#my internet only just started working reliably again
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Problems (objective and personal) I'm not seeing discussed a lot w this new WatcherTV thing, in no particular order:
-Alienates people internationally who literally CANNOT GET the streaming service!
-Alienates casual fans who don't watch or want to watch all of their shows. Putting down 60 bucks a year to watch just one or two shows is kind of insane, at least for me.
-The volume of content Watcher has produced historically hasn't been enough to justify a separate streamer. I understand there's no way a small team could compete with something like Netflix, obviously, but that's what you're trying to do by putting yourself in the streamer market.
-Will this streamer be secure? What steps are in place to protect your viewers info? ESPECIALLY payment info.
-Will it be easily watchable on multiple devices? I watch YouTube videos on my phone at work 90% of the time, or at home on my TV thru my switch. Is this a browser only deal?
-What are the internet requirements for this? Believe it or not most streaming services won't run on my internet personally. I don't have any for that reason. I can watch YouTube on 360p, or on my 2-bar-reception phone data. Not everywhere has stable reliable internet.
-The suddenness and totality of the move was going to be jarring no matter what, if the idea had been introduced gradually or started as a hybrid model to test audience interest there wouldn't be nearly this amount of pushback.
-I understand the people saying "pay artists!!" Bc I am one, and I get that their quality is expensive and they have a whole company's worth of people to support. I do actually think their work is worth paying for! Everyone's is! But convincing anyone to pay for something they previously got for free is going to be a hard sell. They were still getting paid before, they're now just asking us to pay instead of the advertisers. Idk about you, but that's a way bigger hit to my pocketbook than a multimillion dollar company's bank account.
-I get that YouTube can be a really shitty place to be a creator sometimes, and that being beholden to advertisers is something they don't want to be. It's why they left Buzzfeed! They already have a patreon and merch and it's clearly not been enough for their ambitions. But shooting yourself in the foot because your running shoes are wearing out isn't going to make you a better marathon runner. They had to know that there was going to be a not small portion of their audience unwilling to make this move with them (and again, lots literally aren't able to!)
-If they had a free w/ ads option, or even did a hybrid model with whole shows behind the pay wall, or even just ran a fucking crowd funding campaign to help cover costs of new seasons of shows, any of those things could have worked. They don't even have YouTube memberships turned on, which I've personally seen many many channels do even when they already have a patreon. It really doesn't seem like they've exhausted other options, at least from an outside perspective, which is all we have as viewers!
-I get that this has been in the works for a long time, and that there probably isn't a way for them to back out now. But I hope they can find a way to make this more accessible if they want it to work at all. I truly am not wishing for their downfall, but the whole situation is an awful mess.
Idk, rant over. As a lot of you are I'm feeling very disappointed and upset with this one, and I'm not paying for it either. Hope the boys can salvage this one for their and their crew's sake. Would really hate for this to be the end.
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Yandere Stardew Valley- Sebastian
I've been playing some Yandere Stardew mods recently. While I love them..... I feel like they do my husband (Sebastian) wrong. The citizens of Pelican Town are telling me that they can't hang out with me because Sebstian threatened them. That they've noticed some weird behavior. That he's physically violent. I disagree with all of these for Sebby.
He's our hot programmer boyfriend who lives in his basement bedroom, and only emerges to enjoy a smoke break, or to go see his friends. Now, while again, I do enjoy playing the mods...... I think his cannon behavior sets him up to be the perfect chronically online yandere. Pelican Town isn't exactly the most connected (6 out of the 11 rivals have access to a computer), but there's still potential. Obviously they're gonners if they have a computer. Sam finds himself doxed after making a comment about the gifts you gave him this week, and poor Haley's socials are blowing up with hate comments- from her personal insta to her photography blog.
But what about the other 5? The ones who are more disconnected? Well. It's easy enough to get Shane fired from joja. A little email to Morris from "HQ" saying he either fires Shane or his own pay gets docked..... well. Suddenly, everyone's favorite alcoholic doesn't even have a job anymore. Elliott suddenly has all these taxes he hasn't paid on his little shack..... beachfront properties cost a lot, you know. The parents stop letting Penny watch their kids after some..... explicit photos get leaked. It doesn't matter that they're edited. These people don't know about Photoshop. All they know is apparently Penny's making ends meet to support her mother..... and there's a new favorite subject to gossip on between all the older women. The other rivals are equally taken care of. All you need to focus on now is how Sebastian is the only reliable option in the whole damn town.
And he knows you so well, doesn't he? You, who lived away from it all until now. You, who WAS connected to the internet. Who had their entire life detailed through Facebook updates and Instagram posts. Honestly, Sebastian thinks that maybe he DOESN'T need to leave Pelican town... looking at the life you lived before coming to the valley, he thinks its much easier to keep you safe when he can control everything that goes on. There were too many factors to your old life. Too many parties to go to, coworkers to talk to, ex-boyfriends/girlfriends worry about. No. Sebastian thinks that city life isn't fit for the two of you to start you life together.
While he enjoyed seeing the trip down memory lane of who you were before becoming the farmer, and learning more about your likes and dislikes, he much prefers this version of you. The version of you who he found bouncing on their toes outside his door, excitedly shoving a frozen tear at him. Who eventually became the only person he was genuinely excited to have come barging into his room unannounced. And the thought of moving into the farm with you was all together far too tempting. He can picture it already. He'd set up a little area to work on his bike, he'd help out around the farm for you (he saw your hands covered in scrapes and splinters one day, and you sheepishly told him your fences had started wearing down.... but fixing a fence was another first for you. So you ended up scraping yourself up a bit on the old wood. Now, Sebastain, who, while he doesn't enjoy it, grew up with a carpenter mother..... well. He's going to make sure you never have that many splinters again.) Oh and he can already imagine it. The two of you, far away from the rest of the town, from prying eyes, no one to hear what you two would get up to as he helped you relax after a long day of working the feilds.....
This fantasy would sustain him until you eventually asked him to marry you. I don't think he would rush anything. To you, and the rest of the citizens, he was just normal Sebastian. Showing up for band practice, playing pool at the bar (although he seemed to play much better when a certain farmer came to watch). He just realized that the best way to control all the factors in town would be to remain anonymous. Avoid suspicion. After all. In a small town like that, it would be all too easy to turn against him if he decided to publicly threaten someone. And how would you react if you came to drop off some fresh sashimi to your boyfriend, only to find him being dragged out of his house by Clint, with Marlon standing nearby, ready to ship him off to face justice in the adventurers guild? No. That wouldn't do. He can't add any more stress to you like that. He'd remain the puppeteer, pulling the strings of the valley.
This isn't to say Sebastian never stalks you in person or anything like that. He can't help himself. He's a night owl. He knows the villagers schedules, has since before you even came to town. So, he knows he can get away with digging in the trash to find the straw you threw away at the bar. And if someone does hear him.... well. Linus is going to be everyone's first thought. He does, however, start adopting a stricter routine as far as monitoring your house after you mention how you sell your produce.
Sebastian was rightfully horrified when you explained that Mayor Lewis comes by your farm at night to collect anything you wish to sell. How it's such a relief to be able to just chuck things in the the bin as you're rushing to bed at 1:50 in the morning, only to get up first thing and start your day again, and not have to worry about lugging all your goods to the store. Sebastian won't criticize you for the lack of sleep..... no. That's not what's worrying. What's worrying is that this old man who has a gold statue of himself and who gets it on in the bushes with his secret girlfriend (of course Sebastian knows about that) is showing up to your house sometime after 2 am. His mind flashes back to his fantasy of the two of you, completely alone on the farm.... and then is mortified as this fantasy morphs into a nightmare where he looks up from bed with you, and sees Lewis' wrinkled face peering through the window. Yea. No. Sebastain installs some hidden cameras to make sure Lewis doesn't get up to anything funny while you're defenseless, asleep, alone..... ok he might need to get a new mayor elected. The old man might just have to go. Perhaps to a home outside the town. Regardless, he makes sure Lewis stops coming by as frequently. Frustratingly, he isn't able to completely stop it, but that'll be an easy fix once the two of you are married. He'll act surprised, "wow Lewis, that's so kind of you to help out the farmer all this time. But hey, don't worry, I'll take over. I'm up late anyways, and it's the least I can do!" But Sebastian still wakes up in a cold sweat and frantically rushes to check the cameras, making sure you're OK. That Lewis really is just checking the shipping bin.
