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clevercatchphrase · 10 months ago

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2023 Year In Review~

at the time of me writing this, it is 8:11pm on tuesday night, january second. Let's see how long it takes me to type this entire thing. I expect no less than two hours. This is gonna be a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a read-more. Proceed only if you dare!

So! Another year down, another begun, and this is my.... 5th? time looking back on my year and assessing what I accomplished and what I did. Lots of changes and new things happened to me this year! Not nearly as many good things as bad! But first I'm gonna dig up my old resolutions list and see how well I did on them. Let's see... for 2023 I had 9 goals, six of which were serious and 3 of which were more casual. those goals were;

Read 12 new books in a year (one book a month)

Finish the Snowdin Arc before Ghost Switch's 5th birthday

Rewrite the 3rd draft of my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22

Write 4 one-shots for BSaPT

Solidify the details of the waterfall arc

The one secret goal

Finish writing the last 4 chapters of Clemency and finally post the dang thing

build a comic buffer of 8 pages, and finally,

write the crack fic

Of these nine goals, I achived... 4 of them, those being reading 12 books, finishing the snowdin arc before june 18th, rewriting my 2021 nanowrimo project, and finalizing the waterfall arc for Ghost Switch. All of these were serious goals, which I am proud of! but it was still less than half, which was a little disappointing. As in past years, I'll go into more detail below:

Read 12 books I BLEW THIS ONE OUT OF THE WATER! the grand total of books I read this year was THIRTY-SIX! three times as many! In fact, I forced myself to stop in order to have more books to read for 2024! Most of the books I listened to this year were through librivox, and mostly on my commute to work. Great way to pass the time! I wrote short little notes about the books I read on a personal discord with only me in it, so let me see if I can just copy and paste all of that here... (all of my original notes will be italicized, while additional thoughts on it now will not be)

1) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Short, cute! Inspirational. About self actualization. Read by richard Harris. People call this a demonic book?? Apparently a fourth part added in 2014. Look it up later. (Edit; I never did look it up later. there's an audiobook for this on youtube, and while the voice is nice, there is, like, a solid 10 minute segment with a single violin note playing in the background and it is GRATING) 2) fire bed and bone. Ok. Middle of the road. Too focused on people and not the dog, but I get that's the point. it's ~symbolic~. Like the use of no dialogue and no name for the main dog 3) dogs of the spires book 1: reads like fan fiction (derogatory). Sentences go on for 4 or 5 words too long. Used the word orbs for eyes 3 times. Duke is ALWAYS FUCKING GRINNING. Half-brother reveal makes no sense and comes out of nowhere. How… Big/old is Step? Talks waaay too mature for a kid. What happened to Twig? Very tell and not show. Pink foam pink foam pink foam. Why are dogs separated? Hoe do the packs work? Why training? Not given enough to care for characters. Feels like a warrior cat reskin. Too rushed and yet nothing happens at the same time. (I was very curious about post-apocolyptic xenofiction this year, and this was one of the books I could find on the matter, but it's very childishly written and just... bad. Surprisingly, there seems to be a very tiny but dedicated fandom for it on youtube? the series has a fandom wiki anyway...)

4) old granny fox. Very cute! A little repetitive, but passable for a children's novel. Great introduction to xenofiction for kids. Wonderful audio book. 5)the adventures of Sammy Jay. Short sweet also a lot of fun. Both books are Definitely of their time with their usage of the word "queer" as a synonym for "strange/odd"

Now, this is a little known fact about me, but I'm secretly a massive furry. yeah, who could've guessed, right? Anyway, i'm always on the look out for good xenofiction, and when I searched through the "animals" playlist of the librivox youtube channel and stumbled across the books by Thornton W Burgess, I was INSTANTLY enamored. Old Granny Fox, and The Adventures of Sammy Jay were the first two I read/listened to, and was immediately captivated. I MUST give extra props to the narrators of these audiobooks, with some of the more frequent readers for this series doing unique voices for each character, which really added to the charm (Jude Somers and John Lieder particularly come to mind). I WISH I had these books as a kid. I love the way they describe animal behavior and reasoning. While it is anthropomorphized, it never crosses a line into "too" human, if that makes sense. There's another book on this list that is very similar to Burgess' work, with talking animals, but in that book, the animals make and read signs on the doors of their houses, and go to animal tailors to get their clothes fit. this doesn't happen in Burgess' work. Sure, they talk about their homes and the coats they wear, but it's all very intentionally conveying their natural states and habitats in a slightly more human way for us to picture them. Sure, the art on the covers of the books may say otherwise, but it's never depicted that way in the actual text. All their behavior is very animalistic, too, explaining their thoughts and actions in a way that would make sense for a wild forest creature. These books are a little gentle when it comes to the cycle of life. While the predator characters do need to hunt, they are always juuuust out of luck when they are the main character, and the prey characters juuuust manage to escape each time they're the focus. I will definitely be reading more of Burgess' books this year (the man wrote over 170 of them!), but expect quite a few more titles of his to pop up on this list.

6) adventures of jimmy skunk 7)adventures of paddy beaver (not much to say on these two. both were charming, but I feared I would have sounded repetitive if I just kept writing "cute!" in my notes) 8) my father's dragon Short, cute and silly. Listened to the audiobook. Does the physical have pictures? Not really so much about the dragon. Wish there was more after the ending, like what became of the dragon? (I also watched the netflix movie adaptation of this book. I.... could not stand the dragon in the movie. I'm sorry, he's annoying as hell) 9)adventures of buster bear

10)adventures of old mister toad.Favorite one so far. Puts toads in a positive light and describes them as beautiful instead of ugly or gross. [Burgess] Really appreciates all animals and their unique abilities and traits

11) The tale of freddie firefly. Ehh, okay. Not as great as Thorton Burgess' books, but still enjoyable. Not the same 'voice'. (this book was written by Scott Bailey) 12) The adventures of Chatterer the red squirrel. Fine~ Fun. 13) The Fox That Wanted Nine Golden Tales. Funny, short. Would make a good 22 minute short film 14)tale of master meadow mouse. Alright~ why do the animals know what groundhogs day and February are? How does mouse know how to write, and fox to read? Do they wear clothes? Mention a tailor frog. Oars for a raft. Don't like the animals being described as "(color) person". Feels like it's missing an adjective, ie "feathered" or "furred". (This is what I was talking about above. Scott Bailey wrote very similar stories to Burgess, but something was just... off about is writing style. ) 15) the adventures of reddy fox. Okay. Feels like an earlier book. Not as kind as the other ones. (I later looked it up and confirmed this was one of the earlier books in his series, and this one was, like, his tenth ever published one)

16) the adventures of jerry muskrat

17) the tale of doctor Doolittle. Fun! Kiiiiiinda racist in the africa parts, but an overall good time! (I'm more familiar with the Doolittle movies, but was surprised to learn that Doolittle's ability to speak to animals was something he learned with effort and practice, and not a magic power or weird innate ability of his. It was an interesting read!) 18) Nomads of the North. Fun animal romp. I Flinched at the use of "fat" "tar baby" "half breed" and "Indians". First half is mostly about the bear, then a sudden sharp turn to mostly about the dog. Kinda meanders, has no over-arching through-line, conflict or plot. (Apparently a movie was based off of this book, but focused more on the humans than the animals. Eh, it was the 1920s. what can you do) 19)falcons of nerabedla; short sci-fi novella about a bodyswap time traveler. Its… Fine. Not the greatest. A little too confusing and kind of wish they explained things more earlier on. Not really about the falcons. Even for a sci-fi, still pretty sexist in the future.(honestly I don't even know if I should count this as it's own book. I'm pretty sure it was a short story inside a bigger magazine?) 20) south American jungle tales. Enjoyable! Very strong jungle book vibes with a South American flare. The story with the racoon was pretty dark, though. 21) a gryphon's journey. Too fast pace. Characters have a habit of spilling their entire backstories onto arias without prompting. Not enough show, not enough explanation of how the gryphons work. Some aspects completely pushed to the sides, like the satyrs and naugi until the end. Very rushed. The skyhaven arc could have been its own book, the stygagryph arc could have been it's own book. The heron gryph arc could have been it's own book. Not enough time to get to know the characters or care about them. Arias speaks far too maturely for his age, I feel. (Still on a gryphon kick from the last... two years now? Mostly I'm waiting for the fourth book in the Griffin Ranger Series to come out before I read the third. The author said it would come out before the end of 2023, but that date came and went and it still isn't on amazon at the time of writing (which is now 9:26pm, jeez...) I want to read isthmus so bad, but I don't want to wait on a cliffhanger) 22) myths and legends from Alaska. Okay. Feels very white washed and overly simplified. missing nuance. Reader is so deadpan and monotone that the audio book was a slog to get through (One thing I was determined to do for my own enrichment this year was to read more legends and mythologies from other cultures. There are SO MANY cool creatures and monsters and ideas out there, and I just feel so LIMITED by the small amount I know. We humans come up with some of the craziest shit imaginable!) 23) the white czar; a story of a polar bear. Bad, boring, incredibly racist. Barely about the bear at all! 24) the twins of buster bear. Another thornton w. Burges book. Its middle of the road. Certainly not bad, but my least favorite so far. Just kinda dull, and the audio book was horrendous. (honestly if the audiobook wasn't so bad, I wouldn't have disliked it so much, but it was a CHORE to listen to this one. I mean, thank you librivox for doing all this work for free, but is it too much to ask for some sort of vetting process for your volunteer readers??) 25) the wishing stone stories; BEST thornton w burges book so far! I would have been obsessed with this book as a child. Transforming into animals to learn about their ways. Not super PG like the others. The animals hunt and kill and get killed. 10/10

26) lightfoot the leaping goat 27) Toto the bustling beaver. Both alright. Nowhere near as charming as thornton Burgess, but endearing none the less. A little more 4th wall breaking. Toto audio book fun with silly voices, but I don't like the description of "tramps". A little too humanized for me. Lightfoot audio book fucking trash. Almost gave up. (Both of these books were written by Richard Barnum, another children's xenofiction writer of the time, but I quickly came to realize that his writing style is just not for me. I listened to a handful of his books too, this year, but they left me feeling uncomfortable more often than not because common attitudes of the time period reeeeeally show through his work.) 28) the adventures of poor misses quack. How do these qualify as adventures. She lands in a pond, dumps her backstory for 60 percent of the book, finds her mate and lives happily ever after. Not very strong, not very adventurous. 29) Mother West Wind "When" Stories; a lot of fun, charming, Aesop fable-esque. Fun mythology for children. A little too much peter rabbit, but I understand why he's there 30) the adventures of tamba the tame tiger. Yeahhhh, this series isnt my thing. A little too humanized, and the audio book is fuck GARBAE. (Pretty sure I meant to say "fucking garbage" there, but "fuck garbae" is funnier)

31) joust 32) alta 33) sanctuary All really good! All revolve around dragons and their usage and care. The books are a liiiiiitle too serendipitous, with the right thing always happening at the right time. Vetch/kuron doesn't "fail" enough. Second book is the best so far because the magi are a legitimate threat and it feels like time is running out so they must always stay one step ahead. (All written by Mercedes Lackey, all about dragon husbandry with a nice Egyptian flare! Check them out! But... maybe skip Aerie, the last in the series. It's not really worth it.) 34)aerie weakest one. Ahketen was absolutely unbearable and I didn't like the literal deus ex machina at the end with the actual gods coming down to help. Final ranking in order from best to worst; 2)alta, 1)joust, 3)sanctuary and 4)aerie. 35) the adventures of johnny chuck. Fun, average. Simple but doesn't need to be complicated. First of the thornton books ive read where the main character forms a family with children as the main focus 36) blacky the crow. Fun and charming as always. Feels a little simpler than the others with only 3 main mini stories, two of which involve stealing eggs. I wonder if I can find a box set of these books. (Aaaand that wraps up all the books I read this year! 15 of them were from thornton w burgess, and I hope to read even more from him this year! If you know of Burgess' books, tell me your favorites! I'd love to discuss them with someone~)

2.WHOO! the time is now 9:50, and I am just starting on talking about my second goal, which was to finish the snowdin arc of Ghost Switch before its 5th birthday. I did this! I did this exactly on june 18th! (for public readers, anyway. Anyone on my patreon got the page early, but a one week difference isn't much in the grand scheme of things.) I also get to say that I passed the Snowdin Test this year! "What is the Snowdin Test," you might ask? well, it's something a mutual acquaintance of mine, from the Fan Fic Paradise discord I lurk in, made aaaaall the way back in 2018, right when I was just startin' out with Ghost Switch. (Hi, Vikingaspoke, I don't know if you follow me on tumblr, or even have a tumblr for that matter, but I want you to know I thought about your thesis every single day since you first posted it, and have been determined (har har) to succeed where so many other undertale stories have failed. I did it once with my Epic-long fan fic, You Monster, but to do the same in comic form was a new and unique challenge. it took me almost 5 years, but I got there in the end! Cutting out the memories, I've officially concluded snowdin and started waterfall just this year!) I've also got to mention that I think my estimation on how long it will take me to finish Ghost Switch is slowly unfolding to be oddly accurate. I've never made a comic this long, but back in 2019, when I made an anniversary comic for Ghost Switch's 1st birthday, I guestimated that it would take me roughly 11 more years to finish the story, meaning it would take me 12 in total from start to finish. Well, we are rapidly approaching the half-way point of the comic, and if I haul ass it get to 312 pages out by the 6th birthday, we very well might actually hit it. I haven't drawn up to page 312 yet, but it's strangely close. Granted, my guess didn't account for the length of the flashback segments, which may push it back, but the sheer Idea that the "vibes" I got on how long each arc would take just by roughly judging the time it took me to finish ruins as a baseline to compare... it's just weird, man. I just "felt" that snowdin would be 1.5 times as long as the ruins, waterfall 2 times as long as the ruins, and hotland+New Home also 1.5 times that of the ruins. I have no metric for this since the final scenes were not written out yet. It just... feels like it should be that, and I'm kinda scared at how on track it's been.

3. Third goal was to Rewrite my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22. I did this as well! It's still no where near a final draft ready for beta readers or anything, and towards the end of the year I got distracted writing the second book in the trilogy because this is an epic fantasy story so it just HAS to have three books. Maybe I'll self-publish these stories one day. it sure is the most passionate I've ever been about something original i've ever written, but I want to make sure the entire rough draft of all three stories is done first so I can easily go back and add hints in previous parts without having to retcon anything later down the line. I've already had to do it once, so no doubt in my mind I'll have to do it again when I start trying to wrap things up in the final book. Speaking of the sequel, that was my nano project for this year! I won, but much like 2021 and 22, I didn't finish the book. my 21/22 project ended up being roughly 80k words, and I still expect to add about 10k more when I add some missing scenes and flesh out some description. I don't think that will happen with the second book. If anything, I expect it to barely stick around 50k in total because I just know I wrote a lot of filler and junk and repetitive stuff in the first draft this year because I was STRUGGLING with nanowrimo this year. Idk yet if I'm going to make a rewrite of book 2 my nano project for 2024. we'll have to wait and see how I'm feeling once september/october rolls around.

4. My fourth goal was to write 4 one-shots for my fic collection of Blankets, Socks, and Pillow Talk, over on AO3. I didn't do this, mostly because I was too distracted with my original fiction this year. i DID write one one-shot, hilariously during nanowrimo when I was suffering from writers block. Hopefully this year will be different. I would like this fic collection to at least hit 50k words so it could be a full novel of short stories all on its own. I think I can do it, I just need the time and inspiration.

