#I wish the image quality was better I got these from a YouTube video because disney+ doesn't allow screenshots :(

[happylittleshrub]

THEY ARE FATHER AND SON YOUR HONOR

And whoever's idea it was to give Rocket dad reading glasses deserves a raise and a promotion and a Presidential Medal of Honor.

[jasonisaacs]

Can I have some advice on how you make gifs?  I want to start making gifs, but I have no idea where to start.  What programs to use or how I can even get movies to turn into gifs when there are so many copyright laws trying to stop me.

ah i should clarify that i'm terrible at explaining things, and i'm still a beginner myself but i will do my best to give you some advice/tips that can help you get started!! or at least know where to start looking! i will admit that it does require a lot of patience and some knowledge of photo/video editing. it will seem complicated and overwhelming at first, but take it slow and do your best! (i had to put it under a read more as it got quite long!)

firstly, in terms of what program to use, it's entirely up to you and whichever ones you can get a hold of easily. 'photoshop' is the most popular choice, but i personally use a program called GIMP (GNU image manipulation program), it's free to download and it's basically just a copy of photoshop! the only problem is that a lot of people don't use gimp, so finding tutorials is really hard and photoshop has psds & better quality options. but again, it's entirely your choice! i believe there are a few websites/apps on your phone that can make gifs, but i don't think the quality is always good.

depending on which one you decide to use, just google 'how to make gifs tumblr' and there will be many posts to choose from! i would recommend this one if you're going to use photoshop as it is very detailed & includes other programs you'll need! if you decide to use gimp, unfortunately i can't find the link to the particular tutorial i originally used anymore :( but this tutorial is probably the closest i could find, although there's a few extra steps/plugins that i personally don't use.

secondly, you will need a program/app that lets you take screenshots, i personally use 'kmplayer' but some tutorials will offer you alternatives. i would recommend kmplayer because it also has a built in youtube downloader, and it's pretty safe! this photoshop tutorial shows how to take continuous screenshots for your gifs!

and lastly, getting a hold of footage is the one thing that i really struggle with too. there's different ways to do this but it all depends on your internet security and what you know about t*rrenting/p*rating. you can use a screen recorder to capture scenes though most services won't allow it. perhaps to get you started, i would suggest using download to mp4 websites to get hd clips from youtube, or try your best to find websites that have the movies/shows you want in good quality! i would only recommend using sites like that if you have really good internet security or a vpn. please be extremely careful!!

i hope that you find this helpful in some way!! i'm sorry that i couldn't offer more, but like i said, i am still a beginner myself! i wish you luck if you decide to give it a try! it's a lot of trial and error, but one day you'll figure it out and it'll be a piece of cake :D

[veworrose]

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[rasuberry]

Why I'm a Felix fangirl - Part 1

I was asked once by my sister why I like Felix and by extension the Felinette ship, and I've been thinking about it recently so I thought I would sit down and really try to understand what drew me to it in the first place. So let's see if I can write my thoughts out well.

Don't get me wrong, I like Adrien too. I just like Felix from the Miraculous PV better.

Getting into the Miraculous Fandom

I first got into Miraculous Ladybug when I was in highschool. It was around the time the first season (in French) was premiering.

The first episode I watched was oddly enough was episode 12, Darkblade, from the first season. As you get into the Miraculous fandom, you learn quickly that the production of the show can be wacky.

(Btw, I prefer the French dub minus Plagg's voice. English Plagg > French Plagg)

I thought the premise was interesting! A superhero duo that didn't know the other's secret identity, that was cool! Later on when I saw the two pining for each other without knowing it, and I'm a sucker for romance. I could just imagine a great romance budding and blossoming. I just had to wait...and wait... and well I believe we're still waiting to this day. (WHY IS IT SO PAINFUL?)

Finding the Miraculous PV

Around the time season 2 came out, I watched a youtube video titled "Miraculous Ladybug the Anime verison" and it had the extended english theme song playing with it. I really like how the person edited the video, the more serious depictions. Very interesting! I thought it was a fanwork but then I discovered that it was actually a previous concept for the show we know today. Wait, what?!

Now I'm a 2D animation junkie, so I dug around to find out, "why the change?"

One of the reasons they changed from 2D to 3D was it was difficult to draw/animate Ladybug's spots in 2D (which I think is a silly reason) and that "the Japanese art style was hard to sell" (as a weeb I understand the sentiment but that still stung me).

Bummed out that the anime wasn't going to be a thing and because I couldn't do anything about it, I just kept replaying the Miraculous PV.

Defending the Felix

I thought the character "Felix" in the PV was interesting. A cold front type of person and can only be "free" when he is Chat Noir. I liked the fact both he and Marinette could be truer to themselves by the help of the miraculous.

One criticism I've seen is "Felix is cold and mean, he wouldn't be suitable to Marinette." Which is fair, since that's all what we were shown in a 3-minute video.

But I had headcannons to explain why he was cold and mean which were:

Felix being a model (just like how Adrien is the in the show) can't tell if people are trying to get closer to him because of his status or not, so he became cold and closed off as a defense mechanism.

That, or having a father who highly values perfection and doesn't want his son to tarnish the family's name or image. So I could see him develop a "you can't make trouble if you're alone" kind of mentality.

As for the "not being suitable for Marinette", I would agrue he could have been. He could have progessed and became a better person!

I present a moment where PV Felix showcased a redeeming quality. Around the 2:44 mark, we see him worry/cry out for Ladybug's safety. In order words, he's worried! He actually has concern for someone besides himself. He doesn't want her to get hurt.

I think he had a lot potential we'll never get to see. I think he could have gone through a character arc and we would have loved him for it!

When it comes to real life, we've all acted in way we've regretted and wished we could change but I like to think we became better people despite that. That's something I would have loved to see. Characters changing and getting growth? That's my jam!

Canon Felix?

We don't talk about him.

Oh, alright.

Ehhhhhh. Some people still like him?? But I think both sides of the Miraculous Fandom generally dislike him as a character and from a narrative point of view. He's down right mean to Adrien, Adrien's friends, and the "no means no" line he was crossing with Ladybug, and frankly it doesn't make sense for his goal getting his family rings back.

He's a foil to make Adrien look like angel, which I don't anyone was doubting? I'm pretty sure everyone was calling him a cinnamon roll before the Felix episode. Soooooo....

I've long since abandoned the canon Felix. I like the fanon Felix where he's a good guy deep down.

(Also, if haven't already, please check out Emzurl's Miraculous Office AU on youtube. She's amazing, she amazes me. ❤)

------------

Part 2, whenever I get to it, I will be diving into an anime I watched years before Miraculous existed. I'll probably gush about it but I'm pretty sure it's the root cause to my affinity for PV Felix.

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

My GIF making process!

I’ve been asked many times for a tutorial, but because I get really detailed, I always get overwhelmed by the idea. But I finally decided to buckle down! 

Just so you know: I don’t use PSDs in this, and I don’t import layers to frames or anything like that. I like the hard way—at least in gif making, I believe you get higher quality gifs. Join me as I show you how to make gifs by loading videos directly into the Photoshop timeline and my coloring and sharpening techniques.

Tools used:

Mac OS X (only necessary for the first step, and there are other ways around it with a PC)

Adobe Photoshop

YouTube Purchases (any streaming service will work)

Topics covered:

Obtaining the Source Material

Loading the video file into Photoshop

Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

Adjustment Layers

Sharpening

Exporting

Obtaining the Source Material

There are a few different methods for obtaining video to work with. Proper YouTube videos are nice, but finding any major motion picture in that format is difficult, if not illegal.

Once I realized I could get really great quality video by doing screen recordings from streaming services, I stopped worrying about finding (and pirating) high resolution video files. So now, I just go to whichever streaming service I need to, pick out the movie or show, find the spot, and record small snippets.

Mac screen recording instructions:

On a Mac, Command+Shift+5 will bring up the screen recording dialogue. 

Resize the frame of what you want to record within the browser. 

Go to a second or two before, press the “record” button, and then begin playing the video, remembering to keep your cursor out of the recording box. 

Use the Space bar to pause your video when you’ve gotten the snippet you need. Stop the screen recording by clicking the ⏹ button that is in your menu bar at the top of the screen.

Important: when the recording appears in the bottom right of your screen, click on it, and then trim the video on either end. This will help your computer convert the video file to the type that can be opened by Photoshop.

Click “done” and it will appear on your desktop, ready to be used!

PC Users: ??? Here’s a Google search I did for you

 Loading the video file into Photoshop

Lots of people use this process for making gifs (a great tutorial!). I didn’t even know it existed until last summer, when I’d already been giffing for years. I wish I could still do something like that with these screen recordings, but the files are absolutely HUGE, especially on Macs with double retina displays, which actually increase the dpi by a lot. Making screencaps of them fills up my hard drive, almost immediately—even when I’ve got 20 gigs of free space to work with. So what do we do? We just. Open the file. In Photoshop. Et voila!

You can do this with any type of video, not just screen recordings.

 Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

When Photoshop loads your videos up, it makes the video hilariously fast (something about frame conversion). You must slow it down for it to look natural. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE YOU RESZE. Your Photoshop timeline window should be at the bottom of the screen. See that little triangle in the top right of the video? 

Click on it, and a menu will appear to change speed and duration.

Change the speed first- usually between 80-85% will seem realistic. (I actually went a little faster than I usually would on this at almost 86%—I don’t recommend this)

Press the button next to duration and pull the toggle all the way to the far right (if you don’t do this, full length of the video will be cut off).

Now you’ll want to crop it. Ever since Tumblr upped its GIF size limit, I have been playing around with 7:5 ratios, but let’s go with 3:2 for now. Use the Crop tool, pick out 3:2 in the top left (it may say 2:3, but you can switch that) and then find the most suitable spot in your gif for that. Hit enter on your keyboard.

Some things to keep in mind when cropping:

Most videos come in 16:9 ratio (BoRhap is even wider). If it’s a wide shot, you’ll need to do the full 16:9 to not lose anything. Of course, experiment and find what’s right for you!

As you can see above, I moved forward in the timeline and made the crop to a point in the video when the broadest movement was happening.

Certain videos WILL have a black or red bar that may be imperceptible until you’ve already exported the gif. Just crop in a little tighter on top and bottom to avoid them.

Now you’ll need to resize your gif to be the correct size for Tumblr. If you don’t use Tumblr’s exact dimensions, your gifs (as uploaded) will appear blurry or pixellated. We’re doing a full-width gif here, which is 540px. On a Mac, I use Command+Option+I (for “Image Size) to open the resize dialogue. You can also find it under Image->Image size...

Make sure to also have “Resample” checked. Lately I’ve been playing around to see if different options are better. Most GIF makers use “Bicubic Sharper (Reduction)” and they are not wrong to do so. I’ve just been unhappy with it lately, so I have been trying this other setting out, “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.

