A quick word about my previous posts

1. "Adult Parties and Why I Hate Them":  I went to another adult party yesterday.  After reading The Catcher in the Rye, I know exactly how to describe the way I feel.  They are all PHONIES.  I cannot stand it.  I do not want to become that.  I resent the phoniness.  Yet it somehow feels as if there is no way to become an adult without embracing the phoniness.  I really feel like Holden.  I do not want to be a child, but I do not want to be a phony.  Why are sincerity and sensitivity childish?
2. "Music that I Like": The Hobbit soundtrack.  Radagast the Brown, The Hidden Valley, and The Adventure Begins are some good tracks.  Also, the Game of Thrones main theme is ear candy.
3. "My Dog": I look back on that post with a sad sort of irony.
4. "Rowing Crew: Parts 1,2, & 3": Wow, those posts were long.  They're where I got a lot of my views.  Apparently people are quite interested in how rowing works.  Maybe that's because it doesn't get a lot of coverage in the mainstream media.  Hmm.  There was a Mythbusters episode featuring crew, though!  They were testing if you could waterski behind an eight.  Spoiler: you can!
5. "Sexism in the Media": I would really love to delve into feminism in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.  It takes place in a very sexist setting, but there are so many strong female characters in so many different roles.  (Can you say Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, Catelyn Stark, the Sand Snakes, Cersei Lannister, and especially DAENERYS TARGARYEN, Daenerys Stormborn, Khaleesi of the Dothraki, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons?) It makes me really happy and I highly recommend the series.  You know what?  I'm going to do a post about just Daenerys next week.  Just because I can and just because she is so awesome.
6. "High School is Awful": This continues to be a true statement.  I am so done with school.  I cannot wait for summer break.
7. "Homestuck": To clarify, the goal of the game is to create a new universe by breeding the Genesis Frog.  Defeating the denizen is necessary to advance to the seventh gate, and advancing to the seventh gate and Skaia is necessary to defeat the Black King & Queen, who are bent on destroying the Genesis Frog.  Reaching godtier is not necessarily a goal of the game but is highly useful.  Also, a warning: Homophobes beware Homestuck.  The most successful ship right now is two girls, one troll and one human.  (Rose/Kanaya <3 OTP) Troll culture does not even have a word for homosexuality.
8. "Cosplay for Those Who've Never Heard the Word": There are so many great cosplays out there, and people love to post pictures of themselves in their cosplays.  Is there a character you like?  Chances are there's a cosplay of that character out there somewhere.  Google it.  Also, if you like cosplaying, I encourage you to try roleplaying.  It sounds dumb and so stereotypically nerdy but it's basically just improv acting, and if you can find other people to roleplay with, that makes it so much fun.
9. "The Castle: A Fairy Tale": Sorry, but I probably won't post the ending to this.  I'm sort of taking it in a direction that I do not think is appropriate for this blog.  If you want to take this idea and run with it in your own direction, go ahead! Just let me know in a comment or something.
10. "Shakespeare Wrote the Best Romantic Comedies": Still true.  Though as a second best, there's a trailer out there for a (nonexistent) retelling of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as a romantic comedy and it's pretty hilarious. Mostly it's hilarious because that book was the most romcom-like of all the Harry Potter books.

I hope some or all of that was useful or interesting.

Next week I fangirl about Daenerys Targaryen because KHALEESI.

Shakespeare Wrote the Best Romantic Comedies

Shakespeare.  Everyone thinks Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, the Globe Theater, stuffy old language and boring English classes.

It may or may not be news to you, but Shakespeare's comedies were basically these hilarious, low-brow humor, complicated romantic comedies like you see commercials for on television now.  The nurse in Romeo & Juliet practically only says things that have a double entendre, and the trope "comedy of errors"? A Comedy of Errors was one of Shakespeare's plays.

There's a reason modern adaptations of Shakespeare plays like She's the Man (Twelfth Night) are so popular.  He's hilarious.

I think Midsummer Night's Dream takes the cake though.  Four teens, two boys and two girls, get lost in a forest, magic gets involved, and we get shenanigans.  There are fairies and a really bad acting troupe It starts out that both of the boys like Hermia, and Helena likes the boy who Hermia doesn't.  But then, due to Puck's mistake, the boys then like the girls who don't like them back.  Then, both of the boys like Helena!  Then finally, both boys like the girls who like them back and everyone is happy and the four get a triple wedding with the Duke and his betrothed, and everyone watches a parody of Romeo & Juliet.  Everyone is happy.  The end.

Can we have a modern Midsummer Night's Dream?  That is pretty much the only romantic comedy I would actually want to see.  Get on that, Hollywood.

CAP Hollywood Weekly Reflection Again

I finished our movie poster this week.  I am bringing home the microphone today for my dad to record voiceovers again.  Vu and Leila have been working tirelessly at editing.  I think this project could pull together in time.

Well, I thought that, before someone made the call that our audio is not on par for CAP Hollywood.  Now I'm sort of resigned to the fact that our film is barely going to scrape by.  I stand by my former statement: there was simply not enough time.

