable, one-dimensional characters and fleshing them out into entire human beings with backstories and arcs, making their comedic impact all the more enjoyable because the audience genuinely likes them.

[fishxx]

Se Qing and the Naked Truth

February 24th, 2017

Below the rooftop of a Beijing building that shudders against a glaucous sky of factory moans is an unextraordinary office building. In it, perhaps on the sixth floor, sits a man in a suit at a desk. The phone on his desk rings. He probably picks it up. Maybe he shifts his weight in his seat, undoing the buttons on his cuffs. Maybe he texts his wife, tells her not to wait up, a client needs this or that document tonight.

It’s 11 degrees Celsius, and a pair of broad-boned feet rest on the ledge of the rooftop above the office building. The owner of the feet crouches over them, back bent round as if in a snail shell. He looks down to the street below, speckled with pedestrians bundled in scarves and cars blaring their horns. He thinks about what kind of people might be in the office building.

Seven months prior, he’d written in a series of diaries published online:

           我总是能听到开枪的声音，开始的时候我有点害怕，时间久了，也就习惯了，那声

           音也像有人在用槌子往我脑袋里钉钉子，好像有一个建筑工地，有人要盖摩天大楼

           ，盖了这么多年也没盖好，好多无家可归的人在我的脑袋里面哭啊闹啊，我要被吵

           死了，他们不让我睡觉，也不让我出门。不睡觉也好，不出门也好，反正每天出门

           前，穿上精心挑选好的衣服，照着镜子怎么看都觉得像要去参加自己的葬礼

           I am always hearing gunshots. In the beginning it scared me a little, but over time I’ve

           grown used to it. Someone has taken up a hammer and is knocking nails into my head,

           it’s a construction site where someone is erecting a monstrous skyscraper, they’ve been

           building it for years and it still isn’t done yet. The many homeless people in my head are

           crying and jibing, they won’t let me sleep, won’t let me out the door. Staying home and

           awake suits me just fine, because every day before heading out, after putting on the

           clothes I’ve selected so meticulously for myself, and looking into the mirror, it looks to

           me as if I’ve dressed to attend my own funeral.

It had always felt this way. For much of his life, since his childhood in a suburb of Changchun, the capital of China’s northeastern province of Jilin, Ren Hang had felt as if he was stumbling through a shadowy psychosis, a jammed film reel in disparate shades of gray.

Still, through the fog of voices and visions clouding his consciousness, in Ren’s pulsing circuit board of veins, he has always felt a deep connection to his family, to his hometown, to China.

And this has never wavered, even as he moved what seemed continents away to study marketing at 17, to live in the 4-to-a-room cramped quarters of Beijing’s university housing, high from the ground, amidst the haze and cancers and pollution of a city of chaos.

–

Fragmented light splashes across the bare thighs and torso of a man whose face cannot be seen. Each hand holds a disco ball, whose mosaicked faces refract the flash’s exposure. Between the disco balls, an erect penis. In another photograph, from the last series Ren published, two nude men sit curled atop one other on the ledge of a building, pasted against a jumbled, silver skyline. Their eyes meet the camera’s gaze steadily.

As Ren crouches on the windowsill, many of these photos are already on exhibition at Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. Museum curator Mirjam Kooiman says of the work, “It’s visual poetry. It’s without limits.”

Ren is not without limits.

The man in the office shuffles a stack of paper, maybe. He sighs when the phone rings again. Perhaps he stares at the minute hand on the wall clock.

Ren, some days, can’t tell wall clock from whiskey.

He rises slowly in the frame of the window. Stands, looks. Maybe he is naked, like so many of his subjects are. Maybe, as always, he’s meticulously selected what he believes to be the proper attire for the occasion. In one month he’ll be 30. He is always hearing gunshots.

He steps into the air.

–

January 15th, 2010

           我只会注意那些病态，结巴，物质，2维思维，单亲家庭的男孩。有一种男孩是我

           在涨潮几个小时之后会��电话给他，听到他的声音我知道虽然我还在水底，但是我

           还没有溺亡。

           I will only pay attention to those morbid, stuttering, material, two-dimensional- thinking

           boys in single-parent families. There is a kind of boy who calls me after hours of high

           tide. Hearing his voice, I know that although I am still underwater, I am still not dead.

Huang Jiaqi has the broad, hopeful eyes of youth and lips full as if they’d been stung by honeybees.

It’s been nearly a year since he ran away from home, leaving his university entrance examinations unfinished, his childhood tucked somewhere in diaries with thick-pulp pages, like those still made by tired men in the Qinling mountains.

At only 18, Jiaqi is slight of build, and can often afford nothing more to eat than a box of fried rice with a cucumber for five yuan. He devours the meal shoulder-to-shoulder with his lover, beneath the opaque and oppressive Beijing sky.

Jiaqi and Ren sleep in a house with five or six others who pad silently through the space like apparitions, also hungry.

Ren takes Jiaqi to rooftops. He snaps his shutter.

And with friends pitted naked against mosaicked Moroccan-style floors, between red curtains backlit by pale light, in reeds and bushes, amidst the haze of cigarettes in dingy apartments, Ren snaps his shutter. Boys and boys, girls and boys, girls and more girls mingle, mangled in limb and wire and branch.

Ren graduates from his compact analogue camera to a $29 Minolta X-700 film model. He is not interested in digital cameras. He says, “I like film. It’s exciting to wait.”

His work is featured in small group shows in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Nanjing.

Still, it seems no one in the art world knows Ren Hang’s name.

Jiaqi knows Ren Hang’s name, his mother’s name, the pock-marks of his left cheek, the sound of his heartbeat. In and out and in and out like the tide.

Jiaqi is Ren’s greatest muse, the reason for all things.

In eight years, an image of his face will splash the cover of an international art book published by Taschen and Ren Hang will be dead.

–

June 8th, 2008

           写给周耀辉的信

           每个人都是同性恋，每个人都是霸权者，每张脸都打上马赛克，每颗心都穿上防弹

           衣。所有的亲吻都是一味毒药，所有的拥抱都是一个牢房。

           Letter to Zhou Yaohui:

           Everyone is homosexual. Everyone is a hegemonic person. Each face is marked with a

           mosaic. Each heart is wearing a bulletproof vest. All the kisses are blind poisons, and all

           the hugs are a jail cell.

Ren books his first solo show in 2010. It opens in July under the name “Eat Naked Lunch!” at Yuyintang, a cozy underground live house in Shanghai.

One photograph features a young woman lying on her back, her knees drawn against her bare chest. Between her legs sprouts a tangled bouquet of leaves and red wildflowers. No genitalia can be exposed in the photographs on display, though the work Ren produces is often explicit, featuring cigarettes with seething red heads protruding from vaginas and lilies with their stems tucked into anuses.

He begins to exhibit quietly in other galleries and live houses.

And gradually, like a moonflower unfurling, Ren Hang’s work begins to bloom in the art world. The influence of boundary-pushing erotic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe becomes increasingly apparent, yet curators and collectors insist they have never seen anything like it before.

They are eager to comment on its starkness, its unapologetic sensuality, its balance and color, and its function as a bold fuck you to the Chinese government.

–

In the spring of 2018, Chinese social media platform Weibo announces a three-month “cleanup” effort of its site, a censorship initiative launched on the heels of President Xi Jinping’s new cybersecurity jurisdiction. Weibo quietly begins removing all content related to homosexuality. In response, social media users storm the platform with the hashtag #Iamgaynotapervert.

Though homosexual sex was decriminalized in China in 1997, members of the LGBTQIA+ community continue to face prejudice and a dearth of political discourse about their rights. Today, gay marriage is still not legally recognized in a single continental Asian country.

The Dream of the Red Chamber, the Qing dynasty-era novel oft considered the peak of Chinese literature features a number of steamy same-sex relationships, and passages of dialogue brazen enough to make even the most indiscreet of patrons blush: “What’s it to you if we fuck asses! It’s not like we fucked your dad,” says one character. Hand scrolls of the same time period depict what appears to be recreational sex between male friends, one colorful panel portraying a man hiking up his robes, sitting upon another man’s lap while they enjoy a cup of tea.

So whence came the disdain for homosexuality in China? Anthropologists argue that the influence of Western socio-cultural norms and exposure to foreign media rendered the subject taboo, casting shame over same-same relationships as the perverted product of delinquency or mental disorders. Others assert that the filial values of traditional China that have dominated social life since the era of Confucius are to blame.

Ren says, “We hide the body in our culture,” because it is “a demoralization to show what they think should be private.” But instead of hiding, Ren rebels—worshipping both the sacred and the sacrilegious in the human form, twisting and contorting it into geometry and shadow.

Everything about Ren’s photography is charged with the electric current of sexuality. Much of it is homoerotic. Much of it is not. As one curator puts it, “There’s no hierarchy between the female and the male model in his work. It’s very telling about these tendencies of sexuality and queerness in Chinese society and how his generation is dealing with it.”

What does this one represent?, they ask. It must be a commentary on the political state of modern China, they whisper.

When asked whether his pictures are meant to inspire or incite a sexual liberation in China, Ren responds flatly, “A sexual liberation? No.” He says, “Nudes have always been around. We were born nude. So I don’t think there’s anything to revolutionize. I just photograph things in their more natural conditions.”

Ren Hang didn’t intend to become a photographer. He became one accidentally, toying with a compact camera in the ennui of his days at the Communication University of China, snapping photographs of his roommates here and there, often naked, scuttling to the showers from their room with four bunks like narrow coffins stacked atop one another.

Perhaps he didn’t intend to become a poet either, although after his death, Tim Crowley of the KWM Art Center in Beijing says, “He was, in a way, a poet who just happened to be a great photographer.”

At times, he writes:

           "My cock"

           When soft, it’s like a piece of meat

           When hard, like a knife

           I give you soft when you eat

           Wait for you to eat hard

           Use it to kill you

And, at other times:

           "Real desperation"

           I found

           My breasts are bigger every day

           My vagina is wider day-by-day

           I can be ashamed

           I can hold hundreds of rivers

           My time is finally coming

           But I also felt for the first time

           What real despair is

           I stand in the highest place

           But I dare not take a look below

And as Ren Hang comes barreling into the world of contemporary Chinese art with images that incite gasps, fury, and arrests, he perplexes and enchants by straddling, unapologetically, the worlds of straightness and gayness, of kink and custom, of truth and deception, of masochism and tantrism, of woman and man.

