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aquaburst3 · 6 years ago

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It’s Autistic Acceptance Month. Every year I like doing random posts talking about Autism. And this year I want to try something different.

I’ve seen posts about how to write an autistic character for non-autistic authors, but never from the perspective of an autistic person writing an autistic character. I’ve also seen fellow autistic people say that they want to write autistic main characters in their stories, but aren’t sure how to go about it. So, with all that in mind, here are my tips and advice for autistic writers who want to add autistic characters into their stories.

Disclaimer: I’m by no means an expert at this, so take this with a heap of salt.

--First off, if you’re on the spectrum, you have a stronger grasp on what it’s really like to be autistic and can draw from your personal experience. That isn’t to say that you don’t have to do any research in order to make the character, just that you will have an easier time crafting a more believable character then someone who isn’t autistic.

--You probably heard that saying, “If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.” There's a reason why that's a saying. Everyone on the spectrum is different. For example, the sound of metallic noises and fireworks bothers me while that never bothers some of autistic friends. Some autistic people hate veggies while I hate the texture of meat inside of my mouth outside of fish and love eating foods filled with fruits and veggies. I speak too loudly a lot of the time while others are more soft spoken. Well...you get the idea.

Keep in mind that unless you’re writing a self insert, your character isn’t the same as you and would display their autistic traits differently. Knowing others on the spectrum might help, since you have an example of someone else on the spectrum besides you. Doing thought exercises about how a character’s background affects them would also help in this area.

Also, don’t treat the character’s autistic traits like a checklist where you make sure the character has all the autistic traits listed off on an article. Like I said before, everyone in the spectrum is different. Just because a trait is prominent in one person, doesn’t mean it would be in some else. Same goes for your character.

-- Seek out multiple sources while doing your research to get a more well rounded perspective. These can be from several fellow autistic people about their experiences, organizations helmed by autistic people like the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the National Autistic Society or talk to your autistic friends or loved ones. Stay away from A//utism Spea//ks and similar so-called organizations like the plague.

-- If you’re writing an autistic female character (cis gendered or trans), things might get more tricky. Unfortunately, a lot of the research on autism was conducted on boys while a lot of people who don’t fall into that category go undiagnosed. But there are sites with articles that focus on autistic girls.

The main difference, far as I’m aware, is that we’re good at subconsciously camouflaging our autistic traits by mimicking our non-autistic peers in order to blend in.

Other then that, while every autistic person is different and not all of these apply to every girl, here are some common characteristics fond in autistic girls that aren’t always in our male counterparts:

A special interest in animals, music, art, and literature. (Some Autistic women tend to get careers in these fields as well.)

A strong imagination (Might escape into the worlds of nature or fiction)

Tend to be perfectionists. This can include their looks and body.

Less prone to lash out verbally or psychically while having meltdowns and in general.

Make greater efforts to not draw attention to themselves.

More socially aware.

Want to connect and socialize with others, but have trouble doing so.

Stimming behaviour is more subtitle. (For example, twiddling an object instead of rocking or flapping their hands.) Some women internalize stimming instead of doing it externally.

Can keep their emotions in check in social settings, but be prone to meltdowns or explosive behaviour in private.

(Information taken from taniaannmarshall’s “Aspiewomen” blog, which is a great resource on this subject.)

Being a autistic woman myself, that all sounds about right. (Although, I do externally stim by twiddling pieces of paper, but that’s just me.)

-- If you are planning to write an autistic POC and LGBT character, but aren’t POC or LGBT yourself, research those topics and seek out other autistic people in those groups in order to write the character respectfully.

-- Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any info about how autistic traits show up in genders other then guys and girls. Same advice as the point before. Seek out other autistic people who identify as the same way as your character (genderfluid, non-binary, demi boy, demi girl, queer, etc) and ask them questions in order to write the character respectfully.

-- Most importantly, write them as a character first and don’t let autism be their defining trait. Because when you focus on a character's disability, sexuality, race, etc, that's how you create a token or a stereotypical character. When you write them as a character first, then that's how you make them more fleshed out and realistic. Autism isn’t a personality trait. There’s more to us then that.

As for how to write a good main character, that's another topic completely. Write them with plenty of strengths, weaknesses, different connections with the other characters and goals. Flesh them out and make them have contradictions within themselves. There are plenty of other writing channels on YouTube that explain it more in-depth if you want more info on that subject like Hello Future Me.

Not sure if any of this is helpful, but that’s my advice, anyways.

#aqua rambles #autism acceptance #autism rep

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aftgonice · 8 years ago

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What I would like to know: are there any operas you could recommend? :)

*cracks fingers*

I’m SO glad you asked :D

Some boring disclaimers first:

Obviously not everything works for everybody and this is a list of personal favorites or operas that are usually recommended for getting started to the opera world.

Be aware that some of these might have trigger warnings but I haven’t been able to find a list and I don’t feel comfortable trying to label the warnings myself. They also depend a lot on the scenes and direction used in any particular production. So if you’re afraid of a particular trigger being present in one of the operas I list here, feel free to send me an ask and I’ll try to answer you.

I honestly can’t write much about every single rec I write here as far as plot and music goes. I’ll include YouTube links to the full opera if I can find it - some of them won’t have English subtitles but I tried my best. Google has all the translated librettos anyway so a quick search should do. Also, I haven’t seen some of versions I’m linking so I can’t always guarantee that they’re the best ones but often it’s just the best I could find. (Also let me know if the links don’t work because every country has different copyright laws)

And let me just say that regardless of what you want to see, the best thing for starting out would probably be find a theater next to you and go see something live.

Let’s start wit my personal Holy Trinity brought to you by the amazing duo Mozart - Da Ponte. Basically what you need to know about these three operas is that they’re the best in the whole world. They’re all in Italian and Da Ponte was the best librettista ever and a really interesting person, but I digress.

Le nozze di Figaro

From the French play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais (I read it a bit in French and the opera’s libretto seems very similar). It’s clever and funny and the music is obviously glorious, but that goes for everything that comes out of Mozart (and Da Ponte).

Don Giovanni

This is my most favorite opera and composition forever and ever. The protagonist is amazing and is one of the best and most iconic anti-heroes of the whole literature and everyone should watch it at least once in their life. The version I linked was the best one I could find in video even though I think some of the tempo is weird (too slow at times and too fast at other times :/), but here’s my favorite recording of it.

Così fan tutte

Contrary to the other two above, this is an original story by Da Ponte and it Does Not Disappoint. The plot is so modern and you wouldn’t think it was written in 1789.

Let’s move on to my second favorite opera composer: Gioachino Rossini. He’s done both opere buffe (funny) and dramatic ones. He’s done operas both in Italian and in French but the ones I’m linking are all in Italian. I’m more into his comedies than the tragic ones and I also think they’re a better rec for someone who’s just starting out, but anyway here’s a short list in popularity order:

Il barbiere di Siviglia

The plot is actually a prequel to Le Nozze di Figaro, so some of the characters are the same. There’s a couple popular pieces that everyone has heard at some point in their lives.

La Cenerentola

Literally “Cinderella”. There’s a few differences from the original story and the Disney one that everyone knows (even though this one by Rossini has been my “original” Cinderella since I never watched that cartoon as a kid lmao).

L’italiana in Algeri

This opera is so funny and so underrated but it has some of the best comical situations in the whole history of opera.

Il viaggio a Reims

This one is really funny too -it has a couple more serious parts but overall it’s just pure fun from start to finish.

Let’s move on to my third fave, Gaetano Donizetti. He’s done so many but to start out I’m only going to rec two:

Lucia di Lammermoor

This is a dramatic one but it’s one the best and most popular ones from its time period. It has one of the most iconic examples of belcanto and even if you don’t want to see the whole opera you should just listen to this scene followed by this one because boy can the human voice do some amazing things!

