#but it is accurate for me in that i tend to create big networks of people i can consult about things

[13eyond13]

Hello I just excited saw your tags on an L post about what you think his enneagram type is !!! Can you go deeper into what u see his type as and why?? :)

Hi hi! I got into the Enneagram a couple years back for funsies, and I think L is probably a Type 5 with a 6 wing, which I guess is called either "The Troubleshooter" or "The Investigator" (lol, fitting).

The Type 5s tend to be quite logical and independent and intelligent, very focused on gathering information and sussing out meanings and analyzing and interpreting data. The Type 6 tends to be skeptical and private and cautious and focused, which I think would be his most likely secondary type (rather than the Type 4, which is a bit more of an artsy and emotional and sensitive type).

Here is what the write-up for the 5w6 says:

People with an enneagram type 5 wing 6 personality usually identify the most with the type 5, but also share traits with the 6 type. They tend to be practical, independent, and logical in their behavior. They are much more cooperative than other 5 types and have a passion for using their knowledge to solve real-world problems.

Basic Fear

Five wing sixes fear being useless or incapable. They seek to improve the world around them in order to feel worthy.

Basic Desire

Their basic desire is to be competent and useful. They usually show this by picking up new skills and pieces of knowledge that can be of benefit.

Troubleshooters may withdraw from others to cope with stressful situations, which can tend to make them feel lonely.

In summary, Enneagram 5w6 personalities tend to...

Be hard-working and analytical problem-solvers

Withdraw from others when stressed

Prefer to spend time thinking alone

Fear being incapable or incompetent

Make practical and logical decisions

Enneagram 5w6 Strengths

Being focused and well-organized

Passion for learning and growing

Solving difficult or complex problems

Remaining calm in times of crisis

Enneagram 5w6 Weaknesses

Struggling to relate to and understand others

Tendency to be private and defensive

Being perceived as cold or aloof

Difficulty taking action when uninspired

How Enneagram 5w6 personalities like to work

Communicating with an Enneagram 5w6

Avoid emotional expressions and allow five wing sixes space to think and process.

Meeting with an Enneagram 5w6

Keep meetings short and sweet; focus on clearly addressing the purpose.

Emailing an Enneagram 5w6

Be direct when emailing, allowing five wing sixes to share insightful and new ideas.

Giving feedback to an Enneagram 5w6

Offer constructive criticism and honest feedback; give specific areas for improvement.

Resolving conflict with an Enneagram 5w6

Focus on logically expressing your perspective; work toward a mutual understanding, allowing them time to think privately, if needed.

Enneagram 5w6 Motivations

Enneagram 5w6s tend to be motivated and energized by...

Solving or preventing problems

Spending time alone to gather their thoughts

Feeling like they’re contributing to society

Pursuing knowledge in the specific area that sparks their personal interest

Enneagram 5w6 Stress

Enneagram 5w6s tend to be stressed and drained by...

Spending too much time around others

Needing to be emotionally vulnerable

Feeling unwanted or rejected by others

Self-doubt and insecurity

--

I think it all sounds a lot like him. The introversion and fierce independence, the problem-solving skills and preoccupation with privacy when socializing, withdrawn when moody and listless when uninspired, etc. The list of strengths and motivations reminds me a lot of him when he is successfully honing in on Kira during the beginning of the story, and the stresses and weaknesses remind me a lot of L when he is struggling more during the Yotsuba Arc.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Hi Derin,

I’m a relatively inexperienced writer (my only publication is in a school magazine lol), and I was hoping I could ask for advice, if it’s not too much of a hassle?

It feels weird being a writer in a time where there’s so many ways to publish work, and I’m having a hard time choosing between the stable but competitive traditional publishing routes and the independence of self-publishing. As an established writer, what works for you? Is independent publishing more of a struggle? Or does it create less stress from the lack of bureaucracy surrounding the publication?

Thank you.

I've never tried traditional publishing so I can't accurately compare the two for you, but I have to ask... why on earth would you think that trad publishing is in any way *stable*? Trad publishing does have many advantages, mostly in terms of publishers having existing networks to get your books into the hands of libraries and stores and soforth (it's best to ask a trad pub author about those, it's not my area), but stability is absolutely not one of those advantages. Trad authors are dropped all the time. It's a long journey fraught with obstacles to even get the book released.

For me, the choice was easy because I didn't consider things in terms of trad vs. indie, I considered income models. The two major avenues of earning money in this field are via book sales or via 'salary'. Trad or indie publishing fits the first; making your money primarily through book sales (traditional publishing is nice here because you get an advance as well as the sales connections of the publisher and use of their editors etc., indie publishing is nice because it's faster and you keep more of the money since you're doing it all yourself). A model relying directly on sales is inherently unstable --you might earn more in the long run, but aside from your advance, it's really hard to predict how much you're getting month to month.

I chose a salary model, via Patreon, for the stability. I want to be able to predict my income, and while it does fluctuate (people subscribe and unsubscribe all the time), it doesn't fluctuate nearly as much. Patreon also tends to be a 'rolling weight'; patrons who join usually stick around for awhile, meaning that once I've acquired a patron, they increase my income for several months, often years, rather than a single sale. This also means that I can release the stories for free to people who can't afford to, or don't want to, pay me.

Independent publishing is no struggle for me whatsoever, because I use the patreon model. This means that I don't have to do most of the marketing and organisation stuff that someone trying to sell books has to do. The big issue is still marketing, but if you can get a critical mass of readers, readers who will help you by making fanart and memes and getting their friends into your work, your main job is to write the best story you can and never miss any updates. I do know that indie publishing via the book sale model can be extremely challenging, which is why some people choose trad publishing instead (which is also extremely challenging but people who know what they are doing are involved with you). If does sound like your goal is to sell books though, judging by how the question is posed, in which case I'm the wrong person to ask, because I am not in the business of selling books. A previous work of mine (Curse Words) is available for sale as an ebook, but the core of my income is via Patreon, which is an entirely different business structure.

Do any indie or traditionally published authors who rely on book sales have advice?

[perilegs]

i got inspired and did Nøkk's enneagram and damn it's REALLY calling him out

His results put him at type 6, and considering that he's a resisting Dark Urge, his holy idea being faith is ironic to say the least

Now for some unassorted analysis of the type from various sites

"Key Motivations: Want to have security, to feel supported by others, to have certitude and reassurance, to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity."

"They will defend their community or family more tenaciously than they will defend themselves."

"The reason Sixes are so loyal to others is that they do not want to be abandoned and left without support—their Basic Fear. Thus, the central issue for type Six is a failure of self-confidence. Sixes come to believe that they do not possess the internal resources to handle life’s challenges and vagaries alone, and so increasingly rely on structures, allies, beliefs, and supports outside themselves for guidance to survive. If suitable structures do not exist, they will help create and maintain them."

I think that bit is especially interesting and mostly accurate to Nøkk, because he does have a deep need for people to like him and be there so he can acquire what he wants. But also, it gives insight into why Nøkk stayed at the Bhaal temple all those years. I think Durge was pretty secluded from the rest of the world, and relied heavily on the temple in general.

"This does not mean that they do not think. On the contrary, they think—and worry—a lot! They also tend to fear making important decisions, although at the same time, they resist having anyone else make decisions for them. They want to avoid being controlled, but are also afraid of taking responsibility in a way that might put them “in the line of fire.”"

Next bit only applies to pre-tadpole Nøkk, but it's interesting to consider that in the context of the Bhaal temple once again.

"Sixes attempt to build a network of trust over a background of unsteadiness and fear. They are often filled with a nameless anxiety and then try to find or create reasons why. Wanting to feel that there is something solid and clear-cut in their lives, they can become attached to explanations or positions that seem to explain their situation. Because “belief” (trust, faith, convictions, positions) is difficult for Sixes to achieve, and because it is so important to their sense of stability, once they establish a trustworthy belief, they do not easily question it, nor do they want others to do so. The same is true for individuals in a Six’s life: once Sixes feel they can trust someone, they go to great lengths to maintain connections with the person who acts as a sounding board, a mentor, or a regulator for the Six’s emotional reactions and behavior. They therefore do everything in their power to keep their affiliations going. (“If I don’t trust myself, then I have to find something in this world I can trust.”)"

And then!

"The biggest problem for Sixes is that they try to build safety in the environment without resolving their own emotional insecurities. When they learn to face their anxieties, however, Sixes understand that although the world is always changing and is, by nature uncertain, they can be serene and courageous in any circumstance. And they can attain the greatest gift of all, a sense of peace with themselves despite the uncertainties of life."

YEAH!!! That's a big part of Nøkk's arc!!!

The development levels are also fascinating. I think Nøkk starts the game with level 4. I wouldn't say these are necessarily accurate to him, but the levels do help me with fleshing him out a bit more. Like, I do love the unhealthy levels, but Nøkk is also highly preoccupied with how others view him so it takes some grade A turmoil for his facade to crack even a bit.

For the wing thing, he's 6w5, and his weaknesses are spot on lmaoo

"Enneagram 6w5s tend to be stressed and drained by needing to express themselves emotionally," YEAH HE DOES. Nøkk is soo unbelievably emotionally constipated. It would kill him to speak his emotions out loud.

He also had a pretty high score in types 3 and 5, and the next bits are so Nøkk

"Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment."

"Become image-conscious, highly concerned with how they are perceived. Begin to package themselves according to the expectations of others and what they need to do to be successful. Pragmatic and efficient, but also premeditated, losing touch with their own feelings beneath a smooth facade. Problems with intimacy, credibility, and "phoniness" emerge."

I know Enneagrams are pseudoscience and don't capture the full range of multitudes humans and characters contain but this was so much fun and very useful for fleshing my boy out further!

[mybg3notebook]

Gale: Hypothesis and Analogies – Part 1

Here, I compile several hypotheses that are pretty common to find around, expressing my opinion on them and showing what EA has given us so far to justify them or not. 

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Disclaimer about interpretations of Real Life concepts: I’m not a fan of bringing real life issues into plain analogies/allegories in a game which intention in doing so was not made explicit, but the fandom seems to like this aspect and therefore I would like to share those opinions here as well since some seems reasonable despite not being of my taste. This topic may be sensitive for some people. Be aware of it.

Hypothesis: Gale was groomed

Concept

Grooming is building a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a child or young person (and sometimes their family as well) to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. Grooming allows offenders to slowly overcome natural boundaries long before sexual abuse occurs. On the surface, grooming a child can look like a close relationship between the offending adult, the targeted child and (potentially) the child’s caregivers. The grooming process is often misleading because the offender may be well-known or highly regarded in the community. As a result, it’s easy to trust them. Although grooming is more common among children, it may happen with adults too, especially in work environments.

Stages: First, perpetrators may target and exploit a child’s perceived vulnerabilities: emotional neediness, isolation, neglect, a chaotic home life, or lack of parental oversight, etc. They work to gain the trust of parents/caregivers to lower suspicion.

Once the perpetrator begins to fill the child's needs, they may assume a more important role in the child's life. Perpetrators utilize tactics such as gift giving, flattery, gifting money, and meeting other basic needs. Tactics may also include increased attention and affection towards the targeted child. The perpetrator uses isolation tactics to reinforce their relationship with the child by creating situations in which they are alone together or by cultivating a sense that they love and understand the child in a way that others, even their parents, cannot. 

Once emotional dependence and trust have been built, the perpetrator progressively sexualizes the relationship. When sexual abuse is occurring, perpetrators commonly use emotional manipulation; they make the child believe they are the only person who can meet their emotional and material needs. The child may feel that the loss of the relationship, or the consequences of exposing it, will be more damaging and humiliating than continuing the unhealthy relationship. 

Behavioural consequence

The consequences on victims of grooming tend to be very different depending on the victim's age, personality, and psychology, but some broad leftover traits or behaviours can be summarised as:

They are too eager to please and have a great avoidance of angering others.

Big desire for privacy: they know others will not understand what they lived.

The victim becomes withdrawn, or they may seem troubled by something but unwilling to talk about it. Alternatively, their emotions might become more volatile.

They tend to be unaware of the abuse for a long while even after the relationship ended. 

If they are aware, they tend to display shame and embarrassment for what happened.

They can suffer abandonment issues depending on the way this relationship ended. 

They tend to develop difficulties to maintain relationships.

This situation tends to be particularly invisible or dismissed for men and boys due to social norms about masculinity.

Inside the context of BG3

First, it's important to estimate Gale's age. More or less the fandom agrees he is currently (1492DR) in his early 30s. Mystra returned in 1479DR (read the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones" for details), so Mystra may have lured Gale into serving her as Chosen when he was around 17 years old (this depends on every player’s perception of Gale’s age)

This gives us a good estimation of the context: When Mystra returned thanks to Elminster—who gave her most of his Silver Fire—she immediately started to strengthen her network of Chosen ones and to work on repairing the Weave to its original state. Due to this unique context, Gale may have been observed by Mystra as a precious asset: a very young wizard who could not only control the Weave but compose it: a great skill to repair a still weak Weave. Furthermore, in the novel Dead Masks (1491DR), it is stated that the best way to cast a spell with a weakened Weave is to "twist" it instead of using it for tapping into the Raw Magic. In this book it is not clear if this is a skill that only Chosen ones have, but it has a strong similarity with Gale's skills.

Although we don't know much about Gale's childhood, if he was neglected or not as a child to be more easily lured by the Goddess, we can agree that it's most likely that Mystra has been watching him as a potential candidate since a child. Gale explicitly says: "I’ve been in touch with the Weave for as long as I can remember". And as far as Forgotten Realms lore goes, Weave and Mystra are the same. We also know that this is a common behaviour of Mystra who has been watching precocious, skilful wizards before choosing them for her goals: for example, Midnight. 

When Gale reached an age that could be considered a "(very) young man", she seduced him, using his passion and love for Magic to lure him. She offered him a deep connection with her and with the Weave: with Magic itself. After seeing Gale's passion for magic, it is understandable that he—as a teenager or a young man—must have been dazzled by her and her proposal. We know that, in the novel Elminster: a mage in the making, she offered to Elminster exactly what he wanted the most: power to make his revenge possible . By the end of the encounter, Elminster became “charmed” by her despite hating her throughout all his life, turning into her devotee. This situation can be interpreted as another example of how Mystra works: she seems to lure her potential Chosen with the promise of giving them what they are most passionate about.

Once Mystra slept with her Chosen, and imbued her divine essence on them, she left them to their own devices, making them wait for her commands. In Elminster’s and Sammaster ‘s case, both were put under tests, being forced—by their own drive to please the Goddess—to develop more magic and personal skills to serve her. In the process, both developed an obsession for her. Elminster's seems to be less self-destructive than Sammaster's, but the latter could be understandable since he always suffered from madness. My point is, the pattern continues with Gale: driven by this obsession of wanting Mystra close, to please her, Gale tried to control an ancient magic, and failed, being abandoned by Mystra due to this mistake.

Gale, according to this interpretation as a victim of grooming, is still stuck in the process: he wants to please Mystra, wants to right his wrongs, even though in some scenes he seems to have been over her, in others he still seems to be very attached to her (it's hard to know which is the most accurate since it's EA and Gale was rushed), he keeps all this trouble in private because he knows nobody will understand.

Unlike an adult who realised he was victim of grooming, Gale seems to be still not over that relationship, showing many of the behavioural consequences: 

Gale is a person who is always eager to please and avoid confrontations. If there is no choice he will use violent means, but he will always push for diplomatic approaches [1,2]. This trait seems to favour this interpretation.

