#also i tried to put the text transcripts in the captions but there's a character limit rip

[alecscudder1987]

BILE AND BLUE PANSIES

theend4’s supernatural poetry event

hey everyone!! egan here<33 

so…. i recently hit a follower milestone… and i want to say thank you!!! wtf fr!!!! i love all of you so so much. i’m still an internet baby, but i’ve been active in different fandoms since around 2017, and this past year has been one of my favorite fandom experiences ever. i’ve made some really good friends and gotten inspired by so many different artists, writers, and ideas. thanks so much for being on this crazy journey with me. 

SO WHAT?

one of my favorite things i got to do this year was share my poetry with you guys! it’s been an absolute joy to receive so many lovely messages from you saying how much you love my work. truly, your feedback means the world!

so, in honor of that, i’d like for you all to share your poetry with me! whether you’ve got 7 published poetry books or you’ve literally never even read any, i’d love for you to try your hand. 

OK, WHEN?

September 18—September 24th, 2022

ALRIGHT, NOW HOW DOES THIS WORK?

READ the poems in the prompts, and then think about what you like about them—themes, voices, characters, endings, beginnings, word choice, formatting, etc!—and do some brainstorming!

WRITE one or more poems inspired by the ones listed! when i'm inspired by a certain poet, i like to try out writing in their syntax, their mannerisms, or their subject matter. give it a go! (for example: richard siken breaks up his lines across the page. if you've never tried this, playing around with indentation can be a super fun way to break up your lines!)

POST your poem either as a screenshot, photo, or plain text post to tumblr. (note: please provide a transcription of your poem in the caption if you decide to upload a photo.)

CREDIT the author of the poem you were inspired by in the caption! i won't reblog poems that don't give credit to their inspirations.

TAG your post with #bluepansypoetry and @ me so I can share your lovely creations!

DO YOU HAVE READING RECOMMENDATIONS? PROMPTS EVEN?

i do!!! please find my list of all-time-fave recommendations of supernatural-esque poems that i love below!! each day of the event focuses on one poem as a “prompt” or inspiration, so please read them all to see which ones you like! i tried to include a variety of styles. GOOGLE DOC OF THE POEM PROMPTS HERE!

SCHEDULING NITTY-GRITTY

SEPT 18: “french novel,” ritchie hoffman

SEPT 19: “colosseum,” jericho brown

SEPT 20: “fragment 147,” sappho, translated by anne carson

SEPT 21: “cagnes sur mer 1950,” jorie graham

SEPT 22: “road music,” richard siken

SEPT 23: “telemachus,” ocean vuong

SEPT 24: “object permanence,” madeline cravens

BUT I'VE NEVER WRITTEN POETRY!

i hear you say. yes. i have never tried oil painting, but i would like to! i believe it's important to keep an open mind when practicing new arts—you're never going to be "good" right away of course. besides, my goal isn't to write "good" poetry. (ok, maybe a little.) but i write poetry because i feel like a wildfire when i do. i write poetry because i might die if i don't. art keeps us alive. words feed the soul. 

the best advice i’ve gotten about how to write poetry… is to read poetry. read bad poetry. read good poetry! and then sit down for a hot second somewhere and write. write for 8 minutes without stopping. you can write "i don't know what to write" 100 times over if that's all that comes to you. or you can write a play. describe the space around you. talk about what you had for lunch. something will come to you, i promise. and if it doesn't? gently put it away for now. there isn't any rush. you can come back tomorrow.

FINAL WORD

first: no hate speech! second: if you do create nsfw work, please tag it as such. i want everyone to be able to participate in this event safely. 

thank you once again for being on this journey with me, whether you arrived today or have been here since before i even got into supernatural, i love you all dearly. good luck, and happy creating!! 

also, if  you were curious, this event is based on my poem (and song) blue pansies! which you can find here, if you like!

LINK TO THE POEMS AGAIN!!

remember to tag your work with #bluepansypoetry, and happy writing!!!

#bluepansypoetry #egan's creator event #poetry event #supernatural poetry

[windfalling]

garrus/shepard + thane/irikah, parallels

#meedit #meleedit #mass effect #shakarian #garrus vakarian #mass effect 2 #ok so i've been obsessed with this parallel ever since i first played it and yes i went back to replay me2 just so i could take these videos #i think if you have that scene with thane first it sets up a really interesting potential intentionality from shepard's perspective #but i also like how if you play this the other way around - especially if you take thane with you on the sidonis mission - #there's also meaning in hindsight #...if you approach all of this from a shipper lens i mean lol #it's v much that one text post where garrus is talking to thane and thane is like 'have i told you how i met my wife' #also i tried to put the text transcripts in the captions but there's a character limit rip #and yes i mashed together some conversations but [shrugs] #sometimes i make things

[felassan]

Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director @ BioWare, working on DA4) recently did a Twitch stream where he played through some DAO. Although he works on DA, this is his first time playing through DAO. He’s playing through it looking at random details from a dev perspective as he’s currently working on DA4 and therefore wants to know more about the previous games.

On the stream he mentioned some tidbits on the development of DA4. There were also some insights and anecdotes about the development of DAO and similar. It’s a 3 hour stream so I collected them here in case that’s of use to anyone (for example not everyone can watch streams which don’t have subtitles/captions). The stream is a fun/interesting watch though, so if you’re curious or able to watch I recc doing so. 😊 The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Please note that there’s some paraphrasing on my part, this is not a transcript.  There are also some additions from another dev who featured on the stream to give some commentary. The stream also contains more snippets that at times I couldn’t make out (I tried my best!).

(There is a mention of Cullen’s VA in the text below.)

DA4

Jon said he can talk about things about DA4 that aren’t “consumer-facing”, but he can’t say anything about the game that would be consumer-facing but which isn’t already publicly available. There are several reasons for this. One, that’s not his job, there are people whose job this is and they let each other do their respective roles. Two, BW are a publicly-traded company, so if he said something that could affect that that would be insider trading. Three, they’re not done making DA4 yet, so if he said that they have added [x] to the game and people got all excited about that or pre-ordered on that basis, but [x] ended up being cut, people would be like ‘BioWare lied to us’, when it’s just that things changed during the course of development, as is often the case

He’s glad that fans are excited for the game but notes that fan expectations are always double-edged. It can be really tough as some people started ‘playing’ the game in their heads as soon as they heard of it. That’s fine, he loves that, but he hopes that peoples’ expectations don’t turn into requirements. Clearly BW have alluded to certain characters, like Solas, being in the game, but some fans say things like “If [say] Morrigan isn’t in the game, then, rahhh!” Y’know, there’s a lot of talk about how certain characters have to be in the game, and yeah.

On characters which are quantum (i.e. characters which can die or which can have similar end-states as death in previous games): their being quantum makes it really hard for the devs to work with those characters in subsequent games. The devs naturally aren’t going to put as much effort into characters which could have died previously. A character can have had an amazing appearance throughout/role in a previous game, but if there is a risk of something happening to them and of them being removed [effectively] from the plot, it just doesn’t make sense to have them as a major character in a subsequent game. If a character can, say, sacrifice themselves in some glorious ending, the devs have to make sure that if they use them again, in worldstates where the character didn’t do that, the character is kind of ‘muted’, as the devs don’t want to disrespect the players who made a different choice

A comment in chat expressed a wish for Shale in DA4. Jon’s response is that he has no idea on that front

Bugs don’t come out of crunch, they come out of development in general. Crunch does impact on the quality of a game though. In recent years BW are always really trying to reduce crunch, they’re currently working really hard to bring it down. The best way of doing that is by controlling scope. As creatives it’s tough to balance wanting to make great stuff and be industry-leading with the desire to constantly do extra passes over things they’ve created like the audio, art etc. Their biggest enemy is time, other ways of reducing crunch or time spent in general include iterating tools to make often-repeated processes as time-efficient as possible

I think the following was an observation on the industry in general as opposed to a BW-specific/-exclusive comment: he thinks that as a result of this sort of thing [working to reduce crunch], a lot of games are going to have to be smaller and a lot more focused in scope i.e. the devs will have to focus on hitting the key selling points of that particular game/series as hard as they can, and cut down on branching out sideways/wide on a bunch of random other stuff

Jon doesn’t personally engage in character creators in games, but he knows that for some players that expression is worth a lot of time and focus. BW want to be industry-leading in this kind of stuff as it’s something which is interesting/key/integral to their games

In a way BW have made their own nest of problems what with every DA game being so different to the previous one. Still, he notes that each game has a staunch fanbase that says that their particular favorite game is the best one in the series

He doesn’t want people who think that DA4 isn’t what they want to buy it and be upset - there are so many other great games out there! BW are going to make the game they’re going to make - if some people like it, that’s great, and if some people don’t, that’s cool. Sometimes waiting until reviews are out and/or really seeing beforehand if a game is something that you want [has things/features in it that you want] prior to getting it - as opposed to jumping right in or pre-ordering - is a good idea. Fans don’t always know what they want, but they do know what they like - these are 2 different things

He hopes that whatever they ship for DA4, people go “I enjoyed this experience”, and that then, if there’s additional content for it down the road, people can decide, “do I want this further content?”

On hair: BW are using the new hair technology in the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they’ll see what they can do! This was said in response to a comment about the hair in the latest FIFA games (as EA make FIFA)

A comment in chat asked about a flying mechanic (griffons). Jon’s response is that flying is such a heavy gameplay mechanic that you can’t put it in a game without everything in the game being built about it (see Anthem)

Relating to the above comment, in DA4 mounted combat would be cool but then they’d have to make the game ‘around’ mounted combat and make the mounted combat feature meaningful

On the underwater concept art: it should not be interpreted as a promise of gameplay. BW have amazing artists who sit down for a couple weeks while they’re in early production and just draw loads and loads of all kinds of stuff. Concept art is like a moodboard or Pinterest board. Elsewhere in the stream he advised, take all the concept art together like a mosaic and ask, ‘what is the overall theme[s] here?’, and to zoom out from individual details. [This stuff echoes PW’s word on concept art]

BW don’t generally write things or the choices as bleak as the choices in DAO were anymore. This is a conscious choice on their part, they want their game to be fun [note: this was said when the side quest in Orzammar where the Warden has the option of convincing a dwarven mother to abandon her young baby to die was being played through. It seems to refer to intensively grimdark choices/beats of this kind]

I think this was more of a general comment on games: SSDs (solid state drives) mean that players will see shorter elevator rides (Mass Effect - was this a reference to the remaster?) and fewer switchback corridors (those are actually loading zones). Generally, these are going to change mechanically the time it takes to do stuff in games

The devs have lots of features on their backlog that they’d like to offer players but each will ofc involve implementation and subsequent maintenance, and each one that is chosen to add is being chosen over something else. And sometimes, it’s hard for them to tell if [x] feature or [y] feature would be better to add to the game

They’re about to work on a giant feature (a pure tooling feature, something that isn’t consumer-facing) that is probably going to take ~2 staff years of effort [I think “staff effort” includes multiple staff working concurrently, so 2 years of staff effort doesn’t = 2 years of time chronologically] to get done in the next few months. They’re investing all this effort across the people working on it because they don’t want their artists and designers etc to have to deal with the problem that it’s going to solve anymore. I’m not sure what this feature is but elsewhere in the stream they referred to tooling and automation and gave the example of, the better your tooling is, the fewer times you have to manually set the camera for a human vs elf vs dwarf position, for dynamically-generated [cinematic?] content and for the first pass to be automated (if this is the case, less time is spent/wasted on redoing it and manually touching it up) [see last bullet point in this section]

He doesn’t know how big DA4 is going to be but said “let’s ballpark and say like most games it’ll be somewhere between 70 and 100 GB”

If we kept our Wardens as the PC throughout all 3 games, at the end they would be so powerful that it’d be a bit like “Let’s just do [thing], I’ve killed gods before, whatever”. He thinks it’s good that they have fresh characters each time in DA in order to reset that power level. Some people want more Commander Shepard in the next Mass Effect and he feels like, ‘what else could you possibly want / what else could that character possibly do after 3 games?’

