#and we're back baybee!!!

[ms-skaterat]

Taskmaster Series 17 Episode 1 - Grappling With My Life

[duckprintspress]

look, I have a type okay??? those are my emotional support tropes. i need them to make the brain do the thinky thing.

[livingonthesands]

0.63.

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[owlhousetarot]

Seven of Cups: Adegast Tempting Luz

Upright: Choices, opportunities, wishful thinking, illusion, fantasy, daydreaming, indecision, searching for purpose

Reversed: Confusion, distraction, diversion, overwhelmed, clarity, personal alignment, making a choice

The Seven of Cups is the card of choices and opportunities, but also illusion and wishful thinking. It represents a moment where you're faced with a myriad of different options for the future, each seeming more exciting than the last—though you must be careful what you wish for, because all that glitters is not gold. The Seven of Cups may suggest your expectations for the future aren't grounded in reality, and that you're prone to wishful thinking and unrealistic ideals. This is exactly the situation in which Luz finds herself in Witches Before Wizards: she's followed the pipe-dream adventure Adegast set up for her, playing masterfully into her preconceived notions of being a fantasy protagonist, unknowing that she's being led by illusions straight into a trap.

The Seven of Cups reminds you that while wishing and dreaming are all well and good, there comes a time where you need to let go of your fantasies and face reality. Luz does exactly this by choosing Eda and King over Adegast's puppets, breaking free from the fantasy illusion and saving them both. This is Luz's first step on her journey of deconstructing her fantasy-hero complex and maturing into a more grounded person whose actions are guided not by unrealistic fantasies, but by her personal values and convictions.

Deck Order:

< Previous: Six of Cups | Next: Eight of Cups >

Show Chronology:

< Previous: King of Wands | Next: Six of Wands >

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 4/2/2024

in which i try to clean two different boxes with varying success

new people: hello! the tuesdaypost is a weekly roundup of stuff i've been listening, reading, watching, playing, and making. it is NOT a recommendation series, although i sometimes dabble in critique. when im firing on all cylinders i ask "what is the core concept of this? does it succeed in what i think it's trying to do and what it says it's doing?is it well-made but i dislike it/beautiful but not for me? why? what parts Really Work?"

if you are into purity culture, yelling at other people about the problematic media they consume, or are under 18 i am going to have very little patience for you.

listening

now that i live in houston i am legally obliged to loop the new beyonce album 24/7. there is absolutely truly nobody fucking doing it like her. every song is a multimedia art piece. goddamn do i miss the album as a tool to convey a specific concept/listening order/flow. sometimes (chappell roan most recently comes to mind, although it does feel unfair to compare anyone to beyonce) every individual song is pretty good but the listening experience if you sit down and listen all the way through the album is unpleasant and choppy. not so here. NEVER here.

my favorite like Dance Number is YA YA (it samples nancy sinatra's boots! and the beach boys' good vibrations! wildly different tones despite coming out a year apart!)

the one that goes on four different character/tone playlists is BODYGUARD.

great early roundup of influences, samples, and collaborators. delighted to see five fingers for marseilles listed, a rocky but underrated south african neo-western free on tubi rn for americans

-

reading

also very texas-relevant with the recent pornhub lawsuits! pornhub and sex tech (among other things) have been samantha cole's beat for almost ten years. i trust her to report sensitively and not for like. shock clicks

this site has a free paywall (sign up with your email for a link to the full article) so bots have a harder time scraping articles: this is a journalist-founded site with only the four founders running it and writing articles. while annoying i do think this is a reasonable measure

The platform still has problems, but after years of critical reporting and a litany of legal and reputational consequences, Pornhub is now more heavily moderated than any other porn platform, and most major social media platforms, for that matter. A growing list of age verification laws has put Pornhub in a position where it is compelled to block access to its site in seven states and counting. In theory, these laws are designed to prevent children from being able to access pornography online. In reality, what is going to happen is that children are going to end up on pornographic sites that don’t care what the law says, and where some of the most harmful content that exists online is actively promoted to them.

she's also got a new limited series podcast with CBC about the rise and fall of pornhub, which was fascinating and kept me company during an extremely early morning drive

