#in December and February and may i had spells lasting days at a time of being unable to function because such horrible things were happening | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elmaestrostan · 5 months

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I feel like these sorts of articles coming out before tomorrow night are just inviting bad luck, but I guess they’ve got to drop them to print before we drop the ball.

Text under the cut (because ya girl did a Times free trail just for a Unai article and keeps putting off having to ring them to cancel it)

No one ever doubts home advantage. Playing at home gives teams an edge and if it doesn’t help at all then there is something seriously wrong. The home and away win-loss record of the reigning champions Denver Nuggets basketball team is particularly stark, at 9-0 and 5-7 respectively this season. It is hard to find a team that so heavily relies on home advantage but then again, it is hard to find a top-level club that is situated so close to the stars.

“Welcome to the Mile High City, 5,280ft above sea level” greets visitors to Denver, and opposition players frequently bemoan their struggles to last the game due to the high altitude.

Aston Villa are not even the highest club in the Midlands — that honour goes to West Bromwich Albion — but if Unai Emery’s side defeat Manchester City on Wednesday evening then they will equal a club record of 14 consecutive home league victories set between December 1930 and October 1931.

It is a tall order, of course, to outwit Pep Guardiola but there is an optimism around Villa Park that naturally develops as momentum grows. The more Villa win, the more the fans expect it — and that expectancy is felt by the team. It may seem as if the stadium has emerged almost out of nowhere as a particularly tough place to go but Villa Park was ripe for a sustained spell of significant rowdiness.

Andy Townsend, the former Villa midfielder, has been waiting for it to reignite ever since he was part of the infamous League Cup semi-final second leg in February 1994 against Tranmere Rovers, in which his team overturned a 3-1 deficit to reach the final after a penalty shoot-out. Ron Atkinson, the Villa manager, called it the most dramatic match of his coaching career and it was notable for the intensity of the home fans.

“I don’t know how many were in the stadium that day, probably 40,000, but it felt like 70,000,” Townsend says. “It felt like a giant stadium. We were 3-1 down from the first leg, against a team from the league below.

“I understood that day the sound of Villa Park. Even today it makes me feel tingly just thinking about it. There was an expectancy, not just about cheering, but cursing, screaming when you made a mistake. When the goals went in and then we won the atmosphere felt huge, it felt like the club I knew I was joining and had heard about.

The Holte End provide particularly vociferous support to Villa, and sport psychologist Barnes attributes this factor as a “negative appraisal” for visiting teams

JAON SUPER/AP PHOTO

“I’ve been to Villa Park with Emery in charge and have felt something similar. There is an expectancy. They can be a hard crowd because they had success years ago, they have won the European Cup [in 1982]. You feel like it’s a mature and knowledgeable crowd. They have been through some rubbish times and they couldn’t see the tunnel, never mind the light at the end of it. Now, they are progressing and there is a tangible feeling that something is happening.

“When that ground is full, it has a very special atmosphere. There is no doubt that emphasising the importance of being good at home is huge. I don’t know how Emery goes about doing that. What I am seeing, rather than individual tactical parts, I am seeing the tempo and speed.

“They are a match for anyone all over the park with the intensity in their game. I am seeing a running power and desire to run as long as they can. At home I have witnessed an intensity and urgency that means the crowd are all behind them and give energy back to the players.”

That relationship between the fans and the players cannot be underestimated, because not all noise is helpful.

• Premier League title race: where the top four can win (or lose) it

“The type of noise at Villa Park is positive and encouraging rather than getting on the team’s back and piling the pressure on,” Dr Luke Barnes, a lecturer and sport and exercise psychologist at Leeds Trinity, says.

“It’s about the interpretation of the noise, seeing it as positive about things that can be achieved and gained rather than worrying about what might be lost or a negative threat. It can be quite subtle.

“The role of Emery is to shape the appraisal and present it to the players and the staff. He will emphasise the history of the club, the goal of playing in Europe, of having a positive focus. It’s about not worrying about social judgment.”

Emery has an excellent track record across his career of making home advantage count. This was to be expected when the Spaniard was in charge of Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal but his record at home with Sevilla, Valencia and Villarreal was above the league average across all seasons.

“There is a contrast between Villa under Emery and Steven Gerrard,” Barnes says. “From the psychology point of view, you think about the strong, clear social identity and team cohesion and everyone uniting behind a shared sense of purpose and a common goal. This creates a feel-good factor and contrasts with a team such as Manchester United, where it feels like everyone is pulling in different directions.

“You think about teams going to Villa Park and the Holte End in full flow is very challenging. For away teams it is very daunting and about a negative appraisal. We call it a threat appraisal. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that the away team reduce their performance.”

City’s Jack Grealish is suspended for Wednesday’s match against his former club

CLIVE BRUNSKILL/GETTY IMAGES

Is the sound of Villa Park enough, though, to unsettle City, the Treble winners?

“There needs to be due diligence on the opponent but Emery should also be conscious of not changing a winning formula in terms of the way they approach games,” Barnes says. “They should go through a series of steps to get to a psychological state to compete. Players like John McGinn and Ollie Watkins who are used to playing at Villa Park will give a sense of robust confidence. A set routine that is proven is something I would encourage them to stick to, rather than make changes in line with the opponent.”

It is not all about the noise when it comes to home advantage. The silence is important, too. In the NFL, the home fans want to allow their own quarterback to hear the calls made by the coach and then in turn be able to convey instructions to the team. If the home fans do their job properly, the visiting team’s quarterback has to tap out the snap count in the huddle with his feet like Gene Kelly.

There is a potential paradox in football where the more famous the fans’ impact, the more likely the stadium is to be infiltrated by interlopers or tourists who come to be entertained and do not contribute to the atmosphere.

Ironically, given the raucousness that sets Newcastle United fans apart, after the win over Chelsea two weeks ago the club’s co-owners Mehrdad Ghodoussi and Jamie Reuben posted on X, formerly Twitter, that noise levels had dipped.

“What a team #nufc we need to give these guys more support in the stadium, we need to be louder, we need to be the 12th man,” Ghodoussi said, with Reuben adding: “What a team and yes we need to match the intensity of the players with our support.”

This begs the question of whether Saudi investment and the desire to attract tourists ends up spoiling the best thing about the club

A variety of studies have shown that referees are subconsciously swayed by the ferocity of home support. That makes Villa’s present streak all the more impressive because VAR often rights the emotional wrongs. José Mourinho certainly thinks so. In 2005, Chelsea’s players admitted they were unprepared for quite how potent Anfield could be on a European night and they lost the Champions League semi-final to Luis García’s so-called ghost goal.

“Anfield is a magic place to play, it is a beautiful place to play,” Mourinho told beIn Sports years later. “They can even score goals that the players don’t score, like happened in 2005. It wasn’t García that scored the goal, it was the crowd that scored the goal, but now it isn’t possible with VAR and goalline technology.”

#unai emery

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victorluvsalice · 1 year

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Valice Calendar In Honor Of 15 Years

Yeah, you read the title right -- as of 2023, I will have been shipping Victor Van Dort from Corpse Bride with Alice Liddell from American McGee’s Alice and Alice: Madness Returns for FIFTEEN YEARS. I actually went back into my old LiveJournal/Dreamwidth entries some time ago to see if I could pinpoint when the hell I actually started shipping them -- turns out it was June 22nd, 2008 when I first mentioned having shipping thoughts about them (in response to a TV Tropes binge apparently). Granted, it was in the context of “what the fuck, me, you know they’d be a terrible pairing,” but -- yeah. We see how long that attitude lasted. XD And that means that next June, it’ll be 15 years! Holy hell.

So! Given that 15 years is a bit of a milestone, I thought I’d set up a “Valice Calendar” for the next year so I know which dates I should try and acknowledge as Important Valice Dates. :) Some of these should already be familiar to my regular followers, as I’m already in the habit of doing something special for them, while the rest are from that deep dive into my journaling past:

January 27th -- the date that I posted my first Valice fic, “Suffocating,” on my LiveJournal! Which was obviously in 2009, not 2008, but still a momentous occasion! Also, conveniently, the birth date of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll.

February 14th -- Valicetine Day, obviously :)

May 4th -- the historical Alice Liddell’s birthday, and thus my Alice’s birthday!

June 9th -- Johnny Depp’s birthday, and as I have a habit of using actor birthdays if a canonical one is not given for a character, thus my Victor’s birthday! (Also, amusingly, the birth date of Michael J. Fox, and thus also my take on Marty McFly, which comes up in “Secundus.”)

June 14th -- release date of Alice: Madness Returns in North America! (According to Wikipedia, anyway, but I can confirm because I got my copy from GameStop the very next day.)

June 22nd -- as stated above, the first time I mentioned thinking about shipping Victor/Alice back in 2008! Even if I thought at the time it was also a pure crackship. XD

JULY 7TH -- Victor and Alice’s wedding anniversary! Which I picked because a) I liked the idea of a summer wedding and b) it’s easy to remember. *facepalm*

September 10th -- first mention in 2008 of me associating songs with the ship (I believe it was “Love Me Dead”); the entry indicated I’d already started associating any vaguely romantic songs with them, but this was the first time I mentioned a specific one, so we’re going with this.

September 23rd -- release date of Corpse Bride in the United States! (According to Wikipedia again, but I’m inclined to believe them.)

October 6th -- Mad Hatter Day (because of the date -- 10/6 like on his hat) and thus just a general Alice day of mention. (I’ve also seen it stated as a release date for the first game, but I’ve never been able to fully confirm that.)

October 31st -- Halloween! Not a specific Valice date, but this is the holiday that sees the biggest spike in interest in the two fandoms, sooo. . .

November 27th -- first mention of me starting to seriously think about fanfic for Valice! Seems weirdly appropriate I’d publish the first one exactly two months later. :p

December 6th -- release date of American McGee’s Alice in North America! (Again, according to Wikipedia -- as stated above, I’ve also seen October 6th cited, and November 22nd on at least one site, so -- I’m just going with this!)

December 8th -- the first time I had one of my RP Alices (”save_us_alice,” though she didn’t have her journal at the time) call one of my RP Victors (”deadgirlsliekme” -- the proper spelling had been taken!) her “boyfriend.” While I’d obviously started genuinely shipping them before that, this is the first date that I saw anything about the pairing being Official, so again, we’re going with this.

December 27th -- my birthday, which -- as the person who came up with this ship -- I feel deserves to be recognized. :p

So yeah, that’s kind of the official Valice Calendar! :D Except -- well. You guys know that a certain OT3 has become very popular around here as well, huh? So yeah, because I know me, here’s also a handful of Valicer dates --

January 8th -- the actual creation of Smiler Always, the sim that informed the look of all my human/humanoid Smilers for my AUs, and their insertion into the Chill Save.

May 31st -- the actual opening date of The Smiler roller coaster! (It was supposed to open earlier, but delays in the final construction meant that it missed the first two dates.) Meaning this is the birthday of my own Smiler!

December 27th -- yes, doubling up with my birthday, because -- well. December 26th of 2021, I watched “One Night In - Alton Towers” with my parents, which led to us looking up a bunch of the rides on YouTube so we could see what they were like. Which included one called “The Smiler,” which I found myself very intrigued by the next day. . .meaning you can trace my Smiler obsession and the eventual creation of the OT3 to me binging Smiler videos and lore posts on my birthday last year.

December 31st -- the date four days later where I realized that the “private hypnokinky AU with Victor and Alice using the coaster’s theming for private fun times” had somehow become “I have made a human Smiler, a vampire Smiler, and a robot-run-by-an-eldritch-abomination Smiler for three different AUs VICTOR WHY DO YOU WANT TO FUCK A ROLLER COASTER” XD AKA the more EXPLICIT creation date of the OT3.

Okay, that should cover just about everything. XD Next year, we celebrate Valice (and Valicer) in style! :)

#valice #valicer #valice calendar #shipping #otp #ot3 #yes it's been freaking 15 years #I myself am shocked #what is the passage of time #also I'd link to that original post #but it's honestly not exactly comprehensible on its own #I used to do a thing where I'd have all the different versions of characters I'd made up #(at the time primarily different Doc Browns)#commenting on my activities and arguing with me and stuff like that in my entries #so yeah if you didn't know all the acronyms and whatnot my old entries can be - weird #plus some of these things were hard to track down because I used to do like one-sentence entries a lot more often #like what the hell #when did I go from that to NOVELS #I guess I've gotten chattier in a sense as I've gotten older?#but yes the list of Most Important Valice Dates #and Valicer #because let's face it that OT3 has kind of taken over #not complaining just an observation :p #queued

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onlyherefortheshowmances · 1 year

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I know I don’t have a lot of followers on here, especially not ones that care about my personal life, but here is a life update anyway, feel free to skip over.

Let this also serve as a lovely tale of the USA healthcare system. /s

And especially doctors who are more afraid for being caught ‘overprescribing’ controlled substances by the FDA or DEA than they are of not treating the patients’ pain appropriately.

Background: I have formal diagnoses of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Osteoarthritis (bilateral, but all right side are slightly worse - knees, hips, lumbar and cervical spin, shoulders, and elbows), and Fibromyalgia. All the fun pain causing things. It took from my very first symptom (right knee pain) at 14 until I was 29 (in July 2020) for a doctor to even consider checking my rheumatoid factor (which for the record is supposed to be under 14. Mine was 176 and 2 months later it was 194). Previous doctors had agreed that I had early onset osteoarthritis in my knees about 5 or so years earlier, but that’s in. The fibromyalgia diagnosis came in April of 2022. I had a repair surgery on my right shoulder in December 2018 (I was about to turn 28), and at the 1 week follow up appointment my doctor straight up told me he had to check he had the right patient after he looked inside my shoulder because it looked like I was about 80.

Now the current saga: Since February 15th I have been having the worst pain flare of my life. Including multiple instances of very sudden onset drowsiness/fatigue in the middle of the day for no clear reason (no one has figured that part out yet or even seemed to be interested in that part honest?).

On Feb 15, I had my last appointment with my former Rheumatologist who I loved, but left the practice so I had to switch now. She took me off two meds I’d been on previously between a visit in December and that visit. At that point I was feeling pretty baseline. I scheduled a visit in May with the other Rheumatologist at the clinic I go to. Driving home from that appointment while on one of the busiest and most accident prone highways in my area, is when I got my first sudden drowsiness/fatigue spell. Like I had to fight to keep my eyes open the last five minutes of my drive home and to get inside (obviously I did so safely).

When I was safely home, I call my primary care physician (at the time)’s office to see if I could be seen as this symptom was worrisome. The soonest appointment they had (as of a Wednesday evening) was the following Monday morning. I made the appointment with the clear intention of going to Urgent Care in the meantime and using it as a follow up.

Went to the Urgent care I usually avoid because the wait at the one I like was 3+ hours. Wouldn’t do anything other than a finger prick glucose test and swab me for COVID. It was not COVID or the flu or RSV.

Finally to see my PCP on Monday, February 20th in the morning which is also the first day I woke up in extreme pain. I told the doctor this. And by the end of that visit I fully decided I was switching PCPs, because she yet again blamed my weight checked some standard blood tests, swabbed for COVID again (which was negative again) and said probably viral you’ll get over it (even though I’m on immune suppressants so if it were viral that could be an issue). I also saw my (psych) therapist and physical therapist that day and had PT again the next day, so if we’re keeping track that’s already 6 health care visits so far and we’re only a week in.

Had PT again on February 23 (Thursday). Still in increased pain mode, but I could tolerate it at that point. PT on the 27th (Monday). CT Scan of my abdomen on Wednesday March 1st which had been ordered nearly a month prior when I was having left side abdominal pain that an ultrasound couldn’t figure out. The CT didn’t figure that out either, but that part subsided on its own. PT again on March 2.

