#like…it’s an actual trend these days but better than nothing I guess??

[yoitsjuli]

The way popular media went from “here’s two male characters who have an incredible amount of chemistry and fans ship them but it’s not canon and one or both of them are with women” to “here’s two male characters who have an incredible amount of chemistry and fans ship them and it’s canon but only in the way that one of them has an unrequited love for the other and either pines miserably forever or dies.” Progress right?

#destiel #sterek #reddie #tyrelliot #byler #I could see succession doing this with tomgreg #like…it’s an actual trend these days but better than nothing I guess?? #only ever with mlm ships (many reasons why) #for reddie the dying role was reversed #but why does one always have to die it seems #bury your gays I guess #fanfiction #ao3 #queer representation #mlm ships #supernatural #teen wolf #it 2019 #mr robot #stranger things

[ingravinoveritas]

I personally think its disgusting of what she posted yet again its all about her and she the reason why micheal keeps trending 4th day oh please he was trending for days before she came in the picture. And for someone who has no career and basically living off her parter who works so hard and been ill with virus the last few days and haven't been able to perform and she post this. Taking the credit for something that has nothing to do with her. He very grateful that she keep him grounded what that suppose to mean ? He was doing better before she came in the picture since he been with her his career have been slowed a little and she probably the reason for it

What do u say ?

Oh, boy. I saw this a little while ago, and all I could think was that the bar is so low at this point--like halfway between the fourth and fifth circles of Hell--and this still somehow falls short.

I know there has been a lot of talk about the t-shirt Anna is wearing (which was a gift from a fan at the stage door of Nye), but for me, the t-shirt is the least concerning part of all this. It's a reference to a quote from Staged (it's the title of a season 1 episode, in fact), and I am sure Michael found it funny. The only problem is that without the context of why it's a joke, it actually just isn't that funny. And it sets the stage for everything else that is happening.

Which brings me to the caption she wrote, which was what primarily caught my attention. The reason Michael is currently trending on Twitter (X, whatever we're calling it) is because of the overwhelmingly positive response to The Assembly, which aired last Friday night. He is receiving a tremendous amount of praise for being on the show, how he spoke to the interviewers, and the respectful and joyous atmosphere that was cultivated on the show. And rather than allude to any of that--not to mention Michael being sick recently, or the trip they went on to Disneyland Paris--Anna made Michael trending on Twitter about her.

That is what stands out to me the most. The idea of "keeping him grounded" that is coming across more like kicking someone when he is already down. That he somehow needs that, and that she would have us believe he is "grateful" to her for, what...comparing him to a loud bird? Repeatedly making fun of his looks and interests without a shred of respect or affection behind it? I'm also confused by the implication (and the irony) that Michael somehow has a large ego that needs to be kept in check when she is the one coming across as self-involved in this Insta story. So, yes. I'm at a bit of loss here.

I just keep thinking of the things she could have said instead. How she could have uplifted Michael, wished him well on returning to the stage tonight after several days' absence, said how she was glad to have spent time with him or taken care of him while he was ill. Just something that would give him a reason to hold his head high. But I guess it might just be easier to convince herself/everyone else that he is smiling if his head is hanging down instead.

I am just glad Michael is out performing again tonight and getting to be on stage and do the thing he truly loves to do. But those are my thoughts, and I'd be glad to hear from my followers about what you think, regardless of whether you agree or disagree...

#angel19924 #reply post #michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #the 'keeping him grounded' thing is giving me Georgia Lite vibes #though at least with Georgia it's original #i don't even know anymore #i don't think AL has had any effect on Michael's career either and I'm not blaming her for that #yet it seems clear he hasn't affected her career in the way she hoped either #trying to provide a balanced perspective #but what's the old saying: when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time #anna lundberg #relationships #thoughts #discourse

[harry-sussex]

The media has branded Harry and Meghan a “flop” - there’s no coming back from that reputation.

That WSJ article just made my stomach drop. I have no idea how it’s possible that things have gotten this bad. The worst part is that there’s no way up from here - only further down. Rock bottom is a challenge at this point, and it feels like they’re shooting for it every single day.

This is what they wanted? This is better? They’re happy? No fucking way, man. No fucking way. If I know anything about Harry at all - and at this point, we all know Harry a bit too well - he must be outright miserable. There’s no way this whole thing has been worth it. None whatsoever. To someone like me, this is nauseating. I hate it. I hate this. I have always hated this, I always knew that they weren’t going to live the life they thought they would after they left, I’ve been saying for three years until I’m blue in the face - and the reception I’ve gotten from Sussex fans around the world has been horrific (you guys should see some of the shit that’s come through my inbox courtesy of the squad - so much for mental health, Harry and Meghan would be ashamed of them, but I digress).

If you give even a sliver of a shit about Harry, you’ll be able to get your head out of the sand and recognize that leaving was the absolute worst thing he could have done for himself. Look at him! Directionless! Lost! Misguided! Unproductive! Not to mention paranoid, tired, isolated, and he fact that he always looks miserable.

I will say it again and again and again - it. did. not. have. to. be. this. way. 3 years in - what do they have to show for it?:

A successful commercial venture? Nope - almost nothing has come out of Archetypes or anything else, as in the article. Bill Simmons called them “fucking grifters!” If he’s willing to say it loud and proud for the media to pounce on, how many are saying it behind closed doors?

More money? Their income hinges upon content they haven’t created yet. Clearly, these companies have no trouble pulling the plug on their deals and therefore cutting off the income. (Not for nothing - the more this happens, the less money they’ll be able to say they grossed by leaving the royal family. Since this looks like a trend, at what point do they stop and say ‘I probably would have more money at my disposal if I just stuck with the Duchy of Cornwall?’)

More exposure? Yeah, I guess, but look how shitty it is all the time. This is not the kind of exposure they were looking for.

More privacy? Totally goes against everything above, but they’ve never been more vulnerable to intrusive speculation. They invite it! Encourage it! Hand their personal lives over to the media and the public on a silver platter! The only thing keeping them ‘private’ is living in a gated community - imagine how private their personal life would be if they were in a palace instead?

Better treatment from the press? The American media are vultures too. The world media has made a fortune off of their bullshit. Even the gently critical ones that tell the hard truth - like the WSJ - show that the media does not care who you are if you deserve the criticism or if your bullshit is so completely out of this world that the story writes itself. Nothing is sacred, and it’s even worse now that there’s nothing standing in between them and the press.

The opportunity to provide universal service? What the hell have they done? One single Invictus Games? The occasional event? The occasional donation? They spend more time accepting awards for doing something rather than actually doing something!

Being happier? Bullshit, man. Look at Prince Harry. He hasn’t had a genuine smile on his face in public since 2021. I could go down a rabbit hole here, but you’re blinded by adoration if you can’t recognize he’s outright miserable and a complete shell of the person he used to be. That spark is completely gone.

I could go on, but these articles are starting to pop up in legitimate news sources. We’re not talking about the National Enquirer here - this is the Wall Street Journal. A legitimate news source is reporting on the way they’re failing to meet their own standards and the standards of those who control the purse strings - and how they’re nothing without their titles. If the money is the bottom line, then they need the star power behind their HRHs to make it. They don’t have anything else worth marketing. That star power is dwindling more and more as they get closer and closer to rock bottom and as they continue to bite the hand that has always fed them. Look at this from Vanity Fair:

So much for “service is universal.” They don’t get traction for any of their charity work because they spend so much time BITCHING. The world can’t focus on their service and help support those causes because they spend so much FUCKING TIME milking their only cash cow that nobody has any idea what kinds of causes they support! In fact - I’d bet that the only causes recognized by the general public are those they SUPPORTED BY WORKING FOR THE FAMILY. This isn’t about service - it’s about clout, star power, mystique, and the aura associated with the blurred lines between royal and celebrity. The service hasn’t been part of it for a long time. They’ve wronged their ship and there’s no way to right it anymore. That ship, for lack of better term, has sailed. The world doesn’t see them as charitable - the way they were seen when they were working for the family. The world sees them as washed up crybabies who don’t have anything to offer. It’s not just a “hater” thing anymore. They’ve lost their allure and that was the only thing they had going for them. Without that allure, they’re nothing compared to the Hollywood lights.

They’ve completely fucked up. I know it, you know it, Hollywood knows it, the Royal Family knows it. Harry and Meghan are the only people on earth who haven’t figured it out. They haven’t done a single thing they planned since leaving. They’re not happier, they don’t live a more private life, they don’t have more bandwidth to do charity work, they’re not making money hand over fist, they’re not successful in their new endeavors… they’ve completely fucked up.

