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mariacallous · 1 year

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Update: On March 1, Alexey Moskalev was reportedly arrested. Read more here.

In April of last year, an art teacher in Russia’s Tula region asked her sixth-grade class to draw pictures to show support for the Russian military in Ukraine. When one girl drew an anti-war image instead, the teacher immediately called the police. By the end of the following day, the Russian FSB and child protective services were involved. Now, the student’s single father is facing felony charges, and the student herself is at risk of being sent to live in a shelter.

A resident of Russia’s Tula region is facing felony charges of “discrediting” the Russian army because his sixth-grade daughter made an anti-war drawing in a school art class, according to the independent outlets Spektr and OVD-Info.

Until recently, 54-year-old Alexey Moskalev was a bird breeder in the town of Yefremov, where he was raising his daughter, Masha, on his own. Masha’s mother moved to a different city when her daughter was three years old.

In April 2022, during an art lesson, Masha’s teacher asked the class to draw pictures in support of Russia’s troops in Ukraine. Masha proceeded to draw a Russian flag with the words “No to war” on it, as well as a Ukrainian flag that read “Glory to Ukraine.” The drawing also showed missiles flying from the Russian side towards a woman and her child on the Ukrainian side.

“[After that], the teacher ran to the [school] director, who called the police,” Alexey recounted.

The art teacher immediately threatened my daughter, so when the officers came and were waiting for Masha at the [school] entrance, asking all of the students their first and last names, my daughter immediately realized what was going on. She managed to slip through: she gave a fake name. She came running home, out of breath, and said, ‘Dad, the police almost caught me — I drew a picture!’ She was scared, and I promised that the next day, I would come to her school and wait for her until her classes were over.

The next day, as promised, Alexey came to Masha’s school and waited in the hallway for her. According to him, however, when the school director saw him there, she called the police, who came to the school along with officials from child protective services. The officials took Masha out of her classes and took her, along with her father, to the local police chief. After interrogating Alexey, the officers charged him with “discrediting” the Russian army for posts and comments he had made on social media. He was fined 32,000 rubles (about $430) for a comment that read, “The Russian army. The rapists right next to us.”

That evening, Masha told her father that she was afraid to go to school. He assured her there was nothing to worry about, and she ended up going the following morning. Soon after, Alexey received a call from someone at the school, who told him that Masha had been taken by FSB officers and that he needed to report to the school immediately. “I got dressed and rushed there. I was met by FSB officers. I asked, ‘Where’s my daughter?’ They responded that she was being interviewed in the next office over. For three and a half hours, they told me that I’m raising my daughter incorrectly; they said they were going to take her from me and put me in jail,” said Alexey.

After that, Masha stopped going to school. Then, on the day before New Year’s Eve, police showed up at the family’s home with a search warrant.

On the morning of December 30, I received a call at 7:30 a.m. They mumbled something [unintelligible] on the phone. I was getting ready to go to work. I leaned out the window and was shocked: there were three police cars around our building, two more vehicles on the side, and an Emergency Services Ministry vehicle and firetruck a bit further away. About 12 people. FSB officers and a few police officers got out of the vehicles and started towards the entrance to our building. They had an angle grinder. I immediately knew they were coming for us.

According to Alexey, the officers threw things from the family’s shelves onto the floor, ripped hanging pictures from the walls, and flipped their furniture over. They took 123,000 rubles ($1,655) and $3,150, all of the family’s savings, and took a photo of Masha’s anti-war drawing. They then took Masha to a shelter and Alexey to the FSB office to be interrogated. There, Alexey told journalists, the officers beat his “head against the wall and against the floor” before leaving him in the interrogation room for two and a half hours with the Russian national anthem playing at full volume.

When Alexey began to feel sick, medical workers were called in. “After that, [the FSB officers] showed me a comment my daughter had left on VKontakte: on a post about how ‘our children are dying selflessly [in Ukraine],’ Masha wrote, ‘And how much are they dying for? Two hundred thousand [rubles] a month, or a little more?’” said Alexey.

That same day, the authorities opened a criminal case against Alexey for “discrediting” the Russian army. Because he had previously been convicted of a misdemeanor for committing the same offense less than a year earlier, he’s now facing felony charges, according to his lawyer, Vladimir Biliyenko, who spoke to OVD-Info.

Alexey wasn’t released from the FSB office until later that evening, when he was given a summons to appear at the police station on January 9. The next day, he was able to retrieve Masha from the children’s shelter, and the two left Yefremov. Spektr and OVD-Info didn’t specify where the family is currently located.

Alexey is facing up to three years in prison. His biggest worry, he said, is that if he’s arrested or sentenced to jail time, Masha may be sent back to a state institution (Alexey said he has “no faith” in her other relatives). Lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko said that as a single father, Alexey will likely be able to avoid prison time. “But if the officers decide to be stubborn — our justice system often gives in to what they want — they might put him in prison and send his daughter to an orphanage,” Biliyenko added.

Masha’s situation is far from the first case of legal pressure against a Russian child who doesn’t support the war against Ukraine. According to OVD-Info, criminal cases were opened against eight minors for anti-war statements in 2022. But the total number of students who have faced bullying, harassment, and legal persecution for opposing the war is unknown.

Alexey Moskalev, a single father who became the target of a felony case after his daughter got in trouble at school for drawing an anti-war picture in art class, has been arrested, the independent outlet Spektr reported on Wednesday, citing a person who knows the family.

According to Spektr, police searched the family’s home before arresting Moskalev, and his daughter, Masha, is now home alone. The outlet also reported that police visited the home of a volunteer who has been helping support the family.

Moskalev has previously expressed fears that his arrest could cause his daughter to be sent to live in a shelter.

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madllamamomma · 1 year

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To all that it may concern:

Hi. It’s me, ya Mad Llama Momma.

Yes. It’s been a very long time, and I am sorry.

Since the start of this year I have been unfortunately going through, well, a lot. Mentally and physically.

Now that I am where I am today, in January of 2023, I see that I was at an all time low and just didn’t know it. 2022 was a year of me kick staring my healing journey of my mind, body and soul. And let me tell you it has NOT been easy. Between new multiple physicians and even going through two therapist (holistic therapy was kinda a joke for me personally), a liver surgery scare, coming to realized that I had an eating disorder, and stopped drinking because of said liver surgery scare, it has been a fucking exhausting year. (Note: I had a kind of contusion on my liver from some unknown trauma 🤷‍♀️. Yeah, my doctor didn’t even have a clue.)

Turning 30 also was very mind boggling to me, and I literally mourned my 20s for almost half the year and was crying about the fact I wasn’t where I thought I’d be by now.

I wanted to be knee deep in a blossoming career and making the world brighter and better. As last month, I officially quit my job and do not have plan to go back to the medical field at all.

I wanted to be wearing a size 12-14 and somewhat fit. But I’m currently a size 22 and the biggest and most out of shape and unhealthy that I’ve ever been.

I wanted to be a mother by now. But due to my overall health, it just wasn’t in the cards at that point.

I feel like all of our young lives we are told that we are supposed to be in a certain place by a certain age or we are failures, freeloaders, lazy, etc. But I’m coming to terms that this isn’t true and that 20s aren’t the official end of my fun youth nor the end of my life.

This entire year also sparked something in me. Sometimes we need to think hard about where we are at in our lives and evaluate if it was even worth it. Sometimes, things happens and makes us question who we really are and makes us think if we really are truly happy.

I realized I was using the Arcana and my fanfics to heavily disassociate and a way for me to escape our crazy world and in a very unhealthy way. It was great when it was working, but when it wasn’t, all my depression and anxiety came flooding in without any remorse, and I couldn’t even muster myself to write anymore despite having so many ideas.

I am happy to say that I’ve been in regular therapy session, I started ceramics again (where I make a lot of crazy sub par mugs and other functional pottery), my liver is almost all the way healed, I started back to yoga, and I’ve been losing weight safely for my health.

After being restricted all of my young life, I am feeling like I have been able to be my most authentic self than I have ever been and I feel like for the first time in my life, and I am finally thriving. I was afraid of entering my 30s feeling lost and feeling bad that I wasn’t a hot young 20 something year old, but instead I’m entering an era where I am focusing on me. And it feels great. It feels amazing.

I have a lovely husband who is my best friend and soulmate and that loves me and supports me, I have a wonderful set of found family that loves me for me and never ask me to change or to be anyone else other than myself, I feel like I can be creative without being restricted. And it feels great. I’m figuring myself out and I am so happy I am able to do it.

(TL;DR) For all the people out there who feels stuck, who feel like they can’t be themselves, who feel like nothing is ever going to change—please just know, it does get better. People are out there to help you, people who want you to be your best self. Sometimes it takes medication, sometimes it takes lengthy therapy sessions, sometimes it takes putting up boundaries with your family and limited the time you spend with them, and sometimes it takes just you admitting that you need help.

Please don’t give up on your healing journeys even if you family doesn’t support you. Please don’t think you are alone.

Please. Please. Do not give up.

Happy New Years my lovely hungry trash pandas,

❤️

Your Mother Llama.

#the arcana #the arcana game #madllamamomma #the real life #happy new year #get motivated #get help #please share #love your momma llama

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trumpetnista · 11 months

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CMW2/Trumpetnista: Where I’ve Been and Where I’m Going

Hi, everyone! It's been a long time. I want to let you all know that I'm okay. I know that proof of me still being around has been here since I still do my weekly Wednesday posts and calendar posts. I also updated my Profile after I turned 30 (holy shit, I’m 30! I’ve been on here since 2010!) but I haven't posted like this in a very long time. I still love writing and that my stories haven't been abandoned despite what it looks like. Things in my life have changed significantly, which I’m finally ready to go into detail about for myself and for people who have been wondering what happened to me, if there are even people who were wondering to begin with. I hope so. This is a very long post so I’m gonna put a READ MORE after the lighthearted part so you guys don’t have to read a wall of pretty grim text. TLDR: despite many, many things that have changed in my life, I’ll be returning to writing on FFN, AO3 (when it gets fixed), and posting chapters/fics from there here very soon. I’m making this post to help me keep this promise. I’ll be updating stories, finishing stories, and writing new ones so if you’re interested, please stick around on here, follow me on FFN/AO3 (CMW2), and on Twitter (Trumpetnista) to stay up to date. Thanks for all the years of support and friendship. I love you all. Have a good one!

REASON FOR MY ABSENCE #1: In September 2022, I had a psychotic break and I was hospitalized for a week. At the time, I was drinking heavily and vaping cannabis to the point of addiction and lung damage. The vaping started as pain management for fibromyalgia but quickly snowballed into self medicating. During my time in the hospital, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 which is Bipolar with Mania, which explains so much. It explains a lot of my behavior as a child that I was shamed and punished for. It explains how I approach my relationships with my family and the few friends I have online and IRL. Most of all, it explains my way of approaching fandom. It explains a lot about where my previous energy came from when it came to producing content.

I was not only genuinely passionate about my fandoms and ships (which I still am!) but looking back on things, a lot of the time, I was in Mania and I didn't have the meds or the professional mental support I needed. I knew that I had depression and anxiety. I knew that I struggled and still struggle with suicide ideation. I knew that fibromyalgia had a negative effect on my mental health and cited that as the reason for my writing slowing down, which I explained in my previous MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR on my FFN profile, which I’ll be updating with this first part of this text post for my friends/readers on there but I didn’t know what was happening to me. I knew something wasn’t right in my head but I wrote it off as what I just listed above and as another effect of the grief I felt from losing one of my baby sisters from brain cancer in 2016. Fortunately, I already had a therapist and a psychiatrist so it was only a matter of finding the correct medications and adjusting my cognitive behavior therapy to deal with my condition.

