#I would have watched the fuck out of adventure time if it was on netflix

[punisheddonjuan]

How I ditched streaming services and learned to love Linux: A step-by-step guide to building your very own personal media streaming server (V2.0: REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION)

This is a revised, corrected and expanded version of my tutorial on setting up a personal media server that previously appeared on my old blog (donjuan-auxenfers). I expect that that post is still making the rounds (hopefully with my addendum on modifying group share permissions in Ubuntu to circumvent 0x8007003B "Unexpected Network Error" messages in Windows when transferring files) but I have no way of checking. Anyway this new revised version of the tutorial corrects one or two small errors I discovered when rereading what I wrote, adds links to all products mentioned and is just more polished generally. I also expanded it a bit, pointing more adventurous users toward programs such as Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr which can be used for automating user requests and media collection.

So then, what is this tutorial? This is a tutorial on how to build and set up your own personal media server using Ubuntu as an operating system and Plex (or Jellyfin) to not only manage your media,, but to stream that media to your devices both locally at home, and remotely to anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection. This is a tutorial about how building a personal media server and stuffing it full of films, television shows and music that you acquired through indiscriminate and voracious media piracy various legal methods like ripping your own physical media to disk, you’ll be free to completely ditch paid streaming services. No more will you have to pay for Disney+, Netflix, HBOMAX, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, CBS All Access, Paramount+, Crave or any other streaming service that is not named Criterion Channel (which is actually good). If you want to watch your favourite films and television shows, you’ll have your own custom service that only features things that you want to see, and where you have control over your own files and how they’re delivered to you. And for music fans out there, both Jellyfin and Plex support music streaming, meaning you can even ditch music streaming services. Goodbye Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal and Apple Music, welcome back unreasonably large MP3 (or FLAC) collections.

On the hardware front, I’m going to offer a few options catered towards differing budgets and media library sizes. The cost of getting a media server up and running using this guide will cost you anywhere from $450 CDN/$325 USD at the entry level to $1500 CDN/$1100 USD at the high end. My own server was priced closer to the higher figure, with much of that cost being hard drives. If that seems excessive, consider for a moment, maybe you have a roommate, a close friend, or a family member who would be willing to chip in a few bucks towards your little project provided they get a share of the bounty. This is how my server was funded. It might also be worth thinking about cost over time, how much you spend yearly on subscriptions vs. a one time cost of setting up a server. Additionally there's just the joy of being able to scream "fuck you" at all those show cancelling, movie deleting, hedge fund vampire CEOs who run the studios through denying them your money. Drive a stake through David Zaslav's heart.

On the software side I will walk you step-by-step through installing Ubuntu as your server's operating system, configuring your storage as a RAIDz array with ZFS, sharing your zpool to Windows with Samba, running a remote connection between your server and your Windows PC, and then a little about started with Plex/Jellyfin. Every terminal command you will need to input will be provided, and I even share a custom #bash script that will make used vs. available drive space on your server display correctly in Windows.

If you have a different preferred flavour of Linux (Arch, Manjaro, Redhat, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Slackware etc. et. al.) and are aching to tell me off for being basic and using Ubuntu, this tutorial is not for you. The sort of person with a preferred Linux distro is the sort of person who can do this sort of thing in their sleep. Also I don't care. This tutorial is intended for the average home computer user. This is also why we’re not using a more exotic home server solution like running everything through Docker Containers and managing it through a dashboard like Homarr or Heimdall. While such solutions are fantastic and can be very easy to maintain once you have it all set up, wrapping your brain around Docker is a whole thing in and of itself. If you do follow this tutorial and had fun putting everything together, then I would encourage you to return in a year’s time, do your research and set up everything with Docker Containers.

Lastly, this is a tutorial aimed at Windows users. Although I was a daily user of OS X for many years (roughly 2008-2023) and I've dabbled quite a bit with various Linux distributions (mostly Ubuntu and Manjaro), my primary OS these days is Windows 11. Many things in this tutorial will still be applicable to Mac users, but others (e.g. setting up shares) you will have to look up for yourself. I doubt it would be difficult to do so.

Nothing in this tutorial will require feats of computing expertise. All you will need is a basic computer literacy (i.e. an understanding of what a filesystem and directory are, and a degree of comfort in the settings menu) and a willingness to learn a thing or two. While this guide may look overwhelming at first glance, it is only because I want to be as thorough as possible. I want you to understand exactly what it is you're doing, I don't want you to just blindly follow steps. If you half-way know what you’re doing, you will be much better prepared if you ever need to troubleshoot.

Honestly, once you have all the hardware ready it shouldn't take more than a weekend to get everything up and running.

(This tutorial is just shy of seven thousand words long so the rest is under the cut.)

Step One: Choosing Your Hardware

Linux is a light weight operating system, depending on the distribution there's close to no bloat. There are recent distributions available at this very moment that will run perfectly fine on a fourteen year old i3 with 4GB of RAM. Moreover, running Plex or Jellyfin isn’t resource intensive in 90% of use cases. All this is to say, we don’t require an expensive or powerful computer. This means that there are several options available: 1) use an old computer you already have sitting around but aren't using 2) buy a used workstation from eBay, or what I believe to be the best option, 3) order an N100 Mini-PC from AliExpress or Amazon.

Note: If you already have an old PC sitting around that you’ve decided to use, fantastic, move on to the next step.

When weighing your options, keep a few things in mind: the number of people you expect to be streaming simultaneously at any one time, the resolution and bitrate of your media library (4k video takes a lot more processing power than 1080p) and most importantly, how many of those clients are going to be transcoding at any one time. Transcoding is what happens when the playback device does not natively support direct playback of the source file. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the playback device's native resolution being lower than the file's internal resolution, or because the source file was encoded in a video codec unsupported by the playback device.

Ideally we want any transcoding to be performed by hardware. This means we should be looking for a computer with an Intel processor with Quick Sync. Quick Sync is a dedicated core on the CPU die designed specifically for video encoding and decoding. This specialized hardware makes for highly efficient transcoding both in terms of processing overhead and power draw. Without these Quick Sync cores, transcoding must be brute forced through software. This takes up much more of a CPU’s processing power and requires much more energy. But not all Quick Sync cores are created equal and you need to keep this in mind if you've decided either to use an old computer or to shop for a used workstation on eBay

Any Intel processor from second generation Core (Sandy Bridge circa 2011) onwards has Quick Sync cores. It's not until 6th gen (Skylake), however, that the cores support the H.265 HEVC codec. Intel’s 10th gen (Comet Lake) processors introduce support for 10bit HEVC and HDR tone mapping. And the recent 12th gen (Alder Lake) processors brought with them hardware AV1 decoding. As an example, while an 8th gen (Kaby Lake) i5-8500 will be able to hardware transcode a H.265 encoded file, it will fall back to software transcoding if given a 10bit H.265 file. If you’ve decided to use that old PC or to look on eBay for an old Dell Optiplex keep this in mind.

Note 1: The price of old workstations varies wildly and fluctuates frequently. If you get lucky and go shopping shortly after a workplace has liquidated a large number of their workstations you can find deals for as low as $100 on a barebones system, but generally an i5-8500 workstation with 16gb RAM will cost you somewhere in the area of $260 CDN/$200 USD.

Note 2: The AMD equivalent to Quick Sync is called Video Core Next, and while it's fine, it's not as efficient and not as mature a technology. It was only introduced with the first generation Ryzen CPUs and it only got decent with their newest CPUs, we want something cheap.

Alternatively you could forgo having to keep track of what generation of CPU is equipped with Quick Sync cores that feature support for which codecs, and just buy an N100 mini-PC. For around the same price or less of a used workstation you can pick up a Mini-PC with an Intel N100 processor. The N100 is a four-core processor based on the 12th gen Alder Lake architecture and comes equipped with the latest revision of the Quick Sync cores. These little processors offer astounding hardware transcoding capabilities for their size and power draw. Otherwise they perform equivalent to an i5-6500, which isn't a terrible CPU. A friend of mine uses an N100 machine as a dedicated retro emulation gaming system and it does everything up to 6th generation consoles just fine. The N100 is also a remarkably efficient chip, it sips power. In fact, the difference between running one of these and an old workstation could work out to hundreds of dollars a year in energy bills depending on where you live.

You can find these Mini-PCs all over Amazon or for a little cheaper on AliExpress. They range in price from $170 CDN/$125 USD for a no name N100 with 8GB RAM to $280 CDN/$200 USD for a Beelink S12 Pro with 16GB RAM. The brand doesn't really matter, they're all coming from the same three factories in Shenzen, go for whichever one fits your budget or has features you want. 8GB RAM should be enough, Linux is lightweight and Plex only calls for 2GB RAM. 16GB RAM might result in a slightly snappier experience, especially with ZFS. A 256GB SSD is more than enough for what we need as a boot drive, but going for a bigger drive might allow you to get away with things like creating preview thumbnails for Plex, but it’s up to you and your budget.

The Mini-PC I wound up buying was a Firebat AK2 Plus with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. It looks like this:

Note: Be forewarned that if you decide to order a Mini-PC from AliExpress, note the type of power adapter it ships with. The mini-PC I bought came with an EU power adapter and I had to supply my own North American power supply. Thankfully this is a minor issue as a barrel plug 30W/12V/2.5A power adapters are plentiful and can be had for $10.

Step Two: Choosing Your Storage

Storage is the most important part of our build. It is also the most expensive. Thankfully it’s also the most easily upgrade-able down the line.

For people with a smaller media collection (4TB to 8TB), a more limited budget, or who will only ever have two simultaneous streams running, I would say that the most economical course of action would be to buy a USB 3.0 8TB external HDD. Something like this one from Western Digital or this one from Seagate. One of these external drives will cost you in the area of $200 CDN/$140 USD. Down the line you could add a second external drive or replace it with a multi-drive RAIDz set up such as detailed below.

If a single external drive the path for you, move on to step three.

For people with larger media libraries (12TB+), who prefer media in 4k, or care who about data redundancy, the answer is a RAID array featuring multiple HDDs in an enclosure.

Note: If you are using an old PC or used workstatiom as your server and have the room for at least three 3.5" drives, and as many open SATA ports on your mother board you won't need an enclosure, just install the drives into the case. If your old computer is a laptop or doesn’t have room for more internal drives, then I would suggest an enclosure.

The minimum number of drives needed to run a RAIDz array is three, and seeing as RAIDz is what we will be using, you should be looking for an enclosure with three to five bays. I think that four disks makes for a good compromise for a home server. Regardless of whether you go for a three, four, or five bay enclosure, do be aware that in a RAIDz array the space equivalent of one of the drives will be dedicated to parity at a ratio expressed by the equation 1 − 1/n i.e. in a four bay enclosure equipped with four 12TB drives, if we configured our drives in a RAIDz1 array we would be left with a total of 36TB of usable space (48TB raw size). The reason for why we might sacrifice storage space in such a manner will be explained in the next section.

A four bay enclosure will cost somewhere in the area of $200 CDN/$140 USD. You don't need anything fancy, we don't need anything with hardware RAID controls (RAIDz is done entirely in software) or even USB-C. An enclosure with USB 3.0 will perform perfectly fine. Don’t worry too much about USB speed bottlenecks. A mechanical HDD will be limited by the speed of its mechanism long before before it will be limited by the speed of a USB connection. I've seen decent looking enclosures from TerraMaster, Yottamaster, Mediasonic and Sabrent.

