#hopefully i get to a point where i can create a queue lol

[neeeooon]

PLS CONTINUE “shut me up” I BEG OF YOU

i’m working on ch 21 now! it should be finished soon 🥰

[cassowary-rapture]

I've spent more time reading the Discord than actually working at this point, mostly because I'm trying to take very short jobs until I've gotten the hang of it. Or something, because it's actually quite simple. It's just annoying dealing with all the speaker tags and atmospherics and having to adjust the timeline

That last one is especially time-consuming. There are like...colored segments on the timeline that correspond to caption blocks (each with 1-2 lines of text) in the transcript that you can adjust by dragging the sides of the blocks. But you can't drag the right side beyond the edge of the screen, so every time you reach the edge, you have to scroll forward in the timeline, then drag the caption block forward

And then you might run into other caption blocks. Like a recording starts with 5 minutes of piano music, so that would be caption block 1. But instead, on the timeline, there are six caption blocks for that 5 minutes, so you have to delete 2-6 and extend 1

And often 2-6 aren't just empty caption blocks. They contain text from later on in the recording. If you delete them from the timeline, you also delete them from the transcript. And if you don't want to delete them, you have to shift every single caption block forward. They're off, so the caption blocks for the entire recording are off

So next time, I think I'm going to just copy/paste the transcript elsewhere and then delete all the caption blocks and create my own. I imagine it would be a lot faster than adjusting the automatically generated ones

Oh. Also. If you right-click on the timeline to insert a new caption block, the caption block doesn't begin where you clicked. It begins several seconds before where you clicked and ends several seconds after, so you end up having to adjust both ends of it

A very minor thing, but it's still annoying

You can also add new caption blocks by going into the transcript and hitting enter, but then you have to adjust the new block and you run into the same problems as with the 5 minutes of piano music. It immediately causes problems down the line

I do like the Discord, though lol. I wish my old/current job had one. I suppose there's less need for one because it's easier and less confusing, but there is zero transparency or communication among contractors. It would at least be nice to find out what the others' pay rates are or what queues are busy at the moment, since there's no way to set an overall max

Like I can be assigned work from four queues with different turnaround times: 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 96 hours. The shorter the TAT, the higher the pay rate. The longer the TAT, the busier the queue. I like to aim for ~100 minutes of audio a day. Ideally I could set the max for every queue or just the two or three highest-paying ones to 100 minutes and then set an overall max of 100 minutes, so that I could accept work from any queue while avoiding overcommitting. But that's not an option, so instead I have to divide those 100 minutes between the different queues

Other than that and issues with the volume of work, possibly due to their hiring a bunch of people when demand for transcription/captioning increased during the pandemic and then not letting anyone go when demand dropped, my old/current job is great. And the volume should increase soon, between the fall semester beginning and access to legal transcription work

Hopefully it will increase enough that I can just do the new captioning job as a side hustle. Or not. They want everyone to get through 5 hours of audio per week and that seems very time-consuming, like full-time hours. And side hustles aren't supposed to be more time-consuming and stressful than your main job

Anyway, freelance transcription/captioning!

[pro-bee]

1, 6, 17, 18, 24 and 25 (for the thing i think you didn't reblog but i wanted to ask you anyway 💞 please answer only if you want to <333)

haha, it’s in my queue! But I can answer these early!

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

My current mega-fic (for me) is a post-”In The Wind” Tiva fic about Ziva readjusting to normal life and she and Tony navigating this whole family thing. 

The progress? Oof. I wrote a bunch of it at the start of the year, after Ziva’s last episode aired and I was inspired, and then when lockdown started in March, I thought, wow, surely I’ll have enough time to finish this... And I didn’t touch it for six months until last week. 

I have all these notes about “scenes” and whatnot and originally it was going to be this huge thing about their life in Paris and then deciding to move back to DC and then a whole other section about that... But I’ve decided to nix the DC part and just stick to the Paris part in an attempt to at least finish the stupid thing. 

Progress is... nonexistent lol. I mean the progress is that I decided to cut it short, I guess, so it gives a bit of a finish line, and then one scene I already wrote will end up being re-used as an ending... But there’s all this stuff in between I want to finish.

