#yes 2014 but it still slaps ten years later

[c-cw-f-saeko]

play - join tai (wip)

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Hiatusbreaker Update 2

Although the premiere of Doctor Who Series 13 is still a while off, let alone the announcement of a premiere date, there are a few things I’d like to talk about before that time comes. Let’s get right into it.

Filler series plans to talk about Series 1-10

Some time ago, I had plans to make a ten-part series talking about Series 1-10 in detail, but because I had a lot of stuff going on, those plans were reduced to something I call Doctor Who 10 for 10 - 10 Things for 10 Series, which was to state ten things about each series with at least 4 to 6 of these things being my opinions on each series. This was intended to be a filler series to bide the time before Series 13 comes out, but that may have to come at another time. I’m also continuing with Kisekae Insights if anyone wants to check it out.

The post-Series 13 forecast

Since Series 13 would be Jodie Whittaker’s third series as the Doctor, signs are pointing to this being her final series. There are also rumours stating that there will be two specials in 2022 that would serve as her final episodes. If this is the case, then it means that Jodie Whittaker would have been the Doctor for five years; a five-year-long ordeal of pain because series seem to be released pretty much every other year as a result of the almost-year-long gaps between them, not to mention the fact that less episodes are being produced as time goes on. Whether Chris Chibnall will be remaining on is still unknown at this time. Frankly, I’ll be glad when this is all over because I (and many other fans) have been kept hanging for so long. I just hope the Timeless Child payoff will be worth it.

At this point, the only reason why I’m still watching the series is mainly because I want to know how the Timeless Child arc plays out. The initial shocks have come and gone, but now this is where we wait and see if the aftershocks are as worse.

When I started my Thirteenth Doctor Reviews, I made a pact that I would cut off all ties with the series going forward if the Fourteenth Doctor was another female. Given the Timeless Child arc and the rumours that Olly Alexander would replace Jodie Whittaker (which would make him the first gay actor to play the Doctor) that came and went because his agent stated that he was focusing on music for the time being, I’ve honestly stopped giving a shit at this point. I’ll probably continue being a casual fan of Doctor Who, watching episodes as they come out, but regardless, all that this series will be to me is like what the Koei Warriors series has degraded itself to over the past decade. I’ll still be grateful for all the inspiration and opportunities it has provided me with over the years, but I’ll probably accept that the series has gone on a downward spiral with seemingly no way of coming back up. But hey, all will be revealed in due time, so the forecast isn’t that bleak for now.

The first look into Series 13 (added 26 July 2021)

So just today, two days after I originally published this post, the teaser trailer for Doctor Who Series 13 was released following the 2021 San Diego Comic Con@Home. Aside from the Doctor, Yaz and Dan, the only other character we see is Vinder, a recurring character throughout the series who will be played by Jacob Anderson. Recurring character, you say, and that’s because Series 13 will apparently be a single serialised story. This brings callbacks to The Trial of a Time Lord or more loosely, the multiple two-parters of Series 9. We still don’t get an exact premiere date, only that it will premiere “later this year”, but given that Series 11 and 12 took about 10 months to film, we can predict that filming of Series 13 will likely be wrapping up in the next month. Whether there will be a shorter run of five or six episodes (thereby reserving two of those episodes for the 2022 specials, assuming they won’t be filmed separately to Series 13) is unknown, but regardless, I’m looking forward to watching and reviewing the series for myself.

Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall leave Doctor Who (added 30 July 2021) 

In news that will surprise no one, Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall have announced that they will be leaving the series in 2022. Technically, the news isn’t much of a surprise in terms of Whittaker than it is for Chibnall, as Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have been showrunner for two Doctors each. But hey, with this, it means that my Thirteenth Doctor Reviews will also be a review of Chibnall’s run as showrunner.

My initial thoughts on this, which may or may not change coming up to Whittaker’s final episode - it was an okay run while it lasted, but honestly, good riddance. How’s that five year plan of yours going, Chibnall? If your plan was to divide the fanbase and leave them hanging with gaps between series, then you’ve really done it.

On top of this, Series 13 will be six episodes long, with the remaining two episodes to be broadcast as specials in 2022. The first of them will be a New Year’s Special (surprise surprise) and the second will follow in Spring 2022 (Northern Hemisphere). The Thirteenth Doctor’s final episode will premiere in Autumn 2022 (Northern Hemisphere) as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations. Some tentative dates I’m predicting are 18 October 2022, the 100th anniversary of the BBC, 23 November 2022, the 59th anniversary of Doctor Who, or 1 January 2023, which would make it another New Year’s Special (I’m not discounting 25 December 2022, I just think it’s less likely given how this era has been).

