#maybe i should stick with audio books...

[quarklynx]

Read a book today, would not recommend. I have fallen to the "just one more chapter" curse. It is now 5 am.

[cryptidm0ths]

Guy that feels sick when shown gore/pain and get easily paranoid : wow I really want to get into more horror media

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

I finally understand. I'd never seen one in the wild. But. Marc-Uwe Kling truly is a wet rag of a man in his own movie. Pathetic. Really put through the wringer.

[hayakawalove]

Respite From Heat

Summary: A lazy day spent with the two men you love.

A/N: Short and sweet. Thank you to @whereflowerswenttodie for telling me about Canva for the picture. Please be kind to me I will get better at using it.

TW: SFW, Food mention, just fluffy, Gojo gets teased a lot

W/C: 1,559

“…and that’s gonna do it for the show today folks, make sure to stay in the shade and have something cool to drink. This weather isn’t a joke!” 

The neighbors radio carried its audio across the street over to the three of you. And the radio host wasn’t kidding, the weather wasn’t a joke. It had to be at least 90 degrees out, but you wouldn’t be surprised if it was over 100. 

Even though you sat in the shade, you could swear the pavement below you was melting your skin. Hot concrete bites into your palms while you lounge about, watching the two boys in front of you. Your two boys. 

They were shooting hoops in the driveway, an activity Satoru begged Suguru to partake in. One minute he was cuddled up with you on the couch reading a book, the next his eager boyfriend was dragging him outside, an orange ball under his other arm. 

Suguru dribbled the ball, the act borderline salacious. His bangs drooped over his eyes, a sheen of sweat beginning to coat his biceps. His tongue poked out while he focused on the ball. 

Maybe you should thank Satoru for offering you this holy sight. On second thought, maybe that’s why Satoru wanted to play. 

The white hair menace runs up to Suguru, stealing the ball before it could bounce back up to his hand. He lets out a cackle before dribbling the ball towards the rickety hoop, positioning his arms overhead to toss the ball. 

The ball shoots through the air, the orange sticking out against the blue backdrop of the clear summer sky. 

“And with that, I’m in first place!” Satoru prides, turning to Suguru as the basketball flies through the hoop, thudding against the ground. 

“I’m like five ahead of you-“ Suguru says incredulously, one of his brows raising. 

“In your dreams!”

Suguru squints at Satoru, debating on whether or not he wanted to start this. 

Why not. 

“Did you hit your head?” He asks, knowing it would rile Satoru up even more.

“You know Satoru, it’s okay to lose sometimes.” You murmur, cutting off Suguru. 

“You guys are consipiring against me!” Satoru pouts. 

Suguru ignores him and leans over to grab the ball, you catch a flash of his bare chest through his loose shirt, the large arm holes gracing you a sight to drink up. 

Both of their hair stuck to their foreheads, their chests slightly panting while pink dusted their cheeks. Even when sweat dripped from their skin and they wore loose clothing, they still were too hot for their own good. 

Maybe they were the ones responsible for raising the heat up around here. You wouldn’t be surprised. 

“You should join us, come on it would be fun!” Satoru says, prancing over you to grab your hand. 

“It’s not like I would join your team.” It was fun to antagonize him sometimes. 

Satoru wails, and you stifle a chuckle. 

“Besides, why would I want to play basketball against two 6’3 guys? You think I’m crazy?” You tug your hand away, watching as Satoru pops his hip out and rests his hand there. 

“Maybe you’re just afraid to lose.” He states like it's a fact.

“Says the loser.” You argue. 

Satoru opens his mouth to retort when a jingle sounds out, music flowing down your street. 

Your ears perk up, the sound heavily ingrained in your body from your childhood. 

“Is that-“ you start. 

“An ice cream truck?” Satoru finishes. 

You both lock eyes, excitement leaking from your voices. 

Suguru’s lips spread into a soft smile. He wasn’t really in the mood for anything sweet, but he just knew you and Satoru would be. 

“Suguru, pass me some cash!” Satoru looks like he’s two seconds away from jumping up and down. 

“I don’t have any cash on me, you know I don’t carry it.” 

You listen to the two bicker before making your mind up, hopping to your feet and running into the house. 

Once inside, you dart to your room and dig through Satoru’s drawers. The man always had spare cash laying around. Sure enough, wads of crumpled dollars lay in the very back of his pants drawer. Honestly, he probably forgot he had it. He had more money than he knew what to do with. 

Bounding down the stairs, you slap the cash in Suguru’s hand. 

“Here!” You say with a large grin. 

His eyes light up at your expression, beads of sweat rolling down his throat. 

“Oh hey, where’d you get that?” Satoru asks, peeking over. 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

He didn’t need to know. 

Suguru leans over to place a kiss against your cheek, the act settling off a million fireflies in your gut. 

“Just the usual, sweetheart?” Of course Suguru was going to get the sweet treat for you. 

He loved doing things for you while you sat there pretty for him. 

You try to suppress a smile while you nod, watching him stand to his full height. He licks his thumb before carefully counting the cash you oh so graciously brought out for the two men. 

You were an Angel, he wondered if you knew. 

“Should be enough, let’s go Satoru.” 

Satoru’s shoulders slump while he lets out a whine. Leave it to him to be dramatic. 

“Whaaat? Can’t you get mine for me too?” 

“No, plus you change your order a billion times.” Suguru skillfully shuts Satoru down, an act he’s done millions of times. 

You really did have to be trained in the art of handling Satoru. And if anyone was trained in it, it was Suguru. He must’ve had a doctorate in it by now. 

Satoru grumbles, pushing his hair up out of the way to look a bit more presentable. You watch as the two men set off towards the sound of the ice cream truck. 

It didn’t take long before they were back. You sat on the sidewalk, legs outstretched in front of you when they returned. 

“We bring gifts!” Satoru’s cheery voice calls. 

They looked almost more refreshing than the ice cream cream in their hands. Handsome men carrying your salvation. 

You reach out a grabby hand and Suguru carefully places the ice cream in your palm. 

“Thank you!”

Suguru swears he feels his heart rate pick up a bit at the sound of your gratitude. God, the things he would do just to hear you say that. 

He clears his throat, trying to maintain his composure so you don’t catch a glimpse of the pink tinting his cheeks. 

“Satoru cut in front of a kid.” He rats out Satoru. 

“No I didn’t! I almost did. And I didn’t see him, it's not my fault I’m tall.” Satoru plops down beside you, his legs noticeably longer than yours. 

Suguru sits on the other side of you, basking in your presence. You shudder as the cold treat bites into your hand. It felt like you could hardly wait anymore as you unwrapped it, ready to dive in. 

The heat felt a little bit more bearable once the cool ice cream hit your tongue. 

“Damn Toru, that’s low, even for you.” You giggle. 

“Low like that kid.” Suguru adds. 

Satoru clicks his tongue before beginning to munch on his ice cream. 

Ice cream trucks reminded you of your childhood. You could have been mature and asked Suguru to get you something more refined this time, but where was the fun in that? You just had to get the SpongeBob ice cream. Satoru ended up getting a chocolate cone, and Suguru was empty handed. 

He didn’t really care much for ice cream. Plus, watching his partners’ eyes light up while they ate was just as good of a treat he concluded. It might even be sweeter than having the dessert. 

You bite off a corner of the SpongeBob in your hand, watching as Satoru absentmindedly kicks his foot against yours. A small sign of affection, but a sign of affection no less. Other people began to fill the street in search of the truck, mainly children, but there were some adults meagerly waiting about. 

Turning to Suguru you offer up your ice cream. He wouldn’t normally have wanted anything, but he couldn’t resist your expectant doe eyes. 

He bends over slightly, taking a small bite. Sugar dances around his tastebuds as he licks his lips, looking back up at you. 

“Thank you baby.” 

“Of course! I dont want you to feel left out, you know.” 

Suguru’s heart aches at the sentiment. Excitement floods his veins at the mere prospect that you thought about him. 

Lucky, lucky, lucky. He thought. 

The three of you sit in silence as you and Satoru finish eating. Satoru’s pink tongue darts out to lick a trail of sugary goodness from his fingers. 

“That was good.” He squeaks out, leaning back on his palms. 

“Why don’t we go back inside and shower, and I’ll get started on lunch.” Suguru speaks, knees cracking as he stands up. 

