#i was just googling this ep and saw the air date ! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cutegirlmayra · 3 years

Note

Here's a prompt idea: Eggmans latest device accidentally turns Amy back into Rosy. But to the Rosy before she met Sonic and the others so she has no memory of her friends and is pretty scared and runs off. So Sonic has to slowly regain her trust and friendship and is reminded why he's glad to have her around as a friend. Just some sweet fluff (eeeeeeeee! I love da fluffy)

PROMPTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN, DO NOT SEND ME A REQUEST. I have too many, please follow the rules of the blog and wait for a grand announcement T-T I also want to focus on Fanfiction for a little bit so please, please have mercy on my soul \(TD\T)

(This art is owned to (x) Please support the original artist! - found through google.)

Pajama Blogs Ep.1 - Timestamp 1:01:06 (x)

Prompt:

In the thick of the battle, where Eggman has once again blurred the lines of time and stolen two Chaos Emeralds that have been locked into place by a case of glass on either side of his raygun, the team desperately try to avoid getting zapped into another dimensional self or even a past form.

"Wo-hohoho!" Eggman's infamous laugh triggered the large jumping moment of his stomach before he peered down at what he considered the squabbling, pint-sized forms of his nemeses. He beamed a grin of mischief and looked to the blue streak that had foiled every carefully laid out plan since... well... the dawn of his reign of terror upon this world.

"Not this time..., Sonic!" he reared the gun skyward, showing the effort as it jostled the machine a moment as he had implanted the device onto his Egg-mobile, "This time, I'm going back to before you were ever the hero! Back when you a slobbery, good for nothing, vulnerable little child!"

Sonic looked up to see what he was talking about, the device's nozzle being adjusted like a temperature or safe-lock setting, and being too far away to gauge what the actions meant, he just braced himself and ran forward. "Come on!" he called to his friends, Tails, Knuckles, and-

"Sonic! I'm coming too!" Amy rushed out behind the three, as Knuckles and Tails turned around from flying and gliding in the sky by Sonic to see her.

"W-what? Amy? When did you get here?" Sonic looked over his shoulder, but as he did so, Amy looked up and saw Eggman smirking, finally getting the bulky, heavy gun angled down and flipped two switches that started making the device glow and charge up.

"Look out!" Amy threw her hammer to Sonic, who tossed it to the side with a spinning kick.

"W-what?" He didn't understand before turning to see the beam and skidding to a halt. His eyes were overwhelmed with the bright color of neon red before Amy expertly jumped and twirled through the air in an acrobatic-like maneuver.

Seeing this, Eggman's face dropped from his insane joy to one of disappointment and surprise as she narrowly summoned another hammer and it intercepted the beam.

Lightly tapping the edge of it, the beam suddenly bent and 'flipped a U-ie' and looped itself back to sparking and hitting her hammer. Since her hand was attached, it sparked and moved to consume her frame in seconds within the bright red light, before she fell down to the ground, her silhouette showing her head coming up as she was trying to push off the ground... The hammer fell with a few flops before shrinking in size and turning into a typical Japanese hammer toy for toddlers.

Tails looked up to Eggman who grumbled and moved the gun, looking down off the side of his Egg-Mobile, as though not sure if his device was really going to succeed or not, but curious what it may do.

"Amy's younger than Sonic... if he put a date in that's too far back..." Tails's eyes shook as he felt his body pulse back in shock at that thought... "No..." his eyes arched and he looked down to Amy, flying as fast as his twin-tails could take him. "Ammmyy!!!" he called out.

With Tails's added cry, Sonic's eyes stopped shaking and he blinked back into the reality of the situation. He also ran to her as Knuckles glided down from hovering in the air to be in front of Amy, glaring up at Eggman to keep an eye on him while Tails and Sonic went to Amy's side.

Tails fell by her but as Sonic went to reach out for her, grabbed his reaching arm with both hands, pulling it away, "No, wait, don't-!" he warned, "The ray traveled from her hammer to her body, it's probably still able to. I bet it's transferable with touch, did you see the way it looped back after Amy tipped its line's edge with her hammer?"

Sonic looked to Tails, then Amy, seeing the shadow of her looked as though struggling to rise up, possibly... was she in pain?

"You expect me to do nothing? Tails, I can't just... sit here and watch!" Sonic used his hands to express himself, turning them up to their palms and bouncing them a bit with the gravity of his words reflecting his heart. He looked with arching eyes back to Amy, who slowly began to shrink as her voiced struggles turned more and more higher in pitch... until...

The light blasted off, as though a paper-wrap being torn and blown up and then...

Tails and Sonic peered over the fabric of red, then Eggman continued to lean with a mouth forming a curious, small 'o' before having to grab the other end of his tilting Egg-Mobile just to stabilize himself and not fall over. Due to the size of the raygun attached to its front, the weight balance wasn't good, and as the gun's tip slid with the weight Eggman was leaning on--it almost flipped fully over!

His leg came up to counterweight it, but why am I spending so much time describing this funny scene when I'm clearly breaking up the tension of what happened to Amy Rose?

"Amy..?" As the sparks were gone, Tails finally let go of Sonic's hand.

It was the free then to reach out and lightly grip the edge of the now large dress, and slowly draped it to the side as it gently skimmed over light pink quills.

It was a small ball, almost the size of a melon, before it softly stuck out a long, protruding nose.

Tails's and Sonic's eyes widened, not having seen that since... well, before she hit puberty.

"Is she..?" Sonic began, looking to Tails before the little creature yawned and stuck out a hand, patting the ground and sniffing, before finding the edge of the dress again and grunting in annoyance at someone removing its blanket.

It found it and kept trying to toss the warm, lightweight fabric ontop of itself, again, pulling its long nose and pointed muzzle back into its curled ball and bringing its hand back under as well.

Eggman flew around at all sides, trying to see over and past the two heads but Knuckles kept on him and zipped to every direction he tried to look as well, "Oh, no you don't!"

He was growing irritated, taking the gun and bopping it to spark it to life again, charging. He figured, if it did work, might as well fire on the rest of them!

"We're gonna have to start up a nursery." Orbot was looking through large, exaggerated, almost like a space telescope with a small, looking-glass end for his eyes to peer through binoculars back at Eggman's HQ.

His view showed Tails carefully wrapping the large dress over the small, trying to sleep child and looking to see the hammer. He picked it up and placed it on top of the now wrapped dressed over the curled baby hedgehog and shrugged to Sonic, not sure how he was going to reverse this.

Sonic's anger was now full, he turned with a shaking fist, squinting in his fierce sense of justice up to Eggman who continued to bonk, kick, and jostle the gun to get it up and going before looking down to see Sonic's fury. "Eggman!"

He winced, his mustache drooping at his tone.

He lifted a foot back up to the rim of his Egg-mobile, "It's... grk... jammed!" he suddenly was flung back as the gun went crazy and shot everything in random directions.

The ray hit a flower and turned it into a sapling, a great oak to a sprouting twig, and a Butterfly passing through into a Caterpillar...

"Well, at least I know it works. Oh no!!" His glasses 'tink'ed down slightly as the gun rotated up and then fell as though backwards... facing Eggman.

Orbot screeched through his vocal box, "Doctor!!!!"

After a ray of light, Tails walked up the hill with Eggman carrying the large Egg-Mobile and raygun attached to it on his shoulders and half his back. The two looked back as though waiting for Sonic to drop the young Eggman off at his base for Orbot and Cubot to deal with. Unfortunately, they begged Sonic to help them, and he conceded as he raced back with Cubot and Orbot under his armpits--since they were just a small iron bar for a body anyway--and a toddler Eggman whacking the side of Sonic's face and laughing. He was still bald, but no mustache.

The three headed to Tails's lab, Vanilla and Cream trying to take care of the two with Orbot and Cubot who were like rattles in his grip. "H-Help!" Cream approached, leaving Vanilla to finish clothing Amy in her old attire.

"There!" Vanilla pulled down the iconic, puffy green shirt as the little girl looked it over. "Hmm, ain't that wonderful? Looks like you kept your old clothes, boxed up in a storage part of your closet. It was titled 'Future Family', isn't that sweet? Like hand-me-downs." she cupped her face as though that was so sweet, but when she looked down, Amy was gone. "Oh!" she immediately covered her mouth and started looking around, "Amy? Amy, dear..?"

"Now, Mr... uhh... I guess you're just Eggchild now, huh?" Cream went to pick up Eggman who kicked and squirmed in her grasp. "Momma?" She saw her mother frantically lifting up pillows on the couch, as though she lost something and gently put them down with a sigh.

"Where could she have gotten off to so quickly?"

Back in Tails's workshop, the door creaked open a bit as Amy stumbled in and hid in the scrap metal, not sure who these people were, but listening to them as they spoke.

"Apparently, my theory was false." Tails began, turning to Sonic and Knuckles, who had his arms folded while Sonic's was relaxed by his sides.

He was trying to remain calm, after all, the two little things were in Vanilla and Cream's care. He was resting easy for now, hoping to get this solved soon.

Tails showed the dial on the raygun, pointing to it as he had dislodged it from on Eggman's Egg-Mobile, "These aren't dates or times, they're molecular ages..." he explained, then looked up at Sonic, "In other words, based on whatever stage of life it's set to, anything hit with this thing will turn into that form during that cycle of its life."

"But... then why doesn't Eggman seem to remember anything?" Sonic gestured a hand out.

"Yeah, we asked him, and even then... he's not talking." Knuckles frowned, but Sonic shook his head and put a hand on his shoulder, making him look at him funny.

"Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles... he's not old enough to talk yet." Sonic teased, patting his shoulder a second before smirking at him, "However, if his mind was the same, he'd certainly have acted angry, right?"

"Exactly," Tails nodded, as the two turned their attention back to him, but Knuckles growled in annoyance at Sonic's slight belittlement of his statement. "It's still got the Chaos Emeralds, wielders that manipulate time and space attached to it." He turned their sights back to the dial, "Which means..."

"It's taking them back to that time, too. Not just their body." Knuckles finished for him.

As though not expecting his intelligence, Sonic and Tails turned to look at him stunned, and Knuckles looked back at each of them, "What!?" he exclaimed, unfolding his arms to have them gesture angrily out at them, "I'm not stupid! I can connect the dots!"

Amy didn't quite understand what these older kids were saying, but had to find a way out of here.

She looked around and found the garage switch! That should open the door and get her out of here with these weirdos!

Even though... of the weirdos...

She looked to Sonic, her eyes slightly shining.

Was pretty handsome...

"So, that's good news, right?" Sonic spoke up, "If we can just turn that thing in the right way, we should be able to get Amy and Eggman back to their normal ages, right?"

"A simple fix." Tails nodded, "Better than most outcomes, haha!" he then looked to the symbols. "Thing is..."

Knuckles and Sonic leaned in, waiting for Tails to finish as he lowered his head.

"I... can't tell what Eggman's code for figuring out the placement means..."

Sonic put his hands on his hips and leaned forward as Knuckles arched his back and face-palmed himself.

Everyone just kinda sighed or groaned.

"Great! We gotta go through trial and error?!" Knuckles spat out. "How long will that take?"

"And more importantly," Sonic walked up to Tails, standing beside him, "Is it safe?" He angled his head in a tilt back, as Tails shook his head.

"We shouldn't try it on Eggman or Amy just yet. Give me some time, I should have it figured out in a jiffy." Tails responded light-heartedly, still showing it was possible and not too terribly difficult, but Knuckles threw up his fists.

"Time!? How long do you expect us to babysit these-!?" Before he could finish his sentence, Sonic gasped and pointed to tiny fingers reaching for the Garage door's button.

"Look!" he cried out, as the three turned and Amy flinched, jumping into a spin to lightly tap the button and scoot under the rising door. "H-hey!" Sonic dived and reached out for Amy, but she was quick and small, meaning he got trapped by the rising door and had to wait to scoot under it. "Darn," He smiled, finding this kinda fun. "Hey! wait! Don't get hurt!" he called out, which stopped the fleeing Rosy girl, who turned back and put her hands over the other and up by her chest, surprised that... anyone would care about her like that.

Who were these people?

Sonic, crawling out to where his torso was at least through the slit, smiled kindly to her with eyes that showed only care and... even a bit of playfulness.

She narrowed her eyes... that was strange, but she blushed and took off again.

Sonic closed his eyes and let out a chuckle, getting up on his knee as the door slowly... but surely began to rise up enough for him to fully stand. "I'll take care of our little rascal, Tails. You just get that machine decoded." He flung back a thumbs up, and Tails nodded.

"Leave it to me!" he seemed determined.

"H-hey, what, are you saying I have to look after Eggman?!" Knuckles stomped the ground as he stepped back, flabbergasted by what this might entail for him...

Tails just looked to him and laughed, "Vanilla and Cream have Orbot and Cubot to help them out, why don't you go with Sonic? She's a slippery one, he might need all the help he can get!"

"I can handle her on my own," Sonic folded his arms, not even looking to see where Amy had run off too, a bit overconfident. "It's just one hedgehog, and you're forgetting something." he winked, holding up a pointer finger and wiggling it with a shake of his head. "I'm irresistible!"

Knuckles scoffed as Tails placed the raygun down and covered his mouth as he chuckled.

"Yeah, well... how much trouble can a little girl get into, yeah?" Knuckles drooped his arms a little, hunching his back as he walked towards Sonic. "It's better than whatever I'd have to do wiping Eggman's butt!"

"He's not that young." Sonic lowered his eyelids and tilted his head, putting his hands on his hips and then raising an eyebrow, "You... do know the different development stages... right?"

Knuckles flinched, "How am I supposed to know anything about babies!?"

"Toddlers." Tails corrected, "And they can be quite intelligent. They use mimicry to learn and grow. They're always watching." Tails held up a finger, as though instructing Knuckles, "You two be on your best behavior. Who knows, if we change Amy back, she might have picked up a behavior or two from you." He shrugged, making Knuckles wince as Sonic winked secretly to Tails, in on the prank.

"Yeah, Knuckles," He put an arm around him, making him even more uncomfortable, "You'll have to be the outstanding role model for Amy from now on, until Tails figures out the dial settings, anyway." he grinned, totally fooling and freaking out Knuckles, which he was gullible enough to believe.

"Oh, man... I-I-I don't know how to be one of those!" he worriedly admitted out loud.

"Don't you worry, buddy, I'll show you the ropes, no problem!" he gestured out a cocky shrug, "It's easy! Just remember your typical moral code and be sensitive to the child's needs! Nothing to it!" he gave him his signature thumbs up and wink before dashing off, "See ya, Tails! I'm off to find Amy!"

"Don't play too much..." Tails mumbled, but Sonic was already gone. He looked to Knuckles, chuckling as he held a hand over his stomach for a moment with the action. "It's okay, Knuckles. Just... entertain her for a bit until I can figure this out. It shouldn't be too difficult, just like Sonic said, it's all about being on your best behavior." he closed his eyes and shook his finger as though that's all that was required.

Knuckles mimicked the action, holding his own finger up, "Be on your best behavior... got it!" he waddled off, keeping the finger out, "Best behavior... just be on your best behavior..!"

Tails, flying over to make sure Knuckles was gone... suddenly burst out laughing.

Sonic stopped to look behind him and see that Knuckles was a fair distance away, then smirked again, "Heh, now that he's out of the way... Hmm..." he put a hand up over his eyes to block the sun, looking happily over the area to find a speck of pink. "Now... if I was a confused little hedgehog... where would I be hiding..?" he found a patch of long-leaf, bushy plants that were moving near the jungle. "Ah-ha!" he took off as Knuckles called out to him.

"H-hey! Wait for me!!! Ohhh, Soniiiccc!!" Knuckles picked up the pace, "Man, I gotta make a good first impression, don't I? Am I... intimidating? Amy's probably never seen an Echidna before if she's a toddler again, yeah? Oh man... I'm gonna suck at this!" he hurried up the hill to catch Sonic, as he slowed down and started to fake wandering through the brush.

He stuck out a foot and felt the ground out, putting his hands behind his head, "Huh? Now,... where, oh, where could that darling little hedgehog be?" He teased, putting his hands down and by his hips, facing his back to where he could clearly see and hear her moving through the bushes, crawling to try and get away and stay silent.

But she was anything but stealthy. He looked over his shoulder and chuckled, then dramatically began his performance. "Oh shucks, I really thought we could hit it off and be friends, too." He put a hand up to his forehead, speaking loudly. "I guess she doesn't like me... how sad, I think I might... be alone..." he faked a sniff, putting his hand down to his chest, "For the rest of my days... Poor, old Sonic." He shrugged and shook his head out, then smirked and narrowed his eyes behind him when he heard the shuffling stop.

'Got'cha.' he let the smirk reach the corner of his muzzle, 'Your bleeding heart is still too good to pass up someone who you feel is in need. No matter what age you are, you're still a bit of a saint.' he flopped down to be more at her level, but acted as though he was whining and complaining, "Ohhh!!!! What ever will I do!" he lifted his head to call up... then opened an eye to see if she was coming.

Just as planned, a tiny little hand gripped the back of one of his two spikes on his back.

He smiled kindly and looked back to her with great care to not seem threatening, "Well, hello there." he suddenly saw her look up and blush, then take off. "Huh? Hey, wait, where are you going?" He didn't bother to reach for her, just watched her.

"Ah, faking shy, eh?" He gave her a fond look, before Knuckles tumbled down to the ground with a bent and twisted body, looking completely out of his element in his worry of having to re-introduce himself to Amy... as a kid. "You're really banged up about this, aren't you?" Sonic teased, seeing his apparent struggle.

Knuckles got up and rubbed his head, on his hands and knees now, "Shut up..!" he countered, "Besides, what makes you so chill about meeting Amy again at this age? Aren't you a bit concerned she won't like you like she does now? O-or did now, o-or..." As he tried to figure out the tense, Sonic just rolled his eyes up and started crawling on the ground towards where Amy scampered off to. "Hey! Quit leaving me behind!!" Knuckles shouted out as Sonic lifted a foot up and tapped his mouth shut.

"Quiet, will ya? You'll scare her off." Sonic watched as Knuckles blinked, then nodded as Sonic removed his foot, "You really have never talked to a girl before... have you?"

"What's that supposed to mean!?" His anger spiked, but he was shouting in a whisper now, his fist up by Sonic and his teeth now pointed, eyes white in fury, and insulted with an anger mark showing through. "I was alone on an island my entire life! What's your excuse!?"

"I grew up around orphans..." Sonic muttered, looking around casually with his eyes for any sign of movement of where she might be.

"H-huh..? You did?" Knuckles blinked his eyes again, amazed.

"Yeah, you guys." Sonic teased, smiling back at Knuckles. "Tails, Amy... I was always being admired by those younger than me... it made me appreciate people like you and Eggman." he turned with a mischievous look in his face to Knuckles, pulling an eyelid down and sticking his tongue out, "I never had to be anything for you two."

"Why you..." Knuckles twitched an eyebrow in annoyance, but Sonic then lifted up a pointer finger, reminding Knuckles of what Tails had said.

"Just remember, tender love and care." He then grinned a beaming smile as though this was fun for him, and trekked back through the foliage as Knuckles held up his own finger again, repeating.

"Be on your best behavior... Tender love and care... got it... Ah! Hey! You're going off without me again!" he crawled after Sonic... but really, he was just following his lead.

Amy flopped a few long, dangling leafs off of her as she finally made it through the jungle floor's flora and looked up at the giant temples and structures before her.

She had never seen anything so massive and brilliant, tall and imposing... she looked behind her to hear Knuckles bumping into Sonic, and him telling him to 'watch it' and realized that those two strange boys were still after her.

She puffed up a cheek, 'Don't they ever give up!?'

She took off towards the steps of the temple before shying back and growing scared... one wrong move... and she could slip and fall all the way down the steps...

She rubbed her head with both hands, already scared of that possibility before gasping as Knuckles and Sonic came out of the bush.

"Huh? There you are!" Sonic called, very friendly, "Hey, where ya going?"

She immediately shivered, what did these men want with her..?

Sonic saw this... and immediately lost the nature.

He got up, "Hey, we're not here to harm you." he lifted his hands out to show her that it was okay, to not get worked up and calm down.

She scooted away, looking back up the structure and then to Sonic and Knuckles.

Sonic's eyes bent sweetly, "There, see? We can just talk and play, alright? We're not as scary as you may think-"

Knuckles bulldozed out and knocked Sonic down, the two tumbling as Sonic flailed a bit in the tangled wrestle of sorts, Knuckles having vines all over him.

"Ahhh!! It's a snake, get it off of me!" it clearly wasn't...

Amy was freaked out and all of Sonic's 'calming' energy escaped her and was pointless as she started the climb up the temple.

"Oh no!" Sonic pushed Knuckles off of him as he kept 'fighting' the vines he thought were snakes. "Amy!" he called out.

She paused... looking back at him, she wondered how he knew her name.

He raced over to her and held out his arms, "Amy, jump down, you'll get hurt!" he reached out further, showing how sincere he was. "Amy..." His eyes carried a look as though he wanted to protect her...

Her own eyes sparkled and shook... someone... someone truly wanted to be there for her?

Her hand moved a little off the next step she was going to climb, as though to trust that Sonic would catch her, but then...

"Got it! Haha! Take that, snakes!" Knuckles flopped the snakes off of him and then looked to see her on the temple steps, "GAHH!!! My ancestorial shrines!!!" He gripped his hands to his cheeks, then ran over and held up a fist, looking stern and fierce in his face as his brow was sharp and angled down. "Get off of there, you're far too small to be climbing that!" he shouted, as Sonic scolded him immediately and narrowed his eyes to him.

"Knuckles!"

"What!? .... ohhh..." Knuckles lowered his fist and loosened the features on his countenance. "Eh-heh... too much?" Some awkward sweat at knowing he had made a mistake dripped down the side of his face as Amy kept climbing. "Gahhh!!! She's gonna fall!" Knuckles worried, before jumping up and hitting his spikes on his fists to the temple's wall, hurriedly climbing up that way, "Ura-ura-urah!" he was like a red stream train that terrified her.

