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murdereraisuha · 3 years

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Actually, Jamil is Snow White

Now that I have your attention with my batshit theory, let me explain it along with my other predictions for the future events of chapter 5 in a 2,500+ word mess of an essay.

The past chapters have all correlated to the plot of the original Disney movie in some way. So how does chapter 5 correlate with Snow White? For the movie's story, it starts with Snow White living with her stepmother, who is vain, self-centered, and afraid that one day Snow White will surpass her beauty. The Queen makes efforts to suppress Snow White's beauty by making her a scullery maid, but Snow White does eventually surpass her. This causes the Queen to order her Huntsman to kill Snow White, but the Huntsman can't bring himself to do it and he presents the queen with a decoy heart instead.

What's interesting about TWST is that Neige has already surpassed Vil at the very beginning. Furthermore, rather than focus solely on his own beauty and beat down potential rivals, Vil attempts to nurture the beauty of the rest of his dorm and the VDC team. So how in the world do we correlate the events of the chapter to the original movie? Well, we know from previous chapters that the person twisted from a character might not be the one to actually take that character's role in the story. Though Farena exists, the one Leona tries to sabotage is Malleus. Though Rielle exists, the one Azul makes a special deal with is Yuu. Even though Neige has played a bigger part in the story so far compared to Farena and Rielle, he still might not actually be the Snow White of this story. So who are our possible candidates here?

As the person meant to rival Neige's cute appeal, Epel is the first one to pop into mind. Perhaps the NRC team's performance during the VDC goes well enough that Epel suddenly gets tons of popularity. The internet latches onto him, so much so that, at least temporarily, he ends up surpassing both Vil and Neige in Mira's beauty calculation. However, this wouldn't make sense. The Queen is supposed to hate and sabotage the Snow White, and Vil has no reason to do that to Epel after spending so much effort helping him with the express goal of having him beat out Neige. So who else?

While browsing Pixiv one night, I came across a funny comic (it was long ago enough that I don't remember how to find it again, unfortunately) where Azul actually did livestream Jamil's evil monologue in chapter 4. Rather than becoming a big scandal though, it actually becomes famous because of how good-looking Jamil is, so much so that Vil finds out about it because Jamil's name is the one Mira tells him when Vil does a beauty check. Vil proceeds to change his plans for the VDC by dumping Epel and choosing Jamil as the sole main vocal so that Jamil is his "poison apple" against Neige instead.

With the recent update, Vil's plan for the VDC is officially finalized, so that comic is firmly in AU territory. However, what if something similar happens? The NRC team's performance goes amazing. However, it is not Vil or Epel that gain attention, but Jamil, the 3rd main vocalist. Against Vil and everyone else's expectations and plans, the internet goes wild over this mysterious pretty boy, boosting Jamil into the position of most beautiful. Even Neige had to spend some amount of time getting gigs and whatever to attain his fame, but Jamil has done basically nothing outside the VDC and now he's suddenly the best... How would Vil feel about that?

With the whole trend of the previous overblot causing the next, this theory of Jamil = Snow White makes sense. Though they could always make it so it's Neige and Epel doing the stuff and then at the end Jamil delivers a speech or something that gives the final push to overblot, it would be a lot more interesting (and funny) for Jamil to be thrust into the spotlight earlier on and be a main reason for Vil's overblot.

However, all of this assumes that the beginning of Snow White correlates with the beginning of chapter 5. Let's consider that the beginning of chapter 5 actually correlates with the situation later in the movie when the Queen is plotting to get Snow White with the poison apple. In this situation, Neige would actually be the Snow White of the story. However, unless we pull some funky timeline stuff, the theory I've seen of Rook betraying Vil wouldn't happen then, since we're already past that point in the movie. So what is next? In the movie, Snow White bites the apple and falls asleep. The dwarfs return to their cottage and chase the Queen, who eventually falls to her death when a lightning bolt destroys the precipice she's cornered on. (Fun fact from Wikipedia, her scream while falling was reused for Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent gets stabbed by the Sword of Truth). Anyway, the dwarfs proceed to put Snow White in the glass coffin until a year later when the prince kisses her and takes her to his castle.

Welp, look here, we have the dwarves in TWST, so they could definitely fulfill the try to hurt Vil part here. But what would lead them to do that? Assuming that as RSA students they are heroic, they would hurt Vil if they felt that he had hurt Neige. Vil's plan for the VDC competition seems to just be performing like normal and hoping that their hard work and effort will shine through and win them the competition, so either something has to happen that causes a last-minute change to that plan or some sort of misunderstanding (Vil getting canceled) happens. How would a misunderstanding happen? It could originate from fans angry that Neige didn't win, but Vil has plenty of his own fans to counter that and make an even-sided battle. Some new falling out between Vil and Epel could occur, resulting in either Epel himself going and hurting Vil's reputation or someone else (the media or Neige) seeing Epel distraught and believing that Vil is abusing him in some way. If it's Neige that could be interesting since it'd kinda be a situation where Epel is Snow White and Neige is his Huntsman. Neige x Epel new otp??? haha anyway, there's also the possibility that the RSA students are not heroic, and the dwarves go and make rumors about Vil themselves as an underhanded strategy to give Neige the victory.

All this talk is making me forget about my boy Jamil though. How would he fit in here? Again, from the previous overblots, we know that Jamil will likely oppose Vil in some way. We have also established that this chapter 5's start = the Queen's poison apple plan's start, so Neige is the Snow White. The remaining roles for Jamil are the dwarves (unlikely since we have actual dwarves), the huntsman (unlikely since timeline and also Rook exists), and finally, the prince. Jamil x Neige new otp??? lmao anyway, What would this role mean for his involvement in the story? Well, the prince only shows up at the end to wake up Snow White, so that would make this a situation like I mentioned before with Jamil just showing up to do a speech or something that pushes Vil over the edge. Boring, what else could we do?

Well, what about the original fairy tale of Snow White? In there, the dwarves don't kill the Queen. Instead, she lives until the day of Snow White and the prince's wedding, where the prince makes her dance in red-hot slippers until she dies as punishment for trying to kill Snow White. Why would Jamil give enough of a shit about Neige to go against Vil like that though? Well, y'know what fuck it let's squeeze someone else into the role of Snow White. Kalim certainly has the hair color for it. Since Kalim is just one of the backup vocals and hasn't had much going on aside from his personal character development this chapter idk what Vil could possibly do to him. Perhaps something pertaining to his family's wealth and fame? Whatever it is, some sort of threat to Kalim would be enough motivation for Jamil to do something to Vil. Interaction between Kalim and Jamil would also serve to finish up whatever development is going on between them. Seriously bro I know Jamil was probably just stalking Kalim in that one episode to make sure he's safe but that scene is really haunting me WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Whatever, let's keep this circus rolling with some Rook discussion! Again, we got the theory that Rook will betray Vil like the Huntsman betrayed the Queen. To discuss this idea, we gotta discuss Rook's motivations first. In episode 5-27, quoting from the translation on the wiki by Kanade Musings, Rook claims that "being a mere spectator to beautiful people and beautiful things provide [him] with such happiness" and he is "here to offer what help [he] can to help save beauty." However, he points out that "Vil does not need [Rook] to save him;" instead, what Rook wants "to protect is not Vil himself, but rather the 'beauty' he possesses." The chapter ends with Rook saying that the others would understand what he's saying if they encountered a "beauty that is blinding" and would "bring light to [their] lives."

So, with this information, would Rook betray Vil and why would he betray Vil? Well, there's the possibility that RSA's performance wows him and he switches to protecting Neige's beauty. However, this doesn't feel right to me. Neige is very famous. His first appearance was in a commercial that Cater got even when not specifically trying to find stuff on Neige. I would seriously doubt that Rook has not already done research into Neige and observed what beauty he has. If Rook doesn't already find Neige extraordinarily beautiful, I doubt that a single dance performance could transform his opinion of him. However, what if that was compounded by some loss of Vil's beauty? However, would Rook allow that to happen? He expressly said he wishes to protect Vil's beauty. If Vil lost beauty, would Rook really abandon him, or would he work to bring Vil back to his senses and restore his beauty?

Now, going back to the idea of Rook doing a betrayal, we already established way back at the beginning of this monstrosity (if you made it this far please take a hydration break or something alright? take care of yourself I love you) that Neige is not necessarily the Snow White of the story. So, we have the possibility of Rook turning against Vil on Epel's behalf, which... doesn't seem right. Idk it might be because I still just can't envision a scenario with Rook outright betraying Vil. Again, Rook has spent a bunch of time observing Epel and watching him grow. What could Epel possibly do that could mega boost his beauty in Rook's eyes? He's spent time observing Jamil too, though not as much as he observes some other people. Like, Rook is a hunter, extremely skilled at assessing targets and figuring out what makes them tick. For his opinion of someone to seriously change, it would require equally exceptional deception or change on the target's part. Seriously, why would he betray Vil?

Okay, how about we consider what exactly Rook finds beautiful. As we know from the auditions (ボーテ！100点！), Rook was able to find beauty in every person's performance, no matter how clumsy or unskilled they were. So, we get the sense that at the very least, Rook considers things beautiful that most people wouldn't consider beautiful. Then, what makes Vil beautiful to him? We know Vil is beautiful by normal person standards, but Rook doesn't go by normal person standards. Does Rook feel drawn to his determination? His power? Something we don't know about yet? I don't think we know for sure, so we don't know what it would take for Vil to lose beauty in Rook's eyes.

Well, there's a part of Rook that hasn't really come up in the main story yet: his fascination with the nonhuman students. This just brings up more questions. Since Vil is human... as far as we know... Rook's behavior towards him is motivated by something different than that which motivates his hunts, even if that something different is just a different way of being beautiful. ARGHH I DON'T KNOWWWWW we're going into his voice lines

Alright, ceremonial robes home tap 3 (from twstarchives): "There is beauty that some are just born with, but the beauty you work hard to achieve holds immeasurable power. Isn't that right?" Okay now we're getting somewhere, he appreciates hard work! Oh yeah didn't Vil say some stuff cause he felt defeated by Neige being better even though Vil put in all this hard work? The development of that sort of attitude would probably constitute a loss of beauty. Hard work would therefore also make someone beautiful in Rook's eyes.

So, who works hard? Yep, Jamil we're bringing you in again. Remember, a change is needed to drive the plot and prompt a change in Rook. Haven't we had a major change in Jamil's attitude already? Starting with having to funnel all his hard work into Kalim and keeping himself under Kalim, after chapter 4 Jamil is now channeling his work into himself and finally showing off his true talents. Given that Rook can't possibly stalk everyone in NRC in-depth, he likely doesn't have a complete idea of Jamil's capabilities especially given how Jamil was specifically trying to stay under the radar. This may give Jamil the possibility to surprise Rook with his full power, potentially shifting Rook's opinion enough to give him a significant appreciation of Jamil's beauty.

With all this information, I think I can try and build a rough simulation of events. So, the VDC teams do their performances and wow the crowd. In the meantime while the judges are deciding who wins, some shit goes down: Vil gets canceled or something, Jamil gains popularity, idk something with Neige & the dwarves. Vil's mental health takes a turn for the worst and he resorts to underhandedness. He enlists Rook for some plot against Jamil or Neige. However, Kalim gets caught in the crossfire. Inspired by Jamil's beauty and efforts to help Kalim, Rook ends up going against the plan and Vil. Vil overblots, blah blah backstory, then the judges release the results of the competition, and the winding down/aftermath/party time is the 2nd day of the festival whatever when the gang can go see all the other booths and stuff.

Even after all this I sincerely doubt my final prediction here will come to pass but y'know, all about the journey not the destination. Honestly, I thought of the title of this post when I was only partway through like "Haha isn't this theory about Jamil being Snow White so out there" but nope that's actually a foundation of my ideas now. What am I doing??? Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading this mess. Please feel free to message me or something if this rant gave you any ideas that you wanna share.

#twst analysis #twst #twisted wonderland #vil schoenheit #jamil viper #neige leblanche #rook hunt #epel felmier #twst theories

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purplesurveys · 3 years

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1277

Who are you most nervous about introducing potential significant others to? Ooooh moving forward, probably Angela hahahaha I have no idea how I’d break it to her if ever I do start seeing somebody again. She’s well aware of all the shit that I let slide so she might get intense with the scrutineering.

What is the most exciting thing about your life right now? Just the fact that I feel on top of the world these days. My days of being depressed and picking at my insecurities seem to be far behind me and the change has looked to be apparent coming from friends who’ve told me I seem happier, louder these days.

What was the most important non-academic thing you learned in high school? To not be scared to fight harder for the things you believe in or what make up your identity, coming from having to hide a same-sex relationship during that period. That feeling of being constricted and having to hide to stay on some conservative seniors’ good graces really pissed me off so high school was really crucial in letting me discover just how much I’d be willing to fight and test the waters to be able to live as me.

Have you ever had a job that deeply affected your personal life? How so and do you still work there? Hmm no, not really. If anything my job is one of the things that helped make me a lot livelier and happier.

Do you have a “one who got away”? It felt that way at the start when my view was still skewed, but it didn’t take long until I realized she was not a loss at all.

If you were in a superhero movie, would you be the hero or the villain? Hero.

If you found a mouse in your house, would you be frightened? Mice or rats are the literal worst fucking thing I could see in my house. I definitely see myself making a big deal out of it lmao, especially rats.

Have you ever tried to perform magic tricks? Nobody ever taught me, so no.

Can you do more with a yo-yo than just "go up and down"? Nah, which kinda makes me feel ashamed because considering it was a Filipino who invented the modern yo-yo, I feel like it should be my responsibility to know a few tricks LOL.

What is one form of technology that you wouldn't be able to live without? Instant messenger.

Did you get an allowance, growing up? Why or why not? Starting high school. Before that I was living in our family’s duplex, so my grandma could make packed meals for all of us – not to mention the fact that my parents were also still on their way to establishing themselves at their respective workplaces so we weren’t all that well-off yet.

When we moved into our own place, we started with my mom making our meals but eventually it just proved to be time-consuming and a lot of work considering she also had a job to go to. With that and the fact that both my parents at that point already got a couple of promotions, we switched to allowance.

Would you rather go to a water park or an amusement park? Why? Amusement parks though I would only probably head to the safer rides and food stalls with all the deep-fried offerings haha. I cannot handle more intense rides. On the other hand, water parks have always sounded nasty to me.

What is one instrument you wouldn't mind learning how to play? Piano.

