#also everyone go listen to medium build NOW

[emuchipmunk]

22 | Oliver Bjorkstrand x Never Learned To Dance - Medium Build

#PUT THE WRONG NUMBER TWICE TAKE ME OUT BACK NOW #Spotify wrapped x hockey #the timing of this is so funny #I started working on this before dinner and finished it after he was announced for ASW #THE BETTER SHIT IS SEATTLE BY THE WAY !! #SEATTLE AND FAMILY !! #if that wasn’t clear #also everyone go listen to medium build NOW #oliver bjorkstrand #columbus blue jackets #seattle kraken #hockey #mine #hockey edit #hockey art

[flamingo-writes]

Pillow Talk — Hobie x Fem!Reader

Summary: set in the 70’s. After having a bad day, your best friend Hobie attempts and succeeds at turning your day around.

A/N: not proof read. This started as a vent fic bcs I was feeling ignored by the world. This turned out longer than expected. Fem!Reader, the only mention about the reader’s appearance, except at some point I mention the reader’s shirts fit Hobie, however, Hobie is a very tall dude, but he’s also very thin. I wrote this keeping an average sized reader in mind (my bf is as tall as Hobie, not as skinny, and my medium sized shirts fit him very short, so the reader could be even be larger than average sized)

Genre: fluff, plotless fluff!! Friends to lovers expect the lovers part didn’t make it to the fic. I might write a sequel, but I also might not. I need ideas and inspiration.

Warnings: not proof read, idk if I wrote curse words or not…other than that I’d say anxiety and

Word count: 2.9K

The tapping of that rain on the glass was a good company to your music. Slow lullabies, that fitted your current mood, matching the weather outside. As you lied on your bed, your face towards the wall besides your bed as you wished for the day to be over.

It was one of those days, in which the world seemed too loud, too overwhelming. It was almost as if you were invisible that day. No one listened to anything you had to say, everyone seemed to actively ignore you, even one of your friends snapped at you over what you considered to be nothing and kept blaming yourself for that even when it wasn’t something that serious to begin with. Today was a very busy day at the coffee bar, you were truly exhausted and wanted nothing but to go to sleep and wait for the day to end. Although falling asleep had resulted to be an impossible task.

So you listened to music instead. The rain helping set the mood. You wanted to stop existing for a while and even stop thinking. Ignoring the phone ringing a couple of times. Even ignoring the loud growl of your stomach as you had absolutely no energy to do anything.

You heard the window sliding open, immediately knowing who it was. You lived on the 8th floor of a rather stinky flat building. And only one person insisted on using windows rather than the normal main door.

“Shite, tryna give me a heart attack?” He said at once. “Thanks for picking up by the way,” He said sarcastically as he took off his boots and started pacing around your room like it was his, making himself to the bathroom where the first aid kit was as he kept on rambling.

“Thought you were either still at work or out with friends or whatever, you know, after you very kindly didn’t pick up your phone, ey?” He said. “Came ‘ere to patch myself up, after I tried calling thinking there wasn’t anyone home. You’ve got the nice gauzes, tell your mother thanks for me one of these days, for being a nurse and letting you sneak this things out of the hospital for ya,”

The entire time he was talking there was no reply. No sassy comeback to his sarcasm. No playfully following along his comments. Nothing. Just silence.

But you were awake.

Hobie knew you were awake. He’d heard your breathing and heart rate when you slept countless times before, and from your current breathing and heartbeat now, he knew you were awake. You’d be known to fall asleep with loud punk music on, but even then, you’d were awake.

“Did you hear me?” He asked frowning softly as he knew something by was up.

“Arrived from work a couple of hours ago. No, I didn’t pick up the phone. Yea they are nice gauzes. Yes I’ll say thanks to my mom, especially for not asking questions when I ask her if I can take gauzes and sutures and occasional antibiotics,” you replied dryly, dragging your tongue the way you usually do when you’re either tired or stressed.

“You a’ight?” He said walking towards your bed, reluctant to sit on it as he would’ve liked. As his trousers were a mess and he wasn’t sure if his wound was still bleeding or not.

“No,” You sighed.

“What happened?”

“Eh,” He saw you shrug, even amidst the dark room consumed by night, only the streetlights filtering through your window.

“Wanna talk about it?” He asked, his voice softening.

You were usually the annoyingly optimistic one. You were usually the one begging him to open up and to let things off his chest when something was bothering him.

“No, not really…” You sighed. “Perhaps later…Tomorrow even…”

“Is this usually how it’s like to deal with me when I’m in a mood? You’re not exactly helping me here,” He joked.

He felt some relief when he heard a single chuckle escape your chest. At least you still had your sense of humour there.

“No, not really. You’re more sarcastic when you’re mad, and it’s your sarcasm what usually helps me figure out what happened…”

“Then this is inherently harder…” He pointed out.

“Sorry about that,”

“Can I help you somehow?”

“If I’m being honest, I don’t know…” You sighed. “How do you deal with feeling invisible?”

That was the most he’d gotten out of you, and he raised an eyebrow.

“You feel invisible?” He asked softly.

“All day today I’ve felt invisible. No one listens to me, or cares for what I have to say. I’ve been trying to talk and people just cut me off mid sentence to say something completely unrelated…I think I broke up with Mark…”

That last bit took him by surprise. One thing was that you were just having a bad day, and then you mentioned an actual event, and a big one for that matter.

One that he’d been waiting to happen, but he always envisioned you to be raging when you did. Mark was…well, he was a man, for starters. Hobie insisted men ain’t shit —“even myself, luv, I don’t know why you let me be your friend in the first place” he’d say— the amount of self awareness Hobie had came from a rough childhood growing up homeless for the most part of his youth. Something Mark had the good luck not to experience. He was your usual entitled, misogynistic, stuck up wanker. He could afford you gifts and romantic dates every so often. But the times Hobie had seen you mad because of something Mark did outnumbered the amount of times you actually seemed happy to be with Mark.

And he couldn’t believe someone as sweet and smart as you could be with someone like him. Maybe Mark needed someone with a good amount of patience, because otherwise, Hobie couldn’t see how would someone keep up with his shit.

But you weren’t like anyone else he knew. You were perhaps the biggest softy he’d met, which was hilarious because you also called yourself a punk. And you helped him plan out his subversive actions, you helped him with his art pieces, you helped him a lot with indirect work. You never really took a stand and walked into the dangerous situations, but you were always there helping Hobie backstage, remaining anonymous and safe.

Hobie found endearing how sweet and gentle and patient you were for a punk. You took a lot of shit for yourself, but went absolutely insane when someone you cared for received the slightest unfair treatment. He found your fear of getting in trouble adorable, yet understandable. Things had been changing a lot for women recently, but things were still pretty much unfair.

Hobie could understand and respect that. He knew the disadvantage, and was well aware of the privileges that came with being a man. Sure, he was black, but he was still a man. He still had privileges women didn’t have. And not even from a legal standpoint. Even with his skin colour, society tended to respect him more than a woman regardless of her colour.

“Whoa, luv, hold up. What about Mark?” Hobie said.

“I think I’m going to break up with him next time I see him…” You sighed. “At some point I was feeling very bad at work, and I wanted some sort of comfort…During my break I called him…” You sighed softly as your eyes teared up, and Hobie could hear your voice break slightly.

“What did he say?” Hobie sighed, growing annoyed.

“At first he was being helpful. Actually listening. But then…I don’t know, I don’t know if I said something or how I said it, but I heard him sigh and say that he was sorry I was having a bad day but he was dealing with problems much bigger than mine and made some very passive aggressive comments about how he has a real job while I work at a coffee bar…And I hung up on him…” You said, swallowing the lump in your throat, as Hobie felt his own chest squeeze painfully.

“The only worse thing than being ignored, is being shamed for who you are…” You sighed, shutting your eyes closed to keep tears from falling. “I was having a bad day, the last thing I needed was to be scolded, you know?”

Hobie leaned over your bed, and kissed your head while running one of his large hands across your hair. “I’m so sorry, luv…” He whispered. “But good for you. Mark isn’t half the person you are, you deserve someone much better. Although, that might be a tad impossible because you deserve the entire world, and I don’t think there’s someone in the world actually worthy of you…” He said, his voice gentle and sweet, one of the very few instances in which Hobie wasn’t his usual self-satirical-theatrical punk he liked to be. He was capable of being very gentle and sweet.

You chuckled, keeping your eyes closed as you felt his lips burning through your skull in the nicest of ways.

“Hey, I’m all covered in blood and sweat and all those nice things,” He joked. “I’ll go take a quick shower and I’ll be right back with you, okay?”

“Yeah…Thanks, Hobie,”

“Just doing what I must, sweet’eart, don’t sweat it. Are you hungry by the way?” He said standing back up as he headed to your wardrobe.

He grabbed some sweatpants Mark had around, thinking Mark wouldn’t be needing them anymore. Plus, Hobie knew Mark wasn’t exactly fond of how close friends you two were. And Hobie usually wore some of the clothes Mark left at your place, knowing it would piss Mark off when his clothing smelled like your punk bestie rather than your normie boyfriend.

However, he took one of your shirts. His slim thin body actually allowed him to wear your shirts and fit him just perfectly. Perhaps a bit short on his long torso, but for that matter, rarely any shirt that fit his shoulders and chest fit his torso. And any shirt that fit his lengthy body was huge on his shoulders making him look ridiculous.

He took your Patti Smith shirt from the concert you’d gone to just a few months back. He’d gone with you and had actually fallen in love with her and her work. He’d listened to a few of Patti’s tracks, and he considered himself a casual enjoyer and it wasn’t until you dragged him with you to the concert that he became a big fan.

“A bit, actually…” You lied, feeling the pit of your stomach threatening to digest itself if you didn’t eat anything soon.

“Okay, how about this,” He began confidently. “After I shower, we’re gonna go to the new place that opened just around the corner…” He suggested. “Dinner’s on me. And I’ll make up for the bad day you’ve been having, how about that?” He asked as he walked back towards your bed and ruffled your hair playfully.

“I want to be a little ball of suffering and tears,” You whined, chilling softly.

“That’s a bunch of shite and you know it. Come on, wash that pretty little face of yours and get ready, we’re leaving as soon as I’m done,” He said and walked back to your wardrobe, grabbing a towel and heading to the bathroom.

You chuckled and sat up on the bed, watching him close the bathroom door as you sighed deeply and stood up, heading to the kitchen, taking a large glass of water.

At times like this you were absolutely grateful for having someone like Hobie. No, not someone like him. But having Hobie as your best friend. He was the absolute best friend someone could have. The amount of times he looked out for her more than anyone else, really. More than Mark, more than your friends, more than your own parents.

You washed your face on the kitchen sink and by the time Hobie was out of the shower. Smelling like your body lotion and even your shampoo, his scent was still predominantly there. However to Hobie, all he could smell was that comforting and familiar scent of home.

As you heard him walk out, you headed to the living room where you found him pacing around in black sweats and your Patti Smith shirt.

"Hey, that’s mine," you whined playfully as you walked up to him and tugged on the shirt gently.

"Was" he corrected.

"No, fuck off!” You complained with a gentle laugh as you gently pinched his tummy. "You have your own Patti shirt! This is mine!” I complained like a little kid.