L’Elisir d’amore

Probably his most famous opera buffa, it’s really popular and for a good reason. I personally love some parts but I’ve seen it too many times to really want to listen to it on my own again, but it’s a really good choice for starting out.

I noticed my favorites also follow a chronological order, so I’ll just continue following the same order with a couple more recs from popular composers:

Georges Bizet:

Carmen

The only French opera from this list lol, I love it so freaking much and it might not be the easiest opera to start with but there’s at least a couple of pieces that you should definitely listen to.

Giuseppe Verdi:

La Traviata

Probably one of the most popular dramatic operas out there. Not my favorite, but a really good start if you’re new to this world.

Macbeth

Yep, like the Shakespeare one. It’s actually my favorite opera by Verdi even though it’s not his most popular one. It’s dark and Lady Macbeth is a fucking badass.

Rigoletto

Inspired by Le Roi s'amuse by Hugo but eh, not really my favorite one either, but also a really popular and “easy one” to listen to. The female main character pisses me off but whatever.

Aida

This is one of my favorites by Verdi together with Macbeth. Not only is the music wonderful but the story has one of the best female characters imo (not the protagonist but her rival actually).

Moving on to Puccini:

La Bohème

Tosca

Turandot

Madama Butterfly

They’re all sad and dramatic (only Turandot has a somewhat happy ending). The music is more modern (we’re in the late 1800s - early 1900s) and my personal favorite is la Bohéme because it portrays some realistic situations that were unseen until that point in an opera (like a group of friends living together and joking with each other, couples fighting, people just hanging out at a café and so on). Madama Butterfly is my second favorite and it always makes me cry so much.

I could mention many more but I’m just dropping a final one by Leonard Bernstein:

Candide

Obviously inspired by Voltaire’s Candide, ou l'Optimisme. It’s in English and it’s everything you might expect from something inspired by Voltaire’s work. Even if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing please listen to this aria called Glitter and be gay because it’s hilarious and just…yeah listen to it. (And here’s a shameless promotion of a fandom-related post that I did a while back and that nobody saw lmao)

Anyway, I could go on and on but if you or anyone has more questions I’m always happy to help if you DM me or send me an ask!

(I didn’t even begin to talk about all the possible AUs that one could make out of any of these operas because I want to keep this post relatively clean but I already have a couple in mind - one of which I already outlined actually - but again, if anyone’s interested feel free to send me an ask.)

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braincoins · 8 years ago

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Title: Controversiae et Circenses Fandom: “Voltron: Legendary Defender” Summary: Mr. Shirogane and Ms. Fala are taking their own damn sweet time asking each other out. Time for the Voltron High Debate Club to step in and handle things. Ships: Shallura Warnings: Barely-edited Author’s Notes: High School Teacher AU for @milkteamiku! Happy Valentine’s Day from your seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecret valentine! I hope you like it. ^_^; (3,947 words - also on AO3)

“Okay, we can’t let this go on much longer.”

“Yeah. It’s getting kind of pathetic.”

“How’re things on your end? Get anything good?”

“Oh, definitely! I think we’re go for launch.”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be without blowing my cover.”

“Okay, cool. So, here’s how we proceed…”

At the bell, Keith ran from his last class to his locker, tossed his unneeded stuff in, and slammed it shut. He was already texting Lance one-handed as he bolted for the stairs. [OMW]

His phone was lighting up with the others responding similarly. Keith shoved his way up the stairs as everyone else tried to go down. People gave him dirty looks, but he ignored them. This was important.

Mr. Shirogane – “Shiro” to most everyone – was one of the best teachers in the school. He was tough but fair and he had ways of making the most boring periods of history interesting. He was also the secondary sponsor of the Debate Club, and most of them had joined just because Shiro was such a cool guy to hang out with (and, as they’d all come to realize, they liked arguing).

But there was a problem. And that problem was the Debate Club’s primary sponsor: Ms. Fala. She was a civics teacher, even stricter than Shiro was. She took her job of educating future citizens on their rights and responsibilities very seriously, and her class was a graduation requirement. She was the bane of nearly every student’s existence. But, more importantly, Shiro clearly had the world’s biggest crush on her.

Most of the time, he could hide it pretty well, but there were times when she smiled at him or when the sunlight coming in the windows hit her hair just right or, hell, whenever she touched his hand or something, when Mr. Shirogane would look like his brain had just been wiped. It would take him a bit to “reboot.” It was funny at first, but it was starting to get annoying.

So, the club had done their research. Allura Fala was only a year or two older than Takashi Shirogane was, she was unmarried and, near as anyone could tell, not seeing anyone. She had pet mice. Shiro didn’t claim to have a fear of rodents, nor did he own a cat; so far, so good. Most importantly, the research indicated there was the hint of a possibility that she might like Shiro in return. Pidge reported a 5% increase in touching and nearly a whopping 10% increase in smiling when she was around him. (Pidge was in Ms. Fala’s class this semester, so she was able to study the subject more closely.)

Subtle hints to Shiro that he should ask Ms. Fala out had failed. Telling Shiro straight out that he should ask her out had failed. The students of Voltron High Debate Club were taking matters into their own hands now. And today was the day.

He slowed down as he approached Shiro’s last period classroom. Fortunately, it wasn’t the same one the Debate Club met in. “Hey, Shiro!” he called as he saw him emerge.

“Keith,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be over to the room in a minute.”

[He’s wearing a tie today] Keith texted surreptitiously. At least he hoped that was what he texted; it was harder when he wasn’t looking. “I actually had some questions, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is. Walk with me over to the office; we can talk about it while I drop my stuff off.”

“Sure,” Keith said, keeping a straight face. He let Shiro go first and whipped up his phone to send off a thumbs-up emoji.

“Keith’s got him distracted and he says he’s dressed up a bit. At least, I think that’s what that means,” Lance reported. “Is Pidge in position?”

“Uh, yeah? She has her class last,” Hunk reminded him. “She’s been ‘in position’ for the last fifty minutes.”

“You’re taking all the joy out of this, Hunk.”

“Less talking, more working.”

“…but voter turnout is a constant problem,” Pidge was saying. “If you can’t get asses to the polls…”

“Language,” Ms. Fala warned.

“Sorry, but it’s the same sort of ‘butts in the seats’ thing that businesses worry about, isn’t it?”

“Yes, in a sense, though I would argue civic engagement is more pressing than even economic participation, all the moreso because it’s voluntary. People have to buy certain goods and services, but they don’t have to take part in their communities.”

“Exactly, but then how do we get higher voter turnout? I mean, that’s why I’m saying like… I dunno, give a tax credit to voters who show up at the polls or something.”

“You don’t want to have to bribe your citizens into doing their civic duty.”

“No, you don’t want to, but the voter turnout for the last election…” Shiro, you better appreciate the sacrifice I’m making here, Pidge thought. And you better take advantage of it.

“So, it’s actually four different memoirs?” Keith asked.

“Yes, and each with a distinct purpose. Initially, Lady Hyegyong was writing more for herself, but she increasingly directed her memoirs to the public. She was trying to bear witness to history about the treatment of her family members.”

“Like her husband.”

“Yes, but also her father, her uncle, her brother, herself. It’s a great chronicle of the Korean court, written at a time when monarchs were held to be unquestionably moral, almost divine. She showed the human side to them, with all the flaws that entailed. It’s an incredible primary source for the Joseon Dynasty.”

Keith nodded and tried to still look interested. I’m dying here; hurry up, guys. “And it talks about her husband going nuts and being killed, too, right?”

Shiro snorted. “Yes, her memoirs talk about Crown Prince Sado’s descent into madness. That’s all anyone ever wants to read about.”

“Well, sorry, but can you blame me? I mean, that sounds really cool! They should make a movie about it.”

“They have.”

“But not in English, I’m guessing?”

“Correct.”

