#yes this is different than the one i posted on twitter because secretly i prefer the more unfinished version but dont tell anyone else that

[orinthered]

really rough unfinished minthara portrait from the depths of my wips. btw.

[lovee-infected]

So Merlin the goddamn great, smh but no ROOK LORE I AM FURIOUS! I STILL WANT TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS

Warning: Spoiler alert!

Oooooofff the final episodes of chapter 5 did seriously explode the fandom I see, from the overblot Grim to our twst Merlin, everything literally everything about the end of this chapter was a big surprise but... This chapter has also brought up a considerably huge wave of drama along with it, which is basically because of Rook voting for RSA instead of NRC. I, personally, considered it to be just a reason to laugh and make a meme or two about this chapter and all. But looking at the fandom, I can clearly see that it's been causing some serious consequences, some fans/creators are leaving the fandom, there has been a couple of offensively worded Rook hate posts (small memes and jokes aren't counted) and there's ever a #RookIsOverParty on Twitter now.

Okay but, it was all cool and chill until it was just a joke. Can't you see? This happens in many fandoms! And is often a good chance to laugh! But...This is getting serious. A huge majority of this fandom (even Rook/Vil shippers and Rook stans themselves) are hating on Rook/Rook stans and fans are leaving, therefore I believe the situation needs to be clarified before it leads to more dramas.

Many of you had also requested a Rook analysis before sooooo- here we go!

First off, this episode did eventually give us a considerable amount of Rook lore although it wasn't as perfect as we wanted it to be. Most of us wanted to get to know him more, but I'd say focusing on all we've got already would do for now. But before that, let's talk about what exactly happened in chapter 5 and why are fand hating on Rook rn:

after the performances are voted on, it’s revealed that nrc lost to rsa by just a single vote. that vote turned out to be rook, who voted for rsa in favor of their own team as he was moved by their spirit. the whole nrc team is shellshocked (of course) and vil faints

it’s also later revealed that rook is one of neige’s biggest fans, possessing albums full of his bromides, going to each meet and greet, and even writing him anonymous fan letters.

Okay okay I know this was quite unexpected and resulted in NRC's loss, but before you say how much of a shitty character Rook is consider this:

1) He was totally honest with his opinion and thoughts.

One of the interesting facts regarding Rook's character design and presence in chapter 5, is how he played the role of both the huntsman and the mirror.

He was honest with his beliefs and decision, although it was against his friends. Just as how the mirror introduced Snow White as the fairest one of all although Evil Queen didn't want to hear of her.

This is also what Rook did, he judged based on his idealistics towards beauty. NOT because he's a screaming Neige fanboy and NOT because he disliked Vil.

Honestly, if there's one person whose judgement would be strong and on point, that'll be Rook and only him; in parts (2) & (4) we'll explain why.

2) His decision has nothing to do with his personal relationship with Vil!

Yes, he voted for RSA, but to assume that this means he secretly preferred Neige over Vil all this time and call him a betrayer now, that's wrong.

Look, if there one person who could judge NRC's process through the training sessions fairly, that'll be Rook. He's been there all this time, watching each and every second of Vil's coaching and team's progressing, note that he also helped Vil the most, this performance would've been impossible without his help!

But, he was also there when Vil lost it, when Vil's fear of not being the winner took over him and made him even try to poison Neige. At some point Vil was nothing like the perfect coach he was at the very beginning, and if Rook hadn't told Neige to escape who knows how terrible the whole think might've gone.

His decision, on the other hand, was HIS decision. He was asked to choose one performance, and he chose what he liked; that's all, no big deal. Note that the silly thing with the whole issue isn't mainly how Rook voted for RSA, it's also about how half of the audience as well voted for RSA which makes it sound almost stupid, this point will be explained in part (5)!

3) Have you all really forgotten what Rook is like?

I mean, come on this is what he is in general! This is Rook Hunt we're speaking of, one of the rarely known characters of the game and mister of surprises and unpredictable decisions!

Him being a Neige fan is no big deal, and I assure you, he probably stans a lot of other people else than Neige too. Don't forget that this is the same monseiur Rook who gave 100 points! to anyone who participated in NRC's VDC test, so there shouldn't really be a panic taking all over the fandom just because we know he stans Neige, Rook is one to greatly appreciate the concept of beauty in general, and Neige is one of the most famous and beautiful people in the whole twisted wonderland, so other than this being much of a snow white reference, it was totally expected to see him stanning Neige as well. Keep this in mind that just because he's a fan of Neige, it doesn't mean that he hates or he has betrayed Vil.

In Rook's point of view, there is no such thing as rivals in beauty, he just appreciates both Vil and Neige's beauty regardless of what's going on between them.

4) This chapter proved that Rook is indeed a perfect friend for Vil.

While there hasn't ever been a mention of a canon relationship between Vil and Rook, shipper may be happy to know that this episode didn't sink the ship at all. And if you judge and see through what happened in the right eye, you'll see it even shows how strong their friendship is.

Note that this wasn't the first time Rook criticizes Vil either, back in Vil's SR lab coat story he openly criticized Vil and said he's gonna get fat if he continued to eat like this. See? Rook never the once lied to Vil, he openly judges him, and his judgements are logical and on point.

Vil on the other hand is always working his hardest to improve, to become better and completer by each and every day that passes. He needs such a friend by his side to judge him nonetheless, a friend to judge him just like the mirror judged the Queen. But there's a difference, Vil accepts and appreciates criticism BECAUSE, he wants to improve.

A friend like Rook is seriously what he needs, Rook supported and helped him all the way as RSA was getting prepared for VDC, he could've just made them lose and by ruining their training sessions if he wanted to! Can't you see? He helped Vil more than anyone else, but didn't lie to him when it was the time to judge. Vil still has a long way to go, and Rook is aware. He wants Vil to see that he isn't yet complete so that he can become better than he already is.

That's it, that's what a real friend would do.

5) Twst needs to be more considerative toward story line and sudden reveals.

On the one hand, it's mainly fans who are exaggerating the whole issue and starting drama over a simple voting and all, but twst itself as well is partly guilty. This is such a huge and active fandom, each and every detail about the story can be super effective (ex: Sebek being half human, Malleus being an orphan, etc). After making RSA's Yahoo performance look super silly they worst thing they could do was to make NRC lose like this, meaningless, silly and helpless. Why?

Twst seriously needs to take details more seriously as they could've AT LEAST made this comparison sound reasonable by choosing a better and stronger song than a twisted version of Heigh-Ho.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Rook voting for Neige, but seriously? Rook voting for Neige had to be a symbol of honesty and Rook's loyalty toward the concept of beauty itself and not Vil, not an stupid decision to make Rook prefer a childish song over NRC's wonderful performance and look like a helpless Neige fan boy.

-Sigh- Well, I guess that's all I had for now, hope I didn't miss anything. But anyway, the Rook drama is slowly getting overwhelming. There's nothing wrong with memes and jokes AS LONG AS THEY'RE JUST A JOKE- offending characters with clear intention and causing drama because of it is not okay. I know that was unexpected please remember not to exaggerate the story too much either!

[msuowen]

hello hello!! this is super belated, but i unexpectedly got swamped with some school/irl things after acceptances so late intro is late. i’m excited to finally have the chance to jump into things, though! anyway, this is the bane of my life, owen kang. he’s one of suseong’s senior prefects, majors in healing, and is a part of too many clubs! on the surface, he seems like the friendly, reliable, big brother type, but his ~persona~ has been carefully crafted and refined over the years. underneath that, he’s just kind of a mess. 

i have his about and background pages up, but i’ll drop a quick intro under the cut. i don’t have a plots page yet, sadly, but i’ll list down some possible connection ideas under the cut as well! pls hmu if you’d like to plot! i check tumblr ims pretty regularly, but i also have a twitter (dm for @) if you’d prefer to plot there! ooooooor, you could just like this post and i’ll slide into your ims instead!

QUICK FACTS:

twenty two, 1/2 of suseong’s senior prefects, majoring in healing with a minor in potions

he’s also president of the herbology club, and a member of the swimming team, ancient runes club, and potions club! like most other people in his major, he’ll also help out in the hospital wing for that ~experience~ so he keeps a #stacked schedule

former hogwarts student - was in ravenclaw. his hogwarts self was markedly different than the person he is now (a lot more like, shy/introverted/quiet/meek), so if you know from back then... no you don’t ♥

like i said, comes off as a responsible, reliable big brother type. super friendly and personable, will help you out if you’re in a crisis. he seems a little uptight, but he’s an all around good guy who not many people have a bad word to say about - and works really hard to cultivate that image, you know? 

has stellar grades, always participates in clubs, consistently does well on his sports team, etc. vulnerability and seeming less than perfect is a no-go for him, so he puts a stupid amount of effort into stuff that doesn’t really matter in the long run

so yeah!!! he’s fake - is actually super bitter and cynical underneath his perfect good boy exterior. gets exhausted easily and hates dealing with people he deems not worth his time... which is most people. really heavy on the self-loathing and insecurities because he thinks he’s a shitty person and worries a lot about not meeting the arbitrary standards he sets for himself!!

keeps most people at a distance - like yeah, he’s friendly, but he doesn’t have many friends. it’s really hard for him to trust people and be honest with them!! doesn’t mean he doesn’t have like... a very small inner circle but it’s (waves hands) hard, you feel?