Your head perks up at the mention of food, namely Suguru’s food, and you take the hand he's offering you. 

He helps you to your feet before going over to assist Satoru, the feel of his sticky fingers making Suguru wince. 

Summer could get unbearable at times, but having your boys around made it a bit more tolerable. 

Tag List: @tojislittleprincesss

Let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist

[chaotic-mystery]

Traitor | J.M.

Pairing: no outbreak!Joel Miller x reader!

Summary: This was a request I had received by @livingdeadmaria awhile ago and I finally got out of my funk to write! It’s based on the song Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo.

Word count: 1.3K || Warnings: angst. Angst and drinking and more angst. || notif blog for updates ||

You cleared your voice and took a deep breath, preparing for whatever was about to fall out of your mouth while the phone rang on the other end. Two rings and it went to voicemail but that didn’t surprise you. “Hey…I um… I know it’s late but I had to get some stuff off my chest. You always said I could call..if I needed you.” You sat in silence for a few seconds before you fiddled with your finger against your leg, questioning if you should even say anything. “D-do you remember how you used to read me sections of your book so I’d fall asleep faster because you said something about how sleep is important and I need it for my brain to stay sharp? Not sleeping so great these days to be honest with you..I remember you’d call me sweet pea and tell me to get comfy, it’s a long chapter. So I’d tuck myself next to you and you’d read for hours, even after I was asleep.” Your voice faded on the last bit of the sentence, your hand that was tucked into your coat pocket twirling a loose thread.

“I tried one of those audio books of some story to help me sleep but it didn’t work, she didn’t give the story enough of a monotone like you did. So then I tried music to help me fall asleep. I found out I love piano covers of songs. There’s one song though that could never be covered and that would be the one you showed me-” your voice cracked a little, the sting hitting your throat. “And I Love You So by Perry Como. That’s a good one to sleep to…has a lot of memories tied to it.”

The wind nipped at the tip of your nose and you sighed lightly, the puff of air disappearing in front of you. He showed you that song on the old radio he had tucked away in a shelf in his living room after you looked over his music collection he built over the years. He grabbed your hands and begged you to dance with him just until the song was over. As the short memory faded back into your mind and you were in the present, you stood up from the bench and finally walked inside your home. Taking off your coat and boots while your phone still squished against your cheek, you sniffled slightly.

“I heard that song today for the first time in a few weeks and it made me think of you. Took it as a sign to reach out. But then…I uh-” Hesitation overcame your voice before you continued.

“I saw you downtown earlier. Finally went to that winter festival thing they put on every year, the one I used to beg you to go with me to. Man, that was like pulling teeth with you, Joel.” It was. He said the lights and all the cheerful faces and overpriced hot chocolate wasn’t his thing. Of course you wanted to go anyway and you did go, alone.

“I was going to come up and tell you hi, see how you were…but then I noticed you with someone. Funny enough she looked like the one person you said you’d never date.” Your breath hitched and you made your way to the fridge to grab that bottle of wine you bought earlier to pour yourself a glass. You chugged down the first one and poured a second one before continuing the one sided conversation. The anger started to build up inside of you once more, completely taking over the good memories you had with him.

“I begged for you to tell me you had feelings for her, Joel. You always swore to me you didn’t, that I was paranoid for caring so much. Were you lying to me all those times I asked you anything about her? You didn’t even want to hold my hand in front of her towards the end of our relationship…why is that? I never said a word about what I actually thought was going on, just so you’d stay. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I played stupid you'd be happy with that and still stick with me. I loved you through everything, including your worst. Remember when you were terrified of me seeing you at your worst and you thought I’d leave? Never once did I do that, Joel. I stayed through all the bullshit you put me through, tried to help you be the best version of yourself that you could be. I showed you what love was again. You were the one who told me you couldn’t fall for someone after Sarah’s mom left and yet I stuck around. For you and for Sarah. You left me during my worst. Was I that shitty of a person to you that you didn't care about my feelings at all and thought the best thing to do would be to leave in the middle of the night after a fight?"

“Baby cmon I told you nothin’ is going on. She’s just a friend from years ago, I never had those feelings for her.” Joel followed you into your bedroom as you started to pack your stuff in a duffle bag, cleaning out the drawer he gave you in his dresser. “Baby, stop…just listen to me.” His hands grabbed your wrists and shook the clothes from your clutch, pulling you into his chest. Warm tears fell against his shirt and you broke down finally. All the pent up anger and sadness you had spilled onto the fabric against your cheek while Joel’s hand smoothed over your hair. “You’re my girl, okay? What can I do to make you trust me that she’s just a friend?” “Tell me you’ll never date her if we ever break up. I need to hear you say it.” The idea flopped out of your mouth before thinking it over but it was already out and in his ears. Joel just nodded and gave you a soft smile. “You have my word, I won’t date her if we break up. Which we won’t.” He kissed the top of your head and hugged you once more, his words still feeling a little empty.

That was a month before he broke up with you.

You downed the rest of the glass of wine and sighed, wiping the tears away from your cheeks. “I wish you would’ve thought this through before letting me fall in love with you, Joel. I really do. You betrayed me. You told me-” You choked out a sob and swallowed hard, “you told me you wouldn’t date her and you lied to me. How could you do this to me? Joel..we were together for two years and you left me when the going got tough…you ran right to her. Did anything we did matter to you?” With the tears clouding your vision, you squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head. “I hope you feel good about yourself, I really do. While she’s sleeping in the bed we made, I hope you replay this voicemail in your head and remember everything I said. I wish you’d call me after this to try to apologize for hurting me even more but I know you won’t. You’ll never be sorry for hurting me this bad and I think that’s what kills me so much. I know how kind you can be but it seems I’m not lucky enough to get that anymore. Thank you so much for making this heartbreak so much easier to get over. Just know that I always loved you and I would’ve never hurt you like this, you fucking traitor.” — Joel’s POV

He sighed and looked at the phone screen, the voicemail ending and the screen dimming out. His girlfriend woke up behind him in bed, rolled over and hooked her arm into his, “What’re you doing baby?” She asked tiredly but didn’t sit up to see his phone. Joel coughed and took a deep sigh before deleting the voicemail from his phone.

“Nothin’ sweet pea. Go back to sleep.”

[about-faces]

I'm still loving Gotham Nocturne and I wish it was getting the love/respect/attention is deserves. I've spoken several people who haven't been reading the current Detective Comics run because they're Batmanned Out (good lord, do I get it) and they see it as just another attempt at some kind of "ultimate Batman story with Batman fighting the ultimate evil," which I strongly disagree with.

THAT SAID... as time has gone on, and the story seems to be reaching its finale, there are a few things that stand out of me as problems with this epic storyline.

1.) It's one of the most egregious examples of "writing for the trade paperback." This simply isn't a story that's meant to be read month-to-month. It's too slow, with too little "happening," at least on the superficial level. Paradoxically, it's NOT a story that should be binged! The best comparison that comes to mind is Better Call Saul, since that's the only other example of serialized media that's meticulously slow-paced yet INCREDIBLY RICH for those willing to engage with it on its level rather than expecting it to be Breaking Bad (or in Nocturne's case, a typical Batman story.) Ram V is capable of writing super-engaging monthly issues, as the fantastic Rare Flavours proves, but that brings us to...

2.) The story is sprawling. Maybe even TOO sprawling. When it comes to people who are sick of Batman, I try to sell them on the fact that this story is about GOTHAM AS A WHOLE, right down to the villains who call it home, and how everyone there is as intrinsically a part of Gotham as Batman is. But ensemble stories like that are tricky, and it makes the focus feel all over the place at times, with alternately too much and too little attention being paid to the main players, Batman included. It's a balance that was handled beautifully with Batman: The Audio Adventures, but it seems a bit more awkward here. Again, it's hard to pull off!

Like, we have characters pop up and then vanishing without explanation. We got Azrael back in the AzBats armor for the first time in decades, like, holy shit! That should be a HUGE development! And then, poof, he vanished! There's simply no time to explore Jean-Paul's character because there's so many other things the narrative needs to explore.