When asked how much freedom he/they have now to focus on next gen, he said that there’s actually almost no difference on that front. The problems never change. They now have better renderers, better ray-tracing, better graphics cards etc, but they have always made DA games for high- and low-spec PCs, so it’s actually about gameplay systems. The freedom isn’t power-based and them getting access to more cores and more RAM generally isn’t going to change how the games are played. The games still have to be made for hard drives on PC. Dev creativity matters more than power here. The challenge of building a BW game is more about/from managing loads of different plotstates, loads of different art pieces, etc

On the title situation (two): names are the last thing they worry about because names have to go through legal before being approved. Every name, including character names, has to be checked in case it’s a famous person, or associated with something bad, or offensive in a different language due to localization etc

They don’t do face scans of people with big beards

There was also a bit about changes/developments to/in the cinematic design process and associated tooling [?] but I found it too hard to follow sorry >< This bit of commentary begins at timestamp ~ 1:52:45 and continues til ~ 2:00:05 [keep listening through the bit where they pause for a cutscene]

General BW

There’s currently ~350 staff in Edmonton, ~200 in Austin and more elsewhere

He notes that DA games sell pretty well, but relative to EA games in general, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to FIFA

DAI

5% of players of DAI never created a character [Q: does this refer to people who just used the default appearances/presets with no editing, or people who only played multiplayer?]

The mounts don’t actually go faster than running, this is an illusion

I think they said it has 55,000 lines of dialogue. [I’m pretty sure I remember devs elsewhere saying it has 80,000 lines of dialogue]

One of the companions had to have their name changed during development because of legal/translation reasons. It sounds like the original name sounded too close to something offensive

DA2

Back when DA2 was internally code-named “Nug Storm”: this was at the beginning when it was pitched to the team on a set of slides. The image on the slide for that pitch had devil horns, a metal hand and no flesh, it was just made out of fire and flames

DAO

The engine DAO is made on is the third engine that they tried for it during development. [David Gaider has gone into the DAO engine stuff some on Summerfall’s series of DAO playthrough streams]

The cracks on the cracked eluvian asset are modelled after the crack on the Tardis in Doctor Who from around that time, as at the time some devs had been talking about Doctor Who a lot. A dev actually added this factoid to DAO’s entry on TV Tropes but someone else (evidently not a DA dev) came by and deleted it saying that it was too much of a stretch x)

Before the game had its name there was an HTML script that randomly generated possible titles for consideration, it adds verbs and nouns together e.g. “Grim Dark”. One of the craziest possibilities that it once generated that the devs always remember is "Bone Wind”

One of the portraits that’s used for decoration around the world in-game (it’s of a bearded human man) is actually of a specific BW staff member

He played through Stone Prisoner, where Wilhelm’s son Matthias gives exposition in the cellar. Matthias is voiced by GE and this had been pointed out to Jon earlier on. Jon: “I don’t think that character’s voice acting was super strong there”

On the in-game area towards the end of Stone Prisoner: Outdoor areas in games are large and one of the things needed for them is streaming, so different chunks can be ‘streamed in’. There’s a tower [?], and technically the top of the tower was made an outdoor level so that sky stuff could be there, though it didn’t really need to be. The person that made it an outdoor level chose the very smallest chunk size for the terrain mesh, which determines how fine of a streaming they do. So when playing, every time you moved like 4 meters, the game would stream out 50-100 chunks behind you and the same in front of you (this is the bubble around the player of what actually exists). Because it was so small, it was constantly thrashing the CPU and disc to do all the loading. The devs were like “this isn’t going to work”, but they barely had any time. The solution: they made a new level that was outdoor and copied all the sunlight and other settings, but with the largest chunk size. They copy-pasted the entire level from one to the other. The problem with that many chunks then is that there was a giant expanse of flat terrain sticking out of the middle of the tower. They didn’t know if the story was going to involve shots of the outside of the tower for this sequence or not, so they took the terrain deformation tool and bundled all the terrain vertices at the bottom of the tower in a giant clump. So to this day there’s a mess of vertices and twisted terrain at the bottom of the final level that probably no-one has ever seen [not sure though if this anecdote is in reference to a place in that DLC or somewhere elsewhere in the game?]

There were also some tidbits on Anthem, however I didn’t note them down (sorry).

If you think I misheard or misunderstood anything from this stream please let me know and I will edit/fix it. :) 

(Thankyou to some of my friends who explained a tech detail from this to me.)

[source]  <-- current rewatch link

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age #bioware #video games #greg ellis mention #morrigan #queen of my heart #solas #mass effect #anthem #next mass effect #i love these factoids and insights into game dev it's so interesting and fun #i actually started this post yesterday but 2 hours in I was so sleepy (it was mad late) so I called it a night

[rigelmejo]

Reader Tools

An AMAZING resource for using on the computer or phone for reading Chinese: MandarinSpot.

Specifically, the MandarinSpot Chinese Text Annotation - just paste a text into it, and it will produce pinyin annotation above all characters, and also provide click-definitions for every single word. The definitions provided seem pretty good, and seems about as good as Zhongwen chrome extension (I love that extension but can’t use it on all my devices, so this MandarinSpot tool is a good alternative). Viewing the pinyin annotation above all text is optional, if it’s turned on you can see: just pinyin, or pinyin and characters. If it’s turned off, you only see characters. Either way, if you hover over a word it will pop-up a definition.

An alternative to the MandarinSpot Chinese Text Annotation, is Chinese Zero to Hero’s Online Reader - it seems to do the same thing. It puts pinyin over all text you paste in, and gives hover-over definitions. Both seem to work about the same, both require you to paste in the text you want annotated. So if you need pinyin printed above the entire reading material, both of these are good websites to use for it. 

There is also Bookmarklet - for annotating websites. It does the same thing, adds popup annotations and click-definitions to any page. It does not change the functionality of the websites. It’s incredibly easy to use on a computer or mobile. you just make a bookmark from that page as the directions instruct. Then you either: already have the page you want annotated open, and click this Bookmarklet bookmark (and it automatically is now useable just like Zhongwen extension would be if it’s extension icon were clicked). Or, you open the Bookmarklet bookmark, then paste in the url you want to read in the url area. The resulting page will now have popup annotations. This tool is extremely useful if you need this functionality but can’t use extensions on your device (such as phones/ipads versus computers), if you don’t want to use a program or extension (since it’s just a bookmark basically). Unlike the other tool above, this version does not give the option to view pinyin all characters as you read - it only includes the pop-up pinyin+definitions. 

I have been Bookmarklet on my phone a ton now that I know it exists! I love it. And I also have the Chinese Text Annotation webpage opened as a tab on my phone, for when I want a full pinyin annotation of some excerpt. 

I usually use Pleco reader, but the Pleco reader limits the functionality of some sites like mtlnovel.com’s ability to show chinese alongside english, and pleco reader does not give pinyin transcription. Positives of Pleco Reader do include their extensive dictionary, their audio feature, and the ability to immediately bookmark/flashcard any new words. So, I’ve been using MandarinSpot’s tools and Pleco Reader depending on what my needs are. I really love the Bookmarklet tool - I love that it works on mtlnovels, and sometimes I like reading without having the ability in Pleco to easily make a flashcard or click for an extended dictionary entry. Using Bookmarklet, because it’s simpler, gives me a chance to just practice reading with some dictionary-help, without giving me anything to potentially distract me, without giving me additional tools that might spur my more intensive study habits. I like that its a way to read without distracting me as much. (Pleco is not distracting, it’s probably the top-tier tool for reading for me, of all the ones I’ve tried - it’s just that... because it IS so useful, sometimes I’ll study more than I intend to like practicing listening by playing a whole page in chinese, or looking up example sentences of words that take me away from my story page, or listening to the pronunciation of every new word and shadowing it instead of just continuing to read... which is all fantastic for my learning, but I just can too easily fall into studying more than maybe I intended to that particular day lol.

If anyone happens to care, my favorite chinese reader tools: - Pleco, free or purchased version, but purchased version is more convienient since it is a web reader (free is only a paste-clipboard reader). Definitely the most in depth and accurate definitions, audio, broad functionality, convenient. What I usually use whenever I’m on my phone. - Zhongwen Chrome Extension, free, in accurate and succinct, broad functionality on any website and even some video captions, mentions/links some grammar points, very convenient if on a computer. Probably the best all-around tool if on a computer. (I wish I could use it more, but I can’t use it on my current computer and it doesn’t work on my tablet). - MandarinSpot tools - Annotation and Bookmarklet, free, one does pinyin transcription over words, both do click-definitions pretty close in quality to Zhongwen’s. A wonderful alternative to Zhongwen extension, if you’re on a device that can’t use chrome extensions or just don’t want to use an extension. I usually use these when I’m reading on a computer.  - Chinese Zero to Hero Reader - free, does pinyin transcription over words, does click definitions that are generally right (it has better definitions then LingQ or Idiom app), links to the site’s very useful Dictionary site for words and characters, the site also includes some pre-made free reading materials that are Graded Reader type in difficulty and include audio. About as useful as MandarinSpot’s tools to me, but the site is just ‘busier’ so I use it less. I use this site occasionally for it’s provided free reading materials like Journey to the West. 

#chinese studyblr #resources #reader #readers #reading tools #language learning #mandarinspot #i love the mandarin spot tools

[chronically-illustrated]

Ego Activity Timeline

(July 10, 2016 - May 15, 2018)

EDITED: May 15, 2018

Since I’ve only been here a short time, I’ve had to do a lot of research to get up to speed on previous ego appearances and Antipocalypse hints. So, I thought I would put together a timeline to help out other people in the community who are in the same situation, especially since a lot of you have finals going on and you don’t have time to go digging through all of this stuff. It may also help jog theorists’ memories with things that could be linked to the current Seánanigans. I’ve spent a lot of time gathering all this, but it’s not comprehensive, so please feel free to add on!

