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illuminatedquill · 3 years

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Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.” - Tom Robbins

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right?

Boy meets girl.

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes.

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business.

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive.

Oh, and they fall in love along the way.

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular.

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches.

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time.

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear.

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here.

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo.

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person.

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision.

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly).

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime.

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow.

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again.

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first.

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life.

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead.

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series.

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying.

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students.

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else.

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me.

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together.

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required.

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way.

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date.

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it.

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri.

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return?

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents.

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end.

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way.

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him:

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.”

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states?

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime.

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering.

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance.

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership.

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream.

Man, if that isn’t love.

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life.

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost).

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri.

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama.

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that.

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose.

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people.

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police.

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo.

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe.

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know.

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other?

Do we have that right?

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way?

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty?

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what.

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end.

They were together.

#extracurricular netflix #human class #netflix #kdrama #oh jisoo #bae gyuri #park joo hyun #park ju hyun #kim dong hee

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creepy-spooghetti · 3 years

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A Hapless Endearment [Creepypasta x F. Reader]

Chapter 1- Over the River and Through the Woods

Yesss, I started a fanfic. I know. Go me, right?

I'm sure you all know the drill by now but, for those of you who don't, here it is:

Y\n = Your name

L\n = Last name

H\c = Hair color

E\c = Eye color

F\c = Favorite color

B\m = Birth month

S\t = Skin tone

B\s = Body shape

L\c = Lip color

H\l = Hair length

Aaaand I think that's it for now. Enjoy the 1st chapter~

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She lets out an inaudible sigh, her head propped in her hand as she gazes out of the blue-tinted window. Trees and small houses whiz by, blurring together and creating an evanescent of greens, browns, whites, and yellows. The sun is high in the turquoise sky, its heated summer rays shining down through the puffy clouds and shooting beams of light throughout the atmosphere.

She attempts to make fun shapes out of the fluffy, levitating white lumps, though she can't seem to concentrate long enough to truly get anywhere with it. The car would be completely silent if not for the constant humming of the wheels beneath scraping the asphalt and bringing them closer to their destination. Beside Y\n lays her luggage; a simple duffle bag colored a periwinkle purple and a black backpack, each stuffed with various clothes and necessities she deemed imperative to bring along.

Her headphones are placed diligently over her ears, muffling any noise that may come from outside and blocking it out with music of her choice. Her finger fiddles with the wire, twirling it around absentmindedly as she stares through the thin glass, her mind on nothing in particular and instead wandering aimlessly amidst the endless fog of thoughts and memories. She glances to her side- or rather, ahead of her- landing her gaze on her father as he sits in the driver's seat, hands gripping the steering wheel, and concentrating on the stretch of road in front of him.

He has a rather torpid expression painted across his face, she can see as she looks up at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Not too happy about coming back here, she thinks, narrowing her eyes slightly, but why would he be? It's only his parents. Who cares about them? Certainly not him.

She notices her mother sitting in the passenger's side, brown hair tied back into a neat bun and head craned forward, eyes squinted as she focuses on the glowing screen of her phone; her thumb scrolling the small device listlessly, seemingly in search of something interesting, or perhaps she's reading something that has gained her interest.

Then something always seems to have gained her interest. Her e\c eyes move back to their previous position, a faint feeling of indignancy rising within her chest and beginning to bubble to the surface. I doubt she even sleeps, always up all night texting her boyfriend.

A bitter sensation grabs at her tongue and makes her want to spit the foul taste out, though she only swallows and bites the inside of her cheek as if attempting to rid herself of the disconcerting concept. She searches the hollows of her mind for something lighthearted, a memory that contains laughter and joy and fondness, however, she finds nothing. She's unable to remember the last time within the last couple of years that she and her family shared a delightful moment together, when her father smiled or her mother was veridical.

She comes to the demoralizing realization that her family hasn't acted as a family since she was twelve years old, only still a child when her clinquant life slowly came crashing down before her. She isn't sure the exact minute that it happened, or have a specific reason as to why it happened, all she knows is that her parents steadily grew more and more distant, drawing themselves out of her sight until she felt completely alone; abandoned. Forgotten.

She tried to talk to them, get them to open back up, allow their only child back in, and each time, they forced themselves farther back into the cold, bitter darkness and left her desperate, longing for their love and affection. She knew that she was never getting anywhere with her parents, so after many failed attempts, she just stopped her fruitless efforts.

As a result, it was only natural for Y\n to do the same. She wasn't getting the attention she desperately yearned for out of them, and the only thing she knew to do was to follow their lead. She cut off connections with most of her friends, refused to socialize unless it was necessary, kept her emotions locked away in a box, and threw away the key. Stepping out of the light that was society and making herself invisible among most people, even herself at times.

At this point, now sixteen years of age, she still cares deeply about what was to become of their lives, though she always drives the feelings of uncertainty to the back of her dimmed mind. If they don't give a crap, why should I?

She blinks, emerging from her thoughts of deep disdain as she registers the vehicle she sits in turn sharply, riding onto a dirt road and deeper into the forest that houses the two people she still holds in high regard. A blue and white sign passes by, and she quickly reads the words written in bold across its metal surface. Oneiric Lane, half a mile.

Despite the displeasing situation, she feels a splang of excitement erupt through her chest. Yes, she's nearly there. It will be nice to be loved again, treated fairly, and with affection. Unless they've forgotten about her. Impossible. I'm one of two grandchildren, they would never forget about me. Almost eagerly, she raises her head up, e\c irises gleaming in the slightly obscured sunlight shining in through the trees, and she gives herself a mental pep talk as if to encourage further what she knows should remain true.

It might be awkward... but I'll be fine. I can do it. What if they don't like me? I'm not exactly their 'little hummingbird', anymore... She tries to dismiss the thoughts as she observes her surroundings, trying to find an ounce of familiarity anywhere, though she fails to. Why don't I remember what the scenery looked like? Was that house there, before? Is that tree new? Ugh! I blame Dad for this. If he would've gotten rid of that stick up his butt then I could've been back here long ago! But no. He's so dang spiteful he can't just get over a simple argument like a civilized human being, no. He has to be a jerk about it! Leaving poor Nana and Pops in the dust like that... much like he's doing to me, right now. Oh, the irony. Is it possible to ramble in your head? Cause if so, I think I'm doing it, right now.

With a barely noticeable shake of her head, she pauses her music and gingerly removes her headphones, being careful not to tangle the wire as she unplugs it from the MP3 Player and wraps them around the f\c object. She then takes hold of her backpack, still open from where she retrieved the source of entertainment, and shoves them inside, zipping it closed after finishing.

I have so many things to show them! Maybe Nana will let me do a paint job on her wall... I have gotten quite good. She rolls her eyes and lets out a sound similar to a huff. Don't get too ahead of yourself, Y\n. A simple canvas will do just nicely. Besides, she probably has wallpaper... or does she? I don't even remember. There were bright colors, though. Hopefully not too bright... That would be a bit too cheery for my tastes. But whatever. It's their house, I'm only the guest.

A ghost of a smile sweeps across her face when she sees the somewhat familiar, victorian-style cottage come into view, and she feels her heart speed up with elation as they draw nearer. Around the house lies a white picket fence, lined with beautifully planted flowers of all different colors, their stems having grown tall and wrapped themselves around each individual post, leaving a wild, peaceful appearance to it.

At the gate, about ten feet from the front door sits an intricate white arch made of thick twine and enlaced with more vibrant plants, and the house itself is a gentle shade of cornflower blue, with an ornate wooden roof that sparkles like tiny crystals in the sun's bright yellow beams. The window frames are a snow-white, their shutters open and allowing one to see the inside of the home, if only slightly, and the transparent pane is rimmed with stained glass roses.

The whole architecture makes it look as if the words from a book of fairy tales leaked out of its pages and sprung to life, staying hidden between the trees until someone comes across it. It nearly takes her breath away, and she stares in awe, waiting anxiously for the vehicle to pull over so she can jump out and greet the people that are probably dearest to her heart, despite the long years it's been since she's laid eyes on them.

I forgot how amazing this place was... She unbuckles her seatbelt, practically leaning against the glass in building anticipation. I can just about smell her pineapple casserole, already! Finally, the car comes to a slow, almost hesitant stop a few feet from the gate, under a willow tree. She reaches down hastily toward the door handle, though when she pulls it, she finds that the door doesn't budge.

Only then does she realize it hasn't been unlocked and looks up at the man she calls her father expectably, impatiently. She waits a moment, but he makes no move to signify that he's unlocking the car. "Dad," she starts, her voice low and irritated, "open the door, please."

She watches as his hands clench up for a mere second before he releases a small sigh of vexation and presses the 'unlock' button, making the four doors to the vehicle click. Satisfied and vaguely relieved, she pulls on the handle, and the metal portal swings open, the warm summer air immediately greeting her as she steps out onto the vivid green grass. She takes a big whiff of the fresh air, natural scents swirling her nostrils and overwhelming them as she pulls her bags out from the car and slings them over her shoulder.

A sudden swirl of nervousness forms in the pit of her stomach as she steps toward the unfamiliar but yet all too recognizable cottage, questions floating around inside of her brain and making her stop her footsteps. I haven't seen them in years... What if they've changed? What if... they don't like how I've changed?

But her inquiries of doubt soon vanish when she hears a screen door swinging open before an elderly lady steps out, landing her gaze on the h\c girl instantly. Her face contorts into one of pure bliss and exhilaration as a wide smile takes over her aged features, and before Y\n even knows it, she's nearly running toward the arched gateway to meet and reunite with her. All worries she had before either disappear or shove themselves to the back of her mind, leaving her raw excitement to show itself in full form for the first time since she started on this trip.

"Phil, Phil!" the lady all but screams, diving for the gate and waving her hand around frantically. "She's here! Y\n's here!" The girl stands there silently, a smile tugging at her lips when she meets her grandmother's gaze for the first time in what feels like forever. Memories rush back like a large wave, rolling over her consciousness and causing her to remember every detail. As if all she needed was a physical, real-time picture of her to jolt her memory and remind her of how much she adored this woman, this whole place.

As she hurries toward her, she gets a clear view of her appearance. She's wearing a floral dress, patterned with tiny petaled flowers of all different shapes and a skirt that drapes all the way down to her shins, a white and rose-pink apron that ties around her waist as if she's been cooking. Her shoes are simple beige sandals, and her grey, brittle hair is tied back into a Chinese-inspired bun. Her eyes are kind and welcoming, though sunken with age and life experience, and the wrinkles that crease her forehead and cheeks only remind Y\n of how old she has to be getting, now.

A sparkle of joy shines in her e\c orbs as she watches her approach at a surprisingly fast rate, no doubt caused by a rush of adrenaline. "Hi, Nana," she says, her tone warmer than it's been in a long time. She can see her slightly yellowed teeth past her wide grin right before she's enveloped in a tight embrace, her frail arms wrapping around Y\n's frame and pulling her into her as much as she possibly can.

A pleasant scent wafts up into her nose; it's a peaceful aroma, a mixture between strawberries and cinnamon. She hugs back with her free arm almost instantly, squeezing her grandmother's scrawny torso as much as she deems appropriate so she doesn't somehow injure her. She registers the screen door once again flying open, the creaking of its likely very old and unoiled hinges making a sound similar to a screech before footsteps are heard running across the polished stone.

She mentally prepares herself for another bear hug, this time a lot more crushing and powerful, as she remembers how strong and stout of a man her grandfather is. "Oh! My girl is home!" He yells, right before she feels another pair of limbs wrap around her, nearly making her stumble and fall back just from force alone. A small, blissful chuckle leaves her l\c lips, feeling happiness flood inside of her chest, and though it's a different feeling, she certainly doesn't make it unwelcome.

"We've missed you so much!" Nana chirps, finally pulling away after what had to be two solid minutes. Her wrinkled hands lightly grasp her shoulders before moving up to cup her face, gently lifting it to get a better look. A surprised expression forms across her features before it's replaced by a wider- if it's even possible- smile. "Oh, look how much you've grown!" She turns her head toward her husband. "Phil, do you see her?"

"Aye. I sure do," he says with a proud nod of his head. "She's just as beautiful as she was the last time she visited." A small blush dusts itself across her cheeks and she looks to the side, embarrassed. He chuckles. "Just as bashful, too."

"Leave her alone." She turns back to face her, excitement dancing in her faded brown eyes. She brushes a strand of h\c hair behind her ear before giving her another hug. "We've missed you so much, sweetie. It's been too long." Y\n only nods shyly, not used to being fawned over as she is at the moment. Behind her, she hears the wheels of the car grinding against the dirt as it pulls out, and she twists her head back just in time to see her parents driving away, leaving her there for what's bound to be at least a couple of weeks.

All without a goodbye. A disgruntled huff leaves her nose and she purses her lips together, her heart starting to feel heavy as she stares in the direction of the dirt road they drove off in. The elderly couple is silent also before Phil clicks his tongue, though, in disappointment or anger, she isn't sure. "Well, how about that. No 'hello' or anything."

"They're not big on hellos," Y\n mutters, feeling her fists clench. "Or goodbyes." Her grandma places a reassuring hand on her arm before grabbing her hand and talking in a sympathetic voice.

"I'm sorry, darling. I'm not sure what thorn got stuck in their shoe, but they need to get it out." She tightens her grip before letting out a sigh. "Anyway, we have to catch up! I haven't seen you since you were a little girl." She looks back at the old woman and allows a more peaceful expression to grace her features. "How old are you, now? Fifteen?"

"She looks more grown-up than that," Phil comments and Y\n shrugs lightly, biting her lip.

"Uhm... I'm sixteen. Gonna be seventeen in B\m."

"My word!" Her Nana exclaims, cupping a hand to her mouth to emphasize. "You're practically an adult, already!"

"Only a few years older than that darned cat of yours, Farrah," he says, and Y\n's eyes light up momentarily as she remembers one of the main reasons she's always adored this place so much.

"Marshmallow?" She questions, unsure excitement beginning to course through her, once again. "He's still alive?"

"Why, yes, he is," Farrah laughs cheerily, as if surprised by her inquiry. "Getting on up there, though. I'm a little shocked to know you remember him."

"Of course I remember him," she says, her voice growing louder from exhilaration. "He's my little buddy. I wonder if he still remembers me..."

"I'm sure he does," Phil says. "He was always followin' you around. Probably cause you spoiled him so much with milk and meat from the pantry." She grins sheepishly and rubs the back of her neck.

"He needs to be spoiled. Too sweet not to be spoiled."

"Very good point." Farrah smiles.

"And yet I can't even have a dog in the house," he grumbles playfully. "You cat lovers don't make any sense."

"We don't have to make sense," Farrah says. "Cats are gorgeous, wholesome creatures, and they deserve to be treated as such. That's as much sense as you need."

"Sure, sure." He waves her off. "You treat that cat better than you do me."

"Well, you're not covered in angelic fur and lay on my lap to cuddle, now do you?" She raises a thin eyebrow, and he scoffs.

"I can lay in your lap if that's what you want."

"No, thank you."

"Well, c'mon woman, make up your mind!"

"My mind is made up! Now, come on, dear." She pulls Y\n toward her and begins walking toward the cottage that the teenager hasn't stepped foot in for five years, and she follows behind, although somewhat reluctantly. "You must be starving."

"You want me to carry those for you?" Phil asks, and she glances over at him, her eyes widened slightly, clearly taken off-guard by the sudden offer. But she collects her bearings rather quickly and shakes her head with a grateful smile.

"N-no thanks, Pops. I got it."

"Whatcha got in those things? They look heavy." Her grip automatically tightens on the straps hanging from her shoulder before shrugging, trying to get used to being asked frequent questions and being around people who actually care about her.

"Um... clothes and stuff." She replies quietly as they step through the arched gateway. They walk along a neat path of polished stones and white marble, steadily getting closer to the painted oak door. She glances around, beside her feet, only to see a trail of tulips, consisting of pink, white, red, and violet, planted on either side of the carefully placed rock pathway. It continues to amaze her how her grandparents can manage to keep the garden beautiful, while also making sure the house is in tip-top shape.

Good genes, I guess.

"You got any o' those modern technology things that kids use nowadays?"

"I mean... I have a phone. And an MP3 player... and a laptop."

"Oi," he laughs, "I thought you were comin' here to get away from that stuff and spend a few weeks, old-person style." A hint of pink spreads across her cheeks, and suddenly, she feels a little guilty.

"I-I mean, I just brought them to do art and stuff, I wasn't meaning to intrude-"

"Oh, hush, Phil." Farrah scolds her husband, turning to face Y\n with a kind smile. "Calm down, sweetie. You can bring anything and do anything you want here, okay? Don't feel ashamed or unwelcome." Her eyes radiate a kind of warmth and friendliness that Y\n hasn't been shown in a long time, and she slowly nods, allowing a small smile to stretch across her face. "Good. Now, welcome home."

She stands aside and allows the teen to enter the household, e\c eyes widening when she sees the interior. Along the floor lays a hand-made rug, in the shape of a rectangle with additional ruffles at its edges. To her left is an open entrance to what appears to be a cozy living room, with a pink floral-patterned sofa resting against the wall, and next to it, facing the direction of the front door is an armchair of the same material. A frosted glass coffee table sits in front of them, and underneath it is an oak plank floor.

Past the living area is a small dining room, with a white table and four chairs slid neatly on each side, and behind that is an antique China cabinet with double doors and several drawers, all of which are see-through and hold various cups, platters, and knick-knacks that have been collected over the years. Straight in front of her is a dark oak staircase, which she remembers to lead up and to the bedrooms and the other bathroom in the comfy home. To her right is a kitchen, with a white, ceramic-tiled floor, a long countertop that twists around the length of the area, excluding the refrigerator, the oven, and the sink.

Hanging overhead is an oven light and cabinets with crystal knobs that she assumes lead to pots, pans, and other dishes to use with cooking and eating. In the center is an island, with a vase of lemon yellow roses and three plates stacked onto one another.

A scent of honeysuckle wafts up into her nose, as well as the familiar pineapple casserole that she only recently realized she missed, mixing together and creating a sense of nostalgia. She almost cries from pure joy right then and there. I really did miss this place...

"Make yourself comfortable, dear," Farrah chirps from behind her, giving her a few moments to get used to her new, but familiar, surroundings. "I made pineapple casserole, in case you're hungry. That is still your favorite, right?" Y\n only nods and gives a soft hum in response, stepping farther inside and allowing herself to succumb to the wave of memories that hit her simply by walking through the door.

Her gaze sweeps over everything in awe as she stops in front of the staircase, glancing back at her grandmother almost timidly and speaking up. "Um... where can I stay at?" A flash of realization shimmers in Farrah's eyes before she steps forward and nods her head.

"Ah, yes. You remember your aunt Darcy's old room?" She nods, quickly catching onto what she's referring to. "That is where you can sleep, store your things, anything. I mean, your dad's room is available, too, but I didn't figure you'd want to stay somewhere with all those ugly concert posters and figurines."

"Y-yeah, Aunt Darcy's room will be fine," she replies, turning and beginning her small trek up the dozen or so stairs. The idea of staying in her father's childhood bedroom doesn't sit right in her stomach. "Thank you, Nana."

"Are you sure you don't need any help with your bags?" She questions from below, her soft voice echoing upward and easily extending to Y\n's ears. "They look awfully heavy."

"No, it's okay, I got 'em," she responds, reaching the top stair and taking a moment to navigate the somewhat narrow space before her. Beneath her shoes is a thin white rug that stretches the length of the hallway, to her immediate right is a small polished, wooden table used to place a dainty-looking bouquet of petunias in a glass vase. On her left is a door that's been left slightly ajar, revealing a little bit of the interior to her and reminding her that this is indeed where she's going.

