#i’m about to turn this script into a podcast and listen to it on repeat

[oh-god-a-four]

we open in 16 days and i have not learned a single line……..stress 😵‍💫😵‍💫

[the-rewatch-rewind]

New episode! Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind, the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. My name is Jane, and today I will be talking about #35 on my list: Miramax, Producer’s Circle, and Storyline Entertainment’s 2002 crime musical Chicago, directed by Rob Marshall, written by Bill Condon – from the stage musical book by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, which was based on a play by Maurine Dallas Watkins – and starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere.

Set in the Roaring 1920s, Chicago tells the story of wannabe star Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger), who shoots and kills her lover Fred Casely (Dominic West) when she finds out he has lied to her about his show business connections. In jail, Roxie encounters the famous Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who “allegedly” murdered her husband and sister when she found them having an affair. Both plan to be represented by lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), whose strategy involves turning criminals into celebrities so they’ll be acquitted, which leads Roxie and Velma to compete for the spotlight.

I think this was either the first or second PG-13 movie I ever saw. My mom took me to see it in a theater in early 2003, a couple of months before I turned 13, which was kind of surprising because my parents were pretty strict about what I was allowed to see. I don’t actually remember why she agreed to take me to see it. What I do recall is that one of my best friends at the time was obsessed with this movie, so I’d already listened to the soundtrack multiple times at her house, although we mostly just listened to Cell Block Tango on repeat, so I thought the movie was going to be about those 6 murderers, and was surprised to learn that five of them are barely in the rest of it. I remember really liking the song, and also feeling slightly rebellious listening to it because it had the word “ass” in it (although we usually quickly turned the volume on the CD player way down at that part – we weren’t that rebellious). The movie was a lot more raunchy than I was used to, which made me a bit uncomfortable, but overall I liked it. There were several things about it that fascinated me, so I kept returning to it. I ended up seeing it twice in 2003, twice in 2004, three times in 2005, once in 2006, twice in 2009, once in 2011, once in 2014, once in 2018, once in 2021, and once in 2022. If I recall correctly, we had it on VHS, but then our VCR broke with the tape inside, so we didn’t have it for a while, and then we bought a DVD copy later, so I think that explains the gap between 2006 and 2009, but I could be mis-remembering.

I’ve never seen the stage musical, but I absolutely love the way the movie handles the songs. Apart from a few actual performances, the musical numbers mainly exist in Roxie’s imagination. She wants to be on the stage so badly that she turns everything that happens to her into a production. The editing between drab reality and glamorous fiction is so well done and makes for a fascinating watch. I’m sure the stage version is great – I mean, the revival has been on Broadway since 1996, making it the second longest-running Broadway show of all time – but I know that practically, a stage show could not switch back and forth that quickly. Often when plays are adapted to the screen, the movie still feels a lot like a stage show, just with closeups and maybe a few extra locations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I love it when the screen adaptation adds things that couldn’t be done live, and Chicago is one of my favorite examples of that. The way the Cell Block Tango keeps switching between jail life and intense dancing; the way the press conference turns into a marionette show and back again in We Both Reached for the Gun; the way Billy’s dance moves in All I Care About Is Love flawlessly transition into his actual actions as he proves the song completely wrong – all of these and more are amazing and could only be done on screen. So if I had to point to one single reason why I keep rewatching this movie, it’s definitely the editing of the musical numbers.

A close second is the performances. Big movie musicals have a strange tendency to feature famous movie stars who can’t actually sing very well. Back in the day, they got around this by dubbing the singing…and then often not giving the actual singers credit, although the truth usually came out eventually – I see you Marni Nixon! More recently, they just, kind of…let the actors sing badly. But in the early 2000s there was a brief period when Hollywood made musicals featuring stars who weren’t necessarily particularly known for singing but still could actually sing, and thank goodness that happened here. The singing is excellent, the dancing is awesome, and the acting is phenomenal. Four of the actors: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Queen Latifah – who plays “Mama” Morton, the matron of the jail – and John C. Reilly – who plays Roxie’s simple, devoted husband, Amos – were nominated for Oscars. Only Zeta-Jones won, and I mean, I think they all did a fabulous job, but if only one could win, it would have been wrong if it wasn’t her. She perfectly conveys Velma’s strength and confidence with just the right hints of vulnerability to truly make the character work. But that’s not to say that other performances weren’t deserving of recognition as well. Renée Zellweger does an awesome job of differentiating between the real Roxie fumbling around trying to figure out how to handle reality and the confident performer she is in her imagination. And while I normally don’t like movies about people who hate each other, Zeta-Jones and Zellweger make Velma and Roxie’s fighting fun to watch. Similarly, Billy Flynn is a fairly despicable character, but Richard Gere is also very fun to watch. Queen Latifah nails Mama Morton’s corruption while still keeping her likeable. John C. Reilly’s Amos is exactly as pitiful as he should be. And the rest of the supporting cast is incredible as well – shout out to Taye Diggs as the Bandleader, all the ridiculously talented dancers, and of course the always fabulous Christine Baranski, who is an absolute delight as Mary Sunshine the reporter. Truly an excellent cast, and, appropriately for a movie about murder, they all killed it.

Chicago was nominated for a total of 13 Oscars, winning six. In addition to Catherine Zeta-Jones’s supporting actress win, it also won Best Picture, Editing, Art Direction, Costume Design, and Sound. I’m especially glad the editing was recognized, and the art direction, costume design, and sound work together with the editing to create that reality vs imagination effect, so I also think those were award-worthy. And my 2011 viewing of this movie was part of my watch-through of all the Best Picture winners. Around that time I recall stumbling upon a list that someone had made of the most undeserving Best Picture wins, and I can’t even remember if it was from some sort of official film critic publication or if it was just some random person on the internet, but it put Chicago at #1, which irritated me so much that I’m still annoyed about it 12 years later. I mean, it is probably true that, like many Miramax films from that era, Chicago won more Oscars than it would have without the campaigning of executive producer and now convicted criminal Harvey Weinstein, which is upsetting. But there are some Best Picture Winners that I found to be barely watchable, and I cannot believe that they deserved the Oscar more than this engrossing, well-told story. So to whoever made that list: you’re wrong.

If you’ve listened to my previous episodes, you may have noticed that when I talk about being aroace, I tend to focus more on the aromantic side of that than the asexual side. That’s mostly because romantic content – at least, straight romantic content – is considered appropriate for all audiences while sexual content is not, so romance is a lot harder to avoid. In general, if you stick to movies made during the Hays Code era from the mid-1930s through the mid-1960s, and movies made after that which are rated G or PG, there might be some innuendo or implied sexual behavior taking place offscreen, but there’s not going to be any actual sexual content, whereas there probably will be romantic content. And since sex and romance are often related, movies that have sexual content are almost certain to also have romantic content. Chicago is rather unusual in that it has sex but very little romance. Roxie uses sex to get what she wants – or at least, she tries to, it doesn’t really work out most of the time – but we never really see her, or any other character, falling in love. Most of the musical numbers feature rather provocative dances in revealing costumes, which isn’t exactly explicit sexual content, but I think could be described as “sexy.” One of the ways I figured out I was asexual was by realizing that I don’t quite understand what words like “provocative” or “sexy” really mean. Like, I kind of get what fits those descriptions, but do people actually see someone of a gender they’re attracted to scantily clad and dancing in a certain way and actually want to sleep with them because of it? Is that a thing? Before I understood that I was asexual, I kind of thought everyone was just going along with the idea of what made someone “hot” or “attractive,” and I still find it hard to wrap my head around the concept of actually feeling that attraction. So I guess the dances in Chicago are meant to turn people on, but ultimately they’re just performers doing their routine. And the main sex scene in the movie, when Roxie hooks up with Fred for the first time, is intercut with Velma’s performance of And All That Jazz right after she killed her husband and sister. Roxie is only sleeping with Fred because she thinks he can help her get into show business, which he lied about to get her into bed, so they’re both putting on an act, just like Velma is – both onstage and in her real life by pretending she hasn’t just committed a double homicide. The whole movie is about obscuring the truth with facades and performances, and the sex is very much a part of that. So as an asexual person, I find Chicago to be one of the least confusing movies that contain sexual content, because the sex and sexiness is intentionally contrived. Since I don’t experience it myself, to a certain extent, sexual attraction has always seemed fake to me. In this movie, it’s supposed to seem fake. In short, a probably unintended side effect of the themes of this movie is that Chicago portrays sex as performative in a way that is consistent with my asexual brain’s inability to comprehend sexual attraction, so that might explain why I enjoy it more than most movies that contain sexual content.

One last aspect of this movie I want to highlight is that it points out some of the glaring flaws in the US legal system. I know it’s specifically about 1920s Chicago, which was notoriously corrupt, but anyone who thinks that justice is blind anywhere in 2020s America must be living under a rock. Chicago straight up says, “It doesn’t matter if you’re guilty or innocent, it matters how much money you have, what you look like, and how the public perceives you.” Admittedly it doesn’t really address the problem of racism, but the only prisoner who seems to be innocent is a Hungarian immigrant who speaks very little English, and she’s the only one we know of who gets executed. It’s both a compelling argument for abolishing the death penalty – far too many innocent people are killed by the state – and a demonstration of why it’s not being abolished – the wrongfully executed tend to be people our society deems “less than.” This message kind of gets buried by the main story, and I feel like it’s easier to miss than it should be, but I appreciate that it’s there. And while it’s painful and upsetting to see that very little has changed in 100 years, in a way this movie can now serve as a reminder that at least occasionally, powerful and famous people who commit heinous crimes do get convicted and sent to prison.

Well, this episode got a little spicy. Thank you so much for listening. Subscribe or follow for more analysis of my most re-watched movies, and leave a rating or review to let me know how you’ve been enjoying it so far. The next episode will be about the final and longest movie I watched 15 times in 20 years, which is another Best Picture Winning musical. By the way, if you like musicals and learning about them, I highly recommend supporting Ashley Clements’s Patreon at the $15 level for episodes of her Patreon-exclusive show Broadway: Before & Beyond. This is not a sponsorship or anything, just a genuine recommendation. Every month, she posts an episode focusing on a specific era or year or particularly impactful show, and I’ve been learning so much about the history of musical theater. There’s also a monthly watch party related to that month’s episode, and my 2022 viewing of Chicago was one of those, so Ashley is partly to thank for this movie making it into my top 40. Anyway, my next episode will feature The Rewatch Rewind’s first ever guest appearance, and the guest is not Ashley Clements, but the guest is a fellow Ashley Clements patron. So stay tuned for that next week, and as always I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: “The poor didn’t want this one.”

[wenellyb]

Anthony Mackie is homophobic

There’s no way around it, Anthony Mackie is homophobic and here’s why.

This is how you make a headline..! You make a shocking title and then a catchphrase and the job is done.

You want it to be provocative, intriguing and you want people to click on read more, you want to catch everyone's attention.

Who cares if it's misleading or not accurate, right? People will get the rest of the idea/article when they read the whole article.

But what about those who don't click on the link and read the article? Who see the headline and then their idea is set.

Most people don't have the time to read the full article for further explanation. Some people will read the headline, take the information and move on. Sometimes they will even share that headline... without even reading the article. And I won't pretend I haven't done it too... I have done it and still do it. I've read headlines, retweeted them and shared it without reading the content because the headline was enough information for me.

And a lot of people on the Internet do this...and I think that it's part of the game. But, if you're going to use those headlines to throw accusations at someone and then share those accustions with people, the bare minimum is to read the article first.

And I feel like there has been 3 types of people in the Anthony Mackie story:

Those who read only the headlines and tweets but didn't read the article

Those who read the FULL article but didn't listen to the podcast ( This is much much better than the first one btw)

Those who read the article and listened to the audio.

And I also feel like people making the most noise are part of the 1st category.

I keep receiving some asks that I feel that some of them are missing the point so I'm going to write what I think about all of this and hopefully I can just link this post whenever I get a question.

And I am also disturbed by the fact that this is the 3rd option I get when I type Anthony Mackie on Twitter.

Now that the situation is calmer and the story died down a little, I wanted tovshare my thoughts. And of course you don’t have to read this, but I had to write this down, at least for myself.

I will be exploring 3 angles, so feel free to skip the ones you are not interested in.

It should have never been about the ship

If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

Part 1: It should have never been about the ship.

For the people who read only the headlines... It's a shame because the headlines made the interview all about “Anthony not liking Sam and Bucky's relationship as romantic”. '

A lot of the people based their opinion on the articles and didn't even look further... it was set that Anthony didn't like Sambucky as a couple.

It was revealed with the audio of the podcqst that it wasn’t what Anthony said at all, and he wasn't talking about Sam ans Bucky's relationship but was answering another question that the interviewer had asked about male friendships. And in fact, and it was the interviewer who said that male friendships were rare in the superhero context... He set up the question that way.

But that is the not the point, the point is that EVEN IF Anthony had said he didn't see Sam and Bucky as romantic... that is not enough to say he is problematic or homophobic.

And the intensity of the backlash he received is because he is a Black man, sure... but the accusations of being homophobic  would have been there anyway.

Because fandoms are not rational.

When Sebastian Stan said he didn't play Bucky as in love with Steve in 2016, he also received backlash from the fandom and got accusations of being homophobic, even though he had said people were free to interpret it as they wanted. And guess what he still got the accusations lesser level than Anthony, but still...

