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multifandomingmess · 2 years

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you're mine and we belong together | chapter one | steve harrington x reader

this story is mine. i originally posted on my AO3.

will have stranger things season 4 spoilers from volume 1! SUMMARY:

Y/N is a new Senior student at Hawkins High School. She finds herself friends with Max, Dustin, and Eddie. A new start means a new job - in which Y/N takes Robin's position at Family Video since Robin is getting promoted to manager. This leads to Dustin introducing Y/N to Steve. They get off to a rocky start but find themselves growing closer and closer. The Byers have moved back.

Eddie failed his senior year again but that's okay. We get to experience the icon he is.

Also, I don't know much about Dungeons and Dragons, so just know that I'm trying my hardest to write it correctly. I've even rewatched episodes and looked at parts of the rulebook.

Y/N is from {CITY, STATE} and never expected to be in Hawkins, Indiana, but here she is. Y/N has H/C hair and E/C eyes, can't forget to mention her unique style.

Y/N = your name H/C = hair color E/C = eye color

POV alters throughout the story but usually starts off in third-person and proceeds to first-person.

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"I want to introduce a new face to the Hellfire Club..."

The room is dimly-lit, joined by the other group members. The curly-haired leader, Eddie, raises a brow at you. A smirk appears on his face as he extends his arms widely in an inviting gesture.

"Hi, I'm Dustin!" The other curly-haired boy interrupts, before gesturing for his friends to introduce themselves.

"I'm Mike, this is Will, and this is Erica." He speaks in a fast tone, seemingly wanting to get the introductions done and over with.

Eddie flashes a gaze at you, gesturing for you to introduce yourself. "I'm Y/N, I'm from {CITY, STATE} and I just moved to Hawkins with my family..."

"How long have you been playing Dungeon and Dragons?" Mike questions, seeming to test your knowledge.

"A few years, maybe five or six?"

"Favorite class?"

"Hard to choose but usually Cleric or Druid."

The guys seem impressed but you know they're not done. Trust me, this isn't your first club.

"Favorite villain to go against?" This time Will asks a question. You're a bit surprised because he seems anti-social but you can relate.

"Vecna and Orcus. They're challenging but tease in the perfect way."

Erica smiles at you, looking at Eddie, "You got another awesome girl in your hands."

"Hell yes," You reply, both you and Erica give each other fist-bumps.

Eddie clicks his tongue against his teeth, flashing you both a look. You stand back, crossing your arms across your chest. "Yes?"

"What's your class and level?"

You amusingly scoff, combing your fingers through your hair. "Half-Elf. Cleric. Level 13. I am Madame Castle. I may strike with a poison-soaked dagger or may strike with my almighty spells."

"Alrighty, thus moves forward into reign."

It begins. Mike and Will move in. Erica prepares to strike any monsters. You approach the board, blatantly staring at the leader. You countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

"The Cleric arrives on the field. A new face to our quest. Hooded members of our village chant welcoming chords." Eddie narrates, beginning to harmonize, in a way.

THE POV CHANGES

The lit candles around us seem to flicker, almost as if the game was real. Almost as if the game was coming to life. "Servants of Orcus arrive. They're loyal to their Lord and will strike. Madame Castle, will you strike first?"

I take the D20 dice, clasping it into my hand, rolling it around before letting it fall across the board. We watch it turn a few times before landing on 14.

"I strike using an exclusive spell within my sources. I use a mace in the other hand, striking once before chanting my magic on this monster." I narrate back, making my move and marking my territory.

"One down. Four to go." Eddie declares, seemingly teasing me. Every leader enjoys teasing a new member but I'm not a newcomer. I bite back - making my objective known.

"The spell isn't of the multiple one, it can kill as many as a ton," I reply, pointing to my dictum card. "It's always a part of my equipment."

"Nice one!" Mike calls out, patting me on the back a few times.

"The remaining two servants charge forward. They see their foes dead on the ground. They prepare to shake this town. They chant, 'All Hail, Our Lord Orcus, For He Will Provide Us Strength!' over and over." Eddie reads dramatically, moving two of the characters forward on the board. He begins to repeat the chant.

"All Hail, Our Lord Orcus, For He Will Provide us Strength! All Hail, Our Lord Orcus, For He Will Provide us Strength! It's time to make a move before they unleash their wrath upon you."

I look at Mike, Will, and Erica. We gather together for a moment, strategizing our next attack.

Before we can make our move, the bell rings, meaning it's time to go home. Did it go by that fast? Eddie laughs, knocking over the pieces, "Lord Orcus' servants devour you all into a deep slumber."

"Oh, fuck you, Eddie." I jokingly shout, laughing at him. He seems surprised but nevertheless laughs back. "Shit, I promised my parents that I would look for a job today. Does anyone know if any place is hiring?"

Dustin raises his hand, "The Family Video store! Our friend works there. They aren't closing for like, another hour, so we can head over there."

"Let's get going because I have a curfew."

"You're 18, right?"

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't change strict parents."

Dustin agrees with me, nodding in a sense of understanding. "Yeah, I get that. We get interrogated by our parents often..."

"Are you serious?" I laugh out as I put my backpack on, pulling my hair into a ponytail. They all nod -- except for Eddie. Then again, he's 20-years-old. Not going to question that.

"I have no clue where it's at so Eddie, you're driving!" I finish off, turning around to look at him. "You got a car or do you wanna drive mine?"

"I-I got a car... Don't even question that."

"Sorry but you never know, trust me. A lot of people at my old school didn't have cars. They usually did carpool or some shit like that."

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We arrive at the store, right on time. Dustin is the first to get out, ushering us over to the store. "Come on, slowpokes. Come on!"

I get out of the car, following Dustin, "I'm coming, hold up dude."

Dustin opens the door for me, the bell ringing, signaling the attention of the staff member. This must be Dustin's friend? He looks like he's in his twenties. I give Dustin a stare, "Is this...?"

"Yeah, yeah! He used to date Mike's sister and he's so cool. Practically a babysitter but..."

"I'm not the goddamn babysitter, Dustin, we've talked about this." The guy intrudes in, arguing with Dustin.

"Steve, this isn't the time..."

"You're the one coming in here and telling this chick that I'm your babysitter. That's not appealing whatsoever."

"Not true, some women love men who care for kids."

"Whatever, Henderson! Anyways, are you new around here?" Steve turns to me and we make eye contact. I nod softly.

"Yeah, I just move here from {STATE} but um..." I start, nervously biting the inside of my cheek. "Dustin was telling me that you have a job opening here?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's all yours!"

I knit my brows together, "What if I'm a serial killer?"

"Are you a serial killer?"

"No but..."

"Then you're hired! Trust me, I need all the help I can get. We can do a more thorough interview tomorrow. I'm beat but welcome to Family Video. Hourly pay is $7. We can work out your schedule. Just come here after three tomorrow, sound good?"

He runs his fingers through his hair. I smile a bit, "Yeah, sounds good. Nice to meet you, Steve!"

"Wait... What's your name?" He drops the tapes that are in his arms. I bend over and help him with them, looking him directly in the eyes.

"I'm Y/N."

We stay like that for a few seconds but get up from off the ground. "Well, uh, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah," I reply before heading out with Dustin.

"You're totally into him."

"I just met him, Dustin. Don't make assumptions."

He begins to laugh, nudging his shoulder into me, winking. I roll my eyes, chuckling to myself. Eddie propped up against his car, smoking a cigarette. "Y'all done?"

"Yeah but Eddie, can you pick me up tomorrow morning. I left my car in the school parking lot."

Eddie groans, "Why can't we just go get it now?"

"Because I don't feel like it and I'm sure you don't either."

Eddie stands there for a second, before nodding. "Yeah, that's true."

"Wait, Y/N, where do you live?" He blows the smoke out of his mouth, letting the ashes fall to the ground.

"Uh, on Lockwood Drive, something like that."

He looks at me, dropping his cigarette, smudging it into the ground with his shoe.

"Alright, let's get going."

#stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things headcanon #stranger things 4 spoilers #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington smut #originally posted on AO3 under account Sunflower624

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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Lolicassé Profiles

(I'm so sorry for this I know it's ugly af!😭 the quality completely died when I imported the images into my computer.) Welcome one, welcome all! To Lolicassé the dorm of misfit toy! Founded on the intellect of the toymaker (though it's technically "founded" on a Micky mouse episode just like the Ramchakle dorm). The students in this dorm all use a classification of magic known as "creator" which permits them to build marvelous inventions and toys from simple everyday objects. Students here, are also able to transform into some sort of toy, which sometimes makes it hard to tell the students apart from the actual toys littering every corner of the dorm. If you are thinking of paying this dormitory little visit, BEWARE the students can get rather clingy and obsessed, and are not above using rather unorthodox means to keep their new playmate with them forever!

Meet the Students of this patched up dormitory.

Xerxes Starness Year/Class: Year 3 Class A Seat 8 Birthday: 18/01 (Capricorn) Age: 18 Height: 183 cm Dominant hand: left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Robotics Best subject: physics Hobby: Inventing new devices and fixing up old inventions Bad with: Sleeping Favorite food: Chocolat Disliked food: any seafood Special skill: Fixing broken tech He is Lolicassé's dorm leader who can transform into a tiny remote control robot. He's a direct descendant of the original "founders" of the City of misfit toys. His childhood was rather isolated, having two very strict parents that we're obsessed with the idea of creating the "perfect child". Even in Night Raven he still continues to distance himself from other people, which has resulted in several rumors about him to rapidly spread.

Special ability Optical database When he looks directly at an object or person he is able to pull up numerous information about them. His brain is the equivalent of the world wide web. It is rumored that this isn't his original special ability and that his mother stole his birth ability instead of replacing it with a man-made ability

Edgar Ross Year/Class: Year 3 Class B Seat 26 Birthday: 04/04 (Aries) Age: 19 Height: 189 cm Dominant hand: left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Magical Shift Club Best subject: Protective magic Hobby: Exercising Bad with: Not invading peoples personal space Favorite food: Anything with gravy on it. Disliked food: corn Special skill: Sharpshooting

He is Lolicassé's deputy dorm leader who was raised in a military household and in such pride himself on being the "perfect" soldier. He's rather old fashioned and keeps a formal attitude with whoever he meets. He devotes himself to "protecting" his dorm members which have caused him to get in multiple fights with students from other dorms. It is said that he idolizes Xerxes father. He can turn himself into a toy soldier like the rest of his family members.

Special Ability Icy bullet He is able to emit glacier bullets from his body that freeze what every they touch. Due to his polished target skills he hardly ever misses his target.

Ray Sanada Year/Class: Year 3 Class C Seat 19 Birthday: 24/06 (Cancer). ‎ Age: 18 Height: 177 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Studying movies club Best subject: Alchemy Hobby: Sewing dolls Bad with: Focusing on one task for long periods of time Favorite food: Strawberry cake Disliked food: anything grape flavored Special skill: Memorizing books quickly

An emotionless boy with a doll-like beauty that can transform into a porcelain victorian era doll. His beauty is rumored to rival that of the Pomefiore perfect. He is said to be deprived of emotions. He rarely speaks and doesn't have any friends. Some students say that they see him roaming the Ramshackle graveyard in the unholy hours of the night.

Special ability Dollhouse his special ability permits him to bring inanimate objects to life. However they have to be objects that he himself makes. As of right now his ability can only keep something alive for exactly 3 minutes and 52 seconds.

Ezequiel Autumn Year/Class: Year 2 Class B Seat 18 Birthday: 18/10 (Scorpio) Age: 17 Height: 182 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Board game club Best subject: Summoning Hobby: Video games Bad with: Talking to girls Favorite food: Soft drinks Disliked food: spicy foods Special skill: Hacking

A shut-in with absolutely no social skills. No one knows what exactly happened to his mother or any of his aunts but he was raised by his father and uncles. Due to this he rarely ever spoke to any girls and freezes whenever he has to talk to them. With the acceptance of his godmother who happens to be Xerxes' mother. He considers Xerxes his only real friend. He is able to transform into an anime figurine. It is rumored that he has a pair of wings though no one has ever seen them.

Special Ability White Raven, Black raven It is unclear if he was born with this ability or if it was implanted in him when he was a young child. But his voice is able to manipulate the will of others. After an unfortunate incident some students have speculated that he also has the ability to control the life span of those under the influence of his voice.

London Lore Year/Class: Year 2 Class C Seat 5 Birthday: 31/10 (Scorpio) Age: 17 Height: 179 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: Villiage of Harvest Club: Basketball club Best subject: Summoning Hobby: Collecting buttons Bad with: Keeping track of time Favorite food: Pumpkin spice drinks Disliked food: watermelons/ gravy Special skill: Sewing customers

A lazy second-year student with an unsettling creepy aura around him. He can transform into a rag doll, although even in "toy form" he is still very unnerving to be around. He was created in the city of misfit toys, but raised in the Village of Harvest were his family owned a small farm where they mostly grew pumpkins and corn. The chain around his neck tethers his body and mind to the soul of a famous killer, although this is all just a rumor it's still more than enough to get other students to avoid him at all costs.

Special Ability Plague's kiss He can emit a deadly toxin from his body which causes people to transform into hideous monsters and submit to his will. Although even after years of practice he is only able to create a max of five monsters.

