#also this is my first time using the new posting editor or whatever

[e2castiel]

Harvey Dent, The Most Dangerous Man in Gotham

[writtenbyan-aries]

My Favorite Edit | Matt Sturniolo

I asked a friend of mine to make me t w o different edits for t w o different one shots, so the credit for these edits is all her! 🖤 The edit will be posted within the fanfic, but her socials are linked right below! I’m also pretty sure tumblr ruined the quality, so if you wanna see it without tumblr quality, click below.

Instagram - jas.sturn_ | TikTok - http.sturnx

Here is Chris’ version 🖤

∶ Summary: While doing an interview, reader gets asked about fan edits

∶ Warnings: slight flirting, kissing, fluff

∶ Word Count: 2.7k | unedited

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

“Hello hello everybody, and welcome back to the podcast.”

You smile at the host, Lydia, as she continues, “I know you all have wanted me to bring on y/n, and let me tell you the wait is over because, for the listeners, I have her sitting right across from me, hello, y/n.”

“Hello, Lydia. Thank you so much for having me on!” You smile and she scoffs, “Thank you for coming on! I cannot tell you how many comments I’ve seen requesting to bring you on.”

“Same with me! I kept seeing stuff like, go on the Chatter Babe Podcast!” You laugh, “I’m just finally happy I get a break to do this!”

“Right, you’re a busy busy girl.” She laughs, “So today, we can talk about whatever it is you want, I mean I have a few topics I want to cover but they should be quick.”

You nod, “Fire away, girl.”

“Okay so first off, is it true that you’re working on a new movie?” She squints and you smirk, “No comment on that.”

She gasps, “I’m getting a yes from that, but I understand that you’re not obligated to speak on it, so moving on. Your last movie, when is it coming out?”

“Should be out within the next month.. it has to go through editing and getting finalized and all of that, but the premiere date is arriving quickly.”

“Can you tell us that date?” Lydia asks and you smile, “February twentieth.”

She gasps, “oh thats my birthday!”

“Wow, that’s so weird..” you reach down into your purse and pull out two tickets to the premiere, “I just happen to have these for that day and I figured you would like to come.”

She gasps louder, “Oh, y/n. You did not!”

“Happy early birthday.” You laugh, “This is also a thank you for bringing me on today.”

“Oh I’m going to cry. You’re literally so sweet.” She takes the tickets, “Oh I’m so exited. I’m going to tell Ryan to cancel anything and everything that he has planned because this is better.”

You laugh, “Oh, no. Don’t say that.”

She shakes her head, letting out a sigh, “anyway.” She laughs, “Oh! Did you see the one edit a fan made? They like took clips from my videos and mashed them with yours to make it look like we collabed finally?”

“No!” You laugh, “I didn’t, but now I kind of want to see it!”

You watch as Lydia pulls it up, turning his phone to let you watch.

“That’s actually crazy.” You lean back, “I mean, they got their wish.” You shake your head, “I have major respect for editors. I see a few pop up on my feed every now and then and I watch them a few times because it amazes me just how much effort they actually put into them.”

“Right? Like I want to know how many hours one edit takes, you know? Like they have to take at least an hour if not more.” Lydia shakes her head, “So you said you see some every now and then, what kind of ones do you get? Sometimes I get the grinch ones and I’m like how and the hell did that get on there?”

You laugh, “No, I get those, too. It always shocks me because I’m like, wait, how did I get here?” You sigh, “I get those, and then every now and then I’ll see some of my friends and I’ll send them to them and be like look at you!”

“Who are those friends?” Lydia tilts her head and you laugh, “some of my girl friends and then the triplets, Nick, Matt, and Chris.”

“Do they like the edits?” She asks and you tilt your head back and forth, “They like the funny ones, like when the fans clip the more funny moments from their weekly videos.”

She nods, “I like the edits that are like synced with the music behind it, you know what I mean.” You nod, “Yes, I like those ones too.”

“So. Speaking of, the triplets..” she smirks and you sigh, smirking at her, “Whaaat?”

“Out of the three of them, do you have an edit that you love the most for just one of them?” She tilts her head and your jaw drops slightly as you laugh, “I love them all equally.”

Lydia points, “Ooh with an answer like that I think you do have one in particular!”

You did have one, one that you vowed to never let see the light of day.

You shake your head, “I mean..”

“See!” She sits criss crossed on her chair and laughs, “Show me! Show me!”

You sign, “Fine, but you can’t tell anyone.” You glance towards the camera, “Not like that matters.” You laugh, pulling up the edit on your phone and you lean over to show her.

“All of you keyboard warriors out there will have to use the sound to your best ability.” She laughs and leans in, staring at the screen as the edit plays.

She leans back with a smirk, “Oh I fucking knew it!”

“No you didn’t, shush.” You put your phone away and you fail at hiding your smile, “He doesn’t know I have this. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Are there secret feelings here that I’m getting a whiff of, because if so, wowza you guys would literally break the internet.” Lydia grips her chair, “Like, I know you guys are close, and for a while there I thought you guys were a thing.”

“We’re just really good friends, Lyd.” You assure, more so trying to convince yourself more than her, “If shit happens, it happens. One thing I’ve learned over the last year, is that you just have to step back and just let things go the way they’re meant to.”

“Wow, that’s actually really good advice, y/n.” She nods, turning to look in the camera, “I’m not going to say any names, but if the person I just watched in this edit is watching, you better step up your game because you’d be stupid not to snatch this bitch up.”

You cover your mouth laughing, “Thank you for that. I hope he got the message.”

She laughs, “I hope it did something.”

After an hour, you were finally done and just chatting off camera, “So does he really not know you have that?”

You shake your head, “That’s one that I kept to myself and until today, wasn’t ever going to see the outside of my folder.”

“I’m serious, you guys would be a hot ass couple.” She raises her brows, “I think after tomorrow.. you’re going to have yourself a date to your movie premiere.”

“After tomorrow, I’m not going to ever get a piece of peace and quiet, especially from them. They’re going to hound me until they know.” You laugh, pulling out your phone, “Speak of the devil.”

You turn your phone, showing her Matt’s name on the screen before answering it, “Hello?”

“Hey, oh wait, you’re not in the middle of that podcast, are you?”

You laugh slightly, “We just wrapped up, you’re good. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to see if you had the rest of the day free, we’re going to catch a movie and I wanted to see if you wanted to go.” Matt pauses and you smirk at Lydia, “Yeah, what time? I need to stop at home first before I come over.”

“I think Nick said, hold on.” He yells to Nick, “What time does the movie start?”

“Six!” Nick answers and Matt repeats to you, “Six.”

“Sounds good. I’ll come over around five.”

“Okay, see you the- oh wait, how’d your podcast thing go?” He asks and you let out a sigh, “I’ll tell you about it then.”

“Okay. See you later.”

“Yep, bye.” You hang up and Lydia smirks, “A movie? What are you going to tell him there?” You shake your head, “No, I’m going to try and hold off on that until the podcast drops.”

“We’ll see about that.” She smirks, “I’ll let you know when the pod is about to drop.”

“A heads up, perfect.”

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

You managed to make it through dinner, the car ride, and the movie last night without spilling beans on your little secret.

You were proud of yourself.

You almost let it slip a few times, but covered it up with something like, I told Lydia I can’t talk about it, you’ll see it on the podcast tomorrow.

Well, it was tomorrow, and life as you know it was about to change for the good or for the bad - okay, a little dramatic, but you were nervous.

Your phone rang at eight a.m sharp with Lydia on the other end, “Hey, my producer is about to upload the video.”

“Sounds good.” You sit up, “Thanks for having me on again.”

“Thanks for coming on. I definitely want you back, and oh, thanks again for the tickets! I’m super stoked about it!”

“Anytime!” You hang up and let out a sigh before you get out of bed. As you’re walking to the bathroom, there’s a knock on your door and you stop, walking over to look out.

You laugh as you open the door, “What are you guys doing there?”

“We came here to watch the premier of your podcast with Lydia!” Nick walks in, “We brought breakfast, so don’t worry.”

“I was woken up early, so this better be worth it.” Chris laughs as he walks in and Matt stands there, “Nick messaged Lydia for the time she was dropping it.”

“Of course he did.” You laugh, “she just called me. Said he was uplo-“

“Here it is!” Nick calls out and you close the door, walking over with Matt. He sits down while you stand behind the couch, watching as Lydia’s intro plays.

“Aren’t you gonna sit?” Nick asks and you shake your head, “No, because I feel like I’ll need an easy way to escape the embarrassment here in a minute.”

“Oh now I’m really excited about this.” Chris rubs his hands together and you gently smack him upside the head, “My embarrassment is not for your laughing pleasure, sir.”

“Uh huh. Sure.” He rolled his eyes and you glance at Matt, watching him look away as soon as you catch him looking.

You chew on your lip, taking a deep breath as you hear your voice on the tv. You tilt your head, “Do I really sound like that?”

Nick shushes you and Matt shakes his head, giving you a small smirk. You smile, leaning against the couch as you continue to watch.

Eventually you get to the part that makes you want to run and hide, but you stick it out.

Chris looks at you, “The grinch? Y/n? Really.”

“Shut up.” You laugh, groaning quietly as their name gets brought into it. Nick reaches back, patting your leg, “Thanks for the shoutout, y/n!”

“Oh just wait.” You mumble, rubbing your hand over your face.

“Out of the three of them, do you have an edit that you love the most for just one of them?”

All three of them turn to look at you and you laugh nervously, “Don’t.. look at me like that. I said I love you all equally.”

“Yeah, but one more than the other two.” Chris shakes his head, “Crazy work.”

Nick gasps, “I need to see this edit.“ He stands up, turning around to face you, “Right. Fucking. Now.” You shake your head, “Too. Fucking. Bad. Because no one is ever going to see that edit.”

“Where’s your phone.” Nick crosses his arms and you shrug, “I don’t know.” He scoffs, “Liar.”

You shrug, “It’s not.. that big of a deal, okay. So just-“

“He doesn’t know I have this. He doesn’t know anything.”

“He does now.” Chris and Nick say in unison and you laugh, “You guys don’t know anything. Clearly. That could have been anyone, okay?”

“But it wasn’t.” Nick shakes his head, “Now spill.”

“..but if the person I just watched in this edit is watching, you better step up your game because you’d be stupid not to snatch this bitch up.”

“Well, it’s not me, so.” Nick sits back down and stands back up, “But I still want to see this edit.”

You stare at him for a few seconds before he grabs your arm, “Chris, go. I got her!” You fight back against Nick but he pulls you over the couch and you let out a yell, “Whoa! Hey! You can’t-“ you break out into laughter, “Matt. Help please.”

He moves over and looks down, “All you gotta do is tell us who was in that edit and it can all be over.”

“You’re siding with them!?” You scoff, “That’s not shocking.”

He smirks, “Hey, I’m curious, too.”

“I got it!” Chris yells, running down the steps, “What’s the password.” You laugh, “Go fuck yourself is the password.”

“That won’t work.” Chris huffs and Nick stares at him, “Clearly.” He rolls his eyes, looking down at you, “Just tell us.”

“Matt.” You state and Nick shakes his head, “He isn’t going to help you.” You lift your head, “Matt.” Nick laughs beside going serious, “Oh shit.”

“What, did she finally say who?” Chris asks and Nick looks at him, “Give her the phone.” He nods towards you and lets you sit up. You take the phone and sigh as you get into it, “Here.”

You glance over at Matt, who has a smirk on his face, “Let me see it.” He moves beside you, his hand resting on your shoulder as he leans behind you to watch the edit.

After it ends, it goes quiet and Chris is the first to break the silence, “Y/n likes Matt! Y/n likes Matt!!”

“I mean, who didn’t see this coming?” Nick looks at you, “Lydia was right, you guys act like a married couple half the time anyway.”

“Oh so now you’re not surprised.” You take your phone back and Nick laughs, “I mean, Matt has a secret edit of you that he likes so it’s not really a big deal.”

“How do you know about that?” Matt asks, laughing nervously, “That, I mean.. fuck, fine. Here.” Matt hands you his phone and you go look at the video.

“That’s a good edit.” You smirk, looking over at him. He shakes his head, “Yeah, yeah. We all have edits that we like, so what?”

You stand up, “I’m going to go get ready for the day.” You walk away, mumbling to yourself as you walk up the steps to your room.

As you’re getting your clothes out to change, Matt walks into the door way, “Hey.”

You look up with a smile, “Hey.”

He walks in, closing the door behind him, “So, I guess the feelings are mutual, huh?” You shrug with a nod, “I guess so.”

He walks over, “Lydia is right though.”

You tilt your head, “About?”

He smirks, “That I’m stupid if I don’t snatch you up.”

