#mish does trick or treat

[superbattrash]

trick or treat! 🥹🧡🖤🎃

"Trick or treat!"

"Clark," Bruce huffs out a laugh. "It's already past midnight."

"Well, you weren't home and you hate it when I interrupt patrol-time," Clark mutters, a dejected look at his face. He's wearing the fluffy puppy-ears Dick's bought him and Bruce tries (and mostly fails) to suppress the smile on his face. Clark looks adorable.

"I don't hate it, it's just not convenient to always explain why Superman is in Gotham."

Clark hums in agreement and then sits back on his heels. He's still placed squarely in the open window, as if he's waiting for permission to enter Bruce's bedroom. He hasn't needed permission for months if not years now, which is why Bruce frowns when he doesn't move closer.

"What?" he finally asks.

"You haven't answered yet," Clark tells him with a cheeky grin.

Bruce rolls his eyes with a sigh. It's not a battle worth fighting, so instead he says: "Treat."

Clark leaps at him and covers his entire face in featherlight kisses.

#mishask #does this count as writing? #if so it's the first thing I've written in months #for my bee <3 #misha writes #superbat #mish does trick or treat

[thetransintransformers]

Megop week 2023

June 14th, Day 4

Sweet

Something as simple as a snack cake sends Megatron into a trip down memory lane. (unlike my previous stories, this does not follow Transformers Earthspark, or really any canon: I sorta mish-mashed elements of the More Than Meets The Eye comics)

“Stay right here. I’ll be right back!” Waiting. Megatronus was damned to even a slight waiting time, leaning against a building with doors much too small for him to enter through, glaring at any passerby he saw fit. Megatronus was well aware of how afraid most Cybertronians were of him. 

Good. He thought to himself. He knew it wasn't healthy. Hell, he was writing to produce the opposite effect, but he couldn't help but be even a bit petty. If civilian frames weren't going to extend the effort to even fake a kind glance, then why should he extend the same courtesy? He was a poor model of a revolutionary. Megatronus did not have to dwell too well on the subject as he heard an overhead chime from a door opening, a red and blue bot joining by his side once more with two small energon treats in his servos. “Here!” The archivist spoke, handing a treat to Megatronus. H examined it carefully, sniffing it the slightest, and becoming near overwhelmed by the smell. “You bought . . . snack cakes?” Orion chuckled for a moment, already taking a bite of his own. “Of course! I figured it would be a nice little thing for us to share.” He spoke, between muffled bites, and swallowed down a piece. “Go on, try it!” Megatronus was hesitant, to speak up. “I, uh, Im not much of a sweets person.” Orion couldn't help but roll his eyes. “Please? Just one cake. Besides it may have uh, cost me 10 shanix.” His voice trailed off as he took another bite. Megatronus stared incredulously. 10 shanix for such a little thing?! Now he had to try it, if not for his own enjoyment, to just know Orion hadn't wasted his money. Megatronus took a sizeable bite out of the soft snack cake. He at first, enjoyed the first few moments until the taste became just a bit too much for him. He covered his mouth, blinking a few times as he began coughing. “Primus–?!” He said between coughs. Orion tilted his head, speaking lightly. “Too sweet?” Megatronus swallowed down the horrid mess in his mouth before he answered with a sickly nod. “Impossibly so.”

Orion couldn't help but chuckle. “Oh, I’m sorry . . .” he was quickly over his need to apologize, leaning just a bit closer. Megatronus could pick up very well what that meant, already handing the terrible little treat to Orion. “Here,” He mumbled out, trying not to focus on the taste still lingering in his mouth. A few moments quiet, and Megatronus spoke again. “I do appreciate it, Orion, fraid I just don't have the taste for it. Thank you.”

Orion swallowed down the rest of Megatronus's treat as he answered. “You're welcome Megatronus. I guess, sometimes I worry about you. About what . . . we’re doing.” He admitted quietly, a small sad smile crossing Megatronus' face as he continued. “I hope, little moments like this trick me into thinking we’ll be okay.” Megatrous inched just a bit closer to the archivist. “I would say so. I promise you Orion, there’s nothing to worry about.” He squinted, kneeling down and rubbing a servo carefully against the corner of Orion’s lips. “Mm, still have a bit right here.” Even when it was all cleaned away from Orion’s lips, he couldn't help but stay there, leaning his helm against Orions, just staring into those beautiful blue optics. “I love you, Orion.” He spoke quietly. Orion responded naturally. “I love you too, Megatronus.” Megatronus leaned in to share a kiss with his beloved, only for his optics to shoot open and lean away as fast as he could. Orion laughed happily, seeing as Megatronus was only reacting to the lingering taste of the sickly sweet snack cakes.

—

Megatron hadn't known peace in a long time. Taking what little forces he had, ravaging an abandoned Iacon on Cybetron’s now devastated land. To think, centuries before he walked these same hallowed streets, a different mech.  He took a rest on an old broken-down bench, just looking over. Ashened winds blowing, fires started just for some kind of semblance of warmth for the survivors. His sore red optics closed, body ached badly, having not sat to rest in forever.

It wasn't till he heard a small, “Ahem!” When he opened his eyes, met with a familiar black and purple seeker jet. “What is it, Skywarp?” His voice came out rough, and tired. The seeker held out a small bag jiggling it slightly. “It’s for you!” I found it at some old broken-up bakery.”

Megatronus only glared, raising an optic ridge. “Do you have any idea how old or rotted over this may be with all its preservatives?”

Skywarps’ smile faded, wings going up ad down ever so slightly. “Well uh,” “Just go,” Megatron interrupted, sending the seeker on his way. Skywarp nodded, taking flight to find whatever else he could before they’d leave the barren city.

Megatron opened the tearing bag carefully, pulling out its contents. He almost felt his intake drop holding such a small snack cake. Despite his own negativity, it looked perfectly preserved. It had to be, for whatever was in it.

Something in him grew profoundly sad, staring at the energon snack. Optics tired and focused, didn't hesitate this time to take a bite. He swallowed quietly, grimacing. It tastes just as terrible as all those years ago. Absolutely chockful of sugary preserves and a texture equivalent to soft sand. And yet, he continued to eat the cake, he hadn't even realized the tears trailing down as he ate. Something so small, and truthfully, so awful to eat seemed to break down so many things in his system. Reminiscing just what these roads once were.

How many times had he sat here on this bench with him? How many times had he managed to get Megatron to eat a snack cake with him? How many times had Megatron walked down these roads, hand in hand with him?

With Orion. Orion, who loved these cakes, as a little reminder that no matter how bad things got, he and Megatron would be alright, safe together.

How wrong his Orion was.

Megatron finished the snack soon enough, only now going to touch and wipe away the tears. He found himself pathetically chuckling. “Still . . . still disgusting, Orion.” He sniffled, crumbling the bag and tossing it to the ground. All he could do now until his trine returned to him was sit in silence and reminisce.

#megop week 2023 #megop #megop week #transformers

[soleilocverse]

Gel Clings/Window Stickies

Here's pics of some of the gel clings I bought as fic research! The halloween ones were first and would you believe me :) if i said they were on my window until the beginning of this month (march) and then. i sat on this post for 3 weeks DHSKFJH

Fic research notes below:

I got all of these from target btw!! some of them in the seasonal section, some of them in that dollar section. okay so things i have learned:

BUGS. will stick in these. i thought my room was a bug free zone until i woke up to like three of those little tiny (idet they're fruit flies) stuck to the surfaces.

Follow up point. IF. u try and wipe those bugs out normally, and they're not fresh, they will crumble into little bug dust and get all sorts of stuck in your gel cling. so either catch them early (you won't. ness might if he's checking them every day but these things become bg noise for me) or carefully pluck them out with your fingers wrapped in a paper towel or smth. or resign yourself to bug dust <3

they Will rip if you are too rough with them

FOLLOW UP POINT, they rip much easier when they've been sitting in the sun for five months and u decide now's the time to switch them out :)

sitting in the sun makes them soft and hot and floppy!! they feel thinner and more delicate than the fresh ones

sitting in the sun for five months also gives them a distinct scent that, if i was feeling generous, i would describe as "sun-warmed." and if i was feeling Not generous, i would describe as "melted plastic" aDHSKJDS

they don't actually catch as much hair/dust as i would've expected?

BOO, i hate putting together the ones like the taco where there's multiple parts. they're kind of annoying to line up (this was seconded by someone else irl)

they sure will just make these things whatever. "love you 'slow much'" is v funny and i think the sloths are cute but babes what does that have to do with valentine's :sob: same for all the foods. i put the taco and pizza together with a heart between them tho like they're a couple

LOL i actually did have ones that said trick or treat but they were ugly and i dropped them on the floor behind a stack of boxes and forgot it existed until after i took this photo. so point being. sometimes u buy the set just for one or two cute things in it. (i can't remember if it was the pumpkins or the BOO; that pic includes 3 mish-mashed sets)

IF i had space for it, there is no way i would've taken down the halloween ones so now all i can think of is ness and crew slowly filling up their window w/ all these miscellaneous holiday gel clings until it's filled up (bc. idt any of them could bear saying no to Ness one's he's started it this way, and soleil would take his cue from the others)

actually (and this is why i do fic research) thinking more about those implications and, ahh,, atm at least, i think soleil would genuinely be the first to break and clear up the window (some). athena would be too enamored with ness filling up all this space on his own even if it bothers her a bit, cyrill would genuinely think it looks hilarious and send pics to his family gc every time new clings go up, and ray would be too unbothered to care either way, esp when his partners aren't super bothered. but soleil has the most practice saying no to ness/re-routing him into smth else, and he Would like to be able to look outside again, actually.

#fic research #visuals #ch.16 #ALSO LOL i forgot about those tags i had in the ness stocking post #i DID actually put up cardstock behind these to take a pic but then it showed MY reflection which was arguably worse of a doxx #and then i sat on this post's next step for 4 months bc my brain was like that WAS the plan boss idk what u want from me now

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

All right, everyone. I had a whole plan where I’d go grocery shopping today and pick up a nice steak to cook and then eat while watching the new Taskmaster episode. Because in 2021, that is the most exciting part of the week and it’s worth planning my treats around Thursday nights. Unfortunately it rained all fucking day and I didn’t want to walk to the store so I ordered Chinese food instead. I’m here with my squid and my dumplings and the freshly downloaded Taskmaster s11e05. Thoughts will be written as I watch it. Let’s go.