5. My fifth goal, and last one I achieved this year was to finalize the details of the waterfall arc. I'm sure I've said it before in the past, but all the major story beats for Ghost Switch were planned out well before I even drew the first page, but the scenes connecting them were filled in more as I went. Rest assured, I make sure the entire arc is scripted before I start it, but my dirty little secret is that the snowdin arc wasn't completely written until I nearly finished drawing the ruins arc, and I was well into the snowdin arc before the final scenes of the waterfall arc were written down. It is now, and has been for at least 10 months. This was a goal I always knew I would achieve. Sometimes the resolutions I make are things I know are gonna happen whether I want them to or not. Sometimes you just gotta give yourself a guaranteed win to boost your self-confidence, you know? (now I just need to do the same for the Hotland arc. I think it's gonna take me 3 years minimum to finish waterfall, just like it did snowdin, so I got time, but the sooner I figure out the dialogue, the better. Will I make that a goal for this year? Ehh, probably not. I just wanna focus on building a buffer first)

6. The one secret goal was not achieved. If it was, this post wouldn't nearly be as long and you all would have heard about it as soon as it happened. Idk if it will happen this year, or anytime soon. A vicious combination of anxiety, the economy, and the uncertain state of the world make me hesitant to even attempt this goal.

aaand those were all my serious goals for this year! the time is now 10:37, I am tired and dizzy. I'm gonna save this as a draft and get back to it tomorrow~ nighty night~

OKAY! IT'S JANUARY 3RD NOW, 8:34AM! LET"S CONTINUE!

my three casual goals, none of which I accomplished, were;

7) Finish writing clemency. While I didn't do this, I did think about the story a lot. If you've been around since late 2022, You'll know that when AI writing generators started gaining popularity, news broke that the internet was scraped for data sets, including fan fiction websites like AO3. This extremely pissed me off because Fan Fiction is... well, I guess there's no better word than "sacred" to me. The unadulterated desire to write, create, share and expand on media that has touched us, inspired us, (hell, even angered us!) and to do this all purely because we can and we want to, just to make connections with other people who were fans of the same media, people we may never meet, thousands of miles apart from us, who we can touch and inspire in turn... Fan fiction is a gift. it means so much to me, from the professional writer who writes ficlets as an exercise, to tweens just starting their creative writing journey by imagining themselves hanging out with their favorite characters, to the hobbyists who wanted to imagine how things would change if just one thing happened differently, to those who feel underrepresented in media, and want to see themselves be the hero. People working through shit, people who are just bored, people who love a story so much they will retell it a hundred times over so it never has to end. Young, old, girl, boy, fluent writers, to writers in fandom where english is not their first language. It's an amazing, nearly incomprehensible melting pot that can connect us all... and some CEO jerkoffs just wanted to steal all this heart-felt work and feed it to a machine to make a quick buck. I was so enraged, so violated that works of passion could be abused this way that I locked down all my fics on AO3, and you now need to be logged in to read any of them, and I didn't write a word of fan fic in over a year. Every time I thought my anger had cooled off, more news would come up about "AI" generated stories appearing in the kindle app, or authors having works published under their name without their consent because thieves are trying to make a quick buck with their identity to trick fans, or hear that tv show and movie writers being told they are worthless and replacable, and I would get mad all over again. I'm still mad just remembering it, and until actual laws are in place regarding the use of "AI" in art and writing, I'll stay mad, and my stories will be under lock and key. If some good has come out of it, I focused a lot more on original fiction this year, which I haven't shared online at all, so no fear of that being stolen, but I do miss writing fan fic more regularly, yet I can't stand the thought of something I make for fun being taken and used by someone else to line their pockets. It's like... the antithesis of the purpose of storytelling to begin with and makes me sick to my stomach.

WOW! That sure was a rant! Let's move on! My 8th goal and second casual one was to make a comic page buffer of 8 pages. I almost did this one! At one point, (like, the second week of december) I had a buffer of 5 pages because I was finishing up Memory 5 of ghost switch, but then I realized I could line up the end of the memory with the end of the year, and I ended up posting all of my reserve pages in, like, a week! During those weeks, though, instead of making more pages to keep the buffer supplied, I played a lot of video games instead, which I hadn't done since... october? because I didn't touch my PS4 at all during november while I was writing for nanowrimo, and I missed playing Horizon Foridden West and wanted to get back to it. Maybe this year, though? I'm dead set on trying to get to 312 pages before Ghost Switch's 6th birthday, which is, like, 30 pages away, so I gotta improve my output process regardless.

And the 9th goal of mine and the last of the casual ones, was to write that crack fic. This goal has been on my resolutions for a couple years now, but I still haven't done it. I'm gonna blame my AI hatred grudge for this, since it made me not to want to write any fan fic at all this year. I'll get to this someday, but maybe now I should put it on the back burner for some newer goals and projects~

Okay! The time is now 8:57! if you're still reading this stream-of-conscious ramble of mine, it's time for me to list off my goals for this year!

IN 2024 I WOULD LIKE TO...

Read 12 new books this year (one book a month)

Reach 312 pages of Ghost Switch by June 18th (the 6th birthday)

Build (and maintain!) a comic buffer of 8 pages

Go walking on 3 new greenways around my neighborhood

Go camping by myself

Make at least one new song comic

Finish 4 video games to as close to 100% as I can (currently looking at Horizon Forbidden West, the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue, Carto, Alba, Stray, Journey, Unraveled and The Talos Principle 2, as these games currently entice me the most, but I still want flexibility and options if one game ends up not clicking)

Finish the first rewrite of my 2023 nanoproject (this will probably end up being my nano24 project, if i'm being honest with myself)

Write 4 one-shots for BSapT

-- These 9 goals I want to be serious about, but like last year, I have some casual goals i want to do as well. They include...

10. Get reacquainted with Neocities and make a personal website

11. Learn to code to improve said website/learn to make games

12.Listen to the entire royalty free youtube library for reasons

13. Research every d.o.n.g. ever featured on VSauce, for neocities reasons.

I feel like I had a couple more off-handed things I wanted to do this year, but these 4 casual things are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Maybe I'll come back and add to this list later.

Alright! The time is now 9:37AM, and I have to go run some errands/do some house chores! Saving this again as a draft to come back to this later!

Okay! Done with errands, and it is 11:30am on the nose! Time to resume my inane ramblings and hopefully finish this thing within the next two hours.

One thing I mentioned in my recap/review of 2022 was that I never actually felt like I was looking back on the year in depth. So much was forgotten or blurred together with other years because I didn't keep track of it. Well, this year I kept a monthly diary, again in my personal discord of 1, and wrote in it whenever I felt anything of note or significance happened to me, or whenever I had reoccurring thoughts or feelings. i managed to write in it at least once a month, often times twice, that being every two weeks. I found the whole experience quite therapeutic, frankly, and I'll share snippets of it now, though I will cut out the more personal entries. Be forwarned! A lot of the following text is straight up copied and pasted from my diary entries, so there is a lot of misspellings and short hand. I'll try to fix some of the more obvious ones, but these paragraphs are just as stream-of-concious writing as the rest of this massive post. Anything in parentheses with A/N is me adding context right now on the present day!

january 5th, two very close coworkers of mine quit due to upper management being petty. These two employees had worked here for nearly two decades. They were married to each other and were the mom and dad of the work base, with everyone else relying on them, looking up to them, and going to them for their problems. Them walking out scared everyone lower on the pecking order, because we felt that we were no longer protected from manager bullshit with them gone. I was off the day they walked out and didn't get to say goodbye. the grief I felt upon learning they left caused me to have my first ever anxiety attack that night. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life. I try to keep in touch, but we don't talk much due to our age gaps and busy work lives.

in January I also had a body-horror nightmare that still makes me squirm just thinking about it. I dreamt no one in the world wore pants, but we were all cool with it because we had pockets built into our legs. Not like... fabric sewn into skin, mind you, I mean naturally evolved extra flaps of flesh over our thighs like the pouch of a cartoon kangaroo. flesh pockets. even in my dream I could feel them. the insides were surprisingly dry and smooth- no sweat or hair in there, but the sensation was uncomfortably irritating, like when you rub your knuckles too much and it feels sore. worst part of this dream was, I woke up, thought "thank god I'll for get this in a few hours", but then watched cartoons later that day and saw a... tom and jerry(?) short where tom also had built in pockets on his body which made me remember everything, and now I can't forget.

February 8th. Watched The Flight if Dragons. Good, campy 80s feel. Drags in some parts, rushed in others. Some aspects feel like they have 0 explanation. (How did peter separate from gorbash? Did peter know that denouncing magic would vanish him from the safe haven? What happened to the princess's parents? EVERYTHING with the wolf and whatever was going on between the huntress and knight. I also Watched 1996 dragonheart. Slow start, but good fun. Pretty decent cgi. Acting is downright TERRIBLE in places, but it was good campy fantasy fun in the end.

On february 14th, I dreamed of a haunted house, but the house wasnt malicious. It felt like a friend that worried for your safety when you left, because it was rooted to the spot and could not come to you when you were in trouble. I did not stay long, and felt melancholic when I had to leave. Once outside, I turned around and said "goodbye house" and waved it farewell. Then, in all the curtains and windows, dozens and dozens of shadowy human arms waved goodbye to me in return, wishing me well and safe travels. It would miss me, but not keep me prisoner, because a house is only a home if you had the freedom to leave and return when you wished.

March 18. I got recommended a video on YouTube about screen savers, and it reminded me of one that our family computer had in the early 00s. After searching for a while, I rediscovered it; the createacard screensaver pack. So many buried memories unearthed. The sense of wanderlust and inspiration and not over such beautiful art came rushing back to me; https://youtu.be/zFPKmnegK0c

I was generally tired for all of march, not having much energy for any project outside of my comic, and even that was starting to wear me down.

I played a lot of kingdom hearts 1 in late February/early march. Synthesized the Ultima weapon for the first time. Cried farming sniper wilds and stealth soldiers because they unsettle me. I'm trying to grind to level 100 before the game is over. Debated on doing a kh song comic this year (A/N: This did not happen)

I want to redo my personal website. Wix added an image file size limit, and my whole site currently surpasses that twice over. The wix site editor is slow and finicky any way. Looked into blogspot and WordPress. I want to start a xenofiction book review podcast. Are solo podcasts popular? I Looked into neocities. Felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and child-like wonder. Made my own account/basic website, but haven't edited anything yet.

I got hit with the seasonal depression late February/early march, watched some home gardening videos on youtube and got inspired. The videos I watched were about people building actual massive scale pond and lakes, but I just went to home depot and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, bought, like, 12 different kinds of vegetable and flower seeds, 3 long rectangular planters and 2 massive bags of dirt. I also bought some peat seed starters, a plant heating pad (which I might just give to my cat) and a plant light. I spent over 150$ total.

My cat turned 5 years old on the 15th this march as well!

In late april I got really into analog/digital horror args and unfiction realities. Been watching a lot of Night Mind and similar analysis videos (I'm too lazy and dumb to try and solve them myself).

April 28th. Maternal grandfather might be passing soon. He's been in and out of hospitals since late January, needs around the clock assisted living, and my mom and her sister are constantly having to take time out of their lives to help him. I hate it. It's stressful and aggravating to mom, the assisted living people are incompetent, and my mom is stretching herself thin, running ragged trying to do everything at once. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to anyone.

May 11th. Mom's computer has a solitaire program with hundreds of versions of solitaire, most of which have gone unplayed. Ive been trying new games and learning them through trial and error (the "rules" tab doesnt work because it accesses a file that is no longer installed on this computer). Ive found new favorites in "twenty" and in "carpet". It makes life just a little bit more interesting.

June 4th. Been really into watching blind lets plays of undertale from 2022/3 lately, as well as dissection/discussion of undertale's music. Also into shayy's undertale mods. Glad the fandom is still having fun with this game. Got interested in pokemon infinite fusion. Downloaded it, but havent played yet. Getting back into PMD, though I have to grind now for leveling and evolving mons I cant recruit. Took a break from listening to librivox books, but might pick it up again. Same with checking in on flight rising. This year will be it's 10th birthday iirc

Looked at my ao3 recently and noticed I havent written anything in over 6 months. Still mad about the AI data scraping. I didn't stop writing entirely though. I spent all of October, November, January and February writing an original story, and still really proud/excited about it. Finished typing the rough draft on Wednesday, taking a break before I start edits.

All my flowers I planted in February are dying. Has a lot of rain this year. I think they're getting over watered.

June 6th. Been thinking a lot about Hawaii recently. I miss my old school and house. Went to Google earth to look at it again. I think our old neighborhood of [REDACTED] was razed and rebuilt becuase the streets dont look the same. This makes me feel… Not quite sad or bitter, but hurt none the less. I knew ever since we moved here chances of going back would be slim, but knowing my most nostalgic childhood home is gone forever…

Saturday June 17th fucking sucked for everyone. Two coworkers got seriously injured at work. My car battery completely died and couldn't be jump started. Had to call for a tow and wait 2+ hours for it to arrive. Wanted to cancel but they told me I would be charged even if the tow never arrived. Got charged 80 extra dollars for a "wench fee" I didn't need, but they talked to fast for me to think about it. Massive accident on the 4-lane highway home put all traffic down to 1 lane, and we were stuck there an extra hour. Dairy Queen's lobby closed early, going to drive through only, sonic was OUT OF ICE CREAM, and the local grocery store was almost sold out too. Did not get home until almost 10pm. Both my car AC and my mom's car a.c. don't work. I FUCKING LOVE OWNING A CAR. IT'S SO MUCH FUN AND SO FREEING.

June 28. Been playing a new video game recently; horizon forbidden west. Price dropped by 50% on Amazon and I had a 10$ gift card so I got the game for 1/3 the launch price. It's okay so far. Been slowly exploring and uncovering the map, ignoring the main story and discovering secrets. There is definitely A LOT more to do in this game than in the first. Dont really like a lot of Aloy's line deliveries. Some of the controls are different which throws me off. Robo enemies cool as ever, though noticeably fewer dinosaur ones.

Mom continues to take care of her dad. Aunt does too. All of mom's free time and energy this summer has been stolen by him. She keeps insisting she won't have to look after him as much when he gets better. I don't think he's ever getting better.

All my flowers I planted back in March have died. It's just too damn hot for them. It's too hot for everyone. We have just hit ten straight days with weather in the triple digits. I'm miserable.

Might have to replace my laptop soon. It's almost 12 years old, the battery doesn't work anymore, it overheats, and it's super slow. Looking into gaming laptops.

June 29; grandfather passed away last night. All I feel is relief.

July 11th. I got gifted my grandfather's bed, but had to switch it back out with my old bed because it was too soft and fucking up my back. No lumbar support.

July wrap up: month went by sooo fast I can hardly believe it. Its too fucking hot. Texas is stuck in a heat cyclone. Havent played solitare in a while, or listened to audio books. I managed to do 7 jigsaw puzzles this summer, and hope to do one more. each one has been 1000 pieces minimum, with two being 2000 pieces, and 1 being 3000. I should have taken more pictures of them finished, but it's fun to know we finished one puzzle per week this whole summer.

August 5th; Wish I recorded some smaller details throughout the year, not realizing id want to recall the last time I did something. When was the last time I intentionally watched a movie or listened to a specific song? (but then again, how will I know I'm going to think the exact thought; "when was the last time I did X specific thing?") I rewatched wolf children 2 months back for the first time in years, same with relistening to HeyHiHello songs. Been having a lot of lower back pain lately. Stretching helps, but I can no longer sit or sleep in my favorite position without cramping up. I need to be perfectly straight and i hate it. (A/N: The very next night I pulled a muscle in my back so bad I thought I was paralyzed. for the first time in years, I had to call in sick to work because I could not physically move from my bed)

August 19th. Went to a chiropractor. No pinched nerves or slipped disc, just a pulled muscle. Stretching helps and have been wearing a back brace. Finally had grandpa's memorial on the tenth. It was nice to learn he made friends at his community center. I'll try to be out going when I'm old too. Doctors would not sign his death certificate for 7 weeks because they just didn't give a shit, and we finally threatened to call a lawyer. He finally got cremated.

August 30th- recently had to go to pepboys to get my car fixed again. It was "stuck" in neutral. Grandma came and picked me up to let me go home. She said she doesnt plan to be driving much longer and intends to give her car to me. I dont know how to feel about this. Grateful for the future gift? Sad that she is getting older? I had to have my car towed and had to leave work early, which I hate doing because it makes me feel like I'm leaving everyone else to do my work, but I did not want another repeat with the towing situation that happened in june.

