#and i pretty much only listen to podcasts while on public transit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dragonsareourfuture · 3 years

Text

Death Note as Stand-Up Comedians

Mello

- he’s allowed to complain about Near in front of an auditorium full of people as long as it’s in the form of a joke — of course he loves it.

- He has a lot of passion up on stage. The audience loves it because it makes them feel really immersed into the show.

- Mello has a tendency to get really loud when he gets really into a joke or bit, so the tech crew has gotten used to lowering the volume on his mic as the show progresses and he gets louder and louder.

- Mello has a harsh sense of humor, often using exaggerations and sarcasm to accentuate a point.

- He would tell stories from his time at Wammy’s house, mainly the chaos moments with Matt because the rest is pretty traumatizing for him.

- It’s his style that draws people in and his sense of humor that keeps them there. He has a very unique clothing style and, even when his managers suggested he dress down for the show as to not scare people away, he refused. He said that he would rather show who he is upfront and let the public decide whether or not to invest time in him than fake his personality for people he doesn’t know or give a shit about. They got the hint pretty quickly after that.

- He would sometimes do joined shows with Matt, which is quite interesting. Their dynamic works perfectly on stage and they even weave jokes that weren’t scripted into the show to keep each other on their toes.

Matt

- He’s a pretty chill guy, so I picture his sense of humor as pretty dry. Not in a bad way, of course. For instance, he tends to say the most hilarious things with a straight face and flat tone, which somehow makes the joke even funnier.

- He likes to involve the audience a lot, so gags where he (with permission) takes an audience member’s phone and reads their texts aloud are common. Somehow he can make jokes about the most mundane of text conversations and have the audience howling.

- Like I mentioned earlier, he and Mello’s contrasting senses of humor work for a perfect dynamic when performing, so shows where they’re together are the audience’s favorite. But even though Mello’s wild passion can take the spotlight at times, Matt is never overshadowed as they’re both sure to include the other in any bit or joke they do.

- For no reason at all I think Matt it great at imitations and impressions of different people. So, like when he’s doing a bit and speaking for someone else he can assign voices for everyone and the audience knows who he’s supposed to be speaking as in that moment. Usually these people are only known to him and Mello, so the audience can’t tell how exactly spot on he is. His impression of Near gets Mello wheezing, and his Mello impression gets the audience wheezing with Mello constantly claiming “I don’t sound like that, idiot!” With the audience shouting “YES YOU DO!”

- L’s sense of humor tends to require a specific taste, which is why he would probably be one of the least successful of the bunch.

- Don’t get me wrong, his sense of humor is adorable and one of the best aspects of Death Note in my opinion, but it comes in short and random bursts. He’d be talking about something serious and then crack a joke (“yEs tHat mUst Be dArK”), so it requires patience to really get to his sense of humor.

- The audience, I feel, wouldn’t have the patience to stick around and wait for his humor to surface.

- But L would have a cult following of a specific group of people that appreciate his talents.

- I’m picturing a show in which he starts off by talking about some cases, and transition to jokes from there. Due to his occupation, many jokes involve a darker sense of humor but also contain surprisingly innocent little remarks or comments. I can’t really explain it better, it makes sense in my head but I’m not too sure how to put it into words.

- Most of the show he keeps his straight face, but when he gets the audience going from something he said he can’t help but crack a little smile and chuckle into the mic pretty bashfully.

Near

- I’m sorry but Near doesn’t have too much of a sense of humor. But he does do or say some of the most hilarious shit on accident.

- It was actually Halle that convinced him to take up stand up comedy, as she got to spend tons of time just sitting and talking with him, cracking up at something Near said while he just stared at her in confusion.

- She had complete and total confidence that just plopping Near on stage and telling him to “just talk” would get the audience going, so she took him to a bar that did stand up comedy nights. Near absolutely killed it.

- Eventually he learns what the public finds funny through experimentation and tells those kinds of jokes more often, learning to perfect his craft. Through this method he is able to go from ‘accidentally funny’ to ‘intentionally hilarious’.

Light

- I wholeheartedly believe that Light has no sense of humor. Period.

- Sure, he’s accidentally funny sometimes but not enough to fake it ‘til he makes it like Near did.

- So he gets someone else to write his show for him. He’s just a pretty face, and the person who wrote his show is mentioned once or twice but who really cares about them? It’s Light who’s doing all the work, obviously. He’s the one getting sweaty up on stage.

- Honestly he barely has a sense of humor he’s probably just do it as a side thing for recognition or like most youtubers who write a book or start a podcast.

Matsuda

- Okay so, I definitely think that Matsuda would be one of the most successful stand up comedians out of all of them.

- He’s just so bubbly and kind and just genuinely a wonderful person so who could walk out of a show if his unsatisfied? No one. That’s who.

- My mans here has the opportunity to make so many self deprecating jokes due to how the task force treats him and how he’s just overall looked at as inferior to everyone he works with. And guess what? He doesn’t take that opportunity at all. He thinks self worth is the most important thing in the world and instead focuses his jokes around break room stories and observations of every day life.

- However if he ever does make a self deprecating joke, it’s never with any hatred towards himself. Like, he’ll joke about how his recklessness got him in trouble with Yotsuba, but instead of cursing the trait he has, he always expresses his hopes to get better and learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile the audience is dying at how he tells the story with so much energy and just— ...he’s wonderful.

- He just reminds me of John Mulaney when I picture a show of his.

- He’s pretty goofy by nature and you can tell that he’s enjoying himself up on stage, watching him laugh at his own jokes and beam at the audience with a smile so bright it could rival the spotlight shining down on him.

- He also really likes the attention, having been pushed to the side for so long.

- He’s just overall a really nice and positive guy while also being hilarious to listen to. 10/10.

Misa

- With her already existing music career and fashion career, people know her pretty well. Therefore, there is a HOARD of people waiting to see how she fairs at something so different from her previous career paths.

- And y’know what? Misa’s great at it.

- I’d like to imagine she’s out of her terrible relationship with Light in this au and realize how messed up he was, so I think she’d do a lot of clowning Light in her shows.

- She will kinda mix the comedy with valuable life lessons on relationships, so a lot of fans come up to her and thank her because they let their kids watch her shows and they’ve learned so much from her while being entertained for a good hour.

- Also her voice is so cute and pleasant to listen to I would gladly listen to her talk for a week let alone an hour.

- I imagine her style of show and humor to be along the lines of straight up ranting and just talking her heart out. You know that friend that can talk for hours but it’s okay because they make everything, even the most mundane things, sound dramatic and fun and lively? Yeah, that’s her.

#death note #death note headcanon #Misa amane #death note misa #matt death note #mihael keehl #mello death note #Mail jeevas #nate river #near death note #light yagami #l Lawliet #l death note #touta matsuda #matsuda death note #comedian

102 notes · View notes

chrislistenstopodcasts · 4 years

Text

podcast review: victoriocity

overall rating: 8.3

synopsis: set in a wacky pythonesque steampunk london that has sprawled across the entirety of south england, inspector archibald fleet and clara entwhistle, aspiring reporter, are thrown into a maddening whirl of politics and crime and cover-ups and it’s up to them to find the truth. victoriocity is what i would call a thriller-comedy. many of the aspects of the world only work because of the comedy angle, but god... do they work. highlights include queen victoria being a mech after eleven failed assassination attempts and having albert’s consciousness installed on what i assume is a floppy disk, a records library that’s so huge it has its own train system, and a literal flying circus. even greater london, as it’s called, is home to many a crazy scientist, corrupt politician, and incredibly exhausted public service worker.

victoriocity is also the type of british comedy that is painfully self-aware, which is incredibly easy to tell from some of the names. prime examples include sandringham, mrs pomligan, and augusta bell.

in my admittedly small amount research i was unable to find any future plans for the podcast aside from “more” but... hey, more!

writing: 8/10

now i’ll admit, i am a bit biased here- comedy is not my favorite genre and i am suuuuuuper picky about it. that said, i think victoriocity does a fantastic job of balancing the serious and outlandish aspects of its plot. like any true comedy, many of the comedic aspects are completely necessary for the plot to function at all, but they’re implemented in such ways that it doesn’t seem forced or hamfisted to me. the sheer outrageousness of, for instance, the massive record library with its own public transit, only works in favor of the plot where time is of the essence in the location of one very specific file. there are a lot of very interesting worldbuilding aspects that are simply mentioned and minimally explored, which i am grateful for. these things are much easier to accept as fact if they’re just presented as such, after all. a great example of this is the daily public loudspeaker announcements from victoria and albert, which for some reason reminded me of the propaganda announcements in the game dishonored (which is fantastic).

acting: 7/10

here is where my only real gripe with victoriocity comes up. most of the acting is pretty damn good, but very occasionally you’ll get a supporting character that just... really hams up the britishness. like really, really. logically, i understand that this is just another form of the self-aware comedy, but in my opinion it can get a little bit annoying and detract from the overall listening experience. the whole network of underpaid cabbies is like this, and while it was funny at first, the absolutely overexaggerated accents did start to grate on me after a bit. the voicework is absolutely stellar and even those characters are an obvious stylistic choice that is executed well, i just personally don’t agree with it much. another thing i am not necessarily fond of but don’t have any real problems with is the presence of a narrator. the whole format absolutely wouldn’t work without him to set the scene and give little tidbits of worldbuilding that may be important, i just generally don’t like narrators. just my onion.

production: 10/10

this is where victoriocity really, really excels. with steampunk you need a lot of good convincing machine sounds, and victoriocity’s producers really hit the nail on the head there. the sound design is, now and then, exaggerated for the sake of comedy, but as i’ve said before, that’s one of the things that makes the whole production work as well as it does. in fact, i’d even call it their unofficial tagline- victoriocity: exaggerated for comedic effect. point is, the sound effects and general soundscaping are definitely enough to give some variety and interrupt the monotony of just... people talking... and are in places fantastic environmental storytellers on their own. well done, victoriocity team.

#victoriocity #victoriocity podcast #victioriocity cast #steampunk #comedy #comedy podcast #audiodrama #podcast reviews

19 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

Revelation Sunshine, Chapter 1 (Courtney/Vixen) - Veronica

A/N: Oh hi. Welcome to the Galactica sequel that I’ve been planning FOREVER. Like...literally since the time these two started interacting on Twitter, during season 10. Thanks to @artificialpuddle for the beta help, and @aqcitrus for brainstorming with me. <3

And of course, a HUGE thanks to @theartificialdane, for humoring me the whole way through and letting me explore this ship in the Galactica verse. It is mostly fluffy, fluffy shit, which is a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I love them so much and I just want them to be happy.

I think it can easily be read as a stand-alone story. The only thing you need to know from Galactica is that at this point in the story, Courtney is a wildly successful queer pop star and star of a fictional Disney franchise called ‘Glimmer,’ which costars Honey Mahogany as her love interest.

Challenge Notes:

Story is told mostly from Vixen’s POV

Her BFFs: Asia, Monet, Monique, Mayhem (who show up in person in Chapter 2)

The title is a song by Cree Summer. I’ve also made a playlist for this story, which can be found here.

#Vixney4Eva

TW: vague reference to past transphobia, sexual apprehension/nervousness that should in NO WAY be construed as dubcon

***

It was Honey who introduced them. Or, rather, Honey who handed Courtney the book that started everything, on the set of Glimmer 3.

BEWARE WHITE TEARS: Performativity and Racial Justice, by Toni “Vixen” Taylor enthralled Courtney so much that she barely slept for 3 nights, devouring it twice. And then she read the whole thing again, slowly, highlighting the parts that blew her mind the most.

On set, when she just couldn’t stop raving about it, Honey laughed at her.

“So...you liked it?”

“Omigod, yes!” Courtney exclaimed. “I mean, obviously I feel very called out. But in a good way? Like...this is making me rethink everything.”

“That’s good! I thought maybe you’d be offended,” Honey said, adjusting her crown.

“Offended? How long have we known each other?” Courtney giggled, bumping Honey with her hip. It was true: they’d been co-starring in the Glimmer franchise for 8 years at that point.

“Still.”

“But god, Honey, it was just...I mean, I don’t even have any words for how amazing it was. She’s so fucking smart and passionate, and so funny, and everything she says is like…” Courtney shook her head, starry-eyed.

“You should tell her,” Honey said with a saucy wink. “Send her a tweet or something.”

“She’s not gonna care what I think,” Courtney said. “I mean, hello? Chapter 4?”

“Okay, but she’s a professor. She’ll be thrilled that someone learned something. Besides, even if she doesn’t respond, maybe you’ll encourage your fans to read it.”

“That’s true…”

“And maybe get more people to listen to her podcast-”

“She has a podcast?!!” Courtney shrieked excitedly, then whispered, “Sorry,” when she saw the boom operator cringe.

Maybe Honey was right...but what should she say?

***

Vixen felt absolutely silly. There was really no reason for attention from a celebrity to make her so giddy. True, there’d been a phase when she hung on Courtney Act’s every word--but that was years ago. Early in her transition, when she felt like nothing she did was right. When she was desperate for any voice telling her that who she was was okay.

It was different now. She was 30 year old, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t need validation from anyone anymore, especially not a pop-star-come-Disney-princess. At least, that’s what she would have told anyone who asked.

But to herself, she couldn’t deny the thrill she got when she saw that first notification on her phone. The mild anxiety all day as she taught two lectures and graded a handful of thesis proposals--a nagging thought in the back of her mind wondering how she should reply. It wasn’t until late into the evening, after 2 glasses of wine, that she allowed herself to read it again, slowly typing out a reply.

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 15h Just read @professorvixtaylor’s “Beware White Tears” and my mind is BLOWN. Everyone needs to read this game-changing book. E V E R Y O N E!!!! It’s so good, so informative, so powerful. AND I just found out that she has! A! Podcast!! #obsessed <3 <3 <3 <3

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact Glad you found it interesting! Thanks for the plug.

That was fine, right? Very chill. She went to sleep feeling pretty satisfied with herself. It wasn’t until the following morning when she saw Courtney’s response.

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 6h Replying to @professorvixtaylor That is the understatement of the year!!! I LOVED it! You are BRILLIANT. I just listened to the first episode of your podcast and holy shit...it’s phenomenal.

Vixen put down her phone, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. It was shallow and cheap--being this enchanted by obviously exaggerated praise. But still...not a bad way to start the day.

***

Vixen was used to fighting. All of her life, it seemed, she’d had to prove herself. Scrape and claw for her voice to be heard. Shout into the void over and over, praying that someone would eventually listen. Demand attention and bang down doors and yell until she was hoarse.

Having someone at Courtney’s level of fame pay attention to her--emphatically describe her as brilliant, incisive, powerful, mind-blowing--Vixen’s impulse, in the beginning, was to lie. To say she didn’t need that kind of validation from anyone, especially a rich, famous, beautiful white girl. The embodiment of privilege. Someone whose coming out was celebrated in the media like a massive human rights achievement. Because how could someone like that ever really get it?

But on the other hand…she had to hand it to Courtney. She had excellent taste in podcasts.

And there was something soothing about a person who didn’t expect her to prove anything. Someone who respected her from the jump, who engaged with her book and her podcasts from a place of dignity, assuming that she knew what she was talking about. She didn’t demand back-up or further explanations when she came across material that was confusing. She did the work herself, looking up the articles and studies Vixen cited, posting them with a quote when something in particular caught her attention.

