#it’s not up to my standards but technically I’m only turning in the rough draft today

[theshadowrealmitself]

I can’t remember what canon is like (and there’s so many different versions of canon anyways) but there’s a lot of Spiderman fics where he’s talking to someone he knows as both Peter Parker and Spiderman but they don’t know his secret and there’ll be this lil convo where they’re like “oh did you talk to [his other identity] about that?”

And a good majority of the time he’ll say yes instead of pretending like the two identities just never interact

And I just really really want to know how people think those convos go, like do they think they’re friendly to each other? do they think Peter harasses Spiderman like the paparazzi harass stars? do they think Peter’s just trying to get a couple of pics and Spidey traps him to have someone to tell all his jokes to?

How do people imagine those conversations going???

[mikauzoran]

Adrienette: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: Kiss Eighteen

Read it on AO3: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: ...as encouragement.

“What did I miss?” Adrien called as he trotted up to his friends waiting at the bottom of the school’s front steps.

“Marinette’s going to win this contest Hermès is holding,” Alya announced with a smirk. “You know. No big.”

“Alya,” Marinette sighed in exasperation. “I haven’t entered yet. I haven’t even come up with a design.”

Adrien gave Nino a fist bump in greeting before turning to beam at Marinette. “Yeah, but you’re going to win once you do.”

“I don’t know about that,” Marinette mumbled, looking back down at her sketchbook.

“I do,” Alya snickered. “Listen to the boy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a fashion thoroughbred.”

Adrien blushed, finger going to tug at his collar. “Uh, technically, I think I’m more of a nouveau riche upstart, but I definitely know a thing or two about fashion, and you’ve got talent, Marinette. What kind of contest is it?”

“Ties,” she sighed, trying to hide how red her cheeks had become at his praise. “The artistic director for the men’s line, Véronique Nichanian, is going to be judging the finals herself, so I really want something that’s going to stand out.”

Nino gave Adrien a nudge. “Didn’t you do some modeling for Hermès a year or so ago when your father was pimping you out to other fashion houses to quote-unquote ‘expand your resume and build up the foundations of your career’?”

Adrien sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah. That happened.”

“Well, hook a girl up,” Alya chuckled, giving Adrien a teasing shove. “Not that I don’t think Marinette can win on her own merits, but having an edge never hurt anyone. What kind of insider knowledge do you have?”

“Nothing really,” Adrien admitted shamefacedly. “I wish I could be more helpful, but the only piece of advice I can think of is to do a fun, quirky pattern, but camouflage it so that it doesn’t look tacky. Like, Hermès does have some silly patterns. For example, there’s this one with horses and jockeys up in the clouds, and then on the reverse side it has the horses and jockeys with parachutes.”

Nino cracked up. “Seriously? And let me guess…they want, like, two hundred euros for it, yeah?”

Adrien shrugged helplessly. “It’s hand-sewn silk?”

Nino shook his head sadly. “Mec…no. Two hundred euros for a silly tie? That’s criminal.”

“Okay,” Adrien admitted. “That one’s a little…less sleek, in my opinion, but then they have this one tie I actually really like.”

“Also probably for two hundred euros,” Nino chuckled, elbowing his best friend playfully.

“It’s got a bunch of little blue fish on it,” Adrien explained, giving Nino a light shove. “From afar, it just looks like a normal tie with a small geometric pattern repeating, but when you get up close, you can tell that they’re fish, and it’s kind of funny. It looks professional at a distance, but up close it’s a quirky tie. I think that’s the kind of design the judges will be looking for.”

Marinette, who had been hanging on Adrien’s every word, nodded, making mental notes.

As if coming to an important realization, Adrien gave a start and hurriedly added, “Only if that’s what you’re inspired to do. I don’t want you thinking you have to limit yourself based on what I said. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and you have such a sharp instinct for this kind of thing, so…just do whatever you think is best.”

“No, I really appreciate your input,” Marinette assured, stepping in across the little circle their group had formed to rest a hand on his forearm. “In the end, I’ll go with my gut, but what you said gave me some ideas, so I think I’m off in the right direction. Do you think there’s anything I should avoid doing? Any colours or patterns or subjects?”

Adrien bit his lip as he considered briefly. “A lot of their products have the H logo all over them. I think they’ve done the H in all the ways it’s possible to turn an H into a design element. I know you’re super innovative, but I think that, since it’s their signature thing, they’ve probably seen pretty much everything and have higher standards for what they want in that kind of design, so it might be really hit or miss. I’m not saying to play it safe, but maybe save tackling a new take on one of the signature elements of their branding for later.”

“Noted,” Marinette affirmed.

“Also, maybe avoid horses,” Adrien added with a grimace. “It’s another one of their things. I’m sure plenty of other people do horses, so if you do horses, you might not stand out unless your design is over and above amazing—which I’m sure it will be anyway, but—and, besides, they already have a lot of merchandise with horses on it, so I don’t know that that’s what they’d be looking for.”

“Why horses?” Nino couldn’t help but wonder aloud…though, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“If I remember correctly, the company founder originally made luxury leather goods like saddles and stuff for English nobles for horseback riding. So, yeah. Lots of horses,” Adrien explained with a smile and a shrug.

Nino frowned. “I mean…I guess that’s legit.”

“So, do you have any ideas now?” Alya excitedly inquired of Marinette…who didn’t respond because she was already absorbed in her sketchpad, quickly drafting the beginnings of a handful of possible designs.

The squad watched in awed silence as Marinette’s pencil moved frenetically across the page.

Less than five minutes later, she had three rough sketches and half a dozen other fledgling ideas in the works.

“What do you think?” She flipped the sketchbook so that the others could see the page with her quick sketches and notes on colour.

Adrien’s eyes went wide as he observed that the designs were all Chat Noir-inspired.

The first featured green paw prints on a black ground, spaced close together and turned around anticlockwise on their axis so as to give the impression of cohesive dynamism.

The second was black cat heads on a rose-pink background that had the same effect as Adrien’s fish tie. From a distance, it would look like a respectable, grownup tie, but up close you could see the fun in the design.

The third had miniature Chat Noir batons arranged in staggered, downward diagonal lines that, again, looked like a normal tie design from farther away.

“That’s amazing,” Adrien breathed, looking up at Marinette as she stowed the sketchbook back in her satchel. “Did you seriously just come up with all these right now, in, like, five minutes?”

Marinette smiled shyly, tucking a bang behind her ear as she shrugged. “What can I say? You really inspired me.”

A surge of joy and pride and love welled up in his chest.

His girlfriend was the most talented, incredible woman, and he wanted to put her up on a pedestal so that everyone could see how awesome she was. And yet, she was so humble about her gift and her achievements, going so far as to pretend that he had anything to do with her genius.

He took her by the hands and watched as her eyes went wide, locking with his.

“You are so amazing, Princess,” he cooed, overwhelmed by her greatness and the miracle that a girl so out of his league could be interested in him. “You’re going to win this contest. I know you are. Do you even know how epic you are?”

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as Adrien leaned in, catching her lips in a short, sweet, bolstering kiss.

Marinette froze as her brain tried to reboot.

Alya gasped even as she mentally lamented the fact that she hadn’t been recording this momentous occasion.

Nino cursed under his breath, preparing to build his bro back up after Adrien inevitably got shot down.

“I am so proud of you,” Adrien continued obliviously as he pulled out of the kiss. “You’re going to have your own label before you graduate.”

“Adrien!” Marinette hissed as her system came back online, pulling back and turning away.

Adrien blinked, shrinking slightly at her sharp tone. “What? I think it’s true.”