Click OK. A dialogue may come up that asks if you want to convert to a Smart Object. The answer is yes, okay, do it. The only major caveat is that you can’t go back and change the timeline speed. That’s why we did it first. But you can preview the speed now that it’s smaller, and if you don’t like it, use Command+Z (or “Undo”) and go back a couple steps to get the speed you like.

You may find, especially on a Mac screen (and possibly other displays), that at 100% your gif looks too small to be 540px. That is the curse and blessing of working with super-high resolution hardware. Zoom in to 200% and proceed about your business. This is what it will look like on Tumblr.

You may find it helpful at this point to begin by defining the beginning and end of your gif by moving around these bumpers. It’s safe to keep gifs under 02:00f in length. Under half of 01:00f will be way too short. (I tend to overshoot in length and then trim the beginning and the end once I see how big the gifs are upon exporting.)

 Adjustment Layers

Now the creativity and fun begin!

There are a LOT of ways to get creative here. I’m going to keep it simple, very simple, but I strongly recommend opening up a new adjustment layer of each type and trying to figure out what each does!

You’ll find the adjustment layer menu at the bottom of the Layers window.

Curves

There are a lot of ways to make Curves work for you! It can do the job of Brightness/Contrast, it can do Levels, it can do Color Balance! We’re going to use it mainly to help with brightness here, but also to level out some of the tones. One of the quick tricks you can do is use the droppers on the left side of the Properties window. There are three- one with a white tip, one gray, one black. These can help define what your white tones are (and whether they need to be more of one color or another), and so on with your blacks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t; in this case, I think it doesn’t:

That looks totally blown out and somehow also too dark!

So instead, we’re going to use that little hand with the finger pointing out and some arrows pointing up and down. This lets you define which sections you want to get brighter or darker, and how much. It doesn’t do color correction. In the example below, you can see I dragged up on a white spot and down on a dark spot. Then, I moved points around on the curve itself to refine (which the gif here doesn’t show...).

Vibrance/Saturation x2

Next, I’ve been using @gwil-lee​‘s Vibrance/Saturation trick (I know you said you learned it from someone else, but I learned it from you!). 

Create a Vibrance Adjustment layer, bump the values up a bunch, and then change its Fill to somewhere between 2-9%. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then make a copy of that layer keeping everything the same, but make it Color Dodge. I can’t quite define what these do, but it makes it punchier!

Color Balance

Most people are familiar with this. For this gif, I’m going to make the shadows more Cyan/Blue and the highlights more Red/Yellow. Just a few points each. 

Exposure

I brought the Exposure up a bit, but not enough for you to need to read about, haha.

Selective Color

Here’s where you make fine adjustments to colors. This particular scene is extremely simple, color-wise, so keep it simple. I’m going to bump up the cyans/blues, take up the black by just a point or two, and maybe bump up the yellows and reds a tiny bit. (And as always, remember, the “opposite” of cyan is red, the opposite of magenta is green, and the opposite of yellow is blue. CMY/RGB!)

I think at this point I’m going to call it with the adjustment layers. You can go absolutely hogwild with more of them! But at this point, I’m ready to start sharpening!

 Sharpening

I do three sharpening filters these days. These are all under Filter->Sharpen. Make sure your media layer (default called Layer 1) is selected as we go through this! (Also, this can really take a toll on your processor, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Sharpen- This layer does the basic job

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 10%, Radius: 10, Reduce Noise: 4% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives texture

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 500, Radius: 0.3, Reduce Noise: 12% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives refined sharpening and smoothing

Fiddle with these as needed! Let your gif play all the way through- this may go slowly as your processor works on it. Make sure the beginning and end points make sense.

 Exporting

After You’re going to have to use File->Export->Save For Web (Legacy)... or use the shortcut of Shift+Option+Command+S. This could take some time for the dialogue to pop up! Be patient.

In my opinion, these are the best gif export settings for crisp edges and no noise:

Now you see how big the file is in the bottom left. Tumblr won’t let you upload anything bigger than 10MB and it’s safer to stay under 9MB, in my experience. When your gif is too big, you have a couple options. You can close the dialogue and change the length of your gif. 

OR, you can uncheck “Interlaced” and bump up the lossy to 1 or or more. This will create noise. Sometimes, that’s a good thing!

Here’s without lossy:

Here’s WITH lossy: (Honestly in a fast moving gif like this, it’s almost imperceptible, but I can see it!)

And now that I’ve exported, I can see what there’s a little black line on the bottom! So I’m going to trim that off and call it good! You can see the full gifset here.

Hope you enjoyed! Reblog if you try this out or learned anything. Feel free to reach out with questions any time!

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: Mouse Droids and How To Fix Them – A Quick And Easy Guide [Livestream] Summary: Luke has a Space Youtube Channel and Leia watches his videos to de-stress from a terrible day. Mouse droids are named and the Empire and its terrible quality are dragged through the sarlacc pit. AN: Anyway, did somebody said TIE-Fighter story prequel? No? Too bad.

Leia was a well-composed and well-behaved serene princess right up until the doors of her rooms closed behind her. The moment she was out of sight, she kicked off her shoes with such a force that they soared half across the room and crashed against her wardrobe with a loud crack. She took the pins keeping her braids in place out of her hair and threw them onto the dresser. Then as graceless as a regular fifteen-year-old girl, Leia dropped onto her bed and screamed into her pillow.

Today had been terrible.

Leia hated all the pointless festivities that only ever served to make everyone there feel important and powerful but did absolutely nothing for the people they were supposed to govern. She couldn’t understand how her parents managed it. They were good and selfless people, always calm and serene even when the newest governor was basically spitting one insult after the other at them. Leia always wanted to shout back, it was her first instinct. Idiots who couldn’t be bothered to contribute anything productive or kind, should shut up and stop hindering others from doing their job. Leia had kept her mouth shut of course. She had smiled pleasantly as her mother had taught her and acted as expected from her.

But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t wanted to strip the gloves off her hands and show him how much of a bloodthirsty royal she really was. She shouldn’t have desired it, but it annoyed her so much when others purposefully misunderstood her. It had been a year since she picked her coronation color. When would people finally stop commenting on it?

Yes! Princess Leia Organa had chosen white! She’d forgone five-hundred-years of tradition and picked the color of the snow on Alderaan’s mountains, of ice so cold it burned, of the sheets upon which they wrote the names of their dead.

Leia wore the color of war, mourning and remembrance and she wore it well.

How could she not when the Empire was murdering innocents, subjugating whole worlds and waging an unjust war? Picking green or blue would be an insult upon the suffering she had been forced to witness. She didn’t want to be remembered as another impassive royal, bowing to the whims of the Empire. Leia hadn’t been meant to live in a tyrannizing Empire in which she had to watch her every word and step. She wanted to speak her mind and missed the Republic she never got to experience.

Her parents, while displeased she out herself in such danger, had understood it. Most Alderaanians understood it and supported her, but not that stupid new governor. Instead, he went on and on about her image and character flaws – and worse! Talked about marriage.

Leia was already dead set on staying unmarried. Her parents had been lucky. Despite their marriage being arranged, they’d loved each other. Or maybe they had been in love first and the political advantage of the marriage was just a bonus. Leia didn’t entirely know, but she knew to one hundred percent that all her potential Alderaani suitors sucked. They were arrogant and petty or worse, both of that but way older than her as well. She could marry somebody from a different planet, but the Old Houses would frown upon that and then she’d have to deal with more in-fighting and risk losing control of Alderaan’s society and give the Empire even more access to her planet. It was bad enough as it was.

Groaning, Leia rolled onto her back and got up from her bed again. She’d hate herself in the morning if she didn’t dress out of the fine robes completely. She fetched herself her sleeping clothes and washed the make-up off her face. It felt like taking off uncomfortable armor and she was more than glad to get rid of it. Leia didn’t mind dressing up. As a child, she had loved trying on her parents’ much too large clothes and she still loved picking out dresses together with her mother, but sometimes she wished it all wouldn’t take so much energy.

Redressed, Leia returned to her bed, ready to pretend to fall asleep when she knew that she wouldn’t be able to close her eyes now. Her mind was too unfocused, her thoughts all jumbled up. She laid still and waited until another moment had passed before reaching for her bed stand and pulling out her secret private comm.

Leia had three of them. One for official business, one was the officially private secret comm – the one every important person in the galaxy was supposed to have and hide – and then there was her own, which she used to stay up-to-date with activities unbefitting on an Imperial princess.

She checked the holonet, skimming through articles that made her blood boil and delightfully bright art that called for resistance. She was pleased to notice that more and more Alderaani artists were choosing lighter colors in their barely legal paintings and downright joyful when she saw an account post images of white flags. Those posts would probably be taken down once the meaning behind them spread a little more, but Leia was proud nonetheless. She had caused this, this was her contribution to the Rebellion.

In a better mood already, Leia went through her notifications. She had a few replies to articles she had written and- oh.

 [Notification: Scrap Hunting has started a livestream – 1 Min ago]

Smiling widely, Leia clicked on the link connecting her to the video. The livestream had indeed only started recently, and not even properly. Leia had missed the last one sadly because she’d been in the Core, too far away for Scrap Hunting’s terrible holonet connection to reach. Alderaan was just close enough to Tatooine for Leia to watch them.

She couldn’t quite recall how she had stumbled upon the channel. She had just been clicking through some random videos one day and there it had been. Leia wasn’t all that knowledgeable about ships – her parents had kept a keen eye on her since the Speeder accident she’d had when she was ten – and didn’t really have much access to the hangers either. Droids, on the other hand, Leia knew plenty about. They were everywhere and nobody wanted to live without them, which made them the perfect spies with the right adjustments. Leia knew how to wipe a droid’s memory so clean, it was shinier than any crystal and how to hide protocols upon protocols in their storage. Her favorite droids were C-3PO and the R2D2 unite serving on the Tantive IV. Artoo especially had a lot of personality. Leia needed to sort out her Binary so she could catch all the colorful curses the astromech liked to inflict on people.

The two boys running Scrap Hunting – well, only really Luke actually – were sympathetic. They didn’t talk about droids like they were simple tools and they were proficient in fixing them up. Therefore Leia was very pleased to see that the title of the livestream was Mouse Droids and How To Fix Them – A Quick And Easy Guide. This would be fun, the right kind of distracting noise she needed after such a long day.

X

“Alright, we’re all set up now,” Luke said. “Hello everybody! I’m Luke and welcome to another episode of Scrap Hunting!”

He waved at the recorder and then picked up a small back droid from his table. “This is what today’s livestream will be about! An MSE-series droid! A lot of you guys said you’d like more livestreams and the weather’s been pretty good recently and I fixed the signals so I hope this works out just fine.”

