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#the third image is the original i just had too much fun with filters :>
atthebell-moved · 8 months
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Updated QSMP AO3 Work Language Stats-- as of August 13th, 2023
June 6 2023 stats, July 9 2023 stats
Another QSMP language stats update!! Not too much to update on this time, but still some nice numbers.
Fun tidbits/disclaimers to start:
QSMP has 3034 works as of today!! That's 887 more works from last month's 2147, about a 41.3% increase.
French fics have doubled from 5 works to 10!
PT Portuguese has now been tagged in two works!
We've dropped one Mandarin fic, likely due to deletion.
I used the same methodology as last time, which was to manually filter by each language I expected to have works, then do the math to make sure I wasn't missing any and check likely new languages. You can check the original June 6 post to see more about that.
I won't be including overall AO3 stats, as the monthly difference for them is negligible imo. In the future, if I continue to do this for the next year or so, I'll likely pick it up again to note the difference in the last year, or perhaps make a new series of posts about language statistics across the site rather than fandom specific.
Not much change this month! Most numbers have stayed fairly steady; I won't have much analysis as a result.
The numbers:
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[Image Description: A table with three columns; the first lists languages, the second the number of works, and the third the percentage of total works. For the languages column, each language is listed first in that language and then in English in parentheses, and English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French are all color-coded to indicate that they are spoken on the server. End ID.]
English has 2496 works and 82.27% of total works in QSMP
Spanish has 406 works and 13.38% of total works.
Brazilian Portuguese has 113 works and 3.72% of total works.
French has 10 works and 3.72% of total works-- the number of French fics has doubled since last month, although it's still quite low in comparison to the other languages spoken on the server.
New entry! European Portuguese now has 2 works and 0.07% of total works.
Mandarin has 2 works and 0.07% of total works; it previously had 3 works, one was likely deleted.
Russian has 2 works and 0.07% of total works, no change in number from last month.
The last three languages, Latin, Esperanto, and Malaysian Malay, all have 1 work and 0.03% of total works respectively, maintaining their numbers from last month as well.
Observations:
Like I said at the start, not much change here. The most impressive things to note are that French has doubled in number and European Portuguese now has works, neither of which are surprising. Kudos to those authors regardless, glad to see them gaining fics!!
I'll add my usual note that the stats for QSMP are interesting to compare to overall AO3 stats for the reason that we have far more Spanish and Portuguese works than the rest of the site. If you want to see numbers on total site stats, check out the previous stats posts to see those.
And that's pretty much all I've got!! I'll likely continue to post these every month, but when there's not a ton of changes they'll likely be short little posts like this with mostly just the numbers. Again, here's last month's stats and the 6/6/2023 stats. As always, if you have any data/observations on other fanfiction websites, feel free to let me know!
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1kook · 3 years
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ZOOM CALL
⇢ meeting one
jeon jungkook x (f) reader
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⇢ series masterlist
summary: In a sea of black screens and faceless names, there’s one smiley boy that beams back at you through the dimly lit screen of your laptop, a tiny Jeon Jungkook (he/him) tacked to the corner of his window. genre: fluff, slice of life, smut (tags tba) warnings: jk is a ditzy lil nerdy sweetheart, college crushes, social distancing -_-, use of the zoom app, 1kook Builds a Healthy Relationship (Version 2.0) ratings: M (18+) wc: 3.2k
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notes: well. here we are. as always i have to thank common sense (coincidentally named rumu @kigurumu​ ) for reading this over and pointing out little details <3 after much deliberation, i have decided to post our beloved zoom jk (see origin story here) in the form of short ‘drabbles’ depicting diff zoom calls with this being The Beginning™️ so please... bare with me </3 ty to all the nice ppl who have been excited for this, luv u very much 🥺
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There are times in human history where words captivate their audience; times when single words or phrases wrap around the listener, melt into their bones and radiate warmth from within. But rarely does one word manage such an impact, rarely is it as revered and as cherished as the word cancelled is to most college students. 
Class is cancelled, group meetings are cancelled, the stupidly big semester final project was cancelled. You could cancel nearly anything, and in most cases, it would be beautiful. Cancelled meant more time to sleep in the morning, an afternoon free of pesky project partners, a pleasant reprieve from having to socialize with anyone. It was a glorious word with heavenly connotations that brought tears of joy to your eyes whenever you saw it appear in an email preview.
Except this one.
Spring Semester 2021: On-Campus Classes CANCELLED — Social Distance Measures as per State Regula…
Your last semester as a student in university… online? You couldn’t believe it. All these years of studying rigorously, cramming for exams, attaining a near perfect GPA— just to sit in your bedroom and stare at your computer screen for the last 15 weeks of classes? Had your friends not been there to mope with you, you’re certain a part of you would have gone on a rampage and cursed every bacteria known to mankind for doing this to you.
It was your last year, you whined in private (never in public; your friends had always considered you the mature one, the studious friend who kept everyone in order), yet here you were, setting up your desk for your last ever first day of classes with quite possibly the biggest pout on your face.
Zoom, your school had raved in an email a few weeks into the break, the desktop application that will keep us united in these trying times! As if, you huffed, giving the stupid application permission to connect to your computer’s camera and audio systems. What even was proper Zoom etiquette? Did you have to enter the meeting and greet every student cheerfully? You had always said hi to your classmates before, but something about saying it over a computer mic felt awkward.
The feeling doubled when you finally entered the meeting, only to be met with a sea of black screens save for your professor, who seemed to be clicking around his computer in a rather confused fashion. This was going to suck, you thought bitterly.
You had entered the room ten minutes earlier because, well, you always showed up to class a few minutes earlier than the scheduled meeting time. But was there any point to doing that here? Usually, the time before class was spent making small talk with said classmates, discussing the readings or the assignments, talking mindlessly about whatever came to mind. But something in your gut said it would be weird to do that now.
So you sit in silence for the next ten minutes, nervously tapping your pen against your desk as you wait for the professor to launch into whatever introductory monologue he had planned. You toy with your phone, scrolling through your twitter feed only to see a brigade of tweets from students all over the nation suffering the same fate as you. It was a trending topic.
Two minutes before the class starts, you hear the tell-tale ping of someone entering the meeting. You wave it off just like you have your other 41 classmates thus far, but then there’s the clearing of a throat, and a sweet, “good morning” filtering through your speakers. Lifting your head from the hunched over position you had assumed while glancing at your phone, you’re startled by the sudden handsome face that appears before you.
In a sea of black screens and faceless names, there’s one smiley boy that beams back at you through the dimly lit screen of your laptop, a tiny Jeon Jungkook (he/him) tacked to the corner of his window.
He’s nothing short of a dreamboat, soft and doughy cheeks that catch the hue of the screen light, highlighting his cheekbones in a faint blue color. Imploring doe eyes blinking widely at the screen as he clicks around, narrating his confusion in a low mumble (mic still on, how cute). Dark hair— was it brown? black? the pixelated screen made it hard to tell —messily pushed away from his face.
And his voice, oh his voice. It matches his gentle appearance perfectly. A soft snort. “Am I the only one here?” he says, thin lips pulled to the side in a bashful grin.
The professor laughs with him. “No, but you are the only one with your camera on,” he responds.
You’re not sure if it’s the professor’s teasing jab at literally everyone else or the need to support the cutie who smiles softly at screen, but suddenly, a handful of windows come to life. Your classmates fill up the screen, dressed in an array of styles with bedrooms (and, on the rare occasion, dorm rooms) to match. You nibble at your bottom lip, finger hovering over the button that will expose your appearance to the rest of your classmates
Eventually, the wordless peer pressure, the need to be a good student, and the supportive face of Jeon Jungkook (he/him) have you inhaling sharply before dutifully clicking the camera on. Your face appears on screen, nearly lost in the now overwhelming sea of faces. You’re one of the last ones to turn your camera on, both pages of your zoom meeting participant windows filled with the contrasting images of your classmates joining from their bedrooms. The professor claps in delight, and finally dives into the mandatory first day of classes spiel.
Syllabuses, group work, asynchronous lectures. You’ve heard these words all before, have practically memorized this class’s syllabus like the back of your hand. The pros of being an overachiever. The cons are, however, that you think every question your classmates ask is stupid. Read the syllabus, you want to scream. But it’s the first day of class. You don’t even know who your assigned study group partners (as mentioned in the syllabus) are and you certainly don’t want them to dislike you so soon. They can do that after the third meeting, but not today.
You’re not entirely surprised when your attention drifts away from the professor and the endless sea of stupid questions he’s left to answer. Even when you realize you’ve stopped paying attention, you don’t bother forcing yourself to tune back in. No, instead your focus drifts across the windows of faces.
Some of your classmates are as bored as you, glaring at the screen with disinterest, or glancing off to the side probably at their phones. So you start looking at their rooms, analyzing their decorations and posters as if you’re a professional critic on some house design show.
Jeon Jungkook (he/him) is in a rather plain dorm room. Plain light gray walls— or maybe it’s white —free of decoration. He’s sitting at the provided desk, just like you. The only reason you focus on that is because there’s a multitude of your classmates lazily sprawled across their beds, slumped over a couch. Hardly anyone is sitting at attention like you. Well, except for Jeon Jungkook (he/him). He’s practically exposing the entirety of his living accommodation with the way his camera is set up.
Above eye level, reaching just below his chest, with the room all laid out before you. A neat twin bed, sheets meticulously made. It almost looks like the decorative set at a furniture store with the way the comforter and variety of pillows are placed. He doesn’t seem to be in the crappy dorms you remember, which leaves you wondering where exactly he’s been assigned. You know certain sports clubs get fancier dormitories. Anyway, there’s a door off the side of the bed, a black guitar standing in the corner just behind it. You wonder what’s behind the camera, if maybe his desk is as organized as the rest of his room. Maybe his closet is his weakness, you muse, imagining poor Jeon Jungkook (he/him) with a tornado of a closet. But the thought doesn’t make that much sense, so you discard it quickly.
Anyway, his dorm room. It’s neat and orderly, makes you tilt your head curiously as he swivels from side to side before you. As for himself, he’s dressed in a plain white sweater, hoodie strings perfectly even. His hair has long since fallen over his forehead, but he’s pushed it over this time in a fluffy side part. He was adorably soft.
He’s paying attention to the professor like he genuinely treasures every word that comes off his tongue, nodding along understandingly. He’s even got a pencil in hand, leaning forward every few seconds to scribble something down hurriedly. Not like this is all on the syllabus or anything, you think.
But as soon as the thought crosses your mind, it’s dispelled just as fast. He’s only trying to be a good student, you scold yourself, feeling oddly mean for wanting to make fun of this sweet boy. Especially when he raises his hand a second later and asks the first good question of the day. Something about the grading scale for group projects and how much is determined by the group members themselves. You’re not too sure, the words get a little fuzzy when he starts speaking and his pink lips pull down into an endearing pout.
A couple minutes later and your professor finally wraps up the questions, telling everyone to email him if any other questions arise throughout the semester. Just as you’re sighing in relief, he utters those dreaded words: “Ice-breakers!” he exclaims, and the whole class grimaces, much to his amusement. He says something about feeling the excitement through the screen, but then changes gears. “Since it’s a little hard to talk to your neighbor, I’m going to test out the Breakout Rooms and see how that works, okay guys?”
You frown. Breakout Rooms? What on earth was that? Like most of your classmates, this is pretty much your first rodeo with the Zoom application. He was sending you all into small groups, where? The answer presents itself a few seconds later, a message box appearing on your screen.
The host is inviting you to join a Breakout Room: Group 4
Your professor is still chattering in the background when you nervously accept the invitation, his voice suddenly cut off as your computer jumps to a new loading screen. It takes a while before you’re suddenly dumped into a new room. And then you’re staring at your own face, blown up on your own screen in a rather uncomfortable way. Jeez, did you really look like this?
As soon as you get to picking at your appearance, your mirrored reflection jumps to the side, once, then twice more to fit the three new guests in your room. Silence fills your bedroom as you and your classmates all stare at each other nervously for a couple seconds, unsure of what to say. This was, after all, your first meeting.
Just as you’ve gathered all your courage to click your microphone on, the screen jumps around once more and suddenly Jeon Jungkook (he/him) is in your Breakout Room. Immediately, his surprised face melts into the most reassuring grin you’ve ever seen, and he’s practically jumping forward to turn his mic on.
“Good morning, everyone,” he says, smooth and low. It’s like the awkward tension melts away under the pressure of his pretty smile, your classmates responding back with polite hellos and good mornings to him. You barely get yours in before Jeon Jungkook (he/him) starts talking again. “So… how are you guys?”
His words, sweet and caring as they are, send the five of you into a rather mindless conversation. Talking about nothing really, just whatever comes to mind about the class, about the semester, about the remote learning. Then Jungkook— “just Jungkook is fine!” he tells the other four of you with that same too pure look on his face after someone refers to him by his whole name —starts talking about some movie he had seen on Netflix the other day, something his friend recommended to him. Truthfully, you have zero interest in the type of plot he is describing, and you can tell some of the other people in your group don’t either. But he’s absorbed in his storytelling, features lit up as he details every last plot point of the film like his life depends on it. There’s a wordless agreement to let him ramble on.
By the time Jungkook has finished his novella recapture of whatever movie he was talking about, a green message bubble appears at the top of your screen. It’s a message from your professor, who is telling you the small group meeting will end in a few more minutes.
“Aw, that sucks,” Jungkook laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. And then, “oh! We haven’t answered our icebreaker question yet!”
Ah, yes. The reason for this small group was to get to know each other, not for Jungkook to recount an entire two hour movie for you all. “Oh, right,” you agree, probably the first words you’ve said in the past five minutes. You navigate to the chat box, where your professor had hastily dumped the question before sending you all off. “What’s one thing you miss most about being on campus?” you read aloud, glancing back at the screen.
Your group mates are all in various states of blissful comfort, the gaps of their nervousness smoothed over by Jungkook’s bubbly personality, and the hesitation they’d shown at the beginning is practically gone. Someone steps forward and says something about the campus dining hall. Jungkook laughs, loud and airy, claps his hands all cute too. Someone else says the library because it was a good place to study. There’s a lull and you jump in quickly. “I think I’ll miss the couches by the gym in the student center the most,” you confess, though you doubt anyone knows which ones you mean. They were a set of brightly colored couches tucked into a cranny behind the Starbucks just outside the campus gym, avidly avoided by the gym rats who were determined to ignore the sugary drinks and snacks.
Apparently, the hiding spot isn’t as secretive as you thought. “Oh, the ones by the Starbucks?” Jungkook exclaims, excitedly looking at his screen. You have this fluttery feeling that he’s looking at you for the first time. You nod, and he quite positively beams. “I love those!”
“Yeah, I spend a lot of time there,” you say, though it’s a little stilted because you’re not exactly sure how you’re supposed to react to Jungkook’s enthusiasm. Though his outgoing personality cloaks you in comfort, his pretty smile has your heartbeat acting a little funny.
Jungkook’s got these huge eyes, blinking owlishly at you. “Really? So do I!” And then you both seem to have the same realization. His head tilts to the side cutely, an amused smile on his face, “I’ve never seen you there.”
“I’ve never seen you there,” you shoot back, a little snarkier than necessary, but Jungkook doesn’t seem to notice. His smile turns goofy.
“Woah,” he says in a rather dreamy tone, “isn’t that so cool? We spent so much time in the same place, but never crossed paths before,” he babbles. He’s stopped looking at his computer, leaning back in a sort of dazed manner with this sparkly look to his eyes, much to everyone’s amusement. Except yours, because frankly, it sounds a little bit like he’s describing— “fate!” he says suddenly, like it’s truly an aha! moment. He pauses, taps his finger against his chin. “Or anti-fate? I’m not sure. But it’s like— we could’ve met so many times before and we didn’t.” Doe eyes return to the screen, flickering around until they presumably land on you again. “What do you think, __?”
And he’s just so cute, makes the rigid shield around your chest soften for the slightest moment as you nod meekly. “Uhh, yeah. Fate,” you agree, and then get to hear him laugh and giggle for about three seconds before you’re suddenly thrown back into the larger Zoom meeting.
Weirdly flustered, you hurriedly click your microphone back off, and nearly contemplate the camera too. But then the professor is asking you all to share what you talked about and you’re resigning yourself to a few more minutes of screen time while the class wraps up. By the looks of it, not everyone had as an enjoyable time as you did. Part of you is thankful you didn’t get stuck in an awkward small group. The other part recognizes wholeheartedly that it’s all thanks to one smiley boy at the bottom of your screen.
“And group 4?” the professor asks, and you blink yourself back into attention. Before you can unmute yourself and answer for your group, Jungkook is beating you to it.
“We talked about a lot of things,” Jungkook answers cheerfully. From your view, you get a front row seat to the sheer power of Jungkook’s magnetic personality, watching as all your listless classmates suddenly snap back from their daydreams to zero in on whatever Jungkook is saying. He fills in the professor about what you talked about, from the movies to the couches, and you feel weirdly mushy when his eyes flicker across the screen before settling with a soft smile.
He can’t possibly be looking at me, you tell yourself. Your hand jerks forward to turn the camera off, but in your haste, end up knocking down the water bottle on your desk. You scramble to straighten it, thanking the universe for the fact you actually remembered to screw on the cap. You glance back at the screen, and nearly die when you catch sight of a giggly Jungkook, smile hidden behind an adorable sweater paw as he laughs at something on screen. Oh no, was he looking at me? you panic.
“Alright, everyone,” your professor says in that “I’m about to wrap this class up” voice. Too close to the screen, voice a little too loud. “Good meeting today, I’ll see you all again on Wednesday. Stay safe.”
“Bye!” Jungkook sings sweetly, and everyone else follows as they all bid adieu to the professor. Still a little frazzled from the possibility that Jungkook may have watched you flail around like a total loser, you take a second longer to turn your mic on. Your classmates quickly leave the meeting, leaving only a few stragglers until the very end.
Surprisingly, Jungkook is here too, brown eyes focused on the screen. You unmute yourself. “Um,” you stammer, eyes unwillingly flickering over to Jungkook who smiles at the sound of your voice. “Goodbye. Thank you,” you rush out, and then quickly leave the meeting as well.
With the meeting over, you’re left staring at the home page of the Zoom app, heart beating a little too fast to be normal. Your face feels warm, and your fingers tremble from some unfamiliar, giddy feeling in your chest. You exhale slowly, hand coming up to rub at your chin as if that will somehow explain the weird excitement from your Zoom meeting. Maybe it was just adrenaline, or nervousness, you try to convince yourself. After all, the first day of classes is always nerve-wracking.
Except when you navigate to your class page and begin to mindlessly scroll through the class roster, there’s a weird stutter to your heartbeat when you catch sight of that Jeon Jungkook (he/him) that appears halfway down the list.
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Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.
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sweetestlamb · 4 years
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Lighting Up Your World Part 2
Episode 18 
Author’s notes: THANK YOU!!!!!  I’ll start there, thank you guys for your overwhelming support on part 1 that I posted yesterday. You guys make me feel like such a great writer, hearing that some of you cried because of something I wrote. incredible. This part is shorter because I was a bit strapped for time and I scrapped  a vast amount the original version I had because I got new ideas and I just didn’t feel like the other version was enough or had the feeling I wanted. Anyway, I hope you guys still enjoy Part 2 aka Episode 18. Tell me your favorite line in the comments, I just think that would be cute hehe lol. *Plays “Lighting Up Your World”  ♫ ♫
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He remembers the exact moment that he purchased the ring, its sparkling brilliance from under the glass display, he imagined it sitting on her dainty fingers taking the place of her many other decorative rings. He imagined her face has he placed it on her finger. The store associate had wondered over to him with a knowing smile on his face, as if he knew that look very well, had seen it on the lovesick faces of countless men. After a few minutes of rapid questioning, he walked out with the precious stone in his possession, nerves shooting up and down his veins until he felt like a ball of anxiety.  The ring heavy as lead in his pocket as he staggered home in a daze, in disbelief at what he'd done.
