#legit i got no clue what the other side is this version just has severe vampire vibes LMAO

[wanderlustspider]

Hey there.

I am very new to all of this. I had a reading done by someone (primarily Norse) and it made a lot of sense what she said, but she pointed me the Celtic (she said The Dagda showed up for the reading and Lugh) when I had been paying attention to what I’d interpreted as Odin, Freya, Fenrir, and Tyr, with some interest in Hel. Last week, I asked someone in a shop I now frequent if they had any books on Freya and they said no, but that if I was interested in knowing who was showing up and where to start, to talk to a particular person (J). When I talked to J, she immediately said The Morrigan and Sif were present but that Sif was indicating I wasn’t ready to work with her yet. But that The Morrigan was right there and wanted my attention. I had seen a random video several months back that indicated Her, which my (now) wife showed me after I had seen it on my own, and books mentioning Her have been drawing me. So I finally got the Celtic Lore and Spellcraft (Stephanie Woodfield) book and have been reading it. J mentioned some other things, some very personal to me, when recommending that book, most of which were things that no one could know unless they knew me. I have no clue where to go from here and have no legit experience with witchcraft or paganism or anything. I grew up conservative (to be mild) and know that may impact how I initially view things so I’ve been trying to be open to wherever this may lead. Once J said Her name, it all fit and made sense. I see crows all the time, I’ve felt drawn to black crystals and amethyst, I’ve always been drawn to wolves and crows and ravens and horses, and etc. But I don’t know what it means to pray or offer a prayer? I also don’t know what to do now that I am reading about Her? I feel like I’m in over my head.

WELL, then. There's a lot uncover here, so let me see if there's anything that I can do that might offer you some decent advice.

Feeling like you're in over your head is actually something that's very respectable, and it's actually more common than you think. Most people I've spoken to, especially in regards to The Morrigan, mention feelings of being overwhelmed and lost. But She's also a very overwhelming deity. Fate. Magic. Death. Love, and sex. Personal sovereignty, and personal power. It's A LOT to take in, especially if we have a history of feeling powerless or out of control of our lives. As a side note, I also am not surprised that you had interest in Odin, Freyja, and Fenrir. I have worked (and still work) with 2 out of 3 of these deities, and in my personal experience they all share a very similar energy to the sort The Morrigan puts out. She is wise, passionate, and can be very savage.

My ultimate advice, if you take nothing else that I say or that my page has to offer in terms of reference, is to try not to think of speaking with The Morrigan as having to throw yourself into witchcraft and paganism. Yes, one of Her pieces is magic - and Fate, which to some people could be interpreted as magic such as divination and the like. HOWEVER, in my personal experience, Mama (The Morrigan) looks for a relationship before anything else. She is someone for you to take. your. time. in getting to know. There is a sh*t ton that you can learn about Her by simply giving Her space in your life - and also just by learning about yourself. Self-reflection is MASSIVE, with Her.

Again, this is all based upon my own experience, and other people might not agree with me. But you asked me, so that's what I have to say about it.

Mama is... well, She's essentially a powerful motherly figure. She will push you to learn about yourself, as you work together to find your strengths, your weaknesses, and the boundaries that you need in your life. I say need, because what we need is not always what we want. And Mama does not give us what we want, unless it aligns with what it is that we need in order to become a more powerful and sovereign version of ourselves. She doesn't coddle. We are Her children, but we are Her battle crows/ravens/wolves. My first few years of working with The Morrigan was mostly about self-reflection, and learning how to divine and discern what I needed to get rid of in order to allow myself to grow into my higher self. Habits that need adding, changing, or removing. People that need adding or subtracting, and the behaviors you tolerate from yourself and others. It is a constant effort, and the work is never over. But it does get easier over time.

The Morrigan chooses Her warriors, because She sees our potential. Sometimes the battle seems impossible, but if we hold true to that knowledge - and have faith in Her guidance - She will not let us hit the ground until it's our time to do so. You say that it felt right, when you heard Her name. So absorb that feeling, and accept it. Use it, and learn as much as you can about who you are. What do you fight for? WHO do you fight for? What do you need to remove from your life that might be keeping you from becoming the person you want to become? As you learn these things about yourself, She will give you whispers and hints in your everyday life that can help you reach those goals. You just have to be willing listen.

One thing I always say is that Mama only shows us the doors to walk through. It's up to us to choose to actually take those steps, and conquer the battlefield. Just remember that you don't have to go through every door all at once. Start small. Go slow. Enjoy the experience, even when it hurts. Because that means you're growing.

