#Also video games in the 2010s were really like 'we need a name for a Japanese woman/girl how about Kasumi' asdfgh

[obessivedork]

Holy shit the section in Far Harbor where you go into DiMA's memories is SO weird and COOL I love it!

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 3/28/2023

accidentally read five books.

listening

look i know there's a new fall out boy but i have conflicting opinions about that band bc i am no longer seventeen.

MARINA (formerly Marina and the Diamonds) was another artist coming up when i was in high school, but even though Family Jewels was one of the first albums i really got into, she has soundtracked far less of my life compared to FOB so listening to her is a little less fraught. nothing else has taken up space in my brain this week like the lyrics to hollywood: "hollywood infected your brain/you wanted kissing in the rain".

kind of obsessed how the music video cuts out an entire chunk of lyrics about dissatisfied flight attendants? also jesus christ this came out in 2010. BABY marina

originally stuck in my brain bc my sister and i were talking about the musical chicago, and this song contains the lyrics "oh my god you look just like shakira/no wait you're catherine zeta/actually my name's marina"

-

reading

Star Wars: Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. ventress has never been my favorite of count dooku’s batmanesque kidnapped children. i respect her! she’s awful! i want to see her flirt with obi-wan more but maul (my beloved) has always had more screen time and depth.

it’s spackled together from most of a cancelled eight-episode clone wars arc and it kind of shows? this is not to say that star wars books are uninterested in the interiority of their characters, but we rarely get in their heads. star wars books are much more focused on what it looks like in the movie— there are big cinematic set pieces where it’s important to know exactly where everyone is in a fight.

golden writes a competent action scene. this is more than i can say for many star wars writers.

^ i am shoving my fist into my mouth and screaming.

anyway, one of my worst character traits is a latent previously discussed fondness for steampunk and a less latent fondness for urban fantasy.

i read Alexis Hall's Iron and Velvet Kate Kane book a million years ago possibly at the rec of @bronanlynchh during the new hampshire internship, one of the worst depressive periods of my life, but i did consume a lot of gay romance during that period. bc im in my noir era now, reread it and realized there were more! so i devoured them all over the weekend.

to quote @quaraxuanzenith who seems to be the only other person here who has read them recently,

have you ever thought, "Twilight sure is a book, but it would be better if Bella ( a ) realized that Edward is a weird controlling creep, ( b ) dumped him, ( c ) came out to herself as lesbian, and ( d ) went off to become a paranormal private investigator"?

these are just fun nonsense! i loved them and will buy paper copies after i move! i would not call these "spicy", but she falls in and out of the arms of SO many femmes and fatales (who sometimes overlap). there are SO many women throwing themselves at her. it is a delightful way of nodding at the genre's roots bc kate has some game! she doesn't have zero game! she not an oblivious useless lesbian archetype either! but she's usually like ?????? this person is OUT OF MY LEAGUE and never actually realizes a tall, tortured, sad, purple-eyed lady in a trenchcoat is catnip to nearly all wlw.

i think the third book hits its stride and flings you into a rapidly entangling web of loyalties and motivations that i really enjoy in a noir. i like how the author feels no need to write the YA vampire book trilogy she survived. i like how kate has a life going on apart from the stuff that happens in the books. she does not feel like she started existing the moment the book opens.

i finally understand the little old lady love of endless mystery series, bc this is some really comforting reading. i would read twenty of these. i trust that this author's got me and may fling some twists or red herrings at me but ultimately i won't turn the page and she'll be beaten in the street for being an out lesbian. okay so she does get whumped in the street but it's for case reasons

-

watching

virtuosity (1995, dir leonard). the tagline of this film is "Hell hath no fury like a composite of 183 serial killers. Meet Sid 6.7"

is this a Good film? oh god no. if you've seen the tv show interview with the vampire, it has the same contrasting vibes between the two leads, where one is turning in an incredible performance about a black man trying to hold onto family and dignity while the other is prancing around like a deranged show pony. except without the clarity of purpose or production values of a big budget amc tv drama. however, russell crowe (guy i love to see) put his whole ass into this performance. this is not a half-assed acting effort. it is a joy to watch him zip around screen while denzel washington is giving a very good performance as a disgraced, widowed ex-cop.

this really throws a wrench into my whole "if a movie is about being afraid of a robot it's about being afraid of women" bc crowe is not a woman, but he is a malevolent neural network given an android body. a private company has a contract for a police training tool (the neural network trained on 183 serial killers who you can fight in VR) and is testing the interface on prisoners. i wish this movie had anything to say or critique about this three-way partnership other than using it as an inciting incident for what turns into a chase movie. the movie does not attempt to convince you this would be a good idea in a different private company's dev team but i wish the movie spent slightly less time going AAAAAA HOW TO STOP and any time at all going AAAAAAA HOW DID WE LET THIS HAPPEN

i would call this film camp on vibes alone except it is almost completely uninterested in sensuality. the special effects have not aged very well at all, but the film has the same production designer (Nilo Rodis-Jamero) as Johnny Mnemomic (also 1995) so the film Looks.

why? it was leaving canopy soon and when my gender isn't "woman in the same way a sailing ship is a woman" it's "nineties movie club scenes"

-

playing

weird west! still! (image from the steam page bc i keep forgetting to take screenshots)

not terribly worried about the somewhat repetitive nature of the locations themselves, bc the enemy encounters are varied enough it feels like solving a new puzzle each time. also im still having fun.

i have been picking off guys from around the edges of enemy encampments with a silenced rifle and then tanking through this rest with a shotgun and liberal bandage application, as i am wont to do in shooty games, but i cannot currently break my husband out of a mine run by...cannibals? human traffickers to the cannibals? the xp-giving bad guys without getting one of my companions killed. i really don't want to ditch ann lara (i'm not entirely sure what her deal is? sort of a smooth-talking hustler archetype? but really good with pistols?) who has been with me for most of the eight hours i've played this game. the sheriff/my neighbor, along for the ride for her own reasons, has four times as much health as either of us so she's staying. she's been the only one left alive most of my attempts at this one FUCKING cave.

so i am looping back out into the world (sorry husband) to go think about some real tactics. practice my dodge rolls in a less tense environment. perhaps level up some guns and armor. now you might say "kay! isn't it worrying that you're hitting such a big difficulty cliff?" and to that i say "not really bc i cannot stress the amount of simply dicking around and exploring ive done, also i am not a clever woman."

-

making

fallow week

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Why Can't They Get TRON Right?

Perhaps we fans of the 1982 Steve Lisberger-directed sci-fi adventure TRON were lucky to even get a belated sequel in the first place...

TRON: LEGACY was greenlit by Disney after many years of the original film garnering a massive cult following after its so-so box office run during a summer where E.T. ruled the roost. Contrary to popular belief, TRON was not really a "flop". It just wasn't the blockbuster Disney had wanted it to be, its okay $50m gross against a $17m budget did not put it in the echelon of STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Its many video game spin-offs, such as the arcade game from Bally Midway, fared way better... As did the home video sales over the years. The film got a fantastic 2-disc DVD in 2002, followed by a new game called TRON 2.0. A second life well-lived, so far...

Disney got Joseph Kosinski, who had directed multiple video game commercials including those for HALO 3 and GEARS OF WAR, to helm the picture, and brought back Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner from the original. After a whole 2 1/2 years of hyping this picture up, beginning all the way back in 2008 at San Diego Comic Con (that "TR2N" teaser that was later slightly redone as the film's theatrical teaser in late 2009), TRON: LEGACY bowed in Christmas 2010 to mixed reviews but fairly impressive box office.

I mean, impressive for a movie that was a belated sequel to a cult classic sci-fi movie that wasn't for everybody! I mean, really, $400m worldwide for that kind of thing is nothing to scoff. But for Disney, it wasn't enough. An animated series called TRON: UPRISING debuted on Disney's various channels - namely Disney XD - to solid ratings, but then Disney moved the show to a timeslot where few could stay up and watch it. They straight up murdered it, ratings sunk, no second season...

But, it still seemed like a third movie could happen, after an executive shake-up or two. Kosinski would be back, along with Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, and LEGACY newcomers Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Cillian Murphy. By spring 2015, TRON: ASCENSION was locked and ready to go for a fall shoot... But Disney got cold feet, after the release of a similarly big-budget sci-fi film of theirs - Brad Bird's TOMORROWLAND - bombed at the box office. Typical capitalist nonsense, a slightly similar movie fails? Boom, your project's dead. TRON: ASCENSION did not move forward...

Shortly thereafter, Disney began developing a spin-off film called TRON: ARES. A TRON movie in name only, if you ask me, starring Jared Leto. Said to be a creep that somehow dodged Me Too, and also... Uh, his erratic behavior? All that "method acting"? And his resume hasn't been too hot, either... And yet, the years have gone by, Disney keeps trying to make Fetch, I mean- TRON: ARES happen. Even after proposing and then shelving a Disney+ series based on the property.

By 2020, it seemed to be going full speed ahead with a director attached, Garth Davis. He exited the project a little while ago, now it has KON-TIKI, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 5, and MALEFICENT 2 director Joachim Ronning as director. It was supposed to shoot this month... But because The Walt Disney Company and all the other big studios just can't pay actors and writers what they need to keep roofs over their heads... Production has stalled...

And the other day, you had Ronning saying, "This is Hollywood. We close deals for breakfast. Why do we suddenly have all the time in the world when every day is so precious? These tactics are extremely frustrating. It’s time for diplomacy so we can get back to work – under conditions that are fair to everybody"...

Really? Like... Really??

It's like this TRON spin-off is cursed, infected with a virus if you will:

Stalled and stalled for years, went through more than one director, evolved out of a cancelled true sequel to the previous TRON film (which will turn 13 in December), has freakin' Jared Leto super-glued to this thing (as lead actor and producer, like what's his stake in TRON?), and now its director is being a dingus about the strikes...

And here I am, saying... Disney, you could've just greenlit TRON 3 from director Joseph Kosinski, filmed it in 2015, released it in 2017/18-ish... And called it a day.

Hell, you could've landed Kosinski after he went and directed 2022's megablockbuster juggernaut TOP GUN: MAVERICK! But ya didn't!

Disney just doesn't know what to do with TRON, it seems. They seem to keep going back to it for aesthetic reasons, but can't somehow make the story itself work in order to get Marvel movie grosses out of it. (Not that it should be doing that in the first place, it's freakin' TRON.) As a friend of mine put it, Disney looks at it and says, "The one with the highlighter bikes, yeah let's do that!" The story itself really isn't out of reach in a post-MATRIX world anyways.

Ex out TRON: LEGACY's budget and how Disney bean counters expected it to do, and you have a movie that quite a few people went to go see in a theater! $170m+ domestically, $400m worldwide. Again, that was fantastic for a TRON sequel! Reportedly, Disney hoped that this December 2010 release would be the next AVATAR, which was a December 2009 release. They hoped that the digital world spectacle and 3D would be their ticket to having a piece of that pie, but they guessed wrong... They missed the forest for the trees. Plus, the 3D craze evaporated at the speed of sound after AVATAR came out. And that was because a ton of movies that didn't do what James Cameron did to deliver a truly immersive experience soured audiences on 3D. Most of the time, you essentially paid to watch a movie with sunglasses on.

But all those TRON woes go back to their difficulties making sci-fi pictures that become hits, or franchises. All the way back to 1979's ill-fated THE BLACK HOLE, and plenty more, from ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE to JOHN CARTER OF MARS to TOMORROWLAND to LIGHTYEAR to STRANGE WORLD.

It's especially strange to me because science fiction and futurism and space travel are a big part of Disney... I mean, Tomorrowland itself in the Disney theme parks, it was there since the day Disneyland itself opened in 1955. Walt Disney's DISNEYLAND anthology TV series had whole programs dedicated to space and the cosmos: MAN IN SPACE, MARS AND BEYOND, etc. And of course, the big one... EPCOT! Both EPCOT the city concept and EPCOT Center/Epcot, the theme park in Walt Disney World.

I should shut up, probably, and just be happy that Disney is doing *anything* with TRON in the film world. We have the two rollercoasters, yes, the one in WDW Florida and the one in Shanghai. I'd love to ride it, but Florida ain't the place for a person like me at the moment, so that's gonna have to wait.

Anyways, I've been very iffy about this TRON-without-Tron movie since we started hearing about it right around this time in 2016... I just find it kind of fascinating that it has stalled for so long, and right as it was about to get shootin'... The strikes happened (and of course had to/needed to). The reports say that it's still on once the studio heads stop being dinguses, but we shall see...

But for me personally? I just want the actual TRON 3... Maybe, if this movie happens first and does okay for itself... Then we get TRON 3? A sort-of two mainline movies, a spin-off, and a threequel situation? I'll take whatever I can get.

End of line.

[kitchfit]

Year in Review: Movies Pt 2

No longer promising consistent posts. From now on, these come out "bi-weekly," which means whatever I want it to, and written by your weekly bi. I am the only person to have ever thought of that joke.