When he had come home to the castle, he could feel the ring burning a hole through the pocket of his jeans. His heart pattering away, erratic in his chest. He avoided eye contact with Mun-yeong as she greeted him at the door, candied smile welcoming home as she eagerly pulling him into the house demanding that he play with her. 
She hadn’t been amused by his suggestion of cards.
Viciously pushing him in the wall and latching onto his neck like a leech. Hours later, he stumbled out of bed panting as he stealthily hid the box in the bottom of his drawer,covering it with mounds of clothes before tiptoeing into his bed alongside his brother dreaming of Mun-yeong in pristine white walking down an aisle that was laden with soft pink rose petals that matched the hue of her lips. He woke up saying "I do." Relieved that his brother was a relatively deep sleeper and hadn't heard his slip of tongue.
The sounds of nature, birds chirping and the wind rustling leaves pulled him from the sandman's hold, as he blinked awake, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes. Immediately he noticed the lack of pressure on his arm, too light without her head cushioned on his bicep as she used him as her personal pillow. He had long stopped trying to get her to use a pillow, she was adamant that his arms were a perfect substitute. A wave of pride blossomed in his chest every time she would stroke a finger across the bulging muscle, humming in approval, openly appreciating his body.
Stumbling to the bathroom he groggily brushes his teeth before hopping in the shower to wash off the sweat that lingered from being pressed against her flesh all night. After changing into his outfit, another t-shirt and jeans with sneakers, he’s a creature of habit. He walks out of the camping can eyes scouting for his missing girlfriend before finding her over the open grill, poking at the meat she's grilling, tongue poking out slightly as she impatiently waits for their tenderness.
What he doesn't expect to see is a little helper on her side, Min-jo, sits in the chair right next to her, eagerly watching the meat as it grills, babbling away at Mun-yeong, who for the most part looks content in the child's presence.
"How do I pick the people I put in my family?" Her innocent voice lifts with curiosity as she peers up at Mun-yeong, eyes shining brightly with young hope and naivete. "What age will I be ready to choose my family?"
With a sigh he watches Mun-yeong bring a slightly underdone piece of beef to her mouth, she's always too impatient to wait for food to reach its necessary temperature for consumption, higher internal heat his ass. The juices from the meat run down the side of her mouth, and he's left feeling like he's watching a lioness in the wild, lethal and it is majestic.
"Didn't I already tell you to stop following me? I don't have any answers for you." She dismissively responds, looking exasperated clearly this isn't her first time hearing and rebuking this question.
He coughs to announce his arrival, watching both their eyes snap up to settle on him, one pair with adoration the other disinterest then glee. 
Min-jo greets him first, "Hi, Mr.Prince!" She waves enthusiastically at him, little hand looking like it could take flight at any moment, he blushes at his new moniker, glaring at Mun-yeong who smirks at the intended response.
"You don't need to call me that, remember I told you my name." He answers sheepishly rubbing his neck.
"But Ms. Witch told me that you and your brother, who is an illustrator saved her from her castle and then you lived happily ever after. I never knew that princes could save witches." She says the last sentence with pure wonder, sighing softly.
"Only if they're pretty princes just can't resist a pretty witch. They follow them wherever they go." Mun-yeong teasingly eyed him, images of young Gang-tae happily trailing after a dispassionate Mun-yeong playing out in both of their memories.
"Well I didn't exactly save her from the castle, I just lived there with her. Together, we made it happier. We became a family and a family has to live together, so they can lean on each other and not do pointless work." Mun-yeong scoffs at his reminder of Sang-tae's story, rolling her eyes affectionately at him.
"That sounds nice. And now you live on a house on wheels. I've never seen one before." She eyes the camping van, as he approaches them taking the last chair, on the left with Mun-yeong in the center.
"How long have you two been here?"
"This brat came here an hour ago, I keep telling her to go away but she won't listen. " She hands his a bowl of food and he notes with barely concealed amusement that a smaller bowl is aggressively placed in Min-jo's grasping hands.
"Thank you Miss Witch!" Min-jo chirps sweetly, scarfing down the food without another word.
Mun-yeong watches her before devouring her own food, her leg brushing against his when she sways into his body heat, a morning chill lingering in the air, as he glances at her and notices that she is wearing a short cotton romper, soft blue with white speckles splashed across the material. Drastic shift from yesterday's funeral best, he smiles at the implications. He wraps an arm around her shoulder drawing her into his heat, her hum of satisfaction rumbling through his body.
Min-jo's chopsticks clink on the bowl as she asks, "If you two share a brother, does that mean you are brother and sister?" His cheeks redden at the inquisitive child.
"No. He's my boyfriend, we share his brother."
"Oh." She easily accepts before adding to his embarrassment, "What do you do with a boyfriend?"
He whips his head to stare at Mun-yeong willing her not to ruin the innocence of a child, she looks back at him with a straight face before answering, "Well a lot of fun things. Sometimes we kiss, he likes that a lot and sometimes we even--"
"Yah!" He pinches her arm, hard.
She slaps him in retaliation, pouting as she soothes her pained skin, "I was going to say hug and hold hands. Why did you pinch me?"
He doesn't believe her for one second, her filter non-existent indiscriminate of the audience.
He glares at her until she resumes eating her food, ignoring the rest of Min-jo’s constant stream of questions. If she kept this up she could be an adept detective. 
Entertaining a child has never been a task he's been troubled with before and he worries his lip as he looks at the little girl bouncing in her chair with unfiltered glee. They’d made the mistake of feeding her and now she had a boundless amount of energy, unable to keep still for even a moment. 
"What should we do now Miss Witch?"
"I'm not here to entertain you. And he's my toy so you can't play with him." She juts her thumb in his direction, he admonishes at her statement arguing that he is not a toy. She nods unconvincingly as if his arguments are futile and she has already made up her mind.
"I'm bored." Min-jo continues, ignoring them. 
"Then leave."
"But I don't want to." She whines. 
"Then make your own fun."
Their bickering reminds him so much of Mun-yeong and Sang-tae tears prickle in his eyes as he decides to check on his brother. It's been two days since his abrupt departure, the longest they've been without each other. He softly announces that he'll her right back before disappearing into the van, their rising voices following him each step of the way.
I'm fine. I'm working and drawing. Stop worrying, have fun with Mun-yeong. Remember a kiss is better than a fight.
The highlights of his conversation with his older brother, who had answered on his third ring, rushing him off the phone because he was quote, "very booked and busy", he really needed to stop Mun-yeong from teaching his hyung her ridiculous slang. Especially phrases like that, that even he couldn't decipher. He had hummed along as if he wasn't completely lost before bidding Sang-tae goodbye.
He took a moment for himself before rejoining them outside, letting his brother's voice wash over him. He knew their relationship had a tinge of codependency but hadn't realized to what extent until their separation. This was good for them. Healthy. He knew that now.
It just hurt a little right now, but that was okay. Pain wasn't permanent.
The sounds of water splashing hit his ear drums as he jumps off the last step of the camping van, as if on autopilot he rushes to the lake, cold chill on his skin as he searches for Mun-yeong.
She stands on the bank of the lake. Safely out of reach, watching as Min-jo flaps her little arms wildly keeping herself afloat. She is helped by the presence of bright pink floaties on her arms, buoying her onto the surface of the wet escape.
"Can you come in the water Miss Witch?"
He watches Mun-yeong gaze at the water, fear bleeding into her irises before she blinks it away. Brief and clipped response, "No."
There is a pregnant pause, before the child continues, "Are witches afraid of water?"
Mun-yeong's eyes are cold as she looks at Min-jo, he watches the interaction enraptured in this achingly honest conversation encrypted in their own language.
"Yes."
He's releases a breath he didn't know he was hiding. Watching Min-jo nod at her response, "That's okay. Everyone is scared of something. I'm scared of being alone. But you said when I'm older I can find a family. Maybe one day you'll find a way to be in the water." She says it matter of fact, like she has no doubt that Mun-yeong will conquer this fear. 
The sun is no longer as high in the sky and the skyline begins to swirl into hues of pink, orange and yellow. Like a mad painter dragged their unwashed paintbrush across the surface. 
"I think it's time we took you back." His voice breaks their bubble as they turn to look at him. He smiles at them both, charmed by this little whirlwind who has bulldozed her way into Mun-yeong's path. Vaguely wondering what happens when a tornado and a hurricane meet? 
They walk back to the diner, Min-jo in the center and the eyes that land on them make him wonder if they look like a family, Min-jo had reached out to grasp their hands but Mun-yeong had slapped it away complaining of her dirty lake hands. The girl had only laughed before happily holding his hand instead before Mun-yeong broke between them, reminding her that he was her toy much to this chagrin.
The same older woman who had prevented Min-jo from following them the previous day, hastily bursts through the door as they draw close enough to be seen, her frantic voice shrill in the air, "Where have you been? Why did you leave without telling me? Are you okay?!" She grabs Min-jo, raptly checking her body for injuries, touching the wet hair on her head before looking at them angrily.
"Who are you? And why are you with this child?"
Min-jo beats them to answer, "This is the pretty witch and her prince." She beams at the woman, who looks taken back at the response.
He bows low in apology before continuing the explanation, "I'm Moon Gang-tae and this is my girlfriend Ko Mun-yeong. She came to find us we wanted to make sure she made it back safely."
She stares at him, scrutinizing his answer but once she sees that the girl is not harmed she sighs before accept his apology, "Okay. Thank you, I'm sorry for any trouble she caused you." She respectfully bows in return.
"You must have been really worried about her."
She freezes at his statement, looking down at Min-jo before averting her eyes, "No. I wasn't. I.....was just bothered thinking about her."
He raises an eyebrow at the defensive deflection.
"That's the same thing." Mun-yeong quips sharply.
The woman's eyes narrow but there is no argument.
They all stand in silence, the wind howls around them, darkness beginning to fall as the sun drifts into the water.
It is time for them to go. 
"Well this is goodbye, be well and stay safe." He bows once more, Mun-yeong waves once before turning away without another word to either. He shoots Min-jo an apologetic smile as her huge wet eyes follow Mun-yeong longingly.
Then she's ripping herself from the tight grip of the woman who cries at the action. She runs straight into Mun-yeong's back. Little feet thundering on the ground and she quickly closes the distance between them. 
"Wait."
Mun-yeong halts her movement, still facing away.
"Can....I?.." She stutters around the words that jumble in her mouth, eyes staring a hole in Mun-yeong's back, she must be impervious to its heat. After a long drawn out pause she bravely finishes her question, "Can I be apart of your family?" The hope laced in her voice batters at his heart, she's just a child who wants to be loved. Crying out for it. Begging for it.
"No."
Her little head bows in defeat, nodding as if she understands, nobody wants her and she doesn't belong anywhere.
She starts to walk back to the woman, all the previous joy and wonder sucked from every cell of her body. Walking as if a marionette on a string, stilted.
"We're leaving. A family needs to stay together, to lean on each other." Mun-yeong's voice causes her to pause mid step, a twinge warmer than it was earlier. The first day of spring after winter's bitter cold. "You should find a family that worries about you and who needs someone to lean on too. A family that will never leave you."
He watches as those huge eyes slowly travel until they land on the lady. She runs back to her, body trembling as she looks at her like she's seeing her for the first time. Eyes now able to see what has always been right in front of her. 
"Can we be a family?"
The woman gasps, turning her head away, eyes glistening. Min-jo reaches out and takes her hand, small palms appearing even tinier in the woman’s hold as she peers up hopeful once more.
He turns away before he can see the conclusion, walking away to fall into step with Mun-yeong, who turns to meet his gaze. He notices the tear streaks on her skin, fondly looking at her, falling ever more in love.
"How did it end?"
He shrugs, taking her hand, "I didn't stay. But I hope it's a happy ending."
"Me too." She squeezes his hand, tightly. 
******************************************************************************************
She wordlessly goes into the camping van announcing that she wants to take a nap. He nods at her, pressing a kiss to her wet cheek before letting her go.
He opens the box of supplies he bought days ago, nerves all but obliterated, he's never been surer of anything in his life. He works diligently but quietly, eyes tracking the door of the camping van to ensure Mun-yeong doesn't suddenly appear before he's done. As he finishes his last touches, he climbs the stairs of the camping van. Eyes softening at the sight of his girlfriend laying on his bed roll, snuggling into his night shirt. He coos at the rare and precious sight, loathing the idea of waking her.
The choice is taken from him when her lashes flutter open and her unfocused eyes land on him, she jumps up nonchalantly hiding the shirt behind her. He pretends not to see it, pointedly looking away from her. Before he beckons her up.
"Come with me."
He offers his hand, sees her in all blue glowing in the sun as she waited for him.
Once again, she takes his hand. It's just as sweet as the first time. His heart is giddy with love.
He contemplates asking her to close her eyes but ultimately decided against it, he wants her to see and relish every moment.
Her small gasp as he pushes the door open makes his heart tremble and do a back-flip, bouncing all around the cavities of his chest. She looks around astonished at the scene, the faint twinkling of the fairy lights that adorn the camping van, blinking rhythmically, like stars that fell from the sky, the long winding path of rose petals that lead to a blanket that is topped with a bountiful basket and a bucket with wine.
"Wow."
She turns to look at him, eyes glossy and shining under the luminescence of the fairy lights. "What is this?"
He doesn't answer her question, actions have always spoken louder than words for him. He escorts her down the path of petals, softly crunching under their feet. Until they reach the blanket and he helps her sit before lowering himself next to her.
He opens the basket, removing all the food he purchased and hid away, small sandwiches and fresh fruits. He plucks a strawberry out before pressing it to her lips, "Open up." The dark desire that rolls through her eyes makes his body flush in return. She obeys silently, wrapping her lips around the soft flesh of the berry, biting down, relishing at the flavor before swallowing. She feeds him a slice of honey dew in return, fingers dragging across his lips bewitchingly.
They consume the rest of the food in silence, feeding themselves and each other in equal turns. Before he pours them both a bottle of the cheap wine he was able to purchase in a liquor store in the town. Her eyes never leave his face as she drinks the wine, captivated by his every move.
"Are you full?" He whispers not wanting to interrupt the calm that has settled like a warm blanket over them.
"Yes, I'm no longer hungry." Intentional pause, as her eyes lock on his lips. "For food."
Adjusting himself in his pants he ignores her tempting offer, for now. The main event is still around the corner and he needs all his wits for that.
Taking her hand in his large palms, he rubs his thumb along the soft skin, gazing into her eyes with his own laid open, wanting her to see everything he feels.
"Mun-yeong, I love you. I love who I am with you, who I've become with you, I want to be with you always."
She blinks at his words, words escape her as she stares at him. He doesn't give her a chance to flounder much more, pulling out what he had hidden in his pocket and placing it in her hand.
The button eyes of the nightmare doll, glow under the moonlight and she looks down at the thing she once dismissed as "ugly crap", now a prized possession.
"Mang-tae?..."
"I'm still a coward a little, he's going to help me tell you a message." He guides her eyes to the scroll sticking from the pouch, all too similar to her concealed message to him.
She slowly pulls the paper from the sack, hands trembling as she unfurls it and reads the message written. She's a fast reader, incredibly so, he knows that and the message is fairly short yet she stares at it for what feels like hours, maybe even years, time is relative in the moment.
She reads the message again and again and again and again and again. 
Before she finally puts it down. Then the tears come, easily, flowing like a river, soaking the neck of her romper and she lets them fall, doesn't interrupt their journey, allows herself this brief moment of vulnerability.
She's never looked more beautiful in his eyes.
He tells her so, "You look so beautiful. I want to see this face until I die."
Without a word she places Mang-tae tenderly on the blanket, before crawling into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck and she answers his question with a kiss. Their lips crash together with enough force to knock him backwards, dragging her with him as they tumble on the blanket.
Her tongue prods at his mouth and he eagerly allows her entrance, moaning at the sweet flavor of strawberry that floods his taste buds, sucking her tongue into his mouth to get more. His hands rub at the exposed skin of her back, traveling down to squeeze her soft lush ass, bringing their pelvis in contact. She grinds down sensually on his erection, moaning at the hot sensation. He pulls the tie holding her romper together, pulling back from the kiss to strip her bare. She resembles a wood nymph naked underneath the smattering of stars in the inky sky, the forest rustles around them.
While he's lost in the glory of her body, she undresses him, pulling his shirt over his head and pressing hot open kisses against his stomach, before unbuttoning his pants and pulling them own with his boxers in one firm tug. Then she hungrily gazes at his body, hands massaging his thighs before she crawls back into his arms, their bodies slotting together like puzzle pieces.
Their tongues meet in a languid battle, bodies rolling against each other like waves, uncontrollably. He presses a curious finger at the folds hidden between her thighs and groans at the enticing wetness that surrounds the digit. Coating in her sweet juices. She shakes her head above him, lifting up to dislodge his finger. He looks at her in question.
"I'm too close. I can't take foreplay. Make love to me." She pleads, demands, begs. All of them, at once.
She steals his breath, just like she did his heart and his control. He wonders what he will have left after her? What will still be his when she takes it all? He would give anything to her.
He is incapable of denying her so with a gentle grip of her waist he moves her aligning their bodies before his cock brushes against her most intimate spot, with a fluid tilt of his hip he slides into her tight pussy, it feels like coming home.
He exalts at the sensation, letting it roll over him, basking in her constrictions around him as she wiggles in his arms before pulling his ear lobe into her wet mouth, "Please."
He thrusts into her, powerful but steady, drawing her close and forcing her to meet him. She begins to ride him, feet planted beside his hips as she rams herself down into his hard cock, the view is unbelievable her face twisted in euphoria under a million dazzling stars, he takes a snapshot in his mind.
Before she knocks all thoughts out of his head, plunge down harder and faster onto him, he grabs her waist desperately, needing to slow her down. But she fights his grip, pushing his hands beside his head and he could easily take control but as he watches her fall apart he realizes she needs this. Desperately. Everything tonight has been out of her control, she needed to gain some of it back. Needed to find her footing as he effortlessly swept her off her feet. 
He lets her hold his hands down, giving no resistant, watching her fuck herself on him, entranced by the indecent sight of his dick disappearing in and reappearing out of her. In. Out. In. Out. InOut. InOut. She sets a punishing pace despite asking him to make love to her but he muses that their version of love hasn't always been gentle or tranquil, sometimes it was volatile even explosive so for them this is making love. It similar to everything else in their lives has layers, that they are continually peeling back to expose a new coat. 
She starts to moan loudly, little ahs so sweet in the wind, twisting and undulating until every downward thrust bumps against her clit, she keens as she pants out his name, "Moon Gang-tae, Moon Gang-tae!"
He holds on for the ride, hips slamming violently into hers as she tightens around him, walls crushing him until finally she shakes in his arms, her body twitching almost out of his hold and he swiftly snatches her back, drilling into the tight wall of her pussy until he feels his pinnacle nearing, the blood in his head surges and he feel his length swell and explode as he tumbles over the edge, driving every last drop of him inside her until she's stuffed full.
She collapses onto him, knocking the wind from his lung. But he takes her weight, wrapping her in his arms.
"Yes." She breaths into his ears.
Sliding out of the tight glove of her pussy he rolls to the side, catching Mang-tae once more, her brows farrow again.
"You didn't let me finish." He gently chides. Taking her hand and bringing it the the pouch on the doll's back once more, he sees the shock that washes over her features, eyes large in wonder as she pulls out the object hidden inside.
A sparkling gold ring, a modest princess cut diamond sits proudly on top, as beautiful as its new owner.
"Are you serious?" Her voice trembles, the tears coming again.
"Yes. But right now it's just a promise ring, a promise that one day I'll be a man who's worthy of being your husband. I wanted to give it to you now so you know that I'm yours and I want you to be mine in very sense of the word. What do you say?"
Her face crinkles into a smile, "You promised not to make me cry again. You already broke that promise tonight. You better not break this one."
He chuckles, "Those are happy tears that doesn't count. And you didn't answer my question." He needs to hear her answer.
She looks at him from under her lashes, naked and beautiful under the inky black night sky, lips blessing him with her response, "Sure. Why not?"