You shrug, “I wouldn’t say, stupid, necessarily. But I didn’t say anything, so how would you have known to even s-“ Matt cuts you off with a kiss, pulling you in closer by your hips. Your hands slide up his arms to his neck and he leans back, “What do you say?”

“To?” You tilt your head and he smiles, “To finally being my girlfriend?”

You smile, “I say, that that is a great idea because now I finally have a date to my premiere next month.”

“Is that the-“

You cut Matt off with a kiss, “No, of course not.” You smile, “I think it’s great because now, I don’t have to hide how much I actually like you.”

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Thanks for reading! I love you all so much! Catch you in the next one! 🖤

Likes and reblogs are majorly appreciated!

[rustbeltjessie]

I haven’t made a pinned post in a while, but since it’s my birthday month and I’m struggling right now, I figured it’s a good time to make one.

First, let me introduce myself. I’m Jessie Lynn McMains, aka Rust Belt Jessie. I’m a writer (poetry and prose), artist, zine-maker, spoken word performer, occasional musician, small press publisher, and general jack of several creative trades. I’m queer—bi/mspec and nonbinary (I use they/them, she/her, and he/him pronouns). I’m disabled and neurodivergent, and the parent of two kiddos. Politically? Well, I consider myself an anarchist at heart, but I still vote in every election. I think everyone should be able to have enough food, and a safe place to live, and yeah, even a few ‘unnecessary,’ fun things, just by virtue of being alive. As for the rest of my beliefs, you can probably garner a general idea if you peruse my blog even a little.

Now, onto the nitty-gritty. We had about ten days between when our last month’s food money ran out and when this month’s came in. It has been refilled as of today, so I don’t have to worry about that for the moment, but because of that gap, I had to spend money I’d set aside for other stuff on food. I paid our rent and energy bill for the month, but I’m a couple months overdue on our Internet bill, and I don’t want to risk that getting shut off. And then, well, it’s December. I’m trying to buy my kids some Christmas presents, and it’s not just my birthday month—my youngest kiddo’s birthday is four days before Christmas. Because of all this, I’m also way behind on writing stuff. I owe my zine subscribers a new issue (I didn’t send anything at all in November), and I’m trying to finish up some pieces to record for my new spoken word EP, but I’ve had to focus on day job and side-hustle stuff that’s more immediately lucrative, so I haven’t been able to dedicate much time to finishing these projects.

If you’d like to throw some $$ my way so I can get some gifts for my kiddos, keep my Internet on, get back to my writing, and maybe have a less-stressful birthday month than I did last year, I have V*nmo (JessieLynnMcMains) and P*yp*l (coeur.de.fantome [at] gmail[dot]com).

But hey, hey, I’m not just asking for something for nothing! I have a lot of stuff available on Ko-fi (rustbeltjessie), including print books and zines, ebooks and zines, and pins, and you can also hire me as an editor or commission a custom mini-collage. And almost everything is sliding scale/pay-what-you-can, some with a minimum price, others starting at $0.

And that zine subscription? It’s still not too late to get in on it, even though the year is almost over. If you sign up now, you’ll receive all previous issues, along with this month’s when it’s finished, and the final two will be mailed out in January.

Or perhaps you’d like to buy or commission something I don’t officially have for sale. Maybe you’d like to buy one of my existing pieces of art? Or commission a custom pin, designed by me, based on the band/film/fandom/whatever of your choice? Or commission a custom postcard poem/art piece, on the subject of your choice? Or have me write you a custom mini-zine, on the subject of your choice? I can do all those things! DM me, and we’ll work something out!

Oh, and I mentioned above that I was working on a new spoken word EP? Go check out my full-length spoken word album, Self-Portrait With Ghosts and Trains, which was released by Hello America Stereo Cassette in July 2021. You can find it at helloamerica.bandcamp.com. (I do get royalties from that release periodically, but it’s not as immediate as if you purchase something directly from me.)

All that said, I know times are tough for most people right now, so please don’t feel obligated to purchase anything or otherwise send money my way. And, as always, even just a few dollars helps, as does reblogging/boosting this post. 🖤

[amaranthinespirit]

hi, may i ask how did you get the soft pink on your blogs? i really want to use it but dunno how

how to get custom text colors <3

hiii, sorry for the late reply, but here is how i do it. i'm not sure how to do it on mobile since i exclusively do it on my macbook.

this is the website i use. ignore like everything on the page and focus on the white box in the bottom right corner.

—what you'll do is put whatever text you want turned into the custom color in the first box (the one to the left of the red and green boxes) —if you click on the red or green box, you'll pull up the color selector and from there, you can select whatever color you want. if you want a gradient for your text then the two boxes will be two different colors. if you want them to be the same, then just copy the RGB code to the other. i usually keep it to a single color throughout, i rarely use the gradient option so therefore i have memorized the RGB for the pink i use. —once you have your text and your desired color(s), you can hit run and it'll fill the empty box that's by itself on the bottom with the code. —from there, you want to click inside the box. you'll see the cursor line that pops up when you usually write text and the box will have an outline. hit ctrl a to highlight the entire code and ctrl c to copy it. —come back to tumblr, and into whatever post or draft it is, you'll go to the top right where the settings gear is, opposite end of where your username is on a post. —once you open that little menu, stroll down until you see text editor. you should see that it is selected for rich text. you want to change this into 'HTML' —once you change it to 'HTML', it should look like this if you have any text (it'll be blank if there's no text, etc.)

—what i would do is go to the top at the very beginning, hit enter to make a new paragraph and then paste the code into it. —after that, you go back to the text editor with the settings gear again at the top right, switching it back to rich text. —and thats it! to move it to a different spot, i just select the words and ctrl x (which deletes and copies), and then paste it where i need it.

helpful tip

instead of going back and forth making new code for every phrase, or word, you need colored, there is an easy way that i tend to do. select your colored text, either ctrl x or ctrl c to copy it and then paste it where you want the new one to go. to edit the text to your new words, hit the left arrow key. you'll see a faint highlight around the words in that color. hit the left arrow key three more times, for a total of four, and you'll notice the highlighted area has shrunk. if you use the arrow key once more, then the cursor can move around the text. from there, you can edit the text to whatever you want. with this tip, you can also paste text into it as well and share the color!

so that's how you get custom colors, and from there, you can choose a color, or shade of pink, of your liking for your posts! <3

[jrwi-eldritchstrings-event]

Eldritchstrings Event Sign-Ups Open!!

Hi! Are you looking for some Apothy fun in these trying times of no new Apothesosis episodes? Wanna get together with other toxic yuri fans to make something swag? This post is to let you know that sign-ups are now open for the Eldritchstrings Event - an event centered on Exandroth and Rumi!!

This event is solely being run by @burning-sol (me) and @exandr0th-0f-viscera (my headmate). It probably won't be that large-scale, and we'll be kind of loose with management as we get an idea of what the members involved want from the event in terms of development and a final product. Our biggest rules are to HAVE FUN and TRY YOUR BEST!! If you don't feel like you're having fun, then this event is officially so joever.

If you're interested, please read through everything after the cut, the Sign-Up Form's link is at the end!! Sign-ups close November 16th.

Who can join?

If I've blocked you that's probably a bad sign... Obviously. But other than that, no limitations we can think of! Just know that Xander and I are pro-endo and pro-mspec lesbians; so if that gives you the impression you wouldn't gel well with the group, it's best to steer clear. All we ask of our participants is that they'll...!

Communicate clearly, and consciously try to take others in good faith.

At the least tolerate their cohorts if they can't outright get along with them.

AND, most importantly, they'll reach out to us if there are any issues!! It is no bother and it's actively better for the collective if you're open about anything that may have come up :3

What's the estimated time frame?

Sign-Ups close November 16th! ..however, the time frame for development and publishing will be up to participants to decide - with that process of consultation concluding before 2025.

At the LATEST the deadline for the works themselves will be July 31st, which will leave time for the editors to finesse the final product and publish it August 27th... (the anniversary of the first Eldritchstrings post!) So if you think you could make something by July 31st, even if you're initially busy, join the sign-ups!

If you miss it you will NOT be let into the event late, unfortunately. But no worries, because if the event goes well then there's a high probability another will be held in the future! :D

What contributions are we looking for?

Firstly, anyone who can help with visual design, editing, accessibility and publishing otherwise would be appreciated! There's also room for people who have general experience overseeing events and/or those who would like to help with promotion.

There will also (potentially) be groups, so if all you wanna do is hang around in case a pinch-hitter is needed, you can do that!

In terms of those submitting work to the event, ANY form of art goes! You may want to submit something like...

Fan-fiction, poetry, essays..

Illustrations, comics…

Banners, blinkies, icons…

Moodboards, stimboards, webweaves..

Textiles, cosplay, photography…

Edits, animations, PMVs, AMVs…

Original music, playlists…

Coding, games, 3D works…

Or whatever other weird and unique things you can think of…!

Romantic, platonic, situationship... Angst, comedy, abstract works, complete bullshit… Canon, non-canon, post-canon, somewhere in between… All is welcome so long at it centers on Exandroth and Rumi!!

Our ONLY limitations are that we will NOT be allowing any erotica, and no portrayal of genitalia in terms of artistic nudity! If you are otherwise unsure your work would be allowed, feel free to ask about it!

Also! Works that are exclusive to the event would be super cool, but you can submit older art or continue to work on something from your already existing WIPs if you'd like! The only catch is that you wouldn't be able to resubmit those to any future events... So if you're okay with that, go on ahead!

..and that's about it!

Make sure you've read over this and any relevant posts on this blog thoroughly. Participants will gather in a Discord server, the invites of which will be distributed via Tumblr PMs from this blog. If you're chill with everything stated above, here's the sign-up form!!

-> SIGN UP HERE <-

Note: We will not be personally promoting this event to other social medias, but you have our permission to share this sign-up with Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, etc!!

[aequrie]

Hello, this is not a request it's question because I really want to learn how to make graphics with gifs and idk how to do it 😭😭😭

Like your agar agar cookie layouts, I really like your work and would like to learn how you make it

Thank you for reading this, if you don't want reply it's okay, have a very nice day

Haiii!! It's no problem!! Unfortunately, I'm VERY bad at explaining stuff LOL, so here's the best I can do!! (Also, have a sneak-peak to another post :3)

How to make a gif edit.

How I decorate my edits.

How I make my PSDs.

VERY LONG POST BELOW. MASU LOVES TO HEAR HIMSELF TALK.

Okay so step one is to use photopea. I used to be an avid ibispaintx user until I realized that photopea can make gif edits and suddenly I'm photopea's #1 fan (and hater). Photopea is a website, BTW, here's the link!

First, open up a project. Good job! We're 1/4 of the way there! You can import a PSD if you want (Here's a different tutorial for that), but let's just say you DON'T have a PSD, for the simplicity of this tutorial.

Next, find the animation you want! For this example, we'll be using the Wind Archer sprite below (I took this from the CRK wiki). It can be anything - but preferably nothing too big, because Tumblr for SOME REASON HATES high quality gifs. Siiiigh...

From here, you want to go to FILE > OPEN & PLACE. It'll show a window of all your downloaded items. Click on the animation we just downloaded.

Wam-bam! We're almost there!! Okay, if your image is a WEBP file, it will not animate if you export as a GIF. But! That's okay! Because with trial and error, I found out how to fix this!

On the downloaded layer, double click on the layer. After this, go to SMART OBJECT > CONVERT TO LAYERS...

Now, if your photopea tries to explode and pretend it don't know nobody, that's okay! Just let it load a bit. The file is very. very big. It should turn into a folder! You have nothing else to do from this.

After this, you can do, well, whatever ya need!! Slap a stroke on, put a gradient map on this bad boy, anything else! Once you're finished, go to FILE > EXPORT AS... > GIF. Your photopea might try to explode again, for like, a few minutes. Just give it some time. It's a lot of trial and error!! Don't feel bad if you didn't get it the first time!!

Now, before I talk about my edits, I want to make it clear that you should FIND YOUR OWN STYLE! Don't try to copy off of someone else, or try to replicate another style. Every editor is different!! While I overuse overlays and gradient maps like I won't see tomorrow, you may like a more simple style, or something less over and out there ~ ! That's alright! Don't be afraid to branch out.

Now, as we said - we love to use overlays + gradient maps. I am an artist, so a LOT of what I do correlates to that as well (having an interesting silhouette, making a focal point, color theory, color contrast, composition). It'll be WAY, WAY too much to explain in one single post, so I'd just say to go with the flow! If something looks off, try something else! There's no shame in scrapping an entire project - especially if you're unsatisfied with the result. Do what you need to do!! It's your edits.

For making PSDs, our process is actually pretty simple. We just use a gradient map and adjusts it till it works LOL. We add a few others things too - but that's mostly what I do. If you want to learn how to make your own, my word of advice is to dissect from others. Take inspiration!! If you don't feel like doing that, there's no harm in just using a F2U PSD floating out there. Feel free to look at our Squid Ink post and use that as an example of our PSDs! (If you don't feel like going to go get it, yeah I understand, here it is right here.)