Luke smiled and reached for the first tool lying in front of him. “I decided that fixing up this little guy here should be fine for a shorter video. I don’t have to think so much about what I’m doing and can talk at the same time.”

He began taking off the outer casing of the droid and carefully set it aside. “I know, I know, I’m always talking, but nobody complains about it.” Luke stopped spinning his wrench for a moment to think. “Okay, alright, maybe my uncle complains about it sometimes but that’s what he gets for making me check all the vaporators on my own. Anyway, I talk a lot and so does this chat. Lots of people joining in here! Hi!”

Luke looked through the chat, returned greetings and explained how he had gotten the droid as payment for helping out in a repair shop.

“And I know the owner thought he was just giving me so boring little plaything, but do you know how versatile these MSE droids are?”

X

Leia definitely knew how useful they could be. She grinned when Luke comically shook his head when people began sending in question marks and began belittling the tiny Mouse droids. They made excellent spies, infiltrators and guides. Underestimating them just because they were cute was fatal. Leia was happy when Luke reacted as outraged as she was and began elaborating on what the droids could be used for.

X

“And like, I get sending the droids back when they trigger your instincts, I wouldn’t keep around a droid that reminds me of a womp rat or a krayt dragon.” Luke paused, the half-open mouse droid lying on his lap, and apparently considered his suggestions.

“Okay, maybe I would actually want them. Could you imagine a droid krayt dragon? So cool.”

Luke reached for the nearest datapad and took a few notes, then put it next to him on the table and returned to working on the MSE.

“But yeah, point being: Why did the Aar’aa sell them to the Empire so cheaply? Add some extra software and boom, you can sell them for twice the price. Then you’d even make a bonus. Oh, well, I suppose the Empire at least made a good deal there.”

The MSE droid laid bare now and Luke could easily access its memory. He took his datapad once more and connected it to the droid. After a few seconds, he had access to its memory and immediately frowned.

“Or it did not. What is this programming? I researched what I could find before, downloaded some protocols-“ Luke looked away from his datapad to point down, “-links in the description as always. But just- honestly. Who wrote this protocol?”

He gently knocked his head against the droid’s frame. “I’m so sorry, don’t worry, I’ll speed up your processors.”

X

The next hour, Leia spent listening to Luke ramble on about what changes he made and why. Once or twice she even threw her own suggestions in the chat and watched contently as Luke picked up on them and began to work with them. She wished she didn’t have so many duties and could spend her days doing things she actually wanted, take a more active role in the rebellion. But she supposed that as long as she could escape annoying politicians for a while, she’d be fine.

Leia glanced at her chrono. While it appeared to be midday still on Tatooine, it was already early morning for her. She should head to sleep soon.

Thankfully, the livestream was also wrapping up. Luke had reassembled the droid and screwed the last bolt down.

 “And done!” Luke said and helped up the repaired Mouse droid. “A Quick And Easy Guide to Mouse Droids. Now, the only thing left is repainting and naming it. Same rules as always, highest donator gets to choose the color and the name.”

Leia watched as a lot of people began donating. Some just threw in five credits, just to support the channel. She’d done so before as well. It was only right to help somebody else and give him a thanks after cheering her up. Leia typed the first one, then stopped.

She was tired, had been for at least thirty minutes now, but her mind was finally calm as well. She was still and upset, but not so that she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Leia shouldn’t waste her allowance on this, but Leia had also had a terrible horrible no-good day and wanted to name that Mouse Droid.

X

“And that was it!” Luke announced. “Many thanks for all your donations. I’ll keep you posted on what my next project will be. Hopefully something a little more interesting than this little buddy here. Now let’s see… The highest donation is one- one thousand credits from @rebelroyal!?”

Luke’s voice was awfully high-pitched, shock visible all over his face. “Is this real- oh gosh. Thank you so, so much! I’m not sure- Many thanks for supporting this channel! You may name any future Mouse Droids I come across, oh Force. Right. Uhm. What is your suggestion?”

Leia eyes her discarded white dress on the floor and chose.

X

History’s eyes on you @ rebelroyal

Paint it white and name it Emmy! Many thanks for all the lovely content you provide.

Little Emmy, it turned out, look much better in white than it did in the awful black so representative for the Empire.

X

[Notification: Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot has mentioned you in a new post]

Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot

I have adopted 4 more mouse droids to keep our ship clean!

Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot

[Foto: Five Mouse Droids standing in front of Luke, who was sitting on the ground, smiling cheerfully. The droid in the middle was Emmy. It was a little banged up and had a couple more scratches. On its right were an orange and a blue droid, freshly painted from the looks of it. On Emmy’s left were two black ones]

@ rebelroyal The orange and blue ones have been painted and named already, care to do the honors for the other two?

X

Leia smiled fondly at the picture and began to type.

History’s eyes on you @ rebelroyal

How about yellow and green? Benny and Penny so it rhymes?

Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot

Done :D

[Foto: The two previously black mouse droids have been painted as well and are furiously cleaning the floor of a ship]

[egle0702]

[TRANS] Cosmopolitan November ‘20 - Wooyoung Interview

The Standard of “Adult Sexy” - 2PM’s Wooyoung

Wooyoung said he doesn’t worry about the image he shows anymore. His expression remained clear as he picked his words firmly.

 By COSMOPOLITAN 2020.10.27

It hasn’t been long since you’ve been discharged. Even though there’s been a gap in activities, you don’t look like you’ve just been discharged when you’re on shows.

It could be because I didn’t worry much about the hiatus. Usually dancers worry that their bodies will grow stiff if they don’t dance for a long time. But I didn’t worry about that. I thought that I would be using my body in the army anyways, and if I were to learn new ways to move, that would become my dance.

How did it feel to stand in front of the camera again?

Right after I got discharged, my first time in front of the camera was for this entertainment program. It was right when My House popularity wave was on the rise, so I had to spin my head (T/N.: sangmo spin) in my military uniform. I wore a real sangmo when I danced, and it actually started spinning. Haha. Back then I felt… I just marvelled at everything like a person who saw a camera for the first time. And my heart still flutters up to this day. I think I returned from the army well. Haha.

The entertainment world trends have changed a lot while you were on hiatus. These days, there’s no formula that says “If you do this, you’ll succeed.” “Tess hyung” is popular among the young, and it’s often that we see buried songs skyrocket up the charts because of YouTube algorithms. As someone who experienced it first-hand with “My House,” what are your thoughts on it?

That’s also something that I’ve been wondering about, something I wanted to discuss. Actually, it can be thoroughly confusing. I sometimes think I don’t know what I’m supposed to do [about it]. So, I chose to simply continue doing my thing. There’s no use to think about what’s right or wrong, or things like “this is popular now, so I’ve got to do it fast.” Instead of working on potentially popular music or visual creations, I think it’s more important to consistently work on the things I like and the things I can do. Especially these days, when you can’t predict anything.

 On the other hand, it seems there are more outlets for entertainment. The music world is fun these days. The audience isn’t enjoying solely the songs and their performances. Their reaction becomes yet another type of content. Even when we look just at the contents about you, there are popular videos like “Intro Master,” or “Saturi compilation.” The popular comments under those videos are also interesting. Wooyoung, have you ever looked up contents about yourself?

Since people were so crazy about “My House,” I’ve looked up the “My House” compilation edit video for monitoring. Ah! I usually watch the variety shows we’d done before. When I watch them, I think “That was so funny back then; It was really hard back then,” stuff like that. Haha.

 No matter how much the world of the entertainment changes, I think your mind as a musician remains the same.

That’s right. Just as I’ve mentioned, I don’t get carried along by the wave. Also, (Park) Jinyoung-hyung and Na Hoon-a senior have been in the industry for many years, right? Rather than feeling pressured that I also need to be active for so long, I wish I could naturally work for a long time focusing on the things I like, relying on the will that comes from within.

 Is there a song you’d like to experience a resurgence in popularity like “My House?”

The song “Come Back When You Hear This Song” written by Jinyoung-hyung. The choreography is nice, and the classic outfits that follow the “My House” flow were also good.

“My House” syndrome has to continue. You’ve also mentioned that you want to come back with 2PM as soon as possible, is there an image you’re aiming for?

I don’t really think about how we should release a new album these days. Because if I were to do that, I think I would forget what kind of dance I want to dance, and what kind of music I like. Right now, I spend my time focusing on myself, on what I want to sing, and on the feelings related to dancing.

 It’s probably related to your saying on a show that your way of life has become clearer, not too long ago.

I think I have faltered enough. There was a time when I was too busy lashing myself, having forgotten when I really like. I think I don’t need to do that anymore.

 The fact that you can say so in your early 30s means that you lived through, felt, and experienced a lot at a young age. 2PM members were with you at that time.

Indeed. I managed to go through it thanks to my members. We often say “like a fool,” among us. The members aren’t calculating. I think we’re way past the relationship of work colleagues. So, even if we’re on a hiatus, even on our casual days, we’re still 2PM.

 Maybe it’s because of your tough concept, but there’s always been the attribute “masculine beauty” next to 2PM. The perception of masculine beauty has changed over time, so how do you understand masculine beauty yourself?

It’s “a bloke who knows how to live properly.” What I mean is that you have to be able face yourself and judge yourself accordingly. Sometimes he should be able to say “I can’t do that.” Actually, back in the day, I was so desperate trying to present myself well that I would hide the things I didn’t know or wasn’t good at. I think being able to acknowledge your questionable qualities is what makes you an admirable person.

 You’re learning a lot about yourself these days. After a recent MBC “I Live Alone” broadcast, the professional loner Dr. Jang has even become a hot topic. Is there something you’ve discovered after living on your own for 8 years?

The less people there are around you, the more you have to come to your senses. The joy of freely living alone is brief. Because when you live alone, it’s really easy to grow into irregular weird habits that eventually destroy your body. Living along gives you the time to face yourself. If you use that time well, you attain maturity; if not, the opposite awaits.

 I think you’re spending your time with healthy body and mind.

It might sound weird, but in order to do that, I’ve tried out all sorts of stuff. Haha.

 Could you give some Dr. Jang health or living alone tips to Cosmo readers?

Puahaha. It’s nothing special, just be sure you have a glass of warm water when you wake up. Don’t drink cold water. If you savour and drink the warm water slowly, you warm up and your insides relax and feel refreshed, like after eating healthy food. The feeling of emptiness disappears, too.

 Just like you tried to get rid of yellow stains from your white shirts, is there anything you’re working on now?

Denim. I’m studying the ways to manage jeans and denim jackets without washing out the colour. Haha.

 Have you ever thought about how you’d like your influence to reach people?

I can’t escape the fact that my actions influence someone in one way or the other. Because I am someone under scrutiny of the public eye. There was a time when I didn’t know better, and I thought that I had to be careful no matter what and hide. Right now, I understand the influence that I have better, and I’m more aware of it. In the future, I want to use that influence properly at the right time.

