#support native vendors

[keep-her-wild]

got a new shirt at the pow wow

#san manuel pow wow #pow wow season #native tumblr #ndn tag #natives on tumblr #pow wow #personal #me #support indigenous artists #support native vendors #no makeup but who cares

[headspace-hotel]

against the logic of the lawn

Imagine a box.

This box is sealed with tape or adhesive, which shows you that it has never been opened or re-used. It is in pristine condition. Apart from that, the box could hold anything. It could contain a Star Wars Funko Pop, a printer, a shirt ordered from some sketchy online vendor, a knockoff store-brand cereal, six individually wrapped protein bars.

As a Consumer ("the" Consumer) this is your fundamental right: To purchase a box that is, presumably, identical to every other box like it.

When you Buy Product, it arrives in a box, entire of itself and without context. It has not changed since its creation. If and when Product does change—whether it is broken, spoiled, used up, or eaten—you can Buy Product that is identical in every meaningful way to the original.

It's okay if this doesn't make sense yet. (You can stop imagining the box now.)

Imagine instead a suburban housing development, somewhere in the USA.

Imagine row on row of pristine, newly built houses, each constructed with small, meaningless variations in their aesthetic, all with beige or white vinyl siding and perhaps some decorative brick, all situated on identical rectangles of land covered with freshly unrolled sod. This is the Product that every consumer aspires to Buy.

I am not exactly—qualified, or entitled, to speak on the politics of land ownership in this country. My ancestors benefited directly from the genocide of Native Americans, which allowed Europeans to steal the land they lived on, which is where a lot of wealth comes from in the end, even today. However, I have eyes in my head to see that the act of colonizing a continent, and an economic system that formed as a supporting infrastructure to colonization, have embedded something almost irreparably dysfunctional into the dominant American culture's relationship to land.

This dysfunctional Thing, this Sickness, leads us to consider land to be a Product, and to consider a human upon the land to be a Consumer.

From this point of view, land is either locked into this relationship of control and "use" to varying extents, or it is free of human influence. People trying to reason about how to preserve Earth's biosphere, working within this framework without realizing, decide that we must "set aside" large areas of land for "nature."

This is a naive and, I would reckon, probably itself colonialist way of seeing things. It appears to be well-validated by evidence. Where human population is largest, there is less biodiversity.

But I find the broad conclusions to be strikingly unscientific. The plan of "setting aside part of Earth for nature" displays little curiosity about the mechanisms by which human presence impacts biodiversity. Otherwise intelligent people, perhaps caught up in the "bargaining" phase of climate grief, seem taken in by the idea that the human species gives off a magical anti-biodiversity force field, as if feeling guiltier will fix the problems.

(Never mind that lands managed by indigenous folk actually have MORE biodiversity...almost like our species' relationship to the planet isn't inherently exploitative, but rather, the capitalist and colonialist powers destroying everything.......)

Let's go back to the image of the new housing development. This image could be just about anywhere in the USA, because the American suburban home is made for universal interchangeability, where each little house and yard is static and replaceable with any other.

Others have written about the generic-ification of the interiors of homes, how houses are decorated with the most soul-killing, colorless furnishings to make them into Products more effectively. (I think @mcmansionhell wrote about it.)

This, likewise, is the Earth turned into a Product—razed down into something with no pre-existing context, history, or responsibility. Identical parcels of land, identical houses, where once there was a unique and diverse distribution of life. The American lawn, the American garden, the industry that promotes these aesthetics, is the environmental version of that ghastly, ugly "minimalism" infecting the interiors of homes.

The extremely neat, sparse, manicured look that is so totally inescapable in American yards originated from the estates of European aristocracy, which displayed the owner's wealth by flaunting an abundance of land that was both heavily managed and useless. People defend the lawn on the basis that grass tolerates being walked upon and is good for children to play, but to say this is *the* purpose of a lawn is bullshit—children are far more interested in trees, creeks, sticks, weeds, flowers, and mud than Grass Surface, many people with lawns do not have children, and most people spend more time mowing their lawn than they do doing literally anything else outside. How often do you see Americans outside in their yards doing anything except mowing?

What is there to do, anyway? Why would you want to go outside with nothing but the sun beating down on you and the noise of your neighbors' lawn mowers? American culture tries to make mowing "manly" and emphasizes that it is somehow fulfilling in of itself. Mowing the lawn is something Men enjoy doing—almost a sort of leisure activity.

I don't have something against wanting a usable outdoor area that is good for outdoor activities, I do, however, have something against the idea that a lawn is good for outdoor activities. Parents have been bitching for decades about how impossible it is to drag kids outdoors, and there have been a million PSAs about how children need to be outside playing instead of spending their lives on video games. Meanwhile, at the place I work, every kid is ECSTATIC and vibrating with enthusiasm to be in the woods surrounded by trees, sticks, leaves, and mud.

The literal, straightforward historical answer to the lawn is that the American lawn exists to get Americans to spend money on chemicals. The modern lawn ideal was invented to sell a surplus of fertilizer created after WW2 chemical plants that had been used to make explosives were repurposed to produce fertilizer. Now you know! The more analytical, sociological answer is that the purpose of the lawn is to distance you from the lower class. A less strictly maintained space lowers property values, it looks shabby and unkempt, it reflects badly on the neighborhood, it makes you look like a "redneck." And so on. The largest, most lavish McMansions in my area all have the emptiest, most desolate yards, and the lush gardens all belong to tiny, run-down houses.

But the answer that really cuts to the core of it, I think, is that lawns are a technology for making land into a Product for consumers. (This coexists with the above answers.) Turfgrass is a perfectly generic blank slate onto which anything can be projected. It is emptiness. It is stasis.

I worry about the flattening of our imaginations. Illustrations in books generally cover the ground outdoors in a uniform layer of green, sometimes with strokes suggesting individual blades of grass if they want to get fancy. Video games do this. Animated shows and movies do this.

Short, carpet-like turfgrass as the Universal Outdoor Surface is so ubiquitous and intuitive that any alternative is bizarre, socially unacceptable, and for many, completely unimaginable. When I am a passenger in a car, what horrifies me the most to see out the window is not only the turfgrass lawns of individuals, but rather, the turfgrass Surface that the entire inhabited landscape has been rendered into—vacant stretches of land surrounding businesses and churches, separating parking lots, bordering Wal-Marts, apartment complexes, and roadsides.

These spaces are not used, they are almost never walked upon. They do nothing. They are maintained, ceaselessly, by gas-powered machines that are far, far more carbon-emitting than cars per hour of use, emitting in one hour the same amount of pollution as a 500-mile drive. It is an endless effort to keep the land in the same state, never mind that it's a shitty, useless state.

Nature is dynamic. Biodiversity is dynamic. From a business point of view, the lawn care industry has found a brilliant scheme to milk limitless money from people, since trying to put a stop to the dynamism and constant change of nature is a Sisyphean situation, and nature responds with increasingly aggressive and rapid change as disturbance gets more intense.

On r/lawncare, a man posted despairingly that he had spent over $1500 tearing out every inch of sod in his yard, only for the exact same weeds to return. That subreddit strikes horror in my heart that I cannot describe, and the more I learn about ecology, the more terrible it gets. It was common practice for people in r/lawncare to advise others to soak their entire yard in Roundup to kill all plant life and start over from a "blank slate."

Before giving up, I tried to explain over and over that it was 100% impossible to get a "blank slate." Weeds typically spread by wind and their seeds can persist for DECADES in the soil seed bank, waiting for a disastrous event to trigger them to sprout. They will always come back. It's their job.

It was impossible for those guys to understand that they were inherently not just constructing a lawn from scratch, and were contending with another power or entity (Nature) with its own interests.

The logic of the lawn also extends into our gardens. We are encouraged to see the dynamism of nature as something that acts against our interests (and thus requires Buy Product) so much, that we think any unexpected change in our yard is bad. People are sometimes baffled when I see a random plant popping up among my flowers as potentially a good thing.

"That's a weed!" Maybe! Nonetheless, it has a purpose. I don't know who this stranger is, so I would be a fool to kill it!

A good caretaker knows that the place they care for will change on its own, and that this is GOOD and brings blessings or at least messages. I didn't have to buy goldenrod plants—they came by themselves! Several of our trees arrived on their own. The logic that sees all "weeds" as an enemy to be destroyed without even identifying ignores the wisdom of nature's processes.

The other day at work, the ecologist took me to see pink lady's slipper orchids. The forest there was razed and logged about a hundred years ago, and it got into my head to ask how the orchids returned. He only shrugged. "Who knows?"

Garden centers put plants out for sale when they are blooming. People buy trees from Fast Growing Trees dot com. The quick, final results that are standard with Buy Product, which are so completely opposite the constant slow chaos of nature, have become so standard in the gardening world that the hideous black mulch sold at garden centers is severed from the very purpose of mulch, and instead serves to visually emphasize small, lonely plants against its dark background. (For the record, once your plants mature, you should not be able to SEE the mulch.)

Landscapers regularly place shrubs, bushes, trees and flowers in places where they have no room to reach maturity. It's standard—landscapers seem to plan with the expectation that everything will be ripped out within 5-10 years. The average person has no clue how big trees and bushes get because their entire surroundings, which are made of living things (which do in fact feel and communicate) are treated as disposable.

Because in ten years, this building won't be an orthodontists' office, in ten years, this old lady will be dead, in ten years, the kids will have grown, and capitalism is incapable of preparing for a future, only for the next buyer.

The logic of the lawn is that gardens and ecosystems that take time to build are not to be valued, because a lush, biodiverse garden is not easily sold, easily bought, easily maintained, easily owned, or easily treated with indifference. An ecosystem requires wisdom from the caretaker. That runs contrary to the Consumer identity.

And it's this disposable-ness, this indifference, that I am ultimately so strongly against, not grass, or low turf that you can step on.

What if we saw buying land as implying a responsibility to be its caretaker? To respect the inhabitants, whether or not we are personally pleased by them or think they look pretty? What creature could deserve to be killed just because it didn't make a person happy?

But the Consumer identity gives you something else...a sense of entitlement. "This is MY yard, and that possum doesn't get to live there." "This is MY yard, and I don't want bugs in it." "This is MY yard, and I can kill the spiders if I want to."

Meanwhile there is no responsibility to build the soil up for the next gardener. No responsibility to plant oaks that will grow mighty and life-giving. No responsibility to plant fruit-producing trees, brambles, and bushes. None of these things, any of which could have fulfilled a responsibility to the future. Rather, just to do whatever you damn well please, and leave those that come after with depleted, compacted soil and the aftermath of years of constant damage. It took my Meadow ten years to recover from being the garden patch of the guy that lived here before us. Who knows what he did to it.

The loss of topsoil in all our farmland is a bigger example, and explains how this is directly connected to colonialism. The Dust Bowl, the unsustainable farming practices that followed, the disappearance of the lush fertile prairie topsoil because of greed and colonizer mindset, and simple refusal to learn from what could be observed in nature. The colonizing peoples envisioned the continent as an "Empty" place, a Blank Slate that could be used and exploited however.

THAT is what's killing the planet, this idea that the planet is to be used and abused and bought and sold, that the power given by wealth gives you entitlement to do whatever you want. That "Land" is just another Product, and our strategies for taking care of Earth should be whatever causes the most Buy Product.

It's like I always write..."You are not a consumer! You are a caretaker!"

#plants #native plants #no lawns #kill your lawn #anti lawn #consumerism #capitalism #colonialism #genocide tw

[jennaispunk]

Gift of a Friend

Summary: An unlikely meeting leads to something unexpected.

Pairing: Din Djarin x OFC (Talia)

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: none. This is just fluff (sorry not sorry). A “This is how they met” story. It’s just two people who could use a friend finding each other. Maybe it might lead to more…..