Once y'all get married, he shows a bit more of that possessive side to you. But you chalk it up to just bedroom spicy time, and honestly find his hand tightening on your waist as Elliot asks you to read his latest poem hot.
Just. Yandere Sebastian brain rot.
#yandere#yandere stardew valley#yandere blog#yandere imagine#tw yandere#obsessive yandere#stardew valley#yandere sebastian
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The Many Illustrators of
A Tale of Two Cities
6: Max Cowper
...& some frustration from faulty sources...
"Lucy (sic) Bids Farewell to Sydney Carton"
As we've come to see here, not all sources for these many illustrations are, put simply, all that great or reliable.
To start off, the ↑ above illustration is excellent example:
A) Obviously, the name of this illustration doesn't match up with any scene in A Tale of Two Cities! My guess is that it's actually depicting Charles being taken away in "Dusk" (pretty major thing to get wrong!). Multiple online sources cite this as the name, but is that really what Max Cowper himself named it?
B) I honestly didn't know until recently that this was, in fact, by Max Cowper! I've had this illustration stored in the archives for years and was only able to confirm it by - you guessed it - looking at that faint signature below the main character's feet and checking it off another color illustration by him (poetically, for Barnaby Rudge).
This is something that happens often in my research: Many illustrators for this novel will have a one-off piece not necessarily related to the work they did for the novel itself, and it's usually much more difficult to connect that piece to their book illustrations (when we get to Fred Barnard eventually...oof!). Oftentimes, the image just gets passed around over decades of republication - sometimes even traced / redrawn - and used as a cover or frontispiece without credit.
There are other forms of unreliability, though - including one I just encountered for the first time:
Here are Cowper's eight 1902* illustrations for the novel. One of these is not like the others - see if you can tell which!
If you guessed the fourth ("Monsieur le Marquis"), you'd be correct!
Basically, when I originally downloaded this set from the Internet Archive, I hadn't downloaded them as individual images but rather the entire book as a PDF which I then picked the images off of - and what I hadn't realized until recently was that this compresses the images in a strange way.
Here is what the PDF compression looks like:
See how much beautiful linework and detail gets crunched?
And so, today, to make this post, I went out to that source again and downloaded each individually - only to find that this exact source no longer had the Marquis illustration!
Basically, I think that someone working at the Internet Archive rescanned the exact same copy of the book - accidentally skipping one of the illustrations in the process - and then replaced the old scan with this new (honestly really nice) one.
Human error strikes again, both on my part and on theirs!
Ultimately, I decided not to try to find these from any other source and to just include the one with the compression error that doesn't quite match the quality of the rest - which will tie in well with the next edition of this series anyway (you'll see)!
And regardless, I'm grateful we have access to these beautiful, humanistic character designs and illustrations at all, no matter the image quality🖼️
*To round it all out, the copy from which I downloaded these is from 1904, but I also read a source that said the first version of this edition was maybe from 1902, so, once again,
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:
This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫
#A Tale of Two Cities#AToTC#dickens#charles dickens#literature#classic literature#victorian literature#vintage illustration#illustration#illustrators#Max Cowper#1900s#obviously I have a favorite here#and god as much as i'm irritated that that happened with one of these so that it isn't a 'perfect' set#i'm. glad it's the marquis one. like whatever#(and also like I said it'll tie in with the next post in this series because there's a similar error in that one too)#for real though the more I look at Cowper's work the more I appreciate it. this is someone who cared about the work. you can feel it
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When I was first getting started as an artist, one piece of advice cropped up again and again:
“Draw what makes you happy, and your audience will find you.”
At the time, I was a young teen who craved the validation of seeing my follower count go up. It made me feel like my work had value, and it gave me the confidence to keep posting. I started paying attention to which of my posts were getting the most interactions, and I focused most of my effort towards making more of that content even if I didn’t really like it. For the most part, this worked as expected; I would make niche art for niche fandoms, and people who enjoyed those fandoms would follow me because I reliably posted that kind of content.
This eventually became a nasty ouroboros where my self worth, desire to create, and confidence were directly linked to how well a post preformed. For about four years, that was my live on social media. I didn’t really care about much else, and I felt that the audience I was building— 300 followers, then 500, then the big 1,000– meant that I was better than other people. I was prideful about it— humble in front of others, but if I knew I had more followers than someone else did? It gave me this nasty, secret sense of satisfaction.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but growing my follower count and creating art for the sole purpose of generating high engagement was a tool to fend off monstrous insecurity. I had no self-driven confidence in my art. I didn’t really know if what I was creating was good, or bad, or worthwhile, so seeing the Court of Public Opinion validate my art was everything to me.
Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with the advice I mentioned earlier. The whole “draw what makes you happy” thing.
I thought it was bullshit. After all, I had my method: if a post did well, I’d make more like it. A litany of similar posts generated more interaction and gained me more followers. I was trying to grow my audience by playing into data, and it was working! It wasn’t long that I had nearly 2,000 followers on this blog, and I was only 16 at the time. Every day I would sit down and focus all of my time and effort into making a piece that would hit hard. What’s the newest event in the fandom? What character was just revealed? What game is everyone getting into? What will sell at this con?
Don’t get me wrong, even through all of this, I was making art for myself. When there was time, or I felt really passionate about an idea, I’d make and post something original. The problem with this was that even though it made my happy to create, it never did well online. Knowing that I associated an art’s value with how well it preformed, you can imagine that this was crushing.
What were these professional artists talking about? Drawing what makes you happy to build an audience? Whenever I drew what made me happy, it would just be pushed to the wayside and ignored in favor of all the fan-art I was posting. Why bother making something when it doesn’t help extend your reach?
It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in college that I came to terms with how corporate my relationship with art had become. There wasn’t any joy in it anymore. My audience started to have expectations of me— and why wouldn’t they? I was a streamlined content curator, constantly making exactly what the internet wanted to consume.
So, I stepped away. I focused on building relationships with friends, finding new hobbies, enjoying college… I still focused on art (I ended up swapping into a B.F.A. Degree, even!), but I escaped the feedback loop of social media. It took me until I was a senior in college to stop obsessively checking my follower count on here, and it wasn’t because I consciously made the choice to cut myself off. It was because that while I was with my friends and focusing on college, I had to start making art for myself again. My peers and professors taught me to have confidence in the art that I put into the world; they taught me to look critically, see other’s art as a learning tool and inspiration instead of competition, and I finally started to find my own artistic voice.
So, here’s the thing about that bit of advice— the whole “draw what makes you happy and your audience will find you” thing:
It’s really, really easy for a professional to toss that bit of wisdom to eager burgeoning artists. They have their audience already; they’ve cultivated it through years of hard work and networking. The hunger a new artist might have to be seen doesn’t drive them anymore (though it must have, once), and they’ve learned the lesson that I’ve finally, finally learned:
Your drive to create cannot come from others. It cannot come from your follower count, or the number of notes on a post. While it may for a while, it will eventually hollow you out.
If you create for yourself, you are guaranteed a long-lasting career in the arts. It doesn’t guarantee you the platform you want, especially not right away, but if you create for yourself you will stay consistent and you’ll develop a voice that your audience will find.
It took me ten years to figure this out, guys. Ten years!
All of this to say that if you’re an artist who’s just starting out, don’t panic. Draw what you want. Be bad at art! Interact with the people who want to learn from, and see the internet as a community instead of a competition. Don’t let your follower count determine your self worth.
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Love your work. Question: How are you?
Hi! Thank you! Good, actually!
Which is sort of my problem, but -- well, here's the story.
In 2019, before the pandemic was even a thing, I found myself grinding to a halt in every area of my life. No motivation, no way forward, dread of failure at my jobs that translated into literally hiding in bed and failing just as hard as I feared. The news overwhelmed me when I used to be engaged. The work projects I cared most about got shelved and dusty. I stopped initiating anything at all. Even, like, showers and meals for myself.
The pandemic hit, and honestly, things didn't change for me that much. I was already hiding from the world and my responsibilities and feeling awful, and in a way it made everything else outside match up with my insides. I felt guilty for occasionally thinking that. It was a bad time for the world, and a bad time for me.
