#I had low expectations because it was in swedish and a swedish production and I usually prefer my media to be in any other language | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

unichrome · 3 years

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I’ve been wanting to write down as much as I can remember from the month at the hospital in April, and this tumblr blog is the only thing I have that even remotely resembles a journal. So here it is, feel free to read and comment if you’d like, but please don’t reblog.

I was living in Copenhagen when this happened.

A few weeks prior, I started a new medication, an antipsychotic so the usual side effect was to be expected: tiredness. But I’ve been in this carousel before, I know the worst is over after a week or so. I did indeed become extremely tired, and this was during working-from-home corona days so most shifts I ended up napping in the couch at any chance I got. Easily slept 12+ hours per night. It kept getting worse, I couldn’t stay awake during the days, became extremely lethargic. And it didn’t get better after a week, it just kept getting worse. So I called my psychiatrist and told her the medication wasn’t working and I felt so very bad and tired.

I got a new appointment with her, which I can’t even remember really. She got worried and sent me off to the psychiatric ward, where they did the standard blood test. Then sent me off to a room. Luckily I had anticipated for something like this to happen, so I had brought the work phone as well as chargers, so I could call in sick to work. A while later, three people suddenly entered and told me I had to go to the hospital right now, two of them were from the hospital transport. They took me to Amager hospital, I was so confused and not really present at all. I don’t know what they told me, but I needed a blood transfusion immediately. I stayed there for a night, the only thing I can remember is going to the bathroom once.

The Amager hospital apparently wasn’t capable of providing the care I needed, I was transported yet again, to Rigshospitalet. The memories from here on are very blurry and sporadic. Eventually I heard that both of my kidneys were failing, when I was admitted on April 22nd, my kidney functionality was around 18%. If it drops under 20% it becomes lethal. Kidneys are also responsible for the production of blood, which wasn’t happening anymore and I had a very dangerously low count of red blood cells.

I’m super difficult to get blood from if the first attempt isn’t successful, as the poor nurses became painfully aware of after failing on the first try. During one of the first days there, when the daily blood test was to be taken, they didn’t succeed. Three nurses tried, eventually they called for a narcosis doctor to try with a ultrasound machine to find my veins, but it didn’t work very well either. They stung me all around the body, down to my feet and it took at least an hour to get the sample and my body had pretty much gone into shock since medical procedures and needles of any kind are one of my worst fears. Because of this it was decided to install a port for draining blood so this wouldn’t have to be repeated every day.

A kidney biopsy was ordered as well as more detailed blood tests to figure out why this kidney failure was happening. I would also have to call my parents in Sweden and tell them what was happening, and the fact that they couldn’t come and visit me, at all. I was in a quarantined zone of the hospital where no visitors were allowed, not even family. But also Denmark had closed its borders at the time, so they couldn’t even enter the country in the first place.

My only contact with the outside world was my phone that I treated as the most precious thing in the entire world, it was also pretty much the only thing I had with me. I would have long calls with my family talking about the most mundane and boring things but it was such a blessing to hear about, I would drag out the subjects as much as I could and so would they. I’d often cry after having to stop the calls.

The biopsy and tests revealed that I had antibodies that shouldn’t be there. My immune system was attacking the body, pretty much. This autoimmune disease is very rare, Microscopic Polyangiitis, and will cause kidney failure (and other organ failures) if not discovered and treated in time. Since I barely had any prior symtoms, it wasn’t discovered in time. My lungs were also examined as the disease usually targets kidneys and/or lungs, but no significant damage was found there luckily.

I was put on steroids (prednisone 60 mg) that would support the kidneys and dampen the damage from the antibodies as well as chemotherapy (Sendoxan 100 mg) that would shut down the immune system almost completely. Synthetic hormone injections every week to stimulate the production of red blood cells.

Every morning a blood test was done a 6:00, as well as checking the temperature and blood pressure. I was forced to drink 3 liters of fluid every day (which I logged on a paper meticulously - every ml counted) and I could only pick between water, disgusting orange juice or disgusting apple juice. Except during lunch, when I got a small package of milk - this became pretty much the highlight of my day. One glass of milk. That was like pure joy, it tasted so divine. In just a few days your entire world shifts in such a way that this package of milk is what you look forward to the next day.

All day I was bedbound and in a haze, time was entirely dependent on medicine, meal and test times like a work schedule, from the 6:00 tests to the final 23:00 medications, that left 7 hours of rest that was robbed from me because prednisone makes you unable to sleep well, even with the sleep aids I got. Despite being in bed almost all day every day, I was constantly sleepy and tired but I would never get any rest. Couldn’t even pee normally either, had to collect everything in a bottle for them to log.

But of course it would get worse. After about 6 days, my doctor came in and told me that the treatment didn’t seem to be working fast enough. My kidney functionality kept dropping, now at 13%, creatinine levels above 400 (it should never be above 80 for women, around 200 is kidney failure). They had one more weapon to combat this - plasmapheresis. This would mean connecting me to a machine that would take out my blood, clean it from the harmful antibodies, and put it back in again. Hopefully this would buy me time for the treatment to win. To do this, they had to cut up my throat to insert two tubes that would take in and out the blood. I had to be awake during the whole procedure to control the breathing as instructed.

I wasn’t connected to the machine all the time. A few hours every other day. It was noisy, sounded like a miniature washing machine, and I hated it so much. The tubes in my throat, blood going in and out of me, it was just pure terror even if the procedure itself didn’t hurt. I got some mild sedatives but they were way too mild and didn’t do shit. The fact that I didn’t have to be connected to the machine every other day became yet another highlight like the milk. I’d talk about how today was such a good day because it was a no machine day, like a holiday.

Showering was horrible too. Because of the tubes I had to avoid getting them wet as much as possible while still somehow washing the hair. Then the tape around the tubes had to be changed and I hated anyone touching that area. I went for as long as I could between the showers, up to 9 days.

I was quickly becoming very weak, as the medications and chemo ate away at my bones and muscles. My legs have always been strong, I’ve had no problems doing squats with a grown man hanging on my back. But one day when I was in the bathroom, I spilled some toothpaste on the floor. I squat down to wipe it, but I couldn’t get back up again. My legs were way too weak. I ended up having to drag myself up via the toilet and sink, it felt so humiliating I refused to use the button to call for help. I bet it took several minutes to get back up standing.

It was still very unsure if I would make it, the plasmapheresis wasn’t a guaranteed help. One day a psychologist came to talk to me, but the only thing I remember is that he asked if I was afraid of death. I told him that my current biggest fear was the damn tubes in my neck, the constant needles, every day the touching and prodding of my body, but it didn’t seem like it got through to him. Maybe because my Danish was so damn shitty too, I could barely articulate myself and what I felt in Swedish, much less in English or Danish, I think I was mostly rambling incoherently.

In the meantime my parents had been writing the hospital for updates and visitation possibilities, and eventually the kind nurses and doctors there started fighting for getting my parents to visit. They got granted an exception by the hospital to visit my room once per day, but they still couldn’t get into the country. My parents contacted the Danish police asking if an exception could be made since it now was entirely possible that this could be the last time they’d see me. They were eventually granted permission and now the final hindrance remained - getting there. Since they live far up north, the transportation options are limited especially during corona. There were essentially no flights, so the second best option was train for about 2 days.

As luck would have it, the plasmapheresis did help, my kidneys were slowly recovering and once I got up to around 25% functionality, I was free from the damn machine and the medications now had the upper hand against my stupid immune system. In the final days at the hospital, my parents arrived. And we could actually be happy because it seemed like the danger was over. I begged the doctor to release me and let my parents help me at home instead. I knew how to take the medications by now and it wouldn’t be necessary for daily tests anymore. She agreed but I had to come to the hospital every few days for a checkup.

And that concluded my first chapter of this disease and kidney failure. Thank you for reading all the way to here, I appreciate it.

#njursvikt #sjukhus

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lanottedellastrega · 5 years

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Out of the Shadows

Metal Hammer, Summer 2015. Transcript behind the cut.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS Poised to release their third album, Ghost have returned from their unholy slumber to reveal how their conversion mission is progressing - and when their end times might come... Words: Chris Chantler. Pics: John McMurtrie

Surely this can't be right. Hammer is awaiting an audience with a Nameless Ghoul from the Swedish Devil-worshipping cult of Ghost, half-expecting to be blindfolded and ridden to the ruins of a deconsecrated church for a clandestine rendezvous with the masked and robed envoys of Satan. Yet we're in the executive lounge of a Kensington hotel, and there's an extremely polite, alarmingly youthful-looking short-haired man in a leather jacket being introduced as "the author of Ghost." Hammer experiences some cognitive dissonance, imagining that this is a hoax, that Ghost are slyly pretending to have human faces and interpersonal skills to divert attention from the true nature of their esoteric origins or seduce us into foul practices. The only visible clue to this young man's role as Ghost mouthpiece is the symmetrically matching pair of skull-and-crossbones patches on his leather sleeves. Yet when he starts talking about Ghost's third album, the majestic Meliora, it's clear this guy knows what he's talking about.

"The first album [2010's Opus Eponymous] was about the impending doom of a more old-school Biblical sort, where death and destruction will come in the form of locusts and dark fog: it was the coming of the Antichrist," he explains in soft, measured tones, choosing his words with care, maintaining near-constant eye contact. "The second album [2013's Infestissumam] was about the presence of the devil, taking place aesthetically in a 1700's milieu with a more Baroque theme. Whereas this album is the absence of God. It's a futuristic, pre-apocalyptic record. The cat is out of the house and the mice dance on the table. But at some point, the cat comes home..."

Meliora is a godless state, where Ghost's totemic frontman-cum-sigil Papa Emeritus wields power and terror with fearful impunity. And like his spiritual predecessor, Iron Maiden's Eddie, he's renewed with each new phase of band activity, so we're now on Papa III. His city bears more than a passing resemblance to the world we live in.

"Meliora is the metropolitan landscape in which this album takes place; a backdrop that looks like a big city with a lot of hopeful people living in fear of not succeeding," he explains candidly. "Many of the lyrics on this album deal with ambition. It's ridden with a certain degree of self-loathing. I really hate ambitious people - that's why I live in a place where there's not a whole lot of them."

Ghost may not have had any grand ambitions, but five years on from their debut demo, single and LP, some of their original concept has had to be compromised by unimagined levels of growth and demand. For example, talking openly and earnestly to the press in his street clothes, his face and voice undisguised (rumours suggest he's singer-songwriter Tobias Forge, but his real name is politely unconfirmed) is something the Ghoul never intended to do. But he admits that the success of the band thus far - and the enthusiastic patronage of superstar superfans such as James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo and Dave Grohl - has greatly surprised and humbled the men behind the masks.

"Contrary to popular belief, we did not know that we were gonna get that much heat," the Ghoul affirms. "It's fun to play high horse and say it's just a trick and we're fucking with everybody, which we obviously are not. We had no idea. When we were rehearsing our debut, we had a conversation with Rise Above and were contemplating whether to make 500 or 1,000 copies. And maybe we could do a show at Roadburn. It was very innocent - even though that's a word I've never used in terms of Ghost! We've had to grow with it, and we had a lot of catching up to do between the first and second albums. But aesthetically a lot of things we're planning on doing are things we had on paper to begin with."

Realizing something magickal was happening, Ghost made a concerted decision to spread their message of Satanic arch camp horror out of the underground, moving from cult indie label Rise Above to Spinefarm, an imprint of Universal, the world's biggest major. But from their first recordings, Ghost were a musically accessible, traditional, melodic pop-rock showbiz act with influences from some of the biggest bands of the past (Kiss, Abba, Blue Oyster Cult), a strong visual identity and a mischievously lurid theology; it was clear this band needed a level of production above the average low-key doom band.

"In order to present ourselves in the way that we intended, we needed a larger setting," agrees the Ghoul. "We want Papa's hat to not touch the ceiling. We want the band to look like we're performing a mass rather than in a punk squat. What we saw in our minds was something that looked and felt solemn and larger than life."

From their earliest pronouncements, Ghost were demanding the world's attention, and with "a lot of touring," they made sure they got it. But the question of how long they can hold it for is one that the Nameless Ghoul is acutely aware of.

"We have our figure. We have our concept. We can work with that. But we're just on our third record. Out of all our favorite bands, where were they on their third record? They sure weren't chickening out and doing the same safe shit. That's not how you make a third record; that's not how Master of Puppets or Number of the Beast got made. You have to build and be as bold as you can be, even though it feels a little scary. Because we know, we can fuck this up. Especially on the third record, when you're supposed to take a big step. Are we gonna go down to the basement again? You don't know how many chances you get. This might be our last one."