Valentino Kartinez Year/Class: Year 2 Class A Seat 3 Birthday: 09/09 (Virgo) Age: 17 Height: 173 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Science club Best subject: Arts Hobby: Hosting tea parties Bad with: Ripping open his stitches Favorite food: Cookies and milk Disliked food: Vegetables Special skill: Cooking and baking

A trickster, who's elaborate tea parties are talked about all over the school and usually gather a large crowd. He grew up in a crowded family consisting of 13 siblings in which he was the "middle" child. His family owned a famous chain of restaurants that were known for their "childlike glow". Due to the restaurants taking up much of his parent's time, Valentino became accustomed to staying at home and only having his siblings as companions. Although he did enjoy the company of his younger siblings he detested his older, bossier siblings. His toy form is that of an old mangled teddy bear.

Special ability Childhood tea party Valentino is able to create a lifelike simulation of someone's memory, however, the illusion only lasts up to four minutes.

Jess Box Year/Class: Year 1 Class A Seat 23 Birthday: 14/12 (Sagittarius) Age: 16 Height: 171 cm Dominant hand: Left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Basketball club Best subject: Magical Pharmaceuticals Hobby: Designing tattoos Bad with: Keeping his voice down Favorite food: Pudding Disliked food: Raisins Special skill: Memorizing nursery rhymes

A loud, hyperactive claustrophobic first year who's voice seems to constantly be echoing around the halls. Despite being a Jack in the box, he hates small, dark, confinements. He's rather happy go lucky and usually doesn't care much about what goes on around him.

Special Ability Pop goes the Weasel His body becomes as flexible like a spring, permitting him to jump around and attach to walls. According to a certain hunter, Jess's special ability would make him an amazing huntsman. Although the first year seems to prefer using his power set to prank his classmates and teachers.

🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️

Alright so this is how I'm going to do things. Interactions are open for these characters, meaning you guys can send them asks (yandere or normal. How they would react to something/Someone up to you), just talk to them or whatever else you can come up with. I'll do my best to answer everything, whoever if I think an ask better deserves a drawing as an explanation I'll put it on hold and make a quick sketch for it later. This whole dorm was really a giant drawing practice and since I really want to start digital I might re-draw them later (not likely but we'll see). I'm thinking if these characters get popular (Idk 55 likes and maybe 10 interactions) I'll release sprites of the characters doing poses similar to the TW boys (basically how I imagine them if they where in the game) and maybe later even do some chibis of the boys. Although I seriously doubt anyone is going to like or read this 😂 🤣 😂🤣. Also a huge thank you to everyone that encouraged me to continue working on this it means so much to me! And a special thank you to Rinna ( @minoux-deactivated20200516 ) the creator of Terrorwood who inspired me to take the first step in making this dorm. If anyone wants to make an oc for this dorm feel free to do so (let's be honest no one would want that) just please tag me.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland oc #oc dorm #lolicassé #jess box #Valentino Kartinez #London Lore #Ezequiel Autumn #Edgar Ross #Ray Sanada #Xerxes Starness

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william-nylander · 4 years

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having a very rough day, do you have anymore top willy moments to gift us?

i am so sorry u are having a rough day pebble. i decided to go a bit rogue with this, in that it is instead a Top Willy Interviews On the Leafs Youtube Page listicle. i hope it makes ur day a teeny bit better.

idk if you’ve ever been to toronto BUT this look is very like. like this willy lives in the junction and hates the “noise” of the downtown and has waited 2 hours in line for bangbang ice cream in august. he likes to smoke weed in trinity bellwoods. he goes to poetry readings on bar roof tops and says shit about how everything north of dupont is “north york”. hes been known to sit at the piano in the common room at university college (uoft) and play scales. he can and has fucked ur boyfriend.

this willyum is your coworker at canadas wonderland one summer. he does not know what hes doing. he is either like :| or like :D depending on the moment. his nose gets sunburnt at the beginning of the summer but only ever in a charming way!!! u never see it peel. he works the stuffed animal stands and cannot understand why his has a line and none of the others do (hint: its bc every1 has a crush on him!!!!). before the park opens he wanders around with one of those velcro monkeys around his neck. he likes the mindbuster the best bc thats MY favourite ride and this is my listicle.

also i miss willys gigantic front teeth gap. he used to have little tombstone teeth. what has he done to them.

hey i love kyle dubas with my whole heart and all but there was something to be said about how when lou made them all be clean shaven and hair short it meant that willys hair was always kinda like a dragon ball z character and also his skin was all fleshy and elastic like a babys arm

speaking of kyle dubas i found this choice shot of willy blinking while kyles prattling on about nothing and like has anything ever been more My Aesthetic

god. has any1 ever been more iconic. this willy lives just north of bloor on dufferin and will tell anyone that the ossington strip is the “most underrated part of the city” (& hes right!!!!). they know his name at sugo. he takes all his out of town friends there and he gets tattoos at ink + water (thats at lansdowne right? now ive confused myself). he goes to the value village there and owns 29 pairs of sunglasses. he has his bed on the floor. he listens to a lot of better oblivion community centre. he long boards. he goes to bulk stores for groceries. he wants to start brewing his own kombucha. actually u know the more i typed this willy might just be me whoops.

this man is my next door neighbour for the summer in cottage country. he has a fishing boat but he doesnt fish because fish suck. i invite him over for bbq and telling stories around the campfire. we drink shitty beer. he is not interesting but he is hot. maybe we make out on the dock. willy looks weirdly good in green.

whenever someone has bracelets on their wrist my mind goes str8 to SUMMER CAMP. willyum is a camp counsellor at a camp maybe on like idk lake erie or some shit. he is a cabin leader and he loves his little sprouts/campers. frederik gauthier is the HEAD LIFEGUARD and willy thinks hes so funny and weird and sweet and cute and he doesnt realize!!! until the end of camp!!! that he has a big crush on freddie goat!!!! its the last night of camp and theres a big campfire and a camp dance and willy asks goat to sneak away with him. they go down to the beach and sit on the picnic table under the lifeguard tent and willy kisses goat and its very romantic.

okay 1) love a man in a puffy coat & 2) there is something about “my father will hear about this” draco malfoy looking like He Was a Diplomats Son mp3 willy that just really gets my goat. he went to a boarding school in the swiss alps and fucked ur girlfriend. he has a closet for his shoes. he dated a member of the swedish royal family for a summer but broke up with him bc he was too clingy.

speaking of that bitch…..here he is again. this is after his tour after high school. he rented out an apartment in lisbon and would smoke cigarettes with beautiful people on the balcony. he spends a month in the south of france turning golden on the rocky beaches and buying dinner every night from the market on his way back to the hotel. this willy takes molly at a gay club in dresden and wakes up in an architect students bed and then he goes to the park to sweat off a hangover and pretend to read nietzsche

this willy is absolutely the rapscallion son of the president. whats that movie with mandy moore (maybe???? oh no wait i just googled it its katie holmes) - that movie with katie holmes where the first daughter like falls in love or whatever?? this is willy. OOH IVE GOT IT. okay so this willy is absolutely a zoey barlett type from the west wing who is very cute and everyone loves him even though he is a spoiled brat sometimes/all the time. ENTER the assistant to the president - zach hyman - in a charlie young role. they fall in love over a pot of chilli. its the most beautiful thing u have ever s33n.

okay so like willy is the new Legal Assistant at the office. kyle is a Partner in Law or whatever tf they’re called. willy and he are Working Late One Night and u know what that means…..they go to rol san bc its open until like 6am and they eat the FUCK out of some dumplings and then kyle drives willy back to his apartment (maybe in this one he lives in a shitty place at yonge & college???? like classic “roommate in the living room” toronto living??) and they KISS in the CAR and its ROMANTIC.

this willyumm is your date for thanksgiving dinner. he comes extremely bundled. my parents live north of toronto so i imagine this willy driving us north for the weekend. his scarf is very evan from skam and its sexi. he does not like the folk playlist that you have put on but its FALL and the TREES and OCTOBER MEANS HOZIER and hes like UGH FINE WHATEVER and is a bit grumpy but then u pass thru the holland marsh and he’s like “hm smells like onions” and its all fine again. his laugh confuses your extended family and he sucks at scrabble and is a pouty bitch about it but its a GOOD TIME.

god THIS WILLYAM is ur older brothers BEST FRIEND and he comes over to play video games ?? i guess ?? i never had a brother but i YEARNED to crush on a brothers best friend. he is very handsome like a lion. maybe you write some weird diary shit about it. every time he comes over ur SO WEIRD and he KNOWS ABOUT UR CRUSH and hes VERY NICE ABOUT IT.

also would a willy listicle be complete without me marvelling over his long straight nose??????????? look how straight it is!!!!!!

this will ham is in ur intro to gender studies class on friday mornings in sid smith. hes in one of ur projects and hes got no fucking clue whats going on. hes on the varsity blues hockey team and he thought that he clicked on “intro to geography”. despite the fact that he has no idea whats happening ever hes enthusiastic about listening. one time u go for coffee at mallo across from where honest eds used to be and he asks u what the male gaze is.

okay. i hope u enjoyed this. it took me awhile and i enjoyed every second of it. to conclude, here is several screen shots from my favourite willy interview:

u ever see a man more beautiful

lil elastic face weirdo

#ask #william nylander #toronto maple leafs #This Is My Magnum Opus #Anonymous

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seawater-aurelia-writing · 4 years

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First up is Ulla Gruselige, The Boogie Woman herself lol.

Her information is under the cut because I typed too much....

I love Nightmare Before Christmas and Halloween, so I had to make Ulla first even though I didn’t color cause I suck at it ╯︿╰

Technical Information

Name: Ulla Gruselige

Other Name(s):

Maîtresse Enigme (Rook)

Mother/Old Woman ( by Silver)

Voiced By:

Mayumi Asano

Biographical Information

Gender:

Female

Age:

???

Birthday:

October 31

Starsign:

Scorpio

Height:

168cm/ 5'6"

Eye Color:

Fuchsia

Hair Color:

Black

Homeland:

Valley of Thorns

Family

Silver (Ward)

Malleus Draconia (Ward)

Professional Status

Dorm:

Diasomnia

School Year:

Third

Class:

3-E

Occupation:

Exchange Student

Club:

Board Games Club

Best Subject:

Summoning

Fun Facts

Dominant Hand

Right

Favorite Food

Gummy Worms

Least Favorite

Unsweetened Tea

Dislikes

Losing, Disrespect

Hobby

Tabletop Games

Talents

Cooking

Ulla Gruselige is a Third-year in Diasomnia and assistant to Lilia Vanrouge in his duties. Despite her rather outgoing personality, not much is know about her by those outside of her closest circle; It’s assumed that is is older and stronger than she claims.

Trivia

Her name essentially means ‘ Determined and Creepy’.

Silver refers to her as both ‘Mother’ and ‘Old Woman’ ; Despite it seeming disrespectful, she’s fond of the name when he uses it.

According to Silver, Ulla is a much better cook than Lilia but you often don’t want to ask what she puts in her recipes.

She’s from a small, remote village in the Valley of Thorns.

She uses a spell to hide her true mouth, which stretches from ear-to-ear and has uneven black stitching.

Ulla has a long black tongue that is capable of reaching her eyebrows.

She has gaming habits and is known to rage quit when she loses.

According to Lilia, she often scares children without meaning too despite having a motherly streak in her.

#Twisted Wonderland #Twisted Wonderland OC #Ulla Gruselige #Diasomnia #poc!OC #Twst POC

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theofficersacademy · 4 years

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Winter has come to settle fully over the continent of Fódlan. Few people dare venture outside during the blustery month of the Guardian Moon, preferring instead to stay bundled near the fire with loved ones. However, the faithful are ever at work as the celebration of Saint Seiros’ birth draws near.

At Garreg Mach Monastery, a desperate plea for help arrives three weeks late, yet another facet of a rapidly devolving situation. Once again, the far reaches of Western Faerghus have erupted into chaos as the grain reserves set aside for winter mysteriously vanish into smoke. Accused of selling off their stores and even burning the supplies themselves, the local nobility have sent for the church’s assistance as they begin preparations to defend themselves against the commonfolk they swore to protect.

It’s only a matter of time before tensions break and these skirmishes between local militias and household knights turn into open warfare. With Fódlan in the heart of winter and the threat of civil war imminent, it is far too dangerous to send the students out as the Academy normally would. Thus, the decision is made to mobilize the Knights of Seiros and unaffiliated faculty:

Faculty and Staff Mission: Neutralize the rebellion!

Though the mission is labelled for the “faculty and staff,” this Mission Season is for all muses unaffiliated with the student Houses. So if your muse is affiliated with the Church of Seiros, the Knights of Seiros, the Underground Citizens, the Ashen Wolves, or Those Who Slither In The Dark, this is their time to shine!

Like always, threads using tasks from the Faculty and Staff board must contain an Unaffiliated character as a participant, but there are also non-mission tasks available to everyone without restrictions.

Faculty and Staff Mission Board

The late arrival of the distress call means that the knights are already in a losing battle against time to cross the continent to the far reaches of Faerghus. Of course, even the church’s most elite soldiers need to rest and your unit’s commander decides to stop in the middle of the Faerghus countryside. Help set up camp, assist with food preparations, or just bundle up with your comrades and grouse about the cold. The monastery’s dormitories certainly look luxurious now.

The village where your unit is staying suddenly erupts into flames, but as if circumstances can’t get any worse, water poured over the fire dissipates ineffectually into steam. One of the villagers points out a hooded figure wearing the characteristic mask of a dark mage moments before he disappears into the shadows. You have a choice: go after the arsonist, or seek out someone familiar with Reason magic to figure out a way to stop the fires. [Grants Reason +1]

It’s known all across Fódlan that Garreg Mach monastery serves the upper echelons of nobility, so a unit of knights bearing its insignia immediately draws scrutiny from the commonfolk. They accuse you all of sympathizing with the greedy lords of their land and, armed with nothing but pitchforks and torches, launch a guerilla attack against your unit before you can reach the village gates. Subdue the village militia! But remember: injuring them might not help your case.