As far as prayers go, the easiest advice I can give is to just be open. The Morrigan isn't one to yell at you, especially if you don't have a receiving heart and mind. She whispers, like I said before. But when you hear Her, you just know. So do what you feel drawn to do. Gift Her a stone. Offer Her incense. Give an offering in the form of saying something like "Show me how I can be better today than I was yesterday." As your relationship grows, you'll hear more specific requests, and then you can adjust accordingly.

I don't know if ANY of this is really helpful, but it's what I felt called to say. Please feel free to look at any of the references/correspondences I have on my page, and you're always welcome to message me privately if you need help on anything - or better explanation of anything. I'm not always quick to respond these days, but I will. And don't be scared to check out #caw squad or #the morrigan tags, along with #na morrigna and #na morrigu. Those tags, and the people that use them, are always willing to share their experiences and journeys.

Also, sorry for the ramble! *sweat drop*

#caw squad #the morrigan #na morrigna #na morrigu #morrigu #personal experience #advice

[rainbow-dunk]

huehuehueehueueuuhhuehue teef

my objective making this was to make the design fucked up and evil and tbh i think i accomplished that

#dream smp #mcyt #ranboo #ranboolive #ranboo fanart #body horror tw #tubbo upon seeing this man: i am going to marry him #dhsdfsdfkdskhds this was so fun!!! im getting better w perseverance i think!!! #a few fun design details: #the green parts on the enderman side are based on like. the bits where the muscles join the skull lol #and the transition between the skin and the skull was based on peeling paint!!! i wanted 2 make it seem like the enderman side grows as tim #legit i got no clue what the other side is this version just has severe vampire vibes LMAO #my only design point going into this was the fucked up teeth i think literally everything else was changed #anyway im enjoying this new more desaturated art so fucking much lmao it looks so good!!! bro #im v happy w this piece hehehe #its not gonna be my normal design 4 him i just really like it lol

[i-have-feelings-bitch]

some thoughts on ÉLITE s4 immediately after finishing it

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously

so. i have some thoughts.

i really disliked how they kept on piling up problem upon problem and i’ve seen that a couple dozen times by now and it always ends the same - nothing gets solved. Not really, anyway. The solution usually is; another problem happens, but its bigger and far more important and severe than all of the other ones combined and it overshadows everything that had happened before.

on that note, and to be fair, this is a teen’s drama show. So i don’t mind it, just to be clear here. i enjoyed the heck out of this season, right now, it’s my favorite season of all. That might change later, as all of this still is so new and fresh and exciting so my mind naturally snaps onto it.

first things first; Omander went just like i predicted - they broke up just so they could get back together eventually, after some hardcore drama. (i cried anyway. a lot.)

there’s one character i liked throughout the whole season. no, wait, two actually. first is rebeka. i feel like her decisions made sense. i liked her story arch a lot. the second one is azucena. what a queen.

.........guzman has a really bad temper. always had and probably always will. (to the samu/guzman/ari drama; why couldnt they have a pretty threesome, ari was quite obviously polyamorous (but i guess nobody has ever heard of that lol) and samuel and guzman almost fucked any second anyways so what exactly was their problem)

surprisingly enough, i liked Patrick in a lot of moments, about 50%. i absolutely despised him in the other 50%. tbh im really not sure about his character like with him, i don’t see any reasoning or goal or whatsoever. i have no clue what he wants to achieve?? guess he just wants to be gay and fuck around and honestly? fair enough

Mencia. Oh, Mencia. i liked her a lot from the get go and i still think her character is cool as shit, but there were quite some moments when i wouldve loved to smack her across the face. i also cried a lot when it came to Mencia/Rebeka. when Samu said “Fuck, you two are cute”? i felt that. i very much cringed at the chocolate scene, but to each their own i guess.

Ari; about 95% of the season disliked her. i didn’t hate her, but she was like a knockoff version of Lu? listen, i know i’m being biased here and it’s very unfair towards her, but to me, it just felt like she always tried to be the mean girl but never really succeeded. my opinion of her skyrocketed in the last few minutes of the last episode, though. we love some good sibling care in this house. not like it had been like that in the beginning, mind you.

i. fucking. hated. Benjamin. like the whole time. i think there was legit one single moment when i thought like “okay hold on that was the first (and last) good move you made this whole season” and it was when he offered Mencia to listen to her anytime she wanted or needed to. otherwise. fuck him. his attitude, his way of talking, his way of acting, fucking everything. (in the very last scene, when he destroyed the table? like yeah, i get that you’re emotional and angry and shit but my dude, your youngest daughter just told you she basically got r*ped on a daily basis by the guy *you* invited to your house because you only saw his money. can you please show some motherfucking self-control and not scare said daughter to fucking death oh my god i hate this guy so fucking much) also because he kicked out azucena. on that note, ander being protective of his mom? absolutely living for it.

