#etho really is a “if it works” sorta guy

[priskeys]

I've been having tons of issues with my audio lately, found a fix to one of them

[g-xix]

OKAY, GUYS - I HAVE ANOTHER SDMN-CENTRED FEMINIST RANT.

Okay, so, hopefully you all know TheBurntChip (Josh Larkin), and his lovely jovely gf Sabina:

Beautiful couple, seem happy together, no problems there.

One thing i think im seeing with the YouTubers' Girlfriends (let's call them YTer gf's, abbreviated) is that there's a certain trend in assets for which fans pick and choose to determine whether or not a YT gf is "per standard" and collectively liked.

For example, Faith and Talia have gone through shitloads of hate from fans because they actually speak their mind and are consistent with their own personal ethos within whatever content they produce and share online.

Like the whole Mia-sat-on-Ethan's-lap incident which resulted in Faith making a TikTok and speaking out on social media multiple times to call out the fact that yes - she's unhappy about it - and also the fact that it's a very valid thing to be unhappy over

Aaand this created a lot of backlash and hatred from Sidemen fans, because they don't like hearing anything that's inconsistent with what is a stereotypically immature male opinion, generally consistent with patriarchal societal roles... And this is shown through a lot of Talia and Faith's comment sections by the adolescent male SDMN fans

Hence the assumption can be made that Sidemen fans dislike YTer gf's that are too vocal about problems they've faced which aren't relevant to male audiences.

Thing is, there's obviously some YTer gf's that these fans really like, but...

Why do they like them so much???

Well, I think that both Sabina and Tennessee are two YTer gf's that can be used as examples of wamen that are completely adored by these adolescent male SDMN fans.

But their reasons for being so liked to much are so very contrasting.

Tennesse is loved because she's beautiful. We've been through this quite a bit when i went through the whole "I can't believe Danny would put his ex through that" pipeline following Locked In... But it's worth pointing out that (as far as I know), the toxic Fifa fanboys seem to love her because she's a clearly good looking woman who's undeniably got personality too (watched the saving grade pod w her on it last night) and i don't think she's said anything too inconsistent with male opinions yet, sooo... Makes sense why she's liked; imo she plays into the ideal woman from a man's perspective very well

Alternately, Sabina seems pretty reserved on social medias - not really speaking that much as a social media personality, rather just sharing her life on insta n tiktok, whatever - nothing wrong with that.

I think that the fanboys like Sabina quite a bit though, as she posts cooking content on TikTok, and idk why but there's an agenda on social medias atm, that a woman who can cook is wifey material... This woman-must-be-good-at-cooking culture ofc stems from historical patriarchal roles for women to fulfil the duty of housewives, thus being able to cook n clean - but i really have no idea why this still exists in a modern day society considering there's been so many changes within the world which now enables women to work equal jobs as men

I don't know whether this belief of cooking-women being a blessing is a toxic sorta concept though, because there's a certain tenderness and nicety to having someone cook you a meal - regardless of whether it is a male or female tbh

Either ways, Sabina does make meals and does her cooking thing on TikTok really well - like - honestly? Some days I'm jealous that I'm not the one able to eat some of the stuff she can bake n make... Back on track - yes - Sabina bakes/cooks her things n films Chippo's reaction to trying them out

Male audience love this ofc, bc it fulfils the whole woman-cooking-for-partner thing which is favoured amongst males

What's this big whole rant about though?

Well, the male fans hate Faith. Love Sabina.

Okay, cool.

These two facts weren't directly correlated until Sabina's recent post though...

Sabina chefs up some tacos for Chip, and whilst some of the comments are normal cooking TikTok comments, a lot are a bit more... targetted towards Faith:

First time Faith's ever been slewed in Sabina's comment section n the point that i made this whole rant for is that:

BIG UP FUCKING SABINA FOR ACTUALLY REPLYING STRAIGHT WITH THEM

Perfect response imo, not just disagreeing and leaving it open ended, but also pulling Faith up when Faith's been demeaned by these weirdos online

I'm a big supporter of the "you can big someone up without pulling someone else down" notion, and big up Sabina for pulling Faith the fuck up when someone's tried to reduce Faith to praise Sabina

So much respect for Sabina for this one negl - didn't really have any idea about what she was like as a girlie - but this reply's firmly sold me into believing that Sabina is one for the girlies 🙏

(post-writing, blooody hell i realise there's a lot of unecessary waffle here... apologies everyone)

[amethystfairy1]

Are there any deleted scenes/miscellaneous ttsbc things you'd love to share but haven't found the opportunity to yet? This is an open mic to ramble about anything related to ttsbc (if you don't have anything, feel free to ignore this ask)

OHHHHHHHHHH BOY YOU'VE GIVEN ME PERMISSION TO RAMBLE!

Ok ok ok...

Well, there are a couple little things I guess as far as 'deleted' scenes.

I was originally planning on having more heroes in the overcity alongside Scar and then having several other undercity vigilantes and really leaning into that concept. For example Cleo was going to be an older undercity vigilante who worked in the overcity and was helping Grian out as a mentor-type. There was also plans to have guy-in-the-chair Doc, and have him and Cleo be the two people who raised the avian trio. Alongside that, Pearl, Jimmy, Bdubs, and others were going to be vigilantes as well with various gimmicks/power sets.

But then as I was writing I realized I wanted to expand the AU, so I decided to lean more heavily into the idea of having various pairings that all had their own storylines. First up was Flower Husbands, and as I was considering them I decided on the route I ended up taking, with Grian being the only vigilante and having a support network behind him in the form of Pearl and Jimmy. Then it just sorta spiraled. 😆

As for other rambling about stuff I deleted/changed, I've always shipped Doctho but it's kind of a rarepair so I wasn't originally going to include it. Like I said, I was originally going to have Doc and Cleo be the ones who raised the avian trio, with Bdubs and Tango in that mix. The more I thought about it though, I decided that I wanted to have Doctho be the parental figures for the avian trio!

For Doctho, I originally was just planning to drop them as sort of a background thing and not really give them much attention. Just that they were the parental figures for the avian trio. But then people started saying in comments how much they loved Doctho in this AU and that they wanted to see the worldbuilding expand, and learn more about the undercity and it's history, and I thought the best way to do that would be through Doc and Etho and their history together!

And so we got 'Bleeding Sweetheart' and that was really when the ball started rolling on having this AU have an actual plot that is being driven forward by the characters instead of it just being a world for all these characters to exist in. Let me be clear, TTSBC will always be a character driven narrative. If anything is happening, it's for the sake of driving their relationships, both romantically and for the found families we've met, such as the Oddball Family, Cleo and Bdubs, and the Empires family whom we are getting to know right now in 'Blessing in Disguise'!

Anything else to share...I dunno, there's a ton of stuff in this AU. What I have posted so far isn't even half of it which is kinda ridiculous, huh? Theres lots I have planned for the AU! I know right now Traveling Thieves is getting a lot of my attention because of Febuwhump, but I'm really excited to get back to working on TTSBC and continuing it forward! Zedango is one ship I'm really excited to show off, I have a plan for them that I think is really interesting and unique. Not to mention Nature Wives, I haven't forgotten about them, either! So yeah, I guess the conclusion to this ramble is please stick around! I wanna share a whole bunch more of the AU with everyone!

Thanks for coming by 💖

[meteor752]

Total drama traffic series AU

I’m mixing my two obsessions together

The hosts are still Chris and Chef cause I can’t for the life of me imagine anything Total drama without them (This is a callout to the ridonculus race)

So it’s the third life people, simply because I will be following those story beats. Sorry Pearl, Mumbo, and Lizzie.

So we’ve two teams, red’s and green’s.

Theres Grian, Scott, Martyn, Cleo, BigB, Impulse, Joel VS Scar, Jimmy, Ren, Skizz, Tango, Bdubs, Etho

I imagine that the first challenge it was team-less, and so everyone sorta formed their own lil groups. Scar and Grian became buds, Scott and Jimmy, Martyn and Ren, BDubs and Cleo, Etho Tango and Impulse etc. Grian won the challenge, a stay awake challenge, and he gets an immunity totem as a price.

The second challenge is Red Light Green Light, which will determine the teams. The seven people who first loses will be Reds, and the seven people who win will be the greens. Greens will be given the better food, better housing, and an advantage in all future challenges. Very desirable team.

Jimmy falls on his face, so he’s the first red. Grian trips Scar as a joke and accidentally makes him lose, and he feels really bad about it. Bdubs falls on Etho which is how he ends up in red. Tango trips. Skizz does as well. Ren moves on purpose however, later saying in confessional that being on red gives him more of a challenge, plus it’s more dramatic.