Keith groaned and Shiro looked at the wall clock. “Hey, we should get to the room. The others are probably wondering where we are.”

Keith glanced at his phone. He hadn’t gotten the all-clear yet. “Do you have any of the movies?”

“What?”

“About Lady whatshername.”

“Hyegyong, and no, I don’t but I thought you didn’t want to watch subtitled movies anyway.”

“Well, I mean, I don’t need subtitles for the bits where the guy is being a nutjob.”

Shiro frowned at him. “Show a little respect. He wasn’t a nutjob. He had a mental illness.”

“Okay, but he did kill people, right?”

Shiro sighed. “Yes, according to his wife, anyway. In the 1805 Memoir, she says…”

“Are we done?”

Lance looked around the room and nodded. “I think we’re good.” He whipped out his phone. “Text Pidge; I got Keith.”

Hunk snorted. “Yeah, like at lunch time? I saw you two sneak off to the bathroom together.”

Lance grinned. “Hey, ain’t nothing wrong with my love life. Let’s focus up.”

Pidge pulled out her phone when it buzzed at her. “Oh, hey,” she said, seeing Hunk’s thumbs-up, “we should probably get to Debate Club.”

Ms. Fala looked at the clock. “Oh, goodness! We did get a bit carried away, didn’t we?” She gathered up her things. Pidge led the way out of the room and waited for her to lock up.

“Uh, actually, I have to go to the bathroom real quick. See you over there!”

Ms. Fala nodded and strode off towards the room.

Keith’s phone pinged at him. “Oh, hey,” he said, “they’re wondering where we are.” In reality, his text from Lance read [Ready for Romance? The room is anyway! LOL XOXO] with a bunch of kissy emojis. Horndog. But he suppressed a grin.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. C’mon.”

Keith let Shiro lead the way out of the History office. He waited for him to lock up and walked a little ways with him.

“Hey, y’know, I’ve gotta take a pit stop. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay. Don’t take all day in there; we’ve got a meet this weekend to prep for.”

“We’ll be fine. We’ve got this.”

Shiro grinned. “Lance is rubbing off on you.”

Keith grinned back. “You have no idea.”

“Yeah, okay, way more than I needed to hear. Just go already.” Shiro made shooing motions with his hands and headed for the room.

“Huh?” Allura looked around the room. Most of the desks had been pushed up against the wall, except for four pushed together to make a table of sorts (still with their attached chairs). A white tablecloth had been draped over them, and a small votive candle in a glass jar was sitting in the center next to a vase with a red silk rose in it. Gold colored napkins and actual, non-plastic flatware marked two place settings. The lights were off but twinkling white Christmas lights had been strung up around the room and wrapped in pink see-through gauze to soften the light further. There was an iPod and some speakers on the teacher’s desk, quietly playing piano music.

The Debate Club was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s going on here?” Shiro’s voice asked from behind her.

She turned to him and shrugged. “Honestly, I haven’t the first clue.”

Shiro was standing in the doorway. Backlit by the hall lights, he looked like he was glowing. More importantly, he was staring at her, lips parted just faintly. She wasn’t sure if he was even breathing.

She licked her lips, aware of her face heating and hoping the darkness of the room would hide it. “Is… is something wrong?” she asked him, hoping she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth or something.

“You look… luminescent,” he breathed, voice barely above a whisper. Then he cleared his throat and turned his head, rubbing the back of his neck. She could make out the blush in his cheeks, but then he had the lights of the rest of the school behind him. There was still hope he couldn’t see hers, even if her own face had gotten redder (and she was almost certain it had). “Sorry, I…”

“No, it’s okay. I mean, you don’t have to apologize.”

“Table for 2?” She looked past Shiro, who had turned around, and saw Lance standing there in a suit, with a white cloth draped over one arm, and a ridiculously long and thin mustache on his face. He was speaking in an overdone and bad attempt at a French accent. “Wee wee, come weeth me, right zees way.”

Allura snorted a little and tried to turn it into a cough. Lance just pushed past Shiro and “escorted” him to the “table.” “Right here, monsieur and mademoiselle,” he said. He couldn’t pull chairs out for them because they were bolted to the “table,” but he did gesture quite grandly.

“Lance, what are you doing?” she asked him.

“Showeeng you to your table, mademoiselle,” he insisted, repeating his gesture.

“Oh, for goodness’s sake.” But she took a seat, setting her briefcase down beside her.

Shiro shook his head and sat down opposite her, and she jumped as his foot hit hers. “Oh, sorry, I…”

“These desks are…”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“No, I understand.”

Lance smiled at them and then clapped twice in a very imperious manner. Pidge and Keith, both wearing suits and aprons, came running in. Pidge had a basket of bread that she set in the center of the table and Keith had a bottle and two champagne flutes.

“You do not have alcohol on school grounds,” Allura said with a frown.

“Mademoiselle!” Lance gasped in outrage. “Eet ees our very finest sparkleeng grape juice, I weell have you know!” He scoffed.

Shiro dropped his head into one of his hands. His shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. Keith just set down the glasses and was about to unscrew the top when Lance grabbed the bottle from him. “I weell do zat! Go on, shoo shoo!”

Keith frowned at him and rolled his eyes but left with Pidge. Lance unscrewed the bottle – releasing the telltale hiss of carbonation – and offered the screw-off top to Shiro to smell. Shiro looked up at him and shook his head. “Lance, what are you doing?”

“Eet has a lovely bouquet, sir, eef you would like to…”

“No,” Allura put in, “What Are You DOING? All of you. What is this?”

“I have a terrible feeling I know exactly what this is,” Shiro groaned.

“Well, I would appreciate an explanation,” she told him.

“Ah!” Lance declared. “May wee! But of course!” He poured the champagne flutes full of sparkling white grape juice, set the bottle down, and then declared, “I weell go and check on zee status of your meal!” and practically ran out of the room. He closed the door behind him.

Allura just looked at Shiro expectantly. He cleared his throat. He had quite definitely stopped laughing. “Well?” she asked.

“The, uh…” His blush was clearly visible; that probably meant he’d seen her blushing earlier, but she couldn’t do anything about that now, and she was too curious to care. “…the Club is trying to get us to date.”

“What?” Oops, she was blushing again now. She wished she knew a way to get that to stop. “Why?”

Shiro’s face got redder. “They’ve been after me to ask you out for weeks now.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “No, it doesn’t,” he admitted.

“Well?” she prompted again. He cleared his throat again and picked up his flute, downing half of the grape juice at one go. “Shiro.” She used his nickname after school, because it was simply easier than constantly referring to him as “Mr. Shirogane,” as she did during school hours.

“I wish this actually were alcoholic.” He grabbed the bottle and topped off his glass.

“Shiro, do you…?” But her question was interrupted.

The door opened to Pidge and Keith – under Lance’s watchful eye – bringing in plates of pasta. “Zees ees one of our chef’s specialties!” Lance informed them.

“Oh my GOD, Lance, stop it with the accent,” Pidge grumbled.

“Insolent pig-dog!” he yelled at her. “Do not eensult zee French! Eet ees zee language of L’AMORE.”

“I think he just slipped into Italian,” Pidge muttered.

“He took Spanish because it’s an easy A for him,” Keith told her. “He wouldn’t know French if it bit him on the a-…”

“Keith,” Shiro and Allura said together.

All three of them grinned at that. The plates of pasta were set in front of them. “Our chef has worked very hard on zees especially for you two! Enjoy!” Pidge and Keith left, but Lance went to the iPod to turn it up just a little bit. Then down a little. Then up a little more. Keith finally popped back in to grab Lance by the collar and haul him out of the room. The door practically slammed shut.

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hungry.” Shiro pulled his napkin out and set it on his lap.

“Or you’re trying to get out of a full explanation by keeping your mouth full,” Allura charged, but she also draped her napkin over her lap.

“Well, they went to all this trouble. I’ve heard Hunk is a great cook.”

