Jjgaut - Forever A Madman

An important perspective in light of recent events.

Watch this. 

We need to hit our goal of $80,000 by February 1, or we won’t be able to:

Upgrade our stock footage to HD for a theater-quality production

Professionally compose sound production for an original soundtrack

Finish the film in the next few months

Show the film at space industry conferences in 2015

Begin premiering the film in theaters nationwide

Release all stock/archival NASA footage by the end of 2015

Send copies of the film to Congress

Reward our backers

This project needs your help. If we don’t successfully reach out funding goal, the campaign is reset back to zero and we have to start all over again.

Please share and support our Kickstarter campaign any way you can, and urge larger or more widespread donations from everyone you know. A little goes a long way, and there’s strength in numbers.

Use your voice so we can let the world (and Congress) hear it. Join in the #FightforSpace.

Good Traits Gone Bad

Exploring good traits gone bad in a novel can add depth and complexity to your characters. Here are a few examples of good traits that can take a negative turn:

1. Empathy turning into manipulation: A character with a strong sense of empathy may use it to manipulate others' emotions and gain an advantage.

2. Confidence becoming arrogance: Excessive confidence can lead to arrogance, where a character belittles others and dismisses their opinions.

3. Ambition turning into obsession: A character's ambition can transform into an unhealthy obsession, causing them to prioritize success at any cost, including sacrificing relationships and moral values.

4. Loyalty becoming blind devotion: Initially loyal, a character may become blindly devoted to a cause or person, disregarding their own well-being and critical thinking.

5. Courage turning into recklessness: A character's courage can morph into reckless behavior, endangering themselves and others due to an overestimation of their abilities.

6. Determination becoming stubbornness: Excessive determination can lead to stubbornness, where a character refuses to consider alternative perspectives or change their course of action, even when it's detrimental.

7. Optimism becoming naivety: Unwavering optimism can transform into naivety, causing a character to overlook dangers or be easily deceived.

8. Protectiveness turning into possessiveness: A character's protective nature can evolve into possessiveness, where they become overly controlling and jealous in relationships.

9. Altruism becoming self-neglect: A character's selflessness may lead to neglecting their own needs and well-being, to the point of self-sacrifice and burnout.

10. Honesty becoming brutal bluntness: A character's commitment to honesty can turn into brutal bluntness, hurting others with harsh and tactless remarks.

These examples demonstrate how even admirable traits can have negative consequences when taken to extremes or used improperly. By exploring the complexities of these traits, you can create compelling and multi-dimensional characters in your novel.

Happy writing!

After shoving Hansel in the oven, the witch turns to Gretel - who is currently fending the witch off with a gingerbread chair - and says:

“I can’t believe you thought a trail of breadcrumbs would save you. I mean, honestly, this is a forest! It’s full of animals. Honestly, the very idea that a dumb shit like you thought you could get the better of me is absurd.”

Gretel hits her in the face with said chair. To be fair to the witch, she takes the chairshot like a champ.

“Ow!”

“Did you know,” says Gretel, “that crows are capable of facial recognition?”

“Eh?” Says the witch, clambering to her feet and pulling a candy cane sledgehammer off the wall. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Not only that,” Gretel continues, “but they can remember both friends and enemies. And they’ll often follow people they remember as friends.”

The two fence with their sugared weapons for a moment, before the witch knocks the chair out of Gretel’s hands.

“Enough with the bird facts! Honestly, this whole attempted escape has been utter clownshoes. Get in the fucking oven!”

She seizes Gretel by the collar. Gretel immediately sandbags, letting her whole body go limp. This eminently practical defense forces the witch to try and deadlift her. Which is hard, as the witch often skips leg day.

“For example,” Gretel says, as the witch struggles and grunts, “if you feed crows a lot of breadcrumbs, they’ll probably start to see you as a friend and follow you in the hope of more food.”

The witch stops. Outside, she hears the thunder of wings.

“They’ll even bring you shiny things they find as presents!” Says Gretel, as a corner of the gingerbread ceiling is suddenly cut away by a large crow with a knife in its mouth.

“Oh shitballs.” Says the witch, as the crows descend. “I hope you know this is a great unkindness.”

“Technically,” Says Gretel, “It’s a murder.”

My attempt to reduce the US Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Amendments as tweets.

Independence Day Marathon Part 1: Maleficent

To honor my country's existence, I decided to spend the entire day in the theater.  I mapped out to spend a solid ten hours staring at just about everything Hollywood could throw at me, and came out mostly unscathed. I feel like it was a good way to celebrate Independence Day.

I started with Maleficent, a fairly shallow but enjoyable-enough Disney fantasy galvanized by Angelina Jolie's amazing performance. She's always had an otherworldly look about her, but nothing has taken advantage of it like this, and few roles have let her dig so far into such a fascinating character. Writer Linda Woolverton does a great job expanding on the character, giving Jolie a rich character arc to traverse, and building a lovely twist around the nature of True Love's Kiss. And with that to work with, Jolie ignites the screen every moment she's on it, and it's absolutely worth seeing just for her.

If she wasn't in it, though... it would be about like Snow White and the Huntsman - watchable and pretty, but there's not much else to it. No one can chew the scenery like Sharlto Copley, but his villain is pretty flat. His backstory has him go from a guy who gives up the only thing he has to be with his love, then show up years later totally evil. The narration suggests he was corrupted by the greed of mankind, which sounds fine, but burying it in the narration makes it abstract, and we never see any evidence of Man's Greed elsewhere in the film. Elle Fanning is perfectly likable as Aurora, but all she's asked to do is smile pleasantly.

And the three fairies are simply obnoxious. That's one of my favorite elements of the original Sleeping Beauty - the heroes are three bickering old ladies instead of the straight-arrow prince. But here, all they do is bicker endlessly, without ever accomplishing anything. I never thought I'd see Imelda Staunton or Juno Temple give performances I didn't enjoy, but I couldn't stand them here. (I'm not as familiar with Lesley Manville, but she was perfectly wonderful in An Adventure in Time And Space, so I'm disappointed there as well.) I really do blame the script here - making them incompetent and not giving them any non-bickering scenes really doesn't give the actors any room. And the hideous visual effects for the fairies are no help - they look like rubber masks of the actors pasted over awful CGI. (The effects are otherwise fine if overabundant - they're pretty to look at, but it feels like we're watching pretty special effects rather than a real, living world.)

I'm not really convinced the Mega-Happy Ending was earned, either. Maleficent's story is so laced with tragedy and Aurora is so underdeveloped that neither of their endings really worked for me.

But Jolie makes it all worthwhile, and Woolverton's take on the story is interesting enough to carry it through its weak spots.

Could you maybe reblog this post if you think respecting trans peoples' names and identities is a basic right and not a political opinion?

No pressure. Just seeking some validation of my sentiment. Due to some. people

Yeah, a lot of what bothers me about fantasy settings (especially D&D) is that people try to run wizards like they're academics, but their only exposure to academics is authoritative professors telling them The Truth, so they don't realize that all academics are always 5 seconds away from trying to strangle each other over questions like 'does time really pass or does it just seem to pass'