Harry, in particular, has completely fucked up. He gave up a life of structure, service, wealth, luxury, success, protection, guidance, family, friendship for… this? And he’s pretending that it was the best decision he ever made? Please. He fucked up, and it will continue to come back to bite him day in and day out until he learns to sit down, shut up, get some help, and hire some competent people to make shit happen for him, because clearly he cannot direct the ship on his own.

This is not how it was supposed to be - not for us as fans, nor for them after leaving. It did not have to be this way. I’d bet anything that the part of Harry who wanted this is dwindling more and more each day. Someday, he’s going to regret the whole thing. The more I see him and hear him, the more I think he’s already there. He fucked up, and I think he’s finally on his way to realizing that they have to do something to make the world interested in them beyond their association with the family. That will diminish, and then they’ll really be shit out of luck.

What a complete and utter disaster, Henry. What a mess. With all due respect, Your Royal Highness - you fucked up.

#prince Harry #Duke of sussex #Meghan Markle #Duchess of sussex #British royal family #Harry and Meghan #my post #oh I’m going to get so much shit for this lolol

[goodluckclove]

What keeps me from writing: my own insecurity I guess. I can write random scenes that never go anywhere but I struggle writing complete stories because that's when my stupid goblin brain will hit the breaks and be like: hold on a second, this is nothing like what the writing books say. For some reason I get stupidly hung up on doing things the "right" way (aka what some professional writing person has said). I have to actively, mentally go against it and tell myself to write things the way I feel are right for me. And on the bad days I can't tell anymore if what I just wrote is good or bad because all I can hear in my head is: this not how you're supposed to do it. I like to think I'm getting better at it.

Hi, Lych. I'm so happy to see you. Will you maybe sit down with me for a second? I was trying to get some work done today but I can't stop thinking about this question so I figure something is telling me that it's important.

Let me see your writing books. Give me those blog posts and videos too. Wow, there's a lot here, isn't there? A lot of people seem to consider themselves authorities on writing. Some people who you know are very successful, and others who you've never seen or heard of before. And they all seem to be saying something different, don't they? Or maybe they'll reference each other like they're all strands in some grand dreamcatcher of professional acceptability.

Okay, we've looked at it for long enough. What I have right here is a large bottle of kerosene - you might want to stand back, actually. I'm going to go ahead and start spraying down all these rules and standards until they're nice and rankly damp. It might take a second.

They're wrong, you know. Anyone who gives you a step-by-step guide on any form of art and tells you it's the only way to do it is wrong. Structure isn't bad, per say. If you're a visual artist, it could help to learn traditional anatomy. If you're a filmmaker, you should...I mean, it would help to know how to use a camera. You should know how to use the tools you want to use to some extent, and YouTube tutorials could be pretty useful for that -

You know what? I think the fumes are getting to me. Would you mind helping me out? Here, I have another bottle. Catch.

For some reason there's a very terrible trend of new, unpublished, non-working writers feeling like they need to give advice in absolutes instead of sharing what works for them. There's a strange height of unsubstantiated confidence in people like this that always leaves me kind of befuddled - my example is always a woman I saw online who explained that every story needs a second act twist. That still bothers me.

But it's not really any better with famous and massively successful writers who release books on how to write. Not only does it create the dangerous unspoken narrative that if someone buys the book and follows every step they'll have a carbon-copy career, but I've found that once you write for long enough you forget a lot of the struggles that beginning writers have. I've been writing for fifteen years, and I no longer really remember what it feels like to struggle in a lot of profound ways that many do. I have doubts still. I'll commonly ask myself if what I write is actually any good at all. But it comes up way less often than it used to.

You're doing a really good job. I think that's probably enough fuel.

I think this is more of an issue with those who already have a predisposition for creativity, and by what you've posted on your blog I can see that you're a very skilled and impressive artist already. Your bronze Icarus was especially touching to me, both emotionally and in the sense that I just kind of wish that I could touch it. You express movement in a lot of subtle ways. It's really cool!

Maybe switching to writing feels like starting over. Like you have to get someone's permission before you can just start. Damn, my match broke.

Where was I? Oh, right.

You know how to read, don't you? You've read stories, or had stories read to you? If so, then that's your permission right there. If you make an effort to absorb a variety of stories from different perspectives, as well as engage in the world and people around you, as well as take time for introspection towards your own inner world...well, that's everything you need. From that point on you can go to workshops and get feedback or whatever, but that's not something you really have to worry about yet.

Now that I think about it, you might be better with a matchbook than I am. A sculptor much have steadier hands than someone like me. Ah, there! Fantastic.

You know where to go from here, my friend.

#writeblr #writing community #writers on tumblr #on writing #authors of tumblr #writing resources #writing inspiration #writers supporting writers

[jakowskis]

@buffetpallascat doing a good ol' days reply because i had enough thoughts on this to warrant some meta, in my typical rambling fashion. hope you don't regret engaging by the time im done dfhkdsf

for starters, you're very welcome, i'm glad you enjoy the post :D

as for your question - i meant moreso that it was typical of the fandom, although it was also very much influenced by societal trends of the time, too. fandom's always had a rocky history with women, especially women who supposedly 'get in the way of "slash" couples', but the way fandom misogyny is performed has changed; i see more willful erasure of female characters these days than flat out blatant misogyny. in tw fan content from the 00s, i've seen gwen hatefully AND casually called some pretty horrible things that i rarely see fictional or real women called nowadays, simply because standards have changed. hell, one of the comms i linked, the twgenre finders one, there was several entries requesting fic where gwen experiences, like, bodily harm? not in a whump-y way, they actually wanted to recreationally read fic about her getting physically injured and suffering, out of some bizarre sense of malice towards her. simply because she 'gets in the way of janto'. and i can't even fathom that existing nowadays. pretty much everyone outside of weird little 12 year olds knows that's not acceptable. not to mention it's just weird.

interestingly i've also noticed a lottttt of change in how the fandom... reacted to and treated janto as a couple back in the day, versus now. people in 2006 were not normal about gay people. we know fandom's history with fetishizing gay men, and it was even worse in 2006 with an exceptionally rare canon gay couple being received by a jarringly hetero-but-'slash'-obsessed fanbase.

i mean, i don't wanna generalize. i saw a poll recently about how fandom is not mainly composed of straight women, contrary to popular belief, at least anymore, and i guess the question is, was it ever? i have seen a lot of the people involved in fandom in the 00s identify themselves as straight, but was that partially because of the culture of that era? have any of those people since come out as some type of queer? maybe, for some of them, that was them exploring their queerness in a safe environment, when the culture around being gay in real life was a lot different.... the same way modern fandom culture continues to be for those of us who aren't in accepting homes. if they were 20smth year olds in the 2010s/2020s, rather than the 2000s, would they still identify as straight?

not sure. but i've made a habit of going on the profiles of old lj accounts, and i'll sometimes wind up going through the journals and the personal posts of authors i respect, etc etc. a significant amount of mid 00s fic writers were straight women in their 30s - 40s, many married, some with kids. very different demographic to modern fandom. very different climate they lived in vs the one we're in.

(although, bonus note, i also once found a thread of bisexuals in 2006 praising torchwood's depiction of bisexuality, and that made me exceptionally happy. but also maybe a little sad, because torchwood's my personal fav bi rep, too, in 2023, and the fact that we've had nothing better in seventeen years is a bit of a bummer. but i digress.)

anyway, this is all to say, i've seen some insanely fetishy shit about jack and ianto that rubbed me exceptionally wrong. that gross dehumanizing, severely homophobic place where it's like... ahh, ok, so you don't see them as people, you see them as sexy dolls you can mash together. but, ofc, that's how i view it as a bisexual person in 2023 who's been on tumblr far too long. they didn't see any problem with it. they might've even seen it as progressive. how can you be homophobic when you're obsessed with the little gay people on ur screen? but it's the opposite end of the 'homophobes reducing gay ppl down to what they do in their beds' trope, and it comes across as dated and icky now.

i mean, i consume a lot of older media, i know how to turn off my 21st century sensibilities and remind myself things used to be different, but it's honestly an impressive difference. there's some fantastic fics from that era of the fandom, in fact most of my favorite fics are from that era, but i often get quite a bit of culture shock reading things. particularly, i'm always impressed by people in the 2000s, an extremely biphobic era, applying their impressive period-typical 'bisexuals aren't real' beliefs to The Bisexual Show. torchwood's rep's not perfect (again, a product of its era), but i've seen a fantastic amount of gay!ianto and straight!owen, because bisexual men don't exist, obviously, and jack's not bisexual, he's the amazing slutty space man, except he's mostly gay because all that matters is janto. and i don't even really see explorations of gwen or tosh's bisexuality at all, because, again, women who?