“Shiro,” she said again.

“Using your teacher voice on me doesn’t work,” he reminded her, picking up his fork and knife. “I’m one, too.”

“Why would the Club want you to ask me out?”

“Because they want us to date.”

“And they want us to date… why, exactly?”

But it was too late: he’d already shoveled some pasta into his mouth. Quite a bit of it, actually. She sighed and sipped her grape juice, then helped herself to a piece of bread. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to conjecture,” she warned him. He just gestured to his mouth full of food and shrugged. “Very well then.

“So, the known facts are this: the Club has set up this classroom to look like a nice restaurant. They have tried to create a classically ‘romantic’ atmosphere, including Italian food, a wine substitute, soft lighting, and music. If I believe you, they want us to date. Also, by your statements, they have been pressuring you to ask me out. They have not, however, pressured me to do the same.”

She took a bite of her bread and chewed thoughtfully. “Thinking back on it, Pidge has been asking me a number of questions lately about my personal life. And all of them have asked me my opinion on you numerous times.”

“What did you say?” Shiro asked immediately.

“Oh, so now you can speak.” He winced and scooped up some more pasta to fill his mouth with. She narrowed her eyes at him, but grinned. “Well, then, to return to my conjecturing: their… curiosity about me and about my opinion of you lends weight to the supposition that they want us to date. I have no reason not to trust your word, so I must therefore also believe they have been urging you to ask me out. The fact that they have not asked me to ask you out speaks to either outdated modes of thinking as regards gender equality OR, more likely, they believe your attraction to me is greater than mine to you. Perhaps even that this is more about making you happy than it is about ‘our’ happiness in any larger sense.”

He looked aggrieved at that. She reached across the table and patted his hand twice. “You’re their favorite, Shiro. I take my job as a teacher very seriously, and I know that doesn’t make me the warmest person in their eyes. It’s hardly surprising.”

He blushed at the touch, but couldn’t say anything still. She used her bread and fork to scoop up some pasta and mm’ed appreciatively.

He cleared his mouth first. “If anyone ever doubted your qualifications to serve as Debate Club sponsor…” He drank more of his grape juice, but then thought of something. “Wait a second, are you saying I don’t take my job seriously?”

She swallowed hurriedly. “No, no, not at all! We have… different teaching styles, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh. ‘Cause it sounded like you were saying…”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“…Maybe,” he admitted.

“Do you want to ask me out, Shiro?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re colleagues.”

“We’re allowed to date if we want to.”

“I just don’t want things to be …weird. Awkward.”

“Well, it’s a little late for that now, after all of this.” She gestured with one hand to the room around them, then picked up her champagne flute. “Will you feel emasculated if I ask you out?”

“No!” he said immediately. “N-not at all! But, I didn’t think you’d… be interested in me.”

She was sipping her fake-champagne when he said that and she nearly choked on it. He started to rise to come help her, but she waved him back into his seat. “Honestly, Shiro.”

“What?”

“Do you not know there’s a betting pool going on about which of the single teachers will ‘net’ you first?”

His blush deepened. “Uh, no. No, I did not know that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, now you know. I’ll split the pot with you, don’t worry.”

“Gee, thanks. Now it sounds like you’re only interested in me for the money.”

She chuckled. “You’re handsome, smart, and sweet. Winning the pot is an added bonus. Besides, I’m far more interested in showing up Romelle down in the Science department than I am in the money.”

“Don’t lie; you’re a teacher. I know your salary.”

They both laughed.

“They’re laughing,” Lance said. “I think that’s a good sign.”

“Are they saying anything about the food?” Hunk asked.

“Hunk,” Pidge hissed.

“What? I worked hard on that! A cook likes to know his work is appreciated!”

“Shhhh!” Keith warned them. “They’ll hear us.”

“Like they don’t know we’re out here listening in,” Pidge pointed out. “Or that at least Lance is.”

“Hey!”

“So, you are interested in me,” Shiro confirmed.

She nodded; her mouth was the one full of pasta this time.

He smiled in relief. “You’d think that’d make this easier, but now I just worry that if I ask you out on a boring date, I’ll blow my chance.”

She smiled and swallowed her food. “You know, technically, you haven’t told me that you’re interested in me. I conjectured that.”

“Oh!” He blushed deeper. “I’m… yes, I’m interested in you. In dating you. I…” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Hold on, let me start this over again so I sound less like one of our students.” She laughed and he opened his eyes again. “Your laugh is beautiful.” She blushed, and he continued. “Your smile is captivating. You’re so brilliant, so passionate about your work and your beliefs, so dedicated. It’d be hard not to be attracted to you, even if you weren’t heart-stoppingly gorgeous.” His face felt like it was going to combust, but he’d finally gotten it all out.

“Oh, now you’re overstating it,” she protested lightly.

“Not by much,” he insisted. “I’d give you that golden apple every time, and who cares what the other goddesses think?”

She laughed again. “Didn’t that nonsense start a war?”

“You’d be worth it.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

“Shiro…”

“Takashi.”

She smiled. “Only if you’ll call me ‘Allura’ and never start a war over me.”

He reached across the table to rest his hand on hers. “I promise, Allura.”

“So, uh, how long do you think they’re going to be in there?” Pidge asked.

Keith opened his mouth to reply but then the door opened. Ms. Fala was standing there, arms folded, frowning at them. The room lights clicked on behind her, and the music shut off. “Well, there’s our meddlers. You can all come in and help us put the room back the way it needs to be. And then we are doing our meet prep for the weekend,” she informed them.

“Did you like the pasta?” Hunk asked weakly.

She smiled. “It was very good, Hunk; thank you. I hope you didn’t make too much of a mess making it?”

“I already cleaned up the home ec station I used,” he told her. “A good chef doesn’t leave their area messy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She stepped away from the doorway to let them in.

Shiro had blown out the votive candle and was disassembling the table. The dishes had been moved to the teacher’s desk.

“So, uh… how’d it go then?” Keith asked.

Shiro and Ms. Fala both looked at him, and he feared for his life suddenly, but then they looked at each other and smiled faintly. “We have plans,” Shiro told him. “That’s all you need to know.”

Lance whooped and started passing out high-fives until Ms. Fala grabbed him by the ear. “And so you have no further need to involve yourselves in other peoples’ personal lives, Correct?”

“Ow, yes, sorry, never again!” he yelped. She let go.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Hey, uh, Shiro?” Pidge asked. “Are you wearing lipstick?”

He blushed and wiped at his mouth. Ms. Fala just cleared her throat. “Let’s get the room squared away,” she ordered as if she weren’t an interesting shade of red herself. “And then I want to hear the argument you wrote on voucher systems for charter schools, Hunk.”

Keith grinned at his co-conspirators. Mission Accomplished. “You heard the lady, guys. Let’s get to work.”

#Socks writes Voltron fanfic #milkteamiku #Secret Valentine #shallura #writing #fic

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myfluentpodcast · 5 years ago

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E61 A - Corona overkill

my fluent podcast website:

https://www.myfluentpodcast.com/e61-a-corona-overkill-language-learning-failures-and-how-to-cope-with-them/

Podcast episode as video: https://youtu.be/pad01Shktww

Daniel Goodson: I had a plan, a great plan. The Corona virus has ruined that plan, in which I wanted to learn vocabulary in a specific way. I tried to find another approach to learn English. More on this episode...

Ep. 61 has two sections, the first one is about the actual topic in which I talk about a huge mistake. This is for everyone to listen, weather you are an English learner or a native English speaker.

In section 2 (it's on Ep. 61 B), I will go about some English expressions and give additional English tips. That bonus episode is tailored for our English learners.

This episode is connected to another episode which was released on the 25th of January.

It's the episode between episode "49 book review, virtual native", and episode "48 What is the Quora series?" On that bonus episode, I explained how I wanted to learn vocabulary through news, to be more precise, through Corona news.