Notes: I wrote this for the @swiftiscruff friendship exchange. This is for you @sawymredfox!!! I hope you like this. Thank you for being brave and reaching out to me. Look at us, two introverts making a connection lol. You are too sweet and my world would be a little less bright without you in it. Love you. 💜💜

The title is from a Demi Levato song.

Thank you @fallingforthearch for being my beta.

graphics and support banners by the amazing @saradika-graphics

The sounds of the bazaar filled her ears: children laughing… vendors calling out sometimes in their native tongue and sometimes in basic, peddling their fruits and vegetables or homemade goods. The sun beat down on the dirt as she made her way through the bustle and cacophony, looking for a few things to make up her dinner for the evening.

Another long shift at the hospital had come and gone, mainly assisting with patching up drunken patrons from the cantina whose mouths had earned them a fist to the jaw or the nose.

Gathering the last things she needed, she headed to her small home, ready to finally relax and maybe start the new book she’d been dying to read. The sound of babbling behind her caught her attention. She looked down to see a small green creature looking up at her. His big dark eyes looked up at her curiously, almost as if he knew her. He babbled again and reached his arms out to her.

“Hey, little buddy…. Are you all alone? Where’s your mama?”

Her eyes darted, searching the crowd. He was an unusual looking creature. Not a species she had ever seen before, but so adorable. Surely, someone must be looking for him.

His ears twitched, and he made a sound that sounded almost like a whine. He instantly lifted his arms again, and she scooped him up. The little creature babbled happily in her arms. She stared at him, feeling a sense of comfort and peace with this little guy she hadn’t felt in a long time. She felt he was trying to communicate with her, even though all his sounds were only gibberish.

“Do you speak Basic?” Talia asked. “Can you tell me where your parents are?”

The little green creature babbled again, tilting his head. His little hand reached out to touch her face. She softly gasped at the unexpected contact but relaxed as she felt the warmth and comfort wash over her.

“There you are…”

Her eyes shot up to behold a broad man clad in armor and a helmet. She recognized his armor immediately; he was a Mandalorian. She blinked rapidly at him, her tongue briefly peeking out to wet her lips.

“He's yours?”

“Yes…he belongs to me.” His voice was devoid of emotion through the modulator. He stood rigid and tall, an unmoving statue. The sun created an almost halo-like ring around him, making him look like some ancient god she’d read about in a novel.  

“Friendly little guy, isn’t he?”

“He doesn’t usually like a lot of people.” His response was short and to the point.

A puff of air escaped her lips as the little green creature babbled in her arms. This mysterious Mandalorian was so hard to read and apparently not one for conversation.

“Come on, Grogu. It’s time to go home.”

Her brow ticked skyward. It was an interesting name. The little guy completely ignored him, continuing to coo and play with strands of her blonde hair swirling in the gentle breeze.

He exhaled loudly, his right knee jutting out slightly as his hands went to his hips.

“Grogu…”

The tone of his voice made Grogu’s ears droop slightly and he pouted for just a moment before leaping from her arms and returning to his Mandalorian.

He scooped Grogu into his arms and turned away without another word. She huffed. Was he just going to walk away without a word? She opened her mouth to insult him, but Grogu’s high-pitched noises stopped her. The Mandalorian stopped as well, keeping his back to her but turning his head to the side.

“Thank you…for looking out for him.”

She called out to his retreating form, her arms crossed tight across her chest. “You’re welcome.”

“Mudscuffer.” she added under her breath.

Din walked away with Grogu babbling in his arms, reaching back toward Talia. Din shook his head, a strange feeling in his chest. Something about that girl intrigued him. Maybe it was how sweet she was with Grogu. Perhaps it was the way she called him a Mudscuffer when she thought he couldn’t hear. She had spunk, and he found himself wanting to see her again.

Halfway through the bazaar, she realized her mistake. The shopkeeper offered his son to carry the packages home for her, but she refused, her pride overruling common sense. She’d been saving for months to buy this easel and canvases, and she didn’t want another set of hands all over it. Besides, she’d made it this long on her own, and she could do this too.

“Dank Farrik!”  she groaned, adjusting the packages in her hands, determined to make it back home without dropping them.

Din watched her from a distance as she struggled, silently chuckling to himself. She was a stubborn one, too damn prideful to ask for help. His heart stirred at the sight.

“Here, let me help you with that.”

Taking the packages into his arms with little effort, he looked down at her, his helmet hiding his smirk.

She stared at him, opening her mouth to speak then closing it again. She hadn’t expected to see him again, although he had managed to find a way into her thoughts over the last few days.

 Before she could speak, Grogu took the opportunity to jump into her arms.

“Hello, little friend.” She laughed as she booped his nose.

“Which way?” he asked. The glint of his armor caught her eye as he shifted his weight.

“Oh, uh…. this way.” Her hand jutted out in the direction of her place.

An awkward silence fell over them like a heavy fog as they walked toward her house, neither one willing to break the tension. His boots softly scuffed the dirt in a steady rhythm, lulling her into a strange sense of comfortability.

“Do you have a name?” Her voice cut through the silence. “Or should I just call you Mando?”

One of his shoulders raised slightly.

“I figured you’d just call me Mudscuffer.” His chuckle was like a soft whisper through the modulator.

She swallowed hard and fixed her eyes on the road. She couldn’t believe he’d heard her say that. She thought he was out of earshot when she let that slip.

“My name is Din.”  

“Talia,” she offered before he even had a chance to ask. His head turned slightly toward her, giving her an almost imperceptible nod.

He sat the package down in her living room and straightened, admiring the small space. It was sparsely decorated but cozy—like a home. A worn bookshelf stood tall in the corner, filled with books and a few small trinkets. He wondered what sort of books lined those shelves and if she imagined herself in those worlds as she read them.

She watched him standing in her living room, the sun beaming in and reflecting off his Beskar armor. She found herself wanting to know more about him…. anything about him, really.

“Thanks for your help.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. Grogu shuffled around on the floor, fascinated by the space.  His coos filled the air, punctuating the uneasiness between them.

“You’re welcome.”

She opened her packages and set up her easel by the window, adjusting it a few times to find the perfect angle to catch the light. The canvases were stacked neatly into the corner under the small shelving holding a small assortment of paints and brushes.

“You paint?”

Din could almost imagine her sitting by this window; tiny speckles of paint freckled across her cheek, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked. The sunlight streaming down, illuminating her golden locks, would have been breathtaking.

“I’m getting back into it again. I had to save for a while before I could afford a new easel and a few pieces of canvas.”

He quietly cleared his throat, shifting his weight uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to talking to people. He couldn’t remember the last time he had an actual conversation with someone. Talking to her was…nice. His cheeks flushed under his armor, and he was grateful she couldn’t see his face. He was a bounty hunter and a trained warrior, not some little boy with a crush.

“Would you and Grogu like to stay and have dinner with me? It’d be nice to have some company for a change.” Her cheeks burned with heat as she asked the question. Her heartbeat quickened with every moment he was silent.

“Thank you for the offer, but Grogu and I should be going.”  He didn’t know how to explain to her that his creed forbade him from revealing his face to anyone but his riduur. That was a conversation for another time. He’d broken that vow once and endured too much to redeem himself to risk it again.

Her chin briefly tilted toward the floor before she returned her gaze to his helmet with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

 “Sure…. maybe another time.”

His chest tightened as he collected Grogu. This feeling was strange to him—this feeling of wanting to connect with someone. He’d spent his whole life without any real attachment to anyone until Grogu. Now, he found himself wanting to be in her presence, wanting something with her that he always longed for but denied himself: a friend…and maybe something more.

Without thinking, he stopped in the doorway and turned back to her.

“Our home is just outside the city. If you’re ever interested, there’s plenty of good lighting and landscape to paint.”

The words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them.

“I’m sure Grogu would like it if you came to visit sometime when you’re free. He seems to like you.”

Her smile could have lit up the deepest mines of Mandalore. This mysterious stranger had her completely captivated. She’d realized how much she missed having someone to just be with… someone to fill that void of loneliness she tried to ignore for so long.

“I’d like to visit Grogu sometime, too.”

#gift of a friend #ppcugiftexchange2024 #ppcufriendshipexchange2024 #din djarin x ofc #the mandalorian #jennaispunk #it’s fluff

[scumbagjaeger]

VACATION DESTINATIONS WITH THE SNK MEN

starring: Eren, Jean, Armin, Connie, Porco, Reiner, Levi, Zeke

rating: mostly sfw!

notes: Part 2 of my travel series! First of all, I don’t think any of the guys would ever turn down a trip with you to go anywhere!!! These are just some of the specific destinations that I think they’d love to take you to and what I think they’d like to do with you(: and these are places that I’ve been, unfortunately I haven’t been to any African or Asian countries but I didn’t want to stereotype anything about these places. Feel free to share your ideas!! What’s your dream vacation? What other travel scenarios would you like to see? Let me know, send me an ask!

Part 1

EREN:

- Okay it’s so cheesy but please stick with me okay

- The iconic “freedom” panel, with his arms outstretched? That’s him whenever you guys go to hike or explore a national park

- I don’t think he’d be one of those like intense backpackers by any means? The man still needs regular access to a shower

- But he loves as much of the untouched nature as he can get!

- So I think a roadtrip would really suit him! I think there’s something super intimate about road-tripping that you don’t get on other trips

- Imagine you fly to a place like Reykjavik (Iceland), rent a car and then explore the ring road together

- Volcanoes! Canyons! Glaciers! Waterfalls! What’s not to love, he loves the spontaneity of it, and there are times when he feels like you two are the only ones on earth :’)

- One or two nights in the city, they have a nice nightlife scene if you’re into it, otherwise just exploring cafes and cool areas around the bay

- Then you pick up the rental and hardly see anyone else again!! Lol it can be super isolated there

- The drive around can be super exciting though?? When I went we’d see a couple waterfalls every hour in some regions! He’d be impressed with each one :)

- On less-exciting legs of the trip you guys can have really open and vulnerable conversations too? Just about life and stuff

- Car sex car sex car sex

JEAN:

- I also think he would have a hard time with camping, no access to a shower or regular toilet stresses him out

- But I think he’d really love hikes and national parks? Just no camping trips (yet..)

- I think Hawaii would be a fun place he’d love to take you

- I’m thinking Oahu at least? That’s the most touristy of them all hahah. But I’d imagine that you go once and he begins to fall in love with the culture and nature

- And then he suggests you explode some of the other islands and see the more natural side of Hawaii!

- Maybe you guys book a hotel that has a balcony, and by halfway through the trip you’re out there with blankets sleeping in the moonlight

- You don’t get much sleeping done though 😉😉😉

- I think Jean needs a vacation where he can get back into nature and forget about work, and Hawaii is a great place for that

- Would probably love going to a Luau with you, a more authentic one that actually supports Hawaii natives yk?

- Is constantly putting flowers behind your ear bc the boy’s a ROMANTIC!!

- Loves markets and street fairs but is a bit gullible? He’ll come up to you with a bunch of baked goods and say “that vendor is so nice! His mom baked all of these treats fresh this morning and gave me a good deal on them!” And then you guys will walk past a different vendor with THE EXACT SAME BAKED GOODS and the same sign that says “baked by mom, fresh this morning!” and he’d be like “huh, maybe their moms are friends or something”

ARMIN:

- He’d take you to see the ocean (duh)

- But I think he would also love to take you to small towns in Europe??

- He might need some convincing to go to a place like NYC or Las Vegas

- Much prefers towns like Cambridge? So many free museums and archeological collections (I also love this town lol)

- Would be still open to going to a big city with you! I mean the amount of history in New York is insane!

- But the crowds would overwhelm him :(

- Maybe could handle a weekend there on the way to another destination?

- Or at least will need a lot of time to recoup in between the nightlife and other big tourist activities

- Honestly if you wanted to go to a big city he’d be open to go, and he’d let you explore the city while he finds a good book or explores at his own pace

- Not alone! Like imagine you went with a group of friends and Armin yk? He’d be too worried about something happening to you if you were out there!!