I used writing as a way to vent about what I was frustrated about in fandom and in real life (which you probably already knew from my patented rambling Author’s Notes, LMAO!) and as escapism, which is good in moderation. I didn’t have any moderation so I stopped altogether. Now that my treatment is going well and I’ve learned to have middle gears instead going from 0 to 100, I want to return to writing. It’s still a coping mechanism for the chaos in my life but it’s no longer a crutch. Plus, I really want to finish/update some of my stories that haven’t been touched for years at this point. I also have new ideas for old fandoms that I’ve returned to, new fandoms, and ideas for impending content.

REASON #2 FOR MY ABSENCE: I have been in the process of deprogramming myself from being raised in a Cult. From the age of 8 to when the pandemic hit, I was part of the Jehovah's Witnesses. You'd never know it through my writing/tweeting or how I behaved when I was in my later years of schooling/with my fandom friends, which I'll get back to in a minute.

In my heart of hearts, I always knew that what I was learning and doing was wrong. For every thing that made sense, there were several things that didn’t. Plus, my social anxiety made the preaching work that JWs are known for downright unbearable to do to the point of me stopping except for the bare minimum. I didn't get solid proof that what I believed was wrong until my older sister and almost all of my younger siblings left in 2020. When I asked them why, I found out about the long time corruption in highest parts of the organization. There's greed, fraud, and large scale emotional manipulation through teachings, not from the Bible but teachings that came from propaganda. Typical Cult things. I was very upset but willing to learn more because like I said, deep down, I had a feeling that how I was living was wrong. What was my breaking point, what made me immediately leave without looking back, was finding out just how they feel about the safety of children from predators.

I watched To Catch a Predator Live when I was a child and ever since, I've had a zero tolerance for people who manipulate and abuse children for their own gratification. I have even less tolerance for those who cover for them instead of turning them in to the proper authorities. Naively, I thought that the sort of behavior that's been exposed in other religions/Cults wasn't a part of the Jehovah's Witnesses but I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. They indoctrinate those inside to forgive those who have done the heinous things because God demands it. For those outside, they just have really good PR in North America to keep their sickening ways mostly under wraps (which is thankfully changing to catch up with other regions) and a lot of those victimized by the Cult are shamed/threatened into silence whether they leave or not. Those who speak out after leaving are dismissed as nothing more than apostates.

It's not apostasy. It's The Truth, which ironically is what the witnesses call their teachings. People inside aren't rebelling and leaving just to cause trouble. It’s not “an attack on God’s People from Satan’s System of Things”. People are realizing that they've been manipulated and are escaping from a toxic environment, even when it costs them so many relationships, familial and social.

The only sibling that remains in the Cult is my autistic sister and I’m working on finding a way to get her out without destroying her mental health in the process. She is thoroughly indoctrinated and even in the face of all the evidence, I’m unsure if she’d actually listen. She may dismiss it all as apostasy and cut all of us off or she may become so devastated that her life would be in danger. She’s 24 years old and despite how our parents treat her, she’s not a baby nor is she stupid. She loves to do deep research on the things that interest her and the Cult is part of that. Eventually, she’ll stumble upon the information the rest of us have and she’ll have to make a decision. I’m hoping for the best but I’m prepared to get her through the worst. I’m not just her big sister, I’m her Caregiver and I will do my best to get her through when the time comes.

Another major thing that made me walk away from the JWs was the blatant homophobia. Even when I considered myself one of them, I never understood why they were so hateful and judgemental towards those who are part of The Alphabet. For as much they preached about showing love to all people, I didn't understand why they put such a big asterisk. I didn’t understand why. It didn’t make any sense. I hated hearing their views. I didn’t agree with them, even when I displayed ignorance, so I made a point not to behave like that in my interactions with LGBTQ+ individuals. I wanted to be a geuninely good person. I wanted to support my friends and family that trusted me enough to come out to me. I even said when they asked why I wasn’t cutting them off and I quote: “as many things that are wrong with me, I have no business judging anyone else.”

Plus, I myself am bisexual (and demisexual). I am. I am part of The Alphabet and I will no longer feel ashamed or embarassed about my identity. JWs are homophobic and it’s paired with purity culture so for years and years, I felt confused. I felt unnatural. I felt guilty. I felt like I had to hide who I was. I never want to feel that way again. Learning that the JWs were a Cult and just as corrupt as the other organized religions I wanted nothing to do with was my way out and my way Out.

I am free and even though it’s been difficult at times, I am so glad that I no longer have to pretend to be someone I’m not to please people who genuinely don’t give a shit about me. I’m being who I’ve always been online and in fandom from the age of 15. I’m being the person I was at school back in 2007-2011, who was the true me. A lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses kids give themselves the freedom to be themselves at school, which the Cult calls ‘living a double life’.

What’s made things easier for me in my deprogramming journey is that I’m not starting from scratch. I am so grateful for that. I’m grateful that I had people outside of the bubble I was in during junior high-high school to show me reality. I’m grateful that I had people to push me to do normal things like NHS and both sitdown and marching band. I’m grateful that I had people who accepted me for who I really was, even when I occaisonally felt guilty for my behavior. Ironically, the fictional worlds and fandom culture with attached friendships that I’ve been a part of this whole time prepared me for my current reality.

I still struggle with things like celebrating my birthday but I’m in a much better place than a lot of former JWs. I didn’t have any close friends in the Cult and the people in charge left me alone. I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities and I wasn’t held up as an example for people to follow. All I had to do was stop going to meetings and preaching (which was such a relief to let go of) before telling my immediate family, which was the only fear I had. I was afraid of losing them because the doctrine says that you’re supposed to cut off people who leave, even if they’re family. I already went into detail about my siblings and their relationship with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even though one of them is still involved, the bond between us all is stronger than the doctrine. I’m so happy to be able to say that. Not many people who leave can.

Now, let’s talk about my parents who have accepted the fact that most of us are Gone but I want to talk about them anyway because it factors into what’s going on with me.

Plus, as you’ve picked up by now, this post is both an announcement to friends/followers and the first of likely many journal entries. The majority of the journal entries are gonna be private with READ MOREs and DNIs so you can avoid them because they’re gonna be pretty grim 98% of the time.

My father has been a staunch believer for decades but recently, his health has taken a turn for the worse. In March 2023, he had complications from undiagnosed congestive heart failure. After being treated, he was transferred to a nursing home that neglected him to the point of him getting bedsores. One of the bedsores became a nasty open wound due to him being diabetic, leading to him needing a colostomy bag to prevent the wound from being infected further. He is currently bedbound and some of the procedures he’s gone through to save his life have gone directly against the JWs doctrines. Blood transfusions are against the doctrine but my mother has given him blood to save his life. Not to mention that very few people who claimed to be his friends have actually visited him in the facilities he’s been in. And those very few people have no idea about the blood transfusions because if they did, it’s likely that they’d heavily condemn him for accepting them. All he has at the end of the day is us.

Ideally, this situation would be a wake up call but my father is a narcissist. He’s never been able to admit when he’s wrong and there’s also the sunken cost fallacy. The JWs got into contact with him and my mother in the 80s and they’ve structured their whole lives around the doctrine. They gave him a family and a Community he lacked due to a bad childhood with a shitty mother in name only, no father, and a delinquent younger brother. They latched onto his vulnerability and gave him purpose. They also provided him with a steady source of people for him to be a narcissist with because for every person he’s alienated, inside and outside the Cult, there have been plenty of people to replace them. Accepting that the Witnesses are corrupt means admitting that he was wrong this whole time. It means that he’d have to accept that he as the Provider failed his wife and children in the worst way. It means that he’d have to be humble and get actual help for his years of trauma plus his narcissism. From what I’ve seen and heard over the years, it’s clear that he would rather die than do that. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong.

My mother’s situation is different. She is physically disabled and has been for years. She is diabetic and she is morbidly obese, as was my father before his recent illness. She’s been in a codependent relationship with my father for over 40 years and she is also a narcissist. It’s a hell of a combination. She’s basically followed my father’s lead this whole time while eventually alienating people, leaving her circle of friends to those within the Cult. I would have the same resignation for her that I have for my father, except for one major thing. Thanks to Ancestry. com, my older sister found her birth mother who had been looking for her for years. She’s gone from being an only child orphan to having a mother again and she now is the oldest of 5 siblings and counting. None of them have any connection to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and never have. They had normal lives with normal childhoods. Most of all, all of them are showing her unconditional love, which is something that she’s never experienced before. Not from her adoptive parents. Not from my father. Not from anyone.

My mother has not only been given a family outside the one she created with my father (and we all love her dearly. We really do, even with our ongoing frustrations with her...) but she has been given a way out of the Cult. She’s no longer isolated. Plus, Dad falling ill so quickly has forced her out of the bubble she’s been in since she stopped working back in 1999. She was told to stay home and raise us, which she honestly did not do. While Dad was at work, she shifted the day to day parenting responsibilities of the younger kids to myself and my older sister. Another thing that’s forcing her out of the bubble is all of us enforcing boundaries against her narcissism and learned helplessness.

We love her dearly but we are tired. Dad getting sick has shaken up all of our worlds. We emphasize with her but it’s come to a point where we can’t take much more, which is where her family comes in. Them being outside of the situation provides perspective that we haven’t been able to have. Through that perspective and the love that all of them are showing her, Mom is slowly (and I do mean slowly...) reaching out for professional help for her years of trauma. She has a therapist now and hopefully, that will lead to a psychiatrist that will give her proper medication because I am 98% sure that she is Bipolar as well. A lot of her behavior mirrors mine from before I was diagnosed and it had to come from somewhere.

In the process of getting professional help, through connecting with her biological family, and while dealing with what’s happened to Dad, I believe that she’s breaking away from the JWs. I honestly think that the only reason she’s stayed as long as she has is because she was following Dad’s lead. She may believe herself but since he’s been hospitalized, she has stopped going to the meetings. She’s stopped preaching and she’s been giving Dad blood, which again is directly against the JW’s doctrine. If she truly believed, she wouldn’t have done it. At least that’s the way I’m looking at things. I hope I’m right.

To wrap this post up and to give a TL:DR, I just want to say that my return to writing is a part of my healing journey. And my return to writing is for Me. I’m truly putting myself first for the first time in my life and part of putting myself first is giving myself permission to fully enjoy the things I love without guilt or hesitation. Thank you for reading.

#personal #LiveLoveWRITE #fandom blog #journal entry #trumpetnista #cmw2 #a return to writing is imminent #internet friends are real friends!#i HEART all of y'all!#family #deprogramming #ex jehovah's witness #mental illness #bipolar 1 #family dynamics #reunited family #healing from trauma

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 1 year

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The incredible rise of guitar hero Sophie Lloyd: from YouTube covers to Machine Gun Kelly

Sophie Lloyd has gone from playing Avenged Sevenfold covers in her teenage band to working with Matt Heafy and Machine Gun Kelly

It was during a show in August 2022 at the FirstEnergy Stadium in Ohio, home to the Cleveland Browns NFL team, in front of 41,000 people, that Sophie Lloyd knew she was doing something right. She was playing guitar for US pop-punk/tabloid star Machine Gun Kelly, when he brought four fans onstage. One of them was a girl, who ran right past him to gift Sophie a cap.

“It was such a cool moment!” Sophie grins today. “I was on my knees jamming with her. It was one of my favourite moments of the tour – and I still have that hat.”

That tour was in support of Machine Gun Kelly’s sixth album, Mainstream Sellout, and encompassed some of the US and Europe’s biggest venues. Before Sophie joined his band, she hadn’t even played to 1,000 people before. At least, not in person.