"Knuckles, stop it! You're scaring her!" he was making it worse, so Sonic scaled up the temple after him, running along side where he was drilling his fist in to keep scaling the large structure, "What happened to 'best behavior' and 'tender love and care'?" Sonic quipped back, but Knuckles just tsk'ed.

"You think your way is working any good? Pfft! She hasn't come to you yet, either!"

Sonic frowned, tilting his head as though he had something to prove now.

"Fine." He dashed up in front of Knuckles to stop him from climbing as ancient dust sprayed onto his face, making him cough and stop fully in his tracks.

"Hey!" he hacked, "Grr... what was that all about?" He didn't seem to understand... Sonic's gentleness towards the situation.

Amy kept climbing, her whole body having to pull itself up over each step before she looked down and panicked, seeing how high she had already gotten and the cold chill of the atmosphere that made her flinch back and cling to the stony, yet smoothened over through time steps.

She closed her eyes... and then... a hand reached out to her.

"Amy..?"

She blinked her eyes opened and looked up, amazed to see Sonic had made it to the steps above her and was reaching down, that same care in his eyes...

'This handsome boy... what does he want with little old me?'

"It's gonna be okay, Amy." Sonic's voice seemed to raise the rising heat on her cheeks. "You're gonna be alright, just hang on. Take my hand, I know it's scary, but you don't have to go back down alone. I'm here now, and I won't let you go. I promise."

His words... the expression on his face...

Every bit of her wanted to trust him.

Her mouth opened and then closed, her head turned away and her eyes shut as well. "I..." she could barely speak in her fear, "I can't."

His eyes blinked and lightened up a bit in curiosity, "Why not, Amy?" He was still being supportive, just wanting understanding.

"You..." she shivered... was she still afraid of him?

"You'll fall, too."

It was moments like these that melted away whatever cool guy attitude or ego Sonic thought he had. His eyes bent in absolute consideration for her... even in her own fears, she always thought of others and was more worried about pulling him down with her than her own safety.

"That's what I've always admired the most about you, Amy." He beamed a smile that when she looked to it, was like the very sun on top of the ancient ruins... like a sun god.

"Even in such a tiny body... your heart is as huge as can be."

With that, she went to take his hand... but then there was a tremor.

"W-woah-woah!" Sonic held on as only a foot and a hand was now on the steps above her, and her little body was being tossed about a bit, desperately trying to hold on. "Knuckles!" Sonic cried out, as Knuckles was charging from below, finally grabbing her ankle.

"Got her!" Knuckles grinned and snickered somewhat, "Hehehe, now you can't get away. You grab her from above and we'll glide down, Sonic!" He shouted out, making Amy flinch as she started hitting his head down.

"No, no, no!" she cried out, tears on the corners of her eyes, "Bad man, bad man!"

"B-bad man!?" Knuckles, getting repeatedly stomped on, looked confused, "We're trying to save you!"

"She means you, Knuckles!" Sonic gritted his teeth, "You have no tact, man!"

"Screw that! What does a tack have to do with this!?" He didn't seem to understand the term...

Sonic shook his head, then allowed himself to fall a bit down before catching himself again, kicking Knuckles with Amy as she watched a protective and caring arm go around her waist. "Get off, you brute! You're horrible with kids!"

"Brute!?" Knuckles was suddenly kicked down and fell, "AHH!!!!" he glided and looped around to another part of the wall. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?!?"

"Tsk, some heroic first impression, huh?" Sonic sarcastically stated,... as Amy's eyes began to fall in love with this strange blue hedgehog...

He helped her kick the bad man down...

He held her but wasn't trying to rip her off the stony mountain building...

"Who..." she softly let out, her little, high-pitched voice so cute as Sonic looked to her.

"Hmm?" he waited, still and comforting, for her to finish her question.

"Who are you, mister?" Her sweetness also came with some bitter aftertaste to him... as his eyes bent... wishing she knew all the history they had together...

His mind wandered to dates where he would carry her shopping list, and how she would spin around and give a cheery open-smile to him... "My hero!" she would chime out.

His eyes danced in those memories... barely remembering her as Rosy the Rascal, but mostly... as Amy Rose.

He smiled and closed his eyes, 'heh'ing as he then opened one and gave her a charming smile. "I'm Sonic!" he put a bit of gusto into it, "I'm Sonic The Hedgehog!"

"Hold her still!" Tails's voice suddenly flew into earshot as Sonic broke out of his dynamic introduction and looked down to see Tails flying up in a spiral. "Herrrree I goooo~" he lugged the heavy raygun up all the way and then fired it towards Amy.

The next day, Amy was knitting something on her porch, tapping her toes against the wooden porch before sighing and looking to the sky...

"...I was always on my own, then... longing for someone sweep me off my feet... I had no idea... that what I really needed was..." She paused when her hair flew to the side and she covered some of her face from the wind, then smiled as Sonic had raced by.

Her smile rose and she giggled, leaning forward and getting up off the step to grip a beam and lean her head lovingly into it.

"Was someone to believe in me... And support my adventures... no matter what."

And she was happy.

#sonamy tag #sonamy #cutegirlmayra #sonicxamy #amy rose #classic amy rose #rosy the rascal #sonic the hedgehog #sonamy prompt #me writing #me prompts

86 notes · View notes

i-donot-forget · 3 years

Text

4 Days

My Candy Love - Love Life

Eric - Candy/Sucrette - Nathaniel

Words 2373

Spoilers Ep 12 - 13

So I was thinking about the days between the kiss with Eric and our date four days later, but from his perspective.

I don't speak english very well, so this is like 90% google translate

DAY 0

I ran away like a coward after what I had done, what was I thinking? How did I let it happen? But they weren't my imaginations, she reciprocated, right? The more I tried to remember the details of that slip, my mind could only think of one thing, her and the softness of her lips, steal her breath, her glassy eyes and flushed cheeks despite my misdeed, I couldn't help but smile because the reality was more delicious than anything I had imagined.

The loneliness of my apartment took me out of my reverie, now I had to deal with the consequences of my actions, the only question was when? surely as soon as she got home she would tell him how I took advantage of the situation, maybe Nathaniel was on his way here right now to beat me up, which I deserve anyway ...

I still felt the light touch of her perfume on me and it was driving me crazy, I went to take a cold shower with the horrible sensation of hearing a knock on the door, a product of my tormented imagination. I could not think and I had no one to talk to, I was going around the place like a caged lion, I looked at the clock again helpless when I saw that even time was making fun of me, I changed with the idea that there was only one thing that could distract me now, go for a run. I was going fast, lost in my thoughts with the uncomfortable feeling that I was being followed, stopped at a traffic light I was left blank when I saw a blond guy in a white jacket on the other side of the sidewalk, I knew it was not him and even so I could not take my eyes off him until I was 100% sure, I trotted past him receiving the smoke from his cigar fully on my face, By the time I got to the other side of the street, I needed a cigarette more than I needed oxygen. 7 years in the trash, I thought as I ripped off the plastic and opened the box, that first puff was the only thing that managed to calm me down a bit and before I knew it I was on the second.

I walked home calmer or the fact that my head was spinning absorbed some of my attention but when I closed the door the adrenaline and excitement had passed, now I was on the floor, I saw the time and resigned that tonight I could not sleep I dropped into the chair in front of the table that was overflowing with reports, I opened the laptop and gave myself to the escape who had rescued me from Melissa for the last year and there I could see an e-mail from Ben that I should have checked that afternoon if I wouldn't have been in such a rush to get to a certain cafe at 8pm.

DAY 1

By the time the sun rose I could no longer bear the thought of not knowing what to expect, so I called Nathaniel against my logic and common sense, put the phone on speakerphone, and put it on the table as I clung to the wood tightly. Each ringtone fed my paranoia. I expected the worst, screams, insults, threats, at the very least, and then he answered, I stammered incoherencies until I realized that he didn't know, she hadn't told him… yet. I told him about the information Ben had sent me feeling slightly relieved, I hung up the phone calmer but not better, this secret was a time bomb and I felt like garbage.

I froze as I tightened the doorknob, because by inertia my feet would take me straight to the Cozy Bear, like every morning before work and every afternoon at closing time, but I couldn't go back there like nothing else, I was a criminal returning to the scene of the crime simply couldn't break into her space after what had happened, not without her authorization. I walked towards the station in the company of a cigarette and for some reason I could not remember when was the last time I had done this, I was tense, distracted, I could not concentrate even on the simplest idea my mind was restless and I simply could not ignore the why, I would have to look at his face and act like every day, I had to be convincing and it felt horrible. I hesitated before entering and after crossing the entrance I stopped for a few seconds to look inside, searching quickly, I took a deep breath out of inertia thinking I still had a few minutes left.

- I am glad I am not the only one who is affected by the investigation . -

A friendly slap on my shoulder caused me an exaggerated start but Nathaniel passed by directly to the Chief's office, I saw how he stopped at the threshold, looked at me and gestured for me to enter. I explained the progress in the investigation with few details until our superior resumed the meeting, luckily without a field operation on the agenda I could keep my distance without raising suspicions. The day was eternal and tortuous but it was already after 10 o'clock at night when I went to vent to the gym, 3 hours later I was at home, another night awake.

DAY 2

- It is the second day you arrive smelling of cigarettes instead of coffee. I believed that with age your habits would improve, not worsen. Is the wisdom of old age a myth? -

Nathaniel joked as the sound of his fists on the punching bag filled the air, I set the dumbbell I was lifting on the ground before giving him a look.

- Yes, yes, I want to see in what condition you will be when you are my age, young man. -

- But seriously, two days without coffee? That's a record, the Cozy Bear will go broke without you. -

- Yes, well I'm changing the coffee for the gym. With the whole move in I realized that I am not in such good shape. -

- Have you already adapted to your new apartment? -

- I finally have a bedside lamp so even though I don't have a TV, or real china, I was able to finish the last book you recommended. -

- Great. Did you start something new? -

- Yes, in fact I'm already halfway there... it's something different, more suspense with some science fiction. -

- Boring… -

- Whatever you say... to tell the truth... I had discussed it with... Candy. -

- Oh yeah? -

- Yes, now that I think about it... she asked me for the reference, I saved an article from the internet with several titles of the same style. -

- Would you send it to her? will you do me a favor. -

- Sure, mmmh I don't have her number. -

- My phone is in my jacket, the pass is 4444. -

- Don't you know her number by heart? -

- Mmmm no. -

Upon unlocking the screen, the background photo was like a kick in the stomach, it was her with a beaming smile, which I did not remember ever seeing, I imagine that smile is only for him. I looked for the contact, "Honey" of course ... I sent it and put the phone quickly as if it burned in my hands.

I avoided the excused lunch with an imaginary date with a divorce lawyer, I drove through the city with no clear destination, away from those streets where by any chance of life I could come across her, I parked at a gas station when it became apparent that no matter how long I was behind the wheel I would not find the right words and finally I called her, dial tone and after a few minutes, mailbox. Come on again, she must be tending the cafe after all. Second try, back to the mailbox, this is more difficult than I thought. What if she doesn't want to answer me? No, how could she know it's me, maybe she has my number. But what nonsense are you saying? Of course she doesn't have your number, let's go once again the third time's the charm. And I was defeated, after the third attempt I did not have the courage to call again and the uncertainty began to fill my head, I drove back to the station with a thousand ideas going through my head and in all of them I am the villain.

I was collapsed on the desk in my office after the afternoon meeting when the phone rang, seeing her name on the screen made my heart race, I closed the blind on the door window and I hesitated for a moment before locking with key.

- Hello, Candy? Thanks for calling me back. I think we should talk ... -

- Eric? I don’t remember giving you my number. -

Yes ... I simply continue to deceive Nath to calm this uncertainty that is killing me, I continued to accumulate crimes and although I believed that I was prepared to face the consequences, I was surprised at myself, at what I was willing to do to find out.

- Ahem... I asked Nath for it. I told him I wanted to share the name of the book we had talked about with you but… we both know that’s not the reason. I wanted for us to talk... about what happened between us, the other night. -

- And ... You couldn't have just stopped by? On the phone, it's a bit ... -

- I agree! But I wasn't sure that you wanted to see me. Well, anyway… -

- Okay, well, you know where to find me, right? I don't close before 8, if you haven’t forgotten… -

- Well ... I'm busy today... And tomorrow. I thought…… Maybe we can get a drink together in two days? I promise, it won't take long. -

- Uh… Okey, see you after tomorrow, then! -

When she hung up I felt that the world was turning again, that everything had stopped just with her voice, in the middle of all this a part of me was glad to hear her again. Little by little the plea that had almost stuttered became clearer,she could still hate me, disown me and want me as far as possible from her life. Maybe that was what I deserved, maybe that was for the best.

That night I slept fitfully waking up with a start until dawn, a single nightmare repeated itself in a loop, she laughing in my face for having been so stupid as to believe that there was something between us, that I was mistaken her sympathy for interest and I don't know how I could even dream of her leaving him for… for someone like me.

DAY 3

Jogging accompanied by the morning dew helped me wake up after not resting, somehow a choppy night's sleep was more harmful than a sleepless night, this lack was beginning to take its toll and it was already more than evident in my face that I was not having a good day. Today I would have a little field operation, nothing more to watch in case I saw anything suspicious, although I definitely couldn't see anything if I could barely keep my eyes open.

I hadn't been able to escape lunch today and Nath had already been staring at me for a couple of minutes.

- Everything is fine? -

Hearing that question aloud I hesitated, as if I was no longer physically capable of following this lie, I thought of confessing everything to him, not just the kiss, but this forbidden feeling that I had allowed myself to cultivate, how traitorous and scoundrel I was, but then I thought about her, and how I couldn't take away from her what belonged to her by right, if someone had to be the great antagonist it was me, the only one who would have to pay for deception and lies.

- Yes ... Although I think my attempt to give up coffee for something healthier is ironically killing me, I think I'll go back to my old habits. -

- Take care Eric, I still need you around for a while, someone has to stick up for this department. -

Who would say that words could cause physical pain felt like his words were digging into my back and blocking my throat. I could only smile. Sitting alone in an incognito vehicle my mind was blank, no, not blank really an idea had been fixed in my head as a clue that appears after rereading for the tenth time ... I could not, I simply could not do that to Nath, this had all been a huge mistake, a confusing and totally out of place situation, and it had to end as soon as possible.

That night I couldn't sleep either, I spent the hours thinking about her, saying goodbye in some way to the moments that I had collected in my memory, I had kept this absurd fantasy for too long and I couldn't continue lying to myself.

DAY 4

This morning I was calm, despite being the day of our meeting, but perhaps it was not tranquility but resignation, today the suspense ended, this story that should never have existed ended.

The hours passed quickly because I had already made a decision, if I wanted to end this forever there should be no doubt, I had to tell her absolutely everything, so when she rejects me and denies each and every one of my hopes, I could turn off that light that still wants to see her, that not even the fact that she is with someone else has been able to extinguish, it must be her and it must be brutal.

I was surprised at how quickly the orange glow of the evening began to creep in through my office window, it seemed that after all I did not really want to go to my “date”. My discouragement was turning into nervousness with each step I took, by the time I realized I was outside the cafe.

And then I saw you through the window and I smiled without being able to contain myself because only when I saw you did I realize that I missed you and that I had not liked spending so many days without seeing you and that everything even seemed a little brighter...

Oh… Shit, I'm really screwed...

#MCL #mclll #mcl fanfic #mcl eric #my english is shit

38 notes · View notes

greymattermaelstrom · 4 years

Text

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 - The Rik and Sophie Show

I attended Ozlander in Melbourne. What an incredible weekend so would like to share my Ozlander experience with you. Of course, it was during the very early days of covid-19 which I’ll address shortly. I’d never met any of the cast before, nor any group of like minded fans. Of course, you are usually lucky to know anyone who watch the TV show (not counting a partner) in your circle of friends let alone personally know a group of fans to chat with. It’s funny though, I’m not sure what I expected, but I thought people would have in depth discussions about OL characters/plots during coffee breaks or in line ups for autographs/photos. I didn’t experience that. I think it was a given that we were all deep into OL. Instead, I found we just chatted and got to know each other, ‘Where are you from?’ etc. As this was the first formal Outlander convention held in Australia, this was big news. I bought my ticket the day they were available (Nov 2019). It was a long way off but I knew the gathering would occur a short time after the first few episodes of Outlander S5 were broadcast, so when S5 started airing, my anticipation grew. Prices were steep admittedly, but a number of us felt it may be the first and last opportunity to meet a cast member, so we did what we could to get there (i.e. sell the healthiest child, blackmail the rich, etc).

Article from “The Scottish Banner” Feb 2020.

Unfortunately, 4 weeks out, Ed Speleers withdrew due to work commitments but local, David Berry, was announced as his replacement on the same day. Then 10 days out, Graham McTavish withdrew due to work commitments in Slovakia. No news of a replacement was announced (I learnt at the event that organising a visa etc with Covid-19 developing had made it nigh on impossible to organise a replacement in time). Ozlander organisers revisited the program and added extra value features to the various tiers. The gathering weekend was so close, yet seemed so far away in these uncertain times. Every day, I anticipated receiving an email stating it had been cancelled. I knew the organisers must have been pulling their hair out. Selfishly and as long as it was safe to do so, I was hoping it would still go ahead. The virus was not as advanced in Australia. Most of our relatively low number of cases were brought in by travellers (residents returning or tourists) from Europe/Asia before flying was cancelled. The Federal Government had restricted public gatherings to less than 500 at the time. Attendance was actually under 200. FYI, below are the global covid-19 stats as of 19 April 2020, a month later. Australia’s population is 25 million.

A few days after the Ozlander event, only crowds of less than 100 were permitted by the govt. We were so, so lucky!! Of course, that reduced further as precautions were implemented over time. We have self-isolation and a lot of business closures, cancellation of sports/entertainment etc. It is dreadful, but not a total lock down in Australia. We could walk dogs and make necessary trips to the supermarket, pharmacy, doctor or special court appearances. Anyway, just wanted to address this concern. ~ Tickets sold well (premium tickets sold out). I saw fans on sm stating the date of the event clashed or it was a bit expensive so I know more wanted to come. Yes, the cost was relatively high. Return airfares for cast, accommodation, plus I assume their appearance fee was always going to be an expensive venture, especially as our AUD had been declining sharply against the USD for some time. Australia can miss out on some things because of distance and a relatively small population, but overall, I think we have done well over the years. ~ Rik (Richard) and Sophie posted IG photos from Melbourne a couple of days before the event. Yay!! They were in the country at least, enjoying the sunsets, cuddling koalas and hypnotising wallabies lol. Sophie posted a selfie from a public toilet (bathroom) - as you do. See Sam’s comment below. Toilet paper was becoming a precious commodity....🤔

So the odds looked good and finally, Ozlander arrived.🥳 Before we took our seats, a lone piper slowly walked into the throng playing Waltzing Matilda (iconic Australian bush ballad) which segued into Outlander's theme song. Goosebumps! Applause all 'round. The piper was a big fan too.

What a thrilling start to proceedings. We took our seats and Meagan Taylor (the one who dared dream the dream), welcomed everyone. The age range of fans was predominately 40-65. We were excited and expectant. Housekeeping announcements focused on coronavirus precautions of course. Wash hands, use hand sanitiser when you can't, no handshaking and no touching the cast. This last request was a little disappointing after seeing photos from other OL cons, but it was quite understandable. I think we were just over the moon Ozlander went ahead so we were more than happy to comply and consider the health and safety of others. Then Meagan had the unenviable task of informing us David Berry had unfortunately cancelled his appearance due to health reasons. Yikes! What a shame. (David released a press statement 15 March(?) outlining his difficult decision. Sydney is Australia's Covid-19 hot spot, so David being a Sydneysider, had to consider this I guess). There are IG photos of David, Rik and Sophie together in Australia, just not sure where. So of course, it surprised everyone that David wasn't attending. Refunds of his meet and great and the re-jigging of tiers was to be announced on the fly. Then there were two, Rik and Sophie (and no pressure whatsoever!)🤪. Meagan then advised that the five panels across the weekend would be all audience Q & A which got a loud cheer. On with the show! The Rik and Sophie show! 🎉 They came on stage ready for a good time. Rik opened with 'G'day'. Great start I thought and continued his half decent Australian accent. It's a hard accent to imitate as we know. Rik's was a bit exaggerated but that was part of the fun.

‘G’day. ‘How are ya’?’

Sophie in an outfit she bought here. Same brand as Saturday’s dress that she brought with her.

Roger Mac is in da house.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I have seen Rik and Sophie in a lot of interviews, OL promos (talking to camera) and taking part on OL panels on YouTube. I can find their rapport a little strained and snarky at times. Luckily, I was very pleasantly surprised that their 2020 version was very endearing and entertaining. I think they’ve worked on this. I also think, that the spectre of Sam and Cait, through no fault of their own, does loom large at cast events. Therefore, it was great to see Rik and Sophie rise to the challenge of working the room in the absence of their cast mates. And I think they really relished this (albeit exhausting) opportunity and the small theatre made it a casual and intimate affair. They answered questions in an engaging manner and often expanded on it, citing on set examples, many I’ve never heard before, and I’ve seen a lot of OL interviews. Almost as soon as they came on stage, Rik was asked if he would play his guitar and sing for us. While flattered, I think it was too early in the piece and he said maybe he would do so during the weekend sometime. Alas, time wasn’t on our side so it didn’t eventuate. ~ Rik was asked if his hair ticks were under control (ep 501)😂. Combing his fingers through his hair, he replied in his strong Scottish brogue that most of them were gone now. Good sport. ~ He was told the OL bts photos he posts on sm (taken on set) were great and much appreciated and to keep them coming to which the audience applauded. I think he quietly enjoyed that moment. All creatives will take that, knowing their skills and hard work meant something to someone, much like our appreciation for OL and these sorts of events!

