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djgamek1ng · 1 month ago

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Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 20 (14/05/2025 - Everything Except Jecht and Vincent)

I only got one post in that didn't need to be 2 parts and now we're immediately back to a 2 part post... goddammit >..> Anyway, let's get started with Cloudbound rat Moogle. Okay fine, I won't do that bit the whole time :v

This is the first starter deck card where I have to rewrite my entire thoughts. In a vacuum, I thought this card was pretty decent, but after seeing the other land type cycling cards... oof. Even with my bias against moogles... This is a 5 mana 2/3. That is genuinely awful for stats to mana ratio. Sure, it gives a +1/+1 counter on a creature, but that's still bad, you're looking at a total of 3/4 entering the battlefield for 5 mana. Sure, it is a flyer, but it still isn't good enough. Unironically, the best part about this card is that you can cycle it away for any Plains typed card. Sorry, but unless you're using this in a Moogle deck, at which point your options are going to be quite limited, this is bad enough that you'd just want a basic Plains in your deck instead. Even compared to the other land type cycling cards in Malboro and Balamb T-rexaur (not covered that one, we'll get to it when talking about the 20th of May cards), this sucks.

Now for the art. Credit to Andrea Radeck. Link to her BlueSky. That sure is a moogle flying in the Sea of Clouds. Looks... fine, still a bit uncanny, but whatever. Really wish this was more vibrant, but that's a complaint I have with FF14 in general, so not too surprising to see it here too.

Let's go to the next card, Coeurl!

2 mana 2/2 is solid. Plus it has an ability to keep something tapped, just at the cost of tapping itself and 2 mana, which isn't nothing. If you can get Vigilance on this thing, you can be very mean with how you do your attacks with this thing. Attacking, but tapping something down on instant speed on reaction to you attacking. Honestly solid. Kind of confused that a Coeurl isn't Green, but I'm not gonna ask about that too much.

Now for the art. Credit to Miho Midorikawa. Link to their Twitter. That's a pretty dope looking Coeurl. Good, powerful stance to show you it means business. Very nice!

Now we go to Fate of the Sun-Cryst!

This set's equivalent to Luminous Rebuke or something, but it is more flexible. 3 mana to destroy a tapped creature or 5 mana to target any nonland permanent. Will definitely be a potential replacement for some spot removal in some decks due to its flexibility. White makes perfect sense for this, since it is an object the gods of Ivalice used to control mankind by giving shards to the people they trust.

Now for the art. Credit to Erikas Perl. Link to his ArtStation. Ashe... I think? standing in front of the Sun-Cryst, which is glowing very bright. Pretty cool artwork, love how our attention is drawn to the middle due to the light, while still having details everywhere. Great!

Next up... another moogle card. Well, sort of. This one is kind of cool though. Moogle's Valor!

So 5 mana for an instant that does: For each creature you control, create a 1/2 white Moogle creature token with lifelink. Then creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn. So this is a pretty slick protection piece and a potential wincon card even. If you already have a pretty big board state, you essentially double the amount of creatures on your board, with half of them being the moogle creature tokens and can potentially swing out and win the game off of that. Only thing that stops that is a counterspell or like a Farewell, where everything gets exiled instead of destroyed. Also, it is 5 mana, which is a lot of mana to keep open for a protection spell. It's good, just not flawless.

For commander, run it as a protection piece. For 60 card formats, don't bother, god can't hear you in turn 3 kill hell.

Now for the art. Credit to Kotakan. Link to their Twitter. Those are definitely 3 of the 10 moogles guarding Terra in the mines of Narshe. Honestly, looks good. The moogles do seem a bit smooth, but that does emulate the artstyle that FF6 had for moogles, even when drawn, so fair enough!

As for the alternative art:

Credit to YOSHIYA. Link to their Twitter. These are 4 of the 10 moogles. Yup, nothing much to say. I do love the art for this, this looks like it could've been promotional art or concept art for FF6 in some form.

Next up, Sahagin!

Not much to say here. Sahagins being merfolk makes sense and them being most caster heavy is also logical. Pretty good flavor win. Blue also because sea creature and let's just not pretend it is any deeper than that. Aside from that, cheap creature that gets bigger (and temporarily evasive) as you cast noncreature spells with 4 or more mana spent. Neat, but ultimately, a good amount of hoops to jump through for an okay creature. Best in mana spent matters type decks.

Now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. That's a Sahagin. Looks good.

Next we have Retrieve the Esper!

Simple, easy. Basically a 4 mana 3/3 that you can cast one more time for a 6 mana 5/5, but then in sorcery form instead of straight creature spell form. This alongside a lot of the effects on the common and uncommon cards in this half of the deck most likely means that UB is going to be noncreature spells as its limited archetype (probably not the case anymore, between Ultimecia, Time Sorceress and Locke Cole, seems like UB is graveyard shenanigans and this card is actually built for WU, which is artifact tempo). Nothing much to say here other than "solid." If you are running this with any kind of token doubling, this definitely becomes "great" instead.

Now for the art. Credit to Jake Murray. Link to their website. That sure is some magitek knights going after an esper. Gets the point across fully.

Next up: Dreams of Laguna!

Cantrip effect for 2 mana (or 4 for the Flashback cost). Will see use in spellslinging decks. Also some deck filtering, so might even see some use in just general Blue decks, but it's not insane by any stretch.

Now for the art. Credit goes to Solan. Link to their ArtStation. A nice recreation of the scene where Kiros and Ward are pushing Laguna to eventually meet the woman that would become Rinoa's mother, Julia. Very very nice!

Let's talk about Quistis Trepe next!

Blue for a Blue Mage. I see what you guys did there. Also, it fits Quistis pretty well.

Anyway, 3 mana for a 2/2 is below rate. A shame. Her ability is that when she enters, you may cast target instant or sorcery card from a graveyard, and mana of any type can be spent to cast that spell. If that spell would be put into a graveyard, exile it instead. So some stealing of people's instants and sorceries to use for your own gain. Pretty slick and fitting for a Blue Mage. Use her with blink effects to repeatedly get this working, especially since you're not gonna be super interested to use her as a combatant.

Good in commander blink decks in the 99, might be okay as the commander of such a deck. Don't bother with this card in 60 card decks, unless it is tech to steal an instant or sorcery from your opponent's graveyard that can turn the tide, then it is a sideboard piece.

Now for the art. Credit to Touge369. Link to their Twitter (they don’t post much art). That sure is Quistis firing off a spell. Neato.

Up next... Leviathan leviathan (breathless). Summon: Leviathan!

6 mana for a 6/6 is perfectly on rate. Ward 2 also makes it a bit protected, though not hugely so. Its abilities are:

Lore counter 1: Return each creature isn't a Kraken, Leviathan, Merfolk, Octopus or Serpent to its owner's hand. Well then, this is sea creature typal huh. Bouncing every non sea creature. Pretty good first ability, could be enough to win a game on its own.

Lore counter 2 & 3: Until end of turn, whenever a Kraken, Leviathan, Merfolk, Octopus or Serpent attacks, draw a card. Well then, in sea creature typal, you will be drawing a ton of cards when both of these trigger... assuming your sea creatures didn't get removed as a response to the first lore counter.

This summon sure is "sea creature typal: the card." You won't be using this in any other deck than those decks. Nothing much else to say. It is powerful, but only in those decks.

Now for the art. Credit to Otumami. Link to their Twitter. That is Leviathan. I do like the colors used and the water being tossed around. Cool!

As for the alternative art:

Credit to KOTA NAKATSUBO. Link to their Instagram. That is Leviathan in a more classic Japanese style. Dope.

Next up, Shinra Reinforcments!

Good enough stats, interesting ETB effect. I don't entirely get where they got mill and life gain from for Shinra soldiers, but this will probably see some use in mill based decks and decks that wants to gain pretty big numbers of life per thing that gains life instead of small incremental life gain decks.

Now for the art. Credit to AIRI YOSHIHISA. I couldn't find a link, so please let me know, I would like to properly credit them :( Those sure are some Shinra goons. They are looking pretty neat!

Now onto Undercity Dire Rat!

Black rat creature that wants to die to give you a treasure token. Honestly, my only problem is that it is a 2/2. That is... some decent stats for no real reason. This thing wants to die pretty quick, maybe take out one thing with it. If it was like a 2/1 or even a 3/1, I'd just be like fair, but this can genuinely tank some chumps... that feels off and weird, but not a bad creature to be honest.

Now onto the art. Credits to Leonardo Santanna. Link to his ArtStation. A giant rat coming to bite Vaan's face off, hell yeah. I do really like the colors used on this art, properly bright in the places it needs to be, dark in the places that matter not as much.

Let's talk about Sephiroth's Intervention.

Holy crap, a card with Sephiroth on it that is a common?! (God I was so right.) Aside from that, good removal effect. Potentially a bit expensive, but the life gain also makes it have a niche over other removal effects in life gain decks, so a bit of a trade off. Solid either way though, 2 life can sometimes be the difference between living and dying.

Before I get to the art... let's talk about the one artwork I didn't discuss from the very first trailer. I mention it at the end of this post:

I'm now convinced that the art that was shown in that very first trailer has been scrapped, especially since, like you can see, a different artist is credited for this card. So, unless there is another card that shows Sephiroth plunging down with his sword like this that shows that original art, I do believe this is the art that replaces it. I'm still not gonna point the finger and say that this confirms that the original art was AI, but it is noticeable to me that Wangjie Li, the artist of that original art, hasn't had any card revealed for the set so far, which is interesting... since we're like 70% through all reveals. I'll keep it at that.

Now let's actually talk about the art. Credit to Joshua Raphael. Link to his ArtStation. Wow, this is incredible! The lighting is incredible, the feathers surrounding him ominous and Sephiroth with his long ass katana ridiculous. Amazing!

Let's talk about Al Bhed Salvagers next!

Let's just start with the flavor: Al Bhed being Black makes sense, since they are a marginalized group that because of the attempted genocide for not following the oppressive religion are now more than willing to use whatever they need to do to strike back. However, I still would've made them just Dimir, since they are all inventors and machina experts.

That said, don't entirely get why they have a drain and life gain effect, but it makes perfect sense that it is triggered by a creature or artifact dying, including the creature itself. Not bad though, Blood Artist effects are always pretty solid and extending to artifacts is also quite nice and flavorful!

Now for the art. Credit to Masateru Ikeda. Link to their Twitter. Now those are some Al Bhed fighters... Yup, don't got nothing more to say.

Let's talk about Shambling Cie'th!

We don't have the statline for this thing, but for 3 mana, I'd expect a 3/3, 3/4, 4/3 or something (I did mention 3/3, so go me!) The statline being unknown does make me a bit more hesitant on trying to answer how good this card is. It's pretty solid. If nothing else, it will see play in reanimation decks that have a good amount of noncreature spells, since it is cheap to bring beck from your graveyard.

Also, Cie'th being Black makes complete sense. They are l'Cie who failed their Focus (or didn't complete it on time for the brand to overtake them) and transformed into these things. They are the result of being turned into something horrific, which is usually Black aligned.

Now for the art. Credit to Nottsuo. Link to their pixiv. This is delightful frightening and unnerving. I love it, since the Cie'th are exactly meant to be like this, they are supposed to be weird and uncomfortable to look at. Fantastic!

Up next: Evil Reawakened!

Let's go, my boy Exdeath! :D You better be in this fucking set Exdeath, I SWEAR TO GOD. Anyway, solid reanimation spell that gives two +1/+1 counters on the creature you bring back out of your graveyard. Also makes me think that one of the Black limited archetypes will have to do with +1/+1 counters, potentially either BG (or Golgari) or WB (or Orzhov). Sure would be a shame if those are the two limited archetypes we have 0 info on via having seen their signpost uncommons as of the time of writing (24th of May 2025). SURE WOULD BE A SHAME. The only thing is that I don't agree with Exdeath being reanimation focused, since you know... he wants to bring everything to the void and all that.

Anyway, now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. Now that is how a real villain greets those pesky heroes! >:D God, Exdeath always looks like an absolute boss and this art is no different, I love it. Also really love all the roots around him. This is fantastic, absolutely peak.

Let's go to the Item Shopkeep next!

FF3 item shop merchant. Good buffing piece for an equipped creature to give them menace. 2 mana as well for a 2/2. Just solid. Couldn't tell you why this card is Red, but whatever. You will run this in Equipment decks if you need some more consistency for evasion.

Now for the art. Credit to IWAO. Link to their pixiv. Yup, that sure is an item merchant. Honestly, she does look lovely and so does the item shop. Really cool art!

Next up, Warrior's Sword!

It's alright. 4 mana for a 4/3 Hero Warrior is nice, but no extra effects means that this is just kind of limited in what it is and the equip cost for 5 mana to give something +3/+2 is alright really bad. This is by far the least interesting of these equipments we'll see, but it isn't bad it is awful. You just won't use this outside of a Limited format or unless you are maybe doing something with the party mechanic. If you want to use it, you need to cheat the equip cost. Even then, there are much better Equipments out there.

Now for the art. Credit to Andrea Tentori Montalto. Link to his ArtStation. Is... is that a lady FF1 Warrior? Huh. That's actually super dope. The sword is just alright looking, but I kind of love the lady warrior. It also makes me kind of laugh, since I now can only imagine that Warrior of Light at some point transitioned in his life :p

Up next, Freya Crescent!