aaand Ander. here we go. oof. i did not like him for a good part of the season. actually, i think it probably started in episode one and ended in the last one, lol. i just felt like there were little things that made sense? i appreciated him telling Omar that he finds this other guy (aka Patrick) hot, but like some time later, they break up in this really horrible and heartbreaking sequence and a minute later, Ander goes whoring around like there’s no tomorrow? like, literally? huh? i found myself really torn between who to dislike more; Ander or Patrick. nice el desorden reference. (both the shot where he masturbated alone in the shower and the book, lmao)

as for Omar; can the writers just leave him the fuck alone please? what did he ever do to yall to ever deserve all this shit he has to go through constantly in this show holy fuck i HATE how he got treated by Ander and Patrick and Benjamin. This boy deserves so much better. he did seem a little out of character sometimes, i gotta say. not sure why tho. most times, he was the sweet, empathetic cinnamon roll we know him as. like idk man he does so much for his friends?? the thing with Philippe and Caye at the bar was adORABLE

which leads us to

Philippe. dude. what. was his character. most of the time, i felt kinda bad for him, like his so called friends literally all just saw the royalty in him (not that he made the impression that he didnt like that in the first few episodes, but yeah it’s a thing so i reckoned that would come up later on). also i was so happy for Cayetana ughguhghguhghh they were really cute together......but then he gotta pull this shit, like what??? in the actual fuck. he’s just like “yeah some girl tried to sue me, saying i r*ped her” and then later he’s like “so yeah i’m actually a r*pist, whoops, sorry, can you stay pretty please?” like ex fucking cuse the shit out of me sir. no. the problem is i *want* to like him because pol granch is a fucking sweetheart and i’m catching myself thinking stuff like hes kind of aware that hes a borderline r*pist and that hes also very aware that it’s not okay? but like? he doesn’t try to change? don’t even get me started on his mother. ugly ass bitch. that’s all i have to say.

so i didnt like Cayetana for a major amount of s3, like at all. but yeah, what can i say. shes just a sweet girl okay and now i have a soft spot for her. much like Omar i feel like, she gets a lot of shit, completely uncalled for and there’s nothing she can do against it she just like stumbles into the pile of crap and then is knee-deep in. i feel very sorry for her man i just wanna hug her.

just for the record, there was not a single second that i thought Amomrdm(shit i forgot his name lmfao) -the bad guy- was just being nice and helpful. tbh he just deserved what he got. whoops, there, i said it.

the build up in the last episode was very nice, i gotta say. it was low key obvious who would be the one to attack Ari, but it’s alright. i did not expect the thing with Guzman tho lol. You go man. (but still, aggression problems.)

side note; dude it really sucks that guzman and samuel were too busy fighting over Ari to actually notice her missing lmao

oh also - Rebeka’s ninja kick on the dock??????? HELLO????

guzman and ander leaving made me so fucking emotional?????? excuse me??? who gave them the right?????

edit; (a day later)

just noticed i completely forgot Samu, lol. hes just so far away from my type and i dont really have an opinion on him like yeah hes kind-hearted and cares for his friends, and thats sweet, but uuuhhhhhh. i was only there for the lil gay moments between him and guzman. there were a lot of them. i was really happy when he and Rebeka made up and talked to each other again, that was kinda wholesome. aside from that tho? idk hes just kinda [shrug-emoji] for me (like he had been from s1 all the way on to be quite honest)

that said, i’m sure theres lots more thoughts in my mind but the heat is making my head hurt lol ok bye

#elite #elite4 #this is neither a pretty post nor something serious #literally just me rambling #also it was like 3am when i wrote that initially #but i guess in case anyone wants to read it ill post it #also saving it for later #lily rambles

[themattress]

Holy Shit!

https://imgur.com/gallery/WKkli

https://imgur.com/gallery/j9OQylb

Beyond the proof that the guy who uploaded this is involved with Bad Robot that he provided at the end of his second post, these definitely seem legit because the first post was in 2018, before The Rise of Skywalker came out, yet the treatment contains some blatant concepts that ended up finding there way into that movie that I have a hard time believing anyone but J.J himself could have come up with (plus, the rest of the plot is very J.J-like, as I’ll get into.)

So these definitely seem to be the discarded Episode VIII and IX treatments. Thoughts?