September 19th. I finally put on my brave face and ordered a new laptop for myself earlier this month (the 5th to be precise) and today it finally arrived. I bought myself an HP omen gaming laptop. It's so nice, but also different and a little scary trying to adjust to all this new interface. I went from using windows 7 for the last 11 years to jumping into windows 11. It'll be an adjustment. Gotta re-download all my old programs and transfer my files. Hope my drawing tablet will still work on this laptop. Might have to buy a new one of those as well. I already hate the subscription model being used if you want to do ANYTHING with the tech YOU BOUGHT nowadays. Goodbye microsoft office! It was fun while I knew you! I got libreoffice now! Fuck off adobe! OpenShot and Shotcut are my video editing programs now! I still need to learn my way around OBS, opentoonz, and pencil2d, but I gotta say there's something.... rustic? homey? about having a desktop full of opensource programs made by people who want to help other creatives free of charge. I miss the days where you buying something meant you own it forever, but free homegrown programs updated by community feels friendlier than just owning a shiny "offical" big named piece of software, I gotta admit.

The new laptop is wonderfully fast and silent. It cost me 2 grand so I hope it lasts just as long as my old one. There is no removable battery from what I can tell, which is sad. Also no disc drive. The keys light up rainbow which is cool (but I had to turn that feature off to improve battery life). I customized the desktop background to some concept art of the videogame RiME. (I thought I had saved the default bg pic from my old laptop to my external hard drive, but I guess I hadn't?) Funny to me that in the 10+ years of owning my second ever laptop, I never changed the wallpaper because I liked the default art so much. Might add more art to a file and have the wallpaper rotate. I want to replay RiME again too. Love the simple gameplay and strong colors of that game.

October 4th. So much has happened in 2 weeks, it feels much longer than that. I pretty much completely switched to using my new lap top ad my main computer, transferred all the files, downloaded a bunch of open source software for writing documents, video editing, streaming and animation. Fuck you Microsoft. I shouldn't need an account to use basic microsoft word. Hope to bring back page making streams next year for patrons~ ive even been playing some steam games that my old laptop just couldn't run, and quite a few new ones as well. Candleman, carto, so many fun and charming titles~ replaying snakebird because all my progress was lost 🥲I'm not mad. I love snake bird.

I have so much desire to do so many things, but not enough time to do them. I need to queue up my november posts for tumblr before I go on break. I need to get my oil changed soon. I want to go back on steam and play more humongous entertainment games. I want to write, I want to draw, I want to animate, I want to learn how to quilt and crochet and garden. I want to do it all right now all at the same time. I want to go on a nature walk. I want to see my friends.

Its finally starting to cool off. We still get in the 90s easily, but it rained last night for the first time in weeks, and we havent hit 100 degrees in a couple of days. Been reading a lot of webtoons lately. Been having the urge to start my own with my original storylines, or at least use webtoons as a backup/mirror for my fan comic. So many unique stories there all ready. So many fun art style and worlds to get lost in. I love stories and the people that tell them. The joy of creating a tale and sharing it with the world is humanity in its purest form.

November 1st: youtube is cracking down on adblockers. Havent had any problems yet on desktop, but on this day, my default youtube app on my lg smart phone started showing me ads for the first time in the 8+ years I've had it. I was so mad that i forced stopped the app, and logged into youtube through an ad block browser app instead. Some of the app's features will be missed, like being able to watch a video and search at the same time, but these little annoyances are nothing compared to the fury I felt at being shown ads. I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted to for nanowrimo today because of this.

November 6th: I turned 31! Both my friends forgot my birthday, and I wasn't able to reserve a camping site for the April 8th eclipse next year! 🙃 ive been writing like mad for nanowrimo, but I'm still falling behind.

December 17. Has it really been a whole month since i last made a diary update? Thanksgiving came and went. No drama at our house but my mom and I watched an argument unfold in the yard of our neighbors. The one mobile game I play, dragon's world, officially shut down for me 4 days ago. I'm a little sad I could never 100% it, but glad I got as far as I did, and even managed to buy some dergs so it didnt feel all my hard earned gems went to waste. Havent uninstalled the app yet out of nostalgia, even though I only played this game for a year and a half. I made the mistake of reinstalling the google play store to look for a new dragon raising game, but none had the same appeal, and the reinstall caused my discord app to update and hate it ):< I kinda want to learn how to make a mobile game of my own like dragons world, but with gryphons instead and a focus on rescue/rehabilitation and zoology angle. (I mostly just dont like how common fighting is in these kind of games.) Finally been playing horizon forbidden west after a few months away. I'm not progressing the story, just trying to max upgrade all my gear. It's a fun challenge~

December 26, 2023. Got bit by a dog at work on Christmas. Right on the nail of my middle finger. He broke my nail but not my skin. Its odd. Thankfully I can still draw without much issue. I got a tetanus shot and flu shot just to be safe. Mom got me a tent for Christmas because I plan to go camping by myself next year, even though I wont get to see the eclipse on my outing.

The fan game undertale yellow came out on the 9th… Which was before my last journal update? I've been enjoying the game play but the story is just a little... eh. the sprite work is phenominal, though, no complaints there. I hate that it's making me want to write my own AU version of it already to "improve" it, since I think the story loses its way pretty much once you leave the ruins. (maybe I can try to shove it into Clemency in stead since i still haven't finished that either).

I watched a documentary on kangaroos on netflix this month. I had to play it at 1.25 speed because I swear they slowed down every single clip for the film to get it to a certain length. I also watched "dog gone trouble" which had terrible voice work and awful character design, and then "back to the outback" which was surprisingly well made even if the characters stumbled sometimes, but I'd easily recommend it. I want to watch more Christmas movies before the year is through. (A/N: this also did not happen).

Finally uninstalled dragons world today. My phone's been acting up. Hope I don't have to replace it soon. I don't like how, nowadays, the technology I pay for, I don't actually own, and features are being removed left and right. I'm afraid any "new" phone on the market offered now won't nearly last as long as my current one has.

Aaand that was a brief glimpse into my year! The time is now 1:10pm! I already have one other post going up today, so I'll queue this one to go up on thursday instead~ if you managed to read this far, thank you so much, i guess! I hope my ramblings don't make you see me differently as a person. It's odd reflecting on where I was in my life over these past 12 months, remembering my state of mind and the feelings I felt as I wrote these entries. I'll be sure to do it again this year.

Overall, did I learn anything?...no, I don't think so? I did come to the realization that at the end of every year, in multiple youtube videos and tumblr posts, people mentioned how hard the year was for them, but like... after june, for me, everything improved quite a lot. it doesn't feel right to say that 2023 was hard for me. It was unbearably sad for me at the beinging. annoying and (physcially) painful half way through, but once august hit... everything slowly started to get better, despite the small petty things I complained about in my journal entries above. youtube ads, car troubles and discontinued apps of games I enjoyed still feel like small potatoes when compared to what I accomplished. Finished writing a draft of personal fiction, finished a major arc of a fan comic, got a new laptop to stream and share art with others, played a bunch of new video games, and generally enjoyed life for the latter half of this year.

And it almost feels selfish to say that... I'm happy.

I hope I can stay happy in 2024 as well.

Thanks for reading~

Have a safe and joyous 2024~

#long post #year in review #new year's resolutions #2023 review

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nyxravessnow · 4 years ago

Text

Shin Tenimyu - Musical The New Prince of Tennis The First Stage Report

I saw the stream of the first performance of the The New Prince of Tennis musical awhile back and I wanted to write some of my thoughts. But I didn’t really enjoy the show and as I love tenimyu with all my heart, as it is my favourite show, I find it much harder to be super negative about the show when talking specifically about the show scene by scene. But with the casting news for 4th I thought that I would finish this so anyone who hasn’t seen the show can know my thoughts.

I tried to finish it, I really did. But I have no motivation to really talk in length about this show in a deep dive sort of way. I will keep what I did for the 1st half of the show but after that it will only be kinda a summary of my thoughts.

I have only seen the first night and I do not intend to see anymore of this show. I was incredibly disappointed and didn’t not make me want to see the show again or really any of the shin tenimyu shows but I will still watch those as a bad first show doesn’t mean all of them will be bad but I don’t think shin tenimyu will ever really be my thing.

I will say that Tokki, Raima and Maeda-chan are actors I love so I am a little biased towards them

Bare in mind that this was the first performance and while I am not taking that into consideration for my criticisms things could definitely improve before the final show, the one that will be on dvd.

Overall the show was about a 4-6/10 for me. There was only really one scene that brought it to a 6 and without it it would be a 4.

Music: 2/10.

Direction: 1.5/10.

Acting: 6/10

Spoilers under the cut

Actors

Imamaki Hikaru - Echizen Ryouma: All round a solid 6/10. He was cute and delivered his lines very well but still has far to go with his singing and the design on his hair really sticking out from the sides of his hat made him seem much younger which I was not a fan of. This was a problem I had with early Nichika of them making Echizen seem too young and innocent. Like of course he is 13 and is a child but he isn’t this cute adorable boy. He can be cocky and he isn’t all innocent so I hope they don’t keep making the Echizen’s appear super young in this way.

Yamada Kento - Tezuka Kunimitsu: 8/10. I don’t think I really have any issues with his Tezuka at all. He had a very good voice, really good acting.

Houjuyama Shun - Momoshiro Takeshi: 6/10. He has a really good voice for Momo when speaking but his singing leaves a lot to be desired. He didn’t really do very much in the show so I can’t rate him higher than a 6 as I don’t remember very much that he did bar the Oni match.

Gaku - Tachibana Kippei: 7/10. Similarly to Shun I don’t really remember him but his singing was quite good so this is where he landed

Takahashi Ryouya - Atobe Keigo: I’m sorry 1/10. He is an excellent singer and performer but there was nothing about his performance that made me think of Atobe. His voice was quite high, he was not very confident (Blending into the background when it wasn’t his match), saying his lines softly, moving softly. If I couldn’t see the wig I would not have known he was Atobe. I really hope that he can gain some confidence to play Atobe or else I think he was the wrong actor for the role.

Maeda Ryuutarou - Kirihara Akaya/Hiramatsu Raima - Tooyama Kintarou: 10/10. I put these two here together because what I want to say is the same for both. You could absolutely tell they had been in the show before. The two brought confidence not many others had to their roles. They controlled their stage and as soon as they stepped onto it they were their characters. Every movement and every line was exactly like the character. I am so happy that they are continuing in tenimyu and hope that they will help the cast get to their level by the end of this run or maybe in future shows.

Takemoto Yusuke - Shiraishi Kuranosuke: 9/10. By far my favourite of the new cast members. I know a lot of people were apprehensive that he might play Shiraishi as sexy too much but he didn’t at all. He was excellent. The only reason that he isn’t a five is there are still some tiny things he could polish but once those are polished he will be perfect.

Matsushima Hiroki - Chitose Senri: 7/10. Ngl I keep forgetting that he was in this show. His doubles with Tachibana was quite forgetful and he didn’t have any major moments but was also quite good and not many problems in his performance.

Shintani David - Lilident Krauser: 10/10. Like Maeda-chan and Raima you could tell that he had been in the show before, albeit much less than they had. For anyone who doesn’t know, he was an understudy and doubled as the part of Lilident in vs Rikkai Nationals. Very solid performance

(Warning I know much less about the high schoolers so this will be more on their acting in general rather than whether they were good as that character)

Ono Kento - Tokugawa Kazuya: ?/10. He was barely in the show and I have no idea how I could rate his performance. Pretty solid.

Okamoto Yuuki - Oni Juujirou: 8/10. Solid performance. Good enough singing for the role.

Aiba Hiroki - Irie Kanata: He wasn’t in the show so I can’t write a judgement of his performance

Yasue Kazuaki - Irie Kanata: 9/10. He was so excellent. Singing, acting, everything was top notch. Similarly to Yusuke he’s only not 10 because he has some small things to polish.

Chanhe (dunno how to spell his name) - Nakagauchi Sotomichi: 6/10. No real comments, pretty solid.

Matsushima Yuunosuke - Yamato Yudai: 6/10. Pretty good, singing okay.

Suzuki Ryouhei - Miyako Shinobu: 6/10. Didn’t have many lines or do very much, pretty overshadowed by Tokki (Will cover him next). What he did do was good, singing could use some improvement.

Tauchi Tokihiro - Matsudaira Chikahiko: 10/10. Absolutely perfect. He brought so much energy and character to his performance that I don’t think any other new actor brought. He owned the stage, even competing with Maeda-chan for my attention when on stage. He had so much presence and would draw your eyes to him. He made everything seem so natural and not acted. Like the continuing actors he became his character on stage rather than acted them out.

Takahashi Shunichi - Suzuki Shun and Tsurimoto Minami - Washio Issa: 6/10. Didn’t do too much, pretty solid performance.

Murakami Kouhei - Kurobe Yukio/Izumi Shuhei - Saito Itaru: 6/10. Pretty standard for a coach. Singing was good.

Kishi Yuuji - Mifune Nyuudou: 10/10. Absolutely amazing. Everything about his performance was perfect. By FAR the best voice in the cast, incredible singing.

Direction and choreography

I am not a director so I cannot be too specific about details but I can say what I liked and didn’t. (Every comment is specifically about the direction not singing or acting). I have studied theatre though so I do have some insight from that angle Also, please don’t criticise what I classified as the same scene and what as different.

Scene 1: Echizen in America, 1st song

Good beginning, very solid for a first show opening.

Scene 2: High schoolers practicing while middle schoolers arrive, coach song

Felt very reminiscent of the vs Fudomine shows where Echizen first arrives at Seigaku, I really liked this.

Scene 3: Middle schoolers and high schoolers collecting dropped balls, middle schooler song

Was not a fan. I didn’t like how close everyone was but also randomly placed. I know it is inevitable with such a small cast of middle schoolers but I would have liked to see them more with their teammates in little clusters and slowly appear in front of Seigaku. Maybe even projecting images of other middle schoolers getting balls if none are to appear.

I did like how Echizen arrives out of the back at the end though

Scene 4: Oni vs Momoshiro, Oni solo, Momo solo

Done pretty well, will talk in other section about stage design. Both actors were solid in their tennis, no missed moves that I saw. Built up Oni’s power well, showing him as a strong player. Showed Momo’s desperation well in the blocking.

Was not a fan of only having unknown high schoolers watching on. Makes sense in an anime or manga that has time to build up and unlimited cast but this show only has three hours to build up characters that may never return or become more important later. They did not need lines but would have been interesting to see them watching the match

Scene 5: Saito and Kurobe

Pretty simple scene, just the two talking. Pretty gay.

Scene 6: Saito talking to the middle schoolers about elimination matches, Saito solo

I think the middle schoolers could do with being less clumped up around him as it makes the cast of characters seem small and does not give an indication of scale. Liked the stillness of the middle and high schoolers during his song.

Scene 7: Echizen and Kinchan meet Tokugawa and Oni, Echizen vs Tokugawa, Echizen and Tokugawa duet

I really love the way Oni and Tokugawa are tall and imposing and unmoving or slow moving on the outside of the stage where as Echizen and Kinchan are being active in the middle, shows contrast between the characters well.

I really like there not being a net here reinforcing that Kinchan and Echizen just run off and do their own thing with no regard for officiality.

Did not like the two random ensemble cast members appearing to watch and commentate, felt very weird and slightly meta.

Scene 8: Elimination matches

I have EXTREMELY mixed feelings here. On the one hand I think the direction is excellent with the spotlight, the figures who lose falling and the single lines echoing. On the other hand, I hate that they didn’t have many of the matches and skipped over them completely, especially the lack of cast members (which I will touch on later). If they do the elimination matches in another show and this was building up to it then I take back my negative comments and I’ll be very happy about that. But if not I think this was not enough to cover them, especially since so many were missed out

Scene 9: Kinchan vs Oni, Kinchan and Oni duet

I really love this scene. A lot of, again, slow movements from Oni contrasting the never still form of Kinchan. Probably my favourite choreography from the show with Kinchan darting back under Oni’s legs. Doubles to show Oni’s maturity vs Kinchan’s childishness as well as showing Oni not taking Kinchan too seriously and letting him just run around aimlessly before he beats him.

Scene 10: Irie and Chitose talking

No real comments, they just stood and talked.

Scene 11: Saito takes Kinchan and Echizen to the mountain

Liked them lying on the floor together, part of a series of things linking Kinchan and Echizen together. It was a bit weird seeing Tokugawa just watching them lie on the floor and catching their breath before giving them a message and leaving. Liked Saito picking them up by their collars, gives the impression that he doesn’t care that they are children. Which he doesn’t. Scene of climbing suffers from lack of actors as this could be a good place to add in comedy, which the show is lacking, but since they only have Momo, Echizen and Kinchan, none is created.