He has a strong sense of privacy to the point that he is considered "shady". A lot of that desire for privacy may come from the fact that he knows no one will understand the unique relationship he had with a bigger entity. This can be seen by choosing the meanest options during the Weave and the Loss. Despite his many troubles, he remains secretive, acknowledging that "some things can't be spoken". 

He is completely unaware of having been a victim of such power imbalance. He doesn't see abuse in it, and he is not performative about this fact, since he is very private on the topic until very late in game.

Nobody can deny his abandonment issues (which are even explicitly pointed out in the dev's notes) [20]

We can infer, by all the information given, that Mystra has been his first (and presumably only) relationship so far, giving a possible hint that he may have decided not to enter another relationship again or may have felt apprehensive about it (even though I personally think this impediment is mainly caused by the “orb”).

I don't completely subscribe to this interpretation because I don’t think Mystra’s main goal has been sexual abuse, but the creation of servants and devotees that allow her to expand her power. To do so, she uses sex as part of the “ritual” that transforms certain mortals into Chosen Ones. The way in which this is indirectly explained in the novels makes me remember the concept of Zeus and his abuse of mortals: he spreads part of his divinity in the form of demi-god offspring. In Mystra’s case, she seems to leave part of her divinity in the Chosen one that slept with her: the “seed” of semi-divinity. 

However, it’s not clear if sleeping with her Chosen ones is a procedure she always does. Her daughters may have inherited her divinity when she conceived them while possessing a mortal body, but other female Chosen Ones seemed to be out of this process. Ed Greedwood also has a constant discourse in his novels where he explains that magic is “better” understood or much easily wielded by females because “they are connected to their emotions” and another stereotype of this kind. What seems to be clear is that Forgotten Realm lore hides as much as possible its queerness, and when it comes to Mystra, this habit of sleeping with her Chosen seems to apply (or at least make it more explicit) only to male mortals. So in short, her main goal was to catch another useful mortal to her group of Chosen Ones, and to do so, she lured Gale with all what she could offer. I also believe gods are gods, and they are immensely overpowered and entitled to do whatever they want in this fantasy world. They don't follow mortal rules, so they may have little scruples to do anything they see necessary to achieve their own goals, no matter if the consequences of their actions affect children, teenagers, or adults. 

Mystra in particular has been a very neutral goddess (due to her many rebirths), not particularly cruel as an evil deity could be, but not completely selfless either: she has conceived her daughters using a mortal vessel who previously gave her consent but without knowing the consequences of giving birth each year for a decade while containing a goddess inside. Mystra also profited off of Sammaster's madness (some Harpers who wrote Sammaster’s reports suspect she could have been able to cure him): she may have actively decided not to in order to let his genius madness increase her realm of power/magic. Therefore, Mystra may have had little scruples to use a very young Gale enamoured with magic to turn him into another Chosen whose skills could fix the Weave given the context that it had been severely weakened after the Spellplague. So the grooming is not completely misplaced in my opinion.

Gale's Chosen selection process is not different to what we can read in the book of the Cult of the Dragon, where Sammaster became obsessed with Mystra after sleeping with her and developed metamagic as a consequence to impress her. Or in the novel Elminster, the making of a mage, where Elmister originally despised Mystra and every magic user. However, after being in her presence, he fell for her charm, and never could get over his "love" for her, suffering a lot of painful circumstances to just be a "good devotee" and serve her.

Mystra is written in most novels as the living allegory of the beautiful "mean" woman who will always ask for more from her poor captivated men, but she will never be completely satisfied, no matter how much they sacrifice. She acknowledges the effort, but she is always asking for more. Only with Elminster she actively tried to save him from the Hells, showing, for a change, that her Chosen can be a bit more than mere pawns in the big game of divine power. However, it's important to highlight that the last rebirth of Mystra has changed her: in the novel Dead Masks some of the Seven Sisters explicitly say that Mystra has turned paranoid, asking each of her Chosen to do missions that the others cannot know. She has become more secretive and cryptic than ever. 

Mystra's actions seem to have worse connotation if we think that she can have visions of the future, as she had when she decided that Sammaster had to be her Chosen: she had foresaw the death of another Chosen and she wanted him to fill that vacuum before the event happened. So she may have foreseen Gale’s actions in his naive way to impress her. Maybe she wanted him to do it, so she could have a new piece of magic in her realm. But this is mere speculation, we will need the full release of the game to have the answer.

As I explained, despite not being a fan of it, the interpretation of grooming is not a bad one. It fits mostly if it's applied to a teenage boy, and probably it would have been taken a bit more seriously and less prone to jokes inside the fandom if Gale were a female character and Mystra a male God. 

Hypothesis: Gale has abandonment Issues

Concept

Abandonment issues arise when an individual has a strong fear of losing loved ones. A fear of abandonment is a form of anxiety. It often begins in childhood when a child experiences a traumatic loss. Children who go through this experience may then begin to fear losing other important people in their lives. Some individuals continue to fear abandonment as they grow older. Although it is less common, abandonment issues can also sometimes begin in adulthood. 

The loss often stems from a trauma, such as a death or divorce. Emotional abandonment, where a parent or caregiver is physically present but emotionally absent, may also give rise to abandonment issues later in life. It is not clear what makes one person develop this fear, since not all humans who have experienced similar losses do it. Trauma — potentially from abuse or poverty — may play a role, as may the level of emotional support that a person receives following a loss. These issues can have a significant effect on a person’s life and relationships because they fear that the other person will leave them at any moment. 

Behavioural signs/consequences

Being overly eager to please ( a “people pleaser”) 

Pushing others away to avoid rejection

Jealousy of the partner or the others when in a relationship.

Trouble trusting their partner's intentions.

Feeling insecure about their relationships.

Codependency

Need for continuous reassurance that others love them and will stay with them

Persisting in unhealthy relationships

Inability to maintain relationships: or moving quickly from one relationship to another or sabotaging them

Inside the context of BG3

I'm not going to explain this in great detail since it's spread in most of the posts I’ve done about Gale's analysis. What it's clear is that Gale has a constant fear for abandonment once he starts caring for Tav as a friend or/and lover, and this fear makes him prone to do things of poor taste. This fear seems to make him look for acceptance that only through a night of intimacy can give him. This information is apparently in the book he read, making us guess that his experience with relationships is rather poor if nonexistent. Dev's notes also reinforce the idea that Gale fears abandonment:

Gale: It is my truth, finally revealed. It is this folly that led Mystra to abandon me completely. I can only hope you won’t abandon me as well. After all we’ve been through. After the night we spent together. Surely we can brave even this side by side Dev's note: Solemn. Full of yearning, his news will not lead to him being abandoned by the player. 

Gale: Loyalty is such a… such a very rare commodity. Dev's note: The reference to loyalty foreshadows Mystra leaving him. 

So far in EA, we can see that Gale checks some behavioural consequences of this fear: he is always eager to please, approaching Tav with courtesy and jovial manners, only displaying his most acidic side to a Tav whose actions are evil. In that case, Gale cares little if Tav leaves him. With the Loss scene we can see that it is hard for him to give his trust to others, pushing them away because they would not understand the grave mistake he made. His trust demands constant progression from the Stew scene, to the Weave, to the Loss scene. If he is romanced, he asks several times if Tav is thinking of the Weave moment. When Tav asks him this question, Gale will deflect, always asking back to have Tav’s answer first before giving his: it could be interpreted as Gale looking for constant reassurance in the blooming relationship. 

However, in my opinion, the best situation that shows his abandonment issues is during our meeting with Gandrel. Gale disapproves of handing over Astarion, by telling Tav about an anecdote of a dog turning old and mean: how his friend got rid of the animal just because it was an inconvenience. This is very curious since Gale's mistrust for Astarion is not a secret: he stated many times that Astarion is a danger to the group, and his wickedness causes him to strongly dislike him. The reason for this is quite obvious if we see both lists of approvals: mostly what one approves the other disapproves. Despite all this, Gale strongly judges Tav for handing Astarion over, and his disapproval for doing it shows that Gale is not lying on the matter: the meta-knowledge is trustworthy information. 

This can be understood better when Tav defends Astarion against Gandrel: Gale approves twice of defending him. If Astarion is not in the group when meeting the monster hunter, the first approval happens when Tav recognises that Astarion is part of their companions/friends (therefore, Tav is showing care for their group). The second approval happens when Tav reinforces their loyalty to Astarion insisting that they won’t give his location (this is a clear display of loyalty that Gale acknowledges as rare. See the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Proposition to Cheat" for more details). Although Gale will explicitly question this decision, he secretly approved it (the approvals we saw are meta-knowledge: only the player sees them). Considering the undeniable context that Gale deeply dislikes Astarion, we may interpret this as Gale seeing in Tav a loyal person who will not abandon someone they care for, even if that person endangers them. Loyalty is something that resounds deeply in Gale due to his abandonment issues. 

 Another detail on this matter can be seen during the party. If Tav arranges spending the night with a companion and then asks (non-romanced) Gale the same, he will answer:

Gale: You are all too quick to abandon the one you promised yourself to. It’s not a quality I admire.

This line shows that first, Gale is not interested in casual sex; he needs the connection that the Weave provides and Tav’s explicit, previous romantic interest in it. Second, when Gale is romanced but Tav sleeps with someone else, Gale will not interfere in that affair, but he may not like it (due to his, I suppose, jealous comment since he doesn’t display an approval penalty for this). However, he seems to equate loyalty with commitment, understanding that affair as a fling but believing he still holds the romantic interest of Tav, hence his proposition the next day. More details in the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Proposition to Cheat".

---------

Sources for both parts:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( 5V)

Some concepts were summarised from: https://melcrowecounsellor.com www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[book-o-scams]

Ed, Edd n Eddy Series Bible (1996) -Analysis-

You can all finally read/download Ed, Edd n Eddy's official Series Bible right here! Thanks again to Chuckletons for sharing this with me and to Joey/Kongiscool0518 for sharing it in the first place, the Holy Grail of lost Ed, Edd n Eddy trivia!

One of the first posts I made for this blog was the Series Bible page. It was a composite of every source we had ever seen reference the series bible so far-- storyboarders in interviews, CN's old character guides, and the biggest source, an old CN UK posting about the show. Well, I figure now that we have the official source, I better update the old page (so everyone knows it's out of date), and make this new Series Bible post using the official source! Not much new information, but I was intrigued to finally learn the true phrasings of some things we had only heard paraphrased, as well as at least one detail from the movie that I couldn't believe came up this early in conception...

Unfortunately, Tumblr has apparently updated its post system to only let me add 10 images? Gonna try and only use images for what I need since you can read the actual document above, I guess I'll transcribe it too for easier reference and so we don't ever lose some archive of this.

Quickly, let's review what a series bible is:

A series bible is how creators pitch shows to networks. They can be called “pitch bibles” as well. Bibles do not usually get posted publicly, because they are initially under a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement by the network; also the creator may simply not wish to share it because it reflects the earliest stages of development.

The pitch materials typically include early concepts for characters, locations and episodes. Sometimes it exposes secrets, in this case, Ed and Eddy’s home lives, and sometimes the stuff in it is completely abandoned because it’s so early in production, in this case, casual references to school and adults.

Alright, everybody, it's time to gather 'round and read the Ed, Edd n Eddy Bible!

THE YEAR IS 1996.

YOUR NAME IS LINDA SIMENSKY. YOU WORK AT CARTOON NETWORK. A FRIEND OF YOURS, DANNY ANTONUCCI, IS WRAPPING UP A SHOW ON MTV. YOU GET THIS FAX.

Linda Simensky immediately fell in love with this concept because as a child, she was best friends with 2 other Lindas for seemingly no reason other than the shared name.

I love how Danny decided last second to pencil in the correct names over each Ed, since they're arranged out of title-order.

"They're friends because they have the same name."

-the Logline for the series.

Fun fact: one storyboard artist for the movie observed that the movie is essentially all about challenging the series' original notion that the Eds are friends ONLY because of their name.

"A Danny Antonucci Cartuna"

-the label Danny used to use under announcements of new productions.

PAGE 1:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

They're best friends because they have the same name.

A gag laden, beat generated CARTOON bumper car ride of 3 misfit youths on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America.

Through summer vacation, part-time jobs, or just hang'n out at the corner mail box, they want to belong....but CAN'T.

From home chores, helping neighbors or eating jaw breakers, they want to fit in...but CAN'T.

Ed is into "B" monster movies, model kits and is quick to break out into rashes.

Lots of luck...

Edd is into chemistry, biology and prone to crushes.

Later...

Eddy is into pranks, is stylish and flaunts himself to the world.

Ya Right...

Ed, Edd n Eddy is a show about confusion and contradiction, that awkward part of youth, pimples, big feet, oily hair and... girls???.

Puberty is unforgiving.

I was fascinated by the lack of art on this page, it makes the pitch feel very focused. AKA logo in the corner, the title logo again up top, then the logline appears again below.

I really love the breakdown of Danny's vision of the show. "Gag-laden, beat-generated, CARTOON bumper ride." Very accurate, and I think "beat-generated" is the phrase that interests me the most. I typically think of "animation beats" as sort of a give-in-- technically all things fit a rhythm, so all stories are essentially just a montage of beats. But this does make me realize how important the strength of the beats and their rhythm are to the pacing of a cartoon and making you feel like "that was a good one." I feel like the "seasonal rot" viewers feel over the course of a show, and the way that perception differs from person to person, depends on the type of beats you want. Even though I am very into the experimental beats of a show in its later seasons, I can definitely see how season 1's beats are more typically appealing to a wide-audience, and how important a focus on that is to the longevity of a show.

I found it really interesting how the scams are initially conceived of here as "summer jobs." It adds to the sense that adults were originally meant to be present. Honestly a little surprised nobody with access to this bible had ever thought to mention that-- scams are not referenced ANYWHERE. Their image in the Series Bible is that they have summer jobs and help neighbors, which is certainly a much cleaner reputation than the Eds ended up with in the show. Makes me realize though, were some of the early scams, like Ed's Hive Bee Gone and their newspaper routes, supposed to be leaning into this early idea of them with almost legit jobs for unseen adults?

I was very amused by the repeated phrase that the Eds simply CAN'T fit in.

Loved to finally see the official phrasing for the confirmation that Peach Creek is in America. Not much different than I was led to believe, but still nice to have the true quote.

Also love Eddy being described as "stylish and flaunting himself to the world." The bold-print reactions to each micro-description is a cute idea too, I truly wonder who we were meant to picture saying those things in reaction. Each Ed? Kevin?

The "corner mail box" is an oddly specific phrase-- the Eds do hang around mailboxes throughout the series, especially seasons 1-3, and I believe the canon map does have a corner mailbox, but the idea that the Eds hang out at one specific mailbox went the way of Bro's supposed secret treehouses.

PAGE 2:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

Show Description

Gag laden. True cartoon style, inventive, non parody, fast paced, stretch and squash

Beat driven. (even when characters stop they hold with a bounce cycle. Adults never bounce. Music can play important part, not just fill.) But not a musical.

Cartoon surrealism. (viewers see the show as Ed, Edd n Eddy would, less important things tend to blend into the background, while objects of Ed, Edd n Eddy's desires are focused. Premise driven.)

The school year's over, (yeah!!!!) and the long HOT summer vacation begins (gulp). What to do?

Stuck on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America is the last place you want to spend summer break, especially when you find life confusing and contradicting.

Ed, Edd n Eddy is about friendship, and serves to remind us that they're no "good ole days," just smelly runners.

You can tackle anything, when your with your pals.

