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tigerdovefan34-realone · 3 years

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So here's a fic idea I posted on Reddit. I want to see if anyone would be down to read it. Enough likes/reblogs and I'll start working on it ASAP :

At the very start of the story, we have Toga and Saito walking home from graduation and Saito is noticeably blushing (I personally hc that he had a massive crush on Toga and maybe fought those kids to impress her as Teenage Boys are want to do) before Toga indicates that she wants them both to stop. Saito is nervous but is ready to confess, thinking only about how Adorable Himiko looks before she attacks him. However, Saito is able to dodge and outmaneuver here. He then notices that she's crying and instantly feels his heart nearly break at the sight of her eyes filled with tears. Soon, he's able to disarm and pin her and interrogates her, though she escapes after muttering "Mama...Papa...Normal...Onii-chan...Imoutosan...Otoutosan...Deviant..." before she makes a run for it, confusing Saito and leading him to investigate Himiko and her family, meeting her little sisters, little brother, elder brother, and parents for the first time and while the parents and elder brother are asses and very cold when it comes to Himiko, and the sister younger than her by a year is nervous to speak up along with one of the twins (the brother), who are the youngest in the family. The youngest daughter spills everything.

The Toga family, being extremely wealthy and influential is able to sweep the mess under the rug in a few days and Saito is discredited as a liar. Meanwhile, Toga on the run meets with someone by the name of Jin who becomes a father figure to her, helping her come to turns with herself and her quirk without killing people and she convinces him to talk to people who might actually care about helping him.

A week after Graduation, Saito finally tracks down both Himiko and Jin, who are being harassed by a gang of villains with steel quirks. After knocking out and beating up Jin and brushing Saito aside before going after Himiko to do certain things with her (Imagine what you'd like) only for Saito's quirk to awaken, along with Himiko as both of them are in a highly stressful situation.

Saito's full name is Ichidan Saito, which translates to (could be wrong here so feel free to correct me) To Use Pure Wisteria or better, To Use Pure Poison, given Wisteria being a toxic plant. His quirk is him being able to secrete wisteria poison from his fingernails, but he's able to control it and able to give out specific dosages depending on how much he wants to secrete. If he wants to kill, large amounts will come from his fingernails and instantly kill the person he scratches. If he's looking to knock out or paralyze, a more regulated dosage will come out. However, the only thing is, he needs to land a scratch on soft flesh for it to work.

Well, the evolved version of Wisteria Nails (Quirk name) is him being able to use his fingers and the palms of his hand to secrete the poison while at the same time the poison becomes very Acid like and thus far more dangerous to those with metallic quirks depending on the dosage. Soon the gang is beaten back and while Jin takes therapy, eventually becoming the head of his own hero agency and reaching #6 relatively quickly after awakening his quirk, Saito and Toga attend UA's hero course in 1A and reaching the Sports Festival, where they both place 3rd (all while a certain green haired boy takes notes on them, calling their quirks "So Amazing!") before being the first interns to be taken in by Jin's agency. The three are seen as a rather strange but effective trio, with Jin being Xeroxer, the Duplication Hero, Saito being Rancor, the Poison Hero, and Toga being Selene, The Blood Heroine.

They do encounter Midoriya once or twice but by the end of the year, they have been proven to be extremely effective in what they do and none can deny their abilities. And Saito and Toga eventually get together, to Jin's delight, making Toga swear to name their first son after him. Meanwhile, Toga's parents and elder brother refuse to acknowledge her existence, calling her a blight on the family that doesn't deserve to be an heir to the family's fortune and influence. One Saturday, when on Patrol, they get a call about something strange happening at Graves after Dark and after a stakeout, they see and confront a villain only for them to escape without using their quirk. After a Week's worth of encounters, they finally confront the Villain, who reveals themselves as Godan Mouja (from what I see, means To Control The Dead)

Their Quirk basically allows them to reanimate the dead, recently deceased, half decomposed, fully decomposed, just skeleton, it doesn't matter. However, they aren't Zombies, as hitting they're will cause the corpses to disintegrate into dust if they're knocked out/paralyzed. After a long, brutal, and exhausting fight, Toga is told to run for it while Saito and Jin hold off Mouja. Jin says that she's always been his daughter through spirit if not blood and makes sure she sticks to her promise to name her first born son after him. Meanwhile, Saito and Toga have a brief argument before he kisses her and forces her to run, saying he always loved her and will always watch over her.

The poor girl is barely able to escape and All Might is able to convince her family to take her in as with Jin and Saito dead, the agency is now defunct and incorporated into another hero agency. She becomes nothing more than an emotionless robot who shows no happiness, no sadness, nothing, bit whenever Mouja is mentioned, she has a psychotic break, swearing up and done she'll tear them apart when waving a knife around. Meanwhile, Mouja, realizing they can break a hero mentally before taking their corpse to add to their collection (which is the equivalent of putting maple syrup on pancakes for them) decides to ensure Saito and Jin can't decompose and has many skeletons take on their skins as well to torment her in a fight without risking the real ones being destroyed so he can break her and take in her delicious meltdown at her dead father figure and lover calling her a monster, murderer, coward, traitor, and freak again and again while fighting her whenever they do meet again.

Eventually, it's year 2 and Toga, now in Class 2A, goes to the new UA Sports Festival with people being interested in taking either out of pity or wanting to use her looks to help their agency prosper. And in this Sports Festival, she goes up against a familiar green haired boy that looks like Saito.

The story will be about Toga living past Saito and Jin's deaths, her conflict with Mouja, Midoriya opening her up and their eventual first kiss, and the two going through the trials and tribulations of the series as a couple with Toga as a Hero and MC. So what's the general thought on the Prologue of the story? Or do you think it should be it's own story as a prequel? (Didn't mean to reveal so much if the latter is decided. Might delete this post if people agree this should entirely be it's own story as a prequel)

By the way, I have no ideas for Toga's family names, hero names, and quirks, so if you have any ideas, feel free to reccomend them and I'll consider them.

Would anyone be interested in helping me keep the characters consistent, editing, and helping me with creating a proper storyline for this

#my hero academia #toga himiko #saito #izusaito #twice mha #jin bubaigawara #fanfiction idea

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bythebigcoolingtower · 4 years

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Eye on Springfield - An Interview with Raymie Muzquiz

Since working on eighteen episodes of seasons two and three of the Simpsons, Raymie Muzquiz has enjoyed a strong, thirty plus years career in the animation industry, including directing eight episodes of Futurama’s second run. Here, Raymie talks about his spell on both shows, his other projects and the industry itself.

Let’s start at the start, how did you get into animation and end up at Klasky-Csupo?

In 1988-89, I was working for a movie trailer company. I was a production assistant and then a post coordinator for about 2 years. I learned a lot about film post production and worked on a flatbed editor, dubbing machines, etc. (all pre-digital). However, it was nonetheless a miserable, unartistic, poorly-paying job that laid bare all those awful “Swimming With Sharks”, fear-and-loathing tropes of the movie business. My boss was a horror. He’d yell at me about the dressing in his salad, or the variety of bread on the sandwich. I was his presumed personal assistant to deride. Yet he would shamelessly “lick the boots” of celebs and execs higher up the food chain. To this day, I cannot watch movie trailers. On the rare trip to a theater, I sit in the lobby and have my wife text me when the feature starts.

During this awful period I would look daily through the trades for another job. One day in the Hollywood Reporter there was an ad that included a picture of Marge (I think). Klasky-Csupo (just blocks from my apartment!) was looking to staff for Season 2 of The Simpsons. Since I storyboarded all my student films and some action sequences in live-action low-budget features at Roger Corman’s Concorde/New Horizons in the late 80’s. I applied for a storyboard position. What happened next gave me whiplash. I was given a test. Hours after turning the in the test I hired as a staff storyboard artist to start two weeks hence and immediately given a freelance assignment.

How did I get this plum position with zero experience? This requires some context. The Simpsons was an unexpected TV-animation phoenix rising from the ashes of a poverty-row industry. It is little exaggeration to say that the TV animation talent pool (as opposed to feature animation) consisted largely of old, alcoholic and broken-spirited artists doing Saturday-morning hack-work, subsuming their talent to low budgets and low cel counts. The necessary talent were simply nonexistent for this new, hip renaissance. The doors opened to the young, the students and the inexperienced like me; someone who didn’t go to art school nor drew for a living. It was a singular event for me. I was ignorant that there was even a difference between animation and live action storyboards. I was even naive about my drawing ability. Imagine my reaction when I saw trained artists draw in a professional environment. It blew my mind! My only saving grace was that as a live-action film graduate, I knew film language. I could stage without “crossing the line”. Scenes “cut” together and “hooked up” and I was staging in depth rather than in the traditional “proscenium” cartoon style. My acting was restrained, not broad or cartoony.

I did my first storyboard freelance while still at the trailer company. It was for Jim Reardon; his first directing assignment: Itchy & Scratchy & Marge in 1989.

Can you explain the work you did on the Simpsons?

Everybody probably knows what storyboarding is, so I’ll keep it short. It’s the visualisation of the script/story. It’s TV animation’s biggest step from script to screen. You are staging the characters in space and acting them out and breaking it up into separate scenes that informs the entire rest of the process. Design, layout, key posing, action and timing build off the storyboard.

When you were assigned to work on the show what were your thoughts? It was a phenomenon by that point.

The first season’s episodes of the Simpsons were being re-runned to death. I remember doubting if they’d successfully make more before the buzz died off. When I was hired I couldn’t believe my luck. The Simpsons was THE hip show of the moment. To actually be a creative team member on something fresh and original AND get paid more than beggar’s wages was like winning the lottery.

How closely did you work with the directors and writers, what kind of notes and feedback did you receive?

When I arrived for my first meeting, Mark Kirkland and Jim Reardon were crowded in a small room with folding tables, right off of reception. I believe they were both directing for the first time. Although I was already hired to work in-house, I had to give two weeks to my current, satanic employer, so I was assigned work as a freelancer. It was to board an act of Itchy & Scratchy & Marge by its director, Jim Reardon. Little did I know what I was getting into.

I never had to draw so much in my life! My drawing hand (left) was killing me in those early months. I had to develop a callous on the middle finger. They gave me the “radio-play;” an audio cassette of the recorded dialog to draw to and tons of model sheets.

I remember being overwhelmed by the volume. And you had to draw in these tiny boxes of the formatted storyboard page. I didn’t have that kind of discipline (I never did: I eventually developed a style of drawing on blank pages, then fielding and formatting them onto a page. Sometimes I scaled my drawings down on the xerox machine. I also drew on post-its (the greatest invention in animation after cels) and taped them onto the formatted sheet.

As this was freelance, I actually only met with Jim twice: Once for the hand-out and then again to show him my roughs. I vaguely remember him asking for changes that I thought were off-show (I’d seen all extant episodes multiple times on TV by then). Plus this was my first time and really had no expectations of what the process was.

But--he was the director--I addressed his notes and turned in the storyboard to the receptionist without further feedback. This almost became my undoing. In future, I would know the director should go over the storyboard and decide if it was ready, needed further revision or even just check the “bookkeeping”; the placement of dialog, notes and scene and page numbering before releasing it to the producers (all the Executives at Gracie Films across town). However--for whatever reason--this didn’t happen. It went directly from reception to Gracie. And evidently the executives didn’t react well. I was ignorant of all of this for years; until Mark Kirkland told me what happened...

The Executives were displeased with the storyboard and demanded to know what happened. Someone blamed it on the new guy (me!). So it was decided I had to be fired (before I even started my first day on staff)!

Did I get thrown under the bus? I can’t say. I wasn’t there. I am only relating events second hand.

Anyway, Mark Kirkland, who shared the room with Jim Reardon and was present during my meetings came to my rescue (again, completely unbeknownst to me). He vouched for my character and said I was worthy of rescue and rather than firing me, I could work with him.

So I have Mark to thank for my career. If I was fired, it would have been crushing and I think it’s safe to say I would never have become the artist I’ve become in the thirty plus years of my career.

What was the pressure like working on the show and at the studios during that time?

Because of my lack of experience, I found it difficult judging deadlines and the necessary labor (and just pencil mileage) to succeed. Plus I was traumatised by my previous job; I was conditioned to fear punishment and humiliation at anytime for something I did or didn’t do.

The climate at Klasky/Csupo couldn’t be more starkly different; so egalitarian! Everyone was socialising and goofing around. Gabor Csupo couldn’t be a more laid-back boss! Long lunches with side-trips for comic books and toys! Nerf guns in the hall. I shared a tiny room with two other board artists, Peter Avanzino and Steve Moore. They would both have to vacate the room for me to reach my desk in the far corner. We bantered and laughed more than worked. Celebrities would drop by (Most memorable was meeting Frank Zappa). There were events always going on; bowling, screenings and parties. And yet, a ton of thought and drawing was necessary; especially for me. I worried I couldn’t work as fast as other artists. I often had to work nights and weekends to meet my deadlines. However, there always were other artists doing the same thing; they may have been more experienced than me, but they were young and not so disciplined; so I was never alone. Plus, you never knew how off the mark your roughs could be and after a meeting with the director and Brad Bird, you might suddenly be looking at a ton of revision work. I also remember that Brad was busy weekdays and meetings could sometimes only be done on Saturdays. I simply had a lot to learn and time to put in to build my proficiency. And Brad Bird was very important influence in those days: I could be nervous and exhausted preparing for a meeting with him, but he’d so infect you with his enthusiasm and creative vision that you’d end up re-doing the whole thing but be excited about doing it. He emphasized the cinematic aspects and empowered us to be bold and push the limits of traditional animation staging.

You worked on some of the show’s early classics, could you tell from your position how the episodes would come out?

My next episode for Jim Reardon was “When Flanders Failed”. Because of the kerfuffle of the first episode I did for him, I was anxious to be as professional and impressive as possible. I thought the act I did showed improvement. However, the episode seemed to languish at some point (after animation?) and word got around that it was a bust and wouldn’t reach air. My memory is hazy about this, but I was bummed at the time; thinking my working relationship with Jim was snake-bit.

A season later, it eventually did air. I’m not giving a very good account of this, sorry.

“Flaming Moe’s” was an episode I was excited about. I remember Brad Bird suggesting some very exciting staging that turned my head around. Especially the part where Homer ends up--“Phantom of the Opera-ish”--in the rafters. I think that was a turning point for me; I was going to be a Brad disciple and determined to push the staging from then on.