What I love most about it, I guess, is getting into Ziva’s head, and letting her kind of deal with the trauma of the last decade? And letting her spread her wings a little bit? And I kinda like that I’m playing with flashbacks a little to fill in some blanks. 

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

I don’t know if this counts as “fun,” but I definitely find Ziva the easiest to write, since she’s my fave. 

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

I mean, probably, because I am super critical of my own work, and find all the things I don’t like about it, and by and large most people reading it are lovely and only say nice things. 

I don’t know what would surprise people. That I mostly “hear” the characters as dialogue, and then write everything else around that? Basically, I’ll write out the conversations that I hear in my head, and then try to pad out the who/what/where/etc afterwards to connect it. 

I don’t think people would be surprised by my motivations at all; they’re to give these two characters the peace they finally deserve haha. 

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

This is such a good question, but not one I’m sure I can answer, haha. I mean, abandoned plot lines, definitely. Like I said, for the one I’m currently working on, I have this whole idea of switching cities, but I’ve dropped that entirely. Hopefully I’ll be able to re-use that for another fic, but given how long it’s taking me to just finish this one, I’m not hopeful, at least for the foreseeable future. 

Like I said, this current fic is a post-reunion story, and the abandoned plot is them deciding to move back to DC, and then there’s a whole thing about Ziva finding... something that unexpectedly gives her motivation and helps her find her niche, which I’ve sort of rolled into the current story instead. (I don’t want to talk about that part too much because at least this fic will get published at some point, even if I give up on it.)

There were also more scenes or “flashbacks” I wanted to include (e.g., Cairo, the immediate reunion when she lands in Paris, etc.) but I don’t think I’m going to get there, and don’t know that it’s going to work for the story as is.

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

I think so, a little! One thing is that when I started writing a few years ago, I still had every university/grad school prof screaming in the back of my head, “avoid repeating words, vary your speech” etc., so I would sometimes go out of my way to describe something differently if I feel like I’d used the same word before. Which isn’t a bad thing, in theory, but I think at a certain point, especially for prose, that can get stifling, or at least it is for me. So I feel like I’m writing more “naturally”, which isn’t necessarily better, but I’m coming around to accept that I don’t need to write fiction like a research paper. 

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Definitely dialogue! That always comes to me first. I don’t know if it’s because it’s based on the show, where we only see them in dialogue, so I’ve internalized the rhythm over the years, but I love writing the conversations between characters, as if I were “watching” them on TV. It doesn’t happen often, but I like creating the back-and-forth, especially between Tony and Ziva, although I feel the same about other characters as well. 

Thanks, @indestinatus!

[nikatyler]

Tomorrow I’m going to Italy for a week, so I quickly wanted to talk about some things and reply to your comments from the past month. This is my last chance before we go. I might have wifi (I had it the past two times we went to this place) but still, I don’t think I’ll be around too much. I’ll catch up later. Simblr, promise you won’t start any drama when I’m not here, thank you. I’ll be back on 30th July, I think. I’m not sure when exactly we’ll be home.

I haven’t started the BC yet, but I’ll work on it when I get home. I’ve often seen people say they played through their BCs quickly, so hopefully that’ll be my case too. I don’t want you to wait too long! (And yes, I also really want to know who wins. Obviously.)

You might have noticed that my queue is a little longer now. I’m posting 9 posts a day and it’ll stay like this at least until BPR ends, I think. Speaking of which, all of BPR gen 1 is queued/drafted (and ready to be queued)! It’ll last for the next two months or so and then, as I promised, NSB is back. I honestly can’t wait for these guys to come back.

Also, I finally finished reading Kingdom of Ash yesterday and ooh boy. It was good. However, looking back to when I read the first book of the series, I had no idea I would be signing up for this. Throne of Glass, man...simpler times :D

dandylion240 replied to your post “I have a spot for any sim with the name of Caleb. Love gen 4 Caleb and...”

Oh that's a cool idea. I could see them being best friends!

Exactly! I’m dying to get Strangerville to see their friendship in action. I almost bought it when it was on sale in June (?), but I couldn’t. I was so close though D:

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset “Alright, good morning everyone! This is where it’ll all take place....”

Loving this look for her!! It's kinda weird after being used to her with blue hair but I like it!!