What's the longest amount of time you've had to wait in line for something? The stupid LTO, because you can never count on government agencies to be efficient. Technically my whole time in there took a couple of stages, but all in all I spent eight hours there.

What is something that you would like to learn more about? Korean. I just graduated from my Basic Korean 1 class but I already have plans to enroll in the following course, since I seemed to do well and I want to keep the momentum going.

What is something that one of your family member collects? Mom has a large collection of chef-themed figurines and other sorts of trinkets like a chef timer, shot glasses, etc - but mostly the figurines - that she has displayed in a glass case. I should keep that in mind for when I start Christmas shopping, actually...she hasn’t updated that collection in a long time. Thanks for the idea!

Have you ever moved to a new school before? If so, how did it feel? No, not in the middle of the same period since I went to the same school from kinder to high school for 14 years. I only “moved” when I started college. Like I’ve said in previous surveys, it felt freeing to finally not under be the hands of an environment ran by...well, Catholics. It was a culture shock to see rallies everywhere, to find out I could wear short shorts or even go to school naked if I wanted to, and to see boys in my class (I went to an all-girls), but it was all the good kind of shock.

Have you ever legitimately forgotten to do homework? Always, because I never wrote them down.

Do you enjoy autumn leaves or spring flowers more? Why? I experience neither season.

Depending on where you live, why might a day of school get canceled? Typhoon.

If you could meet any fictional character from a book, who would it be? Melanie Hamilton from Gone with the World.

What are some common places that people tour when they come to your city? I rarely see foreigners here since my area isn’t particularly known for tourism; most go to the island provinces like Cebu, Aklan, Palawan, etc. If I had to recommend spots here, I’d tell them to go for Pinto and maybe the rooftop bars that offer a view of Manila’s skyline.

What's one food that you did not enjoy as a child, but do as an adult? Chicken curry, which I used to dread.

Would you rather have a mermaid tail, a fairy's wings or a unicorn's horn? I guess the wings just because I feel like it’s the only practical one.

What is an animal that you'd like to have as a pet but it's not allowed? I don’t think that way about animals I can’t keep as pets anyway.

What are some things that you do to make the world a better place? I always clean up at restaurants (my mom doesn’t understand why I do it because “the servers are here for a reason, Robyn”) but I always see the relief on their faces when they see I’ve stacked up the plates and cups so I don’t see a reason to stop doing it. I keep the door open for people who happen to enter/exit a building the same time as me, share dog adoption posts, don’t make a fuss about or towards a shop staff who messes up...things like that. I hope it’s able to help, even if just in a small way.

Has the last person you had sex with ever had sex with someone besides you? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has already.

What’s your favorite store at your mall? We have several malls within the vicinity but I like frequenting NCAT.

Have you ever done a workout DVD? No but my mom is fond of those.

Who usually takes out the trash in your family? Either of my parents.

What song are you currently obsessed with? My Universe is soooooo good. It’s Coldplay’s classic sound but they somehow managed to perfectly blend in BTS’ style as well, so I love how it turned out.

When you go fishing, do you make someone else get the fish off the hook? I've never gone fishing.

Do you take any prescription meds? Nope.

What happens if you don’t take them? Who was the last person you dreamt about? My dad.

Do you prefer your tea sweetened or unsweetened? Sweetened, though I don’t usually actively look for iced tea. I’d have it if it was served, but I don’t typically order it for myself.

How often do you honk your horn? As long as I am annoyed, which gives my mom a mini heart attack every time because she insists I just let people have their way to avoid getting into fights. Sometimes when she’s driving and someone’s being stupid on the road I lurch forward to do the honking for her and it pisses her off soooooooooo much but it also gets the job done so *shrug*

Do you have any children? If so, names and ages? I don’t.

Have your parents ever witnessed you doing something inappropriate? What? TMI but I almost got caught doing the m-word once but my reflexes were at lightning speed that day so when my door opened I was able to fix myself up and appear as though nothing was happening lol. My mom also saw a hickey on me once but I was able to veer the conversation away when she started inquiring.

Did you get babysat a lot as a kid? No, I did the babysitting.

If you were the principal of a school, what would you do differently? Actually deal with teachers who mistreat or make issues towards their students. I had several teachers I know didn’t like me but I could never do anything about it because there was no way in hell the school was going to take my side.

Are you doing anything fun tomorrow? Continued from yesterday. If I took this question yesterday to refer to today I would’ve answered yes because we actually have a really fun PR stunt scheduled for execution today, wherein we get to sponsor someone’s whole wedding from food to flowers to the host and fillm crew :D :D But tomorrow is just Monday so the real answer to this is no.

What is something you'd like to receive as a housewarming gift? I dunno the usual housewarming gifts, but I would appreciate anything practical, or anything that you’ll need at the least expected times, like batteries or even like Sticky Tack.

How old were you when you first experienced the effects of puberty? Oooh I was an early bird – I was 9 when I could first tell my first period was on its way; it came a month after I turned 10.

What is your least favorite holiday, and why? I don’t dislike any holiday because they all mean a day off work lol.

What were some outdoor games you played as a child? We usually played piko (hopscotch), our local version of freeze tag that we dubbed “Ice ice water” for whatever reason, and a garter game that we call 10-20. Dodgeball was a favorite during recess and lunch, too.

Did you accompany your parents on "Take Your Child to Work" Day? That’s not observed here, but my mom did use to take me and my siblings to her first workplace. Are cemeteries peaceful to you, or do they freak you out? They’re actually more interesting to me than anything else. I like learning about the different lives of many different people, even if I only technically know them by their birthday and date of death. Sometimes the inscriptions would be more detailed and tell more about their life, sometimes I’d come across babies who only lived a few days...and it’s just interesting to have those glimpses into life.

Which ancient civilization would you be interested in learning more about? Filipino, because Western colonization destroyed proof of most of it.

Do you have better long-term memory or short-term memory? Long.

What was the last situation that made you cry? Describe. I cried this morning. Nothing bad or heavy, I just found myself thinking again about my mental state last year.

Which forest animal would you be most afraid to encounter? Anything that wouldn’t hesitate to tear my limbs apart.

Do you believe in anything supernatural? (ie: spirits, etc) No.

Has anyone close to you ever gone to war? No. The closest link I have to the military, other than my dead great-grandfather, is Angela’s uncle who’s like a general or like a colonel or something, idk titles.

Have you ever experienced altitude sickness? Yeah, occasionally. Pressure in the ear is a bigger nuisance to me, though.

Is there anything, any event, you wish you could remember more clearly? The last time I saw my grandfather. My only clear memory of him that day was stepping out of the house to leave (my mom and I were visiting) and him sending me off with the message to always be kind and good. If I had known I would never see him again, I never would’ve left.

Have you ever rubbed anyone’s feet? Hmm no, not that I can recall.

If you had to get advice from someone of the opposite sex, who would you go to? I’d go to Hans for certain advice, but not for every single situation. He’s the only person that comes to mind.

What was the last new food/drink that you tried? So last Wednesday I finally got to try this Instagram-based doughnut shop that I’ve been eyeing since August and it turned out to be even MUCH BETTER THAN EXPECTEDDDDDD. Like yeah their photos were always mouthwatering but I didn’t expect it to taste as good as it looks, since most pretty food I’ve encountered usually end up just tasting meh. Anywho, I got two orders of their sampler box and they served me their specialty bacon doughnut, signature brown butter, and a bunch of their chocolate and peanut butter variants and I loved every single fucking thing.

Have you had a good day today or was yesterday better? Oh it’s hard to tell, it’s only 9:05 AM. Both days might be uneventful, though.

Have you ever played Sudoku? I don’t actually get how to play it hahaha. I feel like I’m too stupid for sudoku.

Do you ever take surveys for money? I tried it last year when applying for jobs was still a bitch for me, but the thing is most of those surveys look for employed participants so there was rarely ever a survey that fit me anyway.

Do you like Barbie or Bratz better? Bratz.

Do you prefer purple or green grapes? I don’t like grapes.

Who was the last person that made you laugh? Idk, probs one of the boys since I was watching videos of them earlier today.

Where does your best friend live? A nearby city.

Who did you last confide in? Angela.

Does your car have an alarm? Sure.

Where was your mom born? Somewhere in Metro Manila.

What can always make you feel better no matter what? My dogs.

What is something you’ll never eat again? Why? I don’t think there is anything. I feel like I’m always bound to retry things and that I would be open to doing so, even fruits. One thing I’m firm about never drinking again, though, is coconut water. Get that SHIT away from me.

What is currently happening that is scaring you? I’m not feeling scared these days.

Have you ever found a stranger’s note somewhere? If so, what did it say? Probably. But nothing sticks out.

#survey #surveys

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mrsrcbinscn · 3 years

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[Past] Franny Sor’s 1 hour set at a bar in Downtown Nashville, February 24, 1999

hi i’m in my feelings so have this silly hc piece. It’s a mix of a oneshot and just a list really.

I hc this is the gig that Franny met Cornelius at, but I left all the other details about him vague ^_^

cover versions of the songs are linked for general vibe

so anyway someone come write my cornelius lmao<3

The 9 PM time slot at The Whiskey Hive on Broadway was a coveted one, a surefire moneymaker. Franny, wonderin’ how in the hell she was ever going to pay for her next semester, let alone her next three years at Belmont, jumped at the opportunity to take it when the original singer cancelled at 4:30. Lucky thing she lived on campus and could easily make it in time -- even with guitar and banjo in tow.

Pete the talent manager always called Franny first or nearly-first when he had an open slot. She didn’t usually get the best time slots. She was barely nineteen, new in town, not like these other people who have been songwriting in Nashville for over a decade, and there was a sense of seniority in these circles. Franny could tell Pete was giving her a chance to earn her way into the 8-10 PM time slots and there was no way in hell she way blowing it.

That of course meant there was only one song from her repertoire she could possibly open with...Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me by Linda Ronstadt of course! If Franny ever needed an ‘impress a crowd free’ song, she only needed to whip Linda Ronstadt out of her back pocket. It also didn’t hurt that Terri Clark had recently brought the song back to the attention of country music fans with her cover of it.

“Let’s give a big Whiskey Hive welcome to little miss Franny Sor, a freshman here at Belmont University, all the way from Payne Lake, Georgia!” Pete said into his microphone before turning it off and nodding to Franny to begin.

The crowd applauded between eating and drinking their beers and cocktails, and Franny idly played a few chords to get some background noise goin’ as she introduced herself.

“Hey y’all! Like Pete said, I’m Franny Sor, I live here in Nashville and I’m a music studies student and songwriter. We’re gonna start tonight with a little Linda Ronstadt.”

The crowd, mostly the thirty-five-and-older folks, applauded, and Franny began her acoustic rendition of Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me.

“Thank y’all so much! Now, if there’s anything you want to hear at any point in the next hour, just let me know, I love requests. And if you like what you hear, feel free to drop some change in the tip buckets, it helps keep me here in Nashville, put gas in my car, buy my cat wet food. You know, the essentials.”

She went right into Roseanne Cash’s Seven Year Ache, trying not to notice the young man at the bar, probably about three or four years older than her, who met her eye a few times and seemed to be fishin’ for his wallet.

A few folks dropped some tips in the bucker, including the handsome young man alone at the bar.

“Thank you, thank you! And where are you from, sir?” Franny asked, figuring now was a good opportunity for crowd engagement.

The man startled, clearly not one comfortable with being put on the spot, but answered her with a nervous smile.

“Ohhh, I’ve always wanted to go there. Cool accent! What brings you to Nashville? What’s your name?”

“I’m living here for work right now. Uh, Cornelius.”

“What kinda music do you like, Cornelius? I can play anythin’. Rock, pop, country, bluegrass.”

He blinked, almost as if he forgot what music was, let alone what he liked. After a beat, he stuttered out, “Um- a- an-an original?”

Good Lord, the squeak that came out of Franny’s mouth. “That’s the first time anybody’s ever requested an original! I’m very excited about this song I just wrote. To keep a very long story offensively short, my mother came to the United States in 1979 as a refugee from Cambodia. She was separated from her entire family during the conflict there, and didn’t even know that my grandmother was still alive until I was nine. I wrote this song over Christmas break, when my grandmother visited from Cambodia and my brothers and I got to meet her. This song is to my mother, from my grandmother’s perspective. I promise I’ll play a fun song after this one.”

That at least got some laughter from the audience.

She set her guitar down, picked up her banjo, and played Oh, Sophia, a song she wrote.

“I promise y’all, if I ever write a happy little love song, y’all will be the first to know,” Franny joked as she switched out her banjo for her guitar again. “It’s just that ain’t no guy I’ve gone with has been love song material. Hey, Cornelius, if you know any guys worth writin’ a love song about, you call me, eh?”

Franny hopped up on her tippy toes to look out at a table where a family with a cute little girl was sitting. “What about y’all, with the little girl in pigtails? Where’re you from?”

“San Francisco! Exciting! What brings you to Nashville?”

“Vacation!”

“You came to the right place, I love this little city. What kind of music do you wanna hear?”

“Know any Roger Miller?” Asked the husband.

Franny giggled, then smirked. “Of course I do! Roger Miller’s some of my favorite songwriting in country music. Do you like Kansas City Star?”

She reached down into her guitar case and brandished a tambourine, which she promptly put her foot through on the floor to use to keep time as she played her cover of Kansas City Star.

Franny did her very, very, damned best not to make eye contact with Cornelius with the accent again, but she couldn’t help it. He was the only person in the place lookin’ at her like she wasn’t just background noise.

"Is anybody else here from Georgia tonight? Or just me. Anybody from Georgia?”

A bachelorette party toward the back WOOOOOO’d and Franny immediately regretted asking.

“For real? Where at?”

“Marietta!”

“Y’all like Reba?” More WOOOOOOs from the girls.

Franny gently slid her tambourine to the side with her foot and got ready to bang out The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia. If she could get the energy in the room nice and up with Reba, then she could probably play the song she’d been dying to play all hour.

Her eyes kept darting toward Cornelius at the bar, still sipping the same beer he’d started the hour with. At least he ordered food too. Bartender probably wouldn’t be too pissed as long as he tipped good. Judging by the twenty he dropped in Franny’s tip bucket, he should.

It wasn’t just the fact she made good money off of him -- he was just. Listening to her. People didn’t do that here, not really.

As she finished, the crowd applauded for the performance she gave on that song. Turns out going for a tough song pays off...if you got the skills to back it up.