i found a comm a while back, i didn't include it on my list because it wasn't torchwood-exclusive and didn't have much content in the tw tag, but it was a lgbtfest, and contained fics about the team and their relationships with their bisexuality, and it was really intriguing to me to see queerness as understood by regular people in 2007/2008, y'know, not by gay writers or activists or films. i have no way of knowing if any of them were speaking from any personal place, but it was just interesting, because none of the fics i read in that comm had that same brand of tone-deaf sex-focused homophobia to them, they were progressive for the time, but it was still apparent to me that they were written by people with a mid to late 00s understanding of being gay, and i do think it's interesting, that substantial difference.

got a bit off topic, but now that i mentioned the initial fandom being overwhelmingly composed of women, i can also add that i think internalized misogyny factored hugely into the fandom's disdain for gwen. the 'strong female' trope doesn't just annoy straight men, it also annoys a lot of women (though not consciously) - not because they're opposed to well-written women, but because society tells us certain things that'd be admirable and complex and sympathetic out of a male hero are unacceptable out of a female one. it's the double standard. jack does some awful shit, but i rarely see him criticized. i've straight up seen fans go "jack's kind of a bastard, but it's ok because he's hot", which is fine in jest, i've joked about shit like that with characters, but it's not so cute when those same people turn around and condemn gwen for her actions. hell, or owen. i've literally seen someone say they'd like owen more if he was more conventionally attractive. like, ok, you're clearly just here for the janto eye candy. you haven't brought any substantial critical thinking skills. pls take ur shallow ass and leave. but back to gwen - she was held to a standard none of the other characters are held to. they picked on her for the stupidest shit. and her worse sin, the infidelity, it's bad, sure, but i've seen countless male characters who cheat on their partners who are beloved by their fandoms. it's just fucking gross. i fucking hate hypocrites.

dude, yknow what?? i've even seen fucking tosh bashing. WHO THE FUCK HATES TOSH????

ok im done. sorry for my babbling. but yeah, i think it's a fascinating thing. i love how humans change and develop with the times and how we can map the changes and how they affect media, and it's fun to observe in fandom because it's there, too, but no one's looking so i get to feel like a little scientist fdskjfds. ok i will cease with the excessive babbling now

#mine #txt #torchwood posting #i love writing essays where i say nothing at all

[imsiriuslyreading]

hello i wasn’t quite sure where to send this so i’ll put it here for the moment. i just wanted to say that i found myself a quiet afternoon to binge ‘i have no milk’ and i am finding it so so lovely. you’ve both made wonderful companions today, and making lots of ppl give me strange looks as i laugh at seemingly nothing :))

also perhaps on a strange note but i’m a bit younger than you guys and i’m finding the style of conversation and topics, etc, all rather comforting(?). it gives the same vibe as that ‘because the world didn’t end when i was 15’ trend, is the best way i can phrase it. listening to you discuss your lives and the expectations you had for them and then them being Not Those Expectations but here you are making a podcast, reading your fics and making new friends etc etc. it all kind of feels like you’re patting me on my little anxious head and going ‘the world isn’t ending it’s just changing’.

anyway i haven’t a clue if that actually made any sense but i’m enjoying the podcast immensely and hoping you’re both well and looking forward to more to come !!

hello lovely thing,

this was the most beautiful message to wake up to, oh my goodness.

firstly, thanks ever so much for listening. Montana and I are very honoured to have been your friends alongside your sunday afternoon <3 no better way to spend a day, if you ask me.

we both adored your message, particularly the part about 'the world didn't end at 15', alongside the 'world isn't ending, it's just changing.' because I think you're onto something a bit special there.

something i've noticed is that, yes, as you said, the world didn't end at 15. it didn't end at 17, 19, 24, 27 etc for me either, although sometimes it sort of felt like it had. but it did change, and so did i, as we all do, but some things stay the same i reckon.

the main one being is the need and want for connections and friends throughout your life. everyone has it, i think, whether or not its something they speak about freely. our whole lives, the Big Expectations of What Your Life Should Look Like is drilled into us so thoroughly, and in actuality, the older I get, the less i find all that matters. I've done some cool things over the last few years in my career. I've had the whole long-term relationship on the right track to marriage and the big house, blah blah blah. but none of that matters, really.

my career is boring as sin and I'm always looking for the things that set my soul on fire. that relationship burned into nothingness and, frankly, i couldn't be happier about it.

the bits that stick, though, are the friends you make. we go through such periods of loneliness where it feels like we'll never find our people. but we do find them. often in the most unexpected places (harry potter fanfiction I'm looking you dead in the eye right now). and let me tell you, I'm pretty sure I've found my soulmates here, if that's not too cheesy. I've felt more highs and lows in fiction and friends in the past year or so than I have probably my whole life. and when I was a teenager or in my early 20s, I'd look at people my age now and think 'god you're like, a real grown up.' but fuck if they exist, really. we're all just toddling along, doing our best and seeing what sticks.

and honestly, the best bit about getting to grow older is that you discover so much more of yourself, and get the chance to craft who you are into someone you're proud of.

so, i guess, what i'm trying to say is that I'm absolutely thrilled to hear our conversations felt like a little reassuring pat on the head. because whatever life ends up looking like, as long as you love it, or big parts of it at least, i think that's what matters.

and thank you, because your message felt a bit like a pat on the head, too. and it meant so much more to me (and Montana!) than you know.

I'm excited for you to decide whats next in your story.

have the most beautiful day and thank you ever so much once again for sending this <3

#lanas crying again #harry potter fanfic #wolfstar are responsible for this #sorry for rambling on #ive just read an exceptionally emotional fic and I'm in the feels

[ravetaper]

Mark Farina Halloween 2015 Live Set

This is a 3-hour audio recording of Mark Farina Halloween 2015 live set recorded in Orange County, California, on October 31, 2015.

Mark F'ing Farina. Easily in the top 5 deep house dj's. Probably in the top three. Maybe in the top 2?

Come on. I've never heard someone deliver such deep funk so consistently. Every. Single. Time.

So this is an interesting recording. It's not from my archive of classic rave recordings, nor something recorded recently. This is the audio counterpart to a live video stream I did all the way back in 2015.

Today, post Covid, the mention of live streaming elicits not even a yawn, we are so desensitized to it by now. For obvious reasons, the real streaming revolution happened 2019-2021. So I consider it a little feather in my cap that Rave Tapes was running good-sounding, multi-cam streams long before the trend took off.

The event? A cozy Halloween party hosted by Swerve Underground, the monthly event hosted by producer/dj Wally Callerio of Dufflebag Recordings and partner/dj 1st Nature. Wally has been a respected producer for years and had the right connections to pull some amazing names down to their Orange County venue, an hour south of Los Angeles. Names like Dereck Carter, Doc Martin, and other titans of the deep house movement.

So when the opportunity came up to do a live video stream of their Halloween party, taking place in a cool bohemian art space, with special guest Mark Farina? Pfft. It was the chance I had been waiting for, lol!

So, miraculously, the whole thing went off almost without a hitch. I say almost because I believe power was cut to the decks at one point. But considering it was a 2+ hour set, we forgot about it almost instantly after power was restored. Otherwise, the internet connection was good, my gear held up. It happened. In fact, here's the video evidence:

So this is the audio to that. While the audio in the YouTube version sounds unbelievably clean, this sounds even better. I finally went back and properly mixed the four audio channels, left-right stereo pair from the dj decks, then left-right stereo pair from the room mic.

It sounds absolutely pristine, if I do say so myself. I had to decide how loud to keep the mic levels vs the feed from the dj mixer. I think I am happy with these levels but I might change my mind and update the file at some point.

The content? Well, it's good ol' reliable Mark Farina. Of course every dj has a "look" and Farina certainly has his trademark glasses and scruffy chin. But man, when you see that familiar visage behind the decks and hear the funky bass line over the system, you know you have nothing to worry about. You know you're in for a good time.

Last time I saw Farina was EDC 2022 Bionic Jungle stage. It was very late Sat night. Actually very early morning Sunday about 4 am. Still dark and trippy.

