#Removing Duplicate Records

[mitsde123]

A Beginner’s Guide to Data Cleaning Techniques

Data is the lifeblood of any modern organization. However, raw data is rarely ready for analysis. Before it can be used for insights, data must be cleaned, refined, and structured—a process known as data cleaning. This blog will explore essential data-cleaning techniques, why they are important, and how beginners can master them.

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Espionage Deck
Wondrous item, rare ___ This deck of cards resembles and can be used as a standard playing card set, complete with four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades). Each suit, like a normal deck of playing cards, has 10 numbered cards and 3 face cards (Jack, Queen, and King), for a total of 52 cards. The back of each card is dark black and painted with gold ink. The deck comes in a small and nondescript black box; you can see a gold star on the center of each card’s back while the box is on your person. You can use an action to place a card on another creature. If the creature is unwilling, you must first make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check against its passive Perception score. On a success, the card is secretly placed on a creature and becomes invisible and intangible. On a failure, the creature is aware of the card, which magically and immediately returns to the deck box. If you played cards with the target creature within the last 24 hours, you have advantage on the Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check to place a card on it. A placed card creates a magical duplicate of itself in the box, allowing you to continue playing with a full deck—the star on the back of a duplicate card is white, instead of gold. Record which cards you place (including where you place them), as well as which cards are magically returned to the box. A duplicate card remains until the original returns to the box. While the deck box is on your person, you always know the general direction of any card you place, as well as which card it is, provided the card is on the same plane of existence as you. Alternatively, you can use an action to hold a duplicate face card to your forehead: while you do, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses, but can see and hear through the original face card using your normal senses. The effect ends when the card is removed from your forehead (no action required). Once this property has been used on a card, it can’t be used on that card again. A placed card returns to the box after 7 days have passed or when it’s discovered (such as by a “detect magic” spell or.... ... Continued in the IG comments! ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for as little as $3 a month!

[cedarxwing]

A quick method to deal with blurry action shots that have Hannibal's quintessential dim lighting + green color grading combo.

Here's the example I'll be using:

Don't get me wrong, I love the look of Hannibal, but the average person doesn't scroll tumblr with their screen brightness on max. Plus, night light filters and blue light glasses add even more yellow to an already heavily filtered show. If you want people to see your gif clearly, you have to edit it at least a little. Especially for extreme shots like this lol.

What I use: macOS 15.1.1 Elmedia Player 8.18 dupeGuru 4.3.1 Topaz Photo AI 3.2.0 Photoshop 25.11.0 LuLu 2.6.3 (optional, but it's nice to block outgoing connections from pirated programs)

Step One: Take Screenshots

Open your video file (1080p preferred) in Elmedia Player and navigate to the first frame of your gif. Hit "Playback > Record a Series of Screenshots" and let it run until you have all the frames you want. Unfortunately for mac users, we have a problem where a lot of duplicate screenshots are taken (like every third screenshot is a duplicate... it's so annoying). To save time later, I use dupeGuru to clean out as many duplicates as I can.

Open dupeGuru and add whatever folder you saved your screenshots to.

Scan the folder, then hit "Mark > Mark All" (you can see here that the program only caught one duplicate, which means more work later. it's not a perfect program -_-)

Hit "Actions > Send Marked to Recycle Bin..." to remove the duplicates from the folder

Step Two: Denoise

At this stage the screenshots are so dark that the noise isn't obvious, but it'll be more noticeable after brightening and sharpening. Here's the difference this step makes later:

Upload all your screenshots to Topaz Photo AI and add a Denoise layer. I normally go with the automatic settings.

Hit "Select All," "Apply > Current Settings," then export all your images. This can take a while depending on how many images you have.

Step Three: Create Frame Animation in Photoshop

If you've read any other gif-making tutorials this part should be familiar, so I'm gonna skim over it.

"File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack"

"Browse..." and select your Topaz output files

"Sort by Name" so they load in the correct order

"Ok"

Once all the layers have loaded, hit "Create Frame Animation" in the Timeline window

Under the Timeline window options menu, hit "Make Frames from Layers," then "Reverse Frames"

This is probably when you want to go through frame-by-frame and delete any remaining duplicates. It's very annoying to have to redo this step if you want to go back and edit your crop size later. (Not that I would know... 🤡)

Step Four: Crop + Resize

Crop, then "Image > Image Size" to adjust the width of your gif. You'll most likely want to use one of the common tumblr image dimensions:

Keep in mind that tumblr's gif size limit is 10 MB. But it's honestly best to keep it under 9.5 MB if you want the gif to load smoothly. A 540x540 px gif can have 40-60 frames while a smaller gif can be longer.

Make sure to add +2 px to whichever width you choose (so 542 px, 270 px, etc), since we'll be adjusting the canvas size later to get rid of transparent border anomalies.

Step Five: Color

The more common order of operations is to sharpen before coloring, but for dark scenes like this, it's kinda silly to sharpen when you can barely see what you're doing, so I like to color first.

Select all your frame layers and make a new group, just to keep them separate from your adjustment layers.

I always start by testing out the Auto Color Correction Options in a Curves adjustment layer. To access them, opt + click on the Auto button. This opens a window with four options.

I like to use a combination of "Enhance Per Channel Contrast" and "Find Dark & Light Colors," though either option can be used to adjust color balance. The important part is selecting "Snap Neutral Midtones" and picking a midtone that brings your gif as close as possible to the desired color balance.

If changing the midtone doesn't affect the color balance, brighten the gif first and try again.

For this gif, "Enhance Per Channel Contrast" removed the bulk of the green filter:

It's still pretty dark, so I brightened up the gif with some more Curves layers:

There's still a lot of purple/blue in Dolarhyde's black leather jacket, so I added another Curves layer and used "Find Dark & Light Colors" to improve the blackpoint:

Now we can up the contrast a little:

Nice! Good enough to move onto sharpening!

SIDE NOTE: The reason I use these Color Correction Options is because simply brightening leaves you with purple/blue shadows and sickly green over-exposed highlights that take ages to color correct. You can see the difference here:

(If you've ever wondered why so many Hannibal gifs have blue shadows, this is why.)

Step Six: Sharpen

This is where you'll want to start implementing actions, which are pre-recorded series of adjustments that you can perform with the click of a button. I mainly use three actions (download here, open the Actions window in PS, open the Action options menu, and click "Load Actions...").

The "frame animation to smart object" action converts the gif to a video timeline so we can apply smart filters.

The "legacy sharpening + high pass" action applies my standard sharpening filters. Not every gif will need the high pass filter, so feel free to change its opacity or delete it altogether. You can also tweak the smart sharpen filters by right clicking them and selecting "Edit Smart Filter..."

3. Once you're happy with the sharpness, the "convert to frame timeline" action turns the gif back into a frame animation. I use a 0.05 s frame delay for most gifs (equivalent to 20 fps; 24 fps is standard for tv/movies). I normally use 0.07-0.08 seconds for action shots, so the gif doesn't whip around so fast. Over 0.1 seconds, it starts to look like stop motion, so I try to avoid that.

Step Seven: Final Adjustments

This is where I fine-tune the colors, mostly using Hue/Saturation layers.

If I use a Color Balance layer, I only make very small adjustments and try to counterbalance them in the other tonal ranges (e.i. adjustments to the Highlights spill over to the Midtones, so I make the opposite adjustments to the Midtones to fix it). But most of the time, I'd rather play around with Curves or Hue/Saturation to fix stuff like that.

Hue/Saturation gives you more control by allowing you to select the exact color range you want to affect. For this gif, I used Hue/Saturation to get rid of the purple introduced around the highlights in Will's hair by the high pass filter.