- Luke’s reasons for coming to Ahch-To definitely seem more in line with TFA than in TLJ, seeing as if he wanted to just “go there to die” he wouldn’t have left a freaking map to the place behind, plus it seemed off that someone disillusioned with the Jedi ways would go to the site of the first Jedi Temple to begin with. His portrayal also matches what we saw at the end of TFA (seeming to be in mourning for Han), and fits the “kind but sad” description from the script. And far from cutting himself off from the Force, Luke has been influencing it from afar as part of his grand plan, explaining Rey’s vision when she touched his lightsaber.

- Luke has a wife and kids! Sadly for EU fans, the wife is not Mara Jade.

- It was Luke’s influence via the Force that explained the things Rey could do that fans deemed her a Mary Sue for, plus some other things that weren’t so routinely noted such as the remarkable coincidence that she and Finn just happened to run into Han and Chewie right after obtaining the Millennium Falcon. Not sure how well this would have gone down...

- Saccrum, Snoke’s home planet, is literally Exogol. Secret ancient Sith planet that is nigh impenetrable to all non-Sith, site of the final battle and (as we’ll soon learn) where Snoke is repeatedly cloned and where Palpatine is resurrected by Sith alchemists...it’s fucking Exogol.

- I recall concept art for Kylo Ren’s partly metallic face floating around.

- Dathan Naut seems cool, but she never really amounts to much.

- So it seems J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan’s vision for the Sequel Trilogy always seemed to boil down to “All the generations of Jedi vs. all the generations of Sith reaching a climactic battle, with Skywalker vs. Palpatine at the heart of it, and the Palpatine who becomes a Skywalker as the key to victory.” That idea was always where they were going.

- Jedi/Sith Holocrons were always gonna be a thing, which is why Rebels worked them in.

- Live-action Ahsoka was also always an objective, it seems, and I bet the way they wrote her out in Rebels’ “Twilight of the Apprentice” was to potentially serve as a lead-in for her appearance in the Sequel Trilogy. But because that never came to pass, they brought her back toward the end of the series and set her on the new trajectory that she’s currently on. Honestly, I think that’s for the better, Ahsoka wouldn’t have really fit in the main film series.

- Not big on this Cfi-Xi character, she mainly seems to be here to “no homo” C-3PO. And her main role relating to the Sith Planet ended up played just fine by C-3PO in TROS anyway.

- BB-8 had the kind of fake-out death they ended up giving to Chewie.

- Wow, so Hux was supposed to die in Episode VIII and Phasma in Episode IX originally. Funny how that got totally flipped backward in the versions we actually ended up getting.

- OK, this “family time” that Rey’s getting is precious. It’s sad we didn’t get to see this.

- Hoo boy, “this is the bad ass Luke Skywalker we’ve been waiting for!” Really? Et tu, J.J and Kasdan? In light of the recent showing by Luke in The Mandalorian, I again question why this portrayal of the character is so widely beloved by fans when it has little to no basis in the OT.

- Rey vs. Kylo Ren in a raging ocean backdrop; here in Episode VIII rather than IX. Similarly, it’s a duel that Kylo clearly has in the bag, but a fluke in the Force allows Rey to survive, although I much prefer the fluke we got to the one this treatment proposes because....

- Goddamn it, J.J. You’re doing the time travel / time paradox shit again? Were Lost, Fringe and Star Trek not enough for you to explore that concept in? This is the biggest part of these treatment drafts that rubs me the wrong way, it’s just so needlessly convoluted and cliche.

- Also, yet another Mystery Box in Luke’s severed hand on Saccrum.

- No Jedi Leia in that flashback? Yeah, I can see why Kathleen Kennedy rejected this.

- Btw, Rian Johnson wasn’t the only one who was going to turn Luke into an asshole failure, it seems. Making this highly risky plan with Ben and not letting his parents know about it? Dick! 

- Snoke is the one who destroys Luke’s academy, not Kylo Ren. And he does so as he is dying; another clue-in that there’s more to Snoke than it seems given that he’s still around.

- Lando would have been in Episode IX anyway, albeit still running Cloud City.

- The idea for this Episode IX is that the Skywalkers are a Jedi dynasty that long predated Anakin (Shmi being a descendant of it), and the Palpatines were their Sith enemies. Sheev Palpatine also would have died his first death generations ago and was being constantly resurrected via clone bodies made on Saccrum ever since, so the one that Anakin killed wasn’t the original; Palpatine can’t be stopped unless Saccrum is destroyed. While not as convoluted as the time paradox shit, I appreciate the simpler route they ended up taking.

- J.J and Kasdan always wanted Rey’s father to be a defective Palpatine clone.