- Yeah Armin would probably be a touch paranoid about being kidnapped or pickpocketed

- Like you could be visiting your hometown and your sibling comes to pick you up and he’s like “are you sure that’s them???? Can they get out of the car so we know it’s them?? What if it’s a trafficker??? You know I saw this news report about…”

CONNIE:

- Okay so first I think he’d have fun with weekend camping trips? He might dabble with a longer backpacking trip, but I think his regular getaways would be camping trips with you and maybe a blunt or something 👀

- But as far as like traveling for a vacation, I think he’d actually be a lot of fun at Disney or Universal Studios

- He’ll make fun of the cringey and annoying Disney adults (the ones who would like push a kid in order to get ahead in line for a ride yk? Nothing wrong with liking Disney at any age!)

- But otherwise he’s super happy to see everyone (including the two of you) get to let loose and be kids again!

- I also feel like he’d have the best luck at finding the Disney character people?? Like you are always first in line to take pics

- He’d probably want to take pictures with the Disney characters but would always insist on doing some dumb pose? He’s just planking in front of you and Mickey lol

- He also likes Disney because he can make up the most outrageous backstories for you both when talking to cast members (he tells Peter Pan about how he rescued you from bandits, Woody that he is a toy, etc)

- Like at airports, children are drawn to him so he’s always making them laugh in lines too? Not in a weird way but he just sees them looking at him and he’ll start doing an impression (once the parents give him the lil nod of approval)

- He’ll talk to children like they’re adults about their favorite Disney things too?

- “I totally agree, Rebecca. Anna was just trying to do what’s best for her sister Elsa” (he’d just be great with kids all around)

- Would probably cry at the Avengers Campus??? Just super amazed by Spider-Man and the others

- Also I think he’d love the drinking around the world “challenge” at Epcot. You don’t want to get too drunk at a family theme park but he likes trying all the fun drinks and learning a bit about the cultures of different places!

PORCO:

- I think Italy or New York would be a lot of fun with Porco! Just any big city really

- Maybe Italy specifically just because of the weather? Idk when I think of them modern AU I end up thinking of Chicago because I’m from that area, so a hot area like Italy would be perfect

- The man tans like a god probably? Like five minutes in the sun and he has the perfect golden tan

- Also he’s being conscious about suncare and will put sunscreen on you! Buys two of the biggest goofiest tourist hats to shield your faces from the sun

- Probably has an interest in the fashion scene at least a little bit? Has one of those trench coat/duster jacket things when he’s in New York (secretly you think he’s doing a model-strut whenever you two are walking around lol)

- Likes to people watch in a cafe in Italy while discussing clothes you like

- Will buy you clothes after the trip and surprise you (can’t buy it during the trip bc of your suitcases!! But he jots down the things you like or will order it in store to be shipped back home)

- Also would love the food in Italy!! Insists on eating out like every single night because everything is just so good!

- But it’s also super rich so one day you both just lie in bed, too tired to get up. After that you guys take it easy

- Will judge you for wanting a simple slice of Sbarro pizza (“Really? We’re in NYC babe there’s literally every type of food imaginable? And you want Sbarro???”) but one night you wake up in the middle of the night you wake up and he’s curled over the sink with a Sbarro slice?? Hello??

- But he got you one too so it’s okay xoxo

- I think he’d like to get away in a city because the intensity and the energy of a city is the perfect pick me up when he’s feeling weighed down from work (plus the man’s a model he belongs in an Italian fashion show let’s be honest)

REINER:

- I feel like he’d love road trips and camping! For some reason I think he’d be nervous to fly across the world to Europe?? Down for a flight within the US though (I always imagine them to be American but that’s just my hc!)

- Places like Arizona or Utah, even Yellowstone would be perfect!

- He probably burns really easily, so y’all get the biggest floppiest sun hats and make your way through Bryce Canyon or the Grand Canyon!

- Gets all sweaty but pulls you close as you both admire the scene before you. “(Y/N), look at how beautiful it is!”

- Reiner is so hard on himself, and I think that’s still apparent as he pushes himself to rush through the trails

- You need to make him wait and pace himself before he hurts himself! Drink water you fool!

- But imagine after getting deep into Yellowstone, you find a beautifully tranquil scene and you FINALLY see Reiner’s shoulders start to droop

- He can finally let himself relax, surrounded by the beauty of the natural world (and you), and his problems literally melt away

- At Bryce Canyon they had a really nice presentation at one of the parks about light pollution

- If you guys saw something like that Reiner could be moved to tears

- When you drive back to your hotel at night, you both pull over to admire the stars

- They shine brighter than they ever have back home, where the city lights obscures them. Neither of you say anything, just staring up at them in awe and wonder. Reiner reaches out for your hand and squeezes it in his own(‘:

LEVI:

- I wanted to say that he’d like Japan (and he would!) because he’d love the peace of the temples and shrines

- But I think that’s too predictable!! Plus he’s Japanese so he’d probably already be taking you there occasionally to explore!

- I think that he’s actually get a lot out of a trip to London??

- He’d probably have a lot of fun exploring the churches? The art and the history and the tranquility

- I don’t think he’d be running to see any of the royal palaces or big tourist grabs like the London Eye or Big Ben, but St Paul’s Cathedral?? He’d love it there

- And he’d love the parks, they’re spacious and it’s a nice place to people watch

- London seems very private?? Idk I’m here now and everyone seems to mind their business hahah. Polite? I bet he’d really appreciate that

- I also think he’d secretly really enjoy football?? You won’t see him jumping for joy at pubs with any of the British men

- But if a team that he likes is in an intense game, he’s holding his fork in a first so tight it could break in half

- I don’t think Levi would ever be able to fully stop thinking about his work or get away from his regular responsibilities, but he’s really inspired by the British Museum and the British Library

- After you two explore those types of areas he might pull you towards on of the courtyards outside of those areas (they both have lovely green patches outside!) and alternate between writing (I’ve always imagined him as an editor or columnist of sorts… critic maybe?) and talking to you(:

- Also let’s be real, he goes for the tea

ZEKE:

- Honestly I think Amsterdam would be fitting for Zeke

- Amsterdam would be fun with Zeke because the whole city has a laid back vibe

- Zeke gives off a weird mix of constant ease but also stress? Maybe it’s the trauma? Who knows! But the man needs to relax

- And Amsterdam is super chill! There’s a lot of historical memorials and museums to keep you both occupied and the canals are beautiful

- Plus there’s marijuana everywhere omg

- Honestly he’d have a lot of fun in the red light district? Super polite and respectful about everything but the man’s a freak let’s be real (he’s leaving the red light district the SECOND you’re uncomfortable btw he’s super understanding)

- There are really cool markets all over? The flower markets are my favorite! A whole street full of flower bulbs and plants to buy!

- He’d probably suggest you buy some, and when you point out that they might not travel there he’d suggest you just move there together

- Idk maybe it’s the weed, but I think vacations with Zeke would just make him weak in the knees, falling in love with you all over again

- I feel like he’s pretty depressed/apathetic to the world (sorry king 💀), but seeing your eyes full of awe as you explore the large tulip fields makes his heart ache with love for you

- Big softy underneath the trauma xoxo

- Amsterdam would be packed with a large variety of experiences and Zeke would start the trip passively going along with whatever you want, but by the end he’d be dragging you around trying to see everything the world has to offer!

Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Please leave an ask if you want to see any other specific scenarios! I’m working on one about college majors next so stay tuned!

#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk boyfriends #snk imagines #eren jaeger #porco galliard #levi ackerman #reiner braun #jean kirschtein #armin arlert #connie springer #zeke jaeger #headcanons #eren jaeger x reader #porco galliard x reader #Levi Ackerman x reader #reiner braun x reader #connie springer x reader #armin arlert x reader #jean kirschtein x reader #zeke jaeger x reader #mine #travel au #travel series #gamer series

[onyxtides]

This necklace is hand made with death and time in mind this piece is inspired by Greek God Thanatos and the Norse Goddess Hel. This Prayer Beads has a semi Hour Glass pendant that is timed at only a few seconds. This necklace is also inspired by the Angel of Death Azrael. This piece is made with Garnet, Onyx and Howlite and tarnish resistant wire, resistant not proof so please keep in mind when cleaning.

This piece is long enough to slip over your head, no clasp needed but I can add one if you want, please message me right after purchase or leave it in notes.

While support my small business you also support other small businesses which I buy from. This includes a local Native American bead vendor and an elder mom and pops shop. Thank you so much for choosing my designs.

#death goddess #chthonic #death gods #hades devotee #hades devotion #thanatos #thanatos deity #hel deity #king hades #queen persephone #hekate goddess #hekate devotee #underworld goddess #hour glass #skull jewelry #witchblr #witchcraft #witchythings #paganism #witch crafts #prayer beads #crystal necklace #hellenic polytheism #norse pagan #norse pagan witch #the fates #gothic jewelry #gothic fashion #pagan rosary #pagan prayer beads

[swarmik]

“SuperCGA” and ATI Graphics Solution and GEM Desktop

8bit guy published a video about SuperCGA cards, which reminded me that this was a topic a recently dug into. I’ve never really worked with CGA/EGA monitors. When we had a computer at home for the first time in 1989, it was an IBM PS/2 Model 20 borrowed from dad’s office. That computer already had an on-board graphics chip that worked with VGA monitors. One year later, my family decided to buy our own computer. It was a 286 clone with an SVGA graphics card and an SVGA monitor able to show 1024×768 (interlaced though).

During the Bytefest (a vintage computer show in Czech Republic), one of the computers I brought there was an early Vienna 286. A friend of mine promised that he would have brought an EGA monitor, so I could try a card I bought just for this purpose – a Trident 8800CS (512KB). This Trident has both VGA and RGBI/TTL (CGA/EGA) outputs and can be switched to act like different IBM graphics chips. Sadly, the Trident card was ignoring the switches and always used VGA timing. It sent the signal always to both outputs but my EGA monitor was not able to sync 640×480 with 31kHz h-sync (as expected). We brought an oscilloscope, even made some modifications to the card, but nothing helped. When I asked in some groups, the only answer I got was that somebody tried the same thing on his Trident 8800CS with the same result.

Anyway, I also had the original ATI Graphics Solution card that was sold with the computer somewhere in 1987, so at least I had something else to play with. This is a very neat card. It has 64KB of video RAM and supports both CGA and Hercules modes. As I shown in the past, it even supports CGA modes on Hercules/MDA monitors using clever timing tricks. The card was used in the Hercules mode for the whole its life as the machine served in an electrical engineering lab for designing electric circuits. This was finally the time for me to switch it into the native CGA mode.

Seeing the CGA modes was not so interesting for me. However, the card supports also non-standard modes that can utilize the whole memory which is four times of what the IBM CGA has. The obvious choice was something that supports Plantronics ColorPlus which ATI supported like many other CGA-clone vendors. Yes, I tried Planet-X3 and Space Quest 3 in 320×200 with 16 colors. However, Planet-X3 is a modern game, and the Space Quest 3 uses a modern video driver to support this card (the original game did not have it). I was more interested in productivity apps. After seeing that GEM Desktop (sort of a Windows competitor) provides support for ColorPlus, I installed the whole bundle.

At the beginning, everything looked just like with CGA – black & white only. This was because the desktop environment does not use more colors there. On the other side, if I moved the mouse fast enough, it was visible that sometimes the cursor was ping instead of black for a moment. Thus, I knew that we were actually in the 4-color mode. After installing office programs, I was finally able to see all four colors in 640×200. Quickly after that I realized that among desktop accessories, there is a calculator that uses magenta as a background color. Anyway, I am happy that I also tried these office/productivity apps. From my point of view, they are gimmick. They look like they support everything but when you try to do something, you get the feeling that they were designed more to present the functionality of the desktop environment.