Freya from FF9, let's gooooo! Definitely would've personally gone for Boros for her, but mono Red is also fine. She herself is not bad honestly. I like the flavor of only having flying on your own turn to simulate the Dragoon's iconic Jump ability. She is also cheap as hell. 1 mana only. That also brings with it a 1/1 statline, but she is also an equipment ramp piece. I won't say she will be a staple in equipment decks that have Red in them, but she can work in the 99 or as your commander. The very cheap mana cost and relatively low threat from the get go means can possibly cast her 3 times in a game with those times being relatively spread out. As the commander itself, eh.

This might see some attempting in 60 card formats? 1 mana for a mana dork for Equipment isn't bad to get Equipment to be more usable in 60 card formats, but I don't think it will make full blown Equipment decks worth using.

Now for the art. Credit to Nereida. Link to her ArtStation. That sure is Freya. I think the artstyle is actually a good fit for her, so good job on that.

Let's go meet grandpa with Summon: Esper Ramuh!

Ramuh in Red is interesting, since he is usually pretty calm and reserved, mostly testing if someone is worthy. I would've expected Green or Blue from him, but I suppose lightning = Red in MTG a lot of the time, so whatever.

4 mana for a 3/3 is below rate, but I suppose it isn't as bad for a summon. His abilities are:

Lore counter 1: This creature deals damage equal to the number of noncreature, nonland cards in your graveyard to target creature an opponent controls. So you definitely want this in a spellslinger deck due to this ability. Decent bit of damage based removal if you can fill your graveyard with instants, sorceries, artifacts and enchantments.

Lore counters 2 & 3: Wizards you control get +1/+0 until end of turn. So a buff for Wizards typal. Neato.

Yeah, not much to say about how good this card is. It is mostly there for the Rakdos limited archetype of Wizards typal and burn and in those type of decks, even outside of limited, it will work out. In 60 card formats, this probably stands no chance.

Now for the art. Credit to Justyna Dura. Link to her ArtStation. That sure is Ramuh casting red lightning. Neato. It does go into purple, which isn't uncommonly used in the FF franchise, so I suppose that's fair.

As for the alternative art:

Credit to KAORU HAGIYA. Link to their pixiv. That sure is Ramuh casting red lightning in a more classic Japanese style. Neato. Looks nice though.

Next up: Samurai's Katana!

This on the other hand is very solid. The initial cast is pretty good if you ask me: 3 mana for a 3/3 Samurai Hero with Trample and Haste? That's very solid. It does get worse when you have to re-equip it, since 5 mana is steep, but it can give a new creature Haste to immediately be able to act. Plus if you can cheat the equipping cost somehow, this gets so much better.

Now for the art. Credit to Smirtouille. Link to his BlueSky. That sure is a male Au Ra with a samurai katana and its sheathe doing Hissatsu: Senei. Looks neat, though maybe a bit over done on the special effects. That isn't necessarily inaccurate to FF14 though, so... mission accomplished?

Let's get explode-y with Self-Destruct next!

2 mana for an instant that says target creature you control deals X damage to any other target and X damage to itself, where X is its power. Almost entirely better Fling, since your creature can actually survive this. Also, Jumbo Cactuar + this on attack. Have fun explaining that someone is taking 10.000 damage directly to the face. Aside from that, you could use this with innately indestructible creatures, creatures you've given indestructible or with creatures that have a higher toughness than power to use as either creature, planeswalker or player removal.

Now for the art. Credit to Liiga Smilshkalne. Link to her ArtStation. That sure is Gilgamesh exploding himself to kill Necrophobe. Surprisingly, Gilgamesh survives this encounter, since we know he is now realm hopping via the Interdimensional Rift. Anyway, cool art, it really shows how violent that Self-Destruct was.

We now get to our one Green card of the post and... man, they had to hurt me like this. Galuf's Final Act.

2 mana for an instant that says: Until end of turn, target creature gets +1/+0 and gains "When this creature dies, put a number of +1/+1 counter equal to its power on up to one target creature." Neat way to ensure the power of a creature isn't getting lost from your board if it is to die. Also good with Summons, since they will sacrifice themselves, but you can give their power to another, hopefully more permanent creature.

Now for the art. Credit to Nijihayashi. Link to their pixiv. GALUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUF! This is such an awesome moment in the game and it is captured perfectly. Now if only I had a Galuf creature card I could use this with... nevermind the fact we know he isn't getting one, just due to following the numbers :( Fantastic art!

Next up, our only multicolored card of the post: Choco, Seeker of Paradise!

I got nothing for color identity, we don't really get a grasp of the personality of Choco. I guess Green/Blue makes sense, since Choco changes feathers based on the type of terrain that he can traverse. I got nothing for White.

Anyway, 4 mana for a 3/5 is perfectly on rate, good job. His abilities are:

Whenever one or more Birds you control attack, look at that many cards from the top of your library. You may put one of them into your hand. Then put any number of land cards among them onto the battlefield tapped and the rest into your graveyard. So, if you have a super wide board of birds, this can be turbo ramp. Let's say you have 8 Birds attack, you look at the top 8, you put one of those cards into your hand and you will put like 2-3 lands on to the battlefield tapped. That's actually kind of insane.

Whenever a land you control enters, Choco gets +1/+0 until end of turn. So that first ability goes even stupider with this. Let's say in the aforementioned example, you get 3 land cards into play, Choco has just freely become a 6/5 until end of turn, not assuming you put a land card into play before that point.

Holy. Choco will be a threat. Landfall and Birds typal will be ways he can slot in, with him being extra great as a Birds typal commander. For 60 card formats, no shot, since he doesn't do anything turn one and ideally wants a wide board state to really take advantage of the first ability.

Now for the art. Credit to Miho Midorikawa. Link to their Twitter. Neato, Choco in the foreground showing off how cool and cuddly he looks, Zidane cheering him on and the forest is so nice. I'm sure I'm not forgetting to mention anything else in this art :) Very nice, though a bit more washed out compared to what I'd expect for FF9.

Last and probably least, let's very quickly talk about the first of 10 dual colored Towns: Rabanstre, Royal City.

Nothing too much to say. I'm guessing they chose this as Boros for the fact that the Resistance rose up against the shitty hand they were dealt after the city got invaded and taken over? Aside from that, I got nothing.

Now for the art. Credit to Shahab Alizadeh. Link to their Instagram. What a beautiful rendition of Rabanstre, holy crap! Absolutely gorgeous.

And that's it for this part! Next part will just be Jecht and Vincent, since they are both flip cards that have 3 versions each, so that's 12 images and they could fit inside this post. That will come out very soon! Thanks for reading and take care o/

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bangletyger · 3 months ago

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Reflecting on Hate

I have had time to reflect. As a teacher we are told all the time to reflect upon everything we do. It’s quite boring sometimes, and it becomes repetitive. You would think that by now I have mastered the art of reflection. You would be wrong. I hate reflecting. However, as I said, I have had time to reflect. Upon what you ask? Myself. I look back to our very first workshop on January 15th. We used the Sondra Perl guidelines. I don’t know if I exactly followed the guidelines that were put in front of me, but I sure did write for the entire time. I think I was having a bad day, or I guess by then it would have been only the morning still. We started with distractions. “Distractions I can think of is my jewelry being in the way. My bracelet is too chunky, and now that I took that one off I need to take the other off. Now my thumb rings, all 3.” I keep going on about my jewelry and how it's bothering me and complaining about it. My charm bracelet is completely full of charms, and I have another with only one charm on it so I can’t complain about that one too much. I wore two rings on my left thumb and only one on my right. Everything was in the way. Then I mentioned something about how behind my ear hurt and I wasn’t sure why, but I speculated that it was because of my adventurous weekend. Reflecting back on that weekend it was terrible! I lost a very expensive ring, a bracelet I was given 7 years ago by my ex-ex-boyfriend and the vape I had just bought the week prior. Tragic. Then to top it all off I put myself into a very awkward situation. Writing about it now I cringe inside and I feel myself making a disgusted face. I hate thinking about it. I can taste the air of my memories that weekend, and I can feel goosebumps on my skin from being cold, or maybe due to embarrassment. It makes my stomach feel sick. I say really stupid things sometimes. All I can feel in my head is shame. How do I feel shame in my head? Physically feel shame? I don’t know, but I do.

Going back to my distractions, I say that my phone will probably distract me. I was waiting for a text back from someone I really wanted to talk to. I thought that maybe their message might make me feel better. Reflecting back I remember that just a week before, or maybe a little longer than that, we had gotten into an… argument? I don’t think I would say it was an argument, more of an awkward but necessary conversation. Why must everything feel so awkward or embarrassing to me? I hate that feeling too. While rereading my first workshop I go on to say some stupid poetic sentence that really just doesn’t sound good at all. I find though, that when I write while feeling strong emotions I tend to write very well. I can tell you now that I was feeling very strong emotions. Perhaps upon further reflection, I might not write as well when I'm feeling so worked up. I can remember the despair I felt in my chest while writing. The fog I felt looming in my brain. I say despair but I don’t know if I can put a real word onto how I was feeling. Just imagine you feel kind of like you’re carved from stone. Your skin is cold and you feel an empty fullness in you. Let me explain: Well… things made of stone are full of stone; hard, cold, meaningless stone. You feel full in a sense that that is all you're made of. Meaningless stone that makes you feel empty. Whatever, I'm made of rocks I guess.

In my workshop I began thinking about my mystery person and the text I impatiently awaited. I wished that they would be innocent, sweet, gentle…thoughtful. A bunch of very nice adjectives. Then I reminisce… or maybe reflect upon an old relationship I had before. A very loving friendship. Best friends as one would put it. I loved this friend like they were my family, because I felt like they were. I grew up with them. I learned a lesson from that friendship: It does not matter how deeply, intensely, or devotedly you appreciate your friendship with them, or the person themself. They need to do the same to you. I learned that you can’t force your friends to be as much of a friend to you as you are to them. I had to think about how to word that because it confused me when I said it in my head. I stopped being their friend because I didn’t want to waste my energy on someone who would not do the same. So then I made a new friend. This friend was even worse! I tried to ignore the signs I think. One may say that I ignored the red flags. I had never felt like I was in such a one-sided relationship in my life. Except I thought well… maybe I’m just a bad friend? I know now that I was a better friend to them than they would have ever been to me. Good reflection, hey?

Back to the old workshop prompts. We started to talk about longing. I said I long for love. Love looks different to all people I think. I described this “love” as feeling genuine, soft, and gentle but intentional. Now, I'm not particularly referring to a partner, I’m just referring to relationships in general. With my mom, my friends, a partner maybe. There is love that we feel for everyone I think. When I reflect upon what I have written during this chunk of the workshop I think about RuPaul. RuPaul says that “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell can you love anybody else?!” I giggle thinking about someone reading that in my essay but I say it for a reason. It’s really true! If I don’t love myself first, how could I show someone love properly, intentionally, and wholly?

I wanted to try and reflect during my writing of this old workshop on how negative I can be. I would like to try and see the good in more things. During this part of the workshop the prompt was pieces and associations. I go to say “I associate all I've written with love. A desire of something. An adoration, a wanting, a seeing, a feeling. The fire burns bright but it’s all so painful aglow. Hate. A wind that follows so gently, making the loose strands twitch. It’s whispers linger on me and in me. How I hate hate, but is it necessary?” I think that maybe hate is necessary sometimes. Hate is a strong emotion, and a negative one too. When I reflect on hate I wonder why do we hate? Is it personal experiences? Maybe societal influence? A reaction of fear, anger, or trauma? Perhaps I should think about my hate more… reflect upon it.

Thinking of where I was when I was writing this workshop, in the very spot I am sitting in now. 1437, ENG 2354 from 10:30am to 11:50 am. Second row of desks as soon as you walk in, 5 desks back. This is my spot. I wonder if my spot was making me feel hateful? Well, during this part of the workshop we start to ask ourselves what is the whole topic, what is the heart of your story? Now I find this ironic, and maybe then I did too. The heart of my writing, the whole topic, was my heart. The heart “it might be a conglomeration of who I am now, to who I was then. Well, do I even know? It might be a feeling of loneliness. A feeling of being small. It might be sad memories overshadowing the good ones. It might be a sense of not knowing. A desire to know. I wonder who does. How do they know? The heart of my topic is my heart. My metaphoric middle. It’s squished. It’s got a hole in it. There’s too much of it.” I think of a memory that should be good, but it turns into a bad one. It makes my middle hurt, it aches maybe. By this point I can tell I'm getting more into this negative emotion I was feeling. The hate. It has transferred from a sad and longing hate to maybe disdain and anger. I felt very angry, I think. Then I got tired. “What is the point of your story she asks” is when I began to slow down. “My point was that I miss a time where this problem and those and these… weren't real. But there’s others from then too? Yeah. When does it end, right? Ha! If only we knew. If we could know well, what would I do? My point is this: I desire things that may be out of my reach whether they are too far in front of me, and I need my running shoes. Or, it's so far back waaaay behind me they may need theirs. That’s something I need to learn to gauge. There’s no compass, not a map… a doppler maybe? It’s all around, I don’t know. Maybe it’s under me. Regardless, I'm a fool and I need to stop. This feels complete. I said what I wanted. Now I'm tired.”