–

May 9th, 2013

           还有一次连续几天晚上我都觉得我的隔壁睡了两匹马，我能听到他们的喘息，还有

           那种马的“突突”的鼻音，我每天回到家都小心翼翼地怕吵醒了他们，有一天我的朋

           友来家里��，我跟他说，我的邻居是两匹马，他们一直在睡觉，你今晚还是不要洗

           澡了，洗澡的声音太大了，我们说话走路也小声一点，不然会吵醒他们的，我已经

           三天没洗澡了。我朋友说我疯了。我说，他们不是一般的马，他们会说人话，会躺

           着睡觉。开始他以为我在开玩笑，但是我的表情越来越严肃，他说你真是疯了。后

           来我也不知道该怎么跟他解释，他再也没有住过我家。

           For a few days in a row, I felt like there were two horses sleeping next to each other. I

           was very careful not to wake them. One day, my friend came to stay at my place. I told

           him that my neighbors are two horses. They have been sleeping. You shouldn't take a

           shower tonight. The bathing sound is too loud. We can only speak quietly. Or I will wake

           them up. I haven't bathed for three days. My friend said I was crazy. I said that they are

           not ordinary horses. They speak ‘people’ and lie down to sleep. At first he thought I was

           joking, but my expression became more and more serious. He said that I was crazy.

           Later, I didn't know how to explain to him. He never stayed at my house again.

In China, mental illness is like homosexuality. It exists. We don’t talk about it.

–

April 5th, 2016

           我适应了逆来顺受，就像掷骰子，每次都掷到同一个点数，后来你发现，其实每一

           个面的点数都是一样的。这个房间里我最熟悉的就是头顶的那块天花板，它就像我

           的天空，白色的天空，没有任何阴晴变化的天空，我幻想过楼上的邻居就是住在天

           上的神仙

           I have adapted to obey just like a die that is rolled over and shows the same number every

           time. In the end you realize that each side of the die is exactly the same. I am most

           familiar with the ceiling from my room. It’s like my sky, a white sky. There is no

           pleasant change in my sky. I imagine that my neighbor from upstairs is an angel living in

           heaven with the gods.

“I love China, and I like shooting Chinese people,” Ren tells Vice Japan. “The more I’m limited by my country, the more I want my country to take me in and accept me for who I am and what I do.”

Ren is arrested a number of times—for shooting nude models in public places, where indecency is punishable by up to six months’ jail time, and, perhaps more scandalously, for self-publishing.

The Chinese government exercises nearly complete control over the press, and the country’s commitment to extensive media censorship is a well-documented phenomenon. Self-publishing, while technically legal, is a highly regulated procedure requiring an ISSN number and authors’ compliance with mandatory censorship policies.

Ren begins publishing his work underground in 2011 with the help of a friend who works in printing, knowing that he will never be able to publish his work otherwise, as the distribution of explicit photo or video content in China is illegal. The Communist Party once dubbed pornography “spiritual pollution.”

In 2015, in the vindictive heat of a Beijing summer, when asked about if he considers his pictures erotica, Ren tells a magazine intern, “I don’t like the word ‘erotica’ (in Chinese, qing se). I prefer ‘pornographic’ (se qing). I think it’s more direct.”

In China, a lifetime behind bars may await anyone who produces, disseminates, or sells “obscene materials.”

Naturally, Ren sets out to do all three.

Within five years, he produces 16 of his own zines and monographs, filled with glossy pages of penises urinating into corded telephone receivers, bodies twisted into fantastical shapes, vaginas splayed open like raw wounds. Many of the earliest of these books were sold underground in small shops whose owners knew his work.

A posterboy millennial, Ren has generated cult followings on his Weibo, Tumblr, and Instagram profiles. He publishes his photography freely on his website, alongside collections of poetry and an unassuming tab on the sidebar menu bar labelled “My Depression.”

His website is shut down unexpectedly. Once. Twice. Again. Law enforcement officers swarm Beijing galleries in wailing Volkswagen Passats, calling for the stop to his exhibitions. A man attends an exhibition and spits on one of the photographs.

He is arrested, but never imprisoned. While Ren operates as an anomaly, a dark creature inhabiting the fringes of Chinese society, authorities seem ambiguous about his status as a criminal. Is he a political rebel? Is he subverting the zhengfu?

They hesitate further because the mind of China is evolving. The economy, taking new shapes.

Chinese citizens born in the 1980s were taught that the country’s “pillar industries” included the automotive, construction, mechanical, electrical, and petrochemical sectors. But these categories are not static. In recent years, biotechnology, advanced energy, and IT have made their way to the forefront of the economy. These new pillars are China’s loyal heed to the call of science. Yet—more than anything—they’ve become the cherubim upholding the god that is capitalism to this country of atheists.

What is largely unexpected is the State Council’s 2009 announcement to make “culture” one of its pillar industries by 2020. In 2016, the Ministry of Finance earmarks nearly four and a half billion yuan in funding for cultural development initiatives. Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are booming. The art world, rising.

“The market in China has greatly matured, and this has enabled us to present exciting, emerging artists from China and across the Asia-Pacific region,” says Alexander Montague-Sparey, the Artistic Director of Photofairs Shanghai.

It’s no wonder that authorities cannot put their thumb on Ren Hang with enough accuracy to stamp him out like a cigarette butt. Instead, they fumble with his burning edges.

–

May 19th, 2011

           这几年你一直在寻找一张失踪的桌子，生活在一只倾塌的杯子里，逐步进化成愤怒

           的杯底。这世界就是离你这么近，却摸不着，又看不清楚。就像一束光要和影子做

           爱，那么难，我活得像一个影子。却只能再黑夜里出没。

           In the past few years you have been looking for a missing table, living in a falling cup,

           and gradually evolving into an angry cup. This world is so close to you, but it can't be

           touched. Just like a beam of light to make love with a shadow, so difficult, I live like a

           shadow. Only to haunt the night.

Ai WeiWei is China’s most beloved and most despised political dissident. The irreverent artist is known for designing the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics and for his controversial visual arts challenging the institutions of modern Chinese society. In 2014, he exhibits an entire collection featuring only photographs of his left hand pitted against the background of famous global monuments and religious buildings, his middle finger raised in bullish protest.

The state media deem him a “deviant and a plagiarist.” He’s arrested in April of 2011 and held for 81 days by authorities. Officials allude vaguely to his “economic crimes” without filing specific charges. His assistant, Wen Tao, mysteriously disappears and is never seen again.

In the consistent spirit of controversy, he champions the work of underground photographer Ren Hang.

In 2013, he curates an exhibition called “FUCK OFF II” at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, featuring the works of Ren and 36 other contemporary Chinese artists, many of whom are pioneering a neo-avant-garde driven by a need to challenge the sociological, environmental, and political climates of modern China. It contributes to a burgeoning, global Ren Hang following.

Ren always maintains that he is simply making pictures the way he wants to make them.

“Politics is interested in me,” he tells the press at the OstLicht Austrian photography gallery in 2015, “but I am not interested in politics.”

–

March 23rd, 2015

           我昨天在超市

           偷了一管牙膏

           前天把邻居的锁孔

           用口香糖堵住

           上周把小区门口的

           一排垃圾桶

           全都踢翻

           每次我做了坏事

           都觉得生活好像

           又变得���好了一些

           I was in the supermarket yesterday,

           I stole some toothpaste

           The day before yesterday,

           I blocked the neighbor’s keyhole with chewing gum

           Last week, at the neighborhood entrance,

           I kicked over

           A row of trash cans

           Every time I do bad things

           I feel like life

           Is getting better again

Ren hasn’t spoken much to his family since he left Changchun at the age of 17.

He calls his mother. He paces the length of his apartment slowly, watching one foot move in front of the other, the pattern in the floor’s wood grain rendered into clusters of tiny faces.

“I’m wondering if you’d like to model for me in a photo shoot.”

His voice hangs in the air like a bird riding a current of wind.

“Do you want me to take off all my clothes?” she finally laughs.

He is jarred by the realization that his parents must know everything. Here, all along, he believed they couldn’t have suspected a thing.

Of course he doesn’t want her to take off her clothes—she’s his mother, for goodness sake.

She doesn’t mind.

He insists that a bra and underwear will do just fine.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She smokes a cigarette. Ren snaps his shutter.

Expressionless, she holds a pig’s severed head. Ren snaps his shutter.

–

February 2nd, 2010

           《我爱你》

           想在你身后，

           看你走路的姿势，

           盯着你并不丰满的屁股看。

           想去你家。

           想跟你睡一张拥挤的铁床，

           在半夜突然醒来，

           舔你的眼睫毛，

           摸你冻裂的嘴唇。

           想在早上抢着穿你的内裤，

           让你穿我的，

           看你站着小便，

           拍下你用过没冲的厕所。

           "I Love You"

           Want to be behind you,

           Look at your walking posture,

           Stare at your not-so-plump butt.

           Want to go to your home.

           Want to sleep with you on a crowded iron bed,

           Wake up suddenly in the middle of the night

           Lick your eyelashes,

           Touch your cracked lips.

           Rush to wear your underwear in the morning,

           Let you wear mine,

           Watch you standing, urinating,

           Photograph the toilet you used without flushing.

Sometimes Ren darts into traffic, or lunges himself ahead of an encroaching bus, only to leap backward at the last moment. Sometimes he stands too close to the platform’s edge in Beijing’s swollen subway stations. When he swims in the chlorine-blue pools of hotels around the world—places where his work is championed, where he receives bottles of wine and dinners of black caviar and foie gras from museum directors—he keeps his eyes closed, lets his body sink to the bottom of the basin, listens to the muted sparkling of the water.

He feels most at peace when he is close to death.

“Since I was seventeen,” says Jiaqi, “the most important thing for me has never changed—to protect you and to protect our love.”