Robin Hood (2010)

This is the one with Russell Crowe. I honestly don't know how I finished this one. I guess because my dad wanted to watch it. This is supposed to be a gritty, realistic take on the classic Robin Hood story. Or at least, I think that's what they were going for, it feels like the director can't decide between gritty realism and the goofiness that comes with the concept of the Merry Men. They're constantly cracking off one-liners and stealing from rich people with goofy disguises that feel more like pranks, but there's also an entire bloody battle scene between "Robin of the Hood" and King Richard that I cannot for the life of me remember the context nor conclusion of. I guess you could say it has both elements wrapped in one neat package, but it doesn't do either of those aspects really well.

Two most memorable scenes for me involve a blind man kicking surprising amount of ass in a sword fight, though ultimately unsuccessfully, and Little John clarifying to the bee-keeping Friar Tuck that NO! He does NOT have a "Little John." (as in small penie). The cast is kind of stacked in this movie, (Cate Blanchett as Lady Marianne, Oscar Isaac as King Richard, the Crow-man as The Hood) and they all give great performances, if that's what you're after, but overall it's kind of forgettable.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

The rest of this entry's list follows a second movie marathon I had with some friends as we prepared for a showing of "Across the Spider-verse" we were watching the morning after. Why does that mean two anime movies and a classic Eddie Murphy comedy? I don't know! It was fun though. And that's all I can really say about this movie. It was fun! Nothing amazing. The plot follows the tertiary return of the Red Ribbon army, who are once again on that robot shit, and Piccolo trying to get his foster son, Gohan, to stop being a nerd (having a secure, well-paying career as an entomologist? Apparently?) and be a martial artist again. He does this by constantly putting his foster son's daughter (foster granddaughter?) in mortal peril to make Gohan snap and break stuff like he did in the old days. This is, hilariously, played as a uncritically good deed and that Piccolo was right to do this. I love Piccolo though, so he can do whatever he wants, Pan seems like she's having a great time being in peril.

The animation is fantastic, as per usual with high-budget anime movies these days. They opted for a 3D style that blends in nicely with the artstyle they've been using for Super. The fight scenes are choreographed in a way that reminds me of the Dragon Ball games they've put out in recent years, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Fighterz team worked on this. Oh wait, I have the power of the Internet in my Grasp.

...

WOW! Trying to find a comprehensive list of animators is hard as fuck! Cool! I ended up pausing through a video of the credits for both pieces of media. God I wish I could ctrl+f on a video. There may have been some overlapping names I overlooked, but I guess it wasn't largely the same people, oh well! If anyone knows a better way to find this information, please let me know!

Jujutsu Kaisen Zero

Our second anime movie of the night had a bit more depth to it. My watch through of Jujutsu Kaisen season one was bombastic, beautiful, and well-executed. It felt like a modern, more competent rewrite of the dynamics found in Naruto, though since I haven't read any of the manga that may be presumptuous of me. This movie didn't feel like Naruto. This movie felt more like Uzumaki (okay I haven't read Uzumaki yet, but I could resist the pun lol). A more straight-forward animated horror film that only leans into its shonen side towards the final act. You don't need to have read or watched any of Jujutsu Kaisen to appreciate this. In fact, I guess you could start with it, since it acts somewhat as a prequel.

The plot follows a boy possessed by the ghost of a woman he witnessed die in a car accident when he was a young kid. She was very close to him while he was alive, and in death she is an obsessive, over protective monster who maims anyone who might come close to her liege. It comes to light that her possession was actually (spoilers) the result of the boy's own psychic abilities, who brought her back from the grave on accident while distressing her death. It's an interesting statement on grief. An emotion can be so powerful as to tear open the fabric of the pale, and holding onto the negativity of that emotion for years only serving to hurt oneself and everyone around them. And then making peace with that grief so you can *checks notes* use your dead loved one to kick ass in a cool anime fight sequence. This movie NEEDS to be in schools./j

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

Modern media has been a bit over-saturated with Multiverse stories as of late. Its a pretty common story trope in science fiction, done to death in Star Trek, DC comics, the comic this movie was based on, the video-game that comic was inspidered by, among other things. Rick and Morty's entire premise is basically built on the back of that concept, but I think we can trace its recent burst in usage to the success of this movie.

I love Spider-Man. I love Peter Parker. I think his story has such a strong foundation that nearly every adaptation I've seen has been compelling in one way or another. I love most of the Avengers super-heroes, but I can't really say their characters are as relatable, funny, or impactful as our arachnid enhanced boy. There's a reason when Sony was offered the entire Marvel ensemble, they opted to just take the wall-crawler at a discounted price. This movie uses the Multiverse to deconstruct the Spider-Hero narrative and show exactly why this character premise is so compelling.

Miles Morales is not Peter Parker, but he is Petersimilar. A nerdy kid who loves science and wants to be liked and most imporantly: wants to help, no, needs to help others. Because great power + conscience = responsibility. The same is consistent with the rest of the cast. It's a cheesy formula at this point, maybe, which is why its so effective when they play it so straight-forward with all six members of the cast. Different backgrounds, different histories, different universes, but all have seen what their inaction can affect, and all of them have the heart to keep going, to help people even when it gets tough. Miles is a particularly effective introduction to this Super-Hero for younger kids, being relatively less known and thus a fresher narrative than Peter, not to mention more black representation in popular media. It makes me smile when I see kids excitedly bring a stack of Miles Morales easy readers to the check-out desk. He's definitely The Spider of the next generation.

The Nutty Professor

This movie is. Definitely something. Still not sure why we ended our marathon on it. For those unaware, this is an Eddie Murphy comedy about an obese biology professor who concocts A Serum that makes him not only thin for short periods of time, but extremely charismatic. The thin version of himself essentially acts as a second personality who's kind of an asshole, and his coworker ends up caught in a love triangle between Fat Murphy and Thin Murphy.

This, naturally, comes with an endless cavalcade of fatphobic jabs typical of the 90s, but ultimately has a somewhat half-hearted message about toxic masculinity and body positivity. A lot of the jokes that aren't aimed at "haha fat people" do land with relative frequency, because well, Eddie Murphy Is Kind Of A Funny Guy, but for the first time I noticed a structural similarity in his comedy and Adam Sandler's. Remember Chuck and Larry, where the writing is extremely homophobic for the majority of its runtime, and ends with Sandler saying, "Don't be a homophobe"? No? No one has thought of that movie in 10,000 years? Well, this movie feels like that but with fat people, to slightly less offensive degree. But a low effort Murphy movie is still better than a mid-effort Sandler flick, I guess.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse

I already ranted about how much I love Spider-Man earlier, and how the original deconstructs him as a concept, so I won't do that again, but I do want to draw attention to the inherent meta-fiction in Multiverse stories. It is, by its very nature, a story discussing storytelling. By showing different universes you are showing the audience how a story could have gone differently, how characterization can fundamentally alter a narrative. Multiverse stories that understand and recognize this principle tend to lead to a more cohesive and engaging plot. AtSV understand this principle, and follows more closely the original Edge of Spider-verse comic run, reintroducing Spider-Staples like Spider-Punk and Pavitr Prabhakar.

I like that Miguel O'Hara takes center-stage as the antagonist in this film, as he is largely left out of the Spider-verse stuff in the comics, and also I love Spider-Man 2099. One of my friends is obsessed with him. It is his recognition of the patterns in the Spider-Man narrative that drives the conflict in the second act, and it is him who decides those patterns are Fundamental to the Structure of All Things, which not only fits with his character, but provides a much better explanation for the existence of Spider-Society compared to the Spider Gods and Fate Totems from the comics. Miles is once again trapped in a typical Spider-Man conflict, but ironically has his status as Spider-Man called into question. All of existence is collapsing, a science experiment gone wrong turned a scientist into a monster, his dad is in peril, and all of it is getting in the way of asking out the girl of his dreams. Can none of the 100,000 Peter Parker's sympathize? Well yes, they can, but most still hold O'Hara's goal as the larger responsibility.

Speaking of the girl of his dreams, I adore Spider-Gwen. She is the comic book character I will follow to the ends of the earth, even though most of her comics lately suck ass. This film does a beautiful job bringing Robbie Rodriguez's artstyle to life in our brief time in Earth 65. The colors... THE COLORS!!! This animation team once again changed the landscape of animated films, but sadly this came at the cost of some pretty gross labor violations. This is extra damning as AtSV is apparently the fourth longest animated movie ever and doesn't even have a conclusion. All that abuse for an incomplete story? They clearly could have taken their time with this, and not every scene needed to make it to the final cut. This is why we have deleted scenes! So a studio doesn't lock a bunch of animators in a box and force them to work an unreasonable amount in record time. I hope the next movie has more union reps and give everyone as much time and space as they need to make something good. I want movies with people paid more to do less, dammit!

Okay, my soap box has been discarded. I've placed it neatly in the drawer with my toothpaste and hairbrush. I have one more list of movies to get through, but rn I'm moving onto the latter half of my reading list, since with my track record I probably won't finish anything else before the end of the year.

[breakingarrows]

Games Media in Review: Nextlander

The first Giant Bomb spin-off project was Drew Scanlon leaving in March of 2017 to begin a Patreon called Cloth Map, “exploring the people, places, and cultures of the world through the lens of games, and making sweet videos about it.” Due to Covid-19’s outbreak in early 2020, Drew could no longer travel and shut down the Patreon in July of that year. Drew would go on to join Digital Eclipse Entertainment Partners Co., developers of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration and Mega Man: Legacy Collection. This would not be the last spin-off of Giant Bomb, itself a spin off of GameSpot following Jeff Gerstmann’s firing in 2007.

In September of 2020, Viacom CBS would sell CNET Media Group (GameSpot, CNET, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, GameFAQs) to Red Ventures. In May of 2021 Brad Shoemaker, Vinny Caravella, and Alex Navarro would announce that they would be leaving Giant Bomb. Brad and Vinny had been with the website since its beginnings in 2008 and Alex had joined in 2010 after a stint on the development/PR side of the industry with Harmonix. The name of their new venture was Nextlander, and they launched their Patreon for it on June 7, 2021, quickly accruing over 10,000 patrons. Their departure left Jeff Gerstmann as the only remaining founding member at Giant Bomb, and he would be fired in lieu of seeing through his two week notice one year later in June 2022.

Nextlander have retained a stable base of around 10,000 patrons since launch, giving them a solid foundation of income for the past two years. Speaking to Ben Hanson of MinnMax shortly after their Patreon’s launch, Vinny would share, “You know, it's very, we talked about this a lot when we were part of bigger companies. It's a bit of a bubble and you're not sure what the actual response is going to be from everything. I mean, we were, we were all in there for a decade, right? Like inside kind of a, a kind of a bubble for lack of a better word and you know you have you don't know what your self-worth is you don't know you know there are a lot of people you get messages and stuff you also get a lot of criticism obviously and you it's you know your kind of futures are dictated by other people.” They go on to discuss the newfound freedom in being able to make decisions without any management position above them second guessing their decisions, no longer, “being in a corporate machine for that long, which is nothing but hierarchy.” Whiskey Media, the original owner of Giant Bomb, was small enough that they shared a room with the people making the business decisions. They were then absorbed into the giant machine that is CBS after a sale in 2012. After another sale to Red Ventures, Vinny, Brad, and Alex were all contemplating that transition being, “my off-ramp to kind of investigate other things.”

On YouTube Nextlander regularly uploads their Twitch streams, pretty consistently two hours of playing a game and talking over it amongst themselves. The lack of being in the same physical space is something I’ve mentioned before but I need to repeat here, it really takes away from the energy. Sharing a space with someone and talking/joking with them cannot be replicated over a Skype-equivalent. There is something about the dynamic between these three specifically that lacks the energy and enthusiasm I had for them under Giant Bomb. Brad and Vinny trying to remember their Astroneer status after a new update, the three of them just talking amongst themselves and repeating “I’m down” while playing Remnant II cooperatively, and the frequent troubleshooting and just uninteresting conversations during any video was so bland I ended up watching less of their output than even the current Giant Bomb.

Nextlander’s podcast is what you would expect from a gaming podcast: what they’ve been playing, news, and letters. There isn’t anything here that you can’t find anywhere else, and it really becomes a question of, “How much do you like listening to Vinny, Brad, and Alex?” One standout element that does set them apart from every other YouTube channel is that comments are off on all of their uploads. I actually really like this choice as comments are generally not something I recommend reading once you’ve reached a certain mass audience, and this pushes those who do wish to participate to join the Discord via a Patreon subscription, funneling more people, and engagement, to a place that they can better control than the untamed landscape of YouTube comments.