“Stark Raving Dad”, is memorable to me, but not for a good reason. It was one of the last episodes I worked on; only doing an act. I remember being scandalized that Michael Jackson was the subject of the episode. Being a Simpsons purist, I believed that the show existed in a parallel universe and celebrities were parodied for laughs; it was too hip to be a shill for celebrity. There was no Arnold Swarzenegger, there was McBain. There was no Hal Fishman (our local channel 5 anchor), there was Kent Brockman. Dr. Hibbert was a parody of Bill Cosby. Mayor Quimby was a parody of Ted Kennedy. Even Nick Riviera was supposed to be Gabor Csupo! Having Michael Jackson exist in this universe and embodied in a sympathetic character (rather than a target of ridicule) was seriously “jumping the shark” in my opinion. I believed the show had done the unthinkable and it would prove fatal to the series.

Of course I was wrong. The Simpsons goes on like a perpetual motion machine. But I couldn’t abide watching this wise and subversive show trample over its principles to star-fuck. Now of course, which celebrity HASN’T been on the Simpsons. As you may well know, “Stark Raving Dad” has been pulled from the series since the premiere of the HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland”, giving some credence to my long ago objection: sometimes it bites you on the ass.

“Black Widower” was my swan song. I remember meeting Kelsey Grammer at the table read and being mesmerized by his voice. He sounded just like Orson Welles. The act I boarded included Bob and Selma’s honeymoon. I wanted to give the staging a Hitchcockian influence with deep-focus, Z-axis compositions (like looking out of the fireplace, across the gas burner to Selma and Bob) and my first-ever use of DX (double exposed) shadows to provide menace. I thought that was my best work of the series.

One of my favourite early episodes is ‘Homer at the Bat’ which you storyboarded. What are your recollections on working on it? Did you get any specific notes when it came to the players?

“Homer” was my third “at bat” (pardon the pun) with Jim. He’s a baseball fan as I am, but he also PLAYED Chicago-Style Softball (baseball with a huge, soft ball). I’m a baseball fan too, but I felt I’d be exposed a dilettante due to my terminal lack of athleticism. I was assigned all three acts of the show as well! I really had to be on my game (again, pardon) and not miss any of the references. I reluctantly took him up on his offer playing in one of the Chicago-Style games one Saturday in Burbank. It was a sacrifice as I had to work weekends to keep up with the workload of this episode. I went with a fellow board artist, who’ll remain unnamed (to remain friends).

It went terribly. At bat, I whiffed three pitches in a row, and Jim kept pitching more and more out of pity. I missed them all. He finally had to tell me to just give the bat to the next guy. In the outfield, I stunk just as badly. The piece-de-resistance was when my fellow board artist was at bat and swung hard on a pitch. He missed the ball AND dislocated his knee. I ran to him as he plopped down in agony onto home plate with his knee, shin and foot pointed in the wrong direction. “If my leg stays like this much longer, I think I’m gonna start crying,” he said through the pain. After a terribly long moment, his shin and foot rotated snapped back into place. We hobbled off the field as Jim and his pals resumed the game. Could things have gone any worse? I was certain that Jim had no faith in me by that time. If so, he never said it. He was a laconic guy.

I worked on it a hundred years ago so I don’t feel the pride I objectively should. The episode went against The Cosby Show and beat it in the ratings! There’s even an exhibit in The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, that I wasn’t aware of until I went there. No artist other than Matt is mentioned. It’s all about the writers and the players who voiced the show.

I still have the storyboards of Jose Canseco in the bathtub with Ms. Krabappel that Jose objected to and we had to cut. I’ll post them someday.

How do you reflect on your time working on the show? Do you ever watch those seasons and episodes back?

See below for details; but no. I haven’t watched the episodes I worked on or those seasons for decades. I haven’t watched any episodes after the 3rd season at all. I did see the movie.

The relationship between Klasky-Csupo and Gracie Films finished at the end of the third season, when Gracie decided to move production to Film Roman, what was your view of that situation?

With the handwriting on the wall that Fox might pull The Simpsons from Klasky-Csupo, the in-house producer Sherry Gunther countered by getting all us artists to sign a document tying us exclusively to Klasky-Csupo in an effort to block Fox access to the crew. That gambit didn’t dissuade Fox. They pulled the show anyway and took it to Film Roman. At the time, I wanted desperately to follow the show, but naively thought I couldn’t because I was bound by Sherry’s contract. Virtually everyone left Klasky-Csupo for Film Roman anyways; contract be damned.

The studio became a ghost town. I stayed, distressed that I had to work on Rugrats. However, I eventually concluded that being torn away from The Simpsons was the best thing for my creative growth. Wherein The Simpsons was written so well, closely supervised and finding its stride, The Rugrats scripts were mediocre and the gags not funny. Rugrats was a vacuum to fill and I was empowered to add gags and exercise Gabor’s mandate to really push the staging into warped and low-angled baby POVs that defined the series. It lacked the regimentation of The Simpsons and I exposed to all the other processes in making cartoons. On the Chanukah special I directed, I timed the animation, I even helped direct the voice talent and supervise animatic and final edit.

The Simpsons, like many prime-time animated shows, are dominated by writer/producers who closely control the creative aspects and the artists are more or less staying in their lanes.

After the Simpsons you were assigned to work on ‘Duckman’ where you directed eight episodes, what was the step up to direction like?

I didn’t go directly to Duckman. There was a period of boarding on Rugrats and assistant directing on two Edith-Ann specials for ABC. It was a sad time, something like being in purgatory, but one which I believe was necessary in retrospect.

Speaking of being in purgatory, here’s an anecdote. Klasky-Csupo was a bunch of empty rooms after the Simpsons left. I was working on Edith Ann one day and Gabor was walking a tour of potential clients through. I showed them what I was doing and then Gabor directed them to the next room; opening a door to usher them in, various large and small auto parts suddenly tumbled noisily out onto the floor. A car bumper, pieces of trim, a fender and hub-caps.

You may ask why auto parts were in there? I’ll tell you: When Rich Moore worked there, his office overlooked the corner of Highland and Fountain avenues. Over time, he and his crew witnessed a lot of auto collisions on that corner. They would go and retrieve the parts left behind and hang them on the wall. Rich obviously left without taking his collection and somebody decided to hide them all in this room. Suffice to say, it didn’t look professional and I felt terrible for Gabor at that moment.

When I did become director, there was many moments of panic. I was used to storyboarding to my personal standard and quality that defined my aesthetic. Paradoxically, being a director meant losing close control. I had to depend on clearly communicating to the storyboard artists, quickly learning you can only tell artists so much before they “top-off” and forget what you said. No one took notes! It was all by memory! I always took notes as a board artist. A good board artist makes a director look good. There are far more mediocre storyboard artists than good ones; mainly because the good ones are promoted to directors (I feel the quality has improved over time). And I had to deal with freelancers for the first time. They are the guys that fill-in when there’s not enough staff artists. These people were usually moonlighting for extra money and end up storyboarding your show in the style of the show they were working on during the day. There just wasn’t enough time in the schedule to fix everything without working crazy hours. The Simpsons had layout. So storyboards didn’t have to be so precise and if something wasn’t staged right or acting out in storyboard, you could work with a layout artist in shorthand to correct it. Virtually my entire career has been absent layouts. They are very rare for TV nowadays. This makes the storyboard all the more important. The bar must be high; we call them “layout storyboards”; they need to be closer to model and the acting must be spot on.

Animation timing was also something I had to get control of; At first, Duckman didn’t have a supervising timing director, who could maintain the quality and the timing aesthetics particular to the show. It was up to the director to check timing. I had almost no experience and it was a new show. No one person had the answers. I could review the timer’s work (so often a dreaded freelancer) and I could see it wasn’t at all right and I’d wholesale erase it, but then I panicked that I might have done more damage than good; suddenly in over my head. It took time, but I got it.

I believe that the director who masters his x-sheets is true master of his show. I could add quality and personal aesthetics in a new dimension.

Does you background as a storyboard artist influence the way in which you direct?

Absolutely. In animation history, there were directors who didn’t storyboard or even draw. There were a few of these “dinosaurs” on Rugrats. They sat and read the paper when we boarded their shows. But because of the overseas process of animation and the loss of layouts here at home, if you are going to direct at all, you have to be comfortable drawing a detailed, informed layout storyboard. It is literally the blueprint of your show.

That said, I had to mature as a director who storyboarded. It was insane to try and board all my episodes personally, though directors will put some work aside for themselves, especially if its a sequence that would be too hard to delegate to another artist. If a sequence involves a new character, location or prop integral to the story, it may not be designed yet, so I’ll take it on and “feel it out;” designing as I board.

I had to learn how to be a good delegator and a clear communicator. I pitch sequences to the board artist before they begin and give them roughs of designs, poses or staging I think is important for the sequence. From my boarding experience, I don’t like directors who don’t tell you what they want until after you’ve drawn the storyboard. That wastes time and effort. And morale. I want the artists to know my take and hopefully that will inform the storyboard they do. I also know from my board experience that you should balance criticism with praise. Communicate what you like about how they do this and that before you go through critiquing the parts that aren’t working. Ultimately, you want to help the board artists be successful in storyboarding it their way, not my way. If it works, don’t change it just because it isn’t the way you’d do it. Lean into and support what they’ve done.

‘Duckman’ had a cavalcade of guest stars throughout the shows run, did you ever get to meet any of them, and if so, do you have a favourite encounter?

I was always of two minds regarding using live-action stars for animation. Yeah, it’s fun to meet them and some like Jason Alexander can knock-it-out-of-the-park, but sometimes this kind of “stunt casting” backfires. In my first episode, we used Crispin Glover in a stunt role as a crazed maniac with only one line. He showed up brandishing an eight inch hunting knife acting like a REAL maniac. Maybe it was method acting, but we were scared of him and got him in and out as fast as we could. His delivery didn’t work for the line and it spoiled the joke in my opinion, but it remained in the episode. If we used one of the legion of professional voice actors available, we could have worked with them for the perfect “voice” and delivery and nailed it.

We also used Teri Garr for an episode (not one I was directing) and I attended because I was a huge fan of hers. I got to see her behind the mike as she looked over her pages and said acidly, “This isn’t exactly Tolstoy, is it.” That is the opposite attitude you should have when you’re hired. She was soon pitching underwear afterwards...obviously not Tolstoy either.

So I’ll say it again: using celebrities can bite you on the ass.

Performances aside, I certainly did enjoy meeting legends. Carl Reiner played a priest in Noir Gang. Mind you we recorded in a small studio that was in the back of the Rugrats building that was essentially a cavernous storage room. Ed Asner looked visibly uncomfortable when we huddled around him in there. I’ll never forget the look on Marina Sirtis’ face when she arrived to record an episode. Me and a couple of other guys were laying in wait in this sketchy storage area eating our lunches. She was concerned: “is this the right place?” I felt like a lech and stopped going to records that I didn’t have to be at.

Overall, if the celebrity you’ve cast for a voice roll has theater experience, you are more likely to get a good vocal performance. Especially musical theater experience. They are more aware of their voice and have the tools. This goes for Jason and others like Tim Curry and Bebe Neuwirth; all great voice talent to have behind the mic.

You worked on the second run of Futurama, had you been a fan of the original seasons?

No. I didn’t watch the show before. I had to catch up and learn the “canon” when I was hired.

How did you get involved in working on Futurama?

The animating studio, Rough Draft, was something of a clique. They didn’t just hire “anybody” and unlike most studios, they maintain a staff of lifers who usually have the choice positions. I knew Peter Avanzino from our Simpsons days doing storyboards together, so he vouched for me. I was hired to direct on the 2nd season of Drawn Together. So they had a taste of what they could expect from me. I was no longer an unknown quantity when Futurama came around.

One of the eight episodes you directed was, ‘The Mutants are Revolting’, the shows hundredth episode. How special was it to work on such a landmark episode?

It had the most visibility of my episodes, at least internally. They made T-shirts and some publicity art and even the script had a nicer cover. But it was the episode with the most headaches. The scope of the story was huge with multiple set pieces. The opening newsreel, movie in a movie of the Land-Titanic, the asteroid delivery, the party at Planet Express, the riot in the sewers and the flood and “parting of the red sea” climax all required a ton of designs and characters; plus more hand-drawn and CG effects. That’s a lot to manage and marshall for a TV show. Most episodes don’t require the director to do this kind of heavy lifting. I find that when a show demands this much visually, the story ends up being more superficial, gag driven and episodic feeling. Such is the case for this episode. It was visually pumped up because it was representing the 100th episode; meaning I was saddled with managing lots of logistics rather than the usual character-based comedy and emotion of say, Tip of The Zoidberg, which is a relationship story that--as a director--I feel I give more time to flourish and shine with.

‘The Mutants are Revolting’ features some fantastic animation, most notably a brief sequence of Bender standing perfectly still as the Planet Express ship moves around him. Can you explain the challenges of a sequence like that?

That’s a good, insightful question. A shot like this shows off the resources Rough Draft has that aren’t available at just any other studio doing TV animation. The interior of the Planet Express Ship was built and animated in CG. At it’s gimbal point was a CG version of a stationary Bender; locked to field, but who’s feet move with the CG ship. Once the CG elements were approved, they were printed out as wire frame drawings printed onto pegged paper. My Assistant Director drew key poses of the characters on a separate layer in register with the CG print outs, old school on a light box animation disc. This all was sent to our overseas studio Rough Draft Korea for inbetweening and color of the characters only. That came back as an alpha-channeled digital file and layered over the CG animation in our digital compositing department.

Scott Vanzo runs the department and directs all the CG animation effects. I can’t remember who exactly built the interior of the PE ship and animated it, so I’ll rely on IMDb: Don Kim and Jason Plapp. But all the guys in the digital department do tremendous work and allowed us to fine tune a lot of animation (that doesn’t have CG in it); giving us the ability that raises the quality and takes the curse off of overseas animation limitations.

‘The Tip of the Zoidberg’ was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, how proud were you of that achievement and the episode itself?

The episode was one of my favorites; it was character focused and elaborating on canon so a director couldn’t ask for more. As for the Emmy nomination, it’s one of those show business awards that I realized early I can’t get emotionally vested in. The Futurama guys have a formula for figuring out which episode will be submitted. I think it has something to do with each writer getting a shot at the statue. And then from then on it’s just politics.

You’ve also done work on ‘Disenchantment’, giving you the distinction of having worked on all three of Matt Groening’s shows. What’s your relationship like with him?