With this, the Fourteenth Doctor is expected to debut in 2023, the 60th anniversary year of Doctor Who. I just hope the new production team doesn’t disappoint the fans with that.

In terms of statistics, Jodie Whittaker has played the Doctor for 31 episodes, making her run the second shortest behind Christopher Eccleston. Peter Capaldi played the Doctor for 40 episodes, Matt Smith for 44 episodes and David Tennant for 47.

My hopes for Whittaker and Chibnall’s final episodes haven’t changed; I want to see what happens with the Timeless Child arc (and also Ruth). Whether the Fourteenth Doctor will be male or female (or played by a non-binary or trans actor), I have a few basic preliminary hopes for the next run; make each series 13 episodes again with a Christmas Special each year and put the series back on Saturday nights, like it was before Whittaker and Chibnall. Also, can we go back to filming in the 16:9 ratio? I can never get over how weird it looks on my screen (at full screen, it doesn’t look so weird when I have it playing on half screen, which is what I usually do when I write my reviews).

Jay Exci - The Fall of Doctor Who

Yes, it has been a while and I know I could have told everyone about this earlier, but better late than never I suppose. A couple of months ago, Jay Exci did a 5-hour long critique of the Chibnall era in his video, The Fall of Doctor Who. For some reason, there are those who see it as controversial because they’re NPCs who don’t want to hear criticism of the Chibnall era or they’re spergs who aren’t mature enough to sit through a 5-hour video they can watch in chunks, but hey, it’s pretty good. This is more in-depth than the reviews that people like Bowlestrek or Nerdrotic make, which essentially put Jay on their level in the eyes of the NPCs despite denying that they are on their level and being a sperg about how they’re better than them. Welcome to the party, Jay, you can check out anytime but you can never leave. 

Anyway, you can check out the video below. Even if you don’t feel like watching the whole video, I highly suggest that you watch section 4.2 onwards (timestamped link here) as it does resonate with my feelings on the Timeless Child arc. I swear, this is just like Dynasty Warriors 9 all over again. I know the feeling.

Cancel culture comes for Noel Clarke and John Barrowman

The thing about cancel culture is that people can be petty about things other people have done or said years ago and they can justify it with the excuse that they’re doing it to hold those people accountable. Depending on the context, it can expose the fact that that person is a major piece of shit or it can be an overreaction to something, which in the minds of today’s society is normally the latter.

Around the time that Noel Clarke was nominated for a Bafta at the end of March, allegations emerged of abuse and sexual misconduct against him. 20 women came forward with their stories and as a result, the final episode of Viewpoint was pulled from broadcast (but still released on Blu-ray and DVD) and Bulletproof was cancelled before filming on the fourth series would begin.

In May, video emerged of Clarke at Chicago TARDIS in 2014 talking about how John Barrowman would expose his genitals and slap it on people and things. This led to allegations about Barrowman surfacing, resulting in him apologising for his actions even though he had already been reprimanded for them over a decade ago and apologised in November 2008. Despite this, his contribution to the immersive theatrical event Doctor Who: Time Fracture was pulled and Big Finish have decided to shelf the release of Torchwood: Absent Friends, which would have featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Now, I don’t care about Noel Clarke by any means, but this situation is honestly sad for John Barrowman because it shows that cancel culture spares no victims and leaves no fossil undiscovered. These PR stunts have clearly shown that the spineless people involved with those productions are so concerned with saving face that they are unable to just overlook these transgressions for the sake of fans who actually wanted to see him reprise his role as Captain Jack Harkness. But hey, what do I know? I don’t really care for anything other than the TV series, but it really shows how shameless corporations can be.

Once again, we don’t exactly know when Doctor Who Series 13 will premiere, but if you ask me, I predict that it will premiere in October or November. I’ll see you all again around that time.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

These quotes are from the same book tag! | Old Writing #9

Hey People of Earth!

@katelynntheauthor tagged me to do this and it looked like a ton of fun! The rules of this tag are as follows:

In this tag, you take two or more quotes, all from one of your books, that definitely don’t sound like they belong in the same book.

Since I’ve been a little MIA on here, instead of doing this for just one book, I thought it could be fun to do this for all of my writing projects, including the atrocious novelettes I wrote when I was twelve. The first three will be from said novelettes, but beyond that, will be my 8 novels. :) Since this will feature all old writing, I also decided to include it in my old writing series, which you can check out HERE if you need some cringe in yo life.