- There was never a planned origin for Snoke in these treatments; wherever he came from the bottom line was that Palpatine brought him onto his side by promising to share his key to immortality (constant cloned bodies made on Sacccrum) with him. Again, this ended up being simplified into Snoke just being a whole-sale creation of Palpatine’s from the very beginning.

- Since these are treatments, the “love” part of the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is highly underdeveloped and would likely have been fleshed out in screenwriting. The end result, with the deprogramming vision of Rey and Darth Vader, sounds pretty effective though, but I think I much prefer the Leia death / vision of Han version that we ended up with.

- LOL, the “droid way of making love”. I want to see this idea repurposed someday.

- That’s an interesting twist on Alderaan, although it really doesn’t amount to anything given that the planet Leia grew up on and called home still got destroyed by the Death Star.

- “Magic blood”, another J.J-ism. Again, I much prefer the simpler version TROS gave us.

- The climax’s structure is basically the same as in TROS, with Rey (and others) heading to the Sith planet from Ahch-To and then Leia’s Resistance forces going there from their base, with Rey and Ben facing Palpatine. The biggest differences is that we also have Luke vs. Snoke and Finn vs. Phasma battles going on, in addition to a Jedi vs. Sith ground battle.

- Yeah, I don’t really care for how Phasma’s death is handled: making her hideously scarred and treating her sympathetically don’t sit right with me. Rian Johnson did it better, IMO.

- No red stormtroopers here, but there are red Tie Fighters.

- Ben still gives his life to save Rey, albeit in a less literal manner.

- Palpatine still wants Rey to ascend to the Sith throne and rule by his side. Also: “he loves the smell of burning hair, it reminds him of home”!? Wow, that’s dark in what it’s implying...

- OK, so while not a Jedi, Leia is the Big Damn Hero in the end. That makes sense.

- WTF? Rey straight-up kills Palpatine with Sith lightning!? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t ever gong to fly with Lucasfilm, since it totally contradicts ROTJ’s message! It was inevitable that we’d end up with the more correct “Rey deflects Palpatine’s own Sith lightning back at him”.

- “Rey Skywalker” is the end point for the story here as well, but it ending on Tatooine is so much more emotional than ending it on Alderaan Prime, a place that only just now exists.

My final impression is that we probably could have had the best version of the Sequel Trilogy possible IF the right corrections were made when adapting these treatments into real screenplays, such as axing the more convoluted and pointlessly fanservice-y elements and making different choices for a few of the characters (Rey, Kylo Ren, C-3PO, Phasma, etc...also something more substantial for Poe since they clearly had no idea what to do with him). However, it was also an impossibility for it to ever happen due to many different factors, the biggest of which being Carrie Fisher’s passing in 2016. So as it stands, I am still satisfied with the version we got and am especially happy that J.J returned for TROS to provide the end of the Skywalker Saga with some of his original (mercifully fine-tuned and simplified) ideas.

#Star Wars #J.J Abrams #What Could Have Been #Opinion #Analysis

[murfeelee]

CC Creators Questions

I saw this on my dash and got so excited -- a questionnaire for CC makers! :D

1. What was the hardest project you’ve worked on so far?

Y’all have no bloody clue how many unfinished projects I have given up on, and how much time I spend/waste on CC I never even finish. I often have no idea what I’m doing, and once I reach a certain point where the effing thing just won’t come out right, and I don’t know who to ask for help, or I do and never get a response, I just lose total willpower to keep going.

2. How long have you been creating cc?

2010-ish -- that’s when I first started uploading to TSR at least, ider. Early on it was just simple wall art (an effton of murals) but I kept reading the tutorials at BPS & MTS & TSR, and once I figured that out I started trying out rather craptastic conversions that are still up for DL, if y’all wanna point and laugh at me. :P Effing sad. Some of it turned out pretty okay though, IMO.

3. What’s your most favorite thing you’ve created?

At TSR my favorite CC uploads are the Clutter Bug and LOTR Scribe sets.

The admins gave me such a hard time when I first submitted this, and I had to throw out like half of the objects included in the set, cuz of the effing UV Maps and blah blah. But the rest of it came out cool.

I am constantly using those objects in my lots. Constantly. The LOTR period was also the very first time I learned about making Alpha Channels on .dds textures -- that opened up so many possibilities! Single objects I’m also really proud of over there are the Ivy/Flower Column, and the Vintage Art Collage, which I also use a lot.

At Tumblr this is a lot harder for me to decide on, since after I came here I could do and make so much more than what was allowed at TSR. I think I had the best time converting from The Witcher 3. I effing love that game. But I also think just the process was the easiest for me, cuz I’ve been doing this crap for a while now and finally knew wtf I was doing -- except the CAS stuff. O_O LAAAAAWD! I gave up on that junk quick fast and in a hurry -- NOPE! Not today, Satan! But yeah, I really like some of the stuff I did from that game, like the Peacocks (duh) and everything I shared for my Lupo Bianco gameplay.