Given that you can watch anybody play and talk over a game it really is on the back of personalities that people pick gaming channels nowadays, so why is Nextlander so lacking? Each person have become such caricatures over the course of a decade of talking into a camera for an audience that a lot of the time their output reads more like fulfilling an expectation in terms of performing these characters than actually being themselves. How many times does someone have to reference how Alex is a grumpy old man and wait for him to perform that bit? During their game streams non-players passively watch and ask questions nobody knows the answer to. More time is spent talking about the bit than doing a bit. Watching them play games isn’t entertaining, it isn’t informative, it isn’t insightful, it just exists as background noise even when actively watching.

Due to my history with Giant Bomb it is really disappointing to have constantly approached Nextlander over its brief lifetime only to be turned away by how unengaging it was. They still collaborate with former coworkers, most frequently Abby Russell, which should help offset this feeling. Abby was at her best when behind the wheel however, and there is only so much energy she can bring to a Zoom call as a guest for one-off shows, even if her presence is greatly appreciated.

When writing about Kinda Funny and Kinda Funny Games I did not get into the perks people receive for supporting via Patreon. At this time, Kinda Funny and Kinda Funny Games have a $25.00 tier in which six series of exclusive “short-form video bonus shows” are published. $10.00 supporters will receive these shows as well, just a month afterwards. Two of the six series were not part of their published content in the past 30 days, but I also found enough enjoyable content in their regular upload schedule that I didn’t feel the need to take a one time dip to see what’s up. With Nextlander their regular schedule is so familiar, and so dull, that I felt the need to see what was behind the wall.

I joined their Patreon at $10.00 a month to see if these exclusive podcasts are any different from their free content. When thinking about Kinda Funny, I really enjoyed their content well into the late 2010s due to their vibe harkening back to earlier IGN days, when the website's podcasts were a series of people just shooting the shit and not taking the content very seriously. As the website aged and its podcasts got more popular, spreading to YouTube, it took on a much more “on topic” air about it, which really killed the fun. Kinda Funny was a return to the “conversational” podcasts where getting off topic was encouraged in the name of entertaining listeners. Nextlander’s regular output of content is more of the “on-topic” approach, whereas the Patreon exclusives are more shoot-the-shit. Never Been a Better Podcast and the Ramblecast are pretty much free range discussions about anything and everything and are much more entertaining because of it.

The Watchcast allows them to talk about television and movies at length and usually on one specific piece of media everyone has seen, leading to stronger discussions of the subject compared to the scattershot talk about whatever game someone happens to be playing. This issue was apparently something they sought to address in the beginning of Nextlander, with every member playing the same game in order to generate better conversations as everyone would be informed on it. Instead they fell back into one person poorly explaining the game to the others who have no experience and likely little interest in trying it out themselves. As film and television episodes require significantly less time and energy it means they can all participate and episodes are stronger due to this. Their Planaroma podcast is fairly boring, merely being a read through of the month of releases, and it makes me ponder how necessary keeping up with the latest releases is to their bottom line. Is this something they do because the audience wants it, they want to, or because it has been The Thing they have been doing as a career for over a decade?

Online personalities, or those who make careers out of talking into a camera for a video posted or streamed to the internet, has eroded the barrier between personal life and professional life. For people such as these, their personal life partly becomes the content, creating what has become known as a parasocial relationship between themselves and their audience, where people who have done nothing other than simply watch and listen to individuals such as those at Giant Bomb feel that these people are their friends and begin to talk amongst themselves about the personal lives of those they watch. This phenomenon is best explained, and made popular, by Shannon Strucci’s series of YouTube videos: Fake Friends. Kinda Funny exacerbates this with their naming of the audience, “Best friends,” seemingly encouraging the creation of this one way relationship, usually as a way to draw in financial support via Patreon subscriptions. Even when it isn’t actively encouraged, in an extreme case such as RedLetterMedia, who are openly antagonistic to their fans, sections of the fandom inevitably fall into the phenomenon.

When looking into the current Giant Bomb I mentioned that a Premium subscription no longer offered exclusive content and instead offered Discord access. This has become a standard Patreons subscription perk, Nextlander included. Unlike a group such as, I don’t know, Superculture (which you can support here) the engagement by the Nextlander hosts is less comparatively. Some of this is explained by audience size. Nextlander’s Discord is 10,716 members as of this writing whereas Superculture is 242, a much more manageable number where you can have actual conversations instead of drowning in a sea of responses. Still, given that the YouTube comments are disabled and the Reddit is unofficial, Discord is the place to be if you want any online interaction with the hosts, though you’re lucky if you even get that there.

Instead, I think this lack of engagement is intentional. All this time at GameSpot, Giant Bomb, and now yet another venture centered around themselves, the individuals, as the product being sold, I imagine they have little interest in engaging with an audience who so often speculate and publicly post about intimate details not shared and not owed. How often is the lack of collaboration between Nextlander and Jeff Gerstmann after his solo career started going to be posted and lead to the same conversations regarding their personal lives and interpersonal relationships? I can’t imagine being held under such scrutiny by people I’ve never met, and it explains their overall lack of community engagement. However, due to their funding model, it can bring some tension due to the audience who is willing to give you money month after month is also partly the one most interested in every little detail about your life.

Their Patreon content is better than the regular stuff they put out, but is it worth paying $10.00 every month? I don’t think so. While I enjoyed the Ramblecast, Watchcast, and Never Been a Better Podcast, due to the regular output being so dull I don’t see myself giving them money beyond this one instance of investigating what exactly it was being paywalled. Listening to Jeff Bakalar rant about how dumb contestants on game shows are was funny, and hearing Vinny talk inside baseball regarding old corporate policies on money spending was the kind of stuff I like listening to, much more than the standard and expected opinions on the Latest Release, but it is not worth the monthly subscription and I only ever see myself doing it again simply for one month in order to play catch up.

Hosting video is expensive, something the Giant Bomb folks know firsthand having created their own video player in order to host their premium video content. A player which was then slowly passed over in favor of YouTube and now exists solely as a legacy way to view that old premium content. Video makers need a place to host their content, but they also expect to be compensated for the work behind that content, especially when it is bringing in lots of eyes to that host’s platform. YouTube wasn’t cutting it, but as the biggest platform around, creators didn’t have many alternative choices but to continue to publish there. Then, with Patreon, a new way to receive funding arrived. The main problem was converting your viewers who were used to watching for free into those who would contribute a small amount month after month.

Of the 58 channels I have tracked who primarily publish through YouTube, 45 see a less than 1% conversion rate from YouTube subscriber to patron. Two of the top three conversions are the relatively brand new channels Nextlander and Jeff Gerstmann, where they have yet to accrue inactive subscribers over the course of a decade plus of existence on the platform. The other is Last Stand Media with an 18.92% subscriber->patron conversion despite being 6 years old. Your potential audience is only so large, and 99% of them are unwilling or simply unable to give you funding. Large sites such as IGN, GameSpot, Polygon, Kotaku have built in audiences thanks to their lifetime spent adhering to the SEO. Internally they raise up (or grind up) individuals who then go off into either game development, leave the industry entirely, or launch their own venture, taking part of that audience with them and getting an even smaller portion to fund them directly. How many more times can this occur before Patreon, what was once the savior of independent games media, becomes unsustainable itself? Most recently we’ve seen Waypoint disintegrate into Remap (and successfully transition the subscriber base of Waypoint+), the launch of Aftermath (made up of former Kotaku, Motherboard, Verge, and Launcher staff), and a significant portion of The Escapist resign and reform as Second Wind to massive success. Will that base stay strong like Nextlander or will it become a slow decline like Easy Allies? I myself subscribe to multiple Patreons, but I can’t continue to divvy up my monthly income to more and more channels. Of the people who follow specific YouTube channels, there is such a small percentage of them who are willing to give their money to ensure it continues, and that money can’t be divided up infinitely.

It has been disappointing going back through all these websites, many of which I once had a real deep affection for, and finding myself uninterested and disappointed by their current activity. Ben Verschoor, when writing about Bill Watterson’s latest output, “The Mysteries,” reminded me of a quote from Watterson, “It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now ‘grieving’ for ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.” I don’t have any ill will towards folks like Nextlander, but with how mundane a majority of their output is, maybe it would be better if the Patreon pie was dominated less by their slice and left for fresher, livelier talent out there.

[ecogirl2759]

Okay-

Hear me out

I need to talk about some really obscure things rn

Because I think I might be crazy?

Lots of "do you remember"s below the break, please give it a skim.

(The [] next to the questions is just the status that the media's in relating to me. So, [Unfindable] means that I can't find it anywhere but can probably be found with a little elbow grease. There's also [Lost media] and [Available media] for things that are actually lost or are just uncommon knowledge respectively.)

1

Does anyone remember this one game called "I Want To Die" or something along those lines? [Unfindable]

I played it once or twice when I was really young. It was basically a black-and-white 2D platformer game that was designed to kill you at all times because the main character (which was just the silhouette of a man) wanted to die and that was the whole premise. I think some of the levels were actually impossible to beat. There were spikes, saw blades, and other deadly things placed around since it was like those classic 2D platformers except, in this one, whenever you died you just moved straight onto the next level. I'm pretty sure I played this with my sister, too, but she said that she barely remembers it. I just want to find that game and play it again because how the hell did I get my hands on it when I was, like, 7. Might've been on Armor Games or something, but I'm not sure since I can't find it on the web.

2

Did anyone watch Contraptus back in the day? [Lost media]

Originally named Léonard, it was a French animated kids show that ran from 2009 - 2010 ish. When it got an English dub, it was renamed Contraptus. It had, like, 78 episodes or something? For the longest time I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the show, but I went on a deep dive a couple months back only to 1) find the name of the show and 2) find that all of the English episodes had been wiped. COMPLETELY. WIPED. The only evidence that the dub even existed are a couple of English commercials and the official English YouTube channel (with no videos on it).

Funny part about this one is that none of my family even remembered watching this back in the day. I only remembered it because I was once told off for calling my sister a nitwit, an insult often used in the show that I thought was funny. Once I showed my sisters a couple clips, it brought back memories, but otherwise they wouldn't have known. I'm 90% sure I watched this about a decade ago on Netflix on my Nintendo Wii. And, this is total hearsay and probably not true at all, but to me it sounded like the main character was voiced by Tom Kenny? I don't think he actually was, it just sounded like it to me. There aren't any IMDB credits to back up any of the English VAs. BUT LIKE. IT'S JUST THAT NO ONE REMEMBERS THIS SHOW AT ALL?? I JUST WANNA WATCH THIS SHOW AGAIN!!

Here are a couple of commercials from the show just in case it brings back repressed memories in anyone else. (Clip1 : Clip2)

3

Less obscure, but does anyone remember Obama in the Dark? [Available media]

It was a flash game that I think was on either Friv or Armor games back in the day. One of those horror puzzle games. The premise was that the army was sent to investigate this one mansion, but they couldn't go in because it was too scary, so Obama had to go in himself lol. This one DOES still exist and screencaps come up when you Google it, so I'm mostly just asking to see if anyone remembered playing it. Also, does anyone know how it ended? I watched my sister play it back in the day, but we both had to stop because we were scaredy-cats and got nightmares from it. Also we got stuck on the stair puzzle--

4

Does anyone remember the game I'm Hungry? [Unfindable]

Granted, this entry is my little sister's, not mine. She said there was definitely a game on Friv at some point in time called I'm Hungry, but no one else seems to remember it, not even me. From how my sister described it, it was this really basic-looking 2D platformer with an all-blue background, and there were various different food items scattered around. You played as this blob-thing and went around collecting the food, and that was it. There were a couple of levels that you could play, but the loop was basically the same. It also apparently had this one song playing on repeat in the background (just looked it up, it's Amazing Plan - Distressed by Kevin MacLeod). That's basically all my sister remembers of this game, other than that she's completely sure it exists or existed at some point. She remembered me making a comment about the music at some point after we played it, but I don't remember this game at all.

5

Does anyone remember The Owl? [Available media]

This also isn't my entry, this is my mom's. She said that at some point in the 80s-90s, there was this really, REALLY bad show that was aired called The Owl. She caught an episode on TV once and tried to talk to her friends/colleagues about it, but no one had any idea what she was talking about. Though, turns out, what she thought was a show with maybe a season or two was canceled after ONLY 1 EPISODE. It was that bad. This is something that I think is readily available online, but it's here in case anyone remembers seeing it so my mom doesn't think she's insane lol. She said the plot was about this guy who's family gets murdered in front of him, so he can't sleep anymore because he gets nightmares / flashbacks to that night. I think he ends up developing "owl powers" or abilities from it or something.

Well, turns out it's The Owl, the TV movie from 1991 that she remembers. Here's the IMDB page for it. If you know about it or have seen it, lmk!

----------

So uh

That's all I have for now

I'll probably add to this if I come up with any other things that I want to know existed, but for now this is all.

I do actually have one other thing (it was either a show or a movie), but I've kinda been gaslit into thinking it was just something I dreamt about. Might share that later if people want.

Feel free to add other things to this post that you remember playing/watching but no one else does!