Sophie is part of a generation of YouTube guitarists – players showing off their chops online, building a following via a combination of covers, original songs, tuition and personality. She has 869,000 subscribers, and is unique in making that leap to IRL stardom in arenas. Some old-school gatekeepers might argue she hasn’t paid her dues, but she stresses she’s put in many hours of practice, and it took eight years before her channel made any money.

“Anyone who thinks it’s easy to get big on YouTube clearly fucking doesn’t know shit,” she says. “I get what they’re saying, in a way… people who’ve been in broken-down vans, and slept in the ‘roach coach’ where there’s roaches climbing everywhere, for a gig that’s paying you £30 – I get it. And I did elements of that when I was growing up. But the world has changed now – you either need to evolve with it and become successful with it, or you’re just stuck in your ways and you’re complaining about it. We want to be inspiring these young people growing up and creating, we don’t want to be bashing them down.”

Sophie’s sitting in her living room this afternoon, in front of a towering scratching post, as cats Luna and Jaxx run around. Behind that, boyfriend Chris Painter, her co-writer, drummer and sometimes videographer, is on the sofa on a laptop. She speaks with the kind of smiling, chatty confidence you see in her videos, clear and assured but not afraid to show vulnerability.

Her introduction to heavy music came from her dad, a data scientist, who would play Rory Gallagher, Joe Bonamassa, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in the car. At age nine, she took a few lessons in classical guitar, but it didn’t really land. It was seeing an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants – yes, really – soon after that inspired her to pick up an electric guitar.

“People have these really cool backstories and I’m like, ‘Fuck, mine was an episode of SpongeBob’, she laughs. “It’s when they cover the Twisted Sister song I Wanna Rock, and it’s like [she sings] ‘I’m a goofy goober, rock!’ with lasers shooting out of guitars. I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so awesome. That’s what I wanna do.’”

Falling in love with electric guitar, she got big into emo and punk, alongside guitar virtuosos Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. The problem was, there weren’t many heavy music fans in her gentile hometown of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and she felt like an outcast.

“I dressed like a proper rocker,” she explains. “I had the undersides of my hair dyed black, and I would wear studded bracelets. Which doesn’t sound too extreme, but in Henley-on-Thames, it’s like, ‘Who the hell is this Satan worshipper?!’ And I felt like I didn’t really connect. I didn’t have anyone to go to gigs with. I’d go with my dad, and he’d be there in his suit in the back row, while I’m moshing in the front. I wish I’d had people to share that stuff with.”

Instead, Sophie spent a lot of time alone. While everyone else was hanging out at lunchtime, she’d go to the school’s music room. While they went to parties, she would stay home and practise songs. Between the ages of 13-17, she became withdrawn. “It was kind of like a dark time, I guess?” she remembers. “But at the same time, you look back and you’re like, ‘I’m so grateful that happened’, because that’s where my inspiration and creativity really grew.”

During that period, she also joined her first band, The Hidden Truth, via the website Joinmyband.com. Their first set included covers by Chelsea Grin, Parkway Drive, Avenged Sevenfold and Black Veil Brides. “We were awful,” she laughs. “But that was a fun time. It was the first time I’d been around other musicians, and discovered the love of playing music.”

Like her dad, Sophie excelled in science, and landed a scholarship to study Forensic Science at Sussex. But just before she was meant to start, she got the feeling something was wrong, and made a snap decision to apply to music school BIMM London, where she’d spend the next four years.

It was another tough time for Sophie who, desperate to get good grades, doggedly studied genres she wasn’t interested in, such as gypsy jazz, rather than playing the metal she loved – all while in a “bad relationship” with someone who didn’t want her to pursue music at all. When they broke up after her second year, she started therapy and antidepressants, leading to a change in mindset. Rather than worrying about her academic performance, she loosened up and applied her new knowledge to her rock playing – and still got a First.

“I was like, ‘Right, I’m gonna take home all this stuff that I’m learning around different genres, and play it through a distortion amp to a rock backing track and see how it sounds,’” she says. “I started writing and honing in on my particular sound. Although they felt like some of the worst times, I was sort of born again. Sorry, that got a bit deep!”

Although Sophie never had a career path in mind, she’s thrived on YouTube, uploading her “shred versions” of songs by artists ranging from Iron Maiden and Killswitch Engage to Britney Spears and Dua Lipa, alongside vlogs about everything from pedals to performance anxiety. She started her channel in 2012 at age 16, hoping to meet likeminded people, and went full time with it after BIMM while working a side job at dessert restaurant Creams (“I don’t mean to brag, but I make amazing sundaes!” she laughs).

Early YouTuber inspirations were Andy James, then guitarist of Sacred Mother Tongue and now in Five Finger Death Punch, alongside personable general creators such as danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil. For Sophie, YouTube isn’t just about guitar playing, it’s about relatability. When she arrived in the States for the MGK tour, she filmed herself lying in bed, crying, nervous and homesick.

“I want people to see it’s not just all rock’n’roll. We’re all humans, we all go through shit. Sometimes you can look at social media and be like, ‘Everything’s perfect for this person’, but I think it’s important to break that wall down and be like, ‘Well, it’s not always sunshine and roses,’” she explains.

The tour was a leap for Sophie, who had only played small gigs with The Hidden Truth, a few bands at uni, and her last venture, Marisa And The Moths. She’d messaged MGK two years earlier on a whim, saying, ‘If you ever need a guitarist, hit me up!’ – and there he was in her DMs in April 2022, looking for a live guitarist. After a FaceTime meeting with him and his team, she learned the songs within a month.

“I was fucking terrified, because it’s such a different thing that I didn’t even really know if I wanted to do it. I didn’t know if I’d like it,” she admits. “But I always try to live my life with the mantra, ‘What would make the best story’? And I thought I’d just give it a go. If it fails, at least I’ve got a funny story to tell at the pub on a Friday night, you know? Ha ha ha!”

Growing up on YouTube rather than ‘paying her dues’ the old-fashioned way had left Sophie with a bad case of imposter syndrome that she’d long been battling before this tour.

“I was like, ‘I’ve come through this such unique avenue. Do I deserve to be at this level when I haven’t gone that traditional route?’ But I think your journey’s your journey. And I think you’ve just got to try and shake that,” she says. “You shouldn’t have any shame about what you’ve done to get to where you are, because at the end of the day everyone works to be where they are, and if they’re there, they’re there for a reason.”

Luckily, her nerves evaporated as soon as she stepped onstage for the first date in Austin, Texas. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is what I’m meant to be doing,’” she smiles.

Sophie’s willingness to be in the public eye was tested when a baseless rumour started circulating in the media that MGK had cheated on his fiancée, actress Megan Fox, with her. To get some downtime, the guitarist and her boyfriend retreated to her parents’ house, where they were doorstopped by a reporter. Meanwhile, Megan stepped in to dispel the rumours, calling Sophie “insanely talented”.

“Yeah, that was wild!” she exclaims, calmly but with disbelief. “I never thought I’d be in some sort of internet scandal. The week it happened, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for five years, and we just had our anniversary. It felt like a step back for women in the industry, in a way. Where just because there’s a girl in the band, they automatically become the homewrecker, when it’s like, ‘I’m just doing my job.’ I was annoyed and I didn’t want girls to see that.”

At the start of the pandemic, Sophie and boyfriend Chris began working on her debut album, candidly titled Imposter Syndrome. Following on from her Satriani-influenced instrumental Delusions EP in 2018, and inspired by Slash’s 2010 self-titled debut solo record, it features an array of guest vocalists, including her former bandmate Marisa, Nathan James from Inglorious, Trivium’s Matt Heafy and more to be announced.

“The album is so full-circle,” says Sophie. “I’ve gone from being scared to even do a live performance online – that’s why I started my Twitch in 2021, to try and start doing live stuff to feel less like an imposter – to playing Wembley Arena live. It’s a cool story.”

She plans to tour Imposter Syndrome next year, and then carry on with YouTube, Twitch, Patreon and whatever else comes up, in an era where artists need multiple revenue streams to survive, and on a mission to “bring shred guitar into the mainstream”. In the long run, she’d like to open an animal sanctuary. For now, she’s happy she’s been able to reach so many people – especially young women, like the one at the Ohio show.

“Everything I do, I do with the thought of my 15-year-old self watching,” she says. “I’m making my YouTube channel for that girl. That’s the same with my album. I wrote it with the idea of, ‘What would that girl wanna listen to?’ or ‘What would be inspiring for her?’ I wanna make that depressed little metalhead child happy and make her smile.”

#sophie lloyd #2023 interviews

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spn-fanfic-reblog-writes · 2 years

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I posted 2,655 times in 2022

That's 2,655 more posts than 2021!

88 posts created (3%)

2,567 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@deancasmistletoekiss

@deanandkastiel

@impala-dreamer

@justjensenanddean

@imaginethatsupernatural

I tagged 971 of my posts in 2022

#supernatural - 388 posts

#dean winchester - 316 posts

#to be read list - 208 posts

#destiel - 205 posts

#spn - 200 posts

#castiel - 186 posts

#sam winchester - 140 posts

#deancas - 125 posts

#jib12 - 106 posts

#jensen ackles - 88 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#disguising trash quality screencaps with the plastic wrap filter to try to make them look 'storybook' instead of just grainy? it's what i do

My Top Posts in 2022:

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find Dean with his arm wrapped around you. A welcoming surprising pleasure that leaves you curious. You wonder why he is even here. You didn’t go to bed with him in your bed.

Shrugging, you’re taking advantage of the situation and turn into him to snuggle. He quietly groans and lays on his back dragging you on to his chest, partially. Smiling, you place your hands on his chest and turn your head on its side to listen to his heartbeat. Closing your eyes, you sigh contently and rub your face on his chest loving his natural smell. His other hand rubs your back which causes you to tense and confuse you.

Did he wake up? You lift your head and look at him, despite the darkness, the little bit of light from the hallway peaks through from under the door.

“Are you awake?” You whisper.

A sudden chuckle is felt then heard. “Yes,” he whisper back in a deep and sleepy voice.

“Did I wake you?”

“I’m a light sleeper. Everything wakes me.”

“Is this ok?” You ask, suddenly wondering if you remaining on his chest is ok or not.

You can hear the smile on his face as he says, “Yes.”

You lay your head back down.

Dean continues rubbing your back with one hand and having his other arm across your lower back.

I could get used this, you think to yourself.

42 notes - Posted July 28, 2022

Day 15: Laugh(ter)

Jared walks on to set and sees Jensen just laugh-hissing. He looks around for Misha. Jensen only laughs like this when Misha tells a (dad) joke or story.

A few scenes later, Jared cannot help but point out…

See the full post

45 notes - Posted September 15, 2022

Hi, dear!

First of all, happy birthday again! 🥳 Hope you're having a great day 🤗

Second, for your birthday challenge, I chose the characters Reader and Dean Winchester, and prompts 25, 30 and 44.

Can't wait to read what you'll come up with 😁

❤

Thanks for the request! You’re the third one! Yay!

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Prompts:

25. Do you want me to stop?

30. If something were to happen to you… I don’t think I could take it

44. I might have slept with your robe while you were gone (Sorry!)

Magic dust

WC: ~3K

Warning: fluff. Smut. NSFW. 18+

Author Note: I chose to make them: Plus Size!F!Reader. I hope that is ok? Third one! Yay! I hope you like it. Tenses charged are an issue. Enjoy!

Author Note #2: I apologize. It’s supposed to be a drabble and went much longer. I wasn’t able to get the third one in but when I have more time, might see about doing a part 2. This was fun!

Y/N knew the brothers first by reputation then introduced by Bobby a few years back when she ran into a pair of lamias. The hunt ended well and Y/N enjoyed the craziness of the case with them as they did with her, so they have remained in contact since.