Scene 12: Mifune solo (ft. Echizen and Kinchan )

Loved how he is sat in the beginning, instantly shows his character. Along with his heavy slow movements and slightly hunched back. Liked it showing the middle schoolers climbing in the background, showing that he is not caring about their effort or wellbeing in getting to him. Liked the breaks to show Echizen and Kinchan and the complete shift in tone, will talk more about later in song, but also in lighting and speed of movement.

Scene 13: Middle schoolers arrive at the camp, hs vs ms outside match

Love the distance between the high schoolers, creating a sense of scale. Despite looking down usually being a sign of strength from the person standing you got a sense of Mifune’s power as they are all looking down on him sipping his sake.

Loved the lighting for the high schoolers vs middle schoolers match. Fluid movements of the hs vs the random movements of the middle schoolers.

Scene 14: Training back at the main camp, ms getting their place on court 5

Really liked the running on a off stage but would have liked to see characters return to stage and run off again like a consistant training menu and would have liked to see the words detailing their training be on the screen for a tad longer.

Liked the short matches between the ms and hs but would have liked to see the hs look a bit more helpless in their movements.

Scene 15: Coaches talking, court 5 and 3 meet, Irie and Tokugawa chat

Coaches talking is pretty standard

Liked the ms entering from different sides vs court 3 entering from the same side. Gives the impression that court 3 is a team whereas 5 is a lot of good individual players thrown together.

Chat again, pretty standard

Scene 16: Oni talking to his court, court 5 song

I like them being spread out. Like them walking around at the beginning of the song with only Oni spotlighted to show he is bringing them together.

Scene 17: Yamato and Tezuka talk

Like the distance between them, showing how far apart they had grown due to time and also in personality, contrasted later during their duet.

Scene 18: Lining up, Nakagauchi vs Liladent

Liked contrast between Oni being just behind court 5 whereas Tokugawa is behind the bench (?). Of course court 3 isn’t Tokugawa’s court but it reminded me of Oni actively helping his court vs Tokugawa sending Echizen away to improve.

Pretty standard tenimyu match with no songs. Liked the show of Nakagauchi’s power by showing him being thrown into a fence, like Taka-san one of the strongest middle schoolers was in Shiten, but being unaffected by this. Of course I know it was done in the original so they also had to do it but I like how the direction is similar in both cases.

Scene 19: Shiraishi and Akaya vs Miyako and Matsudaira

BEST SCENE OF THE SHOW. If every scene was like this one the show would be 10/10. Without this scene the show would be a 4/10 or perhaps lower.

Miyako and Matsudaira’s song was great.

Shiraishi’s solo was so good.

Shiraishi and Akaya’s duet is by far and away the best song in the show. The only song that really felt like ‘tenimyu’ and reminded me of what I loved about tenimyu.

Scene 20: Camp training, Mifune sends Echizen/Kinchan/Momo to get Sake, Mifune solo

Pretty solid, suffering from a lack of actors and it felt a bit flat. Mifune’s singing was amazing again, though I think he did slightly get too many songs bc Mifune isn’t as important to the plot as the musical seems to make out, as far as I’m aware.

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So, that’s the first half.

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SOMETHING VERY NEGATIVE AND HARSH, PLEASE STOP HERE.

This show might be one of my least favourite 2.5d shows I have ever seen. The dancing was okay, the singing wasn’t great, the show did not feel well thoughtout and it was just so disappointing. So, many of the actors were rather underwhelming and despite so much going on the show felt boring.

I may have not read the shintenipuri manga but I have seen the anime and it is really funny. This show was barely funny, so many jokes were cut out seemingly for no reason other than the characters who made the jokes not being there. But I do not understand why there weren’t there. I get they couldn’t have every shintenipuri character there but there are quite a few I think they could have added that would have brought a lot, not just to fill the numbers as the stage did feel quite empty quite a few times. Sanada, for example, would have been a very good addition to the cast he speaks to a few of the people there, he rallies the middle schoolers going up the mountain and they already use him quite a bit through voice recording so I do not see why they couldn’t actually cast him.

The show was just lacking the heart that normal tenimyu has. Every tenimyu show before this, even the ones I haven’t enjoyed as much like Remarkable Match Fudomine or Seigaku vs Shitenhoji 2nd season, made me want to watch them again. They still drew me in and got me invested in the characters, partly because of excellent chemistry between the actors. Honestly, so few of these actors had good chemistry with one another. Raima and Maeda-chan quite honestly felt good with everyone. Tokki and Ryouhei were good as Miyako and Matsudaira, Kento and Yuunosuke weren’t bad as Yamato and Tezuka and Ryoya and Kazu were pretty okay. I didn’t feel a connection between almost anyone else. I don’t know if this was the actors not feeling comfortable with each other or the fast pace of the show that left no time for actors to develop in character chemistry but I am leaning towards the 2nd as the backstage photos would suggest they got on well.

This show felt like tenimyu’s attempt to make a Toho show. And it did not work. The show took itself way too seriously instead of in normal tenimyu where they seem to have a blast and it’s okay to understand that the show is ridiculous. I don’t know if this is at all what they were attempting but with the new attitude and the actors from Toho, especially Mifune’s actor who they gave a lot of solos to, it certainly felt like that to me.

I am not just being negative about shin tenimyu because I wanted tenimyu to stay the same forever. I was very prepared for new things in shin tenimyu but I don’t think the approach of let’s keep virtually nothing from past tenimyu really appealed to me. I honestly did like some of the new stuff they tried but I think they should have kept more things the same and phased stuff out later down the line when people were more onboard with shintenimyu. I.e. not in their first show.

I will talk more about the issues I had with casting in my next post as I will finally talk about the casting of 11th Seigaku and 4th Fudomine.

RANT OVER

Okay, now I’ve gotten a lot of my negative thoughts out of the way.

Thanks for reading this half review, and I’m sorry it took so long. I personally wouldn’t recommened to anyone who is a massive tenimyu fan to check out this show but please don’t just take my word but see what other people think to.

Please continue to support my reviews and leave a like and maybe send me a message so we can chat about stuff.

#self #rant #shin tenimyu the first stage #the new prince of tennis musical #the first stage #review #negative

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paodequeijofeliz-blog · 4 years ago

Text

Let me tell you a good story

Bloodbound Fanfiction (characters and main story belongs to Pixelberry Studios).

Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed and MC (Annie)

Information: this takes place after Bloodbound 3, here I’m recreating how Kamilah and MC would meet if she had never gone to Raines Corporation right away.

Summary: Thirty years after meeting Annie for the first time, Kamilah is now a wife and a mother. During a regular family dinner, she decides to tell her daughter and their new son-in-law the story of how she fell in love with Annie after an unusual meeting through the hallways of NYU.

Warnings: there is just a little bit of smut talking in the end. A little. Barely.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Let me tell you a good story - Part 7 (Finale)

March 2nd, 2048

“Okay, okay. Shoo everyone. So. Where was I?” Anna scratched her eyes again. “Right, at the gala. After breakfast, Kamilah asked me to stay at the Penthouse, cause’ it would be easier to just get dressed there… Which lead to a day of not working so much, no details needed, of course. Until we finally showered and got ready to go.”

“Me in forty minutes. She…” Kamilah poked her wife’s head. “Took three hours.”

“Yeah, she still does that” Lysia sighed in confirmation, remembering how her mother took ages to get ready for the daughter’s graduation. “That’s why you’re getting dressed way before me, when the wedding comes.”

“I wanted to look pretty, ok? It’s not every day that a smoking hot rich brilliant woman ask you to be her date.” Anna defended herself, fighting a yawn. “The part you want to hear happened after we were already there…”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

September 16th, 2018

The gala was being held at one of those rich, huge, and fancy hotels, worldwide known, that Anna never really memorized the name.

“Baccarat Hotel, darling. In Manhattan.” Kamilah added, but her piece of information was dismissed by a “Whatever Rich Hotel, doesn’t make a difference” response from her wife.

The event was set to start at 8 pm, so it was already dark outside. The city lights and camera flashes glowed on Annie’s dress when she stepped out of the limousine. That outfit was carefully selected to match Kamilah’s. A dark shade of blue with tiny crystals, like the night sky, making the historian’s smooth skin look like a dangerous temptation. The back was barely covered, and even though it seemed to hug her tight on the breasts, it got looser as it approached the hem, floating and following the woman’s movement. It was beautiful, indeed, but nothing compared to her date.

Kamilah was so absolutely gorgeous, Anna couldn’t help staring at her through the entire ride there, and almost lost her breath when she saw that wonderful goddess looking over the shoulders and smiling invitingly. It was the most beautiful vision in the world.

“Darling, what a coincidence, I was thinking the same thing when I saw you that night” the Egyptian laughed, a hint of red flashing through her eyes, “And you’re still the most beautiful vision in the world, with or without a Versace’s dress on you.”

“I do remember you saying ‘without’ was even better in the end of the night…” Anna looked up to meet Kamilah’s gaze, almost loosing track of the story. “So…”

Kamilah’s gown was a silver provocative mermaid cut with a deep neckline and a set of elegant sapphire jewels. They were the night and the stars, and what the Egyptian didn’t know by them, is that one day, years ahead, Annie would hold her hands on the altar an make vowels to ‘always support you, as the night sky supports the moon and the stars, for you are and always will be my entire galaxy’.

Back then, the only thing they were both aware was the intense feeling pulling them together through the event. For the first couple hours, their sole attention was focused on each other. Both danced, drank and laughed like they were the only two people standing on that ballroom. And even though they didn’t kiss, trying hard to maintain the professional boundaries intact (at least in front of the rest of the employees), it was evident to everyone that something was going on. After the sixth waltz, Kamilah felt this urge to just lean in and kiss the woman she had on her arms, sinking in desire, but Adrian interrupted them right on time.

“Excuse me.” He touched Anna on her elbow, capturing the historian’s attention. “Maybe it’s time for you two to blend in. Why don’t we greet the volunteers who are going to be working in the basement with you next month, Ms. Mali? Kamilah needs to have a moment with the senator as well.”

“Of course, Mr. Raines.”

With a last sparkling smile, Annie left her date and followed Adrian’s lead to a group of people by the bar. They weren’t really interesting to talk to and the conversation flew in circles, getting so dull that soon enough she saw herself drinking more champagne than the recommended. At some point, the main topic became Ms. Sayeed. One of them, Mr. Paul Lynn, was excited to work for her.

“Hold your horses, pal. She can be such a pain in the ass.” Annie finally said something, an empty glass on her hands.

“Really? People said she’s a little bit tough, maybe demanding, but a nice person in general.” Paul landed his eyes beyond Annie’s shoulder, quickly composing himself, but the historian didn’t notice this subtle change of posture.

“Good evening. Am I interrupting?” Kamilah’s voice showed up right beside Anna, her gorgeous features monopolizing every single eye on that group.

“Not at all. We were just chatting about work, how’s the project, the documents, the boss…” Annie also didn’t see how Paul and the others got tense over her words, since she could only stare at the one in silver beside her. “They want to meet Ms. Sayeed soon… But as I was saying, don’t get your hopes up, Paul. Besides being annoying, she’s never around. Never. Definitely not checking on us down in the basement.”

“Uhm… Well, I’m sure Ms. Sayeed probably has too many things to do… Right?” said the tall blond woman named Leah, a new archivist there. Her eyes flickered between Anna and Kamilah, unsure what to think of it.

“I seriously doubt it.”

“Why do you think that?” the Egyptian crossed her arms, dropping an amused glare over Anna. That was getting interesting.

“Well, come on, if this is so important to her, why haven’t I met the woman yet? She doesn’t even sign my paycheck, Mr. Raines does it. I bet she’s somewhere fancy right now, having a hot bath and laughing at the poor souls that have to deal with her freakin’ thousand emails every day.” Anna sighed tiredly, too much champagne in her system. “As I said before, a real pain in the ass. When you think you made progress, there comes Ms. Sayeed with a new order. I swear, there are days my phone buzzes so much, seems like it’s trying to jump from my pocket and commit suicide. That’s her thing, you know? Boss around. Not even a polite ‘thank you for working overtime today’. So yeah, the project is great, Mr. Raines and Kamilah here are both amazing, but throw away any ideas of bonding with Ms. Sayeed.”

“Ms. Sayeed, they’re ready for your speech.” They were interrupted by an elegant man in tuxedo who offered his hand to walk the Egyptian to the stage.

At first, Annie frowned in confusion.

Then, her eyes met Kamilah’s and all the pieces finally connected correctly. The company, the situation, when and how they met, what she said that night, why Ms. Sayeed was never introduced to her…

“Holy shit, I’m fucking the real boss.”

“You’re WHAT?” Paul dropped his chin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“OH. NO.” Drake also dropped his chin, just like Paul did so many years ago. “OH NO, OH NO, OH NO”

“I was mad at her!” Annie tried to defend herself, cheeks getting redder by the second. “All I knew was that Ms. Sayeed would only text me orders. Never said ‘hi’, or something nice. Because the one who was saying something nice, in my understanding, was a different person!”

Kamilah couldn’t comment on it, since she was bursting into laughs. No story could make her laugh so much like that one. Slowly, she started to steady her breath, a hand placed over her own chest. By the window, Adrian was also cleaning the tears out of his eyes.

“Come on, mommy…” Lysia smiled kindly at the blushed woman on the floor. “Don’t mind them. We all love you the way you are. Continue the story.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Anna had never wanted to burry herself on the ground that much in her entire life. She didn’t even hear the speech, the chock written all over the Brazilian’s face. Kamilah looked gorgeous under the spotlight, confident, professional. Surely was saying some pretty intelligent stuff too. Annie just couldn’t understand it, since she was momentarily deaf. Petrified. Half a glass of champagne still lingering between her fingers. At some point, the speech was over, but the historian only realized it when Adrian touched her back and whispered a request. She heard it, but apparently forgot every single word in English.

“Quê?”

“Dance with me, will you?” He asked again while gently leading her away from the group. Anna only realized what was happening by the time his hand held her waist and helped her to move around at the sound of a slow song. “Hey. Are you ok? Can you hear me?”

She nodded, not risking saying anything.

“Don’t beat yourself so much, Kamilah could’ve told you the truth long ago, but she was having too much fun with this little secret.”

“Huh.” That’s all her voice was able to project.

Adrian muffled a short laugh, bringing her closer and waltzing away from the others. In a couple minutes, they had escaped those curious eyes, approaching the corner of the ballroom, where he slowly diminished the steps to end the dance. “Now, I believe here you’re safe.”

Annie’s gaze wondered around, still lost in her thoughts. She only noticed Adrian had left when Kamilah’s voice echoed sensually by her ear, making the historian shiver and tense like a statue. Her eyes lifted to find brown ones intensely glaring at her.

“Good evening, Ms. Mali. My name is Kamilah Sayeed, and I’m the CEO of Ahmanet Financial. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the woman who’s leading my most important project. It has come to my attention that you have a few issues towards me and my… Bossy manners. However, it could only be a mistake since last night you seemed really comfortable following my orders in the bedroom.”

Anna bit her lower lip, still quiet.

“Oh, no words? Not a single complaint? What a pity, I was so longing to meet the dazzling historian who managed to criticize my thesis with no mercy.” Kamilah’s fingernails went down Annie’s back smoothly, not leaving marks behind. “Why don’t you come with me to the suite upstairs so we can discuss how many ways am I able to be a real pain in your ass?”

Without even waiting to hear a response, she slapped the historian’s butt before heading to the service elevator with a shining room card sticking out of her neckline.

Anna followed. Hypnotized. No questions asked.

Never again she complained about being bossed around by Ms. Sayeed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Aw, there’s a happy ending.” Drake’s arms were involving his fiancée’s waist, tightening. “So, maybe you were right, baby… They do have a much better love story.”

“Oh, but we’re not done, there is way more. A couple days after that, something terrible happened with Lily, so much changed, and I…” Annie scratcher her eyes for the third time.

That was it. Kamilah leaned down to take the woman in her arms. “It’s time to go to sleep, my love. We’ll tell them the rest on our next dinner, I promise.”

Anna didn’t even have the strength to resist. She was terribly tired, and her wife’s embrace was too damn comfortable. “Fiiiiiiine… Tomorrow night…”.

Adrian smiled fondly at them. With a silently nod and a good night kiss on Lysia’s forehead, he left to his own apartment. Drake and Lysia went to the guest room after cleaning up the table, while Kamilah slowly got up and took Annie into bed.