------------------------------------

Credits:

Freelancer editor: Kim Sohee Photographer: Jung Jieun Stylist: Lee Hanuk Hair: Yang Hyungshim at YangYang Salon Makeup: Kim Doyeon at YangYang Salon

Source: Cosmopolitan WEB

Kor-Eng: Egle0702

[funkymbtifiction]

Thank you for the link to a podcast on enneagram 8! It was a bit hard to listen because looks like the quality of the recording is not so good + English is not my native language, but I did it, whoo-ah. After listening to this I think that I resonate with 8 more than with 6 (but I am also pretty sure in not being sx 8, more likely sp/so or so/sp), but I have some thoughts, both related to the podcast directly and not so much, and I want to ask you about this parts.

1) The 8s participated in this podcast were talking much about their awareness of the emotional state of the people around them, like they feel people's energy with their body and read their body language with ease. And I resonate and do not resonate with it at the same time. I really feel like I have an extra sensory system that allows me to sense unique "vibes" of people - their dress style, their manners of moving and speaking and some other details makes a quite solid energy pattern, but it's more of analyzing the personality and image at the whole, not particular moods and thoughts. I can sense a potential personality of the person, and also I can sense that something is wrong if the vibes have changed heavily, but I am very bad in recognizing particular moods and working with this information, often missing the emotional atmosphere right here and now. Looks like I have the same ability to feel people's energy, but don't have the same level of empathy and emotional intelligence as the people from the podcast. Can it be covered by the fact that I am an ENTP, because as far as I know low empathy is a common struggle for ENTP?

It could be, yeah. Also, it may be those 8s all had Se in their stack. I know Emika is an ESTP. Se helps with tuning in and feeling people on an impacting level. Ne is working with abstract tangibles, not raw data.

2) Also, not directly related to the podcast but somewhat connected to the energy sensitivity stuff. YouTube have recommended me a video with funny horses, and I got very cp6 vibes from these animals. Horses really look a lot like cp6 reactiveness for me - most of the time they look like super confident, strong and even slightly show-offish in some cases, but being herbivores, they are secretively very anxious and alert, and many horses react on unexpected stuff in a "no-no-no, f**k this sh*t, I am out!" manner, even if the reasons for them being scared is absolutely stupid. And it makes me feel more like 8 over 6, because I don't resonate with this horses' trait at all, and at the same time, when discussing "what animal are you most like?" stuff with my friends for fun, I have mostly been compared with bears, orcas, honey badgers and big birds of prey like grey owls and eagles - my friends often claim that I am observant to an edge of being a wallflower when tired/bored, but also highly playful and positive in a good mood, and at the same time I definitely would be ready to kick asses if I would need to. I am also a fan of the 'His Dark Materials' books and a part of the fandom sub-community which uses the concept of daemons from this books as a personality typing system, and a few weeks ago I have finally choosen a sea eagle for my daemon. To you opinion, would horses for cp6 and other mentioned animals for 8 be valid comparisons?

Uh. I guess? I mean... I know a cp6 cat and an 8 cat, and the 8 cat beats the shit out of other cats and then attacks any human that tries to intervene, whereas the cp6 cat acts like an 8 but it’s all “bluffing” and she will hide in her house for three days after she’s had a scare. So... there’s that. LOL IMO, it’s best to compare yourself with humans. ;)

3) Also about personal energy. There were a discussion of the fact that 8's have a tendency to carry a lot of energy which is sometimes even too much. But is it possible for a 8, who have been desintegrated for a long time, to feel like their inner "energy generator" is somewhat like broken? I can remember having this high energy in childhood and partly in high school (I had two detached periods of clear desintegration in my life), but now I feel like my inner generator needs to be heavily repaired before it would work in it's normal mode again, and now it's only capable on either working much less effectively than usually, or give burst of energy until it would crack and stop working for some time. Plus, it has never been high energy in terms of "I can be constantly busy and do 100500 things at a time" as some of my friends are, it's more like being highly endurant, "if I wish I can go the whole equator on foot and you better just deal with it", but also not being quick to react.

Think about your type and what stimulates you. You are a Ne-dom, not a Se-dom or a Fe-dom or a Te-dom. What stimulates a Ne-dom? A constant influx of abstract sensations, new ideas, and discussion of intangibles. How much of this do you regularly get in the outside world? Not much. Si inferior: navigating the sensory world, holding sensory discussions, and going places, doing things, is exhausting since... it’s an inferior function. Make sense? Ne-doms are “high brain energy” not “high body energy.”

4) [no real question]

5) Related to the influence and being the boss stuff. Is it normal for a 8 to not want being in charge, preferring freedom and control of their own life and only their own, combined with heavy "justice fighter" instinct? As I already said in my previous ask, I am not ambitious. I have some goals that require hard work, but I am not going to be a boss of any sort. All this administrative stuff, bureaucracy, paper work, negotiations... It's all so boring!

And there you’ve head-butted up against the fact that 90% of 8s are Te-doms. And what are Te-doms anyway? Workaholics. What do Te-doms want, regardless of being 8 or something else? Competency in the workplace. How do they get it? By being the boss. Etc. Can still be an 8 and an ENTP and lacking Te, you wouldn’t likely want the “boring” responsibility of being the boss and pushing papers all day long.

Or you could be a 7w8 who is over-identifying with their 8 wing who really just wants FREEDOM.

[switchblademouse]

All you could do was laugh.

What other response could you have after seeing death run rampant through your world? The old lady buried one morning when the sun felt harsh and new, then her tiny grandchild ready to be buried soon before the sun set heavy and ripe that very same day. Watching as the people took over the streets howling right in the open, drowning out everything else in their grief. Then watching as those same people burnt down the walls of all the lives around them, smashed the whole world to rubble under the stampede of thousands of charging feet, when all that unanswered grief of theirs turned into righteous rage.

What more was there to do than sit back and laugh at them?

I had warned them. As had many others before me, and after me. We were silenced, all of us. Told we were being too negative for their comfort. Told we shouldn't tell them of the open dangers they faced, unless we gave them the choice to run from such uncomfortable topics beforehand. We, the ones who could see the dangers, had been screaming our warnings at these people for years. We who had already been dying had been begging this blind public for that justice they loved dearly for so very long now. Our suffering had not mattered to these people who thought of themselves as Good People. Where was all of that elitist high ground they once waved above us beggars? Above those of us who had all been denied the basics of human life; and yet we all ended up watching them crumble at our feet for so much less than we had already survived.

We could do nothing but laugh. Throw our heads back and shake from the gasping breathing that came with the horrid and hysterical laughter of those who had been pushed too far for too long. We the people who have only just realized that the others who put us there always knew that our suffering was the worst possible thing anyone could live through. Those awful Good People had let us all suffer while knowing these things; simply because they couldn't care less to act on helping others if they couldn't get something for themselves out of it. Why did such people still dare call themselves "good" to our faces?

We laugh as they fall at our feet, suffering too, in all the ways they looked away from dismissively when that suffering was in our lives once.

We laugh as they bleed out in front of us, blood pooling in a dark river that twists with whirpools of tears, and the many empty, begging promises of desperate human beings trying to avoid the consequences of their own misdeeds brought to their feet.

We laugh as they call us evil, for those moments are the only truly humorous times we still have in our lives, after all this madness.

Because they don't realize they lost that right to feel morally superior to me so very long ago.

We no longer see a human being in our own reflection these days.

We no longer want to.

For all those humans we have seen walking through our life are not what we wish to ever see ourselves become.

The cruel actions those humans who call themselves good take when they simply feel justified in destroying everything they find distasteful are not those we seek to emulate.

So, we will destroy every last human being, and the destructive despair they drag around them like the chaotic wake behind a great storm.

I am perfectly fine being the grinning villain these days.

For if such beings as humans call me evil, then I must be doing so very well as a person.

Isn't that funny?

Just absolutely hilarious?

I see humans, but no humanity.

All you can do is laugh.

[Just a Random Writer in the Electronic Void. Don't mind me. I just got bored. Sorry about the rough copy /Edit: Went back and edited for spelling and grammar because it bugged me, no longer a rough copy/. Not sorry about the chills. Villains are such an interesting topic. Any of us could be one to somebody else. Enjoy this one, or don't. Not exactly my best work after all. Guess I should just laugh it off, huh?]

+++++

End Copypasta

+++++

This right here is copypasta from my YouTube commentary. The video was a wonderful VillainCore playlist, titled "i see humans but no humanity: a villain playlist", posted by username "cupid". (Quote marks are mine. I sincerely apologize for not linking it here. I like giving credit to the creators, but I have no clue how to link that through my phone app here. Sorry!)

I designed this for the authors notes to be at the end, to increase the impact of the writing. In commentary style story posts, putting the authors note at the top deters people from reading by breaking that story immersion. If you put those authors notes at the end of the comment-story you are writing? You get more readership, because the hook for your story can do it's job properly. That's an important tip I recommend you keep in mind if you post stories in places like commentary or reply sections. Just make sure your hook strikes well!

Anyway? Because this was designed for that hook to hit first? I do apologize for having to drop my copypasta without context. It is what it is.

Before I'm done? I would like to make another more personal apology. Someone accused me of "humble-bragging" after the original note to this. I had no idea what that meant. I looked it up. Honestly? I was appalled that they thought that, and confused. When I brag I'm not subtle about it! I also wasn't sure why they would think anyone would over just what I wrote there. I asked some friends. Turns out? My writing is better than I thought it was. I know I'm good, but I didn't think a quick short story like this, done in an hour could be well written for me. I was corrected on something. My standards for excellence were significantly higher for myself than they were for my readers. So, what I legitimately thought wasn't good enough, everyone else thought was me humble-bragging.

I felt the need to apologize for this. I didn't want to alter my original post, for personal reasons. But I want to apologize now, before anyone says I'm doing that. I wasn't, but I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that I'm not just a good writer. I'm a writer who is apparently, on occasion, so good at what they do that they make people think I must be full of crap if I say I don't believe I did well.

Do you know how hard that is to accept?! I'm freaking out. My image of myself does NOT match with that! Even if I was confident about being a good writer, this is still a shock. I'm working on it. It's just taking me a while.

So, on top of my writing tip today?

Take this to heart.

Just because you think you aren't good enough yet, doesn't mean you aren't great already.

Your lackluster effort, just might be a high quality piece in others eyes.

Look at your stuff through some of your biggest supporters eyes at some point.

It could be the best thing you will ever do for your self-confidence.

I hope you all have a weird and wonderful day from here.