The ColorPlus had just 32KB of video RAM and my ATI Graphics Solution has 64KB, so it should be able to drive 640×200 in full 16 colors. I’ve checked the user guide for the card and indeed this mode was mentioned there. ATI manual says that there is support for it in AutoCAD, PC Paintbrush+, Lotus 1-2-3, Symphony and Framework II. I installed the PC Paintbrush+ as a bitmap editor can benefit the most from such a mode. The support for this card was built in the software so no extra drivers were needed. After selecting the mode, I was able to get the best out of a CGA 200-line monitor. What I really like, the bundled ATI driver disk contains a small example program to enable this mode (including its source code), so programmers could modify their own programs to get more than what a standard CGA offered.

Original article with hi-res photos: here

#ati #cga #dos #gem desktop #ati graphics solution #superCGA #trident

[blubberquark]

Wish List For A Game Profiler

I want a profiler for game development. No existing profiler currently collects the data I need. No existing profiler displays it in the format I want. No existing profiler filters and aggregates profiling data for games specifically.

I want to know what makes my game lag. Sure, I also care about certain operations taking longer than usual, or about inefficient resource usage in the worker thread. The most important question that no current profiler answers is: In the frames that currently do lag, what is the critical path that makes them take too long? Which function should I optimise first to reduce lag the most?

I know that, with the right profiler, these questions could be answered automatically.

Hybrid Sampling Profiler

My dream profiler would be a hybrid sampling/instrumenting design. It would be a sampling profiler like Austin (https://github.com/P403n1x87/austin), but a handful of key functions would be instrumented in addition to the sampling: Displaying a new frame/waiting for vsync, reading inputs, draw calls to the GPU, spawning threads, opening files and sockets, and similar operations should always be tracked. Even if displaying a frame is not a heavy operation, it is still important to measure exactly when it happens, if not how long it takes. If a draw call returns right away, and the real work on the GPU begins immediately, it’s still useful to know when the GPU started working. Without knowing exactly when inputs are read, and when a frame is displayed, it is difficult to know if a frame is lagging. Especially when those operations are fast, they are likely to be missed by a sampling debugger.

Tracking Other Resources

It would be a good idea to collect CPU core utilisation, GPU utilisation, and memory allocation/usage as well. What does it mean when one thread spends all of its time in that function? Is it idling? Is it busy-waiting? Is it waiting for another thread? Which one?

It would also be nice to know if a thread is waiting for IO. This is probably a “heavy” operation and would slow the game down.

There are many different vendor-specific tools for GPU debugging, some old ones that worked well for OpenGL but are no longer developed, open-source tools that require source code changes in your game, and the newest ones directly from GPU manufacturers that only support DirectX 12 or Vulkan, but no OpenGL or graphics card that was built before 2018. It would probably be better to err on the side of collecting less data and supporting more hardware and graphics APIs.

The profiler should collect enough data to answer questions like: Why is my game lagging even though the CPU is utilised at 60% and the GPU is utilised at 30%? During that function call in the main thread, was the GPU doing something, and were the other cores idling?

Engine/Framework/Scripting Aware

The profiler knows which samples/stack frames are inside gameplay or engine code, native or interpreted code, project-specific or third-party code.

In my experience, it’s not particularly useful to know that the code spent 50% of the time in ceval.c, or 40% of the time in SDL_LowerBlit, but that’s the level of granularity provided by many profilers.

Instead, the profiler should record interpreted code, and allow the game to set a hint if the game is in turn interpreting code. For example, if there is a dialogue engine, that engine could set a global “interpreting dialogue” flag and a “current conversation file and line” variable based on source maps, and the profiler would record those, instead of stopping at the dialogue interpreter-loop function.

Of course, this feature requires some cooperation from the game engine or scripting language.

Catching Common Performance Mistakes

With a hybrid sampling/instrumenting profiler that knows about frames or game state update steps, it is possible to instrument many or most “heavy“ functions. Maybe this functionality should be turned off by default. If most “heavy functions“, for example “parsing a TTF file to create a font object“, are instrumented, the profiler can automatically highlight a mistake when the programmer loads a font from disk during every frame, a hundred frames in a row.

This would not be part of the sampling stage, but part of the visualisation/analysis stage.

Filtering for User Experience

If the profiler knows how long a frame takes, and how much time is spent waiting during each frame, we can safely disregard those frames that complete quickly, with some time to spare. The frames that concern us are those that lag, or those that are dropped. For example, imagine a game spends 30% of its CPU time on culling, and 10% on collision detection. You would think to optimise the culling. What if the collision detection takes 1 ms during most frames, culling always takes 8 ms, but whenever the player fires a bullet, the collision detection causes a lag spike. The time spent on culling is not the problem here.

This would probably not be part of the sampling stage, but part of the visualisation/analysis stage. Still, you could use this information to discard “fast enough“ frames and re-use the memory, and only focus on keeping profiling information from the worst cases.

Aggregating By Code Paths

This is easier when you don’t use an engine, but it can probably also be done if the profiler is “engine-aware”. It would require some per-engine custom code though. Instead of saying “The game spent 30% of the time doing vector addition“, or smarter “The game spent 10% of the frames that lagged most in the MobAIRebuildMesh function“, I want the game to distinguish between game states like “inventory menu“, “spell targeting (first person)“ or “switching to adjacent area“. If the game does not use a data-driven engine, but multiple hand-written game loops, these states can easily be distinguished (but perhaps not labelled) by comparing call stacks: Different states with different game loops call the code to update the screen from different places – and different code paths could have completely different performance characteristics, so it makes sense to evaluate them separately.

Because the hypothetical hybrid profiler instruments key functions, enough call stack information to distinguish different code paths is usually available, and the profiler might be able to automatically distinguish between the loading screen, the main menu, and the game world, without any need for the code to give hints to the profiler.

This could also help to keep the memory usage of the profiler down without discarding too much interesting information, by only keeping the 100 worst frames per code path. This way, the profiler can collect performance data on the gameplay without running out of RAM during the loading screen.

In a data-driven engine like Unity, I’d expect everything to happen all the time, on the same, well-optimised code path. But this is not a wish list for a Unity profiler. This is a wish list for a profiler for your own custom game engine, glue code, and dialogue trees.

All I need is a profiler that is a little smarter, that is aware of SDL, OpenGL, Vulkan, and YarnSpinner or Ink. Ideally, I would need somebody else to write it for me.

#programming #cplusplus #gamedev #performance profiling #code optimization

[mariacallous]

Meduza's The Beet: Heels for freedom

Hello, and welcome back to The Beet!

Eilish Hart here, the editor of this weekly dispatch from Meduza that brings you original reporting from across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. If someone forwarded you this email, sign up here to receive future issues of The Beet. Want to sample some more of our work first? Check out last week’s story about how independent journalism persists in Turkmenistan. And don’t miss my full interview with Access Now tech-legal counsel Natalia Krapiva, who kindly joined Meduza’s The Naked Pravda podcast to discuss recent revelations about the use of Pegasus spyware in Armenia during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and its aftermath.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Warsaw last Sunday for an anti-government march timed to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the partially-free elections that ushered in the fall of Poland’s Communist regime. With a parliamentary vote coming up in Poland later this year, and President Andrzej Duda now moving to water down a controversial piece of legislation that critics fear will be used to target the opposition, this is something to keep an eye on. But it’s not the topic of this week’s feature. Instead, we’re turning to Warsaw to celebrate the start of Pride Month with a story that takes us inside the Polish capital’s drag scene and introduces us to its late queen, Kim Lee. Journalist Joanna Kozlowska reports for The Beet.

Heels for freedom: Kim Lee and the history of Polish drag

By Joanna Kozlowska

Kim Lee in her Warsaw studio before a performance. 2019.

ZULA RABIKOWSKA

Just over a century ago, looking into the future after emerging from a world war and 120 years of foreign occupation, Poland abolished all aristocratic titles. Later, decades of Communism rendered all thoughts of royalty remote. Yet this year, the Polish capital has crowned a queen, and the choice may surprise some.

A short walk west from Warsaw’s main train station, stepping into the whitewashed mansion that houses a branch of the municipal museum, visitors are greeted by a riot of pastel colors. A black-haired figure in a sumptuous golden dress smiles from a poster near the entrance that reads, Kim Lee. The Queen of Warsaw. The museum’s latest blockbuster offering, the temporary exhibition celebrates an artist lovingly dubbed “Poland’s best and only Vietnamese drag queen,” whose life story is as stunning as the costumes assembled inside. 

“Kim Lee had to be real, because nobody could have made her up,” a column in Poland’s largest left-wing daily recently proclaimed. “If she were a character from a TV show, conservative reviewers would tear it apart. More progressive ones, too, might doubt the scriptwriters’ sanity.”

A display from the exhibition “Kim Lee. The Queen of Warsaw.” 2023.

TOMASZ KACZOR / MUZEUM WARSZAWY

Of the half dozen people The Beet’s correspondent interviewed who knew Kim Lee’s creator Andy Nguyen before COVID-19 cut his life short in 2020, all would agree. Nguyen’s story is indeed almost too unusual to be true. 

A star student in his native Vietnam, Nguyen came to Poland on a scholarship just as Communism was being dismantled. He got a research job at one of the country’s top physics institutes, only to see his pay fall to a pittance during the economic turmoil of the 1990s. He then worked odd jobs to support himself and his young family. For a time, the former scientist ran a market stall selling East Asian goods that a close friend compared to those at Warsaw’s now-demolished 10th-Anniversary Stadium. (Once the site of Communist Party galas, the stadium was later reduced to a sprawling outdoor bazaar where vendors from all over the former Eastern Bloc hawked pirated software, flouncy underwear, and dubious health remedies).  

Nguyen’s drag persona, Kim Lee, was born at the turn of the millennium and soon shot to stardom beyond the wildest dreams of anyone in Poland’s fledgling drag scene. “She whizzed into the mainstream like a meteor,” says Teo Łagowska, a performer with Warsaw’s Drag King Szarm Trio collective. 

Nguyen’s long-time partner, Remigiusz Szeląg, concurs. “Kim performed everywhere,” he recalls. “Non-stop, all over Poland, he was a fixture at ‘straight’ parties and club nights, at burlesque shows. He appeared on TV, on discussion panels. He twice gave lectures at the University of Warsaw — needless to say, in full drag.”

Andy Nguyen (Kim Lee) getting ready for a performance in his studio. Warsaw, 2019.

ZULA RABIKOWSKA

Pleasant surprises

Magdalena Staroszczyk, who curated the exhibition in Warsaw, has no doubt that it belongs in a public museum. She is visibly proud of bringing the project to fruition, not least given the Polish government’s enduring anti-LGBTQ stance. “Queer history should be just as present in various institutions as any other [history],” she underscores.

For almost a decade, Poland has made headlines for its ruling party’s dogged defense of “traditional values” that critics say amounts to little more than anti-LGBTQ policies. Successive electoral campaigns have seen the Law and Justice Party intimidate voters with the “rainbow menace,” while top officials — including Poland’s current president and education minister — have suggested that LGBTQ people don’t deserve equal rights. By October 2019, more than 60 local and regional councils had adopted anti-LGBTQ declarations, with right-leaning councilors decrying the spread of an “LGBT ideology” they claim threatens families. Local authorities and Polish courts have since scrapped some of these resolutions (in many cases for fear of losing E.U. funding), but a sense of deep unease remains. 

Both Szeląg and Krzysztof Tomasik, Nguyen’s friend of many years and the author of multiple books on Polish LGBTQ history, describe the Warsaw exhibition as a turning point for queer visibility. The show, Tomasik stresses, is housed in a state institution — a clear victory for those calling for greater inclusion, even if the museum’s financing comes from Warsaw’s relatively liberal city hall, rather than Poland’s Culture Ministry. 

Staroszczyk, the curator, sees Nguyen’s’s life and work as an integral part of Warsaw’s history. She also notes the artist’s close links to the city’s Wola district in particular, where the museum is located. Nguyen, a long-time resident of the neighborhood, kept more than 1,000 hand-sewn costumes in a space in Wola that became known as “Kim Lee’s Dressing Room.” He also performed in many local clubs, some of which popped up in the district’s shuttered factories. 