Duke Ciaran, the lord who sent the original distress call to the monastery, has gone missing. Talking to the villagers yields painfully little information except an occasional “good riddance.” None seem too pleased that he got the church involved. Investigate his whereabouts.

Although paltry at best, the knights received some leads that point to a group of local bandits. Given the volatile situation in the village, it would be wise not to make too much of a scene. Borrow some of the commonfolk’s old rags and the woodcutter’s axe and infiltrate the hideout as “new recruits” to glean any information you can about the missing food stores. [Grants Axe +1]

NEW! A whole moon passes and Duke Ciaran’s whereabouts remain a mystery. Many of the villagers have settled with the belief that he finally got what was coming to him. With the riots subdued, the Knights of Seiros are prepared to pull out and return to Garreg Mach; however, the Goddess shines her light upon a barn long believed to be abandoned. Inside huddles a gaunt and dirty Duke Ciaran with his entourage.

NEW! The Valley of Ailell’s relentless flames have marred House Daphnel’s territory for what is said to be thousands of years. Though stories and songs only speak of constant death and destruction, those fearless enough to withstand the danger tell a different tale of fertile volcanic soils and neverending summers. The Church of Seiros’ call to assist the Kingdom of Faerghus has been heard by House Daphnel. A pledge to contribute their surplus wheat and salt pork is welcome news, but now the question is: how do you get all that food across a valley known for constant death and destruction? [Grants +1 Flying, Riding, or Heavy Armor]

Non-Mission Task Board

By mid-winter, the students at the academy are getting restless from being cooped inside for so long. The remaining faculty have decided to spice up the monotony by employing a few of the students to help them chip blocks of ice out of the pond. But there’s a twist: one participant will stand in the middle of the pond and work toward the outer edges while their partner works on the outside. Plan your blocks strategically so that the ice doesn’t give out and your partner plunges into frigid water. Didn’t expect a trust-building exercise, did you? [Grants Authority +1]

Although the birth of Saint Seiros was historically a humble celebration spent at home with family, recent decades have seen a rise in more colorful celebrations, to which the monastery is not immune. Go into town to see the shops decked out in their finest wares, visit the local candymakers for their seasonal peppermint sticks, or make your pilgrimage to the church to listen to the choir sing by candlelight. However you choose to spend your time, don’t forget to offer gifts to your loved ones so that they know how much you care.

Franzi Pans! ♪ Dressed from head to toe in yellow! Franzi Pans! ♪ Everyone in Leicester knows her! The Alliance’s most famous knight, found in the school–cause quite a fright!–but now she’s here, health’s in the clear, and now she’s come to say! ♪ “That hypothermia was nothing like what I faced in my 16th book, Holidays with Fraldarii Coarse! I’ll tell all in my seminar. For a fee, of course!” Professor Pans’ seminar promises sword tricks and book signings galore! But with rumors of stealing the credit of the real heroes that lived her stories flying about, are you really getting what you signed up for? [Grants Swords +1]

Garreg Mach Monastery is home to one of the largest greenhouse complexes in Fódlan, allowing the monastery to remain self-sufficient even through the winter months. Though the student-run greenhouse is home to a variety of exotic plants meant for research purposes, beyond the students’ view are greenhouses that primarily grow the food meant to feed everyone in the monastery. The Hands of Spring, the student gardening club, has requested volunteers to help tend the crops. Many of the plants here are familiar to you, though you can’t help but wonder why some clearly warn that they aren’t for human consumption...

Over the centuries, the people of Fódlan have come up with clever ideas to stay warm and entertained during the long, dreary winter months. One of the most long-standing of these is the annual Spice Festival. Visit the dining hall to partake in the chef’s spiciest creations to clear out your sinuses and warm you up from the inside out, or sign up for the pepper-eating contest to see how well you can withstand the heat. You might also catch some of the younger students furtively daring each other to scoop spoonfuls of unattended spices into their mouths. They claim it’s an ancient shepherd’s game, but you have your doubts.

NEW! Graduation for the Officers Academy is coming up soon, so the monastery grounds are bustling with students finding last-minute ways to study for their final certification exams. Grab a professor or another student for some extra lessons in a weapon weakness, just to make sure you leave the academy with a well-rounded education.

NEW! With the rise of the Pegasus Moon comes hushed whispers of a fabled spirit of love, Saint Valerie, whose said to inhabit one of the aqueducts below the monastery. She only appears once a year, but those who manage to find her and offer her a single swan feather are said to be shown the path to their one true love. Easier said than done though, since the aqueducts are full of monsters. Ready your fists; you may have to punch your way through. [Grants +1 Gauntlets]

NEW! Constant complaints of drafty wyvern stalls and leaky pipes on the pegasi end of the stables has finally given rise to action. Today, the stables will be under repair! Fantastic news, and the words “Extra Credit for Volunteers” allures you to the stables the next morning… where a veritable zoo waits for you. Overeager pegasi gleefully evade their handlers, hoping to fly into the distance for even snowier pastures. Miserable wyverns hole up in their stalls, burying themselves in warm straw and snarling at anyone who tries to get them to move. Hapless humans are falling behind on schedule as their attention splits between animal wrangling and barn repairing. Can’t you do anything to straighten out this situation?

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the divided task board work?

This season’s mission is assigned to the Unaffiliated Muses. Therefore, tasks from the ‘Faculty and Staff Mission Task Board’ must be undertaken by someone that is affiliated with the Church of Seiros, the Knights of Seiros, the Underground Citizens, the Ashen Wolves, or Those Who Slither in the Dark. However, they may choose to perform the task with someone who is not from their group as well. In logistical terms, this means that if you play a non-Unaffiliated muse and want to do a mission task, you must ask someone who plays an Unaffiliated muse to thread with you. All thread participants will still receive any skill point rewards.

Tasks from the ‘Non-Mission Task Board’ have no house restriction and can be undertaken by anyone.

These aren’t the only threads I can do, right?

Of course not! These are just prompts to help give some ideas of possibilities. You’re always free and encouraged to make up your own threads.

How do I claim the skill points?

In order to qualify for the skill point, the thread must clearly allude to the listed task and preferably feature the task being completed. You do not need to message the masterlist to claim your skill point.

Can I only do one task?

Nope, you can do as many as you’d like with as many different partners as you’d like! You can do the same task with more than one person! However, you can only claim any skill points once.

What if my partner leaves or drops a skill point thread?

If the dropped thread has at least 5 notes (not counting likes, only reblogs with replies in them) and you have hit at least 400 words on your end, you may still claim the skill point.

Remember to use (and track!) the #toa open tag for any open threads, and you can also post a link to your open thread on the appropriate Discord channel! If you have any other questions or concerns, shoot us a message through the masterlist or on Discord!

#toa mission #mission: incendiary

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far-cry-all-the-time · 5 years

Text

About me game

Answer 10 questions, tag 10 people.

I was tagged by @uncommonly-average @they-are-not-just-stories @joseph-thefather-seed @absurdwanderlust @deputyoneill and @fkingpeggies ! And I’m going to tag @onl-you @casifer-fan @deputyshitlordsantana @just-an-adventurer @naromoreau @highwvymen @starsandskies @outranks @pathcrier and @lexieheron if you feel up to it, but no pressure guys !! 💖

—

How tall are you ?

I’m about 170cm ? 171 maybe.

What color and style is your hair ?

I have dark brown hair (not my natural hair color) cut just before my shoulders, no bangs.

What color are your eyes ?

Dark brown.

Do you wear glasses/braces ?

I should wear glasses but since I can see okay without them I never do, oops. And I don’t wear braces.

What's your fashion sense ?

I just love to mix it up and try new things. Most of the time I just wear jeans and graphic tees but I also try to be a bit more original when I feel like it. And I have way too many jackets and coats... Wayyyyy too many, lol. Oh and I’m a huge Dr. Martens fan ! I haven’t worn any other shoes for like ? Five years, I think ?

Full name ?

You can call me Lily or Nate, I just don’t like using my full name on social media oops.

When were you born ?

28th December !

Where are you from and where do you live now ?

I’m from Switzerland. I was born and raised in a small village near Neuchâtel’s lake and I still live there today. But I’m probably going to move away in the next few years...

What school do you go to ?

Last year of High School. Almost done !!

What kind of student are you ?

Not the best but not the worst either. I’m mostly quiet but I don’t listen enough and I’m always procrastinating, oops. Thankfully I still manage to have pretty good grades.

Do you like school ?

I kinda do, yeah. It’s not the best but my High School is actually pretty good and most people are nice so that’s a good thing. I like learning by myself even more, but it depends on the subject.

Favorite subject ?

English, History & Art.

Favorite TV shows ?

Sense8, forever. This show is a masterpiece, go watch it right now !!! But if I have to mention a few others : Lovesick, American Horror Story, How I Met Your Mother, Rick & Morty, ...

Favorite movies ?

Psycho (1960), Castle In The Sky (1989), Fight Club (1999), Ruby Sparks (2013), Kill Your Darlings (2013), Lion (2016) and a looooot of other ones but those were the firsts that came to my mind.

Favorite books ?

We Are Liars by E. Lockhart, The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner and a few others but those have a special place in my heart.

Favorite past time ?

Writing, reading, watching tv shows or YouTube videos, editing, partying.

Do you have regrets ?

Big time.

Dream job ?

Director and/or writer.

Would you ever like to get married ?

Not really. If it’s important for my s/o, I could be on board but it’s not really a dream of mine.

Would you like kids ?

No.

Do you like shopping ?

Yeah, kinda. It just depends on my mood.

What countries have you visited ?

I had the chance to visit a lot of countries with my family, so here’s some of my favorite : India, Scotland, England, Japan, America, Netherlands... And a lot of other awesome places !!

Scariest nightmare you have ever had ?

Not sure it’s the scariest but, as a kid, I used to have this recurring nightmare where I would get home and, when I opened the door, bugs would fall out of the house. Basically the whole house was filled with bugs and, when I tried to go to my neighbors’, it was the same thing. And basically I was all alone and bugs were everywhere. I’m not even afraid of bugs but I used to have this nightmare almost every night.

Any enemies ?

Not that I know of ?

Any significant other ?

Nope. Single and ready to mingle. 👀

I’m married to Staci Pratt but that’s a secret.

Do you believe in miracles ?

Meh, not really. I want to believe it but at the same time I simply can’t.

How are you ?

Could be better, but I’m doing alright. I’m kinda emotional today ? Just want to tell everyone who’s still reading that ily. 💖

#get to know me #tag #lily answers #lily rants #ask

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sapphicdalliances · 5 years

Text

Hi, Yuletide writer! First of all, my sincere apologies in my delay of getting this letter written up at all, and my enthused thanks for being here!

I’m a simple bitch with simple tastes; here is a general summary of my preferences, and fandom-specific notes and prompts can be found further down!

I very much enjoy:

Romance -- anything up to and including plotless shippy drivel

Short fics, or even collections of tiny fics

Long fics too, so I guess what I mean is, don’t feel pressured either way

Comedic tones, slice-of-life, lighthearted fun, any amount of improbable romcom tropes

Am also hella on board with misunderstandings, drama or angst as long as there is a happy ending!

I’m deeply okay with AUs, and most likely would be down for any modern, romcom, fantasy/fairytale, gender swap, or remix/crossover AUs you feel inspired to explore! My favourite settings include mundane/urban fantasy (witches! werewolves!), anachronism-stew-with-magic western fantasy jumbles, and disney’s Tangled.

Specific tropes I love:

Proposal fic

Wedding fic where the couple getting married is not the main couple

Outsider/third character POV of the main couple

Exes who are still in love/getting back together

Friends-with-benefits-with-feelings/did a bad job keeping it casual

Shipfic where two or more couples are contrasted

Oblique declarations of love/saying i love you without saying i love you

Provision and caretaking (acts of service!)

Aggressive matchmaking/wingmanning by an enthused friend

Hanahaki, or any other improbably dramatic instances of Cannot Spit It Out

Arranged marriage/fake marriage/fake dating

Epistolary fic

Regrettably I also love a/b/o, especially the kind that emphasises on scent safety and contains little to no actual sex

I’m not as into:

Political or social intrigue, mysteries, complex magical plots — by no means a dealbreaker, but not high on my list of priorities

Kidfic

First person narration

Soulmate AUs specifically

In general, please avoid:

Character death or serious/permanent injury

Animal abuse or death

Infidelity

Hopeless or downer endings

Fandom specific info starts here!

Princess Tutu - Ahiru, Fakir

I’ve loved Ahiru/Fakir for years and years — they are both very strong, willful but compassionate characters, and the way they intersect is just so sweet to me. While I would be ravenous for any tutu content, gen included, I really would be particularly delighted with some overtly shippy fic for this one, I hope that’s okay!

Suggestions:

Modern AUs: vet science major Ahiru + English major Fakir meet in theatre club?

Step Up-style remix where they become somewhat-unwilling dance partners because their regular partners are somehow indisposed and work better than expected

That one ending fix-it AU where Fakir writes her back into a girl and they retire into the village, the one we all have in our treacherous hearts, i will never get enough of these

Fakir and Ahiru’s relationship progression as observed by the other members of the school/town

Or mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list! For this ship, I would like a maximum rating of T, please!

Wotakoi

I love every ship in this manga equally but perhaps I love Kou/Naoya more equally than the other two? They are just so kind and so silly, and so sweet to each other in exactly the way both of them didn’t realise they were missing! Honestly, anything with these characters that’s along the lines of canon would be delightful; the particular energy of misfits realising that they don’t have to be alone is something very dear to me.