When it comes to selecting the drives, as of this writing, the best value (dollar per gigabyte) are those in the range of 12TB to 20TB. I settled on 12TB drives myself. If 12TB to 20TB drives are out of your budget, go with what you can afford, or look into refurbished drives. I'm not sold on the idea of refurbished drives but many people swear by them.

When shopping for harddrives, search for drives designed specifically for NAS use. Drives designed for NAS use typically have better vibration dampening and are designed to be active 24/7. They will also often make use of CMR (conventional magnetic recording) as opposed to SMR (shingled magnetic recording). This nets them a sizable read/write performance bump over typical desktop drives. Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba NAS are both well regarded brands when it comes to NAS drives. I would avoid Western Digital Red drives at this time. WD Reds were a go to recommendation up until earlier this year when it was revealed that they feature firmware that will throw up false SMART warnings telling you to replace the drive at the three year mark quite often when there is nothing at all wrong with that drive. It will likely even be good for another six, seven, or more years.

Step Three: Installing Linux

For this step you will need a USB thumbdrive of at least 6GB in capacity, an .ISO of Ubuntu, and a way to make that thumbdrive bootable media.

First download a copy of Ubuntu desktop (for best performance we could download the Server release, but for new Linux users I would recommend against the server release. The server release is strictly command line interface only, and having a GUI is very helpful for most people. Not many people are wholly comfortable doing everything through the command line, I'm certainly not one of them, and I grew up with DOS 6.0. 22.04.3 Jammy Jellyfish is the current Long Term Service release, this is the one to get.

Download the .ISO and then download and install balenaEtcher on your Windows PC. BalenaEtcher is an easy to use program for creating bootable media, you simply insert your thumbdrive, select the .ISO you just downloaded, and it will create a bootable installation media for you.

Once you've made a bootable media and you've got your Mini-PC (or you old PC/used workstation) in front of you, hook it directly into your router with an ethernet cable, and then plug in the HDD enclosure, a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard. Now turn that sucker on and hit whatever key gets you into the BIOS (typically ESC, DEL or F2). If you’re using a Mini-PC check to make sure that the P1 and P2 power limits are set correctly, my N100's P1 limit was set at 10W, a full 20W under the chip's power limit. Also make sure that the RAM is running at the advertised speed. My Mini-PC’s RAM was set at 2333Mhz out of the box when it should have been 3200Mhz. Once you’ve done that, key over to the boot order and place the USB drive first in the boot order. Then save the BIOS settings and restart.

After you restart you’ll be greeted by Ubuntu's installation screen. Installing Ubuntu is really straight forward, select the "minimal" installation option, as we won't need anything on this computer except for a browser (Ubuntu comes preinstalled with Firefox) and Plex Media Server/Jellyfin Media Server. Also remember to delete and reformat that Windows partition! We don't need it.

Step Four: Installing ZFS and Setting Up the RAIDz Array

Note: If you opted for just a single external HDD skip this step and move onto setting up a Samba share.

Once Ubuntu is installed it's time to configure our storage by installing ZFS to build our RAIDz array. ZFS is a "next-gen" file system that is both massively flexible and massively complex. It's capable of snapshot backup, self healing error correction, ZFS pools can be configured with drives operating in a supplemental manner alongside the storage vdev (e.g. fast cache, dedicated secondary intent log, hot swap spares etc.). It's also a file system very amenable to fine tuning. Block and sector size are adjustable to use case and you're afforded the option of different methods of inline compression. If you'd like a very detailed overview and explanation of its various features and tips on tuning a ZFS array check out these articles from Ars Technica. For now we're going to ignore all these features and keep it simple, we're going to pull our drives together into a single vdev running in RAIDz which will be the entirety of our zpool, no fancy cache drive or SLOG.

Open up the terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt update

then

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

This will install the ZFS utility. Verify that it's installed with the following command:

zfs --version

Now, it's time to check that the HDDs we have in the enclosure are healthy, running, and recognized. We also want to find out their device IDs and take note of them:

sudo fdisk -1

Note: You might be wondering why some of these commands require "sudo" in front of them while others don't. "Sudo" is short for "super user do”. When and where "sudo" is used has to do with the way permissions are set up in Linux. Only the "root" user has the access level to perform certain tasks in Linux. As a matter of security and safety regular user accounts are kept separate from the "root" user. It's not advised (or even possible) to boot into Linux as "root" with most modern distributions. Instead by using "sudo" our regular user account is temporarily given the power to do otherwise forbidden things. Don't worry about it too much at this stage, but if you want to know more check out this introduction.

If everything is working you should get a list of the various drives detected along with their device IDs which will look like this: /dev/sdc. You can also check the device IDs of the drives by opening the disk utility app. Jot these IDs down as we'll need them for our next step, creating our RAIDz array.

RAIDz is similar to RAID-5 in that instead of striping your data over multiple disks, exchanging redundancy for speed and available space (RAID-0), or mirroring your data writing by two copies of every piece (RAID-1), it instead writes parity blocks across the disks in addition to striping, this provides a balance of speed, redundancy and available space. If a single drive fails, the parity blocks on the working drives can be used to reconstruct the entire array as soon as a replacement drive is added.

Additionally, RAIDz improves over some of the common RAID-5 flaws. It's more resilient and capable of self healing, as it is capable of automatically checking for errors against a checksum. It's more forgiving in this way, and it's likely that you'll be able to detect when a drive is dying well before it fails. A RAIDz array can survive the loss of any one drive.

Note: While RAIDz is indeed resilient, if a second drive fails during the rebuild, you're fucked. Always keep backups of things you can't afford to lose. This tutorial, however, is not about proper data safety.

To create the pool, use the following command:

sudo zpool create "zpoolnamehere" raidz "device IDs of drives we're putting in the pool"

For example, let's creatively name our zpool "mypool". This poil will consist of four drives which have the device IDs: sdb, sdc, sdd, and sde. The resulting command will look like this:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde

If as an example you bought five HDDs and decided you wanted more redundancy dedicating two drive to this purpose, we would modify the command to "raidz2" and the command would look something like the following:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz2 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde /dev/sdf

An array configured like this is known as RAIDz2 and is able to survive two disk failures.

Once the zpool has been created, we can check its status with the command:

zpool status

Or more concisely with:

zpool list

The nice thing about ZFS as a file system is that a pool is ready to go immediately after creation. If we were to set up a traditional RAID-5 array using mbam, we'd have to sit through a potentially hours long process of reformatting and partitioning the drives. Instead we're ready to go right out the gates.

The zpool should be automatically mounted to the filesystem after creation, check on that with the following:

df -hT | grep zfs

Note: If your computer ever loses power suddenly, say in event of a power outage, you may have to re-import your pool. In most cases, ZFS will automatically import and mount your pool, but if it doesn’t and you can't see your array, simply open the terminal and type sudo zpool import -a.

By default a zpool is mounted at /"zpoolname". The pool should be under our ownership but let's make sure with the following command:

sudo chown -R "yourlinuxusername" /"zpoolname"

Note: Changing file and folder ownership with "chown" and file and folder permissions with "chmod" are essential commands for much of the admin work in Linux, but we won't be dealing with them extensively in this guide. If you'd like a deeper tutorial and explanation you can check out these two guides: chown and chmod.

You can access the zpool file system through the GUI by opening the file manager (the Ubuntu default file manager is called Nautilus) and clicking on "Other Locations" on the sidebar, then entering the Ubuntu file system and looking for a folder with your pool's name. Bookmark the folder on the sidebar for easy access.

Your storage pool is now ready to go. Assuming that we already have some files on our Windows PC we want to copy to over, we're going to need to install and configure Samba to make the pool accessible in Windows.

Step Five: Setting Up Samba/Sharing

Samba is what's going to let us share the zpool with Windows and allow us to write to it from our Windows machine. First let's install Samba with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get install samba

Next create a password for Samba.

sudo smbpswd -a "yourlinuxusername"

It will then prompt you to create a password. Just reuse your Ubuntu user password for simplicity's sake.

Note: if you're using just a single external drive replace the zpool location in the following commands with wherever it is your external drive is mounted, for more information see this guide on mounting an external drive in Ubuntu.

After you've created a password we're going to create a shareable folder in our pool with this command

mkdir /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

Now we're going to open the smb.conf file and make that folder shareable. Enter the following command.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

This will open the .conf file in nano, the terminal text editor program. Now at the end of smb.conf add the following entry:

["foldername"]

path = /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

available = yes

valid users = "yourlinuxusername"

read only = no

writable = yes

browseable = yes

guest ok = no

Ensure that there are no line breaks between the lines and that there's a space on both sides of the equals sign. Our next step is to allow Samba traffic through the firewall:

sudo ufw allow samba

Finally restart the Samba service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

At this point we'll be able to access to the pool, browse its contents, and read and write to it from Windows. But there's one more thing left to do, Windows doesn't natively support the ZFS file systems and will read the used/available/total space in the pool incorrectly. Windows will read available space as total drive space, and all used space as null. This leads to Windows only displaying a dwindling amount of "available" space as the drives are filled. We can fix this! Functionally this doesn't actually matter, we can still write and read to and from the disk, it just makes it difficult to tell at a glance the proportion of used/available space, so this is an optional step but one I recommend (this step is also unnecessary if you're just using a single external drive). What we're going to do is write a little shell script in #bash. Open nano with the terminal with the command:

nano

Now insert the following code:

#!/bin/bash CUR_PATH=`pwd` ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT=$(zfs get type $CUR_PATH 2>&1 > /dev/null) > /dev/null if [[ $ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT == *not\ a\ ZFS* ]] then IS_ZFS=false else IS_ZFS=true fi if [[ $IS_ZFS = false ]] then df $CUR_PATH | tail -1 | awk '{print $2" "$4}' else USED=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp used $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null AVAIL=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp available $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null TOTAL=$(($USED+$AVAIL)) > /dev/null echo $TOTAL $AVAIL fi

Save the script as "dfree.sh" to /home/"yourlinuxusername" then change the ownership of the file to make it executable with this command:

sudo chmod 774 dfree.sh

Now open smb.conf with sudo again:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Now add this entry to the top of the configuration file to direct Samba to use the results of our script when Windows asks for a reading on the pool's used/available/total drive space:

[global]

dfree command = home/"yourlinuxusername"/defree.sh

Save the changes to smb.conf and then restart Samba again with the terminal:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

Now there’s one more thing we need to do to fully set up the Samba share, and that’s to modify a hidden group permission. In the terminal window type the following command:

usermod -a -G sambashare “yourlinuxusername”

Then restart samba again:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

If we don’t do this last step, everything will appear to work fine, and you will even be able to see and map the drive from Windows and even begin transferring files, but you'd soon run into a lot of frustration. As every ten minutes or so a file would fail to transfer and you would get a window announcing “0x8007003B Unexpected Network Error”. This window would require your manual input to continue the transfer with the file next in the queue. And at the end it would reattempt to transfer whichever files failed the first time around. 99% of the time they’ll go through that second try, but this is still all a major pain in the ass. Especially if you’ve got a lot of data to transfer or you want to step away from the computer for a while.

It turns out samba can act a little weirdly with the higher read/write speeds of RAIDz arrays and transfers from Windows, and will intermittently crash and restart itself if this group option isn’t changed. Inputting the above command will prevent you from ever seeing that window.

The last thing we're going to do before switching over to our Windows PC is grab the IP address of our Linux machine. Enter the following command:

hostname -I

This will spit out this computer's IP address on the local network (it will look something like 192.168.0.x), write it down. It might be a good idea once you're done here to go into your router settings and reserving that IP for your Linux system in the DHCP settings. Check the manual for your specific model router on how to access its settings, typically it can be accessed by opening a browser and typing http:\\192.168.0.1 in the address bar, but your router may be different.