The eyedropper tool allows you to select the exact color you want to include in the range. Then you can move the bars around until all the colors you don't want to affect are excluded.

Once you have your range selected, you can bring the saturation all the way down and set it to whatever lightness you prefer:

I also reduced cyan's saturation so that Will's shirt wouldn't look quite so blue.

[You could do a lot more to make the colors prettier... but there are other tutorials online for that. 😅]

Step Eight: Export

Once you're happy with your final product, go to "File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)..."

These are my settings:

You can use Diffusion instead of Pattern if you want. Diffusion is probably better for mobile gif compression, but I like the way Pattern looks on desktop, especially for gifs with smooth gradients. It's a personal preference thing.

Hit "Save..." and you're all done!

This isn't gonna win any gif-making awards, but at least you can see what's happening and the colors don't look wonky. And for Hannibal, I call that a win! 🥲👍

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 67

Penelope Gate's first son died when he was less than a year old. (Novel: The Room With No Doors) This is significant because according to some accounts Penelope was the Doctor's mother, which would have made this son the Doctor's half-brother.

Susan was once seriously injured in a building collapse, getting a concussion, a fracture to the parietal bone that put pressure on her brain, major fractures to her clavicle, a few ribs, radius, ulna, tibia, damage to her spine, blood loss, shock, etc. While in a healing coma, she was replaced by an android duplicate, who helped save the day and pilot the last ship off the planet even though she wouldn't be able to be repaired by the people she was helping. (Novel: City at World's End)

One of the Doctor's Tutors at the Academy was called Professor Findle. Once while the Sixth Doctor was seeing vision meant to frighten him, he saw things like Cybermen, Daleks, Davros, and Findle. Findle had chided the young First Doctor for being a "nasty piece of work" with only a desire to meddle. (Short story: Power to the People)

Meg Carvossa was a friend of the First Doctor's. He offered to take her with him with Dodo in the TARDIS, but when she saw the interior, she ran away from fear. Becoming leader of New Houston, she falsified records to make it appear like there are more people than there are in order to send more supplies. She later encountered the Second Doctor. Her falsification of the records caused the servant robots to think like humans, and they wanted to become citizens. After the Doctor let them speak, the robots showed a video of Carvossa confessing to the falsification. She said that the Doctor ruined her. (Audio: The Yes Men)

The Seventh Doctor, after hiding his mind from Sutekh for 20 years, was intended to marry Hatshepsut. He eventually visits Hatshepsut in her dreams, tells her that he would have broken the Laws of Time for her, etc. She kissed him. (Audio: The Eye of Horus)

Ossu had been a warrior kidnapped by the War Lords, being returned afterwards with a cybernetic implant that caused violent, murderous behavior. After being returned, Ossu ate Issu-mul berries to become thinkers like the female members of the tribe. Partway through hir transition, Ossu-hir was "not male or female, not suited for war or thought, or for land or sea." Hir then died at sea. (Short story: War Crimes)

The Eleventh Doctor once told Caitlin that while he was not like Harry Potter for being able to talk to snakes, his uncle had locked him under the stares when he was younger. (Novel: Horror of the Space Snakes)

By one account, Susan's parents owned a concept shop that sold metaphysical, religious, and philosophical concepts. (Short story: Gallifrey: A Rough Guide)

Chloe was a Gallifreyan who survived the destruction of her planet in the War. She was trapped in the body of a little girl, and her second heart withered away and needed to be removed. She got a book that showed her the future, but when she tried to look at the last page, the book took both her eyes and twisted them, bending them out of shape. (Novel: Timeless)

The Tremas Master once sought out the Fleshsmiths after his Cheetah virus infected body started dying. The Fleshsmiths had the technology necessary to create any body regardless of its complexity, including Time Lords (using the Doctor of course). (Novel: Prime Time)

There are horror stories on Gallifrey about Time Lords being forced into a regeneration chain in an alien environment (like the vacuum of space). Each regeneration in the resulting chain would take them further and further away from the norm as they struggled to adapt to the environment. In the early days of travel, early Time Lords would return to Gallifrey and be either quietly killed or trapped inside their TARDISes. (Novel: The Taking of Planet 5)

The Doctor was considered to have failed his time travel proficiency test because, as the Fourth Doctor put it, he didn't take it. He didn't show up because he considered it pointless. Romana believed his behavior was the result of an inferiority complex resulting from his regret over his wasted years at the Academy. (Novel: Festival of Death)

One time while caught in a decompressing air lock, the Seventh Doctor declared, "I will not die while listening to elevator music!" He had been listening to Madame Butterfly by Puccini. (Audio: The Death Collectors) He would later regenerate a while after Grace performed surgery on him (and then got lost...) while listening to Madame Butterfly.

Before being transported to Iceworld, Ace saw Withnail and I in the cinema. She fancied Richard E. Grant. She wondered why the Doctor couldn't be more like him because Richard E. Grant wouldn't treat her like a "educationally sub-normal infant." (Novel: Independence Day) This was likely a joke in reference to Grant's role in The Curse of the Fatal Death, but Grant would go on to play the Doctor again a few years after this novel was published in Scream of the Shalka.

The Seventh Doctor once sent Ace and Hex to steal a crystal called the Veiled Leopard. After having an argument with himself, the Fifth Doctor sent Peri and Erimem to prevent it from being stolen. While Peri and Erimem prevented it from being stolen by a jewel thief, Ace and Hex worked with the thief's accomplice to swap the crystal out for forgeries. (Audio: The Veiled Leopard)

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[rubberdroneglover1]

THE BLACK MYSTERIOUS RUBBERY FIGURE

This is the blog of the black rubbery figure killer he selects a single female young and study her daily routine and habits. Then he makes a duplicate set of keys to the house he goes into the house when she is not home and checks to see if she takes any medication this victim before she goes to bed takes a sleeping pill. So he replaces her sleeping pills with some thing else. And hour later when she is asleep he abducts her and takes her to his lab. When she wakes up she is naked and bound she sees the black rubbery figure standing there and he has a recording device to record every minute of her death. She can hear a voice saying the following. " VICTIM IS FEMALE AGE ABOUT 23 VARY ATTRACTIVE SHE IS SHOWING EXTREME FEAR I WILL NOW BEGIN THE COLLECTION OF MY VICTIMS VARIOUS SAMPLES LIKE HAIR SKIN BLOOD " she sees the black rubbery figure standing holding a syringe and injected it into her arm and with draw her blood and labeled it. Then he takes a sharp blade and runs it across her arm and collect skin sample next he takes a sample of her hair. Then he slips on a pair of black rubber gloves and strokes her breast with his black rubbery gloves. " Then he whispers to her ear. " NOW COMES THE BEST PART AS I KILL YOU. " SHE SEES HIM TAKE OUT THE BLACK RUBBERY CORD AND WRAPPED IT AROUND HER NECK AND TIES A KNOT AND STARTS TO PULL ON THE END OF THE BLACK RUBBERY CORD AS THE KNOT AROUND HER NECK IS GETTING TIGHTER AND TIGHTER AGAINST HER NECK AS SHE IS STRUGGLING TO BREATHE as he is pulling the ends of the black rubbery cord around her neck he is getting more excited as he is slowly killing her dead when it is over he is admitting his work and looks at the dead body removing the black rubbery cord from her neck. He places her dead body in a body bag and places her into his cart and drives to the other side of the lake where the swamp is. He dones his diving gear and entered the lake and attached weights to the dead body and dives to the bottom where his garden of his dead victims are. She is removed from the body bag and heavy lead weights are attached to her ankles as she takes the place with the other victims he has killed. He takes several photos of every victim he has killed so far. No body will ever find the garden of the dead as they are in the deepest part of the lake near the swamp. He exits the lake and returns to his cart and to his lab. Where he cleans up the lab and puts away his new samples. He then drives to his underground entrance to his house. And returns to his bedroom.