To make that all-important leap forward on a pivotal album, as Metallica or AC/DC can tell you, the secret often lies in the choice of producer. Although there's a great metallic crunch to the music on Meliora, and a psychedelic audacity, Swedish pop savvy is the band's trump card. To further that end, Ghost employed knob-twiddler Klas Ahlund, best known for his songwriting collaborations with Britney Spears, Kylie, Katy Perry and Madonna.

"We felt, 'Maybe we should work with someone who can really help us redefine what we're doing,'" the Ghoul reasons. "He was keen to find a rock band with their own material, and we were looking for a producer with more of a songwriting skill, so it was a good match. As much as we could drive a car on the energy of thinking we're the best band in the world - a very small car! - we knew there must be things we can do better. Every band with self-respect should work with someone who can really challenge what you're doing, and we did that with Klas. When you're on a major label with bigger expectations, you have the opportunity to get a yes or now from people you'd like to work with. But early on we realised, as much fun as it is to look at records we love and say, 'Let's get Mutt Lange!' or 'Let's get Bob Rock!' it felt like we should get our own man. Many of these big producers weren't big producers until they did that big record that we associate them with."

As they await the world's reaction to Meliora, Ghost have already amassed "the ground basics of what will become the next album." Nevertheless, for a band with such clear vision and attention to detail, it's tempting to wonder if they've planned an exit strategy.

"I had one vision two years ago and I have another vision now, and I may have another two years from now," muses the Ghoul. "We can catapult our concept around a few times, into different eras and spheres, but it has its time and place. I don't think anybody would enjoy having us around doing this forever; when there's nothing more to say, I hope we're sober enough to yank out the cord. We're not going to use Ghost for every musical dream we have. It's all fun and games to be in robes, but it's also lots of fun playing three-piece punk rock in your t-shirt."

However, with the musical development evident on Meliora, happily Ghost look set to continue expanding their sound and mythology. Have you joined the cult?

---

WHO IS PAPA III? Three things we know about our new, mysterious leader...

Papa Emeritus III is younger than his brother, Papa Emeritus II, by three months. Nameless Ghoul: "There are several Mamas. And one big, old, really, really bad Papa. That might give you an indication of what's gonna happen in the future. There's one shark in the water you haven't met yet..."

He controls his followers in Meliora. Nameless Ghoul: "Papa is the authoritative religious leader among his followers. He comes into the vacuum of the godless contemporary world and manipulates the people. We are, together with our fans, agreeing that you are here to worship us, and we are telling you what to do. And in this era, it's all taking place in the futuristic dystopian city of Meliora."

He was inspired by Sir Christopher Lee. Nameless Ghoul: "From Scaramanga to The Lord of the Rings, Sir Christopher Lee played a large role when it came to the concept of Papa. A scary, sophisticated, handsome older man who inflicted terror and arousal. I greatly admired him."

#metal hammer #the band ghost #papa emeritus iii #interview #tobias forge #meliora #meliora era #transcript added

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winetae · 4 years

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:: modern loneliness

⇨ prompt : android!hoseok x reader. 2205 words. drabble with a possible follow-up. it’s been 38 days since you’ve last seen and interacted with a living, breathing person and you’re slowly going insane.

[Week 1 of lock down.]

At first, you’re optimistic.

Working from home comes with its own set of non-negligeable perks. Notably, no more commute time! No more squeezing in between sweaty men on the subway during rush hour just to get home. The new arrangement means that you’re no longer obliged to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to blow-dry your hair or meticulously put on makeup while stuffing a bagel into your mouth because you’re short on time.

On Day 1 of quarantine, you roll out of bed and don’t even bother to change out of your pajamas. It’s quite the sight. Not that you care whether or not your hair looks like a bird’s nest or if there’s a small hole in your shirt. You’d gladly take your flannel pants and old university sweatshirt with the coffee stain by the collar over the rigid pencil skirt and stupid obligatory heels they force you to wear to the office. Ironing? You don’t know her.

That’s not to say there aren't any inconveniences but as of now, the pros outweigh the cons. For one, you’re now allowed to add as much sugar into your coffee without susciting your coworkers’ judgement. You can blast angry rap songs while finishing your reports and no one will stop you. The list goes on.

With all this newfound time on your hands, you have no more valid reasons to procrastinate. You start off by cleaning out the kitchen cabinets you’d been meaning to re-organize for months. Then you rearrange your wardrobe, dust off the top shelves of your bookcase that you usually skip over because no one can see them, and water the potted plants you’d been neglecting.

It feels great to be so productive. Your friends tell you via FaceConnect that your productivity streak won’t last long, but you’re quick to shake off their doubts.

“I’m a new me!” You insist when Mia’s laughter echoes around your empty apartment. “My life is back on track. I feel like a proper adult now that I’m not struggling so much to get everything done.”

“Sure,” she humors you. “Just don’t get upset when I tell you I told you so.”

[Day 8 of lockdown.]

Now that your apartment is cleaner than it’s ever been, you need to find other means of entertainment. According to the internet, now is the ideal time to learn a new language or acquire a new hobby, like crocheting or playing the guitar. But while it might be technically possible to learn a language, you’re definitely not an overachiever. You’re aware of your own limits.

Today you try your hand at baking. To some it might not seem like a big deal. But for someone like you who solely uses the kitchen to boil ramyeon packets and chop the occasional vegetable, today’s venture into the world of cooking is the equivalent of a quantum leap.

The molten lava cakes that come out of the oven 15 minutes later don’t look like the picture advertised in the online recipe. They don’t taste like how you’d expected, either.

You try not to be too disappointed with your failed attempt. After all, it’s only your first try. Dry cakes aren’t that bad in comparison to the horrors that could have occurred. At least nothing is burnt and your oven is still intact. You’ll try again tomorrow with hopefully a little more success.

[Day 16 of lockdown.]

It turns out that baking is not for you. After numerous trials and errors you learn a few days later that you have no vacation to be a baker. You end up abandoning all attempts to acquire a new hobby and instead look for new ways to pass the time.

Thankfully, your home server is offering free VOD for a limited amount of time, so you’re not short on distractions. You consume around half a dozen cult movies, the kind people always reference and quote without actually watching, before you finally begin crossing TV series off your to-watch list.

You yawn. It’s 9 PM on a Saturday night and you’ve just finished binging the entire season of Tiger King. It’s the third show you’ve watched from start to finish since quarantine began and now you’re wondering whether you should start a fourth.

“Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do,” you say before a grimace crosses your face. “Oh great... Now I’m talking to myself.”

That can’t be a good sign, you think to yourself. How long has it been since you’ve last talked to someone? You used to call your parents every day but when there’s nothing new to report, the conversations become repetitive and dull.

You should call Mia. Just to see how she’s doing.

[Day 24 of lockdown.]

YOUR WEEKLY BASKET FROM FOODCONNECT HAS ARRIVED. ALL PURCHASES WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR MONTHLY EXPENSES CARD. REMINDER THAT DUE TO THE EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES, CONNECT CARDS ARE ALLOWED A 5000 EXCESS OVER FIXED LIMIT. TOTAL EXCESS HAS NOT YET BEEN REACHED.

[Day 38 of lockdown.]

You’re browsing BH, hoping to restock your vitamins. Lately you’ve been feeling tired and mentally drained, despite your workload not being what it used to be. Why you’re so exhausted is a mystery you’ve yet to solve. In all logic, your energy level should be at an all time high now that you’re working less and spending all your free time lounging on the couch surfing the internet.

According to the national health guideline, you’re supposed to be exercising an hour a day minimum in order for your body to remain in good condition. Your BODYCONNECT watch monitor beeps every hour to remind you that you haven’t completed the suggested activity.

Ugh.

You press the button on the side of the watch to turn the reminder off. It’s the fifth time you’ve had to silence it today but you can’t bring yourself to work up a sweat right this minute. You keep telling yourself that you’ll exercise later but like all things lately, later ends up being never.

Come to think of it, this isn’t the first time you’ve caught yourself slacking off. Where did all your motivation during week 1 of lockdown go? You don’t even have the strength to do ten jumping jacks anymore; it’s like your bones belong to a person three times your age - feeble and brittle and threatening to break at a moment’s notice.

LOW ON SEROTONIN? WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED. Flash promo over in 00:32:43! Limited offer while supplies last.

A bright yellow advertisement flashes on the top right corner of your screen. Intrigued, you follow the link without expecting much. The last thing you expect is to be brought directly to BH LAB’s homepage.

“Um… I don’t think I have the budget for this…” You mutter under your breath and prepare to exit out of the page.

Androids are usually employed by the government but the ones for sale to the general public are known to be exorbitantly expensive.

A message reads: EXCLUSIVE 1 HOUR PROMO, 40% OFF YOUR FIRST PURCHASE. Click here for more details. Offer valid for new customers only.

You pause and decide to click on the link. Looking around won’t hurt anyone, right? It’s not like you’ve decided to buy anything yet.

The seven Dwellers available for sale are just as good looking as you expected them to be. Their unnaturally good looks and vibrant green eyes are what makes them easy to pick out from the crowd.

You skim through each Dweller’s description. It seems that apart from the physical differences like their facial features and build, they each have their own specialty and characteristics. One of the best-selling models boasts the cooking ability of a 5-star chef, which you admit sounds very tempting since your skills with a knife are pathetic enough to make Gordon Ramsey cry.

Another best-selling model specializes in...sex. You blink, your cheeks warming as you read over the model’s description (the “thick, vibrating cock that guarantees an orgasm every time!” comment makes you choke on your saliva). You can understand straight away why this particular model would be so popular. All of the models are pretty, but this one’s face doesn’t look like it’s from this world. Confinement would make anyone horny, and when promised a godly sex bot equipped with a vibrating dick, well…

Too bad you’re too tired these days to even think about having “mind-blowing sex for 5 hours straight.” Having such intense intercourse would probably make you pass out on the Dweller’s artificial cock, and there’s no way in hell you would want someone from CONNECT to intervene after receiving distressed signals from your body monitor. That would just be embarrassing.

You’re about to exit out of the page, curiosity sated, when the last model catches your eye.

SEROTONIN BOOSTER. Low on energy? Feeling sad or depressed? Need a companion?

This model is perfect for you! Model JHS is equipped with emotion sensors. They will fulfill your every need even when you’re not able to vocalize them. Stressed? They specialize in massages and are proficient in: Swedish massages, Aromatherapy, Shiatsu massages, Reflexology, among others.

Personality : This model is energetic. They are very active and therefore requires a minimum 6 hours to recharge. They are extremely tactile and will easily engage in skinship such as hugs or holding hands. They are talkative and will hold passionate conversations with you about almost any subject.

Likes : cleaning, working out

Dislikes : horror movies, strong smells

When reading the description, it feels they’re talking about a person rather than an android. You’re surprised to see that the Dwellers are programmed to have a certain personality that caters to specific needs because the only androids you’ve ever come across before are the government ones, and they’ve always been stoic and devoid of any distinguishing characteristic.

It would be nice, you think, to have a companion. Someone you could talk to for real instead of through a pixelated hologram. As much as you enjoy your time alone, each passing day locked in your apartment makes you realize how much you long for a hug. You miss holding someone in your arms, feeling their heartbeat against your cheek and the rise and fall of their chest as they squeeze you back.

Model JHS looks like he could fill that vacancy. Their smile is blinding, like they’re physically radiating sunshine through their expression alone. You don’t doubt their capacity to bring positive energy into your life.

Before you can think twice about it you’re adding the model to your shopping cart. The site asks you if you want to pay more in order to customize them. For an additional fee, you’re able to tweak the Dweller’s personality or modify their physical attributes to your liking. You skip over the option. For one, you don’t have the funds to afford a vibrating dick enhancement and two, you’re more than satisfied with your Dweller as they are.

It’s not until you finish supplying all your information including your Connect Card details and shipping address that you realize what a monumental purchase you’re about to make and how empty your account will be by the end of it.

You stare at the price listed at the bottom of the screen and weigh your options. Even with the 40% reduction, it’s not a negligible sum. You could buy several models of the new Birkin bag you’d been saving up for with this money.

Why purchase designer bags when you can’t even go out and use them? a voice argues. And - uh. Fair point.

In any case, you’d have to stop shopping, eating out all the time and going on frivolous trips overseas. Not that you really have a choice, given the circumstances.

You look at the laptop screen again. Are you seriously so touch-deprived that you’re willing to fork over that much money for a live-at-home android? Really?

Fuck it.

You click on [VALIDATE PAYMENT] before rationality has time to kick in and you change your mind again. Just as the screen changes and the new page loads, you feel your heart leap to your throat but it’s too late to back out now.

PROCESSING ORDER …

...