She uses her free hand to push it open, e\c eyes lighting up when she steps inside of the nostalgic bedroom. The walls are a pristine, rosy pink, the floor is crafted out of ash wood planks and complements the design and hues nicely. In the center side of the room is a bed, made as a sort of cubby hole into the wall and at a straight angle next to a window. Surrounding the bed, built into the wall, are two bookshelves, both on either side and filled with colorful books of varying sizes.

Beneath the mattress is a long drawer, one of which she remembers to be a trundle bed, as it pulls out and creates another area for a second person to sleep in. Attached to the ceiling above is a set of turquoise sheers, slid to either side of the sleeping niche, and loosely tied to the wall with a thin pair of string. In one of the corners, next to the other window, hangs a basket swing, with two pink pillows placed inside in order to cushion it. To her right is what she recalls to be a closet, the door shut and a shoe organizer gripping onto the top edge of it. Inside the pouches are several pairs of footwear, each separated and easily discernable.

A white, fluffy rug lays spread across the floor, underneath a clothes hamper, a small, cushioned bench, and a cotton bean bag chair. A painted oak desk sits pressed against the wall across from her, with several drawers inside and a stool of the same color pushed neatly beneath it. A reading lamp sits atop the surface, along with a couple of minuscule baskets to hold diverse writing tools, a notebook and binder stacked onto each other, a robin paperweight, and a small mirror.

She releases an inaudible sigh, allowing the corners of her lips to twitch upward in a content smile as she walks further inside, dropping her bags onto the bed and giving herself a double-take of her temporary bedroom. A giddy sensation forms within her chest; one she hasn't experienced in a number of years, and she quickly realizes that she enjoys it. She turns her head and gazes out the open window, viewing the yard of green grass and colorful flowers below and admiring how the sun's golden rays shine down through the towering trees.

Her stomach suddenly rumbles and only then does she realize that she hasn't had anything to eat since the beginning of the six-hour trip to her grandparents' house, so she understandably feels hungry. Eager to stuff something down her throat and ease her mild sense of famine, she turns on her heel and walks out of the room, heading down the stairs and, once again being greeted by the pleasant scent of the sweet food dish.

Farrah, who is currently standing in the kitchen, sends Y\n an affectionate smile and motions for her to come in with a wave of her hand. "Hi, dear. Settled in already?" The teenager shakes her head slightly, following the smell and stepping inside.

"Not quite, Nana. I'm hungry, and the thought of eating something this delicious couldn't wait." The woman chuckles in response, grabbing one of the three plates and handing it to Y\n. She takes it in her hands and sends her a grateful look.

"Well, eat all you want. There are mashed potatoes, rolls, and a turkey on the oven." She points to the stove behind her, and Y\n follows her gaze, seeing the white meat sticking out of an old crockpot, the homemade rolls neatly placed on a cooking sheet, and the mashed potatoes scooped into a metal, floral-patterned container. "Just be careful and don't burn yourself. It's still hot." She nearly drools at the sight and nods, hastily making her way over to the food items as her stomach continues speaking to her.

Gripping a large spoon, she dips it into the potatoes and scoops some out and onto her empty plate before leaving the utensil there and moving on to the chicken. She equips a fork and cautiously picks off three or four fair-sized pieces, then grabs a tasty roll of bread, leaving just enough room for her favorite dish. "Geez, Nana," she says, making her way over to the pineapple casserole on the island, "this is a lot of food. If you would've waited, I could have helped you and you wouldn't have had to do it all on your own."

"Honey, don't worry about that. This is something I wanted to do, something special. After all, we haven't seen you in almost six years." As she places a rather large helping of the treat onto her platter, she can't stop the small notion of guilt forming within her chest, though above that lies utter delight.

I can't believe this woman is Dad's mom. "But..." She begins to butter her roll, glancing at Farrah with slightly furrowed eyebrows. "...you didn't have to do all of this for me. I would've been happy with anythi-"

"Hush, now." She cuts her off, kindness sparkling in her deep brown orbs as she places a gentle hand upon her granddaughter's shoulder. "Thank you for being humble about it. But I promise I wanted to do this. There isn't a need to fret over it. Just enjoy the meal, please." She feels compelled to hug her, again, though ultimately refrains because she doesn't want to accidentally spill her food that Farrah likely spent hours hard at work in the kitchen to make.

Tears threatening to form in her eyes, she only smiles fondly, her grip on the plate tightening ever so slightly. "O-okay... Thank you."

"Now go and eat." She gently pushes her in the direction of the living room, an empathetic expression on her aged face. "What do you want to drink?"

"O-oh, no thanks, Nana, I can get it." Farrah's lips part as if she's about to argue, but Y\n shakes her head and walks over toward the fridge, ultimately silencing her. She opens the door and pulls out a water bottle before lightly shutting it back with her foot and grabbing her plate from off of the counter. "Is Pops eating, already?"

"He is." She nods in confirmation. "And he's waiting for both of us to sit with him."

"Well, I wouldn't wanna disappoint him by not showing up." She allows a small, cheeky grin to form across her face before turning around, walking through the living room, and soon arriving at the dining table, where she sees her grandpa silently eating his own share of the food. She takes a seat across from him and lays her plate and bottle of water in front of her, drawing the attention of the man and causing his gaze to shift up to her.

"Hello, young lady," he greets affectionately, and she meets his copper-brown eyes. "Getting settled in okay?"

"Yes, sir," she replies with a slight dip of her head.

"Is it cozy enough for ya? I know you're used to all those fancy items and rich city life, so I'm sorry if it doesn't meet your expectations." Her eyes widen- almost a comical amount- and she looks at him as if he just attempted to behead her. Taking a scoop of mashed potatoes in her spoon, she swiftly shakes her head before taking a bite.

"No, Pops. It does. The country's amazing." She brushes a strand of h\c hair behind her ear and swallows the tasty vegetable. "City life isn't that good. Honestly, I'd rather be here than in some hundred-thousand-dollar penthouse." A large, satisfied smile reaches his wrinkled features, and his eyes crinkle up before he lets out a jolly laugh.

"You hear this, Farrah?" He glances back at the said woman as she enters the dining room, taking her rightful seat to the side of her husband of many years. "This girl's too pure to be tainted. We should keep her here."

A kind grin stretches her lips though she shakes her head nonetheless. "I don't think her parents would approve of that, Phil."

"My parents wouldn't care," Y\n mumbles in response, noticing the sad looks being thrown her way, and she eats a fork-full of pineapple casserole to fill the somewhat tense silence that's fallen over the table. She keeps her eyes trained on the plate in front of her, suddenly finding it much more interesting.

"I'm sure that's not true, sweetie." Farrah's voice is gentle and reassuring. Y\n only shrugs.

"I mean, they never cared, before. Why would they now?" Her tone drops within each word, embarrassment creeping up into her mind and flushing her cheeks a pale tone of b\c. Phil shakes his head disapprovingly while Farrah just stares at her with sympathy.

"That's shameful," he starts, his voice filled with disdain. "They're your parents, Y\n."

"I know that, you know that. They know that. But they ignore it all the same."

"When did this start, sweetheart?" the old woman questions, taking a sip of her drink.

"A few years ago. I don't know, really." It's silent for several moments, and Y\n starts wishing she wouldn't have even said anything. Way to ruin the mood, Y\n. Good going, really.

"Hun, they're not... abusing you, or anything, right?" The teenager can sense the hesitancy in her words as if she's afraid to hear the answer, and Y\n is quick to shoot her inquiry down.

"N-no, Nana, don't worry. Nothing like that." She releases an audible huff of air, likely relieved to hear her answer.

"Do they do anything?" Phil asks, leaning forward slightly and facing his granddaughter with concern. She wracks her brain for a coherent reply.

"Uh... no, not-not really." She glances up briefly to meet his eyes, trying to mask the hurt in her own but failing. "They hardly even talk to me, anymore. They don't even talk to each other anymore. Dad's always too busy and Mom is..." She swallows, probably a little too hard, and subconsciously starts tapping her foot against the floor lightly; a nervous habit of hers when she feels her anxiety level rising.

Her mind flashes with images of her mother's phone going off out of nowhere, then her mother's face lighting up whenever she reads whatever message had just been sent. She knows it hasn't ever been her father; he was always there with them when it happened. Her mom hasn't smiled that wide for her husband in a long time. Not to even mention those couple of nights she's caught her sneaking out. When she would ask about it, her mother would snap at her and tell her it's for "business" and then leave without a trace, sometimes not even coming back until the next night.

Her foot makes a soft thump thump thump noise each time it collides with the floor, though her mind blocks it out as she tries to draw herself back into reality. "Um... keeping secrets." Phil and Farah share a brief glance.

"What kind of secrets, darlin'?" her grandfather asks, and her grip tightens on the fork in her hand.

"I think that, uhm... I think that she's cheating on Dad." She doesn't look up to see the startled expressions on their faces, afraid that they'll judge her and her parents. "I mean, she's been acting really weird, texting people all the time, sneaking out of the house, e-especially at night, and I've caught her before but she just got mad and said it was 'business-related'." She brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Plus, Mom and Dad haven't gone out on a date in years. And I-I don't know, it's just... concerning."

"Sweetie," Farah starts, and Y\n internally winces at the strict tone that her voice adapted, "that isn't good." She only shakes her head in agreement, taking another bite of her food, though finding that her appetite is steadily decreasing. "We need to talk to them about this."

"No," she interjects, finally meeting Farrah's eyes with frightened e\c ones. "They can't know I told you all of this. They-they'll be mad at me and give me all kinds of crap."

"Are you sure, Y\n?" Phil says, his bushy eyebrows furrowed distaste. "You don't need to be in a house with two people that unstable. We could call them and you could stay with us." Although the thought of staying in a house with her loving grandparents sounds nice, she ultimately refuses by shaking her head, once again and speaking in a quiet voice.

"No, it's okay. Thanks." Despite the fact that her parents don't seem to care about her, anymore, she would most definitely ruin what little of a relationship remains between the three of them if they were to find out about what she told Farrah and Phil, and she doesn't want that. She doesn't want her parents to hate her; that would be a terrible feeling. And she doesn't want to experience it.

The rest of the dinner goes by slowly for the h\c girl, with her grandparents attempting to talk about more light-hearted things in an effort to cheer her up, and it seems to work. They ask her about school, her friends, if she has a boyfriend, yet, which she responds to with valid answers. "It's good", "I don't have friends", and "No". It was making itself more apparent to them within each question she replies to that she isn't living a normal, healthy life. But they figure it'd be best not to pry too much. After all, she's here for a break, not to be bombarded with questions and pity.

She stands with her plate and bottle of water in her hand after finishing the tasty food, pushes the chair back into the table with her foot, and walks past Farrah and toward the kitchen, feeling filled-up and tired. Her gaze averts to one of the windows, able to see the orange and pink mixture in the sky through the leaves of the trees, signifying that the sun is beginning to set below the horizon and darkness would soon replace its blaze of light.

"Marshmallow is probably waiting outside, if you want to let him in for the night," the elderly woman calls from the dining room as Y\n puts her dishes in the sink and proceeds to rinse them off under warm water. Thinking about seeing the furry feline after such a long time causes her heart to skip in excitement, and she nods, knowing Farrah won't be able to see it.

"Okay, Nana." She finishes washing the porcelain and silverware and places them in the plastic drainer resting on the countertop, right beside the sink, before walking perhaps a little quicker than normal, unlocking the front door and gently swinging it open, being greeted by the warm summer air and the flowers swaying in the soft breeze.

She glances around the small porch, and can't help but quirk her lips up in a smile when she lays her eyes on the white and grey cat sitting on an old chair, swiping his paw over his face in order to clean himself. He looks up at her curiously, and she approaches slowly to avoid scaring him.

"Marshmallow? You remember me?" She sticks her hand out and allows him to sniff her fingers before affectionately rubbing his head. "It's Y\n. I haven't been here in a while."

He stands and lets out a small meow, rubbing against her palm and enjoying the affection he's recieving. She moves forward and wraps her arms around him, deeming it safe enough, and lifts him up to bring him inside. He bumps his head against her shoulder and she can hear the distinct sound of purring, a sound she hasn't heard in years.

"Aww," she coos, unable to stop herself from fawning over the furry creature. "I missed you, too, little buddy." She turns, walks back into the house, and shuts the door carefully behind her, nearly walking right into Farrah as she goes into the kitchen, holding two plates and a glass of what holds just a few droplets of her drink.

She takes notice of Y\n and grins slightly at the sight. "Ah, see? We told you he'd remember you." The girl scratches Marshmallow under his chin, eliciting another meow of content from his mouth. His tail swishes and lightly hits her in the arm, making her chuckle.

"Yeah. He's just as soft as I remember, too. And cuddly." As she says this, she hugs him closer to her chest, and Farrah smiles fondly as she places the plates into the sink. "Do you need help cleaning up?"

"No, thank you, hun." She parts her lips to object, but Farrah shakes her head. "You just spend some time with the fur baby. Maybe unpack, I know you didn't have time to, before." Y\n feels Marshmallow begin to struggle against her hold, so she bends down and loosens her grip, allowing him to jump to the floor and sprint to some area on the first floor, presumably his food bowl.

"Are you sure? You've already done so much work already-"

"I can't believe you're the spawn of my son," she says, chuckling and wiping down the surface of a saucer. "It'll be fine, sweetie. I've got it covered. You go and relax." Y\n figures that as stubborn as she is, her grandmother is much more so and it won't do her any good to argue with her. Letting out a sigh, she grabs her water bottle from where she laid it on the island in the center of the kitchen and hesitantly ambles in front of the staircase.

"Okay... but, tell me if you need help?"

"Stop worrying. You're the guest here." Without another word, she heads up to her temporary bedroom, unknowingly being followed by a certain feline, and sets her bottle on the desk before grabbing her duffle bag, unzipping it, and taking out clothing piece by clothing piece. As she twists to walk to the closet, she stumbles over Marshmallow, who was in the process of rubbing against her leg and just barely catches her balance before falling on the poor cat.

It takes a short moment to calm herself and get over the sudden adrenaline rush that floods her system, but once she does, she scoffs but smirks nonetheless. "Trying to trip me, already?" She reaches down and scratches his head, and he momentarily stands on his back feet as a response. "Silly cat."

She makes as few trips as possible hanging up her clothes in the small walk-in closet and putting things like undergarments and pants inside of the shelf of drawers that stands at the opposite end of the door, realizing that the space doesn't have a lot of her aunt's old clothes inside, anymore.

Nana probably put them in storage or something.

When she's done unpacking, sorting through, and putting everything away, she lifts her now-empty duffle bag and sets it down beside the desk. She decides against taking out the supplies from her backpack, partly because she's getting consistently sleepier, and partly because she feels a little odd getting comfortable here that quickly.

Marshmallow found a bed on the cozy-looking beanbag during the early stages of unpacking and is now sleeping rather soundly, his body curled in around itself as his shoulders gently rise and fall within each breath he takes. She strokes his cheek tenderly with her index finger, admiring his ivory and light grey fur that graces his small frame. She can barely remember the last time she had pet an animal of any kind because it was so long ago, and many things have happened since then, causing her to force nice memories into the back of her mind and focus on the grim things in her life.

Sitting on the bed, her gaze trails out the window, where the sun has almost completely vanished and a full, bright moon now replaces it, dozens of stars beginning to litter the sky, all surrounding the miraculous white orb. I never get a view like this from the city.

She can't help but admire the scenery and feel a trace of disappointment that she hasn't seen more of it. All because of her selfish parents. She leans her head against the windowpane and stares up, mixed emotions making her feel conflicted. But she assures herself that it will be fine. She will be fine. Everything will work out in the end.

I sure hope so...

#Creepypasta #Creepypasta x Reader #Creepypasta fanfic #Fanfiction #x Reader #Y\n L\n #x Reader fanfic #Hope y'all enjoy it!#This is my first Creepypasta fic so sorry if it sucks lol #Mom #Dad #Nana #Pops #Cottage #Forest #Idk #Other things

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commandertheory · 5 years

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C19 Commander Set Review

For each new set, I write an article discussing the new legendary creatures and the nonlegendary cards that I think will be relevant in Commander.

The Commanders of C19

There are 38 cards with madness in this color identity, which means that an Anje deck is essentially 61 cards when you’re running all of them. Having 61 cards in your maindeck makes it much more likely that you’ll be able to assemble combos, and the best one for this commander is probably Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead (note that Dance of the Dead and Necromancy also work here).

The way the combo works is this:

Have Worldgorger in your graveyard (Anje can help with this)

Cast Animate Dead targeting the Worldgorger

Worldgorger returns to the battlefield, exiling all your permanents, including Animate Dead.

When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, it forces you to sacrifice the Worldgorger.

When Worldgorger leaves the battlefield, it returns all of your permanents.... Untapped.

Target Worldgorger with the Animate Dead when it returns to the battlefield, but before it brings back Worldgorger, tap your lands and activate Anje.

Repeat the loop for infinite mana and rummaging.

As long as you have a mana sink somewhere in your deck, you’ll win off of this combo.

The deck is very fast and consistent; check it out here:

Sample decklist

Although the deck is quite strong, I think it’s worth talking about her value as a madness commander. She certainly encourages you to play as many madness cards as possible, but she doesn’t really encourage the madness style of gameplay because it’s much slower and grindier than the efficient path to victory Anje and her Dragon can offer you.

When you play the deck (and I encourage you to goldfish with it), you’re almost never casting your spells for their madness cost. If Anje said menace instead of madness, the deck would play out exactly the same.

Does that make for a good madness commander? I don’t really think so. But it’s a new archetype, so I’ll give her a pass.

The easiest build of this deck treats Atla as a Jalira, Master Polymorphist and just runs a single copy of Blightsteel or some other heinous beater.

But there’s a more interesting angle of attack if you try to build it a little more like Egg tribal. You can run a bunch of changelings (they’re all eggs) and once you have two eggs on the board, you can sacrifice them until you’ve cycled through all the Eggs in your deck and hit Ulamog 1.0. Then you can sacrifice Ulamog to recycle all your used up changelings. Normally, this process would operate at a net loss of one egg per cycle, but Irregular Cohort (and potentially Summoner’s Egg) up your egg count and make it so you can go through the loop as often as you like, netting whatever your sac outlet generates. You’ll also generate infinite Dragons and Birds.

Sample decklist

This might be the commander to use if you actually want to cast your madness cards. An activation that has discarding as a cost will make you want to minimize the downside--which is exactly what madness cards will do. The haste will work if you cast a critter from exile (which is where madness creatures are cast from), and you can discard a card on an opponent’s turn to get the madness cost reduction/timing cheat EVEN IF you don’t intend or are unable to cast a creature from your graveyard. Nice that you don’t have to commit to casting any particular creature when you discard, too. The floor on this is to pitch a creature, then cast it from the graveyard to give it haste; that’s definitely not nothing.

Sample decklist

This just seems like Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain but with White added. This deck runs as many 0-mana artifacts as possible to decrease your effective deck size and draw into one of your combo pieces.

This has a cute (and powerful) interaction with Sensei’s Divining Top; with a 1-mana cost reduction to the Top (Cloud Key, Etherium Sculptor, Foundry Inspector, Helm of Awakening, Jhoira’s Familiar) you can have as many cards drawn (and that many prowess triggers) as you want.

Also, Thought Lash is essentially a one-card combo.

Sample decklist

Gerrard can be used defensively to protect your stuff from your opponents’ board wipes or offensively to break the symmetry on your own. He can also be used with artifacts and creatures that sacrifice themselves for value (or that can be fed into sac outlets) to get a bunch of free stuff.