Some alliances stay intact though. Grian promises that he’ll get Scar to the final two with him to make up for the “prank”, and if it stood between the two of them Grian will sacrifice himself. Scar has to try and keep him in the game though. They call it the desert alliance, for no real reason.

Martyn is annoyed at Ren for moving on purpose so they’re on different teams, but the man just waves him off, saying that they can still work together, he’s still “The hand of the king” (Whatever that means).

Etho has it out for Bdubs for getting him on the worse team, so Cleo is kinda forced to protect him, mostly cause he’s hiding behind her almost 27/7 (He says he’s not, he’s protecting her back)

Scott laughs a whole lot at Jimmy, but they remain somewhat allies. To be honest Scott just kinda likes the pathetic man, plus he gave him a flower, so there’s that.

I’d say there’s two award challenges before the first elimination challenge.

“Retrieve a piece of paper from a room that slowly fills up with lava, and then get it back without either the paper or you setting on fire. If you touch the lava or burn yourself then you have to go back and tag the next member of your team. First team to get their paper back safely wins immunity”

Team green’s advantage is that they get a turn to try before any reds do, but Joel sorta screws it up immediately.

In the end, Jimmy once again trips when trying to get back from retrieving the paper (giving him some small burns from the lava), and Martyn uses his body as a bridge to avoid walking on the hot floor, giving team green the win.

Jimmy is the one sent home, with a vote from everyone except himself and Etho, who voted Bdubs (Something he will keep on doing)

The next elimination challenge, I have no ideas for. Cleo is the one sent home, but like her deaths give me nothing to work with here. Sadge. Bdubs is now very scared, cause he lost his protection. Tango is his new safe haven, and the guy doesn’t mind it really.

Next challenge, both teams have to defuse a bomb. Green team’s advantage is two extra minutes on the clock. Skizz ends up cutting the wrong wire that blows up their bomb, so he’s voted off.

Next, the teams have to tame three dogs each to fight, and then pit them against one another. Green’s advantage is that they get three pitbulls, while team red get three chihuahuas. Joel spends all their training time cuddling the dogs though, making them his pals, while Ren has a way with dogs so he can get the little pups properly riled up.

When the two dog squads are pitted against one another, Team Green’s are nothing but friendly while Team Red’s are ready to kill.

Joel gets voted off.

I’m at a loss for Scott’s booting too, sorry lads

Next challenge is a kind of, protect the fort challenge, except it’s a tree instead. Team red must protect a great oak tree, while team green try and cut it down. Their advantage is a chainsaw.

This is where the Desert alliance starts to come into play, as Grian manages to break the chainsaw. Scar, knowing that if team green lost then Grian would get the boot, decides to wait until the rest of team red are off chasing away the greens, then burns the tree down.

Etho manages to catch him in the act and accuses him of helping the other team, but Scar being Scar twists the scenario in his favor, making it seem like Etho was the one who burnt the tree. Since the tree is technically cut down, team green wins and Etho is booted.

(Bdubs also manages to see this happen, but swears not to tell any of the others, but Scar does owe him one)

The challenge after that is a cow herding one. Cows are released into a forest, and the team who manages to get the most into their pen wins. Green’s get the advantage of horses, while Red have to use goats.

Tango has had ranch experience in the past, so he does a really good job herding cows. His one flaw is that he doesn’t bring them back to the red pen, instead riding around with them to flaunt. This makes it easy for the greens to steal them, making the reds loose the challenge. Tango gets the boot.

This is where the merge happens. The remaining players are Ren, Martyn, Impulse, Grian, Scar, BigB, and Bdubs.

Their first merge challenge is a paintball hide and seek one. Chef will hunt the contestants for two hours, and then one with the most paint on them at then end of it has to go home.

Ren ends up sacrificing himself for Martyn, hopping in front of him to protect him from a direct hit. He ends up soaked in paint, and is out. Martyn smooches him as a thank you though, promising to win for both of them.

Next challenge is a cooking one. The remaining are paired up randomly, and are forced to cook the most disgusting meals they can to feed to the other. First to make their opponent throw up is safe from elimination.

Martyn gets paired up with Scar, BigB with Bdubs, and Impulse with Grian. While most of them make pretty awful things (Bdubs and Impulse were the ones who threw up in their respective match ups), Scar ends up actually poisoning Martyn, to the point where he can no longer compete. Tragic end.

Five left.

Next we have a treasure hunt. All five of them are told to find one of four things, the person who doesn’t find their treasure is eliminated.

Scar and Grian team up to find the Llama and banner respectively, landing them in first and second place. BigB finds the sword on his own. Impulse and Bdubs were teamed up, until Bdubs spots the last item (a golden clock), and pushes Impulse out of the way to get it. Impulse comes in last, and goes home.

Four left. Objective, steal a cookie. Sounds easy enough? Well, you have to steal a cookie from chef, who does not like when people steal from his kitchen.

Lucky for Grian, Scar has been stealing cookies during the duration of the entire show, so the two get first and second once more. Bdubs cashes in on his favor here, forcing Scar to tell him how to steal the cookie. BigB looses, because of forces out of his control.

Final three, Scar, Bdubs, and Grian.

Grian thinks that this is a safe way to the finale, since the Desert alliance is still in motion. But in a surprising twist, Scar turns on Grian and teams up with Bdubs.

I don’t know what the challenge is yet, but I do know that Scar wins, Bdubs second, and Grian comes in last. But, to everyone’s surprise, Grian pulls out the immunity totem he’s been saving for all this time, that everyone had forgotten about, including Chris!

So Grian is safe, and Bdubs is off.

The final challenge is similar to the finale in Revenge of the Isle, it being an arena battle with a bunch of misc items being used as weapons.

All previous contestants are Brought back, Bdubs taking extra protection behind Cleo cause now Impulse and BigB are upset with him too, Martyn still feeling a little iffy and leaning heavily on Ren, and Scott and Jimmy having matching poppies in their hair.

When the two finalists goes to fight though, Scar surprises everyone by getting down on his knees and surrendering, stating that he betrayed their alliance and doesn’t deserve to win.

Grian, who was fuming and ready to beat the shit out of Scar for betraying him, softens slightly. The previous contestants boo, mostly cause they want a fight, but Scar refuses.

So Grian bonks him on the head, he falls dramatically to the ground and pretends to die for a solid three minutes, and Grian wins 100 000 dollars.

(That is until the price gets upped for a second season. You bet your ass I’m doing a part two)

(Also gladly taking suggestions for Cleo, Scott, and Bdubs elimination challenges)

[vivianquill]

:OOOOO kimi.. i have no idea what this means but that name bops i lov..

can i ask about zits- no uhh zis? siz? well may i ask what they are like? are they besties.. coworkers.. perhaps even already a found family who knows..? (the answer is you know ofc hehe)

also also!! does tango run across any issues while staying with zits, after the initial kerfuffle?

Skizz and Impulse have been besties since highschool, practically brothers sorta friendship. Skizz one day while they were in college on a whim decided to help out with a rescue when they were at the beach together and Impulse sorta tagged along. That's how they got involved with animal rescue and they just sorta stayed with the rescue, ending up with jobs there when they were older. Impulse has a job as a handyman and IT who works with a lot of the electronic systems, and Skizz works as a more general handyman and repairs guy, and also takes on other jobs in the off season when he's not needed at the rescue.

The rescue has a marine park attached to it, where they keep the unreleasable animals and have breeding programs for endangered species and they charge the public for entry along with taking donations. dont ask how this actually works cause i dont know that much about that sorta thing :D

Zedaph is a marine biologist/vet they met at the rescue while the three were still in college, and Zed just clicked with them. It always sorta felt like something, or someone, was missing from their group, but they get along like a house on fire and work really well together, so the missing feeling totally doesn't matter. They helped each other get through college, and are housemates. The house has it's own little private cove beach and Impulse is the one who owns it, but the other two pay 'rent' (aka they split the bills)

Other than the general boredom associated with being stuck in essentially a hospital for a long time while the other three make sure Tango is healing right, there aren't much of any big problems. There's lots of miscommunication as Tango is struggling to learn to communicate, and a lot of homesickness for the ocean and his pod. Tango doesn't tell the others about his pod tho. Cause he might trust that they aren't here to hurt him, he doesn't know what they would do with more mer. and he deosn't want to subject Etho or Bdubs to the humiliation of being cooped up and not being able to hunt for their own food and what have you.

Of course, this causes problems for him because the others don't want to let Tango out into the general ocean until he's 100% not gonna get himself killed.

There are a few incidents with them startling Tango where he'll snap at them, but Tango isn't intentionally trying to hurt them or anything.