I can’t help but laugh at this question. I’ve run into him twice out in public over the years and he didn’t recognize me. Once at the Moscow Cat Circus! But that humbling fact aside, he’s a genuinely nice, funny person devoid of pretence and he’s said some very complementary things about my work. However, it’s all business. Like virtually all primetime shows, he’s with the writers at their separate production office. Animation production takes place in a different geographical location. My face time is limited to usually 2-3 meeting points in a show’s schedule. Anything in between are fielded via emails routed through coordinators and assistants.

As well as short form animation you’ve been involved with several feature length productions, including ‘The Rugrats Movie’ and ‘Despicable Me’, what are the key differences between long from and short form animated projects?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a purely feature production experience. The Rugrats Movie(s) were spin-offs from TV series so some processes were grandfathered in from TV production. Despicable Me was truly off-the-wall in that the storyboard artists were working remotely from literally all over the world. No one met each other. I met with Chris Renaud once. I was not allowed to see the entire script, only pages here and there. It was called “Evil Me” at the time. I was truly working in the dark and ultimately, they didn’t use anything I drew. Which to me seemed par-for-the-course: this was one harebrained, inefficient, right-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing way to make a show. Again, I predicted it would fail. Again, I was wrong.

At the time I was working on Despicable Me, Gru looked like Snape from Harry Potter and there were no minions yet, just an “Igor” kind of 2nd banana that was a shorter version of the final Gru design.

So my takeaway from those experiences is that I prefer TV production. You don’t have the luxury of a feature schedule, but there is less time for executives to get replaced, sundry monkey-business and creatives pulling the rug out from under you. However, TV is catching up in those regards. See below.

Do you have a scene or episode you’re particularly proud of working on?

I feel fulfilled and proud of directing and being supervising producer on Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie. I was empowered to work in every aspect of the process and benefit from my experience to make it the smoothest running ship and happiest crew ever. Only at the very end did the executives get into overdrive meddling. But it ran well and looked good. It may not be as funny as my prime time stuff, but I think we elevated the material across the board; writing, design, animation quality. And it was a project put in mothballs 15 years before being resurrected. So it completes me in a way.

Ultimately, I believe work is about relationships and quality of life. The shows where you were empowered and respected and not overworked due to inefficiency are the shows I’m proud to work on. As Jim Duffy would always say, “It’s only a cartoon.”

Often sequences are cut or revised before broadcast. Do you have any favourites that didn’t make it in?

If I had, I’ve forgotten them.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry over your time and what do you think the next big change will be?

The trend seems to be as I get better and more efficient at my job, creators and writers (especially in streaming prime-time) are becoming more entitled, indecisive, mecurial and demanding. As processes have evolved in digital technology, we’ve opened the door for those in power indulging in more rewrites, revisions, reviews, etc. Despite the technical advancements, animation remains expensive and time intensive and good artists (especially in TV) have to work intelligently and diligently on tight schedules to produce funny, inspired, detail-oriented work. Rewrites and revisions burn out artists and make us feel like office machines and though our overlords pay for the last minute re-dos, they are often throwing out higher quality work for patchwork revisions that lower the overall quality of a show.

Who inspired you as a young animator and who do you look to now?

Ironically, I never saw myself becoming an animator. I did do some stop-motion on Super 8 as a kid. But that was because I didn’t have access to peers to act and help. What inspired me were live action directors with strong, individual styles: Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Greenaway and Terry Gilliam. I think of these guys in essence as “live-action-animation directors”. The stylization in their sequence planning, shot selection and composition as well as how production design integrates in their storytelling reminds me of how background design and art direction naturally occur in animation production.

I’m sure there are new visionaries out there, but I’ve become so disenchanted with modern cinema, I rarely see new movies anymore. I find streaming TV much more interesting. Current movies strike me as self-consciously mannered and hyperactive. I find it endlessly fascinating looking back into cinema history before movies had to begin with three or four production company logos whooshing noisily about.

What advice would you give to people looking to break into the animation industry?

I’ve seen an improvement in the college educated animation students over the years. They seem to be of a higher intellectual standard than before. They aren’t as thrown by the rigors of schedule and they ALL can draw circles around me.

Be original in your own work, but also be a craftsman (as opposed to purely an artist) who can take criticism neutrally and have the tools to fit in the grand scheme of a show that might challenge your personal aesthetics.

Denis Sanders, a directing teacher I had in college said the director’s job is to be “an expert at all things”. In animation, that translates into intellegently knowing what to draw. If a character is looking under the hood of a car, know what an internal combustion engine looks like and what reasonable pieces you can have your character toss out of said engine. The distributor, the carburettor. Find and use reference! Go that extra step and inform your work with the texture of reality.

Don’t regurgitate old tropes. A trite example of what I’m talking about: If a character is peeking at another, avoid the obvious keyhole in the door trope. Keyholes aren’t in doors anymore. It’s been a cliche from the beginning of cinema. Rather, crack the door open, slide your cellphone under the door, look through a window or punch a hole in the door and look in. Like I said, this is a trite example, but making non-obvious choices rather than knee-jerk non-choices makes cartoons fresh and funnier.

What animated shows do you currently watch and what’s your opinion on the current state of animation?

It’s a terrible admission, but I’m not watching anything in animation. There’s a lot of animation that seems to be just writer-driven, animated live-action sit-coms. There isn’t a reason for them to be animated. Those are the kind of jobs I get offered a lot. It seems like a more trouble than it’s worth.

Who are some young animators you think we should be looking out for?

Gosh, I don’t know.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m productively unemployed at the moment.

Where can people follow you on social media?

I only do tumblr: mashymilkiesinc.tumblr.com

#The Simpsons #Futurama #Eye on Springfield #Raymie Muzquiz #Not tall or wide

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rhetoricalrogue · 4 years

Text

31 Days of Wayhaven, Day 27

Prompt: Unkempt Rating: PG-ish? Nicky may have thrown an F-bomb or two around, I can’t remember. Words: 3,271 Characters: Nicolo Morelli, Elaine from Records Summary: Nicky is about to have words for some agents who can’t spell properly.

For the @31daysofwayhaven event.

Nicky was many things: a charming man with a reputation with the ladies, a loyal team member adept at technology and stealth, a man who prided himself in keeping up with the latest fashions. What Nicky wasn’t was a patient man when it came to proofreading documents, especially documents that were supposed to have been written by people who knew what they were doing.

“This is unacceptable,” he growled, swiveling in the office chair he’d been assigned to. He wasn’t much of a day drinker by any means, but he suddenly craved something to vent his frustrations on as he went through the fifth document of the morning.

It was only nine. He still had an entire stack of paperwork he was expected to complete by lunch piled high on his inbox and who knew how many files in his email. He needed more coffee. The office building he was in could only be described as bland, and even that was by Agency standards. Normally, the rest of the Facility was a uniform neutral done up in white paint and stainless steel, but this looked as if someone had gone back in time, snipped off a portion of the seventies, and whisked it back to the present day. Beige walls and dark brown carpet assaulted his sensibilities. Even the very air seemed to smell of old toner - Nicky was certain that purple ditto sheets reeking of methanol and isopropanol had gone the way of the dinosaur, but then again, this was the Agency. There was probably a reason an early era Xerox printer was still being used, and as inquisitive as he was, Nicky wasn’t going to try to investigate. He was merely lucky that there was a computer hooked up to his desk, even if it was an ancient yellow box of an Apple Macintosh from the 80s that somehow had Microsoft Word installed on it. Again, he wasn’t going to question it, even if he did nervously glance down at his phone on multiple occasions to see if there was something in the office or perhaps the office itself that would transform his latest phone upgrade into a brick bag phone.

God, he’d hated that era of early technology. Everything had been so goddamn expensive and it was comical to see the cutting technology of the day compared to now.

“Welcome to my world.” Nicky peered around the plain grayish beige partition of his cubicle - a cubicle! The demotion from Charlie to Delta was irritating enough, but to have to go through an entire probationary period before being able to get back onto the sort of fieldwork that his unit was used to performing was downright galling. - that smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and watched as a tall, sturdy looking woman sat down in the cubicle next to his and sighed. At first glance, Nicky wouldn’t have thought that she belonged in an office setting. Trolls normally weren’t the types that came to mind when one thought about what a clerical staff would look like. Yet apparently Elaine was one of the best and fastest proofreaders in the Agency, shooting up from ground level staff to managerial level quicker than anyone would have thought, troll or not. Nicky hadn’t worked with her before, but he had worked with trolls in the past, so her craggy gray skin and over seven feet height didn’t put him off. She walked and sat with a hunch, to make herself smaller in the environment or if that was purely her nature, Nicky didn’t know, but her lichen colored hair was done up in a neat bun atop her hair and the tips of her fingers were painted a bright coral color that matched her lipstick. On anyone else, the color would have looked garish, but she seemed to pull it off well.

Elaine didn’t normally have a cubicle, her glass encased office was down the hall, but one of the other proofreaders had called in sick and she had decided it was easier to complete the workload at their desk instead of hauling it over to hers. It meant that the space wasn’t quite suited to fit her, the cubicle walls short enough that the top of her head was clearly visible over them and her knees bumped the top of the desk if she wasn’t careful. Nicky had already heard her mutter curses under her breath at least four times that morning alone and hoped she wouldn’t bruise her kneecaps before the day was done. The permanent scowl her mouth was set in while she worked seemed completely out of place in the cubicle: the actual owner had a thing for bright pink office supplies and the little poster of a kitten hanging onto a branch emblazoned with a “hang in there, baby!” at the bottom definitely seemed like it wasn’t her sort of decor.

“Is it always this bad?” he asked, changing the spelling and punctuation in a paragraph that a toddler could have written better. He tisked, he knew this agent and hadn’t thought they were capable of this...this monstrosity. He was going to have to have words with them once his time in purgatory was up. Not for the first time since agreeing to this sort of punishment, Nicky wished that he had swapped spots with Cam and taken on the rookie agent field assignments instead.

“Sometimes it’s worse.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard, editing as she went. “If it makes you feel any better, Morelli, I’ve never seen any of your reports cross my desk.”

He scoffed before getting up to the little breakroom, the brown low pile carpeting making way for white vinyl linoleum spattered with black and beige speckles. “I should hope not. I look over my reports for typos at least twice with a fine toothed comb before I turn them in.”

“And you still get them done in a timely manner, I’m impressed.”

He came back with a cup of coffee. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was hot and at least whoever had made the last pot had made it strong. “What can I say? I’m quick, efficient, and I get the job done right the first time.”

There was a sound from the cubicle almost as if someone were crushing gravel. It took Nicky a split second to realize that was Elaine laughing. “Sounds like the ideal traits for a troll mate,” she joked. “Careful, lest I think you’re trying to come on to me.”

Nicky grinned, though he was inwardly running through his mental catalogue of supernatural mating habits and blanched at what he dragged up. Apparently trolls had a use ‘em and lose ‘em mentality when it came to their partners. The lose part was when they bit off their heads and had them for a post-coital snack. “Now, now,” he said, holding up his hands defensively. “As much as I would like to, I am a married man!”

That gravel noise sounded again, even as Elaine’s fingers continued to clack on the keyboard. “Ha! Good one, Morelli! Pull the other leg while you’re at it!”

“No, it’s true! And believe me, it’s just as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else!” It had been a week since coming back from Chicago where Isabela had apparently made her home. Communications with her were still in this strange state - how did one text one’s estranged wife romantically without it boiling down to looking like a booty call or an invitation to send nudes, especially when one’s long-lost spouse was prone to stabbing and spellcraft? Seeing that Isabela had already hexed certain body parts of his before, Nicky was careful of his wording, lest his best feature downstairs suffer a second cursed fate.

At least she was responding favorably to his texts, even if his buongiorno, Bella the other day had been answered with a slightly grumpy it is five in the morning, Nicolo. Even so, he’d treasured the picture she added: Isabela in her bedroom, hair sleep-tousled and unkempt, eyes still half-lidded and sleepy looking, lips slightly pursed and cheek pressed against her pillow.

It had become his phone’s home screen almost instantly.

He should just wear her down enough to give him her email address. At least then he could take his time and compose honest to goodness love letters to her, even if they weren’t of the pen and paper variety, instead of having to rely on quickly creating off the cuff compositions that while expressed his sentiments were still a little unpolished.

For someone who hadn’t seen himself as the type of man that was willing to settle down with one woman, Nicky was sure taking the whole matrimony against his will, being magically bound to one woman for all eternity, having knowledge that he’d fathered a child and was currently a grandfather dumped into his lap not even two months ago pretty well. Having this time away from fieldwork and actual missions gave him time for introspection and the fact that his daughter - and how that still had him reeling! - texted him at least once a day to catch him up on her life gave him a warm feeling in his heart that he hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever. Nicky made a mental note to invest in one of those silicone wedding bands. Gold and other metals weren’t the best to wear out in the field and while his body regenerated severed limbs and whatnot, he really wasn’t interested in accidentally getting a finger crushed or torn off when his hand ultimately got stuck in a door or some other scenario that had already come up several times in the past. Fingers grew back. Fingers also hurt like no one’s business when they were lost and while they grew back. He would like to avoid either scenario as much as possible.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Would sending his wife an unsolicited picture of his hand while wearing a wedding ring count as flirting? While the tone to their texts had been amiable if not a little icy at times, perhaps the gesture would endear him to her a little bit. He grinned. Maybe it would even earn him an actual phone call. His grin widened. Perhaps, if he played his cards right, the phone call would change from talking about the weather to more steamier topics.

His grin faltered. He wondered what would happen between him and Isabela. While they had only known the other for a paltry week three hundred years ago, Nicky knew when a woman was interested in him but playing hard to get. But what would happen when she decided that he’d suffered long enough, when he’d taken another flight to grovel for her forgiveness at her front door like she said she’d wanted him to do? He was an agent, it was the only life that he’d known since being scooped up, shell shocked and horrified at being brought back to life after being murdered and left to rot in a ditch. He had a life here with the Agency, had a deep loyalty to his unit, surely she wouldn’t expect him to leave it behind to run away from his responsibilities with her? And what of her? She was settled in one spot, she had people of her own that were important to her. He couldn’t ask her to leave that life behind, wouldn’t ask her to leave that life behind, in favor of joining up with the Agency so they could share a cramped windowless room with a narrow full-size bed.

