#myself and the entirety of my high school friend group (about 8 or 9 people) formed the largest faction and we were selling fragrances

[fingertipsmp3]

I am once again sad that a person I bonded with in a dream is not real

[prosopopeya]

New Year’s Meme

this survey has been a tradition among my friend group for YEARS, but i haven’t filled it out since 2015 apparently. i’m not entirely sure why except 2016 was the year a lot of stuff changed for me, namely in that i finally got out of school in some form and started a new job, but i also had a few health problems that kept plaguing me (thyroid medicine being off, vitamin d) and my anxiety was all over the place. so here we go i’m doing it again and feel free to do it too if you want!!

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before? tried on wedding dresses. taught virtually. dealt (poorly) with drunk teenagers. performed in a pep rally. wore face masks all the time. i’m going to lump in living with someone. jon moved in october 2019, but i don’t think i did this quiz last year so. taught ap.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year? i don’t really like resolutions. they put too much pressure on me and i am a fragile person when it comes to setting expectations and living up to them. i did want to try to read more this year, and i maintained that until the pandemic, and then just kind of gave up requiring myself to do anything but live.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? i don’t think so. a coworker did.

4. Did anyone close to you die? jon’s cousin committed suicide in march or april. the circumstances were pretty upsetting. um. andy died in february, very suddenly. andy was my high school boyfriend for four years with whom i had a very... he scarred me in a lot of ways when it comes to sex and consent. it’s taken me a long time to unpack all of that. and i struggle with how much any of that was his fault or just bc he was a stupid kid too. our mutual friends had nothing but nice things to say about him on fb. anyway. he would guilt me into saying he’d kill himself if we broke up, and jon’s cousin killed himself over his girlfriend. so that was a complex part of the year.

5. What countries did you visit? none. literally the week before the quarantine, we went to asheville to visit jon’s cousin.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020? maybe a different job? or at least some peace at doing mine.

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? march 13 we cancelled classes and had a technology training day; the 15th we had another one, and then we were virtual the rest of the term. it was such a sudden shift and while i so loved working from home tbh, it was such a relief after a supremely shitty january/february work-wise, i still had a lot of keyed-up, stressful days centered around transitioning to being the senior upper school spanish teacher. i hate it!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? writing 50k in the month of november. i have literally never done that before and actively reject nano as being typically unhealthy for how my mind works, so it was nice to do it entirely by accident.

9. What was your biggest failure? mishandling the drunken teenagers on that field trip in january.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? i sit crosslegged in my virtual teaching chair and i did it so much that my ankle hurt for the entire summer.

11. What was the best thing you bought? we put a deposit on our elopement in ireland. jon’s wedding ring. (i didn’t buy my wedding dress.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? my best friend at work who keeps me sane and is represented by benny in my au, which other than the fact that he is not my sidepiece, is perfect he is crucial to my survival at work and i love him so much. (also he is gay and the french teacher so the benny parallels just keep coming). everyone who tore down a statue in virginia (and other places, but especially monument avenue). everyone putting their lives on the line during this pandemic.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? guess! but aside from all the obvious, i found out a friend of mine at work voted for trump. my work bff and i had been trying for years to sway his politics, but that had us both deciding to give up on him.

14. Where did most of your money go?  food, ALCOHOL. god., our savings account. i did a pretty excellent job saving this year, though a good deal of that is because jon moved in and makes more money than me, and also we split all the bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? my wedding dress but strangely only when i went to try it on after it came in bc after the purchase i was so sure i’d made every mistake possible. my wedding band. wellbutrin changing my whole life. and, last but certainly not least, the gay angel and the bi(lingual) hunter. i wouldn’t have survived nov-dec in school without that distraction. the election.

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2020? the entirety of taylor swift’s oeuvre this year, maybe specifically “this is me trying”

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:  i. Happier or sadder? happier, i suppose, perhaps contrary to what should be the case, but wellbutrin is a hell of a drug. ii. Older or wiser? wiser. ii. Richer or poorer? richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? reading. cleaning. exercising.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? stressing. chaperoning.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? so, an update; last year was the first year i didn’t go to my mom’s for christmas. i was supposed to see her for thanksgiving last year, but she basically told us not to come bc she wasn’t feeling up to it (cool!), and we went to jon’s for christmas and my mom’s for new year’s. 

this year, obviously we couldn’t go to my mom’s. instead, we rented a little cabin by the lake. it was perfect; it was really really nice inside, the beds were SO SOFT, the pillows were the best things i have ever laid my head on, like i took off the pillowcases to try to find the brand. we had a little tiny christmas tree with tiny ornaments from walmart that we decorated. the 23rd, we went and picked up our wedding bands. we slept two nights in the (cold) back bedroom so i could wake up and look out at the lake. it snowed for christmas. :)

we opened presents on christmas eve, per jon’s family’s tradition. on christmas eve, we also went to his family farm and sat outside and hung out a little. every year his family does like a secret santa sort of thing and i got my first present in that exchange, which is notable bc jon and i are not yet officially married. i got a remote control car -- jon’s idea bc i couldn’t think of anything, and he was so delighted to hear that i loved playing with rc cars when we went to the beach as a kid.

christmas morning we facetimed my parents and opened some presents together. then jon and i marathoned mandalorian (after spending the previous few days watching several die hard movies), and then we watched wonder woman 1984 which was a bad movie.

21. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve? ok LAST year for new year’s, we were in a hotel room, so that was nice, bc it meant minimal stress with my parents. i had always wanted to go to this restaurant near us that has a special new year’s menu, so we did that. the night before or after i think we went to cheesecake factory, which was also amazing.

this year currently i’m tumbling and he’s playing pokemon, and in a bit we’ll try to time it so we finish schitt’s creek in time for the new year.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020? i re-fell in love with supernatural so that was nice.

23. How many one-night stands? 0. i submit we should randomly change question 23 each year to something more relevant to any of our life experiences.

24. What was your favorite TV program? what did i even watch this year. schitt’s creek. mandalorian. i mean obviously we know supernatural. the circle. are you the one (the queer season). pose. unsolved mysteries. we’re here! perry mason. watchmen. oh maybe that mcdonald’s monopoly fraud documentary. avenue 5. i’ll be gone in the dark. of those i think my favorite maybe is... pose or we’re here.

OKAY UM. on my 2014 version of this there were a bunch of questions about tv shows that i’m putting back in if only for the memories:

25. Which TV shows did you start watching in 2020? the haunting of bly manor, which we still need to finish. derry girls.

26. Which TV shows did you let go of in 2020? HERE’S WHY I WANTED TO RESURRECT THESE. here was my answer in 2015: “supernatural. goodbye, my sweet prince.” CAN YOU EVEN FUCKING BELIEVE

27. Which TV shows did you mean to get into but didn’t in 2020? Why? so far, queen’s gambit and that one on hulu with catherine the great. EVENTUALLY. 28. Which TV shows do you intend on checking out in 2020? fleabag. queen’s gambit. 29. Which TV show do you think you might let go of in 2020 unless things significantly improve? idk i drop things pretty regularly if they don’t entertain me 30. Which TV show impressed you least in 2020? GUYS HERE’S MY ORIGINAL 2015 ANSWER: “supernatural. :(”

anyway back to the rest of the quiz:

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? every person who refuses to listen to facts and information.

26. What was the best book you read? killers of the flower moon: the osage murders and the birth of the fbi, or the his dark materials series.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? well i knew about tswift so i’m not going to count her albums. i will count this song that jon played for me once in the car that got stuck in my head for two weeks straight and led me down into a great related-songs spotify playlist: through the roof ‘n underground.

28. What did you want and get? a wedding dress and a very specific kind of wedding band. a gay angel. a christmas getaway. animal crossing.

29. What was your favorite film of this year? idk i don’t know how many films i saw this year. maybe mucho mucho amor: the legend of walter mercado

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i was 32. we went to an escape room with a BUNCH of people -- work bff, my old work bff and his wife (old bc he quit and we’ve fallen out of touch :(), the cool new physics teacher and his fiancee, and the aforementioned trump voter and his wife, before we knew... we went out for brunch/lunch after. it was pretty great!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? not having to chaperone that school trip in january. dean being bi in english as well as spanish. cas just ilke, appearing in 15x20. not having to physically go back to work this fall.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020? no! real! pants!

34. What kept you sane? jon. supernatural (in a way?). animal crossing for a while. wellbutrin! i haven’t really been able to detail this yet, but finally i did something about tumblr and my therapist making me think about adhd. my doctor gave me wellbutrin (bc i lack any official diagnosis and was on anxiety meds anyway, and he was like let’s try this!) and it’s fucking. it’s a fucking godsend. surprisingly enough, my students. trying to provide them a safe space has been a calming thing for me.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? jensen ackles’ silence. misha collins again, i guess.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? the summer was so fucking intense. i guess though it was me trying to exert my influence in a responsible way with my students without trying to try to make them feel uncomfortable but then one kid was a vocally upset trump supporter after the election and i had to try to defuse that situation.

37. Who did you miss? my old work bff. several old friends that i’ve fallen out of touch with bc i have no object permanence.

38. Who was the best new person you met? people i met through the spn resurgence!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020: if you manifest it in an au, it will come. no really though. maybe that expectations are only as important as i make them out to be.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: usually i have a hard time coming up with anything for this and i default to looking at my most played songs of the year. my most played song of the year received each and every one of its plays within the month of november and you can guess why. anyway see if this works

I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Take me back to the night we met - the night we met, lord huron

[dweemeister]

2020 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (preliminary round)

Yup, it’s back (bullet indentations are not working, so this post will look very ugly on your dashboards)!

Tagging a few folks who have participated before in this annual tradition/folks who I would like to extend an open invitation to (please contact me if you’re interested so I can sort you in a group ASAP... you will also be tagged for the final unless you tell me you are not interested): @birdsongvelvet, @bitch-genius, @dog-of-ulthar, @idontknowmuchaboutmovies, @loveless422, @lvl9gay, @neverwasastoryofmorewhoa, @phendranaedge, @poncho-honcho, @sayaf, @shadesofhappy, @thethirdman8, @uncoolforelimb, and @wehadfacesthen.

Hello everybody. For my fellow Americans, I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. For the non-Americans reading things, I hope you are doing well, as always! Many things have fallen to the wayside in this unforgettable year. So in hopes of providing some sense of continuity and normalcy, here - as you have agreed to - is the Preliminary Round for 2020's Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (MOABOS). This is the eighth time it has been contested and the seventh consecutive year it has been open to involvement from family, friends, and tumblr followers.

For those new to this, my classic movie blog traditionally ends the year by honoring some of the best achievements from movies that I saw for the first time this calendar year (the "Movie Odyssey") with an Oscar-like ceremony. I choose all the nominees and winners from each category, save one: Best Original Song. It is the only category I can think of that does not require you to watch several movies in their entirety. I consider MOABOS as a sort of cinematic-musical thank-you for your moral support in various ways.

An unspecified number of songs have already advanced to the final round. 24 songs will contest this prelim in two groups - Group A and Group B. In a year when COVID-19 has closed theaters (and which I refused to go to an indoor theater even when they reopened), a year that I did not feel compelled to watch the newest releases on streaming services, there is not a single 2020 entry for 2020's MOABOS. That is, obviously, a MOABOS first - no other MOABOS edition has lacked a shortlisted song from a film released that same calendar year. And as of writing this sentence, I have not seen a single film released in 2020. Despite the lack of 1930s songs, this year's shortlisted songs might be the oldest on average. In other news, this year's field is a modest improvement from the record monolingual field of last year's (which contained only English and two Vietnamese-language entries). 2019's preliminary was the most chaotic we had ever seen, with shocking last-day stumbles and surges from certain songs ("I Dug a Ditch" from Thousands Cheer) that riled up a lot of participants. It's 2020 - will there be a repeat or even more drama at this stage?

INSTRUCTIONS Please rank (#1-12) at least six of your group's songs. Please consider to the best of your ability: how musically interesting the song is (incl. and not limited to musical phrasing and orchestration); its lyrics; context within the film (contextual blurbs provided for every entry for those who haven't seen the films); choreography/dance direction (if applicable); and the song's cultural impact/life outside the film (if applicable, and, in my opinion, least important factor). Imperfections in audio and video quality may not be used against any song. I encourage you to send in comments and reactions with your rankings - it makes the process more enjoyable for you and myself! The top five songs in each group automatically advance to the final round. I reserve the right to pick 0-2 songs from one or both groups that finished outside the top five in their respective groups to contest the final round.

The deadline for submission is Saturday, December 12 at 11 PM Pacific Time. That is 9 PM Hawaii/Aleutian Time. That deadline is also Sunday, December 13 at 1 AM Central Time / 2 AM Eastern Time / 7 AM GMT / 8 AM CET / 9 AM EET. This deadline - as we have seen in the last few years - may be pushed back if there are a large number of people who have not submitted in time. However, I very much do not wish to extend the deadline because the final round is more intensive and usually involves more participants. Tabulation details are in the “read more” below.

Please participate in the group you have been sorted into, if you have not yet been sorted into a group and would like to participate, please contact me. You can access most, not all, of your group’s songs in these YouTube playlists: (Group A) / (Group B). Again, please note that not all of your group's songs are in the playlist for various reasons.

Happy listening. Feel free to listen as many times as you need, and I hope you discover music and movies that strike your interest. The following is formatted... ("Song title", composer and lyricist, film title):

GROUP A

“Blue Shadows on the Trail”, music and lyrics by Eliot Daniel and Johnny Lange, Melody Time (1948)

Performed by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers

This is the introductory song to the final segment of Melody Time. That segment is dedicated to the legend of Pecos Bill, and this atmospheric song leads into the telling of that story.

“Born Free”, music by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black, Born Free (1966)

Performed by Matt Munro

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This version with lyrics appears in the end credits. The main theme in the song is introduced in the opening credits and is incorporated extensively in John Barry's score across the film. Born Free, based on the non-fiction book of the same name is about two white Kenyan conservationists who raise an orphaned lion cub and eventually release her into the wild.

“But the World Goes 'Round”, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli

In this musical, USO singer Francine Evans (Minnelli) has been performing in New York City nightclubs, hoping to someday become a major recording star. This song appears as she is recording that very hit that will propel her to stardom.

“Exsultate Justi”, music and lyrics by John Williams, Empire of the Sun (1987)

Performed by orchestra and chorus under the direction of Williams

Lyrics in Latin

In this historical epic, affluent British school boy Jamie Graham (a young Christian Bale) is living with his parents in Shanghai when the Japanese invade. Jamie is separated from his parents and placed in an internment camp. Soon before the end of WWII, the prisoners are moved elsewhere, but Jamie hides and stays put. This song plays as Jamie bikes around the empty camp and continues to play as he encounters liberating U.S. troops. Jamie is dirty and malnourished when found; one can argue that this song is used ironically. It plays once more over the end credits. "Exsultate Justi" is a variation on a theme John Williams develops over the course of the film and harkens back to Jamie's past, attending Anglican services with parents.

"Farewell to Storyville",  music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band, Billie Holiday, and company

In New Orleans, the Storyville district was a den of drinking, gambling, jazz, and prostitution. The district was the home to a heavily black populace. The U.S. military, about to establish a Naval base nearby, forces the city to close the district for good. This song is a jazzy dirge to a center of jazz - a musical genre looked down upon by many of the city's upper-class whites due to its ties (real and imagined) to crime.

"Hawaiian Sunset", music and lyrics by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency - and this includes performing during a luau for tourists. "Hawaiian Sunset" appears as one of the dinner show's numbers.

"Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?", music and lyrics by Yôjirô Noda, Weathering with You (2019, Japan)

Performed by RADWIMPS

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Weathering with You is a romantic fantasy anime about a high school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo, where he meets a girl who can manipulate the weather. It has been inexplicably raining for weeks without interruption in Tokyo, so they form a business to help clear the inclement weather for special events. The melody of this song is heard throughout the film's score. It does not appear with lyrics until late in the film. The song is played under the boy's seemingly impossible attempt to save her from an unwilling human sacrifice.

There is so much plot in this damn film (it's all Makoto Shinkai's fault) - I can't explain the context of the song or this movie in a reasonable amount of space.

“Mad Monster Party”, music by Maury Laws, lyrics by Jules Bass, Mad Monster Party? (1967)

Performed by Ethel Ennis

(opening credits version) / (soundtrack version with no sound effects)

In this Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated film, Baron Boris von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff in his final Frankenstein-related role) has discovered a formula that can destroy matter. Dispatching his bats to send the news, he summons the various members of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters to inform them of his discovery. This song is performed over the film's opening credits and the various introductions for the monsters as they receive their summons.

“My Dream Is Yours”, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Ralph Blane, My Dream Is Yours (1949)

Initially performed by Doris Day; later reprised by Hal Derwin

Singer Martha Gibson (Day) has abruptly left New York City for Los Angeles to become a star on the radio. In a film where personal sacrifice is central, she stresses over how to bring her son out west with her, the direction of her career, and her tumultuous love life. "My Dream Is Yours" is the song that makes Martha a star, laying out the film's themes in its lyrics. I was unable to find Derwin's reprise, but no matter as the reprise is rather inconsequential.