Thank somebody I hyperfixated on Good Omens. And eventually found fanfic and discord and a community that understood.
I found a refuge in writing two long novels, a novella or two, and a whole bunch of short stories (all of which I still plan to finish).
And because I found some really safe anonymous friendship through this fandom community, I also learned some things about my own mental health -- especially about autism, ADHD, and depression -- things that resonated when friends said them, in a way they never did when I heard about them on the news. In 2022, I felt ready to start trying to get help.
And I got some! It broke the bank, but I saw a psychiatrist just enough times to get a non-stimulant adhd med that gave me back my ability to focus on what I wanted to. (Is it a placebo? I don't know and I don't care; the placebo effect is one of the most powerful effects in medicine, and a reliable way to activate it is fucking fine with me.)
So, honestly, compared to a year ago?
I'm good. I'm really fucking good. I feel more like me again. I'm keeping promises and taking on hard things again. I'm confronting the stuff I shelved and forcing myself to re-engage my own life, especially my work life. I'm even reading the news (in manageable doses).
Resuming an actual job and a life has left me less time for my fandom than I used to have. I only get to write around the edges now, instead of all day. And I'm prioritizing my fandom friendships a little more than my writing, to be honest, because if I only have time for one of those, it's the friends who saw me through a couple of very dark years. But I am still writing. In fact I'm doing that tonight.
The thing I mostly wanted to say to your ask is -- thank you for asking. I'm actually doing a lot better than I was. Sometimes someone goes quiet on the internet, and you might worry that means that things are worse for them, or something bad happened. But sometimes it can also mean something good happened. Me, I made some friends, got some help, and got huge chunks of my life back, chunks I feared were washing out to sea. That means I have to wrangle these icebergs, unfortunately -- but they're my responsibility, and they always were, and I feel like I almost have enough rope now.
Thanks to all of you here for your friendship (and your fandom and your stories and characters and art) that helped me through the valley of dark fuckin' shadows. Know that they are still important to me every single day, even if I'm not a publishing-a-chapter-a-week person anymore. I'm sorry I'm not supplying you with as much story food. But in my case, it's actually a really, really good sign.
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If you get two versions of this ask, my apologies. Wifi is being wonky
Some folk really do not deserve kids. Case in point, Furina's parents. Hopefully, Freminet's mom joins in on the court case, she did have her child more or less taken from her. Arlecchino investigating good and hard on everyone these two harmed or messed. They are not leaving jail anytime soon, preferably ever once Neuvillette wins the case.
Ah, yes, the best ways to bond: mutual suffering. Makes me wonder how long the war against Celestia lasted, poor Neuvi had to live with his failure to save not just Focalors, but Furina as well.
Can't really fault the Knave for being too intense, it's amusing to imagine and I think she deserves some unhealthy possessiveness. It does translate into Furina getting lots of love and affection, and just affirming the stance that Arle is the best person for Furina. But, that's also because a certain someone has been getting rid of any prospective lovers.
I almost want a coworker of Furina and Arlecchino to remember and just side eye this "friendship". Hmmm, not sure who would fit that. None of the Harbingers give off entertainment industry vibes and the image of Scara or Childe finding out via a movie and choking on their food and drink is just too funny to let go of. Maybe Clorinde manages to work her way into being a minor character on a set or two? Or, someone else...
And awwwh, that's.. nice? Cute doesn't fit because the situation is pretty screwed up, but hey, Furina is learning that Arlecchino is plenty reliable and especially angry for Furina and Freminet's sake. Arle sticking to Furina's side whenever she can in the courtroom, always positioning herself in front of Furina when the parents try to talk to her. Definitely glaring at the parents, who quickly back down or maybe they don't, 'cause some people don't deserve survival instincts.
Also! Furina introducing Arlecchino to her little brother since he's been taken out of their dad's custody with the court case on. Arle speaking super softly to Freminet.
(Dont worry, I totally relate to having a horrible internet)
Indeed, Furi and Fremi parents are Foster Child of such sentiment. Arlecchino collecting every person they fucked over will be pretty cathartic, the start of the most unhiged era of the Stan account.
Reading that I totally imagined Childe, either as an actor or stunt double, maybe both, coming across Arlefuri and simply noping out. Nope, he never liked Arlecchino to begin with, he is not getting involved om her messy love life, not again.
Arlecchino reaction totally changes the way Furina sees her like, yeah they are friends but Furina does think that she is sometimes weird and is afraid that because since Arle was her fan the weird behavior is because Arlecchino has her in a pedestal. But Arle behavior during the trial shows her not only Arlecchino is reliable, but that she will not look down on Furina just because she is vulnerable and not the perfect star she pretends to be.
Freminet meeting with Arlecchino, I kinda have this idea that, due being raised along with Furina, his memories of the past life were unlocked very early and sadly childhood amnesia is a thing. He does remember more than Furina of course, but is a lot less clear and reliable than those who unlocked their memories as teens and adults, he probably assumed that those memories where dreams and the people he meet where imaginary friends.
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DannyMay2023 day 26: art/fic switch
Title: Now what do we have over here?
I don't actually share many of my fanfics... So this is a bit strange for me. I hope you enjoy!
Summary:
Wes is a bit dejected after another fail at exposing Phantom to the world. But friendly internet stranger might be able to help
Another day, another disappointment.
Wes was sure he had gotten video of Danny transforming from Fenton into Phantom this time! Everything seemed fine while taping! Even through the playbacks, there was only a small hum and minimal graininess.
The major problem was exporting it. Any kind of modern tech always seems to shut down at this step.
Only the most archaic forms of videotaping can stand a chance against the weird distorting qualities of Amity Park’s atmosphere. So AVC to computer adapter it was! But it seemed even ol’ reliable would fail him too.
“Damnit!” He didn't understand what could've gone wrong. “How come this stupid old junk record everything fine but can't transfer to digital to save its life?!”
Working backwards everything was fine. Tape, intact. Camcorder, unscathed. AVC and adapter, plugged. It had to be something with the desktop. The tape played back fine. Everything on the grainy little screen played back fine, but on the computer…
Through the chromatic aberration and distortion, the tape was still legible. It's only when Fenton's transformation rings should appear, the video starts severely deteriorating. The grainy quality of the picture breaks into full undistinguishable noise. The light hum grows and becomes an oppressive static.
Wes angrily shoves the camcorder, still doing his best to be careful with the technology. Even through his rage he knows the worth of analog media in this town. Wes huffs out a breath and collapses on his desk. If he was more hopeful, he'd try recording the camcorder’s screen with his phone again, but he just wants to wallow for a moment.
A ping rings out from the desktop notifications, getting Wes’ attention. Clicking on it took him to his favorite conspiracy theory reddit. Some poor guy’s getting dragged. Breathing in, Wes sits up and pulls his keyboard closer. He musters as much of his optimism and attempts to string together a half-assed peptalk. Hopefully it'll help whoever's on the other end, keep them going a little longer in their search for the truth.
Incredibly, they respond almost immediately. A simple thank you and asking if they have any experience sleuthing. Wes sighs, he could write a whole essay on how to fail at sleuthing.
He smiles at the sympathetic response from the stranger, but something piques his interest and he quickly direct messages the user.
—new conversation started—
ConspiracyK1ng:
Did you just say you make your own tech?
CyberSlueth:
Yes.
And it's pretty impressive if I do say so myself
You interested?
ConspiracyK1ng:
Kind of…
Do you know anything about analog media?
CyberSlueth:
LOL sorry no
Why are you messin with those fossils?
ConspiracyK1ng:
Sadly it's the only thing that works in these…extenuating circumstances.
Anything else stops working when I try capturing what's happening in my town.
Old camcorders and cameras are the most reliable here.
CyberSlueth:
Well thats weird.
Are you sure there isn't anything else that could work recording video?
ConspiracyK1ng:
Not with the weird radiation in my town.
The only things that seem to work are from these scientists.
And they're even bigger nutjobs than me.
CyberSlueth:
…hmmm…
Maybe I could help with that.
Do you have any of their tech?
-
Now that really, really got Wes’ attention. That's two really’s.