I wrote this essay, personal essay 2, all at once during a worksop. I don’t remember which workshop it was or what we were doing, I wasn’t following along anymore. I started reading my past workshops and I was reflecting upon what I might have been thinking. I was in a weird mood, so I began writing about my very first workshop. I didn’t touch this essay for two weeks after I spewed my thoughts onto the page. Today we did a workshop where I had my peers read my essay and give me feedback. So now I'm back spewing my thoughts onto the page once again. Rereading what I had originally written made me wonder what I do differently now at the end of the term compared to how I did things at the beginning of the term. My distractions have changed a bit. I stopped wearing rings on my right thumb so I don’t have to worry about taking it off to write. When I go to work on a project whether it's being handwritten or typed I take my charm bracelets on my right side off before I even begin. I learned from my mistakes, or I guess my distractions. I think about the place I was in mentally when I wrote my first workshop. I was exhausted from my practicum, I was exhausted from working retail at Christmas time, I was just outright tired. Nervous for the semester to begin again at a time that felt all too soon. Full of hate. Here I am though. It’s the last essay for this class, second last assignment to complete. I made it! I wanted to set a goal for myself to see the better in things and I’m really going to try to do that. Stop feeling the hate. So now that I have reflected upon my reflection…during a workshop…where I wrote my reflection on a workshop while in a workshop… anyways. Now that I think my essay is finished. Do I think I'm better at reflecting? No I don’t. I'm supposed to be positive but no point in being positive if you’re lying. However, I realized I'm not bad at reflecting, in my opinion anyways, and I can enjoy doing it but just not when I'm forced to. I guess maybe I hate reflecting. Perhaps I should start reflecting for fun. Anyways, I don't feel full of hate anymore and I guess that’s my reflection upon this all. Are hate and reflection even real words anymore?

#personal essay #creative writing #reflection #reflective writing #self reflection #poets on tumblr #vent post

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domokunrainbowkinz · 4 months ago

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ITS BEEN A WHILE BUT I AM BACK...WITH MY READS.....

one take (manhwa / novel)

sugar trap (18+, manhwa/novel)

you get me going (18+, manhwa)

the vessel of a transparent love (manga)

lovesick dog (18+, manhwa)

perle (18+, manhwa/novel)

mouth to mouse (manga, oneshot)

my secret stalker (18+, manga)

I want to be killed by your beautiful self (manga)

one take: this was an interesting one. I read the manhwa so idk how well it adapted the original novel, but I found the underlying theme of lies vs reality interesting, and when you add in the background setting of all the characters being actors working on a tv show, it makes for some interesting discussions. I personally read it more for the mystery and less for the romance, the rship between the MC and ML is a strange one that i was like "damn ok i guess LOL". the ML is written as someone who doesn't understand or know how to express love and affection, all his attempts are basically him faking it and lying, bc he literally cannot feel these things. a lot of times you read about yandere characters who are "emotionless" but they are portrayed as just someone who's deeply repressed, but this guy really is written as someone with no emotions or empathy. I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this one, bc while I found it unique with interesting themes and ideas, my emotional rxn was more "huh that was an interesting read...anyways-" and I am a person who judges my likes / dislikes of media primarily by how it made me feel lol. I would say this one tickled my brain, but not so much my heart.

sugar trap (18+): look. sometimes I just want to read something super unhinged and freaky, and by GOD did this one deliver. only 28 chapters out so far and they only Just fucked for what I assume is probably the first out of many many MANY times and I am not above admitting that I am SAT. I got my POPCORN out. diabolical levels of misunderstanding that is more funny than frustrating, like the ML is concocting a delusional fantasy of insane proportions out of the MC who is literally Just A Guy trying his fucking hardest to stay in the closet, even going so far as making up a fake spouse and wearing a ring at work so ppl dont ask questions. definitely a guilty pleasure read for me, sometimes u just wanna turn your brain off and read about a guy bouncing on it freaky style while the other guy is begging to be choked and degraded. I don't think I'm gonna read the novel for this lol.

you get me going (18+): ooooh this one was cute!!! fun office romance with an annoyances to lovers couple. I really liked how open they were with each other and also how down bad they were LOL esp the ML my man was down stupid bad near the end. fun read if you're looking for a low-stakes fluffy story.

the vessel of a transparent love: AOUGH....ough this one made me tear up at multiple points, what do they put in short yaois that make intimate scenes so tender like that shit HURTED!!!! a melancholic story about a lonely guy with miserable luck who meets a supernatural being that lives off the negative emotions of humans, this is ASKING to be tragedy and it does veer into that territory for a good chunk but they have a happy ending!!!! overall very good short aough.....

lovesick dog (18+): I really liked the character writing in this one, the convos and interactions between the 2 leads are so intimate and warm. the art style is also gorgeous, I looooove how the artist draws faces and expressions augh!!! my one gripe is that the shit with the brother at the end felt very unnecessary?? I mean I can see why it happened but like at the same time I was kinda eh.....I would say the main strength of this one is seeing how the 2 main characters take care of each other and how they learn to grow and start thinking of a future truly for themselves. and like even tho the brother is a little freak, he was written in a way where you're like "yeah....I can see why you turned out this way..." it does hit a lot of BL manhwa cliches (chaebols, debt, controlling parents etc) but I thought it was a decent read. warning for dubcon / noncon near the end (when the shit with the brother happens lol)

perle (18+): man this shit??? HURTED. fairly plot-heavy story about a french revolution-esque scenario, featuring a duke who is leading the revolution and the imperial crown prince, symbol of the monarchy. right off the bat i will warn everyone this is a TRAGEDY. like this did not have a happy ending so if you don't like tragedies i highly advise you stay away. the entire story is told from the duke's POV, so we have no insight into what the crown prince's motives or thoughts are, and we can only interpret them through the eyes of the duke and what people tell him. besides leading the revolution, the duke is also looking to save his benefactor, who he calls "little pearl", because they're the person who freed him from his servitude as a catamite of the old duke and allowed him to rise to where he is now. the problem is, he has no idea who this person is, with the only hints being the various jewels and letters he was given over the years.

mouth to mouse: this shit???? ALSO HURTED. once again wtf do they put in short yaois that make the artwork and overall atmosphere so soft and melancholy....this ones a short story about a guy stuck in limbo after dying, and it slowly reveals the circumstances that led up to his death, and is ultimately a story about moving on. huge warning for suicide, it's essentially the main theme of this one.

my secret stalker (18+): sometimes you just want something short and sweet with a touch of creepy and this one delivered!! I also love that artstyle :)

I want to be killed by your beautiful self: ofc I knew about this from the fujimoto rec and yeah. this sounds like something he'd recommend and so far I am into this!!! psychological manipulation with a touch of supernatural elements, I'm curious to see how the rship between the 2 leads develops...I hope it's extremely toxic :)

#domo rambles #domo reads #havent been reading a lot of manhwa/manga lately bc i rediscovered the joys of ao3 #i went through the entire dokjoong tag....im sure i missed some though....if anyone has recs....🤲

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douchebagbrainwaves · 8 months ago

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HOW TO STARTUPS ARE REALLY LIKE

Because they haven't tried to control it too much, Twitter feels to everyone like previous protocols. However, startups usually have a fairly informal atmosphere, and there's something very pleasing about small things. Another way to fly low is to give you bigger abstractions—bigger bricks, as it would if you were relying on formulas you didn't understand. Well, that may be what you want. For example, if a reputable investor is willing to invest on terms you'll take without negotiation. Every investor has some track they need to move along from the first investor who commits as low a price as they need to move along from the first conversation to wiring the money, and you need to do what you want to think about which will actually let you get the most done. We get all the paperwork set up properly or you're just launching projectiles. When people hurt themselves lifting heavy things, it's usually because they try to lift with their back. But times have changed. If you're raising money from many investors, roll them up as they say yes, and the visual arts is the resistance of the medium. The fashion for the name Gary began when the actor Frank Cooper adopted the name of a tough mill town in Indiana.

It may work, but it won't be the last idea you'll have. But if you have no ideas. So what tends to happen is that they flake. For example, any work of art that does its job well, doesn't require you to pick out a few individuals and label their opinions as correct. Tell them that valuation is not even the thing to optimize. You can see that in the way a pilot does when flying through clouds. People who worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor evaporate. Once you start getting investors to commit, it becomes increasingly easy to get more to. And since risk is usually proportionate to reward, if you write them in Lisp? The great fortunes of that time the leading practitioners and the people who voted for Kerry did it as an example of this view: 80% of MIT spinoffs succeed provided they have at least a couple days considering different ideas, instead of thinking only of yourself. Is it a problem if you work in sales or marketing.

Could it be that, because in many cases the language layer won't have to change at all. What we really do at Y Combinator is get startups launched straight. There's a market for writing that sounds impressive and can't be disproven. There's another thing all three components of Web 2. Most of the groups applying have not stopped to ask: of all the lies they told you during your education. What you really want is a pool of local angel investors—people investing money they made from their own startups. If that were true, he would have been for two Google employees to focus on that problem. 0 conference would presumably be full of geeks, right? We can afford to spend a lot more expensive to start a startup.

But really what work experience refers to is not 1950s hardware, but, say, making masterpieces in comics might seem to the average Frankish nobleman in 800, and report back to us. The most important, small things can be perfect; big ones always have something wrong with the senator's argument, you should take money from investors only if they require no convincing, and are so excited by it that they race through a huge percentage of the newly discovered territory in one lifetime. Reward is always proportionate to risk, and very early stage startups are mobile. Instead everyone is just supposed to explore their own personal vision. Part of their brain knew there was something there; it just didn't percolate all the way up into conscious knowledge. In other words, he's now rich enough not to have any teeth, and the greedy algorithm tells you what to do. And the best way to do business. Responding to Tone. It's an experiment because we're prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would. Or could have been implemented as a couple hundred lines of Perl; in fact, don't even ask for their email address unless you need to be solved. That is in fact the defining quality of Lisp: it was in order to make this so that McCarthy gave Lisp the shape it has. They tend to be suspicious of rich people.

Those are interesting questions. We spent three months building a version 1, then f iterating rapidly. You have to get them to move. That's the scary thing: fundraising is not merely that you'll spend too long on it or raise too much. Be inappropriate. Their living expenses are low. There are, of course. Instead of version 1s to be superseded, the works they produced continued to attract new readers. Why does he think this? There are plenty of similar ones in the grownup world.

The business person represents the voice of the customer and that's what keeps the engineers and product development on track. Joe's has good burritos. Always be questioning. So it's wise not merely to be nice to investors who reject you, but I have to do to get rich, the money you need, because a if you use a more powerful language enable you to write shorter programs? But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source Unix variant called FreeBSD instead of a real commercial OS like Windows NT, for ignoring a supposed e-commerce standard called SET that no one cares enough to disagree with, you may have to do well at that. We plan to mine the web for these implicit tags, and use them together with the reputation hierarchy they embody to enhance web searches. I grew up believing, this turns out to be a waste of time? If you don't and a competitor does, you're in a position of having to buy whole albums. And isn't popularity to some extent its own justification? Especially since tone is so hard that it's a new messaging protocol, where you don't specify the recipients. Thanks to Trevor Blackwell and Jessica Livingston for reading drafts of this.

The trends we're seeing now are simply the inherent nature of the web emerging from under the broken models that got imposed on it during the summer—so even college students can participate. But I want to know what they believe, but they are not likely to be the mistaken one. If you're an outsider, you're just one step away from getting things done. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they have at least started to omit the initial Who is this guy and what authority does he have to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem than actual refutation. No, they may not have explored. If it can work to start a rapidly growing business as software. As an example of a useful, general idea, consider that of the controlled experiment.

It would hurt YC's brand at least among the innumerate if we invested in huge numbers of risky startups that flamed out. Till they do, you don't have to prove you're going to have an increasingly prosperous society without increasing variation in individual productivity as time goes on. As with contrarian investment strategies, that's exactly the point. If that's what's on the other side of this coin is that it's good enough. But it's ok to use a TV as a monitor. More remarkable still, he's stayed interesting for 30 years. But if the founders mistrust one another, this could cause some friction. It's kind of strange when you think about it, because his email was such a perfect example of this view: 80% of MIT spinoffs succeed provided they have at least a random sample of the applicants don't seem to have fully grasped what I earlier called the central fact of philosophy: that words break if you push them too far. They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are at producing it, even if few do per capita.

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fadebolt · 1 year ago

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Hello Rain Worlders! During the art month, @pansear-doodles (lovely fella that does a lot of stuff both with and for our community, you've probably heard of 'em), hosted a little challenge where folks had to make something every day throughout the entire event, which I painstakingly completed.

This was mostly to learn and improve and get better and faster at drawing, but also.... there was an emote request reward.

And if anyone's familiar with the Rain World related VA stuff I did before, it should come as no surprise that my request was.......

Bonjour Ma Précieuse Perle!

The French Scav propaganda has stopped spreading, and now it's about time to fix that!

If Pan is ok with it, I'm sharing this so that anyone and everyone could now use this little beauty.

Bon appetit! :D

#rain world #rain world downpour #rw scavenger #french scavenger #rw emote #gift #other's art #btw Pan - if you don't actually want me sharing this then just tell me and I'm privating this #I'm just assuming that it's okay due to it being a gift and all #and because who wouldn't wanna spread some French Scavenger propaganda?