So reluctantly, over the next month or two, Vixen found herself warming to the idea of a real dialogue. It was January 1st, sitting on her grandmother’s plastic-covered sofa, when Vixen finally bit the bullet and slipped into Courtney’s DMs, so to speak.

Courtney had been tweeting up a storm over the holidays. Gobbling up her podcasts rapidly and hungrily, heaping her and her guests with praise and incidentally, making her subscriber numbers climb. She opened a direct message window, typing out a message that she hoped would make Courtney laugh.

@professorvixtaylor: Alright, already. This is getting embarrassing...

The response came within minutes.

@courtneyact: LOL! Listen, nobody ever accused me of a lack of enthusiasm.

@professorvixtaylor: I bet not ;)

It took one afternoon of DMs before Courtney gave Vixen her phone number. “Twitter’s great, but it’s probably easier to just text, right?”

Well.

Vixen had to admit, she had a point.

***

“So listen,” Latrice said, heaving a deep sigh. “I hate to be the one to tell you this. Like, I really, really hate it.”

“Oh shit,” Courtney said, wrapping herself in a blanket and preparing herself for whatever horrible news her manager was about to deliver. “Go ahead…”

“This isn’t coming from me, okay? It’s coming from Disney.”

“Just tell me, Latrice. What? Is the tour cancelled? Do they hate the new video? Do we need to do reshoots? What?”

“No, all that’s fine. They just...they’re a little uncomfortable about your interactions with this Vixen person.”

“Why?” Courtney sat up, ready to get extremely annoyed, extremely fast.

“Well, it’s just...she’s apparently got some very radical ideas, and-”

“So? Maybe they’re amazing ideas? Have you read the book?” Courtney countered.

Latrice sighed.

“Courtney, listen. It’s just...not what they want while they’re trying to promote this last movie.”

“It’s a movie that ends with a gay interracial marriage!” Courtney exclaimed. “So why the fuck do they have a problem with me complimenting a Black political science professor on Twitter?! This is beyond idiotic, Latrice, you have to admit that! And by the way, I’m not gonna stop. She’s amazing and her book is important and more people should know about her, and if they want to fire me, then fine!” Courtney’s heart was racing as she tried to catch her breath.

There was a pause before Latrice spoke again.

“I assumed this would be your response.”

“Yeah, so. Now what?!”

“Now, I tell them that you feel very strongly about this, and that you’re not breaching any contract, and if they try to silence you on this issue, you’re prepared for a very public, very embarrassing fight,” Latrice said.

“Okay…” Courtney waited for the catch.

“I’m pretty sure they’ll drop it.”

“Just like that?” Courtney asked, confused. She’d gotten herself well and riled up, prepared for a real battle.

“Yeah, baby,” Latrice said. “Just like that. Chalk it up to white privilege.”

Courtney couldn’t help but laugh at that, head falling back on the sofa cushions.

“Good one, ma’am.”

After they hung up, Courtney opened Instagram, delighted that Vixen had updated her story. It was just a casual picture, her and two other professors getting ready to speak at a round table discussion. Courtney smiled, replying to the picture with heart eyes and the question, ‘Is that top from my collection?’

She responded a little while later, while Courtney was on the elliptical, saying, ‘I was hoping you’d notice. ;)’

Courtney giggled to herself, wondering when she’d get to meet this amazing, glowingly beautiful woman. All she wanted was to finally talk, face to face. Maybe in the spring, when her tour hit Chicago? Which, as far as Courtney was concerned, couldn’t happen soon enough.

***

It may very well have been a love letter, Vixen thought, finding her cheeks blazing hot at the thought. She’d woken up to a video posted on Courtney’s Twitter feed. “How To Be a Race Ally.”

Vixen watched the whole video with a healthy amount of skepticism. It was great, actually. Humble and informative. Cleverly incorporating some of the points from her podcast (with proper credit given) and even some things she’d said over text recently (also with credit, and a wink straight into the camera that made Vixen feel things she wasn’t prepared for at 7:30 in the morning).

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact Okay fine, you can come to the cookout.

As usual, Courtney's response was lightning fast, an emoji wearing a party hat and about 10 exclamation points. Vixen couldn’t resist teasing her a little bit more.

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact I don’t know how vegan-friendly it’ll be, though.

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 1m Replying to @professorvixtaylor You really think I’m there for the food? ;P

Vixen rose from her bed, an almost giddy feeling filling her chest. She really needed to calm the fuck down. What was with this silly schoolgirl behavior? And on a public platform? Every interaction ran the risk of absolutely ruining the street cred she’d spent years building up. (Monet was already making it her personal mission to screenshot every exchange and then tease her mercilessly, and Asia had begun to join in.)

Besides, what were the odds that it would ever be anything but a short-lived flirtation? Courtney was bound to become captivated by something else soon. An animal rights group, perhaps. Or funding for the arts in public schools. There were a billion issues competing for her attention. How long would Vixen’s moment in the sun possibly last?

And yet, when Courtney tweeted that she was on her way to New York, Vixen found herself taking a shot of liquid courage and then sending a text.

VIXEN: Hey...how long are you gonna be in New York?

COURTNEY: A couple of weeks, why?

VIXEN: Well, I have a conference at Columbia on February 23, and then I’m gonna stay for a few days. Maybe we could meet up?

COURTNEY: YES

COURTNEY: I mean, sure. Sounds lovely. Tell me what day you’re free. <3

***

It was strange, seeing Courtney in person after all this time. As much as Vixen enjoyed chatting with her, and as validating as it was to get so much attention, she had reminded herself over and over again that this was all just friendly banter. A bit of lighthearted flirting, maybe, but the possibility of a genuine romantic connection was absolutely out of the question.

But then.

When Courtney first emerged from the elevators, smile bright, it was like time ceased to be linear. Nothing...not pictures, not video, not even that concert she’d attended all those years ago, prepared her for how heart-stoppingly beautiful she was in person.

Vixen stood, in slow motion, knees shaking a little, suddenly hugely aware of her height. Was Courtney always this little? Why had Vixen worn heels?

It must have taken Courtney less than 10 seconds to cross the lobby to where Vixen stood, but for some reason, it felt like 10 years. Excruciatingly slow, and yet somehow, Vixen was still caught off guard as she bounded up and grasped both of her hands.

“Thank you so much for coming!” Courtney exclaimed, that dazzling smile still on her face. “It’s amazing to finally be in the same room!”

“Yeah, it’s…” Vixen offered a smile of her own, swallowing hard. Her hands were warm and soft, and as Vixen gazed down at her, she could feel her heart racing faster than ever. “How was your day?”

“Crazy…” Courtney linked an arm through Vixen’s, leading her towards the hotel bar.

It took a concerningly short time for all the weirdness to dissipate, for Vixen to forget that she was across the table from a celebrity, a person she’d been following for years, a person that she’d idolized at one point in her life.

She was just a girl. Granted, she was a beautiful girl, but one who seemed incredibly excited, even honored, to be talking to Vixen—about her book, her podcast, her life. Where she came from and what she cared about and who she looked up to. A girl who wanted to get to know her.

After awhile, when Vixen was finally relaxed enough to really open up, she told Courtney about hearing ‘Kaleidoscope’ for the first time. How, at that point in her transition, it made all the difference in the world to see Courtney so open about the fluidity of gender and sexuality. To hear those magical words. ‘This is who we are.’

Courtney nodded along, listening to her, tears filling her eyes. She covered Vixen’s hand with her own, and said, “I needed it too.”

As the hours ticked by, they talked about everything. Passion, art, travel, identity. She wanted to know when Vixen began to question her own gender, how she knew that she wanted to transition. She was delighted by the story of her brief foray into drag during the early college years, the source of her now permanent nickname. In spite of all the questions (or maybe because of them), for once, Vixen felt like she wasn’t on the defensive. She found herself being more sincere and honest about all of it than she’d been in a long time.

“I’m not usually this open,” she admitted at one point.

Courtney laughed, eyes glittering, and said, “I’m usually too open.”

“I think you’re just right,” Vixen replied, giving her a generous smile.

They talked about their childhoods. How much she loved pretend and fantasy as a kid.

“I went through a phase—that’s generous, it was like 3 years—where I really wanted to be a dragon. I had this dumb...dragon hoodie, that I wore all the time. And when I finally grew out of it, I cried.”

“Aww,” Courtney said, reaching for her hand. “I bet you were adorable.”

“I think I just really, really didn’t want to be me.”

Courtney took in a slow, deep breath, and then let it out even slower.

“I’m not gonna pretend that I really get it. Everything you’re talking about. I don’t know if I ever could. But...I get that part.”

Vixen raised an eyebrow.

“You? How do you get it?” Vixen let out a chuckle. “I’m not trying to judge you, but I just...look at you. You’re this perfect, sparkly princess. Everything the world wants a girl to be.”

“Yeah...I see what you’re saying. But...sometimes it feels like that’s all the world wants. Is the sparkly princess part. And I’m more than that. Or, I hope I am. But…” Courtney trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “Do I sound really dumb?”

“You don’t sound dumb. You sound like a very intelligent, thoughtful...sparkly princess.”

Courtney threw back her head and laughed.

“I can’t believe you laughed at that,” Vixen said with a shake of her head. “It was such a cheap shot.”

“Well, I’m an easy laugh,” Courtney said, shrugging unapologetically.

“Yeah I’ve heard that about you,” Vixen couldn’t help saying, and Courtney’s giggles continued.

They stared at each other for a few moments, eyes burning in the dim light, with matching, goofy grins decorating their faces, until Vixen broke, shaking her head.

“This is so surreal…”

“How so?” Courtney asked, voice lilting in a way that felt almost like a tease, resting a chin on her hand.

Vixen hesitated. It felt so cliché to say that it was because Courtney was famous, or because she once cried at her concert when she was 23.

“I mean...you’re not even really my type,” she finally answered with a small shrug.

“Oh yeah? What’s your type?”

“Ummm...I normally go for curvy Latinas,” Vixen said, lashes fluttering.

Courtney’s eyes widened, smile deepening, as she exclaimed, “Oh my god, me too!”

They both started laughing again, clinking glasses for good measure.

“So, um...do you have to go back to Chicago tomorrow?”

“Actually, no. I decided to stay a few more days,” Vixen replied. “See some shows, meet up with some friends. There’s this museum in Brooklyn that I’ve been dying to check out for years.”

“What museum?” Courtney asked.

“It’s, uh, called the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts,” Vixen said. “Kind of a mouthful but-”

“Sounds great. I wish I could see it.”

“You wanna come? I’m going tomorrow after lunch.”

“Ugh, I wish!” Courtney said, stretching her neck. “But the press tour schedule is insane. I’m doing two more interviews tomorrow, and then I fly to LA to kick off the tour.”

“Tough breaks.” Vixen tried, unsuccessfully, not to sound sarcastic.

“Listen, I’m not complaining. I’m very lucky.” Courtney smiled, tilting her head. “But it would’ve been cool to see that museum.”

“Next time,” Vixen promised.

“I’m holding you to that,” Courtney said, gaze fixed on Vixen’s face as she downed the rest of her drink.

Vixen gave a small nod, finding her eyes hypnotic. Surreal indeed.

They ordered yet another round as hotel patrons trickled out, crowd thinning, closing time approaching. By the time they stood up to leave, they’d knocked back quite a few--more than Vixen realized at the time. She grabbed Courtney’s arm to steady her as the blonde swayed in her heels.

“You alright?”

“Mmhmm…” Courtney gazed up at her, lashes fluttering.

“Do you want me to help you upstairs?”

“Okay…”

In the elevator, Courtney wrapped her arms around Vixen’s waist, leaning a head on her shoulder. Vixen’s heart hammered in her chest, one hand gripping the railing for support.

At the door, Courtney looked up at her, eyes bright, breathing out, “You know, we don’t have to be up until 10 tomorrow…”

“What are you…‘we?’”

It took Vixen a moment to catch on to her train of thought, a wave of nerves washing over her.

“Listen. Um. I think you’re great,” she began, wincing as she saw Courtney’s blissful expression crumble. “But...I just, I never hook up with girls who’ve been drinking. It’s just…”

Vixen didn’t want to explain the whole story. The girl in the lesbian bar, years ago, who danced with her all night, flirting and rubbing against her, inviting her back to her apartment. Only, when they began to undress, and it became clear that Vixen’s body was a little different, the girl flipped a switch. Went from a delightful buzz to drunken rage. Accused her of taking advantage, called her...Vixen didn’t even want to think about that. Or about how she’d left her apartment as fast as possible, terrified and choking back tears. How at home, she’d collapsed into Asia’s arms and sobbed most of the night, wondering if she’d ever fit in, anywhere.

Courtney wasn’t that girl in the bar—Vixen knew that. But she was clearly tipsy, and some things, some decisions, required a clear head.

“It’s not you,” she finished lamely. “You’re amazing.”

Courtney nodded, swallowing her disappointment like a champ and saying, “You’re amazing.”

Before she left, Vixen leaned in and brushed her lips against Courtney’s cheek.

She walked toward the elevator, regret stinging the back of her throat. She had no idea how long it would be before they saw each other again, and suddenly her arbitrary rules based on one shitty asshole in a bar 7 years ago seemed...absurd. She turned back around. Courtney was still leaning in her open doorway, watching her walk away.

“Hey, how drunk are you, actually? Can you recite the Pledge of Allegiance?” Vixen asked.

“No—” Courtney said, brow furrowed.

“Oh.” Vixen’s heart deflated a bit.

“—Because we don’t have the Pledge of Allegiance in Australia.”

“Right,” Vixen laughed.

“But what about, um, okay...so...here's a story from A to Z. You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully. We got Em in the place who likes it in your face. You got G like MC who likes it on a. Easy V doesn't-”

Vixen strode forward and silenced her with a kiss, soft and sweet, almost chaste at first, both of them giggling. As the kiss deepened, Vixen grabbed Courtney around the waist and pushed her backward into the room, letting the door slam shut behind them.

Vixen was so enamoured that she barely registered Courtney’s massive hotel suite, the entry hall or huge living room that Courtney led her through on the way to the bedroom. Guiding her by her hips to the bed, Courtney pushed her into a seated position and stood between her legs, chasing her lips as she took hold of her collar, fingering the little pearl buttons down the front of her shirt dress.

“Is this okay?” she asked, and Vixen nodded.

“Yeah.” She watched Courtney’s heavy-lidded eyes as she quickly opened the buttons, skin prickling as she pushed it off Vixen’s shoulders. She kissed Vixen again, deep and messy, sucking on her bottom lip.

Panting, Vixen reached around, fumbling for Courtney’s zipper. Once she pulled it down a few inches, the cotton dress easily came off over her head, and then there she was, standing in front of Vixen in nothing but a pair of baby blue panties.

Vixen swallowed, eyes sweeping over Courtney’s body, dying to touch her but nervous as all fuck.

“Listen, um...I should tell you…”

Courtney paused mid-way through opening Vixen’s belt to look at her curiously, face earnest and alert. The perfect student.