Nicky thought back to her cottage with its iron fence and little backyard garden. Granted, he hadn’t gotten to see the interior of her home very well, seeing as she had stabbed him to death in her kitchen and then shoved him out the back porch, he knew that he wouldn’t want her to trade that life for one here, even if it meant that all their relationship - or whatever this was that they were starting could be called - would ever be merely good morning and good evening texts with brief visits when vacation time was allotted and FaceTime calls filling up the spaces in between.

“You’re spacing out. Daydreaming isn’t going to get that pile of work done.” Nicky blinked and sighed as Elaine looked at him from over the partition. Then he growled, realizing that in the brief moment he had taken to think of Isabela, the work in his virtual inbox had doubled in size.

“No one deserves this kind of torture,” he grumbled, fingers all but slamming on the keys as he corrected “teh” to “the” for the umpteenth time and formatted the entire document to full justification. Did no one know how to write a proper office memo?

“Eh, it pays well.” Elaine got up, shoulders bunched up to her ears and back hunched so she wouldn’t risk brushing the white drop ceiling tiles - tiles Nicky was sure contained asbestos - and made her way to his desk. Before he could say anything, she grabbed the physical files in his to file inbox and made her way over to the wall of dark grey metal filing cabinets. She’d explained on his first day in the department that they weren’t actual filing cabinets, but magical portals to deliver each report to its intended recipient. “Some of us aren’t fit for field duty, so reading badly written reports is the closest we’re ever going to get to the action.”

“Aw, come on, Elaine.” Nicky hit print and deleted the file, moving on to the next. Sure, he understood the whole paper trail as means of securing Agency secrets from getting spilled, but really, all one had to do was get a strong enough firewall and other cybersecurity options and none of this transcribing digital to print would have to happen. He eyed the file cabinets. It wouldn’t take someone with enough skill to break through the security wards to change just where those files ended up to either.

Besides, there was a major loophole in Agency logic: if all the reports were done in the field via laptops or tablets, then what was stopping anyone from leaking company secrets at that level? Somehow, the bureaucratic nature of even having this department, even with the older technology on hand, seemed inefficient and redundant.

Oh well, at least no one was making Nicky type handwritten field notes and reports on an actual typewriter. He was a good typist, but not good enough to avoid going through his share of correction tape and white-out. The backspace key was his friend, one that he could not do without.

“What?” Elaine picked up the report from the copier and made her way towards the file cabinet again.

“I’m just saying, I bet you would be a formidable Agent out in the field.”

She rolled her eyes. “No can do, Morelli. Apparently the powers that be came to the conclusion that my aptitude tests put me at a higher risk of accidental exposure via bloodletting.” She went back to her cubicle and began typing again. “The risk of collateral damage would be too high to let me loose in the world.”

“Yeah, I could see that being a big minus on the pros and cons of getting you into field agent status.”

“Hey, I’m happy where I’m at. I’m being helpful and not causing havoc under some bridge or underpass somewhere. It’s a win-win situation.” She sat back down at the desk, cursing when her knee banged into the desktop hard enough to make the little fake plant that was activated by the overhead lighting wobble precariously on the cute clip-on cubicle wall shelf. “You though?”

“What about me?”

She paused in her typing. “You don’t belong in an office tied to a desk. Those powers that be? I say they did your unit dirty.”

Nicky shrugged. “Yeah, well, we win as a team and we make mistakes as a team. We wouldn’t leave one of us out to dry that way.”

Elaine leaned forward. “And I read the report that another unit gave about the whole incident. Hell, it was so full of typos that I’m pretty damn sure it was meant for me to read. Exiling Agent Adams, especially with no way of fending for herself when it comes to regaining her energy? Demoting your entire unit? Something smells distinctly like bullshit.”

Nicky sagged in his desk chair. “Fuck. And here I thought it was just me being my usual paranoid self.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just that I can’t find any evidence that would suggest why anyone would set Win up to fail that way. And I definitely can’t find any evidence that would suggest why, knowing the way that Cam leads our unit and how loyal we are to the other, that anyone would want to take us out of commission. It wasn’t the old Delta unit, they fought being promoted to Charlie the entire way, and no one jumped up to try to play unit ranking hopscotch either.”

“I wish I could tell you something, I really do. All I know is that my gut is saying this isn’t right.” She gave him a pointed look over the cubicle wall. “It isn’t much, but I can keep my eyes peeled for any leads.”

He nodded. “Thanks, but I don’t want to drag you into anything, especially if this turns out to be something big.”

“You’re not dragging me if I go willingly, Morelli. While I may not be busting heads and whatnot out on the surface, let me do my own sort of carnage of the paperwork variety. In the meantime, take an early lunch.”

“Elaine, it’s only nine fifteen.”

“Then take an early brunch. I’ve already got myself caught up on my own paperwork and once I get this stuff done, I’ll move onto your workstation. That report that came in? Hit up Agent Kline in Unit Foxtrot, see if they’ll give you any information.” She winked. “And I’ll understand if traffic was so bad that you couldn’t get back to the office today. Just be sure to come in at regular time tomorrow morning.”

He got up and shrugged on his jacket, stuffing his phone back into an inner pocket. “Thanks, Elaine. You’re a doll.”

She made a vague shooing motion with her hand. “Quiet, I’ve got a reputation to uphold. And if you talk to her, tell Agent Adams hello.”

Nicky made his way out of the Records Department and strode down the labyrinthine hallways of the Facility. It was a strange sense to step out of whatever time era the department was stuck in and step into a more modern hallway. For a brief moment, Nicky almost preferred the archaic, not quite retro feel of the office instead. Tugging on his jacket collar, he pulled out his phone. Cam and Penny would want to hear what he discovered for themselves.

As he strode down the empty hall, texting as he walked, he thought back to Elaine. He made a mental note to make a trip topside that evening. As thanks for helping shed some light on ideas that had been bothering him, he was buying her the best coffeemaker he could find to replace the sad, beaten up plastic and glass number that took up way too much space on the counter.

He’d even go out of his way to get her the good coffee beans.

#31daysofwayhaven #my writing #nicolo morelli #do I know where this rambling sideplot is going?#no I do not #will it get resolved before the month is over?#no it will not #listen I'm doing NaNoWriMo a month early with this challenge #and I'm in the home stretch with less than 8K words left to go #I do not control the story or the characters I just go where they want to go with each prompt

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bluerosesburnblue · 4 years

Text

I’ve had a LOT of thoughts about the nature of data in Kingdom Hearts, particularly what it could mean for the current story arc in KHUx, so I’m just gonna write down all of my data-based musings below so that I have at least some record of what I’m thinking of

First and longest order of business revolves around the “The Black Box houses the Datascape of KHUX” theory, which is my personal favorite theory about its contents right now

For anyone unaware of the “The Black Box houses the Datascape of KHUx” theory, the name tells you pretty much all you need to know. If KHUx takes place in a datascape, including Daybreak Town, then the machine running the datascape must be somewhere. The current status of the real Daybreak Town is unknown at the moment (and whatever’s going on with the Arc/Lifeboat room is unclear. Darkness says “From the tower, you can head back to the real world and find the lifeboat that’s hidden in the real tower.” So are they in the datascape until they get to the pod room? If so, how did Maleficent get out of the data? How did Lauriam get out of the data to confront her? Are the pods even the lifeboats/arcs like we’ve all been assuming or are these just how you get back to the REAL Daybreak Town?). But, back to the point: we currently do not know what computer is running the KHUx simulation or where it’s located

“Black Box” is a computing/engineering term that refers to any system that can be fed inputs and give outputs, without the internal workings of it being known. It can refer to other things in different contexts, but this is the most common form. (And, interestingly, black boxes are relevant in the recent Square-Enix game Nier: Automata, where they function as the “consciousnesses” of the main Android types you see in the game. You could say... like the Android’s heart)

And not only is “Black Box” a computing term, but so are “Daybreak” and “Dandelion,” which are types of Xerox computers from the same line. (Some more interesting ones can be found in this Twitter thread [x] even if I think their theory has a few holes, specifically in that I’m pretty sure that Scala ad Caelum is NOT a simulation). But we have the Dandelions inside a simulated Daybreak Town, and I think that the Black Box could contain that simulation

Now, my absolute favorite bit of trivia about datascapes, courtesy of the KH3 Gummiphone Glossary, is this:

Artificial simulations based on real-world data. Inside a datascape, time can be made to loop infinitely, and the impossible becomes possible. The alternate Twilight Town that Roxas shared with Hayner, Pence, and Olette is one such world.

I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have added that unless it was relevant. Time is as irrelevant in a datascape as it is in the Realm of Darkness, maybe even moreso. So long as the machine running the datascape remains intact, the simulation can run indefinitely with the inhabitants being none the wiser that time is passing

Another bit of trivia is the fact that hearts cannot be made into data. This is stated in coded when describing the Data Sora’s Heartless, and it seems to be corroborated in KH2 as Ansem the Wise’s machine designed to digitize Kingdom Hearts, an aggregate of hearts, just EXPLODES when it tries. There’s just something about the structure of hearts that makes them impossible to convert into a digital format (and if DDD’s visits to The Grid are any indication, hearts don’t normally develop within data without strong outside interference, either)

I’ve been thinking about this since the cutscenes after quest 910 first came out, but the implication that I see is that wherever the Dandelions are, their bodies have been converted into data, but their hearts are intact inside of whatever houses the Datascape. Hearts seem... kind of immortal in the ageless sense, so they can exist in there indefinitely. If the Black Box does house the Data Daybreak Town, then it also holds the lost hearts of all of the Dandelions, trapped in an ever-looping simulation. It would be a literal Black Box: you input the Dandelions, the simulation runs with no one able to observe it, and at some point we may see the output

Luxord did say that the box contained “hope”

And there’s not enough pods for everyone. Any number of characters could be in this data stasis, waiting to be released in the future. It could be one possible way for Player to still be around, at any rate

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Adding a break here because this is related but different: I’ve been mulling over the idea of Player getting trapped in Game Central Station. Brain calls it a place that “doesn’t exist in this world or time,” and with Ralph showing up as a Link in KH3, my initial hunch is that Game Central Station and its sub-worlds exist in the modern time of Kingdom Hearts. And since KHUx definitely takes place in the past (otherwise what is the point of the Lifeboats?), then that makes Game Central a paradoxical location and when Player goes there they could also be taking a shortcut to the future

And the whole point of the Game Central plot right now is to detach it from the Data Daybreak Town. So what happens if they do, but with Player still in Game Central Station? Would that, then, trap Player in the future using an abuse of the rules of data? And if so, would Sora and Friends be able to go to Game Central Station and find a very lost and confused Keyblade Wielder and their Chirithy and get them out?

Just food for thought

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Also, also, on the data talk... The Grid in DDD leads to the impression that data does not naturally have hearts, yet the characters in Game Central Station appear to have hearts. They certainly act like they do. We know through Toy Box that inanimate object can gain a heart through the love of someone who does. So could the same principle then be applied to data characters? Is it possible that the inhabitants of Game Central Station grew hearts due to the strong emotions that the people who played their games had for those characters?

That would certainly be one way to resolve the “data doesn’t have hearts” “explain Tron and Data Sora” thing going on in the series sometimes

#kingdom hearts #khux #liz's secret reports #this is really just three random khux musings involving data #but i just... REALLY like the implications you can draw from how data works in kh and what it could mean

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

IF IT FAILS, YOU'LL BE IN A STARTUP

The probability that a startup has to make something people will pay for this. It was like having a new mother. But really the two cases are not as different as they look in economic statistics. A couple months ago, one was supposed to be an online store builder, with about 14,000 users is ipso facto good. They work in cosy, neighborhoody places with people around and somewhere to walk when they need to get good grades to impress employers, within which the employees waste most of their time in political battles, and from which consumers have to buy anyway because there are no versions. Microsoft doesn't control the client, they can't push users towards their server-based software it's actually a pretty good description of what you plan to do. Arguably it's a sign of weakness. When you're a little kid and you're asked to do something you'd like to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to lead in it, instead of forcing people to keep buying and installing new versions so that they'll keep paying you.

They just don't want to wait for Python to evolve the rest of the company if he'd let us have it. Surely at some point in the future will be like—all too accurately, in fact. He counted lines of code, they see not just that line but the whole program around it. But its bulk and celebrity would make it a bestseller for a few months. Today we move around more, but great work still comes disproportionately from a few hotspots: the Bauhaus, the Manhattan Project, the New Yorker, Lockheed's Skunk Works, Xerox Parc. And the trouble with most tests for selecting elites is that there are two things different here from the usual confidence-building business have already achieved their goal when you buy the book or pay to attend the seminar where they tell you how. If I'm right that the defining advantage of insiders is money—that they have better hackers. So if you want to sell the company right now?

Many people in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even frivolous. And if email is going to want to, but talking to them when they're ready to, but who can't see it himself. Even hackers can't tell. Subject, and Return-Path lines, or within urls, get marked accordingly. That's not a new idea. Our first batch, in the worst case it won't be the sort of people, but in practice it dominates the kind of alarms you'd set off if you spent a whole day sitting on a park bench. What is it about you that they don't just provide money, but connections and advice. Even Microsoft, who have not only skill and pride anchoring them to the end.

But anyone willing to falsify headers or use open relays, presumably including most porn spammers, should be able to use their control of the desktop to prevent, or constrain, this new generation of software may be server-based applications, you'll find that the Back button becomes one of your most interesting philosophical problems. Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. Great things happen when a group of employees go out to dinner together, talk over ideas, and then the finder. Also, I notice they tend to repel you. That's the key to getting users was the online test drive. The professors will get whoever they admit as their own grad students, so they know who might be sitting across that conference table from them. We often tell startups to release a minimal version one quickly, then let the needs of the users determine what to do if we get 10,000 hackers, the route is at least straightforward: make the search engine all the hackers had spent many hours talking to users, conducted transactions with credit card processors, and talked to one another, they work like watertight compartments in an unsinkable ship. It was a picture of an AS400, and the key to success as a startup founder.

But I think he underestimated the variation between programmers. I don't want to violate users' privacy, but even the most general statistical sampling can be very useful. This is actually a good plan. That's a new problem, but you have to understand a field well before you develop a prototype. My guess is that these multiples aren't even constant. In fact the second step can propagate back into the first: if something is ugly, it can't be preceded by but. Even Google is afflicted with this, apparently.