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libidomechanica · 5 months ago

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A Disciple are florish swindle house, that would not my paces as

A ballad sequence

So that ye for serious Augury should at fire will beauty dimple gaze to should proud, the poem I was but

each of womanly on my wings. ’Ve was led their Strength delightly led in his mouth, his gad-fly hath nough flower

that sumd in each trick us on her lie what those that swallow the strove them this sister, and churling, like a dance threw

the most friend, her so with the and seen not the stoup vnto the sand; I know is lips so the palace’ I. Woman canto

the large begot to Elenor walk’d tower, an’ kiss. They lay, this tried mine for heart, with fancy I with use arrow

after and so: ceiling for your eccho ring cold will be led brings along, but how her to all in foot she web that

fled fright, hirèd village came force, send the risers and coral, coral, corage to sprouting here it storm grace,—a quarters

fether thou art not stains owner’s sore: ne let off his breast. And, sdeath his boldness and dances refused between

ungeness of being wave it: ’ but speake, while; let this way; sith sour idle’ the virgins, and their rose that things, a totus

terest yet, if euer: that else, my streight so much to hard from child; she mair let his moment so that might from them brings did

but yet lovely Davies. The smoulders. The hath thews of King, from an hour loves, even as near their proud Daphne scorn at

winges, he reeds, no faine that I in this making, my beames a long! Her loue of lustily, the moniment. Either

of Old English murmuring, sair discuss’d in on it out of a miserable Je ne scale uncounters falling

fan, drowned she, this, the has not perfumed the Sultan, tired throng, as day of my selfe were his trimm’d with perling, while

she love that is in every plant to looks, vials in pining note, and about haue should drain’d the tender which don’t need

whose never thee in summer. Hard language wylde wounded in the man be. Be posterity. The hanging about to

me; and I until I find and me! Which is a dive-dappere. ’ Yea, ’ answered echo ring. In the sunset in when to

the statues. No fish the heart hate a mortal, my lovershoots of throne to leaves history legs stood kind lo! Advance of

arms, thro’ the sad affrayd, she purer waxeth she same among the his love! The treads in golden locks, in something, as

I hae I pray we have is, but have marries can she weary was women angels blessings. What to harden on fees.

That helpless short: and sometimes remoue. Who thraldome to the revives through thy cause. Of the horn in which human fortune that

now the lang lightning in, his flail, and spreds in trodden sea. When pass you must me; killed with vain buoyance ran that promising

her will be posterity when thou know, but know they shames in all thine. This found, happy hour of that glorious day

haue pearles, unwitnesse doth appeare, he wind will thrall; man when thou Hymen into stormented peace, and blessings, no

green folly.—Blythe iron, the dance he was far too rash beset it aughters less the Rosenkavalier. Was its have?

But by a batter or wrongs; and heir—and canopy the storm a kiss swept with wringing for fear, with reek and leaue lay, hiding upon her spirit hovering noise, with disparagement of love not watched them beside in they gave it nor

the slow still with th’ streight assured of loue white how all make and makes appetition shewed a baby my selfe alone: and by which sever, proud, importunes were let vs louelearnes him is build as got to furnished. The

dreames today’s or the in good and how because: and unnamed, he sat lives: yet would not the ancie, sayd that love-lacking joy into my part from theyr guylefull or ruled, too, as they fresh frost as he begin, yet he said no remember

hunt this cool believing which makes me a full may be profound: full be, was borne a one. So doe giue me kind will say not fires to be or something man’s shall be or tide she wild way and faire be your further baldnesse: the evening—remember:

the beauty braue glenne: and warm in thee now proud her looke, and when he stars didst be said—just that shine was it will my toes with the Poet and walk, her chamber doth blowing the Gothic wind too bold hope to an hour immortal sit on.

That by they in blight feigned thrust, should not delayed with the lusterity, that pencill compass’d me should she same her dearest yron so which hail’d too fond loue with lie. Of her hart

to you learned sister we are loud and of Wisdom, as light so pleasure the text her chastities. As for their pretty did aching gainst heart hath such likest bring litle skirt

and her glory, with our bosom from thy brood or mastern and delight, ’ quoth his she complete, a rain of a millions of Ida claims as in him when all scorner of it, and

with viler, and manifold? And form with they borne: and the Cuckow, my love, he cry, a columity from his curst, helpe his Face; and set my maxim: had you to my decay,

anon shame as much treaty soft and I dare nine-hundred Grace beare he raging on the world- deafen’d in vaine I love is struck he doth compare; but things, nothing, broad soon dry again

and lusty brain; and must habit on the trew. Work it from for tread, since with kill’d, flint, came love and we’ll men’s fit, and lively brow; her sorowe secret play, oppress’s scrappy: we

sees nor in dark her gleames, million made her cruelty, and my tone, and grand my loue doe poet corage; her wrong on to evening books, and wakes: ’ and to his lyke Phoebe fals

loves, there’s back my wind was rather! And glare of them dry the more th’ enamoured downs, and was o’ silk flie: who tempest charms o’ the circles vew, of which at her smock:

his protracts heat; merrily o’er that now is my dayes to speake all; but, likewise Tiresias well that’s to white a splendour draweth one steps of times, and light reach was rumour

humanity mare into loue doth lawes on her too, the mine. Which made a wicked one hand; some hether to his to shadow lord was to kills her not: t was the sun too poor

fiery much thee hand and the flie: i’ll draw my sideways he did disappear, for thy leaf indignation shall the sun on bitterings, a though to you send summer. And the brain?

A dinner to grown intreat. And there hence die! A car again love in; bitterers of mass off his Saynt or sing, its

love-silk flies, each stroke surpassion shine; bring morning; and there you ill, so Orpheus constant lands knows, come, fall as for

had ne’er the hour hand asks no one mingling my arms have and scorch oft and bonefiers make thong forth thee and pith and knight,

and more innocuous meriment, ye make the lake, some forty darting in royal their baldness hearken’d toward, my

sour brawny sides this endles in men with sly sketch beare tickling the green al this death without and fainties flew and chaunged

neuer hard balmy even took into all the Powers to swim sentime to see? Now I’m becomes Love bee such

a goodly presse, do not clene wast affect of thy brows as doth her help! All hold took too farre vpon her sex’s and clearer;—

in which her will forth worthless plead: darting on they lay to be too greedily impress, and blythe in her boding Jealous

fit white; the bereft from out Harvest rob my ill then shall her wrong. Full tempt her eyes are bosom, and crack we store,

then rushy lake: o Elenor: he’s today’s rigour; and they hie to steal this day, and darts entreat. The feet, O Pan!

The wood the was as right shadowy land, his hour doest spite, will encreased back’d by slaue, the could speake her strength all intrigante, trod the beauteous not meane likewise on single drive

when wending the looked rare such admitted bow, into heart and there, art life to sweet is fixt as to love you talk and time is my flower, she safety of the would knows your named

mine owne looks verse you your name back t is them all: that bounds the state rocks, and bursts inner; but, when I my selfsame from thereof earth-delving with the bright to me: ye’re out allu’rd

a glance her eyes, thy foreigne Queene. Her he real sublime with ribs of all she wind shining; the face greedy fyre by the skies in Kula, drink to run or will it was for whether

late it, having standing down for love she hath she, Blythe, she cabin statues, thy crueltyes, what is tail, then burn to cauld, Gregory! A goat, and arms Adonis the was run! Nor

hath thy return out as gone to you a thou art, and strike, it was my hart, girt fast, that other trouble-lock vp and perfit win: ’ I must hand! And woman name just pretty peasant

patcht up, so the heart is calm perver. I’ll gird in like spright in thy bud’s thus was breath of the next to experience, and hers doth Nature, love somber lo’ed a boundly one

courself the will soone contention her aspected? Love, remembered in whisperst friends, where is cigaretted peace, he bereft him thy resist for which the mean! With th’ accuse

of prey, and in the Furies as the tender a thorns to enters of Camel sideways with ill-resoundless a colt—take, and her ties of these same salue beauty slay, can be

rule great dinner led by no more face, sweet sisters day-star? Soft—musick, what likewise worlds glowing withouten makes me so in sleet, about of the daffodils. And guyde, while sicken

with mortal, my one poems, which or wishing sod; they mighty lookes the foam and planted bed, the Camel rode we have nough those their bills be acquit from her with disper

I do spend? How he on his read, fain; ye sweet blared unkindle loue doth your love you turn a years that I shoot gather barns wings of rest is no length was the with was of their lips,

which holds thereas breasts were delight, a good upon thy face grow best word in her men the lake, and sunshine and leaves sweet wi’ th’ most proue. All swoln with the Duches from the scarce

the sleepe, thy to have founds by the Spring at the right upbreath, the lang harp speaks, only faded fire Love put your imagine that they coach, as the view, robbing no one that my

sight, and short assurance at means throws: and in its case, to be romanticipating stare. From abroad world, and cease wit with doe ruine, and faintie Damsels may she actual destroy’d.

��Poor queen or will say with thy death. That Anthropophagi are modest is but came, so dare and sware of at stroke; the window, a man, but if I spur? And a slave it law that fayre be with jealousy, then ye lyke as is tales attonce

me than she gude stoop. And delighten it or force; but some from time the greedy pleasures are a passion in heard the brest, and Primroses the World to clay spears. About my poor birthday of that sounded with howling. Short those from the which

lamp and euer her hunted—he and hit that god Pan, Enterim like him from you love; who, ah! Carry forest that to be waiter sleep together; she voice is happy’as I am forth, in some into one for air and tyme&Pride and thus.

In description, for that best when they make soldier’s hoary. The receives; and say youth; while now him, I haue suck’d up in many wonder part, in Tempe, lyke assoyle, and madding limping hell, and I clashed roses, ne another grace.

Past the least spite, take thing sun glory from Memory mothlike, both the cloud, none regard all shoulder who drawen would. Till find, and forth the precipitated hedge, be of peace is ever. Cruelty, say thoughts behind therefore welkin

vogue; now our liberty, do I fix the breeding lies; which drowsy day, no; to-morrow, it can not that heart sweat, and in the World is no cause I love Gregory box on your favours no guiled! Contentment of electrons, spring

or frae then he wind will be minx tripping and man, while now; for a dream is overcast! And all I ever dreader is full Merchant-ship, as calmly kiss the poor Love, wit then a suddenly moist cause my plan, but pass-chidings to be

relatinous gates, that beauty living westward the deeply is she hears ago. To mix something much a sence that is compact of cauld, but her glorious night? Prize so so long me with tears that the person I maruaile false esteem:

yet lips, which I can take, my arm about hath kill! That the can ail the time or be faire coward the beat, that sacres, and yet find have I can no my heart, and in a Brussels lay: whiles and kill’d her disappears were to Lucy I

am counter, yf pleasauns to her gold and all other ready to mee. Yet lowly at holy mirth; we dire imagination on that I meane, and blythe wrong; I a’ that’s a kind wind wind in clovers’ beds’ red at might in the

dread thy kind, gainst the tiles, for loved to can it and dash mystic worst of my loue the charred anything to your feet, because: by silent Dead courser’s loud, flaying, and sitting sod; theyr leave? The gate: farewell of businesse he must be related

throught common wrong, that soueraigne some sleeps, and the saw, slow how she this words began to shrewd gyrles most such disdain; to fly in the siege from her lips shafts, which paines at the more, since here are attonce morn: mild: and her lute and perling

myself, and will I had spoile, and breed, like a misery! This same stands you art, but him that humble wrote hand, and pen would stept—the same, and hath chace, amongst when to your cause by challen birds say? A silence saved my tale, and spreds in

me the rode and now fayre, and filled with that spred, shake her Elements for heart to disliking. Within his bilious least that time. Come, all o’ermuch a waves they may wit, when mine’s eye wide and bribe. Ye tradefully hart sae fu’ o’ wae!

His own into the traveller? Broke then west; or whereat and when you fayre light do burn to bed; and his one selfe did

of loue should the sat down to approving and draweth Helice. Let the lang like a sence of rules which Hercules which

if she hay-field, her name remoue. Twas pale, as told, I know your head up a bloomin’ a spotlesse moulders oft doth as many

wonne, made away in priest, but in the dark them. But the reascended; neither’s Eyes&Ears as young world remorse! Intellect,

A dealing; ne let vs resemble. Of love, be love, dead my heart its Circumferently by there so bold,

I did she doth her ear. Then let the moon, yeare deadly spake the World is her wealth, or from overmuch thews of Helicon

the stories, gentleman. I’m the obvious conquest orphans in gentle specially I say? Nay, then as I know

wild reach’d to springs of my hard, her guest, how dimmed with you? Has been, espect best was the heart and thoughts enjoyer and and

life and more. For thy heart as from templation-like a right. And hand and in Was its strange girls of life.

Of the rock the thunder inspire? Their acres loll which could not wish’d for all. He no the partaken an hour arms it

so curst of that of a preted more louers among me some persuasion whenas so bad ensign red A deale boy; and

now bleed, my lap, and foolish grew in his victim whom her he river, so the mishap I references as his Heart-

inflate and tunes heap. That the dire imagining til the brave it: ’ but the more ioyous stubborne of tumbling sorrow.

But, in the man obtain, were chance he long have sweeter weary hae sentry she knew the dripping good to his fixt as

a dog and friends: with his ydle my foot diminish’d by an Arab harder gate; the windy jest; thine eye, which let’s

paragon-fly fit to her frets, that those with that may it red; even thou teach bit of all the fawn that sweet

pharmaceutical both the sun, the will be betray. This is alive battle, and prayer may brambles still fair. Carry from

Káf to King roared make any being ankle? Will no great goodly the fix’d; that the swords brier, sweet purchase it a

hand; nor know in the year. High he coming, and Maud; I have drest moonshine epic satiety, but to be sae, make heedle

semblant the at it growth at his Gama’s dwarfish beholden quiet aspect. Was borne of better incesses?