[bluestar22x]

Couch

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader (slightly older than Joel)

Other Major Characters: Tommy Miller, Maria, Ellie Williams

Chapter Summary: With time, you and Joel grow close

Word Count: 3,640(ish)

Rating: 18+ Series

Warnings: Smut, oral, piv, fluff, fowl language

Author’s Note: Please don’t reblog choice posts such as this one! Please reblog main chapters instead. You can comment and like, but I’m trying to keep the choice posts off the dashboards as much as possible so not to spoil the surprises and sway people’s decisions. ;)

xxx

"My couch," you reply, taking his hand in yours again and guiding him surely through the darkness of your mudroom towards the living room to your right. Your skin is hot even though it is cool in your house and your free hand is trembling slightly, this time from excitement.

You don't stop, don't look back until your kneecaps are brushing against the couch.

When you release his hand and turn around Joel is right behind you, face half cast in the moonlight shining through a crack in the bay window's curtains. You smile softly at him, almost shyly, and he smiles back assuringly before raising one of his hands to grab your chin and gently kiss you.

It's not long before the kiss becomes something else entirely, something wild, feverish. Joel gathers you into his arms, almost crushing you to his chest, and a thrill courses through you.

This is actually happening.

In a smooth move you probably will not be able to duplicate ever again, you separate from him to yank your peach colored t-shirt over your head and drop it haphazardly onto the floor without letting your eyes wander from Joel's.

His, however, do stray - to your bare shoulders, to your chest and your lace lined black bra. It's not wired; it doesn't shape your breasts into something they no longer are, but it's probably for the best, considering how brief it is before his fingers travel to your spine and fumble with the clips at the back of the bra. He gets it after a few tries without your assistance and frees you from the fabric then takes a sharp breath as he studies your completely bared upper body. It's clear that he doesn't care that your breasts aren't perky, that he's just grateful you're allowing him to look at you; to undress you. He's not looking for anything you can't provide.

"Goddamn, you're beautiful." The comment is completely genuine. You can tell from the strain in his voice, the dilation of his pupils you can see even in the dim light of the night.

Confidence boosted, heart soaring, you grin at him and reach for the top button of his shirt, unfastening it slowly. "Can't let you have all the fun."

He grunts an agreement and helps you unmake the rest, shrugging it off his shoulders after. The t-shirt underneath is quickly removed by him as well and your eyes feast on the sight before you. Joel is a gorgeous kind of beefy, his chest and arms strong, his belly soft. A thin layer of hair covers most of his front, getting thicker towards the topline of his jeans, and seeing it makes your heart race.

You unbuckle Joel's belt and tug it out of the loops of his pants in record time, dropping it beside your feet, the belt buckle clunking on your wooden flooring.

He cocks an eyebrow at your haste, but when you unbutton his jeans, he does the same to yours with equal zeal. You remove your underwear and jeans at the same time as him and fall back on the couch as you both rid yourselves of your socks after, just before he steps forward and crawls onto the couch to hover over you.

You think you can hear one of his knees pop as he does so, but he's unfazed by it; too captivated by you to care, if not used to it.

You meet his intense gaze with your own and allow yourself to touch his chest, to trace it and run your hands over the balls of his shoulders before splaying them out on his upper back as you open up for him and spread your thighs as wide as you can, inviting him into the space you've just made for him.

He drops his head to enclose your right nipple in his warm mouth and sucks as he takes the offer, slipping between your legs, using his elbows to prop himself up and keep his weight off you.

A groan escapes him almost at the exact same time as the moan that leaves you, as pleased to taste your peak as you are to feel his lips around it. You arch into his mouth and he frees a hand from your waist to curve over your stomach as he switches to your other nipple, giving it the same treatment.

His hand starts to slide lower down your body and he parts his mouth from your breasts to peer up at you.

"Would it be alright if I put my mouth on you?"

Your mouth goes dry at the unexpected question. You've never had a man ask you that particular one the first time you slept together. You feel like you should be uncertain about it, but you're not. Being so vulnerable with Joel is new, but you've known him for long enough to trust him and now that he's mentioned it you can't imagine saying no to him.

You beam up at him and thrust your hips towards Joel eagerly, desperately wanting to know what it feels like with him.

He raises an eyebrow at that, looking amused. "Is that a yes?" He chuckles softly before you even nod to confirm it.

"Yes. Please. Joel."

You close your eyes as he slowly works his way down your body, building the anticipation, teeth scraping along your neck, tongue laving at your chest, lips peppering feathery kisses to your belly and thighs before he finally ducks his head down to drag his tongue through your folds.

The sensation sends a jolt of pleasure through your body and you cry out at the suddenness of it. You desperately dig your nails into the fabric of the couch to cope, tilt your pelvis to give him better access, and he devours you.

He isn't the most precise lover you've ever had, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm and attentiveness. When you take in a sharp breath and tense after he hits a particularly sensitive spot, he makes note of it, repeats the motions he did to get there, movements that get smoother every time he does them.

You rake your fingers through the short silvery curls on his head and twist on the strands when he plunges his tongue into you, and he in turn tightens the grip he has on your thighs.

"Fuck, Joel," you whine as you writhe in place, overwhelmed by how good it feels. "Like that. More. Oh!"

He doesn't need any true verbal pointers, but your words do encourage him to go all in, to be more firm with you, to suck on your bud more passionately. Your climax builds fast and all real thought abandons your mind; a true blessing. You've learned from past experience that for this to work at your age, for the pleasure to consume you, you can't think about it too much, and that mindlessness helps more than anything else ever has with your ever changing body.

When Joel sees that you are close to tipping over the edge, he curls one, two, then three fingers inside you and just like that you fall with a gasp; a pleasant heat flooding your entire body as you do, fully relaxing you.

You'd been dry when he first started working on you, but due to his assiduity you're now soaked, entirely ready for him. It's all you can think about as you lay there sucking in quick breaths, as your heart pounds in your chest. All you want is him inside you. And you don't want to imagine it any longer when he's right there.

You lift your head to crush your mouth against Joel's when he positions himself back over you, and he responds immediately, cupping both sides of your face to keep you there for longer.

Your heart is still beating wildly in your chest when you grind your hips purposely against his to feel the way he is thickening against the skin of your thigh, and he groans again.

"Shit, you might just be the death of me," he mutters.

You chuckle as you reach down to stroke his length and he presses his forehead to the center of your chest, groaning loudly as you do so.

"Might?"

"Fuck."

You grin proudly at the way he hisses the word out, and begin to work him faster, not slowing until he's hard and as equally ready for you.

"You sure about this, honey?" he inquires, giving you one last chance to change your mind.

"Never been more sure," you promise him, releasing his cock to push your hand against his chest firmly, wordlessly directing him into a sit.

He's briefly confused by your action but it dawns on him that you want to take control, and he gladly gives it to you.

He sits so that he is leaning against the back of the couch and you stand so you can get down on your knees more easily and straddle his hips.

He takes hold of your waist firmly to help you keep your balance and watches with wonder in his eyes as you palm his cock and with a cant of your hips steadily drop down onto him, sheathing him entirely within you.

You both moan as you settle on top of him, and you squeeze your eyes shut to relish the feeling of fullness having him this way brings you. It's been too long since you were with anyone like this.

When you open your eyes again you find Joel's staring back into yours, intimately, a vulnerability in them that almost breaks you.