Nguyen choosing an outfit for a performance. 2019.

ZULA RABIKOWSKA

Nguyen sewing a costume in his studio. 2019.

ZULA RABIKOWSKA

Today, Wola retains a post-industrial feel, with the high-rises that used to house its workers towering over the museum’s Neoclassical pile. Staroszczyk says that neighbors have been venturing in to get what for many is their first taste of drag. 

“We have one neighbor in particular, an older lady who I’m told has seen the show several times already. She’s been delighted and has been bringing friends along. That was one of the pleasant surprises,” the curator says. 

Groups of retirees — most but not all of them women — regularly book guided tours of the exhibition, Staroszczyk adds.

Local councilors from the Law and Justice Party, meanwhile, questioned the rationale behind the exhibition, while some right-wing and Catholic publications accused the museum of promoting a “deviant lifestyle.” However, as of early June, there has been no sustained political or media campaign against the show, nor protests trying to disrupt it.

On an overcast Saturday in May, the exhibition was well-attended. Groups of visitors admired Kim Lee’s hand-crafted creations — from silk kimonos to voluminous gowns that wouldn’t look out of place in Bourbon-era Versailles — and attempted their own drag transformations, trying on frilly boas and curly blond wigs. Two middle-aged women giggled with delight as they posed before a mirror garlanded with flowers. One 19-year-old visitor named Maciek admitted he’d been surprised to discover that Kim Lee had sold out clubs years before RuPaul’s Drag Race — the U.S. reality competition series that brought drag to a wide audience — premiered on Polish Netflix in the early 2010s. 

The opening of the exhibition “Kim Lee. The Queen of Warsaw.” 2023.

TOMASZ KACZOR / MUZEUM WARSZAWY

Polish divas and a whiff of the West

Researcher Jakub Wojtaszczyk, whose book of interviews with Polish drag performers was published last June, says that self-described drag queens began appearing in the early to mid-1990s, not long after Communism’s collapse. Their acts often harked back to Polish “divas” from Communist times: cabaret star Violetta Villas with her layered, feathered gowns, 1960s sex symbol Kalina Jędrusik, who scandalized crowds with her backless outfits, and patrician mezzo-soprano Irena Santor were all clear favorites. 

One of the drag scene’s stalwarts, Lady Brigitte, recalls impersonating both Villas and Santor during her performances in the 1990s. She says that many queer men at the time embraced Villas as an icon. “She was a colorful flower, a bright light that seemed to have arrived [in Communist Poland] from America, she was bold and courageous, and above all, different,” the drag queen says. 

“Of course, we’d also tackle foreign figures like Cher and Tina Turner — you wanted to have that whiff of the West. But most of each show would revolve around Polish artists,” she explains. 

According to Ludmiła Janion, a cultural studies scholar at the University of Warsaw, the history of Polish “queer icons” goes much deeper. As she speaks, Janion pulls out photos of cross-dressing Polish actors from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, one of them the spitting image of U.S. dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. One of the extraordinary performances of that time, she says, comes from the 1937 comedy Neighbors (Piętro wyżej, in Polish). A glittering romp about a feud between two music-loving residents of a Warsaw townhouse, it shows cabaret heartthrob Eugeniusz Bodo wow an audience with his impersonation of the American actress Mae West. “Sex appeal is our womanly weapon,” Bodo sings as he whirls around the stage in a blond wig and a sparkling black dress. 

Eugeniusz Bodo (center) impersonating Mae West in the 1937 film “Neighbors”

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Some Polish film critics view the scene as a nod to LGBTQ audiences, pointing to the blossoming of queer culture in interwar Warsaw. “Bodo never got married. He wasn’t the type to chase after women,” Janion explains. “Of course, we can’t be sure that he was gay, but he was an ambiguous figure,” she adds, noting the actor’s string of cross-dressing characters during the brief but intense flourishing of Warsaw’s cabaret scene in the early 20th century. 

With the advent of Communism, this artistic freedom came to an end. Cross-dressing performances did not disappear, Janion says, but like much else, they retreated to the private sphere; to the semi-safety of high-rise apartments and tipsy evenings with friends. As a result, records of these “clothes-flipping parties” are sparse and hard to find. 

The parties themselves might have slipped into obscurity if Kim Lee hadn’t stopped to chat with an older gentleman who’d come to see her show one day in 2008. She soon found out that Andrzej Szwan, 69 at the time, had decades of “clothes-flipping” performances under his belt, even if his ornate costumes had scarcely left his building. With Nguyen’s help, Szwan transformed into one of Poland’s most eye-catching drag queens: Lulla la Polaca. Now 84, Szwan is still performing and much-loved by the media, including Vogue’s Polish edition and the country’s most august opinion magazines. 

However, researchers Janion and Wojtaszczyk disagree about whether the “clothes-flipping parties” of Communist times and earlier film and cabaret performances can be classed as drag. Wojtaszczyk would rather reserve the term for modern-day performers who choose to use it themselves, while Janion is happy to speak about “a continuum of drag performances” that involve cross-dressing, an audience, and a note of homoerotic tension.  

Andrzej Szwan (Lulla la Polaca) in the 2022 documentary film “Boylesque”

HBO

‘Sister, you’re the activist type’

Lulla la Polaca, for one, was quick to call herself a drag queen once she started performing publicly. She also proudly describes herself as an LGBTQ activist. Most people I speak to agree that the term could also apply to Kim Lee, though not all Polish drag performers embrace it. 

“I’d always say to her: sister, you’re the activist type,” recalls Polish drag queen Lady Brigitte, referencing a double act she and Kim put on in the 2000s. Lady Brigitte herself has a more ambivalent attitude towards activism (“I performed at fund-raisers, but they were mostly for homeless animals”), though she expresses admiration for Nguyen’s engagement with Polish LGBTQ groups at the time. 

“There must have been more than twenty,” Szeląg replies when asked how many queer rights organizations Nguyen was involved in during his lifetime. He adds that Nguyen was also active in Poland’s Vietnamese community — “although he liked to keep that part of his life separate,” initially for fear of negative reactions to his same-sex relationship and stage persona. 

These concerns ultimately proved unfounded, Szeląg maintains. “Poland’s Vietnamese community has undergone a great transformation,” he explains, describing various relatives and friends of Nguyen’s he’s met over the years. “A while ago, a journalist from London came to interview its members for a story. Asked about famous Polish-Vietnamese people, every single one mentioned Kim Lee.” 

In Kim Lee’s Dressing Room

PAT MIC / MUZEUM WARSZAWY

Szeląg and Tomasik say that Nguyen didn’t like to dwell on the racist taunts he sometimes faced. Be that as it may, he publicly weighed in on what Polishness could and should mean by starring in a music video that parodied Poland’s infamous 2014 Eurovision entry. “We are Slavic” by Polish singer Cleo and record producer Donatan, with its busty, butter-churning milkmaids and appeals for foreigners to “try Polish women,” prompted a collective groan from the country’s feminists and liberals. Donatan’s comments denigrating that year’s winner — Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst — only added fuel to the fire. 

Kim was not one to sling back insults. Instead, she twirled around a meadow in Polish folk dress, lip-syncing to lines about “hot Slavic blood” and Polish women “ruddy as fresh bread.” 

Wojtaszczyk and the drag performers The Beet’s correspondent interviewed also recalled Kim’s role in integrating Poland’s drag scene and raising its profile, whether through hosting “Miss Drag” pageants or judging competitions. Teo Łagowska and Agnieszka Małgowska of the Drag King Szarm Trio — the aforementioned Warsaw collective of female and gender-queer performers who embody mostly masculine characters — stressed that Kim advocated inclusivity within a scene that they say still sidelines groups like theirs.  

Nguyen’s untimely death from the coronavirus in 2020 was “a shock for Poland’s rainbow community,” Małgowska says. “We always thought that Kim would become a senior drag queen, like Lulla [la Polaca], that she would dance until the end of time,” she laments. 

In Kim Lee’s Dressing Room

PAT MIC / MUZEUM WARSZAWY

Szeląg, Tomasik, and Staroszczyk all spoke of the Museum of Warsaw exhibition as a means of mourning the artist and honoring his memory. Tomasik, the author and Kim’s long-time friend, says that a “terrible sadness” remains, but he also notes his satisfaction that Polish drag is finally beginning to get official recognition. “It’s an art with a decades-long history and its own icons,” he says. “These are just the first attempts to commemorate, remember, and honor them.”

[reasoningdaily]

For Catherine Morris, the founder and executive director of the Boston Art and Music Soul Festival, Franklin Park is a sacred ground of sorts. The site is home to Elma Lewis Playhouse in the Park, an open-air performance venue that has hosted Black artists since 1966. The park's tie to Black history is one of the reasons Morris decided to host BAMS Fest there. “Franklin Park is ground zero for us because of Elma Lewis,” she says. “I stand on her shoulders.”

Lewis, a famed Black Boston arts educator and organizer, created Playhouse in the Park in the 1960s to serve marginalized communities in Boston. BAMS Fest is a festival that continues the tradition set forth by Lewis — taking up space in one of Boston’s central locations to celebrate Black people and Black art. “We need to think about how our people experience a green space, as Black and brown bodies,” Morris says. “It's fertile ground. It's native ground. All those things we need to be in tune with.”

WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your financial support. If you value articles like the one you're reading right now, give today.

These concepts shaped what would become the first annual BAMS Fest in 2018, where two stages featured musical acts at Franklin Park. The festival also had vendors, street artists, resource tents and more. Around 2,200 people attended the first BAMS Fest. Five years later, the festival is expecting close to 15,000 people.

In the past, BAMS Fest has been a free, one-day experience. This year, that will change. “What's been remarkable is the decision to scale, going from one day to basically three days,” says Morris. “We start with the inaugural BAMS CONX conference, centering Black imagination, entrepreneurship, connection and unity at the Berklee College of Music.” Patrons can expect to hear discussions on topics like equity in music, songwriting, sneaker culture and more. The conference will feature creatives and industry leaders, including drummer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington and journalist Dyana Williams, co-creator of Black Music Month.

“We have chefs. We have food trucks. We have a dedicated kids' zone, which is called 'Kids Play.' We have Black and brown face painters; we have dance,” Morris says. “We have a vendor market. We have over 50 Black and brown nonprofits and businesses. And we added a job fair this year.” To celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash will close the festival, followed by an afterparty at Chez-Vous Roller Skating Rink.

One other marked difference from years before is the addition of a tiered ticketing system. Buying the BAMS Fam Access Pass at $225, for example, gives visitors access to the entire lineup of events offered during the festival, along with priority seating at Saturday’s events. The new ticketing model was an important decision as the fest moves toward an end goal of expanding and offering more to patrons.

“As a nonprofit organization, as a cultural movement that started from zero to get to where we are, the tiered ticketing model allows for people to support,” Morris points out. “The sustainability of continuing our tradition requires investment. It requires investment from the business community, from the local community, from the arts community.”

However, “there will always be a portion of this that will remain free to the public,” Morris says. Patrons who cannot buy a tiered ticket can always register for free to experience the music, art, vendors and more at Saturday’s festival at Playstead Park. At the end of the day, Morris wants visitors to feel free: “Feel free to take off your shoes. You should feel free to be able to run. You should feel free to be able to do a cartwheel. You should feel free to dance."

One of the musicians taking the stage this year on Friday night is Tim Hall, a Boston-based musician. He’s been playing the saxophone since he was 9 years old and now teaches other musicians at Berklee College of Music as an assistant professor in the professional music department. He's also the co-owner of the digital media company HipStory.

Hall has played on a multitude of stages and at many shows but his upcoming performance at BAMS Fest will be his largest to date as a featured artist. "It's very emotional to now find myself performing, not as a sideman, not a session musician for somebody else, but to do my own music at the festival," Hall says. "It's been an emotional experience."