Some key categories of cards in this deck:

cards to help return Gerrard to your hand or the battlefield when he dies so you can get his trigger without having to send him back to the command zone (e.g., Gift of Immortality, Loyal Retainers, Nim Deathmantle)

a bunch of mass destruction effects that Gerrard can break the symmetry for (of which Nevinyrral’s Disk and Oblivion Stone have the most synergy with Gerrard)

a bunch of sacrifice outlets so can trade your creatures or value and then use Gerrard to buy them back (Ashnod’s Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Goblin Bombardment), and

a bunch of artifacts and creatures that either generate value when they ETB or when you sacrifice them.

The list could use some polish but it’s got a lot of potential; spinning Nev’s Disk every turn is not difficult to pull off.

Sample decklist

Ghired has similar problems to Anje in that the fun thing is not the most effective thing. While the addition of red to a populate deck means that you can make temporary copies of things with Kiki-Jiki or Flameshadow Conjuring, duplicate those copies with Ghired, then keep the duplicates!

Unfortunately, that’s usually slower and less effective than just copying the enormous Rhino he enters the battlefield with. It’s hard to make the case for durdling with copy effects when the alternative is accelerating him out on turn three (thanks to Sol Ring, Joraga Treespeaker, Generator Servant, Mana Crypt, etc etc) and then attacking for 10, 14, and 18 on the three subsequent turns. It’s not even that great to make 5/5 and 6/6 Wurms, as the spells that make them for 4+ mana and you can easily run Cloudshift effects to recharge Ghired’s Rhino for a single mana (often while dodging removal).

It does, however, work very well with other populate effects, since the Rhino is a good enough target most of the time.

Sample decklist

The deck feels like a pretty typical black/red control list with Greven as your finisher (and he’s quite a good one; it’s not hard to build your mana base and suite of control cards so that he reliably attacks for 10 or more without ever having to sacrifice anything). There are a couple of weird cards like Lupine Prototype, Rotting Regisaur, Cosmic Larva, Phyrexian Soulgorger and the Ball Lightnings that are worth running because they’re just such a good ratio of cards to mana.

Sample decklist

I don’t think this adds much to the format. If you want a beatstick commander in Green/Black, Hogaak is much larger and is virtually immune to the command tax. Tech for this guy includes Illness in the Ranks, Plague Engineer, Night of Soul’s Betrayal, and Engineered Plague.

This seems very good with flash granters like Leyline of Anticipation (newly encheapened by its M20 printing), Vedalken Orrery, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, as you can cast four free morphs per round of turns and draw four cards.

In addition to flash granters, cost reduction effects are pretty good here, especially ones that reduce the cost of your morphs by two or more. Heartless Summoning and Semblance Anvil are big games, but I would also try to make room for Dream Chisel, Obscuring Aether, and Earthcraft.

You don’t need me to tell you that Aphetto Runecaster and Secret Plans are good here.

When choosing which morphs to fit in the deck (and to really get the engine running, you’ll need at least 40), I first prioritized morphs that flip for 1 or 0 mana, to make it easier to combo off with Runecaster and Secret Plans. Then I prioritized Morphs with useful effects and cheap morph costs, like Nantuko Vigilante, Den Protector, etc.

It’s notable that Kadena’s triggered ability works with manifest, so you can hit with a Jeskai Infiltrator and draw multiple cards.

I also like Beast Whisperer as another card draw engine. Unfortunately, draw engines that care about creature type, color, or power aren’t very effective here. Interestingly, morphs have no name, so Guardian Project will always trigger off of new morphs entering the battlefield, even if you already have other face-down creatures.

Win conditions: Triumph of the Hordes and Beastmaster Ascension.

Sample decklist

He’s harder to break than he looks because he can’t cover colorless costs. As long as you build your deck in a specific direction, he effectively generates mana at the cost of life. The life payments can be subsidized with an Aetherflux Reservoir but in order to really go off, you’ll need a way to draw cards (there aren’t that many black card draw spells without generic mana in their costs, other than greed).

The best ways to do this are Null Profusion, Vilis, and Bolas’s Citadel. Let’s ignore the Citadel since it makes our commander unnecessary. Null Profusion can probably get there if you supplement it with lots of card draw spells to make it so you can still combo after hitting a land or two. Vilis works well, but like the Citadel, is so powerful on its own that K’rrik is barely necessary.

Worth noting: there are a couple cards (Shade’s Form, Shade’s Breath) that turn K’rrik into a shade. If you then slap on a Fireshrieker or Inquisitor’s Flail, you can pay a bunch of life to pump him up, then gain it all back with his lifelink.

Anyone remember Basandra, Battle Seraph? She’s one of the least popular commanders in one of the worst color identities, but apparently someone at Wizards thought they could redeem her by shaving off a mana, adding Green to her color identity, swapping flying for an extra point of power, breaking the symmetry on the casting restriction, and changing up how the forced attack ability works. Is this card different enough to succeed where the previous version failed? I don’t think so, but I’m prepared to be wrong.

This could be a pretty solid superfriends commander, as it’s really good at protecting your planeswalkers and the colors offer important effects like extra turn effects, proliferate, Jokulhaups effects, efficient board wipes, etc etc.

Sample decklist

This is an enormous amount of work for what amounts to a voltron commander. I am willing to bet cold hard cash that this will be the second-least popular Sultai commander of all time, if not the least popular.

First off, I love that he breaks symmetry on Earthquake effects.

Second, it’s worth noting that although this is a flashback deck, the ability works pretty well with Aftermath and Retrace cards, as well.

Unfortunately, there just aren’t that many Commander-playable cards with flashback, retrace, and aftermath in this color identity.

Cards that do work: Secrets of the Dead, Finale of Promise, Goblin Dark Dwellers, Mission Briefing, Snapcaster, Torrential Gearhulk, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame) These all point to generic value though, and don’t offer a cool “build” other than Pariah and Pariah’s Shield. The first spell clause means that if you run flash granters, you can get the spell copy effect multiple times per round of turns.

Adding menace makes him unblockable and if you can give him an extra 2 power, 3 players can gang up to ice the 4th. There’s not a whole lot of tech to this guy; just run standard Voltron enablers and you’ll do fine.

Infect creatures and Cold-Eye Selkie, Cephalid Constable, Dreamstealer, and Needle Specter are all pretty good when they have 7 power. The tricky part is, many of those creatures have 1 toughness, which means Volrath’s built-in counter generation isn’t going to cut it.

Unspeakable Symbol, Tetzimoc, Llanowar Reborn, and both Oran-Riefs are decent ways to counter up your dudes, but even a simple Gaea’s Anthem will also do the trick.

The Maindeck Cards of Commander 2019

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).

2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).

3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).

4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.

5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.

2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.

3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.

4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.

5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

That this needs to both tap and sac makes it seem too clunky to be a stand-out; it compares unfavorably to Selfless Spirit and Mother of Runes.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze until you’ve cast your commander at least twice. I would for sure run this card in a go-wide aggro deck running partner commanders, but this doesn’t seem great in other builds because it’s so bad in the early game, when aggro decks should be capitalizing on their advantages.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This is slow and weak, even in white decks that want sac fodder. The most interesting thing about this card is the fact that it introduces the Sculpture creature type.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Despite the timing restriction making it more narrow than Time Stop (and nearly useless against Storm-esque combo decks), it could serve as a pretty effective means to tilt a player off an important turn. At worst, it’ll play as a Fog, and given that it falls short of the “truly excellent” mark, it will likely catch people by surprise when used effectively. In a pinch, you can keep your opponents from casting spells in your second main, too.

Generally, however, I don’t think this effect will be worth a card in most games of Commander.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

This doesn’t have the long-term potential of Sun Titan but it has a couple things going for it. The initial reanimation comes at a much cheaper cost than the Titan’s and flashback reanimation is extremely powerful in self-mill decks. Teshar, for example, runs Mesmeric Orb and the possibility of milling Sevinne’s Reclamation and some key combo pieces that aren’t easily recurred (i.e., noncreature artifacts, like sac outlets) seems pretty good.

Unfortunately, Teshar is the only white deck that’s particularly interested in self-mill. This card would have been a very powerful tool in blue or black decks but it has less to do in this color identity.

This card is best thought of as a narrower Nature’s Spiral that will likely offer a discount on the card you recur.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

It’s expensive and does nothing without (a) a spell to cast, and (b) a powerful token to copy. There aren’t that many cards that produce tokens so strong they can justify this 6-mana enchantment; certainly, there’s not a critical mass of them.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I am very wary of cards with multiple hoops. This card not only requires you to be casting a ton of spells from you graveyard (which is rare for most decks) but it needs some token support and/or spirit tribal. I don’t believe there are currently any commanders that fit the bill, although Kykar might be a possibility.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

I wouldn’t run this outside of Kadena or an Animorphs deck, as morph/megamorph are still generally bad in Commander and this effect is not worth the five mana you’re forced to pump into it.

Spread: 5 Power: 2

Worst-case scenario, it cycles, but even with a relatively high floor I’m not very excited about this card. Blue has more efficient spot removal (Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Reality Shift) and in tuned lists, the mana saved is worth more than the card. That being said, this is a pretty solid answer for commanders with shroud/hexproof/indestructible/protection/etc.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

Polymorphist’s Jest sees play in Silumgar 1.0 and Tibor and Lumia decks, and this should also slot into those decks.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

While playing precon Magic at Vegas, I used this to trade a vanilla creature for an In Garruk’s Wake, so I’ve already seen the absolute best-case scenario for this card. Even after having experienced the apex of its power, I think it’s going to be worse than a Negate most of the time. Holding up 4 mana is pretty onerous, and there are plenty of spells for which changing control won’t prevent a negative outcome for you (i.e., mass creature destruction, mass land destruction, etc.).

I will do some more testing with it and see if screwing two opponents at once may be worth the price of entry, but that still seems pretty narrow.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

This is not good. If an opponent drew enough cards to make this vanilla beater a “great savings” you better have a sac outlet otherwise you’re still gonna lose. It doesn’t have evasion of any kind either and is still a dies trigger. Plagiarize is just SO MUCH BETTER.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

A great answer to commanders with shroud/hexproof or good tap abilities, clone redundancy for the decks that need it, and a useful defender for Arcades decks. It doesn’t go in every deck but it’s a solid role player in the right playgroup or build.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It has madness, keep it in your Anje precon.

Spread: 1 Power: 4

This could be really good in Varina, Lich Queen, since it has a relevant creature type, the tokens are also of the relevant type, and you can use the free mana to activate Varina. I don’t think any other decks are able to discard as many cards as consistently as her, though.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It’s an autoinclude in Anje because it has madness and it goes infinite with Vilis. Other than those two decks, I don’t think anyone else can use this card.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

A cool take on morph, a weird sac outlet. Will probably only see play in Kadena and black voltron lists, as you often have some floaters to get a bit of gotcha cost reduction and instant speed safety.

Alex: The pseudo-Split Second that the “As you unmorph…” ability gives this card the ability to sneak protection onto your commander without your opponents having a chance to respond. Most opponents will not necessarily think they need to remove your high-priority target in response to you casting a morph.

This could be good in Olivia Voldaren and Judith decks as a way to enhance your pinging and protect your commander. Neither deck should care about the unmorph cost much; as they’ll both have plenty of sac fodder.

And yeah, you’ll run it in Kadena.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This card does not get there as Black enchantment removal. It’s too easy to keep a creature on the field in Commander and I doubt this is going to be able to come through for you when you really need to remove a Humility or an Omniscience.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

A little strange that it can’t kill creatures with power equal to the number of cards in your hand. Black decks are good enough at filling their hands that I think this could easily be a viable wrath; Black does not currently have a critical mass of board wipes that cost 5 or less so I think it could definitely make the cut in Commander.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This card looks a lot like Verdant Force, but don’t stop thinking there. According to EDHREC, Verdant Force is mostly played in Slimefoot (played in 600+ decks), Ghave (played in 300+ decks), and Thelon decks (played in 100+ decks), so a lot of its power appears to come from Saproling synergies. This may be similarly limited to decks that have synergies with what it’s doing (Kadena, mostly).

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I talk a lot about how much I love cheap rummaging effects, so you might be surprised to hear that I’m down on this card. To cast it for its madness cost, you need to jump through the hoop of finding a discard outlet, and your reward for doing so is… another discard outlet.

There are diminishing returns to these types of effects, as a hand can only get so sculpted, and losing your entire hand, as opposed to one or two bad cards, is a steeper cost than it looks. It’s also unfortunate that you don’t have control over when it attacks and therefore you have no control over whether you’re discarding your hand each turn.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

If you have anything in your graveyard that’s good this becomes a must-kill target. That said, it’s got to stay alive to attack, and you have to have good stuff in the yard to cast. As just a value engine this seems clunky, but there are very few ways to actually cast cards from graveyards, so I welcome this slow dragon value machine.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

It’s a ritual, it’s ramp, it’s a Goblin, it’s a Pirate. It’s very good in combo decks for which mana is often the limiting factor (e.g., Zada), it’s good in Brudiclad as a cheap source of tokens, it goes infinite with Deadeye Navigator, it just does a ton of stuff for a bunch of different decks. Great card.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t run this if you’re making a random 3/3 (or smaller) token. But if your metagame has lots of small utility creatures and you’re populating huge monsters like Ghired’s Rhino or Omnath 2.0’s Elemental, I’d be into it. I also like this for the commanders that can make weird tokens, like Gyrus, Inalla, Kiki-Jiki, Feldon, Brudiclad, or Riku.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Pretty good in Ghired and Brudiclad, pretty mediocre everywhere else.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

The Red Harmonize. This seems great in any Red deck that doesn’t have access to Blue/Black/Green card draw, especially those that can realistically generate enough mana to flash it back (e.g., Neheb, the Eternal).

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This doesn’t happen that many times in a game, so if I’m looking for self-recurring sac fodder I’d rather run something like Flamewake Phoenix. Also, if I care about sac fodder, I’m probably also in Black, in which case I get a million better options.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I can’t think of a deck that would want this card. Please let me know if you’ve got an idea of where this could fit into the format.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Well, it’s free value and there probably aren’t that many bad spells being thrown around (although hitting counterspells is pretty painful). I would try running this in a slower red deck with lots of spells looking to grind out long-game card advantage.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

This card is notable because it gives Green a critical mass of mass creature removal. Prior to the Altisaur, Green had Ezuri’s Predation, but it didn’t have any ways to tutor it out, so it was unlikely that you would be able to find it when you needed it. However, because Altisaur is a creature, it can be tutored out by Green’s many, many tutor effects, so whenever you need an answer to multiple creatures, you’ll be able to find it. The fact that you can choose to end the fight-chain, allowing this to survive, and then restart it any time this blocks or becomes blocked definitely adds to its effectiveness. But for nine mana, I suppose it had better be effective!

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I’m going to evaluate these new populate cards as if I’m making Rhinos. 3 for a Rhino seems weak, 5 for 2 ain’t great, 7 for 3 compares unfavorably with lots of other green cards at a similar price point.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

I would happily run this in any green token deck, since your attacking 1/1 is going to pick up a card no matter what. I’d probably also run in green decks that are good at vomiting lots of (nontoken) creatures onto the battlefield, like Sachi, Seton, Reki, both Ezuris, and less competitive Edric lists.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Nature’s Spiral doesn’t see a ton of play, but putting a commander from your command zone into your hand is a rare enough ability that this might see play for that half of the entwine alone.

It is worth noting that, per the rulings on Command Beacon: “If you cast a commander from your hand, the additional cost based on the number of times you’ve cast it from your command zone (sometimes referred to as the ‘commander tax’) doesn’t apply. Additionally, that casting won’t add to the tax if you later cast the commander from the command zone.”

So not only will this let you cheat the command tax if you’ve been heavily taxed already that game, but if you have a spare slot in your seven-card hand earlier on in the game, you can cast this preemptively to dodge the first round of command taxation.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I don’t love this card. It does nothing in the early game and it’s still pretty situational in the late game, as you have to have a token worth copying and graveyards have to be stacked.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t jam this in every Green deck, but in decks like Ezuri or Seton that care about its creature types, I would happily run it as “+1 relevant creature, draw 1 or more cards”.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

With Prototype Portal/Mechanized Production, you can swap between an opponent’s turn and your own and lock everyone else out of the game.

However, I don’t think there are many decks that can assemble that combo easily, and most of the time this will be a slower, bad Time Warp.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This effect is just not worth a card.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Prismatic Geoscope is fairly analogous, and sees play in over ten percent of certain 4- and 5-color decks (the decks in which it shines the most). In decks that can manipulate the number of counters or are interested in untapping artifacts often (Atraxa, Vorel, lists running both Voltaic and Manifold Key) this is worth taking a second look at. An easy heuristic might be: most lists wanting Astral Cornucopia will probably also want this.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This seems like a great rate in any deck where your commander talks about tokens. Once you have drawn three times, this card is really overperforming. Around 20 commanders that are dragons have a >10% play rate for Dragon’s Hoard, and this is offering a comparable incentive. The Eldrazi token is probably flavor text, but it is a nice populate target if you get to it.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This might be the worst Tempting Offer card ever printed. Most tempting offers give you something even if nobody takes the offer. This gives you nothing unless your chosen opponent decides to spend two mana activating this. Why would they ever do that? Probably only good in Zedruu, and only because it saves you the trouble of donating it.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

If it cost three I would seriously consider running this in some colorless, monowhite, and monored decks as a value engine, but casting it on T4 and not getting your first trigger until T5 is painfully slow.

There are enough scarecrows and changelings with CMC 3 or less that I don’t see this making the cut for Reaper King, but both King Macar and Emmara, Soul of the Accord have a bunch of ways to tap this guy so you can put the Tiller to work every turn without risking him in combat. I’ve also heard people talking about putting this in Derevi for repeated tapping and untapping, but I feel like Derevi has better things to do.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Helps you get an extra Kadena trigger each turn, great with blink commanders as it can help you cheat big mana costs. and it’s essentially a flash granter for decks that don’t care about ETB triggers.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

It’s a solid bounce engine for ETB commanders. Note that it goes infinite with Zacama.

Wrapping Up

Do you disagree with any of my evaluations? Do you see other ways to build around the commanders of C19? Let me know!

#set review #c19 #commander #mtg #edh

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zbookdownload · 4 years

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acquagalaxies · 5 years

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my bits for “Together Alone”

It’s incredible how much happened in just 11 minutes, as It’s difficult to even decide where to start. Hard was also to not scream every 0.5 seconds for all the things the crewniverse and miss Sugar dropped in. Since already many of us covered up a lot of the stuff that have been proposed in a marvelous way, with all the references of the case, I’d just write down some thoughts I had in mind. to join my rant about an episode that blow my mind and try to talk calm-

THEY LITERALLY CONFIRMED THE “WHITE PEARL/ONCE PINK PEARL” THEORY IN THE FIRST FEW SECONDS CARTOON NETWORK U WANT ME TO DIE I HAD A STROKE SOMEONE HOLD ME I CAN BEAR THIS WITH MY ONLY STRENGH.

Ehm. So. What is presented to us I think is something like we saw in “Jungle Moon”: one of Pink Diamond’s past memories that appears in the shape of a dream, distorted by Steven’s mind (since, is in fact a dream and not just a vision/hallucination), which is a normal thing while one is dreaming, the brain in the unconscious state works and interprets things in a little bit different way, especially when it comes to memories: in the dream world the situation can take some sort of “surreal” twist that of course changes from what happened in reality and from what you remember consciously, in this case Yellow Diamond’s massively long neck (I wonder if the crewniverse is aware of the fandom’s YD giraffe neck meme and add it on purpose).

(the fact this all could have been a dream is evident already by the very first frame of the episode, when we see all the Diamonds’ ships on Homeworld perfectly intact, this alone made me confused at first for how strange and impossible it was, since we all know Yellow and Blue had to leave their ships on Earth for their being broken at the moment due to the events of Reunited.)