“Ride the Wild Surf”, music and lyrics by Jan Berry, Brian Wilson, and Roger Christian, Ride the Wild Surf (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

Ride the Wild Surf is a surfing film that, unlike most surfing films of this time, is a drama. It follows three surfers (Fabian, Tab Hunter, Peter Brown) who have come to Oahu at the end of December to ride the large waves of Waimea Bay (made famous internationally by this song, this movie, and the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA"). This song appears in the film's closing credits. The video provided is a montage of surfing footage that appears in the film.

“That’ll Do”, music and lyrics by Randy Newman, Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

Performed by Peter Gabriel

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This song begins at the end (and through the end credits) of Babe: Pig in the City, the second and last film in this series about a sheep-herding pig who perseveres amidst other animals and humans with ulterior agendas. The title is derived from the famous quote said by Arthur Hoggett (James Cromwell) to reassure Babe: "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

“Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Hassen Sitam”, music and lyrics by S.D. Burman, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Geeta Dutt (dubbing Waheeda Rehman)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "Time Has Inflicted Such Sweet Cruelty On Us"

Song begins at 1:03:31 and ends at 1:07:51

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy told in flashback, Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is a director looking back on his life. Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. This song is the most explicit statement of that love in this film. How much of the scene's set-up is observable by the characters is up to the viewer's interpretation.

Group A participants include: @addaellis, @introspectivemeltdown, @memetoilet, @myluckyerror, @plus-low-overthrow, @shootingstarvenator, @themusicmoviesportsguy, @theybecomestories, @umgeschrieben, @underblackwings, @yellanimal. Seven others - including myself and my sister - are currently slated to be voting in Group A.

GROUP B

“Angela”, music and lyrics by José Feliciano and Janna Merlyn Feliciano, Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

Performed by José Feliciano

(English-language version) / (Spanish single version)

Played over the opening credits to this teenage drama that is partly a blaxploitation film, partly an interracial coming-of-age romance. The movie wasn't a hit, but the Spanish-language version of this song was received well in Latin America.

“Aren’t You Kind of Glad We Did?”, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947)

Originally performed by Betty Grable and Dick Haymes

(soundtrack version with Judy Garland and Haymes) / (modern arrangement far more faithful to how song sounds in the film)

Cynthia Pilgrim (Grable) is the top typewriting student from a business college in this period piece where the typewriter is the newest invention to sweep the business world. This song appears as Pilgrim and her boss, John Pritchard (Haymes), are about to go out on a date for dinner after talking about how society looks down on women in public without a chaperone.

“The Blues are Brewin’”, music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band and Billie Holiday

(in-film version) / (Billie Holiday single)

After being evicted by the U.S. military from the historic Storyville district of New Orleans (the Navy had just opened a base in the area, and would not tolerate places of gambling, jazz, and prostitution nearby), the characters played by Armstrong and Holiday tour the country with a jazz band in tow. This song appears within a montage showing the passage of time.

“Dekhi Zamaane Ki Yaari / Bichhde Sabhi Baari Baari”, music by S.D. Burman, lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Mohammad Rafi (dubbing Guru Dutt)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "I Have Seen How Deeply Friendship Lies / I Have Seen People Abandon Me One by One"

Part 1 (3:44-8:27) / Part 2 (2:16:29-2:20:42)

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy, Suresh Sinha (Dutt) is a washed-up director looking back on his life. In the first part, the song leads into the rest of the film - which is almost entirely a flashback. In brief, Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. Eventually, his career crashes after a box office bomb and her career is ascendant. Leading into the second part of the song, Suresh is penniless and working as an extra at the movie studio. Shanti recognizes him, wants to help, but he refuses to revive his career on the back of her success. Kaagaz Ke Phool has elements of autobiography, and Suresh's fate has parallels with what happened to Dutt after this film was released.

“End Theme from Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades”, music by Eiken Sakurai, lyrics by Kazuko Koike, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972, Japan)

Performed by Tomisaburo Wakayama

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Video provided is not safe for work (NSFW) due to stylized violence

Ogami Ittô (Wakayama) is a former, disgraced executioner for the Tokugawa shogunate who wanders the land with his young son. He is intent on exacting revenge on the clan that murdered his wife. This song is played non-diegetically after Ittô has slain dozens of a corrupt governor's bodyguards and walks onward, pushing his son in a babycart, away from the dead left in his wake. This is the third of six films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

"Happy Endings", music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli and company (that's Jack Haley - who played the Tin Man and was, at the time, Minnelli's father-in-law - roughly seven minutes in)

(use in film) / (soundtrack version)

It is highly recommended one sees how this song is used in the film. Bear with me: this song is part of a movie within a movie. Within that movie within a movie, there is another movie. "Happy Endings" is the title end song to a film called Happy Endings within New York, New York. Singer Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli) has made it big as a recording artist and caps off her hit film, Happy Endings, with this song. We see Francine's ex, played by Robert De Niro, in the audience as the film ends. "Happy Endings" is a homage/deconstruction to midcentury Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musicals. It serves the film as "The Broadway Melody" does to Singin' in the Rain (1952) or the 17-minute ballet does to conclude An American in Paris (1951).

"Here They Come (From All Over the World)", music and lyrics by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

The link above provides the entire film. You only need to watch from 0:00-4:11. If you like music from this era or want to hear more, this film is highly, highly recommended.

This is the opening credits song to a concert film recorded over two days in Santa Monica, California on October 28 and 29, 1964. The Teenage Awards Music International (T.A.M.I. - yes, I know it's an awkward name) Show included many of the most popular musical stars of that time - almost all of them name-dropped in this song. Jan and Dean, a surf music duo, served as hosts (and performed during) the show. You folks are lucky that this is the only original song from this film!

“Moonlight Swim”, music by Ben Weisman, lyrics by Sylvia Dee, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency. On his first day, he drives his first clients - a school teacher (who not so secretly is attracted to Chad) and four teenagers (one of whom becomes smitten) - to their destination.

“On the Boardwalk (in Atlantic City)”, music by Josef Myrow, lyrics by Mack Gordon, Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)

Performed by Carol Stewart (dubbing for Vera-Ellen), June Haver, and Vivian Blaine

(original soundtrack) / (Dick Haymes single)

In this rarely-seen musical (20th Century Fox wasn't very good at promoting its back catalogue compared to some other studios, and the situation is worse now that they are owned by Disney), three chicken farmer sisters (Vera-Ellen, Haver, and Blaine) decide to travel to Atlantic City in hopes of marrying a rich husband after learning their aunt's inheritance is not nearly as much as they want. They sing this song as they arrive and check into their hotel suite - which they apparently have not looked up the rate for.

Those who listened to the soundtrack version... FYI, $9.25 in 1902 is $280 in 2020.

“Personality”, music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke, Road to Utopia (1946)

Performed by Dorothy Lamour

(in-film performance) / (live radio performance)

In the fourth film of the Road to... comedy series, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's characters have just overpowered two Alaskan thugs with a history of murderous violence. As they enter a saloon dressed up as those two thugs, all of the patrons - in a town that only knows the thugs by reputation - shut up in terror. They are treated to a performance by Sal (Lamour), who is trying to find a map of a gold mine that the real outlaws supposedly have. A visual narrator (Robert Benchley) interrupts the scene before the song briefly.

“Please Don’t Stop Loving Me”, music and lyrics by Joy Byers, Frankie and Johnny (1966)

Performed by Elvis Presley

(in-film performance) / (single version)

Johnny (Elvis) and girlfriend Frankie (Donna Douglas) work on a Mississippi River riverboat as performers. Johnny is addicted to gambling and believes that another woman is spurring on his recent run of good luck. During a fit of jealousy-as-acting, Frankie accidentally shoots Johnny during a bit of musical theater (someone switched out the blanks for real bullets). This song occurs after Johnny has recovered from the accident.

"Wichita", music by Hans Salter, lyrics by Ned Washington, Wichita (1955)

Performed by Tex Ritter

This is the opening title song to this Western. It is one of many Wyatt Earp movies set before the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp (Joel McCrea) arrives in an otherwise lawless town of Wichita, Kansas where gunplay is rampant. In a radical move, Earp orders to seize the firearms of anyone living in or entering town - which doesn't sit well with some outlaws. This song is incorporated throughout the film's score.

Group B participants include: @cokwong, @emilylime5, @halfwaythruthedark, @maximiliani, @thewolfofelectricavenue, and @voicetalentbrendan. Twelve others - including me and my sister - are slated to be voting in Group B.

Contact me however you wish if you have questions or comments regarding MOABOS' processes or something specific about a song or a few. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are having difficulty accessing one of the songs (especially if it is region-locked) or if there is an error in the playlist.

I thank you all for your support for the Movie Odyssey, the blog, and for me personally - no matter how long I’ve known you or in what capacity. You will be contacted for the final round regardless of your participation here. If turnout in one group is lagging behind compared to another, I will ask some of the more senior participants to participate in the other group, too. No pressure if you cannot get to this, although I will be checking in as the deadlines get close. Stay safe and socially distanced, everyone.

TABULATION This preliminary round uses a points-based, ranked choice method which has been used since the first time I asked friends, tumblr followers, and family to help out. A respondent’s first choice receives 10 points, the second choice receives 9, the third choice receives 8, etc. The winner is the song that ends up with the most total points. The tabulation method used in this preliminary is used only as a tiebreaker in the final round (more on how the final is tabulated when we get there).

This tiebreaker will look slightly different this year.  

Tiebreakers for above: 1) total points earned; 2) total #1 votes; 3) average placement on my and my sister's ballots; 4) tie declared

[beneaththetangles]

The Samurai Steps Out on Faith…

“Would you consider joining our team?”

I have to admit, when I saw those words appear on my screen a few months ago, I was beyond stunned. Me? You want ME to join up with Beneath the Tangles?!

Me? A guy who updates his own blog once a year AT BEST?!

Me? A guy who wrote a scathing series of articles about a VERY controversial subject resulting in some PRODIGIOUSLY cutting reviews and commentary leaving me mentally MIA for a whole month?!

ME? A guy who has been known to turn into an Angry Black Man on a wide variety of subjects including politics?!

You seriously want me, a mid-thirty’s black man from Louisiana who just so happens to have spent the last 25 years of his life consuming and loving anime to come write for Beneath the Tangles?

Knowing all this, you want me?

“Well…alright then. You got me. I probably can’t give you much, but you’ll get the best of what I got.”

And with that…here I am.

Hi. I’m Joshua. You can call me Josh. Or Cajun Samurai. Whichever you prefer. Heck, I’m not picky. I’ve been called so many things in the course of my life. Heck, the last few MONTHS I’ve been called some REAL colorful things. Heck, once when I was engaged in a heated political debate (as I tend to do), I was once called a lizard. I wore that name with pride for a while. Lizards are cool. Steve Irwin, God rest his soul, taught me that. In any case, for simplicity sake, I’m Josh. I’m sure most of you got to know me really well in my introduction on Twitter when I spammed your timelines with anime likes and dislikes. If you think THAT was a lot of info, you should see what I post on my own Twitter account. I’m the self-crowned prince of reaction pictures and live-tweeting.

As I mentioned above, I’m a Louisiana native. And before you ask, no, I don’t live in New Orleans. Honestly, I don’t really go to New Orleans that often unless it’s for my yearly trek to MechaCon…and even then, after next year, MechaCon will be going bye-bye, so my trips to NOLA will probably be even more infrequent. Unless I can score some Saints tickets. Cam Jordan, if you’re reading this, I know you’re an anime fan. Hook a brother up.

Once upon a time, I once had a pretty okay blog called The Cajun Samurai. It was just a place where I could get some reviews done and write up some small articles. At the time I started it, I was working a desk job that allowed me plenty of free time to write until my heart was content. But then, things happened, and I got laid off from my cushy job of seven years, and I had to go back out into the real world and do some real work. From a major airline to a major shipping company, to a local automotive parts company to a major lab testing company, I’ve been blessed to see so many different things and have so many different experiences, but sadly, my time to work on my blog was truncated severely and my poor blog was dang near neglected.

I did, however, find time in late January to write up a series of posts about a…particular hot topic that shook the anime community in 2019. I won’t get into it here, but suffice it to say, it was a MAJOR project for me, and a couple of my more…heated posts…caught some REAL undesired attention…which put me in a mental place that I did NOT want to be in. I found myself second guessing a lot of what I did, and I spent the entirety of February wondering if I was actually right in what I wrote. Did I go too far? Did I take it to a level that it didn’t need to go to? Did I compromise my own spiritual beliefs? All this went through my head and it was just so overwhelming. Suffice it to say, when I look back at February 2020, it won’t be the best of times. However, here we are in August, and, in the words of Elton John, “I’m still standing.” However, I can honestly say I didn’t get through it alone, not by a long shot.

Faith was something that I leaned on every step of the way. If it wasn’t but for the love and sweet mercy of the Lord, I would’ve driven myself completely insane. There was SO MUCH prayer going on during that time, and sometimes it was a struggle to get by on an hourly basis, to say nothing of a daily basis. In fact, I fully believe it was God working through TWWK that provided so much support to me both spiritually and emotionally; I can’t even put it into words how much I relied on his support and strength and just knowing that someone else out there was pulling for me, praying for me…it’s a beautiful feeling. I know I’ve probably driven him crazy with my many messages during that time, especially since he has his own family and life, but honestly, I doubt I would’ve been able to get through this without him and some of my other friends online. Also, knowing that the Beneath the Tangles crew were praying for me touched my heart so much. I owe them so much.

Then, one day, TWWK asked me that infamous question about coming over to write and do some Twitter posts. At first, I admit I was hesitant; I was almost ready to turn him down because of all the issues that I went through over my blog posts. I would never…EVER want to expose anyone to drama that involves myself and another person or group of people, and I felt that the target on my back, however faded and off center, would be a target on anyone I was affiliated with. But then I remembered a bit of scripture that pretty much smacked me across the face like Mrs. Kamiya slapped Tai across the face in that one episode of Digimon:

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. – Joshua 1:9

“Be not afraid”. “Be NOT afraid”.

Those words rung in my head loud as a bell. And it was for ME specifically. For this particular bit of scripture to be found in the book of JOSHUA…the book I am named after that tells the story of a man who had nothing but his faith to step out on…it was like a spiritual “Hey, Listen!” Sometimes, you have to step out on the strength of your faith and see where it leads you. It’s one thing to say that you believe in God and you trust in God, but at some point in your lives, be it making a small decision like joining a Christian anime blog, or a large decision like getting married or starting that new business, you have to take that leap OF faith ON your faith.

Many times I’ve found myself on that cliff about to take that leap of faith and many times I thought “Dang it, is this the right thing to do? Did I do everything right? Maybe I should rethink this…” but then I say “You know what, God? You brought me to this point. You said You would not put more on me than I can bear.  You picked me up each time I fell. You know the outcome of this. What do I have to be afraid of? I trust YOU. Lets do this.”

And so…here I am. For as long as you’ll have me, I humbly offer my services to you, dear reader. It is my hope and prayer that God blesses me with the writing acumen that will entertain you, challenge your thinking, and maybe make your day just a little bit better.

With that out the way, borrowing an idea from TWWK, I offer up my (CURRENT) top 30 anime of all time as a way to introduce myself anime-wise. Keep in mind, this list is always changing. In fact, up to the time of posting, this list has probably gone through about 20 changes. Why? Because just like the autumnal wind, my tastes and interests in anime ebb and flow. Today’s hotness will probably be tomorrow’s “meh”-ness. But as it stands right now, this is it. Yes, there’s some old stuff, yes there’s some new stuff…there may even be a few titles that will surprise you. Hopefully this list, and any subsequent posts, will give you some kind of idea of what kind of anime I like, and by extension, maybe what kind of person I am.

30. Yamada-Kun and the Seven Witches 29. Hitorijime My Hero 28. Silver Spoon 27. Bunny Drop (Usagi Drop) – PLEASE DON’T READ THE MANGA. PLEASE… 26. Lucky Star 25. Daily Lives of High School Boys 24. Hunter X Hunter 23. Sarazanmai 22. Nichijou 21. My Love Story 20. Azumanga Daioh 19. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit 18. Persona 4: The Animation 17. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad 16. Kodocha 15. Nerima Daikon Brothers 14. Digimon Tamers 13. FLCL (Original) 12. Neon Genesis Evangelion 11. Ghost Stories (English Dub) 10. Aria: The Animation 9. Nagi no Asukara 8. Assassination Classroom 7. Toradora! 6. Mysterious Girlfriend X 5. Planetes 4. Aria: The Origination 3. Aria: The Natural 2. Cowboy Bebop 1. Digimon Adventure (1999)

Admittedly, I’m not a HUGE fan of countdown lists because I always feel I’m forgetting something and I’m never FULLY satisfied with my choices, but I think this is a pretty comprehensive list! Of course, I’ll probably lay awake in bed tonight scrolling through Crunchyroll and think “OH CRAP! I FORGOT XYZ SHOW!!” and then kick myself for not including it, but hey, for the time being, this list is pretty much THE list. Just know that, quite literally, this list was updated and picked over all the way up to the day it was published!

And I think I’ve taken enough of your time! Funny how this post went from just being an introduction to a testimony to an anime countdown, huh? As a southerner, we tend to digress quite often. I ask that you please put up with my many digressions as I start this new God-given path I set out on with my new friends. Ya’ll have a good one and, as we say down here in Louisiana: Laissez le bon temps rouler! (let the good times roll!)