anyway just don’t perceive him and everything will be good

as a brief background: born in wales, grew up in the uk region. ended up moving around a lot in his childhood due to his dad’s condition. to cut a long story short, his dad is a werewolf, and the family didn’t always have enough funds to pay for wolfsbane so there were many full moons where his dad went feral and owen and his mom just had to keep him contained. after a few years of this, his mom (who was a poor muggle, rip) just up and left which meant owen had to keep his dad contained when there was no wolfsbane!! that left him a bit traumatized and terrified of werewolves though he’s ashamed of this... really ashamed

(it’s fucked up to be scared of your own dad, right?)

so hogwarts/mokseong is kind of an escape from ~reality~ though he still wants to help his dad somehow... so he’s trying to focus on researching a complete cure for lycanthropy. his dad’s condition is a secret, but most people do know about owen’s research goals and he’s super gungho about like #werewolfrights. it’s just that no one knows why! or that he’s secretly scared of them!

anyway that’s him. my bitchass son

CONNECTIONS:

people he knew from hogwarts, mostly because the dissonance between his kinda quiet/reserved image and the assertive, involved prefect he is now is kind of funny

friends... or more like shallow(ish) friends he talks to often but they really don’t know shit about him. maybe they don’t realize it and think they’re besties! idk, he’s fairly friendly and approachable, so i see him being on good terms with most people

maybe like (1) or (2) legit inner circle friends who’ve gotten to see beyond the mask owen puts up and like him in spite of his bitchy soul

enemies?? would love some academic rivals like yes we will get into a debate in the middle of class over this super niche subject let’s GO. more serious enemies are fine too - love some drama so if you wanna hate him (or want him to hate you), i’m down

club and team friends!! esp from herbology club since owen spends a ton of time in the greenhouse and takes his role as prez super seriously

exes maybe?? i love ex plots - can’t see him dating much but i feel like he has and it usually ends kind of messily because he’s either too busy or not willing to be vulnerable in a relationship rip. maybe some of them he actually liked a lot fr

he’s smart so people he tutors, or helps out with shit otherwise - you can come to him with the most random problem and he’s likely to help you out!

suseong folks i just want some cute house plots ): esp with younger students since owen is really good at taking care of people!!

little specific but someone who ends up in the hospital wing all the time and it drives owen crazy because he’s worried about them and hates that he’s worried (and okay maybe he has a cr*sh but that’s not important)

idk i will put up a legit plots page soon but please plot with us :’D

[workersolidarity]

So...

kinda bothered by all the Red Baiting I see online by the so-called "Left" when it comes to the criticisms of Trump and the GOP

I though this garbage would die out when it became clear after the Mueller Investigations that Trump, nor anyone else in the GOP were Manchurian Candidates secretly working for Russian Government, but just rather your typical, run-of-the-mill Corrupt rich guy.

Clearly I was way off and the Red Baiting bullshit isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Looking at the first ten responses to a recent Tweet by Trump, I found 6 of them were just Red Baiting Right-Wing Reactionary Propaganda, and the other four were just snark and non-Red Baiting memes.

None of the responses involved the slightest but of critical analysis, not even mixed within the snark and memes.

I immediately found something upon my own critical analysis of the Tweet worth pointing out, as Trump was equating fear with respect and Unity, which he assumes will help him to succeed.

I was quick to point out that fear=respect=unity=success was the same formula previous Fascists like Hitler and Moussillini both used. Which of course didn't end well for them since Hitler committed suicide when his defeat was imminent, and Moussillini was publicly hanged and dismembered.

My point is to show how simple it is to criticize Trump and the GOP in legitimate, non-reactionary ways, and it's just as simple to come up with something more clever and humorous.

But instead, 60% of the people I saw on Twitter, most of whom are Petite Bourgeois Liberals in the media world, but many aren't in that world, but are clearly being influenced by Reactionary Herd Mentality, just copying the Right-Wing commentary and social media snark they're accustomed to hearing on MSNBC and CNN.

This isn't a mistake, it's not accidental that this is the thoughtless direction the Trump/GOP Critic crowd has taken when responding on TV and Social Media.

The fact is that Democrats, having lost the 2016 election by letting Trump get to their Left on Economic issues while simultaneously stoking outrage and Nationalism, have no legitimate path to taking down Trump from a Progressive position. Not that they want to either. They don't seem to want to risk helping a "Socialist" get elected in 2020.

Instead the media crowd can only criticise Trump from the Right. Even when they make a serious attempt at criticizing Trump/GOP policies, they fall flat, sounding unconvincing and forced. All they're left with is snarky Red Baiting memes, innuendo about Manchurian Candidates, sounding just as deranged and conspiracy minded as Republicans.

Liberal media figures are only capable of attacking Trump's Immigration Policies from the Left. But because of affects of decades of Neoliberal Free Market Fundamentalism, and successful Fascist Propaganda blaming the poverty inducing results of these policies on Hispanic and Islamic Immigrant Communities, the masses have become highly skeptical of Immigration Policies mostly tailored specifically to keep deflationary pressures on wages domestically. You can't really blame people for seeing through this facade and then falling for the Nationalist Propaganda of the GOP.

So once you realize this, it becomes clear that the Liberal critics are left with two choices. Either they move Left into Social Democratic territory and attempt a more honest if unconvincing line of attack against the Right, or they can dive headlong down a rabbit-hole of continued conspiracies and Reactionary attacks from Trump's Right, continuing to defend the Free Market dogmatism and Corporate Free Trade Policies of the last half-century.

Of course we all know the Neoliberal Paradigm is highly unpopular with most people and become more unpopular by the day, and so they've instead gone whole-hog on the Red Baiting and Conspiracy theories.

Now we seem to have large sections of the White Working Class convinced by the Nationalist Propaganda out of sensation of frustration and a realization of false choice Bourgeois Democracy offers them.

Without any kind of United Socialist Movement in the US, or even a coherent Center-Left Social Democratic outlet for the people's frustrations, this has left them susceptible to calls of Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia coming from the GOP Right, as well as the Red Baiting and Conspiracy theories coming from Democrats and the Liberal media ecosystem. Of course this led us to the Trump Era, and inevitably leaves us open to a far more competent, dangerous Fascism in the future.

The only option we have is work harder and faster than ever before to educate Workers and Organize ourselves into a coherent Revolutionary Movement based on the Principles of Marxism-Leninism.

The descent into madness isn't going to get better on its own. The two-Party dichotomy of Bourgeois Liberals and Bourgeois Fascists leave us with a Political System that will see the Fascist gain control 9 times out of 10.

Under the twin threats of Fascism and Climate Disaster, we have no choice but to stop fighting amongst ourselves for scraps of media attention and instead build up a serious, Militant, Vanguard Party capable of defending the Working Class, raising the consciousness of the Proletariat, and challenging Bourgeois Rule.

Failure isn't an option anymore. There are countless Marxist Leninist Organizations out there doing fantastic work. Some are small and unknown, others have a reputation with the Labor Movement, and still others have done great work on analyzing the History of Revisionism and have been working on strategies for years on how to combat it.

From the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Party For Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), the American Labor Party (ALP), all the way down to working groups within the Marxist Center, as well as local Organizations like the one I joined the New Orleans Worker's Group.

Of course there are even more I haven't mentioned but that's my point. All these groups and more are working Independently and separate without any common Goals, Strategies, Tactics or even basic coalitions or basic communication channels.

That's Not a Winning Strategy!

This is too important a time in History, just as importantly it's too great an opportunity to miss just because of individual egos and ideas of turf.

We must begin conversations across Organizations to begin the work and process of consolidating our various organizations into a Vanguard Party of the Proletariat. Fuck the name or where it's headquarters are. It's more important that we do the work of fighting for the Workers and Uniting the Proletariat under a common Marxist-Leninist Movement! We have the greatest opportunity to build a Socialist Movement capable of challenging Capitalist right here in the Imperialist core! People are rediscovering Socialism and we're allowing the Revisionists, Anarchists and Social Democrats of the DSA define Socialism in the 21st Century!

We cannot allow these Right Opportunists to define our Movement for us just so they can hand it over to the Democratic Party betraying the Working Class again as they always inevitably do!

This is our moment, and we have little choice but to seize on it by the very nature of the external forces acting on Imperialist Society.

This is the first time in nearly a Century when the Socialist Movement is growing instead of shrinking. To fail the Workers now would be an unforgivable mistake. All Marxist Leninists have more in common worth fighting for than differences that can be worked out better through inter-Party Dialectics.

The Bolsheviks didn't begin by rejecting everyone they disagreed with. Instead they built up a Socialist Movement within the RSDP and alongside the Socialist Revolutionaries and even the Liberal Cadets until the Left had become a force in Russian Politics. They didn't begin by splitting with the Mensheviks and fighting the SRs and Cadets.

Once they had sufficient strength, then they broke with the Mensheviks. Then they were capable of proving themselves the legitimate Party of the Proletariat through their constant work Organizing, fighting Tsarism and Capitalism, and by showing through their actions why they were the true representatives of the Russian masses and not the Opportunists, the Liberals and the Anarchists.

And it wasn't until after they became the Venguard Party leading the October Revolution to victory that they could afford truly battling the Reactionary Bourgeois Capitalist pretenders during the Civil War.