~ Tapestry

[zabreti]

the time has finally come for me to start expressing what i have been overwhelmingly feeling for the past week, since i started to properly listen to this sunshine of a woman named joanna newsom. i want to- actually, i need to vent a little about the album ys, since it’s the one i first listened to. plus my initial contact with joanna’s work and thoughts that came with it

even though i only found out about her a few months ago, i guess everyone knows her(?); if you don’t, you should. there’s not one single moment in which i’m not mad at myself for not finding her sooner. so fyi, she’s a harpist, pianist, singer and songwriter from nevada. according to some sources, she may be the most famous harpist alive today; i really don’t know about you, but it really sounds quite badass for me.

i started searching for her stuff after watching her husband’s - andy samberg - multiple interviews, where he would be sometimes asked about their marriage. i’ve been binge watching random interviews with people i like for the last weeks, and i found myself actually watching some interviews of hers before i even got to listen to her music.

btw, look at this fucking adorable couple. just look at them for a second.

first of all, what a lovely woman! each answer, each laughter, each little thing she did on camera caused an admiration for the idea of andy and her together to grow strongly; i wasn’t even sure if it was ok for me to feel so strongly about someone else’s relationship. my curiosity grew when i started to read the comments on these videos on youtube, pretty much 100% of them being about her intelligence, her talent and how her music sounds angelical, mystical and perfectly constructed. (let it be said that it only grew more and more as i watched every single interviewer asking both andy and joanna about how different their works are, and how different they appear to be as individuals; not only was suggested that andy would probably not rise up to such an intelligent, serious taste as to fall in love with her (he doesn’t even need to say a word for anyone to realize how passionately in love he is with joanna and her entire work), but also said that no one could believe she was actually able to be a goofy, easy-going, good-humored person because of the lyrics she writes. ok, i could spend hours listing the unnecessary questions i identified in these interviews, and how i get easily annoyed by these famous hosts assuming stuff or trying to create an uncomfortable environment; and don’t even get me started on the fact that most of the interviews she was invited to would revolve around her relationship with andy. i’m choosing to let this feeling pass for now, since it’s not my focus today.)

i couldn’t help but start by saying all this since i truly adore andy’s works, and nothing feels warmer than realizing two amazing people are in love and have a family together by choice.

i mean..... ??????? c’mon. greatest couple alive. try and fight me on this.

another interesting thing i found out was that she dislikes streaming platforms similar to spotify, which probably (?) justifies the fact that i never came across her songs, since i use spotify on a daily basis and have been using it to find new artists for the last years. call me ignorant, it’s fine, truly; but i haven’t heard of similar opinions coming from artists, and it made me even more curious to know what this woman was expressing, creating, thinking. she actually told larry king: 

“spotify is a business model. it’s not good. it’s based on the idea of circumventing the payment of artists. (...) i’m not opposed to streaming. i understand that the world is shifting and that the way music is valued and monetized is shifting, and i’m ok with that. and i’m even ok with people not paying for music (...), i just wish that there was a better way to do it that didn’t only pay a company. (...) i haven’t heard of one [alternative to spotify] that seems built the way that i would prefer it to be built.”

one of spotify owners (owners or directors, idek and idec) even replied to her many critics, but she never changed her mind or retreated from defending even her honest, harsh comments about how spotify is “like a villainous cabal of major labels”. for me, that’s a badass woman. not only for expressing herself without giving a damn about anyone who might be offended in this process, but also for choosing the path that felt ethical and worthy, and being recognized all over the world for her talent while following her own ways. i know, right? simply awesome.

there i was, reading the endless comments on her interviews’ videos and wondering what the fuss was all about. there was nothing left for me to do other than to actually start listening to her songs. i could have done it by looking up her discography and starting from her first project, but somehow i stomped into the ys album, which was released in 2006, in youtube itself.

first of all, would you look at this freaking cover?

i found it absolutely gorgeous in each detail; in fact, i really wish to know if there are meanings in the little specific parts of the painting. maybe there aren’t any and i’m just trying to create a more complex joanna in my mind? sure, sounds like me. or maybe there are lots of ‘em and she already said it on camera and i simply missed this video? sure, sounds possible. i won’t lie, i spent so much time thinking about this cover... maybe way too much time. alright, on we go.

there are 5 tracks on the album: emily, monkey & bear, sawdust and diamonds, only skin and cosmia.

at first, i didn’t quite understand what i was listening to. and i’m not talking about the lyrics, i’m talking about the whole idea of the album, the artist, the genre. the conjunction formed by her high pitches and soft, delicious vocal variations, surrounded lovingly by the harp and the violins was very mysterious to me. at first, i wouldn’t be encouraged to keep listening to her. but something kept me there, seated, staring at the screen and paying attention to each second of it. it was an experience. a real transportation. i searched for the lyrics on genius, and anyone that would pass by my bedroom’s open door would see me completely enamored by what i was listening to, like a concentrated kid being told an epic, adventurous, huge, beautiful and complex story. that is exactly how i felt: in the middle of a field, picturing each image she described in the song; each figure, each feeling. she described it all in a way that made me wonder how can someone describe a dream so vividly, how can someone describe anything so perfectly, so fully, and not sound redundant, not sound at all boring. the way the melody and the lyrics fit together, as a gift perfectly wrapped and tightly involved in the most beautiful way. i repeat: it was an experience. it is an experience. this is not something you can listen to at any given time, at any given place; i would not dare to not pay attention each time i would plan to listen to it. this is how seriously submerged i felt by joanna in that moment; in that entire day.

all of this, all of this immersion, all of this dream-like state in which i found myself in, kept growing its roots in me throughout the entire album, in a way i needed to show someone - anyone - joanna before i even got to finish the five songs; and the first one that came near me happened to be my mother. while listening, she actually found it quite pleasing, “like some old movie’s soundtrack” when listening to emily, “like an 1960′s melody” when listening to sawdust and sand, and on she went about the entire album. and this got me thinking about how i would describe her genre; of course, after following her on bandcamp i found out i was actually listening to some folk/pop/avant-garde/baroque pop/chamber folk/indie stuff. sounds about right, but at the same time not right at all, for some reason. i believe it’s fair to say that joanna has a magical, rare quality to her music that makes it different to each one listening to it. i’ve said it too much and i’ll say it again: it’s an experience, a complete, true one. it ressonates with deep, personal places. and, strangely, it makes many people describe the feeling that urges to grow inside their hearts as “home”; and i share this exact same sensation.

i really don’t know if it makes any sense, but see: i cherish my alone time probably more than anything in the world. i have learned to be my own best friend in many ways, and being by myself in some quiet days, at my house, reading, listening, watching and creating is when i can truly be myself. with that said, listening to this album, i felt at home. it made me feel even more alone, and i mean it in the most loving, warm, hypnotizing way. 

the ys album is a relatively quick production to be heard, even though it feels like you’ve been gone for hours, days, weeks on end while listening to it. the amount of literary, historic and philosofical references in the lyrics is magically overwhelming; i simply wasn’t able to snap out of it for a long time, and i have, to this day, re-listened to the album about 5 times. still reading the lyrics again and again, still grasping at some expressions faintly but amazed, still finding out about hidden and not so hidden meanings behind each track. still defining it, every single day.

i hope for the great discoveries i feel like pursuing from her work, and the diverse new singers, song-writers, harpists, pianists, violinists, chellists and musicists in general i’ll try to find, understand and support from now on. i’m thankful for finding out how much i love the mix between an orchestra-like atmosphere and a sweet, honest voice ringing in my ears; and how the words assembled together feels like a psychography.

i thank the universe every single day for the opportunity to discover people like joanna newsom.

[darkestwolfx]

Volcano - Re-Review #40

So, I’ve said it before but I’m afraid this actually is the really short review I didn’t want to have to deliver.

My internet is really dying on me now, and I don’t have the time today to faff around with waiting for it to respond, so I apologise. On the positive side, there will be another fic tomorrow (it’s another irrelief prompt, and I’ve got my earmuffs at the ready this time - someone out there among you will know what that means), so can I be forgiven?

Anyhow, episode review;

Seems like a busy day for the Tracy’s... a Tuesday by any chance? (Anyone want to pick out what episode that reference is from?)

“Sending situation details.”

“Cross it off the list.”

“Wrapping things up with the shipping collision.”

“Scott, be a dear.”

Definitely a Tuesday.

And a nice case of cry wolf it seems. Even so, it’s nice to meet a man of science who isn’t like Fischler, for once. I can do without seeing him again for a while.

“Hello Doctor Questa, has it been a year already?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Every year I pick up your distress call, and every year the same thing happens. Nothing.”

“I refuse to let you brush me off again. Let me speak to your supervisior. I’m going over your head this time, young man.”

“You asked for it.”

Ha, yeah, he did. Grandma. I feel like she’d make a really fair supervisor.

“Doctor Questa, did you ever hear the story of the boy who cried wolf?”

“Fourth law? I thought Newton only had three?”

Yeah, I’m with you there too, Scott. I was only taught the three.

“It looks like you’re gonna’ have to walk there.”

“I can drop Brains off on my way.”

The clue about the lack of landing should have been there in the use of “drop”, literally.

There’s Scott’s excellent balance on display again. Someone’s going to fall and break a leg (or worse) one of these days...

The RAD! I don’t really know how it fitted inside Thunderbird One, but hey, let’s save that for when I have more time to make a valid case. Iceland looks quite nice this time of year.

“The things I do for science.”

Yes, tell me about it! I’m up to my ears in environmental science right now. This is my break! It’s quite an entertaining one actually. At least it’s not Fischler, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

“Every time you’ve been wrong.”

“Since when was science just about being right?”

Uh... since Fischler entered the industry?

“Let me call a ride and get us out of here.”

I thought Grandma said you’d have to walk, Brains, remember?

“What matters now is saving lives.”

“You mean we’re going to stop the volcano from exploding?”

Yes, Brains, yes you are.

“It’s finally happening, after all these years!”

Um... maybe don’t sound quite so happy about a volcano exploding?

So, is Brains’ uniform more orange or brown in people’s opinions? I’ve always thought it looked orange in TAG, but in TOS ‘Thunderbird Six’ his sash colour was brown.

And look at these lovely robots! They deserve to have each other for friends. MAX playing music as well was just completely classic and MAX following whilst Brains was like “let’s go home”. It would have been lovely to see more of these two, they made a good duo.

“Fritzy seems very nice... but she’s much too old a model for you.”

It’s like parenting, isn’t it? Or gene selection.

I love how we got a robot love story though which just about pushed the boundaries.

“Locals? What locals?”

“Those locals!”

Treating them a little like outsiders there, ey?

So, now we move onto one of my favourite parts of this episode. The guy with the catch phrase, “And I’m Jeff Tracy.” I thought it was meant to be “and I’m the Queen of England”, but maybe that wouldn’t have been as fitting. So here is a lovely little hot spring resort. How nice.