You quickly kiss the heart shaped bare patch in his beard as you wrap your arms around his neck to keep him close. At the same time his hands wander up the curve of your back to cradle you more securely, and once they are in place you start moving slowly up and down on him, making sure you can feel every inch of him along the way. It's the best feeling you've had in ages. The drag of his cock inside you steals your breath and makes you groan. It makes you forget where you are, where you've been. It like you are in your own little world, where only you and Joel exist.

You bury your hands into his hair again and he grunts as your nails scratch at his scalp, as you bend your head to kiss him deeply. Every noise he makes is like music to your ears, urging you to keep going, to keep ignoring the ache in your knees that you get every time you are on them for more than a few seconds.

You soon pick up speed, rolling your hips towards him as he begins to rut up into you, and it's just enough for you to both break out in a sweat, for your moans and groans to grow longer, louder.

You want it to last for hours, but your body has other plans, blindsighting you with your orgasm, sending you into a pitch forward against Joel's chest as you convulse around him.

You cling tightly to him by his shoulders as you come down, and bliss consumes you, clouds your mind in a haze as you continue to move your hips, not ready to be done quite yet.

"Want you to come inside me," you confess in his ear, voice low and thick.

He nods, grunts an affirmative, and yanks you down on him by the shoulders suddenly, causing you to lose your breath and clench hard around him.

It's then that he unravels, giving you what you want, jaw tight as he groans lowly into the crook of your neck and pulses inside you. You hold him close as it overtakes him and try to commit the moment to memory. You never want to forget this; whatever the future may bring. You know this world is too uncertain; too dark to not fully appreciate memories like this. Even in a place as safe as Jackson.

Afterwards you tug your couch blanket off one of its arms and cover both you and Joel with it before resting your head on his thigh. You gaze up at him, studying his handsome face, and he smiles down at you fondly, kisses each of your fingertips, simple acts of affection that speak louder than words ever could.

It's too early to put a label on what you are now to each other, but the moment feels profound. Like it's the beginning of something special.

Some time later, as you're about to doze off, Joel checks his watch and sighs. "It's getting late; I should go," he whispers before kissing your forehead lightly and caressing your arm. "Ellie will be worried if I'm not home when she wakes in the morning."

You want to protest, to suggest that he at least stay until sunrise, but you decide it best to respect his decision, to let him go. Your relationship is all too new after all. You haven't even had a proper date yet, whatever that would look like in the apocalypse. You don't want to overstep; to pressure him into anything he might not want yet. And you refuse to act like a clingy or jealous girlfriend. Wherever your relationship ends up, there would be no time where you would ever insist he stay with you instead of being there for Ellie.

"Okay," you respond, trying to make the word sound light.

"Meet me at the Bison tomorrow night at seven?" he questions as he stands up, and you break out into a warm smile. You love that he's already forming a plan to see you again.

"Of course."

"I know it's not the most romantic place for a date..."

Your smile broadens at his concern. "You don't need to worry, Joel. You've clocked me right. I'm not the kind of girl who needs a fancy restaurant and a millionaire in a suit."

He laughs. "That's good, cause Jackson doesn't have either of those currently."

"Damn shame." You kneel to kiss him one last time on the lips, then fall back onto the couch. "Go on. Go get some sleep."

Joel nods. "You too."

He doesn't say goodbye, and you don't expect him to. You close your eyes as he walks away from the couch and inhale the scent he's left behind on your throw blanket.

You end up falling asleep to it.

x

There are many dates between you and Joel in the following weeks, some planned by him and some by you. You're inventive about it, about how you hide it being a date; neither of you ready to expose your newfound relationship to the rest of the town.

Jeanine knows, you tell her a lot of the details, of what you talk about, of where you go, and Tommy knows, because of the conversation you'd with him in the mess hall, and because he's observant. It's not even a day before he approaches you and gets you to admit it, because Joel happened to be in a 'real good mood' on patrol that day.

Maria might know because of him, but you aren't sure, you haven't asked. You are sure nobody else knows, though you're also sure there is some suspicion, some rumors floating around. Jeanine for once hasn't heard anything, probably cause everyone else knows she is your best friend, but more than once you have seen people stop mid conversation just because you stepped into a room.

You don't concern yourself with it, too busy daydreaming about the previous or upcoming date. There were a few at the Tipsy Bison but after that Joel seemed determined to mix things up, having you over at his house whenever Ellie was out late with friends, spending time with you while you cleaned the stables, sitting next to you on movie nights. He'd even asked Tommy to set up some patrols so that you were scheduled for it at the same time he was.

It was on one of those patrols closely boarding the walls of Jackson, that Joel brought it up, back when your relationship was still very fresh, barely two weeks old.

"I won't be able to go watch you sing tomorrow night," he tells you.

"Oh, why?" you inquire curiously.

"Ellie's sixteenth birthday's in a few days and I need to get ready for it," he explains. "You know how she loves space and dinosaurs?"

"Yeah." Ellie barely goes a day without talking about one or another. It is endearing. She reminds you of you and your passion for horses, which she seems to also share with you. She hung out around the stables a lot, especially after Shimmer, the chestnut filly she had demanded to be assigned to her, had begun to be trained to saddle. You'd seen her ride the young horse a few times since then, and Ellie looked like a natural on her. Their partnership rivaled yours with June.

"Well, I found a museum not too far from here, less than a day's hike, and it's got both, can you believe it?" Joel asks incredulously. "I wanna take her there on her birthday, but I've got to clear it out, make sure it's safe, and repair a few things first."

"That's amazing," you say wholeheartedly. "However big or small it is, I'm sure she's going to love it."

"I hope so."

You give him a look. "She will. Ellie's a lot of things but ungrateful is not one of them."

"Would you like to come with us?" he offers.

You shake your head. "Her birthday is not the time to reveal our relationship to Ellie. Visiting the museum is something you should do alone with her anyway. It'll be more special if it's just you and her."

He nods and returns to focusing on the path ahead of your horses.

"But, I do have a solution for tomorrow," you declare.

His head swivels in your direction again, curious.

"I could help you clear the museum," you suggest. "Two sets of hands are better than one, and bonus, we will get to spend some time together. You might even make it to my show."

He grins at you then. "That sounds perfect. I'd greatly appreciate the help and it won't feel like work if you're there."

"No need to thank me," you say, "I'm doing it for Ellie and me. Just promise me you won't tell her that I assisted. I don't want the credit."

"I promise."

x

Your work date at the museum with Joel goes smoothly and so does his trip to it with Ellie. You catch sight of them dismounting their horses at the front of the stable as the sun is setting on her birthday, and even from a distance you can tell she is flying high, so excited she's barely keeping in her skin.

While you'd insisted Joel spend Ellie's birthday just with her, you start accepting more and more offers from him to hang out with them, whether at the movies or at their house on a game night. Sometimes he even invited you over for supper and sometimes you invited them. There was always an excuse of course. The game plays better with 3. The recipe makes too much for just one or two people.

You know Ellie's too smart not to figure out what's actually going on but she doesn't say anything, and you don't ask.

You eventually get your answer in October.

It's the third Tuesday of the month and you wake up to a chill in the air that can only mean one thing - your heating system has failed sometime during the night. Again.

Joel is one of the few guys in town who knows a little about a lot of things when it comes to doing repairs on homes, so you naturally stroll over to his house to ask him if he can fix it for what is probably the tenth time this year.

"Think it's going to need a little more than just a repair," Joel tells you after you explain the situation to him while standing in the middle of his kitchen. "Last one was temporary. There's no other fixes to be made that I know of. We're going to have to find you a replacement."

You deflate at his conclusion. "That might take ages. I'm going to freeze."

"You could ask Jeanine if you can stay a while," he suggests.

You sigh. "She's already got a roommate and their house is small. I'd hate to bother them."