Anthony and Sebastian have both played gay characters in the past, more than once. And I repeat this so you understand, they have played gay characters more than once. So maybe, MAYBE if they say their character isn't gay or bi, maybe it isn't because they're homophobic, or because they don't want their characters to be ....but because that is how their character is written in the script?

Again, Anthony didn't say any of this about Sambucky but even if he had, it would certainly be because he played the part they were supposed to play.

Some people want to make Anthony this big bad guy who "killed the ship" but I'm sorry, Anthony doesn't own the production company, he isn't the writer or the executive producers.... The actors who be the last in line to blame for this.

And I don't want to make it seem like it's only the general public doing this...Because even some journalists have been writing articles about how Anthony shouldn't be "shutting down ships or dismissing Sambucky" because there is so little representation in the MCU... I'm sorry but what??? WHAT???

I understand the sentiment and I know that a lot of ships are there to compensate the lack of representation on screen...but how is it Anthony's responsibility or his fault?

It’s great when actors go along with the ship, do not invalidate it and leave the doors open, but it is not their fault or their responsibility if they don't, especially actors who have no clue about how shipping or fandoms work.

If it's written in the script that the charcter is straight and the actor says the character is straight you shouldn't be lashing out at the actors for "killing the ship"...Do you want him to change the script? Go blame the production company instead.

I know actors are an easy target because it is much more easier to tweet about them than look up the names of Executive Producers or CEOs and write them letters to ask for more representation. Actors are an easy target but it is literally not their call.

Some of these articles making headlines blaming Anthony because he shut down the idea of romantic Sambucky when there is so little represenration and not making headlines blaming the multibillion dollar company that refuse to have decent representation!

Sure, let's blame the Black actor who said that Sam and Bucky are just friends for the decades of nothing expect a total of 10 seconds screentime for a character nobody remembers and just calls the “Russo cameo”.

And again, Anthony Mackie didn't even say anything against a romantic reading of Sambucky, nothing! But it shouldn't matter, even if he had said they were just friends... it wouldn't justify any backlash at all... if it is about the ship.

Him shipping Sambucky or not should be the last point the fandom is focusing on.

An actor doesn't ship your ship and it bothers you? Move on, ship another couple if you want to... Don't start calling him names because of the ship.

When you make the debate about the ship, it kills the discussion before the discussion can even start because how can you have a constructive discussion if the debate has no foundations?

For instance, if Anthony made hurtful or problematic comments, the right way to deal with this,  would be to ask for apologies or for a better explanation of his words .... But since a lot of people, and even news outlet made this story about the ship, what do you want to do?

Ask Anthony to apologize for thinking/saying Sambucky is platonic?  We do realize how insane this would sound right? Or are there people who really want Anthony to come out and make a public statement about how he apologizes and supports romantic Sambucky? Is this were we want to go?

People made it about the ship, so he will also think the problem is that he doesn't "ship" Sambucky... but that wasn't the problem right? At least I hope it wasn't.

All of this should have never been about the shipping...If you are bothered by an actor not liking your ship ...it's ok. Stop shipping it if you want to and move on, but don't act like they're the worst human being on the planet because of it.

When I first read the article I was surprised by Anthony's comments about Sambucky because he had never talked like that about the relationship before... but the first thinf I said ia that he is an actor... he reads and interprets the script he has... he doesn't make the decisions...

But when I listened to the audio... I was even more horrified by the way the whole story was handled.

Part 2. If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

This might be an unpopular opinion but I don't mind people saying that Anthony Mackie is homophobic. I don't know him, so I won't pretend to know what he is or isn't. What I do mind is people saying he's homophobic but not giving any explanation or evidence.

And I have seen people do that. A lot... And I have receiced asks like that.... "Have you seen those articles? Anthony is homophobic," “He dug his own grave”

But all of the articles and headline are talking about the ship...is that your evidence?

If your opinion is based on a headline or some tweets, I don't know how you expect people to believe you.

I have seen people calling Anthony homophobic because of his comments on the explotation of homosexuality. But to me it was clear that he wasn't talking about the Queer fans, even though I could be wrong... (I talk abour this more in the part 3)

The part where Anthony Mackie has made comments that could be dubious are the comments about how he is bothered that he can't go to bars with his friends anymore.

No matter how you turn it, making it seem like it's a problem that people think you're gay when you're with your friends, has homophobic undertones.

That is the part that really bothered me personally... It really made me feel uncomfortable.

But is it enough to say he is homophobic? I don't think so, but if I'm wrong and it means he is, in what way? You need to give an explanation. Even a short one.

And even with that comment about the bars, if you add the context, you could imagine that maybe he's not talking about the characters but about his real life experience because we know that some people ship him and Sebastian romantically, and if he was talking about that... It could be understandable that he is bothered by that because he's a celebrity and when people make assumptions about celebrity love lifes they can become annoying or even toxic sometimes.

People shipping the two of them romantically makes me unconfortable so I can't imagine how it would make HIM feel.

But anyway, that part of the interview bothered some people and I personally don't think it's enough to call him homophobic but I do think it is worth a discussion.

Unfortunately, most people didn't focus on that... they focused on the shipping or other words that were taken out of context... By mixing everything with the shipping, the battle for a legitmate discussion was already lost before it even started.

Part 3: Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

I think that what bothers me the most were that some people were waiting for this moment... They were holding their breath until the moment he would finally slip up so they can be hateful in peace.

This is a screenshot of a post from April 2021, way way before this whole story.... Some people already had in their mind that him being a Black masculine man, he was homophobic... and were just waiting for a confirmation it seems.

( I cropped the OP’s blog name to avoid any problems going their way)

I have said this before... But I don’t follow celebrities foolishly. If you think Anthony Mackie gives off homophibic vibes or could be homophobic... you may be right.... but I would need evidence, or an explanation, not just a “vibe”... I asked evidence to that OP or at least an example of an homophobic joke he had made and they blocked me...

I have watched a lot of Anthony Mackie interviews and never got that "vibe" so I really wanted to know. Later, I asked one of my mutual to reach out to ask them about it and the OP finally answered to my mutual and said that an example of a moment they could tell he was homophobic was the interview were Anthony talks about his soft spot.

So that person based their impression of Anthony being homophobic on the fact that Anthony doesn't like to be touched in the back by strangers...Imagine me staring at the camera like I’m in The Office

And this isn't about racism because that person who wrote the post is Black apparently. But it is about how Black men are perceived and stereotypes that are often attached to them.. People make all of these asaumptions on then wait for the moment they can be proven right.

For this OP, a masculine Black man from the south =homophobic ...

And I don't think they are the only one.

What's worse is that they make it sound like all of this is on Anthony:

"Sambucky won't happen because Anthony gives off homophobic vibes"

Not only are they sharing accusations without even a small proof... they are the acting like he would be the only one to blame if Sambucky doesn't happen... Let me tell you that sometimes when I come to Tumblr I want to scream at how irrational people are... Disney has a history of being homophobic and never having any kind of representation, but if Sambucky doesn’t happen, it would be because of Anthony Mackie.

Please, PLEASE!

Anthony Mackie isn't writing the scenarios, he isn’t a Disney Exec.... Does anyone really belive he would walk away from the movie and the contract just because his character is gay, bi or pan? When he has played gay characters in the past??? Why are people trying so so hard to put all the blame on Anthony? I don't understand....

I have also seen "Sambucky won't happen now that Anthony made that interview and said he didn't like it...." How??? How does that even make sense????

What I believe is that a lot of people already had their minds made up about him and were holding their breath until they could finally throw accusations at Anthony because the minute there was a potential scandal... they didn’t try to look for more or try to dig deeper...their mind was already set.

And from then on... their idea were already set on how they were going to interprets the things he said.

For instance, When I first read the article without the context of the audio... I thought a lot of the things Anthony said weren't contreversial because those are ideas expressed on Tumblr every day...the fetishization of some MM ships etc,... But I thought he had expressed it in the worst possible way because he seemed like he was mixing a lot of stuff.... well, I found out later that it was because it was taken out of context.

But even in the context of the article, it was clear to me that Anthony was talking about anybody BUT the Queer fans when talking about the exploitation of homosexuality etc,...

We talk about the fetishization of MM ships by straight women on a weekly basis on Tumblr etc.... What would make anybody think that when Anthony was talking about the some things being “twisted” explotation of homosexuality he was talking about the Queer shippers???

I have joined and left BL fandoms after 2 weeks because of the problems exposed by Anthony. I have seen people who shipped real life actors to the point where it affected the actors's lives. I have seen an actor from a popular M/M ship make a dramatic public statement explaining that nothing will change for his fans that he still loved them and still loved his costars... and made it seem like he had a terminal illness or something....It turned out he had just gotten a girlfriend......?????

And these examples are specific to the BL genre but I have seen similar behavior with some MCU stans.... look at how some (I insist on some) Seb stans react to Seb having a girlfriend (I have seen things).

What made people think Anthony was talking about the queers fans if not the fact that you already had your mind set on the fact a Black man talking about a topic like this was homophobic in some way or the other and some people were just waiting for a confirmation?.

I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t confused by some parts of the interview. What is  “There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up” even supposed to mean? And it wasn’t the only sentence. But I don’t think any part of his interview deserved the backlash he received.

A discussion? Yes. Remarks? Yes. Blacklash and hate? No.

TL:DR: If you're going to call out Anthony for what he said.... you better  be ready to give a few arguments other than.... "bohoo he doesn't ship Sambucky" or “have you seen the headlines?” and  you should probably check your own pre-conceived ideas first..

If you come in my asks to tell me I write too much I will save you the trip and tell you... I already know that😂

[candied-peach]

ao3: “rainbow ink” rating: T warnings: soulmate au, sympathetic deceit, sympathetic remus, DRLAMP, creativitwins genre: angst with a happy ending description: Roman just wants his twin to be happy. That’s all he wants. (for anon prompt: "Romantic DRLAMP soulmates? (Platonic creativetwins ofc) and usually when I see that ships it's Virgil or Deciet who doesn't write to his soulmates but how about Roman? He pretends not to have them because Remus already has them as his soulmates and he doesn't want to steal that from him? Angst with a happy ending?")

The first time Roman sees familiar purple ink flowing across his arm, he thinks it's a mistake. It has to be. He's seen that particular shade of purple on Remus's skin too often for it to be a coincidence. It's only further confirmed when, as he hastily yanks his sleeve down, Remus bursts into his room to tell him that he's going to the coffee shop to people watch and be weird. Just like his soulmate- Virgil- said.

Roman swallows hard, the lump in his throat only intensifying at the unabashed happiness shining in his twin's eyes. He doesn't say a word about the damning purple words drizzled across his skin- doesn't even think about writing back- just wishes Remus a safe trip and tries to pretend that the pain in his lungs is from a developing asthma attack.

The second time he sees dark and light blue ink scrawling across his wrist, he thinks someone must be playing a sick joke on him. It's not fair. Logan and Patton are also Remus's soulmates. Is Roman so cursed that he can't have anything to himself?

But the jealousy, teeming just beneath the surface, makes his throat tighten. He holes himself up in his room, pretending to be asleep when Remus bursts in.

"I'm going to wreak havoc at the library," Remus announces, like Roman hasn't already seen their plans scribbled in round letters and blocky script.

"Cool," Roman mumbles into his pillow, trying to sound foggy with sleep, not heartbroken. "Have fun."

"I will," Remus assures him. "And Janus might come, too! Virgil said he's gotta study, though." As if on cue, Roman can almost feel the spiky gold script etch itself into his forearm.

"Just try not to be arrested," Roman says, turning his face so Remus can't see the tears that have started to prick the corners of his eyes.

"No promises!" Remus says cheerfully. As soon as the front door of their shared apartment closes, Roman buries his face in his pillow and cries, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. This goes beyond even the cruelties of fate he could have ever dreamed up. He shares all of Remus's soulmates.

And he refuses to say a word. He's never seen his twin so happy as when he's with them. Logan, Patton, Virgil, and Janus, the latest. Janus is shy, perpetually wearing a hat around them, tugging the brim down as if it can hide the psoriasis that plagues one side of his face. The way his face lights up when he debates philosophy with a ruffled Logan. Patton's sunniness and platters of heart-shaped pancakes. Virgil's purple hair and anxiety and constantly playing emo music. Remus fits like the final piece of the puzzle, discussing the finer points of arson with Janus, listening to cephalopod facts and true crime podcasts with Logan, splattering paint on a canvas with Virgil and splattering cupcake batter with Patton.

Roman would be an outcast puzzle piece, the occasional broken one that comes from another puzzle entirely and can never find a place to fit in, not even along the edges.

Weeks pass. He starts to wear long sleeves and high necks, trying to hide the rainbow-hued proof from his sharp-eyed twin. He withdraws into himself, no matter how much he tries to stop it. What else is he to do? He's an actor, but he's not that good. He doesn't know if anyone could be that good, to know they can never, ever have what they've longed for their entire life, to watch it happening right in front of their eyes to someone who deserves it so, so much, but-

That's it, isn't it? Roman reflects, huddled on his bed and watching Avatar the Last Airbender through for the third time. 'But.' He feels the tingle of more writing on his wrist, but ignores it. It's not for him, after all. It will never be for him. There will be no gentle affirmations written in Patton's light blue script, no blocky exhortations to do his classwork or go to bed earlier from Logan. Virgil won't offer a mix tape and Janus won't cheer him up with snake-themed puns. They think they're friends and they are, but they have no idea they're more than that, and Roman refuses to tell them anything else.