Honestly I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but this always stopped me. I always knew how weird it would be because I’m not used to it, but then I just decided to go for it and suffer for a bit lol. Worth it!

desira-sims replied to your photoset “felt cute, might burn down your house later, idk ��‍♀️��...”

This is too cute!

She is an adorable sim *-*

starburstshores replied to your post “Ahh, now that I can, I don’t feel like creating the replies post at...”

I started my simblr in university but ofc it depends ��

mintsweettea replied to your post “Ahh, now that I can, I don’t feel like creating the replies post at...”

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't start playing Sims (on pc, I used to play the original GameCube one) until I was away at college so there's that ��

I believe that I will have some time to play sims. Maybe not as much as I had in high school, but there’ll be something. I’m just not sure what I want to do with this free time. If I really want to spend it all by playing sims, ya know? I want to finally have some real life when I’m in uni. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game, I love this community, but it’s not everything. I’m tired of being lonely irl.

xiapxls replied to your post “Re: how to get people to play ask games. Well, it would be helpful if...”

yeah it does i feel like a solid 2/3 of the asks i send just... disappear somewhere and never actually get delivered. it makes talking to people on this site pretty difficult :(

That’s weird...

Guys, if you ever send an ask and I don’t respond, chances are I couldn’t even see it because tumblr ate it. I try to answer everything I get. Feel free to send it again.

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “I have some tasks I need to work on…oooh, this ten seasons long TV...”

Hello, me

Me two

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Put some clothes on, you fool. “Nah.”

What's the deal with him?��

He’s too sexy for his clothes...wait, that was a song, wasn’t it? Don’t actually answer, I don’t want it to get stuck in my head :D

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Why would we watch the stars when the sky is so cloudy tonight? Oh…I...”

Gwyneth is a cutie❤️

She is! I can’t get enough of her face ;-;

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Take that as a yes, Eden.”

I'd be happy for them but this generation and spoilers about the pink kids make me rather suspicious ��

I can promise that we haven’t seen the last of Eden...but whether things will be good between them or not, I won’t reveal just yet.

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Geez…just thinking about ruined waffles is making me physically sick....”

Are that the waffles though?

It’s never really the waffles

sparkiemonkey replied to your post “Sooo...”

I've killed a few, nearly killed the whole set of an edit I'm working on. I forgot it was summer and had everyone in warmer clothing.

Oh my god, that makes me feel a little better about myself. That hasn’t happened to me...yet.

dandylion240 replied to your photoset “My kind lost their rainbow skin colours a long time ago. You could say...”

Favorite moment? It had to be when Ross and Caleb finally got together!!!

Ahh, I remember when I played through that! I don’t think I was going to get them together at that point, but then they were sitting there and I just thought “screw it, just kiss already”.

cloudberry-sims replied to your photoset “Roxanne Clare artistic | absent-minded”

Adorable!

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Roxanne Clare artistic | absent-minded”

Cute! ❤️

This legacy was blessed with adorable toddlers, just wait for it.

fogbrookcrossing replied to your photoset “Roxanne: “Food!” Gwyneth: “There you go, Roxy! Sorry it took me a...”

Roxy is so polite. ��

I mean...she’s not wrong.

froggypixel replied to your photoset “Be free, my child!”

Funny thing about this is that she’s literally headed down hill����

That’s the best thing about it!

[donutsandbagels]

WWHSTEO Report

It all began on Monday last week, when @introvertedpedant  told me that she was able to purchase one ticket for Saturday, and suggested that I check the website regularly because a few tickets were becoming available. Well, on Thursday night I was able to purchase the last one available for Saturday’s matinée! My hands were trembling, and I started to pace my apartment up and down. After about 20 minutes of pacing I calmed down (thanks to some grappa) and purchased plane tickets, train and hotel. At 4:30 am on Saturday I left for the airport and arrived in London around 11 am. After a quick breakfast I took the tube, got off at Embankment, and while crossing the bridge on a freezing sunny day I saw it: the National Theatre!    

I was already overexcited and directed myself to the ticket office. And finally it was in my hands: my most precious possession! 