NUMBER ONE:

Book: Sophie and Jake (2014)

(I mentioned this before, but this isn’t the title because it didn't have a title and was the first writing project I ever created. But yes. Prepare for more awful titles.)

Age written: 12

Excerpt #1: I brace myself for pain when I feel cool metal against my arm.

Excerpt #2: The bartender looks up and gives us a big drunk grin.

NUMBER TWO:

Book: The Dreamer (2014)

Age written: 12

Excerpt #1: The knife comes flying at me. 

Excerpt #2: Lake looks dazed, but through all of it I see a small smile creep onto his lips.

(dazed and confuzed all my lyfe)

NUMBER THREE:

Book: The Treated (2014)

Age written: 12

Excerpt #1: Even though his smile is forever gone, he holds his head up with confidence. 

Excerpt #2: “My traitorous friend pushed me down this hole.” 

(shared #2 because honestly same me too)

NUMBER FOUR:

(this is where the actual books start, and the novelettes end)

Book: Perks and Drawbacks (2014)

Age written: 12/13

Excerpt #1: I moved from my crappy, crappy town of Modesto, California, all the way to the big city, and I mean the big city, the Big Apple per se, New York, New York. 

Excerpt #2: I can’t stop the single tear that runs down my cheek.

(I love how it’s one single tear lol meee tooo)

NUMBER FIVE:

Book: Fostered (2014)

Age written: 13

Excerpt #1: “There’s a difference between a monster and a hero.”

Excerpt #2: “Reeve. Not just waffles. The waffles.”

(these were said by the same person)

NUMBER SIX:

Book: This Is Where the End Starts (2014)

Age written: 13

Excerpt #1: Friday night approaches like a slap to the face. 

Excerpt #2: “Where you going anyway Wheezy? The nunnery?”

NUMBER SEVEN:

Book: Hunted (Fostered #2, 2015)

Age Written: 13

Excerpt #1: When I was eleven, Dad had me on his hockey team at the local rink. 

Excerpt #2: It has to be close to two hours of driving autopilot when the black SUV smashes into the front windshield. 

rip

NUMBER EIGHT:

Book: Resisted (Fostered #3, 2015)

Age written: 13/14

Excerpt #1: Rain spatters at the window of my car, and every time it pours down a bit too hard, my first instinct is to glance down at a still-unconscious Lonan to see if the noise has woken him up. 

Excerpt #2: "You're gonna eat five bags of waffle fries? Pass one over, fatass.”

(these are from the same chapter lol)

NUMBER NINE:

Book: I’m Disappointed (2015)

Age written: 14

Excerpt #1: “Come on, we were friends once. I don’t entirely remember you being such a fucking idiot.” 

Excerpt #2: Today is March 17th. So that’s over two months since Julian Cole signed out of my life for good, and that’s past Christmas, and past New Years, and past Valentine’s day, and past all the shit that doesn’t matter, because life right now Doesn’t Even Matter.

(gotta get that Clifford angst amirite)

(is this really Clifford angst or is this actually Rachel angst)

NUMBER TEN:

Book: Hollowed (Fostered #4, 2016)

Age written: 14/15

Excerpt #1: Blood doesn’t wash out of carpets easily. 

Excerpt #2: Air sifts through my lungs like a bushel of thorns.

NUMBER ELEVEN:

Book: Splintered (Fostered #5, 2017)

Age written: 15

Excerpt #1: “No one’s complaining when you’re all ibuprofen, isopropyl alcohol, antibiotics, Dr. Oz.”

Excerpt #2: It’s my body that finds Harrison later that night, not my mind. 

So that’s it for this tag! Thanks again to @katelynntheauthor for tagging me! Hope you enjoyed, even though I went overboard, lol. If you’d like to do this, consider yourself tagged. :)

--Rachel

[timeforalongstory]

I don't know if you've already had these from someone else, but 3, 7, and 12 from Ye Heirs, please? :)

Certainly!

3 What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?

That’s tough - there are a lot of things about the fic that I really like :) The Trevilieu flashbacks in act 3 are my favorite writing of the entire fic, and I’m doubly proud of them because I came up with them mostly on the fly - the original plan hadn’t been to show the courtship in any kind of detail. But I think I really have to go with the last chapter/epilogue, the way the entire thing came together at the end and delivered an ending that was (I hope) both happy and realistic - justified. Many comments throughout the fic said some variation of “there’s just no way this could ever be happy, there’s no happy ending I could find believable” and I think I managed to pull it off regardless. So I’m very proud of that.