He smiles at the nonchalant answer as she weeps, before taking the ring from her hand, gently pressing the ring onto her finger, it looks like it belongs, perfect fit.
She tackles him onto the blanket, showering his face with kisses as he laughs loudly, freely. Living out his wildest dream with girl that he liked who become the woman that he loves. 
The message on the scroll crushed between their weight. But the words are unaffected.
Marry me, someday?
They were in no rush they had a lifetime ahead of them. 
Maybe even another after that, if they were reincarnated and destiny brought them together again. 
*******************************************************************************************
She drives them to their new location, he doesn't comment on her driving past the diner or looking through the glass to see Min-jo happily talking to the woman, their hands wrapped around each other as she pulls the lady behind her, excitedly jabbering. Neither of them say anything but she smiles the whole drive after, humming along to BLACKPINK on the radio. 
♫ ♫ Dududududu  ♫ ♫
He still doesn't comment when they end up at another site with a lake and mountains in the background.
After using the bathroom when he comes out of her van he finds her standing on the bank of the river. Feet barely grazing the water.
Wrapped around her arms are the bright pink floaties he saw on Min-jo's arms.
His breath hitches as she looks back at him, defiant smile on her face. Her ring shining from its permanent spot on her finger. 
She takes a step towards the water.
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118 notes · View notes
bensolotags · 4 years
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS
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From @BenSoloTags
(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)
Frequently Asked Questions
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* How can I participate in a BenSoloTags campaign?
To participate in our hashtag campaigns, first, follow @BenSoloTags, our official twitter account to find out when they are planned. We suggest you turn on notifications for our account, so you can get notified whenever we tweet something official. You can do that by clicking the button with the alarm icon on it on our profile. We send out the official campaign notices from that account, including themes, time zones, best practices, and updates.
* Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?
Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!
*How often do you do campaigns?
We try to do campaigns about once a month. 
* Why don’t we do more campaigns?
Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) see a LOT of tags, 24/7/365. We’re working to present unique monthly tags that are fun, positive, and creative. Disney and LFL will certainly notice when we trend a hashtag, even if it’s once a month. 
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* Are you the only people doing campaigns?
No. There are other groups out there working to bring Ben Solo back to Star Wars. We’ll try to share information about specific campaigns and the accounts/groups promoting them, along with our own monthly hashtag campaigns.
Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include: 
@kiara_solo
@KarolV14070769
@solosaberx
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* Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?
The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc. 
* How do you decide which tag to use?
We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.
Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe. 
Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting. 
We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.
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* Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?
No. We try to let people know about campaigns hosted by other accounts, as well as the monthly BST tag. Anything that isn’t our campaign will have “FYI” at the beginning and links to find more information (where possible).
* Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?
According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:” 
“...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.
“If your tag hasn’t trended within the first day of using it, it’s probably not going to reach that spike without some exceptional circumstances. It’s better to abandon it and try to get something else trending than it is to try to get an old tag to trend again later.”
Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter
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* Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too! 
As much as we feel all the sequel trilogy characters were given a hard shake by TRoS, Ben is the only major sequel trilogy character that died. So even if Rey and other characters suffered, they still have a (hopefully better-written) future. However, unless we can garner support to bring Ben back to life, his story ends where TRoS ends.
In light of this, our campaigns focus exclusively on Ben, or Ben as a part of Reylo, but we would love to support and help spread information about campaigns to celebrate other characters. Just let us know how we can help at @BenSoloTags.
* Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?
Well, no. Most artists don’t appreciate your re-posting their work without permission. The best way to share an artist’s images in a way that acknowledges their work is to retweet the artist’s original tweet from their account whenever possible. A direct tweet is better than a quote tweet. If you can’t find the original tweet, you can try asking the artist to repost their work so you can share it, or ask them to grant you the permission to repost it.
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* Where are you on social media?
Twitter @BenSoloTags
Facebook Ben Solo Tags
Instagram BenSoloTags
Best Practices
Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.
If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”
Try to tweet during the time zone recommended for your country, but if that doesn’t work for you, participate when you can the day of the campaign. Do not use third-party services or bots to tweet for you. 
Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”
Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”
Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. 
Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission. 
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Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag
Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:
Post photos of yourself with friends and family. 
Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.
Create memes and/or photo manipulations.  
Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s). 
Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.
Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him. 
If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it. 
Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it. 
Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!
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Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.
PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms. 
Please be respectful of others.
And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.  
Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”
Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. 
Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission.
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Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.
PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms. 
Please be respectful of others.
And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.
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2 notes · View notes
eorzeasntm · 5 years
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ENTM Tumblr Cycle 11
Round 7:  Action Movie
Hi everyone!  I’m busy preparing the new ENTM website, but that kind of work doesn’t stop a cycle in progress!  
Last week, I asked our models to go out and film a scene from an Action Movie - to get me a visible opponent and give me the coolest, most epic pose they could come up with to match it.  Our models set things on fire, got revenge on their foes from Boss Monster, and even re-enacted an old samurai drama.  But the model who put together the best action movie last week was:
Kota Tumet
Congratulations!  The decision to use the cinema frame was a smart choice, and by narrowing it down you gave this shot an excellent panoramic feel.  The judges liked the colors and lighting effects, as if you are seconds from everything behind you exploding.  Great job!
Our judges this week was the original host and founder of ENTM, Rongi Pongi.  
There is ONE MORE ROUND to go in ENTM Tumblr Cycle 11.  For those not on our Discord, next week will be our final cycle that uses Tumblr as a platform.  Tumblr Cycle will instead return next fall on our website, rebranded as ENTM Classic Cycle, with an integrated blog post, image galleries, and polls instead of using third party platforms.  ENTM Instagram Cycle will continue to be hosted on IG, of course, and YouTube cycle isn’t going anywhere either.  But the decision to move to a bigger blog means More Cycles!  More models!  More hosts!  Overall, much more ENTM!
Stay tuned for an announcement regarding our launch party in May!
For the models (and everyone else), please continue along for critiques from our judges.
Judge Terrini
Luma: You have managed to capture yourself beautifully here. Your colors pop, your pose is fun, and the lighting makes things exciting. The explosion zeroing in on your opponent makes this shot seem tense and it's captured at a delicate time where it's still prominent and doesn't completely obscure your opponent. The framing and pose makes it hard to tell if you are attacking or running away in shear terror. A wonderful shot, but a bit more cause and effect in the posing would enhance the scene. 
Ni'ko: It doesn't really come as a surprise that you love the pink and purple Mindflayer, Ni'ko, and the framing here his brilliant with the opposing sides in direct opposition and the action frozen with dynamic interaction. The only annoying factor is that the bowstring is running through your chest. 
Peaceful: A lovely dynamic action pose you have here, and the setting and costume choices are all appropriately thematic. However, the biggest trouble is the light of your skill turns much too bright against your outfit and it matters all the more with the black and white filter not allowing color to shine through at all. It might have been a bit more bearable if the shot was in color, but I think the color of your robe being so bright and white would still be an issue. Also, with the framing, I feel the upper left corner of the picture feels empty since the angle promotes looking between the bottom right and lower left. Adjusting the angle to be less from the ground and more even might help frame the buildings better, or using the cinematic movie strips would help contain the empty corners more. 
Yomu: This shot really grips me and makes me think of a simple shepherd picking up a spear to defend his flock from a giant predator. The fact that all the sheep are grazing peacefully in the bottom third, the threatening beast is in the middle third and you are aiming to strike in the top third makes this lovely pecking order that just adds to the intesity of this picture. My only disappointment is the black sheep's snout is cut off, but that's a nitpick for the sake of nitpicking, I honestly think you couldn't have arranged a better shot.
Judge Wulf
Adam! That’s a lot of fire! And it doesn’t look like you have much on, I hope you don’t get burned! I very much love the initial reaction I get from this picture: it’s very out of the box and surprised me! After that though, I find myself a bit...confused. Everything is pretty muddled, honestly, and I feel the fire is a major culprit due to this. I must admit, I am having a hard time seeing your enemy and even you to an extent. I’m very proud of you for taking a risk, but I’m not quite sure how well it paid off here. As a takeaway for this week, make sure your visibility is Priority Number 1! Even if this week didn’t do it for me, I know you’ve got some serious creativity, keep going!
Haila: I really love the shine that this shot gives, it almost has a sort of dreamlike feel to it! My eyes follow to the staff-crossing between you and Shiva, and that’s a really nice touch! Here are my notes for this week: while the opinion on back shots is mixed, I don’t think it was the best option for you this week. Since I can’t really see your face, and there’s only mostly the side of your body visible, a majority of my attention goes straight to Shiva.
Yojimbo: Ifrit is always a classic when it comes to fight scenes, I’ve noticed, and I think you’ve really taken the trope and made it your own! My favorite part of the picture is the cut line across Ifrit’s face, that has to hurt! It provides a nice line of sight to see both where you are and where the line of action is going. Here’s my note this week: you are very far away from us! I’ll admit being this far zoomed out from the action makes me as a viewer feel a little left out. It also doesn’t allow us to see you: who should be the star of the shot! I can tell you’re starting to explore outside of your comfort zone, though, so keep it up!
Yomu: PROTECT THE SHEEP! Seriously though I’d like to start off my saying that including the flock in this picture adds a level of story that for sure wouldn’t have been there without it, and for that I’m very proud of you for adding in that little detail. You’ve got a nice line of action here with each of your key players all looking in the right direction: Ratholos is looking at the sheep, and you’re looking at Ratholos.  My eyes can either go up or down the picture and it feels nice to look at and tells a cohesive story. As is the nature with jump actions and some back shots, though; you are very hard to see. Yes, you are fighting a big dragon here but remember: you are the star, and how can you be if the viewer can’t even see your head? I feel like this picture in profile would have added that level of visibility to get around this, but from this angle I lose a bit of you in that regard. Awesome job this week, though, and keep your storytelling skills up!
Kota: This is the kind of shot I expect to see either right before and explosion, or before the logo flashes across the screen. I get a sense of punctuation here, this is either a major beat or straight up the end of something big, and the black bars really accent that with a widescreen view. This is a nitpick, for sure, but my eye keeps being drawn to the light behind the boss on the left side; it’s very bright. This is probably due to the filter used and also a necessary sacrifice for the image as a whole, but just something to watch out for. Good job this week!
Judge Nadede
Bria Rirsa:  This is pretty nice shot from you this week. The expression that I see with your eyes are what one would expect to see when two swords are clashing together.The lighting within your image is nicely done. What I do find myself wishing is that you had chosen a background that perhaps felt more menacing or went with the outfits that are being worn. If/when you are trying to tell a story through the use of images, just ask yourself “do my surroundings work well with the story I’m portraying?” Another thing that does detract from your image is we have a furry little friend photobombing the lower right part of your image and what looks like might be a slight tear/clipping in the back of the other person’s outfit. It is sometimes the smallest of details that can detract from image, especially if it appears out of place. Overall good work.
Haila Wetyios:  While I feel that this is a pretty shot from you, for some reason I feel as if though you are playing it safe. The image itself is done nicely with the lighting and the composition. You even managed to get a nice image of Shiva as well. To me, though,  it does not say “action movie” much at all. I find myself wishing that there was more going on within your shot. To me, this appears as if you’re having a conversation someone and perhaps making some form of pact with them. I want to challenge you to play with your shots more. I’d like to see more of a variety from you than what you tend to go for… where your back is facing the viewer or giving us a ¾ back shot and an image that is vertical. There has been a very few times where it has been the opposite but I’d rather be surprised at what is different than seeing something the same, if that makes any sense to you. Like I said, this is a nice shot but it is too safe for me. I do look forward to seeing what you come up with for next week.
Ni’ko Shae:  The scared little kitty isn’t so scared of the mean old monsters anymore! Heck it even appears that the monsters are not too thrilled with the blinding light the tip of your arrow is making. The angle of the bow and arrow and the direction of your face helps lead the eye to the monsters and how the monsters are looking back up and you brings the viewer’s eye back around. The lighting in your image is also nice done and I am glad that neither you nor the mobs blend into the background. It was kind of bold for you to use the same dungeon from an earlier shot for a different theme, but put the two together and they tell a story that works. Overall I think you’re doing a fairly good job and looking to see what you will do next week.
Peaceful Ursa: Out of all the images I have see from you this cycle, this one I really do like and has become a favorite of mine this week. It appears that you are taking feedback and putting what is said to use, and it shows in this image. I am happy that you paid tribute to the old black and white samurai movies. I do wish that you had used the cinematic border. I think it would have made an even bigger impact with your image. The lighting in your image is almost spot on even though just a bit more on your face could have helped. The fog in the background also helps with the mood of the scene and helps separate the mountains in the background with what is in the foreground. Having your image at an angle helps give your shot a more dramatic scene as well as help helping guide the viewer’s eyes around. Overall nicely done and good job on improving each week.
Judge Ona
Adam: If “epic fire battle scene” was a thing, Adam, this image would be the definition.  There’s smoke and flames and a two people battling it out right in the middle of it all. But where all those things are epic, I don’t really understand what is going on. Are you being shot? Are you dodging the fire? Also, I am finding it very hard to see which enemy you are fighting. I hate to say it, but the effect is too strong, and I feel that I have lost Adam in the mix.
Things that I would work on, changing the viewpoint of the image. If you brought the enemy closer to the front, or yourself, and created a depth of field from the placement of yourself and the enemy it would have created a more dynamic image overall. Additionally, if you placed yourself farther from the camera point, we could have seen your face more.
Things that I love about this image, the glamour fits and I love the feeling of movement from you Adam. I wish I knew what was causing that movement though. I also love your use of the same effect through image, just be careful in the future that the effect doesn’t overtake the shot, and leave the viewer seeing more flame than Adam.
Bria: I don’t know how you managed to get the swords to stop so they were notched like this, but its an awesome screenie! I definitely feel the battle that is happening and the struggle that you and this unnamed assailant are having!
I am left wondering why you chose this location? To me, it doesn’t feel like it was chosen on purpose, and it doesn’t do much to add to the story. Likewise, it feels very constricted with the object in the background. With so much cut off I can’t tell if it is a ship, a landing platform, or something else. Finally, your minion is just chilling in the tall grass by your feet. I have a feeling they would have ran away if a fight were happening.
Things I love about this image: Your glam is beautiful. You kept two main colors, the black and dark red brown. I also love the use of this sword to create the notched effect with the other blade. I also like how you positioned the image so that you are facing the camera, but engaged with the enemy. I would make sure that you are paying attention to the entire scene and positioning of your weapon so that it doesn’t restrict so much of your face.
Luma: What a strong image this week Luma! That explosion is so powerful and definitely fits the definition of epic! I really love how you have put the judge’s critiques to use and grown. This week definitely shows that!
While this image is your strongest yet, please continue to be mindful of things such as cutting off limbs and other body parts, and the physics of your clothing. I know it’s a lapel on your jacket, but this angle puts it directly across your face, and it detracts from your expression.
Things I love about this image: Your glam. You are so very steam-punk-esque and it works with battling a big robot! I also love the lack of saturation in the colors of the image. The yellows and reds of the explosion are bright enough to make the viewer take notice, but that single whiteish flare brings the viewers eye back to yourself. I also love the use of the depth of field here, creating more focus on yourself and blurring the enemy in the back just enough to keep the focus on yourself. Just make sure your WHOLE self can be appreciated and include all limbs.
Kota: By the Twelve this is a gorgeous image! This long frame, and the use of purple tones throughout has created an epic steam-punk image for this round. It is a strong and well-crafted shot!
In looking over the image, I struggle to find much that could be improved upon. Even though everything shines with that beautiful purple sheen, your character has movement and sharpness to her that brings the eye back to her. I do wish I could see your whole body, and possibly a mask that we could see your eyes may have played to this stance more.
Things I love about this image: The color palette, especially since it creates a feel for the whole image. The glam goes perfectly with this type of boss and definitely plays into an epic movie battle. The lighting is spot on and is perfectly placed. The position of your body to the screen and the use of this frame are also very strong for this week’s theme. Overall, there really isn’t much I can say other than, Well done this week!!!
Judge Rongi
Haila: I knew this was Haila’s image before evening scrolling down enough to see her. Very signature Haila. Shiva is looking down at you, and the crossing of the staves shows some interesting interaction, so the viewer is looking back and forth and in between. The balance between you two is done really well, and the fade from white to dark blue not only in the background but also the two characters is beautiful. 
 Peaceful Ursa: I love the black and white old movie style of this shot. And this famous battle scene that everyone knows is really done well. I love the wisps of smoke we can still see that seem to be rising from the ground after you slid across it. The weakest part of this image is that I can barely see any faces, but everything is else is great. 
Adam: I am not really sure what I am looking at in this image. I can’t tell if the fire is coming from you or the monster, what monster that is, or what your pose is. I think having everything a little bit more defined in the image through use of a different angle maybe would have been a stronger choice for this image.
Bria: I would have loved for this image to be twisted back behind the male model just a few inches more so we were looking over his shoulder and into your snarling face. The look between you all and the crossing of the swords is great. My only question is why this background choice? This shot would have been perfect in a fiery or purple-aether area. 
Luma: I love how your character is riding the explosion and saying Yea!! As the boss explodes. Very movie scene feel to this shot. The straight lines coming out of the boss do make my eyes go back to him each time instead of you, but its still a strong enough image. 
Ni’ko: This is a strong image. Great balance for all creatures involved. The lines bring my eyes all over the image, and since everyone is looking at you I am still brought back to you at the end of the day. The only part of the image that needed the tiniest tweak is that your character is looking perfectly right instead of inward, so while all the mobs are looking at you, you are looking past them. Still, very strong.
Kota: A Scene straight from a movie. It looks more like you and Alexander are a team then battling though, and that little explosion on his leg doesn’t scream action packed like the other shots do this week, but you do look awesome firing a shot and then looking back at us like “I’m gonna need a bigger gun” haha. I’d have gone all out with explosions to make this an even stronger image. Great colors. 
Yojimbo: We’ve had Ifrit rounds in the past, so not only are you competing with all your fellow Cycle 11 models but also the memories of 2 past cycles. I really like that you have the camera in position so that we see the outer ring of fire and then the rest in the background, but I wish you had been closer to the camera because you are too small and far away. The right half of the image is entirely dead space. I’d have cut all that out and zoomed in more on you. 
 Yomu: Those little innocent sheep don’t even look scared as the dragon swoop in from above. Haha. Your shot this week has a great story with it, and is balanced well. Some judges don’t lie back shots, and others do, and I am one that does – but in this case not only is this a backshot, but we can’t even see your head! So I do wonder if there had been another way to at least the back of your head some how.
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random-storykeeper · 5 years
Video
youtube
My OHC compilation video is here! This time, I showcase all 29 entries I’ve submitted for One Hour Compos in 2018. The cover art in the centre of the thumbnail is done by my friend catnippackets and I still can’t get over how amazing it is that she took the time to make it for me. :)
Last time I did one of these compilation videos, I made it so that the blurbs I wrote about the individual pieces was on its own, private post. I forgot you could do read mores on video posts, so this time I figured, why not just make this all public? That’s in the full post below:
OHC 482 "Connect the Dots" - When the first OHC of 2018 kicked off, I had a lot of trouble thinking of ideas on how to approach this theme. Eventually, I just settled for keeping things simple, using chiptune with a little bit of guitar to create a more pleasant little nighttime piece.
OHC 483 "Patternwork" - When I first saw the images, I wanted to be direct as possible in terms of my theme approach musically. I would use guitars as my choice of string instruments to convey the “threads” and have them repeat simple patterns with triplets going against eighth notes, taking away and adding layers as the piece went along. I exhausted almost every guitar I had in my soundfont collection and ended up having to use an electric guitar. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well.
OHC 484 "Going Your Own Way" - I usually approach underwater themes in the same matter - sine waves with lots of release. This time, I wanted to do something a little different, but still chiptune. So I decided to focus more on having a direct melody and using square waves instead. I actually quite like the carefree melody I came up with here - sadly, I didn’t really know how to develop it any further so I ended up just repeating it a lot throughout the piece, haha.