[goddamnwebcomics]

Gag and Puke A Day: The Loco Bandito

I hate the term "didn't age well". You should only say that about spoiled milk or moldy bread. It also implies that EVERY single modern day media is better and could never age badly. But we won't know how much the stuff that is considered good and valid today is horribly offensive to the people in the next 20 years. For all we know, eating red meat will be as offensive as blackface to future generations. It also justifies corporations wanting to eradicate all the old media and replace it with generic, safe slob """remakes""", as well as go after the institutions whose job is to preserve these works like Internet Archive, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Also, it implies that something that was released back in the day didn't just instantly fucking suck. Take for example today's topic, The Loco Bandito. I feel that anyone who read it back in the day would find it just as offensive back then as it is today. It was dead on arrival.

Loco Bandito was made by a man known as Mike Matei. You might have heard of him, he helped to co-create Angry Video Game Nerd with James Rolfe. Now Mike has been a source of controversy these past few years. Whether it's Minecraft with Gadget, his terrible review of Elmo in Grouchland or him getting upset about people making fun of his gigantic penis(???), however none of these are as bad as The Loco Bandito.

I don't have a problem with edgy humour. Twitter has defined edgy humour as "saying bigoted shit" but that's not edgy humour, that's just bigotry. Bigotry is not really a form of comedy. That being said edgy humour is not safe, it's not supposed to make you comfortable. Edgy humour could also help you to challenge yourself and think. Many jokes that I have made in this blog in the past definitely qualify as edgy humour. While I was a lot more raunchy in the 2010's, it never crossed the line of "saying racial slurs as a joke". And that is what The Loco Bandito is. While I have issue with policing jokes, that doesn't mean I am okay with this.

Loco Bandito is about a self-hating mexican man who is horribly racist. The final page is him shitting on himself by the way.

It's bigoted for the sake of bigoted. I didn't use the word edgy because it it was edgy for the sake of edgy, it would at least be comical in some form or fashion. I know the early 2000's Internet was filled with shit like this, but that shit was either made by 10 year old kids or actual racists who have since likely commited suicide in one of the last 4000 mass shootings in the last hour that happened on American soil. Hah! Now that's an edgy joke!

This also applies to Electric Retard and I might make a post about that in a future Gag-and-Puke-A-Day since I feel that no longer belongs to the rifflist. Let's take a look at another work of misery.

This format is literally the exact same as in the last comic. And the final page involves shit again, at least they did the censoring for me this time.

I don't think I need to post any more pages, you get the idea. There is another comic where the punchline isn't racism, but still why would you fucking do this??? Why would you even associate your name with this shit?

I know that Mike has expressed regrets for making this comic, and if I were him I would have tried to erase every aspect of this comic from the internet. This is actually considered so bad, Internet Archive has actually refused to archive the original page for this webcomic. When the Modern Library of Alexandria goes "yeah this shit isn't worth preserving" then you've created something truly worthless. The Loco Bandito was dead on arrival, stillborn, to say it didn't age well would imply it was allowed to breathe.

[velvetvent]

i logged into tumblr and realized the internet has changed a lot since i started and i have feelings about it,, these are those feelings. aka a love letter to the days when a fanfic about milk was the biggest thing on this god forsaken website

being chronically online for a decade sucks bc you get nostalgia for the worst times of the internet, like tumblr back in the 2010′s, or the days when we’d go on chatroulette for fun. and all the random kik groupchats. like yeah my trauma is literally from that entire era but also tumblr hasnt hit the same since and i haven’t gotten the excitement of my internet friends finally replying to me or the thrill of being able to video respond to a youtube video since. And nothing really hits the same anymore. Like back then it was adults fucking with kids and yeah it was wrong but it’s not like it doesn’t happen now. It’s all dirtier and cleaner at the same time. More ad-friendly content but there’s still just as much trafficking and toxicity as there always has been, if not more. Youtube is still there but there’s adsense now that everyone has to try and navigate and pc culture exists which is fine but cancel culture is rampant and tiring at this point. And everybody is constantly filtered, but the filters change your face shape now. It’s not just a sepia tone or dog ears anymore, now you get jaw surgery and botox and eyeliner and lashes and an entirely different nose without even asking; plus the sepia tone. But there’s hardly a sepia tone without the automatic photoshop anymore. There’s not anywhere that’s safe anymore. There never was, but I felt safer as an extremely young minor in these vile online spaces back in the day than I ever used to. Yes i was groomed and abused and talked to awful, disgusting people. But i also had a chat of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. I met the best of people and the worst, and it all felt like a huge fever dream that only i had access to. It took me places I would’ve never been able to see. I’m too poor to go to Australia, or the UK, or Cali, or Texas, or France. I’m cultured so differently because I was raised by the internet and by people across the world. They shaped me. I eat timtams because of a very close friend group and significant other; i know about games because of them; my music taste. You name it, someone from across the world probably influenced me to like it in 2012 and i never looked back. But now it all feels so foreign. Somewhere we all used to fit in isin’t a sanctuary anymore. We aren’t free to post the cringe like we used to, we aren’t free to not use filters, we have to be trendy to impress the algorithm and interact with others but if you’re not family friendly you’ll be suppressed too. And in a world of oppression and suppression the last thing we need is the restricted internet that we have now. But i dont think what we had would be a good solution either. But i miss those days. My husband was never online growing up outside of xbox chats and he doesnt share the same sentiments towards it as i do. i still romantisize this shit; we were all broken kids but we were able to keep each other alive. Now if somebody uses a word to identify with they’re relentlessly made fun of; yall dont remember fuckin otherkin? jfc. 

[spade-riddles]

Fabulous Submission:

I didn’t intend to write this (I had a thought about something and it ballooned into this post), but here’s my interpretation of the Cardigan and Willow music videos. It’s an optimistic and chronological look at Taylor’s entire story up till now, and what I think/hope could come next. It’s really long, sorry.

I think the Cardigan and Willow videos are symbolic of Taylor’s career and personal journey over the last 15 years. So in Cardigan, she starts at the beginning of her career where it’s just her and her music. She follows the gold bubbles (representing fame?) and finds herself in this beautiful utopia, symbolizing her early career– she was famous, but not like she is today. She was wildly successful and talented, but wasn’t facing as many of the downsides to fame (intense scrutiny, safety concerns, privacy, etc). I’d say this period was maybe 2006-2010, when her career was fresh and fun and she was overall pretty happy.

I think she got a little swept up in her fame after that. She lost herself in a lot of ways. Her PR was a mess, her real relationships seemed to implode, and I suspect her relationship with SB started to deteriorate toward the end of this period (2010-2013 or so). Her reputation was “boy crazy/man-eater/serial dater.” This is where she was trying to stay afloat in the water in the music video. But she managed to hold on. The journey changed her, but she was on solid ground again. So that’s Cardigan– it covers 2006 to fall of 2013. She’s not in a great place, but she’s planning to make some changes.

Willow picks up where we left off, only this time, Taylor is following a gold string. She’s officially on the path to meet her soulmate. She plans to move from LA to NYC and seemingly has a plan to change her public image.  See: “I’m perfectly fine, I live on my own. I’ve made up my mind, I’m better off being alone. We met a few weeks ago…” So Taylor’s plan at the end of 2013 was to stay single. This is the dark, lonely scene with the willow and reflection pond. Of course, we know what happens next. When she least expected it, the string led her to Karlie. They met and had an instant connection– “have I known you 20 seconds, or 20 years?” This is the scene with the children in a tent. 

Suddenly, she finds herself in a glass closet. There’s no way out. She can sing and see and interact with her lover, but they can’t be in a public relationship. This is 2014-2016, the Kaylor BFF years, where we saw them together as “friends” all the time. We know Taylor was in a pretty bad place in 2016– this isn’t really depicted in the video, but I think she needed some time out of the public eye for her own wellbeing. So she left the glass closeting behind and made her relationship private, to escape some of the constant scrutiny around her life.

This is the dancing witches part of the video. Taylor is in hiding. We don’t see her in public anymore. We don’t see her with her friends. We don’t see her with her alleged boyfriend. She makes it impossible for the public to tell who is still in her life. The cloaked witches (Taylor’s close circle) are working together to give her privacy. I think they represent the people who know Taylor’s real story– her friends, family, close business associates (including Toe), and Karlie.

This is where she first says, “Every bait and switch was a work of art.” Around 2:22-2:26 in the music video. Then she dances with the other cloaked witches. I think this is 2017, when the biggest bait and switch of them all showed up: Toe. Taylor hired him so she could keep her real relationship private. The public thinks she’s with the most boring witch on the planet, but whoops, she’s actually dating one of the other witches.

Then, Taylor leaves the witches and wanders off, following the gold string away from the coven. Her love story isn’t over because she hasn’t made it to the end of the gold string. As in, Taylor’s end game is not secrecy and hiding and being closeted. Anyway, we can’t tell which witch is Taylor’s lover, since they’re all cloaked and masked. By design. But when Taylor walks away from the circle, one of the witches takes off their mask, and it turns out her lover was there the whole time. Much like we think Karlie and Taylor have been together this whole time, but publicly, that’s not what we see. 

Anyway, Taylor is still following the string, but she’s distanced herself from her lover (at least publicly). Her lover looks like he’s afraid he’s going to lose her as she walks away. What does this mean for Kaylor, publicly and privately? Are they going to be reunited? Is it possible someone else will be at the other side of the gold string? Why did Taylor wander away? We don’t know at this point. I think the entire dancing witches/snowy forrest scene is 2017 to sometime in 2020.

Taylor ends up back in her cabin, where she finds the other end of the gold string. For a second she’s confused, because she thought the string was supposed to lead her to her soulmate… and she thinks she’s alone in the cabin. This is where we are now, in my opinion. It looks like all hope is lost, that Taylor and Karlie are never going to publicly reunite. That maybe they aren’t even together– maybe Karlie was just another girlfriend, and the gold string leads to someone different. 

But then? Taylor sees her lover. Somehow, some way, he ended up back in the cabin with her. It’s the same person she saw in the reflecting pond, and on the other side of the glass closet, and danced with in secret. The guy in the cabin is the soulmate, after all. Making me think that the girl in Taylor’s story has always been Karlie.

We don’t know how they ended up together again. We don’t see the lover leave the dancing witches. He seems to have arrived before Taylor. I guess she took the long way back to the cabin? “I take the long way home” from DBATC? At 3:22, Taylor sings, “Every bait and switch was a work of art” again as they walk toward each other. Maybe this bait and switch is how the gp thinks they’re feuding… but really, they reunited recently. (I think they’ve been together the entire time, but this is the public narrative– they were together on and off before 2016ish, then they ignored each other and dated other people, then they privately reunited recently.) 

Here’s what gives me the most hope, even when things look bleak (like now): After reuniting privately, they walk hand in hand out the door, into the golden daylight together. The question is, is this Taylor’s fantasy? Or is it foreshadowing? Does she just want to publicly reunite with Karlie, but can’t (or won’t)? Or are they going to ACTUALLY reunite publicly in the near future?

I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. I know we’re all feeling really cynical right now because we’ve been burned so many times. I’m choosing to be optimistic for a bit longer– I think they’re about to reunite publicly. It’s okay if you disagree. I get it. None of us know what they’re up to and I could definitely be wrong. But I think Taylor singing, “Every bait and switch WAS a work of art” in past tense is interesting. If they have no plans to change anything, why not sing, “Every bait and switch IS a work of art”? “Is” would indicate to me that the games are ongoing. “Was” indicates to me that they’re over or will be soon. Also, why remind us of Daylight, the song about not hiding who you are and who you love? The song that she almost used as an album title but decided it was too on-the-nose? Why remind us of Daylight and the Lover album for the first track/music video of Evermore, the album where she DID name the album after its last track?

Cardigan’s final verse ends with, “I knew you’d come back to me.” Will Karlie publicly come back to Taylor? Willow ends with, “I’m begging for you to take my hand, wreck my plans, that’s my man.” Which is exactly what happens in the video. Evermore ends with, “Floors of a cabin creaking under my step / This pain wouldn’t be for evermore.” Like the cabin floor in Willow? Is her pain almost over? Daylight ends with Taylor saying, “You gotta step into the daylight and let it go” and, “I wanna be defined by the things that I love.” Again, that’s how Willow ends. It’s also similar to the second ending of Evermore, It’s Time To Go– “So then you go/then you go/you just go.” To me, this all looks like they’re still planning a public reunion and that we’re almost there.

I don’t know what’s happening with the baby and the beards. I don’t know what the plan is, and I don’t know if I’m going to like it. But everything else is giving me reasons to stick around a bit longer. I don’t think we’ve made it to the last page of the story quite yet.