Suggestions:

Accidentally dating ft. Kou and Naoya, or, “and you’ve made out how many times now? Hmm. Yeah, that’s not technically a bromance.”

5 times Hirotaka and Narumi almost, almost kissed, and 1 time they did; the unresolved romantic tension may kill me and it would be worth it

What Hirotaka and Narumi taught each other (apart from the more mundane gaming and life skills, i believe that she taught him how to smile and be loved by others, and he taught her how to be loved by herself!)

Smutty domesticity ft. Koyanagi and Kabakura — a lazy Sunday, laundry in the sun, fucking on the couch, everything easy with familiarity

The fantasy/MMORPG AU, where Hirotaka is the lazy but brilliant crown prince, Naoya the hapless but beloved second prince, Koyanagi his spymaster and Kabakura the captain of the prince’s guard; Narumi his childhood friend-cum-betrothed, and Kou a mysterious archer who saves a distressed Naoya from bandits in the village?

The gang tries to play DND. We finally find a game that Naoya is good at.

Or mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list!

Nezha - Oubing

I feel 100 different ways about this movie and 88 of the ways are SO CHINESE. The filial piety, the familial sacrifice, the friendship! I do believe that Nezha and Aobing are in love, I hope this is a reading of the text that we share, but if not, gen about their friendship/rivalry would also be well-recieved.

Suggestions:

Aobing has been practicing bigu (a cultivation style that is meant to remove one’s need for food or water) since he was born; Nezha introduces him to food, and other creature comforts — do they have BEDS in the dragon palace for example?? Buddhist-style cultivation is very ascetic and difficult, but Nezha is so wild and full of feelings and love!!

Modern AU: delinquent Nezha and prim, proper exchange student Aobing

Modern AU addendum: nobody believes Nezha when he says he’s got a hot boyfriend in Taiwan and thinks that he has made Aobing up

Arranged marriage/political fantasy AU where the prince of dragons is given to the most controversial heavenly general in an effort to improve both families’ social standing

For a gen prompt, if you want to do something about Nezha and/or Aobing’s relationships to their fathers, debts and affections and resentments, that too would be lovely!

On the other end of the spectrum, i’m down for PWP with xeno tropes re: aobing’s dragon anatomy! So long as the top/bottom roles are not too strictly defined, i just like it when they’re equitable or switch!

And of course, feel free to mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list!

Kazetsuyo/Run with the Wind

I didn’t tag any characters because my favourites were not in the list, and of course because I do love everyone, but my personal priorities are in order: Shindo, Musa, Haiji, Kakeru, Nico-chan, Yuki, the bombastic twins, and then everyone else. The spaces between those positions are very small so if you happen to have a passion for a character/ship lower on the list, worry not, there is limitless affection within me for everyone!

Suggestions:

Shindo should get to take Musa to see the snow… he deserves that

He also deserves to run the ekiden again in his fourth year and not be sick and actually win section 5!

I do think Kakeru and Haiji are most definitely soulmates — if you choose to focus on one or both of them, I really do believe they are in the romantic kind of love, is the thing!

Perhaps their relationship, an inevitable drifting together, as perceived by everyone else in aotake?

Or Haiji comes to Kakeru’s graduation, all their tenderest affections still unspoken, and somehow, without any premeditation, by the end of the day they’ve kissed

You know what I think? I think Hana-chan likes and is capable of dating both of the twins, and I love that for her

Or gen canonverse with everyone (or just everyone you care about) taking turns caring for Nira and reflecting on the race!

As above, please feel free to mix it up with the tropes in my general list!

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

I only selected Seo and Waka because they are simply my top priority, but if you want to serve a side of Chiyo/Nozaki and/or Hori/Kashima and/or Seo and Kashima being beautiful best friends and/or Mikorin being a beautiful himbo who we are delighted to have here, i would not complain at all!

Absolutely anything about them being goobery oblivious idiots in love would be perfect, such as:

5 times they went on a date without realising, and the time they realised

Everyone else literally just thinks they’re dating and they are completely clueless

Or on the other end of the spectrum, everyone tries desperately to set them up/matchmake for them, not realising that they’ve been going steady for four months

A hanahaki AU would be particularly hilarious with these two, I feel

Urban fantasy AU where Waka is a hapless monster hunter and Seo is an annoying but deeply harmless werewolf who’s been terrorizing his town??

Regency or faux-regency AU where Waka is literally like “drive by your rival’s estate slowly so that she may seethe with jealousy at the loveliness of your new hat” and Seo is like “oh goodness, he is courting me. What a fool. What an absolute buffoon.” and challenges him to a swordfight

Fairytale AU where Seo believes she must rescue the prince from the tower and deliver him back to the kingdom capital, and the prince, who had not realised he’d been kidnapped, thinks Seo is a usurper from a rival kingdom who must be supervised all the way back to the kingdom capital to be served her justice

Or anything else equally romcom-y, and of course, as always, throw in as many tropes as you like!

Thank you for reading this whole mess of a letter, and I sincerely hope I haven’t bored you too much. The most important thing to me is that whatever you end up writing, you are able to enjoy the process at least somewhat, and deliver a fic that you like! I can also be found on twitter at @hawberries_ (for art) and @popplioikawa (for general ramblings), and if you have any desire to send an anon ask to this tumblr with questions, i’m actually not sure if that’s allowed but i’d be happy to get some! Thank you again, and happy holidays!

#shut up phee #yuletide

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lordendsavior · 6 years

Link

Olly Alexander, the frontman of the British band Years & Years, has blood-red dyed hair. He wears a brass safety pin through one ear and sometimes grins so widely, so wildly, that the edges of his mouth seem to disappear around his narrow, fine-boned face. What soon draws the eye is a scar on his forehead. “I ran into a brick wall as a kid,” the 27-year-old says over lunch at a cafe in London. He touches the scar. “I was playing at being a Power Ranger. Ouch.”

These days, Alexander plays at being a pop star – and on the surface, at least, it seems like a game that’s going well for him. With the launch of their first album in 2015, Years & Years enjoyed a really remarkable few months. They were named BBC Sound of 2015 in January, promptly going to No 1 in the UK singles chart in March, and likewise topping the album chart in July. The band’s propulsive, 90s-nostalgic dance pop (like Disclosure or Clean Bandit, only up the randiness and add a little disco) caught on. And Alexander made a quick Meghan Markle-like ascent to something like pop royalty. “One of the most influential gay pop stars of this generation,” the Gay Times wrote. “All hail the King!”

Years & Years are a three-piece – also made up of keyboard and synth player Emre Türkmen and bassist Mikey Goldsworthy – but it has always been clear that Alexander is the band’s guiding force, their chief lyricist, a Gaga-like taker of risks when he performs and a political voice, off stage, who has an appealing, glitter-speckled sense of activism. A pithy and witty speaker on LGBTQ+ rights, Alexander has also opened up engagingly about his struggles with mental health. “A lifeline to troubled young people,” the Observer wrote of him, in 2016, around the same time that Years & Years played at Glastonbury. There, Alexander wore an oversized choirboy smock strung front and back with rainbow-coloured ribbons – it was Pride weekend – and made a widely admired speech about battling prejudice. “Shove a rainbow in fear’s face,” was how he put it.

Musicians must pray for debuts like this – to come over credible, commercial, with real-world clout. No brick walls clattered into, no obvious “Ouch” moments. Or were there?

Years & Years are almost done on their second album, due this summer, and from the demos I’ve heard the new music admits a brittleness and vulnerability in Alexander that wasn’t so obvious on the 2015 debut. He is still a fabulous and steely man when in pop-star mode (at the photoshoot, he prowls around in heels and a collared lace bodysuit that make him resemble a steampunk, space-bound Queen Elizabeth I), but he cuts a shyer and less certain figure at lunch.

He arrived with a cigarette pushed behind his ear, and smoked it outside with quick, jittery puffs. Now he hunches over a salad, an elbows-in kind of eater and a nervous giggler. Of his pop-mode confidence, he says, “I wish I carried that around with me in my day-to-day life. But I don’t.” He’s wearing a pair of dungarees that he likes, he says, because they feel “like clothes that give you back a hug”.

As Alexander eats, he talks about what happened in the aftermath of that famous Glastonbury performance, once he was out of public sight. The band had been cheered off, a career high. And once backstage, the musician recalls, he sat down and wept. Inconsolable, feeling lower than he’d been in months. “It happens,” he shrugs. “A falling off a cliff. The pendulum swings.”

“When I was younger,” Alexander says, “I thought that if you were famous and successful, it would mean that you just felt happy all the time. That you would become, like, this mystical creature that people just adored. And so you would adore yourself.”

Alexander doesn’t always make eye contact, and he addresses this next bit at the napkin dispenser between us.

“Obviously I realise how ridiculous that sounds. But it wasn’t until our album got to No 1 that I realised I still believed in it. We’d basically won the lottery. I felt like I’d won the lottery. And at the same time I still felt like the same person I’d always been. And all the things that I associated with my depression, and my anxiety, those periods of feeling really low, they were still there. And I was so annoyed at myself. ”

Alexander talks about first discovering the transformative, strengthening power of a good costume. It was on a trip to Disneyland, when he was nine. “The greatest experience of my life up to then,” Alexander says. “The pomp! The whole make-believe nature of that place. It was very powerful for me.People were all wearing costumes, playing characters. It was this other reality where fun things happened, more than they seemed to in real life. And I just remember wanting to be a part of something like that.”

Theme parks were a big feature of his young life. Alexander grew up living next door to them, not one but three, first Alton Towers, then Blackpool Pleasure Beach, then Drayton Manor. His father helped launch and market new rides in these places, and the family moved wherever the work was.

He was born in 1990, the younger of two sons. His mother ran community craft groups. His father, while employed in the theme parks, tended side dreams of being a professional musician. Of his father he says, cautiously: “Quite a difficult man... Definitely not happy within himself.”

Alexander is more explicit about his own early troubles. “I used to have hallucinations and hear voices and stuff as a kid. Which sounds alarming, but it’s just the way it was.” Also: “I had what would now be called sleep paralysis, from six years old until maybe I was 16. Terrifying dreams.”

His parents separated when Alexander was 13, a daunting and confusing period for him. “My dad had been very absent, even when he was there. Then he left the family and moved away. Our relationship, it feels to me, ended when I was 13.” With his mother and brother, Alexander relocated to a sleepy village in Gloucestershire called Coleford.

Part of Alexander’s conversational charm is that he’ll veer between the frank and sober discussion of the self-doubt and difficulty he experienced as a young man, into brilliantly catty and droll little anecdotes about his upbringing. Here he is, describing his first paid employment – a Saturday job in a Coleford shop called Moonstones. “We sold incense, candles, spellbooks. Um, bongs. Chocolates shaped like penises. Everything you’d need really – a one-stop shop.”

He wasn’t a popular teenager, and was bullied at his secondary school in Coleford just as he had been at his old primary schools. He marvels, thinking back, at his response to this. “I started wearing eyeliner to school. Nail varnish. Choker necklaces.” He put on a costume: a counter-intuitive form of self-defence. “I’d been bullied for years and all I wanted was for that to stop. But at the same time I had this sense that I was different, I was weird, and wearing makeup and crazy clothes was my way of trying to find an identity, in the face of people who were going to rip me apart anyway.”

What brought him out of his “goth phase”, as he calls it, was the music. Alexander chuckles. “I could never really get on board with the bands you were supposed to like.” He couldn’t shake the love for pop music he’d developed as a pre-teen, when pop bands would visit the theme parks his dad worked for. “Remember [the Irish pop band] B*Witched? They came to open a ride once. Then Steps – I got all their autographs.” So when it was time for the school talent show, Alexander chose to sing a TLC song. At home he obsessed over Christina Aguilera videos. He was pop through and through, and wanted to be a star in the mould of all these heroes.

Half by accident, he embarked on a different artistic career first. At 16, Alexander auditioned for the Channel 4 drama Skins, and was in talks about a role. The job didn’t materialise until he was well into his 20s, when he was cast as a creepy student photographer, but meanwhile his agent put him up for other stuff. By the time he’d finished his A-levels and moved to London, he was getting varied work – in Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void and Laura Wade’s The Riot Club and a corporate video for Google, playing a confused consumer who didn’t know how much he needed the advice of a really good search engine. Probably his peak as an actor came in 2012 when he was cast in a Michael Grandage production, Peter And Alice, alongside Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw.

This West End run coincided, in Alexander’s breezy telling, with the busiest period in his romantic career. “Lot of sex.” He had known that he fancied boys from the age of about 10, though the concept of being gay was something only introduced to him via playground insult; he can remember drawing stick figures in a geography textbook, bewildered, trying to figure out how two men could ever even manage it. These days, Alexander says, “my sexuality is part of my music, part of my identity”, but this was a clunky journey in its early phases and it wasn’t until he arrived in London and got into a first relationship, with the brother of a friend, that he felt he could properly come out to those closest to him.

After that – whoosh. “I figured out that I could pull, basically. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. I realised that, actually, everyone’s pretty horny, pretty desperate at times, and all you needed to do was maintain eye contact and be confident and that was kind of it.” Since then, he’s sampled romance in many of its forms, being single and shagging a lot, being single and not shagging so much, being in an open relationship, being in a celebrity relationship (with Clean Bandit’s Neil Amin-Smith), being in a quieter relationship with somebody unknown – that was the most recent, and it came to an end about 18 months ago. What has he learned? “That the longer you’re single, the more you notice how everyone else is in a relationship. But that’s a whole other thing.”