When the dust had finally settled, they finally had the strength to consolidate their power, and it wasn't until all this was completed that the Bolsheviks now had the strength to purge the Opportunists and Revisionists within their own ranks.

We cannot expect to start a Socialist Movement by rejecting people before we've even begun. We have to educate first, argue internally second, and only when that process has failed does it make sense to reject a member from a Vanguard Party.

Yes, we also cannot afford to allow Social Democrats to corrupt the meaning of Socialism and confuse the Workers. That's obviously unacceptable and cannot be allowed in the Party. But a bit of Pragmatism and restraint within an organization of dedicated Marxist-Leninists would be wise.

As long as a Comrade or Cadre doesn't violate the rules and principles of Democratic Centralism post-debate, as long they don't actively contribute to disunity, then some level of dissent isn't just acceptable, it's preferable. We have to be a Movement capable of self-reflection, self-criticism, and accepting outside criticism and reflecting on that. Lenin and Stalin understood these points of pragmatic reflection very well. They were constantly critical of one another and the Party and yet always fought to preserve unity within. Nothing says these two principles are mutually exclusive and in fact it's brought up repeatedly in the writings of all the most historic figures within the Movement.

So I'm trying to make an appeal to all the disparate Parties and Organizations currently working Independently towards the same goal without a common line, a common strategy or even basic communication.

We all know it makes no sense and yet we've done nothing to bridge the gaps in decades.

Well, within our current time and place, with a revival of Socialist interest, it's incumbent upon Revolutionaries to immediately begin the hard work of unifying Marxist Leninists Organizations into a Vanguard of the Proletariat.

We have no choice! Our actions as Communists today, may very well shape the History of tommorow, and the survival of people across the world, at a time when the Imperialists have made it undeniably clear their willing to destroy the entire planet to continue their rule, may come down to our ability to Organize ourselves.

Just something to keep in mind as my Comrades consider their contributions to the Movement.

[lovemesomesurveys]

What do you do when there are no good surveys? Check back again later and hope someone has posted one I can do, ha. I’m too lazy to hunt for any myself and anytime that I’ve tried I don’t find any new ones or ones I haven’t done recently. What do you do when you can’t sleep? So every night? My nightly routine consists of listening to ASMR, scrolling through Tumblr, and taking some surveys. Sometimes I also color and catch up on some YouTube videos. The TV is always on as well, even if just for background noise. Do you take gummy vitamins? That’s the only way I can take vitamins since I can’t take pills. So glad that became a thing and they’re even geared toward adults. They’re a lot better than the disgusting chewables. I haven’t taken any in so long, though. :/ I really need to get on that. What do your Christmas pjs look like? I have a few pairs of Christmas leggings I sleep and lounge in and a couple Christmas shirts as well. What color looks absolutely terrible on you? *shrug*

On a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you at arts and crafts? The only thing I do close to that is coloring. That’s about as artsy as I get. Which candy bar do you buy the most? I don’t really buy candy bars. It’s pretty rare that I’ll have one, but if I were to, it’d be a Reese’s. Which coffee shop do you visit the most? Starbucks. Are you bothered by something right now? Yeah, health stuff as usual. Who do you go to when you are upset and need to talk? Usually I’ll just vent about it in these surveys and/or rant on Twitter. How many pairs of Christmas earrings do you own? I don’t have any Christmas earrings, but I have Christmas bracelets and scrunchies. Do you want a white Christmas this year? I wish. It doesn’t snow here. :( I’d love to go to the snow, though. Are you ok? Ha. Do you pretend to be ok when you’re not? I’ve been trying that for a long time. I used to put up a pretty good front, but not so much anymore. Name a class you only liked because of the teacher. My history class sophomore year. My teacher, Mr. Coffey, was awesome. Do you miss anyone? I miss a few someones. Do you have a nativity scene in your home? No. I’d like to get one. If you’re a girl, what color is your favorite bra? I just prefer black ones. Do you watch youtube videos a lot? Yeah. What website do you frequent the most? Tumblr most of all, but also Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. If someone dared you to read an excerpt of your diary out loud, would you? These surveys are like my diary and you’re all seeing it. Do you know what you’re going to wear tomorrow? Likely what I’m wearing now. ^If so, what are you planning on wearing tomorrow? -- Would you rather make a snow angel or snowman? Snowman. What is the best antique shop in your town? We don’t have any in my town that I know of. Do you ever drink wine? I used to. Does creating make you happy? I like coloring. Like I said, I’m not a crafty person and coloring is as artsy as it gets. Are you more creative or outgoing? I’m neither. Would you rather write a poem or a story? I used to write short stories when I was like 13 and I liked doing that. Do you have abusive family members? No. What US city would you most like to visit? There’s a lot I’d like to visit. NYC is definitely one of them. What country in the world would you most like to visit? Sweden. Do you have your wedding all planned out in your head? I don’t plan on getting married. What color are your snowpants? I don’t have any since it doesn’t snow here. Do you sell things online a lot? I’ve never done that. I buy things online a lot, though. What’s a quick and easy way to make some extra cash? *shrug* Do you enjoy babysitting or just tolerate it? I wouldn’t say it was something I really enjoyed, I mean it was okay. I only babysat my brother and a couple of my cousins when they were kids and they could be such brats sometimes lol. I couldn’t handle it for a long time. What is the best job you’ve ever had? Never had one. What is your dream job? I don’t know. Do you parents support your dreams? They would if I had any. Are you ambitious? I haven’t felt that in years. Was anyone a jerk to you today? No. What color are your grocery bags, if you have the reusable kind? We have various ones. If you were to write for a magazine, what kind of column would you have? I wouldn’t. Is there anyone you secretly miss? It’s no secret. I mean, maybe they aren’t aware but I would tell them if I ever talked to them. Have you ever had feelings for someone and never told them? Yeah. Are you adventurous when it comes to food? Ha, nope not at all. I eat the same few foods all the time and I’m so picky. What’s your favorite Disney theme park? I love all of Disneyland. What’s the theme of this year’s calendar? I have a really nicely made Alexander Skarsgard one that I won in a giveaway last year. Each month is a different collage of Alex photos and it’s just gorgeous. Do you buy planners or make bullet journals? I used to buy planners when I was in school. Do you get stage fright? Oh yes. Giving presentations and speeches was the absolute worst. What’s your newest favorite music video? “Thank u, next” by Ariana Grande. Who do you wish you could talk to right now? My grandma. :( Do you do a lot of DIYs? Nope. Target or Walmart? I like both, but man Target is a trap because I always find SO much stuff I want and end up spending way too much. What department store do you shop at the most? Kohl’s. What pharmacy do you use? CVS. What color are your Christmas lights? I have multicolor ones up in my room. I’m not sure what colors we’re going with for the tree. Who are your favorite small youtubers? A few of the ASMRists that I watch. What were you voted in the senior class polls? Nothing. Who was your best friend in high school? Freshman year it was Kyle, David, and Jessica. Sophomore year it was Gabby and Derek. Junior and senior year it was Amanda. Do you prefer going to a dance with friends or with a date? I went with friends. What restaurant is overrated? *shrug* Would you rather go to a 50’s diner or a brewery? 50′s diner. What do you like on your nachos? I used to love nachos with lots of cheese, jalapenos, guacamole, and sour cream. I can’t eat spicy stuff anymore, though. :( Do you still talk to your first best friend? No. What was your first imaginary friend’s name? I didn’t have one. Have you started on a list of resolutions for next year yet? I don’t make those anymore. Have you ever kept a memory jar? No. Owls or penguins? Penguins. Charlie Brown or Snoopy? I like both, but Snoopy is so cute. What were your high school’s colors? Nah. Do you most motivational & inspirational statuses on facebook? No. Are you fake on facebook? No. Have you ever been tempted to be fake on facebook? No. Do you have any true friends in real life? My family. Do you have anyone you can trust? My family. What does your ugly Christmas sweater look like? I have 3 Christmas sweaters, but I don’t think they’re ugly. I love ‘em. If you had to pick ten things to ask Santa for, what would you ask for? Better mental and physical health and a better financial situation is really all I want. Would you rather meet a genie or an alien? A genie, I guess. Have you ever hiked a mountain? No.

[preferenceandpriorities]

And performance / And privilege

these P words are getting to me!!

I named this preferences + priorities because I began to realize it is the core of empathy. When I understand it, it’s easier to be content with myself.

I understand different people have different preferences + priorities in life to me, and none of it is inherently good or bad. Detrimental to themself and people around them maybe, but not inherently good or bad.

The ‘I’ sounds like I’m boasting my own ability to empathize. If I said you have to understand different people have different preferences + priorities in life to me, and none of it is inherently good or bad, it would sound preachy.

So what I’m talking about it: the fact that I feel the need to share these thoughts online and share the link on my private instagram, performance. The ability to empathize at all is an effect of privilege. It’s been on my mind lately.

Some people prioritize status, whether or not they know it. X only posts photos of their holidays because people can see that X can afford it. Oh, and also that it makes her ‘happy.’

One of my friends, Y hates sharing life online, but for reasons that Y is incapable of trusting how others perceive Y. This did make me reflect on how I use social media. I questioned myself, do I really feel like sharing things that make me ‘happy’? Am I really posting shit because I feel like instagram can be a creative outlet for how I document my life?