On Saturday March 4, I decided to go into the city to the market as one does. I proceeded to sprain my right ankle pretty severely and bruise both knee caps. went to urgent care about the ankle on the 4th and then the knees on the 5th when I realized they hurt pretty bad, too. On March 6, I have PT, a therapy session, and an appointment with my endocrinologist where she put me on a new med to help with my PCOS. More PT on both March 7 and March 9, and an appointment with the (now previous) family doctor also on March 7 to go over the results of the CT which she had already called me with anyway. That was the last time I saw her.

March 13 and 15 I had PT. I also had a therapy session on the 15th. This was the point when the pain was skyrocketing. And if we’re keeping track that’s 21 medical appointments in one month February 15 to March 15.

On March 16, my mom drove me to an ER about 45 minutes from where I live that is a huge medical school and has every specialty under the sun and is also the medical group I use for Rheumatology and Endocrinology already. I went in in extreme pain they gave me IV tordol which did nothing. (It never does anything.) Then the PA who I saw who was absolutely lovely had to go and ask the attending what she could do. I was told they couldn’t admit me because they didn’t know WHY I was in pain and I’m just like...but isn’t that why you SHOULD admit me, so we can figure out why? Anyway, they ended up giving me 35mg of Ketamine via IV which was a trip and a half and the relief only lasted about 6 hours. Glad my mom was there to drive me home. She also gave me 50mg prednisone and tramadol to take at home. the tramadol didn’t really do anything and as always the prednisone did nothing either.

I proceeded to lay low for the entire following week other than an appointment with my therapist on Friday the 24th. I had at this point in the pain flare gotten to a place where I was in bed more than I was out of it and in so much pain it was often all I could think about.

I resumed PT on the 28th which is also the day I saw my new/current rheumatologist for the first time. She put me back on the meds the previous one had taken me off of thinking that could’ve caused the flare (I really doubt that’s true, but whatever). I also had PT on the 30th and then on the 31st I had therapy and an appointment with chronic pain management at the same hospital I’d been in the ER of on the 16th. I had to drive myself because my mom was working that day. They looked me straight in the eye and said the kind of pain you have all over, and that you’ve had for this long, there’s not a lot we can do for you. We can’t do injections cause you hurt all over. We can suggest some medications to your PCP for the fibromyalgia or we could consider medical marijuana. Almost all of my psych drugs that we finally got figured out are contraindicated with THC, so that option was out. So all that came of that appointment for PAIN MANAGEMENT was a note sent to my new PCP that she should prescribe either Lyrica or Savella for my fibromyalgia. I proceeded to go back to their ER and get an even less helpful PA who all I got was Toradol and asked if I wanted I psych consult when I said I’m in so much pain that death sometimes seems like a better option. THIS IS NOT A PSYCH ISSUE. THIS IS A PAIN ISSUE.

Last Saturday, April 1, I went to a different ER the one that my previous doctors were all part of, that’s much closer. The doctor there was the first one that actually helped or did ANYTHING honestly. He pretty much immediately got an IV put in, gave me oral tylenol, IV Toradol and then IV dilaudid which knocked me out for a nice nap until the MRI of my thoracic and lumbar spine which took over an hour and was very uncomfortable. The MRI didn’t show anything other than lumbar spine osteoarthritis which I already knew about. He gave me temporary scripts for oxycodone (opioid pain med) and flexeril (constrolled substance muscle relaxer).

I saw my new PCP on Monday evening after having PT earlier that day. I also got my hair chopped off in between because I though maybe the weight of my hair was part of my neck pain issue. The new family doctor did not listen to ANYTHING I said other than I need refills of my allergy med, please. She did not care to discuss literally anything else even when I told her pain management SENT HER A LETTER TELLING HER TO PRESCRIBE LYRICA OR SAVELLA. she did nothing. She did not care at all.

On Wednesday, I ran out of pain meds and the pain ramped right back up, so I called to make an appointment with this PCP again. Had my mom drive me over the next afternoon. She REFUSED to prescribe the medicine that actually helps me but did prescribe the lyrica and make me sign all this ridiculous paperwork because it’s technically a controlled substance (at the lowest level). I started that last night and today I went to PT in the morning thinking maybe they’ll help, when I left I thought they might’ve, but by the time I got home I felt worse than when I got there, so I made a nearly hour long drive to yet another hospital in search of ANSWERS. Not even meds at this point ANSWERS. I was seen very quickly by a resident doctor who orders oral tylenol an injection of toradol and a lidocaine patch on my back where I was having the most pain. I talked to both him and the charge doctor about everything that’s been going on and he then prescribed the same meds as the ER last weekend did in hopes that the Lyrica will kick in and start working by then.

So now, for those keeping track at home. I have had 34 medical appointments since 2/15 and still have no actual answer for why I am in this much pain or why I get random drowsy/fatigue spells in the middle of the day. Still have no hospital willing to admit me and try to figure it out. Currently sitting around with a heating pad basically glued to my back. I did stop at target and purchase OTC lidocaine patches to try and a yoga ball because some of the most helpful stuff for me at PT involves said yoga ball and it was like $15.

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lastfrontierh · 1 year

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Heli Skiing British Columbia, Canada

For one other great choice from a well-known model, check out the Wells Lamont HydraHyde Full Leather Winter Work Gloves . Both fashions characteristic a removable liner for sooner drying, a fingertip carabiner loop, and bolstered leather palms, and are made with alpinists in thoughts. For these excited about heat winter gloves , the Black Diamond Guide below has roughly the identical temperature rating because the Mercury Mitt and has been a mainstay in the ski and winter sports world for years. The REI Guide Insulated simply wins the dexterity category with its thin fingers and minimal insulation. The glove additionally lacks a water-resistant membrane or effective insulation, making them comparatively useless for most days at the ski space. However, for those who want a dexterous glove for milder circumstances, corresponding to ski instructors, backcountry skiers, or ski patrollers, these are a fantastic choice as a second, lighter, cheap glove.

The ski resorts are open by mid-November onwards. The ski season lasts all the way in which up until mid-May in some cases. The wintertime is maybe lesser-known however Heli skiing BC equally great time to go each when it comes to the activities of skiing, but in addition the scenic magnificence.

And the second factor is that, in intervals of Earth's very long, long historical past, when the glaciers have melted, and returned, those changes happened, earlier than people ever lived on earth. So we are the first gen or the primary humans to reside with this sort Heli skiing BC of speedy temperature change. But if you're a glacier, when you go from, you realize, being point three levels beneath zero, you keep frozen. You go to point three, you know, but one degree above zero, you stop being frozen.

Even for simple tasks like tying your sneakers, unzipping your pockets, or grabbing a small item, mittens are certain to make you are feeling clumsy. Depending on the activity, you could find yourself Heli skiing BC eradicating them sufficient occasions that your palms would have stayed warmer with gloves on. But for the occasions if you don’t want nimble arms, nothing beats the heat of mittens.

Après ski is a scorching tub or massage, earlier than a gourmet candlelight dinner and drinks by the grand stone hearth within the luxury lodge – awesome. Only issue could be climate, if its foggy , its no fly and you are sequestered to this beautiful lodge until its blue sky once more. One notably unhealthy weather week we had been encouraged to “drink it blue” – overindulge so that you hope you don’t ski the following day hungover -inevitable the sun comes out…lol. With an average of 40 – 60 ft of snowfall per year, skiers and boarders get pleasure from powder turns as early as December and all through the season, into early April.

Except for the heated gloves , the warmest glove we examined was the Black Diamond Guide. Tester Ian Nicholson used them to summit two mountains over 20,000 ft above sea degree and never changed into his mittens, despite summit temperatures as little as -42F. The Gordini Storm Trooper II, Fission SV, and Outdoor Research Carbide Sensor also present sufficient warmth for our testers on chilly winter days at a ski resort. On the opposite hand, the REI Guide Insulated seemed to have little extra warming capabilities than your common leather-based work glove. Every skier and rider demands a special level of heat from their gloves or mittens.

And our chilly spell came actually late last year, like late February when we had minus 25 minus 30 days. Usually we get them earlier, but yearly is different. And it is warmer than once I first got here to this part of the country. The greatest strategy to keep away from a grizzly bear encounter is to strive this, is to keep away from one.

#heli skiing bc

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evermoreweasley · 3 years

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wait for me (fred weasley x reader)

(all images are from pinterest)

summary: muggle!reader, dad!fred. y/n is the muggle girlfriend of Fred Weasley, a wizard. at the beginning of the second wizard war, you and Fred are kept separated to keep you safe. however, what happens when you find out you’re pregnant?

warnings: angst! mentions of battle of Hogwarts, mentions of death, mentions of injury (knocked unconscious), food, vomiting, pregnancy scare, mentions of period, pregnancy, mentions of sex, kissing, anxiety, separation, cursing, suggestive comments, fluffy ending.

a/n: I love dad!fred :’)

taglist: @theweasleysredhair @witchyweasley @sarcasticallywitty15 please message me if you’d like to be added or removed!

word count: 2.2k

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February 7th, 1998

You nervously picked at the emerald green nail polish on your fingernails as you looked out the window of your apartment. You watched the headlights of cars as they drove by and people laughing as they crossed the street in groups, going out for the night.

You were stuck at your apartment, alone in muggle London and you had run out of things to distract yourself with. You drank the last of the tea in the cupboard. You already did not one, not two, but six puzzles. And lastly, you already read not one, not two, but eight books. You were so tired of the small space of your apartment and so anxious about your boyfriend, you needed to find something to do besides stare out the window.

You had met your boyfriend, Fred Weasley, through Hermione Granger. Hermione’s muggle parents were next door neighbors with your own muggle parents. You had never been more happy than when Fred and Hermione introduced you to their wizarding world so many years ago.

Sighing, you made your way over to the kitchen sink. You decided to make homemade soup, from a recipe book you had forgotten that you had. It was buried deep inside of your kitchen cabinet, behind your dinnerware. As you cut up the carrots, onions, and celery, you were hit by a sudden wave of extreme nausea. You shook your head as you swallowed hard, convincing yourself it was just nerves for the events that were happening with your boyfriend and friends. But as you placed the vegetables in the pot, you recognized immediately that it wasn’t nerves.

You ran out of the kitchen and down the small hallway of your apartment, in the bathroom you doubled over the toilet as you vomited. Your mouth fell open in shock at your sudden illness as you wiped at the corners of your mouth with a tissue. You quickly washed your mouth out with minty mouthwash. As you opened the cabinet to put the mouthwash away, a small pink and white box caught your attention. It was a box containing pregnancy tests. You had a pregnancy scare all the way back in May, when your period was late. However, you got your period just moments after arriving home from the store with the purchase so you just shoved them to the back of your cabinet.

Your eyes narrowed away from the box to look at yourself in the mirror. You wondered if you were pregnant. You had barely seen your boyfriend, Fred, since late July, after his twin brother George lost an ear. Fred was so worried about you, especially after what happened to his brother. You had to go into hiding in muggle London at your apartment due to the catastrophic events that were happening in his world.

You thought back, you had seen him on exactly three occasions since then. The first was in August, second in October, and the last time was in December.

You remembered Fred visiting right before the holidays. His big, strong hands all over your body as he ripped your jeans off of you urgently. His lips kissing and sucking on the delicate part of your neck, desperate for you as breathy moans filled the room. Your lips only momentarily leaving him, passionate and heated, as your bodies moved seamlessly against each other under the sheets.

In all of the stress, you had missed your period and you didn’t realize it at the time. Your hands trembled slightly as you reached out for the pregnancy test box. You knew you had to take it.

As you waited for the results of the test that rested on the bathroom sink, you paced the small hallway. You checked the wall clock and knew it was time to look. You reached for the test with trembling hands, your heart was pounding out of your chest, your mouth was bone-dry, and your whole body lightly shook for what might come. You turned over the test in your hands and saw a tiny plus sign indicating that you were in fact pregnant. You placed one hand on the sink to steady yourself, while your other hand immediately flew to your wide mouth.

How were you going to tell Fred? When were you even going to see Fred again? Fred would randomly apparate to your apartment when he managed to sneak around and felt he could do so safely, but that was it. How were you supposed to handle being pregnant when you knew your boyfriend was about to go to the second wizarding war?

Tears began to form in the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill out. Your hands lightly shook as they fell to your stomach. “You will meet your dad,” you sighed, speaking to the child growing inside of you. “I promise.”

May 3rd, 1998

It was the early morning hours, still dark out, when a loud sound awoke you. A bang from the living room of your apartment. You sat up, now completely awake and terrified. You kept your hand on your now huge bump protectively as you rolled out of bed. You wondered if it was a wizard or witch, and if it was, hopefully it wasn’t an evil one.

Reaching for a baseball bat near your nightstand, you cursed, knowing it stood no chance to a wand. But if it was a muggle, you could at least try to fight them off.

You heard another crash, followed by a curse word from the intruder’s lips. And then you heard them speak a spell you recognized, “Lumos.” You heard light footsteps walking down the hallway toward you. Your heart was beating rapidly in a panic for who was coming.

“I’ll fight you, asshole!” You yelled out as you gripped the baseball bat tightly, holding it up. You were ready to swing with every ounce of strength you had coursing through your veins, to protect yourself, but more importantly, your and Fred’s growing child.

“Y/n,” The voice calmly spoke as it got nearer to your bedroom. “It’s me,” He opened the door to your bedroom slightly and you dropped your baseball bat hard on the ground as the light from his wand illuminated your room. “George.”

“George?” you spoke out quietly, squinting your eyes at the tall figure that stood in front of you.

Your boyfriend’s twin brother stood in front of you, cautiously. He was covered in rubble and dried dirt. His familiar chocolate brown eyes were kind, as always, but also showed a hint of fear. “I came to tell you, it’s over,” he breathed out. “The war is over.”

Your heart fell into your stomach as a wave of both concern and relief hit you all at once. “What?”

He nodded as he scanned your face. “And Fred,” he breathed out. “He’s alive, but he was knocked unconscious.”

You cursed out as your knees slightly buckled, before quickly steading yourself. You were truly speechless at George’s words. You nervously looked down at your feet, but your vision was becoming obstructed by your growing bump. And in all of the concern and worry, you were suddenly reminded of what was going on inside, a child was growing.

“I’m,” you looked down at your bump, you were nearly five months pregnant and it showed. “I’m-” you tried once more.

George’s curious eyes found yours before he followed them downward, to your bump. “Are you-” he started, his eyes growing wide as his mouth fell open. “Pregnant?” His eyes found yours once more as a small smile spread to his lips, ecstatic that he was going to be an uncle, and his twin a dad.

You nodded at George, tears were now spilling down your cheeks. You were excited to finally tell another person that you were pregnant. But you were also upset that Fred wasn’t the first person you were telling.

“Oh, George,” you sighed as you wiped the tears that continued to fall down your cheeks.

George walked over to you, hugging you tightly. “Oh, darling,” George spoke out, as he soothingly stroked your hair. “Are you alright?”

“No,” you sighed. “Can I see Freddie?” you asked into his chest.

“Soon.” He spoke out, continuing to stroke your hair.

“Okay,” you sighed as you loosened your grip around his waist.

“Y/n,” George breathed out.

“Yes?”

“I may have broken your lamp.”

May 5th, 1998

The day started as you poured George a cup of coffee. It had been three days since the battle of Hogwarts had ended, George told you everything that happened that night and the days leading up to it. Many lives were lost, many were injured. You felt more than grateful at the fact that Fred was alive, albeit injured. One hour into the battle, Fred had been knocked unconscious as he fell backwards against a stone wall, near the room of requirement. Percy and George were quick to move him out of the way and into safety.