The historian mumbled something incomprehensible when was lay there.

“What, darling?” the vampire leaned down to hear it better, spooning Anna by instinct.

“I love you, Mrs. Sayeed.”

Kamilah smiled, turning her face to place a kiss on the girl’s temple.

“I love you too, Mrs. Sayeed.”

#kamilah x mc #kamilah sayeed #bb kamilah #choices kamilah #choices: bb #choices: stories you play #I'm so sorry if I wrote something wrongly I keep making a huge confusion #all the time I exchange then for them #somehow there was a part I exchanged glare for glass #and I am an English teacher #who the hell thought it was a good idea to let me teach???#call my boss and tell him I suck please

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watchtheblog · 4 years ago

Text

petty cache

thank you for coming to read my diary which masquerades as a blog but is actually just a vessel for disseminating my birthday wishlists. it’s like an event you show up to where the host tries to sell you a timeshare 25 minutes after some requisite, mindless song and dance.

welcome! if you’d like purchase a timeshare, scroll to the bottom. for the song and dance, look no further:

the other day i zoned out on zoom therapy and when my therapist asked where i “went” i had to lie because i had gone to the part of my brain that holds all the things i need to think about forever for no reason (i call it the petty cache — this is an umbrella term for the space that also houses my attitude cabinet) and dusted off a memory of a comment i saw on a stranger’s facebook three weeks ago that said “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”.

i don’t know either person, and that’s what i was thinking about. i spend $[redacted] a month on therapy and instead of focusing on one of my numerous unsolved mysteries, i was thinking about the nuances of this comment - like why they wouldn’t just share the news or message the person directly? or what losing their password had to do with anything? or why they would comment on facebook instead of texting or calling the person. did they not have their number? imagine not knowing someone well enough to have their phone number, but still wanting to share your good news with them!

all i want (for my birthday) is to know what the news is that this stranger has to share, and i’ll never know so i have to put that comment in my minutiae repository with all the other things that will plague me until i die from texting and driving, smoke inhalation as a result of purposely leaving a candle lit in my home overnight almost every night, consuming half a dozen hot dogs a week, or a now unnamed disease that will posthumously be attributed to my chronic inability to mind my own business.

i’m constantly concerning myself with things that are none of my concern - no matter how insignificant - because my brain is a commune of sentient pepperoni running instagram polls among themselves to discern if something is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about. and guess what? it turns out absolutely everything that has ever offended, confused, bothered, intrigued, slightly inconvenienced, or merely happened to me is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about.

because i devote so much energy to nonsense, i can often be found persecuting strangers for insulting me on the internet (and for other miscellaneous bad behavior). the information superhighway is my home so i have to protect myself (and my friends) here, and if that means spending 45 minutes to 48 hours trying to find every misstep you’ve made in your life until i have enough ammunition to spray a dozen simulated retaliatory bullets at your virtual head because you called me a “stupid bitch” on instagram, well… so be it!

i am relentless in my pursuit of wasting time, so if that doesn’t work, i will find the cold stone creamery you frequent, seek employment there, be hired on the spot, learn the craft, be promoted to manager, poison you on your birthday, gain access to your funeral, and tarnish your reputation by reading your shitty DM in front of the few family and friends whom i haven’t already made aware of the abhorrent way you conducted yourself online!

there are so many different ways strangers will try to hurt your feelings — an interesting genre of which come from men who (like me) have definitely never had sex before, and mistakenly think i care about the ways in which my body does not make them horny.

“no tits” one will say. and i’m like, how do you want me to respond to that? my boobs are indeed small, yes. did you come here to shoot facts back and forth all day? ok: you’re going to start balding way sooner than you’re prepared for, i bet your childhood dog is dead, your time on the internet should be supervised, your closet is full of vests, and you wait on line at nightclubs… good day?!

while i will obviously engage with anyone if they want to fight, i prefer when the unsolicited criticism is personalized, and not just thoughtless, lazily devised tripe.

a year and a half ago, a man who looked like he exhales smog DMed me to let me know - among other things in a paragraph long rant - he’d “lost brain cells” watching my story. knowing he had likely never had an adequate amount to begin with, it seemed like an emergency, so i started a group DM with his wife. because his message had come just three days after a “fuckkk [heart eye emoji]” response to a photo of my ass, i included a screenshot as evidence of his devolving mental state.

being - presumably - gainfully employed, neither of them responded.

luckily, the consolation prize for insulting me is that you gain residency in my brain and stay in my thoughts and prayers for all eternity, so i checked in on them a few days ago. they’d unfollowed and wiped their feeds clean of each other!!

because i’ve never “moved on” in my entire life, i fired up our long dormant group chat, and sent my condolences: “aw. sorry your trip to positano - where you were going to attempt to repair your ramshackle marriage - got cancelled because of covid and so you just got divorced instead :(” i wrote before being blocked by both of them.

then i headed right over to my therapist’s facebook and commented “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”

i spent an entire therapy session detailing this monomania before my therapist thoughtfully suggested i “pick [my] battles”.

to which i thoughtfully responded: yeah, babe. i pick every single one.

***

timeshare time! it’s the same list as this post, with a few additions (at top) (and edits based on availability).

places to donate food education fund pretty brown girl the okra project

some furniture stuff a side table a pointless, laughably tiny little thing this website is calling a “drink table” a lamp one of these benches i do not want this but it’s important to me that at least 2 other people know it exists

this plant that obviously does not need to cost $165 but idk how to shop economically

air pods

gifts from the previous post - all still v much in play!

a pair of shoes (size 8 or 38) one pair, another pair, yet another, these are on sale, these are not, and a final pair

a specific clutch with three color choices they allege this color is called sand but it looks white to me, pink, green for those who do not know what malachite means (it couldn’t be me. i learned it 3 hours ago when i began compiling this cursed list)

something everyone with money to waste needs this

dresses i’ll never be able to wear until there’s a vaccine because unlike someone tacky who knows me, i won’t be having a birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic (hi, you fool) white polka dot, not white polka dot, also not polka dot, a red dress, a skirt (aka half a dress), a black dress

this sweatsuit xs in this, small in this

is sephora cancelled? i want this hair dryer which i’m sure you can buy elsewhere if sephora is cancelled, which it v well may be

this item which you may think is cheap but actually it’s not soooo a hairpin

earrings one pair, another pair, and another

this dress which i’ll never wear anywhere even when there is a vaccine because… what?! but maybe. you never know. size 34. lol when i get this far into the list i’m always blown away by how insane it is that i do this every year to no audience. so i’m just laughing alone at that. :) i am v funny to myself. another dress i’ll never wear ;)

the nicest weighted blanket you know of i’m depressed!!!!! if you can’t tell!!!!!!!

every year i have asked for a weekend bag and every year i have not received one, so alas, we try again this is not a weekend bag actually but it will do. this is!

a peloton but just venmo me the cash (@merce212) because i have a hookup

an assortment of ridiculous things a $500 body scarf a $580 beach towel with an octopus on it for no reason besides “art” i cannot tell analog time but it’s never too late to start!! how mad would you be if someone bought you a roulette table for your wrist? be honest. (THIS WATCH IS FOUR YEARS RENT!!!!!!) they won’t say how much this costs :( i’m losing my mind and must be gifted a chanel watch or else i will perish. to put my salami on when i am eating salami in my bed “24k gold crocodile [?!!) teddy bear”. the website says there’s only one left, which begs the question “why did someone buy one of these rather than buying me a chanel watch?!!” *real ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist [unless they’re buying me a watch]’ energy* to put my new watch in this is ugly but it’s on sale :) idk wtf “secret box pendant” means but i wish this necklace was also a USB with every season and spinoff of 90 day fiancé on it hi yes i’m stupid but i draw the line at $1500 connect four…

#things i want #things I want for my birthday #lists of things #lists of things i want #my birthday #birthday lists #9/26; never forget #invidious consumption

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maladjustedchangeling · 6 years ago

Note

Sorry if this is extra, but can you go in detail about what it was like meeting hozier and giving him the scarf?

Anon, I am eager for any opportunity to talk about this, so I will happily go into excruciating detail about it, regardless of if it’s extra.

So, I’ve been a Hozier fan for awhile (5 years) and a knitter for even longer (15ish years), and I just decided that he needed a handmade scarf from me as a token of my appreciation for his music. I saw him for the first time in 2015, and I had heard that he would come out and talk to fans after shows, but I was far too anxious to attempt to meet him.

But this time I decided that things would be different. I enlisted a friend of mine to go with me to his Nashville show, and she agreed to at least wait with me for awhile afterward for the meet and greet. I had read that some people at previous tour stops had waited until 2:45 AM for their chance to meet him, and while I was dedicated, my friend has kids and knew she would have to head home long before then.

Fast forward to Sunday night. After the concert and buying T-shirts, we head out the back exit of the venue to find the line for the meet and greet. From what I’ve heard, waiting by the tour buses is the best bet, and there was already such a long line formed that we couldn’t even see the buses. We more or less walked out the door, and there was the line. There were so many people waiting that someone asked what the line was for, then laughed sardonically and left.

Not even a full hour later–seriously, it felt like such a short time, maybe because the merch table had taken us so long–I looked at the doors behind us and said to my friend, “Wouldn’t it be funny if he comes out here, and everyone up there only thinks they’re at the front of the line?”

I was joking, but a few minutes later, the doors opened, and there was Andrew. I heard the doors open and did this probably really comical turn-and-look-over-my-shoulder move that had me looking right at him. Everyone was so surprised that we were silent for a moment before someone broke the tension by calling out, “Hello, friend!” to him.

I heard later that at some point they cut the line, but while I was there, he made time to talk to everyone for a minute and sign autographs. Obviously, there were so many people that he would have been there all night if they didn’t stop at some point.

At this point, a heady, swirly feeling of unreality had taken over me, and it felt like the line moved ridiculously quickly as I stood there vibrating with nerves and holding the scarf I had made for him. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of him.

It’s always weird when you meet someone you’ve seen in videos and photos, because even though you know that they’re real, standing in front of them really drives that point home. There are always things that you know intellectually but that are much more noticeable in person, and with Andrew that thing is definitely his height. He is a good foot taller than I am, and I felt tiny in comparison.

We said hi to one another, and I handed him the scarf and explained that I didn’t have anything for him to autograph–he was on autograph-signing autopilot and was looking at the gift tag I had written like he was trying to figure out where to sign it–just a gift for him. As quickly as I could (being mindful of the impatient people behind me) I explained that I picked the particular pattern that I did because it’s called the Blackthorn Scarf, and it reminded me of the lyric from “Nfwmb,” so I wanted to make it for him.

He smiled and said, “Blackthorn, yes,” in this quiet voice– That’s another thing about him that I wasn’t expecting: He is so soft-spoken for someone who sings so powerfully. His voice has a sort of lilt and when he listens to you he tilts his chin up and looks down at you in a way that would risk seeming condescending if his expression weren’t so open. He thanked me, and I thanked him, and then he thanked me again, and that went on for probably longer than it needed to, but it was pleasant, nonetheless.

I had my friend take this photo from the line, since no selfies were allowed and he didn’t have time to pose for pictures. I’ve never seen anyone look so happy to receive something I knitted, and I have given so many handmade gifts to people. People I know: Get on Andrew’s level of liking the stuff I make!

That’s when I almost just stumbled off in a smiley daze, but he held his hand out to shake mine before I got far. I expected his hand to be rough because he’s a guitarist, but it was really soft and warm.

Then my friend had him sign a dollar bill because that’s all she had on hand, and we scampered away to bask in our disbelief that all of that really happened. I continued to bask in said disbelief throughout Monday.

Then this morning I was on my break at work, looking through tumblr, and I saw that really adorable photo of him hanging out with Rachael Lampa’s kid. When I looked more closely, I realized that in said photo, he is wearing the scarf that I gave him. And I almost cried. And then I saw that there was a second photo of him also wearing the scarf. And I almost cried even harder.

So yeah, that’s how I met Hozier, gave him a scarf, and discovered that he is the most precious treasure to a crafter: someone who appreciates receiving handknits and will actually wear them (and looks really good in them, let’s be real).

I feel like the scarf looks really small on him, but it’s definitely not. I made it more than 8″ wide and 6′ long, because I know how tall he is and how he tends to loop his scarves. Here is a detail of the stitch pattern (a surprisingly easy-to-memorize cable repeat) and a shot of what the scarf looked like when I was blocking it.

Pretty damn proud of how this project turned out.

#asks #hozier #knitting #my two favorite subjects to ramble about

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sevenfactorial · 5 years ago

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On the topic of math REUs

So I’m finally getting around to writing about this (also using it as a a draft for when I talk about REUs at math club next semester lol). This is based off my singular experience so of course it’ll vary quite a bit. Also yeah, it got really long.

First, some context. I went to an 8 week program several hours away from home at a mid-sized public university. It’s math department isn’t tiny, but mine is bigger I think (it has a math grad program while the REU school doesn’t for one) and definitely does more research (I go to a R1 school, the REU school is not). My REU was also in a mid-sized town compared to the small city I’m used to. There was two math projects going on, with 4 people on each plus a student from the university working with my project on a different grant and two professors mentoring each group. In addition, they support a much larger chemistry REU who we were housed with.

The Research

I worked on algebraic graph theory (the pure math project, while the other group did applied math). Specifically we looked at the abelian sandpile model, also known as chip firing and some other names.

We weren’t given a specific question and were more encouraged to find our own questions within the topic. We found the freedom really nice and interesting, but also felt like we would have gotten more done if we were given a narrower window of things to look at. Many REUs are given a specific question/project (the other group did) so it varies. Coming up with research questions is often considered harder than making discoveries themselves so it was frustrating in a way but I'm also glad I got to deal with it.

With 5 people working on the topic, we split up and formed groups multiple times through the summer. All of us ended up working on one question(looking at a group defined by sandpiles on strongly regular graphs; I’m not going to get into detail about the material itself but message/send an ask if you want to know more. You can also probably find our final write up online once our mentor posts it) but also had personal/two or three person mini-projects going on. My main one was not particularly successful since I eventually realized I was trying to do something similar to a conjecture that has been open since the 90s (abelian sandpiles was started in the 80s, possibly 70s?) which was sort of disappointing but still interesting.

We worked more computationally than I’m used to since graphs are just... kinda weird and the algebra was sort of borderline what we were capable of learning and doing in a short time. Note that you don’t have to have a strong background in the topic to work on an REU. You don’t have to have any background often times; the mentors will likely do a crash course on it during the first week or two which is intense but works just fine. I happened to have a little and one of my labmates had done algebraic graph theory research before, but the mentors didn't assume much prior knowledge (the application should be clear about if they do expect you to have certain background but typically, they just assume you’ve taken several math classes and have experience with proof writing. maybe a linear alg or programming class).

At the end of the summer, we did a presentation for the other group and anyone else in the department who wanted to attend and wrote up a final report together. Some programs expect something publishable, though I get the impression most are more aiming for “something that can be published with heavy refinement.” We’re encouraged to present at our home institution or at conferences if we can/want to and have a decent chance of getting funding from their department to do so if necessary.

The Work Day

Working at the REU is definitely the closest thing I’ve had to a standard job. The first weekish, we met at 9:30 and 1:00 each day for the background crash course lecture, with a break in between to work without the mentors and get lunch. The students would then work without the mentors until 5. After the first week or two, we only had a meeting with the mentors once every day or two but continued to work roughly from 9:30 to 5, with a lunch break from 12 to 1. This was really mostly our choice to do so. We all did some work outside the work day, but nothing like the amount of homework we're used to as math students. A lot of us found it baffling how much free time we had.

We were given several options for places to work in the math building and everyone typically worked in the same room but it wasn’t forced either. Sometimes I spent the afternoon in the library if I decided I couldn’t take social interaction and did work at a coffee shop downtown a couple mornings. We were also able to visit the mentors in their offices outside of meeting times.

They also did tea once a week where a different faculty talked about their experience/path to their current career and gave advice for grad school and the like.