This feels like it would have really benefited from a companion series, something to focus on the characters the way the backup stories have done, but just more so. I think about how Peter Tomasi would write companion books to the main big storylines written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, and Scott Snyder, and how he'd focus on character, which always enriched the greater "big important storyline." Which, in turn, also brings me to...

3.) The backup stories have really lost a lot of their punch since they stopped being written by Si Spurrier and were taken over by Dan Watters. Watters is incredibly capable, make no mistake, and his Cheshire/Lian Harper story is one of my favorite parts of this entire saga. But by and large, his tales focus more on the spooky and weird sides of what's happening with Nocturne, whereas Spurrier's stories were more focused on characters navigating the weirdness of the events. As a result, Spurrier gave us what I consider to be some of the very best stories about Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Victor Fries ever written. I really miss those, and how they enriched Ram V's (possibly overly-ambitious) narrative.

Ultimately, Gotham Nocturne feels like the Batman equivalent to an arthouse film, which means it's going to be appreciated by a handful of nerds while leaving most other fans cold, and I can't really blame them. If anything makes me sad about all this, it's how all this incredible character work with Bruce, Harvey, Victor, Talia, and others is going to be ignored. Hell, it already is, given the complete lack of acknowledgement we've seen in other Bat-books for what's going on in Nocturne.

At this point, I just hope it sticks the landing in the finale, because I want to be able to have a complete, satisfying epic to recommend to people who want something a bit richer than the typical "guy in Bat costume punches clown" stories we usually get.

[a-queer-seminarian]

An excerpt from Eli Clare (1999) exploring the language used against and used by disabled & queer folk. TW for the r word.

_

"Handicapped, disabled, cripple, gimp, retard, differently abled. I understand my relationship to each of these words.

I scoff at handicapped, a word I grew up believing my parents had invented specifically to describe me, my parents who were deeply ashamed of my cerebral palsy and desperately wanted to find a cure.

I use the word disabled as an adjective to name what this ableist world does to us crips and gimps.

Cripple makes me flinch; it too often accompanied the sticks and stones on my grade school playground, but I love crip humor, the audacity of turning cripple into a word of pride.

Gimp sings a friendly song, full of irony and understanding. Retard on the other hand draws blood every time, a sharp, sharp knife.

In the world as it should be, maybe disabled people would be differently abled: a world where Braille and audio-recorded editions of books and magazines were a matter of course, and hearing people signed ASL; a world where schools were fully integrated, health care, free and unrationed; a world where universal access meant exactly that; a world where disabled people were not locked up at home or in nursing homes, relegated to sheltered employment and paid sweatshop wages. But, in the world as it is, differently abled, physically challenged tell a wishful lie.

...

Queer, like cripple, is an ironic and serious word I use to de- scribe myself and others in my communities. Queer speaks volumes about who I am, my life as a dyke, my relationship to the dominant culture. Because of when I came out-more than a decade after the Stonewall Rebellion-and where-into a highly politicized urban dyke community-queer has always been easy for me. I adore its defiant external edge, its comfortable internal truth. Queer belongs to me. So does cripple for many of the same reasons.

Queer and cripple are cousins: words to shock, words to infuse with pride and self-love, words to resist internalized hatred, words to help forge a politics. They have been gladly chosen — queer by many gay, lesbian, bi, and trans peoples, cripple, or crip, by many disabled people. ..."

- Eli Clare in Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (1999)

[theowritesfiction]

How’s it going @theowritesfiction ?

I know you posted it a while ago, but I wanted to give a review for chapter 18 in Azula’s kitchen nightmares. I hope it is okay to use an ask as the medium for the review.

I’m sorry that I hadn’t given a review before now, I’ve been listening to a fan audio book of the Worm web serial on Spotify. What can I say? The Queen of escalation has captured my imagination. Today though, I only had one class at campus, so I had more time to get caught up to date for Azula’s kitchen nightmare. And I’ll be reading the other chapters promptly.

Now onto the review!

I really enjoyed this chapter. Jealous Katara who wants Azula all to herself is my bread and butter.

I also loved Azula just being flattered that Katara was stalking her and Katara being flabbergasted that she was cool with it all. The talk about Azula becoming part of the Northern lights family between Azula and Katara was sweet. June was absolutely right, Azula and Katara are “adorable”.

I also enjoyed Katara internally panicking when she realized that she was paying too much attention to Azula and none to June during the conversation.

Of course June then just throws Azula under the bus, that Azula thinks her co workers (Katara, Yue, and Suki) are the most sexy people she has worked with. Katara grinning at Azula and teasing her about it made laugh and smile myself.

Azula and Katara complimenting each others outfits and unabashedly eyefucking eachother made me grin.

Azula disappointment and Katara’s jealous reactions too June saying “anyway, maybe you two want to finish your drinks and we can get out of here” made me smirk. Those two are goners for each other already! My smirk only widened when June clarified that all three of them should leave together for June apartment, only for both Azula and Katara to turn into blushing messes.

And I laughed at June’s “their’s only so much of you two fucking with your eyes that I can take”. Ain’t that the truth. June got a first face impression of Azutara’s mural obsession with each other. From stalking, to being okay at being stalked (so long as it was Katara), to staring dreamily into each other’s eyes while they should include June in conversation. Not gonna lie, this line made my Azutara heart flutter.

The morning after the Daisy chain” was a fun read as well. June being guilty shocked at seeing Azula “so into someone, it’s disgustingly cute” was sweet. Katara just has that effect on Azula. If neither the OG show, nor the Netflix recreation weren’t cowards, Katara would have definitely seduced Azula to the good guys. But I digress,

Katara immediately denying the (obvious) truth and saying that June was “exaggerating” caused me to grab in unison with June in exasperation.

I burst out laughing (again) when June (knowingly) replied “I woke up in the middle of the night and it took me a moment to realize that you two were going for another round” and since neither thought to wake June for it, I have to concur that Azula and Katara are “both seriously into each other”. Azula and Katara thrusting for another and secretly going for “another round” kind of lends credence to my belief that Azula and Katara mostly focused on each other (mutual obsession and all that) during their “encounter” with June. Though the two would have made sure that June had nothing to complain about. Azula and Katara are both gentlewomen after all.

Azula and Katara being bitter and “sounding stiff” when agreeing to heel things professional and just “being friends” is making me roll my eyes. Ladies the two of you are obviously ready falling for each other! So just cut out the middle man (Ozai), screw each other’s brains out (again), and get together.

Of course, we wouldn’t have your awesome fic @theowritesfiction , if it was that easy. And half the satisfaction of seeing Azutara finally start avoiding the idiot stick and getting together, is the journey there! (With all its ups and downs!)

These lines made me laugh out loud too

“It was… defined some next level fun, compared to I’m used to” -Azula (which is either a hilarious commentary on Katara’s skills in the bedroom, or the lacking showing from Azula’s “usual hookups”, or both!)

“Katara didn’t exactly regret the act itself because it had been the best sex she’d ever had” -Katara (both Azula and Katara giving glowing reports about the other gorgeous women’s (who they are totally not falling for[sarcasm]) bedroom abilities… just admit your feelings girls!)

“As good as sex with Azula had been (also June was there too, Katara supposed), Katara still intended to apologize to Yue and Suki” (This was funny. Azula and Katara really are obsessed with each other. To the exclusion of everyone else (sans Suki and Yue of course). And I love that for them. Let’s go Steam(y) Queens!)

I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to take a while for all the idiots (affectionate) to figure it and get together. Particularly for Azula and Katara. And I am here for it!!

I loved chapter 18, and can’t wait for the next update. Well done @theowritesfiction !!!

On to the next chapters!

Hey, no worries, I’m always happy for reviews, doesn’t matter when 😉 And sure, using ask is totally fine!

I have heard about this Worm web series before – I read a brief synopsis of it somewhere, but I’ll be honest, while some parts seemed like something I would really enjoy, I could tell that some aspects would annoy me too much. 🤣

This chapter was a little different because it was almost pure Azutara throughout, and I haven’t had any chapters with such heavy emphasis on them. There are always spicy moments between them, but this was a really big escalation, and I hoped that Azutara diehards would love it. Seems I wasn’t wrong about that. 😊

Yue and Suki will remain in the picture for a good while longer, even if we all know that Azula and Katara are the endgame. But hey, it means more jealous Katara, so hopefully that’s fine. 😊

You’re exactly right that Azula and Katara made sure that June had no grounds to complain about the threesome. 😉

Azula and Katara falling for each other is just the first step to them actually being together. We wouldn’t want to make things TOO easy for them, would we? Pining is part of the fun, too!