Then on to costumes, wigs and make up. It was thought that it must be nice to have your scalp/hair attended to in the makeup. ‘No, it’s not’ R&S said in unison.😂 Verra uncomfortable process apparently. The hair is flattened and held down with clips. The hairline edge of the wig is ‘glued’ to the top of your forehead and then alcohol is used to get the glue off after shooting, which dries the skin. Some hair falls out over time with this process also. We know this has happened to Sam to an extent.😬 Rik is hoping to grow his hair long enough so he doesn’t need a wig, which accounts for his current hirsute glory. ~ Sophie said they both share a make up trailer and added that Rik has a magic make up chair. Being early morning, he often goes to sleep in it and upon waking up, hey presto, it’s Roger Mac. At make up time, they do know if the other is a bit touchy, so they try not to annoy each other. Too much.😂 ~ At one stage, we were a bit shy in asking questions. Meagan said if this was in the US, there’d be a line up for the mic.😂

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 selfie.

~ Sophie responded to a geeky question about wearing wireless mics secreted in their costumes or hair as well using the usual overhead boom mics you see on bts videos. She was asked about her experience with ADR which she’s not a great fan of it. The audience asked, ‘What’s ADR?’ There are a few accepted terms in the industry, Additional Dialogue Replacement is one. It’s when some dialogue needs to be re-recorded late in post production if the original dialogue audio recording at the time is less than optimal for a variety of reasons (thanks Google). Sophie gave an instance when in S4, Bree told Claire she had been raped. The stream in the background got into the dialogue mics too much in this particular outdoor location, so Sophie had to re-record her dialogue (like lip syncing) saying exactly what she said at the time, whilst watching the scene on a screen in a recording studio. It’s hard to get the context and emotion of the scene back into your voice and that’s why some actors hate doing it and plead to have the original dialogue kept as much as possible. But ADR happens more than you realise and for various reasons (see Google). It is impossible to tell when you watch the show, what scenes have had ADR done, it’s blended so well. They would record the stream/ ambient sounds separately at some point and then mix it in lower against the dialogue after ADR is done. 😅

~ Sophie talked about her audition process and was sat down in an exec’s office and was told OL fans are very passionate! (we are?🤔😁). They have an idea of how book Brianna should look and Sophie confirmed she wasn’t tall enough, eyes the wrong colour, etc and that yeah, as expected, she received some not so nice things on sm. But she tried not to read too much of it and pressed on with the role of Bree. Her tone wasn’t sarcastic or indignant at all, but humble. I was impressed.

Queuing for photos with Rik or Sophie on this occasion. We weren’t allowed to touch but we all had a squirt of hand sanitiser (just to be super safe?).🤔

There were a few photo opportunities over the weekend and a bonus or two thrown in make up for the cast that couldn’t make it. A refund was offered for people with meet and greet tickets for David. However, R & S kindly offered to do a meet and greet for David’s fans instead and they happily accepted. Legends! I don’t know where they found the energy to be constantly ’on’ with so many people over the weekend. Chocolate? Youth? ~ As it was a small event, there weren’t any extra security staff that I could see. I think it was only the Museum staff and the security cameras which were hardly noticeable. ~ When getting my autographs, Rik and Sophie didn’t ask for my name, but when I read their personal messages, they had used my name (which they’d seen on my Ozlander lanyard. How cool is that? Very slick!). There were assorted costumes, the de rigueur wedding dress of Claire’s which added to the ambience. Of course, most of the audience were women but good to see a handful of men there, some even in kilts! Saw some Aussie Peakers in their MPC tees too. Cool.

To settle a pronunciation question, Sophie asked the audience after lunch, ‘Is it scone (as in, phone) or scone (as in, shone)?

An emphatic SCONE (shone) came back. Rik said “Oh, wow, a shouting(?) majority?’

Just to be sure, someone asked who lost, Rik pointed at Sophie. He didn’t gloat too much. Poor Sophie!

Of course, what would an OL event be without the cast having a drink or two to lubricate the tonsils (as we say).

Here are a few more tidbits. All the info I’m sharing has been gleaned from the panels and time spent with Rik and Sophie over the weekend as my tier allowed (which was a lot). ~ Yes, they had tried Vegemite (similar to marmite/promite), courtesy of David Berry. Sophie has some in Scotland. Onya Davo! (good on you David). Incidentally, Sam tried some when he was here in 2016 on Studio 10 (morning talk show - March 2016, his interview is on You Tube). It’s a thing. ~ Rik didn’t know if Sam’s whisky would be his cup of tea, but said it was ‘good actually’. ~ Rik was sometimes surprised by the particular take post production used for the show, but was more surprised by what was edited out of a scene (to add dynamics or guide the narrative a certain way which would apply to all productions everywhere). ~ The pyre scene with the Jesuit Priest at the Mohawk Village Ep 412 was hard to watch on TV. He said it was hard to watch them shoot that scene on set as it was so dangerous!😬 ~ Sophie very occasionally discussed the historical accuracy of things in a scene with directors ie. birthing stool or not in Ep 413 and 1960′s The Mashed Potato moves in S5 are different to how we know them now. She convinced the director’s on those 2 occasions. To me, it shows her passion for the show! ~ When asked about Bree meeting Jamie for the first time in S4, Sophie was asked about the eww factor but didn’t think about Jamie’s hand touching her face after he had relieved himself as he had only used a fruit juice bottle.🤣 ~ R & S were asked to respond to: ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!’ And with relish they replied: ‘Oi, Oi, Oi!’. Someone did their homework. Cool. It’s a parochial call and response thing some aussies do at sporting events etc. ~ R & S often went for an early morning run. Before Sunday’s program began, Meagan asked us all to be very quiet. ‘That sound’, she said, ‘is Rik having his hair blown dry backstage.’ Laughter at Rik’s expense all round. Sophie came on with her’s still damp.

Graham McTavish ‘popped’ in from Slovakia to say hi and sorry I can’t be there. Rik and Graham had a good rapport. After some banter, the audience was now supposed to ask a question and GM rolled his eyes as he heard Rik’s voice again, this time asking him what he conditioned his beard with? ‘Well”, said GM, ‘well Richard, um, I, ahh (chuckle), I condition it with...., obviously a little bit of your love ..’. Much laughter in the theatre.

Then GM commented further, (which I missed, sadly), to even more laughter.

Who knows what would have happened had GM been at the event in person?! There is so much more I could share, but you get the idea.

Sophie wasn’t feeling the best during the last panel just before the close of the event, but she pushed through like a trooper. Rik said she had eaten too much chocolate. A weakness of Sophie’s. I think fatigue was catching up with both of them. They did so much.

Meagan presented Rik and Sophie with an Akubra (pron. uh·koo·bruh) each (iconic Australian outback hat) as a memento of their time here at Ozlander. Rik had the Crocodile Dundee style whilst Sophie’s was more demure. In his best aussie lingo, Rik said: ‘I’m Richard Dundee and this is my partner, Skippy (Sophie).’ (Referencing Skippy the bush kangaroo ? - a much loved Australian TV show 1968-1970).

The Scottish Banner article promised an intimate relaxed chance to get to know stars from the Outlander TV series and I’m happy to say that this is exactly what we got. Whilst it’s a shame we didn’t get to know Ed, Graham or David better, we certainly got to know Rik and Sophie better than we had ever anticipated. As a result, I see Rik and Sophie in a new light, esp in S5, where they have more scenes together. In a small way, I’ve gotten to know a little of the person that inevitably informs their TV persona (ie facial expressions, mannerisms, speaking cadence and inflections). What a memorable time I had (can you tell?). Thanks to Rik and Sophie, the gathering organisers (who got a special mention on stage at the close) and the other fans I met there. Thanks for reading this far on a rather lengthy post.😊 I know it’s my take on the weekend, but I’ve tried not to editorialise it, but present it, as accurately as I can, hence, it may be a bit dry to read.😅 I think Ozlander is a great name and I look forward to Ozlander Fan Gathering 2021.

Ozlander graphics: Ozlander Fan Gathering (I tweaked the circle logo in the title)

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 selfie: Ozlander Fan Gathering

other photos: all permissions obtained

Ozlander Fan Gathering article: The Scottish Banner February 2020

Sophie Skelton post: Instagram

global covid-19 cases stats: Wikipedia

#Ozlander #Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 #Ozlander Melbourne

82 notes · View notes

ladyhistorypod · 3 years

Text

Ep 44: Return Flight: The Pilot Pilot Remastered

Sources:

ABC News 10: Last known letter sent before Amelia Earhart’s disappearance found

The rest of our sources can be found on our original post.

Click below for a transcript of this episode!

Haley: You’re trying to force my wisdom out of me that’s not gonna work well.

Lexi: She’s trying to force us to become Chicago improv-ers

(Alana laughing)

Haley: Yeah

Lexi (laughing): This is her dream. Alana’s dream is not to do improv but to be a podcaster like a Chicago improv-er

Alana (laughing, quietly): Actually, yeah

Haley: It’s so funny cuz she was just like I wrote the script and I was like… script?

Lexi: There’s a script? We have a script?

Haley: I act now? (Alana laughing) I barely read. (Lexi laughing) Like after that doing the trailer this is gonna be bananas for when I’m – when I’m reading my notes

Lexi: Archaeologists don’t read. Archaeologists can’t read.

Alana: Archaeologists don’t read.

Lexi: We can’t read.

Haley: I also realized Lexi just picks like the best sounding… whatever

Lexi: The best sounding banter and then I put in the intro music

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History: the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. I’m here with Lexi. Lexi, what are you reading?

Lexi: The instructions on how to turn off this Zoom call because I need to get outta here.

(Alana and Haley laughing)

Alana: I’m also in the same virtual space as Haley. Haley, what are you eating?

Haley: I had some chips and yogurt earlier.

Lexi: Together?

Alana: Chips and yogurt?

Haley: Yeah. That’s like a REAL Persian thing. We can get into that… Oh, the stunned faces, I shouldn’t have– I should’ve lied.

(Lexi and Alana laughing)

Haley: I should’ve lied okay, I’m eating burgers and fries. I’m eating mac n cheese. Insert whatever.

Alana: and I’m Alana and I use 150% of the garlic a recipe calls for.

Haley: (making airplane sounds)

Lexi: What sound does an airplane make?

Alana (quietly): I don’t even remember

Haley: (repeats airplane sound)

(Lexi laughing)

Alana: You guys it’s been so long since I’ve been on an airplane I don’t even remember what noise airplanes make.

Lexi: I was detained at the airport in Israel. Kind of.

Alana: Jesus, Lexi what did you do?!.

Lexi: So I was with a group, I was coming back from a dig… In case you don't know we're all archaeologists I feel like I've made that joke already. I was leaving the excavation… And with people from a different school but the most of the people on the dig were from my school but only I was leaving with the people from the other school and so when I got to the airport the nice Israeli woman asked if I was with those people and I said no I'm not with them because I went to a different school but then when they got through they said they were with me and they caught us in our lie and so they detained us for three hours.

Haley: That's why you got detained?!

Lexi: Yes.

Haley: I got detained for looking like me and having my name.

Lexi: We all have our different qualities.

Alana: I have never been detained at an airport.

Lexi: Airports are nerve-wracking. They’re very anxiety-inducing.

Alana: So much anxiety… anyway.

Lexi: And the food's always bad.

Haley: I'll jump right in. So obviously, someone had to cover Amelia Earhart and I'm like a dumbass like I'm just gonna put it out there. I am– I still need some working on in the brain area and when I was little like my brain works in strange ways and you’ll learn about this as we go on with this podcast and even I think you two don't even understand how my brain works exactly but I'll remember things just in the pockets of my brain folds from like when I was a small child. When I was like learning about Amelia Earhart in like the elementary school days for like women's history month I spelled her name as air A-I-R. and heart H-E-A-R-T. And that's–

Alana (quietly): Love that for you

Haley: Absolutely not how you spell her name. It’s E-A-R-H-R-T.

Alana: A-R-T.

Haley: A-R-T.

Lexi: Still can’t spell it.

Haley: Still can’t spell it...

(Alana laughing)

Haley: While looking at the words on my screen. And I typed it in like my child version way into my Word doc and it wasn't coming out and I was just looking at it like why isn't this working for me. Googled it, got like air heart sign like all this astrology stuff like not Amelia so I just typed in airheart because I was on a roll with myself. Regardless, her nickname is Lady Lindy so I’m gonna call her Lady Lindy for this, because it’s Lady History I can’t not. So I wanna preface this that I– because with work and finishing up a summer course I had like about a day and a half to write these notes. And all my sources are decent like they're not– I didn't have time to like read a whole book of hers like she has many biographies and such and like different documentaries. But I used like children's museums, NASA, the New Yorker, History Channel, National Geographic so nothing out of the ordinary of good research. But there are so many conflicting dates and information that I almost thought I was being punked somehow. So there might be loopholes where you’re like “Haley, you have to be a decent researcher and fill this in” and I'm just leaving it out because I don't want to say anything completely wrong so I'm using like the facts that came up on like at least three of the sites. Nothing from Wikipedia is going to be on here I'll leave that one be. I’ll mention Wikipedia at one point but like it wasn't a hardcore source. Well, for Lady Lindy born in Kansas on July 24th 1894 planes were not yet invented for her flying needs yet and I'm gonna make a preface because I was looking at– I love looking at like the blogs people write because for Amelia Earhart there are just so many enthusiasts, so many people still blogging about her.

Lexi: Conspiracy theorists.

Haley: Don't worry I got you covered we're gonna go into three different like theories about her death and everything. It's truly everywhere I don't know– I can't remember what it's from, but I kind of have to do like a step back and just think if this person knew what type of plane she was flying and not like a mega Delta or like Alaska plane like this was like an old plane that could only go like a few hundred feet off the ground. So I just wanna like bring that up here from the beginning like these aren't gonna be the planes that we were just talking about that we hop on to go visit each other. Because like there are some bloggers where I’m like you know some of the conspiracy stuff but the actual facts? This is– this is not good. No bueno. She first saw a plane at a state fair when she was about ten years old, but didn't start flying for like another ten-ish years around like 1920-1921.

Alana: I don't think they let ten year olds fly.

(Lexi laughing)

Haley: Yeah absolutely not, but she was very fascinated from like that point that was like she was the plane girl. You know how we have horse girls? She was plane girl.

(Lexi laughing)

Haley: When she was able to start flying in like 1920/1921 she was the sixteenth woman to receive a pilot's license… so like wow well done. So she's not known for being like the first pilot which I saw often. People are like this is the first female pilot. No. Like because once you have your pilot’s license you're a pilot in like my book. And I guess like you could be just a female and just be like this is my plane now I'm gonna press the button and go zoom.

Lexi: Do you need a license to be a pilot? Like if I’m in a plane and I’m flying it, aren’t I a pilot?

Alana (quietly): Oh my god.

Haley: So, she's training a lot and she's really into it and her popularity keeps growing because she just keeps trying to get into different organizations especially for female flyers. And on June 17th 1928, she departed from Newfoundland. (And let me just do a preface to the universe if I do not pronounce something right, kindly call me out on it) Which is a large island off of, like, off the North Americas near Canada so up north from us with pilots Bill and Slim. Those are their nicknames, but it's Wilmer Schultz and Louis Gordon. So she was with Bill and Slim. There she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and she later, like right after, soon after became the first woman and second person to fly across the Atlantic alone.

Lexi: Alone.

Haley: Alone. So I couldn't find any definitive research but for her– the flight that she's known for like going around the globe which, I will absolutely talk about, I don't know what alone means for these planes because when she went around the world she was with another guy. Like she was a pilot but then there'd be a navigator so theoretically there are two people.

Lexi: I think it’s without a co pilot so you don't get a break.

Haley: Yeah.

Lexi: I think when– based on my lady who we’ll get into I think anything that says solo it doesn't mean no one else was in the plane– it might mean that but it means no one else piloted while you were piloting. Like you didn’t go take a nap.

Haley: Yeah so like when we say alone, at least for Lexi and my human, there is usually a navigator so it's not her just chilling out in the plane.

Lexi: Cuz they didn't have the fancy machines.

Haley: Exactly. And her navigators are predominantly male. Or at least the two that they talked to.

Lexi: Juicy.

Haley: Yeah so it's not like a full on lady ship flying through the air.

Lexi: Lady ship flying through the air!

Haley: After this flight especially where she flies across on her own, she's just mega popular. This is where her name really becomes a household name, she probably gets the nicknames Lady Lindy, she calls herself A. E. as her own nickname. And I'm gonna just go on my own little tangent of some of the cool things and like… just tidbits about her that I found out from honestly the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis which I was like… alright here we go. The first thing is when I found out that there was the navigator I didn't realize what the navigator was. I thought like what Lexi said like it's the copilot but no. So she had to stay awake for all these trips. And I was like wait how did you do that because like I can't do that I really thought the navigator was a co pilot and you just get kind of like the… for academic papers you have the co authors but there's like the first author and the second author and you usually remember the first guy's name. But no she's flying the whole time. She didn't like coffee or tea like any like those caffeinated drinks. So she would use smelling salts to stay awake. They still have like one of the like little tiny glass bottles of smelling salts in their collection and I'm like… okay. That like creeps me out I feel like that's a little sketchy but like and probably not healthy but I'm not a medical professional so I'm not gonna give you advice.

Alana: Cocaine!

(Lexi laughing)

Haley: That's the thing I tried seeing like they were– in the collection and just like with what I was saying smelling salts, it didn't say what the smelling salts were… and I wanna know what it is.

Lexi: Yeah, you know like when a lady faints when a lady... a lady faints you give her the smelling salts.

Haley: Like 1930s smelling salts has to be mixed with something weird because we were still in the place like Coke still had cocaine.

Alana: Laced with cocaine!!

Haley: Okay yeah and then–

Alana: I mean, we're not a hundred percent sure that it's cocaine.

Lexi: That was just– yeah.

Alana: That's just us being funny I don't wanna get sued. We don't know that it's cocaine!

Haley: I love that now we have to preface that we're just crazy people. So the other thing that I found that this was kind of like “Oh, I should have known this” or like “this makes sense” is that you know how she has like the iconic goggles and leather cap? She hated those things. At least the goggles, she hated wearing them that's why most of the pictures she's not wearing them and it's like our drawings, depictions, us reproducing something of Amelia Earhart has the goggles. But she would put them on right before the runway and then take them off immediately at landing because like you had to wear them with the dinky planes that they had. But she still was like I'm not about it. But however what she did like was just fashion in general. She did even have like she went on to create like her own clothing line that was actually advertised in Vogue, and I'm trying to find like a copy of it. I’ll keep you all updated but yes she was part of the international organization of women's pilots. I think she even like helped create it, but it's called the Ninety Nine and it's a non profit that provided networking, mentoring, and flight scholarships or opportunities for other women and out of this they kind of have like their own like clothing line for pilots because obviously it was a male profession, for the most part. She was like the sixteenth person to get a flying license. So they kind of like created their own uniform and had their own uniform to sell. Vogue picked it up and I thought that was also really cool because she's predominantly known for flying solo across the Atlantic and attempting going around the globe which she dies in. Like she– all the things like if you just see like or at least what I did for my Google search just typing in her name all the first things will say like her death something about her death which I'm actually gonna go into right now. So her flight was in a Lockheed Electra 10 E., and her navigator was Fred Noonan. No idea, I had no idea this was a thing. She had a navigator so she wasn't alone in this. And this was their second time attempting, or at least Amelia’s second time attempting. The first time she tried taking off from California but crashed into Honolulu. This was gonna be like even longer. I think there's like one guy who did this before… I have his name even. Wiley Post had flown around the world in seven days and he was like the first aviator to accomplish this. So she was going to be like the second person but the first woman to do this and hers was gonna be even longer because she was predominantly gonna take the equator and just like go around the equator… belly of the Earth. But she didn't make it. They lost contact around like July 2nd. I think she had like seven thousand miles left. Like she was like almost there like they had like she was on this journey for a while and then there was a day of just them not having contact and this is where we also get this whole story on like what the line of events whatever that saying is… the happenings of her life get a little hairy. Like this is where like Nat Geo had one thing to say, Time magazine had another, a quick YouTube from like a documentary had like the third thing to say. But basically on July 2nd she lost contact. We really don't know what happened after that. It's not like the last contact is “we're headed for the Pacific Ocean.” So that has opened up to years and ongoing research like still happening research on what happened to her. She was declared dead after two years of her disappearance. So people like have said she's died and it's in like so it would be 1939 I believe it was like January first or January second just how the law works. And her husband, George Putnam, who’s an author, publisher, and explorer– or was he died. And she wrote to him “Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be a challenge to others.” Which… is true. So many people wanted to be Amelia and like she’s still an icon in lady history like we're doing it right now.

Haley: Haley here, with somewhat of an update or an addition to Amelia’s story from this News 10 ABC article that’s linked in the show notes… where a man in San Diego found four letters that were hand written to Captain Fred Noonan, Amelia’s navigator, giving details about their journey around like the globe. This was their big one. There was dates between 1935 and 1937, one specifically postmarked to June 23, 1937, from The Grand Hotel in Indonesia. And there are a bunch of different articles about finding these letters, and I’m just using the one to hammer out the main points, which means that we now know the last correspondence of Amelia and Noonan before disappearing. And one of the letters actually was seventeen pages long, detailing specific dates, locations, and weather challenges. So, where are these letters? The family of the letters have not decided where they should go, but the article alluded to the possibility of the letters being on display in a museum, or at some point in the eye of the public, that we could learn from and kind of get some closure on Amelia Earhart’s story and her trip around the globe.

AD BREAK

Alana: I'll go next because talking about the Night Witches, Night Witches. Just kidding, we don't, that's I. P. don't sue us. The Night Witches were an all female air regiment in World War Two in the… in Russia in the Soviet Union which I learned in my research that Russians call it The Great Patriotic War so that’s something fun

Lexi: Okay. Alright. Okay. That’s juicy.