July 10, 2016

Welcome to the Game #2

- Jackieboy Man's origin

August 11, 2016

Jacksepticeye Power Hour #1

- Marvin's origin, though he is not yet an official ego at this time

September 15, 2016

Jacksepticeye Power Hour #2

- Dr. Schneeplestein's origin

[Hints leading to first Antipocalypse – I wasn't here for this, so I don't know all the places to look, but I think the ones in Sister Location are particularly significant]

October 31, 2016

Say Goodbye

- Antisepticeye's first official appearance

December 24, 2016

Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition

- Dr. Schneeplestein’s second appearance

March 10, 2017

Antisepticeye takeover at PAX East

April 11, 2017

Bro Average

- Chase Brody's origin

June 18, 2017

Bio Inc. Redemption #2

- Jack kills Chase Brody

- References Dr. Schneeplestein at 16:45

- In-game Chase Brody dies June 18, 2018

- Jack acts as if Chase is not an established character, but a random name he came up with

June 24, 2017

Bio Inc. Redemption #4

- Dr. Schneeplestein's third appearance

August 3, 2017

Kill Jacksepticeye

- Jack feels nauseous, leaves the room, and Dr. Schneeplestein comes in

- Antisepticeye takes over Dr. Schneeplestein while the doctor tries to save in-game Jack

- In-game Jack dies on March 5, 2018

October 23, 2017

South Park: The Fractured But Whole Part 2

- Jackieboy Man’s second appearance

October 31, 2017

Jacksepticeye The Silent Movie

- Jameson Jackson's origin, though he is not yet an official ego at this time

- Anti attempts to take over when Jameson cuts his hand

- “Still here,” “Puppets,” “Run,” and “Still watching” flash onscreen

- Jameson appears to regain control of his body and finishes the video, doing Jack's usual outro

December 5, 2017

Doki Doki Literature Club Part 5

- “imtalkingtoyou” and “irememberwhathapened” are in the tags in zalgo text; these tags are later removed

December 15, 2017

Overnight Watch

[I don't know much about Overnight Watch, but I’ve been told it involved showing previously-used footage of Anti during the night of the holiday stream]

March 14, 2018

Giant Smelly Feet

- Usual intro is missing

- At the end of the video, instead of the usual outro, the camera moves into the bathroom where Jack sits hunched with his feet in the tub, muttering in a Gollum-like voice. When he realizes he's being watched, he slowly turns his head, then lunges toward the camera screaming, “Get out!” The video cuts to black and there is no outro.

April 6, 2018

During his PAX East panel, Jack says he wants to do a story involving all the egos later this year, and confirms Jameson Jackson as an official ego

April 11, 2018

Jack posts a picture on Instagram for Chase's birthday

April 18, 2018

Postcard Incident on Tumblr

- Jack posts what appears to be a postcard that says “Wish You Were Here.” Community members determine the background picture is from a beach in Germany. As the hours pass, the picture changes several times, getting more blood-spattered and glitched with each update. The image is then deleted from Jack's blog less than 12 hours after it was posted.

[I believe it's around this time that Jack answers a question about which egos are canon during a stream and makes it clear that the six official egos are Anti, Jackieboy Man, Dr. Schneeplestein, Marvin, Chase Brody, and Jameson Jackson]

May 1, 2018

Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter 4

- “I’m hearing something. Maybe it was the sound of my own brain eating itself alive inside my head.” (5:28)

May 2, 2018

Monster Prom

- “I thought white noise was taking over my brain and I was about to die.” (4:12)

- “There was that sound again. I thought I was going deaf.” (6:09)

- “Sorry, my brain switched off there for a second.” (7:28)

(credit to @videogames-and-stardust​ for writing this info down)

May 3, 2018

Jack posts a picture of Dr. Schneeplestein on Instagram with the caption, “Vacation's over!”

Jack renames Bro Average and The Silent Movie as Power Hour videos with the egos' names

May 4, 2018

100% REAL DOCTOR l Gastric Bypass, Liposuction Surgery

- “Dr. Jacksepticeye” parodies Dr. Schneeplestein's intro from Power Hour #2

- Dr. Schneeplestein returns, but his “good friend” Jack doesn't seem to recognize him and asks, “Who are you?” Instead of greeting Jack like a friend who's been gone for a while, Schneep responds, “I am the good doctor, and that is my chair!” It has been noted that his expression shows both anger and fear, and that Jack's face displays not confusion, but a startled look as if he's been caught doing something he shouldn't by someone he didn't expect to see.

May 5, 2018

Welcome to the Game 2

- Jack asks, “Where is Jackieboy Man when you need him?”

Stories Untold Chapter 1

- The usual intro is missing. While doing the outro, “Jack” stops and says, “What was that? Did you hear that? It sounded like somebody…” He tenses up as we hear the sound of the door handle turning, and looks over his shoulder as the door creaks open behind him. After a flash of lighting and crack of thunder, we see the desk from the game, and a staticky black-and-white image of Jack appears on the computer screen.

May 6, 2018

Barry Has a Secret

- Jack gets through part of his intro, then goes into a super creepy voice and Anti-like grin.

- At the end of the video, Jack is talking about having nothing to hide, then the video starts to fade to black as he shouts, “Hey, where are you going?” This is followed by a found-footage-style skit similar to that at the end of Giant Smelly Feet. The person holding the camera goes into the bathroom; the video glitches, speeds up and rewinds intermittently as the person reaches out to open a cupboard and finds a small plastic hand inside. Off-camera, we hear Jack's voice say, “Hey, what are you doing?” The camera turns and he is standing very close by, grinning and saying, “Hey. You weren't supposed to find that.” There are more glitches during this part as well. Just like in Giant Smelly Feet, there is no outro after Jack reaches for the camera and the video cuts to black.

Stories Untold Chapter 2

- The usual intro is missing, replaced by the SU-specific intro

- Jack's outro is interrupted as the screen starts to flash white and the facecam video appears to speed up, showing him going limp just before the screen goes white and then cuts to the image of the floating, glowing machines from the game

May 7, 2018

Stories Untold Chapter 3

- The usual intro and outro are missing

- At the end of the video, the screen goes dark and we hear, “Jack. Jack! This is Chase. You need to wake up.” We then get Morse code saying, “Where am I?”

Jack posts a picture on Instagram of him wearing Chase's shirt with Marvin's mask partially visible in the background. The photo is deleted less than 24 hours later.

May 8, 2018

Check Please

- Jack says the word “magic” several times and pretends to do a magic trick with the candle

- Jack talks a lot about his dad leaving the family and being a dad with kids

Stories Untold Chapter 4

- At the end of the video, Jack tosses and turns in bed, and we hear whispers saying, “Close the door.” Jake wakes up, looks directly into the camera, and says, “I remember what he did to me.”

Fortnite Stream

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background; Jack takes a “pee break” and removes it after viewers post about it in the chat

May 9, 2018

Try to Fall Asleep

- In the static after “Flee,” we see Marvin several times, Jameson once, and the words “You need to” appear above “Flee”

- More references to magic tricks

Colourblind Test

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background

May 10, 2018

Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Mode | Fortnite Battle Royale

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background

- Footage from before the stream on the 8th

Jack is out of town this day filming something he can't talk about but is excited to show us

May 11, 2018

Community members notice an emoji in a social media post. Jack usually uses :D, :P, etc., so it was strange to see him use an actual emoji. @viostormcaller was able to predict Chase's appearance on this day from this clue.

Tie – A Game About Depression

- This is Chase playing. We get absolutely indisputable confirmation at the end that we’re seeing Chase. He talks about one of his best friends being in a coma, which is most like Jack, hence hearing him say, “Jack. Jack! This is Chase. You need to wake up.” There is a distinct transition at 11:03 where the shirt he’s wearing changes - it goes from a black shirt to Chase’s shirt. Even before this, he’s talking about being a single dad with two kids and struggling with depression. At the end of the video, we see Chase drinking while looking at a photo of the family he’s lost. He sets his hat down next to the bottle of alcohol at the very end.

- Here is a transcript from @21antisepticeye of all the ego-related statements made in this video.

May 14, 2018

Dark Silence

- The light in the recording room flickers and Jack looks up, saying, “Oh, god” as it appears to shatter and the lighting turns red.

- Toward the end of the video, the in-game character is wandering a hospital with a flashlight when the overhead lights in the hallway start turning off one by one, the darkness coming closer and closer. Jack says, “I know where this is going” just before the last light goes out; we hear the character scream as the screen goes dark, including the facecam.

- We cut to Jack (possibly Chase) flicking on a lighter. He wanders a dark hallway, and we hear children’s cries and whispers similar to those in Stories Untold Chapter 4. A red glow washes over him, and we see Antisepticeye, silhouetted by red light in a doorway. Jack/Chase asks, “Who’s there?” and Anti turns his head, grinning, and a bright green light ignites in his right eye (left to the viewer). Jack/Chase asks, “Where are they? What do you want from me?” Anti stalks toward the camera, glitching, and the video cuts to black.

May 15, 2018

Baldi’s Basics

- The video appears normal except for the skit at the end, in which Jack has changed into Chase’s shirt. He scribbles on a piece of paper and pleads with the teacher, hunching up in fear before the cut to the Sam animation. After the animation, he sits up and smiles, which is very reminiscent of the ending scene from Bro Average/The Jacksepticeye Power Hour - Chase Brody.

Here is a recap from @lum1natrix detailing the events of May 2018 up to May 11.

Here is a playlist of all the videos with ego appearances up to Dark Silence.

To be continued!

#jacksepticeye #mayhem2k18 #egopocalypse

[theteablogger]

Andy’s Instagram

I said in my "I'm back" post that Andy is still engaged in some of his old behavior patterns on his Instagram. He said last fall on Facebook that he has "no real interest in maintaining the big public persona fandom thing," but that was and is obviously not the case. Here is a run-down, with screenshots in case he deletes things. Other people's faces and usernames will be censored and comments will only be included if they're relevant in some way.

Overidentification with a fictional character

This is the most obvious element of Andy's Instagram behavior: the majority of his photos concern or are linked to Bucky and the MCU in some way. Until very recently, if he wasn't actually in costume for the photo, his comment would talk about how much his hair looks like Bucky's, he'd refer to himself as Bucky, or Bucky would appear in the tags. To some extent, this is normal for cosplayers on Instagram and other social media platforms; however, given Andy's history, it seems like a terrible idea for him to engage in this sort of behavior.

Remember, this is the guy who verbally, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, and otherwise abused a number of people for years and tried to excuse his actions by claiming that his mental illness/es had caused him to believe, among other things, that he was the embodiment of various fictional characters and some real people, and/or was in contact with them as they existed in parallel universes, and that everything he did was necessary to save the world. Only four years ago, he said that he'd been writing something from Neville Longbottom's point of view and suddenly started to see and hear this fictional character in the room with him. Within the last three years, he was explicitly tying in Destiel with his relationship with Brittany in SPN meta posts. Just last year, he was claiming to have very specific sense-memories of New York in the 1920s and '30s, but lampshaded it by saying that he probably picked up some information during "the gap-filled years", which he felt made him even more like Bucky. This was around the same time that he started talking about how his hair had mysteriously changed color all on its own to look exactly like Bucky's, much as it changed when he "became" Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom.

As I and others have said time and again, if Andy honestly believes that he did horrible things to people due to mental illness making him unable to differentiate fantasy from reality, why would he ever engage in behavior that risks triggering an event like that again?

Here are just a few examples:

#buckyhair and #buckywiththegoodhair come up a lot.

Andy’s hair just naturally looks like Bucky’s. Yup.

Of course a fictional character's training has any bearing at all on Andy's real-life abilities.

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with Bucky, but note the hashtag.

I find it very hard to believe that Andy's really been planning this tattoo for years and that it has nothing to do with Bucky. I guess we’re supposed to believe that it’s a huge coincidence that the current design and his future plans for it coincide so well with the placement of Bucky’s metal arm. Without explicitly saying so, he offers this as evidence of how he’s “so connected to Bucky”.

Yes, Andy himself is a superhero.

Again, there is no actual Bucky in this post.

Here, Andy over-dramatizes his actions while being hit by a car to make it seem as if he responded in much the same way that a highly trained supersoldier would. Someone replies, "You are literally Bucky oh my god are you okay??"

Andy also says on his Instagram that his Bucky cosplay has motivated him, more than anything has before, to work out and to get in better shape. While this is a good goal to have, it's worth noting that talk of/promises to change lives for and by means of fandom (and characters that Andy channeled or embodied) was a major component of the BagEnders and DAYD cults. In the latter case, getting into better physical shape was part of it, with “Dumbledore’s Boot Camp” and the cross-country hikes.