Jiaqi is well on his way to establishing himself as a leading fashion stylist, editor, and model. He makes his own pictures, too. In 2018, his photography glosses the cover of Tatler Hong Kong.

He snaps an iPhone photo of Ren. Beneath the glow of a red umbrella amidst geometries of sunlight, Ren stands in a blue Umbro soccer tank top. He looks into the distance blankly, his broad and elegant cheekbones lending to his perpetual appearance as gaunt, as exceedingly gentle, as older than he is. It seems so far removed from the world of art that they both have learned to inhabit in different ways.

–

January 10th, 2013

           《最亮的光太快》

           我从来不想变成最亮的光

           最亮的光太快

           比流星还快

           我愿意变成黑夜

           我愿意缓慢得就像静止

           我愿意经常被你遗忘

           偶尔被你仰望

           即使在那仰望里

           我只是一张背景

           “The Brightest Light is Too Fast”

           I never want to become the brightest light

           The brightest light is too fast

           Faster than meteors

           I would like to turn into night

           I am willing to be slow like static

           I am willing to be forgotten by you often

           Occasionally you look up

           Even in that gaze,

           I'm just a background

Ren Hang steps into the sky.

The gray of Beijing’s carbonate heavens flashes against fragment of glass, of skyscraper, of silver branch. Perhaps a bird darts past, cutting through the air careless—careless as one must be to have been given the great gift of flight without cognition of one’s privilege.

Perhaps before peace,

He sees his mother’s face. Her harsh mouth in a line, a stream of smoke curling around her.

Perhaps

He sees a boy with bee-stung lips.

The boy says: “I didn’t even know about this thing called depression the first time I saw you crying and telling me you wanted to set the flat on fire so we could die together.”

Maybe he hears the boy’s voice ringing in his ears, a kind of private, radiant sonar.

“You said you were my home, and I was yours.”

These words are true.

But these ideas are all simulation, are all romantic projection.

The BBC runs the headline: Ren Hang: Death of China’s Hotshot Erotic Photographer.

It is all romantic projection.

He is not an erotic photographer. He is, unapologetically, a se qing photographer, an artist of the bizarre and the beautiful, unmarried to any creed or movement, an artist brazenly throwing forth pictures of a violent peace, an artist, an artist, an artist. A mere observer of his world.

And he is, by no means, a hotshot. He is simply a student of the human condition—what his lover calls, “a kid who loves life, but lacks the skills to live it.” He is only human, diseased and obsessed, incurable and in love.

So more than likely,

When Ren Hang steps into the sky,

He does not take note of the clouds reflected in the windows of the office building tearing through space, or the dusky thrush floating above him. He does not see his mother’s stern face or hear the voice of Huang Jiaqi.

More than likely,

He thinks of nothing.

When Ren Hang steps into the sky,

He refuses to become the brightest light.

The brightest light is too fast.

Kendra Clark is a New York-based editorial content creator and part-time residential student in the creative writing master’s program at the University of Cambridge. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in or are forthcoming in Into the Void magazine, The Evansville Review, Emrys Journal, and more.

[graemeruns]

Manchester marathon, and the journey to a PB

I think, by now, most people I know expect that I am going to run the London marathon each year, so a fair few that I talked to were surprised when I told them that I was actually going to run the Manchester marathon first, and then London three weeks later. To be fair, their surprise was not unjustified, as I entered Manchester as a late decision; I was already three weeks into my London marathon 18 week training plan when I had this major concern that the following four months of hard work could all end in disaster if the weather turned out as hot as it was last year at the end of April. With Manchester being at the beginning of April, it also fell nicely at the beginning of the school Easter break, so it didn't take long to decide to enter it and have a week away near Manchester at the same time with the family. My wife, Yasmin, set about the task of finding us somewhere to stay, and all I now needed to do was compress by 18 week plan into 15, and we had a target set.

I had decided to be even more aggressive with my training this year, base it on the 55-70 miles/week plan from Pzitzinger and Douglas' book "Advanced Marathoning", but with all rest days being recovery runs, and tweaking it using my own experience of how I like to train. Since Abingdon marathon in October last year, I had kept my mileage ticking over at around 40 miles/week, so was hoping that this base fitness would help me as I moved into my new marathon training plan. Two weeks before the plan started I increased my mileage to 47, then the following week 50, so that 60 miles in week 1 would not seem too much of a step upwards.

Loosely, my training plan went something like this:

Monday - 3-4 mile recovery run (8:45 - 9:00/mile pace). I really needed these runs to be as-slow-as-you-can go recovery otherwise they would be counter-productive. Tuesday - intervals or tempo (6:20/mile) - around 10 miles in total with warm up and cool down. These were sometimes moved to Wednesday if I was still feeling tired from the weekend, in which case they would be an easy 9- 10 miler (7:40 - 7:55/mile pace). Wednesday - medium long run, 15 - 17 miles, usually as a double run because just finding the time to run it in one go was too difficult. Sometimes these would be a workout and a recovery run later in the day if I had moved the workout from Tuesday. Thursday - easy run - around 10 miles. This is about 7:40 - 7:55/mile pace. Friday - 3-4 mile recovery (8:45 - 9:00 pace) Saturday - parkrun, of course, as fast as possible! I think I ran to and from nearly all of them to some get extra mileage in (usually 9 - 11 miles total). Sunday - Long run - 16 - 23 miles (7:40 - 8:15/mile pace). In all honestly, I didn't run as many 20+ mile runs as I'd have liked, as two of the Sundays were used for tune-up races. But I did do seven runs over 17 miles (the longest being 26 miles which was a bit too far!). My legs were also usually tired from the previous days' parkrun too, so running on tired legs was something I got used to, and I think is crucial for the latter parts of the marathon.

Lets look at the tune-up races:

Wokingham half marathon. This fell 9 weeks into in my calendar on 24th February. I wanted to have a go at my current half marathon PB (1:23:44) in this race, so I dropped the workout that week, cut back the mileage a little and rested the day before. The day was perfect, being cool and bright with only a little breeze. After a bit of a congested start, I was able to get into my rhythm and run consistently around 6:20/mile, which would get me a time under 1:23. My 5k splits were good: 19:42, 19:42, 19:48, 19:54, but slipping just a few seconds in the last 10k meant I crossed the line just short of my goal in 1:23:09. But I'd given it everything, so was content with the result. You can see my run on Strava here.

The Big Half. This race fell just 2 weeks after Wokingham. The previous Sunday my long run had accidentally ended up as 26 miles, and this meant I took a couple of days early in the week to recover, and what with running a steady parkrun on the Saturday as well, meant I was not that fresh for the race. The weather was cold, wet at the start, and very, very windy. Overall, it was a bit of a disaster really, as I queued so long for the loo I started too far back, which required a lot of weaving through slower runners, and while this probably didn't cost a huge chunk of time, the speeding up and slowing down was using an unnecessary amount of energy. I ended up running a negative split because of this, in 1:26:05, which was a bit disappointing, but deep down I knew I wasn't flat out and that this was closer to marathon pace than half marathon pace, so took that away as a positive. It had also given my potential marathon shoes a good outing, so the decision what to wear for the marathon had been made too. You can see my run on Strava here.

My training plan also includes some marathon paced runs. Always run on a Sunday on tired legs, these can be tough but honest workouts. Striders had arranged for a group of us to met at Kenley aerodrome for exactly this sort of training, so the 13.1 miles I ran there at marathon pace two weeks before Manchester was my final big effort. It ended up around 1:27:30, approximately 6:40/mile pace, and I felt fairly comfortable during the run. This was a good confidence boost for me, and gave me an indication of what to aim for on the day. A big thanks to my Striders mate Martin for being my running pal for that effort.

Fast-forward two weeks and I'm at the start line. We had booked accommodation in the lovely village of Old Glossop at the base of the Peak District. Travelling to the race start had been fairly easy - a 25 minute drive to Didsbury East where I parked and boarded the tram to Trafford Bar, the nearest tram stop to the start. The whole journey was just over an hour, and quite stress-free. I didn't hang about though: this year they were expecting around 20,000 people to run in the various races, and it was quite crowded, so I quickly dropped my bag off and made my way to the start line, which being the 'A' start, was also the furthest away; even so, I was in the pen with 15 minutes to go. The weather conditions were near perfect (8 degrees, overcast with a little breeze) and I was raring to go.

When I race marathons I like to plan my pacing based on 5 mile intervals. It's easy to remember just 4 split times, and an overall average time per kilometer (at this point I should apologise for mixing miles and kilometers, but I do tend to think in both when running). My intended splits were:

5 miles in 33 minutes and 10 miles 1:06 (average 4.06/km), 15 miles in 1:39:30 (average pace now falls slightly to 4:07/km due to natural slowing), 20 miles 2:13:00 (average pace now falls to 4:08/km) Which leaves just a 6.2 mile (or 10k) sprint to the finish, which I'd hope to cover in around 42 minutes, and will mean I have run a 2:55 marathon. That was the goal, though I really thought 2:56 - 2:57 was more likely.

At 9am on the dot we were off, and being so near the front I was across the line almost immediately. There's the usual overtaking, and being overtaken, that goes on in the first few kilometers as runners find their pace. I went through the first kilometer in 4 minutes dead. "Hmm, that's a bit fast", I thought, "but it's probably just because it's the first kilometer". I went through the second kilometer in 4:03: "Hmm, that's still a bit fast". The third kilometer took 4.01, then 4.03, then 3:56, passing 5k in a little over 20 minutes. I was in a real dilemma - the pace seemed far too fast, but I just didn't seem to be able to reel it in. It didn't actually feel that fast, and my heart rate was averaging around 142bpm, which is pretty low for me.

Kilometer 6: 3:59, kilometer 7: 4:04, kilometer 8: 4:00 - I went through 5 miles in a little over 32 minutes, much faster than intended. But I couldn't slow down - somehow I was being pulled along by the runners around me. So it was at that point I did something I've never done before: I threw away my pacing plan and decided to stick it out at this faster pace and see if I could hang on at the end. I'll either crash and burn, or run a very fast time.

The Manchester marathon route is pretty flat, although there are some long gentle inclines where you unexpectedly lose time, and the first time that happened (at kilometer 17 when I ran a 4:10) I immediately worried that this was where the slowing up starts, but then I ran 3:58 in the next kilometer, so equilibrium was maintained.