Further information:

You may watch this episode (61) on video, too: https://youtu.be/pad01Shktww. That way, you can read along to the subtitles while listening to the podcast.

Show notes:

You'll find the show notes (you may download subtitles) on www.myfluentpocast.com or you can read along the subtitles/transcript right here:

Right? And then I see the disinfectant, but knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? Social distancing will be with us through the summer. Don't worry, guys. This episode of my fluent podcast is whether about the president Donald Trump, nor about social distancing. This time I totally screwed up though I've set myself an unreachable goal and this is a setback for me and had a negative influence on my language learning motivation. You will learn about the details soon. Welcome, dear language learners for the first time, I will do this episode in two parts. First, I will explain the current topic. After that, there will be a section for our English learners in which I go about some expressions and definitions, and by the way, the whole transcript - this applies to the audio as well as what I say - is available on our show notes or on the website, myfluentpodcast.com let's get started. So what are the takeaways for this episode? I will give them to you beforehand. At the end, I will repeat them again and give additional explanations. So number one, always set yourself SMART goals. Number two, don't stick to your methods by any cost and the focus here lies on the words "by any cost". Number three is more of a general advice. Don't beat yourself up and just be aware that learning a language is a long term process. There are ups and downs, that is normal. And number four is enjoy your language journey. Never forget that: it should be a pleasure. We should see the positive things. And this is something I need to bear in mind always. And to be honest, this is more of a personal episode this time in which I reflect my own decisions or learning approach, and this is a subject (topic) that I am a bit uncomfortable to talk about in a way. Well, this is partly because I have set myself a goal, an unreachable goal. I have totally screwed up. Anyway, I will pull myself together now. And just talk about it. Hey buddy, you need to pull yourself together. Pull yourself together. While on Saturday, it was the 25th of January, I published an episode about a topic, vocabulary, retention. Well in my opinion, this is one of the most important topics. When it comes to learning a language, and the name of that episode is Corona virus vocab through news, it seems like as if I already knew it, I did not number the episode back then, and the idea was to number the newer episode when I have followed all my own suggestions. And reached my goal. I wanted to make like a review of that approach, that good things and the bad things. So in a nutshell, back then I wanted to learn new vocabulary by reading compelling content in the news to retain information for good. You need to come across the vocabulary again and again, and then why? Chances are you will remember them for good. Meaning it will go to your long term memory. And that should be our goal. I mean, we want to learn in order to being able to using the vocabulary and I decided to focus on the information about the coroner virus. That way I would come across similar word combinations and learn more. Of course, I would use flashcards and other tools to support my endeavor. Of course, all turned out in a slightly different way. All right. If you want, you can go back. It's the episode between episode "49 book review, virtual native", and I episode "48 What is the Quora series?" On that episode I explained how I wanted to go about that idea in more detail. So what happened? You'll may already have a guess. I couldn't foresee that this virus would have such an immense impact on our world. It seems to me, today the news are focusing only on that matter. It's always the Corona virus. I can understand that. And actually for my project, it would be perfect because that's what I wanted, right? Come across similar word combinations again and again, sort them out and learn them with different tools. The problem was. I got fed up about it. I couldn't stand it anymore. The matterer is very, very negative and I did not want to focus only on such negative things. So besides that, the goal I've set to myself became very difficult. Once the news wrote only about that matter. It was just too much for me to handle, but why did I not change my goal into some things similar? I don't have an answer to that. I guess I got just a bit depressed about it and left it alone. So let's have a look at our giveaways. Which I mentioned in the beginning. Let's come back to number one, set yourself smart goals. Okay. Perhaps the goal might have been smart at the beginning, but once it became the topic number one of the whole world, it definitely became a very bad goal. Maybe another person would have pulled together and just stick to this plan. For me, I just, I couldn't, because in this situation I had not the right mindset to it and not enough time, not the energy. Poor baby. Oh, you poor thing. So the second takeaway was don't stick to our methods by any cost. We must stick to the plan on welfare as well. Usually it's the other way round. It is set yourself a goal and then stick to your plan. But in this particular situation, I would say it doesn't serve Next up, number three, don't beat yourself up. Be aware that learning a language is a long term process. Even though I said in the beginning of this show that it is a setback for me and I had a negative influence on my language learning motivation. While that was true, but now I'm again on my wife, I am back on track. So there is no worry about that, but I tend to beat myself up a bit. The problem is also that comparing yourself to others who are far better speakers, for example, is not a doll. Good idea. And that's the case with me. I compare too much. No, no. Good idea. Number four, race. Enjoy your language journey. Don't take it too seriously. In the end, it should make fun to learn and once your gut tells you that you absolutely don't, enjoy it, you should change something up. I mean, it's a great hobby and should bring us joy. And actually that's what I am doing. I started out with my podcast back in 2016 and to be honest, I had a huge gap in between, and this was a period in which I couldn't publish due to personal reasons, but the most important thing is that. I didn't give up. There's a little pain going on. Okay. Don't give up. Hang on. This is a test. If you have a mantra called, please don't give up on it, and I'm still podcasting with even more power and more motivation so that I can share all of my tips with you. Dear listeners. And this must have first section of this episode. I'll head over to the second in a minute, but before, a few words to those who are not learning English. Thanks for listening to this rather personal story about my failure. If you have any suggestions for future episodes. If you have a language learning question, please feel free to send me an email to [email protected]. I am Daniel Goodson, the host of my fluent podcast, learn from and with a language learner. So let's have to the English learning part. And for that I ask you kindly to go to episode 61 B. 61 B. Thanks The song you are listening to right now is called road trip by Scott Holmes. The other one you could hear was indie rock by Scott Holmes as well. Oh, and please don't forget to subscribe. I am on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, and all the well known podcast services. If you want to reach out to me, you can also go and find me on Instagram. My nickname oi Instagram is myfluentpodcast, or just send me an email to [email protected]. . Bye.

Your Daniel Goodson. [email protected]

music:

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/coronavirus-words-guide/social-distance

Obama: Screw up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4424&v=E8SFpzWzC2M&feature=emb_logo

Check out this language related episode! Learn with a learner and become fluent!

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operationrainfall · 6 years ago

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As of January 2019, there are currently over 1,200 visual novels for sale on Steam, many of which were developed by small teams with big dreams. One such title is Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death. This title serves as Igrasil Studio’s debut release and was added to Steam less than a month ago. Currently in its alpha/early-access phase, New Cycle of Death is act one of what is planned to be a three part series. It’s a murder-mystery visual novel with slice-of-life elements thrown in. It began its life as a Kickstarter campaign back in early 2016 and surpassed its funding goal by an additional $17k. Boasting nearly 30 hours of content and around 70 different decisions to make, Igrasil Studio certainly set its goals high for this one. The question is, was it able to succeed in reaching them?

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The core story revolves around a group of young detectives, all of whom are fresh out of school. As part of the non-governmental detective agency IGRASIL, they take on cold cases that normal organizations like the police are unable to solve. At the onset of the game, a string of bizarre murders has left the public afraid and the police baffled. Most of these have been attributed to a maniac known as “the Phantom”, whose work is both grizzly and grandiose. He or she leaves a series of clues behind with each murder, many of which seem to hold some form of symbolism. Among our group of detectives is the protagonist, Kazuki Koyama. Kazuki is relatively new to the IGRASIL team and makes it his goal to solve these puzzling clues and catch the Phantom before the police can. Along the way, we learn a bit about his troubled past as well. Having lost both of his parents in a fatal car accident just one year earlier, Kazuki seems to have found comfort in solving cases and helping others. He can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times and is often blunt with his teammates, but his heart seems to be in the right place. He’s joined by by fellow detectives Suzumi, Kaoru, Akito, and Aki, all of whom have ended up with IGRASIL under different circumstances. With the Phantom case being their first murder investigation, IGRASIL team (much like the development team) sets their sights high and aims to make a bigger name for themselves.