"If you want me to undress you just have to say so," he chuckled as he gave you a cheeky smirk and you pinched his tummy again. "Ow!” He giggled softly and rubbed his stomach where your fingers had been. "C’mon, let’s go get food, I’m famished,"

After dinner and getting back to your apartment, the two of you decided to "watch" movies. You weren’t really watching, you were talking back and forth, sometimes about the movie, sometimes about other things.

You were snuggled right besides him. His arm wrapped around your shoulders, keeping you close to him. His tough keeping you warm, fat more than the blanket over both your laps.

You eventually fell asleep on the couch. His arms around you and you comfortably nuzzling your face against his chest. Despite the couch being too small, you slept comfortably at least until well into the night. You woke up softly sometime after 3 am. Groggy and still in a sleepy haze.

“Hobie?” You murmured.

“Hm?” He replied deeply asleep.

“We fell asleep on the couch…” You yawned.

“Hm,”

“C’mon, we’re going to be more comfortable in bed…” you murmured and tugged on his arm as you clumsily got up and turned off the tv.

“Hm…”

Still somewhat asleep, he stood up and followed you into your room, holding on to your hand as you guided him towards the bed.

As he collapsed on the bed, you followed him and lied down besides him. As soon as you lied down besides him, Hobie pulled you into his embrace. Too asleep to realise what he was doing. You giggled.

“You’re pretty cuddly when you’re sleepy…”

“It’s a you effect…” He mumbled, dragging his tongue as he was mostly asleep. “You make me all mushy…”

Your cheeks blushed as you looked at him. His eyes closed and face relaxed, as you thought perhaps he wasn't going to remember this conversation tomorrow.

“How come?” You asked curiously as your heart raced and suddenly you weren’t sleepy whatsoever.

He shrugged. “You’re the nicest, cutest, bestest person I know, how could I not?” He mumbled.

“Hobie?”

“Hm?”

“Do you have feelings for me?”

“You just noticed?” He scoffed softly as he flashed you a confident smile, his eyes still closed.

“I…yes…”

“Huh,” He chuckled softly. “You’re so cute…”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because we’re friends and I’ve always been scared to—“ his tongue started dragging more and more, as his words soon became incomprehensible and soon he was deeply asleep.

It took you a long while to fall back asleep. Hobie’s sleepy love confession kept you awake as you kept going on and on inside your thoughts as suddenly his gentle and over protective nature towards you made sense.

He was naturally protective of those he cared for. He assumed the role of older brother. But with you it was different. While Hobie hated to be told what to do, and he always made a point to remind people about it. Not you. He always made some joke, but never complained.

Hobie wasn’t a morning person. I’m fact, he hated them. You on the other hand, always woke up at a decent time. Never after nine, but never before eight. A reasonable hour. You killed time reading, waiting for Hobie to wake up. For no particular reason, you simply felt like waiting for him to wake up. Besides, your shift at the coffee bar didn’t start until five that afternoon.

“Hey…” Hobie murmured, catching you off guard as you put down your book and looked at Hobie.

“Morning, you…”

“Morning, luv…”

You looked at him with a sweet and tender smile, remembering the conversation you two had last night. A conversation you knew he had no recollection of. It felt like having a secret between you two, a secret Hobie ignored, but still one you two shared.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He purred.

“No reason…” You chuckled and snuggled against him, hugging him.

Hobie’s heart skipped a beat as his eyes widened. He wondered what exactly was going on, but knew better than to question it and hugged you back.

“You’re weird sometimes…” He chuckled and pressed a sweet kiss on the top of your head.

“But you like me this way…” You murmured, taking in a big breath, feeling your lungs fill with his scent.

“Perhaps,” He chuckled and rested his cheek on your head.

#hobie brown x reader #hobie x reader #hobie brown #hobie brown fanfiction #hobie x you #hobie brown x y/n #hobie x y/n #hobie fanfic

[barananduen]

Art Advice: How to Deal with Art Block

Welcome to my Art Advice Articles series! In this issue, we'll talk about the different types of art block and how to break through them.

TYPE 1: I want to draw, but I don't know what!

TYPE 2: I want to & know what to draw, but it doesn't come out right.

2a) I've never been able to draw the way I want

2b) I used to like my art, but not anymore

TYPE 3: I have ideas but no motivation

TYPE 4: I want to draw, but I'm scared my new art won't measure up to my last good piece

Choose your type of art block from the list above the cut, and skip to the corresponding section below:

🌟TYPE 1 - I WANT TO DRAW, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT!

This is the easiest type of art block to deal with. DRAW ANYTHING! It doesn't have to be something spectacular; drawing an object on your desk or in your room will do; it will help you break out of this art block. Here are some ideas for you:

Ask people for suggestions. You don't have to draw all of them; just do the ones that appeal to you, in any way you wish.

Draw random objects: decorations, an insect, a slice of pie...

Close your eyes, draw a doodle/random shape. Open your eyes, try to make a creature out of it. Now redraw the creature with purpose.

Draw a scene or character from the last movie you watched / book you read / song you listened to.

Experiment with a different art form, like photography, crafts, dancing, etc. or a different medium (acrylic, pastel, pencils, etc.). This will shift your focus while still keeping your mind thinking creatively. Working with different art forms will: 1) loosen you up, and 2) give you ideas that you can apply to your main form/medium.

The last idea has another benefit. While working with a new art form, you will hone different skills, that will help you with your "main" medium if you have one (or the media you normally do). For example, if you draw and are stuck, working on photography can help you with composition and depth of field, among other things. Scrapbooking or making collages can help you with textures, color palettes, and also composition. Sculpting can help you with volume and angles. Dancing can help you with poses. You see things in a different light and can come up with new, fresh ideas. :)

🌟TYPE 2 - I WANT TO & KNOW WHAT TO DRAW, BUT IT DOESN'T COME OUT RIGHT

This type can take two forms:

a) You've never been able to draw the way you want; or b) You used to like your art, but now you no longer do.

The good news is: both are temporary!

⭐ 2.a - I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DRAW THE WAY I WANT

Many, many people who are starting with art are under the misconception that art learning is a relatively quick process, that you can get good at art in just a couple of months, whereas the fact is, it takes years to get to the level we want, with art as with anything else.

Exercise what I call The Three Ps:

Patience

Practice

Perseverance

We must have patience! It's important to give yourself time; focus, don't rush, and don't get exasperated when things don't go the way you wish they would. They will, with time.

In the meantime, practice! Do studies (from life or photos, not from others' art so you don't accidentally copy other artists' mistakes). Learn how to use shading to convey volume. Practice different light sources. Learn and practice anatomy. Learn about lighting and colors. Try different subjects, styles, genres - experimenting and learning to draw different things is super important! Branching out will not only aid in building your skill-set, but can also help you find what you like.

Keep going and don't give up! You must persevere!

While you're doing that ...

Focus on the journey, not just on the end goal. It is important to enjoy the process for its own sake. This attitude will help with patience and perseverance, and will keep you happy longer.

While you're doing this, don't feel discouraged when things don't turn out the way you want! EVERYONE makes mistakes! And everyone has had to go through a learning process. Just because you don't see others posting things with mistakes doesn't mean they didn't happen. Take mistakes in stride, have a little humor with yourself, and learn from them.

⭐2.b - I USED TO LIKE MY ART, BUT NOT ANYMORE

Usually, when you feel you've hit a wall, when you feel like you're no longer happy with your art, it's right before you begin to improve again, so don't let that feeling make you quit.

What happens is that your brain (your inner art critic) is no longer satisfied with your current work because you've seen things you like better, and, subconsciously, you're going "my work would be better if I could do _." The thing is, once you become aware of what that blank is (which will happen), you'll start working toward achieving it, and you'll be moving forward again.

Sometimes it's helpful to take a short break to clear your mind a little, like when you've been working on a project/paper too long and need a break from it because you can't think anymore. Take a few days, maybe a week or two, but don't quit entirely! In the meantime, you can use your creativity in other media. Try photography, crafts, decorative cooking, anything! Give yourself some time and approach things with a fresh perspective. Give your brain a break from what's bogging you down.

When you come back, you can do three things:

Try again. Sometimes things just "click" after you've taken your focus off of the matter for a while, like how you can better spot errors in an essay after you've laid it down for a day or two, than right after you've finished writing it

Go back and review the basics again. You don't need to spent ages doing this; it's just a refresher. Sometimes, we get hung up on our methods and forget something we once knew we should be doing. A refresher's always good. Personally, I make it a point to go back and briefly review the basics every couple of years.

You can try approaching things in different ways. Experiment! Do things in ways you didn't do them before. Try different types of lighting, coloring, shading, for example. Maybe you'll find something you like better than what you were doing before.

The important thing here is to realize that this sudden dissatisfaction with your work is a GOOD THING! It means you're about to make a leap and get even better! So, embrace it and don't feel discouraged by it!

🌟TYPE 3 - I HAVE IDEAS BUT NO MOTIVATION

This one might be brought on by other things going on in your life, maybe things that are making you feel down. Sometimes, even music or books or whatever used to get you in the mood to do art doesn't work.

Force yourself to draw -ANYTHING- (See TYPE 1 for ideas). This will help jump-start you, and then you can get back to drawing cool things. The same applies to writing - write anything! A poem, a haiku, an anagram. Do a few and you'll get back in the mood. If you do photography, just take your camera and head out. Take pics of ordinary things from different angles; try a type of photography you don't usually do. Don't worry about the results being good. Just focus on doing the thing.

When I've had this type of art block and did these things, I got out of it fairly quickly. When I didn't, and sat it out hoping it would go away on its own, I stopped doing art for five years, and in the process forgot many things I already knew about how to make art. Different people work in different ways, but I do recommend that if you feel this type of art block has been going on for too long, actively do something to try to get out of it, like the examples I mentioned above. You don't want it to drag on long enough to set you back in your progress.

🌟TYPE 4 - I WANT TO DRAW, BUT I'M SCARED MY NEW ART WON'T MEASURE UP TO MY LAST GOOD PIECE

Lastly, I want to address the mental cage that is choking under pressure. You can feel pressured by external sources (other people, social media) and by internal sources (yourself). Sometimes, you might feel like you have to perform at a certain level, and that pressure may make you perform below what you usually do. In worse cases, it may make you freeze and scared to even try! Don't let pressure play you wrong. Breathe deeply a few times and clear your mind… and draw without worrying about it! Just draw!

It's like how, sometimes, doodles on lined paper come out better than things you draw on a white sheet or on a canvas… it's because you're not putting pressure yourself to come up with a masterpiece.

Draw without worrying about how good or bad the outcome will be. If it's not as good as your last piece - nothing bad happens! Honestly! But you know what does happen if you freeze up because you're afraid you won't measure up to your previous works? You will not create equal or even better works at all! So, let go of the pressure, don't worry, and just draw. You WILL make better works; it's natural and makes sense. More practice and time leads to improvement, no matter what level you're improving from. Just give yourself the opportunity to do so!

Let go of pressure and expectations and just draw for the sake of it! You'll do fine.

Yes, it's important to challenge yourself and break out of your comfort zone to learn new skills, but sometimes (like when you're in this type of art block), going with your own personal strengths will give you the morale boost you need to draw again, and then you can keep moving forward and tackle challenges and new things with more confidence.