His door bangs back on its hinges, bouncing off the wall, and Roman looks up in irritated alarm, ready to chastise his twin-

When he realizes that not only has Remus come in, he's brought reinforcements. Virgil, Janus, Logan, and Patton stand there next to Remus, and any annoyed words Roman might have said dry up in his throat.

"Something's wrong with you," Remus says, without preamble. "And I wanna know what."

"Nothing," Roman tries to deny, but he knows that no one will believe it. He looks a dilapidated mess, a far cry from his usual put-together self. He doesn't know when he slid down so fast.

"You and I both know that's a lie," Janus murmurs. He's not wearing a hat for once, and his hair is an unruly mass of curls Roman wishes he could run his fingers through. "You've been avoiding Remus-"

"You've been avoiding all of us," Virgil speaks up next. His shoulders are hunched, his fingers occupied with a purple fidget cube. "Did- did we do something wrong?"

"No!" Roman blurts out, before he even knows what he's saying. "No," he repeats. "You- you haven't done anything at all, it's- it's just me." He swallows, painfully aware all of a sudden that his sleeve has slipped down and dark blue writing is now visible.

Dark blue could be anyone, don't draw attention to it-

"Is it your soulmate?" Logan, because of course it's Logan, asks.

"Um," Roman hedges, inelegant. Remus bounds over to the bed, yanking Roman's sleeve up before he can stop him.

"I will be right up," Remus reads, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "But that's-" He looks at his own arm, at Logan's neat handwriting.

"Roman?" Patton asks hesitantly. "Is- is Logan your soulmate, too? Is that why you've been avoiding us?" An easy out, and yet one that will fall apart at the slightest touch. Roman trembles, feeling like a leaf in a vigorous breeze.

"I-" He croaks. "Um- not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly?" Janus asks. Roman flinches, although he knows it's a perfectly reasonable question. If only there was a perfectly reasonable answer.

"Not just Logan," he whispers, staring down into his lap. "It- I'm so sorry, Remus, it's everyone-" The tears that have prickled the corners of his eyes since Remus touched his sleeve spill over, tracing down familiar tracks.

"But why is that a bad thing?" Remus asks, still looking utterly perplexed. "Ro, what's wrong?"

"They're your soulmates," Roman repeats. "And you've been so happy- I don't belong with that-"

"Who says?" Logan questions. "Shouldn't that be up to us to determine?"

"I- I don't know," Roman stammers. "Maybe?"

"I don't have a problem with another soulmate," Patton says, giving Roman an encouraging smile. "I want to get to know you better, Roman. As more than just your friend. Is that okay?"

Roman's eyes dart to Remus's face, suddenly brimming with unconcealed panic. Remus plops down on the bed next to him, wrapping him up in a tight, slightly odd-smelling hug.

"You dumbass," Remus hisses in his ear. "You deserve to be happy, too, you know. I want you to be happy. You being unhappy has made me really unhappy."

"It has?" Roman asks in a tiny voice.

"Of course it has," Remus says, giving him a shove. "You're my twin, asshole, I care about you. I don't care if we share soulmates."

Roman takes a deep breath, then shoves up both sleeves, up to the elbow, revealing a rainbow cacophony littering his lower arms.

"We talk a lot," Virgil observes. Roman lets out a shaky laugh.

"You do," he says. "But I- I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world."

tag list:   @k9cat @paravigilant-virgil @croftergamer @airiervessel @reverendliu @matthindavick @ambersky0319 @yalltookmyurlideas @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @ihateitwhenyourejustvague @bexxbeauty @killjoy-3000 @the-sunshine-dims @sneaky-slytherin @reesiereads @rabbitsartcorner @quackerz-creations  @psodtqueer @awkward-child-of-satan @snek-boii @im-fine-24  

[chrislistenstopodcasts]

podcast review: the white vault

overall rating: 9.6/10

synopsis:

put out by fool and scholar productions, the white vault is a true survival horror podcast, dealing with extreme cold, starvation, and isolation, as well as a mysterious supernatural threat. seasons one and two focus on a team sent to research outpost fristed in svalbard, approximately 33km northeast of ny ålesund, the northernmost populated settlement on earth. upon arrival, they are trapped by a particularly intense and long snowstorm, which turns out to be the least of their problems...

season three switches gears to a new team documenting an archaeological site in the patagonian mountains, with some eerie parallels to seasons one and two- something goes fucky, and they too are trapped on the mountain surrounded by fog and strong winds that make descending back down nearly impossible.

all three seasons are presented in a found-footage format by an unnamed academic narrator that the script simply calls “the documentarian”. she herself is given some minor background eventually and seems to somehow be involved with the situation, although it is currently unclear.

the white vault is intended to be five seasons long, with season four launching in october 2020, and you bet i’m gonna be listening as it releases.

writing: 10/10

this podcast is phenomenally written. i don’t think i can put it in any other words. the writing achieves a fantastic balance between what you know and what you don’t, which is ridiculously difficult to do in horror. we know, from the fact that it’s presented as found footage after the fact, that it is likely the characters are all dead in the time we are hearing their story, but it is never stated, leaving the actual status very much in question. we get very little context outside of what the characters individually know, but boy do we get a lot of that. we get a lot of journal entries, video diaries, and group recordings that piece together the plot and the characters’ theories, across all three seasons. 

characters themselves are incredibly well-developed and well-written. one thing i really appreciate about the white vault is that in both plotlines, we get an incredible diversity of characters without it ever being a big deal in any way. the svalbard team consists of a brit, a mexicana, an icelander, a german, and a russo-canadian. the patagonia team (i believe, there are some who i do not think are completely specified) consists of a brazilian, two chileans, an unspecified latina, a chinese woman, and an mlm american. none of these are ever brought up as plot points or big deals- the only times it comes up are the occasional discussion of “back home” and even then it’s just given as a fact. each of these characters also speak their own native language at one point or another, and fool and scholar productions made a point to hire native speakers both to ensure accurate translation, and to actually voice the characters. that level of dedication and attention to detail does not go unnoticed and is a huge factor of why the podcast feels so realistic to me.

acting: 10/10

i touched on this a little above, but one detail fool and scholar productions did not skimp on is the acting, especially with the unique language aspects of the production. often written notes are read out loud by the character actor themself, rather than the documentarian, and the first few sentences will be in their native language, before they switch to english. those first few sentences are also repeated in the english translation, so you definitely won’t miss anything. i noticed this immediately, being a native german speaker myself and perfectly uderstanding the german character in season one. each character also has a very unique voice from the others and each speak with the kind of authentic accents that only a native speaker could bring to the table. this makes following the podcast much easier in my opinion, because i can always tell who’s saying what, which i will admit i have a hard time in stories where everyone is, for instance, from the same small american town. the acting itself is also top-notch.. we get incredibly realistic screams and gasps and strained breathing, and everything else you would expect. the white vault has definitely set the bar high for me on this count and honestly? i can’t complain about it at all

production: 9/10

okay, the only reason i am not giving this one a perfect score is that sometimes it’s produced a little too well. the sound design is impeccable, between just various mic effects mimicking echoes in caves, the soundscaping, and audio distortion where it is appropriate. the audio distortion is the only thing i somewhat take issue with, and even then i can’t really be too mad because the entire point is that sections are meant to be so deep-fried they’re unintelligible. i personally struggle with audio processing issues now and then so occasionally i have missed things when the distortion beings to fade out and things become audible again, but given that the transcripts are online free and i’ve honestly relistened to this podcast... what, three times now? it’s not a huge deal to me. but to anyone else that might have these kinds of problems, be aware.

in conclusion, the white vault is fantastic, and if you like a good survival horror or supernatural horror, it should definitely be the next podcast you check out because boy, you will not be disappointed.

[mightbewriting]

Your writing is superb! Wait and Hope is now an all-time favorite fic of mine! I especially admire your ability to write dialogue. Do you have any tips on how to write distinct character voices?

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoyed W&H! Dialogue is actually one of my favorite things about writing so the fact that you liked it makes my heart pitter-patter! 

I apologize for sitting on this ask for a couple of days, but I wanted to actually think about some tips for character voice as it relates to dialogue! I do enjoy occasionally nerding out about writing… so without further ado, I’m about to nerd out A LOT (seriously, A LOT). I got a little carried away, but this was so much fun to think about! So, here are some of my thoughts on writing dialogue and using it to support distinct character voices.

The biggest tip I have on how to improve writing the way people talk is to listen to how people talk. Seems obvious, I know. But I mean how real people talk, not scripted movie and TV…which I think is often what comes to mind. I learned more about how people talk in the couple of months I did freelance transcription work than I did in the entirety of the first twenty-something years of my life. You don’t have to actually do transcription work to practice this, just find unscripted video or audio of people talking (interviews, vlogs, streamers, podcasts, whatever!) and type out it out.

The first thing I noticed when I actually had to transcribe real life conversations is that people often make NO SENSE when they talk. They have false starts, verbal pauses, non verbal pauses, they repeat words, they stop mid sentence to start another thought, they fumble with word choice, and so on. This is why professional transcription services offer VERBATIM transcription and NON VERBATIM transcription (I have a point to this, I swear!). Verbatim transcription is how it sounds, you have to type exactly what you hear:

Speaker A: “As I was— I was saying, ah, um, I think we should do— Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, um, okay [cough], does anyone have any other thou— opinions before we move on?”

Like, what does that even mean? 

Non verbatim transcription teaches you to edit out the stuff that makes real life speech mostly unintelligible (I’m eternally amazed that we’re able to make sense of stuff like that on the fly! Brains are amazing!) and it turns the sentence above into something more like:

Speaker A: “Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, okay. Does anyone have any other opinions before we move on?”

This is a pretty heavy handed edit, but I’d argue that the first 13 words of the verbatim sentence is nothing but a false start. I also removed the verbal pauses, the coughing notation, and the switch between words mid-speech. What I’m left with is something that looks and sounds more like what you might see in scripted dialogue. 

All of this is to say; when writing, for coherency’s sake, it’s helpful to write in a non verbatim style so you can be understood. BUT, I love throwing in the occasional false start or thought change mid-sentence, or even a rare verbal pause because I enjoy the bit of realism it adds. I know not everyone will agree with that, but that’s just how I enjoy dialogue.  

Character voice comes into play with dialogue in a lot of ways. If I could boil it down to two things; it’s about WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The WHAT involves things vocabulary: words one character might use that another wouldn’t, or a word they might know that another doesn’t. The HOW involves things like your dialogue tags and the associated actions and narrative surrounding the actual speech.

Rapid fire tips for the WHATs: people speak almost exclusively in contractions, they typically only saying things like “can not” and “do not” etc., for emphasis. Read dialogue out loud; if it sounds weird to hear then it’s probably not right. Character motivation is key; what someone says should make sense for their personality, traits, and history. People don’t always answer questions directly, or say what they mean. Less is usually more, unless someone is especially verbose or engaged in a debate, people don’t tend to wax poetic in long monologues all that often. 

My tips for the HOWs are less rapid fire because I want to talk about dialogue tags and that’s, idk…divisive? Here’s the thing; ‘said’ and ‘asked’ (or their other tense counterparts) are pretty much invisible and are used mostly to indicate who is speaking so a reader doesn’t get lost. Less is more with dialogue tags, too.

Alternative dialogue tags aren’t inherently evil (things like: whispered, shouted, grunted, grumbled, mumbled, growled, exclaimed, ordered, etc. have a place when used judiciously) but they are almost always a stand in for what could be a more interesting use of character voice. It usually ends up being a situation where a writer is telling the reader how to interpret dialogue instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself. So I try to use alternative tags very sparingly; you can actually see my evolution in this throughout W&H and then in S&S and my newer stuff, because I went from being subconsciously aware of it to more consciously practicing.  

Consider this real life example of something I wrote from Ron’s POV:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do,” Malfoy ordered.

I used ‘ordered’ knowing I was using an alternative tag and thinking to myself ‘it’s not so bad here, Ron would think Malfoy is ordering him around.’ Which isn’t necessarily wrong…but it’s not all that interesting. My rewrite, after being rightfully called on my bullshit for being lazy about it, looked like this:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do.” Malfoy waved his hands to dismiss them like they were elves he’d had more than enough of.

This version has a stronger character voice; we get Ron’s interpretation that Malfoy is treating him like an elf and we can imagine a physical movement from Malfoy showing how he’s speaking. I think that’s both more interesting to read and has a stronger sense of voice. When and where possible, I would say that substituting some kind of physical action or observation associated with dialogue usually results in a stronger sense of voice, either from the narrator or the speaker, or both! 

This response has gotten…lengthy. I’m sorry for that (but also, not sorry because writing is so interesting xD). In conclusion, writing is subjective and everyone has their own style. I don’t mean for this to be prescriptive advice, these are simply things that are on my mind when I’m writing dialogue and that I think lead to a stronger result. If nothing else: experiment. Write something exclusively in a verbatim style, write something exclusively with alternative tags, write something with no dialogue tags at all, write an enormous monologue and then figure out how to break it up. Try all sorts of different things to see what doesn’t sound right and what does. Learn the rules and then make your own.