I passed half way in 1:25:55, much faster than intended (and quicker than the Big Half!). The simple maths said that I just had to run a 1:30 second half (4:14/km) to achieve my 2:55 goal. But I know marathons - they aren't that easy to predict.

Between 25 - 30k I was still running well, averaging about 4:09/km pace, and 20 miles came up in 2:11:40; I was over a minute up on my time. The 20 mile (32.2km) sign is my friend: it says “you’ve now completed the 20 mile 'warm-up', and it's just 10k to the finish, which you will run as fast as you possibly can”. But in the latter stages of a marathon it is never as simple as that: I was tired, and I had a lot of pain in my right foot*, which was worse on the inside camber of the road, so I tried to run in the middle of the road. This did help ease the pain a little, but in the grand scheme of things it was not a big issue, and it wouldn’t prevent me from getting to the finish line, which I’d like to see soon, please. (* It turned out to be an enormous blood blister on my 3rd toe).

Yasmin and Chloe had made the clever decision not to get up at 6:30am and travel to Manchester with me, but instead got the train into Manchester later and were going to be just past the 25 mile sign. It's amazing how much of a boost seeing someone familiar is, and just looking forward to that point in the route gives you something to focus on. After waving frantically at them and trying to smile, with 1 mile to go I just got my head down and headed for the finish - which is quite torturous because you can see the finish line from 500m away. It looked a long way!

With 200m to go I realised that I was closer to sub 2:54 than anything around 2:55, so found a sprint from somewhere but it wasn't quite enough. I crossed the line in 2:54:02, a 4 minute 25 sec PB. I had surpassed my expectations, and, to be honest, was a little shocked to have run quite that fast! You can see my run on Strava here.

A week later, and recovery has been slow. My racing flats did the job, but I attempted a run the Saturday after the marathon and my calves were still very tight and sore, so I will be giving them some more rest. I've enjoyed the break from running though, as it does take over my life in a big way when marathons are looming. For the 13 weeks proper training I did for the Manchester marathon (not including the 2 taper weeks), I averaged 63 miles/week, and there were 3 weeks in there where the mileage was reduced due to upcoming races and a niggle. But attaining a PB at half marathon and marathon at the age of 51, I am not complaining at all. I love running, and there were few runs or workouts I didn't enjoy. It was worth every moment I spent doing it, and you know what, I think I can go faster!

[hetaliaindie]

Going down memory lane

Just a little photo post.

June 9th 2017

I come back after more than a year, ready to try this out again.

I love how I'm always straight with ya guys in the tags yeesh.

July 4th 2017

The start of my first proper event, the Gandharva Event! (Though I've revised his design greatly ever since- there's no trace of Shiv in this anymore!!)

July 24th 2017

My first interaction with @grandparomeaskblog !!! When will I stop drawing your son in compromising situations-

August 28 2018

The very very first glimpse of Mr. G!

Also August 28

The day I started lowkey introducing the world to Shiv's 2500 year old crush.

September 1 2017

Young Shiv art!

September 9 2017

The most cursed artwork in this entire blog, thanks to aforementioned Grandpa Rome and Mr. Camel ( @de-beste-persian-empire) 

September 16 2017

I think, this is the first sridevi we got on this blog. No introduction, nothing.

Same day and we have Sridevi being as demanding of sweets as she always is, and our lovely Aarya! @ask-ladylotus​. The world deserves more india wamen.

September 21 2017

One of my favourite answers to date: Jugaad

September 24 2017

Gosh I don't like the art here at all, but here's the start of the lotus/god angst.

Same Day

The cutest darn Shiv ever. I hope I've kept this side of him alive.

Same Day

I think this is interesting because it seems that I was really fond of a more metaphorical approach to some questions and I'm still like that today: Jealousy

Same Day: Start of the God (dream) Event

September 30 2017

Yeah that's really what they looked like then.

October 5 2017

This may have happened nearly 2000 years ago but I do keep referencing it so here, boys and their issues.

October 24 2017

Same story, more details

October 26 2017

This is truly one of the most beautiful works I've made, and this is when I start getting very fond of this kind of storylike narrative, bright colours and literal metaphors.

November 3 2017

Jerks.

November 5 2017

Mr and Mrs. did have their casual pretend intimacy. Now she's alone but Mr. Gold has Zar. I hope we see her grow now that her fake love partner's dead and reborn.

December 19 2017

This is about when I fell in love with both of them tbh. Btw the baby was carefully delivered to an orphanage and quickly adopted by one of Mr. G's workers.

December 28 2017

The start of a legend. The Highschool AU. Would you believe me if I told you that Gypty and I still work on it casually or see various futures spawned from it? 

January 15 2018 (Welcome to 2018 my good folks, we made it)

This isn't important content but artwise, It's when I really started pushing for dynamic stylistic choices for my art.

January 16 2018

You really really see it here, and also I start indulging more in patterns to brighten up the simplicity of everyday life. I'd also say this is where the general body differences are most exaggerated between them all (even with sridevi as a child).

January 22 2018

A comment on Arthur Kirkland.

January 23 2018

A memory of the Sack of Delhi. It may strain your eyes (unfortunately I can't say that was on purpose), but it's a tribute to a nation who's heart has been stamped on by circumstances that no one can predict, yet its spark still lights. From an art standpoint, I was very proud of the expression I felt I conveyed well in this panel.

January 28 2018

Listen the amount of research I put into giving you a culturally intriguing gag response- 

February 2 2019

Mrs. Gold, I definitely improved a lot with colour usage here.

February 1 2018

This is where I have truly tried too hard on colours but I'm really warming up to it. (Oh nu is my icon that old- i'll get a new one soon I promise)

Please just take a moment, if you're someone who is an artist and is on a journey, to compare this piece with some of the earlier ones in this post. This improvement wasn't completely random. It started with looking for stylistic changes in the way I drew- in my case, really exaggerating the flowiness of my strokes and sharp points (messing around with a grittier brush, helped me a lot too, if you're someone who sticks with soft brushes or mechanical pencils, I couldn't recommend trying to use a textured brush or irl charcoal to get a grasp on the type of mood you want to evoke). At some stage it became a love story with color too, but colour takes time and lots of adjustment, which is why you won't see much of it in my blog.

March 5 2018

This is where I really start pushing the exaggeration on Mr. G, but only to get a feel for him. He evolved from a chunky nosed, physically imposing figure with a laughable quantity of gold, to something more desperate and dependant on money, something lean and mean with a nose that could poke an eye out. And here, most prominent is the shape of his lips, which had grown more prominent than before and very good for emphasizing his frown (and hell to work with when trying for his dimpled smile).

March 11 2018

I drew this for an rp starter since words couldn't describe what was in my head. I think it's a fine example of my adoration for patterns- but not just patterns, the idea of luxury beyond compare. It's prominent in my blog but only because I have the brain of a magpie and am constantly like ‘ooo shiny’. But really, I drew what I liked, so I improved. Find something you like drawing if you haven't yet. It can be skulls, it can be leaves, feathers, find your motifs and everything will honestly follow along.

May 17 2018

Post exam-hiatus, I am back with the gang, my art style is a bit rusty but boy have I got intimately involved with colours.

May 22 2018

I can't get colours out of my head, I'm thinking about them day and night, I need to create, I need to and so I do. (In all honesty I am certain that something greatly inspired me to do this but I cannot recall what).

June 12 2018

The Kill Cindy 2k18 movement is born. I can finally show you the Mr. G I have been hiding from you all.

July 1 2018

Something I can point out now is that while I think my colours work (honestly i was making use of patterns to distract you all at this stage- before I returned from my hiatus, I'd been rejected in an interview for an animation course and the key point my interviewer made was that my sense of colour was jarring, so I really was sensitive over it but seeking out improvement), what I would change is that adding a clear light source and allowing an atmosphere (by adjusting the main figures’ hues slightly to match the background) to emerge in my art would make it a lot better. And I start to grasp at this knowledge.

August 19 2018

The start of the bodyswap event, I swear I'll get back to it. I just want to use it as a stepping stone to get some meaningful character development out of it, thus it's ongoing.

See here, this is where I just stop caring about skin and character colour as something that should more or less be constant. Now it's vibrant and blinding for no other reason than I want to make you feel (granted, I did that too much here and it makes things hard to understand much less appreciate).

September 8 2018

Here I'm really just feeling the colours, Shiv's home is easy- everything is luxurious but at once welcoming (or at the very least, pampering), Sridevi's home on the other hand was shown to be neater and almost less personal, there isn't much immersion allowed in her place but in Shiv's..oh man.

November 2018

As you can see, activity has been dwindling what with rigorous college days and having moved to a new city. It should pick up eventually, but let me close this off with some new art.

Do I have something to say about this piece? Yes, I do! The point of view is Shiv's, thus the warm colours and the way he blends into the background. The main figure here is not himself or his 2nd player, but the vibrant peacocks, that exist in a shade of blue too vibrant to be real. In between the two sentient figures, is our young Mr. Gold, clearly he has the favour of these birds but he doesn't seem very affected by them- unlike the jealous Shiv. He's the dullest colour present and he wears the blandest clothing, the matters of peacocks (be they blue or orange) do not apply to him and he is at once alienated. 

Today, November 14th 2018

So after everything, here we are. Is this what all my art was moving towards? No it isn't, it's really just me playing around with photoshop brushes, but the mood of this image is something I feel that I've conveyed with integrity. That's what I want to keep striving for. Thank you all for staying with this blog as long as you have, thank you to all my newer followers, I've linked most of these points to their original posts, I hope that Tumblr does not break them. Love you all!

[mindfulwrath]

Literally nobody asked but I felt like posting it anyway: Here’s the official MWDF/ALDIP/TGGKT timeline so far

These are literally just my notes that I keep for my own personal accounting reference, so they may be semi-incomprehensible.