Tying fandom in to real-life politics and world affairs

This was also posted on tumblr. The text is a paraphrased quotation from The Avengers, from the scene in which Captain America saves the life of an elderly German man (by implication a survivor of the Nazi regime) who is the only one brave enough to stand up to Loki.

Andy is hardly the first person to conflate being a slash fan with political or social activism, but considering his history, this gets an extra hard eyeroll from me. People's lives are at stake due to LGBTQIA persecution in Russia, so naturally it's an extremely emotionally charged issue, and Andy is right there to take advantage of that. He also talks about learning Russian, supposedly for career reasons, although people on tf-talk have pointed out that the Russian film system is closed to outsiders, the field is rather crowded in Eastern Europe, and oddly enough, people in countries that are not Russia tend to speak primarily non-Russian languages. (A Russian class did not appear on Andy's Spring 2017 transcript, so he only took it for one semester, if at all.)

I also notice that he says he's "about to learn a lot about Russian time zones", as if he's never had a Russian friend before. One of the women that he emotionally manipulated via tumblr and Skype is Russian and lives in Russia.

This is not the only post of Andy as Bucky wearing a POW/MIA shirt as part of his cosplay and using hashtags like #honorourvets and #powmia. If he really wanted to honor military personnel, a minority group, etc., he wouldn't use them as props to draw more attention to himself.

Another post about cosplay and slash fandom as a form of activism. What a shame that his cosplay partner puts his real-life relationship ahead of "being a tree by the river of truth", and that his fiancée puts her discomfort with "anybody else gettin' their hands on her man" (as Andy says in the video) ahead of their great chemistry. [/sarcasm]

Andy has repeatedly made passive-aggressive comments about this man's being unwilling to do Stucky photos because of his and his fiancée's boundaries. I didn't think much of it until I noticed that a comment giving Andy kudos for showing respect had been met with pontification about how he would really love to be able to do Stucky photos, but "real life romances come first" and he wouldn't want to do a Stucky shoot with a "stunty, stilted, or no-homo vibe".

I also think the way he refers to his "wonderfully devoted fan following" in Russia speaks volumes about how he thinks of them. Everyone is just a means to an end, and usually that end is narcissistic supply.

Here's some post-election political Bucky art. Run through Google Translate, the caption reads (bolding mine):

I'm sorry that my Russian is bad, small and new. I'm grieving for America tonight. I do not believe in religion. I believe in God. I do not think I found this place by accident. Here I learned that a place can have bad leaders, bad laws and good, strong, kind people. It's Russia. Now it will be America too. I hope we can change and have good leaders and good laws.

He continues to portray himself as wise, compassionate, and haunted by the fact that the rest of the world is not equally so. This also continues his old pattern of imparting mystical significance to his participation in a fandom.

Using superhero imagery "to highlight the problems faced by real world vets" on Veterans Day seemed disrespectful to Andy…so instead, he posted a picture of Cap and an apology to veterans for Trump's having been elected. Because that's completely different.

International Women’s Day. See previous point about his use of people and issues as attention-getting devices.

Courting younger, politically-minded people with condescension and a hefty dose of misinformation

Here are just a couple of Andy's posts about the 2016 presidential election:

I can't even tell you how many times Andy made tumblr posts inviting random strangers to his (his parents') house to hang out and have fun; this is the same old story from another angle. Anything to lure new people into his influence. (This video is incredibly condescending, by the way.)

This (part 2) (part 3) is the Instagram version of this misleading tumblr post. I'm going to go ahead and admit that this and several other tf-talk comments about his BS surrounding the election were from me because I was incredibly angry about Andy's once again taking advantage of people's completely justified fears about a volatile situation.

See also this brief but masterful takedown of his "shh everything will be fine" tumblr post after the election.

Here's a completely unironic post (part 2) (part 3) about how back in the day, only intelligent, right-thinking people had the ability to share their opinions with large numbers and wide ranges of people—but now any jackass pleb can get on the internet and spin anything in any way that they want, to reach any nefarious end. "Credentialed experts, not Instagram gurus. Data, not anecdotes." There he is again, hiding in plain sight.

Talking about how poor he is

It mainly takes the form of the usual posts about doing or making XYZ impressive thing on a shoestring budget because Andy Is Wise and Resourceful, but there's also this (part 2).

Stupid art school! Not only do they expect Andy to take art classes instead of just accepting that he is The Most Talented; they also expect him to purchase supplies! Thus he can no longer attend VA ComicCon…unless his friend knows "a magic money tree or a way to get free tickets." One or the other must have materialized, because he made it to the con anyway. Obviously Andy's friends are free to pay for things for him if they want to, but remember that he has a history of lying or "bending the truth" to get money out of people.

Making and endorsing extremely poor decisions

Yes, he says that he only had one Oxy with his giant tumblr (sic) of wine. That doesn't matter. It's unwise to mix any amount of opiates with alcohol, and equally unwise to discuss it publicly, especially given his tendency to encourage much younger people to regard him as some sort of font of wisdom and life advice.

This is how Andy achieves the one-armed Bucky look. Yes, a lot of people can pop their shoulders in and out of joint at will, but it's a bad idea, especially given the amount of time that he spends with it in this condition.

I spoke with the same doctor whom I consulted about the horrific binding injury that Andy claimed to have sustained. They said that repeatedly dislocating one's shoulder is very likely to cause instability of the joint, which can be debilitating (and quite dangerous, I would think, if his shoulder went out while lifting weights or something). Additionally, every time his shoulder is popped out and reset, Andy risks incurring torn muscles and stretched or torn ligaments/tendons, a trapped nerve, and vessel damage. Some of these effects become increasingly likely the longer it's out of joint. Andy, if you happen to read this, please stop doing this stupid thing. I may not like you, but I don't want you to injure yourself, for fuck's sake. And please stop instructing other cosplayers in how to accomplish dangerous things for the sake of a costume.

I have no idea whether Andy was checked out by medical personnel after he was hit by the car. I hope so. It's the #noexcuses tag that really gets to me. Attention, everyone: never, ever assume that you are 100% okay to engage in strenuous physical activity after an incident like being hit by a fucking car. It doesn't matter how slowly it was moving at the time. Without a thorough physical examination, you cannot be sure that you haven't sustained a non-apparent injury that will cause trouble later. Something like this is absolutely a valid reason not to go to the gym the next day, as intense cardio or weight training may exacerbate damage of which you are not yet aware. This post of his is incredibly irresponsible.

Promoting DAYD

Last October, in a post that featured photos of the GoT feast, Andy referred to DAYD as "a fairly popular HP companion novel", as if it were the HP equivalent to the Star Trek novels rather than a fanwork.

Andy continues to urge new people to check out the fan novel that he used as the basis for the second cult of personality in which he manipulated and took advantage of a great many people. (Also, DAYD got a neutral, one-line mention in an Atlantic Monthly article alongside Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but okay.)

He is so hoping that someone will ask about that tattoo.

Grooming female companions

I'm not sure what other word to use for Andy’s relationship with this person, as public information about it is limited to what appeared on Instagram. Please understand that I am not judging her at all and do not wish to identify her in any way. Considering Andy's behavior with Abbey, Brittany, L, Silven, and others among his female friends/followers, I think it's important to talk about it.

This is the first overtly romantic cosplay picture that Andy has posted in MCU fandom. His cosplay partner’s comments are very telling:

It really was the best day for me. … I love you my handsome cosboyfriend you seriously are my best friend my love and I truly believe my partner I know when you call me "your" Natalia that I am loved and care for more than I could ever imagine. I love you

If this person is roleplaying as Natasha, it makes no sense to refer to Bucky as her "cosboyfriend". She is talking about Andy. Whatever is going on here is pretty fucking intense. And given his proclivity for redheads, it is not lost on me that he has selected a character who’s had a canonical relationship with a red-haired woman in the past, giving him an excuse to act out scenes like this.

Here is a romantic photoset of Andy with the same woman, to whom he now refers as "the cosgirlfriend". She replies,

I love you my beautiful cosboyfriend … By the way you owe me roses now … [you're] the beauty im the beast

A commenter asks whether this is "canon, or just two beautiful people being beautiful together," wondering whether Andy and this fellow cosplayer are an IRL couple. Andy neatly dodges the question by referring to the comics.

Andy's "cosgirlfriend" has also called him gorgeous, left a suggestive comment on one of his bathbomb photos, talked about missing him/his face, and referred to him as "baby" and "dear". All of her comments were left within ten days, and of course Andy didn’t respond publicly to any of them. In my opinion based on what Andy has done many times over, the little information that I have (not all of which I am comfortable sharing) suggests that this may have been another situation in which he love-bombed a woman and quickly established what she felt was a very close, deep relationship with romantic possibilities, and then backed off just as quickly. As of 5/30, Andy had taken down the first picture of the two of them and she'd asked for the second to be removed as well. He did so earlier this month. I have not attempted to contact this person, as I feel that would be crossing a line, but I'm guessing that she requested their removal because she’d received negative attention and/or warnings about Andy.

Miscellaneous

I will not share screenshots of these, but Andy has posted several pictures of himself with young children. He loves kids, perhaps in part because they tend to be so much more credulous than adults and they make great attention-getting props. In one notable instance, he posted a picture and video of a little boy from Romania, who he said was a huge Captain America fan who'd love to hear from Sebastian Stan. Andy and some of his friends tagged the actor several times in the posts and comments. All the boy talked about in the video was his Pokemon fan creations, while Andy tried hard to drag the conversation around to Cap and Bucky. The picture that he posted was also Pokemon-related, as was a later image of a drawing the child had made. It seems likely, given his past behavior, that Andy is using this child (who may or may not be interested in Marvel characters at all) to gain the attention of the actor who plays the character around whom his life currently revolves.

Andy has consistently referred to the kittens as "our babies" for a couple months now, which is understandable because he lives with them, but also makes me nervous because of his history with the rabbit, the mouse, and Boo.

He recently shared a picture of himself with a very good Seven of Nine cosplayer and called back to his days in the Star Trek: Voyager fandom. Reminding people of the first time that you lied your ass off to a fandom for attention is probably not a great idea, Andy.

Here he is using another flimsy excuse to humblebrag about his alleged genius IQ, which he's been doing from the very beginning. Andy never changes.

Andy also now has a Patreon on which he is offering a tutorial for Bucky’s metal arm. Someone at tf-talk has noted that his bio includes a different origin story for his costuming interest than he gave in Viva La Cosplay. Then, he wanted to appear charmingly naïve and to make his work look more impressive by claiming a lack of experience. Now, he wants to look super legit to attract more patrons.

The higher reward tier includes a 20-minute [Facebook] messenger session for Q&A and for Andy to talk the patron through customizing the arm for themselves. A) Facebook’s policies mean that a lot of people will have to give Andy their RL names for this...which is one reason that he likes using Facebook. B) That doesn’t seem like very much time to go over customization. Would any cosplayers like to weigh in on this?

#andythanfiction #andrew blake #andy blake #bucky #mcu #cosplay #social justice

[fandomsandfeminism]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a weird and wonderful story, full of odd surreal encounters and wacky nonsense. Despite it's strangeness though, I promise that drugs were not involved in it's production.

To read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a PDF: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf

Full text version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm

Full text version of Through the Looking Glass: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm

Closed Captioning coming soon

Transcript below

Alice in Wonderland isn’t about drugs.