Hall worked at BAMS Fest in different roles between 2015 and 2021. Although he’s no longer working with the nonprofit on the business side, he still feels BAMS Fest is essential for musicians like him. Not only does the festival offer an opportunity to play on one of its two stages, but "there is an educational component to working with artists. It wasn't just like 'Submit your art or submit your profile,'” says Hall. BAMS Fest sought to create active platforms for artists to develop professionally.

But both Hall and Morris point out that the city is still lacking major music venues and spaces that allow for expansive expressions of Black music and culture. Because hip-hop is included in the festival, Morris says she's run into barriers like insurance companies refusing to cover it. “There is a level of tension or trepidation with law enforcement about a potential, you know, gang affiliation.” The festival pays a higher premium because of assumptions about hip-hop. “It's something we have to deal with every single year,” says Morris.

The question of whether or not Boston is hostile to hip-hop has been raised again and again by musicians and festival organizers like Morris. WBUR's Amelia Mason reported in 2018 that hip-hop artists, DJs and event coordinators faced heightened difficulties when trying to book acts or ran into roadblocks when trying to execute hip-hop themed events.

For Morris, it makes the work BAMS Fest is doing even more important. “We're more than a festival,” she says. “Everything from challenging our city government around the permitting process, how Boston police are involved in the permitting process. There are a lot of us giving our lives to the work so that future curators and producers and organizations don't have to go through what we are experiencing right now.”

Despite the hurdles, the outcome is worth it. As Morris says, BAMS Fest is more than just a festival — it's a movement. “Doing a multidisciplinary intergenerational festival that feeds people, gives them nourishment, something they can be proud about starts to change the attitude about what's possible and will hopefully inspire the next generation to go bigger,” says Morris.

#Celebrating Black music and culture #BAMS Fest is back for its fifth year and bigger than ever

[not-radioshack]

Writeup: Forcing Minecraft to play on a Trident Blade 3D.

The first official companion writeup to a video I've put out!

So. Uh, yeah. Trident Blade 3D. If you've seen the video already, it's... not good. Especially in OpenGL.

Let's kick things off with a quick rundown of the specs of the card, according to AIDA64:

Trident Blade 3D - specs

Year released: 1999

Core: 3Dimage 9880, 0.25um (250nm) manufacturing node, 110MHz

Driver version: 4.12.01.2229

Interface: AGP 2x @ 1x speed (wouldn't go above 1x despite driver and BIOS support)

PCI device ID: 1023-9880 / 1023-9880 (Rev 3A)

Mem clock: 110MHz real/effective

Mem bus/type: 8MB 64-bit SDRAM, 880MB/s bandwidth

ROPs/TMUs/Vertex Shaders/Pixel Shaders/T&L hardware: 1/1/0/0/No

DirectX support: DirectX 6

OpenGL support: - 100% (native) OpenGL 1.1 compliant - 25% (native) OpenGL 1.2 compliant - 0% compliant beyond OpenGL 1.2 - Vendor string:

Vendor : Trident Renderer : Blade 3D Version : 1.1.0

And as for the rest of the system:

Windows 98 SE w/KernelEX 2019 updates installed

ECS K7VTA3 3.x

AMD Athlon XP 1900+ @ 1466MHz

512MB DDR PC3200 (single stick of OCZ OCZ400512P3) 3.0-4-4-8 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)

Hitachi Travelstar DK23AA-51 4200RPM 5GB HDD

IDK what that CPU cooler is but it does the job pretty well

And now, with specs done and out of the way, my notes!

As mentioned earlier, the Trident Blade 3D is mind-numbingly slow when it comes to OpenGL. As in, to the point where at least natively during actual gameplay (Minecraft, because I can), it is absolutely beaten to a pulp using AltOGL, an OpenGL-to-Direct3D6 "wrapper" that translates OpenGL API calls to DirectX ones.

Normally, it can be expected that performance using the wrapper is about equal to native OpenGL, give or take some fps depending on driver optimization, but this card?

The Blade 3D may as well be better off like the S3 ViRGE by having no OpenGL ICD shipped in any driver release, period.

For the purposes of this writeup, I will stick to a very specific version of Minecraft: in-20091223-1459, the very first version of what would soon become Minecraft's "Indev" phase, though this version notably lacks any survival features and aside from the MD3 models present, is indistinguishable from previous versions of Classic. All settings are at their absolute minimum, and the window size is left at default, with a desktop resolution of 1024x768 and 16-bit color depth.

(Also the 1.5-era launcher I use is incapable of launching anything older than this version anyway)

Though known to be unstable (as seen in the full video), gameplay in Minecraft Classic using AltOGL reaches a steady 15 fps, nearly triple that of the native OpenGL ICD that ships with Trident's drivers the card. AltOGL also is known to often have issues with fog rendering on older cards, and the Blade 3D is no exception... though, I believe it may be far more preferable to have no working fog than... well, whatever the heck the Blade 3D is trying to do with its native ICD.

See for yourself: (don't mind the weirdness at the very beginning. OBS had a couple of hiccups)

Later versions of Minecraft were also tested, where I found that the Trident Blade 3D follows the same, as I call them, "version boundaries" as the SiS 315(E) and the ATi Rage 128, both of which being cards that easily run circles around the Blade 3D.

Version ranges mentioned are inclusive of their endpoints.

Infdev 1.136 (inf-20100627) through Beta b1.5_01 exhibit world-load crashes on both the SiS 315(E) and Trident Blade 3D.

Alpha a1.0.4 through Beta b1.3_01/PC-Gamer demo crash on the title screen due to the animated "falling blocks"-style Minecraft logo on both the ATi Rage 128 and Trident Blade 3D.

All the bugginess of two much better cards, and none of the performance that came with those bugs.

Interestingly, versions even up to and including Minecraft release 1.5.2 are able to launch to the main menu, though by then the already-terrible lag present in all prior versions of the game when run on the Blade 3D make it practically impossible to even press the necessary buttons to load into a world in the first place. Though this card is running in AGP 1x mode, I sincerely doubt that running it at its supposedly-supported 2x mode would bring much if any meaningful performance increase.

Lastly, ClassiCube. ClassiCube is a completely open-source reimplementation of Minecraft Classic in C, which allows it to bypass the overhead normally associated with Java's VM platform. However, this does not grant it any escape from the black hole of performance that is the Trident Blade 3D's OpenGL ICD. Not only this, but oddly, the red and blue color channels appear to be switched by the Blade 3D, resulting in a very strange looking game that chugs along at single-digits. As for the game's DirectX-compatible version, the requirement of DirectX 9 support locks out any chance for the Blade 3D to run ClassiCube with any semblance of performance. Also AltOGL is known to crash ClassiCube so hard that a power cycle is required.

Interestingly, a solid half of the accelerated pixel formats supported by the Blade 3D, according to the utility GLInfo, are "render to bitmap" modes, which I'm told is a "render to texture" feature that normally isn't seen on cards as old as the Blade 3D. Or in fact, at least in my experience, any cards outside of the Blade 3D. I've searched through my saved GLInfo reports across many different cards, only to find each one supporting the usual "render to window" pixel format.

And with that, for now, this is the end of the very first post-video writeup on this blog. Thank you for reading if you've made it this far.

I leave you with this delightfully-crunchy clip of the card's native OpenGL ICD running in 256-color mode, which fixes the rendering problems but... uh, yeah. It's a supported accelerated pixel format, but "accelerated" is a stretch like none other. 32-bit color is supported as well, but it performs about identically to the 8-bit color mode--that is, even worse than 16-bit color performs.

At least it fixes the rendering issues I guess.

#youtube #techblog #not radioshack #my posts #writeup #Forcing Minecraft to play on a Trident Blade 3D #Trident Blade 3D #Trident Blade 3D 9880

[jerryantiques]

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For example, you possibly can count on to see furniture, electronics, clothing, home equipment, linens, dishes, instruments and many other widespread home items at each sale. You haven't got access to a big customer base and do not know the method to convey tons of of consumers to your sale every single day ... Depending on the size of the estate, the sale is usually a one, two and even three day occasion. I would go air tags, however because of privateness issues, air tags can't do is sharing since they are locked to the people AppleID.

[downtoearthmarkets]

As a farmers market shopper, you are most likely familiar with the ‘Slow Food Movement’ that emphasizes the mindful consumption of unprocessed, seasonal foods that are locally grown and prepared using culturally traditional cooking techniques. It goes without saying that our farmers markets act as hubs for connecting people with all the ingredients they need to foster a healthy, slow food lifestyle and its thoughtful approach to eating. But did you know that this concept – and the larger ‘slow living’ umbrella that it is part of – has extended into many arenas of everyday life, including the purchasing of decorative, cut flowers? In fact, the very same principles that apply to the consumption of ‘slow foods’ also apply to the intentional choices we make when selecting fresh flowers to buy for ourselves and others. 

Adorning one’s living space with colorful, sweetly scented flowers or gifting someone with a beautiful fresh bouquet is one of life’s simple pleasures that is accessible to most everyone. But behind those innocent-looking blooms sometimes lies a little-known dark side. Just as with modern-day industrial overproduction of food, the large-scale production, shipping and packaging of commercially grown cut flowers exacts a huge environmental toll that most consumers are generally not aware of. To address these issues, the slow flower movement encourages the sustainable, responsible and mindful consumption of decorative flowers. Along those lines, here are some things to keep in mind the next time you are looking to replace the desiccated, wilted stems in your hallway flower vase (hint: head directly to your local farmers market this summer). 

Seasonal flowers When you purchase fresh flowers in the dead of winter here in the northeast, such as buying a dozen red roses for your Valentine in mid-February, it’s a safe assumption that those blooms were not grown anywhere nearby. In fact, the majority of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are grown in far-flung warmer climates that allow for year-round production, such as California and South America. Happily, the arrival of summer to this region brings with it an influx of fresh produce into our farmstalls along with displays of fresh flowers, from sweet posies of wildflowers to sturdy bunches of sunflowers. Unlike industrially grown flowers, farmers market flowers are only available when the growing conditions allow for their production in harmony with nature’s rhythms. Whereas commercial growers routinely spray their crops with copious amounts of chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides to ensure a constant yield, the seasonally appropriate production of local flowers requires fewer inputs and synthetic applications. 

Refrigeration and transportation After industrially grown flowers are harvested from fields and greenhouses, they are stored in chilled warehouses to preserve their freshness before being transported via refrigerated trucks to the airport where they are then flown to their various destinations via cargo planes. Upon arrival, they are transferred back into refrigerated trucks and driven to retailers and other commercial distribution centers. The long-haul transportation and extended refrigeration of these flowers before they reach their point-of-sale requires an enormous expenditure of energy that balloons the size of their carbon footprint. Alternatively, the farmers market flowers that you see have been grown locally and have made only a short trip from the field to the marketplace. They’ll be fresher by the time you get them home and your purchase helps support a small farm or flower vendor versus a large faceless corporation. 

Native flowers The range of exotic blooms you’ll find at a commercial florist or supermarket are typically not indigenous to the northeast, having been grown in different countries and warmer states. Amongst the cheerful posies of fresh flowers populating the farmstalls, you’ll find a preponderance of native plant varieties that have been growing in this area for thousands of years. These native flowers are uniquely adapted to thrive in the specific growing conditions of this region and have co-evolved alongside our local pollinators and wildlife forming a beneficial symbiosis and helping to promote biodiversity. For instance, Rudbeckia (aka black-eyed-susan or coneflower) is an herbaceous perennial native to North America that is prized for its showy golden yellow flowers that are being sold in our farmers markets right now. The nectar and pollen its flowers produce feeds native bees, butterflies, and other pollinators and it is also a larval host plant for Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) caterpillars. Sticking within the yellow flower theme, all 52 varieties of sunflowers (Helianthus) are indigenous to North America while their seeds have formed a staple part of the American Indian diet for thousands of years. 