Believe in yourself! And remember: don't stop or you won't create the next awesome artwork you didn't know you would make, because your future pieces will always be better than your past ones. Don't forget that!

🌟CLOSING

I hope his article can give you some ideas and motivation to help you plow through your art block, whichever type it may be, and you'll be back on your way to creating beautiful works! 💟

~B~

You can find the index to all Art Advice Articles [here]

#art block #art advice #art tips #art help #art resources #artists on tumblr #art #how to #art tutorial

[atthebell]

this may become a sort of rant but i realised after reading your post about qcellbit that I kinda wish purgatory wasn't canon to the events of the qsmp ... like I thought purgatory would be The Event that brings everyone's individual lore together by forcing them to work together to save the eggs while also making them confront each characters association with the federation... which is why its called purgatory.

but the purgatory we got was lowkey minecraft punishment for 2 weeks. It was fun to watch! I just wish none of it was canon/had anything to do with the disappearance of the eggs

who are the eye workers? hows this relevant to everything we previously knew about the island? i wanna know if the eggs are real and alive outside the island but instead we got egg attacks with these eye fuckers which was happening with the codes anyway. sooo many unanswered questions and purgatory brought even more confusion

you are preaching to the choir nonnie lmao i don't want to be overly negative on here so ive tried to keep my complaining to a minimum but narratively i hated purgatory and yes it felt like two weeks of pure punishment. there were little to no rp opportunities, the lack of player agency was exhausting, and it felt like they were playtesting an event on server members rather than creating an event that would work for lore and be a fun event itself. two weeks was far too long, what does this have to do with the regular island, why did it have to interrupt so many people's lore, why the actual hell did cucurucho save the eggs and not the players (this one ill give some grace to bc so many people were on break and frankly i just needed the eggs back period. but it is one of the most disappointing story choices for me). i liked people getting to play together in new ways, but i wish it hadn't been so long and had been a non-canonical event in the first place. similar to the eggs going missing, i think the rp that has come out of it has been brilliant, but i think it did not need to happen this way.

for a while now it feels like players are no longer the main characters and in an attempt to make overarching lore make more sense and be more cohesive, there's been too much focus on federation npcs and the eye and cucurevil-- there's too many parties at play, and none of them should be the actual focus of the story. this is livestreamed roleplay. the server members should be the main characters. it is less entertaining and less meaningful narratively otherwise. i wish players had more agency again and there were more small, character focused bits of lore going on that weren't so focused on making sure everything is interconnected. i DO have faith that this could be the case again, i there's just been a rough patch for a bit that hopefully gets better.

also listen i do not call myself a cellbit main for a reason i watch a lot of different people and i think that's a better way to go at this type of medium. however, i think im allowed to acknowledge that for my preferred POV, which is cellbit, this has been torture. ive been avoiding talking about it because it felt like idk selfish or whatever or like I'm whining on his behalf which i don't need to do, but i think it's fair to be upset by how much this has fucked his lore because as a viewer it's been disappointing as hell (and not just for him but for other RP & investigation focused people). they helped him plan out the whole murder spree arc that was going somewhere before purgatory and then interrupted it entirely, they took away his best friend who he, atp, spends most of his time either building or investigating with and doesn't really want to play without, they did not provide any clues for finding the eggs nor any kind of investigation (until the minimes which. i don't need to tell you how that went but i can assure you it was the most negative cellbit has ever been about the server and he was still very polite about it).

i know he talked about the server moving from investigation centered storytelling to more pvp/conflict-centered storytelling, but, frankly, i don't think that's working out, especially not for him. and considering the break he's been on in part due to fatigue from purgatory i think this whole period of time has just not worked for what he wants to do with his character. i have faith he'll make it work, and i think the admin team is really good at addressing players' needs (especially cellbit who will just tell them all the stuff he wants), so i have faith in them as well. it's just frustrating considering how much it has sucked to be a qcellbit viewer for the last. idk two months if im being generous four if im not. it's hard bc im not a person who deals in idealism so i don't want to be like "i wish it all had never happened from this exact point" and i do like some of things that have come from rp post-eggs disappearing and even during and post-purgatory. so idk where im going with this anymore anyway i think there are ways to go about fixing this and making the narrative less clunky and focused on players again and allow for individual lore again, i just wish that that had remained the case continuously. sorry for the rant ill try to tag this appropriately

#asks #anons #neg #crit #idfk #i have wanted to complain about this for ages though so like. im happy to actually say all this #i keep seeing posts that come across to me as major copium and im like okay i get not wanting to be negative but we dont need to do all that #you can dislike things you just dont need to fet nasty about it #also i do not want to harp on this so dont send a bunch more asks about it #also this is me being as nice as i possibly can be despite how miserable it has been i hope that's clear #this is my ONE post where i get to kvetch as much as id like. maybe unless i decide to talk about it more

[cuubism]

If you don't mind me asking - what do you think Dream's attitude/reaction towards Tolkien's works (including the legendarium!) would be? (I'm asking a lot of Sandman bloggers this, because I'm extremely curious regarding your takes on this.)

oh! hang on i gotta brush up on my tolkien because i haven't actually read any of the books since like. 2011.

i guess my main thought would be about how dream missed like, 95% of his work when he was stuck in his Jar. my understanding (read: google search) is that tolkien was building up the mythology for his stories before 1916 (when dream was captured), but most of it was not finished/published until a while after.

(this became an insane and mostly unrelated rant i am so so sorry)

i think a lot about how much of his own... area of work and power dream missed when he was trapped. the 20th century, generally speaking, was a time of rapid growth in storytelling methods and media more generally. dream missed almost all of radio, particularly radio as it became a medium for stories. radio was invented in the late 1890s but didn't see a proper rise into a storytelling medium, rather than mainly a direct communication one, until around the 30s. so dream missed the creation and growth of the first, i guess you would call it, networked storytelling, and technological storytelling, and what was... probably? the biggest return to an auditory type of storytelling since the original oral tradition, folk tales, great epics etc, for radio at its peak of cultural relevance (at least in the US and probably the ""West"" more generally, alas i can't speak as knowledgeably for other parts of the world, obviously plenty of other parts of the world had radio in the early 20th century and onward, but i don't know much about its use as a fictional storytelling medium versus for news and government broadcasts. something to look into! part of why radio became such a medium in the usa was because of our rampant capitalism and commercialism lol, so less capitalistic places might have approached it differently - here, advertisers wanted to figure out a way to monetize radio better, but obviously people aren't going to just listen to hours of ads, so they packaged them around stories, live music performances, and variety shows. that's where soap operas as a form come from -- they were originally sponsored by soap companies! also serials, though of course books have also been serialized in the past. and sponsored radio programs also birthed the sort of episodic comedies that eventually evolved into the half hour TV comedies we know today)

which also means - as a direct result of missing radio, dream also missed the rise of television as a medium - it grew directly out of radio, even the big networks we know today, CBS, NBC, and ABC were originally radio networks. television has ended up being a huge change in visual storytelling, not only in its inception, but especially in its more recent years - it's probably the only long-form audiovisual storytelling medium, which is something that didn't really exist before. huge shift in storytelling possibilities. he also missed the development of comic books, and the internet, and the resulting increased accessibility of art and storytelling to both artists and art lovers. he missed an absolutely huge, HUGE shift in the democratization of art and the ability to share it. and, once again, the development of totally new methods of storytelling in the form of internet video! not to even mention the accessibility of MUSIC, music recording and sharing was still in its infancy when dream was imprisoned and now you can get, and make, and share pretty much any music imaginable! and the new genres! and the intermediality of everything and the cross-cultural awareness!

this is not even getting into the new ease of photography, or film, which was also relatively new in 1916. imagine going into a coma when there were only silent films, and waking up to everyone and their mother making tiktoks. the last film you saw was one of chaplin's or something and then you come back and see interstellar in imax 3d. i think i'd explode. (dream would love film, too, it's very dreamlike)

dream returning to the waking world in 2022 and immediately having the entirety of tiktok beamed directly into his head:

(another thing i think about a lot but won't get into because i'm already rambling - hob witnessing the entire development of accessible writing from the printing press to fucking social media. insanity. i want to pick his brain on it

what pushed hob over the edge, do you think. what's the one thing he saw written online that briefly made him regret ever getting involved in printing at all and wish everyone was illiterate again. it was not porn, btw, mr. monsterfucker gadling can handle anything, ok. no, it was something much worse...)

anyway. rambling over. this is all to say that i am not a tolkien expert and haven't read much of his stuff anywhere recently - though i was quite obsessed with it in middle/high school - so my main thought is in relation to dream getting cut off from all of these great stories. it must have been like, to put it flippantly, your favorite tv show getting cancelled halfway through after a cliffhanger XD. he has all these stories from great storytellers - tolkien included - storytellers who are building their whole own worlds in his realm, storytellers he's nurturing and supporting in his own way - and gets ripped away from them. and when he returns, they're all gone.

here's hoping someone who knows more about tolkien can give you an answer more specifically relevant to that. that's all i got for now 😂

#never get me started talking about media history. then again i kinda started myself on it this time #thanks for the ask! sorry for the lack of relevant answer lol #dream of the endless #tolkien #hamelin-born #ask #i think dream would actually like tiktok after he got over the sheer volume of existing content lol #like i feel like the endlessness and interconnectedness of the internet is similar to how it already feels in his mind #media history #belatedly thinking AGAIN about all the stuff dream missed like all of the cultural changes? the story genres? the new poetry and new style? #NEW ART MOVEMENTS? THE MOVEMENTS HE MISSED. DREAM MISSED FUCKING SURREALISM THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE IT WAS LITERALLY INSPIRED BY HIM #all the subcultures of story and art creation he missed. i'm gonna lose it actually

[lastweeksshirttonight]

We're back with Strike Force Five episode two, which seems to have randomly dropped at some point after I went to bed on Saturday. I enjoy when podcasts just randomly drop episodes, honestly, makes the whole thing feel more authentically chaotic.

I started listening to this while trying to figure out how to draft for fantasy football. I am not a football fan. I don't follow football. I don't know how to do fantasy. I very much procrastinated on that by doing these notes. My team is graded C- by Yahoo btw, which is two full grades higher than I expected.

Notes under the cut y'all.

This episode opens with Fallon talking about how he forgot his show's shirts glow in the dark. Apparently Billy Crystal tried to sleep in one recently and discovered this; John also noted a time when he was trying to get his infant son to sleep while wearing one of Fallon's shirts and saying it glowed "too well".

The audience for this podcast is obviously 30-something office drones like me. I say this because Atlassian is now running ads during the podcast. They must sense that everyone listening to this has it open in tab one while having their task-overrun Jira boards open in tabs two through five. John also completely "ruins" this ad - which was very on the rails for a decent amount of time! - by suggesting that Atlassian sounds like "one of those plans G. Gordon Liddy had to relect Nixon". Fallon also claims Atlassian is the name of his Fortnite character. (I wonder how my boss feels about both of those lol)

Everyone opens by briefly talking about how many staff they have. Stephen has 210, Kimmel has about 180 + 13 writers + a bunch of crew, Fallon thinks he has 305, and John jokingly says he has 500 people before admitting he misses his legal and research staff. He's ready to say things he thinks are true, instead of "things that are legally defensible".