Their days are spent, for knowledge, acceptance and some cash for jaw breakers. Armed with pimples, big feet and oily hair the three amigos trek into the unknown.

Ed, Edd n Eddy are dying to be grown-ups, but they're kids, and attack adulthood as only kids would. Simple situations turn into a manic rollercoaster ride. (Don't forget your barf bag).

They just want to belong, and they're willing to pull off any insane stunt to prove it. First they need to figure out what it is they want to belong to.

Found it interesting that on this page, the show's logo is replaced with the title written in a jumbled font. Seems like the font from the show's end credits.

Hehe, the continued reactions to the descriptions. Allow me to be Double D for a moment and point out the increased use of parentheticals on this page, as well as one wrong "your".

I love Danny's insight that season 1 is framed by the context of how hyped everyone still is just to be out of school, but also the sense of pressure to make use of their break.

I really appreciate Danny getting further into the details of his summary of the show's style on the previous page. It only makes sense that he had this much of a vision that early.

A second confirmation of the cul-de-sac being in America! I'm also really into the repeated focus on the Eds finding the world "contradicting." I always loved how EEnE's inexplicable cartoon antics supported that sense that the Eds are highly aware of contradictions in both societal things and the actual characters.

WOW, so I'm fascinated by this dual reveal. Before the wiggling outlines, which Danny usually calls a "boiling line" and describes as a tribute to wiggling inking in early animation, the series bible instead refers to him wanting the characters to do the iconic Fleischer "bounce," which is a much more commonly recognized rubberhose animation technique. Very interesting that Danny decided not to stick to that. Did it feel too out of place? Or was the overseas team not willing to animate a weight-shifting for every single held pose? Haha, guess I can see why boiling was an easier compromise. I wonder if he had any other ideas for how to make it more of a 1930s cartoon.

The other reveal to me here is that the movie's choice, that adults don't always wiggle in the show, was an idea from the very beginning! I guess I can better understand now why it's just too difficult to communicate a stylistic choice like that overseas-- no point making Bro not wiggle, that'd just create confusion.

Also, really disappointed that my wish for a musical is officially squashed in the series bible itself. That's a tragedy. The show's over, ya couldn't let me dream, Danny!? Conversely, I love Danny's forethought to say "non parody," I definitely noticed and appreciated EEnE's avoidance of derivative parody humor.

My spouse had to point out to me that Danny probably means sneakers here, lol. Canadianisms!

The comments about the Eds wanting to grow up but needing to figure out what they want to belong to are so great and relate to the movie so well. I've heard those comments before, but the correct phrasing was cool to see.

PAGE 3:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Ed in right corner)

Character Description

Ed

Attention deficiency syndrome.

He has trouble...

He can't....um...

OK, he draws all day in class.

When Eddy gets a bright idea...Ed's in.

Ed is easily talked into doing Eddy's "hard work". He has great physical strength.

Ed's happiest with his Model kits and B-monster movies. He draws his knowledge from his movies.

Ed smells. Flies are attracted to him.

Ed has sayings for all situations

ED: "you can change your shirt, and Bingo was his name..."

Ed's perpetually a slave to his younger sister's whims and whines.

Ed may have to baby-sit his sister, or let her watch whatever she wants on TV, or let her dress him up in mom's clothes.

Ed breaks out in Rashes. He's allergic to practically everything, especially Guinea Pigs.

Ed's Mom xerox's his sketches and doodles for her therapist.

Ed's Dad hopes to pass on to his son, his knowledge on "pre-owned" auto sales.

Very cute bit wasting the space at the top of the page. Danny seems very invested in Ed's personality already. The old sources we used to have definitely tried to condense these down to simpler blurbs.

Weird how Danny wants to essentially diagnose Ed with ADHD here (phrasing it very poorly, but it was the 90s and... Canada?). I don't know enough on the subject to debate it, but I still gotta point out Ed's canonical cracked skull!

Interested in the comment about Ed being most allergic to Guinea Pigs. I don't think that animal was ever even mentioned in the show. Eddy mentioned an old gerbil once....

Neat to finally have the real phrasing of the official word on Ed's parents! I saw someone comment earlier that this seems to be hinting Ed's Dad is selling stolen cars. I've never thought to question the legality of his apparent second-hand-car dealership (I imagined he works with Eddy's dad, who has received a legitimate award for his salesmanship), but those quotation marks are certainly making Mr. Ed's practices questionable! Best case scenario, Danny meant that more like italics or something, but maybe Ed's dad IS up to no good...

PAGES 4 & 5 (Ed's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 6:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Edd in right corner)

Character Description

Edd

is really smart.

is really quiet.

Edd is unnaturally-- polite.

Edd hasn't been allowed to take gym ever since the Dodge ball incident. He's been excused to free study time in the library.

Edd doesn't like it when people touch his things.

EDD: "You may enter in my room, but don't touch my Lego robot. Thank you."

Edd's learning to play Peddle steel guitar. (his Mom makes him)

Edd's prone to "crushes". Girls in School, in his neighborhood, TV, anatomy books. He mails "true loves" his socks.

Edd is always ready for action, even though he can calculate the implications.

Edd constantly mumbles.

No one ever sees Edd's parents. They both work nights. They communicate to their son solely through Post-it notes. Edd's not allowed to touch anything in the house while they're gone. Anything.

Interesting how Danny slightly differentiates the barely-used space at the top here from Ed's description, to characterize Edd as more quiet and mumbly, adding an awkward "--" mid-sentence, perhaps to create the impression that Edd halts to choose words carefully.

Everything on this page feels familiar, from the character guides and other old sources. The most interesting thing to me here is that Edd's Mom forcing him to practice Pedal Steel Guitar is established this early, don't think I knew that, but I had noticed that it existed in his room from ep 1.

I love how the explanation in the beginning for why Edd goes along with their dumb schemes even though he's smart is basically just "he's always ready for action." ?!? I guess in a way???

That weirdly phrased Edd quote amuses me because it references Lego, just like the original concept background for his room before somebody nixed the copyright-namedrop.

Edd's prone to crushes thing has been reaffirmed over and over in character bios even though it really doesn't come up outside of the cupid magic in HPH and the pilot-episode heart eyes at Sarah that are barely canon. Still, I've always loved the truly disturbing statement that he mails "his true loves his socks" and how that managed to make it into canon with a comic book example, a cel animation example and a digital era example.

PAGES 7 & 8 (Edd's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 9:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Eddy in right corner)

Character Description

Eddy

Exhibitionist.

Megalomaniac. (quote from his report card)

Eddy is the unofficial leader of the trio.

He's always got a plan, a stunt or a weird noise.

Eddy's the "class clown". He loves showing off. He loves being the centre of attention-- no matter how stupid the reason is.

Eddy is the only kid in his grade to have been expelled for aw hole week from school. It was his turn to set up the video for science class. He switched "Our Friend Yeast", for a video he "borrowed" from his parent's room.

Before Eddy's brother went....away, he enlightened Eddy with the "legends" of the neighbourhood. Eddy knows where all the abandoned tree houses are, which sewer pipers are safe to spelunk, and the secret recipe for the "El Mongo Stink Bomb" (it's been in the family for years).

He is the one who is most able to pretend that he knows it all... and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him.

His genes are working the fastest.

Eddy's Dad is constantly concerned that Eddy may grow up to be a ...figure skater.

Eddy's Mom never believes his little darling was involved in such a heinous act.

Funny choice that Eddy's wasted-top-space is just two one-word descriptions, and allegedly lazily swiped from his negative report card.

Wow, we knew the report card quote and the "Our Friend Yeast" story from the UK show guide, but now we also know Ed's page says that Ed draws in class, and now I realize that Ed and Eddy have series bible school blurbs to match Edd's classic dodgeball incident blurb. Anyway, it's great that Eddy's showed his entire school some sort of sex video his parents have.

Very interested that the phrasing for the Bro/El Mongo Stink Bomb blurb even seems to suggest it's a family recipe. Eddy's Dad did have prankster stuff in his closet in JJJ... did Bro learn his prankster ways from Dad?? The neighborhood's secret tree houses have come up in other descriptions (at best, I'd say this could be related to that creepy shack the Eds found in the woods), but I think it's new info that Eddy personally learned the sewer routes from Bro. Interesting...

Thankfully, I had already heard about the Bible's awkward reference to Eddy being the most pubescent as "his genes are working the fastest," lmao.

Once again the Double D in me comes out to point out that the description of Eddy's Mom seems to switch to the Dad's pronouns.

PAGES 10 & 11 (Eddy's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGES 12-14 (Sarah, Jimmy, Rolf, Jonny, Nazz, and Kevin lineup of all 6, then 2 zoomed in lineups of the first 3 kids and last 3 kids)

(Funfact: the kids' designs were allegedly freelanced to an outside studio, hence why their refined later-season designs are so different from these lizardy starting places, lmao)

PAGE 15: (images of Sarah and Jimmy next to their blurbs)

SARAH

Ed's baby Sister.

It's her way or the Highway.

She has everything done for her, if NOT she'll "make" them do it.

She can be quick to judge.

Whinney.

A tatrum for every occasion.

More than a handful for Ed...or Edd and Eddy.

Thinks Edd is kinda cute.

Wants Eddy to MOVE...to another planet.

JIMMY

Sarah's best friend

He is always playing with girls, boys are just too tough.

He is accident prone, when ever we see him he has a different affliction, ie: band-aids, patches, casts, lumps...etc.

He is very clean.

The Ed's frighten him, "They're such brutes".

I'm surprised how much of the UK guide was accurate to what was really in the bible for them! Also surprised Danny misspelled "whiney" and "tantrum," one right after the other. Is this how Sarah spells them? ...Sorry, Danny, I yam what I yam.

PAGE 16: (images of Rolf and Jonny next to their blurbs)

ROLF

First generation of a landed immigrant family.

Nationality not important.

He's proud of his heritage.

He has peculiar traditions and/or customs.

He eats "weird" things.

He has hair on his back..... "yuck".

He confuses the Ed's to no end.

He confuses the other kids to no end.

JONNY 2x4

He is a wanderer and very inquisitive

From early morning to supper time, he is always outside playing, with his buddy, "Plank".

"Plank" is a wooden board that Jonny drew a face on with a crayon.

Jonny has wonderful conversations with Plank. ...Plank is a piece of wood.

Jonny makes himself very "accessible" to the Ed's.

Found it interesting that Rolf's bio is less clearly phrased than the UK bio set it up to be-- there they made it sound more like he mixes up who the Eds/kids are, here it's unclear whether it means that or (more likely) just means the obvious statement that everyone finds him confusing. If it's that, what a lame hollow bio Rolf got. This kid's based on you Danny, show some of that personal side!

Always loved Jonny's description, his life sounds so cute. Playing outside literally all day. Interesting to have it confirmed that Jonny drew Plank's face, I preferred to think the Eds drew him and sold him to Jonny, but whatever.

"Accessible" has always been an important vague description of Jonny to me. It really only applies to how chummy they could be with him in season 1, but it still sorta applies to his personality throughout the series as well.

PAGE 17: (images of Nazz and Kevin next to their blurbs)

NAZZ

She's cool, calm and assertive.

She is the most matured of the kids, or so she thinks.

She's into make-up and fashion magazines and Boys.

Sarah thinks she's awesome, wants to be just like her when she grows up.

When she enters a scene, all activity stops... boys freeze, they sweat, their hearts beat faster and faster. They lose their ability to talk. When she leaves, they recover and conclude it was something They ate.

She thinks the Ed's are funny.

KEVIN

He is cynical and sarcastic.

He thinks he knows the "routine". That's because he watches "60 Minutes".

It got a big laugh out of me that Kevin's description is only 2 sentences long. Nazz even has a more detailed character description from inception than Kevin. Love this for them.

Who's the Eds' rival? Well, he's cynical, sarcastic and he watches 60 Minutes, doesn't that tell you enough!?

I love the "mature... or so she thinks" remark about Nazz, a grounded flaw for her to have, being a little overcommitted to being mature like Eddy. It also perhaps suggests naiveté that makes it a little more reasonable that they didn't notice they were dumbing her down at the end of the series, but I do think the movie version of her better reflects the Bible's concept.

PAGE 18:

The Other Neighborhood Kids

Lineup of May, Lee and Marie.

The Kanker Sisters

These gals are tough. They bother, bully, provoke and bewilder everyone.

They live in a motor home park on the other side of the Cul-de-sac. The other kids have never been there.

They are proud of their Tammy Faye Baker memorabilia.

Their project "Cooking with Ketchup" closed down their school for a whole week.

No one likes them, especially the Eds.

They are determined to marry the Eds. They want them to do their dishes.

Amused that the Kankers are essentially being labeled backgrounds characters here, the role they mostly fell into in season 5. "Other" neighborhood kids...

I love that the Kankers have a school blurb to match each of the Eds', and that theirs has similar destructive-intentions to Eddy's video premiere story.

I believe all of this was all known from the UK guide as well, but still, neat stuff!

PAGES 19 & 20 (zoomed in Kanker lineup and their height chart with the Eds)

PAGES 21 & 22 (early promo art that used to be on CN's old Eds webpage, the art of the Eds eating jawbreakers at the end of ep 1 with the overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy love JAWBREAKERS!!!", and the art of the Eds all running with overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy see something shiny...."Jiggers." That weird "jiggers" statement at the end was normally edited out and I don't know what it means. Looked it up and it seems to be Chinook jargon (like when Ed said he was "skookum at X's and O's") usually said in the same sense as "CHEESE IT!")

PAGES 23+:

The rest of the pages in that bible download are from a 2004 storyboard test. The storyboard sample "It's Raining Eds," which we've seen some submitted samples of before, interpretations with Ed attempting to fly or chew gum and Edd making radioactive gum, I was surprised to find out the outline is just the original outline for the opening sequence to season 3's 'For Your Eds Only', seemingly Jonny was not written into the original outline (or was excised for easier testing purposes) but Kevin's brief cameo was. Now I wonder if they knew this would be used for a test when they wrote it, and if they would've come up with a less random way to include him if weren't forced to be a concise bit for testing's sake. (Your limit is typically 40 storyboard pages in my experience.)

I also noticed that in the included background references, the anonymous adult neighbor house next door to Ed's is officially just referred to as a "generic house."

My analysis ends here, but be sure to download that sometime and enjoy all the raw storyboard sketches at the end of the document!

[lightskinrry]

I got ADHD. So I’m sorry I g distracted and this is all over the place buttt here’s my astrology read on Harry with the new Leo rising assumption. Sorry this is long as hell and literally just how I read him it’s for entertainment and it ain’t that serious so don’t be acting crazy or getting bold lol.

Soo I f we are going by Aqua sun, Libra Moon, Leo Ascending then that’s actually the most accurate chart to me for Harry.

That’ll also leave his Venus in Aqua, Mars in Aqua. He’s got ALOT of air in his chart. The reason Leo rising makes sense is because of the charisma he has. Leo risings are always so incredibly magnetic and attract a lot of attention. They can also come off having like a big ego (which we KNOW he does lol) now with him being a Leo rising that’ll take out him in a 21st degree which is sag so he has some influence of Sagittarius but not much just makes him more enthusiastic and joyful like the sun. He is reliable and constantly uplifting people. He enjoys simple things in a day to day but believes life is to be enjoyed and so he makes the effort for adventure pleasure and fun. He is likely to need attention and approval from others, so he is really has to work to admit that. The need to stand out in his own right is most important so he has worked his entire career to ensure that and it shows in how the media perceived him. He is in a lane of his own. He has extraordinary reserves of creativity and love that need an outlet. Following his heart and exploring passions and inspirations drive him in his achievements. He’s a born leader that works hard for comfort in luxury as he doesn’t feel like things should be handed to him. He puts in the time for it and turns his talents into his biggest strengths. This is likely why he takes his time and focuses on his creative skills and places he’s strong at first such as acting taking a backseat to music when it has to( he wasn’t planning on doing films until it became the most operable lane for him to stay working hard) and he does so with a natural flare that people envy. Things seems to come almost effortless to him but he still works hard.