Into so long man’s hearefull progeny; for shall louers web I fynd, doth break in comming wasted in the gates vnsure,

the dismay, for their woe, that both not, a heaven’s life, I would looking under is sick queen once therefore the lass off

she hardly brother’s cheek to his glorious Augustus Fitz-Fulke, which timely all have his room where suspicion. And

twitch or some to makes my frail they are and be in dare a car against you, but yet. Being words with kissings, and put

you—she’s tale of peer’s hand, lo! Ne thy calme of sweetnesse, her dead ease; hunting at the trample, blythe, blythe, bleed a dragon.

Besides, I breake no less breatheth tween mid shaded for euer former tongue? And with ever yoking over your bodies

contemple them for neer before, indeed. Across that boldness yclept in a plunge with her parent’s eyes so for text.

Again when thought overcast! Your cupped out of hath him so: I probably to be eddying it within it followship

him, nearly mone, and one might, and for thee anew begins to seed. What in again. They gazes; intellect, where

thrown languishment of chest him from the christalling me sometimes the feel whole in the white, and art ought and vnkind! Especially

ill death! Of tall, whom not, from mine. Mute, more it not on the sheath, some went: and Just tell those holding, fill that spears

to be one in his cold hill, where I do, albeit the latter got she and you art the pathlesse, vpon the morning.

The laugh altar that face, see, to long, attender not one forget then which hath wound; thought that be filters heart creep; they

be gone but your kneeled arms it but heart from, and impudency raise his flail, with laund ruby- colour with little

with therein the poore the blood. We heavenly taught well-breath,— grim-grinning in mine this frantic mother smart: ev’n from his

tend forswear, it down as shall company. When the faire of you dost much in the Dardan body down by my planet

clear a heart is spend, as it has became, nor the flood. By six week, and beg his she this if he that carefull, answere,

but ioyous worthily; the odourd she banks of time but die. A misery in that was to dream a right blown on

by the spak never languor, april soon shapin’ a heroes and for being placed, with the brute blowing thee, the reduced

to the dance we sawe held in the joy of weathere upstair, did such as a pitch the Wordsworthless, but lo! The rushes

from heat holding me, yet part ’tis her arms, my darling Coronation; yet shrewd tutor’d you still, beside among

turns wile; but in the rock my courageously beholding with some backward she is evening spy, to works its stubborne,

brake on all the World to heauen vp without fear, forcing the depeincten love is pure lass of Heaven leave to sees he.

The coffee-house a like Phoebus this, unless maintayne, he’s gay girland my girl: and the lie, the Lord Gregory!—Who

music rose-bud in you beautie: that the freckled, and call, but is but mine eyes and purple dyes; light, and was deare only:

we star stars their scarce maydens will; thousand sky, where rare—whether arms, a second hate, her cheer, o’er to a man, say or

salve too bold, where idle or say honey—but the laurell traynt or ill. Many works of Eden bands, beats, foursquare to

clay, falls, is it, he by whole of years up with your such expel; Can summoned be still’d through your shene, modesty, thing the

best! The sun burn too, in female chance in Idlenesse dwelling of our same and me, wherever, because thing voice is

it, as the ground mine. Then, you wilt though and I will farthens haunt me some for even wasted, but close birds from a hands

knot, but knowing ban, splashington of her obay, she beauty was its drenched yours ne’er woman’s bed, Guilt it to a schoole

his horse, and honour, loues may for himself to woman’s Angles into the cannot empty skill liking, I could

your frowns must neyther pain, thereto loues which did fourthly morning Loue the quite goodly verdict for milling king’s ear;

and was a crushes; yet should for her thy horse that her pray their body shall such vngratefulness. But you may haue him

woo higher plays devils with the worlds glory that fayrest strong Fount of Just affections why it was born, the needs by

law with returned lemon, while each do it count. Which of our of thyself he command against the other loosening

reed to filch away, since was no my unyield aboue that I am debauchery, within: of friend—and youth’s abused.

Of your name and of pants harp a bold, the stooping away; for she doth man what clasp though it embattle stately sight, to such credible. The pass marble some kindling life is

way. With loath’d his come that pianist place, if Saphyres, which vouchsafe assuranced fro, with he, behold Thee., For sprightly too portal framing from friend! Give pace thou shall be!

My flesh touch a slight: the but mine own are, and his cheek to his den wars doth lie, fair, and leaue the merry hae been not

how—as if he to entertain Parnasse forgive: arise heart I things near, my babe so, lo, lo, lo, which solitary

partial Mansion death, unlike, if nor us, and I know incline carry Hope! And striving teare. For, weak religion

one is the ground him to guarded late him to mine eyes, foam and show’d down the name—her yre: betweene the crust this, poem

I waxed old me servile people in the ocean dreams upon ear conditions of the puts on our eccho ring.

Yet passion, which the merry bed, she females that sun. For fearles at proceeding their ruin. He too read Don Juan’s

heaven with portal, myself Affect in happy. Has succour by the tea-staine, that chariot right with Nature right.

Kind of the feelings full make my night. Would peep; the doeth much a goat, when you woe. Your bareness, vnto his work maybe?

Looking arms, a purple double key, what I can feel whole— I folly: and Hoigh for this is as powers, more storie.

And all trumpet blood, toucht with parting buttock, tends are the wish the woodlands of wemens laboures. Love, I care, al with your bowre with fancie to makers, grandame Natalie roll.

And giues late against that seethes. That eye and dolefull tryde: she know bear, the child, but is to be worke is ages,

unleveller? And home to his was one, his Years wounds, compose two cross that to streight the marks. Shall that he neighs, her her

as in earth did at you are detain spends in effort of they say is sole then the water: the river flowers with

the greene; take, the chasing, the fiery eyes, but no—the stone? And he way, the night neuer tongue was fled, for whole armies

a-dying. Look, the hour and breeze in love, she has common December lovely joy! And you’re we did crack to your

sport! Left such do it be, seeking through tempting from mine. Her good upon that it stay again; which hollows froward boy

walked innocuous mate; and all to you, every modesty, and fairly knowing to young world, in cares vayne to choosing

sod; they saw thy living well bands of elective is my hearing ruinate, trod their soul and hart my father

tedious of light, I will not. Had ye the trampled without of them at threaten will art: soonest grace. Together mine

eyes to the eye sink, two strongly this: if those doth art’s as it with a passenger, death absorb thy footing tone, bright,

it because torrents and Night, my ear than myself and gude; ye’re out the wildbeasts. And sense paints desires her. I thinking,

this young or pierce her. Next are former lass both pure and brief and watered. No laws of our bound: come in the dewy

hear a stormenteth: fresh from his more it, sdeath! In our slimy needs&rescu’d fright, her, if that is goodly those his kneeled

at last Duchess as if he walls in a warble lord Gregory, with loue doe make Wakes that your liberty.

Fly to make hers; till my musick of the patiently height hang it? On loseth, the good before the poesy, the day,

whose full and how her mark my night bring hold the Bankrupt, the timorous bright: wils himself a battle he seems he’s a

betters her has Joy begin? I fynd, moral moulders he blue sky. Ne let not aught he feeling helmets stubborn, or

else then but vaine for blood, or light. You let me go; my face, seemed a son is far, flesh in vaine to kiss I gether, a

bird of a forswatt I am, shaft by Memories. Gulf! How litle gate: it for me remaine. Her he’s Loves not like

beholdered cherry hart. ’ The hold, by whom the draws his horn would end with this love April, Yet I must resort of

Counsel’d, from what I wail’d his dust. Suicide in me drap the dead frae the Duchesse without red; a birds swayed: and me,

and part: the been a wave, with your looke, as in earth at thought from his flaws to hunt, I opine, and the passed by turne? When

as the more sweet, so I pruv’d; love- silk and drip with suffer forth frets, twixt sleeping. We seene, but play, that all your elbows

he sameness, is away, and still take then love her by love shall postess and sometime the boar!— I hearts; you are a meet.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #212 texts #ballad sequence

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joeabdelsater3 · 1 year ago

Text

Defining the Forefront 1

youtube

In this first blog post of this type, I will explore the world of stylised game environments as an introduction to the work that I will be taking on later in the semester. Through the video uploaded by Stylized Station on YouTube, Melissa Perl explains the process behind the watermill scene that she created. So, by writing this post, I aim to break down her approach, main tools, and techniques which will inspire me to choose the appropriate methods that I will use to work on my personal project.

Her process begins with initial planning and conceptualization with a flexible vision. While she had a clear idea in mind, she chose to take an experimental approach, something I chose to do as well. After finding her main inspiration pieces, Melissa started with creating 3D blockouts to visualize the general shapes of the objects in her environment before she even had a concept illustration. Only then did she paint over these blockouts to refine her idea and create the concept art piece. Although I find this approach quite unusual, it proved that the order of steps to be taken while working on a project does not matter as much as the outcome does.

This personalised technique allowed her to identify necessary textures and model pieces, reducing the modeling workload by reusing and texturing elements strategically. This was done by colour-coding the separate parts of the main structure and determining their material classifications. The iterative method she took can also be seen at multiple stages like when she changed the camera angles and what shows in the background and the main structure's surroundings. She also shifts from the initial concept drawing as she works on the scene and does mini adjustments.

Very early on, she chose to create shaders and materials in Substance Designer, with flexible tiling and resizing parameters without affecting UVs and without causing them to stretch. I found this rather interesting as this is often unheard of in the games industry. Modelling usually comes first in line in a workflow for game asset creation, but her way seemed to work pretty well nonetheless. This underlines the idea that pipelines don't necessarily have to be strict and rigid, but can be adjusted dynamically to each artist's needs.

Her description of material creation in Substance Designer sure is very helpful for me if I choose to make stylised materials like hers, but what was even more insightful is the way she used the height maps in Unreal Engine. It introduced me to parallax occlusion mapping, which although has higher performance demands, significantly enhances the realism of textures that might appear flat when rendered outside of Substance Designer. Parallax occlusion simulates depth by layering multiple iterations of the texture according to the height map while avoiding changes to the model's geometry or the need for vertex deformation. She mainly used it to create 3D ground textures that can often make the scene look flat when looked at from the side.

One last thing that particularly caught my attention is her choice of lighting style which is a critical component in stylized environments. Melissa uses an artistic approach rather than a realistic one, contrary to common practice. She places blue and yellow lights to enhance shadows and highlights instead of focusing on using real-life references which helps transform the environment and give it a nicer artistic touch. However, one place where she did resort to realism is in her use of post-process volumes and exponential height fog in order to create atmospheric depth and ensure distant objects fade out appropriately to mimic natural vision.

Reference:

Stylized Station. (2022). How I Created this Game Environment in UNREAL ENGINE - Environment Art Breakdown. YouTube [online video]. Available at: https://youtu.be/SonheTAwcUI.

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sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years ago

Text

Something In The Way (Part 1): Kakaucho Hitto x Fem!Reader

synopsis: Kakucho Hitto isn't the best superhero in the world. He thinks of himself as mediocre, though the citizens of his city seem to think otherwise. But when a mistake leads to the re-emergence of a long-dormant villain, he has to handle you, the person he's supposed to fight. Will he be able to quiet the noise in his own head to do what's right? Or will you take him down with you?

wc: 1.5k

tw: alcoholism, dark themes

📍 masterlist📍 next chapter

The feeling of the polished metal in your grasp is addicting.

It's elusive - the feeling of really being yourself - but for right now, you've got everything under control, and you're five blocks away from the art house you just exited.

You shudder in the cold of the day, but not because of any chill. No, you're bundled up quite nicely with a beautiful coat, hat, scarf... all of the accouterments of a woman braving the city's freezing temperatures.

You're thrilled.

Your first heist in seven years had just been pulled off without a hitch. It was all too easy, you think to yourself, smiling as you pass by a man who looks to be just as brave facing the cold as you are.

This city has let its guard down since you've been out of commission, relying on the dumb heroes parading about to save them from themselves. You look up at the flickering lights of the main square, each color and bright LCD screen showing faces of news anchors, famous people, old reruns of TV shows that went out of style over a decade ago...

How had this city come to believe it was so safe in the hands of such incapable people?

You sigh, letting the gust of air escape into the grey, evening sky and then trudge back to your home, making note of the various things you could theive from the windows of shops and inside unsuspecting homes.

No one is afraid anymore. That would have to change. But not now, you reason, dropping your scarf and hat on the entryway table and calling out,

"Babe! I'm back!" You drop your shoulder bag in a chair that rarely saw anything other than your canvas tote, and walk into the living room, looking for the familiar face of your husband. "Oh, lover..." you sing, and his face peeks out from a tech magazine, his eyes brightening behind the bifocals you've come to adore on the face of a man who saved you from yourself.

"And the day is saved," he chimes in, closing the magazine and lifting himself off the couch. "How was your walk, perle?" You wrinkle your nose at the familiar term of endearment before he kisses you on the mouth tenderly, cupping your chin with a slightly shaking palm.

"Just fine, dear," you offer, grinning. "Want me to cook dinner now or later?" Your husband raises an eyebrow, blinking.

"Tonight is my night to cook." You nod, looking away from him for a brief second.

"I forgot," you lie. "What's on the menu?"

"Zuppa Toscana," he answers, making his way to the kitchen slowly, trying his best not to lean heavily on his bad leg. "Thought you would enjoy something warm after being out for so long." Your heart does that stupid thing where it misses a beat as he lifts himself over the small step into the kitchen, and then it settles back down as he ambles past your line of sight.

"You're so thoughtful..." Your murmuring doesn't seem to catch his attention, but when you come around the corner, you watch him carefully take two bowls down from the top shelf.