All in all, my biggest tip (besides to have fun), is to edit until you like it. Don't try to compare yourself to big editors - they've had TONS, AND TONS, of experience and editing. Experiment with your style, put yourself out there, edit some new media you've never edited before, find resources to help you out, find tutorials, ETC. It takes time to learn, so make sure to take that time!! You got this, don't feel discouraged by other people's work!!!

That's all from us folks!! Peace out!! ^_^

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 61 Deadbeat Posting

Hello, kind void. Let's get into it, shall we?

Bad TL of editor's notes:

First page: 交差する思惑-!! [kouki suru omowaku-!!] Intersecting motives-!! Last page: 座村の娘, 一般社会に紛れて... [Samura no musume, ippan shakai ni magirete...] Samura's daughter, blending in with the general public...

What is Going On?!

So, uh... is there a Maury or Dr. Phil in the Kagurabachi universe? Wait, no, let's start with the best part of the chapter:

lmao

THANK YOU for this little breather. It's still not enough but seeing Chihiro get babied by his new ninja maids is fucking hilarious. They really do just swoop in and take care of whoever their charge is- no wonder Samura put his foot down early on with them. Would have been the perfect time to learn their names too, but Hokazono-sensei must have a deadly allergy to names in text boxes.

If we're gonna be spending quality time with these guys, shouldn't we know who they are though? This isn't a Bandana or Ice Lady scenario; they're sticking around for at least the rest of this Samura-specific mini arc and interacting with Chihiro directly. If it's commentary on how they see themselves as tools, that's one thing. But I think this is just more of the same stinginess from the author considering we got a different name drop at the end of the chapter. I guess we shouldn't expect to keep seeing them after a certain point? I swear, if we have to wait for more volume extras to get these guys' names despite spending a good chunk of an arc with them...

Prep those zombie AU fics/fan arts

Welp, there's no doubt about it now- Uruha's actual status is yet another dangling thread that will be followed up on eventually. Let's toss it on the pile with all the rest.

Got some interesting lore implications about how the Lifelong Contract with the bearer of the blade might affect their body too thanks to this. I'm honestly more interested in that bit of information than anything else from this scenario, since we are still lacking on a lot of particulars about the nature of entering a contract with these swords.

I'm not really mentally prepared for whatever's happening to Uruha himself; if he's alive, I will be mad that I got jebaited and call hax like the petty baby I am. If his corpse is being used in unethical experiments... I do love me some horror but I will be Very Sad and Upset that it happened to Uruha. He deserves some dignity after what Samura did to him. No matter what though, the Kamunabi are doing some dastardly shit in secret right now, so... hooray one more thing we have to sit tight and wait to learn about.

So... is the general public OK with giant owl eyes darkening the skies 24/7 all across Japan? Maybe we're not meant to think too hard about this and just accept that it's happening because it looks cool. It's fun to imagine Samura brooding on some rooftop, waiting to use Crow to teleport to the first Enchanted Blade signal he detects though. Just like a ping! ZOOP! murder time! kinda thing.

Questions about Chihiro's contract to Enten aside for now (like so many others), if he can't even draw the sword without summoning a raid boss then how is he going to fight? Not something I think we'll have to wait too long to see so I'm actually looking forward to the next set of action scenes to see how Chihiro defends himself (with the Masumi's help). I hope it comes with some lore about how the contract works too but that could also come from whatever's going on with Uruha so I won't be pinning all my hopes on Chihiro here. He's got enough burdens already- and is about to add one more by acting as a bodyguard to an unassuming high school girl.

Infinite Aura Loss

"Call up one of those trashy daytime talk shows ASAP."

So... rather than deal with the Samura problem with all the stuff we've got set up already, we get yet more complications by revealing that not only did Samura have a daughter, he had straight sex at least once. And was even married before becoming a divorcee deadbeat dad who "killed" his daughter instead of trying to work things out. Damn this guy has issues.

Three years ago is when the Kamunabi rounded up all the Bearers into the Shame Boxes (sanso) after Kunishige's death- maybe this was the turning point for Samura. Based on the wording it's not like Samura's the only one who had loved ones to consider; he just chose the nuclear option and asked his ninja maids to set his daughter free from him for some reason. Useless to speculate until we hear it from the man himself but damn. Cutting your child out of your life so completely that she forgets you exist (and vice-versa!) is a bit harsh isn't it? She's going to have some serious bullshit to deal with very soon. Way to do all the wrong things out of guilt buddy. Did you at least keep up with the child support payments?

Mutton Chops not having any qualms about using an innocent girl as a pawn to get to Samura speaks volumes about why Samura didn't want her involved though. This org is not getting any praise for doing the right thing when we finally learn about them.

I'm not sure I like this development but it gets put into the "wait and see" category like so many other things have at this point. Hokazono's delivered pretty consistently so far so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that there will be good payoffs for complicating things even further. Honestly? As long as this mini arc ends with more questions answered than asked, I'll be content.

Look, typical shounen fanservice! Kind of!

But of course we got a shitton of new questions about how this masking sorcery works, how they're gonna find her if no one can recognise her as Samura's child, what else the Kamunabi might have done with these powers at their disposal, if the Masumi did this on the down-low or if the Kamunabi also knew, and why the heck does Ms. Masumi have so many different types of sorcery she can do anyway? Transport, technique recovery, now hiding identities! I gotta learn why these ninjas can do so many things that seem to contradict the established rule of "one sorcery per person unless you're special enough to have two". Are the Masumi our gateway into learning about sorcery applications beyond one's innate abilities, such as channeling spirit energy into special objects designed for a purpose like the barriers Shiba configured to protect the Rokuhiras? Or is Ms. Masumi's ability something along the lines of being able to manipulate ink/inscriptions to invoke different effects? I'm going crazy...

I think I'll have an easier time if I just sit back and accept that a lot of things are going to happen because of the cool factor instead of any deep logic. It's not fair to the author, I know, but it's the only way I can keep my sanity right now. I'll be really happy if the doubts get shoved back in my face though.

War Orphan Society?

We didn't need to meet you guys yet either!

Hiruhiko's recovering offscreen so we get different folks collected by John for the Hishaku's PoV this time. Wonder how long they'll stick around before they get murked.

Kuguri (久々李) is the only name we got this chapter. 久 (ku) means ancient, a long time, or to remain unchanged. The intentions could be conveying a long and happy life, patience/perseverance, or just a name that will never sound out-of-date. 李 (ri) means plum tree, judge, official, or jailer for resilience/strength or justice and fairness (々 is just a kanji repetition marker). I'll go with [ancient plum tree] because it's cool! But obviously I'm not at all trustworthy on this so it's best to be sceptical.

We don't know the girl's name yet, but she's definitely a tomboy of some kind since she uses the male personal pronoun 僕 [boku]. I think she's actually the first one to use it in the whole series since most of the guys use 俺 (ore)- even Mr. Inazuma. The only exception I caught skimming through to check was Kyora (he used 私 [watashi], the polite pronoun for all genders). At any rate, hooray two more Hishaku members... we only have one or two left to reveal from the core group now. John Hiruhiko Kuguri Hatshaku Jane Samurai Worst Jeanist Tomboy (maybe) shadowy guy in the crazy subspace from ch. 7 ???

Another week of new Hishaku info, another week of waiting for the big Seitei War lore drops. I jokingly referred to this section with war orphans, but what if they really are? The Hishaku have deep resentment of some kind towards the Kamunabi -the government itself- and seem to be on hard times based on the state of their hideout. A lot of the members we've met seem young and disaffected too. Seems like more evidence they were on the side that lost the war to me.

Wonder how Kuguri knew Sojo and what exactly he admired about the greaseball. ...And which Bearer's blade he's got one-sided love for. My bets are on the Girl bearer but it could well be Sushi Chef or Samura too because this series loves to have men profess their deep love for other men.

I consider meeting Sushi Chef and Girl Bearer to be resolutions to a question instead of further complications because we've been waiting for information about them since they were teased in chapter 18. At the very least I want to know their names so I don't have to keep calling them Sushi Chef and Girl, y'know? Sushi Chef is probably the one we will meet next since he was conspicuously brought up last chapter... we'll see! Again! Hopefully soon.

Oh but speaking of Hiruhiko:

Look at this unhappy frog man.

Just keeping an eye out if he gets his Hishaku tattoo back or not for now...

One chapter left before the end-of-the-year magazine break, dear void; hopefully it won't leave us on a massive cliffhanger. I'm staying in it but man I would like more answers to come soon. I'm going numb from all the over-stimulation now. May this arc answer a bunch of questions before introducing many more, please and thank you, amen.

[kiinaya]

How To Get Multiple Colors in a Text

warning this is might be long due to my over-explanation!!!

Some time ago I got a comment on my post asking how I got the color fading effect in my text and used non-default text colors, like the title above. I also got a few messages about this.

I swear wanted to respond sooner, but I completely forgot. When I finally got the time to reply, I noticed my response turned into an essay! So, I decided it would be easier to make a post instead, and if you're like me and are a visual learner don't worry I included images!

Also, I have ADHD and over-explain things. I realized that while drafting my reply, it came across as patronizing. So if I sound that way in this post, I assure you it's not my intention; I just tend to explain things in detail because I prefer having things explained to me like that with the smallest details addressed. I tried to make it super simple for those who are new to Tumblr.

Here is the website I used: https://patorjk.com/text-color-fader/

If you got how it works congrats, If not, and you're confused, feel free to read the steps I take when using it!

HOW TO GET THE CODE!

1.) The first step is to enter your text which is done here!

2.) Choose the number of colors you want your text to have. At least 2 colors are needed for your text to have a fade effect. For using just one color without fading, refer to 3.c.

3.a) Choose your colors from the presets which btw automatically change the number of colors used but you could simply change it.

3.b) If you would like to choose your own colors, ignore the presets and simply click on the color to edit the Hex code. Keep in mind that the order of the colors, as shown above, is the same order in which they will appear in the text when the code is generated.

3.c) To use a single color without any fade effect, set the color amount to 2, which is the minimum allowed. Then edit the two colors to have an identical hex code.

4.a) You can choose your Fade type using the below options. For this post, I will be using the horizontal fade type, as it's the one I prefer. I haven't explored the other options much, so feel free to experiment and choose whatever you like!

4.b) For the output code ALWAYS KEEP IT AS HTML when using it on Tumblr. Unless something changes with the website, HTML is the default, so you don't need to worry about making any changes.

5.a) Click the generate button at the bottom of the page to create the code.

5.b) This is how the results will appear with multiple colors and just one color. By default, the background color is set to black, but you can change it to white or another color to test how your text will look. This option can be found at the lower right side of the results, titled "View Against Background." (NOTE: The background color does not affect the code and is not included in the code itself.)

5.c) If you want to edit something, simply press the "create new fade" button at the bottom. Don’t worry; it won't reset anything; it will just take you back to the previous page!

6.) When you are okay with the results copy the code. To do this press the select all at the bottom right of the code. This will just highlight the code so you will need to either press ctrl c, ⌘ c, or whatever you do to copy text on your device!

NOW, HOW TO PUT THE CODE INTO TUMBLR!

7.a) Head over to Tumblr and create a post! Make sure you're editing using HTML by pressing the little setting button on the upper right side of your post.

7.b) Scroll down to the text editor. The default should be rich text. Press the dropdown and choose HTML.

7.c) Paste the code in the HTML editor. Then save it as a draft to make sure it looks good before posting.

8.) Here's how it should look. Be aware that the HTML editor does mess up your image placements a bit when editing, but that's an easy fix. You just edit the draft and drag the images back to where you wanted them, and it won't mess with the code.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM YOU MIGHT FACE

You might get a warning like this when using bulky paragraphs with color-fading text on Tumblr, as it wrongfully considers them to exceed the character limit. This warning doesn't appear for single-colored text. When I switched to a single color, the warning disappeared, allowing me to save my draft. When this warning appears, you will not be able to save your draft at all, which puts you at risk of losing all your work. What I usually do when I get this warning and am unable to save the draft is change the text editor, use HTML, and save the draft from there.

Please be aware of two minor issues with this hack: First, HTML can interfere with your images. If your images are stacked, that's fine; however, if they are side by side, HTML will change them to a stacked format. Second, the "read more" link will be deleted by HTML. While both issues can often be resolved using the rich text editor, you won't be able to fix them in this scenario because the rich text editor won't let you save the draft or post due to incorrectly seeing the character limit.

To work around this issue, I sometimes save the draft as HTML on my computer to bypass character limits. Then, I use the Tumblr app on my phone to adjust the image placement and re-add the “read more” link. This may not always work so just be aware of these potential issues!