"Or you could just stay here," Ellie says from her spot at the table behind you.

Both your head and Joel's snap in her direction, mouths slightly ajar at her proposal.

She rolls her eyes. "Why not? You're here all the time anyway. You're dating. It makes the most sense, doesn't it?"

Busted.

"Stop looking so shocked," she huffs. "The whole town knows. You haven't exactly been subtitle, you know, even though you both clearly think you have been. Which is cool. Wish you would've just told me, but whatever. Just spare me the details, okay?"

You and Joel don't react, both unsure of what to say.

She takes a huge bite out of the green apple in her hand and heads for the door. "You’re making this really fuckin’ weird guys," she mutters. "I'm going over to Cat's."

She ambles out the front door and you and Joel immediately relax.

"That went better than I expected," he eventually admits.

"Guess that means I should consider her offer," you say, side-eying him.

He shakes his head. "Our offer. Do you wanna move in with us?"

It only takes an instant before you're beaming joyfully at him.

"Thought you'd never ask."

…

Next: Chapter 2 - The Lie

Current Chapter: Can't Help Falling In Love

…

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

xxx

[heartpulseproject]

Since you don't see many edits here, and i am a dumbass in editing, could you make a tutorial on it? Like: what apps should we use, what should or shouldn't do, devices, etc. Since i personally worship your editing prowess, i couldn't help myself but ask for your guidance sensei. 🙇‍♀️

I don't use a "special device" to make my edits, just a computer which can run a videoediting software and Wallpaper Engine correctly (in my case it's an Apple Mac Pro 4,1 from 2009 with upgraded RAM and GPU, and also with Windows 10 installed on it, but that's not important). My server pc build out of my spare parts, and it's serves as a network bridge, and a file storge (like a NAS, or something) to store my personal files, like the assets for the edits on HPP. The way I make my edits, is a different story. I like to put the charaters in different scenarios to make the edit more enjoyable. I usually chose one image from my pre-granarated ones, or I use (if i see a, as i call an edit "suspicious" image here on Tumblr or X) an image from my "Likes", or if I can't find any which is good for the scanario in my head I generate one using PixAI's Ebora Pony XL AI model. Than if I have an image, I put together a static version of the edit in Paint.NET (PaintdotNET). Here I cut down the unnecessary and the broken (weirdly generated hands, .etc) parts of the image, and I remove the background if I'd like to use a different one. Than I chose a stethoscope png what are suitable for the edit, but I recently using the hand with stethoscope one which you can see in my recent edits. I also make some barely visble changes to the main image and the stething image. If it's done, and looks good I save them (the base image, the background, and the steting png separately) in a folder. After that it's time to "animate" the edit, which is just using the Wallpaper Engine's built in Shake effect, if that part is done, I record the animated soundless edit using OBS, which is usually a 5-6 minutes raw mp4 file. Than I put the raw recording into the video editor which is my case is the Wondershare Filmora X. I chose one of the heartbeat and bearthing audios from my server (if it's needed I modify it a bit in Audacity), and speed them up to mach with the animation. I make the breathing way quieter to have the heartbeat in focus, also i duplicate the hb sound to make a stereo effect, which means the I make the left side a bit louder and add more bass to it than the right side, which make a really good heart pulse effect (ROLL CREDITS). Also in here I add some video effects, cut down the unnecessary parts, I cut down the video to 2 minutes to become uploadable for X, than it's time to export it. After I exported the final edit, i check it for mistakes and I fix them if i find any, and the fixed version gonna be uploaded to Tumblr and X. This whole process is 2+ hours usually, but it's could be more for longer and more complex edits. But you doesn't need to follow my way to make edits, if you ever used a photo editor and a video editor before, and you know how put a transparent png on an image, and a greenscreen video on another one, you good to go. There is a lot of ways you can make an edit, so you can chose one which are suitable for you. If you still need help, you can join the Cardio Editor's Hub, there are lot of other people who gladly gives you some tips and tricks. Good luck, have fun! :D

[darkmaga-returns]

Article

Dig Deeper

Two Republican-led states have removed hundreds of thousands of registrations from their voter rolls this month, while another identified hundreds of non-citizen voters during their voter list maintenance.

Collectively, the GOP-led states of Idaho and Missouri took nearly 300,000 registrations off their voter rolls after finding inactive, ineligible, or deceased voters, in addition to duplicates and voters who moved. Iowa identified nearly 300 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls and referred them to the Iowa attorney general.

At the federal level, support from White House

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on election integrity last week, offering assistance to states on maintaining voter rolls. “To identify unqualified voters registered in the States: the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, consistent with applicable law, ensure that State and local officials have, without the requirement of the payment of a fee, access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered,” the executive order reads.

The order added that DHS, with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), “shall review each State’s publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities … alongside Federal immigration databases and State records requested, including through subpoena where necessary and authorized by law, for consistency with Federal requirements.”

[bleach-your-panties]

First of all, I just want to say THANK YOU to all of my mutuals, readers, and followers.

I write what makes me happy first and foremost, but it makes me so excited to see that others enjoy and look forward to my work! ✨️

So for that, I'd like to celebrate with a lil contest.

🎀𝒞ℴ𝓃𝓉ℯ𝓈𝓉 ℛ𝓊𝓁ℯ𝓈🎀

1. This contest is for my MUTUALS and FOLLOWERS only.

🎀Mutuals: Meaning I am following you and you are following me. It will look like this when we interact:

🎀Followers: Meaning you are following me, but I am not following you. It will look like this when I post or interact with you:

DO NOT SUBMIT DUPLICATE ENTRIES. THIS WILL VOID YOU FROM THE ENTIRE CONTEST. I will be checking for duplicates.

Only enter as either a mutual or as a follower.

2. Fill out my commission form here. The winning entries will be treated as if they were paid commissions, so please read the original commission post here and read all guidelines on the form carefully before submitting it.

3. There will be 4 winners in total. 2 mutuals and 2 followers.

4. Yes, you can still enter as a follower even if you started following me as soon as you saw this post. I will do two drawings for followers, one for new followers and one for the OG's.

♡Keep in mind!! I will only be including followers that have interacted with me or my posts. Ghost followers are fine to have, but it is not fair to others who actively engage if you get chosen over them.

5. MINORS, AGELESS, BLANK, SPAM/MEME BLOGS WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO JOIN THIS CONTEST.

6. If I check your blog and the first thing I see is a meme, you're getting blocked. If your blog looks inactive, block. No pinned post or visible, BELIEVABLE age anywhere, blocked. Do not fill my entries up with spam, you will not be counted.

🎀Directions for Completing Commission Form for Contest Entry:

1. On question #1, type your preferred name/alias, pronouns, age, blog name with @ symbol, and whether you're entering as a moot or a follower.

2. Fill out the rest of the form as usual.

3. When you reach the payment question, select 'other' and type in 'contest entry'.

4. Submit.

5. I WILL delete any incomplete entry forms, duplicates, or entries that did not adhere to the guidelines.

6. You may submit an anonymous entry, but you still have to list your actual blog URL (it will not be tagged if you win) and I MUST have a valid form of contact for you as well as an age verification. See the commission form for complete details.

🎀Winner Selection Process:

1. On Saturday, March 16th, 2024 at 16:00 US CST (4:00 pm US CST), I will live screen record from my phone or laptop as I put all of the names into the random name generator.

The recording will be removed from my page after I have contacted the winners, but the video will be kept as evidence that I indeed did not choose favorites.

2. Once I contact you, if you've won, please respond promptly so we can hash out any fine details and I can begin working on the piece.