All exposition aside, how’s the writing? Well, it varies. I enjoy murder mysteries and stories that incorporate a variety of religious elements, so to that end I was pleased. The story as a whole is interesting, but its main problem stems from that fact that it doesn’t seem air-tight. Some loose ends are to be expected when your game is separated into multiple acts, but a number of existing pieces didn’t seem to mesh. For one thing, I’m fairly certain that certain scenes were either missing or pulled out without changing the others. There is a “side-quest” of sorts that is introduced about half-way into the game which involves a character named Bradley. If the dialogue between the characters is to be believed, Bradley should’ve been introduced earlier in the game. All of the characters (including Kazuki) seem to know him and reference meeting him a few days prior. As far as I can recall though, he was never introduced. My assumption is that an earlier scene was removed, either by accident or to quicken the pace of the story. There are other instances where characters are introduced and then never mentioned again. In cases like that, perhaps I simply didn’t make the right decisions. Still, having these character interactions just exist without further context was a bit disappointing.

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Stranger still are the points where story elements will change without warning. Towards the beginning (before you meet him), the new police officer in charge of the Phantom case is referred to as General Akiak. When you go to meet him though (and from that point forward), he inexplicably becomes General Coya. I think it’s safe to assume that his name was changed at some point during the game’s development cycle. Finally, the game’s description indicates that player choices can lead to multiple different scenarios, but during my playthrough most of the decisions didn’t seem all that important. There were some larger ones to be made, but the majority of them revolved around choosing to spend time with Kazuki’s teammates or blowing them off. This did seem to affect romantic options with characters, but most didn’t appear to be story-centric. I did read some user comments on the Steam page which seemed to indicate that decisions would carry more weight in acts II and III, but I can’t vouch for that since those are not out yet. There are some romantic moments available, but it would seem that more will follow in acts II and III. My first suggestions to the developers would be to flesh out the story a bit more, make sure all the scenes fit together, and find a way to convey the importance of each decision. Perhaps a flowchart of events or an easier way to return to these decision points would help.

The English voice acting is also mixed in terms of quality. The only options are English or no voices at all, so I chose to stick with the English voices. The voices for the main team of characters aren’t too bad, but some characters’ voicework is better than others. All in all though, the main characters’ voices grew on me over time. Additionally, I could tell just by listening to them that the actors all had a really great time recording their lines. What I wasn’t as impressed by was the difference in pronunciation between characters. Some of the voice actors would address people or things using one pronunciation, only for another actor to immediately pronounce that person or thing differently. The most standout example of this is the way in which the team addresses Kazuki. Some pronounced his name as “ka-zu-key” while others would pronounce it as “kazoo-key”. While I eventually got used to this, it was a bit grating at first. As for the other characters (those not imperative to the story), the voice acting was not nearly as polished. Some of these characters didn’t even have voices at all, but those who did were not voiced as well as the main characters. My second suggestion for the developers is to revisit the voiced dialogue as well as provide more where gaps exist. This goes for both the main and supplemental characters.

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My concerns with the voice acting and the subtitles go hand-in-hand. Spelling and grammar were indeed an issue. I’d say 75% or so of the subtitles were okay, but the other 25% could use some heavy spelling/grammar updates. Given that the game is still in early-access, some spelling and grammatical errors are to be expected. Having said that, there were a number of other issues outside of these simple ones. The largest issue was the placement of the subtitles. More often than not, I’d read the subtitles while listening to the voices and the two wouldn’t sync up. Part of this was likely due to slight variations between the script and the subtitles, but another part was simple misplacement of the subtitles. Not all of the main character lines are voiced of course, so I can see how this mismatch may have occurred. One major example relates to a scene in which your teammate Akito talks with his mouth full after eating some donuts. This audio is played again several scenes later and paired with unrelated subtitles. There are also times when the opposite is true. This issue was peppered throughout the game and I found myself trusting the subtitles more than the spoken lines (though the spoken lines didn’t have translation issues). To their credit, the development team does make mention of possible translation issues when the game first boots up. Since they seem aware of the spelling and grammar issues, I’d suggest that they also take a look at the subtitle pairings and make sure that they sync up with the correct audio.

In terms of art style, I must once again say that it has its ups and downs. Hands down, the best aspect of the artwork is the main character designs. All character portraits are hand drawn and the irises of their eyes really stuck out to me. Each character is uniquely designed and has a distinct personality, which the portraits do a great job of conveying. While not all of the other, supporting characters have portraits, those that do are generally not as detailed as the main characters. All of them are still hand drawn, but the eyes aren’t as detailed (for the most part) and the linework isn’t as neat. Given that some of these extra characters don’t even have portraits, I’m assuming that most of the focus was dedicated to the main characters. While not a huge deal, I would’ve preferred a bit more continuity between the designs. Character portraits aside, there are also times where scenes will break away to chibi art renditions of the characters, complete with matching backgrounds. These were a nice change of pace and, while infrequent, were all very well done. Lastly, the backgrounds for the normal scenes were nice, albeit unassuming. None of them stuck out as overly unique or memorable, but they certainly got the job done and fit well with their associated scenes. In looking at the original Kickstarter images, there have been some noticeable changes since the game’s inception. Having said that, many of these changes aren’t necessarily for the worse. In my opinion, the largest changes exist with the character designs. As far as the main characters are concerned, these changes are merely stylistic and the new designs look really nice.

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The music and sound design as a whole didn’t really stand out to me. That’s not to say that there was anything wrong with it, but I only found myself paying attention to one or two of the tracks. The opening song and the track played during melancholy points of the story both stood out as really nice. As for the other tracks, while I can’t say that I found myself jamming out to them, each fit the mood of the game pretty well and I have no complaints. You can actually buy the soundtrack itself through Steam as a separate purchase if you’re so inclined.

While we’re on a more positive note, let me briefly touch on the game’s sense of humor. When Kazuki and the gang aren’t tracking down leads on the Phantom or looking at gruesome crime scenes, they’re either harassing one another or having a good laugh at the Red Dragon restaurant. Akito and Aki are siblings, so they have a tendency to pick on each other and get into childish arguments. Suzumi and Kaoru on the other hand seem content with picking on Kazuki for his laziness and stubborn attitude. Of course, all of this takes a back seat to Akito’s goofy behavior, which all the characters take part in laughing at. Akito is definitely the comic relief of this game, so emphasis is often placed on him during light-hearted moments. Interactions like this helped break apart the more serious parts of the game. I actually tend to prefer serious moments over comedic ones, but I can appreciate the way that they are handled here. Also, I didn’t just mention that Red Dragon restaurant at random. It seemed like after every other scene the characters would all head to a restaurant for food, usually the Red Dragon. They would even take the time to discuss what menu items to order once getting there. I’m being serious here; someone on the development team must really love food and I’m not knocking that.

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Looking into the future, there is also a bit of bonus content in the works for this title. The full release will see the introduction of IF Mode, which will include four unlockable episodes. These episodes will each center around a different member of IGRASIL and will feature some form of adult content. There is also a beach-themed episode planned, which will be packed with fan service. The menu options exist for both of these options currently, but the content itself won’t be available until the final release. Also keep in mind that this is but act I of III, so two more games will expand upon the content that is already there.

