Author: grasshopper

Hashtag Update

Posted on by in High Castle, Sisters

I am happy to say that I’ve completed Sisters! *Sheds a tear* This story has been near and dear to my heart ever since I started writing it. And now comes the hard part…

Revision.

Let’s just say that I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to editing pages and pages of writing.  I’m pacing myself and doing it in increments, but the draw back to doing it in increments is time. If I let more than a week go by without cracking it open for an edit, I forget what’s going on (life has a funny way of shoving itself past your hobbies).

Here’s to chugging through the first round of revisions!

And because I can’t do a blog post without mentioning the Man in the High Castle…clever transition of topic because yeah!

I’ve migrated everything downstairs to my Project Grasshopper shelf. ♥ I’ve hung the alternate reality NYC painting I did (finally!) above it and started a sister painting for the Pacific States!

There are a few things I want to tweak and add to the shelf (especially for the Pacific States. Their poor section is completely bare even though they have a million dolls ♥ ). The Reich section is the exact opposite; they have the Smiths and Joe dolls, but they’ve got a lot of stuff.

I plan to paint a few more Reich dolls and get/make some Pacific-Japanese themed items in the near future.

As always follow me on Twitter and Instagram for my latest Sisters and High Castle stuff!

Grasshoppers and Dice

Posted on by in Sisters

Travel season at work is officially over for the year! I like traveling and seeing new things, mind you, but it’s nice to be back on my normal schedule.

The ultimate ode to retro futurism

For those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram, you can see that I’ve already picked my devotion to Amazon’s the Man in the High Castle right back up! I can’t help it. The show is damn good. It is unique in every way, and I hope they continue writing excellent characters in Season 3!

Progress on Project Grasshopper: my fan project.

I cannot wait until it’s time to migrate everything to the actual shelf! This will be an on-going project, one of those things that will never end.

It’s also time to jump into Sisters again. Because the project requires so much research, I had to put it down for a lot of our travel season. …Then there’s the fact that I sort of wrote my characters into a bind! I will figure out how to get Ann, Werner, and Kathy out of the trouble I got them into, so help me gods!

Imagine a level 1 teenager (Kathy), a level 4 rogue (Ann), and a level 7 warrior (Werner) up against a Demogorgon—up against three different Demogorgons in three different places.

They keep rolling ones.

I need to get them rolling tens at the very least, for in storytelling, you can’t have everyone rolling twenties all the time. 😉

Project Grasshopper

Posted on by in High Castle

I’ve been tweeting about it and posting photos, but since you can only convey so much through 140 characters, here’s a look at my The Man in the High Castle fan project!

I got the idea from the awesome resistance radio packages the official marketing team (I’m guessing it was that department) sent out to people on Twitter (oh, and trust me, you would all know if I got one. The world would not be able to contain my screeches of delight!). I figured that the odds are stacked against one tiny person, so I decided to create my own little High Castle haven.

Project Grasshopper!
I ordered (and assembled) a retro shelf and am going to decorate it with themes from the show. This is going to be one of those on-going, I-will-add-to-it-piece-by-piece (aka, when my paychecks allow and as I find the perfect relics) projects.

The first pieces I ordered:

The beautiful shelf I ordered just for this project:

This is where I initially planned to put it, but I’m not so sure now because the lighting in that area isn’t the best for photographs:

If anyone has any tips for lighting up an area like this and making it look natural, I am all ears!

Sisters Progress Update

Posted on by in Sisters

I finished writing the first half of Sisters! Parts Zero (Innocence) and One (Survival) are done. Now comes the most difficult part of their lives yet.

Part Two’s theme is destiny. Allegiances are made and loyalties are tested. I am looking forward to powering through this section. If Innocence and Survival gave me FEELS, I can only imagine how Destiny is going to be! 
A window into their world
This is what their nightstands would look like in real life (click to view full size)
Here is a closer look at my Kathy and Ann peg dolls

The Man in the High Castle Season 2 is a Masterpiece

Posted on by in High Castle

Let me tell you how amazing Season 2 of The Man in the High Castle was.

I originally wanted to write an in-depth review that covered every single aspect of the new season right after I saw it, but I know it would take ages and be twice as long! I knew I’d enjoy it, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much I would love it and how emotional I’d get as I followed the characters along in their different journeys.

I just want to say that I feel like THIS is the show I’ve been waiting for my entire life! I know that sounds a bit overboard, but I’m being honest. It truly is a masterpiece.

I’ll just breach the surface on a few things and drop a huge spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen it yet and want to avoid spoilers, don’t read any further.

The writers nailed everything that makes an excellent story, three dimensional characters and what I call ‘beautiful tragedies’ (just to name a few things they got right). You find yourself rooting for characters you’d never appreciate otherwise.

Here are a few highlights worth mentioning:

Juliana Crain: I know a lot of people didn’t like her in Season 1, but the beauty of it was that I thought she was perfect. You have this ordinary young woman in this alternate world who is suddenly forced to question her existence—everything. Her actions and reactions are imperfect, and, above all, human. Any one of us could be in her shoes and behave exactly the same way.

To put it best, “Imperfection can be beautiful.” ~ Juliana Crain

In season 2, there were times I rooted for her, times I cursed her, and times I wondered who she was. In the end, she chose kindness, redeeming herself for getting that news reporter killed (oh, how I loathed her that episode!).

Obergruppenführer John Smith: This is someone who appears to be the typical ruthless, Nazi villain at first glance. But beneath his black uniform is a caring husband and father who will protect his family no matter the cost.

One of the beautiful tragedies I mentioned is the relationship between Smith and his son, Thomas. Season 1 throws the powerful, confident Smith a wrench in the mix when Thomas is diagnosed with an incurable disease. In the Reich, this means death.

Throughout Season 2, you see him doing everything he can to hide his son’s illness and to protect him. But in the end, Thomas decides to turn himself in to be euthanized. Thomas’s final scene brought tears to my eyes.

The writers could have gone the cheap route and had the son killed by an accident or by an angry resistance fighter, but no. They had Thomas CHOOSE for himself—after everything his father went through to keep him safe—and that is what makes The Man in the High Castle one of the best written television shows of all time.