4. What’s your most hated thing you’ve created?

Things I hate don’t get uploaded. XD Y’all think I complain about the crap I DO upload -- that’s cuz I’m being honest when I tell y’all that my work has flaws that I don’t know how to fix, or don’t have the energy to work on anymore. Practically all of my CAS CC is a raggedy amateur mess. I hold on to a lot of crap that I just can’t upload in good consciousness, cuz I know how I react when I install others’ CC and I’m using it thinking wtf, did they upload the wrong file by accident? :P

5. What inspires you to create?

When I first started, it was cuz it was still early in TS3, and the game was still pretty empty, and I didn’t have any of the EPs/SPs/Store CC yet, so I was desperate for content. Then once I started converting, and realized that I could extract stuff from other games myself, I immediately knew that I wanted to recreate my favorite games in TS3. I’m inspired by the fandoms I’m part of, and  my style of simming mostly revolves around me trying to create my own extended version of other games and shows I like.

6. What gets you unmotivated to do anything or to delete your project?

Failure. When things start going wrong, I quickly get frustrated and lose patience. I post WIPs sometimes that I don’t even end up revisiting. I just can’t fix the crap, so I rapidly lose the energy or desire or interest in the entire project. I often blame it on laziness, when really I just give up.  :\

7. What’s one thing you wish you knew how to do/do better?

I generally just stick to what I know and am comfortable with, which is why y’all don’t see me making build mode stuff, or much functional buy mode cc, or mods/scripts, or creating skintones or poses, or any of the cool stuff I’d love to make but just can’t figure out for the life of me. U_U

8. How long does it usually take you to make something?

Depends on the project, and my motivation to see it to the end. Some stuff will sit on the back-burner for literal years before I finally go back to it. I’ll tell myself I’ll work on it later. Lies, mostly. ^_^

9. Is there a certain schedule you stick to when publishing?

Unless there’s a certain holiday/event going on, where the CC needs to be finished now! now! now! (Halloween & Lunar New Year are my busiest times), I just do what I want. I get so distracted, and often I’m working on a zillion things at once. Sometimes I’m running on pure adrenaline and not sleeping, to make sure I finish the CC on time. I feel bad if I miss something going on that I could’ve participated in, but most times I just tell y’all the CC’s still in beta, and it’ll be ready when it’s ready. :P

10. Your favorite programs to work with?

Crazy as it sounds, Milkshape. :P I effing hate Blender. I don’t understand it -- there are too many buttons and controls and everything’s just a confusing mess. 3DS Max is easier for me! O_O I legit can’t even figure out the frikkin view/camera in Blender! And you constantly have to switch between modes, and everything’s buried under all those effing THINGS on the sides, and I can’t stand it. >_<

11. Who do you look up to (creator wise)?

For CC in general, I worship Sandy/AroundTheSims; always have. Everything they make is just so clean and professional and works splendidly in game. Jelly.

12. How many projects do you have at the moment?

An ungodly number, half of which will no doubt be abandoned before y’all even get the chance to hear about them. :P

13. Screenshot your wips folder (if you have one)

Cute of you to assume I have just one WIPs folder, in one fixed location. XD

That’s what my backup’s thematic specific folder looks like, but that’s not where I keep any of my other game conversions WIPs -- those are all over the place. I’ve had to restart several projects after my external harddrive broke, and now especially I’m keeping everything in different locations and on different drives.

14. Do you plan on creating for a long time or is there a certain period you know you’ll stop?

Dunno if I’ll ever stop, but I know I’m slowing down; I have been for a while now. I’m tired. I hate making CC. It’s stressful, exhausting, time-consuming, and no dang fun, especially when crap is going oh so wrong and you have to keep quitting the game, doing crap over, loading the game, seeing if it’s fixed, and trying not to cry when it’s not. I do this crap out of desperation, when there’s something in particular that I want that I can't find a good substitute for in the game or community at large. So as long as I’m still simming, I know I’m gonna keep being forced by necessity to make crap. But I doubt I’ll ever go back to the workhorse nonsense I was up to in like 2015/6 or whenever my “heyday” was, when I was still experimenting like mad and learning everything.

15. What helps you keep focus during your creating process?

I play a lot of music, that fits the theme of the CC I'm working on, or is lifting my spirits at the time. I can’t work in silence. IDKY, it just makes me bored and tired.