Outside of Work

The mentors and organizers did a couple events. We were close to DC so they took us one Saturday (I went back on my own to visit counter-example another weekend which is when the squirrel encounters happened), one mentor hosted a memorial day bbq at his house and another did a game day at hers. Another mentor is an amateur astronomer so he took us up to a mountain top to stargaze one night which was fantastic. All the math students (from both projects plus those who were students there and were around for research or whatever) were invited to all the events and chem REU students were also invited to some of them. Likewise, we were invited to some events hosted by the chem REU though I went to less of those.

Mostly though, we were left to our own devices outside of work hours. We were put in a dorm which was effectively a 2 bed 2 bath apartment for 4 people which included a kitchen (we were able to buy meal swipes on a faculty plan and I bought some but mostly cooked). I didn’t bring a car so I often went grocery shopping with one of my labmates or roommate since the nearest grocery store was a bit over a mile away.

Downtown was a lot closer though, so I often walked there on my own to a restaurant or coffee shop. They had a nice downtown area with a lot of food options so that was really fun.

We were nestled between several forests so me and some of my labmates went hiking on Saturday and me and some of my roommates attempted camping once as well (story and some pictures here: https://sevenfactorial.tumblr.com/post/186095927170/yesterday-me-and-my-roommates-went-camping-except).

I was also able to keep up with various friends at home. A few of us read a linear alg book together for the first month or so of the summer and I continued playing d&d with a few of my friends on a bi-weekly basis via video chat (we usually do it over video chat in the first place actually), though we intentionally skipped during the last two-ish weeks of my REU.

This is obviously very dependent on where your REU is but kinda gets the gist of what a lot of programs do in terms of activities. Activities tended to be announced/planned pretty last minute though, so it’s a bit of a guessing game.

My Take Away

I liked going to my REU. For me, the most valuable things was definitely getting to meet math people from other places and having different experiences from what I’m used to.

I really love my department at home but comparing experiences was fascinating. Whether that’s what subjects are offered or how things are structured or how we interacted with our department, it varied a lot. Having that knowledge is useful in my opinion.

Life experiences are also really different. Two of my labmates are from small liberal arts schools in the NE and one is from an engineering college on the west coast. There aren’t fireflies on the west coast, for example, and not many in new england either, so everyone else was fascinated by how many there were (there were slightly more there than I’m used to since I live in a larger city, but not enough for me to find it unusual).

I also grew up in the same city I go to undergrad in too so spending two months somewhere else was really valuable for me. I had never been away from my parents for that long (I tend to not spend a lot of time at home but I visit for short amounts of time frequently) but I will be going out of state for grad school since there aren’t any grad programs in my state that I’m interested in. My parents were encouraging but pretty freaked out about me being gone for two months (we all survived).

TL;DR My REU was a bit like an intense but flexible job where I was able to work on an interesting project and meet a lot of people with similar yet very different experiences from my own. I recommend applying!

#reu stories #seven stories #math reu #math major life #long post

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sarahtaylortraveladventures · 6 years ago

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Week 6 (Feb 11 - 19)

Olá! This post is coming out a little bit later because I just got back from traveling last night. We have a block schedule, so I had finals last week and then a longer break this past weekend.

During the week, I was super busy preparing for finals. I had a project that required me to take pictures all over Berlin so I spent the day doing that. I was also studying for an exam on Wednesday, so there was definitely a lot going on. I really don’t have pictures or updates for the week days, but I do have a lot from our trip over the break!

Lisbon, Portugal

My friends and I decided to go to Portugal for our first long break since it’s further away and wouldn’t make sense for a weekend. I was so excited because I really wanted to go to Portugal but didn’t think I would get to this semester since it’s far from Berlin. Lisbon is an amazing city and I had the most incredible time. I hope that I get to go back and spend more time here someday. It was also nice to explore a country outside of Eastern Europe and experience a little bit of warmer weather and different foods.

We left Friday morning and arrived in the late afternoon. Our airbnb was perfect and had a really cool view of Lisbon (in the picture below!) The city sits on kind of an incline, so you can see houses and buildings above and below. We had 8 girls on the trip, all in one airbnb, which actually went surprisingly well. :)

For dinner, we went to a place in the main square and shared paella and sangria, which are popular in the Portugal/Spain area. Both were delicious!!!

Afterwards, we walked around a little and saw the city center at night. Then we got gelato - I promise we do more than eat!! Since the weather was warm enough where we could eat cold gelato outside, it was a no-brainer. And they somehow got it to look like a flower! They just use a regular scooper thing to do it too and I have no idea how they’re able to make it look so cool.

On Saturday morning, we went to a cafe for breakfast. Portugal is know for their pastel de natas, which are like a combination of a flaky tart and creme brûlée. They’re the little pastry in the left of the picture. They were so so good and I’m just not going to tell you how many I ate over the weekend. :)

Afterwards we walked around the area. Lisbon is definitely a city you can just walk around and explore. It’s so beautiful and it was really relaxing to just experience it rather than having a list of places we wanted to go to.

We also took a tram to another area of Lisbon. I don’t really know what it was called, but we kind of just got off when all the other tourist-looking people got off. Turned out to be a good move! Portugal is know for their tiles, which are on a lot of the walls and buildings. They’re very very beautiful!

We also passed by the Jeronimos Monastery. It was gorgeous and had the most intricate limestone detail. There were also beautiful gardens surrounding the monastery and it was so refreshing to see greenery.

Then we walked by the water. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. We just sat there for around to an hour and watched the boats and people. There was also a guy playing his guitar nearby so it was so peaceful. As much as I love to go out and do lots of things when traveling, it was really nice to just relax. There was also a group of kids learning how to sail on little dinghy sailboats, which was so so cute to watch!

The tiny statue in the picture above is called Christ the King and it was modeled after the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil.

Afterwards we went to a viewpoint where you could see both the water and the buildings. We did a lot of walking that day - the step tracker on my phone said over 32,000 steps! That night, we went to market hall for dinner. They had a booth with almost every food you can imagine! I got the fried cod because Lisbon is apparently known for their codfish. It was amazing!

That night, we did a pub crawl with a tour group company in Lisbon. I wasn’t sure what to expect but we had a lot of fun and met some other tourists from different places in Europe, which was really cool!

On Sunday, we went to the Castlo de Sao Jorge, which was basically a really big fortress overlooking the city. It was really beautiful! The fortress itself was also really interesting and it was fun to walk through all the tunnels and passageways.

There was also really cute little alleyways on the hilltop that were cool to walk around as well. The next picture is a tree with crochet pieces around it - I don’t really know who put it there but I thought it was so cool!

Portugal is also known for this cherry liquor that they sometimes serve in little chocolate cups. We of course had to try it, and it was really good!

For dinner that night we tried a Portuguese restaurant. The cuisine has a lot of seafood, so I got cod again and it was so so yummy! It’s really fresh and inexpensive too because the city is right on the water.

On Sunday, we took a day-trip to a town called Sintra, which was about a 40 minute train ride from Lisbon. We mainly went to see a castle called the Palace de Pena, but the town was also really cute! It was nice to see an area of Portugal outside of Lisbon, too. The castle was really unique and we also got to go inside, which was really cool too!

I couldn’t get over how beautiful the details on the ceilings are!

The details on the entire place was incredible.

For lunch, we went to a little place in the town. It was really cool because it felt like we were inside a cave!

The town itself was really, really charming!

There was an art installation of sculptures along the pathway back down to the train station, which was really cool!

The train ride home was really cool because we could see the sunset and all the little towns lit up at night. I don’t have any pictures, but our timing coming home was perfect!

That night, we went to a grocery store and got bread and cheese and grapes for dinner. It was really fun to eat in and just talk rather than trying to find a restaurant.

We had a later flight on Tuesday, so we were able to do some more exploring that morning. We mainly walked around the city more, but we also went to a little section of the water that had a little beach area and was super cool! There was a man making really intense sandcastles too.

The whole street was pink!

It was an amazing trip and I’m so glad we were able to go. I loved that we could just walk around an explore and the beautiful weather was just perfect.

I’m having such an amazing time and I love being able to share everything through these blogs! I miss you all!

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idontwanttospoiltheparty · 2 years ago

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🛠️🤡🥺🧐🎶

Hey Tina thank you for the ask <3333333333

🛠 What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

I use Scrivener (a paid app; it's a one-time purchase of about 50$, a bit less for students). I really like it because it lets me keep my entire WIP in one place while still separating it into parts that I can easily switch between. I can also have folders in a project that aren't a part of the draft which is where I put my large outline for instance.

(Spoiler-ish for ILTY chapter 3)

The window looks like this, and it's just really nice how I can have my chapter outline on the right to not lose sight of where I'm going and also with one click navigate to older chapters to double-check something to make sure I'm maintaining continuity lol. Also, I like that it's always showing me the word count (but MS Word has more recently added that feature, so). I'm just a lot more comfortable here than in Office tbh and like not having to deal with specific pages (though I can set it in page view, which I do sometimes to find out how many pages the whole story would be lol).

Also, one time I tried drawing a character arc overview on my iPad but I haven't really been using it in the end lol.

It looks like this (slight spoilers for ILTY chapters 4-8, I cropped out unpublished stuff; if you've read that far [and can read my handwriting], you'll notice I didn't actually incorporate all of these things lol)

Legend: Green is John, blue is Paul, purple is George, pink is Cyn, red is Ringo,* yellow is just actual dates with specific events, white is the relevant chapter title.

*based off their actual stated favourite colours (from those Beatles trading cards lmao). Feel bad about making Cyn pink; it's not cause Girl! it's cause it fit into my colour scheme LOL.

Anyways, as you can tell I am very normal about my fic writing sdfhdsfgklhdfsklgdfhskjldfs.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

I'm probably the only one who finds this really funny but I love it when Paul explains music with word salad.

Also every time I write Jane literally NOT giving a shit about the John-centric plot, I almost can't deal. She's my comedienne.

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

I'm a huge softie for any type of tender interactions, especially with Julian tbh. I just like calm moments when characters just share a little moment and smile at each other. Even if the overall story gets very bleak I can't help but weave in a short scene like that from time to time, which to me feels very realistic. That's what Get Back is after all! 🥹🥹🥹

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

YES. I literally wasted my entire Friday morning commute trying to figure out the most minor of details about flights in the 60s. If I think it's verifiable, I will try to verify it and sometimes waste upwards of an hour on tiny trivialities. Worst time was when I was gonna describe Lennon-McCartney as going together "like cream and coffee" and tried to confirm they definitely actually liked coffee so that the comparison felt true to the atmosphere 😭😭😭

But I also like the extreme research because it kind of forces me to gain more knowledge about this band and their time period with regards to aspects I wouldn't think to research otherwise!

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

Sometimes! Usually I don't but it happens; I tend not to if I'm on the train cause there's already a lot of distracting stimuli going on, but I might at home. I'm often thinking about my current chapter's song and listening to it when I'm not actually writing, though. Each chapter is an entire mini musical phase tbh. So I've been listening a lot to the next chapter's song, which is [SPOILER, though you can figure it out if you look hard enough >:)].

#sorry for these novel-length answers; i love talking about the Writing Process #lol reading the outline in the screenshot over and realizing i typoed julian to julia #ask #faewong #fic

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empmoniitor · 4 years ago

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HOW TO TRACK OVERTIME ACCURATELY AND FAIRLY?

Sometimes even when employees are working 8 hours a day, it’s not enough to fulfill the work requirement. And that causes the extension of the deadlines, which would be more than a burden for other team members. Guess what could be the solution? It’s overtime!

Although your employees may not like the thought of working longer than what they really have to. But there can be a situation when you need to rely on your team to put some extra effort into their work.

Especially during the holiday season, you may have tons of workload pending on your table. And some of your employees might have already taken their leaves.

Being an employer, you may not be a fan of overtime either, as you need to manage the work time accurately and accordingly provide compensation. Having all sorts of questions

In the end, what you get is just extra in exchange for giving extra wages to your employees. Now the questions in front of you are- how to track overtime accurately? Are your employees putting enough effort to complete deadline tasks on time? Are your timesheet and log records correct?

To get answers to all such queries- what you need is EmpMonitor work time reporting software that can accurately calculate the overtime needed to complete all queued tasks on time.

Here we are going to discuss all the things in detail.

HOW TO CALCULATE EMPLOYEES OVERTIME?

TIME TRACKING SOFTWARE

The law regarding overtime pay may change depending on the country. Being an employer, it is not only a right but your duty to accurately track the work time of your employees and compensate for their efforts accordingly. In such a case, you can implement a time tracking solution for your business which gets you the exact information about the working hours of your employees.

Many of the corporate and IT industries have implemented time tracking solutions in their business to measure the work time of their employees. And one of those best time tracking solutions is EmpMonitor.

It has the feature to automatically collect the log records of employees and also check daily work activity to measure productivity. By the time when employees switch on their computer, it starts tracking their work activities till the log out of the day.

EmpMonitor also has a timesheet feature which accurately keeps track of regular working hours and overtime of each and every employee. So if you have EmpMonitor on your side, then you don’t have to be worried about accuracy in the overtime calculation in your organization.

OVERTIME & HOLIDAY PAY: HOW IT WORKS?

Besides the regular work hours, if employees are giving their extra time and efforts, then it counts as overtime. Every year in the holiday season, the business is on boost. But that is also the time when your employees may want to take their leaves. In some countries, there are some special laws for overtime during the holidays. And employees could get better compensation for their efforts.

As we know that overtime pay is not less than one and half times the regular rate of pay. Employees may even get ready to work for extra hours to gain add on earnings on top of their regular wages.

So definitely, financially, it would put more trouble on Employers. That is why it becomes quite important for the employers to accurately calculate the work hour and extra work hours of their employees and make them fair payment at the end.

TAKE NOTE OF PRODUCTIVITY:

What’s the meaning of spending money on overtime when you are not getting enough productivity in your business. Another factor to consider before giving overtime earning opportunities to your employees is to keep track of their production rate. If they are producing results for your business in the expected time frame, then it won’t cause any trouble for you, as they will complete most of the queuing tasks and projects before reaching the deadlines.

MANAGING THE WORKLOAD

Another factor to consider is workload management. Of course, it is important to keep a note of whom you have assigned the tasks and how much time it will take to complete it. Due to the busiest work schedule, sometimes employers and employers can’t be able to keep track of all tasks and projects. In that case, they can use the project-based time tracking solution, to be aware of the overtime required to finish their workload.

DON’T BE THE NIT- PICKERS-

Finally, don’t be the guy who pokes their employees for every single break they have taken. In fact, taking a few breaks between the long work hours can be helpful in increasing the focus of your employees, and this would also positively affect their efficiency. Although additional work distractions should be avoided so that it won’t negatively affect the overall productivity in your business.

By using the exceptional work time tracking features of EmpMonitor software, you can even keep your eyes on the tiny work details that would help you to hold the productivity intact in your business. However, make sure not to be too much nit-picky with some unrealistic expectations, as it may cause your employees burnout.

CONCLUSION

Tracking the overtime is quite an important matter. Even if you would be able to keep the record of overtime work hours of your employees by yourself but when you have to balance out each and every thing in your business for data collection and management, it would be extremely challenging. That’s why you must invest in implementing the right tools that can accurately track the work time and overtime in your business.

Things Every Employers Must Understand About Computer Monitoring Software

7+ Employee Management Tips To Follow This Holiday Season

Originally Published On: EmpMonitor

#Employee Monitoring #Employee Productivity #Employee Management #Employee Management System #Employee Monitoring SOftware #Track Overtime #Track Overtime Accurately

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zer0landia · 5 years ago

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renato’s facebook updates, so far, run through the least incoherent online translator i can find

3/8

When one is forced to stay at home, for an emergency like the one we are experiencing, it seems that the need to join in seems to prevail. Seeking in others, sharing and courage to face such a situation! I, who have spent most of my life on the streets, can certainly understand your enormous discomfort. Yet it is precisely because of the threat of this virus that we must ensure that it dies of its own ineffectiveness. To love and cherish each other. That is what we are asked. Perhaps we have run too fast. And in the race we did not anticipate, that we would find obstacles, tougher than usual.

Let's stay at home and take care of the things we have overlooked: phone calls to friends and relatives.

That book waiting to be read. Help your little brother or sister with their homework (so that they don't lose the thread). Collect from grandparents those testimonies of life that will not fall into silence.

Space for thoughts. To projects. To music... Time will be our ally. Let him work so that in the next few days he can put the right distance between us and this horrible bogeyman!