[throtegote]

Yung Waitloz (2012 me’s rapper name)

(If you’d like to read this off my wix blog here’s the link: https://erikatriesall.wixsite.com/tlhodia)

If you get triggered by topics concerning body image and weight loss then proceed with caution or don’t proceed at all.

I probably discuss way too much personal stuff online, but hey, who doesn’t appreciate a little oversharing every once in a while?

I have never been skinny or slim, let’s start there. Sure, I was a tiny baby, but that was about it. I have always been bigger than a lot of my classmates and even now I’m in no way built like a Victoria’s Secret model. Also, keep in mind that I’ve never been clinically obese or severely overweight. Got it? Cool.

Enter My Mom. She has been on my case to lose weight for as long as I remember. I admit, there were times when I was particularly chonky, but that’s beside the point. I remember being 8-9 years old when she spent over 15 minutes ridiculing and calling me out on how my spandex gym tights made noises as my thighs rubbed together during our uphill walk around the residential estate. She was also and still is, fond of pinching my “love-handles” (in quotes because if I remember “You can’t even call them love handles because you have nobody loving you.”),  with her long-ass, sharp nails whenever they appeared over the waistband of my pants.

(I’m not bitter or anything)

Essentially, 8-year-old me was told to lose weight enough times to try. I ate the food they gave me, and only what they gave me, and went on walks occasionally with My Mom (which I despised because I really didn’t leave the comfort of my room to be berated by my birth giver). I even started taking netball more seriously and started athletics training. What I also started doing was paying close attention to the bodies of girls around me and playing spot the difference. Not too long afterwards I learned to hate clothes shopping and hide in group photos. When I look through photo albums and my parent’s phone galleries now, it’s plain to see that I was an Olympic grade camera dodger.

Fast forward a few years. Now I’m 11-12 years old. I’ve grown taller and older, so my weight distribution has changed, but I’m still not skinny. My Mom is still on me to lose weight, even more so now that I’m older and maturing into “womanhood” because apparently, it is a crime to wear pants only a few sizes smaller than your mother of similar body structure and lesser height. Now that I’m older and more educated, I’ve realized that even though I was playing a sport and jogging and going for aerobics with my mom occasionally, I won’t get skinny unless I change my diet. In fact, there was a time when some government nurses came to do regional health checks at school and some data included body weight (there was a crowd around me when it was my turn to hop on the scale. The boys laughed, I went to the bathroom and cried. But it’s all good). The nurses then asked me questions about stuff like the bread we had at home, if I ate junk food or added sugar, stuff like that. That’s when it clicked. It clicked real hard.

A typical school lunch packed by My Mom comprised a hotdog/ham sandwich/homemade burger, a packet of chips/crisps and a juice box or Tropica when she was feeling generous. Which is what my brothers and a lot of my friends were packing to school with no problems: but I’m not built like those people so I can’t eat like them, right? The lunch had to go. And go it did. And so did pretty much all my other regular meals.

If My Mom was distracted with getting ready for work, I’d ditch breakfast and lie about it, then hop onto the school bus. Getting rid of the stuff in my lunchbox wasn’t too difficult to do because I had friends who were happy to help. This meant that for the first 12 hours of the day all I had was a juice box or nothing at all. It worked. My Mom noticed and complimented my improved physique along with a handful of relatives. But was I skinny? Not even.

Then came the Google searches. “How to lose weight quickly” “How to get skinny” “How to get a thigh gap” “How to lose thigh fat fast” Just to name a few.

That’s when I discovered the infamous pro-anorexia community. Or should I say that’s when they found me? I’m not too sure.

Over the school holidays, I started with the so-called “K-pop” diets and did YouTube workouts every night with more consistency than my prayer life. Two boiled eggs for breakfast, some milk for lunch (which was disastrous because apparently, I’m lactose intolerant), and for dinner… water, with or without lemon or tea. It really depended on the day. Not that hard to get away with, really. When the fat girl says they’re not hungry, who are you to force them?

But I couldn’t lose weight fast enough. Sure, slowly killing myself was working, but was I skinny? Nah.

So, I turned to “thinspo” and “pretty girl diet” challenges and "pro-ana" coaches to guide me. (If you're somebody who thinks it's okay to coax children into dangerous eating disorders and potentially death, you deserve a chair. But make it electric. Periodt.) My stomach was flattening, and my pants came on a lot easier, but the truth was I was utterly miserable. Getting skinny was all I thought about. And I’m not talking about Victoria’s Secret model skinny, I got to a point where I was jealous of the science lab skeleton, no jokes. Food wasn’t food anymore; it was just numbers and macros. I was always dizzy and cranky and my hair was falling out and even though I had done it for long enough to overcome the hunger pangs, there was a new pain, one that manifested in my chest and couldn’t be treated with sleep or Panado. I was the only one on holiday for three months, so nobody noticed.

I was twelve when I first tried to off myself with prescription drugs. All because I couldn’t be skinny and in my head that meant I couldn’t be pretty, or loved, or befriended. I woke up after a 8-hour “nap” to find that nothing had changed.

Why am I exposing myself by telling this story?

If you’re a parent or sibling or anyone who cares for a child who you think needs to lose weight for whatever reason (hopefully for health-related reasons, not purely aesthetics), please do not leave them to their own devices. They will search for authoritative guidance elsewhere, and the wrong people may find them. People who prescribe oxygen as a meal plan and perpetuate the notion that if you can pinch at your flesh, then you are ugly and will remain ugly until you are feather-light. Despite being one of the smartest kids in my grade, I still fell for it. (Update: I’m still not skinny. I probably only fucked up my metabolism and lost hair. -100/10, would not recommend to my worst enemy.)

Good news is at some point I got sick and tired of feeling the way I did. My suicide attempt failed miserably but instead of trying again, I uninstalled all my calorie counter and fitness apps, tossed all my magazines in the trash and talked to my mom and made it a point to talk to friends more, especially those who understood in some way or another. The Body Positivity movement was rising, and that helped a lot. Big ups to all the lovely people on YouTube who post videos on #recovery.

But experiences like this don’t just go away. You don’t forget and move on. I still have relapses, I still feel insurmountable guilt after eating, I still feel like I would rather eat baked rat than gain weight, I still go through binge-restrict cycles. All stemming from events that happened over 8 years ago.

My Mom had some level of good intention, I won't disregard that. People on her side of the family suffer from chronic illnesses that can all be prevented if not managed better through proper diet and exercise and she doesn't want her kids developing high blood pressure at age 13. Fine, I get it. But damn.

If you can avoid doing this to yourself or someone impressionable in your life, please do. Model healthy behaviours for your kids to adopt and talk health; not snatched waistlines, not thigh gaps nor scale readings. Teach your kids not to base the entirety of their worth on their appearance. And do not, under any circumstances, body shame them.

Please?

Once again, a lot of what is here is based on personal experience and opinion (‘coz it’s my blog, duh’). If you have separate ideas or any disagreements, bring them up in the comments or email me. I love a good debate.

Also, if you currently relate to anything mentioned in this post, take this as your sign to get better. Trust me, you're worth it.

xoxo

Erika

[starlitwishforu]

Forty-Two Things I’ve Learned in School, by Chronological Order, that is if Time is on a Sugar High

1. Horizontal means lying down, and vertical means standing up. This is a critical distinction.

2. Friendships don’t always start with a bang or a whimper. Sometimes, they seep in like the cold during a January recess, leaving you shivering with delight and wondering if you’d ever really lived without it settled into the gaps between your bones.

3. That girl on the dance team who started high school when I started fifth grade is not the oldest person in the whole wide world, and in fact is very much almost my age, and in further fact is a better friend than idol.

4. When you make a friend who exists outside the torn edges of a paperback you will learn their entire history not in an hour and a half and a few hundred pages, but rather a few hundred hours and a page and a half, maybe. You will spend most of those hours wondering about the parts you have not been told. 

5. A circle is made up of all the points that are equidistant from a single point.

6. A good essay has an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

7. Enough California history to want to move to Virginia.

8. Taylor Swift died at sixteen.

 a.Taylor Swift did not die at sixteen, and her best songs are usually wildly inappropriate.

9. The Harry Potter series is not nearly as scary but much more sad than it was made out to be.

 a. Harry Potter is not just a series; it’s an obsession.

 b. Harry Potter is not just an obsession, it’s a lifestyle.

10. Best friends are hard to come by, and they are often the least impressive person in the room at first glance. The best best friends are the ones you fall a little in love with.

11. If you fall a little in love with someone you are vaguely acquainted with you should make them one of your best friends as soon as possible so as to avoid losing several years of what could have been an epic friendship.

12. Stupid white boys do not get any less stupid in middle school.

 a. Neither does math class.

 b. That doesn’t mean you will crush on the stupid white boy in your math class any less.

13. At least, until you see Him across the history classroom.

14. When you’ve read more romance novels in your life than the rest of your seating row combined you will become a romantic at heart. Symptoms include: crushing on every boy in aforementioned seating row for at least two weeks in the first semester of sixth grade. The last one, who sits right next to you, will last two years. This is inconvenient.

15. Twilight is a good form of sex ed, but not as good as fanfiction.

16. Horizontal means lying down, vertical means standing up, the distinction is less critical in-- certain situations, and I did not need to know that for another three years at least.

17. In the mornings the California sun will peak through the blinds of every window, whisper hello, and slip away to the next one. It’s a gentle caress as familiar as a mother’s hand, and on rainy days it is sorely missed. Perhaps this is why rainy days are so delightfully depressing.

18. A posse is made up of a group of people that are equally close to a single stupid white boy.

 a. Do not refer to someone’s posse as a harem unless you want to be given a horrified look and a relatively wide berth for the rest of the year.

19. That boy who sits next to me in history, who has been playing piano since the womb, probably, has nice hands and a crooked smile and a tendency to run his hands through his hair when he’s trying to convince me to let him copy my homework.

 a. You know what else he has? A girlfriend.

20. Sometimes you will wake up in the morning with another best friend and no memory of how they wiggled their way into your heart.

 a. (Spoiler alert-- she’s the best thing that ever happened to you, idiot.)

21. So, like. Gay people exist. 

22. A scatter plot is made up of several points that are distributed on a graph and fall into a particular pattern.

23. A friend group is made up of several people that are distributed in a cafeteria corner that fall into a particular pattern. 

24. Piano Boy from sixth-grade history is willing to befriend me outside the context of class. This is the most important revelation I will have for the entirety of the first half of seventh grade.

25. So, like. LGBT people exist in real life. 

26. What you do to one side of an equation, you do to the other. Balance is crucial.

27. Except I’ve been learning to balance on my tippy-toes since I was six years old, so why does talking to him make me stumble over my own feet?

28. Piano Boy likes me back!

 a. Piano Boy confesses, then doesn’t talk to me for a month or seven.

 b. Piano Boy now has a girlfriend.

 c. Stupid bastard.

29. So, like. All sorts of queer people exist! In real life! I know one!

30. This year, in eighth grade, I no longer define myself by a boy with a crooked smile and piano hands and the sort of naivety that thinks it is love. This feels freer than I want to give it credit for, but not for long, because

31. So this is what crushing on a girl feels like. 

32. Oh.

 a. Oh.

 b. Ah.

 c. Ah--

 d. Hm.

33. Happiness is now, happiness is what is here, happiness is sun and studying and friendship and dancing. But Happiness is anticipation, Happiness is what comes next, Happiness is the promise of tomorrow.

34. Misery is losing the promise of tomorrow.

35. Let’s rewind a bit.

 a. Happiness is spending an entire night in the best place in the world, with the girls you call family and boba milk tea and an entire night to do whatever you want.

 b. Happiness is playing Apples to Apples and exchanging gifts and making leaf puns.

 c. Happiness is sitting in the corner and watching her dance as though the stars themselves are entwined with her flying fingertips, last run-through and then I’m free-- but I want to see you dance more-- constellation fingers are much better than piano hands.

 d. Happiness is falling asleep amidst tangled limbs and sleeping bags. (Sleep’s not the only thing I’m falling into, but I don’t know that yet.)

36. Happiness is casual kisses on the shoulder and slipping my hand into constellations and friends forever, right?

37. R i g h t.

38. High school is scarier than Harry Potter was in second grade, and the future scarier than that, and facing it alone the most terrifying of all.

39. But everyone knows that.

40. Happiness is falling mid-dance with a laugh, walls of sadness falling down for a little while, falling asleep tangled in less limbs than before but more kisses (despite all the walls that can’t come down, despite friends forever), having already fallen deep into this river of the sky, hey mountain meet moon, and the seas turn the silver of the stars at her fingertips.

41. Capital-H Happiness is still the promise of tomorrow, except the best thing about tomorrow is that it comes after today, because today there are memes and puns and compliments and philosophical discussions and how are yous and good mornings and no us and maybe just lowercase happiness is enough for me right now.

42. A smattering of French: je t’adore jusqu’a l’étoiles tombent du ta bout des doigts.

I will love you until the stars fall from your fingertips.

[philjacobsen-blog]

Antarctica. How I learned to stop worrying and love the isolation.

I put on my gloves and face mask like I had done every day for the past six months. I wanted to protect myself, be safe and I wanted to be healthy. No, I wasn’t a prepper preparing for the end of the world and/or the coronavirus, I lived in Antarctica.

From 2002 to 2018, I spent over six years of my life working and living in Antarctica. Math might tell you that looks like “16 years,” but Antarctica works on a different schedule.

Scientists and contract laborers (like myself) have been limited to work a maximum of 14 months straight in Antarctica. Because, after 14 months of isolation, it has been said, “You might lose your mind.” Therefore, four weeks, six weeks, or eight weeks of coronavirus quarantine is like a walk on the frozen ocean.

Everyone loves Top 10 lists, but first, here is the background of life in Antarctica.

There are two different seasons in Antarctica: summer and Winter. For the laymen, that’s when it’s light 24 hours a day (summer) and then when it’s dark 24 hours a night (Winter). It’s not by accident that “Winter” is capitalized and “summer” is in lowercase. This is because you need to respect Winter.

I have spent four Winters in Antarctica. While there have been changes to the Winter schedule, when I Wintered in Antarctica at McMurdo Station, the largest of the three American bases on the 7th Continent, a plane with all of our friends, hopes, dreams and escape plans left in February. The next time we would see the lights of a plane in the sky would be in August.

In other words, shit got real when that last plane left. We had to trust we had enough food, talent and toilet paper to last us until the end of August. This is because, as the saying goes, “If we don’t have it, then you don’t need it. And, you don’t need it, because we don’t have it.”

If you run out of chicken, then you eat pork. When you run out of pork, you eat lamb, when you run out of lamb, you eat hamsters--hamsters are, what we called, microwavable breaded (or deep fried) ham and cheese Hot Pockets™®.

In other words, the grocery stores are open; quit panicking. When you’re outside, hoping your squirrel trap has been bountiful today, this is the time to panic. However, today, it’s not minus 45 degrees outside. Walmart will be restocked soon, put on your mask and gloves and purchase only what you need. Then go home.

And, if Walmart is out of toilet paper, hook a garden hose to your faucet and clean your ass, and be happy your water supply doesn’t give you frostbite.

It’s going to be fine.

In Antarctica, we were living like it was Gilligan’s Island, “No phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury.” The only difference was we had phones, lights and motorcars, but when we went outside it was minus 45 –degrees—not a luxury. Stay inside on your couch and be happy that when you do go outside to take out the trash, walk the dog or mow your lawn, you’re not getting third degree frostbite and having your toes cut off.

This little piggy went to the market. This little piggy watches Netflix. This little piggy stays home.

Speaking of movies and TV shows, my good God, we would have loved to have had Netflix, bootlegged versions of Game of Thrones, YouTube or Facebook in Antarctica. Instead, the entirety of McMurdo’s bandwidth is mostly for Science.

Rarely could I “LOL” with my friends on Facebook or “YOLO” with spring breakers at the beach. Nope, Science is the priority in Antarctica.

Science, I tell you. A bunch of people, who we called “Beakers,” is the entire reason McMurdo Station exists. These Scientist are in Antarctica to prove or disprove Global Warming and/or can penguins fly and/or are penguins cute. Generally, they proved it, but why listen to scientists?

Scientists went to school and studied stuff, but have they ever studied the “economy” or “Facebook?” Can you imagine an entire community who listens to scientists? Oh wait, you can? Possibly because we’re in a global pandemic? Yeah, listen to scientists?

During my Winters in Antarctica, I could go days and only see the one person who I worked with, and guess what? I hated him.

In the community, we called him “Skin Suit.” This was his nickname because, even though he passed his battery of psychological examinations, which are required in order to Winter-Over in Antarctica, he said to Suzy—a la “Silence of the Lambs.”

“I wish I could wear your skin, so I could touch you all day.”

So, there I was, working at the bottom of the world, with Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gume as my coworker for six months, in total darkness, and do you want to know how I got along with him (aside from the one time I threw hot coffee in his face)? I complimented his outfits. I tried to look for the positive in the people who surround me.

My first job in Antarctica, I was a dishwasher. I left my home, friends and a girlfriend to seek this adventure. I’m still happy with two out of three of those decisions.