It had been months since Y/N and the Winchesters had hunted together. She had picked up a weird case in a typical suburban area that she couldn’t put her finger on, so she gave up after two weeks and called them for help.

They drove in and met at her hotel room. When they came up to the third floor and knocked, having seen your old Ford Escape was there, but Y/N didn’t answer. They exchanged a look between them and Dean pounded on the door as Sam called you. Still silent except for your ringtone coming from inside the room—one that Dean had recommended for their ringtone of Metallica he liked. Dean moved to the side and drew his gun as Sam backed up doing the same and then kicked the door in.

Y/N laid across the closest queen size bed to the door. A small open box fell on to the bed next to her. Dean ran up to and kept beside her to check her pulse, “She good.” Sam with his gun at the ready checked the small hotel room, “All clear.” He went and closed the door while Dean checked her out.

She was in a pale pink tank top and blue jeans tucked into calf-high black boots. Sam quickly searched in the closet and under the bed and drawers, “Dean.” A hex bag in his hand and anger began to cross his features. He opened and tore up the bag then trashed it.

Dean looked very confused at the bag then at Sam and motioned for him to look at her, “Y/N has pink stuff on her.”

Sam looked at him, “What?” He leaned over her and looked carefully, a fine pink powder dusted much of her face and neck. He saw a pen on the nightstand and took it using it like a stick to turn the box upright. “Whatever it is, it was in the box,” Sam stated.

Dean glanced at the box then back to Y/N. “Maybe after cleaning it off, she’ll wake up?” Dean questioned out loud and moved to the bathroom before Sam could reply to get a wet washcloth. He returned with a warm, wet washcloth and a dry one and started gently to wipe her face and neck off.

Y/N began to stir, her eyebrows slightly furrowed and with a quietly sleepy voice she said , “Stop” as she tried to move her face from the washcloth. She attempted to lift her hands but struggled. Dean smirked at her reaction thinking it was cute. “You got whammied, Y/N.” He said as he wiped where he had removed the powder with the dry washcloth. Her eyes fluttered for a few seconds. When she finally opened her eyes and saw Dean’s face, she smiled brightly at him, “Hey.”

See the full post

93 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

I saw this gif and saved it but can’t find the damned post again. Someone explain this to me?

Jensen is like ya and wanna kiss, then Misha is like oh me too and Ruth is like haha; caught that.

When and where was this? Is there a clearer gif or video?

This is the first time I’d actually believe cockles being potentially real.

104 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

👆This looks just like this 👇

And I just learned this is the straddlegate hashtag that I’ve periodically see .

333 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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oldhousenewsoul · 7 months

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Heat Pump, Part 1 | Installing a Daikin VRV Life Multi-Zone Heat Pump

When we bought the house, it came with unbelievable energy bills: $300-400 electric bills in the height of summer, $300-400 gas bills in the height of winter.

As we got to know the house, we realized it had four separate HVAC systems, the majority of which were mid-grade AC with natural gas furnaces. With the house renovated several times over its life to expand it, these were all done piecemeal, without any regard for energy efficiency.

The front house had 6.5 tons of cooling and 180k BTU of heating across three units - way too much for the approximately two thousand square feet!

The master bedroom had a 15 year old unit with mold present on it and the guest & den's unit was a decade old with some of the duct work chewed through by mice.

I had lived in an apartment building with Daikin heat pump system and experienced $20-30 cooling and heating bills in the peak of summer and winter — something that was unheard of growing up in Atlanta!

With two of the three front units in need of replacement, and as I read more about heat pumps and passive house, I convinced the family to make the leap.

We got quotes from two contractors to install a multi-zone Daikin VRV Life heat pump. In this new system, we'd have one condenser running all of the loads for the front house zones.

After much back and forth, we landed on this:

We had issues with the kitchen being too hot in the summer, so we broke the prior 3-ton unit into two different zones. We added a furnace to make sure we could "keep up" when it got bitterly cold, although looking back on it I'm not sure that we needed such a large one.

The three outdoor units totaling 6.5 tons now turned into one five-ton unit, the below Daikin VRV Life:

The guest and master bedroom 1.5 ton systems air handlers were well installed by our mechanical contractor on the existing ducting:

Here is the newly split up kitchen + dining room and living room units.

Huge shout out to our mechanical contractor Comfort Zone Heating & Cooling. Travis and Eugene did an amazing job with the install and we're thankful for their persistence in getting us up and running! They'll be our mechanical contractor for the renovation going forward.

The rear house still has a 2-ton AC with a 60k BTU furnace that we'll be replacing as a part of the renovation.

The first year with the system showed dramatic energy usage reduction versus the prior year. Note that this is electrical + natural gas (converted from therms to kWh).

As you can see, in the winter we peaked at about 13,000 kWh prior, and averaged 11,000 kWh December to Feb. Now, we were down to around 6000 kWh down about 45-50%. Summer usage has been consistently 15-30% less than before.

While we've seen savings in our electricity in the summer, this hasn't translated to "real" savings overall year-over-year since natural gas prices spiked in 2022. That said, it would have cost a lot more to heat and cool on the prior system at these higher prices.

Here is our Daikin One app, which gives us easy control over the zones:

Looking back at this, I do have a couple of things I would have done differently:

First, on an old house I would slow down and do an energy audit first. It's really important to understand what you're starting with. In our house, basic air sealing and looking at our insulation would have helped tremendously with reducing the heating and cooling loads. We ended up doing this after, which was a bit out of order.

Second, our sizing (Manual J) for this project was done by the mechanical contractor instead of a mechanical designer. They did the best they could, but since those reports are only as good as its inputs, the loads were artificially high, especially around our heating.

Live and learn!

#oldhouse #newsoul #architecture #construction #renovation #climate #energy #priorprojects

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chestersinetony · 8 months

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he's had the strangest timeline... my most recent drawing of him isn't a very serious one with a lot of effort so i can't really flaunt his new design but i really do hope its way cooler than whatever i came up with in 2020.

in the first 2020 drawing of Isagani, his name is actually Farrimond. Actually, Isagani is a recent development, to be honest. He was more of a bug but not really. He's Irish/Japanese here. He's also probably like 11-13. He actually came about because I was trying to draw Snufkin but it didn't hit so I added Antennae and a cool jacket. I actually do not currently have the first-ever Isagani drawing (well technically a failed Snufkin gijinka) because that was made with marker and a paperclip on my old desk that I don't have anymore.

this one was in 2022. Not much different than 2020. This was when I did develop his ability to blend in with humans though which is why he doesn't have cat-like traits or horns.

I actually don't know if this one came before or after the fourth one but here he's probably 15? idk. I think this was when I was debating my past decisions because at first, the story was going to be set in different phases but mainly took action in their teen years, and at this point, I wondered if I should scrap that and instead make it about college students. So this would've been basically his look on a picture frame or something. Here I also decided to make him Irish/Filipino and maybe Ecuadorian idrk still.

This one would be his appearance in maybe his 40's or something. I thought this would more be of a look into their future at the time.

THE SEX MASTER HIMSELF! (He's actually Asexual but whtvr, i mean technically theoretically he could do it, but lol no he wouldn't, he'd be awful at it) I decided to make his magic species stuff features (hopefully) more prominent but he just manages to blend in because he passes it off like a wicked haircut. He hides his horns in his ugly hat. Now he also wears a suit. I always decided that He was going to be an amputee but initially thought it would happen later in the story or whatnot. I decided to change that and instead, his introduction shows him with this neat prosthetic that has cute flowers on it and instead of him having to amputate his leg during a gritty scene, he actually just had a bad infection this one time and he was like 13 and had no guidance but somehow accurate comics. he decided amputation was the best way to go about it. I'm also at a point where I think They (the characters) might be like in their late 20's or early 30's in their first introductions.

Yeah so that's basically his timeline in SHORT... this doesn't include stuff through traditional art, only digital. This is mainly only talking about things and changes that had to do with his design though. so yeah that's basically Isagani's timeline and stuff. hooray for him!

#oc isagani #my ocs #my art

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lifenuances9 · 1 year

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Luna

This is Luna and she became my rescue stray dog on December 30, 2022. This was an unexpected event for both my mother and I as we haven’t owned a dog since almost 20 years ago.

My first dog was a Dalmatian whom I named Mikey and he was gifted to me when I was 14 years old by my parents on Christmas. I loved Mikey and he was very special to me. He was very protective and smart, always keeping an eye out for me. To the point that he would sleep by my window instead of sleeping inside his doghouse. Unfortunately, due to an incident with a neighbor’s dog, I was forced to re-home him with a cousin from my mom’s side of the family. It was heartbreaking and I never wanted to do it but I had little choice at the time. Even after re-homing him I was still able to visit when I could but of course, it was never really the same and I hated leaving him behind.

Since then I was never really open to owning another dog and it would be some time later that I made a 2nd attempt but it didn’t end too well either and was just as heartbreaking.

Anyway, I had sworn off from ever owning another pet and instead for some years now I have dedicated my attention towards plants.

So it was to my surprise that my mom came across with Luna in an incident that happened unexpectedly. She and my uncle called Animal Control from around the county to where Luna should have gone. There was a lot of bouncing around from shelter to shelter until they told her at the end that Animal Control would come by to pick the dog up. So the hours went by and even still they called to let her know that they would come by. It wasn’t until it hit 8:00 PM that my mom realized that they wouldn’t arrive to pick the dog up. So she had no other choice but to bring the stray dog home. I honestly didn’t know what to expect and found it a bit comical as my mom is not much of an animal person. Unless it’s a parrot. However, when it comes to dogs or cats, they’re simply not her thing.

I felt sorry for the dog when I had my first look as she seemed sad, hurt and shriveled up, not seemingly interested in her surroundings. To which I understood, given the trauma she suffered. I took it upon myself to look after her and try to heal her where I could. Again, we had no plans to keep her and my mom still hoped that Animal Control would come the next day to pick her up. Well, they did only that this was done early in the morning when we weren’t around the destined location. So then we took her to our local animal shelter hoping they would take her in but they didn’t. Simply because I didn’t find her in our local city. Luna was picked up from a rural area in New Mexico so technically she should be taken in by their Animal Shelters/Animal Control yet they didn’t pick her up. The dog didn’t have a legal owner as she was checked for a microchip and they found none. Also, there was something about the place that didn’t sit well with me. So we left from that place since Luna wasn’t taken in.

There’s a bit more to tell but perhaps I’ll continue this a bit later.

And why did I decide to name her Luna? Well it was because that was the first name that came into my mind. It was weird considering that in the beginning I hadn’t bothered to check whether she was female/male much less assign a name. Mostly because again we really had no set plans on keeping her at the time. I simply laid down on the couch in the living room where we kept her bed nearby and I closed my eyes, trying to figure out what possible name would suit the best. The only name that came instantly into my mind was “Luna”. I thought perhaps it was too overused or too cliché so I wasn’t 100% convinced. Yet, that name started appearing quite a bit around me so I figured perhaps it wasn’t simply a coincidence. I tried thinking about other names but “Luna” was kept solid in my mind. To my surprise it became a name she easily picked up and adhered to. So I figured it must be the right one afterall.

I tried not to get too attached to her in the beginning, keeping in mind that it was only a temporary situation. However, Luna seemed to adjust quite easily and well enough in our home. It’s so odd but nice at the same time. My mother and I feared for our plants, thinking perhaps she would nip at them or cause some sort of mischief but so far, she seems very disinterested in them and leaves them alone. She also appeared to be housebroken already as she would let us know when it was time to go outside to do her business. Which led us to think and believe that she was previously owned by someone or a family that perhaps trained her to do this. We have zero background information on her but there have been bits and pieces that we’ve managed to put together. Or as well as our intuition have allowed us to put together a mental picture.

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carolap53 · 2 years

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Waiting on God TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman

08/10/2022

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!"