He says he finds it harder to pull in clubs without the freedom of anonymity he used to enjoy. “I’m having much less sex than I did in my early 20s, for sure.” He’s tried the hook-up app Grindr, but the men he messaged with wouldn’t believe he was who he said he was. “So that didn’t go very well.” After years of living with flatmates, he recently moved to live on his own, in a flat in east London. “The last few months I’ve been wondering, ‘Will I just be alone, for ever? And would I be OK with that?’ I want to be OK with that.”

Thinking of how ill-informed he felt as a kid, and of the anxiety he might have been spared had he only known more and known better, Alexander has resolved to be a public figure who is as vocal and open about his sexuality as he can be. As soon as he was asked, in an early-career interview for a blog, he said he was gay. (This was actually how his beloved grandmother found out: Alexander hadn’t yet got around to telling her.) Last year, he made a BBC Three documentary, Growing Up Gay, that is still on iPlayer and gets broadcast around the world. “I get messages about it at weird times of night.”

Soon after our lunch, he’s due to give the keynote address at an annual Stonewall event. He hasn’t written his speech yet, and is still toying with points of view he might want to get across: that LGBT-inclusive sex education should be compulsory in schools; that LGBT support groups need more government funding than ever; “that yes, we can get married now, but that’s not the end of the story, that’s not gay rights done.” When the event does take place, Alexander will speak about how, as a young actor who went through media training, he was told it might be best not to speak about his sexuality at all. (“I ignored advice.”)

Alexander made an interesting choice, in 2013, when major labels started showing an interest in Years & Years. He entered therapy, specifically in anticipation of what a frontline music career might do to his fragile emotional state. Polydor were still six months from formally signing them.

He knew fame was coming, though – that early?

No, he says. But if there was a chance of the band making it, however slight, he reasoned he’d better be prepared. “And I’m grateful I made that decision. I’ve been seeing the same therapist through the whole process.” Through the band’s kick-starting anointment as the BBC Sound of 2015, then their smash No 1 single King that spring, then their No 1 album Communion that summer. “To go from zero to 100. To have an idea of what success is, your entire life, and then it happens to you. It’s overwhelming. There’s a lot of noise. And people start talking to you differently.”

Which people?

Alexander laughs, frowns – speaks at the napkins again. He starts talking about his dad, with whom Alexander went through an awkward episode after Years & Years topped the charts. By then, father and son had no relationship to speak of, Alexander says. They hadn’t said a word to each other in seven years. “And, um, my dad started tweeting at me.”

A pause. “It’s hard for me to talk about. It’s a hard issue, because it’s tied up with my family, and also his new family. I want to be respectful.”

He doesn’t sound sure whether his father even knew whether what he was doing was public; but anyway, he messaged him over Twitter, in full view of social media. “And it got really, really messy. There were some Years & Years fans who started tweeting him back, trolling my dad. He was talking back to them. It was a real head-fuck.”

However clumsy the timing and the method, was a part of Alexander gratified that he got in touch?

“The best way I can describe it is that when me and my dad last knew each other, when I was 13 or 14, that’s frozen in time for me,” he says. And back then, he continues, he couldn’t have imagined any better future for himself than becoming a pop star and having his father want to be a part of his life again. “But then he did get in contact with me. And it was then I realised that what that 13-year-old wanted, that wasn’t actually possible. Not any more.”

What did the 13-year-old want?

“I realised that a part of me wanted to be successful in music because my dad wanted to be a musician. That a part of me thought, if I became a musician and I did well, he’d be proud of me. Or he’d, y’know, be so sorry for not being the dad I wanted him to be.”

But that’s not how it felt?

No, he says. When they did come together, Alexander noticed that, “I’d become something that my dad was sort of intimidated by. I’d been wanting to be successful, in part, because I wanted to prove something to him. And when that happened, I realised it didn’t feel good, it just felt like… like I’d tricked somebody.”

Listening to demos from Years & Years’ new album, there’s a sense that fatherhood has been much on Alexander’s mind in the aftermath of this episode. Person-to-person, the musician says, he and his father “have very, very minimal contact” right now. But a dad figure stalks the new work. On one song, Alexander sings about breaking with his DNA. On another, it’s as if karmic retribution is being summoned and directed at a “daddy [who] said I never could win”.

Yeah, he says, his father was foremost in his thoughts when he wrote that one. But he’d been thinking, too, about past relationships, those various boyfriends he’d dumped or been dumped by. Alexander sees a clear thread running through it all, from parental to romantic difficulties. “I guess at its heart it’s just not really being able to trust someone who says they love you. If that’s something that’s ingrained in you, then I think it’s hard to get past that.”

We’re finished with lunch. Having travelled deeper into his psyche than he expected to – “normally I would have these mental conversations alone with myself, in my flat” – Alexander starts to wonder about another cigarette, and pats the pockets of his dungarees. I tell him that, yeah, I can see why he might choose to wear clothes that feel like they hug. He smiles.

Before we stand up and gather our things, he asks to add a couple of “bookends” to what’s been discussed. That he experienced a lot of love and support, growing up, from his mother and grandmother. (“I feel I have to say that: My mother loved me! She tried her best!”) And also that he’s profoundly grateful to music, to his band and their followers, to the rainbow smocks and lace bodysuits and the whole pop palaver, for the release-valve it has offered a troubled mind.

“There’s a lot of quite raw emotion inside me,” Alexander tells me. “Obviously. And most of the time it can only come out in these tiny little cracks. One of those cracks – that’s the music.”

#this is such an amazing read #i cried #i love him so much #btw i didn't know he smokes #olly alexander #a human rainbow

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quell-tea-salon · 7 years

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Nakamura Shugo talk event at Ginansai

Osaka City University invited Nakamura Shugo (VA of Kuga Issei) for an hour-long talk show at their school festival, naturally drawing a decent group of his fans. I arrived at the campus with some time to spare as I wanted to check out the students’ exhibits and stalls as well (first time at a gakusai!), but an hour before the show started the seating area was already half full, so I went to secure a seat for myself. It was still pretty decent spot, about 10-12m away from the stage, so I could see everything clearly.

About 20 minutes before the show, the MC’s asked the audience to volunteer questions for Shugon by filling in a form and placing it in a blind box for Shugon to draw from later. I didn’t submit anything as I was too lazy to leave my seat ^q^ Then, about 5 minutes before the show, Drive A Live played over the speakers and there was a buzz among the audience. Everyone chanted “315!!” at the part before the chorus wwwwww As expected, there were a lot of Idolm@ster side M fans in the crowd. And quite a number of guys too! You can tell from the turnout at his events that Shugon is quite popular with the dudes as well due to his huge, sunny personality :)

The show started and the MC’s invited Shugon on stage while we cheered and clapped. Shugon was 50000000 watts right from the get go ;w; He thanked us all for coming and waved at us with the BIGGEST grin, so cute T_T He was also holding something that looked like a statue of a cat in his palm, and explained that one of the students on the organising team called “Ume-chan” (audience: “Ume-chan?! Umehara?!!!) had made a shisa just for him, and he loved it so much that he couldn’t put it down www

MC: Who's from Osaka? Audience: *two-thirds put their hand up* MC: Oh wow, a lot of people not from here... Anyone from overseas? Me: ..... *raises hand* MC: !!! Where are you visiting from? Me: Australia. Audience: ?!!!!!!! Shugon: Take me back with you!!!! (>∀<) Me: jgflkglsdg;kfd

And then my mind went blank for a minute as I tried to process what had just happened.... But, moving on. Shugon said that it was his first time in a school festival and that he was super tempted to check out the event, as even from the briefing room he could hear how lively everything was.

Shugon: I asked my manager if I could go outside but they were like, "NO." And I was like, "...Gomen (´・ω・｀)" Audience: Cute.......

The hosts were both from the keion club, so Shugon, being a music nerd, had a lot of fun talking to them. I only remember this part vaguely (my mind was still reeling from Shugon asking me to take him home LOL) but I think they were discussing how Shugon got into music. For anyone not in the know, before becoming a seiyuu Shugon was part of an indie band called Akasaka Folk Village. He said that when he was younger (school-aged, I think?) he listened to regular pop music like everyone else, and it wasn't until he graduated from high school that he started to learn about a wider range of music genres.

When asked about his impression of Osaka, Shugon said that he's been here so many times (for work) that he considers it his third hometown, after Okinawa and Tokyo. He loves that everyone is so warm and friendly, and that all the food here is delicious, especially konamono (someone in the audience held up a Kaerru plush ww) like okonomiyaki and takoyaki, BBQ, and sushi.

After some time they moved on to the Q&A section. Shugon pulled out questions from the box and handed them over to the MC's to be read out.

Q: You obviously use your throat a lot in your work. How do you care for your throat? Shugon: I don't have ANY scientific backing lol, but I mix manuka honey in water and drink that every night. Honey's really good for the throat, and manuka honey is the best. It comes in different ratings, and the higher the rating the better. But the stronger ones are also really expensive! You don't need the expensive ones. Even regular manuka honey works really well.** Oh, during SQP my throat was in bad shape right before the concert, and when I told my manager they gave me a throat candy from Taiwan. After taking it my throat recovered immediately and I could sing even higher notes than usual!

Q: What kind of school life did you have? Shugon: In elementary school I was really shy and a crybaby, the type of kid that would run crying to his mother. In middle school I started to take an interest in sports, and you know how there are sports tests every year? In my third year I actually ranked second in the test!

Q: Any advice for students about to take their entrance exams? Shugon: I didn't do much studying as a student.... Whenever I'm invited to schools or unis for work, I see the students doing their best and think, ah, I should've tried harder in school! Sorry, what was the question? www MC: Advice for exams ww Shugon: Oh yeah! Good luck! Everyone, let's put our hands together to wish this person all the luck! *claps*

Q: What kind of hair style do you like to see on girls? Shugon: Mmmmm, this is a tough one... *Gestures to the person who submitted the question* What kind of hairstyle do you like on guys? Audience member: ........ Shugon: See? It's hard to answer, isn't it?www They all have their own charms... Everyone looks super cute! Audience: Kyaaa! Shugon: The guys look cute too! Audience (guys): Yaaaaay! Shugon: *1000000000watt smile* Audience: Shugon's cute too! Shugon: Thanks!!!!!!!!!

Q: If you could participate in a school festival, which club would you join as? And what date course would you plan? Shugon: Date course?? You can do dates in school festivals????? MC: Everyone does it.... the haunted house is especially popular with couples. Shugon: HAUNTED HOUSE!!! THAT'S AWESOME! 8D Student on 2nd floor balcony waving sign for haunted house: WE'RE OVER HERE!!!! Shugon: *Waves back* There they are!! Everyone go visit them!! MC: Couples get ticket discounts and-- Shugon: Wait, why do the COUPLES get discounts? Give it to the singles!ww But yeah, I love horror films so haunted houses are great... It'd be nice to go with a girl who gets really scared. I'd probably get punched, like "Shut up!!" *does punching motion and then mimes getting hit* "W, wait up!!" *mimes chasing after the girl*

He then asked the MC's how they take part in the school festival as the keion club, and they replied that they usually perform songs by Back Number. MC: But not many people listen to Back Number... Shugon: Back Number's really good! Everyone listens to their songs! Even in Australia! *gestures to me* Me: !!??????????????? *doesn't actually know Back Number but shook that he still remembers me*

Shugon encouraged the MC to try his hand at writing songs, and talked about how it’s good to create music with your own feelings and experiences to share with the world. MC: I write sometimes, but the next day I look at my work and think, "Man, this is embarrassing!" Shugon: I know!!!! I think this happens to everyone who’s tried writing. It's usually late at night when you're struck by inspiration and start writing, and at the time you think, "Oh boy, I've got something AMAZING!" but the next morning you look at it and regret everything. MC: Even the song titles can be lame... Shugon: Yeah, you're like "Why did I think this was cool?"

Q: When you're traveling to/from work, what kind of music do you listen to? Shugon: I used to do that, but not anymore. These days I set aside time just to listen to music. At night when I'm at home, I sit in front of the speakers and think "Which songs should I listen to tonight?" and just sit quietly for hours, listening. Lately I've been playing a lot of Sakanaktion (and another female artist whose name I forgot ;;).

Q: Do you like being called "Shugon"? Shugon: I LOVE IT!!!!!!! Everyone, on the count of three, say "Shugon!" Okay? One, two... Audience: SHUGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!!!!! Shugon: THIS FEELS SO GOOD!!!!!!! Thank you, Osaka!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Q: What's your type? Shugon: My type?? My type is....... *looks at the audience member and switches to bedroom voice* Omae da yo♥ (It's you ♥) Audience: *DIES* Shugon: www My type is girls who retweet my tweets! Audience: wwwwww Shugon: Also boys who retweet my tweets ;D Audience: Foo~~~

Q: Can you share any interesting backstage stories from the recording for Side M anime? Shugon: Honestly, it has the atmosphere of a boys school. The recording studios are usually quite small, but a lot of actors are involved, so it can get kinda cramped and hot even with the air-con on full blast. A lot of people bring food/snacks to share and during break time we're all stuffing our faces. Uchida Yuuma, who plays Kaoru (the audience starts to giggle already ww) will just start doing push ups in the middle of a conversation, but we're so used to it that we just keep talking ww Shugon: Ishikawa Kaito, who plays the producer, is really into training, and he showed me a new workout move *sit sideways on chair and bends body into a V shape, where only his bum is on the chair and his upper body and legs are lifted* I can't do it well right now, but this is supposed to be good for your abs >< And oh, recently I went to Disneyland with Itou Kento (VA of Hazama-sensei) and we had so much fun! I remember standing in a queue full of couples where we were the only pair of guys.... It was a very long queue www

The last segment was a rock-paper-scissors game between Shugon and the audience, and the last 3 standing would receive a signed board from Shugo. I lost very early on :( But I saw one of the winning girls break down and cry when she realised that she had won. I feel happy for her ;w; Oh, in the first round, Shugon said something like “I’m gonna use rock!!”, which he actually did wwww In the second round the same thing happened, and when a huge portion of the audience got eliminated he was like “Why won’t you guys believe me?!” wwww

Lastly, Shugon promoted the side M anime and Proani. When he mentioned Issei, a girl in the audience held up a pair of Lizz-kuns (of the twins). Shugon noticed and thanked her for bringing them, aww.