Alana: That’s juicy. So this all female air regiment was started by a woman named Marina Raskova or the Soviet Amelia Earhart. That's like her fun little nickname. I did learn about this story from Drunk History. So obviously since we're gonna be talking about the Soviet Union during World War Two I just want to say: Stalin is a bad dude. The only good thing that Stalin ever did was fight Nazis. And that's like that one Onion it's like the Onion or some other like comedy news article and the headline just said “oh no the worst person you know just made a good point.”

Lexi: Mm. Yes.

Alana: That's how I feel about Stalin. There’s a Guardian article that I'll get to a little bit later and it interviews some of these Night Witches and they call Nazis fascists and I'm like oh honey I got some bad news for you. I got some bad news for you.

Haley: Wait hold up so you're saying like...

Alana: I’m saying that Stalin is a fascist.

Haley: No no I know but like he didn't like he said a no no to the Nazis, so like the people who are like “Nazis are chill” you're worse than Stalin is that really where you want to like, the hill you want to die on? Is being worse than Stalin?

Lexi: That's what she said? I don’t think that’s what she said.

Alana: I don’t think that’s what I said.

Lexi: I think she just said the Night Witches don't like fascists, but the guy they loved was a fascist.

Alana: Was also a fascist.

Haley: I thought you were going– my brain just went straight to… from Stalin not liking Nazis to these girls potentially not liking Nazis and I had to be like hold up. Are you saying they’re like worse than–

Lexi: I don't think, I don't think Stalin liked Nazis and I don't think these women liked Nazis.

Haley: People shouldn’t like Nazis.

Alana: We’re gonna go on the record, we're gonna say people shouldn't like Nazis. So, I did learn about the story from Drunk History season six episode fourteen. I'm gonna reference that a couple times, the storyteller is Jess McKenna and it's very funny but that's it because they're not sponsoring us. So the Night Witches were started by Marina Raskova. She was a navigator in the Red Army so like we were saying there's someone in the plane who like tells you where to go and what to do but who isn't flying for realsies and that was what Marina did and we are on a first name basis because we're tight, we're best friends and she definitely one hundred percent has not been dead since 1943. That's just we're just tight, we’re close, me and her ghost. Not– just kidding. So women were barred from combat in the Red Army and for a lot of modern history.

Haley: Go over what the Red Army is.

Alana: The Red Army is what the army was called in the USSR that's like what they call their army was the Red Army because communism. And so the women were really only allowed slowly into the army because Russia was taking devastating, crushing, horrible losses. And Marina was getting letters from civilian women who wanted to help and they were like “Marina you're so cool you're amazing because you're fighting and we wish that we could fight” because they are losing their husbands their fathers their brothers their sons. So she goes to Stalin and says “Hey, Joseph can I… I’m like, here can I please start some all female air regiments… maybe.” And Stalin says yes. One of the articles I read implied that he maybe only said yes because he was attracted to her and, yeah, that article was written by a man. But she gets this dispensation and she gets all of these women to come in and be pilots. But now that they're in the army they're facing some sexism as is kind of to be expected tragically, tragically to be expected. They're facing sexual harassment which I mean it's still a problem in the year 2020, like nothing changes. It should but it doesn't. But more systematically they have the worst they just have bad equipment. They're getting hand me down uniforms from male soldiers that are way too big so they're like stuffing boots with socks and like everything is super baggy. But let's talk about their planes because that's what we're here for the planes, we’re here for pilots. They're flying training planes. Polikarpov PO-2 biplanes. They’re twenty years old. They’re crop dusters. They have no cockpit protection and they can't go high enough, which you wouldn't want them to because they don't have any cockpit protection. They have to fly at night because they can't go high enough to be out of view. And also, news flash, this is something fun that people might not know, this is just a fun fact. Fun fact: Russia is cold.

Lexi: I had no idea.

Alana: Yeah so these women are getting frostbite. And if you touch the plane it's like so cold that it'll burn your hand. You know what I mean?

Haley: So like, opposite of Amelia's problem.

Alana: Yeah, opposite of Amelia’s problem, exactly. So they’re just like the worst planes ever and they don’t go that high. Like normal equipment radar, radio, fucking parachutes are too heavy for these horrible planes, so they don't have parachutes until 1943. And they can only carry two bombs, each plane can only carry two bombs at a time and they have one under each wing. And so they're going back and forth from their little safety where they store the bombs they're going back to safety and then across enemy lines. And they're dropping bombs and they’re coming back and get more bombs they're going back and just like back and forth back and forth eighteen times a night. But these women are so dope and so good at everything that this is how they get the name Night Witches. It comes from the German Nacht Hexen which means night witches and the planes are too small and too quiet to show up on radar or sonar. But the sound of them coming sounds like a sweeping.

(Lexi and Haley make general noises of understanding)

Alana: So it’s like… their planes are brooms, women are riding them... they’re witches.

Haley: Right.

Alana: But these slow planes end up being kind of a blessing or like a silver lining, sort of, because the fast planes can't go slow enough to shoot them down. Because aerodynamics. Period. Like, that's why big planes need big long runways because they gotta build up enough speed so they don't fall out of the sky. But these slow planes can’t go fast, obviously, duh. News flash, fun fact: slow planes can't go fast. Fast planes can't go slow. and so it's super difficult for them to like– for the Nazi planes to attack the Night Witches’ planes because they can't like keep pace with them, even though they're slower. This 588th air regiment, which is the Night Witches, they're so badass and they're so prolific and they're killing so many Nazis that anyone who shoots down a Night Witch gets the Iron Cross which is the highest honor in the Nazi army. All you gotta do is shoot one down and you get the Iron Cross so–

Haley: That’s like zero to sixty right there.

Alana: It's zero to sixty. So we're gonna talk about real fast just like the women themselves besides how dope and cool they are. They have twelve commandments, and the first one is “be proud that you are a woman.” I cannot find the other eleven. I have no idea what the other eleven are.

Lexi: Do the other ones matter if the first one’s that good.

Alana: I guess not. This is the gender divide in my sources as well, as the ones that men wrote were like “look they're doing all this all these like womanly things” like they would embroider and wear eyeliner and that kind of fun stuff. But women like Marina, who would look at them and who wrote that and would say be proud that you're a woman because you're doing this crazy stuff you're killing all these Nazis and you're also doing it as a woman so you’re double the badass. One of the… I'm gonna talk about Raisa Surnachevskaya who flew while she was four months pregnant. She was up in a plane, shooting down Nazis, four months pregnant. So that’s pretty dope.

Haley: Alrighty then.

Alana: And there was this camaraderie between these women especially Raisa Surnachevskaya (as I said) and Tamara Pamyatnykh and in this Guardian article from 2001 which is very, it’s so from 2001. Tamara is reminiscing about it and how she took out two bombers before being shot down and she's worried that she hadn't done enough that night and is so wo– like she is remembering looking down from the ground thinking that she left Raisa, her “wingman”– her words– her wingman all alone in the sky to fight Nazis and that was very moving to me. I would be worried if I left either of you up in the sky to fight Nazis I’d feel bad too.

(Lexi and Haley laughing)

Alana: I would. The author of that made a point to say, like he's praising these women and then he's like “today's tw–” because they were young, like young women going to fight and he’s like “today's twenty one year olds wear nightclub clothes to work” and I was like did you really have to do that.

Lexi: K. bro.

Alana: Okay, brah. I was like did- did a woman write this. No, a woman did not write it and I was like hmm.

Lexi: [sarcasm audible] And there definitely aren't women in the military in any country in.

Alana: In any country in the world.

Lexi: There definitely aren't. Anywhere.

Alana: All men.

Lexi: Yeah, they’re all men now since there is no big war.

Alana: [laughs] Since there’s no big war.

Lexi: Since big war over women go home back house.

Alana: [laughing] Um...

Lexi: Wear night club clothes work.

Alana: Oh - Yeah, wear nightclub clothes work. So just some statistics there are four hundred women in the 588th night bomber regiment. They flew thirty thousand missions and dropped twenty three thousand tons of bombs and they were the most decorated unit in the Red Army and here's where- do you guys wanna like real fast guess how this story ends.

Lexi: They were decommissioned when the war ended.

Alana: They were disbanded six months after World War Two ended.

Haley: There we go.

Alana: And they were not allowed in the victory parades because-

Haley: Yup.

Alana: - their planes were too slow.

Haley: That tracks.

Lexi: Yup, that makes sense.

Alana: So that's fun.

Lexi: Big war over, go back house.

Alana: [laughs] War over, go back house. And they didn't and then the USSR like collapsed and one of the women who is living in like Latvia I think is not allowed to wear her, her like military medals because of how–

Lexi: Oh because she’s a veteran of the USSR but then they left the USSR.

Alana: Because she's not a citizen of Latvia and she’s not a citizen of the USSR. Like she's a citizen of the USSR.

Lexi: Right.

Alana It is really tragic to read about. And this guy was like twenty one year olds today wear nightclub clothes to work. I'm like well some of them work at nightclubs so shut up. Um and that made me real, real mad. To read that article. But it’s important.

Lexi: But you learned about the cool women. Even if it was-

Alana: I did learn about the cool women and I learned about how much they liked each other. Uh it made me feel really good. That they were like, yeah.

Lexi: Sisterhood.

Alana: Women supporting women.

Lexi: The sisterhood of the flying -

Haley: pants.

Lexi: brooms. The flying pants.

Alana: The flying pants. The sisterhood of the shitty airplane.

Lexi: [laughs] Yes! The sisterhood of the shitty airplane.

Haley: The little airplane that could.

Alana: Little airplane that could, exactly.

Lexi: That would make a great anime.

Lexi: So the reason that I knew that the story of your, your group of women ended with them being decommissioned is because I have the American equivalent story to your story.

Alana: Gasp

Haley: We just went full circle.

Lexi: Let me tell ya.

Alana: Full circle we did it. We did segues you guys.

Lexi: We did it. So did you guys know that before there was ever a man on the moon there was a woman who wanted to go to space.

Alana: That makes sense.

Haley: That tracks.

Alana: I did not know that but that makes sense.

Lexi: I'm gonna tell you her story.

Jacquelyn Cochran was born with the name Bessie Lee Pittman in 1906 in Pensacola, Florida which is one of my favorite city names to say so I'm very happy that's where she was born I find Pensacola to be a very funny word and she was the youngest of five children. Her father worked as a millwright so they traveled around Florida he built mills to mill things and later in life Jackie would claim that she was adopted and raised in poverty but in reality this was her biological family and while they weren't rich they lived a pretty average life and there was always food on the table and they always had like what they needed to survive a very average life for people in the early nineteen hundreds and in 1920 when she was just fourteen she married Robert Cochran who was how she got the Cochran name and the couple had one child who was named Jack and he died really young so when Jackie decided to leave Robert she adopted the name Jacqueline Cochran so she kept her married name and she used the name Jacqueline to honor her son who passed away really on. And she left Robert because she was like not about being a young wife and she moved to New York City where she was able to land a job working at Saks Fifth Avenue which at the time was like the thing to do department stores were brand new.

Haley: Oh yeah.

Lexi:. . . like it was awesome to be there and she became a hairdresser and stylist and she was doing cosmetic work at Saks Fifth Avenue which at the time was like the glamorous job and. . .

Haley: This is giving me some Marvelous Mrs Maisel vibes.

Lexi: Yeah exactly.

Alana: I was just gonna say that.

Lexi: Like if you were a young hot woman this was the job for you so um, while she was working in New York, Jackie met the man who would become her second husband Floyd Bostwick Odlum and Floyd was a CEO. He was at the time one of the richest man in the world -like- some sources say he was in the top ten richest man and he offered to help her start a beauty business under her own name and she was like that's a great idea I love beauty stuff but at the time he was still married to another woman so they had to put a hold on that project until he can get a divorce. Also while working in New York Jackie became enamored with aviation and she saw a plane and her friend was like do you want to go in the plane I'll put you on the plane and so she started taking flying lessons in the 1930s at Roosevelt airfield which is located on Long Island so super close to where she was working in New York. She started to fly and she earned her commercial pilot's license with just two years of flight experience and you do have to log a lot of hours to get your commercial pilot's license so she must've flown a lot in those two years. And in 1936 Floyd finally left his poo poo first wife and married Jackie and they founded a cosmetics line and because of her new found obsession with flight they called the cosmetics line Wings to Beauty.

Haley: I love that.

Lexi: Hoping to capitalize on Jackie's unique position as a female aviator Jackie went on a promotional tour and she flew across the country to promote her new beauty products and since it was a -like- airplane themed thing they thought you know that'll be that'll be cool.

Alana: Winged eyeliner.

Lexi: Yeah and because her husband-

Alana: We’ve come full circle.

Lexi: I know, I know. And as her husband was so influential and stuff he was even able to get celebrities like Marilyn Monroe to like wear her lipstick to like promote it. So you would think this is just some cute girl who has a plane, a cute rich girl with planes and cosmetics but the truth is Jackie was a badass.

Haley: Of course.

Alana: I already thought she was a badass. She truly contains multitudes.

Lexi: She does. So while she was like an icon of the beauty industry what truly makes her story so interesting is this dichotomy that not only was she like a beauty icon and an aviator but she was like one of the best pilots of all time. In 1937 Jackie set the world's women speed record in flight so she flew the fastest a woman had ever flown in a plane in 1937 that same year Jackie was the only woman to compete in the Bendix race, Bendix race I might be saying that wrong but it was a famous race for planes, plane racing the competitors flew from Burbank to Cleveland nonstop and the fastest time was the winner. She was not the first woman ever to fly the Bendix Ameila Earhart actually flew it two years earlier but the difference is Amelia got fifth place when she flew in 1935, the second year Jackie flew which is 1938 she won. She was the fastest person, she beat the man in the race and that that race was really not accepting to women it was very hard for women to get in it, so was a big deal that a woman had beaten up on the man in the race and then she set a transcontinental speed record and broke barriers by setting new altitude records, so she flew higher than men had flown in a lot of places. So prior to the United States joining the war effort in World War two, Jackie didn't want to just sit on her butt. She was really upset about what was happening in Europe and she knew she wanted to do something. So American companies were building aircrafts to supply the British military with planes and so Jackie joined an organization with a bunch of other aviators that was called Wings for Britain not to be confused with Wings to Beauty and it was an organization for a elite American pilots who flew newly constructed military aircrafts to Britain to support the war effort and by participating in this organization Jackie actually became the first woman to fly a bomber plane across the Atlantic Ocean, because she had to get it to Britain. And um that was just the beginning of Jackie's participation the war effort she got really devoted to it and she became really passionate about it, so while she was in Britain she helped the Royal Air Force recruit qualified female pilots from the United States to participate in their Air Transport Auxiliary which it was a group, an organization, that ferried items.

So they didn't drop bombs, they were non combat, but they carried supplies so they would carry supplies to the army or the airforce or like carry things from one place- point A to point B. And she basically helped them recruit American women because America was not yet involved in the war and she was actually given the rank of Flight Captain in the British Air Transport Auxiliary, a rank that's actually called into the position of Major in the U. S. Air Force because she was so active in recruiting and training women while she was there. And in 1939 Jackie wrote a letter to the White House back in the US and she addressed it to the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt because she knew that a fellow woman would listen to her she didn't think if she sent it to Mr Roosevelt it would get read. She knew Eleanor would read it, because she probably heard of her beauty products and she probably knew that she was this famous aviatrix and so she sent it to Eleanor and...

Alana: Aviatrix is one of my favorite words.

Lexi: I know it’s a good word.

Alana: You like Pensacola, I’m like aviatrix.

Lexi: An aviatrix born in Pensacola.

Um so she proposed starting an American version of this auxiliary, an American Army Air Force auxiliary of women who were non combat pilots and Jackie argued that women can complete all of the non combat aviation jobs, thus freeing up more male pilots for direct combat as America became more involved in the war. So you know what we're about to get a war where a lot of guys are going to die, a lot of bomber planes are going to go down, and you might need women who are already trained pilots to come in and help you because it takes a long time to learn how to fly a plane. And there are all these women who are flying planes already. So this organization would be the American equivalent of that auxiliary in Britain and at the time the army like not the Air Force army which at the time the army and Air Force America were one thing but the Air Force was like under the army branch so the army itself had started the WAC, which is the women's army auxiliary corps program and it gave non combat jobs to women so they could work in the army army not the air force part of the army and Jackie felt it was possible to expand that to the people in the air so from the land to the air they could include the auxiliary for women so despite the shortage of qualified men who are pilots there was hesitation to Jackie's proposal from leaders in the U. S. military they were like we can’t have women flying planes. And so Lt. General Henry H. Arnold whose nickname was haps which is the lamest nickname I've ever heard.

Alana: It’s like, it’s like um, in your yearbook have a great summer hags.

Lexi: HAGS. Um so he asked Jackie to find out how many female pilots there were and to recruit and take American women to Britain and observe the auxiliary that was there and then use that information that her in those women could gain to possibly found their own American group. It was like I don't want to test this here but if you keep bringing women over to America er it's over to Britain which she was already doing if that goes well, maybe I'll let you approve doing that in America. So then in 1943 which was 4 years after she came up with this idea the WASPS were born and I would just like to say that the WASPS is the coolest name and the fact that we don't have that name in our military anymore especially for pilots because wasps fly. It's really sad so WASPS stands for women's airforce service pilots and this was a group where Jackie was the director and another female pilot named Lovelace was like the co director she's also really famous really popular so if you're interested in female pilots, check her out, but basically in this role Jackie supervised the training of hundreds of female pilots and they became part of World War 2 effort. They transported items, they never saw combat, they were not as dope as the Night Witches. And first service during World War 2 Jackie earned a Distinguished Service Medal, which at the time many women did not earn these types of honors it was a really big deal that she earned that award and the WASPS were disbanded after the war ended. And Jackie was hired as a magazine reporter. She just moved on with her life what somewhere else and the WASPs were never to be seen again, and to be fair now women can become pilots in the modern Air Force but it is a little sad that we don't have anything called the WASPS anymore.

Haley: Are there any other like acro-names? Names for-

Lexi: Yes. It’s in WACS, the WASPS, and the WAVEs. The WACS in the army, the WAVES in the Navy and the WASPS are the airforce, during uh World War II.

Haley: Uh, WAVEs like the ocean.

Lexi: YES. If you don't know a lot about women's participation in World War 2, I have recently become a nerd about it - mainly because the names are good and the recruitment posters are even better. I would have probably signed up, just from the propaganda.

Alana: Just from the propaganda no Lexi!

Lexi: So yes, so she became a magazine reporter. She traveled the world and the purpose of her going around was to document like post war life like how were different parts of the world adjusting to post war life. She was even at like the Nuremburg trials and stuff. Like she was really involved in post war were to break down. And she actually became the first non-Japanese woman to set foot on Japanese soil after the end of World War 2. Which is like pretty crazy. She just flew in there, landed, got off the plane. Um in 1948 Jackie joined the Air Force Reserve. She was one of the first women to actually technically become a member of the Air Force by serving in the reserves because technically the WASPs were an auxiliary. And she remained a member until 1970, so majority of her life she was in the reserves in case there would ever be another war effort she would need to participate in, she wanted to be ready to go, ready for battle. And during this part of her flying career she actually attained the rank of Colonel which is like a really high rank in military systems, so she was very well renowned and regarded. And Jackie was the first woman to break the sound barrier on May 18, 1953 she flew 652 miles per hour to break the sound barrier. They called her the supersonic lady in the news articles which is pretty cool.

Alana: That’s the nickname.

Lexi: In the 1960s Jackie wanted to go further than the sky. She wanted to go to space. And she became a financial sponsor of the women's Mercury program. There'd been a man's mercury program which had basically been a program to test people to see if they would make good astronauts and so the doctor that did that was like women would be really good in space why don't I test them. So the Mercury program was intended to train women to become astronauts and the belief was that women would make great astronauts because they were on average smaller so they were less weight and less height and they usually consumes less water, food and oxygen than men apparently. I didn't know that I thought I, I think I eat a lot but you know what now I think about it, maybe my brother eats more than me so I guess it’s good.

Alana: That's the same logic that they're using like they're talking about the first manned like manned mission to Mars is possibly going to be all women because they take up less space and don't consume as much.

Haley: Because we’re tiny.

Lexi: They’re a littler people, but not really.

Alana: It’s true.

Lexi: I mean on average we are shorter so that's why. So Jackie was really frustrated because the the male doctor who is doing the testing for Mercury. Of course, it was a male doctor. He had really strict age requirements. He wanted the women to be like in their twenties - very young, very fit and he would not allow married women or single mothers to participate so if you were married or had children you could not participate in this program. And Jackie was married and 50 and so she was a little teed off because the whole reason that her and her husband were drowning money into this is because she was going to become the first woman in space. Yes- she was in her fifties, she was married, she technically did not qualify, but she convinced the doctor to let her participate in the test along with the 19 other women. So they selected 20 people total including Jackie and the tests were really intense. They had icy water shot at their face to induce vertigo.

Haley: Ugh.

Lexi: They were put in deprivation tanks to disturb their sensory functions and see what would happen when they were like deprived of all their senses.

Haley: Are those like the salts pods, cause I've done the salts pods where its like they-

Lexi: I don’t know..They put you on a thing and close the lid and you can't-

Haley: Yeah yeah so I’ve kinda done that where it's like I’ve done one where it's as salty as the dead sea, so you float, and you're in like the pod and it's completely dark and you just like float there. The only light is like the one green light so you know like where the button is if you're like in sos mode but it's supposed to release like toxins like because your body is kind of just letting itself go in a sense. I felt like high or like lighter. It felt really weird afterwards. It was not like it's not an experience I want to do again.

Lexi: Yeah I mean these women did not like it and Jackie did not pass the test. 13 pilots did pass. So they had 20 female pilots to start, 13 passed, 7 were not selected, Jackie being one.

Haley: How pissed was she?