Maybe he should continue talking with this guy…
#dannymay2023#art/fic switch#uhhhh what do i tag this#wes weston#rottmnt Baxter Stockboy#dp Wes#danny phantom#danny phantom fanfic#danny phantom crossover#yes it's a crossover#bonus points to whoever can figure out who the stranger is#coyote writes#dp x rottmnt
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Cheeseaged Exocolonist Age 16 (Again): Be so good at the game that I doom all of humanity and have to backtrack significantly
In which I, the player, get trapped in a time loop to fix my mistake (of not making horrible decisions).
I reach age 17 and realize I made a slight oopsie by never successfully meeting Symbiosis, a godlike alien(?) lifeform trying to make peace with humanity. Unfortunately, the only human Sym has met so far is Dys, Tangent's Equally-Maladjusted-And-Evil-But-In-A-Different-Way brother.
The two fall in love in a Romeo-and-Juliet situation, but this will not result in peace, largely because Dys is basically the kind of internet leftist who thinks that talking to people and working together is politically naive and that violence is just inherently Better Praxis. So it is up to Sol to arrange peace between humans and Gardeners.
So I really should've been going out of my way to meet Sym and...didn't do that. I only caught a glimpse of him once, but you need to encounter him three times - I'm two First Contacts short. The reason is that the most reliable way to meet Sym is to get into dangerous events and then lose the skill check. This will put you in a near-death situation where only Sym's intervention will save you, giving hints of another intelligent species on Vertumna.
The "lose the skill check" part is a little tricky, though, if you've gotten into the habit of passing every skill check with flying colours. I am so powerful that even Sym fears me. It is lonely at the top.
I reload an earlier save, consulting the Exocolonist fandom for which events trigger Sym, because I have long ago forgotten how to lose. Going to people for help is almost as embarrassing, but just as necessary, as flirting with Vace to squeeze more friendship out of the bastard.
WIth this guidance, I press forward once more. This time, I get myself swarmed with adorable hopeyes, which are not actually dangerous but could kill you if you just helplessly sit there, which I do, playing no cards at all. Sym comes to my rescue.
Then, I steal a manticore's egg that I don't even want, for the sole purpose of pissing off a manticore. Manticores are very dangerous, though I could easily defeat them with stimming. But I choose not to. Sym intervenes to save me from the inevitable consequences of my own actions. He puts the egg back where it was, either to mollify the manticore or, just as likely, to prevent me from choking myself on the shell.
This pattern of alarmingly self-destructive behaviour is enough to help me track down Sym, who is hiding in a glowing golden exclamation point. I yell out his name, because I've met him before, and we start the process of peacemaking by presenting him with a gift of knowledge and internet memes.
I then conclude my sixteenth year, ready to move forward again and step into year 17. Then I realize that I forgot to take screenshots for any of this.
I do not reload again.
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ok. because i love to talk about how jisung deserves to get the most parts and i STAND BY IT. i want to also say some things the other members bring to the table that none of the others can do or that they excel at beyond the others’ abilities.
like i dont like to pretend they are all equally talented in every area bc they aren’t. and i like jisung partly because the things he’s good at are what’s important to me (singin, rapping, songwriting)
but that doesn’t mean the other members aren’t talented in those areas AND i want to also say that kpop is a genre/culture where visual content, music videos and variety content are almost as important as music.
people love to argue about music quality and i think it’s a discussion that’s worth having BUT i personally believe that the main reason for kpops insane global expansion and popularity is that the industry is entirely unique in how well it uses the internet and social media to generate support and that means variety content and visual media.
and i believe editing/filmmaking/music video making and dance are art forms that stand on their own and that groups need a clear identity and creative vision.
ok so let’s go. unique talent by member.
bang chan:
music production. this one is obvious but it also needs to be repeated over and over. he is an insanely and uniquely talented producer.
work ethic. the dedication and willingness to sacrifice for his work is a LARGE part of what makes skz skz. they would not exist without it.
singing. he has a clear and open vocal that can serve SO many purposes.
lee know:
dancing. again this one is obvious. lee know is such a dance leader because he can not only execute choreographies but explain and develop them.
discipline. it is not a coincidence that he has taken on the role he has. it’s very obvious that he is dedicated to his job and inspires others to work hard in turn.
versatility. so, this one may be controversial and lino is definitely not the best vocalist or the best rapper in the group. but because of the second point, he has become a member that can fill spots that the others may be unable or unwilling to. he develops himself to become what the group needs and it has been apparent since he pivoted to rapping in the variety show.
changbin:
rapping. again, obvious. changbin has a sense of rhythm that is almost unparalleled in kpop. his experiments with it are jawdropping. (if ur interested u shd check out the carkpop youtube channel though i bet most people here already do)
lyricism. similar to bang chan, he is a very talented producer and songwriter but his mastery of language makes him stand out. this is not my opinion btw bc i do not know korean well enough to make that assessment, but i trust the people who say this.
personality. now i started out this list trying not to do this but. he is so stable and reliable as well as just good natured and supportive of the members. he is the older brother everyone needs and that translates to giving the members freedom to grow and develop, ultimately making the group and the music better.
hyunjin:
performance. of course hyunjin is an incredible dancer but it’s the demon that possesses him on stage that makes him so magnetic in my opinion. the combination of how much he loses himself in performance and his proficiency in dance is why he stands out.
visual. i hate doing this to him but. it needs to be mentioned. but being the visual or whatever doesn’t just mean being pretty. modeling takes skill. and he has it. dressing and presenting yourself takes effort. and he puts that in.
dedication to his creativity. hyunjin strives to become the best he can be. he understands that creativity is a knife that needs to be sharpened and he does it. every day and all the time and in many different disciplines. his rapping has improved immensely but so has his singing and his dancing and his painting and and and
jisung:
versatility. jisung has a range of rap deliveries and singing tones and registers that no one else in the group can touch. and versatility is so intrinsic and important to the group identity. this is of course taking for granted that he can even do both this well.
self-confidence in performing. jisung is the cheat key and the swiss army knife of the group because he knows he’s capable. he can take over almost anyone’s part because he knows he has the talent
joy in being an idol. he enjoys experimenting. he loves performing. he was born for this fucking job. i’ve said this before but it’s so rare that you get someone who is both a great songwriter and someone who truly thrives while performing. both of these qualities make skz skz and jisung is the poster child for both.
felix:
he draws people in. (this is 3 points wrapped in one) felix’s personality is what makes him invaluable in the group. he shines in variety content because he makes it brighter and kinder every time. he stands out by being talkative and sociable in interviews and taking on a speaker role alongside chan. many people you ask say felix is the first member they noticed. both his performance and his looks are part of that. both also take skill. much like hyunjin he is a great model and he very obviously takes care of his look and style. he may not always get big parts but he’s always showstopping and his rap skills have developed and grown to fill that role. he may have gotten his deep voice through sheer luck but the way he uses it (for example in victory song) is not luck. and again he shines when he performs. it’s in such a variety of ways too, half the fandom at one point seemed to have originated from that one tiktok. that’s not something any other member can do.
seungmin:
vocals. obvious, serious, so beautiful. skz could not do the balads they do without him.
dedication and discipline. much like lee know, he grew into the role he now fills in the group and he did so by working hard and looking for areas where the others can’t step up. and much like lee know, the other members followed him in that regard. they developed their singing skills partly because he did it first.
reliability. seungmin is the most obviously reliable member of skz. he is only so rarely absent from content or performances, he is present on bubble and on socials. he does well in variety content. the group couldn’t stand without him in the way it does now.
jeongin:
vocals. again again. i urge you to listen to him sing busan seagull. you can never get tired of that.
joy. he is the energizer bunny of this group. he gives the members energy when they are out. they obviously want to care for him, they obviously want to protect him.
willingness to grow. humility is so integral to skz and while innie has always been talented and always been dedicated, he so clearly has high standards for himself and looks to improve every day. that’s a core value of skz so much that they never stop talking about it.
ok. novel over. if you read all of this thank you. if u wanna chime in with what u think makes each member unique i would love that. if u wanna send me anon hate about this, honestly that’d be funny too.
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It's that time of the year again folks, welcome back to another @khoc-week!!