What started out as a love note to life on my instagram had instead become a performance. Maybe it was my arrogance, to think I was any different than anyone. Or that it was simply the loss of control I had over the performance. It was the times. What was my intention to encourage safe online spaces had become grounds to judge.

It’s our age -- in our twenties we only listen to people we respect, and whom we respect is a product of our privilege. If we grow up rich, we respect the well-mannered, the polite, the calm and quiet. If we grow up poor, we respect the likeable, the relatable, the funny. Along this train of thought, maybe that’s why the rich don’t enjoy media as seriously as does the not rich. But of course, I’m saying these things off the top of my head. Nothing I say is ever fact, and never so strong as an opinion.

It’s an interesting part of life. Our economic status creates our culture, our thoughts, our opinions. Sometimes that leaves me questioning where I stand. 

Some days I feel content, and sometimes I feel like I’ll be working each day until I die. Some days I don’t mind it, some days I secretly hope I’ll be indescribably rich. Some days I daydream that I would give back to others, some days I realize I have enough privilege to give back now. Some days I non-condescendingly wonder why people around me don’t share the same concerns on these things. Some days I roll with it and not give a fuck about these things, because that is what will make me likeable. I don’t know which is right or wrong, or what’s truly part of me. Is it arrogant to care, is it arrogant to not care? All days I consider what I have and do not have, how I was able to grow up and how I was not.

I often find myself ranting the same way Amy Dunne did in Gone Girl. Someone’s thread on Twitter on the depth of her monologue, I wholeheartedly agree with. Am I putting down others, ignoring their agency over their own behaviour and victimizing myself to make me feel better?

I will justify buying a $300 sweater. And buying a $300 sweater is not bad, because it is made sustainably, and I would rather buy expensive quality than cheap non. But I won’t reject the fact that being seen in a $300 sweater will signal my SES to other people and attract people I relate to. But I’m not sure who I relate to anymore. Maybe it attracts people who buy $300 sweaters to be seen in $300 sweaters.

When I was in middle school, I complained to my parents why my friends never wanted to eat at the same restaurants as me. They told me I wanted to eat at bougie restaurants. That was fucking confusing, because we always ate at these places. But I wasn’t allowed to go there with my friends?

Therefore, here’s a personal thought that I understand is almost horrible but hope someone will understand: I have the personality of a low SES person, yet the interests of a high SES person. Of course, I shouldn’t make such one-dimensional categories, but it is generally applicable that low SES’ are more socially aware + funny (yes I just labelled myself that) and high SES’ are more able to thoughtlessly enjoy life’s luxuries. Is it bad to see value in both?

This whole post has been a fucking loop, hasn’t it? That’s been my life. The best and worst part is that there are times when I can just stop giving a fuck about any of this at any moment. But they are things I continuously try to get my grip on. Are all my relationships, my whole life even, determined by money that’s not even mine?

Everyone lives according to their own preferences + priorities as performances of their privilege.

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Exclusive Interview] Caleb Emery Travels Back In Time To The SUMMER OF ’84

The dust may have settled from this year’s edition of Sundance, but we here at Nightmare on Film Street are still stoked on the world premiere of the suburban dark thriller, Summer of ’84. We were able to talk to the directors of the film and wrote a short review as well. We also got the chance to talk to one of the cast members, Caleb Emery, who plays Dale ‘Woody’ Woodworth, part of the core four protagonists, acting alongside Graham Verchere (Fargo Season 3) Judah Lewis (The Babysitter) and Cory Gruter-Andrew (Okja).

We talked to Caleb on his day off from filming his next role in the upcoming TV series Good Girls. He told us what it was like being a millennial pretending to be an 80’s kid (Gen X or the “MTV Generation”), recounted his memories from behind-the-scenes and spoke about his newfound fondness for dramatic roles.

Chris Aitkens of Nightmare On Film Street: You were at Sundance last week, what was your experience like?

Caleb Emery: Sundance was crazy. I’ve never been before, it was my first time. There’s a ton of parties and a ton of people, and a lot more celebrities than I probably know. It was interesting, getting to promote the movie, which was really cool. And then we had the premiere there on Monday at midnight to a sold out crowd and that was a lot of fun.

NOFS: Did you grow up in the suburbs at all?

CE: I don’t know what to consider where I grew up. I did grow up in a cul-de-sac, so the vibes were very much like in the movie, as a kid. But then when I turned 12, we moved from there and that’s when we moved onto property in a different county. But my childhood was a lot like Ipswich.  

NOFS: Was it a community where everybody knows each other?

CE: Yeah, I remember vividly, as a kid, they would do yard sales. Everybody set that up together and they had meetings. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, we were all the same age, we all went to the same school.

NOFS: I imagine you’re a lot like me and that you grew up with the internet. Was it strange travelling back to a time when the internet didn’t exist and you had to make a world of your own?

CE: Yeah, it’s funny because I’m 24 and I’m playing a 15 year-old in the film. I did some research before we started, after reading the script. I went back to see what happened in the 80s and I talked to my parents about it. I think the film is well done, it gave us the idea of what it was like in the 80s. This whole movie is based on an idea that one of these boys has that their neighbor could be a serial killer. It’s his way of making his own adventure and just going with it. It’s funny, there’s a scene where we’re using an old computer, and we have walkie-talkies. It’s much different to how kids are now growing up, where they can just Google something off their phones in three seconds.

NOFS: What was it like connecting with the rest of the cast?

CE: When we all got to Vancouver, we locked ourselves in an escape room to bond, which was a lot of fun. We didn’t get out, though. It was literally the first couple days of meeting each other so we didn’t know how to work together yet. But we all just hung out at Sundance and it’s been months since we shot, but we just started where we left off. They’re all very cool guys, they’re all going to be extremely successful and they’re extremely talented. I was honored and privileged to be part of that group.

  NOFS: Do you have any stories from behind the scenes?

CE: A lot of the movie takes place in the treehouse, that’s where we meet up and hang out. Our first three days of shooting was in this little teeny treehouse. I wish I had the dimensions because when I say small, I don’t even think it gives you the idea of how small this treehouse was. But we spent almost four days in there, and it was hot. I said in another interview that we didn’t have a choice about whether to like or hate each other in that moment. It was better to just like each other because we had a long shoot ahead. We got to know each other really well. If you can imagine locking yourself in a room for three days, for 12 hours a day with other people, you get to know them very well. There was a reel that was made, maybe one day it will go public, but there were some funny things that happened while shooting. There’s a scene where one of the boys bites into an apple, it was a caramel apple on a stick, and the first take he bit into it, the whole apple fell off the stick. It was the funniest thing in the world to watch. Other than that, everything went pretty smooth and we had a good time joking around. We all got to be 80s kids for a couple of months.

NOFS: What was it like working with the directors? Did you take direction from all three of them, or did you talk to just one of them? 

CE: RKSS has a system set up, they can probably explain it way better than I’m going to. Yoann [Whissel] talks directly to the actors and focuses more on that side of it, whereas François is more technical and talks about storyboards and scene set-ups and camera angles. And I think of Anouk as our boss, she doesn’t have to say anything, she can just nod our shake her head and the crew would say “yes, ma’am!” and they’ll go do it. I think she’s secretly in charge of all the operations regardless of what they all say. They all have their jobs and they work very well together, as people can see in Turbo Kid or in our movie. As far as acting goes, at first, I thought it’d be weird to have three directors, but once I got there and I met them, I understood that everyone had their own job.

NOFS: I see you’ve been involved with a lot of big-budget films (Goosebumps, Fist Fight, Logan Lucky). What kind of movies do you prefer to act in, do you like doing comedy or do you like doing horror movies? 

CE: I’ve done a lot of comedy and I’m most comfortable in it. Just because it’s something that I studied when I first started acting and I enjoy making people laugh. I find satisfaction in it. But Summer of ’84 was my first real horror film and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed getting to be a little more serious. Without saying too much about the movie, my character Woody, from what the directors and producers talked to me about beforehand, my main task was to make audience like me. Out of the four boys, you should like Woody, you should care abut Woody. Normally my task at hand is to make the serious moments funny, I have to act the joke at the weirdest times, that’s normally my job on a lot of shoots. But for this, I had to make the audience care about the more serious moment. It was different. I like doing the other side of that, but we’ll see what happens in the future. I know comedy happens a lot.

NOFS: I really liked your character too, I would have liked to see more of Woody, I especially would have liked to see more about his relationship with his mom. Did you build up a backstory in your head to fill up the gaps for Woody?

CE: You get to follow Woody home once, to realize that he comes from a broken home. His dad is not in the picture anymore and his mom is working an trying to give him everything he can have so he can fit in with his friends. My wardrobe was very basic, there wasn’t anything too elaborate about what I had. The relationship with my mom, in my mind, I was probably the first and only priority in her life. If she fell short, she would take it hard. I wish we could have gone deeper into their home. There’s a lot of jokes that I made on set about who my dad was and spin-offs of who my dad could be, one of them being Mr. Mackey (played by Rich Sommer), who’s the guy we’re going after the whole time, which is funny but I don’t think would have really worked.

NOFS: Any last comments?

CE: I hope that everyone that gets a chance to watch Summer of ’84 enjoys it. I want everyone to watch it with an open mind. We’ve been compared to a lot of movies and I don’t think this should be compared to any other movie. I think it’s its own thing. I hope that when people watch it, they remember that. And that this was a fun movie, they can dig into it and be a boy from the 80s with nothing to do in the summer.