OHC 485 "Rays and Rain" - This theme was difficult to work with. I wasn’t really sure what to interpret the pictures as. I ended up just thinking of “rain with some light coming through” and kind of went off with that in a more laidback fashion. It was this compo that I discovered that slowing down the tempo while using delay that is synchronized to the current tempo creates a cool kind of pulsating effect, which is heard at the end.
OHC 486 "Distant Hearts" - This piece was one of the few vocal entries that felt like it kind of fell into place as I went along. I actually am using an excerpt of the post compo version I did for Chips Compo, the full version which I’ll be posting to my channel some time later this year. 
OHC 487 "Drivin' 'Round the Galaxy" - Space in a car = chiptune blues? Sure...and don’t forget the high whistle with plenty of vibrato. :P
OHC 488 "Glass Curiosity" - I’m really not good at doing “rave” or dance pieces, so I decided to just focus on making something that would kind of try to capture the feeling of “losing yourself” via drinking. I mean, it’s a really basic interpretation, but towards the end, I play around a ton with the tempo as well as the filters. 
OHC 491 "From the Earth" - Whenever we get nature or plant themes, I feel like I’ve always tried to make them happy and joyous. This time, I wanted to go for a more tranquil, calmer approach. With acoustic guitar, flute, piano and violin, everything started to fall into place from there.
OHC 492 "Cybernetic Rush Hour" - At this point, I realized that my own sounds were severely limiting me, particularly in the electric department. Chiptune sounds weren’t quite cutting it for me, so I ended up booting up Harmless and taking a couple presets from there. I only barely know how to use it, unfortunately. Maybe someday, I’ll learn. The piece only started working for me when I hit those running notes at the end, but by then, time was already running out. 
OHC 493 "Routine" - One of the first things I think of when I see a bunch of machines is “conformity” and sticking closely to regular tasks. So I tried to keep the notes as even as possible and then put in some vocals. Ironically, the “just don’t come out of the blue” line really does sound like it came out of the blue lol
OHC 494 "Iris Chase" - I remember playing this one Ludum Dare game that had a red eye similar to these pictures. You would play as a person trying not to die while trapped in a room with several other people. I think the eye would kill people based on a vote and if not it would just kill people randomly. Anyways, I wanted to go with this sort of idea - a sinister eye constantly searching for the kill. I tried to play it really weird with slow pitch LFO, maybe some distortion, tritones, a gradually faster tempo. This was a lot of fun to make, and felt a bit different from what I normally was used to making, which in my opinion, was good. 
OHC 495 "Palace 9" - So I pretty much had my instrument set in mind once I saw the images - harps, violins, pizzicato strings, y’know, things that would be light and heavenly. Then I realized, I didn’t really have a good lead. Turns out, the oboe makes a great lead. Although now that I think of it, pitch bending it doesn’t sound that good haha.
OHC 496 "Paws on the Sidewalk" - Seeing fur made me automatically think of white fluffy dogs, so I decided I wanted to make a piece about taking a dog out for a walk on a pleasant sunny day. And yeah...started out with the first few notes you hear on the guitar, and just sort of went at it from there.
OHC 497 "But Only For a Moment" - I really wanted to do a ballroom dance piece for this one. Not only that, but the experience of sort of “having that first dance”, heart pumping in your chest, the pause of anticipation. Of course, it didn’t exactly turn out that way, but the idea was to set a “beautiful” scene cut short by time. How appropriate, given that this is OHC. Surprisingly, this did well in the compo. 
OHC 501 "IV Dream" - This was a weird OHC to come back to. I had never worked with a text theme before, so I was a bit taken aback here. There were so many interpretations I could go for. The one I felt the most comfortable with doing was an ocean/underwater track, but I wanted to go for something different but still water related. Then I remembered: just the week before, I was in the hospital (I burst my appendix, it infected my lower abdomen and I had to stay there for a week) and they put an IV in my hand for the antibiotics and hydration. As I was falling asleep there, I would recall the dripping sounds as the fluids made their way into my hand. I dunno, I guess that was kind of a weird approach to the theme: “I’m dreaming of flying through the sky but I’m actually just stuck here in the hospital”. Plus my voice got all messed up from the operation, so the vocals probably sound a lot worse than they normally do. :P
OHC 502 "Chipititis" - I missed making straight-up chiptune, so I made straight-up chiptune. That’s all, lol.
OHC 503 "Open Up" - I chose to go with the theme of “solitude” being a more positive theme, maybe focusing more on the calmness/meditative side of being alone and allowing yourself to be open and free in isolation. The pads in my soundfont set, as I discovered in this compo, actually work really nicely to set a fuller atmosphere. 
OHC 504 "Long Lost Reconnections" - In this compo, I tried to make a song based on a dream I had that felt real to me. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before I could fully develop the lyrics and the theme didn’t come across as well as I had hoped. 
OHC 505 "Confrontation" - Falling. How on earth are you supposed to portray this musically? I decided I would have to go with the basics: fast, descending chords. Then I hit a bass groove and decided it really needed a sax melody, so I put in that sax. By then, I decided that this piece would be about constantly falling with no end in sight, and having to come to those terms that eventually, you’ve got to land on something...right?
OHC 506 "Being Bold" - When I made this piece, I put in a definite end, and regretted it soon after hearing it in the listening party. Personally, it sounds so much better when the notes at the end don’t resolve, like in the “where does the hope go from here?” sort of way. 
OHC 509 "Forgetful Traveller" - Another one of those “hard to convey” themes. The chords had to be just right, conveying someone moving forward, but also kind of thinking that “maybe I should have gone back because I forgot something”. Well, I tried my best.
OHC 510 "Conflicting Voices in My Head" - imo this is easily one of the roughest of the vocal entries I’ve ever done. In the original compo version, I had a lot of trouble getting the vocals to be loud enough for people to actually hear them. Third time’s the charm, I hope. 
OHC 511 "Porcelain and Plastic" - I wanted to do a spooky, unsettling piece for this one, so I tried to make a piece about “feeling strange because you’re being watched by a bunch of old dolls in a dimly lit room and also, you might be turning into one of them”. 
OHC 512 "Rest in Victory" - Before I started the compo, I wanted to make a piece that would keep building up until it got to a sort of “grand finale”. So for this one, I tried to keep it simple, with the same set of chords repeating and just adding different layers as I went along. I had this crazy idea of putting in electric guitars and wasn’t really sure how these were going to work, but I think there’s some ideas in there that I kind of like. 
OHC 513 "Lullaby For a Needlessly Productive AllNighter" - I submitted this with a weird title because it was almost too long to be submitted properly (there’s a weird glitch on OHC where if you submit a title that is too long, it just glitches your piece out entirely). As for the piece itself, I wanted to make a lullaby that was kind of related to my own problems of wanting to stay up to constantly get stuff done. 
OHC 530 "Giants" - I missed out of OHC for several months due to one of my classes last term directly conflicting with the time that OHC ran. So I was pretty excited to return. Live entries are always more nervewracking, but they’re a little easier to set up, in a sense - plus, you get more control over the tempo and stuff. That being said, since they are done in one take, there’s a lot that can go wrong. I almost got this one down until I messed up on the last few notes, oops. 
OHC 531 "So Just (Let Me Be)" - The theme page originally showed “sjsj” as the theme, so most people started basing their pieces off this. It wasn’t until a few minutes in that the official theme was actually posted. Rather than starting a new piece entirely, I decided to just combine the two themes together. I tried to make several lines of the lyrics start with “S” and “J” then I ran out of time. 
OHC 532 "Melting Point" - When I saw the hot springs, it immediately made me think of the hot springs I went to in Japan last summer. It was one of my favourite experiences there. But yeah, I tried to grab a combination of instruments that would sort of capture the contrast between the hot and cold. Vibraphone for a bell-like sound, pizzicato strings for the forest setting, marimba for a warmer sound. Marimba worked surprisingly well for this theme, and I wasn’t the only one in the compo who thought this. 
OHC 533 "Hibernal Regret" - Didn’t really want to do a vocal entry, but I couldn’t help myself - this piece needed words, so I put them in. I tried to keep them short and simple rather than spending a huge chunk of the hour just trying to come up with meaningful lyrics. This allowed me time to process them properly and polish things up a little more. Never really thought I’d be combining winter and space, but hey, it was an interesting combination.
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survivor-guyana · 5 years
Text
Immunity Results #3
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Meet Your Judges!
DAN
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Hi sisters, it’s Dan, king of half faced selfies, here to roast your lip syncs
NEHE
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Hi sisters, it's Nehemiah, king of not winning a game he deserves to win, here to judge you guys like you never been judged before, p.s Tim stop stealing my role as the one straight black guy in the org community
CHARLOTTE
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hi sisters, i’m back from the dead and ready to roast some bitches. i honestly don’t remember if i’ve played more than one main season but i was in kuang si and really that’s the only one that matters. not sorry!
CONNOR
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hey sisters, hope you missed me because im still not coming back.
DENNIS
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Hi sisters, I was forced to write this start. But entertain me
JESS
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About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn't know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
HOSORORO
youtube
Dan: 31/50
Theme: 5 - No real theme tbh, I guess the editing incorporated some nice colors and stuff. I wish y'all could have been more in sync with a theme tho. Maybe I'm just being critical.
Creativity: 5 - The editing was creative, I liked the effects and the added little bits that went along with the lyrics. I think the difference between this video and the others tho was that the others tried something new and exciting to spice up their videos. Was it more creative? Maybe? There's nothing wrong with picking a bop and lip syncing, but it's 2019 ladies, spice it up.
Effort: 7 - She may have bought that hair, but y’all yanked it right off. I think some of you really tried harder than others, but I stan when people just do their best and record where and when they can. It shows dedication and I like that shit. I think that the effort into learning the lyrics without reading them off the screen and dedication to filming in the car kind of showed y'all want this.
Composition: 7 - BITCHHHHH I’M GAGGGGGT. It’s 240p, but honestly Ariana Grande who? Whoever edited this made it seemless, but honestly the low quality needs to get clocked a few points.
Entertainment Value: 7 - The dancing, the outfits, the lip sync skills? A bitch was entertained. While the other videos tried to make things new and exciting, y'all delivered what I think of as more of a successful project.
Jess: 34/50
Theme 8/10. If I had to say the theme, I'd guess that it's "bad bitches" which you all are.
Creativity 5/10. If a 0 is 1 person playing basketball instead of lip syncing at all, and a 10 is a full out choreographed dance number done by your entire tribe, I think this falls solidly in the middle. I don't think there is a lot about this that sets it apart from past music videos I've seen, but I don't think it is bad.
Effort 8/10. It seems like most of your tribe members were at least majorly involved and tried to make this good! And you all put effort into the dancing/attitude you had, it felt like everyone tried to match their actions to the song.
Composition 6/10. I think the editing is good and it matches the timing of the music which is nice, the cuts are usually on the beats! But it did get a little repetitive after a while, like I felt as though the same thing was happening throughout the whole video and there wasn't a variety in the images/cutting style/etc. I also think it was hard to tell if the video was in sync because for some reason y'all are in 2007 and only uploaded this at 240p???? Are you guys all over the age of 45 why did you do that. Finally, the flickering glitter filter was cool at the start, but I wish you'd spiced it up and not just used that throughout the entire video, also at points it was a little distracting due to the bright colours that would pop up.
Entertainment Value 7/10. Six of these points are for the girl who was in the car because she was killing it and I loved her. I took points off for a similar reason I had above -- it felt like the video was one note and I wish you guys had a little more variety throughout.
Dennis: 38/50
Theme: 6/10 Creativity: 8/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 8/10 Entertainment: 8/10
I know I will get alot of hate comments for this, but this in general is not really a song to lipsync too. EITHER WAY I think you did a good pretty good job with it. All of you seemed to enjoy yourself and the editing was enough to keep my attention throughout the whole video. I didn't really get the theme, but overall it was a very entertaining Lipsync!
Connor: 35/50
Ok this is good. You clearly all worked together artistically so that your individual shots were coherent. Im not crazy about the pink strobe kinda thing going on through the entire video but you were all performing and this is well done. Theme: 7 Creativity: 6 Effort: 8 Composition: 7 Entertainment Value: 7
Charlotte: 42/50
Theme:  IF THE THEME WAS FABULOUSNESS YOU ACHIEVED IT. ARIANA WOULD BE PROUD.  8/10
Creativity:  I feel like you could have done a little bit more with some of the lyrics but all in all I loved this video and now I'm just being picky. 7/10
Effort:  See above. I think you could have done a little but more but keeping the pink aesthetic through your editing and ALL THAT DANCING werk werk werk.   8/10
Composition:  Love. That. Aesthetic. 10/10  PLUS YOU'RE ALL IN THE SAME CAMERA ORIENTATION I LOVE THAT. LOVE THAT FOR YOU.
Entertainment Value:  FUN, ENJOYABLE, FLAWLESS, NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. 9/10
Nehe: 44/50
7 8 9 10 10
Now this is a fucking music video work bitches work
TOTAL: 224
ARAKAKA
youtube
Dan: 29/50
Theme: 7 - Annoying advertisements? Trying to show the effects of product placement on our every day life? I loved it haha I was shook.
Creativity: 6 - V creative, but was it really a music video? I guess parts were but I also was like so lost after a while. I think song choice is always important and I was so bored during the song parts. I wish you had made the song part as creative as the ad parts.
Effort: 4 - Honestly the effort was misfocused on the ads and less on the music video, was I mad about it? only like 50%. the song was boring and just kinda blah so it was interesting
Composition: 5 - Choppy, but I can’t edit so rip
Entertainment Value: 7 - Honestly this how to video taught me so much and I’m shook. THE POPCORN I LITERALLY SCREAMED. While I nodded off during the music video portion, I stanned the ads
Jess: 32/50
Theme 6/10. I think your theme was ads? I didn't really understand it but it was fun and unique.
Creativity 8/10. I have never seen anything like this that's for sure.
Effort 4/10. It seemed like everyone in your tribe was in the video I think? But most of the stuff you guys submitted was 1 take/shot and wouldn't have required a lot of editing, which is the most time consuming/effort requiring portion of the challenge so...
Composition 5/10 The editing of the commercials was pretty good, but it didn't flow as well as it should have because the audio levels were a bit all over the place. Also at one point it was in colour and out of focus but I wasn't sure why? Also a+ for doing your video in 1080p (@ other tribes take note). Since the actual music video portion was just one shot, I feel like I can't really give you a higher rating than the other tribes in this category.
Entertainment Value 9/10 First frame: a guy in a Stitch onesie with a bottle of tequila and a mug that says "ray of fucking sunshine"?? I laughed immediately. Then I was shook when later I realized it was actually a shot glass and was close to the camera and it got even better. This whole video was wild and I had no idea what was going to happen so I was pretty entertained.
Dennis: 45/50
Theme: 8/10 Creativity: 10/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 9/10 Entertainment: 10/10
This is probably the last kind of video which I expected in a challenge like this. I think it was really creative and connected entertainment with comedy and a nice little theme. I am very impressed good job!
Connor: 20/50
“””””Acting””””””” “””””””Edgy”””””””” Eggs?? Im vegan. What was the point of this? Was there a point? Pop corn girl gets you an extra point but this is not a music video. To quote bandersnatch, you chose the wrong path.
Theme: 3 Creativity: 6 Effort: 4 Composition: 4 Entertainment Value: 3
Charlotte: 34/50
Theme:  I've been out of the ORG world for awhile but is this what music videos are now??? I feel like the music video of your video was sorely lacking. YouTube loves ads but not that many!!!!! I did think the ads were pretty creative though so I marked up points for that below. 6/10
Creativity: See above. 9/10
Effort:  It wasn't just straight up lip syncing so I gotta reward you guys for that. 8/10
Composition: That black and white switching to color towards the end got me fucked up. 6/10
Entertainment Value:  To quote the person sitting beside me: "OMG another ad?"Cute concept, not sure it works as a music video but you tried.  5/10
Nehe: 35/50
6
6
6
7
10
Honestly this was something i never seen before and i enjoyed it hahaha
TOTAL: 195
TAKAMA
youtube
Dan: 26/50
Theme: 6 - Cats? Bikes? Awkward White People Dancing? Are these the themes you went for? If so, y’all killed it haha, but it wasn't cohesive and I don't get what y'all were going for really.
Creativity: 5 - honestly, I stan an original song choice bc I haven’t seen this before, but also, a song like this needs to be sold and I don't know if y'all pulled out all the stops. I would have liked to see more passion from some of you in the props and theatrics department.
Effort: 5 - Some of you seemed to try a little harder than others, but overall y’all were feelin it
Composition: 5 - A little choppy, but I can’t edit for shit so like good job?
Entertainment Value: 5 - Okay Miss Tim with that bike balance, idk your name sis (maybe Jones) but striped sweater, pm me on skype – dan.disbrow so I can buy it ty. Other than that I don't really remember much besides a lot of cringey dancing.
Jess: 29/50
Theme 1/10. Tbh I don't really know what the theme was here, did you guys forget this category??
Creativity 4/10. Pretty much the same reason that I gave Hororo's tribe a 5, I'm giving you a 4. I am taking one point off because they at least did some stuff to make their video more unique/specific to their song whereas I think you guys could have used this editing style/dancing/etc to any song and it would have also worked, so it wasn't super unique.
Effort 9/10. Everyone who was in the video seemed really into it and did a good job having fun! But this is a 6 person tribe... one person wasn't in it and they weren't the editor?? You should vote them out if you lose.
Composition 9/10. The editing flowed well, you showed everyone on the tribe a pretty decent amount, and everyone's individual videos were pretty on point for lip sync? Usually when people film on their webcams it's not in sync, but these were all really good! You lose one point because the video quality was low and wasn't 1080p which it really should be.
Entertainment Value 6/10. I liked everyone's attitude and dancing and I loved the cats. I originally had 5 but then I remembered the cats and went back and added another point. But I wish you guys had done something unique for each mini song, like maybe divided them up amongst your tribe, or had people change outfits or something? If you had done that, I'd have given you way more points for theme and entertainment value. But because it was kind of repetitive/one note, it's hard to say I was REALLY entertained the whole time.
Dennis: 37/50
Theme: 9/10 Creativity: 7/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 7/10 Entertainment: 6/10
Comment: What stood out for me in your video was the theme. I assume that you wanted to mimic the fans v faves theme with a riff off and I thought that was actually quite smart. Everything else seemed to be for me what I would expect from a lipsync, but besides the theme nothing that stood out to me especially.
Connor: 27/50
The lip sinking is a little off at times (im coming back to this part, in the middle / two ish minute point-on it is not good) and I think the transitions from song to songs could have been smoother, but I think this is creative in terms of it being a mashup. I think there could have been more “music video” aspects to it. In addition to y’all singing. EXTRA POINT FOR THE CATS ( stripped sweater??? who is this??? Queen????)
Theme: 5 Creativity: 6 Effort: 6 Composition: 4 Entertainment Value: 6
Charlotte: 28/50
Theme: Was your theme Pitch Perfect? Like, I'm not sure whether or not there was anything you guys planned out but it really just seemed kind of randomly thrown together.  5/10
Creativity: I liked the cats? 6/10
Effort: See above. I feel like y'all just kind of threw this together? It was missing something for me. The person in the stripes pulled it together for you though so 7/10
Composition: Y'all really out here in 2019 not filming in the same orientation? I'm deducting 50% for that. It's a travesty. Also, if one person does a filter and no one else does, does it really make sense? IDK.  3/10
Entertainment Value: ... again, I liked the cats. Plus the stuff with the bicycle was weirdly entertaining.  7/10
Nehe: 31/50
TOTAL: 178
Thank you judges!
That means, Takama, I will be seeing you that tribal council on January 28 at 10 pm est.