Aside that, the moment I loved the most is watching the complicity between Steven and this pearl (pretending to perform their role as what they’re supposed to do/be in front of others, satisfying their expectations so said others would not have anything to argue with, like Yellow smiling seeing everything seems to be at its right place, and when they’re alone again goofing around happily) that is just an altered reflection from the memory, in this case what is really shown is the bond Pink Diamond shared with who seems to be confirmed as her former pearl.

I couldn’t hold only inside a smile, because it’s heart-warming seeing this kind of relationship with someone else, with happy moments, laughter and bubbles, you can see that Pink treated her pearl like a close friend and most important, like an equal (many gems should take this behavior as a suggestion and moral model, but it’s very hard in their so hierarchical society to treat “lower gems” as your peer). By watching first the Jungle Moon flashback and Legs from here to Homeworld, I feared the physical damage that the now-white-pearl shows is the result of Pink Diamond’s infamous bursts of rage (since the first time she is introduced in Jungle Moon, Pink seemed used to this bad temper from what is seen to us, by this “brat and capricious behavior” of going around hitting things bc your parents didn’t give to you what you’re whining for) ended bad. I’m glad to see otherwise it’s apparently not Pink’s direct fault after all instead, the two seemed to share a more than good relationship.

(little thought: the way Steven lands graciously on the floor after his juggler number sweetly reminds me a bit when the young Greg met Rose in the old temple after their conversation on the beach.)

By this carefree spirit of hers and peaceful kind attitude, even a bit childish, the other diamonds maybe thought that was the pearl being a “bad influence” for Pink, deciding after to replace her with another (that’s why it is a little heart-breaking in now we’re only falling apart while Pink is trying to have a conversation with Pearl, she probably missed that complicity and the chatty moments with her old pearl, and because she wanted them to be friends and buddies, not just servant and master, encouraging Pearl to have her own thoughts and be self-conscious).

• but why keeping a broken pearl and not directly get rid of if the society cares so much of maintain only perfectly functional gems? What if White decided to keep Pink/White Pearl to make her be a constant walking reminder to Pink Diamond of who is really the one who commands and of what could happen if she tries again to make a gem behaving “different from how she is supposed to be and do”, or treats them differently from “the value” they own (like treating Pink Pearl an equal despite pearls are considered so much less, especially compared to a diamond). That’s creepy enough, I question if White was so cruel to make Pink watching while her so loved Pearl and (only real) friend turns from that pink fluffy sunshine ball into an empty shell smiling puppet without anything else left, ripped away from thoughts and individuality, a perfect obedient servant that would never get against your authority or retort your words.

The even sadder thing is, even if Steven will succeed in “bringing” back white pearl at her old self (something still welcomed just sayin’, #save the precious), still Pink Diamond, her diamond, the gem she was made for and with she shared that bond, is not here anymore.

Pink pearl has cinnamon buns on her hair bc like them she’s a cinnamon roll herself.

another heart-breaking detail is, by hearing them laugh, the voice getting from Pink Pearl’s mouth is patently Deedee Magno Hall’s, so Pearl’s supposed-to-be true voice. I’m weeping.

Then everything, pinkish and joyful, slowly becomes a grey dull nightmare, with Pink Pearl fading away into the void. Puking hair (whatever your own or someone else’s) in a dream often is the representation of the desire of expression about something that is denied. The will of wanting to express and be yourself that instead is being repressed (by someone, some situation, ecc.). Or can also representing, in this particular case, White Diamond trying to push outside by force Rose Quartz’s persona/facade, a fake self, away from her Starlight.

Also, we’re finally able to see White’s hands (nails rigorously polished, I adore, as the cloak, so in style). Is not such important stuff but I appreciated that.

The pebbles are so adorable, they seems to love Pink Diamond’s very much (probably she was the only one that treat them decently, since apparently the word “pebble” is used in gem language also as a not-so-kind epithet? See Peridot using it with Steven when she was released from the bubble seasons ago), and I found somehow cute (?) hearing one of them exclaiming “Pink is moving again” (which is totally reasonable since gems don’t have total acknowledge of what dreams are and what means sleeping in general, since is not something needful to them as is resting for organic beings). Plus, they apparently became attached at Connie too, that’s so sweet. Just to add, the green male pebble (which is also incredible to see a “kind” of gem being a “he”) chilling with Steven’s phone from the previous episode is so #icon. I love these little creatures.

“It almost feels like home” just being immediately replied with Garnet underlining embittered “almost” like to precise no matter how much the pebbles make the furnishing resembling as much as they can the real ones from Steven’s house back on Earth, still is not really “home”.

That grasps my heart a bit by hearing Blue Diamond, so emotionally and happily, announced than “we haven’t had Pink in 6000 years!”, since they still believe the one in front of them is always Pink Diamond and can’t well comprehend yet this aspect is not just a form Pink shapes for her amusement (just listening Yellow saying to her pearl “help her since she seems to have so much trouble recalling her past here on Homeworld”. But time to time), and getting worried this choice would not be liked by White, labeled as one of Pink’s usual childish jokes.

Ok but, someone pointed out that, “if the Diamond don’t throw a ball from 6000 years, then what about the Cosmic Jubilee Lars crashed in?” Well good question, I guess that is categorized as some kind of another event to participate at? I don’t think from Pink Diamond’s demise they never threw any party for other celebrations (a new colonial conquering for example).

Steven in the pink diamond’s outfit is a babe. It gives me the impression he actually wears It better than his mother.

What Yellow Pearl means exactly with “accept” or “reject” the members of Steven’s court? And… what happen to the ones that has been rejected from their diamonds?

Just realizing White’s throne other being of her dominant white shade, it actually reflects the colors of yellow, blue and pink, in the spots they’re placed the other thrones. Beside than being pretty aesthetical, it’s calling me the fact real life pure diamonds, reflecting the light, could do those spectacles of colors and reflections.

“Everyone stay where they belong” and Steven immediately floats near his friends and family. Bae. smol beam of sunshine.

I really loved the explanation of what means to have “fun”, something you like to do, could it even be a passion or a simple playtime, for the good feelings it brings to you.

The pearls interactions, and the discovering of Blue Pearl’s hobby for drawing and Yellow’s for being a model just gives me life. I love the pearls and still want to learn more about their dynamics. Still, one of the moments that gives me chills is YP saying that “her feelings don’t matter” and how proudly she actually said it. Not gonna be surprised, we all know the conditions and how the pearls are considered in Homeworld society, as I know how much YP worships her diamond and how she considers herself lucky by having the “privilege” to serve the maximum rank of all gems. But still, it’s sad hearing someone states something like that without a problem.

OK SO. Since the very first Diamond Days trailer I was curious about one scene in particular: the one in which Blue Diamond separates with such brutality Steven from the group. I didn’t want to speculate about this just because I wanted first the context of the situation, and after seeing it… it actually makes more sense. I know people addressed this as Blue having a bitchy behavior because apparently she doesn’t want a Diamond that mingles herself with other gems (that compared to said Diamond, still remain lower beings, is like don’t wanting the princess of a country to get along with the farmers and peasants), but now it’s kinda reasonable? I mean, it’s still hurtful, but since White Diamond would be there, she’s afraid the gem matriarch would not be happy to see this kind out-of-the-rules behavior, and I’m sure no one would ever want to see White angry, am I wrong? Blue someways tries to protect Steven (and everyone’s asses) from doing a mistake in front of WD that could cost them. Still, it’s just the impression all the scene gave me, maybe I’m wrong.

NO NO BLUE, I UNDERSTAND YOU CAN’T FULLY COMPREHEND THE EARTH AND THE HUMAN HABITS, HOW ALL THERE WORK, CHANGE AND GROW, THAT IS SOMETHING BEYOND YOUR USUAL KNOWLEDGE, BUT DON’T DARE TO ADRESS CONNIE A SECOND TIME AS A “PET”, ‘kay?? Maybe she doesn’t do it through malice, but I really want episodes in which Steven teaches them with kindness and patience the beauties and worth of Earth, the things Pink Diamonds saw in the nature and its creatures, what took her to re-think her colonial project to preserve all of this, how magnificent and so different can be life, the organic beings, to change their consideration of them as inferior, they (we) just have another ways to live, to think and to do, that’s all. And when it comes talking about Amethyst…

“oh boy, here it comes…”

I know millions already talked and pointed out this but, I’m so proud of the character development Amethyst is showing to us, already from the Heart of Crystal Gems arc. She has let behind her shoulders all the struggle, the feeling out of place, “wrong”, for being so different from the other quartz soldiers (“different” doesn’t mean “wrong”, and this is a very important teaching); she matures and understood it’s as alright as the way she is, and mean words from others is not worth her consideration, her tears, anymore, while in the past the same situation and phrases would have back the reaction to burst into trembling fury or silent crying.

From this dialogue whatever, it makes me consider one thing, probably “overcooked” gems seem not to be that much of scandal and dishonor (unless, Blue would have made more fussing about Amethyst and not allowed her into the ball in the first place): as long as they are, even with their “disabilities” and disadvantages, functional and useful for the society, it’s more or less consented and accepted. To not forget, Era 02 was for Homeworld a time of crisis in the production of gems due to less resources, so it’s not so shocked to see gems like Amethyst, or our Peridot, with less compared to the Era 01 gems, but still capable to fulfil a purpose.

Blue, for goddammit sake, let Garnet alone, together alone, thank you. at least, I’m content they included in this episode more lore, talking about the other types of “Garnets” presented on this planet: the Hessonites, of which we already have some acknowledge, thanks to the name dropped previously in Legs from Here to Homeworld and the contribution of the “Save the light” game, that gives us clues on how they look like (someone else, beside me, prays to have the pleasure to see the same Hessonite from the game in the show? That would be cool, I can’t deny);

but also the Demantoids

And the Pyropes

However, who Blue just listed apparently are not invited at the ball. I’m not sure what kind of gems the ones presented above are, but they don’t seem to be Garnets however (the designs of those on the left – the green/yellow group – are kinda fascinating, not the same in my tastes for the ones on the right, but it concerns almost the “Thomas the Tank Engine” gems. Bad design in my opinion, but good memes for that. Interesting the choice to their “skirts” resembling gears, reminding Homeworld reflects a perfectly mechanic system where everyone has its specific place and purpose, working as, in fact, a gear in this immense society, and by fulfilling that purpose, this said society moves on and on, like a huge mechanism moved by the work of every single of its components – it’s also directly/indirectly underlined by their dancing afterwards, especially in the shooting sequence from above).

Look, look how many beautiful Garnets. Jokes aside, I’m really happy having the chance to see other sapphires (other rubies would same welcomed, of course), I already get in sympathy the cheek-gem one and the other few steps behind with a similar hairstyle like our Sapphire, but shorter:

oooh look these sapphires that never saw it comiiiiing

This is a one more time love for Garnet: even if she says moments before she’d not come, annoyed and angry for Blue Diamond’s talk to follow with head down the rules, she decides to do it for Steven, as Connie suggested, to give him the maximum support at the point to stay unfused for him. This, is real love too.

Aaand now here it comes the Diamonds!! Spectacular entry on the red carpet. Yellow is particular amused about how the project of the ball turned out, complimenting with Pink/Steven for the result (if she arrives to the point to congratulate with you and said that your idea is brilliant, you really did a good job then).

(same we could say for the future episodes)

E X T R A diamonds posing the way of their murals portrait.

as it is releasing sparkles and shimmers through the throne room at your subjects. because they’re glimmering and magnificent (shine like a diamond 🎶)

Icons. I adore. I can’t blame the random crow gem dropping tears, it’s so relatable I’d do the same.

Or the other one getting thrilled by the entrance of Yellow Diamond. I can’t blame her either.

But honestly, dat blue diamond hips sway. She is so elegant in her postures, a queen.

I know it sound so out of contest in the current talking but damn, Blue Diamond’s voice is so ASMR, soft and gentle. I especially feel nice chills hearing her says “you’re doing great”. Just. Fantastic.

“White Diamond… has more important things to attend to” but 🙃, for real bro? It’s fucking new Homeworld Era ball. Pink Diamond return!! guess it’s important???? Poor Steven, he was so hopeful to catch the opportunity to finally talk to her (comparing my reaction with his when this was announced you won’t find any difference)

“Therefore, I will be here to observe in her place.”

How nobody says nothing about? a P-E-A-R-L that has the permission to stay on her diamond’s throne and be presented at her diamond’s place in sostitution. I don’t believe is something allowed to the other pearls (owed by a diamond or another high rank gem), to substitute their master and sit on their place during these events, even for Yellow P. or Blue P., or even our Pearl in her time on Homeowrld at the service of Pink Diamond. But maybe due to being the pearl of the most important Diamond and, if it’s her Diamond that orders her, it’s understandable and accepted. Dunno buddies.

Also, among all these crowds, it makes me remember Zircon’s words at the trial of what kind of gems were once in Pink Diamond’s entourage: where are the Agates, since there’re amethysts and quartz soldiers in attendance. Wasn’t their job to keep them on the line? And those sapphires? Are Pink Diamond’s? Or, since sapphires are considered aristocratic and not so common gems, this small group represent the only and all sapphires in the entire Homeworld? Another question, if not and there’d be others to meet, all Homeworld!Sapphires are all like classical blue sapphires or exist others of different types, like Padparadscha, but without being “off-colors”?

Plus, I’m sure the green/yellow gems are not from PD’s court but from Blue and Yellow’s (tiny hinted by those two react with emotion at their entrance, and we don’t see them greeting Pink like the other group do), but… there is none White Diamond’s gems (except the pearl, of course). After all, Yellow Pearl said gems by the Diamonds are accepted or rejected. Think about it, maybe it’s why there’re no white gems…

But seriously tho, does White Diamond actually have her own court or directly ALL the entire society with all its gems is considered as “her court”, the other Diamonds included? Since her being the Mother of all gem kind and its supreme ruler, that would actually make more sense than the other way around.

Ok now, everyone get crazy about Connie’s “clever” move to drag Steven into dancing with her. I want to say, I don’t doom Connie for, quoting from others, “have been dumb”, instead, I appreciate her effort to cheering her friend up, as he always does to her. She knows she can’t totally be part of this world (due to many things, not being a gem, living a kind of life style so different from Homeworld standards, another mind-setting, and also c’mon, she is just a very young girl, you can’t pretend) , but she wants to stay on Steven’s side and support him as much as she can, to make smile again a friend so emotionally and mentally tired and down. She believed few moments of dance, enough to raise up Steven’s moral, would not hurt anyone, and no one intended to fuse, that was accidental. Many other replied that, thinking of it, every time that they danced on screen, they fused, so how did not see that coming?. Yes, every time on screen, but all the other times, off-screen? Like, on other afternoons, and at Garnet’s wedding after the ceremony, we don’t see them on the dance floor but I’m sure they didn’t miss the occasion to dance together and have fun. Not less important to mention, it was supposed to be a call-back, as the title of the episode, at “Alone Together”, as “The question” from the previous arc did with the older episode “The Answer”.

Plus, even Stevonnie is so adorable with Pink Diamond’s outfit. Pure bae.

While watching this gesture with the hands, I like to think is Steven and Connie individually still holding hands from the dancing, just a second before realizing now the hands of one became the hands of the other as well.

Oh, and there we are. Things fucked up in the worst of the scenarios. (there’d be a lot to say in particular about White Pearl’s frown at the sign of Connie and Steven twirling happily together, but all my thoughts I collected in a separated post, giving to that theory its own space, that I’d link here). Yellow whisper with tight teeth “Pink what are you doing?” is a cause of bad news.

And then the Crystal Gems come at the rescue, with Garnet and Opal (!!! before taking her down in 0.2 seconds, why this cartoon network, do you really want, at the end of the series, people coming up with videos like “every time Opal shows up” just to be, if everything went good, two and half minutes long? Is what you really want, CN?)

But the real surprise came with her:

from the end credits of the episode it’s “Jade”, she is actually very adorable: this little missing tooth, these sunshine eyes and the gem-stones placed like two puffy cheeks make her even more sweet (judging by the combination of her dress, I was right saying the yellow and green gem from before during the entrances of the diamonds belong respectively to Yellow’s and Blue’s court). It’s admirable having the courage to do “coming out”, encouraged by the CG’s bravery, standing for what they have fate in and for what is right, even if it means getting against the society’s stricter rules and meet the judge of the rulers themselves, with all the possible consequences. I’m sure she believed Pink/Steven, by her influence dictated by her high rank status, would approve and legalize cross-gem fusions and decided to stay by this diamond side. “I knew I couldn’t be the only one” is sorrowful to hear, so away from Homeworld’s eyes exist other gems of different types that fuse for love, but have to keep it hidden to not meet an horrible fate (shattered or possibly harvested). That’s sad. Let them be.

Also, love Stevonnie and Opal staring at Garnet like “yo man, you’re the fusion expert, what about that?”, and Garnet is just idk stuff dudes.

ok but, it’s not that Ruby and Sapphire lost their wedding rings after being poofed, right? … right…? (#edit after ChangeYourMind watching: thank the Lord it didn’t happen)

Scene: *everyone poofed, delirium, everything went wrong and Stevonnie is grounded* the evil gremlin inside my head: new outfits/new intro?

Last thing, I just want to make a point about Stevonnie’s “prison”:

A dark locked place at the top of a tower. Now, some time ago, Rebecca Sugar took part on a livestream with other cartoon creators, on the occasion, while talking about different stuff, Alex Hirsch (creator of Gravity Falls), asks miss Sugar what would happen if a gem was placed in a dark room for a long amount of time. Rebecca simply replied “I can’t answer that”, surely because if she does, it could be spoiler for the upcoming episodes (this constant keeping it secret is an ongoing situation with her, lol). The fact is, we all know the physical form of a gem is a projection of light that shapes in actual matter, to allow them to interact, act and speak, and it’s from light itself a gem takes her nutriment (and not from food, like organics do).

So deprive a gem of light (whatever kind: the sunlight, the moonlight, the stars’ light, natural light or artificial light), of her only nutriment, is the equivalent of making her “starving”? Adopted as a form of torture for gems considered needing a punishment for a possible wrong action?

A gem in a room surrounded only by darkness, without even the tiniest glimmer of light, what happens when she reaches her limit and lost all the energies left? Would she became a simple, faded, inanimate gemstone as the our ones from Earth?

Bonus: Who noticed that?

Since the answer I always had the anxiety these two rubies get shattered for ineptitude towards the mission to strike down the rebels and protect Sapphire. I’m glad they’re still around then.

#long post #steven universe #su #diamond days #together alone #character analysis #episode analysis #su theories #cartoon network #rebecca sugar #u want to take my soul aren't you?#homeworld

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wolfie-dragon-rider · 6 years

Text

Big Hero 6: Baymax Returns, review

The new tv show based on Big Hero 6 began airing just now, and I watched the opening movie, Baymax Returns. It made me feel a lot of things, so I figured I’d write them down! I’ll split this into two parts. First part, below the cut, will be spoiler-free, while below the cut I’ll go into a bit more detail about the plot and characters and what I thought of it.

Before I started watching, I was very worried it was going to be a goofy silly ‘childish’ show that had forgotten what made the original movie so great. I had this problem with Race To The Edge, from How to Train your Dragon, for example. But I’m glad to say it really hasn’t. It keeps the focus on science and technology, and how they can help and hurt people. It’s about grief, but also about moving on. It’s about inclusion and being nerdy and how that can be freaking awesome.

Animation-wise, it’s very good. I’ll be honest, I’d would have loved to see BH6′s beautfully rendered San Fransokyo return, with its bright neon lights and dark alleys, the floating wind turbines providing power for the high-tech electric trains below. The 2D handdrawn animation has its drawbacks compared to the original 3D. Characters have little depth, look kind of cardboard-cutout-y, and the colors are awkwardly shaded with very clear transitions between light and shadow.