Packaging Unlike the bouquets sold by commercial florists and retailers that are often heavily packaged in plastic cellophane, when you purchase a bouquet in the farmers market, it may come wrapped in kraft paper or simply bundled up, ready to be tucked into your shopping tote. Whereas plastic film is hard to recycle and adding to our planet’s ongoing plastic pollution problem, paper is biodegradable and can be tossed in the compost along with your cut flowers once they have reached the end of their useful life. 

And there you have it! We wish you a very happy summer season of ‘slow food’ AND ‘slow flower’ shopping in our Down to Earth farmers markets.

#downtoearthmkts #farmersmarket #farmersmarkets #eatlocal #shoplocal #localfood #buylocal #eatdowntoearth #local flowers #slow food #slow living #native plants #native species

[dark9896]

Day 8 [Zapp/ Raju/ Femt]

Prompt: "I can't believe I trust you"

Zapp

*Plink*

Zapp looked down at the empty shot glass, absently reaching for the bottle of hard liquor on the counter. Today couldn't have gone worse. Everything he did was leading to this inevitable moment. It was his fault his life went up in flames...

And he knew it.

Throwing his head back, the memories played over as if on some torturous nightmare loop. Seeing you caught in the crosshairs of his sham of a love life was bad enough. It was hell, but he deserved it when you slapped him in the face. He had promised to stop.

It had been an empty promise.

And that had been the final straw. You left without looking back. If only you hadn't run out into the street like that. You would at least be able to... You'd still be...

*CLANK*

Your last words hung over Zapp's head like a guillotine blade. Dropping at the very end of each loop, starting the cycle over again.

"I can't believe I trusted you!"

Pouring another shot that Zapp raised in a dark toast, "Yeah, I can't believe it either sexy..."

.

Raju

The whole room was spinning wildly, Raju thought he could see cartoon birds floating around his head. But you were just sitting there and laughing. Whatever it was you found "fun" about that little teacup thing was lost on Raju.

He had to hold onto your shoulder for support. But even that wasn't easing the feeling in his gut. You barely managed to guide him to a trash can and a bench in time for him to lose the lunch you warned would be too big to enjoy the rest of the fair.

You had little choice but to go find a vendor with water and maybe a jumbo pretzel. Leaving Raju to not-so-silently curse at the ride in his native tongue.

Seeing you return with something for his stomach brought up more bitter feelings than relief. Even though the pretzel did look tasty.

"I can't believe I trusted you!" He whined, "That was not fun at all!"

"Well then," You played into his anger, "I guess you don't need this pretzel. Throwing shade like that."

"No wait, please." Raju changed his tone, "At least let me have one bite."

.

Femt

"I CAN'T BELIEVE I TRUSTED YOU! FEMT!!!"

It was rather early for this level of yelling, Femt had to lean out from the kitchen to see what had upset you this time. His grand scheme wasn't supposed to start until at least lunch.

"You broke my hairbrush!"

"Not to split hairs here, Dearie." Femt looked at the ruined object in your hands, "But I don't have teeth that can chew things like that. It was clearly Snuffles."

You crossed your arms, looking up at Femt while you tapped your foot.

"And just who made Snuffles in the first place?"

"Well, I don't see how that's much of an argument point, Dearie. Once a creature has sentient life..."

"You still made him and refused to train him." You huffed, "My broken hairbrush is your fault."

"Be mad at all you want, Dearie." Femt slipped an arm around your shoulders, "You still love me."

"Love is a strong word."

"But it's truuuue~!"

You sighed, turning your head to avoid looking at him, "You still owe me a hairbrush. You know how unruly my hair gets."

"Oh, fine Dearie." Femt pressed his face against yours, "But you know I still won."

You flailed a single hand at him. Not trying to slap, just wave him away.

#bbb #kekkai sensen #kkss #blood blockade battlefront #zapp renfro #master raju #femt #angstuary 2023

[kursed-curtain]

Hear Me Out

A Kyle and Larry ficlet (and a rewrite of A Sharp Set of Hearing - a fic from one year ago~)

-=🌷=-

Kyle grew up with stories of his heritage strung to his heart - like a somber melody he could play by ear. Tales of the fae realm, of tricksters who stole from humans, and how their kind had faded away over time. The people of Daventry didn't take kindly to 'inhuman' creatures. From goblins, to fairies, and even… elves. Kyle rubbed the tip of his own pointed ears as he brushed his hair out of the way.

The only human that Kyle had told about his elven heritage was Larry.

Larry was curious about elves, and others who weren't native to his homeland, but he was also supportive of Kyle and Kyle's wish to keep his elf nature hidden. Larry helped plenty with hiding the whole thing, including double-checking that Kyle's hair covered up his ears when he was in public.

They shared stories about their lives with each other - for the more they understood each other, the better they could work together. Their differences were their strengths.

Kyle just wished others could see the same way.

-+-

Kyle and Larry couldn't remember the last time they went to a Daventry festival this lively. Ever since King Graham had been crowned, the kingdom gained a brand new splash of color to everything. The two of them were sent to patrol the festival grounds - though just because they were working didn't mean they couldn't have fun.

Often, with his high vantage point, Larry would point out an interesting looking stand, or Kyle would hear a merchant at one of the booths and make a mad dash to see what was being sold.

Eventually the two made their way across the festival towards one of Larry's favorite vendors - the sweet and pastry stand. Kyle was smiling from ear-to-ear, his heart melting a little at the sight of the handmade treats. Larry laughed, giving Kyle a quick tap on the helmet "Hey, hey, Kyle." Kyle looked up and Larry just smirked, "Let's go get some donuts."

Kyle just laughed, "Sounds like a plan!"

As the two walked away with their purchases - Kyle with his hearts and flowery fondant sprinkles, and Larry with his honey glaze donut - they saw crowds begin to form around the center stage.

"No one told me there was a performance today," Kyle muttered, "What do you think it's going to be?"

Larry leaned in and steered Kyle towards the stage, "Only one way to find out!"

Kyle stood on the tips of his toes. "What do you see up there, Larry?"

Larry squinted. "I see…"

A group of instrumentalists in gaudy outfits set up on stage. They brought drums and strings and a strange set of crystal balls held up by engraved handles.

Their lutanist strummed a note to test out the sound, and the note rang throughout the entire venue. Kyle jumped back in surprise, his ear twitching under his helmet. "When did lutes get so loud?" He groaned.

"It's not the lute, it's their crystals!" Larry pointed towards the crystal amplifiers, rippling with magic every time a note was played. Larry was enjoying himself, Kyle less so.

The rest of the band joined in, the drums and the cymbals causing Kyle to flinch. He gripped Larry's legs tighter, then closed his eyes and tried to drown out the noise with his own thoughts.

The sound simply rang through Kyle's metal helmet, enhancing the sound even more inside his armor.

Larry panicked when Kyle lurched back. "Kyle, what's going on?" All of Larry's focus was drawn away from the band and to Kyle. Kyle's knees simply buckled. Larry tried to call over the music again, "Kyle, what do you need?"

All Kyle could reply was a whimper.

Larry tapped on Kyle's shoulder, then steered Kyle towards a little recess between two buildings, far enough from the concert yet still in the festival grounds.

Kyle sat on a crate, breathing slowly. The adrenaline of the situation was still coursing through him, but he did his best to calm his nerves. Larry clambered off Kyle's shoulders and sat next to him.

"Can you help me take my helmet off?" Kyle's voice quavered.

Larry screwed Kyle's helmet off and placed it under his arm. Larry rubbed Kyle's back. "Are you alright?"

Kyle nodded, taking a deep breath in and releasing it. "Yeah. I think so. Just... a little frazzled." He laughed a little, trying to make light of the situation. "Who thought shiny rock music could get so loud?!"

Larry chuckled, "I think those were moreso metal crystals, but I'm not the geologist here!"

The two leaned into each other and laughed. Larry caressed the back of Kyle's aching ears. Kyle hummed giddily.

"Thanks Larry, I needed that." he said, feeling a bit of weight off his shoulders. "I'll be alright. But man… those crystals! How can anyone enjoy getting that close to them without going deaf?!"

"Yeah, it's like people want to not hear the concert. Very counterintuitive, if you ask me," Larry ribbed.

"Maybe they just want to feel the vibrations, or something." Kyle shrugged. "If only they knew how harmful it would be." He said, giving his ear a little rub.

Larry felt his own, rounded human ears. "Maybe it's just not as intense to them as it is to you?"

Kyle nodded "Probably," he sighed, "Another thing to add to the giant list of flaws…"

The sound of clanking metal boots approaching met Kyle's ears before it met Larry's. Kyle's ears perked up at the sound as he instinctively snatched his helmet from Larry and placed it back on. Kyle's eyes were wide, and he was looking all around now, like a mouse that just heard a housecat.

Larry's eyes darted around warily. "Kyle, what did you-"

"Ahem."

The two turned to meet the gaze of Royal Guard Number One.

"I see you two took your break without alerting anyone to cover for you."

Kyle and Larry sat up straight. "We apologize for that, sir." Kyle managed to utter.

"You could have at least taken your break somewhere closer to the concert." No.1 huffed.

Larry sighed. "We could, but it's-"

Another riff rang through the air, and Kyle winced like a dog at a dog whistle. Kyle flinched, putting his hands to his helmet. "It's… so… loud." he winced again. "I- we just… needed a spot away from humans."

"Humans?" No.1 tilted his head.

"I… I mean…" Kyle's eyes darted around in distress, looking for an excuse.

Larry chuckled a bit and turned to No1. "The music is just a little hard on Kyle's ears, is all." He shrugged, "Plus, I don't want to go deaf standing next to the stage. There needs to be new regulations on volume." Larry mentioned, hoping to throw No.1 off the scent. Larry turned to look down at Kyle, who had a relieved and thankful look on his face.

"Ah, do you need me to go find you earbuds?" No.1's tone shifted slightly, to something more sincere.

"You would really do that?" Kyle asked, hopeful.

No.1 nodded. "Anything I can do to assist. Would you like me to get you some for you too, Larry? I have plenty. That way both of you can return to work."

Larry saluted, "Of course, sir! Thanks a ton!"

No.1 turned about face and marched off, though still wondering what shenanigans those two were up to.

Kyle untensed his shoulders and he could finally relax. "Thank goodness. I thought he was gonna figure it out!" he whispered. Kyle smiled at Larry. "Thanks, Larry, for getting us out of that one."

Larry winked back at Kyle and smiled. "It's what we do." He reached his elbow across his body for Kyle to elbow bump him.

Larry leaned back, resting his head on the back wall. "Though, don't you think Number One would keep your secret safe?"

Kyle curled into himself.

"I mean," Larry rolled to look at Kyle. "He cares about the both of us; he cares about all the guards, really. Don't you think he's honorable enough to not mind?"

"I don't think it's possible for him to 'not mind' anything," Kyle mumbled, "He's firm about his traditional values. I've told you the stories, right?" Kyle looked Larry in the eyes, desperation on his face. "What if he realizes and he… I don't know, what if he discharges me?"

Larry held Kyle's hands. "Not on my watch, he won't."

The two of them turned as Number One came back with a set of earplugs. Apparently he had spares - Maybe they were for all the times the guards spent causing chaos.

Kyle grabbed a pair, removed his helmet, and put the earplugs in his ears. The relief of being able to silence that horrible noise was almost euphoric. "Wow, this is fantastic." He said, "Thank you!"

No.1 nodded. Then he stared, tilting his head again.

Kyle wondered what was up with No.1. Larry was mouthing something. Whispering, possibly. "I can't hear you, I have earplugs in!" Kyle reminded. He wiggled his ears in emphasis, then realized No.1 was staring at them… At his ears.

Kyle's face flushed clean of any color.

"Oh those are... Um... Kyle's ear warmers!" Larry tried to make an excuse. He held onto Kyle's sensitive ear tips.