That's sorta what I have for the AU at the moment. Again, it's super brand new and there's no planning ahead here lol.

[darkclouud9]

As someone who's sona is a shapeshifter has etho considered reshaping his bones to not be broken. I get It's not great for plot but like. If my bones where broken I would just make then not broken.

I can sorta get away with it with my sona. Because he's just a little freaky guy made out of literal void who doesn't really need anything to live, but like. He can change his whole bone structure from human to fox and to rabbit or whatever, just unbreak his bones.

Checkmate Scar.

Listen here you little shit /j

Etho could definitely fix his bones up and you had me thinking about it. But as of right now he lacks the energy to properly shift. That's why he was a fox for so long. If it was up to him, Xisuma would've found a more humanoid fox. Maybe as he gains the energy he'll focus it on his legs, eventually ridding his bones of any breakage.

It is a valid point you raise too, bc whenever I think of current Etho, he doesn't have broken bones, but still needs the leg braces to walk. (Even though he sometimes doesn't think that, walks without them n hurts himself more, which then means he has to rely even more on them). So, yeah, I would assume that over time, Etho would just. Fix his legs up.

I have plans for a bit later in s7 where Beef helps Etho start to walk again, but Etho does have a bit of a freakout about it. Maybe the reason he ever learns to walk again is because he does exactly what you've brought up.

Also another point is that he's sixteen and I've stated that he's still figuring out how to work it all out. But I think even then it's an easy task. It'll probably take a couple weeks in his state tho (can you tell im making a bunch of stuff up, most of it on the spot? xD)

[bitchesgetriches]

Hey bitches, let's dream. What would you do with a no strings attached $10k, $100k and $1m donation to BGR?

Oh. OH.

This question made my brain blush with serotonin. I will happily answer this.

If we had $10K, we would hire a part-time assistant to help us. The funny thing is: when you do something you really love, you only do The Thing Itself a small fraction of the time. We have all of Season 2 of the podcast recorded, but it takes us months to release because we’re doing all the research, editing, writing, and promotional stuff ourselves. I often sit down intending to write, only to end up working on taxes and updating security certificates. All that invisible administrative work is a drag, and it would be awesome to have a little help with it.

A lot of folks in our position have one or more virtual assistants to help them. It’s very affordable, if you hire someone in a low cost of living country. I’m not gonna say we would never do that, because I’m willing to do what it takes to grow our audience and help more people.

But...ugh. It just doesn’t jive with our ethos?

Like. BGR is a sisterhood founded in a shared dream of promoting economic justice and empowerment. We couldn’t add an assistant unless we found someone who was really fired up about our mission and we enough money to show them respect for their time. $10K would be enough to pay someone $20/hour for 10 hours of admin work per week. That would be totally life-changing for BGR.

If we had $100K, we would both make this our full-time job. 2020 is the first year we’ve paid ourselves through BGR. I cannot thank our Patreon donors enough for their support. It is so meaningful, ESPECIALLY now that Piggy has lost her job.

But, real talk: the last time I calculated it out, Piggy and I were paying ourselves about...$3/hour.

The overwhelming majority of our donors give $1/month. Those donations mean the world to us, because we know they’re likely coming from folks who don’t have more to give! But, you know, we write from our hearts, and that takes a lot of spoons. We have to balance against our day job (or hunting for a new day job, in Piggy’s case) and activities that refill the cup: eating, showering, sinking 200 hours into a video game I only sorta liked, etc.

We have considered lots of options for additional monetization, and rejected pretty much all of them, because we just can’t get away from the idea that it’s unethical to charge poor people money for advice on how to stop being poor. We’ve had lots of sponsorship offers; we’ve even had major financial companies inquire about buying Bitches Get Riches. Ego-stroking and wallet-filling as that is, we don’t think it’s in our fans’ best interest.

The donor model feels good to us right now. We hope that the people we’ve helped will remember us and pay it forward by donating. It’s not giving us rent money, but it’s grocery money. And we stan groceries. But seriously, if someone handed BGR a hundred geez, I wouldn’t even send in my letter of resignation---just fling my work computer onto the lawn of my old office and see how long it took for them to stop sending me paychecks. They’re awfully bureaucratic, it could take a while!

Telling you what we would do if we had $1M requires some embarrassing dream-disclosures, but hey, let’s do it! I had to leave home when I was 17. And I did some really risky things to get by on my own. Now, everything worked out well for me in the end! But I got help from a lot of strangers. Many of them were wise older women who never asked questions, just gave me what they could: a spare room, a job, a place at their table on Christmas. BGR is very much my attempt to do what was done for me, on the widest scale I possibly can.

But if I had a milly?

Ho mah gad, this is embarrassing, but...

My won-the-lottery dream has always been to buy land somewhere beautiful, and build a bunch of tiny-home style cabins around a big main house. Half would be rented out to artists working on finishing a project (writing their book, programming their game, whatever). The income from those rentals would subsidize the other half of the cabins, which would be free short-term housing for people who need help getting out of shitty situations.

I would live at the big house and manage the property. I’d cook delicious family dinners, and invite interesting speakers, and create a safe and inspiring environment for my guests. We’d have a bunch of old rescued animals around too, because animals can do so much to put life into perspective and teach you how to be kind to yourself AND ALSO BECAUSE ANIMALS ARE V. CUTE.

Obviously BGR would live on, with this sanctuary as its headquarters. With more opportunities to come together in-person, we could host seminars and retreats and conferences. (A pressing need, since the guy who runs our main industry conference took a hard right turn onto MAGA Alley and got canceled faster than a critically-acclaimed LGBT tv show.)

Sorry, Piggy, in this dream, you and Bear would have to come live with us. I know how much you hate the outdoors, loathe home improvement projects, dread serving huge Italian family-style dinners, despise the thought of teaching city people how to fish, and weep at the idea of playing your guitar out on the lawn while interesting, kind people talked quietly and sipped wine and tapped away on their laptops until the fireflies came out. You said I could answer this question, so you don’t get a say, tough titties.

Thank you for asking this lovely question. The time I wasted on this daydreaming has me fired up for doing all the other things I have to do today! Like editing all these dagum podcast files. I’ll see about getting episode one dropped tomorrow-ish.

What about you guys? What would YOU do?

[adultswim2021]

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law #15: “Blackwatch Plaid” | January 1, 2003 - 12:08 AM | S02E01

Mere minutes into 2003 Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law debuted it’s first episode in a little while: “Blackwatch Plaid”. The new year is traditionally a time when we reflect on our previous year and re-evaluate old habits. At the time of this airing, I was fastidiously recording Adult Swim every week and saving anything new that aired to my own carefully labeled home video archives. Historically I’d been recording to VHS, but I had received a DVD recorder for Christmas and immediately began transferring certain Adult Swim shows from VHS to DVD. The DVD format was still rather young, and the idea of Adult Swim shows actually making it to retail DVD didn’t seem like such a sure thing (even though at this time, two such volumes had been produced; more about those during EPHEMERA WEEK)

This was the tenth episode aired, and 10 episodes was what could fit on a DVD-R recorded in SP mode. So, I completed my first and only custom DVD of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. When faced with the prospect of beginning a second volume of Harvey Birdman on DVD I was at a bit of a crossroads. Keep watching this show I hate in the name of completionism? Or, do what any sane person would do and stop watching? I gave it away a few sentences back, but at the time I picked the later. This was a pretty big deal for me! Sure, I thought less of shows like Brak and Sealab from their strong starts, but I still stuck with them. My rejection of Birdman was a radical act. I was now no longer enjoying Adult Swim as a whole. I was now picking and choosing what I wanted from it.

“Blackwatch Plaid” isn’t so bad, truthfully. It’s a parody of the then-current Homeland Security Terror Alert Level Color Chart, which had debuted earlier in 2002. the eponymous blackwatch plaid is one of the colors on Phil Ken Sebben’s chart, which is created in this episode in response to an imagined office theft. The fact that this imaginary office theft is treated with the same high-level importance as a terrorist attack on our country is the whole joke of the episode. It’s a worthy target for satire, for sure.

Okay, so it’s 2021, and I’m watching these with a more open mind. I can admit the anger I felt at Birdman was “a little much”, this episode is more cohesive than most and the jokes aren’t bad. I didn’t laugh at them then, and I didn’t laugh at them now, so really not much has changed. But I recall one sticking point I had: the live-action montage. There’s multiple bits of live-action in this episode, and they are fun. But jealousy that these guys had a comedy show and I didn’t really worked wonders on me, because I remember really detesting the main montage in the episode. It was as if I thought “how dare you guys have fun, this show sucks.”