Now, I know that may come as a surprise to some people. It’s pretty standard internet fair to point at Alice, with all the trippy visuals and the mushrooms and the Hookah caterpillar, and declare that it was REALLY all about drugs this whole time, oh ho ho, and Disney made a movie about it!

But it’s not. It’s not about drugs.

I want to talk about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a little bit today, what they are really about, where this idea of them being about drugs came from, and why I find it to kind of be bullshit.

So, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English novelist Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol. The sequel, Through the Looking Glass, was published in 1871. I’m going to focus mainly on these two original books, and  not the dozens and dozens and dozens of adaptations and remakes that exist. For the record, both books are in the public domain, so it's very easy to find pdf copies of them on the internet.

Almost every movie version of Alice, including the Disney one, splices together elements and plot points from both of the books, rather than simply adapting one story or the other. It’s not particularly important to know which characters and events happen in each, since they are very often published as a pair anyway. But we’re going to have a quick overview.

-

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is a young girl who is in the garden of her home playing with her cat Dinah when she sees a white  rabbit in a waistcoat run past, apparently late to an appointment. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole and thus into wonderland. What follows is a quintessential example of literary nonsense, filled with word play,  puns, and absurdity as Alice works her way through Wonderland.

She eats an odd bite of cake and drinks a potion which change her size. She cries so hard she creates a sea. She recites some poetry she had to memorize for school buts gets it all wrong. She meets a mouse that won’t answer her call in English, so she tries talking to it in French. She wonders if this assumed French mouse came over with William the Conqueror, because Alice doesn’t know much about when things in history happened. They reach the shore where other animals are. The mouse then gives a lecture on william the conqueror and the animals agree to a Caucus race to dry off  (Because Alice doesn’t know what a caucus actually is.)

Alice meets the Caterpillar, who seems to speak in riddles, correcting her grammar and not making sense. She meets the Duchess, who yells a lot and seems to ignore her baby. She meets the Cheshire Cat, who again, doesn’t make a lot of sense, and then the Mad Hatter and March Hare. More and more riddles. She plays a VERY silly game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts where the rules don’t make sense and the Queen cheats a lot. She meets a Mock Turtle (a pun on Mock Turtle soup, apparently Alice thought Mock Turtles were an animal). Then the world’s silliest court scene, where everything is unfair and doesn’t make sense, and then Alice goes back home, waking up as if from a dream.

Set presumably about half a year later, in Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing inside the house with two cats, Dinah’s kittens, when she contemplates the mirror in the room. She finds that she is able to walk through the mirror and back into Wonderland.  She discovers a mostly nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, which can only be read if you hold it up to a mirror. She also finds that the chess pieces in the room have come to life. What follows is another adventure in mostly absurdity, though if you know how, you can actually use Looking Glass as a step by step guide for a real chess game. Alice plays the part of one of the white pawns.

She wanders through the garden of living flowers, meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, talks to Humpty Dumpty, and eventually makes all the way across the “board” and becomes a queen herself. The Red and White queens throw her a party,  and then confuse her with riddles and wordplay. This actually results in Alice physically confronting the Red Queen and “Capturing her”, putting the Red King into “Checkmate” unintentionally, and thus, she wakes up in her arm chair back home having won the game.

Quick recommendation, if you want to get all of the little wordplay and puns and references in Alice and Looking Glass, I recommend the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It’s awesome.

- These books are pretty strange. So, if not a psychedelic reflection about a weird acid trip, or whatever, what’s up with these books? Why are they so weird?

Well, Carrol said he wrote the book after he and a friend spent a day on a river trip with the 3 young daughters of Henry Liddell in 1862. During their journey, Carrol entertained the girls with a made up nonsense story about a girl named Alice. Alice Liddell was so entranced that she told Carrol he should publish it. And so he did. He spent a few years refining the story before it was finally published, and the real Alice got her copy.

So on the surface, it’s just that- a silly story meant to amuse children, a celebration of imagination and childhood silliness.

But there are some underlying themes in these books. The encounters Alice has have a sort of pattern to them- Adults in the books, whether they are the Queen of Hearts or the White Queen, the Duchess or the Hatter, often speak in riddles. They make up rules that don’t make sense and refuse to explain them. The white rabbit is obsessed with never being late, and much of the word play or silliness comes from Alice not understanding adult or unfamiliar concepts (like the Mock Turtle or a Caucus race.)

And so the books become a very silly exploration of how a child, viewing the adult world, might feel confused and lost. Wonderland is Adulthood cloaked in familiar childhood clothes. Nursery Rhymes and game board pieces doing a fumbling pantomime of adulthood, discussing mathematical concepts and latin grammar, through the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand it.

There are many things that can be pulled from Alice- ideas of innocence, of escapism, of identity and sense of self,  of intentionally bucking order in favor of disorder. But none of those things are drugs.

(Sidenote: There is a whole other issue about Carrol’s….relationship with the Liddell daughters, and his...fondness for young girls in general. This is a whole separate debate, and it  gets kinda messy with contemporary views of childhood and adulthood and whether there was anything...untoward about his fondness for them. But that’s really not what we’re talking about today. )

- So, why do people think this is a story about drugs? Carrol wasn’t known for opium use, or even heavy drinking. He had no exposure to psychedelics (magic mushrooms wouldn't be discovered by Europeans until 1955) So why?

I think the easiest answer is that people want stories to make sense. I want stories to make sense. I spent a lot of money going to college to get a degree in “Making stories make sense.” We want there to be a reason that things happen in stories, and so when a story feels as random and silly and surreal as Alice, we want to figure out what it’s REALLY about.

This is kind of the underlying idea behind surrealism in general- creating art and meaning out of the absurd and random images of dreams and unreality. [Side note, there is an edition of Alice with illustrations by Salvador Dali, which is...amazing.]

And thanks to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, there is a heavy association between reality-bending images and drug use, especially hallucinogens. And depending on which adaptation you are looking at, some movies really play up this trippy psychedelic aesthetic for Alice.

But I think there’s another level to this one, and one that I find much more grating. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story for children, especially for girls. And there is a certain segment of the population, especially among young adults on the internet, who really seem to enjoy taking things aimed at children and declaring NO, this thing isn’t for kids, it’s actually FOR ME, and slapping an edgy dark interpretation on top of it, however sloppily.

Fan theories like...Ash is in a coma all along, or all the Rugrats are dead and Angelica is just imagining them, and...yeah, a huge slice of the Brony fandom declaring that adult men are the real audience, they aim at appropriating and co-opting child media for adult consumption

And there’s something about that which leaves a sour taste in my mouth over all. - I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about reimagining child stories in more adult ways. But I do think it somewhat misses the point when people begin to insist that these mature reimaginings are the CORRECT or more valid interpretation, especially if they lead to the exclusion of children from that media space.

With Alice in particular, I think the story gives adult readers a chance to empathize with children, not as dolls or objects of cuteness, but as people interacting with a confusing and strange world as they grow up. It is an opportunity to revisit childhood, with all it’s familiar characters and uncertainty and wonder, and rather than corrupt that story, I think it should be embraced.

I’m going to leave you with the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s adult sister, having heard her story, lays back, and herself begins to dream, of Wonderland and of her sister Alice. And This is what it says, “Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

And that is what Wonderland is about.

Thanks for watching this video! I’ll see yall down in the comments, so if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, head on over. If you enjoyed listening to this queer millennial feminist with a BA in English ramble on for a while, feel free to subscribe.

#Alice In Wonderland #Alice's Adventures In Wonderland #lewis carroll #feminism

[samuelohare-bafilm]

ADVANCED DOCUMENTARY PRACTICE

BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION FOR THE FEEDBACK OF OUR FILM.

Sana​ ​-​ ​“Do​ ​you​ ​guys​ ​want​ ​to​ ​start​ ​with​ ​what​ ​you​ ​think​ ​worked​ ​and​ ​didn't​ ​work​ ​with​ ​the​ ​film?”  David​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​think​ ​the​ ​narration​ ​was​ ​nice,​ ​the​ ​way​ ​it​ ​was​ ​structured​ ​i​ ​think​ ​it​ ​worked​ ​well.​ ​We kind​ ​of​ ​edited​ ​the​ ​voice​ ​over​ ​and​ ​originally​ ​we​ ​had​ ​the​ ​parts​ ​in​ ​different​ ​places​ ​but​ ​structured it​ ​around​ ​the​ ​interviews.​ ​We​ ​took​ ​your​ ​advice​ ​(Sana’s)​ ​and​ ​put​ ​the​ ​reveal​ ​of​ ​the​ ​skate stoppers​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​we​ ​could​ ​have​ ​dug​ ​deeper​ ​as​ ​we​ ​showed​ ​the​ ​history​ ​of skateboarding​ ​at​ ​the​ ​square​ ​but​ ​didn't​ ​show​ ​much​ ​more​ ​than​ ​that.​ ​We​ ​could​ ​have​ ​shown more​ ​about​ ​the​ ​characters​ ​and​ ​casuals​ ​that​ ​went​ ​to​ ​the​ ​place​ ​but​ ​we​ ​were​ ​limited​ ​with​ ​our archive.​ ​We​ ​didn’t​ ​really​ ​see​ ​how​ ​the​ ​people​ ​interacted​ ​with​ ​the​ ​skaters.”  

Samuel​ ​-​ ​“Due​ ​to​ ​the​ ​limited​ ​archive​ ​we​ ​tried​ ​to​ ​create​ ​a​ ​visual​ ​story​ ​as​ ​close​ ​to​ ​what​ ​they (interviewees)​ ​were​ ​saying​ ​as​ ​possible​ ​because​ ​we​ ​weren’t​ ​able​ ​to​ ​show​ ​a​ ​lot​ ​of​ ​it.​ ​The​ ​main thing​ ​i​ ​take​ ​from​ ​watching​ ​it​ ​again​ ​was​ ​that​ ​the​ ​time​ ​periods​ ​they​ ​were​ ​talking​ ​about​ ​got mixed​ ​up​ ​as​ ​they​ ​mentioned​ ​“this​ ​era”​ ​a​ ​lot​ ​and​ ​it​ ​wasn’t​ ​as​ ​clear​ ​to​ ​when​ ​they​ ​were​ ​actually talking​ ​about​ ​but​ ​that​ ​was​ ​the​ ​only​ ​bad​ ​thing​ ​i​ ​felt​ ​was​ ​wrong​ ​with​ ​the​ ​documentary”. 