The first year I spent in Antarctica there was a “Dishwasher Emergency” at the South Pole (850 miles from the sea level solitude of McMurdo). Just like we need grocery store employees, drive through food and universal health care, the South Pole needed a dishwasher—and they chose me.

The South Pole is located at 9,301 feet above sea level. That’s not very high. When I live my life in my hometown of Salt Lake City, I live at 4,327 feet above sea level. I have climbed high mountains in Utah, like Mt. Timpanogos that is 11,752 feet and Mt. Nebo that is 11,928 ft. I’m not healthy, but I’m also not fat.

When I was asked to work at the “high altitude” of 9,301 feet of the South Pole, I said, “Okay. I’ve done that.”

However, what I didn’t know, was that because the South Pole is at “The South Fucking Pole” it’s not just about the altitude. The South Pole has a variance of altitude because of the Earth’s centrifugal force which makes the South Pole seem much higher than the actual 9,301 feet. At times it can feel, because of lack of oxygen, as though you are over 12 or 13 thousand feet.

Before going to the South Pole, the doctors and scientists said I should take “prophylactic acetazolamide” to combat the feelings of high altitude sickness. However, my friend Donald said, “You’ll be ‘okay.’” He said that since he was from Colorado and I was from Utah, that I would be fine, because I was “use to the high altitude.”

I was at the South Pole for eight days. I quit taking prophylactic acetazolamide on day four, because I was feeling great. I listened to Donald.

On day eight, I nearly died. This wasn’t Utah. Because I’d lived at sea level for four months at McMurdo Station, and Donald didn’t know shit, my pulse oximeter (the amount of oxygen which should be in my blood and close to 100) was 52. I was failing breathing.

Pulmonary edema cut the oxygen supply to my brain making me think 3 + 7 = Cat. The South Pole doctor said, “Phil, you are two to four hours from death.”

All flights to the South Pole were canceled on this day, due to weather, but, due to “2 to 4 hours of death,” a C130 National Guard Airplane risked their lives and flew from McMurdo Station to rescue me at the South Pole. If not for universal Antarctica Health Care, I could be dead.

On this day, I learned I needed to listen to the scientists, and not to Donald.

This story ended up being too long. I’m sorry. I’ve lived through isolation, listened to friends, instead of the medical community, and somehow I’m still alive. How did Antarctica prepare me for the isolation of the coronavirus?

1: Do something today better than you did yesterday. Did you go to bed sooner? Wake up earlier? Brush your cat?

2: Exercise. In Antarctica my exercise routine was called, “Brushing the Dust Off of David.” There is no reason to take a hammer and chisel to David. All you need to do is to take a wet cloth and brush off the dust. Do 10 sit ups, pushups, or jog in place. Be happy with who you are, and barely maintain. If you set higher expectations, you might fail. Simply, brush the dust off of your personal David.

3: Do something better today than you did yesterday. There were many times in Antarctica I got more drunk on Friday than I did on Thursday. I’m not advocating alcoholism, but lower your expectations. Don’t look for perfection when a glass of wine might do.

4: Did you make your bed after you woke up? Some days you will go to bed and your biggest accomplishment will be, “I made that bed today.” Congratulations.

5: Groundhog Day. Every day may seem like yesterday, but, how did you make it different? In Antarctica, after six months of Winter the trash shelves are lined with “Learn ‘This Language’ in 30 Days” DVDs. Nobody accomplishes a lot during the isolation of Winter. But, if we do little, then that is a lot.

6: Communication. Does your phone work? In Antarctica, no one can call us, so we have to call out. Instead of waiting for ‘that phone call.’ Make it.

7: Don’t go outside. It’s too cold. In the Covid-19 case, it’s too dangerous. My dad goes to dialysis three times a week; please don’t kill him. Don’t go outside.

8: Appreciate your pets. In Antarctica we are not allowed to have pets. I started the “Antarctica Cat Club.” All we did was share photos of our cats from home that we wished to be with. Now, we get to live a cat’s life. Nap. Eat. Shit. Nap. Clean. Nap. Eat. Repeat.

Love your pets you lucky sons of bitches.

9: Art. Be creative. Rather you’re by yourself or preferably, with only yourself. Do something artistic. For instance, today, I chose to write this Manifesto. In Antarctica a group of us recreated the (drunk) history of the race to South Pole by Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott (https://vimeo.com/35084075). What will you or your isolated group create?

10: Know that it ends. A plane will come and take you away or scientists will tell you it’s safe to go outside. And then, it’s over. You take off your mask and gloves. You shop at a grocery store, you go to a movie, you hug your parents or, you love being able to hold those who you love.

Stay warm. Stay isolated. And, stay indoors.

[comicteaparty]

February 10th-February 16th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 10th, 2020 to February 16th, 2020.  The chat focused on Betrayal by Alex Lewis.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Betrayal by Alex Lewis~! (https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until February 16th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content? 8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Delphina

Just finished reading! I really found the part with Aune's "book of secrets" such a heartbreaking sequence. Alex using the blue pen kind of reinforces the themes of differentness and being an outsider not only in her outside world, but even just in the context of being honest about her own feelings. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/06/07/chapter-six/

I also really felt for her in Chapter 8, when talking about her relationship with Aune and saying "the more time I spent with her, the more of myself I lost trying to keep up with her. It didn't matter to me at all. I liked myself better when I was with her." Just again, this theme of finding something to define herself when she'd been adrift, but not always in an honest or healthy way. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/08/11/chapter-eight/

Eilidh (Lady Changeling)

I like the art style - it's very unique!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I like the way the comic ends on sort of an open-ended note. It's not very often that we get completed comics here on CTP, and I think this comic's ending is weirdly satisfying in its incompleteness. Like we don't know whether Aune and Alex make up, but we know that they're both open to it, y'know? I also looked into the Harold Pinter play Betrayal (which this comic is partially based off), and it's pretty interesting the ways they're similar and different. Like the story regards a group of friends and their romantic relationships (and them betraying each other, of course), but the main group of characters is two girls and one boy rather than two men and one woman. I'm curious how many of the changes are due to it being partially a memoir of the author's life and how many are the result of just creating an interesting fictional story about high schoolers.

I also really like the comic's use of flashbacks to tell Alex's story - flashing back to her childhood contextualizes her experiences as a highschooler really well.

RebelVampire

I really like in general how the story is told with a non-linear timeline. Not a lot of stories can actually pull them off successfully, because you run a high risk of confusing the audience. However, despite this one time jumping around a lot, it was never confusing. I think I chalk this up to the fact that the focus on the comic is not the plot itself but the relationships. So you don't need to know the timeline exactly to be able to empathize, experience, and understand what is going on in the relationships. So this is something I really enjoy about the comic. I really love non-linear when it's done well, and this is done well in that regard.

What I enjoy about the beginning of the comic is just how damn awkward everything is. Like, everything about their interactions is exactly why ill never go to a high school reunion. Cause there's this expectation to be super impressed with ppl (hence shallow comments) while also being a mind reader (like knowing someone doesnt go by an old name anymore). It's embarrassing and horrible and the comic really hit at some of my deeper social anxieties that while I've grown from, never will quite be gone. So bravo for making benign horror XD(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Woah, I was not expecting to read a completed comic here! That was a nice change of pace. I really agree with the people praising the non-linear timeline. Using a highschool reunion as a framing device was an excellent decision

I wonder if the main character was gay or asexual?

Alex_makes_comics

Hello, I'm Alex. I made this comic - and I'm crying reading your comments. I've never had people review this book before. Some of the chapters only had about two views before this week so... This is very big for me. Hooboy. In answer to ongoing questions: changes to the Betrayal script from Harold Pinter's play were made to make it fit my experiences. The play is always a question of who is betraying who in a toxic love triangle. It's a jumping off point for me to talk about my memories. I went to see it and it hit a chord, after which I immediately sat down and wrote this. I love how the title of the play conceals who is betraying who: betrayal is a flexible concept. Hiding behind Pinter's words meanwhile ,when I have to, makes it easier to share my memories with others without self censoring. I am always terrified of people I know reading this book! In answer to the question of orientation, I'm bisexual if that helps anyone

RebelVampire

My favorite moment in the comic I would say is the ending. I like that it's open-ended and that there's no clear leaning one way or another. It's kind of up to the reader to judge the events they just saw. Not to mention, I feel the open-ending nature fits the mood of the comic in that relationships aren't straight forward and constantly in a flux. So having the ending be not entirely clear suits that well. As for a favorite character, I'm honestly not sure I could pick one in this case. Everyone is so human and I feel like picking a favorite would kind of be like picking a side. Or kind of like your friends trying to ask you to rank them in terms of how much you like them. That would be a challenge I'm not up for in this case. As for interactions, definitely Alex and Aune. The relationship there is fascinating from the way the story is told, so I'm never quite sure what to make of it, especially when knowing how the relationship sours. And since its through their interactions we get to know Aune, it almost feels like a character study in a way whenever the two interact.

Before I blather too much in one day, one thing I like about the comic is how different the kid versions of the characters look as opposed to the adults. I feel it's more true to life since a lot of adults do change a ton from how they looked at kids. So while theres definitely similarities, the age progression just felt really natural.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I agree with what Rebel said about the age progression feeling natural. If I could describe this comic in one word, I would maybe choose "realistic."

It does a great job of protraying that feeling of growing up and leaving things behind

Emotions and drama that feel so important as a child and as a high schooler turn out to really not matter that much at all

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Given the story’s title, in what ways do we see betrayal throughout the story, and which moment stuck out to you the most regarding the subject? What can be learned from the story in regards to dealing with it?

10. What do you think the story can teach us regarding the nature of relationships and how they change as we grow older? In what ways do these events perhaps relate to your own life or what about the storytelling makes them relatable in general?

11. What do you think the story has to say about growing up in general, both in regards to how we change and how the people around us change? If applicable, why do you think coming of age stories like this are important?

12. How do you interpret the end of chapter 10 where Alex and Aune finally interact? What do you think each character is feeling? Overall, do you think their relationship can be repaired after the damage is done?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

12) i didbt read the ending as starting to repair a relationship. I saw it as leaving your past behind. Also she doesn't seem to understand the damage she did to their relationship, so i don't think the main character would want to reconnect

Kabocha

Oh, dang. So I just binged the entirety of this comic, and there's something about this that feels a little... close to home, I guess? I really empathize with Alex -- the feeling of having someone who you love just kind of up and ditch you like that... That hurts. Granted, her situation was a bit more complicated, but... hhh. I think at best, she might go the route of wanting to be friendly with Aune later, but it just isn't gonna work out. That pain still exists, and even if Aune is past it, Alex pretty clearly isn't. And I think it's understandable. It's not a grudge, but more like that kind of awkward avoidance because you don't wanna get hurt again. just... aaaaaaaaaa. This was a very good read. Thank you @Alex_makes_comics.

RebelVampire

I do think what @Eightfish (Puppeteer) touched onto is the comic's strength: realism. Every event in this comic is so relateable since I think everyone can say they've at least been in a similar situation at least one of those times. So it forms a real connection with the reader so easily, thus allowing it to pull on the heart strings. Let's talk about themes and stuff though! So for in regards to betrayal, the moment that stuck out to me the most was the classroom convo between Alex and Aune where Aune is kind of distant and doesn't seem to really like anyone anymore and wants Alex to do break up dirty work. The reason this stuck with me is you can so clearly see it as a betrayal, and yet at the same time, it's such a benign thing. Like nobody is being literally stabbed in the back, nobody is having money stolen, no one is stealing anybody's lover. It's just...distance and a friendship falling apart for various reasons. Which I think is really the sad part. Since rather than dealing with betrayal, I think this story shows the many different forms it can take. And that sometimes its not this overdramatic thing. Sometimes its a slow burn that just singes for hours and hours.

However, I do like the story's maturity in that it shows us relationships are hard and need active maintenance. Cause without that, they fall apart. Additionally, as we grow older, its sad but common place friendships wont last. People change all the times, especially interests. So in the end those changes will drive people apart. At the very least I certainly haven't talked to my high school friends in years since many of them moved, got married, had kids, etc. Even during high school I had friends drift away. And I think these are pretty universal experiences, which is what I think makes the storytelling as relateable as it is.

As for the end, I kind of interpret it as "not ready." From the expressions, I think both Alex and Aune clearly felt awkward. Like the elephant in the room. They both wanted to talk about it seriously, but also both didn't want to talk about it. Too many feelings still fresh, coupled with maybe not enough desire to fix everything yet. So while I do believe most relationships can be repaired given time and effort, both parties need to be ready. And I just don't see that happening yet from how things ended.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Kabocha

As I said before, I'm really glad I read this. It felt very personal, and it was kinda cathartic to read! It also was kind of nice to see someone else kinda express the awkwardness of meeting again with someone who you felt hurt by. And just... Yeah. Thank you for this comic.

Alex_makes_comics

Hi, Everybody. I'm not sure if this is the last day of Betrayal book club, or if tomorrow counts still, but I wanted to use this opportunity to thank everyone for reading and engaging with my work, before you start on the next webcomic. I have never been through a process like this. Most of the time, I make comics and release them into the internet, never to be seen again. It's a long and lonely process, full of self questioning and self doubt. You've all really restored my confidence. Just knowing that you read and genuinely got what I was trying to achieve is amazing. I was worried about the ending of chapter 11, that it might put readers off, but seeing you all bouncing ideas off each other about "will they"/ "won't they" get back together reassures me that I did the right thing. This was my first completed graphic novel,and I have learned a bit since making it. I am currently working on draft 2, which involves a full redraw. I have about half of the book done. The redraw is going to be 30% more cartoony in style, to give the book a clearer aesthetic. I am aiming for stronger lines and colour themes. I'm also adding new pages throughout. Part of this is to have Aune more visible in the background of scenes between Alex and Jonas, because they're all in one school: you can't avoid people completely in these situations. I'm also making some of the school scenes noisier to play on the "benign horror" elements - thank you for this term, Rebel Vampire! My goal is to redraw everything, update the website, then print a small batch to sell at cons. If anything bugged you about the current draft that you think I have to know, you are more than welcome to tell me. Otherwise, in case you want to know when the new version is out, I have a mailing list here: https://mailchi.mp/e64c62c2d202/alexmakescomics Thank you again for everything. You really don't know how much you've helped me these two weeks. It's been mind blowing.

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic is just more people finding it. It's a really touching, raw, and personally gripping story. Not only is the storytelling well-done with its use of time, but just overall, its one of the few stories where I can actually say it really got me thinking about life, relationships, and other things. And not a lot of comics can do that.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Betrayal this week! Please also give a special thank you to Alex Lewis for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Betrayal, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/

Alex’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexmakescomics

[deahsohun]

What Is Ensemble?

How Can ‘Ensemble’ Be Defined?

‘Ensemble’ can have a variety of interpretations, dependent on the situation it’s used in. The Collins English Dictionary (2009) brings attention to the Latin origin of ‘ensemble’ to mean ‘at the same time’. However, in Ensemble Theatre Making by Bonczeck and Storck (2013;7) they write ‘in our work, an ensemble may be a cast, a class, members of a program, students, amateurs, or professionals.’ which helps me to understand that no matter what the circumstance, ‘ensemble’ is used in relation to a group of individuals who come together in order to achieve the same goal. Although it is certain that individual members of the ‘ensemble’ have independent goals that they would like to meet, it is also found that they have a common ground which causes them to work together in order to ensure it is carried through, in turn making it a success. I believe that over time the true meaning of ‘ensemble’ has been lost, particularly in the world of theatre, as I often only see it being used to describe a cast of people who support main roles, when in actual fact, it is the entirety of the cast in a play, or is even relevant to builders on a construction site. All in all, whilst ‘ensemble’ in itself is defined, the people who make the ensemble up, cannot be. An ‘ensemble’ can and will appear at any point in life, there are ensembles all around us, everyday, which is something we fail to recognise. From the ensemble working at the on campus Starbucks, to the ensemble of flatmates working together to make the recent life changing venture seem less scary, the idea of ensembles are something that we have been a part of for a long time, and will be for a long time.

What Makes A Successful ‘Ensemble’?

If I was to be asked ‘what makes a successful ensemble?’ before starting at Bath Spa, I would have answered that it is simply having the co-operation and collaboration with one another to create synergy and order. But after the few short weeks of being here, it has become apparent that whilst those things are essential to creating a successful ensemble as they create balance, above all else there must be a deeper bond and connection between those involved -something that has been brought to particular attention in the work of Bonczek and Storck, in Ensemble Theatre Making (2013). Whilst reading through Chapter 1, ‘What Is Ensemble?’ of their book, their idea of ‘we hope for lightning to strike. Yet think about it: lightning doesn't happen by happenstance.’(pg.8) resonated deeply with me, as it had me thinking about the true roots that bind an ensemble. If we are all seeking the same end goal, then surely, no matter how different we may seem at face value, there is something deeper, something more that we have in common? There has to be a way for us to develop in one like-mindedness, where whilst we retain our unique individuality, we can put any and all judgement aside in order to produce and achieve the result we all desire. Bonzek and Storck make it clear that ‘...change is possible’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) emphasising that we should ‘...research it, create a plan, take specific actions, and assess those actions as you go...we sometimes hold back from taking action because we fear killing whatever good chemistry remains’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) this fear is something that I know to be true from my own experience as part of an ensemble, and I'm sure it is something heavily felt by people who have been/are too, as we have a sense of not wanting to hurt other peoples feelings, however from this it puts into the perspective that we have a duty as an ensemble member to do whatever it takes to make a situation work, even if it may feel like you shouldn't, everyone who is a part of the ensemble has the responsibility to step up and smooth out problems with solutions -and be one to ideas of hoe to doses well. ‘Fear of killing good chemistry’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) is sometimes needed in order to breakdown and re-build the ensemble in a way that everyones desires are met and understood fully, only after this can we move on to taking action and putting into practice what we feel needs to be done in order to succeed.