After all, projects within big companies were always getting cancelled as a result they can be used in things like traffic lights. One thing that leads us astray here is that the spinal cord has the situation under control. When starting a startup, it's easier for competitors too. So their numbers may not even be an accurate measure of the bugs in my implementation than some intrinsic false positive rate of Bayesian filtering. If you've ever watched someone use your software for the first time, you could have your own computer was so exciting that there were plenty of people who wish they'd gotten a regular job, you'll probably end up as news on CNet, and could put us out of business? If you want, you can afford to be passive. As for number 8, this may be the sort of programming where you write a version 1 out as soon as it does work. You should at least find out what they want to talk about being in business at all; and we deliberately chose an impoverished market to avoid competition. Millions of people now realize that you should treat them as a different kind of error from false negatives. And of all the things we could make sites for people who did. Some decided only hours before the deadline. Fortran into Algol and then to both their descendants.

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boozedancing · 6 years

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Juicy bits of barrel char that are FREE with your purchase of a Blackadder Raw Cask expression!

On Thursday, June 7, 2018, the good people of the Jewish Whisky Company once again hosted the “Mother of all Whisky Events”, the NYC Whisky Jewbilee. This would be the seventh time that this event would descend upon Midtown Manhattan, and while the main event began at 7PM and ended at 10PM, as we’ve done in years past, we opted to make this an all day thing, hence the #WhiskyJewbileeDay hashtag.

For this year’s #WhiskyJewbileeDay recap, rather than just talk about all that went down at the main event, we’ve decided to expand our coverage and tell you about all that happened in the hours and minutes leading up to the grand tasting at Studio 450.

Grab your Glencairns and your favorite elixir, Kids! It’s gonna be a boozy ride…

8:30 AM

G-LO: The #WhiskyJewbileeDay pre-train checklist:

Camera? Check

Light jacket? Check

Change of clothes? Check

Toiletries? Check

Daily meds, ibuprofen, and Alka-Seltzer? Check, check, and check.

iPad? Check

Chargers? Check

Extra batteries? Check

Cash? Check

Kids dropped off at school? Check

Looks like I’m ready to go. NYC, here we come!

Limpd: Two bags? Really? Did Mrs. G-LO finally kick him out? I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. I wonder who had today in the “When’s G-LO’s Wife Gonna Kick His Sorry Fat Ass to the Curb?” pool?

AK: Can’t blame G-LO for the two bags thing. I’m an overpacker too. Cuz you just never know.

9:14 AM

G-LO: On the road to Hamilton Station. Why did Limpd pick the 295 entrance off of 561 when there was a perfecty good entrance 3/4 of a mile back near the PATCO station? His way is probably a shorter distance, but my way has less traffic.

Limpd: I find it curious that G-LO requested the Sirius XM Broadway Channel for the drive up to Hamilton. Maybe his musical theater loving wife and eldest Urchin are finally rubbing off on him and he’s finally acquired some taste in music? Somehow I doubt it.

AK: I had him pegged for Yacht Rock. Who knew? Though I think I saw him once sporting a Gerry Rafferty t-shirt while sipping on a Pina Colada.

10:34 AM

G-LO: Amazing how few parking spots there are at this hour. Circling the parking lot made us miss the 9:58. But that’s ok because the nice thing about this being a heavily trafficed route is that there’s always another train. Catching the next one allowed time to pick up a Boston Cream donut. You know, for strength!

12:31 PM

G-LO: That was a fascinating ride to NYC. We actually went backwards at one point due to a disabled train. Oddly enough, it was the 9:58(!), so I guess things have a way of working out after all, though sadly, we had to skip the stop in Metuchen. Now we’re all checked in at the hotel and headed to The Ginger Man for lunch and a drink or two.

Our room has a lovely view of some office workers.

AK: Is that guy on the 4th floor making Xerox’s of his butt? That’s so ’90’s.

1:31 PM

G-LO: Lunch at The Ginger Man with Whisky Raj, The Coopered Tot, Malt Imposter Stephen, and Limpd. Had a Founders Green Zebra, a Watermelon Sour. Super delicious with just the right amount of pucker.

This place is great at lunch time. Solid food. Fantastic beer selection. And you can actually have a conversation, hence why it’s THE pre-Jewbilee gathering place.

Limpd: They had Old Engine Oil on draught! I knew there was a reason why I love this bar. Such a good beer.

Old Engine Oil on the left. Founders Green Zebra on the right.

1:32 PM

AK: Bet those pinheads are drinking at Gingerman without me. Argh.

3:51 PM

G-LO: The One Nation Under Whisky Podcast Recording and Master Class Session has begun. So many familiar faces…

Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin from Single Cask Nation (naturally!).

Explorers Club members, Justin Fornal and Chad Anderson, aka the guys fom The Great Islay Swim.

Simon Brooking of Laphroaig.

Lew Bryson.

Matt Lurin of Water Of Life.

David Fenkell, good friend of WhiskyCast and all around super guy.

Limpd: “To lose a swimmer would be bad. To lose the whisky would be unacceptable.” I didn’t say that! The guy that wrote the Men’s Journal article about The Great Islay Swim did. I’m not THAT heartless. Though it really would have sucked to lose the whisky.

The OFFICIAL One Nation Under Whisky mic.

Joshua says, “Double pours? Really? If you say so, but when someone gets trashed and falls down the steps…”

“I put my hands upon my hips… And when I dip you dip we dip…”

4:01 PM

G-LO: Started things off with the SCN Pillage Cask (bottles are $500/each with all proceeds going to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute) which has a little bit of whisky from each Islay Distillery. Thick. Oily. Briny. Peaty. Everything you’d expect from a vatted Islay whisky. Good fun! I added a little too much water so I pillaged some whisky (see what I did there?) from an open seat next to me to bring back the fire. That was a damn good move!

Limpd: Tasting the Islay Pillage Cask which was matured in a quarter cask (30 gallons yielding 145 bottles). Apparently, this blend is heavy on the Kilchoman. It’s very leggy and looks like rich honey. The nose is very medicinal with iodine, mercurochrome, and a good bit of peat & pepper. The taste is hot and spicy. Quite the tongue numbing experience. Adding water made it a bit muted, and while less flavorful, it was more approachable.

Someone asked, “How were the contributions from the various distillers selected and how were the whiskies blended?”. Joshua of SCN’s response, “Part by design and part by necessity. We put thought into the whisky whenever we could, to the extent that we were allowed.”

4:09 PM

G-LO: Our second whisky for this tasting was a Single Cask Nation bottling of a 4 Year Old Kilchoman. Licorice. Powdered sugar. Charcoal. Vanilla. Young. Fiery. Richly flavored. Really nice to visit this again (click here for my first impressions of this dram).

Limpd: Round two was a chance to try one of the distilleries that went into the Pillage Cask on its own. The color on this SCN Kilchoman bottling was a bit golden, with a nose that was all peat and burnt rubber (think a smoky rubber glove). The taste was brief sweetness followed by a cinnamon heat and a very pleasant finish. Once you get past that smoky rubber glove encased kick to the head that came courtesy of the nose, this is a very nice dram.

4:17 PM

G-LO: More Kilchoman for round three of this tasting! This time around we tried the Kilchoman 100% Islay from Binny’s of Chicago. From field to bottle, this is 100% Kilchoman, i.e. they grow the barley, they malt the barley, and they ferment and distill the barley on-site. No outsourcing on this one! Lots of vanilla. Burnt sugar sweetness. Not a lot of bite (more of a nibble). Like quickly running your finger through a flickering flame. Long lasting, spicy/sweet finish. 100% Islay was 100% delicious!

Limpd: Do you know how I know that G-LO is a bad, bad man? Because I was actually looking forward to trying dram number three, a farm to glass bottling of Kilchoman. I used to hate the peat until G-LO kept pushing the stuff on me like a corner boy from The Wire pushing WMD on the mean streets of West Baltimore. “It’ll make ya feel good” he’d say. Anyway…

Dram number three looked a lot like dram number two. The nose was sweet with a plethora of heather. The taste was a bit muted for a Kilchoman. Almost soft, but oh so nice. The heat comes in at the backend on this one with a spicy, long & very pleasant finish.

Random things overheard while sampling this whisky…

Justin: Losing the juice would be unacceptable. I said JUICE!

Chad: Captain Angus is the saltiest man alive!

David: How do they know that Captain Angus is the saltiest man alive? Under what scenario did they need to lick the captain?

4:36 PM

G-LO: Port Askaig 9 YO? Is that what they said? Anyway, this is whisky number four. Much darker than the other three. Very winey on the nose with loads of dark fruit and dark sugars. Super hot and spicy at the start. All that dark fruit and sugar plus cinnamon, chilis, and a bit of bitterness. Long fiery finish. Tartness in the aftertaste. Damn good, but perhaps a bit too dry in the aftertaste, i.e. this isn’t something that I would drink often.

Limpd: A Port Askaig for whisky number four. The color is good bit darker than anything we’ve tasted so far. The nose is leathery, oily, and honeyey. Tastes like it noses. A little oily with nice sweetness, then a bit more leather, wood and tobacco. Very interesting as a component to a blend, but maybe not fully finished.

4:42 PM

G-LO: Simon Brooking, Global Brand Ambassador for Laphroaig and All-Around Super Guy, brought a Bowmore Dorus Mor Batch III and the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 for us to taste.

The Bowmore was very very sweet with spiced honey, oodles of fruit, licorice, and vanilla. As Speers would say, “This tastes round…”. Nicely balanced and unusually sweet for an Islay. Honey barbecue and mesquite perhaps? Yummy yummy in my tummy for sure!

Cairdeas 2018 was very light on the nose or maybe I wore out my olfactory with this peaty tasting. The flavor is lightly sweet with vanilla, powdered sugar, peach jam, anise, cracked pepper, and some orange zest. Cairdeas is always yummy. This is no exception. A fine way to end this delightful class!

Limpd: Whisky number five and number six are surprises from Mr. Brooking of Laphroaig.

Number five is the Bowmore 10 Dorus Mor Batch III (aka Tempest Batch 5). The color is light yellow with a nose that brings iodine, vanilla, and honeysuckle. The taste is a bit woody with a nice sweetness (bananas?). Really, really good. David, who was seated next to me, remarked that some of the earlier Tempests were better. If that’s the case, I’d would have liked the opportunity to try them.

Whisky number six is the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 which is first fill bourbon casks and then Fino Sherry casks. The color is clover honey with a very muted nose that brings some menthol & vapors. The taste is sweet, oily, and peppery, almost in that order, along with some nuts and sea salt. After that, there’s a good bit of heat which leads to a rather long finish.

Jason says, “I was going for creepy. Did I nail it?”

4:59 PM

G-LO: Uh-oh! Jason and Joshua are throwing “Ok ok! You lads can leave now as we have to set up for the main event!” dagger eyes at us. I guess the Masterclass/One Nation Under Whisky Podcast session is over! Definitely good fun with oodles of booze, yucks, and tales of Islay Swimming by the guys that swam those frigid waters last summer. Not a bad mid afternoon pre-game before the Big Game!

Limpd: G-LO spoke very highly of last year’s Masterclass session, so I’m super pleased that I was able to make it to this year’s session. For the record, the guys that did The Great Islay Swim are clearly out of their minds. There isn’t enough whisky in the world to convince me to do something like that. Then again… And, then, then again… all of the titanium in me might begin to dissolve in the sea water, so, I might be best that I remain content with staying on dry land with the whisky that I already have.

5:40 PM

G-LO: Time for more pre-gaming. This time at American Whiskey on 30th Street. Limpd, David and I ordered fried sweetbreads with spiced honey, fries, and deviled eggs to share. I had a Bells Oberon to wash it all down. The Lads didn’t care for the sweetbreads. More for me I guess! Did we need this stop? Probably not. But we had time to kill and I really like this place. So we’re here and enjoying every minute of it.

Limpd: Sweetbreads? Who the hell orders sweetbreads as a pre-game snack prior to a whisky event? Some things just aren’t supposed to be eaten. Sure, YOU can call if offal. I’ll just call it awful. Just so you know, offal is defined as “the waste or by-product of a process: such as trimmings (such as the belly, head, and shoulders) of a hide, the by-products of milling (as of wheat or barley) used especially for stock feeds, the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal removed in preparing it for market or for consumption, and/or rubbish” by the good people at Merriam-Webster. Need I say more?

6:11 PM

AK: I’ve been semi-off the grid for 24 hours but the ghost has returned, and now venturing south along the calm Hudson River down the winding West Side Highway from… Riverdale, NY. This is not a long lost chapter from The Lord of the Rings. Just life. The middle offspring has Orientation at Manhattan College up yonder near Yonkers. But she let me get away to join the Home Office Fellowship of the Drams (and Damned too!) at Jewbilee where there will be no Dwarves, Orcs, or Hobbits, if you believe the ancient scrolls. The Uber driver is giving me a nice tour and telling me about how NYC loves President Trump and don’t say otherwise to his wife or, “she kill you”.

6:18 PM

G-LO: Waiting for The West Coast Office (aka The WCO aka AK) outside the event. There’s quite a line forming. He better show up soon. We’re thirsty for more!

6:22 PM

AK: Stepped out of my carriage at the event to meet up with G-LO and Limpd, but alas, no G-LO or Limpd. Where the hell are they?! Is this the right place? The right night? The right chapter in the sequel? Luckily I meet The Malt Imposters in the lobby, then moments later, Susannah Skiver-Barton (aka SSB) arrives and she is giddy as ever. Familiar faces! Good times have started. Minus G-LO and Limpd.

6:25 PM

G-LO: Just got a text from AK. Turns out he’s waiting in the lobby with Malt Impostors Stephen, Bill, and John.

6:38 PM to 6:59 PM

G-LO: Looks like Joshua is gonna let us in to get a quick sneak preview before the crowds show up. We’re going in! Wait. What happened to David? He was right here. Oh well. We’ll catch up with him inside at some point. I have photos to take!

6:42 PM

AK: The slowest elevator in New York City arrives at our destination: 12th floor. Ladies undergarments, housewares, umbrellas… whoops, wrong cartoon. Whisky Jewbilee! And who do we see first? Guess. C’mon, guess. Bigger than a breadbox. No, not a thing but you’re warmer? Oh, heck. I’ll just tell you. G-LO, Limpd, and some guy I don’t know! You could’ve guessed if you tried a little harder. Slacker!

7:00 to 10:00 PM

G-LO: As is usually the case when the NYC Whisky Jewbilee rolls around, the stars aligned and all of the pieces that make this event so special fit together perfectly.