“Adrien, you can’t kiss me like that,” she groaned.

“…Oh, crap,” he breathed, covering his face with his hands. “I did it again. I am so sorry, Marinette. I don’t—”

“—Back up,” Alya interrupted. “‘Again’? As in, this has happened before?”

“Al,” Nino growled warningly.

Alya didn’t seem to hear him. “How many times have you guys kissed behind my back?”

“Three now?” Adrien mumbled miserably.

“Alya, this is serious,” Marinette chided. “I have a boyfriend—a serious boyfriend.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Who I’ve never met and don’t even know the name of. Girl, you may have given up on Adrienette, but I haven’t. If my ship is sailing, I deserve to know.”

“Alya,” Nino snapped even as he put one arm around Adrien’s shoulders and rested the other hand on Adrien’s forearm. “Situational awareness much?”

To Adrien, he directed a soft, comforting, “Hey, it’s okay, Mec. It’s going to be okay.”

“This is kind of a big deal,” Alya huffed. “My bestie could easily have the man of her dreams, but, instead, she’s insisting on pretending to have some fake boyfriend she made up because she’s afraid to accept happiness and the good things the universe has sent to her. Clearly, an intervention is necessary for the good of both of our best friends.”

“He’s not fake!” Marinette retorted vehemently. “I told you, I met him online. We game together, and I only know his username, but he’s a real guy, and we’re really dating, so I can’t be making out with other blondes behind his back.”

“The good of our best friends?” Nino snorted crossly. “Right now, I think the best thing for our best friends is to keep them from getting akumatized.”

“I am so sorry,” Adrien repeated powerlessly, unsure of what else he even could say.

Nino gave him a squeeze. “It’s okay, Mec. Why don’t we head down by the river and try to calm down, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marinette huffed, making a break for it and striding off towards the bakery. “I’m going home.”

“Marinette!” Alya called and started to chase after her.

Nino sighed, briefly watching them go before getting back on task.

“Come on, Adrien,” he gently coaxed, leading Adrien down onto the walkway along the river.

They found an empty bench and sank onto it, Adrien snuggling up against Nino’s side and dropping his head onto Nino’s shoulder while Nino wrapped an arm around his friend and gave another supportive squeeze.

“It’s okay,” he repeated like a mantra, keeping an eye out for purple butterflies. “It’s okay.”

“I think I just ruined things with the person I’m desperately in love with,” Adrien responded blandly. “I don’t think it’s okay.”

Nino was silent, contemplating for a moment before he amended, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to make this okay for you, all right? Marinette’s still going to be friends with you, and everything’s going to be fine, yeah?”

Adrien didn’t have the energy to engage in optimism. “I royally screwed up, Nino.”

“Yeah, but what you did wasn’t unforgivable,” Nino tried to comfort. “Things can be patched up. You’ll see. Just hang in there for me right now, okay? Try to think happy thoughts.”

Adrien managed an affirmative grunt.

And then his phone chimed with an incoming text.

There on the screen was a short message that restored his strength.

Marinette had written: “I’m not mad at you. <3 Everything’s fine between us.”

Adrien tipped the screen so that Nino could see and then smiled up giddily at his friend.

“There you go,” Nino chuckled. “Everything’s fine.”

Adrien sighed, sinking back into Nino. “No, it’s not. Wanna hear a secret?”

Nino shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’m Marinette’s boyfriend.”

It felt really good to finally get it out into the air.

Nino took a deep breath, schooling his expression into a cautious neutral before responding. “…The one she plays online games with?”

“Yep. She doesn’t know it’s me, and you can’t tell her. She has her reasons, but she won’t let me reveal my identity to her, so…I keep accidentally kissing her because she’s my girlfriend, but she doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend, so…we end up having scenes like the one you just witnessed,” Adrien wearily informed.

“…Dude,” Nino replied poignantly.

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed.

“You have to tell her,” Nino insisted. “No joke.”

“Yeah,” Adrien repeated. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nino pursed his lips, trying to process. He wanted to tell Adrien that nothing too bad had happened when Nino and Alya found out about Rena Rouge and Carapace’s secret identities. (In fact, Alya had seen through Carapace right away, so…) And nothing bad had come of Nino being ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating percent sure that Adrien was Chat Noir, so…

Nino took a deep breath and let it out, giving Adrien’s hair a distracted tussle. “Well…if…when you do want to talk about it, I’ll be here. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything.”

“Yeah,” Adrien breathed, snuggling in closer, resting his head under Nino’s chin. “Yeah, I know. I want to, and I know I can trust you with anything, but…I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Nino agreed, letting his chin rest on top of Adrien’s head. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Adrien hummed, closing his eyes and letting himself relax.

[mimzy-writing-online]

I'm incredibly sorry for this ask , but I'd like the opinion of different writers. I have this story I have finished. It's has been re-read, edited, polished. It's technically done. The story is consistent, the pacing is okay. But what I don't like is how the characters are portrayed. They lack life, and I think it may be because during the years I improved my writing, and now I'm sure I'd be able to do better. What would you do? Would you rewrite the story from scratch? Thanks in advance.

First, no worries about asking for advice. That’s legit what I’m here for. And having been in the same position you are now, (twice) I know how impossible it feels.

Off the bat, advice I would recommend: 

Beta Reading: Get some fresh eyes to look at it, ideally someone who 1) reads books in that genre and that age range, and 2) has no obligation to worry about your feelings.

Thoroughly consider why you want to rewrite it: make an actual pros and cons list. It sounds silly, but it helps because you realize what decision you’re arguing for, what your instinct says.

Give yourself a shot at attempting a rewrite. Give yourself a set time limit to try it out. Your current book isn’t going anywhere and publishing takes forever anyway, so what’s another month or another three months?

At the end of this trial run you can ask yourself: Did a rewrite make it better? Do the characters and their world feel more alive? Even if it looks like a mess, given more time to finish and edit, would it look better than the original?

If you find you like the characters better, if you feel like you know them better, then you can consider going through the book and highlighting where they feel out of character compared to your new understanding of the characters

Watch Whispers of the Heart. I mean it! It’s a Studio Ghibli movie, and I swear to god it will inspire you and make this decision a little easier. The whole movie is about developing your creative craft. Its overall analogy is that of a geode. Your craft looks rough and sloppy on the outside, but with time, practice, and love you’ll find the beauty hidden underneath and make it shine. Amazing movie, it will change how you think about writing.

Now, finally, ask yourself: Is this the story I want to debut with? Is this the story I want to begin my writing career with?

This will be when you make your decision.

That’s the most objective advice I can give you. Since you’re asking a lot of writers for their stance, you’ll probably have a few different opinions, but I think running through this troubleshoot method will give you a chance to see for yourself.

My biased opinion?

It comes from my own experience with A Witch’s Memory. 

This is about to be a very long story, fair warning, but it’s my entire thought process over 7-8 years of working on and off with the same project. A big part of the reason why I’m going in depth about the experience is because I keep going back to what you said:

“I think it may be because during the years I improved my writing, and now I'm sure I'd be able to do better. What would you do?”

The same thing happened to be. I started the series when I was much younger, but in the 7.5 years since then I’ve changed a lot as both a person (not adult/not teenager) and as a writer (who’s had several projects since then). I’m gonna walk you through 7.5 years of personal development and how it affected the project.