- That opening was… Jesus, Greg and Alex. I do actually feel bad about how Greg has said he’s genuinely uncomfortable with the way some Taskmaster fans sexualize his relationship with Alex; he is technically at work and shouldn’t have that happen. But come on. I don’t want to use the term “asking for it”, but one could argue that intentionally writing weird BDSM-style sexual subtext into a show is quite literally asking for people to read weird, BDSM-style subtext into that show. There’s subtext that he could argue was not intentionally written, and there’s whatever the hell that was.

(From the things I’ve seen Greg say about this in interviews, it looks like he’s found some people online who genuinely believe he and Alex have actually, in real life, been sexually involved. I do want to make it clear that I’m not saying there’s a good excuse for that; I’m all for joking about these things but blurring the lines between fiction and reality in relation to celebrities’ sex lives is very creepy. But in terms of their fictional personas within this show… Greg does not really have grounds to complain about fans seeing a sexual element in him making Alex eat that weird mish-mash of food.)

- Lee has just offered to demonstrate how Mike’s fake thumb prize can be used in a magic trick if he wins this episode and gets to play with it. I wanted Lee to win the episode anyway, but now I do even more. I love it when comedians have some other weird skill and find excuses to show it off on comedy shows (I know there are better examples than this, but for some reason the only example I can think of to illustrate this is Johnny Vegas playing music with his nose). And I do know Lee can do magic.

- Thoughts on the prize task: I love that, over the course of five episodes, you can see huge progress in how all the contestants present their prizes and appeal to Greg… except Charlotte, who’s still terrible at it. Also, Sarah absolutely got screwed over by only getting two points for that bass guitar. I think Greg might be trying to knock her down a bit so the scores will be closer and more exciting. But as I’m pretty into the competitive element of all this, I do hope that if Sarah falls back that mostly happens due to fair scoring. Which that prize task wasn’t really. Lee’s whistle was cool though, and Jamili’s weird contraption legitimately deserved to win.

- I’ve just listened to the reading of the first task, and have paused it to say that is clearly one of those carefully worded tasks that may contain a trick. I hope this will mean an advantage for my boy Lee, as he has shown signs of being genre savvy in previous Taskmaster episodes. An obvious issue would be if they did not make all three of those cling film rolls biodegradable; I hope the contestants will at least have the sense to check that. And it might come up that it says cling film and gaffer tape instead of cling film or gaffer tape. I feel like whether the contestants are ready for a trick like that will be affected by whether this was filmed before or after the sugar/salt throwing task.

- Paused partway through the first set of people doing the task: Yes, I knew I could count on Lee to know what was up! Right after the last time I paused it to write the previous point, they went back to the studio and Lee said, “Remember that word, and.” And I said yes, good job, he had noticed exactly the thing I’d expected him to notice. The thing is that I assumed at least some of the others would notice it too, and they’d be expected to notice it or their performance wouldn’t count. I have just paused it after seeing Alex tell Lee that might not be the case, and seeing Lee threaten to “kick off in the studio” if others get away with not doing it right. I am absolutely with Lee on this. I will also kick off, but I’ll do it in this Word document that will later be copied into a Tumblr post. Not quite as big a platform, maybe, but I’ll do it eloquently.

- Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, Lee Mack is kicking off in the studio. He just asked Alex why one would say “and” if they don’t mean it has to be both of them. Alex shrugged and looked confused at him, and Lee said, “Don’t have thinking time by going, ‘I didn’t hear you’.” Lee Mack has gotten so riled up he’s forgotten what show he’s filming and thinks he’s cross-examining Alex on Would I Lie to You (to be clear, this isn’t a joke, I’m pretty sure that’s actually what happened there). This is great.

- To be fair, I do think credit should go to Mike for also having covered himself entirely in cling film and gaffer tape, and he was quite a bit more graceful about it than Lee was. And attempted a 360 spin at the end, which was lovely. Good for him. Points to Lee and Mike. No one else.

- I have just watched the scores get handed out for that task. I know I said I’d kick off on Tumblr about it, but I’m going to let someone else do it for me.

- The sauce covering my dumplings is hotter than I expected. That isn’t relevant to the episode, but it is a thought I’m having while I watch it.

- “Five minutes to order five items.” I find it funny that they’ve started putting a limit on that, as opposed to just letting them order whatever comes into their heads. Also, Lee pointing out that he was very careful to tuck everything in when putting on his beekeeper’s outfit: more signs that he has seen this show before, knows what to expect, and is getting terrible luck in terms of that not paying off. You know when that would have helped? When he was throwing sugar across a lawn and thinking it was salt.

- Mike: Something to make a tiny sword.

Alex: I’m going to need more information than that.

Mike: A short length of something grey or silver.

Alex: Again, you’re going to need to be more specific.

I did enjoy that exchange.

- One of my favourite underrated little Taskmaster moments is from season 3, when Dave Gorman put champagne on the list of ingredients he wanted for his meal. At the end, Greg asked him if there was any champagne in the meal, and Dave replied, “There was champagne in the chef.” I’ve always thought Dave ordering a bottle of champagne for himself was hilarious. Nice to see Jamali bring that back by ordering himself a cold beer, in what is definitely not an intentional homage because he has never seen this show before.

- Charlotte threading a mint. This is a good task.

- For the first time this season, I have seen three people’s attempts and I think Charlotte’s is the best of them. Jamali has wrapped it in cloth and called it Scrooge. Sarah has I think gone for a cowboy look but it didn’t really work out. Also, Sarah does not appear to know the difference between a lasso and a whip. Charlotte, meanwhile, has made a perfectly serviceable pope.

- I’ve paused the video in the middle of them discussing Charlotte’s bee uniform to say 1) I didn’t realize she’d made six slippers before she pointed them out and that is great, and 2) I’m still genuinely a little bit angry about Lee getting screwed over in the first filmed task. Like, too angry. I’m not extremely angry or anything, but what I’m feeling right now is too much anger because any amount of unironic anger is an overreaction to this comedy show. COVID cases are skyrocketing in my area, and it’s possible that the dimensions of my bedroom are too small for it to be healthy to be trapped in here for as long as I have been.

- Greg: Nowhere in the world has anyone ever referred to the pope’s clothing as a uniform.

Charlotte: You’ve asked everybody, have you? You’ve checked?

Nice. I think this is the most aggressive Charlotte’s gotten all season so far and I like it. Also, Greg is full of shit, the pope wears a uniform.

- Oh, I thought Jamali’s white cloth was Scrooge’s bathrobe. It’s actually meant to be the white sheet of the ghost of Christmas past. Well anyway, if the pope’s clothes aren’t a uniform then that definitely isn’t.

- “When you’ve acted in things… I don’t know if you’ve acted in things…” I still find it unreasonably funny that Jamali just does not know who Greg is. Jamali’s a year younger than I am, which would make him the perfect age to have watched The Inbetweeners when it first came out. I feel like Jamali would have liked that show, it’s too bad he hasn’t seen it. Not sure he’d have loved Man Down, though.

- I’ve made a point of staying off Tumblr ever since this episode started airing (I start watching it after it finishes airing and goes up online, I stay off Tumblr for the hour before that so I don’t get spoiled by anyone who might be watching it as it airs and posting as they watch), but I will be shocked if I don’t get back on Tumblr tonight and find it flooded with people talking about Mike Wozniak’s wheelhouse being afternoon naps and breakfast. Lovely man.

- Okay Lee’s motorcycle thing is awesome. And I’m not just saying that because I want him to win; I have acknowledged plenty of times when he’s done something shit in a task. But that bee on a motorcycle is cooler than anything I could have come up with even if I’d had lots more time. Yes I realize I should not have been so surprised and impressed by the reveal of what he made given that earlier we did see him ask for a small motorcycle, but somehow I didn’t put that together and figure out that he was turning it into a tiny Evil Knievel. Plus he can make an argument for narrative, which we all know Greg likes, with him wearing an Evil Knievel jacket and the bee being his little mascot. If Greg tries to argue that the motorcycle outfit isn’t a uniform, I will kick off myself this time, not just get Joe Lycett to do it for me.

- I’m very impressed with Mike’s too. A lot of detail in making the entire bullring. I can see why these two were grouped in this task; their performances were a cut above the other three.

- Okay, despite what I just said, once I saw the bullfighter in isolation I do agree with Greg’s choice to give it fewer points than Charlotte. For once I completely agree with every score given out on a task. Also, Charlotte getting excited about her four points was adorable.

- Lee: I can’t see anything.

Alex: What am I doing?

Lee: I mean, I’ve been asking that since the start of this show.

I can’t tell if Lee means he’s literally been asking “What am I doing?” (as in, what is Lee doing?), or if he means he’s been asking himself what the hell Alex is doing.

- I have paused the video after we’ve heard the instructions to the third task, but before we’ve seen anyone attempt it. I’ve paused it to point out that I’m pretty sure the task never said they have to keep the darkness goggles on.

- Okay. I don’t quite know how to say this. I don’t want to sound creepy or anything. And I realize that if I really wanted to not sound creepy I wouldn’t record this thought at all. But please tell me I’m not the only person who found Sarah and Charlotte measuring and moving objects with their tongues really hot.

- Well. I don’t know if the difference in my reaction to the second group is due to the fact that my sexual orientation is “bisexual, and I identify that way because I do feel many types of attraction to some men, but my attraction to men is more likely to be theoretical and/or related to context, and when it comes to purely sexual attraction I feel that overwhelmingly more often toward women than toward men”, or if men moving things with their tongues is just inherently a lot less attractive than when women do it.

- Jamali does have a good point about this task falling a little ways into the gross-out reality show genre, which I like to think of myself as above enjoying. But I have to admit this is great fun to watch. And Jamali describing that as “I used to have a career” is a bit overdramatic. Sir, you are 29.