Okay we’re done with our Linux computer for now. Get on over to your Windows PC, open File Explorer, right click on Network and click "Map network drive". Select Z: as the drive letter (you don't want to map the network drive to a letter you could conceivably be using for other purposes) and enter the IP of your Linux machine and location of the share like so: \\"LINUXCOMPUTERLOCALIPADDRESSGOESHERE"\"zpoolnamegoeshere"\. Windows will then ask you for your username and password, enter the ones you set earlier in Samba and you're good. If you've done everything right it should look something like this:

You can now start moving media over from Windows to the share folder. It's a good idea to have a hard line running to all machines. Moving files over Wi-Fi is going to be tortuously slow, the only thing that’s going to make the transfer time tolerable (hours instead of days) is a solid wired connection between both machines and your router.

Step Six: Setting Up Remote Desktop Access to Your Server

After the server is up and going, you’ll want to be able to access it remotely from Windows. Barring serious maintenance/updates, this is how you'll access it most of the time. On your Linux system open the terminal and enter:

sudo apt install xrdp

Then:

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

Once it's finished installing, open “Settings” on the sidebar and turn off "automatic login" in the User category. Then log out of your account. Attempting to remotely connect to your Linux computer while you’re logged in will result in a black screen!

Now get back on your Windows PC, open search and look for "RDP". A program called "Remote Desktop Connection" should pop up, open this program as an administrator by right-clicking and selecting “run as an administrator”. You’ll be greeted with a window. In the field marked “Computer” type in the IP address of your Linux computer. Press connect and you'll be greeted with a new window and prompt asking for your username and password. Enter your Ubuntu username and password here.

If everything went right, you’ll be logged into your Linux computer. If the performance is sluggish, adjust the display options. Lowering the resolution and colour depth do a lot to make the interface feel snappier.

Remote access is how we're going to be using our Linux system from now, barring edge cases like needing to get into the BIOS or upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu. Everything else from performing maintenance like a monthly zpool scrub (this is important!!!) to checking zpool status and updating software can all be done remotely.

This is how my server lives its life now, happily humming and chirping away on the floor next to the couch in a corner of the living room.

Step Seven: Plex Media Server/Jellyfin

Okay we’ve got all the ground work finished and our server is almost up and running. We’ve got Ubuntu up and running, our storage array is primed, we’ve set up remote connections and sharing, and maybe we’ve moved over some of favourite movies and TV shows.

Now we need to decide on the media server software to use which will stream our media to us and organize our library. For most people I’d recommend Plex. It just works 99% of the time. That said, Jellyfin has a lot to recommend it by too, even if it is rougher around the edges. Some people run both simultaneously, it’s not that big of an extra strain. I do recommend doing a little bit of your own research into the features each platform offers, but as a quick run down, consider some of the following points:

Plex is closed source and is funded through PlexPass purchases while Jellyfin is open source and entirely user driven. This means a number of things: for one, Plex requires you to purchase a “PlexPass” (purchased as a one time lifetime fee $159.99 CDN/$120 USD or paid for on a monthly or yearly subscription basis) in order to access to certain features, like hardware transcoding (and we want hardware transcoding) or automated intro/credits detection and skipping. jellyfish features for free. On the other hand, Plex supports a lot more devices than Jellyfin and updates more frequently. That said Jellyfin's Android/iOS apps are completely free, while the Plex Android/iOS apps must be activated for a one time cost of $6 CDN/$5 USD. But that $6 fee gets you a mobile app that is much more functional and features a unified UI across Android and iOS platforms, the Plex mobile apps are simply a more polished experience. The Jellyfin apps are a bit of a mess and the iOS and Android versions are very different from each other.

Jellyfin’s actual media player itself is more fully featured than Plex's, but on the other hand Jellyfin's UI, library customization and automatic media tagging really pale in comparison to Plex. Streaming your music library is free through both Jellyfin and Plex, but Plex offers the PlexAmp app for dedicated music streaming which boasts a number of fantastic features, unfortunately some of those fantastic features require a PlexPass. If your internet is down, Jellyfin can still do local streaming, while Plex can fail to play files. Jellyfin has a slew of neat niche features like support for Comic Book libraries with the .cbz/.cbt file types, but then Plex offers some free ad-supported TV and films, they even have a free channel that plays nothing but Classic Doctor Who.

Ultimately it's up to you, I settled on Plex because although some features are pay-walled, it just works. It's more reliable and easier to use, and a one-time fee is much easier to swallow than a subscription. I do also need to mention that Jellyfin does take a little extra bit of tinkering to get going in Ubuntu, you’ll have to set up process permissions, so if you're more tolerant to tinkering, Jellyfin might be up your alley and I’ll trust that you can follow their installation and configuration guide. For everyone else, I recommend Plex.

So pick your poison: Plex or Jellyfin.

Note: The easiest way to download and install either of these packages in Ubuntu is through Snap Store.

After you've installed one (or both), opening either app will launch a browser window into the browser version of the app allowing you to set all the options server side.

The process of adding creating media libraries is essentially the same in both Plex and Jellyfin. You create a separate libraries for Television, Movies, and Music and add the folders which contain the respective types of media to their respective libraries. The only difficult or time consuming aspect is ensuring that your files and folders follow the appropriate naming conventions:

Plex naming guide for Movies

Plex naming guide for Television

Jellyfin follows the same naming rules but I find their media scanner to be a lot less accurate and forgiving than Plex. Once you've selected the folders to be scanned the service will scan your files, tagging everything and adding metadata. Although I find do find Plex more accurate, it can still erroneously tag some things and you might have to manually clean up some tags in a large library. (When I initially created my library it tagged the 1963-1989 Doctor Who as some Korean soap opera and I needed to manually select the correct match after which everything was tagged normally.) It can also be a bit testy with anime (especially OVAs) be sure to check TVDB to ensure that you have your files and folders structured and named correctly. If something is not showing up at all, double check the name.

Once that's done, organizing and customizing your library is easy. You can set up collections, grouping items together to fit a theme or collect together all the entries in a franchise. You can make playlists, and add custom artwork to entries. It's fun setting up collections with posters to match, there are even several websites dedicated to help you do this like PosterDB. As an example, below are two collections in my library, one collecting all the entries in a franchise, the other follows a theme.

My Star Trek collection, featuring all eleven television series, and thirteen films.

My Best of the Worst collection, featuring sixty-nine films previously showcased on RedLetterMedia’s Best of the Worst. They’re all absolutely terrible and I love them.

As for settings, ensure you've got Remote Access going, it should work automatically and be sure to set your upload speed after running a speed test. In the library settings set the database cache to 2000MB to ensure a snappier and more responsive browsing experience, and then check that playback quality is set to original/maximum. If you’re severely bandwidth limited on your upload and have remote users, you might want to limit the remote stream bitrate to something more reasonable, just as a note of comparison Netflix’s 1080p bitrate is approximately 5Mbps, although almost anyone watching through a chromium based browser is streaming at 720p and 3mbps. Other than that you should be good to go. For actually playing your files, there's a Plex app for just about every platform imaginable. I mostly watch television and films on my laptop using the Windows Plex app, but I also use the Android app which can broadcast to the chromecast connected to the TV. Both are fully functional and easy to navigate, and I can also attest to the OS X version being equally functional.

Part Eight: Finding Media

Now, this is not really a piracy tutorial, there are plenty of those out there. But if you’re unaware, BitTorrent is free and pretty easy to use, just pick a client (qBittorrent is the best) and go find some public trackers to peruse. Just know now that all the best trackers are private and invite only, and that they can be exceptionally difficult to get into. I’m already on a few, and even then, some of the best ones are wholly out of my reach.

If you decide to take the left hand path and turn to Usenet you’ll have to pay. First you’ll need to sign up with a provider like Newshosting or EasyNews for access to Usenet itself, and then to actually find anything you’re going to need to sign up with an indexer like NZBGeek or NZBFinder. There are dozens of indexers, and many people cross post between them, but for more obscure media it’s worth checking multiple. You’ll also need a binary downloader like SABnzbd. That caveat aside, Usenet is faster, bigger, older, less traceable than BitTorrent, and altogether slicker. I honestly prefer it, and I'm kicking myself for taking this long to start using it because I was scared off by the price. I’ve found so many things on Usenet that I had sought in vain elsewhere for years, like a 2010 Italian film about a massacre perpetrated by the SS that played the festival circuit but never received a home media release; some absolute hero uploaded a rip of a festival screener DVD to Usenet, that sort of thing. Anyway, figure out the rest of this shit on your own and remember to use protection, get yourself behind a VPN, use a SOCKS5 proxy with your BitTorrent client, etc.

On the legal side of things, if you’re around my age, you (or your family) probably have a big pile of DVDs and Blu-Rays sitting around unwatched and half forgotten. Why not do a bit of amateur media preservation, rip them and upload them to your server for easier access? (Your tools for this are going to be Handbrake to do the ripping and AnyDVD to break any encryption.) I went to the trouble of ripping all my SCTV DVDs (five box sets worth) because none of it is on streaming nor could it be found on any pirate source I tried. I’m glad I did, forty years on it’s still one of the funniest shows to ever be on TV.

Part Nine/Epilogue: Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr

There are a lot of ways to automate your server for better functionality or to add features you and other users might find useful. Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr are a part of a suite of “Servarr” services (there’s also Readarr for books and Whisparr for adult content) that allow you to automate the collection of new episodes of TV shows (Sonarr), new movie releases (Radarr) and music releases (Lidarr). They hook in to your BitTorrent client or Usenet binary newsgroup downloader and crawl your preferred Torrent trackers and Usenet indexers, alerting you to new releases and automatically grabbing them. You can also use these services to manually search for new media, and even replace/upgrade your existing media with better quality uploads. They’re really a little tricky to set up on a bare metal Ubuntu install (ideally you should be running them in Docker Containers), and I won’t be providing a step by step on installing and running them, I’m simply making you aware of their existence.

The other bit of kit I want to make you aware of is Overseerr which is a program that scans your Plex media library and will serve recommendations based on what you like. It also allows you and your users to request specific media. It can even be integrated with Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr so that fulfilling those requests is fully automated.

And you're done. It really wasn't all that hard. Enjoy your media. Enjoy the control you have over that media. And be safe in the knowledge that no hedgefund CEO motherfucker who hates the movies but who is somehow in control of a major studio will be able to disappear anything in your library as a tax write-off.

[morganbritton132]

Eddie starts a live stream by sticking his head into the living room where Steve is looking for something to watch on Netflix like, “Do you want to go on an adventure with me?”

Steve is reluctant to go because Eddie won’t give him any details about it but ultimately gives in because well, it’s Eddie. His reservations return when he gets in the car and Robin is sitting in the backseat, and when he asks about it Eddie just says that she’s there for ‘damage control.’

Like, “What the hell does that mean? She’s not calming and have you seen her walk? She is the damage.”

“Hey!”

“Rob, I love you but that’s true. She’s here for emotional support.”

“What does that mean?!”

Eddie tells Steve to trust him and Steve gives in because well, again. It’s Eddie.

Steve would accompany Eddie to Mount Sauron, or whatever, any day of the week. So he puts his seatbelt on and gears up the playlist they made for when it’s the three of them in the car, and they drive.

Eddie explains to Steve and to his live-stream that he’s doing an impromptu meet-and-greet at a mystery location. He’ll drop some hints over to the course of the drive and if it’s your area and you can figure it out, come out and meet him.