That's it! If you have any questions, feel free to comment or message me, I'm kind of new at this too so bear with me!

PS, @angel-dustspo I’m so sorry for the late reply!!

[mariacallous]

Nearly every day someone or other on my social media feeds will share the same quote by Hannah Arendt. It reads:

This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.  

It’s a damning quote about autocracies by the late German-Jewish political theorist, whose book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” has also found a new audience in a political climate where lies and misinformation are flowing down from high office, where Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on a common set of facts, and where Mark Zuckerberg said his company will no longer moderate hate speech and misinformation on Facebook and its other platforms.

The only problem? Arendt never said it — or at least not exactly. As the Arendt scholar Roger Berkowitz pointed out over the summer, Arendt said and wrote “many similar things,” but the viral quote seems to have been patched together from various other statements she made in a long and prolific career. 

Berkowitz isn’t the only one to note the irony that a philosopher who considered truth “the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us” is represented by someone else’s version of what she did or didn’t say. But distortion may be the inevitable consequence of celebrity: Interest in Arendt, who died in 1975 at the age of 69, is riding a wave that hasn’t crested. 

A new book, “What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt,” gathers and translates all of Arendt’s poems for the first time in English. A new, critical edition of her unfinished final book, “The Life of the Mind,” came out last year to glowing reviews. A recent study by UCLA scholar David Kim, “Arendt’s Solidarity: Anti-Semitism and Racism in the Atlantic World,” explores her notions of intergroup cooperation in the fight against bigotry — and her blind spots in applying the notion of solidarity to African-Americans and other oppressed groups. 

The Israeli media have discovered — or re-re-discovered — her thoughts on war and responsibility in the 15 months since Oct. 7. Vera Weidenbach, in Haaretz, invoked Arendt in criticizing the failure of the progressive left to condemn Hamas, in calling Benjamin Netanyahu a “wannabe dictator,” and in decrying “the deterioration of moral standards” among the Israeli public. 

Another Haaretz columnist, Robert Zaretsky, wrote that Arendt would have found Israel’s initial response to the Hamas massacre “utterly justifiable” — and would also have supported the International Criminal Court’s decision to prosecute Hamas and Israel for war crimes. 

Conservative pundit Bret Stephens embraces her anti-totalitarian writings; a contributor to Sapir, the journal he edits, quotes her in rebuking “post-colonialists” who justified the Oct. 7 attacks.

Of course, Arendt isn’t around to defend or deny these appropriations. And because she wrote so much and in language that was painstakingly nuanced, she’s ripe for cherry-picking. Her ideas are invoked in conversations about a host of contemporary ills: authoritarianism, racial- and gender-based violence, climate change, and right-wing populism, to name a few.

“People like to appeal to her because her name brings a sense of authority and weight into a conversation. You know, some people joke about ‘St. Hannah.’ She can’t do anything wrong,” said Samantha Rose Hill, author of a 2021 biography of Arendt and editor of the new collection of her poems. “She was very anti-ideological. And so there’s a question for readers about how seriously they take her position on certain topics, and to what extent she’s just trying to get us to think about the different sides of the political argument.” 

Arendt was born in 1906 in what is now Hanover, Germany, to secular, middle-class Jewish parents. Having read all of Kant’s works by the age of 14, she received her doctorate in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg when she was 22. 

In 1933, she spent eight days as a prisoner of the Gestapo, jailed for the research into antisemitism she had done for the World Zionist Organization. Released, she fled to France, where she worked for Youth Aliyah, helping Jews immigrate to Palestine. She was eventually able to escape through Spain and Lisbon to New York, where she arrived as a stateless refugee in 1941.

At Columbia University, the eminent Jewish historian Salo Baron helped Arendt get published in English and land a teaching post in modern Jewish history at Brooklyn College (she later taught at Princeton, The New School and the University of Chicago). Baron also hired Arendt as head of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, an organization charged with rescuing heirless Jewish books and artifacts stolen by the Nazis.  

“The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951, established her reputation and her place as one of the “New York Intellectuals,” a largely Jewish tribe of left-leaning, anti-Stalinist writers. 

Their political disputes were fierce and legendary, and many in the crowd turned to the right with the rise of the radical left and its disdain for Israel. Arendt, fiercely independent, was hard to pin down ideologically, but she drew across-the-board ire in 1963 when her coverage of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a mastermind of the Holocaust, appeared in The New Yorker. Critics charged that the now famous phrase she used to describe the Nazis’ genocidal enterprise, “the banality of evil,” minimized Eichmann’s crimes. Worse, they said, she had shown remarkably little empathy for the Jews forced into collaborating with their tormentors. 

Arendt’s reputation took another, posthumous, hit in 1982 when a biographer wrote about her youthful love affair and lasting friendship with the famed German philosopher and later Nazi Party member Martin Heidegger. 

Her defenders, however, remained fiercely loyal to her work and her legacy. They included Jerome Kohn, who died in November at the age of 93. Much that was written and said about her was “preposterous,” wrote Kohn, her executor, former research assistant and the founder of the Hannah Arendt Center at The New School in Manhattan. He was particularly adamant about accusations that she was a “self-hating Jew.” 

In a collection he edited of Arendt’s Jewish writings, Kohn insisted that her experience as a Jew — as a target of antisemitism in her youth, as a German Jew left stateless, as a supporter of a Jewish nation in Palestine, (albeit a binational state of Jews and Arabs) — “is literally the foundation of her thought: it supports her thinking even when she is not thinking about Jews or Jewish questions.”

In his book about Arendt’s notion of “solidarity,” Kim, a professor in the department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, says Arendt’s perception of how the world failed the Jews shaped her thinking on liberation for other oppressed peoples — and not always for the better. While she considered herself what today we might call an “antiracist,” by the late 1960s she was wary of the Black Power movement and rejected the idea of assigning collective guilt to white people for the evils of slavery, Jim Crow and lingering racism. Her resistance to the militant wing of the civil rights movement, writes Kim, “tells the story of Arendt’s imperfect love for the world.”

And yet in death Arendt seems to have gotten the last word: Beginning with the rise of Donald Trump and the resurgence of real and would-be autocrats from Venezuela to Hungary to Russia, her works are back in fashion. Even her poems — published together for the first time in the new collection — reflect preoccupations that seem of the moment: alienation, loneliness, the feeling of being a refugee, the terror of living under totalitarianism and a way of thinking free of ideological orthodoxies.

And yet Hill, the editor of the poetry collection, cautions against relying on Arendt as a sort of intellectual guru. At a conference in November, she even suggested “it’s time to put her back on the shelf.” 

“We live in a radically different time today, and I think that requires a new form of analysis,” Hill, a professor at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, told me. “I think that to try to divine what is happening right now through her work is a sort of misdirection, and it can lead to a kind of looking away from reality, which is the very thing that she cautioned us against.”

[watcherthrowaway]

also one real post about this and like, plenty of ink has been spilt on how disconnected watcher entertainment seems to be from its fans but i think the missing piece here is how disconnected watcher is from the rest of youtube. when the catastrophe hit i went to all my terminally online friends, the same way i did after the hbomberguy james somerton video, or after the ned fulmer fiasco, or the creepshowart scandal etc, or every time jenny nicholson dropped a new evermore video, including the ones behind the $2 patreon paywall we all gladly pay for, and for the first time...

no one knew who i was talking about.

these are not insulated people. these are people i can trust to have at least name recognition of almost any youtuber i mention. they know downtherabbithole and strangeaeons and cjthex and kappakaiju and miniminuteman773 and kazrowe and somemorenews etc etc etc

so when i put in the group chat, with no context, 'he wasnt even on cribs' or 'we have no cats kathleen' or 'only humble pagan commune schemes' or whatever, i usually do so with great trust that at least half the group will know what im on about.

this time, crickets.

i backpedaled a little and pulled up the 'ive connected them' meme and the fuzzy blue professor, and i got nothing at all. the only recognition i got was when someone belatedly realized that he had seen the goatman video when it dropped (although he had no idea that they had their own company now), and another person remembered that they had offered to collab with danny gonzalez, a youtuber with twice the subscribers

because she had checked back to see if danny went ghost hunting again, and lost interest because he hadnt.

i also brought it up in my dedicated buzzfeed unsolved group chat but ummmmm i am the only one in that group still watching ever since the shift to watcher oops

the only splash they had made in my again, TERMINALLY ONLINE friend group that watches hours and hours of youtube a day was a buzzfeed video seven years ago, and when they had failed to collab with someone more famous than them. i found myself in the unusual position of having to explain the situation to a bunch of dirty internet gremlins, all of whom heard the whole story and said 'why would they do that'

not 'why would they do that to their fans' but 'why would they do that as youtubers'

even aside from the moneygrubbing, we watcher stans were confused about why they tried to offer us a service we didn't need or want, and i think it obscured the confusion on why they thought it was a good idea at all, when so many other models were available to them. why werent they using their patreon like other youtubers? why weren't they collaborating with other youtubers? why weren't they putting out regular, lower quality content like other youtubers? if they wanted higher quality content, why weren't they partnering with nebula, like lindsay ellis, or netflix, like bo burnham. why didn't they run their ideas past someone like the green brothers, who have jumpstarted scishow and many other similar projects successfully, and are famously good to work with/consult with? why would they try to pull a roosterteeth? don't they know what happened?

and i think the answer is no. i think they just don't know those things. and they didnt bother to check, because they think all those things are beneath them. because they think corporate content is the only worthwhile kind there is.

why else would they think they have to have an office building, keep dozens of people on staff, buy expensive cameras, and build a streaming platform? why do they only collaborate with actors and singers who have corporate entertainment approval? why are they reinventing the wheel on buzzfeed when thousands of youtubers build perfectly stable careers with a mic and a camera, and sometimes hire an editor?

i guess my takeaway from this is that, at least they didnt break my heart as a fan entirely because they fundamentally misunderstood me. they did it, at least in part, because they do not understand how youtube works, or what part they play in it.

they dont understand how people use youtube. it is not a cinematic event worthy of the big tv, it is line goes up playing in the background for the 400th time as i wash my face and put my laundry away.

that is why they spent months and months planning this without ever noticing it was a bad idea, while millions of youtube viewers knew instantly. thats why they didn't start with a more moderate solution, why they never used their patreon properly, why they cared so much about the production value, why they thought a youtube audience, any audience at all, would jump at the chance to leave youtube.

bc youtube as a creator sucks, and we all know that, but youtube as a viewer is extremely comfortable. all i ask of youtube is to be mildly interesting in the background while i do other stuff. it is filler. some of the filler is extremely good, yes, but there is no room or reason in my life to give more of my money and attention to my filler, let alone to get a bigger screen for it.

and honestly, this is why i and others stayed on with the ghoul boys even though their quality dropped. because it's filler. im not even looking at the screen you apparently spent 100k on. im flipping my eggs. im washing my hair. im waiting for the bus with my headphones in and my phone in my pocket. thank you for being my background music. in return i will sit through your ads and push your view counter up by one. i may even hit the like button by accident bc my phone is in my pocket.

this is not to say i dont enjoy my filler. i would absolutely die without it. but it is not and never will be exchanged for the instances when i make popcorn in The Big Bowl and turn on a Real Movie on the Big Screen (my old laptop that is 15 whole inches) with my phone turned over so nothing can distract me.

my filler can't be my movie, and vice versa. nor should it be. but watcher doesnt understand that, apparently. they think youtube is cruelly preventing them from being netflix, and they think we want netflix, and they don't understand that, even with that half-assed apology that they didn't explain their dream correctly and they are jsut so destitute they had to take extreme measures after they went to europe 6 too many times...

there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how people use youtube , both as creators and as consumers. they didn't just misunderstand their fanbase. they continue to misunderstand the entire ecosystem. idk guys. maybe you should have learned something from those youtubers that you apparently think you are too good for.

and as for me, welp. i've booted people from my filler line-up for less. and there are soooooooooooooo many other fish in the sea, and they are not asking me to pay them 27 corporation salaries from my own pocket. they are asking for me to bump their view counter up by one.

goodbye boys. i really hope you find a way to fulfill yourselves artistically or whatever. but you have burned this particular bridge, like. forever. and i don't think i'm the only one who feels that way.

and not because i dont support people getting a living wage, you guilt-tripping vultures, or because i dont believe in following dreams and wishing on stars and whatnot.

but because i prefer to consume content from people who know what they're doing, and i simply no longer trust that includes you.

[moonlightreal]

How close is Strange Fate?

So where in the process of publication is Strange Fate? How confident can we be that we’ll really see it and can we make a ballpark guess at how long it could take?

And bonus question, how do we all sign up to get ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) from whatever publisher picks it up?

With these questions in my mind I set about my googling…

TLDR: it is far. Not close.