“This is one of my favorite songs, and I don’t get to play it often. Ain’t really country, but I really want to play it. Is that all right with y’all?” Franny asked the crowd, who, on account of being thoroughly entertained at this point, cheered.

She set her banjo down and picked her guitar back up, and picked out the first few notes of Angel of The Morning.

It was a risk, but the bar seemed to like her well enough to go for it. Was it a great bar song? Eh, no. But did Franny believe her vocal performance could make up for that? For sure.

And lookit that, a gentleman at a table in the middle stood out of his seat to applaud her! Ha!

“Y’all wanna hear a girl do Hank Williams?” Franny joked, and at the applause and whoops, she said, “Gimme a song, any Hank song, c’mon!”

“Lovesick Blues!”

“You wanna hear Lovesick Blues? And where are you from?”

“Calgary!”

“Canada! Well, welcome to Nashville. Here’s Lovesick Blues for ya, Canada.”

Country fans always did find it impressive when she could country yodel into a Hank song.

As she considered what exactly to whip out next, someone shouted, “Tammy Wynette!” and Franny zeroed in on that request.

“Which song?”

“Stand By Your Man!”

“Alright folks, heeeere’s Stand By Your Man by the legend herself.”

Franny personally didn’t adore the song -- she thought it gave men’s shitty behavior a pass. But it was a classic, and to make it in music, you gotta know the classics.

“Does anybody here like Alanis Morisette? I know, I know, it’s not country...I told y’all! I like everything. I’m a teenage girl in 1999, of course Alanis Morisette speaks to my soul.”

She very pointedly was not looking at cute-Cornelius-at-the-bar as she sang Head Over Feet, lest she catch nerves and butterflies. Even as she noticed him get up out of the corner of her eye and drop another bank note into the tip bucket.

“What do y’all wanna hear for the grand finale? Old country, new country, pop, rock...? What about you, Mr. Cornelius-from-[redacted]?”

“New country! I, uh, actually could use some educating on it. About it. Country.”

Franny smiled and readied her fingers on the right frets for the first chord. “Great! We’ll wrap up our time together with some Mark Chestnutt.”

It’s A Little Too Late was a goddamn blast to play, so why not?

Franny hopped off the stage and sped through counting her tips, in hopes of catching Cornelius before he left to chat him up more. What? He was cute, had a cool accent, and tipped her well. May as well say hello...

#&&...hc #r: love of my life

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whumping-out-of-timee · 3 years

Text

How to have mismatched eye color in any picrew: a tutorial

*****

At the bottom I give a quick overview (but not a specific tutorial) of how you can also make various other things that are almost never available in picrews, some of these are harder than others: Other forms of Heterocromia, Inner eye ring colors, Custom scars, Custom skin tone variations (can make vitiligo, granted the picrew creator added enough skin variations), Custom hair color streaks

*****

Hate when you choose the perfect picrew, but your oc has some form of heterocromia and the picrew won’t let you show that?

Here’s a quick trick to fix it, with zero artistic talent required.

Everything we need is already in the picrew! We’re just going to use a simple layer trick to merge 2 of the same picrew

This will be user friendly for people who have no experience with digital art and will be done using a free mobile app. (Since most people don’t have computer drawing apps if they aren’t into digital art)

Needed: a picrew you like, a free digital art app (I’m going to use ibis paint X for this tutorial)

The link to the picrew I’ll be using for this. No orange eye color though, the one thing I needed lmao

Step 1:

Save two versions of the same picrew with differing eye colors in each as the only difference.

In my experience, the picrew stays built when you re-enter the link. So, just build it and save it as normal, then it will still be there and you can change the eye color before saving the second copy.

Your copies should look about like this: it’s important to keep the rest of picrew as a copy except for the eye color. The fewer differences, the easier it will be.

Step 2:

Ok, now the hardest part is over! Drawing apps can look scary if you’re not used to them, but it will be ok.

When we open IbisPaint X it will look like this:

You want to select ‘My gallery” and then hit the plus sign at the bottom left hand corner. You’ll then be given this menu:

Now this looks like a mess, butttt you’re just going to ignore it all and click import picture. You can then choose 1 of the picrew’s from your gallery. Don’t worry it doesn’t matter which you choose.

You will be prompted with this notification:

Cancel this. This will turn the work into lineart or something I’m not sure tbh. Not familiar with this app. But it will mess up our picrew. Accidentally did it? No problem! Just close the app and go back through the menu

Step 3:

So, now you have this:

We’re ready to overlap it with the other picrew we made!

I’m running out of the 10 photos per post, I’ll try to still give a visual for each step though. Hope it’s not confusing

1- First we’re going to hit the ‘layers’ symbol at the bottom right

2- here we can see the layers, this app seems to automatically make a new layer for a new picture, so don’t worry about any of this! Select the add photo button and choose your picrew with the opposite eye color of the 1st

3- Dont mess with these settings, just push the green check! We don’t want to move the picture since we’re relying on them being directly on top of each other

4- cancel the lineart thing again

5- Now we have 2 layers, each with 1 version of your picrew

6- you can just tap above this menu to close it. It should appear as though our picrew has changed eye color.

Step 4:

Now for the fun part! We’re going to erase one of the eyes on this top layer to reveal the other color underneath!

1- We’re going to switch from pen to eraser using this button in the bottom left hand corner.

2- For the best precision, we’re going to want to zoom in towards the eye that isn’t supposed to be the current color (we can zoom in by placing two fingers on the canvas and pulling them apart. Idk what this is called. Reverse piniching?) The other thing we’re going to do is make the eraser smaller by sliding the top slider to the left.

3- Now we’re ready to erase! Carefully erase over the eye and it will change color. Be careful not the erase the other eye, or it will change color as well. If you make a mistake, the undo button is towards the top of the canvas

4- all done! Just gotta save it now. Push the button in the bottom right corner

5- When the menu comes up, you want to save as a normal PNG. Now it’s in your gallery!

Step 5:

Done!

It doesn’t look edited at all! Because it’s really not, we just combined two of the same art in different colors. No one would ever guess. It still has the same dimensions and everything!

*****

Other stuff you can do with this trick:

Although some of these take a lot more careful erasing, these shouldn’t require any actual drawing. You can use these basics to experiment with this stuff as well:

- A different colored ring around the middle of the eyes: put the middle color on the bottom layer and erase around the pupil carefully in a circle with a very small eraser brush size.

- eyes that are half colored, in a line down the middle (a form of heterocromia): layer order doesn’t matter, erase half of each eye carefully, depending on which color should be where.

- a color streak through the hair: this one will require careful erasing to look good. You’ll need a picrew where the hair is entirely the color of the streak, and a picrew with the surrounding hair color. Put the color streak layer on the bottom layer. Erase the top layer in the shape of the streak you want colored. You can place it anywhere. You can do this with faded hair tips as well, but how well that turns out will depend on the color difference the creator had between similar hair colors... in other words, if dark and light brown are closer together in color value, it will look more natural when you merge them. I would recommend putting the lighter hair color layer on the bottom. When you erase, you’ll be drawing where the highlights are, functionally the same as the color streak.

- you can make uneven skin tones or vitiligo if the creator has added enough skin tone variations to the picrew: to make vitiligo you’ll make a picrew with your lightest skin tone and a picrew with your darkest skin tone. You’ll put the lightest skin tone on the bottom layer. Then you’ll erase the top layer in the pattern where skin pigment has been lost. You’ll be able to control the pattern of color loss like this, and make any pattern you want! This layer order works best for putting light patches on darker skin. If you want to darken an area you’ll put the darker layer down first and erase the top layer with lighter skin into the pattern you want. Essentially: put light down first if you want to put a light pattern on dark skin. Put dark down first if you want to put a dark pattern on light skin

-custom scars if the creator has added enough skin tone variations to the picrew: this is the same idea as skin tone variations. This time though, we need a picrew with a pink tone skin color choice, a lighter one than the character’s skin tone can also work if you want silver scars. Make a picrew with normal skin tone for the character, and a picrew with the scar color. Put the scar color picrew down first, then add the normal tone one. Now when you erase it should make scars in any pattern you want!

If you’re having trouble erasing neatly, the answer is always to zoom in on the canvas and decrease the eraser brush size! Also you can undo and redo until it looks how you want!

That’s all I can think of right now! Hope everyone has fun making those OC’s that the picrews always seem to forget. And especially anyone who’s been left out themselves!

I have on anon asks if anyone has questions/problems using this tutorial! Or any questions about how to do something similar

Feel free to add other tips to this post as well!

*****

#picrew #whump character #oc whump #oc picrew #how to edit picrews

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luvdsc · 4 years

Note

1. (You don't have to read it all if you don't want to but I just wanted to send it in) It's honestly really stressful for a bunch of reasons.. The first being no one knows if the year will start on time, and if it does we don't know if we'll be able to take classes in school instead of online (I'm awful with online classes too so I'm really scared they'll start online).

2. The second thing is SATs & ACTs. I'm better at test taking than I am in the classroom so my plan was to take them and submit my scores to show I can do well in school, but they got cancelled this year so I'll have to take them next year. I still don't know when the ACT will be, but I do know the SAT will be at the start of the school year which isn't great because that's 3 months from now and I already don't remember much, so I'm probably not gonna do as well on the thing I was banking on..

3. Another thing is I have zero clue if/when I'll be able to do college tours, which isn't good because I haven't toured any yet :( And finally on top of all that I have the normal highschooler problems of having no idea what to go to school for and having no clue where I want to go... Ughh there's so many other smaller reasons too but those are the important one's.. Thank you for listening to/letting me rant though and sorry it is so long, I just really needed it!! 💕💕 💕

✿ ✿ ✿

of course, i’d read it all, lovebug! 💕 yes, it’s definitely scary with the uncertainty of the school year. i had to go through that with my last quarter where they kept delaying the start in order to accommodate the online switch. i’m not gonna lie to you and say online classes was a breeze because i definitely struggled with it myself, but i ended up with 3 A’s and 1 B, so i can tell you how i studied online if that will help? please go to your classes. don’t skip even though you desperately want to. go to class, turn off your phone, pay attention and take notes. you might tell yourself that it’s okay to skip because you can watch the recorded lecture later, but that’s a big fat lie and you’re not going to watch it lol. hold yourself accountable and watch it live and take notes like you’re in your actual classroom. participate when the teacher asks questions, don’t just sit there silently. actually do the problems and examples they go over and do the practice problems if they assign them. as for studying for tests, if you know when you’ll be having a midterm, start a week early and study one chapter a day and do some practice problems for each one. this way, you won’t be scrambling to cram study the night before and it’ll seem less daunting. you will get through this, honey bee! ✨

secondly, as for SATs and ACTs, i actually do think you remember more than you give yourself credit for. I didn’t study for them very much, and I think I did pretty well on them! I know the SAT scoring changed from when i took it, but I got a 2250 out of 2400 on the SAT and 33 out of 36 on the ACT. There are a ton of mock exams online and I used those super thick, paper thin soft cover books to study from, which had many mock exams. I don’t quite remember what was covered in those exams since it’s been 4 years, but if you want to study for math, i suggest that you review one chapter a day, starting at the beginning of your summer! that way, you aren’t cramming everything into the few days before the test and feel overwhelmed. it’s not as scary this way either, setting aside one or two hours to review each chapter and this will refresh your memory! i wish i could help you with the reading and writing portion, but i didn’t spend much time studying for this part. i mostly just tried out the mock exams because i’m not sure how else to prepare for that. you’re smart, sweetpea, and i know you’ll try your best, and that’s what counts the most! if you aren’t satisfied with your score, you are always able to retake it! there’s nothing wrong with retaking it. colleges won’t count that against you. i believe in you, lovebug! 💗

it sucks that you aren’t able to do college tours, i’m so sorry ): if it helps, i can describe to you how my university is like? a couple of my friends are actually the student tour guides at my school, too, so i can get more info on that if you’d like! my sister and i both went to private universities, so i have a better grasp of how those are and what the class situations are like. but many of my friends go to public universities, and i can ask them what those are like as well! my other friend went to community college, so if you want to know what that’s like, i can also ask her! 🌸

i talked about the struggles of choosing a major earlier, and i’ll put that here as well as add onto it! it’s a scary thing choosing what you want to do for the rest of your life. i went through that as well. i did extensive research and bounced between seven different potential majors. i didn’t know what i wanted to major in either and applied with different majors to each place. but it’s also possible to change your major later on, which is what i did twice. i will tell you this, it is the easiest to transfer majors from engineering to anything else. it’s the hardest to transfer into business or engineering if you’re majoring in sciences or arts. business is in between, so it’s hard to transfer to engineering from there, but much easier than it is to transfer to engineering from arts and sciences. transferring into arts and sciences is the easiest overall. it’s okay if you don’t know what to major in. but also, keep in mind that it’s much more difficult to change your major in a public university than a private one. also, to be honest, as long as you have some sort of degree, you can make yourself marketable to any job as long as you have the experience to back it up. granted, this doesn’t mean you can suddenly become a cardiovascular surgeon with just an economics degree, but what i mean is that it is very possible to get a job outside of what you have a degree in! 🌻

what’s your favorite subject, honey bee? what are your favorite extracurriculars? is there some topic that you’re really interested in? talk to the people around you and ask what their job is like! does it sound interesting to you? can you see yourself doing that kind of work for a while? do you think you’ll enjoy that kind of job? 💓 also, please make sure the average job in your chosen field of study will support the lifestyle you want or that you are okay with the lifestyle it supports! this is the reason why i didn’t choose to major in art, even though it’s my passion. i don’t want to be living in a shoebox and having an unstable income based on whether or not i can sell my paintings. it’s why i chose to go into business because i prefer a comfortable lifestyle with a nice apartment, much travelling, and lots of sushi in the future lmao

i didn’t know where i wanted to go either tbh. i never had a dream school. so i chose based on the school that offered me what i wanted most, which was a small classroom size with good teacher-student relationships, close to home, and the ability for me to change majors easily since i wasn’t set on the one i applied with. and i’m very happy with my decision! so maybe, if you list down what you want from your future school, you can narrow down your choices? 💕

you’re always welcome to come talk to me or rant about whatever you’d like! i’m sorry my response is so long, but i really hope any part of it will be able to help you in making your choices, lovebug! i’m rooting for you, and i hope you have a wonderful senior year ✨ please don’t worry too much about it, and remember to have fun as well!!! enjoy your last year!!!! 💐

#asks #anonymous

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 5 years

Text

Updated gif tutorial

This is an updated tutorial on how I make and colour my gifs. You can find all of my previous tutorials here.