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY ORDERED (1) DWELLER - JHS MODEL. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE.

(!) Your order is eligible for Instant Shipping (delivered to your door in 24 hours or less).

(!!) Due to exception circumstances, your order might encounter delays. We are taking multiple steps to ensure the safety and hygiene of all products and shipments. For more information click here.

(!) All BH products are covered by a limited two-year warranty. Please refer to warranty details regarding your product in the Dweller E-HandBook, free for download here. Please register your product after purchase in order to qualify for future claims, returns, and support.

You expel the breath you’d been holding. Your father will throw a fit once he finds out you’ve blown all your money on a bot. The criticism is warranted.

What are you even supposed to say to defend yourself? You’ve bought a Dweller on a whim while browsing for Vitamin C supplements.

Quarantine is really making you lose your goddamn mind, huh.

#blurb.txt #idk what to think of this tbh so i guess i'm just testing the waters?? if it's not too weird i'll write the rest #i really hesitated btwn jimin and hoseok dflkdjf it was a hard decision #drabble named after that lauv song

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b-skarsgard · 5 years

Link

Bill Skarsgård recently watched “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” for the first time. He was on a plane; you know how that sort of thing goes. As he mulls over the widespread fascination with America’s first family of reality television, a lightbulb goes off: what about “Keeping Up With the Skarsgårds?” It’s certainly getting harder to keep track of the extended family of Swedish actors: father Stellan and older brother Alexander have already paved the way in Hollywood, and brothers Gustaf and Valter are actors as well. He pantomimes a phone call with one of his seven siblings, tapping into his inner Khloé.

Although he was nine when he first started acting professionally (a Swedish thriller, which starred Alexander), the “It” franchise marks Skarsgård’s true Hollywood breakout. On Sept. 6, he returns to theater screens for “It: Chapter Two.”

When the first installment premiered in September 2017, the film went on to become the highest-grossing R-rated horror film of all time. With an A-list cast attached to the sequel — Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader — portraying the adult versions of the Losers Club children, expectations are high for the second film, and it’s likely that even more eyes will be on Skarsgård.

The final fight looms large for the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. In King’s story, Skarsgård’s Pennywise returns to wreak havoc every 27 years; indeed, it was 27 years between Tim Curry’s 1990 television portrayal of the character and Skarsgård’s. This time around, the monster was less dormant before returning for its encore.

Whereas he spent a lot of time experimenting with various laughs, physicalities and faces before the first shoot, for the second installment Skarsgård was thrust back into the deranged clown’s world with little warning.

“I think the effects crew was, like, ‘Whoa, what the f–k.’ When you do the digital thing you only have dots on your face so you look like yourself,” says the 29-year-old actor, lanky and lounged on a couch wearing a floral button-up short-sleeve shirt and dark jeans. “It’s almost more jarring seeing me doing Pennywise looking like myself because it looks like a complete maniac. It’s almost like the makeup translates onto the character. Without the makeup I just look like a human being that’s not normal whatsoever.”

Skarsgård credits his costume and makeup team — “the Pennywise unit” — for the hours of work that went into his physical transformation on-set, particularly the two artists applying his prosthetics each day: Sean Sansom and Shane Zander.

Zander, on-set prosthetic makeup effects key artist, was with Skarsgård from Day One of test makeup to the last of the shoots for the second film: more than 50 applications of Pennywise.

“Bill is Pennywise. Once we sat him down for two hours and applied all the makeup, he transforms. It is amazing to watch him work. He gets into the character so well. Sometimes he’s outright scary as hell,” Zander says. “We were used to seeing him, but a lot of the crew members and other actors were genuinely freaked out when they saw him. Bill is a tall guy, and put him in a creepy clown costume and face; that’s nightmare fuel there,” he adds. “He would Skype with his brothers quite often while in the makeup and they would really get a kick out of it.”

There’s one person who’s definitely not freaked out by Pennywise, and that person is Skarsgård himself.

“I see myself,” says the actor. “I’m so familiar with the look of the character, too, that its like, I don’t see it as the Pennywise monster, I see myself in a clown face.”

Others see Pennywise, whether he’s in makeup or not. And turns out, it’s a hit with Customs.

“I flew in from Stockholm last night and as I walked in through Customs — you know when you fill out the Customs form, and then you go through the Customs and then you pick up your luggage and then you walk through and have to hand in the little — he was like, ‘Neeeext. Thought so. They all float down here, am I right, man?'” a reference to Skarsgård’s most famous line in the story. “With his big thick New York accent.”

He’s not phased, but Skarsgård, who lives in Sweden with his girlfriend and daughter, is more accustomed to a low-key existence.

“People tend to leave you alone in Sweden. Especially in New York, there’s a sense of this enthusiasm that you don’t find in Sweden,” he says. “Also in Stockholm, people just expect me to be there probably.”

Well, expect to be seeing Skarsgård around even more, at least on the big screen. Skarsgård also appears as the lead in “Villains” out in September, a small budget dark comedy that premiered at SXSW in March. Whereas “It” was a big studio undertaking with special effects, “Villains” was a more modest production by two young directors whose script had landed on the “blacklist” — a selection of the industry’s best unproduced screenplays.

“We had only ever seen him in the context of horrors or thrillers, the scary clown in ‘It’ or something where he’s playing a werewolf or vampire,” says the writer-director duo, Robert Olsen and Dan Berk. “We were, like, ‘Is he capable of being this charismatic and lovely of a character?'” Turns out, yes. “We felt like we could at the same time show the world what Bill Skarsgård is capable of, which we think is being a Hollywood leading man and he’s starting to really show that now.”

After Skarsgård’s brief layover in New York in mid July — he was particularly excited about being upgraded to a balcony room at his hotel downtown — Skarsgård was headed to Utah to film “Nine Days” with first-time feature director Edson Oda, opposite Winston Duke and Zazie Beetz. After that, it was back to Sweden for his sister’s wedding in August before jumping full force into fall and the “It” press tour. He has a few films in post production, too; pretty soon, Pennywise will finally be left behind, for good.

Skarsgård himself isn’t a horror film fan, though he offers an addendum: He likes good movies. And sometimes good movies happen to be scary.

“I’ve never been a fan of the feeling of, ugh, like I’m about to pop a balloon, I’m about to pop a balloon,” Skarsgård says; coincidentally, red balloons mark his character’s presence in “It.” “That’s the jump scare thing, you know it’s like, eeek, I’m going to jump — but I don’t want to jump. At the very end of most horror films I’m never scared.”

#link #article #wwd #wwd magazine #interview #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgård #it the movie #villains

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mostlymovieswithmax · 5 years

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Midsommar [spoiler review]

Ari Aster has released his second feature film, Midsommar for which he writes and directs and it is a vast, expansive experience that threw me through a kaleidoscope of emotions, which amazingly is something I can’t say for a large number of horror movies coming out these days. That being said however, I’m not entirely sure that I could confidently class Midsommar as a horror. I don’t know if I’d really class it as any specific genre at all. It is certainly its own beast and for that, I would commend it highly. As something that is so dense with detail I will probably be jumping back and forth to moments in the story, giving this review a somewhat non-chronological structure. I can’t possibly touch on everything, especially as I’ve only seen it once. I believe it is something that needs multiple experiences to fully appreciate and is a movie I’d love to experience again.

The talent on display in regards to basically every technical aspect of the film is to be praised tremendously. I loved the cinematography and the look of the movie; the colours and the sets were all gorgeous. Mostly set in broad daylight, this stylistic choice is not something I’d immediately associate with a movie that was going for this type of vibe. Mixed with the set designs, the look of the movie made for a visual feast I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. What made the aesthetic qualities of the movie pop that little bit extra for me was the camera work and how it moved; I think of shots like when Dani goes into the bathroom in the first act and the camera pans over the door frame and twists to show her standing in the toilet of the plane. Or when they’re driving across Sweden and the camera flies over the car and turns to end up in an upside down position, perhaps foreshadowing what the characters are in for on this journey. It’s details like this that cracked a huge smile from me as I was watching, not to mention it separates Midsommar from so many other movies that try to depict suspense and terror. Furthermore, a feature that I found to be intensely thoughtful to accompany the fantastic visual display was the editing, or more specifically the cutting of shots. Often I see movies follow a certain formula when it comes to this facet; conversations cut together with a shot of one character and then a reverse shot to show another character; wide angles to establish locations or buildings, then cutting to the inside of the buildings themselves. There’s seldom ever much of a flare to the editing of a movie but I saw Midsommar capture that charmingly to add tension or even to highlight a joke. Accompanied by the score, a lot of these shots gave off an eerie tone that made me feel pleasantly uncomfortable. I loved the low, stretched out notes of the music that went that extra step further in order to make me feel slightly distressed. The sound design was incredible and generally it isn’t a facet I’d pick up on unless it was either done very well or very poorly. There were sections where even items like cutlery or people walking would catch my ear in a noticeably pleasing way. It shouldn’t be undervalued at all; great sound design can elevate a movie so much and I’m both glad and impressed at how well it was executed here.

Midsommar’s first act may have unfortunately contained a lot of my favourite moments. It introduced the main characters and worked to convey the relationships between Dani and Christian, as well as with Christian and his friends and how they all felt about Dani. I appreciated the time put into the dynamic between Christian and his friends and how they viewed Dani, although this was sort of thrown away once they got to Sweden; I never saw any sort of resentment from them towards Dani after that. Pelle obviously felt a lot differently about Dani, going as far as to kiss her during the latter stages of the movie. I’m not sure why it was necessary to have Pelle feel this way and I don’t understand what it added to the story besides forcing some conflict into Dani’s relationship with Christian, which was being achieved on his end regardless. Along with this, we are also shown the unfortunate and upsetting demise of Dani’s family which acts as a plot point in helping Dani to decide upon accompanying Christian and his friends to Europe. Seeing what happens to Dani’s family may have been the most affecting part of the movie for me. To top it off, her reaction was absolutely chilling; I love how Aster gets such raw and believable performances in his films. Dani’s loud, pained cries made me feel for her so much and forced a deep discomfort into me that carried through as the credits and title came on screen. Something that intrigued me quite a bit during this first act is how conversations were filmed through mirrors. We would see a couple of instances of characters talking to other characters that were reflected in a mirror. These static shots that carried on for a short while added to the tense atmosphere and the conversations or arguments that were taking place, imposing a kind of separation between those we could see outside the mirror and those we see inside the mirror. The main cast we’re introduced to in America are all good and give believable and compelling performances. Florence Pugh was fantastic as Dani; William Jackson Harper was decent; Will Poulter was great and one of the stand-outs from my experience. Vilhelm Blomgren portrayed quite an interesting character in Pelle. Christian seemed to be the only one that rubbed me the wrong way because he was such a massive dick the entire time and he was never redeemed. Not to say Jack Reynor’s acting was bad (quite the opposite in fact), I just didn’t sympathise with the character. There are aspects to the characters and the decisions they make that wound me up a bit but in terms of the acting, they were more or less solid.

The secondary characters, or mainly the Swedish locals didn’t stand out as individuals to me, possibly because they were portrayed more as a collective, which is fine but I would’ve liked to have seen some character development from at least a couple of them. Now, I say it’s unfortunate that I derived the most entertainment out of this first act because after that, Midsommar suffers quite a bit from some pacing issues. This movie is almost two and a half hours long and it didn’t feel like it needed to be, especially with a plot that only allows for so much exploration. The plot itself is quite basic, but it is displayed as something so grandiose in scope that it comes across as being eminently pretentious. Could it be the insanely short production time that went into making Midsommar that makes it feel fairly lacking in a few areas? Or is this genuinely the cut that Aster wanted? Results from a quick search of the movie told me that around half an hour of its running time was cut due to the content it presented. Consequently, this will make the home video release different to some degree than the cinema release as it may come to our TV screens as a director’s cut. If this is in fact the case (and I do intend to buy the blu-ray upon its release) then could it be that we’ve not even seen the movie that Ari Aster wanted us to see? Will a director’s cut make it better, worse, or simply just longer? I for one am assuredly excited to see what the end result is.