However, this style has its own charm. It has a lot of tiny details, with all kinds of writing on screens and machines drawn to the tiniest gear. It keeps San Fransokyo’s neon lights and dark corners, and the minimalistic style easily draws the eye to what is important. Another thing to note is that each main character has a very distinct silhouette, making it easy to identify each character at a glance, even if they’re far away or there’s a lot of action going on:

Character-wise, it stays truthful to the movie. Fred had a little too much focus in the first episode, and came off as annoying (more on that below the cut), while GoGo didn’t say much. A new character, Professor Granville, is an interesting addition with lots of room for backstory and growth. Her being a female African-American dean continues BH6′s inclusive and diverse message that anyone can be smart and nerdy, not just white boys.

One thing I didn’t really like where some of the new voices, particularly for Wasabi. He came across as kind of hammy at times, whiny at others, but it wasn’t too bad.

It has a lot of great comedy, particularly visually. I don’t want to be too spoilery, but the background event when Big Hero 6 decides this superhero thing might not work out well, after their first patrol, made me laugh for two minutes straight. It was brilliantly done, slapstick without being idiotic or too cheesy. Baymax’s dry understatements makes for more funny, yet also heartwarming, moments. There were a few jokes I kind of groaned at, mostly because they dragged on for a little too long, but overall the comedy is good. It’s obviously not dumbed down to appeal only to little kids, instead it assumes the kids are smart enough to grasp the slightly more complex jokes.

Some foreshadowing was kind of blatant and obvious, but often used for comedic effect. The writers are very aware of how their audience will perceive it.

Some of the trailers made me worry the villains in particular would be too cartoony and silly, like the themed villains from Batman, but so far that hasn’t happened yet. The villain in the first episode is genuinely scary, and there are hints of a greater evil still.

I’ll now go into a little more detail on the plot below the cut, but if you haven’t watched it yet, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s funny, cutely drawn, and overall just... smart.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

The episode starts out really well, with a short clip of Tadashi, making us remember him and what he meant to Hiro. The slow pace of the first 10 minutes or so reiterate the message of the movie: That it’s okay to grief, and that mourning and moving on takes time. Hiro is clearly not yet over Tadashi’s death, and he’s not expected to be. The rest of the team is supportive, letting him have his space when he finds Tadashi’s lab.

This entire first section is really just a reiteration of the end of the movie, where Hiro finds the chip and rebuilds Baymax, but it doesn’t feel boring. It adds detail, substance, humor, it lets Hiro adjust to ‘nerd school’, especially nerd school without his brother.

This part also introduces us to Professor Granville, the new dean, and the one in charge of the Robotics Institute, apparently taking the role Callaghan left behind. On that note, I wish we could have seen a little more of Callaghan or Abigail other than the one line in the opening where he’s said to be in jail. Perhaps in future episodes.

Professor Granville is well-written and, unusual for a kids show, is actually a responsible and caring adult figure. She doesn’t mince words, and can come across as harsh, but she clearly cares about Hiro, and doesn’t want him to waste his talents. She lets him mourn Tadashi, but also reminds him that he can’t wallow in guilt all the time.

Aunt Cass didn’t get much screentime, but she was funny and awesome in the few scenes we had. The fish scenes on the train were pretty funny, if slightly cheesy.

After this introduction where Hiro starts rebuilding Baymax, we get a sequence where Fred is trying to get the superhero team back. I found this a pretty weak part. Fred’s enthusiasm was clearly meant to be funny, but to me it came across as sad and a little pathetic. Doesn’t he have anything else to do? Doesn’t he get that his friends clearly don’t want this? Especially his pestering of Hiro seemed pretty mean and bordered on bullying behavior at times.

Yama threatening to kill people was a pretty big mood whiplash, but I liked that the show isn’t afraid to get dark and gritty. Baymax’s suit running away was a plausible reason for Hiro to meet Yama again. Yama made a good villain, he’s genuinely intimidating and a clear danger.

The sequence where Hiro and Fred tried to scan Granville’s chip was kind of groan inducing from Fred’s incompetence. I hope he’ll become more than just the team’s permanent goofball.

I laughed really hard when Hiro broke out of Yama’s jail and got captured immediately, the scene reinforced very well that they’re not gonna win on brawn. The fight sequence with Big Hero 6 dropping in was fast-paced and overall well done, though the enemies didn’t feel like too much of a challenge.

The second episode was also really well done, the lack of introduction allowing it to set up a bigger plot with the robot army. I really liked the scene where Hiro and Baymax try to sneak into Yama’s army at SFIT, and their discovery was well done, showing that the healthcare chip still overrides the superhero chip.

The statue being a sort of supercharger was an interesting twist, though I feel more could have been done with it. Perhaps we’ll see it again later.

The train sequence I really liked, best action scene in the episode probably, showing off each part of the team, while putting Hiro and Baymax in genuine danger. I would have liked to see a bit more aftermath. What happened to Yama exactly? How did Aunt Cass react to the broken train, and how did she get home? Does she realize Hiro is in Big Hero 6? What does the city and the news think of all this? I would have liked to see more on that.

I did like the final scene with Granville, with Hiro becoming more confident and deciding he’s gonna find his own path, not just blindly follow Tadashi’s. Granville is, again, supportive, and offers him Tadashi’s lab, though refuses his hug. It’s a budding mentor-student relationship with great potential.

Overall I liked the characters and plot, not too cheesy and cartoony, while staying true to the themes and messages of the movie. So yeah, I’ll definitely watch the rest of the show when it comes out!

If you have any thoughts, let me know!

#big hero 6 #baymax returns #review #hiro hamada #professor granville

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quinnyandco · 7 years

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I tried to put the questions in instead of just numbers but alack, too many questions, too little space. 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 19. And -- *copycatting*-- FOR ALL

THANKS THIS IS GONNA TAKE TWELVE YEARS

2. Say your OC made a playlist on Spotify. What bands would be on that playlist? Any specific genres?

Berlin - He’s this weird mix between folksy stuff like Fleet Foxes and indie rock like Bastille. Lark - She would be blasting the Maroon 5 and Halsey through her car speakers, but also listening to stupid stuff like Bad Lip Reading songs on the down-low. Kes - 10 hours of Latin prayer chants, and her side playlist of random Florence + The Machine/Lana Del Rey/Daughter stuff that she listens to on private mode.Arthur - half his playlists have like one song in them, and it’s always something that you’d never actually figure that he’d listen to, and you’d be right because he hasn’t clicked on that playlist in 4 months. he makes his own music more than he listens to it. the playlists he does regularly use are for parties. lark also made him a playlist that he keeps meaning to listen to but somehow every time he clicks play, he never hears anything and then it’s over. Amber - doesn’t know what a spotify is, doesn’t care, has better things to do |Sitara - like, I WANT to listen to her playlist. because she’s one of those people who loves music but gets tired of it quickly, so she’s always finding new stuff and her playlists are a total mess. Every genre. It doesn’t matter what it is, she can find an occasion for it. Edward - a playlist containing nothing but “Be a Man” from Mulan on loop3. What kind of video games would they play? Any specific titles?Berlin - Lol okay, he was MADE for first-person shooters. But is he actually playing them? No. He’s playing those cute little flash games with bunnies hopping onto logs or something. Lark - Overwatch, because of the team-building element. She’ll usually only play video games in general if she’s with other people, except for the Sims which she’ll play alone if she needs character inspiration.Kes - Is somehow ridiculously good at the first-person shooters. This freaks her out. And she still doesn’t *get* the Sims but she plays it sometimes anyway because it’s fun to pretend to have a happy familyArthur - he will be HORRIBLE at anything he tries, unless he hyperfocuses on it, and then suddenly he is champion at everything and people refuse to play with him anymore. Amber - she’s really good at portal and she doesn’t even try to be. it just kind of happens. also she finds surgeon simulator to be horrendously inaccurate and she refuses to play it. Sitara - why on earth would you kill people in a video game when you could do it in real lifeEdward - DITTO. but he’s like, super good at tetris and doesn’t tell anyone.

bonus: Nick plays Crossyroad. Don’t ask. he just does.

8. How does your OC keep track of time? Do they have a planner? A calendar?

Berlin - He has a lot of people barking instructions at him, so he never really has the chance to forget what he’s doing or when he’s supposed to do it. But he’s naturally really organized so he’d probably have a planner otherwise. Lark - She’s usually on time because she hates to be late to the action or disappoint anyone counting on her. But sometimes she gets distracted by like, people on the street during her commute. Kes - time is a human construct, who needs it? the goddess will tell us when to leave and when to arrive. the moon spirits speak her truth into the ears of those who will listen Arthur - has owned approximately 500 planners in his life. it doesn’t matter how much he writes in them. he forgets they exist and is late anyway. Amber - has owned approximately 0 planners in her life. she is a perfect piece of ENTJ timekeeping. she doesn’t need a watch, or the sun, or you, probably. Sitara - has neatly plotted out her day, or hired someone to do it for her. Usually on time, but if she’s not, it’s because she decided it wasn’t worth her time to be there in the first place. Edward - is honestly more of a diva than sitara most of the time. he shows up if he wants to show up. you can’t tell him where to be.

13. If you are an artist, and if your OC can draw as well, could you replicate what their artstyle looks like? Or, if you can’t, could you describe it?

Berlin - once he smeared some blood on a rock and called it art Lark - doodles on the margins of reports and discarded typewriter pages. Is better than she thinks she is but’ll never do anything with it. Kes - paints and writes all over the walls of her shed. No specific style; she’ll try anything you’ll teach her. Arthur - Cannot draw, doesn’t try Amber - wouldn’t actually be bad at it if she’d just sit down and learn for like five minutes Sitara - Has developed her skill over the years and is probably the only character I have who could actually paint your portrait and would gladly do it. Edward - what is paint. it has the word pain on it. is it like that

14. If your OC owned a Tumblr blog, what kind of content would they post?

Berlin - I actually have a private blog for Berlin and it is entirely pictures of snakes, jackets, bunnies, and depressing quotes. Lark - She has two blogs–one for her professional stuff, and the other for maximum memeing and opinion pieces. Sometimes she mixes them up and her professional people get a horrible wake-up call as to her sense of humor. Kes - Meditations, uses it as her personal journal, a little bit of a SJW when she’s tired. accidently follows a NSFW blog because she thought they just wanted to be her friend and she didn’t look at the content first. Arthur - if there was ever a theme, it died long ago. also he might still be confusing facebook with tumblr because the colors are too similar. forgot his password. Amber - queen of throwing shade to people. has 2000 followers and she doesn’t know why because she didn’t ask them to be there. why are 2000 people following a blog about sutures. surely they have lives. leaves arthur to answer her hate mail, and answers serious asks from medical students if she feels generous. Sitara - KITTY PIX Edward - I tried to ask him what he’d have on his blog and he just looked at me really scarily and i stopped asking.

15. How do they type? Do they use emojis? Do abbreviate and shorten words?

Berlin - if he likes you, he doesn’t care. you’re getting whatever he’s dishing out at that particular moment (this includes random bouts of existentiality that you never asked for). Lark - Always has the perfect word for every situation. Understands emojis and internet speak the day it emerges on Tumblr. probably started the “me, an intellectual” meme. gif queen. Kes - doesn’t know why you’d type when you could just….talk to people?Arthur - Autocorrect is NOT his friend. But he never corrects autocorrect because by the time he realizes his mistake he’s already forwarded it to you and your boss and your aunt. He and Lark have gif wars.Sitara - Doesn’t even have a phone because someone would probably find a way to hack it and she is NOT being taken out by a camera phone scandal. Amber - Only answers texts at 2 AM. Perfect grammar. Has never used an emoji in her life. Deletes them if they automatically show up. Edward - you texted him once, and he replied telling you exactly where you could stick your texting. you were never brave enough to contact him again.

19. Does your OC like to collect things? What kind of things do they collect?

Berlin - he picks up rocks sometimes, and then puts them back because they might be some convict’s soul and he’s not in the mood to cart around convict souls in his pockets.Lark - she has an entire drawer full of feathers. she picks them up off the sidewalk every time she sees one while she’s out walking. she also has a pen collection and a playbill collection from all the shows she’s been to. she draws mustaches on the ones she didn’t like. Kes - hordes books. also doesn’t really have any books. but if she had money and a house she’d have a lot of books.Arthur - he’s got a touch of kleptomania about him so he’s inadvertently stolen every pen that anyone has ever given him. I guess that counts. (Some of them are from Lark’s collection, and if she’s noticed, she hasn’t asked for them back)Amber - does not see the point of useless junk hanging around. just clean up your life. Sitara - she has a collection of pawprints (ink pressed onto paper) from every cat she has ever owned/cared for. they’re in a little drawer in her room and she looks through them whenever she misses them. Edward - do scars count because he has a lot of those and they don’t seem to be stopping.

If you’re not too mad at me for clogging up your feed, send me an OC ask here!

#my story world doesn't contain emojis or tumblr or video games or spotify #but I answered as if it does #this did in fact take twelve years but it was a ton of fun #thank you!!#loricori #asks

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musicprincess655 · 7 years

Text

Knight and Bishop, Ch. 7

Pairing: Semishira

Rating: T

Tags: a/b/o, royalty au

read on ao3

“Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack” - Wilhelm Steinitz

“He’s an arrogant, obnoxious, spoiled little rich brat.”

“Tell us how you really feel, why don’t ya, Eita,” Kaito said, hands held up in surrender. Eita kicked back his ale, feeling unusually irritated, even for the situation. “Next you’ll be tellin’ us how he killed your ma and kidnapped your sisters.”

“He’s gonna get someone killed,” Eita snapped. “This isn’t funny, Kaito.”

“I’m not sayin’ it is,” Kaito replied. “But don’tcha think you’re overreactin’ just a bit? You can’t expect him to mourn forty six soldiers he didn’t know.”

“I don’t expect that,” Eita sighed. “I’m not insane. I’m not mournin’ ‘em either. But I recognize that they were people who deserve to be honored as humans who lost their lives. You shoulda seen his face, someone coulda spilled his chess pieces and he woulda looked the same. They weren’t people to him.”

“Why does it matter?” Kaito asked. “The war’s basically over, isn’t it? You’re not gonna have to deal with him much longer.”

“I’d rather not think that when we’re not sure how this will play out,” Eita said. “This could go on for a while. It’s nearly summer, it’s not like they have to stop to wait out a blizzard.”

“Why does this particular kid get under your skin?”

“Because he has power,” Eita said. “I don’t think even he knows how much he has yet. He’s literally holdin’ lives in his hands, and I don’t think he realizes that. That’s the kind of commander that gets his soldiers killed. He won’t listen now, what makes you think he’ll listen later?”

“I still think he’s got a special way o’ getting’ under your skin,” Kaito said.

“I don’t like arrogant kids, you know that.”

“He’s not really a kid, though.”

“He’s sixteen.”

“Nearly seventeen. He’s nearin’ manhood. And you’re not far into manhood yourself.” Eita refused to admit that Kaito had a point. “You don’t have to treat him like a kid. You can treat him like an equal.”

“I do…”

“You don’t,” Kaito interrupted. “You think you know better than him because he’s young and inexperienced. You’ve admitted that he’s smart.”

Eita looked away.

“I don’t disagree that his lack of care for lives is concerning,” Kaito went on. “But you’re not bein’ fair. I doubt he’s ever seen a battle. He prob’ly doesn’t know what it is to fall in battle, and he doesn’t know what it is to lose friends to swords. His smarts are there, he just needs time to learn how to use ‘em right. You don’t have to dismiss him because he doesn’t understand everything you do.”

“I didn’t come here for you to be right,” Eita grumbled. “I came here to drink and vent.”

“You came here to bitch.”

“I will admit to nothin’.”

Eita waved for another pint, but Kaito shook his head at the barmaid.

“You’ve had enough,” he said firmly. “Any more and you won’t be movin’ for the hangover.”

“I’m hiring a new best friend,” Eita complained.

“You’d collapse without me.”

“Don’t you have duties to your wife?” Eita asked. “Somethin’ about getting’ her pregnant?”

“Mind ya business,” Kaito said, but he was grinning. “What I do with my mate in our bed isn’t your concern.”

“It is if you’re botherin’ me instead of doin’ it.”

“Semi-san?” a voice interrupted what was about to turn into a playful fight. They both turned to see a page. “The queen requests your presence.”

“What does she want with me?” Eita asked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It was harder with the amount of ale he’d had. Kaito was right again.

“It’s urgent,” the page said. Something about her face convinced Eita that arguing further would be a bad idea. He stood to follow her, proud of how steady he was. If someone looked too close, they would see his glassy eyes and flushed cheeks, and he might have some issues with impulse control, but otherwise he’d seem perfectly sober.

The walk from the barracks was long. Eita had to admit he could see the benefit of having him in the castle, even if he did prefer to stay with his own company. It was inconvenient to send pages looking for him this far out.

The queen zeroed in on him the minute he entered the library, and he had to resist the urge to glare at her. She was the real problem here. Shirabu was a secondary concern, but the queen was the one who was really going to get someone killed.

“You’re late,” she said curtly.

“You led me to believe we had nothing to do until we got more information,” Eita replied, as politely as he could handle. “I don’t see why spending a night with my company is a problem.”

“Because we have situations like this,” she hissed, brandishing a letter. Eita felt his blood run cold at the implication. If she was calling him out this late… “We have more information.”

Eita settled faster, sitting next to Shirabu. He felt significantly more sober.

“You smell like the barracks,” Shirabu muttered.

“That’s where I just came from, pretty boy,” Eita muttered back. “Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

He didn’t have to look to see the scowl spreading across Shirabu’s face. One point to him.

“A rider from the advance guard made it back to the Iron Wall,” the queen said, interrupting them both. “The battle we won was a trap. We were meant to win. They wanted to draw our army farther into their territory so they could divide us.”

There was silence as that settled into them all.

“How far away from our territory are they?” Ushijima asked quietly. Eita was surprised to hear from him so soon. He usually watched things play out for a bit before chiming in with his opinions about how they could be doing better. Usually, Shirabu was the first one to speak, if not Eita himself.

“When the rider left them, nearly one hundred miles north of the wall,” the queen said. She looked more distressed than Eita had ever seen her before. He remembered that her mate was in that situation, and she probably deserved a bit of sympathy, even if he didn’t want to feel it for her. “She said she barely made it out before Itachiyama closed in. The king is still stuck.”

“Our first priority should be getting him out of there,” Eita said. “We need to send more men to the Wall. We’ll work out some plan to go in and help him get back to our territory.”

“One hundred miles north of the Wall would be about here,” Ushijima chimed in, pointing on the table. “There’s a mountain pass just below them. If we can get them through here, we can hold them at the pass.”

“Itachiyama probably has a much larger army than we think,” Eita warned. “We’ll have to come up with something that counters them having a superior army, just in case.”

“I think with our style of fighting versus Itachiyama’s, holding them at the pass should be possible,” Ushijima said. He seemed much more intense than he usually did, but then, his father was in danger. “Anything that can help us prevent loss of life would be good.”

“You will lead as many soldiers as we can muster up there,” the queen broke in. “Semi-san, you will be in charge of your company, since you all seem to work well together. With Saitou-san still gone, Shirabu-kun will have to go as well. We don’t have time to wait around here to come up with a strategy. This is a rescue mission now.”

“My company can be ready to go by tomorrow morning,” Eita said.

“If not tomorrow, I can muster a large force in two days,” Ushijima agreed.

“Shirabu-kun?” the queen asked. It was only now that Eita realized Shirabu hadn’t said a word since the queen had read the news to them. He turned to see a shell shocked look on Shirabu’s face. He shook himself out of it to answer the queen’s question.

“I’ll be ready to leave when everyone else is,” he promised. They stood to leave and prepare, but as soon as they were out of the library, Eita grabbed Shirabu’s arm.

“This wasn’t your fault,” he said. Shirabu’s blank look turned to a truly ugly glare. He didn’t seem at all pleased things hadn’t gone his way. “No one can plan for everything. You gave us a solid strategy, and it worked. You can do it again.”