  Summer of ’84 is written by Matt Leslie & Stephen J. Smith, and produced by Matt Leslie, Jameson Parker, Thierry Tanguy, Shawn Williamson.  Summer of ’84 is a production of Brightlight Pictures and Gunpowder & Sky, the studio behind last year’s festival hits Tragedy Girls, Manfield 66/67, and The Little Hours. There is currently no official release date for the film, but it is sure to make festival appearances through the rest of year.  Read our Sundance Review of Summer of ’84 here.

Follow us on Twitter, and Facebook to stay posted on all upcoming news regarding Summer of ’84.

The post [Exclusive Interview] Caleb Emery Travels Back In Time To The SUMMER OF ’84 appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[3one3]

The Sequel - 861

Forgettable

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“What was the last song stuck in your head?”

“Uhhhm...This morning, “Unforgettable”, from French Montana and J. Balvin.”

“Has it got a big beat that stays in your head, or is it catchy lyrics?”

“My girlfriend was playing it in the car last night- you know, singing and dancing with it very loud.”

“Is she a talented singer?”

“No,” Juan snorted with a great big smile. “The chorus part is in Spanish and she can’t say the words fast enough.”

“You’ve traveled to many different places, as a footballer, and on hol-“

Okay that’s enough, Christina grumbled after pausing the short video clip from a fun interview Juan gave at Cobham on Monday for a popular YouTube creator who produced football-related content with a number of typical partners like adidas, the Premier League, and Whisper Films. The rider was waiting for her agent and a TV crew from Sky Sports to arrive to do her own interview on Tuesday morning for the evening’s primetime coverage of one of the last days of the Olympics. They wanted Dirk, so they had to come to her, and they were late. Christina made what was fast looking like a mistake in deciding to kill some time by reading her Twitter mentions.

She had a very distant relationship with her fans on social media. Her policy was “don’t read the replies”, and Tim practically forbade her from responding to any of them unless she was specifically doing an open Q&A. Sometimes she interacted with actual friends in public on Twitter and Instagram. She commented on their photos, for example, or made jokes at their expense on Twitter. Sometimes she even flirted publically with André on both platforms. Mostly she just posted information and photos that she thought her fans would enjoy. Someone in Tim’s office also posted content on her behalf. Largely ignoring the comments and avoiding engagement didn’t mean she was unaware of the broad trends in conversation about her and among her supporters, and detractors. Christina was aware that there was a fairly vocal bloc of fans in her 600,000-strong following that was very much Team Juan. They called attention to everything she or the Spaniard did or said that could be some form of evidence to prove that they were either in love, having an affair, or secretly married. The bloc had its own warring factions that argued the details. So it didn’t come as a huge surprise to her that many of them, and perhaps some of Juan’s fans too, took note that he mentioned a girlfriend, that he said he was with her on Sunday night, and that his restaurant posted a photo of two Olympic medals that happened to be the same colors as hers on its Instagram that night too.

I’m not sure I can even be mad at him for this one ‘cause he probably has no idea what goes up for the restaurant. I actually think that’s Antonio’s job, and Antonio probably didn’t think he was going to go and drop the G-word in an interview 15 hours later, or ever, for that matter. This won’t get on Schü’s radar since he doesn’t look at his mentions either, but if these girls make enough noise then The Sun or the Mail are going to pick this up and make a thing out of it. Should I tell Tim, or just hope it goes away? I didn’t post anything about being in London, and Juanin knows like every Spanish person in sport, so it could have been someone else’s medals. I wonder if he’s even noticed this new- A knock at her office door put the brakes on Christina’s conjecture.

“Yeah,” she called to Tom. It had to be Tom, because no one else waited for a response after knocking. They just opened the door.

“They’re here,” he told her, meaning the visitors.

“Can you show them up to the lounge or something? I’m...err...busy-ish.”

“Schü is taking them up there for coffee.”

“Thanks. Is Dirk ready?”

“Yes. He would like to go back outside though.”

“We won’t be long, I hope.”

Tom nodded and shut the door he’d only just leaned through to talk to the boss. She originally disliked that her office door was solid and lacked a window. It was proving handy though, because sometimes she didn’t want anyone to see what she was doing in there. Sitting at her desk and glaring forlornly at her laptop wasn’t exactly a private activity, but it would have required an explanation if say, André peeked into the office on his way to the lounge upstairs.

I should tell Juanin which song is stuck in my head, and why. It’s “1000 Nights”. I know he knows it. I think he introduced it to me. It’s about wasting 1000 nights apart, and guess what. I did the math. I broke up with him almost exactly 1000 days ago. And sometimes it does feel like “for 1000 nights, I’ve been a restless soul”. I’m the poster child for all sorts of restlessness, and he’s proven to be my rest so, so many times. But Schü is too. Sometimes. Less than he used to be. Not often enough, really. Christina sighed and picked up her iPhone to text the Spaniard about his very public girlfriend reference, but she just stared at the black screen for a few seconds. I’ll call him later. I don’t want to get all...whatever...right before an interview. She slipped her feet back into her Rainbow flipflops under the desk, and then went looking for the party.

The literal crew appeared to be setting up right in the barn aisle, at the junction between the long part with all the stalls and the perpendicular aisle connecting it to the indoor. Dirk was on the crossties getting ready for his close up. His rider stopped to give him a kiss on his velvety nose on her way to the viewing lounge, which was where she figured they would do the interview. Everyone else who came to her farm to speak with her on camera wanted to do it up there. The interviewer and her producer were enjoying some lattes when she arrived, with Tim. André was a really great barista. He saw crafting espresso-based beverages as a competitive challenge. Every coffee was a chance to beat his personal best creation. He had a cortado waiting for her. They all talked about the Olympic experience and discussed how the interview would go. The subject asked the most basic of questions about it, like if her feet were going to be in the shot and if she had enough makeup on or needed to go reapply. She’d chosen nice clean, standard horse show color Pikeur breeches and a black adidas tee with a belt in between, thinking she would only be shot from the waist up. She also did her standard, casual daytime makeup. One of her Olympic pet peeves, for her whole life, was when American medal winners went on the Today Show in street clothes and excessive makeup and looked out of place and uncomfortable and unnatural. The media tried to turn them into celebrities and had to pluck them out of their athlete environment to do so. They put gymnasts used to wearing spandex every single day into ill-fitting jeans and tops that made them look deformed. Christina didn’t like that, and she didn’t want it to happen to her any more than it had been throughout her relationship with André. His status lent to her elevation as a recognizable name and face independent from her sporting reputation, and that was less objectionable to her, mostly because it wasn’t her choice. Being an Olympic medalist really didn’t feel any different than being a non-Olympian. The presence of a Sky Sports crew in her barn wasn’t even that exceptional. The only thing about her Tuesday that stood out from any other was her appointment at the Ferrari dealership. The woman interviewing her definitely wanted to know if her life was changed by the experience, and Christina told her the jury was still out but that, in general, she felt a new sense of accomplishment for having ticked off such a significant goal. She also asked her if she planned to reward herself for the achievement.

“Will you go somewhere for a holiday, or buy something, or maybe there is a week of binging on unhealthy food?” the interviewer asked her with a smile. They spoke in English because the rider preferred to do long-form interviews in her native tongue, to be more precise and thorough.

“I get to be home for a few weeks, which in itself is a treat,” she smiled back at the pretty brunette who covered all things equestrian. They’d talked many times before. “And I’m rewarding myself with...a new horse, actually,” Christina chuckled. Don’t brag. “A prancing black stallion.” Her innuendo was picked up immediately.

“Of Italian breeding, perhaps?”

“Could be,” she winked. Move on, lady. Don’t make me admit on TV that I’m buying myself a Ferrari. That’s such a spoiled rich girl thing to do.

She let her off. They wrapped up the questions and then moved outside to get some footage of the equine medal winner and talk about his experience in Tokyo, though his partner mentioned him as part of her answer to nearly every question already. The producer wanted to shoot him loose in a paddock, with the two women just talking in front of him. The horse was a ham. He wanted to be the focus of the shot, and the conversation, instead of background dressing. He stood patiently behind them and tried to interact with them instead of just eating grass or walking off to explore. The producer guy was loving it each time Dirk put his head over Christina’s shoulder, or sniffed at her face as if to give kisses.

“We should get permission to use some of this footage in the videos on the website for his breeding,” Tim said quietly from the other side of the paddock fence, where he and André were watching. “Buy yourself some semen and get not just a tremendously talented jumping horse, but also a lovable pet.”

“I think everyone interested in Dirk’s semen already knows he’s her 1200lb lap dog,” the other athlete shrugged. “Let’s not give her ideas about videos, or anything like that. Let her be for a while.”

“I have nothing for her after the pre-arranged media. Have you two done anything special to celebrate yet? Oh, remind me back in the stable, I have the bank check for the down payment for the car.”

“I don’t know if she’ll want to get the special one today or think it over after the test drives,” André replied. His wife’s Ferrari was going to be paid for with Lilly XO charter money, and owned by the corporation Tim set up to own the boat, for tax purposes. The company’s second address was the agent’s office. “There is also a small chance that she drives all of the cars and then decides she doesn’t need one. It’s so difficult for her to spend that much money on something for herself, still. Shoes that cost as much as a used Vauxhall are fine. Treating herself with a dream car...might be too much to get past her practicality filter.”