I need to get the microphone so my Dad can record the voiceovers.  Other than that, I am not able to do much.  I am not an editor for this project.

Reflection: CAP Hollywood

To be frank, I am nervous about my CAP Hollywood film. We started filming late. We do not have the best quality footage that we could have. My dad, who plays the main character, has no background in acting. The voiceovers that he did, which were good, were lost on Mr. Mayo's microphone. Props, sets, and costumes switched around during the course of filming, and we still had not finished casting by the time we started filming.

This could have all been mitigated or avoided completely if we simply had enough time.

We have had less than two months to do all of CAP Hollywood, from scripting to the public showing. Yes, we did a 60-second film in five days. But that was held to a far lower standard of quality than CAP Hollywood is. The 60-second film took a day to write and storyboard. We could write the script to have only teenage characters and take place in places which we could film at school. We filmed on the school cameras and built the script around the object we had to include.

CAP Hollywood is based on our short stories, which we wrote in English Class. Yes, we could have written our short stories to be better for filming, but the stories Ms. Fillman picked for us to choose between were very centered around adults and took place in somewhat hard-to-film settings.

We had to adapt a short story into a screenplay, storyboard it, cast it, film it, and create a movie poster for it in about a month. It just isn't realistic.

I realize that the dates are not moving. I simply would like to say that we did the best we could with what we had. Our editors are doing the best they can with what they have. We are making the most of our time. We will have a finished product in time, but finished does not mean perfect.

In better news, this week I worked on the movie poster and it looks good. Our group members have had access to multiple computers and are collecting music and such for the film. We do not need lots of complicated editing or special effects, and this week our editors have been churning out a nice rough cut.

Over all, I am just worried about time and the quality of our footage. But honestly, I am not expecting an award, nor do I really want one. Hopefully we can finish this film with minimal hiccups, and I can watch the other films and then forget about this whole ridiculous project.

The Castle: A Fairy Tale

[There sat an elephantine stone castle within a deep forest.  It could be any forest on Earth, but you could never know it was the right one until you were already deep within and could hear the voice.

Not a plurality of voices, merely one, always hitherto unknown by the observer and defying classification.  It has neither gender nor accent, nor even a language.  Each person to find the castle hears a different voice, and reacts according to their personality, but their reactions always lead them to the same outcome.]

Eve was on a hike.  She enjoyed hiking in different forests, and saved up her money each month for a plane ticket to another wood somewhere in the world.  She loved the way each forest was different, but still teemed with life and sound.  There was no music Eve loved better than that of the forest.

She was walking in a temperate woodland forest sometime in May when she noticed the leaves getting thicker.  Not the ratio of leaves to space between her and the sun, but the thickness of each individual leaf on each tree she passed.  The further she walked, the darker the forest became.  She decided to turn back.

Of course, like any person hiking in the woods in a fairy tale when it starts to get dark, Eve became lost.  She followed the path forward and backward, but either way she went she returned to the same point.  She decided to sit down there, regain her bearings, and set off again when she was calmer.  She was no stranger to losing her way, but had always managed to find her way home.

She had just pulled out a map when she heard a voice through the trees.  It sounded as if it was coming just out of earshot.  She decided to find the person and ask for directions.  At the very least, it was safer to walk with someone else in the dark.

As she walked toward the voice, she tried to place it.  She was sure she'd never heard the voice before, but there was something familiar about it all the same.  She continued to walk towards it.  Perhaps the owner of the voice was related to someone she knew.  She was still trying to place a gender for the voice when she stumbled across a clearing.  She'd been so lost in thought that she'd forgotten to watch where she was going.  Realizing how dangerous that could have been, she almost did not process what she saw when her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight in the glade.

There stood an enormous stone castle, weather-worn and covered in ivy.  Its ancient, stolid foundation held firm, but here and there parts of the battlements crumbled.  The voice seemed to be coming from one of a few towers, which unlike the battlements seemed unfazed by the passage of time.

There were etchings and markings all along the exterior wall at eye level.  Deciding that the voice could probably wait just a few more moments, Eve read the first one she could see, scratched on in permanent marker:

Turn back.

To be continued...

Cosplay for Those Who've Never Heard the Word

It's a stereotype of the utter nerd.

At a convention, abbreviated "Con," super geeks wear homemade costumes to look like their favorite characters and sometimes act like the character they're dressed as.  Pop culture has made fun of these people, often teens or grown adults made to look childish for "playing dress-up."

Let me tell you about cosplay.

Cosplay is the lingo for the phenomenon of making and wearing a costume based on a fictional character.  If you ever made your own costume of a fictional character for Halloween, you were cosplaying.  Usually, though, cosplay refers to costumes worn at conventions or for photoshoots.  A cosplay can be of any character, or even an item, from a fictional work.  Some people cosplay real people, but this can be hard to pull off.

Cosplay, like fan art, fan fiction, fan music, and other fan works, is an expression of creativity from the fan base (sometimes called "fandom") of a work of fiction.  It takes enormous creative talent, patience, and skill to create a good cosplay.  There are varying degrees of quality cosplays, and some are more expensive than others, but all of them express a love for the work and (usually) the character.