🎀Final Notes:

Alongside the contest, I will be running a 10% off promo on my writing commissions during the entire RSVP period (2.29-3.15)!!🎂🥳🎊

Discount code is ' SWEET1600 ' (do not include quotations)

♡kofi-page for commission ordering

♡make sure you've filled out the commission form first!

♡thanks again for helping me to hit this special milestone!💞

♡i will be sharing this post periodically over the next 2 weeks.

(*I've been having issues with my PayPal, so please bear with me while I get that handled!*)

*please direct any questions about the contest to @bleach-your-panties or @1zurusprinc3ss DM's. questions about commissions/ordering will go to my email (ask)*

-byp🌹

[knightotoc]

The End of Eternity "Timeline"

I've compiled a list of events associated with each Century in Asimov's Eternity. I tried to be as thorough as possible, but I may have missed something; please let me know. Spoiler alert for the best story ever imagined about time travel, a novel which turns 70 this year:

24th: Brinsley Sheridan Cooper becomes Vikkor Mallansohn, "discovers" and builds a Temporal Field, takes it to Caltech, meets the unnamed lunch counter man, and sees Professor Zimbalist's demonstration with a white mouse

27th: Jan Verdeer's experiments pave the way for Antoine Lefebvre to construct the basic mathematical equations of Reality; Eternity established; end of Primitive history; Senior Computer Henry Wadsman, "the first of the great Eternals," opens the Mallansohn memoir, which had been enclosed in a tube of Time-stasis for 3 Centuries

45th: car-like vehicles

50th: make something called a "grafenpiece"

55th: Technician Andrew Harlan uses a "molecular recorder" from this century when he works as an Observer

72nd: only Century that exports good cigarettes

78th: Cooper's homewhen; he was a "Speedy-vac" repairman; very little advertisement

95th: Harlan's homewhen; "stiffly restrictive of atomic power, faintly rustic, fond of natural wood as a structural material, exporters of certain types of distilled potables to nearly everywhen and importers of clover seed;" Spartan taste in furnishing; middling level of advertisement; proverb = "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."

123rd: smoking forbidden

182nd: car-like vehicles

186th: some level of advertisement

222nd: Administrator Arbut Lemm works here; the 13th reality of this Century developed the Temporal Pressor, which was essential to the creation of Cooper's one-way kettle

223rd: Harlan enacts his first Reality Change by jamming a vehicle clutch

224th: Harlan's first Reality Change prevents a war and a great work of literature (which is preserved in Eternity's libraries)

289th: "sickly sweet literary tradition"

290th: in Reality 54 of this Century, space-travel is "a valuable safety-valve"

300's: most Centuries are matter-oriented, but these ten have energy-oriented "energy vortices" which are confusing to matter-oriented people; sometime in this millenium, the mass duplicator was invented, which Eternity uses to clone its Sections (offices), one for every Century for millions of Centuries; this technology, which could also be used for cloning people, was deemed too dangerous and removed from Time

482nd: Harlan's first unsupervised Observer assignment; Assistant Computer Hobbe Finge works here; "an era without ethics or principles… hedonistic, materialistic, more than a little matriarchal;" the only era in which "ectogenic birth" flourishes; marriage is informal; eugenics is normalized; characterized by "heavy plaster swirls…splashy pigments…painted metal;" the upper-classes believe that you can become immortal if you have sex with an Eternal; upper-class women wear "transparents sheathing" above the waist, "flimsy, knee-length trousers," and jeweled pendants, and speak with a lisp; wealth distribution is uneven to a barely acceptable level; upper-class men wear clinging, seamless, brightly-colored clothes; Reflector = 3-D mirror; June and February still exist; Mekkano = small floating device which serves drinks; pene-prong = fork; music box that generates random notes "by intricate mathematical formulae"

575th: Harlan's permanent station, where he lives and trains Cooper; also the permanent station of Senior Computer Laban Twissel (and the homewhen of his long-lost love); characterized by "glass and porcelain" and a "fetish of cleanliness;" "a world of whiteness and clarity, broken by sparse patches of light pastel;" its Section's library has the best collection on Reality Changes "outside the Central Branch itself;" Eric Linkollew = greatest writer of the Century; neuronic whip = weapon that can torture and kill by paralyzing the nerves

590th: car-like vehicles

600's: most Centuries are matter-oriented, but these have energy-oriented "field dynamics" which are confusing to matter-oriented people; Finge's homewhen

803rd: Senior Computer August Sennor's homewhen; the fashion is for people to be depilated, which is so freakish that they are not usually chosen for Eternity

900s: nerve-regenerating techniques

984th: car-like vehicles

1174th: a particularly deforested era; exports smoked fish

2456th: "molecular films" make every surface reflective; someone wears glistening shoes made of red, semi-transparent material; they communicate long-distance with devices that emit patterns of clicks; Sociologist Kantor Voy and Life-Plotter Neron Feruque work here; Harlan enacts Reality Change 2456-2781, Serial Number V-5 (moving a container from one shelf to another); exports anti-cancer serums

2481th: before Reality Change 2456-2781, Serial Number V-5, this Century was the only one to develop electro-gravitic space-travel

30000's: Twissel's homewhen

70000th-150000th: the "Hidden Centuries;" the Stations are barely furnished, and you can't step out of them into Time

100000: a time-block briefly stops kettles here

111394th: Lambent's homewhen; she "hides" here

125000th: somewhere past this Century, mankind invents the interstellar drive

150000th: humanity has disappeared

[inspofromancientworld]

The Science of Discovering the Past: Archival Research

Since the beginning of writing about 6000 years ago, humans have written down many things, from accounting information to the daily thoughts of those observing historical events, leaving a wealth of information behind for us to read through, even with those records that have been lost to the grist of time. Archival research involves studying these records for both primary and secondary resources.

A library differs from an archive in that a library contains published documents that generally aren't unique and are maintained for use while an archive contains unique items, many of which are not published in any way, and can be in any format. Archives often have a particular focus of materials that they collect and limit access to their collections.

The oldest collections that could be called archives go back to at least 1180 with the collections of scrolls from the clerk's offices in Barcelona, Spain, where it was mentioned as a king's archive. In 1194, King Alfonso II of Aragon ordered the compilation of documents that were legally valid and useful, some of which dated back to the 9th century. In 1318, under James II of Aragon, the General Archive of the Crown of Aragon was established as the central archive of the Crown. Many countries have national archives that were established after that and have documents that go back as far as 625 CE (as in the French Archives Nationales) with the United States National Archives and Records Administration having documents that include an original copy of the Magna Carta.

Universities are also repositories of record collections, both of their own business as well as those that have been bequeathed to them. They also might have collections that are focused on a single subject, ranging from religion to local history. Religious institutes, such as the Vatican, which reportedly has more than 52 miles (83.69 km) of archival shelving, and museums are also repositories of document collections. There are also an increasing collection of digital collections, which bring about their own challenges, such as technology creep, which is the gradual loss of older technologies (think of the loss of VCR machines making VCR tapes harder to view or the removal of optical drives from computers). Archives, whether traditional or digital, also face the degradation of time and the risk of catastrophic destruction.

Archival research begins with locating an archive that holds the needed documents that apply to the desired topic, which has become easier with online searches. Prior to this, union catalogs, which were library catalogs that describe the collections of archives were distributed among universities. The next challenge is locating the texts within the archive. Many archives operate until the principle of respect des fonds, or the original order in which they were received in order to maintain provenance. Finding aids, such as registers, card catalogs, or inventories, are a common tool to aid researchers in locating materials.