I love having an excuse to ramble about my OCs and their character development exploits once a year because at any other time I keep it in my brain vault until I die, so it is always a pleasure to participate in this fun event!!
This year I was originally planning on focusing on two of my characters who needed some love, however in light of it being my main KH OC's 10th year of existing plus the return to some OG prompts, I just had to do a triple threat!
May Kingdom Hearts have mercy upon my soul-
Anyway, without further ado~
Day 1 - Introductions
My offerings this year are Irene, Iris, and Iliana! The Triple I, you know they're all bonded when they have a signifigant motif.
[Pictured: The goofs in question, in order Irene, Iliana, and Iris]
Lets get into their lil' noggins, shall we?
Iris:
Iris is an ex-member of the Ursus Union, and is a total busybody. Knows no rest. Vacation time? Who is she? All she knows is collect Lux and badger teammates.
Perhaps this is bad for such a young teenager, but alas it's what fate intended-
She came to Daybreak Town with an older sister, one she hardly remembers and never sees, but she could recognise if given the right moment. The most she recognizes her by is a motif for brightly colored birds... Unless she's mixing that up with her final moments?
She is known for being detail oriented and very meticulous with her work as a wielder, and comes off as bossy about it when it doesn't go her way. She's never had a stable team because of this, at least until she met Alto.
Alto is her best friend, and I had the joy of talking about him for last year's event! He brought a necessary fun loving and relaxing counterbalance that wouldn't make her have a grudge against her role for years to come, and that is something she holds close to her heart
The two of them were inseperable until tragic events took place in an eerie back alley with a mysterious Foreteller, and she got yeeted through time and space to the future, where she ended up missing a good portion of events that would eventually lead to even more tragedy.
This is where she is taken in by...
♡♡♡
Irene:
Irene is a member of the Radiant Garden Royal Guard, and is well loved by castle staff and townsfolk alike!
She's best known for her kind heart and motherly nature, as well as her skills in baking and field medicine!
She works alongside her older brother, Elijah, who tends to watch over her despite the fact she can handle herself.
She's the eldest of the Heart Hotel residents, being the only middle aged woman (not counting Igni, but we don't talk about her anyway-) to reside in there!
Before she was assimilated to the collective, she had taken in Iris's heart by complete accident.
In all honesty, when the two first spoke she had thought she was overworked, but over time realized it was all real!! A voice in her head with barely any grasp of her own memories, how unique!
She had to keep it a secret, however, because over time it seemed someone caught on and took interest...
When Ansem the Wise's very... intriguing new apprentice came into town, things seemed dire for the two of them, and it was only a matter of time before Irene too was met with a terrible fate.
Irene with Iris retreated elsewhere, safely to a heart they knew they could trust: the heart of a young girl that visited Radiant Garden frequently with her grandmother...
♡♡♡
Iliana:
When I first ever introduced her to the internet (and to the first ever KHOC Week), she was known as Izaberu, but since then she received an overhaul unlike any other!
Golly, I haven't brought her back to this event in a while ([checks watch] since 2019 actually-), so this will be a ride!
Currently at the start of her very long journey (KH2 era), she is (reluctantly) a Keyblade wielder hopping between worlds in her reliable Gummi ship steed, the Firestorm, while also babysitting at least two young boys and two farm animals (affectionate).
She's 18 around this time, but seems like a well seasoned veteran in comparison to those who had already been involved in this mess far longer. Must be the trauma.
She's very laid-back, sarcastic, riddled with sleepygirl (and Igni) disease, and harboring a lot of internal self doubt, guilt and rage, which I proudly say she does get to work on throughout her journey! Not with a, uh, therapist, unfortunately.
She's very goofy and awkward, yet somehow very good at taking the lead when you least expect, which makes her a valuable member to the team later on. She's a nuisance, but a useful nuisance.
Iliana started her life as a noble in the Hills of Progress, a world you could say was if Scala ad Caelum and the Land of Departure had a lovechild that turned out evil. Awful place. Beautiful scenery though!
She lived a very uncomfortable life, both as a descendant and vessel of Igni, the latter being something she had no choice to be forced into, and on top of learning to be a Keyblade wielder she was constantly under a spotlight. Not to mention, uh, having parental issues AND being parentified very young. Yeah, that might explain some things-
The only good things she got out of it was an adorable little brother, some wonderful friends, and a grandmother who took her all sorts of places, most frequently Radiant Garden.
She was 8 when she first met Irene and Iris, and from there seemed to deviate from the norms she was expected of, which typically means bad news where she's from especially as a Guardian (ie. the world's official title of a vessel of Igni, it's definitely not fun!)
Though, things seemed to be normal for a while, of course we can't avoid the domino effect of tragic loss.
It was her grandmother first, followed up by her closest friend's murder a few years later, then shortly after she decided to pack up her brother and leave... the world would fall to darkness... or at least that's what it seemed like, but we can talk more on that later.
She fleed alone to Traverse Town, where she stayed with her uncle and met another colorful cast of characters, a place she considered home for about a year.
Ironically, she did meet Sora during his first adventure, but that was something she forgot just like everyone else. RIP-
After a while, she felt discontented and riddled with survivor's guilt, so she set out to rescue her world against her uncle's advice, something that would now place the final nail in her, albeit very loosely built, coffin.
She was confronted by a Heartless in the depths of space that she was not prepared to face, and it pursued her to an unfamiliar world where it finally finished the job...
♡♡♡
Little did it know was that together the memories of these three ladies (and Igni, unfortunately) created Reixen (who I also talked about!! In 2020 I think! Funny how it all comes together-), who indirectly kept them alive, while outside forces who became interested in Iliana's wreckage sought to restore her back to her truest form.
Which brings us back around to where they're at!
After the incident, Iris and Irene are dormant throughout her journey, so Iliana ends up relying on the companionship of Alto, who had also mysteriously popped up out of the blue, to keep her on track towards whatever it is that weird wizard told her to do. Yen Sid's words always go over her head-
Together along with Sora, Donald, and Goofy they save the worlds from Organization XIII while also working to restore the two (technically three) dormant souls back to their true forms... or at least wake them up first, but that will take a while (until the Mark of Mastery, which is an absolute treat in of itself, if I had a place to put the info this week oh boy-).
Aaaaaand that about does it for Day 1!
I'm making my posts meaty this year because it's truly blorbo hours and I'm celebrating what I have so far! Get ready for a lot of reading, for I will ramble my way into the sun.
So yes! Triple threat, but it might mostly be an Iliana sort of year. She's my little meow meow, don'tcha know-
But that does it for today! Onto Day 2!
#sham's art#shamsbabs#irene#iliana#iris#khoc week#khoc week 2023#alto#reixen#both in passing mention#chunky ramble sessions my beloved#i'd love to expand more there's just so much in the soup y'know???#i worked on these early and not the week of as well#boy howdy the quality is better that way#anywho super stoked about the other prompts les gooo#kh oc#kingdom hearts oc#khux oc#digital doodles#igni#master igni
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Apostles Ch.4
Pairing: August Walker x Angela Warren (OFC)
WC 1090
Warnings: None
@summersong69 , @teamfan7asy , @geralts-yenn
Despite only using the loft for emergencies, Angie kept it stocked with the basics when it came to food and August made himself a sandwich as she worked, having offered to make one for her as well but was turned down.
“Tell me about yourself.” August said, sitting back down again.
“What do you want to know?” Angie asked, not looking at him.
“Have a boyfriend?” He asked and she snorted, “What?”
“Nothing.” She said, “No boyfriend, no husband, no siblings, no cat.”
“What about your parents?”
“Died when I was little, I grew up in the system.”
“How’d you get involved with the anarchist group?” He asked and there was a pause.
“I hacked into the city police department database of officers looking for those with marks on their records for the use of excessive force, especially those against people of color and women in varying degrees of awful and deplorable.” She said, “I leaked the names and records to every major news outlet in the country. The fallout was intense. Many lost their jobs, a few of the higher-ups were forced to resign, and more than a couple got jail time.”
“I heard about that.” August said, “That was you?”
“Sure was.” She said, “Don’t mistake me, I didn’t agree with the group's ideas. They didn’t want freedom, they wanted chaos. Less non-governmental utopia and more Mad Max.”