Shugon left us with a farewell message, joking about how he had so much fun that it didn’t feel like work at all, and thanked us again for coming to see him. He also asked us to go and spend lots of money on the food stalls and exhibits to help the uni raise funds since the talk show itself was free ww As he was leaving the stage Reason!! played over the speakers and the audience screamed... Shugon went "Oh!!!" and sang just a little bit "by your side~♪" and we all DIED ><

Shugon has some photos of the event on his twitter (I’m somewhere in the 2nd photo, gdi.) I still have butterflies in my stomach when I recall the event.... Shugon was just so down-to-earth and radiant, and everyone had a great time. I personally will never forget that Nakamura Shugo spoke to me directly, even for just a few tiny moments *____* I’m sure he created some amazing memories for everyone who was present.

**Let me put on my pharmacist hat for a minute... He's partly right - honey is good for throat care (among many other uses) due to its antibacterial and healing properties. While manuka honey is marketed as being superior to regular honey, the scientific evidence so far is inconclusive. Manuka honey is definitely good for you, but so is any raw honey. The next time you have a sore throat, mix a teaspoon of raw honey and some lemon juice in warm water. You'll feel better after the first sip! Sometimes I just place a teaspoon of manuka honey in my mouth and hold it there for as long as possible.

#nakamura shugo #event report #idolm@ster sidem #QUELL #tsukipro

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clovexei · 7 years

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An Honest Review of the Emoji Movie

Longer than intended! Tbh I’m just leaving this here as physical evidence of the fact that I watched the whole thing. What was The Emoji Movie? Honestly we just don’t know.

The world-building was cool in concept but underdeveloped. It feels like a knock-off of Inside Out, but I spent most of the movie plagued by the same sort of stressful confusion that accompanies the Cars universe. A sampling:

Where do emojis come from? Are they born? Are they initially created in heterosexual sets of two so that they are able to procreate? If they're not born, why do some of them have children? How does the Princess family work, where there are apparently no male princesses? Is the Poop emoji an only father? What about the emojis who don't apparently have children/a heterosexual counterpart? Are those emojis going to grow old and die? What happens then? Do emojis die natural deaths? Do emojis age?

Why do the face emojis have to express the same emotion all the time and not just when they're on screen? It's like they're actors, but they have to be in their roles forever. Why? Why not just take pictures of the emojis and put those in the cubicles? Why do emojis have to physically stand in the cubes and wait to be picked, if they're only going to be face-scanned anyway? If there are multiple emojis, do they all take turns in the cubicles? Do they have to eat or sleep? If they do, then why? Aren't they made of code? Do they have to be in the cubicles whenever the phone is on? What if that's all day, every day?

Most of the questions I have about this movie carry over from world-building into the plot. Most of the events driving the plot feel like thinly-veiled plot holes. For example, the reason Alex is going to wipe his phone is to keep it from acting up – but it's acting up because Gene and company are moving from app to app. Buy why do the emojis hopping from app to app activate each app? If they're bopping around behind the scenes, why does that activate the user interface?

Another: A big scene happens in a Just Dance app, but Just Dance isn't an app? It's a motion-based dancing game, and you can get accessory-style apps for it, but the game itself is only on consoles/systems with a sophisticated motion-following camera. So it's not something that Gene an Jailbreak would be able to activate as a game on a phone.

(As an aside, I am human proof that you can suck at dancing and still pass levels in Just Dance so cut Jailbreak some slack, she was doing fine.)

Hi-5 is presented with a character goal (be a part of the Elite Favorite Emoji Club), but he doesn't actually do anything to achieve this goal. He wants to be a part of the club, joins Gene on his adventure, learns nothing, and gets to have his goal as a result, despite having no character growth and no indication that he's done anything to actually earn his goal. It's given to him as a way to wrap up the movie in a neat little bow.

As much as I didn't like that Jailbreak rejecting Gene's romantic advances was what finally turned Gene into the “Meh” emoji of his dreams, I do appreciate that him getting his Good Feelings back wasn't dependent on her reciprocating his feelings. That's a very good post-rejection message, and as much as this movie was weird and bad-romantic (“I've known you for twenty minutes but I LOVE YOU so let's BE TOGETHER FOREVER like in the FAIRY TALES”), at least it dodged that particular bullet.

The characters in general were likeable but ultimately uninteresting. It's the same standard fare that I think is the easy trap to fall into: bland but relatable main guy, tomboy girl, and comedic side character.

Jailbreak was my favorite, but even so, I'm not sure what to think about what her arc was. The intended direction felt like “girl feels oppressed by rigid gender roles and leaves home, forms agreement with fellow outcast to further both her goals and his goals, realizes that she can be different and returns home to create her own rules about how she represents herself.” And this largely feels like what does happen in the movie, but I'm not sure how I feel about the execution of it?

She makes some interesting comments about feminism that seem like Character Flavor, and have elements that fit into the story overall, but her backstory and thought process isn't explored beyond “I had to do princess stuff and I HATE princess stuff so I left.” It falls into a style that I think is in vogue right now: to present girls as being Princesses and Not-Princesses. (This is especially popular in movies that are deliberately lampshading Disney's princess movies, but Brave did this, too.) And while I like that, at the end, Jailbreak realized (apparently) that she didn't need to not be girly in order to be happy and express herself, I don't know if that message carried over really well in general. We last see her in her original princess design as she runs the tech board for the emoji cubicles, so I guess she's comfortable with herself? And she's not picking Princess or Not-Princess but occupying a gray area in the middle? So that's good? But everyone else is still in one box or the other? So that's maybe not good? But with Gene paving the way to “be different,” there's a place for her and for others to be more socially flexible? But it felt like a sudden and easy resolution to something that was something that was so ingrained in their society that Gene was going to be executed for diverging from it.

Anyway. That was a tangent. TL;DR: Jailbreak is very queer and I like her but if feminism was going to be a part of her character arc, then I want it to be done with a lot more focus and nuance than there was? Yeah.

I liked Gene in the beginning of the film, when he was set up to be this energetic force for ENTHUSIASM, but Hi-5 muscled him out of that. Hi-5 is excitable, energetic, causes more trouble than good, and honestly, why do they even need Hi-5 as a character? He has the role that should have been absorbed by Gene. Within the first five minutes of Gene's introduction, we know that Gene is goofy, cheerful, and doesn't fit in. Hi-5 coming in as the goofy and cheerful side character demonstrably pushes aside those traits in Gene so that Gene can, nearly every time, play the straight man to Hi-5's hi-jinks.

If Hi-5 wasn't in the movie, then Gene would be both comic relief and the protagonist, which suits the energetic, playful way in which he was introduced. He would also have a much more interesting dynamic with Jailbreak: Jailbreak is jaded and bitter; Gene is (or should have been allowed to be) peppy and enthusiastic. With that push-pull dynamic, the interactions between the two would have been much more exaggerated and engaging, and it would have been believable that Gene encourages Jailbreak to be less standoffish and isolated.

Recommendation: Instead of relying on one-time gags and overdone food-related jokes, drop Hi-5 as a character and let the interactions between Gene and Jailbreak carry the comedic weight of the film.

Also, what is the target audience for this movie? Kids? Kids younger than 12? High schoolers? What do you gain by portraying students who have smart phones as mindless phone-obsessed zombies? Aren't you alienating your target audience? You're making fun of the people you're making this movie for?

There's a lot of that: of the creators being out of touch with their target audience. The gag of the text-based emoticons being old and out-of-date struck me as odd, when people are still using emoticons like that all the time. And, on top of that, we've developed new ones.

I also can't tell if Jailbreak's asides about feminism and female stereotypes are supposed to reflect her Cool, Modern persona or if they're meant to be funny? I think they're supposed to be the former, but they come across as the latter, especially since she gets so angry about the “Birds come when princesses whistle” stereotype... and then that stereotype turns out to be true and also plot relevant.

It did have some good jokes overall. The constant mismatch between Gene's parents having no visual expressions or tonal inflections paired with lines like, “I'm on the edge of my seat,” was right up my alley of humor. I also liked the Devil emoji's poop joke followed by the Poop emoji's tired sigh and “Aim higher, Steven,” but overall there were rather too many toilet jokes. “Aim higher” is kind of a good overall takeaway: this movie had jokes, but most of them felt like the same basic fare that one can usually find in kid's movies. It felt a lot like the humor in The Smurfs: The Hidden Village in that they cracked a lot of jokes, but most of them were overused or borderline mean, and so I didn't spend much time laughing, despite the fact that I was watching a comedy.

As for overall theme/message, I am biased on this front because, with little effort, this movie is a really odd, definitely unintentional allegory for, like, gay conversion therapy? And why it's not good? And why it's okay to be queer? This movie is about a cheerful, enthusiastic young man who disrupts serious social norms in his home community, who sets out to find a way to artificially alter his genetic make-up and encounters a young woman who likewise does not fit in and has rejected the social role/gender role she was expected to embrace, and the two of them realize together that what makes them different isn't bad and their differences should be embraced both by themselves and the wider community. Gay.

That metaphor is PROBABLY DEFINITELY very unintentional, but the romance between Gene and Jailbreak feels ham-fisted even without the queer undertones.

So, for a takeaway message, we have “It's okay to be unique,” which is the same message 50% of the rest of the kids' movies have these days, so cool, I guess. It's good to have that message reinforced, but there are also, as a result, more cohesive movies with the same message but better plotting and more interesting characters.

Overall Verdict:

Not great, could have been worse. I left The Bee Movie brimming with a confused and impotent rage, but this movie left me with vague good feelings and no deep impressions. I couldn't remember anyone's name either during the viewing or after. The animation was stretchy and bright and expressive, which I really liked. And the soundtrack was bright and bouncy. But the message was muddled, and I think the world-building/plot could have been (and should have been) a lot stronger than it was.

#do I tag the movie in this?#I just like writing about B movies

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lolimnotfunnydude · 7 years

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I recently had the opportunity to video chat with a third grade class from the United States about my time in Botswana and my new home. The students read a book about a little girl in Botswana, and it just made sense that they have the opportunity to chat with someone who really lives there.

Here are the questions they asked me, and the answers to those questions:

Is school free?

Besides a school fee which is reduced for almost all students, 12 years of free education are guaranteed for each and every single student in Botswana. The school fee is supposed to cover things like the school uniform. Lodging for boarding students (most schools in Botswana are boarding schools, as they accommodate students who do not live in the village in which the school is placed) as well as food for both lodging and non-lodging students are both free. They are not an extra cost for families.

What days do you go to school?

Monday-Friday. The same as in the United States! I do spend some days at the clinic or social worker’s office, though. Additionally, the Junior Secondary Schools do not run on a 5 day schedule. The time table at my school is 6 days long. I teach on days 2 and 4, so different days of the week every week.

Classrooms at my Junior Secondary School.

How many hours a day do children go to school? What months of the year do they go to school?

This first question depends on what year of schooling a child is in. Reception, which is the equivalent of preschool and kindergarten, is incredibly short. Standards 1-3, which are the equivalent of Grades 1-3, end around 12:30pm and start at 7:30am. Standards 4 and 5 end around 3pm, and 6 and 7 end sometime around 4 depending on how close in the year we are to exams.

I work at a Junior Secondary School with Form 1-3 students, which are the equivalent of 8th-10th graders. They have class from 7:30am to 4:30pm, with an additional study hour in the morning and in the evening. After school clubs and athletics run from 4:30-5:30pm.

The school year in Botswana is split into three terms which span the entire year. They do not have a two month break during the summer like schools in the United States. First term began on January 9th, and runs until April 13th. Term two starts the first week of May and ends on July 13th. Term three starts on August 6th and ends on November 30th, with a quick break in September.

Are there tvs in Botswana?

Yes! Television is actually a very important tool for socialization in Botswana. When I was in Pre-Service Training, I sat down and watched television—specifically BTV, Botswana’s government television station—every single day during dinner. Families often gather in front of the tv for hours every night to watch soap operas from South Africa and India. You will find people talking about those shows the same way Americans talk about their favorite shows.

Does Botswana have technology, video games, and iphones?

The short answer is yes. These things do definitely exist in Botswana. Whether they are readily available and accessible to the average Motswana is a different story. Everyone I know in Botswana has a phone, but not everyone has a smart phone. Even fewer have iphones, simply because they cost exorbitant amounts and are easy to break. They cannot withstand some of the harsher climates in Botswana. Android accessories like chargers and phone cases are super easy to find anywhere, as they use the same chargers as brick phones (which are used very similarly to Trac Phones, if anyone remembers those).

Most families do not own their own computer. In fact, I have yet to meet someone who owns their own computer. But every institution—school, clinic, NGO, social worker’s office, police office, tribal office—has computers. Tools like emails are not used particularly frequently, and wifi is not widely available in smaller villages. Batswana are not totally disconnected, though. People can buy monthly plans for their phones which include social media sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Whatsapp. The connection in my village is pretty poor, so usually I am only truly able to use Whatsapp, but it fits all of my needs.

Do you have video games in Botswana?