The word cosplay can mean many things.  It can be a noun, meaning a costume of a character ("I'm working on a cosplay!") or the person wearing it while doing so (though usually an -er is added to the end, i.e. "That's a talented cosplayer.").  It can be a verb, meaning the act of wearing the costume around ("I'm cosplaying this weekend at Comiccon.").  When specifying the character, the phrase could be "cosplaying [character name]" or "cosplaying as [character name]."

I am somewhat new to cosplaying, but I did create a cosplay that I wore to Katsucon in February.  It was of the character Avatar Yangchen from the TV Show Avatar: the Last Airbender.  My facebook profile picture is me in a Doctor Who cosplay.

This is Avatar Yangchen.

This is me as Avatar Yangchen.

This is the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who.

This is him with a fez.

This is me as the Eleventh Doctor.

So as you can see, cosplaying is a fun and creative activity and anyone can do it.

Go forth and cosplay!

Rowing Crew: Part 3

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.

The alarm clock glows blue with the ungodly numbers 5:30.  It's time to get up.  It's a Saturday or Sunday morning, and while most of your friends may be asleep for the next few hours, you stand up.  Today is a regatta.  This is a day you've been training for since the beginning of the season.

You walk to your dresser and pull out a racing tank with the team logo on it and a pair of spandex shorts.  It's cold this morning, so you throw on your windbreaker with the team name blazoned across the back and your team sweatpants over your racing gear.  A pair of clean socks and your old, worn sneakers cover your feet.

In a drawstring bag, you bring a blanket, sunscreen, sunglasses, a water bottle, and some homework that you probably won't get around to doing.  You bring it anyway.

Your hair is up in a ponytail or bun, if you have long hair. You put your iPod and cell phone in your front jacket pocket and grab the lightest of breakfasts.  There will be more food once you get there.

A parent drives you to the regatta at some river or another.  The sun has only recently come up, and it is cold and windy.  You walk to the team tent and drop off your stuff, then head to the trailer to unload and rig the boats.

After a nerve-wracking episode in which the heaviest boat almost fell off from the top rack, and after fifteen minutes of scurrying around with a 7/16" wrench fastening all the riggers to the boats, the team heads back to the tents.  The waiting begins.

Everyone brought blankets.  People cuddle and snuggle in a great pile under the shelter of the wall-less tent.  Some nap.  Some discuss the races.  You halfheartedly take out your homework, but you don't really want to work on that right now.  Strange conversations are struck up.  A boat's worth of rowers gets up to row in the first race.  You cheer them on as they walk off, then go back to your conversation.

About a half-hour later, a parent or coach or someone will announce that the boat that left earlier is racing.  You and the rest of the team go down to the edge of the river to watch.

The river is a broad expanse of choppy water, marked here and there by a buoy or two.  Four long, spidery boats propel themselves downriver towards you at maximum speed, oars turning and pushing together in one single stroke, then coming up for another in another two seconds or less.  The oars occasionally skim the water.  Oarlocks clack as one entity per boat.  The coxswains are yelling unintelligibly at their rowers.  The boat from your team is in second place.  Your team strikes up a cheer: One, two, BLAIR CREW!  One, two, BLAIR CREW!  The boat passes the finish line in second place.  Not bad.  As the coxswain tells them to relax, even from the river's edge you can see them slump.  A race takes a lot out of a rower.

You walk back to the tent for more huddling under blankets.  It's less than two hours before your race, so you're not allowed to eat any of the delicious food on the tables next to you.  Wait until after your race, when you're hungrier and you've earned it.

A little less than an hour before your race, the coach calls your boat to go get ready to race.  You peel off your jacket and sweatpants, make sure you've had an adequate cover of sunscreen, and jog to where the boats wait in slings.  You check your heel ties, your oarlock height, your shoe stretcher distance.  The rowers and coxswain of your boat go in for a team huddle.  The coxswain or stroke seat gives a motivational speech.  You go over your strategies for power tens, when the sprint will start, and what the coxswain should say.  Finally, everyone walks to the boat and, under the coxswain's command, walks the boat to the dock.

Docking is even faster than usual.  To minimize extra weight in the boat, no one brings water bottles.  A parent grabs shoes and puts them in a bag to await rowers upon their return.  Once everyone's ready, you sit in the boat and push off.  Bow pair rows away from the dock to make room for the next boat.  You practice drills and show off for the other teams on the way up to the starting line, perhaps stopping and practicing your racing starts.  Finally, an official calls the coxswain and directs them to the correct lane.

Your stomach is in knots.  Your adrenaline is pumping.  You're at the three-quarters slide, ready to go right into the start.  Your eyes are in front of you, and your ears are tuned for the two magic words.  This is it.

"Attention...
"Row!"

The coxswain's voice takes over your mind.  "Three quarters!  Half!  Three quarters!  Full!  Full!  POWER TEN!  ONE... TWO... THREE... FOUR.. FIVE... SIX.. SEVEN... EIGHT... NINE... TEN... LENGTHEN TEN!  ONE... TWO..."