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aldmerii-blog · 5 years
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hey it’s a tutorial on how i make gifs
its a long one
carly, what programs do i need? 
what a good question! basically, you need a program to record video (if you’re making gifs of video games), a program to take frames of the video you recorded (or the movie or show you’re giffing because you can do that too, obviously), and a graphic processing program (it’s photoshop, you need photoshop)
also if you’re recording your own game footage you need a computer capable of running that game well. ideally you want medium to high settings at 60fps (this varies; like you want to record, say, skyrim at high settings and probably modded, but newer games like mass effect andromeda, just medium-high settings should be fine!)
for video recording, i strongly recommend: 
nvidia shadowplay
i think you can only use this if you have an nvidia graphics card. it’s very good because it automatically records at 60fps and at up to 4k (so like it’s good for taking regular video for video purposes also) and it starts up very quickly (so when you hit record, it’s only a few seconds before it starts recording). in-game, you hit alt+f9 to start recording. 
xbox game dvr
i used this for a long time and it’s perfectly satisfactory, and great if you don’t have an nvidia graphics card. it comes with windows 10. you need to go into windows settings and set the quality to High and the framerate to 60fps. the only drawback is that it takes a hot minute to start up the first time you use it in a gaming session (like 10-30 seconds) and there are some games it won’t open over (i had issues with both assassin’s creed odyssey and far cry 5). in-game, you hit ctrl+alt+r to start recording. 
for frame-taking:
gomplayer
has a slightly imprecise method of screenshotting, that is you have to time your “burst capture” while the video is playing - you can’t find the spot you want, pause it, start your capturing, and then play the video to have it start at an exact moment. however it really captures every frame and i’ve never had any issues with it. best advice is to record more frames than you need to and delete the ones you don’t need in windows explorer or photoshop. to open the screen-capture window, you hit ctrl+g
potplayer
i used this one for a long time, too! it does what i said gomplayer doesn’t do, which means you can pause it and start screencapturing and it’ll start from where you paused it when you hit play. i’ve had a few issues with it not actually capturing every frame even when i have it set to do so. but that might be just me. to open the screen capture window, you hit ctrl+g
for graphic handing:
photoshop. specifically cs5 -- that’s what i’ve used for about half a decade. i’m sure a lot of the steps are similar in cs6 and cc but i’ve never used either of them and i can’t help you learn those. 
that’s it. no other options.
okay great!!!!!!! you got ur software set up. now what???
if you want to make gifs of video games where you use your own footage, read this bit. if not skip down to the next header. 
at the most basic level, with creative cropping, you don’t really have to do anything more than record the screen of the game you’re playing. for a lot of games, this is what you have to do (dragon age origins and 2, stardew valley, etc). HOWEVER. there are ways to get different shots in some games and i’ll take you through skyrim/fallout 4 and dragon age inquisition (and i think other frostbite engine games?) if you have questions about other games you’re welcome to ask!
bethesda products (skyrim and fallout 4 mainly)
bethesda is very nice and includes console commands that let you get some good cinematic shots in their base games. these are the same for both skyrim and fallout 4 because they’re the same engine. 
tfc
your bread and butter, baby. this is “toggle free camera” or “toggle fly camera” -- it detaches you from your character basically, and you can fly around. if you are in third person when you enter the console command, your character will remain visible and you can take pictures of them. in first person, theyre not. (also, drawn weapons will disappear in first person). note that in fallout 4 third person, your character will continue to rotate/strafe as you move the camera. 
you can add a 1 to the end of the command (tfc 1) and it will also freeze time. this is good for taking screenshots, not gifs
entering tfc again will turn it off
tm
‘toggle menu’ -- this turns off the hud, including the crosshair. this is. very important. you don’t want the menu in ur gifs ok. 
it also hides the console window! so it may be a little confusing. but generally if the grass/water/dust is moving, the console window isn’t open.
typing tm again will reenable the menus
sucsm #
the default free cam is very fast and imprecise. i usually use sucsm 1 to slow down the speed at which the camera moves. 
sgtm #
set global time multiplier. this one isn’t hugely necessary but i still find myself using it sometimes. default is 1. you can set it to, like sgtm .01 to basically freeze the game while you get the camera into position if you’re trying to capture an action. also sometimes if i think things are moving too fast or too slow i’ll change the timescale. MAKE SURE you set it back to 1 when you’re done!
i Heavily suggest, especially for skyrim, that you use an ENB if your computer can handle it. it makes the game look nice, but it also usually includes depth of field which i am an absolute slut for. if not, use the mod dynavision for a DoF effect (available for both skyrim and fo4!)
and then you just have fun with it. getting good shots takes some practice. play with it. i tend to record long sessions (~5-10 minutes) with a LOT of different shots to pick from when i watch it back. 
frostbite engine (dragon age inquisition and mass effect andromeda, notably)
here’s where we use the Cinematic Tools, lads! these are a little more difficult. note that there are ct for a lot of games that i don’t play but i’m assuming they work the same. i’ve also never used CT in andromeda but it’s the same engine so they also probably work the same. so i’m mainly talking about DA:Inquisition.
OKAY SO. start the game. load ‘er up. you want to run origin and DAI as admin, and then once you’re in game, start the CT as admin, too. the controls window will open, and then another command prompt type window will open and hack into the matrix. you don’t have to do anything with it, but note that if you close the command prompt window, it will close the game. 
okay! party time. there are lots of other tutorials on using the CT, btw, so if i don’t explain it sufficiently you can either ask me or look up other tutorials. 
first, i usually take gifs of characters in DAI, which means i wait until cutscenes so we can see them talking or making faces or whatever. you can also do scenery gifs or whatever! 
so we’re in a cutscene. first and foremost check “freeze time” and then “enable”. set up your shots. start recording. THEN uncheck “freeze time”. that’s all in the “free camera” tab of the CT and technically all you need. But wait, there’s more. we’ve got two other tabs!
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in this tab, I most often use “depth of field” because we’ve already established that i love a strong DoF. all these things are a little hard to understand and mostly require a lot of messing around.
focus distance
pretty self explanatory -- it’s the distance from the camera that objects will be in focus. for portraits, i usually have it at 1.125.
blur factor
how blurry the stuff that’s out of focus will be. i usually set it somewhere between 4 and 7, though you can go higher or lower. dealer’s choice. 
blur add
makes everything blurry regardless of focus. don’t use it. 
blur filter
i almost always set it to gaussian 9 but it doesn’t make that much of a difference. 
dof type
always set it to sprite
max blur
i absolutely do not know what this does and don’t use it. 
near start/end
with this you can kind of expand “focus distance” to include more varied distances. i usually don’t mess with this and i suggest you don’t. 
far start/end
most useful in outdoor scenes. usually it’ll be set to like 100, meaning that there’s a gradient way out to the most blurred parts. if you bring it lower, the gradient distance gets shorter, so the background gets blurrier closer to your focus. what i set it to depends entirely on the scene. just try messing with it and see what it does for you. 
make sure you hit the green enable button on the left and Also tick “enable” on the DOF screen to use it. 
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this tab is a little more useful for screenshotting but i’ll include it since i’m going over the CT anyway. i have never messed with global fov or timescale BUT
shadowmap resolution
i usually set it down to 512 for smooth, soft, realistic shadows. otherwise they look kinda stripey. 
resolution scale
NOT FOR GIFS. do not use this for gifs. but DEFINITELY do use it for screencaps. set it to two (i’ve had my computer freeze from trying to set it to 4, so like, be careful). it basically doubles the resolution of everything on screen and makes it very pretty but it’ll ruin your framerate so don’t try to record with it. 
okay, I’ve got my footage, now what!
now we’re gonna open it in whichever player you picked. 
GOMPLAYER:
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for gomplayer, you’re going to press ctrl + g to bring up the screencapture window. i Don’t remember what the original settings are, but you wanna make sure your quality is set to 255 (highest) and that it’s set to original resolution. 
now the slightly hard part. you gotta hit “burst capture” while the video is playing, so it’s slightly imprecise. for that reason i have the number (burst capture images) set much higher than i’ll use, so that i make up for the imprecision. after you capture, go in and delete the frames you don’t need, either in windows explorer or after you’ve loaded them into photoshop.
POTPLAYER:
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just pause your video, hit ctrl+g, copy my settings, click start, and then play your video. potplayer will capture every frame. 
i should have mentioned this earlier but you have to have a folder to save your screencaps in. i usually organize by GIFS>game name># what its a gif of>a numbered folder for each gif in the set. but it’s up to you. just probably don’t save to your desktop or wherever the default location is. 
AND NOW THE FUN PART!!
open photoshop!!! if it’s your first time here, go to window>animation so that you’ll. have the animation window open. 
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now go file > load files into stack > browse, and find the frames we just took. select em all. click ok. 
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you’re probably going to start off in timeline view. we don’t want that yet. click the box in the bottom right corner that looks like multiple little boxes to switch to frame view. 
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in frame view, click the menu box thing. and click “make frames from layers” and then “reverse frames”
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now select all your frames, and on any one of them, select the arrow next to “0.0 sec” (this is the frame delay). select “other”
what you set the frame delay to depends on what your footage frame delay originally was. if you’re using game footage, it was probably 60fps, in which case you should set the delay to 0.04 sec. if it was 30 fps, I usually go 0.06 to 0.08. play around with it and decide which you like best. there’s a play button so you can see how the delay looks before you continue.
now we switch back over to timeline view. so click the same button as we used to get to frame view. 
now select all your layers, in the layer panel. right click on them and click “convert to smart object” 
here is usually where I do my scaling/cropping. tumblr photoset sizes are 540px for full width, 268 for 2 wide, and 177 for 3 wide. KEEP IN MIND when making especially 540px gifs that the size limit is 3mb. so you can’t make them super tall or super long (time-wise). 
the gif of calcifer i’m making is going to be 540x250. make use of set image size (ctrl + alt + i) and canvas size (ctrl + alt +c). set the width of 540 with image size and then crop the canvas to your desired height with canvas size.
okay! technically we can be done. this is what my gif looks like right now:
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however i like to color and edit mine. yknow. here are my sharpening settings. I cannot help you with coloring because i’m bad at it. at best i will suggest you look at and download resource colorings from blogs like itsphotoshop
anyway, to sharpen: filter>sharpen>smart sharpen
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and then apply your coloring. and save with ctrl + alt + shift + s, or just file > save for web and devices. set your file type to GIF. two things to look at:
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1) MAKE SURE YOU SET THE LOOPING OPTIONS TO “FOREVER”. i put this in caps because I am an idiot who messed this up all the time when i first started. 
2) keep an eye on your file size!! if it’s over 3mb (mine, down in the left corner, says it’s 2.697, so it’s fine) then you can try to reduce the number of colors. but don’t go below 128 colors, because then it starts to look bad. instead you can try reducing the height or going back and cutting down the number of frames (so basically remaking the gif again :( ). 
okay great, click save. save it. you’re done. here’s our calcifer. 
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and that’s it! i hope this made sense and like. absolutely ask if you have questions. 
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romancandlemagazine · 3 years
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An Interview with Gaylord Herron
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INTERVIEW ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROMAN CANDLE ISSUE 1 - AVAILABLE HERE AND HERE.
No one ever admits it, but a lot of ‘photobooks’ are pretty dull. £40 for page-after-page of po-faced portraits? What a swizz. And how about those supposedly intellectual photos which just show the corner of a hedge or something... school textbooks were more fun.
One photobook which most certainly IS NOT DULL is a seldom-spoken-of gem called Vagabond by a chap from Tulsa named Gaylord Herron. Released back in 1975, this is a bizarre ride way beyond the far side, showing such amazing sights as a pair of overweight wrestlers, a proud man’s hat collection and a teacher sat by the roadside scoffing a slice of cake.
There’s paintings too. And words about Cain and Abel and Tulsa and trips to Japan and countless other things. The whole thing is a thick and hearty soup worthy of wading through, and repeat servings are advised.
Gaylord, or G.Oscar, as he’s sometimes known, now runs a bike shop which sells affordable vintage bikes. I called up the shop phone one morning to pester him about Vagabond and anything else I could think of...
I can’t say I know too much about your home city of Tulsa. What’s it like there?
Tulsa is kind of becoming more of a cosmopolitan city than before. There’s a family foundation called Kaiser, which covers the whole country, and they built a park here, which is the most incredible thing in the world. It’s a huge, huge park, which has won the award for the most outstanding park, worldwide. He hired people from Holland to design a lot of it.
Sounds nice. How big is Tulsa? What’s the population?
With the surrounding towns around it, it’d be a million I guess. It’s not that big.
What was it like growing up there? Was it the typical America you’d imagine from films and books in the 50s?
Well, it was more of that rural kind of feel. It was an oil town—it grew out of oil. I think it became an incorporated city in 1907, so it’s only just over a hundred years old. It was built on the curve of the Arkansas River at a place where Washington Irvine and those guys used to hang out. It’s a really historic area.
So that’s kind of the hook—the river—which has been developed and exploited in all kinds of ways over the years. But now it’s kind of taking on the feel of a larger city.
When I was a kid, we grew up near downtown, and we’d ride the bus into town, because we just didn’t have the money for all kinds of things that other people had. And I remember seeing the skyline in the distance on the bus, and thinking how neatly it was done—it was good math—perfect. Of course, that skyline has been decimated since then, it doesn’t have the architectural look or the charm that it once had.
But at the same time, there’s an area in midtown that’s about nine square miles of old growth trees that are there because of the watershed coming down from that curve in the river and making it very, very fertile. You British would call it a wood.
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Yeah, or maybe a ‘copse’, although not many people use that word.
There’s a lot of European paintings of that kind of thing. They haven’t decimated it with pharmacies and parking lots, although I’m sure they’d love to. I’m taking photographs of the trees to call attention to it—I wanted to make people aware of what they have in Tulsa.
Do you think people take that kind of thing for granted a bit?
Yeah, they do. There’s this dappled light at the base of these trees, which filters down through the canopy and splashes across the ground, and that has a psychological draw for people. They get into that dappled light, and they don’t really realise it’s doing something to them, making them relaxed, making them feel protected—it’s neat. But when I first started taking pictures, I used to avoid dappled light. I didn’t want it, it was too chaotic and confusing. I liked solid blocks and shapes that were well defined. But at my age now, I love that dappled light—I look for it.
From what I gather, you started taking photos when you joined the army and went to Korea, but had you any interest in it at all before then?
Not a bit—I really hadn’t. I mean my sister and I would do goofy shots out in the front with a Hawkeye camera when I was a kid, but I didn’t do anything until I got to Korea.
You see what happens is you go in there and they say, “Let’s go to the village.” And they’ve all got cameras around their necks. So by about the third or fourth trip, I went and bought a camera. I remember it was a Petri, and then after that I got a Honeywell Pentax PX.
So I’d go out, and shoot these slides—but then one day I decided to try black and white—and one of the better pictures I’ve done was on that roll, at the very beginning. It was shot out of the bus window, going down the street. I shot these guys who were out on the street, these old timers who had been in the war and were reminiscing. It was just a neat shot.
And at some point someone said, “You know you can make a print off that?” So I went into the darkroom, and I get this picture. It’s a guy on a cart eating an apple. He’s a human truck, waiting for his next job. So I print this picture of him, and it was still wet, but I ran down to the club where my buddies were all drinking, and threw this print down on the table. And they went, “Ooh, look at that! That’s great!” They were all over it, and that was all needed. So I ran back to the darkroom and I was there ever since.
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You just thought, ‘right—this is what I want to do’?
Yeah. Then I started messing around with cropping and all those other elements of art. I started really examining everything, until I got to the point where I was just excessive.
What sorts of things were you looking for back then? What were you trying to show?
Chronologically, it starts with me taking pictures of people farming along the Han River. Those kinds of things that were related to a kind of rural mind-set. But then I just expanded into all other kinds of things. What I realised then is that with a twist of this, or a twist of that, you could make a whole new world out of these images. I saw the potential for all the kinds of things you could do to change the feel of a print.
And now, later on, I’ve came to the conclusion that what I was looking for was perfect math. Everything is math—the frequencies in colour, lengths and distances, ratio and proportion—and if you frame it, and put it in a rectangle, then you’ve got the potential for perfect math. Or maybe something that’s perfect on one side, but not the other side. And all those kinds of unknowns.
The eye picks it up, sees it, then the mind says, “What’ve we got here, let’s put a rectangle on it—it’s perfect.” And then you shoot! Bang! Hit the shutter! And that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Your photographs aren’t maybe what I’d think of as being ‘mathematical’— they’re not straight, stiff architectural shots—they’re loose, and some parts are blurred, but I suppose maybe they’re mathematical in the real sense… rather than someone just lining their camera up 90 degrees to a subject.
Yeah, and I’m dealing with this now in another sense. My wife died about five or six months ago, and I’m still in that in-between land. We were married 50 years, and she was part of this bike shop with me for 22 years. And when she left, I started doing something really odd. I had some craft paper on a roll, and I brought it over to my bar. I taped it down, and I started darkening these frames which I wanted to put around these old sepia tone prints.
I wanted it to be this really, dark, dark brown. Almost black—but if you look at it next to a colour it’ll pick it up and amplify it—it really incentivises the silver to pop out at you. And it’s working a charm by the way.
So I’m doing this, and I splash some ink—well actually, it’s more of a stain like what you use on furniture. And on this craft paper I’m doing this very physical, violent Jackson Pollock kind of thing, and all of a sudden, these faces are coming up out of this paper. And I’m getting pictures of my wife, pictures of my kids and pictures of people I know, coming up out of this craft paper. And you talk about loose, this is as loose as I’ve ever been.
It’s that thing of the mind joining up the gaps?
You’re looking for math, your brain is looking at what you eyes are sending in, and it says, “Wait a minute, I recognise this.” But you didn’t do it on purpose.
And another thing when you talk about mathematics… I shoot a lot of photographs at a 15th of a second—even in the bible it says that’s the twinkling of an eye. So I shoot these drive-by photographs at 40 miles and hour and I realised in looking in these pictures that a lot of stuff comes and goes in that 15th of a second that we won’t see with our eyes. It real mysterious. It’s like a no man’s land of time— a warp of time.
I suppose if the eye processes 25 frames a second or whatever it is, what’s going on in the in-between time? There’s could be all sorts of stuff.
Yeah, that’s the point… there’s stuff in there. And I’m getting to the point now where I’m seeing faces everywhere, in all kind of objects. And I’m loving it. I’ll say that if you want to get over loss, and get through the pain, use art to do it. Make that your vehicle—and use your hands!
Art is a thing that is so hard to define, but I’m starting to think that it’s picking up impulses from the past, and fitting them into your current situation. And that’s why art doesn’t have to be anything in particular, there just has to be a connection. That’s what it has to be.
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When you were in Korea in the early 60s, were you thinking of making art?
No, I can remember after a couple of weeks of doing those prints, I had a photo of some laundry hanging on some clothes-lines in a house in Seoul in the snow, and I made a print of this, and I turned it on its side 90 degrees, and all of a sudden it’s like an exotic seascape. It was all being done with this white linen laundry. And I thought this was unbelievable. You could twist it, turn it, dodge it, burn it, and you could make a whole different world.
And that began to fascinate me, that you had the control there. So I would crop and crop and crop until the math was perfect. And I trained myself to look for all the elements of math. And now, at my age, I’ve realised that that’s the name of the game—recognising and making available perfect math. And you can either see it, or you don’t. It’s a weird thing… I guess it’s a gift.
The subject or the narration takes a back seat—you’re showing the math that’s going to appeal to the eye or the brain of the person looking, and then they’ll investigate further. It’s the hook that gets people to look.
So you weren’t bothered about the subject?
That’s where it started—but looking back over my old prints, I’ve realised that everything I shot early on, I continued to investigate. I love architecture, I love portraits of people, and I love those Cartier-Bresson photos… the non-events… those photos where everyone is doing something, but they’re not related. I loved those. I was always real bold about putting the camera in people’s faces. I did a whole bunch of that. I didn’t ask, and I made a lot of people mad.
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Did you get much grief for doing that that?
I didn’t have to fight them off, but I’d have to push them away.
What’s your argument against people being mad about that? Surely the photo was more to appreciate the person rather than condescend.