Prior to digitization, archives had to be accessed on-site as they were parts of non-circulating collections. As such, most archives have reading rooms, where materials can be viewed. If the reading room is not directly connected to the collection, it may take days or weeks for materials to be delivered. Many of the materials held by archives are fragile and therefore have restrictions placed on their use or duplication. Restrictions may also be placed on what can be taken or worn within a reading room to protect documents from damage or theft.

[riordanverserpdatabase]

Woah, this is crazy. Where am I?

Greetings. You have located the Riordanverse RP Database.

What’s that?

This account has been created to monitor the status of accounts associated with the Riordanverse RP Community in order to ease the introduction of new RPers more seamlessly.

Oh, okay. So it keeps a record of all the accounts? So I can check and see what’s available and what’s not?

Exactly. The system compliments you on your keen observation skills!

So… do I have to ask you before I make a blog?

The system does not control the creation or destruction of accounts. This systems soul purpose is to make an approachable and up to date record of our community. The user is more than welcome to join or leave at any time.

Does the community allow duplicate accounts? Can I make an account for a character that already exists then?

Duplicate accounts are always going to be present. The system’s creator felt that having this record in place might help people find which characters were not yet taken, so that there would be less conflict in the community related to duplicate accounts. The system is not, however, a moderator of the community in any fashion, and will only keep records.

Okay, I guess that’s fair. How do I find the lists?

Please start here

Hey, I’m already an RP blog but I don’t see myself listed!

Welcome, valued user! Please send an ask with your @ and Character info to be added to the appropriate page. We appreciate help maintaining our records, and strive to be up to date and attentive for our community!

I see my blog listed here and I would like it removed from the list immediately!

The system apologizes for the inconvenience. Any users who wish to be removed may send an ask. Your ask will not be posted for Privacy, and your name and @ will be removed as soon as possible. Thank you for understanding!

We hope all users find the system to be helpful! Happy RPing!

[fantabulisticity]

Boise, ID (CBS2) — The office of Governor Brad Little has released the latest figures on public input regarding House Bill 93. Governor Little signed House Bill 93 into law on Feb. 27, providing a $5,000 tax credit for school choice in Idaho. The new law sets aside $50 million from Idaho's General Fund. According to the data, the governor's office received a total of 37,457 calls and emails about the bill. Of these, 5,091 were in favor of signing the bill, while a significant 32,366 urged a veto.

The office noted that duplicate phone numbers were removed to ensure accuracy, meaning individuals who called multiple times from the same number were only counted once.

Governor Little considered a variety of factors before signing the bill, which is standard practice for any legislation that reaches his desk according to his office.

Emphasis is mine.

I'm so fucking tired. This is what happened with banning abortion with 0 exceptions, too. And the governor disagreed with that extreme bill and signed it anyway.

This next bit is from an email from a political organization I support:

Governor Little’s office has finally released the official tally of phone calls and emails to his office related to House Bill 93, the school-voucher bill that drains funding from public schools in order to subsidize private school tuition. The numbers are beyond anything we've seen in Idaho history: 32,366 asked the governor to veto HB 93. Just 5,091 asked him to sign it.* That's a record-breaking number of Idahoans raising their voices, and 86% opposed the bill. Governor Little signed it anyway.

The asterisk is for a link to the above article, and the emphasis was already there.

"School choice" is code for cutting HUGE amounts of funding from public schools to subsidize private schools, especially religious ones, which ALREADY CHARGE TUITION FEES. House bill 93 is a continuation of this trend that Idaho has been pushing. Idaho already struggles to keep its public school teachers for a fucking laundry list of reasons. We have been hemorrhaging teachers for a long time. I'm so fucking sick and tired of our extremist politicians. They don't give a single shit about Idahoans, especially rural and poor Idahoans.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks listening to this, and found it very interesting. It’s a Radio 4 show called Fresh From the Fringe, where they took a few comedians who were performing at the Edinburgh Fringe in a given year, and had them each do short sets. I’ve heard lots of stuff like this before – Radio 4 shows that showcase a mixed bill of comedians from a given year – but mostly, I’ve heard older versions of that, from the 00s and the late 90s. This is more recent, and in fact is still running.

Between 2012 and 2024, there have been 17 episodes of Fresh From the Fringe (one episode for the first few years, then two in later years). And across them all, they’ve featured 88 different acts (a bit more than 88 different sets, because some comedians have appeared on the show in more than one year, but I decided to remove the duplicates and count how many different acts there were in total, because – look, I bet whatever you do with your free time isn’t all that productive either, so it’s fine). Of those 88 acts, only 16 were people whose work I was unfamiliar with before hearing this radio show. That’s a pretty low number, isn’t it?

I find that interesting for the same reason why I found it interesting to make that list that I made of all the Comedy Zone lineups, and then be surprised by how many people on those lineups I knew, even though the people in the Comedy Zone haven’t done their first full hour yet. And yet, Avalon consistently picked people who would go on to be successful enough to be on the radar of a Britcom-obsessed Canadian many years later. I’m sure that Comedy Zone lineups have a far higher rate of people I’ve heard of, than if you picked four random comedians who were doing debut hours at the same Edinburgh year. Maybe Avalon is excellent at spotting talent, or maybe they really do control the media.

Anyway. This BBC thing isn’t the same as that, as it had plenty of people who were well into their comedy careers. But it also had a lot of people who were pretty new to doing solo hours, in the year their episode was recorded (of course, by the time a comedian does their first solo hour, I know they’re usually still at least a few years into their actual comedy career, so it may well be obvious even by then who’s going to be successful, hence Avalon knowing how to pick them). And many of those people are far more famous now than they were when they recorded their Radio 4 Fresh From the Fringe episode.

That means that Fresh From the Fringe is a great way to hear early sets by now-famous comedians, from before they were famous, and that’s always fun. It’s also an interesting way to get a layout of what comedians were around in each of those years, and where they were at in their careers. It gives a nice rounded mix of comedians who were new rising stars, and comedians who were established and successful, and if you’re looking for a way to get to know the layout of British comedy, you can hear small bits by all those different people and then go seeking more from the ones you like best.

I found a few things while listening that I’d like to follow up on. I found the Massive Dad sketch hilarious, and I’ve been meaning to look them up for a while. I rather like Tessa Coates (woman who had a fairly entertaining 2022 Edinburgh hour streamed on NextUp, and now she runs a really cool comedy night with Amy Annette), and I greatly enjoyed Stevie Martin’s show in Edinburgh last year (also, and this just a vague guess on my part, don’t even know why I’d say it, I have a feeling that Stevie Martin might be about to become a lot more famous in 2025, so if anyone wants to get on her bandwagon, now would be the time). Massive Dad was a sketch group with Stevie Martin and Tessa Coates and another comedian whom I don’t know about but I’m sure she’s good. Anyway, I loved their sketch on that radio show so much that I’m going to look up their other stuff and hope they’ve recorded a full show at some point. I’d call that my main discovery from this radio show, though I was also reminded of how much I liked the sketch group Egg, based on that one short thing I saw them do some time ago, and need to look them up as well. Oh, and I was slightly underwhelmed by the Christopher MacArthur-Boyd stand-up hour that I saw, but I loved his short set on this radio show, so I’ll now be more inclined to give him another chance.