Steve thinks that’s actually a pretty cool idea and thinks it’s great that Eddie is interacting with his fans again after all the death-threat drama. He pokes Eddie in the arm and tells him, “That’s really cool, babe.”

Eddie flashes him a grin that doesn’t quite gel with the nervous tapping of his fingers, but that thought slips from Steve’s mind when Robin punches him in the arm and points, “Look, cows.”

Steve smiles, “I’m naming that one Kirby.”

“It looks more like a Janine.”

Other highlights of the road trip live stream include the three of them absentmindedly singing along to Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, the three of them singing passionately to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, rest-stop stopping so Ozzy can get out and run around for a bit, and Steve outlawing Punch Buggy after Robin and Eddie punched him in the arm three times in a row.

The whole time Eddie keeps dropping vague little hints like ‘taking it back to where it all begins’ and ‘we’re treading old territory’ and Steve initially thinks that they’re heading to the bar in Indianapolis where Corroded Coffin was discovered. So maybe he didn’t really pay attention to the rest of Eddie’s clues or maybe he’s really bad at connecting the dots because he feels winded when they come upon the Welcome to Hawkins sign.

He feels increasingly more winded when they turn down streets that have changed a lot but feel the same. He doesn’t notice how the car went quite or how Eddie keeps sneaking glances at him, just the streets they’re taking. Every turn they take that he’d taken a hundred times before.

“Eddie,” Steve breaths out like he’s just taped the pieces to a treasure map together and discovered ‘X’ was home all along. He inhales in time with the click of the blinker as they turn onto Loch Nora, “What’s going on?”

Eddie doesn’t actually answer that question until after they’re parked outside of Steve’s childhood home. He doesn’t answer until after he gets out of the car and circles the other side, and he holds Steve in his arms.

He says, “You told me that you will never work through this thing with your mom until you understand why she’s like this. If she won’t come to you, babe, then you gotta go to her. You gotta do this to get peace.”

Steve is always shaking his head no because he can’t. He can’t just walk up to her door after twenty years and asks her for an explanation. He doesn’t even know how he’d – he doesn’t –

Eddie tilts Steve’s head up until they’re eye to eye and he tells him like he can hear all those half-formed questions in his head, “You are Steve fucking Harrington, baby. You fight monsters and you save the world, and you are brave beyond words. There are worst things out there than this, so you got this. You can do this.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Eddie continues. “But it has never been easy, and… This is it, babe. This is the last battle you got to fight and then we leave it all behind. I’m sorry I tricked you, but you wouldn’t have come if I told you.”

Steve takes a deep breath and then another, and maybe a third. He shakes the nerves out of his fingers and he hugs Eddie as tight as he can without hurting him, and he says because he knows he’ll mean it later, “Thank you.”

“Take Oz with you,” Eddie tells him and kisses him in broad daylight like he was never able to do on this street. He tells Steve that his meet-and-greet is at high school, and that Robin’s going to stay here with the car, that they’re going to Hopper and Joyce’s after, “If you need anything, call me immediately.”

Eddie stays with Robin to watch Steve walk up to the door and knock. He doesn’t move an inch until the door is answered, and then he smiles at Robin, “That went better than expected, right?”

Robin asks, “Did you end your live stream?”

“Shit.” 

[poomphuripan]

10 BL Boys I Want Carnally To Love, Take Care and Cuddle With Every Night

@bunnakit awww thank you for the tag 🫶 as an asexual i can't say i spent much time thinking about fucking anyone (so coming up with this list was really hard ;_;) but if any of these characters propositioned... i would NOT say no 😉

10. Phob (Something In My Room)

if there is an award for cutest ghost of all time in a BL series, i think Phob will take home easily. Phob deserves better sex. my meow meow friendly ghost Phob, i will tuck you in bed my ghost sweetie 🥺🫶

9. Shao Fei (History 3: Trapped)

my righteous cop with a strong sense of justice, i really love Shao Fei so much. Shao Fei doesn't beat around the bush and is really straightforward with his wants, I LOVE HE!

8. Khuafah (Sky In Your Heart)

Khuafah, the HOT CHARMING doctor that you are. i would volunteer to get sick every day just to visit him 🫠

7. Gene (Lovely Writer)

if Gene ever needs to write a straight romance novel, i'm happy to make out with him for research purposes 😉

6. Pisaeng (Be My Favorite)

most patient boyfriend who tries super hard to get you plushies? yea i would bang Pisaeng in a heartbeat, no doubt. in fact, i believe Pisaeng would be considerate and wait for me to be ready (Pisaeng babe i'm always ready for you 😉)

5. Tennoji Haru (Trillion Game)

while Trillion Game is DEFINITELY not BL, but Meguro Ren was in Kieta Hatsukoi so my boy should get a PASS 😤 Haru is confident yet humble, self-proclaimed selfish yet always selfless. god i love competent men *swoons* Trillion Game is out on Netflix, please check out my boy Haru and his boy(friend) Gaku and their start-up adventure together 🥺👉👈.

4. Charn (Laws of Attraction)

while i can't guarantee that i can give Charn a good time, i believe that as a fellow lawyer i can assist Charn with any case work he got. Like i said, i am a sucker for competent men 😮‍💨.

3. Tangmo (Great Men Academy)

you don't understand how obsessed i am with the og golden retriever, nation's boyfriend, Tangmo. it's been 4? years... i have not let him go... gentle soft boi but great at judo too? i think Tangmo and i should have our wrestling sessions ending up as makeout sessions.

2. Joe (My Stand In)

this is kind of a cheat but i've read the original novel for My Stand In (Professional Body Double by Shui Qian Cheng) and i can confirm Joe/Zhou Xiang is the sweetest soul, most precious, unluckiest gay ever (Ming, you are on sight, watch it sir or imma steal Joe away). i'm super excited for My Stand In because i hope i get to fall in love with Joe once again the way i fell super hard, head over heels for him when i finished this danmei novel within less than 24 hours. (was this shameless PR for Poom Phuripan's new BL series next year? yes, yes it absolutely was 🤗)

1. Khun Yai and Jom (I Feel You Linger In The Air)

if i don't have a gentle lover like Khun Yai Kritsada Palathip or a soft boyfriend like Jom Ravit Pittayanan then what's the POINT. i want both of them so BAD. also isn't it such a crime that Yai lives his entire life the rest of his live in celibacy, having fucked only ONE person (the love of his life) in his lifetime. LET ME IN. i will love both of you equally.

+ bonus: Chef Guy (Bake Me Please)

did you REALLY think i was gonna end my list without current loml, our resident sad boi, considerate and caring Chef Guy? 😅 Guy deserves a spot on here because well i'm absolutely feral for this man. Guy is just the nicest guy and i will literally do anything for him. Guy had me at hello but my heart truly broke when he comforted Peach saying he doesn't want to see Peach who's given him so much positivity, cry 😭.

oooooh that was soooo hard ;_; i love all these characters, maybe one day i need to start listing the female characters i'd totally hypothetically bang too because WOMEN ARE HOT 🔥.

[poisonousquinzel]

okay at this point we're gonna have to accept that any attempts of a live action ATLA will always be cursed and will never be a good alternative to just watching (pirating cause fuck nickelodeon) the cartoon because what the fuck do you mean they're taking out gigantic chunks of Sokka, Katara and Aang's arcs/development/characteristics, showing the genocide at the Southern Air air temple and more of the Agni Kai between Zuko and Ozai while simultaneously having the gall to say "I mean, the characters, we had to dimensionalize them-"

The Big Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender Producer Interview: 'This Is a Remix, Not a Cover'

There are certain scenes that you never saw in the original, whether it's the attack on the Southern Air Temple or the Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko. And those are things that I knew we needed to see in order to make it feel much more grounded as a live-action show. So it was about feeling your way throughout the process. Where can we take the story into the new directions that still feels true to the spirit of the original? And that's what it all comes down to, making sure it feels like it was Avatar in spirit.

Bending the Rules

And going back to those narrative liberties, was there anything in particular where you were like, “no, this is set in stone. This can’t change”?

AK: There's a lot of things like that, starting with the characters. I mean, the characters, we had to dimensionalize them, but there are certain core ... I would say there's a core DNA to the characters that you don't want to mess with, whether it's Aang, like I said, his childlike goofiness, his sense of humor, the burden of his responsibility, Sokka and his humor and his pragmatic outlook on life, Katara's warmth and her optimism. Those things had to carry through into our version. So you start with the characters, and you say, "What's the essence of the characters that got a big change? And what's the room where we can expand it a little more?" The cartoon, for as great as it was, was 15 years ago. And so, things have changed. There are certain roles I think that Katara did in the cartoon that we didn't necessarily also do here. I mean, I don't want to really get into a lot of that, but some gender issues that didn't quite translate.

My friend just watched it for the first time, and she's like, "Sokka's an asshole." I was like, "Yeah, no, he kind of is."

JR: Yeah, especially in the first season.

AK: Yeah. So we had to guard against that kind of stuff. And so, those are things that aren't really changing a character as so much as updating them a little bit.

I think one of the big questions is, despite all the remixing, is the point A and the point B still the same as the original?

AK: Pretty much. Yeah, I mean, I think the state of the world and the stakes of the world are still the same. So we decided to make Aang's narrative drive a little clearer. In the first season of the animated series, he's kind of going from place to place looking for adventures. He even says, "First, we've got to go and ride the elephant koi." It's a little looser as befits a cartoon. We needed to make sure that he had that drive from the start. And so, that's a change that we made. We essentially give him this vision of what's going to happen and he says, "I have to get to the Northern Water Tribe to stop this from happening." That gives him much more narrative compulsion going forward, as opposed to, "Let's make a detour and go ride the elephant koi," that type of thing. So that's something, again, that's part of the process of going from a Nickelodeon cartoon to a Netflix serialized drama.

And they say in regards to the original creators leaving: "But sure, having them leave was a blow. And we had to think about whether or not the vision that we had set forward really reflects and honors the spirit of what they had created. And we felt like it did, so we went forward with it. " idk y'all should've taken the hint goddamn ...

AK: But sure, having them leave was a blow. And we had to think about whether or not the vision that we had set forward really reflects and honors the spirit of what they had created. And we felt like it did, so we went forward with it.

If you could send fans who are anxious about the live-action show any message, what would it be?

JR: I think, as a fan of the show, they're going to get the live-action version of the show they've always hoped they would get.

Albert, anything to add?

AK: This is the version of Avatar that I would want to see as a fan.

- Netflix ATLA Showrunner Albert Kim & Executive Producer/Director/VFX Supervisor Jabbar Raisani

Source

like this ain't coming across like a remix, this is just empty meaningless noise

[entropiceye1342]

Spoiler free review for Netflix's live action One Piece!

WOW.

A lot of stuff to love! I absolutely ADORE this take on the adventure of the Straw Hat Pirates!

The Straw Hats are all cast perfectly, the supporting cast is spot on. Everyone NAILS their characters!

Give the man a crown!

Iñaki Godoy as Luffy is goofy and oblivious in all the right ways. He sticks the perfect landing of the emotional intelligence that was crucial to bring the deeper side of Luffy to life, and doesn't neglect the hyperactive child side either! Seeing him gleefully bounce around - both in and out of fights- was special. The CGI was pretty good! Better than I expected, really. I appreciate making Luffy a little more level-headed, it's a good choice to tone down the chaos goblin for live action 🤣

It was magnificent to see Luffy grow into a "real" pirate in this arc, and he will be the KING!