We’ve discussed past Jewbilee events ad nauseum, so rather than bore you with a bunch of words (many of which we make up), we’ll just show you what we saw throughout what would prove to be yet another great whisky event…

A fantastic variety of whisky and other spirits:

Brand representatives that know a thing or two about the product that they’re pouring to the well informed Whisky Jewbilee attendees (talking bobbleheaded pourers are a very big no-no at this event!):

Glorious views of Manhattan:

Fantastic Kosher barbecue prepared by the one and only, Ari White of The Wandering Que:

Those seriously well-informed Jewbilee attendees that have zero tolerance for talking bobbleheaded pourers that have no clue what they’re serving:

And last, but certainly not least, many of our dear #WhiskyFabric friends:

Whisky Raj of Glass Revolution Imports.http://www.glassrev.com

On the left, @WhiskyAnorach, on the right, Susannah SB, and in the background, The West Coast Office.

Malt Impostor Stephen. That member number is NOT a coincidence, it’s an OMEN.

Mark Gillespie of WhiskyCast, the hardest working man in Whisky Journalism and THE Voice of Whisky.

@WhiskyAnorach and The WCO. For those that don’t know @WhiskyAnorach, she is one hell of an artist! If Whisky is your thing and are on the lookout for incredibly beautiful artwork that celebrates your passion, pay a visit to her Etsy store at https://www.etsy.com/shop/WhiskyAnorach?ref=search_shop_redirect.

Once again, Whisky Jewbilee proved why this is THE can’t miss whisky event of the year. Joshua and Jason of Single Cask Nation sweat over every detail to make sure that the event goes off without a hitch, and guys like us appreciate their efforts to the Nth degree. Here’s hoping that we can branch out a bit and make it to the Chicago and/or Seattle Jewbilees. Aaron says they’re worth the trip. I don’t doubt him for a second!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Many thanks to Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin of the Jewish Whisky Company for the hospitality. We’re already counting down to next year’s event!

Reliving NYC @WhiskyJewbilee Day VII through words + #photography. #Whisky @OneNationWhisky On Thursday, June 7, 2018, the good people of the Jewish Whisky Company once again hosted the "Mother of all Whisky Events", the NYC…

#Boozeography #Dear Diary #Drinkwire #Events #Photogaphy #Photos #Pictures #Review #Reviews #Whiskey #Whisky #Whisky Jewbilee

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hakuyamazakisensei · 7 years

Note

Can I request the entire alphabet list for Heisuke please? I’m really putting you on work here.

Sure thing! Here you go… :D

A. Art – If they were artistic what would they draw or paint?

I see two things here….One- LOTS of Chizuru sketches, all showing different facial expressions or just with her doing her different tasks around the compound. TWO- animals…I think he would enjoy sitting outside and doodling the animals that went by.

B. Beauty – What is their favorite feature on themselves and others?

His hair…he really loved the length of his hair and he was very proud of it. Poor thing had to cut it, though. :(

C. Color – What color describes them?

I see two colors; yellow and brown.

Yellow for his happy disposition and positive outlook in general.

Brown for his down-to-earth…ness…and somehow I associate earnestness with brown, too. :-/ I don’t know why, but there it is.

D. Dating – How do they ask someone out?

LOL…I can see this so clearly…him looking down at his feet while he digs his toe in the dirt, rubbing the back of his neck or the top of his head…face bright red. ADORABLE! He kind of rushes the words so much that it sounds like one really long word and he has to repeat it.

E. Entertain – What do they do to keep themselves entertained on a boring day?

Boredom is usually what gets Heisuke in TROUBLE. He goes in search of Shinpachi and Harada, and the three of them tend to get up to NO GOOD. :P

F. Fashion – What is their personal style? Where would they shop?

Heisuke has his own unique style when it comes to clothes…and I see layers. Not big and bulky, but layered just the same. Perhaps something like THIS.

G. Grammar – How do they text? Do they use full sentences, emojis, text talk, etc?

He’s all over the place…lots of text speech, lots of emojis….very few full sentences.

H. Hard – What everyday things are difficult for them to do?

The biggest thing is just…being STILL. He can’t do it. He has to be moving in some way, even if it’s just swinging his legs or twiddling his thumbs. :P

I. Impact – What kind of impression do they leave on others?

Bright, forthright, earnest and quick.

J. Jukebox – What is their playlist?

Heisuke likes to DANCE….so his playlist has a lot fast songs that he can really shake a leg to… ;)

K. Kids – What would they be like as a parent?

He would be one of those parents that needed a second parent to stand in on occasion because he’d be doing the same things the kids were….

L. Love – What’s it like the first time they say ‘I love you’?

Eyes wide and sincere, face and ears red….very serious expression. He would probably clasp her hands in his while he told her, looking her straight in the eye.

M. Medicine – What are they like when they are sick?

Usually he’s not TOO bad about listening to the doctor. Sometimes he gets a bit childish, though, if he REALLY wants to do something that the doc says he might not do.

N. Nude – Are they comfortable in their own body?

He’s pretty comfortable unless somebody keeeeeeeeeeps talking about his height.

O. OOC – What is something people assume about them that is completely not true?

That he’s completely naive when it comes to sex. I think I have said it before, but….his hangs out with HARADA and SHINPACHI….at SHIMABARA. How innocent can he be, mentally, ya know??

P. Patronus – If they were an animal what would it be?

Hummingbird- Super quick and always on the move, but BEAUTIFUL and the one bird everyone loves. ;)

Q. Quirks – What is one thing they do that drives other people absolutely insane?

Sometimes his overzealous leaping into action causes problems that needn’t have existed.

R. Repress – What is something they aren’t dealing with?

His past…he ignores it as much as possible and if it IS mentioned, he gets pretty pent up and broody.

S. Sex – favorite position?

Girl on top, however she wants to do things. He just love to watch her body move.

T. Taken – What are they like in a relationship?

He’s a sweetheart. He always wants to give her everything she could possibly want.

U. Unfamiliar – What are they like when they meet new people?

He never really meets a stranger. He likes to put people at ease, and it usually pretty cheerful whether he knows you or not.

V. Velvet – soft or rough?

He can go both ways, though he likes the rougher side of soft….

W. Whole – What in this world completes them?

His love interest…Heisuke is one of those people who wants to feel needed and loved and wanted.

X. Xerox – If they could copy one thing about someone else and give it to themselves or vice versa what would it be?

He would want Sano’s ability to speak to girls without blushing. And he would want Yamazaki to have some of his cheerfulness because the man is just TOO serious.

Y. Young – If they could give advice to their younger selves what would it be?

Don’t sweat your name…be HEISUKE.

Z. Zealous – What excites them?

Sparring with someone who is typically better than him, his love interest, FOOD and DRINK with Friends

#todo heisuke

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liriostigre · 3 years

Note

hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost: you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

#btw!!!! i'm sorry!!! SO SORRY it took me weeks to reply 🤕#hope you're having good days <3 #💌

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fanficgalore · 7 years

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Viktuuri #77

Esnake artist [Fluff] Yuuri meets the disarmingly attractive neighbor from upstairs, courtesy of Phichit forgetting to feed their scale baby.

Snakes like to go on adventures, too.

Going up [Fluff] He thinks that maybe luck is on his side as the bell chimes to signal the elevator’s timely arrival, until the door opens to reveal an elevator absolutely stuffed with brown cardboard boxes, all with the same moving company label stamped conveniently on the side.

Yuuri’s mouth falls open in dismay, and he’s frantically calculating if he should try to squeeze in alongside the nearest tower of packaging, or if he should make a run for the (twenty five flights of) stairs, when someone pokes their head out from behind one of the stacks.

A sweaty, silver-haired, impossibly handsome someone.

“Hello!” the man chirps cheerfully. “Thank goodness--would you mind holding the door while I get these boxes off the elevator?”

------In which they meet on the elevator.

I just wanted some lemons [Fluff/Humour] yuuri just wanted some lemons

The world we share [Fluff/Angst] After all is said and done, Yuuri's statue man is gone and now they're both very sad and very lonely. But how could they ever forget one another? Surprise

-- they can't.

The sum of my heart [Angst/Fluff] there's flowers, its gay:

“Death will snatch your child from their cradle. It will come into your house and cut your throat. Death is cunning and a cheat. Truly, the most evil of all the Gods.” Such words often clutched at Yuuri's silent heart, cutting deep into his mind.

Hades and Persephone AU

Load paper tray 1 [Fluff] Perhaps, Victor realized, they were all gifted in their own ways. The way that Victor could charm the ancient, malfunctioning Xerox into producing perfect packets was perhaps the same way that Yuuri could print carts of brochures but not once refill the paper trays.

Soulmates/Office AU: Everyone has a little magic in them, but soulmates' powers complete each other. Soulmates don't know they're meant for each other, until they figure out how their powers fit together. Victor and Yuuri work for the same company, and end up together with the help of a particularly old, obnoxious Xerox.

New Tricks [Humour] Yuuri Katsuki might not look like a shameless harbinger of chaos, but nothing Yakov's seen in the last year is enough to make him rethink his first impression.

Heart is sighing [Fluff/Humour] “Who's a good Tiger Puma Snake?” Yuuri asks the cat, smiling.

Yurio reacts predictably.

To be or not to be petty? [Angst/Fluff/Humour] "You're leaving and I'll be the oldest one out there. I already hold the records in seniors and I'm sure the Russian Bitch will be on my tail all next year if I try to train in Russia with him. You and I both know I would have only had another year, or two left... why not end it one year earlier and train the little Japanese boy?"

"Cause that's not why you're doing it."

"And why am I doing this if you know me so well?"

"Because you think you can train him to steal Nikiforov's new junior world's record right out from under him."

"That's not it." Yuri said, and he saw the shock that flickered over Otabek's face. "It's because I know he can steal Nikiforov's new world title out from under him. Now where did the little shit go, I need to find him and his old coach to discuss me taking over."

Or an Au in which Younger Skater Viktor Nikiforov steals all of Yuri's old junior world records and Yuri is just Petty enough to train a younger skater to steal them all back.

#viktuuri #victuuri #yoi

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fuzz1912 · 7 years

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The Penultimate Jedi

As the hours tick down to the release of “The Last Jedi” (rather presumptuously labeled “Episode VIII”), I’ve been reflecting on the state of Star Wars and in particular what exactly is going on with the mainline ‘continuation’ of the Skywalker saga. Unlike others who seem to think publicly proclaiming their thoughts on early previews of the film (basically showing off that they have had the privilege) is somehow not a totally crappy thing to do, I want to warn anyone reading this that some of this speculation may stray into spoilers (I hope it doesn’t) and that my thoughts on the actual film itself will follow soon after with similar warnings. Also, I have not read any secondary sources that may provide any context to this beyond the films themselves, so I acknowledge that some of the thoughts below may have extra-canonical explanations.

The Phantom Unease

If you’re one of the few who have read my previous entries, you’d know that I wasn’t really that impressed with “Episode VII: The Force Awakens”. I had the opportunity to rewatch it for the first time last week accompanied by the fantastic Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performing its score live in a theatre. The music still doesn’t feel as memorable as the original trilogy’s or as soaring as the prequels’, but it was nevertheless fantastic hearing even a lesser John Williams score performed by such wonderful musicians. My opinion on the film, however, did not change. As my partner pointed out, it’s entertaining enough while you’re watching it - but then, so are many other movies. Does it stay with you after you leave the theatre? Are there moments that take your breath away? Does it tell a story that you can’t stop thinking about or relating to? Does it have performances that are etched in your mind? The Force Awakens may have contained a heap of humorous banter (no fart jokes sure, but nothing particularly clever either) but I can’t say yes to any of those questions in respect of that film, yet most of them have been satisfied by every other Star Wars film (including last year’s Rogue One).

For me, Star Wars has always been about the story. Story is supposedly king when it comes to film, such that everything else should serve it. From that point of view, whatever problems I might have with anything else (performances, effects) melt away if I’m engaged with the story. Both the original trilogy and the prequels had stories I felt engaged with, and plots that were solid (except, ahem, perhaps the mystery of Master Sifo-Dyas and the clone army which have been better served in the Clone Wars TV series). They were stories that resonated and that were worth being told, and I was invested in them all the way. The original trilogy may have started in media res (in the middle of the story) just as The Force Awakens did, but it fleshed out this broader story world while adapting Joseph Campbell’s archetypical Hero’s Journey. For all of their perceived faults, the prequels are an incredibly relevant precautionary tale against concentrating power without oversight, sacrificing freedom for the appearance of safety, and the lengths to which someone can be driven to protect those they love.

An Attack by Clones

As some sort of rebuke of George Lucas and his ambitious prequels (and given the popular derision towards them both), instead of developing a logical continuation of the story that ended with Return of the Jedi, Disney and the new management of Lucasfilm seemed to buy into the Hollywood zeitgeist of rebooting and remaking existing stories with a layer of modern sensibility and sleekness to capitalise on nostalgia and cheap laughs. Though it was clear to me on first viewing, I’m glad to see that over time the feeling that The Force Awakens is a laughably poor imitation of A New Hope has finally gained wider traction. Certainly it proved commercially successful enough (though the prequels set their own box office records during their time) where riskier story world developments (such as Blade Runner 2049) have not been; though you have to ask why that capital couldn’t have been better applied to original stories instead (no one is remaking The Godfather, for instance). While there’s always value in returning to good story structures, there’s so much creativity wasted in beat-for-beat rehashing existing stories that have already been told well.

I’m rather cynically going to predict that The Last Jedi will resemble The Empire Strikes Back, just as The Force Awakes xeroxed A New Hope - and the trailers seem to suggest this is a safe bet. Rey clearly goes to Luke for training and probably acts in a manner that conflicts with Luke’s own plan (as he did with Yoda). Rey probably seeks out Kylo Ren who makes some persuasive arguments as to why he should train her instead of Luke. Finn seems to have a continuing beef with Captain Phasma that he needs to sort out, much like Han with Lando or Jabba the Hutt. Coming off its victory against Starkiller Base, the Resistance probably takes a severe beating at the hands of the First Order. Oh, and one last thing - there’s probably a pretty big cliffhanger or revelation that has been designed to echo the shock of “No, I am your father”.

But that’s all mere plot - I still have not figured out what these new films are actually supposed to be about (other than a cynical reboot of the original trilogy for commercial exploitation), or why we should care. By virtue of the world created by their predecessors, and the vast ‘Legends’ expanded universe I grew up with (now unceremoniously dumped by Disney), I care deeply about the larger story in which they take place - so I will persist and watch these remaining films in the hoping of trying to make sense of it all. There are two major areas where this uncertainty manifests: the personal and the political.