I think I'm interpreting the thought of our great family of music: stay safe in the knowledge that the next show we will put on will be to celebrate VITTORIA!

Renato Zero

3/13

A thought for the victims of the coronavirus, who left in a guilty and unjust silence. To them: the dawn of a new day, in a world, fairer and more reflective than this!

Renato Zero

3/14

To the men and women who, beyond their medical profession, provide themselves to defeat this pandemic. risking even their lives. You are the best and most magnificent part of this country.

By demonstrating a will and a spirit of self-sacrifice, still fortunately present. Skills, which we thought we'd lost.

This is the Italy that made us unique in the world!

Thank you from all of us, for this significant example of yours!

The coronavirus kneels before such solidarity!

And let us live free again!!!!

Renato Zero

3/15

People, I miss you so much! Smiles miss you. The chatter.

The effusions. Kisses miss you. Promises.

Trades. To window-facing. To carefreeness. Miss you every time it's too quiet.

That fear and melancholy reoccurs.

But you, do not miss the prudence. Commitment.

Patience. Respect for yourself and the rules... Evidence ... that will allow you to love tomorrow, tomorrow and then tomorrow again ... to infinity!

Renato Zero

3/16

Hello Life! Sorry we neglected you. Too caught up in the damn race. Always asking more of ourselves, in achieving goals that are not always necessary or rewarding. And so we have drifted away from our real and fundamental priorities. We have perhaps been light and ungrateful to you. But tomorrow is a new day... It was, even when we came into the world.

And unconsciously we ventured, ecstatic and eager to taste every moment that you, Life, would offer us.

We're here to tell you how happy we are that you're still with us.

Available mother. Faithful sister. And indispensable ally.

Give us again those cues to overcome all fear and uncertainty.

So that we may make you proud and proud. And let this deafening silence turn into a thunderous, contagious laugh!!!!

Your humble representative:

Renato Zero

3/17

To all Superman and Wonder Woman without super powers, prayer, not to defy certain elements, currently circulating on our planet Earth. Certain negligence would risk thwarting the efforts of simple but diligent humans. Understandable a normal frustration, in not being able to cross that doorway ... but once violated that limit, there is a risk that the imprudence of such action, could reflect negatively on the health of our family (and not only). Therefore, get out of the comic book and I recommend: Judgment!

Life requires continuous sacrifice. But then, fortunately, it can always happen, that the sky could turn even more blue and an even more appreciable embrace.

Renato Zero

3/18

We feared tsunami. Earthquakes. Cyclones. Acid rain.

Radioactivity and various cataclysms.

Today we're dealing with you, tiny, yet malignant entity.

You must feel so amazing that you've come into our lives and turned our lives upside down. And here we are. Faced with a devious enemy, you, forcing us to siphon our attention to others.

To suppress the momentum. To hold back kisses.

Surely this progress and globalisation have presented us with a truly exaggerated bill. Back to you, we advise you to retreat, and yet quickly! That if all men disappeared, you would lose power and effectiveness, and surely you, you would regret having been born.

Renato Zero

3/19

"Renato, I dreamt of you last night! What a beautiful dream it was. We met again after a long time, but it wasn't 2020... it must have been the '90s, I was a kid and you were a kid, both with long hair. We hugged each other tightly, tightly, no trace of the amuchina (maybe it didn't even exist at that time)...

How we missed the hugs, the noise of the cups on the bar counter, the smell of coffee. We also miss the fights in traffic. But there is no lack of hope.

A hope nourished by you, who have dedicated a lifetime to music and your audience. Music is helping us, saving us.

On the one hand, there are the doctors on the front line, doing the impossible.

On the other hand there are you, there are you poets at the turn of two millennia, who light up from our coffers and illuminate our souls again, bring back the smiles on our sometimes lost face.

Thanks Renato and best wishes for Father's Day!

We are all your children!"

From a fan of mine who's already been through a tough time. But who obviously hasn't lost his faith! Thank you to everyone like him.

Renato Zero

3/20

Here I am! A man before an artist. But above all, a grandfather! With his years and his frailty. All that I am and that I have learned in all this time, could be a useful protection to help my two little girls to grow up in safety and serenity. A great responsibility.

But also a formidable opportunity for me, that thanks to the intervention of our Lord, I have found myself a son and a beautiful and prosperous family. The primary thought of the grandparents is not alone, the natural preservation of themselves. But above all, the joy of being able to follow the dreams and hopes of those who are looking to the future.

So love and protect these grandparents!

Don't let them miss caresses and smiles, never!

Don't keep them in the darkness of desire. Doubts and uncertainties that will sooner or later appear before you.

Today, everyone is a soldier. Everyone has a task and a responsibility... And if it's to be a war, we don't want slackers or deserters! And age, this time, is only a minor detail.

Because to win; you need everyone's heart. Indiscriminately!

...and watch out for grandparents. Don't underestimate them. They know better than the devil!!!!

Renato Zero

3/21

The time that decides and conditions the unfolding of life on this planet. That establishes rules, modalities, rhythms and pauses, in the path of men. This time enjoys infinite power, which even allows it to intervene in the stories of each of us.

This time, which is said to be, cursed and tyrant. Carnal cousin of fate. Today, if he were merciful, he would have to rig our clocks to give the "Covid" such an acceleration that he could take him away from us for good. Too bad we made an enemy of time. Neglect him.

Not giving him the importance he expected from us. So many hours lost, behind sterile prospects. Questionable encounters. Cloudy affairs and loves often commuting or temporary if not unhealthy. Air! Yes, we miss that. Precisely that oxygen, which allowed us to appreciate the space and that expanding our lungs let us enjoy that feeling of freshness and satiety. Let's take back that time. Spread it out a little bit for everyone so that everyone can enjoy it.

That time in which we launched our projects, like the suitcase on the ferry in front of us before we boarded... Because that suitcase went and must be saved. Because the future is in there.

Right there in that little suitcase are our great aspirations...

I love you all very much.

Renato Zero

3/22

So we're back to the masks. An ancient way, to represent moods and feelings. Sometimes grotesque. Sometimes dramatic.

Others, rhetorical or dreamy. And then again, mystical or hieratic.

So many ways of communicating life. Today's ways are the same. They are generously opposed by those who unwittingly bring negativity and those who unwittingly risk being involved in it... Me, I have a warehouse full of masks.

I've worn a lot of masks all this time.

But not to hide, but to look for me.

To answer my fears. My shyness.

A use, which made me stronger and more aware, of the many roles I would have forced myself to play. There are many "I's" inside each of us. Often repressed, or at least not expressed to the maximum.

Today the mask is for everyone. Becoming indispensable.

And whoever wears it lets that childlike tenderness shine through, which must be understood without the use of words. Without making a sound. Children observe and wait for signals, to regulate themselves on what to do.

Which direction to take. And how to move. The mask therefore induces us to be attentive and reflective. And maybe when we will finally be given to take it off, maybe then, we will have definitively defeated: The intruder.

...the only possible weapon: Tenacity!

Renato Zero

3/23

The "comfortable"?

Earned sometimes. Other times mugged. Useful, yes! But not indispensable.

The fact is, we've been seduced and abandoned.

They've taken over our musculature.

The central nervous system. Our pockets and our primary thinking. Go back? I wish we could, overnight. But it's useful to be prepared to live on the essentials. To siphon off the resources. Don't waste anything that can be profitable tomorrow. Those of humble beginnings are prepared for anything. He smiles with hope. He appreciates what comes. And adapts to all seasons. Temperatures. The circumstances. He prays again. And when he does, think of it, he's convinced that God is listening. That simplicity is another magnificent shield. It's the Batman suit. It allows us to appreciate every lesson nature and life offer us. A large slice of Italy has peasant origins. They are the heirs to the grape harvest and the threshing grounds. Of the fruitful relationship with the clods of earth. This establishes, that the quality of our blood is excellent. Therefore, one is able to face the sacrifices.

Therefore, even without the comfortable, our inspiration and our ability to adapt will allow us a very good estate. To get as far away from laziness as possible. And from resignation.

And as my brother in art, Francesco De Gregori, would say:

Long live Italy!!!!

Renato Zero

if anyone here speaks italian, could you please look at the originals and tell me if it’s just the translator or does he really just write like that?? i mean it’s lovely just... very, very flowery. it’s pretty!!

#renato zero #20s #stay safe everyone #help each other out #etc etc #kinda had to come up with much that feels meaningful #but #yeah #i guess #dont die #txt

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shinigami-mistress · 7 years ago

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All the OTP questions for Grelliam!!!

Woohoo! All for the Grelliam!

1. Who is the early bird/ Who is the night owl?

William is the early bird. It’s something that he’s gotten used to over the years as he was always one of the first in the office. These days it’s good because he likes to watch Grell sleep before he leaves and whisper the things he’s still doesn’t know how to tell her when she’s awake.

2. Who is the big spoon/ Who is the little spoon?

William is usually the big spoon and Grell is the little. She likes to feel his arms around her.

3. Who hogs the cover/ Who loves to cuddle?

Both are Grell. William has awoke many times shivering slightly only to look over and see Grell wrapped tightly in all the cover. He never has the heart to wake her though. He just mumble honestly and curls up tighter. However, while Grell is very openly loves to cuddle, William is much quieter about it. He definitely enjoys cuddling with Grell though.

4. Who wakes the other one up with kisses?

Grell’s more likely to wake William up with kisses, if she happens to be awake before him, but that’s only because his kisses are too gentle to wake Grell. He kisses her whenever he wakes up first, but his are so soft that they simply melt into her dreams.

5. Who usually has nightmares?

Sadly, they are both prone to nightmares because there has been many dark times in their past. Because Grell expresses herself more easily, this comes across in her dreams. She’s likely to yell or strike out in her sleep. This wakes up William, who would comfort her so that she could have relax and have peaceful dreams. William still has nightmares, but he’s more likely to wake up with a simple gasp of breath and sweat on his brow. He doesn’t tell Grell about it because he doesn’t want to bother her.

6. Who would have really deep emotional thoughts at the middle of the night/ Who would have them in the middle of the day?

William was never a daydreamer before, but he’s been guilty of finding himself staring off into nothingness in the middle of the day as he think about how much finding this love has changed him. Grell has moments during all hours of the day and night. She often surprises Will with these deep emotional questions.

7. Who sweats the small stuff?

While Grell is the naturally more emotional one, William is the perfectionist. If he has something planned, he wants every tiny detail to fall perfectly into place.

8. Who sleeps in their underwear (or naked)/ Who sleeps in their pajamas?

William generally wears pajamas pants to bed while Grell may wear his shirt or a frilly nightgown. Of course, that’s not always what they wake up wearing. ;)

9. Who makes the coffee (or tea)?

It’s usually William. Grell doesn’t care for tea, but she does like her coffee - and Will has learned a caffeinated Grell is a happy Grell.

10. Who likes sweet/ Who likes sour?

William is the one with a sweet tooth. Grell prefers sour.

11. Who likes horror movies/ Who likes romance movies?

Grell likes both actually! She loves something bloody, although she sadly finds most horror movies to be lacking a bit in scares. She also loves a good romance. William would watch both with her but neither are precisely his cup of tea. He prefers historical.

12. Who is smol/ Who is tol?

Of the two, Grell is smol and Will is tol.

13. Who is considered the scaredy cat?

Neither one!

14. Who kills the spiders?

Grell will yell for William to do it just because she doesn’t want spider guts on the bottom of her shoes. Of course, she has no real issues with actually killing one.

15. Who is scared of the dark?

Neither one again. Grell adores the dark, while William has no real strong feelings about it.

16. Who is scared of thunderstorms?

Once again, neither one. Grell doesn’t like thunderstorms because the humidity can frizz her hair, and she hates working in a downpour. Of course, she loves when she can cuddle with her William under an umbrella.

17. Who works/ Who stays at home?

They both work, and that’s not really going to change any time soon.

18. Who is a cat person/ Who is a dog person?

Grell is a dog person. William likes his pigeons, but he’ll happily adopt Grell’s dog.

19. Who loves to call the other one cute names?

Grell is always assigning new nicknames for Will. On the other hand, William rarely calls Grell anything but Grell, but her heart melted the first time he referred to her as his love.

20. Who is dominant/ Who is submissive?

William is dominant and Grell is submissive only because that’s the way that Grell prefers it!

21. Who has an obsession (over anything)?

Grell is naturally obsessive by nature.

22. Who goes all out for Valentine’s Day?

For their first Valentine’s Day, it was Grell only because William didn’t really understand how much it meant to Grell. After accidentally hurting her feelings, he was determined never to make that mistake again. Now they both go all out.

23. Who asks who out on the first date?

William asked Grell out for their first official date, which so surprised Grell, it took her several minutes to say she would go out with him.

24. Who is the talker/ Who is the listener?

Grell is the talker and Will is the listener.

25. Who wears the other ones clothes?

Grell likes to wear Will’s shirts when she goes to bed.

26. Who likes to eat healthy/ Who loves junk food?

Grell is a healthy eater usually, and she always is trying to encourage William to eat better. He will accept her ‘healthy’ meals to a degree, but he has a terrible sweet tooth and likes fried, greasy foods.

27. Who takes a long shower/ Who sings in the shower?

William was always the type to jump in the shower, wash off quickly, and be done with it. Grell was the type to take long, luxurious showers and to sing - and she has a good voice. That’s how they act when separate. Now, when they’re together….

28. Who is the book worm?

Both enjoy reading quite a bit, although they have different tastes in books.

29. Who is the better cook?

Grell is a far better cook and enjoys working in the kitchen.

30. Who likes long walks on the beach?

They both enjoy long walks on the beach if they’re together. If they are apart, Grell would prefer far more than William.

31. Who is more affectionate?

Grell is more openly affectionate, although William is more affectionate with Grell than he has ever been with anyone else.

32. Who likes to have really long (deep) conversation?

William has so rarely opened up to anyone, he likes having someone to talk to deeply. He takes advantage of this with Grell, and she loves to learn all about him.

33. Who would wear “not guilty” t-shirt/ Who would wear “sin” t-shirt?In the morning?

Grell wears the ‘not guilty’ shirt. She wear the one saying ‘sin’ at night. William would wear neither. He thinks Grell looks better in them.

34. Who would wear “if lost return to…” t-shirt/ Who would wear “I am…” t-shirt?

Grell wears the “If lost return to William” and William has the , “I am William” shirt. Interestingly enough, Grell gave Will his shirt and encouraged him to wear it not telling him about the matching one until she was ‘returned’ to him later.

35. Who goes overboard on the holidays?

Grell is the one who totally goes overboard on the holidays, but Will rather enjoys watching her getting wrapped up in her projects. It adds an excitement to the holidays that he had never experienced before.

36. Who is the social media addict?

It would have to be Grell.

37. Height difference or age difference?

Not that much of either, but William is taller than Grell. She thinks he’s the perfect height since she can comfortably rest her head on his shoulder.

38. Who likes to star gaze?

Grell always enjoyed star gazing, although William had some fascination of astronomy. Now it’s something they enjoy together.

39. Who buys cereal for the prize inside?

Honestly, neither would do this. Grell isn’t a big fan of cereal in general, and William just likes the flavors he likes. Of course, Grell would steal the prize in William’s cereal, and he’d let her.

40. Who is the fun parent/ Who is the responsible parent?

Because of her focus on healthy foods, Grell would actually turn out to be the responsible one while William would want their child to have a chance to be a child.

41. Who cries during sad movies?

Grell is the one who cries, but it’s mostly because it’s another excuse to cuddle closer to William.

42. Who is the neat freak?

Neither are particularly sloppy, but William is more organized. He would be the neat freak.

43. Who wins the stuffed animals at the carnival for the other one?

William wins the stuffed animals for Grell, although they are both well aware she could easily win her own toys.

44. Who is active/ Who is lazy?

Neither is particularly lazy. William likes to keep active with things he feels are important. Grell likes to stay physically active.

45. Who is more likely to get drunk?

Grell is a teeny tiny bit more likely to get drunk although neither are much for drinking. This shocks people about Grell, but Will learned early on that she didn’t like being drunk.

46. Who has the longer food order?

William actually has the longer food order mainly because he likes dessert.

47. Who has the more complex coffee order?

Grell has the more complex coffee order. William is a straight black coffee kind of customer.

48. Who loses stuff?

Grell is always losing stuff usually because she can become easily distracted. William remains more focused and organized.