Stephen: "Would you guys be okay if I had a little Casamigos, I got a bottle right here...?" John: "It's 7:30 in the morning, why not?" Seth: "That's like a 24 ounce 7-11 cup..." I'm so glad this is all in an auditory medium.

John is going to continue shitting on whatever alcohol company he shat on last week, and called it "pond water". I am guessing it's somehow related to Bud Light but that doesn't really track with tequila advertising, so who knows. I have in a past life had Bud Light Margarita in a Bag once, maybe John also suffered that unique hell.

If it IS Bud Light John is talking about, I have no idea how Stephen talking about Budweiser wanting him to be the voice for a Budweiser energy drink/caffeinated beer called B to the E/B 2 the E didn't get cut. This was in about 2001-2002, so well before Four Loko, and the ad copy contained things like "your friends are heading home AND YOU'RE JUST GETTING STARTED!" (John is quietly dying in the background the entire fucking time before Googling if it ever came out. It did! Fallon is flatly like "that's illegal" in a completely baffled tone early on.)

We are 8 minutes into an hour-long podcast. Just informing you, in case you were wondering. Why yes I am obsessed/bad at football why do you ask

Kimmel insists that his early seasons - "for the first eight to eleven years" - were the worst of anyone's on the podcast. He said this after talking about, on his show, Mr. T and Jim Belushi hating each other and almost about to fight each other, his cousin doing pillow-fights early on and causing a catastrophe one episode by fighting Lennox Lewis culminating with Anna Nicole Smith falling into a cake, and another pillow fight with Tom Arnold ruining his suede jacket. I forget that Kimmel is partially of the Jerry Springer era, if not on his late-night show then from his other work, and this just really reminded me of that.

Mariah Carey wanted to be interviewed by Seth Meyers during Christmas in a functional sleigh. John tells a story about watching Watch What Happens Live where Andy Cohen, on live TV by himself, said that Mariah Carey was in the building but would not sit on the side where guests usually sit on his show and was desperately trying to fill time. Mariah seems fun.

If I had to imagine Hell for Stephen Colbert, it would be "having to fill in for a guest on The Daily Show and turning down an advanced screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". That scenario seems tailor-made to completely destroy him.

I'm glad I remember that Ben and Jerry bit Stephen and Fallon are talking about. I would love to know what this whole explanation sounds like to someone who does not remember the whole "best friends" late night "wars" of the time. Here's the bit btw. (Your daily reminder that the CC website sucks ass.)

I forgot Fallon started his show two weeks before Seth. I must have completely blanked out how quickly all of those hosts changed in 2014 (and then John starting the same year).

I'm with John on this one, "Allen key" makes waaaaaay more sense than "Allen wrench". It's a fucking key! The amount of shit I've had to put together with those goddamn things, it's not a wrench at ALL.

One thing I learned today: chairs are very serious business for most of the hosts. Fallon keeps a chair backstage to see how someone will look in chairs on the set, and to confirm that's okay with the guests. Seth, meanwhile, had chairs that John feel like he was being interviewed to be on Seth's show. And Stephen has all different sizes of chairs, to make everyone feel comfortable when they're on the show. (This is where things go predictably off the rails, as Seth then claims he has chairs that get smaller and smaller to keep guests on their toes.)

John's guest are was the most expensive part of his set, and they never used it. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I was shocked they have a guest booker, though. (Stephen: "Wow what a cushy gig!")

Kimmel's live show ceased being live when Thomas Jane said "fuck" nineteen times on air and affiliates/censors were mad. Apparently on network you CAN technically say anything past ten p.m., according to Kimmel, but that's not the reality of the situation.

Seth: "People forget about the early 2000s. If you were a sports fan, you would often say, 'I wonder who won the big game... let's watch the Kimmel monologue.'" This is exactly what the 2000s were like, kids.

Seth and Fallon both were told by SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels that it would take them 18 months to get comfortable with their shows and figure out how to use them. Seth definitely felt that was wrong and he'd only take 6 months... but the first time he started the show from behind his desk was almost 18 months to the day from his first episode.

Stephen has an unaired 3-minute opening credits sequence that he wants to show on his last episode if possible. John also had a longer title sequence that he loved, but that his producer said he'd be constantly going over for time and he'd need to cut it down, lest he get continually furious over not having enough time for his actual show.

Fallon talks about how his first interview was with notoriously reticent and quiet Robert DeNiro, who gave Fallon one-word answers for literally everything. John asks if anyone told him he was starting from a high difficulty degree, but is interrupted by Stephen remembering a Space Train sketch in the middle of Fallon's interview featuring DeNiro.

Stephen remembers more about Fallon's show than Fallon does, which is wild. Stephen probably remembers more about everyone's show than they do, based on the first two episodes.

Stephen calling The Colbert Report "a totally different beast and maybe doesn't even fit in this conversation" made me sad. Tell me all the Report gossip!!!

Stephen telling the story of how he made the Public Access Show for Monroe, Michigan prior to doing late night is incredible. I remember watching him and Eminem do that show the day the internet became aware of it, and it is just a fascinating bit of transitional Colbert work. Also, had no idea they took over a real show... or that they got almost 0 viewers for it, lol. Here's the link to the bit, for your viewing pleasure:

Fallon must realize that John has said literally nothing for a while, because he asks how the first episode of Last Week Tonight went. John actually talks about hosting The Daily Show for three months. He says he'd never interviewed anyone before then (I'm guessing he means that as in "I've never interviewed someone seriously and with the eye of not taking the piss out of them", because he'd done MANY filmed interviews for correspondent pieces before then) and talks about the episode where the power was cut. They taped the episode on a camcorder and had to feed it to Comedy Central through Stephen's office.

Stephen then talks about how his first episode almost doesn't make it to air because it couldn't be exported from Avid. Everyone in the editing bay insists this is fine, and it did end up being fine, but the contrast between how CBS editing works and John having to go to another office to feed a show to Comedy Central is so interesting.

Stephen also kicked down a door after this. Please enjoy this mental image, you freaks.

John and Stephen sharing a bitter laugh over John's joke about Les Moonves in the background is fantastic.

John is the first person to bring up that Ryan Reynolds turned around Wrexham the team AND the city. I really should watch that show.

We now return to Last Week Tonight, which lawyers refused to allow to be live. (Knowing John's comedic sensibilities, I completely understand Legal's stance.) He acknowledges that they had too many ideas going together in the first episodes, including a pre-taped guest. The big thing they learned was that they were doing one show a week, which lead to research coming in throughout the week that undermined their segments, rewriting whole shows on Thursday, and the realization that doing the show that way was completely unsustainable. Having watched those early episodes recently (and I promise I'm still doing that in the background), this context totally explains the franticness and weird pacing early on. Of course things feel more didactic and surface level - they were writing full episodes in two days! The show completely restaffed and changed after year one, and John's "bones were as hollow as a sparrow". He also knew that anyone who didn't like episode one was going to hate episode two, because it was about the death penalty.

Seth's first guests were Amy Poehler and Joe Biden, because they'd been on Parks and Rec together and Biden gladly accepted being after Amy.

Seth's misplaced confidence in his pink eye sketch is very relatable.

Fallon texting everyone that he is basically dying of heat stroke in his room and is trying to leave to save himself is hilarious. Poor Jimmy, he's suffering and getting clowned so hard for it. AND THEN Stephen talks about the opening of Fallon's first episode and all the change he dumped on his desk and him. And Fallon had to run up to the roof with change falling out of his clothes. Again, all this while Fallon is having a heat episode. As John says, "we should rename this 'Asphyxiating Jimmy Fallon'."

Fallon is also vaguely losing his mind and forgets he can talk on a podcast, because he keeps texting the others his thoughts.

They actually address the hosting schedule! Next episode, Stephen is hosting. After that, it's John (I'm excited for the inevitable LMFAO retrospective and/or extensive discussion of penii on rooves), then "James Theodore Fallon".

Thank you for reading this ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE BLOCK OF TEXT I'm so sorry that this is apparently my niche right now, thousands of words on a 45 min to 1 hr podcast featuring five white guys. One day the John pictures will again outnumber my blatherings, I promise.

#strike force five #jimmy kimmel #jimmy fallon #stephen colbert #john oliver #seth meyers #lee has strong feelings about allen keys and wrenches #my gif #sang that in my head to the tune of my girl #my gif my gif my giiiiiif talkin boooout my giiiif (MYGIF!) #long post #Youtube

[weebsinstash]

Not to be a huge nerd about Miguel again but I was listening the the ATSV soundtrack and I actually had no idea that, besides the main track that has That One Specific Soundbite That's A Meme Now, Miguel actually has another song, one that even has his voicelines in it as part of the track

It just has such a melancholy feel to it? A lot of the lyrics are confident, such as 21 Savage's entire verse about breaking chains, building a house starting from just a brick, having a family to feed, being a leader, having goals everyone isnt built for, but this is also repeatedly contrasted with the chorus, which, when paired in context of the movie, becomes almost remorseful, burdened. In the presence of the chorus, many of these lines, to me at least, seem less like genuine confidence and swagger and more of a self soothing reassurance

I can't be the one here givin' up ((because he feels he has absolutely no choice but to keep working and moving forward at all costs. Like he said, he's given up too much to stop now))

I'm not the one here givin' up ((no other option but to make his enemies submit. Any anomalies or obstacles have to be the one to submit, because he doesn't have that option, there is too much at stake))

Time heals all, but I can't feel what it was ((he has to numb himself not just to his current actions, but the memories and longing of his past. He had to let go of his desire to have his family again and went completely in the opposite direction, becoming laser focused on his mission and less on being human, also just ouch, this line actually kind of feels like it's being sarcastic or ironic or something. Miguel is obviously still going through stages of grief and acting out of trauma but he's convinced himself he's moved on and all of his actions are logical and mechanical when he's actually significantly suffering mentally and emotionally))

If you were me, you wouldn't give up ((he's really one of those "burdened with great purpose" characters. When you think about it, what would be happening if Miguel and Lyla hadn't developed the dimensional watches and started going around helping people and forming this network? How many more people and lifeforms would be gone? Not only is he at least in the film's own canon one of the only people who could have accomplished this sort of thing, but his own emotional investments and past actions and the consequences he suffered also cement his dedication to his mission. 'If you were me, if you knew what I knew and felt what I felt, you would understand'))

Anyways maybe I'm overanalyzing, and art as a medium is absolutely interpretive, but I was surprised I hadn't really heard or seen anything around specifically about this being his actual true theme or the messaging or whatever. I'm just practically observing this man like a specimen in the wild at this point. He loves his family. He loved them so much he literally stole someone else's and lied to them and accidentally got them killed with his selfishness. He's consumed with grief and compensates by being a workaholic desperately trying to fix things. He's got a temper and throws trashcans at teens and swears and gets huffy. He (at least in concept art) has slippers that a kid he rescued drew bunnies on and he actually wears them. He manhandled and chokeslammed a teenage boy and held onto him so hard he tore his suit and left actual claw gouges in the kid's shoulder while literally leaning down to tell him directly in his ear that he was a mistake, because if physical force wasn't going to make this kid stop the next option was to literally break his spirit, like, truly Miguel is a complex individual but ALSO he's my poor little meow meow that I would have sex with

#atsv spoilers #welcome to Babys First Song Analysis

[alphacentaurinebula]

I've been reading the Vulture recaps for good omens S2 and i enjoyed them, even though I didn't agree with all the journalist's points (she thought there was too much of the flashbacks! NEVER!! And that the mystery was too slow, which, I loved the pacing personally. As it was never REALLY about the mystery, was it?)