7 Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?

Definitely Rochefort. This requires a bit of context…

Cast your mind back - when I started writing heirs it was December of 2014, which was one month BEFORE the second season of the show started to air. I started writing heirs, and plotted it out, in the doldrums after S1. We didn’t even know how they were going to handle Richelieu at that point! We knew Peter Capaldi had been cast as the new Doctor, but it wasn’t certain that they were going to kill of Richelieu. A lot of us were hoping that he’d continue to make the occasional guest appearance, that he’d be called off to Rome for a year and send back lots of letters, etc, etc. And most crucially, although Marc Warren had been announced as Rochefort, we all thought that - like in the book - Rochefort would be Richelieu’s henchman; that Rochefort was going to be essentially running Richelieu’s empire while Richelieu was conveniently ~off in rome~ or even dead.

So when S2 started to air, and Rochefort had no connection to Richelieu whatsoever and was an entirely new and different villain, it threw us all for a pretty good loop. And I was worried about my fic, because my fic (at that time) had no Rochefort in it! That’s right - he hadn’t been in S1, so there was no Rochefort. The villain was the essentially OC “Inquisitor of Lille”, who had all the plot moves that later became Rochefort’s but none of Rochefort’s personality. I was thinking I had to find some way to work this guy in now, but how to do it without upsetting the whole applecart?

The big, game-changing decision happened somewhere mid-January, when I realized that, holy cow, Rochefort is the Inquisitor of Lille! And that realization came from the episode that starts with Rochefort role-playing sex with Queen Anne using a prostitute as a stand-in. The show gave us a Rochefort who was obsessed with Anne, driven insane by his obsession, evil and willing to persecute - he WAS the OC I’d invented, only even better, because now his motivation wasn’t just hatred of throwbacks, it was a specific focus on the “purity of womanhood” bullshit that all racist movements like to pull out, with an even more specific focus on Anne herself - who, of course, as was always true from the start, was herself a hidden throwback. I could immediately see how the final confrontation would be THAT MUCH MORE intense with Rochefort woven into Anne’s life from a young age.

So I pulled up a wikipedia page, slapped a Spanish title on Rochefort (Toreno), looked up his given name from the books (George, or Jorge, as Ana calls him) and we were off to the races with a villain TEN TIMES BETTER than I had envisioned.

And it’s all thanks to the lucky timing of when the show aired! If you go back and look, you’ll notice that Rochefort-as-Lille doesn’t get introduced until after that episode - and that’s why; before then, Lille was just a guy.

12 Did any thing about this fic’s reception surprise me?

I was so so happy to see everyone who came along for the ride. Shout-out to Elenduen, the OP, who was the first poster for virtually every chapter and never stopped being a huge cheerleader. And, too, people who came to read the fic - they STAYED. They didn’t just read a few chapters and then move on or stop commenting. They kept commenting. That hasn’t been true since the old days on FF.net, but here it was again. And people started talking to each OTHER. THAT hasn’t been true since LJ - and yet here it was again. And so I guess the fic’s reception felt very old-fashioned - like a throwback itself :) In all the best ways! When I got to the end of the fic I said in one of my notes that it felt like the last night of summer camp, where we’d all spent this time together and forged this community, but now it was ending.

In a way I was wrong about that - a lot of us still talk to each other even though we’ve moved on to other fics and other fandoms - and I’m grateful for that too. So there were surprises, but all good ones!

[cloppyreads]

So Power Rangers 2017 sucked... which should surprise no one.

The sad part is, it’s not even laughably bad, like the Schumaker Batman movies, or even Dragon Ball Evolution. It’s the kind of bad where it works in some parts, and kind of tricks you into thinking it might be decent, but then rushes through everything that you were hoping for and leaves you disappointed. 

Okay so the first few minutes of the movie are actually really cool, where they show Zordon as a Power Ranger himself banishing Rita who was also a Power Ranger before he dies. And you know what, that actually makes sense. I like that these two beings who were TEN THOUSAND YEARS old in the show actually wielded that power in their previous lives, that’s good expansion to the lore. 