A big problem I had with Midsommar is how early it peaked in regards to the horror. One of the first things the main characters are presented with upon arriving at this rural community is the idea of people being separated into groups depending on their age: the concept that they didn’t consider themselves adults until a certain age; that they didn’t work until they were old enough to; that they died when they reached a specific year of their life. They’re then told that a ceremony will be held the next day and while our main characters ask what it is, we see William Jackson Harper’s character, Josh smiling in a sly “I know what it is” kind of way. His friends try to ask what he knows, to which he does not divulge anything. What follows this is a scene wherein two elderly people sacrifice themselves by falling off of a cliff in front of the other members of the community. To me, this scene was beautifully unsettling for a number of reasons. Despite expecting them to jump initially, I was still shocked at how well it was executed both in relation to the story and in a technical sense. At first, the woman jumps off of the cliff, dying instantly with a bloodcurdling crunch. Of course the characters from America and the characters we are introduced to earlier from England are understandably shocked. Even Josh reels back in surprise which I found to be a little strange considering how he acted as though he knew what was going on beforehand. What did he think was going to happen if not that? We’re never told. As the old man approaches the edge of the cliff and the English and Americans clue in to what is happening, they react as I’m sure we all would to what happens as he prepares to jump. He lands in a much more awkward fashion with a smaller sound that is no less distressing. Only this time, he doesn’t die... The scene is then racked up a notch as he screams out in pain at having his leg torn off and his body broken on impact. The rest of the Swedish onlookers scream in pain with him and it is terrifying to hear. I imagine this painted a picture to most viewers that the locals we are presented with in this rural Swedish village are all somewhat spiritually connected; are able to empathise with one another's emotions in a way that makes them able to feel the sensations of those they’re close to. Undoubtedly the torment doesn’t stop there and Aster has to quite literally hammer home what this ceremony is all about. In order to put the old man out of his misery, a group of people take it in turns to smash his head in with a large mallet, causing further stress to the main characters, but stopping all of the Swedish inhabitants from screaming in agony. That whole scene… was awesome! I loved it and it stands to be maybe my favourite sequence from the movie. The unfortunate part is that after this happens, I expected everything to amp up a bit and start showing me more uncomfortable and fucked up things but sadly this wasn’t the case. In a sense, it was as if the movie blew its load on this earlier scene and didn’t focus on too many other stand-out plot beats which was pretty disappointing. For some reason, Will Poulter’s character ‘Mark’ had slept through this ceremony and as a result, hadn’t experienced what his friends had. Whether this was done for a specific reason I’m not picking up on or simply so that he could continue to crack jokes is beyond me. I will give credit where credit is due: this movie made me laugh when it wanted me to. The inclusion of comedy in Midsommar was expertly handled and never made it come across as a lame horror-comedy.

Prior to this and upon arriving in the green fields of rural Sweden, the protagonists all get high and lie around in the grass. While the comedy kicks in here, it is also notable for the reaction of Dani as she starts to feel the grief of losing her family once more and urgently tries to get rid of it. I liked this scene and how it played slightly with the visuals which foreshadowed the inclusion of drugs and their effects later on in the movie. Sadly with what happens to Dani’s family in the first act, I’m not sure it was that purposeful overall, despite liking how it was depicted. Yes, this event does explain how Dani acts for sections of the film and yes I did like seeing it act as a catalyst for why she goes to Sweden in the first place, but I’m not sure it was hugely purposeful when referring to the movie as a whole. It never came back in a way that affected the narrative or the story that was being told. It was just something that happened to the protagonist that caused her a great deal of upset. Almost as if they could have died in any number of terrible circumstances and it wouldn’t have made a difference. While I really liked the characters’ first drug trip sequence, I got worried early on that Midsommar was going to take an approach that put the trips and the drugs at the forefront of the movie, akin to something like Shrooms (which was just awful) and sure, they played a big part but it did more to enhance what was actually happening rather than fabricate a story that didn’t really take place, just to have them wake up in a field exclaiming how crazy their collective trip was.

As the characters start to become more and more under the influence through the drugs that they’re given, we see the world warp around them. Trees ripple and form faces; the food would shift; flowers would pulse in accordance to Dani’s breathing; characters’ facial features would distort. Dani starts seeing grass sprouting from her hands and feet, or vines mimicking her movements to show how she’s progressively becoming part of this society. Characters like Christian however start experiencing the drugs in a negative and more aggressive way, as if they’re being attacked by senses! There is unease and terror in how Christian experiences the festival, whereas Dani’s experience is comparatively happier. The contrast of how Dani was being accepted and Christian was being rejected was thrilling to see, markedly in how Dani’s demeanour changed as she found herself integrating with everyone else. Although I must say I’m not sure why they kept drinking that drugged water that looked like muddy urine. Christian almost refuses to drink it until he’s told “it’s spring water with special properties” which was all the information he needed apparently! What properties were they? Doesn’t matter; he drank it anyway. The moronic decisions manage to manifest more throughout the movie, however. Regrettably we don’t get to see much of Mark and Josh’s experience with the hallucinogens or even much of the festival because their time is cut short in a manner I didn’t find all too entertaining. Mark is the first to go from the original team. Due to urinating on a sacred tree, he is murdered off-screen and has his face cut off. This could’ve made for a superb scene if it were done right but the way it was handled came across as hollow. Elements akin to this could have worked to convey unease and terror, but they are implied rather than shown which can work in some circumstances but I would’ve liked to have seen something more memorable and haunting instead of seeing an after-product and thinking “okay well I guess that happened”. Show him being mutilated, you cowards! You don’t even have to show it; just possibly what happens in the lead up! It would’ve made for a far more compelling story beat! All that happens is a girl comes up to him as he’s eating with everyone and asks to show him something. His response is just “she’s gonna show me” and leaves. He doesn’t question what he’s about to be shown; he just gets up and wanders off with a girl he doesn’t know in a foreign country, going purely off of Pelle’s word that everyone there is great! What a way to force that in! Josh is next on the kill list because he took some pictures of a sacred book when he knew he wasn’t supposed to because either he’s just insensitive to other peoples’ cultures, or he thinks it’s okay as long as it’s for his thesis. After this happened I kind of dropped off. With most of my favourite characters gone and the remaining characters questioning everything less and less, not only was there not much left to ground the film in a world that would consider the things that were happening to be deeply disturbing, but also from the protagonists’ perspectives as well.

I’ll acknowledge I’ve been railing on this film a considerable amount... with good reason. But despite being heavy on the criticisms, I still consider Midsommar to be a good, even great movie! I adore films that beg me to revisit them and learn more about them with each watch. Sprinkled throughout Midsommar are a tonne of small details and I’m sure I didn’t pick up on everything; in fact I hope I didn’t. Along with strange “what the hell?” moments like putting scissors under the baby’s pillow (I think that’s what it was anyway) that I still don’t understand, there also exists things that maybe don’t need to be thought about but are still nice to see included, such as goats and cows that took the immersion into this countryside village a notch higher. Or to draw from more obvious details that add depth to the people: going back to how they would all scream in unison, for instance to empathise with another’s emotions; when Dani sees Christian cheating on her, all the girls she is with cry and scream with her, possibly to experience what she’s feeling and/or to show her that they consider her to be part of their people, which also manages to contrast with earlier in the movie wherein she’s with Christian in her apartment but she’s the only one experiencing the intense pain as Christian tries to comfort her.

Upon entering the third act I started to wonder what the actual point in Midsommar was. Could it possibly be one big metaphor for grief and how we can choose to deal with it? There didn’t seem to be that grand of a point being made, either in the relationship between Dani and Christian, the relationship between America and Europe, or just the presence or influence of cults and religion in different parts of the world; those ideas seemed somewhat surface level. So I can’t help but think it was trying to convey a more metaphorical meaning. Either that or its meaning was just “Europe’s weird, man”. In this way, the finale didn’t leave much of an impact besides leaving me feeling quite hollow and disappointed, wondering what all that had been in service to. I can’t say Midsommar blew me away with much of what it showed me. There were a few decisions made which weren’t all that original in how they were executed and there were some dumb moments that had me questioning why they were included at all. Yet I would never say it isn’t unique in what it achieves; I can’t disregard all of the jaw-dropping technical showmanship and the interesting, creepy ideas that managed to meld horror and suspense and mystery and comedy into something I simply don’t know how to categorise. I could talk for ages about this film and still not touch on absolutely everything about it. Ari Aster is clearly a talented guy and I can’t wait to pick up the blu-ray and watch it a million more times. Along with that, I am for sure going to see whatever he puts out next. These are the kind of movies I love seeing and supporting and I honestly can’t recommend Midsommar enough because it’s something I feel will resonate with different people in different ways, evoking more than a few interpretations of it. It is so worth the watch.

★★★½

#midsommar #midsommar spoilers #dir: ari aster #movie #review

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zerogate · 5 years

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Talking apparently never ceases to be a problem for the Swedes: a lean across an abyss. Every time a conversation starts, you can feel the physical tension mount between the speakers. (Oddly enough, though, the Swedes are very gifted at languages. English is not only mandatory throughout the school years but so well taught that almost everyone here under thirty-five is virtually bilingual.) What to talk about is a problem. Favored topics are: the weather (Swedes never stop suffering from the cold, the lack of sun); money (they are shameless about telling or asking how much something costs); liquor (more about that later); and plans of action (from saying “I’m going to pee” when leaving the room for a minute to announcing a vacation)… In this taboo-ridden country, perhaps the most notable taboo is raised against the signs of aggressiveness. Policemen on the street are invariably polite; though most (but not all) carry guns, the police are respected and often trusted, at least as much as in England, but they are also more feared, because the level of guilt about infractions of the social code, such as being drunk in public, is much higher than in England. But the cops only deal with gross matters; the most severe policing of aggression is done by each Swede himself. Their marked avoidance of aggression, even in its minimal forms, comes through in the Swedes’ mild voices, and in the low noise level in public places, the inhibition of crowds even at euphoria-provoking or outrageous spectacles and entertainments. (Judith Malina and Julian Beck say that Stockholm is the only city the Living Theatre has played in Europe and the United States where at least some members of the audience didn’t respond, with insults and catcalls, and by walking out, to such deliberate provocations as the “empty” opening twenty minutes of Mysteries. The entire Stockholm audience just sat politely, and waited.) One hardly ever hears people quarreling, and there is a strong aversion to disagreement as such. The Swedish avoidance of antagonism sometimes goes to really supersonic extremes. I remember one evening last autumn after a day’s shooting out in the suburbs returning to town with my assistant, production manager, and script girl; we were heading for a new restaurant to have dinner, but nobody was sure exactly where it was. Someone said, “I think you continue two more blocks and turn right.” The driver of the car said, “No, we go three blocks and turn left.” In an entirely pleasant tone the first person said, “No, go two blocks and turn right.” After which the third Swede in the car intervened quickly with “Now, now, let’s not quarrel.” Do you understand what I found sad in this ludicrous moment, and in many similar micro-dramas? There are few qualities I admire more than reasonableness; and I’m far from admonishing the Swedes for not embodying some lush standard of Mediterranean temperament and volatility which is not my own either. Still I’m convinced that the Swedish reasonableness is deeply defective, owing far too much to inhibition and anxiety and emotional dissociation. To repress anger as extensively as people do here greatly exceeds the demands of justice and rational self-control; I find it little short of pathological. The demand for repression seems to arise from some naive misunderstanding or simplification of what goes on between human beings: it’s simply not true that strong feelings escalate so inevitably into violence. And to avoid confrontation and to repress disapproval to the extent the Swedes do shades, rather often, into passivity and indifferentism…. Sweden is the only country I know of where misanthropy is a respectable attitude, one people at least avow often (how deeply they mean it is another matter) and express sympathy for. One Swedish acquaintance, a diplomat, told me I would never understand Sweden until I grasped the concept of being människotrött, tired of people. Swedes easily tire of other human beings, he said. They need to get away. I replied that I found what he was saying psychologically implausible. Don’t you ever get tired of people, he asked. I said I often craved privacy, but that wasn’t the same thing. The need for privacy carries no implication of being tired of people; it just means you want some more space for yourself. People are OK, I concluded lamely. (I’d already had versions of this dispiriting conversation with several other Swedes.) He looked at me as if I were crazy, and muttered something about the childish Rousseauistic optimism of Americans. That time I gave up. I think, though, I do understand. Who wouldn’t be misanthropic, if one’s personal relations were habitually stifled, loaded with anxiety, experienced as coercive. For most Swedes, human “contact” is always, at least initially, a problem —though in many cases, the problem can be solved, the distance bridged. Being with people feels like work for them, far more than it does like nourishment. If it felt like that to you and me, I’m sure we’d have the need to get away and rest up as often as possible, just as the Swedes do…. The counter-force to this misanthropy is the celebrated Swedish love of nature. Though I’d heard about this before I came here, still I’ve been amazed by the ardor with which they talk about being alone in the remote countryside. (“Nature” seems to be the only thoroughly respectable object of passion in Swedish culture.) … Large numbers of Swedes really do have an extraordinary romance with nature. Many people on all income levels in Stockholm and the other cities own a small boat or a tiny house in the country or both. These are as much a part of normal expectations in Sweden as a TV and a car in the United States. …Their rhythm demands the withdrawal into nature, which house and boat make more feasible. Nature means being as far from people as possible, ideally far enough to be free of all traces of man—an easily managed vacation goal in a nation so drastically underpopulated.