 Sana​ ​-​ ​“Yeah​ ​i​ ​don’t​ ​think​ ​it​ ​was​ ​always​ ​clear​ ​where​ ​and​ ​when​ ​we​ ​were​ ​in​ ​terms​ ​of​ ​the​ ​film.​ ​I think​ ​you​ ​did​ ​a​ ​fair​ ​amount​ ​of​ ​research.​ ​I​ ​found​ ​out​ ​a​ ​lot​ ​about​ ​bristo​ ​square​ ​that​ ​i​ ​wasn't aware​ ​of.​ ​Lots​ ​of​ ​good​ ​moments​ ​of​ ​revelation.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​my​ ​problem​ ​is​ ​the​ ​structure.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​you could​ ​have​ ​had​ ​a​ ​simpler​ ​structure​ ​and​ ​i​ ​would​ ​have​ ​liked​ ​you​ ​to​ ​reveal​ ​the​ ​demolition​ ​later in​ ​the​ ​film.​ ​It​ ​would​ ​have​ ​been​ ​more​ ​interesting​ ​if​ ​we​ ​were​ ​introduced​ ​to​ ​bristo​ ​before​ ​the demolition​ ​then​ ​set​ ​the​ ​film​ ​up​ ​to​ ​reveal​ ​the​ ​demolition.​ ​Then​ ​we​ ​find​ ​out​ ​how​ ​serious​ ​the demolition​ ​was.​ ​Having​ ​it​ ​at​ ​the​ ​start​ ​takes​ ​away​ ​the​ ​shock​ ​factor​ ​as​ ​we​ ​don't​ ​know​ ​what's​ ​at stake​ ​until​ ​we​ ​later​ ​set​ ​up​ ​how​ ​popular​ ​a​ ​space​ ​it​ ​was.​ ​For​ ​me​ ​that​ ​would​ ​have​ ​been​ ​a​ ​much better​ ​structure.​ ​To​ ​show​ ​how​ ​important​ ​a​ ​place​ ​it​ ​was​ ​to​ ​all​ ​these​ ​different​ ​cultures​ ​and communities,​ ​not​ ​just​ ​skateboarding​ ​and​ ​now​ ​we​ ​have​ ​a​ ​new​ ​space​ ​where​ ​they​ ​have actively​ ​put​ ​up​ ​skate-stoppers.​ ​That​ ​was​ ​my​ ​main​ ​problem​ ​with​ ​your​ ​film​ ​because​ ​the​ ​way​ ​it stands​ ​just​ ​now​ ​i​ ​found​ ​it​ ​confusing​ ​in​ ​places​ ​as​ ​we​ ​start​ ​here,​ ​then​ ​we​ ​go​ ​back​ ​in​ ​time​ ​and there​ ​is​ ​some​ ​jumping​ ​around.​ ​Then​ ​you​ ​have​ ​your​ ​characters,​ ​one​ ​of​ ​who​ ​we​ ​hear​ ​and​ ​one who​ ​we​ ​see,​ ​and​ ​you​ ​have​ ​your​ ​voice​ ​over.​ ​There​ ​was​ ​something​ ​about​ ​the​ ​balance​ ​of​ ​the three​ ​voices…​ ​Just​ ​correct​ ​me​ ​if​ ​i'm​ ​wrong​ ​is​ ​the​ ​one​ ​we​ ​don’t​ ​see​ ​there​ ​through​ ​the​ ​whole film​ ​or​ ​just​ ​at​ ​the​ ​start?” 

 Samuel​ ​-​ ​“Yeah​ ​he’s​ ​there​ ​through​ ​the​ ​whole​ ​film,​ ​he​ ​was​ ​just​ ​camera​ ​shy.​ ​I​ ​did​ ​ask​ ​him twice​ ​if​ ​we​ ​could​ ​film​ ​him​ ​but​ ​he​ ​said​ ​he​ ​was​ ​too​ ​nervous.”  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“But​ ​we​ ​could​ ​of​ ​had​ ​a​ ​photograph​ ​or​ ​something​ ​to​ ​set​ ​him​ ​up?”  

David​ ​-​ ​“There’s​ ​one​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​and​ ​to​ ​set​ ​him​ ​up​ ​there's​ ​text​ ​to​ ​introduce​ ​who​ ​he​ ​is”  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“Yeah​ ​there​ ​is​ ​the​ ​caption”  

Samuel​ ​-​ ​“Yeah​ ​because​ ​i​ ​asked​ ​him​ ​if​ ​there​ ​was​ ​any​ ​footage​ ​he​ ​could​ ​send​ ​us​ ​of​ ​him skating​ ​or​ ​even​ ​when​ ​he​ ​was​ ​younger​ ​skating​ ​but​ ​he​ ​was​ ​quite​ ​wary​ ​about​ ​doing​ ​that​ ​but​ ​the one​ ​video​ ​he​ ​did​ ​send​ ​was​ ​filmed​ ​from​ ​a​ ​helmet​ ​camera​ ​so​ ​you​ ​couldn't​ ​see​ ​his​ ​face.​ ​He only​ ​sent​ ​us​ ​one​ ​photo​ ​of​ ​himself,​ ​the​ ​one​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​with​ ​the​ ​mug”  

David​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​thought​ ​about​ ​using​ ​that​ ​photo​ ​to​ ​introduce​ ​him​ ​but​ ​he​ ​starts​ ​with​ ​talking​ ​about BMXers​ ​and​ ​i​ ​needed​ ​that​ ​footage​ ​to​ ​go​ ​over​ ​what​ ​he​ ​was​ ​saying​ ​rather​ ​than​ ​a​ ​photo​ ​of​ ​him.  Samuel​ ​-​ ​“When​ ​it​ ​came​ ​to​ ​the​ ​interview​ ​i​ ​explained​ ​what​ ​it​ ​would​ ​be​ ​about​ ​and​ ​he​ ​just​ ​went on​ ​a​ ​continuous​ ​talk​ ​for​ ​12​ ​minutes,​ ​smoking​ ​a​ ​cigarette​ ​through​ ​it​ ​all,​ ​without​ ​stopping​ ​once so​ ​it​ ​was​ ​harder​ ​to​ ​break​ ​it​ ​up​ ​in​ ​the​ ​edit​ ​and​ ​ask​ ​questions,​ ​but​ ​we​ ​got​ ​all​ ​we​ ​needed​ ​from him”  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​think​ ​the​ ​main​ ​problem​ ​that​ ​i​ ​have​ ​is​ ​i’d​ ​have​ ​really​ ​liked​ ​you​ ​to​ ​film​ ​skaters yourselves.​ ​For​ ​me​ ​the​ ​film​ ​is​ ​really​ ​interesting​ ​for​ ​what​ ​it​ ​shows,​ ​all​ ​the​ ​history,​ ​the​ ​square, the​ ​communities​ ​and​ ​the​ ​rap​ ​battles,​ ​all​ ​the​ ​stuff​ ​i​ ​wasn't​ ​expecting.​ ​Also​ ​the​ ​riots​ ​and​ ​so​ ​o.​ ​It was​ ​a​ ​very​ ​informative​ ​film​ ​but​ ​what​ ​was​ ​missing​ ​was​ ​skateboarding,​ ​somehow​ ​as filmmakers​ ​you​ ​could​ ​have​ ​captured​ ​the​ ​passion​ ​by​ ​filming​ ​some​ ​skaters.​ ​The​ ​actual experience​ ​of​ ​skateboarding​ ​is​ ​not​ ​in​ ​the​ ​film​ ​and​ ​if​ ​that​ ​had​ ​been​ ​there​ ​in​ ​sequences​ ​where you​ ​just​ ​let​ ​us​ ​watch​ ​the​ ​skateboarding​ ​and​ ​hear​ ​it,​ ​all​ ​of​ ​that​ ​would​ ​have​ ​just​ ​lifted​ ​the​ ​film and​ ​we​ ​could​ ​have​ ​emphasised​ ​with​ ​the​ ​characters​ ​and​ ​their​ ​battles​ ​with​ ​the​ ​space.”  

Samuel​ ​-​ ​“We​ ​did​ ​want​ ​to​ ​do​ ​that​ ​but​ ​two​ ​of​ ​our​ ​leads​ ​fell​ ​through​ ​and​ ​when​ ​we​ ​showed​ ​up to​ ​film​ ​there​ ​was​ ​no​ ​one​ ​skating”  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“​ ​But​ ​you​ ​could​ ​have​ ​done​ ​it​ ​anywhere,​ ​not​ ​just​ ​bristo,​ ​as​ ​you​ ​can't​ ​really​ ​skate​ ​there anymore.​ ​But​ ​that​ ​was​ ​the​ ​main​ ​thing​ ​in​ ​terms​ ​of​ ​informing​ ​me​ ​of​ ​all​ ​the​ ​facts​ ​it's​ ​all​ ​there, the​ ​passion​ ​is​ ​missing,​ ​which​ ​you​ ​could​ ​have​ ​only​ ​created​ ​visually​ ​and​ ​sonicly,​ ​without words.  

Holger​ ​-​ ​“Just​ ​like​ ​you​ ​Sana​ ​i​ ​didn't​ ​know​ ​anything​ ​about​ ​the​ ​history,​ ​i​ ​knew​ ​a​ ​bit​ ​about​ ​from your​ ​pitch​ ​so​ ​as​ ​a​ ​kind​ ​of​ ​social​ ​historical​ ​documentary​ ​there​ ​was​ ​a​ ​lot​ ​of​ ​interesting​ ​stuff​ ​in it,​ ​i​ ​can​ ​see​ ​all​ ​the​ ​research​ ​you​ ​have​ ​done.​ ​But​ ​again​ ​structurally​ ​you​ ​could​ ​have​ ​put​ ​more emotion​ ​into​ ​it,​ ​created​ ​a​ ​drama.​ ​I'm​ ​always​ ​looking​ ​at​ ​people​ ​skating,​ ​i​ ​want​ ​for​ ​people​ ​who are​ ​skateboarding​ ​to​ ​show​ ​why​ ​it's​ ​so​ ​important​ ​to​ ​them.​ ​For​ ​me​ ​this​ ​is​ ​a​ ​film​ ​of​ ​loss,​ ​losing​ ​a social​ ​space​ ​and​ ​a​ ​scene,​ ​and​ ​i​ ​think​ ​the​ ​structure​ ​should​ ​have​ ​incorporated​ ​this.​ ​You​ ​set​ ​it up​ ​with​ ​architectural​ ​drawings​ ​but​ ​you​ ​say​ ​we​ ​are​ ​not​ ​sure​ ​if​ ​this​ ​is​ ​a​ ​good​ ​place.​ ​You​ ​put yourself​ ​in​ ​one​ ​position​ ​as​ ​filmmakers​ ​and​ ​it​ ​comes​ ​across​ ​as​ ​a​ ​propaganda​ ​film​ ​for​ ​Bristo. So​ ​you​ ​didn't​ ​need​ ​to​ ​because​ ​you​ ​had​ ​enough​ ​footage​ ​to​ ​let​ ​the​ ​audience​ ​make​ ​the decision.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​the​ ​thing​ ​you​ ​needed​ ​to​ ​do​ ​was​ ​get​ ​the​ ​audience​ ​into​ ​what​ ​skateboarding does.​ ​You​ ​said​ ​you​ ​had​ ​the​ ​12​ ​minute​ ​footage​ ​of​ ​him​ ​on​ ​here,​ ​i​ ​think​ ​i​ ​would​ ​have​ ​liked​ ​to see​ ​this​ ​and​ ​see​ ​how​ ​skateboarders​ ​see​ ​and​ ​what​ ​they​ ​experience​ ​at​ ​an​ ​urban​ ​settlement, emotion.​ ​It's​ ​difficult​ ​but​ ​i​ ​would​ ​have​ ​gave​ ​it​ ​a​ ​try,​ ​from​ ​your​ ​point​ ​of​ ​view.​ ​To​ ​create​ ​a​ ​sense of​ ​loss​ ​you​ ​first​ ​have​ ​to​ ​show​ ​empathy​ ​and​ ​what​ ​there​ ​was.​ ​What​ ​it​ ​means?​ ​What’s​ ​so exciting​ ​about​ ​skateboarding?​ ​And​ ​why​ ​do​ ​people​ ​come​ ​to​ ​bristo?​ ​I​ ​feel​ ​skateboarding​ ​is synonymous​ ​for​ ​something​ ​that​ ​is​ ​lacking​ ​in​ ​big​ ​cities,​ ​you​ ​know,​ ​getting​ ​together​ ​away​ ​from anonymity.​ ​You​ ​showed​ ​it​ ​but​ ​emotionally​ ​you​ ​are​ ​at​ ​a​ ​distance.​ ​I​ ​mean​ ​you​ ​have​ ​characters but​ ​they're​ ​just​ ​contributing​ ​information,​ ​they're​ ​not​ ​‘characters’​ ​as​ ​such.​ ​They're​ ​the​ ​experts which​ ​means​ ​i'm​ ​far​ ​away​ ​from​ ​the.​ ​From​ ​what​ ​they​ ​i​ ​can​ ​see​ ​that​ ​they're​ ​in​ ​it​ ​and​ ​they​ ​felt the​ ​loss,​ ​the​ ​must​ ​have​ ​been​ ​really​ ​sad​ ​when​ ​it​ ​was​ ​all​ ​gone.​ ​So​ ​structurally​ ​to​ ​build​ ​it​ ​up​ ​a bit​ ​better​ ​you​ ​could​ ​show​ ​the​ ​characters​ ​skating​ ​rather​ ​than​ ​talking.​ ​Also​ ​if​ ​i​ ​look​ ​at​ ​a​ ​block with​ ​these​ ​things​ ​on​ ​it​ ​and​ ​i​ ​can​ ​understand​ ​it​ ​stops​ ​skating​ ​but​ ​i​ ​didn’t​ ​see​ ​the​ ​emotional impact​ ​of​ ​them.​ ​As​ ​a​ ​skateboarder​ ​you​ ​must​ ​see​ ​them​ ​and​ ​go​ ​“OOHH​ ​MY​ ​GOD!!​ ​THEY’VE DONE​ ​IT​ ​AGAIN!”​ ​you​ ​know​ ​this​ ​kind​ ​of​ ​emotional,​ ​i’m​ ​sure​ ​you​ ​can​ ​do​ ​it,​ ​ive​ ​been​ ​told​ ​it​ ​was sad​ ​and​ ​a​ ​loss​ ​but​ ​as​ ​a​ ​visual​ ​narrative​ ​it's​ ​not​ ​there​ ​yet.​ ​You​ ​have​ ​all​ ​the​ ​ingredients​ ​but​ ​it's not​ ​the​ ​right​ ​meal​ ​yet.”  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“To​ ​go​ ​back​ ​to​ ​your​ ​opening​ ​sequence​ ​i​ ​think​ ​it​ ​was​ ​really​ ​effective​ ​with​ ​the​ ​drawings and​ ​materials,​ ​and​ ​i​ ​think​ ​it​ ​would​ ​be​ ​more​ ​powerful​ ​later​ ​in​ ​the​ ​film,​ ​once​ ​we've​ ​built​ ​up​ ​all that​ ​empathy​ ​then​ ​to​ ​see​ ​the​ ​space​ ​being​ ​demolished​ ​it​ ​would​ ​be​ ​like​ ​“What​ ​are​ ​they​ ​doing?” whereas​ ​when​ ​you​ ​see​ ​it​ ​at​ ​the​ ​beginning​ ​then​ ​you​ ​don't​ ​feel​ ​that​ ​empathy​ ​and​ ​just​ s​ee​ ​a space​ ​being​ ​demolished”  