Thanks to my awesome comrade in the quest, @ljsmiths-thenightworld asking Ms. Smith, we know the books are finished. Really, actually finished. Or at least they SAY… and they’ve said it before… no. I’m gonna have faith, they’re really finished!

The manuscripts are with the literary agent who as far as I can tell does a whole bunch of things. He edits the book, makes recommendations how the book should be changed to better suit the market, and gets it shipshape to be presented to publishers. This seems to be the step Strange Fate is in now.

But it might also be in the next step: shopping the book around to the editors who work for different publishing companies. As the publisher for the rest of the series, Simon & Schuster has “right of first refusal” aka “dibs.” If S&S doesn’t want it, Ms. Smith’s agent should(?) be free to approach other publishers or self publish. Assuming she doesn’t have some kind of contract with S&S that is still valid after twenty years.

Google tells me it is possible for a publisher to buy the rights but never release the book, but that is not done very often because there would be no monetary gain for the publisher in it. It seems unlikely that any publisher would do this with Strange Fate.

If (strange) fate favors us, a publisher will want the book and there will be a contract drawn up. Another round of major edits might happen here since the publisher also has ideas about what kind of book they want to print and Ms. Smith will have to do rewrites to accommodate this.

This step is a bit worrying since the Night World books are so very nineties and if Strange Fate comes out vibing 2024 it’d be kind of a shame. Also Strange Fate is two books now, we don’t know how long they are but there might be a lot to re-edit.

Once a publisher buys the book they have to get the book print-shipshape, plan the release, design the cover, and pitch the book to bookstores to sell. They also have to print the physical books, starting with the Advance Reader Copies and then do a final edit for typos. Then there’s marketing. I wonder if S&S might do a new edition of the whole series as a way to build up hype, find new readers and remind everybody else what they’re getting-- but that would really stretch the timeline so let’s hope they don’t.

And at last the book will appear. The internet tells me “12 to 24 months or even longer” from the publishing contract to the release date. So when are we looking at seeing Strange Fate? Not anytime soon!

I’m thinking LJ Smith maybe should have waited until she had a publisher on the hook before she returned to public life and gave us this exciting news. It could be a long wait, and if I’m reading my results of googling right it could all still fall apart. If no publisher wants the book we’re all in the soup!

But LJ Smith and her team know much more about the situation than I do and they are confidant enough that things will go well that they decided now was a good time to appear on the internet and start some buzz. So maybe I should shake off my pessimism and trust that Ms. Smith’s team knows what they’re doing!

Oh, and those Advance Reader Copies? Here’s a nice blog post about how to get them. There doesn’t seem to be a really surefire way and your chances are better if you have a book blog, write a lot of reviews, or are some kind of influencer. And much as I love our tumblrs, I don’t think we count lol! So we’ve got 12-24 months to do lots of favors for some influencers so we can call them in at the right moment!

Another thing I was thinking of: contact Simon and Schuster and ask about Strange Fate. Say you’re excited about it. If they keep records of the subject of every call, at least they’d know a nonzero number of people are interested. I called the “Mail Toll Free Line” years ago when asking about Strange Fate. (I assume it’s supposed to be ‘main’ and that typo has been there since, what, 2017?)

So the results of my googling say we’re at least a year or two out from reading Strange Fate. What gloomy news! But the light in the darkness is that we’re still closer to Strange Fate than we’ve ever been. The books exist. If things fall through with the fist publisher, there are other publishers. There’s self-publishing. If LJ Smith isn’t able to manage it, her heirs might, much as we hope it doesn't come to that. If the books become lost media, at least they’re out there to be found.

[jokeroutsubs]

[ENG sub/translation] Bojan Cvjetićanin: "Slovenia is too small for Tinder" (podcast)

Bojan Cvjetićanin on Cosmopolitan podcast, originally published on the 15th of September 2020 here. Podcast host: Anamarija Lukovec. Translation by @varianestoroff, native English proofreading by TWT @/klámstrákur.

This is an audio-only podcast, but you can listen and read the subtitles along with it here:

or you can read the full transcript in this post!

Teaser:

Bojan: I don't want to be available... available with a click. I want to be available in that if I am sitting in a bar, anyone can come up to me, that any girl can come up to me and ask me, I don't know, “Would you like to have a drink with me?”, “Can I have your number?”, whatever. Which doesn't happen anymore anyway, but...

Full transcript under the cut!

Host: Hi, believe it or not, the Cosmo Podcast is back. And it's back for a new, changed second season. Some things will stay the same, some things will change a little. And the very first thing that remains the same is that ... it remains the same that I will still be in front of the microphone. My name is Anamarija Lukovec and I'm the executive editor of Cosmopolitan.

In fact, I was thinking that we don't even know each other. We don't even know each other, actually. Even if you've heard all the episodes from last season, you probably don't know anything about me. I don't know anything about you. So I will introduce myself with one piece of information, which has somehow defined the new season. I notice in myself that I have many opinions that are not widely held. And also that, [while we] as a society are promoting ourselves as increasingly open-minded, free-thinking, accepting, we often act very hypocritically and are even Hostile to opinions that are not in line with ours, or with some opinions that are accepted by the majority.

So I want every guest of mine who comes to the new season of the podcast to present their unpopular opinion as a starting point for our discussion. To break taboos, to talk about things that may often go unheard to educate ourselves, and perhaps to anger or soothe our souls. Okay. Yes, and I'd really like to get to know you too, I'd like to know who you are, who's basically a Cosmo Podcast listener, so I'm inviting you, to send me your ideas, your secrets, your compliments, your complaints. Or you can just write, "Hi". I suggest Instagram for that. You can DM me at lunaticpoetry. It's L-U-N-A-T-I-C-P-O-E-T-R-Y. And yes, I don't use my real name, more on that another time.

So yeah, if you're up for it, we can get started and kick off a new season of the podcast. My first guest, yes, it's a male guest, not a female guest, I can't believe it, a round of applause... he's a musician, singer, frontman of the band Joker Out, Bojan Cvjetićanin. I'm sure you know him. I am sure you have a very good reason for knowing him. Bojan came to talk to me about relationships, dating, girls...

Before that, before we did the podcast, he also made a video. We invited him for a blind date in front of the camera because Bojan is single, wink wink. So yeah, I invite you, after you're done listening to the podcast, to click over to youtube.com/cosmopolitanslovenija where you can watch the blind date with Bojan¹.

And yes, let's start, right. Hi Bojan.

Bojan: Hi.

Host: How was your first blind date on camera?

Bojan: I was a bit nervous because I hadn't been on any blind dates before, and then the first time it was in front of the camera, oh my gosh. The camera catches everything, you can't hide anything. But I think I did a great job. The girl was great too.

Host: Do you think maybe you two have a future together?

Bojan: I don't know. I don't know. I must take a look at the crystal ball at home.

Host: Ah ok. In fact, our topic for today, your unpopular opinion, is also a little bit about love, dating, and so on. Can you just reveal your thoughts?

Bojan: My unpopular opinion, I don't know how unpopular it really is, but it is that Slovenia is too small for Tinder.

Host: Okay. And why do you think so?

Bojan: I feel that way because it seems to me that we all know someone who knows someone, and in Slovenia, this kind of social network very quickly turns into something where in the end everybody knows everybody and Tinder, at least in my experience, is quite, how should I say... funny, because you very quickly come across people you know.

Host: But maybe Slovenia is too small for dating in general? Because sooner or later you find, meet, date someone who someone you know has dated or been in contact with.

Bojan: I think it is. In fact, it is... We have this concept of dating, which I think is very different from the American one. In America, it's normal to go out with someone a couple of times a week and then, if you like them, you go to another one and maybe something develops. I don't think that exists here. Here, if you like someone a lot, you write to them on Instagram and then, if you're lucky, they say you can go out and two days later everyone knows.

Host: Yes, pretty much.

Bojan: Then you are off the list for all her friends.

Host: You close the door.

Bojan: Yes

Host: Do you think that makes us slower to go public with our relationships?

Bojan: Shoot, I don't know. Maybe we are a bit more secretive about it then, because of that, because we want to keep that certain feeling that the whole city doesn't know exactly who you're with but then all your friends are thinking about whether they know someone who was with your girlfriend or for girls if one of them was with her boyfriend.

Host: But perhaps the biggest problem here is that we are somehow closing our options, when we decide too quickly whether to be with someone

Bojan: To close our options with others?

Host: Yeah, let's say, because you know that if you're with a girl, then you probably won't go out with her friends or acquaintances. Well...

Bojan: In fact, that's probably pretty true, yes. Because I already feel that since we tend to introduce our friends to our online followers, and you're usually with them on stories and in photos, it would be a bit strange if one of your acquaintances dated the same person two months later, when you [and that person] were previously in the same pictures.

Host: And everyone would know. And suddenly you have a soap opera in front of the whole world.

Bojan: Right.

Host: Since you said Tinder is too small for Slovenia, you probably have your own experience with Tinder. You mentioned something earlier when we were filming. Would you tell us a little bit about your encounter with this app?

Bojan: I have a rather funny experience with Tinder. I was very interested to see what it was like. And of course I had to download it. And I made a profile, I put like three photos up and so on. And then I started getting screenshots of my Tinder profile in Instagram messages from some followers, “Oh my god, is that you?”, “Hey, is that you?”, and so I was like, “No, it's not me, no. It's a fake profile. It's a fake profile.” And it felt really awkward so I deleted it immediately.

Host: But why did you feel awkward?

Bojan: I actually made one because I was curious...

Host: In what it is like?

Bojan: In what it is like. This user experience. You actually see people and you just swipe them and there are no consequences. Nothing happens if you swipe someone left or if you swipe someone right. And I found that very interesting. But then I realised, yes, okay, but now it can be public opinion that I need to look for a girlfriend through an online service.

Host: Girlfriend. Or a one night stand.

Bojan: Right.

Host: Do you think public opinion is generally negative towards online dating? Because it seems to me there it is a kind of stigma, or something people are hesitant about when going online to look for love or a partner, because it's, I don't know...

Bojan: I think that this ‘Frendi in Flirt’ (‘Friends and Flirting’)² started when I was little and then the whole story was that these are services for people who are desperate. Both Tinder and these apps have normalised things a lot, I think, because it's virtually at everyone's fingertips. You sign in with that one click to connect with Facebook or you make a password and that's it. It used to be a process of making a profile and a photo and put the age and blah blah blah. And it was a bit more official, I think, when you decided to take that step. Now it's not a step anymore, now it's just, I download it in my room at home and in three minutes I have Tinder. So I don't think there is that much stigma about online dating anymore, I also know a lot of people who are in some kind of relationship through this, so I'd say there's still a bit of that, okay, LOL, you met on Tinder, there is no stigma of being a sad loner, someone desperate.

Host: By going on Tinder, you are basically admitting to the whole world or to all people who will see you there, that you are looking for something. And that's a bit awkward for us to admit. Yes, I am looking for something.

Bojan: Yes, in fact it is. I also... that was one of the reasons I deleted it. I mean, what is there for me to find now, you know?

Host: I'm cool on my own.

Bojan: Yeah, I mean, no, I'm cool on my own, but that, well, not everyone needs to know, that I am now looking for something, and that I am very available. Do you know what the cool thing is? That... I don't want to be available... available with a click. I want to be available in that if I am sitting in a bar, anyone can come up to me, that any girl can come up to me and ask me, I don't know, “Would you like to have a drink with me?”, “Can I have your number?”, whatever. Which doesn't happen anymore anyway, but... I would like to be available like that. But I don't want to be available for someone who can just swipe on me.

Host: Yes, yes, okay. Now, you said that a couple of girls screenshotted your Tinder and then sent it to you on Instagram. Did those same girls, for example, message you directly on Instagram?

Bojan: You mean directly on Tinder?

Host: Yes. No. Yes. Or directly on Instagram. Let's say, okay, on Tinder, if you didn't swipe them, they couldn't get to you...

Bojan: Yeah, probably then they wouldn't be able to.

Host: But then they wrote to you on Instagram, probably in some, I don't know, wishful thinking to get in touch with you. Why do you think they don't go directly to Instagram? Why... Seeing you on Tinder gave them a green light: "Oh, in fact, he is free, I can write to him."

Bojan: Maybe. But I also think it is a much easier way to just communicate something that already exists, than to start a conversation yourself. That's the same as, I don't know, I think most of the time, if we're sliding into someone's DMs, we're sliding through some story first or something you can reply to. It's much easier to reply back to something they've posted, than starting a conversation from scratch, where you let the person know you've come with the purpose that you want to get to know them and initiate a relationship. Like that looks so innocent: I'm just replying to what you posted.

Host: Can you explain to me this game of sliding in the DMs, because I'm a bit out of the loop?