Touching the tips was a particularly rude gesture for elves, but this wasn't the time for Kyle to point it out. "Yes! That's it! Ear warmers." Kyle said with a nervous smile. "We... uh... it gets cold out here, you know?" he whispered, trying to act natural, even though his breathing was shaky.

No.1 didn't respond.

"What, you've never seen someone use ear warmers before?" Larry said, nervously laughing. "What kind of guard would you be if you've never worn them on chilly nights?" He chuckled some more.

"Your ears are cold in this blazing heat…" No.1 practically pierced through every lie they told right into Kyle's soul.

Kyle gulped, his stomach turning over. He could feel his heart racing, his ears getting red and more sensitive than usual, like he was about to combust. 'Get a hold of yourself,' he thought. 'You're blowing your cover.'

Larry was definitely sweating, his eyes darting from side to side as well.

Kyle and Larry looked at each other, knowing the other was thinking the same thing - 'Should we just tell the truth?'

At the same time, Kyle and Larry nodded to each other.

"You know what?" Kyle said, "You're right. These... these aren't ear warmers after all." He said nervously. He looked at his partner. "I... I'm an elf. A half-elf." His ears twitched as he said that last part.

No.1 cleared his throat. "Well-"

Larry jumped between Kyle and No1. "Sir, I'm not allowing you to discharge Kyle."

Larry turned to Kyle with a look like 'I got you.' Kyle held a look of gratitude on his face.

The guard put his hands up. "Wait. Wait. Calm down. I'm not discharging him." He looked at Kyle. "Is it true? You're an elf?" He said the last part with disbelief, "I thought all of them were gone."

"...The kingdom had a majority of fae banished for their suspected crimes against the kingdom." No.1 continued. "I just didn't suspect you would be one."

Kyle felt a chill run down his spine. "W-well I'm not here for revenge or to carry out any crimes,"

Larry added, "Kyle's trustworthy, and a strong asset to the guards, too!"

Kyle nodded, trying to hide his reddening face at the indirect compliment. "I promise I'm here to serve the kingdom and keep it safe."

After an unreadable silence, No.1 cleared his throat. "I believe you've been a guard long enough to prove that you aren't up to anything."

Kyle and Larry let out their breaths they'd been holding. Kyle smiled, "I'm glad that's off my chest! Though," he looked to No.1, "I still want to keep this a secret from most people, just to keep safe, but I can't keep it all inside forever." Kyle stood between No.1 and Larry. "You two can be… you can be my confidants, of sorts."

Number One put a hand on Kyle's shoulder and knelt to meet Kyle's eyes. "I'll leave it up to you if you want to reveal this to any others, but just know that I will defend you against the people who oppose your kind. Mark my words."

"I really, really appreciate that." Kyle said, giving No.1 a warm smile. Kyle felt a huge weight off his shoulders. "It's been hard, keeping it a secret, but you're right - my actions so far are proof I'm here for the right reason."

Larry hugged Kyle. "No matter what you are, you're always Kyle, and the best guard I know."

Kyle laughed, "Okay, the cheese is melting, you're in cheese territory!" Larry held Kyle, giggling the entire time.

"Not to interrupt," No.1 said, with a slight smile - glad to see them happy again, "But I believe it's about time you two return to work."

Larry leaned into Kyle. "Ready to get back out there?"

Kyle grabbed Larry's hand. "Absolutely, let's get out of here." Kyle said eagerly, like his normal self again. Kyle bent down and Larry sat on his shoulders.

Kyle turned back to No.1. "Thank you so much, Number One. I really appreciate your help." Kyle shook No.1's hand. "You're amazing."

The duo put on their helmets with a clang, muffled by their earplugs, then set off to watch the concert once more.

#- WOOO #- again extremely self indulgent but this time im not apologizing. i love them all #fanfic #kyle kq #larry kq #royal guard no1 #kings quest #elf #headcanons

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[allwave]

State of the UC Union

Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C) is a combination of various communication methods and collaboration tools such as virtual whiteboards, real-time audio and video conferencing and enhanced call control capabilities to improve efficiency in the workplace. It provides a collection of easy-to-use solutions that can be implemented in various organizations to ensure that the end user receives a nearly real-time collaboration experience that works efficiently, smoothly and securely.

Video collaboration has been evolved from hardware-based codecs of traditional Polycom and Cisco Systems to more software driven solution of Microsoft Teams, Zooms, Google Meets, WebEx, post the pandemic. A lot of the solutions have now been replaced with simpler easier to deploy solutions for small meeting rooms, mid-size meeting rooms as well as larger boardrooms, meeting rooms, training rooms and large venue spaces such as Auditoriums and event spaces. However, the challenges of designing, executing and implementing the technologies and the user experience still remain. The intend of this whitepaper is to ensuring the reader to make the right decision based on today’s available technology. Video conferencing has become an increasingly important aspect of today’s world, as many organizations are transitioning to hybrid working environments. It has greatly aided in connecting people over a phone call where people can experience real-time video conferencing features while being located in different remote locations which would not be possible with Video conferencing platforms.

Types of Video Conferencing:

Telepresence Video Conferencing System

Integrated Video Conferencing System

Desktop Video Conferencing System

Video Collaboration Platforms:

Zooms

Microsoft Teams

Google Meets

Cisco

WebEX

What are Native and Non- Native Solutions. Why is it important in a Video Collaboration system?

Video conferencing is a live audio-visual connection between two or more remote parties over the internet that simulates a face-to-face meeting in real-time. In the business world, desktop video conferencing is a core component of Unified communications platforms that also include calling and messaging capabilities. Standalone on-premises and cloud-based video conferencing platforms are also available from numerous vendors who support desktop and room-based Video conferencing solutions with the ability to embed them into business applications, such as Telehealth, customer service and distance learning, etc.

The Primary difference between a Native and a Non-Native system is the user experience. Post Work from home and Back to office systems imply that the end users wants a user interface (IPAD, OEM’s touch panel, etc..) to have the same familiar look and feel that they are dialing/ joining directly from their laptop. Native user experiences also allow for a seamless connection to users within the enterprises in terms of a active directory integration as well. These native integrations have to be certified by the certified solution provides (Microsoft Team, Zooms, etc…) as a part of being through the ecosystem.

Though more expensive, native systems offer a more seamless experience to the management. Non-Native systems can be simply a Video collaboration bar in a room with a PC behind the display, essentially the PC is a desktop/ user laptop that allow content sharing as well as dialing/joining into the enterprise (As the main UC Engine). Non-native applications are easy to deploy, lower cost to maintenance as well.

Differences between Native and Non-Native Solutions

Hard Codec Running Native UC Platform Modes UC hardware often runs in “Native Mode,” meaning that the built-in Windows/Mac or Android computer is running a single UC Platform application such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom. The system is “locked in” to that platform. This is a great option if your business is already using a soft client version on employees’ laptops, as you essentially just extend this experience to the meeting room. Employees can then make a Zoom call from their laptops, or a Zoom call from a conference room’s dedicated “Native” platform. They are already familiar with the UI and so the transition to a hardware version feels seamless.

Soft codec Running Native UC Platform Modes

Soft codec systems are more commonly known as cloud or web-based video conferencing software. They’re “soft” as they don’t need codec hardware to work, and “codec” refers to devices or programs that compress and decompress data. It just needs a USB peripheral device such as USB camera, USB microphone and thin client PC in which all the software platforms can be loaded and they can initiate the call using wireless keyboard and mouse.

Unified Communication & Collaboration Tools for Native Interface

Zoom Rooms Zoom Rooms, the Modern Hybrid workspaces for Teams, brings HD video collaboration into any space – in the office, the classroom, or at home – and allows in[1]person and remote participants to interact in real-time. Zoom Rooms are the conference room experience you’ve always wanted, making it simple to start a meeting, book a room, and share content. Bring high-quality video, audio, and web conferencing to any sized room or workspace. Advanced features like Zoom Kiosks (virtual receptionist), voice commands & room controls on your mobile device. Enabling the hybrid workforce with features like Smart Gallery and Workspace Reservation. Google, Office 365 & Exchange calendar integrations support room booking, room status, upcoming meetings list, and more.

Workspace Reservation

Wireless sharing with proximity detection

Scheduling Displays

Digital Signage

Smart collaboration tools to keep projects moving Work from anywhere

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is an enterprise-ready unified communications (UC) platform. Teams connects people everywhere, on Windows MAC and other operating systems including mobile devices, as part of their everyday productivity experience. Microsoft Teams provides a consistent, single client experience for presence, instant messaging, voice, video and a great meeting experience. Microsoft Teams goes beyond communication. Easily find, share and edit files in real-time using apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel inside Teams.

Chat: Share your opinion and your personality, send gifs, stickers and emojis in a group chat or in one-to-one messages.

Meet: Microsoft Teams offers real-time video conferencing. Host online meetings from 1:1, teams and live events up to 10,000 people.

Call: Make and receive calls with internal and external groups using Microsoft Teams Calling, Phone System, Calling Plan, or Direct Routing.

Collaborate: Store, share and edit files in real-time using apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel in Microsoft Teams.

Digital whiteboard camera technology Kaptivo

Collaborate with remote team members with secure whiteboard/Interactive Display live sharing and video conference integrations.

Connect via Video Conference or Web Browser

Share Livestream of Whiteboard

Secure Whiteboard Image Capture

Save Snapshots and Track Changes

Kaptivo Cast

The Kaptivo Cast HDMI converter pairs with your Kaptivo to livestream vibrant, unobstructed whiteboard images to any HDMI capable input including traditional video codecs, displays, projectors, or lecture capture systems.

With the Kaptivo Cast, Kaptivo seamlessly integrates into meeting systems from all leading providers.

Quantum Leap Lite

The Leap Lite for Conference Room with Mounting Bracket is a step forward in conference cameras.

It features the camera and a display bracket mount that enables mounting your camera to the top or bottom of most display screens and monitors.

The lens of the leap lite with a 110-degree field of view that is suitable for most meeting or conference rooms.

No drivers are required to work on Linux, Windows, Android etc., the leap lite is also compatible with virtually all collaborative software platforms. And it connects your computer via USB, which makes it a simple plug[1]and-play video conference solution.

Quantum 4k PTZ camera with Condor Microphone

The advantages of Quantum camera is they provide stable product quality, 4k PTZ Camera from Value HD is the most cost-effective solution to provide effective communication.

With video in 4K Ultra HD and 82 degrees wide-angle lens, you can enjoy a superior resolution for all of your video conferences.

The 12X Optical Zoom is smooth and rapid and it delivers close-ups with superior resolution. With its patented 4K ISP solution, the lens of this PTZ camera can be controlled from a remote location. The software (Skype for business, Microsoft teams etc.) will be loaded in the thin client PC.

Display to be used to show Far end and Near end participants. During this mode Phoenix beamforming microphone with hemispheric pickup pattern in the room will get activated for audio pick up and reinforcement of far end audio shall be done via ceiling speakers.

The Phoenix Microphone is created with the vision of a clutter free conference table, the Condor sits above or below your monitor and with a pick-up range of up to 30 ft almost any conference room can use the Condor.

Conclusion

Enterprises today face a range of options, and we feel the top five takeaways are as follows:

Understand your vision for the Unified Collaboration rollout for your enterprise well in advance. (Spend time planning.)

Do trial runs with different manufacturers and end users to understand what works and what doesn’t across a range of budgets.

Deploy in small batches.

Understand the long-term value of the system as well as the compatibility with other systems that may come along the way that we may feel are going to be more software-driven.

Collect and analyze data around usage patterns using room schedulers, sensors on clouds, and analytics platforms to assist in improving the user experience as well as assisting with remote asset management and remote deployments.

To know more you can always contact Allwave AV on [email protected] or call us on 9372374450.

To view the complete document for State of the UC Union click here.

#unified communications #auditorium #audio-video #boardroom #audiovisual #microsoft