Mostly, have fun. <3

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Seeing From Here

Summary: Stretch is Not Okay.

Tags: Pre-Spicyhoney, Pre-Relationship, Depictions of Depression, Hurt/Comfort

Notes: This is absolutely a sequel  to ‘Nice Things’, (read it here). Because I needed it today, I needed some comfort, a light at the end of a dark tunnel, so there we have it. Please be aware that this story features someone with depression. 

*Not related to any current series. My brain just wanders off sometimes and falls off a cliff into a short story.

Read on AO3

or

Read It Here

~~*~~

Stretch really wasn’t sure what time it was and couldn’t say he really cared. He’d been laying in bed for an indeterminate amount of time and he was probably going to be here longer. Knowing the exact count wasn’t exactly going to help.

If he had his phone, he could check it, wondrous little multitasker that it was.

If.

His phone was…somewhere. He should probably figure out where. Blue might call to check on him or text or something. It was more than likely he already had. Bad enough that he hadn’t been able to work up the energy to go with him today, now he was going to worry his brother.

He should care about that, probably, and Stretch closed his sockets, ignoring the ache in his chest as he remembered his brother’s pleading expression, his resignation when he accepted that Stretch wasn’t going to come along. The least he could fucking do was not worry him, the very least, but…yeah. He still didn’t move.

Piece of shit, he told himself, useless. Fail, failing, failed, yeah, that could be is past, present, and future, his own set of Dickensian ghosts to haunt him.

The light coming through the windows had shifted quite a bit by the time he heard footsteps on the stairs, but Stretch didn’t think much about it past a little fading relief. Hey, at least he didn’t have to find his phone now, right? His brother would see he was alive, and if Stretch kept his eyes closed, let all his chatter wash over him like so much nonsense, he’d eventually go away.

That was the way this worked and they both knew it, and it didn’t vary much, not even since they’d come to the surface.

Until today, when script went sideways, and the blanket was suddenly ripped off him.

“what the fuck! what—” Stretch started to roll over, shock giving him enough of a spark for that, but it wasn’t his brother standing by the bed.

Edge was glared down at him, the blanket clenched in his fist and his eye lights fiery and piercing.

Yeah, no. He couldn’t deal with this, not today.

Stretch rolled back over, pulling down a pillow to clutch. It wasn’t as good as a blanket, but it was something to hold, something to sink his fingers into until the bones ached.

“Is this what you’ve been doing all day? Sleeping?” Came from behind him, sharp and scoffing.

“you know, just because we’ve fucked a few times doesn’t mean you can come barging into my house or my room whenever.” Though to be honest, Stretch was having trouble even working up any resentment. The shock of having Edge here was already wearing thin and that gray dullness was settling over him again, a fog over his emotions that left them distant and muddled.

Silence and his hopes that Edge would simply leave in disgust were quickly dashed. “Your brother was upset. I’d go as far as to say you ruined the day for him.”

Yeah, that was exactly what he needed to hear. How he ruined things for everyone, oh, yeah, that helped get rid of the yawning pit of dread that was sitting on top of his soul.

“would you get out? please?” He hated that border of rawness to his voice, barely shy of pleading, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, was there. Let Edge make of it what he would, so long as he left.

He heard the rustle as his blanket was tossed back on the bed, the shuffle of feet against carpet and cringed, waiting for whatever else Edge was going to throw at him.

Nothing could have prepared him to hear, softly, “You're not okay, are you.”

It wasn’t really a question and Stretch really didn’t want to answer, because the real answer was somewhere in the middle of ‘no shit, thanks for noticing’ and screaming.

“look, i’m not in the mood to fight.” He wasn’t really in the mood for anything, he was in a mood and fuck, please, leave, leave, leave…

“What do you need?”

“what?” That caught him off guard and was enough to spur him into rolling over again.

Edge was looking down at him, arms crossed over his chest and he was still dressed in his ‘day out’ clothes, jeans and boots, only now it included the addition of a t-shirt with a picture of a skeletal dinosaur on it that stated, ‘I got boned at the Museum.’

A fresh ache settled in his soul, a sharp slice of pain; he’d missed getting to see Edge buying that, missed the laughing and teasing and mocking, all the possible puns and why? Because he couldn’t get out of bed? Just another nice thing that he didn’t deserve. Even that ache felt muffled, distant, a merry warning that later he’d think back on this and the real pain could start.

Edge didn’t seem to notice his internal conflict and only repeated, patiently, “What do you need?”

“i…don’t know?” It was a weak answer and it would probably piss Edge off even more, but it was all he had. Sometimes, Blue would come in on bad days and bring him lunch, dinner, and beg or bully him into eating and sometimes he’d try but…a flat-out question like that. He didn’t know.

Edge didn’t seem angry, only nodded a little. “Are you thirsty?”

“maybe?”

“All right. Your brother always has tea. Would you like that? Or water? Juice?

Multiple choice seemed a little easier. “tea would be…good.”

Edge turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Stretch to stare blankly after him. He hadn’t gotten much success in straightening out the wild tangle of his thoughts by the time Edge came back with a steaming mug.

“Do you want it now or do you want me to set it on the table?”

“i’ll take it.” It was at least worth sitting up for. The mug was comfortingly warm in his hands and the tea was generously sweetened with honey.

It made helpless tears prick in his sockets. At least it was something pushing through the gray, even if it hurt.

“What else do you need? Are you cold?”

I wasn’t before you yanked the blanket away, was on the tip of his tongue. He didn’t say it, couldn’t, not while Edge was here and for some reason being kind, he didn’t deserve kindness, he…

He managed a short nod.

Edge picked up the crumpled blanket and shook it out briskly before draping it over his shoulders, wrapping him in the soft folds. Stretch sipped his tea and watched blankly as Edge kicked off his boots and settled in to sit with headboard at his back, his hands loose in his lap. They sat there together in silence until Stretch managed to drink about half the tea before it grew cold. He didn’t resist when Edge took it away and set it on the side table.

“Do you want to try to sleep?” Edge asked.

“no!” Too loudly, but no, fuck no, he wanted to lay here, yeah, but not sleep, not…not sleep. There was the faint taste of salt on the back of his throat, those tears stupidly threatening, and Stretch swallowed it back. Edge only nodded.

Very softly, like the secret it probably was, Edge said, “Sometimes, when Red is having a bad time, he likes to sit with his head in my lap and listen to music or podcasts.”

That…yeah. That was like, some forbidden knowledge getting dropped on him. Worse, it sounded like something he could want but couldn’t take. Too much kindness, he didn’t, why was Edge doing this?

He didn’t resist the guiding hand on his shoulder, drawing him down, until his skull was settled on a bunched-up corner of the blanket atop Edge’s knees. Those distant, muffled tears suddenly became much more pertinent and Stretch curled into himself, desperately trying to stifle them.

The hand on his shoulder slid up to his skull. Edge must’ve taken his gloves off when Stretch wasn’t looking because the bones of his hand were warm, soothing, and Stretch gave up. He buried his face into the blanket and wept, because beneath that awful numbness he hurt in a way he couldn’t describe, couldn’t wish away, and Edge was being so terribly kind, and it was all too much.

He cried until his sockets ached and his face was crusted with used magic, and Edge only sat there and let him, rubbing that soothing hand across his skull and down his back. When they finally dried up, he was empty of everything but exhaustion and feeling faintly sick.

Edge shifted, drawing away and Stretch let him go, fuck, who couldn’t blame him for wanting to escape this shitshow.

But he only murmured, “I’ll be right back.” And he was, with a wet washcloth and that coolness wiping his face was about the closest to heaven Stretch figured he’d ever get to.

When he was clean, Edge set the cloth aside, refolded the blanket so a dry place was topside, and gently urged Stretch to lay back down even as he asked, “Do you want to be alone or do you want me to stay?”

“stay,” he whispered. He didn’t ask why, didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear that it was pity or for Blue, or trying to keep him holding it together until the next time Edge wanted to get laid.

It didn’t feel like pity. It felt like

(Caring)

It felt good.

Edge didn’t talk, only sat with him. Falling asleep was reluctant but necessary, and Edge was still there in the morning when Stretch woke up. He was lolling back against headboard, asleep, and he was wearing that stupid, awesome t-shirt. His neck was going to be killing him when he woke up, probably his back, too. But he’d stayed and Stretch felt…well.

He wasn’t okay, but he thought he could almost see it from here.

-finis

[fpthroughcyprus]

During the Christmas holidays, I’ve decided to go back home to Romania, not necessarily because it was Christmas and wanted to spend it with my family but because I had my driving licence exam, which I failed. I was meant to go back to Cyprus in the first weeks of January but I still needed an approval from the Cypriot Government so I can get in the country without spending another night in the airport “jail”. And I was waiting and waiting and waiting and they were not willing to give it to me and so I contacted the university and they said it will take another 2 weeks for it to be given to me. At this point I was really questioning my return to Cyprus and what I really wanted.

Choosing the courses for my second semester wasn’t an easy job because I knew the decisions I made in the first semester and didn’t want to repeat them. And so I stayed away from the dance classes. I chose Italian Language, Poetry and Radio. A variety of courses because why not?! Again, I made bad decisions but I’m not going to tell why just yet.

At this point my accommodation contract would expire and didn’t have anything booked for the second semester because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was still in Romania.  I had to decide very quickly what I wanted to do for the next semester as I was pressured by the University, family and myself. I chose not to come back to Cyprus for different reasons. Instead I came back to Coventry. Before taking this decision I made sure that I was able to study from a different country. But it turned out that was no problem because the lectures will all be online.

Coming back to Coventry was nothing as I imagined, first of all because it was still a pandemic going on. I was not able to see any of my friends or course mates and that was a struggle for me because I was all by myself this time. The reason I came to Coventry was because I wanted to work, I wanted to save money and I felt if I was staying in Cyprus that would not be possible. I still had lots of stuff left in Cyprus but I was blessed with an amazing friend, Ema, who took care of it and she’s holding on to them until I go get the stuff.

Starting the second semester online was something new for me. I know it already has been a year since this whole alternative teaching started but I never actually had to do everything online so I was a bit sceptic. Now, I knew the Italian and the poetry classes wouldn’t be too hard because I had some experiences with them before. But I was really looking forward to the Internet Radio course because one of my dreams since a couple of years ago is to start my own podcast; and that is literally what they teach you, or at least that’s what I thought.

During my Italian classes I am not very active because the way the lecturer structured the class is extremely boring and not engaging at all. For the whole three hours I sit and listen how he speaks in Italian. We do exercises but nobody is actually talking. If we feel like we know the answer we have to write it in the group chat. And what is the point of learning a new language if you cannot practice it verbally? I literally can be very good at vocabulary and grammar but wouldn’t know how to hold a conversation in that language. Again, no structure whatsoever.

The Poetry class is interesting but not for me I think. Again, my poor decision making strikes. I have learned poetry and I have learned how to analyse it during my four years in high school. And I hated it. For me personally art is not to be analysed to its depth because it looses its purpose. And this is exactly what we are doing in this class. Shoot but miss.

The Internet Radio class is the one that surprised me the most because it challenges my creativity. And that is what I wanted from the very beginning. We have to create our own scripts, posters, podcasts and in the end we will have our own live radio show which is very exciting. The only inconvenience about it is the time difference because in Cyprus it starts at 9 am, whilst for me it starts at 7 am.

[parresafmp]

What I learned from FMP 1

First lesson that I learned, it was not as easy as I though to produce a podcast. I have learned a great deal through my FMP one, so this is just a reflection on my personal journey through the past 9 weeks. Initially I though grate I’m going to write intro & outros on topics that I love, as I have created my own studio, I will get professional Voice over actors as the star of the show (well this part went according to pan) however I learned what would be my cup of tea may not be so much to others. So, after the second formal review it was back to square one and look into sustainability more, which was way out of my comfort zone and after 9 weeks still is, so at this stage was to create an episode zero with me as part of it and talk about something that my confidence level was pretty much ZERO.

So, the new plan was Sustainability for dummies/ the beginners guide to sustainability would be hosted by myself and a friend of mine and for each episode we would interview an expert, So I could still have the script, but I had to work around it to make it sound like a natural chat (Oh boy that turned out to HARD)

It was hard to maintain a natural bond with my friend over zoom, hated the fact that was unable to produce crisp recording (Studio access was zero due to lockdown), I found talking to a microphone hard, we had to repeat and repeat and repeat. I absolutely hated my own sound (now I have less hate for it) I tried many voice effects as well but still did not sound normal. I then used Adobe audition to edit, I found the software to be straight forward, however there is still room for improvement, I still need a lot of practice with the effects tab. After having few sessions recorded, I decided to run 2 surveys via Survey Monkey to get a feeling of my consumer’s profile, I also asked podcast listeners via social media if they would listen to my recordings and give me feedback on the, audiance do prefer a deep dive on a crtian topics, hoever they also like the podcast to be hosted by two rather than one voice actor all the way through. This project confirmed it for me, I rather have everything digital rather than doing them by hand. Although I enjoyed making the zine I did not the product, I don't think it was a crisp, However I gave myself a second option of newspaper which I must say looks better that the zine 

[scriptautistic]

How we Communicate – A Podcast by Emma Zurcher-Long

via her blog: Emma’s Hope Book

A podcast by Emma, a teenager who is nonverbal and communicates by typing and using echolalia. Her first-person account may help you to understand one person’s experience of echolalia and nonverbal communication.