The Personal

Star Wars follows two intertwined and similar, but slightly different, personal stories within the Skywalker family - one person’s search for purpose (Anakin), and another’s search for belonging (Luke). The essence of these two stories (and similarly, the slight distinction) is reflected in the two leads of this new tale - Finn and Rey, respectively. However, what is less clear is how the background in which these stories take place fits into the broader Skywalker family saga.

Obviously Rey’s family background has been left deliberately mysterious - Ewan McGregor’s voice cameo suggests a Kenobi connection, but then she could possibly also be a Palpatine - but neither of the leads appears to be connected to the Skywalker family. The first movie seems to suggest that their connection to the Force is symbiotic - they both appeared to have ‘awakened’ at the same time, though Rey’s journey appeared to be accelerated by her vision at Maz Kanata’s cantina (ahem) and on board Starkiller Base (ahem). Luke and Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen Ones, took years to master the Jedi mind trick, but Rey’s got it down in minutes. And both Rey and Finn pick up enough skill to engage and challenge (if not necessarily defeat) Luke’s protege, a supposedly powerful dark side user who must be genetically teeming with midichlorians. Why is this, and does any of this fit in with what we know about the Force, the prophecy of the Chosen One bringing balance, or the Skywalker family itself? These are questions I hope this film and the next attempt to answer.

On the other hand, we do know that Ben “Kylo Ren” Solo IS a Skywalker descendant who, rather unsurprisingly, turned to the dark side (the stories of his grandfather obviously weren’t scary enough). He killed his father for, reasons - that don’t involve avenging any lost limbs or turning his wife against him. He is the Master of the Knights of Ren (ahem, Dark Lord of the Sith), a group that we have not yet met or been given any context for. Apparently he is so powerfully dark that he forced his uncle (who has defeated the two most powerful Sith of all time) to go into hiding, and yet he is easily engaged by two newbies, and his current master feels that he still needs to complete his training (so these Knights of Ren he leads must be total schmucks). In the trailers he flies around in a jazzed up copy of his grandfather’s TIE Fighter (so both the Force sensitivity and piloting skills pass down through the midichlorians) and appears to be gunning for his mother because, reasons. And his master, a disfigured hologram known only as “Supreme Leader Snoke”, turned him to the dark side and wants him to help him destroy the Resistance because - I don’t know, reasons? Palpatine was a malevolent presence who emerged from the shadows to completely dominate the galaxy over the course of six films. How did Snoke become so apparently powerful (while still only commanding a rump of a political or military force), and how does he fit into the saga after coming seemingly out of nowhere? And again, why should we care? I hope this film spends some time showing us.

Someone who actually has been developed over the course of three films (though certainly not the fourth) is Luke. The opening crawl of The Force Awakens introduced a massively unearned and very sterotypical Macguffin - “Luke Skywalker has vanished” - laying bare the basic plot of the film, namely trying to find him (let’s be honest, it’s a one-for-one rehash of Leia looking for Obi Wan Kenobi). First, we know nothing of why this is significant - despite almost single-handedly being responsible for freeing the galaxy from the tyranny of the Empire, Luke has apparently become a ‘myth’. So his disappearance is simultaneously Very Important to the Resistance (why?) and totally unimportant to galactic society at large. Other than failing to properly train his nephew (not unoriginal at all), we don’t know what Luke has done in the intervening 30 years to have made us care at all about his disappearance. We know why Kenobi disappeared - Vader and the Empire hunted down the Jedi, and he had a young ward to protect - but such a reason doesn’t exist for Luke (yet). We’re supposed to believe he got spooked by repeating his own mentor’s obvious mistake and decided that hiding was better than fighting back. That’s putting aside the implausibility of the disappearance in the first place - Luke hasn’t told his family and friends (let alone students) where he’s gone, but he’s left half a map in a conveniently powered-down R2D2 and another with the Exorcist (why?). And, until now, no one’s thought to look in those two completely obvious locations. None of his Force-sensitive relatives seem to have been able to undertake the task of locating him either (nor his best friend, who knows at the very least that he went searching for the ‘first Jedi temple’, which is clearly not on Jedha from Rogue One).

Which brings us to Leia: Carrie Fisher sadly passed away after shooting her scenes for this movie. Given that not much of a big deal has been made of this publicly in relation to this film (as opposed to her cameo in Rogue One), and the appearance of some massively spoilerish scenes in the trailers, it would also be a safe bet to assume Leia dies during this film. So what I’m interested in is what purpose does her death serve? Han Solo’s death certainly didn’t provide any, unlike the death of Obi Wan that it was designed to mimic. Her death would make some sense in that the completion of this particular story should be left to the next generation, as has been the case in previous iterations - but none of that helps us understand what the hell Leia has been doing acting as a general for an insurgency when by rights she should be presiding over the dominant power in the galaxy, namely the New Republic; or why losing her should be so consequential. This brings us neatly to the next serious of questions that relate to the broader political context of what’s happening in the Galaxy Far, Far, Away, and why we should care about it.

The Political

On a broader level, Star Wars is about how good institutions fall when they stagnate and arrogantly believe in their natural infallibility (the Republic / Jedi), and how evil ones fail because they unilaterally impose order to oppress (the Empire / Sith). Taken at face value, this new trilogy is a rehash of the latter, but in order for that to have any resonance the players need to be similarly placed and have similar motives.

So, what exactly is the dreaded First Order? What is ‘First’ about it? We know that Palpatine called his Empire the “New Order” but how does that connect to this new group? And what is its relationship to the remnants of the Empire? That same galaxy-spanning Empire whose bountiful resources only provided for the construction of two moon-sized system-limited super lasers and a fleet of kilometres-long starships, while its territorially-localised successor can build apparently colossal capital ships and a planet that can suck the life out of ‘suns’ (ahem, gravity and general relativity) and destroy multiple planets instantaneously from light years away? What purpose does the First Order serve? Sure, they’ve been portrayed as your stereotypical Nazis, but what specific ideologies do they advance that makes those they seek to conquer so repugnant to them, and in need of conquering? Does it exist purely for Snoke’s pleasure / power? Does it seek to impose order on the galaxy and give humans a platform for supremacy as the Empire did (though, to be fair, the Resistance is pretty human-heavy as well)? Does it merely seek to destroy the New Republic (seems likely) for reasons, with no particular plan as to what to replace it with? And most critically, why have they so closely modeled themselves on the the structures and styles of the Empire, which has already lost a galactic war?

What about the Resistance itself? Clearly it is resisting the First Order, but why? What territorial or ideological claims are made by the First Order, and how do they conflict with those of the Resistance? And, most critically, where is the New Republic in all of this and why does it need a localised ragtag Resistance to defend itself? We know the “Republic fleet” wasn’t available to defend the Resistance base in the Ileenium system (ahem, Yavin IV) or the now-destroyed Hosnian system (ahem, Alderaan - I only learned those names when I saw the subtitles at the live performance). And yet the New Republic’s presumptive political and military leaders (Leia and Admiral Ackbar) seem to have committed themselves to this cause rather than fulfilling the higher callings that they earned by fighting another much more consequential galactic civil war. Unlike the Rebellion’s first encounter with a Death Star, which relied on small maneuverable snub fighters, Starkiller Base is large enough that a fleet of capital warships would have been very useful - much as they were when the Rebels took on the Empire at Endor and Scarif. And somewhere in this mix must be the “new Jedi” that Han said Luke Skywalker was apparently training, of which Ben Solo was just one (and apparently the only one who predictably fell to the dark side) - though by looking at the title of this film, they’re probably not going to be around any more.

Finally, what about the minor players in this conflict - crime families like the Hutts and the bounty hunters or power-hungry entities like the Trade Federation? We know from The Force Awakens that there’s still some sort of underworld, reflected though Solo’s Rathtar dealings with the evil Scots and Asians - I mean Guavian Death Gang and Kanjiklub (again, names I only picked up recently from subtitles). But how do they influence the ongoing story and interfere with the conflict between the Resistance and First Order? What new characters complicate the protagonists’ objectives - is there a Lando, a Jedi Council, or even a Jar Jar, or is Poe Dameron all we get? Are the Porgs of the trailer as significant as the Jawas or Ewoks, or merely there to imitate their merchandisability?

A Final Hope

I hope that while it inevitably traverses the well-known tropes of the original trilogy sprinkled with simple amusing banter, The Last Jedi takes some time to address some of these questions in the broader story and earns its place in the Skywalker saga (and possibly goes some way to redeeming its predecessor). I hope, and yet a phantom menace keeps me believing that the photocopier will strike back for the cheap buck. I’ll be staying up into the wee hours of tomorrow night to mull on the film, and will hopefully have committed my thoughts to paper shortly thereafter to continue the conversation with those of you who have similarly persisted.

#the last jedi #star wars

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everythingsallwrite · 7 years

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prompts xx

{ATTRIBUTED TO BERNADETTE MAYER}

Bernadette Mayer's List of Journal Ideas:

Journals of: * dreams * food * finances * writing ideas * love * ideas for architects * city design ideas * beautiful and/or ugly sights * a history of one's own writing life, written daily * reading/music/art, etc. encountered each day * rooms * elaborations on weather * people one sees-description * subway, bus, car or other trips (e.g., the same bus trip written about every day) * pleasures and/or pain * life's everyday machinery: phones, stoves, computers, etc. * answering machine messages * round or rectangular things, other shapes * color * light * daily changes, e.g., a journal of one's desk, table, etc. * the body and its parts * clocks/time-keeping * tenant-landlord situations * telephone calls (taped?) * skies * dangers * mail * sounds * coincidences & connections * times of solitude

Other journal ideas: * Write once a day in minute detail about one thing * Write every day at the same time, e.g. lunch poems, waking ideas, etc. * Write minimally: one line or sentence per day * Create a collaborative journal: musical notation and poetry; two writers alternating days; two writing about the same subject each day, etc. * Instead of using a book, write on paper and put it up on the wall (public journal). * and so on ...