Right, exactly. Or actually, it wasn’t so much to appreciate… I took a lot of pictures that kind of exposed people and showed some of their idiosyncrasies. I liked to do that. I was always bold like that, especially when I was doing a story for the newspaper.
I did television news too. I would always have a microphone in your face… and I had a Nikon around my neck the whole time. I was banging shots and doing interviews. And some of my best work was taken during those investigations for television. I was banging shots whilst I was doing the work—unconsciously. If I saw something and it looked right… BOOM. As simple as that.
Sometimes I think you get an inkling or a hint of what is about to happen. I think that’s what Bresson and those guys did. They were always on the shutter, just before the moment. You had to be ready before the decisive moment. I used to kiss the back of the camera when I’d hold it up to my eye. And then I’d wait and I’d wait and then at some point I’d hit the shutter.
How did you get involved with the news stuff? Did you get into that straight after you got back from Korea?
As a matter of fact I did. The first job I had coming back, I worked as the night-wire editor of an evening paper in Tulsa. I would pull the copy from the AP wire and the UPI wire and Reuters and all that stuff, and put it on the desk of the guys coming in to write about that stuff in the morning. It was an evening paper, but I worked all night long. I had the whole newsroom to myself.
And then after that, I was cleaning swimming pools, and then let’s see… what else did I do? Around that time I built a dark-room at home and I printed a lot of the stuff I’d done in Korea, and put it all together when my father died. That was in ’64. I hadn’t been home very long, so I just packed it all into my ’57 Desoto with push-button controls, and drove 90 mph to New York with all my stuff.
There I worked for a photographer called Vincent Lisanti, he had gone to Brooks, which is a school in California where people go to learn how to use view cameras and super commercial photography. When I got back to Tulsa, I moved into this apartment, and next door was a photographer called Bob Hawks, he’s turns wooden bowls now—they’ve even got a bowl of his in the White House—that’s how good he is, but he’s one eye a photographer, and one eye a bowl carver.
I said, “I’ve just come back from New York and I wanted to see if you needed some help. I worked for Vincent Lisanti.” He said, “Vincent Lisanti? I know him. I went to Brooks with him.” So he gets on the phone to Lisanti and he said, “Oh, he’s great, give him a job,” so he did, and I started travelling around shooting the Sweet Adelines.
How long were you doing that for?
That was about a year, going all over the country. It was great. I’d do the quartet portraits and all that stuff, and then I’d go out and shoot my own pictures. I was just obsessed with shooting.
And then I got a scholarship to go to Tulsa University and photograph their year-book, so I did that—shooting the yearbook in exchange for tuition. And then I just quit and joined the newspaper again, and did television news.
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And whilst you were doing this news stuff, you were taking your own photos?
Yeah, but eventually I stopped doing everything and anything apart from taking pictures. But it’s expensive, and where’s it going to go? You get these pictures, but what are you going to do with them? No-one is going to hang them on their wall. It’s not the kind of thing that people use to decorate.
So that’s when Vagabond came along, in 1975. I quit my job to do Vagabond, I went to New York and stayed in the Chelsea Hotel. I think we were in Eugene O’Neill’s old room. Dan Mayo and myself spent a year doing that book.
How was New York back then?
Oh, it was great. I’ll tell you when it was better though… when I went in the mid-60s. The skies were cobalt blue and there was beautiful weather, but then all of a sudden it became smog-ridden.
What was the process for making the book? There’s a lot going on in there.
Yeah, I was using the Cain and Abel story to depict an outcome that was predicted. I was using myself, and my friend Bill Rabon, as examples of the vagabond. And that became a way for me to talk about the dilemma we’re all in right now as modern humanoids.
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What do you mean by that?
I think it’s one DNA versus another DNA. There’s maybe 12 DNAs on this planet, and they’re always at loggerheads with each other—that’s my idea anyway. And those DNAs go 6,000 years back to the Garden of Eden… or maybe they go back 60,000 years? They’re all over the lot.
I’d decided that my father had died sooner than he should of, because I had a talk with him a couple of weeks after I got back from Korea, and I started to point out some of his deficiencies—I chewed him out. And two days later, he died. And I always carried that with me, and I’m still carrying that with me. So I did this book for him. He was a vagabond, and I was a vagabond.
When you talk about the dilemma we’re in, what do you mean?
It’s politics, it’s art, it’s war. It’s the dilemma, the debacle. The best example is the chimp—the young males beat each other to death, but they’re almost exactly the same, when it comes down to DNA or whatever, as the bonobo, and they just kiss all day. That’s all they do, there’s no war, they just love all day long. It’s two different wings of the same animal. And that’s kind of what we are. We don’t have enough bonobo, we’ve got too much chimp. And chimps will tear your face off.
Do you think that’s changed at all, since the 70s when your book came out? Will it always be like this?
I don’t know about that. I don’t know about where you are, but around about ten years ago I started having a feeling that we were starting to become dull normals—we were being ‘dull normalised’. You could tell in the advertising and the culture and the thoughts and the way people entertained themselves that they were getting much more like dull norms—like children, just wanting to be occupied and entertained all the time.
Nobody wants to think of better ways to organise our various cultures around the world, and help people out. I think we were much more egalitarian back then. We’re really selfish and childlike now.
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AT THIS POINT WE GO OFF ON A TANGENT ABOUT DNA AND ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS. THINGS ARE EVENTUALLY BROUGHT BACK AROUND WHEN GAYLORD SAYS…
…at the same-time, I think the photographers that are serious about photography are called to do that.
Your book wasn’t just photos, it had paintings and writing in there too—a definite departure from the ‘Aperture Monograph’ style of book. How did people react to it?
That book was really well reviewed. I even got a shout-out from Robert Frank.
Did you ever meet him?
Oh no, but I’d have loved to. He was an outstanding photographer. When I first saw The Americans, I loved it. He was going around, shooting in motel rooms, on highways and all kind of things. He was trying to get the atmosphere that goes with it… the dance that goes with it. Sometimes it’s dancing inside and you’ve got to grab it… you’re obligated to grab it.
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Where did all that extra stuff in Vagabond come from? How did you go about laying it all out?
Do you know who was going to do it at first? The guy who did that book Somnambulist… who was that?
Ralph Gibson?
Yeah, Ralph Gibson was going to do the book—that was who Dan Mayo was negotiating with, but then finally I said, “Do you know what? I would love to do this myself.” And so I went with it, just starting to wait for ideas… and they came. It was about that simple. It took a year to do it.
And that was the same thing as the photographs… mathematics. When it feels right, the lines are right, the ratios are right, the distances are right, and then there’s texture and colour… when all of that seems to be in balance, like a Calder sculpture, then you nail it, and you get the page.
How did people lay out books back then?
I made a dummy of the pictures and the copy and everything, and then I took it to this guy Sidney Rappaport in New York, the guy who did all the Edward Weston and Ansel Adams books. He was a great printer. He used this triple-tone, it was a lithograph kind of a thing. It was beautiful.
How many did you get printed?
I think there was 10,000. I’ve got about 300 left. People reviewed it very well, which I loved, but it was such a small niche. I tried to promote it as much as I could, but I did a horrible job. I can sell bicycles and I can talk to people until they buy a bicycle, but I can’t sell photographs.
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Was there ever plans to do another book? You carried on taking pictures, but as far as I know, Vagabond was your only book.
I’m at the point now where I’d like to relocate the negatives into a collection… a museum or a school or something so they could use it for education. But I haven’t done that yet, so I may at some point try to do a couple of books.
I’ve got thousands and thousands of images, and I’ve scanned in my prints, but until I know what I’m going to do with my negatives, I don’t know whether I’m going to need to print anything else or not. I need someone to sponsor me… it’s not easy.
If you’ve only scanned in your prints, I imagine you must have countless negatives you’ve never seen before. How many photos off a roll of film would you print?
Back in 69 to 71 when I was working at the newspaper I was banging so many shots on a roll that I’d want to print half the roll. It was one after another. I made them on an Ektamatic Processor, which is an interesting aside.
Kodak made this A/B solution roller, feeder and printer. You put your Ektamatic paper in, it goes through an activator, it goes through a stabiliser, and then it comes out, you squeegee it off and set it down and it air dries.
And I made gazillions of prints, just sitting on a stool with that roller printer, and now I’m looking at them, and they’re better now than ever. They were never fixed! Somehow Kodak figured out how to make the chemicals co-exist forever… or something. And these are 50/60 year old prints. They self tone down to sepia over time, as random sulphite molecules attach to them, but the silver is still pristine.
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A lot of older photographer has a mystery to it. There’s maybe not as much information in the image, so your mind has to fill it in. Do you think that mystery has been lost a little bit nowadays?
It could be, and it could be that selfies have become ubiquitous and no one thinks about any other form of visual representation. People aren’t doing much because they’re always looking at their iPhone. They’re not getting anything done. It’s seems like as a culture, we’ve made preparation for an accomplishment into the goal. “I’ve got to get all this stuff together, get my money, get all the stuff I need, and then I’ll accomplish this goal.” All the time we’re preparing for everything, we never actually do anything… we’re just preparing.
I think people don’t investigate as much. In an old article, I said that taking a photo was like a stream of water running down a bubbling brook—you reach in and pull out a few drops that you can examine. That’s what a photograph does. It pulls a drop out of the stream so that you can examine it, or identify with it, or learn from it, or even be inspired by it. Or are made comfortable by it. And that’s the beauty of it.
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Whose photographs did that for you?
I liked those guys who did the ‘decisive moment’ thing, where you capture it just right. You’d have to be on top of the shutter to get that—you’ve got to be ahead of it. If not, you don’t have it—you’ve just got another dull rectangle. But that’s okay, I think those are important too by the way… they’re just dull.
But I think that permeated my thinking all along. What I was going to say before is that when you shoot that roll of film you were talking about, well, you might have six images on there that you know are good, but then there might be one down at the end of the roll… and you’ll say, “This is it! That’s the shot!” It wasn’t those six—it was that one vagabond image that you saw. You print that puppy and you love it. That’s the one that stands out. You’re talking about various levels and grades of attraction, and math.
And then there’s content. I’ve always been mindful of content. That picture of that woman holding that girl on that street corner… her face and her body attitude… it makes me cry, every time I look at it, and I don’t know why. There’s just something about the arrangement that touches my soul.
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Is that because it’s figurative? There’s always going to be more of an emotion connection to a photo of a person.
Yeah, but those trees… I’m having an emotional affair with the trees right now… but yeah, people come first.
Maybe going off on a tangent here, but I’ve noticed every time you’re mentioned, it’s often in the same sentence as Larry Clark. Is that a bit annoying?
Yeah, there was a review that a woman wrote which compared the two views of Tulsa, Clark and me, and she came out eventually to say that mine was positive, and his was negative.
I suppose his wasn’t really about Tulsa, even thought that’s what it was called.
Yeah, it was about that subculture, the methamphetamine. Whereas I wanted to be as universal as possible. When I was a kid, I’d think, “Wouldn’t it be neat if you could see everything in the world?” And maybe that’s what I’m trying to do—to photograph everything and see everything? But that’s the definition of omnipresent or something, and you can’t have that. But yeah, I thought that’d be neat.
I would just like to see everything, I don’t know why. I do know that it’s a visual thing. I think there’s a speed to your vision. Sometime you can look and get an immediate read from your brain. A lot of times your brain looks at it and says, “What the fuck is this? What are you doing?” But you get this fast, fast read, visually.
I suppose your book is a good example of that mix… of seeing everything. There’s all sorts in there.
It’s a cultural dragnet, over the whole thing. The overarching drag-net.
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What do you think about photography now? Do you look at much contemporary stuff?
I wonder about the people who photograph now. They’ve got their iPhones, and they’ve also got their Nikons, and they’re banging shots… but I’m not seeing anything. It might be that they don’t know how to read the culture, or maybe they’re not interested in the things that I’m interested in, but there’s a lot of flamboyance now in art.
I don’t know how to explain it, but I always wanted to reduce it to the basic elements. But now there are all these different things to make it brighter, or make it shiny… we all like shiny things. But right now I’m drawing on this brown craft paper… and that’s what they wrap fish in!
What do you think has kept you going with photography and art and everything? A lot of people eventually slow down or stop, but you’re still at it.
One of the reviewers who wrote about Vagabond said, “I don’t think Herron’s going to write another book.” And he put that thought in my head… but I’m going to do another book—I’m not going to quit just because he said I would. But it was almost like that was my message and that was all I needed to do, and that was pretty much right.
But then I discovered something when Judy died, after that I didn’t go down and print old stuff, and I haven’t been taking pictures the way I normally do—I substituted it for drawing. But I can’t do that forever, so I guess from now on what I’ll do is collate what I’ve done, and try and make it accessible as a teaching tool. But I’m not having much luck with that. That’s why I’m selling bikes.
How did you get involved with that?
It was my son. He had a job in a bike shop, and he wanted to go skiing, so his boss said I could run his bike shop whilst he was skiing. And I just fell in love with it. And we’ve had this place for 22 years now. I grew up helping my father with his business, so I knew about mechanics early on. I made my own everything—whatever I needed, I built it. So this is a hangover from that. And I love the people who come in the bike shop. This is how I maintain my contact with people. But I’m not maintaining my art, and I think it’s because I was doing it for Judy. I couldn’t wait to show her a print. I was trying to impress her, and all along, through all those decades, she supported me—she kept me going. I’d print endlessly, with sepia tone, stinking up the kitchen… and I did it for her.
But now I’m re-organising, and rethinking all of it. And right now, I’m loving the idea of drawing on craft paper. And at the same time, I’m putting a little gallery upstage, showing some prints upstairs.
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I might be wrong, but you seem like a fairly deep thinker; what do you think life is all about?
I think we’re here to reproduce, and to help what we produce. We’re here to survive and to thrive. I think we get tweaked up and down from time to time as well. I think it’s pretty simple really.
We’ve got so much energy flying around the planet at all times. There are all kinds of frequencies and wavelengths, and all kinds of lanes, and some people can pick up on a lane, and some people can’t. I keep thinking of Einstein, he’s drawing on a blackboard and doing all these calculations, and he’s in a lane that nobody knows about. But that stuff, the math, is there all the time, you just have to know how to grab it. And I guess taking pictures is maybe a practice of grabbing it. You’re grabbing the math and your brain is interpreting the math.
Were there photos you wished you grabbed? Some that got away?
Oh yeah, there are a bunch of those. But like I say, there’s always that one down the end of the roll that makes up for all the bad shots—all those dull rectangles. I love to look at it when it’s on those proof sheets, I can see the math real easily when it’s reduced down like that. In fact, it becomes bolder in terms of the contrast and the shape. When you’ve got one, you’ll see it, and it’s always that sleeper that you didn’t think of.
I don’t make wet-prints anymore, I do ink-jets. I really don’t like it, but I do it anyway. There’s something about looking into that silver. Silver is eternal, and it’s going to go thousands and thousands of years on that paper. It doesn’t diminish or dissolve or anything, it’s solid, and it stays solid. It’s a very mysterious thing, it’s hard to describe, there’s a luminance that reflects back to you.
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Has the computer screen ruined that?
What did Marshall McLuhan say? “The medium is the message.” That’s what I think about all those pixels running around. It just looks like faux… faux life, faux everything. But when you look at silver, you’re looking at a solid piece of material that’s been around for hundreds of years. It’s completely different.
Yeah definitely. I think I’ve got to go fairly soon so I’ll try and wrap this up a bit. What have you got on this afternoon?
I’m actually going to go upstairs and work with photographs, and then do a little work for the bicycle shop. I’m G. Oscar Bicycles in the bike world, and then I’m Gaylord Oscar Herron in the art world. I can maintain both of them though… I can chew gum and walk at the same time.
Do you think it works well together?
Oh yeah, there isn’t anything that I don’t do anymore. I keep them all separate, but it’s all one flow. The whole thing is math.
It all comes back to maths doesn’t it?
The best example of math is this; you’ve got the guy playing baseball, he’s out in the left field, and he hears the ball hit the bat and his mind records the sound. And then he sees the ball leave the bat and coming up to his right, so immediately the eye sends that into the brain and the brain looks at it and says, “Okay, start this leg and this arm and move as fast as you can into the direction that the ball is going to go to, so that you can catch it”. Think about how many calculations that is. It’s all mathematics, it really is. And then he can catch the ball with his glove. And that’s the best example of how math determines everything we do. It’s all mathematics.
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perfectirishgifts · 3 years
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The Top 10 Gaming Photo Modes Revealed–With A Surprising Winner
New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/the-top-10-gaming-photo-modes-revealed-with-a-surprising-winner/
The Top 10 Gaming Photo Modes Revealed–With A Surprising Winner
‘Forza Horizon 4’ is one of ten games making waves on Instagram right now.
Photo modes are becoming an integral part of gaming, and why shouldn’t they? Even before the likes of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 landed, we’ve enjoyed utterly stunning games for years, which deserve to allow gamers to immortalize them in new and beautiful ways.
Ahead of the release of Cyberpunk 2077 tomorrow (November 10)–which is introducing its own top-of-the-line photo mode–research carried out by the photography community Shotkit has analyzed the popularity of gaming photography on Instagram, where trends like #ingamephotography and #virtualphotography are in their millions.
Thanks to the organization’s hashtag-heavy deep dive, we now have a definitive idea of which games dominate the image-happy social media site more than any other. And yet, despite the predictable appearances of games like Fortnite and Forza Horizon 4 on the top-10 list, a much more cinematic experience sits at number one, thanks to its deep and flexible photo mode.
‘Fortnite’ may have a player base of 350 million and rising, but it’s not number one on Instagram, … [] according to Shotkit.
10. The Sims 4 (4,800 posts)
Six years on, The Sims 4 is still going strong in the Instagram gaming community. It’s hardly surprising; after the year we’ve had, it’s understandable that people escape to a game that allows them to create a more attractive version of themselves (in my case, at least)–one who can live in a more trouble-free world, where the biggest danger is still the possibility of drowning in a fenced, ladderless swimming pool.
9. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (4,900)
While it might not have quite matched the generation-defining brilliance of its second outing–and the series’ original PS3 audience has largely matured to prefer Naughty Dog’s grittier The Last of Us–Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is still one of the most beautiful and cinematic games on the PS4. The tenth Jeep-driving chapter, The Twelve Towers, must account for at least half of its 5,000 photos.
8. The Last of Us Part II (5,300)
While it might not let you take a Watch Dogs: Legion-style selfie with the Rat King, The Last of Us Part II is still one of the most incredibly beautiful games of its generation–and certainly one of its most visceral. Its world is the gaming equivalent of Talking Heads’ ‘Nothing But Flowers’: one gradually reclaimed by nature, where as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention. Then again, there was a deadly virus kicking about, so you can’t blame them. Let’s move on before we get even more depressed about 2020.
7. Ghost of Tsushima (16,900)
It’s not even five months old, but Ghost of Tsushima is an Instagram hottie. It’s entirely predictable, given its art direction–and the fact it’s so loved, it yesterday won The Game Awards’ Player’s Voice Award (something that has since been hit with allegations of impropriety). Pictures like this, from Jafree’s Perspective, only prove how magnificent it can look.
‘Ghost of Tsushima’ is the newest game in the top 10.
6. Forza Horizon 4 (33,100)
I’ve plowed about 150 hours into Forza Horizon 4: one quarter completing it, another quarter somehow getting three stars on all drift zones, and half of it on photography. Its effortless photo mode and a huge selection of endlessly customizable cars mean it’s too easy to get snapping; the fact Playground Games later added the “Picture Perfect” photography achievement, which also featured in its prequel, undoubtedly got more people taking shots.
5. Horizon Zero Dawn (40,500)
While The Last of Us Part II captures a more believable downfall of modern society, Horizon Zero Dawn presents its most beautiful: the aftermath of a technocratic dystopia, now governed by increasingly deranged Machines that threaten humanity a second time. Its brighter color palette, beautiful vistas, and ridiculous action make for some pretty incredible shots.