In the montage, Sebben presents Birdman with footage from the newly-installed security cameras that proves Birdman doesn’t get much work done in the course of his work day. A now live-action Birdman is seen milling around the office doing nothing much, then suddenly we are treated to a bright and colorful montage of Birdman playing hooky. He’s riding a ferris wheel, getting his nails done, showering at home with Boo Boo who playfully slaps his ass, cavorting around a fountain, popping out of a ball pit, and then running/tip-toeing around a field in different directions, for no reason. It’s wacky. It looks like it was a lot of fun to shoot. And I was pissed.

Okay, I’m primarily using this blog entry to try and get to the bottom of why I hated the montage so much. If a show I loved did something similar, I’d probably applaud it. It’s a fun idea, fairly low-effort (not that doing a live-action shoot doesn’t require real effort, it does!), and it just reads as “comedy is happening” for the entirety of the sequence. From a production stand point there’s little reason to not include a sequence like this.

I feel like this was a form of humor you’d see a lot of amateur comedy makers doing: the bright and cheery montage. It’s ironic, because I’m acting cheesy! I couldn't name names if I tried, but I just had about three or four different amateur sketch group videos pop into my head with the same comedy stylings. I can’t imagine what the point of view is here, or if anyone participating in this particular joke actually thinks they’re being original. At this point I’d say that the number of ironic/spoof montages in this vein outnumber the ones that are actually doing them in earnest. So, the idea can’t be “I’m doing a very original joke here.” The humor in those videos seem to be rooted in the more narcissistic ethos of “this is funny because *I’M* doing it!”

Have you ever seen Stella Shorts? I feel like a lot of aspiring comedy creators saw Stella Shorts and tried to produce similar sketches. That is: hammy, broad, intentionally sorta cheesy but ironic capitol-c comedy. And most of them would fall flat. It’s because the Stella guys were geniuses and the amateur comedians trying to do dime-store imitations of Stella Shorts were mostly not. So, it was the climate that really shaded my disdain for the montage. I wish I had my own TV show, still. I’ve occasionally written comedy pieces with the intent of putting together a low-budget sketch comedy show, and I’m certain that if I were to actually produce said comedy it wouldn’t be so easy, and I’d be very much guilty of putting unoriginal ideas on screen. But, the jealousy remains. So, sorry, Birdman. You’re still forbidden from entering my heart. Fuck you.

MAIL BAG

This is the part of the blog where we all get our eyes ready for some good messages and some good times. Here we go:

Just tried the Popeyes Nuggets, I've enjoy popeyes bone in chicken in the past so I thought I would give their boneless option a shot.

Please stop sending me nugget stuff. This is an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist blog. No one should eat any nugget unless they make it at home themselves. That’s just the facts

I can't believe I felt a little melancholy about the abrupt end of Brak. The first full fledge Adult Swim program to bite the dust. It was mostly terrible and you were better off airing an Aqua Teen episode in it's place but...wow, we'll never have that again. Goodbye Andy! See you in the shitty webtoon.

Andy is in hell now and “that’s gotta suck”. RIP.

Took the kids to Great Falls the other day, last treat before they head off to school and on our way back we stopped at Popeyes. The kids got the nuggets I went with the classic chicken. Cost me about 18 bucks with drinks and all that but it was pretty good chicken. The kids loved the nuggets. My son was like, "it's crunchy". Pretty cool place. Thanks for hipping me and my family to it. If you have any other kid-friendly places let me know because fall soccer season is coming up.

!!! SHUSH! stop that!

You arent gonna write about it since its not an original but Family Guy just left Adult Swim. Why don't you speak your mind about the show in general and what it meant for the programming block. Yeah, that sounds like a good waste of your time.

Little do you realize!

Popeyes chicken

Suck my dick

[poppytea333]

Academy AU notes (Mostly Grian notes)

Grian

~ A nice senior college student.

~ Used to go Evo Academy before he had to change schools because of a certain event.

~ Has burn scars all over his body.

~ Doesn't talk that much but he will sing sometimes (but lately he hasn't been singing a lot and the hermits are admittedly worried about him).

~ Is rivals with Doc.

~ Is best friends with Mumbo, Iskall, Ren, Impulse, Stress, Joe, Xisuma, and Scar.

~ Is currently dating a girl that he loves very much.

~ Likes to cook, in fact, besides Joe and TFC, he is the third cooker/baker in the dorm.

~ Is studying architecture and building.

~ Is new to redstone but is understanding it slightly.

~ Has two pet cats named Maui and Pearl but also has a pet parrot named Professor Beak.

~ Doesn't like to be near fire that much.

~ Misses his old friends dearly.

~ Seems shy and nervous when you first speak to him but once you get to know him you can see how an absolute gremlin he is.

~ Has a locket that has a picture of his old friends inside it.

~ Have nightmares and panic attacks about the event at Evo.

~ Likes to write music and sing.

~ If you say your hungry around him, he would somehow throw you (or hand you) a random snack he gets from his satchel that he wears most of the time.

~ You think Joe being the dad of the group is bad? Try Grian, even though he doesn't talk that much (only talks to Mumbo, Iskall, Ren, Impulse, Stress, Joe, Xisuma, and Scar) he would go full on dad mood if something bad happens to one of the students at the dorm.

~ He gets bullied for his scars.

~ He keeps to himself.

~ Likes to draw a lot, he says it helps him get things off his mind. (He's really good at drawing!).

~ His dorm is surprisingly clean and he has a lot of money for some reason.

~ Has a job outside of the academy, it pays well.

~ He is abnormally strong, he could lift you up at any given time (seriously when Doc was sick that one time, Grian lifted him up on his shoulders and took Doc to his room which was with Beef, Etho, and Bdubs. Scare the shit out of the three when he busted in and threw Doc onto his bed and just left only to say "Take care of him, he's sick).

~ Is a gremlin, once he gets to know you, run, as you are his next person to prank.

~ Doesn't like to take breaks during a project.

~ Likes tea and coffee a bit too much.

~ Doesn't usually get sick and he doesn't usually overslept but when he does it can be worrying.

~ Gets sleep deprived a lot.

Relationships with the other hermits.

Doc:

Him and Grian are rivals, the other hermits would often have bets on who would snap at each other. Though the two do worry about each other from time to time. He would say "Even though he and I are rivals, we do care for each other."

Mumbo:

The first hermit (along with Iskall and Xisuma) to welcome Grian to the dorms when he first arrived. Helped Grian with his nightmares and panic attacks. "He's like my little brother! Which is strange because I am younger than him."

Iskall:

The second hermit (along with Mumbo and Xisuma) to welcome Grian to the dorms when he first arrived. Thinks of Grian as a little brother and helps him with his panic attacks and nightmares. "I will kill everyone in this dorm and than myself if anything happens to Grian."

Xisumavoid (X or Xisuma):

The third hermit (along with Mumbo and Iskall) to welcome Grian to the dorms when he first arrived. Helped Grian get out of his shell more and also let Grian keeps his pets. "He's cool, though he is an absolute bastard when it comes to pranks but again he's fun to be around."

Joe:

When he heard that their was going to be a new student living at the firm's he was excited. Though what he didn't bargain for was the student having lots of nightmares and panic attacks but he didn't mind it. "I would personally adopted him."

Stress:

When she first met Grian she instantly felt protective over him, and whenever Grian gets sick (which rarely happens but when he does it's worrying) she takes care of him along with Joe. "I will protect Grian at all costs, even though he would most likely protect me most of the time."

Cleo:

She doesn't know much about Grian only the fact that he came from another school after an horrible event happened at that school. "I want to talk to him more but due to my classes I really can't which is such a same."

False:

Spoke to Grian a couple of times but if she told you her thoughts on him it would be "A precious small bean that needs to be protected."

TFC:

He is the only adult supervisor in the Hermit Dorms but he welcomed Grian with opened arms, he is usually the one to help Grian when needed. "He doesn't cause that much trouble like the other kids, though he needs to work on his relationship with Doc more."

Wels:

Hasn't spoken to Grian lately but he had heard stories/rumors about him going about, but their good rumors not the bad ones. "I wish I could meet him, but from what I could see, he's a shy kid which I don't blame him."

Beef:

Doesn't know Grian personality but he does know that both he and Doc are rivals. "I guess he's cool, when he heard that I was sick one time he cooked me some mushroom stew."

Etho:

Haven't even spoken to the guy, though they did had a staring contest when Grian caught him by accident while going to the kitchen. "We just sorta.... Stared at each other before going back to what we were doing. Not the best impression of myself to be honest with ya."