And here is why you should Brains! Volcano! Run for your lives (again)!

Virgil absolutely made this episode for me! Thanks to @flyboytracy​ for these awesome gifs, they make my day every time.

I’ll fill in the blanks here;

“Hi. I’m from International Rescue.”

No, you’re not, but he is one of Jeff Tracy’s sons. I wish that had been added somehow.

“Oh my!”

Yeah, because Virgil doesn’t even need words to say how awesome he is, he just has to point out of a window and be all like, ‘You were saying?’

I just love how he does that.

So, I probably don’t really have time, but I’m adding the trivia anyway, because I know it interests some of you (and if it interests no one just tell me to stop including it).

So, inspiration or possible sources for this episode could come from three pieces of traditional work. The first is this image, released in the comics as a special news report written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. The full story was never expanded upon within the comics or as an episode, but the news reported detailed bystanders views of Thunderbird One undertaking some kind of rescue before fleeing the scene, the rescue being (by rumour) to rescue the scientists who had been studying the volcano. 

The second was this one;

A special short story release which focussed on a rescue mission surrounding volcanos on the Ring of Fire. This is also possible source material for where the very first episode of TAG took it’s title from. Similar content to the book can be seen in that episode too, but only so much for the setting. As for the volcanos (which were absent in ‘Ring of Fire’), it seems they were instead moved to this episode. Many also thought that this book was written as the expansion that never come to the news report above. That was never confirmed, and the authors were different, but elements were remarkably similar. So it’s far to say that if this book wasn’t an expansion of that report, it was definitely inspired by it. Goodness I feel like I’m tagging works over on AO3 with all this talk of expansion and inspiration.

The third was this video - yes, video. I still have my video player set up and working thank you very much. Not everything got transferred to DVD in the fading days of VCR and this is one of them, along with many Carlton works actually. You may know them better for releasing many videos that featured under the content umbrella of ‘BBC Videos’, however with the rise of DVD’s, the BBC took over selling their own content under ‘BBC DVD’s’, just like they now have ‘BBC Books’. Carlton were known for releasing many old BBC (and ITV) classics, such as Thunderbirds, Star Hill Ponies, Toy Box... many of these were picked up by ITV and BBC and transferred to DVD, but sadly this one was missed.

CD-Rom is another thing which is dying out now - I still have my CD player, just saying, and it has an IPod nano connector (something which I’m aware is also dying out, but my technology lives really well, I don’t know what I do because I’m not a technological expert, but I did have m,y last mobile for 8 years, once again just saying - and moving away from garbled, rushed trivia about me).

The issue which stops CD-Rom surviving is that it doesn’t play on many general CD players, because it needs hard drive space. Old computer monitors used to have CD-Rom drives in built, so you could listen to music, play games and copy data onto disks. They have mostly died out and so the only form this game survives in, is little chunks people have filmed and uploaded to youtube. The quality isn’t great on many of the recordings, but at least they’re there in some form. Give it another 20 years... Preserve what you have is my message from all of this.

But yes, so this was about Thunderbird Two going to a rescue at a volcano! Low and behold, what have we just watched?

And, to finish off, because my break is definitely over, a little more behind the scenes specials! The making of this episode was actually really intriguing to look at.

P.S. I was typing quickly so any errors are my own and I apologise (again).

P.P.S. I am just going to leave this absolutely awesome here for you to all ogle. Look at that little bell! Do you think there’s room in the tool belt to have nicked it (because yes, Parker Class #101 would have taught those skills), because Gordon ends up with a very similar looking one... just putting it out there. And now I have, anyone want to write me a fic featuring the life of said bell?

[shenlongshao]

GG Strive: Highlights pt. 2

Welcome to part 2 of the GG Strive highlights! If you haven’t seen the previous one, please go here.  During the livestream, the developers announced the official website for GG Strive(both English and Japanese) will feature content to help people understand the lore of Guilty Gear. The website features manga based on the events of the games separated by chapters. There’s also Youtube videos of the Xrd series’ story modes uploaded directly from Arc System Works.  My perspective of the manga will mainly be from me being a long-time fan of GG. I’ll look at how well and how much information it gives to those not familiar with the series. And, I’ll also be reviewing it as a manga in general with how the writing is, etc. I’ll be using the grade system to judge each aspect. This will definitely be a long post since it’s about the lore.  WARNING: My review will contain some spoilers. If you haven’t read the manga yet or you don’t wanted to be spoiled, it’s best not to read this post.  (Here is the line for the GG manga!) https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/en/story/ Readability:  The GG Story Digest comics follow the format of reading from right-to-left and turning the pages is from the left side; this is different if you’re not used to reading Japanese material. The font size and style of the dialogue, titles, etc. is generally clear enough. But there are times where it may be hard to see like this one.

The story introduction text of Chapter 5 is mixed in with the background image that has some dark shades of gray. This made it hard to see what it says, especially since the website doesn’t have a zoom-in/zoom-out feature for the pages. You would have to use your browser if you have trouble seeing certain words. Other than this, the readability is very good! Rating: A Artstyle & Presentation: The artist chosen to do the GG Digest comics is Sumeragi, whom you may recognize because she’s known to do artwork for Blazblue. The presentation of her art is nicely done from the opening scenery of each chapter to the expressions on the characters’ faces; there’s a good amount of detail on everything. My favorite part about Sumeragi’s style is the beautiful, soft colors implemented at certain moments in the story like this one.

It perfectly highlights how special the moment is whenever I see it, but it also makes me wish all of the chapters were in color. Sumeragi’s art fits the modern anime style that’s been more mainstream for a while. I think her artstyle is really cute of how she interprets the characters’ designs. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Blazblue more than Guilty Gear at times, though. I personally would loved it if they got with an artist with a distinct style reminiscent of the 90s/early 2000s(for example like Outlaw Star or Record of Lodoss War). Other than this part, I like looking at the pages! Rating: B + (Note: I’ll be going by the English version of the manga by the western side of Arc System Works. The translation has gotten better over the years, but I’ll check the Japanese one for any noticeable differences in the future.) Writing/Pacing: The general quality itself is good, so there won’t be errors like “Welcome to die!” or “This guy are sick”, XD. I noticed the dialogue based on the events of the first Guilty Gear game is improved and the personalities of the characters is conveyed well in each chapter. It does a great job of providing brief character bios and the world of GG in a straightforward way. If you were ever confused on which paths took place as part of the main story, the writing will help make it easier. The writing also adds small details in some of the chapters that you may recognize. For example, on this page below...

For GG fans, doesn’t the man Sol is talking to look familiar? It’s the same guy Sol was stepping on from this.

What happens is the following page between them is probably the funniest part to me throughout all the chapters. The final chapter of the manga ends on a cliffhanger, which is done on purpose for you to watch the Story Modes on Youtube. Now for the negative part... The website does state it’s a quick-overview of events, but I think it’s too quick. There’s so many important details missing that the manga completely ignores. Examples include information about Forbidden Beasts, the Assassin’s Guild, the other Sacred Treasures(like Anji Mito’s fans called Zessen), nations like Zepp, the P.W.A.B.(Postwar Administration Bureau), etc. Other mainstay characters that play supporting/vital role to the series(for example Faust) is reduced to being just there for 1 or 2 chapters. There’s some that don’t appear at all like Slayer, I-No, and Anji Mito to name a few. Things like this is essential to world building in general, but especially for introducing new people to Guilty Gear.  Except for Chapters 5 and 3, the chapters of the manga is short. The final chapter being short is understandable, but not for the previous ones. It ruins the overall pacing of the manga because it’s too focused on getting to the point instead of inform you of the details. The second part is something the official GG website lets you know immediately; there will be some events that differ from the games. This itself isn’t an issue, though there are some things I personally disliked. One of them for me is how the Xrd SIGN design of Justice being incorporated in the earlier events of GG(like The Missing Link). That design of her looks like a xenomorph reject with breasts, XD. It’s not as amazing as Justice’s iconic, mech-like design. Another one is based on GGX Plus when Sol encounters Dizzy. It follows the game version at first, but it then changes a bit with creating a scenario where Ky intervenes. How it was done ruined how is in the game with Sol showing some of his humane side to Dizzy and sparing her on his own. It could’ve been done better. I think it’s best to view the GG Digest manga as a basic guide to the world of GG for those new to the series. For long-time fans, it’s just nice seeing more GG related content in general. It obviously doesn’t negate the source material like the novels, Drama CDs, etc. The manga is definitely worth reading, but still important to play or watch the games’ stories for full context. Rating: C  I’m glad the story of the Guilty Gear series is being promoted more in the West. I love the lore of GG and its characters, especially since it has the depth of an JRPG rather than a generic plot in most fighting games. Sadly, it’s not easy finding info due to either it’s Japan only and/or it’s very rare. There are a few fanmade English sites and blogs continuously trying to provide this for years. Each of them do have some reliable info that can be trusted, so it’s good to browse around to put the pieces of the puzzle together. So far, there’s no #1 source for GG lore yet because besides the part of finding info, there’s also still areas where mistranslations, misinterpretations, etc. of GG is still present. Mistakes like this happens sometimes and not always easy to spot, but can be fixed with no problem! But sadly, it isn’t always that simple because some people handling GG information be very... “heavy-handed” instead of helpful.  So I think it’s best to be not afraid to check and dig, dig, dig! I’m still digging for more GG material, XD.  Stay turned for part 3!

[deadmandairyland]

Last night I finished a playthrough of Vambrace: Cold Soul, also known as Darkest Dungeon: Waifus on Ice Edition, or at least it would be if anyone was aware that this game exists. Can’t find fanart of it. Can’t even find porn of it. Once again, Rule 34 is a sham.

...So anyway, I wanted to give my thoughts on this, because I kinda liked the game. Now granted I’m a bit of a softy in general and have a high tolerance when it comes to video games, so don’t take this as word from a hardcore gamer like “This game is actually a gem and super underrated.” I mean, I have a soft spot for Dr. Chaos on the NES, so that should give you an idea on how well my opinion on video game quality translates to most people’s opinions. No, I can definitely see why this game doesn’t have a whole lot of fans: the gameplay is nothing to write home about, the characters (who are probably my favorite part of the game) aren’t nearly as fleshed out as I wish they were, and there were some game design choices that I did not care for (like autosave being the only saving option I could find in a game where choices always matter and making one mistake in a dialogue tree while going for a certain route could result in you having to start the whole game over from scratch, oh boy, isn’t that fun?).