Susan Sontag, A Letter from Sweden

#quotes

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diveronarpg · 4 years

Photo

Congratulations, LIA! You’ve been accepted for the role of CAESAR. Admin Jen: I simply can’t express how happy I am that you’ll be holding on to our beloved Chiko, Lia. There’s this singular quality to the muse that you bring to him; a magnetism that is so essential to Chiko as a character yet very distinct to your portrayal of him at the same time -- and I honestly can’t get enough of it. It comes together with everything else you’ve captured in a way that only leaves us wanting more and more, and since it can really be no other way when it comes to the glorious Caesar, it makes us all the more appreciative of your lovely take on him! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Lia

Age | 21

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | I would say a 6/10. I’m a fulltime student, but I’m pretty good about getting my replies… eventually. I also try to actively plot as much as possible.

Timezone | EST

How did you find the rp? | The wonderful RP tag.

Current/Past RP Accounts | Provide any current or past roleplay accounts that you think best showcase your writing! This is OPTIONAL.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Caesar / Tamura Chiko

What drew you to this character? | Julius Caesar is someone I’ve always been fascinated by, in art, literature, and as a historical figure. He was a man who put all of his faith in his own ability to be great— and many may even argue that it was this pride that led to his own assassination. But no one can deny Caesar of the immense impact he had on the world. He was successful at being immortalized, just as he believed he would. I honestly was super excited to hear we would be getting a Julius Caesar, and although I was initially too intimidated to apply, I finally decided to go for it. There is something about Chiko and how deeply he believes in himself that I was drawn to. I also love how his personality is more nuanced than I anticipated. Occasional gentleness is not something I had expected from a Julius Caesar figure, but in my eyes, that makes him that much more incredible. Chiko is a force— and he isn’t volatile or prone to depravity like many who roam the streets of Verona. He wants power but not solely for the sake of just having it. He wants influence. His interest in the mobs has more to do with his potential influence and what he has to offer to them. There is no one really quite like him in Verona— and I am very much interested in seeing how his presence will affect everyone.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

1. CHIKO FT. THE MOBS— As of now, Chiko is merely feeling out the mobs, he hasn’t yet determined whether either would be of any interest to him. He isn’t interested in joining persay, as he has already loaned his soul to one man, and does not plan on doing so again anytime soon. He wants the mobs to take interest in him, to recognize his own brilliance and how easily they could profit off his potential. But I am very much interested to see how exactly Verona will react to his arrival, and whether they will be intrigued or threaten by his rather extreme ambition.

2. CHIKO FT. INVESTMENTS— I want Chiko to began investing his money in different places, and to potentially have different alliances with all sorts of people. When you’re as brilliant as him, you don’t limit yourself to a single pursuit, and instead spread your ambitions into multiple roots. He may have lost his money once but he’s very much capable of flipping his money into various sources.

3. CHIKO FT. THE DRUMS— The fire never quite left him, he only restrains it, for the sake of himself and the world around him. I wonder what would happened if someone sent Chiko over the edge (This has only happened once before, so it would it something drastic for this to occur). But I would love to explore his inner darkness. This is something that I believe the mob would ultimately benefit from as well.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Of course.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Para Sample:

(translations are at the bottom)

1. He determined his mother had never truly loved him and how could he blame her? You have those eyes— those fryktelig*, ondskap* eyes. O-Oh my poor beautiful boy, she would slur into his feeble body, the thick scent of vodka practically radiating off of her. It is because of his parents that he cannot stand the smell of liquor. This drew nothing but alarm from him at 6 years old, but as they grew older, they hadn’t a choice but to acknowledge it. Chiko was the product of a volatile mixture— his father, Kono Noburu, was a hitman for the Yamaguchi-gumi* clan and an attack dog to the clan’s kumicho, Kenichi Shinoda, just as his own father was to Shinoda’s own father, and so on. His mother, Katrine Bjorklund, was the daughter of the Norwegian mafia boss, Svein Bjorklund, and his Swedish-born wife, Elisabeth Bjorklund. The pair of them had crossed paths when the Bjorklund’s found themselves in Japan for business, a week long fling that had not been meant to amount to anything more. A few months later, a very pregnant Katrine would arrive at Kono’s doorstep, and from that day on, the two had been forcibly linked.

2. How selfish Chiko had been for wanting a sibling— a tactless desire from which no good could come. A union more chaotic did not exist, not since the marriage of Hera and Zeus. Katrine, who had shown little interest in the union, did not spend a moment with Kono in which she was not terrified. He was everything like her father, and though Kono had done everything in his capacity to make Katrine more at ease, nothing truly came of it. She could no longer stand the sight of him and eventually, he would return these sentiments— only overcoming their differences when they made love. Though it was never love being reciprocated, but a concoction of anger, terror, and disgust— which in the Noburu household, made for a gratifying mixture.

3. Do you know the most moronic mistake I ever made was, segare*? their father demanded as if the 11-year old Chiko were somehow capable of drawing such a conclusion. Falling for a whore. Not a woman, but a whore. I fall into her trap each and every foolish time when all she’s ever done is offer me falsehoods. Whores are always acceptable for fucking, but seeing them as something more is when you’ll run into some trouble. So I beg of you, segare, do not taint our lineage further with the blood of a whore. Learn from your father’s mistakes. I am not sure how much more our blood can withstand. He appreciated the moments in which his father spoke candidly with them, as this was the closest thing to parental bonding that they would ever get. Though he would grow to resent and denounce his father’s misogynistic tirades against his mother, the effects of such teachings had their lasting effects. His sweeping mistrust of man would make his lovers few, and his affections fickle, as well as the prioritization of his own ambitions overall. 4 . You were the most beautiful baby I laid eyes on, min blomst*, his mother crooned to him one day. To think something so beautiful could come from such desolation. It was a mockery— why would Kono and I deserve such a beautiful boy when only ruin would become of him? Just as his father’s drunken denunciations had etched themselves into his brain, his mother sullen tirades would stick with him as well. Especially as he grew older, and began to liken his father more and more. There were times where her eyes would gloss over and she would attempt to “extract the demons from inside of him,” or so she’d explained after attempting to claw his eyes out. When he woke up short of breath, with a pillow plastered against his face, is when he officially began sleeping with his door locked. It has been this way since he was 16 years old.

5. He was freshly 17 when it happened. 17 years old and forced to face the depravity that permeated through every inch of his being. Chiko had never seen a dead body before, but it was not the body that exasperated so, but circumstances of his death. It was the fact that his father looked upon them and their mother absent of any and all remorse. He had been purposeful in his decision to kill the man in their house, Kono’s own way of sending some sort of message to Katrine. It was the fact that Katrine had betrayed their father, and continued to do so time and time again. He could not have cared less about what she spent doing in her pastime, but he could not overlook her absence of loyalty. And so he damned their name. He damned the gods and the universe and all who he felt were responsible for his being born. He had not asked for this life— but he would no longer allow his parents’ corruption to devour him so. He was gone that very night, without as so much as leaving a letter.

6. “You,” Chiko says in a low growl, his eyes in the direction of his bloodied, wreaking father. For once— his father was silent— quieted by Chiko’s rage burning throughout his body. “I will never be as cruel as you. Even if it means I bottle it away and lock it without a key. You didn’t have to do it in front of her. Even she did not deserve that.” He turned slowly to his mother, disappointedly, but without sympathy. She clutched at legs almost pleadingly, but he shook her away. “I could care less about what you do in your free time— you are my mother, and I could never pass judgment for something like that. But I can never respect a person who betrays their family. That, I can never forgive.” He looked between the both of them— disgusted by how self-involved they were, to the point where they forsook their own potential and ambitions. “How pitiful the pair of you are. You ruined each other. But you will not ruin me. I will not waste my potential as you two have. They will remember me, but not by your names. I am a product of you two, but I will not be tainted by your depravity. So have at each other all you want. That is no longer my concern.” He looked at them disappointedly, before making his way to the stairs, careful not to step in the pooling blood.

Extras:

***Just a drabble from the perspective of a lover***

You were permitted snapshots of his brilliance, acquired in bits and pieces, but still, he kept you at a comfortable distance. Comfortable for him, that is. For you— it was never enough. A moment with Chiko is never enough. He’s someone who allows minimal viewers into his inner workings, making him all the more enticing. But the spontaneity of it all— the sudden bursts of passion are what keep you around. Seldom people exist who so skillfully render their own passion into the framework of another. Creativity surges through your flesh, and you are reminded of what it is like to be someone’s muse with each continuous eruption of pleasure. How exhilarating it was being left at the discretion of Chiko’s brilliance. The living canvas in which he enacted his hopes and dreams, his deepest desires. You believed in each and everyone, and truthfully speaking— how could you not? With him, all horizons felt closer, the distance between you and the stars felt lesser.

****some drabbles involving their parents***

It is from your father that you learn PRIDE. Refuse to accept anything less than immortalization, he tells you time and time again. Refuse to settle for anything less than greatness. It is that very pride that guides you in your pursuits and for that you are thankful. Nevermind that it was your father who was always the source of such pride. It was your father’s own superior blood he spoke so highly of. He assured you that you would be fine, despite the blood of a traitorous whore pervading through your veins. But he neglects to teach you the horrors of pride in excess, and how dangerous the world becomes when one wallows in their own excess. It is from him you gather your FURY, a demon you’ve been taming since your youth, dreading the chaos that would potentially ensue. You’ve always hated purposeless chaos. You know what you are capable of, you know of the depravity that is nestled between your skin and bones. Your own greatness becomes less of a pursuit and more of an ultimatum for yourself. The path was always singular for you— your own immortalization or dying trying.

“I could be well moved if I were as you. If I could pray to move, prayers would move me. But I am constant as the Northern Star, Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks; They are all fire, and every one doth shine; But there’s but one in all doth hold his place."

—Julius Caesar, right before his assassination, William Shakespeare

It is from your mother you learn TENDERNESS. You were her greatest accomplishment, her most exquisite creation. Beauty illuminated her horizons, her worldview merely a concoction of her own distorted realities. Chiko with his plush hair and lofty cheekbones had been nothing short of perfection, and for this reason alone, he earned her fickle devotions. Though their outward beauty remains intact, Chiko’s features would be bound to darken, to sharpen, the resemblance almost uncanny. They were every part their father, but they would develop their mother’s HEDONISM, the pursuit of her own realities in which Kono did not exist, as she clawed for his ruin time and time again. Katrine would often get this look about her, identical to the look she would give to their father, and Chiko knew that her devotion had met its limits. But the devastation was not shown, his shield of ALOOFNESS practically impenetrable.

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” —Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

It is from both parents you inherit AMBITION. Both Kono and Katrine clawed for domination, the struggle for power ultimately driving their son and world away. They prioritized their own ambitions over their own child— and it is for that reason Chiko will never have children. Selfish people are better off without kids. That way, their priorities can continue to be aligned with them and them alone.

Translations & Info for various words used: fryktelig= horrible; ondskap = evil; Yamaguchi-gumi = the name of a notorious yakuza clan; kumicho = the Japanese equivalent of a mafia boss; segare = my son; min blomst = my flower;

#accepted: caesar #accepted

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slothcritic · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 4 Review

Hit-or-miss introduction makes way for some golden moments.

The opening skit for Snakeway to Heaven has a satisfactory comedic weight to it, though upon re-watching it for this review, I noticed an editing mistake I had never noticed before, despite becoming a fan of the series in 2012. When Goku falls off Snake Way, the scene actually freezes on that frame. It wouldn't be noticeable if the truck itself hadn't frozen as well. Small gripe but I thought it was an interesting observation to share.

[Title Sequence]

Goku's scream carries over into the first few seconds of the intro and resumes near the last few seconds, which I found to be a well played editing decision.

Once Goku has stopped falling, we're treated to an amusing take on the filler ogres from hell. The blue one is given the Swedish Hansel-und-Gretel accent while the red one speaks like a German or Austrian. And puritan as ever, KaiserNeko made sure to use the original, unedited footage. It would’ve been funny to see them maybe have a scene or two with the ogres wearing their different HFIL shirts, or maybe a bit more fun poked at the Ocean Dub, but no such luck in this scene.

TFS doesn't spend too much time on this scene at all, really. It’s filler, and so nothing here really matters to the story aside from laugh-factor. The comedic nature of this first scene is that it’s rushed. Goku swindles the two ogres out of a fight, like he’s trying to swindle the show into skipping this filler arc, as he immediately guns it for the exit... and then stops?