49. Who is the driver/ Who is the passenger?

William usually drives. He prefers to be in control, plus Grell usually asks him to drive since she likes to look at the scenery and to study Will’s handsome profile.

50. Who is the hopeless romantic?

Grell is the eternal, hopeless romantic!

#grelliam

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istjproblems · 7 years ago

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INTP day summary

tabs I currently have open: 12

as I’ve gone through all the high Ne days now, I’ve been learning a lot of things about Si/Ne and the creative process.

we associate Ne with creativity, so we tend not to assume that creative types will be SJs. and a lot of the time, we’re right. but anyone who’s ever created anything more than a doodle will tell you that inspiration is only a tiny fraction of the work. you have to put a lot of time into practice, you have to have a lot of creations that don’t turn out the way you want them, you have to spend a LOT of time working on the minute and boring details in order to make the big picture a good one. so why are the arts not absolutely saturated with SJs?

you know, I used to be a pretty good visual artist. I learned how to sketch very realistically for my age when I was in elementary school and junior high. if I was drawing from memory or imagination, I could still make very detailed eyes and faces. but the more I learned how to make the details great, the more dry and time consuming it became. what used to take 5 minutes and come out great for an 8 year old started to take an hour and look decent, but still not professional, for a 15 year old. if I learned how to draw an incredibly detailed leaf, it made it that much worse to think of drawing a forest. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to paint with a (usually metaphorical) broader brush now that I knew better, even though I knew I was paralyzed without it. and of course, the pressure you start to get in your teens to make all of your hobbies either a future income stream or an old phase you don’t bring up. there was a very, very brief window between “oh, I can definitely justify buying serious art supplies now!” and “why even get myself a new pencil? I know I won’t use it.”

that was all very dramatic, and tbh I don’t feel very strongly now about my current drawing skills or lack thereof, but I’ve watched the same thing happen with so many of my other interests since then. there’s probably bits of laziness and depression that get mixed into that formula also. but if I can extrapolate my personal issues onto a huge percent of the population: over-reliance on Si can be very dangerous to art, not necessarily because of a lack of creativity, but because it’s so hard not to see every project as the sum of thousands of time consuming details.

so I’ve been thinking about ways I can change up my own creative process. why assume the past will predict the future? there must be a logical way to deal with this. it’ll take some time. I’m still not at an age where my inferior function is likely to be mature. but that doesn’t mean I can’t look for manageable steps toward drawing the forest now.

anyway, my day wasn’t very exciting to blog about. I slept in, did some internet research in my career field (can’t completely abandon those Te ulterior motives) and had a bad closing shift. current mood is not a stellar, competent one. but I’m trying to be detached and optimistic.

#type for a day 2017 #bless you and im sorry if you actually sat through this

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themastercylinder · 6 years ago

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How many of us started into filmmaking with crude, 8mm “mad scientist” horror epics, churned out on weekends in basements, garages, and living rooms? How many of us later progressed to more sophisticated Super or Single 8 (maybe even 16mm) films with sync-sound, elaborate special effects, and jazzy titles? And finally, how many of us through these first two stages of normal film-making development yearn for the big times that crack at doing a real, honest-to-goodness feature film? The answer to all three questions is most of us. And our group certainly wasn’t an exception. Ever since the beginning of this magazine back in 1972 I have become very aware of the abundance of true talent hiding itself in the shadow of the words “amateur filmmaker.” I think the articles and film profiles presented in Cinemagic testify to that fact. And though many of the films and filmmakers presented in these pages are truly amateurs (albeit creative, talented amateurs), a good many have the ability and experience to rub elbows with the best of professional film people. With this knowledge in mind, and the fact that I’ve come to personally know so many talented filmmakers through the sheer existence of this magazine, I figured that it was time to pool local (and some not-so-local) talent for the purpose of making a feature-length theatrical film.

The plan was simple enough: gather together a group of technicians and special effects artists get each individual to chip in an equal share of money, and let everyone “donate” his time and talents. With this concept, and a very rough idea for a story, I called together a varied group of filmmakers from the local Baltimore area. Most of us knew each other pretty well on a social level, but few of us had ever worked together on a creative film project. That first meeting, back in June of last year, went exceptionally well, and after three or four subsequent gatherings, we had kicked the story concept around and were setting our sights on a July 1 starting date. Our assembled group consisted of Dave Ellis, who would handle the sound recording; Britt McDonough as our chief cinematographer; Tony Malanowski as assistant director; John Cosentino on creature designs and special effects; George Stover playing a featured role in the film, as well as pulling in additional local acting talent; and yours truly, as script writer and director. Actually, such “titles” are nice and professional sounding, but when you get right down to it on just about any independent film, everybody does a little of everything. As mid-June rolled around and we had spent about two thousand hours in pre-production work (the tiny details are endless), I got a call from our only out-of-state partner, John Cosentino, who was handling the creation of two of our creature designs. “We’ll die inside these foam rubber suits in that heat,” John persuaded. And I listened, and finally. I agreed. So the July 1 commencement was pushed up until an October commencement. That worked out just as well, because typically, we hadn’t realized the tremendous amounts of time necessary to merely get ready for Day One of the shoot. October 1st came and went, and it wasn’t until October 16th that Day One actually happened. Now it is mid-January, and filming is just about completed. After working for five weekends in October and November, and knocking off for the holidays during December, filming was resumed a few weeks ago. We would be finished filming now, too, except for some terrible sound problems which cannot be ironed out. At the outside location for one of our major sequences we discovered that we were near a small suburban airport. Despite waiting endless hours for small planes to either land or get out of mike range, we still picked up enough of the buzzing airplane engines to be very noticeable. Our choice is to spend tons of money and time in a studio dubbing sound, or to find a new location and re-film that major sequence.

The Leemoid in the climactic battle scene in The Alien factor.

We’ve decided that in the long run, it’ll be much cheaper to re-film. The result is that we have only two small sequences which are usable from our October/ November shooting. Those sequences represent a lot of the total film, and our challenge now is to complete filming within a few weeks. We’ve already been out for two weeks in the worst winter weather in Baltimore history (average temperatures of about 10 degrees or lower) , and we have three more weeks to go. We’ve got most of the film in the can now, and we’re confident that we’ll have 100% by February 13th. Of course, by the time you read this it will probably be late March, and filming will have been finished, but I’ll let you know how it worked out in the next issue.

The Evolution Of The Story

My original idea was to make a ” film quickly and cheaply, a fast-buck vehicle that we could use as a springboard to bigger and better projects. The first title for our film was Lance Sterling Monster Killer, and it was to be a parody of every horror flick we’d ever seen. At first there was so much enthusiasm for this approach that we were coming up with more comedy and sight-gags than plot, and it seemed that the whole thing was turning into a sort of one-act satire. Finally, we came to our senses and said. nix.. From everything we had heard and read, the safest bet for a “first feature” was a straight-approach horror film. We continued on that premise, and I began writing the script. As the days rolled on, and script page after script page was completed, I started to notice that our ordinary horror film was turning more into a science fiction kind of thing, demanding a lot more special effects and good acting performances than we had previously calculated. A conflict then set in: should I continue writing this rather involved story, or scrap it and go back to a simple “monster-on-the-loose” concept? My decision was to compromise: three monsters on the loose with science fiction overtones. Thus our monsters became alien creatures, set loose on earth by an accident. Since we wanted our film to ring nostalgic of sci-fi films of the ’50’s, I set the whole story within the mythological small town of Perry Hill. If you change “Hill” to “Hall,” it should sound like a familiar place but “Perry Hall” somehow just doesn’t cut it as a small town.

The Zagatile attacks george Stover in this publicity still from Alien Factor.

So our imaginary small town took on all the characteristics of typical old sci-fi movies. Although there isn’t really any scene in the film taking place in the town’s exterior, we did find a suitable location for a few establishing shots. Just about all of the action “in town” was written to take place in the sheriff’s office, an interior we built on a super-modest budget in part of my basement. Our total office set budget came to about $50.00 and most of that was for lumber. I had several planks of sheet rock, which we used for the walls, and between us we all donated something to embellish the set: an old varnished door and table lamp from Dave Ellis, Venetian blinds from Tony Malanowski, a black dial phone from George Stover, and even an old wooden coat rack brought to us by our good friend Bruce Dods, who came down from New Jersey to watch us film one weekend. Our gun rack was purchased from a secondhand store for $5.00, and the guns placed on it were borrowed from a variety of people. The large bulletin board in the set is merely another piece of sheet-rock, framed and painted tan; and the local Post Office was eager to donate several old “wanted” posters. For a “call box” we set up a microphone and a wood-encased stereo speaker on top of a small particle board desk. The mike is a genuine tabletop one, picked up by one of our actors, Chris Gummer, for a dollar at a flea market. With all the ingredients put together, I’ve got to say that our sheriff’s office has charm, and a definite photogenic quality. Composition was generally easy when we shot on this set, and it’s visually enjoyable on the screen.

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Having the set built early helped me tremendously to visualize camera set-ups while I wrote the script. I knew the limitations of camera angles, and I always knew which direction the characters would have to face for continuity’s sake. The basic story of The Alien Factor is fairly typical, but that’s the way we wanted it. Three alien creatures are loose in this small town, and they’re attacking the townspeople left and right. The sheriff is stumped (he at first attributes the deaths to a large animal), and the mayor is on the sheriff’s back to “get out and find the thing before it kills anybody else!” The town doctor (a woman) helps thicken the mystery by discovering strange, impossible symptoms in several of the bodies (“No animal I’ve heard of could do that”). Meanwhile, there is an overly ambitious girl reporter the small town girl who’s been to the big city to study journalism and has now returned home to become the assistant editor of the town paper. She’s pesky, and constantly risking her neck within the film. Finally we have the outsider who comes into town, befriends the mayor, and inevitably becomes the savior. With these characters it was easy to create emotion and turmoil and hence, conflict. You’ve got to have conflict to have any sympathy for your characters, and if the audience can’t sympathize the story loses credibility (and it’s tough enough trying to make horror and science fiction believable). So far, our actors have done a convincing job, and in the daily rushes they seem believable to me, so I’m confident that when all is cut together properly, our story will have believable characters with whom the audience can identify. I should point out that we did things a bit backwards in our preproduction scheme; that is, we held screen tests and chose our actors before the final script was written. I had roughed out a story, described the characters, and scouted most of the exterior locations before we held the screen tests. With our cast selected, I knew precisely what sort of personalities I was dealing with, and although I had preconceived notions as to the characters in the film, knowing what the actors were like really helped. This was my first crack at writing an entire feature-length script, and Baltimore is not Hollywood—so it wasn’t a matter of having hundreds of talented actors at our disposal. We had to take what we could get locally for the most part, but somehow, the people we cast fit beautifully into their respective roles. The only sort of difficulty we encountered with our performers ( who are all working on a deferred payment basis) was in scheduling. We wormed our way around this by giving available actors scenes which were written for other actors (who weren’t able to meet schedules on particular days). Luckily, this sort of character-switching had no ill effect on the story, and in one case it actually worked out better.

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The Special Effects

Although our original concept was to make a quickie, fast-buck monster film, we wanted to at least have the monsters look good. When the script metamorphosed to a more plausible story line, we at first still decided to let our special effects go at three different “monster” creations. However, as we got further into developing our story, we saw a definite need for additional and more sophisticated effects. The first decision here was to make one of our creatures a stop motion model, rather than a man in a suit, like the other two creatures.

The Leemoid

For this task I convinced our cameraman, Britt McDonough, to build a ball-and-socket, latex build-up model, based on my specs. Britt put the model together in one week, using a new, simplified ball-and-socket construction method recently developed by a young man in Virginia. (This new method does not require drilling or soldering, and uses ready-made parts. We will present an article on this in a future issue.) The only significant difference in our stop-motion sequence is that the model will be superimposed over live action of an actor. The reason is that we want the creature called a Leemoid in the film, to be a rather ghostly energy creature who is visible only at night. The sequence involving the Leemoid takes place near the end of the film, and will last about three minutes on the screen.

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Ernest Farino ened up constructing the final version of the Leemoid.

The Zagatile

For our other creatures, we called on John Cosentino and Larry Schlechter. John (who, as I mentioned earlier, is from Michigan) submitted several drawings of various creatures, and two designs were chosen. One of them, a 7-foot-tall beast with furry legs similar to Harryhausen’s 7th Voyage cyclops, became our Zagatile in The Alien Factor. The second design must remain secret for now, for it would reveal too much about our plot. In any case, both creatures were meticulously sculpted in clay, and huge full body casts were made in plaster. John decided that he would have to wear the Zagatile outfit, so he somehow managed to make his own body cast. He used 700 pounds of plaster for the cast, and described it as “Yucchh!” His process was so intriguing, though, that I asked him to write an article about it for a later issue of CM (he agreed to do so). The unique thing about the Zagatile is its feet: a foot and a half of welded steel, with claw-shaped toes, and ski-boots at the top into which John strapped his own feet. Together with his own six-foot frame, John stood 7 feet tall when suited up and standing on the steel Zagatile feet.

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The Inferbyce

Larry Schlechter chose a different approach to creature design. Since his Inferbyce was to be a man-like version of a cockroach, Larry decided that for it to look hard-shelled, it would have to be hard-shelled. He created the suit in hinged sections out of a cardboard base with papier-mache build-up. Several coats of liquid latex, paint, and varnish complete the effect of a shiny, slithery cockroach-thing. With our main three creatures out of the way, we took to the task of additional special effects.

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The Crashed Ship

Many of these were simply in-camera optical effects, while others were miniatures combined with live action. One of the most convincing on-screen effects so far is a shot of a huge spaceship which is crashed into the earth. Two of our characters walk up to the large craft and inspect it. Here again, we called on the talents of John Cosentino and Britt McDonough. Together they constructed a beautiful miniature of the spaceship and surrounding “earth.” The earth was sculpted in Celluclay (a ready-made papier mache substance) and appropriately painted. To pull off the illusion of the live actors looking dwarfed against a giant craft we did a “deceptive perspective” shot. That is, the spacecraft model platform was arranged in such a way as to blend in with the live terrain, and the actors were placed several hundred feet away from the miniature. The camera, sporting a 10mm wide-angle lens, was placed a few inches from the model, and the effect became the illusion of a large spacecraft and tiny men. The important thing in such a shot is how well the tiny miniature actually blends in with the live terrain, and having both the close miniature and the distant actors in sharp focus. We were fortunate when we shot this sequence because it was an extremely bright day and we were able to close down the lens to f8. To further insure sharpness, we focused mid-way between the miniature and the actors. All-in-all, the effect is totally convincing, and people who have seen it think it’s some sort of precisely executed matte shot.

John Cosentino places twigs into the miniature papier mache platform that the spaceship model rests on. The miniature was coated with real snow.

After the miniature blends into the real, life-size landscape, the camera with a 10mm wide-angle lens is placed close to the miniature.

The miniature placed close to the lens creates the illusion of a huge spaceship. The actors are placed 200 feet in the background, lined up so that they appear to be next to the spaceship. It is important for the miniature to blend perfectly with the life-size background. It is usually best, therefore, to assemble the miniature set. up on location. The models and main ground pieces are built beforehand, but the final assembly needs to include dirt, sand (or in this case, snow), rocks and twigs from the location properly blended to merge with the background.

The foreground miniature is complete and ready for setting up with the actors. Note that the small twigs on the platform will blend in with real trees in the background adding depth to the perspective illusion.

Space ship miniature

Bill Cosentino … special effects assistant John Cosentino … ‘Zagatile’ (tall creature) designed by / special effects Ernest Farino … ‘Leemoid’ animated by (as Ernie Farino) / ‘Leemoid’ designed by (as Ernie Farino) Britt McDonough … special effects Ted Rae … special effects assistant (as Ted Richard Rae) Larry Schlechter … ‘Inferbyce’ (incect) designed by / special effects Visual Effects by Ernest Farino … additional photographic effects (as Ernest D. Farino) Original Source Material Cinemagic v1 09 (1977) Cinemagic v1 10 (1977) Cinemagic v1 11 (1978) Cinemagic v2 06

The Alien Factor (1978) Retrospective How many of us started into filmmaking with crude, 8mm “mad scientist” horror epics, churned out on weekends in basements, garages, and living rooms?

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