I joke that A Witch’s Memory has three universes, and those universes are all different rewrites. I first started the series I was seventeen. I finished the rough drafts of three books in the series and got down to full on editing the first book after I graduated high school. Within a year I had a finished novel that wasn’t necessarily polished (not by my standards today) but at the time I was ready to move forward and publish. I sent query letters out to lit agents but didn’t get any bites back. I didn’t get to work at it for long due to health issues, my whole body kind of just crashed so for six months I was too sick to do much of anything, let alone stress myself out over query letters. I started community college the next semester and got more involved in school than in writing.

17 when I started, 18 when I started editing, 19 when I queried and got sick, almost turning 20 when I started college.

I put the book on hold for another year and focused on school. During that time I had a lot of personal development as a person. I got more experience being myself, being an adult who can make decisions for themself.

And I realized that at age 19 I’d developed a lot of insecurities about my book.

In my case, it was the world building. I love my characters, and at their heart they’re still the same, albeit a bit more realistic. I re-examined what about the world building I didn’t like.

It felt too much like Twilight to start, with the way vampires and werewolves were supposed to hate each other, and witches and fairies hated each other, because that just made sense to a 17 year old who had never read paranormal before Twilight changed the direction of the genre.

I didn’t like magic being a secret that no human could know about, so I changed that. I didn’t like my character’s backstories too much, so I tweaked that too. For the best.

At age 20/21 (it was right around my birthday) I rewrote the entire first book. After finishing the rough draft I looked at editing it, looked at starting the rough draft of the second book, and I realized I didn’t like this version either.

So I put it on hold for anther two years. I worked on two different projects, experimented with writing style, got to know myself as a person better.

At 23 I reexamined what I didn’t like about “Universe 2″ and I realized-

I wasn’t comfortable with the way the book was written now. Too many main characters meant to many pov changes and too many personal plot lines to plan. I could see from the beginning how much I favored Anna and Ulric and Felix over my other main characters, so I cut my cast of six main characters down to three, focusing on my favorites. I also saw that the setting wasn’t working for me and it would be a lot less stress for me to chance the setting to somewhere I was more familiar with, setting it mostly in America instead of the U.K.

And I decided to stop worrying about what my past beta readers would think if the book didn’t look the same in “Universe 3″ and to just run with my heart.

(For any wondering, the beta reader in question is my mum, who has been the biggest supporter of my writing since I was 14 and believed I would be published even when I was ready to give up writing and work at a different career. She’s very attached to “Universe 1″ but it’s not where I want to go, and I know she’ll love this new direction when she reads it)

I started the rough draft for Universe 3 in January of 2019 (almost a year ago to the day I’m writing this). I did it on a whim. I had a dream of Anna and Ulric flying to safety from a villain on a broomstick and I asked myself why witches never had broomsticks in my old world, and I was like “why not, let’s add it”

And I just messed with world building. I aimed it for a more whimsical feel than my older angsty versions. I’m gonna blame all the Studio Ghibli movies I saw that year. Some of my local theatres have been doing special weekends where they show the movies, and I’ve gone to see four in the last year or so. I saw Kiki’s Delivery Service a few months earlier with my best friend (A) and then a month after starting the new draft I saw Howls Moving Castle and Spirited Away (same week, I think, all in theatre) and then as I was finishing the rough draft I saw Whispers of the Heart for the first time.

(this was the moment I realized that specific movie would help A LOT on this decision making process, so I included it above)

Anyway, I just gave myself permission to go in a completely different direction with my book.

I should note, that at 23 I had been visually impaired/blind for some 3 years, although it wasn’t medically official until I was 22. I’d also fallen in love for the first time and broken my own heart. I’d also spent the last two years struggling with gender and sexual identity and really starting to understand that part of myself. 

So in general, the whole experience with those last two years of my life really changed the direction I took the book. 

I focused more on internal struggle as well as the outside “main bad guy” I’d always been planning to work with. It 

I kept the heart of my characters the same. Anna is still the kindest person you’ll ever meet, as well as sarcastic and brilliant and studious. Ulric is an anxious mess who is crazy loyal to his friends and who wants to gain his own independence. Felix is still a brat, but a loving one with the dryest sarcasm and a penchant for mischief.

Anna’s more cautious than her original incarnation. Ulric wasn’t disabled in previous versions (but at 23 I was disabled and I wanted to write a blind character, but I didn’t want blindness to be their only trait, so I took my most developed character and made him blind). Some of the characters are POC instead of white, I let myself have multiple LGBTQ characters (because 17 year old me thought the token queer was the norm because I only had one queer friend before that and we weren’t that close) and I changed some origin stories. It’s much better for that.

Growing up taught me how to put more life in my books, how to write more realistically less melodramatically, and what it feels like to have friends. Seventeen year old me didn’t have many friends in life, but 24 year old me has some wonderful friends.

Summary in Short?? (can I even do that?)

This advice post is getting long and I’m feeling bad, so okay, here I am: I’m almost 25 (in March). 17 and 23 year old me were very different people with different priorities and different levels of experience. And if I had to choose which book I would go with? 

I’d stay with Universe 3 (and Universe 1 will just be a thing my mum and I know and keep to ourselves, mostly)

I’m nearly done with the 1st edit. I still have days of self doubt, but they’re nothing like what I had years ago. I’m closer to publishing than I was before, mostly because I have a solid plan now and I’ll be self-publishing, allowing me to publish on my own.

In my case, rewriting was the best decision I could have made. I’m not everyone else though, nor am I you. You know yourself and your story better than anyone, and I know you are the most qualified person to make that decision. I have confidence in your ability.

[taz-writes]

FULL ANALYSIS OF THE ROUGH DRAFT OF FEILAN PLEASE

OH GOD WHICH ONE!!

The one I was just liveblogging is just, absolutely WILD, but it’s also only 13 double-spaced pages long and very much incomplete. I’m honestly disappointed as fuck, because it would’ve been a gold mine, but I wasn’t ready back then to write a story as incredibly long as Feilan was gonna turn out to be. It ends before it really begins--I got distracted by a different project, which actually turned out to be my first real real attempt at writing a novel! 

(Which by the way, holy cow, remind me to talk about even the trees have eyes one day too because it is ALSO incredibly hilarious and incoherent in its own beautiful way. it’s a total disaster!) 

Analysis of the existing part, though: It’s from 2009. My technical writing skills are immature but honestly? I was a pretty damn good writer for my age back then, the spelling and grammar are excellent, I had a natural instinct for how to manage my prose and sentence length and stuff like that. Unfortunately, like most of my old writing, the content held within that technical excellence is complete and utter nonsense. 

Highlights of “Iliginia Story” (as it is titled in my computer) not included in my liveblog: 

The fairies have created robotic wing devices so that humans can fly around and pretend to be fairies. They’ve stocked a hollow in a giant tree with several dozen of these devices, that they just keep nice and on hand just in case. This is normal. 

OG Sayara exists, and it’s really weird, because the main character in the 2009 story is an actual for real self insert. Like, literally me, but with another sibling and a slightly cooler lifestyle. But OG Sayara is also a self insert. Near the end of this story, Baby Taz and OG Sayara literally fuse Steven Universe style into one shared mind and body. Nobody questions this. Nobody questions the ethics of this. Nobody questions the logic, or the liabilities, or the fact that Baby Taz has a whole ass family and parents back home and cannot just up and disappear to be a fairy princess. 

I have to reiterate again, they literally just become the same person when they touch, this is a permanent procedure, it’s only commented on once in order to indicate that this is a good thing and really awesome because Baby Taz gets to be a hero. 

Seriously what the fuck. 

Also, this was back before I got a grip on my naming situation... Aelia’s original name, apparently, was “Areeya Storm.” Not even just Arya (which is what I called her in the proper rough draft). Areeya. Because we really needed those extra vowels.