It would've been a much more emphatic punchline if the scene had changed right here. Instead we have an awkward stop-and-go motion to the scene they're trying to orchestrate and it feels stilted. A lot of this scene after Goku finds the exit I find to be entirely unneeded. Raditz has already been established as being in Other World so the callback here wasn't necessary, the special King Yemma fruit could be argued for having no plot relevance as it never existed in the manga, and we didn't really need that post-Goku scene to get the hint that these ogres were very chummy with each other when it came to subjects like oil wrestling and speedos.

But then, where would they put that great joke about the Blood Fountain? And the small dialogue about Dabura I did find risible as a fan of the original DBZ, despite my usual curmudgeonly take on yet-to-be-established jokes. Like many things, this does get much better as the series continues, eventually turning some moments of sequence-breaking into moments of well-crafted foreshadowing. This is just a funny pointless joke, and a nod to fans of DBZ, that has no impact on the actual story of DBZA itself.

Again, this isn't too much of a big deal. Just a whole work-with-what-you've-got bizarre scenario likely due to bizarre source material. Yet this was all deemed funny enough to edit, voice and keep in the episode instead of trimming it out like the other 90% of this mini-arc. I'm not convinced the presentation was done to par, but I do feel that the inclusion of "Goku in Hell" is necessary for the sake of tying loose ends together. Also, it would've been a far more egregious decision to have that cold open end in a do-nothing cliff hanger. So, a goofy scene and perhaps iffy writing, but not terrible.

We then return to the person who has so far been the breadwinner of the series, and Piccolo hasn't let up on either the humor or Gohan. Kind of a contrast to how somber he is in the show. It's not whack-a-doodle humor, it's exaggerated frustration and exasperation, which lands almost dead-center on my humor nexus.

But even better than Piccolo has to be this next scene - Debatably the first "meme" or seriously quotable moment in the show's history: Popo's Pecking Order.

On paper this doesn't look like it'd be necessarily funny, but when you attach to it a very do-nothing character like Mr Popo and turn him into a sadistic dictator, combined with the special emphasis and excellent delivery of the line, it's simply outstanding, and raises the bar for this entire episode.

Now I've said before that the source material of Z shouldn't factor into the end product that is DBZA. If I were to show this episode to my mother, I shouldn't have to show her all 291 episodes of Z so she can understand it. The show should be able stand on its own. That's not to say parody should have zero factor in the writing of this, or that there should be zero references at all, ever. By god what a silly thing to imply. But people can still enjoy Spaceballs even if they haven't seen Star Wars.

However, in the case of Mr Popo, DBZA does a good job of setting up Popo in the same way Z does. He initially speaks in a low, subdued tone, and is spoken of by Kami as some kind of adviser, or perhaps a respected peer, but as someone who is indirectly and respectfully implied to be below him. After all, it's called Kami's Lookout, not Popo's Lookout, and Kami is literally regarded as "The Guardian of Earth" while Popo just appears to be... there.

That all changes the second Kami leaves the outdoor area and Popo is entrusted with the reigns of the new Z Fighters. LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS!

The Krillin Owned Count also chimes three in this scene, and shows its first signs of picking up momentum.

Back on Snake Way, Goku gets eaten by the head of snake way, which leads into Jadoshin's palace. This is such a quick, cheesy, quirky but funny edit that I'm not sure what to say beyond I enjoyed it. It just hits you and then boom, you're in her castle.

The joke of Jadoshin being voiced by Solid Snake (Princess Snake, Solid Snake, on Snake Way) seems like a bold strategy but I think it's one of the better jokes they've committed to that ended up being really good, at least this early on. The voice even lends itself to the awkward dialogue that would've simply lost its charm or fallen flat otherwise.

Unrelated, but one of my favorite lines from the dub happens in this scene, where Jadoshin's attendant simply says "I've got something to show you. And it's my gun.", and then kills herself with it. I didn't expect to see that in this scene, but a small part of me did hope.

When Goku finishes up in the hot springs (with a Metal Gear Solid box gag to boot) and tries to leave, Jadoshin then states that she wants Goku inside her. Goku is confused, of course, and smash cut to Goku flying for his life from a massive green fire-breathing snake trying to eat him.

Jadoshin however still has the voice of Solid Snake even in this form, complete with periodic grunts as they maneuver through the air. This eventually transitions into Jadoshin saying waka-waka, and the backdrop changes into a Pac-Man map. The Pac-Man skit was perhaps a bit overdone, with Goku finding meat instead of the normal fruit, but on the whole this was a very "solid" scene.

During the Ozaru scene, I feel like Piccolo just screaming "MOOOOOOOON!" in the DBZA Kai version is funnier than the "Stop mocking me!" we got in DBZA proper. Also, donkey kong barrel, really? It's not bad, but it's an "oh, brother" moment, like hearing a very bad pun.

When Gohan transforms back into his human (or Half-Saiyan technically) form, his junk is censored with a Dragon Ball. This is an interesting contrast in philosophy over the years, as KaiserNeko explained the decision "to not censor baby dicks" in a Episode Breakdown livestream on the Broly Abdridged movie, where Broly's baby wiener can be seen uncensored in a few scenes of that movie.

The episode ends with Goku continuing down Snake Way, having tied Jadoshin up into a tangled ball, prompted the GAME OVER screen and someone yelling "Princess Snaaaaaake!"

Conclusion

Despite my lackluster thoughts on how Hell was handled, this episode had a lot going for it compared to it's predecessors! Most of the episode was spent on two strong scenes, and while I didn't think the Ozaru scene was anything special, it didn't feel out of place or off-kilter, but provided more insight and I suppose world-building into the relationship between Piccolo and Gohan and the constant reminder that they're training to eventually face off against the Saiyans. This is further reinforced by Stinger #2 with Nappa and Vegeta en route to Earth.

This was almost opposite to Episode 3, which I felt had strong bookends. While I didn't find the end of this episode to be bad, it was simply "alright" when compared to the Popo and Jadoshin scenes. Characters are starting to have stronger internal identities instead of simply being parodies of their original counterparts. Though it is noteworthy, and rather obvious, that this only applies to characters with speaking lines. Tien, Yamcha and Chiaotzu made their first appearances but had nothing to say. Maybe it would have been cluttered or detracted from the pacing of the Popo scene, but it may prove challenging to properly attach sentimentality to these characters in the short few episodes they have before the inevitable happens.

Because y'know, nobody watched Dragon Ball.

Score: 73

Passing Thoughts

I liked that Stinger #1 dealt with the actual ramifications of DESTROYING THE MOON unlike the series proper did. I guess it was just no diff for the Dragon Ball world?

"He made a horrible mess of the blood fountain." "Looks fine to me." "IT USED TO BE WATER!"

"I killed everything here with my bare hands. Including the bear hands." -Pictured in the top left of the frame are actual bear hands.

"Stop grunting, it's creepy!"

"CLOTHES BEAM!" and “That is easily my most metro attack.”

#slothcritic #dbz #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #tfs #teamfourstar

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josefasparrow2-blog · 5 years

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Checklist Of Most Standard Music Genres

What's higher than listening to a moody song on a rainy day, or a tear-inducing pop ballad while you're traveling alone on the subway, throughout every week while you just feel off? The most important surprise is this idea that LGBTQ music or LGBTQ artists didn't all of a sudden grow to be visible with Stonewall, that there were intervals or little pockets throughout the century the place LGBTQ individuals were making music, making data, were out in their own lives, had been performing as out and so they weren't receiving the censorship we'd expect. Clearly I knew of issues like the Weimar period of Berlin cabaret, however I really wasn't conscious of how massive that scene was and to find in just about each major forums.adobe.com metropolis in America at the moment, in every capital of Europe that related scenes additionally existed. I suppose this new sense of freedom that individuals felt instantly after the first World War allowed folks to be a bit more free, to precise themselves more openly and readily. By the point Hjellstrom first picked up the guitar, the boy-band wave had already crested, however Martin and his colleagues, taking Denniz PoP's mantle, had infiltrated all of pop music with their methodical strategy to songwriting and production. When journalist John Seabrook wrote a ebook about this motion, he referred to as it The Tune Machine: within a couple of years of Cheiron's demise, music, the business, had grow to be industrialized. Martin's once-proprietary pop process is now international gospel: Producers take beats and chord progressions, offer them as much as a sequence of "top-line" songwriters reminiscent of Hjellstrom to reward it with melody and hits are made. The GW-eight is packed with an enormous collection of styles representing a broad vary of music genres, from modern rock, pop, dance, jazz and beyond. Along with the wonderful library of up to date sounds and styles, the GW-8 is equipped with ethnic instrument sounds and authentic regional musical types, with particular focus on Latin American genres. Each backing model has 4 intros, four primary patterns, and four ending progressions so that you can craft your individual preparations stay.

The divas of the Nineteen Nineties artists, resembling Madonna, and Mariah Carey offered albums that prolonged their rule of the music charts. The Swedish celebrity Carola Häggkvist continued her rule of European charts. Different tendencies included Teen pop singers similar to Disney Channel star Hilary Duff. Pop punk acts reminiscent of Simple Plan and Fall Out Boy have grow to be increasingly widespread, in addition to pop rock acts such as Ashlee Simpson and Avril Lavigne and emo music akin to Hawthorne Heights, Lostprophets, and Dashboard Confessional. Sarcastically, it could be music critics, in many ways the ideological culprits in Hamilton's story, who've completed the most — after the artists themselves, of course — to unsettle the racial categories which have stunted our understanding of rock historical past. Outlets from The New Yorker to The Fader to MTV Information now often characteristic music writing by young critics of color who strategy pop, rap, and rock with a far sharper, samirabranco543.mywibes.com subtler, and, above all, diverse racial consciousness than the white writers Hamilton cites. In the meantime, a lot of the most inept writing on race and music continues to return from white male critics. Even articulate and aware writers site visitors in previous, reified notions of soul" and funk," the immaterial essences by which they define, and otherize, black music. The tan-brick bunker was, for almost a decade, the finest hit manufacturing unit on the planet. It was founded in the early nineties by Denniz PoP, a remix pioneer with a present for melody who propelled Swedish pop band Ace of Base to global fame, co-producing All That She Desires and The Signal. He cared little for the divide between the membership and the radio, making music that bridged each worlds: beats you may't sit still for and melodies you possibly can't forget. To road-take a look at his prototypes, he'd blast them in empty discotheques within the dead of morning to assess their dance-flooring effectiveness. The approach gave radio pop, lengthy a crucial castaway, an unforgettable immediacy. Interest in music therapy continued to achieve help through the early 1900s resulting in the formation of several quick-lived associations. In 1903, Eva Augusta Vescelius based the Nationwide Society of Musical Therapeutics. In 1926, Isa Maud Ilsen founded the National Association for Music in Hospitals. And in 1941, Harriet Ayer Seymour founded the National Foundation of Music Remedy. Though these organizations contributed the first journals, books, and academic courses on music therapy, they sadly were not able to develop an organized medical occupation. First, the bias of the survey you mention: If pop music is what is being marketed to young girls then that will be the music they report liking. You see, they have been informed that is their music. If the media were to suddenly inform them that most pop artists are lame and that rock was the brand new thing for them, they'd start shopping for rock once more. Young people (female and male) are simply swayed by developments and once they reply to a survey the bulk will report themselves as being hip to the pattern. Lounge music refers to music performed in the lounges and www.magicaudiotools.com bars of hotels and casinos, or at standalone piano bars. Generally, the performers embody a singer and one or two other musicians. The performers play or cowl songs composed by others, especially pop standards, many deriving from the times of Tin Pan Alley. Notionally, a lot lounge music consists of sentimental favorites loved by a lone drinker over a martini, although in observe there may be far more selection. The time period also can seek advice from laid-again electronic music, also named downtempo, because of the fame of lounge music as low-key background music.But even as the city continued to hyperlink its id to music made on guitars, artists tinkered with digital sounds and programmed beats in the local music scene. In 2010, singer Mikky Ekko launched his debut EP Reds. He parlayed its standout observe, a moody ballad with stunning turns called Who Are You, Really?" into mainstream pop success. Inside two years, he'd signal a major label deal, hyperlink up with slicing-edge producers like Clams On line casino, and co-write a song for Rihanna (Keep," a song the pair would later perform as a duet at the Grammys in 2013).

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hermitologist · 5 years

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My 20 Favorite Records Of 2018

Hi. I made a list of my favorite records of the year again. People seem to enjoy these things, and I definitely enjoy tearing my hair out trying to figure out what I liked best, so here we are again.