-

watching

i'm lukewarm about this one but i spend a lot of time getting there, much like this movie

ive been watching a lot of frankly dogshit thrillers, which has made me wonder: what's the deal with supervillans? where did they come from? and thence arrived at the prototypical film Dr Mabuse the Gambler (1922, dir. Lang). the four and a half hour cut on Kanopy is two normal-length movies superglued together, which makes sense as a streaming product but it is sort of a terrifying runtime and took me three days to get through.

sometimes, as we know, i get a real bee in my bonnet about visiting the early versions of things. dr mabuse is the blueprint for every james bond and mission impossible villain, or really any shadowy supervillain with power over [INDUSTRY] or [THE MARKET]. it is a four and a half hour long cat and mouse game through lavish, eccentric sets between mabuse and prosecutor wenk. it has some trouble sustaining itself bc it is four and a half hours long but does deliver on the cat and mouse aspects. this letterboxed review has interesting things to say about the political climate of 1922 germany and how lang subverts the formula of the pulp serial.

really the film opens with mabuse yelling at his cocaine-addicted assistant, but the film properly gets going with mabuse's henchmen stealing a trade agreement (nothing really carbon dates a movie more than a missing trade agreement. vanishingly few post-early-30s movies have missing trade agreements as plot points) and then he crashes the stock market. for fun and profit.

however. i think every time you see an evil man who is a banker or stockbroker or generally uses money as power you have to interrogate whether it's antisemitic. the answer here is "maybe" but i'm not sure if intent matters when contemporary nazi critics were eager to hold mabuse up as "this is the typical jewish criminal". (sorry about the link directly to wikipedia, it's been touch finding online sources for this section). mabuse is not specifically jewish, but there are certainly elements of stereotype. i am still not good at being presented with "this movie has a shadowy behind the scenes figure manipulating the government and all the money ever" and going "hey wait a minute".

after that tremendous glaring caveat, for which i read more contemporary reviews and reviews in general than i ever read for movies in these posts, is it good? eh. a contemporary VARIETY review remarked (and i largely agree)

The direction of Fritz Lang has moments – but Lang somewhat negates his good technical effects by twenty forty-word captions of a ludicrous unconciseness.

the night scenes are particularly well done, and imo are better than many modern night scenes--other contemporary reviews remarked

In this film the techniques of the film camera (Carl Hoffmann’s brilliant photography) are brought to perfection. The problem of how to film lit-up streets at night has been solved for the first time. It is unbelievably impressive to see the glaring lights of speeding cars flash through the night or the rapid passing of an elevated train of the initially blurred, then gradually focussed glimpse through a pair of opera glasses on to the variety stage, the nuances of light and shade—these things alone prove the value of film documentary.

look at this shit! filmed from within the cars! in 1922!!!

this film asks you to believe hypnotism is real and really effective, so i don't think it's that big of a leap when it asks you to believe in ghosts. i don't understand that quibble from contemporary viewers. there are several on screen suicides with like. specific methods. which is not currently regarded as good filmmaking practice. im curious to know what contemporary audiences thought but couldn't immediately turn anything up, and wading through masters’ theses on cinematic suicide is a little beyond my current mental health.

if i were a more content-minded woman this would turn into a clickbait video essay about the antisemitic origins of every supervillan. however i am unqualified and untalented at video editing and i'm sure there are forty theses on this already. this movie is a hard sell to anyone jewish or employed. it is also a stunning example of cutting-edge film technology and part of the genesis of the modern supervillan. Fritz Lang films tend to fall in the category of “movies i am happy to see once and feel no need to revisit”.