Lol Azula and Katara both giving each other glowing reports and high scores 😉 I didn’t intend that to be a diss on their previous partners. Especially in Azula’s case, it’s probably that for maybe the first time she was with someone who she has genuine feelings for, and that adds a lot.

Tiny spoiler, but I am currently working on a chapter that is a big next step in Azula’s relationship with Katara, but also Yue and Suki. 😉 Unfortunately, it’s going to be slightly delayed because of the live action remake distractions, but it’s still coming along nicely and you’ll see it soon!

Anyway, thank you so much for this review, and I’m glad you’re excited to read more! 😊

[faejilly]

jilly's week in review?

I guess or something. Idek y'all, I was gonna try and do reviews but then I just rambled about what I did instead, so this is clearly gonna need a format revamp next week

anyway

READING

Finished Daughter of Witches

and also St. Peter's Fair, which I had started AGES ago and sort of lost track of, but I'm doing the January Challenge on TheStoryGraph and couldn't decide what to read next but needed to get my pages in, so I went digging for random shit and I have read it before and watched all the Cadfael mysteries so it's not like it was hard to get into to finish it so I could save my streak.😅

Read A House with Good Bones (on purpose from start to finish in one day!) because T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is absofuckinglutely one of my favorites. (There's a thought here about my occasional forays into the horror genre, and how some horror is almost kind of cozy because it's about protecting what we love from what we fear, and that is very much a Kingfisher kind of thing, but that might need a new post and a more functional brain to figure out where I'm going with that.)

Listened to a little bit more of IT while doing housework; I'm not great at audio books except when I'm driving, but sometimes I can manage a little (and I didn't want to distract myself from dishes by picking up a new book instead). Stephen Weber is an excellent narrator btw, for anyone who's curious.

WATCHING

The husband was sick last week, and I was only sort of doing shit either, so he kind of just put the TV on and let it go and I definitely will not manage a nice list with links like I did with books. There was some M*A*S*H, (oh, I did finally watch the special that recently came out on Hulu), and RoboCop (largely because Thing 1 gave the husband the new game for Christmas) and several different Predator movies of various quality, and a bunch of other stuff I am not thinking of at the moment. I know I picked a couple and watched them myself but with everything else I can't remember what?

Also some Mythbusters when Thing 2 picked something to watch for awhile, which is pretty much always entertaining even when we're like: your sample size is nonexistent and just because you can't do it doesn't mean someone who knows what they're doing couldn't have done it so are you SURE you should have busted that? 😅

PLAYING

I got Garden Story for Christmas and got through the quest-lines and realized I was quite far away from all the upgrades, so I've been periodically poking at it and trying to get my villages/tools better before trying the Final Boss. I have had a good time with Concord though, it's fun, I'm just not sure the leveling functions, such as they are, are paced/balanced quite right? 😅 (Or perhaps I'm just Bad At Fighting In Cozy Games? This does seem to be a bit of a trend tbqh, probably why I liked Wylde Flowers' lack of combat so much.) I also have found VERY FEW of the memories/weird achievements so that's a thing I'm probably going to have to look up hints for soon-ish...

(I did finish Potion Permit last year, which is great, I recommend it whole-heartedly: the potion building mechanic is usually pretty solid, it has good characters, a nice aesthetic, I did actually mostly have fun rolling around and fighting things/gathering stuff, but I did reach the end of the main quest and then go... huh, is that it? just because it, yk, kept going after the finale but there didn't seem to be anything there beyond like, a couple personal quests that needed materials I couldn't unlock until the end.)

MORE ENTERTAININGLY I THINK, we did also play some board games

Paint The Roses is QUITE HARD with only two people even if you stick to the medium level whims; or maybe I'm just not that smart?!? We did in fact survive without getting our heads' chopped off by the Queen of Hearts, but we legit guessed the last two puzzles so. Dumb Luck™️ is not nearly as reliable as actually figuring out how to plot your plants better.

We did Escape the Dark Sector (with more people this time, tbf) on our first try though! That was pretty delightful. It is atmospheric and potentially almost deadly without feeling too awful at any point! Also I got to punch a tentacle monster!

Mice & Mystics can go dramatically bad if your dice aren't on your side and you do like, one stupid thing to compound that, and then if you're invested enough to start over you can suddenly realize you've been moving tiny plastic mice and bugs around the table for like four hours and still only got through the first chapter... but not regret it at all because you like your mice and are very proud of them for finally making it!

Can you tell we like co-op games? 🤣🤣🤣

(I did also do some rearranging so the game room was comfier, so like, win/win I adulted and played!)

THERE WAS NO WRITING OR CROSS-STITCHING OR PAINTING OR ANYTHING ELSE THIS WEEK, so uh. Clearly my balance of activities is bonkers and I should maybe get off the couch/game chair(s) a bit more often.

[discordsmuse]

Things I want to know about my fellow writers!

Tagged by @bearhugsandshrugs who always is so kind to me!

I'm tagging @theemptyislost and @24hourmess and anyone else who wants to join! No pressure at all!

Last book I read: Seven Faceless Saints by M.K Lobb. Honestly it was only a 3/5. Easy to read and had an okay plot, but the twist was poorly done and frustrated me A LOT. Also, a weird romance thing was thrown in the last 30 pages and I got so confused where tf it came from.

Greatest literary inspirations: Steven King is honestly my favorite author, followed closely by Diana Wynn Jones. Totally opposite genres and styles but I take a lot of inspo from them both.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write: Lol I'm a degenerate and need more Ascended Raphael fics. I physically can't read my own writing/enjoy my own smut so I'm always hunting for very specific shit.

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: My Phantom of the Opera/BG3 crossover is my silly little passion project, but I'm also the type that loves to take 2 characters and stick them in every AU known to man. I don't think most ppl are as insane as me about that. (Consider the 'HAHA AGAIN!' TikTok audio.)

You can recognize my writing by: occasional typos (I get horny and impatient), reader inserts, no use of y/n in my x reader fics, big powerful men/power imbalances, choking, men munching (as they should)

My most controversial take (current fandom): Ascended Astarion groupies scare me. He was my first romance and my favorite romance of the lot, but I don't think my appreciation can even compare to half his fanbase. (Also some of them need to leave Neil alone.)

My top three favorite tropes: mutual pining when they both think its unrequited, enemies to lovers, ʰᵉᵃᵗ/ʳᵘᵗˢ ⁽ᵃ/ᵇ/ᵒ⁾

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut):  Like a 2, honestly. I've been struggling. I have like 7 half-finished fics that I'm trying so hard to brute force but it is simply not happening. Which is insane because in November I was cranking out like a fic a week. Maybe I just need to rot in bed for awhile and contemplate lie a philosopher.

Share a random frustration: I'm juggling 2 jobs and school and social life and hobbies rn and GOD am I not doing to hot with it lmao. Pray 4 me

[juniperkinglet]

so @cozy-fish-crow tagged me in this here tag game, ty milo!! i'm leaving this as an open tag for anyone who wants to do it cuz i'm super curious to see everyone's answers!

🫀 Currently reading: too many books lmao. the main ones are:

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite (queer vampire horror. emotionally very hard to read! but i love it so far)

Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee (whimsical high fantasy, cute and fun and makes me laugh)

Hunger Pangs by Joy Demorra (supernatural polyam romance! i'm not much of a romance reader, but it's so well written and i adore the characters deeply)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (slavic jewish dark fantasy!! everything i've ever wanted in jewish characters and female characters. i'm in love.)

🫀 Favorite color: jewel tones, specifically blue & purple. also maroon.

🫀 Last audio file I listened to: Not In Love by Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith <3 a classic

🫀 Last movie I watched: Crimson Peak! it was my second viewing. not exactly as suspenseful as my first time, before i knew all the twists, but still just as good!