I tag all y’all who ever made anything for us poor unfortunate souls!

#simblr #questionnaire #murf is a derp #sims 3 cc

[musiccosmosru]

We’ll start with the most obvious thing: there is no Kokomo. Not off the Florida Keys, anyway. Sure, a couple places staked claims, but only after the occurence of the least obvious thing: a has-been pop act, minus their lead singer and creative engine, scoring a #1 hit off the soundtrack to a forgettable film about bartending. “Kokomo” — released 30 years ago this month — was the Beach Boys’ first original Top 20 single in 20 years, and their first chart-topper in 22.

With or without their erstwhile captain Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys never came close to replicating their early success, but no matter: Every time a quizmaster asks what the seven locations are in the song’s chorus, every Gen-X hand in the bar lunges for the pen. “Kokomo” was a peculiar last cultural gasp for everyone involved: not just the performers, but also their collaborators. Together, they formed a coastal coterie, an assemblage of connections both fortuitous and tragic.

The state of the Beach Boys in 1988 was, in a word, shitty. Their last record, 1985’s digitally crispy The Beach Boys, performed middlingly despite contributions from Culture Club, Ringo Starr, and Stevie Wonder. A couple clues to their malaise appear within the record. On the back, there’s a dedication “to the memory of our beloved brother, cousin and friend”; Dennis Wilson, the band’s drummer and only true surfer, had drowned in the water off Marina Del Rey in December of 1983. And on the label, there are three songwriting credits for E. E. Landy.

That would be Dr. Eugene Landy, Brian’s personal therapist, business manager, and professional ghoul. At one point, Wilson’s family had to sell some of his publishing rights in order to afford Landy’s $430,000-a-year fee. Landy’s role as confidant, coupled with Brian’s reluctance to tour, kept him largely away from his bandmates, though they had the right to perform and record as the Beach Boys. And so, when director Roger Donaldson sought the band to pad out the soundtrack to his film Cocktail, they turned the assignment over to their producer, Terry Melcher.

CREDIT: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images

Though Melcher had only been been producing the group for a few years, his relationship with the band was a couple decades old at that point. In the mid-’60s, he and future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston made surf-pop as Bruce & Terry, and then as the Rip Chords. Melcher moved behind the boards, becoming a major architect of the West Coast folk-rock sound. At one of his house parties, he re-introduced Brian Wilson to Van Dyke Parks, who tried to help Wilson through the aborted Smile sessions. Parks continued to provide lyrical and instrumental daubs to Beach Boys tracks in the years afterward. In a twisted return of favor, Dennis introduced Melcher to a guy he first met trashing his house: Charlie Manson.

The aspiring megalomaniac also aspired to be a songwriter, and both Dennis and Melcher were impressed with his embryonic sketches. But Manson’s psychotic behavior scotched his chance at a record deal; incensed, he dispatched some of his followers to Melcher’s old house, where they murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate. The Manson Family’s spree killings blew a hole in the psyche of America’s counterculture, and sent Melcher into something of a tailspin. He took on fewer projects, eventually signing on to produce a couple television shows for his mother, the actress and singer Doris Day. By the mid-’80s, he was back in the Beach Boys’ orbit. When he was tabbed to find a song for Cocktail, he reached out to an old friend: John Phillips of the Mamas And The Papas, whose hit “California Dreamin’” the Beach Boys had recently covered.

Phillips had spent the decade juggling different Mamas And Papas lineups. He and Denny Doherty were the only returning members; Cass Elliot died in 1974, and Michelle Phillips divorced John in 1970. Their roles were filled by former Spanky & Our Gang leader Elaine McFarlane and Phillips’ daughter Mackenzie, respectively. The group toured and did the requisite casino residencies, but legit success was hard to come by. (The entire time, according to Mackenzie Phillips, she and her father were involved in what was termed an “incestuous relationship.” She made the accusation in her 2009 memoir, as well as on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Immediately afterward, various relatives and family friends issued statements attesting to their belief or disbelief in her account.) By 1986, John was demoing tracks with Scott McKenzie, best known for his Phillips-written 1967 smash “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair).” One of those tracks was “Kokomo.”

You can hear Phillips’ version on the 2010 collection Many Mamas, Many Papas. (The set also contains the racist ditty “Chinaman,” as well as a song called, simply, “Yachts.”) His “Kokomo” is stately and wistful. Other than Florida, Kokomo is the only place mentioned, making the composition a sort of paean to a lost paradise of the mind. It’s been suggested that he was thinking of Mustique, an island in the Grenadines purchased in the ‘50s by Phillips’ friend, the British aristocrat Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner. Tennant nearly went broke maintaining the damn thing, eventually transferring ownership to the islands’ wealthy homeowners (a group which has, at one time or another, included Bryan Adams, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger). Regardless of origin, the “Kokomo” demo was missing a chorus. And that’s where Mike Love enters.