There is nothing but you, your fellow rowers, the coxswain's voice, and your oars pulling through the water.  You push as hard as you can with your legs, your arms, your back, your abs.  Everything counts.  You focus on keeping the boat set - catching a crab could pull you to last place.  You push off your foot stretchers, pull with your body, keep in time with stroke seat and your pair partner.

The initial adrenaline wears off.  You are more aware of the boats to either side of you, but you dare not look.  The coxswain calls out their locations relative you your boat, and that is not good enough, but you make do.  You have to keep up maximum power without draining yourself too much.  You have to save something for the sprint.

The race continues for three more minutes like this, at thirty strokes per minute.  Someone behind you is grunting with pain and exertion.  You are internally screaming.

Then you reach the last quarter of the race.  The coxswain tells you to prepare for the sprint.  While a quarter of your brain is shouting in alarm and another quarter gives up, the remaining half reminds you to perfect your technique, sit up straight, breathe properly.  You have to leave the other teams behind in the sprint.

The coxswain calls the sprint.  She yells and yells and yells, reminding all the rowers of everything they're doing, right and wrong, and reporting the location of the other boats.  You leave everything behind here, pulling as hard as your muscles will let you.

Your brain quietly informs your body that you are going to die.  Your heart screams back, "SO F***ING WHAT?"

You see a boat pull forward out of your peripheral vision.  Oh hell no.  You add an extra burst of speed.  Luckily, so does the rest of the boat, and you pull forward just in time.

You cross the finish line.

"And, paddle!"

There is no paddling.  There is only slouching on the oars, gasping for breath and wishing for water.  What place did we come in?  Second, the coxswain says.  Second is fine.  You'll take second.  But you still berate yourself, because you could have made first.

An exhausted boat steers around towards the dock.  You call "good race" to a neighboring boat, in which all the rowers look as tired as you feel.  Someone calls the same back to you, managing a smile.  Finally, you pull in against the dock, with enough energy gained from the brief rest to roll the boat over your head and walk it back to the slings.

You walk to the tent and stuff your face with water and food.  You drape a blanket over your shoulders and eat.  You've done well today.  It's all easy going from here.

The rest of the boats race.  The girls' varsity eight wins their heat.  Of course they do.

The regatta winds down.  You walk around, maybe buy the official regatta t-shirt.  You de-rig and load the boats onto the trailer.  You'll rig them again at practice on Monday.  For now, you can go home.

You say good-bye to your friends and head to the car with your parent.  It's been a good day overall.  You're probably sunburned, but who cares?  You had fun.

In the end, that's what keeps you coming back the next week and the next, to different boathouses on different rivers in different cities.  You had fun.

You can't wait for next week.

Homestuck

Upon reading the title of this post, it is likely that you had one of three reactions:

1. What?
2. You read Homestuck too?  Awesome!  I can't wait to read this post!
3. Oh god no.

Depending on which reaction you had, I can probably determine the following about you:

1. You haven't heard of Homestuck.  You probably don't spend a lot of time on Tumblr or other fandom-related internet sites, and probably don't have a lot of friends who do.
2. You've read at least some of Homestuck, are a fan, and will enjoy this post because of that perspective on it.
3. You've heard of Homestuck but haven't read [much of] it.  You probably spend time on Tumblr, on other fandom-heavy sites, or around a friend who likes Homestuck.  Perhaps you read part of Act 1 but couldn't get into it.  It either bores you or scares you.  Or maybe that's the fandom that scares you.

Allow me to explain.

Homestuck is a webcomic, one of four on the website mspaintadventures.com.  It is by far the longest, and is much more controlled by the creator, Andrew Hussie, than the others.

The MS Paint Adventures page summarizes Homestuck as "A boy and his friends and a game they play together."  This is a gross oversimplification of the entire thing, but I will use it as a starting point.

The boy in this sentence is John Egbert, 13 years old at the beginning of the comic.  His friends at the beginning of the comic are three in number and also 13 in age: Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley.    The game in question is Sburb, an immersive reality simulation game for multiple players.

Sburb is basically the point of the whole comic, so I will explain it a bit more.  Skip this bit if you aren't too interested in the comic.  I'll tell you where to rejoin.

Sburb allows players to physically manipulate the real world through the medium of a computer interface; a server player can move things in a client player's house by clicking and moving the object on the screen.  The game brings about the end of the world by summoning meteors that crash into Earth, including into the players' homes.  The only way to avoid death by meteor is to create and interact with an item that brings the player's house and everyone and -thing into the world of the game, called The Incipisphere.  There is a slightly different Incipisphere for every group of players.

Sburb is a multi-player game by nature.  Each player is server and client, in a chain.  Rose is John's server player, Dave is Rose's server player, Jade is Dave's server player and John is Jade's server player.  (This is introduced far more gradually in the comic and is therefore much easier to understand there).  The interdependence in the game is furthered by The Battlefield's gaining complexity.  Nothing happens unless at least two players join the game.