The libra moon is in 3rd house. Libra are likely to have a need for serenity and harmony in their lives. ( so we will probably never see him pop off ;he don’t like conflict). He’s a peaceful person and he needs his personal life and relationships to reflect that as he has a career that is anything but. they usually also have a need to connect with others and are really great at building rapport (his networking skills are so fascinating) so he’s very diplomatic and has a knack for negotiating in terms of his career. Because of that knack I think it’s why people of all types in the industry gravitate towards him especially in business endeavors because he can balance conflicting agendas well..he plays fair. He’s uncomfortable in circumstance where there is lack of justice or unfairness and he constantly seeks ways to find common ground between himself and those around him in conflict because he doesn’t like it. He likes being around people and as Libra is a relationship sign he craves building relationships with people. He works best with others than on his own which is why he views relationships as teamwork as well as his friendships being so dear to him. But that need can also make him be passive aggressive sometimes. Because of the emphasis he might put on things.

“You may act or think in ways that are not always for your best interest just to keep a relationship alive. Then you may find then yourself involved in situations that are disturbingly out of balance, and do not reflect your true needs.” (Does that sound like a familiar song to y’all?)

He’s Aqua sun so obviously he’s a fixed air which makes him so hard to be locked down and it will probably not happen to him for a little while. Aquas tend to be fixed on one individual from time to time in their lives but it’s rare and often doesn’t last. His sun is in 6th house so ya boy likes a routine daily and to be athletic and healthy and he’s also a workaholic. DOESNT like doing mundane things (which is why he’s doing movies in his downtime ‘cause he can’t tour) he also has a Pisces influence on his sun because it’s in 12 degree which is a water sign and makes sense because despite him being an Aqua he’s very caring and in tune with his emotions. He also highly intuitive with this sign. And able to read moods and circumstances really well. This gives him again a leg up on making logical step in the industry cause which has him always one step ahead of the game always. ( he is an incredible businessman and I wish we seen how great he is at make deals and networking. He’s gonna be around in the industry FOREVER) his aloofness allows him to rise above drama so he has a more detached perspective of the everyday in the industry. He is more comfy with being impersonal, aloof than intimacy but yet his Libra moon has him craving intimacy so he don’t communicate emotion as well but also feels some type of way when others give him the same energy. Social awareness is probably really important to him because he want to create lanes that are inclusive and we can see that in his music videos and social activism. He wants to have a broad range of people in his life so he can be motivated by different walks of life but he does have trouble stepping out on his own to do so. It has to come to them. But no out of laziness or not caring just out of not wanting to get it wrong. He focuses a lot on similarities instead of difference in those he surrounds himself with which can also hinder surrounded himself with different walks of life. He might have a deep interest in the metaphysical as a lot of Aqua suns are interested or work in those fields. Aquas also ruled by humanitarian concerns so I can see him digging his hands into charity work going forward as he continues to learn. He is constantly thinking outside the box or comfort zone for him.

By giving himself and permission to be, he embodies authenticity whilst maintaining individual freedom which is the hallmark of his sign.

——————

Team Harry is a Leo rising bc my queen Tea brought some real talk to the table

[illneverrecover]

Jackie, I hope you are doing well!💖I hope its ok to send this kind of ask, I get a good big sister vibe from u and as a writer myself I just need some advice. How do u deal with not getting a lot of notes or comments on your stuff? Like I feel like I work so hard and it takes me days to write something but then I post and it barely gets 10 likes. I have friends who hype me and I appreciate them but it still stings, u know? Just wondering if you've dealt with this and if so how do you let it go?

Hi bb! First of all, I'm glad I give off big sister vibes! I'm always here to help and encourage other writers and creators, so never feel shy about sending me anything (and I mean anything - feel free to send random memes, Tae pictures that made you yell, whatever. I'm always down to chat!) Second of all, I have dealt with this before, and let me be the first to say that I know it sucks.

I would say this is probably most writers' experience, especially on Dumblr. Despite the fact that this site is super popular for fandoms, it's not very cooperative for creators to use it. The system as it's set up means that in order for things to be seen widespread, they need to be reblogged and/or tagged to reach a higher audience. Unfortunately, most people don't take the time to do that. It's painfully easy to just throw a like onto a post and keep on keeping on, and the tagging system is constantly not working like it should, things not showing up, etc.

I know it's frustrating. It sucks to work so hard on something and put your time and energy into it and feel like no one is interested. We write, make graphics, edit gifs, etc as a way to creatively express ourselves, and then we share it with the world in hopes it brings someone else a little piece of joy. Let me be the first to tell you that it's very brave of you to share your creativity with anyone, and I think it'll probably always sting a bit when it feels like it's not getting the welcome that you had hoped for.

The things that helped me with this may not help you, but just in case it does I'm happy to share!

1. I write for myself - me, myself, and I. Do I like what I wrote? Does it feel like a genuine piece that I want to share? Does it represent me and my storytelling in an authentic way? Then I'm happy! Bottom line, I'm the main reason I do any of this, so as long as I'm enjoying myself I'll keep doing it. 2. I also write for my friends. As long as my friends loved or enjoyed what I created, then I'm content. Like your friends, mine are always here to hype me up and give me love and encouragement, and it really means the world to me. They also have good taste so I know if they tell me they like something - they're being genuine. Writing something that makes them blush or flusters them or has them yelling my DMs always makes me feel accomplished, even if no one else leaves a comment. 3. Cross-posting to other platforms sometimes brings traction to a story that hasn't gotten a lot of notes on Tumblr. I cross post some of my stuff to AO3 (not everything, mostly because I'm lazy) - but there are other authors here who also cross-post to other sites like Wattpad. This may be something to consider as there are a lot of people who love fanfic who don't know or use Tumblr. 4. Joining writing networks. There are TONS of them out there, and they all function differently and can offer different things for a writer. I mostly join them so I can participate in projects (having deadlines really helps me focus and actually get shit done, lol) and to meet other writers and have some people to go to for writing advice, tips, beta reading, etc - but there are some with very large platforms that will boost your work and could help get your writing seen. 5. Try not to take it personally. I know it's hard and it makes you feel very vulnerable, but there could be a multitude of reasons something doesn't get a lot of notes. It's not a secret to see that certain genres, AUs, pairings, members, etc get more notes than others - and this has been the case for me as well. My smut fics almost always do well, whereas my other stories that don't have smut tend to get less notes. Some people look for very specific things when they want to read something, but it shouldn't dictate what we write. If the story you want to tell is important to you, then it should still be shared. 6. Ask for feedback with trusted friends/mentors. I know there is always room to improve and grow, and I personally want to know if there is an area in my writing where I am falling short or that I could do better with. I reach out to people that I know who have my best interest in mind and I trust them to give me accurate feedback. This may or may not make a difference in how well a fic does, but I think this step is important, especially so that #1 above stays true. I'm no expert by any means, but that basically sums up how I approach my writing in general when it comes to things like this. Please don't let any lack of interaction or notes diminish your passion and desire to write and share stories. At the end of the day, we all need more creativity and storytelling in the world, and just because your fic doesn't get 3k notes overnight doesn't mean it isn't worth sharing. Your words matter. No one has ever written a fic in the exact way you would, and your vision and interpretation is just as important as anyone else.

[nickgerlich]

Inconvenient Truths

If we have learned anything in 2020, through the pandemic and the lead-up to the November election, it is that social media is really nothing less than a battle ground of opposing ideas. It is where relationships are splintered, where liars and fakes are as common as truth-tellers and the legit, where conspiracy theories come home to roost, where curated content begins to sound a lot like an echo chamber.

And where we go to replenish our dopamine drip.

It doesn’t take a social scientist or tech whiz to tell us these things, but when they do, as in The Social Dilemma, a Netflix Original docu-drama, it speaks volumes. After all, the people interviewed in the 90-minute social media bashing are all former employees of some of the biggest, baddest blue ribbon tech firms in the world, or noted academics who have more chops than a butcher.

If Netflix was hoping to sound a call to action, they are probably a little late. We’ve known for a long time that social media and even email sites have their tentacles wrapped around us, that advertising has become more direct and specific, that we are--just like the point was made multiple times throughout the film--the product itself. After all, we don’t pay for these things, unless you are one who pays for the premium LinkedIn access.

In other words, the price of free, or to be a little less blunt, the price of participation, is that we must endure a lot of inconvenient things we may not otherwise like, but are willing to tolerate because the sites and services allow us to stay in touch with so many people.

Let’s look at some of those inconveniences. We are barraged with a steady stream of advertising that has been fired with laser accuracy, thanks to the sites’ knowing practically everything there is to know about us. My Facebook and Instagram feeds are littered with bikes, cameras, craft beer, and vegan recipes. Somewhere along the line I made it abundantly clear that these are high-interest areas in my life.

We are followed wherever we go. Yes, occasionally we have to answer a little question on our phones about the apps we install, and whether it’s OK for them to keep up with us. When I look at my Google tracks, it basically serves as a mapped history of everything I have done, everywhere I have been. By the way, how do you think Google Maps knows to make the freeway color red, indicating a slowdown? Simple. It is monitoring the speed of everyone on that same road who happens to have the same app as you. The result is crowdsourced information without anyone having to tap a single letter or number.

These sites can also track how long we linger in a given location. Thus, they have correctly deduced that I not only go to craft breweries, but (at least before COVID) am also highly likely to blow--I mean spend--an hour or two there. And I’m not just whistling Dixie, you know. So many beers, so little time.

They know the hotels I frequent (Hilton properties, in case you were wondering). They know I am a rare customer indeed at a chain restaurant, although I do have a minor record of dining at Red Robin or Mellow Mushroom. They know where I buy my gas. They know I tend to take the old two-lane roads. And they know that I stop the van for every old neon sign I have never yet photographed. Don’t believe me? Check out my Insta feed someday (@nickgerlich).

I could go on, but the point is clear: Our lives are open books on social media, and not just because of the things we post. The book of our life is open to them specifically because we allowed them to read it. Those apps, our phones...they are just the facilitators in this game. When we skipped through the Terms Of Service agreement and checked the box without reading a word, we gave them carte blanche.

And guess what? I have no problem with any of this. I actually like being considered “the product,” because it means they are trying to sell to me. I am in control of my wallet, not the other way around, and if in the process of all this, I receive ever more accurate advertising catered to my likes, my life is better. Think about all the crap you see advertised on network television on any given evening. They are using a shotgun in hopes of hitting a few targets along the way. Social media sites, though, are shooting rifles.

In other words, I am not afraid of them. No, they should be afraid of me. I am the one whose money they covet. I understand and accept their revenue model imperative, because as long as they can sell ads, I can keep using the site for nothing. I am willing to trade parts of my life in exchange for what I see as entertainment, even with all the warts and pimples that over-use and addiction can render.

As for all of those former employees appearing in the film, I suspect they all just started feeling a little bit guilty of the successes their efforts and employers were enjoying. The market cap on some of these firms is mind-blowing, testament to the fact that wealth is not finite, but instead created based on the faith that investors have in these companies. I’m not sure what these people are going to do in their self-exiled unemployment, unless they were able to sell off a bunch of stock to fund their guilty conscience.

We must remember this important point: no one made any of us sign up for Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, etc. We did it of our own volition, and how we use it is our business, whether we simply scroll through once in a while, or whether we use it to score enough Likes and Loves to make us feel liked and loved ourselves. Dopamine feels pretty good, doesn’t it? It is implicit that we accepted the terms of engagement, even if we didn’t really read them. “You want to advertise to me while I post pics and videos? OK. Knock yourselves out.”

And even if social media have torn asunder more relationships this year than we would like, we can even control that. Simply quit interacting with the folks whose opinions you loathe, and the algorithms will take care of things pretty quickly. They’ll just fall off your feed. Kinda like I did about six weeks ago. I didn’t have to unfriend, unfollow, block, or delete anyone, and already my feed is like a breath of fresh air.

I just wish I had enough money to buy all those cool bikes and cameras I’m seeing. Cooking dinner is easy enough, but the big boy toys cost big bucks. Hey, can you give me a little love on this?

Dr “No Dilemma Here“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[fandom-necromancer]

Chasing time

This was prompted by the wonderful @smolandangry001! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: self-neglect, description of a serial-killer-case)

[Remaining time: 00:00:05] [Remaining time: 00:00:04] [Remaining time: 00:00:03] [Remaining time: 00:00:02] [Remaining time: 00:00:01] [Remaining time: 00:00:00] [Victim died.]

‚PHCK!‘ Nines stared down on his hands, back up to the screen where he saw millions of pictures, websites and articles flickering by. He had long connected himself to the computer and didn’t care to put up an act as a human. They had no time for typing, no time for writing down and waiting for sites to load. They didn’t even have the time to blink, to go into stasis for the day or to go to the toilet. Thankfully, Nines didn’t need that. Gavin, however did, and the human slowed him down despite his unbelievably efficient way of thinking and his willingness to sacrifice whatever necessary to fulfil his duty.

Disappointed and weirdly worn out, Nines took the few seconds to shut down all processes that would only lead them to another dead body. They had outsourced finding the body to their co-workers, solely concentrating on finding the next person faster and hopefully still alive. Their opponent was always a step in front of them, always dropping hints for them to run after and deciding to send them in a loop whenever they got too close on finding the murderer. It was a game, a perfidious game that played with the life of people.

It chiselled away on their nerves and with every new victim turning up there was less hope they would be able to win. All they had managed until now was lose and lose and lose, picking themselves up and trying again. Three persons were dead already, well four now, and every body would turn up with a stopped watch depicting the time of the next murder and a hint to the location. Well, time to send off the gathered data to the other team and then tend to their own bodily needs until someone would wake them with the time and hint of the next.

Nines stood up and waited for Gavin to follow. The man looked worse than ever. Too little sleep, a constant headache too high intake of caffeine and no free time did that to a body. Humans were no machines and still Gavin tried his best to be one, to force himself to functionality. It would be remarkable hadn’t it been his friend and partner wrecking himself in front of him.

‘We did what we could’, he tried to soothe the man as he stood up and shakily walked over to the android. ‘We’ll get him the next time.’ ‘We won’t’, Gavin shook his head weakly. ‘He wants to wear us down. And phck me is he succeeding.’ ‘Gavin. Trust me. We’ll get him next time. You need sleep. Me too. Come on.’ ‘’M coming, toaster.’

Nines guided the human to the old, now unused android booths and stepped into the one he had taken for himself to charge and go into stasis the minimum time required. Gavin had brought a mattress, blanket and a pillow with him the next day they found out this was a serial killer and they wouldn’t have any time to lose to driving home. Gavin remembered to kick off his shoes, before falling into his makeshift bed as he stood. ‘Night tin-can.’ ‘Good night, Gavin.’

-

‘Come on! We got it! Wake up!’ Gavin groaned at the loud screams that echoed through the precinct, neither team bothering to waste time by walking over. Nines immediately stepped out of the booth and got to work, downloading all evidence the others had gathered. The human took a bit longer, prying open his eyes and putting on his shoes as he was filled in by someone.