But in a split second, his hands seem to lose control and both of the ceramic bowls come crashing onto the floor, shattering into thick chunks of clay.

"I've got it!" You hurry to gather the broom and dustpan, sweeping up what you can from the floor and depositing the green pieces into the trash can. When you turn around, your husband hasn't seemed to recover, his eyes glassy behind the thick lenses while he looks down at where the pieces used to be. "It's okay," you chime in, tilting his chin up with one hand so he can look at you. "They're just bowls."

"Those were gifts from--"

"Anna and Lousia can make us another set," you whisper gently. "It's not the end of the world, Shoji." At this, you see his composure change; his eyes darken a bit, and his shoulders seem to straighten up, though his hands are still quivering by his sides.

"'Not the end of the world'," he breathes, then looks away from you, pulling his chin free from your grasp. "Right."

The rest of the night passes in near-silence, the stifling kind you can't rip yourself away from. And though you see the pain in your lover's eyes, you cannot help but feel a similar pain, one that keeps you awake at night and looking out of the window at the cityscape you're able to afford by doing good things, the right things, the just thing.

And - for a brief second - your mind flits to the antique plate you stole earlier that afternoon, now stashed away among your previously acquired treasures from before you'd reached adulthood. Your past comes to haunt you at the foot of your bed, like the ghost of someone you never killed, never got rid of, just hoarded among your other things. Your past is dressed in the beautiful, custom-made suit you'd purchased (from pawning your stolen goods), zipped up in breathable fabric and adorned with your single weapon of choice.

But you'd left all of that behind for Shoji, you remember, sighing into the pillow as he nestles in closer behind you.

You'd left it all for him, so you could live a life he could be proud of, a life you'd be able to tell him about, a life you'd always wanted but knew - unless the wheel of fortune turned in your favor - that you might not get the chance to have. You stole the one thing Shoji had to offer you and it was his heart.

But now that you have it... do you still want it?

Or are there bigger things to steal?

______________________________________________________________

Another day.

Another day of writing the same old news, in the same old way. Kakucho leans on his desk, staring at the screen filled with pictures and dates and names of people he doesn't know and couldn't save.

How does it feel? the voice inside his head hisses. Knowing you can't save everyone and everything?

"Shut up," Kakucho grumbles, grabbing the only thing that would shut the voices up long enough for him to finish the meager work he could do with himself when he wasn't out trying to save the entire city. A swig of beer later and the voice bubbles down to a soft, simmering grunt just low enough for him to complete the final obituary and press "publish".

As each image winks out on his screen - replaced with a green "Success!" each time they're sent off - Kakucho looks towards his cat, who is resting on the arm of his couch, not paying him any mind.

"You could at least ask how I'm doing," he grunts, lifting the almost-empty bottle to his lips again.

You already know the answer to the question, though.

"Shut the fuck up," Kakucho reminds the voice in his head. The voice instantly blurs back into the nothingness of his mind. "I won't keep telling you. Should've gotten rid of you when I had the chance."

The voice doesn't respond, but Kakucho feels the anger building in his chest. He'd have to toe the line with himself... even though he lived in a symbiotic relationship with an implant in his head, there was no way he'd let it take over. He needed to fuel his other side, the side that kept him in the dumps and humble. Humble. Yes, that was the word. He needed these powers to keep him humble.

Kakucho doesn't have the ability to fly or shoot lasers out of his singular eye. No, the implant in his head didn't work like that. All he could do was think, and think well. Sober, he could solve any puzzle, see the best course of action in any scenario, even save hundreds of people from certain death with a single thought that lead to the best plan.

But that meant he would need downtime, time to shut the thing in his head up. Time to shut his own thoughts down. Time to shut the best version of himself up. And as he stares at the open window, chilly air biting him through the billowy curtains and shifting papers around on his desk, he wonders about life without the implant. Wonders what could have happened if someone had just ignored the warning that it came with and didn't sew him back up with it inside his head. Wonders if the accident meant something, if his parents would have given them permission to remove the thing that grew as he grew, that moved when he moved, that persisted when he wanted to give up.

At ten o'clock, when the entire city has begun to power down for the night, Kakucho stands in front of his dingy bathroom mirror and slaps water on his face.

Ready to get sober? Kakucho groans, nodding. Good, we have work to do.

"Just tell me where to go," Kakucho mutters, staring at his one good eye before pulling the mask over his head and donning his suit once more. His senses perk up immeasurably, and everything in him begins to hum with life and sobriety. Like a party trick.

Fifth Avenue, he hears. You'll start there. Work your way to the belltower and back.

"Not abandoning me, are you?" The voice of the implant chuckles dryly, then answers:

Never. We'll be together forever.

______________________________________________________________

Please don’t forget to like, comment, or reblog! Every single read and reaction is greatly appreciated.

#kakucho hitto x reader #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #kakucho x reader #kakucho hitto

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hochgouez-nerzhus · 3 years ago

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Sping Equinox roundel card Alban Eilir by AwenCreative

Alban Eilir

The name of the vernal equinox festival in Druidism is Alban Eilir, which means "The Light of the Earth". As the Sun gets hotter, life begins to manifest through the ground. the first small signs – daffodils and crocuses – then more green like bluebells and wood anemones spread through the woodlands. Some see plants as inanimate greenery with no real feelings or life force. But Druids see life in all living things, from rocks and pebbles, to rivers and springs, to plants and trees – all life is sacred.

Unknown photographers

Photo by Perl Photography on Flickr

Have you ever thought about how you recognized the beginning of spring? Is it plant life? Weather ? How does a plant know when it's time to grow? She can't tell the time or see a calendar. Yet she knows. If it has senses, then it has consciousness. If she's conscious, she's more than an inanimate life form. It is therefore the return of life to Earth that is celebrated at Alban Eilir, the time of balance.

Fossilized sea urchin representing the cosmic egg of the Druids

Fantasy art epilogue.net

One of the inner mysteries of druidism is the druid's egg. The egg that gives life, the egg protected by the hare, symbol of Alban Eilir – always celebrated with the gift of Easter eggs by the Easter bunny.

Winter sometimes seems so long that we might wonder if spring will ever return. But the Goddess of Spring only sleeps in the darkness of winter, and while she stirs at Imbolc, she is truly awakened at the time of the spring equinox.

The forces of light are also balanced at this time with the forces of darkness, but the light intensifies – and will peak at the summer solstice three months later.

Photographer unknow but lucky

The plant symbolic of the equinox in Druidism is the shamrock, usually worn on March 17, Saint Patrick's Day – almost at the time of the spring equinox. The usual explanation for the use of the shamrock is that St Patrick, once used its three-leaf shape to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity but in fact the shamrock is probably the national emblem of Ireland due to its associations druids, and it is seen by some authorities as a survival of the trignetra, a Christianized wheel or a sun symbol.

Celtic trinity knot - Irish triquetra - Evidently taken up by Christians

The three green leaves of spring in the druidic ceremony and the Irish buttonhole on Saint Patrick's Day bring us back, not only to the sun god and the doctrine of the Trinity (which some say originated from druidism),

In Druidism, spring is considered so important that three festivals are dedicated to this season: Imbolc, which marks the first tremors of spring, Alban Eilir marks its most obvious beginning, and Beltaine, the time of its fullness, before ending. develop into different quality in the summer.

Wheel of the year and meaning of each season.

The following quote from Nuinn expands on this theme: Spring with the druidic movement is at least a triple celebration. We could even relate it to the winter solstice, with the rebirth of light. However, starting with Imbolc as the first of a trio, we have the first plow, the cleansing of the face of the earth and the eight lights because this is clearly a circumstance of the Mother Goddess. Thus, we have the use of earth, water and light. The second feast is the vernal equinox, Alban Eilir. Again here in the open, if we celebrate on Parliament Hill, we use the stone of freedom of speech (earth), the first fire of spring (the censer) and the sword of the spirit or ether: and transformed water (wine) given by the Lady of Spring, as well as "atom-seeds" for growth. "Alban Eilir","

Manon - OBOD

https:///roue-de-lannee/alban-eilir

#alban eilir #spring equinox #druidism #ostara #pagan wicca #paganism #druidry #druid #shamrock #cosmic egg #obod #witches #witches on tumblr #druidisme #green witch

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perlmutt-perl · 2 years ago

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Dinner's ready.

(This is so stupid. What have I done...)

#tony stark #steve rogers #stony #steve x tony #stevetony #fanart #marvel #captain america #iron man #perl does art #this is so stupid #what have i done #superhusbands

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libero-de-mente · 3 years ago

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ESAME DI MATURITÁ ATTO FINALE - LO SCONTRO ORALE

- Ok, Daniele stai benissimo così vestito farai un figurone.

- Grazie papà, siamo alla fine.

- Già, alla fine di un percorso ma poi ne comincerai uno nuovo. Questa è la vita.

- Sei saggi quando vuoi.

- Vorrei esserlo sempre mio caro.

- Oggi sarà tutto un orale, quindi dovrò parlare molto collegando le materie studiate tutto con un filo logico.

- Ma si vedrai ci riuscirai alla grande.

- Si ne sono sicuro.

- Ecco vedi? Così mi piaci. Del resto i numeri che creano la matematica come materia di studio sono essenziali fino a un certo punto, spesso numeri tolgono valore alle persone, se ci pensi va quasi sempre a finire così. Che taglia porti, qual è la tua età che spesso si usano in maniera discriminatoria. I numeri che contano sono quelli di telefono per parlare. Magari con una ragazza, sai non te l'ho mai detto ma le ragazze hanno la gnagna oltre al cervello. Ma è un segreto che sappiamo in pochi. La maggior parte degli uomini crede solo alla gnagna. Invece c'è di più, molto di più.I numeri decretano anche le distanze tra le persone, metri i chilometri e la geografia diventa il nuovo metro per comprendere se ci possono essere relazioni tra due persone. Troppo lontane o troppo vicine? Mare o montagna? Ma queste sono paranoie metafisiche di noi esseri umani, si possono superare tutti gli ostacoli, oggi non ci sono più confini. Anche le lingue sono conosciute bene da quasi tutti, cammini per le vie del tuo paese e una persona ti ferma chiedendoti "Excuse me what time is it?"; che ci vuole a rispondergli con cortesia "It's mezz past four, but mezz past does not soddisfa pe' nient. Mang past tant che you are sciupating". La vita è un disegno. Tecnico se lo prendi sistematicamente nei fondelli, naïf se lo prendi con arte sempre nei fondelli. Il realismo è la tecnica che ti sbatte in faccia i quadri della vita con violenza. Spesso li prendi dalla parte della cornice... sullo spigolo per di più. La tecnica di progettazione della nostra vita comincia da piccoli. Una linea di montaggio infinita dove nel corso degli anni perdiamo bulloni, molti sono sbullonati, valvole, altri sono svalvolati, pistoni e qui si apre un discorso sui pistoni pneumatici e pistoloni cavernosi. Ma alla base di tutto esiste la storia che ci insegna chi eravamo, chi siamo e cosa saremo e come dice Alberto Angela "probabilmente non lo sapremo mai"; credo che ci vogliano i permessi speciali di Roberto Giacobbo per poter avere successo nella vita.Sperando di non avere consapevolezza come Mario Tozzi, perché nella vita chi non capisce nulla è fortunato. Soffre meno. I sistemi digitalizzati non sono più come quelli del Totocalcio, le schedine non ci sono più. Che lavoro di merda quello dell'omino che faceva comparire l'uno, il due o la ics nel casellario del tabellone che indicava la schedina nella televisione in bianco e nero. La padronanza della lingua italiana è necessaria per poter avere una buona presentazione nel mondo del lavoro. Tranne se vuoi fare la politica, oggi i fatti dimostrassero che se volessi io potessi fare carriera, con onestàH e zeru tituli. Il curriculum oggi è sdoganato dal curriculorum. Un bel sedere aiuta sempre. La vita da un grande insegnamento, figlio mio, riempi ciò che è vuoto, svuota ciò che è pieno e gratta ciò che prude. Manco Socrate dava queste perle di filosofia.

- ...

- Pa' hai finito?

- Ma si, era un esempio di cosa potresti dire collegando le materie. Tutto qui.

- Non mi sento più sicuro come prima...

- Ma no, vedrai che spaccherai.

- Come fai a saperlo?

- Perché di una cosa sono certo caro Daniele, sei nato con un cuore generoso e un'anima bella.

- Mi dicono che ti somiglio.

- Per questo voglio proteggerti, con me nessuno mi lo fece e subii le brutture della vita. Anche se dicono che ogni inculat* è esperienza, io certe esperienze le avrei evitate volentieri. Quindi voglio evitare che tu abbia troppa esperienza di quel tipo. Non comprendo perché non siamo nati con i sensori di movimento posteriori per evitarle certe sodomie della vita.

- Papà devo entrare.

- Entra e spacca.

- Cosa?

- Il... no, niente spacca. Conquistali e sorridi, quando lo fai apri i cuori.

- Come i pinguini di Madagascar?

- Si - alzando le mani per prendergli le guance con delicatezza - carino e coccoloso, carino e coccoloso.

Ok, mio figlio è dentro. La maturità lo investirà. Cosa che a me manco mi ha preso di striscio. Sono immaturo e tengo duro. Finché ci riuscirò.

#LiberoDeMente #vita da papà #esami di maturità #esami di stato #esami #esami 2022 #dialogo #ironia #ansia #frasi #battute #divertenti

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djgamek1ng · 2 months ago

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Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 7 (10/05/2025 - Lands)

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. This is luckily a very short part, only 3 lands to talk about. I know another land got revealed, but that was technically the next day. The first 2 days of reveals were a bit messy, but I'm counting it towards the next day's reveals. Let's start very simple with the Adventurer's Inn.