🫀 Sweet, spicy, or savoury: huuuuge sweet tooth

🫀 Currently working on: a few original works, namely two short stories that i may try to get published! also writing two novels, and plotting/worldbuilding three others.

fic-wise, i've picked my kevin sickfic oneshot back up and should get that posted next week :) i've also done a rough outline of a ravens!neil/kevin/riko oneshot that i'm excited about :} and uh, last night i wrote *checks notes* 1,349 words just,, brainstorming a seth/kevin longfic on a whim. just... thinkin about it. maybe

if you think this sounds like too many projects at once then you're absolutely right lmao, but also this is the only way i can stay consistently writing!! if i try to stick to only one thing at a time, i get bored or writers blocked easily and just stop writing for long stretches. gotta stay in the habit by following the whims of hyperfixation!

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of the dog days of summer

monday, aug 22, 2022

on my phone again in the hopes it’ll help me preserve (some) brevity! it has not worked! vague but important spoilers below for winter’s orbit (and a little for the left hand of darkness). it’s been a while, actually, since a summer of mine has had real, actual dog days—it requires a combination of heat, breathlessness, and a feeling like time has suspended which is actually quite hard to get, as an adult. you’d think the last two years would have but, for me anyway, not really? anyway, i think we finally got there this weekend—neat. dry grass, bright days, breathlessness. thunder woke me at 2am last night, and it’s been raining on and off all day, at last, at last. i think i’m calmer than I have been in…weeks.

reading it’s been a week+ (a summer, maybe) of space operas. listening to murderbot 4 network effect any time i’m on public transit (and thinking abt how tuning in and out of the events in the audio book while commuting is a bit like having them all coming to me in a feed, actually), got 80% of the way into a memory called empire before the loan expired and i was so so bereft that i’ve turned around and started rereading ancillary justice (fascinating to pair with murderbot, i should talk about that next time). we’re talking empire, we’re talking what it means to be colonized, human- and person-ness, we’re talking gender, and cool info tech, and more political machinations and unpronounceable names than you can shake a stick at. but today’s post is for everina maxwell’s winter’s orbit, since that’s what i actually finished most recently. very good experience, i found it immediately engaging, a good mix of all the above Space Opera Themes with then lots of small touches of humor and genuine fun romance to stand out. i saw a blurb describing this as red, white, and royal blue plus imperial radch, but honestly i think it reads better as its own thing, or at most as a love letter to the left hand of darkness. (it’s not as anthropological or poetic, but there is Gender, there’s negotiations abt joining an echumen-esque galactic alliance, there’s a winter camping trip. winter’s orbit is for people who really wanted genly and estraven to get it on in that tent). is an arranged political marriage tropey as hell? yeah! did i have fun with the miscommunication and unreliable narrators? yeah! was this also one of the most searing portrayals of spousal abuse i’ve ever read? yeah. you can see it immediately if you know what to look for, the details are peppered in very intelligently. we hear the term gaslighting thrown around quite loosely these days— that’s not how i’m using it. i mean quite seriously, it’s clear through flashbacks that a character has previously been made to second guess their own perceptions by their spouse, has had their communications with friends and family shut off, privacy invaded, sense of self eroded, been shamed, manipulated, and taught to anticipate outbursts and apologizes to avoid them, and is an unreliable narrator in part because of negative self-talk learned through abuse. it’s heartbreaking. but there’s a journey of healing started, and watching the other protagonist’s righteous fury was very satisfying. also getting to destroy his own evil ex (even in a hallucination scenario) helped.

listening been spending a lot of time with my spot of fy top songs of 2021 playlist. you know how you sometimes scroll your own blog to bask in your own good taste? a bit like that. it’s also very funny, bc there are songs on there i one thousand percent have barely heard once—i guess they have to algorithmically pad it out to reach 100 songs for weirdos like me. anyway, here’s dom fera’s ‘easy thing’, which grooves like a lazy sunday mid morning bop if I’ve ever heard one but has lyrics that go surprisingly hard!

watching finished up season 2 of gentleman jack with @hematiterings (including much consternation at some of the rushed, disjointed, mystifying editing in the last episode), watched some full metal alchemist: brotherhood with her, @pep-squad-lizzie and @dimir-charmer, and finally started ‘Turning Red’ for myself! only about halfway through it, and so far the toronto details are my favorite. local friends please weigh in, but it seems like it must be fun to watch if you grew up here. i have also watched another episode of oath of love, bringing me up to 12 i think? @witcheryen they just surprised gu wei with the house warming (bet he haaaaated that) and lzx saw the hot female doctor at his window. gasp.

playing still on my stardew bullshit—more cut scenes with more characters has been really lovely, and leah gave me her statue! i have also purchased a cow and named her marigold ☺️ then tonight, got to play some more ‘it takes two’ with my xbox buddy; i have liked each level of this thing more (we’re done with the squirrels and wasps now and have reached the space-faring baboon!! the scenery is so starry and beautiful!) and have still got to hold myself back from shouting at the dialogue.

making repotted my poor fucking nasturtium, which had been gnawed off at the stem by a squirrel again. it has put out some root hairs after sitting in water for a few days, so it’s back in soil to see if it can actually pull through, but i haven’t much hope. meanwhile, the rest of the garden is starting to really produce!

working on anyone besides me not notice we’d skipped this section last week XD. which is hilarious bc I do think about work almost constantly, however it is depressing so a break isn’t a bad thing. still, as a small check-in, I’ve more or less reframed my chapter plans in my head (‘offering a reading rather than a definition; this isn’t a lexicographical project’) and now just get to explain and justify those to my supervisor on wednesday. still reading this welsh article, as part of getting extra tutoring yn gymraeg. he was very nice to me last week, which is good bc one word conversational gambits still seem to be my limit. oh, and the post doc / publication chat i had with a supportive prof last week thoroughly shook me. everything’s dandy.

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Does tugger ever read? I feel like he would just have graphic novels if anything

You'd be right - Tugger isn't much of a reader either. Visual, audio and moving stimuli is more his game, though unlike Cassandra, he's got an extremely active imagination. He'll very rarely dip into a book, should the mood suit him, but he loses patience for them very quickly if it doesn't catch him within the first five-ten pages. He's also bad for accurately predicting endings, which, in his opinion, makes the whole experience a time strain.

If he does pick up and stick with a book, it's usually a graphic novel, or an autobiography, maybe a magazine or two, or something non-fiction that's about something that piques his curiosity (one thing about Tugger is that if he shows interest in a thing, he will consume *everything he can* about the thing). He'll borrow books, mostly, rather than purchase them himself - usually from other cats. He's also eclectic in the bookmark department, though his odd choices will will range from hairbrush handles to sewing pins, even his bandana at one point (he thought he’d lost it before he remembered what it was being used for).

Tugger is also an out loud reader - he likes to narrate and talk to himself through it - and will make audible noises of surprise or joy or disgust, what have you, depending on what's going on on the page. You can usually tell his attitude towards a book by listening to him for a few minutes. If you ask him "What happened?" at any time in reaction to his noises, he'll just grin mischievously at you and simply say: "Oh, nothing."

The only books Tugger actually owns are very, *very* loved copies of The Tales of Peter Rabbit and The Wind in the Willows, which he keeps tucked away under his bed, both of which were his favourites as a child and he had his mother and father read them to him every night. Munkustrap's name is in both of the covers, neatly crossed out, with Tugger's written underneath it (something Munk helped him do when he passed them down to him). He was read them so often, he would show off how he could "read" them by repeating what he had memorized of the story and flipping the pages in tandem.

These are very special to him, and he will occasionally pull them out to leaf through the now near tissue thin pages, still knowing most of the words by heart - perhaps he'll pass them down to his own kittens one day and neatly cross his name out and write theirs instead.

[yoslimbo]

How I record and edit podcasts in 2022

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about how I record and edit podcasts on a weekly basis. Over time I've evolved that process, learned about shiny new tools, spent a bit of money on new hardware and software, and also started brand new shows. It feels about the right time to update folks on what I do these days but also talk about how I would podcast today as a brand new podcaster starting out 2022.

But first, who the heck am I and why should you care? I started podcasting in 2007. (that's 15 years ago, wtf!) I've produced shows about comic books, fatherhood, movies, folk's favorite things, tech gadgets, and I still occasionally podcast about Tom Cruise movies. These days, I spend my time on two shows in particular. 70mm is a podcast focused on movies with a different theme every month. Danny co-hosts and produces a beautiful piece of artwork to accompany each episode. The Letterboxd Show features conversations with Letterboxd members, filmmakers, critics, actors, and movie lovers about their four favorite films. We also has a secondary show called Weekend Watchlist focused on new movies dropped that week to help you figure out what to watch. I oversee the recording and editing of both shows, as well as steer direction for both to varying degrees.