Lexi: There are there are like- There is evidence to suggest that she like screamed and flipped out. There like first hand accounts from other female pilots who were there that like she was like cursing out the doctor but he told her she had underlying heart conditions that she didn't know she had and that she should probably stop flying all together which is like you don't tell someone that when that's their life you know. So they called these pilots that Mercury 13 and they were going to be- stop being pilots and become astronauts. So most of these women, they quit their jobs they told their families I'm heading out. They were going to move to Florida where the training base for astronauts was at the time and this at this point NASA not yet- it was like not yet completely in charge. The Air Force is actually doing most of the astronaut training and then later it would go under NASA does not make sense so the Air Force was highly involved in this so these women were going to go to where the Air Force's training astronauts. A week before they were supposed to leave, the program was canceled and the women were told not to report for training. And the 13 women never made it to space. There are cute little pictures of them as old ladies from like 20 years ago where they're like we almost when into space.Uwu. And it's so sad because these women were supposed to be the first woman in space. So Jackie spent the rest of her life advocating her belief that women were fit for space and that women made sense as astronauts. Unfortunately, Jackie passed away in August 1980, which is a little less than 3 years before Sally Ride was sent into space, so she never saw a woman go to space. Even though that was like her life, life dream.

Alana: She just seems really cool. I like her. That was a good story.

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Patreon at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review, or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History, we're having our own version of Shark Week, with ladies who've done some things in marine biology.

0 notes

ikdramamain · 7 years

Text

get to know me tag!

tagged by the goddess @meanyoongis, thanks ily <3 & @minmayhem <3

tagging @seokjinings @xseokjiin @leeskyung @jemcarstairz @floatingdownthemoonriver @profilerrynn & @allonsy-allie

sorry if I always tag you, guys, ur my faves so yea. if this annoys you just ignore it :)

THE LAST: 1. Drink: still water 2. Phone call: mom 3. Text message: from my internet friend 4. The song you listened to: Intro: Dt sugA (ft. DJ Friz) lit the only artists (BTS, Suga *my love*) i'm listening to lately ㅋㅋㅋ 5. The time you cried: okay i don't exactly remember this but probably over a heartbreaking scene in a drama or BTS touching moments wins over me ever time haha

HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: if being with someone for less than two weeks & not making clear if it was "dating" then it probably wasn't even once lol not including makeouts lmao 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: not sure maybe 8. Been cheated on: i guess i've never rly had a proper bf so nah 9. Lost someone special: nope i guess 10. Been depressed: and also in hell thank u life & stupid reality 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: don't even make me remember that friend's bday party, okay? worst experience of my life

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: purple/violet/lavender - they're all pretty similar?, sky blue, gold i'm also weak for pastel/neutral pastel colors

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: yees 16. Fallen out of love: yes (?) 17. Laughed until you cried: yes! 18. Found out someone was talking about you: yes, unfortunately (no one can rly avoid this, let's be honest) 19. Met someone who changed you: not sure, probably not. 20. Found out who your friends are: yes 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: yea

GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: i used to be in the stage when i accepted & added strangers but not anymore and now i mostly use fb to chat with my friends, so let's say 70%? 23. Do you have any pets: no but a dog would be nice 24. Do you want to change your name: i don't rly like my birth name but i wouldn't no which name to choose from 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: nothing special, just a family dinner & later hanging out with close friends, i don't rly celebrate my birthdays 26. What time did you wake up: 9:55 am 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: watching ep 11 of fight my way 28. Name something you can’t wait for: tomorrow's 3-day trip to Prague with both of sisters

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: lit this morning when she barged into my room and rushed me to wake up lol 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: instead of immigrating to czech i'd prefer korea or somewhere else

31. What are you listening right now: right now the sound of a kitchen hood 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: lol yeah 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: mosquitoes & flies i have to kill in the middle of the night 34. Most Visited Website: Tumblr & Google

ABOUT YOU 35. Mole/s: aside from the small ones i have a big one on the right side of my neck i also have one on my right wrist, JP! 36. Mark/s: scars from small injuries, permanent bruise on my right shoulder since the day i was born 37. Childhood dream: all my childhood dreams are crushed & only remained in my fantasy

38. Hair color: pure asian black (is that a color idk) & 10 cm of faded purple highlight into bronze blonde 39. Long or short hair: medium length 40. Do you have a crush on someone: MIN YOONGI THE LOFML, KIM NAMJOON'S ENGLISH & PHS 41. What do you like about yourself: smile i think 42. Piercings: 3 regular earlobes in both ears, 1 cartilage piercing in right ear 43. Bloodtype: N/A ehem idk this omg *embarrassed* 44. Nickname: Lils, Lil

45. Relationship status: not single nor taken, simply on reserve for the one who deserves my heart(◡‿◡✿)

46. Zodiac: aquarius 47. Pronouns: she/her 48. Favorite TV Show: too many but i love swdbs, riverdale & teen wolf 49. Tattoos: none 50. Right or left hand: right 51. Surgery: none 52. Hair dyed in different color: yes 53. Sport: basketball team in primary school 55. Vacation: england, vietnam 56. Pair of trainers: nike air

MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: tasty food 58. Drinking: any flavored ice tea is my life saver 59. I’m about to: make a fmw gifset & finish this travel guide in english thing to get the certificate 61. Waiting for: idek what shud i expect from my salty-bitter-non-sweet life so yea 62. Want: a lot of things but will very likely never get 63. Get married: once i'll successfully settle in work 64. Career: idek what to do the next day let alone thinking about what i'll become in future but i used to dream about becoming a writer which again will never happen bc of my poor vocabulary yea

WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: hugs bc it's cuter

66. Lips or eyes: eyes

67. Shorter or taller: taller

68. Older or younger: that depends

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: arms i'm weak for nice arms

71. Sensitive or loud: neither

72. Hook up or relationship: relationship

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: ugh. smth in the middle i guess

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a stranger: does meeting that person & introducing ourselves on that day count? 75. Drank hard liquor: yo 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: i don't wear any 77. Turned someone down: yes 78. Sex on the first date: no 79. Broken someone’s heart: not sure tho 80. Had your heart broken: yes, sadly 81. Been arrested: not yet haha 82. Cried when someone died: yes 83. Fallen for a friend: yes and ehem... awkward

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: ugh i shud tho but it's hard tbh 85. Miracles: yes (?) 86. Love at first sight: if celebs count there were numerous of these cases lol 87. Santa Claus: sorry, santa, but u got no jams 88. Kiss on the first date: i've never rly dated well i don't count those as "dates" so no 89. Angels: yes~

OTHER: 90. Current best friends name: @xseokjiin i'm helpless trash haha & i don't have many friends irl + most of them, like all i guess lol, suck so yea 91. Eyecolor: dark brown 92. Favorite movie: love, rosie

#gosh this is ridiculously long #don't expect anyone would read this #about me #tag games

5 notes · View notes

shaecanilao · 4 years

Text

JUST LIKE THE MOVIES EP. 2

A/N: This is supposedly 2/3, but will I really be able to finish everything in 1 last chapter? HAHA

“Scott?” Dani looked at the guy from over the fence.

It is really Scott.

“Hi Dani!”

“Hi. Nice to see you here.” Dani looked at me and decided to get out of that awkward situation leaving me by myself. “Anyways, I better get a stick to fish out that ball before Donut gets upset.” And, she’s out.

“I see you’ve been friends with my boy right here.”

“Right, yeah. Fluf…I mean Hunter is a really good dog.”

I walked towards Fluffy (he’s still more of a Fluffy than Hunter to me, that will never change!) and patted the dog’s head. I threw his ball and he made a run for it.

“Do you play with him regularly?”

“Well, it was really just me and my dogs before. He probably got jealous since he had no one to play with so he started coming here. So, I played with him.”

“He likes you.” Those eyes again. Damn Scott, it’s 7 in the morning.

“I like him, too.” But, I played along. “You know, I just had to ask. Don’t you live in Hollywood? How are you…how are you here in Boston?”

“Someone’s searched about me.” He smirked.

“First of all, everyone knows that. I didn’t really have to ‘search’.”

“Really, huh?” he laughed. “But to answer you, that’s just a diversion to get away from paparazzi.”

He seemed to be telling the truth so I didn’t pry anymore. I just wanted to get out of that situation and let it sink in. We’re neighbors. What happens to our plans now?

“Anyways, I gotta go back in. I’ve got some errands today so I better rest up.” He nodded at me and I went on my way. “Donut! Bagel! Let’s go back inside.” I opened the door and they followed me inside while Dani is right by the kitchen waiting for me.

“Why is 12 here?!” she asked way too loudly.

“Can you stop calling him that? He may hear you! And, I don’t know! I should be asking you that. You’re his producer. Why don’t you know where he lives?”

“I’m his producer. I’m not his agent nor assistant. How am I supposed to know that? We’re not even friends. We’re acquaintances at most. Why don’t YOU know that?”

“I’ve slept with him once. I’m not gonna ask him about those stuff!”

“But why do you look so worried? Aren’t you supposed to be happy right now? More 12’s for you.”

“Oh my god, stop saying that word.”

She laughed at me and stood up. “I’m so excited for you, Lil.” She winked at me.

Dani’s right. I should be happy! But, I don’t want to get too involved with Scott. He’s still my favorite actor after all. He still makes me nervous and all logic gets thrown out the window when he’s around me which can be bad news at times.

I go back to work the following day and it was a chance for me to avoid Scott all throughout the week. I diverted my attention to work and fixing all the contracts that I need to sign for the movie. I’m lucky my boss is lenient and supportive with what I’m doing. It also helps that I work in PR so getting all those connections through the movie will get me a better leverage in my job. Dani’s right again. Agreeing to this movie stint did open up a lot of opportunities for me.

It’s Friday night and exactly 5 days since I last saw Scott. We’re staying in to have a movie date to make up for the busy week. Both Dani and I are also so excited because my appearance in the movie will finally be announced tonight! As few articles popped up on Google with my name on it, we can’t help but jump around and celebrate. Bring out the booze!

“Scott Rivers Confirmed To Star With Rookie Actress Lily Dewan. Introducing New Actress Lily Dewan. Who Is She? Oh my god, it’s real!! You’re gonna be big, Lil. I can feel it.” I can’t help but laugh at her as she stands on the couch like she’s reading the headlines on a big crowd with a glass of cocktail on her hand.

“I still can’t believe it. It’s actually happening.”

“It is real, Lil. I’m so proud of you. In 6 months, you’ll be off to your promo tour! You’re not in the background anymore. This time, you’re the one that’s going to be interviewed. Can I get an autograph now?”

“Well thanks to you too. Dragging me to places finally paid off!” Our celebration was cut off by someone ringing the doorbell. “Are you expecting Matty to come?”

“No, we’re seeing each other tomorrow.”

I opened the door…and it’s Scott.

“Hey.” I said. I suddenly realized that I’m wearing nothing but a tiny satin set of pajamas and a breeze of cold air ran through my back.

“Hey.” He said as he not so subtly checked me out from head to toe. “We’re having a party next door. I figured you guys may want to join. You’ve met some of the people there too.”

“Hi Scott!” Dani interrupted. “Is it a party that I’m hearing?”

“Hi Dani! Yes, Eric and the others are here too.”

“That sounds great. We’ll follow in a few. We’ll just change into something more decent.”

“Awesome! See you in a bit.”

I closed the door behind me and Dani is about to come up the stairs. “Dani, what was that?”

“You we’re gonna say no. I could sense it from a mile away.”

“Shouldn’t I? Aren’t we supposed to stay in tonight?”

“We agreed to stay in because we didn’t have any better plan. But this, this is a better plan.” She started dragging me by the wrist to make me go change. “Now go and change. I’ll meet you downstairs in 5.”

Okay, fine. A little party can be fun right now.

Some of the crew from the movie are indeed there. It was nice to see people I worked with outside like normal people – no huge headsets on them.

Hours passed and tipsy me wandered in the kitchen to get myself a glass of water when I heard soft cries from upstairs. Fluffy! I searched the room for Scott to ask permission to go upstairs but he’s nowhere to be found so I made myself welcome.

Fluffy’s lying down at the top of the stairs like he’s waiting for someone to come and get him while his owner is out there partying. “Hi, love. Are you bored?” As soon as he heard my voice, he perked up and started wagging his tail. I walked up to the stairs and sat beside him. He laid back down but is still wagging his tail enthusiastically. “You’re lonely here all by yourself, aren’t you?”

I was quietly soothing Fluffy’s back when I heard someone coming up the stairs.

“There you are.”

“Hi. Sorry I came up without permission. I heard him crying earlier.”

“He can probably sense that you’re here.” He also sat next to Fluffy. “Whenever I have parties, he just sits on my bed and waits for me. It’s weird that he’s out here.”

I laughed at that remark. This clingy clingy dog really likes me. “Well, Fluffy loves me. Right, love?” With his head down, he wags his tail in agreement.

“Oh no,” Scott says. “I think he’s got a new favorite. Hey, no fair. I feed you every day!” he jokes.

“How are you, Lily?” I looked up, shocked at his sudden mention of my name. “I haven’t seen you all week. Caught up with work?”

“Well, yeah. I was gone for many days so I need to catch up. Plus all the contracts that I had to sign. Definitely a long ass week.”

“I have an interesting idea.” He shoots me with that look again.

I can’t help but laugh at his attempts in making a move. “How can you manage to make every conversation sexual, really?”

“I’m smooth like that,” he says but he’s suppressing a laugh. “Besides, I think you had fun too. A 12, right?”

Now, how did he…?

“What?” My eyes widened with shock. “What…12?” Oh god. I suck at lying like this.

It’s his turn to laugh. “Dani’s not exactly discreet that one morning. I put two and two together and thought what it meant. It was a guess, but based on your reaction I think my guess is right.”

He comes closer to me and whispers, “Want to experience a 15?”

“Oh Rivers, I have high standards.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

I never got to go back to the party.

As I wake up the next morning, only Fluffy is lying beside me probably waiting for me to get up.

“Good morning, love.” I can’t find my clothes anywhere so I grabbed the shirt that Scott was wearing last night. Fluffy and I walked downstairs only to see Scott himself in his boxers, in the kitchen. Oh, good morning.

“You’re awake! Come try this.”

“What’s that?”

“One of the few things I can cook. Egg toast.”

I’m standing in between him and the counter as I take a bite on the toast that he made while his proud face is waiting for my reaction. “How is it?”

“Hmmm…a 12.”

He instinctively grabbed on my hips as he laughs. “I��m still a 12? Damn, I gotta work on that.” He starts pulling me close but I realized that I’ve got errands to do – important errands. Errands that can’t wait. Errands…that make a good excuse. “We have plenty of other time, Rivers. I need to do grocery today. Our pantry’s empty and Dani’s gonna kill me if we get takeout for dinner again tonight.”

“Wow, you cook?”

“I don’t just cook. I cook well.” I winked. “Anyways, I gotta run. I’ll borrow this shirt and steal this toast. I’ll see you soon.” I tip toed and stole a kiss from him before I escaped from his hands.

As I was opening the door, Scott says “Hold on. Can I go to the store with you? I need to grab something too.”

“Sure. I’ll message you when I’m about to head out.”

I looked around if there’s anyone outdoor before running for my own house.

“Oh my god!” Dani squealed in shock when I hurriedly opened the front door. “Oh, missy. You’re finally home!”

“Looks like something fun happened last night.” Matty, Dani’s boyfriend, pops his head from the living room.

“Matty! Nice to see you!”

“Hi. Are you…did you come from the neighbor? You’re hooking up with your neighbor?” Matty and his judgy questioning look is very much obvious.

“I’ll fill you in with the details. We need to go.” Dani rolled her eyes and proceeded to drag her boyfriend out of the house. “Are you doing groceries today, Lil?”

“Yes, I’m just gonna wash up and change. Are you staying for dinner, Matty?”

“Only if you’re cooking something nice.”

“I will!”

“I’m staying then.”

“We’ll you later, babe!” Dani shouted as they walk out the door.

We’re casually strolling around the grocery grabbing stuff here and there. “You know, I almost forgot that you’re popular until I looked at you now and you’re wearing shades and cap inside the store.”

“Just in case. It’s just more fun being able to walk around without eyes looking at you wherever you go.”

Popular or not, for sure people will still stare at you.

“What did you say?” Did he hear me?

“Nothing. I said it must be hard being too popular.”

“At times, yeah.” He grabbed a bag of flour. “Do you need this?”

“Yes, get me 3 bags. I’m baking stuff next week. Oh by the way, wanna come over for dinner later? I’m cooking a little extra since Dani’s boyfriend is here. If you wanna join too, just let me know.” I said as I was picking up a bag of sugar across the aisle.

“Ohh will I be introduced already?” he laughed.

“I’m inviting you for the food. Don’t go if you don’t want.” I jokingly told him.

“I’m kidding! Of course I wanna get a taste of that…whatever it is that you’re cooking.”

When we got home, he went straight to our house to help me unload the car. Then, he just stood by the kitchen counter watching me whip up something for tonight. Not long after, the lovebirds arrived. Since Matty didn’t look so shocked seeing Scott in our kitchen, I can tell that Dani has filled him in which is great since there’s lesser chance of him asking something stupid.

Fast forward to 5 months later, our group lunches/dinners became a habit. Sometimes we’d come over to Scott’s house or we’d drive all the way to Blackstone to visit Matty. It also helped that Scott decided to take that whole time as a break before he went to shoot another movie.

Yes, our little escapades went on. The fact that we’re neighbors obviously made things easier to get around. All my nervousness when Scott’s around has completely gone away. Most of the time it’s because I honestly forget that he’s all that.

We’re in the backyard playing with the dogs when the doorbell rang. Since Dani is out, I went to get the door myself. My parents! It’s their first time visiting us in the new house. They probably just wanted to check how Dani and I are doing. Oh no. Scott’s still out in the back.

Just as I remembered him, he comes walking inside the house with no shirt on “Babe, is that the pizza?”

Mom looked at me with questions in her eyes.

“Oh, hi.” is all that he was able to say when he saw the middle-aged people in the house.

“Mom, this is Scott, our neighbor and a friend of mine. Scott, my parents.” I saw the horror in his eyes as he quickly wore his shirt and came closer to shake their hands.

Oh my god, I’m gonna be in big trouble. Not because I have a guy in my house…but because I’ve got a guy in my house! It’s complicated. My parents are the type to bombard me with questions whenever they know I’m dating someone. I’m 27, has a relatively well-paying job, and can afford a house of my own. I should get married! I’m not kidding. That’s the only thing they want me to do.

I went to the kitchen and prepared snacks and juice for my parents. I left them in the living room and Scott seems to be mingling well with them. That’s worse news.

I called in Scott to the kitchen.

“Rivers, I need you to scoot out.”

“What? Why? We’re having such a great time there. I thought I’m gonna be in trouble for looking like that earlier.”

“It’s hard to explain, but they aren’t going to live this down. For sure they’re gonna ask a lot of questions about us.”

“Then, answer them. We can answer them now, actually. What’s so wrong with that? I don’t want to be rude and just leave without a word” he’s still smiling at me. “I’m gonna go back there.”

As he was walking past me, I grabbed his arm. “Scott, I’m serious. Make an excuse. I don’t care. Just please leave.”

“Are you ashamed of me? Is that it?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“I can tell them that we’re just…”

“Scott, stop trying to be a nice guy here. You’re not my boyfriend. We’re not dating. You don’t have to pay respect to my parents. We’re just neighbors who fuck. That’s it. Now, can you just listen to me and go home?”

He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me in disbelief. While shaking his head, he said “Neighbors who fuck. Yeah, that’s what we are, aren’t we? We’re not even the least of friends. Not even acquaintances. We were never more than that – neighbors who fuck.”

He walked to the living room and excused himself from my parents saying that his agent called him up or something and out the front door he goes.

The day passed real slowly after that. My parents waited for Dani to arrive and left soon after she got home.

I skipped dinner and went straight for a glass of cocktail when Dani sat me down in the kitchen stool.

“Are you alright? You’ve been looking dazed ever since I walked in.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so. What happened? Is it Scott?” I smiled at her. “I know that face. Did you guys fight? You’re not even dating yet. Wait, did he meet your parents?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh shit.”

“I know.”

“What did he say? Did they freak him out?”

“Worse.”

“They got along.”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him to stop acting like a boyfriend since we’re just neighbors who fuck.”

She looked at me like I’m the stupidest person in the entire world and I probably am. I create problems for myself. Problems that I have no idea how to solve.

“Lily, the guy has been there for you for months on end. I know that your set up is all about hooking up and not catching feelings, but it doesn’t mean that you have to push him away completely.”

“It was stupid. I was harsh and I didn’t even realize it.”

“Do you wanna hear what I honestly think?”

“Will you not say it if I say no?”

“No, I still will.” I know that for sure. “When I told you to go out there and have fun, to sleep with whoever you want to, I didn’t mean for you to do literally do the whole fuck-and-go thing. I wanted you to open up to other people and most important of all, open this…” she poked on my chest, “open this again. I know you’re scared. Scott could sometimes be too much to handle. I’m not telling you to run after him and confess. What I’m telling you is, give this a chance. You know it doesn’t have to be love. Maybe it’s friendship or companionship that he gives you. I don’t know. Only you two can answer that.”

Dani’s words rang through my ears, give this a chance.

As I was sipping the last drop of cocktail in my glass, Dani’s phone rang.

“Babe? Yes?” Dani frowned. “What? Now? Lily, can I borrow your phone?”

I gave her mine. “What’s wrong?”

She went on Google and I peeked on the screen only to see a photo of myself…and Scott in the grocery store.

Scott Rivers Travelled To Boston To Visit Hot New Girlfriend Lily Dewan?

Oh, no.