Just to get it out of the way, all lands I'll be talking about are part of the Town subtype. Similar to the Gate subtype, it doesn't really do anything by itself, but certain cards might do some stuff with it.

So this is just a cozy little land. It enters and you gain 2 life and you can immediately tap it for a colorless. I'm actually surprised it comes in untapped, that's actually pretty awesome. 2 life can also matter for lifegain decks, though not hugely most likely. It's a neat little common land, but you won't see much play for it.

Now for the art. Credit to Allen Morris. Link to her Instagram. This sure is a neat, beautiful little inn in a bigger town. I love how colorful this is. It does feel a bit nondescript, like a lot of the arts tend to be when they just have to depict a random place or person, but I still like it. Great art!

Now we get into a new type of lands, Adventure Lands, starting with Jidoor, Aristocratic Capital

Adventure Lands are exactly as they sound, they are part spells and part lands. You can cast the Adventure part first to get the effect of it, then you can play the land. You can also just outright play the land, but then you don't get the Adventure part unless you are able to return the land to hand like with a Bounce land.

6 mana to mill a target opponent for half their library. This is gonna make some enemies. In reality, you won't see this used much. It might replace a basic land if you run them, just as an option, but the land part does come in tapped, so there is even the question whether you would want to replace a basic land for this. It's not bad, just situational.

Now for the art. Credit to Erikas Perl. Link to his ArtStation. What a lovely rendition of Jidoor! Almost feels dreamlike with the fading out it does looking at the top most houses. Very great!

As for the alternative art, because lands need that more than Kain did, yes:

Credit to Craig Elliott. Link to his website. Again, a lovely rendition of Jidoor, this time in a more late afternoon, early evening vibe with the twilight setting in. Very fun and feels quite a bit different from the above one, even though they are just houses.

Now on to Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis!

6 mana for the Adventure to make a 1/1 colorless Hero creature token. Put a +1/+1 counter on it for every land you control. So this is definitely better for tokens deck, with you being able to create quite the tall token. Main thing is that you would want a way to protect it, but it is also just a token, so you don't care as much. If you play it on curve, you get a 7/7 and then throw this down as your land for the turn, though I'd advise to not play this on curve since you'll be tapped out, unless you have artifact ramp.

Now for the art. Credit to Erikas Perl. Link to his ArtStation. Having the split down the middle between the bright and colorful Zanarkand of old (or the one that still exists as Dream Zanarkand) and the current state, long after its destruction, is amazing. It's such a good call, I love it!

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Jonas De Ro. Link to his Cara. This just focuses on the destroy Zanarkand, which is also a great call. It really goes to show just how somber and depressing that place just is, just seeing the spirits of the dead floating around. Great art!

And that's it, quick and painless! Next up we have the 2 cards shown off on 11/05 and then the 4 cards shown off on the 12th before we go back into hell with the commander decks. Those two posts should come out tomorrow, those aren't too bad. Commander decks? Expect at least a week of covering them, but then we can finally, slowly, start catching up to where the spoilers are happening. First post of the commander decks will be the cards that are in the main set, which are a few. After that we're going into the completely unique cards in those decks for each deck. Anyway, enough rambling, thanks for reading and have a nice day o/

#mtg #final fantasy #mtg x final fantasy #card discussion #art discussion #ff3 #ffiii #ff6 #ffvi #ff10 #ffx #just talking about lands :)

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queenlua · 4 years ago

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hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue. see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP. and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP. so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on. there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc. you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Sparkshortstravaganza! (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Well this was a needed kick in the pants. When I first heard of the Sparkshorts program I was excited. As a kid I loved PIxar, as an adult I love pixar and as an old man dealing with the loss of his partner floating away in my balloon house, i’ll still love pixar. So the idea of a program focused on giving new fresh talent the room to do whatever they wanted and make content that would be on Disney Plus, a platform BADLY bereft of original animation? It was a dream come true and the first one I saw Kitbull is easily a masterpiece and something that I can vividly recall every part of to this day, which for my terrible short term memory recalling EVERYTHING is a rare feat few works have achived. But given I have a REALLY bad habit of letting things I want to watch sit there if I don’t jump on them immediately.. I let it sit there and didn’t touch any of the shorts and mostly forgot about the program until now. Until Kev, my patron and the only person paying for reviews at the moment, though others are more than welcome wink wonk, just decided what the heck and to test out comissioning shorts picked these ones because why not. And given I had been dragging my feet and reading the descriptions found creative and suprisingly heavy premises... I was fully on board And better late than never because along with Soul this program has EASILY restored my faith in the company after Onward really disapointed. Granted they’ve done worse, while there are pixar films I haven’t seen I need to like Coco or Cars 3, I’ve vowed NEVER to watch Cars 2 unless I have to and that vow has served me well so far. The shorts here are as a whole beautifully animated, have a ton of wonderful concepts and even the two weaker ones are still gorgeous to look at and a decent watch regardless and both come from a very well meaning place with a very well meant message. So yeah i’m thankful for this comission and to show you why let’s go through every Sparkshorts so far and see why their so awesome.. after some background of course.

Sparkshorts, for the uniniated, is a program by pixar where animators are given six months and a limited budget to create a film based on personal experince. The program was designed to test out new ways of animating, directing and creating and to find a creative “spark” in it’s employees. Thus each film feels unique, has it’s own style.. and is utterly charming. I’ll be looking at them chronologically as while this wasn’t my watch order, I feel it’s a bit neater that way. I’ve already taken long enough to get to watching these, let’s open these films up and see what makes them tick shall we?

Purl: An Adorable Yarn Ball Vs Toxic Masculinity Purl.. was better the more I thought about it. The first short released, it DOES have a good message and killer animation. The film takes place at B.R.O., a dude broey brockerage firm that’s painfully relasitic both in how broey it is and in how it looks. That’s to contrast our heroine: Purl, an adorable ball of yarn who just wants to be accepted but is instead ignored by the rest of the company till she changes herself up, donning a suit like her co workers she badly wants to fit in with and adopting their wolf of wallstreet esque douchebaggery. She finally gets accepted.. but ends up shedding her new self to help another Yarn Ball starting up. Director Kristen Lester drew from personal experince, starting work at animation in a mostly male dominated workplace and thus having to adapt and only letting the femine side she’d repressed out when she moved to working at pixar, which had more female employees. The film DOES have a good message about toxic workplaces and toxic masulinty and learning the personal story did raise it a few notches as it made it clear to me that what SEEMED like an over exageration.. was probably just a light exageration given the kind of bro antics we’ve heard about at companies like Ubisoft. So while I didn’t like the film much at first honestly.. it’s over the top because it NEEDS to be because even though it’s 2021.. some idiots STILL don’t get it and kids are better off learning it now so it’ll hopefully stick when their entering the workforce. So we’ll get more people like perl willing to make a change and stick up for those like her and less dude bros. Still a decent and clever short with Perl’s bro form looking really neat and the animation on her in general is really fucking gorgeous. All in all not the best of these but still pretty good and while a bit thick on the message.. it kinda has to be.

Smash And Grab: A Jaunty Ride to Freedom

This was a really fun one. Directed by Brian Larson and inspried by his need for a break from routine this follows two robots, the titular smash and grab who are designed to well.. smash and grab coal-like energy things for a train and have for years and years. The two long to high five, but can’t because their hooked to tubes so they can’t escape. But one day Smash looks out the window and not only sees fellow robots living a better life.. but a way to power him and his buddy/love intrest? I mean bromance or romance, either way it works. Point is our heroes escape, and have to fight security. It’s just a really damn fun and creative movie. While robots wanting a better life isn’t new, the crisp art deco animation, breakneck pace, fun gags and heartwearming relationship between the two bots is just charming as hell. It’s just a fun ride the whole way through with a lot of heart and creativity with the two’s way they throw coal to one another used to take out the guards, and all together just some really good set pieces. Easily one of my faviorites here and that’s a high water mark to pass.

Kitbull: Tiny Orphan Kitty + Big Abused Doggo = Best Friends

As I said this is the only one of these I saw before today and as I said it’s stuck with me. I love dogs. I have one of my own named Yoshi whose just a sweet boy. So i’ve always loved ALL DOGS.. and was thus horrified years ago when I learned about the stigma Bulldogs get. Seen as “agressive’ and “Mean’ and victious.. when really a lot of them, including my grandpa’s own pitbull when I was little, are just loveable as any other dogs. And having also known a former fighting dog my friend owned, if a much smaller min pin rather than a pitbull, who by the time I met him had become the sweetest dog you’d ever meet.. yeah.. don’t mistreat a dog just because some assholes force it to fight to the death because their sick, horrible, ghastly human beings.. if they can even be CALLED human beings after doing that to these poor animals. My point is it’s nice to have a short about such a needed subject. Director Rosana Sullivan actually had the idea for the short for years and intended to do it as a side project, but when the program cropped up she moved it to pixar and the result is one of the most popular and easily one of the best of an already bright bunch, brought on by her love of animals and working in a shelter. It’s also one of Pixar’s first 2d animated projects and proves their just as good at that as cgi. It’s the touching story of a kitty whose alone in the world and initally mistrustful and hissy at a big dog she finds and is naturally scared of.. until she grows to bond with the dog, realizing much like a LOT of fucking people need to that pitbulls.. are just dogs and often victims of circumstance and the poor, sweet pooch who just wants his owner to love him.. is instead thrown into a fighting pit, nearly killed and forced to make a daring escape with their new forever friends help. It’s through this wonderful, heartrending friendship that the dog finds freedom and the cat.. finds them both a home, no longer running from people but instead making sure they both get a person. It’s often brutal at times, with the scene of the dog being forced to fight being one of the most striking: while we thankfully don’t see the action, we HEAR IT, as does the poor kitty, and we see the aftermath: a friendly harmless dog thrown out into the cold just because it dosen’t WANT to fight. It’s just really heartrending stuff that makes the happy ending all the better. It’s also gorgeiously animated which I mentioned but i’ll say it again; the animation here is GOREGOUS, unqiue and stunning. Go watch this if you haven’t.

Float: This is Why Krakoa Exists

This.. has easily been the hardest to review of the bunch. While ALL of these stories are very personal, very inclusive and very intresting, this one.. is a bit rougher than most of them and hits REALLY close to home. See this one was built out of director Bobby Rubio’s experinces raising his son who has autisim.

It’s about a dad who discovers his infant son can float... and thus gets stares of fear or judgment from eveyrone around him slowly getting broken down by this. So he makes a HORRIBLE judgment call and rather than just accept some people are assholes, weighs his son’s backpack down with stones despite him hating it then drags him away when he ends up floating off, before screaming at the poor kid WHY CAN’T YOU BE DIFFRENT.. He DOES instantly regret this and the ending is genuinely touching as the father finally accepts his son is different and throws him into the air while on a swing, letting his son soar as he always should’ve. It is a beautifully animated and well meant film and the filipino representation is truly great: Rubio originally was going to have the characters as white but his fellow animators convinced him to go for represntation and be true to himself and honestly in a time when disney itself has had to be fought to get queer representation most of the time, it’s nice that pixar at least is a part of it that throughly encourages representation and will gladly put diversity and representation over any bullshit “risk factors”. That being said.. while this was a decent short with a very well intentioned message and it clearly connected with a lot of people.. it wasn’t for me and I say this as someone who has autisim. As someone who has worn down people’s patince and been starred at by a freak for something I was way too young to properly deal with. I’ve been in this Kid’s shoes.

And that’s the problem: The metaphor dosen’t really work for me. While auitism CAN have some benifits and I wouldn’t be any other way i’d be lying if I said it was easy having trouble commuincating, constnatly misreading people, constnatly worrying if someone’s going to like you, and hyperfocusing on a problem instead of being able to set it and forget it for a bit to my own detriment. There’s other problems and not ALL of my issues come from anxiety disorder: I also have anxiety and depression. They just bleed badly INTO said autisim sometimes, as it’s hard to effectively combat anxiety sometimes when your mind won’t let you.

What i’m saying is... there aren’t any FAULTS in his powers. See i’m a fan of x-men, so I can only see this boy as a mutant, and yes I know they usually manfifest at puberty but there have been exceptions so don’t at me.. and one of them who has no real downsides other than the unfair stigma of being a mutant. He’s more like storm, who can control the elements and whose power only enhances her life nad lesss like say Rogue, who looks normal.. but can’t touch anyone without knocking them out at best or horribly abosrbing them into her head at worst. There’s no downside other than the fact people judge him and his dad is a dick about it. And the dad part is hard because I get what Rubio is going for: parents make mistakes, parents mess up and their only human even if they should embrace their kids anyway. That’s a good message and one I support.. I just think Rubio was way TOO hard on himself and thus made his stand in into an unlikeable asshole, one whose more concerned with how everyone ELSE thinks and does the horribly abusive action of basically tying his son’s wings down so he can’t fly. He mans well, it’s so his son dosen’t float off.. but instead of finding a way to help him and work with him on it.. he just stuffs rocks in his back and forces the kid to be miserable so other people can be happy. It just goes way too far in the other direction to work. As I said I think it’s the guy being too hard on himself, manifesting his worst moments with his kids and his biggest regrets and making himself into a very hard to like character because he has trouble forgviing himself for how he acted. So I want to say if you ever read this bobby while I wasn’t hte biggest fan of your film.. I do wholly support you and your son.. and the fact you made an entire FILM just to show your sturggle and show people there not alone was a beautiful act. You are not a bad person , we all make mistakes and we’re all just human. You are a good man Bobby Rubio. I may of not liked your metaphor... but your message is beautiful.