George slept on the couch in your living room. You asked him to stay with you until you could see Fred, the anxiety around your pregnancy and your boyfriend’s near death consuming you.

As George sipped at his coffee, an owl lightly tapped on the window near your kitchen. “Must be mum,” George spoke out as he sprang up from his chair and went to retrieve the letter. He quickly ripped opened the letter and scanned the contents before reading it out loud to you.

“George, Y/n,

I’m beaming to say that early this morning, Fred woke up. Thank Merlin! He desperately wants to see both of you at once, especially Y/n. Please apparate to the Burrow once you receive this.

Love, Molly.”

The biggest smile took over your features as relief and joy washed over you at the words on the letter. Fred was awake. Your heart began to beat rapidly as you realized that when you saw him, you would finally be able to tell him that you were pregnant.

You looked over at George and as if he knew what plagued your mind, he spoke out. “He will be absolutely overjoyed, Y/n.”

You nodded as you smiled at him. You knew that Fred was going to be the best dad.

“And you’re going to be the best uncle, Georgie.”

He smiled at you as he offered out his hand for you to take. Holding his wand in the other, he looked over at you. “Ready?” He asked you kindly.

“Ready.”

You squeezed George’s hand as you felt the two of you spin and a rush of air blew past you. You never got used to apparating, and you suddenly felt a wave of nausea hit you at the quick spinning.

Much to your relief, your feet suddenly hit the ground of the Burrow and immediately, you self consciously grabbed your belly. You faced the kitchen as you heard Molly’s comforting, familiar voice behind you.

“Y/n! George!” She exclaimed.

You inhaled a deep breath in, looking over at George as he nodded at you, in an encouraging way. You exhaled and turned to face her. You smiled and then rubbed your bump. Molly’s kind eyes followed downward, landing on your bump as her mouth slightly fell open in excitement. Her eyes grew wide. “Y/n!” She cheered, clapping her hands together. “Am I going to be a grandmother?” She whispered.

You nodded as you smiled back at her. “Yes, you are.”

She quickly wiped away her happy tears with the backs of her hands. “So, so good to see you dear,” She suddenly became an emotional mess. “Sorry,” She exhaled, as happy tears continued to fall down her round cheeks as George walked over to hug her. “Freddie’s laying on the couch. He may be sleeping though. Rough last few days, I’m sure George has filled you in.”

Nodding, you quietly walked into the living room. The back of the couch was facing you, you smiled as you saw that familiar head of red hair poking out on the end of the arm rest.

You cautiously walked around the side of it, noticing that Fred was, in fact asleep. Smiling, you took one last deep breath as you reached out to gently wake him up. “Freddie,” you whispered as you kneeled down in front of the couch, your bump hidden. You ran your fingers through his messy red hair. “Freddie, it’s me.”

Fred’s eyes started to flutter open. Once his warm, chocolate brown eyes were open wide enough, a huge smile immediately filled his entire face. “Y/n!” he exclaimed sleepily, pulling you in for a gentle kiss. “I’ve missed you so much, my love.” You stared at him for a moment, his hands cupping both sides of your face as he gently rubbed his fingers lovingly down your cheeks.

“Freddie,” you started.

“Yes, my love?” He asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“I’ve got something important to tell you,”

His eyes grew wider in curiosity as he scanned your face. “Yeah?”

“I’m,” you started as you slowly got up off of your knees.

As you got up, Fred’s eyes fell from your face onto your growing bump, his chocolate brown eyes immediately tearing up as a wide grin spread across his face. “Pregnant.” You finished, now fully standing in front of him.

“Y/n!” He exclaimed excitedly as he jumped off of the couch, pulling you into a tight, warm hug. You smiled as you embraced and you could feel a tear or two fall off of his cheek onto you.

He leaned down to kiss you sweetly and your heart soared out of your chest. “I’m so happy.” He hummed as he lovingly ran his long, slender fingers up and down your back.

You pulled away to look into his chocolate brown eyes intensely. “I’m due in September.” He grabbed your hand and kissed your knuckles.

“Is that so?” He asked seriously, before a mischievous smirk fell on his lips a moment later, he pulled his hand up to jokingly count on his fingers. “Yeah, that sounds about right to me,” He spoke out, chuckling.

You giggled as you ran your fingers up and down his arm.

“I’m so sorry I’ve missed out on so much your pregnancy, love, I-”

You shook your head as you gently shushed him. “No, don’t be,” you smiled. “I’m just happy that you’re here now.”

Fred smiled at you first, then at your bump. His large hand reached out and ran it lovingly down your belly.

“Thank you for waiting, so that I could meet you.” He spoke to your growing child. “Merlin knows you could’ve been born during the war,” He breathed out. “Considering the way your mom and I can’t seem to keep our hands off of each other.” He whispered, before looking at you and smirking.

You giggled once more. “Yes, Freddie,” you hummed. “Our baby did wait for you.”

“And I’m so thankful for that.” He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss to your bump.

#fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley x muggle!reader #dad!fred #dad!fred weasley #fred weasley x you

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dialovers-translations · 3 years

Text

Diabolik Twitter ー Carla Tsukinami [2020 Compilation]

–> This post includes all tweets posted on the official Rejet Twitter account for Carla Tsukinami (@DialoverCarlaT) in 2020.

Shuu l Reiji l Ayato l Kanato l Laito l Subaru l Ruki l Kou l Yuma l Azusa l Shin l Kino

February 14, 2020 (Valentine’s Day)

> What a bothersome lot. I’ll blow all of you away at once.

> When it comes to these things, it’s quality over quantity.

> One precious thing. Obtaining that is more important, don’t you think?

March 14, 2020 (White Day)

> An uncommon guest has come to visit.

> Guess I shall give these ‘marsh mallow’ things Kanato gifted me to Shin.

–> This took me a while to figure out, but Carla wrote he received 魔種麻呂 from Kanato, which isn’t an existing word in Japanese at all. However, when you look at the individual readings of each character, they are pronounced as ‘ma-shu-ma-ro’ or マッシュマロー, the Japanese word for ‘marshmallow’. I guess Carla does not know what a marshmallow is. xD

> I do not know which magic creature has been put into these things. So until I identify them, it seems wise not to eat them.

–> The ‘ma’ character in Carla’s unique spelling of the word ‘marshmallow’ means ‘magic’ on its own, hence why he thinks they’re made from magic beasts living in the Demon World.

> Oi, you. Come closer.

> I heard that today you are supposed to return the favor of last month’s festivity. Following said tradition, I shall thank you as well.

> You are a woman worthy of becoming the bride of a Founder. However, that is not all. You are also a woman I personally do not wish to lose. I am grateful towards the fate that brought us together. Furthermore, I shall fulfill my own duty as well. I vow to protect you, no matter what awaits us in the future.

April 1, 2020 (April Fools)

> Moon March 🌙 E-shop opened

ll Cured dry ham ll

From today onwards, we shall start selling farm fresh and Founder-approached cured dry ham. We can ensure the delivery of high quality products to your doorstep. Only those capable of grasping its value, should press the purchase button.

April 30, 2020

> Come here. We do not get to enjoy such a peaceful time together very often. I shall dote on you plenty to make up for all the lost time.

> Tell me. Go ahead and explain to me what lovers usually do when together in their room.

May 28, 2020 (Birthday)

> How puzzling. Why do you seem so happy, when it is my birthday being celebrated? However, it is not a bad thing. It appears I can get a sense of fulfillment from seeing you try so hard for my sake. In that case, scoot over. I want to feel you close to me. I want to confirm that you are most definitely by my side by touching you directly.

June 26, 2020

> I cannot believe you are asking me to play the role of a teacher. It seems like you do not quite comprehend your own position.

> Again? Watch your step carefully. How many times must I repeat myself?

June 27, 2020

> You could have simply gone to bed before me.

July 7, 2020 (Tanabata)

> I wish to come across a new art gallery.

July 22, 2020

> I am surprised you are still conscious.

> I forced my fangs inside your flesh. It would have not have been strange for you to faint from the pain.

> Seems like you have become capable of accepting any and all stimuli. When you give me such a commendable reaction, I cannot help but want to ‘dote’ on you even more.

> This time, I will give you something you are always craving for...Exactly, pleasure.

> I shall love you more profoundly.

July 27, 2020

> Dry cured ham represents despair and sadness?

> Why?

August 31, 2020

> The buzzing of cicadas makes for a rather elegant tune.

> Shin. Prepare a watermelon at once.

October 16, 2020

> On my way to the museum, I ran into a certain young man. He was a *

--> In the original Tweet, his sentence cuts off mid-way as well.

> He was a court painter who specializes in portraits. I had him paint my picture, but ultimately, I did not feel very satisfied with the end result.

> My face is not buried that deep inside my scarf. Why did he have to exaggerate it such an extend? For one, a portrait usually takes several days to finish, yet the painter in question finished it in just mere seconds. One should take their time painting a picture of me.

> It truly is a shame, but it seems like his skill level has decreased over time.

October 22, 2020 (DL x Mayla Classic)

> Oi, you. Why are you spacing out in the hallway?

> Aah, Shin said that…? I see.

> In that case, I might have a clue. Follow me.

> Take a look at those stairs.

> Amongst the Wolf Familiars, there’s one which has a bad habit of leaving all shiny objects he stumbles upon on the staircase like that.

> I assume Shin hid the gift in the underground dungeon, hoping you would find it after being ordered to clean the place. However, it was taken away by the Familiar before that, ruining Shin’s plans.

> He should have simply handed it to you. Shin is still quite immature as well, taking such a roundabout approach and then getting upset.

> Oh well, I suppose it is fine. Either way, you should take it.

> This is our gift. From here on out, you should always keep them on you, so they do not get stolen by the Familiar again.

October 31, 2020 (Halloween)

> Trick or Treat...is truly ridiculous. There is no reason to choose one or the other. I shall get my hands on all things I desire. Well then, go ahead and submit your everything to me.

November 11, 2020

> Today calls for a celebration.

> It is ‘cured ham day’. There is not a single day in the whole year worth celebrating more.

> I suppose I should have Shin prepare a few extra legs.*

-> I was really confused by this tweet at first because when I looked up the word 原木, it translates as ‘timber’. However, apparently it is also used to refer to the whole legs of dried ham which come on a wooden stand.

December 18, 2020

> Why are you making such a face? ...The cold? I see, I suppose humans already show the first signs of hypothermia at this temperature. I cannot simply stand and watch in silence as you continue to freeze. Well then, let me prepare you a cup of hot tea. Let us get warm together.

December 19, 2020

> Woman. This one. Order this one. I desire this drink, its crimson color is vibrant, yet somewhat reminiscent of the dark as well. However, please do not get the wrong idea. I do not feel attracted to it due to its strong resemblance to blood. Any blood other than yours holds no value. Of course, you are special and irreplaceable to me as a person as well.

December 24, 2020 (Christmas)

> Are you enjoying yourself? No, I am not criticizing you for your behavior. When I see you in high spirits, even I get a pleasant feeling inside. I feel like I can sympathize with humans who get excited about Christmas a little better now.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #carla tsukinami #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers tweets #diabolik lovers twitter #carla2020

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suncaptor · 3 years

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So we're having a s7/s8 breakdown on this fine Saturday? Good. May I interest you in theese thoughts (this whole ask might include some wild speculation, I hope you're up for it, if no, please ignore and I will crawl back to my basement, also this got SO LONG I AM ALMOST ASHAMED, but I need to exchange thoughts with someone agsfsdghf):

Amelia was the original blurry wife for Sam. I remember at the time s8 was airing the fandom wasn't really fond of her because she wasn't very special as a character, she felt kind of boring (obviously the wincest/bibro side hated her for different reasons lol) and unfortunately she was very forgettable. She was literally Just Some Woman, a blank canvas. (idk if you agree but this is what I think). But. I think she was set up to be Sam's endgame if season 8 was the last one. He gets what he wanted - out of the hunter's life, white picket fence, a wife and a dog. And it was confirmed somewhere that she was written off due to the hate she received (spn fandom being spn fadom I am leaving this without comment). So that is why I believe she was gonna be the Blurry Wife of season 8, but she was written off....

....."But hey!", you might say, "Sam was the one doing the trials in season 8! So how can she be his endgame if he was going to lock up Hell and die?". I have an answer! Sam doesn't start the trials until 8x14, four episodes after he broke up with Amelia and chose Dean in 8x10. Up until then it was agreed that Dean was going to be the one to do the trials, it was changed last minute in the show (when Sam ends up killing the hellhound in 8x14) and part of me wonders how much it might reflect the last minute change in real life. counterpoint: spn got a renewal on February 11th 2013 and 8x14 was shot November 30th - December 11th 2012 so renewal is not the case, maybe just a general change of direction for the season? idk, BUT......

.... but maybe? now I am thinking. So they make Sam break up with Amelia to get rid of her and so he can do the trials. and he is going to die. so basically once again Sam is going to die in the finale as a sacrifice (like in Swan Song) (oh I just remembered 8x23 was titled Sacrifice. NICE). And now back to Dean and everything romantic that happened that I mentioned in those tags. Let's say they keep the 'I love you' in 8x17 (I am still writing all of this under the assumption that season 8 was going to be the last one). And Cas disappears. And now guess what. He is not in 8x18. He is not in 8x19 but you know who is? NAOMI with this epic line: "And yet you haven't warded this place against us. I know. You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty. I only wish he felt the same way. I know you don't want to believe it, Dean, but we're on the same side – shutting the Gates of Hell, bringing Castiel in from the cold. Take a moment. Think about what I've said." literally WHAAAAT, what were we supposed to think at this point?!?!? IF THE 'I LOVE YOU' was kept in 8x17?! can you imagine?! (also sidenote: 8x19 is a buckleming episode where they kill off Benny. epic highs and lows, etc.)

So they aren't reunited until 8x22 (i mean last seconds of 8x21 but it doesn't really matter). And Dean is angry, and hurt and we have this piece of dialogue:

CASTIEL: Dean, I can go with you. A FEW SECONDS PASS BEFORE SPEAKING AGAIN Dean. I'm sorry. DEAN: For what? CASTIEL: For everything. DEAN" Everything? Like, uh... Like ignoring us? CASTIEL: Yes. DEAN: Or like bolting off with the Angel Tablet, then losing it 'cause you didn't trust me? You didn't trust me. CASTIEL: Yes. DEAN: Yeah. Nah, that's not gonna cut it. Not this time. So you can take your little apology and you cram it up your ass. CASTIEL: Dean, I thought I was doing the right thing. DEAN: Yeah, you always do.

still with me? ok. so then Cas is sad and wants to apologize and goes out to buy Dean beer and pie but Metatron finds him and they go on their little quest together. blah blah blah, Sam and Dean catch Crowley, they are in the church, Sam in beginning the ritual on Crowley when wild Cas appears and asks Dean for help because... he needs a Cupid's Bow for Metatron to lock up Heaven. and he asks for Dean's help. I mean at this moment I think everyone would have gotten the HINT. Dean leaves Sam with Crowley to do the trial by himself (he chooses to go with Cas this is important because the last time he saw Cas he was angry at him).