Nobody has a last name except Sayara, whose last name is Queen, because she is the Queen. Except she’s not the Queen, she’s a rando princess living in the woods in a treehouse alone while being the rebel leader. It honestly kind of reminds me of old-school OG She-ra in that sense? There are just all these princesses and queens who show up out of nowhere and I have no idea what in the world they were meant to be princesses and queens of, they’re just kind of there. 

Also, OG Sayara doesn’t have any family or siblings, she just sort of exists in the void. 

Thank the fiction gods for my decision to make her an actually interesting and compelling character eventually... 

Every single goddamn character is a “dude” or a “nerd,” I think ‘dude’ was the word of the year for me back in 2009 because I just couldn’t stop using it!! The prose alternates from really elegant and poetic, still up to my standards in 2019, to stuff like ���I won’t take orders from a --- ------ ------ ---- first grader, dude!” 

All in all, it’s both better than you’d ever expect from a 12 year old, and incredibly hilariously terrible. 

The other big thing I can’t help but notice about the 2009 story is that it really highlights some of my own emotional issues when I was that age. There’s... a bit in here that was genuinely uncomfortable to read. I used to be really immature about my own femininity, I identified as a hardcore tomboy and hated being seen as girly but I also was distinctly aware of how people didn’t want to take me seriously because I was a tomboy. But they didn’t take girly-girls seriously either. So there’s a weird amount of emphasis on the boy clothes, the way self-insert!Taz wears boys’ cargo shorts and camouflage, that she’s kind of a gremlin... a fictionalized version of an elementary school bully calls self-insert!Taz an “it” and there’s a weird amount of emphasis on the reaction, and it’s used as a way to highlight how this character actually “belongs” in the fairy world instead of back on Earth. Because the fairy world wants her to be there, and in Fairyland, wearing shorts with big boy pockets (stuffed full of random rocks and string ofc) is an advantage. By the way, apparently that’s Sayara’s oldest defining character trait, because it’s the only part of either OG Sayara or self-insert!Taz that I can recognize in this narrative. And in this version of the story, they were basically the same character. Pocket rocks and vague condescension are their only character traits.

It’s not explicit, I wasn’t even aware that this was what I’d written, but looking back on it the subtext is glaringly in-your-face obvious. It’s just... it was a weird thing to realize about myself when I went into the archives to mock my middle school existence. 

[bombadil-archive4]

HOW I RUN MY BLOG.

SPEED:   Very, very, very slow. It often can take me a month or two to reply to a specific thread. It is imperative that people who want to be mains with me maintain multiple threads in order to keep themselves in my draft rotation, as I do my best to answer drafts in the order that they are received (unless I get stuck). You WILL get a reply to our thread or the meme you sent in, but it may be weeks after you sent it. I like to think of my blog like online shopping: you forget that you ordered anything and then when you get it in the mail, it’s like surprise christmas. 

REPLIES:   I don’t sit down to write unless I have time to do at least two replies, so they usually come out in batches. I used to schedule them, but nowadays I just let them go out as I write them. It’s a feast or famine sort of situation, I’m aware, but it’s what it is. 

STARTERS:   I am always willing to write the starter, so long as my partner is willing to wait for it (because, again, I am slow). If my partner writes a starter, I draft it and will probably reply to it in draft order, unless I have a lot of starters waiting and feel the need to skip ahead. I post starter calls sparingly, as my speed makes it difficult to keep up with demand. Starters are usually between 150 to 200 words in length. I do not do chat style roleplay. 

INBOX:   Always open. The memes that I post do not expire, so feel free to drop into my meme tag and send me something at any time. I try to answer all submissions in the order that they are submitted, but I will invariably favor mutuals and partners. Technically, I am a private blog and do not accept memes sent by non-mutuals, but I may write a response if I feel it would reveal character, or if I simply appreciate your viewership. Mutuals should always feel free to turn meme responses into threads. 

SELECTIVITY:   Very, very, very selective. I would say I only follow back about 10% of my followers as a rough estimation based on previous blogs. My selectivity is half writing, half mun. The first thing I look at is your writing: is your prose solid, how much do you write, how accurate and illuminating is your character development? I generally don’t care how a blog looks other than that it is a good indication of how serious a roleplayer is, and I prefer serious partners. The second half of my basis for selectivity is the mun: do they seem like someone I would want to invest emotionally with using fictional characters, or do they maybe seem like a dick?

WISH LIST:   In theory, I do have a wishlist tag, I’ve just no posted anything in it yet?? I’ll get to it. One thing at a time. 

HONEST NOTE:   I do what is comfortable to me. I work/commute 50hrs/week and I work at a law firm, so my job is super fucking stressful. This is a hobby for my enjoyment, and I surround myself with what makes me happy and comfortable. That being said, I have a master’s in creative writing with a focus in fiction and I take the writing part of this very seriously. I don’t do less than 100 words and I will never post something not up to my standards for quality. If that’s not for you, then that’s cool. 

TAGGED BY:  @russetwolf

TAGGING:   @elesheir @nobleevenstar @durnaar @edhelaran & @darachsciath 

[notecardio]

Moira / Mercy

Here is a rough draft I’ve been working on! Moira is working late in her lab when she receives an unexpected call from Mercy. I’ll finish this soon & post it on my AO3 but I’m so lazy! Here’s what I have so far tho!

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

Overwatch is making budget cuts. No surprise there. Their reputation is almost as bad as my own, and it’s been a pleasure to watch their slow descent into public scandal. Every time I glance through the press releases, I am delighted to see Jack Morrison and his dutiful teammates attempt to appease the angry masses, to assure them that Overwatch isn’t corrupt or dangerous. As I sit in my own lab funded through Blackwatch channels, I can’t help but laugh.

No, none of this is a surprise. What is a surprise is when, on an average Tuesday night, I get a call from her.

I almost didn’t answer, but pure sentiment took hold. Some human weaknesses I can’t seem to edit out of the genome, and admittedly, I had to know if she sounded the same.

“Angela, this is a surprise,” I say, tapping the communicator in my ear, allowing my hands to continue cleaning the remaining Erlenmeyer flasks from today’s work. “It’s been a while.”

“Can I use your lab for a moment?”

I can’t help but laugh. “You certainly don’t mean immediately?”

“No, I mean now. It’s rather urgent, a-and I don’t have clearance to fly back to Zurich until tomorrow.” Her voice is the same. Lovely. I hate it. “I wouldn’t ask unless it was truly necessary. You’re the closest scientist I know who I can,” a pause, “trust.”

“Angela, as always, you’re delightfully transparent.”

“This is extremely confidential work.”

“Then how could you possibly share it with such a... oh, how did you put it? Ah, yes, an ‘obsessive, unethical monster’ such as myself?”

“Moira, please.”

Well, that’s it, then. Those two words from her, and I’m finished as always, and she knows it.

“Do you know exactly how to get here?”

“No.”

“I’ll send you the directions. Should I prepare anything? Or is this just a wonderful ruse to come see me?”

“Hardly. Perhaps preparing an operating table would be helpful.”

After some vague details, she hangs up. I am infuriatingly intrigued. What could possibly make Angela desperate enough to see me? It must be serious. The last time we met, she swore we’d never see each other again.  

I repress any foolish notions to retrace the failings of a workplace romance turned sour over something as malleable as morality. Luckily, the entire mess with Angela reminded there is room in my life for only one love, and that, as always, is science.