I have not seen anyone play video games, and I have not seen any video game consoles. I would assume that they exist, though, as I have seen almost every form of technology available in the U.S. here, but I would also assume that they are not purchased or used frequently.

What type of food do you eat?

I did not have a fridge for the past four months, so I was eating a lot of rice and canned beans. I also ate canned vegetables which soaked for probably too long in a brine I really did not appreciate. This was incredibly difficult, but I am proud and excited to say that I just recently received a fridge! I am excited to start using it and getting back to a semi-normal diet.

What are the traditional foods of Botswana?

The traditional foods of Botswana are delicious, let me tell you. Much of it consists of meat and a kind of starch with tiny amounts of vegetables tossed in when appropriate. One of my favorites is called paletshe; it is very similar to grits, but the granules are small enough that the texture ends up being somewhat reminiscent of mashed potatoes. There are other types of starches made from maize and sorghum as well, like sampete and bogobe. Two of the vegetable dishes include a mix of beans and spices called dinawa, and cut spinach (or bean leaves, or a vegetable called rape) sautéed with carrots and onion called morogo.

A fancy version of traditional Tswana food. Chakalakah is on the top left, morogo on the top right, paletshe on the middle left, and the rest of the food should be recognizable.

Do you guys have watermelon?

There are, in fact, watermelons in Botswana. Botswana has a large variety of fruit, including several types of melons, papaya, mango, amarula (which is used to make several types of alcohol, and is even a favorite of elephants despite its tendency to ferment in their stomachs and cause them to get drunk), among others. Avacado, pineapple, apples, oranges, lemons, etc, are also all available at stores.

Does Botswana have McDonald’s? Have any of them had cheeseburgers?

Sadly, no. I found this very surprising, as I had assumed that McDonald’s had reached nearly every country in the world. But alas, I was wrong. There is a McDonald’s close to the southern border of Botswana in South Africa, but I live nowhere near the southern border, so it is not accessible for me whatsoever. I do look forward to eating at one again, though; I think this is the longest period of time I have gone in my entire life without doing so.

And yes to the second question. While there is not a single McDonald’s, Botswana is a country which runs heavily on tourism. A lot of tourists are from countries in which citizens eat hamburgers, so a lot of lodges and restaurants have hamburgers. I have yet to eat one that is of the quality I want it to be, but they are certainly not bad.

Another important thing to note is that Botswana does have KFC—Kentucky Friend Chicken. Most chain restaurants here primarily sell fried chicken. We have Chicken Licken, KFC, Hungry Lion, and Nando’s. Peri peri sauce, the popularity of which rose from Nando’s, is everywhere. One of my favorite snacks in Botswana is a chicken peri peri pie that I can get at most grocery stores. It is marvelous.

Do they have snow?

Botswana does not have snow anywhere. None of the altitudes are high enough, and even though the desert gets cold at night and the south can get very cold in the winter, it is never cold enough to snow. The temperatures—both hot and cold—just feel more intense because of the lack of heating and cooling systems within the houses.

What sport do the people of Botswana like the most?

Batswana love to play and watch sports. My perception is that both football (soccer) and netball are incredibly popular. Netball is basketball without the back board—just the net. But volleyball and track and field activities are also very popular. Students love any opportunity to run around and have fun, and adults love the opportunity to network, gossip, and blow off some steam. Sports games are community events, and they really build a sense of comradery.

A PCV versus locals football (soccer) game during Pre-Service Training.

Do people in Botswana play football?

They do not play the American version of football. They do, however, play soccer, which they call football.

Do the people talk differently?

In terms of speaking another language, yes. In terms of having a different accent and using, technically and linguistically, another version of English, yes. Their accent includes rolled r’s, long a’s, etc. The most widely used language in the country is Setswana, although most schooling is supposed to be instructed in English. First languages can also include Sembukushu, Sekgalagadi, Sekalanga, Seyeyi, Afrikaans, Naro, etc. So many languages are spoken in Botswana that I could not possibly list them all.

What language are your books in?

Most books available in Botswana were written in English. Some are available in Setswana, and in some cases, there are books available in tribe-specific languages. For instance, there is a linguistics group in D’Kar working on translating books both into Naro and into Setswana and English from Naro.

My school and I are working on requesting more books in English to help encourage students to read and work on their English literacy. All standardized testing is done in English, and our students are lagging behind. They speak Sembukushu in their homes and then are forced to learn English and Setswana concurrently. It can be very difficult—especially because most of the teachers do not know Sembukushu. Teachers are government employees, so they are part of something called the transfer system. In order to prevent corruption, all government employees must transfer jobs and villages every 5 years. Teachers often end up in villages all the way across the country from their spouses and loved ones.

What holidays do people celebrate, and when are they?

People in Botswana are, for the most part, Christian. There is a small population of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist people, but the vast majority are Chrstians. They thus celebrate the same religious holidays as those Christians do in the United States; they might not celebrate them the exact same way, though. Other holidays exist for pretty much the same reasons as those in the United States. Botswana has an independence day—Boipuso—a day to celebrate the first president, and others.

Do people have parades with animals for holidays?

People do not have parades with animals. The relationship between Batswana and animals is quite complex. Wild animals are protected very effectively through legislation and through intense animal reserve border controls. The country is totally against poaching, and has enacted measures which fine people intensely or even allow military to shoot people on sight if they violate certain rules regarding wild animals. Domestic animals are not treated with the same reverence. They are able to wander around wherever, and you can often find children or adults throwing sticks or rocks at them. They simply do not have the same emotional importance as pets in the United States. They are a nuisance to many people, as they are an extra food and space burden. It is understandable despite how long it has taken me to accept that treatment.

What are some types of animals in Botswana?

Botswana is really cool. It has a super large variety of animals, from squirrels and mongoose to elephants, lions, and leopards. Botswana has the largest wild elephant population in the entire world. I also think Botswana might have one of the highest donkey populations in the world, but I have no tangible proof of that. There are just a lot of donkeys. Wild animals are not restricted to game reserves, though. There are baboons all over the capital city and surrounding villages. A child was recently killed by an elephant in the village next to mine. Another child was killed by a lion just a few hours from my village. Wild animals live everywhere around the delta, and it can be a huge problem for the humans who also live around the delta. They thus have a healthy fear and respect for such animals.

What is the time difference between Botswana and the U.S.?

The time difference currently is 7 hours. In the spring, when the U.S. “springs forward”, the time difference will be 6 hours.

What is the population of Botswana?

The population of Botswana is approximately 2 million. It has one of the lowest populations per square mile on the African continent. While the country itself is around the size of Texas, its population is much smaller. Manpower can be a struggle for community mobilization and other initiatives. Sometimes there just are not enough people. Most of the population is concentrated in the South, South East, and North East regions of the country. Those are where the two cities lie, and where a lot of expatriates live.

What kind of clothes do you wear?

I wear formal business attire to school every single day. The workplace is quite fancy, and women often wear heels several inches tall to work. Your outward appearance is meant to display the respect you have for the people around you; it is not meant as a form of artistic or personal expression. I do own some clothes I had tailored for me in African prints, but I do not wear them super often. In the workplace, people primarily wear Western-style clothing. Non-government workers are more likely to wear clothes we typically think of when we think of the African continent. Botswana is hot, and a Tswana-style dress allows for a lot more air flow than a button down shirt and pencil skirt.

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Q+A: From the mouths of babes I recently had the opportunity to video chat with a third grade class from the United States about my time in Botswana and my new home.

#About #Africa #Animals #Answers #Botswana #Children #Clothes #Food #Peace Corps #Questions

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seongnamkrp · 4 years

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* // MYSNU DATABASE —————— STUDENT ID # : 211202

// LOADING STUDENT INFORMATION ▪ ▪ ▪

NAME › kwon minseok ALIAS › sock, the catfish AGE › 12 / 02 / 1996, 24 YEAR › sophomore

// LOADING STUDENT RECORDS ▪ ▪ ▪

MAJOR › physics MINOR › astronomy HOUSING › lim village, sun hall, 42 CLUBS › paranormal SPORTS › taekwondo

// LOADING STUDENT ANALYSIS ▪ ▪ ▪

› › ›

minseok is ur typical dudebro at first glance … he likes video games, he likes looking at asses, he likes energy drinks and laughs at poop jokes … will probably break ur heart from being so oblivious n blunt… plays bass n loves to scream . .

that’s it

no but he is so fucking smart, but it took him some time to realize :/

advance mathematics and physics is his forge

dropped out of art school. twice.

he has such a bad sense of humor it is pathetic please do not ask him to tell u a joke it will be awkward and bad i am telling u

(tried) to be apart of a band , flopped

type of person to accidentally stay up until 5am because he watched a documentary about aliens and now he cannot sleep

he streams 4 cash

he is kinda like two different ppl…… he can b all professional n shit…. and next second he is cracking fart jokes

he is a piece of shit

minseok was the youngest sibling out of 5, and he very close to his older sisters that he grew up with…. he was spoiled as Hell……

somewhat cocky…. u know…. confident.. annoying but surprise bitch minseok is also really fucking insecure

a bit paranoid about his future bcs he does not think he is enough and he does not rly know what he wants

someone needs to teach him about self-love

sk8tr dude

likes 2 draw a lot!! will doodle u for free

here is a pinterest board .

#sgn:enrolled #kpop rp #kpop roleplay #krp #bobby

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pausedby · 10 years

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Life in Asmat

The last and the first time I visited Asmat was on 2013. I was staying for about two weeks there, including one week in Sawaerma, one of the most remote villages. Remembering how I get there, it is actually hard for me to not missing to be there. I was on an assignment from Keuskupan Jakarta to document the people, social life, and the culture of Asmat. After several years of keeping the photograph only on my disk with only few of it has been used and published. I plan to make other stories from the unpublished photographs.

To get to this place, I needed to get myself travelled in various mode of transportation. From Java, it took 6 hours of flight to get to the main city, Timika. From there, I needed to wait for several days for the flight by propeller plane to Ewer due to its limited schedule. After one and half hour on the modest plane, I finally arrived in Ewer, the nearest airport to Agats, Asmat district. I stretched my back for a little while then I quickly jumped to the speedboat which took us to Agats in 25 minutes through water and coastal swamp. I haven’t reached my destination yet.

I stayed for several days in the district’s bishopric while waiting for the next trip. There were almost no signal here even to make calls. From here, our trip depended much on the rainwater in order to get the speedboat run. After few days with beautiful blessed rain, I continued another long journey to Sawaerma, 6 hours on speedboat. It takes 30 litres of gasoline to get the boat to Sawaerma, which means we need to bring 60 litres for the round-trip, back and forth.

The first thought that came to my mind is that I needed to make stories about the people in Sawaerma, the remote village which I had spent most of the day in Asmat. Until now, I still remember the routine I had there, waking up early and grab breakfast in Pastor’s house--which functions also as the school head office. The pastor is also the school headmaster. When I asked him why he stays in the same house with the office, he just answered that there’s more people staying there, there are other teachers and members to make conversation with. He refused to stay in separate place because he does not want to be considered special. It was too quiet perhaps. He wants to make social interaction with others. Well, a good reasons since the only modes of communication is having conversation. Some people owned phone, but the entertainment they could get from that maybe only the phone game, music, or the chiming ringtones which they sometimes play with, as modest music entertainment.

To get to the school office (I wouldn’t call it office since it is pretty much like a simple family house), I should to walk across the bridge over the river for about five minutes. I need to watch out of the bridge above the river since the pathways in Asmat are all on board made above the land. It sometimes becomes a joke that Asmat people never step on ground, they all walk above the wood path. The houses are also made above the land. If I look down, sometimes I see some farm animals like pig and chicken. The wet ground is the place for people to keep and feed the animals.

In front of Pastor’s house, there are some areas on the front with plants of eatable vegetables like cucumber and string bean. It is true that Asmat soil is not good for plantation. Pastor has asked some locals to bring the soil from the jungle which he considered as a good soil to plant something. The result is not disappointing. He can start his own small plantation in front of his house, also some wider area near just behind the school. When he got one or two full container of cucumbers and string beans, he will bring it to the other small part of the village and get it sold through the food seller there. Local people are quite enthusiastic.

The sad story was—based on the pastor—the local people do not want to get their own small plantation even the church has taught them how to grow the plant and even gave them the seeds. They prefer to buy it rather than grow it themselves. I see that the price is not dissatisfying; they could get two medium cucumbers for ten thousands rupiahs, equal to half pack of cigarettes. Considering this, I do not see why the locals do not grow or develop their own plants. If you visit Sawaerma now, in front of several local houses you might find used—or broken—small boat with few soil on it. It was used as a pot to plant.

There are many interesting inter-cultural things here in a very remote place of Indonesia. You might find yourself get stranded in 40 years back in time. You might find yourself in a place where everything is limited. It might not easy for someone who gets used to live in a big sophisticated city like in Java. The electricity ran from diesel machine is only from 10 am to 10 pm. Considering that almost all of them love football which held mainly in western part of Indonesia at about evening or night (Western Indonesian Time), Asmat time zone (Eastern Indonesian Time) ‘force’ the locals to spare some money to buy more gasoline to get the more hour on the electricity so they can watch the match on TV at almost midnight. But, this is what brought them together. With a small TV about 16 inch wide, students and school staffs crowdedly watch the match together in one of teacher’s house in the school housing area.

Witnessing such joy when they saw Persipura (Papuan Football Club) scored a goal, I understand that football is something that can get their spirit on fire. Their happy celebration in that small room is like echoing all over the place, leaking and sprouting out of this small house. They do love football.