Also, I don’t know why Jamali and Lee are both still going after having knocked things off the table.

- Okay. I wrote that previous sentence before seeing that, after initially dropping their eggs, Lee and Jamali then proceeded to just throw most of their shit on the floor. That was very funny.

- “I was told to trust my instincts, but my instincts are telling me to squeak like a bat.” – Mike Wozniak

- After knocking half his shit off the table, Lee finally figures out he’s disqualified and gives up. Whereas Jamali keeps going until only the fucking paper is left on the table. This is a perfect example of what Ed Gamble has discussed with a few guests on the podcast; that sometimes the best strategy is to just try to do the task somewhat competently and not get disqualified, and count on other people fucking it up. Good job on doing that, Charlotte and Mike.

- I don’t think “I’ve shoved my face in stuff before,” by Mike Wozniak got a big enough laugh. But maybe I’m just immature.

- All right. I have now seen that clip of Lee, as Alex put it, “snog[ging] the table” more than enough times to be quite sure that that is not nearly as attractive as when women do it. Don’t know if that’s objectively true or if it’s just me, don’t care, please just stop showing it.

- Nice. Studio team task again. More Woznimack.

- Well this has given us an image that’s this whole season in a nutshell. Greg looking majestic in the background is a nice touch.

I mean, that isn’t really this season in a nutshell. At the moment, Lee and Jamali are actually battling it out for third place while the more sensible Sarah pulls way ahead. But I am still invested in the Lee versus Jamali struggle.

- Charlotte winning her first episode is lovely and adorable. I’m glad that happened.

- Seriously though, I need real life to come back soon. I might be losing my mind a bit. I used to do important things. You know, like how Jamali Maddix used to have a career.

#taskmaster

[tacittherapist]

Hit us with some PDA for ya girlfriend, Rosey

An odd request, to be sure, given Rose was already borderline smothering Jade in Lalondian affection. Still, no better excuse than the will of the swirling, enigmatic consciousness to go way over the top, in brilliant nerdy fashion.

With Valentine’s Day (or what she would just say is Valentine’s Day given their whole concept of earthly day-night is gone) fast approaching, she’d have to work with haste. From only the wisest and most diligent salamanders does Rose procure the finest beets to reduce into crystallized beet rock sugar. Elsewhere, from lofty heights, sunken shallows, and other esoteric locations, does Rose procure an assortment of other ingredients, including star anise, lychee, aloe, Activated Almonds, rhubarb, green tea leaf, passionfruit, mint, and caramel. She also raids Nannasprite’s Secret Stash of ingredients - that is to say, she asked the ghostly grandmother politely, and agreed to let her help on the condition of utmost secrecy.

Committed to the secrecy, Jade sees Rose simply tending to their gardens – not harvesting anything, given it is a bit too early in the year for most fruits or vegetables, after all. The only thing Rose does take from the gardens are young strawberry leaf, which she samples to test their burgeoning sweetness. They are, of course, very leafy and not at all sweet, but Rose wanted to show off the little tricks Jade taught her to determine just how the fruits would taste by first tasting their leaves after sprouting.

The night before Valentine’s Day, Rose disappears from the ship, replacing her presence in bed with a very convincing bundle of heated blankets and pillows. Elsewhere, deep in the ship’s gut, she conspires with Nannasprite to cultivate possibly the most scandalous Cupid’s Day treat ever. The two chuckle and quip as they work through the night, pouring molten confection into standard gumdrop molds. The flavoured treats almost glow in the bright Secret Kitchen lights, a concealment charm placed on the room to prevent anyone from finding them and their secret sweets.

Valentine’s Day breaks, with Rose tucked safely into bed with her beloved Jade, the Seer in her usual place, as if she’d never left. Excitement over heart-shaped pancakes with little heart-shaped sprinkles aside, the galley is otherwise fairly calm. The two take a seat at an empty table to enjoy their breakfast.

Jade, do you remember what you said the other day? About how you don’t really relate to the ‘box of chocolates’ trope because of your canine digestive intolerance, and your weariness to rhubarb? Well, after consulting with a certain confectioner, I think I may have something that you can better relate to…

She produces a plain white box, wrapped with a lime green ribbon. She sets it upon the table just as Jade finishes her last bite, gesturing for her to unwrap it. Inside, past the light lavender tissue paper, is an assortment of gumdrops, arranged in a gradient of reds, oranges, pinks, purples, and whites. Under each one is a small description of the flavour, only revealed once the gumdrop is consumed. Rose pops a small cherry-flavoured drop into her mouth to demonstrate, the word ‘Cherry’ appearing in that drop’s spot in the box after she had swallowed. The ensuing peck on Jade’s cheek is also pungently cherry-scented.

The two giggle and play the gumdrop guessing game, neither of them keeping score. Of course, if they were, it would have been a tie – Rose knows every flavour she put into them, and Jade is just good at recognizing distinct flavours. They also slowly become covered in scented smooches, the two of them smelling absolutely pungent once the box is empty. It isn’t an overwhelming aroma though, but it is an odd one; a mish-mash of various sweet, tart, sour, bitter, and savoury smells all mixed together. Rose leads Jade out of the galley, no doubt attracting a small following of consorts with sensitive noses.

They settle down starboard, leaning over the ship’s railing to gaze out into the inky, starry abyss of Paradox Space. After a brief moment of stargazing, Rose closes the distance between them, their lips locking in a perfectly flavoured kiss.

#Anonymous

[suzanneshannon]

A Look at What’s New in Chrome DevTools in 2020

I’m excited to share some of the newer features in Chrome DevTools with you. There’s a brief introduction below, and then we’ll cover many of the new DevTools features. We’ll also look at what’s happening in some other browsers. I keep up with this stuff, as I create Dev Tips, the largest collection of DevTools tips you’ll find online! 

It’s a good idea to find out what’s changed in DevTools because it’s constantly evolving and new features are specifically designed to help and improve our development and debugging experience.

Let’s jump into the latest and greatest. While the public stable version of Chrome does have most of these features, I’m using Chrome Canary as I like to stay on the bleeding edge.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open source tool for auditing web pages, typically around performance, SEO, accessibility and such. For a while now, Lighthouse has been bundled as part of DevTools meaning you can find it in a panel named… Lighthouse!

Well done, Mr. Coyier. 🏆

I really like Lighthouse because it’s one of easiest parts of DevTools to use. Click “Generate report” and you immediately get human-readable notes for your webpage, such as:

Document uses legible font sizes 100% legible text

Or:

Avoid an excessive DOM size (1,189 elements)

Almost every single audit links to developer documentation that explains how the audit may fail, and what you can do to improve it.

The best way to get started with Lighthouse is to run audits on your own websites:

Open up DevTools and navigate to the Lighthouse panel when you are on one of your sites

Select the items you want to audit (Best practices is a good starting point)

Click Generate report

Click on any passed/failed audits to investigate the findings

Even though Lighthouse has been part of DevTools for a while now (since 2017!), it still deserves a significant mention because of the user-facing features it continues to ship, such as:

An audit that checks that anchor elements resolve to their URLs (Fun fact: I worked on this!)

An audit that checks whether the Largest Contentful Paint metic is fast enough

An audit to warn you of unused JavaScript

A better “Inspect Element”

This is a subtle and, in some ways, very small feature, but it can have profound effects on how we treat web accessibility.

Here’s how it works. When you use Inspect Element — what is arguably the most common use of DevTools — you now get a tooltip with additional information on accessibility.

Accessibility is baked right in!

The reason I say this can have a profound impact is because DevTools has had accessibility features for quite some time now, but how many of us actually use them? Including this information on a commonly used feature like Inspect Element will gives it a lot more visibility and makes it a lot more accessible.

The tooltip includes:

the contrast ratio of the text (how well, or how poorly, does the foreground text contrast with the background color)

the text representation

the ARIA role

whether or not the inspected element is keyboard-focusable

To try this out, right-click (or Cmd + Shift + C) on an element and select Inspect to view it in DevTools.

I made a 14-minute video on Accessibility debugging with Chrome DevTools which covers some of this in more detail.

Emulate vision deficiencies

Exactly as it says on the tin, you can use Chrome DevTools to emulate vision impairments. For example, we can view a site through the lens of blurred vision.

That’s a challenge to read!

How can you do this in DevTools? Like this:

Open DevTools (right click and “Inspect” or Cmd + Shift + C).

Open the DevTools Command menu (Cmd + Shift + P on Mac, Ctrl + Shift + P on Windows).

Select Show Rendering in the Command menu.

Select a deficiency in the Rendering pane.

We used blurred vision as an example, but DevTools has other options, including: protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, and achromatopsia.

Like with any tool of this nature, it’s designed to be a complement to our (hopefully) existing accessibility skills. In other words, it’s not instructional, but rather, influential on the designs and user experiences we create.

Here are a couple of extra resources on low vision accessibility and emulation:

Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision (W3C)

Improve page accessibility by emulating vision deficiencies

Get timing on performance

The Performance Panel in DevTools can sometimes look like a confusing mish-mash of shapes and colors.

This update to it is great because it does a better job surfacing meaningful performance metrics.

What we want to look at are those extra timing rectangles shown in the “Timings” in the Performance Panel recording. This highlights:

DOMContentLoaded: The event which triggers when the initial HTML loads

First Paint: When the browser first paints pixels to the screen

First Contentful Paint: The point at which the browser draws content from the DOM which indicates to the user that content is loading

Onload: When the page and all of its resources have finished loading

Largest Contentful Paint: The largest image or text element, which is rendered in the viewport

As a bonus, if you find the Largest Contentful Paint event in a Performance Panel recording, you can click on it to get additional information.

Nice work, CSS-Tricks! The Largest Contentful Paint happens early on in the page load.

While there is a lot of golden information here, the “Related Node” is potentially the most useful item because it specifies exactly which element contributed to the LCP event.