What I use:

Windows 10 laptop

Potplayer (to screencap)

Photoshop CC

I’ll be making this:

Note: This tutorial won’t be as in-depth as my previous tutorials since this is geared more towards people that have basic understanding of how to gif and use Photoshop. You can find my gif making tutorial for beginners here and colouring tutorial for beginners here.

This tutorial will be divided into two parts - Part 1: Making the gif and Part 2: Colouring the gif.

PART 1: MAKING THE GIF

1. Screen capping

The first step to making gifs is taking screen caps of what you want to gif. I do this using Potplayer, which you can download for free here.

Note: A lot of gif makers use KM Player to screen cap, but I found that it constantly crashed on my laptop and wasn’t very functional so I switched to Potplayer which suits me much better. You can download both programs for free along with others such as VLC and others, so it’s all about finding one that works best for the laptop/computer you’re using.

Open Potplayer (or whatever program you’re using) and open the video source you’re going to be giffing from. I’m giffing from a downloaded episode of Game of Thrones so I go to Open File(s) > Videos and open the correct file.

Top tip: To ensure your gifs are of the highest quality always aim to use videos that are 1080p or at least 720p (HD).

Go to the scene you want to gif, pause just before it and hit CTRL + G, which will bring up the Consecutive Image Capturer (below).

These are the settings I use. You can use the same or adjust them to suit you best.

Note: You can choose where you’d like to save your screen caps by clicking on the square with three dots which is been circled red (above).

I always minimise the screen and drag the Consecutive Image Capturer box alongside the video so I can see what I’m giffing.

To start screen capping the scene hit start and press stop when the scene has ended.

Where it says Progress beneath Activity, it will tell you how many screen caps you’ve taken. I took 54.

2. Cutting screen caps down

Go to the folder where you’ve saved your screen caps and check to see if there are any unnecessary caps that need deleting. In my scene, I accidentally captured Tyrion so deleted those caps and I now have 41 left.

Note: Thankfully the increased 3mb limit means that we don’t have to be as stingy with the size of our gifs anymore, but I still try to stick to no more than 60-80 screen caps for one gif just to cut down on the amount of time it takes to make it.

3. Open in Photoshop

Once you’re happy with the screen caps you have open Photoshop > File > Scripts > Load into stack

Note: I used to use Photoshop C5 which a friend sent me via Dropbox, but having since paid for the full version of PS, I wouldn’t recommend using any free version of PS you’ve found online. There is a risk of viruses, but free versions are also rarely fully functional (mine actually stopped working completely without warning) and a lot slower. It’s worth paying the £9.98 per month (if you’re a student) to have the full use of the program.

The following box will appear:

Where it says File click the drop down menu and select Folder. Once Folder has been selected, click on Browse to the right, locate the folder where you saved your screen caps to and click OK. The screen caps will begin to load in the window and when they’re done the OK button to the right (above cancel) will be available for you to click on, so click on it and they will load into PS.

Depending on how many screen caps you have, you may have to wait a few minutes for them all to finish loading.

4. Making the gif

Now that all of my screen caps have finished loading my PS looks like this:

Everyone’s PS will have a slightly different layout because on the right sidebar you can order the different tabs however you choose.

The important thing is to make sure you have the essential tabs open. To do this go to Window (on the top bar) and ensure you have the following ticked: Timeline, Layers, Tools and Options.

It’s also essential to have Adjustments (this is how we colour the gif), Actions (if you’re using actions to sharpen like I do) and Character (this is how we make subtitles) open. You can see that I have all of these tabs open in a cluster together at the top of my right toolbar, but as I said you can drag them to wherever you prefer.

In this step the Timeline is the most important part. Go ahead and click Create Video Timeline, now your Timeline will look like this:

Click on the three small squares to the left of the Timeline (circled red below) that say ‘Convert to frame animation’ when you hover over it.

Now your Timeline will look like this:

Click on the menu symbol with four horizontal lines to the top right of the Timeline (circled below) and ‘Make Frames From Layers’

Now you’ll notice that your caps have appeared along the timeline. Click again on the four horizontal lines menu symbol you just clicked on and click Select All Frames (when they’re all selected they’ll turn a darker shade of grey) > Reverse Frames. Note: We do this because the caps have been loaded into PS backwards and by reversing them, they’re now in the right order.

Keep all of the Frames selected (if you’ve already clicked off them, simply repeat the above step go to the menu and Select All Frames) and now we’re going to set the timing of the gif.

Underneath any of the frames click the time stamp where it says ‘0 secs’ (circled above) until the above options come up and then click Other...

When the Set Frame Delay Box pops up, simply type 0.05 and OK.

Note: You can now hit play on the gif if you want to see how fast it is and can readjust the speed to your liking.

Now click on the symbol in the bottom left hand corner of the Timeline to the left of the word ‘Forever’. You’ll know it’s the right one, because when you hover on it, it should say ‘Convert to video timeline’.

Your Timeline will now look like this:

5. Resizing and cropping

Here are the Tumblr dimensions as of 2018:

Since most people tend to make 268px gifs, those are the dimensions I’m going to go use for this tutorial.

Select Crop from the left tool bar (circled red below) and adjust the size you want your gif to be in the boxes circled in blue.

As you can see my crop tool is currently set to a width of 268px which is correct, but I want to change the height to be a little bigger so I’m going to type 170px instead.

Now click on the gif until it looks like this:

And press Enter to crop it. Since Daenerys is slightly to the right of my gif, I dragged the crop to the right so she’d be more central and this is what my gif now looks like:

Note: When changing the size of your gif, you may need to change your zoom. After I cropped my gif it was tiny because my zoom was set to 50%. To adjust your zoom simply click on View and you then have the option to Zoom in, out or go to 100%.

6. Sharpening the gif.

I use actions to sharpen my gifs, just because that’s the way I’ve always done it. You can download the action I use here or find another that you like at yeahps.

Note: If you don’t already have an action or don’t know how to use them, simply download it, go to the actions tab, the four horizontal lines at the edge of the tab to bring up the menu, load actions and locate it.

First we need to convert the layers to a Smart Object. To do this click on the timeline at the start of your gif so that the red line with the blue shape on top is at the beginning (below, if you compare it to the image above, you can see the red line has moved from near the end of the timeline on the last image to the beginning now).

Next go to the Layers tab (in my case it’s located to the left of the Timeline), select the top layer (it’ll be dark grey when it’s selected, like mine above), hold SHIFT, scroll down to the bottom and select the last layer until everything is highlighted (below).

Click on the menu button to the right (circled red below) > Convert to Smart Object

Once it has converted to smart object it will look like this:

Go to the Actions tab, find the action you’ve loaded into PS and hit the play button (circled below) so that the action is applied to your gif.

Once it has been applied you’ll see under Layers the smart object will have lots of little sections saying ‘Smart Sharpen’ have appeared below it.

For reference this is how my gif looked before sharpening:

And after:

PART 2: COLOURING THE GIF

Now for the hardest, but most fun part - colouring the gif.

You can see my previous colouring tutorials here. I generally follow the same process for colouring, but I have better understanding of colour balance and selective colours now (thank goodness lmao). If you’re a beginner, it’s worth referring to my beginners colouring tutorial alongside this, because it’ll be more detailed than this tutorial is.

For this part, the Adjustments tab is essential, so make sure you have it checked (if not go to Window > Adjustments).

Step 1: Curves

Select curves and drag the line until you’re happy with how bright your gif is (remember, we’ll also be brightening the gif later with levels and brightness, so don’t go overboard.)

I adjusted mine to this:

Step 2: Levels

Next click levels, the levels box looks like this:

The three boxes just below the little line graph thingy (where it says, 0, 1.00 and 255) are the settings you need to change. You don’t need to change of the far right box (where it says 255) and the first two boxes (where it says 15 and 1.1).

By increasing the number in the left box, the gif darkens and increasing the number in the middle box brightens it.

Generally in the left box I’ll choose anything ranging from 10-30, but my go to is 20. The middle box generally ranges from 1-1.6 depending on how dark the scene is.

For this gif I went with 20 and 1.5.

Step 3: Brightness and Contrast

I chose the following settings.

My gif now looks like this:

4. Colour Balance

This is the setting I’ve learned to use better since I first started colouring and I’ve earned how much of a difference it can make to a gifs appearance.

The box looks like this:

Since my gif is yellow/red in colour due to the fire I changed the Midtones settings to the above.

An important element of Colour Balance which I didn’t use before is Shadows and Highlights. By clicking on the dropdown menu where it says Midtones, you can also select Shadows and Highlights.

When you change the colour balance on Shadows, it changes the undertones of the gif, the background, whilst midtones changes the middle layer of the gif and highlights the top surface of the colour (sorry, I suck at explaining this, but play around with the settings to see what I mean about how the different settings change the colours in different ways).

I changed Shadows to +10 Blue and -5 Red.

Before colour balance:

After:

Step 4: Selective Colours

Selective colours can completely change the appearance of a gif and it’s important to play around with them as often as you can and to get an eye for colours.

For example, when I look at my gif as it is now I can see that the colour balance has helped diminish the yellow/red tones, but not quite enough, so I’m going to adjust yellows to -20.

I can also see that the colour balance has brought out some cyan/blue tones in Dany’s hair, which I want to get rid of so I’m going to change cyans to -100 on every option and blue on blues to -100.

The difference is subtle, but it’s there. Now that I’m happy with the colour of the gif, it’s time to go back and readjust any of the previous layers I’ve added such as brightness, levels etc. to add any final touches.

My final result is this:

Thanks for reading. I hope this was useful to you. Please share if it was and feel free to ask if you have any questions, I’d be happy to help.

I’ll also be creating a ‘Gif Colouring Tips’ post for people that are new to colouring there gifs or are currently using other’s PSDs and would like to learn. I’ll link it here when it has been posted.

#yeahps #ps tutorial #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #tutorials #mine #my tutorials #200

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ask-gijinka-creationtrio · 5 years

Text

clarification on that bit on gender and contemplations on other stuff

If anyone actually bothers to read this lmao

Dialga: This question was pretty much inevitable.

Palkia: I’m honestly fine with being referred to as an “it”.

Giratina: Why the hell should we worry about “it” being “dehumanizing” when we’re not human to begin with?

Something that I knew would eventually get brought up is the genders of my interpretation of the trio. The simple answer is encapsulated in the prev post: they’re dragon gods. Gender is a societal construct; sex is for reproduction. Legendary entities that represent the fundamental laws of the universe don’t really have a need for either society or reproduction. So as with the games, they’re all officially non-binary/genderless.

That said, my designs gravitate towards one or the other. One reason is that i’m not creative, bold, inspired, or talented enough to really translate that genderless attribute into humanoid form. Another is that someone pointed out to me a while ago that Palkia has a low waist-hip ratio, stiletto clawed feet, and some designs will feature a more prominent chest. That and the gendered color-coding Pokemon started doing with blue males and red/pink females, like with the menu screens starting from Gen III, the Eon Duo, Jellicent in Gen V, and Team Skull Grunts in Gen VII.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of these reasons, as you could also make the counterargument that Palkia looks somewhat phallic. So I kinda wanna get into an Extended Rant™ on why I choose to depict my OCs the way, even though no one probably cares lmao

It starts out with the Kanji/Hanzi for “Universe”: 宇宙, Uchū in Japanese and Yǔzhòu in Chinese. You might recall it if you’ve read Pokemon Adventures.

You might also remember if you visited that one dude on Route 228 in Diamond and Pearl who gets yeeted out of his house by Cyrus’s contrite grandfather by the time Platinum rolls around. Okay, realistically, barely anyone probably does (that guy wasn’t that memorable), but he basically says the same thing as Cyrus in the panels above: 宇宙, coined by the ancient Taoists, esoterically means something like “the totality of extension” + “the totality of duration”. In other words, the ancient Japanese/Chinese word for “universe” is lit. “space” + “time”. This is actually a somewhat obscure, unnecessary detail that even many native speakers seem to be unaware of. It also ties in heavily with the Yin-Yang 陰陽 of Taoism.

I know Taoism is more a Gen V theme, but it’s a concept implicit throughout the franchise, hence games generally come in twos, sharing complementary/opposing or dualistic/dichotomic themes. Even trios tend to have the third member as the odd one out or mediator. There’s much more to the Yin-Yang than just Truth/Ideals and I sorta wish Game Freak would explore it more to really unite the franchise as a whole around the interconnected theme of both diversity and harmony.

The Yin-Yang isn’t strictly about Truth/Ideals as much as it is about the fundamentally dualistic nature of existence and the oneness implicit in the inseparability of coexisting complementary concepts. Thus, truth and ideals are two sides of the same coin, as are time and space as relativity revealed. The Yin-Yang is vague enough to basically be an umbrella representation term for any complementary duality. It should be noted that the feminine Yin and masculine Yang don’t refer to stereotypical/conventional notions of femininity or masculinity, but rather requires an abstract interpretation.

The Yin-Yang is composed of an active component, and a passive/reflective/receptive one. More easily understood in that one aspect creates the body and the other gives it life. One which shapes/nurtures/mothers being and one which animates/directs/fathers it. Abstract interpretations of the feminine Mother and masculine Father follow suit. As do dualistic concepts like particle and wave, existence and essence, ovum and sperm, object/entity and idea/concept, magnitude and direction, defense and offense, nature/tradition and technology/advancement (Gen I & Gen II), space and time (Gen IV), truth and ideals (Gen V), night/moon and day/sun (Gen VII), and shields and swords i guess (Gen VIII).

I excluded Gen III because among the classical elements, earth and water are both traditionally considered reflective/feminine, with fire and air being active/masculine, but i suppose if you factor in Primal Reversion in Gen VI, it works. With the Aura Trio, I read something unrelated but interesting about how apparently Ohmori Shigeru hinted at parallels between the Weather Trio and Aura Trio. Can’t find the source though. Blue - Seas were the first (Alpha) source of Life; Red - fiery, desolate Lands signify the Death of all in the end (Omega); Green - Order/Balance mediates between two forces of nature that can be malevolent/chaotic left unchecked, with the trio master possessing abilities that cancel out the other two.