Recording and editing your first podcast in 2022

OK, with that stuff out of the way...how would I suggest producing your own podcast in late 2022 and beyond? I'm not saying this is the only way to start a pod, this is just the way I'd suggest doing so. Let's break things down below into a TL;DR and then take each section as its own topic:

Buy this USB Mic and tell your friends to buy it, too.

Chat (and record) with your friends on Zoom while also recording your own local audio on your computer, too.

Clean up the local audio if needed using free services like Audacity (optional).

Edit that audio together in a free app like GarageBand on Mac.

Upload your episode to a free hosting service like Anchor.

Buy this USB Mic and tell your friends to buy it, too.

If you're just getting into this whole podcasting thing and don't have a mic, you are going to have to spend some moolah. Don't get cheap with the mic.. please god in heaven. Maybe you have some rando mic laying around or Apple earbuds around or ..gasp.. a Yeti, but please just think about this. Do you want to podcast? Do you want it to sound decent? If you don't want it to sound decent then I suggest you not start a podcast. Like, what are we doing? You listen to podcasts every day and you get excited and you want to start one. I get that! It's the whole reason I started podcasting in the first place; I thought I could do it better than the shows I was listening to. If you don't think you can do it better than what is out there...why bother? At the very least you should want to sound as good as most podcasts out there that you like. You should have a baseline of quality for yourself because guess what, your friends and family aren't going to tell you that your podcast sounds like crap on a stick. They'll share some tweets at launch but man they will go silent and months later ask if you are still doing that podcasting thing. "You still doing that podcast thing about that whatever? Hey that's great." If you don't think you can sound as good or better than other pods, don't bother. That's my whole vibe for podcasting. Take it or leave it, bud.

You'll want to spend a few bucks on a dynamic microphone. Yeti mics are condenser mics and they pick up all sorts of background audio and mouth noises and it's just not pleasant, imo. If you get your room situation sorted and have perfect mic positional technique, you can get good audio out of a Yeti, but more often than not they just don't sound great to me. So help me god if you think it's good enough to be a podcaster and use Apple Earbuds I will slap you. I recommend using this USB-C microphone. It's $79. Both Danny and Proto use an older model of this mic and they sound great. They also use a mic arm and keep it about 3-6 inches from their mouth and don't record in a giant room. This will become a theme in this walk-through, and I get that you're excited and you want to get things off the ground, but it's relatively simple to make a podcast sound great. It's up to you to put in the work so people will want to listen...and keep listening. I've said it before and I'll say it again...your friends will not tell you they don't like your podcast. People that listen to your podcast will not tell you that your mic sucks. That's just the way it goes..let me be that person. Let me be Batman running off into the night at the end of the Dark Knight. Goofy metaphor but whatever.

I prefer to use a Shure BETA 58A dynamic microphone. I've tested a bunch of mics and I prefer how my voice sounds with this particular one. It costs ~$200. That XLR mic cable goes into a Cloudlifter C-1 ($179) to boost the gain which is plugged into a Tascam USB audio interface ($249), which is plugged into my Mac.

Chat (and record) with your friends on Zoom while also recording your own local audio on your computer, too.

There are multiple ways for you to video chat with your co-hosts and some of which offer free recording right in the browser. However, Zoom is pretty ubiquitous in this day and age and more importantly free/cheap. I'd suggest paying the $10/mo for Zoom Pro so you can have longer conversations and also record the audio of everyone in the call. There is a setting inside of Zoom where you can separate everyone's audio so you can download each person's audio as its own file. Before we get ahead any further, I would not use this audio as the files you'd edit for the show. This Zoom audio should be your backup audio. It will always sound of a lesser quality than your locally recorded audio. In case of some kind of disaster when recording locally, you'll always have your Zoom audio to fall back on. And boy howdy, you will encounter disaster. Might as well just get that in your head now and prep for the worst. "Oh shit I recorded my laptop mic instead of my USB mic!" You will do that one day. You think it won't happen, but it will.

In terms of recording your own audio locally, QuickTime lets you record audio right in the app. Open the app and go File > New Audio Recording, choose your Mic and hit record. You can also use a free app like Audacity, but you will need to double and triple check you are setting the app to record your USB microphone.

If your podcast is your Zoom call audio stitched together I'd love for you to ask yourself why. Is it because it's easier? Faster? Maybe it's faster...but is it better? I would say 100% no. If the show is you and one or two friends, just go the extra mile to have them record their audio locally. You are putting yourself out there and people are going to listen to you for the very first time and get one giant impression of your show. If you don't care about giving the highest quality audio when possible...why should they care?

Clean up the local audio if needed using free services like Audacity (optional).

In a perfect world, the audio you and your friends record locally will sound great! Or at least, "good." In some cases, maybe things don't sound great, or there is some background noise, or someone's nose is whistling and maybe you want to clean it up a bit. What I wrote in 2020 still stands in terms of using a free app for cleanup, so I'm going to paste it here again:

Since none of my hosts/guests have audio studios, there is inevitably going to be some random background noise happening in the audio files they send you. That could be nose whistling, your own audio coming through someone else’s headphones by accident, and maybe even a fan in the corner of their room that you asked to have them turn off but they still wont listen to you.

Knowing this, I add the audio file into Audacity and run a Plug-in on the entire thing called Noise Gate. This essentially lets me tell Audacity, “hey man remove any audio in this file that isn’t the person talking or laughing.” It’s incredibly helpful! More technically said, it can lower any audio beneath a decibel level that you set. I run that Plug-in on the file, and export that file as an .mp3. I do the same thing for the other host’s files as well. Here are what my settings look like for Noise Gate plug-in below:

Again, you might never need to do this, but worthwhile knowing these tools are available to you. If you need to raise the levels of you or your friends audio so they sound the same and don't want to use Audacity, this site offers that for a small fee.

Edit that audio together in a free app like GarageBand on Mac.

I've used GarageBand for years and years to edit my podcasts. It's free and super easy to use. Some of my friends are on PC and they use Audacity, but tbh I don't really have any experience editing there. Below is what an older project looked like in GarageBand. (Evergreen comment, but YouTube is a godsend for anything podcast related. You can legit teach yourself everything with some good tutorials.)

Upload your episode to a free hosting service like Anchor.

If you're just starting out, you're probably already annoyed that I recommended a $80 microphone but calm down, ok? Anchor is free and since Spotify owns them, it's super easy to get your show onto Spotify, too. You'll need to submit your show to Apple as well so follow this guide to submit your RSS feed that Anchor will provide to you. If you're cool with spending some cash monthly, I love Simplecast, too.

Once you have your show edited, exported, and uploaded into Anchor, publish! Tell your friends! Have fun! That's the main thing after all, ya know? Most podcasts don't produce more than 7 episodes and kinda stall out for whatever reason and the top 50% of podcasts in the US average 120 downloads after 30 days, give or take. Maybe one day I can get into the nitty gritty of pulling together an entire plan to launch a podcast and why you'd want to start a podcast, and how to keep a podcast growing but for now let's stick to the production side.

Recording and editing my podcasts in 2022

Now that I've laid out how I would start a pod in the year of our lord 2022, let's chat about how I produce and edit 70mm and The Letterboxd Show every week.

Video chat and record using Riverside.fm

Clean up local audio in Izotope RX 9

Edit and export episode using Logic Pro

Upload episode to Anchor, etc

Video chat and record using Riverside.fm

Riverside is a website that lets you video chat and record your own local audio right in Chrome. It's also $29/mo sooooo just saying. But it's so good that I don't even asks my co-hosts to record their audio locally anymore. Riverside takes care of everything right in the browser. I click record, and your guests audio starts being recorded and uploaded into the cloud right then and during the entire recording. Once I hit stop, it finishes uploading the last 1% of the audio and from there I can download it to my computer and get ready for editing. In rare cases, something went wrong with the file, where I've heard some kinda funky background audio, or my audio coming from their headphones that were turned up too loud that I didn't catch while chatting, etc etc. The nice thing is that even if their local recording is kinda crap for whatever reason, you can still download the lower quality "call audio" that you heard while chatting. There are a few other similar web apps like Riverside but I don't have experience with them.