Nines only allowed himself one look over to his partner as he fell into his seat, a coffee already prepared and standing next to a dozen empty mugs and takeaway cups. Then he already raced through the networks again searching for anything related to calligraphy pens. They had eight hours.

-

[Remaining time: 00:00:00] [Victim died.] ‚Goddamnit, Phck!‘ Gavin was more aggravated as before. ‘We nearly had him! We already had the damn paper-shop, how long of a drive would it have been?’ ‘Twenty-three minutes.’ ‘Twenty-three phcking minutes. They could have been saved. Phck. A few piss-breaks less from me and we could have had it!’ ‘Gavin. Calm down. You are right. We nearly had him. We are getting better. Next time we’ll have him. Trust me. Now it’s time to sleep. We need every bit we can get.’

-

[Remaining time: 00:00:00] [Victim died.] This time they weren’t even close. Nines dearly needed a full stasis cycle. His calculations weren’t as accurate anymore, heaps of data had accumulated and were ready for deletion. He was no way close to a forced shutdown, but if this continued on, he would be. And Gavin looked worse with every day. He looked years older than he should be with deep rings under his eyes and shaking hands. He had fallen asleep several times at his desk already, the scarce sleep the man got finally taking its toll and overpowering the coffee. He didn’t complain. He didn’t talk about how hopeless their work was. He just stood up and shuffled his way to the bed. He was already asleep as Nines followed shortly. The android looked down on the human at his limits end. In a breeze of sympathy, he bowed down, pulled off the man’s shoes and covered him with the blanket, before he stepped into his own booth.

-

[Remaining time: 00:38:16] Nines worked away relentlessly. This had to stop. They both would work themselves to death if this continued only one more day. Baseball. 11pm. Not the slither of an idea. His thoughts were interrupted by sudden silence opposite to him. Had Gavin fallen asleep again? He needed him now. These last minutes he could stay awake but- Gavin was awake. Wide awake. And staring at his screen. ‘I got him…’, he mumbled, then louder: ‘I got him!’ He jumped from his chair in excitement, screaming once again: ‘I got him!’, before crashing to the ground hard.

Nines immediately was by his side, checking his pulse, then looking up to the screen. He identified the location instantly and sent it to Connor and Hank. ‘Get a car and drive fast!’, he screamed out to them. [Remaining time: 00:36:02] The drive was fifteen minutes. They would make it.

The same was not to be said about his partner, who still laid unconsciously on the ground. He had pulse and was breathing; his temperature was alright. He should be okay. ‘Chris. You know what this is?’ But the other human standing next to him just shook his head. ‘Sorry. No idea. I’ll call an ambulance.’ ‘No!’ That was Tina. ‘I know what’s up. Big guy. To his car!’ Nines lifted Gavin from the ground and followed Tina. ‘He will be alright, Nines. Take him home. Here are his keys. Lay him on the couch and start cooking him something. He will wake up then. But no word to anyone and now go!’

Nines knew better than to argue with Tina, also the human knew Gavin longer than he did. He trusted her to know what was going on. He sat down in the car and it felt weird as he grabbed the wheel. He had never driven Gavin’s car. He had only ever been his passenger. He brought the man home, relaxing more and more since Connor’s message had come in. He had been there on time, saved the victim from certain death and apprehended the criminal. They were on their way back to the precinct now and Nines knew they could handle it. They had time.

-

Gavin awoke to the blissful scent of onions and garlic sizzling in a pan. Whatever else was being cooked was drowned out by it and immediately the man felt his stomach cramp in pain. He let out a groan and was immediately caught by the cook: ‘So you finally woke up.’ ‘Mmyeah’, he mumbled and looked around. Wait. This was home. But that voice was Nines. Somewhere had to be a connection but Gavin couldn’t find it. ‘What happened?’ ‘Your dumbass decided to pass out after you solved the case.’ ‘I did?’ ‘Yes. Connor and Hank got them. The victim is safe, the criminal is locked up at the precinct.’ ‘That’s… so good to hear.’ He struggled to get up, only to be stopped by a not so gentle hand on his chest. ‘Don’t.’ It was nearly a threat and Gavin looked up to these blue eyes. ‘Stay down. Your circulatory systems wouldn’t take that yet.’ ‘What?’ ‘I don’t want you to pass out again, I just cooked.’ ‘Oh.’

Gavin sank back down into the pillows and watched Nines going back into the kitchen. How the hell had they gotten into- oh. Right. Tina. He would never let her look after the cats for him again. The android came back with a steaming plate of mashed potatoes, eggs and bacon, waiting for Gavin to give him enough space to sit down too. The human already reached for the plate, starved beyond reason, but Nines pulled it out of reach, looking at him harshly. ‘Why didn’t you eat?’ ‘What? Come on, I’m starving over here!’ ‘I know. You passed out in front of me. I’m only letting you eat if you tell me why you did it and promise me, you’ll never do it again!’ ‘Okay, yes, I promise! Goddamnit, let me phcking eat!’

Nines handed him the plate, watching him as he greedily gulped it down. ‘Slow down, Gavin. Your body won’t take that much so sudden.’ Surprisingly, the human listened and started talking between the bites: ‘It keeps me focussed. The pain… it grounds me. And the hunger creates urgency, so I don’t slack on the job.’ ‘That are terrible coping measures’, Nines judged, and Gavin nodded, chewing. ‘Hmm-hmm. I no dat.’ He swallowed and continued: ‘I know that it’s not healthy and I’m a total shit for falling back into it… Having a partner helped me get out of it, because I knew you wouldn’t tolerate such bullshit. But this last case it… It is proven I am more productive when starving myself!’ ‘That’s no excuse, Gavin.’ Nines did his best to sound worried and it wasn’t too difficult. He actually was. ‘I got too caught up in the case, too. I should have noticed. Please, don’t ever do that again. I know we should have asked for help with this thing.’ ‘You are right with that.’ Gavin yawned long and thoroughly. ‘Both to stubborn to admit defeat.’ ‘Promise me, you do it now?’, Nines asked, looking the man in the eye. ‘I’ll never do it again. I swear by your goddamn thirium pump.’

Nines sighed at that and allowed himself to sink back into the couch. His partner was fed and getting better. Gavin was safe. They both had finally time. He decided to message Fowler they both would take time off for at least the next few days, then he allowed himself to disconnect from everything, just being himself sitting here with Gavin. Finally, being able to relax. Gavin was finished with the plate and sat it down next to the couch before cuddling deeper into a blanket, closing his eyes. Soon the human was asleep and Nines entered stasis next to him.

Leberkäse – a type of meat loaf popular in Germany and Austria

[barpurplewrites]

Afternoon in Soho

A nice and accurate record of a couple of one book meeting a couple from another. (If she had read these burnt words, mine descendant Anathema, wouldst name these a fanatical fan tail. Know that it is and it is not, for when the butterfly flaps everything comes to be everywhen and where.)

-x-x-x-

Rumple and Belle strolled arm in arm through the streets of London. They had spent the afternoon at the Globe, although Rumple hadn't paid much attention to the play. He'd been far happier watching Belle's reactions, her face a picture of joy and delight at the story unfolding before her, even though she must have read it a dozen times.

“I thought the elephant was a bold choice.”

Rumple blinked, he didn't recalled an elephant. There wasn't even a mention of an elephant in the script, so how had he missed that?

“Erm,” - crossing the road bought him a moment to wrack his brain. Nothing, no memory of an elephant, which would have looked a bit out of place in 'Much Ado About Nothing'. As the reached the curb Belle turned on her heel, moving her hand from the crook of his arm to take his hand. She grinned at him. He sighed and fondly shook his head.

“You're teasing me, sweetheart.”

“A little, you seemed to spend a lot to time looking at me. Did you not enjoy the play?”

He tugged on her hand and pulled her into him. Her free hand came to rest on his chest and he lay his over it; “I enjoyed the play, because I like seeing you so happy.”

She flexed her fingers against his chest, just an echo of how she clawed at him in her passion last night, but enough to send a flare of lust through his body. He almost suggested they head back to the hotel, but Belle had discovered a bookshop in Soho she wanted to take a look at. The place had strange opening hours, not unlike his own shop, one of the many joys of being a sole trader he supposed. He lifted Belle's hand from his chest and pressed a kiss to her fingers.

“Bookshop?”

Belle's face lit up in a grin, gods he could never get enough of that sight. She slipped an arm around his waist.

“Come on, it's not far.”

In his bookshop in Soho, Aziraphale was busying himself with a little dusting. He was expecting Crowley any moment now. The demon had popped to Birmingham to perform a light temptation and a small miracle. Aziraphale would have liked to have won that coin toss. There was a simply wonderful Balti house he adored in Birmingham, and the fantastic farm shop that made brilliant sausage sandwiches. Oh well, maybe next time.

A sudden sensation rippled through his being. Something evil was headed this way. He cocked his head to one side and tapped his feather duster against his hand, scattering the dust back over the shelves. No, not evil as such, but dark, yet contained, contained by love. Aziraphale had never felt a love so deep and true. It made him really quite giddy.

And then love walked in through his door. Arm in arm. Love wrapped so snugly around darkness that he wasn't sure exactly in whom it dwelt.

“Good afternoon.”

A small woman, wearing those tall heels that Crowley had received a commendation from Downstairs for inventing, smiled at him; “Hi, I'm so glad we found you open.”

“We were hoping to have a look around.”

Aziraphale turned his glance to the man. Him, it was in him, whatever this darkness was, he was sure of it. He stood straighter, and gripped his feather duster, not perhaps the best weapon against an unknown darkness, but he was an angel and he would thwart this vile creature.

The women smiled at the vessel of darkness and said; “And maybe buy something?”

“Of course, sweetheart, several somethings I expect.”

The wave of love from the man as he spoke to the woman caused Aziraphale to rock slightly on his feet. Ah, maybe hold off on the thwarting. It appeared that the woman had it under control. But they had mentioned a hideous thing that did need thwarting pronto; buying one or more of his books.

“I stock rather specialized books...”

“Oh I can tell. Is that a first edition of Huckleberry Finn in the window? With the typesetting error?”

All of Aziraphale's well-practised tactics to gently dissuade customers melted away in the face of a genuine, knowledgeable fellow bibliophile. He dropped his feather duster on to a shelf and hurried forward; “Yes, yes it is, in fact it is from the first impression, so it also has the upside down illustration of plate...”

Rumple watched as Belle engaged the store owner, Mr Fell, (although if that was the man's real name Rumple was the Sultan of Agrabah), in enthusiastic conversation. He loved talking books with Belle, not so long ago he would have been jealous to see her share her passion for literature with someone else. He made a mental note to send a thank you letter to Archie. A copy of Dickens' 'A Fairy Tale of Home' caught his eye, or maybe he would just drop a note to Dove to deliver that brass cricket hearth ornament from the pawnshop to the good doctor. Yes, that would work perfectly.

He paused and scratched at his palms. What was causing that? As they had walked into Soho Rumple had become aware of a feeling of evil. He'd figured that it was just the lingering reputation of the area. According to Belle's research Soho had historically been the centre for all manner of vice. Now it appeared to have become home to the kind of raunchy that let people have a thrill without the risk of losing life or limb. Socially acceptable evil wouldn't be making his hands itch.

Rumple took a long hard look at Mr Fell. He wasn't going to judge a man for concealing his true name, he knew the power and weight of a true name better than anyone. This man was a perfect stereotype of a bumbling bookish Brit. It was an act, but there was no threat from him. If anything he radiated a goodness the likes of which Rumple hadn't seen since Snow White was young.

Could it be the books? Mr Fell did say he had a specialized stock. He took a step closer to the nearest bookshelf, and the feeling faded, nothing on this shelf was dangerous. Although he did wince at the copy of 'Barney the Vampire', best keep Belle away from this shelf.

The itching suddenly raced from mild, ignored the stop sign in annoying and intolerable, and skidded to a halt in RUN, RUN NOW!. Rumple found himself reaching for his magic, magic that didn't exist in the quantities it did back home. He could use magic here, but the price tended to be erratic and often left him with a splitting headache. He managed to fight down his flight urge with nothing more to show for it that a few books sliding to one side on the nearest shelf.

Belle's head snapped around, she'd felt his panic. Mr Fell was giving him a curious look as well, but before any questions were asked the shop door burst open.

“Angel! Phew, have you got more books by that Archer bloke? This place reeks of...”

The tall man in black and sunglasses who had just burst through the door slithered to a halt when he spotted Belle. He took a second to swallow whatever he had been about to say and rephrase it.

“... that nasty aftershave the deliver driver wears.”

“Oh hello Crowley, back already, wonderful. Make yourself comfy I'll be with you in a jiffy, or two.”

Rumple needed no magical senses to know for sure there was something other about this man. Were those snake skin boots on his feet? Pfft, poser. Rumple's feet shifted, his fingers flexed, and it wasn't until he glanced at Belle and caught the amused look on her face that he realised he'd started to slip in to what she called his Imp stance. What was he thinking? Why on Earth would he need to  intimidate this, this black-clad, flame-topped being? He relaxed and gave Belle a reassuring smile that said he was fine, that everything was fine. Belle blew him a kiss in return and turned back to the book Mr Fell had been showing her.

Once her attention was engaged he fixed the man in black with a stare. If he twitched in Belle's direction it'd be goodbye snake skin, hello snail shell.

Crowley was a bit miffed. He driven to Birmingham, a city whose road network proved that humans could create Hell on Earth without any help from him. He had been supposed to tempt someone in town planning to increase the road works, but after seeing the mess that passed for transport, he'd decided not to bother. He'd put the paperwork in and claim the chaos as a result of his influence, job done as far as Hell knew. Then he'd done the miracle, there would be no trouble from the fans during the next big football match between the top two local teams. Now that would get him into serious trouble if Downstairs found out, they were rather keen on mindless violence. On the drive back he decided to tempt Aziraphale out to the little bar that did those fru-fu cocktails. And what happens, he gets here and gets told to wait a jiffy or two. What in the hell was a 'jiffy'? Looking at Aziraphale he had the feeling that a jiffy was going to turn out to be an hour or two. He was talking to a customer, for pity's sake. He didn't even like customers, they did stupid things like try to buy his books.

With an annoyed huff Crowley turned on his heel and finally spotted the other customer. His tongue flicked between his lips to taste the air. Oh, yeah this man was the source of the evil scent in the air. Interesting, he wasn't one of Hell's. He had a brilliant stare, very intimidating, and that was a real compliment coming from Crowley, he knew stares. This could be fun, he'd not had a decent staring contest since Rasputin.

Rumple kept his gaze steady on Crowley, that was what Mr Fell had called him. He'd heard that name somewhere before and that he couldn't recall where was  as irritating as a pip stuck in his teeth. That this Crowley was dangerous and evil wasn't in question, but it was hard to really fear someone when they were trying to out-stare you while wearing sunglasses. When the light hit them right, a tiny glimpse through the smoky lenses gave the impression that Crowley's eyes weren't human, that was a nice touch, but it would take more than reptilian eyes to unsettle him.

At this point an impish idea occurred to Rumple.

From the corner of his eye Rumple could see that Belle and Mr Fell were engrossed in their conversation. Both had their backs turned. The windows of the shop hardly gave a clear view into the shop, so the only witnesses would be two beings who he was ninety per cent certain weren't fully human, and Belle, who knew him and loved him, warts and all. It was hardly magic at all, just giving his body a nudge to recall how it had once been. And, of course, there needed to be a touch of dramatic flair in the reveal, just to show this poser how it was done.