And then we have that infamous bar scene where Dean might still be hurt but now he is afraid of losing Cas AGAIN due to Heaven about to be locked up and he is like "ummm are you sure? you're -- you're boarding up Heaven, and you're locking the door behind you. you did a lot of damage up there, aren't you afraid the angels might kill you?" and Cas is like stone cold "yeah they might and I am sure about doing this" :( and then they witness as two dudes fall in love in the bar. hint hint again.

quick cut to Crowley who says: "Don't we all -- you, me -- we deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved! I just want to be loved". hint hint Love is a whole theme of this episode

AND THEN Castiel's grace ends up being the last ingredient to cast out all angels from Heaven after a nephilim and cupid's bow. And it's brushed off with a no-homo line by Metatron: "I want you to live this new life to the fullest. Find a wife. Make babies." SURE. oh to get my hands on the original first drafts of those episodes... a girl can dream.

in conclusion I wonder what the ending would be here. Dean and Cas eventually reunite and finally talk it out? one can argue: "but why Cas didn't confess back when they were having their moment in the bar? :/" well, because, as he tells us himself, (actually he says it to Kevin prior to he bar scene, but it's easy to understand that he is also talking about himself here): "There is no out. Only duty. You are a Prophet of the Lord, always and forever... ...until the day you cease to exist, and then another Prophet takes your place. Now, are you clear as to the task before you? Then do it, and let's go." (now don't think about this line and Dean's quiet: "Are you sure? Aren't you afraid?" in the bar and Castiel's "Yeah I'm sure")

so then they finally reunite, both human and they find each other and Cas is like "My grace was the special last spell ingredient because ..................." and they would address the Crypt Scene confession finally, I guess. They arrive at the Church and Sam is dead (according to what we know now (if a soul was in hell it will always end up in hell thing) maybe he went to hell. maybe it's locked up but he is the one in charge Rowena-style?). So of course Dean is a wreck but he has Cas by his side. Holding hands as they bury Sam. I don't know but I want to know SO BADLY what they had originally planned here. I would literally willingly sell my kidney to read Carver's mind.

I AM DEEPLY SORRY FOR THIS ASK I HAD TO GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD ILY <3333333333333

okay I have NO CLUE what they meant to do or the validity of the assumptions, but this is SO interesting and I agree with all your analysis of canon, except I also don't think that Cas like. understood at all or ever thought Dean's "I love you" meant what Dean did at this point xnkslfkdkdkskd so I see your draw to him specifying duty given his probable suicide rather than stay with Dean like he wants.

I also do wonder what they were doing with Sam in s8 it's very disjointed and out of character, so your guesses are VERY interesting. Amelia like made no sense Sam made no sense or the way Sam treated Benny (which I think was set up for Sam decided to choose hunting with Dean over her and Dean about Benny, so I don't know if she was meant to be endgame ever? but I have nooo clue what they could have meant for because the plot is all over the place in s8). anyways INTERESTING. I love all your thoughts thanks for sending this ask 💞💞

#and like to be clear I do view canon destiel VERY similarly to you. you get it.#incest mention #spn #supernatural #destiel #sam Winchester #samelia #s8 #sammy #dean winchester #castiel #cas #amelia richardson #amelia #incoherents #ask

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silent-era-of-cinema · 3 years

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Colleen Moore (born Kathleen Morrison; August 19, 1899 – January 25, 1988) was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era. Moore became one of the most fashionable (and highly-paid) stars of the era and helped popularize the bobbed haircut.

A huge star in her day, approximately half of Moore's films are now considered lost, including her first talking picture from 1929. What was perhaps her most celebrated film, Flaming Youth (1923), is now mostly lost as well, with only one reel surviving.

Moore took a brief hiatus from acting between 1929 and 1933, just as sound was being added to motion pictures. After the hiatus, her four sound pictures released in 1933 and 1934 were not financial successes. Moore then retired permanently from screen acting.

After her film career, Moore maintained her wealth through astute investments, becoming a partner of Merrill Lynch. She later wrote a "how-to" book about investing in the stock market.

Moore also nurtured a passion for dollhouses throughout her life and helped design and curate The Colleen Moore Dollhouse, which has been a featured exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois since the early 1950s. The dollhouse, measuring 9 square feet (0.84 m2), was estimated in 1985 to be worth of $7 million, and it is seen by 1.5 million people annually.

Moore was born Kathleen Morrison on August 19, 1899, (according to the bulk of the official records;[4] the date which she insisted was correct in her autobiography, Silent Star, was 1902)[5] in Port Huron, Michigan,[6] Moore was the eldest child of Charles R. and Agnes Kelly Morrison. The family remained in Port Huron during the early years of Moore's life, at first living with her grandmother Mary Kelly (often spelled Kelley) and then with at least one of Moore's aunts.

By 1905, the family moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, where they remained for over two years. They relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, by 1908. They are listed at three different addresses during their stay in Atlanta (From the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library city directories): 301 Capitol Avenue −1908; 41 Linden Avenue – 1909; 240 N. Jackson Street – 1910. They then lived briefly — probably less than a year — in Warren, Pennsylvania, and by 1911, they had settled in Tampa, Florida.

At age 15 she was taking her first step in Hollywood. Her uncle arranged a screen test with director D.W. Griffith. She wanted to be a second Lillian Gish but instead, she found herself playing heroines in Westerns with stars such as Tom Mix.

Two of Moore's great passions were dolls and movies; each would play a great role in her later life. She and her brother began their own stock company, reputedly performing on a stage created from a piano packing crate. Her aunts, who doted on her, indulged her other great passion and often bought her miniature furniture on their many trips, with which she furnished the first of a succession of dollhouses. Moore's family summered in Chicago, where Moore enjoyed baseball and the company of her Aunt Lib (Elizabeth, who changed her name to "Liberty", Lib for short) and Lib's husband Walter Howey. Howey was the managing editor of the Chicago Examiner and an important newspaper editor in the publishing empire of William Randolph Hearst, and was the inspiration for Walter Burns, the fictional Chicago newspaper editor in the play and the film, The Front Page.

Early years

Essanay Studios was within walking distance of the Northwestern L, which ran right past the Howey residence. (They occupied at least two residences between 1910 and 1916: 4161 Sheridan and 4942 Sheridan.) In interviews later in her silent film career, Moore claimed she had appeared in the background of several Essanay films, usually as a face in a crowd. One story has it she had gotten into the Essanay studios and waited in line to be an extra with Helen Ferguson: in an interview with Kevin Brownlow many years later, Ferguson told a story that substantially confirmed many details of the claim, though it is not certain if she was referring to Moore's stints as a background extra (if she really was one) or to her film test there prior to her departure for Hollywood in November 1917. Film producer D.W. Griffith was in debt to Howey, who had helped him to get both The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance through the Chicago censorship board.

"I was being sent to Hollywood - not because anybody out there thought I was any good, but simply to pay off a favor".

The contract to Griffith's Triangle-Fine Arts was conditional on passing a film test to ensure that her heterochromia (she had one brown eye, one blue eye) would not be a distraction in close-up shots. Her eyes passed the test, so she left for Hollywood with her grandmother and her mother as chaperones. Moore made her first credited film appearance in 1917 in The Bad Boy for Triangle Fine Arts, and for the next few years appeared in small, supporting roles gradually attracting the attention of the public.

The Bad Boy was released on February 18, and featured Robert Harron, Richard Cummings, Josephine Crowell, and Mildred Harris (who would later become Charles Chaplin's first wife). Two months later, it was followed by An Old-Fashioned Young Man, again with Robert Harron. Moore’s third film was Hands Up! filmed in part in the vicinity of the Seven Oaks (a popular location for productions that required dramatic vistas). This was her first true western. The film’s scenario was written by Wilfred Lucas from a story by Al Jennings, the famous outlaw who had been freed from jail by presidential pardon by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Monte Blue was in the cast and noticed Moore could not mount her horse, though horseback riding was required for the part (during casting for the part she neglected to mention she did not know how to ride). Blue gave her a quick lesson essentially consisting of how to mount the horse and how to hold on.

On May 3, 1917, the Chicago Daily Tribune said: "Colleen Moore contributes some remarkable bits of acting. She is very sweet as she goes trustingly to her bandit hero, and, O, so pitiful, when finally realizing the character of the man, she goes into a hysteria of terror, and, shrieking 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!' beats futilely on a bolted door, a panic-stricken little human animal, who had not known before that there was aught but kindness in the world." About the time her first six-month contract was extended an additional six months, she requested and received a five weeks release to do a film for Universal's Bluebird division, released under the name The Savage. This was her fourth film, and she was only needed for two weeks. Upon her return to the Fine Arts lot, she spent several weeks trying to get her to pay for the three weeks she had been available for work for Triangle (finally getting her pay in December of that year).

Soon after, the Triangle Company went bust, and while her contract was honored, she found herself scrambling to find her next job. With a reel of her performance in Hands Up! under her arm, Colin Campbell arranged for her to get a contract with Selig Polyscope. She was very likely at work on A Hoosier Romance before The Savage was released in November. After A Hoosier Romance, she went to work on Little Orphant Annie. Both films were based upon poems by James Whitcomb Riley, and both proved to be very popular. It was her first real taste of popularity.

Little Orphant Annie was released in December. The Chicago Daily Tribune wrote of Moore, "She was a lovely and unspoiled child the last time I saw her. Let’s hope commendation hasn’t turned her head." Despite her good notices, her luck took a turn for the worse when Selig Polyscope went bust. Once again Moore found herself unemployed, but she had begun to make a name for herself by 1919. She had a series of films lined up. She went to Flagstaff, Arizona for location work on The Wilderness Trail, another western, this time with Tom Mix. Her mother went along as a chaperone. Moore wrote that while she had a crush on Mix, he only had eyes for her mother. The Wilderness Trail was a Fox Film Corporation production, and while it had started production earlier, it would not be released until after The Busher, which was released on May 18. The Busher was an H. Ince Productions-Famous Players-Lasky production; it was a baseball film wherein the hero was played by John Gilbert. The Wilderness Trail followed on July 6, another Fox film. A few weeks later, The Man in the Moonlight, a Universal Film Manufacturing Company film was released on July 28. The Egg Crate Wallop was a Famous Players-Lasky production released by Paramount Pictures on September 28.

The next stage of her career was with the Christie Film Company, a move she made when she decided she needed comic training. While with Christie, she made Her Bridal Nightmare, A Roman Scandal, and So Long Letty. At the same time as she was working on these films, she worked on The Devil's Claim with Sessue Hayakawa, in which she played a Persian woman, When Dawn Came, and His Nibs (1921) with Chic Sale. All the while, Marshall Neilan had been attempting to get Moore released from her contract so she could work for him. He was successful and made Dinty with Moore, releasing near the end of 1920, followed by When Dawn Came.

For all his efforts to win Moore away from Christie, it seems Neilan loaned Moore to other studios most of the time. He loaned her out to King Vidor for The Sky Pilot, released in May 1921, yet another Western. After working on The Sky Pilot on location in the snows of Truckee, she was off to Catalina Island for work on The Lotus Eater with John Barrymore. In October 1921, His Nibs was released, her only film to be released that year besides The Sky Pilot. In His Nibs, Moore actually appeared in a film within the film; the framing film was a comedy vehicle for Chic Sales. The film it framed was a spoof on films of the time. 1922 proved to be an eventful year for Moore as she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star during a "frolic" at the Ambassador Hotel which became an annual event, in recognition of her growing popularity.[13] In early 1922, Come On Over was released, made from a Rupert Hughes story and directed by Alfred E. Green. Hughes directed Moore himself in The Wallflower, released that same year. In addition, Neilan introduced her to John McCormick, a publicist who had had his eye on Moore ever since he had first seen her photograph. He had prodded Marshall into an introduction. The two hit it off, and before long they were engaged. By the end of that year, three more of her films were released: Forsaking All Others, The Ninety and Nine, and Broken Chains.

Look Your Best and The Nth Commandment were released in early 1923, followed by two Cosmopolitan Productions, The Nth Commandment and Through the Dark. By this time, Moore had publicly confirmed her engagement to McCormick, a fact that she had been coy about to the press previously. Before mid-year, she had signed a contract with First National Pictures, and her first two films were slated to be The Huntress and Flaming Youth. Slippy McGee came out in June, followed by Broken Hearts of Broadway.

Moore and John McCormick married while Flaming Youth was still in production, and just before the release of The Savage. When it was finally released in 1923, Flaming Youth, in which she starred opposite actor Milton Sills, was a hit. The controversial story put Moore in focus as a flapper, but after Clara Bow took the stage in Black Oxen in December, she gradually lost her momentum. In spring 1924 she made a good but unsuccessful effort to top Bow in The Perfect Flapper, and soon after she dismissed the whole flapper vogue; "No more flappers...people are tired of soda-pop love affairs." Decades later Moore stated Bow was her "chief rival."

Through the Dark, originally shot under the name Daughter of Mother McGinn, was released during the height of the Flaming Youth furor in January 1924. Three weeks later, Painted People was released. After that, she was to star in Counterfeit. The film went through a number of title changes before being released as Flirting with Love in August. In October, First National purchased the rights to Sally for Moore's next film. It would be a challenge, as Sally was a musical comedy. In December, First National purchased the rights to Desert Flower and in so doing had mapped out Moore's schedule for 1925: Sally would be filmed first, followed by The Desert Flower.

By the late 1920s, she had accomplished dramatic roles in films such as So Big, where Moore aged through a stretch of decades, and was also well received in light comedies such as Irene. An overseas tour was planned to coincide with the release of So Big in Europe, and Moore saw the tour as her first real opportunity to spend time with her husband, John McCormick. Both she and John McCormick were dedicated to their careers, and their hectic schedules had kept them from spending any quality time together. Moore wanted a family; it was one of her goals.

Plans for the trip were put in jeopardy when she injured her neck during the filming of The Desert Flower. Her injury forced the production to shut down while Moore spent six weeks in a body cast in bed. Once out of the cast, she completed the film and left for Europe on a triumphal tour. When she returned, she negotiated a new contract with First National. Her films had been great hits, so her terms were very generous. Her first film upon her return to the States was We Moderns, set in England with location work done in London during the tour. It was a comedy, essentially a retelling of Flaming Youth from an English perspective. This was followed by Irene (another musical in the style of the very popular Sally) and Ella Cinders, a straight comedy that featured a cameo appearance by comedian Harry Langdon. It Must Be Love was a romantic comedy with dramatic undertones, and it was followed by Twinkletoes, a dramatic film that featured Moore as a young dancer in London's Limehouse district during the previous century. Orchids and Ermine was released in 1927, filmed in part in New York, a thinly veiled Cinderella story.

In 1927, Moore split from her studio after her husband suddenly quit. It is rumored that John McCormick was about to be fired for his drinking and that she left as a means of leveraging her husband back into a position at First National. It worked, and McCormick found himself as Moore's sole producer. Moore's popularity allowed her productions to become very large and lavish. Lilac Time was one of the bigger productions of the era, a World War I drama. A million dollar film, it made back every penny spent within months. Prior to its release, Warner Bros. had taken control of First National and were less than interested in maintaining the terms of her contract until the numbers started to roll in for Lilac Time. The film was such a hit that Moore managed to retain generous terms in her next contract and her husband as her producer.

In 1928, inspired by her father and with help from her former set designer, a dollhouse was constructed by her father, which was 9 square feet with the tallest tower 12 feet high. The interior of The Colleen Moore Dollhouse, designed by Harold Grieve, features miniature bear skin rugs and detailed furniture and art. Moore's dollhouse has been a featured exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois since October 30, 1949, where according to the museum, it is seen by 1.5 million people each year and would be worth $7 million. Moore continued working on it and contributing artifacts to it until her death.