Clean up local audio in Izotope RX 9

This past year or so I finally jumped in head first and spent some real money on audio cleanup software. When I started working for Letterboxd and chatting with guests without a good mic, you'll sometimes just get what you get in terms of audio. Maybe they are using ear buds, maybe they are using their laptop mic, and maybe they are using the biggest room in their entire house. After that call, I need to do what I can to clean up that audio as best I can to make sure that people have an OK time listening to that episode. RX Elements is $99 and comes with tools like de-hum, de-click, voice de-noise, de-reverb, and de-clip. It's a legit magic tool that has been an absolute lifesaver sometimes. I use voice-de-noise a lot. Sometimes you're editing and you hear a click and you have no idea wtf it is, RX can help you remove that noise. There is even a setting in RX Standard called "de-bleed", where if someone's headphones were too loud and another person's audio was bleeding into their mic, you could have the app learn those tracks and do its best to remove the bleed. RX Standard has that larger suite of tools and costs $299. Yes, I bought it, and yes I would do it again.

This section I wrote about Auphonic years ago still stands as well. It's possible that my guests audio levels are kinda funky so after recording I put their audio through Auphonic ($89) to level their audio to around the same levels before I edit to save time. It's possible I could do this step using RX 9 but I haven't really investigated. Here is what I wrote years ago:

Background on Auphonic: A few years ago I finally sprung for Auphonic Leveler for Mac ($89). When you’re recording a podcast with others, or even on a H1N Zoom recording device with more than 1 mic, it can be difficult to make sure everyone’s voice sounds the same and comes across at the same audio level. You could even get an audio file from a host/guest and their audio could be super duper quiet. Throw the audio files into this app, adjust the settings to what you want, and it exports new audio files where each one is set to the same level. Even if you weren’t recording in the same room, this helps create that atmosphere.

I’ve recorded a podcast using a Zoom using 2 XLR mics plugged in where there are 2 guests, one speaking quiet and one speaking loudly on the same audio file. Auphonic saved my bacon big-time and brought us both to the same audio levels.

Once I have the audio files from my guests, I throw them into Auphonic with these settings screenshotted below. That brings everyone to an even playing field in terms of audio levels.

Edit and export episode using Logic Pro

I've used GarageBand for 99% of my editing career and it's great! Many "legit" podcasters still use it. Whatever floats your boat, ya know? During the pandemic I wanted to up my game a bit. I wanted to improve the overall sound of 70mm, add some equalizers, add some filters, remove echo, adjust compression, and pretty much just make us sound legit. Like, I know we sounded good before, but I wanted to go higher. Logic Pro X from Apple is pretty much GarageBand Pro and costs $199. It let's me do some fancy keystrokes to save time moving clips around, remove dead-air sections. Below is a recent episode of 70mm and you'll notice lots of blank space where that host is not speaking. I can remove all that dead air or anything under a certain Db level and that makes it super easy to move stuff around if needed. I also use a few different plug-ins to reduce echo on someone's audio track. If you're ever curious about deeper details about how I edit, feel free to reach out with questions. I'm always happy to help!

Here is a screenshot of me adjusting the EchoRemover too.

Upload episode to Anchor, etc

Listen you've seen how much I've spent on software so far, let me live a little and pay $0 for Anchor, OK?

With 70mm, there are several other check-boxes I need to complete depending on what episode we are about to release. We have Patreon, Apple Subscription episodes, and also Paid Episodes on Spotify. Anchor lets me take care of those paid episodes on Spotify right in the dashboard but everything else requires its own upload. When we do a supporter-only episode, that means I have to upload it to Patreon, Anchor, and Apple. When we do a regular episode, I have to upload it to Patreon so our supporters listen to it first and then Anchor.

One of the perks to our 70mm Patreon is access to our VHS Village Discord. Every Thursday, we stream our recording directly into Discord so folks can listen along together. Patrons also get access to that uncut recording right after we get done. That gets uploaded to Patreon only. Initially, I was super hesitant to have a loosey goosey unedited episode floating about but tbh folks love it the three of us have hit a nice groove in our convos and there is not much overlap while talking if any.

As I mentioned earlier, too, Danny creates a beautiful piece of artwork for each episode and there is an important step I need to do to ensure it shows up in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Cast, etc. Here is what I wrote years ago:

Forecast is free and very easy to use for Chapters. It does other things like encode your show into an MP3, but I don’t really use that. Below is a screenshot, but I right-click on my audio file and Open With Forecast. I type in all the info and then add in my Chapters for the show and drop the podcast image on each one. Apps like Logic Pro and Audition allow you to add markers as you edit, but for now I’m still using GarageBand, and it’s not that big of a pain to just add the few segments 70mm does have. If you have custom artwork for each episode, this ensures podcasts apps will show it as they listen, but it also will let your listeners easily find specific segments. If you do convert to MP3 using Forecast, it may default to exporting at 64kbps, so be sure to change that setting for a higher level of audio quality.

Not too bad, right? jk jk Podcasting can be a lot of work but more importantly, if you put the time in, it can be extremely rewarding. I think I covered just about everything and I'll go back and made additions as I find things that I left out. If you have any questions feel free to DM me on Twitter.

[hekaates]

open letter to ems — @emdrabbles

Hey bitch. Happy birthday.

It’s 02:30 when I’m writing this, obviously, it’s not like I could write you this another time, and I was wondering if you like coffee.

I know. I’m just as genuinely confused as you are. Part of me tells me you probably do but another part, deep in my soul, tells me ur only drink earl grey tea. Do you like coffee? We’ve known each other for years, I feel like I should know if u like coffee or not.

It’s weird. To think that we’ve known each other for years. Makes it sounds like we met in a sandbox during kindergarten recess, you stepped on my sand castle so I threw sand into ur eyes. We’d spend the rest of the school year flipping each other and sticking our tongues to one another.

Instead we met the way we did. Each on their own hemisphere, the other side of the world. I never thought send an ask would save my life so much. (A/N:: trying to sound pretty while talking ab tumblr antics if fucking pathetic)

I remember sending you that ask, I suppose. Vacation on the beach side, sleeping in a mattress on the floor while my family sleeps on the single beds. It’s 1AM, I check ur blog and think that, maybe, saying something nice won’t be the death of me.

I don’t remember what I said. But everyday since then I’m glad I’ve said it.

I’ve just watched Set It Up with my grandmother, that film where the MCs try to set Lucy Liu with some guy. The entire film they present the idea of loving in-spite of…loving someone independent of their flaws, their mistakes, their imbalances.

I wish I could saying I loved you despite of you…but I can’t think of anything to despise you for, anything that would make me disregard the sisterhood we created through conversations of writing, books and everything else we’ve talked about.

All I can think of saying is

I love you despite of you being a head shorter than me.

I love you despite you not writing anything for weeks

I love you despite you not updating our collab playlist for months

I love you despite you living in the other side of the world

I love you despite never having truly seen you

I love you despite knowing I might never see you.

I love you because I know I almost never knew you.

In return what I could say is thank you. for loving me back. Loving me back despite of all things…despite of myself.

Despite my bad grammar, my main character complex, despite being unable to shut up about Brazilian trivia, my disgusting taste in men, despite not being able to shut the fuck up sometimes, despite sending you twenty audios of a random subject you didn’t ask to be spoken to about, sending you unnecessary updates on reality shows you don’t watch and despite everything telling you not to.

Thank you for not giving up on me when I gave up on myself.

My aunt used to tell me the story about the time she went hiking with her friends. The trail connect one city to another, and in the dark night she and her friends meet three boys standing on the road looking through the woods. They greet each other shortly and ask if any of them has seen a dog. She says no and the three warn them about the bad things they can see on a trail on their own. She takes no mind to it.

Two hours later, they reach the city and order a beer on the first bar they see. The waiter is friendly enough to ask them their story and when they mention they had just left the trail he asks them if they knew about the three boys that died mysteriously after searching for their dog.

I hope when I die I can haunt trails next to you, whatever trails it might be.

You’re the Tolkien to my Lewis, hopefully without its tragic ending.