*[Didn't care to read? Join back in here]*

Basically, Sburb is an extremely high-stakes video game that takes place in its own galaxy that players get teleported into.

It brings about the end of the world.

It also brings about a new one.

The goals of the game are:

• Reach Skaia by alchemizing and building until entering the seventh gate.
• Defeat your planet's denizen, an extremely dangerous monster.
• Reach Godtier, an elite tier of levels that gives special powers based on the player's personality.
• Breed the Genesis frog, which creates a new universe.

Yes, that’s right.  A new universe.  There is a plurality of universes in Homestuck.  And in the most famous aspect of the comic, the players whose Sburb (well, Sgrub to them) session produced our universe live in an alternate universe, on a planet called Alternia. 

The Alternians, more commonly known as Trolls, are very similar to humans in many respects; they are humanoid with grey skin, orange and yellow horns, and yellow eyes.  They wear black t-shirts with a zodiac sign in their blood color.  

There are twelve blood colors on Alternia, which create corresponding castes of their society.  Low bloods are rust, bronze, and gold; mid-bloods are greens and blues; high bloods are blues and purples.  Fuschia is the color of the highest class, consisting of two trolls: the empress and her heiress.  The trolls type in their blood color and each have a typing quirk that identifies them.

hell0 my name is aradia and everything is pointless

uM, hI MY NAME IS tAVROS.  i, uH, tHINK MAYBE THAT’S NOT TRUE,

‘2up lo2er2 my name ii2 2ollux and ii have a lii2p.

MY NAME IS KARKAT AND I HAVE MUTANT BLOOD SO I TYPE IN GREY TO HIDE IT.

:33 < *tacklepounce!* my name is nepeta and i love cats!

Hello Humans My Name Is Kanaya And I Am The Only Sane Troll.

MY N4M3 1S T3R3Z1 4ND 1 TYP3 L1K3 TH1S 1’M BL1ND

Hey I’m Vriska and I am 8l8antly evil ::::D

D --> I am Equius and I am e%tremely STRONG.

HeLlO bRo ThIs Is GaMzEe

wwhatevver, my name’s eridan and i’m a hipster

)(ello I’m Feferi and I G-ET R-EALLY --EXCIT--ED ----EASILY!

The trolls can communicate with the humans using a chat client that lets them chat at any point on the kids’ timelines, leading to awkward non-linear conversations.  At first the kids think they are trolls in the internet sense of the word, and ignore them.

If you’ve spent much time on the internet you’ve probably seen a Homestuck troll in some form or another.

Thanks to complicated ectobiology, and a reset function that resets the game and the universe, there is another set of twelve trolls and four humans, and all of the involved members of each species are mutual mixed clones of each other, but that’s far enough in the plot (and complicated enough) that I don’t really need to go into that.

This is a fan art of the eight humans. Top row, left to right: John, Jane, Rose, Roxy, Jade, Jake, Dave, and Dirk.  The four with black hair are all clones of each other, and the four with blonde hair are all clones of each other, as demonstrated by the following diagram of the four with blonde hair.

So basically, they're all just different combinations of the same four half-sets of genes.  Confusing? Yes.

Don't even talk about the other set of twelve trolls.  I'm just not going there.

So what’s all the fuss about?  After all, this is just some comic online about a bunch of kids and aliens who play a video game.  What’s so special about it?

Many things. 

For one, Homestuck is produced in a medium almost completely unprecedented: each panel is fairly large, has its own page on the site, and sometimes is animated.  Occasionally, flash movies and games appear, making Homestuck quite a mixed medium. 

Another thing that makes it so special is that it is influenced by the fans in a way few other comics are.  Andrew Hussie has stated that he takes much of his inspiration from the fan works out there – and there are many.  Fans of Homestuck have expressed their love for the comic in writing, music, and art based on its characters and world.  There is an entire Bandcamp page dedicated to Homestuck music, much of which is fan-created; many fans create a fantroll character with its own symbol and horn shape; Homestuck fanfiction in varying degrees of quality clogs fanfiction websites.

What scares many prospective readers is the shipping.  If you don’t know what shipping is, basically it’s when a fan wants two characters to be together romantically.

Troll romance comes in four forms: what we think of as “romance,” [matespritship], plus a sort of passionate rivalry [kismesissitude], a romance that is more involved in emotional stability than procreation [moiraillegiance], and a mediating role that involves a third person stabilizing two people in a passionate rivalry [auspisticism].  The four are represented by the four card suits, as shown below.

Having a relationship in one of these “quadrants” does not keep a troll from having one in another, and many prospective fans dislike this and the hate-romance aspect.  But mostly prospective fans are scared by what fans do with these new possibilities in shipping.

So here I repeat: you do not have to be part of the Homestuck Fandom to be a Homestuck fan.  Nor do a few crazy fans represent a whole fandom.

In fact, the Homestuck fandom is one of the most creative out there.  They are renowned for their speed in making costumes related to the comic.

This outfit first appeared in the comic on a Saturday morning.  The next day, this person showed up at a convention wearing it.  Homestucks are the fastest cosplayers alive.