This years list is chock full of heavy/sludgy bummer jams, post-rock epics, and super aggressive metal and hardcore, with a few poppier and more adventurous indie records scattered about. The honorable mentions list gets a bit more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds a little less like it was birthed from the loins of the late-90s/early-00s Hydrahead and Relapse discography.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on, no matter the genre. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so help me out.

Also: When my aging corpse is not being pissy about being used for something other than child-wrangling, eating, or sleeping, I try to run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record on each run. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together playlists of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just throw it on and see if anything grabs you.

Hermitology’s Favorite 20 Records of 2018 - Spotify Playlist

Hermitology’s Favorite 20 Records of 2018 - Apple Music Playlist

20) Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

This record is ridiculous in the best ways possible -- insane amounts of shredding, light-speed double bass and blast beats, and lyrics about slugs and other assorted beasts. It’s been ages since I went through my Swedish & Norwegian Metal phase, but this awakened those long-dormant receptors that used to hum when I listened to At The Gates, Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, Soilwork, et al.

Listen here.

19) Ingrina - Etter Lys

Excellent French doomgaze/post-rock that sounds like it could very easily be the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Etter Lys has a familiar sound/vibe, but a refreshing energy and captivating sense of dark melody that really makes them stand out to me. Highly recommended for fans of This Will Destroy You, Rosetta, God Is An Astronaut, et al.

Listen here.

18) Beach House - 7

This record was the perfect foil to all heavy stuff I listened to this year, and my go-to in-flight record of 2018. It’s a damn near perfect collection hazy, airy, dreamy, downtempo indie pop. I’d never been a huge Beach House fan, but 7 hooked me and pulled me in. Throw this your headphones on, press play, and melt into your chair or couch.

Listen here.

17) Culture Abuse - Bay Dream

This record was not what I was expecting, but it ended up being exactly what I needed. (If that makes any sense.) Instead of a grimy, high-energy punk record, I got a fuzzy, bouncy, catchy-as-hell soundtrack to my entire summer. A perfect blend of The Ramones and peak-Weezer, with a vibe all its own.

Listen here.

16) Deads - LLNN

Roughly forty minutes of insanely heavy and furious drop-tuned, down-tempo, doom-inspired crushers offset by eerie, cinematic synth parts. If you’re a fan of early-Cult of Luna and/or Isis, this record should be a new staple in your diet. There’s also enough atmosphere here to appeal to post-rock fans who might desire a little aggression boost.

Listen here.

15) Heads. - Collider

Beautifully written sludgy rock that falls somewhere between the heaviness and spookiness of Young Widows and the heroin-soaked atmosphere and melody of Failure. For what it’s worth, I dig Collider more than either of the aforementioned bands’ most recent output. It’s a perfect marriage of influences, killer songwriting, an excellent recording, and a flat out fantastic record from front to back.

Listen here.

14) mewithoutYou - [untitled]

I’ve been a mewithoutYou fan for ages and love everything they’ve done (so I’m a little biased), but this record is just on a completely different level as far as I’m concerned. It’s the peak of their creativity, songwriting, mood, dynamics, lyrics, production, etc. It’s got the atmosphere and moodiness of post-rock, the angular quirkiness of Fugazi, the energy of Refused (at times), and the all the character of a classic mwY record. It’s phenomenal, and doubly impressive because they made it 18 years deep into an already impressive career.

Listen here.

13) Foxing - Nearer My God

I was familiar with Foxing before this record came out because they’d toured with many former tourmates, and while I appreciated what I’d heard from them, they never really clicked with me. And then I heard this record and it totally floored me. It’s incredibly ambitious without coming across as super scatterbrained or pretentious and it’s executed flawlessly (production included). This band should be massive, and I’m stunned that I’m not seeing this record on more year-end lists

Listen here.

12) This Will Destroy You - New Others Part 1 & 2

Somehow TDWY managed drop two incredible full lengths a month apart, and I honestly cannot choose between the two (so I’m combining them into one). These LPs are arguably their best work as a band, the addition of Robi Gonzalez on drums has given their sound new energy, dynamics, and pocket, and there aren’t many bands in post-rock doing it as well as these dudes do. Incredibly impressive to be able to put out this much music all at once and have it be this consistent.

Listen here.

11) The Armed - Only Love

Somehow this record manages to be chaotic, energetic, beautiful, delicate, catchy-as-hell, abrasive, and atmospheric all at once. Sometimes it sounds like you accidentally have five different songs playing at the same time. Somehow modular synth-soaked punk/metal works. Clearly I cannot explain exactly what in the everliving hell is happening here, but I can tell you that it’s a wholly arresting record that blew my mind on first listen, and has gotten better with every listen since.

Listen here.

10) Hemwick - Junkie (EP)

Normally, I wouldn’t include an EP on this list, but this is one just too good to ignore. It’s 30 minutes of insane riffage and heaviness that sounds like it spawned from the same gene pool that produced Converge, Cult Leader, and Intronaut. It’s got the spazziness and brutality of the former, blended perfectly with the occasional post-rock/metal shift into the epic melody of the latter. Super excited to hear what comes next for these guys (hopefully an LP recorded with Scott Evans or Kurt Ballou?), because this is an incredibly promising “debut”.

Listen here.

9) Architects - Holy Hell

As a standalone record, Holy Hell slays. As a follow-up to losing a family/band member to cancer (guitarist, Tom Searle), it’s a fucking triumph. Somehow Architects managed to push through the grief and heartache, and pushed the boundaries of their musical creativity and emotive lyrics to create what is arguably their best record. Holy Hell is packed to the gills with with massive, arena-sized riffs and moshworthy breakdowns, sprinkled with just enough melody and dynamic to keep things fresh without losing its edge. An amazing accomplishment in the face of such adversity.

Listen here.

8) Slow Mass - On Watch

An outstanding fusion of mellow(er) post-hardcore, bummer jams, Unwound-inspired post-punk, and shimmery shoegazey goodness. “Suburban Yellow” (see playlist) is one of my favorite songs of the year, falling somewhere between the crushing gloominess of a Kowloon Walled City song, and the somber plod of a classic Pedro The Lion track. I tend to shy away from music with dual lead vocals (because I often prefer one of the voices to the point that I’d rather just hear it all the time), but Dave Collis and Mercedes Webb’s voices are so complimentary and perfectly balanced that they take these songs to another level. Bonus: I’d highly recommend watching their frigid Audiotree session.

Listen here.

7) Hot Snakes - Jericho Sirens

One of my favorite bands of all-time put out its first record in 14 years, and it was well worth the wait. It’s Hot Snakes doing what they do best -- ripping 30 minutes of high-energy post-punk jams fueled by the brilliantly weird guitar wizardry of John Reis, and propelled by the dual drummer attack of Mario Rubalcaba and Jason Kourkounis. I’m not entirely sure where I’d rank it in their discography, but having fresh Hot Snakes tracks makes the world a better place.

Listen here.

6) Cloud Nothings - Last Building Burning

What did we do to deserve two Cloud Nothings LPs in two years? I was a little worried about whether the band could churn out a record as fantastic as Life Without Sound (which landed at #7 on last year’s list), but they absolutely did. Last Building Burning builds on the catchiness and energy of LWS’s bummer jams, but adds a little extra grit, fury, and urgency. The result is a record that’s damn near peak Cloud Nothings. It’s got hooks for days, an energy that’ll make you want to bounce off the walls, and a nasty edge that brings to mind 80′s Wipers or early Hot Snakes jams.

Listen here.

5) Cult Leader - A Patient Man

Cult Leader’s Lightless Walk was a Top 5 record for me in 2015, Gaza’s No Absolutes In Human Suffering was in my Top 5 in 2012, so it should be no surprise that they’ve cracked the Top 5 again. I’d be hard pressed to name another HEAVY band who has done it for me the way these guys have over the past six years. A Patient Man hits all the notes -- pure chaos, expansive and melancholic post-rock sections, and the most headbang-worthy breakdowns on the planet. It’d take a miracle to get this 43-year-old geriatric with a bad back to come out of mosh retirement, but the breakdown in “Aurum Reclusa” is seriously making me think about a comeback.

Listen here.

4) Low - Double Negative

I don’t think I’ve had a record screw with my brain as hard as Double Negative did since I heard Kid A for the first time. It’s a spooky, brain-liquifying journey through sonic textures and ambience, arranged and mixed in a manner that is absolutely enthralling (and a bit unnerving and “wtf are my headphones broken?”at times). If you’re gearing up for a first listen, I’d highly recommend clearing an hour on your schedule, throwing on a good pair of headphones, and letting this have its way with you. If you’ve already heard it, you should listen to it again. It gets better and weirder and more captivating every time. It’s a trip, and a great one at that.

Listen here.

3) Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want

As a standalone record, this is groundbreaking. As a “comeback record” it’s a fucking triumph. Their S/T record (2010) is one of my favorite heavy/noise rock records of all-time, and somehow YWGWYW surpassed my lofty expectations for a follow-up. It’s a dizzying journey for sure. It’s moody as hell. It’s coherent. It’s adventurous without being overly weird. And it’s all of the best things about their previous work distilled into a perfect chunk of musical madness. The best records are the ones that make your brain matter spill out of your ears upon first listen, but it’s the all-time classics that do that and get better with every subsequent listen. Sure, it’s a record for “when the mood is right”, but when I’m in the mood, this hits all the notes for me. It’s a masterpiece.

Listen here.

2) Holy Fawn - Death Spells

This record came out of nowhere and absolutely knocked me on my ass. I’m not sure I’ve had a record do that to me since I first heard Cloudkicker in 2009 -- knew nothing of it, had zero idea what to expect and literally had goosebumps for a majority of my first listen. Tempe’s Holy Fawn have created a unique blend of dense, dynamic, and cathartic post-rock, doom, and shoegaze with airy vocals that remind me a bit of Jonsi from Sigur Ros. It’ll be a daunting task to follow up this masterpiece, but I’m incredibly excited to see and hear what the future holds for these guys.

Listen here.

1) Pianos Become The Teeth - Wait For Love

This was one of my most anticipated records of the year, and it not only lived up to my lofty expectations, but exceeded them. “Bitter Red” was far and away my most played song of the year, and I must’ve listened to Wait For Love 50 times during the month of February alone. It’s no surprise that I found myself going back to it throughout the year, and in revisiting for this list, it gave me chills just like it did 10 months ago. These dudes are doing melancholic and cathartic post-hardcore better than just about anyone these days, and I cannot wait to hear what’s next for them.

Listen here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Roughly 80% of these records could/should have very easily landed on the Top 20 list (and probably would if I obsessed over this list any further and gave everything a super dedicated re-listen). They’re all absolutely worth checking out.

I know this list might be a little daunting, so I put together a Spotify Playlist of my favorite songs from each record, so you can just throw it on and see if anything grabs you.

Thanks to my man Zack Hite for helping me out and putting together an Apple Music version of the playlist.

Hermitology’s 2018 Honorable Mentions Spotify Playlist

Hermitology’s 2018 Honorable Mentions Apple Music Playlist

Baptists - Beacon of Faith

Birds In Row - We Already Lost The World

Boygenius - S/T EP

Candy - Good to Feel

Coastlands - The Further Still

Conjurer - Mire

Death Engine - Place Noire

Drug Church - Cheer

Emma Ruth Rundle - Dark Horses

Failure - In the Future Your Body Will Be ...

Fiddlehead - Springtime and Blind

Hammock - Universalis

IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance

Jay Jayle - No Trail & Other Unholy Paths

Jesus Piece - Only Self

KEN Mode - Loved

Man Mountain - Infinity Mirror

Mogwai - KIN

Nate Smith - Pocket Change

OHHMS - Exist

Ólafur Aarnalds - re:member

Polyphia - New Levels, New Devils

Portrayal of Guilt - Let Pain Be Your Guide

Prefuse 73 - Sacrifices

Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die …

Sectioned - Annihilated

Slow Crush - Aurora

Snail Mail - Lush

SUMAC - Love In Shadow

Svalbard - It’s Hard To Have Hope

Taken - With Regards To (EP)

The Story So Far - Proper Dose

Tides of Man - Every Nothing

Vein - Errorzone

Yashira - Shrine

PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (humor, sports, politics)

Chapo Trap House (politics, humor)

Hang Up & Listen (sports, culture, nerdy)

Effectively Wild (baseball)

The Frotcast (movies, humor)

The Trap Set (drums, psychology)

The Gist (current events, politics)

Song Exploder (songwriting, production)

The Modern Drummer Podcast (drums)

#music #year end lists #AOTY #hermitology #podcasts

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umichenginabroad · 2 years

Text

Week 3 in Lund and Other Places!