Saturday. Hump day. People are grinding in more ways than one. And Mark is closing out little Bionic Jungle. I don't mean little in a condescending way. Actually, the inconspicuousness of the stage is what made it so great. It was def an intimate space and you could get right up close to your favorite deep house dj's. My only issue that night was that it wasn't going to yield a complete Rave Tapes recording. Yes, I recorded while I danced there. But knew I was arriving late because of another set, and I knew I was leaving early because I don't like getting stuck in parking. While there may have been an hour of material, the other issue was there was a nasty buzzing coming from some vibrating stage rigging.

So that's probably why I'm mentioning EDC here, because it's a good opportunity to discuss it since there will never be a Rave Tapes recording from that night to link it to.

I guess my point is, be it at Swerve Halloween 2015, EDC 2022, or the other times I've heard Farina play, Farina always, ALWAYS, delivers a top shelf performance.

While I'm always eager to bring these live sets to you for the sake of your listening pleasure, truth be told, I get excited when posting these because in most cases it's the first time I get to have easy SoundCloud access to the mixes, too.

And with this one, I'm over-the-moon thrilled for completely selfish reasons ;)

Nevertheless, please enjoy!

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#mark farina #halloween 2015 #live set #mushroom jazz #rave tapes #deep house #SoundCloud #Youtube

[centrally-unplanned]

I did in fact watch Rings of Power, and its hard actually to criticize it in relation to how much of the discourse around it is just nonsense, eight levels of windmill-tilting meta critiques that makes the show itself difficult to glimpse. And as a show on its own terms, if you watched it as someone with maybe a passing familiarity with the Peter Jackson films and that it is it, its first episode is pretty decent. Some dings on the worldbuilding and a little bit too committed to the modern “multiple disparate story arcs that will weave together in the finale” formula, but nothing major.

I, however, I am not someone with just a passing familiarity; I am in fact an insufferable LOTR hipster who will tell you that The Silmarillion is better than the Lord of The Rings, for example. Though... Christopher Tolkien’s decision to excise the disparate narrators of Rúmil and Pengolodh of the texts extant in JRR Tolkien’s notes was a mistake as it marries together what were intended to be separate stories with their own tones and authorial biases surrounding a unifying historical event without revealing to the reader that reality, resulting in tonal jumps and uneven transitions, and that the Silmarillion is really a publishing artifact anyway, necessary to condense the story of Arda into a printable page count but a constraint its success liberated us from by paving the way for the publication of the Histories of Middle Earth, which in all of their contradictory fragmentation more perfectly embody the story-as-history the tale of Arda is meant to be. So maybe it would be inaccurate to say that The Silmarillion is ‘better’ but more that it-

Anyway, I can’t come into Rings of Power with fresh eyes. And while you do need to give charity, things will need to be simplified and new details imagined, in the end the product I want is some form of adaptation. What has really baffled me, in the modern era especially but honestly its a trend with a long history, are the completely unnecessary changes to the source material that one episode in are already polluting the work.

Galadriel is one of the best characters in Middle Earth, pretty sure that is objective. And one of the reasons she is the best character is how her motivations stand out from the crowd. She is actually mentioned by name during the Oath of Feanor in the Silmarillion, a cause which she joins for her own motives:

But Galadriel, the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant amoung the contending pinces, was eager to be gone. No oaths she swore, but the words of Feanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will

Galadriel’s ambition to rule and master a land where she can build her own destiny is a great motive - its not evil, she is a great ruler, but embedded in it are seeds that could result in evil. Its how the One Ring tempts her in Lothlorien, as that desire for dominance was always inside her. And rulership is also so...personal & complex, it can be expressed it so many ways.

So why does Rings of Power literally delete her character and replace it with this revenge bot? Its so *boring*, oh your brother died - who by the way, in the text *literally got better*, reincarnated by Mandos due to his noble deeds and is chillin in Valinor, also Galadriel had 4 brothers but never mind they don’t matter I guess - so now you want revenge. Sounds like a character with a binary motivation that I have seen a thousand times before! And one that doesn’t  connect with the one expressed in The Lord of the Rings films you are so slavishly attempting to cash in on via association.

The why is important here, because you do have to make changes, I understand that, but here its wholly unnecessary. Ambitious!Galadriel is canonically the character who scouts out the movements of Sauron! Her desire to cultivate Middle Earth and protect her kin give her plenty of motivation to do so. You aren’t telling a new story that necessitates this change, you are telling the *same story*, just worse, for no reason. The ‘why’ therefore comes from the fact that authentic adaptation just isn’t a value writers rooms hold anymore, instead inventing the story in isolation from the context and retrofitting the adaptational elements on afterwards. Which sucks.

The same problem rears its head with the idea of a trip to Valinor as a “reward” a chosen few can be granted as an honor. After the defeat of Morgoth the Noldor are, with a few exceptions, pardoned, and the elves can sail to Valinor at any time. You need a good boat but they have those, its not a particularly difficult journey, and in this time period elves are doing it of their own volition all the time. So why don’t people like Celebrimbor and Galadriel not go back? Setting aside some textual debate about Galadriel’s pardon, its primarily because they don’t want to, the ambitions and independence and all that. The show entirely rewrites how Valinor works, and Galadriel’s character, in order to deliver...the same exact conflict the books already have! Elves being torn between staying in Middle Earth & returning to Aman is one of the primary conflicts of the Second Age.

Also why does sailing into the West in the show look like you pass through a light teleporter? Are you implying the sea is sundered and Aman is in a different plane? Because that happens ~2000 years later than when your show is set, Amazon. Right now Aman is just *there*, its a normal continent not surrounded by a halo of light. Literally anyone *can* sail there, they just aren’t allowed to land if they aren’t elves. 

So Maiar are generally immortal, you know? And Sauron wasn’t personally destroyed during the War of Wrath - he surrendered to the Valar, they requested he return to Valinor to face judgement, and then he fled. Literally no one thinks he is dead, or gone, or honestly that he hasn’t been up to shit, they would have no reason to. They just can’t find him and don’t know his capabilities. Which, again, is the story you want to tell - why have the elves look like idiots? Can’t they just not be able to find him, and *therefore* they want to reduce their patrols and declare peace, while wiser, headstrong, ambitious Galadriel knows there is a greater threat lurking? Why flip around the whole premise to wind up with something so close to the source materially anyway?

I can forgive stuff like pretending the Elves fought Morgoth because he was ‘evil’, like its really dumb, the Silmarils are such a big deal the entire history of the First Age is named after them, but they aren’t relevant to this story, I get that. You wanted to simplify, its understandable. But these changes...if you know the source material, you made it *more complex* for me. I couldn’t even tell what year this story took place in at first! Galadriel bent on revenge? If this is 1200 SA shouldn’t she be in Lothlorien by now? They think Sauron is *dead*? Is this...after the Last Alliance? That can’t be right of course, Eregion is here and there are no rings yet. I don’t know what knowledge I can trust now, which is weird! You gained nothing for making your audience pay that price.

Its hard not to think of other big fantasy media projects like Star Wars in regards to this, in that something in media production is just harshly destroying attempts to maintain internal consistency and cohesiveness when it comes to these world-building heavy stories. I still don’t quite understand it, and I think Rings of Power will hopefully be another glimpse into the machine in that regard.

But its the first episode, maybe I will be wrong, who knows, lets find out next week.

#rings of power #lotr

[sixthwater]

Elements within the workplace

**Check your Sun sign, sign over the 6th house, Midheaven. Check planets within the 6th and 10th house as well.

🌱 / Earth: Easiest ones to pinpoint. Even if you don't fully subscribe to astrology, they make you second guess that. They fulfill their stereotypes to a T and it's kind of hilarious. Taureans will ultimately be their relaxed self while having that slight edge of taking their role seriously, but that rarely comes out because ~we're coasting on good vibes~ and you're not ruining theirs. Virgos are wired thanks to being fixated on things being done incorrectly and being uncomfortable for whatever reason that day (probably zeroing in on something they thought they did wrong). Do them and everyone else a favor and distract them with a side conversation before they accidentally snap at someone over something small? Capricorns are the funniest because they're probably in formal attire / business casual even if that's not the code. They're one of the few people making sure things are getting done (well, they are a cardinal earth 10th house sign) and they're always seemingly monotone, busy, or like they're keeping an eye on you but they're super chill. Also legitimately funny actually, you just have to pay attention

🔥 / Fire: Needs a handler, and the exact opposite of the earth section (who is usually the handler). They're hard-working, exciting/entertaining, but usually at a cost. If you pay attention to them for a little you'll be able to guess their signs, but they hide it a bit better, considering most fire signs are good leaders since they're great initiators and super charismatic. I know they're fire signs so like yeah loud bombastic, but so far a trend I've noticed is that, when they're actually working, they're super focused and dedicated/serious. All their fire energy goes straight into their work and it's usually amazing. Aries tend to, ironically, be pretty chill when approaching work, but also be willing to speak up when things don't make sense and also be willing to try new ideas. Leos are noticed more through their creations and contributions than their actual presence, weirdly enough. They have high standards for their work and need their desk/work space to be decorated or fun in Some way (matching the seasons, personalized, funny, just something). Sagittarians are usually causing havoc, but it's fun. They oscillate between being super philosophical and asking hard hitting questions during team meetings / meetings with higher ups and then not being allowed to play with the crafts from the staff room.