Crowley blew out a sigh when the man dropped his head after a measly three minutes. Great stare, no staying power. Shame. He was about to go and pester Aziraphale when the man shifted his weight. Something about the way his right foot edged forward and his hands moved from his side caught Crowley's attention.

And then he raised his head, and grinned directly at Crowley.

“Woah!” - Crowley whipped off his sunglasses, - “Those are amazing. Totally fuc...”

As Crowley's colourful expletive echoed around the shop, several things happened. It is difficult to understand the order of events unless one can slow time down. So, let's do just that and take it step by step.

First; … we go back a moment … Rumple had just dropped his chin to his chest. In the time it takes for Crowley to express his disappointment via a sigh, Rumple has performed the magic to necessary to remind his brown eyes they were once different ...

Second; … on the other side of the room Belle feels the familiar tang of Rumple's magic in the air. She stammers over the name of a Shakespearian scholar ...

Third; … Aziraphale doesn't notice Belle stammer, but he does feel the swell of the darkness he had identified as residing in her husband ...

Fourth; … Rumple shifts into Imp stance and raises his head ...

Fifth; … Crowley swears and whips off his sunglasses revealing his demonic eyes ...

Sixth; … Rumple blinks at Crowley's eyes and begins to return the compliment the man had given him ...

Seventh; … Aziraphale draws in a shocked breath that he doesn't need, (because he is an Angel), and shouldn't do, (in Crowley's opinion), because doing so makes him look like an eighteenth century grandmother ...

Eighth; … Belle spins around on her skyscraper heels, (not twisting her ankle because she has completely conquered the insane shoes that give her both height and a weapon to use against any one who compares her unfavourably to a dwarf), at this point she also swears, more colourfully than Crowley and in the privacy of her own head so no one comments …

Ninth; … Aziraphale sternly says; “Crowley!” and in the same instant Belle sternly says; “Rumple!” ...

Tenth: …  (At this point we can rejoin the normal flow of time. Hold on tight) … Both Crowley and Rumple wince and say …

“He started it!”

Belle and Aziraphale sighed in unison, and in the same synchronicity walked towards their respective men, and asked;

“Did he?”

Snake-like eyes met lizard-like eyes and they both rapidly agree to support each other to get them out of a telling off.

Rumple smiled at Belle; “We were just comparing eyes.”

Crowley nodded; “Yep, that's it, and you two were busy with books and...”

Sensing that Crowley was about to jump into his own mouth with both feet, Rumple quickly said; “...we were just chatting, and well, it's not often either of us met someone else with lizard...”

Crowley butted in; “Snake.”

Rumple hardly missed a beat; “Reptile eyes.”

Aziraphale knew perfectly well that Crowley had been showing off, but no one had been incinerated, so everything was tickety-boo. He turned to Belle, and saw she was having similar thoughts about her Rumple. Between them they came to an accord that could be best summed up as 'let them play, as long as they don't start blowing things up'.

Belle knew perfectly well that Rumple had been showing off, but no one had been turned into a snail, so to her mind everything was fine. She turned to Mr Fell and saw that he was thinking along the same lines as her about his man Crowley. (She doubted he was worried about a sudden snail event, that was Rumple's signature after all). Between them they shared a look of 'yes they are idiots, but they are our idiots'.

Belle caught Rumple's shoulder and pressed a kiss to his cheek, she also whispered in his ear; “Nice to see those eyes again.”

Aziraphale smiled at Crowley; “By some miracle a very good bottle of single malt has just appeared in the back room...”

Crowley folded his sunglasses into his jacket pocket as he leaned in close to softly say; “No worries Angel, I'll keep him occupied while you and Belle geek out.”

In the back room of a Soho bookshop that summer evening, a demon and a fairy tale character drank whiskey, as they waxed lyrical about the book-loving centres of their universes currently in the front of shop, no doubt enthusing about everything author under the sun.

In the front room of a Soho bookshop that summer evening, an angel and a fairy tale character drank whiskey, (Aziraphale had two bottles of the good stuff), as they waxed lyrical about the dark hearts of their existence currently in the back of the shop, no doubt trading tales of every temptation under the sun.

[callmeblake]

Kerrang Issue #1761

Magazine Release Date: February 20th, 2019

Issue Label: February 23rd, 2019

Photo Credit:  Jen Rosenstein

Illustrations: Brian Ewing

Partial Transcription (from pressreader.com) below:

Kerrang! (UK)

20 Feb 2019

words: emily carter illustrations: brian ewing

“MAKING MUSIC IS MORE FUN THESE DAYS…”

BREAKS HIS SILENCE

Since he was a kid, GERARD WAY has sought solitude in the world of graphic novels – first as a reader, and later, with the weight of the rock world on his shoulders, as a creator. But now, he explains exclusively to Kerrang!, working on the Netflix adaptation of his THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY series helped him reconnect with his love for making music, too…

Gerard Way keeps track of his personal goals using what he calls “the grown-up list”. One at a time, the 41-year-old will tick off these life objectives by means of self-care – a concept he’ll admit he hasn’t kept on top of lately.

“On the grown-up list are all these things that I have to do to start participating in life again,” he explains in a gentle, endearing New Jersey accent, dissecting a mysteriously methodical approach to his return to the public eye – though, it has to be said, still sounding very much like a big kid at heart.

For the past “two, three” years, Gerard feels as though he hasn’t been looking after himself while under the strain of his demanding career as a comic-book writer. And while his workload certainly isn’t slowing down any time soon – if anything, it’s on the increase with the reintroduction of music now, too – he is at least making his own positive changes little by little, “piece by piece”.

“Enough time goes by and you’re tired of feeling tired, and tired of feeling unhealthy, and tired of doing unhealthy things to yourself,” he admits. “I hit a point where I was like, ‘Enough’s enough. I gotta move my body and find a doctor.’ I hadn’t had a physical in I can’t remember how long. It was just time, you know?”

Undertaking this new journey, Gerard first started off by giving up smoking. He afforded himself just two weeks to ditch the cigarettes, before moving on to the next task. “You can’t do it all at once,” he explains thoughtfully. “I quit smoking before doing anything else – like change diet or going to see a doctor. I just take these things in steps. Even if I did have all the time in the world to attack the grown-up list, you have to take any major life change slowly and gradually.”

Had Gerard felt so inclined as to keep a similar grown-up list for professional targets when he first emerged as My Chemical Romance’s awe-inspiring leader in 2001, its trajectory would have accelerated significantly. Darting into the spotlight in 2004 with their astounding second record Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, the frontman quickly became uncomfortable with the intrusive – and borderline paralysing – nature of their fame. It’s no wonder that, between 2006’s triple-platinum The Black Parade, and the festival-headlining status that came with fourth and final studio album Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, Gerard recently labelled the group’s journey as “uncontrollable”. The band’s explosion was just as dramatic as their eventual breakup almost six years ago, and it took Gerard just over a year to then return into view. An excellent Britpop-inflected solo LP, Hesitant Alien, followed in September 2014, and even landed at spot number four in Kerrang!’s top 50 records of that year. No grown-up list – no matter how fool-proof – could accurately record or predict those kind of whirlwind peaks and troughs.

In his life as a comic-book writer, though, Gerard’s accomplishments have kept up a steadier, but no less impressive, incline. As a graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts and a former intern at Cartoon Network, his imagination and visual creativity was harnessed long before his audio talents came to light. While his comic-book debut in 1993, On Raven’s Wings, was cancelled after just two issues, Gerard’s near 100 (and counting) writing credits have just about surpassed his contributions in music; he even ran his own imprint under the legendary DC Comics banner for two years, Young Animal. And while its status is currently listed as ‘inactive’, Gerard has emphasised that it’s “not the end” of that venture. Now, his prominence as a fullyfledged award-winning comic-book writer is a marvel (no, not that kind).

“The thing about doing comics is nobody asks you about your personal life, they don’t ask you about the drugs you used to take, they don’t ask you if you’re breaking up,” he told Kerrang! while still with My Chemical Romance in 2010, openly battling with the allure of a life buried in books. “They talk about the work. I wish people would talk about the work in music. In music, people want to know what makes you tick – in comics, people don’t care.”

Given the appeal of a more serene existence, it’s clear Gerard’s current primary occupation perfectly suits him. Just as he helped change the face of rock 15 years ago, however, he’s beginning to make similar strides in comics. Once again, he’s got the big guns knocking on his artistic doorstep.

“If anybody ever asks me for advice about being creative, it’s always just to make the things you want to see,” he shrugs, either oblivious to his skills or just strikingly modest. “Make something that doesn’t exist, that you wish existed – that you wanna read, or see, or listen to. That’s the one thing that I’ve applied to everything I’ve done: all the art I’ve made and the music I’ve made.”

Following this surprisingly simple mantra, Gerard now has a tremendous feat on his hands: his apocalyptic comic-book series, The Umbrella Academy, has snowballed into a 10-episode live-action show of the same name, and hit Netflix last Friday. By now, you’ll probably have already watched the lot. For the programme’s main brain, though, while he may have spent release day just ticking off another box on the grown-up list (“I had a physical that day with a doctor, so…”), this marks the beginning of his “participation” in life again. Gerard Way is back.

Gerard Way is obsessed with comics. Across the span of our interview with the author-turned-musicianturned-author again, he says the word “comic” no fewer than 28 times – each utterance more passionate than the last. Yet it wasn’t until 2008, while still active with My Chemical Romance, that he began to feel the effects of his written works’ potential. And not just in the field of comics, either; he was suddenly struck with the realisation that he could make this his full-time work instead. When he and illustrator Gabriel Bá – a man Gerard credits constantly and with great

“I’VE ALWAYS AIMED TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST, THAT I WISH EXISTED” GERARD WAY

respect when discussing the project – were awarded a prestigious Eisner Award for The Umbrella Academy’s first mini-series, it shook him to the core.

“It was scary at the time,” he mentioned in a Kerrang! cover feature at a later date, “because it was another thing that said to me, ‘Hey, you could go and do this. You won’t have a huge career, but you could make a living. There was a part of me thinking, ‘I don’t have to be a singer anymore.’”

Just days after receiving their Eisner, Gerard and Gabriel’s graphic novel was optioned by Universal Pictures. Plans for a potential movie were in development “for quite a while”, until it eventually fizzled out and came back to Umbrella Academy’s publisher, Dark Horse Comics. Then, the idea for a TV show was conceived – and Gerard was instantly sold. Not that it was ever something he’d ever considered when first penning his comics all those years prior.

“You know, I tend to be a visual thinker,” he begins. “When I was first starting out, I was told to embrace the medium of comics: just make a great comic. I think that that’s a common mistake that people make – they see a comic as a film, and they’ll just present it as a film. And there’s a lot of things you can do in comics, and it would almost short-change that. You need to embrace what a comic can do, and then you’ll make a really fantastic one. If you’re just trying to present it as a film, it doesn’t work as well, in my opinion. I still follow that advice to this day.”

Gerard loved the idea of giving his painstaking and deeply intricate world a new long-form narrative, and a way of going deeper into the story’s characters (all of whom are either a reflection of people he knows, or himself). Before taking various meetings – including with Netflix – both he and Gabriel sat down with Universal Cable Productions executive vice president of development, Dawn Olmstead, and discussed their aims.

“My goal was to give those guys the material to make a really great show,” Gerard explains. “That way, if they made a show and it’s successful, they always have material to go back to. That’s always been my goal: to tell a really good story that I have control over.”

Nine years later after its original plans fell through, it was eventually settled that Netflix would be the way to go. Joining forces with a company that had both “the highest production value” and that was also “artist-friendly” made the most sense to all involved. “We knew they would let the show be what it needed to be,” Gerard nods.

By this point, the series’ creator had slipped away from the limelight to create a 20-page blueprint for show-runner Steve Blackman. The Umbrella Academy thus far has three volumes – Apocalypse Suite, Dallas and Hotel Oblivion – but Gerard will eventually complete the story through eight graphic novels in total, many of which are still to be finished (“I have it all planned out, and I’ve just got to kind of write it now…”). In advance of the show’s development stages, though, he needed to let his new colleagues know the whole plot.

“There were talks early on about how much of my involvement there would be – if I wanted to be a co-show-runner, if I wanted to write scripts,” remembers Gerard. “And I really put the emphasis on making the source material and making the comics, so I had to let go of certain things. I weighed in on a lot of them, but ultimately it was Steve’s call to make. I liked letting go, though, because it allowed me to keep moving forward in the ways that I wanted to, which is with the comics or anything else I want to do.”

Working with Netflix became a daily job. From set pieces to wardrobe choices, both Gerard and Gabriel would give extensive notes in the 18 months it took to produce The Umbrella Academy, ensuring a happy climate was reached between their individual artistic palettes. It’s not a giant leap to compare the birth of Gerard’s latest project to My Chemical Romance’s studio swansong, Danger Days. While still in the throes of The Black Parade’s overwhelming success, the frontman had moved to LA from New Jersey in 2008 and was focused on comics – not just The Umbrella Academy, but also a bold, bright new sci-fi spectacular: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, a story of the aftermath of a battle against a tyrannical corporation. Having written and subsequently scrapped The Black Parade’s original follow-up, the frontman was then struck with inspiration on a family retreat in the wilderness, wracking his brains with what to do next.

“I had an epiphany, I had a vision,” he told Kerrang! back in October 2010, of how this new comic informed what would become My Chem’s fourth full-length. “I was writing all these crazy lyrics and they were fearless and fucking reckless. I had this vision in my head, and everything I had been working on in the comic – the masks, the laser guns, the cars, everything – started to swirl around in my head.”

So how does the creation of a comicinspired album measure up against bringing The Umbrella Academy to life on TV?

“You know, they’re both intense and stressful in their own ways,” Gerard smiles. “But one of the things I’ve learned as I get older is that being in the studio and making music isn’t nearly as stressful – it’s a lot more fun these days. Having said that, although things are a little more high-stakes on a film set, we had a lot of fun with that, too.”

Early last year, The Umbrella Academy’s primary architects headed to Toronto to oversee the first week of filming. They were there to “answer any questions and give a little direction”. Though their focus was undeniably on creating the best comic-to-screen transition

“AS I GET OLDER, MAKING MUSIC ISN’T NEARLY AS STRESSFUL – IT’S A LOT MORE FUN THESE DAYS” GERARD WAY

“I DON’T LIKE TO DWELL ON THINGS. I LIKE TO MOVE FORWARD” GERARD WAY

possible, Gerard also remembers the weather; it was snowing, a sight he hadn’t seen since touring Hesitant Alien three and a half years prior. Once more, his two worlds briefly reacquainted themselves.

While in Canada, he and Gabriel reviewed “dailies”. “It hit a point where it was like, ‘Alright, this train is going, they know what they’re doing,’ and I could divert my attention back to the comic,” Gerard says. “Then I was able to work on it remotely – most of the work from my end was done through email or phone conversations, so I could be anywhere in the world and I was still able to watch the footage on my laptop, or whatever computer I was at.”

Once that week was over, Gerard kept a distant watchful eye over filming, which carried on until July. Elsewhere, his time was split between writing more comics, drinking copious amounts of coffee, collecting vintage T-shirts and miniature painted figures, and watching his wife of 11 years, Lindsey – bassist of Mindless Self Indulgence – feed birds and squirrels at their family home.

Rather ironically, his days weren’t spent watching a great deal of television. Even now, he’ll partake in an episode or two of a binge-worthy programme if Lindsey wants him to check it out – but he’ll never consume the lot in one go. “I think that makes my opinion on what we’re making with Umbrella Academy, in a way, even more valid,” he suggests, “because I don’t watch all this stuff. I read a lot of books.”