To try this feature out:

Open up DevTools and navigate to the Performance panel

Click “Start profiling and reload page”

Observe the timing metrics in the Timings section of a recording

Click the individual metrics to see what additional information you get

Monitor performance

If you want to quickly get started using DevTools to analyze performance and you’ve already tried Lighthouse, then I recommend the Performance Monitor feature. This is sort of like having WebPageTest.org right at your fingertips with things like CPU usage.

Here’s how to access it:

Open DevTools

Open up the Command menu (Cmd + Shift + P on Mac, Ctrl + Shift + P on Windows)

Select “Show performance monitor” from the Command menu

Interact and navigate around the website

Observe the results

The Performance Monitor can give you interesting metrics, however, unlike Lighthouse, it’s for you to figure out how to interpret them and take action. No suggestions are provided. It’s up to you to study that CPU usage chart and ask whether something like 90% is an acceptable level for your site (it probably isn’t).

The Performance Monitor has an interactive legend, where you can toggle metrics on and off, such as:

CPU usage

JS heap size

DOM Nodes

JS event listeners

Documents

Document Frames

Layouts / sec

Style recalcs / sec 

CSS overview and local overrides

CSS-Tricks has already covered these features, so go and check them out!

CSS Overview: A handy DevTools panel that gives a bunch of interesting stats on the CSS your page is using

Local Overrides:  A powerful feature that lets you override production websites with your local resources, so you can easily preview changes 

So, what about DevTool in other browsers?

I’m sure you noticed that I’ve been using Chrome throughout this article. It’s the browser I use personally. That said, it’s worth considering that:

Firefox DevTools is looking pretty great right now

With Microsoft Edge extending from Chromium, it too will benefit from these DevTools features

As evident on the Safari Technology Preview Release Notes (search for Web Inspector on that page), Safari DevTools has come a long way 

In other words, keep an eye out because this is a quickly evolving space!

Conclusion

We covered a lot in a short amount of space!

Lighthouse: A panel that provides  tips and suggestions for performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices.

Inspect Element: An enhancement to the Inspect Element feature that provides accessibility information to the Inspect Element tooltip

Emulate vision deficiencies: A feature in the Rendering Pane to view a page through the lens of low vision.

Performance Panel Timings: Additional metrics in the Performance panel recording, showing user-orientated stats, like Largest Contentful Paint

Performance Monitor – A real-time visualization of performance metrics for the current website, such as CPU usage and DOM size

Please check out my mailing list, Dev Tips, if you want to stay keep up with the latest updates and get over 200 web development tips! I also have a premium video course over at ModernDevTools.com. And, I tend to post loads of bonus web development resources on Twitter.

The post A Look at What’s New in Chrome DevTools in 2020 appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

A Look at What’s New in Chrome DevTools in 2020 published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[canterpole94]

5.22.19 Lesson

Alright, lets get into this lesson! Just as a foreword and a little bit of a gushing moment, this is my second ever ride on Diesel, and although I got a taste of how much of a steady eddie he was last week, this lesson truly solidified it. The previous evening we had had a pretty serious thunderstorm, followed by huge gusts of wind going pretty much all day. In pretty much any barn I’ve been at previously, I would be dealing with a feisty and fresh horse, and would spend a good chunk of the lesson getting their brains focused on the ride at hand. Guess who broke that trend in every sense of the word? My perfect little ginger nut! Diesel could literally care less; he was around flags billowing every which way, canopies flapping uncontrollably, and mini gust dusts coming up under his belly, and didn’t even bat an eye. Tickle me pink and declare me smitten, just another of many reasons why I’m in LOVE with this horse!

So to begin, after I had free walked Diesel for a little bit my trainer started me off in a two point for a lap or two so I could stretch down into my leg and heel before sending me off into a rising trot. I kept my focus mainly on keeping him moving forward and in front of my leg, ready to gently remind him with a tap behind my leg with a dressage whip if I didn’t feel him respond and move forward as he should (not an often occurrence, just every so often I’ll feel him getting laggy off my leg,) and started off putting him through a few circles and changes of direction so we could both warm up each way. I did this for a couple of minutes before my trainer called me over to her observation deck. From there we talked about what she was seeing going on in my body that we needed to work on. The main challenge that I’m having at the moment is that I’m very stiff with my body, which overall hinders my ability to progress with my riding, and prevents me from moving with Diesel in a way that is both appealing to look at (I more look like I’m riding on top of the motion, rather than with it.) In order to really kick my stiffness to the curb, I’m going to have to learn to departmentalize my body and figure out how to soften each individual part of my body. My trainer was very frank with me that it is extremely difficult to get rid of my stiffness totally, nearly impossible in fact, but not totally impossible! Which of course kicked my determination into high gear. So, she sent me out again for the next five minutes with instructions to get a feel for what works to get different parts of my body to loosen up. I started in walk and trot, and experimented with pretty much everything under the sun. If I felt stiff in my shoulders, I would roll them around or do a quick shimmy. If my lower back felt stiff (which I think is a big area where it does, I would walk until I could feel my back rock with the motion of Diesel’s walk. If my arms felt stiff I would try and make my elbows bend with my post (open elbows when rising, close elbows when sitting.) If I could feel my legs getting locked up I would take my feet out of the irons and wiggle my ankles, kick my legs back and forth. If I tried to sit trot and felt more like I was bouncing everywhere - which I am, because Diesel somehow has one of the hardest trots to sit- I tried everything at once. Basically, if there’s a weird move you can make with a body part, there’s a good chance I tried it. It felt just as silly as it looked, if not more so, but when I went back to my trainer for a quick chat, she said (thankfully) that she could notice a difference in my body from my hokey “dance moves.” It’s still a very, very, very conscious act, and the sitting trot in particular needs a LOT of work, and it will probably be that way for a good while, but it’s a good start to know that everything I tried made some sort of difference. With that, she sent me out again to try the canter.

Now the canter, despite feeling a bit harder for me to best feel the moments of relaxation, actually looked a lot better than the trot. My main points of focus were around my shoulders, hips, and arms. For my hips at the seated canter, I tried to find the feeling that they had unlocked, for lack of a better term, and were not stuck to just one part of the saddle. Shoulders and arms definitely came easier since I’ve always felt like they need to move more so than in the trot (at least up until starting riding with my current trainer,) so it mostly came up to a shoulder shimmy or making sure I could feel my arms opening and closing with the motion of Diesel’s canter. The half seat was a little bit of confusion for me. I figured that you’re really not supposed to have your hips unlocked the way they are at seated canter, so I worried a bit less on that, but kept focusing on my shoulders and arms, as well as feeling that my legs and heels really felt like they were absorbing the shock from the rest of my body in addition to the feel of the canter, rather than just feeling like they needed to look a certain way and that they had to be like that. Like I mentioned, it felt more difficult for me, but my trainer definitely liked that it looked like it was easier, or at least that I found the right “tricks” for me quicker. A bit later on with my playing around though, Diesel’s downward transitions began to cause me some problems. As he is a Quarter Horse, he’s built a bit downhill so if he’s not supported what he goes from canter to walk it sometimes feels a bit more like I’m getting pulled down onto his neck... and sometimes I was, not gonna lie haha! But this is definitely something I can work on quite a lot, which is what I spent the end of my lesson doing. The biggest things I need to remember (in addition to all the relaxation tricks I have already mentioned) is that I *need* to make sure I’m settling all my weight in my heels and that my upper body is prepared to be strong if I need to hold him off his forehand. It was a bit of a mish mosh of executing it pretty darn well, and getting surprised by the transition down and not helping him at all. But, the most important thing was that I was learning how to best deal with it, and my last downward transition was the best out of all the previous attempts.

So, all in all, this was a huge lesson for me to keep in mind going forward. Learning how to departmentalize my body and learn how to be able to relax my individual body parts is definitely going to be an ongoing challenge, and I know there are going to be ups and downs along the way. That being said, I’m determined to defy the “nearly impossible” connotation, and work my butt off in every single ride I have to get to that point. It goes without saying that it definitely helps that I have the horse that I do to work on the early stages of this journey. I don’t know if any of the horses I’ve ridden before would allow me to work on myself to the intensity that I was during this lesson, and just happily boop along for the ride and not take advantage of me, let alone on a blustery day like that. Diesel is genuinely such a blessing for my riding, and I’m so thankful that I will have him to help me grow for however long I will be his part mom. And also aside from the riding, he’s just such a joy to be around! Like I had said, this was only my second time really even spending time with him, and he’s already reaching for cuddles and NICKERING at me when I walk past him! No treats needed, no bribing for love, he just wants love and wants to be your friend! I could cry (and almost did after he nickered at me for the first time.) I am just so excited for my journey with this sweetheart of a horse, excited for my next ride on him, and excited for the day where I can look back and see how everything I’ve learned in this lesson has come together. Until next time, safe riding!

I mean look at that cheeky face, how can you not love it! And hopefully in the future I’ll be able to get video of my lessons! Not really having anyone there to take them makes it harder, but I’ll do my best to get some!

#riding blog #riding journey #ride by ride #lesson

[god-hunter]

The Defenders #1

My how the scope of Marvel has changed.  Thanks to bold moves by Marvel Netflix, and a massive decline in Avengers Continuity, The Defenders have become all the rage.  Myself, included!

Way back in New Avengers volume 2, Bendis wrote a line by Wong, where he said to Luke Cage, “Clearly, you’re the New Defenders.”  And I didn’t get it, until now.

I had always complained that New Avengers vol. 2 was like the Avengers B-Team.  It was Street-Level and sort of just like, personal battles.  People didn’t like it, and I enjoyed what I could, but some of it wasn’t great.

But then the run ended altogether, and we got Hickman’s mish mosh of Sci-Fi nonsense meets Epic Brilliance.

What I’m getting at though was...  no one told Luke Cage stories like Bendis did.  His adventures did continue through Mighty Avengers vol. 2, which wasn’t the same, but at least it was something.

Since then, Luke & Iron Fist had their own book, which I wasn’t interested in pursuing and Jess got her own solo book back, once the Marvel Netflix Universe started to really pick up speed.