I ruminate instead on Angela’s potential reasons for seeking me out while I go about the lab, tidying here and there, although there isn’t much out of place to begin with. Around ten minutes elapse, and then the intercom buzzes.

I adjust my tie and sigh. I walk to the back entrance, the one that is only for me and emergencies. After the door slides open, in walks this particular, unwanted emergency.

Her body is slightly damp from rain, and her nimble figure is engulfed in a large, wet raincoat. The few stray strands of blonde hair that escape her tight bun stick to her face. She wipes them away with free hand, but the movement causes her to grimace.

“I may have made a mistake,” she says.

“I never thought I’d hear those words,” I laugh back, but she isn’t smiling. She briskly walks further into the lab and right up onto the operating table at the center. She peels off her coat. And I gasp. I wasn’t expecting this at all.

“Good God, Angela. What happened?”

Underneath the bulky jacket, Angela is wearing the Valkyrie swift-response suit. Normally the frim black and white material covers her lithe form with an almost perfect, heavenly strength. She always looks glorious in the suit - one of the most incredible feats of technology I’ve ever experienced - but now the armor is broken all over her. Broken badly.

The front breastplate is scorched and misshapen. Cracks emanate from the center of her chest where some kind of blow must have landed. The metal frames of her wings hang broken and limp behind her, and the hard yellow light is powered off. She looked like a shattered vase, wet and cracked. She bites her lip.

“I was… I was trying to get away. There were reporters. They were absolutely inescapable, and I decided to run, but it was so dark. Someone was there in an alley, but it’s all such a blur and I was alone. It was supposed to be just a business trip, but someone attacked me, and I was a fool to think I was safe. I was a fool,” she says. Her words come out in a nervous and shaking rush. I feel my hands clench. What kind of imbecilic moron could’ve hurt her?

“Overwatch has many enemies,” I say. “You came to the city alone?”

“Yes, just to meet with some partners who are ceasing their financial support to Overwatch. I was demonstrating the suit’s improvements and trying to persuade them, but,” she shakes her head. “Whoever it was that attacked me, they must just be sending a warning. They ran off before I could do anything. I have to get this fixed, but I don’t want to worry the team-,”

“You’re too proud. Can’t you just leave now? Get on a plane and go?”

“I certainly can’t last long enough in this condition to fly.”

“Then call one of your doctors to come here.”

“We don’t have that kind of funding to just jet people around the globe, Moira.”

Foolishly, I still had some Overwatch scandal pulled up on one of the computer displays mounted on the wall. Angela glances at it and sighs. “Overwatch is dying.”

“Clearly. It’s falling apart. And so are you.” I move towards her. She seems to reflexively step back, but after a second she takes a step towards me again. I try to ignore any emotional implications of such a minute movement.

It’s obvious that we have to get this broken suit off of her. It must be painful. The metal is pressed inwards at her chest, but the mechanisms of the suit still hum with energy and light.

“Ah,” I say when I realize the problem. “You can’t get this off yourself.”

“Obviously. And this technology is too important and,” she swallows, “dangerous, for any average doctor to handle.”

“Without a doubt. This suit is so high powered, it could kill you if you take it off incorrectly, Angela.”

“I’m aware of that, Dr. O’Deorian.” She stares at me firmly with those unbearable eyes. “Don’t misinterpret this situation. I will be abundantly clear. You know this technology. You are close. That is why I’m here.”

I take a deep breath and run a hand through my hair. “I’m flattered you think I still have the emotional capacity to possibly care about you, Dr. Zeigler. I never pass up a chance for some scientific inquires. A little late night research is all that drives me.”

“Surprising. Usually you’re driven by more base desires.”

I laugh. “Very snarky for someone who needs me to remove hazardous biochemical weaponry from their body.”

“It’s not a weapon. This suit is built to save lives.”

“Well, it’s not saving yours at the moment.” She doesn’t break eye contact. “Oh, you’re like a petulant child. Fine, sit tight. I’ll get my better work gloves and put on something more suitable for atmosphere.”

I walk over to the record player, one piece of archaic technology I can’t seem to part with, and choose something appropriate. David Bowie’s “Look Back in Anger”, or any of his work from his Berlin era, always had the intended effect. Angela groans.

“Need I remind you, doctor, that I am at risk of being electrocuted at any moment? To subject me to your obsessions-,”

“I’m sorry, dear. You must recall that I do my best work to music.”

Angela scoffs.

I try not to think about any situation where she and I were engaged in some other activity alone together with music. Not in her bedroom. No, definitely not in mine either. Well, sometimes in the lab. Quite a few times in the lab.

“Anytime, doctor.” Angela says in a huff. She’s trying very hard to hide the fact she is in pain. I crack my knuckles in a satisfying roll.

“Let’s get this off you in some way it can be salvaged, since you and your heroes are so strapped for funds.”

“Thanks. You’re too kind.”

I begin at once. I love a good challenge. The suit could undoubtedly be manually depowered and chipped off like tree bark, but that would make repairing the wiring an absolute chore, and a blunt removal would ruin the adhesive bindings keeping the armor together. Instead, I try repairing the damage on her instead of brutishly pulling it off. This process has the added benefit of annoying Angela.

“I’m not a lab kit. Just get this off of me.”

“And ruin a wonderful chance to see what upgrades you’ve added?  Not a chance.”

“Always stealing my technology.”

“At one point it was collaborative, darling.” I pick at the damaged materials with the small metal tools in my hands. “Brilliant. Centralizing the power supply certainly made the suit lighter and more maneuverable.”

“It did, yes.”

“Actually, it’s almost as if there are no more technical upgrades to be made.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you.”

“And if the suit is pushed to perfection, the only other thing to alter is your own body-,”

“Moira,” she snaps. “I will absolutely not talk about this with you.”

I shrug while working. “Fine, but I’m not surprised. You’re still so afraid.”

“I still have a sense of morality. Not fear.”

We lapse into silence. While I would love to chase her down this rabbit hole for the umpteenth time, I know she will never break. Neither of us will ever bend. Ultimately, that is the reason she is so perfect and so flawed. Brilliant and confident, but so paralyzed by a rigid, self-enforced code of impossible standards. Infuriating.

I continue working. I get absorbed in the work. It is always easier to get absorbed in science than in something as trifling as emotions.

The hum of machines and the low music fill the dead air. After ten minutes or so, the suit is somewhat repaired enough to be hoisted off her body. Her body sits rigid and tense.

“There. Now it won’t potentially electrocute you. Let’s try to unclasp the wings.”

“I can do it myself.”

She reaches her arms around and sucks in a harsh breath.

“Whoever attacked you, they did a number on that shoulder, as well.”

“I’ll heal it.”

She continues to try and contort to reach her back. I groan, pushing her hands down and walking behind her. She astonishingly sits still as I perform the familiar series of unlocking motions to remove the bone-like structures of the wings. They’re lightweight and thankfully not too damaged.

I lay them on the floor. Angela’s shoulders fall in a relieved shudder.

“Next, the halo apparatus.” She nods. I let my fingers slip under the metal around her head, feeling, through the material of the gloves, for a moment, the contact with her neck as I take it away and place it on the table beside me.

“Now, the top shell of the armor,” I say. The instinct to dictate every step is unavoidable.

Usually in the lab by myself, dictating is necessary. I’m speaking aloud for my personal records. But even when we shared a lab space, we would say each step of any procedure to one another. Sometimes even when it wasn’t work, just us, to keep each other informed and aware. Effortlessly easy.

My hands seem too large and uncouth for a moment. I return to the task of removing the white shell.