MWDF

ACT 1 - MID AUGUST, 1886

Day 1 - Burns’ body discovered, Railmen at Bragg’s saloon (mail day) Day 3 - Notes from Lindsay, Railmen at Badger’s inn, ravine investigations Day 4 - Jeremy asks around about the tattoo; Jeremy and Michael interview Risinger Day 6 - Letters arrive re: Heyman (mail day), First Ghost Sighting Day 7 - Bank robbery, interview with Meg, Steffie implicates Geoff and the Crew Day 8 - Ryan and Michael “interview” Risinger, Michael & Gavin vs Meg (mail day) Day 9 - Risinger’s lynching Day 10 - Risinger makes a death threat Day 11 - Jack hypothesizes the body is Bernard Burns (mail day) Day 12 - Hullum & Ash arrive in town; Second Ghost Sighting; railmen take off Day 13 - Vernon & Lovelock; the Vagabond Day 14 - Michael gets pushed off a cliff Day 15 - Michael receives the bad news about his legs Day 16 - Interview with Ashley

ACT 2 - LATE OCTOBER, 1886

Day 1 - The Vagabond’s Wheelhouse (+2 wks ryan back) Day 2 - Trevor starts working Wednesday, Day 11 - Jon attacks Michael (MOON: JUST PAST FULL) Thursday, Day 12 - Jeremy warns Trevor; Jon is disappeared Friday, Day 13 - Ryan back Monday, Day 16 - Rémy Timm, 1st Heart Problem (MOON: WANING GIBBOUS) Tuesday, Day 17 - Tensions resolved (mostly) Friday, Day 20 - Meg & Ryan (mail day) Saturday, Day 21 - Risinger dies; Head to Michael’s porch Sunday, Day 22 - Risinger’s Body; GHOST & stitches (MOON: WANING CRESCENT) Monday, Day 23 - Fingers & Toes, Torture-napping Ryan Tuesday, Day 24 - Geoff calls Michael out; Sexy Times Saturday, Day 28 - Treyco’s Got A Gun Sunday, Day 29 - (midnightish) Meg’s Demise; The Coat (MOON: WAXING CRESCENT)

ACT 3 - EARLY DECEMBER, 1886

Sunday, Dec 9 - Old Gray Wolf (seven days post Meg) Monday, Dec 10 - Lindsay wants a coat; the rifle (MOON: FULL) Tuesday, Dec 11 - Michael comes clean; “Get Here” (mail day) Wednesday, Dec 12 - Michael, Ryan, Gavin to Lovelock; Ryan’s 1st breakdown Thursday, Dec 13 - Return to Cheevment City; Dumb Mistake (20d since Stab) Friday, Dec 14 - Ryan gets sick; Church Time Saturday, Dec 15 - Mail Day Sunday, Dec 16 - Lindsay comes out; Michael’s nightmare+reconciliation Monday, Dec 17 - 3 Cups of Coffee (MOON: WANING HALF; 13-14 days to “Just Past Full”) Wednesday, Dec 19 - Letter from Heyman (mail day) Thursday, Dec 20 - One Good Day Friday, Dec 21 - Letter back to Heyman; Lindsay flees Saturday, Dec 22 - (early morning) Peyote; Michael is “crazy” Monday, Dec 24 - Heyman arrives in town & is murdered Monday, Dec 31 - The Devil in the Clocktower (MOON: JUST PAST FULL) Tuesday, Jan 1, 1887 - Hanging Monday, Jan 7, 1887 - Body Disappears

Mid-February, 1887 - Lindsay Back

July 1, 1887 - Allons-y, mon chéri

ALDIP

ACT 1 - MID-MARCH, 1887

Thursday, March 10 - The Play, The Death, The Investigation -Christophe murdered (~5am on the 11th) Friday, March 11 - The Press! Interviews w/Torrian+Chad, Dubois, Jenzen+Marquis - Discover Christophe’s body, Gav’s Big Dissociation Saturday, March 12 - Gabriel comes to visit; Bones; Red Team at the molly house Sunday, March 13 - Peake; binge-drinking at Blood Gulch Monday, March 14 - Return to the Theatre Friday, March 18 - Disastrous Exposition Saturday, March 19 - Casimir leaves his card; Gav gets feverish Sunday, March 20 - Gav’s brother comes to visit Monday, March 21 - Detective Gabriel joins the team

ACT 2 - LATE APRIL, 1887

Tuesday, April 19 - A Letter from Cas Wednesday, April 20 (evening) - Arrival in Marseilles; Chad’s Dilemma Thursday, April 21 - Hungover Cas; train station inquiries; Letter to Michael Friday, April 22 - Travel to Paris; a brief convo with Mrs James; Drunk Gav (late) Saturday, April 23 - Women and Children; telegram from Gabriel - (~3 am on the 24th) Possession 1 Sunday, April 24 - Return to the Theatre & Ravin Rouge; “Lucien” Tuesday, April 26 - Telegram from Gabriel (II) Wednesday, April 27 - Gabriel at the Jolly Boatman; Reconciliation - (~2am-5am on the 28th) Possession 2 (knife) Thursday, April 28 - The Dress Friday, April 29 - Getting back to the case; Casimir’s "old friend”; Bathtub Drama - (~2-5 am on the 30th) Possession 3 (hangman) Saturday, April 30 - Gav returns (early)

ACT 3 - EARLY MAY, 1887

Saturday, April 30 - No Cops; 3 Part Plan - (~3 am on the 1st) Possession 4 (Don’t Run) Sunday, May 1 - Dr DuFresne; writing to Gabriel Monday, May 2 - Séance/Meeting Orphinaeus Tuesday, May 3 - Impromptu exorcism Wednesday, May 11 - Letter from Michael; alibis to Durant; Lucien makes an appearance; Gabriel Returns Thursday, May 12 - Belladonna’s Blackmail Saturday, May 14 - Visiting Jenzen; planning with Gabriel Sunday, May 15 - Casimir’s big breakdown; (evening) Dan’s drinking binge; The Fire Monday, May 16 - Dan wakes up - [Also: “letter” sent to Michael] Tuesday, May 17 - Gabriel & Casimir visit June - The Wedding & Honeymoon - [July 1 - Letter from Ryan arrives in A.C. (sent mid-May)] Late July/Early August - Michael’s 2nd letter arrives

TGGKT

ACT 1 - EARLY NOVEMBER, 1887

Monday, November 7 - MLG meet GDG; M & L fight about collateral damage Tuesday, November 8 - Divide and Conquer; M & L fight about Michael’s paranoia Wednesday, November 9 - Gav invites M & L to tea; Michael gets laudanum refill Monday, November 14 - Lindsay’s 3rd teatime w/GDG; return letter arrives from Casimir; Michael’s Big Deduction - (Early AM on 15th) Michael’s seeing ghosts again Tuesday, November 15 - Reconciliation Monday, November 28 - The Guest List; Gabriel’s Too Gay To Function Thursday, December 8 - Getting dressed up Friday, December 9 - “Oh it’s totally not Casimir”; The Party Saturday, December 10 - Oh it totally IS Casimir - (Early AM on 11th) Theatre nightmare Sunday, December 11 - Right Hand Blues - (Early AM on 12th) Convo with the Devil Thursday, December 15 - Gabriel stays with friends; GavDan go home Friday, December 16 - Murdergram

ACT 2 - MID-DECEMBER, 1887

Friday, December 16 - 3 Bodies, No Leads -(Early AM on the 17th) Dan & Gabriel go out; Dan gets kidnapped Saturday, December 17 - Michael exposits; the first 2 clocktower convos Sunday, December 18 - Looking for Dan; Ear arrives; Dan gets concussed & engineers a delay Monday, December 19 - Meeting Ms Jenzen Tuesday, December 20 - (Early am) Dan doesn’t do an escape plan Wednesday, December 21 - The Devil’s due; Haywood fucks off -(Early AM on the 22nd) Number Eight Thursday, December 22 - Examining the new evidence; Haywood returns (morning); backroads London tour, Pt I Friday, December 23 - An excursion with Gavin; Orphinaeus arrives Saturday, December 24 - Michael gets out of prison; the search for Gavin -(Early AM on the 25th) - Number Seven Sunday, December 25 - it’s YOU, Dan gets stab’t

ACT 3 - LATE DECEMBER, 1887

Monday, December 26 - Michael’s nightmare; Dr Kohli & the asylum; hospital search; Dan wakes Tuesday, December 27 - Cafe meeting; Orphy bites the dust -(Early AM on the 28th) - Solitaire with the Devil Wednesday, December 28 - Finally figuring shit out Thursday, December 29 - Lindsay & Gav to London; Gabriel & Michael plan for the worst; the last we hear from Dan Friday, December 30 - Gav & Lindsay return with Buckley Saturday, December 31 - Infiltrating Parliament -(Just past midnight on Jan 1st, 1889) - FINALE Sunday, January 1, 1888 - Ryan to EE Asylum, everybody else goes home Wednesday, January 4 - Michael is re-arrested Thursday, January 5 - Michael is re-released; the farewell dinner Friday, January 6 - The parting of the ways

March 1, 1888 - Return to Achievement City

June 6, 1894 - The final letter

[dovemangroup]

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[amieravenson]