Vixen sighed. The fact that Courtney was so willing to listen, so considerate, should have been a bonus. But in this moment, it just made her feel startlingly inadequate. She hated this. The feeling of not being enough, or being too much. She didn’t even know anymore. All she knew was that she was about to make herself more vulnerable than she’d ever been, and she was terrified.

“So...Okay, um. I guess...it’s just been a long time since...I was with a girl.”

“Tell me about it,” Courtney said, grinning.

“No. A really long time,” Vixen said.

“Okay. Does that mean you don’t want-”

“No!” Vixen burst out, a little too emphatically, and then lowered her eyes bashfully, adding in a calmer voice, “No, I want to be with you, I just...might be a little out of practice.” It was an understatement, a lie of omission that unsettled Vixen’s stomach a bit. But it was all she felt comfortable with revealing at the moment, and she hoped that she’d be forgiven later.

“Hmm…” Courtney took Vixen’s face in her hands, tilting her chin up. “I think I can work with that…”

She bent down to kiss her again, soft as a whisper, fingers stroking Vixen’s cheekbones, before pulling back and gazing down at her.

“God,” Courtney breathed, “You are so beautiful.”

Vixen took in a shaky breath, her hands finally lifting to slide around Courtney’s hips. Something about the way Courtney looked at her was different than anything she’d ever experienced. She’d been the object of lust before, and sometimes very much enjoyed it. But this was more than that. She felt more than sexy, more even than beautiful. She felt seen.

But for once, rather than get all wrapped up in anxiety about what it meant, Vixen acted on instinct. She gripped Courtney's waist and pulled her forward, flinging her onto her back on bed. Courtney squealed delightedly, pulling her along.

Courtney smiled up at her, reaching a hand out but then pausing, letting her fingers rest on Vixen’s shoulder.

“Am I allowed to touch your hair? ‘Cause I’ve heard...”

Vixen couldn’t help laughing as she nodded and said, “That rule doesn’t really apply here.”

“Okay,” Courtney giggled, fingering her twists gently.

Vixen turned her head, pressing a kiss to Courtney’s wrist, then slowly moving up her arm, and finally nuzzling into her shoulder. Her skin smelled fresh and almost sweet, like she’d recently been in a doughnut shop. It wasn’t sugary like some kind of food-based perfume or soap, just a gentle, vague deliciousness that Vixen became addicted to immediately, burying her face into her neck to inhale deeply.

She found a soft, tender spot, just below Courtney’s ear, that made her sigh when kissed, and began to suck. Courtney inhaled sharply, hips thrusting up against Vixen’s, hands tightening in her hair.

“You like that?” Vixen asked, emboldened, hands sliding up from her waist to scratch gently at her ribcage.

“Uh huh,” Courtney breathed, arching up again as Vixen kissed her, thumb brushing over her hardened nipple. A whimper fell from her lips.

Vixen’s dress was half off at this point, pushed down around her waist, and when Courtney’s fingers began to trail lightly up and down her back, she shivered. Courtney pushed the dress further down, wriggling it over Vixen’s hips to her thighs, and Vixen pulled it off the rest of the way.

She was expecting to feel uncomfortably exposed, both of them now just in their panties—a situation she hadn’t found herself in with a woman is a very fucking long time. Especially a woman she liked this much. But instead of feeling awkward, she found her pulse racing with excitement, nearly breathless in anticipation of what might come next.

She realized that she’d been frozen for a few moments when Courtney raised herself up on her elbows and asked, “Are you alright?”

Vixen nodded, and Courtney sat up further, reaching out to touch her cheek.

“You want to take a break? Slow things down?”

“No,” Vixen said simply, slipping her fingers under the sides of Courtney’s panties. Her hips lifted, allowed Vixen to slide them off easily, heart in her throat when she saw how glistening wet she was already. She knew that she was potentially in over her head, but there was also a strong urge to keep going, pulse racing with desire.

“Come here.” Courtney stretched out her arm, pulling Vixen in for a kiss, tongues tangling together. She rolled Vixen over, onto her back, grinding down against her.

As much as Vixen wanted to please her, ceding control to Courtney felt liberating. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Courtney lavished her with affection, layering kisses against her skin. When a warm tongue swirled over her nipple, her hips jerked up, a stifled moan escaping from her throat.

Courtney sucked harder on her nipple, hands sliding down her torso, lips following as they trailed over Vixen’s tense abdomen. She hooked her fingers into the sides of Vixen’s panties and then looked up questioningly.

“Can I...?”

“Go ahead,” Vixen replied, straining to raise her hips, finding her core muscles in a weakened state, skin so flushed and hot that for a moment, she barely remembered to be self-conscious. Until Courtney began to slide her panties down, and suddenly she remembered exactly what she’d been dreading. When the reality of who she was would confront Courtney, more than theoretical, more than an idea.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she watched Courtney’s face. If she had any qualms about a girl with a dick, she certainly didn’t show it. She simply continued to suck soft kisses into her skin, warm hands resting on her thighs.

Vixen finally relaxed backwards, eyes falling shut. She let go of all her worries, all her stupid insecurities. At least for now. At least while Courtney took her dick into her mouth, tongue flicking delicately at her. Vixen’s hips thrust upwards, hands gripping the comforter tightly, moans dripping from her lips like honey.

It had been so achingly long since anyone had touched her this way. Maybe no one ever had, she realized as she arched into the soft caresses. She’s certainly never experienced this kind of loving attention from a woman, a woman treating her like she was precious and beautiful, turning her into a gasping, quivering mess. Vixen felt herself falling apart quickly, losing control, nearly gone before she had the wherewithal to choke out a pained warning.

“I’m-I’m gonna-”

“Mmhmmm…” Courtney made no move to stop, swirling her tongue again, then taking her deeper, sucking harder.

“Oh fuck,” Vixen moaned, hips pumping uncontrollably as she came, gasping for air.

The way Courtney’s hands stroked her thighs, continued to suck softly as she melted backwards into the pillows, every muscle in her body going slack--the small part of her that was still conscious shivered with delight, thrilled with the feeling of being spoiled.

It wasn’t until her body was completely still, bones feeling like jelly, when Courtney began to work her way up her body once again, hands sliding over her skin until she came nose to nose with her once again.

Courtney smiled, kissing her cheeks, down along her jaw, the corner of her mouth. Lips rousing her from a state of sheer exhaustion into warm, sleepy affection. Her hands circled Courtney's waist.

“How are you feeling, baby?” Courtney murmured.

“Uh huh.”

Courtney giggled, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger as she pressed more kisses against her.

Vixen sighed contentedly, pulling her in close, not caring how clingy and pathetic she might seem, just wanting the warmth of Courtney’s body against her own. Courtney snuggled into her arms, slipping to the side of her, legs still tangled together.

After a few slow, lazy kisses, Vixen started to sense a shift. Courtney’s breath grew hot and ragged, hips rutting against her. She cautiously moved a hand down, working it in between her thighs, fingers seeking out her wet heat.

“Show me what you want,” she urged, desire to give Courtney pleasure finally outweighing her fear of looking like an amateur.

Courtney lifted her head, giving her a sleepy grin and reaching down to guide her. She patiently showed Vixen exactly where to touch her, what to do to tease her, when to speed up and circle her clit, how deep for her fingers to go and exactly how to curl them to make her tremble. Vixen followed her breathless instructions, guided by Courtney’s own hand, thrilled at the way her body responded.

Soon, Courtney’s eyes were rolled back, muscles straining, tits brushing against Vixen’s chest as she thrusted against her fingers, fucking down into them, breathy moans music to Vixen’s ears. Her hips moved faster and faster until she stopped, whimpering, just barely grinding against the heel of Vixen’s hand, lips pressed to her neck.

Vixen had never made a girl come before, and it was so much more beautiful than she’d imagined, from the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks to the slick sheen of sweat on her forehead, to her ass flexing, muscles still twitching against Vixen’s fingers. And the best part, the way she looked up at Vixen at the end, eyes locked with hers as the waves of pleasure radiated through her body, fingers wound tightly into her hair.

“Fuck,” Courtney sighed, collapsing against Vixen’s body, trapping her hand for a few moments before realizing it and letting her wriggle free with a sleepy laugh. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Vixen said, tilting her chin up for a kiss. Her whole body had suddenly become soft and pliant, and all Vixen wanted was to wrap her into an embrace. She wasn’t expecting it to feel this intimate. A part of her had even worried that this whole affair would be wrapped up in a one-night stand. But as Courtney cuddled against her, heart still hammering, she felt closer to her than ever. “I should probably tell you…”

“Mmm?”

“What I said earlier, about not being with a girl in a long time?” Vixen swallowed. “I uh...I haven’t really had a girlfriend since high school. And I guess I’ve come close since then, but never really went through with it...as me. The real me.”

Courtney lifted her head, fingers trailing down Vixen’s arm, a smile playing on her lips.

“Thank you for trusting me with the real you,” she said softly.

Vixen nodded, not sure what more there was to add, when a clap of thunder outside scared the living shit out of her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. So much for a warm and fuzzy moment.

Courtney laughed, pulling up the covers and cocooning them both, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” she said, snuggling tight against Vixen’s body.

“You better,” Vixen replied.

#rpdr fanfiction #the vixen #courtney act #honey mahogany #latrice royale #courtney x vixen #trans!vixen #fluff #smut #mild angst #lesbian au #galactica au #fic challenge #black girl magic fic #diversity fic #revelation sunshine #veronica #trans character #tw mention of past transphobia

18 notes · View notes

0ri0nmvns0n · 4 years

Text

Spencer Charnas x FtM Trans Reader

A/N: this was requested by @im-a-killer-baby /@plague-rat-in-the-wall

Coming Out

-you had been stealth for almost 6 months by the time you told Spencer you were trans

-you had called him while he was in the studio and told him that you wanted to tell him something important when he came home

-He came home about an hour later, which was when you told him. You were pretty much on the verge of tears, because you had felt bad about not telling him for so long.

-“I feel so bad that I’ve been keeping this from you for so long...but, I wanted to wait until it felt right, and until I was ready...Spencer- I-I’m Trans...”

-he hugged you tightly and told you that he loved you regardless of what you were going through and he would help you through your transition the best he could.

-“Hey...It’s okay...don’t cry, Baby. I’m here for you no matter what and I’ll support you through your transition. I love you, Baby and I’ll be with you every step of the way...”

-After he comforted you, he asked about your preferred name and it took him a little bit to get used to using he/him pronouns when referring to you but it only took a week or two to get used to it.

Binding, Going On T and Dealing with Dysphoria

- when he had downtime, regardless of whether he was on tour, in the studio or at home with you, he did research on gender dysphoria and all the surgeries, as well as hormone therapy.

- he does his best to help you alleviate some of your dysphoria

-he ordered Binders for you the day after you came out, as a surprise, because he knew you really wanted them and that it would help with your dysphoria

-making sure you don’t wear your binder for more than 8 hours

-if you try to, he’ll remind you that wearing it for more than 8 hours can bruise your ribs and it could even result in you not qualifying for top surgery

- “I know wearing it makes you feel better and makes some of your dysphoria go away for a little bit, it’s not healthy if you wear it for too long...and wearing it for long periods of time without breaks can even disqualify you from getting top surgery...and I know how much you want that...just- take a break from it for a little bit, okay?”

-you know he’s right, so you don’t try to protest, even though you hate taking it off

-in general, showering sucked because y’know...your chest wasn’t flat

-sometimes you and Spencer would shower together, which always made you feel a little bit better. he would always reassure you and tell you that he loved you no matter what.

-Even though you had a whole arm that was covered in tattoos and had some more scattered across your body, there was something about medical needles that you had never liked.

-When you started T he went with you to your appointment because he knew you weren’t the biggest fan of needles, and he wanted to be able to help you

-setting reminders for T shots on both your phone and his

-helping with your shots

-you would do the prep for it but he would actually inject it, since you don’t like dealing with needles.

-he tells you to focus on him instead of the needle that was going into your thigh

-“I know you don’t like doing your shots, Babe but it’ll be worth it in the end”

-lots of Horror movies and cuddles after your shots

-He gives you compliments literally all the time

-He lets you wear his clothes whenever you feel like it

-He thinks it’s cute

-Sweatpants and a binder? “You’re looking like a snack, Babe”

-Hoodie, jeans and a snapback?, “Looking good, Baby”

-Seeing you in a Suit? That’s his favorite “You look really hot in a suit, Babe...How about we take it off later tonight?”

-Him getting pissed at transphobes, especially the ones that call you a “special snowflake” as an insult

Post-Top Surgery

-When you woke up after the surgery, Spencer was in the room with you

-You started crying tears of joy when you saw your chest

-He gave you a very gentle side hug, since you had just woken up and your chest had been wrapped up an hour prior

-Spencer knew how much this meant to you and how much his love and support has helped you over the years

-after your surgery, you were curled up in bed for about two weeks, which kind of sucked at first.

-You ended up wearing a pair of Spencer’s shorts and a black, fluffy bath robe for two weeks since the doctor had said you weren’t allowed to shower

-You were super happy with your results though, so being stuck in bed for two weeks was worth it.

-Spencer did anything and everything he could to help with your recovery.

-He helped you change your dressings and clean up any drainage

-He set up a little space for you in your shared bedroom and grabbed a ton of horror movies and your favorite snacks.

-You had a huge water bottle next to the bed so you didn’t have to refill it often. Hydration is super important!

-Listening to horror movie and true crime podcasts with him while you stayed in bed

-Lots of cuddles, a ton of comfy blankets and you falling asleep in his arms all the time

-If you ever needed anything at all he would go get it for you

-After you were given the ok from your doctor to take the dressings off, you definitely walked around the house shirtless for the day.

-He smiled when you walked into the kitchen without a shirt on and gently hugged you from behind, “You look good, Baby. How is everything feeling so far?”

-He could tell that newfound freedom made you so happy

-Occasionally checking up on how your scars are healing.

-Spencer was happy that you were finally starting to feel like who you were meant to be.

-after you got your surgery and the two of you went out in public, people thought you were his younger brother or something at first.

-You knew you sometimes looked like a 15 year old boy, but you didn’t really care. At least you were finally the guy you had always wanted to be. That’s all that mattered to you.

-the fact that you had scars on your chest was the only real giveaway that you used to be female

-If someone gave you a dirty look Spencer would immediately get protective

-Lots of compliments

-Him constantly telling you how proud he his of you and that he loves you unconditionally

-“No matter what people say about trans guys not being ‘real’ guys, you’ll always be a boy to me. Fuck the transphobes”

-lots of cuddles and movie nights

14 notes · View notes

secretgamergirl · 4 years

Text

Abuse I’ve just had to sit with forever

Right now I can’t look anywhere without seeing people speaking up about abusive monsters in various positions of power and it’s really triggering a lot of PTSD for me about all the times I’ve been in positions like that where nobody has ever listened or tried to help so... I’m just going to rattle off all the ones that come to my head, anonymously, and I don’t know, if anyone who knows me wants to ask me about any of these and/or try to really do something to help, maybe come talk to me about it through whatever private channel we talk in sometimes.

Family stuff. There’s a lot, and there’s no real way to talk about any of it anonymously because I mean being members of my family it’s already narrowed down way too much.