Bdubs:

Talked to Grian a couple of times but not as much as the other hermits. "Scare the living shit out of me when he came inside out room with Doc over his shoulders and he just threw Doc on his bed and was like "Take care of him, he's sick" and then he just left without a word."

Tango:

Likes Grian as a friend and helps Grian out sometimes. "He's seem nice! Though I hope that he could come out of his shell more."

Impulse:

Is best friends with Grian and he would say "The little gremlin is a lot of fun and he is a prankster."

Ren:

Is best friends with Grian and have small talks before going to bed "He's really friendly once you get to know him! I just wish there was a way to help the kid with his panic attacks and nightmares."

Scar:

Is best friends with him and would help him with anything he needs "He's an amazin guy, we both like cats and have cats so we often hang out."

That's about it! I am not doing any of the other hermits as I do not know them well like I do with the ones up top. Hope you like this AU!

[kasaron]

accidental cult situations & church of hubs sound way too interesting to not hear about

I've told those stories before here, IIRC, but the long and short of it is; I have a weird life and very odd luck. When bad things happen to me they are always good things in disguise, or to quote my mom, I "could run through a shit storm and leave smelling like roses."

When I was just getting into philosophy and debate and my current style of discussion, I was at college. There was a public area of college that was used by most students, and it became a kind of forum for discussion.

A young Christian man was doing his missionary thing, and most people were being as you'd expect, either edgy or just politely declining. I decided, for a lark, to discuss with him. It started as a "let's talk about it" and became this really really beautiful conversation on the importance of myth, of the Christian ethos, and the role religion has in building a foundation for society and for individual life. It's also the genesis of my favorite bit of philosophy; that each person's personal philosophy is like a boat in an ocean of uncertainty and pain, and we need to work to have a boat that doesn't leak, and sometimes that means plugging leaks, sometimes it means helping others overboard, and sometimes means getting a new boat.

But anyway, it was a beautiful discussion, and we ended it amicably with a handshake/hug and a God bless you and all that. Thought that was an end of it.

What I wasn't paying attention to was that a crowd of like...twenty/thirty people had gathered around us.

More than half of which started following me around campus asking me meaning-of-life/life-advice questions and just like...really being attentive.

I'm thinking, oh this is neat I guess, whatever.

Then it kept going for a few days. And more showed up.

At that point I was like "oh. Oh shit." And my buddy, my best friend, in fact, said "uhhh, bruh, you have a cult following you."

So I...hid in the machine shop building for a month and the fervor died down, but it became a running joke that I accidentally a cult.

I was a lot more cautious about discussion after that, though I did pop in and help you the young guy when a """philosophy student""" came in with post-structuralist anti-western subjectivist baloney and I sorta gleefully slam dunked on the dude, while referencing both his professor (who wrote the curriculum) and his academic rival (who was another professor, who I occasionally had very good chai with and talked philo), and how his professor (who I guessed based on his own words and whatnot) was foundationally built by a sense of self hatred, hatred and jealousy of others, and survivors guilt and that, in a cheeky throwback which got a laugh out of the Christian guy, his boat has a bottom facing screen door.

I would have felt more bad for being that way to him and ripping into him like that, but he was being so simultaneously smug and angry, and I was not yet as skilled as I am now.

No cult activity that time, as I had stood with the Christian guy and thereby I wasn't edgy or interesting enough, I think.

He was a cool dude tho, I hope he is having a good, happy life (same with the angry philo dude, but for a different reason).

But yeah, that was the start of the cult activities.

I'll post the gun cult stuff later if y'all want, someone shoot me an ask.

[flynnspeaks]

thoughts on the Sondheim thing:

ultimately unsurprising, tbh. It’s not as if Sondheim has ever in his career showed a particular care for class politics or minority struggles--Pacific Overtures and Assassins’ engagement with that is mostly due to Weidman, and West Side Story is veeeeery much a bunch of white guys writing about racism, as good as it was in 1957. The only show of his that’s at all particularly political that you can attribute to him is Sweeney, and that’s sorta built into the text.

Like, yeah, Sondheim has always been broadly liberal and this sort of dumbassery is at least preferable to literally-a-millionaire-Thatcherite Andrew Lloyd Webber, but if anything this should really be an awakening to the blind spots of this sort of ‘liberal democrat’ who are sympathetic to identity politics but ultimately ignorant and dismissive of minority struggles.

I think it’s easy to get a bit too worked up about this, but it’s equally important to not dismiss this as just “oh welp, an 88-year-old is asked about identity politics what did you expect”. This attitude is bred into not just the ethos of much of Sondheim’s work, but the broader ethos of musical theatre and middle-class New York culture that produced him, and the broader ethos of modern “liberal democrats”. It’s an attitude worth critiquing, and worth dispelling from our continued engagement with musical theatre and its history.

[palmphoneblogcom]

What do reviewers don't like about Palm?

What do reviewers don't like about Palm?

Before I get to Palm review myself, I read the great reviews on this phone and try to summarize the most fundamental criticisms I have found in reading.

summary of complaints

When I read all this, the following comes out to me:

missing nfc chip

missing jack connector

missing volume buttons

worse camera

life mode not only switch off notifies notifications but also WiFi and LTE

small phone size

messaging applications are unusable due to keyboard size

low battery capacity and low battery life

older versions of Android OS - 8.1 Oreo

high price

It seems to me that many experienced reviewers do not know what they want from such a phone. Before I go to the review, I will have to play with the phone, try out the possible use scenarios and maybe come to that.

Anyway, I recommend reading all the linked reviews and viewing the photo galleries because the view of Palm is truly breathtaking… d8-D

android authority

However, what was upsetting was how much power drained when the phone was in standby mode. Overnight, I could expect at least 20 to 30 percent of the battery to be gone if I didn’t plug it in.

The Palm Phone’s cameras get the job done, but don’t take it with you if you want to capture high-quality memories.

android police

The screen is too small to be comfortable with modern apps that expect more real estate—things get cut off, and typing is awful. TCL's attempt to make the experience minimalist with features like the launcher and Life Mode fall flat, too. The Palm Phone is fun to play with for a few minutes, but I can't imagine regularly taking this thing with me on a night out instead of my real phone. The awful camera alone is enough to put me off.

ars technica

What are you supposed to use this for? Is it a new-age iPod? A smartwatch alternative? A smaller phone to take on your fitness activities? It's not really good at any of these things.

First, the $350 price tag puts it firmly in smartwatch territory, which is a huge problem for justifying a lot of Palm's supposed use cases. You can get an Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular access for $380. You can also get an LTE-equipped Wear OS or Samsung watch for around this price.

Palm calls this phone a "wearable" and sells a variety of cases, armbands, and lanyards designed for easy portability, but nothing is more portable than a smartwatch. So, if you're looking to travel light, just get the smaller device.

The Palm phone isn't a great music player thanks to the lack of a headphone jack and physical volume rocker. Sure, you can pair Bluetooth headphones to it, but you can also just pair Bluetooth headphones to your smartwatch, which is going to be smaller and more portable.

The Palm phone also can't beat a smartwatch for fitness activities, since a watch is going to be lighter and easier to carry. Plus, a watch will do heart-rate tracking. Maybe you want to bring a real phone, because you hate the lack of a keyboard on a smartwatch and don't want to speak to your device in public—but the Palm phone is too tiny to comfortably type on. The body is so skinny that you can't hold it with two hands, and the keyboard on this skinny screen is so small that a fingertip presses about four keyboard letters at once. You're relying on autocorrect so much that you might as well use Wear OS' tiny keyboard.

Plus, a smartwatch has one more major feature that the Palm phone doesn't support: NFC. If you're out for a jog, you can run into a shop and buy a drink with your smartwatch. You can't make a payment with a Palm phone.

digital trends

No. The Palm doesn’t offer any value. The camera isn’t good, the battery won’t last you more than a few hours while you’re out, and it’s frustrating to type on. You’re better off saving yourself $350 by simply tapping on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button on your (already expensive) Android or iPhone and going about your day.

engadget

The Palm seemed like it could be the right device at the right time: it’s a tiny, secondary smartphone for times when you want to be more present in the real world. To the company’s credit, its namesake phone is a beautiful, well-built conversation starter. Unfortunately, the Palm’s size will make it too difficult for some to use, while some compatibility issues and poorly executed features are sure to frustrate others. Ultimately, Palm’s ambitions were admirable, but its first device feels like a half-baked answer to a serious problem.

mashable

Even though I didn't find the Palm as good at its job as simply adhering to those habits (and others), I'm still compelled by the idea and think it could be improved. I can live with its slow performance, but I'd like to see an even better camera and a more robust battery. Those enhancements would certainly add to the cost, but I feel that's not such a hard sell, and a more accurate picture of the Palm idea: I don't want a crappy phone, just one that's better suited to being more present IRL.

pc magazine

The idea of having two phones isn't insane. You might already have a work phone and a play phone, for instance. I've seen that as far back as Nokia's fashion-phone line from 2005. I personally wouldn't mind a tiny weekend phone. I'm the guy who's been asking for smaller smartphones for years now. The Palm phone, beautifully designed and tiny, should be the phone of my dreams.

