#It took me 30 minutes to edit a short warm up with my computer issues

[andyfire122]

Star gazing remebrence

(I was gonna post this on A03 since I'm getting back into the swing of things but my computer issues...eh. Also A03 having issues rn. So Zam belongs to @esthyradler )

Zam just laid down on that hill for a while. Wasn't for any particular reason. The stars looked great that night. Before, the stars just made him miss a lot of things he lost when coming to Earth. Though recently it just brings new meaning.

Not only is Zim alive after all, but Miyuki is here. He probably should be freaking out more, but something about the view tonight was strangely calming.

Zim doesn't even hate me after he found out. Though, I should be worried about Miyuki. I'm just not right now for some reason. Still seems so unreal to find out she is the same one. Well, not the same. I doubt any of us are who we used to be.

It's been a few days since Zim just told him that the teacher who came was the same Miyuki from Irk. Thinking on it, that explains why she is so familiar.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Speaking of the lady herself there was Miyuki. Just standing there looking down from where he was stargazing. Nromally Zam would be a bit startled, considering she's been following him around more. Just tonight his nerves were giving him a welcome break.

He smiles. “Nothing, just enjoying a clear night.”

Stargazing was something he wasn't planning on giving up. No matter what the universe had been throwing at him lat

ely.

"You will be sooner robbed than anything else. Get up before you catch a cold." She scoffs. For a second he could almost see his old friend in that gaze.

Suppose it takes a lot of effort to stay mad like that. If I could change then maybe there is a chance.

Zam just gives a nervous laugh. "Well, not like I have anything interesting on me. Kinda worth it when you look at that." He gestures to the night sky.

As much as humans have polluted the planet, sometimes you get nights like these where the stars are the clearest. Like all his worries could just stay there in the stars.

It is quite clear tonight. I wonder if Zim has done something concerning the pollution?

"Sounds like a waste of time or just a way to not do any work tonight." And still, she sits down right night to him.

Zam just gives her a look before going back to look at the stars. “Yet you sat down with me.”

“Someone has to drag you when you pass out from the cold.” She scoffs but she is also looking at the stars.

Come to think of it, we did do something similar to this when we were Smeets. Guess it's the little things that stay the same. I don't think I mind so much.

Zam smiles softly at this moment. Tomorrow, it will be back to learning what to do about her or just working so she doesn't try to kill him when she finds out. Tonight, just two people sitting down for a breather.

I bet she hasn't had a real break in ages. Well, we can just call this another one of Earth's gifts then.

“Whatever you say, Miyuki.”

[twiststreet]

Waiting for a plumber to call back, which has completely derailed my day... 

The Last of Us 2 (2020): Fan art by Leonardo Romero. Anyways, this has its weaknesses (the story didn’t go places I thought might be more interesting, and it took me longer to warm up to some of its choices as you can kind of see the design choices they’re making to try to get you to warm up-- the Tim Rogers review of the last game that came out this week made for an interesting juxtaposition in that respect; plus, I just wasn’t really in the mood for monster fights in this game since the human work was so much more interesting) and its strengths (some of the most technically amazing level design I’ve ever seen specifically when you go into that suburb of Seattle, wild physics shit, a story that I think ultimately really works and is successful in its goals, Naughty Dog’s better-than-anyone visual and visual design work, an A++ ending, Naughty Dog’s ongoing commitment to story and design flowing from where the characters are emotionally rather than “plot”, the actual acting-- Patrick Fugit as one of the biggest fuckboys I’ve ever seen in a game, the massive and often-astonishing scale of it, all the ways you could see lessons from earlier games get applied to this one, those videos of people playing random songs on the games’ in-game guitar, etc.).  

One of the most ugly and sad responses from an audience I’ve ever seen, though.  Gamer weirdos yelling about a “trans character” that wasn’t the games’ trans character (the number of dudes online admitting they’ve never seen a woman’s body outside of their computer monitor is wild right now-- just dudes telling on themselves).  SJW people yelling about the actual trans character in a way that I found really off-putting, just ignoring what people are trying to do, the degree of difficulty in doing it, and the way applying rigid rules to that is massively unpersuasive and fundamentally anti-art.  (It’s that “no one should get to tell anyone else’s story besides me” shit from the will-never-be-happy-with-anything type brigades that I have no time for.  Mid-00′s tumblr shit that thankfully has mostly left this site and transitioned to harassing twitter).  Games are neat sometimes, but everything about them is the worst kind of trash.

Lost Bullet (2020): a French Netflix movie about a car-guy who gets recruited by cops trying to stop “go-fast drivers”, but then gets mixed up in some hijinx.  The French like a certain kind of action that I’m getting into-- if you saw Sleepless Night (which I think Jamie Foxx remade?), it has that same quality where it’s like... I guess the better comparison is Haywire, where you’re just watch a guy in a room in sort of slow, very tangible fights that are not exciting in their editing and no one seems especially trained to fight, so the pleasure is just in seeing bodies mash up against each other and try to get out of that situation...?  

And then ending is a hoot because it kind of becomes a 1980′s ending, like James Garner’s Tank or something.  It turns into the A-Team for this car bit.  It’s all practical car shit too so if you’re into car shit, it’s fun for that in a way that modern American car movies stopped being, once they learned how to CGI cars up... 

It’s a netflix movie though so there’s about 20-30 minutes there they could’ve cut, even though the movie’s only about an hour and a half... Nothing really worth watching but I liked the bits I liked...

The Trip to Greece (2020):  I’m not sure why this is the last one-- I still want a Japan one-- and the movie doesn’t really make a case to end these.  It does go dark at the end-- I don’t think very successfully to be honest-- but I just like these movies a lot.  I just like having one on.  There’s some guys; they go somewhere; they eat; they talk about Mick Jagger.  I just like that; I like that formula; I like that they got this many movies out of that... It’s been a while since Winterbottom’s hit outside of these though so it’s probably good that he’s moving on though-- it’s been a while since he had a 24 Hour Party People...

Action Journalism (2020):  I got curious a night or two ago what Criterion designer Eric Skillman was up to in comics since it’d been a while since I heard his name-- it turns out he has been self-publishing a short series of 16 page black and white comics drawn very pleasantly by Miklos Felvideki.  The comics are sort of all ages science fantasy adventures about a Lois Lane-type character having adventures-- not much there to the writing since it’s for kids.  

But boy do you ever see that guy’s skills as a designer-- just a lot of good choices being made!!  (Well with one exception-- he tries to do a sideways comic in #2 which I get the desire for-- I’ve done one myself *takes a bow*-- but it doesn’t work digitally at all, not on a desktop anyways... That’s a paper-only move).  The covers are all comic pages that start each issue?  Or him and Felvideki use a zipatone thing for the lighting, that just looks great to me.  It just looks right...?  It looks like what it’s supposed to look like, I think.  

Nothing to rush out to read, if you’re a grown person, but I thought it was a really likable project-- I hope they enjoyed making it... 

The last couple comics I’ve read have been big awful mainstream things (to see what I’d been “missing”-- apparently just BAD LETTERING)(nothing worth mentioning), so maybe I was more in the mood for it because of that, though.  

This Video of Phoebe Bridgers Talking about Albums: Delightful!  I like her new one...

The plumber’s not calling back; my day is fucked here...