☁️ / Air: The bane of my existence. The only way you can tell you're surrounded by air signs is when you're having a chill conversation and you turn around for A Minute and you turn back and suddenly you're all talking about religion, race & culture, physics, the themes of life and what's beyond us all. Geminis, stereotypically, are the most open to discussion and will turn small talk into about a 4 minute debate. It's actually very fun. They're never doing this to annoy people, but they're genuinely curious to see how other people work and where they're coming from, and it's a love language of sorts if you do the same for them (but they do get distracted immediately so) Also 100% would play games at work. Libras are hilarious and you will immediately be able to tell if they vibe-checked you or not and no I'm not elaborating for their sake. They're pretty detached from the system in general as long as nothing weird is going on (fairness, all that jazz) but They Are Paying Attention, they will clown you Lovingly if you deserve it, but they do know everyone on an acquaintance like level. Aquarians Think They Are What Libras Are, I'm so sorry I have to inform you that you are not. However they are usually the more social of the batch. They actually will hold a conversation with you and actually be engaged. To what depth I'm unsure, but you'll have their attention for that time at least! When it's time to 'socialize' they will do so and then they will disappear as if that didn't just happen.

💧 / Water: The fools of the bunch. Without realizing, their emotions are always on display for the rest of their co-workers to notice. However they're also the first ones to invest in relationships in the workforce or be deeply affected by what happens here (like I said, the fools </3). Cancers are an exact example of seeing people as family or making habits of checking in on people daily, making rounds, or having little nicknames for people. They are the ones who will either end up being protective of others, or people end up being protective of them. Maybe both. Scorpios are the most plugged in for their emotions, so they're the most pulled back. If you have encountered a scorpio in the wild, don't be too insulted if they take forever to say more than ten words to you. They're aware that their emotions can be volatile and whatever they're feeling is no one else's fault, so they don't really want to interact with people they're not used to. They're also just naturally protective of themselves. You will probably find them in the corner or in a closed off room somewhere doing their work by themselves, but they're usually super friendly and sweet. The less you try and make them talk the faster they'll open up / the more they'll like you. Pisces are pretty close to Libras actually, much more blunt about it though. They're pretty approachable, and they're pretty much just...chilling most of the time. They will goof off sometimes when distracted, enough to dedicated themselves to whatever joke they came across to 'perfect' it instead of actually working. They also like to snack a lot (loops back around into chilling and essentially making their space 'homey').

#astrology #elements #astrology observations #earth signs #fire signs #air signs #water signs #mygalaxypost

[waheelawhisperer]

12, 18, and 25 with rwby? And 9, 10, and 20 with Arknights

Someone finally chose a fandom

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I can't say I'm a fan of any super underrated RWBY characters, so I'll go with Robyn Hill because certain segments of this fanbase absolutely hate her and I don't see her talked about much these days.

Robyn Hill is courageous, compassionate, smarter than most people give her credit for, absurdly hot, and has great people skills and a voice I could listen to all day. She's also the proud owner of a personal Combat Twink as of the end of Volume 7, so she's got that going for her.

She's also been putting up with Ironwood's shit for way longer than any human being should have to and deserves credit for that

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Yang's intelligence. No one outside of Tumblr wants to admit she has a brain. Even the people who do acknowledge her intelligence don't want to admit that based on what we've actually seen so far on the screen (not what the narrative has tried to tell us), Yang is actually the smartest member of her team.

25) common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Every time I see a post tagged with "anti-rwde" or any variant of "greenlight Volume 10" I have to fight the overwhelming urge to smash the block button. The first is an obnoxious circlejerk full of people who get high off their own outrage and the second is a blatant declaration that whoever's posting it doesn't care who Rooster Teeth has hurt in the past and will continue to hurt if given the chance as long as they get more of a mid-tier cartoon.

"Yang is a bad sister"

"Team RWBY was wrong to defy Cordovin's authority" (the show fucked up by failing to adequately establish the necessity of doing so, as I talked about in another post, but this is literally just a standard YA plot beat that the writers just dropped the ball on regarding execution)

"Adam got nerfed/was wasted potential/whatever" (I'm far more willing to entertain discussions of potential racism in his depiction)

"Team RWBY shouldn't've lied to Ironwood"

"Robyn Hill is dumb and angry" - she's been dealing with Ironwood's bullshit for ages now and had reason to believe that he'd specifically screwed her over

"Team RWBY constantly demand authority" - They follow authority figures until those authority figures fail, which they do with remarkable consistency. Almost like this is a story about the new generation surpassing the old and not repeating their mistakes. Whether that's actually executed well is... another story.

"Qrow was dumb for teaming up with Tyrian" - it was his best play and none of his options were actually good. The actual dumbass was Clover.

"Yang is impulsive and reckless and lost her arm at Beacon because of it" - No. She had no better choice than the one she made and it wasn't her fault she ended up in that situation.

I guess some of these are bad takes more so than complaints, but I hate them regardless

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9) worst part of canon

Ending of Near Light, give me back my FUCKING WIFE

Every fucking Kal'tsit monologue

Every fucking Kashchey monologue

Chapters 2-3 also sucked ass

Chapter 9 continued the trend of "violently protesting against oppression is bad, m'kay?" that showed up in the depiction of Reunion and then tried to make us root for the fucking British.

Chapters 10-11 are so fucking convoluted that reading them feels like a chore instead of something I'm doing for fun.

All the Sui events take everything that annoys me about Arknights writing and turn it up to 11

Guiding Ahead wasn't terrible as a self-contained story, but it was too self-contained: it only felt like it was even taking place on Terra because Mostima was there. Nothing about it felt connected to the rest of the narrative and it killed my desire to learn more about Laterano.

10) worst part of fanon

Promiscuous/homewrecker Nearl. Alternatively, the stupid fucking memes about SilverAsh wanting the Doctor to breed his sisters.

20) part of canon you found tedious or boring

I'll just copy what I said when I answered this one earlier:

Pretty much everything at this point because absolutely no one on the writing team knows how to condense a narrative and wouldn't be concise about anything if you held a gun to your head. Like I'm sorry but you do not need to write a Lord of the Rings-length novel and then decide that's not enough and write a second novel between the lines of the first one just to tell a story about a horsegirl fighting capitalism in a DBZ tournament arc. You can just trim the fat and convey the information effectively. It won't kill you.

#ask game #rwby #arknights

[yourscordially]

Circles in Venn Diagrams

You have to be different.

I was born in a world where among a vast amount of people with distinct personalities, style, and passion, I have to stand out. If others like sour treats, I must like sweets. If they like comedy, I must like horror. If they like a show, I must like another. If they wear hats, I must wear none. If they wear skirts, I must wear pants. If they're calm, I must be loud. I learned to grow up in an age where I couldn't have what others had, couldn't be what others were, and couldn't do what others did. I've been conditioned to believe that in order to stand out from the crowd, I must always be unique. That was the way it was supposed to be, all the way from the beginning to the end; the only way for people to recognize you for who you are is if they can recognize your unique edge over others.

As a child, I liked the color pink. In my early years, I thought pink was a lovely color, regardless of its shade—light or fuchsia. I had notebooks, pencil cases, hair clips, slippers, pink dresses, and even a backpack. I guess you could say that pink is the color that most represents me because I adore it. However, I was compelled to like blue after learning that my cousin also loves the color pink. I began to despise pink—the color that used to symbolize me, one of my most treasured favorites, and the color that I had fallen in love with. That's when blue became a refuge color. To show how I am particular, I would buy anything blue, including clothing, stationery, and pens. I am different, because instead of pink, I like blue.