“Why’d you join up then?”
“They were paying me.” Angie said simply, “I was living in homeless shelters at the time, using internet cafes. They gave me a steady source of income that I didn’t have to declare on taxes, as well as a place to live and reliable access to food and anything I needed to get the job done. I may not have agreed with their end goal, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“And hacking into the CIA database?”
“They framed it as all the agents were government-sanctioned murderers who killed innocent people on the orders of some guy behind a desk. They were going to use it to basically hold the government hostage, do what we say or we would release the names of all your covert agents around the globe.” Angie said and he made a sound.
“And you got caught breaking in.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly delicate with it.” She said and a slow smile came over his face.
“You got caught on purpose.”
“The group was starting to get extreme, organizing bombings of government buildings in which a lot of innocents would die. Oklahoma City 2.0 basically. NSA back traced my hack and CIA gave me the ultimatum seeing as it was their files I was breaking into.” Angie said and he gave a small laugh, shaking his head.
“How’d you know they wouldn’t just lock you up?”
“I didn’t.” She admitted, “I rolled the dice and waited to see where it landed.” His smile and humor vanished immediately.
“That was incredibly dangerous.”
“Why do you care? You didn’t know me at that time.”
“If your little gamble hadn’t paid off, I wouldn’t have met you at all.” He said and she sighed, covering her face with a hand.
“August…” She said and she looked at him as he spun her chair around to face him.
“Never do something like that again, got it?” She just gave him a look and he was about to say something when there was a buzzing sound and she got up. “What was that?”
“A notification.” She said and went over to the wall, lifting a hatch and pulling a box from it. “I had a contact go to your place and get some of your clothes and other essentials. I keep some of mine here, but I figured you might want some clean skivvies.”
“You had someone go to my house and get my things.”
“Yeah.” Angie said, “The Apostles are probably watching it so you couldn’t go yourself.”
“How’d you know where I lived? Or the code to my security system?” He asked.
“I’m good--”
“At your job, yeah, yeah.” August said and took the box from her, setting it on the dining room table and opening it up, finding a few shirts along with pants and small clothes, a bag of toiletries at the bottom. “Question for you.”
“Just one?” She asked with a sassy smile and he snorted.
“You have a backup plan?”
“In case this place gets compromised? Of course, I do.” Angie said.
“No, in general.” August said and she gave him a questioning look, “Ang, the more I learn about you, the craftier you get. I refuse to believe you don’t have an exit strategy in case this CIA thing goes wrong for you.”
“Yeah, I do.” She said simply but didn’t go any further than that.
“And that would be…”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Why not?”
“August, I like you, I do, and we work well together.” Angie said, “But the fact of the matter is, you’re a CIA operative and Sloan has me on a very long, but retractable, leash. If it gets back to her that I have a plan in place to slip it if need be, she’s going to press the button and I’m going to be rather rudely reeled in. So no, I’m not going to tell you what it is, I shouldn’t have told you it existed in the first place. Understandable?”
“Yeah, understandable.”
“Now if you don’t mind, I still smell like…escape tunnel, so I’m going to take a shower.” She said, “You should think about taking one too, Musty.”
“We could take one together.” He said and she blinked at him, her head jerking back slightly.
“Is it like a switch you can flip? We were just talking about exit strategies and now you’re suggesting we get wet and naked together.” She said, “Talk about whiplash. Jesus.”
“One last question.”
“Switching gears again, I see.”
“How’d you afford to kit out this place?” He asked, “The tech, the automation, how’d you do it? Not on a government paycheck.”
“Don’t ask questions to which you do not want to know the answers, Agent Walker.”
“It was illegal, wasn’t it.”
“Not horribly.” She said, “And with that, shower time. If there’s anything missing from the box that you need, or just want in general, write me a list and I’ll get it got.”
“I am just learning all kinds of things about you today, aren’t I.”
“I’m a happy bundle of surprises.” She said as she walked past, patting him on the chest.
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back assward
So I joined a new server for the area near the farm where I'm staying this summer. It's... not super near but it's nearish. Whatever.
Anyway there was a rookie player who came on complaining that he'd beaten Cliff before and then now all of a sudden he couldn't. And I'd just had that problem. I'd dialed in a team for the current lineup and was just running that, and then out of nowhere his Aerodactyl just ate my lead and second for breakfast, and then there was a Slowking in there which like WTF. I wasn't ready for that.
So I tried a couple half-assed fixes, and then gave up because it wasn't a time I could really focus on it. But this kid's complaint made me think about it again, and then sure enough who showed up but Cliff, and he again had the Aerodactyl that suddenly could see through time or whatever.
So I said okay kid (I said it nicer than that, I don't know this guy he might be older than me), let's walk through how to adjust. because all the old-heads on the forum were like "oh i just use my level 50 Blarbioro that I got with the legacy move from the comm day back in '84, don't you have one of those" and like obviously no.
I said ok, so this aerodactyl has some move that is eating my dudes alive. I had tried a Togekiss because that was the only fast rock attack I had, and I'd tried an Archaeops because again I was picking counters at random without time to research. One of the oldheads said it was probably a rock-type fast attack.
SO. behind the cut is the way I, a player who does not have a great selection of older Pokemon, figure out how to counter an opponent. There's a reason this doesn't work in PVP, and that's that I look up every single Pokemon, look at their typing weaknesses and resistances, and then search through my entire stable to see who I have that can counter it at all. Because every single counter more experienced players suggest is without fail something I do not have, and if I search for help on the Internet, the list of counters in the clickbait articles I invariably get also is always guys I don't have with attacks I can't get. So what I do is I figure out what type my target is, what it's weak to, and then I pick somebody who's got a fast attack of that type, AND a fast-charging charged attack. For the opener it doesn't matter what the charged attack even is, since its job is to draw out the shields so the next two guys can use their charged attacks.
So Cliff starts off with an Aerodactyl. Aerodactyl is equally weak to rock, steel, water, electric, and ice, but I also know whatever fast attack he's fielding chews up the Vaporeons I have historically relied on as my strong water types. I don't have a good rock attacker with a fast charged attack; that's something I should adjust later, but I don't have time now. I don't have a good powerful steel attacker by these criteria either, and my electric types aren't showing in this search for some reason but I know I don't have anything worth writing home about.
But I have a Swampert with a strong fast attack and a fast charged attack, whose dual typing means he's only weak to grass. Which Aerodactyl *definitely* isn't attacking with, so let's go.
He's pretty beefy but he probably won't make it long. That's fine, I'm not trying to field any heroes, I just want to get throught his. Let's look at our second opponent, which I know from my first failed attempt is a Slowking.
Slowking is weak to a bunch of stuff, and it turns out my best option is an Exeggutor with grass/grass attacks. I know this one's pretty beefy and has been reliable for me in the past, so I'll give him a go.
And then I was assuming the third would be a Tyranitar, so I left in the really decent Machamp I have with a fast fast fast-charging charged attack, who I honestly overuse for everything.
I gave it a shot and alas the Swampert fainted just short of his second charged attack, so I had to use Exeggutor to fight the end of Aerodactyl and draw the second shield, which left him pretty beat down by the time Slowking came on. He made it almost all the way through, but then the last one was *not* Tyranitar but was a Dusknoir, who is resistant to fighting attacks, so my poor Machamp labored in vain and fell just short. I needed a Ghost or Dark attack on my closer, instead.
But. Let's retry, and now I know that since the Swampert was so close, I'm going to do the trick that only works against Rocket guys, where you put your second guy in the lead slot, and then as soon as the fight launches you swap to your real opener. I threw Exeggutor out and then mashed on Swampert as the countdown finished, so that he swapped in immediately, and that gave him just enough time that I was able to get two charged attacks off from him, which meant Exeggutor came out and finished Aerodactyl off with a single fast attack, and was fresh to face Slowking. He chewed right through Slowking and made a big dent in Dusknoir even though Dusknoir's fast attacks were super effective on him-- I couldn't swap him out because I'd already done the opener swap trick, but his sacrifice was not in vain. By the time he fainted, Dusknoir was half-exhausted, and the Tyranitar I'd swapped in could easily finish him off with just fast attacks. Which is good, because his charged attack is so slow.