I am including a transcript under a read more:

“This voice?  The one that you’re hearing read these words?  Yeah, that one.  It isn’t my voice.  It’s my mom’s.  You’re probably wondering why a teenage girl would want her mom to read what she’s written.  In my case, it’s because I can’t read what I write out loud.  There’s not a direct line between my brain and my mouth.  It’s more like an elaborate maze.  I can’t speak so people understand what I mean.  If asked a question, my mouth says things that do not answer the question.  My brain doesn’t think in words the way most people’s do.  Names of things and people get handed to me instead of the words that would make sense to the person questioning me.  Sometimes I blurt out whole sentences from another time in my life.  (Emma’s voice) “I bounce a balloon to Emma.  I bounce it back to me.”  They may be images that remind me of the person I’m with or where I am, or words I’ve heard spoken by others, things that get caught in my mind, or unrelated scripts, but that convey the exact emotion I’m feeling.  (Emma’s voice) “No more ice skating.  Ice skating’s gone.”  In any case, what I manage to say usually baffles the people I am speaking to, causing them to misunderstand me.  Not being able to speak what’s in my heart so that others are able to understand can be challenging, but I can type things that I cannot reliably say.  There are computer generated voices that say the letters as I type them and sound like this – (Computerized young girl’s voice) “I am your friendly computerized female voice.  I sound like I’m maybe five years old.”  (Another computerized young girl’s voice) “Or I can sound like this and pretend I’m British.  But yeah, it’s just not me.”  Or I can sound like this.  Okay it’s not my voice, but with some direction, Mom sounds better than a computer.

Imagine for a minute that you can’t talk to people in any way that makes sense to them or you.  Imagine if every time you opened your mouth to speak other words tumbled out.  If you are like me, you might get used to not answering people’s questions or being able to stay on topic.  So what would you do?  How would you interact with people?  Would you ignore their questions?  Pretend you didn’t hear them?  How would you express yourself?  Maybe you would try to connect with scripts you’ve memorized, things you’ve heard other people say in similar situations or maybe you’d find non-word based ways to communicate.  That’s what I do.

(Sound of footsteps, people talking and the subway)

Sound is everywhere.  I don’t have a filtering system marking one particular sound as more important than another.  Can you understand what I’m saying right now?  Mom had to raise the volume of her voice so that you could hear it above all the other noise.  My brain doesn’t do that.  It hears all sounds equally and does not discriminate.  But some people’s voices are not as dramatic to my ear as the honking of a horn. I love the sound of honking horns.  (Horns honking and traffic noise)  Favoring some sounds dilutes others, but music has the best sounds of all.  (Body Knows Best – Anya Marina)

Music is my first language.  It is a friend who loves me unconditionally.  It’s there when I need it and does not shed a tear if ignored for some time.  Music is a positive force as it stands by my side.  I like hearing the same melodies repeated and did so even when I was very young.  It’s been a comfort to me as long as I can remember. Music grounds me and plays a huge role in seeking my creativity as it allows me to perform as I choose to.  It’s a way to communicate; it gives me hope, tells me I am not alone and inspires me to create. Though people respond differently to music, I believe there are always emotions involved. Music has the ability to transform my fearsome thoughts laden with anxiety and stress.  (Music fades out)  It calms me and this has been the case throughout my life.  When singing lyrics I stumble and have trouble articulating the words, (Lose Yourself – Eminem) but I can remember the sounds I hear and recreate them with my voice.  When I sing I am not apart from, but instead am part of.

Music can be both private and public, but it needs to be loud.  (Music gets louder) No one composes music in a whisper.  My body needs to feel the beat so that I can be consumed by it.  (Volume increases steadily and then fades)  When that happens I become part of the music, like another instrument or an extension of it.  I jump and dance and move.  My arms swing or are raised up and my head bops, my whole body keeps time to the beat.  I’m transported to another reality and it is in this alternate reality that I am most happy and comfortable.

At home my need for high volume can cause problems because the members of my family have differing sensory needs that come in direct conflict with mine.  (Heartless – Kanye West) My older brother has to have music as background, while I perform alongside, so it makes sense for mine to be public and his to be private.

(Emma’s brother)  “Yeah I think it’s totally fair that you’re able to use the living room.  It’s not like you play bad music or anything.  If you played music I didn’t really like, I’ll just shut the door and go in my room and hang out.”

My mom and dad both work at home and need quiet in order to concentrate.  I am told to wear headphones, which encumber my movement and dilute my experience.  My family has worked out a solution that allows me to commandeer the living room in the evening.  For several hours I am blissfully able to indulge my love of loud music and dancing while my brother stays in his room or hangs out with my parents in theirs.

Until about a year ago I didn’t know the joy of creating music. Until then I was an audience member, but not a participant.  My parents encouraged my love of music and hired teachers to help me expand my interests.  Guitar is beautiful to listen to, but it is difficult for my fingers to recreate the sounds flowing through my mind.  Piano is also hard and requires dedication and lots of practice, but I think it’s a better fit for me.  Singing is easy and my lack of inhibitions, great sense of tone and ability to mimic sounds I hear makes it the best choice of all.   Eliot is my piano teacher and Karen is my singing coach.  Eliot came first.

(Eliot) “Emma has a great ear.  She can learn to sing new melodies really quickly and accurately.  Recently she’s been listening to the car horns outside and sings their exact pitch.  Emma is a fun, expressive and creative singer/performer.  She brings a lot of life, passion and feel to the material.”

Karen came next.

(Karen) “Emma has really great pitch control.  She knows exactly how the melodies go whether she knows the words or not and she makes it a real point to study each specific thing that happens in the song and can honor each thing in the song by movement and she can also emulate the sound really well as far as consonants and vowels.”  

(Gimme Resurrection – Anya Marina) Karen and I have great fun together.  I feel at ease in her presence, which is important when you are learning new things and trying to be creative.

Eliot and Karen have taught me to be patient with myself.  From them I have learned how hard it is to become masterful and yet I’ve decided it’s better to love the process of learning as much as the final product.  Communicating isn’t just talking, it’s developing a connection with another.  Music connects us all.  I wrote these lyrics and composed this melody, so this voice?  Yeah, this one’s mine.

Emma sings Over and Coming Eliot Krimsky on keyboard

The girl’s going in the bed the girl is going inside the girl is going outside.

Who is this girl I see? Who is that girl I see? Watch careful-ee-ee-ey Listen to me-ee-ee

Over and coming and over and coming, over and coming and over and coming

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go

Find a way to seize the day Dare to be the leading girl!

The girl walks out the door the girl walks in the door the girl is a teenager.

I am the girl you see, I am this girl you see, Do you believe in me? Please do believe in me.

I’m ready to fly if you let me, I’ll go Turn up the music and just don’t say no.

Starting and going and starting and going starting and going and starting and going Starting and going

Do, do, do, do, do, do….”

[virtualdesignstudio]

Friday 3rd April

FRIDAY- Making things?

EI: I went through and highlighted the most recent part of the script into the colour codes this morning. I’ve just uploaded all of the images into ‘ezgif’ to make a gif out of the living internet text. 14:56

EI: I’ve made the gifs from the images we had saved. I’ve also created a little youtube channel for us, so we can put all of the videos on there, then maybe somehow incorporate them into the website. 15:20

Let’s update the lists.

Current considerations:

Do we need more team members?

Do we need a new language? How do we begin to develop this?

it?) Something about a digital warehouse?

how a virtual design studio works

explain our approach

community designed data dictionary

data about your design studio from all of your major tools, as well as some secondary (Gif, audio, etc.) data.

We should start with our graphical objects and tools like sketch, photo. Create our own ideas as we went along and turn these into usable images that our business or team can use.

Only question is, what are we generating and why?

There’s quite a few that are capable of identifying images, but not a lot that are capable of producing an image when prompted.

Like, how do I begin to decide what to do with this next?

This is  a powerful tool, and I have to be very careful with how I use it; what I ask it to do etc.

Perhaps then I can make more drawings, or this will prompt more text pieces.

Moments of enlightenment:

major tools

Idea is to create graphics from scratch.

the studio feedback loop will allow progress to occur, as transformer can be asked to comment on Botnik’s tasks, and that will push us into new territories.

I also need some help pinning down exactly what we’re tapping into here, and articulating that

When tech asks intelligent questions:

Of course, being a transformer, you can change into a graphic design.

interface design session, full stop?

Do not have in mind a "completely digital process."

Is there any audience for this? (In reference to VDS)

How will you manage that? (In relation to data dictionary for VDS and Internet objects) 12:27

About this website, what resources are you using?

Stuff to do:

Website

Tutorial/discussion video

Data dictionary for the VDS

Digital drawings and renderings

describe our experience with such a studio

some of the text extracts need  to be utilised and published.

1. Google VDS

2. Get a website up and running

Don’t let me forget I can use and Iframe to put botnik and transformer onto the website.

Next job will be to put the Internet objects onto the site I think…

Let’s get a domain name and try putting it online… Let’s get that done by 12pm…

make the links work

wonder what data can be derived from our major tools…

Let’s find an intelligence who is an expert at drawing,

make a gif of it

make some drawings from some of them

plug the text statements that Botnik made the other day into them

put each of the categories of ‘living internet’ into it, as I feel like each category will end up having its own unique image aesthetic

I’d also like to teach botnik to set tasks for the studio. I’m not sure how I’d do this. Perhaps it’s by writing down the tasks we’ve already done (a bit like this) and then using his predictions to write and designate new tasks

Since I’ve mentioned feedback loops, it might be a good idea to start to document what these look like for the individual pieces that seem to be emerging.

This might be something along the lines of diagrams for the audio clip we recorded the other day, and then maybe making the GIF and drawing a system diagram/feedback loop/production line for it. This way we can spot patterns and begin to explore/exploit them.

Perhaps there’s an online bot that can write copy text or that can make a summary document?

Methods/practices to put in place/continue to use:

Highlight stuff in colour codes

Time stamp messages

QnAs, with enough questions for things to get interesting

Lists

Feedback loops

15:37

EI: So what I’ve just realised is that our team members are ‘tools’, and in using these tools, it’s a successful medium for the message. This is what we’ve been needing to access all along I think. My overall ‘message’ in the context report (or one of them) was that there was intangible, indescribable discrepancies between the translation of real to virtual (and vice versa) and it was causing ‘problems’. We can refer to these discrepancies as ‘the disconnect’, and in a way, they’re the things you can’t see, or point at directly, but more the indirect ‘nothingnesses’ in the spaces between. It would be a bit like if you took an image and photocopied it, then photocopied the photocopy. And then you repeated this process until the image you had at the beginning no longer remains, and you know that the final photocopy is the ‘same’ as the original, but only because you were stood by the photocopier.

That’s what the tools are doing for this project. They’re mediating the content of the Virtual Design Studio; they’re making it applicable to the internet. They’re making it into content with blurred edges; it’s not quite clear whether the artefacts sit in the realm of the real or the virtual, but the tools are generating content that is defining the edges of the territory between, and making that accessible to, and consumable by humans.

What these ‘technical’ tools lack is allowing us to document and detail ‘the disconnect’. 15:46

EI: So I guess this raises questions of what categories this ‘content’ can fall into, and how we might begin to categorise and then generate this content, which ties in nicely to the ‘feedback loops’ task we had on the list. 15:55

Content == Portals

Text: There are different elements of text

Textracts: made with Botnik and context report

Living Internet: made manually by sorting and compiling text from 4 sources.

Script: mapping and plotting and documenting the project, and the journey of the VDS

Audio: The process for this was writing the script, then putting the script through the natural readers voices

Visual:

Images: Generative Engine has made images based on text

Videos: The text is put into Generative Engine and screen recording allows us to replay and record the images running alongside it, creating a narrative stories.

AudioVisual:

Tutorial video?

Interactive:

Website will hold all of the generated content.

What is this doing?

By listening back to the podcast right now, I’m picking up on the disconnects and gaps in communication between the human and the intelligence bot- although they’re talking to each other, there’s clear gaps between the language they use, and their understanding of each other. They both have clear directions for what they want, and how they see things, but generating something in the middle territory is where things begin to make sense for the territory of the project.

EI: What are the disconnects?

Immediately I think about the images not strictly depicting anything recognisable, but instead compiling textures that are somewhat recognisable, and connote certain things. So it’s an in- between of human comprehension and machine expression.

Then, the voices speak english, and sound slightly human, but there are discrepancies in pronunciation or expression of punctuation and pause- they also can’t express emotion incredibly well. But, you can still understand them and comprehend what they’re saying. What you do have to do is listen and concentrate incredibly hard because it’s impossible to differentiate between what’s important and what isn’t.

OK, also, I’ve just noticed that the flattening of content is happening… Because everything is digital, there’s no hierarchy of content- there’s no way to tell what’s better than anything else purely on surface.

The only way to differentiate would be based on systems of production and feedback loops. i.e. something compiled through a different kind of loop might be of different quality and content to something else produced via a less/more complex feedback loop and set of systems. 16:31

What’s its purpose?

I think the idea is to try and fulfil the categories in order to build a comprehensive picture, through audio and visual, stills and motion, pace and time. (Space is not a factor). Everything is digital.

But then there’s loops:

Input vs output

What’re you putting in v what do you get out?