Isaiah 30:18

Have you ever noticed that God is not in a hurry? It took 40 years for Moses to receive his commission to lead the people out of Egypt. It took 17 years of preparation before Joseph was delivered from slavery and imprisonment. It took 20 years before Jacob was released from Laban's control. Abraham and Sarah were in their old age when they finally received the son of promise, Isaac. So why isn't God in a hurry?

God called each of these servants to accomplish a certain task in His Kingdom, yet He was in no hurry to bring their mission into fulfillment. First, He accomplished what He wanted in them. We are often more focused on outcome than the process that He is accomplishing in our lives each day. When we experience His presence daily, one day we wake up and realize that God has done something special in and through our lives. However, the accomplishment is no longer what excites us. Instead, what excites us is knowing Him. Through those times, we become more acquainted with His love, grace, and power in our lives. When this happens, we are no longer focused on the outcome because the outcome is a result of our walk with Him. It is not the goal of our walk, but the by-product. Hence, when Joseph came to power in Egypt, he probably couldn't have cared less. He had come to a place of complete surrender so that he was not anxious about tomorrow or his circumstances.

This is the lesson for us. We must wait for God's timing and embrace wherever we are in the process. When we find contentment in that place, we begin to experience God in ways we never thought possible.

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life-in-the-garden · 2 years

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2022 grimoire challenge, week one

here are the first week's prompts of this witchy challenge if you want to see them for yourself. These prompts and this year's challenge in general are designed for intermediate-level witches. I am in some sort of nebulous "semi-confident beginner" stage where I want to attempt more challenging things but am not sure I'll be able to perform them gracefully. Therefore, I'll be doing both the 2019 challenge (aimed at beginners) as well as this one. You can see the first part of my 2019 challenge here.

I'm extremely late for this challenge, because my university semester has been kicking my butt, but Spring Break is finally here so I can do something other than homework. Let's get into the actual spellwork, shall we?

2022 prompt 1.1 - create your lab notebook/grimoire

a "lab notebook" refers to all of the notes that one takes before, during, and after the process of executing experiments using the scientific method. A grimoire can be much the same, but the experiments are spells instead.

I decided to use google docs as my lab notebook, since it's easy to edit/organize and I have access to it just about wherever I go. (Note: I do have a physical grimoire in a bound notebook, but that's more for witchy musings, tarot records, and the occasional note-taking spree; I don't draft spells in there).

2022 prompt 1.2 - design your own spell

Okay, this is where I initially started to despair. I've never made my own spell before, mostly because I have some serious self-confidence issues. I understand the basic principles, but I've been afraid to actually do original spellwork; I'm terrified that the magic just won't work because I'm somehow inherently flawed as a person and/or inferior in some way. (It sounds silly when I write it out like this and can read my own thoughts in this post, but I swear it's true).

Ultimately, I decided to just dive in and do my best.

I recently saw "The Green Knight" (2021) movie with my partners, and was impressed with Gawain's struggle with his ideal for himself as a courageous, honorable knight vs. his fear of death. I wanted to use the Arthurian legend and its movie adaptation as the basis for a spell, and I started jotting down my ideas in Google Docs around the theme of inspiring courage in oneself. This is still very much a WIP, but I came up with:

name: Spell for Gawain's Courage (working title)

genre: pop culture witchcraft

ideas: spell jar vs. charm bracelet vs. sigil

Each of the ideas have pros and cons.

A spell jar requires a jar (which I have) as well as ingredients (I have some of the ingredients I'd like to use, but I would need to buy others). My biggest concern is time, since I'm already late for this challenge and sourcing ingredients from Etsy would be too much waiting.

A charm bracelet adheres very well to the symbolism of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (in the story, Gawain has an enchanted green belt that protects him from harm). However, I have none of the jewelry-making supplies that I need on hand, which means buying beads, charms, cordage, and a clasp... none of which will arrive quickly enough, but which will altogether cost upwards of 30 USD.

A sigil is something I have all necessary materials for, such as green ink and paper. Unfortunately, my itch to make lasting things decries this option as overly simplistic and insufficiently compelling.

In the interest of time, however, I think I'll go with a sigil. Mod Hazel mentions in this post that we shall return to old prompts over the course of the 2022 challenge, so I'll buy some items that have symbolic value not limited to this particular spell, such as oak leaf charms and bloodstone beads, which will be useful even if my ideas change or I switch to a different kind of spell.

Timing - Because "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (in both the original story and its movie adaptation) is a Christmas story, it takes place very close to the winter solstice. Because the plot of the movie symbolizes Gawain's symbolic death as a cowardly person and his rebirth as a courageous and honorable knight of the Round Table, I think that performing this spell under the dark/new moon would be best. The longest (and darkest) night of the year symbolizes the inner darkness of our deepest fears, which need to be illuminated by the flame of courage.

....unfortunately, the solstice and the new moon have passed, but I don't want to put off this spell, so I'm going to do it anyway. Fear can strike even without a cover of literal darkness, so I think that timing isn't the most important aspect of this particular spell.

Location - I'm a closet witch whose parents don't look too closely into my affairs, so I have some freedom to practice but not a lot. I don't have a dedicated workspace or altar yet. Location isn't an important aspect of this spell either.

Materials - This spell will require a candle. I'm choosing to use a green chime candle, since the color green (in the context of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight") is very important here. I'll also be using paper, some green India ink, and a size 0 watercolor brush to draw my sigil.

Method - I'm going to draw the sigil representing my fears, light the candle, meditate on my intention (or at least try to) of overcoming my fears while watching the candle burn down, then gather my energy and burn the sigil before the candle completely burns out.

I'm really nervous.

2022 prompt 1.3 - perform your original spell

I designed my sigil to look like the Green Knight's axe, for which Gawain must kneel and accept the blow that he expects to sever his head from his neck and end his life.

The candle is burning down and I'm trying to meditate, but my cat is desperate to get inside my room and is mewing and scratching at the door. I don't want to let her in, because the chime candle isn't in a holder and could be knocked over very easily. I can't meditate with this noise going on, so I'm going to just burn my sigil (in front of an open window) and call it quits.

Overall first "proper" spell experience? 4/10

I need to invest in proper chime candle holders, I think.

#2022 grimoire challenge #baby witch #witchling #sol's grimoire #sigil making #sigil magic #fledgling witch #witchcraft #witchblr

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Disney Shortstacular 2021! (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! I’m Jake, I review comics and animation and last year as a comission for my friend kev (Slots for Feburary are open by the by, wink wink nudge nudge, just hit up my ask box.) I reviewed all the shorts for Disney’s Sparkshorts Program, a program where they give one of their team members who hasn’t helmed a project 6 months, 30 people and full creative control. Ride or die this is their baby.

So naturally with two new SparkShorts coming out, he wanted me to do it all again. But there in lied the problem: There were ONLY two Sparkshorts in 2021. As you can imagine with a project like this they come out nice and slow, to the point the original batch came out over 2019 and 2020. As such my options for JUST doing the sparkshorts were either doing all of them in say 2022 and waiting a year or doing an extremley short review of only two shorts.

But luckily I had a solution in mind. See Disney had a decent amount of shorts this year: we had your usual pack ins for their flims with “Us Again” and “Far From The Tree”, your usual pixar shorts meant for the dvd that are now also released on DIsney+ around the same time, and now simpsons shorts to cash in on something their releasing on the platform, a new phenomenon I wanted to talk about at some point anyway. So once I pitched doing all the shorts of this year to him he gladly agreed and here we are.

So in short: instead of doing just the sparkshorts this year, and likely the next, i’m doing ALL OF THEM. So strap in, grab a pizza, become a mascot for an evil corporation and burn your dad’s boat down as I break down Disney’s shorts from this year!

As a heads up this won’t include Short Circut, another disney shorts program that needs it’s own article, or Launchpad, ditto. We good? okay then, onward!

Going in chronological order because why not, which thanks to Letterboxd is easy to do. So starting off we have one of the few of these that got a theatrical release, Us Again. Us Again was released alongside Raya and the Last Dragon.. which I still REALLY need to get around to watching.

Us Again is an utterly charming short synched entirely to music. This isn’t a new phenemonon, animations done this since the start, but the way it does it feels unique, as it takes place in a city where everyones hopping and boppin to the beat.. except an elderly couple, the man of whom has resigned himself to sitting in his chair miserable. His wife TRIES to get him to get up and move with her, but he’s got things to do.

So she leaves to go live and he’s left mopin out the window. Had to quit smoking decades. That is until it starts raining and he’s hit with some.. deaging him. Yes this is another take on the fountain of youth, cleverly using it for allegory to trying to hold on to what you were.

He quickly dashes to find his wife and he utterly enjoys getting to dance again, i’ts been so long since he could dance again.. only for the rain to stop. Cue a mad dash to stay youthful, and what yo’ud expect: he ends up abandoning her only for it to dry up.. and for him to realize he dosen’t have to ACT old and give up just because he is old. He can still enjoy life.. and he still has the most important thing in it. The two happily dance again, accepting what they are and we get a cute credits montage.

I really love this one. It’s charming, creative and sweet and nicely fights back against issues of aging by showing your only as old as you feel.

Within reason.

The first of two movie Tie-Ins, 22 Vs Earth was.. forgetable. Which is odd given Soul itself still stands as Pixar’s best film, but while this short isn’t bad, it’s pretty predictable: 22, a soul who dosen’t want to go to earth, tries to kidnap a bunch of other souls so she dosen’t loose any more friends ot earth.. only for them to find their purposes and go to earth with each shenanigan. It’s simple enough, still funny but ultimately it’s something you’ll be going “Oh yeah that happened” not long after watching.

Another “oh yeah that happened” kind of short as we get our first simpsons one. It wasn’t Disney’s first foray into using America’s Faviorite Family for shorts, as we got two awesome Maggie Shorts previously, but it’s the first to be made entirely for Disney+ and the first to be done as a clear promotional stunt. Yes Disney is taking full advantage of having another big brand by using it to promote other brands in the horrifying type of corporate synergy people were loosing their shit over when they bought marvel over a decade ago.

This one is.. fine. It’s not terrible but it’s mostly just some fun star wars based gags here and there as Maggie goes to a star wars daycare, like a cloud city themed nap room or the time outs being freezing the kid sin carbonite. It’s textbook toothless promotion: Nothing bad but nothing memorable either to the point I genuinely forgot to log this on letterboxd the first time I watched it. If you like Star Wars in your simpsons... watch Mark Hamill’s guest spot instead.

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Honestly a panicked mark hamill desperate to cram in star wars where it dosen’t belong sums up this short better than I could.

Some of you may recall i’ve talked about this one already, back when i did quick thoughts on things before I realized I didn’t have the time in my schedule to cram those in there. Might try again at some point, we’ll see. But I don’t mind talking about this shitshow again because I have more to say.

For those who thankfully didn’t sit through it, this short is yet another tie-in, this time to Loki, which I happen to be working thorugh. And honestly I was excited for this one: While i’m a fan of the MCU there’s still plenty to poke fun at, and the simpsons are great at biting the hand that feeds them

So naturally I expected something like this right? Right?

Yeah this short.. is a complete and infurating waste of it’s premise. For starters we have the fact they got Tom Hiddleston himself, who only gets one good bit at the end. The parts for an actually intresting crossover ARE there: Loki and Bart find a lot in common being the sons of abusive distant dads and blonde overacheiving siblings, and it’d be intresting to explore that. It’d be funny to see more of Homer who ends up worshipping loki after he doubles his porkchops. There’s a LOT you could do here if you gave it say 5 minutes. And while this short has about 5 mintues of content.. the last two are spent ENTIRELY on the most obvious and labored gag imingable.