“Why are you being nice to me now?” Shirabu snapped.

“Trying something,” Eita admitted honestly.

“Trying something?”

“Not treating you like you’re a kid because you’re inexperienced.”

Shirabu didn’t reply.

“Just focus on your next move,” Eita told him. Shirabu mumbled something Eita didn’t quite catch. “Sorry?”

“I only won that battle because they wanted me to,” Shirabu said a little louder. He looked surprisingly vulnerable.

“That’s not the only reason,” Eita argued. “I wouldn’t have agreed to your plan if it wasn’t a good one. It kept loss of life to a minimum. Just because we were supposed to win doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have taken as many of us with them as they could. You didn’t let them.”

“You were telling me yesterday I wasn’t taking those forty six seriously enough,” Shirabu pointed out.

“You were treating them like pieces instead of men,” Eita explained. “But you did keep a lot more than just them from dying. You should be proud of that.”

“I don’t need you to praise me.”

“I’m going to do it anyway.”

Shirabu still looked surprisingly vulnerable. It was a good look for him. He lost that nose in the air look.

“Get some sleep,” Eita said. “All we can do now is pack it up and go.”

“Semi-san.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell anyone we had this conversation, and they’ll never find your body.”

Eita stared at him in shock.

“Was that a death threat?”

“Did I stutter?”

“Brat,” Eita shook his head. He was almost disgusted at how fond that was. “I’ll remember this the next time you look like a kicked puppy.”

“I did not!”

“Totally did.”

“Fuck you!”

“Quite a mouth on you there, pretty boy,” Eita teased. It was worth it to see Shirabu turn an ugly shade of red. This was how Shirabu worked best – with a fire lit under him. “Someone been teachin’ you naughty words?”

“I’m not a child!”

“Not with a mouth like that, you’re not,” Eita laughed. “Go get some sleep. I’ll fight you tomorrow if you want.”

“I know how to use a sword.”

“I bet you do,” Eita conceded. “But I could still beat you in a fight. Your weapon is your brain. So go rest it so we can use it when we need it.”

He turned and left, Shirabu looking shocked at the compliment, no matter how backhanded it had been.

“Go die!” he shrieked, and Eita had to resist the urge to laugh. He walked to the barracks to tell everyone to be ready to go by tomorrow morning.

“You were right, by the way,” he said, finding Kaito. “As if you’ve ever been wrong.”

“What in particular was I right about this time?”

“Treatin’ Shirabu like an equal gets me a lot farther,” Eita said. “I think I can work with him now. He’s learnin’ fast.”

“Don’t ya look proud,” Kaito grinned. “I’d almost say you like him.”

“He’s not too bad,” Eita said.

“Oh no,” Kaito said in mock distress. “You like him.”

“I what now?”

“You like like Shirabu,” Kaito teased. Eita rolled his eyes.

“Please. I just learned how to be in the same room with him. I’m not about to try going after him.”

“He could be your one true love.” Kaito couldn’t keep himself from laughing at that. “Just think. Your children would be the sassiest brats the world’s ever seen.”

“You can stay, you know,” Eita rolled his eyes. “Mari’s a better fighter than you.”

“You wound me.”

The next few days would be insane. A few laughs were what everyone needed now.

#my writing #a/b/o #royalty au #kab #semishira #haikyuu!!

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kes-au · 4 years

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Lost Island

Prompt: There is an island where all lost things end up. Today you wake up, cold and wet, on the beach of that island. Sophia shifted slightly where she lay. Whatever it was she was lying on wasn't very comfortable, it was cold, wet and scratchy. As reason began to return, she realised she was lying on wet sand and there were waves splashing with increasing frequency and strength up her legs. She groaned her way up into a sitting position and looked around. She was on a deep but narrow piece of sandy beach, backed by cliffs and the bay it bordered showed piles of jagged rocks above and just below the waterline. A waterline that was rising as the tide came in. She wasn't sure how far or fast it rose, and decided to err on the side of caution. Staggering to her feet, she made her way towards the rocky walls at the back of the beach hoping to find a way out. Luck was on her side, briefly, there was a narrow, but clearly well-used path snaking up the cliff towards, well, who knew what. It was better than drowning though, so up she went, trying to work out how she'd come to be here on the way. The trek up was a decent one, but she still had no clue as to where or why and was starting to realise she was a bit sketchy on who as well. It wasn't that she didn't know her name, or who her parents were, or her home, she just couldn't remember who she was meant to be. Tucking the problem away to examine when there wasn't a cliff to scramble up, she continued up the path. Arriving at the top, Sophia found herself in a field of sorts, bordered by a wood, and a strange combination cottage/tower off to one side. Since her destination was now obvious, she took the time to look back across the bay she'd woken up in. Beyond the rocks, was spray and mist, and, very faintly behind that, she could see the hills, woods and city of her home, the royal palace standing proud atop the jumble of buildings leading to the port. The gasp hurt, she was on the Lost Island, she had lost herself. Stories had been told of people disappearing, some never to return, while others came back, changed, not always for the better. They had all lost some part of who they were, and the magic of the island, on which all lost things ended up, pulled them there in the same way as a dropped coin, or wind-snagged scarf. The ground met her backside with a thump, what part had she lost, she rummaged through her mind. Then it came back. Sophia had been betrothed to the Crown Prince in her cradle. All her life she had been brought up with the sole purpose and focus on being the best possible future queen of the country, and the best possible wife to its future king. Everything in her life had revolved around this truth. She was educated in history, economics, international trade and alliances, she spoke five languages fluently and could be charmingly uncertain in two more. She could dance, sing, sew, negotiate, strategise, take out four attackers bare handed (her father didn't like the idea of a defenceless queen - which is why he also taught her woodcraft, tracking and a few other, rather less than expected skills). And now Crown Prince Stephen had gone off on an adventure, found a damsel in distress, fallen in love, and proposed. She couldn't blame him (well, mostly not, in strong moments), they were good friends, having grown up together along with his younger brother, Michael, and their cousin Connor, but it meant their affection was more that of friends and siblings than lovers. Both sets of parents assured her this was a good thing, until yesterday. Yesterday Connor had galloped up to the front door of her parents' home, so much fury and pain radiating, Sophia thought someone had died. Instead, the core of her identity was torn out and thrown to the winds. Her future husband was now someone else's future husband and Connor didn't want Sophia to find out when Stephen brought his new love to visit, later that day. He'd always been her loyal champion, and his anger and misery on her behalf held her strong through that afternoon tea with the new future queen. That memory got her off the ground and walking. It had been excruciating. The girl was a pretty little thing, rather like a kitten, and a kitten was not ever going to sit well on a throne. Sophia hoped that wasn't sour grapes speaking, but she worried. Stephen wasn't the strongest of people, he was so kind, without someone like her or Connor - who'd been raised to guard Stephen's more extreme impulses - he was likely to give away the farm (often literally). A caring monarch was good, a doormat was a problem and she knew a large part of her upbringing had been structured especially to counter Stephen's weaknesses, just he was to counter hers. Her musings were interrupted by her arrival at the cottage/tower, she knocked. The door was opened by a bright-eyed woman who may have been thirty, fifty, or anywhere in between. She called back into the house, "I was right, we have another waif." The lady smiled and gestured for Sophia to enter. Sophia figured she was already lost, if this was a dangerous move, it wasn't likely to be any less dangerous than running into the woods, especially now evening was drawing in. The interior of the cottage managed to combine light and airy, with cosy and welcoming - it could never be created by, or house, anyone with malicious intent. A door on the far side of the room opened and a man came through from what Sophia presumed was the base of the tower. "Aha! And in what way are you lost young lady? Have you lost your mind, your memory, your religion or your reason?" Sophia paused, trying to explain her particular loss - "I've lost my identity and purpose, I think, it's all a bit confusing." "Well it would be, but at least you can still speak and know down from up, that's a better starting point than some of the others who've been through here over the years." Sophia grimaced, that sounded deeply unpleasant. "So, what now? How do I get home? Is there a boat or something? Or am I going to have to do some crazy quest to find myself? Please don't let it include freezing showers in mountain waterfalls, I hate being cold." The couple laughed. The woman picked up the conversation, "You're partially right, you do need to go on a quest of sorts, but it's really just you looking for your way off the island - it's different for everyone - and generally involves the finding of other things along the way." "But not right now, night's falling and you've had a rather busy day, how about a bath and change of clothes, dinner and a good sleep in one of our spare rooms? We can look at your situation in the morning and make some more considered suggestions and decisions in the light of day." Sophia smiled and decided to go with her gut in trusting these people, a short time of peace in the haven of their home sounded perfect, and she was hoping to hear their story at some point as well. The couple introduced themselves as Evan and Imelda and Imelda showed Sophia through to a warm, comfortable room, fully equipped with a comfortable bed, with slightly mismatched posts, and a dressing table sporting a full brush and mirror set. "This will be yours while you stay, now come along to the clothing rooms and see what we can find in there for you." As they walked, Imelda explained, the various lost items were sorted by magic (Evan's magic) into various 'receiving areas' so they could be more easily dealt with. "Otherwise we'd fast be drowning in odd socks and pot lids." Arriving at a room that was a mix of wardrobe and laundry pile, they started looking through for clean, newish things in Sophia's size - there was a surprising amount. "Oh yes, people are awfully careless with their washing - we always get a load in after a windy day." "How do you 'deal' with them and the other lost items?" "Oh it's quite easy really, we sort through what's good enough to be re-homed, and what's only good for rags, then send out packages to various charity homes, orphanages, hospitals and the suchlike. It saves them a great deal of trouble and makes sure whatever was lost is properly used and appreciated. Anything that's not good for people works well for crafters making rag rugs, patchworks and other useful odds and ends." Sophia was now in possession of fresh, clean underwear, still wrapped in paper from the store, she thought it might be the set she had ordered a month or so before, that somehow never made it home - the embroidery looked very familiar - along with a dress that, while not as ornate as those her mother preferred to see her in, was well-made, sensible and a lovely shade of soft spring green (except for special state occasions where she must be seen, a future queen should opt for quiet good taste, soft colours and modest styles). The next stop was the bathing room, a deep bathing pool gently steamed in tiled surrounds while piles of fresh towels stacked themselves up against the wall and a set of shelves displayed a bewildering array of soaps, lotions and interesting potions. "Are ALL these lost items?" "Yes, as I said, people do get awfully careless and it's the richer who are the more careless, so the items we get do tend to be rather nice.": With that, Imelda left her to her bath and new wardrobe. A short time later, clean, warm and freshly turned out, Sophia returned to the kitchen, led by her nose. It has been a long time since that awful afternoon tea. She joined the older couple at the table and tucked in to her serve of a delicious stew with fresh bread. Once the edge was off her hunger, her questions crowded in again. Evan eyed her with amusement, "well you'd best be out and asking them, or your head will surely explode." Sophia flushed, "Am I really that obvious?" (A future queen should show interest and concern, but never vulgar curiosity) "To those of use who've met many people under many circumstances on this island, yes. There are always things that are hard to understand and it quite often starts with the two of us." Imelda laughed, "Such an ego on the man, but sometimes knowing this island provides a comfortable and happy home to those that wish it, makes things easier for those who no longer know their place in the world." "So how did you both come to be here?" Evan looked slightly guilty, "Well the island is really my fault." "WHAT?!" "Well, I'm a wizard and back when I was young and rather over-dramatic, I fell in love with a young lady who didn't love me back. Now fair's fair, you can't compel love where it doesn't wish to be, so I thought I could fix my sad situation by compelling my lost heart to return to me. Unfortunately my dramatics led to some imprecise wording in the spell and EVERYTHING that's lost now comes to my home." "The lass I was making a fool of myself over couldn't decide between hilarity and sympathy, but she helped me put some order to things and then went her own way, married a farmer just up the coast and used to occasionally accidentally on purpose lose my favourite apple pies. I figure I've done some silly things for love, but my heart has always had very good taste." Sophia turned her head to Imelda, "My story doesn't hit Evan's level of whimsy I'm afraid. I'm the one who arrived unable to speak." She smiled sadly at Sophia's horror. "I lost my memory, and my voice after my husband tried to choke me for not having his preferred beer in the cellar. I arrived completely disoriented and unable to speak and utterly terrified of Evan, without knowing why. His patience and care are the only reasons I'm alive." Evan reached for Imelda's hand. "Once I was healthy enough, I undertook my quest, found the deity of Lost Island who returned my memories, and I knew I was never going back. Evan showed me what a true partnership is and how real love can be, and I'd be cursed as beyond a fool to ever give that up." Evan leaned forward, "And if you're wondering about that scum-sucker of an ex-husband, well, let's just say he rather sadly lost his human form, but seems to have become quite comfortable as a toad." Imelda smiled, and the atmosphere at the table lightened again. "Now I think that's enough for tonight, you can ask more tomorrow." Sophia's head was still spinning, trying to make sense of too much information and too many emotional pitfalls, she agreed and retired for the night, falling asleep immediately, despite her crazy situation." The next morning, her head was still overflowing, but one element from the previous night's conversation begged further explanation. As she helped Evan prepare breakfast (a future queen should always know how her household runs and be able to pitch in at any time) she asked about the reference Imelda had made to a god the night before. "Oh, not a god, a deity. God implies a masculine gender and the deity decided to do away with such mundane things as gender, and in fact a corporeal body for much of the time, when they were lost to their worshippers." "Your island attracted a lost GOD? Sorry, deity?" "Yes, and I wouldn't say that's the strangest thing here. We have quite a collection of creatures who survived on human belief that was somehow lost over time. Everything from unicorns to dragons to brownies to fae. And the more we get, the wider the island's reach seems to become. We used to just fetch up lost items from the city. Now, well we had a mass inundation of genie lamps last week, we're trying to work out how to free them without turning any over-powered psychopaths into the world" "I feel like I've wandered into a fairy story." "In some ways you have, and you need to follow the rules of a fairy story to come out the other end. The trick is to make sure you're following the path as a hero, not a villain." "And how do I do that?" "Good question, the villains have always believed themselves to be heroes of some sort." With that he called through the door to Imelda to join them for breakfast. Imelda brought a child with her, sleepy and a little scared of a new person but not enough to sacrifice breakfast. Sophia looked to Imelda in question, she shook her head a little sadly, "Too many children are lost and only the lucky ones make it here." "Do they stay here with you?" "Generally no, that old flame of Evan's started an orphanage on her husband's farm when it became obvious what was happening. It's healthier for them to be in the normal world. It's one of the main recipients of the clothing bundles, along with the lost coins, rings and other assorted trinkets that can pay for a comfortable childhood." Sophia nodded and smiled at the child, "What's your name?" The child looked down and mumbled, "n't know" "Well do you have a name for yourself in your mind that you'd like to use?" Evan looked across approvingly. The child looked up, caught by the idea, "I could choose?" "Of course." The little face lit up, "Can I be Princess Sunshine?" Imelda quietly said, "Since you're a boy, most people would expect you to prefer Prince Sunshine, but if you'd rather be Princess, then that's who you are." The child thought deeply, then huffed, "That's too silly and hard, I'll just be Sunshine then." Evan smiled, "You can always work out if you want to be Princess, Prince, Warrior, Artisan or Jester later on." Sunshine, serious again, nodded, storing the titles away for future review. The room was silent for a while as everyone tucked in. Once she had eaten her fill, Sophia sat back and started reviewing what she knew so far, and what her next steps might be. The rest of the group finished in their own time, allowing her the space to think. She looked between them, "So what will you be doing today, anything I can help with?" Evan looked at her, "You don't want to get straight into your quest?" "I don't think it's a good idea. I feel like I need a couple of days to just collect myself and understand what I might need to do in order to find who I am again. That will give me a better outline of what the quest should be, at least to start with, than me running out the door unplanned and unprepared." She felt a quiet approval roll across the table towards her and relaxed a little. These people were already important to her and knowing she was approaching things in a way they felt suitable was comforting. Breakfast over, she helped with the cleaning up, then was turned loose in the maze of rooms below the cottage that were set aside for the collection of various types of lost items.

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dripthestory-blog · 6 years

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I’ve been at my desk for 23 of the last 24 hours. That’s nothing to boast about; I’m clearly overdoing it. The fact that I know I’m overdoing it does absolutely nothing to change the fact that my mind won’t let me sleep, won’t let me quit. Tonight I learned what it means to bleed for my art. I literally worked my fingers bloody. I just couldn’t stop. I don’t know why; I’m so compelled to draw, it’s like this feeling inside my chest, this clawing thing, and when I stop I can’t think of anything else.

This is what bleeding for art feels like.

My wife came home from a friend’s dinner party around midnight. She’d had a few drinks throughout the evening, her mood was good. She was happy to see me.

“Come to bed,” she said. “I’ll feed you.”

Could she have known I hadn’t eaten all day? Did J tell her? Do wives gain some sort of sensibility about these things over time?

I don’t think I raised any flags today at work, but just in case—a reminder:

Dear Self,

Eat lunch today. Try to seem happy for J. If he starts raising concerns to the wife, all shall be lost. She’ll endeavor to make us sleep, and we can’t work if we’re sleeping. We dream best when we’re awake.

Love,

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I’ve become very skilled at laying awake until I know she’s sleeping soundly next to me. When I hear her breathing change, I get up slowly—careful not to wake the dogs—and slip out of our bedroom. Tiptoe up the stairs, until my office door clicks shut behind me, and I’m free to work again.

That sounds a lot worse than it is. I love my wife very much. She is the entire reason for everything I do; my inspiration, my muse. I want to spend time with her. But these days, something else drives me. It’s become something of an obsession.

15 days

I started drawing on May 28th. Maybe that sounds unbelievable. I have photographic evidence if you’d like to see it. I’ll sign an affidavit.

The last time I really drew anything was in the 9th grade. I shared the 1st period of the day with a girl named R, a senior and fellow musician. I’d known her for some time and was quite fond of her. It was just the two of us in the class; an independent study. We helped our choir teacher grade papers or sort old sheet music. Meanwhile, I developed a steady crush on R.

We had this comic we would draw every day. We called it The Adventures of R & R. It was terrible. We laughed and doodled away the mornings the entire first semester of high school. In hindsight, those were some of my fondest memories of high school.

Later that year, R graduated and left for college. I found her at the ceremony and gave her the comic, which I’d bound with glue and staples and covered with a plain white folder, aptly labeled “The Adventures of R & R” in big letters across the cover.

Years later, R found me in a bookstore on campus. She was teaching music, and she asked if I’d like to meet for coffee. I was delighted. I agreed to meet her later that evening. We met on campus and walked to the coffee shop together. It wasn’t until we sat down that she told me about the surprise.

“I have something for you,” she said. “Close your eyes.”

Her smile made me nervous. Did she know about my crush? Was she going to kiss me? Would she tell me she’d had a crush on me all along, that she’d been waiting these last four years so I could join her and we could live happily ever after?

It’s only fair to point out here that I had a serious girlfriend at the time of our meeting, a high school sweetheart, and I was in direct violation of the established boundaries of that arrangement; however, being eighteen and horny and alight with the possibility of fulfilling a years-long fantasy, I forewent the bonds of my relationship and decided that whatever happened, happened. In retrospect, part of me feels like a scumbag, and part of me, the romantic part of me, gives a cheesy thumbs up at the camera before tossing back a tall glass of sangria.

“Close your eyes! Okay, keep them closed. No peeking.”

“What is it?”

“Hush. Open your hands. Okay, you ready?”

“Ah, shit.”

“Open your eyes.”

It was better than a kiss.

“The Adventures of R & R.” My first (and last) daily comic, and my only attempt to ever draw regularly, albeit only for fun.

Fast-forward. Scrub almost fifteen years ahead. Stop. Roll footage.