[quinintheclouds]

Hey, I just read your post on ADHD/EFDD and was just wondering if you have read any research articles on this and if you have, could you tell me which ones because it all sounds super interesting and I need to choose a topic for my psych lit review and I’m thinking about doing something to do with all the stigma around and misconceptions about different mental health disorders.. it’s totally okay if not tho, I know it’s a big ask, but thanks anyway

That sounds like such a great topic!!! I would be HONORED to help :D 

The first person I think of when discussing the term EFDD is Dr. Russell Barkley. He’s one of the leading ADHD experts, and has been a spearhead for studying executive dysfunction in people with ADHD for decades. Very much ahead of his time compared to the DSM. I’ve had his book “Taking Charge of Adult ADHD” recommended to me so many times, but have yet to read it.

Here’s some free stuff, though! 

[reblogs appreciated because Tumblr hates posts with links and I wanna make sure this anon sees it!]

I tried to include some short stuff and longer stuff, some articles, images, videos, and comic recs, so you can choose based on your current energy and focus level :) I’ve also bolded links and key points of each source if you like skimming. Let’s go!

...................................

Here’s an interesting article/study on EFDD! They found that “ADHD [is] associated with deficits in inhibition, managing one’s attention, self-directed speech and rule-following, self-motivation, and even self-awareness [...] ADHD therefore involves deficits in self-restraint, [...] selfsensing and imagery, self-control of emotion, and self-directed play for problem-solving.”

Thank you for motivating me to look up some articles, because I learned some new things, too! For instance, they assert that ADHD could also be called SRDD (Self-Regulation Deficit Disorder), but conclude the article by saying either SRDD or EFDD fits better than ADHD, and that the terms could be used interchangeably, because SR (self-regulation) and EF (executive function) are effectively talking about the same things. So his assertion is that even if the name ADHD never changes, it can still be scientifically classified as either of the other terms. I believe in recent years he’s preferred EFDD more and more.

[note that the above article/study is from 2011, back when we were on the DSM-IV, so a lot of research has been done since then]

...................................

If that article’s a bit wordy or you want something more visual and up-to-date, here’s a really detailed PowerPoint presentation used during the 2018 ADHD Symposium! It’s long but well-organized so you can just read the big headers or you can read all the bullet points explaining it. Keep in mind this was a lecture, so some of it probably made more sense in person. I’m glad I read this, because I realize the terminology I’ve used is slightly off: according to the Symposium, there aren’t “subtypes” of ADHD, but the different names (ADHD-PI, ADHD-PH, and ADHD-C) are really just used to show the prevalence of certain symptoms in that individual. So they’re all terms for ADHD, but “subtype” was poor word choice on my part. 

Oh! I just found a video of him giving a lecture in 2012 using many of the same PowerPoint slides! Here ya go! It’s a bit longer than the other videos I’ve linked below (13min), but it might make the slides easier to interpret :)

...................................

If you want a really short and basic overview, here’s a video explaining 5 main ways executive functions affect the brain and how they work differently in people with ADHD. [I put the video below as well if you wanna stay on tumblr] It’s from 2010, but it holds up. It only covers 5 big ones, so remember (if you can) that executive function affects EVERYTHING and the symptoms will affect everyone differently and at different levels. 

This is just the most basic overview and a good place to start:

...................................

Here’s one where he talks about our Time-Blindness! (below) I was going to pick a couple favorite quotes to give you an idea, but that’d wind up being a transcript of the whole video because HE GETS IT. This is from 2014, but I CANNOT recommend it enough!!! He mentions that ADHD doesn’t have a deficit of attention, but rather a deficit of intention. He describes us as having a near-sighted sense of time, and talks about deadlines, “laziness,” etc.

 ALSO he talks about how our brains DON’T CONNECT our knowledge to our performance (back of brain to front) like everyone else’s, so we have the same level of knowledge and intelligence, but can’t access and use it the way others can. This is why teaching skills and organization/memory/time-management tips isn’t helpful -- we can learn them, but our knowledge and action centers are separated, so actually doing them/sticking with them is just as hard as before. 

If you don’t watch the whole thing, at least skip to 3:29 cause that part’s really funny and relatable (ok the whole thing is relatable):

...................................

And of course, I highly recommend the YouTube channel How to ADHD! I have a couple friends who work on it, and they REALLY know their stuff! (They’re the ones who taught me during a game night that RSD isn’t a real term and it should be called “rejection-sensitivity” as part of the emotional dysregulation umbrella) 

I went looking and found this video (below) has the BEST explanation of it that I’ve seen in such a concise, entertaining way. I hadn’t seen this one before, but it even covers some of the things I mentioned in that post your ask is about! Especially the Internal Restlessness that I mentioned as the true “hyperactivity” we all share; even though some of us also express outward hyperactivity, both presentations come from the same restlessness in our brains.

^^^This has some great examples, visuals, animations, and different ways of explaining and thinking about our symptoms! If you want more about this, the description has a bunch of links to their sources! Jessica and everyone else who works on this channel is great at making the videos watchable for people with ADHD (even if we have to rewind sometimes)

Here's Jessica's official Twitter @HowtoADHD! (I was today years old when I found out that she follows me)

...................................

And if you want something REALLY short and simple, here’s a 2 minute animation comparing living with ADHD to trying to film a movie with a director who keeps falling asleep [below]

....................................

If you like comics:

My favorite ADHD comic artists are: ADHD Alien [@ADHD_Alien on Twitter and @adhd-alien on Tumblr]; Dani Donovan [@danidonovan on Twitter and @danidonovan on Tumblr -- we’re somehow twitter mutuals and she is such a sweetheart. She has some really good infographics, too!!]; ADHD Bri [@AdhdBri on Twitter and @adhdbri on Tumblr]; and dreamadept [@yume_dango on Twitter and @yume-dango on Tumblr]

They’re all well-researched, funny, genuine, intelligent, insightful, talented artists who depict ADHD in a very accurate and relatable way. Go check ‘em out and support them! :D

....................................

I’m gonna stop there for now, but PLEASE feel free to add on to this with other sources, questions, videos, thoughts, comic artists, etc.!!! Hope this helps someone out there!

[webcomixwastaken]

I’ve followed Lindsay Ellis's videos on YouTube for 10+ years. Even back in the dark NC days I was always struck at how she deftly combined thoughtfulness with humour and cleverness. Even with the bits that didn't age well -- not because of who she was as a person but because 2010 was SUCH a different time, genuinely, I can recall "jokes" and "facts" that my friends and I would say that none of us would even consider now -- she definitely stood out amongst her colleagues as someone with great talent and perceptiveness.

So discovering that she's no longer going to update her channel makes me say: GOOD! FOR!! HER!!! She deserves to walk away from this black hole of awfulness! She doesn't need to be screamed at all the time anymore!! Good for her!! She is free!!

I watched the Raya Twitter meltdown happen in real time and it was the most ridiculous shit I've ever witnessed. So much bad faith reading, so much blood in the water for the sharks to chase after. Even my own Twitter moots (from writing and book twt because that’s where I hang out on that site) were furious about The Tweet, but as I went down my feed I realised that a ridiculous game of telephone was going on. They were upset about a very legitimate issue but it wasn’t... at ALL what she was talking about. I know it’s unhelpful to say “if you watch her videos...” to get people to understand that she was talking from a craft/structure perspective or that her tone is always very snarky and dry since that’s not what Twitter is interested in. Twitter is where nuance goes to die.

From the moment it was announced, I thought that Raya and the Last Dragon looked mediocre at best and yes, derivative. But that's not bad, necessarily? People are always comparing things, and that's even how a lot of marketing works! In pitching or querying agents, you're often asked, nay, expected to provide comparative titles to show that you understand your audience. So when she compared a well known western-helmed Asian-influenced fantasy TV show to a new big name western-helmed Asian-influenced fantasy film why... are we... so shocked and angry? Personally, I feel like any racism involved in The Tweet is symptomatic of the system, how the west perceives and judges eastern stories, not Lindsay’s character.

And honestly? Since I’m not diaspora I do not give much of a shit for representation the same way overseas kids do. Like Lindsay pointed out, we are not monolith so I don’t like being told that something is an ~Asian~ universal theme. We are the biggest continent in the world and even my tiny ass city of Hong Kong has an ENORMOUS gulf of opinions of what defines us?? So as an Asian in Asia, my opinion of “wow, Asian rep in western culture” is mostly indifference with a side helping of annoying. Because it’s often reductive and token and I don’t see myself in them at all. And in these big budget animated films... I’m usually not very excited with how we’re depicted either. Do you really have to draw our eyes like that? I remember looking in the mirror as a kid and thinking, “What the heck are white people on about? My eyes are big and round. Most of my friends don't have tiny eyes either.”

Also, DISNEY DON’T NEED MY MONEY! It’s such a laugh that they made this movie claiming to uplift SE Asian narratives and culture and it wasn't even available in many of those countries. However, I can't say anything else because I'm not SE Asian. But that’s it exactly, I don’t have a dog in this fight. So I didn’t say anything!!

Sometimes I really think that people need to realise that you don't need to put out every single opinion you have on the internet. In fact, I remember thinking “oh no, Lindsay, please, just stop tweeting” but it was a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. If she tried to apologise, she was a whinging backpedalling phony. If she stayed silent, she is rotten to the core and doubling down on racism! If she explained herself, which she tried to do, it would just be more fuel to the bonfire of dogpiling and threats and tearing apart every shred of nuance that could possibly still exist on Twitter. And she KEPT on getting dogpiled and threatened and even under today's goddamn post announcing that there will be no more videos, she's STILL being pelted with petty, stupid attacks by the faceless keyboard warriors. Oh my god, stop and SHUT UP, you won.

So good for her that she's left, and good for her that she refuses to apologise because she doesn’t have to. It would not have been sincere, and she really didn’t do anything wrong. I really hope she continues to host Musicalsplaining with Kaveh because I dearly love the podcast, and maybe she's still got a contract with PBS Storied, but if she doesn't do either of those, it's absolutely in her rights to do so. She doesn't owe us anything. Perhaps she'll be able to devote her time to writing more books, or perhaps she'll just disappear from the internet forever and again... deserved! Whatever she wants! Good for her!!

Godspeed Lindsay Ellis, you are a genuine human being deserving of peace and I earnestly hope you get some after putting so much of yourself on the chopping block for nothing else but our entertainment. I'll always support you.

[padfootagain]

A Very Rose Mistake (VI)

Part 6: How You Almost Did

 Here I come with a new chapter for this series!!! I'm sorry the posting schedule is a little bit more hectic than usual, but depression is kicking my arse pretty badly, and it's harder to write then. BUT here is a new chapter!! Things are… evolving. A lot of this chapter is the flashback, because it's an important scene.

I hope you like this chapter, and don't forget to leave a little comment if you read, cause that really helps motivating me into writing, and I need that extra piece of motivation now more than ever, sadly.

No warnings here, it's pretty fluffy :)

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Word Count : 4283

I.

Holmes Chapel, 2010

 "So… do you have everything?"

"Yeah, it's all ready."

"Did you take your inhaler? I won't be here to save your distracted arse this time."

"I do have it. Thanks, Lambkin."

"Fuck you, Chuckaboo."

"Oi!"

You laughed as you helped Harry carry his suitcase down the stairs. He was leaving to take a chance at X-factor. It was already crazy that he got through the first round of auditions, but now he had to travel across the country to start the first steps of the show.

Whenever the two of you talked about it though, he insisted that he would be back in the blink of an eye. He hadn't even expected to successfully get two 'yes' from the jury during the auditions, and now his purpose was to learn as much as he could from the experience, and enjoy it while it would last. It was a crazy adventure, but one he was certain would simply end in a flicker. He had asked you to get all the lessons for him that he would miss, so he wouldn't struggle too much when he would come back in a couple of weeks.

And to be honest, you thought the same about the whole thing as he did. It wasn't that you didn't believe in him enough, because you did. If there was one person that you trusted and believed in on this Earth, it was Harry. And you had heard him sing before, you knew he had talent, even if it was a little raw for now. You did not doubt though that he was full of potential, and with some hard work, could definitely stand a chance. But he was also a sixteen-year-old boy, from this little English town you called home where nothing happened, and he was your best friend. You had known each other since you were five. It was almost impossible for you to imagine him as anything else but the goofy teenager he was when around you. So, a professional singer? It was improbable up to a hilarious degree.

Still, you were nervous and sad at the sight of Harry checking the content of his backpack one last time, checking if he had everything. He would be leaving early the next morning. It was the last evening you would share before he was off for an unknown period of time, and even if you both assumed it would be but a short one, it was still scary to think about how you didn't know when you would next see him. Maybe it was simply because it had never happened before, you guessed so, at the very least. Anything unknown was scary, after all.

Harry was trying to keep a calm façade, but you were far from a fool, and knew perfectly well that he was, in reality, terrified about the whole endeavour. After all, he was going to be leaving his home for some time. Any sixteen-year-old would find the mere thought terrifying.

After you brought all of his bags to the hallway by the front door, ready for his journey the next day, you settled for a while in the kitchen, where you prepared some toasts and sandwiches for your dinner. Anne was working late, and would not be coming home for another hour or so, which meant that Harry and you could enjoy some quality time together for a little longer.