Holger​ ​-​ ​“​ ​What​ ​i​ ​like​ ​about​ ​the​ ​end​ ​is​ ​the​ ​guy​ ​saying…​ ​because​ ​you​ ​build​ ​it​ ​up​ ​to​ ​“this​ ​is really​ ​terrible​ ​what​ ​they’ve​ ​done”...​ ​for​ ​the​ ​guy​ ​to​ ​say​ ​“well​ ​actually,​ ​you​ ​can​ ​still​ ​skate​ ​it”​ ​and it's​ ​this​ ​really​ ​nice​ ​kind​ ​of…​ ​it's​ ​not​ ​black​ ​and​ ​white,​ ​you​ ​know​ ​skateboarders​ ​can​ ​work​ ​with the​ ​space​ ​and​ ​no​ ​matter​ ​what​ ​you​ ​do​ ​to​ ​the​ ​space​ ​there's​ ​this​ ​kind​ ​of​ ​hopefulness​ ​and​ ​that skateboarding​ ​​ ​spirit​ ​will​ ​never​ ​die.​ ​As​ ​much​ ​as​ ​it's​ ​about​ ​loss​ ​it's​ ​about​ ​future​ ​to.   

Sana​ ​-​ ​“Another​ ​point​ ​about​ ​the​ ​end​ ​is​ ​that​ ​for​ ​me​ ​again​ ​if​ ​i​ ​was​ ​empathising​ ​with​ ​them​ ​the end​ ​would​ ​really​ ​work,​ ​it's​ ​not​ ​until​ ​you​ ​are​ ​told​ ​about​ ​the​ ​passion​ ​do​ ​you​ ​really​ ​understand that​ ​they'll​ ​skateboard​ ​anyway​ ​but​ ​you​ ​need​ ​to​ ​create​ ​that​ ​empathy. 

 Costas​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​really​ ​like​ ​the​ ​ending​ ​too​ ​as​ ​it​ ​could​ ​have​ ​been​ ​an​ ​anti​ ​establishment​ ​rant​ ​but​ ​it's not​ ​black​ ​and​ ​white,​ ​as​ ​you​ ​said,​ ​they're​ ​hopeful​ ​and​ ​they​ ​are​ ​able​ ​to​ ​adapt.  

Sana​ ​-​ ​“It​ ​shows​ ​something​ ​about​ ​that​ ​it​ ​is​ ​anti​ ​establishment​ ​that​ ​they'll​ ​keep​ ​skating​ ​it.”  

Costas​ ​-​ ​“But​ ​it​ ​shows​ ​that​ ​it's​ ​not​ ​propaganda​ ​that​ ​it's​ ​more​ ​like​ ​a​ ​calm​ ​thing.​ ​I​ ​kinda disagree,​ ​i​ ​felt​ ​there​ ​was​ ​a​ ​good​ ​build​ ​up​ ​of​ ​nostalgia​ ​and​ ​i​ ​got​ ​that​ ​very​ ​much.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​also that​ ​it​ ​would​ ​have​ ​been​ ​very​ ​attempting​ ​to​ ​go​ ​“oh​ ​i'll​ ​film​ ​my​ ​friend​ ​skating​ ​and​ ​i'll​ ​put​ ​that​ ​in​ ​it instead”.​ ​It​ ​worked​ ​just​ ​as​ ​well,​ ​especially​ ​with​ ​that​ ​shot​ ​of​ ​bristo​ ​today​ ​with​ ​Sam​ ​skating through​ ​it​ ​showing​ ​the​ ​emptiness​ ​of​ ​it.​ ​I​ ​feel​ ​that​ ​it​ ​shows​ ​the​ ​contrast​ ​that​ ​the​ ​emptiness​ ​is still​ ​there.​ ​And​ ​the​ ​skate​ ​stoppers​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​are​ ​quite​ ​shocking. 

 Sana​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​don't​ ​know​ ​if​ ​there's​ ​some​ ​way​ ​to​ ​film​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​where​ ​you​ ​don't​ ​identify​ ​with​ ​the figure​ ​but​ ​you​ ​can​ ​film​ ​that…​ ​the​ ​film​ ​that​ ​comes​ ​to​ ​mind​ ​is​ ​paranoid​ ​park​ ​and​ ​how​ ​they captured​ ​the​ ​sense​ ​of​ ​being​ ​on​ ​skates​ ​in​ ​a​ ​way”

  ​ ​Bogu​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​really​ ​liked​ ​your​ ​archive​ ​footage,​ ​i​ ​thought​ ​it​ ​was​ ​really​ ​cool​ ​definitely​ ​gave​ ​me​ ​the sense​ ​of​ ​nostalgia.​ ​I​ ​thought​ ​that​ ​was​ ​built​ ​up.​ ​Generally​ ​i​ ​thought​ ​it​ ​was​ ​very​ ​interesting​ ​as it's​ ​a​ ​place​ ​i​ ​just​ ​pass​ ​by​ ​and​ ​i've​ ​never​ ​paid​ ​attention​ ​to​ ​these​ ​things​ ​(skatestoppers)​ ​sticking out​ ​and​ ​was​ ​very​ ​interested​ ​throughout​ ​the​ ​documentary.​ ​I​ ​thought​ ​the​ ​voiceover​ ​was​ ​very good,​ ​and​ ​how​ ​huw​ ​sounded​ ​like​ ​he​ ​was​ ​a​ ​cool​ ​skater​ ​too,​ ​not​ ​that​ ​he's​ ​not​ ​a​ ​cool​ ​guy,​ ​but​ ​i felt​ ​it​ ​brought​ ​it​ ​together​ ​and​ ​i​ ​really​ ​liked​ ​it​ ​so​ ​yeah.”  

Andy​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​personally​ ​was​ ​very​ ​interested​ ​and​ ​i​ ​also​ ​don't​ ​care​ ​about​ ​skating​ ​at​ ​all.​ ​I​ ​agree​ ​with costas​ ​that​ ​added​ ​skating​ ​footage​ ​wasn't​ ​needed​ ​as​ ​it​ ​would​ ​have​ ​made​ ​it​ ​like​ ​another skating​ ​youtube​ ​video​ ​for​ ​me​ ​if​ ​you​ ​used​ ​a​ ​lot​ ​of​ ​contemporary​ ​footage.​ ​I​ ​think​ ​the​ ​archive worked​ ​really​ ​well​ ​and​ ​i​ ​do​ ​understand​ ​that​ ​you​ ​could​ ​have​ ​put​ ​the​ ​demolition​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​but for​ ​this​ ​audience​ ​it​ ​wouldn't​ ​have​ ​had​ ​the​ ​same​ ​effect​ ​as​ ​we​ ​already​ ​know​ ​its​ ​been demolished​ ​but​ ​instead​ ​it​ ​becomes​ ​almost​ ​a​ ​historical​ ​film​ ​in​ ​the​ ​sense​ ​that​ ​you​ ​know​ ​what the​ ​event​ ​is​ ​and​ ​you​ ​get​ ​the​ ​backstory​ ​afterwards​ ​and​ ​i​ ​think​ ​that​ ​works.”  

Naomi​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​think​ ​the​ ​beginnings​ ​really​ ​good,​ ​i​ ​like​ ​the​ ​voiceover​ ​and​ ​pictures.​ ​I​ ​would​ ​have liked​ ​music​ ​at​ ​the​ ​end​ ​as​ ​there​ ​is​ ​music​ ​all​ ​the​ ​way​ ​through.” 

 David​ ​-​ ​“Yeah​ ​we​ ​didn't​ ​have​ ​much​ ​time​ ​as​ ​we​ ​needed​ ​to​ ​get​ ​the​ ​export​ ​done.​ ​We​ ​did​ ​sound without​ ​adding​ ​credits​ ​so​ ​didn't​ ​have​ ​time​ ​for​ ​the​ ​music.” 

 Nora​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​thought​ ​rather​ ​than​ ​the​ ​build​ ​up​ ​to​ ​the​ ​demolition,​ ​which​ ​we​ ​all​ ​knew​ ​about,​ ​i thought​ ​the​ ​build​ ​up​ ​to​ ​the​ ​stoppers​ ​was​ ​really​ ​good​ ​as​ ​that's​ ​something​ ​we​ ​didn't​ ​see​ ​up until​ ​that​ ​point​ ​and​ ​i​ ​thought​ ​it​ ​was​ ​nice​ ​to​ ​have​ ​the​ ​silence​ ​with​ ​the​ ​skate​ ​stoppers.”  