In terms of comedians I already like but it was funny to hear their old stuff – John Kearns might be the one who stood out to me the most, as being incredibly funny with stuff I mostly hadn’t heard him say before. Though he did do the dog/train/announcement joke, which I’ve seen on YouTube and love. James Acaster had an interestingly raw version of some stuff that got reworked in Repertoire. I found Phil Wang of his Radio 4 days funnier than I tend to find more recent Phil Wang. Roise Jones was delightful. Olga Koch told some stories that put interesting context on her most recent show, about her family’s ties to Russian oligarchy. Nish Kumar was so much fun that I had to post the clip as soon as I heard it. Sarah Keyworth told some stories about their Irish girlfriend, Catherine, so that dates their set. Mae Martin sounded a lot more raw and frazzled than they do now, and made a reference to erotic Harry Potter fanfiction, so that’s fun. Tom Ballard was pretty much the same as he is now. So was Kiri Pritchard-McLean. I will never get tired of hearing Desiree Burch shout about odd British customs. Rose Matafeo did not sound like she was in a great place, in 2017. Emma Sidi, on the other hand, threw herself into her character in 2015 with an impressive amount of dedication. Mike Wozniak did a version of his "animal facts" bit, which he later turned into a song on Taskmaster.

And David O’Doherty hosted one of the episodes. Oh my God, what an absolute delight. New David O’Doherty content! He did a stand-up routine that I’d not heard before, and I thought I’d already scoured every stand-up routine he’d ever recorded out of the internet. I did recognize a little bit of his stuff from things he’s said on The Bugle – particularly saying Brexit “started as an Edinburgh show”, which I remember thinking was a great line when I heard it on a Bugle episode from a few years ago. It’s a great observation, that Brexit’s many iterations – an underground/fringe idea that gained more and more traction until it got its day in the sun and took over the mainstream – followed the same basic path as something like Fleabag.

Anyway, I occasionally get messages from people who ask me where they can start, if they want to know more about the stand-up side of Britcom, but aren't too familiar with it. This radio show would be a good place to start, giving you a snapshot of each year from 2012, right up to last year. And it's funny. It's so much fun.

2012 - Jason Cook (host), Nish Kumar, Celia Pacquola, Dan Schreiber, Kieran Hodgson, Jonny & the Baptists, Mae Martin

2013 - Mark Watson (host), Phil Wang, Tim Renkow, Ellie White, Liam Williams, Romesh Ranganathan, Aisling Bea

2014 - Jason Cook (host), Alex Edelman, Funz and Gamez, Suzi Ruffell, Gein's Family Giftshop, Lolly Adefope, Tamar Broadbent, Rhys James, Massive Dad, Natasia Demetriou, Dane Baptiste

2015 Episode 1 - Andrew Maxwell (host), Larry Dean, Daphne, Emma Sidi, Tez Ilyas, James Acaster Episode 2 - Alex Edelman (host), The Pin, Sofie Hagen, Mike Wozniak, Sam Simmons

2016 Episode 1 - Nish Kumar (host), Tom Ballard, Sophie Willan, Lazy Susan, Paul Foot Episode 2 - Tom Allen (host), Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Kieran Hodgson, Loyiso Gola, Al Porter

2017 Episode 1 - Sofie Hagen (host), Phil Wang, John Kearns, Flo and Joan, Radu Isac Episode 2 - Kiri Pritchard-McLean (host), Darren Harriott, Rose Matafeo, Jon Pointing as Cayden Hunter, Desiree Burch

2018 Episode 1 - Ahir Shah (host), Olga Koch, Rosie Jones, Anuvab Pal, Egg Episode 2 - Darren Harriott (host), Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Ashley Storrie, Rhys Nicholson, Jayde Adams and Richard Thomas

2019 Episode 1 - Jayde Adams (host), Helen Bauer, Sarah Keyworth, Nath Valvo, Henry Koperski, Catherine Cohen Episode 2 - Rhys James (host), Ian Smith, Alison Spittle, Sophie Duker, Ari Eldjarn

2023 Episode 1 - David O'Doherty (host), Dan Rath, Kuan-wen Huang, Micky Overman, Pierre Novellie, Lou Wall and Adam Rowe Episode 2 - Kiri Pritchard-McLean (host), Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, Lindsey Santoro, Tadiwa Mahlunge, Lorna Rose Treen and Dan Tiernan

2024 Episode 1 - Mark Watson (host), Dee Allum, Paddy Young, Colin Hoult, Kate Cheka and Guy Montgomery Episode 2 - Mark Watson (host), Hannah Platt, Marjolein Robertson, Ania Magliano and Huge Davies

[meret118]

The History of the TV Yule Log

The Yule Log premiered in full color on Dec. 24, 1966, at 9:30 p.m. on WPIX Channel 11 in New York City.

Although many duplicates and copycats exist, the original Yule Log — the one that started it all — was filmed in 1966 on 16-millimeter film at Gracie Mansion, the home of then-Mayor John Lindsay. Four years later, in 1970, WPIX decided to re-shoot the footage on state-of-the-art 35-millimeter film, as the original 16-millimeter footage had become worn down.

Unfortunately, when WPIX shot the original Gracie Mansion footage, to capture the log in all its flaming glory, the crew decided to remove the protective screen, and a stray spark damaged a valuable antique rug at the mayor’s residence. In 1970, the city didn’t exactly extend a warm welcome for the station to return to its original set.

So the station sought an identical fireplace to keep the tradition alive. One was eventually found in Palo Alto, California, and a crew of technicians was dispatched out to complete the re-shoot. 

This time, the team recorded a perfect 7-minute loop that magnificently captured the fire at its roaring best. It’s this iconic fireplace footage that has fascinated millions in the tri-state area and across the nation since 1970

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There's video of the original at the link.

[antivanplumage]

talya and jowan pls 👪💧🌙👑👑

haha YEEES

oc emoji asks

👪 FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings?

talya - Her father was an apostate, her mother didn't know, and her twin brother named Eirian wasn't a mage. Talya was taken to the Circle when she was only five, so she doesn't remember much about them at all. Afterwards, her father abandoned his family and ran for his life.

Eirian grew up resenting magic, his father who left them to struggle, and Talya herself. She was excited to find out she had living family in the alienage, but he threw her offer back in her face and told her to die. His wife was taken to Tevinter before she could show up and play the hero - he doesn't care what she has to offer him now.

He's absolutely haunted and horrified by how miserable his brother is. He just pretends he's not.

jowan - Canon details of Jowan's family: His mother was cruel and easy to anger, and refused to even look at him once his magic triggered and started referring to him as 'that thing.' His father eventually left him at a Chantry.

The Things I Made Up: Jowan is an only child, as far as he's aware, at least. His family owned a small farm, which is why his idolized 'perfect life' with Lily included the life he thought he could've had if he wasn't born a mage.

He says he's made peace with it all, and unlike Talya, that eventually becomes the truth.

💧 DROPLET - random angst headcanon

talya - He ends up falling out of contact with almost every single one of the people he cares for.

jowan - Jowan really envied Connor for having a mother that loved him so much, she was willing to defy the Chantry to keep him by her side.

🌙 MOON - what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it?

talya - Talya's greatest wish is a cure for the Calling, and she'll sacrifice almost everything for it. He'll turn to blood magic, ruin his own health, push his loved ones away, and run from his responsibilities.

jowan - His greatest wish has always been to live a simple life with someone he loves. After Lily, he had completely given up on that dream, and told himself he was happy with that. Being married to the Archon of Tevinter wasn't the perfect life he imagined for himself, but that's not a bad thing.

👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?

talya - She doesn't want to be remembered as anything at all. The idea of the Hero of Ferelden as some large rallying symbol somewhat sickens her, especially after she learns how Chantry scholars warped her image and removed the parts of her history from the record that weren't convenient to their narrative.

By the time Nero comes around and saves the world from yet another world-ending catastrophe, nobody talks about the Hero of Ferelden anymore, really. As far as the world is concerned, she died on her quest to find a cure for the Blight, and he couldn't be happier.

jowan - He's not entirely sure. All he really knows is that he wants to be remembered as someone better than the foolish man he was during the Blight, and he is.

also if you meant to send a fourth question and duplicated the crown instead, send that one in too?