Cut to the five teenagers, who all have no personality past their one-dimensional quirks. We’ve got Jason, the jock who’s destroyed his future as a football star, Billy, who’s a genius with autism (because having a mental disorder is a personality is a character, right?), Kimberly, who is... a girl... Zack, who’s just weird for the sake of being weird, and Trini, who is... also a girl... and weird... and maybe a lesbian?  Look, I’m not saying that the original teenagers of Mighty Morphin had great personalities, but for the most part, the TV show knew we weren’t here for the teenage drama, we were here to watch fights with putty’s, guys in rubber monster suits, and mech fights. This 2 hour movie has basically 1 and 1/2 hours dedicated to showing these teenagers interact with their cardboard personalities until the last 20 minutes before the credits (which we’ll get to in a bit). 

When we actually see Alpha and Zordon, believe it or not, they’re actually pretty intriguing. Alpha kind of has a bit of that spastic personality with a bit of annoyance to it, but it actually feels a bit... human. Like the things he’s saying are thing you could imagine a real person saying (you know, if they were an intergalactic robot who’d been trapped in a spaceship for millions of years). His voice actually sounds like a person instead of squeaky ear rape, and he just seems so excited about everything that’s happening around him.  Zordon is the exact opposite. He’s impatient, demanding and just unimpressed with what’s going on. When the five teenagers show up, he doesn’t think they’re cut out for; he says something along the lines of “How could the coins be entrusted to these... these children?”. And to me, that makes sense; I’d think that a million year old being would definitely doubt that a bunch of teenagers were capable of mastering these cosmic powers and defeating a creature of pure evil that they just don’t understand.  In fact it goes a step further than that. Zordon has so little trust in these kids that it’s revealed he’s only teaching them to morph so he can use the energy to revive himself and defeat Rita on his own. It actually gives Zordon a little bit of depth that he has no faith in these guys at all. Of course it comes full circle when one of them dies, and they say some “blah blah friendship” stuff, and Zordon gets his chance to come back, but uses it to bring the dead ranger to life. Yes, it’s cliche as all hell, but I think it’s a cliche that works well in this instance. 

Speaking of Rita... Rita is awful. When she first shows up, she just acts creepy and weird in a way that’s awkward to watch. She looks less like an evil empress and more like a henchwoman for an empress. The way she chews up golden necklaces just feels like she should be muttering “Yessssss... YESSSSSS... More gold for MASTER! MORE GOLD!” Later in the movie she starts being more articulent (it’s like the scriptwriter got bored with having her be creepy and needed her to talk like a human for plot convenience, or something), but even then it’s not very intriguing. She says some creepy evil stuff, threatens to kill someone if she doesn’t get her way, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and her big monster she’s trying to resurrect is Goldar. Yup. Big dumb winged henchman of the show is no longer her henchman, it’s her ULTIMATE WEAPON. And when he’s completed, he doesn’t even look like goldar, except that he’s... gold... and has wings. 

Speaking of Rita, the movie decided to pull a bait and switch on me by making me think we’d actually get to see Rita fight. All the rangers surround her in an abandoned warehouse, and the camera swoops around them in that way that gets you hype. Then they start swinging at her, and she knocks them away with her staff, and I actually felt myself getting a little excited, until -- oh, let’s just skip to the part where they’re tied up and defeated, that fight scene lasted five seconds, nobody wants to see fighting! We need more silly teenage drama, that’s what everyone wants!

Alright, so after an hour and a half of this bullshit, they finally learn how to morph, and their suits look pretty neat. Not as good as the show, but I’m willing to be lenient, they look decent for a :modern take”. So after all that crap, maybe this will be like Godzilla 2014 and we’ll get some satisfying action at the end?

Ha ha... no. When they fight the “putty’s” the whole fight feels rushed, like it’s on fast-forward. They show Jason throw a kick and a punch, then switch to Zack throwing a guy over his shoulder, then Kimberly’s doing a spin kick. Then it all ends with Zack summoning his zord and bulldozing all the minions away. I think the whole “fight scene” was over with in less than a minute. 

Zords... look awful. I mean, the CG was good, to the point that they looked pretty real, but the designs were just very messy. The first time they appeared, they actually blended in with the rocks to the point I didn’t recognize they were there at all. When they finally started moving, I actually had to squint my eyes to recognize “wait, that metal mess is a triceratops, I see it now”. They all pretty much fly around and fail to beat Goldar, and it looks like they’re gonna get burned alive in fire, until “something something TEAMWORK” and then a metal hand reaches out of the fire, and the megazord was combined under all that fire to the point we couldn’t watch it combine, seriously, no combining sequence? Fuck you. Also, the megazord just looks like a giant robot power ranger, seriously, just take one of the power rangers and make it into a 20 story robot, and that’s the megazord. Double fuck you. 