Going off the rails a bit more, speaking of color-parallels, there’s probably going to be one of the subtractive colors between Gen VIII and the (highly probable) Gen IV remakes this generation, with Cyan - Dialga, Azelf, Lucas’ accents, Za-cian; Magenta - Palkia, Mesprit, Dawn’s accents, Za-mazenta; Yellow - Giratina, Uxie, Barry’s accents, whoever the third member of the Gen VIII mascot/box art legendary trio is going to be. I wonder how they’re going to incorporate the parallels tho

Anyway I digress. The ancient Daoists associated feminine Yin with 宇/Space and masculine Yang with 宙/Time by virtue of insisting the feminine aspect precedes, but even disregarding that, Space fits in with the Yin criteria of that which represents the body and Time fits in with the Yang criteria of that which initiates life.

So while they’re genderless, Dialga represents the concept of masculinity and Palkia femininity in their most pure, abstract, and universal form according to the Dao. While this doesn’t make Dialga a dudebro and Palkia whatever the hell the feminine equivalent is, in my mind, Palkia has a strong maternal instinct and Dialga is very much a dad. Giratina is weird chaotic goth aunt/uncle who gives u ur first taste of alcohol just to spite grandpa and reads fanfiction with candles and a glass of wine like it’s a fucking literary hour.

That’s my logic and explanation behind it anyhow. The distinction goes something like Palkia will concern itself more with the state or properties of something (who, what, where) whereas Dialga will concern itself more with the role or activity of it (when, why, how). As time and space are, however, they’re deeply intertwined and cannot be separated.

I might move this bit to a separate post somewhere down the line since this has already dragged on long enough, but I’ll share some thoughts on Giratina here and tie it in with the overarching topic of assigning gender roles lol. According to Game Freak, Giratina represents antimatter, but there are some inconsistencies. I know this shit has to be taken with a grain of salt because of Pokemon logic/science and whatever, but I gave it some thought regardless. My personal headcanon is that Altered Giratina represents dark matter/energy and Origin Giratina represents antimatter. Whatever tf Gira represents in Pokemon lore is based on a combination of the two, with the Reverse/Distortion World probably alluding to the idea of an anti-universe. Antimatter and dark matter are not really the same thing, but they’re both trippy cosmic constructs that sound somewhat similar, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I wanted to make a distinction because while antimatter doesn’t distort spacetime any more than normal matter, it’s speculated that dark matter (actually dark energy) does, and is responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe.

This would also go along nicely with Gira complementing the the Spacetime twins while also complementing Arceus. It would also fit as justification for Giratina having to switch from Origin to Altered Forme upon entering the universe presided over by Dialga and Palkia, not because of the shift in spacetime stability, but rather due to the violent, annihilating reaction that occurs when matter and antimatter come into contact with one another. It’s by no means a perfect resolution hc, but it is one that I’ve gotten attached to.

Anyhoo, I designed Giratina to appear more androgynous (or at least attempted to). However, going by that masculine active/feminine reflective duality highlighted in the Yin-Yang, Origin Gira, with antimatter a reflection of normal matter, appears a bit more feminine-androgynous, whereas Altered Gira, with dark matter an active driving force for the expansion of the universe, appears a bit more masculine-androgynous (though iirc it hasn’t shown up yet and i’m not too great with consistency regardless). That was my idea behind it in any case. Origin Gira wears a binder under that big dastardly overcoat. i guess it’s technically genderfluid.

Digressing a bit, but another artistic choice was the skin tone of the trio. 0 points for subtlety on my part, but the color is Cosmic Latte, the average color of the universe. Like that bit on gender, I wanted to base it on some aspect of reality. I juggled between that and pure black with stars for freckles, but in the end i’m a lazy piece of shit who cuts corners for a living, so i settled on Primordial Clam Chowder because it was easier lmao. that’s why they pasty af

Anyways, if you have any design ideas or you wanna see a member of the trio in another form, feel free to submit your ideas or a magic anon or whatever!

TL;DR tbh this wasn’t even a structured rant it was just me going off the rails and sharing random useless deetz. this isn’t even a tl;dr. what the fuck

#might try to finish that cover image #well it's not like i edited much to begin with #pokemon #hc #gijinka #dialga #palkia #giratina #text #ask blog #analysis #long rant #pokemon analysis #sinnoh #gen iv

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years

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Skam Italia season 2, episode 1 reaction

Hello, how’s everybody doing? We survived the first week of a S3 remake. I wrote a little (a lot) about it.

Just to be clear: I completely understand if people just want to hang on and enjoy the ride because it’s S3 again, we love it, it’s an important story for many people! But so far there are aspects of Skam Italia S2 that I am positive about, and there are areas where I have criticisms. Don’t read if you don’t want to hear some comments that are not 100% enthusiasm. For real, I’m not trying to be a buzz kill, like I’m fine with posting these to crickets, lmao, because it’s a fun exercise for me to analyze the remakes even if I’m essentially talking to myself.

Thank you so much to everyone translating this show! Imagine if no one was translating this season. The fandom would lose its goddamn mind. You are literally saving the planet from destruction, thank you for your service.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I’m going to put additional disclaimers here, because people have strong feelings about Skam S3, and people also have strong feelings about Skam Italia, and there is already drama when those feelings bump up against each other:

The reason why I started doing reactions to the remakes was to compare the versions of Skam and analyze what worked and what didn’t in the adaptation process. This was a clever change to fit this culture, this was awkward and didn’t work, etc. While I do want to judge S2 of Skam Italia on its own merits, I’m not going to leave the original series out of it and look at this season as something that exists in a Skamless void, because that’s not my aim with these recaps. So if you are really not interested in comparisons to the original show (positive, negative, or neutral) then perhaps don’t read further.

I’m also taking into account this is a different culture than the original show and noting how that might affect this story, and that it’s a big deal to have an LGBT Italian lead in a series and Italian fans are very excited. So I’m keeping that in mind! But I also think that, should Skam Italia bungle something, it’s okay to call it out, it doesn’t get a free pass. We criticized parts of the original series while praising it where it succeeded. Sana’s season, for example, is extremely progressive as a concept (a Muslim girl lead is extremely rare) but had numerous aspects where it stumbled, and as a fandom there was no shortage of criticism. This goes for both the social justice and educational aspects of Skam as well as writing, directing, acting, and other basic storytelling stuff.

Okay? Okay.

Episode 1

Clip 1 - GET OUT OF THE FUCKING TUB, LOSERS

Right away, I loved the voicemails. They sound like real accounts of homophobia, and I don’t know if these are actors recreating them or real people sharing their own experiences, but it was a powerful intro to the season.

I also like zooming in over the city while these voicemails played, over all these dark apartment buildings, because it felt like those voices could be coming from anywhere. They were anonymous. Your neighbor could be gay, the woman who lives downstairs could be a lesbian, and you might never know because they’re in the closet. You might never know how much they’d suffered due to homophobia. But they’re also everywhere. Despite their treatment in society, LGBT people aren’t “the other” but can be anyone you know. That’s why it zooms into the party, to link these anonymous voices to a face that we we do know.

I saw some people suggesting that maybe these have to do with Martino’s involvement in the radio station, and that this will be some part of a project that he does, and while I think it’d be awesome if the radio station came into play with his personal development, I’m ehhhhh about these turning out to be part of Martino’s project all along because it doesn’t seem like it goes with the real time format, and IDK, it seems too literal. But I’d be OK with it these were more of a thematic device and Martino has a literal confession along these lines later on.

Rainbow logo 🌈🌈🌈

...who’s that blue-haired girl?

I feel like Edoardo being immediately on screen was to reassure any OG Skam viewers and Incantava fans who hadn’t yet gotten the message that EDOARDO IS DEFINITELY NOT GOING ANYWHERE THIS SEASON DO NOT PANIC.

Silvia is watching some girls dance and for a hot second I hoped they were finally hinting at the lesbian Vilde story we deserve, but it seems like she is watching them because of their slim figures, because she reconsiders the piece of cake she was going to eat. Silvia, no.

Silvia is very upset about the hotties at the party and Sana says there only would have been four people there and reassures her that she’s beautiful, awwww. But Silvia is upset about some Argentinean girl, who I assume is an apex hottie that she fears will outshine her, perhaps?

Silvia waves at Edoardo, who ignores her. You know, Edoardo’s apology to Silvia would feel more genuine if he acted like a baseline decent human being toward her instead of refraining from basic politeness because OH NO he has to shake her off his back (except when he can exploit her interest for his own gain).

It’s Italian Eskild! He says that Edoardo’s hair is indeed shit, suggesting Eleonora has told him all about it (something for the Incantava shippers) and I mean, I support him giving Silvia a boost, and I support any dragging of Edoardo, except Edoardo’s hair is like the one thing about him that is not shit.

He takes Silvia to dance and comments about checking her boobs to see if she is a virgin, so this is filling in for S2’s “It’s Britney bitch” moment. I guess they’re going to incorporate some Skam S2 material into this season in order to accommodate for the switch in storylines.

Hey, you know what I could have strongly done without? Filippo grabbing Silvia’s tit out of nowhere. There’s sometimes a tendency for gay men to grope women and get away with it because it’s obviously not sexual, so what’s the problem? Except the problem is that men, no matter what their sexuality, feel like they have unfettered access to women’s bodies. I’m not saying HE’S CANCELED or anything, but it irritated me that they threw in such a small moment that wasn’t needed, especially because this is our introduction to this character. Thanks, I want casual groping to be my initial impression of this guy. (Just to be clear, this dialogue happens in the original, but there is no unauthorized tit-grabbing from Eskild.)

And the fact that this moment went so unremarked upon is a sign of how normalized this behavior is, frankly. But they played it off as a funny moment so it’s okay!! Lol Filippo, you’re supposed to be gay!!!

Incantava shippers get a morsel before Eleonora leaves for London as she and Edoardo share a ~glance.

So Filo is Eleonora’s brother, which is a good way to incorporate his character considering it’s unlikely for Martino or Eleonora to live with a random roommate instead of their families, and they hadn’t set up the Filo character in S2 so his appearance in Martino’s life is going to need to be established quickly. So that makes both the Eleonora-Filo and Martino-Filo relationships more plausible in this culture.

Although lmao, imagine some of Eskild’s S2 scenes now that he and the Noora character are related. I’m sure Eleonora will need to bleach her eyeballs if she walks in on her brother getting his dick sucked to Circle of Life.

Eva catches up to Martino in the kitchen, and the flirtatious vibes are there right away, you know this isn’t going anywhere good. She tries to kiss him, so this is basically that scene from S2 where Eva tries to make out with Isak at a party, except way more awkward because this Eva actually manages to get a few kisses on Martino. Yikes.

Of course he’s not into it, and she’s just like yeah, go to your friends. Go find Gio. She knows where his real interests like.

Martino answering some random landline is pretty endearing, especially when he has cans of beer he needs to balance to do so.

Him being like “I am not the owner.” Lmao, he’s a sweetie. I suppose this was maybe a neighbor or someone wondering about the noise level and activity at the party, and that was why the police show up later? But I like to imagine that they were filming in this building, the phone rang randomly, and they were like, eh, throw it in.

So now we’re moving into the OG S3 content, with Martino entering the bathroom and sitting in the tub with his friends drinking and getting high.

Elia is the second person to mention the Argentinean girl, so I guess she must be a stone cold babe. Are we ever going to see her? Or will her hotness exist only in legends?

They do the whole song and dance where Martino pretends like these girls aren’t hot enough for him, while the other dudes are not having it. Well, to be fair, he really isn’t into them. I’m not sure what to make of his reactions, because Isak was very performative, and Martino just seems indifferent.

The boys claim to have gotten Fede a present, I wonder what it was? Probably just booze or something?

Lmao I was wondering why this girl would use this random out-of-the-way bathroom, but apparently two dudes are fucking in the other one (what are the odds it’s Filo).

What assholes, get out of the fucking tub for two minutes and let the girl pee in peace! I guess they’re just lazy and stoned, but JFC.

Instead of saying the girl looks like Eleven from Stranger Things, Martino tells her she looks like a frog… I kind of see it? But she’s also a babe, soooo.

Not gonna lie, I really did not like how they adapted this scene. “We’ll leave you alone to pee but you have to hook up with one of us” is not … cute … like it takes it out of negging teenage asshole territory and gets creepy. Maybe because of the hellscape that has been RL politics for the past few weeks, but I’m not in the mood for any of this boys-will-be-boys shit.

We know that one new dude must be Magnus because he is instantly rejected.

Martino gives the boys the thumbs up once Italian Emma starts making out with him and they’re leaving.

Martino didn’t actually do anything to win over this girl, really? With Isak it was a performance: Emma came in and he made a determined effort to flirt with her, he negged her, he complimented her, he got out of the tub and was more active in his pursuit. All of that was because he was trying to seem straight in front of his friends. Martino, on the other hand, was far more passive. He made the frog comment but that seems less like negging when all four of them are sitting there being dicks to this girl, rather than him alone, and she just happened to choose him out of the four. Isak was putting some effort into it and pretending to be interested until the boys left and things got steamier, but Martino just plain is not trying. He ain’t feeling it.

This is one of the disadvantages of writing recaps episode by episode as they air and not when you can look at the full season, though. Because on the one hand, making Martino more of a passive participant in his fake heterosexuality is fine, but on the other hand, if that’s not their intent - if they’re more or less going to follow Isak’s character arc for him - then I think they missed a big point of this scene in not making Martino pursue this girl more actively. But we don’t know exactly if this is a thoughtful, deliberate choice or an oversight. (For example, in S1 of Skam Italia, several of Eva’s key moments of “who are you?” were eliminated, Gio’s skate park speech was rewritten with a different focus, etc. which made me wonder about her character arc. It could have worked if they had intentionally made these changes to arrive at a different conclusion, but in the end Eva’s final speech to Gio is the same, the arc is supposed to be the same even though crucial points have been left out, and it didn’t feel as strong. So it’s hard to say whether Martino’s character is supposed to be written with subtle differences that change his characterization, or if they don’t realize how small edits can affect the perception of this character.)

I am a little alarmed that the girl goes for the blowjob like immediately after choosing Martino? Isak was hardcore flirting with Emma so it made more sense she was trying to do that with him. With this girl, she’s just trying to pee and some random guy’s like “Hook up with one of us and we’ll leave you be” and she’s like, “Sounds like a plan!” Damn girl, didn’t you need to really use the toilet? But you’re going to stop to blow him? Okay.

Eva is stumped by seeing that Martino was in the bathroom with a girl, probably moreso because he just rejected her upstairs. Well, this girl isn’t his best friend’s ex, sooooo it makes a smidge more sense, Martino’s sexuality aside.