In her recap of the last episode, she was saying the kiss felt "rushed and rueful" and more set up for S3 than able to stand alone. But I really feel like that is a first watch reaction, and the narrative necessity becomes much clearer with more thought/rewatching. I do think it stands alone as a necessary place for the characters to go before they can get their happy ending. They are trying to be more honest about their feelings in this scene than in the whole rest of the season, and yet they are still utterly failing to actually communicate, actually listen to each other, actually understand each other, or actually articulate properly what they want. This is the miscommunication/break up stage of the romcom, which you have to go through in order that the eventual resolution can feel truly satisfying. You NEED the lows in order for the highs to feel high!

The vulture journalist did make a point I wholeheartedly agree with, that with the TV and film industry in the state that it is, no one should be leaving cliffhangera. Which, 100%! NOTHING should be left on cliffhangers anymore, every season of television should feel satisfying and complete in its own right. Because as important as cliffhangers can be for a particular story, if you never get a commission for the next season, your story will always suck. So don't take the risk. Build cliffhangers into the the middle of a season!

Showrunners need to adjust their thinking going forward, and plan TV seasons as complete arcs - which is going to be a switch, because streamers have been pushing for cliffhanger endings to everything up til now, because their model depends on driving people always onward, to watch the next episode. Medium has always affected content when it comes to art, and streaming has promoted too much serialisation, just as network tv promoted too much standalone content without proper continuity or character growth. And now that serialisation risks ruining good content, since there might not be a next episode to go on TO.

But the problem here of course is that when Good Omens season 2 was written (2020? 2021?) and filmed (2021) the industry was in a COMPLETELY different place - it really wasn't until the Netflix share crash and the Discovery/Warner merger (both in 2022) that anyone noticed the emperor (streaming content creation as a method to growth) had no clothes (growth cannot continue indefinitely in a world with a finite number of people with enough disposable income for one or more streaming services, and perhaps profit might actually be important too, honestly stockbrokers are some of the dumbest people ever in the history of the world, and also capitalism is the worst).

Everyone was still in a commissioning frenzy in 2021. There was no reason to think that in 12 months the whole industry would be in such a drastically different place that nobody would be confident of a subsequent season of ANYTHING, including stuff that's already been greenlit. And that's not even considering the strikes.

So basically unfair comparison, in my view. But an enjoyable read all the same.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands

[swashbucklery]

i used to run cross country on the road where they filmed the bus scsene that buffy takes to leave sunnydale, before a chunk of the road fell into the ocean (pretty sure they also used it to film the end scene of DEBS) and I used to think about how Buffy was THERE. but your tags about the use of full of grace and that scene and the vibes — it’s been years since I thought about it but it all came rushing back. just. SO good.

There was something so - like, when that show was airing I was a few years younger than Buffy's canonical age, so in a lot of ways she felt like my cool older sister. I remember being like, I'm sure once I'm sixteen I'll also be mature enough to fight demons etc etc.

And now that I'm a grownup, I can look back at the show and both see its problems and see it's strengths. I can also look back at the extra layers that kid-me could not have picked up on - the way that in hindsight, sixteen is so young and one of the horrors of the show is the way that this girl, who is in many ways a kid and actually keeps saying please let me be a kid, is responsible for the entire world. The ways that translates into a metaphor (unintentional, let's not give Mr. W any credit here) for the ways in which girls are socialized and the ways that high-achieving, "strong," "smart" girls are still squeezed through the mold of misogyny and expected to be so much more than just to be enough.

Season 2 was the year I started watching the show and so it'll always be the season that Hits for me because it was the year I really started to get long-form TV and fall in love with characters in the medium. Buffy was my first fandom and the arc, at the time, of Angel turning and then Buffy having to put aside her heartbreak and fix it was. I don't know if it was actually something that hadn't been done before but in terms of what I could access on TV in my world, it was the pinnacle of the art form. I remember writing quotes from Passions in my teenage diary and being like Wow This Show Is So Deep, I Know How To Appreciate Art Now.

This was also, you have to understand/remember, pre-streaming anything. This was the year I learned how to use the record function on my family's VHS player so that I could watch the episodes without waiting for them to play in reruns. This was pre-Napster. If there was a moving song on a show you had to track down the artist, hope they had a CD out, get a ride to the mall to go to your local HMV and then buy the physical disc. This was also the era when there wasn't necessarily 100% crossover pop-cuture wise; if an American artist was Big it made it to Canadian stores but there were a lot of California indie bands that you just couldn't listen to if you didn't live in the US. Sarah McLachlan is Canadian and "Full of Grace" is the last track on Surfacing, which was an album everyone had at the time because "Building A Mystery" and "Adia" were huge on the radio that year. So it was also like - being able to sit with those feelings because I could actually access that song and listen to it again, you know?

#this is also incidentally one of the reasons #that i will fight the entire internet over dawn summers #and the internet backlash over her #because fuck you i was in this show's fandom and i was dawn summers' age #it was SO COOL to see a genuine teenager on this show #as a way of subverting the late-90s teen tv trope of teenagers that talk and act like adults #and i will never forget that feeling of super relating to like #yeah there's a character who gets to have buffy summers as her cool older sister #that's amazing #and then have the entire adult section of this fandom talk ENDLESSLY about how ANNOYING she was #anyway the point is season two was great #dawn summers is great #i have grown up to be giles and i'm embracing it #and there are things about how tv could be accessed in the 90s and early 2000s #that fundamentally shifted how fandom was even possible #and i love reflecting on it #not because it was better per se - teenage me would have KILLED for on-demand streaming and being able #to listen to official show tracklists on her iphone hours after the episode aired #but gosh was it a different way of relating to media #fandom nursing home roommates association #j swashbucklery mcinternetface: professional cryptid #night of the living anons #btvs

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (October 11th, 2022)

Patch Notes

Update 10/11/2022 PC: 1.92.145.1030 / Mac: 1.92.145.1230 Console: Version 1.65

Hello Simmers and soon-to-be Simmers!

With this newest update we are preparing to welcome new players to The Sims 4 with the information needed to get started thanks in part to a collaboration with The Sims Mobile. In addition to new player guidance, we also have a number of fixes for community reported issues and some new Create a Sim (CAS) and Build Mode content.

There is something for everyone whether you have played The Sims 4 for a while or are joining us now, so let’s jump straight in and see what you can expect once you have the update.

-The Sims Team

What’s New?

We have a few new features to talk about in this update that covers new and existing Simmers including a long awaited one for those on console.

Emily Guidance System and Help Center Tips

This new feature brings a new face to The Sims 4 with Emily, who you may recognize from The Sims Mobile. This new system will teach you the basics of playing The Sims 4 and is mainly for new players, but can maybe teach more seasoned Simmers something new. This release of the Guidance System is a starting point to welcome our new Simmers and help them get a start in The Sims 4. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback and suggestions for what else we can share and how we can improve.

When starting a New Game, Emily will show up to offer you some guidance through CAS and if you complete the Live Mode tips, you’ll get a little something added to your Simoleon balance to help you on your way to building your home the way you want.

Anytime you need a refresher, you can call for Tips by using the *NEW* Help Center button in the top right corner of your screen.

If you know your way around The Sims 4, you can go it alone by adjusting the Guidance and Tips system to your liking in Game Options > Tutorial & Tips.

Enable Guidance System – On by default, this setting will have Emily guide you through The Sims 4 unless you turn the option off.

Reset Guidance System – Want to start over and see all the tips again? This is the button for you!

Enable Help Center Icon – Getting stuck? Keep this option enabled. Want to free up that part of your screen for other uses? You can disable it here too.

Emily

Not just a helpful guide for new players in the new Guidance and Tips feature, Emily will also be available to download from the Gallery. You’ll also be able to find Emily’s hair, glasses, and top in CAS and add them to your own Sims.

Lessons

Since The Sims 4 launched, we have had Lessons. Over time as features and the game evolved, some of our Lessons became inaccurate or obsolete. To correct that and bring Lessons up to date with the game you have now, we have spent time reviewing and updating our Lessons content. While we started with the Base Game, we’ll be looking at additional Lessons improvements in the future, including re-reviewing pack Lessons. One improvement, including updated text, is the Lessons panel is now much larger, making it easier to read and navigate at all resolutions, monitor/TV configurations and viewing distances.

During the Guidance System, you’ll be presented with buttons that take you to Lessons but if you prefer, you can call on Lessons at any time by going to the Options Menu and pressing ESC on PC and Mac, the Options button on PlayStation, or the Menu button on Xbox.

Loyal Trait

It’s always a good day when new Traits are added to the Base Game, and today we bring you the Loyal Trait for Teen, Young Adult, Adult, and Elder Sims! Loyal Sims value their relationships and fully commit to them, whether it’s a friendship, a romance, or even work. They avoid cheating of any kind; the trust of their loved ones is too important to risk!

Plumbob Fan and Five New Tattoos

The design came in a dream: colorful plumbobs to suit any Sims’ mood. A design so sharp, so fun, that it couldn’t be contained to only one medium. Enter the Perfect Plumbob Ceiling Fan and three Plumbob inspired tattoos–one for the upper back and two for the inner left forearm. In addition to this, as an ode to everyone’s favorite garden plant, there are two new Cowplant inspired tattoos–one for each thigh.

Console UI Scaling

PlayStation and Xbox players can now adjust how small or large the UI elements are in game by going to Game Options > Accessibility and moving the slider to your preferred size. We’ve recommended maximum and minimum settings but allow you to adjust smaller and larger if you prefer. You’ll be asked if you want to keep the settings after adjusting the size so if you made the UI too large, you can always select Reset to Default (Recommended) to return to the default settings.

Before adjusting your UI Scaling settings, we recommend ensuring you’ve calibrated your system and your TV/monitor beforehand.

On PlayStation, from the PlayStation Home screen go to Settings > Sound and Screen > Display Area Settings. From there you can adjust the markers to align with the corners of your screen.

On Xbox, you can do this in-game by going to Game Options > Other > Adjust Margins and following the on screen instructions so the markers align with the edges of your screen.

In both cases, once correctly calibrated, the UI elements in Live Mode should sit flush against the edges of your screen. Now you’re ready to scale your UI.

Gallery Connection

We have made some changes to the way the game connects to the Gallery. Instead of automatically connecting when the game starts, you’ll connect on demand. Once you are finished in the Gallery, a connection will remain for a period of time allowing you to return without having to reconnect.

The main purpose of this change is to ensure everyone can access the Gallery even during peak use, and that those that aren’t using the Gallery aren’t connected.

The Sims 4 Bug Fixes

Base Game

Curious about why you may have not seen the outcome of your Stuck In Their Shadow scenario? We were too, and have fixed an issue where the scenario would not progress in some branches, or show your outcome. We will continue to investigate any further cases of this issue occurring.

Starting the Aliens Stole My Parents scenario with an existing household that contains adults will see the aliens abduct their target regardless of whether the adult was in a social interaction or not.

Having Leonardo and Sofia play with stuffed animal toys should now complete the goal of playing with toys in the Parenting Predicaments scenario.