4. Skyrim (46,200)
Well, this isn’t a surprise: Skyrim is fourth, not least because it’s been released on nearly every console of note since its 2011 debut, as well as Alexa, Etch-a-Sketch and your fridge. But its deep modding community, which also made the leap to consoles, continues to make this classic even more beautiful and photogenic.
3. Fortnite (135,000)
The king of battle royale is relegated to duke status in the royal succession of Instagram photos, picking up third place despite a player base last registered at 350 million and growing. Maybe it’s because of youngsters’ embrace of different social media platforms, but it’s still a good showing–and its popularity may push it up the rankings as time goes on. I’m now hyper-aware of my own age by referring to Fortnite players as “youngsters”.
2. Grand Theft Auto V (146,500)
The PS2 gave us three GTA games, while three consoles have coughed up GTA V. And yet, the game’s initial technical achievement, and subsequent upgrades, have made it an “enduring mystery” in terms of never-ending sales. Photos unsurprisingly follow this trend–but interestingly, it’s a more recent Rockstar game that takes the crown.
‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ is the biggest hit on Instagram among virtual photographers.
1. Red Dead Redemption 2 (165,200)
Despite being just over two years old, Red Dead Redemption 2 tops the Instagram list for the most popular game on the photo front. Given it’s the closest we’ll ever get to immerse ourselves in a spaghetti western, it’s perfectly understandable. The largely untouched features of 1899 America provide some of the most jaw-dropping landscapes known to man. The filters, as evidenced above, only add to the game’s majesty.
Speaking to Shotkit, Leo Sang–an insanely talented Brazilian virtual photographer whose skills have led to sponsorship by NVIDIA, whose own photos are above–explained what makes the perfect photo mode. He said: “A familiar and easy-to-use photo mode is less intimidating if you’re getting used to virtual photography; the basic camera controls and settings should have easy access and be intuitive.
“The camera’s movement can’t be too restricted; the wider the movement range, the easier it is to compose your shot. The same applies to the other settings: field of view, roll angles, depth of focus, and so on… being able to fine-tune your shot helps you experiment and create a lot easier.”
However, high-quality graphics aren’t everything to Sang, who added: “An element of fun is always important, especially if you’re trying to do this professionally. If the game is fun, your motivation to find great shots increases as you want to do the character justice. It’s what explains why games like The Sims 4 and GTA 5 made it onto the list.”
The only disappointment in this list is that Control doesn’t feature, despite being what I think is the most uniquely gorgeous game of its generation. But who needs Instagram when you’ve got books, especially when we’re inevitably robbed of the internet with our own, HZD or TLoU-style apocalypse?
From Games in Perfectirishgifts
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a bicycle built for two
for @victoryuriyuri Happy Valentine’s Day! Thanks for getting me into this adorable ship :)
by Edgedancer (@radiantmists)
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Leo <3: i think im crying Me: me too Leo <3: that was the most beautiful thing ive ever seen Me: i didnt think victor could get better but that was Me: oh my god Leo <3: and just think, youve touched his underwear Me: oh my god Leo <3: i guess yuuri really changed him Me: just as much as he changed Yuuri Me: four continents is going to be amazing Me: i can’t wait Leo <3: yeah! Leo <3: its a shame that its on valentine’s day though… Leo <3: the lasu here has a bunch of really fun-looking events planned! Leo <3: maybe we can do something, though i don’t know how i’d plan anything in korea.
Guang Hong Ji, in that moment, experiences what feels like a divine revelation. He knows with perfect, stunning clarity that February 14th will be the day he confesses to the love of his life.
Me: I’ll take care of everything.
This is not, in fact, the first time he’s experienced such perfect clarity. It’s the third.
The first had been when he was seven. He had turned on the TV, and there it had been: the costumes, the blades, the music and the ice. It is the first truly vivid memory he has of his childhood: sometimes Guang Hong recalls brief glimpses of existence before, but more often he feels as though his life began in that instant.
He had demanded ice skating lessons the next day. His parents had first been innocently obliging, then glad he had found a passion, then dawningly awed at his dedication. Three months later, when he asked for tickets to the national championships for his eighth birthday, they had sat him down and asked him if he wanted private lessons.
Guang Hong had seized the opportunity, had kept working towards the goal that shone in his mind since then. He had entered the junior international circuit at fourteen, and only the sensational talent of Yuri Plisetsky had overshadowed his own. When Guang Hong had been offered a place at off-season camps in Canada and the United States, he’d said yes without a second thought; the path to the vision that had become the center of his life had seemed clearer than ever.
In America, he’d found many things: that many internationally competitive skaters his age couldn’t yet land a triple axel, the glory of SNS, his own sexuality, friends, the mysterious draw of McDonald’s chicken nuggets, and Leo.
The crush had come first; he’d been enthralled with Leo, making his senior debut at seventeen and already being credited for his own choreography. He’d been the coolest thing on ice skates, completely original and true to his own vision.
But the celebrity crush had given way to friendship soon enough, because Leo was also the nicest thing on two legs, helping Guang Hong navigate a new country and effortlessly integrating him into the complex social circle that was the international skating community.
One day, about six months ago, Guang Hong had come upon Leo chewing on a pencil, one earbud in and staring at a notebook filled with choreography notes.
Leo had seen him and smiled, not too wide but warm as the California sun, and offered Guang Hong the other earbud.
“Can’t you just see the program unfolding?” he’d asked. “It’s like everything was already there, inside me, and this song just pulled it out.” He saw Guang Hong’s expression and seemed to shrink slightly. “Is that weird?”
Guang Hong had barely been able to shake his head, because his whole mind was caught up in Leo’s excitement, Leo’s vision, Leo. And stunningly clear like a miracle, like it had been inside him all the time and just waiting to come out, he’d thought: I’m going to keep you forever.
That’s really the core of it; Guang Hong, once he knows what he wants, plays for keeps. He doesn’t do anything by halves. Case in point: the confession.
It takes less than ten minutes for his plans to start spilling out of his brain onto paper. He already knows Leo’s flight number; luckily, Guang Hong will be arriving first. Equally lucky, the time zones will work out so that both of them will still be wide awake that night.
Guang Hong plans out every detail, plots a thousand tiny ways to make this the best night Leo has ever had. Though he decides to save some of them for the eventual proposal, by the time he has to get to sleep or risk missing practice, he has envisioned essentially the perfect first date.
The next day, he has to start making that vision a reality.
There are hundreds of restaurants in Gangneung that are rated above four and a half stars on Yelp. There is a flower shop in the airport with mediocre reviews and about thirty in the surrounding area that are much better. Guang Hong finds himself squinting at fuzzy pictures of bicycle rental shops and wondering whether they would have the right color by the time he got there.
At that point, Guang Hong realizes he could probably use some help.
He opens his phone and enlists the greatest ally of all skaters in love.
Me: I’m confessing to Leo at 4C on Valentine’s Day. Phichit: !!! Phichit: Congratulations! Me: do you want to help? Phichit: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Phichit: ofc! Me: so here’s the plan Me: [image sent] Me: [image sent] Me: [image sent] Phichit: O.O Phichit: one second
Guang Hong realizes rather suddenly that this plan is kind of– well, Phichit probably thinks he’s a total weirdo now…
phichu has invited you to a new group chat: V-Day!!!
You joined the chat K-Yuuri joined the chat
K-Yuuri: what is this about, phichit?
v-nikiforov joined the chat
You: oh my god v-nikiforov: not quite! but thank you! K-Yuuri: victor are you even serious You: phichit who did you invite phichu: everyone whose handle i know and whos gonna be at 4C K-Yuuri: jj’s not here You: please tell me you didnt invite him phichu: ok ill rephrase phichu: everyone i trust not to be a complete jerk is here K-Yuuri: neither is seung-gil. i thought you liked him phichu: hes just slow shhhh phichu: anyway heres the deal phichu: as we all know guang hong is adorably in love with leo v-nikiforov: we do???? K-Yuuri: … phichu: … K-Yuuri: i love you but you’re an idiot You: i mean to be fair he spent about 30% of his time with us blackout drunk v-nikiforov: hey! so mean :( You: and you two have known us for years v-nikiforov: oh and i love you too yuuri! phichu: that adorable dorkery aside phichu: despite the fact that everyone also knows leo loves him back phichu: they are not yet together K-Yuuri: still???? phichu: ikr? phichu: but phichu: guang hong has decided to fix this phichu: [image sent] phichu: [image sent] phichu: [image sent] K-Yuuri: O.O phichu: thats what i said v-nikiforov: guang hong You: uh… yes?
Guang Hong squeezes his teddy bear and feels a terrible sense of dread. He’d planned all this out thinking that Leo, Leo with his artist’s soul, deserved something wonderful, but Victor Nikiforov, the most dramatic being on planet Earth, thinks it’s too saccharine…
v-nikiforov: this is the second most beautiful thing ive ever seen v-nikiforov: please let me help You: whats the first? phichu: hes gonna say yuuri v-nikiforov: yuuri v-nikiforov: how do you type so fast K-Yuuri: ANYWAY id like to help too if you need it You: thanks guys K-Yuuri: but we really need someone who knows the city to help K-Yuuri: even just knowing the language for reservations and stuff would be nice phichu: you’re right phichu: thankfully i have an ace up my sleeve
s-g-lee joined the chat
s-g-lee: what is this phichu: how is your timing so perfect phichu: anyway scroll up phichu: you train in gangneung right
***
Guang Hong sat in the cafe and watched Leo eat the last piece of the cake they’d shared with a quiet sense of satisfaction.
He had met Leo at the airport gate, flowers in hand. Phichit had taken Leo’s bags and walked off with his coach, the two of them giggling like schoolgirls.
Leo and Guang Hong had caught up as they wound their way out of the airport to the road. Though they’d been messaging each other all the time they’d been apart, there was something different about walking next to each other, matching their strides and bumping elbows affectionately.
When Guang Hong had begun steering them toward the bike rental, Leo had perked up before looking at the flowers still in his hands in worry. Guang Hong had smiled and told him to wait outside, before returning with a old-style tandem bicycle, complete with front basket.
They’d made their way through the streets, reveling in the cheerful, bustling atmosphere. Leo had pointed out a little cart in one of the market squares, and they had stopped to eat, Guang Hong laughing at Leo’s wide-eyed reaction to biting into a pepper, Leo wiping a crumb from his cheek. It’s incredible how Guang Hong can plan everything and think it’s perfect, and then Leo comes along with his spontaneous grace and somehow makes it a thousand times better.
Eventually, they’d reached the café Seung-gil had recommended. Leo thankfully hadn’t looked too closely at the couple that walked out as they walked in and so had missed Victor’s conspiratory wink before Yuuri had dragged him away.
Leo had squeezed his hand– when had he taken it?– as they entered and were led to a table by the window, their favorite songs beginning to filter softly through the room.
And now here they are, looking at each other over a pink candle and a red rose, and so Guang Hong finally says what’s been hanging in the air this whole time, artless and simple: “I love you.”
On Leo’s face there’s no hint of surprise, and Guang Hong thinks that this is why they were meant for each other: their worlds are made of simple truths: this is how it is, this is how I feel, this is how it will be.
Leo smiles, takes his hand. “I know.”
Then he laughs as Nat King Cole’s light tones rise through the air, but without letting go of Guang Hong’s hand he sings along with the chorus– all for the love of you– and his voice is sweet and perfectly, divinely clear.
6 notes · View notes
bensolotags · 4 years
Text
Frequently Asked Questions
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS,
BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS
From @BenSoloTags
(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I participate in a BenSoloTags Twitter hashtag campaign?
To participate in our hashtag campaigns, first, follow @BenSoloTags, our official twitter account to find out when they are planned. We suggest you turn on notifications for our account, so you can get notified whenever we tweet something official. You can do that by clicking the button with the alarm icon on it on our profile. We send out the official campaign notices from that account, including themes, time zones, best practices, and updates.
*
Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?
Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!
*
How often do you do campaigns?
We try to do campaigns about once a month.
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Why don’t we do more campaigns?
Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) see a LOT of tags, 24/7/365. We’re working to present unique monthly tags that are fun, positive, and creative. Disney and LFL will certainly notice when we trend a hashtag, even if it’s once a month.
*
Are you the only people doing campaigns?
No. There are other groups out there working to bring Ben Solo back to Star Wars. We’ll try to share information about specific campaigns and the accounts/groups promoting them, along with our own monthly hashtag campaigns.
Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include: 
@kiara_solo
@KarolV14070769
@solosaberx
*
Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?
The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc.
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How do you decide which tag to use?
We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.
Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe. 
Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting. 
We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.
*
Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?
The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc.
*
Tumblr media
How do you decide which tag to use?
We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.
Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe.
Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting.
We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.
*
Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?
No. We try to let people know about campaigns hosted by other accounts, as well as the monthly BST tag. Anything that isn’t our campaign will have “FYI” at the beginning and links to find more information (where possible).
*
Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?
According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:”  “...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.
“If your tag hasn’t trended within the first day of using it, it’s probably not going to reach that spike without some exceptional circumstances. It’s better to abandon it and try to get something else trending than it is to try to get an old tag to trend again later.”
Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter
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Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too!
As much as we feel all the sequel trilogy characters were given a hard shake by TRoS, Ben is the only major sequel trilogy character that died. So even if Rey and other characters suffered, they still have a (hopefully better-written) future. However, unless we can garner support to bring Ben back to life, his story ends where TRoS ends.
In light of this, our campaigns focus exclusively on Ben, or Ben as a part of Reylo, but we would love to support and help spread information about campaigns to celebrate other characters. Just let us know how we can help at @BenSoloTags.
*
Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?
Well, no. Most artists don’t appreciate your re-posting their work without permission. The best way to share an artist’s images in a way that acknowledges their work is to retweet the artist’s original tweet from their account whenever possible. A direct tweet is better than a quote tweet. If you can’t find the original tweet, you can try asking the artist to repost their work so you can share it, or ask them to grant you the permission to repost it.
*
Where are you on social media?
Twitter: @BenSoloTags
Facebook: Ben Solo Tags
Instagram: @bensolotags​
*
Best Practices
Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.
If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”
Try to tweet during the time zone recommended for your country, but if that doesn’t work for you, participate when you can the day of the campaign. Do not use third-party services or bots to tweet for you.
Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”
Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”
Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission. Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag.
Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:
Post photos of yourself with friends and family.
Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.
Create memes and/or photo manipulations. 
Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s).
Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.
Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him.
If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it.
Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it.
Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!
Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.
PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms.
Please be respectful of others.
And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.  
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0 notes
vintageeskimos · 7 years
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Ahhh beautiful Florence. The time of Renaissance art, and the Medici family.
This post is the continuation of my trip with Ashley, Emily Mac., Emily D., Rachel, Mallory, and now Megan! If you haven’t read my first post about Bologna, I recommend you do so here.
We left Bologna and took a 30 some-minute train ride to Florence. I have always been in love with Florence. It is a city I could revisit over and over again. To be honest, this was my third time in this gorgeous city. Most of us girls have been here before as well: Ashley, Megan, Emily Mac., and Rachel. So it was only Emily D. and Mallory whom have never seen it’s beauty.
In short here is what I recommend:
Florence:
Yellow Bar – not a bar, but a restaurant that serves homemade pasta daily
Monkey Bar – awesome dive bar
Viktoria Lounge Bar – modern bar lounge w/ great cocktails & service
Ditta Artigianale -Best cafe/bar to grab a caffè, brunch, and/or breakfast 
50 Sfumature di Gusto – my favorite restaurant in Florence
Once we arrived, we found our way to our airbnb. Unfortunately, it was too early to check-in so we decided to find a place to grab a bite. Nearby we found a place called Yellow Bar.
I didn’t realize until we sat down and everything, but Ashley and I have been there before. Crazy thing is when we studied abroad in Rome, three years ago, we each had a class that brought us on a class trip to Florence. And both of our classes ate at this exact restaurant where they make fresh pasta daily. I can see why we ate here because it is good AF. The only downside is that it is always packed with tourists, but in a big and famous city, such as Florence, you will always see them roaming around.
I knew exactly what I wanted as soon as I saw them making the fresh pasta: Freshly handmade gnocchi con gorgonzola (potato pasta with gorgonzola cheese)
(Left: The amazing gnocchi con gorgonzola)
(From left to right: Ashley, Mallory, Emily Mac., Rachel, Emily D., Me)
(Left: Ashley and I fooling around on snapchat. Right: Drinking every last drop of my wine)
Yellow bar is the place to be when you are hungry in Florence. Nothing fancy in atmosphere, but super appetizing food.
As you can tell, Megan wasn’t dining with us because her train from Rome was arriving a bit later on. After we filled our stomachs with food, we made our way to our Airbnb.
Now let me tell you something, this Airbnb looked AMAZING in photos online, but the internet doesn’t do it justice. The place was HUGE and every window in the apartment had a breath-taking view.
I was obsessed and if I was a millionaire I would have bought that place right on the spot. Between the huge kitchen, spacious bedrooms, comfy living room, incredible views, and location, I was hooked.
The company that owns this apartment must have many within the city because they have a lot of people working for them. A guy named Nico checked us in and recommended a lot of places for us to go that weren’t swarmed with tourists
Here is what he wrote down for us:
Bars:
Mayday– ask for Marco
King Grizzly
Clubs:
Yab
Bamboo
Life Club
Restaurants:
Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco
Santo Bevitore
I Raddi
Sostanza
Antico Noé 
Gelato:
Vivoli– 100 years old
Procopio– try pistacchio (local “mercato di sant’ambrogio”)
Perché No
Leather Shops:
Mercato di San Lorenzo “Medici”– the famous leather market of Florence (I don’t recommend it because it is sketchy AF and contains hit-or-miss type of products. Maybe check it out and buy a leather wallet or pretty scarf, but don’t go big)
Borgo Dei Greci – on that street there are shops
To be honest, we didn’t stop by any of the places (besides the leather market) because we didn’t have enough time in Florence to see, do, and eat everything. But I still have this list in my possession and next time I return I will be sure to check them out! Feel free to as well and let me know what you think!
Once Vico cleared everything about the apartment we settled down and relaxed for a bit. Megan called me soon after letting me know she checked into her bed & breakfast. Megan planned to stay one night there and the second night at our place because Emily Mac. had only planned to stay one night in Florence so she could visit her friend in Germany.
Megan came over to our place and was amazed just as we all were when we walked in. Before we knew it, the sun was down and dinner was on our minds. We have been eating out so much that I thought of preparing a home-cooked meal to save some money. It also helped that our kitchen was gigantic and there was a grocery store literally below our apartment complex. I wrote down a list of things to buy and we made our way to the grocery store.
Thank god it was so close, but the steps leading up to our apartment were killer- at least we got some exercise in.
My menu of the night included:
parmigiana di melanzane
platter of mixed cheeses
platter of mixed meats
salad
olives
bread
a lot of wine & prosecco
I was really excited to start cooking, but like what I have said before in my previous post:  I love to cook but I am pretty bad at it (sometimes…well maybe according to Italian cooking standards). But THIS time, I got it pretty damn right…
(Left: Our antipasto Right: Megan slicing the bread)
(I mean LOOK at that beauty! It truly was a masterpiece)
I am getting hungry just looking at it to be honest. Once we finished dinner, we bought more bottles of prosecco to prepare for a night of craziness. I cleaned up everything as fast as I could, Ashley blasted a sick playlist of songs, and all us girls got glammed-up.
Another amazing thing about this apartment that it has this long bright vanity in the hallway where us girls can throw our makeup on our faces. Here are some drunkenly taken photos of us pregaming and prepping…
(Left to right: Rachel, Ashley, Mallory)
(Left to right: Emily Mac., Rachel, Ashley, Mallory, and Me)
Now this is where it becomes a bit difficult to remember (at least in the order of things). I am pretty sure the first thing was we met up with Megan because she went back to her apartment to get ready after we ate dinner. So we headed in that direction towards her place. From there I am pretty sure we just followed the crowd or maybe I looked up a bar on TripAdvisor near me, but regardless we ended up at this place:
Monkey Bar looked really cool from the outside. It is like a metal-rock-alternative dive bar where you can grab an awesome beer or down a few shots. We decided on shots (tequila of course) I can’t remember the bartender’s name, but he was really cool and we had an awesome conversation with him about politics and music- he even took a shot with us.