Someone once put me in the temporary care of a woman who savagely beat me because her own children were making too much noise when they should have been asleep. Bad enough that when I went back to school I was almost ripped out of my home by child protective services on the assumption that’s where it happened. Oh and she also force-fed me rotten food with maggots in it. I ended up pretty sick as a result, lost a whole lot of weight, and ended up with a serious eating disorder that’s plagued me since. I did eventually get out of there but I don’t know that I’ve ever really conveyed the full extend of it.

One of that woman’s children had some sort of torture kink, very nearly killed me, did put me in the hospital from injuries, and might have raped me. Hard to say because I was like... 7? Hard to translate those memories now that I have the context and vocabulary. I tried to explain that to anyone who’d listen at the time but, again, I didn’t have the vocabulary and I don’t think it came across that like... ropes and tools were involved, not just fists. Never got into that with therapists, because the first one I had really loved playing gatekeeper with trans stuff and liked the “maybe you just think you’re a girl because of abuse as a child” line of thinking too much already. I think I heard he eventually landed in prison though, so that’s something?

The first job I ever had. Games website. I was too young to be working but nobody ever thought to ask about it, and my family needed the extra income to avoid homelessness besides. The owner of the site... was really into open sexual roleplay in workplace text chats. I was so young and weirdly sheltered that I didn’t even process that that was even a thing, and 90% of it went straight over my head, plus I was in a weird state at the time with the whole trans thing where oh yeah, if anyone’s doing any roleplaying stuff on the internet, I’ll be in the character of me-but-a-girl but everything is pretend here right? So... there was a whole lot of mounting and thrusting being described and it took a few years to sink in that that was not in fact about him pretending to be a knight with me as a horse or something. And there was also a lot of... failing to pay me for years of backbreaking work, outright stealing from me, and I mean, I was up until like 4 AM every night working while still in high school. So, yeah. that was a lot. Never told anybody about any of this. So far as I know he still runs the site and nobody’s ever confronted him about anything.

Used to try to play various RPGs with some people in this extra niche-y game space. Sort of the first place I was ever read as a woman without offering anyone “corrections.” And... there was just this one guy who whenever he was GMing had some weird creative excuse for my character (usually the only woman in the party) to... be raped and/or impregnated just all of the sudden and totally out of left field. Which everyone was OK with somehow. And when he wasn’t GMing he was all over my character of course. Never really spoke up to anyone. I just left one day.

Ended up... in the inner circle of someone very famous. Mostly famous for being a victim of abuse. Which is why I ignored... every single red flag there is that someone is an abusive person and taking advantage of everyone around them. They controlled every aspect of my life for years. Had me do a whole lot of work for them, place myself in real physical and psychological danger, regularly. Directly asked me to severe ties with most people in my life. Install kill-switch sortware on my laptop for their piece of mind that none of our conversations would ever be seen by anyone, while also making me talk only in privately managed chat services where they logged everything and my screen wiped at regular intervals, and insisting I use an untraceable alias in it. All of this I was constantly assured was for my own safety as much as theirs, somehow, and that I was their most valued friend who they would keep safe, start paying a huge salary to soon, as well as help secure me a safe place to live and get properly started on medical transition stuff that I was unable to do in the increasingly unsafe place I was living at the time. I could keep going with this, but again, I don’t want anyone playing guessing games. Eventually, as serial abusers do, this person got sick of me, cast me out, and said presumably unspeakable things about me to everyone in that social circle, because everyone quite promptly cut all ties to me without a word. I once mentioned some small fraction of this publicly in defense of... multiple people attempting suicide as a result of this person’s abuse, and it was made very, very clear to me that this is not someone I will ever be able to safely speak about in public.

Another person who is very famous, with ties to abuse prevention stuff, added me to a blacklist to kill my career prospects and then kinda put a hit out on me on a neo-nazi website, but I’ve written about that incident. Nothing happened as a result of speaking out aside from the violence I was already being subjected to ramping up and more people cutting ties with me. Oh and those who didn’t are still quite friendly with her.

Several women with ties to... dangerous people randomly got it into their heads several years ago that I posed some sort of threat to someone I am told they “feel very protective towards” and... unleashed a hell on me unlike anything I have ever seen. I have spent the past 6 years now dealing with death threats from far right terrorist organizations who in some cases have very sizeable body counts, and those groups don’t scare me anywhere near as much as these people. Anyone else I have seen them paint a target on completely withdrew from the internet their careers and any sort of public life to try and stay off their radar. I have had multiple people privately confide in me that they had been threatened never to speak to me again before proceeding to make good on that. I have individually thrown myself at the mercy of every single one of them, explained that I have absolutely no ill will towards any of them, and had never even heard of this person they’re “protecting” before they started coming after me. Nothing has worked. They’ve never stopped. I’m legitimately afraid someone connected to them is going to murder me some day, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve confided in all of maybe 3 people about this. One might be dead, one is a total hermit, the third briefly tried supporting me, received threats, and promptly retracted everything, replacing it with a fire and brimstone speech about how I am an evil monster who tricked them. I have regular nightmares about this, and collapse into a shivering heap just seeing any of their names mentioned.

I... spent a good deal of time in social contact with a person I have been told I need to be friends with to advance in a career I would like to pursue. While doing so, he sabotaged a project that was fairly important to me, and I saw some him mistreat someone else in ways I find quite disturbing, but that’s her story to tell and not mine. I don’t feel comfortable around him, and have no real choice but to give up on those dreams. Haven’t really discussed this anywhere. The sort of work I can get would definitely vanish completely if I did.

The sort of work I can get also involves working for a variety of companies with people very high up the ranks who have seriously harmed a number of people I consider to be very good friends, in ways that in some cases include sexual abuse, and I... really would prefer not to ever work for anyone employing such people now that I am aware of this.

Yet another famous person, but one who I feel perfectly comfortable naming, Graham Linehan, used to follow me on social media with a level of enthusiasm that could arguably be better referred to as stalking. Then later he joined some extremist anti-trans hate group and rose to the top pretty quickly. And some years after that, it finally sank in that worshiping a trans woman while also leading a group of people bent on killing us all, so he has been very loudly and very publicly rambling about his hatred for me specifically. I don’t really have to speak up about this one because he’s doing plenty of that on his end, but I do have to note that while this famous person terrorizing me hasn’t really earned me any sort of public defense or sympathy, it has encouraged a whole lot of people to invent an alternate timeline of events where I am directly responsible for him being a bigot, leading to me getting dangerous threats from both horrible bigots and people who claim to hate horrible bigots but have suspiciously poor aim.

Hey speaking of celebrities, one of the stars of Firefly used to regularly send me photos of violently distended testicles. One of the stars of Star Trek once posted something encouraging millions of social media followers to attack me and left it up for a weekend. One of the producers of World of WarCraft once threatened to sue me for libel and went on a big PR tour about it, speaking on podcasts and such, and so many fascists pretending to be journalists have dumped so much crap on me...

And not to long ago in something of a wacky mixup, someone ELSE rather famous, who does diversity consulting no less, confused me for someone else and cut loose with a horrific bit of hate and gossip and throwing me under the bus, and misgendering me, saying random harassers baselessly calling me a pedophile were probably onto something. Privately told a handful of people about that, because I thought she was a friend and that was so heartbreaking, but anyone I told is just pretending not to have seen it.

Someone was once offering me help because I was in a dangerous situation, financially. I explained that things had been extra hard since coming out as trans. Suddenly he goes from helpful and concerned to just... violent. Screaming a me, openly trying to chase me out of the space we were both in. I reported this to the proper people. They tried talking, he left. The whole community mourned the loss and wondered who could have driven him off. Still doesn’t feel like a safe place for me.

I don’t really know why I’m bothering with all of this. Nobody is actually going to help. I’d say nobody is actually going to read this, but I’m sure plenty of people who hate me will to see if I’m talking about them and use it as justification to make things worse. Plus some people I’m not talking about I’m sure. I get plenty of that all the time.

Nothing ever helps and you can’t ever win. If you try to keep the abusers appeased by not outing them, the abuse never stops. If you try to speak up, their fans and friends treat it like declarations of war and pile on. If you just try to be there for other people when they’re being abused, you get singled out as a “troublemaker” and added to hit lists and black lists and... nothing works.

I don’t want a lot out of life. I want to know I have enough food, and have a place to live where I’m not at risk of dying from either temperature extreme, a bathroom, enough room for my book shelves, a bed, a couch, a dinner table, and a yoga mat. Maybe a space where my cats can run around a little enclosed semi-outdoor area for the fresh air and sun. I want to be able to deal with my medical problems. I want to see and talk to friends sometimes. If I’m really greedy, I’d like to have all that for a particular friend too who I’m constantly worrying about dying of poverty. And I’d like to be able to work on games. Maybe play them sometimes. Maybe watch things.

And that’s the really messed up part. Because abusive people and people supporting the structures of abuse always say they just want to focus on getting work done, or having fun, and it’s a lie. What’s most important for them is perpetuating abuse. They could just stop, or get rid of the people doing it, and the rest of us could live our lives and everything would be fine. But no instead we have to drop everything and make sure no woman anywhere feels safe enough to even breath.

5 notes · View notes

canvaswolfdoll · 4 years

Text

CanvasWatches: Carole & Tuesday

A charming SciFi anime focusing more on the cast’s day-to-day lives than some major sociopolitical conflict that requires laser gun diplomacy? Set on a Terraformed Mars with brick and mortar solarpunk aesthetic? I can get into that.

The fact that Carole & Tuesday is a science fiction story came as a surprise, as most of the buzz and promotion that crossed my social feeds focused on the street performance aspects. Then, surprise! Tabletop fast food ordering and pizzerias that grow their tomatoes in house![1] Which is the sort of speculative fiction I’m enjoying nowadays: normal life with the fantastic acting as seasoning to spice up the world around them.

I’ve never paid special attention to music. I listen to music obviously, but rarely in any sort of analytical capacity. It’s pretty sounds that help fill in the background while I write, or to convey emotion in a musical, or to mark the start and end of a show I’m watching. I’ve never sought out music to listen to when looking for entertainment, it’s always a byproduct of whatever media I’m engaged with at the moment. Heck, these days, when I’m too lazy to set my car radio up to play a podcast, I just drive in silence.[2]

I sometimes feel I’m missing something by not engaging with the art form in a more conscious manner, and I only recently became aware that albums are a carefully curated thing instead of a collection of the performer’s most recent songs, so… yeah. Kind of a cultural blindspot.[3]

This tangent doesn’t even end with a neat little note of how Carole & Tuesday had inspired me to consume music in a more deliberate and contemplative manner. The soundtrack includes plenty of insert songs I happily threw on my background noise playlists,[4] and what few albums I seek out are video game and anime soundtracks.[5]

Carole & Tuesday was chiefly directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, who’s name was made with the Jazzy Space Epic Cowboy Bebop and Hip-Hop Samurai Series Samurai Champloo. It was probably inevitable he would produce an anime where music took front stage instead of informing tone.

Carole & Tuesday takes inspiration from Pop, but is unafraid to feature and mix other genres, such as Opera and Rap.[6] What’s really exciting is the decision to have the insert songs performed in English.

Historically, when diegetic music is present in anime, the song is performed in Japanese, and most dubs make the smart decision to leave the japanese audio and subtitle them. I may prefer dubs for my various reasons, but I wouldn’t dare ask for the policy on subbed music to change. Carole & Tuesday took an international view to its production, and thus used the most widely spoken language when no one (reasonable) would begrudge the use of Japanese performers.

Netflix picked up the show as part of their continued haphazard attempts to seize the genre with an attitude out of the early 2000s, and the company tapped to record the English dub did an admirable job matching voice performances believably similar to the singing voices.

Which may be the first time that speaking actors were hired to fit the singers.

The story takes place on Mars in the future year of… 50 years after humanity started migrating to Mars. I cannot find a year cited, which is the smart and wise choice and I am super annoyed I’m not going to be able to make jokes about the production's attempts and failure to predict the future.

50 years after starting to migrate over to the red planet, humanity has terraformed large swathes of Mars into a Solarpunk paradise. Earth is apparently not in a great state as refugees are desperately making their way to the planet, but Earth remains offscreen for the entire run. Fortunately no one has any giant robots,[7] so the two planets aren’t at war. While Mars has been made hospitable enough, the atmosphere does occasionally mess with the genetics of residents.

That’s just background details, however. The story is really about the titular duo. Tuesday is introduced fleeing the mansion of her politician mother, hopping onto a cattle train like Kiki, and riding off to Alba City with only a quitar and robotic luggage to keep her company, where she stumbles upon Refugee Orphan Carole busking with a keyboard. The two have a jam session and decide to become a musical act.

Meanwhile, famed child star Angela Carpenter[8] is setting to transition from a modeling career to an exciting career singing. Her mother pulls strings and utilizes her connections to team up with Tao, a genius of Artificial Intelligence Design who is willing to use his technology to provide Angela with computer generated music and lyrics.

Thus we have the start of a sci-fi John Henry Tale where the battle is not hammer and steel but instruments and voice.

I say ‘the start’ because while the two teams utilize different methods to produce their music, their methods are never weighed against one another. In fact, there’s barely a one-sided rivalry, as Angela is jealous of the titular duo’s ability to enjoy their career, and our two heroes take only a polite, professional view of Angela’s rising career.

Carole and Tuesday are both weighed down by a common problem with anime protagonists: they’re just nice. There’s a certain fear when writing protagonists, especially females, of accidentally making them off-putting that the writers overcorrect and don’t let the hero make mistakes or have much personality, to the point that Carole and Tuesday have very little agency.

Instead, it’s Gus, the ex-rock star manager the duo acquire, that does the leg work and takes risks while Carole and Tuesday just sing nice songs then sit back while the plotlines orbiting their rise to success are resolved by the men.

The show also can’t choose a lane, playing with several story threads that could carry full 24-episode stories by themselves, but instead are dealt with as lightly as possible.

We start with the story of a run-away from decadence and a refugee bringing their world views together, but that instead goes into a tournament arc disguised as a talent contest, then the drama of navigating the music industry, before ending with the presidential run of Tuesday’s mother causing public unrest. Carole and Tuesday don’t make a meaningful choice that affects any of these stories.

Meanwhile, Angela gets a story of asserting her identity while already in public view, facing dangers both external and internal on her journey.

Surprisingly, this is the first show in a while that I didn't resent for transitioning out of the episodic, playing with the premise portion. While Carole and Tuesday were attempting to get their big break, bopping around misadventures trying to get contacts, gigs, and filming a music video, Angela looms in her plotline, building up to the inevitable rivalry.

Angela is introduced just before her mother, Dahlia, starts reworking Angela's career from modeling to singing, hiring Tao, renowned AI designer, as Angela's producer. Angela experiences mild paranoia from Tao's standoffish nature, machinery, and making a holographic simulation of Angela. So Angela had a more consistent narrative during the first arc.

Introductions out of the way, it's time for everyone's favorite trope: the tournament arc! In the form of ‘Space!'s got Talent’ Generic Brand Named into Mar's Brightest. The main duo meets their rival, backstage drama ensues, some very good music is performed, and things are set up to technically give both Carole and Tuesday as well as Angela a win at the end.