Improvements to ymHat_SDX005Durag to address blotches and unexpected folds

Applying clothing swatches should no longer switch the feminine frame to masculine frame when applied.

Feminine frame Sims can wear the different color variants of ymBottom_Pants_Jeans without part of their torso becoming invisible.

Changing from a full body outfit to new pants on a female child Sim ensures the Sim is properly dressed and waiting for whatever new outfit you select.

No-one expects it but if a Sim is killed by something from deep space they will get the Death by Meteorite trait in the Family Tree along with a representative icon depicting their untimely end.

Custom pronouns are respected in the “Level up in motor skill,” “Level up in handiness skill,” and “Level up in Gardening skill” whims including sessions after restarting the game.

Some pranks can be funny, but less so if they keep happening like the toilet pranks were. We have dialed back the pranking so your Sims can have a little more confidence their rest stop won’t end with a broken toilet.

A number of text, spelling and grammatical updates across the game.

Consoles

During the Aliens Stole My Parents scenario, it wasn’t possible to read the entire description. This has been resolved with some new found alien technology we got in exchange for some Sim parents we are calling a “scroll bar.”

Snowy Escape

Festival decorations are wonderful, but they aren’t zero cost. The Carp Streamers now cost 25 Simoleons to add to the celebration of the Festival of Youth.

Cottage Living

When you live in a small village like Henford-On-Bagley, you get to know everyone on a first name basis. So seeing random NPCs working in the local pub was a shock for everyone. Now, only pre-made NPCs will start off behind the bar and other local businesses.

yfHair_EP11BunTwists_Black thumbnail shows the correct hair color and the swatches have been organized.

Hero of Henford errand completes after winning the competition at the Finchwick Fair even if you bribe the Mayor.

Win a Competition at the Finchwick Fair and Give a Golden Egg to Agatha Crumplebottom both complete once the criteria have been fulfilled.

Sometimes you can’t get away to fish in the ocean, in a river, or a local barrel of fish and all you have is a pond stocked with fish. With bait on the line, your Sims will be able to cast their line into the pond and maybe they’ll get a bite or two.

High School Years

Siblings can attend prom together, now just as friends.

Werewolves

Werewolves with a particular sexual orientation will only accept a fated mate with another werewolf that is compatible.

True love can be hard to find, especially if you tend to howl at the moon. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be selective though. Werewolves will now be more selective over who they accept as their fated mate while flirting with other werewolves.

Werewolves can have a real hunger, especially if they have Voracious Hunger. That hunger shouldn’t mean they eat top secret lab doors or space rockets though. Other items werewolves should no longer add to the menu are dolphins, motherplant, motherplant pit, and high school whiteboards.

Pack Leaders should not have to report to the Pack Leader regardless of how strict the werewolf pack hierarchy is. Pack leader leads!

Non-werewolf Sims will not devour raw meat even if a werewolf housemate has hunted it and put it in the refrigerator for later. Real question is, why were they taking their housemates food in the first place?

Alpha Rank werewolves worked hard to get to where they are so they should no longer be Bottom of the Pack or become furious from it.

Sims can sit cross legged on the Hasty Replacement Palette Bed just like they can on other beds.

Foxes that found themselves on the receiving end of a werewolf rampage can rest a little easier as Werewolves on a rampage should no longer pick a fight with foxes. Truce?!?!

Sniff and Introduce interaction is no longer available on human toddler Sims who you haven’t met before.

When a werewolf goes from High to Extreme Fury level, the needs icon should no longer change to a llamacorn

Vampires who Explore Underground Tunnels no longer activate the Lost adventure moment. That’s reserved for lost human Sims.

Bonehilda and Sims with the Blessing of Bones buff will not allow werewolves to carry out Cursed Bite on them.

Spa Day

Nail polish swatches now show what color they will make your Sims’ nails, which is pretty useful when accessorizing.

Massages correctly count towards the Become a Spa Regular goal in the Self-Care Specialist aspiration.

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #Game Patch #patch notes

[wellntruly]

RUSSIAN DOLL

Russian Doll Season 2---not that great---is honestly a gift to me personally, as now I am always going to have the perfect talking point for my perpetual position: STRUCTURE ABOVE ALL (in storytelling)

This is going to be an excuse to finally write at any length about Russian Doll Season 1, one of my favorite pieces of television, but it's going to be about 2 too, a remarkable instructional case that sets off in contrast so many of the things that make Season 1 a masterpiece of the medium. I actually understand better now what is so important to how Season 1 works, because of which elements Season 2 thought it could leave out, and it couldn’t! The post about making ratatouille.txt. Anyway there will be spoilers for the plots of both.

The main thing though, the most essential tomato in the sauce: Russian Doll Season 1 couldn’t be anything but television. If you ran it all together into one 3.5 hour watch, which many of us did, the story and rhythm is still completely distinguishable as eight distinct episodes, each with their own internal arc and tone that you can easily recall later---the episode where Nadia thinks the yeshiva is haunted, the episode where they’re going through Alan’s day together looking for clues, the episode about Nadia’s childhood trauma, et cetera. This was something I thought about a lot in 2019 when I first watched it, how it binged so well yet still has this nicely chaptered form. Like an album, co-creator Leslye Headland has described it, you can listen to the whole thing through but it’s composed of individual songs. This is a really good analogy. Another would be: like television. But in the era of streaming limited series that just formlessly run on to their end, often without even opening credits* to set off new episodes anymore, that classic television structure can be rarer and rarer to find. 

In fact, if you look ahead to just the next season of this show, you won’t find it! Russian Doll Season 2 is no longer a story built episode by episode, like building blocks that each contain their own kernel of color and meaning, it’s a concurrent & continuous narrative that has just been arbitrarily cut at about each 30 minute mark. You can tell by how this time, it is much more difficult to recall later which episode something happened in. Somehow the episode where we finally find out what Alan has been up to is also the episode where Nadia and Maxine go off to Budapest for like 36 hours---that should not happen! That is so befuddled! It’s something you might not pinpoint at the time, but this simple lack of internal episodic cohesion is absolutely a part of what makes this season feel more scattered and unsatisfying compared to the first one. 

It’s so interesting that it feels more jumbled, because on paper, Season 2 actually has a much more clear and specific topic it’s addressing, what it’s About, than Season 1 does, with its poetic, (theatrical), open-ended conclusion that just doubled down on letting everyone draw the takeaway that mattered most to them. No one is writing explainers this time of all the different themes, or self-effacingly airing their extremely niche pet theories about the Tompkins Square Park Riots that turn out to have something there. There’s no need: Season 2 is expressly about inherited trauma, all roads lead to Rome (or the past, rather). Yet by the time this journey wraps up, what is the impact of this new season? Rather less? The widely middling reviews and near entire lack of Season 2 on my dash when everyone had been posting about Season 1, all seem to indicate yeah, less. 

What I think these two seasons demonstrate so well is that the power of narrative art forms often depends less on just what their ideas are, than how those ideas are being conveyed, what storytelling methods are being used to get at them. The interests of this season are absolutely of a piece with the first, in fact I think most of it was first brought up in the scene where Nadia and Alan are getting drunk at the bar. He mumbles that her necklace is pretty, and she lays out this history of her family fleeing the Holocaust and the story of the gold coins and how her ill mother in her delusions lost them, all but one, and she’s blithe and sad and drunk, not as drunk as Alan but in keeping with him, her eyes are a little bright and she’s feeling confessional and shocking, and it’s so powerful. There is so much in this inter-generational tragedy to delve into, and Season 2 is doing that! It’s about these things and these characters we were already invested in, this should be great, so why does it fall flat when we’re actually watching it? STRUCTURE.

Okay, so these two seasons are basically going about themselves from opposite directions: 

Season 1 is structure-led: it sets up a framework (death time loop), and the characters are set loose to quite literally batter themselves against it in an attempt to find meaning (each other) (healing) (self-peace). Our two protagonists are constrained at nearly every turn by this shape the show has place placed them in, yet the sparks of their humanity bumping into it creates some of the brightest parts---the amount of revealing Maxine & Lizzy moments that come from Nadia refusing to leave via the stairs after episode two; Alan hurriedly telling a gasping Nadia where he’ll meet her if they’re dying as blood starts to trickle out of his ear; the fucking song. (*Oh we’ll come back to this!) 

Season 2, meanwhile, has a different starting point: it sets up a discussion topic, and pretends to have a new structure (time train), but from the very beginning, the rules of the 6 train change depending on whatever the story wants to be about at that moment---it’s story-led, 100%. Season 1 was beholden to its form, to the point of occasionally feeling like both we and the characters were trapped in one of Nadia’s video games. Season 2 is not actually constrained by any form at all, but instead of this freedom letting the show burn brighter, we lost those edges to spark against. Everything ended up feeling more diffuse and watery, until our lead characters were literally wading through it. Notably: apart. (We’ll get to this too!) 

Season 1 tells a story that can be understood to be about a lot of different things, in a setting that is so wonderfully specifically one thing---culturally, geographically, calender-ly. Season 2 tells a story clearly understood to be about one thing, in a setting that now includes three different cities, four different time periods, and eventually a sort of collapsing multiverse of timelines. They’re opposites!

And I think I have an idea of why one (1) works better. We're going briefly to the stage, actually. (Hang with me!)

In an interview on the Little Gold Men podcast about his adaptation of Tick, Tick...BOOM!, Lin Manuel Miranda said something that caused me to say for the second time (the first time was when I was watching Tick, Tick...BOOM!), “Aw man, you’re a good director.” What he said he was this:

“Yes, the musical theater truism of the opening number establishing the rules of the world, is important. You have to tell the audience how to experience this show, and how does the singing work, and what are we watching. But I also learned on Hamilton that every number is an opportunity to renegotiate that relationship, and crack it open a little more and bend the rules here. […] Establishing all those rules with every song and pushing on those rules, so that by the time we get to the end of the show, we can literally stop time.” 

As a nerd for structure, this really spoke to me. Sure it’s initially about musical theater, a unique medium with its own tool set, but it also applies perfectly to a season of television like Russian Doll Season 1, where instead of each song, it’s each restart of the time loop that is an opportunity to re-establish the rules while also pressing on them.

Speaking of songs! Let’s get to this now: the diegetic music cue of Harry Nilsson’s ‘Gotta Get Up’ playing on each restart is such a stroke of genius. On one level, it let them hack the no-credits format of Netflix’s recent years---it’s now the credits song! It signifies one little narrative close and the start of a new one! We’re humans, we love patterns, and we also love when patterns alter in satisfying ways. Studies on people who experience frisson, goosebumps while listening to music or even just watching or reading a narrative, have found that it usually comes at key pattern moments, either when the current pattern breaks, or when it reforms into a pattern from earlier. The same ‘Gotta Get Up’ track playing from the same exact spot every single time was a thrill of repetition, but ALSO an incredible barometer for how the show was making us feel at that moment, as the song’s tone would almost seem to alter as we went on. Sometimes it would feel more manic, other times more ominous, others more hilarious, more moribund, more surreal. It’s so eerie when it’s playing in Maxine’s now fully empty apartment, and so joyous when it’s playing and everyone’s back. 