It was early for the play, so I thought I would spend some time exploring the city. Turns out I could not make myself leave the theatre’s area. I felt compelled to stay. And it was the right decision! It was freezing outside, but I saw the “stage door”, so I started pacing up and down in front of it (lots of pacing in the past days LOL), until when… I saw him. Coming from the river side, orange hood popping out of his jacket, brown boots and a few locks of grey hair flowing out of his blue beret. My heart stopped. Our hero was walking pretty fast – and looking somewhat disoriented (and UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE) – along the building. I followed him, keeping a certain distance, still in disbelief about what I was witnessing. When he went inside I snooped on him through the glass door:

The way he walked, the way he moved, the way he leaned toward the reception desk when he got inside... I don’t know if I am too biased, or too obsessed, but I swear he’s so unbelievably adorable, so simple and charming, unpretentious, fascinating, spontaneous, magnetic... You can add a whole page of synonyms because he really is all of those things. Following this shocking moment, I felt like crying. It’s his fault. He’s too perfect.        

Well! After a while I entered the Dorfman

where I met @introvertedpedant : we were both very agitated and we encouraged one another to be strong during the play and - most of all - remember to breathe! LOL I was seated in the pit, 8th row. Good seating.

So, the play. I can’t be impartial because you know why, and also because I was paying attention only to him. Say he was standing motionless on the side, I would be looking at him, not at poor Cate who, center stage, was reciting her part.  

What I loved about the play: the stage setting in the garage with the big Audi on one side, the clothes swapping (Stephen looks terrific in everything he has on - women’s lingerie, black maid dress with white apron, blonde wig with white headpiece) and the roles swapping. I really don’t think there is anything I didn’t like!  

As for the actors’ performances, CB was excellent at playing her part and delivering her lines, but Stephen’s performance felt really on a different level. It was like the words SD was saying, line after line, were creating the character. Reflecting on it some time after the play, it made me think about that Charlie Rose tv interview he did in 2000 with Jennifer Ehle (I call it “the gesticulating interview”): 

"if you really say the lines, if you really speak the words as opposed to kind of glancing onto (...); the more you get into a bigger space, the more you have to become the words (...); you do have to say the lines with the rhythm, and there is a kind of truth inherent in that"

I would describe what I saw as a process in which language was materializing itself into the voice and form of “Man”, the character played by Stephen. If I close my eyes now, and think back about the play, I am sure there were moments in which I have witnessed perfection - I know theoretically it shouldn’t exist, but hey, there it was, in front of my eyes..   

After the play, I met again with @introvertedpedant and together we headed to the café to have a drink together. The story now revolves on @introvertedpedant , who cleverly noticed Conor Lovett in front of her queueing for drinks and asked him about How It Is (Part two), the play that has been announced for September in Cork. Conor was very nice and told us that hopefully they will be able to bring it also to London in March 2020 (let’s keep our finger crossed!).  

After we got our drinks (for me it was a big glass of Chardonnay, I needed some alcohol after all the shocks I had endured until then) we sat at a table to discuss the play we just saw. However, this did not really happen. Because… SOMETHING CAME IN THE WAY !!!

Yes, that’s him, HIM!!! Again, thanks @introvertedpedant for noticing him, because I was totally oblivious.  

You can imagine, we were panicking. Should we go speak to him? No, we cannot interrupt him, it’s rude. But we have to speak to him! We cannot lose this one-time opportunity! After a few minutes of internal and external debate about what we should do, my hero  @introvertedpedant took control of the situation and bravely went up to him. I duly followed. As @introvertedpedant will tell you, Conor Lovett kind of spotted her then introduced her to Stephen as the lady who had asked him about How It Is (Part Two).  

When it was my turn… gosh, I was not nervous at all. What? Nervous?!? I was much more than that!! I was stuck. Literally.  

Exhibit A: Initial situation (around the table: SD, CL, two women, @introvertedpedant  and me)

Exhibit B: as soon as @introvertedpedant went back to our table, the situation changed as follows:

You can see very well the unfortunate position of “me”. 