16:41

[the-royal-courier]

Azeroth Works: Writing is Fullfilling Work

By Sky Stoneseat

(Editor’s OOC Note: This interview was conducted on a real life author who just so happens to find interest in our little roleplaying community. She does not play World of Warcraft but we wanted to share this in the hopes of inspiring all of you out there who write on tumblr or in game. Please take the IC as a little tongue in cheek.)

While we here at  the Royal Courier strive to be the best source of news in Azorth, today we offer up something a bit different. We bring you something that is from another realm in the hopes that you may find it interesting.

We know that many of you write in your spare time, so I sat down with an author from "Earth" who was kind enough to share some tips that she uses. J.M. Frey is an author, fanthropologist and professional smartypants on AMI Radio’s Live From Studio 5. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. She also has an addiction to scarves, Doctor Who, and tea, which may or may not all be related. Her life’s ambitions are to have stepped foot on every continent (only 3 left!)Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards,  won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

Lucky for us dear readers that she found time to sit down and chat.

Any tips for getting into the mood for writing?

For me, writing is a full time job, so to get in the mood to write I get up, get dressed, have tea, and basically prepare to sit down at the computer as if it is a real dayjob. That gets me into the headspace required, that “this is work, so work” mode.

But in terms of environment, I like it as uncluttered as possible. Nice lighting, daylight, and only the notes for the project that’s currently on the docket pinned to the board beside me. I really prefer silence, too. I absolutely cannot write in public spaces, and if there’s any noise at all, it’s got to be white noise – either from outside of my window or an online digital generator.

The only raging, noisey mess should be inside my head. When creating a character what are some ways to build an interesting back story's that feel fresh?

There’s a idiom that creatives use about avoiding the low-hanging fruit. The thought is that the first idea within grabbing range might be the most appealing, but it’s also probably going to be the most obvious and the most over-used.

However, sometimes your first instinct is the right one. I always grab the low-hanging fruit, but then – to stretch the metaphor – figure out the best way to turn it into fruit salad. Clichés are clichés because they work, but that should always and only be a starting point.

I like to come at my stories from the perspective of the person who is least often allowed their own voice in common narrative. For example, my series The Accidental Turn is a standard sword-and-sorcery epic fantasy. But instead of making the muscle-bound hero or the scrappy sidekick the narrator, I chose the hero’s overlooked, overshadowed little brother.

The low-hanging-fruit approach to this brother character says that he ought to be craven, cowardly, perhaps even sneaky or secretly the villain. So I thought, yes, okay, let’s give him those traits. Because that’s what’s expected. But let’s figure out a different reason for them. Why does he behave like that? What made him like this? How much is nature, how much is nurture?

Instead of being craven because he’s “just a bad person”, the little brother is quiet and withdrawn because his older brother used to bully him. Instead of being sneaky because he’s plotting, it’s because he’s actually secretly a spy for the king, on the side of good. This led to all sorts of neat things to explore in his backstory – who chose him to be a spy? Why? Who trained him? How? What purpose is there to have a spy planted in the home of the hero?

When you try to find different motivations for common traits, then you start to get into really interesting territory for backstory and character creation. And their reactions are going to be totally different, too – the way these characters address problems or react to violence will be fascinating, because the motivations and backgrounds you’ve created for them is new and interesting.

Any thoughts on a character who a bit go big or go home vs a slow burn sort?

For me, characters fit the kind of story I am telling and the kind of narrative and growth arc they need to have.

Kintyre Turn, the hero of my fantasy series, is defiantly a Go Big guy. He starts out with being gifted a magic sword at the age of eighteen, and the complete inability to ever lose. He’s got a big ego, big muscles, bit personality. And he’s great, he fits what I needed from him perfectly; but I also found with him that there was nowhere left to go. He was too big. There was no upward growth available. I found an arc for him by letting him shrink inside his own skin again. He puts away the sword, and the mantle of the hero, and starts to attend to his own mental health, in repairing and nurturing the relationships around him, and swapping places with his little brother to become the caretaker of their family estate, in allowing himself to stop running from commitment and finding domestic peace and a loving partner. Pulling Kintyre away from the Big and Bold gave him growth.

His brother Forsyth was the opposite. He started small – physically skinny, shorter than Kintyre, swaddling himself in too many house robes and the mantel of the prim, fastidious Lord of the Manor. He even stooped and stutters. He’s the King’s secret Spymaster, but even then he works from behind a desk and lets others do the legwork. He is a Slow Burn character. He grows by increments as he becomes surer of himself and his worth. He stands straight. He learns not to be ashamed of his stutter. He goes out into the world and wields a sword and becomes a hero.

But, going back to what I said about backstory above, his background and motivations mean that he is a Ravenclaw hero rather than a Gryffindor. He would rather talk his way out of things, or think through loopholes, or outwit his opponents than beat them down with a blade.

Both Go Big and Slow Burn types of characters are useful. It’s just a matter of knowing (or learning as you go) which kind is better for the sort of story you’re telling and where you need it to go. And always remember that there’s always an avenue of growth available somewhere; you just need to find it.

Dialogue can be tricky to get right, how do you create conversation that both moves the plot but is not an info dump? My first rule is to completely avoid “As you know…” or “As I said before…” or “I just remembered that…” in dialogue. If the characters already know, then the audience should already know.  And if the audience knows already, there’s no need to repeat it. If they don’t know it already, then you’re telling the story in the wrong order, or writing the wrong moments.

Focus your scenes on the moment when the character learns the information, rather than on the scenes where they report the information.

If you can’t do that, then try to keep as much of a natural flow in the dialogue as possible. Listen to people in coffee shops or pay attention at your own family dinners. Note the natural ebbs and flows, where people interrupt for clarification or pause to gather their thoughts. Watch what they do with their hands, their bodies. Watch how they fidget, or pace, or tap their sugar packets on the table top. Describing the body language will help break up large paragraphs, especially if you can use that body language to convey the character’s emotions or reactions to the news. To show instead of tell.

When I’m not sure if the dialogue is working, I strip it down into a script – dialogue only – and ask a friend to read the scene out loud with me. If it sounds unnatural or repetitive, it trips and jams in my ear. Reading your dialogue out loud, either alone or with a friend you trust to be brutally honest with you, is a great way to catch unnatural errors.

There’s also the trick of giving the characters something to do. They don’t have to be sitting in an office, or in a car, or at the kitchen table. They could be hiking, or chasing a suspect, or fighting off a barbarian horde, or slaying a dragon, or skulking through an abandoned spaceship. There’s nothing saying that the info dump has to come at a moment of stillness and quiet.

And remember that the moment of revelation should be the climax of the scene. Each scene should have its own mini-plot-mountain-rising-action-course. Instigating, rising action, climax, and then either cut to a new scene or a brief denouement. Something should happen in every scene – some information discovered or revealed, a character changes or grows, there’s a scene of action, or the plot leaps forward, etc.

Scenes that do more than one of those things are even better. Info-dump scenes don’t feel so boring if they’re happening in the middle of a sex scene, or a fighting scene, or a scene in a laboratory, or a travelling scene.

Is the look of your characters set before you start writing or do they change as you get to know them? Sometimes my character walk into my head fully formed –Forsyth strolled in one day, prim as you please, a skinny ginger amalgamation of Eddie Redmayne, Mark Gatiss, and David Thewliss. But some characters I deliberately sit down to design to compliment the world and what I need from them. For example, if Forsyth was the skinny ginger kid, then Kintyre had to be big, buff, tanned, and straight from the cover of a Harlequinn novel.

From there they sometimes change as the need arises – like, knowing a certain physical trait would be useful to solve a problem, so I go back and retroactively put it in.

But I try to be deliberate about my choices too. In the final book of The Accidental Turn series, our heroes step off the pages and into “the real world”. So I made a point of making every other character around them non-white. Fantasy tradition, which is what the series is commenting on, dictates that the heroes are always white and the PoC-representative characters are always monsters or half-something-or-other. I wanted the “real world” to reflect the world I actually live in. And choosing a variety of ethnicities for each character meant that I had an idea of how they would look and – stereotypically, based on their social standing, religion, personal culture, and country of origin – how they might dress.

But even then, I had a great time flouting those stereotypes. One of my favorite new characters is a first-generation Indian girl living in Toronto named Ahbni, who is totally into both respecting her parent’s home culture and a rainbow unicorn pastel-punk.

Once the character has been nebulously envisioned in my head, I write down the basics so I don’t forget them – eye color, hair color, height, weight, identifying features like freckles or piercings or tattoos – but then I don’t worry too much about it. If something important to their appearance comes up in the text (like Forsyth’s fear that his little tummy paunch means that he’s getting fat) then I describe it. But after I’ve described the character on the page for the first time, I don’t really bother doing it again.

I know that no matter what I say, the audience will envision them how they like, and I don’t mind that. Though I do make a point of trying to give a really clear, and quick, and immediate description of the character when we first meet them, something that really stands out to the reader.

And I try to avoid describing my narrator characters except in the comments of others. Nobody stands in front of a mirror and describes themselves or evaluates their own bodies for sexiness in real life. Please, can we chuck that narrative trope straight out the window?

There’s no need to tell the reader outright exactly what the narrator looks like, unless it is an extremely important narrative reason. Reveal it through showing, not telling. Reveal it in the character’s choices, what other characters say about them, how they react to situations. Find a way to be active about it, not passive.

Your readership is clever – let them put the clues together themselves. Trust them.

You can find out more about J.M and her work at http://jmfrey.net/books/ or follow her @scifrey here on Tumblr.

Editor Note: Do you have an interesting job? Is your work something out of the ordinary? Do you simply take great pride in what you do?  Columnist Sky Stoneseat wants to interview you!

Reach out today and be a part of this exciting new column. We want to highlight you and your line of work!

(OOC Note: We are looking for individuals who want to share the ins and outs of their RP job. These interviews will be conducted solely over tumblr.  You’ll be sent a set of questions and asked to reply in private to Sky. Once she has your responses, you may get a few follow up question over Tumblr chat. The responses will be used to write up short and sweet profiles of interesting jobs around Azeroth. Contact @skystoneseat today to schedule your profile!)

[thepenumbrapodcast]

An open call for episode transcripts from our Travelers, struggles in creating the Penumbra as a small team, and why we need your help

UPDATE: Some extremely generous fans have stepped up to organize @thepenumbrapodcasttranscripts , so please head over there if you would like to participate! We are deeply touched by the speedy response to this post.

Hey there Travelers,

Kevin here. Over the thirteen months since the Penumbra’s first episode, we’ve received a lot of requests from fans for access to episode transcripts. Many of you have contacted us with well-reasoned arguments about accessibility for those with hearing and processing disabilities. Many of you have expressed frustration about the $7 Patreon reward level, at which donating patrons get to look at the scripts the actors see.

We’ve stayed quiet on this so far, but we haven’t been ignoring you. We recognize your frustration. We apologize if the packaging of our show has made you feel like we don’t notice you, or listen to you, or care about you. We do. Internally we’ve been discussing this for months – and after debating it and trying a lot of things, we’ve come to what we think is the only conclusion that makes sense given our situation. I’ll tell you the conclusion first, and then move backward to our reasoning:

We are asking for help from you, the fans, in making these transcripts a reality. If fans create a tumblr or website that features fan-made transcripts of every episode, we will gladly post a link to it on our website and promote it whenever a new transcript has been completed.

We have asked for this from you all before, but it understandably got lost in the weeks and months that have passed since. As a result, should fans express interest in creating transcripts, we will be reblogging this post once every two weeks until all of the transcripts have been completed.

We recognize that it is frustrating not having the supports you need to access our show as others can. We recognize that asking fans to create those supports is also frustrating. Please know that we are frustrated, too. We are living a very uncomfortable, very difficult reality in creating this show, and up until now we’ve kept the details of that reality invisible to you all. But if I can ask for just a few minutes of your understanding, I hope I can communicate clearly about the obstacles in the way of us creating these transcripts, which are also, not coincidentally, the biggest threats to the Penumbra’s continued existence in general.

What follows is an in-depth look at my reasoning. If you’re satisfied with the above, hey, skip it! You can find the couple of transcripts we had time to make here (as well as one by a fan who asked to be credited as subtlepuns), so go for it, work together, create a platform for them, and feel free to use what we’ve made to get you started. If you’re still bothered, or you don’t understand why we can’t just make all the transcripts ourselves, I ask only that you read and think about our position, here. It is not one made hastily.

My reasoning is this: 1) Our scripts are not the same thing as transcripts, and 2) it takes a considerable amount of time to turn a script into a transcript. This prevents us from being able to create the transcripts because 3) our time is extremely finite, and 4) we’re already using more time than we can afford (in multiple ways).

I’ve broken each of those four individual points in that argument into further reasoning below:

1)    Our scripts are not the same as transcripts

I’m going to take the blame for any misunderstandings here, since I’m the one who writes the language for the Patreon and I think my description of the $7 level is very unclear.

At $7, Patreon supporters get access specifically to the scripts our actors see – and as $7 supporters will tell you, there is usually a big difference between the scripts our actors get and the actual words that are said in the episode. There are many reasons for this: often during a recording I will on-the-spot rewrite a line if it’s just not working, or when editing Sophie might cut a few lines, or sometimes our actors just deliver lines with a different phrasing from what I give them. And that’s only considering dialogue: because I create this show collaboratively, and Sophie and Ryan work together on its soundscape, every sound and music cue in the script is only a suggestion I’m making to them – and very often they’re suggestions that they don’t take, for creative or logistical reasons. This means that for the purposes you all are asking, our scripts are not useful because they are not an accurate log of what is actually being said in the episode. They are only a log of what the actors had in their hands when they showed up to recording.