In short, Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death is an interesting visual novel that shows potential, but its absence and/or misuse of story, voice, and art assets leaves a lot to be desired. Missing assets aside, the fact that many of the existing ones don’t sync up is something that will definitely need addressed before the official release. Bear in mind that there’s still time for the developers to fix these issues and they seem dedicated to doing so. In fact, as I was writing this, several fixes were already put in place to improve the opening chapter (among other things). The team aims to make update announcement each week, so it’s safe to say that the game will continue to see refinement. Some of my more minor suggestions include tightening up the story a bit and making player decisions seem more important (and appear more frequently). I like the idea of having decisions that carry over to acts II and III, but would’ve liked to see some immediate changes in act I based on my choices. Lastly, I would’ve liked the game to last just a bit longer. I put in right around 22-23 hours, but there were a number of things that I would’ve liked to see play out further (namely interactions between non-IGRASIL characters). The game is set to see a full release in mid-February of this year, so there is still time for some of the kinks to be worked out. If you’d like to give the game a try yourself, head over to its official Steam page. It is currently listed at $24.99 USD, but the price will see an increase once the game has officially released. Assuming that all of the above points get addressed and the game releases with all of its content in sync, I look forward to seeing what acts II and III have in store.

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IMPRESSIONS: Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death As of January 2019, there are currently over 1,200 visual novels for sale on Steam, many of which were developed by small teams with big dreams.

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theinquisitivej · 6 years ago

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‘Mamma Mia!’ and ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ – A Conjoined Movie Review

First of all, let me just say that this film has one of the best, most appropriate subtitles I’ve ever seen in a sequel. This film probably exists because someone realised how naturally perfect it would be to call the follow-up to Mamma Mia! the very next line in the song, “Here We Go Again”. After that, it was likely a given that this thing had to be made just to get this title out into the world. Credit where it’s due, I really do like that subtitle. It perfectly sums up the film’s subject matter, as well as the feelings that a sequel to Mamma Mia! would invoke, both for the fans excited for another fun trip, and for the less keen audience members who are begrudgingly rolling their eyes as they resign themselves to going through this song and dance one more time.

As to the question of which of these two camps I fall into, I’d like to apologise for how I’ve spoken about the first film in an unbearably domineering and, at times, meanly derisive way in the past. I remember numerous conversations about Mamma Mia! where I latched onto the weaknesses and elements of the film which most irritated me and proceeded to blow them up to exaggerated levels for little justification beyond simply picking on what I felt was an easy target. That entitled attitude which puts films down in a way that can make other people feel bad for enjoying something isn’t cool, and it’s not the kind of person, moviegoer, or critic I want to be going forward. I’m sorry for that behaviour.

But get to the point Toby; what do you think about the first movie? Well, as you can probably tell, my opinion on it has softened, even if it has problems I find difficult to ignore. The narrative and character motivations still seem weak and that gets in the way of me really investing enough to get through the movie without checking my watch a few times. Also, even if you put aside the inherent difficulty of having a jukebox musical resonate anywhere near as strongly as a production with songs specifically written to fit with the story being told, there are a few moments where the film drags. Part of this can be attributed to one or two characters who leave so little of an impression that they and the songs dedicated to them could lift straight out of the movie. Apart from that and the occasional nitpick here or there, the rest of the movie is fine, harmless, and honestly pretty enjoyable. The cast have an infectious enthusiasm, the song numbers are choreographed with energy and refreshing self-awareness, and the singing… hmm.

Okay, the thing about some of the actors not being able to carry a note is that, on the one hand, yes, it is reasonable to expect a musical to have competently executed music, and without singling anyone out… bless them, they really are trying. But then, I think that’s honestly part of the appeal. These are songs that all the audience members who are on board with the film will know, and not everyone in that audience is going to be a great singer either. Having a mix of quality to the film’s singers actually comes across as relatively inclusive, as if the film is saying “ah, don’t sweat it if you’re no Agnetha Fältskog, just enjoy yourself”. I’ll always appreciate a film where that sort of intention comes across. Even if I can’t fully gel with Mamma Mia!, I still catch myself having a good time with it here or there if it’s on.

I take this long telling you my thoughts on the first film so that when I say this new sequel to Mamma Mia! not only improves on the original, but also moved me to the point where I was getting quite emotional as I fought back the tears, you can understand why I’m as alarmed as I am. Understand, I don’t want to oversell this as being a complete transformation that leaves the original far behind. Here We Go Again is still the same kind of animal as Mamma Mia!. It’s still light-hearted and doesn’t take itself too seriously, its mission is still to have a fun time and cater to its audience’s nostalgia with some familiar tunes and faces, and if you’re staunchly opposed to the first one, then odds are this sequel won’t make you suddenly convert.

And yet Here We Go Again features so many little improvements to its framework in addition to its emotional gut punch secret weapon that it honestly stacks up as the better of the two movies in my opinion, even with it having to fight the inherent set-back of already using the bulk of ABBA’s greatest hits the first time around. Director Ol Parker and cinematographer Robert Yeoman make the camera a much more active participant in the musical numbers this time around, moving with a deliberate purpose as it dances around the characters and plays with the two timelines the film bounces between. The film simultaneously follows Amanda Seyfried’s character struggling to get the hotel reopening to run smoothly in the present as well as Lily James playing the younger version of her mother, Meryl Streep’s character, in flashbacks to the past as we see how she met each of the three potential fathers. At first, it’s difficult to see any connection between the stories being told in each timeline, but the visuals nevertheless weave them smoothly enough together that I didn’t necessarily mind. By the end of the film, however, when the story reveals its full hand, the two timelines marry together wonderfully, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Another improvement is that the songs are integrated more naturally, with far fewer instances of the movie bending over backwards or going off on an awkward tangent just to weakly justify shoehorning in a particular song. The less musically inclined members of the cast still don’t sing particularly well, but they’re wisely implemented so that it doesn’t fall to them to carry an entire song by themselves, whether by placing them in a larger group or by giving them a short rendition of a song that relies far more on their emotional performance than it does on the technical quality of their singing voice. Little positive adjustments like these are present throughout, and they add up to make a big difference which I appreciated.

So how the hell did a sequel to Mamma Mia! strike an emotional chord with me? Strangely enough, through a story direction which, when I first heard it at the start of the film, seemed like such a bizarre direction for Mamma Mia! to go in that I couldn’t help but laugh as I was so surprised: they killed off Meryl Streep’s character! I mean, I guess I figured it would be difficult to get her back for long, if at all, so this is one solution I suppose, but still… really? One of the main characters from the first movie, a nostalgia fuelled exercise in light-hearted escapism with fun protagonists that were positioned as people you could identify with, is dead at the start of the next film? Um… I guess that will make watching the first film a little more bittersweet, huh? Such a strange direction to take, and yet, and I’m as surprised as anyone else about this, but Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again makes the death of this character and the emotional impact it has on the rest of the cast work!

You see, as the film goes on you start to realise that it’s about struggling with the idea of doing a parent proud when they’re no longer around, and how when the bumps in the road come up, they feel so much worse because it feels like you’re letting that dear person down. But at some point, you reach a revelation that going through all of this and feeling unsure is okay, because they went through the same thing and, in all likelihood, felt the same emotions as you are now. The comfort Amanda Seyfried’s character takes when she realises that she’s facing the same things her mother did and that makes her feel closer than ever to her is profoundly uplifting to me. This culminates in two songs which are both cut in such a way that these themes and the raw feelings of sadness and joy mixed beautifully together come through with painful intensity. It picks the perfect moment to finish, and the end result is a movie that manages to be both a breezy fun time and a genuinely affecting film about the connection shared between a mother and daughter.

7/10 – Mark Kermode called Here We Go Again the perfect version of what it’s aiming to be. While there are the occasional bits of technical execution that are questionable, I’d still strongly agree with his assessment. It improves on the last film, gives just enough of the better ABBA songs to make up for some of the less memorable ones that pop up around the mid-part of the film, and most impressively of all, delivers a genuine tear-jerker of a last act without compromising its status as feel-good entertainment. A delightfully pleasant surprise.

#The Inquisitive J #film #films #movies #review #film review #movie review #film critic #movie critic #film criticism #film critique #mamma mia #here we go again #mamma mia here we go again #mamma mia here we go again review #the inquisitive j reviews

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thewadapan · 7 years ago

Video

youtube

I made a full 13-episode animated web series with Plotagon.