Bogu​ ​-​ ​“They​ ​didn't​ ​just​ ​demolish​ ​it​ ​they​ ​killed​ ​it​ ​for​ ​these​ ​guys​ ​forever.”  

Jack​ ​-​ ​“I​ ​was​ ​wondering​ ​if​ ​your​ ​intentions​ ​behind​ ​the​ ​film​ ​was​ ​to​ ​convince​ ​us​ ​that​ ​the demolition​ ​was​ ​good​ ​or​ ​bad?​ ​I​ ​felt​ ​that​ ​when​ ​you​ ​gave​ ​the​ ​reasons​ ​why​ ​fit​ ​was​ ​demolished for​ ​me​ ​it​ ​kind​ ​of​ ​totally​ ​outweighed​ ​the​ ​skateboarding​ ​side​ ​and​ ​it​ ​felt​ ​justified. 

 Samuel​ ​-​ ​“There​ ​was​ ​a​ ​little​ ​bit​ ​we​ ​could​ ​have​ ​added​ ​if​ ​we​ ​had​ ​more​ ​time​ ​which​ ​was​ ​the​ ​fact that​ ​they​ ​opened​ ​up​ ​the​ ​square​ ​for​ ​a​ ​couple​ ​of​ ​weeks​ ​for​ ​the​ ​graduation​ ​and​ ​the​ ​skaters​ ​all came​ ​back​ ​and​ ​enjoyed​ ​skating​ ​it.​ ​Then​ ​they​ ​closed​ ​it​ ​down​ ​again​ ​and​ ​when​ ​it​ ​was reopened​ ​they​ ​had​ ​added​ ​all​ ​the​ ​skate​ ​stoppers.​ ​It​ ​was​ ​as​ ​if​ ​they​ ​were​ ​teasing​ ​the​ ​skaters with​ ​that.”  

[athena29stone]

How to Teach Thinking Routines in the Classroom

episode 134 with Karen Voglesang on the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Karen Voglesang @NBCTchr teaches children to use thinking routines in her classroom. After participating in Harvard’s Project Zero, she is applying and using the methods in classrooms and with teachers. Learn some thinking routines and how to apply these valuable techniques in your classroom. Karen was the 2015 Tennessee State Teacher of the Year and I interviewed her at the NNSTOY Conference in DC this summer.

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover Online. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Transcript for Episode 134

  How to Teach Thinking Routines in the Classroom

Shownotes: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e134

Download the Transcript: Episode 134 Karen Voglesang

Thursday, August 24, 2017

What are thinking routines?

00:09 Vicki: Today we are with Karen Vogelsang or Ms V from Tennessee. Hey, that rhymes, that’s awesome. She was State Teacher of The Year for 2015. And I’m at the in NNSTOY Conference, that’s N-N-S-T-O-Y.org. So thanks to NNSTOY for having me to present but also letting me talk to so many amazing teachers. Now, Karen, thinking routines are very important to you in your classroom. What are thinking routines?

00:39 Karen V: Thinking routines are really an opportunity to allow students to ask questions and really give teachers an opportunity to deepen their understanding of different content knowledge. And one of the beautiful things about thinking routines, it doesn’t matter if you’re a kindergarten teacher or a 12th grade teacher, thinking routines can be used for all grade levels.

Karen included photos of students using thinking routines for this post. Such engagement!

The “Compass Points” thinking routine is a great way to open up a school year

01:01 Vicki: So give me an example of how it’s used in your classroom.

01:04 Karen V: One of the things that I do at the very beginning of the year is I use this thinking routine called “compass points“. And it’s north, south, east, and west. We got a little integration of social studies there. And I did this routine for the very first time when I came back from Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom in 2012, and it’s an opportunity for the kids to really share what are they nervous about so that’s the N. What are they nervous about? What do they need from me as the teacher? And then the S is, what support do they need for me? What specific things do they envision as they go throughout the year that they’re going to need my support in?

The Visible Thinking website is a fantastic resource. I’ve linked to the thinking routines Karen mentions here, but there are many more thinking routines to teach students. Also the book Making Thinking Visible can help you with these concepts. Harvard’s Project Zero teaches courses in Visible Thinking – it looks like they have an online course starting in September but you need teams of 3-5 people to join.

And I’ll never forget the year Morgan told me, “Ms V, I’m not good at math and I can’t ever have you raise your voice at me ’cause I get too nervous about it.” Not that I was ever a teacher that raised her voice but Morgan was just that nervous about it.

And then W, worries. What worries do you have about being in that particular year? It was second grade but I’ve done this for third graders and fourth graders. And then E, what excites you? And what happens, children are honest and they basically put down what are their Ns, what are their Ss, what are their Es, what are their Ws, and what that does is it really gives me a glimpse into what they’re thinking about as they embark on this school year. So that’s just one example of getting the year started off with a thinking routine.

02:36 Vicki: I love that. So are these different ways of thinking that you teach students?

The Book: Making Thinking Visible

02:43 Karen V: Yeah, now I don’t know if I can plug a book here but the…

02:47 Vicki: Go ahead, plug a book, plug away.

02:48 Karen V: The book is “Making Thinking Visible“ and the principal author was Ron Ritchhart, it was also written by Mark Church. There’s different types of thinking.

Perspective Taking Thinking Routines

So for example, one of the types of thinking is perspective taking.

So as we go through and we read a book, I may ask my students to step inside those characters and ask them, “What are they seeing? What are they thinking? What are they feeling as that character?” And what happens is they have to go back in the text and they have to look for evidence in the text that would reinforce what they’re learning, what they’re reading about in that text. So it depends on what kind of thinking that you’re wanting the children to do and that will dictate, in some respects, what thinking routine you’ll use as a teacher.

The biggest mistakes Karen made with teaching thinking routines

03:36 Vicki: What do you think the biggest mistake you made with thinking routines was?

03:39 Karen V: What I learned… I was privileged to go back for a second time as a study group leader to Project Zero a couple years after my initial experience there. I didn’t teach my kids the specific routines.

Note from Vicki: Could there be a more important point than this? We all need to listen to Karen here. We want to teach students to think! So, let’s give them the routines to think and let’s help them know the routines to think. Then, students can go into that mode of thinking when tackling problems. This is a fantastic point!

Karen: So, when I came back that following year, I was teaching third grade, and so I really taught my children what these thinking routines were. So instead of having to constantly repeat the steps and the other beautiful part about these routines, is none of them have more than three steps. So they’re very easy to integrate in any content area, in any grade level. That was the first year when I came back that second time I was like, “Okay. I’m going to teach them what these routines are.”

The tug-of-war thinking routine

Karen: So if I said to the kids, “Hey, guys we’re getting ready to do tug-of-war.” They knew what tug-of-war was and I’ll never forget the first time I did that. I was like, “Okay, guys we’re going to be looking at this debate. These two different authors have two different view points about this particular topic. When we’re done reading it we’re gonna do tug-of-war.” “Yay! Yay!” They get all excited about it. So not teaching them the routines when I first came back and now that’s something I’m very deliberate every year. I start to teach the students what these routines are so when there’s an applicable point of using them, they jump right in and do it.

The first routine many teachers use: See/Think/Wonder

05:00 Vicki: So you’ve already given us three examples. Do you have another example or two that are like, “These are your tried and true, we use these a lot?”

05:08 Karen V: The very first routine that most teachers come back and use when they come back from this experience, is See/Think/Wonder. And See/Think/Wonder can be done in so many different kinds of ways because it can be done with pictures that teachers cultivate from different resources and they put up on a smart board, they project it on a promethean board, whatever it is. It may be actual artifacts.

I actually did math with art one year when we were looking at geometry and had them use these particular different pieces of art that really incorporated a lot of geometry. And that is really giving them an opportunity to name what they observe so that’s practicing observation skills. Then from there, they’re answering the questions, “What do you think is going on in that picture?” And then from there, “What do you wonder?”

05:58 Karen V: And that’s the beautiful part right there because when you get the kids to say what they’re wondering about, for me, that was like my road map of, “Where am I going to go next to help them explore what it is that they wanna know?” Because when I do that, then they’re engaged, they’re excited about the learning. And there’s no behavior problems that are going on in the classroom ’cause they’re so excited about this kind of learning.

And as a teacher, those questions also help me capture any misconceptions. And you know as well as I do that when kids get hold of a misconception, if we wait until there’s an assessment and then we catch it, it’s already so deeply rooted that it takes that much more time to undo it. So these are great opportunities to find out what student misconceptions are and catch those on the front end.

How Karen’s classroom has changed since using thinking routines

06:51 Vicki: Give me an example of how you think your classroom has changed now that you’re using thinking routines?

06:57 Karen V: It is a student centered classroom where they are excited about learning and I am just the guide on the side. I’m the person that’s going around asking them questions, “What do you notice? What do you wonder? What is your partner talking about?” They’re collaborating with each other. Every time I use a thinking routine I have never ever had a child off task. And that’s been the exciting part because this is really tapping into what they’re bringing to the table in their learning, so it’s just been very exciting to see the enthusiasm they have for learning. So as I’ve come up and over the learning curve in utilizing these thinking routines, I keep trying to find more and more ways to integrate them whether it’s in ELA, science, social studies, math.

Resources to Learn More

07:48 Vicki: So your favorite resources for thinking routines, you have “Making Thinking Visible”, you’ve got the Project Zero resources. Any other places that you go to learn these?

07:56 Karen V: Well, if you live in Memphis, Tennessee or Shelby county [laughter] myself and another teacher were asked, actually asked by Harvard’s Project Zero to start basically a Project Zero satellite group in Memphis. And so, every year we conduct Project Zero workshops where we bring in teachers from all the surrounding areas.

You can just google Project Zero or you can google “Making Thinking Visible” and you will find a multitude of resources out there. There’s videos out there so that you can see what this actually looks like in a classroom, whether it’s early childhood, middle childhood, if it’s secondary. And we use these during in service to get our teachers kicked off so that they can see how these routines are used, model that for them, and then take it back to fit their students and their particular content areas.

A Challenge to teach them to think

08:47 Vicki: So remarkable teachers, we all have an important strategy to understand and that is thinking routines. And I especially like how Karen or Ms V says that we need to teach these routines to our students because this is something they can carry with them for a lifetime, the way to think, the way to analyze. And really, isn’t that something that so many teachers say, “I want my students to know how to think?”

Well, maybe we’re not teaching them how to think. Maybe we’re just feeding them too much and not giving them the thinking routines they need. So, so many great resources and a way to unlock more remarkable teaching.

  Full Bio As Submitted

Karen Voglesang

Karen Vogelsang has taught elementary school in Memphis, Tennessee for fourteen years. She currently serves Shelby County Schools in a hybrid role working on teacher engagement projects for the Chief of Staff, as well as teaching 4th grade. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Master’s in Elementary Education.

She is the 2015 Tennessee Teacher of the Year. Karen is National Board Certified in Early Childhood, and a certified mentor. Karen currently serves on Governor Haslam’s Teachers Cabinet. She also serves as a Fellow Facilitator for Tennessee Hope Street Group.

Karen is a member of the Gates Foundation and NCTQ Teacher Advisory Councils. In March 2012, Karen received a fellowship to attend Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom, and is the co-founder of Project Zero Memphis. As a result she has been invited to speak about the integration of thinking routines with effective questioning strategies.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post How to Teach Thinking Routines in the Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e134/