But it fails to function well. I can forgive a low-cost phone for not having a Pixel-quality camera. The Pixel 3 costs $800. But the Whatsapp and iMessage problems, the weak Wi-Fi, the scratchy call quality, the tiny keyboard, and the lack of volume buttons all add up to a phone that's irritating, not relaxing, to use. Many of these annoyances are probably fixable with software updates, which just puts the Palm phone on the list of products that had to come out in November, whether or not they were ready.

slashgear

The Palm Palm, or whatever you’d like to call it, is a great effort by a company whose head seems like it’s in the right place, but not quite going the right direction. When I first imagined that this Palm device, I thought it was sort of absurd. I thought it was ridiculous mistake.Now I’m convinced that it was a really great effort put toward a device that might be sorta doomed.

Especially considering the cost of the phone, there can’t possibly be a large enough population of users ready to toss down cash for the privilege of having a phone for their phone. Imagine paying $350 USD for a phone that’s only able to act as a second phone for the phone you’ve already got in your pocket or purse.

tom’s guide

We all need to spend less time staring at our phones, so at least there's a good idea behind the Palm. But part of the problem is that the phone lacks the courage of its convictions. If we're supposed to use the Palm only intermittently, why preload it with apps that are contrary to that mission? And, why let people add even more apps that can potentially suck away time and attention? Features that do serve Palm's stated mission, like Life Mode, could stand to be fine-tuned, and it should be easier to control the phone's volume.

Then there's the matter of the Palm's $350 price tag — which isn't insignificant at a time when the prices of fully featured smartphones are on the rise. It's tempting to compare and contrast a companion phone like the Palm to an LTE-enabled smartwatch. You'd certainly pay more for the watch — the Apple Watch Series 4 starts at $499 if you want LTE connectivity — but you'd get a device that offers the same features as the Palm in a form factor that's better suited for at-a-glance uses. And the watch throws in health and fitness tracking features not found in the Palm.

the verge

The core of that ethos is something they call “Life Mode.” (Or, because the founders are dads, hashtag dad mode.) More than any other feature, the Life Mode on the Palm phone is what makes this a “time well spent” minimalist phone. When you turn Life Mode on by tapping a palm tree icon, it enables a set of Do Not Disturb and Low Battery settings.

In Life Mode, your notifications are obviously turned off, but Palm is also turning off the wireless radios. The cellular and Wi-Fi radios will only turn on when the screen is on. (Bluetooth will also turn off but stay on if you are connected to headphones.) It’s a much more aggressive way to turn off notifications and deny incoming phone calls. Palm specs the phone at eight hours of normal use without Life Mode on, so if you toggle it the Palm phone is expected to last a super long time on a charge.

Oddly, the Palm phone is not running the latest version of Android which has a bunch of Digital Wellbeing features built right in. The company tells me that they didn’t want to conflict with those Android 9 Pie features. Perhaps an update will come in the future, but it’s a miss for now.

[palmphoneblog]

Co se recenzentům Palmu nelíbí?

Než se sám dostanu k recenzování Palmu, pročítám si velké recenze věnované tomuto telefonu a pokusím se tu shrnout ty nejzásadnější výtky, které jsem při čtení objevil.

shrnutí výtek

Když jsem to všechno pročetl, vychází mi z toho následující:

chybějící nfc čip

chybějící jack konektor

chybějící tlačítka hlasitosti

horší kamera

life mód vypne nejen notifikace, ale i WiFi a LTE

malé rozměry telefonu

messaging aplikace jsou nepoužitelné kvůli velikosti klávesnice

nízká kapacita baterie a malá výdrž

starší verze OS Android - 8.1 Oreo

vysoká cena

Po pravdě mi přijde, že mnoho i zkušených recenzentů vlastně neví, co od takového telefonu chtít. Než se pustím do recenze já, budu si s tím telefonem muset pořádně pohrát, vyzkoušet možné scénáře použití a třeba na to přijdu.

Každopádně doporučuji pročtení všech linkovaných recenzí a prohlédnutí fotogalerií, protože pohled na Palm je opravdu úchvatný...d8-D

android authority

However, what was upsetting was how much power drained when the phone was in standby mode. Overnight, I could expect at least 20 to 30 percent of the battery to be gone if I didn’t plug it in.

The Palm Phone’s cameras get the job done, but don’t take it with you if you want to capture high-quality memories.

android police

The screen is too small to be comfortable with modern apps that expect more real estate—things get cut off, and typing is awful. TCL's attempt to make the experience minimalist with features like the launcher and Life Mode fall flat, too. The Palm Phone is fun to play with for a few minutes, but I can't imagine regularly taking this thing with me on a night out instead of my real phone. The awful camera alone is enough to put me off.

ars technica

What are you supposed to use this for? Is it a new-age iPod? A smartwatch alternative? A smaller phone to take on your fitness activities? It's not really good at any of these things.

First, the $350 price tag puts it firmly in smartwatch territory, which is a huge problem for justifying a lot of Palm's supposed use cases. You can get an Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular access for $380. You can also get an LTE-equipped Wear OS or Samsung watch for around this price.

Palm calls this phone a "wearable" and sells a variety of cases, armbands, and lanyards designed for easy portability, but nothing is more portable than a smartwatch. So, if you're looking to travel light, just get the smaller device.

The Palm phone isn't a great music player thanks to the lack of a headphone jack and physical volume rocker. Sure, you can pair Bluetooth headphones to it, but you can also just pair Bluetooth headphones to your smartwatch, which is going to be smaller and more portable.

The Palm phone also can't beat a smartwatch for fitness activities, since a watch is going to be lighter and easier to carry. Plus, a watch will do heart-rate tracking. Maybe you want to bring a real phone, because you hate the lack of a keyboard on a smartwatch and don't want to speak to your device in public—but the Palm phone is too tiny to comfortably type on. The body is so skinny that you can't hold it with two hands, and the keyboard on this skinny screen is so small that a fingertip presses about four keyboard letters at once. You're relying on autocorrect so much that you might as well use Wear OS' tiny keyboard.

Plus, a smartwatch has one more major feature that the Palm phone doesn't support: NFC. If you're out for a jog, you can run into a shop and buy a drink with your smartwatch. You can't make a payment with a Palm phone.

digital trends

No. The Palm doesn’t offer any value. The camera isn’t good, the battery won’t last you more than a few hours while you’re out, and it’s frustrating to type on. You’re better off saving yourself $350 by simply tapping on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button on your (already expensive) Android or iPhone and going about your day.

engadget

The Palm seemed like it could be the right device at the right time: it’s a tiny, secondary smartphone for times when you want to be more present in the real world. To the company’s credit, its namesake phone is a beautiful, well-built conversation starter. Unfortunately, the Palm’s size will make it too difficult for some to use, while some compatibility issues and poorly executed features are sure to frustrate others. Ultimately, Palm’s ambitions were admirable, but its first device feels like a half-baked answer to a serious problem.

mashable

Even though I didn't find the Palm as good at its job as simply adhering to those habits (and others), I'm still compelled by the idea and think it could be improved. I can live with its slow performance, but I'd like to see an even better camera and a more robust battery. Those enhancements would certainly add to the cost, but I feel that's not such a hard sell, and a more accurate picture of the Palm idea: I don't want a crappy phone, just one that's better suited to being more present IRL.

pc magazine

The idea of having two phones isn't insane. You might already have a work phone and a play phone, for instance. I've seen that as far back as Nokia's fashion-phone line from 2005. I personally wouldn't mind a tiny weekend phone. I'm the guy who's been asking for smaller smartphones for years now. The Palm phone, beautifully designed and tiny, should be the phone of my dreams.

But it fails to function well. I can forgive a low-cost phone for not having a Pixel-quality camera. The Pixel 3 costs $800. But the Whatsapp and iMessage problems, the weak Wi-Fi, the scratchy call quality, the tiny keyboard, and the lack of volume buttons all add up to a phone that's irritating, not relaxing, to use. Many of these annoyances are probably fixable with software updates, which just puts the Palm phone on the list of products that had to come out in November, whether or not they were ready.

slashgear

The Palm Palm, or whatever you’d like to call it, is a great effort by a company whose head seems like it’s in the right place, but not quite going the right direction. When I first imagined that this Palm device, I thought it was sort of absurd. I thought it was ridiculous mistake.Now I’m convinced that it was a really great effort put toward a device that might be sorta doomed.