And, that basically brings us to here.  But why I mention New Avengers vol. 2 at all is because I learned JUST NOW, that apparently Bendis had this book planned ALL ALONG, since then.  He pitched it at the end of his Avengers run, and Marvel execs shot it down.

The Netflix stuff may or may not have been a test, but WHOA Holy SHIT did it pay off.  Because now people can’t WAIT for a Defenders show, and we’re all REALLY EXCITED for a Defenders comic.

When back in the day, The Defenders were always considered sort of like, the estranged reject Avengers team.  But now they’re like.. the gritty hardcore team that no one knew they needed.

Alright, so as far as this Debut Issue goes, right when we start I feel like I’ve already missed something.  Stylistically though, I really enjoy how it involves all 4 of our heroes in their personal lives, and how they’re not exactly working together yet.  [They know each other and they’re friends of course.  They just have their own things going on, which are going to connect.  THAT is the type of team origin that I love to read.]

Also, there’s a cameo of Black Cat in here, which we’ve seen a lot of in Bendis’ Spider-man book.  So that’s cool too.

Enough delay though.  Let’s get on with the Review.

[SPOILERS]

This issue starts with a dude in a yellow trench coat and a sweet black gangster hat, shaking down a layer or businessman type at a concert.  He comes at him with a tiny vile of what’s supposed to be “IGH”, but is instead “Laundry Detergent.”

The guy acts coy about it, but when he doesn’t back off, the suit pulls out a gun.  And that’s when trench force-feeds him the stuff, which ultimately kills him.  Then he leaves a trail of diamonds behind, which seems to be his thing.

[I had no idea who this was until a little later, but that turned out to be Diamondback - Luke Cage’s enemy.]

Then we cut to LUKE CAGE, who gets his own page complete with a panel of familiar iconic moments of his history.  From a classic fight with Doctor Doom, to his time served in New Avengers (v2), to time served in prison, to him holding Baby Danielle in his arms for the first time.

That was nice to see.  In the current moment, Luke is just walking the streets of Harlem, when suddenly a large bullet, or missile or what-have-you just barely misses him, and causes the building right by him to blow up.

He runs away with his hoodie on fire and tells the nearby pedestrians to call 9-1-1.  He ends up finding the source of that shot.  It was an automated turret on legs.  3 diamonds are on the ground nearby, and Luke looks at them annoyed.

Then he gets a phone call, and it’s really nebulous as to what’s going on, but on a 2nd read combined with the title page after it, you find out that his Estranged Wife, Jessica Jones got shot.  So now he’s out to visit her at the Hospital.

“WHERE IS SHE?” He hollers when he gets in there.

He finds her asleep and feels terrible.

Then Daredevil appears from a ceiling tile, saying that he protected her with a different alias. [Ah?  See what I did there?]

Daredevil gets the nice logo and panel treatment as well, as we move on.

“What are you doing here?”

We find that he was attacked too, as his alter ego, which people don’t know is Nelson Murdock any more for some reason.

“Someone knows your secret!  I don’t even know your secret.”

“Someone targeted the four of us at the same time.”

That’s when Danny Rand, the Iron Fist walks up to the room, exhausted.

[And there we have it.  Not quite as organic, as I’d hope, but it’s okay.]

They all wonder, who it could’ve been, and that’s when Jess wakes up and says, “It was Diamondback.”

Jessica gets her own, nice logo and panel treatment.

Then we see Luke contemplate the fact that Diamondback has been dead for years.

“Yeah, no one we know ever pulled that trick out of their ass.” Jess comments on people always coming back from the dead.

Then to just move things along, we get a cool moment where Black Cat makes an appearance.  I wasn’t expecting this at all.  Diamondback is waiting for her at her place.  She’s even talking to Hammerhead, before she gets in her window, proving even more that Bendis is definitely tying in his Spider-man continuity to his other books here.  That’s just great.

She isn’t afraid of him at all.  In fact, she finds it amusing that he “took a wide swing at Luke Cage. his wife and his best pal...  You’re going to be in assisted living by breakfast.”

Then we’re treated to 4 huge panels across 2 pages of Jessica, Iron Fist, Daredevil and Luke Cage, independently working towards the same goal.

“WHERE IS DIAMONDBACK?!”  They all collectively say.  Save for Jess, who does her usual calm detective work.

I’m bypassing more of Black Cat’s conversation with Diamondback for time.

Luke ends up finding him and trying to fight him by himself.  And much to our surprise,  Luke doesn’t stand a chance.

The rest of our guys are at a bar, trying to find leads.  Daredevil says that he thinks they need to work together all the time.  “I think people on the street need to know we’re working together.”

It’s definitely agreed upon, and Daredevil says that they need to up their game.

Jess holds up a beer and tells them that she’s sure Luke already has this one in the bag.

That’s when we find that Luke is losing horribly against Diamondback.  And even Black Cat feels bad.

“Dumb move, coming at me all by himself.”

-To Be Continued-

And so the first issue ends.

Honestly, it wasn’t as good or amazing as I was hoping it would be.  But it’s still nice to see the continued adventures of Luke Cage, Jess, Danny Rand AND Daredevil.

This issue includes a special ‘Pulse’ interview by Ben Urich to Luke Cage.  But I didn’t read it...

I dunno.  I think this book will get way better.  I did like the pacing.  And yet, at first I definitely felt like I missed something.  I also felt like there was a lot of action for the sake of action, if I’m honest.

But what’s hard is that all of these guys know each other.  So... on that front, I think Bendis organically re-introduced these guys very well.

It was them getting together So quickly that may or may not have thrown me off.  I don’t really know how I feel about this one still, to be honest.

Outside of the Netflix show, I know next to nothing about Diamondback.  Don’t really care about Luke Cage villains.  That’s why I didn’t buy the duo comic, “Luke Cage and Iron Fist.”

Buuuuut either way.  I’m looking forward to the neeeext oooone.

Until Defenders #2.

#Defenders #Issue 1 #Brian Bendis #Marvel #NOW! 2017

[moriganshaw]

Indie-Author Adventures #9 - Gnothi Seauton

Let's get to work, writers. Welcome back to my fantastical journey in indie-authoring! Phew... today's episode is going to be a wee bit different in that it's more of a "rubber meets the road" installment. So let's jump in. For you just joining me, each week in 2019 I'll be making a new post on my adventures in indie-ing. What I learn, what challenges I face, what works, what doesn't (!), and hopefully some tidbits, tips, and tricks that can help other indie-authors out along the way. This Past Week Blah, blah, blah... tech work... blah, blah, blah... not enough writing. Yep, that's been pretty much my 2019 summed up so far. 😉🤦‍♀️ And - let's be very real here... I can "blame" that on my author-tech biz, I can "blame" that on life, I can blame that on whatever I want. But at the end of the day - that is still 100% on me. (Yeah, sometimes we gotta call ourselves out on our own bullshit - harsh, but necessary lol) So, I had to ask myself, whatcha gonna do about it? Whine? Or get to work? Whining takes too much energy and gives very little in ROI... so that's not really a viable (or common-sense) option. Let's start at the beginning and go from there, eh? One of the biggest complaints / challenges I hear from indie-authors the most is: "I don't have (enough) time to write!" I feel ya -- all the way down to my little, shadowy writer soul. That begs the question: How do I Write - Every - Single - Day? A writing ritual. Yeah, I know, I know... sounds contrite, forced... even "duh". But, don't take my word for it, look at every successful author out there, indie or trad-published. But... but... I have kids, a family, a job, a life, a this, a that, and one of those others, too! Uh-huh. Me too. Self-employed, single-mama with a chronic illness here... I feel ya. But - and here's where we get real and have to call ourselves out on our own BS again - if we want to actually DO this "writer thing", then we have to... you know... DO the writing thing. 😉 Your Personal Writing Ritual (& How to Find It) Just like with most things indie, there is no "one right way". No one-size-fits-all solutions. And finding your own personal writing ritual that works for you is no different. It takes some investigation, it takes some research, and mostly, it takes some trial and error. You'll see a lot of tips out there on the interwebz for what you "should" do during your writing ritual. And again - being real here - some of them are bollocks. "Schedule it" Great. I have words written on my calendar. My problems are solved! 🤦‍♀️😒🤦‍♀️ I don't know about you - but life tends to not care about my day-planner. So while this isn't completely bogus advice -- you absolutely will want to guard and protect your writing time -- but a simple "put it on a calendar" doesn't actually solve anything. "Set a daily word count and don't get up until you hit it" Riiiiiight. Now, this may work for you, I can't say. Personally, I have two thoughts about this one. I tend to not be my most free, creative self under the lash of the "word count whip". Um... life. If you are to the point of writing exclusively as your career, then this one may not be entirely possible or relevant. I will one day be like one of my favorite authors and have this set count - but until that day arrives, I still have to run my business, and take care of all those pesky little life things that happen all around us, all the time. "Keep a Writing Journal" Hmm... now we're getting somewhere.  Huh?! You may ask... write before I can start writing for the day? Kinda - but this actually is a GREAT tool for discovering your perfect writing ritual. Let's dispense with all the small-chat here, eh? Here's what you need to craft your perfect writing ritual: gnothi seauton (know thyself) You need to know when your creative brain is at its peak. Is this when you first wake up? The middle of the day? At midnight with candles casting a flickering glow over your parchments? The best way I found to figure this out is self-reflection -- and self-reflection becomes MUCH easier if you keep a simple journal and record your thoughts / feelings / observations throughout the day. Before long, you'll see your own patterns. Be okay with whatever words come out. Are they inspired? Are they utter crap? It doesn't matter, truly, it doesn't. You can edit and revise a badly written page - you can't edit a blank one. Create your "sacred space". You'll probably want to refer back to your journal for this one. Does your creative brain work better in an organized, clutter-free space? Do you prefer natural light? Do you need to keep a 'doodle pad' nearby to scribble or jot down random ideas? Sideline your electronics. I can't 100% stand behind the "turn off all electronics & internet" to minimize distractions advice. One - I run a biz, I have to have some level of availability. Plus, I prefer writing on my laptop AND I have writing music playlists on YouTube for whatever project / scene I'm working on. Again - this is what works for YOU - test out both ways and see which works best. Track your writing! This is hands-down the best way I found to perfect my writing ritual. But wait, isn't this the same as the whole "keeping a journal" thing? It is a part of it. Each day, jot down what time you started writing with a few short notes about the where, how, weather, how you're feeling, etc. You aren't writing a dissertation here, a few simple notes will do. When you are done writing - do the same thing and include your word count. This info is invaluable in finding what works for you. Go Pro - Casual Friday - or Naked Cowboy! WTH!? You may be asking. Are you able to get into the author-writing mindset better if you treat it as a professional gig, more biz-formal clothing, like a corporate meeting? Are you better able to get into the flow in more comfy, casual clothes? Or go full-on naked cowboy and let the words fly? Figure out what works best for you - it really does matter. Meditate, pray, call to your muses. This isn't about religion, this is about quieting your 'monkey-mind' so you can let your creative-self come through all the noise. Don't meditate or pray? No problem - Steven Pressfield is known to recite Homer's invocation of the Muses before he writes. (psst... it's about what works for you, remember?) LAST - but certainly far, far from least -- this one is so important that it needed to be kept separate from the list above... 🔥 HAVE ONE PAGE in your journal, taped to your mirror, whatever works -- and as you are experimenting with what writing ritual practices work for you, write down the ones that felt good on this sheet. Only the ones that felt really good, or where you got lost in the writing flow. The ones that felt forced or awkward - toss them out. 🔥 After a surprisingly short amount of time, you are going to have a mish-mash list of things that are the components of your perfect writing ritual. Your writing ritual is YOURS. Not mine. Not the Joneses next door. Not Stephen King's. Not J.K. Rowling's. Yours. And you'll know when you find it - it feels like coming home. ❤ What I Accomplished Blog updates Weekly author-biz review  (read Russell Nohelty's, Sell Your Soul book!) Author newsletter Website server migrations Authors Mojo PAWs - prepping for product launch Author customer work - book formatting (x2), website updates (x4) Podcast interview! 😮🥰 Author-tech coaching call & class Novella book cover completed Testing out new 'book plotting' method (details coming soon!) 😉 The Big Takeaway Read the full article