Hello again from Lund, Sweden! This last week has been a wonderful touristy blur, so I think I will let the pictures speak mostly for themselves (although I am limited to only 10 I'm afraid). Saturday was visits to Lund's Kulturen open air museum, the Skissernas Museum of Sketches (pictured below), and the Cathedral which was built in the 1100's and still stands in the town's center! The University Library was also a can't miss in terms of beautiful architecture.

The next day was swimming at Lomma Beach just a bus ride away (through flower fields!) from Lund. The water wasn't too cold, but we learned too late it's common to take a sauna near the piers of the area before jumping in the waves.

This week, week number three, was the first week I have felt settled into my daily research routine. We are even starting to get some data from our isothermal calorimetry experiments to analyze! I also finally feel like I know my way around the city on foot (more or less) and was able to find some nice bakery spots. My favorite so far has been a kanelbullar, a kind of Swedish cinnamon bun, from The Patisseriet.

On Wednesday, I visited my distant relative in Copenhagen. The picture on the bottom left is the view from the top of The Church of Our Savior which, at around 90 meters or 300 feet tall with only a railing separating us from the drop at the top of the spiral, was a bit terrifying. We survived, and after making it to the bottom, had a nice dinner where we chatted about our shared family and how our lives might have been different if our parents or grandparents or great grandparents had immigrated to somewhere other than the United States and Canada or not at all. In a way, the experience was a little like a blind date. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but it was so cool to make such a connection with family living halfway around the world.

Back in Lund at the end of the week, our class had a seminar on Swedish societal structures. I learned university tuition is free for all Swedish residents (although students have to pick an educational path much earlier because distribution requirements for majors like engineering usually aren't as common). I also learned that parental leave from work is 16 months and expected to be shared between parents where in the United States it can be as low as 3 months which is wild. My specific topic was the recycling system in Sweden and the main difference between Sweden and the U.S. is that only 1% of waste in Sweden ends up in landfills. A lot of waste is burned in energy recovery facilities which have their own issues, but there are also efforts towards circular economy like incentives for producers to make products that can be broken down at the end of their life cycle and H&M's TreeToTextile initiative to make jeans and other fabrics from cellulose.

This troll sculpture made out of scrap wood by artist Thomas Dambo who travels all over the world is of the same kind I saw when I visited Maine's botanical gardens last spring. I was surprised when I stumbled upon it around a corner in Copenhagen, but it was nice to see yet another connection to home.

I don't think this week's craziness will slow down anytime soon. Lundakarnevalen started Friday, and with parades and concerts and the like happening all weekend, I'm sure I will have lots of adventures to tell you about next week. Stay tuned!

Reegan Ketzenberger

Materials Science & Engineering

Undergraduate Research Program at Lund University: Lund, Sweden

#UmichEnginAbroad #IPELund #ReeganKetzenberger #IPESummer2022

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spudart · 6 years

Photo

1:72 SAAB OAS 41 'Víðarr'; aircraft "23 Grey" of Skaraborgs Flygflottilj F 7, Swedish Air Force; Satenäs AB, 2014 (Whif/kit conversion) by dizzyfugu https://flic.kr/p/pAFA59 +++ DISCLAIMER +++ Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE! Some background: The Víðarr (or Vidar, "Wide ruler", a Nordic god among the Æsir associated with vengeance) or officially SAAB OAS 41 is Sweden's first manned aircraft with stealth technology, and the first aircraft of its kind in Europe in operational service. "OAS" is an abbreviation of the aircraft's primary tactical roles: "Osynlig Attack Spaning", "Unseen attack and reconnaissance missions". Much of the OAS 41's technology and elements were developed and tested on unmanned vehicles, namely SAAB's SHARC and FILUR demonstrators. SHARC (Swedish Highly Advanced Research Configuration) was an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Saab AB. Since the late 90-ies SAAB had been carrying out preliminary studies about several Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) concepts but not taking them into flying demonstrators. In 2001 it was decided to start the SHARC Technology Demonstrator (SHARC TD) project. Because of a limited budget and good in-house experiences from flight tests of instrumented sub-scale aircraft, it was decided that the SHARC TD should be in 1:4 scale of the original SHARC design. One of the major goals of the project was to test the airworthiness process for a military UAV or aircraft of similar layout, and this could well be achieved even with sub scaled aircraft. Even the goal of testing a lean development process for demonstrators could be achieved in that way. The SHARC TD project was initiated in 2001 with first flight less than one year later, on February 11th 2002, with the basic version. The more advanced version made its maiden flight on April 9th 2003, less than two years after project start. In September 2003 the SHARC flew a number of missions out of visual range, ranging around 20 km from the control station location. In January 2004 the effort towards the development of the ATOL functionalities was initiated, and led to a successful flight test campaign in August 2004, during which fully autonomous mission were demonstrated, from standstill to standstill. The SHARC system was composed by two flying demonstrators (BS-001 and -002), a GCS and some GSE for engine start and cooling air supply on ground. The SHARC TD is a 60 kg jet-engine driven aircraft. The airframe was manufactured in light-weight composite materials; the airframe weighed only 8 kg (without landing gear). The payload consisted of a forward looking colour video camera. The avionic system (hardware and software) was designed and manufactured by SAAB and is based on Flight Test Instrumentation system COMET 15 used in the Gripen and Viggen fighter a/c. Before the decision to develop an in house avionic system, a market survey was conduced, but no existing system had been fulfilling specifications. Electro-optic fibres, or “fly-by-light”, were used to the actuators in order to minimize the risk for Electro Magnetic Interference. Saab and FMV’s technology demonstrator program FILUR made its first flight in 2006. FILUR’s main objective was to show the tactical importance of stealth technology applied on aerial vehicles, to gain experience and to set a foundation for stealth requirements for future aerial systems and air-surveillance systems. The focus with the FILUR program was on low signature, for both radar and IR-signature. “Static measurements of radar cross section (RCS) made late 2004 showed really good performance and corresponded with calculated data. In flight measurements of stealth performance will be done as a next step”, said Jan Boström FILUR Project Manager, Saab Aerosystems. The technology developed in FILUR would be used for future Saab systems, being UAVs or manned aircraft, which became the OAS 41 which had been under development since 2004. The SAAB OAS 41 made its maiden flight in 2012, and in early 2014 a pre-production batch of five aircraft has been assigned to Skaraborgs Flygflottilj ("Skaraborg Air Force Wing") F 7 in Satenäs, where the aircraft are operated alongside JAS 39 Gripen multi-purpose fighters for evaluation and integration. Conceptually the OAS 41 is very similar to the much earlier US-American F-117, dedicated to ground attacks with precision weapons, attacks against coastal/sea targets and reconnaissance missions. All ordnance or equipment is carried internally in a large bay which is covered by sliding doors. Typical weapons include up to three Rb 75 (AGM-65 Maverick) missiles, two GBU-12 laser-guided smart bombs or two AGM 119 "Penguin" anti-ship missiles. Iron or cluster bombs as well as pods with unguided missiles are also an option. Beyond that, the aircraft can also carry air-to-air missiles like the actice radar RB 99 (AIM-129 AMRAAM) or the IR-guided Rb 74 (AIM-9L Sidewinder), up to four of each. The OAS 41 does not feature an internal gun, even though up to two podded Mauser BK 27 cannons can be carried internally. Overall, its range of weapons is highly identical to what the JAS 39 Gripen can deploy. Alternatively to offensive loads, the OAS 41 can carry camera of sensor pallets in its belly, making it highly adaptable. It is uncertain how many aircraft wil actually be built, since the Swedish Air Force officially announced that the OAS 41 is not to replace its JAS 39 fleet, rather complement it or take over exclusive missions due to its stealth features. The type's limited performance will probably confine to a limited scope of missions, and with the running cost reductions it is not expected that more than 30 OAS 41's will ever leave the production line for the Swedish Air Force, unless it would be exported and follow in the Gripen's footsteps, but this remains doubtful. General characteristics: Crew: 1 Length: 6.70 m (21 ft 11 in) Wingspan: 18,29 m (59 ft 11 in) Height: 3,96 m (13 ft) Wing area: ~68 m² (729 ft²) Empty weight: 6.739 kg (14.844 lb) Internal fuel: 2.500 l Max. takeoff weight: 13.600 kg (29,760 lb) Powerplant: 2× Svenska Flygmotor RM13S turbofans (General Electric CF34-3S), with 4.150 each Performance: Maximum speed: 692 mph (1.115 km/h) at height Cruise speed: Mach 0.7 Landing speed: 210 km/h Range: 4.828 km (3.000 mi) with internal fuel Service ceiling: 13.381 m (43.830 ft) Rate of climb: 60 m/s (11.811 ft/min) Armament: Up to 3.000 kg of ordnance, all carried in a ventral bomb bay, including air-to-ground and air-to-air missile, smart and iron bombs, gun and rocket pods, ECM equipment and pallets with cameras and sensors for reconnaissance missions. The kit and its assembly: This stealth aircraft is basically a scale-o-rama project: it is a Dragon B-2 bomber in 1:200 scale turned into a 1:72 scale aircraft. What sounds easy is more complex than it appears: you need a cockpit with a proper canopy, the landing gear has to be adjusted and there are many small details that need attention. For the cockpit installation I decided to implant a complete X-32 section from a Revell kit, it replaces the complete B-2 spine. It appears a bit bulgy, but upon close inspection of the potential internal layout I found that you can either have a flush canopy OR a bomb bay. Since I wanted to keep the latter (and enlarged it), the cockpit went a bit higher. As a result, the original X-32 canopy looked much to bulbous, it was way too high. Searching through the spares pile I eventually turned up an old F-18B canopy, which, reversed and cut into shape, could be transplanted onto the X-32's cockpit frame, even tough some sculpting at the rear was necessary. Since the F-18 canopy had some glue stains I had to sand and polish it, and as a final coat I decided to apply some light brown translucent paint. Fit is not 100%, though, but it looks good now. The high cockpit necessitated some visual counter-balance at the rear. Originally I had hoped to keep the OAS 41 fin-free, but I eventually dug out a pair of F-117 fins that were cut down in length and glued to the airframe, slightly canted outwards. The landing gear is all new. The massive front strut comes from a F-117, the wheel from the X-32. The front well was enlarged, as good as possible, but it is still too short... don't lokk there closely. ;) The main landing gear struts were taken from the X-32, while the wheels come from the F-117. The wells were lengthened at the rear, so that the longer legs find enough space. The B-2's original bomb bay was cut out and replaced by a completely scratched interior that allows the carriage of a pair of laser-guided bombs, which come from the scrap box. The exhaust slits were modified, too. They were made wider, and inside a kind of ramps were added - the original 1:200 B-2 has nothing inside. For the same reason I also added light blocks, pieces of dark grey foamed plastic, inside of the air intakes and the exhausts. Finally, at the aircraft's front, some pitots were added, but that's all since the overall hull was to remain clean. Painting and markings: I originally had the plan to make this a Japanese aircraft, but then I decided to make it a (kind of) tribute to the innovative Swedish aircraft industry - the SAAB OAS was born, and it was to carry an appropriate, if not odd, paint scheme. Even though "Fields & Meadows", made popular by the Saab 37 Viggen, was an option, I did not want to copy that style. But an angular scheme appeared logical as to confuse the aircraft contours. The splinter paint scheme I eventually settled upon was vaguely inspired by Norwegian "Skjold" class coastal patrol ships, which have stealthy hulls and carry a three-colored spinter scheme in grey, sand and dark brown. Odd for a ship, one might say, but in front of the typical Norwegian rocky coastline, it is highly effective, and even on the open sea, viewed from above, it is not a bad scheme at all. The pattern was vaguely lent from the Skjold boats, and I used different tones which would IMHO be more versatile: a reddish brown (WWII French Earth Brown), Field Grey and Olive Drab, in a wraparound scheme. Together with the edgy shape of the aircraft this turned out to be pretty effective - a bit of a surprise! The rest was rather straightforward: white for the air intakes and the landing gear, the cockpit and the bomb bay were painted in Neutral Grey. The pair of internal GBU-12s was painted in light grey, a typical tone for such weapons in Swedish use witn the JAS 39 Gripen. The kit received a light black ink washing and some panel painting with lighter shades of the basic tone, just to amphasize contours and simulate some structure and acccess panels esp. in the engine area. After decal application (puzzled together, among others, from an Italeri JAS 39 Gripen) the kit was sealed with Revell's matt acrylic varnish. In the end, a rather simple whif - I am not a friend of stealth aircraft, since they are IMHO boring. The splinter scheme changes this a bit, and the high cockpit does not look that bad at all, even though the original X-32 canopy looked REALLY weird.

#forest #coast #fighter #force #conversion #sweden #aviation #secret #air #attack #splinter #b2 #stea

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