The fight with Goldar is disappointingly short. There’s one minute spent with them going “wait, shit how do we work this thing?” and then as soon as they figure it out, they kill him. And then they bitch-slap Rita into outer space, and that’s it. That’s the end. 

There’s also a slew of “how do you do fellow kids?” meme-bait references and trendy songs and slang throughout the movie. I was pretty mad when they played Hand Clap during the training sequence, and they played some Kanye West song during another action scene ( I forget when exactly, maybe the Zord scene? I don’t know, but it took what little hype there was out of it). The part that killed me was after Rita was defeated, and all of the townsfolk were looking at the megazord in awe, the rangers made it do a hip-thrust dance. I just cringed so hard seeing that. Oh, and the actors for Tommy and Kimberly were there among the townsfolk, because OH MY GOSH GUYS EASTER EGGS YOU NERDS LOVE YOUR IN-JOKES WITH THE WINK-WINK AND THE NUDGE-NUDGE XD

I knew this was gonna be bad. I’m not trying to be pompous and say “I told you so” or anything, I’m saying in the sense that I knew it was gonna be bad, and was still disappointed. It wasn’t so bad it was funny (like Terminator Genisys, which I was rolling laughing at). This was just aggravating. I’m sure a year from now I’ll look back at it and laugh with friends over it, but right now, it just feels obnoxious. 

Bottom line, do not pay for a ticket for this movie. They’ve got six sequels lined up, so get the word out about how bad this movie is and make sure they don’t even get to finish filming the second one. I mean if it does happen, whatever, I’m not gonna lose sleep over it, but I feel like it’d be nice if this cringe-fest just got nipped in the bud. 

[purplesurveys]

90

[Pause: Currently] What style is your hair in? 
It’s starting to become really hot in the afternoon so I’ve put it in a ponytail.

What’re you wearing? 
My outfit yesterday, a turtleneck and shorts. I’m too lazy to change.

What’s the weather like outside? 
No wind, just sun. It’s making me miserable. GIVE ME RAIN.

What time is it? 
2:23 PM as of this typing.

Who, if anyone, is in the room with you? 
I’m alone right now. Not my choice, but that’s what I’m stuck with.

What’s on your mind? 
That I have a midterm on Tuesday and should really get to studying now lol

What make-up, if any, are you wearing? 
I’ve stopped wearing makeup regularly. Come to think of it, I only really got into makeup because I wanted to look pretty in front of my ex…then I was able to ask her out again and eventually got too lazy to put in effort to use makeup anymore.

What month is it? 
It’s March! …and getting so much closer to the end of the semester. I’m excited.

[Fast Forward: Future] What career do you want? 
I want something that wouldn’t give me the draining feeling I’ve been getting in school for a while now. I don’t want a prison, that’s all.

What age do you think you’ll get married by? 
I always wanted to get married by the time I reach my late 20’s. I don’t know about that now, though.

What about having kids? 
Still around the same age, ideally. But then again I also always want my money to myself and be able to travel, be independent, and not keep a close eye on a kid 24/7, so I’m a little torn.

What age do you plan on moving out? 
21-22.

Can you see yourself moving away from here and if so, to where? 
Yeah, I’m not completely ignoring a move to another country. It’s possible. But I don’t mind ending up still in the Philippines, albeit in a different city. In the end all I want, honestly, is to cut off ties with my mother.

Do you think you’ll marry your current significant other? 
It’s ridiculously early to ask…for now I’m the one entirely okay about marriage; excited about the idea, even. My girlfriend is rather closed off to it. But I do think it’s way too early to bring up a conversation like that and I’m not going to be sitting her down to talk about it any time soon.

Do you know what the weather is supposed to be like for the rest of the week? 
Not specifically, but I know it’s only going to be warmer from here.

What tattoos and/or piercings do you want in the future? 
I wanted so many tattoos. I wanted to put on my thigh, ankle, wrist, at the back of my neck, my fingers, etc. until watching my mom get tattooed totally destroyed that goal of mine. I turn into a wuss at the general concept of anything piercing my body, so I had to say goodbye to piercings too :c I wanted to get a lip ring so bad.

Do you want any cosmetic surgery sometime down the line, if you had money for it? 
No. Imagine all the pizza I can buy instead.

In ten years, how old will you be and where do you see yourself? 
I’ll be 29 and Gab and I have a lovely little place to call home. We’ll also have a golden retriever we’ve named Theo and hopefully I’m so much happier with life by then.