Incantava moment: Edoardo brings up the deal with the apology to Silvia, so that made it into this remake. Part of the deal was to erase the wall of conquests - smart of Eleonora - and I guess Edo did that, hopefully, but he also reminds her that she agreed to a date.

What a power move of Eleonora to go to England to avoid this date.

At least Edo was not pursuing her prior to this, apparently. It would be a shame if they suddenly had him pressure her into a date in Eleonora’s season.

Okay, I realize that Martino didn’t appear to have the best options to hide his weed, but he’s really just gonna put it in a box on the railing where it could easily get knocked over the balcony or blown away or something? Lmao.

The scene of the boys running away from the cops was cute and had that “reckless youth enjoying the night” vibe.

So Martino clearly still has Giovanni feelings, and Giovanni is going to be crashing at his place tonight. Look at that hand on Martino’s shoulder, probably burning through his shirt. I like perhaps acknowledging the idea that all this casual affection between guys in this culture can take on a hidden toll for a closeted gay kid.

Martino mentions that his mom is freaking out, so they’re openly acknowledging Martino’s mom situation in front of the other guys (when Isak was less open about it) and Giovanni gives him a hug that fucks Martino up. It seemed like Martino didn’t want Giovanni to come over, probably both because of his crush and because of his mom situation.

Clip 2 - Sad boy slumber party

Martino wakes up and stares at Giovanni, who’s still sleeping. Martino is not on the bed, but on the floor, ostensibly because Giovanni threw him off the bed but really because he doesn’t want to be so close to Giovanni. He pointedly turns down Giovanni’s invitation to get back in the bed. This is a really delicate situation; this is such a casual thing for Giovanni that he doesn’t even think about it, but for Martino it’s this extremely loaded scenario that comes with dangers, so better not risk it.

Eva calls and wants to talk to Martino, but he can’t since he’s with Giovanni. Giovanni says that he’s been trying to get back together with Eva, and making a fool out of himself, so Martino is certainly not enjoying about this reminder that Giovanni likes girls, Giovanni loved (loves?) Eva, it will never be Giovanni and Martino in the way he wants. Also, awkward of course because Eva tried to kiss Martino, which says a lot about how she thinks of Giovanni - probably not keen to get back with him if she can make a move on his best friend, even when drunk.

Okay, I have a deeply unpopular opinion and that is: while Skam Italia’s cinematography is often visually impressive, at times it does not work with the material it’s supposed to be conveying. It’s not style over substance, but style against substance. There are several examples, but to go into one now: why the fuck is the lighting so dark in certain moments. Whyyyyyy.

And before you tell me, I do know why the director is perhaps doing this. It’s supposed to reflect Martino’s state of mind, it’s supposed to make things seem bleak, it’s supposed to contrast with the sunnier scenes such as later in the episode with Niccolò, etc. etc. The problem is that I do not think it is effective for the format of this show. Here’s the thing: we are supposed to be in Martino’s POV for a reason. His reactions should not be hidden from us, this audience, and to me the lighting is a barrier from getting closer to him and getting fully into his mindset. Like, the camera should be eating this shit up! Give me all the microexpressions! Federico Cesari is doing a nice job of acting so far and it bugs me that the lighting is obscuring some of his facial expressions. Now it makes sense for ambiguity on the part of say, Niccolò, who will be keeping secrets for most of the season (based on Even’s role) but this is Martino’s season, and we as the audience should be deep into his head every step of the way. This is supposed to be an immersive experience. There is zero reason to obscure Martino’s reactions from the audience. Martino may have a barrier between him and his friends, his family, his schoolmates, society at large - but not us, the viewers. (And not just the lighting, but for example, that his face is shot in profile for part of this scene, which again doesn’t give us a full range of Martino’s reactions, or the amount of distance between the camera and Martino at times. Even if you can assume what Martino is thinking and feeling enough that you don’t need really clear reaction shots, it’s like there’s a gap and we’re not supposed to get too close.)

Like obviously this cinematography is working for people, and if it is for you, great! If this were a different show, I could be fine with it. But not with a series that is supposed to put me fully into this character’s head, not keep me at a distance.

Covitti is the girl from the bathroom? She’s followed Martino on IG. I feel like, if they’re doing a repeat of Emma’s involvement, then it doesn’t work as well as to why she’d suddenly be interested in Martino. With Isak, there was something karmic about it, because he blatantly pursued when he met her, and it’s like he reaped what he sowed, you know? Don’t get me wrong, he absolutely did not deserve the much later repercussions with Emma outing him, but the immediate aftermath of him flirting with Emma showed that his actions had consequences. He couldn’t just make out with this girl for the benefit of an audience and then drop her. With Martino, he was so much more passive with Covitti, that it feels less earned. I mean he’s very cute, but him being doggedly pursued by her doesn’t have as much to do with his characterization, unless the point is that he refuses to put his foot down and reject her. (A valid characterization choice! But hopefully an intentional one.)

We get to see Martino’s mom and on the one hand, it’s pretty cool that she’s around in this version, but on the other hand, goddamn am I apprehensive about how they will depict her.

Martino really does not want to eat lunch with her. Apparently they have chicken and potatoes four times a week. Credit to Giovanni, he acts normal and is polite to Martino’s mom and is eager to eat with her.

Eva apologizes for trying to kiss Martino. So Giovanni is trying to get back with Eva and Eva made a move on Martino. Awkward! Eva is also probably dying to bring up the topic of that girl in the bathroom with Martino, let’s be real.

Giovanni chides Martino for being an asshole and says if he didn’t treat his mom like shit, maybe he would help her! Hey, no offense, Giovanni, but fuck off. I agree that Martino was not nice to his mom, I agree that he should treat her better. But Giovanni is a visitor. He is a guest in this household. He doesn’t know shit about what it’s like to live there or what’s the best course of action. No, actually it’s not as easy being kind to someone and it’ll fix their mental illness.

If I sound weirdly pissed about this, it’s because I am speaking as someone who has been a caretaker to a mentally ill parent. One of the most frustrating things was when people who were completely outside of my situation told me how to deal with it. It’s fucking easy to think you have the answers when you don’t live in this situation, when you have the freedom to go back to your own home when shit gets really rough. When you likely haven’t seen a loved one at their worst.

To clarify, this isn’t necessarily a flaw of the show, just an area where I think a character is flawed. But I would hate for Giovanni’s POV to be validated. Of course Martino should not treat his mother poorly, but he needs to do that on his own, not because some outsider who has no idea what is going on in this house thinks so.

Anyway. Shut the fuck up, Gio.

Eva also doesn’t want Martino to tell Gio, so you know Gio is going to find out at some point. Here’s the thing: if this drama is more along the lines of ~ooo Eva kissed Martino and he didn’t tell Gio and Gio feels BETRAYED when he finds out~ then it sounds tedious and exactly the kind of drama I don’t want. It’s not necessary, it’s honestly a very low-stakes situation. However, if it’s more of a lead-in to S1’s drama being revealed, and Gio learns about what happened with Martino ratting out Eva, that would be interesting. I’d be very interested in seeing where it goes. I think the writers have to know that this would be the most compelling aspect, so here’s hoping.

Not gonna lie, one thing I liked about S3 was the lack of heterosexual relationship drama (other than what directly serviced Isak and Even’s relationship), and I don’t want this season to stray too far into Eva/Gio stuff. Though I realize that by switching S2 and S3, they probably feel like they have to account for their relationship.

In S2 of the original, we saw the remnants of Eva/Jonas more on Eva’s side, through Noora’s eyes. Eva told herself she was over Jonas and they were just friends, but we could see that wasn’t totally true. With this season, though, we’ll probably see Eva/Giovanni more through Giovanni’s eyes, because even if Martino is Eva’s friend, he’s Giovanni’s best friend.

Clip 3 - The Phantom Clitoris

Lmao, Luca being like “Guess what happened to me” and Gio being like “Did you put an egg in the microwave again?” (I mean, you can cook eggs in a microwave even if it’s not the best way!)

Luca hooked up with a girl! If we believe him. She didn’t have a clitoris! Except he didn’t know what it was called. I don’t know whether to think that if it he didn’t know what it was called, he probably didn’t know how to look for one, or that he’s straight up lying. But this is interesting because Jonas was the one who went down on girls in the original and had this dialogue, and then Magnus was the virgin seeking wisdom from Isak, and here apparently Luca is already banging girls? Or he’s pretending to.

Martino sees Niccolò for the first time! Niccolò is adorable. He’s got the Even denim jacket and a nice smile. Sana and Silvia are shown going up to him while he’s talking to another dude.

Luca is like, I watched a 20-minute porn tutorial of how to eat a girl out. No offense bro, but I doubt you were in a very studious mindset during that. Or maybe he was! Maybe he made flashcards.

Martino gets a text from his dad about having dinner “with us” and I’m guessing that his dad has a new girlfriend or something, because it’s kinda weird to text your kid “have dinner with us?” about both his parents when his dad left his mom.

Silvia and Sana come up, Elia brings up the girl with no clitoris to them (why was that the first thing out of your mouth, dude), and Silvia mentions that she and Sana are now in charge of the radio. So this is our kosegruppa! I wonder if the radio itself will have more plot relevance for the season.

The guys are conveniently too busy to help on Thursday! But Sana thinks they’ll be helping soon enough.

For a moment I thought Luca was frightened by Silvia and saw that as a point toward Luca/Silvia happening, since it would be in line with Magnus’ sado-Vilde dreams, but then I was like, oh right, he probably means Sana, lol. (Silvia is way less intimidating than Vilde. Silvia is cheerful, Vilde was sugar layered over a core of menace when she pitched kosegruppa to the guys.)

Martino checks out Niccolò again, because who wouldn’t, and Niccolò is talking to the other guy … maybe Niccolò is flirting with that guy?

The boys suggest smoking a joint but Martino didn’t get the weed back yet, so the boys are bummed, but Gio keeps his disappointment restrained to a few jovial throttles of Martino’s neck. Martino dies inside and tries not to develop a choking kink.

Niccolò did not look at Martino in this clip, there’s no evidence he saw him in this scene, and he was in fact preoccupied with conversation with another dude. So ... has Niccolo seen Martino yet? In an “I saw you the first day of school” way? Because with that knowledge in mind, in the original we could look back at Even’s first appearance in the cafeteria and see that he had obviously grabbed a seat with a good view of Isak and was sitting there alone, possibly sketching him. I guess you could say that Niccolò was standing there to get Martino’s attention, maybe even trying to make him jealous by talking to another guy, but that seems .... really convoluted. If they do include the “I saw you the first day of school” line, they should have had Niccolò look at Martino for even a brief moment. It didn’t even need to be eye contact! Like you could show Niccolò looking toward Martino when he’s out of focus, as a background event, a little Easter egg for the eagle-eyed viewer.

This is one of those original clip comparisons, so hold on to your butts. In the original clip, the way the scene is shot and acted combines multiple details to demonstrate Isak’s alienation from the other boys. Tarjei’s acting shows that he is disconnected from this conversation - he’s picking at his sandwich, checking his phone, he’s not really engaged with the cat tongue/clitoris talk. He has a few mild smiles but his facial expressions and body language show he’s checked out. He doesn't participate in that conversation at all, actually, other than a look or two. There’s no dialogue from him. And the camera contributes to this impression that he’s withdrawn: it’s often just on Isak with the conversation coming from off screen, rather than showing him in the shots with the guys. It shows him alone instead of showing him connected to the group. When it does show him with the group, he’s not reacting to them much. So when he hears a boy's laugh, it seems plausible that it would get attention as the boys’ conversation is not holding his interest.

With this clip, Martino might make a comment like "Oh no, don't tell us your dirty story" but he is otherwise very engaged in this conversation. He leans into it, he's listening, his face makes him seem eager. He's frequently shown in the shot with the other guys, part of the group rather than isolated. Gio repeatedly looks back at him and shares looks with him so there’s something reciprocal happening. Martino speaks to Luca and he high fives him. He's just a definite participant in this conversation, so there isn't much of a feel of alienation here. I mean, we know he's gay, and maybe we can assume that his participation in this conversation is forced or half-hearted, but that's not coming through in how it's portrayed. And I like Federico, I think he's one of the better actors on the show, but I also think he's playing it too comfortably, though I blame Bessegatto more for that since his direction is what guides the performance. It seems like Martino's a nice guy with some friends, who doesn't seem too detached this conversation and who seems totally fine with looking at a cute guy over there. Not much of an internal struggle. Not much of an external struggle either, really.

It felt like there were missed opportunities. For example, when Martino says he doesn’t want Luca’s TMI, and Gio is like, “Yes we do, don’t listen to him,” we don’t even get a reaction shot from Martino to see how that affects him? We could have seen him annoyed, or exasperated, or uninterested in this conversation. We could have seen him drifting and doing something with his body language to indicate he’s not comfortable, and then THAT is when he sees Niccolò, because his mind is already wandering. Not when he’s engaged in this conversation. Or keep in Luca asking Martino about going girls and wanting to know how Martino finds the clitoris, and Martino having to struggle to answer that when the boys are all looking at him.

I mean, again, it makes me wonder what they’re going to do with Martino’s characterization because they’re playing up his struggles with his attraction to Gio, but he does not seem to be struggling as much with the public performance of liking girls. Or even perhaps the internal conflict of liking boys. And that would be fine except it seems like it should be. Martino was the one who introduced the idea of liking Eva back in S1, before Eva had even suggested it herself. He was definitely on the defense then, so what’s going on now?

Also, Isak glanced at Even and Even looked back, which made Isak look away. Julie pointedly did not show Even again in that clip because Isak was clamping down on his attraction and forcing himself not to look. Martino allows himself a second glance. It frames the scene way more comfortably.

Clip 4 - Fede almost had it all

12:12 ...it begins...

Martino sees Fede and Sana, so he approaches them. He calls them “rays of sunshine,” which is cute! Though he’s totally doing it to butter them up so he gets his stash back.

LMAO I love the part where Federica is like, I found a drill, who brings a drill to a party? (Someone you pray to God remains sober.)

He asks if he can come over and Federica chokes on her drink. She’s really cute in this scene. Honestly, she didn’t make a ton of impression on me in S1 compared to other girl Chrises from the remakes, but I enjoyed her here a lot, she’s sweet.

They can “study” together in the living room because Fede’s parents are gone. Oh babe, I think you’ll be disappointed at the amount of actual learnin’ that would take place were such a study session to take place.