Magickal Month- October

Magickal Month- October October is the 10th month of the year, though it’s named after ‘octo’ meaning 8 in the old Roman calendar. Another one of those, right? It was moved into the 10th place with the establishment of January and February as the first and second months in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It was also known as Wynterfylleth to the Anglo Saxons, because it was thought that Winter begins at the full moon in October. Don’t we all just love October? I don’t know many people who don’t get a little thrill when the weather starts getting chillier, when the wind starts blowing the leaves off trees, and when the pumpkin spice starts flowing. There’s just something in the air that makes you simultaneously want to be outside to see the beautiful leaves, and also go inside and prepare your nest for the long hibernation of the winter. The weather is finally breaking a little here in Georgia, we’re seeing low 80s instead of the 90s that just didn’t want to give up the ghost. I’m seeing a lot of house wrens lately, particularly a pair that have set up a nest just below the window in front of my sink where I wash dishes. We also saw a big Eastern Kingsnake a few weeks ago, and it was lovely. I hope it stays away from the hawks and owls in the neighborhood and continues to eat any poisonous snakes or obnoxious rodents that are around. I also saw a committee of black-headed vultures hanging out on a cell tower yesterday. The leaves aren’t really changing yet, but they ARE falling from trees that don’t really carry a lot of color, like the 3 trunked ash tree in my back yard that I call The Three Sisters. Lunations: New Moon in Libra October 8th at 11:46pm EDT Full Moon in Taurus October 24th at 12:45pm EDT Astronomy: October 5- Venus goes retrograde at 3:07pm in Scorpio Orionids meteor shower peaks October 21st-22nd. Southern Taurids meteor shower peaks October 28th-29th. Celtic Tree Month: Ivy (Sept 30- October 27): End of the harvest, looking back at our successes and losses, strengthening our resolve to face the future, taking the long-term view, fidelity and fertility, protection, healing, good luck for women and brides, guards against negativity and disaster, reaches around and through obstacles to find light and nourishment, reaching out, expansion. Reed (October 28- November 24): Introverting, withdrawing, connecting with the past and with spirit, ancestors, messages from the spirit world, culling that which doesn’t serve us, dreaming- but not planning. Seeking basic truth, finding direction, giving meaning and purpose to your journey, skill and direction, secret strength and secret motivations, seeing beneath the surface. Holidays (non-Pagan): October 1- Shmini Atzeret (Jewish) October 2- Simchat Torah (Jewish) October 4- Feast of St Francis of Assisi (Christian) October 8- Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day (I prefer the latter) October 9- Navaratri (Hindu) October 9- Leif Erikson Day October 16- Boss’s Day October 18- Dussehra (Hindu) Holidays (Pagan): October 6- Greek festival honoring Gaia and the Nymphs October 8- Old European feast of the Triple Goddess, as mother transforms into crone October 8- Festival of Greek Hekate, who guides followers through crises and transitions October 9- Pyanepsion Noumenia- Greek festival honoring all Gods and Goddesses October 11- Feast of the Charities to honor Goddesses of beneficence October 12- Feast of Aphrodite, honoring peace and compassion October 14- Proerosia- Greek festival where fruits of the harvest were offered to Demeter October 14- October 28- Old Norse Winter Nights Feast, honoring ancestors and deities with toasts and offerings October 19- Thesmophoria- Greek festival honoring Kore’s transition into Persephone (Goddess of the Underworld) October 27- Apatura- Festival welcoming new children and newcomers into the community October 28- November 2- Roman/Egyptian festival remembering Set’s murder of Osiris and Isis’s healing him October 31- Day of mourning witches persecuted for their religion or women who were persecuted as witches October 31- November 2- Samhain- Celtic/Welsh New Year and feast of Cerridwen October 31- November 7- Hallowmas/Day of the Dead/Mid-Autumn- marks the end of the agricultural year and last harvest as well as the transition from focusing on life and growth to death and rest, also a day to honor ancestors Themes for the month: The last harvest- bringing in the things you can use over the Winter and culling the things that you don’t intend to take forward with you. Sacrifice- giving up your crutches. The Ancestors, Spirit Guides, deepening your relationship to Deity. Speaking with spirits and the fae while the veil is thin. Introverting. Pumpkin spice and anything warm and cozy. General activities for the month: Apple picking, cider-making, making and dressing in costumes, carving pumpkins, making and eating candy, trick-or-treating, watching horror movies, visiting haunted houses, knitting for the upcoming Winter, communicating with spirits and ancestors (carefully!), divination, cutting away anything you don’t want to take into the long winter. Herbs I’m using: Pumpkin spice- come on, it’s everywhere. Coffee beans- this is when I start to up my coffee game because it’s cool enough that I can drink it without sweating. The scent just brings me into Autumn and Winter. Sandalwood- I burn incense a lot around this time of year too. It seems too overpowering in the Summer, but it feels cozy and warm as the temps start dropping. Stones I’m using: Petrified Wood- not only is it a tie to the past, and hence the ancestors, but I had a particular piece kind of jump at me recently and say it wanted to be used. Who am I to argue? Lepidolite- I got a really beautiful piece at a rock show recently, and I can’t leave it alone. As much as I love Autumn, it does bring some darker moods as the sun spends less and less time in the sky. Lepidolite is really good for depression, and will help see me through, emotionally speaking, until next Spring. Chrysanthemum Stone- good for cutting away all that doesn’t serve you. This is a great theme for this time of year. Goddess of the Month: The Norns and The Fates. These are similar groups of 3 deities who rule over the destiny and fate of each of us. I feel really drawn to fate this time of year, and they’re great to connect with for tarot readings, which I feel especially drawn to right now. I’ll be working on deepening my connection with them, and asking them to help me in my tarot/divination practices for the coming year.

October 3 card reading Our reading this month is interesting, and I feel like it has to do with a lot of what's going on in the news right now. First, we see the Three of Bats, which corresponds to the Three of Swords. So this signifies that we’re going into this month with some suffering. We’re feeling grief and really struggling with our emotions. This could be due to several things. This could be because of things that have happened to us personally, but I think it has something to do with the Kavanaugh hearings and the pain that this has dredged up for a lot of women lately. I’ve been having trouble engaging in social media because of all the #metoo stories, and though I think it’s really important to witness the pain, it can be difficult to feel inundated by it. Next, we have the Five of Pumpkins reversed. The upshot of what’s been happening in the news is that we’re realizing that we’re not alone in sharing our stories. We’re realizing that we have a lot of similiarities, and that the only way to make any sort of change is for us all to stick together and stay strong together. I think that’s a really important lesson. If one of us can help pull someone who’s struggling out of the cold, and show them they’re not alone, then we all can, and we can begin to heal collectively. Lastly, we see The Lovers reversed. I don’t see this as trouble in our relationships on a personal level, but rather a call to re-examine how we deal with each other as men and women. If we’re going to come to a place of mutual respect and healthy relationships, we need to take all the rules we learned about what it means to be a man or a woman and turn them on their heads. It’s time to stop going with the harmful status quo and envision a new way of relating. For our special guidance card, we see Skull of Stars, Infinite Possibilities. This card represents letting go of the daily BS we all deal with and thinking much, much bigger. We’re all a part of this same universe together, and when we realize that, we can find our highest selves in our highest future. It’s time to cast off old beliefs and old ways of thinking and create this universe together. ******************************** Haunting Haunting By Emmanuel George Cefai Haunting haunting down the glooms haunting haunting graves and tombs cemeteries that light in the middle of a night torches that go round cemeteries held and bound by ghosts and shrouds So verse speaks but ah! in dreaming The Sub-Conscious further speaks. My personal tides: A lot of things are still up in the air for me. They’ve been decided, but I just have to wait to hear back about decisions that have been made and determinations for my future. So I’m just trying to be patient and wait it out. In the meantime, I’m working hard on creating tarot classes, which I’ve been wanting to create for over a year. I keep getting the sense that I’m meant to teach in some way, and that feeds into my mission statement, which is to bring magick into the lives of others. My personal goals: Write, record, edit, release all my Tarot 101 classes before Yule. Begin to take steps to ‘find home’. Figure out where we’re wanting to move and start looking at prices for land. Create magick for Samhain! Read the full article

[benedictgolde]

The Diary’s of a Teaching Assistant

Day 11

Opted to stride out the miles on the treadmill today. I think every runner would agree that a run outdoors with the fresh air is better, but a mixture of events just meant the treadmill was more convenient for me. Benefits of a treadmill: Easy to keep good form, you have to adhere to speed (fast or slow), you can listen to music, people watch in the gym and any gastro-related stress is easily dealt with due to having toilets nearby... 

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to write this post for a little while, even pre-blog, due to the nature of what I saw in my brief time as a teaching assistant. I spent a term and a half as a TA in the SEND department of a high school, just south of east of Watford. Unfortunately, the school had a bit of reputation in the area for its poor behaviour and with this, came some great moments. I used to take a daily log book, in which I made small notes of; events that happened, subjects discussed by children and antics I witnessed from the ‘factory floor’ - as it were. I won’t name the school and I will say it was a lovely place to work, my colleagues were very friendly and I actually used to quite enjoy working with the kids I was a assigned to but, oh man did some sh*t go down.  

Here’s some of the highlights: 

Music class, Tuesday 10th October:  There’s a picture of Elvis on the board with the title “The Blues”. Teacher, after a good handful of attempts to stop the kids from blowing up the plastic wallets he’s handed out into makeshift pillows, has asked them who is on the board. Amongst the rabble of wheezing children, Child A put up his hand and answers unprompted “I know who that is sir, it’s Elton John, my Nan likes Elton John”. Elton, the king of rock and roll.  Science class, Wednesday 15th November:  Title is “Are You Healthy?”. Judging by the bag of Haribo and Doritos that Child A has already consumed in the lesson, as well as Child B who is sat at the back of the room munching a Morrisons Ploughman's cheese sandwich about as discreetly as it smells; I’d say not very. Especially seeing as its only 8:55am.

Double Drama, Thursday 5th December: Child A walks in an hour and 10 minutes late. As he waltzes through the door he throws a roll of cash at the teacher. “Sir, man don’t need school no more, mans making P already sir.” (roughly translates as - I’m not coming to school anymore as I already make enough money). Teacher has unravelled the roll of cash and counted out £175... Child A is 12 years old. A look of disbelief in both our eyes and neither of us are quite sure how to handle this situation, but meanwhile, Child A is now stood on a chair swinging his tie around his head singing “I’m in the money.”  History class, Thursday 4th January: Instead of sporting the golden jumper that I often wear to work, I have my new grey Crew Clothing knit on. Child A comments on it in front of the other 35 pupils in the history class. “man like Mr. Gold isn’t gold anymore, he’s silver - Mr. Silver, sir is on some next poverty ting”. (this roughly translates to: sir finally has a new jumper, it took him so long that he must be poor). Comic genius according to the rest of the class: I have no come back.  Science class, Thursday 11th January: Child A and Child B “have major beef” (they no longer like each other). I have been assigned the task of monitoring Child A to avoid altercations and Child B has just entered the classroom. Teacher has done nothing but say “Class, be quiet” for the last 22 minutes and there’s no use me trying, I’m the poverty-stricken Mr Silver according to this class. Suddenly Child B has picked up his chair, thrown it across the room and its headed straight for me. I duck and it hits the wall. Child A has retaliated by attempting to throw his chair, which has also narrowly escaped my head. Every other student has caught the entire ordeal on SnapChat and I am now famous throughout the school. 