Most exciting of all, though, is that almost every Friday, Gerard Way began to create music again.

Around 54 minutes into The Umbrella Academy’s fifth episode, there’s a mind-bending shoot-out featuring, among others, Mary J. Blige. While the action unfolds, a familiar voice quietly hits the eardrums. ‘ Imagine me and you, I do / I think about you day and night, it’s only right…’ croons Gerard Way alongside former My Chemical Romance bandmate and guitarist extraordinaire Ray Toro, in a cover of The Turtles’ hit Happy Together – both rich in personality, but also similarly honouring the original. It’s not the first time Gerard and Ray have teamed up in such a manner: last month, they unveiled another joint effort in the form of Hazy Shade Of Winter, originally by Simon & Garfunkel, for The Umbrella Academy’s official trailer. But this is arguably Gerard’s most epic comics-meets-music crossover yet.

Steve Blackman, says Gerard, “thought it would be really nice for the fans – both for fans of my work as a musician, and my work as a comic writer. He thought it would be really cool, and I thought it would be cool, too. It would be silly to not do a song for the show! We ended up doing a couple, which was really great. And I’m sure there will be more in the future.”

The music Gerard made each week last year wasn’t just for The Umbrella Academy – it was also for himself. Possibly over-ambitiously, the musician hoped to release these new sounds once a month, though his workload soon put paid to that. He does, however, now boast “quite the collection of demos”.

“Right now it’s just a stand-alone thing,” Gerard says, “but I think at some point – maybe for a vinyl or something – it would be nice to collect all these songs, just as a body of work for something that I did. With all the work and the show coming, it has been harder to try and do a song a month. And I knew that that would kind of happen back when I first mentioned the goal of trying to do that, just because of all the extra work that was coming. But we’re still making music every week.”

Gerard has enjoyed the process of juggling his own music and songs for Netflix enormously. His recent solo tracks – Baby You’re A Haunted House, Getting Down The Germs and a touching Christmas number featuring Lydia Night of The Regrettes called Dasher – have deliberately not been “overthought”, though music for The Umbrella Academy can be a little more laborious.

“It’s a bit more work, because it’s for something cinematic,” he explains. “It’s not that it has to reach a higher level, it’s just that it’s a different level. The solo stuff is just kind of up to me, and what I want that to convey, or what nature it has. Whereas with the show, everybody has to really be blown away by it. So maybe, in a way, it’s more a little bit of what Ray [Toro] and I and the guys in My Chem used to do; we apply a little bit more of that to what we do in these cover songs for Umbrella Academy.”

Is it a strange feeling to revisit that kind of creative process?

“It makes it really fresh and exciting,” Gerard grins. “It’s actually really nice to go back and do something like you once did it, because you have more experience and wisdom and knowledge. As you get older you bring all these things the way you used to do. It’s refreshing at times – especially if you’re doing a bunch of experimental things. It’s refreshing to go back to your core, and your roots, of what you used to do, and apply your new knowledge to that.”

Gerard Way’s musical future for now, then, will remain both blissfully free and totally spontaneous – a far-cry from his MCR days. But he couldn’t be happier about it.

“I like to move forward a lot,” he enthuses. “I don’t like to dwell on things very much. I don’t usually like to revisit them, either. I like to keep moving forward and putting out new things. I like to try new things and experiment.” Gerard repeats himself once more. “I really like doing that.” K!

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH NOW ON NETFLIX

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TAXES

And so things remained for a shockingly long time. In the real world. The reason you're overlooking them is the same reason you'd have overlooked the idea of building Facebook in 2004: organic startup ideas usually don't seem like startup ideas at first. More generally, it means that you have so many choices. The reason they go into finance to make their work look as mathematical as possible. And there is nothing so tempting as an easy test that kind of works. But that could be solved quite easily: let the market decide.1

Don't spend much time worrying about patent infringement. Even a bad cook can make a graph of all the refugees. Which would certainly get you a lower Gini coefficient, along with Ruby and Icon, and Joy, and J, and Lisp, and Smalltalk the fact that you're mainly interested in hacking shouldn't deter you from going to grad school. To say that a and b would be bad. But there's no central, indivisible thing that your identity goes with. Some popular magazines feature articles of this type on the cover of every issue. Boy, was I wrong. And the way to get lots of referrals. All the search engines are trying to do is not to lie flat, but to serve a ruler powerful enough to appropriate it.2 That was a surprising realization.

The job of your site is catching on, or it will fry you. Surely I'm not claiming that ideas have to have immediate practical applications to be interesting? You have to build a shield around it, or it will fry you. While young founders are at a disadvantage when coming up with made-up ideas, they're the best source of advice, because I once had to leave a board meeting to have some cavities filled. The most successful angel investors I know are all basically good people. This rule is left over from a time when algorithm meant something like the Sieve of Eratosthenes. All previous revolutions have spread. The most powerful wind is users. If I had only looked over at the other extreme fund managers exploit loopholes to cut their income taxes in half.3

They still rely on this principle today, incidentally.4 You grow big by being mean. That doesn't sound right either. VCs invest in startups.5 It seems to me the only limit would be the one at the beginning of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. So in theory, each further round of investment leaves you with a smaller share of an even more valuable company, till after several more rounds you end up with a bunch of domain knowledge. If feeling you're going to succeed makes you work harder, that probably improves your chances of succeeding, but if I were choosing now that's still the one I'd pick. That's not how you win: by investing in the right startups.

And I don't think there's any limit to the number who could be employed by small, fast-moving companies with ten each? If you suppress variations in income, seems to be c, that people will create a lot of pain and stress to do something that can't be described compellingly in one or two sentences exactly what it does. There are more and bolder investors in Silicon Valley than in Boston, and even though I've studied the subject for years, it would be a fine idea if people actually did write programs the way they taught me to in college. But you'll probably be happier if you don't want to; you could simply be a source of money.6 Recently I suggested a potential shortcut: pay startups to move. I'm not sure of this, but there seems a decent chance it's true. When you're driving a car with a manual transmission on a hill, you have to go find individual people who are really mathematicians, but call what they're doing is called science, it makes them feel they ought to be writing research papers. The second idea is that startups rarely attack big companies head-on, the way Reveal did. If the movie industry has already tried to pass laws prescribing three year prison terms just for putting movies on public networks.

A lot of the great art of the past is the work of reading an article is understanding its structure—figuring out what in high school we'd have called its outline.7 In fact, of all the different types of work together in one department may be convenient administratively, but it's hardly unjust. Indeed, a good number are merely being sloppy by speaking of decreasing economic inequality when what they mean is decreasing poverty. Before central governments were powerful enough to enforce order, rich people had private armies. To me it means, all that people learn in the course of trying to answer was how many there were. The most important is to explain, as concisely as possible, what the hell your site is to convert casual visitors into users—whatever your definition of a user is. Increasingly you win not by fighting to get control of a scarce resource, but by having new ideas and building new things. It's usually the acquirer's engineers who are asked how hard it would be misleading to say the field is still at the first step. Unfortunately, patent law is inconsistent on this point. Their houses are in different neighborhoods, or if in the same boat as the founders. And to get rich.

It's clearly an abuse of the system, and the noise stops. Here's the answer: Do whatever's best for the founders. They dropped out of the wrong concepts. You see the same principle is at work now in Zimbabwe. But if you skip running for a couple weeks, it will be to your advantage to be good at programming is to work on now. A lot of my friends are CS professors now, so I have the inside story about admissions. You never know when this will strike. If I already have momentum on some project, I realized it would probably be a good idea to save some easy tasks for moments when you would otherwise stall. Boy, was I wrong. They're a search site for industrial components. The field of philosophy is still shaken from the fright Wittgenstein gave it.

They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they are not ordinary people. Northern Italy in 1100, off still feudal. There's nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. High-level language is what the compiler uses as input to generate object code. The big customer who wants to use your system in their whole company won't.8 Don't be evil may be the potential employees. I approached everyday life the same way I write software: I sit down and blow out a lame version 1 as fast as I can type, then spend a week cranking up the generality may be unsuitable for junior professors trying to get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be hard, but I didn't learn much in Philosophy 101. 5 minutes. Instead it does y. It's very constraining in some ways. What saves you from being mistreated in future rounds, usually, is that you're in the same way. One of the things that will surprise you if you build something popular is that you don't see the opportunities all around us is that we can warn them about this.

Notes

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email. Bullshit in the past, and that most people haven't noticed yet.

It seems more accurate predictor of low quality though.

According to the extent to which the inhabitants of early 20th century cohesion would have been the plague of 1347; the point I'm making, though it's at least try.

Which is probably 99% cooperation.

They found it easier to get a sudden rush of interest, you can remove them from leaving to start over from scratch today would have. It's interesting to 10,000 sestertii e. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit.

If this is why they tend to damp this effect, at least a whole is becoming more fragmented, and are paid a flat rate regardless of what you love. Some graffiti is quite impressive anything becomes art if you tell them exactly what your project does. With a classic fixed sized round, you could end up with elaborate rationalizations.

That's probably true of the twentieth century, Europeans looked back on the order and referrer. And while they tried to be naive in: Life seemed so much better to embrace the fact that it would certainly be less than 500, because spam and legitimate mail volume both have distinct daily patterns.

In a startup was a kind of organization for that they aren't.

[hazyheel]

10 Ways WWE can improve their weekly TV

WWE has a bit of a problem on their hands: the other major wrestling promotions around the world are making a serious run at their product. New Japan has proved on several occasions that they can sell out buildings in the United States, and their incredibly powerful alliance with Ring of Honor, RevPro and CMLL gives them a huge talent pool to work with, without overexposing them. Lucha Underground (if it is staying afloat) is an interesting alternative to a lot of main stream wrestling due to its unique style of storytelling. Impact Wrestling has been improving steadily since the beginning of 2018, and they are becoming a bigger threat every year. And of course, AEW is premiering next month, and indy fans are already saying that they will revolutionize the wrestling business, and could even bring a new form of the Monday Night Wars. Now, I don’t know how accurate that is, but WWE needs to be concerned about these other companies. The reason why I took a week or two off of WWE in March was because I was watching the New Japan Cup, and I couldn’t even stand watching Raw or Smackdown because of the high quality of wrestling I was watching every day. That is a serious problem that I couldn’t watch their programing because I knew it would be a lot worse than a competitor. It will be a while before WWE falls to another company, but they need to get ahead of the curve on this. Several companies are coming for their position as number 1, and the first step to defending their turf is improving Raw, Smackdown, and hell, even NXT and Main Event. 

1. Make Raw 2 hours again: this point has been beaten to death, but that is because it sooooooooo needs to happen. A 3 hour show is incredibly difficult to watch every week, and we end up watching a bunch of low card matches that we do not care about, and the people that we do care about get overexposed because they need to be on the show every week. 205 Live and NXT work really well, because their talent does not wrestle every week, which gives them a sense of specialness and mystery that is not present on the main roster. So, why two hours instead of one like the “developmental” brands? Well, those brands simply couldn’t sustain a monthly pay per view schedule with that little air time. It works perfectly for the bi-monthly schedule of NXT Takeover, but they could not do 12 big shows a year. So, a two hour show for Raw, where all of the important storylines and title scenes are addressed in each episode, will be enough to craft good stories.

2. Form some stables: this is a very New Japan style, but there is a reason it works. Forming some large stables in WWE would give a tangible reason to put lower and midcard guys on the show. Put them in a big, multi person tag match when they need to fill time. This creates the option to have feuds between stables, allowing for actual reasons for interesting feuds on the undercard, without matches getting too competitive. It also provides relationships between wrestlers, a necessity for interesting storytelling that is not used nearly as much as it should be. In a bigger tag match, it allows for lower card guys to wrestle possible main eventers. It even would help for pay per views, giving an organic style of match to put on the pre-show: a fun 6 or 8 man tag between stables, possibly with big stars on the teams who don’t have anything real to do at the show. It shows good wrestling without showing off major storylines for free. Moving away from the booking for a bit, putting these less popular wrestlers on the show more in a capacity that fans may care about means that they have less of a reason to jump ship to another company. There are a lot of diverse benefits to creating a larger atmosphere of gang warfare, not unlike the way things were in the late 90′s

3. Clean up the announce team: another point that has been beat to death, but I am so damn sick of a three person team. There is better chemistry in a two person booth, again creating a relationship for fans to enjoy, while allowing the commentators to have organic conversation without feeling the need to chime in. Renee Young and Corey Graves have great chemistry together, and it pains me to say that Michael Cole gets in the way of that, often. He is just redundant on the team. The same goes for Byron Saxton and Aiden English. Saxton sucks, so Tom Phillips and Corey Graves would be a fun and refreshing commentary team without Saxton desperately trying to get Graves to respect him. Vic Joseph and Nigel McGuiness work great together on NXT UK, so there is no reason why they can’t on 205 Live as well. As for NXT, I actually like the team they have, but Nigel McGuiness doesn’t really need to be there. Percy Watson and Mauro Renallo would be fine on their own. Also, going in a bit of a random direction, the main roster commentators need to take a page out of NXT’s book of announcing a match or two for next week, to get fans excited a week before the match even happens. I always liked that, but it is really just a random suggestion. A two person booth genuinely works better. And though I criticized Michael Cole, that does not mean that I don’t have an idea for him outside of commentary.

4. Very professional General Managers: Drake Maverick, William Regal and Johnny Saint are phenomenal in their performances as GM. Smackdown and Raw really need something like that. This is where Cole comes in. He, as a professional babyface, would be a welcome change to the constant annoyance that is the presence of an authority figure at every turn. Cole could run the show from behind the scenes, appearing for important segments but nothing more. I think that the McMahons have far overstayed their welcome, although having them around for a few weeks at a time to abuse power is a pretty good idea. But in between those stretches, Cole has a good idea of how to come across as an authority, and he has a subtle charisma about him that would benefit him in that role. He isn’t the kind of guy WWE would want to shove down our throats, and that is the kind of GM Raw and Smackdown need right now. 

5. Fewer non-finishes: these are just infuriating, and they happen all the time. Now, not every count out is necessarily a non finish, but DQ’s tend to be, and they are maddening. I would even lump in the distraction-roll-up finish in here too, because that is waaaaaay overdone. I mean, shouldn’t the faces of the company start to realize what their rivals are doing by playing their music? I hate when the heroes just look dumb. Non-finishes is mostly just a lazy storytelling crutch, and they should be fazed out for competitive matches with actual booking.

6. Better main events: I am just kinda sick of rushed together main events that don’t end up meaning anything. WWE is normally pretty decent with this on Smackdown, but Raw’s main events seem to be repetitive and boring. Why watch a throwaway match like Baron Corbin vs. Rey Mysterio when there was a tag team championship match earlier in the night? That seems ass backwards. WWE needs to respect their belts more, and that includes those in the midcard. If there is a championship match on the card, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be the main event. It will give the final match of the night a sense of stake, and it will elevate the belts. The tag titles are never in the main event slot, and they would get a huge bump for being in that top slot on Raw. Better booking of the main events, in ways that aren’t so repetitive and pointless, will help the shows overall.

7. Keeping track of wins and losses. Because then, we will be able to understand how people are progressively moving towards a title belt. Keeping track of the wins and losses in this manner will give the audience a real sense of where things are going. It will make random title matches and open challenges feel a bit more like a great opportunity, because anyone could challenge even if they aren’t on the list. It will also be an interactive thing with the fans. It will be easier to show people on the rise as they go from contender 5 to number 1. It will just be an easier way to book Becky Lynch’s meteoric rise to the women’s championship, because people could follow it. It will make things feel like a real sport, and that is a good thing in a product that feels oddly in between a sport and soap opera.