Not only that the short blatantly promoted the fact it’d have the various springfieldians as avengers.... who then show up for exactly one shot and some of the credits gags before Lisa easily beats “Loki” who turns out otb e bart... with loki left in his place. There’s no gags about hte mcu’s love of quips, abudneance of characters, terrible villians before phase 3, massive size, the franchises it absorbed... nothing actuallyc lever or intresting just ‘LOOK WE HAVE SIMPSONS AND MARVEL ISN’T THAT KEEN. And it’s not.. it’s just not funny and the half assed nature of it makes it less enjoyable than the toothless but still at least charming Force Awakens From It’s Nap.

Before we get into the worst part of this short by far though, let’s have some fun and break down the springfield avengers shall we?

Now the majority of these are pretty good. As a longtime marvel fan a lot of these are pretty spot on choices, either being perfect casting or perfectly terrible casting. For starters we have the obvious one, Barnie as Iron Man. That’s just perfect, especially since we disapointingly never got a proper take on Demon in the Bottle in the mcu. It’s dark but it’s fucking great. Millhouse as MCU Hawkeye? Yup that’s about as pathetic as this version of clint was before his new series helped flesh him out. Carl as nick fury, yell yes. Mole Man as mole man? Not in the mcu yet but too good a gag NOT to do. Flanders as ant man, didly. Comic Book Guy as quicksilver? fucking yes run fat man run. And finallyw ehave one I didn’t notice on first watch I utterly love. Dr. Nick as Dr. Strange. The gags write themselves. “Oopsie I accidently brought my evil twin in. Aw well i’m sure he can’t harm anyone anymore than I can” “Don’t worry i’ve already operated on your leg 83 times today (blood sspurts) whelp 84′s the charm! (uses time stone)” “You can’t sue me for malpractice because i’m not legally a doctor! Same as it ever was!”

And of course I loved Herman as Captain America, especailly because th eshowarearely uses them and Agnes as Black Widow is fun, as is the incredible ralph and combining my faviorite mcu (and one of my faviorite comics) avenger with my faviorite sprinfieldien as moe is the vision and tha’ts wonderful.

But the rest.. are either passable (Lisa’s Teacher as she hulk, patty and selma as wanda and agatha), weird like having.. what I think is the babysitter from “homer badman as rescue”

And then you have the two I just.. absolutely cannot stand. First off is dr hibbert as the falcon. First off.. why does disney like this guy so much? Hibbert has his moments but he’s mostly just kinda there, a bland parody of a rapist who got maybe one joke a season in the golden years and who knows how many now. And I say this because not only is he falcon instead of carl, when Hibbert makes more sense as fury, but because he ha an icon on disney+. the only characters who do are the simpsons themselves, krusty, and ralph. Why not Carl if you wanted a black character? He’s more of a character than hibbert... not by a lot but still.

But no the one that pisses me off.. is Helen Lovejoy as Captain Marvel

Just.. WHY. You have other female characters. For starters that buisness suit lady.. whose actually blonde and whose not an unberable hate sink no one likes. She’s not a GOOD person but like.. she’s at least funny. Helen has had all of ONE Funny moment in 34 seasons

WHY out of all the characters you have to pull from, inclduing one off characters would you use her? I’m geninely asking. Her husband isn’t in there. Why would you do this?

So for sanity’s sake let’s move on from my pedantic bullshit to some other bullshit.. instead of spending the other two minutes telling a story or proper jokes.. the credits, which to be fair do have great credits image gags, are filled with post credit scenes. GET IT BECAUSE THAT’S MARVEL’S THING. The problem is only one of them is funny, Loki tending bar and Barney’s response to telling him the alchol he serves them will ruin their lives “Eh it’s still worth it to me!”., but none feel necessary. I get having to do at least one, it’s an mcu pardoy, you gotta. But making them actually funny? Was.. was that really too hard? I know Modern Simpsons isn’t up to the standard of the first 10 seasons but I didn’ tknow it’d sunk this bad that they can’t make a marvel parody, even with Disney clearly holding their balls in a vice. And even then i’m not so sure given the next simpsons short. But for now this short can eat mine.

Now THIS is more like it. I made no secret how much I loved the How To Shorts in my House of Mouse Reviews and over a decade after the last one, it’s oh so nice to see Bill Farmer and Corey Burton back at it like a day hadn’t passed.

Though a day had as these were made to deal with the pandemic.. and sadly ended up going form seemingly irrelvant as thigns receided.. to badly relevant as the pandemic kicked up again. As such cooking for yourself, putting on masks and watching tons of tv are still in vouge. But sad state of the world aside, these shorts are just charming with fun gags, great narration and even better animtaion. I geninely hope we get more at some point. I admit to being biased, again I haven’t met a how to short I haven’t liked, but these shorts are not only funny but help combat anti-mask propganda using one of disney’s biggest stars. And while it shoudln’t be that big a flex for Disney to do the basic thign and say “hey asshole wear a mask”, given how spineless they can be towards LBGTQ+ represntation or standing up to china, it’s nice this is one issue they have a spine on. But masks or no masks, these shorts are fucking great.

The first of our two SparkShorts, Twenty Something carries on two fine traditions from it’s predecessors: being utterly charming with a somewhat unique animation style, and pulling from something personal. In this case the creator pulled from the very feelings of being called on to do a short, as she’d only been at pixar for about 5 years before getting called up, feeling like a bunch of kids in a trench coat. That lead to the spark for the short and here we are.

The premise itself is great: A 21 year old girl goes to a club with her sister, and is socially overwhelemd by everything. I can related to social anxiety, as well as feelings you aren’t adulting right even if your doing somet things right. As such a fun short about manifestations of a woman’s 10 year old, 16 year old and baby selves as metaphors for her own anxiety are great and it’s a fun watch, the climax, which shows all the club goers regressing to kid versions of themselves, is what truly makes it. The animation style dosen’t hurt, taking from the 60′s and 70′s resulting in a lovely and unique dot eyed animation style that feels both timeless and fully itself. I also like the reveal of the protaganitst’s true self at the end which has traits from all three of herselves: her hair from 16, the colors and hair decs from 10 and .. well okay no baby things but she might need to be on a watchlist if she had. Ponit is this short has a lot of subtle touches that really make it truly something specail and probably the best out of this crop of shorts. Though there is some stiff competition. Speaking of which...

Now this, the second of the two sparkshorts from this year, was just fun.

The premise is simple but great: an elderly, no nonsense building super and her beloved good boy get ready to set down tow atch EWW Smashdown, some form of wrestling pay-per view and a clear analouge to WWE’s wrestlermania.. they inverted the comapny name for fucks sake.It was something she and her late partner, who we see in photos, clearly watched every year. It’s not even overblowrn or anything, just a woman honoring her fallen hubby or whatever by diong what they both loved.

But as happens for the working class, life can get in the way and Nona’s daughter is forced to drop off her own daughter due to getting called into work. It’s something I can relate to having a busy brother who often needs his kids watched so he can support them by my own mother and their own grandmother. So the conflict is less the young girl being there, Nona is mildly put out but refreshingly dosen’t throw a fit or antyhing, but simply wanting her out of the way as she keeps interupting things. It’s simple, realistic and charming.

Naturally though we get some drama as the grandaughter ends up trying to do a top rope splash after seeing it on tv, which comes off less as melodrmatic GASP KIDS IMITATE VIOLENCE, and more... simply what happens. Kids try wrestling moves not knowing how dangerous it is even with training. It happens. I could’ve seen my own niece doing this when she was younger. Nona saves her.. but her tv is wrecked. And if I may give out a second:... her tv is weridly anacronistic. Like Nona has a smart phone and a face mask is seen hanging on her key ring, next to a handicap plackard. So this is modern day.. which means this retro tv.. shoudln’t be able to do this.l Companies generally don’t air pay per views for free and I don’t think a box like this could stilL GET pay per views. I could be wrong, of course and i’ll accept that as well as her not having enough for the network or something, but it still took me out of it.. though I don’t hol dit against the short as it’s me being a silly hyperfixated ass and not anything actually affecting it being awatchable.

The conclusion is just pure fucking AWWWWW as the little girl challenges her nona to a match to cheer her up and the two hug. it’s just pure adorable and overall this short runs on both cute and a love of wrestling. If you don’t have one, the other or both.. you might not like this. me.. I loved it and i’m not ashamed of that.

This is one I looked forward too I as truly enjoyed Luca this year, as it was one of my faviorite films this year and I felt a nice breezy slice of life piece that can be easily queer coded if you fancy. So going back to that setting was pretty nice.

Ciao Alberto is itself fantastic, being another slice of life tail focusing on Alberto and Massimo after the latter took him in. Alberto is doing great after the conclusion of the film, having settled into Poro Rosso well and being loved by the town, no longer having to hide being a freaky fish guy.

The only problem.. is Massimo himself. While Alberto endlessly looks up to the guy... Massimo isn’t the biggest talker , and given his chatty nature and need for a father figure after his father abandoned him, it’s not a suprise poor Alberto internalizes this as not being good enough. We get a bunch of hyjinks as Alberto tries to overcompensate to messure up to his new Poppa, only for slapstick to insue and Alberto to feel worse. It’s formulaic.. but it works since much like the film itself the pacing is nice and breezy and the animation is gorgeous. I didnt’ even realize it was made on a small budget till TV Tropes pointed it out as they simply reused assets from luca and what new assets are there arent’ noticably a downgrade. The only tradeoff is the transformation scenes are cut.. but Alberto dosen’t transform enough that it’s an issue. He still does it in understandable circumstnaces, but given Alberto WANTED to live on land in the first place instead of the water, it makes just as much sense he’s not overusing the form. He’s happy where he is and uses it more like a fun tool than a dire part of his being.

But things get serious when Alberto accidently does an arson while trying to go out on the boat at night to catch more fish and Masimo is understandably devistated. This makes the poor boy think he really is an utter screw up. And while yes once again a major part of the film is alberto running away... it works. The context is diffrent: There Luca and Alberto had an udnerstandable falling out over Luca refusing to support him, while here, the falling out is in Alberto’s head: Massimo DOES clearly care about the boy.

The problem is simple: while he’s raised a kid before with Giluia, clearly spending plenty of summers with her and likely getting the ocasinal visit as well, she’s USED to him. She’s used to him being a very quite man and knows he loves her anyway, so it dosen’t bother her. Alberto.. needs that validation she simply didn’t because he hasn’t had a loving dad his whole life, or any parents. His abandoned him. So Massimo wrongly assumed the boy simply didn’t need to know he cared. It’s only when Alberto is honest about how he feels the lack of words dosen’t mean approval that Massimo finally gets it.. and the pain on the guys face. Jesus. It only gets more painful when Massimo tries stopping him.. and we get this

“JUST LET ME GO DAD!”

This.. this is what makes the short work. This one line this one moment as the two just stand there dumbstruck for a second, Alberto by what he said and Massimo by realizing the boy sees him as a dad.. and he sees the boy as a son. He honestly probably always did.. but like I said he’s not used to having to confirm that sort of thing. So he does, relating a story about his own father to show that he both returns the sentiment.. and that screw ups happen, but it dosen’t mean you love your kid less. Like that the two start to open up, and rebuild the boat. This short.. it’s really fantastic. It gets better the more I think about it, finding a neat new story to tell. And honestly I wouldn’t mind a series following either these two or following Luca and Gulia at school. I feel the breezy, slice of life tales these films had could translate well to a series or a sequel, and it’s one of the few disney movies i honestly and badly WANT one for. I feel you could find something new to do with it and both sides of thigns leave plenty of room open for a new story.