Philosophy & Ethics class, Wednesday 24th January: Subject matter is North Korea. Child A has raised her hand and said that her dad used to work in North Korea. Teacher and I share questioning looks. Approximately 30 minutes later, Child A raises her hand and admits she is mistaken: her dad used to work as a Courier. This makes a lot more sense.  

Monday 6th February: Child A has stolen a laser pointer from the Drama class room. I have told him that he needs to return it or I will have to let the teacher know. As the day comes to a close he has decided on keeping it, forgetting that he has already admitted to stealing it and claiming it’s actually his from home. I would let someone more senior know but they are currently dealing with Child B who had a machete in his bag. The Crocodile Dundee joke has been said several times in the staff room. 

Friday 9th February: Child A is upset to hear of my departure from the job. Upon saying his goodbyes, he has said that he is dreading the return after the holidays upon which one of my former colleagues will be assigned the post of his ‘helper’. He admits that he doesn’t like working with the other members of staff because they are overweight and smell. The language was a bit more grotesque. Before the bell rings for my final goodbyes, the colleague that was being referred to asks for my advice on handling Child A so well, I wish I could have told her the truth. Farewell Mr. Silver, hopefully your new job will buy you a few more jumpers. 

School is just another walk of life. I enjoyed my brief time working in one, but it wasn’t for me. Despite the college I work at now being an educational facility, the Special Education department is way less of a factory. It’s about enrichment and engagement; a lot more than the mainstream system of a high school allows. I personally didn’t enjoy high school, but thats for another story. 

Happy Sunday, y’all. Also, I’m going to do the website. I need some help though, so if anyone has any expertise in website hosting, please contact me. 

Peace & love. BG. 

[architectnews]

24H Competition: Architecture Design

24H Competition, Winners, 2021 Architecture Contest, 38th Edition, Images

24H Competition: Design Contests

Architectural Contest News + Winners – Sustainable Architecture Design 2021

24 May 2021

24H Competition culturEart

24H competition 38th edition – culturEart

The heart of culture will be the epicenter of all emotions, this Sacred place of wisdom and knowledge that feeds a people and moves them forward. Here minds are opened, and the reason is challenged. Feeling takes place and takes us to places we didn’t know existed. We will be less reason and more emotion and, therefore, more human.

We will have the ability to dream and unveil the hidden. Learning that 1 + 1 may not be two and a square may not be just a square. Knowledge through culture has an abstract dimension that cannot be explained, but that is felt. Art is born, and the heartbeats!

BRIEF

Download the brief here on the competition day, July 3rd!

SCHEDULES and FEES

the beginning of the registration period: May 14th

Promotional registration period from May 14th to May 23rd at 23:59 – Fee € 25

Regular registration period from May 24th to June 22nd at 23:59 – Fee € 30

Late period of registration from June 23rd to July 3rd at 11:59 – Fee € 35

After the competition start – Fee € 50

Publication of winners and honorable mentions at www.if-ideasforward.com on September 1st

the competition date

July 3 to July 4

The competition begins on July 3rd 12:00 noon and ends at July 4th 12:00 noon (London GMT + 0:00)

AWARDS

1st Place € 500+ publication on the website, social networks and media partners + 24H free registration + 24h competition eBook

2nd Place € 150 – publication in website, social networks and media partners + 24H free registration + 24h competition eBook

3rd Place € 50 – publication in website, social networks and media partners + 24H free registration + 24h competition eBook

7 Honorable Mentions – publication in website, social networks and media partners

JURY

Will be announced soon!

The orgnisers used the Paypal payment system, if you want to use the system of BANK TRANSFER please send an email to info@if-ideasforward.com

Previously on e-architect:

24H Competition 2018

3 Aug 2018 24h competition 26th edition – Ocean

Ideasforward wants to give young creative people from around the world the opportunity to express their views of the future of societies through their innovative and visionary proposals. We are an experimental platform seeking progressive ideas that reflect on emerging themes. The eco design, sustainable architecture, new materials, concepts and technologies are compelling issues in the societies of the future and the involvement of the whole community is imperative.

In an era of globalization where communication was dominated by the technological revolution, there is the need to rethink the cities and how Man can relate in a global World as well as rethink the economic, social and cultural patterns of contemporary societies. The young creatives and thinkers are a precious commodity that we value a lot. We want to give them a voice.

AIM OF THE COMPETITION

24H A space where the time limit is used to stimulate your creativity. The aim of this competition is to present answers in 24h to social problems, visionary ideas, humanitarian causes and sociologic problems of the contemporary societies. Commitment, perseverance, inspiration and hard work are all the necessary bases to develop a proposal that meets the premises that will be released regularly in the brief of the competition. We challenge you to prove your talent in 24 hours! There is a period of registration on the competition, when it ends, starts the 24H competition! You have 24H to develop a proposal that responds to the program contained on the brief that will only be available on the same day the competition starts. Take the risk!

FRAMEWORK

ocean

The oceans are a part of the surface of the planet occupied by sea water that surrounds the continents and currently covers about 71% of the Earth, 361 million km2. Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic and Arctic are their names. They give life and allow life with the 70% of oxygen they release into the atmosphere through the plankton that is in the sea. Once again, Man is destroying a good that is yours and precious … «We must save the oceans if we want to save mankind» Jacques Cousteau

the beginning of the registration period: August 1st Promotional registration period from August 1st to August 7th at 23:59 – Fee € 20 Regular registration period from August 8th to September 12th at 23:59 – Fee € 25 Late period of registration from September 13th to September 22th at 11:59 – Fee € 30 After the competition start – Fee € 50 Publication of winners and honorable mentions at www.if-ideasforward.com on October 24th the competition date //September 22th to September 23 // The competition begins on September 22th 12:00 noon and ends at September 23th 12:00 noon (London GMT + 0:00)

AWARDS

1st Place – € 500 + publication in website, social networks and media partners + 24H trophy + 24H registration fee 2nd Place – € 150 + publication in website, social networks and media partners + 24H trophy + 24H registration fee 3rd Place – € 50 + publication in website, social networks and media partners + 24H trophy + 24H registration fee 7 Honorable Mentions – publication in website, social networks and media partners

This is a competition in 24 hours so you only have access to the brief on the contest day Download on September 22th 12:00pm (noon) (London GMT+0:00).

CONDITIONS FOR PARTICIPATING

Participation can be individual or as a group. Participants must be over 18 years old. In the case of groups, the leader must be over 18 years old. By participating in an ideasforward contest the participant accepts all the terms and conditions published on our website that define the rules for use of the company website, as well as the rules of participation therein.

2 Mar 2018 24h competition 23rd edition – bigData

FRAMEWORK

Big Data Imagine something gigantic. Imagine something immeasurable. Imagine what can be bigger than the planet Earth. Imagine things. Let’s imagine the volume of what can not be accounted for. Imagine structures. Imagine the speed. Imagine the complexity. Let us imagine the variability. Imagine the variety. Imagine a dimension of information so big that wanting to account for it, is simply impossible. Imagine what is going on around us. Imagine what we can see and not see. Imagine information. Can we imagine the non-visible? Let’s imagine Big Data.

beginning of the registration period: February 19th Promotional registration period from February 19th to February 25th at 23:59 – Fee € 20€ Regular registration period from February 26th to March 27th at 23:59 – Fee € 25€ Late period of registration from March 28th to April 7th at 11:59 – Fee € 30€ During the competition period: Fee 50€

Publication of winners and honorable mentions at www.if-ideasforward.com on May 18th

The competition date // April 7th to April 8th // The competition begins at April 7th 12:00 noon and ends at April 8th 12:00 noon (London GMT + 0:00)

JURY

João Belo Rodeia, arq. Diogo Burnay, arq. António Câmara, prof. Pedro Vada, arq. Fatih Yavuz, arq.

This is a competition in 24 hours so you only have access to the brief on the contest day Download on April 7th 12:00pm (noon) (London GMT+0:00) but do not forget that you always have to register before April 7th at 11:49 am (London GMT + 0:00)

24h competition 21st edition – home

PROGRAM hometown house Objective: In this exercise you should draw your family house in your honetown. It´s not a simple house, it´s your family house. Program: – Make a program and justify it. – You should describe your family and her members in a general way. Numbers of members, sex, ages, etc. Create a narrative whose justify the intentions of your project. – Localization: your hometwon – Areas: not defined The panel must have a descriptive text of the proposal (English), concept, idea. Scale – Appropriate to the submitted elements.

1st Place – Team: Anna Maksimova, Anfisa Mishchenko; City: Moscow; Country: Russian Federation

24H Competition 21st edition

12 Dec 2017 fire 24H Competition

22th edition – fire

AIM OF THE COMPETITION – 24H

A space where the time limit is used to stimulate your creativity. This competition proposes give responses in 24H to the social problems, future visions, climate changes, humanitarian causes and sociologic problems of the contemporary societies.

Commitment, perseverance, inspiration and hard work are the necessary bases to develop a proposal that meets the premises that will be released regularly in the brief of the competition. We challenge you to prove your talent in 24 hours! There are a period of registration on the competition, when it end, started the 24H competition! You have 24H to develop a proposal that responds to the program contained on a brief that you only know on the same day that start competition. Take the risk!