#writingdaily #writingritual

[hypnoticharlequin]

Hypnotist Posters (Again!)

I’ve done this once before, but there are so many interesting old hypnotist posters around I couldn’t resist showing off some more I’ve come across.

I covered the Flints in my previous post but I wanted to show this one off. I actually unironically love this poster as it reminds me of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works due to the floral pattern and the lush skin tone used on Miss Flint. 

What I have found out since the last installment was that Miss Flint was heavily advertised as a solo performer, getting her own posters and other things. According to one source I found, she was famed for her dress collection and women would attend her shows, just to see what dress she was wearing that night!

Also, she had the cutest nickname a hypnotist has ever had. Seriously, “The Little Hypnotic Subeam” is just fantastic and would actually make her stand out amongst her contemporaries who went for much more formal and authoritarian titles.

I think this poster is from the 1890s. At least that is the date I see linked to this poster when it is mentioned and the art style sort of fits that date.

Obviously, the first thing that draws your attention is Kennedy and his pose. Where a lot of hypnotists went for a more intimidating or solid pose, Kennedy seems rather fancy-free.

Also, it’s nice to see the moon from Majora’s Mask getting work. This was one of it’s earlier appearances while it was still young and fresh faced. The people on the moon are pretty cute, I like the woman in the middle, I mean it takes a lot of effort to be having so much fun you almost fall off the moon. This poster seems to fit in with a tradition that saw magicians hanging out with various magical beings on their posters. Seriously, the sheer number of posters that feature magicians just chilling with Satan is pretty mind blowing.

If I could sum this poster up in one sound, it would be never ending screams. 

Now, I can’t find much about “The Amazing Ormond” but I do wonder if this is Ormond McGill, better known as Dr. Zomb. He wrote the book “Encyclopedia of Genuine Stage Hypnotism” which is still considered to be the bible of stage hypnosis. 

This poster is honestly terrifying. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to the reproduction, old paper stock with a black background is notorious for its inability to scan well. But the black eyes mixed with the uplighting give this a seriously creepy vibe, Ormond’s face having an almost uncanny valley look to it.  

But, I can’t deny it worked, I’m not able to go through my folder of hypnosis posters without this one catching my eye. In fact, one of the main reasons I am writing this post is so I can delete this image from my hard drive. 

I don’t know why, but this poster reminds me of a perfume ad. I’m not sure if it’s the color palette or Miss Brandon’s slightly wistful look. 

Joan Brandon is pretty famous in magic circles for being the first televised female magician. She was famous for combing her magic with orchestra music (played by her own orchestra) and was very well known for her signature trick, a magic cocktail bar (a variation on the Think-A-Drink trick.) 

In hypnosis circles, she is most known for her books, The Art of Hypnotism, Successful Hypnotism, The Science of Self-Hypnosis and Help Yourself Thru Hypnotism and Self Hypnosis which are all still good reads even to this day. 

The Art Of Hypnotism is also known for its rather amusing photographic illustrations. It’s easy to find online but quite often turns up for a few dollars on eBay or in second-hand bookstores and I thoroughly recommend it. 

This poster is one of those I see around a lot and only recently bothered to look into the history of. It’s from 1966 and I always thought it was from later on. This poster looks just so very 60s I really had it down as a later parody of the style as opposed to actually just being of that era. 

It actually took me a long time to find out even the most basic things about this guy but Merlin (real name William Joseph Rawle) was from Australia and was Australia’s oldest performing hypnotist.

I want to zoom into the text under Merlin for a moment, as it is rather glorious. 

It really is a throwback to older posters to have a description of the acts performed front and center, but compared to some of the older hypnosis posters (which promised utterly insane things) this seems rather restrained. In fact, these are now considered stock hypnotist tricks.  

What makes me chuckle is the onion eating trick. It’s done all the time but it always interests me to see which fruit is used as the replacement taste. In the UK it always tended to be an apple, and I’ve seen orange used a bit in the US. I wonder if you could do a chart of “onion taste replacement fruits” arranged by geography. 

Being the oldest performing hypnotist, Merlin has several other posters over the years. 

This one focuses more on his mind reading as opposed to his hypnotism, but I utterly love the design. It has this almost 3D effect which makes it look like the poster has a few actual physical layers, but I do suspect it might be the issue with scanning black ink rearing it’s ugly head once more.  

While the last one was pretty joyous this one is practically metal, with its skulls and very industrial images in the crystal ball.

 This poster seems very old school compared to the other two, mostly due to how text-heavy it is. But unlike some posters, the claims all seem pretty normal by today’s standards. The only one that sticks out to me is the one about treating children for nervous complaints while they sleep. All the methods I have seen for this involve just standing and whispering to your child while they sleep because nothing helps the nerves more than an adult looming over your bed whispering at you in the deepest, darkest night. 

Virgil and Julie were a big magic act in the 1950s and 1960s taking shows containing a few hundred illusions around the world. 

Hypnotism played a part but it was nowhere near the focus of the show, but this poster is something to behold, it really is a mish-mash of everything that was hip in the era. The B-movie Esq UFO and the almost eerie-cutie spacewoman flying around it. 

Julie’s costume is very similar to that of the Jeannie from the Tv series I Dream Of Jeannie which debuted in 1965 and went a long way to putting the “harem” costume we know today into the public consciousness.

I want to end on this poster which became quite the rabbit hole for me and I’m frankly not 100% sure I’m correct on all of it. 

I had a real good laugh when I saw the Reveer because he looks like every stereotype of a magician and hero cowboy got thrown into a blender. The turban and the Lone Ranger mask just look so silly together. 

I also found it funny that his name was close to that of Reveen, the hypnotist famous for his performances in Canada who would have been performing at around this time.

Then I got to digging and found I could find hardly anything on Reveer, apart from some poster seller listing him as Tony Cole, a magician who apparently worked sharpshooting into his magic act which does explain the Lone Ranger mask.

Tony Cole also apparently had posters of his own, but all I can find of them is the following: 

And no, Tumblr isn’t going weird, that is the only image I can find of one of his posters. I did, however, turn up a news article on him from 1977 from “The Independent Record from Helena, Montana” advertising a show he was going to do. 

As you can see the resembelence is there so I presume this is the same guy.

As an aside, you might realize this picture is totally and utterly unreadable. The place I found it had the plain text of the article, unfortunately, it was made by OCR copying the document and the results are an utter mess.

Some highlights include: 

To be able to make someone do what another person desires carl brln^a gleam .into the eyes of ambitious people. 

This impression oF hypnotism's power is one of the mast fallacious and dangerous, according to Cole, who when pressed will admit bis lull name is Tony Colo, a hypnotist, magician ami entertainer.

In between all the weird OCR errors, we can see a recurring theme that Tony Cole doesn’t like to use his first name, which means he is the Cole from the latter poster and would explain why he would make a stage character.

M PEOPLE L'NDEH HYPNOSIS won t do anything they wouldn't do normally, " ttie Canadian-born entertainer said In an Interview In Helena. 

Cole recalled ihnl a Groat Falls A A W manager had been hypnotized and was told he was Elvis Presley. The man began gyrating and singing, dulng spills and performing in the late-lfloOs style (bat endeared Presley lo the teen set. Cole said. He added that the shy A & W manager would not normally rarry 1 don't think a person has to put someone in an embarrassing situation or use anything smutty or not in clean family fun in order to entertain. 

I’m sure we can all agree that Elvis’ late-LfloOs style was by far his best style and one that really became his signature. And all of the teen girls were into Elvis for his pet bat. 

He tries, to Tony Cole, a hypnotist, magician and all-around entertainer correct any misconceptions about hypnotism, anri he hypnotizes willing members of the audience. 

He tries to himself? Is that some artsy way of saying he tries to be himself?

On his stage, people might shiver In Ihc arctic temperatures he has described or away In Lhc breeze like palm trees. 

And his chauffeur and helper, Wayne Adolph, emphatically added In his gravelly voice. "It's real."