With publicity achieved, Gus starts getting to work preparing the girls' debut album and booking appearances, as well as meeting other artists and (briefly) Carole’s father. We learn about Gus’s past client, Flora, who dropped Gus as soon as she found success, then found herself without a support base and spiraled into depression and addiction. Carole and Tuesday remain upbeat and optimistic.

Meanwhile, Angela starts getting harassed by a stalker and feeling helpless and poorly supported by those around her. Tao takes point on stopping the stalker when the police fail, ultimately taking him down before the stalker could pull a Mark David Chapman.

The story bleeds into the final act, as the presidential campaign of Valerie Simmons, Tuesday’s mother, moves forward in prominence. The AI algorithm Valerie is utilizing suggests she take an anti-immigration stance, which the woman follows in an attempt to further her career. Musicians are getting harassed by law enforcement, Tuesday’s brother Spencer is becoming uneasy with being an accessory to the campaign, and starts meeting with a reporter with information that Valerie’s campaign manager orchestrated a terrorist attack to villainize immigrants. Spencer and the reporter argue over how many chances to give Valerie, and agree on Spencer taking the evidence to Valerie, and if she doesn’t back down, then they’ll leak the scandal. Valerie, seeing the crimes committed for her benefit, gracefully renounces her candidacy. It’s very heart warming.

Carole and Tuesday write a protest song, and gather friends to sing it. This protest song has no observable impact.

Meanwhile, Angela learns she’s adopted, and her mother suffers a heart-attack shortly before Angela is set to win a Martian Grammy, and Angela spirals into depression and prescription drug abuse, to the point of collapsing at the end of her Grammy performance, being rushed to the hospital and missing her mother’s passing and funeral. Angela is adrift. She has no family, no support, and is just lonely.

Tao, who was working to sabotage Valerie’s campaign and burning as many bridges as possible after being targeted for refusing to assist the campaign, appears in Angela’s hospital room to drop a bomb: both he and Angela are designer babies, and though Tao must go into hiding now, he does intend to look out for his little sister.

Angela joins the performance of Carole and Tuesday’s protest song.

If it’s not already clear, I feel the story of Carole and Tuesday themselves was pretty lacking.

So, how would I rework this? Step one: we’re either cutting Carole and Tuesday, or combining them into a single character and making Angela the second. With the second option, Angela can maintain her backstory, but take Carole’s introduction of fleeing her family mansion and attempting to strike out on her own, meeting up with Carole and forming an act. To maintain the final arc, Carole would need to be reworked into the abandoned daughter of Tuesday’s late father, making her the half sister of Spencer and something to be hidden by Valerie Simmons’ campaign.

We then intermingle the two plotlines: Gus maintains his managerial position, and eventually convinces Angela to use her connections and mother to get her career jumpstarted, Ms. Carpenter still brings in Tao to write music, and now we can lean more into the AI-written music versus human compositions subplot as well as creative differences, which can lead to an arc where Angela and Carolday split to attempt solo careers, each taking a different manager.[9] Dahlia still has her issues and passes away, Angela her depressive spiral, but now Gus gets pathos by being there to help his client out of self-destruction, and the final number can also be a reconciliation of the main musical duo. The song can even be a combination of AI and human composition.

Carolday, meanwhile, discovers her relation to the anti-immigrant candidate and has to decide if she wants to finally have a family with Valerie and Spencer or stand up for her beliefs and assist a politician in bringing the campaign down. The resolution of the political plot can remain a happy compromise, but Carolday gets a slightly more active role in it.

The animation and world-building is great, and Angela’s arc is very strong. But the writing was too afraid to let either Carole or Tuesday dip into unlikeability that they become props to their own storyline, which is made further unfortunate as their supporting cast that do make decisions are mostly men.

The series is also riddled with a lot of good starts. Many short vignettes or minor details that could be made into full animes by themselves. Show more of Carole and Tuesday’s attempts to break into the music industry while also trying to pay bills and put food on their table. An expansion on the other competitors at Mars Brightest.[10] Heck, expand the roster of the competition and dig more into backstage drama. Carole’s father, who was sent to prison and found his wife dead and daughter sent to another planet upon his release, could carry a story of his own on his back! Valerie’s presidential run and the plight of Earth immigrants given more attention. Heck, even the story of how Earth, the origins of the human species, fell into being a third-world planet people are desperate to leave.

I’d even watch a series about the solarpunk pizzeria that grows their own tomatoes.

The music is really good, however, featuring many artists and styles, and those by our main duo wouldn’t sound out of place on a car radio or licensed on a primetime television show.

It’s a good show, but not an eternal classic. Maybe a second choice for someone digging deeper into anime. However, if its placement on Netflix means it’s someone’s introduction to Anime, that wouldn’t be terrible. Give it a watch if you want something to wind down for bed, or want inspiration for your own speculative fiction.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Solarpunk’s neat. [2] Mostly because I lost all my preset stations last time I took my car in for fixing, and I don't actually know any to punch in. Also, I use youtube for music when writing. [3] Also means I’m wholly unprepared to find music when I finally get a podcast project off the ground. [4] The soundtrack is very present on Spotify, which is nice. [5] I am finding myself increasingly intrigued by vinyl records, however. Probably a bit extravagant, and difficult considering my narrow interests. [6] Presumably to annoy fans of both. [7] Bam! Gundam reference! Anyone have Bingo yet? [8] Though I could swear they never use her last name on screen. [9] I’d find it amusing if Angela takes Gus and Carolday teams up with Dahlia, but the rest of my outline works better if Angela remains with Dahlia. [10] Though this one’s not a major loss. Typical tournament arc stuff.

#CanvasWatches #carole and tuesday #anime #CanvasReviews

3 notes · View notes

anamuseinglife · 6 years

Text

Iditapod: Making It To the Yukon River

Aliy Zirkle: Basically everyone said, "Don't go." And I was like, Ehhh... I gotta go. I've gotta go see what... there is supposedly a trail, then I've gotta go see if I can do it. And see if I can make a move. No one else wanted to try that.

[theme music plays]

Casey Grove: Welcome to the Iditapod: A podcast about the Iditarod, because nobody else decided to try that, and where we ask ourselves, "What would Aliy Zirkle do?" This is a production of Alaska Public Radio and KNOM Radio in Nome. I am your host Casey Grove. Before we go see if we can do it, here's a word from our sponsor.

[ad plays]

CG: Hey Gang! Happy Friday and welcome to the Yukon River. That's where the front of the pack Iditarod mushers are arriving on Friday. That'll include Aliy Zirkle. Just heard from her. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, she will also be making it to the Yukon today, but it's Girdwood musher and last year's Iditarod runner-up, Nicolas Petit who, again, leads the 2019 Iditarod. Petit's team all, all 14 dogs, was the first to make it to the Yukon River, pulling into Anvik at 4:23 AM, Friday. A quick note on the weather from our trail reporter, Ben Matheson from KMON.

As the race enters its 5th day here, a warm winter storm's expected to drop a few inches of snow and we might see temperatures climb into the mid-30s. That, as we know, can be a little warm for dogs running out there. They tend to slow down when they're warm. And the trail itself, if it gets a bunch of snow on it, will also slow those teams down. The teams approaching the Yukon River include defending champ, Joar Leifseth Ulsem. There has really been a cat-and-mouse game developing between him and Nic Petit, who of course were very close last year. And they've been taking turns in the lead. Ulsom's team had lead through the night going into Friday after passing Petit's between the checkpoints of Iditarod and Shageluk. Petit and Ulsom have been racing near each other ever since hte checkpoint of Ophir, and they've swapped the lead position a few times on Thursday as their rest and run schedules intersected. There will be more shuffling of the leaderboard this weekend. Mushers must take an 8 hour rest at a checkpoint of their choice on the Yukon or in Shageluk, which is pretty close to the Yukon. So Ulsom was first into Shageluk very, very early on Friday morning with 11 dogs. He did stay for that 8 hours, so he has checked that off. As Ben reports, wet snow was falling. Ben talked to Ulsom after he pulled his team over for a nap and a nice big meal. There could have been a gourmet dinner for Ulsom and prize money 25 miles down the trail in Anvik. It looks like Petit has claimed that, but after a hard run through the hilly terrain, Ulsom decided not to pursue that prize.

Joar Leifseth Ulsom: If I were to do it, it'd only be to get the money. It wouldn't be the best thing to do for the dogs.

CG: Petit arrived in Shageluk 36 minutes behind Ulsom, wearing a raincoat, and he was out again within 3 minutes, headed to Anvik.

Nicolas Petit: [Muffled question about the time with dogs barking in the background]

CG: That was Petit urging his dogs on and, for being the first to arrive in Anvik, he wins the First to the Yukon Award, which comes with a 5 course meal prepared by Anchorage's Lakefront Lodge and very experienced chef who is cooking much better food than what these guys have been eating, likely some freeze-dried meals and whatever is being served in checkpoints. This year, the meal that Nic has won includes bison chili, seared scallops, and a pan-fried cinnamon banana, served with vanilla ice cream and warm brandy sauce. Wow. There's also $3,500 in $1 bills and a bottle of champagne. A little dom perignon, I'm told. Obviously, there's a lot of strategizing going on in this race and it's not all about the food. You heard Aliy talking about her drive to push from Ophir to Iditarod. That's where she took her 24. KNOM's Ben Mathison has more from Aliy and more on the strategy as race leaders continue to leap frog each other preparing to make their next move.

BM: After a marathon day on the trail, Aliy Zirkle's team pulled into the ghost town checkpoint of Iditarod, just before 2 AM Thursday. For being the first into Iditarod, Zirkle wins the Dorothy Page Halfway Award and the prize of $3,000 in gold nuggets. But she had to be the first to survive a trail that transitioned from soft snow to bumpy, frozen ground.

Aliy Zirkle: Yeah, those tussocks are hardcore. They're... you shouldn't really mush a sled over them.

BM: Zirkle's jarring trip was on a day so warm that she fed her dogs water from snow that melted from the rooftop of a shelter cabin. She explained her decision to be the first musher who traveled so far before her break.

AZ: I gotta go. I've gotta go see what... there is supposedly a trail from Ophir to Iditarod, so if there's supposedly a trail, then I've gotta go see if I can do it. And see if I can make a move. Um, seemed like no one else wanted to try that.

BM: The race picture is beginning to come into view, as teams surge out of their 24 hour breaks in Takotna and Ophir. Zirkle is racing at the front, but her competition began to pass her Thursday afternoon while she finished her mandatory race. Just after noon, Nic Petit's team flew into the checkpoint with dogs that wanted to run more. He told spectators his reason for heading further up the trail...

Nic Petit: Because it looked like [unintelligible]

BM: With a fresh bale of straw, he drove his well-rested team a few miles further. Good rest is the priority for teams looking to maintain speed through the mid section of the race. On Wednesday afternoon, at the Ophir checkpoint, a few hours into his 24 hour break, veteran Aaron Burmeister woke from a nap and cooked a meal. The soft trails and warm temperatures have required a big effort from his whole team.

AB: There's been a lot of work. I mean, we've all been working together; working together with the dogs, my legs are sore, my body is sore, I don't do much ski poling, but I've been pushing and pumping and running quite a bit.

BM: As mushers head out of checkpoints with freshly rested teams, the race is now on to reach the flat highway of the Yukon River. For KNOM, I'm Ben Matheson in Iditarod.

CG: Mr. Ben Matheson and our other trail reporter, Alaska Public Media's Zachariah Hughes, are turning in great interviews from the trail. We're posting a bunch of those as extended cuts on the podcast bonus editions. Today I'm working on posting an extended version of the interview that you heard parts of today with Aliy, and there's one up right now with Nic Petit in Ophir from Wednesday. Nic was sounding real relaxed there while taking his 24 in Ophir. Talked about his dogs, their breeding line.. and the interview includes a little bit about the two dogs he's running in the lead, at least up to Ophir it was Shoobie and Geoffrey. Couple of half-brothers, he says. And that's a good lead-in to today's listener question.

Megan: Hey guys, it's Megan calling from Ohio. I've really been enjoying the daily podcasts and bonus tracks. Thanks for keeping us connected to this exciting event. My questions are around the order of the dogs within the team. Is it intentional or strategic which dogs are the lead dogs? What are some of the qualities that the mushers look for in the lead dogs? Do they switch up positions within the team? Stuff like that. Thanks so much.

CG: Thanks for that question, Megan, and thanks especially for the fawning praise. We appreciate that. And thanks for listening as well. The short answer is, yes. A dog's position on the team really does matter, but it's not as hard and fast of a rule that a dog always has to pull in the same position. And mushers will tell you that it's important to have multiple dogs that can lead. If you have enough leaders in your team like that. I have to say when you see these really professional looking Iditarod teams, they look pretty orderly. They make their way down the trail. They pass other teams without too much trouble because they've been trained so well and they're just the best dogs for this. I mean, this is the race for them. IF you go out with amateur mushers, the teams maybe aren't as well-trained and that's just the fact of life. If you have more time to work with the dogs to work with the dogs, they're just going to be better at doing this. And the leaders especially may look back. Dogs may look back. They could get jumbled up. They may not pass other teams as smoothly on the trail. So when you see videos of these Iditarod teams just remember that. There's a lot of work that goes into making things run as smoothly as they do. We're gonna have more on lead dogs in just a second from Iditarod champion Libby Riddles and 16 time finisher, Jim Lanier. They were on Alaska Public Media's live call-in show, Talk of Alaska, recorded a couple of days ago. I was lucky enough to be able to join them. Might post the whole thing to the podcast here, not sure if we have the space for that, but we'll find out. But real quick- let's just start with the positions in a dog team. Starting at the sled. You've got your wheel dogs. Those are gonna be your bigger, sorta stronger, bulkier dogs that really break the weight and get the sled moving right away when you need to move. Then you've got a couple, 2-3 rows of team dogs. And then you've got 2 swing dogs up near the front. They're right behind the leaders and you need to train them to be able to make a big arc when they make turns. You don't want them to just cut off and try to run ahead of the leaders at any point. They really do play an important role because the position right behind the leaders and as those leaders make a turn, you want that nice, clean arc sot hat if you're the musher on the sled, you can just whip around the turn instead of just going straight through. So, as promised, here's more from Libby Riddles and Jim Lanier with Talk of Alaska host, and my boss, Lori Townsend, starting things off.

Lori Townsend: Libby, what goes into selecting the dog that is going to be the leader? How do you make that decision?

Libby Riddles: You don't select. They're born or made, but mostly the very best ones just have it in their blood. I mean they rise to the top, you know? It's just like you're the coach and you have to see each dog. What is their best place? And some dogs are full time leaders that could do every day of the Iditarod, and others like to have a break now and then. You know, every dog has a different capacity and some of us are lucky enough to have these just once-in-a-lifetime super dogs like the one that helped me win the Iditarod.

LT: Well, I want to know more about that in a while. We'll talk about that particular race, but Jim, what are your thoughts about that? What are you looking for in a lead dog, and have you had one that really stood out from the others? J

im Lanier: Oh, I've had several. As all of us who've done a lot of mushers, I've done the race a number of times. I guess the one thing you look for is a dog that's aggressive, that wants to lead, that doesn't mind being chased by a big pack of dogs, you know? And one that has assurance that he or she could do it. You don't want them looking back, asking "Hey are we done yet? Can I get a... off..?" you know?