FRAMEWORK

fire

Fire: extravagant, egocentric, impulsive, strong, irresponsible and adventurous. One of the 4 elements of nature and the greatest achievement of the human being, which allowed the survival of the species. With fire Man developed the protection, the comfort of cold nights, the search for light and discovered the cooked food. He controlled it for his own benefit, changed survival habits in a dramatic way, and nowadays, fire can be a symbol of destruction and danger, giving it a negative connotation, or a symbol of rebirth and renewal of forces divine. Fire can be heaven or hell, peace or war, a small ou big flame. One thing is certain, whoever plays with it can get burned.

beginning of the registration period: December 11th Promotional registration period from December 11th to December 15th at 23:59 – Fee € 15 Regular registration period from December16th to February 7th at 23:59 – Fee € 20 Late period of registration from February 8th to February 17th at 11:59 – Fee € 25

Publication of winners and honorable mentions at www.if-ideasforward.com on March 31th

The competition date // February 17th to February 18th // The competition begins at February 17th 12:00 noon and ends at February 18th 12:00 noon (London GMT + 0:00)

26 + 24 Nov 2017 biomimetic 24h competition

biomimetic – winners announced

1st place Team: Maël Barbe, Clémentine Huck City: Clermont-Ferrand Country: France

image courtesy of architects

Team: Nahid Akram City: California Country: United States

Team: Jack Francis, Rebecca Beer, Elina Savvas, Andrew Waller City: Portsmouth Country: United Kingdom

Honorable Mentions:

Team: Aleksandr Buzin, Ekaterina Sapina City: Moscow Country: Russian Federation

Team: Igor Augusto Almeida, Matheus Pardal, Thiago Zati, Carolina Pereira City: Santos Country: Brazil

Team: Pedro Feriotti, Bruno Lopes, Gustavo Teixeira, Leonardo Messias City: São Paulo Country: Brazil

Team: Luis Mariano, Uriel Patawaran, Justin Wee Eng, Erold Enriquez City: Makati City Country: Philippines

Team: Savu Bianca, Tutelca Sonia Cristina, Istrate Andreea City: Bucuresti Country: Romania

Team: Caitlin Paridy, Osman Bari City: Brantford Country: Canada

Team: Patrycja Czaplinska, Sara Czerwinska City: Wroclaw Country: Poland

24h competition 20th edition – biomimetic

FRAMEWORK

What does nature have to teach us? Do we need to perceive it better by copying it in search of perfection, or simply to understand the rules that govern it? Nature is multidisciplinary and everything seems to work effortlessly, because it is not designed to be perfect, but functional, non-toxic, adaptable and “alive” in form or function. Biomimetic is a new movement created by spontaneity and perpetuated by the need to create sustainability solutions. It is up to the human being to discover the powers and, with the right dose of utopia, to make it the best way to respect the nature of which we are all a part. Making it happen is the master key of these new doors ahead …

biomimetic All living forms present in nature carry mathematical formulas and quantifications. The interpretation of these forms can be the great achievement for architecture that, intelligently, should translate them into solutions and needs in a sustainable and functional strategy. Natural examples are biological inspirations of efficiency and aesthetic / functional balance. The way of looking at forms can finally awaken to the simplicity of what more complex exists on the face of the earth: life itself.

PROGRAM

collective housing

Objective: In this exercise we propose that nature be your inspiration. It is intended that you apply natural systems in the conceptual process of your project. More than simple patterns or coatings, you must understand these systems and apply them in your constructive process. We want that you see in the nature a solution for this building. Inspired by the principles of biomimetics, we challenge you to design a collective housing building.

Program: – You must define the population and the number of flats for your building. – You should think other spaces like services, shops, restaurants or others. – Localization: not defined – Areas: not defined

The panel must have a descriptive text of the proposal (English), concept, idea, etc. Scale – Appropriate to the submitted elements

RESULTS 1st Place – ID0001070 – Team: Maël Barbe, Clémentine Huck; City: Clermont-Ferrand; Country: France “Perceiving the desert as an environment suitable for human occupation in an increasingly denser world, Ecosystem of Desert finds inspiration in natural behaviors rather than natural forms, taking advantage of how animal and vegetal species deal with harsh conditions to create an auspicious context to human settlement. Cacti, termites and beetles are seen as natural models to, respectively, protecting living spaces from direct sun, providing air circulation and holding humidity – the project thus reflects not their appearances, but instead their processes, that is, the way they adapt to their own surroundings. ” Romullo Fontenelle, arq.

“The project deals with our nowadays Anthropocene era, climate change, and global population increase. Despite the UN prospects of 75% of the population will be living in urban settlements in 2050, the proposal takes advantage of an undesired territory to be colonized: the desert. A potential anchor for a future counterpoint of rural strategical development.

The structure proposed is a wise underground construction inspired in how live can developed strategies to survive in such extreme conditions. The beautiful drawing and poetical expression of the idea confronts with the simplicity of a telluric constructive act expressed in a symbolic object.” Jin Taira, arq.

“The proposal conceptualizes complex natural systems into clear design ideas, to give form to a collective housing oasis in the dessert. By taking into consideration contemporary issues to society such as over population, it successfully analyses and deploys adaptability to inhabited areas. ” Mario Vahos, arq.

“This project addresses a dystopian future where the climate and/or growth of the human population forces us to live in harsh desert conditions.

For such conditions, this entry has found some greats examples from nature in how to cope with overheating, unfertile land and water shortage. The design however needs to be further developed to make this convincing as architecture, even though the presentation is very nice.” Gerhard Linder, arq.

“The ‘Ecosystem of Desert’ is most creative and innovative design which presents clear solution and direction with very poetic but powerful visual representation. The suggestive section and simple diagrams show how the new ecosystem performs as collective housing.” Chang Kyu Lee, arq.

2nd Place – ID000480 – Team: Nahid Akram; City: California; Country: United States “Polyp – a symbio-mimetic module creates living spaces in probably one of the most intricate urban contexts in contemporary world: war-torn cities. Taking advantage of the enormous amount of rubble left by the conflicts and finding inspiration in the “mutually beneficial relationship between algae and modern corals”, the project is based on the idea of converting debris into architecture – what in a broader sense refers to cyclical processes found in nature in which living species dye, are transformed into mineral and organic substances, to be combined again into new forms of life in a continuous cycle. ” Romullo Fontenelle, arq.

“The project has a double direction. An inspirational study of polyps and the development of a collective dwelling created of prefab modules. A proper solution to provide shelter for people subject of impact hazards. Despite the interest of both ideas, and the potential benefit to human race, is unclear the impact influence of the polyp in the final formal configuration of the unit module typology or the resultant unit- conglomerate block in patio configuration. Habitat, designed by architect Moshe Safdie in 1967 was considered a potential project for the future, but the path proposed was only partially adopted. Maybe, our critical present will bring again the revival of high-density and compact prefab construction systems.”Jin Taira, arq.

“The proposal provides an innovative solution to the rebuilding of war-torn areas by the use of modular units as shelters and working areas. The reproduction of this rational building unit by the re-use of materials on-site responds to the precarious situation of war, and gives an alternative solution to temporary housing systems. ” Mario Vahos, arq.

““Polyp” addresses one of the imminent global challenges, how to rapid provide shelter and rebuild parts of civilization that has been hit by disaster. Using the symbioses between coral and algae as inspiration for the reuse and remaking of building ruins, is both very creative and sustainable, regardless of the realism. This project also manages to go beyond pure idea, to the design of the single units. This design allows adding parts to the units to adopt to changing needs, thus making the design even more flexible. Finally, all the units add up to a large complex, a building block that has a distinctive expression and architecture which could be a part of the urban fabric. The presentation is precise and beautiful, a contrast to the horrors this concept emerged from. ” Gerhard Linder, arq.

“The modular and recycling system drives this proposal energetic and effective idea to illustrate competition theme, ‘Biomimetic’. The reproduction of processing unit not only creates a new image of human habitants, but also allows human survive in nutrient-poor environments. ” Chang Kyu Lee, arq.

3rd Place – ID0001110 – Team: Jack Francis, Rebecca Beer, Andrew Waller; City: Portsmouth; Country: United Kingdom “In a more literal way than the two other winners, the project A Living Resilience finds in the pinecone and its particular form and natural behavior the inspirations to design a building capable to protect its own inner spaces from the cold night and assure maximum solar gain during the day. A series of moving scales closes and opens according to the time of the day, creating adequate living spaces for its inhabitants in harsh environments – more and more common in an out of balance world.” Romullo Fontenelle, arq.

“As the projects before, the proposal, consequently with nowadays global climate change condition, supports the philosophy of intervention in the sensitive concept of resilience. Maybe the most formally biomimetic project of the three awarded ones, structures a collective housing and green tower based in the fibonacci geometry to produce a gigantic pinecone. The responsive façade solution follows an important direction in current innovative technology construction that has being successfully built in extreme climates as the Al Bahar Towers in Abu Dhabi (Aedas, 2012).” Jin Taira, arq.

“The proposal successfully interprets the need for adaptable and dynamic structures that can respond to natural conditions. It studies the Fibonacci sequence and uses the shape of a pinecone as inspiration to the design of a dynamic building structure, which responds and blends with its surroundings. By adapting its shape, it optimizes energy gains and reduces the need for external sources of energy. ” Mario Vahos, arq.

“”Organic” suggests the use of Chitin as the main building component. Chitin is a strong biopolymer found in crabs and shellfish. The material is 100% recyclable and given the right tools it could be used for 3D printing. The idea of a crane size 3D printer is seductive. The building design is interesting and shows potential, but need to be further developed. The presentation however is convincing.” Gerhard Linder, arq.

“Interesting Octagonal floor layout and composition. The dynamic mechanism makes the proposal very unique concept and solution which starts from Pinecone and Fibonacci numbers to growth of human life. The ‘A Living Resilience’ is able to change and adapt through interacting with the environment.” Chang Kyu Lee, arq.

Honorable Mentions ID0001120 – Team: Aleksandr Buzin, Ekaterina Sapina; City: Moscow; Country: Russian Federation

ID000910 – Team: Igor Augusto Almeida, Matheus Pardal, Thiago Zati, Carolina Pereira; City: Santos; Country: Brazil

ID000210 – Team: Pedro Feriotti, Bruno Lopes, Gustavo Teixeira, Leonardo Messias; City: São Paulo; Country: Brazil

ID000920 – Team: Luis Mariano, Uriel Patawaran, Justin Wee Eng, Erold Enriquez; City: Makati City; Country: Philippines

ID000670 – Team: Savu Bianca, Tutelca Sonia Cristina, Istrate Andreea; City: Bucuresti; Country: Romania

ID000190 – Team: Caitlin Paridy, Osman Bari; City: Brantford; Country: Canada

ID000340 – Team: Patrycja Czaplinska, Sara Czerwinska; City: Wroclaw; Country: Poland

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