Bernadette Mayer's Writing Experiments * Pick a word or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a non- connotative word, like "so" etc. * Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing: eliminate all adjectives from a poem of your own, or take out all words beginning with 's' in Shakespeare's sonnets. * Rewrite someone else's writing. Experiment with theft and plagiarism. * Systematically derange the language: write a work consisting only of prepositional phrases, or, add a gerund to every line of an already existing work. * Get a group of words, either randomly selected or thought up, then form these words (only) into a piece of writing-whatever the words allow. Let them demand their own form, or, use some words in a predetermined way. Design words. * Eliminate material systematically from a piece of your own writing until it is "ultimately" reduced, or, read or write it backwards, line by line or word by word. Read a novel backwards. * Using phrases relating to one subject or idea, write about another, pushing metaphor and simile as far as you can. For example, use science terms to write about childhood or philosophic language to describe a shirt. * Take an idea, anything that interests you, or an object, then spend a few days looking and noticing, perhaps making notes on what comes up about that idea, or, try to create a situation or surrounding where everything that happens is in relation. * Construct a poem as if the words were three-dimensional objects to be handled in space. Print them on large cards or bricks if necessary. * Write as you think, as close as you can come to this, that is, put pen to paper and don't stop. Experiment writing fast and writing slow. * Attempt tape recorder work, that is, recording without a text, perhaps at specific times. * Make notes on what happens or occurs to you for a limited amount of time, then make something of it in writing. * Get someone to write for you, pretending they are you. * Write in a strict form, or, transform prose into a poetic form. * Write a poem that reflects another poem, as in a mirror. * Read or write a story or myth, then put it aside and, trying to remember it, write it five or ten times at intervals from memory. Or, make a work out of continuously saying, in a column or list, one sentence or line, over and over in different ways, until you get it "right." * Make a pattern of repetitions. * Take an already written work of your own and insert, at random or by choice, a paragraph or section from, for example, a psychology book or a seed catalogue. Then study the possibilities of rearranging this work or rewriting the "source." * Experiment with writing in every person and tense every day. * Explore the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Consult the thesaurus where categories for the word "word" include: word as news, word as message, word as information, word as story, word as order or command, word as vocable, word as instruction, promise, vow, contract. * Write what cannot be written; for example, compose an index. * The possibilities of synesthesia in relation to language and words: the word and the letter as sensations, colors evoked by letters, sensations caused by the sound of a word as apart from its meaning, etc. And the effect of this phenomenon on you; for example, write in the water, on a moving vehicle. * Attempt writing in a state of mind that seems least congenial. * Consider word and letter as forms-the concretistic distortion of a text, a mutiplicity of o's or ea's, or a pleasing visual arrangement: "the mill pond of chill doubt." * Do experiments with sensory memory: record all sense images that remain from breakfast, study which senses engage you, escape you. * Write, taking off from visual projections, whether mental or mechanical, without thought to the word in the ordinary sense, no craft. * Make writing experiments over a long period of time. For example, plan how much you will write for a particular work each day, perhaps one word or one page. * Write on a piece of paper where something is already printed or written. * Attempt to eliminate all connotation from a piece of writing and vice versa. * Experiment with writing in a group, collaborative work: a group writing individually off of each other's work over a long period of time in the same room; a group contributing to the same work, sentence by sentence or line by line; one writer being fed information and ideas while the other writes; writing, leaving instructions for another writer to fill in what you can't describe; compiling a book or work structured by your own language around the writings of others; or a group working and writing off of each other's dream writing. * Dream work: record dreams daily, experiment with translation or transcription of dream thought, attempt to approach the tense and incongruity appropriate to the dream, work with the dream until a poem or song emerges from it, use the dream as an alert form of the mind's activity or consciousness, consider the dream a problem-solving device, change dream characters into fictional characters, accept dream's language as a gift. * Structure a poem or prose writing according to city streets, miles, walks, drives. For example: Take a fourteen-block walk, writing one line per block to create a sonnet; choose a city street familiar to you, walk it, make notes and use them to create a work; take a long walk with a group of writers, observe, make notes and create works, then compare them; take a long walk or drive-write one line or sentence per mile. Variations on this. * The uses of journals. Keep a journal that is restricted to one set of ideas, for instance, a food or dream journal, a journal that is only written in when it is raining, a journal of ideas about writing, a weather journal. Remember that journals do not have to involve "good" writing-they are to be made use of. Simple one-line entries like "No snow today" can be inspiring later. Have 3 or 4 journals going at once, each with a different purpose. Create a journal that is meant to be shared and commented on by another writer--leave half of each page blank for the comments of the other. * Type out a Shakespeare sonnet or other poem you would like to learn about/imitate double-spaced on a page. Rewrite it in between the lines. * Find the poems you think are the worst poems ever written, either by your own self or other poets. Study them, then write a bad poem. * Choose a subject you would like to write "about." Then attempt to write a piece that absolutely avoids any relationship to that subject. Get someone to grade you. * Write a series of titles for as yet unwritten poems or proses. * Work with a number of objects, moving them around on a field or surface-describe their shifting relationships, resonances, associations. Or, write a series of poems that have only to do with what you see in the place where you most often write. Or, write a poem in each room of your house or apartment. Experiment with doing this in the home you grew up in, if possible. * Write a bestiary (a poem about real and mythical animals). * Write five short expressions of the most adamant anger; make a work out of them. * Write a work gazing into a mirror without using the pronoun I. * A shocking experiment: Rip pages out of books at random (I guess you could xerox them) and study them as if they were a collection of poetic/literary material. Use this method on your old high school or college notebooks, if possible, then create an epistemological work based on the randomly chosen notebook pages. * Meditate on a word, sound or list of ideas before beginning to write. * Take a book of poetry you love and make a list, going through it poem by poem, of the experiments, innovations, methods, intentions, etc. involved in the creation of the works in the book. * Write what is secret. Then write what is shared. Experiment with writing each in two different ways: veiled language, direct language. * Write a soothing novel in twelve short paragraphs. * Write a work that attempts to include the names of all the physical contents of the terrestrial world that you know. * Take a piece of prose writing and turn it into poetic lines. Then, without remembering that you were planning to do this, make a poem of the first and last words of each line to see what happens. For instance, the lines (from Einstein) * When at the reception * Of sense-impressions, memory pictures * Emerge this is not yet thinking * And when. . . * Would become: * When reception * Of pictures * Emerge thinking * And when * And so on. Form the original prose, poetic lines, and first-and-last word poem into three columns on a page. Study their relationships. * If you have an answering machine, record all messages received for one month, then turn them into a best-selling novella. * Write a macaronic poem (making use of as many languages as you are conversant with). * Attempt to speak for a day only in questions; write only in questions. * Attempt to become in a state where the mind is flooded with ideas; attempt to keep as many thoughts in mind simultaneously as possible. Then write without looking at the page, typescript or computer screen (This is "called" invisible writing). * Choose a period of time, perhaps five or nine months. Every day, write a letter that will never be sent to a person who does or does not exist, or to a number of people who do or do not exist. Create a title for each letter and don't send them. Pile them up as a book. * Etymological work. Experiment with investigating the etymologies of all words that interest you, including your own name(s). Approaches to etymologies: Take a work you've already written, preferably something short, look up the etymological meanings of every word in that work including words like "the" and "a". Study the histories of the words used, then rewrite the work on the basis of the etymological information found out. Another approach: Build poems and writings form the etymological families based on the Indo-European language constructs, for instance, the BHEL family: bulge, bowl, belly, boulder, billow, ball, balloon; or the OINO family: one, alone, lonely, unique, unite, unison, union; not to speak of one of the GEN families: kin, king, kindergarten, genteel, gender, generous, genius, genital, gingerly, pregnant, cognate, renaissance, and innate! * Write a brief bibliography of the science and philosophy texts that interest you. Create a file of newspaper articles that seem to relate to the chances of writing poetry. * Write the poem: Ways of Making Love. List them. * Diagram a sentence in the old-fashioned way. If you don't know how, I'll be happy to show you; if you do know how, try a really long sentence, for instance from Melville. * Turn a list of the objects that have something to do with a person who has died into a poem or poem form, in homage to that person. * Write the same poem over and over again, in different forms, until you are weary. Another experiment: Set yourself the task of writing for four hours at a time, perhaps once, twice or seven times a week. Don't stop until hunger and/or fatigue take over. At the very least, always set aside a four-hour period once a month in which to write. This is always possible and will result in one book of poems or prose writing for each year. Then we begin to know something. * Attempt as a writer to win the Nobel Prize in Science by finding out how thought becomes language, or does not. * Take a traditional text like the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For every noun, replace it with one that is seventh or ninth down from the original one in the dictionary. For instance, the word "honesty" would be replaced by "honey dew melon." Investigate what happens; different dictionaries will produce different results. * Attempt to write a poem or series of poems that will change the world. Does everything written or dreamed of do this? * Write occasional poems for weddings, for rivers, for birthdays, for other poets' beauty, for movie stars maybe, for the anniversaries of all kinds of loving meetings, for births, for moments of knowledge, for deaths. Writing for the "occasion" is part of our purpose as poets in being-this is our work in the community wherein we belong and work as speakers for others. * Experiment with every traditional form, so as to know it. * Write poems and proses in which you set yourself the task of using particular words, chosen at random like the spelling exercises of children: intelligence, amazing, weigh, weight, camel, camel's, foresight, through, threw, never, now, snow, rein, rain. Make a story of that! * Plan, structure, and write a long work. Consider what is the work now needed by the culture to cure and exact even if by accident the great exorcism of its 1998 sort-of- seeming-not-being. What do we need? What is the poem of the future? * What is communicable now? What more is communicable? * Compose a list of familiar phrases, or phrases that have stayed in your mind for a long time--from songs, from poems, from conversation: * What's in a name? That which we call a rose * By any other name would smell as sweet * (Romeo and Juliet) * A rose is a rose is a rose * (Gertrude Stein) * A raisin in the sun * (Langston Hughes) * The king was in the counting house * Counting out his money. . . * (Nursery rhyme) * I sing the body electric. . . * These United States. . . * (Walt Whitman) * A thing of beauty is a joy forever * (Keats) * (I summon up) remembrance of things past * (WS) * Ask not for whom the bell tolls * It tolls for thee * (Donne) * Look homeward, Angel * (Milton) * For fools rush in where angels fear to tread * (Pope) * All's well that ends well * (WS) * I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness * (Allen Ginsberg) * I think therefore I am * (Descartes) * It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,. . . * (Dickens) * brave new world has such people in it * (Shakespeare, The Tempest, later Huxley) * Odi et amo (I hate and I love) * (Catullus) * Water water everywhere * Nor any drop to drink * (Coleridge) * Curiouser and curiouser * (Alice in Wonderland) * Don't worry be happy. Here's a little song I wrote. . . * Write the longest most beautiful sentence you can imagine-make it be a whole page. * Set yourself the task of writing in a way you've never written before, no matter who you are. * What is the value of autobiography? * Attempt to write in a way that's never been written before. * Invent a new form. * Write a perfect poem. * Write a work that intersperses love with landlords. * In a poem, list what you know. * Address the poem to the reader. * Write household poems-about cooking, shopping, eating and sleeping. * Write dream collaborations in the lune form. * Write poems that only make use of the words included in Basic English. * Attempt to write about jobs and how they affect the writing of poetry. * Write while being read to from science texts, or, write while being read to by one's lover from any text. * Trade poems with others and do not consider them your own. * Exercises in style: Write twenty-five or more different versions of one event. * Review the statement: "What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems."

SOURCE: www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html/

#prompts #writers #writer #writing #write #journal prompts #diary prompts #prompt #journal #journaling #writers block

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lucyariablog · 6 years

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Grand Theft Content: Steal These 6 Ideas From Award Finalists

So many good ideas get published on this blog in a year that it’s nearly impossible for one person to absorb them all.

Examples from 2018 Content Marketer of the Year finalists were so inspiring they stayed with me. When it came time to offer up our latest batch of ideas to steal, I found it hard to pick just one from each. But I made myself do it.

I looked for ones that can be applied in all kinds of organizations – B2B, B2C, big, small, and everything in between. Now I hope you steal at least one of these ideas – and then make it grand for your brand.

1. Use established channels to support experiments on new ones

Stolen from: Evan Parker, NASCAR

When NASCAR’s content studio sold an eight-part docuseries to Facebook for Facebook Watch, the social media giant’s new video-on-demand platform was in its infancy.

With its powerful story about the first African-American driver in the Daytona 500 since 1969, Behind the Wall: Bubba Wallace seemed like the kind of story audiences would rally around.

But rather than just expecting people to find it on the Watch tab, NASCAR and Facebook marketed where they knew their audience would learn about it. They took to Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, tapped other drivers and celebrities to promote, plus the series’ charismatic star made plugs in his post-race interviews.

The Behind the Wall With Bubba Wallace series had attracted more than 12 million views by the time we wrote about it in July.

Sure, you may not have the budget to produce an eight-part docuseries. That’s not the point. Here’s the takeaway: Produce each content piece in part as an experiment – and give it all the promotional resources you can to help it succeed.

Produce each #content piece as an experiment and give it all the promo you can, says @Kmoutsos. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Content Distribution Essentials That Win Eyeballs

2. Find the story inside the story

Stolen from: Glenn LaFollette, JLL

B2B marketers may assume stories touching people’s hearts abound for their B2C counterparts but are scarce in their industry. Sorry, B2B marketers, you’re not off the hook. You can find great, moving stories in any industry.

Glenn LaFollette, who leads brand strategy and editorial at JLL, helps his team find the magic in commercial real estate services, telling moving, impactful stories through text and videos on JLL’s Ambitions website. His secret? Focus not on the stories about the buildings but on the people who work and learn inside the buildings.

JLL’s Ambitions publication tells the story, for example, of the Detroit Institute of Music Education (DIME), where JLL helped turn an abandoned building into an inspiring and acoustically appropriate space for a music school.

The passion and commitment of the group’s founders and the JLL team supporting them came across on the page and came to life in an accompanying video.

youtube

Similarly, a story (and video) about the company’s first patent starts not with a description of the patent but with the JLL engineer behind it, as a little boy tinkering with parts on the floor of his dad’s electrical contractor shop.

Meaningful, human stories are out there. Glenn’s work reminds us that our job is to find them in the B2B community.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Sample 11 of the Best B2B and B2C Content Marketing Ideas of 2018

3. Create room to react

Stolen from: Randi Bartelmie, Symantec

Few content teams can function without a content calendar – especially in an enterprise environment. But planning months in advance can make it harder to pivot when new developments or of-the-moment opportunities come up.

Randi Bartelmie heads the team that produces Norton The Internet Security Center content, which helps people understand (and make informed choices about) digital security. (Norton is Symantec’s consumer brand.)

Randi’s approach deftly addresses the dual challenge by planning for predictable information needs and leaving space for spontaneity. I love the thinking behind the three-pronged approach she uses:

Create an editorial calendar based on topics relevant to what people are searching for according to input from the SEO team.

Mobilize to help during rapid-response situations.

Respond to seasonal needs. For example, both tax time and holiday shopping bring increased digital security threats.

By building in the ability to respond to the unexpected, Randi and the team could spring into action when news broke, for example, about the Equifax data breach. The team quickly created banner ads and social posts that clicked through to information about the breach and a soft product sell.

The takeaway? Plan, but don’t be a slave to your content calendar. Build in a little flexibility so you can respond to audience’s needs at the right moment.

Plan but don’t be a slave to your #content calendar. Build in a little flexibility, says @Kmoutsos. Click To Tweet

4. Create a snowball effect

Stolen from: Jason Miller, LinkedIn (now at Microsoft)

When you build success in one format, use the momentum to try out others.

Each of the examples we shared of Jason Miller’s work at LinkedIn is impressive. What stayed with me, though, is how Jason grew The Sophisticated Marketer content brand from its humble origins as an e-book into an impressive set of media.

Today, The Sophisticated Marketer brand includes:

A podcast

A print and digital quarterly magazine

Master classes

If you build it and they come, you’ve done well. If they come and you keep leading them to more, you might just end up as a finalist on someone’s Content Marketer of the Year list.

5. Hire right, then hand over responsibility

Stolen from: Beverly Jackson, MGM Resorts International

Read through the stories of content marketing award finalists from any year and you’ll find they always mention their team. There’s a reason for that: Content marketing is a team sport.

And when you’re leading social strategy for a company with multiple brands (each with its own personality and distinct audiences) as Beverly Jackson does for MGM International, you really can’t go it alone.

That’s why Beverly makes sure to hire a mix of content creators, strategists, and community managers. Then she puts them in charge of finding the narratives in the work they do.

Most of her team can shoot and edit video, for example. They can capture interactions with the athletes and stars that come through the company’s properties and events on the fly.

Caught up with The Rook @_ajawilson22 right before today’s final game at The House. pic.twitter.com/jabuTWjphF

— Las Vegas Aces

(@LVAces) August 19, 2018

If you hire the right mix of people (and Beverly emphasizes that means people who work well with others), it’s much easier to, as she puts it, “get the party started, help people have fun, and then make sure it keeps going.”

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Building Your Content Marketing Team? 14 Skills for New, Growing, and Mature Programs

6. Bring influencers to you

Stolen from: Bertrand Cerisier, Xerox

We content types love to sit down at our keyboards or pick up our video cameras and create compelling, persuasive things. Sometimes, though, there’s just no substitute for a live experience.

That turned out to be the case when Xerox wanted to convince press, analysts, and tech influencers that the 100-year-old company has something interesting to say about the future of work.

Led by Bertrand Cerisier, the Xerox team developed a series of in-person events and on-site experiences to prove that Xerox understands the modern world of work. Part of that meant letting reporters and other influencers see the products in action and hear the Xerox team’s vision in person.

The resulting 518 pieces of coverage around the globe (400 million impressions) meant the effort paid off.

The takeaway? The adage, “Show, don’t tell,” applies to more than writing.

The adage, “Show, don’t tell,” applies to more than writing, says @Kmoutsos. Click To Tweet

Where do you look for ideas to steal?

You might notice that I didn’t offer any ideas to steal from 2018 Content Marketer of the Year winner Venetta Linas Paris, though she certainly has plenty to choose from. Don’t worry, you’ll hear more about them later in 2019.

When you’re looking for inspiration, where do you turn? Do you look to others in your industry? Award winners? Or something else entirely? Let me know in the comments.

Many thanks to Carla Johnson, who scoured the world to help us find these outstanding content marketers and wrote the articles the ideas came from.

Be one of the first to learn when entries open for the 2019 Content Marketing Awards. Sign up for CMI’s free weekday newsletter.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Grand Theft Content: Steal These 6 Ideas From Award Finalists appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2019/01/grand-theft-content/

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