8. Weekly press conferences with the on screen GM’s. Speaking of making things feel more like sports, this is a very interesting way to progress storylines. Gm’s come out for a little press conference things, and fake reporters ask questions in kayfabe about certain stories. For example, if there was an attack backstage on Raw, a reporter can ask about it, and the GM can talk about what he or she will do, such as keeping them apart for the night, or booking them in a match. This will be an interesting way to keep on screen authorities involved in the shows without really shoving them down our throats all the time. We don’t need to see someone like William Regal every week, because he will show up on this show and talk about the various feuds. It could also be a great way for champions, or controversial superstars to have a place to cut a promo. It will feel very professional, and interesting, to see the champions speak about their various feuds and such. And yes, an extra hour for fans to watch on the network could be tedious, but given that we are rolling back an hour for Raw, I am not too worried.

9. Use stipulation matches correctly. WWE is very weird about how they book stipulation matches. A few years ago when I started watching, they would not often book a stipulation match, but when they did, it could be anything from a no DQ match to a cage match. This era was around 2011-2012. Then I stopped watching, and I picked up again in early 2017. And boy was there a change on TV. They do more stipulation matches now, but almost all of them are multi-man matches. They happen about once every 2 weeks, whether it is on Raw or Smackdown. And I am not opposed to things like this happening, I just don’t think we need it as often as we are getting it. A good example of a triple threat was on the Smackdown after Elimination Chamber 2017. Now, if you don’t remember, Bray Wyatt won the WWE championship in the chamber that night, and it was only 2 weeks after John Cena beat AJ styles for it at the Royal Rumble. So, on Smackdown, Cena wanted a rematch, and AJ wanted a more fair rematch than he got the sunday before. So, they booked a triple threat main event. That makes sense. But last year and bleeding into this year, they have been throwing together multi-man and multi-team matches to fill out the card and get a lot of bodies on the show. And I understand that impulse to do that,  but it devalues those types of matches and makes them feel a lot less special. When they happen in New Japan, it feels like a huge occasion, because the happen so infrequently. So, if WWE wants multi person matches to feel interesting and special, we can’t have them every two weeks. But at the same time, throwing in a different type of stipulation every once in a while spices things up.

10. Make NXT a real brand. Triple H has already gone on record saying that he wanted to make this a reality, so why not go for it? Given the crazy amount of talent on each roster, having a third brand that is equal but different would really help. If a superstar is too overexposed on the main roster, draft them to NXT. Down there, they feel special, and can get their mojo back. Same goes for 205 live, if a superstar is a cruiserweight. But say someone like Finn Balor or Ricochet or Johnny Gargano just do not work on the main roster, 205 live will give them a fresh start. Now, I get that is disappointing to a lot of people, but given the quality of 205 Live lately, it would only make it and the superstars better. Then they can do some interesting things with titles crossing brands and such, maybe even an NXT vs. Smackdown show or something. It is just interesting.

So, that is how I would improve WWE tv. Not all of these things need to go together, although some of them do, but each one of them would definitely help. Hopefully, WWE can start to implement these and make their shows even better.

[jesse-eisenberg-interview]

Facing Jesse Eisenberg

by michael ventre | February 23, 2011

Although it would be difficult to match Facebook’s membership count of more than 500 million, the movie—directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin—seems to have earned almost as many admirers, and Eisenberg has received widespread praise, including a Golden Globe nod, for his captivating portrayal of the Facebook impresario. As the nominations started piling up for The Social Network, we caught up with Eisenberg to discuss the film, his life since it hit the big screen and his own computer skills. How did you first hear about Facebook? JESSE EISENBERG: My cousin Eric Fisher told me about the site. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, and he was in computer science and involved in building websites. He is incredibly creative, and he was completely in awe of it. There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not the film is an accurate portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. Do you feel it was?  JE: It’s so hard to say. What I know about Mark Zuckerberg is what everybody else knows about him, and that is only what has been made public. I never met him. We heard early on Facebook didn’t approve or wasn’t involved, so it became impossible to meet him. How did you go about researching your character?  JE: Mark wrote his college essay about fencing. I took some fencing lessons because I noticed he has a uniquely straight posture I don’t have. When I read he was a fencer, I thought his posture might be attributed to that. But it was more interesting to me what that meant psychologically—the competition, what dangers there are [with fencing].

In preparing for the role, you listened to Zuckerberg’s voice on your iPod while driving to work. Why?  JE: I got the recordings from 链接 and put his interviews into MP3s. I listened to them so I could get into the spirit of what that person would be going through, what the pressure of being on 60 Minutes was like. Have you encountered any negative fallout from people who see the film and then associate you with the character?  JE: My mother saw it, and she said her reaction was that she wanted to slap me and then hug me. That seems to be the common reaction from people over 25. It seems those under 25 see Mark as a hero.

What do you have in common with the character you played?  JE: We are both socially uncomfortable. There is also the fact that when something bad happens in our lives, instead of lashing out and blaming others, we become creative. I’m most creative when I’ve been embarrassed or rejected. Will this be your first time making the rounds of award shows?  JE: I went to two award shows before—the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the National Board of Review Awards—for The Squid and the Whale. It’s nerve-wracking. I didn’t want to win because I don’t like public speaking. Does the buzz surrounding the film and the possibility of winning awards make you nervous?  JE: It’s been impossible for me to figure out the appropriate response to all this because I have nothing to relate it to. It’s uncomfortable to receive attention. What are you looking forward to about the awards season?  JE: Every time I’ve worked with people on a movie, you spend two months with them and then you tend not to see most of them again. So I look forward to seeing the people from this movie again. It’s kind of a celebration of the experience you had together. Are you on Facebook?  JE: I never use it. I’m not on it. Somebody told me there’s a page up. It’s not actually me. In The Social Network, you worked with two of the most intense individuals in Hollywood, director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. What was that experience like?  JE: David Fincher is known for being very meticulous, and he is. It was a great blessing. He believes in doing scenes as many times as it takes. I’ve been a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin’s work for many years. It was a great honor to play a character he created who was so endlessly fascinating to me. Aaron Sorkin is known for his rapid-fire dialogue. Was it a challenge to deliver those lines?  JE: In my experience, the only time dialogue is challenging is when it doesn’t match the character. That was never the case with this script. Obviously, Zuckerberg is a computer whiz. How would you rate your computer skills?  JE: Very average. I just don’t have an interest in learning about computers beyond what I need to know. Facebook changed Zuckerberg’s life. How has The Social Network changed yours?  JE: I don’t really know yet. I’m just excited about being in quality projects that I like and getting the chance to play interesting characters like this one.

SOURCE

[komevelyne72930-blog]

Le Luxe LA

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[hydrus]

Version 316

windows

zip

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app

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tar.gz

I had an excellent week. I was able to cleanly 'do' the big gallery overhaul, resulting in many changes. This is an important release for anyone who does a lot of downloading.

gallery update

So, the meat of the gallery overhaul is complete! Where available, subscriptions, the gallery downloader, and the url downloader will now use the new parsing system to parse 'thumbnail pages'. The new pipeline has numerous improvements behind-the-scenes and is another important step in allowing users to create and share their own downloaders for new sites.

I won't go into all the details here, but anyone who has poked around the new parsing system's advanced dialogs will now see that gallery pages are now featured.

The important change for most users is that the main gallery downloader page is now a 'multi-gallery' page. It looks much like the multi-watcher for thread-watching, where the one page manages multiple queues simultaneously. Gallery download pages now list every query you enter separately and work on them simultaneously, reducing overall ui load significantly and making it much easier to pause one query without affecting others, spot queries that return 0 results, avoid big chokes and delays caused by larger queues, and manage the results you finally get as different pools. The old single-download page can no longer be created--your existing gallery pages will be updated to multi-pages on update (your existing queues will survive as generic 'updated from' entries, but everything will start paused, so you'll want to go through them, verify it all looks good, and then unpause when you are ready).

And like the multi-watcher, gallery pages can have a 'highlighted query'. Double-clicking on a list entry will show its current thumbnails in the media panel and show its full details in a panel below the main list. This new panel is very similar to the old gallery page's ui and lets you see downloads as they happen and inspect the file import queue and gallery log and so on in more detail.

Gallery download pages are now also downloader-agnostic. You open them just as 'gallery' from the F9 new page popup (there's also a new shortcut for them, under the 'main_gui' set), and they have a new 'gallery selector' button that lets you change the source for the next queries you enter. The gallery selector means that one gallery page can handle queries for multiple sites simultaneously! This new button will always default as 'deviant art' for now, but when I do the last stage of this downloader overhaul--the 'searcher' step--I will be able to add some reasonable 'favourite' options here.

Subscriptions can also use the new gallery parser, and they have the neater 'gallery selector' as well. You shouldn't notice any difference with how they operate--they should just run as before. But after some thought, I have reduced subscriptions' maximum 'first time' and 'regular' file limits to 1000 and written some help on the edit panel to explain this change. tl;dr is: use download pages to do big one-time syncs, use subs to keep up with new stuff. If this 1000 change affects you, please check out the help and feel free to ask me about it.

URL downloader pages also support parsable gallery urls. They only do the single page you add (i.e. they don't start a whole new multi-page search, but this capability will come), but they'll suck up any drag and drop for any working parser. For this week, I've written gallery parsers for danbooru, gelbooru (0.2.0 and 0.2.5), and e621 to get us started. Like with 'file pages', I will roll out more gallery parsers over the coming weeks until all default downloaders are using the new system.

A lot has changed. I have done a whole bunch of testing here and I am overall happy with it, but if you encounter problems with an unusual query or site or anything else, please let me know. If you are the sort of user with 200k items waiting to download in your current session, I strongly recommend you ensure you have a good backup before you update. This multi-gallery page also makes it easier than ever to create a session with lots and lots of files, but I will reiterate that the client tends to get laggy at 50k+ items, so take it easy and make a schedule for big stuff if you can!

There is a little more work to do here to support some unusual situations like tumblr, but the big hump of the downloader overhaul is now done. The 'searcher' change will be much simpler (it is basically just converting samus_aran -> http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=samus_aran and some ui to manage it) and then it'll just be ui cleanup and figuring out an easy-mode share object, and redoing some help, and then we can talk about what we want out of a login manager (including whether it should be put off for something else).

multi-watcher

The multi-watcher also has a new 'highlight' panel just below its list. In a similar way, it has similar ui to the old single-page watcher and lets you inspect the file list and gallery (thread) log. Single watcher pages are removed this week, so all existing single watchers will be updated to multi-watchers. A variety of related single-watcher 'page naming' options and so on are also removed. Rather than be redundantly complicated, hydrus now just has 'url downloader', 'watcher', 'gallery', and 'simple downloader'.

full list

gallery:

gallery url classes can now be linked to parsers!

if parsers are linked, gallery pagewalk can now work on the new parsing system. gallery import pipeline has been significantly updated to reflect this

gallery import objects are now 'multiple' gallery imports, much like the multi-watcher, with each separate query having its own entry in a list (they also run in parallel!)

the multi-gallery list will show file/gallery pause status in slender columns, and will show a 'stop' character when gallery parsing is done

wrote a 'gallery selector' button and added it to the new multi-gallery page, so you can spawn queries for ~different sites~ on the same import page! it always defaults to 'deviant art' for now, but when the next 'searcher' overhaul step is done, this will be customisable

the new page selector and related 'pages' menu is now simpler--with the new selector, you just select 'gallery'

added 'new_gallery_downloader_page' shortcut action to the 'main gui' set to allow quick opening of this new page type

wrote a 'gallery import panel', which reviews a single gallery import stream, and added it to the multi-gallery page to show the current highlighted query

as all gallery imports now run in parallel and work on the new system, the now almost-useless 'cancel' gallery pagewalk button is now removed

with the wider availability of the new gallery log for file count and error reports, shifted around and smoothed out some gallery status text presentation

improved the auto url_class->parser linking 'try to fill in gaps' logic to work with gallery urls (this was surprisingly complicated)

fixed a misc stupid waste of time in auto url_class->parser linking

many misc updates to gallery pipeline

.

subscriptions:

wrote a new gallery pagewalk pipeline for subscriptions, which still does oldest-to-newest url addition and obeys file limits and so on

numerous subscription pipeline and error handling tweaks and improvements, particularly in regards to the new code

subscriptions now have max initial and periodic file limits of 1000. existing subs with >1000 or infinite will be cut to 1000. there is a help button on the edit sub panel to explain why you should do large syncs with the manual downloader and not subs

the ugly and dangerous-if-you-scroll-in-the-wrong-place gallery selector mismash control in the edit subscription panel is now replaced with the new gallery selector button

fixed an issue where the edit subs panels could sometimes say '48 years ago' (i.e. displaying a literal time delta since 0, 1970) on initial timestamps

juggled some 'periodic limit' reporting logic to skip an unusual false positive that affect hentai foundry subs for now and more in future

.

urls:

the url downloader now accepts gallery urls and will receive drag-and-dropped gallery urls. at the moment, it only parses the one page (i.e. it doesn't start a new 'searching' pagewalk) and sends the parsed links to its file queue

.

watcher:

finished 'watcher panel', which reviews a watcher, and added it to the multi-watcher page to show the current highlighted watcher

the single watcher page is completely removed--it is only the multiple watcher now. all singles will be converted to multiples on update

some single-watcher options (like watchers naming their own page tabs and the [404]-style page name prefixes) are removed

multiple watcher panel now lists file/checking pause status and has separate buttons to control these paused statuses

fixed some misc watcher highlight code--highlighted watchers should correctly publish to the page from the start of session load now

improved some 'repage' logic in how highlighted threads get removed

.

misc:

discovered a scroll-setup parameter that stops janky scroll-to-click-focus behaviour on all the new scrolling panels, thank the LORD

improved some 'can't parse' error handling for post url parsing

reworked how all importers present their network jobs to the ui, including fast response if the switch happens during a job

in prep for searcher switchover where all downloader sources will be harmonised into one system, booru identifiers now present in several ui locations as 'name', not 'booru: name'

updated the danbooru parser to deal with the new 'next page' markup they use

wrote a gelbooru gallery parser that works with 0.2.0 and 0.2.5 gelb sites--an ancillary issue where gelb-related downloaders could sometimes not accurately figure out the magic '42' next-page offset is hence now fixed

wrote an e621 gallery page parser

these sites hence now support single-page gallery drag-and-drop

added url classes for artstation gallery url and its api counterpart, but didn't go further yet--we aren't quite there with api pagewalking just yet

updated deviant art gallery url classes

added an e621 'search initialisation' gallery url class to improve some future drag-and-drop stuff

url normalisation no longer cuts off 'www.'-style prefixes

url comparison is more careful to test 'www.'-style prefixes, so a file import cache should recognise that 'http://www.blah.com/blah' is the same as 'https://blah.com/blah'

did a bunch of refactoring to further split up the bloated ClientImporting.py

fixed some misc downloader layout that may have been hiding some texts previously

some multi-watcher and multi-gallery events like add/pause query should be a bit snappier

in the parsing ui, url and title priorities are now 50 by default

prepped a little subscription unit test code for when searcher object is done

misc downloader layout improvements

misc listctrl refactoring

next week

A lot of stuff I overconfidently said "I will check this this week" about has been left in the dust of this unexpectedly large job. I want to spend a week focusing on this smaller stuff and catch up back to regular schedule.