I apparently got the neutral ending on this playthrough, according to the PS4 trophy list and what I was able to find while snooping around the interwebs. After a point, none of the images that appeared in the YouTube video I found of all the endings showed up, making me wonder if the PS4 version of this game is censored, or if there is something missing from the file in my download of the game. Hopefully it’s just the former. I can accept the former. Even if it means I finished the game with the protagonist in a Sailor Moon cosplay and somehow the powers that be decided that (SPOILERS BTW) a woman having a nervous breakdown in her home is somehow too hot for the PS4 to handle. I swear I’ve seen more nudity in a Castlevania game than what was showing in that picture. Still would be better than having to play through the whole game again and getting another ending and realizing that none of the ending images are showing up at all.

Also, and I’m going to try to say this last part while spoiling as little as possible... but I ship Lyric with all three of the people staying at the inn. Just throwing that out there. Was kinda disappointed that I could never make these four a party, especially since all three are kinda implied to be badass but we never really get to see that in action. So yeah, to clarify: I ship Lyric with Helga the dwarven innkeeper/bartender who I can only assume is standing on a box behind the bar the whole game and that’s adorable; Charlotte Lorelai, a princess who can apparently bench press 700 pounds and at some point can trick Lyric into going on a panty raid; and Mahoram, a fox boy whose name I kept forgetting while playing the game, so I ended up calling him Fucksboy because he is both a fox boy and a fuckboy. It’s a pun, you see. And yes, if you’re familiar with the game, all of this made a certain point in the game hurt like a motherfucker. Won’t say why, because spoilers, but I was not happy. And the lack of fanfic and fanart did not help. Guys, I even found Knights fanart once! How the fuck did this game featuring tons of waifu bait, including a main character with heterochromia for God’s sake, not inspire someone to draw fanart of it?

Also, check out the Characters page for this game on TVTropes. It’s kinda hilarious. Like, why did they even bother making a character page in the first place? Lyric has only one trope in her folder, and it’s about her heterochromia. Mahoram literally doesn’t have anything written in his folder. Like... why bother?

Maybe someday I’ll write a fic for it. Thing is, though, I... really don’t want to be the only person to write a fic for this game. Do you know how long it took for another Licorne fic to show up on AO3? The pressure is real. Also I have so many other fic ideas at the moment that I feel like the pirate AU idea I currently have for this game is just a really bad idea to even consider!

...

...Even if elves and dwarves in a pirate setting sounds really cool...

...

...Someone slap me, please, before I make another dumb decision here.

[colde0channel]

[ENG] 180530 COLDE - DAZED INTERVIEW

Q. I was hesitant right before I came to see you. I wasn’t sure what questions to ask. I assumed ‘music’ was the only clue that explained your name ‘Colde’. 

Colde: That’s absolutely right. I never had the intention of creating a visual stereotype of the work I’ve been doing so far. I’ve rejected using other elements besides music.  It’s the same reason why I wear a hat/cap when I sing. That’s why I’m reluctant to be exposed in the media and I hardly do interviews very often. I’ve been doing that for the past two years, I’m now working as a solo artist as of this year. I thought this time, I’d have to brand myself differently. This is my first magazine interview with Dazed.  (t/n: He feels more confident performing on stage. He explained in previous interviews that he’s in fact a ‘timid’ person. This interview took place in 2018. Colde officially debuted with 0channel as ‘offonoff’ in 2016.)

Q. That sounds great. So let’s start this with, what’s the meaning behind the name ‘Colde’ ?

Colde: There are certain words that I love, and one of them is ‘Cold’ . When I visualised it as an image, I thought it fit well with my voice and appearance. I’m naturally not a bright person but the name ‘Cold’ goes well with a calm feeling. There are lots of meaningless typography (names) so that’s why I put an ‘e’ at the end of ‘Cold’. (Cold + e= Colde) (t/n: He mentioned on Red & Yella, that he got the name using a word generator. Although his name is Colde and with a voice that sounds ‘cold’ too, he wishes to bring warmth with his music.)

Q. What type of person is ‘Colde’ aka ‘Kim Heesoo’ like in real life? Are you as quiet and calm as when you sing?

Colde: I like to think positively, and I’m usually quiet. However once you get to know me, I like to joke around. I tend to discuss deeply about what I love;  like collecting vintage items, old books and I love taking film photos that I can directly connect to music. Which I then keep in a stack of archives. Also riding an old car. I write songs with that kind of inspiration. I know a lot of people have been curious. (t/n: In fact he has a tattoo of an ‘old car’ on his right arm. Also the film photos he took in Texas (2019) were used for his LOVE PART 01 EP cover)

Q. What other things do you do, when you’re not doing music?

Colde: Talking (to friends)? Or watching a movie. I enjoy drinking tea peacefully while reading books. I like going to clubs but only when it’s for work, like planning a performance or parties. (laughs)

Q. Don’t you sometimes dream of escaping in a fit of anger?

Colde: Hmmmm, well I would take a walk on the Han River Bridge and just sing. Then sing loudly until I can’t hear my voice and the sound of cars.

Q. When you know you have enough control of yourself, it’s not as easy as it looks. So far, do you think you’ve been able to compete only with music rather than revealing yourself (into the public). 

Colde: When me and 0channel moved together as a team, we solely focused on ‘offonoff’ as opposed to individuality. Our concept was not to let anyone know about us, like Margiela (brand). It was difficult to continue with that kind of concept as a crew (team). But with that, it’s constructed well in its own way. I would express it as ‘branding’.

(t/n: It’s almost saying as if ‘offonoff’ is a brand of its own. Martin Margiela who owns the brand, remains to be a private person.  “Constantly challenging people’s expectations, the label persistently presents the idea of anonymity within their collections, and often sends models down the catwalk with their faces concealed so the concentration is on the clothes.” source: vogue  )

Q. I agree. Nowadays, we do the branding ourselves. Offonoff and Colde’s music reminds me of the phrase you either ‘like it’ or you ‘crave for more’ . Without a doubt, both of you have different opinions. When you work on an album, how much do you or both express your own preference(s)?

Colde: For my solo music, they’re all centered around me so everything is decided by my opinion.  Whereas in comparison to teamwork (offonoff), our opinions are half and half. We combine both of our ideas, well enough to make it work. That’s why it takes longer to work on the album. Which is the same for other things besides music. From a month before the album was released, we gathered every week to have visual meetings. Discussing ideas on how we would like the music video(s) to turn out. So I think we have good teamwork and synergy based on that.  

Q. I heard that your first solo single ‘Your Dog Loves You’, from song writing to music video and album promotion was done without any label.

Colde: When we were still promoting as ‘offonoff’, our previous label (HIGHGRND) positively reflected the opinions of artists. So there weren't any conflicting issues. When I wrote this song (YDLY), I told myself “I’ll pursue this, there’s no one stopping me.”  I started working on the album (YDLY) thinking about my dog; Samna. Even though we’ve been apart for a while, I still feel a sense of happiness. I realised that love is truly incredible. I wanted to express the meaning of my love and gratitude (for her), so that’s why I wrote about Samna as my first single. ‘Your Dog Loves You’ is a song that conveys my honest self and emotions with sincerity. Thus recording (the song) is important when doing music.

Q. What type of branding will be added to this song? 

Colde: For this song, I think my real name ‘Kim Heesoo’ best represents me than Colde. To Samna, I live as ‘Kim Heesoo’ (laughs). We will be selling T-shirts with the release of this album. Some of the proceeds (from selling the shirts) will be donated to ‘CARE’, an animal shelter organisation. They also helped with the music video shoot. 

Q. Is Wavy a type of movement?

Colde: That is correct. It's not just a concept or a crew but it's going to turn into a ‘brand’. Essentially it will then form as an ‘official label’. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to make it interesting, once it's unveiled. I can't tell you any more details, please keep an eye out . (laughs)

Q. It seems that promoting the song strategically is as important as good music.

Colde: I guess you could say that. When me and 0channel made our first song (Mood. mixtape [2015]) as ‘offonoff’, we tried to complete it with a high quality visual. With that, we started a website for it. The goal was to make the site accessible for everyone to access, and I paid attention to the small details. (offonoffart.tumblr.com) Which I think played a part of the promotion. It’s the same process for my solo music. I’m not only good at making music, but I should get the most out of using webzine, youtube channel and SNS websites (instagram etc). I also like to observe and explore how people use these websites.

Q. Are there any public figures (eg. actors, writers, artists) or anything that you are interested in nowadays?

Colde: Vintage shopping. In my spare time, I would make a trip looking for only vintage items.

Q. In your opinion, is nostalgia for old (things) any special?

Colde: Without them (old things) what would be left after the person passes away? Money? I don’t think so. If I leave something that is special (to me) I’d regard it as if it’s my child. I believe that whoever is influenced by me, will be greatly inspired. If you have a distinctive preference, the meaning of life will look even more different. Then I’ll be able to explain that clearly to someone, before I die. 

Q. What’s the latest thing you’ve purchased?

Colde: Yesterday I bought a candlestick decorated with crystals on it. There’s a favourite shop that I like, whenever a new item comes in the owner would always contact me first. I also bought postcards and old magazines.

Q. Does that kind of preference also similar with fashion?

Colde: I love anything vintage in Japan and the UK. When I talk to my friends, ‘vintage’ is always the subject of the conversation. (t/n: He visited both countries before.)

Q. It is evident that cool musicians like you dress well. I think that’s why we’re able to film Eli’den Men with you today. 

Colde: I’ve been offered a lot of fashion photoshoots and I’ve disappointed many, even though it’s a great opportunity. I had to decline them. I’d rather make a proposal for myself first, planning to do projects which connect music and fashion. Having the chance to work on Eli’den Men, I was so excited that I knew it would be fun. Even wearing eleven outfits was a challenge for me. 

Q. How do you feel after filming it?

Colde: I feel great because I got to wear many pretty clothes. (laughs)

Q. What is the relationship between fashion and music for you? 

Colde: I think my own criteria of fashion determines whether I'm an artist or not. Anyone can identify if an artist’s identity is connected to fashion. It doesn’t necessarily mean an artist has to dress well. I don’t think I can look my best, without that connection between work and clothing. It’s very important to show your personality through fashion. For example, when performing as offonoff’s Colde, I would wear my cap pretty low. Because that’s the character I set up for myself. I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to make eye contact with people, who’s also timid, passive and a reserved person. But in reality I’m gloomy and an introvert.  After becoming a solo artist it’s getting better, now that I’ve started to open myself up to the world.  Hence why I decided to appear on the show ‘BREAKERS’. The process of opening myself is revealed through fashion.

Q. I can feel the sincerity from your honesty. From now onwards I have high hopes of what’s going to happen next (for his next music release). 

Colde: For my next second single; the keyword is  ‘Fashion’. (Colde - WAVE [EP]) These days, I’ve been so immersed in my work. I’ve been planning this (album) since last year. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m planning to get a head start on this around June to July.

Q. So will we meet again next month?

Colde: I’d love that (smiles). I think it’s more meaningful if it’s with DAZED. Please look forward to my new music and upcoming projects.