Within ensembles, or any part of life where we are presented with the opportunity to speak up and give our ideas or opinions, I will happily admit to the anxiety I feel paired with the fear of judgement that comes with it. It’s daunting -no one likes being wrong, let alone being told they're wrong in front of other people who they want to impress. I know I have a need to be validated, and a desire to be accepted by my peers; but this can often be my downfall. Out of consciousness of being told that what I have to say or think will be deemed as irrelevant or stupid, I often bite my tongue and hold back because the idea of rejection is far scarier than opening up -despite knowing in myself that feedback and criticism of my own ideas will be helpful in teaching me something. An ensemble should be a place that is safe. ‘We find that protection in the form of a safe ensemble. It is a place where, for better and worse, we can be ourselves and be accepted’(pg.9;Ensemble Theatre Making) this statement encapsulates why I love acting in general, and why I want to pursue a career into drama therapy, because having a space where you can fully just be, with no limitations is rare and so should be taken advantage of. Ensuring that the ensemble is fully un-judgemental and prejudice free allows for a space where members can feel at ease and ready to share ideas and express themselves fully, which in turn develops the ensemble into a more successful one as there are no limits to what people share, making possibilities endless and ideas to be built on and expanded to reach full potential.  It is through a shared struggle, a common love, and gaining a deeper knowledge that takes any ensemble to the next level, allowing it to blossom into one that is successful -due to being fully reared by the minds of its members giving all of themselves to their craft, without any boundaries. In turn of being ready to fully express ourselves, however, it is also important to learn how to readily accept other peoples ideas fully, and welcome them with a positivity and open mindedness, so we ensure that everyone feels the same sense of ensemble as we wish to experience ourselves.

What Are My Own Experiences With Being In An Ensemble?

One key ensemble I was a part of which stands out the most, is last year when I was part of my high school’s production of Grease. Now, it isn't the fact that I was a cast member and the acting ensemble is what I remember most, but in the final weeks before we were due to perform, the set, which was a mirage of 50s/60s features like jukeboxes and poodle skirts was left un-painted after the art team refused to paint it. With two weeks to our first performance, 13 or so of us worked together to paint, sketch, outline and bring to life the backdrop of our set. Now, putting drama kids who could barely even hold a pencil the right way in charge of creating an artistic set was always going to have it’s challenges, but we made it work. Our drive to get it completed and make our already stressed director feel some sense of release was enough of a common goal to work together during our free time during the school day, and after school, in order to make it look somewhat decent. From begging for paintbrushes, to climbing scaffolding and standing on stacks of chairs, it is a time that I feel wholly represents the true nature of what makes an ensemble -because of how we handled the challenges. We played to each others strengths, listened to each others ideas and our constant communication with one another fuelled us to finish as efficiently as we could. Despite being in the midst of exams and having other life stresses, spending time in the school hall, painting vibrant colours whilst practising the Grease songs and dances was an escape from it all, and it became something we looked forward to just letting go of whatever else was bothering us -and something we all missed when the show was completed. Whilst I would say it was a largely positive experience, as we did indeed manage to put aside the dramatic bickering you’d expect from leaving 13 drama students alone with paint, we relentlessly worked together to complete what needed to be completed. The common goal was to have a finished background -we all took pride in our acting and in how our drama department at school was presented and so we wanted to do everything we could to help, but I also believe it was deeper than that. These were people who were also my fellow actors, we’d grown up and been around each other from 11 years old, we were in many ways a small family -and our ability to bond together in the face of what could have been a disaster, and take that risk was what resonates with me most. And perhaps it felt easier because we were all friends, or maybe its because we used our natural intuition that came with our actor/director nature to divide and conquer and complete our tasks on time, but either way, it is an example of a positive, hardworking, and dynamic ensemble that I always aspire to replicate the values when working in ensembles now.

Bibliography

Collins English Dictionary; 2009; HarperCollins; Glasgow.

Ensemble Theatre Making; Rose Burnett Bonczek, David Storck; 2013; Routledge, London (Page 7/Page 8/Page 9)

[thehanniecorner]

I recently wrote about my ten least favorite books of the year so far, so it seems only appropriate to write about my ten favorites, as well.  I’m quite fortunate this year, as I already have over ten five-star reads, and several of them are new favorites of mine.  It has been a good year so far, and I can only hope that the second half is even better.  In the near future, I will be writing a larger reflective piece where I discuss the first half of my reading year in more detail, as well as set goals to guide what I read for the second half of the year, so keep an eye out for that!  My hope is that this top ten is totally different at the end of the year because I found tons of new reads that I love just as much or more than the ones on this list.  For now, however, all I can do is show off the amazing books that I have read so far!

Note:  If you are interested in any of the books I am discussing, I will be including an Amazon associate link for each one.  As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  I’ll get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

10.  You Asked For Perfect – Laura Silverman

You Asked For Perfect is the textbook example of a lucky find.  I picked it up on NetGalley simply because the cover looked nice and I’m so glad I did, as I’m not certain if I ever would have found it otherwise.  This book has the best description that I have ever seen of the pressures that come with constantly striving to overachieve in high school.  The protagonist is constantly struggling with his need to be the best as he attempts to navigate his senior year of high school, while also wanting to just have fun and pursue friendships and romances like many of his peers do.  It’s a short and quick read that I would highly recommend, and I have more details in my full review.

Amazon

9.  Better Nate Than Ever – Tim Federle

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on an experiment where I read the books that Goodreads recommended to me based upon my favorite and least favorite reads.  Better Nate Than Ever is a recommendation given to me based upon my love of George by Alex Gino, and I couldn’t be happier for the push in this book’s direction.  For one thing, it cemented my newfound love for the middle grade genre, and for another, Nate is one of the most adorable protagonists that I have ever read about.  His dialogue is true to how children his age would actually talk and he’s so full of energy.  He has a goal of making it onto Broadway and he will do anything and everything in his power to make this happen.  This is the start to a trilogy that follows Nate, so I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series this year.

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8.  Saga, Volume Nine – Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan

I was about ready to give up on Saga before I read the ninth volume.  While I enjoyed the series at the start, as more characters got added in and the plot focused more on the politics and less on the star-crossed lovers that I initially signed on for, I began to lose interest.  This ninth volume was going to be the last one I read, as the series has gone on a hiatus and it seemed like a logical stopping point.  When I made this plan, however, I was not accounting for the fact that the ending of this collection stabbed me right in the chest with a huge plot twist and left me needing to know what happens next.  While I’m not entirely certain that I like the direction that this series is headed, I can’t deny that this entry left me emotionally gutted and needing to know how everything turns out.

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7.  Paperback Crush – Gabrielle Moss

Paperback Crush has a narrow niche that it caters towards, and anyone outside of that group isn’t going to get the appeal.  This is a nonfiction reference guide that outlines the history of the Young Adult book genre, with most of its attention dedicated to the 80s and 90s.  As someone who has read nearly every book prefixed with “Sweet Valley” and constantly daydreamed about being Claudia’s best friend in The Baby-Sitters Club, this book is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I got to relive my entire childhood, learn quite a bit about how the YA genre got to its current form, and even dragged up some old memories of books I forgot I had read.  For example, I totally forgot about my entire phase where I read Lurlene McDaniel’s sad books about kids with horrible diseases that often die at the end, but now I remember and learned a lot about how The Fault in Our Stars came to be so popular.

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6.  The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin

I knew from the second I laid eyes on the publisher’s description for The Immortalists that I was going to love this book.  Four siblings go to a fortune teller and find out the exact day that they are going to die.  From there, they spread out and live their lives with this information.  Any story that discusses fate or time is one I immediately feel drawn to because I love the complexities of the conversations involved.  For example, if some of the siblings learn that they are going to die young, were they going to die at that age regardless, or did they begin to live more recklessly because they knew their days were numbered?  Would they have all lived happily to the age of ninety had they not gone to the fortune teller because that act, in itself, determined their fate?  These are the sorts of questions that I pondered through the entirety of the time that I was reading this book, and I loved every second of it.

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5.  Roller Girl – Victoria Jamieson

As I stated with Better Nate Than Ever, I have been diving into the middle grade genre a little more than usual lately and been having pretty good results.  Roller Girl is a coming-of-age tale told in the graphic novel format about a young girl who decides to try taking up roller derby.  It’s a sweet book that I found myself flying through in a single day due to its vibrant art style and relatable characters.  I find that, in a lot of respects, middle grade books are actually easier to relate to as an adult reader than their young adult counterparts, even though they are written with a far younger audience in mind.  They contain less angst and are more about the sorts of topics that any age can relate to, such as learning to fit in or following your dreams.  I will discuss this more in my reflective post, but I think transitioning to prioritize adult and middle grade titles over young adult for a while would probably result in enjoying a higher percentage of the books I read.

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4.  Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

It is a goal of mine to read all of the major children’s classics in my lifetime.  In my experience, children’s classics like Charlotte’s Web have all of the same symbolism and messaging that their adult peers have, but they’re a lot more fun to read.  The friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur was adorable and I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to get around to such a sweet story.  As an adult, I loved it, but as with all children’s books, I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to read it as a kid, as I would have treasured it years ago.  E.B. White has a sizeable collection of titles that I still need to read, so I highly doubt that this is the last I will ever see of him.

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3.  Scythe and Thunderhead – Neal Shusterman

I decided to put Scythe and Thunderhead together, as I liked them an equal amount and didn’t want to take up two entries on this list.  Shusterman’s new series is shaping up to become one of my favorites of all time, so long as the conclusion out later this year turns out to be the same level of quality.  It’s dark and tackles some very real societal problems, such as what happens when we do overpopulate the world, and how would people cope in a world where they aren’t actually needed for anything?  I have a whole (spoiler-filled) discussion about where I want the series to go for the finale, and it is safe to say that The Toll is my most anticipated book of the year.

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2.  My Sister, The Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

A lot of people were talking about My Sister, The Serial Killer because it was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.  I love a good thriller, so I picked it up immediately, and it was not what I expected at all.  As the title suggests, this is a book about a woman whose sister is a serial killer.  It isn’t much of a thriller, however, as it instead explores the complicated relationship between the sisters and why they would be willing to do anything for one another, even though one has a love for stabbing people. While it wasn’t what I expected, it’s still one of my favorite reads of the year and definitely my most pleasant surprise.

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1.  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

I feel like I’m behind on this one, but words cannot express how much I love The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.  It took me a while to get around to reading it because I was scared off by the hype, but that turned out to be a silly fear.  This is one of the best-written books I have ever read.  Every detail put in the writing builds one of the most realistic portraits of a complex woman that I have ever read.  If Taylor Jenkins Reid came up to me tomorrow and told me that Evelyn Hugo was a real person, I would believe her because it can be really difficult to remember that she’s fictional while reading the book.  Obviously, I am always hoping to find a book that I love more than my current favorite because it means I’m reading lots of books I love, but it’s going to be difficult to top this masterpiece.

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That’s it for the books that I have read and loved so far this year!  I can’t wait to see what the second half of 2019 has in store for me.  What are your favorite books of the first half of the year?  Let me know in the comments below!

Best Books I Read So Far in 2019 I recently wrote about my ten least favorite books of the year so far, so it seems only appropriate to write about my ten favorites, as well. 

[akocomyk]

The Greatness that is 2018

Okay.  So my post from last year was restricted by Tumblr because of its new rules regarding adult content and such.  It wasn’t deleted, it was simply removed from the public view.  Though I’m quite sure I didn’t put any restricted content there other than a couple of words of profanity—and I actually wanted to appeal to Tumblr—I let it go, and I’m more determined to put a highly positive composition for this year.

And I know it wouldn’t be very difficult for me to do so.

The year 2018 was a very positive year for me.  Like whatever I was experiencing in the previous years, it was totally the opposite for this year.  Generally speaking, I was very happy and content for the year’s entirety.  You can simply tell by the decrease of drama posts I made here on my blog—or honestly, the total decrease of posts I made for this year.  I’ve even started concluding that I no longer need Tumblr as my place to vent out my personal delusions, but I feel so much regret if I would simply leave my account here to the dirt, covered in interweb dust.

Going back to the main purpose of this post… I had a lot of memorable moments in the past year, and they all meant a lot to me that—similar to my 2017 dilemma—no memory stood out (and I didn’t mean that in a bad way).  Last year, nothing stood out because every single memory felt very lame.  This year, ALMOST EVERY SINGLE MEMORY HAD AN IMPACT IN ME.  Every memorable moment stood out, that I think any memory can take the top spot without me having to contradict myself.

Twelve moments in my 2018 were included in my shortlist.  It’s less than my previous years, but that’s okay.  I have enough good moments to include in the ten.  Here’s my 2018 and all its greatness.

10.  The A-List Awards - November 20

While having our team win a prestigious award is memorable enough, that isn’t the reason why this was included in this list.

I was one of those lucky people who got to attend the awarding ceremony, and, to be honest, I didn’t really expect or plan to attend.  Those who would attend were chosen by raffle draw.  I put my name less than thirty minutes before the draw.  I know I’m not lucky in these raffles, that’s why I didn’t bother putting my name in there immediately after it was opened.  I was only encouraged by my other teammates who put their names solely for “representation” purposes—you know, just so that their teams have representatives.  And it didn’t matter if they got picked or not—if they did, then it’s okay; if not, it’s fine, not much of a great loss.

Eventually, my name was drawn. Then I had to buy my own barong.  And I attended the awards night.

Half of those who were meant to be there wasn’t able to arrive on time due to the heavy traffic—which was very unfortunate, by the way, because they arrived at the exact moment we went up the stage.

There are times in life where you get to do things you never really planned to, and everything still goes smoothly even when you just let it be.

9.  Papa Comes Home - February 24 to March 15

Papa doesn’t come home very often recently.  He only does whenever it’s needed, like when my Mom died, or her sister died, or when there’s a wedding.

For this year, my cousin Nikki had her wedding and my father was one of the sponsors, so he came home from China.  For the first time since we moved to our present residence back in 2013, he stayed in our house during the span of his vacation.

Growing up, my father and I didn’t have a sound relationship.  It’s not that we hate each other.  It’s just that I wasn’t as close to him as I was with my mother, and we we weren’t as you expected an ideal father-son relationship to be.  To me, he was more like a hard-assed king who wants his son, the prince, to toughen up and be like him—a stereotypical man who’s a model of machismo.

I’m nothing like that.

In these two weeks that my father was here, I had felt like I regained a parent.  The last time I felt like this was when my mother was still alive—and not sick.  When I came home from work at night, dinner was at the table. Before I left every morning, someone was asking if I’m not going to eat breakfast—which by the way, I don’t—and telling me, “Ingat,” right before I ran out to the door.

8.  Watching American Vandal - August 11-12 and September 28-30

Every year, there’s always this one memory about me watching a movie, a series, or reading a book that left me on a hangover for days.  They may not have always penetrated the Top 10, but there’s always a memory that’s shortlisted.

American Vandal takes that spot for 2018, and it enters the Top 10, thanks to the fewer shortlisted memories.

If you’ve been closely following my Tumblr posts this year, you’d know why American Vandal was very memorable for me.  You already know I haven’t posted much this year, but I couldn’t help myself from posting a review about the series—for both Seasons 1 and 2.  Those two posts are also probably one of my few blog posts in the past year that actually made sense.

Anyway, the series spoke to me more than any other show that I watched this year did.  Black Mirror was pretty close, but American Vandal is in league of its own when it comes to personal preference.  The way it streamlined themes that are so relevant nowadays affected me so much—not because it was new to me—but because we share the exact same sentiments.

If you’re reading this blog post, go subscribe to Netflix right now and watch it.

7.  Queen Comes Home - April 5 and 7

If you don’t know who Queen is, she is one of my closest friends. We’ve known each other since High School—we both joined the choir and the short theater we had for the school’s founding anniversary.  Then she briefly went to the same college I did and became a member of the student council.  That’s the time when we grew closer, before she moved to Canada.

She came home for a few weeks, and we met twice.

What I like most about the time that we spent together is that we get to talk for hours without getting uncomfortable or awkward with each other.  During that time, I didn’t care much about what we did or what we talked about.  What mattered the most was that we got to spend some time together.

It’s nice to have a friend who—no matter how far you are from each other right now, in terms of location and communication—will treat you the same way they’ve treated you ever since.  And I’m grateful to have Queen as that kind of friend.

6.  Got Ear Piercings - February 5 and June 3

August 2016 was the first time that I ever thought of having my ears pierced (this was according to my post here in my blog, but I probably had thought of it earlier).  A couple of years before that, I’m one of those people who think lowly—appearance-wise—of guys who have piercings.