As time flew, I grew fond of dresses. Pants didn't appeal to me; they didn't look pleasant, and they didn't seem to capture my joy of dressing up to express who I am. I didn't enjoy shorts either because I think they're too short and they make my legs appear thinner than they actually are. As a result, dresses were my preferred choice for special occasions. I used to wear dresses on events like birthdays, Christmas, and New Year's because I felt like I looked good in them at the time. But I stopped swinging my skirt as soon as I realized that my cousin prefers to wear dresses and that it fits them better than it does me. I detested pants, so they became my disguise—a cover that concealed my true preferences and emphasized my variances. I am different, because instead of dresses, I wore pants.

Just as I entered my teenage years, I stopped being girly. I started acting in the opposite way after discovering that many girls my age preferred pink, dressed in dresses, applied makeup, and expressed themselves in a way that made them seem extremely feminine. I loved the color blue, never put on makeup, wore pants, and expressed myself in a way that other people couldn't or wouldn't. Being unique, in my opinion back then, is what makes a person truly distinctive and allows you to express who you are by outshining others. So I am different, because instead of being like them, I chose to be different just so I can be myself.

But today, and a lot of days before that, I realized that being different doesn't make you you, uniqueness doesn't elevate you or your outlook, expression does. Being able to communicate your likes and dislikes without worrying about fitting in or being left out of trends is what it means to be authentic. Being unique, having your own style, or emphasizing your qualities are not necessary conditions for being genuine. Here, I'm wearing a dress and a lavender cardigan in a picture that my younger self would probably loathe due to the outfit I'm wearing. My younger self would think dresses are too girly and so is lavender, but my present self would definitely say that it is girly, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Feminine or not, pink or blue, skirts or pants, you do you. You don't have to be different, you don't have to force yourself to like things others do, you just have to be yourself, whether you resemble others or not. What matters is how you feel with the way you dress, so wear dresses with flowers or lavender cardigans that are soft in nature, despite the possibility of wearing the same combination as other people.

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

FIRST OF ALL WELCOME BACK BRIEEEEE

it did tickle me but...would've been a lot better if it woke me up at like...9am and not in the wee hours of the morning 😔😔

OFC I WILL VALIDATE YOUR OBESSION??? ANALYZING SOMEONE'S PLAYLIST IS TOTALLY VALID CUZ LIKE IT GIVES YOU SUCH A GOOD INTRO(?) TO THEIR CHARACTER AND WHAT KIND OF PERSON THEY AREEEE

you make me laugh ALL THE TIME brie pls remember that!!

YES I HAVE!! MY FRIEND USED TO READ IT ALL THE TIME AND IT WAS ACTUALLY KIND OF A TREND IN MY SCHOOL LOL (i was too busy reading harry potter but wtv...)

DARK HAIR GREEN EYES IS HE A TREE? completely unrelated question...would you climb him like a tree.

OOH WHATS UR FAV CDRAMA??? FEEL FREE TO DROP RECS AND LITTLE THINGS YOU LIKE IN THESE RESPONSES CUZ IM ALWAYS OPEN TO WHATEVER

ohhh thats so sad :( maybe one day they'll come to your city ??? if you do get to go to a con you should SO post a pic because i'd love to see more of you tbh (NOT IN A CREEPY WAY IDK IM SORRY IF IT CAME OFF LIKE THAT)

I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO APPRECIATE MY GUY FRIEND YES. but like.....last week he called me ma'am......LIKE THAT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING GOOD RIGHT??? WHEN I TELL YOU THAT I ALMOST THREW MY PHONE WHEN I SAW THAT NOTIF POP UP. he's kinda flirty and ig he's playing dumb?? i have no clue cuz he's SO hard to read but there were times when we totally could've left each other on seen but we didn't so i assume that's also a good sign..

I ALSO APPRECIATE YOU BEING SO STRAIGHTFORWARD LOL?? IT'S SO REFRESHING

STAY SAFE W THIS FRIEND GROUP OKAY??? you are probably NOT the problem....people that are 'in tune' with their emotions are usually still VERY unhinged and NOT in control (they're just good at acting like they are) and besides!! it seems like you have a lot more personality than them HAHAHAH

HMM ALRIGHT?? I GUESS SCHOOL IS THE PROBLEM THEN AHHAHAHA.....(it's never really that funny is it 😔😔) best of wishes to you!! you got this <3333333

OKAY BUT HOW DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH RIZZ (read: rizzness, taemin) TO EVEN PULL??? NOT LIKE A 'ew ur gross how did you pull' TONE BUT LIKE AN APPRECIATIVE QUESTIONING KINDA TONE IDK HELP I CAN'T DESCRIBE MY EMOTIONS

I'LL READ BASICALLY ANYTHING YOU WRITE BRIE DON'T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT

-I MISSED YOU TOOOOOO (🫨 anon)

THANK YOUUU GLAD TO BE BACK!!!

If nothing else my favorite think to do is analyze mr. lee jihoon it’s a great self-study, my new senior thesis

HARRY POTTER IS SO SLAY ARE YOU A RAVENCLAW OR A HUFFLEPUFF THOSE ARE MY GUESSES FOR WHAT HPUSE YOU MIGHT BE WHAT’S YOUR HOUSE

He is a tree…. But he’s the mc’s so i will refrain from climbing him 🫠

LOVE O2O ITS SO CUTE I do love me a good lil cdrama DO YOU HAVE ANY DRAMA RECOMMENDATIONS

ILL SHOW YOU A PIC FROM ANIME CON AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!! I hope that spn comes close to me sometime though! I’d love to see them irl someday

Hmmm uh I don’t know how good him calling you ma’am is tbh… is he a sub IT WOULD BE GOOD IF HE’S A SUB… kinda flirty and dumb huh…. I don’t know if he’s flirty and dumb maybe he’s just a himbo… but i don’t know that last thing DOES seem like a green flag

YOURE SO SWEET THANK YOU 😭 I WILL BE VERY CAREFUL 😭 IM GLAD YOU LIKED MY STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS 😭 YOURE WAY TOO NICE 😭

YOU ARE ACTUALLY SO FUNNY it’s never really that funny…. 😂😂😂

NO BUT ACTUALLY HOW DO I HAVE ENOUGH RIZZ TO PULL THAT IS SUCH A GREAT QUESTION THE MORE SELF-CENTERED ELITIST I ACT THE MORE THAT STRANGE MEN LIKE ME SOMETIMES I WISH I COULD EXPLAIN IT WHY DOES THAT GUY LIKE ME I LITERALLY BULLIED HIM 😭

#thank you 🫨 anon #YOURE SO 😭😭😭 #ILYSM!! #I MISSED YOU SO BAD 😭 #b: 🫨 anon

[rockstar-pornograffitti]

Picture This

Part: II -> Part: I

Rick Savage X OC {Casey Spencer}

A/N: Comments and reblogs welcome! Also I’m doing a Sav POV on part of this chapter as the next one don’t worry.

Casey’s POV

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, making me set down my camera for a second to see who’s trying to get a hold of me. Now is a good time because everyone in the band is eating and it’s kind of weird to take photos of people eating.

I glance down at the Home Screen and see it’s a text from my dad. He’s not the biggest on texting, only doing it when he doesn’t want to bother me or he’s sending me a photo of something. I click on the text to open it and sure enough it's a photo. It’s of him and my pure black stallion, who I affectionately named Black Sabbath, Sabbath for short. Yes after the band. It's not that weird, have you heard some of the names of race horses? I promise you Black Sabbath is normal compared to that.

I can’t help but smile at the photo, how I miss both of them, but mostly Sabbath. No offence to my dad who I love very much, but I miss the damn horse so much. So many great times riding him until the sun came down around the ranch. He’s my baby, and I know he misses me too, and I can’t wait to see him again when the tour passes through Montana.

I can’t help but smile again as I read the text my dad sent with it, “Missing our girl.” I text my dad back, “missing you guys too.” Then I lock my phone screen and look up to see Joe staring at me, with an amused look on his face.

“What?” I ask genuinely confused, why the hell is he looking at me like that?

“What are you smiling about?” Joe asks me, “Have a boyfriend back home?”

“God no.” I snort about to burst out laughing, me and a boyfriend from back home? Never, I was always the weird kid, no one ever showed interest in me and most of them are cowboys not my type. “I was texting my dad, he sent me a photo of my horse.”

“Your horse?” Sav asks, raising an eyebrow at me, obviously curious about my comment regarding a horse.

“Yeah, my black stallion, Sabbath.” I tell him, pulling up the photo of Sabbath my dad just sent me. “See, my horse and my dad.”

“He’s a pretty animal.” Sav comments looking at the photo on my phone. “So you own a horse then?”