So in short: Homestuck is a little scary, but it's fantastically creative, fan-influenced, thoughtful, funny, groundbreaking, and generally awesome.  You should read it.

Started reading it, but got confused? Any questions concerning Homestuck? Comment below! I'll be happy to put any confusion to rest.

Short Film Marathon Assignment

I will update this post with every short film posted.

"Hunting"

1.  In "Hunting," the main character changes after his father says he'll be back later than planned.  In this last scene, the formerly pacifist main character asks his brother for a chance to shoot the deer.  When the brother stops him from shooting it, a tense moment follows where the two brothers have switched places and the older brother fails to comfort the younger.  The camera angles and dialogue mirror those of the scene in the beginning where the inverse happened.  The actors' expression as well as the mirrored elements communicate the change in relationship between them.  

"The Black Hole"

1. When the man is eating the Snickers bar, his mind changes.  The theft of the candy bar has opened his mind to larger-scale thefts using his new black hole.  This is signaled by an increase in the volume level.
2. The black hole has its own sound effect because it is essentially its own character.  Its influence changes the main character, eventually leading him to his death.  Every time he uses the Black Hole, it changes him a little, and this is signified by the little noise it makes.

"The Man at the Counter"

1. The use of narration in "The Man at the Counter" makes the story much more personal, as it is told from the first-person perspective of the main character.
2. A teenage boy works at a coffee shop but doesn't find much meaning in his life.  One day an old man walks in and orders a plain coffee, winks, leaves a tip, and takes several sugar packets on his way out.  The same exact thing happens several days in a row.  Eventually, when asked, the old man says that his wife of 50 years is sick and wants something sweet.  He doesn't show up again.  Two weeks later he appears in the obituaries, and in the description it says that he died two weeks after his wife.  At the coffee shop the next day, the main character sees a happy couple.  In the very last shot, the boy is older and is proposing to his girlfriend, telling this story to her to express that his love for her is like the old man's love for his wife.

It's been a rough week, sorry this is late

I'm going to say this before you get a chance to go further: this will be a pretty depressing post.  If you're browsing through CAP blogs, looking for something frivolous to make fun of, this is not the post you want to read.  Only go further if you are ok with some seriously depressing stuff.

That said, my dog died on Wednesday.

She was diagnosed with epilepsy around a year and a half ago.  It seemed like a relatively mild case, it was only barely bad enough to require medication at all, and most dogs in similar situations live to their full lifespans and die of natural causes.  If only Tybee could have been so lucky.

She ran off around the neighborhood last Sunday evening.  Starting that night, she had longer, worse seizures with less time interval between them, until she spent Tuesday night at the overnight vet on meds and IVs, unconscious because if she'd been conscious she'd be having seizures.  That night or early Wednesday morning, I don't know which, my parents and the vets called it: she'd need to be put down. My parents told me when I got downstairs that morning.  She was put to sleep while I was at school, sometime in the morning.

For anyone who saw me on Wednesday, it was pretty apparent that something was wrong.  I stumbled around dazedly, clutching a travel mug of hot tea and looking for friends to tell the sad news.  I told someone on crew to tell the coach I wouldn't be at practice; I told a teacher as heads-up in case I started crying in her class; I found a couple of friends and told them.

That was Wednesday.  Today is Monday.

These blog posts are technically due Sunday evenings but I've had other things on my mind.

This morning I woke up and wished I could have a "canine wake up call," as we called it.
I put on my jacket when I was getting dressed and found a few dog hairs on it.
I opened the fridge and half-expected to see her begging at it when I shut the door.
I sat at the table and imagined a nose sticking out from under it.
I went down to the basement and saw where we put all of her stuff.
I don't even remember the car ride to school.
I found another dog hair on my jacket in class.
I wiped another one off my phone at lunch.

People keep asking me if I'm ok, and I don't entirely know how to respond.  This week has been the longest and saddest that I can remember.

So, sorry if I seem unresponsive at school.  I guess I'm just still in shock.

High School Is Awful

Let me tell you my typical schedule during crew season.

5:30-5:45:  I wake up.
6:15: My bus comes to the nearby elementary school to pick me up.
7:10: I arrive at school.
7:25: School starts.
3:00: School is over.  I go to the crew bus, which takes the team to the Anacostia River for practice.
3:30: I arrive at the Anacostia River.
7:00: Practice is over.  I get on the bus again, which takes the team back to Blair.
7:30: I arrive at Blair.  One of my parents drives me home.
7:45: I arrive home.  I was away from home for 13.5 hours straight (which usually includes all hours of daylight that day), and have been awake for 14.  I eat dinner and start my homework.  My sisters already walked the dog while I was at practice, so I don't have to worry about that today.

8:30-8:45: The time I would need to go to sleep in order to get the recommended 9 hours of sleep.