LR: [Asking] "Can I get a snack?" J

L: So those are the things you look for.

CG: So there you have it, that's how you pick a good lead dog. I want to mention too, there's a really cool award in the Iditarod, if you haven't heard this already. It's called the Golden Harness Award. It's for outstanding lead dogs. The Iditarod has the winning musher pick one of their dogs, sometimes it's two. They take a picture of them with this nice wreath of flowers on the dog. I just want to go back and list some of the past golden harness winners. Back in 2010, you had Maple on Lance Mackey's team. 2011, it was two for Snickers and Velvet on John Baker's team. Then 2012, Guinness on Dallas Seavey's team. Tanner in 2013 on Mitch Seavey's team. Beatle, another Dallas Seavey dog in 2014. And then you've got back to back wins of the golden harness award for Reef on Dallas Seavey's team. Pilot for Mitch Seavey in 2017. I think I saw a report that Pilot is out of this year's race and had to be dropped. And then a dog by the name of Russeren on Joar Liefseth Ulsom's 2018 winning team. I guess that stands for "Russian Express". And we will have to see who wins Golden Harness in 2019 when the teams reach Nome sometime next week.

Speaking of major accomplishments, I've been avoiding this beacuse I don't want to admit that there's another Iditarod podcast out there that has been actually in the business longer than us... it's called The Ikidapod, and it's put together by a class in Wisconsin. Elementary School students in Mrs. Treptow's class. They actually have been going for 4 seasons now. This is their fourth season. Here is a little taste... and I am not kidding you, this is the Ikidapod's opening music.

[electronic music plays]

Kid: Hello and welcome to Ikidapod. Season four. We're your hosts for today's pod. Frosty Frost. Today we will be telling you what the Iditarod is....

CG: It's pretty great and a shoutout to Mrs. Treptow's kids and The Ikidapod and congratulations on making it to your fourth season of The Ikidapod. I mentioned Dallas Seavey's name a few minutes ago, with his lead dogs. Of course, the four time champion is not running the Iditarod for the second year in a row. he didn't run last year, amid a dog-doping scandal. Since then, the Iditarod says they've cleared him of any wrong-doing. We covered all of that back in season 2 last year. Especially season 2, episode 2. I would definitely encourage the listeners to go back and listen to the whole season, but if you want to know more about all that, that was covered in season 2, episode 2. Again, Dallas is over in Norway, racing in the Finnmarkslopet. There was a point in last year's Iditarod where Joar was leading the Iditarod, he won of course. And Dallas was running in first place in the biggest race over in Norway. It's actually the longest sled dog race in Europe. It's about 750 miles. And Seavey ended up taking 3rd last year. I guess that wasn't good enough for him. He went back over in Norway and he's going to try again to win that race. Maybe the best way to find out about Dallas's run in the Finnmarkslopet is to follow him on Facebook. He's out there on the social medias and on the internet. Well, everybody that's all we have time for today. Check us out at http://AlaskaPublic.org and http://KNOM.org for more stories and photos. We will continue the Iditapod here over the weekend as the race continues, we've also got daylight savings time changes coming up and some math to do. So, stay tuned for that and more extended interviews from Ben and Zach out in the field. Hopefully Zach's going to figure out his internet issues in Anvik. Can't wait for that. Our theme music is by the band Sassafras. I am your host Casey Grove. Til next time, happy trails! [theme music plays]

1 note · View note

canaryatlaw · 6 years

Text

alright, it’s 1 am so let’s get writing. today was pretty good! Alarm went off at 9 am and I got up, made pretty good time getting make up done and getting dressed so I got to sit at the table for a little enjoying my bagel before heading out. I ubered downtown much like yesterday, I didn’t want to be too early so I found a Starbucks to hang out in for ten minutes (I bought a cake pop) before heading up to the office. I was an idiot at first and thought for some reason that suite 2500 would be on the second floor and not the 25th floor, but I figured it out soon enough. Got up there and the client was in the waiting room already, so I talked to her for a bit before the other lawyer came back and then we chatted for a few before we started the meeting. I can’t get into details of course because attorney client privilege/confidentiality (those are actually two different things) but I’d say it went pretty well and I was pleased to find out we have more of a case than I originally thought. So we’re gonna do some of the bureaucratic pre-requisites to filing a suit and go from there, overall good meeting. Got out at about noon, walked a few blocks over to the red line and from there took it north to the Target I normally go to so I could grab a few things I needed (like, gummy vitamins, milk, clementines, blueberries, and gallon plastic bags basically) and then uber pool’ed home because there’s no good public transit options and the bag was heavy and I was cold. got inside after incredibly carefully navigating the very icy sidewalk outside my building (all I can think when I see it is about how much I’d sue my landlord if I got hurt on it) because today is the 4 year anniversary of me slipping on ice in the driveway of my parent’s house and breaking my foot in three places, and I know how much the world loves irony, and I fucking would fall and injure myself on the same fucking day 4 years later, but thankfully I was careful enough and avoided slipping. It gives me so much anxiety though, honestly. there’s so much ice. I know the people who live in the apartment below us have a baby and young kids, I hope they’re doing okay coming and going with it. anyway. I put things away and took care of a few things and listened to some podcast episodes before watching last night’s Brooklyn 99 episode (which thankfully my dvr recorded this time) and then moved on to a few episodes of Reign while I caught up on Jess’ avalance sm au (because I know she’s still secretly peeved I didn’t read the last one and yes I am 100% writing this to troll her because I know she comes on here and searches for her name in my posts). I also got an email from the public defender’s office wanting to set up an interview, so I gave them a call and they said they would be doing them in like two weeks so we set an interview for then (I’m personally hoping I’ll be otherwise employed by then, but we’ll see). Being that I submitted that application several weeks ago and hadn’t heard anything, I strongly suspect that the sudden interest is due to my former professor/somewhat of a mentor who heads up the juvenile division of the PD’s office and happened to regard me as his favorite student (and he actually said as much) and I had spoken to him a few days ago, so I wrote him an email saying thank you for whatever strings he pulled. I think I could be a very good public defender, it’s never quite been the goal job but I do have strong feelings on the subject and in most situations would much rather be a defense attorney than a prosecutor (exceptions being mostly prosecutions against child abusers). On that note though, I will 100% go into the interview and tell them that I will not work in their child welfare unit where they represent parents in child welfare cases, because the PD is the only lawyer in the room whose stated goal is not the best interest of the child, and there is no way I could zealously represent my client when I knew it would be going against the best interest of a child, and that would be breaking my ethical obligation to my client, and I would never want to take a position where I would be put in that position, and if that’s a dealbreaker for them I’m honestly fine with that, there are just no circumstances I would be okay doing that job and I’m not afraid to make them know that. My hope is that they’ll take that as me being passionate and ethically concerned rather than pretentious and picky, but like I said if that’s a dealbreaker for them (they generally rotate people through different units, one of them being child welfare) then I’m honestly fine walking away from the position and I will have no regrets about it. So I guess we’ll see how that goes anyway. Around 6 I started getting ready for small group, I was sort of de facto in charge for the evening even though I’m not an official small group leader because both of the actual leaders couldn’t make it tonight and I’m basically unofficially the back up, lol. They did ask me to be a full-time leader, but I knew I would miss way too many sessions because of cons and stuff to do it but I said I would definitely help out when I could. So I had ended up picking the restaurant, an italian place that wasn’t very expensive but still had good reviews (I spent forever yesterday wading through yelp listings for cheap italian places that weren’t pizzerias or deli’s) and I was fairly confident it would be a good choice. Originally we were supposed to have 5, but then one person bailed, but then there was another potentially coming, and then the two other girls showed up without the husband of one of them that was supposed to come with them, so we were officially down to 4, and then this mysterious other person ended up not showing because I think they ended up at the wrong location....the restaurant has a few locations around the city, and two of them happen to be in different neighborhoods not near each other but both start with the word “Lincoln” and there was some confusion about addresses so it just ended up being the three of us which was fine, we had a good time talking about anything and everything, and definitely a lot of laughs, so I was happy with that. And the food was definitely quite good even with a somewhat lower price, so I was satisfied by that. We spent about 2 hours there before heading out. I took the bus back up to my apartment and got settled a bit before sitting down on the couch and turning on the tv, but none of my shows had been on tonight so I just ended up watching the news and then it turned into Jimmy Kimmel which I watched until I decided I should start getting ready for bed, at which point I got in the shower and now I am here. It’s 1:30 now and I’m doing stuff tomorrow, so I should probably be getting to bed now. Goodnight dolls. Happy weekend.

#daily journal #February 2019

1 note · View note

writingrissa · 6 years

Text

Rissa Listens: Podcast Roundup Part 2

Time for more podcast recs! Again continuing in the order I’ve been listening to them (As best I can remember). A few of these are pretty niche, but the rest are more amazing audiodramas. Again descriptions are from Spotify or Google Play.

6. Tortall Recall

“Seven friends read and discuss their way through Tamora Pierce's Tortall books so you don't have to--but like, you can, we're not going to stop you.”

This should probably be higher on the list, but I don’t remember exactly when I started listening. In any case, Tamora Pierce has been one of my favorite authors since I discovered her books in middle school. I’ve really enjoyed rereading and (indirectly) sharing my love of these books with others. The host are great and really go in depth in their discussions of the books while keeping it fun and lively. They read a book a month and this month they are starting the Protector of the Small Quartet, which is my favorite. If your a fan, or looking for a new fun series to read and discuss, jump in!

7. The Bright Sessions

“Dr. Bright provides therapy for the strange and unusual; their sessions have been recorded for research purposes.”

This was such a good podcast. It’s another where I loved it so much I’m not sure how to articulate it so you’ll love it too. The description here is also kinda vague, but there’s not much more you need to know. I will add that I’ve seen it described as an X-Men in therapy vibe.There are great loveable characters here, even ones you’ll love to hate.This podcast has ended but they are still posting extras, and I think I read that there will be a spin off. If you listen to this you will not be disappointed. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.

8. No Script at All

A weekly episode-by-episode discussion about the Japanese Netflix reality show Terrace House, currently covering Opening New Doors. Hosted by Andrea Caprotti and Brendon Bigley.

So this is another of those niche podcasts. Terrace House is a series of reality shows for people who, like me, are over the overly scripted, falsely dramatic formula that comprise most reality shows. It is essentially six strangers living in a fabulous house and we get to see how they adapt and interact. There is, as the one of the host says each episode “no script at all.” The current season is Opening New Doors and I was just happy to find a podcast and through it a community of people to discuss this show I love with.

9. King Falls AM

“King Falls AM centers on a lonely little mountain town’s late-night AM radio talk show and it’s paranormal, peculiar happenings and inhabitants.”

Jack in the box Jesus! I have so many feels for this podcast. It has an amazing cast of characters that are all just so different and fun. They really make you care about this weird little town. You will love them, you will hate them, you will be invested in their lives and the goings on in King Falls. I have laughed and cried and exclaimed out loud (usually on public transit on my way to work) listening to this podcast. It is currently on break, though there have been some mini episodes and the creators seem to enjoy teasing us on social media with cryptic clues about the return.

10. Wolf 359

“Life's not easy for Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. He's stuck on a scientific survey mission of indeterminate length, 7.8 light years from Earth. His only company on board the station are stern mission chief Minkowski, insane science officer Hilbert, and Hephaestus Station's sentient, often malfunctioning operating system Hera. He doesn't have much to do for his job other than monitoring static and intercepting the occasional decades-old radio broadcast from Earth, so he spends most of his time creating extensive audio logs about the ordinary, day-to-day happenings within the station. But the Hephaestus is an odd place, and life in extremely isolated, zero gravity conditions has a way of doing funny things to people's minds. Even the simplest of tasks can turn into a gargantuan struggle, and the most ordinary-seeming things have a way of turning into anything but that. Wolf 359 is a radio drama in the tradition of Golden Age of Radio shows. Take one part space-faring adventure, add one part character drama, and mix in one part absurdist sitcom, and you get Wolf 359.”

This is a really long description and I was going to cut it down...but then I didn’t. Wolf 359 was yet another amazing audio drama. It does so much with an initially small cast and it could have been a just a fun little sitcom-ish drama and I still would have loved it, but the plot expanded wonderfully and managed to get serious without loosing the fun of the beginning episodes. I just recently finished Wolf 359 and I have not been able to start a new podcast yet. I’m just stuck here, I don’t want to leave them behind. Yet another podcast it would not be a mistake to listen to.

Well that’s it for now. I look forward to listening to more amazing podcasts. Please feel free to give me podcast recs!

#rissa listens #podcast roundup #podcasts #tortall recall #the bright sessions #no script at all #king falls am #wolf 359 #original content

10 notes · View notes

yndigot · 3 years

Text

I really love so much about my job. But I am in the middle of transitioning to WAY more responsibility at the moment and it is super stressful.

Also, it's involved a lot of feedback about how I talk. Since I've worked here, people have repeatedly pointed out that I laugh a lot/am very giggly in a way no one else anywhere in my life ever has, and I think it's because if I just laugh at something, it saves me having to come up with an appropriate response. So people will make some dumb joke or say something mildly amusing or even just ... offer some weird trivia because this is a VERY talky workplace, and I'm a VERY quiet person by nature, and I'll feel like I need to respond, so I'll just smile and laugh and nod along to show that yes, I'm a good-natured, friendly, normal person who knows how to interact socially (I do not).

Then, in the middle of practicing a presentation on a very serious, difficult topic, the woman coaching me made a comment about me having a husband. Something like "you could practice your presentation in front of your husband" sort of thing. IDK if that was a hypothetical or if she really thinks I have a husband. I didn't correct her. I awkward laughed. At the end of that section of the presentation, she told me that I needed not to laugh while discussing this difficult topic with the public. I'm pretty sure I only awkward laughed when she made that weird comment, but now I'm EXTRA self conscious about when/how I'm laughing and if I'm doing it at completely inappropriate moments.

Also had pointed out how often I use vocal fillers like "um," which I agree is incredibly annoying when you have to listen to it, but while I've always been pretty aware of other people doing it when I'm watching polished presentations or listening to podcasts, now I'm hyper-aware of when I do it and when other people do it in more off the cuff interactions. I know being conscious of this stuff is important to becoming a better public speaker, but it's also setting off my anxiety big time.

Also I dropped out of therapy/psychiatric treatment about 4-5 years ago and have not been back, so my mental health is starting in ROUGH shape generally. The last time I went this long without any treatment, I started strangling myself with a leather strap and giving myself bleeding friction burns. Currently I'm just peeling the skin off the bottoms of my feet/around my nails and cuticles until I bleed, which is more compulsion/dermatillomania that I've done for the past 30 years, not really conscious, deliberate self harm, which I've only done during a few very rough periods in my life. But it was way easier for me to get to medical appointments the last time I was able to go to therapy and a psychiatrist, so even though I now have insurance, I'm not sure how I'll actually get to doctors' appointments if I make them.

#what is my life #tw: self harm

0 notes

vaguely-concerned · 6 years

Text

some apartment stuff!