Mackenyu as Zoro is a bit "too cool" but honestly I expected it to happen, people tend to overlook the fact that 90% of the time he's just as dumb as Luffy 🤷 but MAN is he cool. He really surpassed my expectations for the fight scenes, and did not skip on the brutality! 3 Sword Style was stunningly realized and incredible fun to watch- even without drawing a single blade!

His one liners and sarcasm are on point, ESPECIALLY regarding Sanji 🤣

Emily Rudd as Nami is INCREDIBLE. Smart as a whip and wily as ever, this cat burglar lands on her feet! In and out of combat, Nami is quick on her feet and with her wit. One Piece passes the Bechdel test once again, and her story is every bit the emotional powerhouse as its manga and anime counterparts- better in some moments! 'Nuff said.

Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp is delightful, though unfortunately he doesn't get as much time to shine as the others. When he does though, it's fantastic!

He really got the little things down about the character without needing to be as over the top as his counterparts- a bullseye from the sniper!

Sanji is perfect as well, you can SEE the training Taz Skylar went through for the part, from the mouth watering food to the killer martial arts. Every bit as fun to watch as the rest of the Monster Trio! My expectations for him were already high, and he kicked them into the stratosphere.

I'm glad they toned down the flirting, they found the right balance and played it well. Sanji matches Zoro in the bickering spectacularly, an absolute must that exceeded my hopes in both of their performances.

I'm not gonna list everyone but because I love this stupid fucking clown:

Jeff Ward as Buggy is an absolute TREAT, I am a huge fan of this take on the character. The perfect storm of bumbling dipshit who wants to be taken seriously, but still pretty intimidating at times. LOVE it. His jokes are GOLD.

Speaking of! Gold Roger, the man who started it all! *mwah!* Dazzling performances from him AND the Marines.

The few nitpicks I have are minor, the childhood acting ranges from ok to abysmal, Lily Fisher as young Nami is a notable standout. Some of the "minor" characters suffer from wooden acting, but honestly that's about the worst of it.

The Fishmen look a little low budget in their early appearances, but are absolutely PERFECT when they are the ones in the spotlight. Absolutely phenomenal work from McKinley Belcher III, my biggest fear from this was Arlong being done wrong and he CRUSHED IT!

The soundtrack was rousing, it truly felt like a call to adventure! And above all the SET DESIGN 😭

They TRULY brought the world that Oda Senseii has been drawing for us all these years, to life.

And now, anime One Piece is trending on Netflix.

THE GREAT PIRATE ERA IS HERE!

Here's to hoping Netflix doesn't Netflix it 🍻

What did you think?

Especially if this is your introduction to One Piece, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

[larakb117]

London Adventure

Joseph Quinn & female y/n

Summary: Joseph and you have your second date at the Skygarden in London after what happened the night before…

Warnings: 18+ , slow burn and fluffy, it gets spicy soon!!

Part 4

Was that really your first kiss? Your first real date ended with your first kiss like this? The train arrived. You got in and immediately watched out for a seat. It was hard to stand, your legs were shaking. You caught yourself subtly licking over your lips. It tasted different than usual, like a mix of the burrito you had and the drink you ordered a few hours ago, except the fact that you weren´t the one who drank that drink. What did that kiss mean? He wanted to see you again. Tomorrow. Thursday, he said he would be busy on Thursday, now he wanted to see you again. The day after he kissed you. And just left. What the hell was going on. Your head felt kind of dizzy. A headache started to creep in. It was full with so many different thoughts, that you almost missed your station. When you got home all you were able to do was getting in your pj´s, remove your makeup and brush your teeth. The moment your head hit the pillow you fell asleep.

The next morning you woke up, got ready and went to work. Jen was already there and welcomed you in the room of your kids group with wide eyes. “OH MY GOD! Tell me everything about yesterday!!” You were totally confused and suddenly remembered what happened yesterday. “Oh Jen. I don´t know what is going on.” Jen chuckled: “What?” “It was amazing. I´ll see him again tonight”, you did not seem really content. That´s why Jen asked you: “So what is wrong, you don´t seem happy about it.” “I´m just confused…” There were no kids in the room yet, so you both took a seat on the sofa. “Okay, tell me more, y/n.” You took a deep breath: “We met at the hippodrome. He was late but he already apologized before over text message. It was a technical issue, with the train rails. We decided to go to seven dials market, the whole way he had my hand in his hand.” Jen gasped and grabbed your hand. “He did NOT! He´s touchy, uuuuuuh.” You both laughed. “Well, he is, always touching a hand, or my arm or my back when walking.” “Love that.” was Jens reaction. She started to focus again and looked at you with a lot of expectation. You continued: “We ate at seven dials market, we talked a lot. Then we…” Jen interrupted you: “What did you talk about?” “Everything!” Right now, you were just reliving everything before the confusing kiss. It was not like you didn´t like your date with him, it was your first freaking kiss, you weren´t even able to enjoy it, because you were too surprised. “We really talked about everything. Work, what kind of food we like, what we like to do in our free time, about his education, about my life in Germany…just everything.” “What is he doing for a living?”, Jen asked. “Ehm, he´s an actor.” “Really, what kind of acting?” You tried to keep this short: “BBC, theatre, Netflix. Then we-“ Jen was too curious about the acting thing: “What´s his name?” “Joseph Quinn.” Again, she gasped, this time she grabbed you by your shoulder: “No FUCKING way, y/n! You had a date with Joseph chocolate button eyes Quinn?!?” You giggled in confusion: “How do you know about the chocolate button eyes?” “He said that at a convention some years ago! I can´t believe you really went on a date with Joseph Quinn!!” she squeaked a little. “Well, he told me that his mother used to call him like that.” “Yes, I know, that’s what he said at the con, it was a video on tiktok! Oh my god, Joseph Quinn. He´s really a touchy guy” “Alright, this feels kind of weird now.”, you said to Jen: “What do you mean?” “Oh, there are a lot of videos on the internet, where he´s holding hands with fans, or rubbing their backs and everything.” Wow, that hit you like a car. Now it didn´t feel really special to you, the way he walked with you hand in hand, the sneaky little touches you got, when you sat for dinner. Your heart felt heavy, in a bad way. “Go on.” Jen interrupted your thoughts. “That´s it. I had to leave because of work, and we´ll meet tonight.” You didn´t know why, but you did not want to share the kiss with Jen. “Sounds promising!” Jen smiled at you, you tried to smile back. The first kid arrived so you had to get to work.

Shortly before lunch break, you actually considered to cancel your date with Joe tonight. You were overwhelmed and felt kind of sad about the things Jen told you. You took a seat at the resting room and got your phone out of your handbag, pretty sure to cancel right now. Maybe you could tell him you feel sick or whatever. Your heart skipped a beat, when you saw that you had got two messages from Joe. The first one was: “hi love, how are you?” The thing about the pet names was so British. Also, the second message had a pet name in it. “Love, can we change location tonight? 6 pm at Monument station?” Your heart felt lighter again. He really wanted to meet you. He seemed to put a lot of effort in it. Your previous thoughts flew away and all you could do was to reply: “I´m great, see you later at Monument station”.

At home after work you had to change for the evening. This time you wanted to dress up without Jens help. You chose a mid-length beige dress and some heels, Monument station was basically in the financial district of London, so it definitely would be something more chic tonight than fast food at seven dials market. At 5:30 you left for the date, at 5:55 you left the circle line at Monument station. Outside you briskly spotted Joe, he wore a pinstriped shirt and brown trousers. He looked so handsome. You were nervous about the first time seeing him today, the last time you saw him yesterday, he walked around a corner after he kissed you surprisingly. What would he do now? Hug you, kiss you again? You did not know a lot about dating, you weren´t experienced at all. Once Joe recognized you, he started to smile from ear to ear. Either he was a brilliant actor or he was really, really excited to see you. He came in your direction and hugged you. Hi love”, he did whisper in your ear, while tightening the hug a little bit. Then he looked at you: “Wow, you look gorgeous again!” You immediately felt the heat in your face, you did not wear a lot of make up today, because of the lack of time (you got home from work a little later than usual), he was able to see you blushing for sure. “Thank you, I like your shirt.” That was everything you got out of your mouth. “Thanks love.” Even though it was a normal British thing, the pet names made you feel things. “Should we go?”, Joe asked. “Yes, where do we go?” you asked curiously. “That’s a surprise!” he mysteriously moved his hands, right before he grabbed your left hand and walked with you. The financial district was one of the places you did not spend a lot of time. But every time you were here, you enjoyed it. Joe walked you down Eastcheap and turned left for Philpot. 20 Fenchurch Street, also known as the walkie-talkie was right in front of you. Joe went up the stairs, and led you in there. “Wait, we´ll eat at sky garden?” you asked. Joe nodded and saw that you were genuinely excited about that.

You both got in to the lift and went up to the highest floor. You never were at sky garden before, but it was definitely on your things to do in London list. In the lift it was only you and Joe. He turned to you and started to speak: “I´m sorry about yesterday. The kiss. I just left you like a fucking coward.” “Oh.” You did not know what else to say. “I´m sorry, if it was too early for you, I´m sorry that I left you there.” He was really sorry, you could feel it. To reassure him you took his hand and slightly squeezed it. “It´s okay.” You did not know if it was really okay for you, but you did not want him to feel bad about it. And then you felt the inner urge to say something really flirty: “Maybe you can make up for that.” You were surprised by yourself. He smirked a little and you left the lift. A waiter accompanied you to your table. Sky Garden looked amazing, all the plants and flowers looked stunning. You studied the menu the waiter had given you and decided to get the stuffed gnocchi. The prizes were way out of your normal budget, but you worry about that later. Joe looked up from the cocktail menu: “Do you mind if I get something alcoholic?” “No, of course not.” “Well, it´s not obvious. You never know what the opposite person may go through, so I always check, if it´s okay.”, he responded. “That´s really thoughtful.”, your heart melted. “You take a cocktail too? I think I get the Mile end.” “Oh, I just decided what to get to eat, did not even look at the cocktail menu yet.” Joe chuckled: “Priorities well set!” “Yes!”, you joined him chuckling. After a few minutes of considering which cocktail to get, you finally chose the Lancaster Gate. Joe already waited for a moment, when you looked up from the menu, he called the waiter. He ordered the rosemary sourdough as a starter and for the main course the British wagyu beef rump. You didn´t have to wait long for your drinks. Joe wanted to toast with you: “Cheers to the French house, such an inviting place in London that luckily you went in when I was there.” You blushed again: “Cheers.” Your food arrived also very quickly. It was probably the best thing you´ve ever ate. Joe enjoyed his beef rump pretty obviously. When he took the first bite, he closed his eyes and moaned softly with his full mouth. “How are your gnocchis?”, he curiously asked and glanced at them. “You wanna try?” “If you don´t mind.” You poked one of the gnocchi pieces with your fork and hold it in front of his mouth. He wrapped his lips around the fork and ate the piece. That was kind of hot.