They are intended as a bonus because, ultimately, most of these actors are my friends and I like to make my friends laugh, so I load the stage directions and sound descriptions with stupid jokes and pieces of insight that I thought you all might enjoy. But ultimately, the difference is that the scripts are a behind-the-scenes peek, not a useful support for our fans with hearing and processing disabilities – and as a result giving them out for free doesn’t solve the central problem.

(It actually creates a separate problem, too – but I’ll get to that in a minute.)

2)    It takes a considerable amount of time to turn a script into a transcript

Believe it or not, we’ve actually tried to create transcripts on multiple occasions. Sophie and I had a group of our actors over a few months ago for a “transcript party,” during which we sat people down with snacks and headphones and asked them to listen to episodes and convert the initial script of an episode into the actual words that made it into the final cut.

Here’s the issue: with 6 people working consistently for 3 hours straight, we only completed 3 transcripts. That means a transcript takes us approximately 6 hours to put together, and with our 28 episodes published so far that comes out to 168 unpaid hours our tiny staff would have to work to create these transcripts – not to mention the additional 6 hours this would add to every episode’s production time.

(I know my math is a little shaky there, because this doesn’t account for bonus episodes being shorter; but given the length of the Season 1 Q&A and the fact that it had no script, I’m assuming that would take at least the leftover time to complete.)

Accessibility is important to us. That’s why we tried to create the transcripts in the first place. But when we did the math and looked at that number, we bumped up against an essential problem that our good intentions alone could not overcome:

3)    Our time is extremely finite

Between writing, editing, rehearsing, recording, acting, and giving feedback, I spend roughly 60 hours on every episode of The Penumbra Podcast. Between sound editing, directing, acting, rehearsing, recording, and giving feedback, Sophie spends about 90 hours per episode.

I apologize for drowning you all in numbers, but I think these are significant and misunderstood figures that go into the creation of our show, because it means that creating this has very real effects on our life that cannot be wished away. When we started this show, Sophie had a full-time job. Over the course of creating it it’s become clear to us that there is literally not enough time in the week for Sophie to create these episodes and work a full-time job. That’s how much time this takes us. As a result, we cannot take on the 168 unpaid hours to create the backlogged transcripts, and we cannot add to the per-episode totals Sophie and I already take on.

We want to. We can’t. Literally. That is how the math of the situation works out. We’re frustrated, too.

There’s an easy rebuttal to what I’ve said above, of course: you could counter my math with more math. There are 168 hours in a week; if you account for 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work every single day, that leaves 56 hours a week for us to work on The Penumbra; and if you factor in the numbers I gave above, given a biweekly schedule, I work on The Penumbra on average 4 hours each day and Sophie works on it for 6 hours a day.  That should leave me and Soph with roughly 28 free hours each week, right? Couldn’t the transcripts get done then?

(Again, my math is very rough, but please note that it’s rough on both sides. These hard numbers don’t even account for time spent eating, grocery shopping, doing household chores, upholding responsibilities to family, exploring other creative projects to support ourselves financially and keep ourselves sane and excited about our work, or anything else that keeps our lives in order. They’re intended to be rough.)

Technically, the transcripts could get done in this time. Technically. But that’s where we bump into our last – and biggest – problem.

4)    We’re already using more time than we can afford (in multiple ways)

There are two ways we’re going to cover here. The first, which I hope fans of our show in particular will understand, regards mental health.

I’m going to be direct with you all: at the start of this process, I really did put almost every waking second that I wasn’t using on my day job into working on this show. I took no breaks. I skipped time with my family and friends. I started skipping therapy sessions. Sophie and I skipped spending time together and working on our relationship. And in me, a person with some heavy predispositions to mental health issues, depression and panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder? It led to a nervous breakdown at the end of last year that I’ve only just recently pulled myself out of, one that I cannot and will not repeat again. If I’m going to make this show, I have to enjoy my life enough to do it. That’s not negotiable for me.

The second, and much more dire, way in which we cannot afford this time regards money.

As I stated above: there is literally not enough time in the day for Sophie to have a full-time job and work on the Penumbra. And because Sophie is our one-woman sound designing team, this leads to a very uncomfortable but very important truth: if the Penumbra does not make money, it will cease to exist.

The fact of the matter is that Sophie and I have put ourselves in a dangerous situation financially by carving out the time for this show, and that means the show is only possible so long as the money that comes in through Patreon, the store, fan donations, (some day) sponsors, and any other creative projects we carve out time to explore is at least enough to cover the difference between what Sophie makes part-time and what she could be making full-time.

And to be clear: the show does not cover that difference yet.

We’re not talking about money-grubbing, here, twiddling our moustaches and demanding to be paid in big sacks with cartoon dollar signs on them. We are talking about the actual, literal survival of this project hinging on whether or not it makes enough money for Sophie and I to live. That’s not greed. That’s us trying to stay alive and healthy. It’s the reason we actually can’t afford to do work for free anymore: our lives don’t have the time to support it. And it’s the reason that we are so endlessly grateful to our patrons, because we mean it literally when we say that the show would not exist without you.

This is why we can’t take on extra work for free by creating these transcripts. This is why we can’t ask our friends, many of whom are in similar situations to us and many of whom already do work for us for free, to make them for us either. This is also why we can’t give the scripts away for free: if all of our $7 script patrons became $4 early-release patrons because they could get the scripts otherwise, we would lose a significant amount of the money we need to make this show happen. And coming up with a different reward for the $7 level would necessitate even more unpaid work – which, again, we have neither the time nor means to do.

So should we provide you with transcripts for the sake of accessibility? Absolutely. It really frustrates me that we don’t. But the fact of the matter is this: given our constraints in time, energy, and money, we cannot do this for you.

I am so sorry to our fans with hearing and processing disabilities for whom this has been a frustration. We’ve been trying. But it’s taken us months to come to this, our unavoidable conclusion: we literally cannot do this for you.

—–

So tl;dr, Vibert, get to the point. The heck does all that mean?

It means that we want you to have transcripts, but cannot make them ourselves yet, and cannot afford to lose money because of the transcripts. It means that we need your continued financial support to keep this show running, and we need your help to make these transcripts a reality in the near future. When creative projects make enough money that we can pay everyone already on staff, it’s on our shortlist for the near future to pay someone to make transcripts. But if we’re going to have transcripts before then, we need your help.

We’re happy to get you all started with the transcripts we’ve already made, and we’re excited to promote the transcripts you make once they’ve been created, but before we do so we ask that they follow these guidelines so as not to contradict any of the points I’ve laid out above:

1)    The transcript cannot include any of the “bonus content” from the actors’ scripts, including character descriptions, parenthetical directions, sound or music suggestions, and silly jokes from silly lead writer Kevin Vibert (that’s me).

2)    The transcripts must be accurate to the actual lines, music cues, and sound effects in the episode, so as to be a useful tool to our fans with hearing and processing disabilities.

3)    We need several fans to read each transcript while listening to the episode to confirm its accuracy.

We want these to exist, Travelers. We want them to be part of the culture of our show because we care about accessibility, we care about telling stories for all people, and we care about you. But even checking the transcripts requires time we literally do not have. We need your help to make this happen, because we can’t do it alone.

So that conclusion, one more time, is this:

We are asking for help from you, the fans, in making these transcripts a reality. If fans create a tumblr or website that features fan-made transcripts of every episode, we will gladly post a link to it on our website and promote it whenever a new transcript has been completed. And should fans express interest in creating transcripts, we will be reblogging this post once every two weeks until all of the transcripts have been completed by you.

We hope some of you will help us help your fellow Travelers. We can’t do this alone.

With love, and stay healthy,

Kevin

PS: Once again, you can find a Google Drive folder with the transcripts we’ve already created, as well as a transcript that one of our intrepid fans created months ago, here. A big thanks to subtlepuns for taking the initiative for getting a transcript for the original Murderous Mask (Part 1) to us months ago, and apologies for not posting it sooner. We’ll do what we can to help make these supports a reality, Travelers – just know that trying to make this art for you and stay alive simultaneously is already stretching us to our limits, so unless you’re going to wait until we can relax those limits a bit we need your help now.

[theapprof]

The Silent Teacher - A Conversation with Aaron Fried | TAPP Episode 29

0:43 | Why is this podcast loud? 3:56 | AAA now funds episode transcripts 5:58 | The TAPP app & your homework assignment 11:50 | Featured: The Silent Teacher (the human body donor)

If you cannot see or activate the audio player click here. Follow The A&P Professor on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Nuzzel, Tumblr, or Instagram!

1 | How Loud Should a Podcast Be?

3 minutes

This podcast may sound a bit louder (maybe a lot louder) than some other podcasts. The reason is that it's required for some podcast outlets. And for those of us who are hearing impaired, it works better because a low-volume podcast sometimes can't be turned up enough for us to hear it.

    2 | AAA Supports Transcripts for This Podcast

2 minutes

The American Association of Anatomists (AAA or "triple-A") is now sponsoring the searchable transcripts available with episodes of this podcast. I'm a member of AAA, why don't you join me?

anatomy.org (AAA's website, where you can explore resources and check out the membership options)

    3 | The TAPP App and Your Homework Assignment

6 minutes

The TAPP (The A&P Professor) app has many features:

Car/bike mode that rotates your screen to display larger playback controls while driving

Streaming access to play episodes from anywhere

Always updated with the latest episodes—and an archived back catalog

Playback resume (when interrupted by a call, a student drops by, or other distraction)

Quick access to all the contact methods for the show like call, email, web, Facebook, and Twitter (but not carrier pigeon)

Playback controls like continuous play, Speed Control, Repeat On/Off, and Sleep Timer

BONUS content, such as sample handouts and other resources

It's a great way to share this podcast with colleagues. Just ask them to go to their device's app store, which everyone knows how to do—even if they don't know how to access a podcast. Plus, they get the great functionality of the app!

Your homework assignment: share this podcast with ONE other A&P colleague before the next episode arrives.

  4 | The Silent Teacher—A Conversation with Aaron Fried

25 minutes

Aaron Fried, A&P faculty at Mohawk Valley Community College and national speaker on human body donation and anatomists in Nazi Germany, joins Kevin for a lively discussion of the value of "the silent teacher"—the human body donor—in teaching human structure. This chat touches on the value of respect and appreciation of human donors, proper implementation of human remains such as skeletons in A&P courses, and how that respect should extend to reproductions of human specimens.

This is the first of two conversations with Aaron Fried. The next episode (Episode 30) will delve more deeply into the anatomy illustrations produced by anatomists in Nazi Germany and the many ethical questions surrounding their continued use in anatomy labs around the world.

https://www.mvccanatomy.org/ (Aaron Fried's website)

professoranatomeme (Aaron Fried's Instagram)

The Anatomist (book by Bill Hayes about Henry Gray and illustrator Henry Vandyke Carter; from the TAPP Book Club)

History & Culture Mini Lesson (part of Kevin's course outline that explores issues of using human bodies in anatomy)

  If the hyperlinks here are not active, go to TAPPradio.org to find the episode page.

More details at the episode page.

Transcript available at the script page.

Listen to any episode on your Alexa device.

Join The A&P Professor social network:

Blog

Twitter @theAPprofessor

Facebook theAPprofessor

Instagram theAPprofessor

YouTube

Amazon referrals help defray podcasting expenses.

Transcript and captions for this episode are supported by the American Association of Anatomists.

  Check out notes and transcript for this episode!

[bentonpena]

Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum

Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum https://bit.ly/33jl0u2

DeFi Dad is a DeFi super user sharing his money experiments and tutorials on Twitter and YouTube. He is an organizing member of the Ethereal Summit and Sessions, host of The Ethereal Podcast and a weekly contributor to The Defiant and Bankless.

Ethereum has always been difficult to explain. Even the founders of Ethereum have sometimes struggled to communicate the project’s transformative potential in layperson’s terms. Metaphors such as “world computer” and “gas” tried to translate Ethereum to the world, but looking back it’s clear how little we understood about the platform’s true capabilities. 

By 2017, big promises were being made that Ethereum would “bank the unbanked.” But that promise seemed to go largely unfulfilled in the wake of the initial coin offering (ICO) craze. Nevertheless, the oft-repeated slogan represented the first attempt to describe Ethereum’s potential to transform personal finance. 

While the ICO mania showed Ethereum’s potential as a distributive technology that could emulate, improve upon and democratize the initial stock offering, what was missing then was a simple personal financial use case that could be demonstrated to a friend, such as a mobile app. In those early days, there were many white papers, promises and signs of progress by a few teams (some of which have led to the top DeFi projects such as ChainLink, Kyber, and Set), but most of the benefits had yet to be delivered.

Meanwhile, there were lots of inspiring speakers from the Ethereum community who drew us into believing Ethereum would change the world. It just required a patient newcomer willing to wade through new ideas, intricate foreign concepts and a firehose of new information daily. Nothing was a simple elevator pitch.