Now onto the best of the shorts. Granted given one was harmless but forgetable and the other can go choke on a sandpaper cock, it wasn’t HARD but Plusaversary brings back that subversive spark the simpsons has. While it’s never been super edgy, it’s never been afraid to take jabs at it’s corporate overlords and it felt like Disney missed that with the first two shorts, not letting them make jabs at their two big IPs.

Here though the thankfully let them off the leash and while it’s another shameless tie in, it’s one that works better BECAUSE their allowed to make actual jabs about the subject instead of just “HEY YOU LIKE THIS THING, MEMBA THIS?”

There’s a bit of that as all the disney characters gather at Moe’s to celebrate Disney+”s two year anniversary. You know like House of Mouse only it’s actaully on Disney+. It has some cute gags like Elsa freezing a keg and Dr. Strange using his magic to cheat at pool. It’s fun stuff. The maind raw is homer, not let in because plot, gets in by being Goofy’s plus one. And goofy.. is NOT voiced by Bill Farmer. Nor Donald by Tony Anselmo. And the guy Voicing Goofy is fine enough, it’s the simpleton voice they use every so often, similar to cletus’. But Donalds...

Yeah it just hurts my head. They.. they didn’t even try. And I get that MAYBE Disney didn’t want to have the actual voice actors voice them.. but if that’s the case WHY FOCUS A SIMPSONS SHORT AROUND GOOFY THEN. It’s not like Bill Farmer’s retired, just look up! He did shorts this year! He’s still doing Amphibia! Same with Tony. He wrapped DuckTales this year but he’s still Donald. It mutes the parody and the “oh look what their letting the simpsons do with the disney cast” nature of things when theres an obvious sign there were limits.

Speaking of which.. none of the Disney Channel characters show up. And it’s not a “oh it’s kids media or just the adults in the bar thing”. We see the kid from Coco in there, along with a few other children as background charatcters. So films aimed at both audiences ARE in there, and it’s not like the shows don’t have adult. You tell me you COULDN’T stick Stan or Eda in there? Really? It just underlies that disney REALLY dosen’t get that people who aren’t children... watch the disney channel shows. The animated ones anyway. Do want to try Syndey to the Max at some point but that’s a me thing.

Other than that though the main centerpiece, Lisa singing a fun song about Disney+ that takes a lot of jabs at the service, from being a babysitter, to it not being avaliable everywhere, to how happy it makes the shareholders. Not anything serious like the shows missing, but the kinds of jabs that feel like simpsons. Also we get a cameo from america’s sweetheart

Yes they just.. fully leaned into that meme by having Bart once again dress up as Mickey and this time tell everyone to get back to work and drag Homer and Goofy apart. Overall while not peak simpsons..this one was at least still charming. Hopefully we get some next year that AREN’T just cheap tie-ins or if we have to get more tie-ins.. at least remember you have more family friendly shows you can branch out with. Disney OWNS Bob’s Burgers and the Great North, both of which would fit this kind of thing fine. Especially the great north with Ham and Honeybee really loving movies. I would give Disney money to watch Will Forte and Dulce Sloan make star wars jokes don’t deprive me.

One more masterpiece. Far From The tree was okay to me at first, it was the tale of a young racoon who wants to explore on the coast but his dad won’t let him and keeps dragging him back, even breaking a shell the kid grabs like the abusive dick he is. It wasn’t bad but I was worried the old Scarface Racoon was meant to be seen in the right. And while the short does show he had reasons as the poor little racoon runs into a wolf and gets scarred like his pop... it thankfully DIDN’T. It’s shown that just telling the kid DO WHAT I SAY without giving him CONTEXT as to why he can’t free roam and trying to shut him away.. it just traumtizes the kid and makes him miserable. It dosen’t help him to scream at him constantly.

And that.. was actually the point of the film as in it’s most clever bit.. we get a timeskip. Our little hero is now the father and while he intitally repeats the sins of his own father... it’s by NOT doing so we get the real message: you can break the cycle of abuse and you don’t have to do what your parents did just because they were shitty. Mine weren’t, thankfully, but it’s still a message many kids need and it’s conveyed by our hero taking his son.. or daughter. Or her son or his daughter... or their child... look point is the parent sohws teh child the wolf and then lets them hop on their back so they can get around and see the world.. without being in mortal peril. It’s a truly heartwarming great short. My only complaint is the animation which is heavily cel shaded. And while I actually LIKE cel shading here it dosen’t always look finished in places, not so terrible it ruins the short but it’s noticable. Still good though

Now this one.. wasn’t in the orignial plans for this article. I planned this out with Kev and got paid for it BEFORE this short came on Disney+ right before the year ended. The same can be said for the How To Shorts, but it’s my bad I forgot them so I took the financial hit. Same with this one: neither of us could’ve seen this coming, as far as I can tell unlike the other three shorts it wasn’t formally announced or anything, but I also couldn’t avoid it.

It’s a music video for the artist Bad Bunny. Whose Bad Bunny?

I genuinely know nothing about him other than he looks kinda weird and his song used for this is really good. And it is a nice change of pace as this one is done entirely in spanish. I could still understand the dialouge at the start thanks to turning on captions, but it’s a nice little thing

The short itself though.. isn’t great. Stop me if you heard this one... Marge and Homer break up and have to get back together.

Like... good god please stop doing this Simpsons. No one wants “Homer and Marge fight and nearly or temporarily break up” AGAIN. Just off the top of my head they’ve done it in Life in the Fast Lane, The War of the Simpsons, Colonel Homer, Secrets of a Succesful Marriage, The Simpsons Movie, That Leah Dunham Episode, That 90s Show, Bonfire of the Manatees, and Three Gays of Condo. That also gives me an idea: let me know in the comments would you be intrested in a series comparing various simpsons episodes with the same essential premise? or , another idea I’d had before and almost forgot, the episodes considered the worst? Or just weird episodes from later in the series i’m curious to check out for the first time?

But point is this has been done a LOT and both the movie and secrets of a succesful marriage did more than enough that we don’t need to do this AGAIN. Secrets wrung it well for both pathos and laughs and the movie played it dead seroiusly in the best way possible. We’ve had shrub marge!

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And this time .. i’ts not over someone else tempting them, Homer wanting to leave the town to die, a catfsih, whatever the rest of those were about or a dumb retcon. It’s over Homer being on social media constnatly. So this is also a PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN thing. It just.. dosen’t work and isn’t funny or geninely sad. We’ve seen this before. They aren’t going to break up. Please. Stop doing this. Their happy, just let them be happy. My god

So with that we wrap up and while the simpsons shorts were

The rest.. were really good for the most part. I look forward to possibly doing this again next year and I honestly liked this a bit better than the spark shorts: it really covered the full tapestry of disney’s year.

If you enjoyed this review, click on some of the links bellow. We’ve got my patreon, where you can kick in a buck a month to get a free review for signing up (Any half hour episode of a show so if you want me to go simpsonic or have something else in mind, go for it), and 5 dollar patrons get a guaranteed review a month. So if you want me to review the episode where Moe’s bar rag talks then follow it up with that time Sideshow Bob became a mutant, i’ll mutter some swears into a radiation helmet..then gladly take your money because I needs it. You can also simply comission reviews via my ask box, slots for next month are still open.

And if you need some no money fun, god knows I do consider joining my discord! Links are bellow, see ya real soon.

PATREON

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moonlitfirefly · 2 years

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Uvalde pediatrician testified today.

"My name is Dr. Roy Guerrero. I am a board certified pediatrician and I was present at Uvalde Memorial Hospital the day of the massacre on May 24th, 2022 at Robb Elementary School. I was called here today as a witness. But I showed up because I am a doctor. Because how many years ago I swore an oath — An oath to do no harm.

After witnessing first hand the carnage in my hometown of Uvalde, to stay silent would have betrayed that oath. Inaction is harm. Passivity is harm. Delay is harm. So here I am. Not to plead, not to beg or to convince you of anything. But to do my job. And hope that by doing so it inspires the members of this House to do theirs.

I have lived in Uvalde my whole life. In fact, I attended Robb Elementary School myself as a kid. As often is the case with us grown ups, we remember a lot of the good and not so much of the bad. So I don’t recall homework or spelling bees, I remember how much I loved going to school and what a joyful time it was.

Back then we were able to run between classrooms with ease to visit our friends. And I remember the way the cafeteria smelled lunchtime on Hamburger Thursdays.

It was right around lunchtime on a Tuesday that a gunman entered the school through the main door without restriction, massacred 19 students and two teachers and changed the way every student at Robb and their families will remember that school, forever.

I doubt they’ll remember the smell of the cafeteria or the laughter ringing in the hallways. Instead they’ll be haunted by the memory of screams and bloodshed, panic and chaos. Police shouting, parents wailing. I know I will never forget what I saw that day.

For me, that day started like any typical Tuesday at our Pediatric clinic - moms calling for coughs, boogers, sports physicals – right before the summer rush. School was out in two days then summer camps would guarantee some grazes and ankle sprains. Injuries that could be patched up and fixed with a Mickey Mouse sticker as a reward.

Then at 12:30 business as usual stopped and with it my heart. A colleague from a San Antonio trauma center texted me a message: 'Why are the pediatric surgeons and anesthesiologists on call for a mass shooting in Uvalde?'

I raced to the hospital to find parents outside yelling children’s names in desperation and sobbing as they begged for any news related to their child. Those mother’s cries I will never get out of my head.

As I entered the chaos of the ER, the first casualty I came across was Miah Cerrillo. She was sitting in the hallway. Her face was still, still clearly in shock, but her whole body was shaking from the adrenaline coursing through it. The white Lilo and Stitch shirt she wore was covered in blood and her shoulder was bleeding from a shrapnel injury.

Sweet Miah. I’ve known her my whole life. As a baby she survived major liver surgeries against all odds. And once again she’s here. As a survivor. Inspiring us with her story today and her bravery.

When I saw Miah sitting there, I remembered having seen her parents outside. So after quickly examining two other patients of mine in the hallway with minor injuries, I raced outside to let them know Miah was alive. I wasn’t ready for their next urgent and desperate question: 'Where's Elena?'

Elena, is Miah’s 8-year-old sister who was also at Robb at the time of the shooting. I had heard from some nurses that there were “two dead children” who had been moved to the surgical area of the hospital. As I made my way there, I prayed that I wouldn’t find her.

I didn’t find Elena, but what I did find was something no prayer will ever relieve.

Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by the bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been so ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities was the blood spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them. Clinging for life and finding none.

I could only hope these two bodies were a tragic exception to the list of survivors. But as I waited there with my fellow Uvalde doctors, nurses, first responders and hospital staff for other casualties we hoped to save, they never arrived. All that remained was the bodies of 17 more children and the two teachers who cared for them, who dedicated their careers to nurturing and respecting the awesome potential of every single one. Just as we doctors do.

I’ll tell you why I became a pediatrician. Because I knew that children were the best patients. They accept the situation as it’s explained to them. You don’t have to coax them into changing their lifestyles in order to get better or plead them to modify their behavior as you do with adults.

No matter how hard you try to help an adult, their path to healing is always determined by how willing they are to take action. Adults are stubborn. We’re resistant to change even when the change will make things better for ourselves. But especially when we think we’re immune to the fallout.

Why else would there have been such little progress made in Congress to stop gun violence?

Innocent children all over the country today are dead because laws and policy allows people to buy weapons before they’re legally even old enough to buy a pack of beer. They are dead because restrictions have been allowed to lapse. They’re dead because there are no rules about where guns are kept. Because no one is paying attention to who is buying them.

The thing I can’t figure out is whether our politicians are failing us out of stubbornness, passivity or both.

I said before that as grown ups we have a convenient habit of remembering the good and forgetting the bad. Never more so than when it comes to our guns. Once the blood is rinsed away from the bodies of our loved ones, and scrubbed off the floors or the schools and supermarkets and churches, the carnage from each scene is erased from our collective conscience and we return once again to nostalgia.