Because Russian Doll Season 1 is perfectly following that musical theater adage. As Lin would have it, each 'song' (each restart): an opportunity. Season 1 is miles more rule-bound than Season 2, but that doesn’t make it static at all. In fact, it’s continuously using what we know of the structure to reveal new things to us, either by something’s sudden absence or sudden appearance in what we had grown to think of as a sealed loop. Paradoxically, each time we learn another rule, the world expands.

Most importantly, indelibly: the end of the third episode---

Nadia: "Hey man, didn't you get the news? We're about to die." This guy in the elevator: "It doesn't matter, I die all the time."

Fun fact, so I get frisson? I got frisson just now simply thinking about this moment. IT’S PERFECT TELEVISION WRITING. It feels WILD, it’s SO surprising, but it’s also not actually breaking our rules at all, it’s simply revealing to us a new person who is also subject to them. And we didn’t know!! The panic over “spoilers” that has grown up in recent years is, I think, rather overblown, but I will say that’s one thing about Netflix keeping Russian Doll a secret and just dumping “a new Natasha Lyonne show” on everyone with no warning one week in February 2019: we didn’t even know there was a second lead character. If I had seen even a single still of Charlie Barnett before watching it, I didn’t remember. Top ten TV moments of my life!! And that we KNEW the next episode was going to start with him looking into a mirror, you just knew it! That predictive joy of pattern & surprise!

And then the existence of Alan immediately offers so much. For starters, someone for grousing, gravelly Natasha Lyonne to play off of (wonderful), but what I think I might find most moving is the discovery that bears down on you the minute we start that next episode---'Alan’s Routine', it is tellingly titled---that oh, oh he is trying to handle this completely differently. I know I keep saying similar things, but it’s my refrain: it’s the structure that is allowing us to so quickly get this depth of characterization, and a deeper understanding of Nadia as well, just through their differing responses to the same time loop. It’s so important to what that season is trying to do with its central existential pondering that this be happening to them in the same way, but because of who they are as people and the circumstances of their personal histories, they’ve each started to build up a totally different mythos of how and why it works (god, god, it’s so good).

But then in Season 2, we actually barely get Alan at all, and even when we do they're quite cordoned off from each other. I love Alan and missed him, but it's not just that---I love them together. Nadia sets off Alan at his best angles; Alan sets off Nadia at her best angles. I really think another part of what makes the developments of this season feel oddly skimmed over sometimes is that neither of them has the other there to question and comment and collaborate. Imagine Alan providing cover for Nadia, heist-style, as she slips into that Budapest auction house basement, and then supporting her with the emotional weight of what she finds there. Imagine Nadia's reaction to Alan's reaction to getting catcalled by Stasi officers who see him as his young grandmother.

I do think that even without the unavoidable comparison with the story of connection that had come before, the writing of this season would have still felt disjointed between them, Alan’s unrelated Berlin B-plot tacked on to the clear A-narrative of Nadia and the krugerrands. Sure, stories don’t always have to have the fates of the characters intertwined to be moving, but it generally makes for more rewarding experiences when there are these thematic echoes, these exchanges between people, when they change each other. Part of the beauty of that first season of Russian Doll was that as it went on, we all began to realize, Nadia and Alan too, that it was only going to be through helping each other that they were going to be in less pain. I don't know if I can save myself, but perhaps I can save you. It’s lovely.

Season 2 is more of an individual journey. It’s basically Nadia and Alan now doing work on themselves, on their own. It is a stepping back from where Season 1 ended, or maybe a step inward I mean? And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, just as I don't think that every story has to be highly structured to be any good (of course not!), but I do think that more loosely organized individualism can be harder to manage from a storytelling perspective. It can, as this second season does, tend toward meandering. It can, as this season does, lose awareness of rhythm. Those patterns, building and breaking and reforming. Those constraints that create beauty. Season 2 cut itself loose from form, when it needed structure more than ever.

But hey, it really did make me fall even more in love with that first season, and I don't know if I would have thought that was possible.

#Tarra watches #Russian Doll #storytelling #Natasha Lyonne #Leslye Headland #Amy Poehler

[newmusickarl]

Top 50 Albums of 2023: Honourable Mentions

I’ve spent most of this year thinking to myself that 2023 hasn’t been a hallmark one for music – I think I was wrong.

With 2022 serving up some of my favourite records in recent years and most of my favourite artists releasing new music that delivered on high expectations, I sort of had in mind that 2023 just wasn’t as strong by comparison. But in the process of compiling my annual Top 50 Albums of the Year, revisiting songs and thinking back on the live performances I’ve seen, I’ve been reminded of the sheer depth of quality music we’ve been gifted over the last 12 months.

In 2022 I listened to more new music than any other year I can remember and it seems I pretty much matched this personal best again in 2023. My Apple Music Replay tells me I’ve listened to 733 albums from 884 different artists, 4,835 different songs and a whopping 39,935 minutes of music. Whittling this mass of great music down hasn’t been easy, which is why this year I’m taking a slightly different approach to my year-end countdown. Instead of focussing on just the albums with the daily Top 50 in the build-up to the new year, I’m going to celebrate all the mediums of music I’ve enjoyed instead.

From my own tally that I keep every year, I’ve consumed over 240 newly released Albums & EPs from 2023, listened to around 2,500 songs and witnessed 115 live performances (and counting!) over the last 12 months as well. This has given me the impossible task of choosing my year-end champions in terms of albums, EPs, songs and live shows of the year. The songs will come in playlist form later in the month along with a roundup of my favourite EPs and live shows of the year, but for now I’m beginning with the best albums that the year had to offer.

As ever, these albums come from a multitude of genres (pop, rock, indie, hip-hop, R&B, electronica, shoegaze, punk and post-punk - it’s all here!) so although there is a good chance you won’t enjoy everything on this list, hopefully there is at least something for everyone to enjoy. Of course, the variety also makes it very difficult to rank one above the other, so don’t get too hung up on the placements. Generally, I’ve favoured the albums that:

Had the biggest impact on me and the wider music world in the last 12 months

Had ambition or something unique to offer

I played the most during the year

Ultimately produced my favourite front-to-back listening experience

Before the countdown officially starts tomorrow with the albums that finished 50-41, I wanted to just shout out the albums that I thoroughly enjoyed this year but ultimately just missed out on the Top 50 spots. Essentially these albums would’ve made up the 100-51 placings if I had the time spare to do an even bigger countdown. However as I don’t, here they are as my 50 Honourable Mentions for 2023 in alphabetical order:

Alex Lahey - The Answer Is Always Yes

Arborist - An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros

Baby Queen - Quarter Life Crisis

BC Camplight - The Last Rotation of Earth

Bdrmm - I Don’t Know

Black Pumas - Chronicles of A Diamond

Boygenius - The Record

Circles Around The Sun - Language

The Coral - Sea of Mirrors

Danny Brown - Quaranta

Declan Welsh & The Decadent West - 2

Depeche Mode - Memento Mori

Empty Country - Empty Country II

Fenne Lily - Big Picture

Fiddlehead - Death Is Nothing To Us

FIZZ - The Secret To Life

Foo Fighters - But Here We Are

Gabriels - Angels & Queens

Gaz Coombes - Turn The Car Around

Gorillaz - Cracker Island

The Hives - The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons

Holding Absence - The Noble Art of Self Destruction

Hot Mulligan - Why Would I Watch

Jadu Heart - Derealised

James - Be Opened By The Wonderful

Janelle Monae - The Age of Pleasure

Jayda G - Guy

Kevin Abstract - Blanket

Killer Mike - MICHAEL

Lanterns on the Lake - Versions of Us

M83 - Fantasy

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Nile Marr - Lonely Hearts Killers

Noname - Sundial

nothing, nowhere - VOID ETERNAL

Paws - PAWS

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Sampha - Lahai

Shame - Food For Worms

Sigur Ros - ATTA

Sleaford Mods - UK Grim

The Slow Readers Club - Knowledge Freedom Power

Somebody's Child - Somebody's Child

Squid - O Monolith

Sundara Karma - Better Luck Next Time

We Are Scientists - Lobes

Wild Nothing - Hold

The Xcerts - Learning How To Live And Let Go

Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World

Zivi - Lost In Love

So that’s what didn’t quite make it - see you back here tomorrow to find out the first ones that did!

#new music #best new music #albums of the year #album recommendation #album of the week #best of the year #albums of 2023 #apple music replay #best of 2023 #best albums 2023 #aoty #album of the year

[hekateinhell]

current things meme! thanks for the tags @birdblacksocialclub & @kf-tea 💖

currently reading: about two pages in on Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough; rereading On Writing by Stephen King (everyone who's the slightest bit interested in any kind of writing should read this and also just in general, it's an excellent read); I'm always flipping through TVL, QotD, TVA, and BC.

last song listened to: Another World - Beborn Beton. It's one of my ✨ARMAND✨ songs, just listen to the lyrics:

Don't you worry,

They won't find my body

I want you to know

I found peace in another world

Don't keep digging,

I want you to leave back

Away from the place

Where my ashes are buried

last movie watched: tbh I'm not really a tv/movie person, I typically can't focus on any visual medium for that long. For background noise though I think I had the Aristocats on most recently lmao.

currently working on: ... too many things? ... not enough? ... no comment? I had hoped to have the sequel to Exposed done by now LOL. It was going to be super fluffy and easy, but then I overthought it. So instead of just three short chapters (each with an escalating sex act that builds on the last), I also wanted to explore what navigating a poly dynamic might look like for them during adolescence - which is already hard enough as it is. I inflict this on myself.

I'm 2k+ into an L/A canon-compliant dacryphilia drabble that I wanted done before Christmas and I'd really fucking love to wrap that one up! But it's a delicate beast, RIP.

I would also love to do something with A/L (Armand/Louis here notice the L placement) for Valentine's and I have an idea, but I'm not sure if it'll get done in time because life's crazy hectic these days! It does look like we'll still have plenty of food though, everyone else has been feeding Armand girlies so well lately. 🥹♥️

tagging @covenofthearticulate @somevagrantchild 🖤 + anyone who wants to!