Sana sits there texting Martino that she has his weed while he’s right there next to her. I guess Fede was just really excited by the prospect of having Martino in her house, but did she really not notice that Sana was texting and Martino just so happened to receive a text at the same time?

Sana saying that it’s “a friend of her brother’s” who has Martino’s “necklace.” Is that an actual nod toward Niccolò or just a coincidence? If she means Niccolò, then why is she bringing him up?

Like I know people like this theory, but I don’t think it makes sense that Sana was trying to hook up Isak and Even all along (or Martino and Niccolò if the circumstances are the same), because how does that explain her reactions to being asked about Islam’s view of homosexuality, or to Isak being outed? Of course they could be going for a diferent approach in this remake.

Federica is really adorable freaking out over how she ALMOST had Martino within her grasp. Poor girl, I’m sorry to tell you that your day is never coming. (Lmao, I guess one day a remake could swap out Emma for Isak hooking up with the Chris character? I mean Chris >>>>> Emma, but then I’d feel so bad for her.)

Clip 5 - Here we gooooooooo

So the carrot cake (made by Silvia) suuuuucks. Martino’s disgusted face is pretty good.

The girl squad is trying to Skype with Eleonora. Meanwhile Martino sits there by himself, not having a great time. As a contrast to the girl squad who are laughing and having fun, Martino is on his own because his dumbass friends ditched him.

Sana wants Martino to let them use his Internet connection to continue the Skype call, he’s like lmao, she’s ditching you guys on purpose. Gonna go out on a limb and say that he’s projecting.

Tbh I do think it’s odd that they wrote out Eleonora so much if they didn’t need to. Like I know people think they switched S2 and S3 for dramatic, important reasons, but I get the feeling it was just a matter of actor availability. I could be wrong!

That random curly-haired dude at the meeting is the true star of this clip. He was INTO everything that was happening.

SIlvia says it took forever to make her cake. And it still sucks, apparently. Good thing that the girls never seemed to get her pineapple cake from S1? Was Silvia behind the Jell-O disaster, too?

She doesn’t want another piece, which might be another hint at her ED, but the cake is garbage soooo maybe she just has taste buds and a self-preservation instinct, IDK.

It’s actually intriguing that Silvia seems to be baking cakes for people and yet she monitors her own eating so closely.

Lmao at there being dead noise when Martino sees Niccolò enter the room. Everything fades except this smiley hottie. (For a second I was like “is he flat-lining?”)

Niccolò walked in with some other people, including Covetti. He sits on the table beside Martino. Martino keeps glancing at him but Niccolò will NOT glance at Martino. Again, if they’re going to go with “I saw you the first day of school,” I don’t think they set it up that well. It’s fine if they don’t, but there are really no fun “extras” you get from these scenes with that reveal. In both of his scenes Niccolò has been hanging out with other people, he’s not glancing at Martino. There’s no foreshadowing. You can be like oh, Niccolò positioned himself outside the school for Martino to see, he DELIBERATELY didn’t look at Martino for reasons! But that’s not very enjoyable on a rewatch.

The way Martino begrudgingly greets that Uglydoll or whatever is the best part of the episode.

Covitti notices Martino looking over at Niccolo, by the way.

Okay, WHO IS THAT BLUE-HAIRED GIRL. Like it seems as if she would make a good Sonja, she reminds me a little of Theresa.

Covitti whispers something to Martino but we don’t know what.

“Bad story about Chicco Rodi” Who was that? I vaguely remember the name from S1? Oh wait, was he the guy who got the award for worst attendance? I hope that “tutorial” is foreshadowing for Martino and Niccolò breaking into the school at some point.

Silvia comes across as positively chill compared to Vilde. It must be Osvaldo’s influence.

Why is Covitti even there, since she’s not interested in what Silvia’s saying? To stalk Martino? How did she know he would be there? Emma knew Isak was going to be there because of signups, were there signups for this? (This is nitpicky and I’m sure that’s what they meant, it’s just that they’re skipping over some parts where her motivations become clear.)

Martino: Sorry I have to take this totally real and not at all imaginary call!!!!!

Wow, no finesse, just like our man Isak.

Martino’s fake phone call is pretty funny, like he lets it go on way longer than necessary.

He plops down in a chair in the radio room and then he starts talking to himself and pretending to be on the radio. I really do like the idea of Martino finding his voice through the radio, literally and metaphorically. And actually, when he starts speaking by himself, he sounds pretty good to me! Confident, composed, his voice sounds good, the words come easy. So maybe this is a move from him being passive to speaking up for himself.

That shot of Martino, fractured in the glass, when Niccolò turns on the light is fabulous. Showing how Niccolò’s introduction is going to break apart Martino’s sense of self. And Niccolò‘s image is clear and whole so Martino perhaps sees him as this cool, confident dude who’s got his shit together. So he thinks. (Plus Niccolò literally turns on the light on and all.)

Niccolò says it’s a shame Martino stopped talking, basically, and they laugh about Silvia’s dry-ass cake.

Niccolò has a shitty ancient phone? Would that play into his avoidance of social media because of his manic episode? Since you can’t post to IG/FB/any apps from one of those. Or is he just a hipster who hates technology? Or something else?

Lol, I didn’t have to wait long before the “breaking into the school” prophecy was fulfilled. They end up climbing into a part of the school that’s closed.

Beautiful view on the roof, obviously. I guess for O Helga Natt, Martino is going to run and find Niccolò here, maybe? And then he’ll be in the radio room instead? Will they stare at each other from behind the glass?

Niccolò asks if Martino knows Silvia, and he says no, she’s a friend of a friend. Niccolò asks which one, so he’s probably wondering if Martino is good pals with Sana.

Niccolò notes that Martino doesn’t seem happy to be there, and neither does Niccolò. Taking him at his word, he’s doing this as part of school-work interchange. So I guess he didn’t show up just to meet Martino? Again, I have no problem with that changing that (I loved it with Evak but I’m fine with them not repeating it), I just want them to do a good job of foreshadowing if they do go with that.

We get the conversation about Niccolò being from a different school, but there’s no line (as in the original) where Isak notes with some incredulity that he transferred during his last year, so there isn’t as much of a hint that something happened to Niccolò, provided they are still keeping in his backstory. (I think he’s still in his final year?)

The camera gets very close up in the boys’ faces as they talk about more personal topics, THANK GOD. Like I do think the coldness and distance in other clips is intentional, I just don’t think it works with this show, but at least we can get warmer, closer scenes when necessary.

Covitti (whose first name is Emma, by the way) shows up and literally comes between them. They do the whole thing where Martino “introduces” Niccolò to Emma, except they’re not trying to pretend they’re already partners to avoid her.

“Fares” means horseman or knight in Arabic, so I guess Niccolò is going to be Martino’s knight in shining armor? Or fight for him? That would explain his flipbook in the trailer with stick figure Niccotino on a horse.

Covitti isn’t very awkward as a person. She and Niccolò have a polite, maybe even flirty conversation when filtered through certain jealous ears; it’s Martino who suddenly feels like a third wheel. Covitti is still making eyes at Martino, though. Niccolò says he and Martino will stay back and smoke, which pleases Martino, but she invites herself to smoke with them. It’s awkward but way less so that with Isak, Even, and Emma, in my opinion, maybe because Covitti seems like she’s enjoying herself even if the boys aren’t.

The poppy indie song at the end of the clip feels out of place. Like if they wanted to emphasize the awkwardness, they should have just ended in a stranger song or complete silence to drive home how Martino did not want her there. If they wanted to use this song to emphasize Martino’s crush, show closeups of Martino glancing at Niccolò with the sunlight bouncing off his face without including Covitti in there.

Oh god. Don’t kill me for this. Okay. So we have Niccolò’s introduction in this clip, obviously, and I like him in the sense that he's a friendly guy with an utterly beautiful smile. But I felt like they made him just like ... a really nice, smiley guy, in a way that was one-note. And I’m NOT criticizing the actor’s abilities, because I’ve seen his acting clips from other projects and I think he could do justice to the character. This is more about directorial decisions.

Part of the reason I love Even is because he’s fucking strange. Sure, he’s Isak’s dream boy with his denim jacket and styled hair, and he’s got a smile like the sun, and he just feels cool, but he’s also a bouncy, twitchy weirdo coursing with energy. In his first clip he makes a HELL of an impression and it’s by pulling a bizarre stunt in the bathroom with paper towels and then by making a blowjob joke as one of his first lines to Isak. Now I don’t think every Even of the remakes need to do that, not at all, but Even felt like a really specific character to me, someone who was weird and strongly himself and presented in a way that made us fall for him piece by piece. And one fear I have about the remakes is that they’ll remove some of his weirdness to make him more of a general artsy hipster type who gets along with the Isak. (Or maybe him an artsy hipster asshole, but that’s another story.)

I feel bad because I do actually want to love Niccolò I think the actor is tremendously adorable and enthusiastic about is role, and I think he can make Niccolò into someone specific and memorable. But the way this scene was directed and performed, it felt like Bessegatto told Rocco to be charming by smiling a lot. And I mean, he DOES have a great smile, but Niccolò has the same amused, benign friendliness the whooooole clip, and my gut feeling was that they were trying too hard to make us like him and eliminating anything that might make the character off-putting, which is unfortunately some of what makes the character compelling, especially this early on as he should be something of a mystery both for Martino and the audience.

Where this approach would have worked more for me is if Niccolò was this unstoppable force of sunshine against Martino’s constant grumpy iciness, and he couldn’t help but melt in the face of it. But the thing is, Martino isn’t a constant grump who’s freezing people out. He’s actually pretty friendly to people. So it was like radiant sunshine against slightly less radiant sunshine, and there wasn’t a lot like I felt I could mull over, IDK.

And yes yes I know this is only the first clip. Niccolò has tons of time to make himself into a distinctive, memorable character. I’m aware of that. But I don’t want to lie about my reaction.

General Comments/Social Media:

Continuing with Martino’s crush on Giovanni makes sense considering only a few months have passed. Though it should be said that I never thought Isak getting over Jonas from S1 to S3 without any elaboration was like .. a flaw of the show? It depends on how deep you think Isak’s feelings were. Personally I never saw him as in love with Jonas, I saw it as an intense crush, compounded by Isak’s bad home life so that Jonas, his best friend who was always there for him, was someone who really made his life better at the time, and whose attention he craved.

There was almost a year between the end of S1 and the start of S3, and during that time, Isak had seen Jonas go from Eva to other girls, so I’m sure it sunk in that Jonas wasn’t suddenly going to go for him just because Eva was out of the picture. And Isak had moved out of his parents’ home so there was less of an immediately chaotic situation where he was more dependent on Jonas for support. I mean he’s clearly not in a great place at the start of S3, but he was able to get some independence and distance from his parents. I think his life was more stable on a day-to-day basis. So it’s not hard to see how Isak’s crush would have faded with those factors in mind. Martino, on the other hand, has had less time to get over Giovanni, Giovanni perhaps has not moved on to other girls since he’s still trying to get with Eva, and Martino is still probably depending on him for more emotional support since he has to deal with a more directly stressful environment at home.

In the texts, Giovanni refers to Sana as “Sana Escobar” in reference to her taking the weed. Pablo Escobar is obviously extremely well-known on his own, but I do think it’s a nod to all the Narcos/Escobar mentions in Isak’s season. Or at least they took inspiration there.

Elia is apparently one hell of a dumbass according to an essay he wrote that showed up on IG.

I wonder if they’re going to swap out the Grindr clip with Eskild for the first meeting with Filippo. I really do wonder how that relationship will come across, because I know people are excited about seeing them meet (and I am too) but the thing is, a big part of what made Isak and Eskild’s relationship in S3 meaningful was that they had months of trust to be established between them. Eskild saw Isak repressing his sexuality for months, and when Isak finally came out to him, there was pride in seeing this kid’s long journey to acceptance. We also got plenty of little scenes between them so the dynamic wasn’t just a big dramatic thing, we saw the casual side of their relationship. So I’m not sure how they can replicate that with a relationship that cannot help but have less buildup.

Niccolò is a pianist and there’s a video of him playing on YouTube! I’m really glad they incorporated the actor’s talents into the character and gave him his own artistic skill to make him a little different from Even. I assume that Martino will find the piano video and watch that endlessly. And it’ll be fun if Martino is all convinced Niccolò is a serious classical music snob but then Niccolò is like, “YES, this is my JAM” over a cheesy pop song.

One big problem I have is that it feels like a lot of potential for conflict or tension (both internal and external) is being minimized across various relationships, in multiple situations. It just feels safer for Martino despite him still going through some major problems that Isak was not at this point, and so it really shouldn’t. And that makes it harder to get involved in his POV or to immerse ourselves in his struggles. For example:

The boy squad isn't angry or annoyed with Martino for losing the weed, they're just kind of like lol, get it back.

Sana and Martino don't clash with as much tension, and does Sana even explain why she’s holding onto Martino’s weed instead of giving it back? Sana B. was disgusted that Isak left the weed in Eva’s house where Eva could get in trouble if it was found; Sana A. is just doing it to be sassy, so far? Knowing that she found Isak’s actions distasteful upped the animosity of the Sana-Isak relationship, whereas Sana-Martino doesn’t have that element. I mean it’s certainly a reasonable inference that Sana is mad at him for potentially getting Fede in trouble, but it’s not a clear motivation. Martino doesn’t know why she’s randomly holding on to his weed. Does he think she’s doing it because she’s Muslim and disapproves? Because she wants it for herself? Just to torment him?

Italian Emma comes across way more of a chill, tolerable girl than Nowegian Emma and less of a persistent nuisance causing him stress just by existing.

Martino is less alienated and uncomfortable and more like a chill dude who likes to look at guys. The boys talking about going down on girls doesn’t make him uninterested and detached from the situation, he just mildly protests about TMI but continues to engage. He can look at Niccolò without having to make himself look away. He puts up less of a show to perform heterosexuality than Isak.

Martino doesn’t want to get involved in the radio show, except when he’s left alone he starts talking into a mic and pretending he’s on the radio, suggesting that it is of interest to him even if he’s not into Silvia’s leadership or whatever (as opposed to Isak who just didn’t want to deal with kosegruppa).