This dollhouse was the eighth one Moore owned. The first dollhouse, she wrote in her autobiography Silent Star (1968), evolved from a cabinet that held her collection of miniature furniture. It was supposedly built from a cigar box. Kitty Lorgnette wrote in the Saturday, August 13, 1938 edition of The Evening News (Tampa) that the first dollhouse was purchased by Oraleze O'Brien (Mrs. Frank J. Knight) in 1916 when Moore (then Kathleen) left Tampa. Oraleze was too big for dollhouses, however, and she sold it again after her cat had kittens in it, and from there she lost track of it. The third house was possibly given to the daughter of Moore's good friend, author Adela Rogers St. Johns. The fourth survives and remains on display in the living room of a relative.

With the advent of talking pictures in 1929, Moore took a hiatus from acting. After divorcing McCormick in 1930, Moore married prominent New York-based stockbroker Albert Parker Scott in 1932. The couple lived at that time in a lavish home at 345 St. Pierre Road in Bel Air, where they hosted parties for and were supporters of the U.S. Olympic team, especially the yachting team, during the 1932 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.

In 1934, Moore, by then divorced from Albert Parker Scott, returned to work in Hollywood. She appeared in three films, none of which was successful, and Moore retired. Her last film was a version of The Scarlet Letter in 1934. She later married the widower Homer Hargrave and raised his children (she never had children of her own) from a previous marriage, with whom she maintained a lifelong close relationship. Throughout her life she also maintained close friendships with other colleagues from the silent film era, such as King Vidor and Mary Pickford.

In the 1960s, Moore formed a television production company with King Vidor with whom she had worked in the 1920s. She also published two books in the late 1960s, her autobiography Silent Star: Colleen Moore Talks About Her Hollywood (1968) and How Women Can Make Money in the Stock Market (1969). She also figures prominently alongside King Vidor in Sidney D. Kirkpatrick's book, A Cast of Killers, which recounts Vidor's attempt to make a film of and solve the murder of William Desmond Taylor. In that book, she is recalled as having been a successful real estate broker in Chicago and partner in the investment firm Merrill Lynch after her film career.

Many of Moore's films deteriorated, but not due to her own neglect, after she had sent them to be preserved at the Museum of Modern Art. Some time later, Warner Brothers asked for their nitrate materials to be returned to them. Moore's earlier First National films were also sent, since Warners later acquired First National. Upon their arrival, the custodian at MOMA, not seeing the films on the manifest, put them to one side and never went back to them. Many years later, Moore inquired about her collection and MOMA found the films languishing unprotected. When the films were examined, they had decomposed past the point of preservation. Heartbroken, she tried in vain to retrieve any prints she could from several sources without much success. In 1956, the material from WB and FN was sold to Associated Artists Productions, later to MGM/UA and then, Turner Entertainment.

At the height of her fame, Moore was earning $12,500 per week. She was an astute investor, and through her investments, remained wealthy for the rest of her life. In her later years she would frequently attend film festivals, and was a popular interview subject always willing to discuss her Hollywood career. She was a participant in the documentary series Hollywood (1980), providing her recollections of Hollywood's silent film era.

Moore was married four times. Her first marriage was to John McCormick of First National Studios. They married in 1923 and divorced in 1930. In 1932, Moore married stockbroker Albert P. Scott. This union ended in divorce in 1934. Moore's third marriage was to Homer Hargrave, whom she married in 1936; he provided funding for her dollhouse and she adopted his son, Homer Hargrave, Jr and his daughter, Judy Hargrave. They remained married until Hargrave's death in 1965. In 1982, Moore married her final husband, builder Paul Magenot. They were married until Moore's death in 1988.

On January 25, 1988, Moore died from cancer in Paso Robles, California, aged 88. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Colleen Moore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1551 Vine Street.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of her: "I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch. What little things we are to have caused all that trouble."

#colleen moore #silent era #silent hollywood #silent movie stars #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #golden age of hollywood #classic movie stars #classic hollywood #1930s hollywood #flapper #roaring 20s

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rubyjcat · 3 years

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[Behind-the-Scenes] HELIOS Rising Heroes: Animation Showcase

“HELIOS Rising Heroes: Animation Showcase” is an English voice fan project I worked on all by myself (barring voice actors) that took five months to make.

The original plan was to make just one video, but it ended up being eighteen of them!

Link to YouTube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UbdFyWSx0n_ewcd-t0iAB0adGe5lghH

In this write-up, I’ll be discussing details about the response to the project, recording all the footage, video editing, voice acting + audio processing, script translations + rewriting, which fonts were used, and even the emulator used. I’ve organized it into sections to make it easier to find certain things. Also, this is directed to English-speaking readers since I’m not gonna bother translating the entire thing to Japanese.

THE DREAM

I wanted to make this fandub ever since the game was released (in Aug 2020). I just knew that English voices would be extremely fitting to the world of HELIOS with a setting inspired by America and characters, places, and terms mostly in English. I was disappointed to hear that the studio behind the game, Cacalia Studio of Happy Elements K.K., had no interest to localize their games outside of Asia, which meant the chances of an English dub, let alone a global release were close to zero.

I was able to understand how to play the game thanks to the fan translators, some of which came from other Cacalia Studio games, and got inspired to continue learning Japanese (there was a previous attempt to translate Japanese lyrics years back).

What I thought was just the silly dream of one overseas player’s became something much more!

THE TIMELINE (BRIEF OVERVIEW)

I played the game for about two months prior to working on the project. Before starting the project, I had to sort out graphical and technical issues on my end first as I was unable to play the game smoothly until November.

November 2020

Finding all the in-game battle lines

Writing transliterations (romaji) of lines by ear

Learning and translating lines to Japanese

Started recording footage

December 2020

Further translation revisions

Held a casting call

Script rewriting and finalizing

January 2021

Completed casting

Started video editing (learning process)

Started audio processing

Recorded more footage

February 2021

Recorded more footage

Japanese script revisions

Finished working with VAs

Finished audio processing

Continued video editing

Published Preview video

March 2021

Recorded the last of the footage

Japanese subtitle revisions

Finished Showcase video

Finished Individual battle clips

Gave recommendations to VAs

The exact start and end dates were Nov 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2021. Pretty neat.

RESPONSE TO THE PROJECT

I was absolutely shocked with the response to the preview video, which at the time of writing has just hit 10K views and almost 600 likes on Twitter and YouTube combined. Not bad for an unpaid hobby fandub (a joke only I find funny...) of an otherwise “niche” Japanese-only mobile game.

As of Apr 4th, 2021 - Thank you so much. This is more than I could’ve asked for.

The preview video blew up way more than anticipated, setting up for a bit of disappointment when the Showcase video was released.

The amount of views I expected for this project within its prime were a couple hundred views, so I’m content that the Showcase video reached that amount (it had ~500 by the end of March).

The expectations for the battle clips were an average of 100 views and a handful of likes - and each one got roughly that amount (or more) - so I’m also content with that, especially for something that’s just “bonus material”.

I tried my best to promote this project on Twitter with three main tweets. My one regret with promoting the project was making the second tweet after publishing the Showcase because the Japanese I wrote there was pretty terrible (as I was all worn out from editing and was in a haste to tweet about it). I tried to make up for it in a follow-up reply the next day, but it was too late. I was satisfied with how my third and final tweet and thread of battle clips turned out, but it sadly didn’t garner much attention. A reason for this was probably due to bad timing. I knew that the timing of the last tweet was awful as HeliosR did something special for April Fools’ day, plus the Easter event was being hyped around the same time, but I really wanted to finish up the project within March (my timezone, at least. It was already April 1st in Japan).

It was important to also make the videos accessible to the Japanese audience as they were a large portion of the viewers. This proved to be a challenge as my knowledge of Japanese is limited - at least for me, it’s easier to translate grammar-correct Japanese than it is to write my own sentences.

I ultimately decided against posting any of the videos on NicoNico because I wasn’t sure about Japan’s laws regarding copyrighted material. I knew it was already risky enough posting on social media and didn’t want to take any additional risks.

ABOUT THE FOOTAGE (1) – HEROES & ATTACK ORDER

HeliosR uses a gacha system, so to be able to even make something like this, you’d first need access to all 16 ★4 OG Heroes in the game.

I had them spread across five different accounts, four of which were reroll accounts. Asakou from the Cacalia RPG server gave me two of those accounts, and I rerolled myself for Keith and Ren during their Birthday Orders (one free 10-pull per account). Every account is also given a free ★4 selector ticket which I made good use of.

3,000 rubies (in-game currency) were sacrificed to pity the ★4 OG Dino when he was released in December just for the sake of the fandub!

Besides covering all of the Heroes, I also needed to play through each account to unlock certain story chapters, event stages, and evolve the Heroes for their shiny evolved CG art. Some of the Expert event stages (that had the Nighttime backgrounds) proved difficult to clear with a new account.

When using skills, the order of the Heroes were edited such that everyone was able to have the majority of their lines used at least once. All Heroes had two “receiving support” lines, two or three “supporting” lines, and two or three “skills against the enemy” lines. Some of the extra lines didn’t make it into the Showcase, so they were used for the individual clips instead.

I should’ve used Gray instead of Marion for the account that had Billy because you can see Marion’s sprite in Billy’s image. xD

In the Showcase, you may notice that the "Union Attacks" consist of all the ★4 CG images. These were spliced together; I never had all four Heroes of the same sector on the same account. For example, I would have Gray, Asch, and Jay on one account and Billy on another account, recorded their ★4 Bursts separately using the same background (from unlocking the Expert stages on both accounts), and then edited all the footage together.

Jay’s Burst was later re-recorded with a different attacking order so that he wouldn’t link to Billy.

It was also important to keep the same order of Bursts as well as use all four Bursts in the same turn. The ★4 Burst order was usually determined by who didn’t link skill with one another (with the exception of East sector as I was still figuring things out) because I didn’t want the link skill activation getting in the way of the animations.

As a little bonus, I also showed off the exclusive damaging skills of the Chapter 6 and 7 ★4 frames that I was lucky enough to pull from the gacha: Marion’s "Invitation To The Dance“ (roses), Faith’s “Synthetic Vibes” (beats), and Dino’s “Crow Mark Dead End” (claw marks).

ABOUT THE FOOTAGE (2) - BACKGROUNDS

Since I didn’t want to use the same battle music and backgrounds for all of the videos, I decided to use some of the themes from the limited-time events which went as far back as Nov 2020.

Each background has three variants (Daytime, Afternoon, Nighttime) and so I carefully picked them based on the colours. I ended up using mostly Expert stages - or Nighttime backgrounds, since Daytime versions were only used for Normal difficulty stages (which are too easy to clear).

The backgrounds used for the Showcase, all from limited-time events.

I decided to mix up some of the Heroes from other sectors in the individual clips for fun, basing it off of their relationships with each other. Using South sector’s background for Gast’s clip was a purposeful choice because I already used the North sector’s background for the other three North sector Heroes. I made sure to include Akira and Will of the South sector in Gast’s clip so it didn’t feel too random!

The only default background I didn’t use was Chapter 2’s because I already made use of the Casino theme for OG West sector’s individual clips. (...Plus I didn’t really like that background :p)

Here’s a list of all the backgrounds I used:

Escape the Prison (Nov 2020) - used for Showcase [EAST]

Mission of CASINO (Nov 2020) - used for Junior, Faith, & Keith clips

HAPPY NEW YEAR SHOW! (Jan 2021) - used for Showcase [SOUTH]

Help! Cooking Hero! (Jan 2021) - used for Will and Oscar clips

A Sweet Spell Garnished With Chocolate (Feb 2021) - used for Showcase [WEST]

Grandiose Chinoiserie (Mar 2021) - used for Showcase [NORTH]

The Hero Is A Detective!? (Mar 2021) - used for Billy and Jay clips

Default backgrounds: Chapters 1, 3, 4 (shared with 7), 5 (shared with 6) - used for all other clips

The Christmas event was the only event that went unused during the Nov 2020 - Mar 2021 period.

I didn’t record the East sector event (Christmas) in Dec 2020 because I was actually too busy with the casting call! I also didn’t think I would make use of it after already recording the Prison event intended for East sector. The project ended up taking so long that it actually benefited from having a wider selection of events over the months, which also showcased the beauty of the game.

ABOUT THE WORK & VIDEO EDITING

Hardware:

A decent computer.

A pair of no-name earbuds I found while cleaning out some junk.

Software:

All FREE!

*There’s a catch

NoxPlayer* emulator (debloated, read more about in its own section) and Open Broadcast Studio were used to record game footage and sounds.

Davinci Resolve was the main tool I used to edit the videos. A very demanding program that I only recommend using if you have a mid to high end computer.

MediBang was used to edit some of the art like the logos, but I ended up using Resolve for the majority of the graphics, including the thumbnails.

Audacity and Cakewalk were used to edit audio.

Many aspects for this project took longer than I had hoped because there was a learning process with using Resolve for the first time. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist, re-exporting videos tons of times just to fix small mistakes. Lastly, the time it took to make all the fancy effects was longer than I’d estimated. As the project dragged on, there was pressure to not delay the release of the videos any longer than I had to. A lot of this was self-imposed though.

There were days where I just did something else other than work on the project, which helped re-fuel my motivation when I decided to pick it up again.

Pretty much everything in the videos were taken from the game itself. The only graphics that were taken from the official website instead were the Substance symbols (the pictures with HERO at the bottom).

Additional overlay graphics were custom-made. It took two whole days to make the 3-second long sector intros and another two days to create and animate the arrow graphics for the credits. These were made using Resolve’s fusion and colour features. Much of the edit was inspired by the official HeliosR designs.

Left: Official in-game graphics // Right: My fanmade video (sector intros)

Sector intros were inspired by the four Heroes version of Union Attacks in-game.

Left: Official HeliosR video // Right: My fanmade video

The Preview video took after the ★4 Burst mini-previews as part of HeliosR’s promotional campaign, uploaded before the game was released.

Left: Official HeliosR video // Right: My fanmade video

The credits at the end of the Showcase were inspired by a different video, this time being the Half-Anniversary video.

The Showcase - which had a duration of 29:07 - was 11.5GB large in size. It took almost three hours to render (which I re-rendered to fix things) and two DAYS to upload to YouTube because I experienced multiple uploading interruptions. It’s a good thing you can re-upload the same video to continue where you left off without having to restart the entire process.

The individual hero clips didn’t take as long to make (but they took a while anyway as I re-uploaded some of them to fix minor mistakes). The recommendations for the VAs that were given alongside the publishing of each clip also spanned over another five days as I wanted to personalize and think about each one carefully.

A pretty frustrating part of the project was the prevalent lag when recording footage, which may have been due to the emulator and/or some technical things on my end. The Prison event used for the Showcase was the very first one I recorded when I wasn’t as aware about the lag, and so it suffered a bit as a result. The Union Attacks were the worst offender. I re-recorded the same battle scenes several times each just in case, then went through the footage frame-by-frame in Resolve and chose the ones with the least amount of lag. If all of the recorded footage suffered lag at different parts, I would even compare and splice together parts of them that didn’t lag. There was also audio lag (a known issue of NoxPlayer) so I had to move all of the audio forward by 1/3 of a second.

By the end of the project I had over 200 videos of game footage with a total size of over 24GB and a total duration exceeding 9 hours, not even counting all the ones that went unused.

The Heroes weren’t the only ones who evolved. MS Paint not recommended for thumbnails.

Overall, (despite the few mistakes here and there that nobody other than me would notice) I was happy with how everything turned out, down to the gorgeous thumbnails! I am an artist, after all~ :^)

I also have much more respect for video editors. They should be called VIDEO ANIMATORS!

ABOUT THE VOICES & AUDIO PROCESSING

When making a dub, it doesn’t mean we want to replace or best the original language, we just want to give it a new interpretation. In fact, the characters’ voice descriptions and direction provided in the scripts were heavily inspired by the seiyuu (Japanese VAs) and how they performed their lines.