After the main course Joe ordered a dessert and invited you to share it with him. You could definitely tell he was a foodie. Just like yesterday, you talked about a lot of different topics, there wasn´t one moment when you both had nothing to talk about and just said nothing to each other. The so-called “Fenchurch chocolate bar” stood between you two, you weren´t able to eat a lot more, but Joe polished off the rest of the dessert. “I am really sorry about the kiss.”, Joe said all of a sudden. He looked at you with his brown eyes. “It´s okay.”, you tried to reassure him again. “No, it´s not. I can´t believe I just walked away.” “Well, I was pretty overwhelmed in that moment. I did not know what to do anyway.”, you chuckled a little, but more fake than real. At once the whole situation got uncomfortable. You wished you could tell him about you state of virginity on almost every level, but how would you get this topic into the conversation? Especially with a grown up 30-year-old man, who probably had sex for over ten years now, and even “had it” on screen. While you had your first kiss yesterday, he might have had his first one 15 years ago. He repeated himself: “I´m sorry.” Joe definitely could tell that you weren´t sure if it was really okay. You nervously laughed and didn´t know why, but you blurted out: “Haha, you were my first kiss!” You were shocked, that was probably the epitome of cringe. Joe looked at you with a shock in his face. But you could not tell if it was the fact or the way you just had told him. “Wow, I ruined your first kiss.” There was no judgement in his voice, he sounded just really worried. “Nooo, you did not ruin it, you just…surprised me!” “I just left you there, at an underground station.” “Well, yes you did, but I really wanted to kiss you.” You took his hand, which laid on the table. “Did you want to kiss me?”, you carefully asked. “I wanted it so bad!”, he grunted. Your heart skipped a beat, you felt a huge warmness building up in your stomach. “Why did you leave then?” “I don’t know… I was so nervous…You make me so nervous… I don´t know what is going on actually.” You chuckled a bit in relief: “Same.” Joe glanced at you and his eyes started to sparkle. His other hand got up on the table and took both of yours in his hands. You both smiled at each other. “I can´t believe that I have the honour to be someones first kiss and then I screw up like this.” “I told you earlier: Maybe you can make it up at some point.” Joe smirked.

You finished the dinner at sky garden, Joe paid the whole ridiculous amount of money and left the restaurant hand in hand. In the lift Joe asked you: “You wanna come with me?” “Where?” you asked him. “To my home. It is not even 8:30. I don´t want to leave you already. I can make great martinis by the way.” “Oh, you are an actor and a bartender as well?”, you said to him in a flirty way. “So you join me?” “Yes.” You looked him deep in the eyes. And then you kissed him. His lips felt warm, your hands immediately moved up to his head and got caught in his curls. Joe pulled you closer, his hands were around your waist. They started to rub up and down there. You deepened the kiss a little more, you opened your mouth slightly, so Joe could have more access with his tongue. You did not know what you were doing, but everything just felt so natural. Joe chuckled a little bit, the moment your lips got separated. “I think we have to get off the lift.”

To be continued…

[jumpscaregoose]

hello wonderful mutual, may i inquire what shaman king is?

you've triggered an unskippable cutscene be prepared. was it me calling hana kentacoded that did it for you

shaman king is uh... certainly something

editor's note I go on about the history of the shaman king media franchise for like. way too long and I'm not deleting it so. plot summary starts after the flowers anime image

it started out as a shonen adventure manga created by a mangaka named hiroyuki takei which ran from 1998 to 2004, where it somehow Ate Shit And Died, leaving the manga ending unfinished somehow (idk I wasn't there)

it got its first anime adaptation in 2001

this anime had 64 episodes and covered a complete story. hey goose but if it aired in 2001 and the manga ate shit in 2004 how did they- they didn't. they made shit up. remember kanata dying on the cross? take that extend it to cover half the story and make it FUCKING AWESOME

shaman king 2001 has this impeccable Vibe to it that I really love (the only other thing I can think of with similar impeccable Vibes is sk8). a lot of fans prefer this anime to the manga and I can't blame them it sure has its perks. it also has its downsides. which is mostly terrible dated character designs and diverging from the manga if you're not into that.

I love this show though this is what I rewatch when I want any old shaman king in my spare time

but what's this? a whisper on the wind? that's right baby

SHAMAN KING KANZENBAN MANGA

that's right- between 2008 and 2009 the entire manga was reprinted to get its "true ending", including redraws of some panels

later in 2012 BAM SHAMAN KING FLOWERS

yes there's a full mainline sequel. flowers itself ended in 2014 when the magazine it was in Ate Shit and Died. the story was continued in another manga, The Super Star, before last year the magazine publishing TSS, say it with me now,

Ate Shit and Died (yeah Takei has real bad luck with that)

and then, just a few years ago...

BAM SHAMAN KING 2021 REBOOT ANIME

finally, an anime adaptation of the kanzenban manga, true ending including... this is where I show up. finally! I needed something to watch on a long car ride in august 2021 and happened to download the first eight episodes on netflix, a decision which would have no repercussions on my life philosophies or me as a person (lies)

there are pretty mixed feelings about this anime overall (the pacing goes fucking BRRRRRRR that's for sure) but I can credit that thing with getting me into shaman king and restructuring my brain so it has a special place in my heart

(it's also what I first get people to watch when they agree to shaman king with me. you should really read kanzenban instead because it's better)

lastly there's the flowers anime airing right now

(yay excitingggggg)

and like. soooooo many more sequel prequel and spinoff manga. and also all of takei's works (I'm planning to read ultimo soon because someone said that's where the spirit based on the vermilion bird came from and that has a common ancestor with allen sugasano so I'm going) oh shit and funkuro/funbari chronicles the mobile game that is either closed or on its way out. and so much more

I'm not going to explain every one of them because I realized you probably wanted. a plot summary. so

copy pasted from my mankin slideshow:

"laid-back Asakura Yoh is a shaman, someone with a connection to the afterlife. He participates in the Shaman Fight, a tournament to determine the next god. Hao, a mysterious and overwhelmingly strong shaman, wants to use the powers gained from becoming a god to wipe out humanity. Shenanigans ensue across multiple continents and the boundaries of life and death."

like I said before it's a shonen adventure manga so it follows a lot of tropes, but I think it does them pretty well and in its own way. if you read through the entire mainline manga (kanzenban, flowers, and tss) it's clear takei has a lot to say through his work and he's pretty explicit about his view of the world (shoutout to evil triangle who invented capitalism)

takei's writing and research can be kinda iffy at times and I would never say his work is for everyone but I love it to bits and it has really helped me out over the years

my personal favourite pieces of shaman king media (besides kanzenban) are:

Red Crimson (spinoff of the main sequels following an adult legacy cast, brilliant story about love and grief except for the Horrors)

& a Garden (prequel spinoff about the hanagumi witches, side characters from the first manga)

2001 anime (explained this one already)

if this has interested you go read the kanzenban manga and then come back for sequel recommendations

need more information? I got you

my beginner's shaman king slideshow (if you're reading this within an hour of posting you might see me updating it dw about that)

the patch cafe fansite which has up to date news about the entire series

there's also the funbari hill discord's tumblr account, which reblogs a lot of great shaman king stuff. everyone there is lovely and it's a great community (it's actually run by a mutual of mine hi frost 👋)

I ALMOST FORGOT THE SEQUELS FANSITE WHOOPS (run by an incredible artist and has some fun information about the sequels)

please tell me if you want clarification or more specifics I'm bad at explaining this concisely

[fruitz]

tag game 😇✨

tagged by @sodacaps tysm!!!

last song you listened to: all they wanted by panchiko

last movie you watched: just watched a girl walks home alone at night for my horror film class!

currently watching: a lot of things... it's always sunny, bee and puppycat netflix series, aqua teen hunger force, i'm rewatching doctor who and adventure time and i watched half an episode of scott pilgrim takes off

other things you’ve watched this year: abbott elementary, rewatched all of moral orel and venture bros, fear street series, bottoms, shallow grave, fnaf movie, whiplash, SLC punk... there's so many more i watch a LOT of movies and TV so be my letterboxd oomfie someone anyone....

currently reading: technically still reading catch-22 but i put it on hiatus bc it was getting tedious. tho i recently finished ghostland by colin dickey. Currently now i'm reading nero: matricide, music, and murder in imperial rome by anthony everitt and roddy ashworth, as well as the essential dykes to watch out for by alison bechdel <3

currently listening to: a lot of goth music, nin, shoegaze, indie, etc. this playlist for studying, also this sad loser playlist i made for my fellow sad losers

currently working on: editing a short film for a final, a song i have for an audition tomorrow, practicing piano for an assessment, trying to pay my tuition bc i fucked up my fafsa 😬

current obsession: coffee and charlie day... i want him

i’m tagging @juststay @miffyplush @bitual @allstarsmash @dykemom @bandearg aand anyone else that would like to ! :3 💘

[sidmjkgc]

Ok but, real talk about Loki for a minute.

I love Loki in every version, every universe: from Marvel comics to movies, netflix tv show, when he's barely there in a viking show, in Norse mythology, in every single one of your fanart and fanfiction.

Loki is a character that cannot be contained in a single box. Both as fictional character and Norse God, he has so many layers, so many completely different characteristics that sometimes are in direct contrast between each other. Tom Hiddleston said it better: "What I like about playing Loki is he plays all the keys on the piano. He could be fun comedic but also volatile and angry."

Loki is a trickster God, playful and mischievous, mean at times and loving at other, always out of the box. Every portrait of Loki, every version, it's the same Loki from a different angle, under a different light. This is what a I love the most about him, that he's chaos, he's a rebel, he's a weirdo, he's the God of the Outcasts.

I read "Thor and Loki, Blood Brothers" a couple of years priors the Marvel movies. I fell in love with that Loki, the old one, the one so in love with his brother he wanted to kill him because Thor wasn't loving him back. Loki the loser, Loki the person everybody hates, Loki the mean one, Loki that will never win or be loved no matter what. I felt it so deeply in my soul, I was scared to watch the movies, scared they would treat him wrong, they would make a caricature. I trusted Tom Hiddleston, and I was right. He knew the character, he loved the character, he understood Loki. And in the end, he played a version of Loki that has been so loved by everyone they kept calling him back.

It's been fourteen years of his life. Fourteen years is a lot. He played him in six different movies and a tv show, various different writers and directors, various different stories and layers. Going into the last episode of season 02 the other night, I knew it was going to be the last time I would see this Loki, the Tom Hiddleston Loki. I was prepared to see him die, again. "Worst case scenarios, the last shot he is in Valhalla, dead and gone" I thought.

You see, Loki is multi faced, he cannot be contained, he is a trickster after all. But every version of Loki has a couple of key elements that are sadly stuck with him and his destiny: everybody thinks of him as the villain, he's going to start Ragnarok and destruction, he is destined to lose or die in the process.

But this is not true for the God of Stories.

Loki God of Stories originated in the comic Agent of Asgard, at the very end of the comic, after many adventures and a bit of death. It's the Loki that says "fuck it, I won't follow your fate anymore, I'll create my own". And he does. And he's not a loser anymore, he's the one creating stories, his own and everyone else's. Other Gods included.

The series is heavily inspired by this comic, especially the second season, but I think we got it wrong. Or maybe this is one version of seeing it, one Loki under a different light.

We have Mobius, He Who Remains and Hunter X5 all saying to Loki that he's a villain, he will always be a villain, he was born to create suffering and pain, that his destiny is to lose and so that others can achieve the best versions of themselves. Even Sylvie asks him if Lokis are destined to lose and die, that's all they have ever known. Loki is destined to lose so that others will have a bright future:

It's what the All Mothers do to Loki in the comic as well: they lied to him, told him he had a chance, a possibility to change, but in reality he was already stuck in the same loop, being a villain again and again. That's what King Loki (or Future Loki) thinks of himself: no matter how many times he tries to change, he will always be the same.

And then we have Sylvie, stating right away that she's not a Loki anymore. Sylvie is determined to have her own life, her own choices, her own story. She wants free will, for everyone, brake the chains of destiny.

She is not the Goddess of Stories, though, but she is definitely done playing that game. In a way, she's far ahead of Loki in his own story.

Back to the Loki we are more familiar with. In the tv show he learns to control his time slipping, learns to control time itself. Now he can rewrite the story, he can write his own: he has now become the God of Stories, he has now become the most powerful being.