Especially considering the cost of the phone, there can’t possibly be a large enough population of users ready to toss down cash for the privilege of having a phone for their phone. Imagine paying $350 USD for a phone that’s only able to act as a second phone for the phone you’ve already got in your pocket or purse.

tom’s guide

We all need to spend less time staring at our phones, so at least there's a good idea behind the Palm. But part of the problem is that the phone lacks the courage of its convictions. If we're supposed to use the Palm only intermittently, why preload it with apps that are contrary to that mission? And, why let people add even more apps that can potentially suck away time and attention? Features that do serve Palm's stated mission, like Life Mode, could stand to be fine-tuned, and it should be easier to control the phone's volume.

Then there's the matter of the Palm's $350 price tag — which isn't insignificant at a time when the prices of fully featured smartphones are on the rise. It's tempting to compare and contrast a companion phone like the Palm to an LTE-enabled smartwatch. You'd certainly pay more for the watch — the Apple Watch Series 4 starts at $499 if you want LTE connectivity — but you'd get a device that offers the same features as the Palm in a form factor that's better suited for at-a-glance uses. And the watch throws in health and fitness tracking features not found in the Palm.

the verge

The core of that ethos is something they call “Life Mode.” (Or, because the founders are dads, hashtag dad mode.) More than any other feature, the Life Mode on the Palm phone is what makes this a “time well spent” minimalist phone. When you turn Life Mode on by tapping a palm tree icon, it enables a set of Do Not Disturb and Low Battery settings.

In Life Mode, your notifications are obviously turned off, but Palm is also turning off the wireless radios. The cellular and Wi-Fi radios will only turn on when the screen is on. (Bluetooth will also turn off but stay on if you are connected to headphones.) It’s a much more aggressive way to turn off notifications and deny incoming phone calls. Palm specs the phone at eight hours of normal use without Life Mode on, so if you toggle it the Palm phone is expected to last a super long time on a charge.

Oddly, the Palm phone is not running the latest version of Android which has a bunch of Digital Wellbeing features built right in. The company tells me that they didn’t want to conflict with those Android 9 Pie features. Perhaps an update will come in the future, but it’s a miss for now.

[antthonystark]

tbh there definitely are some problems with shadowhunters like izzy's yin fen storyline and how every black shadowhunters has turned into a villian but it isn't racist every single time something bad happens to a poc. it would be if the only characters who had to suffer were poc but every character on the show gets hurt at points and like...... idk there is bad stuff that needs to be acknowledged but not everything is a problem.

note: i just basically used this ask to let out all my opinions on this issue, but i sort of broadly agree with some of what you said but not necessarily as a whole. also this is incredibly long, so don’t feel the need to read all of it! 

essentially: i don’t think shadowhunters is racist in any significant capacity, and while i’m never gonna go after people for critically analyzing or evaluating the show if that’s what they want to do, at the end of the day, personally, i don’t think nit-picking at it is a really productive thing to do. esp when there’s a lot of…. well, actual racism in the media. 

See, the thing is, a lot of the stuff that people are calling“problematic” in a racial sense, to me, is just indicative of a positiverace-blind casting ethos in the show. Now, race-blindness is not generally a good thing when talkingabout race, but when it comes to casting, I personally agree with it, in termsof having open casting calls for characters that don’t have to be race-specific(e.g. for Izzy or Luke, who are racially ambiguous in the source material, butnot for Magnus or Maia, who are clearly and importantly Asian and mixed-racerespectively in the books). Because of this ethos, Shadowhunters is an incredibly diverse show.

I guess I should probably includehere that I’m a person of colour myself as a disclaimer? I of course don’tspeak for all people of colour, but that does (or should) go without saying.

I think my general opinion on raceand Shadowhunters is that I think it does racial diversity extremely well. Ithink characters of colour are given great storylines and personalities (withone slight exception that is the one that you’ve mentioned and I’ll get intothat in a minute), and I like that they are able to afford a diversity in moralcharacter and moral alignment to characters of colour that many shows cannot simply because they don’t have enough actual,well-written, non-stereotyped diversity to begin with. I also think the waycharacters of colour are positioned in the narrative is not looked at enough,and instead they are looked at in isolation and without narrative context whichleads to oversimplified and inflammatory comments regarding Shadowhunters beingracist, which I highly and heartily disagree with. No show is going to beperfect in its depiction of racial minorities, but I think Shadowhunters is oneof the best ones out there and certainly the best one I’ve ever watched.

Also, I talked about the racialallegory in Shadowhunters here and also here, so I’m not going to get intothis  on this ask, but basically I thinkthat people don’t really know what allegory means and take it way too far atface-value - in that they think it should correspond perfectly with real-life social structures, which it doesn’t - which is not the purpose of allegory, and I think people criticizingthe casting of certain roles as POC despite them being the “oppressor class” inthe allegory (which is quite a loose allegory anyway) is a bit hypocriticalseeing as I think diversity in general is more important than casting based onan allegory that is already encoded in the narrative irrespective of castingdecisions.

BUT. Let’s get into it now! I’m goingto start with some number-crunching as a fun activity to illustrate theimportance of comparison groups, because science is important guys.

In order to kinda work through thisinformation and opinions you’ve presented here (because I’d like to think I’mthe type of person to admit when I’m wrong about something), I did some very rudimentary number-crunching.Taking all the main and recurring cast members on the show as listed onWikipedia (and I included Cleophas just because I feel like some conversationsare surrounding her), I did the math using the following 26 characters(specifically non-mundane characters):

White (10): Clary, Jace, Alec, Valentine, Jocelyn, Hodge,Lydia, The Inquisitor, Blackwell, Sebastian

POC (16): Isabelle, Simon, Luke, Magnus, Raphael, Meliorn,Camille, Maryse, Robert, Dot, Pangborn, Alaric, Maia, Victor Aldertree,Cleophas, Raj

Preliminarily, there are 6 more POCcharacters in the main/recurring cast compared to white characters, so it trulyis a show that represents diversity, if nothing else. So I think that’s quitenice.

Also, in terms of broad moralalignments, 50% of the whitecharacters are depicted as clear antagonists, and every absolute antagonist (Valentine, Imogen, Sebastian) is white(the remainder are Hodge and Blackwell the henchman). The remaining 5 are goodto ambiguous.

Comparatively, out of our 16 POC,there is much more moral ambiguity as I’ve assigned it, but anyone who iseither depicted as absolutely antagonistic or as more ambiguously antagonisticcomprises of 31% of the POCcharacters, and none of them are thevillain (who are the 3 mentioned above). I included Camille, Maryse (astretch), Pangborn, Aldertree (still sorta ambiguous but mostly evil), Cleophas(again, still somewhat ambiguous). I didn’t include Raj because I labelled himas ambiguous/lawful neutral, but including him still it jumps to 37.5%, still less than the proportionof white characters who are clearly antagonistic. The remainder are (62.5% - 69%) ambiguous to good.

Of course, as I said, this is arudimentary and over-simplified analysis, but the purpose thereof is toremember that there is no claim that can really be validated without acomparison group – you can’t say that POC are disproportionately villainizedwhen you don’t account for the control proportions, which in this case would benon-POC or white people who actually have a slightly higher proportionalvillainization than do the POC characters.

But now, onto the fun stuff! Let’sactually analyze things with narrative context.

Let’s begin with the big one, whichis Isabelle and the yin fen. Like Isaid earlier, I feel like this is…not thebest plotline to give their major Latina character, overall. I’m hesitant to utterlycondemn it until I see its full arc play out, though, because I feel like wehaven’t seen enough of it for me to condemn it as fully racist (since I seethat word as being quite a weighty accusation still). The disclaimer of coursebeing that I’m not Latinx, so I would of course defer to Latinx people’sopinions first and foremost. But if I might give my opinion, I do think thereare some mitigating factors (again, depending quite a bit on how things playout).

I think the key differentiation herebetween the portrayal and the harmful stereotype is that, in terms of how it’snarratively structured, it’s very clearly an antagonistic machination againstIsabelle (on the part of Aldertree) rather than some inherent characteristic ofthe Latina Isabelle that gives her the substance abuse problems. (The latterbeing the harmful stereotype.) It’s not great, admittedly, but I think itprovides a small but not insignificant mitigation, because in this way itdoesn’t negate all of the wonderful ways in which Isabelle defies harmfulstereotypes – that this plotline does not define who she is, but rathersomething that was unfairly and deceptively doneto her. (Which I think is also a slightly better way of portraying people withsubstance abuse problems, because it’s much more true to life of addictioncompared to the more common “people with drug addictions = inherently worthlesspeople” trope).