Bojan: Okay. Honestly, I don't know what can I tell you, because I don't practice it at such a level either. I have two ways to slide into the DMs, I think. One is that if I see something on a story that I actually find interesting or funny, I slide into the DMs and I don't really mean to initiate anything else. And I just comment on what went on there, and sometimes a really interesting conversation starts afterwards. But sometimes you really do just reply, because why not?

Host: Okay. You've camouflaged it so well now that no girl will be able to tell exactly what you want the next time you slide.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Good. But what do you think happened to the actual old school approach towards a girl or towards a guy in person?

Bojan: I mean, it has changed completely, but now, basically, now that I think about it, I wouldn't dare say which way. I definitely think it is much easier if you see someone outside and you like them, wait until you get home and text them on Instagram, "Hey, saw you in town." Or whatever. "Would you like to go for a coffee with me?" Asking someone out for coffee rather than actually approaching them.

On the other hand, it seems to me that since we are all so exposed on these social networks, giving our followers the impression that they are somehow present in our lives, letting them into all kinds of situations, so that I could say that people feel as if they're already your friends somehow, before they even know you. So maybe in a way... basically, I will say, I think it's much easier for people to get to you at parties now, because they feel that they are somehow already connected, or that they already know something about you and can initiate a conversation based on something you do or post and share on your social networks. In the city, when you see someone, it's easier to wait until you get home and then write to them on Instagram.

But the last time I went out for ice cream with a friend, a dude actually came along and he was like, "Hi, can I just grab you for a second?" and I thought that some Jehovah's Witness was going to start selling some books there. And the guy actually came and told my friend that he couldn't resist, because he liked her so much that he just came to ask for her contact, to take her out for a drink and I was like "Wow, what a gentleman."

Host: Plus you were there.

Bojan: I was there. The first thing he asked, he was very polite, the first thing he asked was if we were a couple. I said no, go ahead. And he was, indeed, extremely kind. A very polite guy.

Host: And did she give it to him?

Bojan: Hey, she gave him her Facebook, I think. I don't know if they went out after that, I have no idea. But it was pretty impressive for me, he got respect points from me.

Host: Cool. How do you act if you see one girl somewhere and you like her?

Bojan: I usually try to find out who the girl is as quickly as possible, then sneak into some of the places where she's hanging around, you know?

Host: Aha, oh, but that's...

Bojan: I mean, ok, that sounded a little bit creepy now.

Host: No, no, it's fine.

Bojan: I watched two episodes of that show, 'She'...

Host: ‘She'?

Bojan: Isn't 'She' the series?

Host: ‘You'?

Bojan: ‘You'. That, yes, sorry. Yeah, I've just realised that I've been that dude, very creepy.

Host: They're probably people you have something in common with, you don't just...

Bojan: Yes, I didn't mean like sneaking in, just going out somewhere, but I meant more along the lines of, ok, now I see she's going to Kino Šiška for an event and then I will go there on purpose, even if I wasn't planning to otherwise. For example, you just invite a friend for a beer and watch out for where she is.

Host: How would you describe your love life or the current situation?

Bojan: I am extremely single. I don't know what you call it. Single and ready to mingle.

Host: To mingle.

Bojan: But actually, I don't know, I'm not looking for anything. I'm in a period now in which I'm like, trying to devote myself as much as possible to music and all that. So I try to be as creative as possible and not let any unnecessary thoughts distract me from being creative. But if anything ever happens, I'm always open to socialising.

Host: Since we were just talking about Tinder earlier. Tinder is also often associated with certain modern relationships, which often have some negative connotations. Undefined relationships and indecisiveness. Blablabla. Fuckboys, etc. But do you think this is really a new culture?

Bojan: From what I hear from acquaintances who live in slightly bigger countries, Tinder is actually just there as a means to get to non-committal sex very quickly. In Slovenia... given that I've never actually used it properly, I don't know exactly. But I suppose, knowing people who are in serious relationships, that people here take it a bit more as... actually seeing someone, they might like each other and go out and get to know each other. But there are almost certainly a lot of people who are only there for the sex. I mean...

Host: Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Bojan: No, I mean, I don't think it's bad at all, really, because if two people are physically attracted to each other and if they are actually safe in their physical relationship, which is to say, approaching the matter safely, I see absolutely no problem with that, honestly.

Host: Do you have any personal objections, like what you wouldn't do in a relationship or romance? Given that so many things are so okay and acceptable nowadays and things are...

Bojan: What do you mean?

Host: I don't know.

Bojan: Be more specific.

Host: Let's say open relationships, cheating...

Bojan: Aha. Okay, I've practically only been in a serious relationship once and when I was in the serious relationship I would never have thought of an open relationship and I never cheated. It honestly seems to me that if two people date in an open relationship and it works for them or rather, it suits them, then I have no problem. But if two people are in a monogamous relationship, cheating is one thing that's very, very wrong to me, I do not support it at all. So, I have nothing against open unions, I would not practice them myself. At least not for now. I have a very negative attitude towards cheating.

Host: Personally, I think Slovenia is totally too small for cheating in general, we don't approve of it.

Bojan: Absolutely.

Host: But how do you think this even works? People still do it.

Bojan: Hey, in fact, people do it full on. I mean, I have a big circle of people around me and I hear many stories and I, personally, with this anxiety that I have inside, I couldn't even manage these master plans and combine multiple hidden lives. I don't know. But some people actually enjoy it very much.

Host: You really have to have a lot of time to do that. It must be a hobby for you.

Bojan: It must be, I guess, a hobby for you, but you must really not feel sorry for your partner. Because you always find out in the end, undoubtedly always. Never...

Host: I think you find out before you even cheat. For example, when we were looking for a girl to go on a blind date with you the other day, a colleague contacted a girl. Before she even heard back from her, that girl's brother told her that he already knew she'd been looking for his sister. So within fifteen minutes it got around. So, let's say, one example of how quickly information gets around Slovenia.

Bojan: Well, here we go. Pretty awkward.

Host: Considering you're a young musician and I kind of feel like you musicians have a reputation for certain qualities when it comes to women and relationships. Would you say that you are the usual, stereotypical womaniser, someone who breaks women's hearts? Because I'm sure someone would believe that you are.

Bojan: Yes, I know that too, they are convinced that I am. I think, that at least here, some Casanova style Mick Jagger rock'n'roll version is impossible, because it's one thing to be in Los Angeles one day and New York the next. I would absolutely not call myself a womaniser. I choose the relationships I have very carefully. But I am very flirtatious. I do very much enjoy flirting, actually, not at all because I would have expected any starting point from this, we know what I mean by that. But just for that, because it's actually a lot of fun to give someone some playful signals and receive them back. I think it's a bit like, it gets your adrenaline flowing a bit, it's not harmful at all, I'm sure it releases hormones of happiness and joy along with it, so I think that it's only healthy and that people should be more flirtatious in general.

Host: How do you make yourself more flirtatious? Let's say, it seems to me that it really depends on someone's nature.

Bojan: It's in our natures, but I think people just need to relax and open up a bit. I think most people have feelings inside them, but they don't dare to express them. I mean, if I like... if I like a girl, I have no problem with that, if we look at each other, catch each other's eyes, I'll smile nicely, I don't know, if it's appropriate at the moment, I don't know, I'll wink. Or something. You know what I mean? Not winking like this, "What's up babygirl?", but in a way that is playfully flirtatious. Whatever. I think people need to realise that these things are not a crime and that someone won't hold a grudge against you if you smile at them beautifully, [or] if you initiate a small conversation, because that is just a small part of our lives and [we are just] creating some bonds, so I think showing emotion is a very important thing.

Host: But what if I linked it to, let's say, cheating? How would you feel if your partner or you flirted with others while you were in a relationship? Would you consider that cheating?

Bojan: I wouldn't consider it cheating, but it would probably bother me, so I'd want to talk about it.

Host: How would you defend your generation, to which perhaps the older generations ascribe many prejudices, looking at the way we... what kind of relationships we have, how we socialise?

Bojan: I think it is very easy for each generation to look at the younger generation and... to look down on the younger generation and judge them, because maybe things were a little different in their time. All these things are very much linked to the whole lifestyle we have. It's not just the way young people are in relationships today, or the kind of life as a couple they have, because it's all connected to our whole lifestyle and living on the internet, travelling the world at every moment and blablabla. I find that very hypocritical of them, given that they are a generation, or okay, maybe they're a bit younger than this generation, but they were nevertheless this certain generation of this free love, psychedelia, who used sex and drugs to push back on the war. So it seems to me that this particular delinquency was far from being invented by us but it dates back to ancient times. So I think for all people, who think that young people today have invented some perversions, open relationships, gayness, and so on should read a book from ancient Greece or Rome and see, that Caligula³ lived all this two thousand years ago.

Host: Just a little less hidden, I guess.

Bojan: Yes, maybe.

Host: Would you be up for a challenge? Since you said you're not a womaniser.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: I have a BuzzFeed test here.

Bojan: BuzzFeed test?

Host: Are you a fuckboy? Do you want to take it?

Bojan: Okay, let's go.

Host: Have you ever sent a "You up?" text? "Are you sleeping?"

Yes, once. I promise.

No, never.

Yeah, that's my go-to move.

Bojan: No. I don't think so, really.

Host: Have you ever cheated on someone?

Bojan: No.

Host: You said it. "Have you ever sent an unwanted picture of your "little friend"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever sexted more than one person at the same time?

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you slept with two people in the same week?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever made up an excuse to leave immediately after sex?

Bojan: I think, yes.

Host: Have you ever convinced someone that you didn't need to use a condom?

Bojan: No.

Host: I would never. Okay. Have you ever posted a picture without your shirt on?

Bojan: Yes, indeed. In fact, I must have been shirtless a couple of times in the stories now, but I posted one shirtless photo two years ago.

Host: Ok.

Bojan: At sea.

Host: Yes, yes. Do you think all of your exes are "crazy bitches"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever asked a girl to send nudes?

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you ever bragged about girls you've been with?

Bojan: Like openly?

Host: Yes.

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you complained about being "friendzoned"?

Bojan: Almost certainly.

Host: Ok. Have you ever sent that emoji of a monkey covering its eyes?

Bojan: No.

Host: Do you have any...

Bojan: What is this monkey's thing?

Host: I don't know, maybe... it's some fuckboy hallmark, I don't know.

Do you have any V-neck tees?

Bojan: Mhm.

Host: Do you wear them?

Bojan: My mum bought them for me, so I guess it's not really fuckboyish.

Host: Yes. Do you have any tattoos that are only visible while wearing a V-neck?

Bojan: No.

Host: Do you have any tattoos?

Bojan: No, I don't.

Host: Have you ever slid into a girl's Twitter DMs?

Bojan: I don't have Twitter.

Host: What about Instagram? We said yes.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Are you in a band? Yees.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: You see, the hallmark of fuckboys. Are you a DJ?

Bojan: No. I mean, if she wants, I can be a DJ.

Host: Could be: "No, but my friend is this like super poppin' DJ".

Bojan: Yes, it could, it's true.

Host: Oh, it doesn't work.

Bojan: Can't fix it anymore?

Host: No. What are Top-Sider⁴?

Bojan: I don't know.

Host: We'll put... oh, it's some shoes.

Bojan: Then I'm sure not, because I only wear one pair of trainers, and that's these.

Host: I don't think that's it. Have you ever introduced a girl you've been dating as your "friend"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever randomly texted a girl you booty called more than a year ago?

Bojan: Booty called? Wait, what if I what?

Host: If you've been with a girl then, after a long time, you write her a random message.

Bojan: Almost certainly, yes.

Host: But were you genuinely interested in how her life was going or just a little bit because you saw her on Instagram?

Bojan: I think only because I saw her on Instagram.

Host: Have you ever travelled to Southeast Asia?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever explained craft beer to a woman?

Bojan: Let's say yes, I think, but...

Host: Yes, but she was genuinely interested.

Bojan: Let's put down "She was genuinely interested", yes.

Host: Ok.

Bojan: Because I don't really know what craft beer is myself. But I mean... I think one of them asked me once why I was drinking it, because she found it very disgusting.

Host: Have you ever based an outfit on one of Kanye West's outfits?

Bojan: Oh, no, unfortunately.

Host: Do you own a hoodie that costs more than some people's rent?

Bojan: No. If you add up all the hoodies, they don't cost like a tenth of the rent.

Host: Have you ever ghosted someone?

Bojan: This means...

Host: That you suddenly stopped replying to them. The girls. Did you have a legitimate reason or did your phone die?

Bojan: Sure... yeah I did, but not like that, ghosting is probably for a very long time, no? To disappear completely?

Host: I don't know.

Bojan: Or just that, I don't know. To disappear completely?

Host: You disappear completely.

Bojan: No, this not.

Host: No.

Bojan: Just for a day or so, I took a creative break.

Host: Oh, good. It's not ghosting. Have you ever gone to a party with one girl and left with another?