Even the Martino and Niccolò meeting had them bantering right away, practically as soon as they spoke, rather than encountering any moments of uncertainty or confusion, no time where they had to find their groove. And people are going to be like “They got along right away when Isak and Even didn’t!” when the reason Isak and Even were a little awkward at first was not because they clashed but because they were attracted to each other. Isak was shy about talking to a cute boy and taken aback by Even’s approach; Even was overwhelmed about talking to the boy he’d liked for weeks. It’s also a mark of how genuine Isak’s interest was: with Emma he was all slick and insincere, with Even he was real and tongue-tied. I mean, think about episode 2 and what a great moment it is when Isak runs into Even on the tram and they fumble for words at first. It’s so good! It’s human and real. It’s vulnerable, especially from Isak’s POV since we know how hard he has been pining over the last week, but also from Even’s POV especially when you know he’s liked Isak for a long time. The thing with Martino and Niccolò is that they settle into conversation so instantly, without any bumps, that I don’t think I would buy a moment like that happening. It’s not like I expect them to immediately become best friends but it would feel strange after this scene. And personally, it’s not like this relationship needs to develop the same as Isak/Even, but it’s good to leave some room for build-up from a narrative perspective. That’s why it’s so satisfying when Isak goes from barely being able to speak to Even to getting so comfortable with him that he can joke around and laugh with him. Like, let Martino say the wrong thing, or not know what to say, or make a mistake, so he can earn that more comfortable place with Niccolò, or so we can savor the moments that show him as vulnerable. (I mean, did people not enjoy Isak and Even being shy around each other? Because the awkwardness, the long silent pauses, the fumbling for what to say ... I ate that shit up. I loved it.)

Now on their own, it’s not wrong for any of these plot threads or scenes to go more smoothly. But do you see how cumulatively, they don’t contribute that much to creating a stressful internal and external climate for Martino? He’s just so much milder about everything, and the people around him are milder to him, and from a dramatic perspective it’s not as engaging.

I mean fandom does this thing where it’s like “These characters get along better! Things are Softer! Cinnamon rolls!! It’s an improvement!!!” but that’s not ... actually great from a narrative standpoint. We’re at the beginning of Martino’s story and it makes more sense to emphasize what a shit place he’s in so we can build him up over the season.

The conflict that IS there, and felt like it had more of a presence on screen when it was addressed, is Martino still having feelings for Giovanni and Martino’s issues with his parents. I’m not sure how much farther they’ll take Martino’s crush on Gio, since now Niccolò is in the picture, but they’ll likely have Martino keeping secrets from Giovanni that are Eva-related. And we have Martino living with his mother and dealing with her problems, but I felt like that should have been more emphasized in this premiere episode and not just one clip, since it’s really fucking huge. It’s not a problem he can kind of repress like Isak because Isak can just ignore his mom’s texts. Martino has to go home and deal with it every day. (Like I would have put the radio/weed stuff for episode 1 and kick off with Martino’s parental problems and meeting Filippo, since that should set sooo much of the stage for this season, emotionally.)

I’ve also seen the idea that this season will focus more on Martino dealing with external homophobia than internalized homophobia, and that’s certainly a good idea, but then they really should have hit the ground running with that theme. Show the boy squad making casually homophobic comments, show him fearing what his mom will say. Show some random assholes making gay jokes about Filippo at the party and Martino overhears.

I think they’re doing the meeting with Filippo in episode 2, so hopefully we get more meat to Martino’s conflicts.

I sound like I’m being negative, probably, but I’m aware this is only episode 1, and there’s plenty more to come. There are things that I do like, such as Filippo being Eleonora’s brother and the introduction of the radio. I think those could be really cool for the season. And I’m still intrigued by everything else, because this is S3 and of course I’m wondering how they’ll adapt it!

Please feel free to correct me if I missed or misinterpreted anything!

If you got this far, thank you for reading! Especially if you disagreed with me, lol.

#skamit reactions #skam italia reactions

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english-ext-2 · 7 years

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Planning Your Degree

Unlike high school where you had a limited range of electives to choose from and a couple of eligibility and progression criteria to keep in mind (10 units minimum for the HSC, at least 4 subjects, 2 mandatory units of English, etc.), university has dozens of electives and entire handbooks with enough fine print to make you cry. You’re often left to navigate the waters (of your tears) yourself, since academic advisers aren’t as accessible – there’s hundreds of students in a department or faculty, and only a couple of them to go around.

Not to say you shouldn’t try to get in touch with academic advisers! Certainly, if you encounter any difficulties you should get in touch with them. I’d love to provide a list but there are advisers for different faculties, departments and schools just at Usyd, so you can imagine how long a complete list would be for every major university in Sydney. Besides, advisers often change without notice.

Ultimately, you’re responsible for ensuring you’ve taken mandatory subjects, any prereqs for senior subjects, that you’re not under or over-loading your units, that you’re on track to meet the required number of credit points or units for graduation, etc. That said, not even meticulous planning can save you from the incompetence of uni bureaucracy. That’s just something you’ll have to learn to tolerate.

Just remember:

YOUR HANDBOOK IS YOUR BEST FRIEND

To make life marginally easier, bookmark your degree handbook and always refer back to it before and after semester to make sure you’re fulfilling your requirements.

UTS handbooks

USYD handbooks

UNSW handbooks

Macquarie handbooks

WSU handbooks

These are all undergraduate handbooks btw, don’t confuse yourself with the postgrad handbooks. They contain essential information on admission, requirements, attendance, core/compulsory units of study/subjects, etc.

Spot the Difference (or not)

One of the horrible (truly horrible) things about degree planning between universities is the lack of consistent terminology. This drove me through several walls in my planning. A “major” at Usyd is also a “major” at UNSW, though it’s interchangeable with “area of specialisation”. Usyd “units of study” are UNSW “courses”. Aren’t you missing NESA and nice, straightforward Board Approved Courses now.

There are other terms like streams, sub-majors and sub-structures but they’re university-specific and with some digging you can find what you’re looking for. These are just the most common terms you’ll encounter and need knowledge of.

Lmao WSU what even

It’s tempting to plan your entire degree in advance, which while showing excellent organisation and foresight, doesn’t account for the messier reality of new and cancelled units, and units that were offered in one semester suddenly being offered in another. Trust me on this. You can only deal with so much administrative bullshit before shorting out. Sure, you can tentatively assume where exchange or internships might go, but don’t assume a unit you had an eye on for 2019 semester 1 will definitely run in 2019 semester 1 (even the compulsory ones can switch around randomly).

Using Excel

It’s also helpful to map your degree in an Excel spreadsheet – maybe do this after you’ve gotten your ATAR and are tossing up between two or three degrees.

It’s not exactly art but it serves its purpose. Down the side you can see I’ve divided my study into semesters and across the top I’ve included the components of my degree. Because I took INGS, I had:

an International Studies core (4 INGS units of study)

a language core (3 language units of study)

a compulsory major (8 units of study, 6 of which are senior units)

a second major (I could have chosen electives but I wanted to double major)

compulsory exchange (4 units of study approved by my departments)

You’ll also notice the purple row and column at the bottom and far right. Those are my total credit points (I know it says “UOC” but that was because my first table was for UNSW B International Studies and they use “units of credit”). It’s vital that you keep track of how many credit points you’ve done!! If you don’t meet the requirements you jeopardise graduation (which is why it’s ESSENTIAL to make sure you get academic approval for any subjects you might take on exchange.)

I returned to this outline after each semester to make sure I was on track, and to confirm how many units I would need to take next semester.

Choosing Your Units

.. or units of study, subjects, courses. This is going to be a more general section since I can’t possibly provide reliable advice on specific units in specific degrees.

The first thing you should ask is: IS THIS UNIT COMPULSORY? It sounds obvious but hey, you need to pass compulsory units to graduate. You should also be aware if those units have prerequisites or are prereqs themselves for senior units, as that will affect the order in which you take them. In first year it’s relatively easy to determine which units you’ll do (starting from scratch), but once you hit second year, depending on your degree, there’s some flexibility.

For example, I have law friends who’ve played around with matching different compulsory law units to make for a more interesting semester. One of these friends, doing a double degree in Commerce and Law, also tried to balance her Commerce and Law subjects to take the edge off reading-heavy law units and keep herself sane.

If you have electives, have fun with them! Shop around, but consult your handbook to ensure your unit of choice will count towards your degree.

Your choice will depend on a combination of factors:

Prerequisites, corequisites, and prohibitions

Availability - semester 1 or 2? trimester 1, 2 or 3?

Your personal interest

Quality of lecturer/tutor - consult your network, keep an eye and ear open for the good ones

Timetabling - important for those who have work (also ties in with attendance-as-assessment)

Assessments - units with heavily-weighted exams or several small assessments might not be so attractive

How well a unit complements your major(s) - this one is a bit understated and perhaps more applicable to the Humanities, e.g. my social research units complemented my media politics unit very well

Degree planning can be a pain, particularly for those with 5-6 year degrees, but it’s so important you’re on top of your units to ensure all that hard work and suffering pays off at graduation.

#hsc #year 12 #university #degree planning #atar

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piquira · 6 years

Note

the fan had everything ready for Shaki lmao

haha Yes, the fan shared a video explaining his meeting with Shak and it’s actually very sweet.

https://www.facebook.com/ShakiraMega/posts/10155628376248612

(here’s a translation of his anecdote, just because I thought it was really sweet and telling about how accessible and normal Shakira and her parents are…)

** also according to the fan Shakira’s voice is a little hoarse and Don William told him that Shakira at the moment does not require surgery, and that she is taking medication, and following doctors orders to cure her voice problem.

“I’ve been following Shakira since 1998, and I’ve always to met her. I’ve attended a lot of her concerts… Right now i’m working in an airline and I always thought about the possibility of attending her in one of my flights, that has been one of my biggest dreams. And since last month, I had planned to go to her concerts in Germany, Belguim, Sweden and Madrid that’s why I had my Colombian flag, albums, and my special diary for her just in case I got to meet her backstage… the first concerts were canceled but I still left my stuff in my suit case because I was still planning to attend the rest of the concerts. At the end they were all canceled but since I didn’t have a chance to go back home they stayed with me…Yesterday I had a flight to Barcelona and I didn’t know she was going to be on the same flight. 3 hours before the flight I check the passenger list and she was on it, but since I had read that Pique’s mom had gotten injured in New York, I wasn’t sure she was going to fly back that day..”

“I went on with my day and starting with the process of boarding passengers, when all of a sudden I hear this little kid, and I look and it’s Milan and behind him I see Pique, who’s gigantic… and behind him I see Shakira. It was Shakira I couldn’t believe it!!! But I had to remain professional because I was working and I didn’t want to scare her. …I went up to her and helped her find her seat but she wasn’t very happy with it since they weren’t able to sit all four of them together, so Shakira asks the couple behind them if they didn’t mind switching seats with them so that she could sit with the kids, but the man says no because he wanted to sit with his wife. I tried to tell him that he should because it was Shakira but he said he didn’t want to… inside I was dying, how dare he, but Shakira remained calm and was never a diva about it. She was very sweet and fresh about it, a real sweetheart. She just said that the kids are really young and that sometimes they could annoy people because they’re kids… but in the end we managed to accommodate them with the kids….Milan is super sweet, and Sasha is a bit restless but everything went well…”

“The kids drank milk to fall asleep and Shakira also fell asleep early into the flight so I didn’t have a chance to talk to her or anything. During the flight, Shakira’s dad got up to go to the restroom so I walked over to say hello to him. I told him that I was a huge fan of his daughter, that I've been following her since 98′ and I showed him my collages of photo’s of her. He told me he was very happy to hear that and told me that I must talk to her and take a picture with her. ‘I hope so that’s my dream’…. Later Doña Nidia got up and I also talked to her, showed her my stuff and she was also very happy and excited to hear from me… they’re just such amazing, sweet, simple, and very humble people…”

“Shakira slept most of the flight but about 50 minutes before landing she woke up, and all of a sudden, Don William comes up to me and asks: Have you talked to Shakira yet? And I told him No because she just woke up, and i’m embarrassed to go up to her and bug her.. So he says,’don’t worry, i’ll prepare her for you, give me a second’…so he goes and talks to her and I was very nervous, I was hoping she didn’t get annoyed. As they were talking I go up to her and introduce myself. She already had a huge smile on her face, so I tell her my name and tell her I was a huge fan of hers since 98′. She responded “wow, that’s incredible, thank you so much”…. I tell her: “You are my everything and you don’t know what this means to me… I have a surprise to you in the cabin and i’d love if you can come back to see it.”

She responds:”Yes, just give me a second to refresh myself and I’ll be right there to take pictures..”

“Then her son gets up, Sasha, and I had to carry him and pass him to her. Again, she was very fresh and calm about it, never worried about me having to carry her son like some people can be… I passed him to her, we got to talking, the little boy is a little mischievous, but normal, since he’s still young..”

“I told her about how I had tickets to go see her and had my stuff ready for the concerts, but that having her there and meeting her in person was an even better experience, the biggest Christmas miracle for me, you’re everything to me…”

“Then she went to the restroom I noticed she was cleaning the floor with the napkins, so I told her ‘don’t worry about that I’ll clean that up for you’ and she responded: ‘oh no don’t worry I got it, here just hold my purse’… and I was like omg I can’t believe this woman who’s has millions is cleaning the mess in the restroom, I mean she’s so simple and humble that it just makes you love her even more…she then went back to her seat and she kept on fixing herself up for the pictures, although she didn’t need it because she’s a natural beauty…”

“Right before landing she gets up and goes up to me so I could show her my surprise. I showed her my t-shirts, my Colombian flag, and my Barcelona jersey with her name on it.” She responds: Oh wow, do you carry this around with you always? and I explained to her that I had all the stuff because I was planning to take them with me to the concerts last month. I also told her that I always wear my Barcelona shirt with her name on it when I go to Barcelona just in case I see her in the street. And while she took pictures with the other flight attendants, I changed into it so I could take pictures with it on with her…. We took pictures, she signed my albums, and she asked me where I was from.

“After the plane landed, they were the last one’s to get off, and once again Shak gave me another hug and kiss, she wished me a happy new year, and that she hoped to see me soon…”

“She did sound a little hoarse so she still needs to recover and her dad told me that she is taking medication for her voice and that at the moment, she doesn’t need surgery, as long as she follows the doctors orders…”

“For all of you that haven’t met her, I’d say that it’s a real pleasure. As long as you approach her in a respectful and professional manner, she’ll attend you because she loves meeting her fans.. and she was just the sweetest to me”

#i was going to make a quick little summary and ended up translating most of it lmao

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decadenttimetravelmentality-blog · 6 years

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