If Brian Wilson was like Paul McCartney, pushing his bandmates to precisely render his sonic fancies, Mike Love was like … well, Paul McCartney, desperately trying to keep all the stakeholders happy and productive. He’s rarely given his due as a songwriter: He sued Brian in 1992 more or less for this reason, eventually winning co-writing credit for 35 Beach Boys tunes. The occasional “Good Vibrations” aside (a lyric written with McKenzie’s “San Francisco” in mind), his gift is punch-ups: tweaking phrases and adding earworms. He scrapped Phillips’ past tense. It sounded like regret, which is not Love’s bag. All he’s ever wanted to do is provide escape. So when it came time to write the chorus, Love sang Melcher a map.

The result was ruthlessly catchy: a combination of dreaminess and insistence, like a tank disguised as a cloud. The “Aruba, Jamaica” bit was bumped to the beginning for maximum effect; Love managed to work in a reference to cocktails, and possibly (in the line “that Montserrat mystique”) a reference to Baron Tennant’s island folly. Van Dyke Parks parachuted in to arrange the steel pans and play accordion, despite (allegedly) being stiffed by Love on plane fare. Studio saxophonist Joel Peskin (whose professional relationship with the Boys stretched back to 1979’s L.A.) contributed the oddly poignant solo. One name was notably absent: Brian was unable to attend the sessions, possibly due to his doctor’s interference. When he first heard the song on the radio, he didn’t even recognize it as a Beach Boys tune. His solo record had just dropped — deliciously, the opening lines are “I was sittin’ in a crummy movie/With my hands on my chin.”

Released 7/18/88 in advance of Cocktail — with Little Richard’s soundtrack closer “Tutti Frutti” as the B-side — “Kokomo” didn’t get any traction. It was only after moviegoers heard the tune scoring Tom Cruise’s move from New York to Jamaica that it caught on. Despite critical indifference (the movie is Cruise’s worst film Rotten Tomatoes) both Cocktail and “Kokomo” became #1 hits: the former for two weeks, the latter for one. In November, “Kokomo” supplanted Phil Collins’ “Groovy Kind Of Love” at the summit. (Collins, however, got the last laugh when “Two Hearts” beat “Kokomo” for Best Original Song at the 46th annual Golden Globes.)

A couple weeks after “Kokomo” hit #1, the Beach Boys (with Brian) guest-starred in an episode of the sitcom Full House. The climax of “Beach Boys Bingo” features the Tanner clan rockin’ out to a stadium performance of “Kokomo,” then climbing onstage to do “Barbara Ann.” The whole thing was old hat for Full House star John Stamos, who had been the Beach Boys’ ancillary percussionist for a few years by then. (He played steel drums in the “Kokomo” video, but not on the record.) If you watch the scene carefully, you’ll see Brian sporting a “Californians For Dukakis” shirt; Mike, infamously, is a Trump supporter and a contributor to Tipper Gore’s pro-censorship Parent’s Music Resource Center.

Having scored an improbable hit, the Beach Boys pivoted to movie soundtracks for a time. They landed “Still Cruisin’” in Lethal Weapon 2 and the Melcher-written title track for Problem Child; neither went anywhere, and the band returned to the state-fair circuit. “Kokomo” was, it turns out, irreplicable. Its lightweight arrangement and hermetic vibe have proven resistant to imitators: You won’t find many notable covers beyond, say, the Muppets. Its real legacy was in lending its name to a host of bars and resorts across the Caribbean Sea. The Orlando Sentinel found a few in a December ’88 investigation, with Key Largo’s Chamber of Commerce noting that “[w]e are flooded with calls, absolutely flooded. We had six calls on the answering machine this morning and several calls during the day.” Sandals renamed their Montego Bay resort “Kokomo Island” for a while, which must have been a nice two-for-one for the song’s fans.

In time, though, “Kokomo” fever faded, and the men responsible for it are starting to pass on. Carl Wilson died in 1998, John Phillips in 2001, Terry Melcher in 2004, Scott McKenzie in 2012. Mike Love, who has long enjoyed the exclusive rights to tour under the Beach Boys name, is the sole living writer. Last fall, he released a double album, with the second half devoted to re-recordings of Beach Boys classics. “Kokomo” is nowhere to be found. Presumably, he decided not to mess with perfection.

CREDIT: Ron Galella/WireImage

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