Eu te amo. E você sempre será minha irmã. Mesmo que eu nunca te encontre.

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

7/27/2022 DAB Chronological Transcription

Isaiah 44-48

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological. I'm Jill. Today is the 27th day of July, and once again I find myself in the place saying I can't believe how quickly this month has gone by. Feels like we just got here, doesn't it? Or maybe that's just me, I don't know. We're reading the Bible. We do it every day and at this channel we do it in chronological order, which means it is being read as best as historians and theologians can tell in chronological historical order of events. That's why we jump around the reading as much as we do. So if you have a regular Bible you read through that and chronicle order and then this is chronological. So we don't go from chapter to chapter to chapter. We do passage that jumps from chapters to other chapters to other chapters and read it as it happened. And why do we read different translations? Why can't we just stick to one? That's a really great question. We do that because sometimes we hear things differently when they are set in a different translation things that we didn't understand we didn't catch. And I get it. Some of you have a preference and some of you don't like certain translations but we always say stay with it. Even the ones that you don't like because even in our preferences and our dislikes God still has some things to say and he cannot speak them if we're not listening. So don't jump past. Stay present and learn what we need to learn even in our discomfort and our particular-ness I guess is a more compassionate way to say it. Today we are reading Isaiah continuing through that reading chapters 44 through 48 and this week we are in the Contemporary English version. Isaiah chapter 44.

Commentary:

So there's a lot of review happening in the book of Isaiah through the prophet Isaiah. We have a strong focus today on idol worship and if you are maybe in this place of redundancy. Boy have I heard this over and over and over again and again. That's the whole point. How many times the people fall away and God's response every time is just come back, just turn away and come back. Again, we look back at how many times in our own lives we have lost faith, regained faith, lost hope, regained hope, given time and space and attention and energy to things in our lives that are reckless, absolutely reckless when God is just longing for that space, time and energy that relationship, intentionality. And so I love how this is spelled out today- that idols- what can these idols do for you? What can pieces of wood and pieces of bronze, clumps of material- what can they possibly do for you? And it is a fair and honest question that we might scoff off or laugh at or roll our eyes at, but we really should sit with that question. What can these things do that have no life? What can people do, people that we'll never encounter never have a discussion with and we put all of our faith, all of our hope in them. We write people out of our lives, family members, close friends, people that disagree, that we dislike people and what are we gaming? What are we gaining other than the though that we're winning, the thought that we are right. And let's zoom out and go after the bigger thing that is behind all of this, we have our pride. We have our pride that keeps us right, it keeps us unshakable. It keeps us in the status quo. It keeps us comfortable and we know that pride comes before the fall. So we read this today. Let's once again let the words wash over us. Let the words fill in the cracks. Let them sink deep because they come with a heavy weight even though we've heard them continuously. We've heard them repeatedly throughout the Scriptures. This is the theme throughout the Bible: endurance you have to keep going. We keep enduring some of the same things over and over again and until we can ever overcome, we must endure.

Prayer: 

So father, we thank you once again for the gift of your word today. We thank you for how it transforms us, we thank you that it causes us to remember, causes us to think of how many times we've heard those words and it must cause us to consider why we've heard it so many times. And yet, we sometimes fail to change anything. Let us Father, examine our own hearts, our own lives even here and now on this day and remove anything that's heavy, that is weighing us down, that is pulling our attention, our energy, our space- it's just consuming us (and we let all of the wrong things consume us). I pray that we would turn our thoughts, our hearts, our conscience, our attention to you, the one true living God. And we thank you that you meet us where we're at. We pray this now in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Announcements:

Daily Audio Bible, that's home-base. Check it out guys, if you have not. That is the app as well. Plenty to do there. Take a look around if you have never. If you would like to partner with the Daily Audio Bible thank you so much for your partnership and we could not do this journey without you. That is no understatement and that is words that don't hold the magnitude that they should. We cannot do this without you and we are so grateful for every every partnership. If you're giving by mail DAB PO Box 1996 Springhill, TN 37174 or you can hit the give icon it's up at the top right hand corner of your mobile device and then lastly, look for the give icon on the website as well. If you need prayer. We are a people that pray for one another and I am so grateful for that aspect as well. 800-583-2164 or hit the red circle button at the top right hand corner of your mobile device. You have two minutes on the prayer line, hit submit, turn the wheels chronological, and it shall go to the right place. That's gonna do it for me today. I'm Jill. We'll turn the page together tomorrow and as we move out of this month and into a brand new month as we are waiting for the season of summer to run its course and for the season of fall to come. Not in a real big hurry, even though I do love fall- my favorite season. We realize, all in due time, seasons must run their course and even when we think they're done, and when we are anticipating what is next the season usually has something left to say. We can't wish it away. We have to embrace whatever season that we're in, and we must know that we are not alone in every season. I'm Jill. Until tomorrow, love one another.

Community Prayer Line: Hi DAB family, it's Rene from FL. I called a couple times and they haven't aired it, but I just really want to thank the people who prayed for me on the one situation I had where I called my husband to wish him happy birthday. I still call him husband because we are not divorced, but I thank you for calling about marriages. I thank you Joe and Tabby and Diane Olive Braun, but I do need to clear up something. I was the one with the bitter words. I want you to know that. He kind of made it seem like he didn't have time to talk. And basically, is that all? Is that all you need? Because I continued to talk to him after I said happy birthday. So I got upset and hurt. And I said something and I hung up. That's why I just wanted to make sure that you guys knew that. He doesn't say bad words about me that I know of. And I know there was a lady today that called in and said she found out her husband used to praise her and talk well about her. There's a lot of people that didn't even know my husband was married at his work. He's married to his work is what I think. So I pray for him, for his business, for us if we could ever get back together, it would be God's will. I just know that it's going on 3 years and we're still separated, and it would have to be him to say he would wanna come back. I've asked and I've asked for counseling and I've asked for all of that. And I need to know. I really wanna hear from God whether I need to move forward or not. So I just wanted to clear that up. I love you all so very much. Thank you for every person that prayed for me that meant more than you will ever know. God bless. I love you in Jesus. Good morning DABC fam. This is Samantha from TN. It is July 21st and I just hear Whitney's praise report about her rent and the rain and that is just fantastic. Thank you Lord for your provision and for reaching down and taking Whitney's hand through this while she was in that dark place. I just pray Lord that you continue to deliver her and provide for her. And comfort her. I also have a prayer request of my own. My friend who is recovering from a stroke, miraculously, may I say? Their custody trial for her daughter against her ex-husband is today. We've worked really hard to get to this point and we're pretty sure she's gonna be able to get her daughter back cuz she should have had custody of her this whole time. So I just pray for favor and for wisdom and that the truth would come out in what is good for that little girl would come true. Thank you for your prayers everyone. My friend's name is Leesy and her little girl's name is Yasmin Rose.

Hello my DABC family. This is Sonya in Austin, TX again and it is not even an hour since I called in my prayer request asking for prayer about helping me find my school i-pad. I kid you not, I walked into another room, turned, kinda looked on a couple shelves and it's laying on the top of something. I promise you, that's not where it's been. It's been a year, we have looked. My husband has looked. I have looked and I looked at what was underneath it on those shelves, those are items we've used in the last year. So I just give God the glory. And thank you for your prayers. And this is an answered prayer. And I will continue to pray and lift you up. This just gives me confirmation that God is saying nothing is too small, even though I felt so silly. I mean I've prayed and asked God on my own, but to reach out to all of you around the world to pray for an i-pad and then I feel like God's just saying, that's right, it's not too small. Alright. I love you all. Have a blessed day. I hope this warms your heart.

This is Vincent, Walking in Love from Connecticut. And once again I find myself at a crossroads. I'm caring for an 85 year old mother, the pandemic took my job, took my money, took my faith and hope in a good life and then I was blessed with meeting someone far, far away. Beautiful person. Beautiful soul. And there's no way of connecting with my future bride. And I just do not understand the ways of God. And I know, his ways are not our ways. And I also know that I have to have faith and that's becoming difficult. And I'm embarrassed and ashamed that this is my dilemma but it is. It's not cancer, it's not death, it's just pain and hopelessness. And hopefully it's not too trivial for someone not to pray for me. Peace and love. Vincent, Walking in Love. God bless you all.