I don’t know why that bit made me laugh so hard, but it really did. I’m not sure if it’s the fact the guy is called his “helper” or just the fact he decided to just randomly join the interview. 

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE are believing in Ihr authenticity of hypnosis, contends Cole, who has certificates from at least three schools of hypnotism and who has been licensed to leach hypnotism Physicians, dentists, psychiatrists, pollliuUnH, ministers, entertainers, teachers, lawyers, salesmen, atnletes and pilots are among those, who are studying or using hypnosis, Cole said. 

Some beneficial uses for which hypnosis Is being sLudled include easing childbirth, treating alcoholism, slopping smokers from Indulging and treating empbysemn and asthma victims to breathe properly. 

All of these arc medical uses or hypnosis and "the practitioner must by certified as a hypnolechuician and receive a doctor's prescribed order before he hypnotizes someone. Cole said. 

Yes, everyone remember to become certified as a hypnolechuician, that is a very important qualification to have. 

But ask him about himself and the answers dissolve in shrugs and evasiveness. He doesn't like to use his first name. 

Again, some more information that works with the idea that Cole had a few side characters he played sometimes. 

 He makes good money at hypnotism and his oilier entertainments as he travels across the country and into Canada. 

However, I do not wish to see Mr. Cole’s oilier entertainments.

"I know I have a talent but that talent should he scared. ]f pc0pte |,ave a latent and don't share it they re ripping it elf." 

And your guess is as good as mine on this last one. 

So there we have it, The Great Reveer, hypnotist and fiction all rolled into one oddly costumed package. I wish I could find more on this as there seems to be an interesting story in here, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any records I can find.

However, if this taught us anything, it’s that if I get bored of hypnosis, I can just turn this into a bad OCR blog. 

#hypnosis #hypnotism #stage hypnosis #posters #design #hypnotists #ocr

[superbattrash]

Trick or treat!! 🦇

A treat for the treat of my life <3 <3 <3 (that sounded way better in my head)

--

"And why, pray tell, am I wearing this, again?" Bruce asks, pulling at the tight collar.

"Because you can't always be a dinosaur," Dick tells him as a matter of factly. He's running around the room, helping everybody get ready, but then again, it's easy for Dick to move around freely when all he's wearing is a small cheerleader outfit. Bruce doesn't want to know why he's wearing the skirt and Kory is the one in the pants. He doesn't need to know; he doesn't even want to think of asking.

"I'm not-"

"Sorry, you can't always be a T-Rex or triceratops or whatever," Dick waves him off.

"That's not-" Bruce tries to argue but then Dick places a pair of bunny ears on top of his head. "Why this outfit?" He tries again.

"Because it suits you," Tim comments from where he's squeezing into a maid's uniform. Another skirt. Bruce has a bad feeling about this.

"Drake is right," Damian chimes in and Bruce nearly swallows his own tongue. Damian agreeing with Tim? Perhaps he should cancel the party and go lie down. Maybe drag his youngest to the cave to run some tests first.

"Is it not customary for the rabbits to accompany a billionaire?" Damian asks when Bruce doesn't reply. "This being a switch of genders and all?"

"It is," Jason says with a terrifying grin on his face. Bruce purposefully doesn't look at him. He doesn't need to see which type of skirt Jason is wearing; he's pretty sure he'll faint any minute now. "Which is why dear old dad needs to be the perfect bunny for his handsome billionaire."

"Do I even want to know who my handsome billionaire is?" Bruce asks hesitantly.

"Selena, duh," Tim says just as Damian goes: "Mother, of course."

"Oh," Dick then says. "I invited Clark."

"This is a switch party!" Jason argues. "Clark can't be the handsome billionaire!"

"He can too!" Dick shoots back. "He's a handsome billionaire widow. See? That's him in the black dress."

Bruce nearly breaks his own neck turning around to see exactly what type of black dress Clark is wearing. And then he feels all color drain out of his face - and not for the reason he was expecting. Clark is indeed wearing a skintight black dress (and good God, how the hell did the boys convince him to wear those heels?!) but that's not what has Bruce start sweating.

Right next to Clark stands a tall figure, glaring daggers and looking absolutely gorgeous in a bright red miniskirt.

"Why is Khoa here?" Bruce chokes.

#mishask #do I know what this is? no #do I hope you like it? yes #cos I love YOOOUUUU MY BROOSE #mish does trick or treat #misha writes #I call this how many ships can mish put into one 100 word drabble

[guitarpornography]

Versus Steam: Game of the Year Award 2016: #3

As I mentioned before, picking between my top three was very difficult this year. In my hands I had a great narrative, great mechanics and one that had a little bit of both, so I waffled as to which was most important to me. To this game’s credit, I don’t think it can get much more perfect and its very cryptic delivery of story with tight mechanics was a treat to behold. I’m sure you’ve seen this one on a lot of lists but my Versus Steam Game of the Year Award #3 goes to…

Developed and Published by: Playdead (PC, PS4)

Inside might be perfect. Like seriously, I have no criticism whatsoever for it and all the criticism I have seen has been related to taste rather than actual flaws in the game. When Playdead hit the scene way back when with Limbo, the stark presentation and contrast of a small boy in a big scary world took on a life of its own, creating a lot of imitators though many lacked the heart Limbo had its core. Refining this formula, Inside is a vision that I would say is similar but ultimately more effective, giving a surprisingly crushing weight to the proceedings. I mentioned a while back that 2016 was not a great year for horror games and while I believe this to be true, Inside had me so disquieted and disturbed throughout its playtime that I could hardly stand it. Colors are a muted affair, existing but feeling rather flat, something reflected in the details on characters who seem often more like simulacra rather than actual people. The 2D perspective stretches endlessly giving both a sense of desolation and oddly claustrophobic feeling to anything that encroaches it, making us immediately aware of our frailty in the face of our ordeal. Many of my favorite sequences take place underwater, where a strange long haired creature lurks, desiring nothing more than to drown us. While we can trick it to get aware, its amorphous presence flits like a dart through the water immediately driving tension to such a large degree. So many times I felt like I was in immediate danger, which is rarely a feeling I get from a game, but Inside has managed to make me feel afraid for my player character, to want to succeed just in the nick of time so I can move out of the darkness and back towards the world of light, no matter how far away that might be.

I’d speculate as to the story, but as omni-present as it is, the actual details are obscure. From what I gather, some sort of… something has occured, leading to the authorities to try and corral the boy, as well as many lifeless husks of people which can be controlled by remote. While we see them studied, they also seem content to simply let them fester along with a number of other body horrors, culminating in an ending that is both weird, disturbing and oddly sweet in the satisfaction it gives. I am so curious as to what exactly has happened to this world, what calamity could have befallen it to allow for this seeming disregard and absence of human life. We start seemingly hunted by the government or some such people, but so quickly fall into a world of disease and mutation, little of it making apparent sense. Why are there so many lifeless bodies and why can we control them? Why are large areas flooded and filled with the long haired drowner? What does the ending mean exactly and what has befallen the rest of humanity? I’m no stranger to cryptic stories and this one really does push all my buttons in just the right places, driving a lot of inquiry in my mind while conceding the thematic concerns may be easier to understand than I think.

As you might expect, Inside is very similar to Limbo mechanically, though with a few of its own twists. As a physics puzzler, it's up to the player to more or less figure out how to progress out of an area, with most of our tools of pushing, pulling, running and jumping being handed to us at the outset. While at times this can be a simple chase, at other times it's a matter of navigating the verticality of an area to develop a way forward, to find switches and routes past danger or towards some new mechanic we can use. I mentioned the lifeless people before and at times in our journey we can come across these special helmets that allow us to control them, using their different heights or location or numbers to work past areas that would be too troublesome for a young boy to navigate. This reminded me a great deal of the Swapper in execution, these tight puzzles about being able to think on different planes but with the same movement restrictions being placed on each. In one sequence we’re even given full reign of a herd without being made to be stationary, making for an interesting take of corralling and moving the necessary number of them needed to further open up the level. Of course, secrets abound in Inside, making the exploration and use of the mechanics much richer since we can find a mish mash of previous ideas brought together in these areas. I remember one in particular requiring the use of fire, something I don’t remember before or after, so even within its depths, Inside was adding more to its repertoire. While I failed a number of times, this was almost always due to thinking as Inside does such a good job presenting its toolbox to you and it remains tight throughout the game.

Seriously, I’m expecting this and Doom to be on most game of the year lists. I’m curious where Playdead can really go from here, as they have created such an amazing niche for themselves with both story and mechanic and yet seem so endlessly creative in what they can actually do. Inside is a testament to the way games can be built to be better on the backs of their predecessors, leaving a haunting impression of the world in its wake and so many secrets to unravel within one’s own heart.

#versus steam #versus steam game of the year awards #versus steam game of the year awards 2016 #inside #playdead #limbo #game of the year #game of the year awards #physics puzzler #ps4

[thanksforthefush-blog]

The UnDefinitive Guide to Kiwi Slang

TLDR: No one understands half the things WE are saying so Linda makes a list.

As I have found out in my time in America so far, many of my commonly used Kiwi slang is non-existent here (in fact, most people don't even know what I mean when I refer to myself as a Kiwi). I decided to write this post when I told a friend of mine I was "up to fucks" which in retrospect, can be totally misconstrued as something akin to hoe-ing around.

So I thought I'd compile a nifty list of Kiwi slang I use on a regular basis. Even for some Kiwis, a lot of the slang I use may not be used in a particular part of New Zealand. There is also a lot of Kiwi slang that I don't use which I won't include (for instance, 'tu meke' or 'hard out' and honestly you could probably write a book on Kiwi slang). Heck, for all I know, some of these could be used in other parts of America seeing as I have only used these on the East and West Coast and the sample size doesn't really encompass the entirety of America.

1. Flatmates, Flatting, Flat

Basically, any phrase with the word 'flat'. In America, they use roommates instead of flatmates, they say sharing a house/room or living together instead of just saying flatting together and you refer to your dwelling as a house, apartment, rowhome, or whatever instead of just saying flat. I asked someone what you call it when you go flatting ie. move out of home and quite literally you say "I'm living away from home'. In all honesty, having an umbrella term makes it much more versatile and people find it super charming when I say flatmate.