This is just a theory, but I think what drove me in doing so is my grief towards my mother’s passing.

Now, I don’t only have one, but two lobe piercings, both on the right ear.  The first one was probably more memorable than the second one.  I even wrote a post about it (click here).  The second one wasn’t as terrifying since I already know what I had to do.

Did it make me happy?  Yeah, I feel like I’m more me now.  (Does that make any sense?)  And I’m actually very proud that I did it on my own.  And if there is any person close to me who thinks it looks very inappropriate, I don’t care much about your opinion on this matter.  Having piercings didn’t harm any of you—it did more harm to me, actually.  It’s best if you’d just accept me for who I am.

5.  My Sister’s Wedding - November 26

Looking back at my sister’s wedding, I realized it’s not the wedding day itself that was memorable—at least for me.  It was the preparations for it.  And I mean that because, I’m good at that stuff—preparing and designing event materials.

I wasn’t stressed during the preparations since I’m practically used to it, thanks to my event planning experience with my previous job.  If there was anything that drove me nuts, it was my sister’s nagging and stressful episodes.  Everything felt so complicated and problematic whenever her thoughts jump right in, and I always wanted to tell her that there’s no room for such drama when you’re planning events such as her wedding.

I am so glad that my friends were there—who also eventually became a one-event choir—to welcome my rants and get a share of my madness.

Anyway, I can say that the event was successful, even though I was absolutely stressed during the wedding day itself—everyone was calling me, seeking my approval, plus I had TONS of roles to play.

One vital thing I realized after this:  I’m more alone now than I’ve ever been in my entire life.  My sister’s gonna have her own family.  My Dad’s having his own life in China.  My mother’s gone.  I’m alone, but I’m okay and I’m happy with what I have now.

4.  TG Life Resurrected - January 6, 10, and 15-18

A humongous part of my college—and high school, actually—life revolved around campus journalism.  It’s that one thing that made college more meaningful, more enjoyable, more exciting, and more stressful—in a good way—for me.  If it hadn’t been for that experience, I probably wouldn’t have had the foundation for all the skills that I am using right now for my profession.

Earlier this year, I was invited to train the now-members of The Gateway Group of Publications for the upcoming press conferences.  And since I didn’t have a regular job during that time, I was also invited to attend the conferences—both Cavitewide and Regionals.

The experience was just a surge of nostalgia.  A part of me wanted to join the contest myself, but my time’s long been over—and I’ve already grown tired of it after nearly more than five years of participation.  It’s now time for me to pass on my knowledge to the next generation of journalists.

I may not have taken home any medal or certificate, but it gives me great pride and joy that the students I trained were able to place in their respective contests.  The inner teacher inside me—who is still waiting for his time to shine—is verily satisfied.

INTERLUDE

I’m a hundred percent sure that all those memories that ranked 10th to 4th deserved all of their places.  I already know from the get-go who’ll get the lower ranks and probably wouldn’t even get in the ten.  Ranks 6th to 4th was a bit of struggle, but this eventual ranking is final.

For the final three…

Before divulging into that, I wanna go back to the past memories that topped since I started doing this kind of blog (just to have a throwback and a glimpse as to what memories usually top my list):

The Day Nanay Pinat Died (2013), My College Graduation (2014), The Great Depression of 2015, Mama’s Death at the start of 2016, and My Unemployed Days (2017).

I’ve already mentioned earlier that I had a huge problem regarding what memory would top the list.  This is my blog.  There are no rules in it.  I can just say that all three memories are tied on the first three places, but I don’t wanna do that since this list would not make any sense.

So… I’m not entirely sure about this rankings that I did for these three most memorable moments, since I relied totally from gut feeling here.  I tried to switch them all a couple of times, but in the end, everything went down to sentimentality.

3.  Accenture - February 23

This one’s an obvious frontrunner from the beginning.  After months of having no regular job, I finally got in to one of the most internationally renowned companies.

Tons of memorable moments happened when this chapter of my life started, and I wouldn’t want this list to be crowded with memories from Accenture.  (The A List Awards is the only exception I reconsidered.)

Working for Accenture is one of the most liberating moments that I’ve had in recent memory.

By liberating, I mean, in our team, people truly respect you for who you are.  They don’t mind your weirdness or your quirky personalities.  In here, I found people who I share the same interests with, and if I talk to them about it, they don’t get weirded out—sooooo unlike the people from my previous company.

And what I love most about this is that… I feel like the old me has returned.  Me who was constantly smiling.  Me who seemed like he doesn’t have any problem.  Me who could be in the borderline of crazy.

The me who believes that I can conquer the world in my own little ways.

2.  24th Birthday - January 27

“To know that someone appreciates my existence, someone is willing to spend their time with me, and someone is ready to get high with me is worth more than any money can ever get.”

I got that from the blog I made about my birthday.

I stand firm with what I said back then.  This is one of the most memorable birthdays I’ve ever had in the recent years—maybe even in my entire life.  Throughout the year, I was thinking that this moment might top this year’s list.  And I was secretly hoping that something good would still happen in my life since I couldn’t accept yet that this would be the one.  Thank God, things still happened.

This is the second time that my birthday celebration was included in the list, and this is its highest placement so far.  I still wish that someday, my birthday celebration would be the one on the first place.  This one was really close—it’s on the second place and it certainly lost by a minimal margin—but I had to hand it over to the other one that’s more… sentimental… and left my heart in emotional shards right after.

1.  A Day with Wilma - December 23

Amongst my friends who know that I love watching films, this is the first time that someone actually asked me to watch a movie with them.  You know… just me with him or her.

Ever since 2015, I’ve been glorifying the thought of me doing things on my own, and the belief that I can be happy on my own.  Having said that, I also have never set aside the fact that I’d be even happier if I do the things that I do with someone else.

For those who don’t know, Wilma’s one of my BFFs and one interesting fact about her is that SHE IS RARELY SPONTANEOUS—close to never, to be frank.  I am the opposite of that.  I adore spontaneity.  So when Wilma asked me to watch Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse with her—out of the blue—I said yes, without any hint of hesitation.  I didn’t even ask if she invited someone else, which I usually do when someone asks me if I wanna go with them.  I didn’t care.

I’m finally gonna watch a movie with a friend… my friend.

Wilma got caught on traffic on her way, so we missed our schedule by roughly 15 minutes.  She didn’t want to go on the next screening since she’s concerned that it might be too late for me, but I told her that it’s okay.  For the meantime, we had coffee—tea for me, actually—and I also helped her shop for Christmas gifts.

After watching the film, Wilma offered to eat dinner at her house, since I didn’t really give any concrete answer as to how I’m gonna feed myself that night.  And so we did.  We went to her house and ate dinner with her family.  Her Mom even wanted me to sleep over since it’s also a bit late already.  I told her that I had to attend the ninth Misa de Gallo the following day, but she insisted, saying, “Magsisimba rin naman kami.”  I wanted to say yes.  Part of me didn’t want to end the day just yet.  This day was feeding me with so much spontaneity, it’s making me euphoric.

But I didn’t have extra clothes with me… so I had to refuse.

On my ride home, I felt really weird, thinking about all the things that happened that day.  I wanted to cry, but I also wanted to laugh at the same time.  I was emotional, but I didn’t know what emotion it was.  I just knew that something inside my heart was not okay, yet I’m perfectly fine with it.

After years of feeling like the world completely neglects me, a day comes when all the love is poured out and I can’t even handle it.

I didn’t even have any picture of this day.  It exists now only inside the memory centers of our brains—Wima and mine’s.

I hope we can do this again sometime.

[giantpredatorymollusk]

This is a story about farming. It is quite long. I think it may be worth reading anyway, but unfortunately I have no way to prove it. I’ve also tried my best but I still don’t know if it actually makes perfect sense in every way? But it did all actually happen; so it all kind of has to make at least a little bit of sense, even if doesn’t really seem like it.

The trouble all started in 1901, when my great great grandfather emigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic and later, in 1911, bought a 90-acre farm there. Many years later, most of that farm came to belong to my grandfather, and roughly 10 years back he retired from his job selling tires at the tire store and started making the 40 mile drive north to the farm to spend his summer days there and plant a garden (in the area that wasn’t already rented out to be planted with soybeans.) Not long after that, he had enough produce to start selling stuff at a nearby farmers’ market in an upscale town, physically not far from the farm, although psychogeographically immensely distant from that chunk of desolate, isolated, fairly representative rural Ohio.

I was dragged in in the summer of 2015, from the end of June to the beginning of July, mostly pounding stakes into the ground so that the roughly 1000-1500 tomato plants that my grandfather had planted that year (with occasional help from my grandmother and uncle) could be tied up between them and the fruit wouldn’t lay on the ground and rot easily. I hated it there (in fairness, I probably would’ve hated anything that involved leaving the house during that time in my life) and when my dad got me out of it (by hiring me to help him paint a house) I quickly divested myself of the money I’d received there to wash my hands of the place and resolved never to go back. My dad was never in favor of me going to the farm, knowing as he did that the work could be dangerous (operating old, large, and unreliable tractors and backhoe with minimal training or safety precautions; running large, dangerous power saws in creative ways without the proper guards, gear, or safety precautions, mostly to put points on stakes; operating saws in an unsafe manner while standing in the raised bucket of the old and unreliable backhoe in order to trim trees; etc) and probably also suspected that I personally (especially then) was fairly vulnerable to being psychologically manipulated into performing difficult tasks that I was unhappy doing over a long period of time while being underpaid under some circumstances. Hmm.

I returned to the farm for the entirety of the summer of 2016. After barely surviving/graduating my senior year of high school that year I had given up on life and settled pretty quickly back into the routine of the daily back-and-forth farm trips. It is true that I was getting paid; it was also true that I was being challenged and learning things, mostly the basics of planting vegetables, like which plants were cold-season crops and which were warm-season and how far apart to space the transplants, and how a PTO works on a tractor; and it’s certainly a fact that on a personal level, I was still completely taken in by my grandfather’s wit and farm wisdom and overpowering managerial confidence. I made myself completely subordinate to him, and blamed myself when his ideas for what we should be doing next were completely obvious to him but rather opaque to me; I remember it frequently happening that he would tell me what to do and I would reflexively go off to do it, and then realize I was unclear on what he meant and have to timidly re-approach him for further instructions. This kind of slowed down the learning process. Much later I would also realize how superficial his constant confidence could be, and how it was often less the natural attitude of someone who knew what they were doing and more a tool he used to impress people into doing things without thinking too much about any of the potential alternatives. Also, according to my admittedly fallible memories, I was getting paid $35 per day for what were generally between 7 and 8 hour days. I was, in fact, 18 years old that year and probably could have gotten a different job that for one thing paid a better hourly wage and for another left me less reliant on the caprices of my family; but this was neither a thing that happened nor a thing that was expected from me, least of all by me. My internal world hadn’t expanded as I’d grown older; my universe of possibilities was limited to the things that were already present in my somewhat simple life. This was probably symptomatic of some larger problem or problems with the functionality of my brain at that point in my life.

One can become trapped in many different ways. You can be trapped in a specific city, or a zip code, or in a geographic region sorely lacking in cities, or one which they are considered entirely strange and outlandish things; in a job, in a career, in a lifestyle, or in a set of lifestyles considered realistic given your high school grades, ability to connect with others, and standing in society and life; in a friend group, or in an identity, or in a lack thereof, or in any number of the various rules and regulations that govern how one is allowed to interact with the rest of the human race; in a comedy, a tragedy, a pastoral narrative, or in any combination of the above kinds of story that one no longer wishes to be part of. For all I know, thanks to the stereotypical farm benefits of character building, meaningful work experiencing, and nature connecting-with, working at the farm for that year may have actually been good for me; nevertheless, I wish that it had been my last full summer there. I had showed up, learned some stuff, earned a small amount of money, and, in retrospect experienced at least the majority of what this particular 90 acre area of the planet had had to offer. Alas.

2017! This year, we had a pretty consistent schedule that I can remember clearly to this day: we left at 9:30 AM, when my grandfather would pull into my driveway and blow his horn, and got back between 7 and 8 o’clock at night. Built into that schedule is a one hour commute each way (we both lived about 40 miles away from the farm, which was actually inhabited by my uncle, who was often around and occasionally helped with the work but frequently made fairly abrasive and critical comments (if often correct) comments about it (for example, about the fact that our work day started so late in the morning)) and a daily grocery store stop for drinks for the cooler. I was the driver (once my grandfather’s problems with what I suspect is undiagnosed narcolepsy had almost killed us a couple of times) which you would think give me control over the stereo, but I quickly learned that my grandfather had pretty specific taste in music (country from the 50s and 60s) and a temperament unsuited to most podcasts. Obviously, most of that time in the daily schedule was taken up by the work day (so generally either planting tomatoes (which gets a little less rewarding after about the 500th one, which that year only put us at about a quarter of the way through the tomato plants, not counting the hundreds of eggplant, cabbage, and zucchini plants or the miscellaneous corn, squash, and beans), pounding stakes and tying string for the tomatoes, or harvesting tomatoes) which lay at the end of the lonely highway on a lonely work site at which the same 2-4 people showed up every day. (It became four people once you counted my younger brother, who came up to the farm that year until the start of marching band season got him out of it, and who fortunately made it his main job to get everyone to pack up and leave promptly at the end of the day. Once he stopped showing up, and even though I persuaded my grandfather to move the schedule up an hour so that we could get home earlier, we never left as consistently as we did when he was there; I didn’t have the stamina to find my grandfather (who didn’t carry a phone or a watch) and tell him what time it was at the end of the day every single day so that he could start to think about leaving.) I was being paid $40 a day, with a $20 bonus for market days once they started, which with our theoretically 35-hour work week ends up being about $6.29 an hour? Huh. In addition to the extra $20, the market season was nice because picking stuff is less tiring and more rewarding than planting stuff, and because I got to see way more people every day in the form of our market customers, even if I was interacting with them mainly through the intermediary of my grandfather.

Another nice thing is that this is the first year I have a decent photo album for! I started experimenting with old 35mm film cameras in late June and by early July I had my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, which I relied upon to keep my brain alive for large parts of the summer. I have… a lot of pictures from this season.

Finally, at the end of the year, I ended up in college. Any criticisms of my grandfather that I might offer up here have to be tempered by the fact that he did in fact drive me to the local (relatively) cheap higher-education dispenser and basically registered me for me (technically, I applied but there’s a 100% acceptance rate.) This was something I desperately wanted to do but was unable to make happen by myself. I won’t say that my grandfather every really understood the problems I went through while experiencing formal education, but as perhaps the member of my family least comfortable himself with the concept and culture of higher education, he was the most willing to notice and accept that I needed help getting started with it.

However, I did do quite badly that semester (I started out enrolled in 4.5 classes and ended enrolled in 2, with a C average) and going to the farm to work 4 days a week still (after morning classes and also on Saturday) did not help that except in that it provided a convenient distraction from it; an opportunity for me to distract myself from my frustrations by wearing myself out.

Why did I come back to the farm for 2018? I wasn’t happy there in 2017, I have the journal entries to prove it. Reasons: it was the path of least resistance, it was something I was more already familiar with than any other job, and my grandfather remained a very difficult person for me to say no to. (Also, he asked me (and my brother) to commit in midwinter, when it still seemed non-threatening and pretty far away.) The schedule was pretty much the same as I described for last year except that for some reason we went up 6 days a week as often as 5 (weather permitting.) My brother went up with us for the same period of time as he had previously, but was even more ornery this year than he was the last, which was an accomplishment; this didn’t stop me from being grateful for his presence. Mostly, I recruited him to work on whatever I was working on during the day, whenever I had a specific project: like building a fence around the second patch, or digging drainage ditches on the lawn, or moving the rainwater collection tank trailer to water stuff before Grandpa could realize that something that he didn’t plan for us was happening. My uncle became extremely fond of complaining that we were getting less done working on the same thing together than we might have working on different things far apart; this may have been true, but I was unwilling to test the theory.

As I implied above, I had a lot more freedom this year to pick projects that I thought needed to be done instead of following instructions all day, as long as I could seem confident about it under scrutiny later. I responded in two ways: I started wearing earbuds and listened to music and occasionally podcasts for most of the day, which was great except that it ruined earbuds and made me feel slightly spacey like I wasn’t even physically there sometimes, given that it was the main input that was actually making it to my brain, and I gave myself three new jobs. The first was to pick, display, and sell produce at a roadside stand that I set up back home (ideally without attracting too much attention from my uncle, who was doing the same thing); the second was to start picking for and selling at a new weekday farmers’ market; and the third was to fix an old dump truck that had been sitting in the back barn for the better part of the decade with a broken brake line, with the help of my dad, who came up to the farm a few days to show me what to actually do. The stand was very successful but 20% went to my mom for stocking it during the day and another 20% went to my grandfather for owning the farm; the new farmers’ market only required me to pay off my grandfather but had too many vendors for the customer base and was generally very slow; and the truck project was a huge disaster that consumed countless hours and brain cells: one brake line burst after another, we ended up having to remove and replace the two brake cylinders in each of the back wheels (which necessitated jacking the 12.5 ton vehicle up and removing both rear wheels and axles), the wiring for the lights was fucked from a previous botched repair job by a person or persons unknown, the bed needed to be attacked with the farm’s one working boom truck to get it to even move, and even after it was going up and down smoothly the hydraulic pump was occasionally leaking fluid, which I was neither qualified for or willing to try to fix; then, during the first test drive with a potential buyer, the radiator apparently exploded, and he convinced my grandfather to sell it to him for $1000, which was split between him, me, and my dad and uncle for helping (more or less.) I eventually calculated that with those three extra projects in addition to my regular salary (up $5 a day but without the weekly bonus, resulting in a net raise of $5 a week) I nearly made minimum wage working there that summer. (Hey, if Quinn is going to read this, I should probably note that minimum wage in Ohio was $8.15 an hour, at least when I wrote this, it’s up to $8.55 an hour now.)