That would leave me with 1 hour per night for homework.  I have 8 classes, 5 per day (2 are every day), and only two consistently don't give homework.  I can do about one class worth of homework at every lunch period, leaving (on average) 3 classes' worth of homework per night, plus eating dinner, in one hour.  That also means that I would have to do nothing but homework - no Facebook, no email, no television, no family time, no going out to dinner, no hanging out with friends, no extra anything.  My free time is crew.

Needless to say, this doesn't happen.  I rarely if ever go to sleep before midnight, let alone before 9.  That means that I rarely if ever get 6 hours of sleep.


I have a lot of feelings about how unfair this is.  To express them, have some reaction gifs.

(This may or may not be an excuse to show off part of my collection of reaction gifs.  Thanks Tumblr.  The gifs are from, in order: Avatar: the Last Airbender x2, Doctor Who, The Legend of Korra, Lilo & Stitch, The Big Bang Theory, BBC Sherlock, and Top Gear.)

Anyway, I basically have no time ever, I'm constantly tired, I often don't do all of my homework, and I rarely ever see my friends outside of school.  When I do, I don't know what to talk about because school is boring, they don't care about crew, and I don't really do a whole lot else.

In light of the whole thing about school starting times, I have this much to say: it doesn't matter.  Whether we push it forward an hour or back an hour, it will still be the same amount of time.  We still won't have enough hours in the day.  What we need is less homework or fewer hours a day in school.

The fact is, athletes can't be good students and get enough sleep.  Between exercise, good grades, and enough sleep, high school students have to pick two - and that's not even considering a social life.

TL;DR: It is pretty much impossible to be healthy and a good student.

Binocular Kid

This was my group's 60-second film project.

Springs of Silver

I grew up in Silver Spring.  I was brought home from the hospital at three days old to the house I live in now, and that house's address has always contained the phrase "Silver Spring, MD."

The thing is, how does one describe a nebulous, inconsistent suburban sprawl in ninety seconds?  How does anyone define a town?  By its people, of course.

So I set out to film little impromptu interviews over the course of my typical day at school.

The result is this fun little assembly of natural dialogue, laughter, and B-roll.  The ending's a little cheesy, but whatever.


This was a fun one to film.  This is the first independent video assignment since I got my new Droid for Christmas, so it's been fun to have my camera in my pocket all the time.  This makes media class 500% better.

And like last time, the use of my father's Mac allowed me to use one of Apple's superior editing softwares.  iMovie isn't nearly as good as FCP, but it sure beats whatever the muffins YouTube thinks it can call editing software.

I learned from last time and didn't even bother with ccmixter.  I went straight to the free music archive and found this fun little song to play in the background.

I enjoyed messing around with the audio, choosing whether or not to keep the diagetic sound.  The levels were hard to get equal but wwhatevver.

The hardest part about this project was whittling down what I wanted to be my final product in order to meet the 90-second limit.  I would have loved to keep it where it was when it was 1:48 long, but alas, that did not meet the guidelines for the project.

In the end, I narrowly got it into the margin of acceptability, and voila!  Video.

Alice in Wonderland: Character Parallels and Excellent Music

It's been two and a half years since Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film adaptation came out, so this may seem a bit out of place.  I think about the randomest things, and while I was thinking about this during this week, I decided to write a blog post about it.


First, a recap for those who didn't see it.  MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven't seen it.  For my purposes, I'll be focusing more on characters than plot, but still.

The movie begins in late 19th century London, as Alice's father discusses a risky trade move with his business partners, but leaves to comfort Alice after she has one of her recurring dreams of the classic Alice in Wonderland adventures: falling down a rabbit hole, the white rabbit, and such.  He comforts her worries of madness with "I'm afraid so.  Mad.  Bonkers.  'Round the bend.  But I'll tell you a secret: all the best people are."  He started the "believe in six impossible things before breakfast" theme.

Fast-forward ten years, and Alice is a teen with a rebellious attitude ("What if it were agreed that 'proper' meant wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it?" "Alice..." "To me, a corset is like a codfish.").  Her father died during the interval.  Her mother conforms to societal norms and wants Alice to do the same, but loves Alice more than most.

Alice and her mother arrive at a party, where a middle-aged couple greet them.  The wife, Lady Ascot, an aggressive, controlling socialite, hates rabbits and despises the idea of ugly grandchildren.  The husband, Lord Ascot, was an old associate of Alice's father's and is far kindlier.

Twin girls at the party, last name Chattaway, spoil to Alice that the party is Alice's engagement party; the couple's unpleasant son, Hamish, will ask for her hand.  Alice's sister walks in, scolds the two for spoiling the surprise, and walks off, explaining to Alice that "Your life will be perfect.  It's already decided!"  A little while later, Alice walks in on her sister's husband, Lowell, kissing some girl behind a hedge.  He sweet-talks his way away, but Alice is unimpressed.  

The only remaining important characters before Wonderland are Hamish and Aunt Imogen.  Hamish is the son of the couple and heir to the title of Lord Ascot.  Hamish is spoiled, almost stupidly conformist, and missing on many social cues.  Aunt Imogen is an old maid, and when we see her she talks of her delusion that she's engaged to a prince.

That's all the "normal-life" characters.  