“No, not technically. My dad owns him, but my dad gave me Sabbath as a birthday gift.” I tell Sav, sliding along my photos to find one of my on my horse.

“Did you grow up on a horse farm or something?” Sav asks, he seems pretty interested in this and I appreciate it, there is nothing I love more than talking about my life on the ranch and my horse.

“No, my dad owns a ranch. He raises cattle.” I tell Sav, as I find the photo I’m looking for and show him. “See, this is me riding Sabbath.”

Of course the photo has me in full cowgirl mode, with my boots, chaps, shades and cowboy hat on, with a rope by my side because that day I was out helping my dad and the boys with the cattle.

“You’re like a real life Cowgirl.” He says, sounding astonished, though I’d hardly call myself that, I mean I’m nothing compared to my dad who’s for sure a real life cowboy. I guess I do look like one in that photo though.

“Did you think I wore cowboy boots for fashion?” I joke, knowing full well it was a massive fashion trend among rock stars in the 80s hell if I remember correctly Joe had some.

“I did yeah.” He admits, “but it’s actually quite interesting.”

“I can assume you kill these cows, correct?” Phil asks, looking slightly horrified, probably because he’s a vegetarian and just found out his new companion grew up raising animals to kill them.

“Yeah, but they had a damn good life before.” I inform him, trying to make him feel a bit better about it. “It’s part of the life of a rancher.”

Phil still looks slightly horrified but at least he’s not giving me some lecture about how my family are murders or something, I appreciate it.

“Wait, Sabbath, like Black Sabbath?” Viv suddenly pipes up looking at me with an odd expression.

“Yeah, I named my horse after black sabbath, i promise you it’s not that weird.” I tell him, “You haven’t seen anything weird till you’ve seen race horse names.”

He still looks at me dumbfounded by that, and I have to say it’s pretty funny to shock everyone in Def Leppard so much by being a rancher's daughter.

“You see now Joe? I wasn’t texting some secret boyfriend, just my dad. Also I wouldn’t want to date anyone where I’m from.” I tell him, “I’m the most single person alive.”

“Good.” I hear Sav say beside me, and turn to look at him confused.

“What?”

What does he mean by good? Like it’s good I’m single? But why the hell would he care? It’s not like he likes me in that way right? I mean he’s nice to me, and we get along well, he even calls me love and I like him a lot. I mean I’ve had a crush on him forever, and he’s so much more amazing then I could have imagined but he’s Rick Savage. He’s the bassist of Def Leppard, one of the biggest rock bands to ever exist and I’m just a girl from Montana. I mean there is no way he’d like me in that way, so it can’t be that, though that’s typically what it would mean. What else could he possibly mean? Maybe he’s happy I’m single because I can focus better? Or maybe it was just unfortunately timed and he meant good for a whole different reason.

“I-I meant this sandwich is good.” Sav tells me, “it’s not good you’re single, love. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I like it.” I tell him, and it makes a lot of sense since it was just unfortunately timed, I mean of course he wouldn’t want me in that way. I can always dream though.

“If you’re happy that’s what matters, love.” He smiles at me returning back to his food.

I jump as I feel my phone vibrating again only this time it’s continuous, meaning someone is trying to call me. I take out my phone again and see it’s my dad, I can’t ignore my own father and nothing too exciting or important is happening, so now is as good as ever.

“I’ve got to take this.” I tell all the leppard guys as I get up and leave the room so I can have some privacy as I talk to my dad.

#the bitch writes #def leppard fanfiction #rick savage fanfiction #rick savage x oc #rick savage #def leppard #picture this

[lol-jackles]

I respectfully disagree with the Anon who praised "Red, White, & Royal Blue." Honestly, it didn't hit the mark for me at all. I was actually pretty stoked about it, but the movie struggles with uneven pacing, superficial set design, undeveloped characters (and some of the important characters from the book were completely erased) and the chemistry between the two leads? Well, let's just say it's seriously lacking – you'd almost think they don't even like each other! (1/2)

Fair enough! I guess I just want to see two guys ruin a royal wedding by destroying a giant cake. Men think it’s fun to play with food, it's why at weddings we inevitably hear at least a couple of guys saying, “DUDE!! GET HER!! SMASH IT (the cake) IN HER FACE.”  Weddings are boring and guys want to have some fun.

Men: I’m bored the tux is killing me I don’t know most people here… oh god is that auntie Millie who only talks about her ex who left her 30 years ago oh no she’s coming this way… they’re cutting the cake FOOD FIGHT FOOD FIGHT FOOD FIGHT.

Women: Whew aunt Mildred didn’t see me and they’re cutting the cake now.  He better not smash the cake in her face and ruin the hundred-dollar makeup job and demean her through antiquated rituals that demonstrate the masculine prerogatives in the very act of subverting women.

Remember the hot-minute #adultsmashcake trend of adults aged 30 and over smashing their birthday cakes into their own faces?

.

Book's supporting characters tend to get shafted in the live action adaptations so that part is not surprising, look no further than book Ginny Weasly vs movie Ginny Weasly who was unbelievably dull.

"performative woke messaging"

From the author's Vanity Fair article, she is the child of the SJW era and unapologically made her book dated in 10 years or less. I once tried to read a queer romance book written entirely in email messages, this was back in the day when emails were just taking off and were new and shiny. Needless to say, I couldn't finish the book as its new storytelling style was grating and infuriating, and I remember thinking a tv or movie adaptation would be a great improvement. That was my thinking with Red, White, and Royal Blue, that it wouldn't be hard to improve it in a live action adaptation.

Oy, I really hope the Amazon adaptation doesn't give me Destiel vibes. Most Destiel fanfictions are either just replacing Sam with Castiel and giving Dean all of Sam's characteristics, or two characters who have nothing to do with Supernatural and are just running around with Dean and Cas's names.

"And honestly, this movie shouldn't be the one setting the standard for Queer Rom-Coms"

Anybody remember when Bros was marketed to a straight audience and they didn't show up? I mean, they pulled Bros' lead Billy Eichner on stage during the Bachelorette finale to advertise Bros, counting on straight women to drag their boyfriends/husbands to a queer Rom-Com. First, they overestimated the power of M/M fetish among straight women, and second, straight man generally don't watch Rom-Com and are not going to let themselves to dragged to see a gay Rom-Com, even if it's about lesbians. My point being that the standard has to be knowing who your audiences are.

#red white and royal blue

[tokiro07]

I just remembered that Undead Unluck came out in 2019. So it looks like you where hit by Apollo’s dodgeball when you coined the tag ‘Fouryearsandananime’

Impressive

I think that the one-shot was 2019, cus the serialization definitely started January 20, 2020. At the time my New Years Resolution was to keep track of all of the media I consumed that year and my opinion on them, and Undead Unluck was the second manga I did of that year the day it started (the first was 100 Girlfriends on the 5th). You can also find that date from other sources, that's just the main reason I remember it

Anyway, four years isn't actually a shot in the dark, it's a trend I've noticed reading Jump for as long as I have. Obviously, you have your perpetual manga like One Piece which go until they're good and ready to end, and you have countless manga that get canceled by chapter 20, but the ones that are only intended to go for four years tend to strike that balance between “goes too long” and “died too young” pretty well in my experience

Anything less than that and I tend to feel like there's a lot of story left to explore, anything more and I start to feel fatigued. My Hero Academia is eight years old now and I for one definitely haven't felt the magic I once did in the last couple of years. Jujutsu Kaisen just turned four, and while I only really started getting an interest this year, I'm still not exactly grabbed by the current arc. Whether that's because it's an incomplete story and it will hold up better on reread or because the author's habits are informed by the length of the story, I don't know, only time will tell, but if it goes past year 6 I would definitely say it overstayed its welcome

Katekyo Hitman Reborn used to be my absolute favorite series, but guess where it started to lose me? Around chapter 230, at approximately the 4-and-a-half-year mark. It got me back at the beginning of the next arc when it introduced *dreamy sigh* hiiim... but then it botched that arc so hard and officially cost KHR my top spot in lieu of...