So powerful he can literally hold life and time of the entire universe in his hands, branches that turn into Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life, the tree that holds the worlds, and at the centre of it there's Loki.

It's bittersweet, yes. It's sad to think that this is the last time will probably see Tom Hiddleston playing Loki. Let's face it, it was going to happen, and I'd rather see this than see him die, again. Because "That's the thing about story... They have to end to mean anything" and he "can't be Loki forever".

And what a powerful end, anyway. Loki, the god of lies, god of chaos, god of mischief, god of the outcasts, god of everything that's weird, the god that was destined to start Ragnarok, to bring death and destruction everywhere he goes, the god who's only fate was to destroy the world and end it... He's now the Tree of Life, he is the one sitting in the middle of Yggdrasill looking over all of us.

And as for Sylvie, where is she gonna go?

Anywhere, really. Her story is open ended. She can open a time door, or maybe grab a sharpie and draw a door with "next" written over, and finally write her own story, while Loki watches over her. In a way, she has become the Goddess of Stories herself, she's just gonna start writing her own.

I don't think we will see her again. The series was meant to have only two seasons. Maybe Marvel will pick her up once again, give it a shot at a third season, maybe have her in a movie somewhere, maybe a comic? I doubt it given how much hate she had to face thanks to a fanbase that truly hates all the female characters. But who knows?

What I do know is that fandom exists. Maybe we won't see them on our screen anytime soon or ever again, but we can write about them, create as many stories as possibile and make the God and Goddess of Stories proud of us.

[gaygayaurel]

As game Lambert #1 fan 5ever the Nerflix Lambert sucks but not bcs of what people think? (I didnt read book of elves I love and respect myself sometimes )

As in game Lambert is kinda fun in that he got actually defined compared to Novels and Hexer where he did not exist ad character proper. He is deeply mean and sarcasric person, being willing to chew out his closest friends and enemies alike. He isnt as morally concerned abt stuff as geralt and when someone asks him to kill a monster he'd do it. Fuck he'd even go as far as use Axii to make two bandits die in horrific way. This is after all his lot in his shitty miserable life. He hates witchery and witchers and the very concept of this much suffering ("But you kept the table" he says furious to Vesemir as they stand above screaming Uma). His attitude is just such a complete 360° from Geralt' silent acceptance of what was done to them. It truly becomes the only voice of like hey fuck what happened to us, fuck it all to hell. Hes an utter fucking dickhead and hell provoke people for no reason (talkinf abt geralt and triss in front of phillipa for no reason) (i deadass dont think he would fuck up yens stuff on purpose tho #;#&#&)

His main core personal element is revenge. In his short appearence in w1 he proclaims desire to slaughter salamandra for killing Leo. In W3 he goes on massive revenge rampage spanning CONTINENTS for a guy we dont know (and thats pretty cool to me, implying he has adventures outside geralt, both him and eskel). He says his first action after he left Kaer Morhen was to find and kill his dad ( and him being sad he couldnt save his mother his life is all just empty revenges that will never fill the holes of people hell miss).

But also main Core element of Lambert is also love as cheesy as it sounds. He cared deeply for Leo and Aiden and even his own mom. After Triss. Got conked out by a mage guy in witcher 1 he cared for her and watched over her (they were hardcore inplying shipping which is funnt but whatever). He literally puts his life on line dor Ciri and Geralt. The thing is he is dickhead but he will do Everythinf for those few peoples he has left in his life.

The Point is games being games and larger allowed Lambert to have depth and nuance. He is imo one of the most interesting and coolest game characters. Netflix Lambert however did not have the time for variety of reasons to get that.

One is Lambert is very minor person in books. Second is that the show didnt...realy care abt witchers past vesemir maybe. So he wasnt a focus. In the end what we get is disappoitninf character not helped by the fact most witchers in netflix are cannon fodders for baba yaga.

ONE issue that I have is people saying Lambert was a dick to Ciri and thats OOC. While I cant speak from the POV of books (altho my friend who did read them say he is sexist), from POV of game thats untrue. In fact I believe game Lambert would VERY much be a fucking dick to Ciri fron a start. It doesnt even need to have sexist colouring to it. This dude HATES witchering. He hates the mutagenesis and the pain of it all, the destiny in it. I firmly believe he wouldnt be OK with a bew trainee and guess what? While he didnt live through instructors not giving fucks abt new witchers because like 1/20 live to become witchers he LIVED through it. On his skin. I firmly believe Lambert being DICKHEAD to ciri at first is nit only a whiff of the complex game!Lambert but a decent start of its own standalone character.

In witcher 1 also wheb tou tell him Leo died he laments he "was not ready". Leo. Just like ciri never got his mutagens (take this with grain of salt because leos whole character is weird tm). So him being an miserable instructor who will push you until you cry is in character ingame. This guys has ten layers of issue.

What Netflix misses is the fact we dont SEE lambert getting to his relationship Ciri where we see rhem albeit briefly in game (willing to fight to death for her). We just have this awkward jump from utter hostility to them beinf kinda pals after baba yaga fight. In the end netflix lambert is just. Boring.

Also hes not a balding fuck and i cant forgive that

[orchidsangel]

what are your thoughts on the short lived live action netflix winx show queen?

i personally couldn’t get past the outfits 😔

I loooooove questions like this that let me ramble about my interests outside of dc, also sorry it took so long to post. I hope you're still around to see it <33

Okay, so I vividly remember when the news that a live-action Winx was coming, and everybody was soooooo stoked (including me), and there was the craziest surge of fancast tweets ever. Like, I literally fought with someone on Twitter who fancasted Madelaine Petsch as Bloom, and I was like...well, no! Either way, the role went to Abigail Cowen, who actually plays Dorcas in 'Chilling Adventures of Sabrina', which is a part of the Riverdale universe that Madelaine Petsch is also in because, well, she's in Riverdale. And then K-pop stans were fighting over whether or not Twice's Momo or Blackpink's Lisa would be a better Musa; it was just a crazy day. Understandably so; it's always a big deal when beloved animated shows are adapted into something more real. I personally was jumping for joy.

And then the promo pics were released, and everybody very quickly went, "wtf?" (including me)

Good god, those outfits were so fucking awful. No, they weren't, actually, they were pretty normal, but when you take into account the source content, it was actually pretty fucking bad. That was only a part of the outrage, though; a lot of it came from the whitewashing of Flora's character, which actually wasn't whitewashing but a completely new character named "Terra." Which. Is so...! they ended up introducing Flora later, but I feel like that was due in part to the outrage because, similarly to Bratz, Winx was partially so popular due to its diverse range of characters and cutting out the Latina character to replace her with a white one with the EXACT SAME POWERS is absurd.

Also, they whitewashed Musa, a fully Chinese character. The actress that plays her is part Singaporean, which, yes, is Asian, but they're not interchangeable. Even crazier is she's mostly European and very white-passing, so it's like, uhhhhh.

I do love the dark-skin representation with Aisha, tho, like they ate that ONE thing.

Okay, so now for MY thoughts. I don't hate the show, not in the slightest. I only watched season 1, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the only reason I didn't watch s2 is because when it came out, I didn't have the steam to watch something entirely new, and I ended up just forgetting about it. I don't think the show is bad; I just think that when you remember the name it's attached to, it becomes very, very bleak in comparison to its source material.

There's been a very big trend within the past ten or so years where big media companies are "rebooting" childhood favorites but with darker and more mature plots, which was cool the first couple of times, like Riverdale s1, absolute gold (before it devolved into whatever tf it became) and the early seasons of chilling adventures of Sabrina. It was something new and fresh like Twin Peaks meets your beloved animated characters from when you were kids, but it very quickly started to feel like it was an easy way to gain an audience. Fate: The Winx Saga could've been something good had it not been attached to the Winx brand. But then it would've run the risk of failing (which it did anyway) instead of being an overnight smash hit solely because of the namesake. Even if people hate watched it, those are still views, and those company execs get their paychecks.

Like I said, I'd have no qualms about it if it was an original series, and oftentimes I forgot that it wasn't one. But that's the problem, it wasn't.

Making live-action versions of cartoons will always prove to be difficult because those cartoons aren't necessarily meant to translate into real life; that's the whole point. They're not real. They're different and original and have special powers, unrealistic proportions, and weird stances!! When those cartoons are made into life action shows, they try to make them as natural as possible bc, duh, a real person doing those things would look dumb as hell, but also, those shows were enjoyed because of all of those little things that don't translate well in real life. At least that's why I enjoyed them.

I feel like I'd be doing a disservice to even compare the shows because, in my head, they're not even remotely similar. Like it was beyond "making it darker," it really was just an entire show; there was even some continuity between the Archie comics and the bizarre acid trip that was Riverdale. I know I probably sound like a broken record saying how drastically different it was, but the laundry list of differences is so insanely long.

I've rewatched the original Winx many, many times. I know the pilot episode like the back of my hand and all of the major plot points of the first few seasons (bc I abandoned it once that 3d animation came into play). I supposed this is how people who watch movie adaptations of books feel, pointing out details that are "minor" but don't feel minor when you know the source material so well.

Here's a list of differences I can think of off the top of my head from the first season alone because I didn't watch the second in its entirety, so this is just from my understanding:

alfea is in Solaria, which...ughhh, don't piss me off. It's located in Magix in the OG series, along with the Cloud Tower (school for witches) and the Red Fountain (school for specialists), which, btw, were both axed as far as I know.

Witches are kinda sorta a thing? Instead of witches going to a whole different school and having their own unique powers, they live in hiding and are called blood witches because they blood bend.

There are no Trix, just Beatrix. Who is a fairy and an annoying evil one at that?

They are all British. Everyone is British. I don't understand why Bloom is the token American. I don't understand why she is the sole American to go to that school; it doesn't make sense to me in the slightest. Like, if it's a school for all fairies, then...why? And if it was only for British fairies, then...why?

Sky and Stella date, there is so Brandon; in fact, most of the specialists have been axed. (Helia plz come back to me, bae. I took you for granted last time)

Obviously, there's no flora until season 2...which. Don't pmo.

Ummm, the whole "the burned plot"? Which is interesting, I'll admit.

No transformations except that weak ass one they had in s2 that I saw on Twitter and closed the app in a fit of rage

Stella is a bitch?????? She's literally the definition of a girl's best friend, fashion icon, willing to die for the people she loves, and big golden retriever energy. And they just. They made her so awful. She does have a redemption arc, but it's just so...

I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but those are the ones that really stuck with me well over a year after I've seen it.

so what does this mean? This means...well, idk what this means. Like I said previously, the show, if it was standalone, would be absolutely fire i think, but the moment they attached the Winx name to it, it suddenly had really big shoes to fill, and it just couldn't do it, not with those major changes. So many beloved aspects of the original show were taken out for a bunch of new things to be added in, making it feel like something completely new.

If the show wasn't advertised as a Winx show and someone approached me saying, "Hey, ro, if you like Winx, you'll like this show because it's like a darker, more mature version of it." I'd be interested. But the moment it became "Hey, ro, have you seen the new winx show?" it became something else, something with expectations, which often doesn't fare well for live adaptations.

Sorry, this got so long, and sorry I took so long to post it. I hope this jargon made sense, I got carried away.

tldr: I fw it when I forget it's Winx

[musical-chick-13]

what are some of your favorite f/f ships?

YES. EXCELLENT QUESTION.