That horny teenager in the coffee shop with a makeshift comic book in his sweaty hands seems to have lived and died a hundred lifetimes ago. Yet here we are, doodling away the mornings…

Only, this time things are different. The girl has changed. This new girl is so much more. A high school crush could never hold a candle.

These days I write poetry and stories and occasionally pen an essay for an online publication or two. I run my own business and have no time for doodling beyond the necessitated dry erase sketch, something quick; at the moment, that’s all I really have a need for. The spontaneous sketch is perfect for dredging up some creative sparks or even perhaps rousing my sleepy partner out of a fog.

Certainly nothing of the serious variety, these doodles.

And then, May 28th happens.

There’s nothing in particular worth mentioning about that day, except that like most days, I was up late writing, working on the DRIP narrative. For some reason, I felt a stronger-than-usual urge to draw, so I pulled out a sheet of printer paper and a fountain pen.

I created my first stippling illustrations that day. I didn’t even know the word for “Stippling.” My business partner saw the piece when he came into the office later that morning. He’s an art school graduate and was happy to show off some cool resources where I could see more examples of this style of art.

In the last fifteen days, I have created more than two dozen original illustrations. Some of them are more intricate than others; a few of them are fairly elaborate, like yesterday’s piece:

“Sabbat de Luna”

With zero arrogance whatsoever, I want to say that I’m very proud of the work—and the progress—I’ve made in the last fifteen days. Truth be told, I’ve dreamed of being able to draw my whole life. Growing up with comics and graphic novels was torture. I wanted so badly to be the guy drawing badass Batman comics in the margins of his notebooks during class; instead, my skills were largely limited to stick figures and basic shapes. I couldn’t even draw a straight line. I still feel I have trouble with perspective.

Yesterday, I read “Perspective Made Easy” by Ernest R. Norling. It’s a marvelous guide to the line of sight, the horizon, and perspective by way of breaking complex shapes and structures down into more basic forms. If you’re interested in learning how to draw, pick it up on Amazon.

After reading the book in the early hours of the morning (it’s a quick read, and a page-turner. I went through the entire book, even with some of the exercises, in about two hours) I decided to play with perspective, shading, and horizon.

I’d had this scene in my head:

Night. A silver-lit field. Empty sky, save the moon, which shines full and bright above. Four hooded figures dance around a short flame. A drum beats softly in the darkness. The figures are humming as they dance. From the shadows emerges a ram carrying on its back a host of temptations and decadence. The figures worship the Ram. They succumb to its offering, and eventually, themselves become an offering.

I didn’t want to do the scene with a basic drawing of a field and hooded or robed figures. That’s too on-the-nose (as J would say) and it’s been done countless times.

I decided to start a stipple. Rather than start from the corner or the edge of the page, I broke another personal comfort zone guideline and began dotting near the center of the page, just off to the right. I turned the sketchbook every direction as I traced until I had about an inch covered in dots. Then I dropped to a much smaller pen and started filling in the spaces.

I’ve used this same technique to create all the new illustrations I’ve made since May 28th.

I have no idea how I’m doing it.

If you know, or if you can explain it; if you’d like to wager a guess; if you’d like to call me a liar, please. Step right up. Drop me a line in the comments.

I’ve had dozens of friends reach out over Snapchat and Instagram and Text message in the last two weeks.

“How are you doing this?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“I didn’t know you could draw!”

Well, funny you should mention it…

I can’t.

Or, at least, I couldn’t.

Until May 28th.

A secret fear:

What happens if I wake up on June 28th and it's gone? Easy come, easy go? Will I fight? Will there be consequences?

Something inside me needs this. I can’t explain it, so I’ll stop trying.

It’s 5:03am here in the US (eastern time), and a thunderstorm has taken to beating on my window. I think I’ll open up and let it in.

I need to clear my head and mildew the carpet a bit.

Until next time, love.

Bleeding for art. Letter to Myself. A Secret Skill. 15 Days. The Ritual. Thunderstorms. I've been at my desk for 23 of the last 24 hours. That's nothing to boast about; I'm clearly overdoing it.

#art #balance #bizarre #creativity #drawing #illustration #insomnia #learning #life #love #stippling #surreal

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angelinaneblinawebsite-blog · 7 years

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falling out of love with fashion

In the fourth grade, I made a single Microsoft Powerpoint slide featuring a low-res photograph of racks of colorful clothing with a gold gradient oval overlay that read “F.I.T.” in a classic Microsoft Office script font. My teacher had directed us to make a slideshow about our futures as an end-of-the-year project. Naturally, I dedicated all of the allotted time to making a single perfect slide to reflect where I belonged: the Fashion Institute of Technology. I had already taken the virtual tour, this was my big break. I did everything in my power to secure my place in the world of fashion. I took advanced art classes, pre-college courses, and doodled constantly. Then, in my sophomore year of high school, I found myself in a slump.

Art is deeply personal, and its quality is entirely subjective. I felt that my work wasn’t very strong, and I was losing my passion for creating it. My justification for wanting to design clothing had been that I didn’t see fashion that reflected my style, so I wanted to change that. This wasn’t a misguided thought: Mohandas Gandhi said himself that you should be the change you wish to see in the world. There was a flaw in my reasoning, though: my idea of appealing fashion existed, I just needed to make it more popular. This launched my interest into the realm of marketing and business.

Towards the end of my reflective sophomore year, a guidance counselor stopped by my English class to discuss course selection for the following year. As I began to flip through the guide given to us, I stumbled across a page dedicated to the programs available through a partnership with a vocational school in my county. My eyes darted directly to the words “Fashion Design & Merchandising”.

Was this real life? Was there actually a program tailored exactly to my needs? My hand shot up into the air.

“What is it?” the guidance counselor said, looking slightly annoyed at my enthusiasm. It must have been a long day.

“What is this program?” I asked, pointing fervently to what I had found.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a technical career program, talk to your guidance counselor about it if you’re interested.” She didn’t seem too impressed.

As soon as the bell rang, I ran downstairs to do exactly that. During my conversation with my counselor, I began to see why her co worker wasn’t thrilled about my discovery. The kids who did this program had reputations for being unmotivated and in need of academic intervention. I was not one of these kids, and I didn’t care. In fact, I thought that it was unfair how a career training program was associated with laziness, considering the sheer amount of time and effort it takes to gain certifications in certain trades.

After visiting the school and meeting my prospective teacher, I applied for the program and was accepted. It began a few days before the rest of my class started their junior year. I had no free periods and only twenty minutes to eat my lunch/watch out for the bus that took me and roughly six or seven other students to what essentially became our second school.

Upon entering the school, I was greeted by a security guard with a thick Jamaican accent.

“How you doin’?” he’d say, holding the door open for me.

Initially, my teacher would be waiting for me at her desk because she taught the same class in the morning. That class was eventually dissolved because of low enrollment, and after a month or so, she would be late every day because she would come from a different school.

My teacher was a middle-aged Puerto Rican, Southeast Asian woman who had kind eyes and a fake laugh. She had been a head designer for a men’s luxury athletic-wear company for two decades prior to the start of her teaching career. When I first visited, she said all the right things. My class was going to sew, create mood boards, cut patterns, design clothing lines, etc. I was going to be well versed in the fashion world in no time--or so I thought. Her kind eyes had nothing behind them.

Classmates trickled in over the next few weeks, each one bringing a bit of diversity to the group. Three of them were seniors completing the second half of the program in order to secure college credit and a certification to work in retail. There were ten of us in total from all over the county, I was the only one from my town. One young lady in particular took a liking to me and insisted that we work and sit together all the time.

The only reason I’m going to assign this character a name is because she was instrumental in my demise. Let’s call her Patricia.

Patricia was from a relatively upscale town in the county. Her skin was a a beautiful dark shade of brown, similar to that of Naomi Campbell, who I assume was one of her idols. She was too short to be a runway model, so she did commercial modelling. Her hair was short, and she wore over-the-knee boots often. Her mother was Belgian or French or something, and I believe French was her first language.

I put up with Patricia for a while. I wasn’t making any other friends. I bonded with one young lady over Nicki Minaj and our shared Aries-ness, but she dropped out of the class before the halfway point of the first quarter.

Gradually, I became impatient with Patricia and felt it best I work alone. In doing so, I missed the chance to open up to my peers and form connections. As the year went by, though, I realized that that was how it ought to have been.

There were about ten of us in the class, roughly four young men and six young women. Conversations often surrounded controversial topics, and my teacher had to address the class multiple times. I steered clear of these and abided by the rules on the “Professional Conduct” sheet posted above the whiteboard that I had made the design for myself. The rules were simple: Stay on task, avoid inappropriate conversations, and be diligent in your work. This was, after all, supposed to be treated like a workplace. They don’t call it career training for nothing.

I won’t comment on the quality of my classmates’ work because like I said: art is entirely subjective. I will, however, point out that my technique was more advanced, which was to be expected, considering I had an immense amount of experience in drawing fashion figures. Between my skill level and determination to follow the rules, I achieved the highest grade in the class and was nominated to be the “Student of the Quarter”, which meant I got to miss some of my class to attend a brunch. My parents were invited, too. I also earned a perfect attendance award.

My mental health was deteriorating, though. There were constant arguments in my classroom. I began to dread seeing the bus pull into the roundabout in front of my school. One argument in particular struck a chord with me.

Another key player in this story is a young man who we’ll call Randy.

Randy sounded like Drake and tried to act like him, too. He sagged his pants, though, and was a raging homophobe. Every day I would hear the phrase “that’s gay” come out of his mouth. I knew what he meant, but he didn’t say what he meant, and instead chose to use a word intended to be positive as an insult. He made the argument that gay people are raised to be homosexual, and that they’re not born that way. As a matter of fact, he’d seen a study that confirmed this belief.

At this point, I had been an active member of the New York Catholic Forensics League Student Congress, and was doing extensive research about everything from Sub Saharan African infrastructure to the American electoral college. I was hearing eloquent speeches that were cited accurately on a weekly basis, so when Randy made this highly uninformed argument, I was unimpressed and offended.

Where was my teacher, you may ask? Doing something more important, I suppose, and letting this hostile environment fester.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped.

“Randy. Randy. Randy.” I said firmly, trying to get his attention. “Stop saying ‘gay’ as if it is an insult, because it’s not. If you mean to say ‘stupid’, say it. Oh, and as someone who has grown up with a gay sibling I can promise you that it is not because she was raised that way.”

He dismissed me and looked away, but everyone else’s eyes were glued to me. I hadn’t addressed anyone in weeks.

“See?” my teacher exclaimed from her desk. “I told you someone would be offended.”

Later that evening I received a direct message on Instagram from Patricia apologizing for Randy’s actions. I wonder where her remorse was when he was being blatantly homophobic.

There were several instances of bigotry in that classroom, some too painful to recount. It got to the point where I would literally cry on the bus to and from the vocational school.

I loved the curriculum, everything about it. I felt like I was in my element when the main perpetrators weren’t present. When they were, though, I was often anxious and upset. My teacher eventually stopped intervening altogether.

Around May, I started listening more carefully to the subject matter of the boy chatter. They were always talking about how young women were “valid” or “thick”--that is, young women on Instagram and Snapchat. Other times, they would call young women “ugly” or “too skinny”. Another young man, similar to Randy, but mostly to-himself said “fag” or “faggot” in regards to other young men he was either friends with or knew of if they way they dressed or acted suggested something about their sexuality. I worked three feet away from where my teacher spent the majority of our classes, at her desk, and I wore headphones with music playing relatively loud. I heard everything these young men were saying loud and clear.

I recall the exact moment that I broke down. It was after Patricia, while looking for her commercial size on a pattern envelope (they’re typically five sizes larger than your retail size), gasped.

“Size SIXTEEN?!” she exclaimed, looking horrified. “That’s HUGE. That is SO BIG. OH MY GOD.”

I was a size sixteen in retail, and a size 26 in commercial. I was huge.

It took many years for me to feel comfortable in my skin as a “plus size” young woman. I was never encouraged to love myself for who I was, rather to slim down to look socially acceptable and to be able to wear certain types of clothing. My self-love came from me, and I wasn’t used to my peers being disgusted by me or my size. Her words were like knives.

I gave her the worst glare imaginable and promptly left to go to the bathroom. I sobbed for a good ten minutes, absolutely hating where I was. It never occurred to me that I could have a bad time doing what I loved, but that’s exactly what was happening. My teacher let all of these things happen without correction, and the environment was incredibly toxic.

Eventually, I returned to the classroom and continued my work. After some time, my teacher called three young women, including myself, over to her desk.

“You know, next year, you girls should sign up for the morning class,” she said in a low voice. “You’re all very quiet, and it would be more productive because there wouldn’t be so much chatter.”

This had to be a joke.

“Angelina, don’t you think so?” she addressed me. “Will you do that?”

There was no way I was returning the next year, but I nodded my head and left for the bathroom again. This was the second time I bawled my eyes out that day, and I knew I would be crying on the bus back, too. I called my mom, but I was crying too hard to get a clear word out.

I visited my guidance counselor for the vocational program a few days later and told her everything, holding back even more tears. She was heartbroken to hear that I wouldn’t be returning, and suggested I try another program. Fashion was it for me, though. I had no interest in Architecture or Commercial Art, and I didn’t particularly like the Commercial Art teacher either.

The director of the entire school, the guidance counselor for the program, and the social working who was also in charge of enforcing the rules of DASA, or the Dignity for All Students Act that made bullying of most kinds punishable by law visited my classroom and spoke about how the derogatory language was unacceptable, especially in a room of young women. After they left, the young men in my class denied the accusations outright, and for the first time, my vocal female classmates acknowledged that they were always saying vulgar things. Somehow they caught wind that I was the one who had reported what was going on and they thanked me for saying something. It blew my mind how they were always saying gutsy things to these young men, but never once had the nerve to address their foul language.

We had a meeting with the principal, my guidance counselor at the vocational school, my parents, my teacher, and the school social worker.

When asked to elaborate on what had been going on in the classroom, I broke down, but managed to get one phrase out.

“I feel like...there’s a lot of hearing...but no listening,” I said.

What I meant was that my teacher had been telling my class to lower the noise level, but not actually addressing the subject matter of the conversations that were being held and putting an end to them.

“I don’t even hear it,” my teacher scoffed.

She didn’t even hear it.

My mother was furious, as was my father. The administrators, including the social worker who had previously been very friendly with my teacher, were appalled. I couldn’t blame them, it was simple: my teacher was not doing her job. It was her responsibility to intervene and prevent that behavior, and she failed me and every other young person in that classroom.

The month after that was relatively peaceful. A lot of the main perpetrators didn’t show up to school very often. My relationship with my teacher was fine.

On the last day of classes, I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I left the building in tears of relief and cried the entire bus ride back to my actual school, where I thrived.

I maintained a satisfactory grade in Fashion Design & Merchandising, never falling below a 90. That was by my own accord. Don’t get me wrong, my teacher was an excellent seamstress and made impeccable art, but fell completely flat when it came to having some compassion for me and my classmates. Those young men could have benefited immensely from some discipline, and it was her job to enforce the law, but sexual bullying was occurring right under her nose, and it was ignored. I had to advocate for myself and my female peers who were just as uncomfortable as I was. Ironically, my teacher was editing a brochure for the Women’s March while the whole ordeal was unfolding. She was helping stand up for women all over the country, but not in her own classroom.

The administrators did their jobs, and helped make that place tolerable in my last month or so there. There was catcalling occurring in the hallways before classes started, and I was the only young woman present to witness it because my bus always arrived early, and the administration corrected that immediately.

This wouldn’t have escalated to the point that it did if it had been a real workplace. I learned the importance of professionalism and removing myself from stressful situations in the name of preserving my mental health.

I nearly lost my love for fashion. Just typing that makes my heart ache. It has been my life since I was little, but it became my personal hell as a sixteen/seventeen year old. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, though. Sometimes that has to be learned the hard way.

I’m still going to college for fashion merchandising. I won’t let this awful experience ruin what I’ve worked so hard for. I’m a member of the National Technical Honor Society, I earned that. My determination has been recognized and rewarded on multiple occasions, so I don’t feel unfulfilled in the least.I feel it necessary to share my story, though--not as a cautionary tale, because the other programs at this vocational school are lovely, but rather as inspiration to speak up. As my vice principal says: “Your voice matters”.

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ozsaill · 7 years

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Cruising the Bahamas: beauty at our back door

Hard won miles to windward from the cerulean blue of our last Bahamian anchorage, some perspective on our months in the islands is sinking in. I went in with a mixed bag of expectations: friends who have sailed around the world claim it’s among the best cruising to be had (don’t we all love our first major destination?). Other cruisers who don’t have that far-reaching basis for comparison rave about it (was there narrower base of comparison at play?). It put me on guard: were we REALLY going to like it that much? How could islands so close to the USA possibly offer that kind of exceptional experience?

Confession: I spent too much of our time there being jaded and just needed to get over it. So what if the Bahamas didn’t measure up in discrete specifics to more exotic locales? On its own merits, the islands are a spectacular cruising ground, and there is a lot to love. These are the reasons it stood out in our experience.

Beautiful water

It’s spectacular. There is almost nothing more to say. We’ve seen a lot of mesmerizing water on our way around the world, and the Bahamas (tie: Bermuda) is at the top of the heap. It’s as though it is lit from within: and it is, in a way, as sunlight reflecting off a white sandy bottom is what lends the vivid blues. Stunning shades of aqua in the winding inner channel of the Exumas are now my benchmark. A gift for cruisers starting out from the US east coast: their first international step can transport them to some of the best! UNDERwater is another story, but we’ll save that for later.

Photos can’t do the colors justice, but offer a suggestion

Close to home

It’s a DAY trip! Sure, there is a meaningful bit of water to cross and the Gulf Stream deserves all the respect and planning you can give it. But at the end of the day, well… at the end of the day in which you depart Florida, you can be relaxing on the hook in Alice Town or West End, and rightfully feel like you have transported yourself a world away to an island paradise where you can beachcomb for intricate shells, paddle in turquoise water, gawk at mountains of conch shells, maybe even swim with dolphins (all features of our point of arrival, Bimini).

How to describe the feeling of being approached by a playful dolphin?

This proximity also helped when Jamie and I had to fly out. I was gone a week for the Annapolis spring boat show; Jamie hopped around Florida and the Caribbean checking out boat listings with a few of our coaching clients. Even in what felt like relatively remote islands, flights were easy to book on relatively short notice and fares weren’t terrible. What a great way to cruise in a place that’s relatively easy to have visitors! And if you’re sailing back to the US, it’s likely to be with the wind at your back…and an easier task to find a date to cross the Gulf Stream in comfort.

Access to stuff

If you came for the sand you’ll be in paradise. If you came for the avocados to make guacamole to go accompany nacho chips that cost $11/bag, then carry on to Puerto Rico!

Sure, you may want to provision up anything you must have; you might not find it and it will cost more when you do. But it’s a corollary of “close to home,” these islands aren’t in the middle of an ocean. They’re regularly supplied by mail boats (or planes). Costs can be eyepopping (especially for our hungry crew…wow the kids were easier to feed when they were little!), but that’s if you’re trying to recreate your Publix shopping cart at a market on Eleuthera. Mitigate expense with advance provisioning or switching your diet to local style: market rates or government subsidy keep many staples affordable. Get out the fishing gear. Shift your habits. Eat on board instead of ashore.

Conch at a pier on Eleuthera: 7 for $10

Ultimately, availability wasn’t as bad as I expected from reports. In George Town, it as possible to get everything from kale to mushrooms and shallots. Markets in Staniel Cay had surprising breadth: asparagus anyone? (thanks I’m sure to the higher-end charters frequenting the area and providing a ready market to supply.)

Bounty after the mail boat: George Town, Great Exuma

If you need boat parts, it’s a little different. People don’t need diesel mechanics the way they need food. But help is there, and parts are just a DHL shipment away. Many corners of the world are a lot more complicated, and lot slower / more costly, if it’s necessary to source and deliver boat bits. So you may have to wait a bit…there are few places that wouldn’t be lovely to be required to wait around!