Honestly, this was THE dream cast!! Some of the VAs had comparably similar voices to the Japanese ones which was an amazing coincidence. The ones that may not have sounded as similar had unique interpretations that I felt still suited their characters well. I also chose actors based on their performance, and everyone delivered!

Voice actors were not expected to imitate the Japanese voices and lines. They were provided direction and reference videos to help time their lines, but were otherwise given liberty when it came to their own interpretations.

You shouldn’t hear any jarring differences between the voice actors’ microphones and setups. That’s because I took the time to process the audio. Faith’s audio was submitted to me post-processed so it was used as a guideline for what the audio quality should sound like. Some of the others had comparable quality to Faith’s, so I only added compression to balance their volumes. Most of them benefited from equalization of various levels - this took some experimenting back and forth with the frequency spectrum. Lastly, a couple more benefited from clip fixing, noise gate, de-essing and/or click removal. It was very important for VAs to have at least decent room treatment; while small differences between mic frequencies can always be altered, echoes are difficult if not impossible to remove completely.

I feel that audio engineering is highly underrated and more important than ever as voice actors continue to record from home studios.

And in case it wasn’t already clear, this was purely voluntary work. No VAs or myself were paid to contribute anything for the project. Though, the experience alone was worth more than any amount of money.

ABOUT THE SCRIPT & TRANSLATIONS

HELIOS Rising Heroes「エリオスR」English Translation - Battle Lines

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ImWrAfvS_hgp6qr5qt30vCP63uHEk2o79uqY0h-3wL4/edit?usp=sharing

This spreadsheet consists of the literal translations for all the battle lines I could find in the game (it still isn’t done -yet-, plan to finish it when I get the chance). These are only fanmade and are not guaranteed to be accurate, especially as I wasn’t able to find another translator to help or proofread it.

After translating the lines, I made many additional revisions from the literal meanings such as changing the intention of the line slightly to flow better, having extra words added in to provide more context, or changing them completely. Thus, the lines used in the video are NOT literal TLs!

Another thing of note that may not seem apparent, but is what I feel an important aspect of character writing, is to remain completely unbiased towards all the characters. Personal favourites aside, I ensured that every Hero had their own spotlight as well as lines written in a way that remained faithful to their personality, no matter how unlikeable they were (looking at you, Asch Albright).

Even after giving voice actors their scripts, I made another revision in February after the release of the aforementioned Half-Anniversary video with the transcriptions for the ★4 Bursts, which is when I discovered a couple of mistakes with my transcriptions. This resulted in me having to edit out a part of one of the voice actors’ lines (Billy’s “String Show” line in his ★4 Burst) because of a translation mistake! I’m really glad I was able to double-check the correct lines before releasing the Preview video, or it would’ve looked pretty silly to Japanese viewers.

The last set of revisions were just minor edits to the subtitles (such as using kanji instead of kana) while I was working on subtitling all the videos.

Notable changes included:

WILL SPROUT

During attacking combo

Original line:

tanonda zo... ike! / “Counting on you... Reach!”

Rewritten line:

“I’ll become stronger... For everyone!”

The rewritten line is a condensed version of one of Will’s ★4 Evolved CG lines (“For everyone... I’ll become more and more stronger!”). He had “Reach!” in both his attacking combo and regular Burst, so I gave him an extra unique line.

★4 Burst

Original line:

warui kedo... kore de oshimai da! / “Sorry, but... it ends with this!”

Rewritten line:

“I’m sorry, but... it’s over for you! HAAAH!”

There were a couple of oversights I made with the script, and this was one of them that didn’t fit the animation properly. Props to Ryan for coming up with the extra shout at the end! So yeah, we kinda winged this line.

OSCAR BALE

When using skills against the enemy, during attacking combo, and in the ★4 Burst (repeat line)

Original line:

osoi! / “Slow!”

Rewritten lines:

“Too slow!” / “You’re slow!” / “Over here!”

Rewritten simply because I wanted to minimize repeated lines and change things up.

GAST ADLER

When supporting an ally, and during attacking combo

Original lines:

tetsudau ze / “I’ll help (you).”

itchouagari / “All done.”

Rewritten lines:

“I’ve got your six.”

“Target eliminated.”

I wanted to add in a few military terms to reflect Gast’s background.

FAITH BEAMS

★4 CG line (for the credits)

Original line (literal TL):

“It’s not terrible or evil, right? Surely this isn’t punishing... I guess?”

Rewritten line (with “mistake”):

“I’m not doing anything horrible or evil, alright? This is just business as usual... I suppose?”

Faith’s CG line had a mistake when I first translated and handed it off to his actor. I accidentally wrote “oshigoto” (work/business) instead of “oshioki” (punishment). The original has him pretty much saying the same thing twice anyway, so I would say the intention was still retained.

KEITH MAX

When supporting an ally

Original line:

gambare yo~ / “Do your best~.” or “Hang in there~.”

Rewritten line:

“Stay alive, would ya~?”

I know Keith’s meant to say “serious” things in a sarcastic or snarky way, but I just had to add in this fun line!

DINO ALBANI

Using skills against the enemy

Original lines:

haa! / “Haah!”

hei! / “Hey!”

Rewritten lines:

“I can do this!”

“Leave it to me!”

The Japanese lines for Dino’s offensive skills were rather basic, with the third and unchanged line “Here goes!” being a repeat line Dino also says when attacking. I wanted to give him some more lines - as standard as they are - to show his personality a bit more, along with having an additional fun West sector interaction. The changes fit the animations better too. (I actually had his VA say the "Haah!" line, but ended up using a different take of “Here goes!” in place of it.)

ABOUT THE FONTS

Fonts were taken from various sources and were either FREE for personal use or had an open font license. I didn’t have access to the commercial fonts (such as Futura) used in-game, so these were the following fonts I made use of:

Techna Sans looked similar enough to Futura when capitalized, and still looked decent in lowercase.

Jost* is a font that was derived from Futura. Some of its uppercase letters are sharper than Futura's, but it worked pretty well for the text in the credits.

Gau Font Over Drive was used for the ANIMATION SHOWCASE text.

Gen Jyuu Gothic LP was used for the majority of the Japanese text and its English letters were also used for the battle clip subtitles on Twitter.

Meiryo UI (default font) was used for the Preview videos’ subtitles.

Noto Serif JP (default Google font) was used for the serif Japanese text in the credits.

ABOUT NOXPLAYER ANDROID EMULATOR

ETA: AS OF VERSION 1.1.18 (04/23/21), EMULATORS NO LONGER WORK WITH HELIOSR (AS WELL AS OTHER CACALIA STUDIO GAMES). THE BELOW INFORMATION IS OUTDATED.

If, for whatever reason you’re interested in using NoxPlayer, you should take caution when installing it onto your machine. I don’t advocate for or recommend installing Nox. I had to resort to emulation so that I could record the footage and sounds directly from my computer using OBS. The reason why I used Nox specifically is because Cacalia Studio doesn’t like emulators, blocking most of them from running their games. I found further instructions on how to run the game in Nox from the Cacalia RPG Discord (via Twitter @HeliosR_en).

First, not all Nox versions are safe. It should only be installed from the official website, Bignox. More recent versions (I believe from 6.3.0.6 and up) may contain malware such as Segurazo and Chromium packaged with the installer which can be annoying to remove. The version of Nox I used was 6.3.0.0 (you can install older versions, then just don’t update it), which has Android 7 and doesn’t contain packaged malware (AFAIK).

Second, NoxPlayer may be “free” to use, but it comes with bloatware and profits off of its users’ data by collecting and sending it to many different servers. The below guide is what I used to debloat Nox and minimize communication to these servers. Scroll down the comments for additional domains to add to the hosts file.

Debloating & Optimizing Nox:

https://gist.github.com/Log1x/12d330ef7685d6fbc611d1d57efb5c29

This is another good guide that makes use of command prompt to remove additional bloatware from the emulator.

How to Remove Bloatware on Nox and LDPlayer Emulator:

https://codefaq.org/emulator/how-to-remove-bloatware-on-nox-and-ldplayer-emulator/

ENDING NOTES (TL;DR)

Images of the first and last video for the HeliosR project. We’ve come full circle!

One very tired and average person decided to translate, script, cast, direct, and edit an ambitious project all by herself using only FREE tools, and ended up taking too long to finish it. But at least she finished it, right?

Translators = RESPECT

Voice actors = RESPECT

Video editors = RESPECT

Audio engineers = R E S P E C T (their work is especially behind-the-scenes)

Hell, I even like Asch now.

During my time working on this, there was one question I always had in mind: “What would the fans want?”

I hope this follow-up has given you a bit of insight into the makings of the HeliosR project. Thank you for reading!

~RubyJCat

#heliosr #helios rising heroes #animation showcase #english #fandub #dub #voice #voices #voice acting #fanmade #fan #behind the scenes #my projects #english translation

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v8pontiacgirl · 3 years

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04July2021

I’m still in shock that issues are likely caused by horrible allergies that are likely caused by mold in my house. Due to memory issues, I decided to make a timeline of the last six years, when this started.

September 2015–moved into the house. I was working full time, going to school full time and experiencing allergy issues, such as a sore throat, headaches, and very dry eyes (to the point that I was no longer able to wear my contacts). I actually kept getting allergic conjunctivitis, so I switched to my glasses full time. I’d been able to wear contacts for about 15 years without issues prior to this.

February 2016–injured my knee and found out I had a discoid lateral meniscus with a tear that was hanging up in my knee joint. It took months to get any kind of relief for my knee because the tear didn’t initially show up on the MRI, and because discoid meniscus issues usually show up earlier in life if they are going to be a problem, I wasn’t taken seriously. During this time, I was having issues working because of pain and inability to walk. Also started having more issues with being harassed at work by coworkers. I began to work less and less until I finally quit in September. I had already finished out school in June. I would have had to transfer to a community college two hours away to continue my degree in the fall, and since my knee was being problematic, I decided to hold off.

October 2016–Had my knee surgery. About a week or two afterwards, I got my first vertigo spell (although I didn’t realize it was vertigo at the time). This would become the first of many instances that I would deal with “flares” that would make functioning very difficult for me.

October 2016-March 2017–Some days were better than others. I went to the doctor and blood work and many tests were done. My thyroid levels fluctuated a little, but ultimately seemed ok eventually. Everything else looked normal, except my white blood cell count was always elevated. I was told I was perfectly healthy. The dizziness? It was POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a chronic illness that I had been diagnosed with in 2005 that honestly had never given me too many issues in the past, as long as I stayed hydrated and ate salty foods. I was given some common POTS meds to help me retain water, but, as medications typically do not agree with me, I had too many side effects and was unable to take them.

April 2017-August 2017–I’d been feeling better for about a month (since March), and I was anxious to be back in school. Culinary school had caught my eye a few months prior, so I signed up for the spring cohort. I was in the evening cohort, and I was realizing that my allergies were being aggravated by *something*, so my mornings from 7am to noon were spent cleaning, and from noon to about 8pm, were spent at school. I was able to complete two terms of culinary school. There was to be about a little over a month break from the middle of August to the end of September before fall term began. I went to California in August after finishing Summer term for a few days to visit friends. After returning, I started to feel like I was going into another “flare”. Gradually, my health got worse and worse.

September 2017-February 2018–by the end of September, when it was time to go back to culinary school, I was bedridden. The vertigo was so bad that I was unable to do anything except remain horizontal. For about six months again, my health was unbearable and I was unable to function.

March-April 2018–I finally began to feel a little better in March and April (also around the time when I started to get outside to do more garden things), and decided that I would try to go back to culinary school for summer term (the cohorts had changed because of a new director, and so there were classes I could take toward my degree). It’s really interesting that my heath was generally better the more I was able to get out of the house.

June 2018-August 2018—I was doing a lot of outdoor garden things in the afternoons and going to school for several hours every morning. I was even hired to help cater a wedding in August. My health seemed mostly under control, with only minor symptoms.

September 2018-December 2018—The end of September, I began my fourth term of culinary school. I also joined the culinary team, so pretty much all of my time was spent at school, even most of December, when the other students went home for break, I stayed at school trying to perfect my dish for competition. I was fatigued, but my health was mostly stable.

January 2019–After a *very* brief break, I was back in school for one whole day of winter term. I was definitely feeling fatigued because I hadn’t really gotten a break (and probably, in hindsight, because my allergies had really worn me down, too), and I was told by the coach that he was kicking me off the team because he was concerned my health problems would hold the team back, and he wanted to win. My health had not been an issue that he had seen at all, but he just thought it was too much of a risk to keep me. If I wouldn’t have disclosed that I had health problems when I tried out for team, I don’t think this would have happened. Anyway, I was pretty angry, especially after all the time I’d put in. Since the coach was also the director of the school, and there had also been an issue with the instructor quitting and a new instructor having to take over at the end of the last term, I decided that this culinary school really wasn’t worth my time or money any longer, so I quit. Immediately after, I bought the rest of the books that I would have needed for school and began to teach myself techniques with sugar and chocolate. I decided I was going to start focusing more seriously on Spoon Life Bakery, my cottage bakery business that I had started in July 2017.

February 2019-March 2020—I was the most busy I’d been in a while. Garden projects, baking projects, and painting projects took up all my time. From August 2019 to the beginning of March 2020, I was more busy than I wanted to be with my short lived restaurant project. The restaurant actually opened in October, but there was a lot of prep work prior. All of this kept me out of the house for most of the day. I was exhausted, but not symptomatic. Basically, during this time period, I was either outside, or at another location for the majority of the time. During the rainy months (December 2019-March 2020), the basement of the house flooded. It had always been musty and damp down there, but it had never flooded like that.

March-May 2020—I closed the restaurant in March, and began to be at home a lot more often. I started going hard with Spoon Life Bakery again, baking out of my home kitchen. I got back into Jiu Jitsu. I was doing ok, but by May, I started to feel like something wasn’t right again.

May-December 2020—My health “flared” a little during this time. It wasn’t as bad overall as it had been, but some days were better than others. Some days the vertigo made me bedridden. It was unpredictable. In May, I had to quit Jiu Jitsu again because I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t have the stamina to keep doing it.

January-May 2021–I’d had enough descent days that I decided to try to try to go back to Jiu Jitsu, or rather, a self defense class based on Jiu Jitsu. This class ran twice a week through March, and I was able to keep up and not miss a class. The basement flooded again, so we moved the dehumidifier into the storage room where the majority of the water was coming in. After self defense was over, I started regular jiu jitsu again in April, but felt much more exhausted than usual. My vertigo was getting worse to the point that it was always present. I took a break from Jiu Jitsu again in May.

May-June 2021—My throat was so sore, that I thought I had tonsillitis. My left ear was plugged. I felt like I was getting sick with some sort of virus, except it went on for weeks without getting better. I saw an ENT in mid June. He thought maybe I had Meniere’s, but didn’t officially diagnose me, since I needed to get a hearing test, which is scheduled for this month, and at the time of writing this has not happened yet. Other than that, he didn’t see anything else that alerted him. Soon after, I began to get very sick with horrible vertigo. I was bedridden again.

July 2021–Until the 2nd, I was in an absolutely horrible flare that had lasted without relief for about two weeks. I was convinced that this was just my life now, and in desperation, I called the doctor. She told me to come in that same day. Normally, I don’t leave the house when I’m feeling my worst. I had to keep laying down at the doctor’s because my vertigo was so bad. The doctor performed her usual tests, and looked in my nose. She informed me that it was very inflamed and swollen and she wasn’t sure how I was able to breathe out of it. I admitted that every morning, my nose is stuffed up pretty badly. She prescribed the Montelukast, that I’m unable to take because of side effects, and told me that she really thinks that allergies are causing my vertigo because the ear nose and throat are all connected. At first, I was discouraged with this diagnosis, because I felt like she was brushing off my symptoms. *Just* allergies?! I couldn’t believe allergies could cause such severe symptoms.