Bojan: No. I go practically alone to parties almost always.

Host: And then home.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you ever hit on a girlfriend's... one of your girlfriend's friends?

Bojan: No. Maybe after, when she was already... Not when we were together.

Host: Ok. What about one of your close friend's exes?

Bojan: That... no, homeboys, no, no, a homeboy is a true friend, I'd never do that in my life.

Host: Did you ever say you didn't have an STD and you did?

Bojan: God, no.

Host: And... You are probably a decent human being. Here's the proof. Live. Now no one can accuse you of being one... if anyone says anything to you.

Bojan: It's official! I'm not a fuckboy.

Host: Alright, that's it. Now, to finish, we have a couple of other unpopular opinions which I have chosen, and you will comment whether you agree or disagree, if you find it very stupid, or if there is any truth in it. First: people drink gin because it is fashionable.

Bojan: I think some people do enjoy gin. [But] I think it's disgusting, honestly. But I think some people find gin good.

Host: Ok, I agree too, because I find it good myself.

Bojan: Aha, ok.

Host: Star Wars is not really good.

Bojan: I'm not the right one to answer that, because I actually never watched it. I watched the old one a hundred years ago, they were pretty good.

Host: For those times. I mean, I'm not really interested, but maybe I'm...

Bojan: I've honestly never been drawn to Star Wars at all.

Host: Yes, I can understand why someone would think that. Pineapple on pizza?

Bojan: I haven't tried. But it looks and sounds disgusting to me.

Host: I've tried it, but it's not so bad. Although it's true that I ate it in America, where everything else was so bad that it wasn't so disgusting in comparison.

Bojan: Okay, fair. I think, if so many people eat it, it probably doesn't.

Host: Yes. Give it a try.

Bojan: I mean, there must be something to it.

Host: It's a bit sweet. Like in a Chinese restaurant, that sweet and sour...

Bojan: Yeah, I'm not exactly very... yeah, I don't think it would be good for me, but look, maybe, I mean, I'll give it a try sometime. I'll tell you.

Host: Please do. Here. Tinder themed. LinkedIn is a better choice for dating than Tinder.

Bojan: LinkedIn? Isn't that for business?

Host: Yes. Here someone thinks it's a better way to do things.

Bojan: I have no idea. No, I don't think so.

Host: Maybe you can find someone in your...

Bojan: Business. Yes, maybe.

Host: And the Foo Fighters are better than Nirvana.

Bojan: Never in life. They are sick, but not...

Host: They are not better.

Bojan: No.

Host: Ok. Do you have any more shoutouts to say?

Bojan: Shoutout?

Host: What would you like to highlight at the end of the podcast?

Bojan: Well, let people be aware. Maybe now really isn't the time to be very flirtatious and go into close spaces with strangers. Nothing, be healthy, love each other, and be flirtatious but with a mask, and listen to Joker Out.

Host: Smile with your eyes.

Bojan: Yes. Smile with your eyes.

Host: Bye.

Bojan: Bye bye.

¹You can watch the 'Bojan Cvjetićanin Cosmopolitan blind date' video with subtitles in English, as well as in several other languages, on our YouTube channel here.

²'Frendi in Flirt' ('Friends and Flirting') is a Slovenian website dedicated to people looking for dating and adventure who are over 18 years old, who want to meet new people to socialize and chat or find the love of their life.

³Caligula was the third Roman emperor. Known ancient historical sources have handed down an image of Caligula as a despot, emphasising his extravagance, eccentricity and depravity.

⁴Sperry or Sperry Top-Sider is an American boat shoe company.

[kaija-rayne-author]

13th review in series of Dragon Age Veilguard

98 steam hours logged, 84 game hours logged on final save, (the listing in the game itself) actual gameplay hours (-2 for time in CC) either 96 or 82... depending.

14 hour discrepancy between game logged hours and steam logged hours is likely how much trouble the game gave me in loading, reloading, glitching, and crashing. Do I get to charge Bioware for those lost hours of my life?

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to skip it if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though., every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard and everything else DA, I'm a Lore fiend.

My pithy pre-end sequence commentary.

Section 12 here.

END GAME SPOILERS

End game spoilers for BG3 too.

13 is my lucky number, but even that couldn't save it. I can't think of a single thing that can save this disaster of a game. I'll write a more professional wrap-up review post too, this is my reaction portion.

I've finished the final sequence of the game. Sat through the credits of probably a thousand people who worked on this piece of shit and still thought it releasable. AND saw the 'easter egg/future game possibility scene'. My kid said I got a hint of hope back in my eyes for about 10 seconds when that final scene popped up then the light faded again. Apparently the 'long slow horrified stare of death' was all over my face again.

Loading in, I dreaded everything I was about to see. Veilguard had already disappointed me in so many ways. I didn't have any hope the final sequence would be any better.

It wasn't as bad as I expected. It was worse. Yes. Honestly.

In all fairness (even if I really don't want to be fair right now) the last sequence does contain some of the best material in the game. If they'd actually written the rest of it with that kind of passion it probably would've been a better game. But that doesn't actually make it good. And how any average person makes it to the final sequence is beyond me. I'm stuck in bed. I've got an excuse.

So. I expected it to be long. That part didn't bother me that much. Most Dragon Age games have long final sequences.

The positive! Ummmm? Oh! I actually did get an intimate scene with Lucanis. His timing stinks but whatever. I did actually get one. I mean, it was one your aunt who's a nun probably wouldn't have found racey, but it exists! Dude. It's 2024, there's this cool toggle function you can click off if you don’t want nudity. It's a Mature rated game and I'm pretty sure most of us know what sex is. Give paying customers what they want!

My least favourite character died.

I called it on Solas killing Varric in the first scene. Interesting twist they did with that, though. Told y'all. I didn't want it to happen either, but the writing was on the wall in great big letters in drippy red paint from the second they fired Mary Kirby (Varric's writer.) In case you want more details than snark on that? Varric did indeed die when Solas stabbed him in the beginning. What you see throughout the game is Solas messing with Rook's mind because Solas needs Rook to work with him. Varric died before the story actually started. That last line of his 'take care of the team' told me. But I got taken in by the twist too. Bet that was a Weekes twist. 'It’s right in front of you the whole time.'

Elgar'nan made a WAY better final boss fight than Coryphyfish.

I did legitimately love watching Teia and Viago fight as crows. That was a really awesome section. (They're two of my favourite characters from Tevinter Nights.)

The bad.

There is no way for me to list it all. So here's the highlight reel.

Varric died.

They lifted almost the entire final battle sequence from BG3. The tentacle they have to climb to the fancy building in the sky. People falling and almost dying by tumbling down the tentacle, having to fight through said self-destructing fancy building in the sky... I know you can't copyright an idea. As an author, I understand and approve of that. But you should at least make the idea a wee bit unrecognizable as to where you lifted it from. Y'know?

Yay! We got to see Solas in wolfie form! He looks like a Chinese hairless crested dog on a really bad day. Like... really needs to go to the salon and have a bath day. I really wish I were joking.

Called it on the Solavellan ending. And NO. Trick Weekes. That DOES NOT give a suggestion of a Happy Fucking Ending. Read some fucking Romance. GOOD romance. (They do. And I'm being very mature by not calling out one of the authors they read who was one of the ones who harassed me off of Twitter. Oh. No. Two of them I've seen Trick mention as books they've read were involved in that. I guess looking at the people someone likes and respects is kinda indicative... isn't it?)

What's that say about me? I don't like very many people. I get along with people as best as my autistic/AuDHD ass can but I don't LIKE very many people at all. Nor do people tend to like me. I have no compunction about calling someone on bullshit. It makes people cranky, but I've had enough bullshit in my life. And I respect about the same amount of people as I like. If I can't respect you? I can't like you. (For anyone who does actually know me... I don't mean you. If I talk with you privately? Or even if I'm willing to? I both like and respect you. Or I wouldn't bother talking to you privately. I'm shit at reaching out. But if we've talked more than once in any form of privacy? You've made the list of my cranky ass.)

Am I a bitch? Probably. Live my life and see if you'd be any different.

No intimate scene for Solas and Inky. After ten years of waiting for Solavellans. After all the shitting on Solas we had to put up with in DAV (and OMFG there was soooo much!!) No actual happy ending. No intimate scene. Oh, but you do get a rather grody kiss between them because he's just been fighting and has blight all over his face. But yay? They get to kiss? With absolutely no passion at all. Maybe the passion of a bavarian cream pastry? A rotten one? Ew. Before dissolving into fade gook.

The entire time I spent in CC for my Inky to make her look like my player character from DAI? It didn't show up in the final sequence. And no way was I replaying that hellscape to see if it MIGHT could be coaxed into actually showing her the way I made her. I just got the stock body.

So... y'know the veil? That edge of reality that has been getting more and more holes in it throughout the entire history of the Dragon Age Franchise? The veil that the Lore has been pretty clear about it strangling both the magic and the life out of THEDAS? Not to mention everything the elves lost because of it? That veil?

It's all better now. Regardless of the Lore. Because Solas bound his life force to it. So instead of a quick bandage being pulled off to get rid of the veil that really does need to go (y'know if Bioware writers actually gave a rat's ass about the fucking lore of the world they're writing in)... Now it's there until Solas dies... which he can't really do easily being one of the first Elves. Sooooo by the very lore of the world they've crafted... THEDAS is now doomed to die.

Congrats Bioware. Well done. /s

Oh, but THAT doesn't matter. Because everything from the very beginning of DAO has been 'influenced' by 'the ones from across the sea'.

Pardon me while I gag.

The entirety of THEDAS and everything that's ever gone wrong with it is the fault of 'the foreigners from across the sea who wear clothing that's kiiiinda a lot like a Burqa.' Y'know... the black over gowns and veils Afghani women and some other Muslim folks wear?

Cause... uh... yeah. That's a GREAT idea. I legitimately cannot believe they went there. I just... I can't. Bioware hasn't ever really been great on the racism front but I'd hoped they'd gotten at least a little bit better.

Nooooope.

There were a couple of mentions of something like 'the gathering storm' in Taash's quests and how she's a weapon against them. HUGE spoiler I'm sure, but I'm pretty sure they want to make a game that deals with 'the foreign invaders who have been subtly influencing everything wearing black burqas and veils' as the next Dragon Age. Or maybe they'll call it a spin off since it has to be getting close to the end of the actual Dragon Age in the calendar.

I really hope I'm not the only one who can see the issues there. Not that I expect Bioware to. Honestly? I used to pray that DAV would save Bioware. I've liked them as a company for a while, but this is it for me. I'm done.

I might enjoy the first three DA games occasionally if I feel like it. But DAV does not exist for me. Anything they make going forward does not exist for me. That fucking bullshit about no one having had any free choices in the entire history of the games/books/comics etc.? AND the next game's bad guys looking like they wear burqas?

Bioware has made my boycott list. And I honestly hope they sink like the fucking Titanic for the shit they've pulled in DAV and that last fucking scene.

With that scene, they not only shit on many cultures who veil, they shit specifically on Afghani people who are required to wear that. Whether they want to or not.

They also, from a writing perspective, removed every single bit of agency from any of their previous characters. Making every single game pointless in the history of the world.

I'm just done. My boycott list is pretty long. I have these pesky standards. I'd already compromised them by continuing on with playing Bioware games regardless of their well known issues. But nope. Done. Finite. Time to cut the rope and watch it sink.

I would never, in a million years, recommend this game. On those two reasons alone. But also because it doesn't do anything a good CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game) is supposed to do very well.

It doesn't hold up the Dragon Age expectations for anyone who has played the games or enjoyed the lore. They basically shoved all the lore under the proverbial carpet. (Must have made a hell of a lump. That's a LOT of Lore. Trust me. I know. I've marinated myself in it.) On the surface it LOOKS like a CRPG. It has the elements of one... but so few of the elements are carried through that it's kinda shocking to me that they dared to advertise it as one. I mean... didn't someone tell them pissing off people by advertising something they aren't delivering is a bad idea?

It's full of easily fixable plot holes. Seriously, they'd be so easy to fix! They just didn't bother.

Where DAI was an intricately woven adult CRPG masterpiece? DAV is a poorly woven bedsheet with arm sized holes in it and lots and lots of stains. Made for kids.

CRPGs have a long history. Bioware and Dragon Age do too. DAO came out in 2009, Dragon Age 2 released in 2011, both were solid CRPGs. You felt like you were playing a role playing game. Bioware then released DAI in 2014. And in the Dragon Age series, DAI is the crown jewel.

It had everything a CRPG is supposed to have. It wasn’t perfect, no, but it's definitely the best of all 4 games for being what it's supposed to be.