Follow the White Rabbit!  Does anyone else love the music that starts at 0:50?

The Wonderland characters are more well-known and need less introduction, so I'll use bullet points.

• The White Rabbit: even more nervous than traditional White Rabbit characters, and with more sense of propriety.
• Mallymkun:  The Dormouse.  In the same group as the Mad Hatter and March Hare, but has mad skills with her tiny rapier and quite a bit of attitude.  Starts the movie disliking Alice, but ends up as an ally.
• Absolem:  The Caterpillar.  (Voiced by Alan Rickman; all I could think the whole movie was "who transfigured Snape into a caterpillar?")  Less unpleasant than the original caterpillar; bristly, but intending to help Alice find herself by herself.
• Tweedledee and Tweedledum:  Twin boys, round and shy, who argue nonsensically and finish each other's sentences.
• Cheshire Cat: Same as usual.  "The Alice?" "There seems to be some debate about that." "I never get involved in politics." ...  "All this talk of blood and slaying has put me off my tea."
• The Mad Hatter: played by Johnny Depp, occasionally takes on a Scottish accent, repeatedly asks why a raven is like a writing desk, and recites the "Jabberwock" poem.  Alice's best ally in Wonderland.
• Bayard: a talking bloodhound prisoner of the Red Queen's.  She has his wife and pups, and falsely promises to set them all free if Bayard finds Alice.  This makes him do as she says, but his loyalty is to Wonderland.
• The White Queen: eccentric, graceful, slightly psycho.  Sort-of mentor to Alice, and sister of the Red Queen.
• The Red Queen: Helena Bonham Carter.  Who else could play the evil, petulant Red Queen?  "Off with his head!"
• The Knave: Knight and lover of the Red Queen (well, sort of), spearheading her reign of terror.  He has eyes for Alice more than for the Queen; guess what happens next.  In the end, when he is forced into exile with her, he tries to kill her, unsuccessfully.

So what's so special about all this?  I've always been intrigued by the implications of this line at the end, when Alice is confronting everyone at the party, to the Chattaway girls:

"You two remind me of some funny boys I met in a dream."

Spoilers again: It's all a dream. Not kidding. (I thought this was a strange choice on the part of the writers, but wwhatevver.)


Anyway, I have been wondering which Wonderland characters correspond to which Victorian characters. In some movies where it's All Just A Dream (or more commonly TV episodes) the same actors/actresses play the corresponding dream characters as play the real-life characters they take after, but this is not the case in Alice. So, I decided to puzzle this out for myself.

We can start with the Chattaway Sisters = Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Next, Lady Ascot is obviously the Red Queen. Her quotes, "I despise rabbits. I do enjoy setting the dogs on them," and "Imbeciles! I specifically asked for red roses!" make this obvious before Alice even goes down the rabbit hole.

The Mad Hatter is probably Alice's father.  He and his trade scheme were described as mad, and he told Alice that all the best people are.  It would make sense that the Mad Hatter, closest in Wonderland to Alice, would parallel the real-life character closest to her: her father.

Alice's mother is the white rabbit.  "You're not properly dressed" dialogue parallels the "You're not the real Alice" debate that permeates most of Alice's time in Wonderland.  Both the rabbit's and Alice's mother's sense of propriety further the parallel.

The Knave is Lowell, Alice's sister's cheating husband.  The Knave tries to seduce Alice, but when he fails, he tells the Red Queen that Alice did so to him.  Lowell was cheating on his wife, and when Alice runs in on them, the two have the following dialogue:

"She's an old friend."

"I can see you're very close."

"You won't tell Margaret, will you?"

"I don't know.  I'm confused."

"You wouldn't want to ruin our marriage, would you?"
"But I'm not the one sneaking around..."

Lowell's cheating and blaming it on Alice are very much like the Knave's attempting to cheat and blaming it on Alice.

(It could also be argued that the Knave is a darker, more competent Hamish.  His attraction to Alice, upholding of the Red Queen's reign, and status as her favorite could definitely be argued as parallel to Hamish's proposal to Alice, upholding of his mother's extreme Victorian values, and status as his mother's favorite; but since the Red Queen fancies the Knave, I don't think it would be ok to parallel the two to a mother and son. Squick.)

Absolem shows up at the end as a blue butterfly, proving that Alice isn't the only character who can travel between the two worlds.  (Ok, actually, it's probably just a blue butterfly that Alice says Hello to in order to prove to the audience that she remembers her time in Wonderland at all.  But I'm going to take the slightly more whimsical explanation.)

I'm not entirely sure about more than that.  Any suggestions from those who have seen the movie?  I'm still not sure about who the White Queen represents, if anyone.  Comment below!



And in a bit of an afternote: the music in this movie is excellent.  Say what you like about how well it stuck to the book, or whatever you want, but the music was awesome.  Just listen to the music in that video above.  Or, you could listen to one of these:

"Alice's Theme" Excellent.

"Going to Battle" Features a more dramatic, intense version of the main Alice theme.

"Alice Reprise #5" Alice's theme gets 5 reprises, and this is the fifth.