At that point I had very little control over myself. I didn’t realize that I needed to move, take one little step ahead. No, I was too busy awkwardly excusing myself for interrupting and blathering “thank you for making our lives better” to Stephen and then “no, really, thank YOU” when he thanked me (aww he’s so kind). The problem was that he had to twist his neck and eyes just to look at me… and I was even wondering why he was giving me that look LOL 

He gave me a little smile when I told him “Sorry but I had to tell you, in person!!” (I must have looked like a hopeless fool). Then I asked if he could sign my WWHSTEO booklet – of course I couldn’t find my pen… so Stephen searched in his jacket’s inside pocket and used his (HOW ADORABLE). He asked me “What’s your name?”. At that moment I realized : OH MY GOODNESS STEPHEN DILLANE IS USING HIS VOICE TO SPEAK TO ME !!! So, I told him my name (bending ahead and speaking in his hear like a prompter OMG) , he asked how I spelled it then proceeded to spell it himself E-L-E-N-A? “Yes, perfect!”, I told him, again bending over and talking in his ear. OMG WHY?! WHY?! I am still so ashamed... 

[/insert purely fangirl note]:  

 I had read from other fans who’d met him that he looks even more handsome in person than on the screen, and I can guarantee he does. Doesn’t even look his age. If only I could have touched him. In an ideal world I would have given him two very Italian cheek kisses. Just like that:

[/end purely fangirl note]

I have so many feelings about this experience, I think about it constantly. And if I calm down from the excitement of seeing, meeting and talking to him, I can say that what impressed me most about Stephen was his performance in the play. He didn’t exceed my expectations simply because my expectations were tremendously high. I was actually scared about what my reaction would be. Stephen’s performances in movies and tv affect me so deeply that I really feared how I would react to a live performance. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to handle it. Fortunately, I was able to get a grip on myself. For the whole performance, my eyes were fixed on him, my ears open, my senses heightened.  I don’t know how much it’s me with my fondness for SD and how much he really is that good. Biased as I may be, he was truly spellbinding. If I think about what I felt the moment he entered on stage… I want to bang my head into the wall because he was so good and I want to see him again.

You remember that interview that he did for Fugitive Pieces, where he says that, differently from film and tv, theatre gives him more narrative power and is a much more integrated experience?

Well, I say: please give this man all the narrative power he wants.

You won’t be disappointed. 

[labyrinth-of-headcanons]

@everyone who didn’t believe I could keep this blog running over my Japan trip

Doing the simple math from tomorrow until the 12th of November (I am coming back on the 11th but at least one more day free bc of jetlag lol) it’s 53 days until then. Taking that 2 times for 2 requests a day, I get 106. You know what also it 106? My queue.

Anyway, the special/headcanons ratio is not correct yet so I am going to write more, anyway. But you guys can officially consider me on vacation lol.

Gonna respond to some more tellonyms under the read more ~ if you want to send me a tellonym, you can find my account on this link! Come and visit me there!

Aww thank you! That means a lot to me, thank you for leaving such a nice comment and for being awesome! ^^

Thank you so much for the feedback nevertheless! I am glad that I have some strong points too, I see my own negative ones too much anyway lol. Also glad you like Chaima! Her story is already almost done (though it needs some beta reading before I can keep posting it lol) and I am really happy how everything turned out. You are a pretty great person too, thanks for stopping by!

You did very well, don’t worry fam! And no, I didn’t mind reading them at all (;

I hope these requests have multiplied by now! Hopefully, you got to read lots about your favorite on here! On the 4th of October (one day before my own birthday btw lol) it’ll be... 3 years I believe now? Amazing isn’t it :D Time flies by so fast hahahaha. I do enjoy writing (I probably wouldn’t be doing it so much otherwise lol). Honestly, you are probably skilled enough. I can only just put emphasize how much practice into my writing goes through simply writing you know. Also having one beta reader improved my writing so much because she’d always remind me of my faults to the point where I was like: Oh, wait not that way. I also took up my own studies since English is not my first language and grammar rules are sooo different from German. Just keep going, create the content you want to see no matter what barriers you think are between you and your goal ^-^ Sunshine anon always reminds me of poesie, which I really like, I’d write something like that too sometimes! Don’t worry, I am sure I will have the money for some magi-merch anyway (; We are going to various places and also take day trips while we are at these places. We’ll be visiting Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Sendai, Hiroshima and from there day trips everywhere lol. Fuji-san, Nikko, Hakone, Kobe, Iwami (My friend loves Free! so we are going on a pilgrimage there!), and so much more!!

Lastly, thank you for the nice conversation, I hope you have a lovely time too and I am happy to provide you with some good feelings!