Also, after going on three years of the whole “pull into Mitch’s driveway and blow the horn for a while” routine, the horn on my grandfather’s F-150 finally gave out and he locked the keys in my car while climbing inside of it to use its. (He did admit to this but also told me that I should never have left the keys inside of a car with “automatic locks.”) I had a much better spring semester this year, but it still wasn’t made easier by my 28 hours a week at the farm (plus the commute) right up until October 25th, when I finally quit.

Performance review:

Another part of my feelings about the farm that I have to mention is that the whole time I was there, I was pretty well aware that it was not nearly as productive as it should have been. One large part of this was just flawed soil management practices; by the time I got there, my grandfather had been planting mostly the same plants in mostly exactly the same spots for nearly 10 years, which is absolutely not how any of that is ever supposed to work. He sent soil samples away for analysis, got back reports prescribing long lists of fertilizers to be applied in massive quantities to help production, and then went back to using what he was planning on putting down anyway (mostly starting fertilizer (which we dragged around in 5 gallon buckets for the entire planting season), calcium spray to try to prevent previous years’ blossom end rot epidemics, and some poorly labeled sacks of miscellaneous stuff that he had gotten at a farm auction and that had been taking up space in a barn for years.) My grandfather’s managerial attitude was that all ideas were suspect unless they occurred to him first, which meant it sometimes required some stamina to get certain things done; he would ride up on the lawn mower and stare at you suspiciously if he wasn’t sure of exactly what you were doing.

Like this.

(Of course, the farm was not really run with the purpose of maximizing production, anyway. My grandfather kept it going year after year initially because he was retired, and wanted something to take up his time, and because he wanted to turn himself into a farmer; later, he got the idea that he was going to turn me into one.)

The other main obstacle to growth was the fact that we were surrounded by 80 acres of soybean fields that were at a slightly higher elevation than our plants, which meant that 2 inches of rainfall was more than enough to flood the place. This is not actually a good thing for any plant’s growth (except for cucumbers, and I guess sometimes zucchini.) I ended up (with my brother) digging hundreds of feet of drainage ditches in 2018 to try to combat this. Like, with a shovel. We had a trencher, but its hydraulic pump leaked fluid like a sieve, which had prevented it from being used for years, kind of like that dump truck I mentioned fixing earlier. Other broken down equipment included two boom trucks (one of which was specifically designed just to lay railroad ties), two full-size tractors (an Oliver and a Farm-All), a handful of mechanical tractor attachments that lay scattered throughout the barn-adjacent grass, a smallish red Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower, and a 1963 Buick Riviera.

On a personal level, going to the farm every day felt like dying? It was long hours of difficult, tedious, low-paid work in a desolate and isolated location. It was sort of like a sensory deprivation chamber, but for thoughts and feelings instead of for senses. On one hand, I regret every single miserable second of it, and hope to never see the place again for as long as I somehow manage to live (sadly unlikely); on the other hand, I do think it made me more appreciative of the moments when I do feel like I’m alive in the world, even when they’re not exactly easy ones. I have more enthusiasm for certain types of fear now, like driving to a strange and distant city to see a band play by myself, actually talking to the host in the AirBNB there, and descending into a strange subway system without really knowing how I’m going to get anywhere I’m trying to go from there; or signing up for classes for next semester without knowing exactly what they’ll be like, and talking to the strange person sitting next to me, or even just emailing the professor to ask for an explanation of an assignment that I don’t understand. It reminds me that I’m not as trapped anymore.

This contradicts what I want to be true, which is that the farm was just a background event in my life, instead of something that defined it for all of those years. The things that I was doing in the background of this, the story about farming, were the things I now realize were actually important to me at the time: taking those pictures, going back to school, the music I was listening to while I was out in the field, pounding in tomato stakes… I was also re-learning the piano in the evenings when I still had the energy. Unfortunately, the farm did define that part of my life to a large extent because of the way it served as an obstacle to me pursuing those things. The thing is, I wasn’t really trapped there, in any real physical or consequential sense; the farm took over my life because I was unable to recognize and act on the fact that I did have access to real sources of happiness.

Also, I guess the whole time I was technically committing tax evasion?

Anyway, whenever I see one of those posts about how nice it would be just to leave society and go live on a farm or something, this is what I’m thinking of.

[dinhxpressions]

Wanzhu Zheng

1. Name, Year, Major Wanzhu Zheng, Mathematical Analytics and Operations Research Trainer Group: Mommy Milkers

2. If you could eat a meal for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? If I could eat a meal for the rest of my life, it would be rice and scrambled eggs because it’s my comfort food

3. What do you think is the NUMBER ONE most important thing in a relationship or friendship? Never overstepping boundaries

4. What is the best advice someone has given to you? Describe the situation if possible. I was having an anxiety attack at 3am and my friend said to me, “Every person is like a star. Just because one star is shining brighter doesn’t mean you’re not shining as well.”

5. What are three things on your bucket list? - learn surfing - learn longboard dancing - learn kickboxing

6. If you were famous, what would you want to be famous for? I would want to be famous for being the person who gave other people courage and hope in themselves

7. If you could swap lives with someone for a day, who would it be and why? I don’t think I’d ever want to swap lives with anyone because I feel like I would develop dissatisfaction for my own life and I don’t want to compare my life with anyone else’s.

8. If you could create a whole new subject to be taught in school, what would it be? A subject I would want to see in schools is behavior analysis and how to read people

9. What do people constantly misunderstand about you? I feel like people think I only care about grades and am studious all the time, but to be honest I’m down to do anything and I like spontaneity.

10. What is something you regret doing or not doing? Would you change it if given the opportunity? Why or why not? I grew up with the same friend group since the first grade. They are the closest people I have in my life and I’m very glad that we stuck together until now. In sixth grade, I developed feelings for a guy in the friend group and I maintained that crush for six years. I never told anyone about my feelings and I kept it to myself for the entirety of middle and high school. Sometimes, I think to myself, “what if I just told him?” I definitely regret not saying anything because there’s always that glimmer of hope that the relationship would have worked out. However, at the same time, I don’t think I even have it in me now to tell him. I am definitely someone who is scared of rejection and I don’t think I am willing to risk the friendship I have with him now. I think a big part of my decision stems from my unwillingness to be vulnerable. It takes me a long time to feel secure enough with someone to open up to them, but even then, I choose to hide my deepest feelings. The consequence of this is that I don’t communicate my emotions unless I am one-hundred percent sure they will be reciprocated. However, that’s very hard because I’m also bad at reading people when the situation involves myself. Building up the courage and confidence to confess vulnerability to others is definitely something I’m working on not only in the relationship aspect of my life. I hope throughout college, I’m able to find myself and be more confident in how I feel.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hi, could I request some help with typing myself? I’ll try my best to give specific examples with my description of how I feel I might use each function, though these examples may seem kind of… random. It’s *very* long, though (sorry), so thank you very much if you do answer these asks. Do tell me if you need more information about a certain area. For context, I'm a 15 year-old gay guy from Asia in case you have any questions about socialisation and stuff. (1/19 sry again)

Si: I honestly don’t think I reference past experiences very much? I do sometimes relate specific images with others (recently I saw a circle of light on a wall and I thought Batman, though I wasn’t exactly sure why for some time). I sometimes don’t have awareness of my own needs (I can unknowingly spend half a day without drinking water). (2)

Se: I’m pretty sure my reactions to things around me can be rather slow, and I’ve done some things such as forget to pay money for food that seem to suggest that I have some disconnect from the world. I get excited when experiencing “intense” experiences (such as when I’m watching an experiment involving fire or when I see a wild boar) but I don’t actively search for experiences and would often prefer to stay at home (recently, I stayed home for basically the entirety of the school holidays (3)Ni: I deliberate about certain things quite a bit before I do them. For instance, I’ve been thinking about sending these asks for quite a few weeks, honestly. I do quite a bit of predictive thinking as well in order to better make decisions in the present (though everyone does do this, I usually imagine one or two possible futures). I do sometimes read people and try to decipher their motivations (more under Fe). (5)

Ne: I do sometimes draw ‘random’ connections. For instance, I decided that the human equivalent of a tree growing from the fertiliser that is its own leaves is a human eating his own nails for nutrition (though I’m not sure if nails are really nutritious). I don’t think my mind really cycles through various possibilities though. I enjoy thinking about hypotheticals (If everyone in heaven is supposed to be happy, and people need their loved ones with them to be happy, and God cannot lie (6)

Fi: I don’t really think I have many strong values. I am rather passionate about colonialism and perhaps homophobia however I rarely speak up about those issues and am fine with those who are ignorant about the former or support the latter (I mean, it’s hard to find someone who would support colonialism - I’m usually more of “This actually supports our colonial masters and further entrenches eurocentrism”. In addition, since i live in Asia, maybe I’m just used to homophobia.). (8)

...I do sometimes get rather offended when I hear of something immoral however I rarely use it to judge the person after the event itself. When I argue about what I personally believe in, I can often get defensive about my side, though this could also be because I lack confidence in my ability to argue properly. Usually, when I try to “Fi” and think about what really matters to me and what I truly value, it’s usually in an effort to convince myself that I haven’t wasted an opportunity or that(9)

Fe: Personally, I don’t think I really value any “group harmony”? As in I try my best to stay out of trouble and out of unnecessary conflict with others, but other than that, I don’t really do anything else. I do find it funny when others do socially inappropriate things, though I think the amused faces I make can be social faux pas by themselves (at least if they’re as obvious as they feel). I don’t really think about the emotions of others all too much except when thinking about whether (11)

...(Example of me attempting to decipher the reasons behind on person's behaviour - Person X is quiet and refuses to ask the more "popular" group for help. Therefore Person X is insecure in his identity [which honestly frustrated me because then I had to ask them.]) (14)

...I’m not exactly warm and friendly in a typical Fe sense (I’ve been told I have a bit of a bitch face) but I definitely reciprocate friendliness when directed towards me, whether I have any interest in making friends with the other person or not (though this may just be the politeness previously mentioned). (15)

Ti: I’m honestly not the most confident about my logic abilities? I usually get rather defensive during arguments, to be honest, because I feel that they are rather weak. In those cases, I attempt to seek support from others in order to gain further confidence in my points. When learning about mathematical formulas, I could not care less about the reasonings behind them or “better ways” to do a certain thing if I can do my own way which I am comfortable with (16)

...(This sounds somewhat like Si if I’m honest), which doesn’t exactly feel like Ti “trying to find the most elegant solution”. (17)

Te: I’m fine with dealing with hypothetical, “in my mind” things (For instance, I haven’t exactly observed much external ‘proof’ of the cognitive functions but I “believe” in them anyway). When I was about 13 or so I remember considering things such as numerology or astrology despite the fact that they had no proof supporting them. I can sometimes discard politeness for efficiency but only when I’m particularly annoyed (18)

...(otherwise I just suggest things with a “maybe” instead of demanding that we do them). I often am the one getting stuff done during group work, although I don’t quite like it. Others do perceive me as being rather careful and efficient I think, despite the fact that I’m actually otherwise. I do use things such as lists and tables to work more efficiently. (19/19, Again, I'm sorry for the length of this.)

-----

Hi anon,

Before I get started I want to reiterate something I think I say with some frequency but maybe not enough: Do not split up your behavior by function when sending me asks. I know the goal is to be helpful. It’s not.

Also several of the asks in this series were lost, I suspect due to the high volume. If you could resend the lost parts that would be useful (and it’s okay if you leave them in the function order since it’s already written - that commentary was more for people in the future), but based on what’s here my guess is one of the IxFJs. You mentioned predictive thinking and tend to be very aware of and deferent to social norms and morality (even when you’re in conflict, you tend not to rail against the norms strongly). You seem very aware of Ti, but insecure in it which would be in line for someone with low Ti. Due to some of the cut off I can’t tell Si vs. Ni.

[scifiwithswords]

34 things i adore about the novel i wrote for nanowrimo when i was 16

for context, i’m currently 23. 

i learned that national novel writing month existed when i was in 8th grade, decided to try it for the first time in 9th. i needed a novel premise that was so self-indulgent that i knew i’d be able to keep my attention on it for 30 days and 50,000 words. the premise i picked can best be described as “jumanji, but with fanfiction.” basically, it’s about teens waking up in their favorite fictional universes and using them as the best playgrounds ever. 

...for a year. the first book, written when i was 14, was about my self-insert Hazel and her best friend Drew getting ripped away from their tragically boring ordinary lives, being dropped in the Doctor Who universe, joining Torchwood, falling in love, and then being catastrophically separated and having to cope with figuring out new universes without each other’s aid. They go on solo adventures, grow as people, and then find their way back to each other. 

Fast forward about eleven months. I’d enjoyed the nanowrimo experience and didn’t feel like i was done with Hazel and Drew. but a story with just them, i felt, would get boring fast. so i added in two new ‘travelers’, auby and daniel, who were originally going to be a beta couple because i was 15 and hadn’t figured out that i was gay and could write gay characters yet. the second book has more self-indulgent fandom shenanigans, but there’s an increasing tension throughout it related to why this whole being-flung-between-universes is happening to them, and whether or not some higher power is responsible. this all culminates in hazel and drew having a climactic argument, daniel leaving the apartment they share on the naruto universe to give them some space and getting stabbed and dying, and then the three remaining travelers being taken to a blank white dimension where they are offered a choice: the lives they’re living now, or almost-perfect ones in the normal world. all three of them choose to continue on as travelers. (this is the book where the relationships get really deliciously complicated--Drew and Hazel are constantly disagreeing over whether there’s a deity responsible for what’s happening to them, Auby is paired with Hazel on her first universe ever and her reaction is massively different than Hazel’s was--her only goal, at the beginning, is to go home. she hurts people on purpose in service of this goal, which Hazel is angry about for a long, long time after.)

That still wasn’t enough. there were still loose ends that i hadn’t sealed, the possibility of a story in the snippets of everyone’s old life that Evelyn (the ‘deity’) in book 2, had appeared in. so there was one more book, written my junior year of high school, to resolve it all. Evelyn turned out to be a traveler who had died. Her partner, Tobias, created his own world to work on getting her back. he brought back Daniel instead, by mistake, and then eventually succeeds. We learn, in the middle of the book, that Evelyn wasn’t the real reason all of this was happening: the true puppet master was her sister Rennie, who had been writing a story where terrible things happened to the people who had wronged her over the years. auby, when she got a little older, had abandoned Rennie as a friend.  Daniel had never become her friend. Drew and Hazel had said some stupid shit to her online. But when Rennie feels the story getting really out of control (when Tobias takes things into his own hands to rescue Evelyn), she decides to try writing herself into it. And into the story she goes. At the end Evelyn is able to leverage her in-universe powers to give the travelers (who call themselves wanderers now, thanks to Tobias) another, less cruel choice: be wanderers with control over their own destinies and destinations, or stay on a nearly-utopian world she’s created for them. Drew and Hazel go, everyone else stays, Evelyn fades away. 

I hadn’t reread these books in many many years. I reread the 8th grade one last summer, looking for clues about what i was like in 9th grade (i’d thrown out all my journals from when i was younger years before, a decision that i bitterly regret.). i decided to reread wanderers (aka book 3) on a whim, and found that it depended so heavily on book 2 that i had to reread the latter half of that as well. 

my major reaction is that the premise, the plot, the relationships, everything--it’s all so quintissentially teenage, in a way that i genuinely didn’t understand it was at the time. the prospect of being pulled from one universe to another, with no control over where you’ll go and no knowledge of when it will happen, was always an allegory for the lack of control you have as a teenager, living under rules and expectations that you had no say in choosing. the fact that being thrown around between fictional universes goes from something the characters love, to something they question, to something they resent. the ways that they grow and change within and between the books, and the way those changes reflect changes that most people go through between fourteen and sixteen. 

so, without firther ado, the list, compiled during my 2018 Wanderers reread: 

1.       Hazel being like “I was braver back then”

2.       Drew being like “we used to like testing our limits, now we were afraid of what we might be capable of”

3.       The complicated relationship between Auby and Hazel and why they dislike each other. Hazel being like “Drew and I worked well with Daniel because he was independent and unique, but Auby was clingy and needed to lean on people. I didn’t like being anyone’s people.”

4.       The general sense of them having no control over the course their lives are taking, and coping with it by leaning hard into their relationships. It’s so teenage and at 16 when I was writing this I didn’t even realize that.

5.       The pacing in Wanderers! The Rennie stuff at the beginning! The stories of everyone hanging out independently or in little groups before they’re all brought to the same location by Tobias’s success! The way we leave off Tobias and Daniel’s story, after their relationship and quest have been explored a little, and immediately when we come back to it, the rest of the kiddos are involved.