To the rose tinted view of our second amendment as a perfect instrument of American life, no matter how many lives are lost.

I chose to be a pediatrician. I chose to take care of children. Keeping them safe from preventable diseases I can do. Keeping them safe from bacteria and brittle bones I can do. But making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders.

In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out and you are not there.

My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job. And I guess it turns out that I am here to plead. To beg. To please, please do yours."

#uvalde

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

Text

The Summer of Disappointment: Lookbook no.11

Hi to anyone reading,

Welcome to an exploration of one of my favourite combinations of activities: putting outfits together and moaning. Straight off the bat-this summer has been a shitty one. The pandemic has made 2020 a shitty year all round. My feelings are best summed up in this tweet by @25lambs (I love her account but this girl changes her @ every other week so it will probably have changed again by the time I post this):

The uncertainty of when life will return to some semblance of “normality” is the hardest part. I also feel like I lost a big chunk of my life to, well, being miserable basically, especially during my teen years and my plans to make up for that in my 20s has been potentially snatched away. That being said, in the grand scheme of things, I am very lucky. I still have a job and I haven’t lost anyone close to me, which are both hugely traumatic things that many people have had to go through as a result of the pandemic. I think being sad about how the pandemic has affected your life and also recognising that there are people who are facing a far greater amount of hardship than you are not mutually exclusive which is something people online tend to forget on a daily basis. I also thought we had longer, if that makes sense, like summer came and went in such a short space of time it almost feels like it hasn’t happened yet, and being the extremely anal individual I am, of course I had a load of outfits planned that I never got round to wearing-instead of sulking about what didn’t happen, I instead decided I’d make a bit of a lookbook out of those outfits as well as a kind of diary of what I did get round to wearing.

So that’s enough rambling from me! I’ll get on with it!

Looks 1-3

Depop has been my absolute favourite thing for the last few months. I gave up fast fashion around May and apart from a slip up or two, I’ve pretty much stuck to that since. That being said, I am clearly very into fashion and styling and so it’s been a hard transition to make (yes, first world problems IK, don’t bait me), especially with me being a compulsive shopper. Wanna know how to lose weight? The jig is up guys, switch from emotional eating to emotional shopping. I’m joking, nobody needs to lose any weight, but I am 100% someone who attempts to cure feeling like shit with some good old instant gratification, and Depop has filled my fast fashion void. My favourite purchases from the last few months include this tan faux suede jacket on the left I bought from Tash_Hall’s shop, and aside from that everything here is old. It makes me feel like I’m a background extra in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and I’m into that. The movie was shit but the visuals were top tier.

-21/07/20-

(top handmade by sophieeee_1123 on Depop)

-30/09/20-

(dress from maisiemainwaring on Depop, jacket from marinamcaleesex)

-18/09/20-

(top handmade by maddypageknitwear on Depop)

-25/07/20-

(cargo trousers from amber_thomson1 on Depop)

Looks 4-6

So I doubt anyone actually reads my fashion week reviews-I know everyone’s here for the pictures-but if you did, you’d know how much I wanted last season’s Erdem hats to happen off the runway. You know, the big boater ones that tie under the chin? Well, I got one off Ebay, as you can see on the left, I can confirm that in anything other than still life they look absolutely fucking ridiculous; I never ended up wearing mine outside the house because if I wore it for more than two seconds it would end up teetering to one side and slipping off my head, hence me trying to pass off holding it up as a fashion moment, lol. Maybe they are completely impractical, maybe I just have a big head (which is true), who knows. The beaded butterfly top however (from Depop but I can’t find the seller’s account anymore!), also on the left, was way more flattering on than I expected it to be and I am gutted I didn’t get to wear it out. If they’re right about a vaccine not being ready until July 2021 then it looks like next summer’s festival season will be cancelled too, but festival season 2022, this top is coming for ya. Optimism, you know. Other than that, the shorts are reworked Levis from Studsnstuff vintage on Ebay, which I have ALWAYS wanted and now irritatingly pair with absolutely everything and call it a look, and the two piece is stolen from my sister’s wardrobe, lol. Lastly, we have the sunhat, which reminds me of something my parents would’ve put me in when I was little and is totally adorable, from Happydais’ Depop store.

-28/07/20-

-12/07/20-

(top from tash2 on Depop, skirt from anishacassanova)

-27/08/20-

(skirt from mollie_morton on Depop)

-19/08/20-

(jeans from izziesanders on Depop)

-16/09/20-

Looks 6-10

Up there with my favourite Depop purchases of the summer is the striped corduroy trousers in the bottom right from Annasctx’s shop. I was desperate for some vintage trousers in this style but most resellers were, typically, charging extortionate prices for them, so it was a blessing to come across these for under £30. It sounds like a lot but they are a popular item on there at the moment so it’s a good price considering! Also from Depop is the red bodysuit from Alzaska’s store, the monogrammed headband from Jadexlaurenx’s store, and the PU flame print beret from House_of_erotique who do the most AMAZING custom pieces. I am waiting on a couple of things from them at the moment for an American Horror Story inspired lookbook I’m doing for halloween and I am buzzing to try them on! The bag I’m using here is my new go to-it’s a second hand Calvin Klein I found for THIRTY FUCKING POUND in a local charity shop! The woman at the tills told me that lots of people had gone to buy it and then put it back because it was too expensive which is insane! I know you go into a charity shop for cheap things but this bag was such a steal I have no idea how nobody just bit the bullet and bought it. Anyways, I’m not complaining because now it’s mine and I'm in love and I’m gonna try not to spill a monster energy drink on this one<3

-26/08/20-

-18/08/20-

(suit from emmafisher3 on Depop)

-10/09/20-

-15/08/20-

So, that’s it for now! If you got to this point, thank you for reading! I’m sorry it’s not longer but I’m finding it really hard to motivate myself to write at the moment with everything going on-I’m only finishing this now because it’s 3:30AM and my friend’s cat that I’m looking after is keeping me awake and I’m too much of a softy to shut it out the bedroom. London has just gone into tier 2 lockdown which means I can’t visit my sister or my friends up there, and they’re not allowed to travel down here either. I get it needs to be this way and that we have to make sacrifices, but that’s not to say it isn’t tough on a lot of people’s mental wellbeing. I was really beginning to get my shit together this year, lol! Oh well! Sorry 2021, messy bitch me is getting a sequel. I know, I hate her too.

With regards to what’s coming up on my page, I’m working on the American Horror Story lookbook I mentioned this week and then a (probably non-existent this year) party season lookbook following that. I do intend to do more mood boards and a summary of the S/S 2021 shows soon. I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to do a whole ass review at the moment so I might spice it up and do a tier ranking or rating out of 10 or something fun like that, but there will definitely be something within the next couple of months! I also thought it’d be cool to do a post on the style of some incredible black influencers who are sorely underappreciated on Instagram for Black History Month, but even if I don’t get it out in October, expect that at some point.

Thank you to anyone who read this and thank you in general for bearing with me! I really hope things look up from here but regardless, if we all work together and be considerate of others, we can get through this. I hope everyone is doing okay and as always, if you are struggling, my inbox is always open. Post suggestions are welcome too, as well as feedback as long as it’s not *too* mean. A bitch is sensitive atm.

Stay safe!

Lauren x

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mom-of-today · 4 years

Text

So we did it. We fucking got it done. And for five minutes we can all step back and take a huge breath. We can sleep soundly in our beds tonight knowing that the nightmare of the past four years is over. We can think about something other than vote counts, which states we need, how many states we need, and whether we can really pull this out. We did it. Now, in a few weeks, maybe even not until January 21st, 2021, we have so much more work to do. We still have a white guy (an old white guy) in office, and no matter how amazing and wonderful he is, no matter how much I voted for him and supported his campaign once he was the Democratic candidate, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have done better. That doesn’t mean there weren’t better options. I don’t think that Bernie would be our guy. I know the hard left wants Bernie to be our guy, but the truth of the matter is: he’s too left for our country right now, in all the ways that absolutely terrifying centrists, the right, and conservatives as a whole. Is this a problem? Yes. It’s one of the reasons I ultimately threw in behind Biden; he is a centrist, he is not hard left, he will negotiate fairly and evenly, and he will be a voice of reason and calm. He is someone even the conservatives can support. I love Bernie Sanders, I love his policies and his beliefs, but I’m a ~liberal snowflake~ who thinks that global change is important and necessary. I am not a centrist, right-leaning, conservative-minded, Democrat. Or Republican. In another time I would probably be far left, but instead I am just regular old liberal left. In the 2022 mid-term elections we are going to have to put forth better candidates. But we have to also be aware that we are working against a group of strong conservatism that is dominating the country right now. They might be in the minority, but they are armed, dangerous, and feeling threatened. Have you ever cornered an angry, scared, dog before? That is what the hard right is. They believe their way of life is coming to an end; and in many ways they are right, their old-school belief about race, gender, the LGBTQ+ community, and so many other liberal agendas are changing the shape of our country and around the world. If we keep pushing further left, faster than we are convincing people that the left is a safe place to be, they are going to continue to give us people like Trump. Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem. Trump did not create this mess, he simply fed off the mess. Much in the same way that the Goths did not bring down the Roman empire in the 470s CE, instead they found weaknesses within and exploited those weaknesses until Rome came crumbling down around them. We are Rome, and if we are not careful Rome will come crashing down in a much more violent, frightening way. We cannot afford to tear ourselves apart from within as we all search for common ground. The rise of people like Trump, and Trumpism as a whole, simply created a bigger wedge, a wider divide between the Right and Left, conservatives and liberals, and it isn’t going to be fixed by electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We took a step in the right direction, we decided that a Black, Indian-American, WOMAN could, in fact, be worthy of holding the Vice President’s office. Nearly 5 million Americans decided that she, and Biden, were a better, more fitting choice for our country in this time, and I agree. But we know this because they will not actively seek revenge and push an agenda that is going to shove conservatives even further down a path of self-destruction. Electing Joe Biden as president is HUGE, and we shouldn’t forget that in nearly all of my years on earth this has only happened ONE single time. 30 years ago the country decided that George H. W. Bush was also someone we could not count on to do the right thing and run our country, he was a one-term president and lost to Bill Clinton. But a victory today does not ensure a victory 4 years from now, and we must be careful. We must be wary. We must ensure that Biden can maintain his hold for eight years and we work to repair our communities from within. Perhaps without the vitriol from the leader of our country we will begin to see a return of reality. We will see a shift in tone throughout our country. But it is going to take more that four years and Joe Biden. It is going to take all of us, it is going to take electing younger Representatives and Senators to replace those that are retiring, those that understand the battle we are facing right now, those who can see the reality of the world, while also being willing to fight for it. Change is not going to happen from the top up, it must happen from the ground first. You would never start a building by building a roof, you must start with the foundations. So we must spend the next four, hell the next two, years convincing our neighbors, our family, our friends, to keep seeing the value in moving left. That our values are not being compromised by seeing that all people have value, that Black lives matter, that women have a right to decide, and the climate needs to be addressed. We must have conversations, not fights. And we must do this or we risk another Trump-esque rival rising up and fighting Biden in 2024, running against another Democrat in 2028. This battle is over, but there are many more to go. The fight for our country, the fight for human decency, the fight for reality still lingers. We cannot forget, though we may take a deep breath and rest our wary fingers, our wary minds, and our hearts for a couple of months before we pick up the mantle and keep fighting for all the right (or left) things we believe in.

#politics #mom blog #Joe Biden #election #election results #vice president kamala harris #president elect biden #we fucking did it #political #the battle is won #more to come #keep fighting #leftist #centrist #conservatism

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