✧ original source here

Translated by @colde0channel.                                                                          Please credit when reposting. Thank you!

[aywren]

Diamond Paintings

@scholarlostintime​

Absolutely! Always happy to spread the addiction.

This is called Diamond Painting. (Link for lots of info!)

It’s similar to a paint by number or cross stitch, except you’re making pixel art on a canvas by affixing diamond drills (beads). Certainly pop “Diamond Painting” into Youtube and check out the videos with tips and demonstrations.

These come in kits with all the beads and tools you’ll need.

They come in many different designs - some popular art/characters, and all kinds of themes. You can even order a photo (or any digital image) as a custom painting from certain companies (I have a biiiiiiig one of Amon and Scylla I will do eventually).

Cost and Finding Kits

The cost of these kits range depending on the size and where you’re ordering them from. The bigger the better since this is pixel art - if you order too small, you get a rather muddled image in return.

Also, be aware that there are two kinds of kits: Full Drill and Partial Drill.

Full drill means the whole piece is filled with diamonds. Partial drill means that just a section of the picture has diamonds, and the rest is a colored background. Here’s a video to show you more info on it.

You can pick them up off of places like Amazon (cheaper and smaller kits). I  suggest checking reviews to see if there are pictures of the finished piece just to be sure you’ll be happy with the outcome. My first kit came from Amazon and I had no idea what I was even buying at the time! I just got lucky that it was a good sized piece and that it turned out looking nice. XD

You can get more expensive kits at places like Diamond Art Club. These are larger, always high quality, and really great kits. I’ve ordered several from this store and am always blown away by the quality. Just know you’re going to pay more for a better product, though. Some of these may also be a bit overwhelming to start with because of their large size.

For more variety, you can order form overseas (a lot of this originated in China). Places like Aliexpress and EveryDayDeals has LOTS of designs to search through. Just know that you’re going to be waiting months for shipping, especially with Covid slowing everything down. Also, double check if you buy from Aliexpress that the seller has good reviews. There are shops there known for their custom kits, but they take a long time to come.

Other places to look: Etsy, Wish and Ebay! Just search Diamond Painting. Again, Wish and some Etsy sellers may be sending from overseas, so may take some time.

Your fastest and cheapest source of kits is Amazon, but you have to be careful to research the size and the image outcome before you buy. Also, Amazon doesn’t quite have the expansive selection of designs. But if you just want to try one out at a low cost, that’s a good place to start.

[bryonysimcox]

Spring has Sprung and Life Continues: Week 11, Spain

Another week spent in the Catalunyan countryside as coronavirus lockdown continues. Here are my reflections on the arrival of spring, broad beans, ecological economics and the launch of ‘The Hundred Miler’.

This last week has seen the welcome face of April - signalling that spring is certainly here along with the arrival of Easter. It’s a time associated with new life, new starts, sunny days and longer nights. Even though we remain in full lockdown here in Spain, it feels as though we can draw upon the changing season as a source of assurance.

The week started with something rather special. I finally got to drive Suzi!

When we first bought the van in Summer 2019, I was still only 24, and it was really expensive to get me insured on it. There seems to be a transition point for insurers at age 25, so George and I had always agreed that after my birthday at Christmas, we’d get me on the insurance. But we never got around to it, partly because of the additional expense, and partly because it wasn’t a huge priority, until the start of March. And then of course, we were in Valencia and the lockdown hit, so we had nowhere to drive to even once I was insured!

My first drive here in Catalunya was pretty fun, even though it was just a trip to the supermarket. Because we’re in lockdown, the roads are super quiet which has been great, and the roads around the cottage aren’t tarmaced, so I could do some offroading as well. I’ve since driven a couple more times to and from the supermarket, and it’s so nice to be behind the wheel again. I haven’t driven since we owned our last van, Casper, back in Sydney!

(Images, left to right) My first time driving Suzi the HiAce, and a throwback to driving our last van Casper.

On the topic of Sydney, I have been doing some serious reminiscing. It’s almost coming to exactly a year since George and I flew back to the UK from Australia, and anniversaries always tend to bring on waves of nostalgia. It’s mad to think that a year ago, we didn’t own a van, not least have a clue about where we’d be living in the van! And of course, there’s no way I’d have imagined that we would be stuck amid a pandemic-induced global lockdown. Oh, to have the gift of foresight... 

The year that ensued after we left our friends, jobs, and security blanket of Sydney was an absolute rollercoaster. We naively aimed to have the van built and prepped in a matter of months, and when the van-build rolled over towards Christmas 2019, I felt like an absolute failure for not having finished it sooner. And yet now, upon reflection, I guess it’s not such a bad achievement to have managed to buy and build Suzi the HiAce, both of us get jobs in Manchester and move into a flat there, launch our documentary channel ‘Broaden’ and set off for Europe all in a year.

We can all benefit from a bit of self-reflection to put progress into perspective.

(video) Broaden’s latest video; an overview of who we are and what we’re about. It’s helped me to reframe some of the successes of this last year.

I feel like a stuck record, but food is a wonderful experience which punctuates the repetitive days of lockdown. Last week I wrote about calçots, a deliciously sweet spring onion special to this region and eaten with Romesco sauce. This week, it’s all about broad beans. The garden here is full of them, so I’ve been tasked with picking and podding. Most of them are fat enough to be podded, and are even better if you go the extra mile by blanching them and removing their skins. The smaller ones can be eaten as they are, and make for a lovely crunchy stir-fry ingredient too.

Preparing broad beans can be time-consuming, but also a wonderfully cathartic activity. My granny in Scotland used to have plenty of these beans in her garden, and I remember summer days spent picking and podding with my mum. We’ve stored plenty here in the freezer but have also kept some fresh and I am continually finding ways to incorporate them into our meals. A quick call to my well-resourced mum also resulted in her sending pages and pages photographed from Jane Grigson’s vegetable book: not only with plenty of recipes but incredibly detailed descriptions of the vegetable’s history and qualities too.

(images) Beautiful fresh veggies from the market were a highlight of the week, as well as picking these broad beans straight from the garden. The bowl on the right is what was distilled from podding four huge bags’ worth.

The resurgence in cooking and baking whilst in lockdown is inspiring, but I’ve been thinking about how it affects our supply chains as well.

Just this morning on BBC News I saw an article about dairy farmers having to throw away vast amounts of milk as cafes, hotels and restaurants remain shut, and another article about how there’s been an insane increase in demand for flour, as everyone takes to home baking. Many mills are now working around the clock to meet the demand in the UK and I was especially interested to read that even if there’s enough flour that there’s a shortage of packaging, because usually only 4% of flour produced goes into the smaller bags that we see on supermarket shelves.

Coronavirus has triggered so many changes in how we live and how we behave, that it's wreaking havoc on supply chains like this, and of course, the economy. That said, whilst the negative effects are hard to deny, scientists, economists and ecologists alike are suggesting that we should leverage the situation as an opportunity to reflect on how we all live, and how we might return to ‘normal’ life without just returning to business as usual. I agree: this is a unique opportunity to reassess production and consumption, how we assign value to things, and the economic and political models that we use to govern our world.

The connection between global lockdown, coronavirus, climate change and our economy has really got me thinking.

I recently read an incredible article by ecological economist Simon Mair in Singularity Hub which looked at this relationship. The article pulled together disparate strands that have been on my mind for a while, each related to various books which I’ve been reading, and which I can now see are interconnected. Simon suggests that the Covid-19 crisis could be a chance to “expand our economic imagination”. He explains that coronavirus, like climate change, demands a type of downscaling, counter to the ‘wartime economy’ mentality and massive upscaling of production. 

“If we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood”, says Simon.

The article is full of gems, and Simon explores things such as our current addition to economic growth and productivity, the transfer of healthcare and labour goods out of the market and into the hands of the state, and the social forms that could come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy. It answers some of the questions posed by George Monbiot in ‘How Did We Get Into This Mess?’, echoes some of the radical economic theories proposed by Kate Raworth in ‘Doughnut Economics’, and parallels ideas of democratic market socialism put forward by ‘How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century’ by Erik Olin Wright which I’m currently reading. Simon’s article has really got me so fired up, in fact, that I’m working on an idea for a new video which explores the topic, so watch this space.

(images) Three fantastic books which I highly recommend.

On the subject of videos, Broaden has been one of the only things keeping us sane! I am eternally grateful to have a creative outlet in times like these, and one which involves a collaborative partnership with George too. Whilst we aren’t able to explore places in the van, or capture footage for new films as we’d love to be doing right now, we are at least able to edit from the cottage and work on promoting the content that we are already releasing.

It feels so tricky to get the right tone when releasing videos during a global pandemic.

We are both conscious of remaining sensitive to the severity of the health crisis, whilst balancing that with the reality that life goes on, and that people still want to see pictures, watch videos and read articles that engage with other topics too. As Broaden, George and I obviously made the decision to launch our documentary ‘The Hundred Miler’ during this time, and I hope that people see it as a celebration of running, the natural world, and human resilience, and perhaps even an escape from the daily news of the virus, rather than something insensitive or badly-timed.

(video) Trailer for ‘The Hundred Miler’

‘The Hundred Miler’ comes out this Saturday 11th April, and we have been overwhelmed by the response already. People have really got behind the project, helping to share it on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and widen its potential reach. George has been making this film for well over three years, so it feels like an immense milestone to finally have it shown to the world. I don’t think I know many people who hold themselves to such high standards as George, and so to have so many positive messages and people planning to tune in for the live premier on Saturday is the best affirmation of all his hard work that I could wish for. It has been a pleasure to see him create this documentary, and also to have been involved in the production and final stages of its creation.

The Hundred Miler is a film about three Australian guys, taking on the biggest race of their lives; UTMB.

‘Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc’ is renowned in the trail-running world, as one of the most challenging and scenic ultra marathons. The Hundred Miler is an attempt to bring this story to the masses, and we hope that it appeals to non-runners and runners alike, for its underlying themes of companionship, commitment and strength. It premiers live on YouTube at 10am in the UK, which is 7pm in Australia on 11.4.20, and after that the video will be available to watch as a normal video. You can find BTS footage and more information about the film on our Instagram here, details of the launch on the Facebook event here, and the link for the video itself here. You can also subscribe to Broaden’s YouTube channel and set a reminder for when the film goes live.

(video) ‘The Hundred Miler’ which goes live on Sat 11th April.

 It goes without saying: I am really missing the open road and living in a van. And I’m not immune to fear of the future either. But as the days and weeks pass, we learn to adapt to changing circumstances and continue to find hope among them. In a way, it helps to know we are all in the same boat, facing a topsy-turvy life full of roadblocks and revelations. Thanks for tuning in to read my weekly ramblings and I hope you’re all keeping as well as you can be. Until next week!