Before we knew it we were roaming along the streets looking for the next bar to hit up. I am pretty sure the following bar we ended up at was Viktoria Lounge Bar
It was filled with people and even had a DJ playing old-school songs (meaning songs we jammed out to in middle school). It is a really hip modern bar with friendly staff and yummy cocktails. I realized that this was the exact same bar Luigi and I went to when we were in Florence the last year.
(Left: I forgot the name of the cocktail, but damn it was lovely)
(Top right image-from top left to bottom right: Mallory, Emily D., Megan, Rachel, Emily Mac., me, and Ashley)
(Bottom right image- from left to right: Rachel, Emily Mac., and me)
We stayed there for a decent amount of the night. Many cocktails and shots later, we decided to walk back the way we originally came and stopped at a club that seemed pretty poppin’.
 The Red Garter was this Irish pub meets Live Karaoke club. We entered the bar to discover a sea of Italians and Americans all over the place. I also realized it was another place that Luigi and I also stopped at while we were in Florence the year before. It was so difficult just to reach the front bar. Once we got our drinks we walked around to the back where some random drunk Americans were belting out “Livin’ On a Prayer”. Quickly, we turned back into the previous room where the music actually didn’t hurt our ears. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice place to dance, meet some people, or to get hit on by Italian men, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I knew I needed to be drunker to have more fun there.
(Photos provided by Google Images)
Once we had enough of sweaty people we took a breather outside and walked towards one of the bridges that connects Florence across the Arno river. It was so beautiful with all the lights along the waterside we took drunken photos of all of us.
After all the snaps and laughs, we made our way back to our apartment in search of food…Unfortunately some of the girls spotted this “pizza” place but it was the most disgusting pizza I ever saw. I mean they were hungry and drunk, so I don’t blame them for making the spontaneous decision of eating it. Afterwards, they all regretted it. Also, I am pretty sure they overcharged the girls knowing that they were drunk which really pissed me off. We finally arrived at the apartment and I reheated all the leftovers of the parmigiana di melanzane and stuffed my face.
The next morning I opened my eyes to a stunning view right outside my window:
(No exaggeration, also no filter)
I also woke up next to Emily Mac. beside me which was a huge problem once I looked at the clock. She was suppose to take a really early flight that morning to Germany, but overslept and missed her flight. Thankfully enough she was able to purchase a ticket for the next flight to Germany that day and was out the door before most of the girls were awake.
Rachel and Emily D. were actually awake when she left because they both preplanned and purchased tickets to see Michelangelo’s Davide. They invited me as well when they bought the tickets, but I already had seen him twice and figured I would save the 20 euros.
I am usually an early-riser because I sincerely appreciate an nice cappuccino and warm cornetto (croissant). I searched on TripAdvisor for a local bar I could grab some colazione (breakfast).
Little did I know, but I found one of the best bars there was for breakfast: Ditta Artigianale. This cafe/bar was top-notch coffee and food. Real artisan coffee beans and products used throughout their entire menu. Ashley, Mallory, Megan, and I had a very appetizing breakfast.
(My go-to breakfast: Cornetto alla crema & un cappuccino (Croissant with cream and a cappucccino)
We waited there for Rachel and Emily D. to show up so they could grab something as well and then we all went back to the apartment so Megan could settle in with her things. At the apartment we discussed about what we wanted to do for our last full day in Florence. Mallory was pretty tired from the night before so she wanted to stay at the apartment to sleep and would meet up with us later. So Rachel, Emily D., Megan, Ashley, and I strolled around the majestic streets of Florence with our first stop being the famous Duomo-Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. 
The cathedral and Duomo is unbelievable to look at. It’s so detailed and gigantic, it’s hard to believe how they constructed it thousands of years ago! It is really cool to see it in person again because I had just finished watching the first season of the new tv show, I Medici (Medici: Masters of Florence) which features the famous and handsome actor, Richard Madden as Cosimo Medici (previously known for his role as Robb Stark in The Game of Thrones). The show is set in the early 15th century and revolves around the Medici family and how they became filthy rich and legends of the Renaissance era. Cosimo Medici commissioned Donatello to help design and Brunelleschi to lead construction of the Duomo. It was a crazy idea back then, but with help from the Medici bank account (literally they invented the bank and owned everything), it became possible.
This leads me onto the next portion of our Florence stroll: The tombs of the Medici family and the San Lorenzo leather market. My friends- Ashley, Megan, Rachel, and Emily D.- all wanted to check out the leather market while I went to see the tombs of the Medici family. Thankfully, they were right next to each other so it wouldn’t be a problem meeting up later on.
Here is a lovely photo of the girls, standing on the steps just before the market, promoting their new single, “Meows of Florence” brought to you by a drunk night in this gorgeous city:
(Top left to bottom center: Emily D, Ashley, Megan, and Rachel)
And here is a lovely photo of me standing at the back entrance of the Medici chapel:
So we went our separate ways and I entered inside the tombs of the Medici Family. Inside the chapel there were treasures of gold, silver, and plaques of tombs everywhere the eye could see.
There were gifts from Popes, kings, queens, royal families, and so many more. In my head I was thinking, “Damn, how could the medici family put all this stuff in their house?”. When you walk upstairs you enter into the Marble-licious (yes I just said that) chapel of the extended Medici family, but while I was there most of the tombs and statues were going through restoration.
I was standing in the middle of the room with my face towards the ceiling just in awe of everything around me. Talk about resting in peace!
The best part of the chapel are the breath-taking tombs of Lorenzo il Magnifico (Lorenzo the Magnificent) and his brother, Guiliano Medici that were partially finished by the one and only, Michelangelo.
On Lorenzo’s tomb (shown in bottom left image) Dawn is depicted as waking up from a long night’s rest with Dusk about to pass out from tiredness. On Guiliano’s tomb (shown in bottom right image) Day is portrayed as a super jacked buff man just chillin’ there with an unfinished face with Night shown as a beautiful sleepy sleek woman you would see in some Venus razor commercial.
I know my descriptions are really bad, but I like to write how I talk and that is basically it. I would highly recommend to check out the Medici Chapel if you have time, but definitely do some research before you go or at least book a tour so you know what you are looking at. This was actually my second time here with my first time being with my Late Renaissance Art class when I studied abroad in Rome.
Afterwards I met up with the girls in the leather market (which they were surprisingly easy to find). Some girls bought some little gifts to take home to their families and we continued walking towards the classic Ponte Vecchio.
Ponte Vecchio is this gorgeous old bridge- and I mean OLD. But today it is filled with hundreds of expensive, EXPENSIVE, jewelry shops. So in other words, it was a great way to spend some window shopping time. I can dream right?
We made our way to the other side of the city and browsed around some random shops. A couple of the girls got some nice gelato while I was in desperate need of an Arancino (fried rice ball with mozzarella). Unfortunately, arancino is a classic food item from the south of Italy, not the north. So when I asked these random Italian girls in a shop where I could find one, they looked at me like I had two heads. It was getting a bit late and our stomachs were growling so we wanted to grab some lunch nearby, but something that wasn’t too big. That being said because we planned to go all-out for our last dinner in Florence that night.
Along the river we found a cute tiny restaurant with a spectacular riverside view:
Il Ristoro Dei Perditempo
(Photos not mine, but provided by Google Images- except for the top left photo of mixed meats- that one I did take).
This tiny restaurant was owned by a very sweet family and their food was delightful! (Especially the fresh cut meats). Nothing blew my mind about the spot, but I would take this restaurant as a nice place to catch up with an old friend (A solid 4-star rating).
The sun was setting on a beautiful autumn day so we made our way back to our apartment, but of course stopping at some shops along the way. Here is what we ran into on the streets of Florence:
We finished our last shopping spree by stopping at Zara, H&M, MAC cosmetics, and a street market with local artisans. It was a great day spent in this hypnotizing city.
The night was falling upon us and we had to figure out a place to eat for our last dinner together. I originally tried to reserve a table at two other restaurants but they were already booked for the night. I don’t blame them because it was a Saturday. I finally found this excellent hole-in-a-wall restaurant with pretty convincing reviews on TripAdvisor:
50 Sfumature di Gusto (50 shades of taste)
I swear I found the golden ticket when it comes to restaurants. The food was PHENOMENAL and a feast for the eyes as well!
This was by far my favorite restaurant in Florence. 5-star rating for food quality and accommodating service. If you want to eat there definitely reserve, and DEFINITELY eat their meat/filet. I ate the filet with gorgonzola and it was life-changing.
We rolled onto our stomaches out the door- we were so full. Somehow we got back to the apartment and since it was our last night, Megan, Ashley, and I decided to get drunk…again. I mean, I didn’t know when we would all be together again so I figured why not? All the girls (besides Megan and me) had to take an early train to Milan to catch their flight home so being hungover wasn’t the best option. Emily D. and Mallory got a drink at MayDay that was just below our apartment, but I was feeling more party-hardy that night. To make things easier on us, Ashley, Megan, and I just decided to hit up the two places we went the night before: Viktoria Lounge Bar and The Red Garter. It was a night of shots and endless snapchat videos and photos…
I totally woke up regretting those last rounds of shots, but I got up in time to say goodbye to everyone. It was so sad really. I wish I could relive those moments again in Bologna and Florence, but I have high hopes for another Europe trip this upcoming summer/fall. After Megan and I said our goodbyes to the girls and our apartment’s stunning view, we trucked our luggage and hungover bodies to my favorite cafe bar, Ditta Artigianale for another deserved cornetto and caffè macchiato.
  It was getting late and I needed to catch my train back to Naples. Megan had a train to Rome right after mine so we walked together through the historic streets of Florence one last time to say goodbye to all those beautifully sculpted booties.
What a trip…until next time, ladies! ;)
Florence Ahhh beautiful Florence. The time of Renaissance art, and the Medici family. This post is the continuation of my trip with Ashley, Emily Mac., Emily D., Rachel, Mallory, and now Megan!
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ginnyzero · 4 years
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Use an Active Voice
This post was originally posted on my website in 2017... the year of IRMA.
As we dig in for Hurricane Irma here in Florida, I ran across a random reblog on tumblr about using filter words that made me think about my writing.
When I started writing, there wasn't a lot of advice out there for budding authors that was easily accessible. (Not that I would have taken it if there had been.) Unlike today where you can sign up for tumblr or twitter and follow half a dozen writing advice blogs and people with just a couple of searches and a few clicks. (Who all reblog each others advice.) I had one tiny writing advice book that was almost a novelty item rather than a book, instinct, a whole lot of trial and error and fiction books to read on my bookshelves. And then I wrote. I wrote a lot.
And there were a lot of great pieces of advice in the little writing novelty advice book, "Writer's Little Book of Wisdom by John Long" But there were perhaps two pieces of advice that saved me a lot of trouble and kept me from bad habits in my writing. They were in brief. 1) Use an active voice to bring your characters to life. 2) Avoid filtering an image through an observing conscience. Two came before one but two can really be seen as a corollary of one. If you apply an active voice. You are more likely to avoid filter words.
What is an active voice? The active voice is when the character is doing something to the object of the sentence. I really like the example from the book. "She slapped the Deacon across the face." It's energetic. It's exciting. Who is this character? Why is she slapping the Deacon? What did he say/do? Did he really deserve it? So many questions from seven words!
She breathed heavily. Her heart pounded. Her nostril's flared. Her fists clenched. She trembled with rage. When using an active voice, the character is engaged and doing something. It shows through her body language and her bodily reactions that this character is angry. All without the writer having to tell the reader "She was enraged." (Though writers will do both, show and tell to make sure everyone knows exactly what is going on.) "She was enraged (by zombies)" is a passive sentence by using the verb to be in front of the  active verb.
Nobody wants to be chased by zombies! "The Deacon enraged her" would be the active voice example of that sentence. (Thank you Professor Johnson of USMC for the handy 'by zombies' trick.)
Now, to expound upon that example and explain filter words. Filter words are words that try to describe something through the character's viewpoint. These are words like felt, heard, saw, noticed. "The Deacon felt his cheek burn." Is an example of using filter words. Whereas, it is much stronger and more active to say, "The Deacon's cheek burned."
The Deacon's cheek burning brings the reader into the character's world rather than being a third party to what the character sees, hears and feels. "His face felt hot" or "he felt hot" may be correct grammatically. But still aren't as visceral as "His face heated" or "He heated." And those are an active voice!
Using an active voice really brings the reader into the story. It keeps their eyes glued to the page. (It's why I don't really like present tense. It doesn't feel 'active' enough to me and if I do end up reading a story with it I translate it to past tense in my head. I recognize it as a viable style. It just isn't my cup of tea.) If the author wants to be able to explore their character's head and thoughts more fully, then by all means use a first person point of view! That way there is less temptation to use filter words and keep the story in the active voice.
It comes down to a matter of style and balance. Too much active voice, the scene might feel too choppy. Too much passive voice and filler words the reader will fall asleep and feel like they're slogging through the book. As a writer and a reader, I know I prefer the active voice to the passive voice or using filter words because it keeps me a participant in the story. It pulls me into the world of the characters.
Now, I know I'm not perfect. (I should probably read every draft of all my books while exhausted that way I can make sure my prose isn't confusing.) I know I might use "she felt" or "She heard" in my writing. Because sometimes it is a choice between "she heard." or using comic book style noise words like "pow" and "clatter" and "thump."  Sometimes I wish hearing was as simple as "water dripped in the corner" and "crickets buzzed outside." Usually it helps if the character knows what the noise is. (but no, usually it's a 'what was that?' type of thing.) So, if you decide to read my books and come back to point out my egregious errors where I didn't use an active voice, then by all means have fun!
I know it is something I will keep my eye on in the future.
Happy writing!
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Kodak announced Thursday that it will partner with fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 for a 26-piece collection — T-shirts, crop tops, jackets, loungewear, polos, and sweatshirts.
The clothes are emblazoned with Kodak logos and color schemes from the ’90s. Specifically, design elements from the company’s old NASCAR team, making them simultaneously a callback to a time when Kodak was wealthy and beloved, and a tie-in to a moment where streetwear-chasing kids are heavily into logos. (They already love NASCAR.)
It’s a big play for youth culture by the storied film brand, which declared bankruptcy in 2012, and it can tell us a lot about the way the analog renaissance is being capitalized on by huge — and sometimes floundering — tech companies.
Best known for photography, Kodak has been an industrial printer company since the fall of film. The vast majority of the company’s revenue comes from making newspapers, custom labels, and other things that need to be printed at scale with a high level of detail. It’s keeping the business alive, but it’s not cool.
If Kodak is going to stage a comeback in consumers’ hearts, it needs the teens.
“I have this ambition to return Kodak to being one of the world’s best-known, best-loved brands,” Dany Atkins, Kodak’s chief branding officer, said. Atkins was poached from Apple’s Beats by Dre three years ago, and her first order of business was to point out that, uh, Kodak needed to have an Instagram account.
Kodak may have been the most recognizable photography brand in the world in the ’90s, but among the kids it’s chasing, now it’s easily a distant third. Urban Outfitters has stocked Fujifilm’s instant-printing Instax camera in its brick-and-mortar stores and on its website for years, offering dozens of photo frames and photo albums and photo-related accessories that are specifically designed for the size and shape of the Instax print-outs.
Polaroid leveraged the rise of nostalgia-inspired Instagram filters and online fervor for analog culture into “The Impossible Project,” a much-hyped and crowd-driven campaign that lasted years and culminated in the release of an “adorable” instant camera — almost exactly 10 years after the company had stopped making film. Both rode an analog wave that also lifted sales of record players, handicrafts, longhand writing, and books.
“I have this ambition to return Kodak to being one of the world’s best-known, best-loved brands”
So, Kodak needs Forever 21 the way a saltine needs literally any topping, but none of this should be too hard. They’re just copying an already codified playbook.
Atkins has spearheaded a series of fashion collaborations, starting with a pure hypebeast play in August 2015 — a Carol Lim-designed Opening Ceremony capsule collection (a $145 long-sleeve tee and a $195 crewneck sweater) inspired by the work of director Spike Jonze. Lim designed more T-shirts that fall, considered a success not just because they sold out but also because Joe Jonas wore one for a day out in Beverly Hills.
Kodak’s new streetwear-inspired Forever 21 zip-ups. Kodak
Forever 21 is Kodak’s biggest play to edge out Fujifilm in the youth market. Kodak
“[Fashion] took our brand to a whole new audience and positioned it as aspirational in a way that perhaps it hadn’t been before,” Atkins says. “I think there’s something about the fact that film is now premium. That enabled us to make that switch.”
Borrowing from the skateboarder-first strategy that built Supreme — a major reference point for the new Kodak — Atkins arranged a collaboration with the California skateboard collective Girl, which resulted in skateboards and clothing and skateboarding videos shot on Super 8 film.
In the last year, they’ve helped Lana Del Rey’s sister shoot a music video on Super 8, they hired hip-hop scene photographer Renell Medrano to shoot a short film with Cara Delevingne, and they invited Ansel Elgort’s brother to the Los Angeles launch party for the Forever 21 line. In January, years after they came back into style, Kodak announced its own Instax-esque instant print cameras and then got an extreme close-up shot of one into a Khalid and Ty Dolla $ign music video.
You couldn’t come up with a more on-trend series of keywords if your life depended on it.
Kodak’s also benefited from the fact that big-budget Hollywood directors are eternally enamored with film, have possibly become even more so in recent years. Kodachrome, the $20 art magazine the brand launched last year with the endorsement of forever it-girl Chloe Sevigny, is made expressly to emphasize that fact. The latest cover story was on Patty Jenkins, who’s currently shooting the Wonder Woman sequel on film.
Joshua Coon, head of content marketing at Kodak and the editor of the magazine, said that their target audience is people who are interested in film not out of nostalgia but because they’re using it for the first time and valuing it as a craft.
“I don’t know if there’ll ever be a time where Blockbuster, for example, will be socially relevant again,” he says, “But a film picture to a lot of people is still worth more because it’s a more considered image. It lasts longer. Think about how many pictures we take on our phones and how many we actually go back and look at and use, versus 36 very considered shots on a film camera.”
Kodak’s new Forever 21 line takes inspiration from its ’90s NASCAR team. Kodak
Asked why the company needs a full magazine to promote this idea, he points out that Kodak is also a printer company, which is an interesting thing to emphasize. Kodak is a printer company. Specifically, an industrial printer company. It was once a camera and film company. Film and the other consumer goods like the ones we’ve been discussing here accounted for just $47 million (flat year-over-year) of the $414 million the company brought in during Q4 of 2017, while the commercial printing division brought in $261 million.
Kodak went bankrupt because of the dedication to film these branding measures emphasize — it clung to it, adapting poorly to the rise of the digital camera, and in doing so set itself up to eventually shuck over 100,000 jobs and kneecap a city. (Three years after its collapse, Kodak’s hometown of Rochester, New York, had a median household income half that of the rest of the state.)
That partially explains why Atkins was given just six months to bring this collection to life and stresses that almost all of the marketing will happen via unpaid Instagram promotion and organic influencer relationships. She’s doing work that’s fun — and it would be nice to see Kodak bounce back into the popular culture! — but ultimately this brand work is a pet project for a lumbering tech giant still trying to figure out exactly how to keep existing.
Despite all the celebration around t-shirts selling out and J.J. Abrams talking about the magic of Super 8, Kodak was still cutting jobs and selling off entire divisions as recently as last month. It now employs about 6,000 people, down from 19,000 just before it declared bankruptcy, and 145,000 at its peak during the decade this Forever 21 project pays tribute to. As much as the analog resurgence is something Kodak is savvily leaning into, it’s also something Kodak’s just kind of been waiting around for.
The analog trend — like all trends — will come to an end. In the meantime, it’s hard to deny that this $15 Kodak x Forever 21 fanny pack is very, very on-trend.
Original Source -> Kodak wants teens to help resurrect it. So it’s teaming up with Forever 21.
via The Conservative Brief
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