[Rewind: Past] When’s the last time you took a shower? 
Yesterday.

What was the last text message you sent? 
"I miss you"

What did you do yesterday? 
I went to my one class for Friday running on two hours of sleep because I worked nearly all night for a news report project that I soon found out wasn’t needed until next week, so that fucking bummed me out. I drove to Gabie’s early so I could sleep in my car, then I drove her home where I stayed for a bit. We played games on each other’s phone till the sun set, then decided we wanted to watch a movie. I eventually realized we weren’t going to end up watching anything because we were only critiquing EACH AND EVERY FILM that we skimmed through on her hard drive like the film nerds that we are. We’re pretty great.

How old were you when you first started dating? 
I was 16.

When was the last time you saw your best friend? 
I saw Gab yesterday, and Angela I last saw about three weeks ago, at a friend’s debut.

What was your first word? 
No clue. My parents didn’t care enough to track it.

What’s your earliest memory? 
When I was three, my parents set up a kid’s tent in mine and my sister’s room to do pretend camping. That’s my earliest one and can’t remember anything before that.

Do you remember what you were doing twelve hours ago? 
Passed out in bed. That was 3:04 AM.

Three years ago, did you dress the same way you do now? 
Not really, but it’s not drastically different from what I wear today. 2014 I was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn, so all I ever wore out were little black dresses, summer dresses, skirts, flats, etc. Right now I can’t say my style is super defined because I would wear anything, as long as they match and make me look cute ha.

How old were you when your first younger sibling was born, assuming you’re not the youngest or an only child? 
I was two.

[Eject: Stuff You Wish Didn’t Happen] How did your first serious breakup go? 
A mess. I was so mad and was even made madder by the fact that she didn’t seem to be the least bit sorry for what happened at first. There was zero interaction made up for with endless subtweeting, and it was just silent rage all around. I wrote her a letter some time after expressing everything that was in my heart and head and that seemed to slap all the sense right back to her. We are now dating again though so it’s all goodski HAHAHA

TW// Have you ever had an eating disorder? 
Nope.

TW// Have you ever cut yourself? 
I have, yeah.

TW// Have you ever thought about or attempted suicide? 
Yes, and yes.

What was the last thing you cried about? 
I get triggered by the smallest things, so when I was asked to run errands in a very rushed manner this morning, I comletely lost it and had a good cry in the car.

What’s one thing that’s stressing you out like crazy right now? All the requirements being asked of me by all my classes.

Have you ever had a horrible teacher and/or boss? 
It couldn’t get any worse than my history prof last semester.

The first time you dumped someone, was it hard? 
I’ve never dumped anybody.

[Record: Awesomeness That Deserves to be Recorded on Video Forever] When was the last time you laughed really hard and what was it about? 
Yesterday morning! Gab and I were having breakfast at Jollibee when I started playing with the filters on her Snapchat. We got to the face swapping option and quickly filled the area with our noise because we were laughing sooooo fucking much.

What was the last funny movie you saw? 
No clue. I haven’t seen anything new in months.

The last time you ate something really delicious, what was it? 
A goddamn plate of risotto. IT NEVER FAILS

The last time you got your paycheck, how much was it and were you satisfied with it? 
None of that just yet. Hopefully soon!!!

How exactly did you and your best friend meet? 
Gab in 7th grade, Angela in the 1st.

What was the last compliment you received? 
I was told I smelled nice.

What’s one thing you wish you could relive just for one day? I wish I could replay the night I went to my WWE show, but with better eyeglasses because I saw dirt shit that night.

[Play: From This Moment On] Now that you’re done, what will you do? 
Maybe look for something to eat. Then take another survey.

What’s on your agenda for today? 
Surveys surveys surveys then hopefully get the drive to start studying for my soc sci midterm.

What’s your next meal going to be? I’m not sure. I’m craving for pasta though ;(

Will you change your clothes later in the day? 
Maybe change out of this annoying uncomfortable turtleneck, yeah.

Who do you plan on seeing today? 
My dog.

Are you going to take another survey afterwards? 
Maybe.

Is the weather supposed to stay this way all day or will it change? 
Yup. The sun never goes away here, unfortunately.

Do you have any chores you need to do? 
I did all of them this morning.

Do you have work later in the day? 
Hahahayeahdon'tremindmeplzsurveysaresupposedtobemtgreatescapefromthingsplzplzplz.