The suit uncoils in perfected simplicity. It is beautifully engineered to wrap around her body, a tailored glove of power and ingenuity. Even in its fairly broken state, the suit is immensely satisfying to watch unfold off her body. Everything, the flexible breastplate, the hard streaks of white armor that rest on her hips, the orange ombre cloth that seems to almost glow in the light – everything falls away until it’s just Angela.

The last layer is just her black undershirt and tights, lined with stripes of dark orange and umber. Truly, the design makes me feel a rush. It’s a work of genius. She is a genius. I place the armor on the table, get my bearings, and walk around to assess the bodily damage.

“Your chest and shoulder seem burned.”

“The blow from the assailant released some chemicals from the suit. Along with the blunt damage, it did burn a little,” she says back evenly.

“I’ll use one of the regenerative serums. It’ll be fine.”

“I know.”

“Can you take off the boots? Let’s assure we didn’t miss any other injuries.”

She nods. I walk to one of the cabinets on the wall of the lab, finding the proper nanotech medicinal packs to solve this particular injury.

“It looks good,” Angela says. I turn around. She is staring at the suit, lightly touching the plate mail. “How did you fix everything this quickly?”

“I’m a brilliant scientist,” I say with a laugh. “It was simple, really.”

“I’m…” she trails off. “I’m very thankful.”

“You can say it. You’re impressed.”

She scoffs. “You’re so arrogant.”

“My arrogance is earned, darling.”

“Earned through shortcuts and lies, Mory.”

The record needle slips up. The music's over. I use all of my willpower to convince myself that I misheard her. An old nickname. Certainly a mistake.

I walk over, first to turn off the record player, and then to toss her the sealed bag of regenerative solute. She catches it. “Put it on your wounds and try not to waste any.”

She does so silently. Her fingers rub the viscous gel over the burns on her right shoulder and chest. The wounds are not too terrible, and the rejuvenating energy spreads along her skin immediately. The near instantaneous healing has almost a golden aura around it as the molecular structures repair themselves.

“How does it feel?”

“Better,” she replies.

“Good. That’s it, then.” I take off my gloves and toss them onto the counter nearby.

“Oh my God, Moira,” Angela says. “Y-your…what did you do to your…,” she can’t finish. She gets up and walks to me. I didn’t have a moment to react before her hands are around my right arm, gingerly holding the scarred skin with a gentleness I haven’t felt in a long time.

“Your arm,” she finishes. “Oh God, Moira, this looks absolutely terrible. Does it hurt?”

“Old news,” I say. I should take my arm back. I should break contact, but I am failing at doing anything but absorbing the sensation of her skin on mine. “I learned a great deal from it.”

Angela is silent. “You tested on yourself.”

Not a question. It’s a statement.

“Of course. I wanted the best subject for my most important work.”

“You could’ve killed yourself.”

“Oh, please spare me the dramatics. You don’t even know what I was testing-,”

“No,” she interjects. “That’s not the point. Moira, this,” she says, grasping my arm with a slight increase in pressure as her voice rises. “This is exactly why I hate you.”

“Oh, thank goodness, we’re past civility.”

“There are things more important than science for the sake of science. There is your own health. Your body. Your life.”

“Such a hypocrite. Don’t pretend you’re above applying your own science to yourself.”

“I am not a hypocrite.”

“The healing we both do, Angela, is genetic engineering. We fix broken cells. We’re doing the same exact work.”

“No,” she says fiercely, gripping my arm with more strength. “I heal people who’ve been hurt. I cure illnesses. I never risk harming innocent people under the guise of research.”

“I am changing the building blocks of humanity. I am doing nothing but improving a design.”

“You just want to play God.”

“Science makes us gods.”

“You could’ve died, Moira.”

“Fine. Then it would have been in the name of science.”

Angela balks. “God, you’re unbelievable.”

“And you’re afraid.” I wrap my free hand around hers. She squeezes harder on my scars. Her eyes narrow with determination.

“The only thing I’m afraid of, Moira, is that it might be too late to save you.”

I knock my head back in a laugh. “God, you’re so high and mighty. It’s maddening. I fear you’ll be stuck like this forever, trapped in a moral prison of your own making.”

My hands move on their own, out of habits long unused but never forgotten. My fingers cup her cheeks. Angela seems petrified for a few seconds, staring up at me, but perhaps she’s not just looking at me in this moment.

Perhaps in her mind, like my own, she is seeing layers and layers of old memories peeled back with just a simple touch. Maybe, like me, she is seeing how many memories of those eyes she can recall where everything else was different around us but those eyes are the same. I think about the last time I was close to her like this before we let it fall apart.

“I didn’t come here for this,” Angela says softly.

“I don’t want this from you.”

“Then tell me to go.”

I attempt an even breath and fail. “You can leave whenever you see fit.”

She holds my face in her hands. The mirrored symmetry is excruciatingly satisfying.

“I get tired of missing you.”

She shouldn’t say things like that. No, my ability to forget her is a reflection of my willpower, and- and the moment she presses her body flush to mine and slips her hands into my hair, I know that all I have of any goddamn willpower is broken and gone.

And the satisfying snap of tension, the chain reaction of my lips meeting hers, sends a long-forgotten bolt of energy through my entire body. And I feel incredibly, profoundly alive.

We’re kissing fast, desperate despite everything I tried so hard to conceal. I can’t take it any longer. She’s here like times before, in my arms with all of her delicate strength and rough passion.

I lift her, carrying her back onto the operating table while never breaking contact with those lips.

I lay her flat on her back. As I straddle her waist, she pushes the lab coat off my shoulders and pulls me down by the tie around my neck.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2019, Part I

On one hand, I fear the direction of American cinema, and I feel more personally distracted from great art with each passing day. On the other hand, my viewing was up 5% from last year despite my belief that I’ve gotten choosier. I even approve of most of the films nominated for Best Picture. Are the offerings just top-heavy this year? Are my standards declining? Answering questions like those is part of why I present a paragraph or two on everything I see each year, though I can’t even imagine someone sitting down and reading all of this.

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Just Mercy, Monos, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Good Boys, Frankie, For Sama, or An Elephant Sitting Still. The tiers, as always, are Garbage, Admirable Failures, Endearing Curiosities with Big Flaws, Pretty Good Movies, Good Movies, Great Movies, and Instant Classics. GARBAGE