You both laughed as you almost burned down the kitchen preparing the toasts, both of you pretending for that time that everything was normal. It was almost as if you had both silently came to the agreement that for that evening, while the two of you were alone cooking in the kitchen, his journey of the next day was but a reverie, and instead, the next morning would simply be the beginning of a normal day.

You talked about video games, and TV shows you found funny but stupid, and school. You couldn't really describe why talking with Harry was so different to talking to anyone else. It was just so easy. Fluent. It came without an effort, and it seemed that the two of you could have been left there for hours on your own and would still have found some things to say to each other, some new topic to discuss. You had always attributed that trait of his to the fact that he was your best friend, and had been so for such a long time. Knowing him so well meant that there wasn't much you didn't dare to do in front of him. You weren't afraid to be yourself when he was around, never had been.

And for a long time, you reckoned that it was simply explained by you seeing a brother in him. A twin of sort that you had never had. But as puberty started its work, and your mind embraced new possible explanations and understood new kinds of relationships, you wondered if a brotherly bond was really what united so closely the two of you.

Because you weren't sure that it was all there was to it, really. Maybe, it wasn't the reason why you didn't like his girlfriends. Maybe it wasn't why you were so sad to say goodbye tonight. Maybe it wasn't why you trusted him so blindly all the time. Why you always forgave him.

But you were young, and you weren't quite sure yet of what you felt meant. Maybe you were just trying to figure yourself out, and were making a fuss of nothing.

Or maybe, Harry meant something else to you than a brother.

All you knew was that when the conversation finally quietened, slowing down to reach a full stop that filled the room with silence, his departure on the tip of both your tongues once more, you were sad and afraid like you had never been before.

"We should wash the dishes," Harry threw one last attempt at avoiding the floating threat hovering in the comfortable silence. One last ammunition used to keep his fear at bay for a little longer, and instead, bathe in your presence for a little longer.

He couldn't really explain how he felt about you. It wasn't something he had felt with the few girls he had been with before, and it wasn't either a level of intimacy that he had ever reached with any other of his friends. You were in that special box in his heart, that had only your name on it, and no one else's. More than a friend, but not a girlfriend either. Somehow, you were more than that to him. You were family to him. But he didn't see you like a sister either. Maybe he had for a while, but it slowly yet irremediably changed along the past few years. He wasn't sure to understand what that box your name lived in inside his heart was, but he was okay with that, for now. Sixteen was young after all, to understand matters of the heart.

For now, he simply wanted to be with you whenever he could, and that was enough.

He started to wash the plates in the sink, while you grabbed a clothe and started to dry the cutlery.

You didn't notice the glances he threw towards your direction, and he didn't notice the way your eyes lingered on his features as if to carve them into memory either. It was an unspoken, halfway type of zone you had settled in. It was hard to escape it now.

"Are you worried about tomorrow?" you asked, breaking the long silence that had settled in the kitchen, broken only by the distant murmur of cars passing by the street, and the water running from the faucet.

Had it been anyone else, Harry would have probably lied and pretended that he was perfectly fine.

But then, it was you, standing in that special little box of yours, and despite how fragile it made him feel, he answered you anyway.

"Yeah… I'm a bit nervous."

"I mean, I reckon it's normal to be so."

"Yeah… I mean, it's all new and I don't really know what will happen. And… huh… I think… It's gonna be hard to be away, I guess. I think I'll miss my mum a lot. And… and you too."

You stared at him for a moment, yellow photons from the lamp above your heads getting caught in the wild curls of his hair. He seemed a little lost. He was just a boy, after all.

You nudged him, trying to make him feel better.

"Hey, don't worry. I'm sure you'll be alright. Besides, you'll have fun, and make new friends over there, I'm sure. You will barely notice I'm not here."

He frowned, looking hurt at your statement, and you wondered why.

"You really think I would forget about you?" he asked, his voice a little too low, a little too deep, a little too fragile.

You shook your head, but he could see in the way you fidgeted with the cloth that you were not completely earnest with him.

"Of course not. I know you won't."

He turned off the water, the silence becoming deafening while he took his time to turn fully towards you, drying his hands on his worn-out jeans. Meanwhile, you were drying a plate, or at least, faking to do so, for there was no more water to sweep away across the porcelain. But it was easier to rub the white plate than to look at your friend at that moment.

"Hey, look at me."

When you stubbornly kept your eyes on this plate you kept on drying, Harry gently rested his hands upon yours, successfully interrupting your movements.

"Y/N. Please."

You let him take the plate away from you, putting it away before taking your chin in between his fingers to force you to turn to him. He wasn't surprised to find withheld tears glimmering in your eyes, yet the sight broke his heart all the same.

He couldn't see you cry. Never had been able to. He would have done anything to make you smile, and it had been so since the two of you were five.

He gave you a tender, reassuring smile.

"You're stupid sometimes, you know that?"

You frowned at that, taken aback. If anything, you weren't expecting that kind of response from him. But it wasn't all that he had to say.

"I could never forget you, you dummy. You're my best friend. You're… You're special to me. And whatever happens, I will never ever forget about you. Okay?"

You looked down at your feet, fleeing his green eyes that seemed to pierce right through all the pieces of armoury you had built around your soul. You nodded, slowly, your throat too tight to speak. But you weren't so worried anymore.

"You're not gonna forget about me either, are you?" he asked, his voice fragile again too.

You smiled one more time, looking up to find yourself trapped in the green hues of his irises.

"Now, you're being the silly one. Of course not. Besides, you'll be back in two weeks, tops. You're not half as charming as you think you are."

"Aren't I?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows in a ridiculous way, making you laugh.

"No, you're not."

As you both fell quiet again, you suddenly seemed hype-aware of Harry's hold on your chin, that hadn't wavered throughout your exchange. He brushed his thumb across the soft skin, making you gasp.

And all of a sudden, there was a shift between the two of you. The air across the room seemed to be filled with electricity, growing denser, and maybe it was why both of you found it harder to breathe. Or maybe it was the way you both lost yourselves in each other's eyes in a way you never had before.

You caught him as he glimpsed down at your lips. You noticed the way his eyes travelled across your mouth, as if he was hesitating, weighing his options. You saw his Adam's apple jumping as he struggled to swallow the lump that was growing in his throat. When his gaze flickered back to meet yours though, both of you could barely breathe at all, your two hearts stomping under your ribcages.

His hold on your chin had become more of a caress than a hold: gentle, brushing of fingertips against your skin, giving you back complete freedom of your movements. Yet, you didn't want to move away at all.

And when Harry leaned closer to you, it was your turn to glance at his lips, watching the two lines barely parted fall towards yours. And when you realized what he was doing, you stopped breathing altogether.

Because Harry was about to kiss you.

But then he stopped, merely an inch or so away, his breath fanning and brushing your lips, warm and staggering, uncertain through uneven pants. And he was absolutely sure that he had never felt anything as intense as this moment in his entire short life.

But he stopped, because it was you he was about to kiss. His best friend. And even if you lived in that special box in his heart, even if, to him, maybe it meant that you were more than just a friend to him, you were way too important for him to take any uncalculated risk. So instead of closing the gap between your mouths, he stood still, in his kitchen under the yellowish light of the lamp, fingers still a little wet from washing the dishes, or maybe it was more because of how nervous he was. He needed to give you a chance to step back and stop him.

So, he blinked a few times, staring at your eyes with a silent question in his green irises. To which you answered by leaning closer to him too.

So… you didn't want him to stop?

He moved his hand up your jaw, cupping your cheek instead, closing his eyes and focusing on how warm the air leaving your lungs was against his face, breaths mingling together halfway between your parted lips.

And you were about to meet when the front door of Harry's house loudly opened.

"Harry! Y/N! I'm home!"

Both you and Harry jumped away from each other as Anne was ruffling in the hallway, probably taking off her shoes and coat.

In the kitchen, you both shied away. The moment had passed, broken, and you both knew that there wasn't going to be any other moment for you to be alone before Harry would leave.

Harry looked over his shoulder, and before his mother would appear, he hurried to take your hand in his.

He seemed frightened, and a little frantic. A little desperate too, still struggling to catch his breath.

"We'll talk about it when I come back."

You stared at him intensely, and he took your other hand in his as well.

"It's a promise. We'll talk about what just happened when I come back, okay? Cause… that… that was a thing. Right?"

"Yeah… yeah I think it… was a thing."

He struggled to swallow, stuttering a little as he let down his armour before you completely, and with a shaky voice asked one more question.

"Will you… would you wait for me?"

You gave him a reassuring smile, and to his hands you gifted a tender squeeze.

"I will. I'll wait for you."

 II. 

Loch Lomond, 2020

 Harry was pretty when he slept.

Not that he was ever not pretty, you reckoned that Harry was a very handsome man in general. But there was something soft in the way he looked when he slept, peaceful, that you really loved.

Maybe it was his parted lips, or the soft sound of air leaving his lungs in a perfectly regular rhythm. The occasional little crease between his brow that appeared and vanished at the rhythm of his dreams. Or the way his eyelids trembled a little sometimes before growing still again, eyelashes perfectly bent in the most graceful curve barely disturbed by the movement at all. Or perhaps it was how messy his hair became as they rubbed against the pillow.

But you could hardly deny that the main reason was that Harry always grabbed whatever he could during the night and held onto it for dear life throughout the rest of the night. To ensure that he would not disturb your sleep – and knowing Harry, probably also because he was worried it would make you uncomfortable – he had hold onto a pillow for the first evening, making sure that he would not end up curled around you instead. And it had worked, the two of you waking up peacefully on each side of the bed.

But not today.

This morning, you opened your eyes to find that the reason why you felt so warm and snuggled up was because you were safely tucked in Harry's side, his arms wrapped around you and his nose almost brushing yours, face resting at the edge of his own pillow, legs tangled in a mess of limbs. A quick glance across the bed revealed that the pillow he was hugging when you went to bed the previous night was nowhere to be seen. You guessed that Harry had dropped it to the floor during the night, turned around, probably wearing across his features a grumpy little pout as he tossed and turned while still mostly asleep, until he found your form sleeping soundly on the other side of the mattress. And then, well, the rest was easy to guess given your current position.

There was a little voice in your head that kept on telling you to pull away. That you should have felt uneasy with your current position. And had it been anyone but Harry, yes, you guessed that you would have been uncomfortable right now and would have freed yourself with little regard for the other person's sleep. But the thing was, it was Harry.

It was Harry all cuddled up around you, holding you close, and you didn't feel uncomfortable at all. You felt safe and warm and taken care of. Because it was Harry holding you. Harry who had always been here for you, since your early childhood. You felt so safe with him all the time after all, this morning waking up in his arms wasn't different. It was safe, the same way you always felt whenever he was around.

It was barely dawn and the orange light of the rising sun bathed the room a colourful hue. It was still quite dark, despite the deep orange shades of the beams licking at the walls. Particles of light were caught in his wild curls, brown tainted with orange, and you spent long minutes studying the changes in the colours, the way the light made his cheeks look a little pinker, the way it seemed to hug his jawline, and was left stranded across his eyelashes and the stubble that coloured his skin. It took all of your strengths to refrain yourself from running your fingers across the swallows tattooed on his upper chest, but you were too scared of waking him if you did so. You couldn't help but stare at them though, the black ink rising and falling with his regular breathing. He was still wearing his cross necklace around his neck, the gold reflecting the morning light. It wasn't the first time that you saw him with a bare chest, and it wasn't the first either that he hugged you without a shirt on. But it didn't stop you from shivering in the best way when he moved his arm around you ever so slightly, his bare skin sliding across your own bare arms. Because you were trapped in his arms, your arms folded between your two bodies, your hands were pressed against your chest. But now that your eyes were settling on his skin again, a little tanned and looking so invitingly smooth, you really couldn't summon enough willpower to not reach across the inches-long gap between your hand and his chest, and you gently rested your palm against his heart. You could feel the organ beating under his skin and muscles, little rhythm pulsing through your skin. Regular, soothing, safe. Just like Harry.

After a long while staring at him, with a smile across your lips you hadn't even noticed, your gaze moved across the room to settle upon the window instead, and you watched the quiet waters of the loch as it reflected the bright gold and orange of the sky. With the trees alongside the shores also covered with autumnal hues, it looked as if someone had painted the entire scene in shades of ochre. It was peaceful, a landscape still barely awake, that only the wind carrying freshly fallen skeleton leaves seemed able to disturb.

You didn't know for how long you had remained like this, staring at the landscape outside, safely tugged in Harry's warmth, when he finally started to stir and wake up. You turned to him again just in time to catch his eyes fluttering open, green irises appearing in the early morning light that fell upon your face instantly, as if they had been looking for you as a reflex. A bright smile appeared on his lips at the sight of your dishevelled and freshly awaken form in his arms.

"Morning," he mumbled, sleep making his voice deeper than usual, raw and warm.

"Good morning," you answered with a smile of your own.