#i usually don't do these but i needed a distraction and this was fun <3

[cassandrabaresi]

Emperor Yongzheng's First Nine Kings Seize the Throne

By the time everyone looked, Chuang Tzu was already near, and the setting sun had already set. It was the time to make dinner, but it was very strange. In such a large town, tYin Zhen and others behind him. He nodded and said, "It used to be Jiangxia Town.". Our master Liu bought to do Zhuangyuan, now is Liu house. Two hundred miles around. Who doesn't know? Are you afraid of being from other places? Yin Zhen can not help but be stunned, Yin Xiang was also taken aback, good darling, this town is comparable to a medium-sized county, how much money to buy? But at a glance, they knew that they were not lying. A small half of the main street had been demolished, scaffolding was tied up to build the main house gate tower, and a large area of houses in the east had been destroyed. Rows of tall houses were dark, much like newly built warehouses. Not far in front of the gate tower,cherry blossom wedding centerpiece, there were wooden poles with "dead wind" lamps hanging on them. Some of these Zhuangding were holding fire folds, and some were carrying sticks. Looks like he's here to light the patrol. Yin Xiang couldn't help exclaiming, "What a good trend!"! Please tell the Villa Leader that we are the filial piety and honest people who are driving to the north. We have lost our way. It's already dark now. We'll borrow the precious land of Baozhuang for a night's rest and go on our way tomorrow morning. "Listen to what he said," said the first man with a smile. "Tell us to tell the Villa Leader that we are all guarding the Villa in the outer courtyard. How many floors are there from Master Liu's second steward! As I said, don't bother with this as early as possible. There is a dry shop in Shilipu to the north. It's an official road all the way. It's just right to walk in the cool night. I won't miss dinner when I get there. "Chief Wang," said one of the villagers next to him, "there are a few white-faced scholars. There are many empty houses in the north of the village. No matter where they stay for a night at random, it's a shame." "You're not sensible," said the king. The second uncle of Uncle Ren in Beijing came with a group of Suzhou girls. It was so hot that it was inconvenient to come and go. The master's temper was so bad that we could afford it? Even they will suffer losses. Isn't that kind of me? As they were talking, Kaner slipped into the crowd without a word and quietly stuffed a bag into one of Zhuangding's hands. The man pinched it with his hand. It was a copper. He stepped forward and said with a smile, "Well!"! Wang Tou'er, just let people take a few days, so loyal to protect the country? As I said, silk ficus tree ,fake ficus tree, who walks with a house on his back? There are two rooms in the old cemetery of the Zhang family in the northwest of the village. Let them live in them. As soon as the gate is closed, they are outside the village. What's the matter wthe courtyard, and behind me is the old grave of the Zhang family. The crowd understood and filed in. To the northeast corner of the door, the old king shook his head and asked for the key to open the door. With a wave of his hand, Yin Zhen was the first to come out, and then Gao Fuer, the dog Kaner, also went out of the door. "Look," said Lao Wang Tou, "there are two rooms over there,outdoor ficus tree, where the grave-keepers used to live. There are straw mats in them, and they are fairly clean. There are many of you, and you are not afraid of ghosts. 。 hacartificialtree.com

[fictitious-little-stitious]

This is long. At the risk of making things more awkward for myself, here’s venting and trying to organize some thoughts. Attempted metaphors and similes for the state of my fanfic experiences. Heads up: insecurities, doubt, and the like.

My experience on here is like being at a bar or a party with several people. Everyone is there for basically the same thing and having a nice enough time. I’m having a great time even! There’s people I know and there’s talk of what we enjoy or what’s new. After laughing along with others or listening intently, I finally think of something witty or insightful of my own to contribute, so I build up the courage to share. I wait for a lull or opportune moment…

And I share! Sometimes it’s blurted out, sometimes it’s mulled over. Still, I know what I say is worth sharing. I know without a doubt that I am clever and creative. I’m humble enough to know I might flub my words or it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. I try to speak up loud enough, I even repeat myself once or twice if needed.

Sometimes there’s that person or two or more who was nearby and heard me and are so glad I shared. We don’t even need to suddenly become bosom buddies for us to appreciate eachother. They might draw others’ attention back to me or have a nice, brief interaction with me.

But often times, either of two things happen: nobody else hears me or they hear me and just look at me. Some of them are people who I’ve been listening to the whole party. With the first, I can attempt to speak up louder, see who or what’s grabbing their attention, wait and try later, or save face by keeping it to myself.

Now when people hear me and just look at me? Maybe they smile a bit but whether it’s one of politeness or sarcasm or mild appreciation, who knows. There’s no booing or murmurs, no glares or quirked eyebrows, no criticism. However, there’s also no poorly muffled laughs, no looks of rapt attention, no shoulder bumps, nothing to encourage me to continue either. They’ve shown that they heard me speak, but I still don’t know anything more from them. Likes? Dislikes? I’m no mind reader. They seemed to welcome my attention to them earlier when they were the story teller.

So I go back to idle visiting and listening, which I still enjoy. I’ll think of things to say, sure, but I put myself out there less and less. Because why speak just to hear yourself talk? And now I’m taking everything in, but there’s less of an outlet. Then I have a harder time being cheerful for others, including the ones who’ve stuck with me. And I know I better leave before I fade into the background.

———

I enjoy sharing parts of myself for engagement and attention, and my writing is a small part of me. But I feel so embarrassed and naive, that I want to take back everything I’ve written. I must’ve misread the audience or expected too much. Maybe what I said was too niche and I could’ve kept that for myself to be amused by. I’ve deleted games and prompts I’ve reblogged because how pitiful it is to see that with no answered asks following it.

My experience, and other people’s too, has been more stagnate (people with 5x, 10x the notes I get are feeling the decrease in engagement) when I yearn for it to be dynamic. To have pleasant exchanges about any assortment of topics. To visit about characters and stories and ideas, or have a quick simple interactions to say yeah, we both see this or here’s something this reminds me or how did you come up with that? or imagine if X thing happened, what then?

I try to adjust my approach to fit the medium: use specific tags, use tag lists, post teasers, self-reblog, cross post to another site, share positivity and show appreciation. I remember authors so I can check their blogs for updates, instead of waiting for the updates to come to me. I’ve played the ask games and submitted requests. I try to share milestone and writing celebration posts when I see them. Let’s be vulnerable and show more of my personality, I think as I share another game or teaser or read fics of different characters, maybe I’ll seem more approachable.

Being a hypocrite is not where it’s at, I have reblogged tons of fics and shared my genuine reactions because I’ve enjoyed doing it. That’s why I made this blog in the first place: read and share and be a silly fan of whoever. Writing was an after thought. Both are fun, rewarding ways to connect with others, explore characters, and challenge and express myself.

But I sense that there’s an imbalance between the level of what I’m giving and what I’m receiving within this community, and my expectations for both. And I’ve been setting myself up for disappointment. Now I know there’s more than one way to engage with fics and community. It’s not as strictly transactional as I did xyz for you this many times, now you better match that. That’s unfair and unrealistic. It’s reciprocation that’s on my mind.

I’m pouring from a cup that occasionally gets filled, and often partially at that. It’s gotten harder to enjoy myself and to give generous pours to others. I feel like holding my cup upright and trying to take back what’s already been poured.

It’s apparent to me now more than ever that people just don’t notice the things that I notice. They don’t operate or remember or interact how I do. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but adjusting to that is kicking my butt. I am so weary of swinging and missing, of holding out hope.

I’m unsure what this (any of what I just said) means for my fic experience or future of it, but it was churning in my mind for a long, long while. This is one way for me to work through what I’ve been feeling lately. Many people are feeling disheartened and burnt out. I’m sad that I feel the need to rein in my enthusiasm when I’ve never even had that thought in all my years on this site.

….

#now watch there’s gonna be some obvious ass typo in here 🤣 #i withdrew from here for 2-3mos at the start of 2022. I got 0 msgs & <15 notes on older fics or queued. #so when i felt better to come back I had little indication that people thought of me just because or noticed my absence. #but then i show up in an inbox and it’s all ‘omg hi *cute nickname* you’re back!! 💕🥰’ #am i missing smth obvious here? a social convention or fandom interaction 101 bullet point? #i’m not even the third wheel here i’m the donut in the trunk #what aren’t I doing enough of. how have I misstepped. #truly i am so confused #my assorted gabs and chats #feels a little off tone for this post but it’s the tag i got

[seo411]

Digital Whiteboards vs. Dry Erase Boards

The modern classroom needs modern learning solutions, and one of the biggest impacts your school can make for its students is upgrading those obsolete dry erase boards. When it is time to make a switch, most schools opt for digital whiteboard technology. Both dry erase and digital boards can be used for whiteboarding tasks, but that's where the similarities end. Six Ways Digital Whiteboards Are An Upgrade Over Dry Erase Boards There are several benefits to going digital with your school's lesson-delivering medium. Dry erase boards, chalkboards and overhead projectors have each had their turn in the classroom, but a digital board offers much more than simple lesson presentation. For example: Digital Whiteboards Are Interactive And More Engaging Digital whiteboards are interactive technologies - they respond to user commands in a way that dry erase boards obviously cannot. With a large interactive surface to work with, digital whiteboards can drive a variety of lessons and presentations. For example, teachers can incorporate simple activities like fill-in-the-blank labeling, quizzes or games to expand on lesson information. Students can approach the display and use it with simple gestures or taps - just like a tablet or smartphone. Most people get comfortable with the touchscreen display right away and can operate it with confidence. Confident, comfortable students tend to be more engaged learners. Digital Whiteboards Allow Users To Save And Share Any Presentations When the lesson or meeting is over, there's no easy option for saving your work with a dry erase board. You can take a picture of it with your own device, but then you've got to share that image from your own device to everyone else's. Not the most efficient or convenient way to handle that, and it could compromise your privacy. Digital whiteboards are designed to circumvent this issue, because you can save any digital whiteboarding session to the display. That's assuming the display has onboard memory to work with. If it does, teachers can save the lesson to pick it up at a later time, or it can be shared with students via e-mail or an app. A Digital Whiteboard Supports Any Type Of Media For Presentation Purposes With dry erase boards, you're confined to writing and drawing. And let's be honest, teachers don't have the time for high quality illustration. That limits the visual tools educators have to work with while trying to engage students. Leading interactive displays like the Clevertouch are packaged with excellent whiteboarding software. Clevertouch's Lynx is linked to the display's built-in browser, so presenters can jump online and pull any images, videos, text, or animations to build a compelling multimedia experience. With endless materials to work with, teachers can give their students plenty to look at, listen to and think on. Digital whiteboarding also provides teachers with plenty of annotating tools to work with, too. Ink precisely with pens or stick with markers for a familiar dry erase board feel. There's also plenty of colors to work with and you'll never have to worry about students making off with an unguarded marker. Digital Whiteboards Make Collaboration Easier To Manage Digital whiteboards are set up for efficient collaboration, which is one of those things that you just can't manage on a dry erase board. With an interactive flat panel like the Clevertouch, though, the teacher and every student in the class can connect to the display at the same time. Through the display's Clevershare app, up to 50 devices can connect and collaborate. Use this opportunity to have student groups present projects to the rest of the class. Send quizzes to individual students for a quick knowledge check. Or, just distribute the lesson to every student so everyone has the lesson material they need. Digital Whiteboards Are Easier To Keep Clean Did you forget to wipe the dry erase board after the lesson? Too late now, it's got a permanent streak on it. If it's cleaned after every use, a dry erase board can last for some years, but it will get dingier along the way. Eventually, an eraser will only push that ink around and create streaks instead of cleaning it off, and some of the ink will end up on clothing, causing stains. Dry erase boards are a bit of a mess. Digital whiteboards aren't. They don't require ink to work and they only need the occasional wipe down to retain their optical clarity. Digital Whiteboards Are Built For Busy Classrooms It's tough to keep order in some classrooms, especially among younger students. When chaos is at its maximum, quality digital whiteboards can withstand the stray pencil or flailing hand. Clevertouch digital whiteboards are built with thick glass surfaces that resist puncture and shattering. Durability is one of the biggest differences between low quality and high-quality interactive displays, and the difference could be a greatly extended service life. Digital Whiteboards Are A Better Fit For Students, Teachers And Professionals Digital whiteboards do much more than just take notes. They engage with media-rich presentations, give educators valuable lesson-building tools, and make collaboration a better experience for students and professionals alike. They're easier to keep clean and they're designed to last for many years, so digital whiteboards are a long-term investment. If better collaboration, lessons, and meetings are something your organization could benefit from, then it's time to speak with a reputable AV integrator to discuss moving on from your dry erase boards to embrace the power of interactive whiteboard technology. Read the full article