#thoughts #fillerepisodelmao

0 notes

chorusfm · 5 years

Text

Liner Notes (December 21st, 2018)

This is the second to last Liner Notes before the end of 2018. This year has been impossibly long while flying by at a record pace. It makes absolutely no sense. I hope everyone is gearing up for a nice weekend and preparing to spend the holidays in whatever way makes you happiest. I plan to spend some time offline, reading, and enjoying the company of family. As a little holiday gift, I’m making this version of Liner Notes, which are usually exclusive to supporters, free for all. This week’s roundup includes my ranking of All Time Low albums. After discovering these “do teens know 2000’s pop-punk” videos on YouTube (and immediately feeling old as hell), I got on a pop-punk kick and ended up listening to their catalog all week. I also share my thoughts after spending a week with Apple Music on the Amazon Echo, ten songs I loved this week, and, of course, my weekly media diet. The supporter Q&A post can be found here. Five Things * This week I did a deep dive on the All Time Low discography, and I’m ready to do some ranking! * Future Hearts: My re-listens solidified it for me that this is my favorite album from the band. It combined a variety of aspects I think they do well, while also playing around with their sound enough to keep it fresh. From “Cinderblock Garden” to “Runaways” to “The Edge of Tonight,” this is just a giant batch of songs I enjoy from top to bottom. I think it combines their pop-punk/rock leanings with just the right amount of a more modern pop styling. I also think Alex sounds as good as ever on this record. * Don’t Panic: This feels like the slightly more “rock” version of Future Hearts to me. A lot of the same sounds are there, they lean into the rock side a little bit more on a bit more of the songs, and therefore it has a little more bite to it. Some great stuff here like “Backseat Serenade” and my favorite, “Outlines.” I’m surprised by how many little moments this album has that elevates it. That little clap like sound on “The Reckless and the Brave,” or the Green Day-like opening to “For Baltimore.” This is pop-punk that doesn’t feel like it’s leaning too hard on nostalgia; almost feels like what Blink-182 were trying to do on California, but didn’t quite get all the way there. (I’d be down for a Mike Green produced Blink-182 song.) * Last Young Renegade: I’m surprised how much this album has stayed in my rotation over the past year. I knew I liked it when it came out, but I didn’t think I’d still be playing it. I’d venture a guess this moves up my ranking list as time goes on. “Dirty Laundry” and “Afterglow” really show the band’s songwriting growth. I hope they continue to play with this direction and don’t abandon it too quickly. It suits them as they move into a new stage of their career. * Nothing Personal: What hit me the most about this album, released almost ten years ago, is how modern it sounds. The songwriting, structure, production, isn’t nearly as dated as I was expecting. The lyrics … well, they’re a little rough in places, but songs like “Lost in Stereo” and “Walls” hold up quite well. * So Wrong, It’s Right: This album always felt to me like it was trying to be too much like the pop-punk classics that came before it. It wanted to be a Blink/NFG album. I guess, with time, it’s now become a classic of its own. It’s still not my favorite, there are too many songs that don’t work for me, but there are some certified greats on here. “Dear Maria” and “Six Feet Under the Stars” are great (although, I prefer the acoustic version of the later). * Dirty Work: Listening to this now, it’s … not as bad as I remembered. There are some huge sequencing issues, and if you cut some songs, and play around with the track listing, I think there’s a semblance of something better here. I still don’t think the album lives up to what came before or after, but there’s a few songs I’ll remember to come back to more frequently than I have in the past. I may even flirt around with cutting together something I could listen to front to back. I can’t get over how bad “That Girl” is. * Put Up or Shut Up: This was a rough listen. It’s the band trying to make their best Fall Out Boy-esque impression, in lyrics, vocals, and style … and it is tough to get through. * The Party Scene: I didn’t like it in 2005. I still don’t. * Conclusion: This band went from one I enjoyed a few songs from, to one I saw a lot of potential in, to one I thought missed their chance, to one that’s released three incredibly solid albums (that I genuinely like) in a row. They’re a band that’s found a sound I could say is very much their own, while being influenced by all the bands I grew up loving. They have a lengthy discography, it’s full of good to great songs, and they seem only to be getting better. I hope they keep making music and I hope they keep walking down this path they started on their last two albums as songwriters. They’re a fun band that’s impressed me with their longevity and maturation into a band I’m legit excited to see where they go next. * I liked this write-up from Craig Manning about Bruce Springsteen. I’ve never loved Bruce to the level that Craig (and Thomas Nassiff) love Bruce, but I will always love reading about artists someone is passionate about. * The post about the glitter bomb vs. package thief was exceptionally popular on the website this week. In an otherwise slow news week, I found that funny. Also what an incredible contraption. * We are finalizing our contributor end of the year list, and we’ll begin writing blurbs and putting the entire feature together over the next two weeks. I really like my final list; some years I’m more tepid, but this year, this year feels good. I like how everything is shaking out, and I can’t wait to read everyone else’s picks and find stuff I slept on. * I spent the week playing around with Apple Music on the Amazon Echo. It’s nice. I enjoy being able to play most songs by saying yelling them out into the air. I’ve used it to play my Best of 2018 and Holiday Music playlists, and it works great. The big missing feature is adding iCloud Music Library to the collection. Right now I can’t play songs that aren’t in the Apple Music library but are in my personal collection. So, for example, I can’t ask it to play the new Copeland album even though the files are in my library and I can play them on the Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and my computer. Hopefully, that feature gets added in the future. The other flaw I’ve found is that the shuffle kind of sucks. My “paired down to favorites” Holiday Playlist has 150 songs on it. I’ve played it three or four times this week. Put it on shuffle each time. And I heard mostly the same batch of songs. Something’s not quite right there. (Some Googling showed this being an issue for Amazon Music and Spotify listeners as well.) Music Thoughts * Beside doing a full All Time Low discography deep dive, I didn’t listen to much else this week. I spun my playlist of favorites from 2018 a few times, to see if I wanted to tweak any ranking of albums, and also played quite a bit of holiday music around the house. I tried to get caught up on some podcasts, but that’s sort of failing. * The A Very Spidey Christmas EP that was released today is quite a bit of fun. * I also really like the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse original score. (I also found this tweet thread about it fascinating.) Entertainment Thoughts * I enjoyed The Myth of the American Sleepover. In some respects, it’s a lesser Dazed and Confused, but it’s still the kind of movie I enjoy watching and have always had a thing for. A little slice of life in a group of teenagers lives, when done well, is one of my favorite genres. * First Man was quite good. It’s probably my least favorite Damien Chazelle movie at the same time. I thought it was well shot, well acted, well scored, and the sound design was fantastic. It wasn’t as gripping as I expected, it didn’t quite get as deep into what drove Armstrong as I would have liked, and even though the movie was long, I would have loved some more history/story. Even with all that, this was a great watch, and I’ll see it again. * Dumplin’ on Netflix was endearing. A great little film to watch during the holidays when you just want your heart to grow three sizes and enjoy a nice night of entertainment. * It’s been a long time since I’ve watched Home Alone front to back. It was everything I wanted it to be. I remembered the entire movie and loved every second of it. I still remember my cousin seeing this movie before me and telling me in detail every single beat. I begged my parents to take me to see it the next day and laughed and laughed. It then became a tradition to watch it every Christmas. I’m going to have to make sure to bring it back out and get it into the rotation with A Christmas Story and other holiday classics. And never forget: Fuller not only wets the bed, HE LIKES WETTING THE BED, that little monster is excited about the opportunity. * I was pleasantly surprised with Bad Times at the El Royale. It’s a little too long, wears the influences a little too much on the sleeves, but it was very entertaining. I’d say I was pleasantly surprised and came away enjoying it way more than expected. Now, I must know: Is there a clause in Chris Hemsworth’s contract that says he has to be shirtless in each movie? Because that’s just genius. That dude’s body is ridiculous. Either way, this was a good way to spend an evening, and it kept me guessing through most of the movie. And those god damn abs … seriously. * Office Christmas Party is a very bad movie that for some reason we put on while wrapping Christmas presents last night. It’s totally not good, and yet it’s oddly perfect to watch, and chuckle at while doing something else. I think that comes down to the likability of Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. * The Good Place is still one of my favorite shows. Episode nine of season three, “Janet(s),” was just incredible. * I am unreasonably excited for Titans tonight. Ok, the preview shows Batman, so it’s not unreasonable, it’s just tickling the Batman part of my brain, and that means I don’t want to do anything else — I just want this damn show to download so I can watch it. Without having seen the final episode, I’d say this season ended up being quite good. I enjoyed it for what it was more than I expected and like all the characters and can’t wait to see where it goes from here. Dick Grayson has been played so well I actually would love to see him in movies. He’s been great. * We’re two episodes into Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season two. It’s everything I wanted it to be. Can’t wait to get back into this world and really have the season settle in. I hope to binge more of this over the weekend and early next week. * We don’t talk enough about how Ross has a monkey in Friends. Seriously, that’s the pet … that’s the storyline for multiple episodes … his monkey. And he’s the one everyone I knew wanted to be like; dress like; act like. The nineties were wild. * I’m up to issue #797 of Amazing Spider-Man. I hope to crank through the rest of Dan Slott’s run over the weekend. After that, I’m going to get caught up on Spider-Gwen and as much Scarlet Spider as possible (who stars as my current iPad lock-screen wallpaper). Random and Personal Stuff * My weight dropped more than I would like this week, so I’m adding a few more calories. I’ve sort of slipped into the bad habit of being ok with going over my set limit by 100 or so each day because my weight was right where I wanted it to be, if not a bit lower, and I need to be better about figuring out the right calorie goal instead. It is nice to not stress as much about these things, however. Last night I had some gummy candies, and an extra beer, and woke up this morning and being .8 lbs under my goal weight. That’s a welcome change. The holiday week will be a test to make sure I don’t get carried away. Lots of family meals out which are hard to track correctly. * For the past three years Hannah and I have had a tradition where we get each other a Christmas ornament. We write the date on it and add it to the tree. It’s a fun little way of remembering our life together. This year she got me a Batman and Spider-Man set. Because of course. I bought a few glass bulbs on Amazon and then printed out the little write-up/speech I used when I asked her to marry me. I cut the speech up into long slices, curled them up, and put those in the bulbs with some red and green ribbons, along with some printouts of the date we got engaged. I thought they came out pretty well. That’s an idea you can steal. * I’ve been keeping the Q&A thread updated with my thoughts as I build out the new “thread ignore” system on the website. I should have that completed right after the holidays wrap up. It’s a good, useful, feature, but I’m most excited about fixing up some of the design stuff and using the new thread view tweaks to add even more new features in the future. Like, I get why this is needed, but adding features to the website that everyone will be able to use and get value from, versus one that’s built around hiding things from the site, are always more fun. I think some optimization/bug fixes will be what I work on right after finishing this up. I’ve noticed some stuff, while coding this, that I want to go back and clean up a little. * Holiday get together with my dad tonight, holiday happy-hour/visiting The Grotto over the weekend with Hannah’s parents. And then we plan to order Chinese food and play board games on Christmas Eve before spending the day with Hannah’s family, and the evening with mine, on Christmas itself. That … that’s going to be a day. (Hannah read last week’s Liner Notes and didn’t believe me about how awkward some parts of my family can be. Then she went to the event. Now she knows.) Ten Songs Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days. * King Neptune – Terrify Me * All Time Low – Outlines * Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) * Daniel Pemberton – Security Guard * Shameik Moore – Joy to the World * William Ryan Key – Downtown (Up North) * All Time Low – Dirty Laundry * John Mayer – Home Life * Cat Stevens – Father and Son * The Blue Nile – From a Late Night Train The playlists are also available on Spotify and Apple Music. Well, that became a whole lot longer than I expected. I wrote so much after breakfast that now I need to get lunch. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and happy holidays as well. I hope the next week is filled with only good things, and if there are any struggles, that you can find the strength to push through. And, with that, I leave you with some Calvin and Hobbes: Previous editions of this roundup can be found here. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/features/articles/liner-notes-december-21st-2018/

0 notes

0225pm · 5 years

Text

time check: it’s currently 2:45AM and i just thought i should write something before i head to bed hahaha!

i’m not sure if i have to go to akmal’s graduation later cus idk if rayhan has already booked out or not but we will see later. hopefully i can finish typing before 330AM at least!

so today was a rather happy day!!!

i honestly felt really happy haha idk why but han was being so clingy and affectionate today i absolutely love it!! 🥰

around 3+, he texted me asking if i wanted to come over to his place and i actually had some grocery shopping planned but i decided to push it to another day so i can spend this day with him since this doesn’t happen everyday. then around 4+ he messaged me asking me if i know that he’s gonna be fetching me and i was like whaaaatttt??? ofc i didn’t know that la since he didn’t mention it beforehand but thank goodness i already showered, just had to prepare. i initially thought of going to his workplace to fetch him then go to his place together after that but since he said he was fetching me i took my own sweet time to prep hahahaha and then this bobo asked me if i can fry food for him lol 🙄 lucky for him the fridge has some frozen spicy nuggets and then my dad asked me to fry all the samosas since there were only 6 left so i did!

i didn’t know how many nuggets i should fry so i just went with the standard 6 and then added in 1 of the samosa to make lucky number 7 HAHAHA LOLLLLL. by the time he came, the food were already cold hahah but he still ended up eating it anyway cus he was really hungry and hadn’t had anything to eat for the whole day. his excuse? no time 🙄 seriously.... nak kene debik??? no time then must make time even if it’s 15 minutes, still have to eat something!!! cannot go back to your bad irregular eating habits of eating one meal per day!!! but ya so anyway, he drove on for quite a while to go back to the company and we managed to catch the sunset together. it was very beautiful i love watching the sunset and sunrise but if i have to pick one, i’ll pick sunsets cus the atmosphere is not as humid at night hehe 😛

han was being very affectionate in the van and lol i know mentioning this will probably make him do it less just to spite me 🙄 but i seriously love it when he’s all clingy and shooting all these cupid arrows directly to my heart hahahahah like i just instantly go all melty and warm i love itttttt 😍 and then when we reached the company, i really badly had to pee so he let me in and i felt so fucking relieved sia hahah cus i’ve actually been holding it ever since i left the house. i know i know.... why didn’t i go and pee before leaving the house??? well i wanted to but then i didn’t feel like it until after getting into the van and i didn’t want to make him wait so i just tahan all the way hahahahaha oh and did i mentioned that be cracked one super lame joke lol..... he asked what’s the diff between air and wind and i thought he was asking for real??? i didn’t know it was a nonsense quiz 🙄 but apparently the answer was - air is from the mouth, wind is from the butt. or something like that LOL lame la hahaha take the L bb!!!!

then after that we walked to the bus stop, and then took the bus to admiralty. i have to say, i really like it when han puts his hand around my waist. granted, i don’t have the nicest or smallest waist cus i have fats all around it but it still felt really nice to be held there. tbh, i used to not like that feeling cus i felt like it’s so weird?? sometimes i see couples doing it and i thought, how the hell are they walking with the hand around the waist???? but it actually felt really comfortable for some reason hahaha so ya i rly like it pls do it more often bb hehe 😚

then we had like some debatacle about the human organs and then he asked me which is the largest/longest organ of the human body. and i know what’s the largest cus it’s the skin. i watched this science video before and they mentioned it but he said no, it’s the brain. so i was like ????? what???? then i googled and turns out it’s the skin LOOOOLLLL and as for longest, i think it’s the liver. HAHAHAHA BOBO SIA THIS HAN but i still love you ok haha i love all your silliness and lameness 😘❤️ then we went to chateraise hehe and i got mochi as per usual and i decided to try one of their waffle looking ice cream yogurt. it tasted like coconut to me, han said it’s not bad. but he doesn’t rly like ice cream cus of the coldness to his sensitive teeth. so in general, eating ice cream is something rather rare since it hurts his teeth.

after that, we took the train and went to his area. i bought happy meal!!! cus i want to collect all the toys hehe and for the first one i decided to get the pikachu just in case it get sold out since pikachu seems to be one of the more popular pokémon. then i felt like the happy meal wasn’t gonna be enough cus well it’s basically just a kids meal - 4 nuggets and fries so i thought of getting something else to eat from kfc. but i felt like so muak liddat cus i can literally always get kfc anytime since there’s one at my area. so i told han that i’ll be getting some carrot cake maybe at encik tan but when i go there idk why but the picture looks kinda unappetitizing suddenly so i walked around the basement and finally settled for bread hahaah yaaaa i didn’t wanna eat carbs but i still got carbs in the end lol but guess what i didn’t even touched it and it’s now sitting in my room. i’ll prolly eat it tomorrow for breakfast hahaha! ok then after all that, we walked back to his place!!! i greeted his dad and then we sat in the living room. initially i wanted to go to his room and sit there but i saw his bro watching fortnite so i decided to stay and watched too and then watched both of them played a couple games of warfare and fortnite and fifa while simultaneously watching the series i’m currently watching on netflix - sabrina’s chilling adventures. i downloaded a few eps before meeting han just in case.

then han played a round of csgo i think on his pc and then i told him i was gonna go home hahahaha like i just wanted to see his reaction la tbh and he’s just so cute wtheck then after his game was over he came back and sat at the living room area and then we decided to watch the kissing booth which was on netflix hahaha and this bobo ah rly. i asked him if he watched before then he hesitated to answer but i knew he watched before cus he did sorta mentioned it once?? so i asked him why u watch again? then he said, cus u haven’t watch. then he smiled 😁 what a bobo!!!!! but ya we ended up watching till the end, somewhat. cus my driver came already and i had to leave. yeahhhh i had no choice but to book before 1am cus grab takes away hitch from 1-5am and hitch is rly the much cheaper option!!! and all those while i could tell han was alr rly tired and worn out but he kept fighting sleep. his eyes were red and he kept rubbing them lol all those are signs of sleepiness but he still kept fighting them off hahahaha silly bb. and he still managed to send me off all the way downstairs and kissed and hugged my goodbye in the lift before we go. also i think it was the first time(?) he actually said, see u tomorrow to me cus yeah haha we’re actually gonna meet again tomorrow it’s our weekly dating day hehe. i can’t wait to see his stinking cute face later and spend the whole sat and morning of sun with him laterz hehe.

ok time check: 3:27AM!! i managed to stay before my deadline timing for this post. goodnight world!

#adaywithhan #novemberwithhan #161118

0 notes

jeroldlockettus · 5 years

Text

Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357)

Ford Motor plans to cut $25.5 billion of spending by 2022 — and to monetize the data its cars collect about drivers. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

The Ford Motor Company is ditching its legacy sedans, doubling down on trucks, and trying to steer its stock price out of a long skid. But C.E.O. Jim Hackett has even bigger plans: to turn a century-old automaker into the nucleus of a “transportation operating system.” Is Hackett just whistling past the graveyard, or does he see what others can’t?

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

* * *

Stephen DUBNER: Okay, if I’m looking at your résumé, I’m not seeing C.E.O. of an auto firm.

Jim HACKETT: Oh God, you and me both.

And yet: he is.

HACKETT: I’m Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company.

DUBNER: I have to ask, how’d you get to our studio today?

HACKETT: A Lincoln Navigator.

DUBNER: When’s the last time you rode in a vehicle that wasn’t made by the Ford Motor Company?

HACKETT: Probably a year before I was the C.E.O. I actually had three other vehicles in my garage when I was on the board, and I got rid of all of them.

Hackett became C.E.O. of Ford in May 2017.

NBC 4: We begin with a big shakeup at Ford. Mark Fields is out and Jim Hackett is in.

NBC 4: I mean, look, let’s face it, Jim Hackett wasn’t on anybody’s radar when it came to automotive succession here at Ford.

One reason Jim Hackett wasn’t on anyone’s radar is that he’s not what they call “a car guy.” In Detroit, the world is pretty much divided into “car guys” and everybody else. Hackett is a 63-year-old Ohio native who started out in sales and management at Procter and Gamble; then worked for many years at the Michigan furniture company Steelcase, including 19 years as C.E.O.; and after that, he was interim athletic director at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, where he hired the football coach Jim Harbaugh. He did join the board of directors of Ford in 2013, while he was still at Steelcase. But, like we said: not an obvious candidate for C.E.O. of one of America’s Big Three automakers.

However, as it is often said: desperate times call for desperate measures. And the old-line auto industry definitely has an air of desperation about it. Consider the challenges. Decades of foreign competition; the rise of ride-share services and autonomous vehicles; environmental concerns and the rise of electric vehicles, especially the ones made by Tesla; the rise of urbanization, with all that bothersome walking and biking and public transportation; the steep decline in car ownership among young people specifically and, more generally, the fact that we seem to have passed “peak motorization,” as one transportation scholar puts it. So, yeah, welcome to the Ford Motor Company, Jim Hackett!

Most C.E.O.’s we’ve interviewed for our “Secret Life of a C.E.O.” series told us about their challenges and dramatic turnaround efforts long after the fact. Like Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo:

Indra NOOYI: [From “‘I Wasn’t Stupid Enough to Say This Could Be Done Overnight’”] A few months after I became C.E.O., there was a financial collapse. The retail environment changed, the U.S. market slowed down. So one had to learn in a hurry how to run this company through extreme periods of adversity. And there’s no book you can read.

But Jim Hackett and Ford aren’t reminiscing about tough times. They’re in the middle of it, right now.

CNBC: What wrong with Ford, what’s going on in Dearborn?

NBC 4: We’re now learning more from analysts who believe the turnaround is about to get very painful.

Bloomberg: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years; what’s going on with Ford?

What’s going on is … a lot. Hackett recently announced a huge restructuring plan, hoping to cut $25 billion in costs; this includes a lot of layoffs and a realignment of how Ford does business in Europe, South America, and China. Hackett also announced that Ford will cut way back on making cars.

NBC 4: Adios to the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on SUVs and trucks.

Hackett said at the time that Ford would, “focus on products and markets where we know how to win.” What will those products and markets be? Hackett, for all his old-school credentials, has long been enamored with the Silicon Valley growth mindset. Over the past decade, Ford’s research-and-development spending has nearly doubled, and Hackett shows no sign of slowing it down. This has led one industry analyst to say Ford is “burning a lot of cash in a lot of places”; another argued that Hackett will, “keep bleating buzzwords like ‘fitness’ and ‘mobility’ without any … real plan to remake the Blue Oval.” It’s recently been reported that Ford is considering some sort of merger with VW, the German automaker that’s got its own mountain of troubles.

