Friday, November 8, 2019

The Friday 56 (164) & Book Beginnings: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.


25526296Synopsis from Goodreads...
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children....No Solicitations....No Visitors....No Quests...
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.


Beginning: "The girls were never present for the entrance interviews. Only their parents, their guardians, their confused siblings, who wanted so much to help them but didn't know how."

56: ""Finally, silence fell, and Nancy realized everyone was looking at her. She shrank back in her seat. "I don't know if the place I went was wicked or not," she said."


Comments: I have been reading some of the backlist titles on my TBR list, and Every Heart A Doorway was one of them. I loved the story and the world McGuire created. What are you reading this week?

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Toile, Think, Go: The Making of a Salt-N-Pepa Costume

We said that we were going to talk more about the construction of the Salt-N-Papa outfit. So, here it is. You can find it on Toile, Think, Go, where we originally posted it.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

I Watched Netflix's Raising Dion

Raising Dion is one of Netflix’s new series that came out in October, and I pretty much binge-watched all the episodes in two different sittings. This show took me by surprise. Before I saw some mention of it on my twitter timeline, I’d never actually heard of it, and boy I am glad that I gave it a try. Raising Dion was a great show. It had a great diverse cast of endearing characters. And while it had superpowers and supernatural elements, it was well balanced with the everyday aspects of a single mother trying to raise her young son in modern times with a villain who always seemed to be lurking at the edge of the next storm.

From the beginning, there was the mystery of how Dion got his powers. They were extraordinary, but they were also somewhat wild and hard for him to control. But I actually liked the angle they took with Dion’s character. He was allowed to be just a kid, and it is part of what made his character so engaging. It also set him apart from characters like Eleven from Stranger Things (there were a couple of references to Stranger Things in Raising Dion; I see what you did there, Netflix). By contrast his mother, Nicole Warren, had to be mature. She had to take the lead, because she didn’t have a choice. She was a widow after the death of her husband, Mark, and the show handled that quite well. It was never portrayed as being easy, even though Nicole had family and friends in the area. She dealt with things like trying to find and maintain a job—when scheduling interfered with things she needed to do for her son—as well as putting her son into a new school. Those little details of the ordinary day-to-day stuff, was a great contrast to the supernatural elements in the show.

Speaking of the supernatural elements, I liked how they were done in the show. Most of the setting where the show took place was urban, kind of city-like but also like a suburb, nothing really special about it. So when the supernatural aspects came in to play, it contrasted sharply with everyday life for the characters, which is part of what made it memorable. There were also limitations to what Dion could do, and since he was a kid, it sometimes manifested in childish and impulsive ways. But since he was a kid, and the show established that from the first episode, it was in-line with his character.

However that wasn’t all Raising Dion had to offer. As the show progressed, a few more mysteries cropped up here and there. Some of them had to do with what happened before the current timeline of the show—like what really happened to Mark—and I liked how it was all incorporated together.

Overall, Raising Dion is probably one of my favorite shows on Netflix to date. The end of the first season was satisfying enough…for now. I won’t reveal much about it, but I will say that the end posed some interesting questions about what would be ahead for the characters—so there was definitely enough potential for at least another season.

Have you watched Raising Dion? If so, let us know what you thought about it in the comments below. If not, does it seem like something you’d watch?

Monday, November 4, 2019

Music Monday (95): My Chemical Romance, Blanco Brown, and Birocratic

   Rules:
  • Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 
Breana: Suddenly My Chemical Romance is back, and I’m not complaining. Since the announcement, I’ve been listening to all of their old music again, and I thought it was the right time to talk about one of my favorite songs by them: Famous Last Words from their Black Parade album. The Black Parade has a special place in my heart, since My Chemical Romance was one of the bands that pretty much defined what my music taste was when I was a kid (and still is to this day). That is to say, I love this song.



Adri: I got a Spotify account a couple of months ago, and you could imagine my excitement when I found out  my PS4 had it too. I've been jamming, gaming, and finding a lot of new music.  I eventually stumbled onto the RetroWave/Outrun playlist by Spotify, which is my favorite, and found my pick for today. It is Extra Fresh by Birocratic.



Andrea: I first heard The Git Up by Blanco Brown when I attended a taping of Broke. I absolutely fell in love with this song. It's just that upbeat type of song that will have everyone getting up and moving to the beat. I was absolutely ecstatic when I found out that he would be performing at the taping of The Talk that I was scheduled to attend. And his live performance was absolutely amazing. Well, that's all for now. It's time for me to "git up" and learn the dance to this song. I hope you all have an amazing week and am excited to hear what you're listening to.




What are some of your favorite artists/bands? Let us know in the comments down below. 

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Happy Halloween + Pencil #3


Today is October 31st. So before I begin I just have to say Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a great day.


The last pencil artwork I specifically worked on for October was this one. It was, of course, inspired by a cupcake, and I’m calling it Be Careful with the Cookie. In the earliest sketch, I was planning to do a pretty basic cupcake with sprinkles. However when I started playing around with the composition, I noticed that it was kind of plain—which was the same issue I initially had with Halloween in a bottle for $5.99—which wasn’t what I was going for since I wanted the eye to be drawn to the cupcake.
Ultimately I kept the bat-shaped sprinkles, although they’re very small, but I added a cookie to the very top, as well as curls of smoke rising from the eyes and forming a skull. I like this one much better that way. The rest of my process mainly dealt with deciding what the cookie should be shaped like, and if I should add any color to it (you can see some of my thought process in the sketches). Being prepared allowed me to streamline the actual drawing process. Be Careful with the Cookie ended up being one of my favorite pieces to work on.


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