He snuggled closer to you, until you were tugged under his chin, so he could bury his face in your hair, inhaling the addicting fragrance of your shampoo.

You were so warm against him. He could feel your hand pressed to his chest, and the mere touch was enough to set his whole body on fire. Your smell was reassuring, so reassuring, like the scent of something familiar, the scent of an old memory. And he felt so safe like this, with you in his arms. Invincible. Yes, that was the word. He felt invincible, like nothing bad could ever happen while he held you as close as he did now.

Why hadn't he done that sooner? It felt amazing.

His eyes snapped open when the thought finished to form in his mind.

Why hadn't he done that sooner? Because you were just a friend.

He quickly unwrapped his arms from around you, pushing himself away and in his haste to put distance between your two bodies, falling from the bed and onto the wooden floor and the pillow that had grown cold after he had lost it during the night. He let out a loud 'ouch', and when you peered beyond the bed, Harry was rubbing his arse cheek through his sweatpants. And you couldn't stop yourself from laughing at him.

"You alright down there?"

"Oh shut up!" he fought back, looking all pouty and grumpy, and you found the sight so ridiculously adorable that you had to laugh to stop yourself from melting instead.

"Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?" you asked a little more seriously.

"My butt and my ego will be equally bruised by the incident for a few days," he replied, but he couldn't refrain a smile of his own as the situation was rather hilarious.

You laughed at that, but grew silent again when he finally looked up at you. He seemed uncomfortable, running a hand in his hair. Embarrassed, even. And for some reason, it hurt to see him react like this.

"I… I'm sorry."

"About?"

"About… how we woke up," he apologized, stumbling on his words and stuttering a little. "I… I must have lost my pillow during the night."

"I had figured that much."

"I… I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"You didn't. It's okay."

He gave you a hopeful stare.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," you nodded. "I mean, you were just hugging me, not much to say about it."

Nothing much to say about it? Then why was your heart still beating this fast just thinking about it then?

"I… you sure you're okay?"

You rolled your eyes at him.

"Yes, I'm sure. It's fine."

"Oh. Okay."

Harry had to admit that he was surprised that you were taking this so… well. As if it didn't have any meaning at all. When he had woken up cuddling you, holding you as close as he could.

As he finally stumbled back to his feet, he had to admit that he was not just surprised, he was also a little disappointed. Because he didn't take the situation as lightly as you did, and that was because…

He pushed the thought away before it could finish forming in his mind. He didn't need to think about this at all. It was all something from the past. He was over it. Had been for a while. No need to think of it again.

"Right. Well, still, I'm sorry."

"You were asleep, it's alright."

"You should have woken me up."

"I… I was barely awake myself, hadn't really processed what was going on yet."

It was a lie, but he seemed to buy it.

"Oh… okay."

"Besides, I've noticed by now how clingy you can be!" you joked, making him chuckle.

"Right… uhm… I'm gonna go take a shower, and then we can go grab a bite for breakfast, yeah?"

"Sure, you can take the shower first."

"Thanks."

And indeed, Harry was grateful that you granted him access to the bathroom first. Because he could hide how much he was blushing in there.

***********************************************************

Taglist :  @emcchi​​​​ @fishstick-knows​​​​​ @eldahae​​​​​​ @just-damn-bored​​​​ @retrouvailessx​​​​​ @marvelstudies2020​​​​ @boxofteenageideas​​​@ponycake27​​​​​​​​ @horsesreign​​​​​​​ @xinyourdreamsx​​​​​​ @jbluevelvet​​​​​@notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss​​​​​ @stuckupstucky​​​​​​@snek-shit​​​​​​ @suchatinyinfinity​​​​​​@i-padfootblack-things​  @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi​​​​​​​@jigsawlover10​​​​​​ @emyyjemyy​​​​ @addictedtofictionalcharacters​​​​​​​​ @staringmoony​​​​​​​@madamrogers​​​​ @cronias13​​​​​ @stylesfics-xx​​​​​​ @mellamolayla​​​​​​ @mariaenchanted​

@swtxel​

[himbeaux-on-ice]

Who are your top five NHL teams and why?

Ooooo this is fun! Thanks anon!

Short list:

Habs ❤️🤍💙

Pens 🐧

Canucks 🌈🌊

Caps 🦅

Leafs 🟦🍁🟦 (no really! I know I don’t talk about them much but its true!)

Over-wordy explanations/backstory for my relationship to each of these teams below the cut for those interested!

Montreal Canadiens. My dearly beloved Nana, who half-raised me, is a lifelong diehard Habs fan who grew up listening to their games on the radio and then later as an adult watching them duel with the Leafs on Saturday nights on a black-and-white tv (also a BIG Carey Price stan). Needless to say she rubbed off on me immensely, and I remember saying to myself at some point “well, if that’s Nana’s team, that’s gonna be my team too” and it stuck for life. I also had a friend in middle school who was a RELIGIOUS Habs fan who also worshipped at the altar of Jesus Price in those early 2010’s, so I heard a LOT about all of that every lunch break as he argued with friends who were Pens and Bruins fans lol. We went on the Bell Centre tour during the annual 9th grade French class trip to Quebec, and while I was mostly focused on getting to the gift shop to buy Nana a souvenir, I swear my friend’s eyes were the size of quarters the whole time lmao. (Would LOVE to go back now that I care a lot). Basically the Habs are the closest thing to a local NHL team our region has bc we get their broadcasts (though people choose their own team allegiances for various random personal reasons), and I grew up absorbing through osmosis both the legends of yore and the latest updates on whatever Carey and PK and the lads were up to. (Also I’ve been quietly in love with Price myself since at least the 2014 Olympics lol. My first best fav ❤️) Bottom line the Habs are My Team, the “I’m gonna be here even when it sucks, even when players move on, this is attached to me in a way I can’t quite explain” team that every hockey fan has in their heart. GO HABS GO!

Pittsburgh Penguins. If you were an elementary school kid in Nova Scotia when Sidney Crosby was first released and up through the 2010’s, you had two options: love him, or hate him, but you better accept you’re gonna be hearing about him a LOT. I settled on “vague fondness” and followed Sid from a newspaper-scanning distance and vaguely rooted for him because when he brought the Cup home it felt like we all won. And like I said, lots of passionate Pens fans in my grade school classes to hear from (he’s also the only non-Habs player my Nana likes lol). Then I got into hockey properly last year and learned about Geno beyond just knowing his name, and my chronic affection for large loveable Russians got combined with my longstanding vague “I hope the Penguins win” feelings and my “time to get the full story on the Sidney Crosby’s Penguins narrative I only ever watched from a distance” research, in a manner not unlike the creation of the PowerPuff Girls ([chemical X] etc etc lol) to create a potent adoration for this team that rocketed them to second place in my heart. Also the fandom is just so damn fun and makes such great content, and that definitely feeds my level of engagement with the Pens!! Sometimes, when I want an emotional pick-me-up I watch one of their last 3 championship films just to remember what joy and optimism is — I would love to be present as a real-time fan for another adventure like that. With how much I know about them and how much I care, they’re my #2 for sure. I love those flightless fucks!!

Vancouver Canucks. So I started watching live NHL hockey games last summer around I think game 2 of the Habs’ first round series against the Flyers (I saw Price’s “Miracle Save” on twitter while following along bc I was intrigued by the fact that they made it through the play-ins, and was like “OKAY NOW I GOTTA SEE THIS SHIT LIVE”). That was really fun! Riiiight up until the Habs got eliminated. :/ And I was like “well, shit. I’m enjoying this hockey thing too much to stop now. who else is still around I can root for?” And the Canucks were the last Canadian team still in it, and there was buzz about their miraculous first-round win but also uncertainty I believe Markstrom had *just* got injured. So I started watching, ended up witnessing the Bubble Demko Miracle unfold live, had my heart charmed off me by “whatever the hell those two lil blonde bitches have going on” and a delightful underdog story, and here I am. Hitched to the Canuck wagon whether I enjoy it or not. Here for whatever happens! (Doesn’t hurt that I love me some Elton John too 😉)

Washington Capitals. I’m a person who is more likely to be really engaged with a team that has super interesting personalities, characters, and narratives around it — and my GOD are the Capitals good for that. I absolutely definitely started down this road with that mic’d up video from the 2018 final of Ovi telling Nicke “after me, I give it to you baby!” re: the Cup. Like I can pinpoint that there was a day I saw that for the first time in a gifset, squinted at the screen, said “you’re fucking with me...”, went to youtube, watched it be for reals, and was like “well. now I need to know more about ALL this.” After watching games and learning more about the team, I really enjoy the Caps’ “big dumb found family of stone-cold total weirdos” energy, their fun collective chemistry, their Cup story, etc. And oh BOY the fandom is fun during game lb’s! I love all the in-jokes and player nicknames, our delight with the quirks of our colourful wonderful broadcast crew (shoutout Wine Uncles & Co), the way we cheer for record-breaking milestones like they’re a first NHL goal! Being a fan of the Caps AND the Pens can be a bit awkward sometimes, and the team certainly has its blemishes, but my heart is big enough for two Metro teams for sure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Toronto Maple Leafs. So like, as you can imagine from my previously described upbringing in Hab Land, “haha Leafs suck” is a punchline I have long been familiar with and trained to recite. I got a solid 3 days of laughter and entertainment out of the whole Zamboni Driver Saga last February, oh boy did I ever. But the thing is.... I have the Leafs to thank for the fact that I watch hockey now. See, the entire reason I started paying proper attention to the playoff bubble last summer was because one day, I happened to see the phrase “WHAT IS HAPPENING” trending at 16k tweets on twitter, and clicked on it like “huh?”. Turns out the Leafs were in the middle of their miraculous 3-minute comeback against Columbus and the country was losing its mind. And when they won, I was like “huh... the Zamboni Team is doing THIS??? I may have to start paying attention to this playoffs thing, because if they go All The Way I think that might be the only thing funnier than the Zamboni Incident”. Aaaaand when they immediately lost the next game and were eliminated I was like “lol, sounds about right” and was then immediately distracted by news of the Habs winning the play-in round. So then I spent several months watching playoffs and forgetting about the Leafs. And then one day in early October, looking on YouTube for more hockey to watch after the playoffs ended, I stumbled across something called a Hat Pick, and boy I actually enjoyed this shouty man’s sense of humour and takes on the game... and then when I ran out of Hat Picks and Dangits I watched some Trade Trees, which pulled back the curtain on the business side of the game... and then I discovered LFR’s, which were good background noise for doing tasks... and then I was recommended the episode of the Steve Dangle Podcast about Mitch Marner and The List... and next thing I knew I was listening to more of this podcast, because I found Steve and the guys to be insightful and funny and there was no hockey to watch, and I was trepidatious about accidentally stumbling into the more toxic corners of hockey fandom if I branched out for other content... and, well. If you spend enough hours listening to people passionately analyze every facet of a team, shout and cheer over a team, make fun of that team, nearly cry over that team... it’s really REALLY hard to not start to care about it. Leafs analysis was basically how I learned most of what I’ve learned about hockey this past year! And kudos to Steve and Adam and Jesse, their passionate investment in the Leafs and great content has got ME invested in the Leafs mainly because I want to see things go well for them. I want Charlie Brown to kick the football! I love a triumph over adversity story! Also, I think if the Leafs did Do The Thing it would basically be the combination of “Cubs win the World Series” and “Raptors are the champs” and I wanna watch the city of Toronto go fully apeshit from a safe distance. I don’t adore many their individual players as much as I do some other teams higher on this list, and I still laugh far too much when things go super comically impossibly badly for them, but I am actually pulling for the Leafs!! I want to see it all pay off for them. I want them to go all the way. Gimme that “LEAFS WIN!!!” (Unless it’s against someone above them on this list lol)

[belliesandburps]

Followup with MGS4 Peace Walker and 5?

History has a funny way of repeating itself. :P

This one's actually gonna be long, so I'll cap it here to spare those uninterested in non-kink posts the burden of having to scroll past this fanboy rant. 'XD

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

3. It's Okay

Soooooo...not a controversial opinion to say that I don't think MGS4 is GREAT. I adored it when it first game out, and I still enjoy replaying it from time to time. But good lord, so many of the interviews shed light on a LOT of this games problems.

Some backstory is required. Hideo Kojima was done with MGS by this point. He planned to move on and leave the series to the younger generation. But then, there was a lot of internal conflict and struggle to determine what MGS4 should be after Fukushima quit (AND was rumored to have been murdered by the Yakuza...how that rumor started...and became a SERIOUS rumor that millions believe, I do not know...). So Kojima came back, course corrected, and the end result was kind of a giant mess.

I'm not talking story because, there's just way too much to unpack. But as a game, MGS4 can't decide what sort of video game it wants to be. It had a brilliant idea that had never been done before with its Battlefield Stealth, which were the best parts of the game. And then they get dropped two acts in, and what gets replaced in their stead is not nearly as fun.