- by far the most time-consuming thing we’ve had to do so far was to scrub literally every flat surface in this place, walls and ceilings included, twice because apparently the previous owners a) smoked like goddamn chimneys and b) didn’t quite Get the part where you’re supposed to, y’know, properly wash the place before you hand over them keys :) it’s okay though, my parents were here this weekend to help me out and now it smells a lot less like stale musty ass cigarette smoke in here! (my downstairs neighbour also smokes a frankly staggering amount but I don’t really mind that incidental smell so much -- if anything it’s a happy, safe smell I associate with my grandfather, it’s just the constant ‘passive smoking by way of the ghosts of cigarettes past’ aspect of it being in my own apartment that bothers me.)

- having a dad who’s an electrician/all round handyman who’s got the experience of almost single-handedly renovating our family home from barely-above-a-ruin to an actual nice place is a blessing. (also a blessing just in general, even if the one thing that can drive him to slightly surly annoyance is putting together IKEA furniture lol I love my dad very much) the previous owner fancied himself a handyman, so it’s good to have someone to help me fix all the weird little fuckups he’s managed here. it’s all cosmetic rather than anything really dire, thankfully, but who the fuck just slathers silicone sealant on the baseboards like it’s icing on a cake and leaves clumps of it there??? also we’ll have to repaint all the walls because someone did a shoddy job last time and a few of the walls is a strange desaturated pink that manages to look like it’s maybe the colour a nicer shade of subdued red turns when it’s been dead for a while. even that can’t make the apartment seem less airy and light and it’s all easily fixed though, so it’s all good

- my internet speed is so much better it’s actually absurd. I went from trickle to a thundering river and I don’t know what to do with so much raw power. I can watch a youtube video and it won’t stop to buffer every other minute??!?! witchcraft???!!?

- I’m plantsitting for my mum for the next month or so while they’re on holiday and it’s convinced me that I need All The Plants in here, it makes the place feel so much livelier and less lonely somehow? (got my fucked up should’ve-died-but-clung-on-to-life-like-a-bitter-motherfucker orchid with me too, it’s my baby)

- started listening to critical role and loving it so far! (I’m only up to midway into episode four of season two; these things are so long?? I love it??) my reasons for not doing it sooner was a) something about the grey zone and ambivalence of the actors being there as themselves as well as their characters at any given time squicks me out, which is easily lessened by only listening to the audio podcast so I don’t have the faces, b) season one seemed to just be so much stuff I was getting a headache just considering where to start but now there’s a season two and I can get on closer to the beginning! and c) I was really worried it would squick me out to listen to mcree’s voice actor for so long (listen... my brain knows actors are not their characters and it’s fine and good but some part of me still gets reeeaaaal uncomfortable when I watch them outside of that role I’m attached to? not true of all actors, of course, seeing as I watched literally every david hewlett movie I could get my hands on for a while there, but as a related example I can’t even listen to a joe flanigan interview without squirming and wanting to wrench out of my skin *shrug* it’s just a thing) thankfully it’s been pretty okay on that front, the only times he’s sounded mccree-ish was for some of the random guards and I had to wriggle uncomfortably in my seat a little while but then it was over and it was back to being okay. anyway I love all my new children but I love molly and his weird faily charmingly uncharming ass the most (like he’s basically a con man who used his fake psychic act to exasperatedly tell some farmer with a cough to go to a doctor not a fortune teller & his love for his found circus family is so sweet and natural what a legend)

- I think I’m going to go start exploring the area tomorrow! I actually really like getting my bearings in a new place and that little burst of pleased recognition when you realize how it all connects together. it’s still quite rural-feeling in some ways -- there’re fields and some farms and shit you can see if you stand turned to the right on my balcony, for example! -- but crucially it has things like grocery stores within walking distance and public transit, which handily beats where I lived before ha ha

- planning to experiment with food now that I’ve only got my own tastes to cater to (and also to try to save some money lawl), so I’m going to buy some dried legumes in bulk and learn how to properly prepare them and maybe make something with tofu? (I’m not a real vegetarian, I just find most types of meat bland and uninspiring and I love beans and chickpeas and stuff so y’know why not play to my strengths here and make a fuckton of vegetables + lentils or whatever for protein)

- I’m sorry if this is completely incoherent, it’s half past one in the morning here and I’m so tired I think I’m seeing a separate dimension, I’m going to bed now haha

3 notes · View notes

theoriesontheory · 3 years

Text

And I Get Up Again I Get Up Again I - (how I fell in love with producing again/the making of ‘overdue conversations’ pt. 3)

When I got home, the morning I decided to start my project, after going and getting my morning coffee I found that I had turned some internal dialogue into the intro of a song. The lines “where have you been? You’ve been lost inside you head” sung by my computer/the creative parts of myself to me seemed like an interesting place to start a song. I quickly recorded a voice memo.

found_sound.mp3

overdue conversation - voice memo

Even on that memo I sensed that this track was going to be a lot of different things because even in the two sections I had vaguely worked out in my head, the feeling was very different. The ever-changing feeling of this song has become what makes it stand out as unique to me when I look at what I have made so far. The reason it moves from section to section, constantly introducing new musical ideas rather than establishing one that we keep coming back to is this song was composed as it took shape.

What I mean is I made one of the synths in the intro using the mac start up noise (a little nod to the idea that my muse from within my computer is talking to me) and added a second subtle synth part and recorded scratch vocal for that part there. Then I laid down the 808 layer and some basic drums for the first section and recorded that section. And so, I progressed through the entire song. This meant that I was writing melodies and lyrics based on what I felt in the moment of creating the track. Initially I thought the song was going to take a more negative slant, the initial working title being ‘l0ser’ but the remember line turned it for me. I have been doing a lot of introspection recently and trying to document the things I think while I am at various points of mental health. This helps me put my thoughts into perspective and offers insights into triggers and, when used in moderation can be a place to draw ideas for lyrics from. When the line “remember, remember what you said when you were all alone” while it came from somewhere in my brain took me to nights where I felt like the world was falling down but I got back up. I got up because I have gotten up before and I have made promises to myself to keep getting up. The vocal performance on the bridge was completely improvised in a scratch take and the version that I use on the track was the second one I performed, it came from inside of me and that kind of reflected the point that I have landed on with this track.

For such a long time I have felt frozen by the pressure I put on myself to make things that blow people away. Ironically, I was taking what drew me to hyperpop initially, the raw, emotional, hyper nature of it and I was trying to make it fit in what I thought a perfect hyperpop song could be, and that wasn’t a fun way to make stuff. Eventually, through reflection, making stuff and just committing to what I wanted to achieve which was no longer a perfect song but being happy as a creator and artist with what I have made. I am reminded by some funny but poignant comments made by 100 gecs in an interview with pitchfork. Dyllan Brady said that his barometer for if a song was good was, he framed it in the context of his friend coming up to him and showing him the track. (2020) Most stuff, if you said your friend made it you would think was great and encourage their career. That is the new energy I am trying to manifest for my critique of my own work. The tempo change is a primary example of this kind of thinking. Tempo changes in my head are often corny and there are rules (in western music theory tradition) as to how you do them. Even in contemporary music there are rules about changing the tempos of songs in clubs for transitions. I wrote off drastic and sudden tempo changes as poor writing and bad technique. But as I was working on this song, I realised that the two sections I had in my head didn’t fit together if I tried to have them be at all the same speed, so I decided to have a set tempo for the intro and outro and bump up the tempo for the body of the piece. Once I had all the parts together, I went through a process of simplifying some parts, reducing them to what it needs to be added to the song. I have been trying to do this kind of minimalization in parts of songs because I tend to try and be impressive and show how much music I can do, which in some cases is the perfect thing to do but you shouldn’t have all parts of your song doing it at the same time. My initial kick and 808 pattern were quite busy and produced an off kilter, swinging style rhythm that was interesting to listen to, but in the context of this track I didn’t need a rhythm section that was super interesting and academically put together, I needed drums that were big and loud and fun and bass to go alongside.

Once all the parts were simplified to what they needed to be, I started to mix and process all of the signals. This is often where I find my experience block come in. While I have been working in the software for 10 years, only the past 5 have been focused years and even then, only in the past 2 have I begun to experiment with anything beyond recording acoustic music. I have been trying to listen to other songs in the genre to go to as reference tracks, for example I really like the way aldn treats their vocals. [a particular favourite of mine are the two different vocal treatments in: what was the last thing you said]. And the big, distorted section at the end of underscores spoiled little brat acted as a big inspiration for the breakdown section at the end of my track. Using these reference points, I took what I understand about audio editing (which to be fair is a solid amount and I try and learn more every time I do it) and tried to make the sounds I had “fit”. The most important part for me was not necessarily that the track sounded exactly like another song but more that all the parts of the song fit sonically together and, to draw from Dyllan, if my friend came up to me and said that they did this would I think it was sick and encourage them to do more? It was at this point I had two primary problems that took me some time and multiple attempts to figure out. The first was the vocal mix. Like I have mentioned before, auto-tune is not the magic bullet that a lot of critics seem to paint it as, I view it as another instrument that I have had to learn how to play, and the way I play it is through a combination of my voice and my computer. One thing I really like about vocals in hyperpop tunes is that they are very clean. They are obviously manipulated and modulated in various ways, but they are always clean, and clear. I struggled to get this sound until I was watching a video from Red Bull Music Lab where producer Kenny Beats and T-Pain make a song together - Kenny Beats and T-Pain Cook Up an Instant R&B Classic | Red Bull Remix Lab

It’s a video I have watched before but it’s funny and fun and inspiring to see two great artists work together and I just happened to notice that in the effects chain for T-Pain’s vocals, before anything else there was a gate, set very low with a low return. I saw it and instantly understood why it was there, the job of the auto-tune the way I use it is it essentially processes the entire voice, synthesising what was once an analogue recording. However, without the gate, not only was it having that effect on the lyrics being sung but also on the various ambient noise picked up from recording in my bedroom. This along with some creative EQ work and compression got the vocals to a place I was finally happy with.

The second issue was the bass part. After working on my All Eyes on Me Cover for a morning I returned to ‘overdue conversations’ and found that the bass part was sticking out in an obnoxious way, downing out the mix and not feeling settled. I then spent a couple of hours trying different sounds, moving the octave of the part, changing the part, changing other parts. I worked for a few hours before I gave up, and then worked on it a bit, and then gave up, and then worked on it a bit, and then gave up. Even that night as I was eating dinner, I had 808 patterns in my head. The next morning, I loaded up the session and had a listen. Aside from re-recording the pattern in some of the sections to give what was already there some space and let most of the drive and momentum come from the kick pattern and some mix/processing adjustments, what I had wasn’t that bad at all. Reflecting on this, I think it was a combination of mental and physical (ear) fatigue, that day being full of making stuff and listening and trying things and having ideas, as well as instantly comparing what I had at that point to the finished cover that I had just posted to social media and was already getting some love for. After taking a night to sleep on my ideas and coming back with fresh ears the next day I realised that what I thought was going to have to be a full re-record of everything late in the game turned into some subtle tweaks.

So, with all of that said, here is a finalised version of ‘overdue conversations’ which is pretty much ready for commercial/official release but I want to have a few songs put together before I release anything on public channels.

found_sound.mp3

'overdue conversations'

References: Patel, P. (Interviewer). (2020, November). Pitchfork Review: 100 Gecs and the Mystery of Hyperpop. [Audio Podcast]. Get Wired. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UnB4gNxTsInfjur0iVXEP?si=NXGfknGtTqSId4z-XhKNeg&dl_branch=1

#CIM 401.2 #found_sound.mp3 #hyperpop #original song #new music #process #musician #music #work in progress #canberra #australia #hyperpop journey #autoethnograophy

0 notes

wickedbananas · 6 years

Text

How to Rock MozCon 2018 Like the Marketing Superhero You Are

Posted by FeliciaCrawford

MozCon is just around the corner, meaning it’s time to share one of our absolute favorite posts of the year: the semi-official MozCon Guide to Seattle!

For those of you following the yellow brick road of I-5 into the heart of the Emerald City to spend three days absorbing all the SEO insight you can hold, this should help you plan both how you spend your time at the conference and outside of it. For those watching on the sidelines, scroll along and you’ll find a treasure trove of fun Seattle ideas and resources for future cons or trips you might make to this fair city by the sea.

And if you’ve been waffling on whether or not to take the plunge (to attend the conference — I wouldn’t recommend plunging into the Puget Sound, it’s quite cold), there may still be time:

We’re now over 99% sold out, so act fast if you’ve got your heart set on MozCon 2018!

Official MozCon activities:

We know you’re here for a conference, but that’s only part of your day. After you’ve stuffed every inch of space in your brain with cutting-edge SEO insights, you’re going to want to give yourself a break — and that’s exactly why we’ve put together an assortment of events, activities, suggestions, and Seattle insider pro tips for how to fill your time outside of MozCon.

The MozCon kickoff party!

With day one behind you, we’re guessing you’ll be some mix of energized, inspired, and ready to relax just a bit. Celebrate the first day of MozCon at our Monday night kickoff party with a night of networking, custom cocktails, and good music at beautiful Block 41 in Belltown.

Meet with fellow marketers and the Mozzers that keep your SEO software shiny while you unwind after your first full day of conferencing. It’s our privilege and delight to bring our community together on this special night.

Our famously fun MozCon Bash

There ain’t no party like a MozCon party! We invite all MozCon attendees and Mozzers to join us on Wednesday night at the Garage Billiards in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. From karaoke to photobooth, from billiards to shuffleboard, and peppered liberally with snacks and libations, the Wednesday Night MozCon Bash is designed to celebrate the completion of three days of jam-packed learning. This is the industry party of the year — you won’t want to miss it!

Birds of a Feather lunch tables

In between bites of the most delicious lunch you’ll find in the conference circuit, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with your fellow community members around the professional topics that matter most to you. Each day there will be seven-plus tables with different topics and facilitators; find one with a sign noting the topic and join the conversation to share advice, learn new tips and tricks, and discover new friends with similar interests.

Monday, July 9th

Google Analytics & Tag Management hosted by Ruth Burr Reedy at UpBuild

Content-Driven Link Building hosted by Paddy Moogan at Aira

Mobile App Growth hosted by Emily Grossman at Skyscanner

Content Marketing hosted by Casie Gillette at KoMarketing

Local SEO hosted by Mike Ramsey at Nifty Marketing

Podcasting hosted by Heidi Noonan-Mejicanos at Moz

Workflow Optimization hosted by Juan Parra at Accelo

Tuesday, July 10th

SEO A/B Testing hosted by Will Critchlow at Distilled

Community Speaker Connection hosted by Sha Menz at Moz

PPC + SEO Integration hosted by Jonathon Emery at Distilled

Meet Your Help Team hosted by Kristina Keyser at Moz

Agency Collaboration hosted by Yosef Silver at Fusion Inbound

Site Speed hosted by Jono Alderson at Yoast

Featured Snippets hosted by Rob Bucci at STAT Search Analytics

Voice Search hosted by Dr. Pete Meyers at Moz

Wednesday, July 11th

Content Marketing Q&A hosted by Kane Jamison at Content Harmony

Paid Search Marketing for High-Cost Keywords hosted by Trenton Greener at the Apex Training

SEO A/B Testing hosted by Will Critchlow at Distilled

Team Hiring, Retention, & Growth hosted by Heather Physioc at VML

Local Search hosted by Darren Shaw at Whitespark

Machine Learning & Advanced SEO by Britney Muller at Moz

Reporting Q&A hosted by Dana DiTomaso at Kick Point

The delight is in the details

MozCon is literally brimming with things to do and ways to support our attendees when they need it. Aside from our hosted events and three days’ worth of talks, we’ve got things to fill in the cracks and make sure your MozCon experience is everything you’ve ever wanted from a conference.