The™ f/f ship for me is, probably, Mireille/Silvana from Noir (2001). Which. Yeah, of course I would imprint on the unpopular extra-fucked-up dynamic that lasted for two episodes out of a total of 26. BUT THOSE TWO EPISODES GAVE ME EVERYTHING. You represent everything I'm afraid of. I know exactly how to fuck you up because I understand you. I betrayed and broke you once in your past and we both never, ever forgot about it. "REVENGE IS THE GREATEST ACT OF FORGIVENESS." I'M!!!!!

Another heavy hitter is Rita/Laura from Doom Patrol. They have the whole "friendship gone bad because of personal differences," "intensely drawn to each other in every situation," "please say you're like me so I don't have to feel alone" thing. They make me feral.

Hope/Lizzie from Legacies is also excellent. The development from rivals to frenemies to, and I quote, "bonded for life," complete with "who tf are you becoming" angst and a canonically mentally ill character being treated with genuine understanding and respect is TOP-TIER.

And the obligatory crackship deep-cut is Iris/Zenna from the Dutch opera Sunken Garden. They're implied to have known each other for a long time and they fight to the death :)

For less...uh. Tumultuous. F/F dynamics, there's Michiru/Nazuna from Brand New Animal, an example of friendship (albeit one with some complications) to possibly more that really works for me. As well as Meg/Joan from The March Family Letters who are really, really sweet.

And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my first-ever f/f ship Olivia/Natalia from Guiding Light. They had...a long road getting there, but watching them get there was SO GOOD. THEY'RE SO GOOD. TENSION. EVENTUAL FRIENDSHIP. CONFLICT WITH CATHOLICISM. BEING TERRIFIED TO QUESTION THEIR IDENTITIES OR DESTABILIZE THEIR PLATONIC LOVE. AAAAHHH.

This is getting long, so speedrun of some other faves: Bubbline from Adventure Time. Rem/Misa from the stage musical version of Death Note (and me shipping Misa with just about every woman in the original series). Charlotte/Lizzie from Netflix's The Perfection. Eleanor/Drea from Do Revenge. Flor/Jazmín from Las Estrellas. Madlax/Limelda from Madlax. And most recent acquisition, exploring the really unhinged, unpopular idea of Himeno/Makima from CSM.

[cloudsforthoughts]

Call me crazy, but now is the perfect time for DC to overtake Marvel, if they play their cards right.

Lots of people are starting to get tired of marvel. There are so many films and TV shows, people are overwhelmed. The quality is going down in a desperate grab for money (I mean have u seen the cgi?!) and you often don't know what's going on in the latest films unless you pay for a Disney+ subscriptions and watch a bunch of extra TV series'. (I absolutely stan Wanda tho, the scarlet witch is iconic)

So, hear me out...

No 1. DC should give us the iconic Harley Quinn x Poison Ivy content we deserve. The Harley Quinn films have obviously done well so give us a film with the iconic villainous couple already!! I'm sick of the joker stans, it's time for the gays to rise up!

No 2. They need to move on from the style of Batman films they've been producing. Dark, moody loner does loner shit and fights people over and over and over again? Fuck that. Give me tired bat dad (dilfs r in right now. Tell me I'm wrong?). And give us the bat family!!! You could make so many films about the bat family... follow the adventures, trials and tribulations of the ever growing family of moody human vigilantes. Like have u seen the Titan TV show on Netflix?!? Its awesome, the bat kids r freakin insane!

And sure Gotham is a moody place, but it's also plain ass weird. The heroes are dark and dangerous, the villains are bright and joyful. There are so many creative posts that discuss what it would be like to live there. Like lean into the weirdness that is Gotham!

[purplegenderfox]

I'm starting to feel elitist about people who watch television. Or "new television" or whatever streaming is now.

I say this knowing I'm a hypocrite that watches star wars shows with my friend when they come out because we used to be obsessed with the star war and now watching shiny Boba fett and his pet mute micro 50 year old baby go on space adventures is fun to yell at on discord.

But.

How do you see all the cool, fun, creative free content and media that's on, idk, YouTube alone, and decide that you need to pay Amazon or apple or Netflix or whoever a dollar more than 5 dollars a month just to see what the corporate entertainment industry thinks they can get away with making you pay to see.

Eventually we gotta get over this desire for INSTANT dopamine and gratification, right? Spend more than 5 minutes looking for something you're genuinely interested in watching or playing or reading, (especially reading. READ BOOKS) not because everyone around you is making you think "man, everyone's talking about this I should watch it" but rather "oh this seems like something I would like to watch!"

There's so much art out there, stop wasting your time on a vessel for more corporate profits.

It's not like Amazon or Walmart where a lot of people don't have a choice. People who can't afford to stream stuff know what I'm talking about. You wouldn't miss much it you decided to spend your free time not watching the 20th hour long episode of a story designed to be just barely as interesting as possible for the biggest demographic possible, so people will stick with it.

Read indie books and play indie games and watch creative videos (they're out there. There's a lot of them out there)

I promise it's more interesting and you'll feel more satisfied if you do, even if Josh and Katie in your department make you feel othered for not watching a fucking tv show.

Cherish small time media and creators before the powers consolidating the internet day by day decide they don't like the competition, and try to get laws passed that make it so not just anyone can make anything and post it for free.

[beatriceeagle]

I was wondering - who are your top 5 TV characters right now? Do you have any TV show recommendations for stuff you've watched recently? I'm in something of a TV rut and trying to coax myself out. Thank you!

Oh man!

My top 5 TV characters may be a little different than they were last time I thought about this. I would have to say currently it's Julia Wicker (The Magicians), Donna Noble (Doctor Who), Britta Perry (Community), Ro Laren (Star Trek: TNG) and... Zuko, maybe? Julian Bashir? That fifth slot is so hard to pin down.

Unfortunately I've also been in a bit of a TV rut lately, but I can come up with a few shows from the past few years that I've really enjoyed.

Severance: I think everyone in the world has recommended this, but it's so unbelievably good, while also being extremely funny and watchable. Trippy near-future sci-fi starring Adam Scott. Season one is only 9 episodes, so it's not a big commitment. (Apple TV+)

Yellowjackets: Very fucked up, so don't watch unless you're cool with a lot of violence and cannibalism. Digs into trauma and the complexities of teen girl friendship, but is also just incredibly pulpy and weird. Stars Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, and Tawny Cypress. Season two currently airing. (Paramount+/Showtime)

Midnight Mass: An eight-episode miniseries from the same team that made The Haunting of Hill House. Very contemplative, emotional horror. Themes of religion, hypocrisy, and mortality. The central conceit of this one is so cool to figure out in real-time that I'm not gonna say too much more, but this is legitimately my favorite thing that Netflix has ever produced. (Netflix)

The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself: Already canceled, but the first season wraps up reasonably well. Urban fantasy about warring witch societies, with some cool ideas and very likeable actors. More-or-less canonical polyamorous relationship at the center. (Netflix)

Assorted Other Not-Necessarily-Recent Shows: Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street (astonishingly good live-action kids show on Amazon Prime, two seasons); Legacies (final show in the TVD-verse, similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in tone and execution, four seasons); Cobra Kai (intentionally over-the-top follow-up series to the already over-the-top Karate Kid movies, ongoing); 9-1-1 (watch if you enjoy the idea of a disaster movie every fifth episode followed by four Lifetime movies, ongoing); Looking for Alaska (very good miniseries adaptation of the book on Hulu); American Vandal (extremely funny and well-made true crime parody, two seasons); ER (it lasted a million seasons and covered every conceivable tone, and the first seven seasons are all-time great TV); Tangled The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (follow-up series to Tangled that I can only describe as "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for kids," three seasons); Farscape (weird brilliant sci-fi that everyone should give a shot at least once, four seasons).

[mrslittletall]

Now that I finished my Ghibli watch (so many movies), let's give a mini review of how I liked each one:

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind -> Amazing! Loved it. World building and characters were stellar. Just the 80ies sounds were a bit jarring. But all the time I watched at the movie and was going "Caelid?! Malenia?!"

Yeah, someone at FromSoft got inspired by this movie.

Castle in the Sky -> I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I liked the magical elements, the robots and the pirates. Also how the children decided in the end to give up on Laputa because there is already life up there. Beautiful.

Grave of the Fireflies -> Netflix didn't have it! So I have to watch it elsewhere! I want to, I heard the film fucks you up.

My Neighbour Totoro -> Cute and wholesome! Also realistic toddler character with Mei ^^ I loved it and I want to touch the cat bus.

Kiki's Delivery Service -> I would have loved to have 30 minutes more for the movie. It felt like it was over too soon. The moment Kiki was in the town, it felt like it was over again. I wish we could have spent more time with her.

Only Yesterday -> It was fine, but I felt myself more attached to Taeko's childhood flashbacks instead of her adult life.

Porco Rosso -> Felt a bit like it was going nowhere. Would have loved to see the romance between Porco and the opera lady explored more.

Ocean Waves -> Oh god, don't let me go on a Rikako rant. I HATE HER! Yeah, the movie was boring and the ending downright frustrating. I need to watch the scene of Taku bitchslapping Rikako to feel inner peace.

Pom Poko -> I watched this one ages ago on free TV, but remember enough. It was enjoyable, but without knowlegde of the japanese tanuki myth this movie must come over as WEIRD.

Whisper of the Heart -> Ocean Waves wanted to be this, but failed. I loved this one. Especially the scene where Country Roads was sung. A good coming of age story for a girl who doesn't know where she stands in life yet.

Princess Mononoke -> Classic. Watched it ages ago. Can't rewatch and it is a bummer. Why do there have to be TWO blood vomiting scenes in this movie which scare me? A LOT?! Maybe I rewatch and just look elsewhere during the scenes where San accompanies the hurt boar…

My Neighbours the Yamadas -> Didn't watch. Feels like it was based on a Showa era manga. Showa era humour is just cringe to me.

Spirited Away -> First Ghibli movie ever. Saw in the cinema. Rewatched a few times. A classic. Deserved the Oscar. Noface is best.

The Cat Returns -> A bit short. But a cute adventure with cats. Reuses the baron of Whispers of the Heart. I liketo think that was the book that the protag of this movie actually published ^^

Howl's Moving Castle -> Howl is a drama queen and we love him for it. Loved this movie. Fantastic. Loved Howl's monster form and that Sophie is a monsterfucker.

Just was annoyed by dub voice for young Sophie. Sounded horrible.

Tales from Earthsee -> Someone tried to condense a huge fantasy novel into a two hour movie. Didn't work. The characters barely could shine.

Hilarious accidental trans character in the dub. The villain wizard was clearly male, was called he/him and called lord, but had a female dub voice. I couldn't help but headcanon him as trans masc thanks to it.

Ponyo ->Cuuuute. Ponyo and Sosuke are so cute. Ponyo's fish face weirded me out though.

Arietty -> Probably one of the best borrower adaptations out there. Just disliked the ending. I really wanted them to move into the dollhouse.

From Up on Poppy Hill -> Boring. Barely remember the movie.Main character was flaaat.

The Wind Rises -> Strange. Half of the movie felt like a dream. Excellent animation on the earthquake though.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya -> EXCELLENT! Animation and style is BEAUTIFUL! I love the music, I loved the retelling of the fairy tail. This movie is nothing short but art.

When Marnie was there -> This movie is a tearjerker. A BIG one, but I have an issue with it. It had very sapphic feelings and then they reveal that Marnie was Anna's grandmother all along?! Dude, then why the queerbait?!

Earwig and the Witch -> Didn't watch. Didn't want to watch movie which was 3D animated. I wanted to watch all the 2D animated ones. If you think I should give the movie a chance, I will watch it.