-

playing

playing what is effectively the same game three times back to back (breath of the wild, tears of the kingdom, genshin impact) has sort of burned me out on open world games with a focus on battle skill progression and stumbling across little puzzles in the overworld. i have to get itch.io up and running on this pc and find the most linear jankiest possible one-sitting indie thing. or several of them. i might try the solo ttrpg Gentleman Bandit i seem to have acquired in one of the giant charity bundles

brief breath of the wild update bc i don't want to pull screenshots off my switch: i have gotten to the boss fight for the gerudo and goron regions, have not completed them bc my focus in this game is NOT hearts, and am in the middle of the zora temple. despite the quality of life improvements and new regions in totk i think i prefer botw: progression is a bit easier, there are fewer mmo-style hub quests and repeatable quests. things like the stable photos are cute but very repetitive, so are the sign bracing puzzles, and the sky crystal quests for sky shrines feel VERY samey. also dislike how the CLEAR OUT: [REGION] quests with the monster suppression squads reset at the blood moon.

anyway! to genshin! there was an exceptionally fun little event with a surprisingly involved management sim tacked onto the game??? you make and sell potions fulfilling different requirements, and can eventually stock travelling merchants all over the continent. the actual act of making the potions was this block-filling 1010! style thing (screenshot from polygon)

the new region, a port town and tea-growing area called Chenyu Vale, is maybe the prettiest one in the game so far? it's the one that feels the most picturesque and Designed, like this is one huge mansion garden studded with follies. they also added background chatter and noise in the cities and towns, which really startled me and makes them feels much more lived in! this is a fun trick to avoid putting in a thousand NPCs and making everyone's framerate crash. the less stuff in your game, the less shit can go wrong.

also pulled for and got chiyori, a geo-aligned seamstress (and sometime spy???) swordswoman who has what i can only call domme voice

-

making

ok now we'll talk about boxes. i was rearranging my kitchen, as unemployed women are known to do, and noticed this recipe box i picked up back in mass was disgusting. the finish is starting to fail but it was genuinely grody and last summer i packed my kitchen in a blind panic inside an hour and did not have time to address it. i have never seen a recipe box at an estate sale before or since and it made me desperately sad.

it was full of a lot of stuff.

i went at it with a somewhat inadvisable combination of things: wood soap didn't budge it, so i dampened a paper towel in vinegar and wiped it down in the vain hope it would do something. the thing that worked, and would be inadvisable for anything veneered or less densely textured, was baking soda paste and the scrubby side of a sponge. it still smells Very musty even after 48h of loose baking soda inside with several changes, but that might be partly the recipe cards' fault. i would like to refinish this at some point but i don't have polyurethane on hand and the fun little project budget is empty until further notice/i get a job.

the hinge did rust a bit despite my best efforts but that has since been lightly steel wooled and oiled. a well loved object! it's possible the lady who died just fucking sucked and that's why literally her entire estate including many other things families usually keep was on sale, but i would like to think perhaps she simply had no other family? a well loved/used object even if all the recipes are for semi-horrifying fifties new england recipes.

the other box, pre-acids but post-washing: this topp trading card box with seven episode one packets of cards was intact with the original seal. i have verified it was not worth much more than the $5 i paid for it with the trading card obsessed man in my best friend's husband's friendgroup. i bought this three months ago but the man was unavailable to open it until uhhh last week. some sort of liquid got inside it at some point and it was super corroded. i was going to store embroidery floss in here but even with all my powers (barkeepers friend. brasso.) i cannot completely remove the corrosion. it's not corroded Through but it looks bad and feels rough. so it goes. it'll probably hold the tiedown straps in my car bc that plastic bucket is rapidly failing

[fagtainsparklez]

mcc 33 nerfs

snifferish is streaming from a laptop

pink parrots (jack manifold, tommyinnit, tubbo, and bekyamon) are all drinking

michela is in a cactus costume that restricts her movement to the point she has to hold her head in a specific position to keep her headphones on

michaela's space key broke during ace race

[seapiglet]

"I'm sorry about the car," Aziraphale was saying. "I know how much you liked it. Perhaps if you concentrated really hard-"

"Gosh, I'm sorry," said Crowley, who knew how much the angel had treasured his book collection.

Presented without comment.

[hopeforbountifulasks]

don't be mean to dreams... just a goofy guy...... doing goofy guy things...........

[so-make-the-moon]

Zachary Quinto acknowledging Christopher Pine in the year of our Lady 2024?

[kpodcast]

Dear H. - Xdinary Heroes

Here's a deep dive on the last track from XDH's album Deadlock, "Dear H." Included are my thoughts on the following: Lyrics/Meaning, Instrumentation, Chord Progression & Key Changes.