129. Cold Pursuit (Hans Petter Moland)- A film professor of mine showed us Wings of Desire and City of Angels, its American remake, in order to show us how a film can technically cover a story while losing the essence that made it special. I can only hope that Hans Petter Moland's Norwegian original is better than his stab at an English language remake, which fails completely at balancing violence and comedy. The movie almost announces its own boredom with the protagonist as it shifts focus first to the villain and then to cops on the case, all of whom have artificial quirks to try to give them life where there isn't any. The Neeson character's journey toward revenge is empty, so the film drifts from him, but it doesn't have anything to say with the other characters either. 128. Domino (Brian De Palma)- Seeking revenge, a Libyan informant roughs up a potential terrorist by throwing him over a restaurant bar. Cut to two cops driving wordlessly. Cut to the Libyan guy dunking the other guy's head in boiling soup. That interruption spells out what the rest of the film does: De Palma could not be less interested in his replacement-level actor's shoddy policework, especially in the self-parody of the last twenty minutes. Any intensity the movie has comes from terrorists (or Guy Pearce over-salting a salad), and then the police drain the momentum. Just make a movie about terrorists, Brian! And, as I've urged you for years, get rid of Pino Donaggio. 127. Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)- Moondog, the spacey, Floridian hedonist poet at the center of the film, is supposed to be "brilliant" and "a good guy" at heart according to his daughter. But at the daughter's wedding, he shakes the hand of her fiance, whom he usually calls "limp-dick," and he says, "What's your name again?" The line got a laugh in my theater, but is it likely that he didn't know the name of his daughter's fiance? Especially if he's a good guy who doesn't hurt people on purpose? It's one example out of a thousand of Harmony Korine making the goofy decision instead of the one that would benefit character or story. I thought that Korine had taken a turn for the lucid with Spring Breakers, but he just isn't interested in making anything consistent enough for me. There's an hour of consequence-free episodes to follow, though I did cherish Jonah Hill's three improvised scenes, for which he tries a sort of Tennessee Williams voice. You can admire how audacious some of the choices are--describing Zac Efron wearing Jncos makes the film sound more fun than it is--but looking at the poster gives you about 70% of what you would get out of the long ninety-five minutes. Yes, McConaughey's shoes are funny, but what else have you got? 126. Fyre Fraud (Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nelson)- Half as good as the Netflix one. Please, by all means, explain to me what a millenial is again. 125. The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff)- One of my mentors stressed that Shakespeare worked in "cultural touchstones," truisms that weren't difficult to prove but served as a sandbox for all of the juicy stuff. So we all know that, say, too much ambition is a bad thing, but having that North Star at all times allows Shakespeare to ply his trade with character development and imagery and symbol. I know that The Kitchen isn't funny or cool or original, but it also doesn't really have an emotional or thematic core. It's a movie with neither the window dressing nor the window. I don't know what I'm getting at, but I watched the last five minutes twice to make sure that it actually was as anti-climactic and inert as I thought.

124. Climax (Gaspar Noe)- Ah, to be a provocateur who has made his best work already and took all of the wrong lessons from it. I don't envy Noe, who insists on formal rigor even when it adds nothing, who goes to greater, more desperate lengths to shock. A third of this film, embedded somewhere between the three openings, is gross young people talking, lewdly and clinically, about whom they want to bone. I thought I started watching French art movies to get away from locker rooms. 123. The Best of Enemies (Robin Bissell)- The supporting cast of Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, and John Gallagher Jr. avail themselves better than the finger-wagging, scenery-chewing leads, but that hardly matters in a movie this fundamentally broken. Apparently no one saw the problem with making a Ku Klux Klan president the dynamic hero of a school integration that he fought against, but that's how the story functions. He's the guy who casts the deciding vote and gives the speech at the end, but it's a bit anti-climactic for an audience that assumes, yeah, the White race is not morally superior to any other race. Congratulations on your realization, buddy. Long before that, Sam Rockwell’s character is inconsistent. Neither the Rockwell performance nor the Robin Bissell script can thread the needle between showing the heinous terrorist that a Klan member is and revealing the depth that foreshadows the character's change. The answer is to show the character being nice to his developmentally disabled son, which, again, doesn't get all the way there. That's cool that you love your own son, but, uh, that has nothing to do with the hatred that made you shoot up a girl's house because she has a Black boyfriend. Of course you can show these contradictions and changes in a character incrementally--lots of good movies have--but this one ain't going on the list. 122. The Intruder (Deon Taylor)- Probably the most two-star movie of the year. Prototypical in its two-starness. Instructive to me as far as what I give two stars. There’s a point of view error in the first twenty minutes that ruined it for me. ADMIRABLE FAILURES 121. Little (Tina Gordon Chism)- We're all good on body swap movies for a while. This one, otherwise undistinguished in its comedy or storytelling, is notable for just how specifically 2019 it might look in a time capsule: Here's a joke about transitioning as we're on our way to our job developing apps; there's a kid doing The Floss and talking to Alexa. Whoops! Bumped into a guy wearing a VR headset! 120. The Kid Who Would Be King (Joe Cornish)- I appreciate that somebody is still making movies for 9-10 year old boys, but I checked out hard and kind of just left this on until it was done. I don't like lore. Much less funny and urgent than Attack the Block, and it's crazy that this is the only project that came together for Joe Cornish in the intervening eight years. 119. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty)- Exhausting and joyless in its large-scale destruction, Godzilla: King of the Monsters pitches everything at the same volume, and even the end of the world ends up not mattering as a result. Despite (or maybe because of) the presence of such great actors, the screenplay dilutes the characters by having three fighter pilots or three scientists when all the lines really could have been given to one of these interchangeable figures. That's first draft stuff, homie. Still, Kyle Chandler is kind of awesome as the weathered one shouting about how everyone else is playing God. He reminds me of Larry Fitzgerald toiling away with professionalism on teams that would never sniff the playoffs. 118. Blinded by the Light (Gurinder Chadha)- I made it about twenty minutes into this movie before flipping the switch and making fun of it relentlessly. It tries to strike the heart-on-sleeve authenticity that a Springsteen song does, but if The Boss never overwhelms you with language, almost every line of dialogue in this film spells out what the character is thinking. The overbearing father is especially intolerable: "What is this music? You need to get rid of distractions and focus on getting a good job so that you don't end up a taxi driver. Like me!" I'm only sort of paraphrasing. Blinded by the Light is too well-meaning to be offensive, but it's absurd in its spoon-feeding. LMK, ladies: On the third time that I have headphones in my ears during a conversation with you, and I start buttering you up with lyrics to "Jungleland," will you still love me? 117. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (David Leitch)- What a summer, huh? The go-for-broke final setpiece redeems the film somewhat, and Vanessa Kirby is a welcome addition to the universe. But Idris Elba's first line, responding to a question about who he is, is "Bad Guy," and the characterization doesn't go too much further. I feel as if I have honed the requisite disposition to enjoy a Fast and Furious movie, but that doesn't mean that the most cliched thing has to happen at the most cliched time in the most cliched way.

116. I Lost My Body (Jeremy Clapin)- Not for me ultimately. The film presents itself as above the tropes of cinematic romance but sure seems to circle around them. Clapin is willing to set up the pins of, say, "I'm actually the pizza delivery guy but have kept it a secret for a year," but he is unwilling to knock the pins down with anything resembling catharsis. I don't know if the French bowl, but feel free to substitute whatever kind of metaphor they might get offended by.

115. The Lion King (Jon Favreau)- I saw the original Lion King when I was ten: old enough to think that Disney movies were beneath me but young enough to know nothing about art or the world. And I remember the way that the songs transcended reality: "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" turning into a Busby Berkeley number, "Be Prepared" taking on an expressionist green tint. It was mass entertainment that was far from experimental, but I remember thinking, "Can you do that?" As an artistic experiment, this remake is kind of confounding, to the point that I don't know whether to classify it as an animated or live-action film. The final scene starts upside down, and your eye adjusts to the idea that you're looking at a reflection in a stream, but that stream is a Caleb Deschanel-aided, computer-generated reflection of a reality. However, I return to my original point: You're missing something if you think The Lion King is a better story if it's more realistic. Capably made as The Lion King 2019 is, no one is referencing 42nd Street. These Disney remakes just reference themselves. 114. Stuber (Michael Dowse)- The critical community has been pretty forgiving of Stuber; I guess because it's a type of studio film that used to be common but now is not. Judged on its own merits, however, it's labored. The screenplay circles around questions of masculinity, but not in a way that hasn't been done better in other recent comedies. Perhaps most disappointing of all, I've seen Iko Uwais and Bautista fight before, and it looked a whole lot cooler than the way they're sliced and diced here. The ending's sweet at least. 113. After the Wedding (Bart Freundlich)- Think of what Julianne Moore could have accomplished in the time it took in her career for her to shoot four crappy movies with her husband. This is the type of melodrama that makes more sense after all of the revelations have cleared the air, but that doesn't mean the preceding hour and a half was any more fun because of the aftermath. 112. The Goldfinch (John Crowley)- One day someone's going to figure out how to coherently adapt a Dickensian novel and actually do that thing Crowley is trying to do: condensing two hundred pages of back story into 1/8th of a page here or a line there. Somebody's going to be able to figure out the little moments that are important and the big moments that aren't. And you'll all be sorry. The movie is ultimately hampered by the bad ending of the novel, in which a person who isn't a mystery writer has to solve a mystery. Perfect casting for Luke Wilson though. He definitely looks like a whiskey-faced dad who would steal your social security number. 111. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)- This movie is autobiographical. The protagonist has the same initials as Joanna Hogg, and she's attending film school at the same time Hogg did. But what a self-own it is for your hero, based on you, to be this inexpressive and restrained and deferential. The film is mostly about a cold romantic relationship--and I guess what the character learns through that experience--but when her beau's friend asks what she sees in him, she can't really say. Neither can the audience. I guess it's a skill to write a scene in which a family is having an argument that is so clenched-jaw reticent that the viewer can't even discern the topic of conversation for a few minutes, but it's not a skill I appreciate. 110. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)- Jim Jarmusch must be a very good friend.

109. Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy)- If the film were funny, I wouldn't mind the lack of narrative drive. If the film had narrative drive, I wouldn't mind the lack of atmosphere--glaring for a film that circles around to horror eventually. If the film had more to say, I wouldn't mind how pedantically it says it. If the protagonist's change of heart made sense, then I wouldn't mind that his conversion apparently happens off-screen. At least most of the actors seem to be having fun. I wasn't. 108. It: Chapter Two (Andy Muschietti)- I started squirming in my seat during a sequence somewhere in the circuitous second hour. Bill sees his old bike in an antiques window, haggles with a Stephen King shopkeeper cameo, and finishes the scene on a triumphant note, believing that his old bike will ride like the wind. Cut to the bike falling apart on the road, deflating his pride with comedy. Cut to a flashback of him riding the bike with young Beverly, serene and warm. Cut to him riding the bike again with determination until he stops, terrified. Within fifteen seconds, the film jerks us into four divergent emotions at a whim. The overall tone felt just as arbitrary to me, and that's before we get to the always-unclear line between fantasy and reality. And this time, the flashbacks of each young character's encounters with Pennywise are less scary because we know they all live into the present. Andy Muschietti just does not have a light enough touch to make this movie work.The last forty-five minutes are interminable. But I had all the same gripes with the first chapter, so personal taste is a factor. 107. Trial by Fire (Edward Zwick)- Perfect example of a true story that could use some poetic justice. I don't want to give away anything that the first line of the imdb summary doesn't already, but this ending could have been much more satisfying by changing one or two lines. This is a movie that recreates, multiple times, babies burning alive, but the ending is somehow more punishing. It's also one of those films that should have just begun at the halfway point. If we can praise special effects when they're done well, then they should be fair game when they're this embarrassing. Zwick definitely put his flash drive into the Lifetime computers for fire.exe.

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The benefits of “no”

Success story: Tim Bourne’s behind the scenes on reaching out goal through rejections

“Per aspera ad astra”, 1894

One of my daily duties as an A&R at JOOF Recordings is listening to incoming demos we receive on a regular basis. And whether I like it or not, I have to say a “no” as an answer very often. Artists react to rejection differently: some of them never reply back, some others get angry. Well, no surprise: getting a “no” answer is tough, I know it myself perfectly.

But one guy stood out: every time I told him “no”, he came back with the updated track asking for new feedback. Four months later, he managed to make an amazing track that I was happy to sign on the label.

The guy I’m talking about is Tim Bourne, a 22-year-old aspiring music producer from Indonesia. I invited Tim to share his progression in this blog and I hope other up-and-coming producers will find his experience useful and motivating.

From there, Tim tells:

“To me, this drive of wanting to get accepted into JOOF started two and a half years ago when my friend introduced me to the label, ever since then my perception towards electronic music completely changed (in the best way possible). Since that it was something that I had to do, it was more than just a goal for me to make a track that lives up to the standards of the label.

I wanted to know where I sit when it comes to producing, am I really making something that is up to par — quality wise — or am i just making tracks that only sound good to my own ears, even then, my ears wasn’t really catching the small details of music production, I was missing out on so many essential parts of production.

I knew that it was going to be very tough because in my country there is very limited access to production courses or even Psytrance producers, so I had no one to really guide me on what to do technically or musically.

I started sending out demos to the label since 2015 — 20 years old by that time — and it was just no’s after no’s after no’s. In total, I’ve probably sent over ten tracks and one of the tracks I had to re-do and re-edit over five times due to song length, sound design, not enough variations, you name it... and it was still a big ‘no’. It actually got to a point where I was so pessimistic about myself and my music that after a couple of days after sending ‘The Wounded Healer’ I emailed to Daniel again and assumed that the track got rejected.

But alongside the no’s, Daniel was kind enough to actually give me very useful feedbacks, he gave me constructive criticism that was essential for my learning. And to be completely honest, I would have never evolved with my music production if it wasn’t for no’s and rejections. It was through this that I was able to learn and not just force any kind of sound into a track.

‘I would have never evolved with my music production if it wasn’t for no’s and rejections’

Here are some of the conversation we had on the track:

Of course, it was really hard to accept the fact that my music wasn’t quite cutting it, but either I stop and give up or just push through and make a track that I would have never imagined I’d be able to make a couple of years ago.

It started with this very flat sounding bassline loop with no melodies at all, just a pitched down FX:

0. Flat Bassline Loop

Then I played around with the sound, added a little bit of processing, added hats and a clap and i played around with the notes because my ears were so exhausted of hearing the same note playing over and over again. Came up with this kind of groovy bassline:

1. Groovy Baseline

As I was trying to fiddle around with the bass, I found a vocal sample that was perfect for creating anticipation for the groovy bassline. So I decided to add the vocal alongside a drum fill. I also added more processing to the kick and bass to make it sound more thick:

2. Vocal Entry

After creating what I thought was a strong body to the track, I know I have to accompany it with also a strong melody:

3. Rough Melody

But i was not pleased because it felt like it was forced and it didn’t go smoothly with the track, so I changed the sound and came up with these two melodies:

4. Better, Smooth Melody

Then comes the breakdown which I really enjoyed creating. I always have a thing for breakdowns, to me it creates the emotion of a track. This was the very first version of the breakdown, very empty and the arp melody just didn’t feel right:

5. Empty Breakdown

So I decided to completely change the arp melody because turns out that it was the melody that made it sound a bit weird. I changed the arp melody, brought back the FX’s and i added some ethnic percussion which drew the breakdown more into the theme of the song:

6. Final Breakdown

I created this melody as a draft but It just didn’t sound right to my ears, I was okay with it but i wasn’t happy with it:

7. Draft Melody

I tweaked the notes of the melody a little bit, got rid of the acid and added more saw’ish sounding synths to layer. And this is what i came up with:

8. Final Melody

And alas, ‘The Wounded Healer’ was born:

9. The Wounded Healer (pre-master demo)

I want to say thank you to Daniel who has given me the opportunity to tell a little bit about my upcoming EP, The Wounded Healer and also the story of how I managed to pull through after so many ‘rejections’ and ‘no’s’. ”

Download the EP on Beatport

Источник: Daniel Lesden Blog - The benefits of “no”. Опубликовано с помощью IFTTT.