But it didn't matter. And in fact the Tyranitar didn't even take any damage, as I found when I went to heal everyone up just now, LOL.
So anyway. There's my tutorial on how to painstakingly slowly figure out how to fight in Pokemon Go.
I looked up the typings etc of all the various pokemon on this site, BTW, because it's a format I can parse easily. I can't read long lists, they confuse me. The recommendations for which attacks to use on this site contradict other sites that were more recommended to me for PVP team building (like this one), but for this purpose, what I'm looking for is an easy to search database that shows me everything about just the guy I'm looking for, and this does that.
Anyway. This is the only alternative I've found to searching or asking people and having them recommend Pokemon I do not have and cannot get with movesets that are not available.
This is possibly why I have never succeeded at all at PVP. I was told I need to go watch some Youtubers to learn about that and I just. Can't. Do that. So I'm going to continue to only do PVP when forced to by boredom or various tasks.
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A selection of the correspondence between Robert and Alexandra over the last 18 months
AN: Trying something a bit different with the narrative style! 😬 Their relationship has been slowly growing in the background but haven't actually seen each other since the wedding.
Previous| Beginning | Next
Transcript under the cut
Dear Alexandra,
I hope you were serious about writing those letters, unfortunately it is the most reliable form of communication out here on the ship - the internet is terrible and with 300 crew members trying to contact their loved ones…well lets just say it can turn into an all out brawl sometimes. Being a prince gives me no special privileges on this ship - it's actually something I love most about serving. I'm not Prince Robert, I’m just Lieutenant Lancaster.
Re-adjusting to life on board after the wedding has been interesting - but it always is after I go home for any length of time.
The guys gave me shit for all the fancy dinners and dancing - they all watched the wedding broadcast on board apparently and said that my hat was 2 degrees off centre. Like they could tell from a live feed!
I enjoyed showing you Lancaster Palace in my last days on shore, it's a special place to me. Kissing you in the moonlight at the music pavilion will stay with me for a very long time.
Robert
Dear Robert,
I was half convinced you were joking about the letter writing, but I am glad to be proved wrong for once! Things have really quietened down here - Charles and Vic have left for their honeymoon, and the city is going back to normal after the frenzy of events.
It's surreal going back to my little job after being a part of something so massive. I think my colleagues now look at me differently. They haven’t been all jokes like yours, more like there's this invisible wall that has come down between us. I think they see me as ‘different’ now. Even though they already knew that my father is the Earl of Winslow! I guess it's a bit more real for them now.
I also enjoyed the personal tour of Lancaster Palace. It's quickly becoming special to me too.
Alexandra
Dear Alexandra,
I'm sorry to hear things are awkward at your job. Would it help finding a new place? I remember you saying that there was only so far you could go at this charity organisation and that a bigger one would give you more space to grow.
I can sympathise with the whole ‘looking at you differently’ thing. But in my experience they often settle down soon and remember that you are actually a person, and more than a picture on TV..
Robert
Robert,
I did it! I got the job at the Global Women in Business Foundation! I start in two weeks and it cannot come soon enough. The people here are still not gone back to the prewedding state like you promised and I'm looking forward to escaping the staring.
I don’t know how much you see of the news out there but Vic is coming under some heavy criticism at the moment and I don’t know how she keeps that smile on her face during engagements. I went to visit her and she's pretty distraught.
No one seems to be helping her - is this normal? I don’t know what to do.
Alexandra
Alexandra,
I'm sorry to hear that Victoria is struggling, I know that it can’t be easy coming into this particular family. I'm also concerned about the fact that she doesn’t have any support. I’ve contacted Charles to see what the hell is going on. From my experience the staff around you make or break you as a royal. So tell her to get going on that part and the rest should follow.
Robert
Robert,
That was some sage advice you gave. And I don’t know what you said to Charles but all of a sudden the roadblocks seemed to clear! I don’t know if Charles was the roadblock but someone was and he may have just pushed them aside. Whatever the reason - thank you. Victoria seems more like her old self again.
Things are going well at the foundation, I've managed to even make a couple of friends! Which is helpful since Vic isn’t exactly free for after work drinks anymore.
Have they told you yet about your next leave? Maybe we could have dinner?
Love, Alex
Dear Alex,
Dinner with you sounds like the most perfect thing in the world to me right now. But it doesn’t look like I'll be back this year. My mother is, of course, devastated that I won’t be home for Christmas. It's her favourite time of year, and with Victoria being pregnant she seems to have put the ‘perfect family’ lever in overdrive.
Maybe she is over compensating for all the Christmas' that we would spend in separate parts of Sanderton House. Margaret and I would hide up in the nursery and bribe one of the maids to bring us snacks while we played board games.
So while dinner is off the cards, for a while at least, maybe I could call you? We will be in port next week and with most guys going on shore I will actually have a chance at having a semi-private phone call.
Love, Robert
Dear Robert,
I will be waiting by the phone!
Love, Alex
#lancasterroyalstory#lancasterchaptertwo#kinggeorge#the sims 4 screenshots#the sims 4 storytelling#the sims 4 story#the sims 4 simblr#the sims 4 royal#the sims 4 royal family#the sims 4 royal simblr#the sims 4 royalty#ts4 legacy#ts4 story#ts4 characters#ts4 simblr#ts4 storytelling#ts4 screenshots#ts4 royal#ts4 royal family#ts4 royalty#ts4 royals#royal simblr#sims 4 legacy#sims 4 story#sims 4 royalty
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On the topic of Mozart opera fantasies for violin, here's a rant about Sarasate's Don Juan fantasy, which I really hate both as its own piece and as an arrangement.
youtube
NOTE: This is the recording I've been listening to. The performer is not very good, and the piece is not very good. It will not be a pleasant experience, unless you like bad violin playing.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not a huge fan of even the more well-known Sarasate fantasies like the Carmen fantasy. My issue with that is that it's not transformative in a positive way. It just sounds like the songs from Carmen, but with unnecessary difficult bullshit. Ideally for me, the difficult parts would sound interesting and impressive, but not gratuitous.
However, Sarasate's additions to Carmen at least fit the song that he was arranging; this fantasy fails at even just that. What I will say is that it's harder to do something like this for Don Giovanni than for Carmen, as the style of an opera fantasy is generally "look how talented, fun, and cool I am", and most of Carmen's songs are "look how sexy, fun, and cool I am". There's not much like that in DG; even the Don himself doesn't really ever get a big flashy number. However, even keeping that in mind, the songs picked for this one are kind of inappropriate, especially once you start looking at the changes made. It starts off with Vedrai carino, goes into Deh vieni, then Il mio tesoro (!!), and ends with Giovinette che fate all'amore. These choices are a little weird; I would say that just looking at what's written for the voice, only "Tesoro" and "Giovinette" have stuff that's fun to play on the violin (in the former, the long runs, in the latter, there's some nice opportunities for spiccato.) There's only so many ways you can make a slower song interesting, with three of them in the same piece, there would have to either be some repeats or something that doesn't fit very well. Sarasate chooses the latter.
From what I've seen from one (1) not particularly reliable source on the internet, the exclusion of the more famous parts of the show was intentional; however, I can't help but think that surely something like the Catalogue Aria would be better to work with. That being said, even for the ones with some potential, Sarasate absolutely ignores them in favor of adding dumb bullshit that doesn't work with the style, meaning, or context of the original work! Sure, it doesn't have to be totally congruous with the text if it's an instrumental solo piece, but at the very least have it coincide with the style. It just shows a complete lack of understanding and it infuriates me because this could've been SO COOL.
I have a slight problem with starting with Vedrai carino. It's a nice song, but it's not particularly plot relevant and wouldn't draw you in as much as starting with, say, Deh vieni or Giovinette. Luckily, this one is not as bad as the other ones. The technique mainly used in this section is double stops- each note in the melody is played in either a third or a sixth. It's an elegant, simple way to make a slower aria more challenging on the violin.
The recordings I’ve heard are all horrendously out of tune on this part with bad tone quality, but that's the performer's problem and not Sarasate's. Then, on the line "Sentilo battere", he adds some mordents and runs expanding on the original instrumental part. The performer is out of tune again, but what can you do.