Lyrics/Meaning

The very first line is about a light that he used to be able to touch, but now cannot. There’s a sadness to knowing what was there, but not being able to reach it anymore. The whole song is a near cry for help; not yet a cry for help, but a struggle within—"I’m alone, I can barely take another step, my broken heart is cutting me from the inside out. Please talk to me, wake me up. Would it be better if I talked about it?"

Instrumentation

The verses have such simple instrumentation (just keyboard). It’s contemplative, it’s lonely. The chorus comes bursting out with the whole band joining in, and it’s an internal battle ("should I ask for help, what if I fly too high and burn?"). The guitar solo is a turning point, it’s an arrival (the key change at that moment also suggests this), the outro returns to the soft keys-only sound, and is sad and questioning.

Chord Progression & Key Changes

**There are a FEW musical things to note before we start talking about this section. Each tone in a key/scale is given a number 1-7. After 7, it repeats starting at 1 again. Roman numerals are used to represent each of those as chords: uppercase for Major chords, and lowercase for minor chords. I = major one, ii = minor two, and so on.**

The Chord Progression:

There is one main progression that happens in three different keys in this song: I - ii - vi - V.

The progression from the I chord to ii feels like a step forward, and, when paired with the melody, it feels so heavy!! This is a contemplative song with a lot of weight. The fall from the vi chord to the V chord reminds me of sinking back, almost settling. Two steps forward, one step back. There’s a hesitance to it, that supports the lyrics “what if I fly too high, too closely? and everything burns and falls?” “what if I fall on my knees? would it be more comfortable?” “would it be better if I talked about it?” and the uncertainty there.

The Key Changes:

The song begins in the key of F Major. HOWEVER! Half way through the first chorus (0:57), the song modulates (changes key) up a half-step (one physical key on the keyboard) to F# Major, with high energy from the vocal slide up to the A#. This is pretty early in a song! Usually key changes are in the last third of a song, and stay in the new key.

Immediately after the chorus (1:08) it returns to F Major for the second verse like nothing even happened, with only a nearly inaudible bass note after some silence.

The second verse and second chorus happen exactly as the first (key change 2:01), HOWEVER (part two!!) following that, the song modulates AGAIN (2:09) up another half-step to G Major. There's no transition here either (like the chorus-verse2), but there's no wait, either. It dives right into G Major, and feels SO triumphant. The guitar solo is a huge arrival point! The song stays in G Major for the guitar solo and outro (with a little extra spice) and the final two chords are G Major and a minor.

More on the chord progression:

The outro is initially the same chord progression we’ve been hearing the whole time, but the song feels so different. The melody for "더 깊이 깊이 난 가라앉아" is reaching, longing, scared, and the chords underneath just walk up the scale with the melody: I-ii-III7-IV. This is not a typical progression, and it's the first time we get a 7th chord, which is filled with so much tension! The song ends with I-ii. The ii chord is not a “home” chord, but it’s also not an “away” chord. The song ends with the same uncertainty flowing through the whole thing.

[totallycorrectscorpioraces]

Sean: I’ve only said “I love you” to two people in my entire life

Sean: Corr

Sean:

Sean: and a horse that, in the dark and in the rain, looked like it was Corr

[siilvan]

progress may be a little slow, but i promise it's happening my babygirls and babygirlettes 😔🙏

hoping to finish this chapter over the weekend so y'all can go into next week with an update after… 4 months

[bleubell-cheesecake]

You don't understand how hard it's been to keep moot about magnus protocol since the premier!

IM SO GLAD I CAN SEE THE INTERNETS REACTIONS NOW!!!! DEEP EXCITEMENT!!!

Time to dive head first back into my favourite podcast >:)

[softranswolves]

Multiamory May (with ships from a generator):

The boys who carry guilt and love equally

[penroseparticle]

Penrose Song of the Day Day 7- Hard to Live in the City by Albert Hammond Jr.

[hallucxnating]

Hiiiii do you remember reading a yatoma demon AU last year? :) I'm back with part 2 :)