What about any homework to do? 
SAME THING

[yasbxxgie]

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have a history of collaboration that goes far beyond Wakanda, having worked together on Fruitvale Station and Creed. Now they’ve announced a new film, titled Wrong Answer, about the 2006 Atlanta public school scandal regarding teachers cheating on standardized tests.

The film will be written by the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates. And even though Coates wasn’t directly involved in the Black Panther film, his run on the comic book series was a major influence on the movie. So I think we can consider this a roundabout Wakandan reunion.

In 2014, Rachel Aviv wrote a New Yorker article about the cheating, which will reportedly serve as the source material for the film. I remember reading it when it came out, but revisiting it now, years later, is no less upsetting. Not upsetting because of what the teachers did, but because of the system in which they were operating.

This was after No Child Left Behind was passed, which required students to meet certain levels on standardized tests or risk being shut down. In theory, yes, students should pass tests to prove they’re learning. But the act was heavily criticized for creating a national standard with no consideration for varying circumstances and no rewards for genuine but slow improvement. The middle school teachers at the center of this particular story described receiving incoming students from an elementary school that allegedly inflated their scores. These teachers, then, had to choose between inflating their own or being shut down.

The principal at that school described the district as “increasingly ‘corporate,’ with every school focussed on the ‘bottom line.'”

Math teacher Damany Lewis is the central figure in the article. He and others are said to have “complained that the legislators who wrote No Child Left Behind must never have been near a school like Parks.” Aviv goes on to say “He felt as if he and his colleagues were part of a nationwide ‘biological experiment’ in which the variables—the fact that so many children were hungry and transient, and witnessing violence—hadn’t been controlled.

Another educator said, “The people who say poverty is no excuse for low performance are now using teacher accountability as an excuse for doing nothing about poverty.”

Lewis was 29 at the time, and likely the character Jordan will be playing. The article paints a picture of a man who cares about his students to an astounding degree, as well as a man who plainly great at his job.

The article, which is an important, if painful, read, illustrates the connection between kids’ low test scores and growing despondency. Lewis decided to steal a test to see if he’d been prepping his students with the right material. “Flipping through its pages,” Aviv writes, “he felt proud of how much material he had covered that year.

“Without even reading the question, I could tell you just by the shape of the graph, ‘Oh, my kids know that,’ ” he told me. He put the test in his fireplace once he’d confirmed that he had taught the necessary concepts. But he worried that his students would struggle with questions that were delivered in paragraph form. Some of his seventh-grade students were still reading by sounding out the letters. It seemed unfair that the concepts were “buried in words.” Lewis felt that he had pushed them to work harder than they ever had in their lives. “I’m not going to let the state slap them in the face and say they’re failures,” he told me. “I’m going to do everything I can to prevent the why-try spirit.”

So he went beyond stealing a test, to actually changing some of his students’ answers.

At the end of the testing week, Lewis went back to the testing office with Crystal Draper, a language-arts teacher. For about an hour, they erased wrong answers and bubbled in the right ones. They exchanged no words. Lewis couldn’t even look at her. “I couldn’t believe what we’d been reduced to,” he said. He tried to stay focussed on the mechanics of the work: he took care to change, at most, one or two answers for every ten questions. “I had a minor in statistics, and it’s not that hard to figure out windows of probability,” he told me. Many students were on the cusp of passing, and he gave them a little nudge, so that they would pass by one or two points.

A month later, when the scores came back, [Christopher] Waller [the principal of Parks] told the students to gather in the hallway outside the cafeteria, where there was a spread of ice cream, pizza, and hot wings. A teacher announced, “You did it! You finally made it!” For the first time since the passage of No Child Left Behind, Parks had met its annual goals: the percentage of eighth graders who passed rose thirty-one points in reading and sixty-two points in math. “Everyone was jumping up and down,” Neekisia Jackson, a student, said. “It was like our World Series, our Olympics.” She went on, “We had heard what everyone was saying: Y’all aren’t good enough. Now we could finally go to school with our heads held high.”

I can’t wait to see Coogler, Jordan, and Coates take on this story. It’s a dark, complicated point in our country’s history, and they’re exactly the minds to take it on. My only hope is that while these three names are getting the spotlight now, that Coogler include as many women as possible in the process, both in front of the camera and behind. (Especially since elementary and middle school teacher is reportedly the most common occupation among American women. Let’s not let them be left out of this important story.) Though, given Coogler’s incredible dedication to women’s representation in Black Panther, we have confidence that that won’t be an issue. [h/t]