On one evening I was joining a class to photographs the study and teaching, the children were quite fun, they did not get used to someone holding a camera. Then, I just put my camera and help the teacher explaining some materials for them, even mostly I helped the teacher to calm the student down, they are quite active and noisy. Me, who does not really like children, just can’t help myself. The joy was poured all over the place when I participate in the teaching.

One hour before the dawn, the students just could not wait to get out of the class and play football in the schoolyard. It is a yard made also on board above the land. The enthusiasm is high so it is able to make the teacher get them out of the class several minutes sooner. They ran outside in crowd, get the ball, and play football, no one knows their own team or the opponent team. That busy match ran about half hour, when a child told them to stop the bustling match and suggest to form several teams consist of about eight children each, one team versus another team. Those who are able to score the first goal may continue having a match against another team.

When I was following the match and also photographing them, I see that the yard board is much damaged. There are so many holes, also the board with the nail on it, some of the board bends upward. If they are not careful enough they can get a serious injury on these football yard ‘traps’. But I see no worry on their face, they are just happy playing, happy celebrating the health the wealth. The ball falls several times into the hole and they have their own fancy way to get the ball. Together they drag down a small body child whose body fits the hole, and then with both feet he holds the ball and the other children pull him up. Sometimes this plan does not work so this small child should really drop his body down the hole and take the ball with his hands, and then the team will pull him up through the hole. This incident happened several times but it is no big problem for them. Without those holes, the ball might get dropped to the outside yard, which means that they do this every time someone kicks the ball to high outside. These matches continue for about five or six times before the sun really down.

Even the village is surrounded by water, people might say that the clean water which you can consume—to drink, took a bath, wash clothes or dishes—depends on the rain water. Some school staffs often show their teeth to me, explaining that the rain acid has made their teeth get corroded. The Pastor explained to me that the river water is clean enough to consume, but seeing the brown muddy color of it, several newcomers decide to consume the rainwater. It is quite different when I see local kids playing in water. They really do the Indonesian phrase ‘sambil menyelam minum air’ (drinking while swimming/diving). They never really cared about the water. I quickly observe the surrounding houses. Those who had the rainwater container are just the houses in school area. I guess that it takes time to shift and adapt their traditional way of living to the new norms.

Asmat surely do have certain inter-cultural contaminations from the newcomer. When you enter Sawaerma to visit the school, you will pass the river path near the legendary Sawaerma Church. It is beautifully built on wood with many of Asmat carvings. The church is about 300 meters square with many carved wood including statue and its pillars. Inside, you will see the local interpretation of Jesus statue and Holy Maria. They are quite different with regular statue since the character is interpreted by Asmat local knowledge and wisdom. The crossed Jesus statue which was the biggest statue in the church, both of Jesus hands are not nailed on both side of the cross, it is just a regular standing pose, and the hands are down.

The unique thing about Asmat carving is that the always portrays the phallus. So does in the statue of crucified Jesus statue inside the church. The locals are acculturating the teaching and interpret it based on their beliefs and wisdom. Another amazing Asmat works here is the Holy Maria statue which is portrayed holding her baby not in hand as we know, but it portrays her holding the baby above her shoulder, like how Asmat people always do with their kids. I took a long deep amazed sigh realizing that those great works are results of Asmat’s deep thought and contemplation.

Arif Furqan Sawaerma, Asmat, 2013

#asmat #blog

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donaldflower00-blog · 5 years

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10 Essential Episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown’

Over the last five years, Anthony Bourdain brought TV viewers to the most interesting places around the world on his award-winning, game-changing CNN show Parts Unknown. And now, following Bourdain’s death last June, the show is sadly coming to a close. The final season of Parts Unknown will wrap up at Bourdain’s old stomping grounds — the Lower East Side of New York City — this Sunday, November 11, in an episode that will explore the people and places that shaped Bourdain as a young adult.

Parts Unknown had a monumental impact on food and travel TV, most notably because it eschewed coverage of tourist attractions, and focused, instead, on artists, thinkers, and doers around the world, with special attention paid to disenfranchised communities and their hopes for the future. Some episodes were intense, others lighthearted, but the show was always essential viewing.

Here’s a look back at 10 episodes that defined the series, in chronological order:

“Peru”

(Season 1, Episode 7; original air date June 2, 2013): Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert let their bromance blossom on camera throughout the filming of Parts Unknown, and, tragically, they were actually shooting a new episode together when the Kitchen Confidential author died in France over the summer.

The Peru episode from Season 1 sets the tone for future adventures to come: The friends eat amazing meals while discussing the great mysteries of the human experience, all the while pushing each other outside of their respective comfort zones. In this case, Bourdain brings his gentlemanly pal to an ancient erotica museum, while the chef coaxes his sarcastic friend into participating in a ceremonial blessing from a local shaman. Along the way, the friends eat Amazon-inspired cuisine at Amaz, sizzling beef hearts on the streets of Lima, and a rustic hen soup at a market in the mountains.

Bourdain and Ripert actually have a bit of business to accomplish on this trip: They hike up to the Andes to meet farmers who are harvesting the cocoa that’s used in the duo’s gourmet chocolate bars. The friends are clearly inspired by working with the farmers, but this experience only leads to more questions. “Do I wanna be in the chocolate business?” Bourdain remarks at the end. “That’s something I’m gonna have to figure out.”

“Lyon”

(Season 3, Episode 3; original air date April 27, 2014): While visiting France’s second largest city, Bourdain and his pal, New York City chef Daniel Boulud, eat their way through tiny bistros, learn the art of sausage-making from a charcuterie expert, and spend a weekend in the company of a proper culinary legend.

The duo’s visit to Paul Bocuse’s eponymous restaurant, where Bourdain, Boulud, and the late Bocuse dine on the legendary French chef’s greatest creations, is arguably the best food sequence in the entire series. Tony refers to this feast as “the meal of my life,” emphasized by his reactions on camera. Later, Bourdain and his chef friends go duck hunting and enjoy a hearty lunch in Bocuse’s lodge out in the country. The episode ends with another rustic family meal, this time with Boulud’s parents at their home just south of the city.

The Lyon episode shows Tony fully enjoying himself in the company of a great friend, while also offering a concise history of the last century of French cuisine.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Iran”

(Season 4, Episode 6; original air date November 2, 2014): Throughout its 12 seasons, Parts Unknown often showed audiences what life was like in places that aren’t often featured on Western television: The Iran episode is arguably the most important one in that regard. “All I can tell you is, the Iran I’ve seen on TV and read about in the papers, it’s a much bigger picture,” Bourdain remarks. “Let’s put it this way: It’s complicated.”

Bourdain is immediately surprised by the warm welcome he receives everywhere he goes, and he’s delighted by the hospitality that his hosts extend toward him, especially in their homes. He visits bustling markets, centuries-old places of worship, and parts of Tehran where the locals unwind. Tony also memorably chats with married journalists Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi about the local way of life. As noted at the end of the show, Rezaian and Yeganeh were both imprisoned shortly after filming this episode in 2014; Salehi was released after a few months, but Rezaian was kept in an Iranian prison until 2016. Bourdain remained a vocal advocate for Rezaian until his release.

After the TV host died, Rezaian told CNN: “The show actually had nothing to do with us being arrested, and if anything I think our appearance there — with really one of the most beloved television personalities, and people, of our generation — raised awareness in a different kind of way that nothing else could have.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Massachusetts”

(Season 4, Episode 7; original air date November 9, 2014): A large chunk of this episode features Bourdain visiting his old haunts from when he was a young, aimless chef bumming around Provincetown. “[I] pretty much had my first everything on the beach,” he says while standing outside of a boarded-up seaside apartment in P-Town. But the real heart of this episode is its second half, when Tony heads west to learn about the opioid epidemic devastating small towns throughout the state.

Tony meets with an undercover narcotics division cop and one of his anonymous sources, as well as a young woman who has stepped back from the brink of heroin addiction and is constantly looking out for addicts in need of help. Tony knows these struggles all too well: One of the episode’s last scenes shows Bourdain talking to a group of recovering addicts about his own past drug use. “I’ll tell you something really shameful about myself,” Bourdain remarks. “The first time I shot up I looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Hanoi”

(Season 8, Episode 1; original air date September 25, 2016): Bourdain clearly loves the capitol of Vietnam, a city he says “grabs you and doesn’t let you go.”

On this very special episode, Tony gets to introduce President Barack Obama to one of his favorite Hanoi activities: eating the pork and noodle dish bun cha and drinking local beer from the bottle. During their convivial meal at a small noodle shop outfitted with stools and tiny tables, Bourdain and Obama discuss the sensory elements of travel, the dining habits of their children, and whether or not it’s ever acceptable to put ketchup on hot dogs (Obama deems that it’s “not acceptable past the age of eight”).

Elsewhere in the episode, Bourdain eats streetside snails in the Old Quarter, and freshly caught squid aboard a steamer ship. The host also chats with a family in a floating fishing village about how the culture and economy in Vietnam are always changing.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Houston”

(Season 8, Episode 5; original air date October 30, 2016): Bourdain enters Houston with a goal of ripping up the white-washed image of the city that often finds its way on TV — the one that leans into cowboy hats, the oil industry, NASA, and football. “Close minded, prejudicial, quick to make assumptions about places different than where we grew up,” Bourdain says in the episode’s intro. “I’m talking about me and people like me who are way too comfortable thinking of Texas as a big space filled with intolerant and variably right-wing white people waddling between the fast-food outlet and the gun store.”

During his stay, Bourdain meets with the owners of the Acapulco Ballroom, a popular quinceañera venue for the local Mexican-American community. He visits high school principal and Vietnamese refugee Jonathan N. Trinh, who oversees a student body that hails from 70 different countries. He hangs out with local hip-hop star Slim Thug and learns about local “slab” car culture. And he ends his trip by visiting the Houston Indian Cricket Club, where the game day snacks involve tandoori chicken and “some spicy, tender, and totally delicious curried goat, and made-to-order potato masala dosas.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Rome”

(Season 8, episode 9; original air date December 4, 2016): In a clear homage to filmmaker Pier Pasolini, the Rome episode showcases the working-class neighborhoods of the Eternal City. “This is about people, often extraordinary ones, living their lives in the Rome you don’t see much in the travel guides or TV shows,” Bourdain says at the start of the show.

It’s here, on camera, that Bourdain meets his future girlfriend, filmmaker/actress/activist Asia Argento. They go to a boxing arena where spaghetti is served to attendees during the match. Argento brings him to her home, where they enjoy a rustic meal with her family. And later, they go ambling among the Brutalist ruins of the Mussolini area. Like many of the best episodes of Parts Unknown, Bourdain seems creatively charged by the people and places he meets along the way.

“Rome is a city where you find the most extraordinary pleasures in the most ordinary things,” Bourdain says while dining in a trattoria, “like this place which I’m not ever going to tell you the name of.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Los Angeles”

(Season 9, Episode 1; original air date April 30, 2017): The first Parts Unknown episode to air during the Trump administration is a passionate celebration of LA’s Latinx community, and the immigrant workers who drive so many of the city’s industries. “Los Angeles, like much of California, used to be part of Mexico,” Bourdain says in the intro. “Now Mexico, or a whole lot of Mexicans, are a vital part of us.”

Bourdain meets with community activist Elisa Sol Garcia, tattoo artist Mister Cartoon, actor Danny Trejo, and MMA fighters Nick and Nate Diaz. Throughout his LA sojourn, the host samples some of the city’s myriad Mexican specialties, from tongue tacos to traditional Oaxacan moles to Ray Garcia’s modern cuisine at Broken Spanish, all the while emphasizing the importance of Latinx chefs in the American food scene.

“I worked in French and Italian restaurants my whole career, but really, if I think about it, they were Mexican restaurants and Ecuadorian restaurants, because the majority of the cooks and the people working with me were from those countries,” Bourdain remarks. “That’s who, you know, picked me up when I fell down; who showed me what to do when I walked in and didn’t know anything and nobody knew my name.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Laos”

(Season 9, Episode 4; original air date May 14, 2017): Although he eats some terrific local delicacies in this episode — including steaming bowls of khao soi and charcoal-grilled squid skewers — the majority of Bourdain’s visit focuses on the tragic story of how Laos became “the most heavily bombed country per capita in the history of the world.”

Tony spends a lot of time in Hmong villages discussing the bomb clean-up from the war, and sees, first-hand, why it’s so difficult to remove the unexploded ordnances. Bourdain also explores the country’s complicated relationship with the United States, and meets the aid workers trying to help the country bounce back. “Here, on one hand, we have Americans dropping bombs that at the time blow this child up, and then there are American doctors to put them back together,” Bourdain says.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Kenya”

(Season 12, Episode 1; original air date September 23, 2018): A big part of Bourdain’s appeal on Parts Unknown is that he seemingly lived an enviable life, bouncing around the world, surrounded by fascinating people and delectable things to eat. And the joy of this episode is seeing a bona fide Bourdain fan — fellow CNN host W. Kamau Bell — join him on one of his adventures for the very first time.

Tony is a benevolent traveling companion, imparting various bits of wisdom to Bell on his first trip to Africa, and the United Shades of America host seems thrilled to be rolling with Bourdain and experiencing the local culture for the first time. While sitting atop a mountain on safari, with a drink in hand, Bell turns to Bourdain and says, “The idea that I’m sitting here with you doing this now, knowing where my life and career have come, it’s pretty cool.”

The Kenya episode was the first to air since Bourdain’s death, and the last to feature his full participation. It’s a great way to remember this TV legend, particularly because Bell’s commentary highlights the reason why audiences loved Bourdain so much throughout his career: He kept exploring, never talked down to anyone, and always brought us along for the ride.

Read Eater’s Full recap here.

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/11/10/18079924/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown-cnn-best-episodes

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