Photobooth with Roger: Admit it — you see that cute, googly-eyed robot face and you just want to hug it forever. At MozCon, you can do just that — and memorialize the moment with a picture at the photobooth! Roger’s a busy bot, but his photobooth schedule will be posted so you can plan your hugs accordingly.

Ping pong play sesh: Don your sweat bands and knee-high socks and keep your paddle arm limber! During breaks, we’ll have ping pong tables available to burn some excess energy and invite a little casual competition.

The world map of MozCon: Ever play pin the tail on the donkey? Well, this is sort of like that, but the donkey is a world map and (thankfully) there’s no blindfold. You’ll place a pin from wherever in the world you traveled from. It’s amazing to see how far some folks come for the conference!

Local snacks galore: Starbucks, Piroshky Piroshky, Ellenos Yogurt, and Top Pot Donuts will happily make themselves acquainted with your tastebuds! Carefully chosen from local Seattle businesses, our snacks will definitely please your local taste pallet and, if past feedback is to be believed, possibly tempt you to move here.

Stay charged: Pining for power? Panicking at that battery level of 15% at 10am? Find our charging sofas to fuel up your mobile device.

MozCon is for everyone

We want marketers of all stripes to feel comfortable and supported at our conference. Being “for everyone” means we’re working hard to make MozCon more accessible in many different ways. The Washington State Convention Center is fully ADA compliant, as are our other networking event venues. But it’s important for us to get even better, and we welcome your feedback and ideas.

Here are a few of the ways we’ve worked to make MozCon a welcoming event for everyone:

A ramp on the stage

Live closed captioning of the main event

Walkways for traffic flow

Menus featuring options or special meals (that actually taste good) for dietary restrictions

A nursing room

Gender-neutral bathroom options

Lots of signage

T-shirts that fit different body types

Visible staff to help make everyone’s experience the best possible

A proud partnership with 50/50 Pledge, furthering our commitment to better representation of women on stage

Strict enforcement of our Code of Conduct and TAGFEE

Bespoke city exploration — Get to know Seattle!

In years past, Tuesday nights were reserved for our MozCon Ignite event, where brave folks from myriad backgrounds would share stories in lighting-fast Ignite-style talks of five minutes each — the only rule being it can’t be about marketing!

While MozCon Ignite has always been a much-loved and highly anticipated event, we’ve also listened closely to your feedback about wanting more time to network on your own, plan client dinners, go on outings with your team, and in general just catch your breath — without missing a thing. That’s why this year, we’re folding Ignite into the official MozCon schedule so everyone can benefit from the tales shared and enjoy a fun five-minute break between SEO talks.

Wondering about what topics will be covered at Ignite this year?:

The Ninja Kit to NOT Get Sick While Traveling by Dana Weber at Seer Interactive

My Everest: How 10 Years of Chasing Tornadoes Came Down to One Moment by Tom Romero at Uncommon Goods

Baseball Made Me a Better Engineer by Tom Layson at Moz

Trailblazer: How Reading One Book Changed My Life for Good by Lina Soliman at OSUWMC

Drag Queen Warlocks, Skateboarding Sorcerers, & Other Folks by Jay Ricciardi at Tableau

Voice Dialogue Therapy: Listening to the Voices Inside Your Head by Kayla Walker at Distilled

We’re opening up Tuesday night as your chance to explore the Emerald City. We’ll have a travel team onsite at the conference on Tuesday to help you and your friends plan an exciting Seattle adventure. Perhaps you’ve met a fantastic group of like-minded folks at a Birds of a Feather lunch table and would love to talk featured snippets over fresh fish n’ chips at the Pike Place Market. Maybe you’ve always wanted to catch the view at the top of the Space Needle (recently renovated and reopened to provide even better views!). Or perhaps a quiet sunset picnic overlooking the water at Gasworks Park seems like the perfect way to relax after a long day of learning and networking. Regardless of whatever floats your boat, we encourage you to plan local meetups, invite your newfound and long-standing friends, and forge a few irreplaceable Seattle memories.

Wondering what there is to do, drink, eat, and see in Seattle?

Well, who better to ask than us Seattleites? Using tons of real suggestions from real Mozzers, we’ve put together a Google Map you can use to guide your exploration outside the confines of the event venue — check it out below!

Seattle’s got more to offer than we can name — get out there and discover the renowned Emerald City quirks and quaintness we’re famous for!

Travel options:

Seattle’s got a pretty solid transit system that can get you where you need to go, whether you’re traveling by bus or train. The city also has its share of rideshare services, as well as taxis, bikes, ferries, and water taxis, depending on where you're headed.

Public transportation

King County Metro Trip Planner: Traverse the city by bus! You can also download an app to get real-time bus info (I like the One Bus Away app, developed here in Seattle by University of Washington grads)

Light Rail: Connecting the north end to the south, the Light Rail can move you across Seattle quickly (and even drop you off right at SeaTac for your flight home!)

Water taxis and ferries can float you right across the Sound (and offer a lovely view while they’re at it)

A Transit Go ticket or ORCA card will happily power your public transit excursions

Bikeshare programs: As you wander the city, you may notice brightly colored bicycles patiently awaiting riders on the sidewalks. That rider could be you! If you’re feeling athletic, take advantage of the city’s bikeshare programs and see Seattle on two wheels.

Rideshares and taxis

Uber & Lyft can get you where you need to go

Moovn is a Seattle startup rideshare company

Two taxi services, Seattle Yellow Cab and Orange Cab, allow for online booking via their apps (or you can call ‘em the old-fashioned way!)

Are you ready to rock MozCon?!

If you’re already MozCon-bound come this July, make sure to download the app (must be on mobile) and join our Facebook group to maximize your networking opportunities, get to know fellow attendees, and stay up-to-date on conference news and activities.

If you’re thinking about grabbing a ticket last-minute, we still have a few left:

Grab a ticket while you can

And whether you’re going to be large, in charge, and live at the conference or just following along at home and eagerly waiting the video release, follow along with the #MozCon hashtag on Twitter to indulge in the juicy tidbits and takeaways attendees will undoubtedly share.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

from The Moz Blog https://ift.tt/2yOfKka via IFTTT

#The Moz Blog #Moz #seo

1 note · View note

swyllh · 7 years

Text

svt vocal team: radio host scenarios

radio host au – vocal team edition!

where you’re either a) called in as a temporary replacement, or b) are a permanent host for a late night show.

seungkwan:

buCKLE UP BUDDIES

ok so, the radio show is split into different shifts – day and night shifts, mainly

you take the night shift, because you’re an incorrigible night owl

and because you love chillhop, acoustics. it’s like a match made in heaven, you and night shifts.

you know there’s a radio host, a very popular radio host, for the morning shift – he’s your exact counterpart in that he’s perfect for the morning call: bubbly, loves singing, has a lovely cheerful voice… the list goes on

but because you’re always on the night shift, and you’re always sleeping in, you don’t get to meet this guy, much less listen to his shows.

so you’re like /shrug/

but inside you’re really curious, because… well, you’re always by yourself recording (since you know how to operate almost everything on your own, and all your friends are losers who need their 9 hours of rest)

this one time, however…

you find yourself stuck in the studio patching up some things way after your shift

there was an emotionally attached caller who took up one hour, the sound system went down a bit and you had to fix it while keeping the listeners entertained…

things dragged on until it was, like, five in the morning.

you’re ready to drag your ass off to bed, when the morning radio host enters with a steaming cup of coffee and a bright smile

he doesn’t expect to see you there – usually the studio just runs on autoplay between the hours of 3am – 5.30am

“hey…” “hey, sorry, but i’ve been here since 8pm last night and i need to sleep bye” is what you say before you just collapse on the sofa in the next room.

seungkwan is obviously at a loss but!! he’s also been curious about the night host

when you wake up, seungkwan’s in the recording room working his charm

in fact, you wake up to the sound of his singing. nice, non-belty singing.

there’s a cup of coffee on the table next to you, and it just says “for the overworked night host !! :D”

you thank your past life and good karma and everything and drink the coffee.

“hey, i’m seungkwan, the morning host. it’s nice to meet you for the first time!” he says when he leaves the studio on autoplay.

you laugh and introduce yourself too. but you have classes and you need to change, so the exchange is pretty short.

but! you do leave notes at the recording station for each other after that haha

one time you laugh out loud at the sight of what he’s left for you, and explain to the listeners the whole deal between you and seungkwan

someone demands a collab

a few, ten, maybe fifty people support the idea

so you and seungkwan end up doing an evening special and by the end of it it’s like the best idea ever because he’s so funny??? what???

the notes never stop coming, man

jeonghan:

i don’t think he listens much to radio shows, much less late night ones, but he does tune in this one time

and you’re in the middle of giving out some advice

it could be anything, literally, like how many seconds to politely laugh at a bad joke

but you’re saying it so gently and soothingly that he actually listens

“so yes, i would think that the bare minimum would be two or three ‘ha’s, just so you can make a quick transition. remember to keep smiling for a second or two after the other person stops speaking, and then you can move on from there! :)”

how do you even enunciate a smiley face

he doesn’t know

but you do :)

and he finds it kind of funny and calming so!! he continues tuning in!

m a y b e once he actually calls

“so, um what do you think about brainwashing people for their love?”

and you’re just O.o but you’re cool

not the weirdest question you’ve heard

(just before his call you got one asking you about how to deal with being robbed of your remote control)

so you talk about it with him on the radio, and he’s enamoured!

what a nice voice! what an understanding character!

“don’t you think we should make sure our loved ones know that they’re loved?” “yes, mr yoon, but brainwashing…”

calls regularly after that, if only to brainwash you into being his dearest radio host

“and whose radio host are you, [y/n]?” “… i’m not saying that on broadcast, buddy” “oHOhOHoho so you’ll say it off broadcast?”

literally you slam your head into the desk

“WHACK” “… [y/n], are you okay?”

your listeners are tired of your banter man (they love it though)

joshua:

ok so the thing is, you’ve just been called in to do this as a favour

you are in n o w a y a professional

p sure you flunked public speaking class one time because you were laughing too hard at your own joke

so when you’re doing this show, you’re just uttering disclaimers

“so let’s talk about the newly minted water cooler at the admin block… that is, if it’s a relevant topic. is it relevant? shit, i don’t know. shit, i’m not supposed to curse on the show. shit i did it. shit i did it again.”

it’s kind of a trainwreck

you’re kind of like, if comic sans could talk… yeah.

so when the show ends – you’re in the midst of talking about the conspiracy theory between the moon landing and that ‘that boi’ meme

the end-card (?) song plays and your mic is switched off mid-sentence

josh can’t believe he just sat there and listened through this trainwreck

but he did

(and maybe he’s partially convinced of your theory)

he tunes in the next time, same time, same day, but you’re not there

he’s not sure why he’s disappointed, but at least he’ll get his regularly scheduled content of actual campus news

surprisingly you get called in again – and he’s tuned in

“back by popular demand!” you end up yelling, and his eardrums haven’t been quite the same since.

“ok, no, but seriously, some of you guys wanted me back? haha”

so maaaaybe he might have actually called in to ask about you

and you know about that, so after that broadcast, you get his number from the regular host, and start exchanging conspiracy theories lol

jihoon: (happy birthday!)

ok so this one is a bit different.

because he’s a music producer, and he’s trying to get his work out there

testing the waters, yknow

and you’re part of the campus radio team, so he arranges to meet up with you

not before marathoning your podcasts so he can um strategically win you over to play his music? i mean, pssh, have you heard the stuff he mixes? he doesn’t need that, but it’s better to know who you’re working with anyway

so he listens, and you’ve got this inviting, friendly voice that really makes people feel like they’re having a conversation with you

SO he marathons, and finds that you’re a pretty chill person and open minded

nice

when you two meet, he’s just finishing up his remix in the café

you walk in, and see him hard at work! wow, what a man

“hey, it’s [y/n] from the campus connection. you must be jihoon?”

turns out, wow, who’d have expected it, you can tell he’s got talent. it’s good. like, really, really good

so you sell his deal to the overall producer of your radio team. works well, the show ratings are hitting an all-time high

and you guys decide to do a mini-interview

“think of the ratings,” your overall producer whispers, hunched over a plan to monetise this tiny radio show

“hello everyone! it’s [y/n] here, and guess who i have with me today? it’s lee jihoon, the producer behind the music you’ve been listening to!”

“so, jihoon, tell us more about yourself!”

his first impression of you was right – is right – you’re really easy to talk to, and the session goes by quite comfortably

he doesn’t even realise time’s up until your overall producer is literally banging on the door and mouthing “out”

“that was really fun, jihoon, thank you!” “nah, it was really easy to talk to you”

do you guys hang out and he brings you more compositions to evaluate?

seokmin:

okay, this time seokmin is the one calling you in for help

one of his friends (this guy has a ton of friends, don’t even.) mans the radio show, and is in need of a replacement for the night shift

“why don’t you help him out, seokmin?” “have you heard me speak?” “uhuh” “it’s the night show, [y/n]. i’m going to wake people up” “…so you’re saying that i make people want to sleep?” “uhhhhhhhhhhhh no?”

but you help him out anyway – that guy is impossible to refuse

so! seokmin accompanies you to the studio, and he’s just there for moral support because it can be scary doing a radio show for two hours or so

“um, hi, everyone, this is [y/n] and i’m filling in for the regular host!” /muffled whispering in the background

everyone. can hear. seokmin. being encouraging. in the background.

at first, it’s kind of sweet?

but like, after the fiftieth thumbs up you’re just like

“ok seokmin, how about you join us in the recording”

“whaaaa- nooooooooooooo hi everyone, i’m seokmin hahaha”

he is a good night show host, despite what he says

he’s funny, and his sense of humour can be pretty chill when he wills it to. it takes a bit of effort, though, because at first he’s really loud

“so, seokmin, tell us more about that time with the-” “we dON’T SPEAK OF-” “shhhhh”

but yeah, night shift is so fun with him, you forget about the thermos of coffee you brought to keep you awake.

eventually the two of you do get into a somewhat philosophical discussion

“how did we get from cabbages to being happy?” “uh”

and even though he’s pretty happy-go-lucky and always sparkling with happiness, you guys exchange views and you find that it’s not always the case

i mean, duh, but still

“but i think it’s best to try and be happy, yknow” “…yeah, it is”

it’s a pretty meaningful conversation, and part of you is in shock that this didn’t happen in more private circumstances, but that there are at least fifty people listening in haha

you do get to know him a bit better after this, though

and he treats you to coffee the next day for your efforts, so it’s all worth it!

#svt scenarios #svt imagines #vocal team #vocal team imagines #vocal team scenarios #seventeen #seungkwan imagines #jeonghan imagines #jisoo imagines #joshua imagines #jihoon imagines #woozi imagines #seokmin imagines #dokyeom imagines #how ham do i go on these tags #radio host

49 notes · View notes