“Make her get it. She deserves something big.”

“I think for her the reward was the team gold- the result. She woke up early this morning and sat in the bathroom for 40 minutes with Lukas to see if he would poop in his little toilet. If she did something truly special last week and deserves a lot of special treatment, no one told her. I think she’s already moving past the Olympics and starting to worry what big thing will come next.”

“Is there any chance what’s next is a brother or sister for Lukas?” Tim turned to make eye contact with his favorite client, but both men were wearing sunglasses and couldn’t see each other’s eyes anyway. Still, André knew from the small grin that his agent thought he might be hoping Christina’s next big goal might not be in the saddle. And it made him wonder if it was that obvious to everyone that he did wish his wife could obsess over something else- perhaps something that was more for both of them than just for her. He wasn’t thinking about another child, however.

“None whatsoever.”

“Ah. Hey, it looks like they’re finished.”

“Good. She wants to ride before we go to Düsseldorf.

“You should get her to take the day off since you have off.”    

“I just told you- it’s back to normal here already.”

“Maybe she’s just waiting for someone to tell her she did something special and is worthy of taking at least a little time to celebrate and honor that...”

“Are you trying to say I’m not making a big enough deal?”

“I expected her to be hungover from an Olympic-themed party, and balloons in the house, and champagne glasses left all over the kitchen with a few sips left. You let me in the front door and there was no “Congratulations, Princess” banner hanging in the foyer and I thought, “Wow, have the housekeepers been here already this morning?” You didn’t give her a party with her friends or anything?”

Christina saved André from having to answer the question for Tim, but not for himself. She had questions for their agent about whether or not she could do a quick promo for some show for the network, so he went with her to speak to the producer. The footballer was left with his thoughts.

Should I have organized a big party for her, he wondered. She doesn’t really have friends here yet besides Marco and Mario, and she got here in the morning, so she saw Stefanie and Kyle and Isandro and did whatever big congratulations thing already before I could have had a party for her. It would have had to be last night. I didn’t even think to do it, he reminded himself, wary of letting himself off the hook on the difficulties of the logistics of a celebratory party when he knew full well that he didn’t think of doing it and then just decide not to because of those things. It didn’t occur to him that Christina might want or enjoy something like that. I assumed she would be most happy to be home with Mausi and me, and back with Dirk. But come on! She knows how proud I am of her, and she knows I think what she did is a big deal. I don’t need a party to show her that. And she would probably be annoyed if I had my parents here. André couldn’t help but consider the way his ex-teammate honored Christina’s achievement. She told him all about the lovely dinner, and how much she enjoyed being with Juan’s parents. Chris wouldn’t like coming home and having to host houseguests, and I don’t think she even cares that they were so proud of her too. She likes his parents better. They’re closer. I doubt she’d even have the relationship she has with mine now if not for Mausi. You don’t get to choose your parents but she kind of does because hers are not in the picture, and she chose Juan’s. His parents didn’t mind that she broke up with him and has been torturing him for years. Her relationship with Mama and Papa has never been the same since we were separated, and then it got worse last year when we were fighting al the time. Ugh, whatever. Letting her know I love her and I’m in awe of her and I’m inspired by her and what she did to get to last week and then what she did there really has nothing to do with parents, or parties. She knows.

“Hey babe, can you hand me Dirk’s halter?” Christina interrupted from the other side of the fence. She was standing on the bottom board and leaning over the top. “He won’t leave the camera equipment alone and he’s gonna get out when they go through the gate.” André passed the leather halter and lead to her. It had been on his shoulder, because he was a good Horse Husband and a good dad, and just held whatever was thrust in his lap, or put it on his arm, or safely in a pocket.

“Are they done?”

“Yeah. I think I should bring him in with us so Tom can put his bell boots back on.”

“Why are they all out right now?”

“We’re switching to daytime turnout today. Poor Calvin must be so lonely inside by himself right now,” Christina said before turning her lower lip over to pout sympathetically for her monstrous Hanoverian, who had to wait until they were finished shooting in his paddock before he could be turned out.

“Why don’t you ride him first since he’s already in?”

“I think I want my salami sandwich first.” Her eyes grew big and comical- a sort of self-deprecating gesture meant to mock her sometimes-limitless appetite. She stepped off the fence and turned her head to check on Dirk, who was checking the lighting guy for treats.

“Can I-“

“Be right back.” His human hurried to catch him before he could break something, scare someone, or sneak out behind the girl trying to carry two cases of electronics through the partially-open gate.

Eat lunch with you, the BVB man finished silently. Is it fair to say I can’t wait for the media stuff to finish in a few days so that I get her to myself for a while? Or is the media hype part of the whole experience and I should be happy for her that she gets this attention? Does she even care? Why do I have so many questions? Life has too many questions lately, André lamented. He hated second-guessing himself on matters relating to his wife. He was right to think it used to be easier. No one could instill doubt in him the way Tim just had. He knew what his girl was thinking, how she would take things, what she wanted, and what she needed. For most of their marriage, and their brief relationship before that, he didn’t have to wonder so often if he was doing the right thing. That was one of the reasons he loved Christina. They had an unmatched understanding of one another.

Christina was polite about seeing her visitors out. She had no urge to hurry them out and get on with her day. A side effect of securing those precious medals was no longer feeling like every day was a race to get to something. No matter how packed her schedule, her attitude was laid back. It took that switch for her to even recognize that she’d felt like she was hurrying toward something every day for a long time until about a month before the Games, when she transitioned to dragging her feet on everything because she didn’t want to arrive at her fate anymore. When she woke up the morning after the individual final in Tokyo, the way time passed changed. It no longer went too quickly or felt slowed down by her conscious effort to retard it. Time was just time, and it moved along in “real” time. She didn’t have 5 minutes to herself that day, but it didn’t feel that way. The noticeable change in her perception of time was strange but liberating.

“Lunch time?” André suggested as soon as the front door of the small van shut behind the Sky Sports interviewer in the front passenger seat. He and Christina were standing in the open doorway at the parking lot end of the main aisle, and the sunlight from above hit just her face because of the roof. Time hadn’t slowed down for him. He felt anxious about everything, all the time. He realized when he turned to look at his girl that he should have taken a few seconds to just enjoy how gorgeous her face looked in that sun. She hated sunburn, and she feared and respected UV rays because of a history of melanoma in her family and a desire to preserve her youthful skin, but her face really loved sunlight. Her pores shrunk, her cheeks plumped, and the little wrinkles seemed to disappear. Her face was like a flower turning up to the nourishing sun and perking up its petals to its most splendid and beautiful. André didn’t get to savor his sunflower because he asked her about lunch, and she had to look up at him to answer, and cover her eyes from the sun, and squint, and scrunch her face as she considered whether or not to go have her sandwich.

“Yeah, I guess so. Are you staying?”

“Is there enough salami for two?”

“Yes, but you know, the whole reason I brought the salami and the baguette and the cheese over here is to keep you and the Munchkin and the nanny from eating it,” she grinned. Several days’ worth of lunch ingredients accompanied her to the stable that morning. Good food was safer in the refrigerator in the lounge than in the kitchen.

“You can’t even eat all the bread before it goes stale,” her partner reminded her before sticking his tongue out at her and tugging on her bouncy and voluminous ponytail.

“If I put my mind to it, I could eat all the bread in the world. I fucking love bread.”

“I know you can, Prinzessin,” he chuckled. “You can do anything if you put your mind to it, clearly. I love you for that.” His hands reached out for her on their own, and captured her whole head in addition to the base of the ponytail. “I love that you never quit.”

“You’re so cheesy. And can you lean a little this way? Your big head can block out the sun.”

“Big head. Big brain.”

“Uhhuh sure. Big hair too.” Christina reached up to pat the side swept pouf of hair atop his head. “Let’s eat.”

See? Even when I try to tell her, seriously, what her accomplishment means to me, she just laughs and makes fun of me. I don’t have to do a party. She knows, the player reiterated inside as he followed her up the empty aisle. Their barn was full of light and the woody scent of pine mixed with the sweetness of fresh hay. Every stall but Calvin’s was picked clean and topped up with fluffy bedding. All of the black water buckets were scrubbed and filled, and there was a pile of hay in a back corner. Christina demanded that her staff take care of those things as part of the morning chores when the horses went out during the daytime. There was no taking the whole day to ready the stalls for the horses to come in in the evening. They had to be cleaned and set up right away, so that the aisles themselves could be blown and swept clean and not littered with soiled bedding and bits of hay falling out of wheelbarrows traveling back and forth to the muck pile outside. It also ensured that any horse having to come in during the day, to be ridden, or seen by the vet or farrier, for example, would come in to a clean stall ready with hay and water for him. That was important to her. It kept the animals comfortable and stress-free, and the whole process ensured order in her operation. Some of the other trainers who shared facilities with Eddie and Simon were not as deliberate in managing their grooms and stable, and things got in the way of finishing drawn out chores and then the chores never got done and horses were put back into dirty stalls with swampy buckets and nothing to munch on.