We made a few more stops after visiting the doctor, and when I’d been out of the house for about an hour and a half, I miraculously started feeling a little better. What?? Was the doctor right? I knew my house was probably triggering my allergies, but I didn’t think it was *that* bad.

Getting out of the house for two hours brought me out of one of my worst flairs. I’m now about 99.9% that mold in my house, specifically the basement, is making me sick. I’m going to keep testing this to be sure, but I’m now filled with some hope that I may be able to lead a much less depressing life. Time will tell.

#allergies #chronic illness #mold is bad #allergies are no joke

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starryrainy · 4 years

Text

Black or White Week Challenge Day 4

Argument (1)

!!!ANGST WARNING!!!!

*Continue reading Misty’s notebook. *

M. 1 May, 201X

The experiment begin. I asked Undyne to raised her bar of the training lessons for the twins and behaved more strictly than usual. As for me, I focused my attention more on White than Black. Just what I thought, White appeared to be very upset on the first day. He failed the lessons while Black got a full mark. There is no doubt that his fighting skills is inferior to Black’s. Hang in there, child. I promise this will not last long.

M. 5 May, 201X

King Asgore recently has been asking about that thing again. As soon as he left, I called my assistants bringing the blueprint to my lab. Although it was just a concept and Asgore kept telling me not to rush it, we have to work on it. After all, a King’s demand cannot be postponed.

M. 1 June, 201X

While working on the blueprint, I discovered that extracting a soul from a living monster would require incredible power. Simply casting magic spells on it will instantly destroyed the soul’s host. Unlike human souls, monsters faced upon death by turning into dust......hope the blueprint I designed can resolve this problem.

M. 15 June, 201X

I have been researching humans to see if I can find any information about their souls. I ended up wandering in the castle. Except finding some useful books in the royal bookshelves, I found some weird tapes in the drawers.

......

......I do not think King Asgore should watch them......neither do I.

M. ?? September, 201X

*You found it difficult to read the words in this page*

I finally finished the blueprint. Usi-......soul from my dear human friend...... extracted successfully, but......went wrong......blast......assistants......ded gone...... a failure......frustrated......manage to get the soul back......damaged......

......I happened to met Black in the lab......not sure why he is here......fishy.

M. ?? October, 201X~M. ?? November, 201X

*Most of the words were written in a bunch of hand gestures, you cannot understand*

ＦＡＩＬＵＲＥ＠％︿＆＊＿｛｝﹀ＢＰ＋＄＆)＊！＃......

M. ?? December, 201X~M. ?? February, 201X

*The pages have been torn off*

M. 21 March, 201X

It took me a very long while to come to my senses. The pages had been torn off owing to my frustrations. I could hardly remember what I have done in those months by examining the previous notes. The only thing I am certain is all of my assistants had died during the extraction. Except Alphys, she did not participate on that day since she was looking for some parts for Mettaton in the Trash Zone.

I need to repair the machine right away.

M. 10 April, 201X

Almost done repairing the machine.

I noticed White had acted quite different......He used to smile and draw a lot, but recently I found his notebook and stationary were dumped in the trashcan......I asked him why did he do this, he said nothing. All I can see is sadness and fear in his eyes.

I think I had forgot something important. However, I could not remember it.

M. 25 April, 201X

I have never given the twins a proper name. However, many monsters started calling them White-out and Black-out. Asking for reasons, most of them answered that recently "White-out" had become shy and cool while "Black-out" was growing optimistic and out-going, it was getting harder to recognize them only based on their personalities and the color of their clothes. Therefore, monsters simply added a "-out" to distinguish the difference from each other.

Although I said nothing much at that time, I strongly dislike it...... Just like how they called me "Misty" instead of my true name......

M. 5 May, 201X

I was surprised to see River Person, the fortune teller, showed up at my house this morning. It warned me that there is trouble looming on the horizon. If I do not want to reach a bad ending, I should change my mind and take actions immediately before it happened.

......This is the second time it warned me, which gives me a bad feeling.

M. 13 May, 201X

......

The pillars that sealed demon Xorzhir underneath were destroyed.

All the efforts contributed by the savior and countless warriors were in vain.

Now monster will suffer from endless destruction once again.

I was mad. I was driven by depression.

Since White has been labeled as a bad kid for a unknown reason, and Black said that he is the one who broke the pillar spell, I took action without thinking even further.

I have never hurt my child like this. I overreacted.

“......Why can’t you just......listen to me?”

“......”

“I don’t wanna be in this family anymore!!!”

White left while tossing his heart locket on the ground.

Later, Black came to apologize. He admitted that he threw White at the pillars during the fight, so he should be responsible for the broken pillars.

But he lied to me at the very first moment.

......

......White is not that kind of monster......I should have thought twice.

I have made a BIG mistake.

*This is the end of the notebook.*

=‘D

Finally finished this part! woooo!!

#Black or White challenge #Day 4 #undertale au #greytale #drawing #alphys #Misty #white-out #Black-out

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

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ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Why the Crumbling Computer Conspiracy Case Is So Vital to the US

Since the U.S. is on shaky constitutional ground with the espionage indictment, the computer intrusion charge has served as a hook to try to get Assange, by portraying him not as a journalist, but as a hacker, writes Cathy Vogan.

While most of the talk about the Julian Assange case is about the espionage charges, which are political in nature, the U.S. case hangs by a thread for the second time on the non-political charge: conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

There is a reason why the computer charge is so vital to the U.S. case. Charging a journalist with espionage for unauthorized possession and dissemination of defense information has been possible since 1917, but it runs the risk of violating the First Amendment.

The tradition has been instead to charge leakers and hackers for breach of an oath, contract or firewall. The legal and public perception of hacking is that it is much like burglary; something generally feared and whose punishment by the state is not subject to political debate or opposing laws; but rather welcomed. The intrusion charge shifts public and legal perception.

That’s why the U.S. prosecutor, James Lewis QC, on the opening day of Assange’s extradition hearing in February 2020 turned to the press in the courtroom and told them journalism was not the target of the U.S. prosecution. He said Assange was not a journalist and instead had participated in the theft of government documents. In other words: he’s not a journalist like you, but a hacker.

This distinction was spelled out by none other than the current president of the United States when he was vice president in December 2010. He told television interviewer David Gregory:

“If he conspired to get these classified documents, with a member of the U.S. military, that’s fundamentally different than if someone drops on your lap [reaches out to news anchor and slaps table], Here David, you’re a press person. Here is classified material.”

https://youtu.be/nF8WRFw5sHQ

Declined to Indict

Unable to come up with that proof, the Obama-Biden administration declined to indict Assange in 2011. The New York Times had published many of the same WikiLeaks documents that Assange had, so logically, the Times would be just as guilty of violating the Espionage Act.

Indicting Assange and the Times would be a clear conflict with the First Amendment. But if it could be proven he was a hacker, and not just a journalist, that would have opened the way to indicting Assange, Joe Biden said.

Faced with this same dilemma, the U.S. bolstered its Espionage Act indictment of Assange with seperate charges for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The indictment was marked SEALED but then “Filed in Open Court” on March, 8, 2018, almost a full year before Assange was arrested, April 11, 2019. On that day the computer intrustion indictment was unveiled to the public.

We have known since 2012 of a grand jury investigation into “conspiracy to communicate or transmit national defense information”. A former lawyer for Assange, the late Michael Ratner, explained the middle section of a code (11-3/ 10GJ3793/ 11-937) marked on a subpoena related to the investigation: “10 is the year it began; GJ is grand jury; 3 is the conspiracy statute in the US and 793 is the espionage statute.” The grand jury was investigating conspiracy in 2010, as Biden had suggested that December, in an effort to portray the Australian journalist as a non-passive recipient of the classified information he published.

https://youtu.be/Yd7qxWma9CQ

The “hacking” indictment that was issued on the day of his arrest argues in strained language that Assange had conspired with his source, Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, to illegally obtain defense information. The indictment, however, admits Manning had security clearances to legally access the material.

The charge of conspiracy with Manning hangs solely on evidence that appeared at Manning’s court marshal, a chat log between Nobody [Manning] and someone with the moniker Nathaniel Frank. That Manning was seeking help with a password hash from Frank has been held up as the evidence of conspiracy.

In the computer intrusion indictment of Assange, the U.S. claims:

“Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a usemame [sic] that did not belong to her. Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.”

This argument was seriously undermined on Day 14 of the September extradition hearing when forensic examiner Patrick Eller offered his expert testimony for the defense on the Manning conspiracy theory.

Eller said the U.S. couldn’t prove, nor was he asked to prove, that the moniker Manning was conversing with was Assange. And Manning’s top secret access was only permitted on her login, for which she had the password. Logging in as another “usemame”, meant she would have been locked out.

Nor would logging in as another user have given Manning anonymity, as the government alleges, since the physical IP address of the terminal was recorded, regardless of who was logged in. From the Manning court-marshal, it emerged that the government knew who was on shift at the time. In light of Eller’s testimony, the U.S. scenario of Assange’s conspiracy with Manning was shown to be unfeasible.

The U.S. had heard earlier from the defense in February 2020 that Manning’s purpose was probably to install video games, films and music videos on the lads’ computers, which were forbidden to those on active duty. Eller testified to the same.

According to what Biden said in 2011, it was imperative for the U.S. to keep alive this apparently ‘minor’ computer charge that carries a maximum of five years in prison, compared to 170 years under the espionage charges. But it isn’t minor. It is the hook that enables the charges of espionage, it smears Assange and it drives a wedge between him and support from an increasingly nervous mainstream media.

The Second Superseding Indictment

In June 2020, the Trump Department of Justice, apparently unsure that the computer intrusion charge in relation to Manning was strong enough to portray Assange as a hacker, issued a second superseding indictment that relied on the testimony of a WikiLeaks volunteer and later FBI informant, who said Assange had directed him to conduct hacking operations.

This evidence was apparently obtained by the FBI in 2011 when the witness was one of its informants. But it was not revisited until the Trump DOJ offered the witness immunity sometime in 2019, likely after the April 2019 issuing of the first computer indictment, which did not contain his testimony. It appeared first in the second superseding indictment of June 2020.

That the evidence did not appear in the first indictment might indicate its unreliability, because the key witness has now recanted the testimony in an interview last month with the Icelandic publication Stundin.

Sigurdur Thordarson’s testimony was mentioned 22 times without question in the Magistrate’s Jan. 4 ruling against extraditing Assange, which the U.S. is now appealing. The UK court was not made aware of the identity and criminal history of the witness referred to as ‘Teenager’ in the second superseding indictment.

Thordarson’s chat logs not only negate those points of fact; they accord with what the Minister of the Interior of Iceland, Ögmundur Jónasson said, and recently told Consortium News:

“[The FBI] were in Iceland, to try to frame WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in particular. Now these are serious allegations, but I choose my words very, very carefully. Because I knew this from first-hand; from within the Icelandic administration. They were told that the idea was to use Sigurdur Thordarson, an Icelandic citizen, as an entrapment to contact Julian Assange and involve him in a criminal case, to be used later in the United States. This I know for certain, and I have stated this time and again, in February 2014, before 2013. I said before the Icelandic Foreign Affairs Committee and the Icelandic parliament, where this was discussed, and this in fact is not disputed. This is what happened.”

https://youtu.be/0auN8LnQDjQ

The FBI had resorted to working with Thordarson, a diagnosed sociopath and convicted fraudster, thief and pedophile. Stundin pointed out that his chat logs also revealed FBI grooming and conspiracy in the fabrication of false testimony.

Back to Biden

During Assange’s hearing last September, after numerous defense witnesses piled on evidence that indeed Assange was engaging in journalistic activity, prosecutor Lewis changed course and ultimately admitted to the court, that yes, he may have been practicing journalism, but the Espionage Act doesn’t make a distinction for journalists. Assange had unauthorized possession and disseminated defense information, and that was that.

With the recanting of Thordarson’s testimony, and the weakness of the conspiracy allegation with Manning, the U.S. is back to what Biden said when was vice president: that Assange is a journalist who was merely doing his job by receiving state secrets, pretty much in his lap.

If Assange is extradited to stand trial in the U.S., what would happen if the computer intrusion charge collapses? It would leave the U.S. with only the political charges and Assange in the same legal state as other publishers of the same material, protected by the First Amendment.

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nicolasnelson · 4 years

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Sebastian’s Backstory (Analysis)

From 2x09 I think we can piece together some of Sebastian’s backstory. So here is my very long analysis/recap on what we know about Sebastian’s backstory and what parts I think are the truth and what parts are lies.

CHILDHOOD (1570s-1580s)

At 8 years old, Sebastian’s parents sold him to merchant ship. This suggests he grew up in a poor family and probably didn’t have much of a childhood to begin with.

Sebastian continuously ran away from the ship, but the crew always found him. He was either really bad at running away, or the crew had a few supernatural members on board who could track him. Werewolves or vampires could do it by scent. Witches could do it by using an object he owned.

They punished him, likely with some form of torture, perhaps magical in nature. This happened repeatedly over the years, likely at every port they visited.

When Sebastian was 17, he was turned into a vampire. This was after 9 years of being enslaved to this merchant ship. It’s quite possible he found a way to convince someone to turn him into a vampire so he could fight back.

Sebastian likely slaughtered his entire crew and took over the ship. He became a pirate and killed so much that he gained the nickname “Sebastian the Merciless.” His ship flew the pirate flag, black with a white skull and crossbones.

He added other vampires to his crew and they went searching for things to steal or people to attack (Alaric calls them marauding vampire pirates). He would have needed some non-vampires to man the ship during the day, probably a witch or two on board.

ROANOKE (1587-1590)

His ship came to the Colonies (America) and he stopped at Roanoke. It is likely he met Cassandra there since she was involved with the townspeople and subject to their rules.

In Roanoke, Sebastian continued to be a monster. He still fed on humans while he fell in love with Cassandra. She obviously saw some good in him because she protected him from the town leadership, even going so far as to summon a monster worse than him so the town wouldn’t discover him.

Cassandra desiccated him to save him from the monster she summoned, and he watched from a spectral state as she was torn apart by the monster. She left the token that could destroy the monster around his neck in his coffin.

Somehow his coffin was moved from Roanoke to Mystic Falls. It’s unclear why it was in the basement of the Salvatore school or how long it has been there.

Sebastian claims to have been in that coffin for 483 years. Judging by his backstory, I think he is lying. He was likely a vampire for at least a few years before he was desiccated. I find it unlikely he became a vampire, formed a vampire pirate crew, and fell in love with a witch all in the span of one year, especially considering how much longer it took to sail on the ocean in that time period. But it is still possible that he was indeed desiccated at 17. We can only guess whether he was telling the truth or not. (I did the math, and if Sebastian really was desiccated in Roanoke, he would have only been desiccated for a maximum of 440 years.)

AWAKENING (September 2028)

MG and Kaleb splashed some blood onto Sebastian’s coffin while they were moving the blood fountain. It was enough to allow Sebastian to reach out to someone “fragile minded.” He chose Lizzie for unknown reasons.

Continuously, he warns her he is dangerous while flirting with her. He is definitely saying the right things to get close to her, and when they go on their date, he asks for what he needs. I think it’s important to note that he asks her if she has a supply of human blood and does not ask her to give him any of her blood. She probably would have if he’d asked, but he does not want to harm her or accidentally kill her if he drinks too much.