2. Sweet As

Meaning anything along the lines of "all good", "sounds good", "that's cool", "no problem" - basically any term that implies a good-natured confirmatory response .Zoe used this in her work emails for weeks before her senior cracked and finally asked her what she meant by "sweet as". People think I mean "sweet ass" which when used in place of "sweet as", makes no sense:

"Hey Linda, could you take out the trash please?"

"Sweet ass" - it just doesn't work.

3. Churr bro

Similar to "sweet as"  above - people just ask me if I'm just pronouncing the word 'cheers' funny.

4. Crook

This word is ingrained in my everyday vernacular, and is so versatile in its use that when someone finally asked me what I meant when I used it, I struggled to think of a definition that didn't contain the word crook ("You know, like when someone is a bit crook?"). Thankfully for Google, their definition is pretty much spot on - “(especially of a situation) bad, unpleasant or unsatisfactory".

Feel hungover or poorly? You're feeling crook. 

Know a dodgy fulla? He's crook.

You did something that would probably constitute as unsavoury? You're crook.

5. Yeah Nah, Nah Yeah

Where "yeah nah" = no, "nah yeah" = yes. It's all in the tone and inflections, where the yeah has to sound a little promising with a slightly higher pitch and the nah has to drop a few octaves and trail off.

6. Durry

No one here uses the term durry and everyone that I've used this term in front of loves it and thinks it sounds fancy as fuck. Americans just use the term cig, cigarette, smoke, whatever and also pronounce it as 'durr-ree' as opposed to 'duh-ree'.

7. Battling

When one is attempting to complete an arduous task and still manage to somehow muster the energy to complete said task. This term is mainly used after a loose Friday night, you wake up feeling like death  but you still manage it to make it to brunch the next day and maintain some semblance of humanity, and when someone asks you if you're okay because you're fully aware that you not only feel like death but you look like death as well, you flash them a half grin and whisper "I'm battling" and they give you a look of compassion and understanding because you still managed to be somewhat of a productive human being despite dying inside.

8. Rinsed

For when the term "drunk" doesn't quite encapsulate the absolute state you're in because you're positively smashed, you say you're rinsed. In America, there may be other terms to encompass this state of being but I've only heard the term "super drunk" which I guess suffices for all intent and purpose.

9. Too Easy

A friend of mine currently working in LA would respond to his seniors asking him to complete a task with "too easy". To most Kiwis, it is simply yet another confirmatory response, akin to 'sweet as'. His American colleagues made a complaint because they thought he was making a mockery out of the tasks they asked of him.

10. Keen

Akin to saying "I'm down" in America. When someones asks if you want to partake in anything, a typical response would be "Yeah I'm keen" or "keen as".

11. Skull/Dense

Still not really sure what Americans use in lieu of these terms but it refers to finishing off a beverage extremely quickly, usually alcoholic in nature - "I'm going to skull/dense this bottle of wine in 10 seconds, a magic trick I like to call the disappearing act."

12. Stitched Up

When someone puts you into an unsavoury situation, they are 'stitching you up'. I usually do this to Zoe by tagging her in obscene memes because she has her mum and Nan on Facebook, who have like 100 friends, and so whatever dank meme I tag Zoe in is sure to appear on their Facebook -  in a sentence, this would be "Linda stitched up Zoe". Or when your friend shares something with someone he wasn't supposed to and that person ends up bringing it up with you, it means your friend stitched you up.

13. Up to Fucks

Perhaps the most misconstrued term of them all, 'up to fucks' means you're up to nothing, you're procrastinating, something of that essence.

"Linda it's been 6 weeks, have you found a job?"

"Nah mate, I'm up to fucks."

14. Dodgy

In America, people use the term 'sketchy'. It means when something/someone/somewhere is potentially dangerous or dishonest.

15. Pack

I don't know how commonly this is used in NZ, but it is a commonly used term in my group of friends. It means to leave, ditch or not bother with someone or something. For instance, if Zoe ends up at Mish Mosh while everyone else wants to go to Cavern Club, a common phrase in our social circle is "Pack Zoe". Or if you're saying it to Zoe yourself, "Zoe we're packing you" or "Zoe, you're packed".

16. Benching

Equivalent in America to "on the back burner". When you're talking with someone you're not quite ready to pursue but you're not ready to lay down some groundwork either, you're benching them.

17. Wop Wops

The middle of nowhere. Synonymous to "bumblefuck" in America.

"Linda, did you get lost again? Where are you?'

America: "I somehow ended up in East Bumblefuck"

Kiwi: "I'm in the fucking wops"

18. Piss

'On the piss' = I'm drinking so if someone asks you what you're up to, you respond with "I'm on the piss".

'Pissed' = while this could also mean you're annoyed, context is key. In our instance, it means you're drunk.

These are not to be confused with "taking the piss" which means you're making fun of someone in good humour, you're joking, providing a bit of banter.

"Linda honestly, please stop making jokes about no one ever loving me."

 "Honestly Zoe, mate, I'm just taking the piss."

19. MEAN

When something is cool, awesome, some sort of positive adjective. Your mate produces a mint piece of artwork and to show your support and enthusiasm for his woke, artistic endeavours, you tell him "it looks fucking mean".

20. Ay?

This one is a little tricky because it's a very multi-use term.

It turns any phrase into pretty much a question: "Hey you don't want that ay?" you ask, while hungrily staring at the slice of pizza your friend has left on her plate.

Or when you're only 90% sure of an answer but you don't want to seem too confident on the off-chance that you're wrong, "oh it's 387 ay?" so in the 10% chance you're wrong, you don't seem too wrong because you said 'ay?' and that softens the blow.

Or when you're expressing disbelief at something:

Zoe: "Linda I made a friend today."

Me: "AY?????"

21. Dairy

A convenience/corner store. When you're too lazy to go to the supermarket and you're willing to pay the 9000% markup on the shitty Big Ben pies, you head off to your local dairy to pick up a pie and maybe a Starz drink too.

23. Feed

A meal or food - "Hey you keen for a feed?" or in normal terms "Are you down to grab a bite to eat?"

22. Shot

This one is a little tricky because it can be used in place of saying 'thank you' but it could also be used to commend your mate when he does something worth applauding.

"I picked us up a mean feed on the way home." to which someone could reply "Shot!" or "Linda I got to level 80 in World of Warcraft" to which I would respond "Shot bro!"

23. Shout

Not to be confused with 'shot' above, but to 'shout' means to treat someone. "Hey I'm keen for some Denny's tonight. Your shout?"

24. I reckon

Similar to saying "I think" or to agree wholeheartedly with someone.

"I reckon that I could dense this jug of mojitos by myself" - where here it's like saying "I think..."

Or "Honestly Linda, using Sprite Blast to make mojitos was a genius idea." which I would respond with, "Yeah I reckon!" to wholeheartedly agree that a winner mojito recipe is 1 part mojito to 4 parts Sprite Blast (NOTE it has to be Sprite Blast) with a bit of lemon juice and mint is bloody delicious.

25. Not Even

It's like saying "No way!" or "I can't believe it!".

Zoe: "Linda I managed to look like a 4/10 today."

Me: "Not even!"

26. Gap

It means 'to leave' and makes much more sense in context:

"Gap it g." when you're angry at your mate and you are telling them to vacate your immediate vicinity.

"I'm gapping it/I gotta gap" for when you have to leave.

27. Heaps

To express a large quantity, or frequency.

"How much do you love Harry Potter?" and you respond with "Heaps."

So in this context, I'm saying I love Harry Potter a lot, or very much. Or "How often have you gotten shit-faced this week Linda?" and I would respond with "heaps of times."

28. What a stink/sad guy

When your mate has done some stitching up, you say they're a 'stink/sad guy'.

 "Zoe, I've packed you and have found a new best friend."

"What a stink guy :("

29. Gutted

To express disappointment at someone, a situation, something.

"Densed two bottles of wine and now can't bring myself to drink wine anymore, I'm so gutted." or "Linda I'm coming with you to America" and you're just like "Oh gutted."

30. Can't be bothered/fucked/assed

I thought everyone used these terms but this one is a hit or miss with some people here. I asked my flatmate what the equivalent is and she said it would be somewhat equivalent to "when you don't give a fuck" but it basically means when you just don't wanna do something because you're lazy.

"Linda are you going to try figure out what you're gonna do with you life?"

"Honestly I just can't be bothered."

31. SEND IT

100% not even Kiwi slang but a commonly used phrase in my social circle. Very similar to dense/skull but deserves it on place on this list. This phrase is derived from one afternoon of day drinking where a typical Kiwi bloke no one really knew turned up to a party, got rinsed and passed out by 3pm but not before he encouraged everyone to "send it". It is simultaneously a cue to finish the entire contents of the drink in one's hand and also saying 'cheers' - a very versatile phrase that should definitely be employed in the rest of New Zealand's slang vocabulary.

A great instance for which this phrase should be used is when you're the sober driver for day 1 of an 8 day bender, and your friends have been polishing off a bottle of tequila and 2 cases of beer before you've even had a drop of alcohol (so much alcohol was consumed in said vehicle that as I was being breathalysed, it thought I was over the alcohol limit even though I was dead sober). You have to play the catch-up game real quick and your mates are real supportive of you and telling you "to fucking send it" for encouragement as you dense a bottle of wine in what you would refer to as your best disappearing magic trick yet. Bless.

So there we have it. There are so many other slang terms commonly used in New Zealand and a quick Google search would bring up other lists compiled by other Kiwis but honestly, it varies so much across New Zealand so I wanted to create a list unique to how I talk. It makes for great conversation pieces because I've had hours of long conversations with people who are fascinated by the slang that I use and how fancy they think it sounds (even though in New Zealand, there is nothing fancy about saying "bro, you keen for a mean feed? Your shout? Shot bro.").

#kiwi slang #new zealand #new zealand slang #slang