Another thing André loved and most especially respected about his wife was her ability to learn and absorb real knowledge from her experiences. Part of it was that she never forgot anything, and part of it was her special skill in following keen observation with intelligent deduction. Her mind collected all available information and processed it in a way that allowed her to use it right away, and in the most effective way. Her husband admired her ability to be good at totally new things just because she paid attention to everything and could translate her observations into policy, so to speak. She’d never run an elite show barn on her own before she suddenly found herself owning one. She’d never cared for a child of any age before she became a mom, and she handled it exceptionally well in his eyes. She had no media experience but knew how to handle press and how to conduct herself from the get-go. Those things stood out to him because he couldn’t do the same thing. He wasn’t good at adapting. He needed many things to align in order for him to succeed. The window in which he had the right conditions to play football at the level and consistency he desired was quite small, and it took him forever to figure out the conditions and how to create them.

“Are you going home to hang with Lulu Schü?” Christina asked him following his last bite of Genoa salami and provolone. Her sandwich was smaller so she finished it more quickly. They ate at the kitchen-style table in the viewing lounge. Spencer and Lucky were lying on the floor but remained vigilant in case of dropped food. They were mostly just happy to be free again instead of confined to their playpen outside the back entrance to the barn, where they couldn’t get into trouble with the TV people.

“Yeah. His singalong show with the sheep starts soon. He likes when I sing with him. I’m not usually home when it’s on.”

“What was the last song stuck in your head?”

“From the show?”

“In general.”

“”Swalla”. The guys play it in the dressing room constantly. Marc never stops dancing.”

“Do you remember what I was listening to when I was getting ready this morning and you were obsessively trimming your nose hair with the little buzzy thing?”

“No. Why?”

“Just wondering.” The rider emitted a barely perceptible sigh and picked up her water bottle for a sip.

[petitprincess1]

A Stupid Warrior Fanfic Idea

I cannot stress this enough, please, leave a comment to know if this is a terrible or good idea. Also, if you have anything to add, let me know.

I have this really stupid idea for a fanfic and I just don’t know if it’s good or not. So, if it isn’t good, please tell me because this has been bugging me for a while and I just need to get it off my chest.

Anyway, I have this idea where it’s still kind of Warriors, but it take place in like a Zootopia-ish realm. For example, it has the whole anthropomorphic animals, but it doesn’t take within the city Zootopia. It takes place in it’s own town (that I’m gonna blandly call The Clans, unless you have a better name). Everyone is still divided in their own faction, but they all still work together doing their own separate jobs (like RiverClan is in charge of trade and/or marketing, ShadowClan would be in charge of the Judicial system, or ThunderClan is charge of police and/or military (because they literally take care of everyone’s crap)). Also, the Dark Forest and StarClan do exist, but I’m unsure if I want them just to stay a religion or somehow secretly have control, these two, of course, butt heads over who’s in charge. Although, I’m not sure if I want that or the DF and SC to just be wealthy/poverty districts. What do you think?

Although, despite everyone being divided, people do have free reign to leave from their faction. Now, is there still conflicts between the clans? ...Of course! It wouldn’t be Warriors without it! It’s just more civil than bloody, in spite of that, blood still is spilt. Not as much, so there tends to be a bit of a panic when it happens. Also, because of this, there are cats who are in relationships from other clans, and, unfortunately, they are met with a lot of prejudice. Sometimes, it’s gone as far as they can’t come back to their original territory (that’s until the head knows of that prejudice and starts kicking some behinds...though that doesn’t mean that they are for interrelationships).

Also, within the clans, the cats that reach 6 moons (not sure if Zootopia did human ages or not, I’m still thinking this through) can either go to a school for about 6-12 moons (and whatever it is they are studying for, they’re stuck with it) or they can, just like the books, become an apprentice and basically job shadow, for those who don’t know it’s basically where you learn the job and walk through that job as a “shadow” for a worker. Although, with this job shadowing, it’s a lot longer and you do a bit more work. Sometimes, if they feel like they’re ready, they can get right into their job. As long as it anything too dangerous, like catching a serial killer or performing surgery.

Now, what about other cats like loners, kittypets, or even BloodClan? Well, they still exist, just not exactly the same as you think they are. Loners are more-or-less entrepreneurs, like Barley actually own his own farm or Purdy owns a knick-knack/artifact shop (because yes).

BloodClan are, what else, druglords. I mean they hang out in alleys…..and that’s the only justification that I have. Look, blame Klarikatt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCOSgFmwGDg). Of course, Scourge is the kingpin. Also, instead of drugs like cocaine or meth, they sell catnip (nicknamed “Nip”) or cat treats (like Temptations) or even deathberries (if diluted correctly, it can get you high (if you call feeling a death-like numbness a good high)).

Now, kittypets, I can see it going two completely different ways. One: They can be an upper middle-class, but utterly despised by the clans because they are too lazy, almost never do their jobs, and, some, flaunt their riches. Some would say a conspiracy is going on and others just want to outdo those slimy snobs. Two: They are slaves. Of course, we all know that collars symbolize ownership, and due to the fact there aren’t any humans in this AU, they are owned by the people that loathe them. They absolutely want nothing to do with them. ...So, what do they do with the kittypets? Well, I’ll let your mind wander about that. Which do you guys prefer: Slavery or Middle-class?

Extra tidbits:

Their currency is done through tails/coverings of preys. So, like mouse tails,  squirrel tails, vole tails, bird feathers, fish scales, and, rarely, fox tails (this is in order from lowest to highest).

Prey are still “devolved” in this society, so, don’t be alarmed at them killing them.

Prisons are nicknamed “Shelters,” “Kennels,” or “The Cages.”

The Moonpool and Mothermouth exists, but just like the books, only leaders can go and medicine cats.

The Gatherings still exists, but it’s held annually instead of once a month.

Some events from the stories still exist, like the dogs from the first series, sorry Brightheart…

There are social networks like: Mew (Twitter), Pawbook (Facebook), Swipe (Skype), Kit (Kik), and other ones that I’m too uncreative to come up with.

There will be straight, gay, bi, poly, and ace relationship. Yes, you can be in love and be ace. No trans because I feel like I’d insult someone so quickly.

Some cats that are dead will be alive in this. Just to name a few: Spottedleaf, Snowkit, Hawkfrost, Tigerclaw, Brokentail, Bluefur, Talltail, Jake, Raggedpelt, Yellowfang, Mosskit, Thistleclaw, and Snowfur (This is just a few, also note how I’m not using -star).

Why no -star suffixes? No one is truly leader of their territory, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ones who keep a close eye on the residents.

SkyClan is in here, but I’m not sure what to do with them, especially since I haven’t read much about them. Should I leave them out or…?

That’s all I have at the moment or at least what I can recall. I know it’s not completely well thought out, but it’s a start. I do have some plot points, but I don’t think it’s ready to be a story. If this gets some likes (like even if it gets ten), I’ll post up a list of characters, traits, and some relationships.

Sorry that this isn’t what I normally put in, I’m just desperate, I guess.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

In this post, we’ll talk about how we create GIFs for our game Lake Ridden. This post was originally posted on our developer blog. As the person in charge of our marketing assets here at Midnight Hub I’ll walk you through our current process for creating crisp and catchy GIFs; which tools we use, as well as offer you some general tips and tricks for improving the quality of your fancy moving images! In this Gamasutra post I'm linking to our embedded tweets showing you the GIFs I'll be referring to. In other words, if you are on a tight bandwidth diet – fear not, no GIFs in this post will load unless you choose them too! Let’s go!

— Sara Casen 🏔 (@saxen8) February 15, 2017

A GIF showing the atmosphere in Lake Ridden. Here I use a static camera and let the particles and fog communicate movement, making it a nice mix between serenity and details. This GIF was posted on our social media and generated a lot of reactions.

When marketing your game photos are nice. But images and screenshots have their limitations when you’re showing off something that’s essentially a moving medium. I find that moving images and snippets of film are often better at delivering the message, compared to screenshots alone. GIFs are quick series of images displayed so that they look like video.

The “art form” has been around almost as long as the Internet itself (and usually contain a lot of cats doing funny things). A GIF can last anywhere between 1 – 30 seconds, depending on the quality, what you want to show and the platform you are sharing them on. A lot of GIFs on Reddit nowadays are really long, almost like YouTube videos, the same goes for Facebook. On Twitter and Tumblr however, people post a lot of 1-3 second long GIFs instead. And some GIFs are looped in such a smooth way it’s hard to tell how long or short the GIF really is.

I think the firelies in Lake Ridden are starting to look very nice now :O #gamedev http://pic.twitter.com/vTGvl9zJW0

— Sara Casen 🏔 (@saxen8) February 9, 2017

Keep your GIFs short. I usually aim for 3-4 seconds. This keeps the file size down and the interest up! This GIF is playing backwards, giving it a nice little twist with the fireflies in Lake Ridden

To spread the word about Lake Ridden we’ve used both images, videos, and GIFs in various combos. I’ve done this to communicate the environments, the gameplay, the color palette, the feeling or something from behind the scenes. For us a good GIF almost always gets more reactions and attraction on our social media channels, compared a simple photo or screenshot. Also, I greatly enjoy making them since it’s kinda creative! There are two main things that make a GIF great; the very content it is showing to the viewer and the tech behind the GIF itself. Not all GIFs are born equal. Let’s start with looking at the tech behind the images.