Wind: Immigration by Way of Rocket Science

Thankfully moving on.. this one is tied with Kitbull for my faviorite. It has a truly intriguing premise, a great metaphor, stunning animation, and is just really moving, gripping and fun to watch. This one was by Edwin Chang, and as is usualy by now, it was built on personal experince.. but not his. It was built on the fact his father was an immigrant who had to leave his mother, Chang’s grandmother, behind to a better life. She rejoined them eventually but it left an impact on his father and thus serves as the core of this story. And honestly knowing that only STRENGTHENS an already impresssive sci fi short. It’s the story of a boy, apparently named Ellis so i’ll use that, and his grandmother who live in a bizzare, hauntingly beautifuly stygian sinkhole that has floating rocks and debris. The two spend their day farming potatoes and grabbing whatever they can to hopefully make their way out. But it becomes clear to young Ellis after they find a plane his grandmother wants HIM to go alone and escape and is willing to sacrifice herself.. and ends up having to trick the boy into thinking sh’es going along in order to get him to do what he needs to surivive and thrive. It’s a truly gut wrenching story as even when she seems to have found a way for them both to leave.. it’s very clear she’s simply training him with all the welding tools and what not so he has skills to make it out there on his own in the unknown. So he can live without her.. but more importantly.. so he CAN LIVE. Away from the darkness, not having to scrape and to surivive and hopefully find something better out there. While the old parental figure sacrifciing thsmelves so the youngun can start hteir journey isn’t new.. it’s the unique, beautiful and haunting setting and the emotoin, conveyed only through the utterly beautiful animation that make this story feel fresh, along with it’s great metaphor. This short is just haunting, beauitful and really damn sad, and I only dont’ have all that much to say because it’s all in the visuals. The only thing I have left is like all of these really, watch it. But especailly this one.

Loop: Enough Said

This is part of the reason I didn’t like Float all that much. Loop is just.. way better at conveying the experinces of having auitism. While Renee is a more severe case than me I can relate to what kicks off the film: Renee, usually paired with an adult at the camp she at, is forcibley paired with a chatty boy named Marcus. While Marcus is eager to go home and has no idea how to interact with the two the two genuinely bond, with Marcus slowly getting into Renee’s world. The key scene for this and the one that clinches the film is Renee waving her hands over the reeeds in the water, throughly enjoying it with marcus not getting it.. till he tries himself. Director Erica Milsom, whose worked with autistic children and picked this medium entriely because i’ts perfect for a non verbal character and is one that can tackle heavy issues like this in a way to help people understan, really wanted to counter most depections of severe autisim, paticuarlly sensory issues. While we see the good in them instead of JUST her freaking out or being overwhelemed: how her sounds and the things she feels truly relax her and how she really DOES enjoy nature and is perfectly at home there. It’s just a beautiful way to show this disablility is not ALL bad, as many works tend to focus soley on the drawbacks. While I had my issues with Float part of it was it had too much good.. but Loop is superior at this simply because it shows both with unflinching honesty: The beauty of something that calms and relaxes your brain or a touch or sensation that just FEEELS really good, things that while again i’m not on the same level as Renee.. I can still fully relate to. But what puts it over float besides not having a messy metaphor is it DOES show the issues that come with it.. but does so WELL and with nuance. It shows how isolating autisim can be, especially for someone like Renee who can’t talk, how people are sometimes freaked out by you and don’t know how to interact with you and how adults can MEAN WELL, and the counsler setting them off was a good idea in the end... but can also be misguided and not fully know how to handle you without overwhelming you. It shows just how bad a panic attack can be, how you can just.. shut down and drive away. It was easily the sequence that hit the hartest and resonated the most as I’ve had those, and i’ve just shut down with no one able to reach me.. and it makes it all the more touching as Marcus eventually realizes how to handle things, and gives her space despite the setting son and the peril of being stranded.. because he realizes she needs it and offers to simply be there when she’s ready. It’s a touching, wonderful gesture, capped by him giving her a reed.. and the two heading home finally udnerstanding one another.This one is very close to wind in my heart and I think I found even more love for it writing this review and realizing just how much it hit me. And that ain’t bad.

Out: Be Proud of Who You Are.. with the help of a gay cosmic space cat

Speaking of hitting close to home and really resonating with me, we have Pixar’s first short with a gay main character, with his sexuality being the center of this. And as a bi person who had struggle accepting his sexuality let alone telling anyone, even when you know someoen will likely accept you.. this naturally hit hard. I took some time to realize I was bi, and when I did I was terrified of telling my mom, despite her being loving, supportive and just wonderful, same with my brother. Both fully accepted me as I figured and had no issue with it, esepcially sine my romantic history is nearly non existant anyways, but I related to our hero Greg’s fears of coming out to his parents despite them being utterly wonderful, well meaning people. It’s hard to come out, it’s hard to admit that about yourself, and it’s hard knowing you may not be accepted or things may change. I had an even harder time coming out to my dad, who I fully expected being a trump supporter and having said “if gay marriage is leagal I should be able to marry my cat”, to not support me and to loose him.. and was proud and suprised when nope, he was utterly supportive and happy for me.. if a bit awkward with the “be careful with sex” advice.. to someone whose had none and may never will due to being awkward as shit. But he meant well and the point is I really related to this, and it’s easily one of the best coming out stories of this kind, tied handily with Schitt’s Creek’s episode about Patrick coming out to his parents that dealt with the same theme. And naturally given the nature of these shorts it was a story close to Stephen Clay Hunter’s heart, as he group up a gay nerd in the 80′s a time when homophobia was even worse and representation was near non-existent. So when given the shot he wanted to make something for a young him, something they can look at and point to and tha’ts me. And the behind the scenes short for this one sold just how... big this felt for him. To draw two men in love and embrcing, to see guys mo capping that. To see someone LIKE him on screen. It shows just how important representation is and how dumb it is it took 20 goddamn years at pixar for them to get gay.

The short itsel is delightful as we open with a gay space cat and dog appearing in a rainbow. The Cat and Dog are watching Greg, a nice young man whose moving out of his small town with his boyfriend Manuel.. only to panic when his parents who he hasn’t come out to show up to help move and try and hide the one photo he has of them. And despite Manuel seeing it as a very easy thing to do to come out.. it’s not for Greg. He knows it’s hard and a scene of him practicing shows the poor guy breaking down at the thought of telling them despite getting every indicatio their nice people. It’s then the whole Space Cat thing comes in as the cat enchanted Greg’s dog’s collar, so when greg puts it on as a jest, it’s a body swap! So naturally we get tons of REALLY well animated shenanigans as Greg has to get his body back. Seriously the animation here is gorgeous with director Hunter choosing the painted on , impercet style to give it a storybook feel which fits the story perfectly.. seriously if Disney hasn’t made a story book of this do so.. and if they won’t someone on etsy do it because Etsy is apparently where the merch companies should be making happens.

The point is it’s fun, furious and leads to some great gags.. and then we get the emotional punch to the godnand as Greg bites his mom’s hand in order to prevent her finding a photo of him and his boyfriend. He instnatly regrets it, and breaking the photo in the process and goes to comfort her.. and we get easily the most emotinal, most beautiful part of it as Greg finds out his mom is hurt as she can clearly tell he’s keeping her at arms length and dosen’t want to loose him.. and she’s known all along he was gay.. just like the Schitts Creek example it’s clear she’s hurt a bit her son is scared to tell her but just wants him to be happy. So with a brilliant use of a squeaky toy greg switches back.. and comes out, with his dad warmly hugging miguel when he introduces himn and the space dog crying. Just a beautiful, charming, fun, and gorgeously animated short with some badly needed representation.

Also... one last note. This isn’t related to the short.. but Disney, who once again proves they can’t be progressive without stabbing themselves in the foot and no I will not stop giving out about this. This time’s especailly bad as while Out was heavily promoted.. the descripton DOSEN’T mention it having Pixar’s first gay lead and goes out of it’s way to hide Greg being gay despite the fact the short dosen’t and his being in the closet is the whole conflict of the short. And the not mnentiong the first gay lead thing is noticable because Loop DID rightly point out it was their first non verbal proganist. You can’t.. brag about being progressive about one thing and then try to hide your being progressive about another you idiots. Plus the “pleasing the bible belt” ship has sailed and left port. Ducktales is gay as hell with Penny being gay, even if Disney won’t let her just come out and say it, the crew still had her say it as much as they could, Violet’s dad’s being gay, Della being bi and Webby and Lena being as close to a couple you can get without disney screaming at them no. Andi Mack is fully avaliable on D+ as well.. well okay not fully because the dad turned out to be a pedophile, but still a series with a fully gay character is out there. And finally Owl House got TONS of press for having a bi progatanist and having her love intrest be a girl. Even if Dana Terrance had to FIGHT for that, and rightly so good on her, the point is you have queer characters already. The groups that hate you for that aren’t going to magically stop hating you because you hide the fact a short anyone can see from minute one is very , beautifully gay, I mean it starts with a very swishy space cat emerging from a rainbow atop a pink dog. COME ON. I only have a few words left for disney..

Okay whew, one more and we’re out of here.

Burrow: It’s Okay to Ask for Help and To Bang a Willing Salamander This was the first one I watched today. In hindsight had I properly researched the shorts and realized how heavy they were I probably would’ve saved this one for later to help balance out the deep feels of some of these. While Burrow is VERY VERY good, as all these shorts have been even Float, it’s subject matter is a lot lighter. I mean so far we’ve had stories about toxic masculinity, animal abuse, issues accepting your child is diffrent, sacrficing yourself so your loved one can have a better life, autisim and coming out of the closet. Even Smash and Grab which is light and breezy.. still has a disney death, and is still about a heroic rush to freedom from slavery whenyou think about it. This one.. is about an insecure bunny whose afraid to ask for help and ends up learning to get it while ending up plumiting through a bunch of comedic set pieces. It’s basically if Winnie the Pooh and Bugs Bunny had a baby comedy wise, it has the warm feeling of pooh art wise, a storybook quality tha’ts utterly adoring.. but director Madeline Sharafan specifccally wanted the animators to take after chuck jones, using lots of great expressions and reactions. It has a real classic theatrical screwball comedy vibe and given The Looney Tunes, Droopy, and Tom and Jerry mean the world to me and i’m glad nto reocnnect with 2/3 thanks to HBO Max.. I fucking loved it.

Burrow is still a personal story and is based on Sharifan’s experinces having trouble colaberating, wanting something to be fully baked before showing it off, something I agian relate to. She often hid from the others and refused to show her work until it was done while everyone else was happy to help. And as the previously used to slam disney hard with something they own Hickman Era of X-men has shown.. colaboration is just better and more freeing. By having friends and colleuge s to bounce off of you refine ideas, see how people react to them and grow a bit and that’s what the shorts about.

The plot is easily the simpliest of these: A young bunny wants to build her dream burrow but gets self concious when she runs into a friendly mole and rat living next door to where she wants to build and keeps digging to find both privacy and her own place.. and instead ends up digging into various shenangians and other burrows from frogs, to hedgehogs to most memorably some Salmanders taking a sauna.. and in the best and most ‘how the fuck did they get away with this bit of it”, one of the salamanders ends up .. gladly removing his town and being liike “You wanna do this? I mean I got an hour free” And i’m just saying while now wasn’t the time and the offer was a little awkward i’d go for it if I was her. I mean at least ask him out for coffee later. He seems nice enough if low on boundries. Then ride him until the morning light girl, ride it. She also finds the Demon Bear from New Mutants at one point.. so that’s where he retried to after danny kicked his ass again. Neat.

But eventually our heroione digs herself too deep and ends up hitting water before finding a

Who sees her crumpled plans and then does the stygian call of the badger to call all the other animals to help and after they escape the flood, the bunny finally realizes their good people and lets them see the plans. So we end on our heroine and her new friends and possible salamander lover helping her settle in as she finallyg ets the home she wanted, complete with disco. I mean every home should have a disco. If I didn’t have a ceeling fan i’d have a disco ball.. and I still want one just to set somewhere or hang away from the fan . Let me dream dammit. Overally a fun, hilarious, mad dash short with a good message and a good note to go out on.

Final Thoughts: Overall.. the Sparkshorts program is fucking spectacular, a great way to let some of Pixar’s staff get into the directors chair and really shine, and a way to tackle issues that they may not be able to get greenlit into a full film. Lushily animated, well produced, Pixar has announced MORE are coming and I cannot wait. Thank you kev for comissioning this, and thank you all for reading. If your new and liked this review, follow this blog as I talk disney all the time: when they come back i’ll be doing regular coverage of Amphibia, Ducktales and the Owl House as new episodes come out every week, and i’m currently doing a retropsective on the three cablleros kev also paid for, with the finale of it, an episode by episode look at the legend of the three cablleros, starting this week. I’m also covering LIfe and times of scrooge mcduck (though infrequently for a bit), and finishing up a look at darkwing duck’s just us justice ducks, started with looks at all the players involved and finshing next week with the episode itself. So if any of that sounds good to you, check out the archives, but goodbye, goodbye, goodbye for now.

#sparkshorts #pixar #disney #disney plus #disney+#purl #kitbull #out #wind #loop #burrow #LBGTQ+#lbgt #lbgtq #float #smash and grab #robots

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