Easily connected

We started out by using our existing US T-Mobile plans. T-Mobile’s customer service crowed about the 4G we’d be living in the Bahamas, leveraging the BTC cellular network that’s already in place. Well, there was broad coverage. That’s incredible, really, considering the dispersed islands and thin population. But the service was throttled back to 2G. Fine if you’re just checking email, but really not good enough for what it cost. No problem: swapping our T-Mobile SIM card for a BTC SIM was affordable and easy. $15 for the SIM, and during our stay, 15 gigabytes cost only $35 – much better value than our paused T-Mobile plan and about the cheapest per-GB rate yet.

Social scene

Despite being entirely off pace with the seasonal flow of the Bahamas, the islands lived up to their reputation as a social hub for cruisers. Our timing meant that we experienced it on a smaller scale (George Town peaks with more than 300 boats; there were maybe a dozen transients when we came in). But we were able to meet up with “internet friends” passing on the way to the states, and make new friends who, like us, had plans to point to the Caribbean for hurricane season.

An overdue meetup with the Tookish crew, plus friends

But your draft!

US east coasters in particular seem to make a big deal about shallow Bahamas water limiting access to all but shallow draft boats. Depths require attention, but it is NOT a big deal. Shallower draft boats can anchor closer to the beach. Once in a while they can take a shortcut that we can’t, or skip waiting for higher tide. Repeat: it is not a big deal. We draw 6’; we spent time with a boat drawing 7’, neither of us felt compromised in our anchoring or locked out from cool spots.

Siobhan peeks under Totem’s keel: at times we only had a few inches at low tide

Uncomplicated cruising

The Bahamas was largely a straightforward place to cruise. Same language, much of the same cultural context, it’s safe, there are oodles of blogs and other resources to help plan a trip. Currency is 1:1 with the US dollar, and US currency is accepted everywhere. It really does not get much easier! But I can appreciate that for cruisers who are reaching beyond the US coast for the first time, it may feel …not easy. And of course, it’s Not America, and with that may creep in some uncertainty. The cure for that is the Waterway Guide. Updated annually, it includes exhaustive detail to relieve any worries a new cruiser (or, newly international cruiser) might have from the clearance process (an overall view and details what to do / where to go at each port of entry) to understanding the unique dynamics of the tide in the Bahamas (they have a great description that helped it make perfect sense to me) – along with all that normal logistical guide stuff of places to go, conch shacks to patronize, and reefs to snorkel. It’s the only book you need.

Late-season flock anchored off Monument Beach, George Town

The same folks who think you need shoal draft boats to cruise the Bahamas warn about bad charts and currents and tides and dragons. Dunno about the dragons but just like depth, current/tide merely requires attention. It’s not unduly complicated, but may be new for boaters accustomed to channel markers wherever you might need them and aids to navigation for any hazard. Possibly that’s why the Explorer charts have developed an otherwise puzzling cult following. After being at the receiving end a mountain of FUD, we finally conceded to buy a set. They WERE good charts, but along our winding path from Bimini through the Exumas to Great Inagua, Navionics charts (used with the iNavX app) were pretty much spot on (save a few places where we found more depth than they indicated). And speaking of FUD, that’s what Explorer throws at boaters who just want to anchor. In one anchorage after another Explorer reported bad holding where we set the hook very well, thank you. They also advertise a lot of marinas…

We maxed out the three months we were granted on entry to the Bahamas. What we didn’t max out where the opportunities to explore. Always good to leave something wanting? One aspect is certain: the further away from the US we got, the better we liked the Bahamas. Had our earlier plans not relied on pauses and airports while Jamie and I took care of business, I kinda think we might have tipped over into full-fledged the Bahamas cheerleaders. There were just a few things that held us back, though, and that’s the next post.

Drones-eye-view to the north at Stocking Island, Exumas

from Sailing Totem http://ift.tt/2t82JuE via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Sailing Totem

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sw0lleneyesthefuture · 7 years

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Research

What ideas and inspiration did you get from your research?

From my research, I was inspired to colour block the background and combine different graphic styles. I knew that I wanted a basic style for my illustrations since I’m just a beginner. I was also inspired to try shading and highlights because I wanted to develop my drawing skills instead of just drawing lines and colouring them in with one solid colour.

What ideas and inspiration did you get from the world around you?

I was heavily inspired from the environment around me. My pieces are based off litter on the beach and marine waste and how it affects the marine life and even humans.

How did your research influence the development of your project work?

Finding different photographers who include bight colours and colour schemes in their images inspired my own choices. I didn’t have a particular scheme but I wanted to keep to bright colours.

Do you think you researched widely enough or in enough depth?

I always think I could do more research but I tried to go more in depth this time by adding facts about marine waste and looking into articles.

Concept

What is your work about?

My work is about marine waste and how it affects marine life and how it ends up being consumed in small amounts by humans.

How did your ideas develop and change?

I had a very clear vision in my head about what I wanted to do so not much changed apart from changing colours in my illustrations as I went along. Such as adding gradients and altering the background colours.

How well did the work you produced communicate the ideas behind your project?

I think it communicated the ideas behind my project very well. My message is very clear in my illustrations.

Core Skills

What English and Maths skills did you use/improve with your project work or photography skills?

I’ve used English throughout my blog work when doing research and writing captions for my posts. I used maths when I was finding out my carbon footprint and interpreted my dath that was produced.

Technique

What new techniques (eg. Camera work or photoshop) did you learn/experiment with?

My whole project is full of new techniques. A few examples are stop motion, time lapse, editing in premiere, illustration as a whole and HDR photography.

Did you push yourself to try new things?

I did push myself very hard to try new things.

Character Development

Comment on what you learnt about yourself and where you think you have developed/used your abilities in terms of the categories on the character matrix below:

RESPECT Understand respect (Taking care of others 11) Understand professionalism (Taking care of others 11) COMMUNICATION Understand views and how to contribute (Taking care of yourself 9) DRIVE Understand motivation and engagement Understand barriers and how to overcome them (Taking care of yourself 4) RESPONSIBILITY Understand responsibilities as a person and as a student. (Taking care of yourself 9) Understand personal voice and freedom of speech. (Law and State 1) PEOPLE Understand why we work with others to achieve goals (Employability 6) GRIT Understand pressures and expectations of being a student How to meet deadlines, manage time and understand consequences (Taking care of yourself 4)

Include:

How did the assignment help you develop yourself (e.g. Respect, Communication, People)

The assignment helped me develop my respect because now I am more aware of respecting the environment and how everything I do affects the world around me. I developed my communication because when presented with the brief I had to understand what the client wanted and listen to them and their needs. I understand my responsibilities too. Everything I do I am responsible for, such as littering, not turning lights and electrical devices off, taking transport when I could just walk somewhere. I understand why we work with others to achieve goals. I worked with the devon wildlife trust to produce illustrations about the environment and bring awareness to issues around marine littering. I kept myself under pressure to push myself because if I don’t have any pressure I tend not to do my work to the maximum potential and slack off a bit.

How well did you manage your stress levels?

I managed my stress levels well. I tried to stick to my plan so I wouldn’t go off and do something that wasn’t relevant and waste my time.

How well do you think you did in terms of: meeting deadlines, time management, punctuality, attendance?

I kept to my time plan even though I missed a couple of days but even then I tried to do some research. I’ve met all the deadlines and produced my work for when I needed it.

How much effort did you put into your work?

I put a lot of effort into my illustrations but I will admit that I didn’t put as much effort into my blog but that is because I wanted to be proud of my illustrations since I had never done it before and I am used to doing blog work now so it is becoming more natural and I’m improving it and developing it every project.

Did you take care and pride in the presentation of your work?

I did keep pride and care in the presentation of my work. I always try and keep it to the same format to keep it consistent and clear.

What challenges did you face? how did you overcome them? What did you learn from them?

I only really had two challenges. The first being that my first attempt at a panorama didn’t work because I didn’t take enough photos and they didn’t stitch together smoothly so to overcome this I re-shot in a different location and this time it worked and I learned from my mistakes.

The second challenge was actually choosing the right colours for my first illustration. I changed the colour of the ice cream and in turn the tentacles of the octopus got lost since it blended in so I just coloured it in a differently.

Professionalism

Did you learn anything about how to work professionally in the creative industries from this assignment?

I learned how to take information from a client and follow what they wanted. With the Devon wildlife trust we had a very open brief and only needed to produce something about marine life.

Working With The Brief

How does the work you produced meet the client brief? Did you consider their target audience?

I think my work that I’ve produced does meet the client brief since it is about marine life and waste. I tried to make my work for everyone. It is easily understood and I thought the bright colours would attract everyones eyes.

How does your work promote messages around sustainability?

I chose the devon wildlife trust not regen south west so it doesn’t relate to sustainability but it brings up issues about marine waste and how it affects the animals.

How easy did you find the brief? What were the challenges?

I found the brief very easy since it was extremely open and I could do whatever I wanted basically as long as it fitted with marine life and waste and being awareness to the issues.

Enjoyment/engagement

What aspects of the work did you enjoy/not enjoy?

I enjoyed all of the work since all of this project was experimenting with new techniques. I liked all of the work that was produced.

How well did you engage with the project and what helped you to/prevented you from engaging with the project?

I think this project I was the most engaged with since there was a lot to research and learn about. Nothing stopped me from engaging. I found it very interesting and informal.

High Points and Low Points

Overall, what are you most proud of? What are you least proud of?

I’m most proud of my final images since I put a lot of effort into them. I’d say I’m least proud of my HDR photo since it isn’t that contrasted to me but I can always go back and do it again if I wanted to.

What are the key things you want to work more on next term?

I always think that I can improve on my research. In my eyes I can always do more.

What did the audience think? During your group crit sessions, describe the responses to your work. Discuss what feedback you got, and explain why you agree or disagree with the responses.

See peer review feedback post.

Document how you managed your time on this first project. How would you evaluate your productivity? (eg. Did you produce enough work? Could you have worked faster?). To help you do this:   - Firstly calculate the total hours that you personally spent on this project, and clearly show this on your evaluation.  - Calculate the amount of hours spent on thinking of ideas, researching, and discovering.  - Calculate the amount of hours spent planning, organising your production. - Calculate the amount of hours spent practicing and testing skills, equipment, and software.  - Calculate the amount of hours spent taking pictures. - Calculate the amount of hours on the editing your pictures - Calculate the amount of hours you spent uploading posts to your blog or putting your workbook together. - Calculate how much time the team spent working on the assignment altogether.

Take these figures and work out the percentages for each element. Create a pie chart or similar diagram that accurately represents how much time you spent on these different elements.

Percentages listed above.

How I worked the percentages out. I added the total amount of hours up which totalled to 40 then I did 4 divided by 40 then times that by 100 when was 10%

If you were to charge a client, say, £15 per hour for your time spent working on this project, what would you be charging?

£15 x 40 = £600

4D Evaluation Task 4D Problem Solving Task – Evaluation In order to ensure that you are able to pass unit 7, it is essential that you evaluate your 4D work, answering the following questions:

1) How did you create a 4D piece? By using the time lapse setting on the Nikon D 7200 and taking a photo every 5 seconds on the Nikon D 70 What materials/objects did you use? I photographed moving cars, time lapsed flags moving in the wind and also cars going up and down a street with people walking past. How did you photograph it? Using a Nikon D 90 and a Nikon D 7200 How did you edit it? Premiere Pro CC 2) Evaluate how well you did it Were you influenced by any particular artists or 4D pieces? Tony Plant inspired me in my time lapse and films like wallace and gromit inspired my stop motion. What were the challenges and how did you deal with them (give specific examples)? I didn’t intend to do a stop motion but I had to since I booked out the wrong camera but the outcome was still good. What other ways could you have approached the challenge? I could’ve had a story line to my time lapse/ stop motion instead of a theme.

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carpeomnisgames · 7 years

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In my previous post, I promised that I would write up something about art directing and dealing with freelancers. I’ve got all my illustrations for No Honor Among Thieves at this point, and am in the process of getting things sent to the manufacturer for them to do their part, so I figured now would be a good time to sit back and talk about that, since I have such recent experience with it.

Where Do I Find Freelance Artists?

I am a member of a bunch of different Facebook groups, subreddits, and other forums where new and experienced tabletop designers and publishers can ask questions of each other. One that I see come up very often is some variation of the following: “Where can I find artists to work on my project?”

This is something that I struggled with for a while. At first I tried contacting artists directly based on their DeviantArt profiles, which didn’t really work out. The few artists who bothered to reply to my query emails responded that they were too busy to take on additional work, or asked for more details and then never replied further when I got back to them. I’ve heard that some people have had good results from commissioning artists that they found on DevientArt, but I personally have never had any luck with it.

If you want to do the same thing on a website that is actually composed of concept and game artists looking for work, I would suggest browsing ArtStation rather than DeviantArt. You’re more likely to run into people who are actual professional artists instead of hobbyists.

You don’t really need to search for artists, though. You can get them to come to you very easily by posting a job on freelancer sites like Guru.com or Fiverr — I got great art from artists on both of those sites. Leave the job posting up for a week, and if your post is well written you should get twenty to forty replies from different artists. The aforementioned ArtStation also lets you post jobs, but charges you $150 for each one that you post, which is a bit much for your average indie Kickstarter.

In general, posting jobs and letting people apply will let you find artists much faster than seeking them out yourself.

The Inquisitor, by Florencio Duyar III

How Do I Write the Job Posting?

There are certain elements that you need in the job posting to ensure that you get the sort of artist you’re looking for. The first time I made one of these postings, I got a lot of artists that just weren’t suitable at all for what I needed, and had to spend a lot of time sorting through them. The second time I was much more specific with what I wanted, which saved me a lot of effort.

Describe the style of art that you want, and provide links to examples. Find something on Google Image Search that looks like what you’re going for.

Outline your budget. How much are you willing to pay for illustrations? Mention your maximum cutoff in the initial posting and you won’t spend as much time staring at amazing portfolios wishing you could afford to hire them.

Mention in the post that applicants should provide a link to a portfolio. I know this seems obvious, but if you don’t mention it then sometimes people don’t bother. If they send you an application without a portfolio after you’ve put it in the job posting, then you know that they can’t follow basic written instructions and you probably don’t want to work with them.

Describe the scope of the work. Are you going to be assigning an artist a dozen illustrations? Two? A hundred?

Definitely link to your Kickstarter page or other web presence so that prospective artists can get a better idea of the themes you’re trying to get across with the art.

Include these elements, and you should get a much more focused and specific group of freelancers looking for work.

Bored Guards, by Sheryl Chieng

Which Artist(s) Should I Work With?

The people who respond to your job posting on freelancer websites can usually be broken down into a couple of broad categories.

Design companies with staff, a logo, and a professional proposal. These can range from companies with wildly different skills than what you were looking for that were obviously just going through every new post in the Illustrations category and replying to it with a form letter, to companies that actually look competent and could probably do everything you need them to. I’ve never worked with any of these companies, personally. I like to have a personal relationship with my freelancers, and I like to review a specific person’s portfolio rather than not be sure which artist out of half a dozen at the company I’ll be getting.

Companies and individuals who grossly misunderstood what you are looking for and obviously either misread or ignored the text of the job posting. For example, every time I have posted a new job on one of these sites I have received responses from programmers offering to build websites or apps for me. Sorry, buddy, but that’s not at all what the posting was about.

Individual artists who understood the posting and are ready to work. Those are the people you have to sort through to narrow down who you want to work with.

When you’re sorting your artist applications, you need to answer a couple of questions for each one of them.

Does this artist do good work in the style I’m looking for? Go over their portfolio of previous work and make sure it looks good. Keep an eye out for issues like wonky perspective, mushy shading, and unsettling proportions. Also note any peculiarities of their style. For example, if the pieces in their portfolio are all character art with no backgrounds, don’t expect them to be able to draw landscapes or complicated machinery or anything that isn’t character art with no backgrounds. Also pay attention to their style in general — if you’re looking for realistic drawings and their portfolio is entirely cartoons, that’s probably not someone you want to hire for this job.

Does this artist have any issues communicating in English? Thanks to the Internet, you can work with artists from all over the world, which means you’re going to be talking to a lot of people for whom English is a second language. Usually that’s not a problem, but very occasionally you’ll come across a message from an artist with great work but who you can’t really communicate with. You can still work with those people, but realize that it’s going to be more difficult, and take more time.

How much does this artist charge per illustration? From my experience commissioning card art, prices can range anywhere from $30 per illustration to $200+. In general, my rule is that if an artist charges $60-$100 for a small colored illustration for a card, then that’s an artist to keep on file. If they charge over $100, then you might want to consider only using them for the larger or more important pieces of art. If they charge over $200, you could probably use them if your game doesn’t have that many cards and you’re flush with cash, but otherwise you can find people who will work for cheaper. If your game requires larger pieces of art than cards, be prepared to pay $150 and up, all the way to $400-$600 for covers or boards.

Is this artist reliable? There’s not really any good way of telling this. The freelancer sites tend to let employers review freelancers and vice-versa, so you can sometimes go off of those, but the best way to tell if someone is reliable or not is to work with them. I like to assign one or two small pieces to an artist before working with them more extensively, to see how fast they work and how reliably they deliver, but even with the best people sometimes things come up unexpectedly. Over the course of getting illustrations for No Honor Among Thieves I had multiple artists get sick, one hard drive crash, and one poor guy who had his apartment flood while he was trying to work on my art. The best way I can say to build up reliability is to have a stable of artists that you know and can work with, and know who is fast enough that you could potentially sub them in if another artist becomes unable to complete their work.

If you want to have only one artist illustrating your game, obviously that approach won’t work. In that case, you’ll have to be extra careful when coming up with that initial relationship. I cannot stress enough the importance of working with your artists ahead of time if you’re able. You need to know how long they will take to complete illustrations, how much instruction they need and if they can follow instructions given. You need to know if they will communicate when things go wrong, and you need to know that they’re good for the work. Even then, be sure to build in an extra month (at least!) to your illustration schedule, just in case something goes wrong. Because something will go wrong. That’s life.

Paranoia, by Chyi Ming Lee

How Do I Pay My Artists?

Never, ever, pay in advance. Unless you know the artist personally, have worked with them many times before, and are willing to never see that money again if worse comes to worst. I made this mistake once, and then never again.

Escrow is your friend. If you don’t want to figure out an escrow service (some of the freelancer sites, such as Guru.com, offer them for free — read through the documentation of the sites you decide to use) then I suggest a simple half now, half later approach.

You may want to come up with a freelancer contract for your artists to sign, especially if you’re heavily working with one in particular or aren’t working through a freelancer site with its own contract built-in. You can find basic templates for this sort of thing all over the internet. Pick and choose the language you want to use. What you want is a work-for-hire agreement, unless you’ve decided to split profits with your artist, in which case you should probably consult a lawyer instead of asking the opinion of a part-time game designer offering anecdotal advice.

The Sponsor, by Ahmad Said

Conclusion

I think that covers most everything. Remember to check in with your artists if you haven’t heard from them in a while just in case something’s gone wrong, get them to keep you updated with sketches and the like so you know how things are progressing and can make changes when it would be easy to make them, and always be polite and understanding. Treating people with respect and courtesy goes a long way towards getting good work done.

If you have any questions about any aspect of hiring and working with artists, please feel free to ask in the comments. I don’t have experience with profit sharing agreements and the like, so I can’t offer advice on that, but I have worked with a dozen or so different artists over the course of this project, and I think I’ve gotten the hang of it at this point. Hopefully this is helpful to someone.

The post Post-Kickstarter Work: Art Directing appeared first on Carpe Omnis.

#Carpe Omnis Games #No Honor Among Thieves

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