If you had to make a bet on the future of Ford: well, the people who do make bets — stock-market investors — they’ve been pretty decisive:

BLOOMBERG: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years.

So how does Jim Hackett plan to turn things around?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system.

A “transportation operating system” sounds an awful lot like something a pure technology company might talk about. This leads to several questions. Can a traditional manufacturing company like Ford really turn itself into a modern tech company? What makes Ford think they can succeed, when the companies whose turf they’re invading — Amazon and Google and Uber — are already so good at what they do? And what, exactly, is Ford good at these days? Finally: will Hackett’s vision for Ford turn out to be a brilliant repositioning or a desperate grab for relevance?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that.

* * *

Ford C.E.O. Jim Hackett was visiting New York in late September, when we sat down with him in our studio.

DUBNER: Okay, so the late Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, was a great athlete and played center on the Michigan football team.

HACKETT: And an all-American as well.

DUBNER: And all-American, M.V.P. of the team, they won two national championships. You also played center for Michigan and are now the president of Ford. Tell me that’s just a coincidence. Come on.

HACKETT: That’s hard, isn’t it?

DUBNER: That sounds like conspiracy to me.

HACKETT: Yeah, and there’s a history there, quickly, with President Ford, because he was sitting in office when I played at Michigan. He loved the team, so he landed Marine One on the practice field, came and talked to the team, went to the training table with us. X-years later, when I’m running Steelcase in West Michigan, there happens to be a portrait of that evening. Someone brings it in, and it’s he and I sitting together. And so I became very close to him after he was president. I would talk to him often. Always before the Ohio State game, I would call him. And the one Ford story I love to tell is that when he was negotiating arms agreements with Brezhnev in Helsinki, they stop the negotiations so he can find out what the score of the Michigan-Ohio State game is.

DUBNER: Okay, so this is a parallel out of nowhere, but I think it’s appropriate. One of the reasons that football has become dangerous — on some dimensions, and less on others — the helmet was invented to prevent skull fracture, and it’s done a great job at that. Unfortunately, the helmet is such a good protector that it began to be used as a weapon.

Interestingly, with auto travel, cars have gotten so much safer over the generations, highways have gotten safer, etc. I don’t know if drivers have gotten any better, that’s hard to prove — and yet the last numbers I saw, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S., more than a million a year globally. It’s funny, when you talk to people, people are worried about terrorism. They’re worried about murder. But if you ask people how many people they know who’ve been connected with one of those things, very few have; whereas auto fatalities, we all know someone.

So I’m curious: you’ve taken over Ford Motor Company fairly recently and this is a way of transportation that totally changed the way that we live our lives — in many positive ways and some negative ways. So what I’d like to ask you is: consider for just a moment all the positives of auto travel to date, and all the negatives, and where you see the industry at the moment, and what are the big problems or what are the big challenges to address?

HACKETT: Well, only with you would I make a connection of football with that question, but like what happened in football, if we studied the mass of the players over that period: mass equals force, right? So the size of the players and your wise observation that they could move faster and not knock themselves out caused the brain to take 100 percent of the concussive shock. So all the design now in the future is about trying to push that outwards, and then change the techniques. Mass found its way in automobiles, too.

So the earliest one’s 1903 — 115 years, Ford is — Henry worked on an electric vehicle with Thomas Edison. He was a foreman in Edison’s factory. And the early models are really light, very small because they’re trying to use bicycle components and things like that. And then, as we’ve seen in history, as the mass gets bigger, mass production allows stamping tools to take really large sheets of metal and, for a fraction of the cost if you had to do this by hand, you get to have them wrapped around those skeletal structures. What’s cool about its is that the drive to get the vehicle more fuel-efficient means we’ve got to get rid of all that weight. In trying to do that, we actually are making the structures safer for crashes. And then, of course, this isn’t a reach prediction, but we won’t have crashes in the future.

DUBNER: Because of autonomous vehicles and software?

HACKETT: And sensing, and a third thing we’ll talk about, which is the cloud. A system that’s mediating the interactions of these objects. So, we have in computing, there’s packets that move really quickly. At an atomic level, they could run into each other and do harm, but they’re mediated in a way at the speed of light. So we can do this with the design of transportation.

At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, or C.E.S., Hackett and other Ford executives unveiled several components of what Hackett calls “The Living Street” and Ford’s vision of a “transportation operating system.”

HACKETT: Now, the power of artificial intelligence, the rise of certain autonomous, that are all going to be connected, for the first time in a century, we have mobility technology that won’t just incrementally improve the old system, but it can completely disrupt it. So a total redesign of the surface transportation system with humans and community at the center.

But he began by addressing the question that a lot of people had to be thinking:

HACKETT: You might wonder why a furniture guy would be asked to run an automotive company.

We did wonder, and we asked him.

DUBNER: So Steelcase was regarded as a great company to work for, which, I’m guessing, you had a little something to do with. And you were regarded as — the Wall Street Journal called you,“a pioneer of the open office,” and it really did change the way that we began to think about how an office should look and feel and work. So first of all, persuade me that the notion of the open office wasn’t just a commercial idea to encourage every company in America and the world to redo their offices so that you could sell more furniture. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

HACKETT: No, no, no. I’m going to endorse that notion, but I was not the father of it. By the time I came in as C.E.O. in the late 80’s, Herman Miller, Inc. was really the early purveyor of the open office, and it came from Germany. And the real movement really started here in New York. As the rents went up, it allowed you to get more density. That was really the underlying thing.

If I want to take credit for a movement, it was shifting the amount of space that you actually devoted to cubicles, and moving that to teams. So I call that “The shift between I and we.” But to make team spaces really cool and attractive, we had to do some unique things that weren’t being done. And I want to give credit here, I buy this really cool little company in Palo Alto called IDEO.

DUBNER: And they’re like a design consultancy? How would you describe them?

HACKETT: Yeah, that’s fair, and David Kelley, its founder, is noted for architecting the mouse with Steve Jobs in its first product. So Jobs hires IDEO to do design work from outside of Apple, forever. So right until when Steve passes away, he’s using IDEO.

I meet them and I start learning about the nature of a way work might be different watching how they work. I want to tell you, I was right about that. It actually changed the way teams work. And there’s another hour on that whole thing, but it leads to an important conclusion, which is that Steelcase needs to see itself beyond furniture and be about work. And if there’s anything that enticed Bill Ford about me, it was the notion that the company, almost as long-lived as Ford, finds a higher purpose that makes its market now bigger.

Bill FORD: I’ve known Jim a long time personally.

And that is Bill Ford, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, announcing Hackett’s appointment.

FORD: And we’ve always clicked in terms of thinking about the future. But make no mistake: he’s not just a futurist, he’s a very good operating executive.

Bill Ford said that Hackett had shown himself to be a “transformational leader” at Steelcase, that he’d made the company more profitable by seeking out a higher purpose.

HACKETT: I’m saying the same thing about Ford. I think our higher purpose is that the smart vehicle and the smart world have an interaction in the future that’s much bigger than it was in the past.

DUBNER: So as Steelcase is to being beyond more than work, even though it’s making office furniture, Ford is beyond transportation, being a mobility company, tech, etc.?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system that we can talk about.

Hackett’s involvement in the Ford overhaul began a few years ago, when he was just a Ford board member.

HACKETT: And it’s really straightforward. I’m on the board. I’m in Palo Alto with a meeting with the board and Bill, and we’re trying to get ourselves around the question of: how can we manage the core business and this emerging thing in parallel?

This “emerging thing” would come to be known as Ford Smart Mobility, a unit meant to boost the company’s role in ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles.

HACKETT: And I tell the C.E.O. Mark Fields — I have a great relationship with him — I say, “You know, you ought to get somebody to help you manage the emerging business. Your job is too big. You need to do this.”

DUBNER: And he said, “How about you, Jim?”

HACKETT: Within half a day, Bill came and said, “That’s a great idea, why don’t you do it?” And I thought, “Eh, I ran a company. I don’t want to run a company.” So it’s like two guys playing office. He goes, “Well, just be chairman and you can hire a C.E.O.” And as I look back on that, I was naive, because I couldn’t go in there and help invent it without running it. Then running it led to — I had nothing to do with Mark’s situation, I wasn’t in the boardroom anymore. I wasn’t reporting to them. So Mark’s evolution out surprised me.

DUBNER: You business guys and your business-speak. His “evolution out.” He was fired, right?

ABC-7: The Dearborn automaker parting ways with C.E.O. Mark Fields.

CNBC: If you look at shares of Ford since Mark Fields took over in July 2014, it’s down 36 percent!

HACKETT: Yeah. But he was ahead on a bunch of ideas and I would have loved the reverse role, could I mentor him — I was the old guy — could I teach him what we’re talking about. I mean, I miss having him right now with some of the issues that I’m facing, he really had mastery of.

DUBNER: Well, let me ask you a central question here, and I guess this speaks to your ascension as C.E.O. as well, because we tend to attribute failure and success often to individuals or to single events, when in fact the world is much more complicated, plainly.

HACKETT: That’s for sure.

DUBNER: Here you are, the older guy, as you said, coming in to the company, taking over when Mark Fields was put out. And you mentioned earlier that the big concern for the Ford Motor Company and Bill Ford was how to balance the core business — making vehicles — and the emerging business, which is this smart mobility, cloud-based, etc. My big question for you is: what made all of you think that Ford needed to be in that emerging business?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that, but I’ll tell you. The way you’ve got to think about competitive sets is: the nature of what makes a business win over time is not unlike any other kinds of system — the way our bodies win in the battles they have, or the way a football team wins, or the way a market moves. I’m a student of this, complexity theory, and what that tells you is that over time, you have to mutate and evolve, because the nature of random things is going to cause more things that come at you.

So let’s just be specific: in the auto industry, it’s the randomness of climate conflict. It’s a real science thing. We’re in support of meeting a really high standard. So this starts to birth Tesla and then you put a rocket scientist, truly, in charge of that, who has a computer background, understands design really well, and he starts to question the model of the way a vehicle’s ordered and built. So he’s got a lot of that right. And it’s just one. And then he gets copied and then all of a sudden there’s a company called Lucid Motors that Chinese companies put a lot of money behind. We looked at it. These are people that are redesigning the car business.

So the board sits there and sees this happen over and over again in other industries. You don’t want to be the one that does that. So the story I tell is: let’s play Kodak for a moment. And what you have to start with: the board is smart. They’re not dummies. They have the patent for digital photography.

DUBNER: They made one of the first digital cameras, right? They were there.

HACKETT: I know a board member who was there and the issue is: you make more money on chemicals and paper than you do this new idea. So if you’re just doing pure investment comparison, stay with the old.

So what a guy like me, having gone through this in another company, Steelcase, I’m trained now to look at that problem differently, and I frankly didn’t get to talk about that much in the boardroom, but maybe Bill picked that up. Now I’ve got to prove — I’m very confident here — but I have to prove to a lot of people that we can make the core business really profitable. We’re working on that and the disruption shouldn’t scare us at all because we can lead in some areas there. So when I’m done, no date on that, but I want to make sure we’re on the right track in both of those areas.

DUBNER: Before we get into the specifics, let me just, not challenge, but question the premise a little bit more, because if you look at business history, you just look at legacy firms generally, you see that technology and time are really tough on companies. Most companies don’t stick around for too long and when the technology changes enough, many companies try to adapt with the changes and very few do well.

G.E. is a really interesting example on a number of dimensions, they went very broad and so on. What makes you think that, with that substantial history, Ford is special, or that any legacy automaker is special and can adapt and add on the technologies that are so strong and powerful, but not get beat by the companies that are tech firms and telecom firms and so on?

HACKETT: Yeah. You’ve grabbed the essence of the challenge. The affirmation is: they did it before, we just forget.

DUBNER: What do you mean?

HACKETT: Well, we didn’t always have computing, in the way a factory was run. We didn’t have — the telephone wasn’t, I don’t think, in 1903, highly pervasive, right? So think of people being paid in the factory out of a paddy wagon with real cash instead of direct deposit.

So, actually, I have a theory about this, and I’ve not written, but talked to other C.E.O.’s and I get support. The notion is that over time, you have to think about the business over phases. You can say “past” but let’s hold that off. You think about “now” and “far” and I’m going to sneak a word in, “near.” “Now, near, far.” Now what separates those time spans, because we could just make up: what’s the future? Is it a year? Is it 25 years?

What I’ve bought into, it’s science-derived. In other words, what makes the increments grow in time is Moore’s Law. Reed Hastings is on a Charlie Rose interview, and Charlie says, “Reed, what do the people in Palo Alto know that everyone else doesn’t know?” And he said, “Moore’s Law.” And Charlie goes, “Well, I know what Moore’s law is.” And he goes, “Yeah, but Charlie, you don’t understand. We’re designing for the next iteration now.” That changed me, a number of years ago. So Moore’s Law only swallows you up when you don’t think about it. So imagine we’re in meetings right now where people are talking about technology and the vehicle and they go, “Jim, can’t afford it, it’s too expensive, people won’t pay for it.” Well, I know from my friend David Kelley that Steve Jobs would say, “I want it in now because I know the price is going to be one-tenth very quickly.” So he forced the design to adopt the next iteration.

And then, of course, in Apple’s case they made money right away. Ford’s got to find a way to make money faster on that kind of theory. So, in parallel, you’re not just trying to make the product adaptive, you’re thinking the business model is going to be under attack because the economic principles have totally changed over that time.

DUBNER: So what you’re describing now are the real economics, but added to your challenge, running a company like Ford, is stock market psychology — which is a whole other realm. It’s based on economics to some degree but then the market has its own ideas. So, I’ve read, and tell me if I’m wrong, I’ve read that one thing that led to Mark Fields’s firing from Ford was when Tesla, which makes many, many fewer cars than Ford does, beat it in market cap.

HACKETT: I never was in a discussion where that was cited. But let me just cite, I know about myself in this regard. There’s a fair amount of stress around: does Jim Hackett get that the market’s got to be rewarded for these great ideas? And I totally do. Because I did it once before, first of all. And the question is: is the design of the business such that there’s a patience factor here and you get rewarded? So let’s talk about Amazon’s profitability in its history. I mean, it took a while. Let’s talk about Apple. If you look at Apple’s stock price when Steve came back —

DUBNER: Took a long time.

HACKETT: Yeah, and what they want, which those two guys gave, which I know I’ve got to, is believable momentum. They could show the compounding of the number of customers, they could show the case of add-on revenue, they could show the case of users being delighted with products.

DUBNER: They’re also due — because their products were new though, I’m curious whether they get a novelty premium that you don’t get.

HACKETT: Fair. I think that happened with the automotive competitor.

DUBNER: So we should say, as we speak, Ford Motor market cap is about $37 billion and Tesla’s market cap is about $53 billion, which I’m guessing as the C.E.O. of Ford, whether you’re going to say it or not, is a little frustrating, perhaps?

HACKETT: We make a new vehicle every four seconds.

DUBNER: There goes another.

HACKETT: You get to observe — in their business model, they’re trying to get 20,000 of them — or whatever the number was built — in a quarter or something.

DUBNER: But if you were doing the business case: let’s say you’re teaching Harvard Business School right now and the case that you want to study is Ford Motor Company versus Tesla for the moment. And we know what Ford does, what they represent, how they make their money. And we know what Tesla does. And we try to project it into the future and see what the stock price is really all about. Make the best case that Ford is undervalued right now.

HACKETT: And I really believe this. You’re not supposed to, as a C.E.O., speculate on stock price, so all I can say is: I’m really optimistic about the price-earnings ratio that understates the real value. First of all, we’ve got an industrial price-earnings ratio of six or seven, something like that.

A company’s price-to-earnings ratio is a key metric used by investors to assess how the company’s share price relates to its true value.

HACKETT: And I asked Ginni Rometty today what theirs was at I.B.M. and I think she said 11 or 12, and we were discussing Microsoft’s probably in the 20’s, right? Now these three companies, all of them are actually dealing with bits and cloud structures and data, right? But one’s in the 20’s, the other one’s in the sixes. So the case I would make is that we have as much data in the future coming from vehicles, or from users in those vehicles, or from cities talking to those vehicles, as the other competitors that you and I would be talking about that have monetizable attraction.

Now, I talk to lots of investors and they go, “Got it. Boom. Thumbs up, Jim. Go for it. Can you just prove to us that you’ve got that working?” And what you and I just agreed when we saw some of the early tech startups, they could go to market with investors only seeing a fraction of what they were going to become, and that caused belief.

I mean, who am I speaking to, right? I think that’s unfair for industrial companies at 115 years old. We have a lot of talented people. We can generate returns on that invested capital. My belief is: we have 100 million people in vehicles today, that are sitting in Ford blue-oval vehicles. That’s the case for monetizing opportunity versus an upstart who maybe has, I don’t know, what, they got 120,000 or 200,000 vehicles in place now. Just compare the two stacks: which one would you like to have the data from?

DUBNER: I hear you entirely. But I also think, “Well, who are the companies that have been good at monetizing customer data?” And we can name them. There’s Facebook, there’s Google, etc. And have they already mastered or owned that market? So what makes you think that Ford can monetize that in any significant way, enough to invest in developing that whole scenario?

HACKETT: Well, first of all, we already know as a proxy that those really wonderful firms you talk about, like Facebook — we’re a great customer of Facebook, they love us. Google loves us, because Ford’s a big advertiser. So we talk to these folks all the time. But they don’t own the healthcare data market. They are not controlling aviation data today. They may be doing flight reservations. I mean, we can find proxies where there’s data and they don’t own it. Now let’s let that just be an argument that says they’re not everywhere. They’re very powerful.

The issue in the vehicle, see, is: we already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us. We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work; we know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house, because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we’ve got here with the data.

DUBNER: So the question I have is whether Ford necessarily has, not only a big role in that, but a big opportunity to monetize. So at the C.E.S. presentation, you rolled out a couple components of “The Living Street.” One is called the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

Marcy KLEVORN: Our Transportation Mobility Cloud, or T.M.C., will support the rapid development of services and applications that will enable people to move more efficiently and have access to smart, connected transportation.

DUBNER: Another was called C-V2X.

Don BUTLER: C-V2X, or Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology, has the potential to enable a city’s various components and applications to share information with each other, from vehicle to pedestrians and bicyclists, to the whole infrastructure, enabling collision-avoidance safety systems, traffic signal prioritization, and much more.

DUBNER: And one of the examples that your team gave was on the C-V2X component. They described a scenario in which a vehicle, “without requiring a network, can communicate when a driver needs help. Maybe he has diabetes and is going into shock … C-V2X can coordinate the response, the system can recognize the driver’s distress, send a signal to emergency responders … The vehicle can even send medical records for drivers who have opted in for that.”

So when I read that, why is this wonderful-sounding, but very-complicated-to-me-sounding solution — having the vehicle diagnose a medical emergency, for instance, rather than, say, a wearable medical device, which I’m wearing. My smartwatch is that now. And I saw a variety of examples of that in your vision whereby it seems like Ford is describing itself as a major player in this reimagining of the public square, the public space. I don’t understand what you bring to it that makes you think that you can be a big player in that space beyond the transportation component.

HACKETT: You mentioned the diabetic thing. I’ll give you a real one that’s working right now. The Los Angeles Police Department drives Ford Explorers. We have a high market share of police vehicles. In an application, that is one of our tests, they have this terribly sad story where an officer is on a mission, gets in a wreck. And the airbag knocks him out, so he dies. They can’t find him because they’re radioing him. I don’t know why they didn’t have G.P.S. or something like that, that positioned him.

What we’ve invented with them is that, every time the airbag goes off, it’s communicating its location. And now we have a team sitting inside L.A.P.D. right now, working on a dozen other ideas that we get monetized for because of the data they’re willing to share that helps build a response system for them. So that’s in use — like a person in their vehicle to the cloud.

The promise of the diabetic is: in India, this is really extreme, you can’t get an ambulance in to somebody that’s in trouble. The traffic’s too congested. The theory here is the vehicles give priority to that. So they’ll know where to go. So if you’ve been in an environment where the siren’s on, you go, “Do I go right or left?” The command will be the way air traffic is. They just tell a plane, if it’s on a collision course, they just go up or down, they don’t tell them to turn right or left. Our commands will tell you go right or left, and everybody’s moving the same way, and it knows what the oncoming traffic is doing. The simple transactions are Ford’s reducing the friction in somebody’s life.

* * *

Just a decade ago, Ford Motor Company was the most stable of the Big Three U.S. automakers. General Motors and Chrysler both declared bankruptcy during the financial crisis and received a government bailout; Ford didn’t, although, under then-C.E.O. Alan Mulally, it did accept some federal assistance. From both a financial and business perspective, Ford seemed to be in relatively good shape. But that’s no longer the case. Despite a strong economy and stock market, Ford has been struggling, even more than the other U.S. automakers, as evidence by its battered share price.

Ford is still the king of pickup truck sales, but Moody’s Investor Service, in a recent downgrade of Ford, cited “erosion in the company’s global business position and the challenges it will face implementing its Fitness Redesign program.” “Fitness Redesign” is Ford’s way of saying it’s downsizing and restructuring — a fate that Chrysler and G.M. had forced upon them during their bankruptcies. But which Ford, paradoxically, was able to avoid — until now. One big part of Ford’s restructuring has been Jim Hackett’s recent decision to phase out nearly all Ford sedans currently on sale in North America.

NBC 4 (DETROIT): Ford has decided to get out of the car game except for its iconic Mustang.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: So the sedan, as a platform, you’d be shocked at how the sales have dropped off globally for everybody.

It’s worth noting that just a couple decades ago, Ford’s Taurus was the best-selling car in America. But consumer preferences have changed; the price of gas is relatively low; and there may be something of an arms race among consumers, who feel that S.U.V.’s and trucks are safer — especially when you’re on the road with so many other S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: Yeah, well, definitely. I know with women buyers, they prefer the height, they just see better. It’s a function of seeing where you’re driving and the car’s relative position. But the other thing is: in the past, you would have to hedge if fuel prices went up, and the vehicles have gotten so fuel-efficient. Our F-150 — I give Alan Mulally a lot of credit for this, he aluminized the body of it.