Also, it’s not a great plotline as Ikeep saying, and I think they could have done something different with her, butI also like that she has her own autonomous storyline? Compared with seasonone, where she largely played the support system of characters like Clary andAlec. I like that we see her struggle and suffer as any main character shouldget the chance to do – and ultimately grow – because Izzy is by no meansreduced to a one-note character through this plotline, and it actuallyhighlights some of her character struggles – drug or no drug – such as herinability to admit defeat and ask for help when she needs it.

Again, these are mitigating factorsto a storyline that does play into harmful stereotypes, so I’m not saying itentirely salvages or entirely excuses it, but it’s – as usual – a bit morecomplex than “racist fucking pieces of shit!!” or “not racist shut up!!!!!”

Regarding the rest of what you’vesaid plus what a lot of other people are saying, another thing that’s importantto consider is that I think using screentime as an absolute measure ofnarrative equality is a bit of a flawed paradigm, esp. when it comes to showthat juggles a lot of mains and side characters as well. While screentimeshould absolutely be considered, I think there’s an equal weight that should begiven to a character’s place and position in the narrative, and theirsignificance thereof.

In this case, I’d like to use Luke asan example. I saw a few recent complaints about Luke not getting enoughscreentime, and I can totally respect that (and would love to see Luke get morescreentime). But I think people think that this means the show is making himirrelevant, and I just don’t see that as being the case at all? When it comesto narrative positioning, Luke is in the extremely key position that is usuallygiven to the main protag – he’s the literary foil of Valentine. I mean, that’smy interpretation – he’s the Dumbledore to Val’s Voldemort, if you will. He’smuch more the perfect foil to Valentine than either Clary or Jace, who arerepeatedly highlighted in connection – rather than in contrast – to Valentine.Thus, to the main story arc, Luke is much more significant than a characterlike, say, Alec or even Izzy, because, just as an example, Alec’s narrative andemotional involvement in the main villain arc is usually tangential, connectedto it through Jace more than anything.

That’s one example, but I feel likepeople tend to oversimplify certain notions to just “amount of screentime”which is one measure, of course, and a significant one, but not generally thewhole story.

I think that most characters ofcolour in the story are given really critical parts in terms of how they’repositioned in the narrative structure and overall plotline that I think isreally gratifying – they’re not tangential, there’s not expendable, they’re notthere to just support the white protag and then get out of there. Like Cleophasfor example, they’re given complex motivations of their own that have norelation to the white protags (like Cleophas or like Maia), and they’re alsogiven crucial, pivotal moments in the episodes.

I liked Cleophas’ position in thenarrative and I loved the struggle between Luke and Cleophas – a clash ofvalues, of ideals, a pained family history – it was just so rich anddeliciously complex to me, in a way that relationships between 2 POC are rarelyif ever depicted. Had she been straight-up evil, I think it would have beenanother story, but she was a complicated and extremely dynamic character with aset of uncompromising principles. Personally, I find all of this that much moregratifying (and not racist) than just “this character is a good person and aperson of colour this is the rep that I want and deserve” (but MUCH MORE onthis in the next section).

And then, I mean, there’s some stuffthat’s just…not … racism. Like,there’s – it’s just not. Like, I saw one person going “oh Valentine had theupper hand in the fight against Luke so that means racist” like lol if any oneof the protags could beat Valentine in a fight then he wouldn’t be a veryeffective villain now would he? That’s just being silly. Also, I saw one persongoing “oh, they made Simon and Maia’s date all about the white girl’sfeelings!! racism!!” like lol, I’d rather have Maia be like “hey man you’restill into this girl so I’m not going to let you string me along here” becausehaving Maia puppy after Simon while he’s into Clary would be a lot moredemeaning, wouldn’t it? And speaking of Clary, don’t get me started on the “lolClary is a white saviour!!” thing. Like. You keep using those words but I don’tthink they mean what you think they mean.

Furthermore and most significantly of all, as I alluded to earlier, one of the mostimportant things about POC representation is that it should not feed intostereotypes. Like, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having POC playantagonistic roles provided that (a) they are not the only antagonists and (b)that they are not playing into and supporting harmful stereotypes about thatgroup of people. Because people can shout “Representationmatters!” until they’re blue in the face, but if they don’t understand why it matters, then it makes nodifference. It matters to show young people of all colours and races that theybelong in and have an important place in the media that they consume andinteract with, and it matters to show allpeople that people of colour are as dimensional, complex, multifaceted, andimportant as white people. I think Shadowhunters accomplishes both of thosegoals amazingly well.  Again, is itperfect? Nope. Does it try? Yes. Does it accomplish a great deal? Yes. Shouldit be condemned? Not at all.

To illustrate, let me use Raj as anexample. As a South Asian myself, I’m pretty aware of how we’re stereotyped. IfRaj was like Raj (lol) from the Big Bang Theory who was shown in the narrativeto be desexualized and unattractive and socially incompetent, or a characterwho was shown to be backwards and sexist, or excessively cheap, or something like that – I’d take a hugeissue with it. I mean, those are pretty extreme to show you what I’m talkingabout, but these types of things can creep into portrayals of POC subtly butinsidiously. I think that’s why the Izzy/yin fen thing is indeed something thatcan be seen as “problematic” for sure.

But I don’t take issue with Raj’sportrayal (it’d be cool to see more of him though) because there’s no harmfulsocietally-engrained stereotype that we’re snarky or slightly unlikeable, so aDesi, mouthy, maybe somewhat insensitive half-angel warrior is not a portrayalthat I find racist or harmful in any significant way. Actually, it’s kindarefreshing. Hell, I’m snarky and significantly unlikeable,and South Asian, so Raj is like. my dude. Nor is Raj the only Shadowhuntershown to follow orders to a point that is considered immoral or “against” theprotagonists – Alec is, Lydia is, Aldertree is, Maryse and Robert are as well.

I hope that gets my point across when I say “mean character of colour”=/= “racist portrayal”. You wanna think critically, my dude. Think about aportrayal and think, “what effect isthis having that does something to support racism in any larger context outsideof this show?” and if you’re coming up blank, then….you’re probably good.

I’m most comfortable talking aboutRaj being South Asian, but we’re right up there next to the Southeast/EastAsians so let’s take Magnus as another great example. Magnus takes harmfultropes associated with South/east/East Asian men and destroys them. Rather thanbeing submissive and desexualized, he is repeatedly shown as one of (if notthe) most powerful characters on the show, and is one of the most individualistcharacters who doesn’t bow to any institution or will except his own, and he’srepeatedly shown to be extremely sexually attractive in the narrative. Not onlythat, he’s a complex and well-rounded character in many, many different wayswith a rich backstory, and he is repeatedly shown to be his own character withstories independent of his relationships with any of the other protags.

A final one I want to mention isMeliorn. As someone who was raised Muslim and comes from a Muslim family (stilla closeted atheist), I’m very sensitive to portrayals of Arab people (oftenMuslims) since they are far-and-away one of the most stereotyped as terrorists or similar such roles. But Meliornis depicted as a very peaceful, meditative, powerful being with strong earthlyconnections – and it’s just so far from any stereotype that I really appreciateit.  

That’s just a couple of examples,but, more than that, I think one of the things that is the best about how Shadowhunters portrays people of colour is one ofthe things that other people seem to use as a detractor towards it. That is,that they are all complex. I likecharacters that have complex or ambiguous moralities. I don’t want charactersof colour to all be perfect loveable angels, because the whole point of goodrepresentation to me is to show audiences that we are people.

We can be characters that could havebeen white people – that, essentially, we can play characters that are notwritten as “Asian” or “Black” or “Latin” but that are excellent,well-conceived, well-rounded, unstereotyped characters that could have easilybeen written for and played by white people, but aren’t, because POC have a right to exist in the exact same spacesas do white people. (But still and significantly – SH doesn’t ignore theexisting ethnicities of the actors they cast, having Iz, Raphael, and Simonspeak Spanish; making references to Magnus’s Southeast Asian culture andupbringing; even having Maia briefly mention the problems of police and blackyouth; and of course the allegorical implications of Downworlders.)

And that’s why I like Shadowhunters,because it executes this concept beautifully, and that’s why I will yell tillI’m blue in the face about how it’s not racist. There’s no point in over-criticizing a show that does so much good when there’s so much bad out there, in my opinion. pick your battles fam.