MG interrupts and tells Lizzie she’s seeing things, thereby breaking Lizzie’s connection to Sebastian, so Sebastian reaches out to MG.

MG won’t help him, so Sebastian takes advantage of Wade. It’s important to note that he doesn’t kill Wade. The Sebastian of the past would have killed him without a thought, but Sebastian of the present lets him go once he has enough blood to restore himself.

Sebastian lurks around the school and tries to attack Kym in the woods, but MG and Kaleb stop him.

When the Croatoan is on the loose, Sebastian offers MG sensitive information about his past to help them defeat it. He could have let the Croatoan wipe everyone out, or withheld the information until many more were slaughtered, but he gave MG the information as soon as he remembered it. He specifically mentioned that he didn’t want Lizzie to be killed by the monster.

Vardemus meets with Sebastian and decides he should be enrolled in the school to keep him from attacking people on the streets. Since this is Clarke, he may have had other plans for Sebastian, but we can’t know what that might have been.

THE SALVATORE SCHOOL (October-December 2028)

Lizzie makes Sebastian a daylight ring so that he can go pick up Landon with her. Sebastian says he wants to drink human blood, and Lizzie tries to ditch him on the side of the road.

Sebastian kills Landon. I fully believe that someone has told him that Landon is a phoenix and will come back to life if he’s killed. He was likely curious to see how that worked and probably did it mostly to annoy Lizzie. Landon wasn’t threatening Lizzie when it happened, and Sebastian isn’t just going to snap someone’s neck for no reason (at least not now).

Sebastian is charged with changing out the flat tire, even though he’s never done that before. He somehow manages to do it, but now that we know he worked on a ship, that kind of handy work wouldn’t be too bad for him.

Lizzie is not accepting his advances, so he reminds her he’s dangerous and grabs her neck. His gamble succeeds and she’s into the idea of danger. Sebastian and Lizzie have sex on the hood of her car.

Sebastian admits that the world has been cruel to him and that he wants to stay at the Salvatore school.

Sebastian and Lizzie have a lot of sex back at the Salvatore school, and they make out in the hallways. It’s safe to say the whole school, minus the teachers, know that she and Sebastian are kind of a thing.

Alaric tells Sebastian that he’ll have to pass some tests if he is to stay at the school. He has Landon administer the tests because he will come back to life if Sebastian kills him.

Sebastian makes an effort with the werewolves.

Sebastian recognizes that Alyssa set a trap for him by cutting herself on purpose. He has incredible self control. Literally every other vampire in the room has red eyes and fangs bared, but Sebastian is completely calm the whole time.

Sebastian helps calm down MG when MG’s ripper side takes over. He didn’t need to do this, but he obviously cares about MG enough to stop him from making a huge mistake. He knows about rippers and has likely seen some in his time.

Sebastian warns Landon that he should be worrying about MG and Alyssa instead of him.

Landon takes Sebastian to see the witches. Alyssa tries to get him to fail the tests again by using her magical orb to read his deepest feelings. It’s pretty clear that he’s hoping Alyssa will see how much he desires Lizzie and get embarrassed by his feelings. Instead she sees the truths he can’t even admit to himself yet. 1) The modern world is terrifying, 2) He’s afraid they won’t let him stay at the school, 3) He’s afraid they’ll find out about his past and throw him away “like trash off the side of a boat.” Alyssa’s word choice here makes me wonder if the feelings orb revealed anything about his piratey past. And then lastly, 4) He knows Lizzie is better than him and that he doesn’t deserve her.

Sebastian reacts badly, throwing Landon off of him, and then the witches use a spell on him. Lizzie stops them, and Sebastian looks genuinely terrified. He runs from them, embarrassed and wounded. I think what Alyssa said served as a big wakeup call to him. He has a past that he can’t escape, and he’s afraid that he will end up hurting Lizzie.

Sebastian works out his frustrations by practicing his sword work in the gym. Landon comes to talk to him. Sebastian opens up to him about his past on the merchant ship and how he was tortured.

Sebastian leaves campus and feeds on a girl jogging outside at night. Alaric has followed him and shoots him with a crossbow. I fully believe Sebastian knew Alaric was following him. He lured Alaric away from the campus to get him to stop him.

Alaric has discovered Sebastian is “Sebastian the Merciless,” a vampire pirate, but he’s still willing to give Sebastian a second chance. Sebastian could easily take this chance. He could act grateful and get the chance to stay at the school and sleep with Lizzie to his heart’s content. A true villain would accept that offer.

But Sebastian claims he’s controlling Lizzie and that he’s had sex with her all around the school. He says things that target Alaric’s anger. He’s goading him into attacking him. I fully believe Sebastian wanted to die to protect Lizzie. He felt that his past was too much to overcome and that she would be better off without him.

Alaric temporarily locks Sebastian up. Either Emma got a last minute flight or Alaric anticipated this happening and had her on standby. Emma helps to lock Sebastian in the prison world the twins made for Kai.

THE PRISON WORLD (February 17, 2018 - prison worlds run on a loop)

Sebastian encounters Alaric, Josie, and Lizzie in the prison world. He clearly knows that Alaric has sent multiple students to the prison world because he says “The miseducation of young minds.”

TL;DR - Sebastian has killed many people, but he is capable of love. He’s willing to sacrifice himself to protect Lizzie. Basically, there’s a lot more to Sebastian than we’re seeing.

[Updated 1/29/20]

#legacies #legacies meta #sizzie #sebastian the merciless #lizzie saltzman #who knew i would be writing legacies meta #under the cut bc it got really long

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nerianasims · 3 years

Text

Billboard #1s 1976

Under the cut.

Bay City Rollers – “Saturday Night” -- January 3, 1976

They prove they can spell Saturday a lot. Anyway, he's going out to dance with his girl on Saturday night. The song is bouncy to a fault -- I feel like the repetitive, samey beat is following one of those balls the mind-controlled kids bounced in A Wrinkle in Time. It sounds like a cheerleading chant. Something to do aerobics to, not to dance to.

C.W. McCall – “Convoy” -- January 10, 1976

So, besides the cb radio fad, 1976 was also the year of the OPEC oil crisis and basically, it seems the reason truckers became folk heroes evading The Man in popular consciousness had its roots in international relations. Anyway, it's a baritone story song, but about truckers instead of cowboys. I like the verse, "Well, we shot the line and we went for broke/ With a thousand screamin' trucks/ An' eleven long-haired Friends o' Jesus/ In a chartreuse micro-bus." It's a silly song with a lot of trucker lingo (or fake trucker lingo, idk), and I don't exactly dislike it, but I'm not gonna listen to it again either.

Barry Manilow – “I Write The Songs” -- January 17, 1976

It's obvious from the first lines "I've been alive forever/ And I wrote the very first songs" that Barry's not singing about himself. It turns out "music" wrote the all the songs. Except that's obnoxious too. People wrote the songs. Also possibly birds, but definitely people. And it's musical goo.

Diana Ross – “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” -- January 24, 1976

It's a song about regretting letting an ex go, and probably more. There's a ton of orchestration that sounds like it belongs in a lightweight movie, and Diana Ross doesn't put much emotion into it. It is a thoughtful song, rather than one calling for melodrama, but I would like to hear some emotion here, and I am not getting it. A trifle light as air.

Ohio Players – “Love Rollercoaster” -- January 31, 1976

It's a funk/disco thing. I've listened to it three times trying to get anything from it at all. The lyrics are dumb, asserting love is like this or that amusement park experience. I'd think "love rollercoaster" would be about how there are huge highs and terrifying lows, but it's not. It's horribly repetitive. I guess it's danceable. But I find it dull.

Paul Simon – “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” -- February 7, 1976

I love how pared down this song is. It's sort of funky, without all the funk orchestration. The simple drums are the main focus. The melody's also simple, without being dull. And the lyrics aren't complex; a woman is encouraging the narrator to leave his official lover for her. "Just get yourself free." But she's doing it so very nicely -- "I wish there were something I could do to make you smile again." Not that the song expects us to believe she or the narrator actually are nice. Or that it's really all that easy to leave your lover. But it doesn't tell you what to think about the situation either. An excellent song.

Rhythm Heritage – “Theme From S.W.A.T.“ -- February 28, 1976

Apparently, there was a TV show about S.W.A.T., and this was its instrumental theme song. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Not a good TV theme either. I looked up 1976 shows, and here are some shows with better TV themes from that year: Charlie's Angels, Alice, M*A*S*H, Happy Days (which surprisingly only hit #5), All in the Family, Barney Miller, Welcome Back Kotter (which hit #1 later), The Jeffersons (that Movin' On Up doesn't seem to have been a hit is shocking), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Sanford and Son, The Bob Newhart Show... look, all of them. All shows in 1976 that I can find had better theme songs than S.W.A.T., often to a staggering degree. But songs don't reach #1 for being good. Still, usually I can hazard a reason for them. I can't for this one.

The Four Seasons – “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” -- March 13, 1976

It's about the narrator getting laid for the first time. He didn't even know the name of the woman, which completely undercuts anything happy or fun about this song for me, and makes it icky. At least it's not falsetto. I wasn't born when it came out, yet it was overplayed on the oldies stations in the 90s so much that I developed a deep and abiding hatred for it.

Johnnie Taylor – “Disco Lady” -- April 3, 1976

This is a song about disco that isn't a disco song. As such, it confuses me. It's kind of a mild funk/soul song, and it's about how turned on this guy is watching a woman disco. Johnnie Taylor can definitely sing, and I'd like to hear some more traditional soul/jazz stuff from him. This isn't doing it for me.

The Bellamy Brothers – “Let Your Love Flow” -- May 1, 1976

I saw the title and immediately the song shoved itself into my head. It's such a mellow song, but the hook is still monstrous. The song is about how it's the season for love, so grab your lover and "let your love flow." It's one of many 70s songs about sex that sounds like it could be a song about how pretty trees are. It kind of is about how pretty trees are too. I rather like it.

John Sebastian – “Welcome Back” -- May 8, 1976

Welcome Back, Kotter was not on Nick at Nite or WGN or anything else that ran old TV shows when I was watching TV (rather than the internet), so I've never seen it. The theme song lays it all out -- someone moves back to his old neighborhood, where they need him. As TV theme songs go, it's fine. Just fine, though. When "Movin' On Up" and "Love Is All Around" were also theme songs for TV shows in 1976, why this one? The rewards of mediocrity I guess.

The Sylvers – “Boogie Fever” -- May 15, 1976

It's literal. You come in contact with someone who can't stop boogie-ing, and you will catch the Boogie Fever yourself. Listening to the song will certainly make you want to boogie, unless you are immune. A fun dance song, and I wouldn't be surprised if Tik-Tok made it a hit again in the next year.

Wings – “Silly Love Songs” -- May 22, 1976

"Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs / What’s wrong with that?" Nothing. Paul even emphasizes something important in it: "Love isn't silly at all." Still, I can't say it's one of my favorites. I get tired of it about halfway through, and it's a long song. A silly love song shouldn't be nearly 6 minutes long.

Diana Ross – “Love Hangover” -- May 29, 1976

It starts with Diana Ross making sex sounds that I find embarrassing. Then she goes into singing about how she doesn't want to get over "the sweetest love hangover", and a minute and a half in it becomes a disco song. I find the entire thing irritating.

Starland Vocal Band – “Afternoon Delight” -- July 10, 1976

"Afternoon delight" is sex, but these doofuses may as well be singing about tea and scones for all the excitement this song has. It still doesn't deserve the hatred it's gotten. But it's not good either. The number of sexless sex songs in the 70s is just... ugh.

The Manhattans – “Kiss And Say Goodbye” -- July 24, 1976

He has to break up with the person he's been cheating with. It's an achingly sad Philly soul song. It also manages to be way sexier than the vast majority of 70s sex songs. Real emotion (or the ability to fake real emotion) does a lot, as does being able to sing like this. And beautiful backing music. It's so sad, and so good.

Elton John & Kiki Dee – “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” -- August 7, 1976

This song isn't mutual. Elton John's the one who sings "don't go breaking my heart," and Kiki Dee's the one singing "I won't go breaking your heart." It is all and entirely and completely about the male character's feelings. Of course it's an Elton John song so I wouldn't like it anyway, but I really don't like this one, especially because it still gets airplay.

Bee Gees – “You Should Be Dancing” -- September 4, 1976

I hate the Bee Gees. Not on a personal level -- as far as I know they're perfectly decent people -- but their music. And I have a particular hatred for Barry Gibb's voice. His horrible falsetto has caused me immense pain in my life. If I should be dancing, then they need to shut up and sit down and let a band that I can dance to take the stage. As it is, I feel like a dog during the 4th of July; I just want to hide under a bed.

KC & The Sunshine Band – “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” -- September 11, 1976

Here's a command to dance that I can get behind. Or that my behind can get behind. Again, a great song for dancing but not for listening to from KC & The Sunshine Band.

Wild Cherry – “Play That Funky Music” -- September 18, 1976

Good for both dancing and listening. How you can listen and not get into that funk groove even when sitting, though, I don't know. Play that funky music till you die.

Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band – “A Fifth Of Beethoven” -- October 9, 1976

This was the #1 hit the week I was born. It's a good one for me; it's by a guy who loved classical music enough to write contemporary music based on it. Whenever I'm faced with questions about what kind of music is my favorite, my answer is "the good kind." Anyway, this is a fun song.

Rick Dees And His Cast Of Idiots – “Disco Duck (Part 1)” -- October 16, 1976

Billboard used to base their hit songs on calling record stores and asking what was selling. I think that's how this stupid, stupid song reached number one. I think it was a prank by a bunch of stoned college kids who co-ordinated it over cb radio or something. It's about a duck. Who discos. With an obnoxious voice and obnoxious music. It's by a radio dj, and is as painfully unfunny as radio djs usually are.

Chicago – “If You Leave Me Now” -- October 23, 1976

This song makes me have a weird reaction. It gives me the warm, comfortable fuzzies, and makes me want to sleep. That last part might not be too surprising, as it is a soft song, but to me it is very much more than that. I have always had trouble sleeping at night, since birth. My parents hit on putting me into the car and driving around with soft music playing to get me to go lights out. I need to ask them if they played Chicago during that. I can't think of any other reason for my hindbrain association with this szzzzzzz....

Steve Miller Band – “Rock’n Me” -- November 6, 1976

Good bar rock, since it's the Steve Miller Band. Lyrically, it's also more complex than most of its genre. At first, he sings "I got to please my sweet baby, yeah." Then he starts singing about all the places he's been, including "Northern California where the girls are warm." And then "Babe, you know you are a friend of mine/ And you know that it's true/ That all the things that I do/ Are gonna come back to you in your sweet time." Well then. I can totally see @katatty's Duncan Huckleberry singing this song. And getting away with everything. It's a fun song, though (because?) the narrator is likely a dirtbag.

Rod Stewart – “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)” -- November 13, 1976

It's a sex song, and it is hugely skeevy. "Don't deny your man's desire/ You’d be a fool to stop this tide / Spread your wings and let me come inside." No, asshole, cover it up if you want to come near. And how about if you want her, you care something about her desire? This was a huge hit from a huge star, but I have never heard it until now. Ugh. I need to shower, this is gross. Also I hope whoever he's singing to is packing mace.

BEST OF 1976 -- "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." I don't even think it's an amazing song, just a very good one, but the 1976 #1s don't leave me much to work with. Fleetwood Mac released some singles, but people wanted "Disco Duck" rather than "Over My Head." Tons of great music has survived from 1976, but most of it is not on this list. WORST OF 1976 -- "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)". "Disco Duck" is stupid, but it doesn't make my skin crawl.

#billboard number ones

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