DUBNER: Right, very controversial at the time. We should say that he was an airplane guy.

HACKETT: He was an airplane guy; he knew aluminum; he knew riveting; it was a really hard problem to rivet the panels. We have a lot of patents on that. But guess what: the vehicles — so this is a hard way to understand, but in the CAFE standards that are calculated for the world’s fleet, or in this case U.S. fleet, the vehicle that made the most progress in making it better is the F-150. Now it’s not as fuel-efficient as a smaller vehicle, but in contributing to global climate, it’s less of a problem.

DUBNER: But what about the profit margin; trucks and S.U.V.’s versus sedans?

HACKETT: Well, the reason you make more on them is because your price point’s higher.

DUBNER: Really? Pickup — I thought pickup trucks are cheap. We don’t have any pickup trucks in New York City, as you’ve seen.

HACKETT: So that’s the issue. But come with me to Texas.

DUBNER: No, no, no, I understand, I’ve seen the numbers.

HACKETT: I’m driving a King Ranch, which is the nickname of a luxury F-150. And I mean the leather seats and the ride —

DUBNER: That could run over the whole Ohio State defensive line, I guessing. Not that you would do that.

HACKETT: And the cool thing is: that frame — I don’t mean the physical frame of a vehicle but the idea of people sitting in vehicles like that — there’s another series below that called Ranger and it’s much smaller and it’s global and it’s very profitable. And we’re working on other ideas in that category, because people love these things.

This is the part of the Ford reboot story that you may find confusing. Which many investors seem to find confusing — or, to be fair, concerning. On the one hand, Ford talks about remaking itself as a technology firm, with their “Living Street” model and their “transportation operating system.” Earlier, you heard Hackett comparing Ford’s price-to-earnings ratio to those of I.B.M. and Microsoft, which are actual tech firms. So that’s the forward-looking part of the reboot mission.

On the other hand, Ford’s increasingly heavy reliance on truck and S.U.V. sales has more than a little throwback feel to it — especially in how the company markets itself. Jim Hackett says Ford is eager to collaborate with the Silicon Valley heavyweights in order to get a piece of their pie. But one TV ad in a new campaign called “Built Ford Proud” opens by mocking Silicon Valley. The actor Bryan Cranston, looking very Elon Musk-y or maybe Steve Jobs-y, takes the stage in front of a backdrop labeled “Future Talk.”

FORD AD: Thank you. Now let’s get started.

But then Cranston, switching out of that character, confides to the viewer …

FORD AD: The future isn’t created in a keynote address.

What does create the future?

FORD AD: Building does. Building like we have for the last 115 years. And building for the next century. Building cars. New technology. And transforming cities.

And by now Cranston is barreling through the desert in a Ford pickup truck, windows down, engine roaring.

FORD AD: So let the other guys keep dreaming about the future. We’ll be the ones building it.

The ad ends up looking like pretty much every other pickup truck ad you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t seem like the most convincing way to declare that Ford is the company that’s working on what Hackett calls “a total redesign of the surface transportation system.” By the way, these promises of new technology and transformed cities all happen atop an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones song “Paint It Black,” which came out more than a half century ago.

DUBNER: So one of the big changes in the world, but especially for your industry, is the oncoming autonomous vehicle scenario, which is incredibly exciting, and will probably have a lot of effects that many people can’t quite imagine yet, pro and con. But it strikes me that Ford is a little bit late to the starting line. And I’m curious to know, again, what makes you think that you’re going to do well in that realm?

HACKETT: I actually think it’s a myth that we’re behind. So robotics is not new; of course, they’ve been in the factories for years. Mark Fields deserves credit here. He decided that to get there faster, he was going to invest in a group of people who wanted to leave some of the notable firms working on it: Google, Uber, some others. They came to us and said, “We want to do our own startup.” So we’ve created that. It’s called Argo A.I. It’s in Pittsburgh, near Carnegie Mellon, of course.

DUBNER: Pittsburgh’s become the capital of autonomous vehicle research.

HACKETT: Yeah. And we’re the sucking sound there, because this is the who’s-who from that alumni. The guy leading our company was the number-two guy at Google working on Waymo, which, I give lots of credit to Google. I think they’ve done a great job. We believe we’re behind them, but the velocity of the vehicle’s learning’s ahead because we have people that worked there. So we’ve taken a different tact with the design of the software.

Just a quick lesson for the listeners. It’s only three years old that neural networks actually found their way into A.I. So, before that, robotics were making progress, but this is the breakthrough.

DUBNER: So let me ask you this. You recently led a team of Ford executives making a big presentation at the 2018 C.E.S., Consumer Electronics Show. And it is a huge multi-dimensional vision of how what I think of as an auto company is creating a large ecosystem that includes all different kinds of inputs. And I want to know, is that the kind of presentation you make at C.E.S. because it’s kind of good for business to invite those technology firms who come to come and play in your sandbox? Or is this a real part of your business model?

HACKETT: Yeah, I mean — and I did that in January of this year, and I’m really happy I did it because I was trying to get out the three parts of the technology evolution, which is: the nature of propulsion’s changing — to electric and hybrids. There will be gas, hybrids, and electric. There’s a robotic system. Let me give you the three letters: it’s called S.D.S., Self-Driving System is what they’re called. They’re trying to get away from autonomy and have it be labeled this way.

DUBNER: Because “autonomous” is a little too scary?

HACKETT: I think so. It’s not human-centered. It’s making the vehicle the celebrant, and we want the people inside. The third technology is this cloud structure.

DUBNER: Which you call the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

HACKETT: That’s our phrase. But all we really trying to do is orchestrate these three technologies to have an advantage for customers. The mere fact that 70 percent of the world’s population is going to be in city centers by 2050. It means we’ll be paralyzed. So I’m in New York this week, when the U.N.’s going on, and you can’t get around with the rain. President Clinton told me that he had to stay in town last night because he couldn’t get out to his home.

So we got to choreograph the system so that you reduce all this friction. The study after study that’s done about what causes jams and things like that show that a fallacy is: if you add more highway capacity, you get more throughput. The opposite happens. So there’s a famous story in China where there’s a month-long traffic jam on their biggest superhighway. Can you imagine getting in a car and you can’t get out of it for a month? So Chinese government and other places are dealing with it.

You’ve done a piece with Sidewalk Labs about smart cities. But I’m saying something different. I’m saying it feels utopian to talk about a smart city. Let’s start down the ladder and just get the transportation system to be smart. Let’s just coordinate mass transit, micro transit and your vehicles, and then the Uber-Lyft combinations, around what’s really going on in the lives of people.

And the opportunity here is enormous to change the way your life is in a city, because that system gives you the permission and the force of having what you want, when you want it. And you go, “How does it do that?” We took off 45 minutes earlier to come to you today, so I’m adding to the congestion. If I actually knew when I needed to be here, and the city mediated that, it would take all the people who are trying to get ahead out. Now that’s the traffic thing. Another quick one is parking. You lose more fuel efficiency trying to find a spot.

DUBNER: And then there’s just the real-estate question of parking.

HACKETT: I actually think a cool thing is the origami of parking, because the way lines are designed and parking lots that we’re going to be able to park really weird ways because the vehicles will negotiate their packing.

DUBNER: Well, and theoretically, with autonomous — or whatever we’re calling it, S.D.S. — we don’t need to hang on to our cars anymore, right? If you’re summoning the next one, to some degree.

HACKETT: Well, we’ve taken away the street from the people. Where’s your favorite city you like to visit? I mean, New York is one of mine. But when I go to Paris and the way the food spills out, the vehicles kind of destroy that. So we’ve painted a picture: there’s more green space, there’s more human interaction with the streets. How’s that happen? It’s because of this transportation mobility cloud, smart cars.

DUBNER: Before you go, I do want to ask you: in a recent interview you said that Ford has lost about a billion dollars in profits from metals tariffs, so a) just confirm for me I heard you right, and b) tell me if that’s true or if it’s even half-true, what are you doing about it?

HACKETT: Well, the number’s true if — the way I did the model in my head, and I should have been clear about this — you add the time the tariffs have started through next year. But still, it’s a billion dollars, and this is a really interesting thing. In my lifetime running another company, I never thought about trade. I never worried about it. So, now the C.E.O.’s time is tied up in something that they didn’t have to worry about. It needs to be updated because what happened is: those were emerging countries that are now. And the deficit’s got bigger and bigger.

So I think the administration has momentum from other administrations who likewise wanted to address it. All I’ve been asking for is that if you go in and you attack this problem, the winning state is a state of equilibrium, not a constant fight. A trade war will take away — these are stats that maybe you’ve read. The tax cut benefit to our citizens right now is going to get wiped out by this current inflation on what they’re calling the Walmart effect. So the goods that people are buying in stores have now been hit. So two-thirds of the tax benefit could be actually wiped out if we don’t get this fixed.

DUBNER: And as the C.E.O. of a car company, the uncertainty, I would imagine, can be very difficult, because we all know it’s hard to make even a personal decision when there’s that much uncertainty. So let me just really, finally, ask you the final question. When you look forward, do you see less uncertainty than I do? Do you see a clear path toward what Ford can actually accomplish based on these rather large dreams that involve everything from cloud computing to telecom in cars and so on?

HACKETT: Well, this gives you insight into me. My dad never had a bad day and he had a lot of challenges. But the optimism when he got up every day, that’s the way I was raised; as opposed to someone who heard, “Life’s going to hell in a handbasket.” I never heard that.

So I told a story to one of my colleagues today that said, “Why do you think there was a milkman in the day?” And, well, it was because we couldn’t refrigerate milk in our homes, so then they could get it to you because it had to be fresh. And then what happened was we had refrigerators, and to get scale, they moved the dairy farms further away. Then they started adding chemicals to them so they didn’t spoil, beyond homogenization. And today the average distance from farm to market’s 1,500 miles.

So the world’s looking at that and saying, “Was that the best design for humans?” What I’m optimistic about, based on the way we’ve talked today, is the transportation system caused some of that. It now can actually go backwards, so that you can have produce very close. You can send these objects of intelligence on missions for you. You can know where anybody you love is at any given time, if they want to tell you. And we can kind of know that now? But what you’re going to be able to know is going to be incredible. And in a way that I think is safe and helping humanity. So we can make Ford a really cool futuristic company in just building and making cars and selling them. We have a lot of great ideas there.

Whether these ideas are truly great, whether Ford will buck the trends of history and reinvent itself as a firm for the middle of the 21st century — I have no idea. Thanks to Jim Hackett, though, for taking the time to explain his vision for the Blue Oval.

* * *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Greg Rosalsky, with help from Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motors.

RESOURCES

“Has Motorization in the U.S. Peaked?,” Michael Sivak, U.M.T.R.I. (June 2013).

“Ford CEO’s Cost-Cutting Strategy in Focus During Earnings Slump,” Christina Rodgers, The Wall Street Journal. (April 2018).

EXTRA

“How to Build a Smart City,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“The Secret Life of a C.E.O.,” Freakonomics Radio.

The post Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/

0 notes

courage-a-word-of-justice · 7 years

Text

Boku no Hero Academia 22 - 23 | Grimoire of Zero 8 | Royal Tutor 9 | Kado 8 | Tsukigakirei 8

Boku no Hero Academia 22

I never saw that “meteor shower” coming! BnHA keeps the surprises coming, eh?

Hey, he used Uraraka’s name! He’s serious now!!!

I gotta admit Denki and the other hero trying to defend Uraraka only because she’s a girl is an outdated idea (but the patriarchy demands I only get irked about this a bit), but defending Uraraka because she’s almost out of commission is something I can understand.

Oh, the tough realities of herohood…the suckiness of failure…I gotta touch on this more in Half-Paid Heroes. Better pay attention!

It’s kinda clear Shouto vs Izuku is gonna get cut off by the time limit, but it’s interesting to note that there are 2 rivals close to Midoriya. Normally a shonen hero only has one fixed one.

Boku no Hero Academia 23

I’ve seen people comment a tonne on episode 22, so episode 23 should garner a lot of attention too as the highlight of this season.

I always thought by saying Shouto could be a hero, it implied his mother could no longer be one. Why? Possible trigger warning for this, but I think it’s “enduring Endeavour’s abuse”.

The bandage on Uraraka’s face reminds me that BnHA is good at consistency.

Poodle girl, who tried to defend Uraraka last ep, is still in the crowd. Another good touch of consistency.

This is rare – Bakugo’s introspective and showing off why he’s top of the class simultaneously.

Looking at this from a strategy point of view, Deku still has his legs, potentially his head if he wants to risk it, (uninjured) parts of his arms maybe, or overexerting his arms again. If he gets very creative, maybe his torso. It still looks like Todoroki’s going to win nonetheless, even though he seems to be showing some signs of fatigue too.

I thought he’d overexert his arms again, but I guess I never thought of the more logical path, which would be “overexert the fingers again first”, huh?

That threw me for a bit. 1) Todoroki never says “now I’m angry”. He’s the cool guy, to make a lame pun. 2) That’s a cliched line only bad guys say. Then again, it could be a “you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back” moment.

Ice is powerful. So powerful, there aren’t many ice Pokémon, and I originally planned to have an ice-skater be the 6th ranger in Half-Paid Heroes, only to find that since I kept restructuring the lineup, the skater became too OP. (Also, because Half-Paid Heroes used to be a strictly girl-turns-into-magical-boy affair, the 6th ranger - Yuki - was a great big hinge on what came afterwards, so I’ve struggled with the storyline now that I’ve given it a more workplace SoL baseline.)

I always thought ice was also a salve to some extent, but with more destructive power comes a lessened ability to heal.

Todoroki looks like Bakugo now. Guess it can’t be helped, seeing as “explosions” are associated with “fire”.

“Such a doting father.” – I laiughed, because we just found out that’s blasphemy. It’s ironic, to use the proper term.

Block rubble is a sure sign that this is a sakuga fest. Wowee, last time I saw block rubble was ConRevo (as far as I can remember)! Thank you, BONES!

Hmph. Fanservice. If you like Shouto’s fanservice here, you’ll definitely like Free!, but I’m neutral on it. 15 year olds shouldn’t be so muscular…sure, it’s part of a hero’s job to be muscular if they’re physically fit, but fanservice of 15 year olds ain’t my thing, y’know?

Grimoire of Zero 8

I’m of the idea that Albus is a dude for commentary purposes, but I’ve seen lots of comments across the ‘net saying Albus is a girl. It seems this episode will get rid of whatever misconceptions I have about Albus’s gender once and for all.

When the wolf says she is closest to Him, who’s “she” exactly? Sorena? Sorena’s granddaughter?

The wolf is behind the main trio at the end of the OP…!

I get the feeling this stitch-up scene is just for some manservice on the wolf’s part…but at least it holds some revelations for those that don’t want manservice of the muscle kind. (In terms of bishonen, I don’t dig Dragon Ball or Free!-style muscles anyway. *shrugs*)

That is one young grandmother…but dangit, why was the wolf hot as a man???!!! (It’s distracting, and I already have too many husbandos…but he’s only hot when he has his clothes on.)

Wuh…? Just when I decide he’s worth staying for, I find out his name…and it’s Holdem? Like, Texas Holdem?

Sometimes belief is all one needs to fight for a cause, Holdem my previously-handsome man.

Grimoire of Zero is lucky its CGI is only noticeable when the show is paused…

“Who knew he was Sorena’s granddaughter…”

From the pronouns used in the subs, it seems that even the subbers believed Albus was a dude and stuck to their guns even after the explicit revelation.

Royal Tutor 9

Fancy gakurans…if you already have a gakuran lying around, it’s pretty easy to cosplay the princes, I guess.

Why are those guards so excited?

This thing just went all ACCA-shaped. That’s not a bad thing, I’m just saying guns are normally used at the climax of shows like this, like in ACCA.

I think the “I am a grown man” jokes are getting a lil’ old at the business end, but that’s because when I see drama I expect consistent drama.

The camera scene was so ludicrous that I ended up laughing anyway…

As an action writer, that butt-kicking Heine did was perfect (albeit a tad slow). Then again, this show’s specialty is a SoL-style pace and I wouldn’t change that about it.

That trick Ludwig did was basically what Alciel did in Hataraku Maou-sama!, but because it was compressed into a shorter amount of time, it had little to no payoff.

“The stupid-seeming fellow is right.” – I never thought Maximilian seemed stupid…

I noted Fuchs said, “Take me away,” which is a very interesting point.

Well, now we really can’t neglect Heine’s past. Get hyped, Royal Tutor fans!

Kado 8

Shunina’s reading something called Ningen Manzai. According to this website, Ningen Manzai is about a god from space who comes to earth and becomes human…then something about angels and another god. Even if you don’t learn the entire synopsis of Ningen Manzai, the book is very relevant, ain’t it? Also, Shunina’s using his seahorse bookmark from last ep, which is cute.

The discussion on Sansa reminds me of the Porygon incident…

“Hail to Humanity”? So that would mean…the title is actually Ningen Banzai…

It’s Kado Skype, powered by Wam. That…that’s great! We can finally see Wam being put to use around here.

As someone who’s studied IT, I understand Gonno’s words on networks well.

Google Satellite. Yep, it exists.

Kado is unintentionally hilarious sometimes, like the “Dad! Dad!” bit there. The chestnut bit I found vaguely disturbing but that was because Shindo looked like he was gasping for air. For the “Dad! Dad!” bit in particular though, Kado’s gone all Summer Wars and that’s why it’s funny.

These jellyfish are really lifelike…but you get a sad feeling from this “date” scene. As if suddenly the staff finally give us a look into why Saraka is correct…you feel like this is all just an “all according to zaShunina keikaku” thing, and suddenly you see the tower known as humanity was knocked down as soon as Kado came.

So Saraka’s saying…the tale of Kado (the show) is a tragedy? Well, that’s a new take on this whole scenario…hey, wait. So Ward and Gonno (to a lesser extent) are the evil ones here?

Grumpy Gonno…haha.

Does SETTEN need to learn how to “not be evil”, as per its inspiration’s philosophy? Hmm.

It’s Shunina, on a TV show, like a celebrity. The world is evolving in ways I thought were unimaginable.

Is it possible to watch Sansa because of peer pressure, because Shunina could be seen as a “cool” guy? I wonder…

LOL, so you’re going to get him to talk with drinks? I can’t imagine a drunk Shunina…but I can understand that with drinking culture, it’s probably the right way to go to get closer to someone. (Even if that “someone” is an anisotropic being.) Shunina may not understand “food” after all.

As much as I love the alien dork, he’s getting more and more sinister as the show goes on. From what I’ve read on Kado all over the ‘net, people have distrusted him since episode 1, but hey. That’s what we’re here for.

Shinawa was absent yet again, thank goodness.

The round object in the preview (it looks like a white sphere surrounded by blue chunks) is probably a Nanomishein, knowing this show.

Tsukigakirei 8

Welp, we’re finally back to Dazai after referencing Souseki.

Huh? That part with the dancing guy with the mask has gone from live action to animated…so it seems like the staff of Tsukigakirei give an effort now.

The OP seems to evolve more as time goes by, which is interesting. A few eps ago, the sheet only said “title” but the title of this work that’s evolving is called 13.70. However, it seems to be by Azumi Osamu, and not Kotarou. (Or maybe that’s just a penname of Kotarou’s, based on his love for Dazai?) 13.70 is 75 mai (sheets) long.

Love is hard to describe, and I guess when you love someone it’s hard to put into words because of that.

Is the video going slower or did the animation budget get cut in half?

I’d assume “hayashi” refers to the rice.

So it’s not my imagination…the budget got skimped on! You can tell because they did the same almost still scene thing twice this ep.

Noting how dark the potato is, I’d say it’s sweet potato (purple).

Ahahaha! So that’s where the potato mascot come from. They’re sweet potatoes then…now I get it! (It’s just that when you say “potato” on its lonesome I think of the one you make ordinary chips out of.)

Now that we know Kotarou’s birthday, I know she’s going to buy him a present. That’s what anyone would do…and of course, I was right.

That shot of windchimes from the OP. I like it, but I know it’s recycled from there.

Well, for all the budget skimping they’ve done, they’ve churned out some really good festival shots. They’re so lifelike.

I didn’t think geta were annoying enough to give you blisters. Guess I was wrong.

You’re so stealthy, Akane (sarcastic).

Finally, here are the development we’ve been waiting for. Unfortunately, they’re paired with some really bad off model shots. Fortunately, they bother to give us the first kiss.

The fortune tags both say “I wish to be together forever.” (<-paused specifically to translate before subs came up)…CR tells me I was pretty bang on with my translation.

This ep’s ED convo is just a lovey-dovey couple fighting and saying “I love you more. No, I love you more” sort of thing, so don’t bother.

I got bored of these a few eps back, but since I have time right now, I went, “Why not?”.

Well, as much as I dislike the humour in these, I have to admit the moral in the Aira one was pretty good.

Well, finally Sakura gets some happiness. Good on her.

I don’t think I’ve seen a girl being called ippiki before. Ippiki is normally used with small animals, like dogs or cats.

The Roman and Ryouko (Sensei) ones are the worst of these, I just can’t ship them because the age gap is about 10 years. That’s a little too big for comfort, y’know?

That “Kotarou’s Parents” one actually made me laugh. It’s also a good insight into characters that don’t get developed much in the series. If I were an author (which I am, I just haven’t got any properly published books out there yet – the closest book I do have out there has no words…*hides in corner of shame*), I would have bonus content more along these lines.

#simulcast commentary #tsukigakirei #seikaisuru kado #grimoire of zero #boku no hero academia #the royal tutor #Chesarka watches Tsukigakirei #Chesarka watches Kado #Chesarka watches Boku no Hero Academia #Chesarka watches Grimoire of Zero #Chesarka watches Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine

0 notes