Technical Settings For Recording A Good GIF

Talking with a lot of developers posting GIFs about their games on Twitter, I noticed that almost all had their own preferred workflow, which I find interesting. Some people used programs like Fraps to capture the raw footage in-game, others used quick and small programs like GifCam, and used tools they had hacked together themselves. It seems like the method you choose is depending on a mix of factors; how much time you have, the desired picture quality and your game. If you want something fast and dirty, and don’t obsess over the quality you usually go with quick tools such as ScreenToGif. But if you want super crisp snippets with perfect color then you might invest in a more complicated workflow.

My advice here is: look at your game, does it have a lot of different colors/details in it? Or is the art style more simple? The more complicated art/colors you have (and if you want to keep them as sharp as possible in the final GIF) go with Fraps. Fraps give you really good raw material when recording your project.

You need to pay attention to the file limits on the platforms where you aim to spread your GIFs. Twitter has a limit of max 15 MB. If your file’s too big, resize it or make it shorter. I use a mix of Fraps and Photoshop to create our GIFs.

Second advice: determine how much time you want to put into making your GIFs. If you just want to capture, edit and throw it out in the wild, then go for a solution that’s quick and doesn’t offer you hundreds of post-processing options (suggestion: LiceCap). If you want to edit and tweak your GIFs extensively, consider using Photoshop + Fraps (YES you can edit video in Photoshop!!1).

A rule of thumb is to make the pixel quality of the GIF as good as possible on your computer, because a lot of platforms will compress it even further when you start spreading it, making the colors bleed or reducing the pixels. Twitter will take your GIF and secretly convert it to a .mp4 when you post. Facebook doesn’t allow for GIFs to be posted at all unless you link them trough a GIF-service like Giphy (more on that later).

  Our Technical Pipeline For GIFs

Here are the steps I’m using to capture the raw material for our GIFs and how I tweak the file size if the GIF comes out too big. I use a mix of Fraps and Photoshop.

Our night sky now features a moon! 😍Wanna try Lake Ridden at GDC or Game Connection? Drop me an email to: contact@midnighthub.com! 🌙 http://pic.twitter.com/l5rPGoWluK

— Sara Casen 🏔 (@saxen8) February 16, 2017

Remember that a lot of people will probably view your masterpiece in a social media feed. I've noticed it's generally a good thing to tweak the lights and color in Photoshop when you edit the source materials. Small GIFs tend to get overly dark otherwise, especially if they depict a dark scene like this one showing the night sky and its stars.

I make sure to run our game with the maximum graphics settings on my computer. The game should look as good as possible. No lag, no frame rate dips or weird loading/LODs. All hiccups or similar will be extra obvious in the final GIF.

To capture the raw footage I use Fraps. This software has been around for ages and is a faithful workhorse. Consider chipping in a few dollars to get the premium version (I also used Fraps to record our alpha teaser trailer in-game, it’s awesome for capturing anything moving on a screen).

I make sure all the video snippets I record go into the same folder on my desktop. This will make it so much easier when sorting your raw footage and deciding what to cut into a GIF. I have different folders for all GIFs.

When I have decided which of the raw footage I want to make into a catchy GIF I open it up in Photoshop. Photoshop is really simple and straightforward to use for smaller video editing. You don’t have to invest in After Effects or that other advanced stuff unless you want to.

In Photoshop I edit the video, cropping, dragging and adjusting colors, then export it. Go to File->Export->Save For Web and a dialog window should pop up (I use PC).

There are a few things to consider in this window. At first, be aware of the technical limitations of the platform where you’ll be posting your GIF. If you’re aiming for Twitter, make sure the GIF is a maximum of 15 MB. If the GIF file size is too big, resize the image by tweaking image size at the right. The second option is to check or uncheck the box named “Transparency”. Sometimes this reduces the file size but does not affect the quality of the image (?). If the GIF’s still too large, go back into Photoshop and trim down the GIFs length in seconds. This will cut down the size of the file. When you’re happy with all the settings in “Save For Web” make sure to click “Forever” in “Looping Options” if you want your masterpiece to loop into infinity. Then press “Save”. Done!

  Our Artsy Pipeline For GIFs

Let’s move on to the fun part! Creating a good GIF is more than perfect picture quality. What you’re showing (or not showing) in your snippet is even more important. Here’s my process when shooting materials for our Lake Ridden GIFs.

After recording raw material in-game I use Photoshop to edit the clip, tweak brightness, add a small water stamp (so people can find the game if the GIF goes off into the wild and people get curious about where it came from). In this stage, I crop the video material to focus on the most important thing in the GIF. It needs to be readable in a thumbnail size (compare to the final results below).

Our demo of Lake Ridden is done!! Can't wait to show it at GDC next week! Wanna try it? Let me know! #gamedev http://pic.twitter.com/XnIoUkxJsR

— Sara Casen 🏔 (@saxen8) February 23, 2017

The final GIF showing an important, creepy location found in the game.

Make sure the game runs as smoothly as possible on the computer you’re using to shoot the raw footage. Again, all artifacts, lag or loading will show even more in a 5 second GIF.

Decide what you want to show and why. A good rule of thumb is to stick to one main thing with each GIF. Decide if you wanna show off a cool animation, or perhaps a battle effect or the mood of the game. What will be the star of your GIF?

Record a lot of small snippets in-game, just a few seconds long. I usually have like 15 small videos when I’m done, showing the same thing in different angles, using the camera in different ways, zooming or not zooming etc.

I sort trough the raw material and open my best clips in Photoshop, cut them up and minimize them to really small windows. This way you can decide if the GIF will look good when it’s displayed on a small screen (aka smartphones). In other words; is the image readable? The GIF needs to look good as a really small image since a lot of people browse these things in their Twitter or Facebook feeds. They should be able to tell instantly if they are looking at a face or a dog or a house. If not, people tend to get confused and you missed your chance to evoke their curiosity and eventually reaction to your game/project.

I cut the canvas. Focus on what’s important in the image. Again, it should be readable.

I tweak the brightness/colors and saturation. A lot of the times it’s better to make the image a little bit brighter since I’ve noticed it tends to get even darker when posting to a feed.

For Twitter, I like to keep the GIFs to 3-5 seconds and always go for looping. For Facebook, I go a bit bigger, like 5 – 8 secs. People have very short attention spans and a GIF should be very straight to the point. When in doubt – make the GIF shorter.

  Posting GIFs for Twitter and Facebook

If you want to post your GIF to Facebook then you have two options. You can’t post a file in the GIF-format straight to Facebook (this is 2017 like what why?!). You can either use a third party service like Giphy (beware the quality will suffer) and post the link, OR you can be much more elegant and save your GIF in .mp4 format and post it straight to FB. Facebook accepts videos in the format of .avi and .mp4 to be posted straight to your page/wall. This is what we did when we posted our teaser trailer on Facebook.

The water is staring to look really good. Super excited having people try it on GDC! :) http://pic.twitter.com/vHGFdVEPOI

— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) February 13, 2017

This GIF post by our code lead Johan focuses on the water in Lake Ridden. This was made to showcase one specific item in the game: the water effect. Try to limit your GIF to showing one thing, otherwise things tend to get confusing and messy. Decide on one component and make it your "star of the show". This could be a funny bug/a new animation or the day/night cycle in the project.

We did not post a link to Youtube but the trailer in .mp4 format on my own personal Facebook page (as an experiment to track the number of views ‘a la Facebook). To post in .mp4 you can use a tool to convert your Photoshop-made GIF to .mp4, or if you’re using a more advanced video editing software like After Effects you can save the video as .mp4. Simply converting your GIFs to .mp4 using GIF-2MP4, a free online tool that does the trick according to my experience!

Get Creative!

Use what you got! I use the player’s default camera in Lake Ridden when recording our GIFs. I tilt the camera, I use the crouch, I walk backward, I stand still shooting moving objects etc. I highly recommend you use different ways of movement/vantage points if possible. This offers variety to the people watching your GIFs and you’re able to do more with less. Try to convince your programmers to implement a special camera for shooting videos and taking screenshots if possible, since that will help out a lot in the long run!

Lake Ridden is starting to have a nice contrast between night and day. This week we're also working on puzzle design and story. :) http://pic.twitter.com/THKUGmYPlt

— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) April 6, 2017

Often you need to find new, interesting ways to show the same content but with a twist. In this GIF I made the camera go out of the scene (compare it to the next GIF below).

Quick GIF showing the lights and colors of a sunset in Lake Ridden. Still needs some tweaking : ) #gamdev http://pic.twitter.com/8eHDmjgaYi

— Sara Casen 🏔 (@saxen8) April 6, 2017

Here the camera does a drive by of the scenery instead, which creates a different feeling. Get creative and play around with the tools you have ingame! Just make sure not to post too similar content back to back on your channels or people will find it dull.

A lot of the time I’m working on stuff in the game that I can’t show, so I have to think of new, exciting ways of showing things that I might have posted before. It’s not only about how you’re showing something, it’s also about what you’re showing. A lot of developers also post fun bugs or glitches from behind the scenes or inside the game engine. Think about your audience and ask yourself what they might enjoy. Reddit/gaming usually enjoy insane bugs or humor, while other developers like to see a nice tooltip. Players perhaps want to get a tease on the mood inside your game or your main character in a cool animation. If you have some questions regarding GIFs or know of a better way of doing some of these steps, please let me know in the comments!

Sign up for the Midnight Hub Newsletter or follow Facebook for more news and screenshots. Follow us on Twitter where we GIFs and behind the scenes stuff! Until next time!

Cheers, Sara & The Team