Medaka Box! The current king of manga in my heart, and Undead Unluck is the only thing to even remotely challenge that assertion in almost ten years. Medaka Box ended at EXACTLY four years with 192 chapters (48 chapters a year), and clearly covered every topic that the author actually wanted to. There were more things that I wanted to be explored, but there's nothing that I think still NEEDS to be. The characterization of the two leads, their relationship with each other, their relationships with other people, the commentary that the author wanted to make about Jump manga as a whole, it all wrapped up so well and it holds up amazingly on reread for me

Assassination Classroom and Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, two works by one of my favorite authors, Yuusei Matsui, both went for four years and ended perfectly. Could more have been explored? Sure, but again, they were both so satisfying with what they were

Demon Slayer, while I think it has some unexplored ideas and probably should have given Nezuko a bit more focus by the end, definitely told the story it wanted to and anything beyond that would have most likely started to drain the good will it had built up

Of course, just going for four years isn't enough. If something is canceled at the four-year mark, it's still canceled, and that means it's missing something inherently. Nurarihyon no Mago was canceled at around chapter 200 because it clearly intended to go for at least another full arc and wasn't holding peoples' attention well enough to last that long. It was popular enough that Jump allowed that final arc to be condensed into four chapters released seasonally across the next year in Jump Giga, but that was so unbelievably rushed that it almost felt like it would have been better to just cut it off midfight like they'd done in Jump proper

Ending at one or two years is also fine so long as the author actually intends for that to be the case. Enigme was definitely canceled, but the story it told in just 55 chapters doesn't leave any room for how it could have possibly gone longer aside from just stretching out the story beats. Chainsaw Man, despite only being part 1 of however many, could have left off at two years without promising a sequel and I would have been satisfied. Death Note ended at 108 chapters, just over two years, and I don't think I need to elaborate on that

Ultimately, it's the opportunity to tell a complete story that aligns with the author's vision that makes a solid manga; writing the ending that they want rather than trying to tie up loose ends because the rug was pulled out from under them without warning, but even then, going for longer than four years so frequently feels like too much for me

Haikyu, Shokugeki no Soma, Toriko, even Dr. Stone (four and a half again!) all lost me past the 200-chapter mark, regardless of how fondly I still regarded them

Sometimes manga are forced to go on longer than they want to! Hokuto no Ken was only supposed to go for three years, and had the PERFECT ending to the story it had told at that point, but then was renewed for two more years and those years were DREADFUL and ultimately ended on a hollow note

TL;DR: as much as I'd love to have Undead Unluck in my life as long as possible, ~200 chapters across four years in my experience gives the author enough time to tell a complete story without fatiguing the audience. Undead Unluck hitting that mark should allow Tozuka to tell the story he wants and leave me satisfied rather than wearing both of us down and ultimately souring the experience retroactively. If it ends earlier but clearly wraps up all of the plot points and character moments, fine, but at the pace it's going, I can easily see it lasting another ~45-90 chapters, ending between Summer 2023 and January 2024

Also, #fouryearsandananime is a joke on Community's #sixseasonsandamovie

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #thatonearo #asks

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Top 10 tropes/cliches/trends that I'm sick and tired of!

In no particular order.

1. Get down!

Someone screams ''Get down!'' or ''Look out!'' but not everybody gets down. Most of the time it's fine. The characters don't have enough time to react and get hit with an attack or whatnot. What I am actually mad about is when characters have quite a lot of time to get out of the way and they're not distracted by anything yet just choose to just stand there and do nothing.

That also applies to whoever is screaming for them to watch out. You see your friend is in danger, you have an ability that can be useful, do something!

But the most infuriating iteration of that cliche is when they say a character's name before whatever they are screaming and it somehow makes anybody else unable to hear what they're talking about.

''Bob, the train is coming!''

‘’My name is Eric, not Bob. I guess I'll just stand on the track and not even acknowledge what I've heard.’’

Extra salt to the wound when the character can totally see what is coming or at least they should but the animators couldn't be bothered to keep track of who and what is where in relation to each other.

2. Meta

I fucking LOATHE this new trend where they make self referential humor to mock the earnestness of the old stories.

Can’t they just let us get immersed in the universe without having those “We know it’s cliché *wink wink*” Especially when they do nothing to deconstruct it, show it in a new light, have an interesting spin on it, nothing. They just point it out like in CinemaSins! And it's especially annoying when they're ''breaking the stereotypes'' which have been broken years ago.

‘’She's not like other girls/princesses! She fights, speaks her mind, and doesn't want to get married to someone she doesn't love at all.’‘

Wow, you broke new ground. It's not like princesses in the 90s were already independent, princes Leia was a badass in the 70s, and even the older princesses, Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, get way too much hate. Go subvert the cliche which hasn't been used in years and replace it with this other cliche. There are adults and children today who haven't seen a legitimate, 100% helpless, damsel in distress. Seriously, at this point, I would've been more shocked if there was an actual romance in a Disney princess movie.

And they act so smug about it too. Do you want to talk about unwanted marriage? How about you talk about child brides right now? Because that would be actually controversial in those countries!

Just make a movie about a badass princess, nobody cares!

3. Squidward like character

Do you remember how in the bad episodes of Spongebob, Squidward would be just minding his own business, not harming anyone and then Patrick and Spongebob would just barge in and mess everything up. Squidward would straight up say that he wants them to leave but those two numskulls couldn't take a hint. The episode just ends with no consequence whatsoever for the people who made an innocent person's day a living nightmare.

This used to be everywhere! Seemingly every cartoon channel would at least have one cartoon like that if not more.

I guess the idea is that the children are supposed to relate to the annoying obnoxious little brats energetic and innocent little angels who just want to have fun with their parent/older sibling friend but he's being boring and doesn't know how to have fun.

How did the meme go? The older you get the more you relate to Squidward.

4. Why are you surprised by this?

Don't you just hate when a character doesn't know something that should've been common knowledge?

Ash not knowing pokemon can only say their own name, not knowing what contests are or whatever the gimmick for the season/game is.

People not knowing what mutants are or where to go when they find out they're a mutant.

I know shows and movies need to explain their lore and world building but can't you find a better way than creating that one moron character who asks all the basic questions and gets lectured and info dumped on. At least make them like Tarzan, raised in the jungle not knowing anything else about the world.

5. Super-let-down

When you have a team of superheroes one, if not the most, important and interesting part is their relationship and dynamic. Who's the parent of the team, who's the heart, who's the jokester? How do their superpowers mix, who needs to be careful to not hurt who, what combo moves they can pull off, how they cover each other weaknesses?

Wouldn't it be cool to see super villains do something like that? Guess what? They just argue all the time and when they fight they just get in each other's way. It's especially frustrating when they stop attacking the hero to fight each other. Even more so when the hero is egging them on by saying something along the lines ''Shouldn't you be the leader?'', ''Who's going to be the one to finish me off?'' or ''Are you going to let them treat you like that?'' It makes the villains look like complete idiots with the mentality of a kindergartner.

What a waste of a potentially great team!

Sinister six from the Spectacular Spider-Man is the closest to the satisfying villain team. Wish they had more screen time! They had great chemistry and their banter went above throwing insults at each other.

6. Too many supers in New York City

Since the MCU became big average people started to wonder, if all those superheroes exist in the same universe, then where were they when -insert huge event from a solo hero movie here- was going on.

At least DC has an excuse that pretty much every superhero has their own city to take care of.

It's especially outrages when you have the avengers, fantastic four, spider-man, and probably many others I can't remember right now leaving in the same city. What's also funny is when they meet and act as if they never heard of each other.

7. Stop with all the food!

Recently a lot of Disney movies and shows will have excessively long scenes of food making and I don't know why.

I know that movies that want to showcase some culture focus on the food too because it's part of the culture but come on. I don't want a tutorial on how to cook, put it on a DVD. Animators just want to flex how great they are at animating food, just like anime.

I know it's a weird thing to get hung up on but in a movie, every minute counts and the movie just wasted 1-5 minutes on food porn. Just put the food in the background, make it last a couple of seconds, or be part of the story.

8. Characters look never changes

I know characters always having the same clothes saves time and budget. Animators even make jokes/try to justify it by showing multiple versions of the same outfit.

It gets confusing when supposedly years have passed yet everybody looks the same. That's why I appreciate HTTYD. They let their characters grow up.

9.Did you switch bodies or voices?

I know that you want people to be able to tell who is in who’s body but vocal cords aka voice are part of the body and should stay in the body they belong to.

Change characters' posture, body language, way of speaking, etc.

But please don't change the eyes. It somehow makes even less sense and looks creepy.

10. Fight-cut-Scene

Do you ever see those fights when characters talk for a bit, throw a punch or kick, stop to talk some more, and again and again? Looking at you CW! Also, a massive amount of cutting to hide that the actors don't know how to fight and imitate speed. You know you can just show people being fast, right? Just because something or someone is out of the frame doesn't mean they stopped existing.

#Disney #animation #movie cliches #cartoon cliches