Next, Deh vieni. Again, he starts with just playing the vocal part, but for some reason starting on the line "Se neghi a me [...]", he adds these fast, cascading runs up and down the fingerboard that don't really fit the idea of a "serenade" and are extremely unpleasant to listen to. I refuse to transcribe these, partly because of how many notes there are and partly because the soloist in the recording plays it like hot garbage. Deh vieni in the original show is supposed to be part of a seduction, so why are there these horrible noises in the middle of a verse, leaving the first two phrases unresolved? It's incredibly stupid. There are plenty of ways to arrange this song in a successful way. Adding ornamentation, natural or artificial harmonics, and even shorter/lower-pitched runs would have been very nice.
Now this next one I have the most problem with. Since Il mio tesoro is one of my favorite arias in the show, I am taking it as an attack on me, personally, that Sarasate managed to fuck it up so badly. (Not really.) It starts out with the normal vocal part, but on the long "cercaaaate" note, the soloist does... this:
Which is completely moronic. It breaks up the nice long note and doesn't work well in the phrase. Hell, I don't think this would sound good in any context, much less a stately aria such as this one. He then repeats the A-section, only this time with runs:
I don't have too many, like, musical problems with this. There is just one thing: I suppose out of context this could be pretty good. However, recall that the A-section of the aria is about going and comforting the singer's sad girlfriend. If one wanted to add fiery, violent runs to Il mio tesoro, might I recommend the part where he's talking about being "a messenger of suffering and death"? I have even been so gracious as to write a short example: (excuse the cropping)
This is a perfectly appropriate way to arrange this song to include the fast-paced section the composer wanted without compromising the context of the original. Or, y'know, just pick something where this technique actually fits. This might work really nicely in Or sai chi l'onore, or even Mi tradi, although that might be stretching it.
Note that the B-section never appears in the piece. ARRGH
The one piece that I think is handled well is the Giovinette section. It's an energetic, joyful song, so the usage of double-stops and spiccato for a rougher sound is good.
After that, there are again weird random octaves which I don't like too much. Then, the ornamentation and deviation from the vocal part is actually really nice and fun. It really gives the feeling of a wedding party, and the orchestra is very lively. Love the timpani in particular.
To me, it feels like Sarasate wanted to write a fantasy with four Giovinettes. If that's the case, then why didn't he use Ah fuggi il traditor, or Fin ch'han dal vino, or Madamina? Why did he have to ruin all these things that I love /j?
If you want to hear a good Don Juan Fantasy, try the Wolff/Vieuxtemps duet for violin and piano. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-uqEUEb2ZA It uses the statue's scene, what I think is supposed to be Vedrai carino, La ci darem, Batti batti, and Giovinette again. Lots of Zerlina, so it doesn't have as much diversity of characters as the Sarasate one has, but I'd rather have no 'tesoro' than a bad 'tesoro'.
Feel free to rb with your opinions if you disagree, I'm just a violin student :P
#don giovanni#operaposting#violinposting#now here's a good dg arrangement idea: dalla sua pace big band chart#IT COULD WORK JUST TRUST ME GUYS
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hi yeah holy fuck holy shit y'all
gotdamn this is a story for the ao3 author hall of fame. im still homeless and i promptly realized a couple of days afterwards that uh yeah no can do the whole living independently thing so im looking for a group home. in the meantime i managed to get into a decent shelter, get acchs insurance, and am working on getting a case manager.
holy fuck it's been quite the. week or so? the days have kinda been blurring together so idk. hopefully i'll get into a group home soon. i've got some family that i'm gonna try and contact in case they'd be more understanding than my parents about the whole 'being disabled' thing.
anyways that's the short version. long version under the cut
so basically bc im an exmo i've been incredibly isolated as i've tried and failed to build an entire new support system from the ground up. i had one singular friend who i could reliably talk to (i think i have two now and a few case workers so that's an improvement) and even then it was only over the phone. aside from that, i do have y'all online here, but again, i need a device in order to be able to chat with y'all.
and because my body is an absolute shitshow - in addition to my executive functioning issues - i wasn't able to get much done around the house. now, for some reason, my parents looked at me and decided that this shit is all a lack of responsibility. don't get me wrong, i couldn't exactly be responsible for much. but the key word there is couldn't, not wouldn't.
and for some reason, they look at the situation and decide, time and time again, that the best solution is punishment - by taking away my phone and internet access. not necessarily out of the ordinary for most parents, but given the circumstances, that's absolute dogshit for my mental health.
so, when i literally developed a new fuckin health issue that left me bedbound for a couple of days, my mom told me that we were going to 'have a conversation'. aka my shit was gonna get taken. again.
and that would've been it for me. isolated, in pain, sick, tired, without anybody to lean on. so i said fuck that shit, packed my stuff, and walked out.
i started off at a shelter that used to be a prison, and oh my fucking god i don't think i've ever been more pro-prison-abolition or whatever the fuck it is. like goddamn that shit's inhumane. i ended up having to take a trip to the ER because they didn't stock enough water, resulting in me becoming so dehydrated that my ribs cramped to the point of keeping me from breathing.
not long after that i spiralled a bit so i went to a crisis center where i got people that started working on my case. we determined that i'd be best off in a group home and they transferred me to a transitional facility while they got that figured out.
I get there and discover that my hip, which i thought had just popped weird, felt like it had dislocated. Thankfully, i think i just sprained it, but I was in a lot of pain that first night. Night shift came around to take vitals, I told them what was going on, and they proceeded to not only wave me off, but also one of them looked at me - as i was writhing in pain, crying, trying to keep quiet, and digging my nails into my skin to distract myself - with the look you reserve for dog shit you've just stepped in. So, you know, that was fun. Also nobody there got their medications that night. The shitshow that was nightshift there is gonna be important later.
i had tried to make friends with some of the people there that evening, and, being myself, I spoke very openly and honestly about my queerness and sexual history (or lack thereof), like a dumbass, and obliviously believed them when they said that I was one of the guys.
I later overheard them making plans to correctively rape me. Thankfully, I was on my way out to the hospital for my hip, so I notified day shift before I got into the ambulance.
I spent that night at the hospital, sleeping in a lobby chair (the hospital staff were very sympathetic to my situation, thankfully), and then called the crisis center that was attached to the transitional facility. managed to get taken into the crisis center, where i stayed for a couple of days. one of the guys who'd been making the plans ended up transferring into the same crisis unit, so that was a fuckin' blast to deal with. thankfully, the people at the crisis unit cared and did their jobs well, so i had eyes on me at all times and stayed safe.
eventually, i got sent back to the shelter i started at, then transferred back to the original crisis unit where people had been working on my case. i got some rest, got sick from eating gluten because i was so sleep deprived that i didn't care, then they got me into a much nicer shelter. i have a meeting with someone in about an hour and a half to try and get into a youth shelter, and I'm also going to attempt to contact some family members that might be more understanding and willing to help me while I pursue a group home.
I am very fucking tired, and despite everything that I've been through, I still wouldn't go back to my parents to save my life. Definitely gonna be a lot to unpack with my therapist.
o7
#byrd chirps#byrd's business#tw rape mention#tw sa mention#tw corrective rape mention#tw homelessness#tw ableism#also i have a theory about god that's like. you know i don't necessarily believe in him#but if there is a god i think my theory would be a kind way of looking at it
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Not to start any video game discourse but it’s concerning to me whenever I see some body say that the future of gaming is cloud streaming or whatever. Like I can just easily tell they must live in some affluent Silicon Valley residence cause if they took just a step outside their bubble it’d be easy to see why that would be pretty bad for just about everyone else. It doesn’t take a genius to know that a grand majority of people don’t have fast reliable internet.
Cloud streaming gaming would be the death of gaming.
The Stadia should be enough proof that streaming games is a terrible idea. One time u tried out Playstation Plus for shits n giggles and I shit you not it flat out didn't work because it said my internet wasn't good enough.
Streaming games is the worst way to play games by far, but not only that but its also terrible for game preservation.
When a game stops being sold or gets shut down there are still ways to get that game running again. Not easy ways and it might take years, but it's possible.
If a streaming game gets shut down then that's it. Your fucked. Streaming games is like playing a game through a window into someone's house. Once they turn it off you have nothing to try to turn it on again.
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