Creator’s Commentary

I was just messing around and then this happened.

I stumbled upon Plotagon via Aris Martinian’s Worm Abridged series, itself a derivative work based on Wildbow’s epic web serial Worm. Impressed by the software’s results, I downloaded it on a whim. The editor soon draws you into its fast and intuitive user interface and before long I had a draft of what would become “I Hate You”.

Having seen Aris Martinian’s work on Worm Abridged and Satan’s Threads, I really wasn’t expecting to produce anything on that level of quality. Instead I saw it more as an outlet - and indeed, the themes of Are You Happy are representative of the kind of headspace I’ve been in. Most literally, a recent falling out inspired the rough outline of episode one.

I’ve gone on a bit of a kick lately in terms of using restrictive programs to tell stories. Plotagon’s plot editor is almost the antithesis of Marvel: Create Your Own (an online comic editor I used to create “Everything Is Red Now”) in that using it doesn’t feel like deliberate self-harm. Making stuff with Plotagon is actually a lot of fun.

The “movie script” aspect of the editor is inspired and you can hit play at any point to see what you’ve got so far. Sure, there are restrictions - you can only have two characters in a scene, you often have next to no control over camera angles, there aren’t really enough actions (and, to a lesser extent, expressions) to choose from, strange intonation can often ruin the delivery of lines, and most of the program’s assets must be purchased via microtransactions. It’s far from a perfect experience, and yet at the same time I can’t get mad at Plotagon. There’s an infectious, self-aware excitement to be found throughout the developers’ promotional videos, and you can’t help but share that excitement at times.

Plotagon includes its own video-sharing service, which seems to mostly be used by middle-schoolers as a strange kind of social network. I left that aspect of the program alone, choosing instead to render my videos directly to mp4 and thumbnails as animated GIFs (features which feels almost too convenient for this program, but I’m not complaining).

I also chose to ignore the “record your own dialogue” feature and the optional subtitles. A theme I was going for was that these characters struggle to communicate, and the stilted auto-generated dialogue played into that. However, that same awkward delivery ended up making a fair few jokes fall flat. In hindsight I probably should’ve just changed the jokes.

Plotagon gives you a few characters to start off - four teenagers and two adults in an even gender split, plus Santa. The two adults are Ms. Green, who I forgot to utilise, and Mr. Hernandez. The teenagers are Jessica, Samir, Lizzie, and Scott (the guy Mr. Hernandez picks a fight with in episode two). It also provides “Chris the custom character” as the only editable example.

I messed around in the character editor and created Katia and Philippe, and later made Detective Raymond and the devil (who I dubbed “Literally The Devil”) as the plot demanded. It’s only now that I realise I gave Philippe the same t-shirt and footwear as Chris - oh well. I’m also not really sure why I gave Katia red eyes like LTD.

I’d planned to give Raymond some kind of uniform, but everything good was locked. His strange outfit ended up informing his character.

Literally The Devil was male at first, basically by default. I soon decided to avoid the traditional slick-hair-and-a-suit look in favour of a fiery haircut and casual clothing. Their t-shirt, which reads “Speak up against bullying!” was chosen on sight. Trying to find a combination of lower-body clothing that worked with this t-shirt proved difficult, and the decision to make LTD female was cemented when I realised that the red skirt looked far better than the other options (although how this turned out at the bus stop was unfortunate). Lizzie clearly had problems with authority, and I liked the idea that she identified with the devil on some level. I guess LTD’s design is just a manifestation of that.

The decision to do thirteen episodes (the typical length of a “run” of TV) including a three-part finale was made at some point after episode seven, with the death of Mr. Hernandez death serving as a springboard for the rest of the story. Indeed, it isn’t until episode four that we get some kind of explicit continuity. The title of the finale, “The Agenda”, and its inconsistent numbering are a reference to the three-part Season 2 finale of Beast Wars: Transformers of all things.

Three episodes of the series end with the line “bye Felicia(s)”, and another three end with “well shit”. There’s a parallel where Lizzie expresses disappointment in an authority figure using the latter phrase in her first and last episodes - Jessica’s use of the phrase in episode six is less disappointed and more surprised.

“White-Hat Hacking” is, incidentally, my least favourite episode of the series. Most background music is available under the editor’s “music” category, but some falls under “sound” for some reason. Once a sound is played, it cannot be stopped manually - this means that the “pirate ditty” I wanted to use for Jessica needed to play for a set length of time and I needed to stall in order to get Raymond’s entrance right. This basically resulted in a bunch of low-effort jokes existing purely to support another low-effort joke - someone getting arrested for piracy.

Other episodes I rate poorly include episode three, “What Are We Learning Today?”, and episode nine, “Ever Get Tired Of Movies?”. Episode three is barely thirty seconds long and consists of maybe two jokes, and the “well shit” line doesn’t really work in the moment.

Episode nine, on the other hand, is the third-longest. With Jessica and Lizzie both under arrest I knew I was planning a breakout, so I grabbed two random characters I’d thrown together in the editor and sat them down on a sofa. I guess I find the idea of people watching a movie together occasionally weird, because it’s a kind of social interaction without social interaction (I suppose that’s why it’s such a popular choice for first dates), so I decided to use that as the basis of Katia’s insecurities. I’m not really happy with how her relationship with Philippe came across, and I think that’s mostly down to eccentricities in intonation and animation. The first draft of “Ever Get Tired of Movies?” was even less funny than the final draft, which says a lot. Still, it provides an interesting change of pace - the fact that Katia and Philippe’s flaws aren’t as blatant as those of the rest of the cast helps cement them as worthwhile additions in my opinion.

I’m probably happiest with how episode seven, “The Faculty Bathroom”, turned out. Jessica’s monologue in episode six opened the door for a single-character episode, and something about the idea of showing Mr. Hernandez on his forty-five minute smoke break appealed to me. Only one bathroom is available freely, one which clearly belongs in a house, but most people often perceive their teachers as living in their schools and I like the idea that, on some level, Mr. Hernandez lives in this bathroom.

We’ve all had teachers who are nice enough people but who are terrible at their jobs, and Mr. Hernandez falls squarely into that category. We don’t even know he’s a teacher until his second appearance, because in his first he’s too busy getting advice from a man dressed as Santa.

A friend of mine suggested that Santa should quote Genghis Khan in “What is the Meaning of Life?”, and this quote ended up informing his behaviour in the rest of the series. I knew from the start that this man wasn’t really Santa, and I like the juxtaposition between who he is and how he presents himself.

I didn’t set out to have a particular “protagonist” in this series, but Lizzie settled into that role and I ran with it as best as I could. The final episode, in my opinion, struck a good balance between humour and offbeat drama. I’d kept the weirdness firmly rooted in reality until that point, which makes LTD’s introduction all the more surprising. Incidentally, the sound effects used for the transitions to and from the green room were: “death beam”, “arrow hit”, “bone crack”, “fart”, “crash”, “soda can opening” and “swoosh”.

Several people commented on the abruptness of the ending, saying that it lacked closure. Does LTD actually exist? Does hell? I’d say no, but it doesn’t really matter either way. I see the finale as being about Lizzie recognising that her life isn’t going in a direction she likes and deciding to change that, and I guess that was enough for me.

I picked the title Are You Happy mostly on a whim - LTD asks Lizzie this question in the finale, and I think almost everyone in the show is unhappy about something or other. Bo Burnham has a song under the same title, but that wasn’t an intentional link. If I had to pick an overall theme for the series, I’d probably choose Precious Kid’s “Jaded”, not least because it includes the question “are you happy” in its lyrics.

Plotagon remains on my taskbar for now, unopened. People have asked if I plan to make any more. Probably not, but you never know.

#Plotagon #animation #web series #Are You Happy #The Wadapan #31/05/2018

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