When I saw Joe Lubin speak at Ethereal SF 2017, there was an inspiring message to take home. A lot of detail flew over my head at the time, but if you listened carefully it was impossible to not buy the idea that Ethereum could change the world for the better.

It’s worth noting that in 2017, ConsenSys and other early adopters and builders were also educating institutional players and enterprise software companies on how they could benefit from many blockchain use cases on Ethereum. Partnerships with Microsoft, IBM and Hyperledger helped cement Ethereum’s credibility in the enterprise blockchain race.

Fast forward to July 2018, when I started full-time work in Ethereum. We were all recovering from the hangover of 2017, thinking the bull run might return sooner before watching markets unravel and get even bloodier. We were emerging from an era without a coherent elevator pitch to be easily understood, including language that sounded like it had come from a “Big Bang Theory” script.

I recognized that Ethereum had to find any small group of fanatical users. For better or worse, I began drawing on my experience in SaaS, which taught me that startups need loyal users who find so much utility in an application that, if it were taken away, they wouldn’t have an alternative.

DeFi days

By spring 2019, I am working full time on the Ethereal Summit, a series of events celebrating the founders and builders of the decentralized web on Ethereum. It was around then that Ethereum’s narrative began to change. I heard about Compound, where you can lend and borrow – similar to MakerDAO, but with better loan-to-value (LTV) ratios. 

I was astonished – $50 MILLION in an app built on Ethereum! It was exhilarating to learn a second finance application had been built, launched and had been running on Ethereum for more than six months. 

All this activity came to be known as decentralized finance, or DeFi. The term was coined in 2018 by members of the 0x team, but the industry was just getting going. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I began researching every project we were hosting at Ethereal – PoolTogether, Kyber Argent and Zerion. And I did something even more radical: I began testing and using the damn products! 

I needed to see my investment make money to realize the power of these DeFi applications. I started lending dai on Compound for over 10% APY and it just clicked. I’m lending dai and others borrow that money, but there’s no bank to collect the middleman fees. So, in turn, I earn better lending interest and borrowers pay smaller fees, and without know your customer (KYC) or anyone’s permission.

What stood in the way of DeFi mass adoption was better storytelling and more visual demonstration of how DeFi can work for anyone

It had long been a talking point in crypto the user experience (UX) had to improve for Ethereum to see adoption, but I found those same people espousing such criticisms often had zero experience with DeFi applications. It seemed like a lie that had stuck around long enough to become a truth, even though I was finding some DeFi UX better than my experience with legacy banking. 

For me, what stood in the way of DeFi mass adoption was better storytelling and more visual demonstration of how DeFi can work for anyone. EthHub.io and Cami Russo’s The Defiant were already doing lots of legwork in this space but there was clearly more to build upon.

In late 2019, the DeFi community was still small compared to today, only a few thousand or possibly even a few hundred users, but it felt like we were on a bustling rocket ship of excitement. We rallied around this term DeFi, the simplest term to describe any peer-to-peer finance app built on Ethereum, requiring a Web 3 wallet like MetaMask, that doesn’t need KYC and has no single point of failure. If ETH is money, DeFi is your bank. 

What started as a concept is now an economy of interlinked applications with more than $4 billion in value invested. But it’s more than just money. DeFi has changed the way people think about Ethereum itself and given rise to new narratives and memes.

A meme is born

Shortly after this spark was really gaining momentum in the fall 2019, DeFi users naturally found a second totem to rally around. That was the concept of Total Value Locked (TLV), coined by the team at DeFi Pulse. 

TVL refers to the sum of all value deposited into a DeFi app’s smart contracts, whether that’s measured in U.S. dollars (USD) or in ETH. TVL reflected a new, un-gameable metric for adoption. It was a way to compare how much trust DeFi users put into an application. It has its flaws, but those flaws are no worse than reducing Bitcoin to its price. 

DeFi also helped solidify the “ETH is money” meme. As co-host of the Bankless Podcast David Hoffman said, ETH is a triple-point asset, because it acts as a store-of-value, a capital asset, and a consumable asset. “ETH is Money” is an intentional pivot from “ETH is gas,” and updates the world on how ETH is actually used on Ethereum.  

Plain and simple: ETH is money. It always has been money and to label it otherwise was a product marketing mistake in the early days of Ethereum.

Yield farming is the latest viral meme in Ethereum. DeFi is a larger all-encompassing category of p2p, self-custody, KYC-less, finance apps built on Ethereum, but yield farming describes a popular incentives program where you often provide liquidity to a DeFi application in exchange for a combination of rewards. 

As Dan Elitzer of IDEO CoLab Ventures put it, yield farming is like aquaponics because it creates a symbiotic relationship between DeFi protocols, meaning DeFi participants can earn three or more forms of yield such as interest, market-making fees and pooled rewards such as a governance token like BAL or COMP. Because of the most composable incentive designs in DeFi, yield farming (aka “liquidity mining”) is like passive income on steroids, with programs delivering anywhere from 10-200% daily APY on average. 

Universal appeal

Five years ago, you could argue Ethereum was attempting to do too much. Even two to three years ago, that was still a valid hypothesis, with stagnant adoption.

Today, the bold experiment of Ethereum is working. Alongside the $4 billion in assets deposited into DeFi, we’ve seen a 227% year-on-year increase in ETH locked in DeFi, and a 20X increase in tokenized BTC on Ethereum (equivalent to ~$220 million) since January 1. 

What was a drawback – doing “too much” – is now a strength and a reason why Ethereum’s daily transaction volume and daily network fees have eclipsed Bitcoin’s. Although Ethereum is less than half Bitcoin’s age, it has accomplished more in the last five years, building the most advanced permissionless p2p finance system in the world while Bitcoin has continued to champion the narrower digital gold meme.

It’s getting easier every day to point to DeFi apps that clearly demonstrate value and utility you cannot find elsewhere. If you’ve managed to ignore these developments, now is as good a time as ever to catch yourself up. The story of DeFi and Ethereum is just getting started.

Disclosure

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Trading via CoinDesk https://bit.ly/35KxIA1 August 1, 2020 at 09:06AM

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Exclusive Interview] CHUCK STEEL: NIGHT OF THE TRAMPIRES IS a Teenage Fantasy Come True For Director Mike Mort

Many of us have spent most of our school years daydreaming and scribbling in our math books. Hell, most of us still daydream and doodle at our office job. But few of us have actually followed our dreams. Mike Mort has finally produced his passion project; a stop-motion feature-length film featuring a character he came up with as a teenager. Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires is the product of four years of hard, repetitive work. Mort is credited as the writer, director, sculptor and voice of the primary characters, including Chuck Steel. I caught up with Mort at the Fantasia Film Festival to talk about the long process of crafting his masterpiece.

    Chris Aitkens of Nightmare on Film Street: How are you feeling after the screening? 

Mike Mort: Great. It went down very well. I was trying to listen to see whether some of the jokes were working. There seemed to be laughter all the way through so I think it worked.

  NOFS: Has the cut changed since its world premiere?

MM: No, all we’ve done is we beefed up the sound slightly. It need just a little tweak and I think it’s working perfectly now. I was very happy with the screening.

  “When I first came up with him, he was just a square-jawed action hero-type scribble in my school book.”

  NOFS: I was very surprised to hear that you came up with Chuck Steel when you were 15. How has the character developed over the years?

MM: When I first came up with him, he was just a square-jawed action hero-type scribble in my school book. I started to just draw him over and over again in different scenarios. At some point, he was in a post-apocalyptic world, another time he was in a fantasy world. Over the years, I’ve made a number of scripts and story ideas around him, but the “trampires” idea came from joining up two ideas. The Night of the Trampires came to me as an idea for a low-budget horror which would be live action. And then I ended up joining that with the Chuck Steel storyline. This is the result, but it’s taken a long time just to get to this point, probably because I learned things over the years about writing and story structure. When I was 15, I didn’t know anything about that stuff, I was just drawing and sculpting. It’s probably good that it’s taken me so long, otherwise if I made it years ago, it probably wouldn’t be as good.

  NOFS: When I was watching the original short [Chuck Steel: Raging Balls of Steel Justice], the premise seemed a bit more realistic. There are still elements that are completely zany, but why did you want to go for a more fantastical approach for the feature-length?

MM: Just because I wanted to put as many things in this film that I wanted. There are things that I wanted to do in animation for a long time like karate fighting, car chases, monsters, meltdowns, explosions, all those things that I wanted to try to find a way to make. And I thought, this is my one opportunity to do this, I’m going to put everything in this film and construct a story around these things I wanted to see in animation.

    NOFS: What was the reaction to the original short film?

MM: I didn’t attend Fantasia that year when it was shown. We didn’t do a huge amount of festivals because we went straight into making the feature film so we didn’t need to push it. One thing we would like is to get the views up on Youtube, it’s run up to about 250,000 views, but we would like it to be more than that so more people are aware of Chuck Steel as a character. The reaction to it was good, everyone liked it and my backers who backed the short film wanted to go straight into the feature film. 

    NOFS: Would you mind describing to me the pain-staking animation process?

 MM: Where do I start? Can you be a bit more specific?

    NOFS: All I know is that you have to make a different mouth for every syllable, you have to make different characters for all the crowd scenes…

MM: Yeah, we had a lot of crowd scenes in this film and a lot of villains in the crowd of Trampires. I wanted to make sure that they were all different and all look unique. The common thing with stop-motion films is, with background characters, change a head or change a hat, and you think it’s a new character. We wanted to make them all look completely different so that when you’re watching the film, it’s a visual overload, but not to the point where you don’t know what’s going on, but it feels like a real crowd because everyone is different. So it was hard to construct those things. It’s not hard to design those things, you just sit down and draw. It’s was hard on the budget we were on to actually create the stuff but we found ways around it. We made four or five different body shapes that we dressed differently. That was the only time where we standardized things for easy construction, and then all the heads and hands were unique to the characters. And we did that for all the humans and Trampires as well, that was probably one of the biggest challenges.

As for the lip-sync for the characters when they talk was the other big challenge where we stuck with the approach of hand-sculpting the lips every frame so the animator would take the head off, sculpt it, clean it up, put it back on. It’s crazy really but it has a nice look to it. That’s the technique we used on the short film, I didn’t want it to veer off wildly from the look of the short, so we stuck with that.

  NOFS: Were there particular scenes in the movie that were difficult to animate? 

MM: The fighting scene at the end with the clowns and all that was quite time-consuming because of the amount of characters running around. The foreground action would be the primary shot, but for everyone of those shots, we would have to shoot a background plate which had this crowd running around in the circus as well. And we could only do so much reuse of those background plates because we kept changing angles, we didn’t want to standardize it to one angle and then repeat the background. We did a little bit of that, but it’s very minimal. So the crowd were probably the trickiest.

    NOFS: You’ve been animating for quite a while, what were some of the first projects you worked on?

MM: Years ago, back in ’92, I did a TV series called the Gogs, which was of a family of cavemen. It’s all on Youtube now, it was an idiot cavemen clay-mation. That took a few years to shoot, it was a half-hour special. I then did a few short films and most of my work has been doing commercials as a director or animator or model maker, whatever jobs turn up. But I was always chasing this project in the back of my mind because I wanted to make an action movie in stop-motion. People have tried to do stop-motion action on Youtube, but I wanted to do something slick and impressive. Took a while but we got there.

  NOFS: You also briefly worked at Aardman studios as a director for Shaun the Sheep. I noticed you slipped in a small tribute to Wallace & Gromit in the short film. Is there anything you tried to sneak into the feature film? 

MM: I did have conversations around this about whether we should do a little nod again, but we already did that in the short film, so we decided to leave it. Everyone knows Aardman and they do great stuff, but that thing in the short film was just a little gag. It’s not like we’re trying to wind each other up or anything.

  NOFS: Have you heard any feedback from the Aardman people about Chuck Steel? 

MM: I think Peter Lord [Producer of Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit] saw it at Annecy and he said he liked it. I’d like to screen it for all those guys over there at some point, so they can see what we’ve been up to. And a lot of the animators who worked there worked on the film, so this is the pool of talent that we shared.

  NOFS: What’s next for the film?

MM: We got more festival screenings coming up. We got FrightFest in London and Sitges in Spain, and a few other ones as well. Running parallel to that we are talking to distributors, trying to get a good distribution deal for it, theatrically hopefully, that’s the plan. 

  NOFS: Is there anything you would like to do with Chuck Steel in the future? 

MM: I have two ideas for sequels. I haven’t started writing them out properly yet because I don’t want to count my chickens, I want to get this one out and hopefully it does well enough to allow us to do another one.

  NOFS: Any last thing you want our readers to know?

MM: If they’re aware of Chuck Steel, the short film especially because that’s out there, then it would be good for people to like it, to share it as much as possible, get the word of mouth out about this character. Making an independent film at this level—because we’re not a $100 million film nor are we a $1 million film, we’re in that tricky part in the middle. We do need people to find us and follow us.

  If you want to find out more about Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, you can visit the official movie website. Don’t forget to follow Chuck Steel on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! And be sure to tell all your friends!

The post [Exclusive Interview] CHUCK STEEL: NIGHT OF THE TRAMPIRES IS a Teenage Fantasy Come True For Director Mike Mort appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

from WordPress https://nofspodcast.com/exclusive-interview-chuck-steel-night-of-the-trampires-is-a-teenage-fantasy-come-true-for-director-mike-mort/ via IFTTT