6.       The characters unique preferences and thought patterns that resolve themselves so well in first person, why tf did I stop writing this way?

7.       The sweetness and gentleness between Hazel and Drew; how much they love each other. Hazel letting Drew hug her for longer because she’s concerned about how wiped out he looks, the two of them laughing together the first morning in the Forest, Hazel’s (kinda irrational kinda founded) jealousy of Auby

8.       Auby’s very confusing feelings about Daniel, who doesn’t remember the life they could have had together and isn’t the same person as he was when they would have started it.

9.       “It wasn’t fair, and I know life isn’t fair, but this thing was the reason my life wasn’t fair”

10.   The downsides of the AU. Drew felt like the alternate him was a bad person. Hazel didn’t love Drew as strongly. Auby getting almost everything she wants but still pining for the only thing she has now. And being unable to mourn this Daniel, g-d.

11.   “On the nights when I was just getting to bed after not sleeping for a few days, before Daniel, was the only time that I ever allowed myself to think about Evelyn actually being back.”

12.   I haven’t done character work this intense since uh. Since this.

13.   Rennie feeling like a bystander to her own (magical) story. The whole concept of there being a place where her characters are that she can’t describe because she can’t make herself see it. Her seizing back control in the end.

14.   Rennie didn’t realize she was being cruel, she thought she was coping

15.   Fuck did I pour myself into Auby and Rennie’s relationship. As both of them at the same time somehow.

16.   TOO BAD THE LOCKDOWN HAD A PURPOSE also really good pacing. When did I get so bad at pacing

17.   The fucking metaphors. Tobias turning his mind into a ‘drill’ instead of a ‘net’ when he’s mentally linked with Evelyn

18.   “Her voice was like bells, like wind chimes, like laughter. It was larger than life, and there was no problem with that.”

19.   G-d Tobias’s last conversation with the ‘real’ Evelyn

20.   “I hate you, you know,” Rennie said mildly, as though she was informing me that my shoe was untied.

21.   I grasped at threads, responded to what I could understand with the words that I could find. “Rennie, you know that I would never-“ -- “Yeah, Auby, I do,” she said. “Because I wrote you that way. You’re not actually Auby Harris. You’re my Auby Harris.”

22.   The concept of Tobias and Evelyn flying too close to the sun together, and Evelyn paying for it materially, and Tobias paying for it in heartbreak. The sense that they really love each other.

23.   Auby blaming herself for the things Rennie did because Rennie was betrayed by (a different) Auby

24.   Rennie makes room for Auby on the couch and Auby goes to sit on a different couch

25.   That good good serial narrative shit! Hazel’s main internal struggle in the second book being reconciling what had happened in the first book! The ending of the second book hanging like a specter over all of them for the entirety of the third book!

26.   This was the end of the line. This was our happily ever after. But the stories had never left off with the character in his happily ever after jumpy and frustrated, almost craving the intensity of the harsh journey behind him? […] we had always thought of our lives as us against the world, and now there was just…us.

27.   Tobias’s profound sense of loss after Evelyn dies, then him finding a piece of nature that he believes carries her essence, about which he thinks “Calm, and yet bold, breathtakingly beautiful. Yes, Evelyn was here.”

28.   EVERYONE BUT RENNIE HAS BEEN LIVING THIS LIFE SINCE THEY WERE 14 SO ONLY RENNIE KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE

29.   PAGES LONG argument between Hazel and Rennie about whether Marvel or DC makes better comics, interrupted by other happenings on the universe, involving all the major relationships between the characters, they eventually put it to a group vote because everyone else is getting annoyed, it turns out to be a tie because there are only six of them left and everybody loses because Evelyn is dead. Just the way the realization of the results of the vote cuts all of the tension.

30.   Everyone gradually transitioning from calling themselves Travelers to calling themselves Wanderers, and Auby not finding out that’s what they call themselves now until page 120/123

31.   Hazel letting Drew choose whether to stay or keep wandering at the end. Drew’s justification: I need her. She needs it. The fact that that’s softened by his restlessness in utopia like fifteen pages before.

32.   Hazel forgiving Auby, in their last ever conversation, for something that she had done ninety fucking thousand words ago.

33.   Daniel being sure that even though he’ll be okay, Rennie and Tobias will never be over Evelyn’s death. The fact that he starts talking and starts a little memorial service for her—Daniel, who tried his best not to need people, who usually barely speaks.

34.   The fact that the last line is (Hazel asking Drew) “Where do you want to start?”

[xxprincessjewelsxx]

A Dangerous Game (Suho Mafia!au fic) Chapter 11 - Torture

Warnings: None

Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15(M), Ch. 16, Ch. 17(M), Ch. 18, Ch. 19, Ch. 20, Ch. 21, Ch. 22, Bonus Chapter

When I woke the next morning Junmyeon, to my surprise was still sound asleep on the couch. Shaking my head I went to the kitchen and proceeded to make breakfast. After awhile of being in the kitchen I heard thud and groan followed by a few unsavory words about a headache.

Reaching into the cupboard I pulled out the bottle of asprin and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and as Junmyeon entered the kitchen handed them to him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled before taking a seat at the island.

“Mmhmm,” I replied.

Silence fell over the kitchen as I continued to cook and he only spoke again when a plate of food got set in front of him. “You made me breakfast?”

“Yes...”

“Why?”

“Because I’m already cooking...”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Would you like me to take it back?” I questioned, reaching for it only to have him move it just out of my reach.

“No, I’ll eat it...” he replied, grabbing a fork, “How was your date?”

“It...wasn’t a date...” I said, thinking about to how the day ended. He had been right; I could tell myself that it wasn’t a date, but Taekwoon didn’t see it that way...especially not after he kissed me.

“You don’t sound sure about that...” he said.

“What do you want me to say, Junmyeon?” I questioned, “He took me to the amusement park, he won me a stuffed animal, he took me to dinner, and he kissed me but I still don’t-.”

“He kissed you?” Junmyeon questioned.

“Yeah...and it didn’t feel right...god, what is wrong with me?” I questioned more to myself then to him, “You piss me off so much because you don’t even treat me like a human being, but I can’t stay mad at you and then I kissed you and it felt right but you aren’t even attracted to me, but a man that is so sweet to me and actually likes me kisses me and it feels wrong? I’m so screwed up in the head!” Grabbing my plate of food I left the kitchen and headed to my room, not even bothering to look back at him. 

In my room I sat on my bed eating my breakfast, staring at the blackened TV screen. Out of the corner of my eye, the stuffed puppy from the day before sat on the corner of my bed...

Staring...

Watching....

Judging...

Maybe not that dramatic, but at the time it seemed like those big plastic eyes were boring holes into my soul. “I should’ve been happy when Taekwoon kissed me, right?” I said, looking at the puppy, “You were there....later...he treated me good...why am I talking to a stuffed animal?”

Pushing the stuffed animal off the end of my bed I tried to continue eating but without the stuffed animal suddenly felt lonely. Pushing my food aside I reached down and picked the stuffed animal up and leaned back against my pillows.

“When Taekwoon went to kiss me, I was nervous...like a good nervous. I guess I was a little happy that he wanted to, but when he did and I kissed back it felt...weird, wrong...like his lips weren’t meant for mine...I don’t know,” I sighed looking up at the ceiling of my canopy bed. It was odd for me, a 25 year old to be talking to a stuffed animal, but at the same time...I had no one else to talk to...so why the hell not. “When Junmyeon kissed me...” I stopped for a moment and thought back to the scene at the spa. His bare skin touching mine, him holding me with strong arms, the way his lips moved against mine, seeing the entirety of the body that he hides behind high priced suits most days. “For some reason...kissing Junmyeon felt right...his hands on me felt right, being that close to him felt so right. But for him it was so wrong.”

I sighed looking back at the stuffed animal, running a hand through the soft faux fur. “I wish I would’ve just been born into a regular family...or even if my mother had just dumped me in an orphanage. That would be better than what I’m going through....”

~Junmyeon~

Junmyeon listened through the door and Y/N talked to the stuffed animal, guilt shooting through his chest as she talked about the night at the spa, but also interest at the look on her face as she thought about that kiss. He could deny it all he wanted, but every once and a while...when he saw her, he thought about that kiss. He thought about how hard it was not to take her right then and there in that room. 

He had lied that night, a lie that he was still trying to hold on to, but it was slowly slipping out of his grip. He was sexually attracted to her...and when he thought back to that night in the spa, having her naked body pressed up against his, lips connected to hers, it made him twitch. There were times where if he could he would do it all over again. But time after time he continued to distance himself, continued to act like an ass, continued to make her feel like he didn’t care. 

Thing was, he did...but he had to distance himself. He didn’t want to have any attachments that could be used against him or that could get hurt because of him. After everything was said and done with requiring her father’s territory she would be free to go; free to do what she wants, go where she wants, live how she wants, and...love who she wants.

~Y/N~

It wasn’t until later in the day that I finally reemerged from my room, finding that the rest of EXO had graced the penthouse with their presence. As usual they were huddled in the loving room looking over papers and talking in hushed voices. The only word I was able to catch being “detective” an officer, every now and again.

The only one not deep in the conversation was Yixing would was sitting off to the side drinking coffee, wearing a...lab coat? Walking over to him I look him in disbelief. “Are you an actual doctor?”

“Who went to actual med school and has actual patients,” he replied.

“Then why are you hanging out this these guys?” I questioned, pointing over my shoulder.

He laughed at my bluntness. “I have actual patients, but I’m a doctor for the underground society,” he said.

“Couldn’t you open your own practice?”

“I have one...”

“One that doesn’t involve the mafia?”

“If certain circumstances hadn’t cost me my license...yes...”

“Oh...” I said, not really sure if he would want to tell me what happened.

“A patient died on the operating table, family members didn’t think that me and the rest of the medical team did enough to try and save him...normally something like this might be able to be fought by the hospital lawyers, but the family also knew some important people...so me and my medical license and the axe,” he said.

“So now you work for EXO?” I questioned, “How-”

“I don’t work for just EXO...Junmyeon gave me a place to practice and gets me the pharmaceuticals, supplies, and machines that I need and I pay him for that,” he said, “It is my practice...but Junmyeon makes some money too.”

Sitting down next to him I looked at the other eight men. “Do I even want to know what they’re talking about?”

“They’re talking about the detectives that have been watching us...the ones that crashed the poker game and the ones who would’ve probably kidnapped you at the spa,” he replied, “An undercover thought he was being sneaky at the strip club that Jongdae oversees but he wasn’t as good at his job as he thought he was and Chanyeol was able to grab him and they got some answers out of him...”

“They got some answers out of him?” I questioned.

“He’s alive...Chan did a number of the guy’s face though,” he said.

Wide-eyed I looked over towards Chanyeol; around me he was a tol puppy of a man who while at the penthouse and not working you would never think that he was a member of a mob. Sometimes that made me forget that he was the muscle of the group and probably had gotten a lot of information out of a lot of people. “Does anyone else...you know...get information out of people?”

He was silent for a moment. “Everyone has had a time when they have stepped in and gotten their hands dirty...that’s how it works. Even I have...”

“Why-”

“That’s enough Yixing...” Junmyeon said, “I know you have questions, but there are some you don’t need answered.”

“No no...if she wants to know she should,” Yixing said.

“Yixing...” Junmyeon warned.

“The right mix of medications will make any mind easy enough to manipulate, and a tongue loose enough to get all the information you could ever need,” he said.

“So you use the skills you learned to heal people, to do harm?” I questioned.

“I never give a dose large enough to kill...just enough to get information,” he said, “Sometimes they don’t even remember what they’ve done afterwards.”

I sighed and went to say something, but Junmyeon spoke up again. “Y/N....that’s enough questions for today, go get some clothes on. Something casual, we’re going out.”

Not really wanting to go anywhere with Junmyeon, but not wanting to argue either I headed to my room to get dressed. It wasn’t hard to forget that Junmyeon was a mafia boss with the way he acted...but the others sometimes it was easier to forget. Now, maybe not so much...

~Junmyeon~

“Yixing...when I tell you to stop, you listen to what I’m saying,” Junmyeon said after Y/N left the room.

“You can’t coddle her, especially not if you’re going to marry her,” Yixing said, “Unless...you don’t plan on actually marrying her?”

Junmyeon looked down at him hands as eight sets of eyes were now staring at him. “She will stay here for as long as she needs too, then-”

“Then what? You’ll throw her out in the streets and make her fend for herself?” Baekhyun questioned now on his feet, “She’s not something that you can toss away once you’re done with her.”

“She will be taken care of, where she’ll go will be none of my concern,” he said, trying to lie to himself, “If by then you are still worried, you are more than welcome to take her in yourself.” Junmyeon stood up and tried to walk away when Baekhyun spoke up again.

“I would and I will because she’s my friend and unlike you, I try and treat her with respect!” 

Junmyeon bit his lip but didn’t turn around to look at Baekhyun. If Baekhyun had any idea the push and pull that he was going through internally in that moment he would understand, but he didn’t. So ignoring the outburst he went to wait by the elevator for Y/N.

~Y/N~

After changing I went back to the living room. As I entered the atmosphere in the room felt different and Baekhyun was on his feet, a sour look on his face whilst Junmyeon was gone from the room.

“Is everything okay?” I questioned.

“It’s fine,” Baekhyun said sharply before sitting down.

With an unamused look on his face, Minseok looked over at me. “Junmyeon’s waiting for you by the elevator.”

Nodding I left to go find Junmyeon who had an expression on his face that wasn’t any better that Baek’s. “Did something happen?”

“Nope...let’s go...”

Shopping...we were going shopping...

“So...what we doing here, exactly?” I asked.

“I need to find an outfit for a meeting and I need your opinion,” he stated.

“You’ve been picking out your outfits fine before...why do you need my help now?” I questioned.

“It’s a meeting that I can’t afford to miss the chance at getting what I want out of it, and I need a woman’s opinion on the outfit because the person I am meeting with is a woman,” he said.

“Oh...” I said, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach, “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.” ‘Or how much I want to be....’ I thought, wondering if he did this as a way to torture me.

“All you have to do is tell me what you think,” he said, “I called ahead of time and the store picked some stuff out.” He led me to the dressing rooms. “Sit there...I’ll be out in a minute.

As I sat there, giving my honest opinion on the suits I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream or cry. He had heard what I said this morning, I know he did, was this some sort of way to torture me with the fact that I could be attracted to him and he would never be attracted to me. Or was this just his way of showing that he just didn’t give a shit.

“I like that one,” I said, “Looks better than the others.”

He looked at himself in the mirror and straightened out the suit before agreeing with me. “I like this one too.”

After changing back into the clothes he started in I followed him back out into the main part of the store. As he stood in line to pay, I wandered around looking at the women’s clothing. I picked up a black and blue dress and held it against myself in front of the mirror that was nearby; it was a nice dress, knee length, not too fancy, but not too plain...

“It looks good...if you want it I can get it,” Junmyeon said, walking over shopping bag in hand.

“You don’t lie,” I said, hanging the dress back up on the rack, “You ready to go?”

“I wasn’t lying,” he said.

“Well I don’t want the dress, I was just looking...” I said, head towards the door, “It’s just a dress...I have enough of them.”

Once again, as usual, silence filled the car. We were stuck in traffic too which didn’t help anything.

“Um...thank you...for today,” Suho said, clearing his throat.

“Mmhmm,” I replied.

“Do you want to know what the meeting is about?” he questioned.

The knot in my stomach tightened again as I thought about why he could possibly want to impress some woman so badly. “No...no...that’s your business,” I managed to get out.

“Hmm,” he hummed, finally able to turn down a cross street, “Well I’m going to tell you anyway, the woman that I’m going to go meet with is-Y/N LOOK OUT!!!!”

He suddenly grabbed me as headlights came barreling at us, hitting the car on his side, causing us to flip at least one time. The lamborgini came to rest on its wheels at though the impact was jarring and terrifying we were both okay,

“Y/N? You alright?” Junmyeon questioned.

“Yeah...Yeah I think so,” I said, “Are you?” 

“I’m fine,” he replied, “If you can get your door open, I need you to run...I need you to run and not look back.”

“Why? Whats....” I stopped and looked out his window to see two men with guns heading towards the vehicle, “If I can get my door open you can slide out my door.”

“My foot is stuck...now check your door,” he said. Shaking I carefully checked my  door and it popped open.

“We can try and get your foot out, the door it open and-” I started but I stopped when he started loading his gun.

“On the count of three, you will open that door and start running and fast, hard, and far as you can,” he said,

“What about you?” I questioned.

“I’ll be fine...let’s just worry about you, hmm?” he replied, “Now one...”

“Junmyeon wait I-”

“Two.”

“Can’t you just-”

“Three!”

On the count of three he pushed me backwards making me tumble out of the car and onto the ground. After that I could hear guns going off as I ran as fast as I could from the scene. Not far away was a dumpster that I hid myself behind. He told me to run, but I was scared, and I couldn’t leave him.

After what seems like forever everything went silent...eerily silent. Peaking out from around the dumpster all I could see were the two bodies of the men that hit us on the ground and the two destroyed cars.

Throwing caution aside I ran back to the now bullet ridden Lamborghini....

To be continued...