CRPGs generally do not challenge the player as far as manual dexterity or physical response time. That's for action/fighting games. I'm not a professional level gamer. But gaming is my number one hobby and source of entertainment. I play on hard level for most games I play, if not ultra hard. I struggled with the shitty DAV fighting system. Dear gods, who had the brilliant idea of tying accumulation of skill points to how high your bond is with your companions? That's just... the kindest thing I can say is poorly thought out. Especially when you can only take two of them with you on missions. My not-a-fucking-rogue should never have had aggro. And they always did. I'm intimately acquainted with the inside the mouth animations on the dragons.

RPGs are supposed to have intricate, layered world building, a levelling system that makes your characters grow and develop as they progress through a well developed world, often they have fighting, puzzles, and other mechanics to spice things up. But there's some very specific things an RPG needs. And DAV has so few of them. They focussed so much on that shitty gods damned fighting system that had my not-a-fucking-rogue always plastered with the 'come eat me' aggro flag that they failed to deliver on so much else that an RPG needs to have. Especially a CRPG.

I think I heard someone on the dev team say they were quite happy with how the characters and romances came out and um. Well. Might I politely suggest learning how to write better? Cause they weren't. From both a professional and consumer level? They just weren't good.

The characters were dishwater boring with no character development possible. The romances were... not. I'll just leave it there.

Those are a few things I KNOW I'm good at. Just because my fans have told me often enough that I've almost internalized it by now. What? Characterization, writing intimate scenes, and writing romance. My writing voice is very love/hate like many authors. If you love my voice and read kinky romance, you'd probably like it. If you don't like my voice? No story I tell will satisfy you. But from an editorial and writing standpoint? The characters and romances in DAV needed so much work. As much as the plot.

I'm no stranger to trauma. And yes. I did it to myself. I needed to play the ending for myself and I wanted to see what the game was like. I feel traumatized. Abso-fucking-lutely traumatized.

If you're Solavellan and looking for reviews to tell you whether it's worth buying and playing? It. Is. Not. On any level.

Oh and you know those Steam Achievements you get? At the beginning they were like in the high 90s and 80s percentages. The last two I got were from the end game. 2.2% and 6.8%. Respectively. According to my kid (who usually knows more than I do about things like that) that means people stopped playing before they got there. (Or possibly just haven't gotten there yet. I did play it reasonably fast because of my current circumstances.)

I really wish I could say better things about this game. I wanted to love it as much as I loved the other three. As much as I've loved most Dragon Age material. Something about it just captured me. Until DAV.

More professional review to follow at some point.

If my review series has been helpful... and I really really hate to ask, but if it has been? My work of words is my family's only income. My partner is still recovering from a broken back, and I'm recovering from a pulmonary embolism. Money is so tight it squeaks. If you're not gonna buy the game anyway after reading my blather, a tip would surely be appreciated.

All my links are at the bottom of my website. And the tips button up top is set up too.

My response to breaking media blackout.

[danandphilplay]

*just want to clarify that by short form I mean youtube video uploads not youtube shorts. like videos to the channel not to the shorts/tiktok like content bit.

my answer to this is kind of one long yap. also did not put a third option for no preference bc ik a lot of answers will be ill watch anything from them and whilst i get that i want to see if there is an actual preference between the two so pls pick which u like/prefer or even engage with more

I think generally I prefer long content but it is also very dependent upon what the video is about. what I am trying to get at tho is I would love to see dan and phil play some different longer game series. yes I am thinking about life is strange AGAIN but I really would like a series like that and I genuinely would not mind if the wait between videos was longer than more frequent short form videos

just my opinion tho bc obviously we have no say over the dnp games channel but I feel long form game series may be a popular move?? but at the same time people may not have the time to watch and keep up with long videos/series. in the example of life is strange I guess the actual first game is quite old now but I still see people playing it on youtube for the first time and it’s still a popular game so I don’t really think that is an issue. obviously dnp know what sorts of games and uploads get more views and engagement (not saying that that’s the most important thing about uploading but it is definitely important to consider) so that impacts what they play too. hmmm I don’t know how to phrase it so I hope it sounds alright buttttt I do wonder if long form content or just a new series would do better on the channel and bring in new viewers? there is obviously a huge nostalgia factor with dapg and there’s still the core fandom that engages but I wonder whether content length impacts any growth in new viewers?

there is clearly the issue with long form content simply taking way longer. it obviously takes longer for dnp and their editors but also for viewers to have the time to spend on a series so maybe long form is not a popular move bc of that reason

nowww this also leads to a 4th option I wanted in the poll but I took out is whether people would want dapg youtube shorts. because reallllly super short content like shorts reels tiktok whatever else is so popular atm and so many highlights or funny moment clip things exist I wonder if that is a direction dapg will go in. I know dan isn’t rly a fan of all that especially tiktok but imo some of phil’s youtube shorts on lessamazingphil are still funny I just wonder if dapg shorts will ever become a thing and not even necessarily new content just like highlights or idk outtakes of a video like the ones anthony posts from his interviews. the highlights of the vid with dan seem to have got a lot of engagement too although ik anthony is a very popular creator still and his rebranded content continues being popular so I just wonder if dapg will ever have that kinda shorts thing going on??

I also think the times they’ve used the community tab to do polls or just general discussion has been fun and it just kinda gives the channel more personality imo!

again I just wanted to yap there is like 0 seriousness in this or what dapg should post bc I do watch whatever they put out I just wonder if there will be a shift in content and if that would impact the channel overall. idk!!

[studyblr-perhaps]

hello! I'm relatively new to studyblr and I find your posts extremely motivating.

Do you have any advice for like those who are also interested in posting similar content in the studyblr community?

Oooooh first of all, welcome to studyblr! I'm glad I can be motivating haha. As for tips, oh buckle up-

Post what you want. Forget being aesthetic, forget whatever others post. The key point is, what do you want to put out on your blog? Is it daily goals posts, where you edit and strike out the to do list on your posts; little one liner captions with photos; or a paragraph or two describing your day. Personally, I prefer writing about my day, so I use the latter one. You can experiment with different styles, and then decide which you prefer doing. Don't limit yourself to one option from the beginning.

Post original photos. This is obviously not a necessity. A lot of people post Pinterest pictures to make their posts aesthetic, or not post a picture at all. I have my opinions on Pinterest images, and I do not reblog them on my blog if I can notice, but regardless, the decision lies on you and your preference. Nonetheless, I would highly recommend posting your own pictures, because it serves as a good visual diary once you're two-three years down the line. Don't worry about the pictures being "unaesthetic" or if you're not good with camera and camera angles. I used to be the same, but now around two full years of this blog, I have learnt what camera angles and lighting I prefer (I can do a post on that if anyone wants 👀). If you're not confident about your pictures, you can tweak it around in your photo editor, I am sure most devices have a brightness; saturation; shadows and highlights; and grain options. Plus, it's another new skill under your belt. Don't worry if it's difficult at first, the first step to learning a skill is being bad at it.

Make friends. Reblog other people's posts, comment on posts, and in general be friendly. I have found innumerable good friends on this site, some I will stick with for life. Sometimes I like adding little snippets of my thoughts in the tags when I am reblogging people's posts. I cannot say for everyone but I know a significant amount of people love reading the little notes in their notifications (me included!). Moving on, for a disclaimer I don't know how old you are or how long you've been on the internet, so please bear with my overprotective mother nagging but, not everyone on the internet is a good person. If you are uncomfortable by a person or their texts, simply block them and move on. If they're harmful, report their account. You don't have to be friends with everyone, especially not at your expense. In general, don't be mean to people, if you don't like something, scroll (unless it's harmful or against guidelines, in which case, please report the post). If you like something, reblog, maybe leave a little note. Don't trust everything on the internet, and make sure you have fun!

Consistency is good, but it's not everything. Repeat after me: quality over quantity. Don't burn yourself out, whether it is studies or your blog. You don't need to post every single day, this is not instagram. Take your time, if you want to share on one particular day, share then. If you want to share daily, then great! I have disappeared for five whole months sometimes and been back as if I never left. Don't worry about how much you're posting, remember, you're doing this for fun. So make sure you're having it.

Don't chase clout. The clout will chase you lol. Jokes aside, don't care about numbers. I used to be very obsessed with numbers (and frankly, a lot of us are here for clout anyways) but I honestly did much better after I stopped caring. You never know when your posts will kick off, and that's social media for you! Regardless, it's easier on this website to gain a decent following by persisting than it is on other sites (*cough* I hate instagram *cough*). Either way, this site is the best as a formed community than a rat race, and it's genuinely better that way.

TL;DR: Have fun, experiment to see what you want to post, post original pictures, it's okay if you're not consistent, don't worry about number of notes or followers, instead, focus on making friends :)

[trutrustories]

STUDY IN LOKI ROMANCE

Part 3: 1893

Since we're only a few days away from the last episode, I decided to COUNT DOWN everything we´ve got so far ( that can be interpreted very easily as romantic ) and discuss what the actual fuck is going on with second season. Because even though I shipped lokius practically from S1E2, I absolutely did NOT expect this kind of development. (Not that I´m complaining)

Warning: This is gonna be LONG post, lots of screenshots, lots of SPOILERS, lot of "oh-my-god-they-so-cute" language, and little bit of meta.

I originally thought that this post would be everything at once, but since I have just too many screenshots this time around, I´ll have to split it. so every post will be one episode. Color coding means:

IIIIIIIIII = anything, that coud potentialy be just acting choice.

IIIIIIIIII = everything else (tzn.: whatever was written, and/or carefully prepared by filmmakers. )

side note: I already wrote, about how amazing it is, that Mobius is unable to fight but fights anyway and how beautifuly, and ridiculously brave he is HERE. But this is about Loki/Mobius interactions, so I´ll try my best not to talk about THAT. (Even when I´m really happy, that s2 continues with this formula and Mobius is still his completely defenseless while aggressively brave self. I love him, btw.)

EPISODE 1 HERE EPISODE 2 HERE

Episode 3, here we go:

22) matching suits part 2 anyone, who work on those costumes: I want to kiss you all!

23) Another exhibition of touches:

the challange name is: "how close we can get, before we sink into each other"

24) "And they lived happily ever after..." They had some lokius fan in the editing room, I´m telling ya! This retro movie style transition... THAT is my roman empire...

like seriously? what is the purpose of this? I can´t wrap my head around it. someone just thought that it is really crucial to end this scene with two of them in a circle. OK.

but WHY?

It was LITTERALY used only once! (I´m sorry, but as someone, who works as an editor, this just driving me crazy 🤒🫠)

25) Loki and Mobius enjoying popcorn:

I have several things to say here:

ever heard about when one person is "forced" to have fun for the first time, and to try new things by the other person, and he´s protesting and is all about work and serious matters, but secretly loves it and is visibly relaxed and happy? - Because I´m sure this is some bloody romantic comedy trope, that everyone have seen about hundred times!

"Oh look, you have a piece of food on the chin, let me just…"

I know I already said this somewhere, but, this is the moment, where in my language suddenly (completely randomly) switched from formal way of speaking to each other to intimate way of speaking to each other. (I´m Czech, btw, and I have no idea, what happened in that recording studio but it had to be interesting)

26) Also... Bickering like married couple (part 3)

27) "You know sometimes I forget, that you are one of them... Blows my mind!"

Mobius being Loki´s fan.

Also yeas. Loki is one of them. God. And Mobius is a small, normal dude. JUST A HUMAN. Analyst, even! And they´re eating popcorn together.... also Loki will do whatever Mobius wishes

28) another "let´s be as close as we physically can" challange

Loki can´t keep only eye on him. he needs hands, because reasons

29) Mobius supporting Loki in using magic...

... or I should say Loki using Magic, whenever Mobius wishes, because...

"Will you handle this please?" "Gently!"

And on top of that... not him, explaining, what just happened, to the public, by: "The amazing Loki, everyone! He´ll be here all week! 🥳🥳🥳"

who the heck asked, Mobius? stop showing off with your magical boyfriend

30) Victor/Ravonna - the most transparent mirror ever:

THIS scene? Are you kidding? Ravonna running towards Victor: "Mr Timley! are you okay? And Mobius running practicly at the same time towards Loki with: You allright?" and both helping their man up on their feet?! IN SYNC! this is too much.

WTF

31) THE BIKE THIS. this is the most GREENLY green point, I can think of. Someone had to have this vision. This idea. And put it in to screenplay. Someone had to find the bike. Someone was shooting this. Camera is moving around them. And they were all like GREAT idea, let´s have them riding tandem bike while chasing Ravonna and Timely, that makes complete sense! (even when we have Loki chasing Brad USING MAGIC one episode back) anyway... ever heard about "let´s do this crazy stupid thing - absolutely not - and then they do the thing" trope?

32) Loki going with Mobius, not even thinking about it anymore.

And to think, that I was expecting something like S01E03 (Lamentis episode)! Once again, I wasn´t prepared for amount of Lokius content I was actually served. What a surprise! 🤯