The game had substantially less boss fights than its predecessor, and a lot of them were mechanically simplistic or just didn't let you get creative with how you fought them. And we later learned there were a lot more bosses planned, more gameplay sequences planned, and an entire other PMC group that got canned in favor of the Scarabs so Shadow Moses could be guarded by machines instead.

There's a lot about MGS4 that I love. I think the first two acts are amazing, ESPECIALLY Act 2. I think the mechanics are great. REX vs RAY is criminally fun. The sheer buffet of insane weapons gives the game a good amount of replay value. And the graphics still hold up to this day!

But what I finally realized is that the game juggles way too many ideas and doesn't give any idea the time they deserve to flourish. Battlefield Stealth could've CARRIED MGS4. But it gets dumped before we can get our moneys worth. A disguise sequence could've been really creative, having to juggle different identities with OctoMask every time one identity is burned. But it's only used once and wasted because it's only used for a terrible tailing mission that doesn't let you actually explore the European City. And too many of the action set pieces are kind of bland except the bosses and piloting Metal Gear.

MGS4 should've been MGS4. Not MGS's "Best Hits."

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

1. LOVED it!

I know this is unpopular to say, but I'll say it. Peace Walker is one of the best Metal Gear games ever made. I adored almost everything about it. The gameplay improves on MGS4 in most ways because it doesn't juggle a billion ideas all at once. It's MGS4 stripped down to stealth action from start to finish, and that's all I wanted. The level design is great. The insane volume of guns changes the entire feel of combat in later post-campaign gameplay. The mission select options mean you can jump into all the parts of the game you enjoy the most. There's TONS of bonus missions that are really inventive and fun to replay. And the story is one of the best in the series. It's straight forward, very tight, characterized well, and is the best iteration of Big Boss to date.

Peace Walker's also the FUNNIEST MGS game by Kojima as well. There's so much more personality and levity to everything, to the point where Big Boss often feels like an MCU character. That might sound bad, but it's really not. That corniness fits MGS PERFECTLY, and I'd argue is tonally spot on for this series. MGS doesn't need to be dark, gory or explicit. It's a silly series that's about giant robots, corny bad ass super agents with an anti-nuke message.

The only downsides to Peace Walker are the QTE's and the boss fights. This was a feature that only ever appeared in this game and for good reason...it was fucking terrible. So basically, you had cutscenes that forced you to do various QTE's or else get dinged on your ratings at the end, even if you played perfectly. Fairly minimal, but then, you get to Strangelove's torture. And this is the single most rage-inducing part of any MGS game ever made. It's an insanely physically painful button mashing sequence that will leave your fingers raw and your PS3 triangle buttons jamming. And the ONLY way you can replay one of the best missions in the game (the prison escape where you have no items) is by redoing that sequence over and over. And the boss fights? While inventive, they're all just grindy bullet sponges with no personality, no stealth tactics, and no room for creativity the way you can get creative with every other MGS game's bosses. This was the biggest disappointment for me because the stealth and combat mechanics of PW are great and would've been SO good against human enemies like what Portable Ops had. Instead, every boss is a mini-Metal Gear all voiced by the VOCALOID AI from the mid 2000's, and each one takes forever to destroy. It sucks because PW had a TON of bosses, but only a few of them are any fun, and that's only if you have weapons that are strong enough that they don't take ages to destroy.

But asides from the bosses, the REST of the game is so damn good that I don't even care because that's just one element to a much larger, grander game. Which is even more impressive when you consider PW was originally on the PSP before the PS3 port. And this game has more content and replay value to it than most games I've played since.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

1. LOVED it!

Hooooooookay...so, I've rambled about my storybook romance with MGSV for YEARS now. (Just ask @twistedtummies2, he's been subjected to my fanboying of this game more than anyone in existence XD) But there's a reason I regard this game as one of my all time favorites and the best MGS game to date.

It's REALLY freakin' fun.

Kojima had been re-energized by the time he got to MGSV. He'd been working on the game around the time he finished Peace Walker in 2010. He KNEW it was his final MGS game and wanted to do something completely different...

...He wanted to make a game where the central focus was on...waaaaait for it...the gameplay...

MGSV was designed to be, what he described, as a toybox. You have these missions that all take place in structurally unique outposts like any level in MGS. And the missions are designed with the structure needed so that they all feel different, but all remain so open ended that you can play them countless different ways.

MGSV's game model is everything GTA SHOULD'VE been. It fully embraces the open world freedom and incorporates that into the missions flawlessly. And it plays in such a way that stealth and combat both feel like they were the primary point. In MGS, combat is usually a last resort. But with MGSV, you can fly into an outpost blasting away on your helicopters mini-gun, shoot up the bad guys, rescue your target, throw them back into the chopper and fly away while "The Final Countdown" blares on your choppers loud speakers.

Every method of gameplay is valid and the controls, the enemy AI responsiveness, it's all, bar none, the best I've experienced in ANY video game. Sneaking around feels tight and tense and combat makes you feel like Jack Bauer on adrenaline. (I mean, he IS the voice of Venom Snake)

And I really like the story for the most part too. Its weaknesses are really glaring. Namely, the "Fun" of MGS is completely devoid in the story (which is really odd since it's FRONT AND CENTER in-game). Venom Snake only has maybe six minutes of dialogue in the entirety of this 30+ hour long game. And the way Skull Face gets completely undercut right at the home stretch is something I have NOT stopped bitching about for almost six years, and my friends can personally attest to that.

That and the ending feels too abrupt.

We know that Kojima got fired by Konami's VP and said VP scorched the entire production company after that and made a series of dickheaded decisions that pissed off a LOT of fans, burning much of the good will Konami IP fans had towards the company. But that had nothing to do with MGSV's abruptness. That was the plan from the start because only Kojima would think to end the entire series on a plot twist like that.

And I think the issue isn't the twist at all. In fact, I LOVE the twist. The issue is that the game should've continued beyond it so Venom Snake could cope with the truth and realize how badly he'd been screwed. I think even people who hated the twist could've been won over if there was a little more to the games epilogue than Episode 46.

Also, the games boss fights were a tad underwhelming. Not the fights themselves, I LOVED all five of the games bosses.

Oh? There were twelve?

No. I meant what I said. Because so many of the games bosses are rematches against the same bosses. All MGSV has is the Skulls, Quiet, Eli, The Man on Fire, and Metal Gear. They're great bosses that do everything the best MGS bosses always did; give you tons of options, incorporate combat AND stealth, have varied attacks AND even have multiple methods to sneak around the boss and avoid the fight completely. But for a game as long as MGS, you need more variety. And frankly, the bosses NEED more personality. Skull Face should've had more XOF assassins acting as the bosses in the game along with the ones we have. Elite assassins like Quiet, with their own powers and specialized weaponry so the fights feel completely different from the ones we have. And oh yeah, SKULL FACE HIMSELF SHOULD'VE HAD A GOD-FUCKING-DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!!

Buuuuuuut those issues don't even matter if for all the games issues, I still replay it frequently when it's almost six years old.

So yeah! There's the massive rant you totally didn't ask for! :D

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

[thebiballerina]

Fix-it Fanfiction by Fandom

A.K.A. The Leverage Test

I've been getting requests to post my spreadsheets and analysis of fix-it fanfiction on AO3, so here we are, my friends. You may remember that I posted about how few fix-it fanfictions there are for Leverage (this post). Now, thanks to a lovely friend of mine (please check out their site at http://setupminimal.github.io/), I have data for the number of fix-it fanfictions for every fandom on AO3 with more than 1000 works. This data was collected on February 1st, 2020.

First off, for all you nerds out there, here is a link to the data in full. This has a spreadsheet with all the data, including "fix-it percentage" and fix-it percentage excluding crossovers. There are also sheets with the data from each individual type of media. By default, they are sorted by fix-it percentage. If you'd like to view my summary of the data in presentation form, there is a slideshow so you can do that as well. 

Now, for some analysis!

Here's a chart showing a break down of fix-it percentage by type of media.

The mean percentage for each type of media is marked, and the gray bar marks the grand mean.

Cool stuff, right? Next, let's take a look at the most popular fandoms: those with over 100,000 works on AO3.

Popular Fandoms

So, of the most popular fandoms, Teen Wolf has the highest percentage of fix-it fanfictions: 3.81%. It is followed by the Avengers movies, with 3.24% fix-its. The lowest, with just 0.021% fix-its, is the Korean boy band BTS (not surprisingly given the low rate of fix-its in fanfiction based on real people). The next lowest is Sherlock Holmes and Related Fandoms, with a respectable 1.01% fix-it percentage.

Fandoms with Extreme Fix-It Percentages

Next, let's examine have the extremes: fandoms with very low or very high fix-it percentages. I'm not going to focus much on the celebrity, music, or reality TV fanfictions, as those have very few fix-its.

Let's start with the media fans wanted to fix the least.

Media with Low Fix-it Percentages

Books: • Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson (0%) • 盜墓筆記 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei (0%) • Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon (0.05045%) • The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types (0.0957%)

Movies: • Power Rangers (2017) (0%) • Strange Magic (2015) (0%) • 哪吒之魔童降世 | Né Zhā Zhī Mó Tóng Jiàng Shì (2019)(0%) • 流浪地球 | The Wandering Earth (2019)(0%)

TV Shows: • Numb3rs (0%) • Generation Kill (0%) • Victorious (0%) • The Professionals (TV 1977) (0%)

Cartoons, comics, and graphic novels: • Girl Genius (Webcomic) (0%) • Metalocalypse (Cartoon) (0%) • 凹凸世界 | AOTU Shijie | AOTU World (0%) • 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian (0%)

Anime and manga: • Promare (2019) (0%) • Little Witch Academia (0%) • Pandora Hearts (0%) • Love Live! School Idol Project (0%) • FAKE (Manga) (0%) • Kyou Kara Maou! (0%) • Love Live! Sunshine!! (0%) • Tiger & Bunny (0%) • Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup! (0%)

Theater: • Newsies the Musical - Fierstein/Menken (0.0757%) • The Book of Mormon (0.0995%) • Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz (0.1746%) • Hamilton - Miranda (0.4780%)

Video games: • Don't Starve (0%) • 王者荣耀 | King of Glory (0%) • 剑侠情缘 | Jianxiaqingyuan | JX (0%) • Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (0%) • Touhou Project (0%) • 恋与制作人 | Liàn Yǔ Zhì Zuò Rén | Mr. Love: Queen's Choice (0%) • 明日方舟 | Arknights (0%) • Love Live! School Idol Festival (0%) • 第五人格 | Identity V (0%) What about the other end of the spectrum? What media do fans want to fix the most?

Media with High Fix-it Percentages

Fandoms with Multiple Media Types: • Wonder Woman - All Media Types (5.89%) • Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types (7.92%)

Books: • Les Misérables - Victor Hugo (5.89%) • Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat (10.62%) • The works of Stephen King (11.53%) • IT - Stephen King (12.18%) (I'm so sorry, Stephen King. Please don't take offense.)

Movies: • The Social Network (2010) (5.52%) • Big Hero 6 (2014) (8.17%) • Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins) (8.54%) • Call Me By Your Name (2017) (9.47%) • Kingsman (Movies) (10.10%) • IT (Movies - Muschietti) (11.57%) So far the IT fix-its are coming out on top. I guess people really want their happy endings for that particular story.

TV Shows: • DC's Legends of Tomorrow (5.65%) • The Terror (2018) (6.57%) • The Umbrella Academy (6.74%) • The Magicians (7.80%) • True Blood (8.08%) • Babylon 5 (8.34%)

Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic Novels: • Iron Man (Comics) (4.14%) • Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) (4.34%)

Anime and Manga: • Naruto (3.08%) • Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (4.09%) • Banana Fish (9.03%) Oh, Naruto. The apple did not fall far from this particular tree.

Theater: • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling (2.05%) • Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe (2.44%) • Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil (4.73%) We have another winner! Les Misérables is apparently in need of fixing in both book and stage format.

Video Games: • Red Dead Redemption (4.40%) • Until Dawn (8.05%)

Things to Note

Now, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what I'm trying to say with this data. So, I have a few disclaimers:

This data is for fun, and not meant to be some infallible way to measure fanfiction writers' satisfaction with canon.

I haven't seen or read all the media I'm going to mention here, so I can't make any guarantees of quality (or lack thereof).

Different fandoms have different cultures and terminology, so that could affect the number of fanfictions tagged as "fix-it."

Not every fanfiction that tries to fix canon will be tagged as fix-it.

Though we love it dearly, AO3 is only one fanfiction site, and it doesn't represent all of fanfiction, especially for fandoms which were around before its inception.

Conclusion

I hope you've enjoyed your newfound knowledge. If you have questions about specific pieces of media, or would like to see an analysis, comparison, or chart I haven't included, send me a message! And feel free to play around with the data in the spreadsheets (but if you do post anything using this data, please credit me as @thebiballerina​ and my friend as setupminimal).